I just read The Fate of Rome by Kyle Harper, which describes the role of climate and disease in the collapse of the Roman Empire. Early in the book, he mentions the Crisis of the Third Century, in which the empire fractured into three polities, and mentions in passing that at roughly the same time, the Han Dynasty regime in China collapsed, but didn’t go into too much detail. I then checked on the dates for some polities to see what the deal was. According Wikipedia, Han China fell in 220 CE and the Three Kingdoms period lasted until 280, while the Crisis in Rome lasted from 235 to 284. I also checked on the Parthian empire, which fell in 228.
Harper argues that in the case of Rome, the Crisis was a at least partially due to climactic shifts and the spread of disease, which is an argument that seems to have some weight. Was there a similar effect in China and Parthia? And were there other major polities which went through crises at the same time?
If you have any recommended reading, please point me in such a direction.
Honestly, while a period of major turmoil for both civilizations happening at the same time could suggest there might be some unifying factor, I think it’s mostly just coincidence.
While there are many factors contributing to the instability, I think both the Crisis of the Third Century and the collapse of the Han came about primarily due to political factors present in both the civilizations.
In Rome, the right of succession was never clearly defined since its origins with Augustus. Thus it was never certain who would be the next emperor. This often left the empire open to civil wars between competing military factions attempting to put their candidate on the throne, especially in times of economic or military pressure. The period leading up to the crysis was one of numerous invasions, roman military defeats, and disruption to the economy.
The Han were undergoing similar turmoil, once again somewhat tied into the instability of the right of succession. The Han had seen increasing power being held by the empress and the eunuchs of the court. The period running up to the Han collapse saw a number of adolescent emperors with real authority being divided amongst former empresses, generals, governors and eunuchs. This led to a bunch of assassinations, assassination attempts, revolts, and ultimately civil war.
I can't see any way that these two political events could have had any effect on each other, or a common cause. There may have been increased pressure due to climate change or disease put on both civilisations, and it could possibly have triggered this political instability, but that instability had existed in both civilisations for centuries and was just waiting to surface (especially in the case of the Romans.. the succession issue caused problems from nearly day one).