Andrew Yang Period 7 9/16/11 PERSIAN Chart AP World History

POLITICAL Leaders, Elites State Structure War Diplomacy, Treaties Courts, Laws

Chapter 4: The Classical Era: Rome and Greece Persia 550BCE = Cyrus the Great establishes the Persian Empire in the Middle East (iron tech, Zoroastrianism, artistic styles elaborate); culture survives invasions Greece 2000BCE = Crete settled w/Egyptian influences; Greek indo European invaders take over the peninsula of Greece by 1700BCE. Early kingdom in southern Greece in 1400BCE around Mycenae (strong Minoan and Cretan influence and the subject of Homers Iliad and Odyssey) Civilization destroyed by Indo-European invaders until c.800BCE 800-600BCE = the era of strong city states with a variety of political forms; Sparta and Athens are the big city states, with differences between tyranny and somewhat direct democracy; Both cooperate to drive off the Persians in the 5 th Century BCE; however, the Peloponnesian Wars from 431-404BCE utterly weaken both and ultimately invite Philip the Macedonian to invade; Alexander the Great uses his lightning campaign to conquer Persia and Egypt and ushers the Hellenistic Era (starting around 330 BCE) until final subjugation at the hands of the Roman Republic in the early 2nd Century BCE Athens = major decisions made by general assemblies (all citizens allowed to vote), a form of direct democracy Assembly met every ten days, where executive officers were chosen, by lot , not by election to ensure fairness (minority = citizens) Potential drawbacks: lower class citizens can seize power and make bad decisions that weaken Athens (mostly an aristocratic assembly present in both Rome and Greece) Rome I. Monarchy (7 kings ) = traditionally 753 BCE to about 509BCE Note: Early history up until the Punic Wars is very sketchy, consisting mostly of myths and legends that inflate some personalities and leave others out. 509BCE = revolt of the people against Tarquin the Proud; 496BCE = Rome gains a position in the Latin League by winning against the Etruscans at Lake Regillus. II. Republic = 509BCE about 31BCE Two consuls elected with a system much like as in a democracy (cursus honorum = hierarchy of offices, consisting of aedile, quaestor, praetor, and then consul) 6 secessions of the commoners (pleibans) in the republic that cause the establishing of law codes such as the Twelve Tables With Roman conquest after three exhausting wars with Carthage (Punic Wars) comes the demise of the republic (politically motivated civil wars and the Triumvirs) and the ushering of the Empire and Pax Romana III. Empire = about 31BCE to decline in 476 of the West half The empire is a dictatorship in all but name; Augustus takes control of all from Gaul (modern day France) to Asia (the Middle East) The 2 centuries of peace from Augustus to the rest of the Julio Claudian Dynasty to the Flavians to the 5 Good Emperors (27 BCE to 186 CE) extends the empire to as far north as Scotland, as far east as Mesopotamia, and as far south as North Africa. Afterwards is the time of chaos (after the Severan Dynasty from 193 CE to 235CE), in which 25 of 26 emperors are assassinated in a time span of 50 years. The Roman Empire experiences a turnaround with Diocletian and Constantine with the division into East and West but quickly spirals down in greatness and collapses (the west) after Odoacer the Goth topples Romulus

Augustulus in 476 CE and sacks Rome, leaving it in ruins. The Byzantine half survives well into the late 1400s CE, until it is toppled by Ottoman invaders. Legislative body is the Senate, an elite group of aristocrats who often abuse their powers against the common people. Thus, the Twelve Tables and an elaborate legal system (emphasizing fairness) was constructed near the middle of the 5th Century BCE, protecting the rights occasionally of women and allowing the formation of the Tribune, who could veto anything the Senate passed (misused by certain political heavyweights in the transition to empire). Also, two consuls in the Republic ruled only for one year terms (later subject to the emperors choice); the citizens chose their magistrates, and a dictator could be called for in times of crisis. Political theory = obsessed with political ethics, the duties of a citizen, oratory skills, and the importance of community service at ones sacrifice Empire = loose set of regional governors and great autonomy to foreign provinces except Judea in 63CE to put down a revolt Hugely commercial agriculture with olives and grapes for cooking and wine; constant tendency for landlords to squeeze local free farmers off their land and/or be forced to work as laborers. Dependency on foreign trade makes easier for a grain supply to be delivered to both Greece and Rome; luxury items commonly exported from China and India for an unfair balance in trade More dependency on slavery than on technological advancements, although slaves were sometimes able to become teachers, doctors, etc and could buy or earn their freedom.

ECONOMIC Type of System Technology, Industry Trade, Commerce Capital/Money Types of Businesses

RELIGIOUS Holy Books Beliefs, Teaching Conversion Sin/Salvation Deities

SOCIAL Family Gender Relations Social Classes Inequalities Life Styles

INTELLECTUAL, ARTS Art, Music Writing,

No solid world class religion (no, Christianity does not count, because it comes much later in the decline of the Roman Empire) A form of animism developed (gods and goddesses resembling human forms and emotions, each controlled by one supreme Zeus or Jupiter and each controlling one form of nature or human emotion, such as Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, and Venus, the goddess of love) Gods make for great story telling and fables about the nature of man and his flaws Lack of spiritual passion is unsatisfying for the upper class and poor people; moral philosophy of restraint and moderation instead is put forth by such people as Aristotle and Cicero Inquiry into human thought by Socrates (born 469 BCE) says to always question conventional wisdom; Socrates is forced to commit suicide because he runs afoul of Athenian government officials. His pupil Plato suggests there are three perfect forms to human reason the absolutely True, Beautiful, and Good. Merchants have higher status than in China but lower status than in India, even though trade is important in all civilizations of the Classical Era. Slaves were not at all picked by race; they represented a large diversity of people captured from Roman and Greek conquests and were sometimes educated enough to become doctors and teachers; some worked in the mines, never to come out again, while others were sent to toil in the fields at the expense of a landlord. However, one thing different is that slaves were allowed to buy their freedom or were often freed as designated from their masters will for doing good service. Slaves were eventually accepted as part of the household, playing an integral part also in the nursing of privileged children. Although Rome and Greece were patriarchal societies, they did grant many rights to women; for example, women in Rome often gained tremendous political influence through their husbands and could open business and partially own property. Of course, according to law, women were deemed inferior and weak enough to need a husband who could guide them through, and were primarily involved in housework and raising children. Mycenaean and Cretan Linear A and Linear B tablets eventually simplified down to an alphabet similar to the 22 letter Phoenician one. Vivid theorists but not very good scientists Euclidian Geometry and Pythagorean theorem are essential parts of modern math; Aristotle attempts to categorize matter, albeit wrong, into air, fire, water, and earth. Wrong geocentric

Literature Philosophy Math & Science Education

theory, contradicted only in the 15th and 16th centuries CE by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Brahe. Roman genius is in Engineering (for example the Cloaca Maxima, one of the worlds first sewage systems) and is very evident in the sheer size of the buildings they created and the using of arches to support tremendous weights; triumphal arches or columns celebrating emperors and busts of the emperors are the chief art forms. General emphasis on literary and art forms than math and science, which were looked down upon in Rome. Greeks loved dramas, both comedy and tragedy, to warn of the unpredictable consequences of human decisions (thus Sophocles description of Oedipus marrying his mother has led to the modern psychological condition Oedipus complex) Romans attempted to copy the Greeks and so developed complex poetic forms that demonstrated the richness of Latin. Greeks had Homer for their epics Iliad and Odyssey, while Romans had Virgil. Ionic, Doric, Corinthian columns, along with how to build free standing structures and domes are present in classical architecture Gladiatorial combat stadiums and chariot racing, and amphitheatres are chiefly the Romans form of entertaining and distracting the population, which at one time became more than 1 million people. It is easy to see why the Roman Empire collapsed- with such a large amount of provinces to control, and such cultural diversity, it was hard to obtain unity and taxes and whatnot from people living in the empire, let alone try to pull everyone into one single mindset and culture. Greece = many mountains and a treacherous terrain = hard to unify (city states instead) Soil depletion in North Africa for centuries due to Romans encouraging heavy grain growing

NEAR: GEOGRAPHY Location Physical Movement Human/Environ ment Region

NOTES: The civilizations of the Mediterranean lend themselves many analyses and leave behind impressive legacies. In architecture, modern Western civilization (especially in structures such as the Lincoln Memorial, built based upon the Parthenon in Athens) was heavily influenced with the development of innovations such as domed roofs and arches, and sewer systems (public works), as well as Doric, Ionic, and/or Corinthian columns. The Greeks especially, and the Romans later on in poetry, dominated the world of literature in the sphere of influence on the Mediterraneans fringe with the development of such tragedies such as the Oedipus Trilogy, Virgils Aeneid, and comedies and political oratory speeches made by Cicero, one of the greatest orators of all time, and their developments in Geometry and science were to encourage a stiff acceptance of Greek unproved theories (except for Archimedes theories and inventions that were immediately forgotten) in the Western world until the 1500sCE Scientific Revolution. Lastly, the decline of the great Roman Empire has led to a huge discussion on how to pinpoint the exact cause or causes of the speedy fall and has some speculating whether history will repeat itself in the era of the declining influence of the West in general as a world dominator.