Unit 2: The Ancient World

1. Unit 2: The Ancient World World History Fall 2013 Wattie

2. The Greek World • After the fall of Mycanae, Greece dissolved into a mosaic of small farming communities and chiefdoms dominated by local Greek-speaking tribes. • By 8th Century BCE, however, a new order had evolved, centered on about 150 self governing city state (polis) separated from each other by rough mountainous topography. • Writing was reintroduced, coinage invented around 650 BCE, the first temples founded, and new styles of sculpture, architecture, and vase painting developed.

3. The Greek World • There was an amazing explosion of Greek influence during the 8th and 7th Centuries BCE, with the foundation of far-flung colonies around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. • The Persian Empire, however, sought to annex the city-states of Ionia. • The Ionias fought against the Persian invasion with Athens sending a fleet in 400 BCE to aid the rebels, but by 493 BCE the uprising had been suppressed. • Afterwards, Persia turned against the Greeks for revenge in what is known as the Persian Wars.

4. The Greek World • Darius I was defeated at Marathon (490 BCE), but his son Xerxes revived the war and was victorious at Thermopylae (480 BCE) and captured and burned Athens (480 BCE). • The Greeks would defeat the Persians in two key battles: an Athenian naval victory at Salamis (480 BCE) and a Spartan land victory at Plataea (479 BCE). • The next 50 years marked the great age of Greek culture supremacy in the ancient world: the tragic drama of S0pholocles, the history of Herodotus, and the splendor of the Parthenon.

5. The Greek World • Greece found itself embroiled in a separate struggle between the city-states in 431 BCE called the Peloponnesian War. • The principle protagonists were Sparta the militarized power in the Peloponnese) and Athens (which had built up a formidable fleet and used it to create their Aegean Empire.) • Despite victories on both sides, Athens surrendered in 404 BCE to Sparta after overstraining her resourcing and having a disastrous expedition against Syracuse in 415-413. • Sparta, however, spared Athens (thus, allowing democracy to exist, yet the Spartans themselves fell to Thebes in 371 BCE. • After a period of unsuccessful conflict with Sparta, Thebes won a great victory at Leuctra in 371, subduing the Spartans and establishing themselves as a dominate power in Greece.

6. The Greek World • The well-trained of King Philip II (359-323 BCE) of Macedonia ended Thebian control of the Greeks, and he extended his control over Asian Minor. • Alexander the Great assumed command of the throne in 336 after the murder of his father Phillip. • He secured the northern frontiers and he campaigned against the vast Persian Empire and defeated Darius III at the battle of Guagamela in 331 BCE. • He thus continued to conquer territory until he controlled almost all of the civilized world. • Alexander the Great’s death in 323 and the ensuing struggles between his leading generals created three major powers: Macedon, Egypt, and the Seleucid Kingdom.

7. The Greek World • Although politically the empire of Alexander the Great proved short-lived, in other respects it consequences endured. • He had greater conquests than any before him, but he did not have time to mold the government of the lands he had taken; incontestably, he was one of the greatest generals of all time. • Alexander himself founded some 70 cities, not merely as military strongholds but as cultural centers and thus carried Greek civilization far to the east. • He influenced the blending of Greek culture (Hellenism) throughout the Middle East and into Asia, establishing city-states modeled on Greek institutions that flourished long after his death.

8. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • In 6th Century BCE the city of Rome was a small fortress town in central Italy commanding both the lowest passing point on the Tiber River and a salt route. • The history of the Roman Kingdom began with the city’s founding, traditionally dated to 753 BCE, and ended with the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the Republic in about 510 BC. • By exploiting quarrels with its neighbors, the Roman Republic emerged as the dominant power, and by 270BCE, the entire area south of the river Arno lay under Roman control

9. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • In 264 BCE the Roman army crossed into Sicily, which formed part of the Carthaginian Empire, at the time the greatest sea power in the Mediterranean, and initiated the Punic Wars. • In the First war (264-241 BCE), the Carthaginians succeed Sicily to Rome. • In the Second war (218-201 BCE), a Carthaginian general, Hannibal, led his troops across the Alps to attack Rome, but was eventually defeated at Zama: Consequently, Carthage was forced to give up Spain. • In the Third war (149-146 BCE), Carthage was destroyed and became a province of Rome.

10. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • Shortly after, conflicts with the Hellenistic kingdoms further east resulted in the conquest of Macedon Greece, and Western Anatolia. • Administrations of these provinces strained the Roman constitution, which had not been designed for the management of an overseas empire, and the Republic finally collapsed in a series of civil wars. • The last of these brought to power Octavian, who accepted the title Augustus (in 27 BCE), and accumulated sufficient offices to allow him to reshape the constitution and extend the frontiers.

11. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • In fact, under his successors, Roman rule expanded further still until it stretched from Scotland to Egypt and from Spain to Assyria. • While maintaining undivided power in his own hands, Augustus allowed the Senate (the traditional government of Rome) to take a share in running the empire, with responsibility for several provinces. • Thus, the Republican form endures, and administration remained in civilian, not military hands.

12. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • Throughout the vast Roman world peace prevailed for more than two centuries and population expanded, trade flourished and cities grew until the mid 3rd Century CE. • A series of strong emperors (268 to 284 CE) restored a semblance of orderly government to the empire Diocletian (284-305 CE) realized that a single ruler could no longer gold the edifice together, so he divided the empire-One Augustus would rule from Rome, and another would rule from Byzantium.

13. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • Gradually, the center of the Roman Empire’s power shifted towards the eastern part of the empire: Diocletian’s successor Constantine (305-337) renamed Byzantium Constantinople (present day Istanbul). • Although governed by joint rulers, the empire gradually broke into eastern and western halves, and when the western defenses crumblid from Germanic invaders in the early 5th Century, little help came from the east. • Rome itself was sacked for the first time in 410, and again in 455 CE.

14. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • The main reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire were political corruption, succession disputes, increasing economic costs, and a decline in morals and values. • Nevertheless, the Romans contributed greatly to the development of the western world.

15. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • First, the Latin tongue, although developing into the derivative Romance languages, long remained the language of the Church and scientists. • Second, Roman law formed the basis of most modern Western legal systems. • Third, many feats of Roman engineering and architectural genius survive to this day. • Finally, Rome adopted and spread Greek culture, allowing the future Renaissance period to transform the modern world.

16. Rome 264 BCE to 585 CE • The overthrow of the last Roman emperor in the west in 476 CE marked another turning point in the world history: The transformation of Western Civilization from classical to medieval.

17. China: The First Empires • From the 16th to the 11th Century BCE China’s first historical dynasty, the Shang, presided over a confederation of clans in the Yellow River valley. • Around 1027 BCE the Chou replaced them and extended their authority over the Yangtze valley as well, investing their supporters with fiefs to create a feudal hierarchy sustained by the services, food and clothes produced by peasant communities. • Then in 771 B CE western invaders sacked the Chou capital, and the vassals seized the opportunity to break away, allowing over 100 belligerent political units to spring forth.

18. China: The First Empires • Warfare reduced the number of states, and by 300 BCE, seven states still competed for supremacy. • The Ch’in organized their subjects into groups with more collective responsibilities to maintain public order, and to provide manpower for construction works (roads, canals, and fortifications) and for the army (which was composed primarily of infantry). • The defeated nobles and peasants paid taxes to the conqueror instead of performing labor services to their lords, while a professional bureaucracy enforced a savage penal code.

19. China: The First Empires • In 211 BCE Prince Cheng of Ch’in took the title Shih Huang-ti (meaning “first emperor”). • He ordered the construction of a network of roads and canals, centered on his new capital at Hsiengyang. • He also introduced a uniform coinage whose distinctive shape (circular with a square hole in the center) that remained standard until 1911 and he took steps to standardize the written language. • It is a small wonder why that dynasty took China as its name.

20. China: The First Empires • The burdens imposed by the authoritarian first emperor provoked civil war shortly after death in 206 BCE, but before long a new dynasty, the Han, reunited China. • At first they worked through feudal principalities allocated to their family and supporters, but by 120 BCE the fiefs had again come under strong central authority. • The Han also extended the great Wall of China for to the northwest, undertook several military exhibitions against the nomad Hsiung-nu in the north, invaded northern Vietnam and Korea, and for a brief period after 59 BCE controlled the Tarim Basin.

21. China: The First Empires • A lively silk trade began in Chia and ended at the Roman Empire, known as the Silk Road. • A census in 2 CE revealed some 57 million people in the empire. • Great cities abounded, the largest, Changan (the capital), housing 250,000 people. • The heart of the empire remained the Yellow River plain, where the population densities in some areas approached 150 persons per square mile, and numerous fiefs survived.

22. China: The First Empires • Shortly afterwards, however, court families increased their influences, agrarian unrest mounted, and power lay in the hands of regional commanders and warlords. • The death knell came when the Hsiung-nu burst through the Great Wall and overran N. China • China would remain politically fragmented until 589 CE.

23. The Collapse of the Ancient World • By the 3rd Century, a vast continuous web of complex advanced societies stretched across the southern half of Eurasia. • In the west, Rome ruled the whole Mediterranean world and much of Europe. • In China, the Han ruled a stated that equaled the Roman Empire in population and extended from the Pacific to the TaklaMakan desert in Central Asia. • The co-existance of these great states brought to the vast areas of the Old World internal peace and efficient government, conditions that made possible commercial and cultural interchange on a unprecedented scale.

24. The Collapse of the Ancient World • But most of this civilized world formed only a narrow corridor, flanked to the north by the domain of nomadic tribes, expert horse archers who lived off their herds of sheep and cattle and possessed in war a speed and striking power that their sedentary neighbors could barely match. • In the 4th and 5th Centuries CE, for reasons that remain a mystery, numerous nomad groups, although lacking central direction – launched devastating attacks against all the major civilizations.

25. The Collapse of the Ancient World • A confederation known as the Hsiung-nu from Mongolia broke through the Great Wall in 304 CE and within a decade reached the Yellow River, sacking the ancient Han capital Changan (316). • At the same time another branch of the Hsiung-nu, the Huns, swept southwestwards through Asia, causing a chain reaction among the Germanic peoples along the Black Sea and the Danube. • To escape them the Visigoths, perhaps 80,000 strong, forced their way into the Balkans and in 378 defeated a large Roman army outside Adrianople, and in 410 captured and sacked Rome itself.

26. The Collapse of the Ancient World • Meanwhile other Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine. • The Vandals, the Alans, and the Suevi invaded Gaul in 406 and plundered it for more than three years before passing on to Spain and North Africa. • In their wake, the Franks, The Brugundians and the Alemanni also invaded Gaul, while the Bicts from Scotland and marauders from the continent ravaged Britain. • In 480 another branch of the Huns invaded India and destroyed the Gupta Empire before attacking the Persian Empire, where they were defeated and killed the ruler in 484.

27. The Collapse of the Ancient World • Finally, around 550, another group of warlike nomads from Asia, the Avars, moved west and within a generation ravaged Gaul and the Balkans, folowed by the Slavs and Bulgars, who also invaded the Balkans, and the Lombards, who occupied northern Italy.

28. The Collapse of the Ancient World • By 600 CE the great cities of Eurasia—Rome, Changan, and countless others—were in serious decline and the empires that built them had perished. • In all these areas, classical civilization emerged impaired but not extinguished. • The Roman tradition was modified rather that supplanted by the impositions of rulers of Germanic origin. • In India and northern China, invaders adopted the native methods of government and cooperated with local elites, taking on their customs.

29. The Collapse of the Ancient World • Persia and southern China weathered the storm relatively intact. • The overthrow of the last Roman emperor in the west in 476 CE marked another turning point in world history: The transformation of Western Civilization from classical to medieval.