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WesternLectures.docxLecture 3A Review Video and Notes
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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
Lecture 3B Review Video and Notes
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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
Lecture 1A Review Video and Notes
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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
Lecture 1B Review Video and Notes
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[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
Lecture 1C Review Video and Notes
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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
Lecture 2A Review Video and Notes
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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
Lecture 2B Review Video and Notes
· Video
· Notes
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
