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| PREHISTORY AND ANCIENT NEAR EAST |
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Charles Darwin wrote
natural selection- one of the mechanisms of evolution/ process by which individuals with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce/ a trait must be inherited to have importance to natural selection
reproductive fitness- the number of offspring an individual produces and rears to reproductive age/ those who are more fit will produce more offspring |
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(1st primates/ 66- 56 mya)
1) Arboreal Locomotion and Consequences 2) Reliance on Vision and on Intelligence 3) Reproductive Consequences |
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human like hominids
23- 5 mya
broad nasal base, Y5 molars, brain larger than face but still more ape- like, suspensory adaptations, good biped not great, no sagittal crest, no flat dished face, no large cheek arches, no huge cheek teeth, and no robust cranial bones- more gracial, and hieght is smaller than humans being 3 to 5 feet because of sexual dimorphism
Lucy -- recovered by Johanson, White, and Coppens was sexually dimorphic and used trees |
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skillful man
(2.3-1.6 mya)
the first Homo habilis was found at Olduvai Gorge by the Leakeys
used fire but couldn't make it
first toolmakers
- East Africa and South Africa |
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(1.9 mya -200,000 mya)
man who walks upright
(1.9 mya -200,000 mya)
first to make fire
first to migrate out of Africa
- Africa, Asia, and Europe - first human known outside Africa
- cranial traits: sagittal keel, smaller cheek bones, jaws & teeth, face less prognathic, larger cranium & brain (brain-size within modern range) postcranial distinctions: stature modern, most individuals well over 5 feet in height, locomotor adaptations at the pelvis, femur, & tibia are modern. Homo erectus was the first fully-facultative biped. Not merely a good biped, Homo erectus was a GREAT biped. |
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first kind of Homo Sapien
300,000-30,000 mya
buried their dead
- large nasal openings, enlarged, sinuses, mid- facial prognathism, occipital bun, larger brain, retromolar gap, short and robust bodies - brain size is larger than ours but not when compared to body wieght - cognitive skills are different than ours - similiar use in motor control of tongue because of hyoid bone - evidence inclusive when it comes to speech and language - Cave Bear competition unlikely - much like us, buried dead, had technology, art, and culture - arise during glacial stage, have years of interglacial time period, and end in glacial age - Have cold weather adaptations like Inuit Eskimos - Within our stature range |
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man who thinks
190,000 to NOW |
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The first city
-central Turkey
-appeared 7000 BC, abandoned 6000 BC
-large number of shrines
-obsidian made it prosperous |
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Jordan Valley
evidence from early neolithic 8500-7600 BC
-large stone tower excavated
-one of the most continuously inhabitated places on earth |
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| A Middle Eastern culture dated from 13,000 to 9000 B.P., located in the Mediterranean woodland zone. The Natufian reliance on wild wheat and barley set the stage for the Neolithic. |
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| 'Ain Ghazal is a Neolithic site located in North-Eastern Jordan, on the outskirts of Amman. It dates as far back as 7250 BC, and was inhabited until 5000 BC. At 15 hectares (37 ac), 'Ain Ghazal ranks as one of the largest known prehistoric settlements in the Near East. |
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| friend and helper of gilgamesh |
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| Sargon the Great, created a vast empire that went as far west as the Mediterranean Sea. The Akkadian Empire flourished for approximately 200 years, from 2350 - 2150 B.C., eventually becoming part of the Babylonian Empire around 1790 B.C. |
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| Sumerian Inanna, later known by the Babylonians and Assyrians as Ishtar, is the Great Goddess of Love and War. Daughter of Nanna the moon god and Ningal. Main cult cities: Uruk, Nineveh, Kish and Erbil, with important temples and shrines in Babylon and other important Mesopotamian cities. Symbols: morning and evening star, rosette |
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| one of the most important cities in Lower Mesopotamia. Patron deities: Na and Inanna/Ishtar. Kings included Enmerkar, Lugalbanda and Gilgamesh. Main temple: Eanna. Also known as 'Tiranna', Rainbow City, in the Seleucid period. |
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| a mesopotamian name for present-day Bahrain, a land placed at the western coast of the Gulf. It is described as a holy, viring and pure land, where disease, sorrow or pain are not to be found. |
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the King of Babylon from 1792 to 1750 B.C. The Code of Hammurabi was a legal code based on "an eye for an eye" form of justice and had similarities to the Mosaic code of the Bible. The code of Hammurabi are the earliest tablets of law to survive to this day and are considered to be an important find to understand ancient Middle East development and history.
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| Marduk was the chief deity of Babylon. He became the supreme god among the older Sumerian gods as creator and ruler. Enlil was the original chief god until the Code of Hammurabi and the Creation Epic focused on Marduk instead. Jeremiah prophesied that Marduk would be put to shame (Jer 50:2). |
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| Menes was the Pharoah of Egypt from 3100-2850 BC. He is credited for uniting Upper and Lower Egypt |
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The Tale of Sinuhe is a work of Ancient Egyptian literature. It is a narrative set in the aftermath of the death of Pharaoh Amenemhat I, founder of the 12th dynasty of Egypt, in the early 20th century BC. It is likely that it was composed only shortly after this date, albeit the earliest extant manuscript is from the reign of Amenemhat III, c. 1800 BC. There is an ongoing debate among Egyptologists as to whether or not the tale is based on actual events involving an individual named Sinuhe, with the recent consensus being that it is most likely a work of fiction.
The tale opens as Sinuhe speaks from his own tomb. Thus the end of the story is already known. Sinuhe dies and is properly buried in Egypt. The tale begins with the death of the king Amenemhat (who we know from the 'Teaching of Amenemhat' was assassinated). Sinuhe at this point is returning from a campaign in Libya with the sons of the king (most notably the future king Senusret I). He overhears a messenger speaking of the death of the king and in a blind panic flees the country. Scholars have attempted to give a reason for this flight but it is impossible to do so. Possibly, the fact that this person was serving in the royal harim and thus might have been liable to have known about any rumour there of plotting against the king may be of importance. Sinuhe was momentarily taken over by the forces of 'chaos,' there was no logic behind his actions. Upon entering Syria, he marries the daughter of an Asiatic chieftain, who adopts him. He later rises to power within his adopted tribe and returns to Egypt at the invitation of Senusret I. The king accepts that Sinuhe had not control over his actions and blames the fallability of the human heart. He himself fears nothing, is like a god incarnate on earth and maintains the order (Ma'at) in Egypt outside of which all life is pointless.
The tale is often considered the supreme achievement of Ancient Egyptian literature. It combines into a single, economically expressed narrative an extraordinary range of literary styles, and is also notable for its nuanced examination of the motivations of its central protagonist. The poem continually examines the reasons for Sinuhe's flight and his possible culpability for it, without reaching a conclusion.
By placing an Egyptian character in a non-Egyptian (i.e. Asiatic) society, the poem also explores the nature of what it is to be an Egyptian, subtly questioning, without ultimately undermining the Egyptian assumption that life outside Egypt is meaningless. |
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| Town located in Palestine; location of one of the earliest battles recorded in history. |
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| an ancient city in Upper Egypt, on the Nile, whose ruins are located in the modern towns of Karnak and Luxor: a former capital of Egypt. |
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| ruled Egypt from approximately 1490 - 1436 B.C. He was the sixth pharaoh of Ancient Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty. He is believed by some scholars to be the ruling pharaoh during the time of the Biblical book of Exodus. His stepmother was Hatshepsut, who was the first female pharaoh |
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| King of Egypt (1375?-1358?) who rejected the old gods and initiated a monotheistic worship of the sun-god Aton. |
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| Name given to the capital of Thebes (modern Amarna) by Amenhotep IV |
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the Greek form of an Egyptian phrase: “rulers of foreign lands”, refers to a people who entered - possibly forcibly - into Egypt, and built their capital at Avaris in the Nile Delta area in about 1648 B.C. during the Thirteenth Dynasty. There is uncertainty about the method of their takeover. They ruled – as the Fifteenth Dynasty - the northern third or so of Egypt until driven out by Ahmose, first pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, around 1532. The rest of the country was ruled from Thebes as the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Dynasties, however Nubians pushed up from the south and took over part of Egypt towards the end of this period and their rulers are known as the Seventeenth Dynasty. Because of the general disruption to the land of Egypt at this time, it is thought a minor branch of the Hyksos set themselves up as minor rulers, and they have been acknowledged as the Sixteenth Dynasty.
The Hyksos used the Hittite Chariot which gives them a possible Hittite origin. However, they spoke a West Arabian dialect similar to the East Canaanite Amorite of the Old Babylonian kingdom (Amorites) that was conquered by the Hitties just 11 years earlier, which can explain the appearance of the Hittite chariots in Egypt and the absence of the IndoEuropean language.
Their historically brief domination had long lasting effects. They introduced the horse and the chariot to Egypt; and, perhaps, the upright loom, and olive. They forced the end of Egypt’s long held isolation, as the early rulers of the Eighteenth Dynasty set about creating buffer states in Palestine; and this contact with the outside world led to the flowering of culture that this Dynasty is known for.
The period of their control in Egypt (1648-1532 BC) is known as the Second Intermediate Period. |
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| the ancient capital of the Hyksos dynasties in Egypt. Located in the northeastern region of the Nile Delta, Avaris was the base of the Hyksos kings of Egypt's Second Intermediate Period. The city was built atop the ruins of a Middle Kingdom town that had been captured by the Hyksos. After their takeover, the Hyksos heavily fortified the city and ruled the country using new technology, specifically the chariot which had never been witnessed before by the Ancient Egyptians. |
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ancient city, capital of the Ugarit kingdom, W Syria, on the Mediterranean coast N of modern Latakia. Although the name of this city was known from Egyptian and Hittite sources, its location and history were a mystery until the accidental discovery (1928) of an ancient tomb at the small Arab village of Ras Shamra. Excavations begun in 1929 established the identity of the mound as the site of ancient Ugarit. The site was been particularly rich in finds, which have yielded much valuable historical information and from which a partial account of the city has been constructed.
Ugarit was probably occupied from the first appearance of humans in Syria. The lowest level of the mound dates from the Neolithic period, the 5th millennium B.C. It developed as a great center of commerce, having important connections with Mesopotamia. By the 4th millennium Ugarit had reached a high stage of development and was part of the general civilization of ancient Syria. Between 3000 and 2000 B.C., important ethnic changes took place at Ugarit, brought about by the northward migrations of Amorites and Semitic Canaanites. Early in the 2d millennium, because of invasions from the north and east, Ugarit turned to an alliance with Egypt, and from this period Egyptian influence was strong in the city. The city was also the most important center of Minoan trade in Syria. The 15th and 14th cent. B.C. were the period of highest prosperity for Ugarit. Trade developed tremendously, and the city expanded in size. The rich and abundant art of this period shows that an important Mycenaean colony existed in the city. Foreign invasions and economic change in the 12th cent. B.C. caused Ugarit to decline. By the end of the century, although it was not completely abandoned, it had ceased to exist as an important town.
Among the more important discoveries at Ugarit are tablets from the 14th cent. B.C. Written in a cuneiform script, in a hitherto unknown language, Ugaritic, they record the poetic works and myths of the ancient Canaanites. They are written in an alphabet that is one of the earliest known. Ugaritic has been identified as a Semitic language, related to classical Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, and these tablets, the first authentic specimens of pagan Canaanite literature, have been of great importance to students of language and of the Bible. They offer evidence that the stories of the Old Testament were based on written Canaanite documents as well as being passed down orally. |
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| A group of people who migrated to eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea around 1400 BC. |
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| The Philistines were a people who lived on Southern coast of Canaan around the time of the Israelites. Both Abraham and Isaac lived in the land of the Philistines during their travels (Gen 21 & Gen 26). The Philistine lands were avoided by the Jewish people while Moses was leading them through the desert. (Ex 13:17). The Philistines are not mentioned again until the book of Judges where they had become one of Israel's greatest foes, even subjugating them for a while. The story of Samson pitted the great warrior against the Philistines during a time when the Philistines had subjugated the Jews. The quarrel with the Philistines went on over hundreds of years. At the time of king Saul the Philistines were Israel's greatest threat. Goliath, who David slew, was a famous Philistine warrior who had made the warriors of Israel tremble. A common term of contempt for the Philistine was to refer to them as being "uncircumcised". |
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Ramses III, the 2nd king of the 20th Dynasty, ruled for about 31 years during the period known as the New Kingdom. He ruled during a time when the rest of the Mediterranean World was in flux. The fall of Mycenae and the Trojan War caused many displaced peoples to relocate. During the fifth year of his reign, a combination of several different peoples, known as the "Sea People," ravaged the Near East and headed south towards Egypt. The Sea Peoples were defeated by Ramses III
Shortly before his death, there was a conspiracy to kill the king by several members of his household including one of his minor wives. The minor wife was Queen Tiy and it was essentially an attempt to ensure her sons rise to the throne. Ramses III commissioned 14 people to judge over 40 people who were implicated in the conspiracy. Because of the large number of people, they were tried in three groups. It should be noted that this commission was given the necessary powers to collect evidence and carry out the punishment which included the possibility of the death sentence-which was something that was normally reserved to the king himself. By the end of the trial, most of the accused were sentenced to death.
It is believed that Ramses III never lived to see the end of the trials. He was buried in the Valley of the Kings. His mortuary temple was unique in that the entrance was a copy of a Syrian migdol. |
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the island was well known from very ancient times for its iron resources an its valued mines. The Greeks called it Aethalia (flame) after the flames of the furnaces for the metal production.
Then was taken by force by the Etruscans first and (after 480 BC) by the Romans. After the end of the Roman Empire, the island suffered from ravages by barbarians and Saracens. |
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| an ancient Mediterranean seaport that was a thriving city state in Phoenicia during the second millennium BC; was the chief port for the export of papyrus; located in Lebanon to the north of Beirut; now partially excavated |
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| the capital of the ancient Hittite empire in Asia Minor: site of modern Boghazköy, Turkey. |
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| The Aramaeans (also Arameans) were a Semitic (West Semitic language group), semi-nomadic and pastoralist people who had lived in upper Mesopotamia and Syria. Aramaeans have never had a unified empire; they were divided into independent kingdoms all across the Near East. Yet to these Aramaeans befell the privilege of imposing their language and culture upon the entire Near East and beyond, fostered in part by the mass relocations enacted by successive empires, including the Assyrians and Babylonians. Scholars even have used the term 'Aramaization' for the Assyro-Babylonian peoples' languages and cultures, that have become Aramaic-speaking. |
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| town, central ancient Palestine, the modern Khirbet Seilun, the West Bank, NNE of Jerusalem. In biblical times it lay in the territory of Ephraim. The Hebrews were, apparently, the first to build extensively on the site. Shiloh was home to the priests Eli and Ahijah, boyhood home of Samuel, and the place where the Ark rested after the conquest of Canaan. It was the sanctuary and meeting place of the Levites until the Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant. References to it in the Bible are numerous. |
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| (r.1095BC-1055BC according to Ussher,[1] or r. 1050-1010 BC according to Thiele[2]) was the first king of the United Kingdom of Israel. His forty-year reign began well, but in the end turned inauspicious,[3] until at last Saul fell in battle. His successor was David, of whom he remained almost to the end of his life a bitter enemy in civil war. |
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1. the worship of a particular god, as by a family or tribe, without disbelieving in the existence of others.
2. ascription of supreme divine attributes to whichever one of several gods is addressed at the time |
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1. a district in ancient Palestine: later part of the Roman province of Syria; taken by Jordan 1948; occupied by Israel 1967.
2. the northern kingdom of the ancient Hebrews; Israel.
3. the ancient capital of this kingdom. |
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| the Hebrew word meaning "teaching". Its root means to throw or shoot an arrow. God uses this word in scripture to signify His teaching to His people. When Torah is mentioned it is most often associated with the Torah of Moses, or Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) written down by Moses. |
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| a ridge above the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. The ridge extends southeast-northwest from the Samarian highlands, and separates between Jenin and the Beit She'an valley. The site is referenced in the Hebrew Bible, as in the Battle of Gilboa. |
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1. a Minor Prophet of the 8th century b.c.
2. a book of the Bible bearing his name.
3. a male given name: from a Hebrew word meaning “burden.” |
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the second king of Israel from 1010-970 BC.
he defeated Goliath, the champion of the Philistines. Later he captured Jerusalem, which he made the capital city. David greatly extended the borders of Israel which he ruled as a united kingdom. |
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| Isaiah, prophetic book of the Bible. It is a collection of prophecies from a 300-year period attributed to Isaiah, who may have been a priest. Some scholars argue that a long-lived "school" of Isaiah preserved his oracles and supplemented them in succeeding centuries. He received his call to prophesy in the year of King Uzziah's death (c.742 B.C.) and preached during the reigns of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. His message was partly political; he urged King Hezekiah to recognize the power of Assyria, then at its height, and not to ally himself with Egypt, as a party of nobles urged. Like other 8th-century prophets (Amos, Hosea, Micah), Isaiah indicts the people of God for perpetrating social injustice. The book falls into the following major sections. First are oracles of doom against Judah and Assyria interspersed with oracles of salvation in which a Davidic king and a renewed Jerusalem play prominent roles. These are followed by oracles against foreign nations and prophecies announcing the destruction and subsequent redemption of Zion. Next is an account (paralleled in 2 Kings) of Sennacherib's unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem and his assassination long after. The sickness of Hezekiah is recounted; his prayer and his subsequent recovery are followed by his reception of an embassy from Babylon and prophecy of captivity there. The rest of the book is divided into three parts—delivery from captivity, redemption from sin, and the redeemed state of Israel. The book contains prophecies interpreted by Christians as references to Christ; the most famous such prophecy is the vision of the suffering servant. Later biblical allusions to Isaiah are frequent. Among the Dead Sea Scrolls are two manuscripts of the book of Isaiah dating from the 2d-1st cent. B.C. As pre-Masoretic texts, these are important witnesses for establishing the contours of the Hebrew text of Isaiah 1,000 years before the earliest extant manuscripts of the Masoretic text. |
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(c.1000 BC - c.930 BC) was the third King of Israel between c. 970 BC and c. 930 BC. Son of Bathsheba, he succeeded after his father King David. Solomon was famed for his immense wisdom and wealth. It says in the Bible that during the reign of Solomon, Israel was at its strongest.
founded new cities and constructed a temple to God in Jerusalem |
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| the period of during which the Jews were exiled by Nebuchadrezzar to Babylonia in the 6th century BC |
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| in the Old Testament of the Bible is the chest the Hebrews used to contain the tablets of the Law given by God to Moses. The Ark was the centerpiece of the Temple in Jerusalem, residing in the Holy of Holies, and seen just once a year by the high priest on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. |
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a monotheistic religion founded by Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) in what is now Iran. It describes life as a struggle between good and evil with the expectation that good will ultimately prevail. The central divine being is called Ahura Mazda and was associated by Zoroaster to the idea of a creator of all, who had not been created himself. In the belief system, the dead would be resurrected at "the end of time". The sacred text is called Zend Avesta.
Zoroastrianism was created by Zoroaster. The exact date isn't known with some schools of thoughts believing around 1200 B.C., but others around 600 B.C.[1] The religion was popular amongst the tribes of Persia, though was popularized when it was made the state religion of the Sassanid Empire. It quickly declined when the forces of Islam overran the Persian Empire and the population became Islamic. In the 21st century, Zoroastrianism is practiced by around 150,000 - 200,000 people worldwide (in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran).[2]
The religion has been said to have had formative influence on the Abrahamic and Vedic religions and Buddhism, but other scholars say that the Abrahamic religions influenced Zoroastriasm |
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Canaan opposed to Aram is the term used to describe lowlands in Ancient Semitic West Arabian dialects (Amorite).
The ancient West Arabians (Amorites) branched into three main groups:
Aramean meaning the highlanders of the North (Syria and Interior Lebanon) West Cannanites the lowlanders of Phoenicia and Philistia (Modern Israel, Coastal Lebanon and Jordan) East Cannanites the lowlanders of the old Babylonian kingdom (Modern Western/Southwest Iraq)
The East Canaanites will move to the lands of the West Canaanites in the 17th century BC, after the fall of the Old Babylonian kingdom. Some will stay in Canaan and some will dwell into Egypt (The Hyksos). Moses will escape into the promised land around the 1540s settling Southern Canaan in the 1400s BC. |
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| the last capital of the Assyrian empire from 5000 until 612 BC when it was destroyed by the Babylonians. The early date is based upon the biblical account of Asshur founding Nineveh in the biblical book of Genesis (Genesis 10:11), which would translate to roughtly 5000 B.C. based upon recorded geneologies. The ruins of the city are on the banks of the Tigris River near modern Mosul in Iraq. |
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(b. 685 BCE – d. 627 BCE) (reigned 669 – ca. 631 BC or 627 BC), the son of Esarhaddon, was the last great king of ancient Assyria. He is famous as one of the few kings in antiquity who could read and write. Assyrian sculpture reached its apogee under his rule (Northern palace and south-western palace at Nineveh, battle of Ulai). The Greeks knew him as Sardanapalos; Latin and other medieval texts refer to him as Sardanapalus. In the Bible he is called As(e)nappar or Osnapper (Ezra 4:10). Roman historian Justinus identified him as Sardanapalus.
During his rule, Assyrian splendour was not only visible in its military power, but also its culture and art. Ashurbanipal created "the first systematically collected library" at Nineveh, where he attempted to gather all cuneiform literature available by that time. A library was distinct from an archive: earlier repositories of documents had accumulated passively, in the course of administrative routine. |
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an ancient Iranian people who lived in the northwestern portions of present-day Iran, and roughly the areas of present day Kurdistan, Hamedan, Tehran, Azarbaijan, Esfahan and Zanjan. This area was known in Greek as Media or Medea (Μηδία, Old Persian Māda; adjective Median, antiquated also Medean). Under Assyrian rule, the Medes were known as Mādāyu. They entered this region with the first wave of Iranian tribes, in the late second millennium BC (the Bronze Age collapse).
By the 6th century BC, after having together with the Chaldeans defeated the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the Medes were able to establish their own empire, that stretched from southern shore of the Black Sea and Aran province (the modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan) to north and Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and which included many tributary states, including the Persians, which eventually supplanted and absorbed the Median empire in the Achaemenid Persian Empire.
The Medes are credited with the foundation of the first Iranian empire, the largest of its day until Cyrus the Great established a unified Iranian empire of the Medes and Persians, often referred to as the Achaemenid Persian Empire, by defeating his grandfather and overlord, Astyages the shah of Media. |
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| d. 538? B.C., last king of the Chaldaean dynasty of Babylonia. He was not of Nebuchadnezzar's family, and it is possible that he usurped the throne. He was absorbed in antiquarian and religious speculations, and he built temples while the state was left undefended. He was unpopular with both the priests and the people. When the Persian threat of Cyrus the Great grew strong, Nabonidus allied himself with Croesus of Lydia and Amasis II of Egypt, but to no avail. In 538? B.C. the kingdom fell to Cyrus with no resistance. Nabonidus' scholars preserved information valuable to modern archaeologists. Cuneiform records indicate that Belshazzar was Nabonidus' son and his coregent during the last years of Babylon. |
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| ancient city of Persia, ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid empire under Darius I and his successors. The administrative capitals were elsewhere, notably at Susa and Babylon. The ruins of Persepolis lie 30 mi (48 km) NE of Shiraz in a fertile plain of the Pulvar River, with strong natural mountain defenses. There are ruins of the palaces of Darius I, Xerxes, and later kings as well as the citadel that contained the treasury looted by Alexander; the ruins lie on a huge platform constructed of limestone from the adjacent mountain. A few miles distant are the rock-hewn tombs of Achaemenid kings and monuments of the Sassanids on a mountainside called by the natives Naqsh-e-Rostam or Naksh-i Rustam [pictures of Rustam] for the legendary Persian hero Rustam. In the same place there is a 3,000-year-old inscription of Shutruk-Nakhkhunte, a famous Elamite king (c.1207-1171 B.C.). Scattered over the plain, a short distance from the platform of Persepolis, are the ruins of Stakhr or Estakhr, the official capital of the Sassanids, whose administrative capital was Ctesiphon. Excavations have disclosed, 2 mi (3 km) away, a village of the Neolithic period, with mural decorations in red ocher that date back to about 4000 B.C. |
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A Hellenistic term for the Ancient Babylonians.
The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Nineveh in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia and Syria, as well as Judah in 586 B.C. ending the Jewish nation and beginning the exile. Although the Chaldeans only remained in power for fifty years, they were responsible for founding what is known as the Neo-Babylonian empire. Elaborate and beautiful palaces and buildings were constructed by the Chaldeans. The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon were made during Chaldean rule. |
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| lived 576-529 BC. He was King of the Persian Empire and is also called Cyrus the Great. He established the Achaemenid dynasty. He is famous for conquering Babylon and sending the Jews back to their homeland, Israel. |
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| 1822-90, German archaeologist, discoverer of the ruins of Troy. He accumulated a fortune in the indigo trade and as a military contractor and retired from business in 1863 to dedicate himself to finding Troy and other Homeric sites. After several years of study and travel, in 1871 he undertook at his own expense excavations at Hissarlik that resulted in the discovery of four superimposed towns. Schliemann's research at Hissarlik represented the archaeological discovery of a Homeric civilization, previously considered by many experts to be legendary. Schliemann related every object he found to the verses of Homer, which he knew by heart. He made other notable excavations at Mycenae (1876-78), Ithaca (1878), Orchomenus, Boeotia (1881-82), and Tiryns (1884-85) and was assisted by Wilhelm Dörpfeld from 1882. His work in Greece demonstrated the existence of the previously unknown civilization of the Greek Bronze Age. Schliemann made two of the most spectacular discoveries in the history of archaeology, finding the "Treasure of Priam" at Hissarlik in 1873 (a trove that included two gold diadems, thousands of pieces of gold jewelry, bronze weapons, and silver and copper vessels) and an even larger treasure of gold, silver, and copper ornaments, masks, and swords at the Shaft Graves at Mycenae in 1876-77. The Treasure of Priam has always been controversial, as Schliemann's accounts of this discovery were inconsistent, and he smuggled the items out of Turkey. Schliemann's work, widely reported by the international press, captured the public imagination and dramatically revealed the great potential of archaeological research. Schliemann wrote several books describing his discoveries and an autobiography (published posthumously in 1892) and left a vast collection of personal papers and records, He acquired American citizenship because he was living in California when it became a state (1850). |
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| ancient city made famous by Homer's account of the Trojan War. It is also called Ilion or, in Latin, Ilium. Its site is almost universally accepted as the mound now named Hissarlik, in Asian Turkey, c.4 mi (6.4 km) from the mouth of the Dardanelles. Accepting Greek tradition and details in Homeric poems as reliable, Heinrich Schliemann identified the site and conducted excavations there beginning in 1871. Nine successive cities or villages have occupied the site, the earliest dating from the Neolithic period. Attempting to determine which stratum of the mound was the Troy of the Trojan War, Schliemann first gave this distinction to the third stratum and then to the second. Excavations conducted by Wilhelm Dörpfeld in the 1890s indicated that the sixth stratum, representing the sixth settlement of the city, was the Homeric Troy. However, later discoveries by the Univ. of Cincinnati expedition under C. W. Blegen indicated that the seventh level was the Troy of Homer's period. At any rate, it has been definitely established that the Troy of the Trojan War was a Phrygian city and the center of a region known as Troas. The culture of the Trojans dates from the Bronze Age. The Romans, believing that they themselves were descendants of Aeneas and other Trojans, favored the city, and the ninth of the settlements on the site was of some importance in Roman times. |
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| 1851-1941, English archaeologist. He was (1884-1908) keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. From 1900 to 1935 he conducted excavations on the Greek island of Crete, principally at Knossos, and there uncovered the remains of the previously unknown Minoan civilization. He devised a Minoan chronology spanning several thousand years that is still considered essentially accurate. Evans devoted considerable time and expense to the reconstruction of the most impressive feature of the civilization, the palace. The Palace of Minos at Knossos as restored by Evans is based on fragmentary evidence and has proven quite controversial. His writings include Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script (1895), The Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult (1901), and The Palace of Minos (4 vol., 1921-35). |
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| Script developed by the ancient Minoan culture |
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a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. It predated the Greek alphabet by several centuries and seems to have died out with the fall of Mycenaean civilization. The intervening period, in which there is no evidence of the use of writing, is known as the Greek Dark Ages.
The script appears to be related to Linear A, an undeciphered earlier script used for writing the Minoan language, and the later Cypriot syllabary; derivation from another writing system is held to be the reason for its poor compliance with the phonemic principle. It is partly syllabic, with additional logographic signs that are "determinative", or "designational" (yielding "classes", and "types"). As such, it rather resembles modern Japanese writing in graphemic structure.
The application of Linear B was largely confined to administrative contexts. It is theorised that the script was used only by a caste of professional scribes whose native language was Minoan, not Greek. For example, logogram-abbreviations used in the Linear B texts are often irreconcilable with known Greek words but clearly identifiable with those of Linear A texts, and the orthography of Linear B texts was also very badly suited to the Greek language. This may be the reason why Linear B was quickly forgotten after the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces. |
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| ancient city of Crete, on the north coast, near modern Iráklion. The site was occupied long before 3000 B.C., and it was the center of an important Bronze Age culture. It is from a study of the great palace, as well as other sites in Crete, that knowledge of the Minoan civilization has been drawn. The city was destroyed before 1500 B.C. (possibly by earthquake) and was splendidly rebuilt only to be destroyed again c.1400 B.C., probably at the hands of invaders from the Greek mainland. This marked the end of Minoan culture. Knossos later became an ordinary but flourishing Greek city, and it continued to exist through the Roman period until the 4th cent. A.D. In Greek legend it was the capital of King Minos and the site of the labyrinth. The name also appears as Cnosus and Knossus. |
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| location in Peloponnesus where the people called Mycenaeans created a civilization. |
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| ancient harbor, Messenia, SW Greece, on a bay of the Ionian Sea. Excavations have revealed a great Mycenaean palace of the 13th cent. B.C., perhaps the dwelling of King Nestor. Six hundred clay tablets were found there which were important in the decipherment of the late Minoan script (see Mycenaean civilization). The modern town of Pílos, formerly known as Navarino, grew up on the south shore of the bay. The Bay of Pylos was the scene of an Athenian naval victory over Sparta in 425 B.C. and of the battle of Navarino (1827) during the Greek War of Independence. |
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| Mycenaean king who used trickery to win the Trojan War |
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Tholos comes from the Greek, "beehive". A tholos is a tomb that was very characteristic of Bronze Age tombs found in the Mycenaean sites. Tholos tombs were quite common after 1500 B.C.
Tholos tombs were constructed out of stone using corbelled arches, wherein the burial was made and the grave goods were placed. They chamber was then filled with dirt, and only the top mound of the tomb was visible. Sometimes the thoos tombs were cut into rocky hillsides as well. |
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the "great hall" of Mycenaean culture. The rectangular hall, fronted by an open, two-columned porch and a more or less central hearth traditional in Greece since Mycenaean times, is ancestor of the temple in Greece. It was used for poetry, feasts, personal gods being worshipped, sacrifice, and counsels of war. Originally it was very colorful- made with the Minoan architectural order, the insides made of fired brick and huge wooden beams used to frame the building. The roof is tiled with ceramic and terracotta tiles. A famous megaron is in the large reception hall of the king in the palace of Tiryns, the main room of which had a throne placed against the right wall and a central hearth bordered by four Minoan-style wooden columns that served as supports for the roof.
The megaron of Odysseus is well described in the Odyssey |
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| the tribes who spoke the Doric dialect of Greek. They settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 BC. They had a military ruling class that oppressed the local people, and they retained this rule by an aristocracy in Sparta and Crete even after the Greeks established democracy in Athens. The simplest form of Greek architecture, consisting of a straight column without any artistic trim at the top, was created by the Dorians and is known as the Doric order. |
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| in Greek mythology, foremost Greek hero of the Trojan War, son of Peleus and Thetis. He was a formidable warrior, possessing fierce and uncontrollable anger. Thetis, knowing that Achilles was fated to die at Troy, disguised him as a girl and hid him among the women at the court of King Lycomedes of Skyros. He was discovered there by Odysseus, who persuaded him to go to Troy. One of Lycomedes' daughters, Deidamia, bore Achilles a son, Neoptolemus. According to Homer, Achilles came to Troy leading the 50 ships of the Myrmidons. In the last year of the siege, when Agamemnon stole the captive princess Briseis from him, Achilles angrily withdrew and took his troops from the war. Later he allowed his friend and lover Patroclus to borrow his armor and lead the Myrmidons to aid the retreating Greeks. When Hector killed Patroclus, Achilles was filled with grief and rage and returned to the battle, routed the Trojans, and killed Hector, viciously dragging his body back to the Greek camp. Achilles died of a wound inflicted by Paris. According to one legend, Thetis attempted to make Achilles immortal by bathing him in the river Styx, but the heel by which she held him remained vulnerable, and Paris inflicted a fatal wound in that heel. Other legends state that Achilles was struck from behind and killed by Paris when he went to visit Priam's daughter Polyxena, with whom he had fallen in love. Achilles, the object of widespread hero worship, is the main character of Homer's epic The Iliad |
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From the Greek for "city-state", a polis was first developed during the Archaic period of greek history, and the concept was the precursor for our own city today.
An ancient polis would have consisted of an agora (marketplace), an acropolis (higher ground, religious center), and a gymnasium |
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| the Greek term which refers to the portion of a town or city that is built on a hilltop for defensive purposes. In ancient Greece there were many city-states for geographical reasons, and there was often an "Acropolis" in a city-state. The Acropolis of Athens is the best known Acropolis of the world. |
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| an open area below the acropolis- This space had two functions: it was both a market and a place where people could meet and debate issues. |
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the term metic meant resident alien, a person who did not have citizen rights in their Greek city-state (polis) of residence
Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. In most Greek cities (poleis), foreign residents were few. At Athens, the largest city in the Greek world at the time, they amounted to roughly half the free population. The status applied to two main groups of people—immigrants and former slaves. As slaves were almost always of foreign origin they can be thought of as involuntary immigrants, drawn almost exclusively from non-Greek speaking areas, while free metics were usually of Greek origin. Mostly they came from mainland Greece rather than the remote parts of the Greek world. |
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locality in Phocis, Greece, near the foot of the south slope of Mt. Parnassós, c.6 mi (10 km) northeast of the port of Cirrha. It was the seat of the Delphic oracle, the most famous and most powerful of ancient Greece. The oracle originated in the worship of an earth-goddess, and later legend ascribed it to Gaea. It passed to Apollo; some stories say he won it by killing the Python, others that it descended to him peacefully through Themis and Phoebe. The Delphic oracle was the preeminent shrine of Apollo, but in winter, when Apollo was absent among the Hyperboreans, it was sacred to Dionysus, who was said to be buried there.
The oracle was housed in the great temple to Apollo, first built in the 6th cent. B.C. (it was destroyed and rebuilt at least twice). The oracular messages were spoken by a priestess seated on a golden tripod, who uttered sounds in a frenzied trance. The inspired trance was said by the ancient Greeks to be induced by vapors from beneath the temple's floor; these may have been ethylene or other petrochemical fumes rising through faults that ran beneath the temple. The priestess's utterances were interpreted to the questioner by a priest, who usually spoke in verse.
Delphi was unique in its universal position in the otherwise fragmented political and social life of Greece. It was the meeting place of the Amphictyonic league (see amphictyony), the most important league of Greek city-states, and also the site of the Pythian games. Persons seeking the help of the oracle brought rich gifts, and the shrine grew very wealthy. The prestige and influence of the Delphic oracle prevailed for centuries through all of Greece. During Hellenistic times, however, the importance of the oracle declined. Delphi was frequently pillaged from early Roman times, and the sanctuary fell into decay. One of the art works excavated there is the beautiful 5th-century bronze statue called the Delphic Charioteer (now at the Archaeological Mus., Delphi, Greece). |
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| ancient region, S Peloponnesus, Greece, bounded on the W by Messenia and on the N by Arcadia and Argolis. On the Eurotas (now Evrotás), the principal river, stood Sparta, the capital. Sparta dominated the region, despite the existence of many other towns, until the rise of the second Achaean League in the 3d and 2d cent. B.C. Laconia (now Lakonías) is today a name of Greece |
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| the members of an autonomous group of free but non-citizen inhabitants of Sparta. |
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| people from the class of serfs in the city-state of Sparta (700's - 300's B.C.) in ancient Greece. |
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| One of a body of five elected magistrates exercising a supervisory power over the kings of Sparta |
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the Spartan senate. Meaning Council of Elders it consisted of 30 members as well as the two kings. Members had to be over the age of 60 and were elected for life. Theoretically, any Spartan citizen of the right age could stand but in practice members were selected from the most important aristocratic families.
The Gerousia prepared motions or rhetrai for the wider citizen assembly, the Apella, to vote on. The Gerousia could also veto motions passed by the Apella and was consulted by the ephors in matters of interpretation of the law. Additionally, the gerousia filled the role of a court to try murder cases - and had the power to condemn, fine, or banish. |
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| ancient region of SW Greece, in the Peloponnesus and corresponding to the modern nome of Messinías. Excavation has revealed an important center of Mycenaean culture at Pylos dating from the 13th cent. B.C. From the 8th cent. B.C. the Messenians were engaged in a series of revolts against expanding Sparta. After the First Messenian War the Spartans annexed (c.700 B.C.) the eastern part of Messenia. With the Second Messenian War the remaining inhabitants were reduced (7th cent. B.C.) to helots. The Third Messenian War (464-459 B.C.) was a failure for Messenia, but very costly to Sparta. The battle of Leuctra (371 B.C.) freed Messenia, and Messene was founded (c.369 B.C.) as the capital. The region gave its name to Messina, Sicily, because of an influx of Messenian colonists (c.490 B.C.). |
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| c. 524–459 BC) was a leader in the Athenian democracy during the Persian Wars. He favored the expansion of the navy to meet the Persian threat and persuaded the Athenians to spend the surplus generated by their silver mines on building new ships - the Athenian navy grew from 70 to 200 ships. |
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| In 594 B.C. the nobles turned to the one man both sides trusted. This noble canceled all the farmers' debts and freed those who had become slaves. He also allowed all male citizens to participate in the assembly and law courts. |
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tyrant who seized power in 560 B.C. after Solon's rule- He won support of the poor by dividing large estates among landless farmers. He also loaned money to poor people and gave them jobs building temples and other public works
succeeded Solon and exended citizenship to men who did not own land |
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| poet-lawmaker who became leader of Athens after Draco; canceled land debts and freed debtors from slavery |
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| battle in which Sparta held Persians back for 7 days |
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| the site of the Battle of Marathon during the Medic Wars in which Athens defeated Persia in 490 B.C. despite being outnumbered. A runner, named Pheidippedes, was sent back to Athens, about 26 miles away, to inform the Athenians of the news, and dropped dead from exhaustion after making it back and telling the story |
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| battle of Salamis:Greece's smaller ships were better for fighting against large Persian ships |
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| tyrant who allowed ALL free men to participate in government |
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| defensive alliance of Greek city-states with Athens as leader |
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in Hellenic Greece, was a specialised type of colony established by Athens. The term comes from the Greek word klēroūkhos, literally "lot-holder".
Normally, Greek colonies were politically independent; they would have a special relationship with the mother city, metropolis, but would otherwise be independent entities. Cleruchies were significantly different. The settlers or cleruchs would retain their Athenian citizenship and the community remained a political dependency of Athens.
Cleruchies were established as a means of exporting excess and generally impoverished populations to conveniently distant localities, such as the Thracian Chersonese on the far side of the Aegean Sea. Under the cleruchy arrangement, the participating citizen received a plot (or kleros) of agricultural land, hence a means to earn his livelihood. This elevated the citizen to the property class of zeugitai. The cleruch would be obliged to defend his colony by serving it as a hoplite.
This arrangement benefited Athens in three principal ways:
It reduced population pressure in Athens itself;
It increased Athenian military power, as the cleruchs formed military garrisons;
It increased the economic power of Athens, as it enabled more of its citizens to become property holders.
The first known cleruchy is thought to have been Salamis, captured by Athens from Megara in the 6th century BC. Other clerucies were established on the Thracian Chersonese following its recapture from the Persian Empire after the Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th century BC, and at Chalcis following that city's defeat in a war with Athens. During the period of the Delian League and the Second Athenian League (5th–4th century BC), many more cleruchies were created by Athens such as on Samos Island proved worthy in the Social War. The institution fell into disuse following the rise of the Macedonian kingdom, which brought an effective end to Athenian independence. |
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man who became tyrant of Athens, rebuilt Athens, commissioned building of Parthenon
created Delian League, Parthenon built, Acropolis rebuilt, extended democracy to most males |
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an Athenian statesman who lived from 450-404 B.C. He was an orator and a general who strategized for Sparta, Athens, and Persia during the Peloponnesian War after moving from one to the other.
A nephew of Pericles and a favorite student of Socrates, he was consistently a disturbing figure and fled Athens to their arch enermy Sparta after he had fallen out of favor. He later came back to Athens and fought against Sparta. Falling out of favor and fleeing once again, he was killed in exile. |
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an ancient village in northern Attica serving as a source of supplies and trade route connecting Euboea with Athens. The Spartans took control of Decelea around 413 BCE. With advice from Alcibiades in 415 BCE, the former Athenian General wanted on Athenian charges of religious crimes, the Spartans fortified Decelea as a major Spartan army base in the later stage of the Peloponnesian War, giving them control of rural Attica and isolating Athens from food supplies delivered by land. Rural Attica was a primary land route for delivery of food sources such as livestock from Euboea to Athens, and this decimated Athens, which was concurrently being beaten in the Sicilian Expedition it had undertaken in the west.
Furthermore, the Spartan presence in the rural Attic region, in a deviation from previous policy where Spartans returned home for the winter months, was maintained year round. In conjunction with the addition of Spartan patrols through the Attic countryside, this curtailed the Athenian ability to continue exploiting the Laurium silver mines in southeastern Attica that were the primary source of wealth for the Athenian Empire. With the Spartan control of Decelea, it is estimated by Thucydides, that 20,000 slaves escaped from the mines of Laurium and Thorika along the southeastern coast, to Decelea, from 413 until the close of the Peloponnesian War in 404 BCE. |
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| in Ancient Greece, were walls built from a city to its port, providing a secure connection to the sea even during times of siege. Although long walls were built at several locations in Greece—Corinth and Megara being two of the best known examples—the phrase "long walls" generally refers to the walls connecting Athens to its ports at Piraeus and Phalerum. Those walls were constructed in the mid 5th century BC, destroyed by the Spartans in 404 BC after Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, and rebuilt again with Persian support during the Corinthian War. They were a key element of Athenian strategy, since they provided the city with a constant link to the sea and prevented it from being besieged by land alone. |
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| Battle of Aegospotami took place in 404 BC and was the last major battle of the Peloponnesian War. In the battle, a Spartan fleet under Lysander completely destroyed the Athenian navy. This effectively ended the war, since Athens could not import grain or communicate with its empire without control of the sea. |
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| Peace of Antalcidas, between Ancient Greek city-states and Persia |
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| d. 362 B.C., Greek general of Thebes. He was a pupil of Lysias the Pythagorean, but his early life is otherwise obscure. As the Theban delegate to the peace conference of 371 B.C. he refused to surrender his claim to represent all Boeotia. Agesilaus II of Sparta therefore excluded Thebes from the peace. In the resulting war Epaminondas commanded the Boeotian troops. His thorough victory over the Spartans at Leuctra (371 B.C.) proved the effectiveness of his military innovations and earned him a reputation as one of the greatest tacticians of ancient times. Later he bolstered Boeotian power by building up Messenian independence from Sparta. In 367 B.C. he forced Alexander of Pherae to release the Theban general Pelopidas. In 362 B.C. he again commanded the Boeotians against the Spartans and was victorious at Mantinea, but he died in battle. His brilliant tactics in war were studied by both Philip II and Alexander the Great. |
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was a village in ancient Greece, in Boeotia, seven miles southwest of Thebes. It is primarily known today as the site of the important 371 BC Battle of Leuctra in which the Thebans, under Epaminondas, defeated the Spartans. The Spartan hegemony was fallen after that battle, and the Thebans became a new power within the Hellenic world, until the rise of Macedon.
A modern Greek village (whose name is often transcribed "Lefktra" in accordance with modern Greek pronunciation) is now part of the municipality of Plataies. |
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| king of Macedonia from 359 to 336 BC. He was the father of Alexander the Great, who ruled after he was assasinated. Philip can be credited for laying the groundwork of the empire that his son would go on to conquer. |
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There were two men with the name Demosthenes in ancient Greek history.
the most trusted military general for Athens leading armies in battle from 426 B.C. during the Second Peloponnesian War until the Athenian disaster in the war against Syracuse in 413 B.C. After the Athenians were defeated in Syracuse and their army captured, Demosthenes and the other Athenian general Nicias who had also fought over the same time period were executed.
a Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens who lived from 384 to 322 BC.
As a young man, Demosthenes had very weak lungs and could not speak loudly or clearly. However, he did not let this defeat him; to improve his voice, Demosthenes would go to the ocean, fill his mouth with pebbles, and practice speaking loudly enough for his voice to be heard over the waves. He went on to give powerful political speeches--known as the “Phillipics”--against Philip II of Macedon, once causing the crowd to shout, “Let us take up arms and march!” In spite of this, Philip completely conquered the Greeks in 338 BC at the Battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes’ life later ended when he once again rallied Greece to throw off the Macedonian yolk after the death of Alexander the Great, but the resulting Lamian War was a horrible defeat for the Greeks. With the Macedonians occupying Athens, he took poison and killed himself. |
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| ancient town of Boeotia, Greece, in the Cephissus (now Kifisós) River valley and NW of Thebes. There the Athenians and Thebans were defeated (338 B.C.) by the Macedonians under Philip II, and in 86 B.C. Sulla defeated the army of Mithradates VI of Pontus under Archelaus. Chaeronea was the birthplace of Plutarch. |
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| .636-c.546 B.C., pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Miletus and reputed founder of the Milesian school of philosophy. He is the first recorded Western philosopher. Thales taught that everything in nature is composed of one basic stuff, which he thought to be water. Prior to Thales, mythology had been used to explain the nature of the physical world; the significance of Thales thus lies not in his answer but in his approach. Although he apparently wrote nothing, he is believed to have introduced geometry into Greece and to have been a capable astronomer. It is said he predicted an eclipse of the sun in 585 B.C. Thales studied practical as well as speculative problems and was acknowledged one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece for his exhortation to unity among the Ionian Greeks. |
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| c.460-c.370 B.C., Greek philosopher of Abdera; pupil of Leucippus. His theory of the nature of the physical world was the most radical and scientific attempted up to his time. He avoided the abstractions of his predecessors, Anaxagoras (mind) and Empedocles (harmony and discord), by employing consistent mechanistic postulates that required no supernatural intervention. He held that all things were composed of atoms; these he asserted to be tiny particles, imperceptible to the senses, composed of exactly the same matter but different in size, shape, and weight. They were underived, indivisible, and indestructible. Democritus postulated the constant motion of atoms and, on this basis, explained the creation of worlds. He held that the whirling motion caused by the falling of atoms resulted in aggregations—the heavier atoms forming the earth and the lighter ones the heavenly bodies. He taught that what the senses perceive as quality is merely the result of a specific quantitative distribution of atoms. Sense perception yields only confused knowledge, telling us merely how things affect us; thought alone can apprehend the nature of things. Democritus' ethics were moderately hedonistic, teaching that the true end of life is happiness achieved in inner tranquility. |
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| ) The first to study acoustics (a) Science of sound (2) System of modes (a) 7 note scale patterns |
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Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great of Macedonia and Darius III of Achaemenid Persia. The battle, which is also inaccurately called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in victory for the Macedonians.
Darius chose (or smoothed out, depending on accounts) a flat plain where he could deploy his numerically superior forces, however the location of the battle, i.e., that of Gaugamela, cannot be established definitively. Supposedly, the battle was held near a hill in the form of a camel's hump, hence the name etymology: Tel Gomel or Tel Gahmal, which translates as "Mount Camel" in Hebrew. Others translate the name as "camel's stall" (Plutarch: "camel's house", in his Life of Alexander), and associate the place with a settlement. The most commonly accepted opinion about the location is east of Mosul in modern-day northern Iraq – |
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| A city of northern Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea at the western tip of the Nile Delta. It was founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. and became a repository of Jewish, Arab, and Hellenistic culture famous for its extensive libraries. Its pharos (lighthouse) was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Population: 3,810,000. |
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lived from 384 to 322 BC. He was a Greek philosopher who was a student of Plato and the tutor of Alexander the Great. Aristotle emphasized reason and observation of the natural world, and he is believed by many to be the greatest philosopher of all time and the founder of empiricism, the ontological grounding of science. Aristotle is considered one of the earliest politics thinkers and called politics "The master science"[1].
Aristotle came to the Academy when he was seventeen and stayed there for twenty years until the death of Plato. Aristotle’s approach was in stark contrast to Plato's. Whereas Plato thought all true knowledge could be obtained a priori—a disembodied mind floating in a featureless void with no sense experience could work out everything there is to know—Aristotle thought that the natural world needed to be studied and observed for knowledge to be gained. He embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible on everything he could study at the time. In contrast to Plato’s interest in physics and maths, Aristotle was fascinated by biology, and classified over 500 animal species. He ultimately founded his own school, the Lyceum, and equipped it with specimens, libraries, maps and other objects found in modern university.
Charles Murray said, "He more or less invented logic, which was of pivotal importance in human history (and no other civilization ever came up with it independently)." [2]
Aristotle also formulated Virtue Ethics, a code of living which emphasizes what sort of person we want to be when making a decision, rather than, as tends to be the focus in modern ethical thinking, the motives or the consequences of actions (see Nicomachean Ethics). When Aristotle's teachings were brought back to Europe at the end of the Dark Ages by Arab merchants, Aquinas, eager to reconcile Catholicism with Aristotle's secular empiricism, developed Natural Law Theory. |
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the people who settled in the Italian peninsula prior to 700 BC. Their language is unique; it is unconnected with Proto Indo European languages. This has puzzled linguists for some time, since it does, alternately, bear some connection to a Greek dialect on the far side of the Mediterranean Sea. Herodotus, who called the Etruscans the Tyrhennians, wrote that the Etruscans were offshoots of a tribe which lived in what would now be called Turkey, who left their tribe as a result of dwindling food supplies, to seek greener pastures in a new colony far across the sea. This theory, until recently, had little proof, and was thought by historians to be another one of Herodotus' outrageous, unverifiable, and likely false legends. Such a theory of Etruscan origins also conflicted with cranial analysis that suggested that the Etruscans were native to Italy. Only recently has DNA testing shed some light on Etruscan origins - suggesting that Herodotus may have been, in fact, correct.[1]
Etruscan culture was composed of 12 city-states, which functioned in loose alliance, on the Greek model. The most powerful city-state was Veii. Most Etruscan cities functioned on a democratic-style system, and the cities would assemble with delegates once per year at the site (undiscovered, yet) of Fanum Voltumnae to set joint policy. Dissent within the ranks of the twelve cities is put forward as one of the reasons for Etrsucan decline, and weakness upon the rise of the Roman Republic.
Etruscan nomenclature in the names of the latter kings of the Roman Kingship suggests that the powerful Etruscan League exerted considerable control over the early Roman peoples.[2] The Romans would later learn much of their culture from the Etruscans. Examples include the Roman polytheistic religion (drawn heavily from Etruscan contact with the Greeks), its associated rituals, the Etruscan belief in democracy (in a highly limited form), and the use of political symbols such as the fasces, or the twelve sticks tied around an axe, as a symbol of ultimate authority. The Etruscans would also fight many wars with the Roman Republic, resulting in the final sack and capture of the greatest Etruscan city, Veii, by Camillus. |
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753 BC, the legendary founder of Rome, Romulus, and his twin brother Remus who were raised by a she wolf. They were descendents of the fugitives of Troy who survived the Trojan War.
As legend tells as they were growing older they fought and Romulus killed Remus in a fight, and that is why Rome is called Rome |
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was a patrician Roman Republican consul for 299 BC, elected along with a plebeian co-consul Marcus Fulvius Cn.f. Paetinus.
According to Livy (Book V: 11), Titus Manlius died of a fall from his horse, while preparing his troops to march into Etruria
The province of Etruria fell by lot to the consul Titus Manlius; who, when he had but just entered the enemy's country, as he was exercising the cavalry, in wheeling about at full speed, was thrown from his horse, and almost killed on the spot; three days after the fall, he died. |
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A plebeian, or pleb, was a average Roman citizen, usually thought of as lower class. Though a citizen, a plebeian did not enjoy the status and rank of the higher-class Romans, namely the Patricians.
Early on in the Roman Republic, the plebs were not allowed to participate in religious ceremony, politics, and could not marry Patricians. In 287 B.C., when the plebeians and Patricians came to an accord of equality and harmony, the plebs were granted sort sort of level citizenship, and could enlist in the military, participate in the state religions, and intermarry.
Eventually, plebs could participate in politics, even become Senators. By the late Republic, plebs had become among some of the wealthiest Romans, and the lines between the once lower class plebs and the elite patricians blurred. |
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A Patrician was a wealthy, upper class citizen of the Roman Republic. From the Latin pater, "father", the term was originally used to describe the earliest Senators of the Republic, who were the elite Roman citizens.
The term patrician evolved through the history of the Republic, and by the early days of the Roman empire, the term was mostly a term of prestige. |
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| A consul was the highest elected office under the Roman Republic. During the Republic, consuls were the heads of the government, making all administrative and military decisions with the Roman Senate. It was an annually elected office, held by two men at a time. Under the Empire, the position shifted to one of mere symbolism |
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The Roman assemblies were the Comitia Calata, the Comitia Curiata, the Comitia Centuriata, and the Comitia Tributa. They possessed ultimate legislative and judicial powers in the Roman Republic and were also responsible for the election of magistrates.
Unlike legislatures in countries such as the United States, the Roman assemblies were seen to embody the People of Rome, not merely being an elected body of representatives, and thus possessed ultimate legislative powers, including the ability to pass ex post facto laws and bills of attainder. They could also act as a court of appeal for death. They were also not deliberative assemblies: normal citizens neither debated nor proposed legislation (only magistrates could propose legislation). The assemblies also possessed judicial powers, some of which were transferred to permanent courts later in the Republic. The absence of modern separation of powers did not mean that checks and balances were absent from Roman government (they were in fact remarkably elaborate).
In the later Republic, a subset of the Comitia Tributa, the Concilium Plebis, gained the legislative powers of the assemblies and became the favored legislative mechanism.
The honoured expression Senatus Populusque Romanus (abbreviated as SPQR), often used as an indication for the Roman state, clearly testifies to the general perception that Rome was legitimately ruled by the will of the people (in the assemblies) guided by the Senate, and under their authority by the magistrates. Only when the principate was established—within the republic, which was never abolished—did a single person, the Roman emperor, start to embody the state politically and hence incarnate the maiestas of Rome. |
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| Rooted from the days of the Roman tribes, a tribune was part of a group of men elected annually by the Roman Senate who held military and voting responsiblities during the Roman Republic. |
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an informal exercise of power by Rome's plebeian citizens, similar to a general strike taken to the extreme. During a secessio plebis, the plebs would simply abandon the city en masse and leave the patrician order to themselves. Therefore a secessio meant that all shops and workshops would shut down and commercial transactions would largely cease. This was an effective strategy in the Conflict of the Orders due to strength in numbers; plebeian citizens made up the vast majority of Rome's populace and produced most of its food and resources, while a patrician citizen was a member of the minority upper class, the equivalent of the landed gentry of later times.
The word has survived to the modern day in the term secession, meaning to withdraw from an organisation, union, or political entity.
Authors report different numbers for how many secessions there were. Cary & Scullard (p. 66) state there were five between 494 and 2 |
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| were written in 451 BC. They were Rome's first written laws and were inscribed on twelve tablets in the Capitol. |
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| c. 7th century BC - 338 BC) was a confederation of about 30 villages and tribes in the province of Latium near ancient Rome organized for mutual defense. |
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| King of Epirus (Western Greece) |
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| , Second, and Third Samnite wars, between the early Roman Republic and the tribes of Samnium, extended over half a century, involving almost all the states of Italy, and ended in Roman domination of the Samnites. The tribes of Samnium, who held the Apennines to the southeast of Latium, were Rome's most formidable rivals. |
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an ancient city on the northern coast of Africa, near modern day Tunis in Tunisia. Originally a Phoenician colony, it grew to be a great naval power that exerted influence across the Mediterranean Sea.
The emerging power of Rome led to inevitable conflict, and they first clashed in Sicily in the middle of the 3rd century B.C. Carthage and Rome went on to fight the three monumental Punic Wars, until Carthage was destroyed, and its lands seized, following the Third Punic War. During its time as a Roman principality, Carthage developed a thriving Christian community. St. Augustine of Hippo hailed from what was once Carthaginian land, as did the Donatists, a Christian sect which Augustine succeeded in branding as heretical.
Carthage stayed in Roman hands until the fall of the western Empire |
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meaning "raven" in Latin) or harpago (probably the correct ancient name ) was a Roman military boarding device used in naval warfare during the First Punic War against Carthage.
In the Book III of his History, Polybius describes this device as a bridge 1.2 m (4 ft) wide and 10.9 m (36 ft) long, with a small parapet on both sides. The engine was probably used in the prow of the ship, where a system of pulleys and a pole allowed the bridge to be raised and lowered. There was a heavy spike shaped as a bird's beak on the underside of the device. The spike was designed to pierce the enemy ship's deck when the boarding-bridge was lowered. This allowed a firm grip between the vessels and a route for the legionaries.
In the 3rd century BC, Rome was not a naval power and had little or no experience in war at sea. Before the first Punic war, the Roman Republic had not campaigned outside the Italian Peninsula. The Republic's military strength was on land, and her greatest assets were the discipline and courage of her soldiers. The boarding-bridge allowed her to use her marines against the superior Carthaginian naval skills. The Romans' application of boarding tactics worked; they won several battles, most notably those of Mylae, Sulci, Tyndaris, and Ecnomus.
Despite its advantages, the boarding bridge had serious drawbacks: it could not be used in rough seas since the stable connection of two working ships endangered each others structure. So with the Carthaginians operating in rough seas the device became useless and was abandoned. According to Bonebaker, Professor of Naval Architecture at Delft, with the estimated weight of one ton for the boarding bridge, it is "most improbable that the stability of a quinquereme with a displacement of about 250m³ would be seriously upset".
Some other historians believe that its weight on the prow compromised the ship's navigability and the Romans lost almost two entire fleets to storms in 255 and in 249 BC, largely due to the instability caused by the device. These losses were probably the main reason for the abandonment of the boarding-bridge in ship design by the end of the war. As Roman Naval tactics improved and the Roman crews became more experienced, the boarding-bridge was no longer used in battle. It is not mentioned in period sources after the battle of Ecnomus and apparently the battle of the Aegates Islands that decided the first Punic war was won without them.
An evolution of the boarding bridge, called arpax, was used in the battle of Naulochus. |
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a Carthaginian commander and military genius. He was born in 247 B.C. of the "royal" family of Barca. His father, Hamilcar Barca was one of the greatest Carthaginian generals during the First Punic War. The name of "Hannibal" literally means the "mercy of Baal". In 241 B.C. when Hannibal was only 6 years old, in the Battle of the Aegates Islands the First Punic War came to a close. After 23 years of fighting, the war ended in a peace treaty that both sides knew was more or less "made to be broken." Rome now stood squarely facing Carthage, neither city could place any real trust in the other. Carthage spent the next decade recuperating from the First Punic War. Hamilcar was dispatched to Spain, taking with him his nine year old son. The Carthaginian government was seeking compensation for the loss of Sicily in the last war, and Hamilcar personally saw Spain as a potential base to wage a war of vengeance against the Romans. Hannibal was brought up to succeed his father's position as general of the Carthaginian forces in Spain, and like his father, was filled with a deep hatred of Rome. At the age of 19, Hannibal lost his father in a battle against one of the Hispanic tribes in an attempted, but unsuccessful, revolt in Spain. Young, but already a somewhat seasoned soldier from traveling with his father on his campaigns as a boy, Hannibal rose to command all of the forces in Spain. He was a favorite of the soldiers; very charismatic and determined. Over the next ten years, 228-219 B.C. Hannibal prepared for a second war on Rome.
While Hannibal had gone on to subdue all of Spain and some of the surrounding small provinces, overwhelming them with numbers and near perfect strategy, Rome had suffered from internal problems. They had spent several years cleaning up numerous Gallic revolts which almost had come to the doorstep of the Capitoline Hill. But true to Roman form, excellent generalship and indomitable courage had quieted these northern neighbors, and Rome had been able to "rest" for about a year. It was at this critical moment in history that Hannibal came to show his real "battlefield genius". The Carthaginian commander prepared to launch his epic attack on the Romans in the spring of 228 B.C. Hannibal's plan was one of relative simplicity. It consisted of making a march over the almost impassable Alps, and striking right at the heart of the Italian peninsula: Rome. Hannibal was one of those people who love a challenge. He assembled his army along with 37 war elephants, as Polybius tells us, and prepared to make a march that would go down in history as second only to Alexander's march through Persia, in 330 B.C.
After two grueling weeks of toil spent struggling through the incessant snow of the always white capped mountains, Hannibal appeared, as if out of thin air, in Italy. Most of Hannibal's famous elephants had left their hulking grey bodies and long curved tusks in the alpine snows, and the army suffered some casualties of the unbearable weather; but the army of Carthage came through still strong and splendidly disciplined. The Second Punic War had begun. Hannibal's lightning first struck the two Roman consuls of the year 218, almost encircling their armies on a bitter cold December Day. The Romans fought valiantly, but were surpassed in generalship, and routed. Hannibal destroyed almost two-third of the Roman force. Then in 217, Hannibal pushed across the Apennines, and ambushed the new consul, Flaminius, and his legion. The day had been cold and foggy; the Romans had been completely unsuspecting. Hannibal and his force surrounded them and proceeded to cut them to pieces, killing Flaminius. The Romans were now desperate, they turned to their last resort and selected a dictator in light of the catastrophes that had been reeked on the army. The senate appointed Quintus Fabius Maximus, a man known to history as "the Delayer". Fabius avoided all battle during his brief stint in office, giving the depleted Roman army a chance to recover. Even when he did seek to engage his forces, Hannibal created a brilliant diversion driving two thousand oxen through the Roman camp that night with torches tied to their horns. However, the greatest Roman defeat was still to come.
In 216 B.C., Hannibal captured a grain depot at Cannae on the Aufidus River. L. Aemilius Paullus and C. Terentius Varro, the consuls for that year, led 4 reinforced legions to out meet him. They proceeded to walk into Hannibal's death trap. In the following conflict, Hannibal used his cavalry masterfully, counterbalancing the fact that his infantry was vastly outnumbered. The Carthaginians won an overwhelming victory, slaughtering over half of the 50,000 soldiers the Romans led into battle. Consul Paullus was numbered among the dead, and Consul Varro had narrowly escaped with his life. Hannibal's casualties numbered approximately 5,700, one -sixth of the Roman losses. It is said in the military that an army that has suffered losses that exceed 70% are broken, fatally wounded, and completely useless. Hannibal seemed to have taken control of the War.
However, Hannibal needed reinforcements, not only of soldiers, but of arms and other necessary supplies. He had to some degree counted on the assistance of the small towns and tribes surrounding Latium, but they clung fast to Rome. All of Hannibal's elephants had died on the original trip over the Alps, or had perished in battle. He was suffering much the same fate of the King Pyrrhus who in an earlier age had attempted to conquer Rome. Meanwhile, the Roman Senate appointed a second dictator in this second time of crisis. They scrambled to pull the remains of the army together, calling upon all of the small villages under their protection to send aid. Consul Varro had done his best to organize the to crippled forces that had survived the battle unscathed. In four years, Rome, after having six legions destroyed in the field, had assembled 25 new, fresh legions were prepared to fight. Rome had also discovered two leaders capable of matching wits with Hannibal in Publius Cornelius Scipio the younger, and Appius Claudius Pulcher, descendant of the great Appius Claudius who had inspired Rome's defiance of Pyrrhus.
Hannibal had tried desperately to buy time, always hoping that somehow Carthage would find a way to get him the necessary reinforcements. Hannibal had put on a demonstration in front of the walls of Rome, hoping to strike fear into the hearts of the Romans. But he was not able to attack, he needed more soldiers to engage in a siege of that magnitude. In 211 B.C. Rome recaptured Syracuse, which had risen against Rome in 216 B.C. and raised the siege of the city of Capua in the same year. The Roman generals Publius Cornelius Scipio the elder, and his brother Gnaeus, had succeeded in blockading the passage of all reinforcements from reaching Hannibal through Spain. Rome, through her fortitude, had forced at least one more deciding battle to be fought.
Then, in the year of 209 B.C., Publius Cornelius Scipio took the New Carthage, now Cartagena, which was the chief city of the Carthaginians in Spain. This battle, however, included some remarkable phenomenon. During Scipio's siege of the town, which was protected by a lagoon on one side, the waters of this lake parted, and the Romans marched through them to victory. A later historian documented the similarity between the Roman conquest in Spain and the flight of the ancient Israelites from Egypt. This last defeat was a crushing blow to the Carthaginians, specifically to Hannibal's forces encamped in Italy. Now, Hannibal's last hope resided in his brother-in-law Hasdrubal Barca, who had been given command of the Spanish Army. If Hasdrubal could reach Hannibal with his soldiers and arms, Carthage had a fighting chance. But until then, Hannibal was slowly losing his grasp on Italy. Finally, in the year of 208 B.C. Hasdrubal left Spain with the largest of three armies under his command. Once more, elephants came marching through the Alps.
Once over the Alps, Hasdrubal and company prepared to march into Italy. He was directly opposed by four Legions led by the consul of the year 207, M. Livius Salinator. However, the other consul C.Claudius Nero, also a member of the famous family of Appius Claudius, picked 7,000 men from his army and proceeded to make a forced march along the Adriatic Coast. The women and children came out and the cheered the army at every town they passed. Nero and his men made forty miles a day, an incredible clip, and arrived in the camp of Consul Livius in the dead of night. At dawn, the Roman force marched round the Hasdrubal, outflanking him. Hasdrubal was forced to retreat. However, Nero followed like a dog on a scent. Finally, the two armies met. The 7,000 men under the command of Consul Nero marched clear around the flank of Hasdrubal and his elephants, attacked from the rear, and routed the Carthaginians. Hasdrubal was killed by Nero, who cut off his head. Lesser attempts to reinforce Hannibal would be made, but none were as great as that of Hasdrubal in 207. Hannibal had become almost stranded in Italy, with no possible way to receive supplies or soldiers. At the same time, although retreat was possible, Carthage would not allow Hannibal to pull out.
Meanwhile, Consul Scipio conquered the rest of Spain, and then in 204 advanced into Africa. The next year he won major battles at the Bagradas River, and captured the city of Tunis, which was within sight of Carthage. He proposed terms in which Carthage was to surrender all there overseas possessions, along with paying an indemnity of 5,000 talents. However, the nation would retain its freedom. Carthage was worn out with the war, and accepted. The terms were sent back to Rome for a final review. From the Senate, Appius Claudius again took the floor and said they would not make terms with an enemy upon their Italian soil. So Hannibal was recalled to Carthage, after 16 years of fighting in Italy. During his campaign, Hannibal never lost a battle, winning often in spectacular fashion as at Cannae. Despite his victories, despite his many triumphs, despite the courage of his men, he had lost. It must had been hard for him to understand how or why. Carthage upon the return of Hannibal, suddenly made the mad decision to make one last gasp for life. They raised an army of all able bodied men, and hired several Hispanic and Gallic mercenary companies.
It is fair to say that Carthage was already beaten when the raw Carthaginian recruits and mercenaries met Scipio at the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C. The two armies were essentially equal in numbers, but completely different in morale. the Carthaginian were made up of more mercenary contingents then actual recruits. Hannibal's tried veterans were now vastly depleted. In this final battle of the war, something that rarely occurs. In fact this might be the only incident it happened in an actual military battle. In the front line of the Carthaginians, stout Spanish and Berber mercenaries who were hard pressed by the Roman legions suddenly turned and attacked their on forces. The reason is still unknown to this day, but it was the cause of Hannibal's only defeat. Rome had won the second Punic War.
Hannibal to this day is one the greatest military minds the world has ever produced. With the exception of the disastrous battle at Zama, Hannibal, like Alexander the Great was never defeated. He inspired his troops to follow him wherever ha would lead. During the Second Punic War against Rome, he crossed the Alps with 38 War Elephants in a mere 15 days to surprise the Roman armies. Feared and successful even in peace, the Romans eventually forced him to commit suicide in 183 BC. |
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| Roman, lands in Africa in 2nd Punic War |
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| Scipio has a victory here, Second Punic War |
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"farm, estate") of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine. They were characteristic of Magna Graecia and Sicily, of Egypt and the North African Maghreb and of Hispania Baetica in southern Spain. The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slave labour.
Today, latifundia are only found in Latin America and the term is often extended to describe the haciendas of colonial and post-colonial Mexico, Venezuela, Uruguay, Chile (called latifundio or simply fundo) and Argentina. These originated under colonial law allowing forced labor recruitment and land grants for military services. In post-colonial times, ending the dominance of the latifundia system by implementing agrarian reforms became a popular goal of several governments in the region. |
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| original cavalry of the Roman army, chosen, according to legend, by Romulus from the three ancient Roman tribes; the equites were selected from the senatorial class on the basis of wealth. During the late republic they numbered 1,800, but during the empire their number more than doubled. A law passed by Caius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C. transferred judicial functions from the senate to the body of equites, who, though later deprived of these powers by Sulla, attained much influence in the state. In the 1st cent. B.C. the equites were a distinct class allowed to engage in business and they allied themselves alternately with the popular and the senatorial parties. During the reign of Augustus, the equites lost their political power. |
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| in ancient Rome, man who was employed by the state government under contract. As early as c.200 B.C. there was a class of men in Rome accustomed to undertaking contracts involving public works and tax collecting; the tax collectors made the most profit. The publicans were usually equites, or capitalists. In the Gospels—which showed the general detestation, particularly in Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, in which the publicans were held—the publicans mentioned were tax collectors. From the 1st cent. A.D. the abuses of the publicans began to be corrected, and by the end of the 2d cent. the publicans as a group had disappeared. |
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| Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus:Sons of Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Proposed political reform in 133 BCE Murdered by Senate |
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a Roman General and seven-time consul who lived from 157 to 86 BC. Full name Caius Marius, Marius was born as a plebian, making his rise to the consulship all the more remarkable: he was, in essence, the first novus homo, or "new man," meaning plebian that rose the patrician ranks of his own skill.
He established a professional army, including instituting for the first time the use of the weapon known as the pilum - a thrown spear designed to shatter upon impact so that the enemy could not re-use it after thrown by a Roman legionnaire.
He also established the army as an institution more related to the individual general than the state, by for the first time personally rewarding his veterans. In this sense, Marius is said to have "forged the sword that slew the state," in that he created the idea of a personal army, which Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus and Julius Caesar would later use in the civil wars that led to the fall of the Roman Republic.
After leading a successful military career, Marius, instead of retiring, attempted to become engaged in Roman political life by joining in the conflict between Lucius Cornelius Sulla and the Roman Senate. The Greek historian Plutarch tells us that Marius was incredibly inept at politics, and uses his life in the book Parallel Lives as an example of what happens when a man stretches himself too far, and refuses to be content with his already-memorable legacy. |
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Sulla (136 B.C. - 78 B.C.) was a legendary general and dictator of Rome. He was born Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix to a high-ranking Patrician family that had lost nearly everything prior to his birth. Young Sulla spent time among the seedier characters of Rome, yet was highly educated, knowing Greek. This diverse upbringing came to serve him well later on.
He was known for being brilliant on the battlefield, and rose through the military and political ranks quickly. Through all of his conquests, including a siege on Athens in 87 B.C and marching on Rome twice in order to regain control of the city, Sulla commanded great respect. He was appointed Dictator by the Roman Senate in 82 B.C. He quickly became quite maniacal in his rule, executing political foes and noble Romans, often for no reason. He even targeted a young Julius Caesar.
Sulla did institute reforms in Rome. He doubled the size of the Senate to 600, and limited the veto power of the tribunes.
Sulla resigned as Dictator after two years in 79 B.C., retiring to his villa in Puteoli. He died of liver failure in 78 B.C. |
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ancient Roman family, of the plebeian Licinian gens. It produced men who achieved great note in the 2d cent. and 1st cent. B.C.
One of the well-known members was Lucius Licinius Crassus, d. 91 B.C., a noted orator and lawyer (much admired by Cicero). He was a strict follower of constitutional forms, and he and Scaevola as consuls in 95 B.C. proposed a law—called the Licinian Law, the Lex Licinia, or the Lex Licinia Mucia—to banish from Rome Latins who had gained Roman citizenship by illegal means (or what the law set as illegal means). This greatly aggravated anti-Roman sentiment among the allies and helped bring on the Social War |
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| 106 B.C.-48 B.C., Roman general, the rival of Julius Caesar. Sometimes called Pompey the Great, he was the son of Cnaeus Pompeius Strabo (consul in 89 B.C.), a commander of equivocal reputation. The young Pompey fought for Sulla in Picenum, in Sicily, and in Africa so successfully that Sulla allowed him to enter Rome in triumph and receive (81 B.C.) the title Magnus. He helped drive (77 B.C.) Lepidus from Italy and went (76 B.C.) to Spain to fight the remnants of the Marius party led by Sertorius. After this he returned (72 B.C.) to Italy and helped to end the slave revolt of Spartacus. Although he was not legally eligible, he was elected consul in 70 B.C.; he supported laws restoring the powers of the tribunes and forcing the senate to share some of the magistracies with the knights. Pompey's main career as a general began in 67 B.C., when he was commissioned by the law proposed by Aulus Gabinius to destroy the pirates infesting the Mediterranean. From this success he went on to vanquish Mithradates VI and Tigranes, king of Armenia. He next annexed Syria and Palestine and began the Roman organization of the East. In 62 B.C. he returned to Rome. The senate, jealous and ungrateful, had been influenced by the Metellus faction of senatorial extremists, who eventually drove Pompey into alliance with their deadly enemy, Caesar. The First Triumvirate was established in 60 B.C., and Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey became rulers of Rome. Pompey profited least from the combination. He was never popular, and his residence in Rome, while Caesar was away, diminished his hold on the people. At the same time the irresponsible behavior of Clodius and Pompey's own inclinations made him more and more sympathetic to the senate. The relations of Pompey and Caesar, however strained, were always amicable while Pompey's wife Julia, Caesar's daughter, was alive, but after her death (54 B.C.) Pompey became Caesar's jealous enemy. Finally, after the disorders of the gangs organized by Clodius and Milo, in 52 B.C., Pompey received the sole consulship as the leader of the senatorial party. He made Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio his colleague. Caesar broke with the senate and crossed (49 B.C.) the Rubicon, and the civil war began. Pompey was defeated at Pharsalus (48 B.C.) and fled to Egypt, where he was assassinated. |
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| Marcus Tullius Cicero:One of the greatest Roman Writers, from an Equestrian Family, murdered year after Caesar by Antony, wrote legal speeches, letters |
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| Mark Antony was born Marcus Anotonius in Rome in 83 B.C. He was a politician and a Roman general in Julius Caesar's army. He was an avid supporter of Caesar's campaigns, and when he was assassinated in 43 B.C., Mark Antony aligned politically with Octavian. The relationship went sour when Mark Antony's affair with Cleopatra (which produced twins) caused Mark Antony to become hungry for power of his own, and side with the Queen. They were defeated at the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. In 30 B.C., thinking that Cleopatra had killed herself (she had not), Mark Antony took his own life |
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The Cleopatra of legend; last ruler of Egypt before Roman conquest
had affairs with both Julius Caesar and Marc Antony of Rome, and was Egypt's last independent ruler. |
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took place on September 2, 31 B.C. in the waters off Acarnania, Greece, in which a Roman naval force under Octavian scored a decisive victory over an Egyptian fleet under the command of Queen Cleopatra VII and the Roman triumvir Mark Antony. The battle would prove to be the last one in a short civil war between Octavian and renegade forces under Antony.
After he had learned that Roman territories in the eastern Mediterranean had been given to Cleopatra by Antony, as well as the disgraceful way Antony had divorced his sister, Octavian sent a force under his leading general Agrippa of 400 ships and 80,000 soldiers across the Ionian Sea and occupied Patrae, Corinth, and Ambracian Gulf; facing him to the south was Antony’s force of 500 ships and 70,000 men. In a short time Octavian would join them, and would cut off the Peloponnese and Antony’s communications with Egypt there. Due to the lack of unity among Antony’s generals, as well as Cleopatra’s insistence on being present at his headquarters, morale deteriorated and desertions increased as Antony’s men were forced back from their lines by Agrippa’s skillful maneuvering.
Forced to take some sort of decisive action, Antony took to sea and engaged his combined fleet against Octavian’s squadron. As each side out-maneuvered the other, it was unclear as to who was winning until, either deliberately or prearranged, Cleopatra took her Egyptian fleet and left the area; Antony, upon seeing this, ended his own engagement and fled with a few ships. The remainder of the naval and land forces soon surrendered to Octavian.
Both Antony and Cleopatra would survive the battle for a year in Egypt, severely-weakened militarily and awaiting the inevitable arrival of the Romans; both would commit suicide. Octavian built a monument dedicated to his victory at Actium, a primarily-block wall embedded with the bronze rams taken from the captured ships. |
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| a title shared by 2–3 elected magistracies and other governmental and/or military offices of the Roman Republic and Empire. It derived originally from the representatives of the tribes (tribus) into which the Roman people were |
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| In ancient Rome the concept applied to people, and meant something like "power status" or "authority", or could be used with a geographical connotation and meant something like "territory". It is not to be mistaken with auctoritas ("authority"). |
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| highest priest of Roman religion and official head of the college of pontifices. As the chief administrator of religious affairs he regulated the conduct of religious ceremonies, consecrated temples and other holy places, and controlled the calendar. During the time of the empire, and until Christianity became firmly established, the emperor was designated pontifex maximus. After the supremacy of Christianity, the popes assumed the title. |
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the constant title of a high office in the Roman state that changed fundamentally in nature.
The praetorian prefect was commander of the Praetorian Guard until Constantine abolished the guard in 314. Praetorian prefects continued to be appointed until the reign of Heraclius, but the office developed into head of the civil and judicial administration of the empire. |
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| The Roman Empire – through its Praefectus Aegypti – controls the Egyptian ports of call Arsinoe, Myos Hormos and Berenice, as well as Ptolemais Theron (Suakin) in Sudan. |
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from Latin: auxilia = "supports") formed the standing non-citizen corps of the Roman army of the Principate (30 BC - 284 AD), alongside the citizen legions. By the 2nd century, the auxilia contained the same number of infantry as the legions and in addition provided almost all the Roman army's cavalry and more specialised troops (especially light cavalry and archers). The auxilia thus represented three-fifths of Rome's regular land forces at that time.
Auxiliary troops were mainly recruited from the peregrini i.e. free provincial subjects of the Roman Empire who were not Roman citizens, the vast majority of the empire's population in the 1st and 2nd centuries (ca. 90% in the early 1st century). Auxiliaries also recruited Roman citizens and probably barbarians (barbari, as the Romans called peoples located outside the Empire's borders). This was in contrast to the legions, which admitted Roman citizens only.
The auxilia developed from the varied contingents of non-Italian troops, especially cavalry, that the Roman Republic used in increasing numbers to support its legions after 200 BC. The Julio-Claudian period (30 BC-68 AD) saw the transformation of these motley temporary levies into a standing corps of regiments with standardised structure, equipment and conditions of service. By the end of this period, there were no significant differences between legionaries and most auxiliaries in terms of training, equipment, or combat capability.
Auxiliary regiments were often stationed in provinces other than the province in which they were originally raised. The regimental names of many auxiliary units persisted into the 4th century, but by then the units in question were different in size, structure, and quality from their predecessors. |
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| a border defense or delimiting system of Ancient Rome. It marked the boundaries of the Roman Empire. |
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Osiris (Greek language, also Usiris; the Egyptian language name is variously transliterated Asar, Aser, Ausar, Ausir, Wesir, or Ausare) is the Egyptian god of life, death, and fertility.
Osiris is one of the oldest gods for whom records have been found and first appears in the Pyramid Texts around 2400 BC, when his cult is already well established. He was widely worshipped until the forcible suppression of paganism in the Christian era. The information we have on the myths of Osiris is derived from allusions contained in the pyramid texts, and, much later, in narrative style from the writings of Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus.
Osiris was not only the redeemer and merciful judge of the dead in the afterlife, but also the underworld agency that granted all life, including sprouting vegetation and the fertile flooding of the Nile River. The Kings of Egypt were associated with Osiris in death — as Osiris rose from the dead they would, in union with him, inherit eternal life through a process of imitative magic. By the New Kingdom all people, not just pharaohs, were believed to be associated with Osiris at death if they incurred the costs of the assimilation rituals.
Osiris is the oldest son of the Earth god, Geb, and the sky goddess, Nut as well as being brother and husband of Isis, with Horus being considered his posthumously begotten son. He is usually depicted as a green-skinned pharaoh wearing the Atef crown, a form of the white crown of upper Egypt with a plume of feathers to either side. Typically he is also depicted holding the crook and flail which signify divine authority in Egyptian pharaohs, but which were originally unique to Osiris and his own origin-gods (see below), and his feet and lower body are wrapped, as though already partly mummified.
Osiris is later associated with the name Khenti-Amentiu, which means 'Foremost of the Westerners' a reference to his kingship in the land of the dead.
The name was first recorded in Egyptian hieroglyphs only as ws-ir or os-ir because the Egyptian writing system omitted vowels. It is reconstructed to have been pronounced Us-iri (oos-ee-ree) meaning 'Throne of the Eye' and survives into the Coptic language as Ousire.
Early mythology
When the Ennead and Ogdoad cosmogenies became merged, with the identification of Ra as Atum (Atum-Ra), gradually Anubis (Ogdoad system) was replaced by Osiris, whose cult had become more significant, Anubis was said to have given way to Osiris out of respect, and, as an underworld deity. Anubis was Set's son in some versions, but because Set became god of evil, he was subsequently identified as being Osiris' son. Abydos, which had been a strong centre of the cult of Anubis, became a centre of the cult of Osiris.
Because Isis, Osiris' wife and sister, represented life in the Ennead, it was considered somewhat inappropriate for her to be the mother of a god associated with death such as Anubis, and so instead, it was usually said that Nephthys, the other of the two female children of Geb and Nut, was his mother.
Father of Horus
Later, when Hathor's identity (from the Ogdoad) was assimilated into that of Isis, Horus, who had been Isis' husband (in the Ogdoad), became considered her son, and thus, since Osiris was Isis' husband (in the Ennead), Osiris also became considered Horus' father. Attempts to explain how Osiris, a god of the dead, could give rise to someone so definitely alive as Horus, lead to the development of the Legend of Osiris and Isis, which became the greatest myth in Egyptian mythology.
The myth described Osiris as having been killed by his brother Set who wanted Osiris' throne. Isis briefly brought Osiris back to life by use of a spell that she learned from her father. This spell gave her time to become pregnant by Osiris before he again died. Isis later gave birth to Horus. As such, since Horus was born after Osiris' resurrection, Horus became thought of as representing new beginnings and killed Set. This combination, Osiris-Horus, was therefore a life-death-rebirth deity, and thus associated with the new harvest each year. Afterward, Osiris became known as the egyptian god of the dead, Isis became known as the egyptian goddess of the children, and Horus became known as the egyptian god of the sky.
Ptah-Seker (who resulted from the identification of Ptah as Seker), who was god of re-incarnation, thus gradually became identified with Osiris, the two becoming Ptah-Seker-Osiris (rarely known as Ptah-Seker-Atum, although this was just the name, and involved Osiris rather than Atum). As the sun was thought to spend the night in the underworld, and subsequently be re-incarnated, as both king of the underworld, and god of reincarnation, Ptah-Seker-Osiris was identified.
Ram god
Since Osiris was considered dead, as God of the dead, Osiris' soul, or rather his Ba, was occasionally worshipped in its own right, almost as if it were a distinct god, especially so in the Delta city of Mendes. This aspect of Osiris was referred to as Banebdjed (also spelt Banebded or Banebdjedet, which is technically feminine) which literally means The ba of the lord of the djed, which roughly means The soul of the lord of the pillar of stability. The djed, a type of pillar, was usually understood as the backbone of Osiris, and, at the same time, as the Nile, the backbone of Egypt. The Nile, supplying water, and Osiris (strongly connected to the vegetation) who died only to be resurrected represented continuity and therefore stability. As Banebdjed, Osiris was given epithets such as Lord of the Sky and Life of the (sun god) Ra, since Ra, when he had become identified with Atum, was considered Osiris' ancestor, from whom his regal authority was inherited.
Ba does not, however, quite mean soul in the western sense, and also has to do with power, reputation, force of character, especially in the case of a god. Since the ba was associated with power, and also happened to be a word for ram in Egyptian, Banebdjed was depicted as a ram, or as Ram-headed. A living, sacred ram, was even kept at Mendes and worshipped as the incarnation of the god, and upon death, the rams were mummified and buried in a ram-specific necropolis.
As regards the association of Osiris with the ram, the god's traditional crook and flail are of course the instruments of the shepherd, which has suggested to some scholars also an Osiris' origin in herding tribes of the upper Nile. The crook and flail were originally symbols of the minor agricultural deity Anedijti, and passed to Osiris later. From Osiris they eventually passed to Egyptian kings in general as symbols of divine authority.
In Mendes, they had considered Hatmehit, a local fish-goddess, as the most important god/goddess, and so when the cult of Osiris became more significant, Banebdjed was identified in Mendes as deriving his authority from being married to Hatmehit. Later, when Horus became identified as the child of Osiris (in this form Horus is known as Harpocrates in Greek and Har-pa-khered in Egyptian), Banebdjed was consequently said to be Horus' father, as Banebdjed is an aspect of Osiris.
In occult writings, Banebdjed is often called the goat of Mendes, and identified with Baphomet; the fact that Banebdjed was a ram (sheep), not a goat, is apparently overlooked.
Mystery religion
Cult of Osiris
The cult of Osiris had a particularly strong interest towards the concept of immortality. Plutarch recounts one version of the myth surrounding the cult in which Set (Osiris's brother) fooled Osiris into getting into a coffin, which he then shut, had sealed with lead and threw into the Nile. Osiris's wife, Isis, searched for his remains until she finally found him embedded in a tree trunk, which was holding up the roof of a palace in Byblos on the Phoenician coast. She managed to remove the coffin and open it, but Osiris was already dead. She used a spell she had learned from her father and brought him back to life so he could impregnate her. After they finished, he died again, so she hid his body in the desert. Months later, she gave birth to Horus. While she was off raising him, Set had been out hunting one night and he came across the body of Osiris. Enraged, he tore the body into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout the land. Isis gathered up all the parts of the body, less the phallus which was eaten by a fish thereafter considered taboo by the Egyptians, and bandaged them together for a proper burial. The gods were impressed by the devotion of Isis and thus restored Osiris to life in the form of a different kind of existence as the god of the underworld. Because of his death and resurrection, Osiris is associated with the flooding and retreating of the Nile and thus with the crops along the Nile valley.
Diodorus Siculus gives another version of the myth in which Osiris is described as an ancient king who taught the Egyptians the arts of civilization, including agriculture. Osiris is murdered by his evil brother Set, whom Diodorus associates with the evil Typhon ("Typhonian Beast") of Greek mythology. Typhon divides the body into twenty six pieces which he distributes amongst his fellow conspirators in order to implicate them in the murder. Isis and Horus avenge the death of Osiris and slay Typhon. Isis recovers all the parts of Osiris body, less the phallus, and secretly buries them. She made replicas of them and distributed them to several locations which then became centres of Osiris worship.
The tale of Osiris losing his manhood to fish (becoming fish like) is cognate with the story the Greek shepherd god Pan becoming fish like from the waist down in the same river Nile after being attacked by Typhon (see Capricornus). This attack was part of a generational feud in which both Zeus and Dionysus were dismembered by Typhon, in a similar manner as Osiris was by Set in Egypt.
Passion and resurrection
Plutarch and others have noted that the sacrifices to Osiris were “gloomy, solemn, and mournful…” (Isis and Osiris, 69) and that the great mystery festival, celebrated in two phases, began at Abydos on the 17th of Athyr (Nov. 13th) commemorating the death of the god, which is also the same day that grain was planted in the ground. “The death of the grain and the death of the god were one and the same: the cereal was identified with the god who came from heaven; he was the bread by which man lives. The resurrection of the God symbolized the rebirth of the grain.” (Larson 17) The annual festival involved the construction of “Osiris Beds” formed in shape of Osiris, filled with soil and sown with seed. The germinating seed symbolized Osiris rising from the dead. An almost pristine example was found in the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter.
The first phase of the festival was a public drama depicting the murder and dismemberment of Osiris, the search of his body by Isis, his triumphal return as the resurrected god, and the battle in which Horus defeated Set. This was all presented by skilled actors as a literary history, and was the main method of recruiting cult membership. According to Julius Firmicus Maternus of the fourth century, this play was re-enacted each year by worshippers who “beat their breasts and gashed their shoulders…. When they pretend that the mutilated remains of the god have been found and rejoined…they turn from mourning to rejoicing.” (De Errore Profanorum).
Some scholars have suggested possible connections or parellels of Osiris's resurrection story with those found in other religions. According to Anthony Aveni, The Russell B. Colgate Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology at Colgate University, Osiris
was done in by a conspiratorial brother who nailed him alive in a lead-lined cross and tossed into the Nile. Isis spent her life searching for Osiris, but once again her brother-in-law managed to recover the coffin and, for good measure, dismembered his brother's corpse and scattered it about the land. Undeterred, the faithful spouse collected all the body parts (minus the penis, which has been devoured by fish, thus necessitating a wax replacement) and reassembled them by constructing the first mummy. She dedicated one part each to the lands over which he had spread his teachings. Out of pity the jilted sun god revived Osiris, but confined him to rule over the dead in the underworld. Thus his worshippers acquire the promise of everlasting and bountiful life once they pass beyond the grave through the mummification process. Minus the mummy, doesn't this resurrection story have a familiar ring?
I-Kher-Nefert stele
Much of the extant information about the Passion of Osiris can be found on a stele at Abydos erected in the 12th Dynasty by I-Kher-Nefert (also Ikhernefert), possibly a priest of Osiris or other official during the reign of Senwosret III (Pharaoh Sesostris, about 1875 BC).
The Passion Plays were held in the last month of the inundation (the annual Nile flood), coinciding with Spring, and held at Abydos/Abedjou which was the traditional place where the body of Osiris/Wesir drifted ashore after having been drowned in the Nile. The part of the myth recounting the chopping up of the body into 14 pieces by Set is not recorded until later by Plutarch. Some elements of the ceremony were held in the temple, while others involved public participation in a form of theatre. The Stela of I-Kher-Nefert recounts the programme of events of the public elements over the five days of the Festival:
The First Day, The Procession of Wepwawet: A mock battle is enacted during which the enemies of Osiris are defeated. A procession is led by the god Wepwawet ("opener of the way").
The Second Day, The Great Procession of Osiris: The body of Osiris is taken from his temple to his tomb. The boat he is transported in, the "Neshmet" bark, has to be defended against his enemies.
The Third Day, Osiris is Mourned and the Enemies of the Land are Destroyed.
The Fourth Day, Night Vigil: Prayers and recitations are made and funeral rites performed.
The Fifth Day, Osiris is Reborn: Osiris is reborn at dawn and crowned with the crown of Ma'at. A statue of Osiris is brought to the temple.
Wheat and clay rituals
Contrasting with the public "theatrical" ceremonies sourced from the I-Kher-Nefert stele, more esoteric ceremonies were performed inside the temples by priests witnessed only by initiates. Plutarch mentions that two days after the beginning of the festival “the priests bring forth sacred chest containing a small golden coffer, into which they pour some potable water…and a great shout arises from the company for joy that Osiris is found (or resurrected). Then they knead some fertile soil with the water…and fashion therefrom a crescent-shaped figure, which they cloth and adorn, this indicating that they regard these gods as the substance of Earth and Water.” (Isis and Osiris, 39). Yet even he was obscure, for he also wrote, “I pass over the cutting of the wood” opting to not describe it since he considered it most sacred (Ibid. 21).
In the Osirian temple at Denderah, an inscription (translated by Budge, Chapter XV, Osiris and the Egyptian Resurrection) describes in detail the making of wheat paste models of each dismembered piece of Osiris to be sent out to the town where each piece was discovered by Isis. At the temple of Mendes, figures of Osiris are made from wheat and paste placed in a trough on the day of the murder, then water added for several days, when finally the mixture was kneaded into a mold of Osiris and taken to the temple and buried (the sacred grain for these cakes only grown in the temple fields). Molds are made from wood of a red tree in the forms of the sixteen dismembered parts of Osiris, cakes of divine bread made from each mold, placed in a silver chest and set near the head of the god, the inward parts of Osiris as described in the Book of the Dead (XVII). On the first day of the Festival of Ploughing, where the goddess Isis appears in her shrine where she is stripped naked, Paste made from the grain is placed in her bed and moistened with water, representing the fecund earth. All of these sacred rituals were climaxed by the eating of sacramental god, the eucharist by which the celebrants were transformed, in their persuasion, into replicas of their god-man (Larson 20).
Osirian sacrament
Since the ancient Nilotics believed that humans were whatever they eat, this sacrament was, by extension, able to make them celestial and immortal. The doctrine of the eucharist ultimately has its roots in prehistoric (symbolic) cannibalism, whose practitioners believed that the virtues and powers of the eaten would thus be absorbed by the eater. This phenomenon has been described throughout the world.
One of the oldest of the Pyramid Texts is the Unas from the 6th Dynasty (circa 2500 BC). It shows that the original ideology of Egypt commingled with Osirian concepts. Although ultimately given a high place in heaven by order of Osiris, Unas is at first an enemy of the gods and his ancestors, whom he hunts, lassoes, kills, cooks, and eats so that their powers may become his own. This was written at a time when the eating of parents and gods was a laudable ceremony, and this emphasizes how hard it must have been to stamp out the older order of cannibalism. “He eats men, he feeds on the gods…he cooks them in his fiery cauldrons. He eats their words of power, he swallows their spirits…. He eats the wisdom of every god, his period of life is eternity…. Their soul is in his body, their spirits are within him.” A parallel passage is found in the Pyramid Text of Pepi II, who is said to have “seizeth those who are a follower of Set…he breaketh their heads, he cutteth off their haunches, he teareth out their intestines, he diggeth out their hearts, he drinketh copiously of their blood!” (line 531, ff). Although crude, this was a core concept, the conviction that one could receive immortality by eating the flesh and blood of a god who had died became a dominating obsession in the ancient world. Although the cult of Osiris forbade cannibalism, it did not outlaw dismemberment and eating of enemies, and practiced the ritual rending and eating of the sacred bull, symbolizing Osiris.
Although this sacramental concept only originated once in history, it spread throughout the Mediterranean area and became the dynamic force in every mystery cult. It was only by this sacerdotal means that the corruptible deceased could be clothed in incorruption and this idea appears again and again in infinite variety. The scribe Nebseni implores: “And there in the celestial mansions of heaven which my divine father Tem hath established, let my hands lay hold upon the wheat and the barley which shall be given unto me therein in abundant measure” (Ibid. LXXII). Nu corroborates that this is the eucharist by saying: “I am established, and the divine Sekhet-hetep is before me, I have eaten therein, I have become a spirit therein, I have abundance therein.” (Ibid. LXXVII) Again Nu states: “I am the divine soul of Ra…which is god…I am the divine food which is not corrupted” (Ibid. LXXXV). The ancientness of the concept is again reaffirmed in the Pyramid Text of Teta (2600 BC) where the Osiris Teta “receivest thy bread which decayeth not, and thy beer which perisheth not” In the Text of Pepi I we read: “All the gods give thee their flesh and their blood…. Thou shalt not die.” In the Text of Pepi II the aspirant prays for “thy bread of eternity, and thy beer of everlastingness” (Line 390).
Osiris-Dionysus
By the Hellenic era, Greek awareness of Osiris had grown, and attempts had been made to merge Greek philosophy, such as Platonism, and the cult of Osiris (especially the myth of his resurrection), resulting in a new mystery religion. Gradually, this became more popular, and was exported to other parts of the Greek sphere of influence. However, these mystery religions valued the change in wisdom, personality, and knowledge of fundamental truth, rather than the exact details of the acknowledged myths on which their teachings were superimposed. Thus in each region that it was exported to, the myth was changed to be about a similar local god, resulting in a series of gods, who had originally been quite distinct, but who were now syncretisms with Osiris. These gods became known as Osiris-Dionysus.
Serapis
Eventually, in Egypt, the Hellenic pharaohs decided to produce a deity that would be acceptable to both the local Egyptian population, and the influx of Hellenic visitors, to bring the two groups together, rather than allow a source of rebellion to grow. Thus Osiris was identified explicitly with Apis, really an aspect of Ptah, who had already been identified as Osiris by this point, and a syncretism of the two was created, known as Serapis, and depicted as a standard Greek god.
Destruction
Osiris-worship continued up until the 6th century AD on the island of Philae in Upper Nile. The Theodosian decree (in about 380 AD) to destroy all pagan temples and force worshippers to accept Christianity was ignored there. However, Justinian dispatched a General Narses to Philae, who destroyed the Osirian temples and sanctuaries, threw the priests into prison, and carted the sacred images off to Constantinople. However, by that time, the soteriology of Osiris had assumed various forms which had long spread far and wide in the ancient world |
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ancient god of Persia and India (where he was called Mitra). Until the 6th cent. B.C., Mithra was apparently a minor figure in the Zoroastrian system. Under the Achaemenids, Mithra became increasingly important, until he appeared in the 5th cent. B.C. as the principal Persian deity, the god of light and wisdom, closely associated with the sun. His cult expanded through the Middle East into Europe and became a worldwide religion, called Mithraism. This was one of the great religions of the Roman Empire, and in the 2d cent. A.D. it was more general than Christianity. Mithraism found widest favor among the Roman legions, for whom Mithra (or Mithras in Latin and Greek) was the ideal divine comrade and fighter. The fundamental aspect of the Mithraic system was the dualistic struggle between the forces of good and evil. Mithra, who gave to his devotees hope of blessed immortality, represented the fearless antagonist of the powers of darkness. The story of Mithra's capture and sacrifice of a sacred bull, from whose body sprang all the beneficent things of the earth, was a central cultic myth. The ethics of Mithraism were rigorous; fasting and continence were strongly prescribed. The rituals, highly secret and restricted to men only, included many of the sacramental forms common to the mystery religions (e.g., baptism and the sacred banquet). Mithraism, which bore many similarities to Christianity, declined rapidly in the late 3d cent. A.D.
See F. Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra (reissued, 1956) and M. J. Vumaseren, Mithras, the Secret God (1963). |
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Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, hedonism, and partying. He was the son of Zeus and the mortal Semele, and carries the distinction of being born twice (Dithyrambos).
Attributes: The thyrsus (a staff tipped with a pine cone, and intertwined with ivy and grape vines), grapes, goblet, and companions and minions the satyrs, centaurs, and nymphs.
The double birth of Dionysus was known as the dithyrambos. Jealous Hera disguised herself as Semele's nurse, and urged her to ask her lover, Zeus, to show himself in his true god-like form. When she did, he obliged, and his blinding aura consumed the pregnant girl with flames. When ivy coiled around the columns of the palace and provided a screen between the unborn child and the fire, Zeus rescued it (the first birth) and sewed the fetus into his thigh. He later torn open his thigh to deliver the full-term infant Dionysus |
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| the reappearance of Jesus as judge for the Last Judgment [syn: Second Coming] |
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| taking a common view: used chiefly in reference to the first three Gospels (synoptic Gospels), Matthew, Mark, and Luke, from their similarity in content, order, and statement. |
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the "Apostle to the Gentiles was, together with Saint Peter and James the Just, the most notable of early Christian missionaries. Unlike the Twelve Apostles, there is no indication that Paul ever met Jesus prior to the latter's crucifixion. According to Acts, his conversion took place as he was traveling the road to Damascus, and experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus. Paul asserts that he received the Gospel not from man, but by "the revelation of Jesus Christ".
Fourteen epistles in the New Testament are traditionally attributed to Paul, though in some cases the authorship is disputed. Paul had often employed an amanuensis, only occasionally writing himself. As a sign of authenticity, the writers of these epistles sometimes employ a passage presented as being in Paul's own handwriting. These epistles were circulated within the Christian community. They were prominent in the first New Testament canon ever proposed (by Marcion), and they were eventually included in the orthodox Christian canon. They are believed to be the earliest-written books of the New Testament.
Paul's influence on Christian thinking arguably has been more significant than any other New Testament author. His influence on the main strands of Christian thought has been demonstrable: from St. Augustine of Hippo to the controversies between Gottschalk and Hincmar of Reims; between Thomism and Molinism; Martin Luther, John Calvin and the Arminians; to Jansenism and the Jesuit theologians, and even to the German church of the twentieth century through the writings of the scholar Karl Barth, whose commentary on the Letter to the Romans had a political as well as theological impact. |
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the last of the Five Good Emperors of Rome born in 121 AD and ruling from 161 to 180. He honored the wishes of Pius, the previous Emperor, by sharing the imperial powers with Lucius Aurelius Verus until the later's death in 169. Marcus was a philosopher king who wrote many great works and his ascension to the throne is considered to be the triumph of stoicism. His book Meditations emphasized one's duty. Marcus Aurelius should have thought more about his successor, however, because his death marked the end of the Pax Romana when he passed the Emperorship on to his son instead of the most worthy successor. In truth, Marcus Aurelius was involved in almost constant warfare, so some think that the Pax Ramona ended with his reign. Parthia declared war and multiple Germanic tribes attacked. Marcus adeptly repelled all invasions. Unfortunately, the war with Parthia in the East had another consequence as the returning troops brought the plague with them in 166 and 167. Areas of the Empire were severly depopulated. Marcus allowed German tribes to settle in the Empire to repopulate the decimated areas.
Although considered to have been a good Emperor for Rome, he was not necessarily a friend of Christianity, which he persecuted.
A great, bronze equestrian statue of Aurelius remains on the Palatine Hill, at the Palatine Museum, where it was preserved from incineration because later Romans thought it was a statue of Constantine. |
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| (b. Leptis Magna, April 11 145 - d. York, February 4 211) was a Roman general, and Roman Emperor from April 14 193 to 211. He was born in what is now the Libyan part of Rome's historic Africa Province, making him the first emperor to be born in Africa. |
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Emperor of Rome from A.D. 284-305. He attempted to destroy the Christian faith by burning the scriptures. He also forbade worship and arrested clergy. He insisted on pagan sacrifices. He martyred hundreds of Christians from Europe to North Africa.[1]
Diocletian attempted to save the Roman empire by dividing it into eastern and western regions, with Nicomedia as the capital of the East and Rome as the capital of the West. He established the "tetrarchy", or division of power among four rulers in 293 A.D. The tetrarchy included two primary rulers, each with the title "Augustus", who ruled over the eastern and western empires, and two "Caesars" who served under the Augustuses. He imposed economic regulations, some of which seem silly today. For example, Diocletian required farmers to stay with their land and workers to stay on the job for the rest of their lives. He did this to prevent people from leaving their work to avoid taxation. For an empire that embraced slavery, this probably seemed like normal regulations. Diocletian also imposed wage and price controls to halt inflation. That economic regulation, which almost always fails, is still attempted by modern rulers, such as the United States President during World War II and even President Richard Nixon in the early 1970s.
Diocletian also attempted to suppress Christianity by ordering Christians to worship him and brutally persecuting them when they did not. He was the last emperor to do this. Diocletian abdicated due to a stomach illness in A.D. 305. He lived long enough to see that the system that he set up for orderly succession had failed as open warfare broke out soon after he gave up power. |
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The Edict on Maximum Prices (also known as the Edict on Prices or the Edict of Diocletian; in Latin Edictum De Pretiis Rerum Venalium) was issued in 301 by Roman Emperor Diocletian.
During the Crisis of the Third Century, Roman coinage had been greatly debased by the numerous emperors and usurpers minting their own coins to bribe soldiers and officials. Earlier in his reign, as well as in 301 around the same time as the Edict on Prices, Diocletian issued Currency Decrees, which attempted to reform the system of taxation and to stabilize the coinage. It is difficult to know exactly how the coinage was changed, as the values and even the names of coins are often unknown.
All coins in the Decrees and the Edict were valued according to the denarius, which Diocletian hoped to replace with a new system based on the silver argenteus and its fractions. The argenteus seems to have been set at 100 denarii, the silver-washed nummus at 25 denarii, and the bronze radiate at 4 or 5 denarii. The copper laureate was raised from 1 denarius to 2 denarii. The gold aureus, which by this time had risen to 833 denarii, was replaced with a solidus, worth 1000 denarii (this was different from the solidus introduced by Constantine a few years later). These coins held their value during Diocletian's reign, but aside from the bronze and copper coins, which were mass produced, they were minted only very rarely and had little effect on the economy.
These new coins actually added to the inflation, and in an attempt to combat this he issued his Edict on Maximum Prices in 301. The first two-thirds of the Edict doubled the value of the copper and bronze coins, and set the death penalty for profiteers and speculators, who were blamed for the inflation and who were compared to the barbarian tribes attacking the empire. Merchants were forbidden to take their goods elsewhere and charge a higher price, and transport costs could not be used as an excuse to raise prices.
The last third of the Edict, divided into 32 sections, set a limit on prices for over a thousand products. It did not fix prices, but instead set maxima, prices over which certain goods could not be sold. These goods included various food items (beef, grain, wine, beer, sausages, etc), clothing (shoes, cloaks, etc), freight charges for sea travel, and weekly wages. The highest limit was on one pound of purple-dyed silk, which was set at 150 000 denarii (the price of a lion was set at the same price).
However, the Edict did not solve the problem, as Diocletian's mass minting of coins continued to increase inflation, and the maximum prices in the Edict were apparently too low. Merchants either stopped producing goods, sold their goods illegally, or used barter. The Edict tended to disrupt trade and commerce, especially among merchants. Sometimes entire towns could no longer afford to produce trade goods. Because the Edict also set limits on wages, those who had fixed salaries (especially soldiers) found that their money was increasingly worthless as the artificial prices did not reflect actual costs.
The Edict was probably issued from Antioch or Alexandria and was set up in inscriptions in Greek and Latin. It now exists only in fragments found mainly in the eastern part of the empire, where Diocletian ruled, although it is still the longest surviving piece of legislation from the period of the Tetrarchy. The Edict was criticized by Lactantius, a rhetorician from Nicomedia, who blamed the emperors for the inflation and told of fighting and bloodshed that erupted from price tampering. By the end of Diocletian's reign in 305, the Edict was virtually ignored, and the economy was not stabilized until Constantine's coinage reform.
Diocletian Values (301 - 305 A.D.) |
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| Two emperors (Augusti), and two assistant Emperors (Caesars) New Imperial Capitals Nicomedia (in Turkey), Milan Reorganization of provinces |
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| Battle of the Milvian Bridge |
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took place on October 28, 312, between the Roman Emperors Constantine I and Maxentius. Constantine won the battle and started on the path that led him to end the Tetrarchy and become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire.
The battle is noteworthy also because Constantine's victory was attributed by Christian sources to God. |
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| 312-337 CE Didn’t want to share power with Licinius, defeats him Edict of Milan 313 Moved Capital to Constantinople |
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| Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Originally named Byzantium, it was named after Roman Emperor Constantine, who moved the capital of Rome to this city in the 4th century A.D. It was then the official capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. Today, it is known as Istanbul, Turkey. |
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