Technological Advancements In Ancient Rome

At the beginning of the First Millennium The Romans and the people of the Han both extensively used technology to better themselves and eventually all of humanity. The Han empire in China placed more value on technology and technological enhancements then the Roman Empire did, proven by the constant concern of the Han dynasty over the indifference and almost disregard of the Romans. The Han were more accepting and open to technological advancements because they valued the farmers, and common people who they believed helped benefit society however, the Roman were only concerned with the upper class due to their dividing and conflicting social classes of Particans and Plebeians therefore their view of technology was that it was considered unimportant.

The Hans seem to feel that technology was about helping the people. As demonstrated in the letter in Doc 1, the first goal of technology is to ward off disaster, in this case, a flood. This shows a concern for the people and their possessions. This idea is illustrated more by the obvious concern shown by Huan Guan in Doc 2, where he writes about the problems the lack of technology, such as iron plows, is having on the people. Huan Guan points how technology has become useless as the tools are poor quality and ineffective all around, so the main concern with the Hans about technology is its usefulness. For example Farmers were more valued in Chinese society, it was believed that farmers help provide for all of the people including the upper class and if something benefitted them it benefitted everyone. Huan Tan begins showing how technology was improved upon drastically “the benefit was increased a hundredfold.” (Doc 3). This not only show the Han’s concern for effectiveness, but also if it was easier for the people to use. On the other hand in the Romn society technology was barely ever improved on or even created for that matter. Document 4 continues to show how the Han valued their common people by explaining how ” Tu Shih loved the common people and wished to save their labor” (Doc. 4). However the Roman attitude, shows little to no concern to how the common man will benefit from technology. Cicero calls craftsmen “vulgar” (Doc 5.) This shows that the Romans had virtually no respect, whatsoever, toward any inventions they may invent, the Roman upper class doesn’t care, because in their opinion it doesn 't impact them. Seneca repeats this sentiment as the minds who invented hammers and tongs were “not great or elevated.” (Doc 7) This just proves the point even more that the Romans had no concern at all about how the farmers or the people the lower classes