Date Presented:

29 June

摘要:

As recent trends in comparing the Han and Roman empires from primarily the point of view of literary evidence has brought forth new frameworks and opportunities of research, one asks how these developments could contribute to the comparison of the two empires' governance behaviors. The paper first surveys current literature published in the past decade and identify common themes in the scholarship on the Han and the Roman metallurgical advances and aspects of their iron industries. Of particular focus is the gradual awareness in the importance of iron semi-products in the Han and the Roman domains. In the second and third section, literary sources from the Qin-Han and the Roman domains are reviewed in order to identify general trends that can be juxtaposed for closer discussion. Particular emphasis is placed on the relationship between the private iron operators with generational legacies in the iron industries even be fore the formation of the Qin-Han and the Roman states, and how the state administrators engage with and adapt to the sophisticated and complex traditions of the Qin-Han and Roman iron industries. The fourth section provides a comparative discussion on issues concerning the states' juridical or statutory approaches to regulating iron mining and smelting operations, and observations on the intersect between semi-products, local ironworks andsmithies, and the needs of agricultural producers.