The Ancient World to the 17th century Flashcards
Where was the first civilisation?
Sumer, Mesopotamia
Which culture invented the alphabet?
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.
Which empire was the first to introduce coined money?
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.
What led to the outbreak of the Greco-Persian War in 499 B.C.?
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.
What was the result of the Greco-Persian War?
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.
Why was the Delian League established?
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.
What state dominated trade in the western Mediterranean around 275 B.C.?
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.
Pax Romana
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.
The _____ _____ began in 70 A.D. with the destruction of Jerusalem.
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.
Which two rivers formed the European frontier of the Roman Empire?
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.
What was Hadrian’s Wall?
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.
What dynasty brought an end to China’s Warring States Period?
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.
What structure did the Qin Emperor Shi Huangdi begin constructing to protect China from northern invaders?
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.
Why did the Qin Emperor Shi Huangdi grant freedom to China’s slaves and serfs?
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.
legalism
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.
What led to the fall of the Qin Empire in 206 B.C. after only 15 years?
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.
What was the primary commodity of trade for the Han Dynasty?
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.
Although the Silk Road was intended for trade, it also had some tangential effects. What were they?
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.
Weak leaders and high taxes led to the outbreak of the _____ _____ _____ in China in 184 A.D.
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.
Who founded the Maurya Empire?
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.
Who was the last powerful king of the Maurya Empire?
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.
Arising from small states around the Ganges River in 320 A.D., the _____ _____ established control over much of northern India.
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.
Besides the Silk Road, what other trade route allowed goods to flow from Asia to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe?
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.
What animal enabled trade caravans to cross the Sahara Desert?
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.
Who were the Bantu?
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.
Who was the first Caliph?
Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s father-in-law, served as the first Caliph (leader of the Umma).
After Muhammad’s death in 632, Abu Bakr and his successors led the Muslims in wars of religious conquest; by 661, Muslim forces had conquered Egypt, the Middle East, and Persia, destroying the Sassanid Empire.
Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, what did the Eastern Roman Empire come to be called?
The Eastern Roman Empire came to be called Byzantium after the former name of its capital, Constantinople.
Although Byzantine residents continued to call themselves Romans and use Roman law, the Empire was profoundly influenced by Greek ideals, from culture to language.
Which Byzantine Emperor attempted to re-conquer the lands of the Western Roman Empire, beginning in the 530s?
Justinian, with the aid of his able general Belisarius, attempted to re-conquer the lands lost to the barbarians. Justinian’s forces re-conquered North Africa by defeating the Vandals, and Spain, by defeating the Ostrogoths. Byzantine forces even took back parts of Italy, but were forced to retreat when a plague wiped out most of Justinian’s troops.
Procopius, an historian in Justinian’s court, claimed that Justinian had a habit of removing his own head and carrying it around under his arm. Modern-day historians question Procopius’s account.
What led Byzantine Emperor Alexius to call for help from the Christian states of Europe in 1095?
yzantine forces had suffered significant military reverses for centuries, as Muslim forces conquered much of the Middle East, and Seljuk Turks pressed the Empire from the Central Asian steppes. In desperation to save his Empire, Alexius called for assistance from the Christian states of Europe, resulting in the Crusades.
What was the result of the Fourth Crusade, which lasted from 1202 to 1204?
Originally intended to land in Egypt and march northward to retake Jerusalem, the Fourth Crusade instead invaded and sacked Constantinople, dealing the Byzantine state a blow from which it would never recover.
