Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Chapter 7: Organization and Reorganization of Human Societies, c. 600 B.C.E. to c. 600 C.E.
- Classical Civilizations
- India and China
- Mauryan Empire (321 - 180 B.C.E.)
- founded by Chandragupta Maurya, who unified the smaller Aryan kingdoms into a civilization
- Ashoka Maurya, his grandson, took empire to greatest heights, converted to Buddhism
- Rock and PIllar Edict, reminded Mauryans to live generous and righteous lives
- Gupta Dynasty (320 - 550 C.E.)
- revival under Chandra Gupta II, known as Chandra Gupta the Great
- often referred to as a golden age because it enjoyed relative peace and saw advances int he arts and sciences
- Arabic numerals
- decimal system that used the numerals 1 through 9
- restored Hinduism
- Qin Dynasty (221 - 209 B.C.E.)
- connected separate fortification walls that eventually became the Great Wall of China
- Qin Shi Huang
- recentralized various feudal kingdoms
- standardized units and currency
- refused to tolerate any dissent
- Han Dynasty (200 B.CE. - 460s C.E.)
- invaded by the Xiongnu
- Wu Ti
- enlarged the Han Empire
- civil service exam
- Mediterranean
- Persian Empire
- Satrapies and satraps
- Lydians
- came up with the concept of using coined money to conduct trade rather than using the barter system
- Phoenicians
- established powerful naval city-states all along the Mediterranean, developed a simple alphabet that only used 22 letters
- Hebrews
- religious belief in Judaism
- Greece (800 - 500 B.C.E.)
- collection of city-states
- Athens
- political, commercial, and cultural center of Greek civilization
- Sparta
- agricultural and highly militaristic region
- Citizens - composed of adult males
- Free people - no political rights
- Non-citizens - no rights
- Persian Wars (449-449 B.C.E.)
- led to Golden Age of Pericles (480-404 B.C.E.)
- Pericles established Delian League
- an alliance against aggression from its common enemies
- Greek philosophy
- rational thinking
- Socrates
- Plato
- Aristotle
- Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.E.)
- Athens lost, Sparta did not destroy Athens out of respect
- Macedonians led by Philip III of Macedon (359-336 B.C.E.) took advantage of weakness
- Alexander the Great expanded Macedonian dominance
- conquered the Persian Empire and moved eastward to the shores of the Indus River
- Rome (509 B.C.E. - 476 C.E.)
- plebeians
- all other free men
- patricians
- landowning noblemen
- Government
- Senate
- Assembly
- Twelve Tables of Rome
- "innocent until proven guilty"
- Punic Wars
- First Punic War (264-241 B.C.E.)
- fought to gain control of Sicily
- Rome won
- Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.E.)
- Hannibal led an attack on Rome, but the Romans attacked Carthage, forcing him to retreat
- Third Punic War (149-146 B.C.E.)
- Rome invaded Carthage and burned it to the ground
- Rome vs Carthage
- First Triumvirate
- Pompey
- Crassus
- Julius Caesar
- became emperor for life, assassinated in 44 B.C.E.
- Second Triumvirate
- Octavius
- assumed name of Augustus Caesar, and became emperor
- Rome was now an empire led by a single emperor
- Pax Romana for 200 years
- new religions introduced: Christianity and Judaism
- persecuted until Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 C.E.
- Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in 391 C.E.
- Marc Antony
- Lepidus
- Mesoamerica
- Mayan Civilization (300 B.C.E. - 800 C.E.)
- built enormous cities
- similar to the Egyptians
- Collapse of the Empires
- Maya
- not exactly sure
- likely expanding population exhausted the Mayan environment
- began to desert their cities in the 9th century C.E.
- Han China
- interrupted by Wang Mang (9-23 C.E.), established Xin Dynasty
- used Mandate of Heaven
- persistent famines, devastating floods, and increasing commodity prices fueled peasant uprisings
- Xin Dynasty came to end in 23 C.E.
- Gupta Empire
- invaded by the White Huns
- able to hold off the Huns for the first half of the 5th century
- Hun kingdoms established in western and northern India
- Western Portion of the Roman Empire
- internal decay
- external pressure
- Attila's Huns
- sheer size of the empire
- weak/bad leaders
- epidemics
- Diocletian became emperor in 284 C.E.
- divided empire into two regions
- Constantine defeated rivals and assumed sole control over the empire in 322 C.E.
- ordered the building of Constantinople at the site of the Greek city of Byzantium
- became capital of a united empire in 340 C.E.
- constantly attacked
- Sassanid Persian Empire, took over in Iran in 224 C.E.
- Zoroastrianism
- powerful military
- Germanic tribes
- Attila's Huns
- brought armies under imperial control
- strengthening the imperial currency
- forcing a budget on the government
- capping prices to deal with inflation
- civil war erupted in 305 C.E. upon his retirement
- Compare and Contrast
- Western Rome
- Tax revolts by upper class and church exempt from taxes
- decrease in trade upon which economy depended
- 25 of 26 emperors died violently in one 50-year span
- division of empire weakened the western half
- unable to defend against migratory invasions of Goths and Huns
- Gupta
- not enough taxes for military defense
- land divisions increased power of provincial officials
- unable to defend against invasions by the White Huns
- Han China
- officials exempt from taxes; difficult to collect from peasant population
- population increases lead to less land per family
- corruption of court officials
- unable to control large estate owners
- constant conflict with the nomadic Xiongnu who invaded after collapse
- CCOT in Women
- Rome/Greece
- strict and patriarchal social divisions
- little land ownership
- literacy among upper class
- Spartan women given citizenship
- women (especially widows) could own businesses
- women could be priestesses, or later, nuns
- India
- strict patriarchal caste system
- women not allowed to inherit property
- forbidden to read sacred texts
- no citizenship for women
- women needed large dowry; no remarriage for widows
- women could not achieve moksha
- China
- strict Confucian social order and guidelines for virtuous behavior
- only sons inherit property
- upper classes educated in arts and literature, and all educated in virtues
- no citizenship for women
- arranged marriages, though widows were permitted to remarry
- Buddhist convents; Daoism promoted male and female equality