Ch 5 Blog

       Chapter five was about the inequalities that existed in Eurasia and North Africa. In China, the wealthy families was where most officials came from. Landlords from large estates were able to avoid paying taxes, thus decreasing the state revenue  and giving more tax burden on the peasant class. Eventually, such bad conditions for the lower classes caused a rebellion in China. Bands of peasants joined together as floods along the Yellow River and epidemics caused misery for the landless and those stricken by poverty. This movement grew to about 360,000 armed followers by 184 B.C. and found leaders from the Daoist ideology. This rebellion became known as the yellow Turban Rebellion. Despite this rebellion being squished by the military forces of the Han Dynasty, the rebellion still managed to devastate the economy, and also weakened the state and contributed to the overthrow of the dynasty that took place decades later (223-224).

       India aslo had a strong sense of social class and inequality. in Indian society, it was deeply embedded that society was divided among four class ranks, known as Varnas. At the top of this class hierarchy was the Brahmins (priests) who conducted rituals and sacrifice to ensure to proper functioning of the world. At the very bottom were the sudras, but, even lower than these, were the group known was the "untouchables." The untouchables were both men and women who did the work that was considered to be most unclean and polluting, such as dealing with corpses, and dealing with the skins of dead animals.

       Another group that was interesting to read about were the slaves that lived in Rome. According to conservative estimates, there were about 60,000 slaves in classical Athens alone, in other words, approximately 1/3 of the Athens population was slaves. By the tome of Christ, there were some 2-3 million slaves living in the Italian heartland (231). They represented about 33%-40% of the population there. One interesting aspect in Rome was that former slaves that had been freed could also own slaves. For example, one former slave, that was freed during the reign of Augustus, owned 4,116 slaves (231). Also, unlike slavery in America, Roman slavery was not bound to race. For example,  Egyptians, Syrians, Jews, Greeks, Gauls, North Africans and many other groups of people were enslaved by the Romans.