Transcript WHAP Ch 5x

Chapter 5:
Classical Civilizations in the
Middle East and Mediterranean
(Persia, Greece, Rome)
Introduction
• Time period of this chapter ranges:
• Early people settling area around 800 B.C.E. through the
fall of the Roman Empire in 476 C.E.
• Legacy
• Not to be behind the classical civilizations in the east
(India and China), classical west left behind a rich legacy
of art, culture, political ideology, trade, and new ideas
regarding religion.
The Persian Tradition
• 550 B.C.E. – Cyrus the Great
• Established a massive Persian Empire
• Ran E-W through northern Egypt, Turkey (Asia Minor/Anatolia),
Iran (Persia), and western portion of India.
• Politics
• Tolerant of other languages, cultures, traditions
• Strong authoritarian government
• Centralized law and tax collection
• Wide participation in government was rejected
• Invested in their infrastructure
• Roads, postal service, trade/commerce, military
The Persian Tradition (cont…)
• Development of a bureaucracy
• Tax collection was carefully regulated.
• Spies were sent out to make sure regional officials
remained loyal to central government.
The Persian Tradition (cont…)
• Zoroastrianism
• Developed by religious leader, Zoroaster
• Introduced a monotheistic faith to a polytheistic area
• Concept of heaven, hell, final day of judgment
• Forces of good (God) and evil
• Freewill to choose a force
• Lasting effects?
• Small percentage of the world is Zoroastrian, but legacy would
be its ability to affect the ideas of polytheism in the Middle
East.
The Persian Tradition (cont…)
• Persian rulers expanded the empire and provided
much of the Middle East with a long period of
peace and prosperity.
• Did not conquer Greece.
• At height:
• 14 million people
• Empire did not last through the conquest of
Alexander the Great, but culture and language
(Persian) survived.
Patterns of Greek History
• An early kingdom in southern Greece, strongly
influenced by Crete, developed by 1400 B.C.E.
around the city of Mycenae.
• Mycenae was destroyed by a wave of Indo-Europeans
• 800 B.C.E. – 600 B.C.E.
• Topography of Greece made a unified government
impossible.
• City-states emerge
• Common culture formed through trade, but each city-state had
own form of government.
Patterns of Greek History (cont…)
• 500 B.C.E. – 449 B.C.E, Sparta and Athens
• Leading city-states
• Sparta
• Strong, military state that dominated a slave population
• Athens
• Diverse, birthplace of democracy
• Commercial center, proud artistic/cultural center
• Also used slaves
• Both came together to thwart a huge Persian
invasion.
Patterns of Greek History (cont…)
• Athens after Persian defeat
• Culture reached its highest point.
• Pericles, an Athenian statesmen, dominated politics with
goals for Athens’ glory.
• Peloponnesian Wars – 431 B.C.E. – 404 B.C.E.
• Major wars between Athens and Sparta
• Depleted both sides
• Spartans won
• Political fragmentation of Greece only got worse
Patterns of Greek History (cont…)
• With Greece so divided, a king from the north will
come to conquer
• Philip of Macedon and son, Alexander the Great
• AtG
• Hugely successful conqueror
• Took Greece, then Egypt, then Persia (which was huge),
and ended up in the northwestern portion of India
• Tolerant of cultures, the term “Hellenism” resulted from
this conquest
• Blending of Greek, Egyptian, and Persian cultures
• AtG was not a government administrator – he was a
conqueror.
Patterns of Roman History
• 800 B.C.E., Central Italy – small monarchy
• Roman aristocrats drove out the monarchy around 509
B.C.E., and established a republic.
• 510 B.C.E. – 47 B.C.E., The Roman Republic
• Featured aristocratic senate
• Extended its influence over rest of Italy, and conquered
Greek colonies in the south
• Punic Wars (264 B.C.E. – 146 B.C.E.)
• Series of wars between Rome and Carthage; fought over
commercial power of Mediterranean
• Rome won, obliterated city of Carthage with salt
Patterns of Roman History
• Overtime, politics of Roman republic grew
increasingly unstable.
• Civil Wars
• Julius Caesar and Pompey were in a triumvirate,
meaning they shared executive powers with another
person, Crassus
• Caesar and Pompey eventually go to war
• Caesar is greatly victorious (45 B.C.E.) and his rule will
mark the effective end of the Roman republic and the
beginning of what’s known as the Roman empire.
• After his death, his grandnephew, Octavian (later will be
known as Augustus Caesar) will come to power.
Caesar
Pompey
Crassus
Patterns of Roman History
• During the reign of another emperor, Marcus Aurelius,
the empire maintained great vigor, bringing peace and
prosperity to virtually the entire Mediterranean world.
• Pax Romana – period of Roman peace from 27 B.C.E. to 180
C.E.
• Rome expanded north
• Overall holdings compare to the Han, but with a less
centralized government and more tolerance of diversity of
the empire.
• Both governments were effective and assured stability and
prosperity.
Patterns of Roman History
• After 180 C.E.
• The empire suffered a slow but decisive fall that lasted
over 250 years, until invading peoples from the north
finally overturned the government in Rome in 476 C.E.
• Economic deterioration, population loss, the need for nonRoman troops, less effective emperors, and the inability of the
state to provide protection and justice all contributed to
Rome’s decline.
• Some strong later emperors, particularly Diocletian and
Constantine, attempted to reverse the tide.
• Constantine, in 313, adopted Christianity in an attempt
to unite the empire in new ways.
Greek and Roman Political Institutions
• Greece
• Polis – city-state form of government
• Athens
•
•
•
•
Direct democracy - all citizens can participate
Only a minority of the Athenian population were active citizens
Women had no rights of political participation
Half of all adult males weren’t citizens, being former slaves or
foreigners
Pericles – Athenian statesmen
Greek and Roman Political Institutions
• Rome – the Republic
• Citizen assemblies elected magistrates to represent the
interests of the common people.
• Aristocrats held more executive offices and comprised
the Senate, Rome’s primary legislative body.
• Patricians and Plebians
• 12 Tables of Rome
• Laws of Rome
Patricians
Plebians
Aristocratic land-owners with most of Common farmers, artisans, and
the power
merchants- made up the majority
Inherited social status and
power
Citizens who can vote, but
can’t hold govt positions
Senate allowed own assembly
– protected plebian rights
Greek and Roman Political Institutions
• Rome – the Empire
• developed organizational capacities to scale, including
its vast hierarchy of the Roman army
• Allowed for considerable local autonomy in many
regions
• pursued a policy of “bread and circuses” designed to
prevent popular disorder
• Cheap food and entertainment to keep the masses entertained
Rome (cont…)
• Roles of Government
• Public works
• Help to unite empire
• Maintaining law courts, police power
• Official religion of gods/goddesses, but there
was little effort to inforce this onto the
empire.
• Tolerance if the religions did not interfere with the
loyalty to the empire.
• Christianity did not place the empire/emperor first,
therefore it was often attacked.
Religion and Culture
• The Greeks and Romans did not create a significant,
world-class religion.
• Christianity arose during Roman Empire, but was
not a result of Rome.
• The characteristic Greco-Roman religion was
derived from a belief in the spirits of nature
elevated into a complex set of gods and goddesses
who were seen as regulating human life.
FIGURE 5.4 After murdering his wife and
children, Hercules, who became the Greeks’
greatest mythical hero, was sentenced to perform
12 tasks that would have been impossible for most
mortals. This vase depicts the fourth labor of
Hercules, in which he was ordered to capture the
Erymanthian boar and bring it to his master,
Eurystheus. The frightened Eurystheus has hidden
in a wine jar. (Copyright The British Museum.)
Religion and Culture
• The dominant religion failed to satisfy
many ordinary workers and peasants,
who gravitated to “mystery” religions,
often imported from the Middle East.
• The lack of ethical content in the GrecoRoman religion left many upper-class
people dissatisfied, too.
Religion and Culture
• Thinkers, such as Aristotle and Cicero,
developed independent moral
philosophies stressing moderation and
balance in human behavior.
• Mediterranean philosophy emphasized
the powers of human thought.
• Socrates urged youth of Athens to question
everything, including their elders/statesmen.
• Socrates was charged with “corrupting the
youth of Athens” and had to choose between
drinking poison or being exiled. He “drank
the kool-aid.”
Religion and Culture
• The Greeks were not outstanding
empirical scientists, but their interest in
rationality carried over to an inquiry into
the underlying order of physical nature.
• Hellenistic Period
• Pythagoras and Euclid contributed major
achievements to geometry, while Galen’s
contributions to anatomy were a standard for
centuries.
Religion and Culture
• The Arts
• Drama: comedy and tragedy
• Balance between virtue and emotions
• Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
• Epics, the Iliad, Odyssey
• Architecture
• Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian styles
• Roman engineering, athleticism
• Classical art – the form, balance, beauty
Religion and Culture
• Greek genius was philosophy, but Roman genius
was engineering.
• Use of dome, arches, the aqueducts – engineering
marvels
FIGURE 5.5 This is an artist’s recreation of the
Forum in imperial times. The use of decorative
styles that originated in classical Greece was a
central feature of Roman architecture, but as the
empire grew, buildings became steadily more
massive. Larger columns and greater heights
reflected the Roman taste for the monumental.
Ultimately, Roman architects also developed the
capacity to build domed structures—a feat of
engineering. (Hypothetical reconstruction of the
Roman Forum in Imperial Times. Southern part.
Watercolor. Soprintendenza alle Antichita, Rome,
Italy/Scala/Art Resource, NY.)
Economy and Society in Mediterranean
• Agriculture and Trade
• Constant trend to market farming
• Grapes, olives
• Led to trade
• Grain from Egypt
• Merchants
• Traded with India and China
• Unfavorable balance
• Legally respected
• Not socially esteemed
• Better than a merchant from China, but not India.
Economy and Society in the Mediterranean
• Slavery
• From conquest
• Becomes a motive for expansion
• Result?
• Technological innovation in farming lacking
• Unfavorable trade balance with eastern Asia
• Greeks did build impressive ships, and the Roman
engineering feats cannot go unnoticed, but
compared to the technological progress of Eastern
Asia – they were significantly behind.
Economy and Society in the Mediterranean
• Family
• Patriarchal
• Women have economic role
• Some women active in commerce
• Women could own property
• The oppression of women was probably less
severe in this civilization than in China
• Pressing the Environment
• Deforestation
• Air pollution
• Garbage
Toward the Fall of Rome
• A Complex Legacy
• Enduring ideas
• Comparison to contemporary North America
• Governments
• Architecture
• Education
• Direct and indirect
• Consciously imitated, revived
• Mingled with Middle Eastern legacy
• Persia's separate identity