The differences between Classical Athens and Han China were major and distinctive. The background information, government, values of the individual, and art of each society show how differently each empire developed. Within the background information of both Athens and Han China you can automatically notice evident differences between the two. The first document shows the maps of both empires side by side. The Han Empire is isolated and much bigger than Athens's city-state Attica, which is a mere 50 miles long, while the Han Empires stretches to over 2400 miles long. Just their differences in size show how the Empires would have developed differently Since Athens is smaller the people are closer together so therefore it would have been
The sixth document is a conversation between Mencius and Wan Chang who discuss how the emperor in Han China is chosen. They believe in a system called the Mandate of Heaven in which heaven chooses the new ruler by the acceptation of the people. If the people are content then they know that heaven has accepted the new emperor. This document is directly from two men who are governed under this system, so they accept it and believe in it. Document 7 shows how the government in Han China worked out. Most of the power laid in the hands of the emperor and he governed the rest of China with the help of governors, officials, and bureaucrats. The emperor stayed in power for a long time and he was regarded as the "Son of Heaven". The author of this document strongly believes that the government of Han China was remarkably successful and are probably biased in that they are not going to describe the system's flaws. In Athens, they made sure all of the power would never lay in the hands of one man, or even with a group of men. The power was distributed among all of the male citizens, while in Han China the large amount of citizens had no say in the government. Both empires also had different values of how the individual should regard the government. In Document 8, Pericles shows that he feels in Athens an individual should not only be interested in his own affairs but needs to be concerned with what's going on in the government too. He feels that