Chapter 4: Greece and Iran, 1000-30 BCE Flashcards
The Persians of southwest Iran created the largest?
They created the largest empire the world has yet seen.
Who were the first to achieve a complex level of political organization in Iran?
The Medes, who settled in the northwest and played a major role in the destruction of the Assyrian Empire.
How did Persian rulers (Archaemenids) strengthen their relationship with the Median court?
Through marriage.
Who was Cyrus and what did he do?
Cyrus was the son of a Persian chieftain and a Median princess, who united the Persian tribes and overthrew the Median monarch around 550 BCE. He kept the framework of Median rule. He redrew the map of west Asia.
How were the early inhabitants of western Iran organized?
They had a patriarchal family organization. They were divided into 3 social classes: warriors, priests, and peasants. It was a landowning aristocracy.
What battles did Cyrus wage?
In 546 BCE he won a calvary battle vs. Lydia.
All of Anatolia, including the Greek city-states on the western coast came under Persian control.
In 539 BCE he took the Neo-Babylonian dynasty in Mesopotamia.
Unlike the Assyrians, Cyrus and his son Cambyses were?
They were practical and respectful when conquering territories. They allowed conquered peoples to keep their traditions and ways of life.
Cambyses prevailed versus who?
The Egyptians.
What did Darius I do after Cambyses’ death?
He seized the throne and extended Persian control eastward and westward. He promoted the development of maritime routes and completed a canal linking the Indus Delta to the Red Sea.
The empire of Darius I was?
It was the largest the world has yet seen, composed of many ethnic groups and forms of social and political organization.
Darius I is considered the 2nd ____ after Cyrus?
The second founder of the Persian Empire after Cyrus.
Darius I divided the Persian Empire into what?
He divided it into 20 provinces, each under supervision of a satrap.
What did satraps do?
They collected and sent tribute to the king in an amount prescribed by Darius. Most of it was hoarded, which caused the price of gold and silver to rise, which caused a gradual economic decline.
Darius lived and traveled with who?
He lived and traveled with numerous wives and children.
What were the lives of Persian women like?
Persian women were politically influential, had substantial property, and mediated conflict.
What did Darius refer to others as?
He referred to them as his slaves.
What was Persepolis?
A complex of palaces, reception halls, and treasury buildings made by Darius I and Xerxes.
What did the relief sculpture at Persepolis represent?
It was representative of all peoples in the empire bringing gifts. (Propaganda)
What was the religion of the Persian Empire?
Zoroastrianism. Their god was called Ahuramazda. They believed that the world was created by him, and was threatened by Angra Mainyu. Ideas of the struggle between good and evil were prevalent, and they believed people were judged after death for their actions.
What did the Persians worship besides Ahuramazda?
The good elements, water and fire. They were concerned with the purity of the body.
After the destruction of the Myceneans, the Greeks lapsed into what?
The “Dark Age.” They were isolated. In 800 BCE, their isolation ended when they reestablished contact with the Aegean and the Middle East, beginning the Archaic Period.
What happened during the Archaic Period?
The Greeks created the first alphabetic language, from Linear B and the Phonecians. This caused more widespread literacy. There was also a population explosion and trade was re-established.
What was the Greek polis?
The polis was a city-state, urban center, and its controlled rural territory.
What was in the polis?
Most polises contained an acropolis and agora. The acropolis was a place of refuge in emergency, and the agora was a gathering place and marketplace.
What were hoplites?
Hoplites were heavily armored infantrymen who fought in close formation. They used a spear and shield. They were not professional, mostly farmers. They carried a round shield on their left side, which protected their own left side as well as the right side of their neighbors.
When did hoplite campaigns take place?
They took place when farmers were available, between major tasks in the agricultural cycle.
Why did the Greeks colonize?
Overpopulation. Some chose to leave, some didn’t. They left with the approval of Appolo, with fire of communal hearth from the “mother-city.”
The Greeks started to use the term ____ to distinguish them from barboi?
Hellenes.
The invention of what in early 600 BCE in Lydia spread?
Coins. Silver, gold, bronze and other metals were used because they were rare enough to be valuable, and were lightweight and portable, indestructible, and easily divided. It was faster and allowed for better recordkeeping and storage of wealth. IT stimulated trade and increased total wealth.
What eventually took the place of the king in the archaic Greek world?
Councils of noble farms. Wealth and power came from owning large amounts of land, worked by peasants and debt slaves. Free peasants who owned small farms, craftsmen, and merchants made up the emerging “middle class.”
