States and Empires

Question 1

Which culture invented the alphabet?

Answer 1

The Phoenicians, a small empire on the coast of the Mediterranean in modern-day Lebanon and Israel, invented the alphabet around 1050 B.C.

The Phoenicians were a prominent maritime empire, establishing a far-flung trading network that ranged as far as Spain and North Africa.

Question 2

Which empire was the first to introduce coined money?

Answer 2

The Lydian Empire, located in western Anatolia from the 700s B.C. to the 500s B.C., was the first to introduce coin money, sometime around 610 B.C.

Coins would prove a handy medium of exchange, both because they replaced barter and were easier to transfer from place to place. The Lydians fell to the Persians in 546 B.C.

Question 3

Beginning around 550 B.C., Cyrus the Great began expanding the Persian Empire, conquering much of the Middle East. What made Cyrus’ conquests unique?

Answer 3

Unlike most other rulers, Cyrus respected the local customs and religion of the people in the territories he conquered. After he conquered Babylon, Cyrus even allowed the Jews to return home after 70 years of captivity.

Cyrus’ dynasty of Persian rulers is known as the Achaemenids.

Question 4

Define:

satrapy

Answer 4

A satrapy was a unit of provincial government under the Achaemenid Persians. The Persian Empire, lasting approximately from 550 B.C. to 330 B.C., was largest up to that time and controlled Anatolia, the Middle East, and even Egypt for a short time.

The satraps (leaders of the satrapies) administered justice, managed the postal system, and maintained the vast network of roads that connected the empire’s far-flung provinces.

Question 5

What was the Royal Road?

Answer 5

The Royal Road was a 1,600-mile road that connected the Persian administrative capital Susa with Sardis, a Greek port. Although it would take an average traveler three months to travel the road, Persian riders could often make the trip in a week.

The Royal Road helped to cement the Persian Empire together in the 500s B.C., as well as to provide for the spread of a common language, Aramaic.

Question 6

What were the two most well-known Greek city-states during classical Greek civilization?

Answer 6

The two most well-known city-states were Athens and Sparta, although there were a number of others including Thebes, Corinth, and Argos.

The Greek city-state was known as a polis, and citizens viewed themselves as Athenian or Spartan, for example, rather than Greek.

Question 7

How was the city-state of Athens governed during classical Greek civilization?

Answer 7

With the exception of a few brief periods of autocratic rule, Athens was a direct democracy in which citizens (free males) were all able to vote on every matter concerning the state.

Question 8

How did a Spartan citizen achieve fame and prominence?

Answer 8

A Spartan citizen achieved fame and prominence through military valor and discipline. Beginning at a young age, Spartan males were given intense military training designed to mold them into powerful fighters and ensure that their chief loyalty was to the state.

A famous phrase said to Spartan men before going to fight was “return with your shield or on it.”

Question 9

What led to the establishment of Greek colonies in Italy, Sicily, Anatolia, and the Black Sea?

Answer 9

As Greek city-states grew, they suffered from an excess of population. To relieve the pressure, colonies of citizens were established with the help of the city-states.

Once established, however, most colonies were left to their own devices, with no oversight from their mother city. As an added benefit, most colonies facilitated trans-Mediterranean trade.

Question 10

What led to the outbreak of the Greco-Persian War in 499 B.C.?

Answer 10

In 499 B.C., several Greek cities in Anatolia revolted against the Persian Empire. Darius, the Achaemenid king, sent troops to put down the revolt.

The Athenians also sent troops and war between the Persian Empire and Athens began.

Question 11

What was the result of the Greco-Persian War?

Answer 11

By the end of the Greco-Persian Wars, the Greek city-states maintained their independence.

The Persian War was in reality two separate conflicts a decade apart. In the first phase, Athenian troops defeated the Persians at Marathon. In the second conflict, an Athenian-Spartan alliance defeated a Persian invasion fleet at Salamis and an armed force at Platea. The Greek city-states remained free from Persian conquest.

Question 12

Why was the Delian League established?

Answer 12

The Delian League arose out of the alliance of Greek city-states against Persia during the Persian Wars and was ostensibly to provide for cooperation between the city-states under the leadership at Athens.

Question 13

What caused the Peloponnesian War to erupt in 431 B.C.?

Answer 13

The Peloponnesian War erupted due to the high-handed behavior of the Athenians. Athens was the most powerful city-state in Greece.

After a series of provocations, Sparta and her allies declared war on Athens and her allies in a conflict known as the Peloponnesian War, which lasted until 404 B.C.

Question 14

What were the results of the Peloponnesian War?

Answer 14

By the end of the Peloponnesian War, Athens was crushed and Sparta was dominant in Greek affairs. However, the war left all combatants exhausted and disunited, making them easy prey for a stronger power looking to dominate Greece.

Question 15

Which Macedonian emperor conquered Greece in 338 B.C.?

Answer 15

Philip II of Macedon conquered Greece by taking advantage of internal Greek weakness as a result of the Peloponnesian War. Macedon was a state to the north of Greece.

Poised to strike at Persia next, Philip II died and the kingdom passed to his son Alexander.

Question 16

Why is Alexander the Great called “Great”?

Answer 16

Alexander inherited the Macedonian throne from his father at an early age. He attacked Persia, conquering it by 330 B.C., and then moved into northern India. He died at the age of 33 in 323 B.C., leaving behind a large empire to be divided between his three top generals.

Question 17

What long-lasting cultural legacy did Alexander the Great’s conquests enable?

Answer 17

Alexander the Great and his successors spread Greek art and learning throughout his large empire, fusing it with local customs and traditions. What resulted was a Hellenistic (Greek-like) culture that stretched from India to Egypt.

Question 18

What type of government was established in the small city-state of Rome after the overthrow of the monarchy?

Answer 18

In 509 B.C., the Roman monarch Tarquinius Superbus was overthrown and a republic established. Unlike Athenian direct democracy, in a republic the voters elected leaders who voted on their behalf.

The republic consisted of a senate and two consuls, who governed the state and were chosen in annual elections.

Question 19

Define:

patricians

Answer 19

Patricians were the wealthy class of Romans, who dominated the Roman Republic throughout much of its history through their dominance of the Roman Senate.

Question 20

Define:

plebeians

Answer 20

The plebeians were Rome’s lower classes that held citizenship in the Roman state. Tensions between the patricians and the plebeians in the 400s B.C. led to the creation of the office of the tribune, who possessed the power to veto consular acts.

Question 21

What formed the foundation of Roman jurisprudence?

Answer 21

The Twelve Tables formed the foundation of Roman jurisprudence.

Roman law was divided into 12 sections, which were written on tables and placed in public. Common themes are still prevalent today, including a person’s innocence until proven guilty. As Roman power grew, the Roman legal system spread.

Question 22

What state dominated trade in the western Mediterranean around 275 B.C.?

Answer 22

Trade in the western Mediterranean in the years before the Punic Wars was dominated by Carthage, a former Phoenician colony. Carthage controlled large swaths of territory in Spain, North Africa, and Sicily.

Inevitably, tensions arose between Carthage and the rapidly growing Roman Republic, leading to the outbreak of war between the two in 264 B.C.

Question 23

What were the Punic Wars?

Answer 23

The Punic Wars were a set of three conflicts between the Roman Republic and Carthage that began in 264 B.C. and lasted until 146 B.C., when Carthage was defeated. Carthage’s demise gave the Romans control of the western Mediterranean, Spain, and North Africa.

Question 24

How did the Roman Republic’s office of dictator function?

Answer 24

In times of national emergency, the Senate could appoint a dictator who would rule the city through direct decree for a period of six months. At the end of six months, the dictator was expected to return power back to the Senate and the people of Rome.

Question 25

What led to the growth of a disgruntled underclass of Romans in the late Republic?

Answer 25

After the Punic Wars, the Roman Republic continued to grow, including taking control of Greece, Macedonia, and large parts of Anatolia. These conquests brought massive amounts of slaves and wealth to the patricians, who amassed large plantations.

Small farmers could not compete, and the growth of Rome led to a similar poor underclass in the Republic’s largest urban center. A series of revolutions, plots, and turmoil characterized the final years of the Republic.

Question 26

What Roman general rose to prominence as a result of his conquest of Gaul?

Answer 26

Julius Caesar conquered Gaul (modern-day France) and even ventured as far as Britain. Enhancing his popularity through jobs and gifts for the poor, Caesar had himself named dictator for life.

Fearing that he had become too powerful, several senators assassinated Caesar in 44 B.C. on the floor of the Senate.

Question 27

Who seized control of the Roman state after the assassination of Julius Caesar?

Answer 27

Julius Caesar’s grand-nephew, Octavian, seized control of the Roman state, punished the perpetrators, and had himself named Augustus Caesar and declared an emperor.

Augustus Caesar incorporated Egypt into the Roman Empire and established a period of calm during a reign that lasted over 40 years.

Question 28

Define:

Pax Romana

Answer 28

The Pax Romana (Roman Peace) was a period of peace and prosperity throughout much of the Mediterranean world that began with the reign of Augustus Caesar that lasted more than 200 years. Peace brought economic prosperity and stability to the Roman Empire, although conflicts with the Persians to the east and the Germanic tribes to the north and west continued.

Question 29

What is meant by the Latin term “pater-familias”?

Answer 29

Pater-familias is a Latin term meaning “family father” and refers to the common Roman tradition wherein the father of the family (its eldest male) had the right to dominate the family, including arranging marriage for children or selling them into slavery.

Question 30

The _____ _____ began in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem.

Answer 30

Jewish Diaspora

After a series of Jewish revolts, Roman forces burned Jerusalem to the ground and destroyed the Jewish temple. Gradually, the Jews spread throughout the Roman world.

Question 31

Which two rivers formed the European frontier of the Roman Empire?

Answer 31

During its peak, Rome’s frontiers were formed by the Rhine and the Danube Rivers. Although Rome periodically conducted invasions across these rivers, they were rarely successful, and the rivers provided easily defensible positions behind which the Empire prospered.

Question 32

What was Hadrian’s Wall?

Answer 32

Hadrian’s Wall was a fortified barrier that stretched across Roman Britain to defend it from the tribes of barbarians. Construction began in 122 A.D., and lasted until 130 A.D.

Question 33

Why was the Roman Empire split into Eastern and Western halves?

Answer 33

Beginning with Diocletian, who ruled from 284 to 305 B.C., the Roman empire was ruled as two separate halves, normally under two separate emperors who were ostensibly pledged to mutual defense.

Diocletian and later emperors took this step due to the increased difficulty of ruling an empire as vast as the Roman Empire.

Question 34

What was the most common language of the Roman Empire?

Answer 34

Although Latin was the Roman Empire’s official language, Greek was its most common. The Roman Empire adopted Greek culture, including architecture, theater, sculpture and mythology, continuing the trend of Hellenization begun by Alexander the Great’s conquests.

Question 35

Define:

barbarians

Answer 35

Barbarian was a Roman term for the Germanic and Asiatic tribes that began to launch attacks on the Roman lands beginning in the 300s. The term comes from the Romans’ failure to understand the language of their adversaries, which sounded to them like “Bar Bar Bar Bar.”

The Romans also perceived the barbarians as being less civilized, because instead of dignified togas the barbarians wore pants.

Question 36

Rome itself was sacked by Germanic tribes in 476, marking the end of the Western Roman Empire. What contributed to the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire?

Answer 36

Many factors contributed to the decline of the Western Roman Empire. There was a sharp decline in Western Roman tax collection, and the Western Empire was cut off from the richer Eastern Empire, meaning that the Western Empire could not pay for large armies to defend the state.

Other factors included internal civil wars, plagues and famine that decimated the population, high taxes, and corruption.

Question 37

What dynasty brought an end to China’s Warring States Period?

Answer 37

In 221 B.C. the Qin (Chin) Dynasty brought an end to China’s Warring States Period, uniting the country under the Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi.

Although the empire lasted only 15 years, it brought great changes, including the end of Chinese serfdom, an expanded bureaucracy, and the beginnings of the Great Wall of China.

Question 38

What structure did the Qin Emperor Shi Huangdi begin constructing to protect China from northern invaders?

Answer 38

Shi Huangdi began constructing the Great Wall of China to protect China’s heartland from nomadic invaders from the north. The wall was constructed by forced labor, as were Shi Huangdi’s internal improvements to China, such as the hundreds of miles of roads and canals he developed.

Question 39

Why did the Qin Emperor Shi Huangdi grant freedom to China’s slaves and serfs?

Answer 39

Shi Huangdi granted freedom to China’s slaves and serfs because doing so gave him the ability to levy taxes on the newly free peasants, as well as to conscript them into the expanded Chinese army.

As an added bonus, the freed serfs no longer owed loyalty to their landowners, but to the Emperor.

Question 40

Define:

legalism

Answer 40

Legalism is a political philosophy and preaches a practical approach to state rule. Legalism contends that a strong agriculture base and military ensure prosperity and that strict laws maintain internal order.

China’s Qin Empire established legalism to cement central control, a trend that would continue through much of China’s history.

Question 41

What led to the fall of the Qin Empire in 206 B.C. after only 15 years?

Answer 41

The Qin Empire’s focus on construction such as roads, canals, and the Great Wall, as well as the large army, was expensive and taxation was heavy. After Shi Huangdi’s death, a series of tax revolts broke out and brought the Han Dynasty to power.

Interestingly, however, historians believe that the Qin (pronounced “Chin”) Dynasty is the reason China is called China.

Question 42

Under the Han Dynasty, the Chinese empire expanded by conquering which lands?

Answer 42

Between 206 B.C. and the 190s B.C., the Han Dynasty conquered Vietnam, Mongolia, Korea, and expanded into Central Asia. Key to the expansion was the creation of tributaries, which allowed local rulers to retain independent governments in exchange for the transfer of gifts and goods to the central Han government.

Question 43

What was the primary commodity of trade for the Han Dynasty?

Answer 43

The Han Dynasty’s primary trade commodity was silk, which made its way to the Middle East and Europe via a collection of caravan routes known as the Silk Road. To protect this route, the Han Dynasty’s military forces established outposts along much of the Silk Road.

Question 44

How long was the Silk Road?

Answer 44

The Silk Road was some 4,000 miles long, beginning in Central China and ending along the shores of the Mediterranean. It was not one road, but a collection of interconnected roads that branched out throughout Asia.

Few merchants traversed the entire Silk Road; most had a series of common stops at which they would trade their goods to other merchants, who would in turn carry them farther along the way.

Question 45

Although the Silk Road was intended for trade, it also had some tangential effects. What were they?

Answer 45

The Silk Road contributed to the spread of culture and ideas, as merchants and travelers from different cultures interacted with each other. Scholars attribute the spread of Buddhism in China to the Silk Road.

There were also negative consequences. Bubonic plague traveled along the Road in the 500s, devastating the Gupta, Persian, and Eastern Roman empires.

Question 46

Weak leaders and high taxes led to the outbreak of the _____ _____ _____ in China in 184 A.D.

Answer 46

Yellow Turban Revolt

The Yellow Turban Revolt was primarily composed of Daoists, who resented the control and abuses of powerful landlords. They started a period of revolution and unrest that would lead to the collapse of the Han Dynasty in 220.

Question 47

Who founded the Maurya Empire?

Answer 47

The Maurya Empire was founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 B.C. After seizing control of the state of Magadha, Chandragupta Maurya expanded his control throughout much of India.

Question 48

Who was the last powerful king of the Maurya Empire?

Answer 48

Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya, was the last powerful king of the Maurya Empire. After an initial period of conquest, Ashoka converted to Buddhism.

After his death in 232 B.C., the Mauryan Empire collapsed and India entered a period of chaos for the next five centuries.

Question 49

Arising from small states around the Ganges River in 320 A.D., the _____ _____ established control over much of northern India.

Answer 49

Gupta Empire

The Gupta Empire never established control over southern India, and its power over the north was tempered by a centralized administration that governed India at the local level. The invasion of the White Huns in 550s led to the Empire’s collapse, and India reverted into a number of small regional states.

Question 50

Besides the Silk Road, what other trade route allowed goods to flow from Asia to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe?

Answer 50

In addition to the Silk Road, the Indian Ocean became a highway for trade. The development of triangular lateen sails enabled ships to traverse the Red Sea and Sea of China, despite contrary monsoon winds.

Question 51

What animal enabled trade caravans to cross the Sahara Desert?

Answer 51

In approximately 100 A.D., Berber nomads began trading across the Sahara Desert using camels as pack animals. Camels proved to be well adapted to the desert and could carry up to 550 pounds of goods from Sub-Saharan Africa to the markets of Cairo.

Question 52

Who were the Bantu?

Answer 52

The Bantu was a civilization that steadily populated much of Sub-Saharan Africa, beginning around 2000 B.C. in modern-day Nigeria. Most modern Sub-Saharan African languages can be traced to the Bantu.