The Classical World (700 BCE - 600 CE)

Question 1

In general, describe the history involving the millennium following 750 BCE?

Answer 1

It saw much of the world’s population incorporated into the great Classical civilizations of Eurasia - Greece, Rome, Persia, India, and China. These empires reached unparalleled levels of sophistication and military effectiveness.

In Central and South America, Africa, and Japan - new civilization also emerged, in many ways equally advanced but with much smaller reach than those of Eurasia.

The Classical era also saw the birth of some influential religions - Buddhism, Judaism and Christianity.

Question 2

Describe the rise and fall of the various Persian dynasties during the classical era?

Answer 2

The Achaemenids, a dynasty of Persian kings, originally emerged to exert power across Asia from the Mediterranean to NW India around 559 BCE.

Two centuries after a failed attempt to subdue Greece in the 5th century BCE, the tables turned when Alexander the Great’s Macedonians overthrew Achaemenid rule.

The Persian power reemerged under the Parthians and the Sassanids, who, from the 220’s CE, struggled bitterly with the Romans until the 7th century CE.

Question 3

Who was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire?

Answer 3

Cyrus (ruled 559-530 BCE)

Question 4

Describe the reign of Cyrus?

Answer 4

Cyrus defeated Astyages in 550 BCE, securing dominance over Eastern Iran, then captured Babylon in 539 BCE.

Question 5

Describe the Achaemenid rule after Cyrus?

Answer 5

Cambyses (ruled 530-522 BCE), the heir of Cyrus, extended the empire to Egypt.

Cambyses brother led a revolt and led to his assassination. In the following years, the influential king Darius I (ruled 522-486 BCE) occupied parts of Libya and NW India, and also tried to invade Greece but failed. Xerxes (ruled 486-465 BCE) failed in a similar enterprise.

Question 6

Describe the fall of the Achaemenid Empire?

Answer 6

The empire was large and depended on foreign mercenaries, thus vulnerable to revolt. The Achaemenid empire, under Darius III, eventually fell to Alexander the Great in the 330’s BCE.

Question 7

What was Persepolis?

Answer 7

The royal capital of the Achaemenid empire, founded by Darius I around 518, connected to an efficient system of royal roads. In modern day Shiraz, Iran. While government activities took place at the palace at Susa to
the west, Persepolis lay at the heart of the Achaemenids regal power. The reception hall, the apadana, may have been able to hold up to 10,000 people Alexander the Great captures Persepolis in 331 BCE and fire razed it to the ground.

Question 8

What was the main religion in Classical Persia and briefly describe it?

Answer 8

It was a fusion between traditional Iranian religions and the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster, who lived around 1000 BCE.

He preached a dualist faith in which the supreme god Ahura Mazda, the personification of good, engaged in a constant struggle with the spirit of darkness, known as Angry Maine.

Under the Sassanids, from the 3rd Century CE, Zoroastrianism began to take on the characteristics of a state religion, and followers of other faiths which had been previously tolerated suffered persecution.

Question 9

In Zoroastrianism, what are fravashis? Often depicted in bas-relief sculptures.

Answer 9

Winged guardian spirits that guide and protect people throughout their life.

Question 10

Describe what happened in Persia after Alexander the Great?

Answer 10

The Greek successors of Alexander the Great, the Seleucids, controlled Persia. Their hold slipped when the Parthians (Parthia is a region in Iran) began to throw off Greek rule and took control of the silk routes from China.

Under Mithridates I (ruled 171-128 BCE), the Parthians pushed westward to Annex most of the Seleucid lands in Mesopotamia.

Parthia was politically divided but has expert cavalrymen and managed to crush a Roman army at Carrhae in 53 BCE, which started a long period of tension with Rome, particularly over Armenia. The Parthians succumbed to an internal revolt in the southern province of Pars in the 3rd century CE.

Question 11

What happened after Parthian Persia collapsed?

Answer 11

Persia’s resurgence came under the Sassanids, whose first king Ardashir I ruled from 224-241 CE.

Question 12

Describe the rise and fall of Sassanid Persia?

Answer 12

The first king Ardashir I ruled from 224-241 CE. The Sassanid kings ruled from a capital at Ctesiphon on the banks of the Tigris and established a more centralized state than the Parthians.

Under Shapur I (Shaper the great), they defeated the Romans twice. Over the next three centuries the pendulum swung between Roman and Sassanid advantage. Then, in early 7th century CE, Khusrau II Parviz (ruled 591-628 CE) finally broke the deadlock taking Roman Syria, Palestine and Egypt by 61 CE.

The Byzantine (Eastern Roman) empire eventually fought back, undoing all of Khusrau II’s victories by 627 CE. The exhausted Sassanids then fell prey to Arab-Muslim armies invading from the south and west. The last Sassanid King, Yazdegird III (ruled 632-651 CE), was defeated at Qadisiya in 637 CE and at Nehavand in 642 CE.

Question 13

Where was the Byzantine empire?

Answer 13

Eastern Rome, but expanded to a much larger region at various points?

Question 14

What did Shaper I (Shaper the Great) do to the Roman emperor Valerian?

Answer 14

Captured him, flayed, stuffed and mounted as a grisly trophy.

Question 15

What do we know about the era following the collapse of Greece’s Mycenaean civilization in 1070 BCE?

Answer 15

Little is known until about 750 BCE because no written records survive.

Question 16

Describe the eventual development of city-states in Greece after the Mycenaean collapse?

Answer 16

Around 750 BCE scattered clusters of villages throughout the Greek mainland, islands, and Ionia (Greek-settled Asia Minor, modern day Turkey) had grown into city states.

Question 17

What is the word used for city states?

Answer 17

Poleis

Question 18

Which city states had emerged as dominant by 600 BCE?

Answer 18

Sparta, Thebes, Corinth and Athens

Question 19

What types of Government existed in the various city states?

Answer 19

At first monarchy was most common. By 7th century BCE, some city-states overthrew their kings and instituted “tyrannies,” rule by autocrats from new families such as the Pisistratids at Athens.

A basic form of democracy emerged side-by-side with this in Athens, beginning with the reforms of the great law-giver Solon in around 594 BCE.

Question 20

What were some common cultural factors that united the Poleis?

Answer 20

-Belief in common deities
-Participation in common cultural events such as the pan-hellenic games at Olympia
-Philosophy and poetry becoming common

Question 21

Describe the Greek-Persian Wars?

Answer 21

In 499 BCE, the Ionian cities of W Asia Minor, with some assistance from Athens, staged a revolt against Persia, which had conquered the region in 546 BCE. The Persians were victorious, suppressing the rebels in 493 BCE, and Darius I (Persian King) resolved to teach the Greeks a lesson.

Darius’s army landed near Marathon (small town in NE Athens) in late summer 490 BCE, where Athenians and their allies from the city of Plateau kept the Persians in check despite being greatly outnumbered.

Under Xerxes in 480 BCE the Persians invaded again, and despite a heroic resistance by the Sparta king Leonidas’s at Thermopylae the Persians soon won over the important state of Thebes and had Athens at their mercy. Themistocles, a politician, had by then persuaded the Athenians to finance a naval fleet which bore fruit in the defeat of the Persians at Salamis. A further victory on land at Plateau in 479 BCE stiffened greek resolve, and signaled the end of Persian ambition on Greek mainland.

Question 22

What is the oldest and most stable democracy?

Answer 22

Athenian democracy which included the right of all citizens to participate in political decision making - including women, children, slaves and foreigners.

Question 23

Who was initially responsible for initiating the change to a democracy? Who continued and developed it into its final form?

Answer 23

Solon had diluted the aristocrats power in favor of the citizen assembly, but it was only under the magistrate Cleisthenes (570-507 CE) that the Athenian constitution began to approach its final form.

Question 24

How did Cleisthenes set up the democratic organization?

Answer 24

He divided Athens into about 140 voting districts (demes) which were grouped into 10 tribes. Each of these tribes supplied 50 members annually to a council of 500, and this group supplied the 50 member group of council leaders (Prytaneis) to administer the government’s daily affairs.

The council leaders (Pyrytaneis) changed regularly so nobody stayed in power too long.

Question 25

What was the Ekklesia assembly?

Answer 25

The full quorum of ~6,000 people, which convened around 40 times a year meeting on the Pnyx, a hill near the Acropolis, to vote on important matters including the election of the city’s generals.

Question 26

What was Ostracism?

Answer 26

A vote y the ekklesia to exile over-might politicians, aimed to curb the abuse of power by a few.

Question 27

Describe some history of Greek colonization in the classical era?

Answer 27

From the late 9th century BCE the Greeks dramatically expanded their world by dispatching colonists from cities in Greece to all corners of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, creating fully fledged citizen communities.

Among the earliest were those in Sicily, including Syracuse, founded around 733 BCE. Shortly after this, colonization began in southern Italy creating a network so dense that the area came to be known as Magna Gracie (Greater Greece). The movement spread to North Africa, France, Spain, Anatolia.

By the 6th century BCE the Greek impetus for colonization had faded. Future Greek expansion would come largely under the patronage of Alexander the Great’s Macedonian empire and its successor states.

Question 28

What is the Parthenon? When was it built and who built it?

Answer 28

The Parthenon is the great temple to the goddess Athena, built at Athens in the mid-5th century BCE.

The project was initiated by the city’s leading statesman Pericles, and the work was partly overseen by Phidias, one of Classical Greece’s greatest artists. It was completed around 432 BCE.

Question 29

When was the Peloponnesian War and what caused it?

Answer 29

~431-404 BCE. It started when Potidae, an Athenian client-city in northern Greece, attempted to break away from the Athenian empire. Sparta and its allies came to Potidaea’s aid, starting a series of conflicts known as the Peloponnesian war.

Question 30

Describe the stages of the Peloponnesian War?

Answer 30

After Potidaea (and spartan allies) attempted to break away from the Athenian empire, the Athenians initially held strong. Sparta fought back and won a great victory at Amphiboles in 422 BCE, and both sides agreed to a 50 year truce.

Hostilities broke out again in 415 BCE when the Athenians, encouraged by the extremist anti-spartan statesman Alcibiades, sent a great fleet to Sicily, intent on absorbing Syracuse. Sparta supported the Syracuse’s, and Athens was sucked into a debilitating and ultimately unsuccessful siege of the city.

In 413 BCE, the Spartans destroyed the Athenian armada in Sicily, but still the war dragged on.

Finally, in 405 BCE, at Aegospotami on the Hellespont, the Spartans captured most of the Athenian fleet while it was beached on shore. Deprived of their naval support, the Athenians could not resist a Spartan blockade, and in 404 BCE they surrendered agreeing to the destruction of their defensive walls.

Question 31

Who wrote the “History of the Pelopponesian war”?

Answer 31

Thucydides, one of the first true historians.

Question 32

Describe some aspects of greek civilization in the 6th - 4th centuries?

Answer 32

The possession of common religion was a hallmark with temples, shrines and oracles to principal gods. Cult centers such as Olympia and Delphi became important pan-Greek gathering places and at some, such as Olympia, the Greeks held games in honor of the gods.

Sculptors such as Phidias, who created the great cult statue of Athena for the Parthenon, are among the world’s earliest named artists.

The Greeks excelled int he dramatic arts, too, with tragedies by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Also comedies by Aristophanes being performed at Ana nnual religious festival called the Dionysian in honor of the god Dionysus.

Of equally profound and lasting influence was the work of Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. They were the first to apply logic in an attempt to understand the world.

Question 33

Who was Alexander the Great’s father? What happened to him?

Answer 33

Philip II, the Macedonian (Northern Greece) king. He was assassinated in 336 BCE, suspected to be at Alexander’s prompting.

Question 34

What time period were the conquests of Alexander the Great?

Answer 34

336-323 BCE

Question 35

Which victory by Philip II (with the help of Alexander) led to the submission of other Greeks to Macedonian overlordship?

Answer 35

The victory against Thebans at Chaeronea in 338 BCE.

Question 36

Describe the conquests of Alexander?

Answer 36

In 334 BCE Alexander began the invasion of the Achaemenid empire of Persia. He had the initial intention liberating the Greek cities in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) from Persian control. Persia bas ruled by Darius III at the time. Alexander defeated a large Persian force at Grancus in 334 BCE, and then the next year bested Darius III himself at Issue in Syria.

Pausing to visit Egypt, he defeated Darius one final time at Guatemala on the banks of the Tigris in 331 BCE.The fugitive Persian king was murdered the following year and Alexander took on the trappings of an oriental potentate, adopting Persian court dress and protocol and moving to secure all the former provinces of the Achaemenid empire.

Alexander suppressed revolts in 329 and 328 BCE, then pushed on into NW India defeating the local ruler Porus at Hydaspes in 326 BCE. Finally, even his loyal Macedonians refused to go further. He began his long desert trek back to central Persia and underwent a series of mutinies.

In 323 BCE, at age 32, Alexander died of a fever at Babylon. His generals plotted to seize power because Alexander had not chosen a successor.

Question 37

What was the name of Alexander’s horse?

Answer 37

Bucephalus

Question 38

Where did Alexander go in Egypt to consult the oracle of Zeus?

Answer 38

The temple of the Oracle, in Siwa Oasis Egypt, in 332 BCE.

Question 39

What happened after Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BCE?

Answer 39

There was a long struggle for control over his empire. Alexander’s wife was pregnant, ant the army split between those wanting to see if she bore a son and those who supported the severely disabled half-brother of Alexander (Philip Arrhidaeus).

In the end the child was born male, and as Alexander IV he ruled jointly ith Arrhidaeus, who became Philip III.

However, there were deep divisions within the generals and they began to carve out their own territories. By 301 BCE, three main successor states survived: the Antigonids based in Macedonia, the Seleucids in Mesopotamia and Syria, and the Ptolemies in Egypt.

The three greek kingdoms survived until they were successively swallowed up by the Romans: first Macedonia in 168 BCE, then Seleucid kingdom in 64 BCE, then finally Egypt in 31 BCE.

Question 40

What is another name for Greek culture?

Answer 40

Hellenism

Question 41

How did Alexander the Great diffuse greek culture into Western Asia and North Africa? Give some examples.

Answer 41

After conquering land in Western Asia and North Africa, Alexander encouraged the foundation of Greek cities in the newly conquered lands. Most notably Alexandria in Egypt. These became the focus for the diffusion of Greek culture throughout the East.

Examples include temples built in Greek fashion, a central marketplace or meeting space (agora), and thee gymnasium (for both exercise and study). Hellenistic art styles also traveled Far East, as well as science and literature.

Question 42

What is an example of how Hellenistic cities absorbed eastern influence?

Answer 42

In Egypt Greek-speaking kings ruled as Pharaohs.

Question 43

According to tradition, who founded Rome and when?

Answer 43

Romulus, said to have been the son of the god Mars, is said to have founded Rome on April 21, 753 BCE.

Question 44

Which civilization has particular influence in the development of Rome?

Answer 44

The Etruscan civilization in central Italy

Question 45

Describe some of the early developments of Rome’s civilization?

Answer 45

The story goes that the second king, Numa Pompidou, established many of Rome’s religious traditions, while Ancus Marcius in the 7th century BCE expanded the territory of the fledgling city-state through a series of localized struggles against the neighboring Latin tribe.

Question 46

When was the first evidence of a Roman senate? What was the evidence?

Answer 46

From the reign of Tullus Hostilius (673-642 BCE) in the form of the Cura Hostilia building.

Question 47

When did Rome become a republic? What was the form of the early Republic?

Answer 47

In 509 BCE after the right of the tyrant Tarquinius Superbus, who was unpopular and deposed by a group of aristocrats.

The early republic still had the senate, an amorphous group of elders with decision-making powers. Every year a citizen assembly elected two consuls, whose dual authority was an attempt to prevent despotism.

Question 48

Describe the structure of society in early Roman Republic?

Answer 48

The early republic was dominated by conflict between two groups of citizens: the patricians (elite landowners) and the underclass of plebeians.

Plebeian resentment of this hierarchy led to ratifications of the assembly and the “Twelve Tables” in 450 BCE eased other restrictions, in 366 BCE the first plebeian consul was elected.

Question 49

Describe the early expansion of Rome?

Answer 49

After a Roman victory against a league of Latin neighbors in 496 BCE, a series of colonies of Roman citizens set out from Rome, gradually forming a network of Roman-controlled cities throughout central Italy.

In 396 the Romans captured the Etruscan city of Veii, and by the early 3rd century also defeated the Samnites to begin extension into south-central Italy.