World History Lecture Two
From Conservapedia
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World History
Second Lecture – Ancient History
Instructor, Andy Schlafly
Contents |
Introduction
Last week we addressed the major early ancient cultures: Mesopotamia and Egypt. Things become more interesting this week as we begin to address the “classical” period of world history: 1000 B.C. to A.D. 500. During this period, five different regions of the world had civilizations that advanced the frontiers of knowledge, government and the arts. Most of them developed independently of each other, since there was very little communication across long distances in the ancient world.
The five “classical” civilizations were India, China, Greece, Rome and, to a lesser extent, the Americas (in what is now Mexico and South America). This week we learn about classical Greece.
Language
The study of the development of language is a fascinating aspect of World history. Language is extremely important to the progress and survival of a society. Peoples who only had primitive languages were easily conquered by groups that had more powerful languages. Language expresses and communicates ideas: it is difficult, if not impossible, to think about and communicate powerful ideas without language to express them.
The roots of all languages are in the basic aspects of life, such as the observation of tangible things like animals and food. But much more is needed to express ideas about what is not seen, such as religious concepts. Christianity could not develop and spread without a language capable of communicating its concepts. Had Christ come into this world in 2000 or 1000 B.C., would there have been a language powerful enough to express His ideas? Probably not. An example is the “Holy Spirit.” Few languages can express what is really meant by this. The Greek words “pneuma” (wind or breath) and “paraclete” (advocate or one who consoles) are what the Gospel of John uses, and those words capture the driving force of the Holy Spirit. The English word “spirit” is not even powerful enough to express what Jesus meant. Most languages in the world have smaller vocabularies than English, and have even greater difficulty capturing the essence of what we call the “Holy Spirit.”
Another example is the last utterance on the cross by Jesus, typically translated as “it is finished” (John 19:30 (King James Version)). But the actual Greek term was used in commerce at the time to mean “paid in full.” So a better translation would be “it is accomplished,” but even that does not fully capture the concept of redemption of the sin that was outstanding. Check your Bible to see how it translates John 19:30.
Recall that the language of Mesopotamia was cuneiform, based on wedge-like characters. But in the 1000s B.C., and perhaps earlier, a marvelous new form of language developed among the traders on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, where Lebanon is today. The Phoenicians lived there and established towns such as Byblos, a religious center after which the Bible is named because the town exported papyrus. The Phoenicians had ports and sea-traders would pick up exports such as fine linen, cedar, pine wood, dyed cloth, wine, glass, salt, dried fish, and embroideries. The Phoenicians traded with the Hebrews, who used the cedars of Lebanon to build Solomon’s temple. Colonies of the Phoenicians included Tyre, Sidon and, along the coast of Northern Africa, Carthage. Carthage later became powerful enough to compete with Rome. The Assyrian empire, which was the world’s first real empire, invaded the Phoenicians in the 500s B.C., causing them to collapse.
The new language developed by the Phoenicians to facilitate their trading was based on a new alphabet of 22 letters. All Western alphabets, such as English and French and Italian and Greek and Latin, are based on this Phoenician alphabet. This was one of the greatest advances in the history of mankind, perhaps as great as the invention of the wheel, because now language could begin to describe powerful concepts and abstract ideas. This laid the foundation for the accomplishments of Ancient Greece, which in turn laid the foundation for the teaching and spread of Christianity.
Ancient Greece
Introduction
Greece was the most significant ancient civilization, and perhaps the greatest of all time. Intellectually, politically and militarily, ancient Greece had it all. Their achievements are even more remarkable without the benefit of Christianity, which came hundreds of years later. In many ways Greek culture laid the groundwork for Christianity to spread centuries later.
There were two basic reasons for the Greek success: language and political structure. The Greeks developed a complete alphabet that facilitated the expression of powerful ideas. The Greeks also developed a democracy-based political structure that ensured self-government and freedom for its citizens, thereby enabling productive work to flourish.
In terms of timing, from 3000 to 1000 B.C. Greece was not as successful or influential as the other ancient cultures. The Dorians, who were tribes speaking the Doric dialect of Greek, settled Greece between 1100 and 1000 B.C. 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.
The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece was around 750 B.C., and its peak was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small city-states, each comprised a city and surrounding countryside.
Why is ancient or classical Greece dated from about 750 B.C.? After all, the Greeks probably migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But from 1600 to 1100 B.C. was a period known as Mycenaean Greece, when progress was slow. Then from 1100 to 800 B.C. were the dark ages, from which little survived. The momentous event that heralded ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, being held every four years for nearly 1000 years.
Greece itself thrived for hundreds of years, until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. After that historians refer to the culture as Hellenistic Greece, because it extended far and wide, even to where Jesus would teach near Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C. The Olympic games declined and disappeared but were restarted in A.D. 1896 and occur every four years today.
In about 800 B.C. the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it. A written record then appears. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities as required by Greek geography. There every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges.
Magnificent Greek literature began almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical “Trojan War” caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a “Trojan horse” to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a “Trojan horse” is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence to this day, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as “Achilles heel”, “Amazon”, “atlas” and “titans”. Some would say that modern sports heroes or media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were nearly 3000 years ago.
Poetry developed. Aesop’s Fables were written in the 600s B.C., containing popular insights repeated to this day. For example, the term “sour grapes” applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop’s fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes.
Aristocrats who owned land ruled the early Athenian government, and “archons” were elected officials who made the law. Tyrants rose to power in the 600s B.C. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity. Athens was ruled by a series of tyrants leading to a reformer named Solon who allowed most “citizens” (males descended from citizens) to vote. Solon also prohibited debtors’ prison, something allowed even in the early United States. Draco was another “reformer” who wrote such strict laws that the negative term “draconian laws” is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleistenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded “ostracism”, a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or “ostracized”.
By the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the “polis” (PAH-lus). The plural of “polis”, to express many cities, is “poleis” (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word “politics”. Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.
Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.
The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese. It was also allied with Corinth and Thebes. Athens instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons.
Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world’s first democracy was established instead in 500 B.C. The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.
The city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens, rather than the separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented “democracy”, and its residents felt an allegiance to the state because of this.
Athens also had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.
Democratic Athens’ main rival was the city-state of Sparta, which was not a democracy. Instead, Sparta was a military culture based on high military discipline. Parents were forced to let their male children leave the house at age seven and receive training at a strict military camp—if the boys were lucky enough to make it to the age of seven, that is. The Spartans had a cruel practice by which all male babies were examined by community leaders immediately after birth. If the child appeared weak or deformed in any way, he was taken into a remote area and left to die from exposure or wild animals. The Spartans did want any member of their military to be anything less than 100% fit.
There were rigid social class structures in Sparta. The aristocrats, called the “spartiates,” were people descended from the Dorian invaders of the second century. The second class of citizens, called “perioeci”, consisted of landowners, artisans, and traders. They were primarily relatives of the natives who had lived in the region before the Dorians conquered it. The third class was comprised of conquered people who were basically serfs and were known as “helots”, and lastly there were slaves in Sparta—usually prisoners of war. The last two classes did not enjoy the rights of citizens. At times it was even legal for citizens to kill the non-citizens (the helots) to reduce population!
The helots did the farming and were 4/5ths of the overall population. The Spartans were not the brightest people in the world: they forbade the use of gold and silver for money, and instead used heavy iron bars as money. For most Greek city-states, trade consisted of making olive oil and wine and exchanging it with surrounding regions to obtain timber and grain in return.
Persia and the Persian Wars (500-479 B.C.)
Nothing unites two rivals as well as a common enemy. In the 400s B.C. Athens and Sparta had a common enemy: the Persian empire, located where Iran is today.
In 530 B.C., the Persian empire formed under a powerful ruler named Cyrus, who established the Achaemenid dynasty. He conquered the Medes and established trade routes to India and the Mediterranean. In 525 B.C., Cyrus’s son Cambyses expanded the empire further to Egypt and parts of Arabia. He established loyal governors in distant lands known as “satraps”, who were carefully watched by the King’s Eyes and Ears to prevent any rebellions. The distant lands sent taxes and soldiers to the king; in return the king protected them and allowed local customs and traditions to continue (most other empires harshly suppressed local customs). The Persian empire founded their own religion called Zoroastrainaism, which described life as a struggle between good and evil in the expectation that good would ultimately prevail. Its sacred text was called “Avesta”.
The greatest Persian ruler was Darius I, who was in power for nearly 40 years (521-486 B.C.). He expanded his empire to the coast of North Africa and Macedonia, and established a capital at Persepolis. He introduced a currency (coins) for trade, imposed a common calendar, and built the 1,600 mile Royal Road across the Middle East. Mail was carried by couriers on the Royal Road, and it was a Greek historian (not the U.S. Postal Service) who described the couriers like this: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stop these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
Persian King Cyrus conquered the Ionian Greek city-states on the western shore of Asia Minor in 546 B.C., but in 499 B.C. Athens encouraged support for a revolution against the Persian empire, coming to the aid of the Ionian city-states when they revolted against their Persian masters. Other Greek city-states also helped the Ionian city-states.
Furious, Darius suppressed the revolution and to punish Athens, in 490 B.C. he brought his army to the plains of Marathon, just north of Athens and prepared to invade the rich city-state. Outnumbered ten to one by the Persians, the Athenians sent an athlete named Philippides to run 150 miles to Sparta in an attempt to enlist the aid of the Spartans. Ironically, the Spartans—with their military-obsessed society—refused to come, being in the middle of a festival! However, Athens proved strong enough to defeat the mighty Persians on her own and won a staggering victory on the plains of Marathon. To this day, runners participate in the “marathon” in imitation of the remarkable athlete Philippides.
Xerxes, who had succeeded Darius, tried again in 480 B.C. to defeat Greece. This time he had a massive army of 200,000 Persians and a strong navy. He marched the army to a narrow pass in the mountains at Thermopylae. But he was met by 300 Spartans, the best soldiers in the world, and they gave their lives to delay the Persians at the pass. Ultimately the Persians broke through the mountains using an alternate route given to them by a Greek traitor and conquered and ransacked (“sacked”) Athens. But Athens was able to strike back and defeat the Persian navy at Salamis in 479 B.C., and went on to conquer the Persian army the same year at the Battle of Plataea. Athens had won and became the dominant city-state.
The Athenian triumph in the Persian Wars (with the help of Sparta) in 466 B.C. and subsequent peace beginning in 450 B.C. catapulted Athens to a great power. It controlled the sea and commerce. Pericles (495–429 B.C.) rose to political prominence and rebuilt the Parthenon and other monuments in Athens. The city encouraged the creation of wealth, and it became the intellectual center of the world. Many of the most famous thinkers of the ancient world lived there. The Golden Age of Athens was the period when Pericles held power, also known as the Age of Pericles. Pericles expanded democracy in Athens by granting the right to hold government offices to all citizens and providing salaries for public service in government and on juries.
During this period, Athens decided to take advantage of the anti-Persia sentiment that existed throughout Greece, and formed the “Delian League” (477 B.C.). The alliance consisted of Athens and various other Greek city-states and Aegean towns. Athens quickly assumed a leadership position and began to control the various allies by imposing taxes and using the League’s budget to fund Athenian projects. During the Pericles Age, Athens began to aggressively expand and used bribes, trickery and often force to gain the cooperation of its allies. This sparked internal strife amongst the Greek city-states and much animosity towards what had become an Athenian empire.
The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.)
Military success breeds abuse of power and jealousy, which leads to war. The rivals Athens and Sparta began fighting each other in a lengthy series of battles known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.). In 431 B.C. a war erupted between Athens and Sparta and its allies. Athens controlled the sea but Sparta had a strong army, and the irresistible force had met the immovable object. The Spartan military is famous for its tremendous discipline to this day; boys were trained to be great soldiers beginning at age seven and serving the army from ages 20 to 60. After 27 years of fighting between Athens and Sparta, the Athenian leader Nicias negotiated the Peace of Nicias (421 B.C.).
But the peace lasted only a few years. Fighting resumed, and Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies at Mantinea. In 415 a radical new leader of Athens, Alcibiades, convinced the Athenian Assembly to invade Syracuse, a Peloponnesian ally in Sicily. It was a total disaster. The end was near for Athens, which was weakened further by a plague that killed much of her population. Sparta then had a fleet to challenge Athens on the seas, and benefited from an extraordinary military leader named Lysander. He seized Hellespont to cut off Athens’ grain imports and threaten Athens with starvation. Athens sent all it had let to confront him, but failed at Aegospotami in 405 B.C.
Faced with bankruptcy, Athens gave up nearly everything just to attain peace. Athens lost her city walls and all of her possessions overseas. She also lost democracy as Sparta’s anti-democratic party took control. Sparta had won the Peloponnesian War.
Democracy rose up again in a few years and in 395 B.C. Sparta removed Lysander from office. In 387 Sparta lost the favor of public opinion by surrendering Greek cities (Ionia and Cyprus) to the enemy Persia, even though Greece had been beating Persia for a hundred years. When Sparta then tried to weaken its former ally Thebes, a battle broke out between them and Athens joined with Thebes to defeat Sparta.
Greek Knowledge
Ancient Greece advanced knowledge tremendously. The Greeks founded an Academy, considered to be the first university ever founded in the world. In a sense, homeschoolers today are emulating the Academy in starting their own educational system, developing logical skills and knowledge through informal classes and debates.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was the first great teacher at the Academy. He advocated the improvement of one’s soul, concentrating on ethics. He was constantly urging students to doubt and question things, and his “Socratic method” set the standard used in American law schools today, whereby the professor asks a series of questions of the students and they are expected to provide correct answers. He ultimately fell out of favor with the Athenian state for refusing to bow to its will, for questioning the actions of leaders during the Peloponnesian War, and because several of his students were implicated in bad deeds. He was charged with impiety and corruption of the youth and executed by being compelled to drink poison hemlock, thereby becoming the greatest pagan martyr in the history of the world. He left no writings.
His greatest student was Plato (428-347 B.C.). Born as a nobleman, he was fascinated with the power of reason and developed a philosophy based on reason rather than experience. He felt the essence of the world was abstract universals or “forms” or “ideas”, such as justice and truth and the Good. Plato was particularly interested in physics and mathematics. His writing style was in the form of dialogs. Early Christians made use of Plato’s work.
Plato’s greatest work was his book the Republic, which forms the foundation for the American republican system of government. The people typically do not vote directly on issues, but elect representatives who then cast hopefully more informed votes on legislation. In the ideal state of government imagined by Plato, philosophers ruled the country.
Plato’s finest student was Aristotle, perhaps the greatest philosopher of all time. He lived from 384-322 B.C., and wrote a treatise that is taught in the finest university philosophy departments to this day. Aristotle came to the Academy when he was 17 and remained there until the death of Plato twenty years later. Aristotle’s approach was the opposite of Plato: Aristotle thought experience was the key to knowledge, and embarked on the massive task of observing and compiling as much information as possible. In contrast to Plato’s interest in physics and math, 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 accouterments found in modern universities. Aristotle defended the usefulness of slavery.
Another disciple of Socrates, Antisthenes, founded Cynicism, a philosophy which, not surprisingly, focuses on the negative aspects of life. The cynics believed the cares and pleasures of the natural world were negligible, and rejected materialism. Only the pursuit of virtue could bring happiness. They believed no divine force existed, and that only through extreme self-discipline could virtue and simplicity be attained and happiness found. Diogenes was the most famous Cynic.
Ancient Greece produced two great historians, Herodotus (hi-rah-duh-tus) (484-425 B.C.) and Thucydides (thew-ci-dah-deez) (d. 401 B.C.), who emphasized the importance of history. Herodotus’ History described the Persian Wars. Because he was the first to collect historical materials systematically, check their accuracy and present them in a logical manner with a vivid narrative, Herodutus is considered the “Father of History.” Thucydides wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War, which was the first full work of historical analysis. Thucydides blamed Athens’ loss on its failed expedition to Sicily, which wasted resources and hurt morale. He declared Athens’ loss to be deserved because of this mistake. A third historian was Xenephon (427-355 B.C.), a disciple of Socrates. Although incomparable to Thucydides and Herodotus, Xenephon was the primary historian of the last days of Greece’s freedom and picked up from where Thucydides left off (411 B.C.) in his detailed account, Hellenica.
The father of medicine was Hippocrates (460–377 B.C.). He issued the “Hippocratic Oath” that has been required of medical students around the world as a condition of graduation. It originally stated in part: “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.” People who profit from abortion today refuse to obey the Oath.
Archimedes (285 to 212 B.C.) lived in the Greek city-state of Syracuse and is considered to this day to have been one of the very best mathematicians of all time. He discovered “pi”, the ratio between the circumference of a circle to its diameter. He discovered the relationship between the surface and volume of a sphere and its circumscribing cylinder. He discovered “Archimedes’ principle” allegedly when he was sitting in a bathtub one day, recognizing that volume of a body can be measured by seeing how much the water rises when the body is submerged. He supposedly ran into town naked from his bathtub declaring “eureka!”, meaning “I have found it!” Archimedes also invented military devices useful for keeping the Roman soldiers out, although eventually they conquered his city-state and senselessly killed him. The “Archimedes screw” is a very clever way to use a large screw surrounded by a pipe to remove water from the bottom of a boat or basement.
Other mathematicians from the Greek empire are just as famous. Euclid (325–265 B.C.) lived in Hellenistic Alexandria, Egypt, and invented geometry. Pythagoras (582–507 B.C.) lived much earlier than Archimedes and Euclid, and was a philosopher, mathematician and teacher. He is often credited with proving the Pythagorean Theorem for calculating the length of a hypotenuse in a right triangle, but actually the Mesopotamians had it first. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus (310-230 B.C.) understood and taught that the earth revolved around the sun. Greek poetry and drama was tremendous too.
Ancient Greece also produced a great orator and statesman, Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.). 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!” But in 338 B.C. Philip of Macedon completely conquered the Greeks at the battle of Chaeronea. Demosthenes’ life later ended in failure when an Athenian revolt against Macedon was unsuccessful.
The Greeks had great philosophical influence. Two main schools of philosophical thought from the Hellenistic Period were very influential: the Stoics and the Epicureans.
The Epicureans were founded by Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) in the late fourth century B.C. and did not believe in any divine power. They did not believe in human ability to know and understand absolute truth, instead teaching that only the senses could be trusted. They sought pleasure and inner peace, and their teachings later led to justification for excess and indulgence in whatever pleasures one desired.
In contrast, the Stoics — founded by Zeno (333-264 B.C.) in the early third century B.C. — sought to find a sense of divine justice. They de-emphasized emotion and feelings, teaching that both plain and pleasure should be disregarded. Instead, cool-headed reason and logic should be used at all times and self-indulgence denied.
Some historians have even speculated that Jesus spoke Greek and that the Apostles may have originally written the Gospels in that language. The traditional view is that Jesus and the Apostles spoke in Aramaic, the colloquial language of that region and time. Many of Jesus’ sayings are quoted directly in Aramaic, including Talitha cum, which means, “Little girl, get up!” (Mark 5:41). Also, Abba (“Father”; Mark 14:36; Gal.4:6; Rom.8:15); Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”; Mark 15:34); Cephas (“Peter”; John 1:42); Mammon (“Wealth”; Matt.6:24, RSV); Raca (“Fool”; Matt.5:22, RSV). Linguists can even pinpoint Jesus’ dialect to be western Aramaic associated with Galilee, rather than the Aramaic dialect spoken in Jerusalem.
But the powerful Greek language would have been useful to Jesus in teaching. Greek was in common use by Jewish people in Palestine, thanks in part to the conquest by Alexander the Great. Greek was even widely used in Jewish ossuaries to bury the dead. Commerce would have often occurred in Greek, and Jesus had been in business as a carpenter. He surely knew the language. Several of the key terms, such as Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees as “hypocrites”, is derived directly from Greek without any comparable term in Aramaic or Hebrew. Several of the Apostles have Greek names (e.g., Andrew and Philip). There has been no discovered book in the New Testament written in Aramaic or Hebrew that predates the Greek versions. For an interesting presentation of this Greek view, see: http://www.triumphpro.com/did_jesus_and_the_apostles_speak_greek.htm
Slavery existed widely in Greece, using both Greeks and non-Greeks (Russians and also African slaves bought from Egypt). Criminals and people who could not pay their debts were enslaved. The harshest treatment of slaves was of criminals put to work in the Athenian silver mines.
The Hellenistic Age
The term “Hellenistic” means anything related to Greek history, culture or art after the life of a man named “Alexander the Great,” who lived from 356 to 323 B.C. and virtually conquered the world of his day. Alexander was not himself Greek, as he came from Macedonia (the region north of Athens, Corinth and Sparta). But he spread the Greek culture far and wide with his military conquests.
The kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century and became Greek in culture and language by the 5th century, even though the Greeks considered Macedonians to be barbarians. Philip II of Macedon organized most of the cities into the League of Corinth, and promised to invade the dreaded enemy of Persia to liberate Greek cities there.
In ancient Greece the common military formation was the “phalanx”, which is Greek for “finger”, composed of a rectangular formation consisting of heavily armed infantry carrying spears and shields. Philip II was able to raise a well-trained phalanx in Macedonia at lower cost than the Greek city-states, and crushed them. But he was assassinated in 336 B.C., leaving his throne in the hands of his 20-year-old son, Alexander.
Alexander the Great
Long before his death, Philip II had arranged for Aristotle to tutor his son Alexander, and the wisdom Aristotle conferred made Alexander the greatest military leader of all time. Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.), as he is known, came closer to conquering the entire world than anyone else before or since. He mapped out his battles with logical precision and never lost a single one. He went to sleep at night with Aristotle’s marked-up copy of the Iliad, the great work of Greek literature, under his pillow. He treated his conquered peoples better than Aristotle would have, because Aristotle advised Alexander to treat them like animals. Alexander personally traveled over 22,000 miles with his troops and often knew the foreign terrain better than his enemies, even though they lived there. He defeated the most feared empires the world had known and expanded the Greek empire from Persia to Egypt to India, before dying from swamp fever (perhaps malaria) at the tender young age of 33. The world would never be the same again.
In a mere four years (334-331 B.C.), Alexander conquered the greatest empire in the history of the world so far: the Persian empire led by Persian king Darius III. The Persian armies were far superior to Alexander’s army, but Alexander was a brilliant, ferocious and unrelenting military leader. King Darius III even offered half of the Persian empire and his daughter’s hand in marriage to Alexander in exchange for peace. Alexander refused and proceeded to completely destroy the Persian army--capturing every one of its empire’s vast treasures. Darius was then assassinated by one of his own guards, and Alexander became ruler of Persia. Alexander did not stop there.
There are many fascinating stories told about Alexander the Great. Many consider him to have been the finest military mind ever. Illustrating his approach, legend tells the story of how Alexander confronted a huge “Gordian knot,” and was told that whoever could unravel the knot would rule the world. Alexander supposedly drew his sword and sliced the Gordian knot in two, and proceeded on his way.
He would surround himself with a staff of secretaries, philosophers and scientists, yet would also engage in drunken brawls to the point where he accidentally killed a friend who had once saved his life. Alexander enjoyed battle himself, and would often be wounded leading his soldiers. In one conflict, Alexander even employed underwater divers to defeat the enemy. Alexander never lost a single battle, and seemed to have unlimited energy, motivation, and determination. His work ethic was an inspiration to the world. His vast influence but premature death at 33 has led historians to compare him to Jesus Christ, though obviously they were very different from each other. Alexander lacked any disciples to carry on after his death.
Alexander the Great led the Greek empire to the corners of the world as known at that time. His death of a fever in his capital city of Babylon in 323 B.C. marked the end of his empire, but the beginning of the great Hellenistic influence. Seeds of Greek knowledge had been planted all around the world and were beginning to spring up everywhere. For centuries these seeds grew and influenced cultures from Persia to Egypt to Rome.
Alexander’s empire was too vast to survive his death, and his generals murdered the remaining members of his family. Athens and Sparta again became independent city-states until the Roman empire conquered them. However, what mattered was that the many thousands of Greeks who traveled with Alexander during his conquests brought their knowledge and culture to all corners of the ancient world except China. The great city of Alexandria, Egypt, shows its tribute to him by its name. Greek-speaking kingdoms had been established in Egypt, Syria and Iran, and the language became popular among the educated for trade in Palestine. The post-Alexander era is known as the Hellenistic Age (232-146 B.C.)
Taught in Greek, Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the Hellenistic world in the first century A.D. The Greek language, culture, and advances in knowledge had prepared the people well for Christianity to take root.
Greek Contributions
What can we thank Greece for today? For starters, the Greeks began the Olympics.
But we thank Ancient Greece for far more than that. Our system of laws and government is largely based on the Greek example, and in particular the concept of democratic participation in government. Trial by jury is from Greece, as is the concept of a defense attorney (Roman law lacked a defense attorney - note how Jesus did not have an attorney at His trial). Greece established democracy for the first time in history. Our language, too, is due to the Greek adoption of an alphabet. The Greeks invented the study of history, so this course is indebted to the Greeks!
Historians also credit ancient Greece for its tremendous achievements in the fields of science, philosophy and art. The concept of truth began to acquire meaning in ancient Greece, as did freedom and knowledge. The concept of moderation illustrated by the “Golden Mean” (whereby the whole is to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part, or (a+b)/a = a/b) and the design of ancient Greek buildings like the Parthenon using the Golden Mean in its dimensions were influential. The Parthenon (built in 438 B.C. to honor the goddess Athena) is impressive. It embodies the Golden Mean, which also occurs in many living creatures and has fascinated mathematicians ever since; for those interested in math, the Fibonacci sequence is a manifestation of the golden mean. A full-sized replica of the Parthenon sits in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Greek and Hebrew approaches to knowledge were very different. The Greeks emphasized spatial relationships, benefiting from the discovery of geometry by Euclid. The Hebrews rarely discuss spatial aspects of history in the Old Testament, and instead focus on their relationship with Yahweh that has no spatial elements. In addition, the Hebrews were inspired by one God, while the Hellenistic Greeks worshipped many gods and permitted many religions including Cynicism, Epicureanism and Stoicism.
Many historians credit the Greeks for “humanism”, by which they mean the Greek emphasis on reason, ethics and rational thinking rather than religion. But the Greeks did not choose to reject religion the way that modern humanists do. Instead, the Greeks advanced knowledge without exposure to Christianity.
Greek plays remain famous to this day. There were two types: the tragedy and the comedy. In a Greek tragedy, the main character has a flaw (such as arrogance) that causes him to fail. Playwrights of tragedies included Euripides (“Medea”) and Sophocles (“Antigone” and “Oedipus Rex”). The comedies consisted of humor and satire, and the leading playwright was Aristophanes (“Lysistrata”).
Not everything in Ancient Greece was great. It was polytheistic, worshipping many gods like Zeus and Hercules. The Greek gods were superhuman, but not divine. The Greek gods cared little about ethics or morality, and were the least influential aspect of the Greek culture. At most, this tradition of polytheism inspired some colorful literature and art. At its worst, it inspired silly rituals. For example, ceremonies known as “oracles” in which priests tried to predict the future by looking at the internal body parts of animal sacrifices—a process called “divination”.
The Greeks are not known for being very practical, but they did invent some useful devices. They are credited with inventing soap, the shower, central heating, the alarm clock (built by Plato to signal to his students that it is time to enter the Academy), the odometer, floating bridges, the lever, the anchor, bricks, the catapult and even chewing gum.
Other Ancient Peoples
The Hittites
The Hittites were a northern Indo-European people who called themselves “Aryans” (like the Persians)—a term meaning “noble people”.
In1650 B.C., they were able to gain control of most of Mesopotamia largely because of their advanced warfare, including horse-drawn chariots. Under their rule, life in the Babylonian empire did not flourish artistically or culturally as it did under others’ rule.
In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned more than 50 times, and are described as having descended from Noah’s great-grandson Heth (descended from Ham). Because no trace of this ancient civilization could be found for a long time, skeptics claimed it proved that the Bible was an unreliable source. However, astounding archeological discoveries in the 19th and 20th centuries proved that the Hittites existed and the finds did much to further the credibility of the Bible as a historical record.
Assyria
Assyria was a very ancient kingdom in northern Mesopotamia. Today that would be in northern Iraq.
It was dependent on Babylonia for a while, but rose to become an independent state in the 14th century B.C. Beginning with the 12th century it declined, only to reemerge as a kingdom again in the 8th century B.C. Under a sequence of powerful Assyrian kings of Tiglath-pileser III, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon, Assyria controlled most of the Middle East from Egypt to the Persian Gulf.
The Assyrians were known for their cruelty and military skills, and more than a few references in the Bible lament their treatment of the Hebrews. The Old Testament mentions “Assyria” 119 times, including this typical verse: “The Lord was with him; wherever he went, he prospered. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and would not serve him.” (2 Kings 18:7 (NRS))
Ultimately, a Chaldean-Median coalition destroyed the Assyrians in 612-609 B.C.
The Chaldeans (also spelled as “Chaldaeans”)
The Chaldeans seized the Assyrian capital, Ninevah (from the story of Jonah), in 612 B.C., and destroyed it. They soon conquered all of Mesopotamia, as well as Judea and Syria. 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.
The Chaldeans’ short reign is chronicled in the Biblical story of Daniel. As a teenager, Daniel was captured by the Chaldean army during its first attack on Jerusalem. While Daniel served under Nebuchadnezzar, one of only a few Chaldean kings, he interpreted dreams, witnessed the miraculous survival of Shadrach, Meschach and Aben-nego in the fiery furnace, and accurately predicted Nebuchadnezzar’s downfall. Under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar’s son, Belshazzar, Daniel witnessed the writing on the wall, which he interpreted as a sign of Belshazzar’s imminent downfall. The very next day, the Persians invaded, killed Belshazzar, and took over the Babylonian empire.
Persia
Persia was the “Land of the Aryans,” and in 1935 the name Persia was changed simply to Iran. To this day oriental rugs from Iran are called “Persian rugs.” They are considered the best in the world and were banned as imports for a long time after Iranian students took Americans hostage in 1980.
The Aryans were nomadic people who migrated into India through the Kyber Pass around 1500 B.C. The language in ancient Persia was Avestan and in Northern India it was Sanskrit. All major European and Indian languages are considered related to it. Hebrew and Arabic are not.
After Darwin’s theory of evolution became popular in England and Germany, racists began to emerge who claimed that Aryans were superior. The worst of these were Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who insisted that Aryans were responsible for all of human progress, and that Jewish people were inferior because they did not descend from the Aryans (Hebrew did not descend from the Aryan language).
Persia’s glory days were from 550 to 331 B.C. It is during this time period that Persia is seen often in the Old Testament. When the Persians took over Babylon, Daniel served under Cyrus and Darius (who threw him into the lion’s den). The Persians are also seen in the Bible in the story of Esther, when King Xerxes I held what might be called a “Miss Persia” beauty contest. Esther, a beautiful Jewish girl, won the contest and would go on to save her people because of her remarkable courage.
The Persians controlled a vast amount of territory, including most of the Middle East, Turkey and a portion of Northern Africa--primarily under Cyrus the Great. Accordingly, the Persian empire was one of the first great empires of the world. They were unstoppable and greatly feared until Alexander the Great conquered them and far more.
After Alexander the Great died, Parthians (based in modern-day Iran) tried unsuccessfully to reestablish the Persian empire. But their past greatness was not achieved again. They could not withstand the Roman army, which conquered it in A.D. 226.
Afterwards, a Persian noble named Ardashir seized power by killing the Parthian king, and established the Sassanid empire along with the official state religion of Zoroastrianism, a polytheistic religion that had a creator (Ahuramazda) and a sun-god (Mithra). This religion was essentially limited to Persians. It made no attempt to convert others and it tolerated other religions in the region like Judaism. Its greatest king was Shapure II (A.D. 309-379), who beat back the weakening Romans and also extended Persian power towards China. This empire remained in control of Persia until Muslims took control of the region in A.D. 651.
The Celts
The Celts were the first ethnic group to become widespread in Europe. Using tribes rather than stable civilizations, the Celts began in central Europe and migrated west beginning in about 500 B.C. to the British Isles (especially Ireland) and also northwest France and portions of Spain. Their religion consisted of worshipping gods and goddesses, and their priests were called “druids”. They had no written language but often told myths and folktales. The Boston Celtics basketball team is named after the Celts.
Central and South America
In Central America (including present-day Mexico), Mesoamerica (“middle America”) developed a civilization known as the Olmec (“mother civilization”) beginning in about 1200 B.C., subsequent to more primitive societies in what is called the Archaic period (2000 B.C.). By then maize (corn) was a plentiful crop, and it was grown along the fertile rivers. Massive stone-hewn sculptures of warriors with helmets can be found in the tropical forests off the Gulf of Mexico in eastern Mexico, San Lorenzo and La Venta. The civilization lasted until 100 B.C., and used a numerical system having base 20 and a 365-day calendar that included 260 days of religious ritual. Religious ceremonies were prominent in this culture.
In South America, Peru was home to agriculture-based civilizations on the altiplano (highlands) of the Andes mountains, and also in coastal valleys. They had irrigation systems and built roads and bridges. They used the llama (a relative of the camel) as a beast of burden and created pottery and textiles using cotton. They lived in stone and adobe structures built perhaps between 3000 and 2000 B.C., and constructed large ceremonial centers beginning in 900 B.C., the most famous of which is called “Chavin de Huantar.”
In general, the Americas did not develop civilizations as advanced as ancient Europe and Asia. Hunting and gathering were easier in the Americas, and there was less reason to settle down into an agricultural society that could generate a surplus and enable workers to spend time on other tasks, such as building cities. The Americas did not have use of the wheel, the plow, glass, iron, steel or horses until brought over by European explorers.
Africa
Historians emphasize three peoples in Africa. The Bantu people spread their language through Africa by migrating to the east and south. They benefited from the iron-smelting technology. The Kush existed in North Africa and imitated the Egyptians. They also had iron smelting and traded for iron, especially at their capital city of Meroe. Finally, the Nok existed in West Africa and created terra cotta sculpture. They also had iron-smelting technology.
