help with west civi final due in 24 hours

Supplemental Information

Notes

Hello All! In this week’s module we are going to look WAYYY back in time to discuss the first civilizations in human history. To discuss this topic, I have broken it down into three short lectures. The first lecture- which you are currently watching- will discuss when and how exactly civilizations came to be. And then, the second and third lectures will look more specifically at two of the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia and Egypt. You read about this in the syllabus and heard about it in my introduction video, but I want to remind you that these three lectures include a total of ten quiz questions. These questions will pop at different times as you watch the lectures assigned. Keep in mind that you will need to watch all three lectures completely in order to answer all 10 quiz questions. These questions are multiple choice, and each question is worth 3 points. 

And with that said, let’s get started.

As I hope you all know at this point, this course covers the first part of Western Civilization. So, it only makes sense that our first lecture focuses on what that actually means. What do we mean when we say “Western”? What do we mean when we say “civilization”’? And when did real, fully formed civilizations come to be in human history?

Let’s start by discussing the concept of “Western.” Today, when we say "Western civilization", we’re talking about the countries of Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. You can see those marked in red on the screen in front of you. The people living in these areas today share a similar way of living that can be briefly called “Western.” If you go on to take Western Civilization II, we’ll talk about why the countries marked in red share are all considered “Western” despite them being so spread out. But in this course, in Western Civilization I, we will trace the development of Western Civilization from its origin tens of thousands of years ago up to about 1500 CE, which was about 500 years ago. So that brings us to the next concept that we need to discuss.

But  before we can move on to the concept of “civilization” and when it came about, we need to understand how historians talk about time. And I don't mean time as in hours and minutes, I mean time as thousands and hundreds of years. So, this is how it works. Historians divide the development of human history into two large blocks of time-- BCE, which means "before the common era"-- and CE, which means "common era." BCE refers to the year prior to the year 0. In Western Civilization the birth of Jesus Christ normally marks the year 0. Any events, individuals, and groups of people that came before the year 0 are marked with BCE. The BCE years move backward from zero. For example, the year 3 BCE is older than the year 1 BCE. Now, any events, individuals, and groups of people that came after the year 0 are marked with CE. The CE years move forward from 0. For example, the year 1 CE is older than the year 3 CE.

Quiz Question #1

Now, I just told you that historians divide human history into two large blocks of time, BCE and CE. But we can divide time into even smaller units. Decades, which are 10 years; centuries, which equal 100 years; and millennia, which equal one thousand years. Now that we've established that, I want to briefly explain how to think about centuries. And centuries are a little tricky. The years 0 to 99 represent the first century CE. That means that the years 100 to 199 represent the second century CE, and the years 200 to 299 represent the third-century CE. . A similar thing happens for the years in BCE. The years 99 to 0 BCE represent the first century BCE, and the years is 199 to 100 BCE represent the second century BCE, so forth and so on.

OK. So, we’ve discussed the concept of Western and how historians think about time. So, now we can talk about the “civilization” part of Western civilization. To start, I want to give you the standard definition of civilization. As historians define it, civilization emerged about 5,000 years ago when people in different parts of the world began to live and organize communities with distinct political, military, economic, and social structures. And more specifically, a civilization requires 7 elements- including cities, religion, government and armies, trade, a class structure, writing, and art and architecture. So, you can sort of think of a “civilization” as more complex, more sophisticated than a simple community. People in a “civilization” have leveled up, if you will. So, the question is- how and when did we as people go from simple communities to creating complex civilizations? And to answer this question, we have to go back in time, WAY back in time.

Archaeologists believe that humans in their current form-- also known as Homo sapiens-- appeared in Africa between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago. And recent evidence suggests that they began to spread outside of Africa around 100,000 years ago. The movements of the first modern humans were rarely sudden or rapid. Groups of people advanced beyond their old hunting grounds at a rate of about two to three miles per generation. But this was enough to populate the world over the course of tens of thousands of years.

This early period of human history was known as the Paleolithic Age, which lasted up until 10,000 BCE. As you can see, this age lasted a VERY long time and humans only came into being towards the very end of this age. But the people living during this time did a lot to lay the framework for us. The Paleolithic Age is more commonly known as the Stone Age because the earliest human tools were made of stone. Paleolithic people had a close relationship with the world around them, and over time came to know which plants to eat and which animals to hunt. I don't know about you, but sometimes I wonder-- as I sit before a plate of oysters or mushrooms-- I think, who first said, this looks good, let's eat it? We can thank the people of the Stone Age or the Paleolithic Age for most of our food choices. People of the Paleolithic age did not, however, know how to grow crops or raise animals. Instead, they gathered wild nuts, berries, fruits, and a variety of wild grains and green plants. Around the world, they hunted and ate different animals including buffalo, horses, bison, wild goats, and reindeer. And in the coastal areas, fish were a rich source of nourishment. Archaeologists and anthropologists believe that people in the Paleolithic Age lived in bands of 20 to 30 people. They were nomadic, moving from place to place to follow animal migrations and vegetation cycles. Some groups of Paleolithic people found shelter in caves, but others created simple, temporary structures made of wooden poles or sticks and covered with animal hides that they could pick up and take with them. But no one at this point was building permanent homes. Hunting depended on careful observation of animal behavior patterns and required a group effort for success. Over the years tools became more refined and useful. The invention of the spear and later the bow and arrow made hunting considerably easier. Harpoons and fishhooks made of bone made it easier to catch fish and other sea creatures. Let's stop for just a moment. People in the Paleolithic Age didn't know how to read or write, so how do you think we know what they ate?  Well, we get most of our information from the bones that we find, as well as cave drawings. A cave discovered in southern France in 1994 known as the Chauvet Cave contains more than 300 paintings of animals and hand prints, and these give us an idea of what people during this time period were hunting and eating as well as what they were doing and how they thought of themselves.

Quiz Question #2

The next period of time is called the Neolithic Age, and it began around 10,000 BCE. Now, to be clear, civilization would not be officially born until the beginning of the next time period (the Bronze Age), but during the Neolithic Age, the necessary elements of civilization were forming. We can sort of think of civilization being in its toddler form during the Neolithic Age. If we squint really hard, we can begin to see how it will look in the future, but we’re not quite there yet. In the Neolithic Age, a couple of important developments took place. The biggest change in living patterns was the shift from gathering plants and hunting animals to producing food through systematic agriculture, also known as farming. Farming provided a regular supply of food, while the domestication of animals such as goats, cattle, pigs, and sheep provided a steady source of meat and milk as well as things to make clothing out of. Larger animals could also be used to help with the farming process, like planting. Being able to grow crops and tame animals for food created a new relationship between humans and nature. Historians called this time period an "agricultural revolution." The ability to access food on a regular basis gave people more control over their environment. More importantly, it also allowed them to stop traveling in search of food and begin to live in settled communities. Due to farming and the domestication of animals, the human population grew. People were living longer and having more babies who were also more likely to survive past infancy.

The biggest of these settled communities reached around 6,000 people. And these settled communities look a little different from our modern ones. During the Neolithic Age, people lived in simple mud brick houses that were built so close to one another that they had very few streets. To get to their homes people had to walk along the roof tops and then enter their house through a hole in the roof. At this time people began to specialize in certain crafts as well. We know that artisans made weapons and jewelry that were traded with neighboring communities. They began to make pottery for cooking and storing grain. They wove baskets for storage. They began to refine stone tools to make farming easier. Religious shrines housing figures of gods and goddesses have been found in the ruins of these communities. And as people began to settle down they also began to make strict roles for men and women. Men assumed the primary responsibility for working in the fields and herding animals, jobs that generally kept them farther away from home. Women worked in the fields, but many remained close to home, caring for children, weaving cloth, and performing other household tasks. Over time work outside the home came to be seen as more important than work done at home, and so men came to play the most dominant role in human society. This created what we call a patriarchal society, or a society dominated by men.

Quiz Question #3

A few minutes ago, we discussed how we could cave drawings to learn more about people during the Paleolithic Age. But now, we’re in the Neolithic Age, and the people during this time left us a little more to study and learn about them. To help explain this, I want to show you a very brief video by Dr. Carol Symes, who is a historian at the University of Illinois.

Video: Challenges Involved in Studying the Distant Past

After the Neolithic Age came the Bronze Age, which starts at 3,000 BCE. Now remember, the Neolithic Age started in 10,000 BCE, which is older than the Bronze Age, which started in 3,000 BCE. Don’t forget that BCE years get smaller as we move forward in history. Now, at the start of the Bronze Age, people began to use metal in different ways. They discovered that certain rocks could be heated to liquefy metals within them. The metals that became liquid and came out of these rocks could be molded to produce tools and weapons that were more effective than just plain stone. At first, the metals that most people used were copper and bronze, which is why this time period is called “The Bronze Age”. However, towards the end of the Bronze Age, people also discovered iron, which is stronger than bronze and easier to work with. Also during the Bronze Age, organized writing systems emerged. We’re going to talk more about this in the next two parts of the lecture, when we talk about the ancient people of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but we see people writing for a variety of purposes- to keep government records, to keep up with their finances, to record their thoughts, and so forth and so on. And people began to develop armies and to build walled cities. As so, it’s during the Bronze Age that we can say that the first civilizations officially emerged. Now, to be clear, civilizations around the world didn’t all pop up at the same time at exactly 3,000 BCE. Some places had all of the elements of civilization earlier than others for various different reasons. But, historians can generally point to the Bronze Age- that period between 3000 and 1200 BCE- as the time when civilizations began to emerge around the world. In the next 2 lectures for this week, I’m going to focus my attention on 2 of the earliest civilizations to emerge: the Mesopotamians in Southwest Asia and the Egyptians in Northeast Africa. But first, I would like you to answer the 4th quiz question.

Quiz Question #4

 

Notes

[SLIDE] As we discussed in the first lecture for this week, civilizations began to develop around the world at around 3,000 BCE. So, for this second lecture, I’m going to discuss the earliest civilization in the world- Mesopotamia. As with before, there are quiz questions located throughout this lecture. So make sure you continue to pay attention.

Mesopotamia was a region located in Southwest Asia. Today this region is part of what we call the Middle East, in Iraq, Syria, and Iran. But the name “Mesopotamia” translates to "the land between two rivers." And the reason for this is because Mesopotamia relied on and grew up around the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. These rivers were the life force of the area. They made the soil in the area fertile and people were able to use the water for irrigation to farm. And this is going to be a common feature in these early civilizations. When we talk about the early Egyptians in the third part of this lecture, we’re going to see that their civilization developed around the Nile River for the same reasons.

The creators of Mesopotamian civilization were the Sumerians. By 3,000 BCE the Sumerians had established a number of cities, including Eridu, Ur, Uruk, and Lagash. If you’re an Old Testament expert you might recognize the name "Sumerian." In Genesis, it says that the birthplace of Abraham was in the city of Ur. The Bible does not tell us Abraham's nationality, but he was likely Sumerian. And he was certainly living in Mesopotamia when he allegedly received a message from God telling him to leave his father’s land and take his family to a new place. Sumerian cities were surrounded by walls, and they were quite large. Uruk, for example, occupied an area of about 1,000 acres, and it was encircled by a wall that was about six miles long, with defense towers located every 30 to 35 feet along the wall.  This is a picture of what's left of Uruk today. As you can see, the area of Mesopotamia had few stones or wood for building purposes. But it had plenty of mud, so buildings tended to be made out of sun-dried bricks.

Quiz Question #5

But the most important building in a city was the temple. A city’s temple was dedicated to the chief god or goddess of the city, and was often built on top of a massive stepped structure called a "ziggurat." Sumerians believed that the gods ruled the cities, which made Sumerian civilization a theocracy, a government based on divine authority. The Sumerians were also polytheistic, which means that they worshipped multiple gods and goddesses. The human rulers of the Sumerians claimed that the gods gave them the responsibility and authority to rule. In other words, the Sumerian kings described themselves as the agents of the gods and goddesses- and of course, this description discouraged their subjects from trying to overthrow them or challenge their authority. Now, even though the Sumerians were the creators of Mesopotamian civilization, they weren’t the only group of people living in the region. In fact, Mesopotamia would see the rise and fall of many different groups of people over the next few thousand years. And as a result, there were also many different languages spoken. You can see on the screen-- at the bottom of the screen that you're looking at-- some of the languages that came out of this area. The ones that are underlined are the languages that still exist today.

People in Mesopotamia also used writing to make records. The oldest Mesopotamian text dates to around 3,100 BCE, and they used a cuneiform system of writing. Using a reed stylus, they made wedge-shaped impressions on clay tablets, which were then baked or dried in the sun. Once dried, these tablets were virtually indestructible, and as a result, several thousand tablets have survived to the present day. What’s interesting is that cuneiform was used as the principal writing system by many different groups of people living in Mesopotamia despite the fact that it’s based on the sounds of the Sumerian language.

Quiz Question #6

Over time the concept of an empire emerged in Mesopotamia. An empire is a collection of cities and kingdoms under the control of one ruler. In the beginning, the cities of Eridu, Ur, Uruk, and others that popped up were independent and ruled by different kings. But, as some cities developed bigger and better armies and had more wealth to do so, some of those kings were able to conquer other cities, and they created an empire. The first Mesopotamian empire formed under a king named Sargon, who managed to conquer the independent cities of the region one by one, bringing them all under his control. The rulers that came after Sargon continued to expand the empire and develop different ways to maintain control over its different parts and their people.

Around 1792 BCE, a king named Hammurabi took control ovf the empire. Hammurabi called himself the Son of Babylon, the King who the four corners of the world obey, and he established his capital in the city of Babylon. Archaeologists found a collection of his letters, and these letters revealed that he was very interested in state affairs. He built temples, defensive walls, and irrigation canals, and he encouraged trade. He was also one of the first rulers to wage war in the name of a god- in this case, a god named Marduk. But Hammurabi is most famous for his law code. Hammurabi’s law code wasn’t the first law code in history- other rulers had written down laws to govern their people before. But it is important because it’s one of the earliest complete law codes that still exists for us to study. Hammurabi's law code was a collection of 282 laws, and these laws were written on a stele, which is a huge, upright stone pillar. You can see a picture of that on the right side of your screen. The laws in Hammurabi's law code tend to be laws of retribution, more commonly known as "an eye for an eye." For example, one law says that if a son strikes his father his hand shall be cut off. This style of law would go on to influence other ancient law codes, including the laws recorded by the Hebrews. More importantly, Hammurabi used his law code as a tool to unify the people. As the ruler of an empire, Hammurabi ruled over many different groups of people. But now, they all shared one law code. In addition, he used this law code to shape an image of himself as just and fair king. By creating a law code that laid out rules for every aspect of daily life and for every citizen of his empire, Hammurabi presented himself not as an impulsive king who made arbitrary commands, but as a king who acted according to a set of concrete rules. As you can imagine, this helped his people trust him more and reduced the risk of uprisings or rebellions.  Okay, here comes your last quiz question for this part of the lecture.

Quiz Question #7

 

In Lecture 1C, I mentioned adding a few additional videos about ancient Egyptian pyramids. Please click the links below to check them out. These videos are optional and not part of your course grades. All of these videos are around 3-10 minutes each. 

· The Excavation of Tutankhamun's Mummy in ColorLinks to an external site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtNodW1vFg0

· Egyptologists Open a Newly-Discovered PyramidLinks to an external site.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjiJrZD6_qY

Notes

Alright, you made it to the third and last part of this lecture. As with before, there are quiz questions placed throughout the lecture. With that being said, let’s talk about the ancient Egyptians.

At the same time that civilizations and empires were developing in Mesopotamia, they were also developing in Egypt. And just like in Mesopotamia, the first civilization in Egypt developed around a river; in this case, the Nile River. But while we can find rivers at the center of both of these ancient civilizations, those rivers were just different enough to drastically affect those two civilizations in different ways. To explain this further, I want to show you a brief video with Dr. Symes, the same lady we saw in the first part of the lecture. She is going to tell us a little more about how rivers affected Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt differently.

Video: Describe the Main Differences Between Mesopotamian and Egyptian Civilizations

Quiz Question #8

Now that we’ve discussed the significance of the Nile, we need to talk more specifically about ancient Egyptian history. That history is pretty long and complex. So, to help us make sense of the early history of the ancient Egyptians, historians divide that time into three major historical periods, the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, and the New Kingdom. We’re going to look at these different periods separately.

In the years leading up to the period of the Old Kingdom, the Egyptian regions were ruled by various tribal chieftains. But around 3100 BCE, rulers emerged who united the people living around the Nile under their rule, creating 1 Egyptian empire. These rulers came to be known as pharaohs, a title that translates to “great household.” This title suggested that the Pharaoh governed effectively using a bureaucracy- a collection of officials who carried out different duties. For example, during the Old Kingdom, pharaohs divided their territory into 22 provinces, called "nomes," and each province had its own governor called a nomarch, who answered to the pharaoh and made sure everyone was following the pharaoh’s laws and paying taxes to him. You'll notice in this image that the different green regions have separate numbers. The numbers represent each "nomes" or province in the Old Kingdom.  A system of writing also emerged during this time, which made it possible to keep records that helped to government function more effectively. This system of writing was made up of different pictures with different meanings known as hieroglyphics. These hieroglyphics appear on pyramids, wooden tables, and on papyrus, which was a type of paper made from papyrus reeds that grew along the Nile. It was also during the Old Kingdom that pharaohs started building pyramids, which served as giant tombs and also demonstrated the power and wealth of the Egyptian rulers. The Egyptians, like the Sumerians in Mesopotamia, were polytheistic in that they believed in multiple gods and goddesses, and they believed that these divine figures controlled the world and the experiences of people. The Egyptians, even more so than the rulers of Mesopotamia, connected their power to the gods. Whereas the rulers of Mesopotamia saw themselves as representatives of the gods, the pharaohs of Egypt often portrayed themselves as actual god. This served to increase the pharaoh’s control over his empire, because who wants to challenge an actual god? Pharaohs often claimed to be the “Son of Ra.” Ra was the sun god. The god of the land and also death was named Osiris. Osiris’s sister and also his wife was Isis, who was the goddess of the Nile River. Their child was named Horus. And Seth was Osiris’s brother. I want to stop for just a moment to tell you a really cool ancient Egyptian myth concerning the gods and goddesses. According to this myth, the God Osiris was the first pharaoh of Egypt, and he used his power to bring civilization to the land of Egypt. But his brother Seth was jealous, so he killed Osiris and hid his body. Isis, Osiris’s sister, located his body and briefly resurrected him, and conceived a child with him. When Seth found out about this, he hacked Osiris into pieces and tossed them into the Nile River. Isis, who was Goddess of the Nile, found the pieces of Osiris’s body, and with the help of the other gods, put him back together and preserved his body using mummification. This mummification turned Osiris into the god of the underworld and the dead. And accordingly, he judged all Egyptians once they passed into the afterlife.

Quiz Question #9

Beginning in the Old Kingdom. Egyptians hoped to gain life after death as Osiris had by also following the rituals of mummification. They developed very specific rituals that were carried out on the body of the deceased. The dead, embalmed and mummified, were placed in tombs. In the case of pharaohs and other elite people, these tombs were pyramids. The Egyptians believed that each person’s body contained a life force called the “ka.” The Egyptian “ka” is pretty similar to what we would today consider a soul. Egyptians believed that if the physical body was properly preserved through mummification and if the deceased had lived a good life, then their ka would enjoy immortality- life after death. With this in mind, Egyptians often buried their dead with things that they believed that ka would need in its afterlife. For example, pharaohs were often buried in their pyramids with chairs, boats, chests, weapons, games, dishes, and food. I’m going to include some short little videos at the end of this module that you can watch if you’d like to learn more about pyramids, the treasures that were buried in them, and what it’s like for archeologists when they open pyramids for the first time. These are all optional for you to watch, but they’re pretty cool, so I would encourage you to watch one or all of them.

Around 2160 BCE, the Old Kingdom came to an end. Historians are not entirely clear why, but pharaohs lost much of their power and the empire of Egypt fell apart. For about a little over 100 years, Egypt fell back into a region of multiple small kingdoms controlled by different small kings and chiefs. Around 2055 BCE, a king named Mentuhotep (Men-too-hah-tep) united Egypt again and began the Middle Kingdom- the second time period of ancient Egyptian history. The pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom began to expand the empire of Egypt to include the region of Nubia to the South, and they began to trade more with other kingdoms. This expansion and outside interaction marked a shift in Egyptian thinking. Whereas in the Old Kingdom, the Egyptians were busy developing their own civilization and its practices and ideas, during the Middle Kingdom, they began to look outward, and they became more aware of the threats and benefits that other groups of people offered their empire. As a result of this change in thinking, Egyptians came to see pharaohs more as shepherds who protected their people from the bad of the outside world.

The last period of ancient Egypt was the New Kingdom, which began around 1550 BCE. As I mentioned before, during the Middle Kingdom, Egyptians became more aware of the threats that outside groups posed to their empire. And this fear was not without cause. Around 1700 BCE, foreign armies invaded and took over. After about 150 years of foreign rule, an Egyptian pharaoh took control of Egypt and reunified the empire. This marked the beginning of the New Kingdom and during this time, Egypt came back stronger than ever. Pharaohs regained control over Nubia and continued to expand to conquer Palestine and Syria to the east. Adding to this, it was also during this time that a female pharaoh took power. Hatshepsut (haht-shep-soot) was the wife and sister of Thutmose II. It was actually fairly common for pharaohs to marry their sisters. Although this practice might seem a little gross to us today and we know now that it also leads to some unsavory genetic issues for children produced by siblings. But the pharaohs practiced sibling marriage for two main reasons. It followed the story of Osiris and Isis that I told you about before, and it allowed the pharaohs to keep power exclusively within the family. When Thutmose II died, Hatshepsut took over and became pharaoh. And she shared power with her daughter, Neferure (neh-feh-ruh-reh), who acted as queen. To demonstrate that she was the legitimate ruler of Egypt, Hatshepsut was often portrayed in images as masculine with men’s clothing and a beard. During Hatshepsut’s reign and more generally during the New Kingdom, Egypt prospered.  Wealth poured into Egypt due to the pharaoh’s control over gold mines in Nubia and taxes received from their territories in the East. Pharaohs used this gold to boost the power of their armies and, in connection, their own power within the empire. Pharaohs regained their status as gods on Earth. Due to the power of their military and as evidenced by their conquests, the pharaohs no longer had to emphasize their role as protectors of the empire. It just wasn’t something they had to convince people of.

 In this lecture, I focused on the civilizations and empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt, but there were other civilizations popping up around the same time. One such civilization emerged in England. You may have heard or seen pictures of Stonehenge, which was built sometime between 2,100 and 1,900 BCE in England. The structure of Stonehenge is made up of multiple rings of standing stones that weigh about four tons each, and we think that the people of the area cut and moved these stones over 135 miles to their present location. Historians and archaeologists aren't completely sure what Stonehenge was used for. Perhaps it was used for religious rituals. What is important, though, is that we know that there was a civilization in that area. Civilizations also emerged in what today we called Greece, and around other areas of the Mediterranean and throughout France and Germany. And, of course, a civilization was also emerging in what would be called Israel and Syria. We'll talk about those civilizations in my next lectures. Okay, get ready because here comes your tenth and last quiz question.

Quiz Question #10

 Notes

Last week we discussed the origins of civilization. And we looked closely at the early civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, which emerged at the start of the Bronze Age around 3,000 BCE. In addition to being civilizations, Mesopotamia and Egypt also developed into empires- in which one ruler had control of multiple regions or kingdoms.  This week we’re going to look at the years 1500-500 BCE in two short lectures. The first lecture will discuss the Hebrews and the development of monotheism. And the second part will discuss the mega empires that existed at the same time and interacted with the Hebrews. But before we get started, I just want to remind you that the two lectures for this week contain a total of 10 quiz questions, so make sure you pay attention. With that in mind, let’s get started!

As I just mentioned, this week, we will be looking at the period of 1500 to 500 BCE. And while the Mesopotamians and Egyptians created some cool empires, they were nothing compared to the empires that came about during this time period. Historians often call the empires of this time period “the Club of Great Powers.” This club included the empires of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, and the Greeks. These empires engaged in trade with each other, they borrowed architectural, military, and religious ideas from each other, and their rulers often made political deals and even established friendships with each other. In this week’s lecture, we’re going to focus our attention on the empires of the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians. You can see them in bold on your screen. Next week, we will discuss the Greeks.

In general, the empires that belonged to this Club of Great Powers were all famous for their grandeur, their military might, and their big cities and political power. And we’ll explore that further in the second lecture for this week. But in addition to their flashiness, these empires are significant due to their interactions with another much smaller civilization- The Hebrews. But as we’re going to see, even if the Hebrews were much smaller and honestly, much weaker than the empires I mentioned, they were ultimately more important to history. I’m going to spoil the ending a bit and go ahead and tell you that the Hebrews gave Western Civilization monotheism. They revised the relationship between people and the divine. And their religious laws, practices, and values became the religious roots for other later major religions that are important for Western Civilization, namely Christianity and Islam. With that being said, let’s discuss the Hebrews and how they came to be.

Quiz Question #1

The Hebrews wrote down their ideas and stories about their origins and history, and this became the Hebrew Bible. If you identify as Christian, you might know that the Hebrew Bible was also later incorporated into the Old Testament. The Hebrew Bible is made up of 24 books. And these books give us a lot of insight into who the Hebrews were. They tell us that the Hebrews were descendants of the patriarch Abraham. If you remember back to last week, I told you that Abraham was originally from the city of Ur in Mesopotamia. According to the Hebrew Bible, Abraham and his family migrated from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, located in present-day Israel and Syria. The Hebrews- those descendants of Abraham- did not stay in Canaan, however. According to the Hebrew Bible, a drought in Canaan eventually forced many Hebrews to migrate to Egypt, where they lived peacefully until they were enslaved by the pharaohs of Egypt, who used them as laborers. These Hebrews remained enslaved in Egypt until Moses led them eastward out of Egypt in the 13th century BCE. After this famous exodus, the Hebrews then wandered for many years in the desert until they returned to Canaan. You can see their presumed path on the map on the right. To be clear, historians debate when the books of the Hebrew Bible were written, who wrote them, and the truth behind the stories. But, when we study the Hebrew Bible in connection with archeological evidence and other sources from the time period, we can say with some certainty that between 1200 and 1000 BCE, the Hebrews had emerged as a distinct group of people in the land of Canaan. And within Canaan, they organized themselves into 12 tribes. By 1025 BCE, these 12 tribes created a united kingdom- the Kingdom of Israel- and they chose a man named Saul to be their first king. King Saul was followed by King David around the year 1000 BCE. King David created a royal court complete with a harem; he established a system of tax collection, an army, and a system of government. David was followed by his son, Solomon, who raised the Kingdom of Israel to the pinnacle of its power and prosperity. One of Solomon’s greatest achievements was the construction of a grand temple in Jerusalem, which became the center of religious worship. But the united kingdom of Israel did not last long. After Solomon died, around 930 BCE, Israel was divided into a northern and a southern kingdom. As you can see in the map on the right, in the North was the Kingdom of Israel, and in the South was the Kingdom of Judah.  In 722 BCE, the Assyrians conquered the 10 tribes in the Kingdom of Israel and deported many of its residents to other parts of the Assyrian Empire. These deported Israelites eventually merged with the Assyrians and lost their identity. If you’ve ever heard of the 10 lost tribes, this is where that came from. In 586 BCE, the Chaldeans, under the command of King Nebuchadnezzar II, conquered the Kingdom of Judah and destroyed Jerusalem and the temple that Solomon had built centuries before. Like the Neo-Assyrians, the Chaldeans deported many of the residents of the Kingdom of Judah to other parts of their Empire. This event was known as the Babylonian Exile. But fortunately, when the Persians took over, these deported residents of Judah were allowed to return to their land and rebuild their temple. We’ll talk more about that in just a moment. Over the centuries, the Hebrews, and specifically the Judeans, developed a religion known as Yahwism, which eventually became known as Judaism.  

Quiz Question #2

Let’s turn now to talk about Judaism. Judaism developed out of a religion known as Yahwism. The main tenets of Judaism are recorded in the Hebrew Bible along with the stories and traditions of the Hebrews. According to Yahwism and later, Judaism, there is only one God. The idea that there is only one God is called monotheism, and Yahwism was the first monotheistic religion as far as we know.  [SLIDE] But the Hebrews didn’t start out as a monotheistic group. In their early years, Hebrews were polytheistic in that they worshiped gods who represented different aspects of nature. By 1000 BCE, the cult of Yahweh had been established, but it existed alongside the worship of other gods. During the reign of King David at the end of the 900s BCE, the Hebrews shifted to what’s known as monolatry (mono-latry), which is the worship of one god without denying the existence of others. This means that the Hebrews were mostly worshipping Yahweh alone, but they didn’t deny that there were other gods. Now, a few minutes ago, I told you that the Assyrians conquered the Israelites in 722 BCE and deported them. When this happened, the Assyrians agreed not to do the same thing to the people of Judah, but only if the Judeans worshipped their chief god, Assur, along with Yahweh. The Assyrians thought that this would encourage the Judeans to become Assyrian in identity over time, but what actually happened was that Hebrew religious leaders pushed back against the influence of the Assyrians by emphasizing even more that Yahweh alone was God. They understood that the continuing worship of Yahweh alone was the only way for the Judeans to remain Judeans. They didn’t want to end up like the Israelites who had lost their identity and became Assyrian.

So, we can point to this time, 722 BCE, as the beginning of true monotheism for the Hebrews, and specifically the Judaeans, who were left after the Assyrians conquered and assimilated the Israelites. This means that the Judaeans not only solely worshipped Yahweh, but they believed that he was the only god for all people. There were no other gods.

I want to stop now for just a moment and show you a quick video by Dr. Symes. I think she does an excellent job of explaining the shift for the Hebrews from monolatry to monotheism. Make sure you pay attention as this video will be followed by a quiz question.

Quiz Question #3

After the Assyrians conquered the Israelites, the Hebrews in the Kingdom of Judah continued to develop the strictly monotheistic religion of Judaism. They began to depict him as a just god, who rewarded the good and punished the evil.  The Hebrews declared that Yahweh had created everything- - the stars, moon, rivers, wind, all of this was the handiwork of one god.

 In 586 BCE, when the Chaldeans conquered the people of Judah and deported them during the Babylonian Exile, the Judeans took the same approach that they did with the Assyrians and clung even tighter to their faith as a way to resist becoming Chaldean. During the Babylonian Exile, the Judeans continued to develop Yahwism. It was actually because of the Babylonian Exile that Yahwism came to be known as Judaism.

Yahweh evolved as a God of mercy and love, with whom each person, regardless of their economic class or gender, could have a personal relationship. But even though Yahweh is a God of love and mercy, he expected obedience from his people. According to tradition, that expected obedience was in response to a law code that was first established when the Hebrews entered into a covenant- a sort of contract- with Yahweh. the covenant between Yahweh and the Hebrews, Yahweh promised to take care of the Hebrews if they agreed to obey him and follow his law. The original law code that was established by the covenant supposedly came about when Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt and into Canaan. But it was only much later, during the Babylonian Exile that all of the laws were written down and brought together to form the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, also known as the Torah. The law code of the Torah lays out how followers of Yahweh, now known as Jews, should live their lives individually, how they should relate to other Jews, and how they should interact with those who follow other religions. It also includes the Ten Commandments- You shall not kill, you shall not steal, etc. As I mentioned last week in my lecture about the Mesopotamians, the laws of Hammurabi appear to have influenced later law codes, including the laws of the Torah. Like the Code of Hammurabi, the laws in the Torah tend to be laws of retribution- an eye-for-an-eye. But there are also big differences. I’m going to ask you to compare the differences and similarities between the laws of Hammurabi and those in the Torah in the assignment for this lecture. You’ll want to pay close attention to how the two law codes approach economic class and social status differently, as well as how the poor, foreigners, and other vulnerable groups of people are to be treated. But first, get ready for another quiz question.

Quiz Question #4

Notes

In the first lecture for this week, we discussed the development of the Hebrews in relation to the ginormous empires that existed around them- the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, and the Persians. So, in this second lecture, I’m going to talk more specifically about those empires. We’ll start with the Assyrians. The Assyrians as a group of people had existed since around 1900 BCE, but they didn’t establish an actual empire in Mesopotamia until the 800s BCE. In that period of about 1000 years, before they established an empire, the Assyrians were controlled by other powerful civilizations, including the Sumerians, the Hittites, and the Kassites. Beginning in 883 BCE, however, an Assyrian ruler emerged named Assurnasirpal II (As-sur-nah-sur-pahl) who developed new military and political techniques that enabled the Assyrians to take control of Mesopotamia and establish an empire. Historians distinguish this new, empire-establishing group of Assyrians from their ancestors by calling them the Neo-Assyrians. By 700 BCE, the Assyrian Empire had reached the height of its power and included Mesopotamia, Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), Syria, Canaan, and Egypt up to the city of Thebes. There were a few reasons that the Assyrians were so successful in building an empire:  

1. Neo-Assyrian kings created an efficient system to keep control of their subjects. They stopped the practice of allowing people to inherit political positions and instead appointed people who demonstrated loyalty to them. And they made sure that their loyal officials had an efficient way to communicate with them. They created a relay system using horses and messengers who would carry messages throughout the empire. This system was so effective that a governor located at the edges of the empire could send a question to the king in his palace and receive an answer within a week. Finally, the Neo-Assyrians modeled their laws on the Code of Hammurabi, which means that they too had laws of retribution. But Neo-Assyrian rulers increased the severity of penalties with the idea that it would keep their subjects in line.

2. They had effective military leaders and fighters. The Neo-Assyrians were able to enlist and deploy troops numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Although the army was huge, it was extremely well-organized and disciplined. Being an Assyrian soldier was a profession rather than a seasonal activity, and soldiers were armed with iron weapons that were more effective and of higher quality than the bronze weapons still being used by their opponents. The Assyrian army included armored shock troops, equipped with a variety of thrusting weapons and bearing tall shields. These shock troops were accompanied by horse-drawn war chariots that were used as mobile platforms for shooting arrows. The army also trained a highly skilled corps of combat engineers to undermine city walls and build siege engines, battering rams, and battle towers. The Assyrian army also used a very effective military technique called “calculated frightfulness” to conquer new territory and maintain control of conquered people. This meant that the Neo-Assyrians created a climate of terror as an instrument of warfare. When trying to conquer a city or region, they set crops on fire, looted and destroyed smaller towns, and cut down trees in order. They also made examples of prisoners of war. One king wrote, “I fixed up a pile of corpses in front of the city’s gate. I flayed the nobles…and spread their skins out on the piles…and on the walls.” The Neo-Assyrians counted on the fact that people in other towns and regions would receive word of their violence and would decide to surrender instead of trying to fight the Assyrian armies. Consequently, calculated frightfulness allowed the Assyrians to conquer regions quickly without having to carry out lots of expensive, time-consuming battles. They would also use calculated frightfulness against people they had already conquered in order to discourage them from trying to rebel. As you can imagine, this approach to building an empire and conquering people didn’t inspire a lot of loyalty from the people they conquered, but it was very successful in putting down and keeping conquered people down.

Quiz Question #5

3. The Neo-Assyrians were also successful because they were not afraid of mixing with other people. In fact, the Assyrian policy of deporting prisoners of newly conquered territories to different parts of the Assyrian Empire created a society in which ethnic differences were not very important. The Neo-Assyrians used this approach because they recognized that conquered groups were less likely to rebel if they were forced to become Assyrians. It has been estimated that, over a period of 3 centuries, the Neo-Assyrians conquered and deported between 4 and 5 million people, resulting in an Assyrian population that was racially and linguistically mixed. As I mentioned in the first lecture for this week, the residents of the northern Kingdom of Israel were conquered by the Neo-Assyrians. When this happened, they were deported to other parts of the Assyrian Empire and eventually lost their distinct Israelite identity. The Neo-Assyrians were polytheistic- they believed in many gods and goddesses. However, when the Assyrians conquered a new region, they demanded that the people living there worship and acknowledge the superiority of their chief god Assur. In fact, when this happened, when a new group of people was conquered, the Assyrians practiced a form of ritual humiliation of the defeated people’s gods. Statues of conquered gods would be carried off to the Neo-Assyrian capital, where they would remain as hostages. Conquered people did not have to abandon their previous gods completely, but they were made to feel their gods’ inferiority.

Quiz Question #6

In the 7th century, the Neo-Assyrian Empire fell to the Chaldeans- who are also sometimes called the Neo-Babylonians, as you can see on the map on your screen. The military of the Chaldeans wasn’t any better than that of the Assyrians, but the Assyrians had begun to fight with each other and disagree on how to rule the empire, which allowed the Chaldeans to come in and take over.  Under King Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BCE), the Chaldeans defeated the Neo-Assyrians and gained control of Syria, Canaan, and the Kingdom of Judah. The Chaldeans used the same technique of deportation that the Assyrians had before them. For example, in 586 BCE, when the Chaldeans conquered the Kingdom of Judah, they deported the people of Judah and forced them to live in other parts of their empire. This was called the Babylonian Exile. The Chaldeans used deportation for the same reasons as the Assyrians. Like the Assyrians, the Chaldeans understood that deporting conquered people to other parts of their empire was a means of control and forced assimilation. But in addition to this, the Chaldeans also used deportation as a means of filling labor shortages. The deported upper classes of conquered people often were allowed to live at the royal course, where they were treated well, as long as they accepted Chaldean rule. Most of the deportees, however, lived in villages, where they were required to turn over most of their harvests to their landlords and pay taxes to the temples of local gods.

Quiz Question #7

As king, Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the city of Babylon. He oversaw the construction of the Ishtar Gate of Babylon. This gate was decorated was figures of the dragon of Marduk, the patron god of the city of Babylon, and the bull of Adad, the god of storms. The gate was named after Ishtar, the Chaldean goddess of war and sexual love. The city of Babylon also included the famous Hanging Gardens, which became one of the 7 wonders of the world. The gardens were supposedly built to satisfy Nebuchadnezzar’s wife, who was not from Babylonia. According to the records, the queen missed the mountains of her homeland. So, Nebuchadnezzar fashioned the gardens as a series of terraces, so that they looked like an artificial mountain. Flowers and plants cascaded down the slopes of a terraced hillside. In addition to this, the Chaldeans devoted resources to restoring roads and canals and to expanding the irrigation systems. And even more, the Chaldeans made huge progress when it came to science, and specifically astronomy. Confident that knowledge of the stars would uncover the will of the gods, Chaldean astronomers recorded the movements of the stars, the planets, and the moon. By 500 BCE, they had accumulated so much data that they could perform complex mathematical computations to predict eclipses of the moon and sun. The Chaldeans also gave us the names of many constellations and the zodiac, which includes 12 signs connected to those constellations. So, if you know that your birth sign is a Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorn, that came from the Chaldeans. This is all pretty amazing stuff, and for some time, it looked like the Chaldean Empire had all the necessary ingredients to become a long-term successful empire. But the splendor and power of the Chaldeans proved to be short-lived. They only kept control until 539 BCE, less than a century after they took control of the region. Like the Neo-Assyrians before them, the Chaldeans began fighting with each other, which weakened their ability to defend their borders. As a result, the Persians were able to come in and take over.  

Quiz Question #8

The Persian Empire: In 539 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus attacked the Chaldeans, and so many people were fed up with the Chaldean leaders and their policies, that they actually welcomed King Cyrus as their liberator. Centuries before they took over, the Persians were a group of tribes located in what is today western Iran. In 559 BCE, King Cyrus managed to unite these tribes under his rule. Soon King Cyrus and his army successfully conquered western Asia Minor (Turkey) and western India. In 539 BCE, Cyrus and his armies entered Mesopotamia and captured Chaldean Empire. Unlike the Assyrians and Chaldeans before them, the Persians treated the people they conquered nicely. This was probably because most of the people they conquered welcomed King Cyrus and his Persian army with open arms. Why punish a conquered people if they invited you in? When we talked about the Chaldeans, I told you that the Hebrews had been forcibly deported from the Kingdom of Judah to other parts of the Babylonian Empire- this was called the Babylonian Exile. When the Persian King Cyrus took over, he issued an edict permitting the Hebrews to return to the Kingdom of Judah and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem that had been destroyed by the Chaldeans. He also allowed conquered people a large degree of autonomy. They were allowed to engage in their own cultural and religious practices connected to their own gods without harassment. Many were also allowed to exist as semi-independent vassal states. Which means that they were generally allowed to maintain their own leaders and laws as long as they acknowledged the rule of the Persians and paid taxes to them. King Cyrus had a genuine respect for ancient civilization- in building his palaces, he made use of Assyrian, Chaldean, and Egyptian practices. Cyrus believed that he was creating a world empire that included people who had ancient and wise traditions and practices.

Quiz Question #9

A few years later in 530 BCE, Cyrus died in battle. From what we can gather, he was much loved by the Persians as well as by the people he conquered. The Persian kings after Cyrus continued to expand the Persian Empire. By 490 BCE, the Persians created the largest empire the world had ever seen. Kings divided the Persian Empire into 20 different provinces- called satrapies, which were governed by officials called satraps.  The different blocks of color on this map represent the different satrapies of the Persian Empire. Each satrapy was ruled by a governor, called a satrap. These satraps collected taxes and tributes from their territory and sent them to the Persian king, and they were responsible for keeping order in their satrap and making sure that the people under their control contributed to the Persian armies. In addition to this, the Persians also established an extensive road system. The longest road was called the Royal Highway and it stretched 1600 miles from the Persian Gulf all the way to the Aegean Sea. These roads were important for a number of reasons. They facilitated trade across the empire so that people all the way in the eastern part could buy and enjoy goods that came all the way from the Mediterranean. They also enabled quick communication between the king at the center and officials in other parts of the empire. To help with this, the Persians, like the Assyrians before them, used a relay system. Horseback riders were positioned a day’s ride from each other so that once one rider reached the next stop, a fresh horse and rider would be ready to carry letters and messages to the next one. An extensive imperial spy network also used this system and served as the “eyes and ears” of the king. And finally, the Persian armies could also use the roads to travel across the empire quickly when it was under attack.

Unlike the Assyrians and the Chaldeans, the Persians were monotheists- they only believed in one supreme God. They followed a religion called Zoroastrianism. This religion was started by a man named Zoroaster, a Persian who probably lived in the early 600s BCE. And it actually still continues today. There are still pockets of people who practice Zoroastrianism in India, Iran, and Pakistan. According to legend, Zoroaster experienced visions about a god named Ahura Mazda. According to Zoroaster’s visions, Ahura Mazda was the supreme God who brought all things into being and who was the essence of truth and righteousness. There is nothing wrathful or wicked about him, and his goodness extends to everyone, not just to one people or tribe. This should sound a little familiar to the Hebrews with Yahweh, if you remember back to the first lecture for this week. But unlike Yahwism, Zoroastrianism emphasizes opposites. If there is good, there must also be evil; if there is light, there must also be darkness. So, Ahura Mazda is constantly battling an evil force named Ahriman. Although Ahriman is considered a divine force, Zoroastrianism claims that he is vastly weaker than Ahura Mazda. But, even still, priests of Zoroastrianism claim that light will not triumph over darkness until the Last Day, when the forces of Ahura Mazda vanquish those of Ahriman forever. In connection with this idea of good vs. evil, followers of Zoroastrianism had to choose between good and evil throughout their lives, and their souls faced a final evaluation after death. The soul of a good person who had performed good deeds would achieve paradise; but if their deeds had been evil, the person would be thrown into an abyss of torment. Zoroastrianism was important because its core beliefs were about a powerful evil spirit opposed to God, an apocalyptic ending in which good triumphs over evil, the judgment of a soul after death, and an afterlife in Heaven or Hell influenced other monotheistic religions, including Christianity and Islam. Keep in mind that the Persian Empire remained the primary force in the Middle East until 334 BCE when Alexander the Great took over. We’ll talk about him in a couple of weeks.  

Quiz Question #10

Notes

Last week, we discussed the Hebrews and their relationship with the Club of Great Powers. This week, we're going to discuss another civilization that belonged to the Club of Great Powers and developed around the same time as the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Persians, but in a different part of the Mediterranean. We're going to look at the Greeks. For the Greeks, we’re going to start way back in 2500 BCE and go all the way up to 338 BCE. Remember that BCE years move backward and get smaller as we go forward in time. And to make this even more complex, the “Greeks” during this period of over 2000 years, actually represent a few different civilizations that came and went. I have broken my discussion of the Greeks into two lectures, and these lectures contain a total of ten quiz questions. With that in mind, let’s get started.

Greece is located on the Mediterranean. This location encouraged the Greeks to interact with other civilizations in the Mediterranean through trade, culture, and, of course, war. As I mentioned a few minutes ago, when we talk about the people of Greece, we're actually talking about a number of different civilizations that lived in this area beginning in 2500 BCE. The earliest civilization in Greece emerged on the large island of Crete, which is southeast of the Greek mainland. By 2500 BCE, a group of people were living in Crete and using bronze to make weapons. This group of people, who we call the Minoans, reached the height of their existence between about 1900 and 1500 BCE. During that time, the Minoans developed what’s known as a palace system. In this system, a small group of people held most of the money and power in society. They built huge palaces that stood at the center of their cities and towns. The palace system wasn’t unique to the Minoans, it was actually a pretty common feature for all members of the Club of Great Powers. The Assyrians and Chaldeans, for example, also had a palace system. But in Minoan society, the wealthy elite lived in these palaces, while the rest of the regular Minoans lived in houses built around them. The most famous of these palaces was located in the city of Knossos. On the right side of the screen is an image of what historians believe the palace of Knossos looked like. The palace in Knossos spread out over 3 acres. It included hundreds of rooms situated around a central courtyard. These rooms included living areas for political and religious leaders, government offices, and shrines for religious rituals. The palace even included bathrooms with plumbing. The palace’s intricate web of winding hallways may have inspired the story of the Labyrinth.

If you’re at all familiar with Greek mythology, you may have heard this story before. The legend concerns a monster called a minotaur that had the body of a man and the head of a bull that lived during the reign of King Minos, for whom the Minoans were named. This monster was supposedly the offspring between King Minos's wife and a snow-white bull sent by the god Poseidon to King Minos for sacrifice. Instead of sacrificing it like he was supposed to, King Minos kept it for himself. And as punishment, Poseidon made King Minos’s wife fall in love with the bull, which led to a monstrous offspring, the Minotaur. The name “minotaur” actually translates to “Minos’s bull.” When King Minos saw the minotaur, he shut him into a labyrinth, which is a sort of maze with lots of confusing passageways and blind alleys. Later, King Minos’s son was killed by an early group of Athenians on the mainland of Greece. King Minos sought to avenge his death by demanding 7 Athenian youths and 7 maidens be sent every year to be devoured by the minotaur. After the third year of sacrifice, the Athenian hero Theseus volunteered to go. When Theseus arrived, King Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, gave him a ball of string with which he could unravel to retrace his steps and make it out of the labyrinth after killing the minotaur. After Theseus succeeded in killing the minotaur, he made it out with the other Athenian girls and boys sent to be sacrificed and escaped with them and Ariadne back home. Although, I will add, one version of the story actually ends with Theseus dropping Ariadne off on the island of Naxos before he continued on to Athens. What’s really interesting is that the legend of the Minoan minotaur may reflect a small nugget of truth. The Minoans worshipped a god in the form of a bull and sometimes even a bull-man. And even more, the Minoans were known to engage in a very dangerous sport known as bull-leaping. Similar to bullfighting but involving an element of athletic dance.

Quiz Question #1

But getting back to the palace of Knossos- even if the sprawling palace of Knossos inspired this frightening tale, we know that in reality, the inside of the palace was spectacular. The rooms of this palace were decorated with frescoes, which is a type of painting you put on walls. These frescoes were done in bright colors that depicted sporting events and scenes of nature. And storerooms in the palace held enormous jars of oil, wine, and grain. And we know that the Minoans traded their stockpile of goods with other civilizations. In particular, the Minoans were known for their textiles, pottery, and metal work. Archeologists have found Minoan pottery in Canaan and Egypt and western Turkey, and in exchange, they have found foreign luxuries in Crete, like Egyptian amulets. Artistic influences also traveled along trade routes. For example, Minoan-style frescos appear regularly in Egyptian architecture from this time period.

Minoan civilization on Crete collapsed around 1400 BCE. And some historians believe that a tsunami triggered by a powerful volcanic eruption was responsible for destroying society in Crete. It's also possible that some early communities from the Greek mainland invaded and destroyed the cities and towns, including Knossos. Perhaps it was both.

Following the Minoans, the Mycenaean civilization was located on the mainland of Greece. The Mycenaeans entered this area around 1900 BCE, and remained until 1100 BCE. Like the other empires we've discussed, Mycenaean civilization was hierarchical. It had the king at the top, who used the title "wanax". Below the king, or wanax, were the commanders of the army, the priests, and the government officials. Below them were the merchants, peasants, soldiers, and artisans.   And finally, at the bottom, were the slaves. The Mycenaeans were a warrior people who prided themselves on their heroic deeds in battle. In fact, they may have contributed to the downfall of the Minoans in Crete.

We know that the Mycenaeans were military-minded because an ancient Greek author named Homer wrote about them in his famous books The Iliad and The Odyssey. In The Iliad, Homer describes the Trojan War. He claimed that the war was started by a prince of the city of Troy named Paris. Prince Paris had kidnapped a woman named Helen, who was the wife of the King of Sparta. The brother of the King of Sparta was a man named Agamemnon. And he was the king of the Mycenaeans- the wanax. In Homer's story, Agamemnon, king of the Mycenaeans, helped his brother, the king of Sparta, by leading his Mycenaean army to attack Paris and Troy. According to Homer, the Mycenaean armies were the primary reason that the king of Sparta won the Trojan War and got his wife back. But by 1200 BCE, Mycenaean civilization began to fall apart, too. And there were two reasons for this. First, earthquakes caused widespread damage to their buildings and institutions. And second, there's evidence that, like the Minoan civilization before them, the Mycenaeans were attacked by another group of people mysteriously called the ”Sea Peoples”. Some historians believe that the Sea Peoples were actually the Philistines, who finally withdrew to Palestine after being defeated by the Egyptians. But regardless, by 1100 BCE, the Mycenaean civilization came to an end.

Quiz Question #2

Between 1100 and 800 BCE, the people living in Greece endured a Dark Age. During this time, the population declined, and food production dropped. Archaeology shows us that former vibrant Mycenaean cities were depopulated by as much as 90 percent. In the absence of leadership, the people of Greece who had survived the invasions that destroyed Mycenaean civilization began to fight with each other for land and power. This created hardship for the people of Greece, but it did actually produce some good. As people fought with each other, they started using iron weapons instead of bronze ones. The minerals used to produce iron were more plentiful, making weapons cheaper to make. And iron, of course, is stronger than bronze. The result was that the people of Greece had more numerous and more effective weapons than ever before. Using these weapons, different groups of people began to conquer the lands around them to form independent regions that would eventually become the Greek city-states. A city-state is exactly as it sounds. It’s a region with a central city that serves as the political, religious, and social center of the region. You can see the different Greek city-states on the map on your screen. The city-states that developed in ancient Greece are very similar to what we have today in the United States. We have states with capital cities, and these capital cities are where government buildings are located and where officials meet and make decisions about the state. But unlike our states today, which are part of a larger unit, the United States, the ancient Greek city-states were independent, with their own laws, leaders, and forms of government. It was also during the Greek Dark Age that they adopted an alphabet from a different group of people- the Phoenicians and added vowels to it. After the fall of the Mycenaeans, the Greeks essentially lost their written language and had to reestablish a new one. Having an alphabet enabled the Greeks to communicate with each other, create law codes, and write down their history, their legends, and songs.

By 800 BCE, the Greeks began to settle down and the Dark Age came to an end. This initiated two new eras: the Archaic period, which lasted from 800 BCE to 500 BCE, and the Classical period which lasted from 500 BCE to 338 BCE. Relative peace between the Greeks in the Archaic Era allowed them to focus on developing their city-states and as a result, the concept of the polis emerged. The term “polis” comes from the words “politics” and “political” and it had 2 meanings. The polis referred to the identity of the people living in a particular city-state- like the Athenians or the Spartans. As we’ll talk more about in a few minutes, this group identity came with political and social responsibilities to the state. In addition to identity, the term polis also referred to a city center. In the Archaic Age, the Greek cities evolved similarly regardless of which city-state they were located. When a person visited a Greek city, they would expect that they would be organized around a center where political, religious, and social activities took place. In this center or polis, you would normally find the agora, which is where markets and important meetings were held. It was also where most of the city’s temples were located and where government buildings were established. In the picture on your screen, you can see what remains of the polis of the city of Athens, which was located on a raised piece of land called an acropolis. The residents of the city of Athens lived in the area encircling the Acropolis. Again, in the United States today, we tend to have a similar layout for our own cities. In the city of Shreveport, for example, if you want to go to the courthouse, you’re likely going to go downtown. This is also where many of the theaters and conference centers are located. And we can expect a similar urban organization if we travel to other cities in the nation.

Quiz Question #3

So, the Greek city-states were focusing on themselves- they had their own independent identities- their own polis- and as we’ll see, they often fought with each other, but they still shared a common, general Greek identity. And this is most clearly shown in the panhellenic games, also known as the Olympics, which began in 776 BCE. The Panhellenic games took place every four years to honor the king of the gods, Zeus, near his giant temple at Olympia. Athletes who participated in these games were from all over Greek civilization, not just from one city-state. In addition, all wars between Greeks ceased while the games took place. So, sports represented one way that people could come together to express their shared Greek identity.   

In addition to the development of the polis and a common Greek identity, the city-states of Greece enjoyed a couple of other common elements. The ancient Greeks, regardless of which city-state they belonged to, generally divided their population into 2 categories: citizens and non-citizens. Citizens were considered superior. Both men and women could be citizens, but only adult male citizens had political rights, which often included the right to vote. But these political rights were coupled with responsibilities. The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that the citizens did not just belong to themselves. He said: we must regard every citizen as belonging to the state. The idea of citizenship created a Greek society that was quite different from the other empires we've already examined. Beginning in the Greek Archaic Age, political leaders were often elected by citizens to run the community rather than inheriting power. And male citizens were expected to perform their civic duty by serving and protecting the city-state. Ranked below citizens were the non-citizens. Non-citizens could be resident aliens- these were foreigners who paid taxes and could serve in the army but did not have political rights. Slaves represented another category of non-citizens. A good example of this took place in Sparta. When the Spartans established their city-state, they enslaved another group of native people called the helots, who were forced to farm the land for Spartan citizens.

The Greek city-states also all developed similar military organizations and techniques. By 800 BCE, a new military order came into being that was based on hoplites. Hoplites were heavily armed foot soldiers who wore bronze or leather helmets, breastplates, and greaves, which were essentially shin guards. Each hoplite carried a round shield, known as a hoplon, which is why these soldiers were called hoplites. They also carried a short sword and a spear that measured about nine feet long.  Hoplites advanced into battle as a unit, shoulder to shoulder, forming what they called a phalanx. A phalanx was a rectangular formation in which the men stood in tight order, usually about eight ranks deep. In this formation, each hoplite carried his shield on his left arm to protect the unshielded right side of the man next to him. In his right hand, he carried his spear. The result was that the phalanx presented a nearly impenetrable wall of armor and weaponry. If a man in the front row fell, the one behind him stepped up to take his place, and each soldier aided in the assault by leaning with his shield into the man in front. As long as the hoplites kept this order, they suffered few injuries and deaths and were often successful against their enemies. Unlike the soldiers of the empires we’ve already discussed, the Greek hoplites were not professional soldiers. Most did not make a career out of being a soldier. Instead, the Greek hoplites were generally citizen-soldiers. They were regular citizens who came together when necessary to protect their city-state. These citizens were expected to purchase and maintain their own weapons and armor and they were expected to be trained and organized enough to come together to defend their city-states when necessary. As we’ll see, some city-states placed more emphasis on this training and organization than others.

Question #4

Notes

In the first lecture for this week, we discussed early Greek civilizations, including the Minoans and the Myceneans. If you remember, both of these early civilizations were eventually destroyed, leading to a dark age full of civil war and anarchy. However, eventually, the Greeks got it together and laid the foundation for a new civilization. This new civilization was made up of independent city-states that shared quite a few commonalities. They all included a polis that gave people a political identity and helped to organize the layout of cities. The city-states all tended to have the same categories of citizens and non-citizens for their residents. All of the city-states also participated in the Olympic Games and even shared a similar military organization in the form of hoplite warfare. But despite their commonalities, the two Greek city-states eventually developed as the most important and most powerful out of all of the city-states. These 2 city-states were Sparta and Athens.

The goal of the Spartans was to maintain stability and conformity. And as a result, they emphasized political and social order, which was maintained through an emphasis on the military. The lives of Spartans were rigidly organized. At birth, all children were examined by state officials, who decided whether they were fit to live. Those judged unfit were left outside to die. At the age of seven, boys and girls were placed under the control of the state to be educated. This education was mostly physical and focused on exercise, gymnastics, and other physical drills and competitions. At the age of 12, girls were returned to their homes to focus on their domestic education, while boys were placed in barracks to continue their military education. In the barracks, boys were subjected to harsh discipline to make them tough, and given an education that stressed military training and obedience to authority. At age 18, Spartan males were enrolled in the army for regular military service. Although they were allowed to marry, Spartan men continued to live in the barracks and ate their meals in public dining halls with their fellow soldiers. The meals there were very simple. One of the most famous recipes was for the Spartan black broth, which consisted of a piece of pork broiled in blood, salt, and vinegar. Upon tasting this broth, one visitor to Sparta wrote that he now understood why Spartan men were not afraid to die. At the age of 30, Spartan males were recognized as citizens and were allowed to vote and live at home. They remained in the army, however, until the age of 60.

The political system in Sparta was known as an oligarchy, which means that a small group of Spartans held control of the government. This is different from a democracy in that a democracy expects all citizens with political rights to actively participate in the governance of their state. In Sparta, all male citizens over the age of 30 were members of a citizens’ assembly known as the apella. They were allowed to vote on laws and policies created by the elite political officials and elect some of their officials, but that was the extent of their political activity. The much smaller group of elite political officials who did most of the governing fell into two groups. There were 2 kings who inherited their power- in the sense that they became kings because their fathers were kings before them. But these kings didn’t have unlimited power. They made decisions in collaboration with a group of 28 elders over the age of 60. Together, these 28 elders and the two kings made up the Gerousia. The 28 elders were elected by members of the Apella and served for life, but only upper-class Spartans could become elders. The Gerousia helped to create laws and policies and they also served as the top judicial court for Spartans and could hand down severe sentences like death or exile. In addition to the Gerousia were the 5 Ephors. The Ephors, like the elders of the Gerousia, were elected and also only came from the upper, elite class. But unlike the Gerousia, ephors were only elected for one year and could not hold that position again afterward. Ephors were responsible for supervising the educational system of Spartan youths and acted as guardians of Spartan tradition. If we look at the Spartan government altogether, we see that even though elections and voting occurred in Sparta, only the small number of Spartan elite could run the government- this is what made it an oligarchy, rather than a democracy.

Quiz Question #5

I want to talk briefly about Spartan women. Spartan male citizens focused most of their time and energy on the military. Spartan men could marry at the age of 18, but they had to remain in the military barracks until age 30, and even after that, they were expected to devote themselves to Spartan brotherhood. Spartan men were so focused on the military that most didn’t even farm their own lands. Instead, they relied heavily on the enslaved helots to do it. Due to the fact that Spartan men were so devoted to their military duties and fellow soldiers, Spartan women had greater freedom than women in other Greek city-states. The fact that their husbands were away allowed Spartan women primary control over their households and young children. They were allowed to own and inherit land, and they often supervised large estates. As with men, physical health was very important for women. They were encouraged to exercise and remain fit in order to bear and raise healthy children. Spartan women upheld the strict military values of their city-state. They expected their husbands and sons to be brave in war. There was one famous Spartan story in which a Spartan mother told her son who was going off to war that he should come back either carrying his shield victorious or on it. To make their military state secure, the Spartans deliberately turned their back on the outside world. Foreigners, who might bring in new ideas, were discouraged from visiting Sparta. And except for military reasons, Spartans were discouraged from traveling abroad, where they might pick up new, threatening ideas and practices. Spartan citizens were discouraged from pursuing philosophy, literature, the arts, or any other subject that might encourage new ideas that could undermine the stability and conformity of the state. Raised from early childhood to believe that total loyalty to the Spartan state was the basic reason for existence, Spartans viewed their military as the foundation of their society. As we'll see, this is very different from the Athenians, who emphasized individual differences and stressed freedom.  

Let's turn now to look at Athens. Unlike the Spartans, the Athenians emphasized political and social individuality and freedom. By 594 BCE, Athens began developing a democracy under the leadership of a man named Solon. A democracy is a form of government in which the people share equally in the governing of their communities. They created their own political institutions, and they selected their own leaders. Unlike Sparta, where a small group of elite men made most government decisions, the Athenians expected all male citizens to participate in the government of their city-state. The Athenian government included a citizen assembly called the Ekklesia. All male citizens over the age of 18 belonged to the Ekklesia and could vote for officials. Sound familiar? While the US government isn’t a true democracy, it’s actually a democratic republic, but some of our political practices and traditions come from Athenian democracy. This includes the practice of allowing all citizens over the age of 18 to vote and participate in politics. But in order to make the Athenian government more democratic, they also had a Boule, which was made up of 400 to 500 citizens, 100 from each class. Boule members voted on issues of war, peace, and public policy, and other citizens could come before the boule to voice their complaints and ideas. This organization made it possible for all male citizens in Athens to hold office and participate in government (and many did at least once in their lives). The archons were elected officials who held executive power over the government and presided over Boule. These archons were originally only members of the wealthy elite, but over time this position also opened up so that men from all classes could be elected an archon.

Quiz Question #6

During the Archaic age of Greek civilization, the Greeks began to expand outside of the mainland to other regions of the Mediterranean, primarily for economic reasons. This made a lot of Greeks very wealthy, but it also meant that they bumped into other aggressive civilizations and empires. In my lectures for last week, we discussed the Persians. If you remember, the Persians took over the area of Mesopotamia after the Assyrians and the Chaldeans. And by 490 BCE, the Persians had created the largest empire the world had seen up to that now. Now, after the Archaic Age of Greek civilization came the Classical Age. This Age represents the years 500 to 338 BCE. And during the Classical Age, the Greeks began to butt heads with the Persians. When writing about the Persians, the Greeks compared their different forms of government. They recognized that, whereas the Greek city-states had citizens who controlled their different governments, the Persians were ruled exclusively by kings, and their subjects didn't have a say in what happened to them. The Greeks tended to look down on this as inferior to their way of doing things. And they saw the Persians as a threat to their forms of government and way of life. In short, the Greeks and the Persians did not like each other at all. Just to give you an example of this, in one Greek text from this time, the author records a conversation between a Greek and a Persian. The Persian expresses surprise that the Greeks would raise spears against his emperor. The Greek responds, that the Persians “understand how to be [slaves], but [they] know nothing of freedom.” He goes on to tell the Persian, “Had you tasted [freedom], you would advise us to fight not only with spears but with axes.” In the years leading up to the Persian Wars, the Greeks created colonies on the edges of the Persian Empire and alliances that threatened the Persian king. Finally, in 490 BCE, the Persian King Darius had enough of the Greeks, and he sailed across the Aegean Sea and attacked the Athenians. The Persian and Greek armies were very different. The Persians had lightly armed troops who were more mobile and flexible and relied on attacks from a distance, often through bows and arrows or by throwing things using catapults. The Greek hoplites, on the other hand, were armed with heavy shields and relied on spears and swords used at close range. When the Persians invaded, the Athenian army was outnumbered, but the Athenian hoplites charged the Persian army in their phalanx formation and managed to crush the Persian forces.

Although the Athenian army won, they knew that the Persians would be back. Consequently, many of the Greek city-states decided to create an alliance known as the Hellenic League under the leadership of Spartan military leaders. I’m sure you can understand why they chose the Spartans to lead this allied defensive league. Sure enough, 10 years later, in 480 BCE, the Persians invaded again. Their military forces were massive-- close to about 150,000 troops, 700 naval ships, and hundreds of supply ships invaded Greece. The Greek plan was for an army of 9,000 Spartan troops to hold the Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae. And this would give the 300 Greek ships a chance to destroy the Persian supply ships. The Greeks knew the Persian army were depending on these supply ships to keep fighting. The Spartan army of 9,000 soldiers held the Persian army of 150,000 soldiers for three days. In true Spartan form, when they were told that Persian arrows would darken the sky in battle, one Spartan warrior supposedly remarked, “This is good news. We will fight in the shade.” Unfortunately for the Spartan army, a traitor told the Persians about a mountain path that the Persians could use to outflank the Spartan forces. The Spartan army fought to the last man. This only left the 300 Greeks ships. Although the Greek ships were outnumbered 300 to 700, they managed to outmaneuver the Persian fleet and defeat the Persians.  

Quiz Question #7

After the defeat of the Persians, the Athenians continued to develop their democracy to make it even more inclusive of all people, regardless of economic and class. This was likely in response to the Persian threat. If the Persians had won, they would have taken over and destroyed the Athenian democracy. With this possibility in mind, the Athenians tried to make their form of government even stronger, more inclusive, and more widespread. In the 460s BCE, an Athenian named Pericles was elected and he used his political power to give members of the Ekklesia more say in their government. Instead of just voting yes or no on laws created by other officials, they too could now propose and change laws. In addition to this, Pericles created a policy that reimbursed Athenian citizens for the costs of traveling to and attending assembly meetings. This made it easier for poorer citizens to participate in government, and as a result, thousands of Athenians attended these assembly meetings.

But while the emphasis in the Athenian city-state on true democracy made it so that a diverse group of citizens ran the government, which was great, it put Athens and Sparta at odds with each other. After the Persian wars, the Spartans left the defensive league and went back to their old ways of relative seclusion. In contrast, the Athenians forced many of the other Greek city-states in the defensive league to remain. The Athenians began to intervene in their politics and impose taxes on them in the name of spreading democracy. The Athenians believed that their form of government was ideal and made them natural leaders of the Greeks.

Eventually, the Spartans took note of the Athenian’s growing power and began to feel threatened by it. In 431 BCE, tension between the Athenians and Spartans erupted in the Peloponnesian War. The Peloponnesian War wasn't one continuous battle. Instead, it was a series of battles that took place over a period of about 30 years. These battles divided the Greek city-states, with some city-states allied with Athens, some allied with Sparta, and some who remained neutral. In the end, Sparta defeated Athens and ended the war. But conflict continued between the Greek city-states for years afterward.  Now, we often see this issue throughout history. The Greek city-states were unified when they were fighting a common enemy, the Persians. But once they defeated the Persians, they began to bicker with each other. In the short term, this bickering caused the Peloponnesian War. In the long term, it weakened the Greek city-states, making them susceptible to attack. By this time, you may have noticed a bit of a trend. In-fighting weakened and ultimately caused the downfall of the Assyrians, and the Chaldeans, and it would ultimately cause the downfall of the Greek city-states. In 338 BCE, King Philip II of Macedonia, a region located to the north of the Greek city-states, conquered the Greeks. We'll talk more about him in my next lecture.  

Quiz Question #8

Before we end, I want to talk very briefly about the culture in the Greek city-states. It was during the Classical Age that literature, art, drama, and philosophy reached its pinnacle. Writing about history was a Greek creation. Prior to this, “history” was more about myths and heroic tales. People simply didn’t place as much value as we do today on what we consider to be factual information. This changed with a man named Herodotus, who wrote a history of the Persian Wars, which is considered to be the first real work of history for Western Civilization. Herodotus developed a new approach to studying the past that emphasized the need to collect and interpret multiple sources and focus on why events happened rather than simply making the Gods responsible for everything. In his history of the Persian Wars, Herodotus describes the origins of conflict and the resulting battles between the Greeks and the Persians. Herodotus traveled widely for his information and gathered stories from different people about the wars. In fact, the information I gave you about the war between the Persians and the Greeks came primarily from what Herodotus wrote.  In addition to writing about history, the Greeks also created the concept of drama as we know it. The actors of Greek plays were usually two or three male actors who wore masks to act out all the different parts. And a chorus stood in the background and sang a narrative to explain what the actors were doing. Plays were presented in outdoor theaters called amphitheaters. You can see an image of this on the right side of your screen. We still use this setup today for plays and different performances- like concerts.

The most common Greek dramas were tragedies, which were plays based on the suffering of the main character. And they usually ended in disaster. Greek plays were used to educate citizens. And for that reason, it was supported and funded by the government. The audience was supposed to recognize a lesson or moral in the play- often they were supposed to identify where the main character in a tragedy had gone wrong. These morals included the ideas that evil acts breed more evil acts, that everyone suffers, and that humans can only operate within the limitations imposed by the gods. One of the most famous Greek playwrights was a guy named Sophocles. His most famous play is Oedipus the King. In this story, a man named Oedipus accidentally kills his own father and unknowingly marries his own mother.

Another type of Greek drama was comedy. Comedic plays tended to deal more openly with current events, including sexual scandals, political corruption, and popular fads. One of the greatest comedic playwrights was the Athenian Aristophanes. Aristophanes made fun of everything from famous philosophers like Socrates to politicians and other playwrights. No one was safe Aristophanes, and as a result, he was regularly dragged into court to defend himself against the people he made fun of.

I want to stop here for just a moment to show you a quick video by Dr. Symes about Greek comedies and their connections to our modern forms of satire. Make sure you pay attention because as before, this video will be followed by a quiz question.

Quiz Question #9

Philosophy also came into its own during the Classical Age. “Philosophy” is a Greek word that literally means love of wisdom. Much of Greek philosophy was focused on trying to explain the world and the way men should conduct themselves in it. One of the most famous Greek philosophers was named Socrates. And he believed each person, regardless of class or education, was capable of learning and obtaining knowledge. He believed that the only thing necessary for one to find this knowledge was a willingness to critically examine the world around them. One of his most famous sayings was “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Socrates created a method of learning and instruction called the Socratic method. In the Socratic method, the instructor uses questions to lead his students to the answer. In this manner, students learn through their own reasoning and logic. Socrates’s stated goal was to help humans better understand and live according to the ethics of a democratic society. But as you can imagine, his approach of constantly questioning everything could lead to the undermining and lack of confidence in certain traditions and political institutions and laws. Unfortunately, in 399 BCE, the democratically elected courts of Athens condemned Socrates to death for denying the gods, for disloyalty to Athens, and for supposedly corrupting the youth. And although his friends tried to help him escape, Socrates insisted on following the laws and remaining in prison, proving himself true to his own principles. He died by the punishment decided by the courts- self-administered poison. It is bitterly paradoxical that Socrates, whose freedom to question the world should have come from Athenian democracy, was put to death by the democratic processes. Frankly, it’s a lesson that we should continue to keep in mind for modern Western society, which continues to idealize democracy.

Let's talk a little bit about religion in Classical Greece. So Greek religion was integrated into every aspect of daily life. And besides government buildings, temples dedicated to the gods and goddesses were the major buildings of Greek society. The Greeks believed that the gods and goddesses controlled the entire world. And as a result, it was important for Greeks to perform religious rituals and worship the gods correctly, not only for their individual sake but for the sake of the entire community. In other words, if each person didn't worship the gods and goddesses correctly, the entire world might go to hell in a handbasket. Religion and correct worship were necessary for the well-being of everyone. [SLIDE] The Greeks believed in 12 chief gods and goddesses, who supposedly lived on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. This means that the Greeks were polytheistic. They believed in multiple gods and goddesses. And there were 12 main gods and goddesses. And you will see them listed in your screen. The 12 Olympian gods were common to all Greeks, and each city usually identified one of the 12 as its guardian. For example, Athena was the patron goddess of Athens. The worship of the gods normally included both prayer and gifts. Greeks made ritual sacrifices of animals, and placed crops and other gifts at shrines dedicated to individual gods and goddesses, depending on their present needs. For example, if you were going on a sea voyage, you might make a sacrifice to Poseidon, the god of the sea.

The Greeks also constantly wanted to know the will of the gods. The most famous method of finding this out was through the use of an oracle, who was a priest or priestess who was able to communicate with the god through divination. Divination was a ritual that allowed the oracle to gain an understanding of a divine action, or to see the future. The most famous oracle was located in Delphi. The priestess there listened to questions and then offered a response that was believed to come from the god Apollo. Local priests then interpreted her response for the person asking the question. All sorts of people traveled to Delphi to consult with the oracle there. For example, a government official might ask whether they should undertake a military expedition, or a wife might go to ask if she'll have a child in the future. What’s interesting and perhaps slightly amusing, is that modern geologists have found evidence of hallucinogenic gases preserved within the stones of the temple where the Oracle of Delphi was located. These gases likely came from two fault lines that lie near the area, and it seems likely that they very much affected the prophecies that the Oracle gave. One thing that we can say for sure is that the Greeks were a very interesting group of people. And they would continue to heavily influence later civilizations, including the Hellenistic Civilization, which we’ll discuss next week.

Quiz Question #10

Notes

In my last lectures, I discussed the development of Greek civilization in the Greek peninsula between the years of 2500 BCE and 338 BCE. But Greek culture wouldn’t remain exclusively within Greece itself. Rather, in the years after 338 BCE, the expansion of Greek culture would continue outwards throughout the Mediterranean and far beyond. This expanded Greek culture created what is known as Hellenistic civilization. Just a quick review—last week, I explained that Greek civilization started with the Minoan civilization, then developed into the Mycenaean civilization. The Greeks experienced a dark age during which everyone was fighting with each other and laying claim to territory that evolved into independent city-states. And after this, Greek civilization saw two ages-- an archaic age, and a classical age. During these ages, Athens formed a democracy and Sparta formed an oligarchy. This was also when the Greeks fought the Persians and won and then turned to fight each other in the Peloponnesian War.

During the Archaic and Classical ages, which took place between 750 and 338 BCE, large numbers of Greeks from different city-states left their homeland to settle in distant lands. So many Greek communities were established in southern Italy that the Romans later called this area "Magna Graecia" or "Great Greece" because so many Greeks lived there. Greek settlements were also established in southern France, eastern Spain, and Egypt, and west of Egypt, throughout Northern Africa. And in the east, the Greeks settled along the shores of the Black Sea in what is today, Turkey. On the map on your screen, the green shading represents the Greek colonies in the east and the west. The Greeks settled in other lands, primarily to make money through trade. The Greeks traded their pottery, wine, and olive oil for the resources in these new areas. They obtained grain, metals, fish, timber, wheat, and slaves. Wherever the Greeks went, they took their culture. But even though the Greeks introduced their culture to a lot of different people in the archaic and classical ages, this was nothing in comparison to what would happen later. Beginning in the 300s BCE, new rulers would build the biggest empire the world had seen up to this point. And those rulers would carry Greek culture to the far reaches of the Earth. In doing so, they established a new civilization-- the Hellenistic civilization. This civilization existed from 323 BCE to 31 BCE.

The question is, who were those new rulers, and what happened to Greece? After Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War, the city-states entered a period of decay. Athens restored a semblance of democratic governance, but it was never more than a shadow of its former self. Sparta took over as the unofficial leader of the Greek city-states, but the Spartans were also struggling due to the losses they suffered during the war. As a whole, by the 300s BCE, the Greeks were weak and vulnerable. And as we’ve seen before, these sorts of circumstances made it easy for another civilization to come in and take over. And that’s exactly what happened.

In 338 BCE, a man named Philip II of Macedonia invaded the Greek city-states with his armies and conquered the entire Greek peninsula. The Macedonians were located just north of the Greek peninsula. You can see Macedonia at the top-left side of the map on your screen. The Macedonians were not Greek. Prior to the 300s BCE, the Macedonians were organized into tribes with kings instead of city-states. Their armies and military tended to just fight each other rather than work together. And the ancient Macedonian language was not Greek, although the elites would have spoken Greek as their second language. The Macedonians occasionally participated in the Olympic games, but mostly the Greeks viewed the Macedonians as inferior strangers, as barbarians. In 356 BCE, Philip II became king of the Macedonians. Philip was an interesting guy. He was the third and youngest son of his father, King Amyntas III, and was thus considered disposable enough to send to the Greek city-state of Thebes as a hostage when he was 14. This was a pretty common practice during this time. Royal children were often political pawns and were often exchanged as hostages in order to ensure alliances. As you can imagine, a king was less likely to go against his word with his ally if that ally had his child. Generally, kings sent their youngest children, who weren’t direct heirs, to be hostages but they still had interests in keeping all of their children safe. And it actually turned out pretty well for Philip. He remained a hostage in Thebes for three years, but the leaders of Thebes treated him very well and he studied under the best Greek philosophers and military theorists of the time. And he used that education well after his two older brothers died and he became king of the Macedonians in 356 BCE. Philip II was so successful and ambitious as king of the Macedonians that by 338 BCE, he not only changed the entire perception of Macedonia, but he also conquered all of the Greek city-states and brought them under his rule.

Let's look now at how Philip was able to rule Macedonia so successfully and conquer the Greeks. One important change he made was to create a standing army of professional soldiers who were skilled at fighting and always ready to fight. This was different from what the Greeks did and what the Macedonians had done before, which was to call on regular citizens to be occasional soldiers. And these professional soldiers used the Greek phalanx system- remember this was the military formation used by the hoplites in which they stood shoulder to shoulder in a rectangular shape. In fact, Macedonian soldiers looked very similar to the Greek hoplites, but Philip upgraded their weapons. Macedonian soldiers carried a smaller shield and a shorter sword than Greek hoplites. And their spears were much longer. Instead of the 9-foot spear that the Greek hoplites carried, Macedonian soldiers carried an 18-foot spear-- double the size. The result was that Macedonian soldiers could reach their opponents quicker. In addition to professional foot soldiers, Philip organized an elite cavalry squad, called the Companions, who fought with and beside the king. These young men were drawn from the Macedonian nobility, whose loyalty Philip cultivated. He made it so that it was considered one of the highest honors to be a member of the Companions. And in addition to foot soldiers and the Companions, Philip also created a corps of engineers to develop siege weapons, like towers and catapults. Philip also strengthened the bond between the king and his soldiers. To give each soldier a sense of unity and solidarity, Philip required an oath of allegiance to him. Each soldier would no longer be loyal to a particular tribe but would be faithful only to the king. To further strengthen the bond, King Philip also fought alongside his soldiers and shared directly in the dangers of battle. And in fact, throughout his 46 years of life, Philip became increasingly scarred and disfigured in battle. The ancient sources are quite detailed in describing Philip’s many wounds, ranging from a missing eye to a broken collar bone, and a maimed arm and a lame leg. The fact that Philip was willing to risk his own health and life in battle rather than just sit back and let others do the fighting for him, gave his soldiers the perception that they were all in this together. Due to these innovations, Philip's army easily crushed the Greeks in 338 BCE. As I’ve mentioned before, the Greeks made it all the easier because, by the time Philip invaded, they no longer had a common enemy and were just fighting with each other.

Quiz Question #2

When it was clear that Philip II had won and would be in control, he offered Greek leaders a pretty good deal. He brought the Greek leaders together in the Greek city of Corinth and formed what became known as the League of Corinth. Philip offered this league control over the internal affairs of their own city-states if they agreed to submit to Philip’s authority and take an oath of loyalty to him. This was their oath. They said, “I swear by Zeus, Earth, Sun, Poseidon, Athena, Aries, and all the gods and goddesses, I will abide by the peace. And I will not break the agreements with Philip the Macedonian. Nor will I take up arms with hostile intent against any one of those who abide by the oaths, either by land or by sea.” So, even though the Greeks would now have a king rather than an oligarchy or a democracy, Philip wasn’t overly oppressive or authoritative as long as no one rebelled. But Philip didn’t do this out of the goodness of his heart. Rather, this approach allowed Philip the time and energy to focus on continuing to expand his empire. Ultimately, Philip intended to conquer the Persians to the east. Unfortunately, before he could do so, he was assassinated in 336 BCE. And his son, Alexander, took over.

Quiz Question #3

Alexander was only 20 years old when he became King of Macedonia. Alexander would only be king for 12 years. But he achieved so much during those 12 years that he has ever since been called "Alexander the Great". As a boy, Philip II had taken Alexander with him on his military campaigns and allowed him to practice leading troops and going into battle. In fact, Alexander had fought alongside Philip when he conquered the Greek city-states. Consequently, Alexander was groomed from birth to be a military leader. But since Alexander was pretty young when his father died, he was seen as weak and other leaders looked like they might try to take the throne from him. Recognizing this threat, Alexander moved quickly to assert his authority and demonstrate his strength as a ruler. One of the ways that he did this was by putting down a Greek rebellion in the Greek city-state of Thebes. When Philip II died, the people of Thebes saw it as a good opportunity to regain their complete independence from the Macedonians. Putting down the rebellion of Thebes was relatively easy for Alexander, but as I mentioned- he needed to make a show of it. So, he used extreme force. He sacked the city, killing most of its male residents, and selling the women and children into slavery. And in doing so, he demonstrated his military strength and political power. And his competition backed down. If you remember back when we talked about the Assyrians, Alexander’s use of extreme force with Thebes is reminiscent of the Assyrians' use of calculated frightfulness. Alexander didn’t just want to put down the rebellion in Thebes, he wanted to show everyone else what would happen to them if they also tried to rebel or overthrow him.

After he demonstrated his control over Macedonia and Greece, Alexander pursued his father's previous goal, which was to conquer the Persian Empire to the east. There's no doubt that Alexander was taking a chance in attacking the Persian Empire. It was still a strong empire. And Alexander's army was inferior to that of the Persians. In addition, Alexander was lacking in money, which meant that his army was going to be forced to live off the countryside and win quick victories in order to gain the resources it needed to continue. In the spring of 334 BCE, Alexander entered the Persian Empire through Turkey with his army. Today, Turkey is located in the region colored purple on the map on your screen. But by all accounts, Alexander was a bit cocky. He actually took historians with him to Persia so that they could document his victories. But it seems that he was right to do so, because within a year, in 333 BCE, Alexander had conquered the western half of Turkey, which was part of the Persian Empire. When Alexander began to conquer parts of Persia, he adopted the tactics of King Cyrus who established the Persian Empire centuries before after conquering the Chaldeans. Like King Cyrus before him, Alexander offered amnesty and kindness to cities that submitted peacefully, but he dealt mercilessly with those who resisted. After Alexander conquered Turkey, he kept moving east. By the winter of 332, about a year and a half later, Alexander had possession of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. In Egypt, Alexander was hailed as pharaoh and a god himself. And as he went along, Alexander had new cities built and named after him-- for example, Alexandria in Egypt. Alexandria became, and remains today, one of the most important cities in the Mediterranean.

By this time, Alexander had made a really big dent in the Persian Empire. And the Persian Emperor Darius III was feeling a little scared. He had underestimated Alexander. The Persian emperor offered Alexander all the land west of the Euphrates River in an effort to stop his progress. But Alexander refused. He wanted everything-- not just a piece of the Persian Empire. By 330 BCE, Alexander had conquered all of Persia. In fact, as Alexander closed in on the rest of Persia, King Darius shamefully fled, abandoning his entire household, including his wife and mother. Darius was eventually killed and Alexander treated his surviving family with great respect. But Alexander wasn't content with Persia. He wanted more. Over the next three years, he moved east and northeast, as far as modern Pakistan. By 326 BCE, Alexander had conquered the Indus Valley, which is today the northwestern part of India. Up to this point, Alexander's army had been really supportive. But by the time they got to India, they had been fighting for eight years. They were tired. And they wanted to go home. So when Alexander indicated that he intended to keep going, his army revolted. And they refused to go any further. So Alexander agreed to their demands. He'd led his troops through southern Persia across the Gedrosian Desert, where, unfortunately, many died due to the heat and the lack of food and water. You can track Alexander's route on the map on your screen by following the purple arrows and lines. The Gedrosian Desert is located just at the bottom right side of your screen. Alexander and his army made it back to the city of Babylon by 323 BCE. The city of Babylon is located in the center of your map. There in Babylon, Alexander died at the young age of 32. Historians aren’t entirely sure what Alexander died of. It may have been malaria. Some have speculated that he was poisoned. Others believe that he died as a result of his battle wounds and excessive alcohol. Regardless, everyone agrees that Alexander was the most successful military leader and king in the history of mankind up to that time.

Quiz Question #4

Now there are a few reasons why Alexander was so successful. First, he demonstrated superb tactical skills. He often had a much smaller army than his enemy. But Alexander was able to assess the topography of the battlefield and make plans that took advantage of the strengths and weaknesses of his enemies’ forces, as well as his own. He also inspired his troops through a personal example. Alexander pushed his troops mercilessly, often catching his enemy by surprise as a result of the quick march. But he also maintained a personal interest in his troops. And for the most part, until his campaign in India, he kept their intense loyalty. This was because, like his father before him, Alexander participated personally in all of the battles, often endangering his own life. In fact, we knew that he was wounded at least eight times over the course of his long military campaign. Alexander also recruited anywhere he could. Over time, his original troops declined. This was due to death or because Alexander assigned his men to be administrators in the new lands he conquered. So, as he went along, Alexander recruited conquered men to replenish his troops.

Quiz Question #5

Notes

But as I mentioned before, Alexander only ruled his humongous empire for 12 years and he had no heir. His infant son, Alexander IV, was unfortunately murdered soon after his death. With no other heir, Alexander’s giant kingdom was quickly divided. By 275 BCE, there were three main kingdoms carved out by Alexander’s former generals. These generals went on to establish dynasties that would maintain control over the Hellenistic kingdoms for the next couple of centuries. Dynasties are families of rulers who passed down control of the kingdom to members of that family. The three Hellenistic kingdoms and their dynasties were Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Asia, and Antigonid Macedonia and Greece. 

As I mentioned before, the Macedonians weren't Greek per se. But both Alexander the Great and his father, Philip II had a huge appreciation for Greek culture. And the Macedonians adopted much of that Greek culture for themselves. As Alexander took over new lands and expanded his territory, he spread Greek culture. In doing so, he continued a practice that the Greeks had begun during the Archaic Age when they began moving into other parts of the Mediterranean because of trade. But Alexander spread Greek culture and ideas far beyond what these previous Greeks could ever imagine. The word "Hellenistic" comes from a Greek word that means, "to imitate the Greeks". Wherever Alexander went, he established Greek culture that conquered people adopted into their ways of living. In doing so, Alexander helped to create a new Hellenistic civilization that extended from the western part of the Mediterranean through the Persian Empire all the way to the northwestern part of India. Alexander died in 323 BCE. But the Hellenistic civilization he helped to establish existed until at least 31 BCE. The years between 323 and 31 BCE are thus known as the Hellenistic era. This era marks a time when most of the known world shared one culture- Greek culture.

Quiz Question #6

So the question is, how did Alexander instill Greek culture into areas he conquered? Well, he did this in a number of different ways. First, in the places he conquered, Alexander primarily appointed Greeks and Macedonians to important administrative positions. Starting out, it was important for Alexander to put people in leadership positions who he knew would be loyal to him. As a result, from the perspective of the conquered people, being Greek meant power. Since everyone in power knew the Greek language and had Greek political ideals, if a native person wanted to gain an administrative office, he also had to know the Greek language and accept Greek political ideals. This gave an incentive to local people to become Greek if they wanted political offices. Alexander and his successors also built new settlements and cities in conquered territory. As I mentioned before, Alexander founded the city of Alexandria in Egypt. And that city became one of the most important in the Mediterranean. If you look carefully at the map on your screen, you'll notice a few red dots. Those are all cities that Alexander founded as he went along. And when he founded a new city, he often used Greek and Macedonian architects and engineers to build it. As a result, these new cities were laid out in the same fashion as Greeks cities. Political buildings, temples, and amphitheaters stood at the center of these newly established cities just like they did back in Greece. These cities also tended to use the same Greek codes of laws. And when the cities were built, thousands of Greeks and Macedonians moved to them in the hopes of making money through trade or acquiring political positions. In fact, between 353 and 225 BCE, the population of mainland Greece was reduced by as much as 50 percent due to so many Greeks moving to other parts of the Hellenistic world. These immigrants brought with them their Greek culture and ideas. And since the new cities that Alexander and his successors built looked nearly identical to Greek ones, this forced the native population to live like the Greeks. Adding to this, the fact so many different lands were combined into one giant empire under Alexander and then three Hellenistic kingdoms that shared a Greek culture- this encouraged the trade of Greek products throughout the known world. Being able to obtain Greek products became a symbol of elite status in conquered territories, which made Greek culture even more widespread.

Quiz Question #7

But the spreading of culture didn't just happen in one direction. As people brought Greek culture to the far reaches of the world, these people also absorbed the ideas and customs of the newly conquered territories. As a result, the Hellenistic age, over time, reveals a sort of fusion of Greek with non-Greek ideas and practices. Let's look at some examples of this. Alexander actually was the first to try to mix Greek and non-Greek practices and people. Before his death, he announced a plan to train Persian youths to fight alongside Greeks and Macedonians. He also arranged a mass marriage between hundreds of his officers and a corresponding number of Persian noblewomen. He also adopted Persian dress and encouraged the ritual performance of proskynesis (pros-kin-EE-sis). This was a gesture of bodily submission performed by Persians to honor their king. The person paying homage would bow deeply, in some cases laying completely on the floor, and then kiss the emperor’s hand. The Greeks didn’t like this practice as it seemed to suggest that the Persians worshipped their king as a god. But Alexander likely saw the adoption of this practice as a way to level the differences between Persians and Greeks and begin to knit together a unified empire.  

As I mentioned, Alexander's empire was eventually split into three successor kingdoms. And the rulers of these kingdoms often mixed local practices and traditions with their own Greek ones. This was partly due to the fact that adopting native practices made these foreign rulers look more legitimate and thus discouraged revolts against them. And it was partly because the Hellenistic rulers came to appreciate and see the validity of local practices and traditions. For example, many Ptolemaic rulers in Egypt adopted the Egyptian custom of marrying their sisters in order to keep power within the family. Of the first eight Ptolemaic rulers, four of them married their own sisters. The Seleucid rulers in what was formerly Persia adopted the royal titles that ancient rulers had used. For example, King Antiochus always introduced himself as “Great King, legitimate king…king of Babylon, king of all countries,” which was the same way that the famous kings Sargon, Hammurabi, and Cyrus referred to themselves.

Quiz Question #8

But the mixing of Greek with native practices and ideas extended beyond just the rulers of the Hellenistic kingdoms. The Greeks who moved into other parts of the Hellenistic world were introduced new to scientific and mathematic ideas that they integrated into their own practices. Greeks in Alexandria picked up the practice of dissection and vivisection. Dissection is cutting apart and examination of dead bodies. Vivisection, on the other hand, is the dissection of living bodies. These living bodies often belong to criminals. And as a result of this practice of dissection and vivisection, Greek society gained huge amounts of knowledge about how the brain, eye, liver, and the reproductive and nervous systems work. In addition, Greeks and Macedonians learned new things about the world around them, using the knowledge they picked up from the conquered societies. During the third century BCE, some Greek thinkers accepted a heliocentric view of the universe. In other words, they believed the Sun stayed still, while the Earth and the other planets rotated around it. Prior to this time, people tended to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe, and everything moved around it. Greeks in the Hellenistic era also theorized that the Earth was round. A man from Alexandria, named Eratosthenes (Eh-rah-Tos-then-ees) calculated the Earth's circumference at 24,675 miles. This estimate was only about 200 miles off from the correct number. The same man also developed a system of latitude and longitude and suggested the possibility of reaching Asia by sailing west. In regards to Mathematics, a man named Euclid produced a masterful synthesis of geometry in his work called Elements. Elements remained the standard geometry textbook until the 1900s. As in, less than a century before our present time. Equally famous as a mathematician was Archimedes of Syracuse, who calculated the value of Pi, which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. And as a result, Archimedes was able to measure the diameter of the sun. The same Archimedes also reportedly built a huge mirror that focused the sun on incoming warships, burning holes in their sails.

Greek society also accepted new ideas about philosophy. In the early 300s BCE, epicureanism became very popular. The philosophy of epicureanism is based on the idea that one’s experiences were just random luck. There was no divine plan or higher purpose. Instead, things just happened as they happened. And since everything that happened to you was random and without meaning, then one might as well live a life that brought you as an individual the most pleasure. For an Epicurean, the only duty a person had was to themself, and the only reason to live virtuously was to increase one’s own happiness. Stoicism also developed, which had the same goal as Epicureanism, which was happiness. But Stoicism achieved it through different means. Stoics believed that happiness was only achieved by living according to divine will. And this was done through strict, virtuous living in which you denied yourself whatever wasn't absolutely necessary to survive.

Finally, religion changed. During the previous Archaic and Classical Ages of the Greeks, religion and politics were deeply intertwined. If you didn’t worship the Greek gods and didn’t do it correctly, you were doing a disservice not only to yourself but to the entire society, because the perception was that the Greek Gods protected the community. If you didn’t worship them, they would just let society fall apart. But during the Hellenistic Age, this changed. Alexander had conquered so many diverse groups of people that there was this sea of different religious beliefs and gods and goddesses. It created a new atmosphere where people had choices and religion wasn’t as connected to the health of the entire society. People could choose the type of philosophy they wanted to follow. They could choose to follow the traditional Greek gods, or they could jump on board with the religious cults and practices of another group of people. For example, in Alexandria in Egypt, there were shrines to the traditional Greek gods, as well as the Egyptian gods, the Babylonian gods, and the Syrian gods. In connection with this, many Greeks and Macedonians who migrated to other parts of the Hellenistic World practiced a form of syncretism. Syncretism is the merging and acceptance of foreign gods and goddesses and other religious practices with your own. Many Greeks and Macedonians believed that the foreign gods and goddesses they encountered were the same Greeks gods and goddesses-- just with different names. So in general, the Hellenistic Age was a pretty accepting and tolerant time. Greeks and the conquered people of the Hellenistic world build a pretty harmonious religious system that allowed for new religious ideas and practices wherever it was practiced.

Quiz Question #9

There was one exception to this though. And this was the Jews. Judaism was, and is, monotheistic and does not permit syncretism. As we’ve previously discussed, Judaism asserts that Yahweh is the one and only God and that he is unchanging. Furthermore, Judaism espouses a law code that dictates how Jews live. This created a bit of a conflict for Jews. Living within the Hellenistic Civilization, many Jews could not help but pick up Greek customs and the language. In fact, many Jews living in places outside of Palestine only spoke Greek and could no longer speak or read Hebrew or Aramaic, another Jewish language from the time period. And as a result, they had issues reading their own religious texts.  On the other hand, as we’ve been discussing, Hellenistic people were open to and interested in learning about new religions and ideas, including Judaism. The result of this was the creation of a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible. This Greek translation was known as the Septuagint. Septuagint is the Greek word for “70”, and they called it that based on a pretty interesting story. Legend has it that King Ptolemy of Egypt wanted a Greek copy of the Hebrew Bible for his library in Alexandria. He wrote a letter to the high priest in Jerusalem requesting 72 interpreters, 6 from each ancient tribe, to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek so that the king could read it. When they arrived, the king shut each translator into a separate cell to each produce a copy of the Hebrew Bible. As each interpreter worked, a miracle occurred. When they emerged with their finished copies, each version was word-for-word exactly the same. Now, no one knows the truth of this story. We DO know that Greek versions of the Hebrew Bible first appeared in Egypt and copies were kept in the library of Alexandria for Hellenistic Jews and other Greek speakers to read. And from a practical stance, having a Greek version of the Hebrew Bible likely helped Hellenistic Jews continue to practice their religion and retain their unique identity as Jewish in a civilization that was so prone to mixing everything and actively encouraged it. In addition, describing the Septuagint as a miracle, as a product of divine intervention, also offered evidence that there was still only one God and that his word in the Hebrew Bible was still authoritative.

However, the Jewish people had built their ancient identity on resisting assimilation into other cultures and civilizations. If you remember, this was how the Jews resisted the Assyrians and the Chaldeans. So, during the Hellenistic Age, as many Jews started to embrace the Greek language and Greek ways of doing things, some Jews strongly resisted it. In the mid-2nd century BCE, a Seleucid King named Antiochus IV tried to put more pressure on Jews in Jerusalem to accept Greek ways. This created tension, but eventually, Antiochus took one step too many- he ordered his troops to seize the Temple in Jerusalem. This sparked a Jewish uprising by Judas Maccabeus. In 164 BCE, the Jewish rebels succeeded in recapturing the Temple, which is still celebrated every year during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. After the uprising, the Seleucid rulers made concessions and allowed the Jews considerable freedom. There would not be another Jewish uprising until the Romans took over, who we will discuss next week.

Quiz Question #10

Notes

In my last lecture, I discussed the spread of Greek culture that created Hellenistic civilization. The term Hellenistic meant “to imitate the Greeks”. Hellenistic civilization reached from the Mediterranean through the former Persian Empire all the way to Northwestern India due to the efforts of Alexander the Great and his armies. And it lasted from 323 BCE, when Alexander died, to 31 BCE. But during this time period, another civilization was taking form. This was the Roman Republic. This week, we're going to shift our focus from Alexander's huge eastern empire to the Italian peninsula to look at the development of the Romans. I’m going to split my discussion of this topic into three short lectures. The first lecture- the one you’re listening to now- will discuss the Roman Republic and how it fell apart. The second lecture will discuss the rise of the Roman Empire. And the third lecture will discuss Roman culture, art, literature, religion, and architecture. And as with all the other lectures so far this semester, these lectures will contain quiz questions. With that in mind, let’s discuss the Roman Republic.

The Roman Republic was started in Italy in 509 BCE. Prior to that time, the Romans had a monarchy with a King who made all the decisions for his people. In 509 BCE, however, the Romans did something very important. They established a republic. A republic is a type of government in which citizens elect representatives to rule on their behalf. This is slightly different from a democracy, which is a form of government in which every citizen is expected to play an active role in governing the kingdom or country to which they belong. If you remember back to when we discussed Athenian democracy, the idea was that every male citizen would have the opportunity to have a say on or at least vote on every government decision. In a republic, citizens play a less active role. The only decision they need to make is which representative to elect, and then the representatives make all of those government decisions for them. The development of a republic form of government by the Romans is really important for Western civilization. Later, kingdoms and countries, including the United States, would adopt governments based completely or partly on this Roman model of government. As I’ve mentioned before, the United States is a Democratic Republic. American citizens are able to vote on more than just representatives- in some cases, we are able to vote on specific laws and policies, especially on the local level. But for the most part, our political activity is focused on electing representatives for different levels of government- city, state, and country. And then those representatives make decisions for us, for better or for worse. And when we start looking at the structure of the Roman republican government, you’ll see a few more similarities. But first, let’s look at how the Romans established their republic.

Quiz Question #1

So the Romans established a Roman Republic in 509 BCE. But many groups of people were living in Italy long before this time. In fact, the Romans were never the guaranteed leaders of the region. Until the 500s BCE, the Romans were members of a relatively small tribe of people known as the Latins that resided in West Central Italy, around where the city of Rome is located today. The Latins represent the pink shading in the map on your screen. Of the other groups living in Italy, the two that would influence the Romans the most were the Greeks and the Etruscans. Let's look at these two groups within the context of Italy. Last week, I mentioned that during the Archaic and Classical Ages, Greeks started arriving in Italy in large numbers. And eventually, there were so many Greeks in southern Italy that the Romans called this area “Magna Graecia.” This area is shaded green on your map. Greeks moved to this region primarily for economic reasons. They wanted to make money from farming and trade. They built cities with harbors, which allow ships to come in and out to carry out trade, bringing foreign products in and Greek products out. From these Greeks in Southern Italy, the Romans adopted Greek art, including Greek sculptures and Greek religion. In fact, the Romans took many of the Greek gods and goddesses and simply gave them different names. The Etruscans also influenced the Romans. By 650 BCE, the Etruscans had taken control of much of the Northwestern part of Italy. This area is shaded orange on the map on your screen. Eventually, the Romans would conquer the Etruscans, but before they did, the Etruscans passed along a few ideas to the Romans. The Etruscans were skilled architects, and the Romans adopted their knowledge of the arch, which as we’ll see, appeared everywhere in Roman architecture. Also, by comparing the artwork of the Etruscans and Romans, we know that the Romans adopted the Etruscan toga and short cloak. You can see this type of clothing in the picture on the right side of your screen. In addition, the Latin alphabet that the Romans would use was a modification of the Etruscan alphabet. In actuality, this was an influence from both the Etruscans and the Greeks together. The Etruscans had previously adopted the Greek alphabet and then adapted it before passing it along to the Romans, who adapted it further to use for their own language- Latin. Here is the Etruscan alphabet that the Romans developed. The alphabet that we use in modern times comes from the Roman alphabet. So you'll notice some similarities between the Etruscan alphabet and the alphabet that you use in your daily life.

So the Romans originated as a small tribe in West Central Italy, and they were interacting with and competing with other groups of people who were often more powerful than the Romans. As a way to demonstrate their uniqueness and legitimacy among these other groups, the Romans came up with a story about how they came to be. This story concerns a set of twins named Romulus and Remus. But these weren't just normal twins. They were the twin sons of the Roman god Mars and a priestess named Rhea Silvia. When the current King Amulius heard of the birth of the twins, he thought that they might one day try to seize power from him. They were the sons of God, and thus, natural-born leaders. So King Amulius ordered Romulus and Remus to be killed. In response, their mother, Rhea Silvia, put the twins in a reed basket and let them float down the Tiber River, hoping that perhaps they would be saved by someone. The twins were, in fact, saved, but not by a person. They were discovered by a female wolf, which, instead of killing them, decided to take care of them. The wolf had recently given birth, and so she allowed the twins to nurse from her and she kept them alive. Eventually, the twins were found by a shepherd, who took them home and raised them alongside his own children. Over time, their leadership abilities became evident, and it was clear to everyone that Romulus and Remus were, in fact, the long-lost sons of the God, Mars. Realizing their true identities and what had transpired, Romulus and Remus killed King Amulius and decided to build a city for themselves. Unfortunately, they couldn't agree on which hill to build their city. During an argument, Romulus lost his temper and killed his brother Remus. The outcome was that Romulus established the city in his preferred location and named it Rome after himself. Of course, this isn’t a factual account of how the city of Rome was established. And in fact, historians think that the Romans may have borrowed this story from the Etruscans and adapted it for themselves. But the story was important because it allowed the Romans to claim that they were the descendants of a god, and thus, were the legitimate rulers of Italy, over and above any other group living in Italy.

Quiz Question #2

In reality, the Romans took control of Italy in a very different way. In the 500s BCE, the power of the Etruscans had begun to decline in the North, which allowed the Romans to expand their power. By 290 BCE, the Romans had conquered much of Northern and Central Italy. In the South, the Greek communities were primarily commercial in nature and had no standing armies. This made them pretty easy to conquer, which the Romans did by 267 BCE. So by 267 BCE, the Romans had become the dominant power in Italy. In the 500s, the Romans began to reshape their society. And this was because other groups of Italy were fading from power and the Romans could focus on themselves instead of using all their time and energy to defend their territory. So in 509 BCE, the Romans overthrew the monarchy and established a republic for their form of government, which officially became known as the Roman Republic. This is an interesting change for the Romans since I just told you that they based their authority in Italy on the fact that Romulus, a son of a god, had been the first king. But the Romans seemed to use this story to legitimize their power while also recognizing that it was better to prevent one person from holding all of the power, as kings did. As I mentioned at the beginning of my lecture, a republic means that the citizens elect representatives to govern on their behalf. So, let's look a little more closely at what this meant for the Romans. The Roman Republic was primarily governed by two chief officials known as consuls. These consuls not only concerned themselves with policies and laws; they were also responsible for leading the Roman army into battle. So, they had a legislative and a military function. These consuls were elected every year by Roman citizens. As with the Greeks, the only citizens with political rights were men. In addition to the Consuls, another governing body existed called the Senate. This group was exclusively made up of 300 to 500 elite Romans from the wealthiest segment of the population. The Senate's job was to advise the consuls in their actions. And although the Senate couldn't create official laws, the consuls normally followed the Senate's advice.

Now just because the Romans got rid of their king and created a representative government doesn’t mean that political power was immediately distributed equally throughout society. At first, political power remained in the hands of a small group of wealthy Roman families, making the republic more of an oligarchy rather than a government that was actually representative of all citizens. For over a century after the Roman Republic was first established in 509 BCE, only members of the upper class could become consuls. They were the only ones allowed to do so. And as I mentioned, only members of the wealthy elite could be senators. So, while these political leaders claimed to represent the interests of all Roman citizens, there was a huge imbalance of political power, with the elite holding most of it. Let me show you a little more about how un-representative the early Roman Republic was. We’ve been talking about an elite group of Romans and a non-elite group of Romans, and they actually had official names- the patricians and the plebeians, also known simply as the plebs. The patricians were the elite. They were the ones who, in the beginning, could be consuls and senators, and they had control over most of the wealth in society. The plebs made up the rest of the free society. In fact, the plebeian class made up nearly 98 percent of the Roman population. So, from this perspective, the elite consuls and senators only represented the interests of 2% of society! The plebs were citizens, but they did not possess the same political rights as the patricians. In addition to the fact the plebs were not permitted to hold most political offices, they were also not allowed to marry patricians. This was, of course, primarily because the patricians held most of the political power and intended to maintain their control over society.

Quiz Question #3

But in the fifth century BCE, the plebs began to fight to correct this. The plebs' first success came in 494 BCE when many of them physically left the Roman territory in protest. The patricians, realizing that they couldn’t defend Roman territory by themselves, were forced to compromise. They agreed to create two new political offices known as the Tribunes of the Plebs. The Tribunes were given the power to protect plebs against arbitrary arrest and against encroachment on their rights by patricians. Further, the plebs guaranteed the safety of the two tribunes by vowing to kill any person who tried to stop them from exercising their power. And in 471 BCE, the Plebeian Assembly was created, which gave the plebeians the opportunity to express their political views and advise the consuls, much as the elite members of the Senate did. The plebs' next success came in 450 BCE. Up to this point, there is no public written law. Instead, Roman law consisted of unwritten customs that only the patricians were knowledgeable of and carefully guarded. The plebs recognized that to increase their political power, they needed knowledge of the law and the legal and governmental procedures. So, the plebs threatened the patricians again, and the result was the publication of the Law of Twelve Tables in 450 BCE. This law code is exactly as it sounds. Twelve wooden tablets were displayed in the center of the city of Rome so that everyone could see the laws written on them. But this still wasn’t the end of the plebeian struggle. In 287 BCE, plebeian leaders succeeded in pushing through a law that made decisions made in the Plebeian Assembly binding on the Roman government, whether the patricians in the Senate agreed with it or not. It also made it possible for plebs to become consuls as well, although the Senate remained mostly elite. Later Romans would regard this period as a golden age of shared government. The changes made between 509 and 287 BCE, created different institutions- the consuls, the Senate, the tribunes, and the Plebeian Assembly- that balanced each other and created checks on power, similar to the way that different parts of the US government are intended to balance and check each other. It also made it so that no single individual or clique could become overwhelmingly strong, but it also meant that complete popular will- that is democracy- could create big, erratic changes that might destabilize everything. In fact, for the framers of the US Constitution, the Roman Republic was a model that they based the three branches of the American government on. All of this prompts the question of whether it is better for representatives to make quicker, more educated decisions for everyone or for all citizens to have a say about every decision and potentially overturn everything. And do elected representatives make better political decisions than regular people? Frankly, it’s a question that we should continue to ask ourselves in the present time as well, but I digress.

By the middle of the third century BCE, the Romans had conquered most of Italy, and they created a pretty stable government and society with a more equal balance of power. The stability and peace enabled the Romans to look outwards at the Mediterranean and contemplated expanding into other lands. When they did so, they found themselves face-to-face with another strong power. This was Carthage. The Carthaginians had an empire that spanned the coast of North Africa, Southern Spain, Sardinia, Corsica, and Western Sicily. On the map on your screen, the blue shading represents Carthaginian territory. The Romans at this time had control of most of Italy, which is the region shaped like a boot on the top right side of your screen. Having control of all the blue-shaded regions meant that the Carthaginians held a monopoly on Mediterranean trade, at least in the West. In particular, the presence of Carthaginians in Sicily made the Romans nervous. Sicily is that triangular island located just off the toe of the Italian boot and just to the right of the city of Carthage. The Romans thought the Carthaginians might decide to continue expanding right on into Italy. So beginning in 264 BCE, the two powers, Roman and Carthaginian, engaged in three lengthy wars, called the Punic Wars. The name “Punic” comes from the Latin word “Poeni” (poh-ee-nee). “Poeni” actually refers to the “Phoenicians” who were a different group of people, but the Romans just called all of their enemies “Poeni” regardless of whether they were actually Phoenician or not. Let me give you a quick description of the three Punic Wars. The First Punic War concerned the conquest of Sicily. This war wasn't a continuous battle. Instead, it was a series of short battles that ended in the Romans' favor because they built a superior navy. Negotiations at the end of the war gave Sicily to the Romans. But a few years later in 239 BCE, the Romans took advantage of their victory and also seized the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, which are located just to the west of Italy.

A few years later, the Carthaginians began to expand in Spain. The Romans were likely looking for a reason to attack the Carthaginians again, so they saw the Carthaginian expansion in Spain as a threat and declared war. The Romans were pretty sure of themselves at this point and thought that they could use their fantastic navy to win another war against the Carthaginians without much effort. But they were wrong. When the Romans declared war again, the Carthaginian commander Hannibal began building up a huge land army. His army was made up of 40,000 men, as well as 6,000 horses and elephants. With this ginormous army, Hannibal crossed the Alps and advanced into Northern Italy in 218 BCE. The Alps took a toll on the Carthaginian army and most of the elephants didn't survive. But Hannibal's army was successful at first. He managed to capture quite a few Roman cities, and his armies went through the Roman countryside, destroying crops and villages. The Roman leaders were pretty scared at this point. They knew that to win, they would have to bring the war back to Carthage. In other words, the Romans were using the Carthaginian strategy against them. In 201 BCE, a Roman army marched from Sicily to North Africa and defeated Hannibal's armies. Carthage lost Spain to the Romans and the Second Punic War.

This meant that the Romans became the most powerful civilization in the Western Mediterranean. The only territory the Carthaginians had left was that small purple region on the map on your screen. But many Romans wanted the complete destruction of Carthage. One official named Cato finished every speech he made to the Roman Senate with the words, “And I advise that Carthage must be destroyed.” The Romans were just waiting to start a Third Punic War, and they did so in 149 BCE. At that time, the Romans ordered the Carthaginians to abandon their primary city, the city of Carthage, and settle in a new location away from the Mediterranean. The Carthaginians knew that this was a Roman attempt to subjugate and humiliate them completely. If they moved away from Carthage and the Mediterranean, they would have no access to the sea. And since Carthage was dependent on sea trade, this would be a death sentence for their civilization. So, even though they were no match for the Romans at this point, the Carthaginians refused, leading the Romans to attack again. In 146 BCE, the city of Carthage fell completely to the Romans. Those who survived the attack were sold into slavery, and legend has it that the Romans sowed the land with salt in order to make it infertile. This does not seem to be completely true, but it was a good warning to all of Rome’s other potential enemies. One other interesting factoid is that when the Romans took over Carthage, they remained that region “Africa” after the general who helped win the Second Punic War, a man named Scipio Africanus.

So by 146 BCE, the Romans controlled all of the Western Mediterranean, but they weren't satisfied. They wanted the Eastern side, too. Now if you remember, after Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE, his general split his empire into three kingdoms- the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, the Antigonid Kingdom in Greece and Macedonia, and the Seleucid Kingdom in western Asia where Persia used to be. And these kingdoms still existed in the second century BCE. In 146 BCE, the Romans conquered Macedonia and Greece and thus knocked out the Antigonid dynasty. And 133 BCE, they conquered the western part of Turkey and kicked out the Seleucid dynasty there. The map on your screen shows Roman territory in 133 BCE. If you remember back to last week, I explained that the Hellenistic Age would continue until 31 BCE. As we’re going to see in the next lecture, the Romans will continue to expand and eventually gobble up much of the rest of the Hellenistic kingdoms at that time.

Quiz Question #4

Notes

In the first lecture for this week, I discussed how the Romans developed a republic that balanced the power of each part of the government, as well as the power of the two social orders- the Patricians and the Plebeians. For many living during this time, it was a golden age of shared government. And some people went so far as to say that this republican government could last forever. Unfortunately, this assumption proved to be wrong.  

By the middle of the second century BCE, the Roman Republic had begun to weaken, and there were a few reasons for this. First, the inequality of wealth and power in Roman society began to grow again. More and more small farmers-- free men with smaller possessions of land-- lost their farms to powerful landowners. These landowners created huge plantations called latifundia that they worked with slaves. In other words, the ratio between those who owned land and those who didn't became even wider, with much of the land belonging to a small group of powerful, wealthy Romans. In addition, when farmers lost their land, they often had no other opportunities for jobs. When the Romans conquered territory, they often turned the native inhabitants into slaves. For example, when the Romans won the Punic Wars, 55,000 Carthaginians were enslaved. And when the Romans took over Greece and Macedonia, 150,000 Greek prisoners of war met the same fate. So, the wealthy Romans who now owned most of the land and controlled most of the wealth, relied mostly on these slaves rather than hiring landless freemen.

This looked more and more like a return to that original division in Roman society centuries before when the patricians had everything, and the plebeians had nothing. But it wasn’t quite that simple. While most of the wealth was back in the hands of the patricians, not all patricians had a lot of land. Instead, only some patricians held all of the wealth, while others held the elite title of patrician but had very little money. They were in essence, poor patricians, and they weren’t happy about it. So, as the inequality in Rome grew and those without became more and more angry with the situation, some of these poor patricians saw an opportunity to gain power by presenting themselves as leaders of the common people. An example of this can be seen in the figures of Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. The mother of Tiberius and Gaius- a woman named- Cornelia- was actually the daughter of Scipio Africanus, the general who helped win the Second Punic War and for whom Africa was named. So, clearly, they came from a very elite family, but the Gracchus brothers and their forefathers were military men, not big landowners. Eventually, Tiberius was elected as Tribune of the Plebs and in this office, he helped pass a bill that limited the amount of public land that one man could possess. Those who held over the specific amount would have their land taken from them and redistributed to others who did not have land. As you can imagine, this made some elite people very unhappy. In 133 BCE, Tiberius was clubbed to death by a group of senators who were part of that unhappy elite.  

A decade later, Gaius Gracchus attempted to continue his brother’s efforts. Like Tiberius, Gracchus also tried to make advancements for common Roman men through legal avenues. He tried to enact corruption laws aimed at provincial governors suspected of exploiting the people living in their region for personal gain. Many of these governors were retired senators, so again, this was aimed at reducing the power of the elite and creating more political and economic equality. And again, the elite was not happy. In 121 BCE, the senators sent an angry mob after Gaius, and Gaius committed suicide rather than allow the mob to kill him. Although the Gracchus brothers were largely unsuccessful in their efforts, they opened the door for more ambitious men to follow in their footsteps. Men, often military leaders, looking for more power for themselves saw that they could do so by gaining the support of the common Romans. This led to lots of factional fighting between various Roman leaders and their supporters. The violence and destruction that resulted served to undermine the entire foundation of the Roman Republic.

The second reason for the decline of the Roman Republic is civil war, and specifically, the rise of two triumvirates. The word triumvirate refers to a kingdom or empire ruled by three individuals. In the case of the First Triumvirate, the three figures were Pompey, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and Gaius Julius Caesar. Pompey was a successful general, and Crassus was the wealthiest man in Rome and a former commander. And they first created an alliance in 71 BCE to crush a slave revolt started by a gladiator named Spartacus. We'll talk more about gladiators in my next lecture. All you need to know now is that Spartacus led a revolt that included 70,000 slaves and managed to defeat several Roman armies before he was finally captured. After their success, Pompey and Crassus expanded their alliance to include Gaius Julius Caesar. This three-man alliance is known as the first triumvirate, and together, Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar appeared unstoppable. They forced their way into the political positions they wanted. They granted themselves money and property from the kingdom. And over the next few years, the three men maintained their alliance while leading military campaigns in different parts of the Roman territory. Unfortunately, Crassus was killed in Syria in 53 BCE, and Pompey and Caesar began to look at each other as competition instead of allies. Back in Rome, Pompey gained the support of the Senate and had himself elected the sole consul of the Roman Republic. When he became consul, Pompey announced that Caesar wished to make himself king and was thus an enemy of the Republic. Although it was kind of true, this was a terrible insult, and Caesar responded by marching his army into Rome and forcing Pompey to flee. Afterward, Caesar made himself Roman dictator for life. He continued to hold elections, but he saw to it that only his favorites were elected. In 44 BCE, a group of leading senators who resented Caesar's hold on the Roman Republic stabbed him to death. A later autopsy found that he had been stabbed 23 times. The senators that carried out this heinous deed thought that by doing so, they would return Rome back to its former political system. But this was not to be.

Quiz Question #5

When Caesar was killed, his adopted son, Octavian, was only 19. But he was ambitious, and he took command of Caesar's armies. To gain control over the Roman Republic, Octavian allied with Mark Antony, a former ally of and assistant to Caesar. And Octavian also allied with Marcus Lepidus, who had been commander of Caesar's cavalry. Together, the three men formed the Second Triumvirate. They implemented political policies that benefited them, and they went after the senators who had assassinated Caesar. But as with the First Triumvirate, eventually, its members began to look at each other as competition. Octavian and Antony cut out Marcus Lepidus and decided to divide the Roman Empire into two parts. Octavian would take the West, and Antony would take the East. To seal their bargain, Antony married Octavia, who was Octavian's sister. Octavian and Antony, however, could not avoid conflict. Eventually, Antony abandoned his wife, Octavia, and took up with the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra had three children together. Seeing this disrespect to his sister, Octavian began a campaign to discredit Antony and Cleopatra. He accused Antony of giving away Roman territory to the whore of the East. In the Battle of Actium in Greece, Octavian's forces were victorious over the forces of Antony and Cleopatra. Antony and Cleopatra fled to Egypt, where they committed suicide together a year later. According to one Roman historian, after Antony committed suicide using a sword, Cleopatra attempted to seduce Octavian. But Octavian didn't want any part of Cleopatra. When Cleopatra realized that she would essentially be a prisoner for the rest of her life, she went into the royal tomb where Antony was laid to rest, and there, she laid down beside him in his coffin and applied poisonous snakes to herself. Octavian, at the age of 32, stood supreme over the Roman world. The civil wars had ended, and so had the Roman Republic.

So in 31 BCE, after Octavian beat Mark Antony, he emerged as the ultimate leader of the Roman world. He assured people that his victory represented a restoration of the Roman Republic. But this was not actually the case. Octavian recognized the historical significance of having a republican form of government. He knew that the Romans hated kings and that they did not want power to rest in the hands of any one man. So Octavian’s plan was to hold complete power while giving the illusion of a republican government. This was the beginning of the Roman Empire or Principate. In contrast to the former republic, the Principate would have one primary ruler, an emperor, who would hold control over Roman territory and its people. To start off, in 27 BCE, Octavian took the title of Augustus, which translates to, essentially, the Revered One. And he indicated that he would govern as a consul in cooperation with the Senate. So from here on out, we're going to refer to Octavian as Augustus to help us distinguish between his previous role as a member of the Second Triumvirate and his current one as the Emperor of Rome. Augustus played his role dutifully as a consul until 23 BCE. At that time, he announced that he had a new title, imperator, which translates to commander. The word imperator is actually where we get our word emperor from. He would still govern in cooperation with the Senate. But as imperator, he would be able to create laws without approval from anyone else, as well as veto any laws created by other officials. Furthermore, he would be immune from arrest and punishment. Elections for officials continued. But the people who Augustus supported nearly always won. As a result, participation in elections declined. People recognized that voting was futile. Through these actions, Augustus proved to be quite a tyrant. But he was actually pretty popular. And this was because most Romans were tired of war. And Augustus' control brought peace and stability. In fact, for the next two centuries, there would be more or less continuous peace in the Roman Empire. Historians call this time period Pax Romana, which translates to Roman peace.

Quiz Question #6

Beginning with Augustus, the emperor had four main responsibilities. He was to protect and expand Roman territory. Only the emperor could determine foreign policy, make treaties with other nations, and wage war. He was to administer justice and provide good government by directing officials. In addition, the emperor was the Pontifex Maximus, the highest priest in the Roman Empire. And as such, he was to supervise the public worship of the gods. Finally, the emperor was to stand as a symbol of unity for the different peoples of the Empire.

As emperor, Augustus also gained more territory for Rome than in all the previous centuries combined. In the east, Augustus turned conquered territory into client kingdoms. If you look at the map on your screen, these client kingdoms are marked using vertical stripes. Being a client kingdom meant that the emperor allowed the territory to be governed by the conquered people. But they answered to Augustus and the Senate. This was seen as favorable to most conquered people. And it allowed Augustus to use the Roman Army elsewhere, rather than keeping them in conquered areas to put down revolts. Augustus focused most of his military efforts on the northern frontiers of the Roman Empire. He conquered the Central and Southwestern Alps and then expanded Roman control of the Balkan Peninsula up to the Danube River. From there, Augustus decided to expand into the territory that is today Germany. But in the first years of the first century CE, the Romans encountered resistance and rebellions from German barbarian tribes in the area. In the year 9 CE, three Roman legionary units were massacred in the Teutoburg Forest by a group of German tribes allied in the resistance to the Romans. This defeat really upset Augustus. According to the records, for months after the massacre, he would beat his head against a door and shout, give me back my legions! The massacre in the Teutoburg Forest motivated Augustus to change his policy of conquering new territory. Beginning in 9 CE, Augustus declared that the Roman Empire should not be extended beyond its current frontiers.

The Augustine Age was a lengthy one. Augustus died in 14 CE after dominating the Roman world for 45 years. He had created a new order while paying lip service to the old order. He changed the Roman world from a republic into a principate. And he managed to do it without any big uprisings or riots. There was no serious opposition to Augustus' choice of successor, his stepson, Tiberius. By designating a family member as his heir, Augustus established the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. This dynasty represents the next four rulers after Augustus, all of whom were related either to him or his wife, Livia. The Julio-Claudians represent four rulers who ranged in their governing abilities and styles. But all four shared some common characteristics. In general, unlike Augustus, they weren't interested in making a show of political cooperation with the Senate or any other elected official. In this sense, the Julio-Claudians began to act openly like real emperors. And because they could act without fear of consequence, some of the emperors in the Julio-Claudians Dynasty engaged in corrupt and arbitrary acts. Tiberius and Claudius were competent and able administrators of the empire. Caligula and Nero, on the other hand, exhibited tyrannical behavior and were often extremely unbalanced and erratic in their governance. Caligula, who was definitely mentally unbalanced, demanded that people treat him like a god. At one point, he demanded that hundreds of Roman merchant ships construct a 2-mile floating bridge across the Bay of Baiae so he could spend two days galloping on his horse going back and forth across it. A few years later, he led his troops to the English Channel, where he demanded that they plunder the sea by gathering sea shells in their helmets. Emperor Nero ordered people murdered who he wanted out of his way, including his own mother. Nero had an obsession with singing and acting in public. And he tended to indulge in that obsession, rather than focusing on governing his empire. And this is evident in the account of the Great Fire of Rome that nearly destroyed the entire city in 64 CE. On the morning of June 19, 64 CE, a blaze broke out in some artisan shops and quickly spread through the city. Over the next nine days, much of Rome was destroyed or damaged. Several sources from the period described Nero on the roof of this palace during the fire dressed in a costume and singing. There were also rumors at the time that the emperor had started the fire to clear land for an expanded palace complex. Both rumors are unlikely. But they reveal people's lack of respect and trust for Nero. And since the emperor held exclusive control over the Army, the Senate was able to oppose the excesses of the emperors of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty. Ultimately, it was the Praetorian Guard, the soldiers responsible for keeping the emperor safe, who assassinated Caligula. Nero also met an untimely end. In 68 CE, Galba, a governor in Spain, was able to win over the control of that same Praetorian Guard and proclaimed himself emperor. When Nero heard about this, he committed suicide by stabbing himself in the throat after uttering his final words, “What an artist the world is losing in me.”

Although Galba had the support of the Praetorian Guard, he was not readily accepted by the rest of the Roman legionary armies, which led to a civil war in the year 68 CE. That year, four people claimed the title of emperor and fought it out. A man named Vespasian was the victor. He had been a commander of the Roman Army in the East. And now he was the emperor. He established a new dynasty, known as the Flavians. That Vespasian was the emperor demonstrated that it was no longer necessary to be related to an ancient aristocratic family in order to be emperor. Vespasian was followed by his sons, Titus and Domitian. And following in the footsteps of the Julio-Claudians, all three of them demonstrated that they, and only they, were in charge.

The Antonine Age, also known as the Age of the Five Good Emperors, came next and it was a very different time for the Principate. These rulers represent the Antonine Age, and they were generally all good administrators who treated their subjects with more respect. They ended arbitrary executions, maintained peace in the Empire, and supported domestic policies that benefited the Empire itself, which is why historians also call this the Age of the Five Good Emperors. The first of the five emperors of the Antonine Age was Nerva. He was chosen by the Senate after the assassination of Domitian, the last Flavian emperor. And by chance, Nerva and the next three emperors had no sons. They had to resort to adoption to obtain heirs. Most of the time, they adopted grown men who had demonstrated loyalty to the emperor and good leadership skills. And this is why they tended to be good leaders

Quiz Question #7

At its height in the second century CE, during the Antonine Age, the Roman Empire covered about 3.5 million square miles. The Empire included all sorts of people from all different cultures and ethnicities that had been conquered and then folded into the Empire over the last few centuries. After Trajan, the emperors recognized that the armies of the Roman Empire were overextended. There just weren't enough armed forces to protect all of the borders while also maintaining stability within. Consequently, the emperors began to pull their armies back towards the center and tried other means of defending the border. The Emperor Hadrian, for example, built a defensive wall 80 miles long across Northern England in place of a standing Roman Army. Even with this, though, the Empire was still overextended. When one frontier was attacked, troops had to be redirected from one end of the Empire to another, leaving the borders vulnerable to attack. This would prove to be a big problem in the coming centuries. After the Age of the Five Good Emperors, the empire experienced a pretty steep decline as a result of internal chaos caused by civil war and external chaos caused by barbarian invasions. We’ll talk more about that next week. But before we move onto another topic, you’ll need to watch my last, very short lecture for this week about Roman culture, including architecture, religion, and entertainment.   

   

Notes

In my first two lectures this week, we discussed the development of Rome from its change into a republic and its transition into a principate, or an empire with an emperor. Accordingly, those lectures really focused on politics. In this lecture, I want to change my focus to look at the culture of the Romans. To do this, I’m going to briefly cover a number of different topics, including the military, architecture, religion, and entertainment.

Let’s look first at the Roman military. As mentioned in my very first lecture for this week, the Romans borrowed a lot from other civilizations, particularly the Greeks. So, it’s no surprise that in the beginning, the Romans borrowed the Greek phalanx formation for their own military. But eventually, the Romans replaced the phalanx with smaller, more flexible divisions that could adjust more easily to different types of terrain. The major unit of the Roman army was the “legion”, which represented 5,000 soldiers. Within the legion were “maniples”. The term “maniple” translates to “handful” and was a group of about 120 foot soldiers who trained together and often performed specialized tasks or used special weaponry. Having these maniples focus on training for specific circumstances is what made the legion so adaptable and flexible and able to respond to whatever might come their way. Regarding the soldiers themselves, during the Roman Republic, prior to the First and Second Triumvirates, most soldiers were citizens who fought for a couple of months when it was necessary to defend Rome and then came back home to harvest their crops. Like the Greeks before, the idea was that as a citizen, you had a responsibility to defend your state and country. But, during the civil wars of the First and Second Triumvirates, the Roman army had increased in size and required soldiers who could fight for longer periods of time. This was the beginning of the “legionnaire”, the professional Roman foot soldier. In the next century, as Augustus and the emperors that came after him expanded the Roman Empire, a career as a Roman legionnaire became an end in itself rather than a matter of routine service to the state. Now, poor Romans, who had no land and no real future, could become professional soldiers and make a career out of it. Under Augustus, the army numbered about 290,000 men on average. This actually wasn’t an extraordinarily large number seeing that the population of the Roman Empire at this time was close to 50 million people. The army was primarily responsible for guarding the frontiers of the empire, to defend against attack from the Barbarian hoards located outside of it, but it was also used to maintain order within the borders of the Roman Empire. Of the 290,000 men in the army, the legionary army made up about 150,000 of that number or about 30 legions. Legionnaires served 20 years and were recruited largely from Italy. The Roman legions were supported by auxiliary troops, which were made up of conquered people. The auxiliary troops numbered around 130,000 men and these men could obtain citizenship in the Roman Empire after serving for 24 years. Augustus also maintained the Praetorian Guard, which was an elite army of about 10,000 men whose job it was to protect Augustus. Now the question is- why did Augustus need an elite army to protect him? Well, one of the biggest consequences of making Roman soldiers professional was that a soldier’s loyalty was often directed towards his commander, whose success would win rewards for his men, rather than some ideal of patriotism. And one of the dangers of this was that soldiers could potentially be turned against the emperor. In fact, even the Praetorian Guard wasn’t immune from being influenced by outside forces. If you remember back to my last lecture when I discussed some of the crazy Julio-Claudians, I explained that Caligula had been assassinated by his own praetorian guard. And Emperor Vespasian, who started the Flavian dynasty, became emperor because he had the support of the legionary army.

Quiz Question #8

For many Romans, their military success and the health of the Republic were directly tied to religion. Again, this is a big similarity between the Greeks of the Archaic and Classical Ages. Like the Greeks, the Romans understood religion as tied to every aspect of daily life, and they believed that the practice of religion was not just something done for the sake of the individual. Rather, correct religious practice was something necessary for the health of the entire Republic and later Empire. The Romans believed that they were completely dependent on the gods and goddesses for their survival and their success. And as Rome gained more and more territory, the Romans saw this as evidence that they were performing the religious rituals correctly and keeping the gods and goddesses happy. As one Roman said in the 1st century BCE: “We have overcome all nations of the world because we have realized that the world is directed and governed by the gods.” To ensure that this continued, a group of priests called pontiffs worked to make sure that Romans individually and as a group were worshipping correctly. The top pontiff, known as the Pontifex Maximus, was responsible for controlling religion in the empire. Think of him like the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. He was in charge of all religion in the empire. If you remember back to my last lecture, when Augustus took control, one of his main duties was to serve as Pontifex Maximus.

Another aspect of religion that the Romans adopted from the Greeks was their gods. Like the Greeks, Roman religion was centered on 12 traditional gods. And in fact, the Romans simply adopted these Gods from the Greeks and changed their names. The original Greek names of the Roman gods and goddesses are in parentheses. But as the Roman Republic and later the Roman Empire expanded, it came to include the gods and goddesses of the people it conquered. This is called syncretism, and we’ve seen it with some of the previous empires that conquered other territories- if you remember, leaders in the Hellenistic Age often included the gods and goddesses of the conquered people under their control. However, whereas the Greeks during the Hellenistic Age often adopted the customs of the locals, the Romans saw “going native” in a foreign place as a terrible betrayal of one’s homeland, which was called the “fatherland.” There was a lot of emphasis placed on “the customs of the ancestors” and specifically one’s own father and male ancestors. This led the Romans to also engage in different forms of ancestor worship. Funerary busts of fathers and grandfathers in household shrines were often the focus of family worship.

Let’s turn now to talk about Roman infrastructure and architecture. When it came to roads and architecture, the Romans were pretty innovative. They were famous for building excellent road systems, which, as we know, is incredibly important for maintaining an empire. Roman roads were particularly unique because the Romans paved many of them with stone, they were tilted on each side for drainage, and in some cases, they cut through hills and mountains to create them. When Roman builders came to marshy grounds, they even created piled foundations that kept the roads from sinking. At the peak of Rome's development, there were 29 military highways that began in the city of Rome. These military highways were all side and sturdy enough for large armies to travel across Roman territory. In addition to these military highways, the Romans built 372 smaller roads that were meant to encourage trade and commerce. Altogether, these roads covered more than 250,000 miles, and over 50,000 miles of that was paved with stones. On your screen, you can see a map of Roman roads on the left and an example of a paved Roman road on the right. The road system for the Romans was so good that many of these roads were still being used 1,000 years later, and many modern roads in Europe are actually constructed on top of the old Roman roads. The Romans also used aqueducts to their advantage, more so than any other civilization before them. By the early decades of the second century CE, eleven aqueducts brought water into the city of Rome from nearby hills and provided 300 million gallons per day for citizens. This was pretty common for cities throughout the empire, and the homes of wealthy Romans even had indoor plumbing and central heating. These aqueducts were important because they moved water necessary for planting crops, they supplied drinking water for people, and they supplied water for the very popular Roman public baths.

Quiz Question #9

And Romans loved public baths. Most people did not have private baths in their homes to bathe themselves, and instead, they went to public baths that the Roman cities maintained as public works. These baths were often the size of the swimming pools we use today. And they weren't just for bathing. They were also for socializing with friends and family, although they tended to be separate for men and women. Taking a bath was not a simple chore. There was not just a bath to use. When Romans went to the baths, they began in a cold bath called the frigidarium, and then moved to a warm bath called the tepidarium, and finally, to a hot bath called the caldarium. The Romans had figured out how to use fires to heat the water up to certain temperatures, which allowed them to have baths at different temperatures.

So we've been talking about the Roman Empire as a whole. But the city of Rome was pretty spectacular in the first and second centuries CE. Its population was close to 1 million by the time of Augustus, which made it the largest city in the Empire. For anyone with ambition, Rome was the place to be. It attracted people from all over. Because of the number of people and the congestion that they could cause, carts and wagons were banned from the streets during the day. An enormous gulf existed between the rich and the poor. While the rich had comfortable villas, the poor tended to live in apartment blocks called insulae, which might be five or six stories high. These insulae were often poorly-built and prone to collapse. Fortunately for them, Rome boasted public buildings unequal anywhere in the Empire. Its temples, forums, markets, baths, and theaters gave the city lots of entertainment. But although the city was magnificent, the city of Rome was also a bit of a parasite. Beginning with Augustus, the emperors provided food for the poor of Rome, with about 200,000 people receiving free grain each year. But even the free grain did not relieve the grim conditions of the poor. Early in the second century CE, a Roman doctor claimed that rickets was common among the city's children. Rickets is a disease caused by malnutrition, and it makes a person's arms and legs bow outwards. In addition to food, entertainment was provided on a grand scale for the residents of Rome. The emperor and other state officials provided public spectacles during frequent public festivals. More than 100 days a year were given over to these public holidays, which were mostly religious in nature. The festivals included three main types of entertainment. At the Circus Maximus, horse and chariot races attracted hundreds of thousands, while drama and theater performances were held in amphitheaters.

But the most famous of all was the public spectacle of the gladiatorial shows, which came into vogue during the early part of the Roman Empire. Gladiatorial shows took place in amphitheaters, which the Romans called coliseums. And these were located throughout the Empire. The Romans had discovered how to make a form of concrete from quicklime, volcanic ash, and pumice, which along with their superior engineering skills, allowed them to build massive structures. Coliseums in Roman territory varied and size, with capacities ranging from a few thousand to tens of thousands. The most famous coliseum, simply called the Colosseum with a capital “C”, was built by the Flavian emperors in the city of Rome. It sat 50,000 spectators. The coliseums of the Roman Empire are where we got our modern conception of coliseums. Considerable resources and ingenuity went into building Roman amphitheaters. They were designed so that large crowds could enter and exit with ease. They had tunnels running underneath them that held smaller rooms and containment areas to hold wild animals and gladiators while they waited to fight each other. Gladiatorial games were held from dawn to dusk on public holidays. Criminals of all ages and both sexes were sent into the arena without weapons to face certain death from wild animals who would tear them to pieces. There were bears, lions, tigers, bulls, Buffalo, and wild dogs brought in from different parts of the Roman Empire. Numerous kinds of animal contests were also held-- wild beasts against each other, such as bears and tigers. There were also staged hunts with men shooting safely from behind iron bars and gladiators in the arena with bulls, tigers, and lions. According to the report from the time, 5,000 animals were killed in one day of games when Emperor Titus inaugurated the Colosseum in 80 CE. But the most popular feature of the gladiatorial games were contests to the death between trained fighters. Most gladiators were slaves or condemned criminals who were trained for combat in special gladiatorial schools. These bloodthirsty spectacles were extremely popular with the Roman people. But the gladiatorial games also served a purpose beyond mere entertainment. Like the other forms of public entertainment, the games filled both a political and a social function. The games served to divert the idle masses from political rebellions and riots. The games, along with the distribution of free food, were intended to keep the poor happy and distracted from the fact that they no longer had a political voice under the emperors. In my lectures for next week, we will see how these gladiatorial games were connected to the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

Quiz Question #10

   

Notes

In my last lecture, we traced the rise of the Romans in the Western world, the establishment and fall of the Roman Republic, and the creation of a Roman principate with an emperor. We talked about how Octavian emerged victorious from the Second Triumvirate to establish the first dynasty of the Julio-Claudian rulers, who were followed by the Flavians, and then the Age of the Five Good Emperors. During this time, things seemed to be going well for the Romans. And most Romans believed that this was because they were dedicated to the traditions of their forefathers and devoted to the Gods, who in turn had allowed the Romans to dominate the world. But as we know, all good things come to an end at some point. The beginning of the end came to the Roman Empire after the five good emperors of the Antonine Age at the end of the second century CE. At this point, Rome began to suffer from internal political chaos as well as invasions from the outside, from barbarians living on the edges of the empire. The Romans watched as their carefully built empire began to crumble and some began to look around for someone to blame. And they found an easy scapegoat in the form of a new religious group that was emerging around the same time- Christians.

Last week I explained that the Five Good Emperors that made up the Antonine Age were generally all good administrators who treated their subjects with more respect. And this was because the first four emperors beginning with Nerva didn’t have any biological sons to take their place, so they adopted their heirs. And the men they adopted were all grown men who had demonstrated loyalty to the emperor and good leadership skills. Unfortunately, the last of the 5 Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, succeeded in having a biological son, a man named Commodus, who succeeded him as emperor. Unlike the previous emperors, Commodus was a cruel man and a poor leader. And he was assassinated in 192 CE.

The empty position for emperor led to a civil war. Septimius Severus, an army general from North Africa, used his armies to win the war and seize power. On his deathbed, Severus advised his sons to “live in harmony, make the soldiers rich, and don't give a damn about anything else.” His advice set the tone for the new dynasty that he established. The Severan rulers created a military monarchy. The army was expanded. Soldiers' pay was increased. And military officers were appointed to important government positions. A new stability seemed at hand. But the increased power of the military encouraged other military leaders to try and become emperors. And the reigns of the Severan rulers degenerated into military anarchy after the first quarter of the third century CE.

Quiz Question #1

For the next 50 years, the empire was mired in the chaos of continual civil war. Military leaders seeking to become emperors found that bribing soldiers was an effective way to take power. During these 50 years of civil war, there were 27 emperors, and only four of those emperors avoided meeting a very untimely, very violent end. To make matters worse, in 251 CE, a terrible plague, probably smallpox, swept through the Empire, resulting in an estimated 5,000 deaths per day. And at the same time all of this was happening, the Empire began to suffer from a series of invasions. As civil war wore down the central government, previously-conquered provinces began to break away from the Empire. A military commander named Postumus seized control of Gaul for himself, which is today the region of France and Germany. And he defended his claim to this region until he was assassinated in 269 CE. In the east, Zenobia, the wife of the ruler of Syria, seized power in that area after his death. And she went on to extend her control over Egypt and much of Asia Minor. In 272 CE, Emperor Aurelian defeated Zenobia and her forces and ended the threat that she represented. But it was clear that the Roman Empire was in decline.

As Roman politics devolved into anarchy and civil war, a new religion was on the rise. It had begun a far-flung Roman colony that today we call Israel, but by the second century it had taken root and was spreading throughout the Roman Empire. This was Christianity. To understand the rise of Christianity in the first few centuries CE, we need to first consider the religious environments from which Christianity emerged, which were both Roman and Jewish. Concerning the Roman background, if you remember back to my previous lectures, I told you that during the Roman Republic and in the first centuries of the Roman Empire, the Romans were pretty tolerant of foreign religious practices. In fact, they frequently practiced syncretism, in which they adopted and merged the gods and goddesses of conquered people. But even if they allowed conquered people to continue practicing their own religions, the Romans expected them to also participate in Roman religious rituals and worship the Roman gods. They believed this was necessary for the continuing health and prosperity of the Roman Empire. And for most conquered people, this wasn't a problem. Being polytheistic, they could add Roman gods and rituals to their repertoire without issue.

Quiz Question #2

This was a problem, however, for Jews living in the Roman territory. Although Jews resided throughout the Roman Empire, the biggest Jewish population was in the eastern Mediterranean, where Israel is located today. The Roman Republic conquered this region in 63 BCE, and at this time, it was called Judaea. If you think back to our previous discussions about Judaism, you will remember that Judaism is monotheistic and demands absolute and exclusive obedience to Yahweh, the god of the Hebrews. Now, Judaism in the 1st century BCE was actually a legally recognized religion by Roman rulers. But this doesn’t mean that the Jews didn’t feel a lot of pressure to be more like the Romans. And this was problematic.

Jews in Judaea disagreed about how they should relate to the Romans. This disagreement split Jews into four groups. The first group, the Sadducees, were very conservative in religious matters. They favored rigid adherence to Hebrew law, and they didn't accept ideas unless they were stated in the Torah. But even though they were very conservative about religion, they favored cooperation with the Romans, and they were open to incorporating Roman culture into their lives. The second group, the Pharisees, were more liberal when it came to interpreting scriptures and religious law. And this is primarily because, in addition to the Torah, they believed in an oral law, called the Talmud, which God had given to Moses. But whereas the Pharisees were more liberal when it came to religion, they wanted strict separation from Roman culture and religion, and they wanted to liberate Judaea from Roman control. Now, most Jews in Judaea agreed with the stance of either the Sadducees or the Pharisees. A much smaller number of other Jews supported the Essenes. The Essenes decided that Jerusalem and the Temple had been corrupted. So the Essenes moved out of Jerusalem and lived separately in an isolated community near the Dead Sea. They didn't want anything to do with the Sadducees or the Pharisees, and certainly not the Romans. The fourth, smaller group belonged to the Zealots. These were militant extremists and the most radical of separatists. They advocated the violent overthrow of Roman rule. The Zealots provoked two major uprisings against Rome. The first revolt took place in 66 CE-- the Great Revolt. And when the Roman soldiers came in and crushed the revolt, they destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and carried off its treasures. Another revolt took place in 132 CE. It wasn't any more successful, and it resulted in the deaths or exile of nearly 580,000 Jews.

In the midst of this conflict between the Romans and the Jews, a man named Jesus of Nazareth began preaching publicly. Jesus of Nazareth grew up in Galilee- and spent, presumably, at least 30 years of his life there. Galilee was a center for the Zealots, so it's not entirely surprising that someone with a new view of life and God would emerge from this area. When Jesus began to speak out and teach others his beliefs, he reassured fellow Jews that he did not plan to undermine their traditional religion. According to Jesus, what was important was not adherence to the letter of the law but a transformation of the inner person. God's simple command was to love your Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus emphasized ethical concepts of humility, charity, and brotherly love. These ethical concepts, however, were not the dominant values of Roman civilization.

Although Jesus did not intend to undermine the traditional Jewish religion, his ideas in the first century CE sparked controversy almost immediately. Some Jews welcomed Jesus as the messiah who would save Israel from oppression and establish God's kingdom on earth. But Jesus spoke of a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly one. Consequently, he disappointed many Zealots. On the other hand, conservative religious leaders, particularly the Sadducees, were unhappy with Jesus. And this was because, even though it wasn't his intention, they believed that Jesus was undermining respect for traditional Jewish religion. Finally, Roman authorities viewed Jesus as a potential revolutionary who might transform Jewish expectations for a savior into a revolt against Rome. So Jesus found himself denounced on many sides. And he was given over to Roman authorities. Pontius Pilate was the procurator of the region, which meant that he had military control over Judaea, he collected Imperial taxes, and he also stood as judge for criminal cases. Pontius Pilate was the one to officially order the crucifixion of Jesus. But crucifying Jesus didn't solve the problem. Loyal followers of Jesus began to spread a report that he had overcome death and had been resurrected. He was labeled "Christos," which is Greek for "anointed one." And he was hailed as the Savior. This began a new religious movement within Judaism, and it was viewed as a Jewish sect by Roman authorities for many decades.

Now, Jesus had quite a few followers. But the most important of these followers for the expansion and the spread of early Christianity was Paul of Tarsus. Paul of Tarsus was from Tarsus, which was a city in modern-day Turkey. And he was born to Jewish parents, and he was a Roman citizen. His original name was Saul. And he began his adult life by prosecuting Christians. He later took the name Paul after he had a vision from God that blinded him and caused him to convert to Christianity. Once converted, Paul began to travel and preach. And what was unique about Paul was that he believed that the message of Jesus should be preached not only to Jews but also to Gentiles-- non-Jews. This wasn’t actually something that all of Jesus’s disciples supported. For example, another important disciple, Peter, believed that followers of Jesus had to be Jews, or at least converts to Judaism. But Paul’s approach came out on top, and as a result of his missionary efforts, Christianity began to spread through the Mediterranean. In short, Paul transformed Christianity from a religious movement within Judaism into a new world religion in which anyone could belong as long as they believed in the main tenets of the religion. And to help with this, Paul also wrote a series of letters known as epistles. These letters are important because they outlined the foundational ideas and organization of Christianity. Paul's letters, in addition to the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, formed the core of what would become the New Testament.

Quiz Question #3

In the first century CE, the Christian movement grew slowly. But it began to pick up speed in the second and third centuries. By the year 100 CE, Christian churches had been established in most major cities in the Mediterranean. By 250 CE, the city of Rome had some 30,000 Christians-- perhaps about 5% of the city’s population. The other cities that contained large Christian populations were Antioch in Syria, Alexandria in Egypt, and Carthage in North Africa. All of these cities are located on the Mediterranean, and they likely became hot spots for Christianity because merchants, travelers, and missionaries traveled from port to port, carrying their religion wherever they went. By the end of the third century, Christian missionaries also used Roman roads to spread Christianity into the towns and cities that weren't located on the coast. There were a few reasons that Christianity picked up speed in the second and third centuries. First, as I mentioned, Christian missionaries were able to travel easily from one place to another using the same roads, those famous Roman roads, that were intended for armies and merchants. Second, don't forget that in the third century, anarchy and civil war broke out in the Roman Empire, leading to a quick turnover of emperors and barbarian invasions. The Christian message of hope responded to the unease and insecurity many Romans were feeling at this time. Third, Christianity emphasized spiritual equality. It placed everyone on the same level before God. And this was particularly appealing to women, slaves, prisoners of war, and lepers, who were the most discriminated against in Roman society. And even beyond God himself, Christians also seemed to value women and their participation more so than Roman society. Women could be leaders in the early stages of Christian development. And this was pretty unusual for the time. Many Roman cults denied access to women completely, and most were absolutely against women holding any sort of leadership position.

Until the early 300s, Christian congregations normally met for worship in private homes. The structure of these worship services was largely based on Jewish worship-- scripture readings, prayers, and a sermon. But unlike Jews, Christians also celebrated the Eucharist. You might know this ritual as "communion." The Eucharist, or communion, was a celebration of Jesus' Last Supper based on the Gospel. The Christian ritual of communion followed the description laid out in the Book of Matthew. It says, "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, take and eat. This is my body. Then, he took the cup, gave thanks, and offered it to them, saying, drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins." And what we can see from all of these rituals is an emphasis on community, which was also very appealing to converts to Christianity. Not only was everyone included in this community, but it allowed everyone to participate and feel like they were part of something bigger.

Quiz Question #4

 

Notes

In my first lecture for this week, we discussed some of the reasons why Christianity spread so successfully in the first few centuries CE. But even though many aspects of Roman society and its structure facilitated the spread of the new religion, it also presented it with some obstacles. First, there were a large variety of religions, of philosophies, available in Roman society. Christianity was certainly not the only option. And as we’ve discussed before, syncretism was common in Roman society, and Romans often accepted the ideas of foreign or new religions. But they didn't tend to like absolutes-- this idea that one must accept one specific religion and nothing else. Finally, misconceptions also created a perception among Romans that Christianity was dangerous. Many Romans believed that Christians had a hatred for the Roman Empire. They saw that Christians didn't participate in Roman religious rituals or festivals. And since religious practice was tied to the health of the Roman Empire, Romans felt like Christians were undermining Roman society. The charge of incest was a popular accusation against Christians. Pagan critics of Christianity pounced on the Christian emphasis on love and their use of the terms "brother" and "sister" as a standard form of address between Christians as evidence of incest. Cannibalism was another common accusation against Christians. This accusation may have stemmed from the Christian celebration of the Eucharist. Christians talked about participating in a feast during which they ate the body and drank the blood of Christ.

In addition to these obstacles, another important one was persecution. Roman emperors made Christianity illegal. Leaders thought that the growing number of Christians was making the gods and goddesses angry, who in turn, punished the whole empire. And with this in mind, Roman emperors, towards the end of the first century, outlawed Christianity as treason, which is a violation of allegiance to one's country. And treason in the Roman Empire was punishable by death. The possibility of execution discouraged many people from converting to Christianity. But the persecution of Christians wasn’t the same throughout the first few centuries. It evolved over time. In the first and the second centuries, Roman persecution of Christians was not systematic. It tended to be sporadic and local. It began during the reign of Nero. And if you think back to my last lecture, I told you that when Nero was emperor, a fire destroyed a good portion of the city of Rome. And many people blamed Nero for the fire. To shift the blame from him, Nero accused the city's Christians of setting the fire and executed many of them. Nero is also the emperor who had Paul executed by beheading. But, in the third century, the political anarchy and civil wars encouraged emperors and many common Romans to point to the spread of Christianity as the reason that everything was going so badly. They felt that Christians were at fault because of their refusal to honor the gods. So, the third century saw periods of major persecution, particularly in the second half of that century.

Quiz Question #5

For example, Emperor Decius, in the year 250, required all citizens to appear before local officials and offer sacrifices to the Roman gods. This was intended to weed out Christians, who were likely to refuse. This led to many Christian executions. And on your screen, you will see a copy of a certificate from this time period. The sacrifices of each Roman resident were carefully recorded. So those who refused definitely stood out. The last great persecution took place under Diocletian in 303 CE. Diocletian decreed that all identified churches should be destroyed. Christian scriptures should be burnt, and Christians holding public office should be stripped of their rank. Christian leaders were imprisoned and given the choice of sacrificing to the Roman gods or execution. When Christians refused to participate in Roman rituals, they were often executed in cruel ways for the entertainment of the public. In many cases, Christian prisoners were forced to fight wild animals or gladiators or other prisoners in amphitheaters during public holidays. The pictures on your screen are from third-century mosaics depicting Christians being executed in this manner.

The increase in executions encouraged many Christians to welcome martyrdom-- the act of dying for one's faith-- as a way to imitate Jesus' death on the cross. Martyrdom was increasingly seen as a way to achieve immediate salvation and immediate entrance into heaven. This concept of martyrdom and the promise of salvation discouraged many Christians from abandoning their faith and, in a few cases, it may have actually encouraged more people to convert to Christianity. People witnessed the strong faith of Christians as they were executed, and it caused them to consider that perhaps there was something to this new religion. And actually, the word “martyr” comes from a Greek word that means “witnesses,” in the sense that they were “witnesses” for their own faith. So, in some cases, the public martyring of Christians may have discouraged those who were already Christians or would-be Christians from converting to the religion. But in other cases, it may have encouraged them. Either way, it was clear that the Roman persecution of Christians did nothing to stop the growth of Christianity. Roman emperors would have to find another way to prevent religious ideas from tearing the empire apart. And, as we'll see in just a moment, their ultimate solution was to accept Christianity for themselves.

The third century represents a century of hardship for Christians and non-Christians alike in the Roman Empire. But things got better in the fourth century CE. One reason for this was the establishment of a more stable government. Diocletian believed that one man was not capable of ruling the Roman Empire. It was just too big. Consequently, he created a new administrative system for governing the empire called the Tetrarchy, which means "ruled by four." He split the empire into two, east and west. And each part would be ruled by a head leader known as Augustus. Diocletian announced that he would be the Augustus for the eastern part of the Empire, and the other Augustus would be Maximian, another military commander, who would control the west. And each Augustus would be assisted by a Caesar. It's important to note, however, that although the empire was under the control of four administrators, Diocletian retained top authority. He was still the emperor, even if three other men held high offices to assist him. This system of government helped to bring stability to the Roman Empire.

Quiz Question #6

As I mentioned a few minutes ago, though, Diocletian carried out the last great persecution against Christians in 303 CE. But the next emperor, Constantine, made life a lot easier for Christians because he became the first Christian emperor. Constantine was the son of one of the Caesars under Diocletian. When Diocletian retired in 305 CE, his tetrarchy fell apart, and Constantine managed to fight his way to the top to become Roman emperor. Constantine's support for Christianity supposedly began in 312 CE, when his army was about to fight a battle against one of Constantine's rivals- a general named Maxentius. According to the story, before the battle, Constantine had a vision. He saw in the sky two intertwined Greek letters that represented the “Chi-Ro” and he heard a divine voice say "In this sign, you will conquer." The Chi-Ro, by the way, are the first two Greek letters if the name “Christos” and thus represent Christ and Christianity. You can see an image of the Chi-Ro in the image on the bottom right side of your screen. The Greek letter “Chi” looks like an “X” and the letter “Ro” looks like a “P” and they are often overlayed on each other in images from this time period. Taking this vision as an omen, Constantine resolved to trust his cause to the god of the Christians. When Constantine won the battle, he converted to Christianity. The next year, in 313 CE, Constantine issued the famous Edict of Milan. This decree made Christianity legal to practice in the Roman Empire, and people began to convert to Christianity in large numbers. The conversion of the emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan marked a major turning point in the history of Christianity and Western civilization. After Constantine, all Roman emperors, with one exception, were Christian and by 391 BCE, pagan worship, which included any sort of polytheistic worship of the old gods, was outlawed. These same emperors also played a large role in the Christian church. They helped to settle disputes. They created laws that favored and encouraged Christianity. And they built lots of churches. In many ways, this active participation on the part of the emperor was to be expected. Prior to Constantine, the emperors were responsible for supervising the public worship of the gods- they were the Pontifex Maximus. Consequently, Constantine and later emperors were simply transferring their established leadership roles in Roman religion over to Christianity.

Quiz Question #7

With the Christian population growing in leaps and bounds, it was important for Christian leaders in the fourth century to develop an organized hierarchy of administrators and a well-defined set of beliefs. In terms of a hierarchy, it was decided that, at the bottom, would be the priests-- one for each church. Above them, a bishop would oversee the churches in each city. And above them, an archbishop would preside over the bishops in a particular region. Furthermore, the bishops of four cities-- Rome, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch-- took on special significance based on their claim that the churches in these cities had been founded by the original apostles of Jesus. It was also around this time that women were firmly excluded from positions of power in Christian churches. This was likely due to the fact that when Christianity became mainstream it adhered to the patriarchal values of the Romans, which did not support women in leadership positions. One reason that the church made these changes and created this hierarchy was the problem of heresy. As Christianity developed and spread, people began to create different interpretations of the Christian teachings. The term "heresy" means an incorrect religious teaching or practice. Heresy is the opposite of "orthodoxy," which is the correct religious teaching or practice. Now, no one set out to be a heretic or to practice a bad form of Christianity. In most cases, people who were labeled as heretics thought that their form of Christianity was the correct form. In fact, many historians of Christianity argued that there was never one single version of true Christianity in the early centuries. In reality, there was a variety of Christianities. This was because, in the first centuries, Christianity spread secretly and without clear leaders to explain what was correct and what wasn't. Think about it like a giant game of Telephone. As Christianity spread from one person to the next, people developed their own take on the religion.

Quiz Question #8

With all of these different ideas circulating about Christianity, it was clear that Christianity required a distinct organization of leaders who could decide what was heresy and what was orthodoxy. And in 367 CE, they selected 27 books that would become the New Testament. And you can see those here listed on your screen.

I want to talk briefly about one of the most popular heresies in the third and fourth centuries. This was Arianism. We have to remember that, in these early centuries, people were still trying to figure out everything about Christianity. One aspect that people were contemplating was Christ's relationship with God. In regard to this topic, people tended to fall into two groups. One group said that Christ was the Son of God and was, consequently, of a divine nature and equal to God. But some people argued that while Christ was the greatest of men, he was just that-- a man and nothing more. The people who believed that Christ was human and unequal to God were called Arians- named after their leader, a man named Arius. The conflict over the nature of Christ became so heated that Emperor Constantine decided to call together a council of bishops in 325 CE to resolve the matter. This was the Council of Nicaea. And in the end, the bishops of the council decided that Christ was divine and equal to God and not just merely human. And, as a result, Arianism was labeled a heresy. Their decision resulted in the creation of the Nicene Creed, which you can see on your screen. As you read through it, you will notice that the authors really wanted to emphasize that Christ was equal to God and that he was divine. So, why did all this matter? As one bishop from the time period explained, only a fully divine savior could do helpless sinners any good.

In addition to priests, bishops, and archbishops, another important Christian figure emerged in the third and fourth centuries. This was the monk. This figure emerged out of the spiritual development known as "asceticism." Someone who practices asceticism attempts to free themselves spiritually and mentally by denying their body any pleasure. Ascetics tended to eat and clothe themselves only as much as was necessary to survive. They avoided sexual activity and any unnecessary social interactions. The practice of asceticism actually wasn't a Christian invention. It began with Greek and Roman philosophers. But Christian monks believed that the practice of asceticism would enable them to form a closer relationship with God. In this sense, the Christian monk took the place of the earlier Christian martyr. When Constantine legalized Christianity, Christians were no longer being executed for their beliefs. So, monks began to live apart from society and deprived themselves of all earthly pleasures as a way to metaphorically die to the world and live only a life focused on God. The first known person to live this lifestyle, and thus the first known monk, was a man named Antony who lived in the late third century. According to biographies written about him, Antony was the son of a very wealthy Egyptian family. When he was 18, he heard the words of the gospel, "Go, sell everything you have, and give to the poor. Then come and follow me." Antony took these words literally. He gave away all of his wealth and went into the desert to focus on building a relationship with God. He spent 20 years in solitude, during which time he overcame all the temptations that the devil could conjure up, including naked women, political power, and wealth. Occasionally, someone would come across Antony in the wilderness and bring back stories about him. As a result, Antony became a model for others who wanted to achieve a higher spirituality. Eventually, these solitary monks began to join up with other like-minded people and live in isolated communities together. Leaders emerged to create daily schedules for members and rules that they could live by. This was the beginning of the monastic orders. Monastic orders represented types of communities for monks and nuns that differed according to their focus. Some monastic orders focused on manual labor, such as farming, because they believed that idleness was the enemy of the soul. Others focused on contemplation, and they spent their time reading and writing. Finally, other orders focused on service. And they went out and helped the poor, the widows, and the orphaned children.

A number of monks who participated in the monastic movement in the fourth and fifth centuries began to write down their ideas about Christianity. These individuals became known as the Church Fathers. And two of the most important Church Fathers were Augustine and Jerome. Augustine was born in North Africa around 354 CE. His father was a pagan-- he followed the old polytheistic Roman religion-- while his mother was a devout Christian. Augustine was highly educated. But during his adult life, he had a lot of fun and did a lot of sinful things. Eventually, however, Augustine had a bit of a mid-life crisis in which he questioned what he was doing with his life. And he decided to dedicate his life to God and Christianity. Augustine is famous for his autobiographical work called Confessions. In Confessions, Augustine described his previous lifestyle and why he converted to Christianity. The book is incredibly influential because it demonstrated that it was possible to turn to a holy life after a lifetime of sin. It also argues that humans are inherently evil and thus the crucifixion of Jesus was needed in order to save mankind. To emphasize this, Augustine noted that he converted at the age of 33, the same age when Jesus was recorded as being crucified. Another Church Father was Jerome. In the fourth and fifth centuries, most wealthy people-- whether they were Christian or not-- were taught Greek and Roman philosophies, which were developed by non-Christian people. Jerome loved learning about these philosophies, but he eventually began to wonder if one could be a good Christian and a lover of non-Christian philosophy. Jerome wrote about a dream he had in which Jesus appeared as his judge. In the dream, Jesus asked Jerome who he was. Jerome replied, “Well, I'm a Christian”. But Jesus said, “You lie. You are a follower of Cicero, not of Christ, for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” After his dream, Jerome dedicated his life to adapting non-Christian philosophies to Christianity. He stripped them of their polytheistic elements and demonstrated how the basic principles of these Greek and Roman philosophies supported Christian ideas. In addition, Jerome was important to the spread of Christianity because he knew Hebrew and Greek as well as his native Latin. Until the fifth century, the Old and New Testaments were only written in Hebrew and Greek. This was a problem for people living in the western part of the Roman Empire because most of those people only read and spoke Latin. Jerome translated the Old and New Testaments into Latin, which made the Bible accessible to many people in the Western Roman Empire for the first time.

Quiz Question #9

Although Diocletian and Constantine had done much to revive and reunite the Roman Empire politically and religiously, it wouldn't last. After Constantine, a clear divide between the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire became obvious. In reality, this division had actually originated when Octavian and Mark Antony divided the Roman Empire between them in 44 BCE. But it became much more pronounced at the end of the fourth century CE. This was caused by political fighting between leaders seeking to become emperors because different legionary units in the Roman Empire often supported different rival emperors based on whether they came from the East or the West. This divide was also motivated by language and cultural differences. While the West retained Latin as its primary language, people in the East primarily spoke Greek, even though they thought of themselves as Roman.

The eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire also experienced a division because they were dealing with their own problems. In the West, Romans were dealing with invasions from barbarians. The Romans had faced invasions in previous centuries, but in the fourth century, barbarians began to invade more frequently and with more aggression. At this time, barbarian tribes located on the borders of the empire began to make forays into the empire, often plundering, raping, and burning if they did not receive large ransoms or if they perceived an easy victory. In general, there were three waves of invasions that served to collapse the northern border of the Western Roman Empire. The Goths, which you'll notice have a little purple line on your map, invaded in the 390s, 401 and 408. And they succeeded in sacking Rome. In 450, the Huns invaded Gaul and northern and central Italy. You can see the Huns with the green line there. Around the same time, the Vandals invaded Spain, North Africa, and southern Italy, ransacking cities and selling their inhabitants into slavery. The Vandals represent the dark blue lines. The Romans just did not have the armed forces necessary to push the barbarians back. So emperors began to withdraw troops, letting the barbarians have the Roman territory they claimed. In many cases, this practice left Romans living in the invaded areas to fend for themselves. By the middle of the fifth century, large portions of the Western Roman Empire had fallen under the control of different barbarian tribes. These tribes went on to create independent kingdoms, which we'll talk about in our future lectures. In the east, the Persians were harassing the Romans. Between the third and the seventh century, the Persians and Romans were constantly battling for control over territory. In 258 CE, the Persian Emperor Shapur I invaded the Roman province of Syria and sacked the city of Antioch. In the process, his army succeeded in capturing the Roman Emperor Valerian and taking him to Persia, where he died. The Persian emperors also enjoyed raiding Roman territories, taking Roman senators and soldiers captive, and forcibly resettling them in Persian territory. The different problems that Romans faced-- barbarians in the west, Persians in the east-- caused the formerly-united Roman Empire to feel pulled in different directions. The empire would continue to exist for a while longer. But by the fifth century, it was clear that the Roman Empire was more of an idea rather than a reality. Later Roman emperors attempted to reunite the eastern and western parts of the empire. They tried to regain the power and glory that the empire had enjoyed in the first and second centuries. But in the end, they would be unsuccessful. There was no going back.

Quiz Question #10