Lectures 5 - 8

Question 1

Assyrians

Answer 1

A Semitic-speaking people who arose in Mesopotamia in the second millennium B.C. and, after about 900 B.C., built a large and cruel empire centered on Nineveh. Defeated by a coalition led by Neo-Babylonians and Medes.

Question 2

Avesta

Answer 2

Holy scriptures of Zoroastrianism (q.v.). containing gathas (song; poems)

Question 3

Medes

Answer 3

People who lived in the Zagros Mountains, aided in the fall of the Assyrians, and allied with the Persians.

Question 4

Zoroastrianism

Answer 4

Principal religion of the ancient Persians. Revealed in songs (gathas) in the Avesta. Consisted of the teachings of Zarathustra, who stressed dualities.

Question 5

Cyrus

Answer 5

(r. 559–529)

King (shah) of the Persians who began building the Persian Empire. He permitted the Jews to rebuild a temple in Jerusalem.

Question 6

Nebuchadnezzar

Answer 6

(r. 605–562 B.C.)

Reigned as the greatest king of the Neo- Babylonians, one of the peoples who overthrew the Assyrians. Ruled from Babylon, which he built into a magnificent city.

Question 7

Persians

Answer 7

People from the Persian (now Iranian) plains who allied with the Medes, built a huge empire, and provided many examples in government and culture.

Question 8

Satrap

Answer 8

Persian administrator

Question 9

Zoroastrian God

Answer 9

Ahura Mazda

Question 10

Minoan

Answer 10

Name (from the legendary Minos) for the brilliant culture on the island of Crete between 2200 and 1500 B.C. Its main center was at Knossos.

Question 11

Linear A

Answer 11

Name for writing found on Minoan Crete. Not yet deciphered.

Question 12

Knossos

Answer 12

Site of huge palace complex built by Minoan kings of Crete.

Question 13

Mycenae (my-see-nee)

Answer 13

City (flourished 1400–1200 B.C.) ruled by Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces at Troy. Also gives its name to the earliest phase of Greek history.

Question 14

Linear B

Answer 14

Name for writing found in Mycenean Greece. Deciphered by Michael Ventris in the early 1950s as a primitive form of Greek.

Question 15

Mediterranean triad

Answer 15

Name for the three traditional and widely disseminated crops: cereal grains, olives, and grapes.

Question 16

Dorians

Answer 16

Greek speakers who migrated from Thessaly to Peloponnesus after about 1200 B.C. and settled around Sparta. Greek legend remembered them as invaders.

Question 17

The Greek Dark Ages

Answer 17

ca. 1100-800 b.c.e.

• A time of small illiterate communities
• A time of de-population, de-urbanization, and scant construction

Question 18

Greek Transitional Time Period

Answer 18

ca. 800-700 b.c.e

Question 19

Greek Archaic Time Period

Answer 19

ca. 750-500 b.c.e

Question 20

helots

Answer 20

State-owned slaves in ancient Sparta, mainly Messenian people who lived to the west of Sparta and whom the Spartans conquered after 750 B.C.

Question 21

acropolis

Answer 21

The elevated region of a polis used for civic celebrations and defense.

Question 22

What is the polis “formula?” What are 4 common features of a polis?

Answer 22

1. asty + chora = polis
   
   • asty: city proper, urban core
   • chora: region, district; the agricultural hinterland that surrounded a polis
2. Common features
   
   • Agora
   • Temples
   • Entertainment facilities (theatres, stadiums, etc.)
   • Fortifications

Question 23

agoge

Answer 23

Name for the “training,” the traditional way of bringing up Spartan males.

• Babies inspected at birth, returned to parents until age 7
• Boys enrolled in military bortherhoods
• From 7 to 18, rigorous physical and military training
• From 18 to 20, service in Krypteia
• Service in regular army unit until 60

Question 24

agora

Answer 24

The market; a key component of any Greek polis.

Question 25

peroikoi

Answer 25

“Dwellers about”; resident aliens in ancient Sparta.

Question 26

Lycurgus

Answer 26

Semi-legendary figure to whom the Spartans attributed their constitution

Question 27

homoioi (ho-muhy-yuhy):

Answer 27

“the equals,” all adult Spartan males (above the age of 18)

Question 28

Spartan Social Classes

Answer 28

1. Homoioi
2. Periokoi
3. Helots

Question 29

Who were they Lydians?

Answer 29

• Minor player in the conquering of Assyrians
• Invented coinage around 700 b.c.

Question 30

Croesus

Answer 30

595 BC – c. 546 BC

The most famous Lydian king whose wealth was legendary.

Question 31

fresco

Answer 31

a painting done rapidly in watercolor on wet plaster on a wall or ceiling, so that the colors penetrate the plaster and become fixed as it dries.

Question 32

Numa Pompilius

Answer 32

reigned 715–673 BC, was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus. Many of Rome’s most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him.