WEEK 1/ İNTRODUCTİON/PİONEERS/ PİONEERS-1,2,3

Düşünmeden öğrenmek verimsizdir

Öğrenmeden düşünmek tehlikelidir.

Confucius, 551-479 B.C.

neşe

Ben bir dünya vatandaşıyım.

Diyojen.

Bilim ve Sanat değeri bilinmeyen yerden göç eder.

ibni-Sina

Tek iyilik bilgi, tek kötülük cehalettir.

Sokrates, 469–399 B.C.

İlim ilim bilmektir

İlim kendin bilmektir

Sen kendini bilmezsen

Bu nice okumaktır

Yunus Emre, 200-237 civarı

WEEK 1/ İNTRODUCTİON

What is civilization?
 The term civilization is originated from civilis in Latin, which means of the citizens. It was used by Romans in order to
differentiate citizens and noncitizens. Being a citizen was a privileged position in the Roman Empire and there were certain
rules to be citizen. Similarly, centuries earlier than Romans, Greeks differentiated themselves from non-Greek or foreign
people by calling them barbars. They heard the languages of non-Greek people as senseless babble. Therefore, they
called those who did not speak Greek as barbar. For Greeks, all foreigners were barbarians denoting uncivilized people who
cannot speak Greek.

It is a difficult task to determine the demarcation between civilized and “uncivilized” or “inferior” or “savage”. Which
society is “civilized” and which one is “uncivilized”?

All peoples of the world, farmers, artisans, clergy, merchants, lived in society. But each society did not produce the same
thing: Egyptians wrote on papyrus, since around Nile there was abandonment of papyrus plant, from which they make the
papyrus writable on it; Mesopotamians wrote on clay tablets, since they learned to benefit from clay. Peoples of both of
civilizations wrote and recorded their social and economic matters in different ways. It is impossible to argue Egyptian
writing is superior than Mesopotamian one or vice a versa. Neither it is possible to argue the Mesopotamian religion is
superior than Greek religion or vice a versa. All societies produced cultures depending on the geographical, topographical,
and climatological conditions, modes of production, and economic relations. Peoples are capable of forming civilizations if
they have the necessary resources.

Due to the developments in the western world between 16th and 19th centuries, western world produced modern state
and modern society with a relatively democratic political system. European writers, in order to justify European imperialist
expansion and the idea of the superiority of west, defined differences between “civilized” and “uncivilized” considering
their own society. They argued that some races are more inventive, talented, smart, and artistic than others, in other
words, superior to others. The West is the example for a superior one. Therefore, west experienced political, religious,
social-cultural and economic developments that brought about civilization. Other “uncivilized” races, which were the
equivalent of Asian and Arab, were not capable of produce civilization. European writers, through such a discourse made
west a norm to be reached by “uncivilized” societies.

The constructed division and differentiation between “civilized” and “uncivilized” or “inferior” or “savage” was
invalidated by some European scholars of the 20th century. In other words, racist discourses of the earlier century were
rejected by the 20th century intellectuals. The miserable lives of the colonized “uncivilized” people, who were colonized by
the west to “civilize” them, and the humanity crimes of the Nazis during the Second World War played role in the
development of critical intellectual thinking. By the 21th century, in scholarly circles it was understood that western writers
made their biased definition of civilization. How would it be possible to make a more fair definition of civilization?

First of all, we need to avoid being ethnocentric in defining the concept of civilization. One should not define, evaluate
and judge peoples of civilization with reference to one’s own civilization. So doing will yield in production of biased
knowledge, which curtails accurate characteristics and capabilities of the given society. Therefore, in order to make a more
reliable definition of civilization, each society’s geographical, topographical, social, cultural and economic conditions should
be considered. One careful definition of civilization may be as following: civilization is a form human of social organization,
which came into being by the development of agriculture. Through discovery of agriculture people had sedentary way of
life, that is to say, they did not have to continuously move to find food to survive. They could control and shape their
environments in their favor. Human social organizations, which could shape their land for their benefits, which produce
political, economic, and social system, which expressed their artistic senses through architecture, literary products, or
paintings, can be called civilization.

In this course you are going to explore why first civilizations of the world emerged in the Middle East and Asia. You are
going to have an idea about major cultural, social, economic, and political trends within each civilization.

The course examines how civilization came into being and then proceeds to analyze major world civilizations, like the
Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Anatolian, Greek, Roman, and Byzantium civilizations. In this semester, you are
going to read about the emergence and diffusion of world civilizations from the Paleolithic Age to about 1500 to the
beginning of European overseas expansion.

Why History of Civilization course?

This course concerns history of humanity. Exploring political, social-cultural, religious, and economic development of
various civilizations of the East and West, it aims to provide students a general notion of cultural history. Having cultural
knowledge will provide individuals to have enlightened minds and ability for developing critical thinking. In order to expand
our world view and perspectives in our lives we need to know about history of humanity, i.e, the evolution, developments,
regression, transition and transformation of various societies in different parts of the world.
 Educated people, regardless of their professions, should know about these for their individual blooming, which in turn
will make them open minded and productive individuals. Before judging different people, ethnic and religious groups,
political and social-cultural systems, we need to have knowledge about these. It is impossible to have an idea without
having knowledge, which has been the ill of the youth in modern societies. Therefore, this course is designed to give
students some basic knowledge about the world-wide developments, through which they can enlarge their world views.

Explanation of time table: the numbers in Before Christ, B.C., years proceeds down to zero:

B.C. 6000… 5000….4000…1000……1054…..49…0

Zero denotes the birth of Christ.

After zero, after the death of Christ, A.D., the numbers increases:

C.E. 0……….325…….1302…..1453……….2012

B.C.: Before Christ Era; MÖ

C.E.: Christ Era ; MS

c. : circa

i.e.: that is

WEEK 1/CHAPTER 1/PALEOLİTHİC & NEOLİTHİC AGES

We are dealing with prehistoric times in this chapter.

Prehistoric means the period concerns the times of unrecorded history. Prehistoric period refers to the period in which
written sources were not available. Historic times deals with the humanity by depending on the written sources. During
the last Ice Age –2,5 years ago– which ended in 12,000 B.C. humans first moved from Africa into Europe and Eastward into
central Asia, India and east Asia.

Homo sapiens –modern humans –who appeared about one hundred thousand years ago, gained clear advantageous over
their rivals through mental development, manual dexterity, and language.

PALEO-LITHIC- OLD STONE AGE 40,000B.C. – 8,000 B.C.

Paleo (old, in Greek) + Lithic (stone, in Greek) = Old Stone Age

• People used stone tolls.

Discovery of fire

They discovered fire so that:

• they made the food edible

• they managed to frighten predatory animals

• they harden wooden weapons and tools

• they used its light and warmth

• They were nomads and they used to survive with hunting & gathering.
 • They domesticated dog and sheep; people moved to the places with their sheep and dogs.

• They used skin of sheep as garment to warm up and their milk as a source of new sustenance source, ate their
meat; dogs helped to protect humans and sheep in the case of danger.

PALEO-LITHIC- OLD STONE AGE 40,000B.C. – 8,000 B.C. Paleo (old, in Greek) + Lithic (stone, in Greek) = Old Stone Age

Nomad means continuously moving, migrating.

Why?

In order find food and secure place for survival.

The term nomad refers to the people who did not have a sedentary way of life.

Sedentary means settled in a certain place.

Did human beings in the Paleolithic Age have artistic creativity?

Human being always had sense of artistic creativity, which is one of the features of being human. In order to understand
this, the best example is to see cave paintings of this period. Some of fantastic cave paintings of this period are available in
south of Turkey, Antalya and its periphery, which is a highly touristic places. While you are in holiday over there, you might
visit them easily.

Paleolithic Caves near Antalya in south of Turkey

Karain, Beldibi, Belbaşı, and Öküzini: In those caves archeologists found artifacts related to ever day use, such as stone
tools, blades, and objects made out of stone and wood.

Between 10.000 BC. and 8000 B.C. People managed to domesticate animals, dog & ship. This period might called
transition period of the human being.

It is believed that climatic changes and increase in population might lead to this development in the history of humanity.

Tarım Devrimi

NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION/ AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION 8000 B.C – 3500 B.C.

Neo (new, in Greek) + lithic (stone, in Greek) = New Stone Age

Historians named this period in the history of humanity as Neolithic revolution since it created a radical change in the
lives of people: People discovered agriculture and understood that if they reside in a certain place for a certain period of
times, they might receive grains regularly. This required sedentary/settled way of life. Hence, human beings began to live
sedentary life.

Human beings’ discovery of agriculture has been a debatable subject. Archeologists mention two possibilities: People by
chance realized that ear of grain is the source of wheat or they purposely put wheat germs on the land and received wheat
after a certain time.

The former view suggests that after a rainy period, a group of people realized some ear of grains on the land. When they
grab one and curiously examine it, they found the wheat. They also figured out that when they mix them with water it
became edible. As wheat became an important food source, they themselves threw the wheat germs and waited to obtain
wheat.

The latter one suggests that a group of people found some ear of grains; they did not know what they were. They threw
them on the land and after rain falls they saw the ear of grains and pick out the wheat. They found out also that it became
edible if they mix it with water. They realized that if they repeat this action and wait for a while, they would regularly obtain
wheat.

This was a radical change for the human beings: while they could only survive with a nomadic way of life, they discovered
that they can permanently stay somewhere. Therefore historians called Neolithic Age as Neolithic Revolution.This period is
also named as “AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION”

People harvested wild crops, fenced off the land and established irrigation canals. In addition to these the domestication of
animals and plants in an earlier age led to spread of agriculture in the Middle East at a very early age circa 8.000 and 3.500
BC.

https://eu1files.itslearning.com/data/2099/4/a.jpg?

We can summarize the technological development in the Paleolithic age as follows:

Humans began to deal with a certain activity, some of them dealt with only pottery making to conserve their food, some
of them with domesticating animals, some with weaving and so on. This means beginning of an occupational specialization
in its most preliminary form.Sedentary agricultural communities are termed as revolutionary since their being Sedentary is
the most critical transformation in the history of humanity.

People, who deal with different type of activity, began to exchange their products. There was exchange among
agricultural product producers, tool makers, and weavers. This means they had a certain amount of surplus product that
allowed them to make exchange. That is to say, this surplus product to exchange was the primitive form of trade. Although
there was differentiation on occupations and surplus product, it is not possible to define a class identity in the modern
sense of class. REMEMBER: We should know that beginning of sedentary life did not mean all nomad humans moved to
sedentary life. A considerable amount of people remained nomads, who sometimes attacked sedentary people in order to
take their food.

MAP OF PALEOLITHIC AND NEOLIITHIC SITES IN THE OLD WORLD 13000-5.000 B.C.

The numbers mentioned indicate datings established by carbon 14 method. (13-11.5 means 13000-11.500 etc.).
http://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0277379107001941-gr1.jpg

https://www.itslearning.com/data/2099/4/b.png

Do you know about the Neolithic sites in Turkey? Please see the map below…

https://www.itslearning.com/data/2099/4/Maps/d.JPG.png

Let’s give prominent two examples for the Neolithic settlements

1. ÇATALHÖYÜK, around 6000 B.C.

 • Çatalhöyük is located in the south of Turkey.

• Its population was about 4000-6000.

• The houses were mud brick, rectangular buildings with high windows; the entrance was from flat roof. This
means, their houses were fortified by houses themselves

• The burial practice at Çatalhöyük was intra-mural (within the house) that is the entombment of the deceased
within the perimeters of the living quarters.

• Çatalhöyük people stored foods, which was target for nomadic bands.

• Many religious shrines indicate powerful priesthood.

Photo of Çatalhöyük.

Shrine of the bull

• Use of the hornes of the bulls, and rams indicate that these animals were regarded as powerful and divinely
among the Çatalhöyük people. (We will see that the horned helmets were used as indicator of the divine power of
the Mesopotamian kings in later periods).

• The walls were decorated with painted figures that symbolize bulls & vultures.

Reconstruction of shrine (Bucrania)

The vultre shrine

Anthropos (Human, in Greek) + morphic (shape, form, in Greek)

Çatalhöyük, the painting in the temple number 7.14.

• Çatalhöyük people were collecting obsidian from Hasan mountain, which was located between Niğde and Konya.

• Their economic activity was composed of hunting, breeding of goats, sheep & cattle, consumption of several
grains.

JERICHO, 7000 B.C. (Today's Palestine)

• The other famous example for a Neolithic settlement, which you can visit, is Jericho in Palestine.
 • Its estimated population is around 2.000 people.

• The houses in Jericho were round shaped stone foundations with mud brick walls with single room without
window and domed ceiling.

• In early period, there were no fortification walls, but the city was surrounded by a ditch cut into rocky soil. Later,
fortification walls & stone towers were built.

• Its economic activity was depended on production of wheat, barley, goats, hunting, and exchange of these
products.

References:

Albert M. Craig, William A. Graham, Donald Kagan, Steven Ozment, Frank M. Turner, The Heritage of World Civilizations,
Combined Volume, Seventh Edition, New Jersey: Pearson, 2006.

Peter N. Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart B. Schwartz, Marc Jason Gilbert, World Civilizations, The Global Experience, Third
Edition, Vol. I, New York, San Francisco: Longman, 2001.

Adam Hart-Davis, Tarih Atlası [Atlas of History] İstanbul: Boyut Yayıncılık, 2007.

WEEK 2/Chapter 2 - Bronze Age Sumerians Akadians Babillonians

Key Concepts of This Unit:

Mesopotamia, Bronze, Tigris, Euphrates, Fertile Crescent, scribe, city-state, polytheistic, divine right, ziggurat, agriculture,
surplus product, animism.

This semester we are going to deal with the questions of where did first civilizations emerge? What were the characteristics
of the first civilizations? Why they were called civilization?

Let’s answer very briefly the first question and leave to you to think about the other two while reading the chapters.

The first civilizations emerged in Near and Middle East and Asia around rivers in the Bronze Age. They are named as River
Valley Civilizations.

RIVER VALLEY CIVILIZATIONS

MESOPOTAMIA -> Tigris & Euphrates

EGYPT -> Nile

INDIA -> Indus

CHINA -> Yellow River

Before reading the features of some of these civilizations, wee need to know about the Bronze Age between the years
4.000 B.C and 2.000 B.C. What is the significance of this period in the history of the humanity?

This is the age of innovation in the Middle East

What is bronze?

The mixture of copper + tin makes the bronze. People invented this new mixture around 4000 B.C.

• Human beings made greater variety of tools than stone or bone.

• Bronze is lighter than stone & quickly made

• They made metal hoes, plows, weapons, which led to formation of organized armies, which in turn provided
means of control for the groups who were in contest for land and food.
 • People of the Middle East invented potter's wheel around 6000 B.C. This enabled them to produce higher quality
ceramics.

• These high quality ceramics made the food storage easier.

• The development led to the emergence of specialized workers as pottery makers.

• Abandonment of high quality potteries were also used in trade.

• Another crucial invention was wheel, around 4000 B.C.

• It was vital to both trade and monumental construction. People were able to move large block of stones to
construction sites.

• The Middle East was the first region to move from the Neolithic Age to the Bronze Age.

• This meant there was an agricultural surplus, development of government and property rights in the region.

• People thought to construct irrigation channels in order to benefit from the rivers and to secure their cultivated
area from unexpected floods of the rivers.

• Usage of irrigation channels +agricultural surplus + bronze technology enabled Eastern people to develop
governmental structure, religious system, organized economic system and so on.

• Let’s see how did this happen first time in Mesopotamia around 3.500 B.C along Tigris & Euphrates Valleys.

Emergence if First Civilization Around 3500 B.C. along Tigris & Euphrates Valleys means:

The Sumerians

Geographic Location

Meso-potamia (in Greek): Meso + potamia = between the rivers

It is a River Valley Civilization

• This geographical area is also called the Fertile Crescent: if you look at the region in the map, you will see that the
area between Tigris and Euphrates looks almost like a crescent. The land of this region is semi-arid, people of the
region made this large amount of semi-arid land as arable and fertile so that the land became fertile. And, it was
named as Fertile Crescent.

• In Mesopotamia, the Sumerians obtained larger food surpluses, which led to the population growth, which in turn
led to the village expansion.

• It is believed that the Sumerians migrated into this region from North around 4000 B.C.

Political Organization

• They were organized as city-states, which were self ruling small kingdoms, which were rule by kings. Each city
state controlled surrounded agricultural fields.

• Kings regulated boundaries and religion, and provided justice.

 • Governors & priests constituted the elites of the Sumerian society.

• Farmers & slaves constituted the common people in the society.

Economy

• Sumerian economy depended on slave labor, which was provided by captured people during the inter-city-state
wars.

• In Sumerian land –Mesopotamia– the lack of natural barriers for invasion led to a recurrent warfare among the
city states. They used these wars as source of providing slaves.

• Sumerians facilitated agriculture, improved potter's wheel and used of oxen to pull plows. This provided them to
have more arable land.

• They used carts to transport their goods so that agriculture & trade developed.

CULTURE

• The writing System of the Sumerians called cuneiform. They developed it around 3500 B.C.

• Cuneiform, from the Latin cuneus, “wedge”.

• Writing was a crucial factor for the development of civilizations.

• Why?

It made possible records of trade, property, land borders, and amount of agricultural productions.

• Sumerian writing baked on clay tablets. It composed of symbols. Initially it had 2000 phonetic symbols derived
from pictures, pictograph elements. In tine it reduced to 300 symbols

• Cuneiform was difficult to learn therefore special people, priests monopolized it, and they also became scribes of
the society.

• This monopoly gave political power & religious importance to scribes.

• Sumerians wrote known the oldest epic in the history of the humanity, the Gilgamesh. It was originally written on
12 clay tablets in cuneiform script. It is about the adventures of the King of Uruk. It was written about 2000 B.C.
The epic is a legend of the flood, which agrees in many details with the biblical story of Noah.

• Development in mathematics. Sumerian number system was based on the number 60, rather than today’s
decimal -10- system.

• They had developed knowledge of mathematical astronomy.

• Their calendar had twelve lunar mounts of thirty days each.

RELIGION

• Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures, phenomena, material

states, objects, or abstract concepts.

• Polytheistic religion with anthropomorphic gods or goddesses representing forces or presences in the world, in
much the same way as later Greek Mythology.

• Poly (in Greek): very, a lot, more than one Theistic (Theos, God, in Greek; theistic, religious, in Greek) = believing
in more than one god, pagan.

• They had anthropomorphic gods and goddesses.

 • Gods and goddesses were identified with natural sources, such as, storms, the sky, rivers, mountains, trees, and
so on. That is to say, they believed that there was a divine power behind these natural objects. This belief is
called Animism, which was common among agricultural people.

• Although Gods were accepted as universal, it was believed they used to reside in specific places in each city.

• Mesopotamians believed that humans were created to serve the Gods, who would protect them from natural
disasters, diseases, and unwanted events.

• Priests were the key actors in conducting these rituals to serve the Gods and they were also responsible to calm
down the gods through prayers, sacrifices and magic. Since gods were believed to regulate the natural sources,
especially Euphrates and Tigris, whose flows were unpredictable and when they flooded people lost their
products.

• The Mesopotamians had gloomy view for the afterworld: the spirits of the dead were supposed to be in dark,
they were doomed to hunger and thirst unless someone offered them food and drink.

• Mesopotamian people had ceremonies to commemorate their dead.

• People were buried with their goods, like ornaments and potteries.

• In their perception of religion afterlife included suffering.

• Many stories in Sumerian religion appear similar to stories in other Middle-Eastern religions. Gods and Goddesses
from Sumer have similar representations in the religions of the Akkadians, and others.

• Ziggurats were the religious monuments of Mesopotamian civilization, like pyramids of Egypt

• Ziggurat was temple tower with stages, sometimes with a temple on the top. Stairs lead to the temple. They had
terraces that were planted with trees to resemble to a mountain. In the Western tradition they took place as
Tower of Babel through its mention as a biblical story.

REMEMBER: The political structure, economy, society, culture, and religion of the Sumerians deeply affected the other
states and empires founded in Mesopotamia. We should approach Mesopotamia as a region; there was no one single
empire that dominated Mesopotamia for centuries

• Sargon established Akkadian Empire ca. 2370.

• After 2400 B.C, a non-Sumerian city in Mesopotamia conquered the Sumerian city-states.

• It was the first empire in the history of the humanity; an empire with its provinces and absolute ruler.

• The king Sargon I conquered all the city states and formed Akkadian Empire.

• Extensive tax revenues provided his professional military organization.

• However, about 2125 B.C. the Sumerian city Ur managed to dominate the region, and the Third Dynasty of Ur
established a far smaller empire on the Akkadian land.

• Hundred thousands of documents which had been found in the remnants of the Sumerian city states indicated that
highly centralized governmental structure of Ur kept records of agriculture, husbandry, and commerce.

• Akkadian Empire lasted more than 200 years in Mesopotamia.

• In a century Ur was attacked and invaded by the entrance of Semitic-speaking people (Semitic languages are the
languages in the same family with Hebrew & Arabic) from the north and west, the Amorites.

• The Amorites invaded Mesopotamia and founded their own cities in the place of Sumerian cities and founded their
own dynasties, such as Uruk, Babylon, Larsa, and İsin.

• Among them Babylon had prominence among the other cities.

• There was war among Babylonian dynasties to control the region.

 • Babylon defeated other rival and invaded Mesopotamian cities and ruled the region about three hundred years.
(ca. 1800 B.C until 1500 B.C.

• The famous king, Hammurabi (r. 1792-1750 B.C) unified much of Mesopotamia, which lacked political unification
until his reign.

• Hammurabi is known for his codification of laws, which bears his name. One of the crucial points in his laws,
which we will see hundred years later in Roman Empire and European countries, was his entrustment to the
king divine right.

• Trade contacts of the Mesopotamia were wide-ranging, and they gave considerable attention to merchant class &
commercial law.

• Rulers in Mesopotamian civilization associated themselves with Gods.

• Sumerian cultural traditions were maintained and elaborated by the Akkadian and Babylonian Empires.

• Artistic monuments celebrated rulers’ power.

• They extended Sumerian astronomy and mathematics.

Assyrians

• Assyrians were people who live in a city of northern Mesopotamia, in Assur. They spoke a Semitic language
closely similar to that of the Babylonians. It was named after its capital city Assur.

• After the death of Hammurabi Babylonians lost control over the region and Assyrians managed to dominate the
region in the north of Tigris.

• An Indo-European speaking people established Mitanni kingdom in Mesopotamia around 1500 B.C and 1300 B.C.
Assyrians became under the domination of Mitanni kingdom.

• Assur was a crucial center for trade, but emerged as a political power after the fall of Mitanni during the 1400 B.C.

• Arameans, who were a Semitic people speaking a language called Aramic, were nomadic and agricultural people
from northern Syria invaded Assyria.

• After 1000 B.C Assyrians expanded second time in Mesopotamia to the much of Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and
Egypt. The empire became very larger to govern.

• Assyrians ruled this large empire dividing it into provinces; they had military garrisons in each province and
applied taxation system. They had vassal kings, who had to pay tribute to the Assyrians.

• Assyrian rulers applied forced settlement policy to populate the empire’s sparsely inhabited regions.

• When the empire too large to govern civil wars occurred and divided the Assyrian land.

• The Medes, powerful people coming from Persia, attacked Assyrian and Babylonians joined the Medes as well.
They destroyed Assyrian cities.

• The Medes did not continue to their invasions so that Babylonians took over the Assyrian Empire.

• Babylonians were invaded by the Persians in 539 B.C.

End of the Mesopotamian states &empires à The invasion of Hittite People of the Mesopotamian land put an end to the
political existence of the Mesopotamian states and empires. Hittites were one of the Indo-European groups entered from
central Asia and established a large empire (ca. 1400B.C-1200 B.C)

Note: The Hittites will be covered in the week of Anatolian Civilizations.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE IN MESOPOTAMIA

 • Hundreds of thousands of cuneiform tablets informed modern people about the social life of the Mesopotamians.

• The social structure was composed of kings –the highest priest- priests or scribes, military men, artisans and
peasants constituted the social strata in Sumerian society.

• Hammurabi’s law gives information about the professions and daily of people in Mesopotamia: there were
different professions, like traders, builders, judges, surgeons; people make investments in land, money lending
and international trade.

• Slavery had been existed in Mesopotamia. There were 2 types of slavery in Mesopotamia, the debt and chattel. As
the term implies, the chattel slaves were bought and sold like a material and had no any rights. They had certain
way of hair style and dressing to be able to distinguish them in the society. Debt slaves originated by people
defaulted on loans. Debt slaves could not buy and sold, and could repurchase their freedom by paying off their
loan.

WEEK 2/ Chapter 3 - Egypt & Mediterranean Civilizations

Egyptian Civilization

EGYPTIAN & MEDITERRANEAN CIVILIZATIONS

EGYPT

Two river valley civilizations thrived in the ancient Near East: Mesopotamia, which was long divided into a number of city-
states, and Egypt, which was united into a single state.

Key concepts of this chapter: centralized, Nile, papyrus, pharaoh, pyramids, trade, priest.

Around 3000 B.C. a contemporary civilization with the Mesopotamia emerged along the Nile River in North Africa.

Similarly to Mesopotamia, farming developed around the Nile and people became sedentary through agricultural activity.

The records of both civilizations indicate that there was a trade between these civilizations, which provided economic
development for both parties.

Sedentary life began in Southern and Northern Egypt with two different political and economic systems during the Bronze
Age.

Narmer, king of southern Egypt, conquered the Northern part and created a unified state, which lasted for more than 2000
years.

Although they were in interaction in technological and economic terms, they produced different civilizations.

Egypt was more stable than Mesopotamia in political terms.

Geographically, Egypt was more isolated and protected against invasions by the desert.

It flourished for more than 2000 years until the beginning of its decline about 1000 B.C.

During its 2000 years of lifetime, the Egyptian society went through three major periods: the Old Kingdom (ca. 2700-2000
B.C), the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2200-1630 B.C), and the New Kingdom (ca. 1630-1075 B.C)

In all these periods, Egyptian civilization displayed an enormous stability, unlike the Mesopotamia.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE

• Unlike Sumerian civilization, there was a highly centralized power of pharaoh in Egyptian civilization.

• Pharaohs were believed to be descended from Gods. They were perceived by common people as semi-gods with
supernatural power, like able to control the flows of the Nile.

Duty of pharaohs:
 • to ensure prosperity

• to control rituals

• to make sure regular flow of Nile and fertility derived from irrigation

• Most of the people were farmers (peasants) closely monitored and heavily taxed.

• Governors were appointed to the crucial areas as responsible for supervising the irrigation activity, the well being
of irrigation channels, and public works.

ECONOMY

• Egyptian economy was depended on agriculture.

• The records proved that Egyptians traded with Mesopotamians.

CULTURE & SOCIETY

• The writing system appeared in Egypt about 3000 B.C.

• Egyptian alphabet is called hieroglyphic alphabet.

• It is more pictorial than Sumerian cuneiform. It had simplified pictures if objects to represent sounds and
concepts.

• Egyptians had written on Papyrus, which was a material made from a certain kind of plant. It was cheaper than
clay tablet or animal skins, and easy to store.

The Old Kingdom (2890-2566 B.C), The Middle Kingdom (2055-1795 B.C.) & The New Kingdom (1550-1186 B.C.)

The Old Kingdom represented a period when internal stability and prosperity was provided. The Old Kingdom declined and
a decentralized structure occurred. Pharoah Amunemhet, who was the founder of the Twelfth Dynasty, gained the political
contest and initiated the period of the Middle Kingdom.

WEEK 2/ Chapter 3 - Egypt & Mediterranean Civilizations/ The Old, Middle & New Kingdom-2

During the period of Middle Kingdom, Upper and Lower Egypt were re-united and three significant changes were done in
the administration by the pharaoh (Amunemhet):

Amunemhet moved his royal quarters from Thebes to new town Memphis; reorganized the provincial structure through
giving them some local autonomy within the centralized system; and he formed a co-regency system to make a smooth
transition from one rule to another. Some settlers were trying to enter into Egypt from Mediterranean. In order to prevent
this, fortification walls were established. However, eventually these invaders managed to invade gradually the Delta during
the Middle Kingdom. The non-Egyptian rulers of the 15 Dynasty, who is called Hyksos, ruled the Delta region. Hyksos means
in Egyptian “chief of foreign lands”. Almost after a century Hyksos rule was ended by Kamose and his brother Ahmose
established the New Kingdom.

During the New Kingdom Egypt’s political and economic power was at its highest strength; foreign expansions with the
military expeditions reached to as far as Euphrates in Syria. Major temples were founded in the south in Sudan, which was
13 miles away from the Memphis. There was a cosmopolitanism and luxury life in the dynastic circles. The pharaohs’ tombs
were put in deep rock cliffs in the valley in Thebes first time in this period. Today what is called the Valley of the Kings. Only
one intact tomb had been discovered there, of the Tutankhamun’s tomb. After him the most influential dynasty became the
Ramsessides Dynasty. Ramses II is the famous pharaoh who battled against Hittites and signed the first written agreement
of humanity with them, Kadesh Treaty (1301 B.C). We know about these through many pictorial and textual records. During
the rule of new Kingdom, Egypt’s economic contacts increased with the Middle East, the eastern Mediterranean –including
the Minoans in the island of Crete.

• Akhenaton, ruled Egypt ca. 1350-1334 B.C, replacing polytheism –pantheon of Egypt– attempted to install a new,
single- god religion. His could not succeed because f the powerful resistance of the priests.

• After Ramses II, a gradual decline had begun as a result of new invasions, internal conflicts, social protests and
strikes. The following years witness Persian invasion and Alexander the Great’s conquest, Ptolemaios’ rule in the
Hellenistic Period (Ptolemaic Kings), and finally Roman conquest in 30 B.C. The last Egyptian queen in the
 Ptolemaic Period was Cleopatra. When she fell into dispute with his half-brother, he asked help from the Roman
Empire, (Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar), the Roman general Julius Caesar. However, she sided with the Roman
general Mark Antony against Augustus Caesar in the battle of Actium in 31B.C and lost the war and Egypt became
a Roman province.

Imagine, is it easy to store tablets of Mesopotamia or Hittites or thin and light papyrus papers of Egyptians?

• Egypt had an extensive recording system, which enabled to develop an efficiently working bureaucracy. Easy to
use papyrus also played role in the development of this highly bureaucratic structure. Writing was monopolized
by powerful priests, just like in Mesopotamia.

• Egyptians did not produce an epic tradition, unlike the Mesopotamians. They were less developed than
Mesopotamians in terms of mathematics and astronomy. They had a considerable knowledge of medicine: they
had the knowledge of various drugs and some contraceptive devices. Later, Greeks learned the Egyptian
knowledge of medicine and passed it to later Near and Middle Eastern cultures. Slaves became widespread during
the Middle Kingdom about 2000 B.C. In this period, black Africans from Nubia and Assians from the east were
captured during the wars and brought to Egypt as slaves. During the New Kingdom, when Egypt expanded and
reached to it’s the most powerful age, slaves tremendously increased. Like in Mesopotamia, they had a distinct
style of dressing for identification and prevention of their escape. They served in various jobs; they worked in
artisans’ shops, they served as domestic servants, some worked as soldiers, many worked in the construction of
the temples.

RELIGION

The hallmark of the Egyptians religion was after life. Everything was organized in according to the idea of afterlife.

Their religion was polytheistic, they worshipped to many gods.

Priests were very influential elites in the society to conduct the rituals of serving to the gods.

Pyramids were built by the pharaohs in order to house themselves and their family after death. Although the Egyptians
were not advances technologically, they constructed these immense monuments. They did not have pulleys and similar
devices to elevate the large block of stones. Therefore, the pyramids are accepted as the accomplishment of human
coordination and discipline.

Egyptian gods had human bodies and animal or human heads, and wore crown celestial discs or thorns in the figures. The
gods were believed to reside in their cults/temples where run by priests.

Re (the creator sun god, also identified as Atum), Ptah who created other gods by uttering their names, and Isis, ideal
mother and wife, controlled nature and had magical skills, are some examples to Egyptian gods and goddesses.Egyptians
worshipped at small shrines in their local region. They put their offerings and votive inscriptions. They thoroughly believed
in the power of magic, oracles and used variety of amulet to keep the evil away.

Kush

• By 730 B.C., as Egypt declined Kush invaded its northern neighbor and ruled it for several centuries.

• In the upper reaches of the Nile a kingdom in Africa, Kush, was established. It was the first known African state
other than Egypt.

• It emerged as an independent political unit and highly influenced by Egypt in terms of politics, economy, culture,
and religion.

• The Kush used iron and had access to African ore.

• The writing system derived from hieroglyphics.

• Under the rule of the Kush several significant cities were established.

• Monuments and huge royal pyramids were established in its capital city Moroe along with pottery & jewelry.

• Its decline began by 100 B.C. Moroe defeated by south kingdom, Axum, about 300 B.C.
 • By 730 B.C., as Egypt declined Kush invaded its northern neighbor and ruled it for several centuries.

• This conquest ended by the Assyrian invasion from the Middle East, and when Assyrians reached to the south,
Egyptian influence considerably reduced.

WEEK 2/ Chapter 3 - Egypt & Mediterranean Civilizations/ Mediterranean Civilization

WEEK 2/ Chapter 3 - Egypt & Mediterranean Civilizations/ The Hebrews-1

* The Hebrew people were the Semitic language speaking people in the Mediterranean with Monotheistic religion, Judaism.
They were highly influenced by Babylonian Civilization.

* It is believed that they might migrated from Mesopotamia and developed agriculture, and some moved to Egypt and lived
as subjected people under the rule of pharaoh.

* Loosely organized Hebrew tribes by 1200 B.C settled a kingdom in the Middle East. This kingdom reached its peak under
the reigns of David (r. ca. 1000-961 B.C) and Solomon (r. ca. 961-922). After Solomon, the kingdom was divided into 2 parts
as Israel in the north and Judah with its capital Jerusalem in the south.

* The northern kingdom was invaded by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. Kingdom of Judah with its capital Jerusalem remained and
after this they were called as Israelites. Judah was conquered by the Neo-Babylonians in 586 B.C.

* Later, Persians defeated the Babylonians in 539 B.C. The returned ones established a new Judaic state about 516 B.C.
Although the new Judaic state included many foreign people, it lived for centuries and could maintain its religion and
political identity as a state. However, with the destruction of the Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 C.E., the Judaic state lost
its political identity and the Jews continued to live in the Mediterranean and Middle East with their religious world view.

* According to the Hebrew tradition, Moses led the Hebrews to Palestine in search of a homeland promised by God in the
13th century B.C.

* By 1100 B.C. Hebrew people began to emerge as a people with a self-conscious culture & some political identity.

* Their monotheistic religion became their distinctive characteristic in the ages of the polytheistic religion.

* In their religion, God had been as the only and the most powerful of many divinities.

* According to the monotheistic religion of Hebrews, they should abandon worship to other gods and to receive the divinity
from God through the Torah -a holy law. That is to say, they rejected paganism.

* In their religion, the concept of God became less human like and abstract, orderly and just, unlike the Mesopotamian
gods, which might be whimsical & capricious.

* Moral behavior was important in Hebrews’ religion.

* According to Hebrews, religion was a system of life, not only rituals and ceremonies, unlike the Mesopotamian and
Egyptian civilizations. The real impact of this religious transformation in the Middle East and Mediterranean would come
later, when Christianity & Islam emerged as the other monotheistic religions in the Middle East.

* According to Jews, God's guidance has been for all humanity, not only for themselves, but God has a special contract with
the Jews.

* They conducted a very limited missionary activity and remained as minority in the Middle East.

The MINOANS

Bronze Age on Crete Island, ca. 1900 B.C.

The Aegean Area in the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age in the Aegean area lasted from ca. 1900 to ca. 1100 B.C. Its culture on
Crete is called Minoan and was at its height about 1900-1400 B.C. Bronze Age Helladic culture on the mainland flourished
from ca. 1600 to 1200 B.C.

• Crete Island was located on the intersection point in the Mediterranean. It was a cultural intersection point with
Greece to the north, with Egypt to the south, and Asia to the east.

• About 1600 B.C. a civilization in Crete emerged. This Bronze Age civilization on Crete is called Minoan. Its capital
was Knossos.

• Minoan civilization highly influenced other Aegean islands and the mainland of Greece.

• Minoans widely traded with Mesopotamia and Egypt, which provided people exchange of traditions
&characteristics.

• In Crete agricultural hinterland was limited, people mostly dealt with sea faring.

• They imitated Egyptian architectural forms; various palaces with their distinctive and striking art display
characters of the Minoan civilization, which was affected by Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Egypt. The most
important of these palaces is Cnossos (Knossos), which is available to see today.

• Minoan cities did not have strong defensive walls, which indicate they were not built for defense. The murals in
Minoan palaces indicate peaceful scenery and games.

• They developed a writing system which was influenced by Egypt. Archeological excavation revealed that they
wrote on the clay tablets, which were found at the Cnossos palace. Three distinct forms of writing were found in
the tablets. One is proved to be an early form of Greek.

• Their writings on the tablets indicated that Minoans were ruled by a king and they had extensive record keeping
& bureaucracy.

WEEK 2/ Chapter 3 - Egypt & Mediterranean Civilizations/ The Mycenaeans

Early people of the Aegean Sea

About 3000 B.C the Greek mainland was settled by people who used metal, built impressive houses and traded with Crete
and other Aegean islands. The names they gave to the places indicated that (some of these names were preserved by the
later invaders) they were not Greeks and the language they spoke was not an Indo-European. (Indo-European is the
language groups that Greek belongs).

• After 2000 B.C. most of the sites in the mainland Greece sites were destroyed by fires, some were abandoned,
and new invaders came to the Greek mainland. These new invasions are believed to be the signals of the arrival of
the Greeks.

• The Mycenaean civilization evolved on the Greek mainland and eventually conquered the Greek mainland and
Crete.

• Mycenaean civilization (more warriors than traders) dominated the Aegean from about 1400 B.C. to 1200 B.C
when it was at the height of its power; they traded with Sicily, Italy, Egypt, and Mesopotamia.

• Mycenaeans absorbed Egyptian and Mesopotamian influences and passed them on to later Greeks.

• Its main cities Mycenae and Pylos were located away from sea, like Cnossos. Excavations in Mycenae and Pylos
showed that although the Mycenaeans infleunced by the Minoans, but they developed a different culture.

• Defense against attack was their biggest concern; both Mycenae and Pylos were located on the hills in positions
commanding the neighbouring territory.

• Their art, archiectre, and weapons reveled that Mycenaeans were warrior people; they were ruled by a strong
kings, who live in palaces with defensive walls, while most of the people lived outside walls; the murals in
Mycenaean palaces depict scenes of war and boar hunting.
 • Mycenaeans were at the height of their power between 1400 and 1200 B.C. They enlarged their cities, trade, and
established colonies in the eastern Mediterranean.

• They were mentioned in the Hittite records; they were mentioned as marauders of the Nile Delta in the Egyptian
records.

• It is believed that their war with Troy around the year 1200 B.C led Homer to write epics of Iliad and the Odyssey.

• The reasons of collapse of the Mycenaean civilization are not certain. Some Greek sources attribute it to the
coming of new Greek invaders from the north, the Dorians, who harshly invaded Mycenaean cities. The fall of
Mycenae ushered in the Greek Dark Ages 1100 – 800 B.C.

WEEK 2/ Chapter 3 - Egypt & Mediterranean Civilizations/ Phoenician-1

• Around 2000 B.C, a group of people called the Phoenicians settled on the eastern Mediterranean coast, on
today’s Lebanon.

• Since the agricultural land was not very extensive, they began to deal with seafaring, like Minoans.They
developed trade contacts with the neighboring civilizations. They were merchants with no extensive cultural
achievements; set up colonies at several points in Mediterranean with the commercial purposes. They moved to
the westward in the Mediterranean and set up a colony on the north African coast, at Carthage, and less
important commercial centers in Italy, Spain and southern France.

Phoenicians took advantage of weakening Egypt and collapse of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.

About 1300 B.C they formed an alphabet, which composed of 22 letters and based on the Mesopotamian cuneiform.
Phoenician alphabet became ancestor to Greek & Latin; Phoenicians advanced the Egyptian numbering system

Phoenician civilization collapsed by the 6th cent. B.C. due to the Assyrian invasion of the Middle East

In this chapter, we saw the causes which gave rise to the emergence civilization, particularly Mesopotamian civilization, the
first in the world. It also gave the examples of Egypt and Mediterranean. It explained the conditions under which each
civilization was made up, formed a distinctive pattern of political organization and religious system.

The river valley civilization came to end in the Middle East and Egypt around 1000 B.C. The Indo-European migrations and
invasions especially after 1200 B.C marked the interaction of nomadic invaders with more settled societies in the Near and
Middle East. The invaders were hunters and gatherers, initially from central Asia; they moved into Western Asia and
Europe. The Hittites were among the most successful Indo-European waves. They adopted Mesopotamian values and
established an empire and draw back Egyptian influence. However, Hittites were also destroyed by other Indo-European
invaders. Nomadic Indo-European invasions did not only bring about destruction, but also innovation and interaction. The
Hittites were the first time introduced the iron in the Mesopotamia and center of the Asia Minor. Hence, more powerful
armies with a powerful military became possible. This, in return, led to foundation of more extensive military empires.

WEEK 3/ Chapter 4 – India/

INDIA : First Civilizations of Asia

Key concepts of this chapter: Indus, Ganges, Harappa, Aryan, Sanskrit, Hinduism, Brahman, Caste System, Buddhism,
Mauryan

Hindu: Although in earlier times Hindu simply meant Indian; in reality, Hindu is a term that includes an immense variety of
social, racial, linguistic, and religious groups.

INDIA : First Civilizations of Asia

Indian: Today, Indian refers to all native inhabitants of the subcontinent India regardless of its various beliefs and cultures.
FROM BRITANNICA: Definition of Indo-European Language

In India, around the Indus River valley, present day Pakistan, civilization formed by Aryan invasions, 1500 B.C.-500 B.C.

HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION

In northwest India along the Indus River Indus Civilization emerged. Harappa & Mohenjo Daro were the two centers of
Indus Civilization. The region was found by a British General Alexander Cunningham, who became the head of the Indian
Archaeological survey in 1850. It is four times the size of Sumer and twice the size of Egypt. Twin capitals of a civilization
made up mainly of smaller urban centers and villages. Archaeological surveys showed that Harappan people knew how to
make bronze weapons, tools, mirrors, and pottery. Recurring motifs, bulls and long-horned cattle, and elaborately
decorated bowls and storage urns in their settlements indicate links to early agricultural communities in the Middle
East. Most of their tools were inferior to those of Mesopotamian peoples, with whom they contacted. They had used more
primitive weapons than Mesopotamians. Poor weaponry of the Harappans would have left them vulnerable to invasions by
people who were more capable at warfare. This has been evaluated as their conservatism & resistance to innovations
introduced from outside, although Harappa had overseas contacts. Harappan society was dominated by a powerful priest
class, which ruled from castle of each city.

Some possible reasons for the collapse of Harrapan civilization:

• It has been argued that excessive flooding of the Indus River and the gradual desertification of the region might
weaken Harappa’s agricultural & urban base.

• Some horse-riding & cattle herding Indo-Europeans entered the Indian subcontinent in roughly the same period.
That is to say, it was under the nomadic invasions, which might have an impact for the collapse of the Harappa.

• Like Sumer and its successor civilizations, Harappa could not resist natural catastrophes & nomadic invasions.
Harappa vanished from history between about 1500 B.C. and 1200 B.C.

ARYAN CIVILIZATION

Aryan invasions established a new civilization in India, 1600 B.C.-1000 B.C.

• Aryan is a linguistic term. People who were shepherds and spoke one type of Indo-European languages used to
live in the area between Caspian and Black Seas.

• They began to migrate in large numbers from their homelands towards west into Asia Minor and eventually
Europe.

• They were warlike people; they had strong warrior leaders and they lived in tribal units, which turned out to be
larger kingdoms over time.

• Mobility and military courage of the Aryans provided them to rule over peoples they occupied, like Harappans.

• However, Aryans took many centuries to reach the level of the civilization achieved by the Harrapans.

• As in Mesopotamian civilization and Egypt, the civilization occurred in its full form in India when people became
sedentary through agriculture. When sedentary agriculture was established, it supported many elite Indian
people and led to the emergence of extensive trade & non-agrarian manufacturers.

Sanskrit, http://www.sanskritweb.net/itrans/

• They used Sanskrit alphabet, which had been developed in the 700 B.C.

• Vedas is the name of the sacred book in ancient India. Vedas was composed of hymns. Aryan invaders were
described as restless and warlike people in hymns.

Epics: Ramayana & Mahabarata are the epics written by ancient Indian people. It gives detailed information about family
life & gender relations. From these texts it was understood that extended family was the desired family type, whereas the
family structure was generally nuclear and social system was patriarchal. The epics tell how women subjected to the
patriarchal authority.
RELIGION (HINDUISM-SIKHISM)

• People of ancient India were polytheists. They worshiped a wide range of deities that resembled humans and
reminded human emotions and needs. They had various Gods and Goddesses.

HINDUISM

• Hinduism was ran by Brahmans, who were the religious leaders/highest priests in ancient India. You will read
more about the Brahmans in the following section.

SIKHISM

• People who believed in Sikhism were struggling against the caste system and some Indian customs.

• Sikhism was against the presence of a clergy class, since it considered this class as the source of corruption.

• According to Sikhism God is everywhere, it cannot be found in a certain place. Therefore, it does not give
importance to visiting holy sites as the main responsibility of people.

• However, they had temples where they had readers and singers & they served to help the needy & gave
community service

AGE OF BRAHMAN DOMINANCE, 700 B.C- c. 500 B.C.

POLITICAL STRUCTURE

After the fall of Harappa, civilization renewed not on the great plains of the Ganges and Indus River, but in the foothills of
the Himalaya Mountains. People founded small states/ Hill republics, which were ruled by a council of free warriors. They
elected their kings/monarchs.

Himalayas on the Map. http://world-geography.org/mountain/296-himalayas.html

In due time, more powerful kingdoms were established. These kingdoms were supported by religious leaders,
called Brahmans. Kings/monarchs were not controlled by council & claimed divine descent that was rationalized
by Brahmans. Hinduism, which was a polytheistic religion, which was ran by Brahmans.

AGE OF BRAHMAN DOMINANCE, 700 B.C- c. 500 B.C.

What were the sources of Brahmans’ power?

• Brahmans were educators of princes & advisors of monarchs.

• They held influential duties in Indian society as personal priests, physicians, schoolteachers, tax collectors, judges,
and they were seen as the natural candidates for the royal administrative positions.

• Brahmans were the only group who knew rituals to crown & to confine divine status to monarch/king.

• Brahmans were the only people who could read the sacred texts, Vedic, in sanskrit.

• It was believed that they had the ability to mediate between deities and human beings through offering sacrifices
to the gods & spirits who intervened into human affairs.

• That is to say, Brahmans had monopoly over conducting rituals, which led them to have social and political
dominance.

Era of widespread change in Indian Civilization

The rise of kings and increasing Brahman dominance were only two of the social changes that occurred in Indian history as
the full civilization took place.

During the process of the formation of full civilization:

 • Towns developed around the capitals of new monarchies

• Commercial centers formed around the Ganges River where merchants & artisans emerged as separate social
groups. Wealthy merchants had high social status in the commerical community.

• Warriors, priests & commoners were the class divison in the early Aryan invaders. This changed over centuries
and society was organized according to the caste system.

CASTE SYSTEM

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

Caste System

In the Caste System:

• It has been believed that people are born with their caste as the commendation of divine power/Gods, therefore,
it was believed that rulers were divinely ordained. Therefore, people should accept the divine commendation and
live in accordance with their strata without any resistance.

• Individuals cannot change their caste; no rise was possible in social status.

• Those who refuse his caste, they outcast from society.

• Dharma is the terms used for the caste position determined by a person’s birth. People should accept their
position and try to do their best in performing it to have a better situation in the next world.

• If one refuse to accept his dharma (caste position), it commits a sin, since he/she refuses the divine
commendation.

• Brahmans were the main advocators of the Caste System. Major challenge to Brahman dominance came from
Buddhism

BUDDHISM

• By the 6th century, various religious thinkers challenged the Brahman dominance. Among them one became very
influential in the society and pioneered a new religious movement, Buddha (c. 542-483 B.C.).

• According to Buddhist tradition, Buddha, was born as son of a local king in one of the hillside republics. Refusing
his father’s throne, he left the royal court and became a wondering ascetic.

[Ascetic means a person who abandons pleasures of material life]

WEEK 3/ Chapter 4 – India/ Buddhism-2

BUDDHISM

With the help a trusted servant, Buddha escaped from the well protected palace of his father and began to travel
in the countryside. During his long trip, he experienced illness, old age, death, and he met with religious
teachers, gurus. Gurus dedicated themselves to understand the human nature and the supernatural world. When
he could not find the answers he wanted to find out, he became a wandering ascetic and exhausted himself with
self-punishment. Eventually, he contemplated and self-disciplined his mind and reached enlightenment. Hence,
he developed a philosophy about life & dealt with the question how human beings should live in this world.

A Brief Logic of Buddha:

In life, there are illusionary & impermanent things, which are the source of suffering, such as fame, wealth, and
friendship. To abandon suffering, people should avoid from desire to world things. Right action, mediation &
contemplation will bring enlightenment to the human being. This enlightenment is equal to Nirvana, which can
be defined as state of tranquility. According to Buddha, Nirvana is an attainable heaven.

The logic of Buddha attracted many people and over time Buddhism became an organized religion. It, especially,
became popular among women & untouchables in the caste system. After his death, popular tales of Buddha
 turned him into a deity. After the death of Buddha, his followers became monks and began to spread Buddha’s
philosophy, which was in deep contrast with Hinduism and social system supported by Brahmans.

THE GREEK INTERLUDE IN THE ANCIENT INDIA

The invasion attempt of the Alexander the Great in India about 327 B.C., marked a cultural & scientific impact and
interaction that led to the diffusion of Indian religions into Mediterranean.

The armies of Alexander the Great reached to the hills of India, his armies successfully crossed the Hindu Kush. However,
his soldiers, who were tired of long battles & fearful of stern resistance of Indian rulers, refused to move on and pass to
farther east in order to invade India. Eventually, Alexander agreed to lead his armies out of India. However, some Greek
forces remained in the frontiers. The unexpected death of Alexander a year later (325 B.C) made some Greek rulers to
control the Indian territory, which was invaded by Alexander. Alexander’s conquest attempt of India had indirect impact on
trade & cultural interaction. Greek astronomical & mathematical knowledge came to be known in India & Indian religions
came to be known in Mediterranean. When Greeks drew out from India, a native local lord, Chandragupta Maurya (r. 322-
298 B.C) formed a Northern Empire.

Mauryan Empire:

Chandragupta Maurya consolidated his political power in northwest India and drew out Greek successor rulers of
Alexander out of India. His armies conquered the kingdom in the Ganges plain. This territory constituted the heartland of
the Mauryan Empire.

Chandragupta Maurya became an absolute ruler & ruled his empire from an elaborately decorated palace. His life was
protected by high security safeguards, from the food he ate to the physical conditions of the palace he lived, everything was
under strict control. He established a huge army composed of 500,000 men according to the estimation of the Greek
writers. Mauryan statecraft was written in the book Arthashastra. According to this work, powerful kingdoms should
continuously expand; assassination & bribery was necessary for the elimination of rival rulers.

Chandragupta’s son Bindusara extended the territories of the Mauryan Empire. His son Ashoka continued & completed the
conquests of his father & grandfather.

THE GREEK INTERLUDE IN THE ANCIENT INDIA

Under the rule of Ashoka (268 B.C-232 B.C) India culturally flourished and gained a strong political unity & prosperity.

Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism led to the spread of Buddhism in the Mauryan Empire. Ashoka came to the throne as a
result of a bloody struggle against his brothers whom he eliminated to have the throne. He has been depicted by Buddhist
sources as brutal ruler in the years before he converted to Buddhism. Ashoka, in accordance with the Buddhist philosophy,
regretted his earlier brutality in the statecraft & adapted the idea of righteous world ruler who serves his people in peaceful
policies. There was a strong Buddhist influence, which led to the decline of the power of the Brahmans. After the death
of Ashoka, internal fractions occurred and Mauryan Empire disintegrated by 185 B.C. Indo-Greek rulers, who had kingdoms
in Central Asia, attempted to establish provinces in India.

In summary, after the disappearance of the Mauryan Empire, India was under the invasion of various nomad
groups; Scythian nomads from central Asia, who were overrun by new nomads, then Yuch-chih, from the eastern steps.
(170 B.C.-165 B.C.). As a result of the Yuch-chih invasions in India a new dynasty rose to the power, Kushanas. Under
the Kushana Empire, Buddhism was in its peak, it deeply influenced imperial policies of the dynasty. Following the years
after the fall of the Mauryan Empire, the Buddhist influence in Indian society was very high. Although Buddhist influences
continued in the years following the years of the collapse of the Mauryan Empire, in due time Buddhist monks became
isolated in huge monasteries and they withdrew from urban life and they were less interested in ordinary people. They
focused on the people who intellectually dealt with the Buddhist philosophy. Buddhist philosophers and gurus gave
importance to the sophisticated philosophical ideas in the Vedas. They gave importance to wealthy people who supported
huge monasteries. This led to Buddhist monks to live luxurious life that they lost their discipline. When the Buddhist monks
became disconnected from ordinary Indian people, Brahmans struggled to attract ordinary people to Hinduism. In
conclusion, after the Buddhist decline in Indian society, Brahmans’ power revived.

THE GREEK INTERLUDE IN THE ANCIENT INDIA

A statue of Hindu deity Shiva. Peter N. Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart B. Schwartz, Marc Jason Gilbert, World
Civilizations, The Global Experience, Third Edition, Vol. I, New York, San Francisco: Longman, 2001, p. 174.
Brahman’s Revision and Reform of the Rules of Hinduism:

Brahmans stressed the importance of small personal sacrifices to the Gods, like food and prayers, instead of expensive
ones. Shiva and Vishnu and their female companions Kali and Lakshmi were the most important and popular
deities. Brahmans reforms and weakness of the Buddhist monks played role in the decline of Buddhism. However, these
were not the only reasons.

Economic Reasons behind the Collapse of Buddhism in India:

There was a crucial merchant group in India who supported Buddhism. They were the main patrons of Buddhism. These
wealthy merchants had their prosperity through the Rome-China trading axis. This axis was lost when the Han Empire in
China fell. Thus, the large scale merchants, who were the patrons of Buddhism, in India lost their source of revenue and
they became depended on local rulers and households, who were the allies of the Brahmans.

The loss of the mercantile class, the fall of the Mauryan & Kushana Empires, which were the main supporters of the
Buddhism, impaired the Buddhism in India.

The Gupta dynasty, which was made up of prosperous land holders on the Ganges, established an Empire in India by the
end of the 4th century C.E. The Gupta Empire (319C.E-540 C.E) became to the power in India & managed to keep vassal
kingdoms in unity for almost 250 years. The Guptas were supporters of the Brahmans & Hinduism.

In the 5th century C.E, a new power led to the collapse of the Guptas in India, the Huns who crossed the Himalayas.

CHINA

M. Craig at all, The Heritage of World Civilizations, Combined Volume, Seventh Edition, New Jersey: Pearson, 2006, p. p. 36.

Key concepts of this chapter: Yellow River, Shang Kingdom, the Zhou, Deity Above, Oracle Bone, City State, Buddhism,
Confucius, Daoism, the Qin Dynasty.

According to traditional historical sources, there are three phases in Chinese Civilization:

• About 4000 B.C., in Bronze Age, agriculture began in China on the bends of the Yellow River. Asia had four great
river systems; Yellow River is located in the northern part of the others: Yangtze, the West River & the Red River
are the others.

• When Aryan invasions began in India, around the Yellow/Hauanghe River in China, the largest and most enduring
civilization in human history was formed circa 1500 B.C.

• The Yellow river was named for its fertile color of soil, which is washed into the river. There were rich soil and
water supplies around the Yellow River that they make the soil very fertile. Its creeks made the region around the
Ordos desert suitable for settlement and cultivation.

• Controlling the river by building dikes was the main preoccupation of the Chinese peasants and rulers.

• Similar to Aryans, nomadic warriors established Chinese civilization in the north China plain. Shang Kingdom on
the Yellow river survived and became a unified and continuous civilization.

• There 3 phases in the Chinese civilization.

1. Early Bronze Age: The Shang Dynasty, 2205B.C-1766 B.C

2. Late Bronze Age: The Western Zhou, 1766 B.C.-1050 B.C.

3. Iron Age: the Eastern Zhou, 1050 B.C.-256 B.C.

CHINA

I. The Shang Dynasty, in Early Bronze Age, 2205 B.C - 1766 B.C.
 • According to the semi-legendary sources, the father of the China’s great dike networks was Yu, who established
China’s first kingdom Xia. However, there is no archeological evidence for the existence of Xia, which might be
created by later writers.

• Before 1500 B.C. various small kingdoms emerged around the Ordos desert; they were ruled by nomadic tribal
groups. In this a distinctive Chinese culture formed with its cooking vessels, cuisine, and domestication of
silkworm and use of it as a fabric for clothing.

• One of these tribes in the Ordos region conquered most of other tribes: the Shang. The Shang founded a
kingdom, which became the base of the Chinese civilization. In the 1920s, archeological excavations revealed the
capital city of the Shang dynasty, Anyang. This evidence that indicated the existence of Shang dynasty made the
historians think that the Xia might have been an actual dynasty as well.

• Like Aryans, the Shang were warlike nomads. However, they manage to establish an Empire who rule lasted more
than six centuries.

• In this period, the irrigation systems that were established by earlier inhabitants of the Yellow River, were
improved and greatly expanded.

• Bronze appeared in China in c. 2000 B.C.; 1000 years later than Mesopotamia and 5000 years later than in India.
Bronze was used for making weapons, armor, chariot, and for ceremonial vessels.

Bronze Vessel of the Shang Dynasty. M. Craig at all, The Heritage of World Civilizations, Combined Volume, Seventh Edition,
New Jersey: Pearson, 2006, p. 40.

• Like in other river-valley civilizations, controlling of nature through agriculture led to emergence of a socially
stratified society.

• In the social stratification, kings & lords were at the top, the officials & warriors in the middle, and peasants &
slaves were at the bottom.

• There was an aristocrat class that monopolized the use of weaponry. Class hierarchy determined the lives of the
people in China.

POLITICIAL ORGANIZATION

• Political organization of China was city-state in the Bronze Age.

• The city-states were ruled by strong kings. When the kings were alive, they were not considered as divine;
however they were the highest priests of the state. The kings were accepted as an intermediary between the
Supreme Being, Deity Above or Shangdi, and ordinary people. People viewed his kingdom as the center of the
human kind and its ruler as ruler of all human beings.

• The king and his officers lived in the fortified section of the city.

• Shang kings were responsible of directing rituals for the fertility in the country and wellbeing of the subjects &
ruled the state affairs. They held the political, economic and religious authority. They were succeeded by their
brothers and sometimes by sons.

• There was a capacious bureaucracy in the capital Anyang and environ cities. Most of the peasant and artisans
were administered by vassals, who were the subordinated local rulers served to the king.

• The appearance of distinctive and specialized elite supported by peasant majority. Spread of trade, growth of
towns and the first cities, and formulation of a written language indicated emergence of a major civilization in
China.

• By the 11th century B.C. the decentralized political system of China was in decline for a long time that Shang came
to an end in 1122 B.C.
WRITING

Chinese writing dates back to the period of Shang Dynasty. They used tortoise shells or oracle bones and animal bones for
the aim of divination. The characters of the Chinese alphabet composed of little pictures. Half of the 3000 characters of the
Shang period were deciphered. Over time, this number reached 50000. However, even today only 3000 or 4000 are
commonly used; a scholarly person might know twice this number.

• Their writings on the bamboo were lost. The Shang records on the bronze and oracle bones survived. These
writings give considerable information about the political, economic, social and religious life of the Shang.

• The people in this region developed a writing system that indicated the identity, unity and elements of civilization
of Chinese people from the Shang times to the present.

RELIGION

• The Shang religion was depended on bones. They believed in a supreme Deity Above, who had authority over the
people and universe. There were lesser natural deities, such as the moon, sun, earth, rain, wind, and clouds.

• From Shang times to the present, the religion based on cosmology in China. Observing the movements of the
planets and stars, people noted eclipses. Their calendar was based on a system which had a mount of 30 days and
a year of 360 days

• In Chinese religion the cosmos is single & continuous; it includes heaven, earth and human beings.

The Heaven is above

Human being was guided by a wise & virtual ruler, who mediates between cosmological forces of heaven & earth. He is
able to do this through his virtual power & performing sacrifices.

The Earth is below

Today this type of cosmology can be seen in the city of Beijing:

The Temple of Heaven is in the south.

The Imperial palace is in between (symbolically).

The Temple of Earth is in the right.

RELIGION

II. The Western Zhou: in late Bronze Age, 2205 B.C - 1766 B.C.

• In the valley of Wei River, which was one of the tributaries of the Yellow River, the Zhou people used to live. They
were more warlike and less developed than the Shang.

• A wave of nomadic new comers, the Zhou, had founded a vassal state, which initially recognized the Shang reign.
The Zou were believed to be Turkic speaking people of central Asia. By 12th century B.C. the Zhou established a
dynasty and dominated the political power until 3rd century B.C.

• Taking advantage of the weakness, cruelty and tyranny of the last Shang rulers, the Zhou made alliances with the
city state and conquered the Shang territories.

• In general political terms, the Zhou inherited the Shang pattern of ruling and life.

• The city-state dealing with agriculture was the political organization. They appointed kinsmen and aristocrats to
other city states as rulers.
 • The Zhou king was responsible from conducting sacrifices to the Deity Above for his entire family.

• The social hierarchy was the same of the Shang: kings & lords were at the top, the officials & warriors in the
middle, and peasants & slaves were at the bottom.

• The Zhou founded a capital at Louyang.

• In the early period of Zhou reign, a distinctive class of scholars & bureaucrats, called the shi, began to emerge and
Chinese civilization expanded toward Yangtze River.

• Under the royal house of Zhou, civilized development was enriched and extended as the Chinese people migrated
east and south from their original Yellow River heartland.

The Shang and the Zhou King differed in terms of the source of their political legitimacy:

The Shang kings descended from shaman rulers & they did not need to justify their political and religious authority.
However, since the Zhou invaded the Shang, they had to justify why they were the righteous rulers, not the Shang. The
Zhou argued that Heaven, the name of the Supreme Being of the Zhou, which replaced the Deity Above of the Shang,
terrified by the cruelty of the last Shang kings. Therefore, it took the source of his power and gave it to the Zhou.Every
dynasty appealed to the concept of Mandate Heaven until the 21st century.

RELIGION

III.The Eastern Zhou, 1050 B.C.-256 B.C

RELIGION

• In 771 B.C., the Wei valley of the Zhou was invaded by barbarian nomads. The Zhou lost their political unity and
various territorial states were established.

• Over time, some states formed alliances to defend themselves against more power and aggressive territorial
states. Finally, by the 4th century B.C. eight or nine territorial states survived and there was a question which one
of these would unify China.

• Since the rulers focused on the survival of their kingdoms, they reserved their sources for warfare. They neglected
public works, such as dikes, canals, and granaries.

• Peasants were under the pressure of the heavy taxation of the rulers, who put heavy taxes to support their
armies.

• Most kingdoms were depended on the outside trade for vital materials, such as, horses, salt, and iron. Trade
continues to exist, in spite of the political fragmentation and social disorder.

• The usage of copper money & growing of private property were in favor of the Chinese merchant class, which
supported armies and urban population. Prominent merchant families became the tax collectors on behalf of the
kings. Hence, prosperity and political connections of these merchants gave them considerable powerful

Three changes in China led to emergence of large territorial states:

1. Expansion of population and agriculture necessitated the emergence of large territorial states in China. By the 3 rd century
B.C. China had about 20,000 million people, which made the China the most populous country of the world, which is still
valid.

2. Rise of commerce. Roads were built and products were transported in various ways, by horses, oxcarts, camels, and river
boats, which entered into the country in the 3rd century B.C. This made possible transfer of products of one region to
another.
3. Another development that led to the annihilation of the city-state structure was the rise of a new style army. The cavalry
with crossbows replaced the war chariots of the old aristocracy. Campaigns were done by the foot soldiers. Armies of the
territorial states were numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Instead of old nobility, professional commanders emerged
with new military tactics.

The process of long decline of the Zhou composed of political rivalries, wars, and revolts. During this long process of decline
there had been debates about the solutions for the political and social ills of China. In the last centuries of the Eastern Zhou
period, thinkers such as Confucius and Laozi, expressed their ideas and offered some suggestions in order to provide social
order in China. The teachings of these great philosophers blended with the ideas of some other thinkers and constituted
the backbone of an ideology that still prevails in China.

CONFUCIANISM

The philosophical remedies for the long crisis in China:

CONFUCIANISM: The shi, a distinctive class of scholars & bureaucrats, who were under the threat of warrior lords in the
rival kingdoms & the rising power of the wealth merchant class, found a distinguished chief, called Kong Fuzi or Confucius,
as popularly known. Confucius is the Latinized form of his name Kong Fuzi, which means Master Kong.

• Confucius was born in 551 B.C. (6th century B.C) in a shi family.

He had education on music, rituals, & writing; he used to earn his living through teaching. He travelled with his disciples in
order to find a ruler who would effectuate his ideas.

• Having failed to find a ruler to effectuate his ideas, he died in 479 B.C. During his lifetime he had a reputation as
being man of wisdom.

• His ideas were not accepted by the rulers, since they were seen as impractical.

• His disciples collected his ideas & sayings in the work the Analects or Collected Sayings –begins with “thus,
Confucius says”.

• He was not a religious teacher like Buddha, but a social philosopher.

• In the Analects, it is read that he was a man of wisdom, moderation, propriety, good sense, optimism. In the era
he lived, in which cruelty dominated, he had integrity, humane ideas and rationality.

• He described himself as a transmitter of the knowledge and a conservative or advocator of the Chinese tradition.
He did not see himself as an innovator. According to him, the Shang and early Zhou era was the ideal for the well
being of the people.

• He struggled to search for social order & harmony, which he saw as the needs of Chinese society. According him,
social order & harmony could be achieved only if Chinese rulers based their ruling on educated & wise men; and,
such men is only available in the shi.

• He believed that some men are destined to rule because of their talents to govern –women were excluded. These
men, according to Confucius, were superior not because of aristocratic birth, but because of their education. They
were not born as superior, but they became superior through education to serve the society. The wellbeing of
common people relies on the emperor’s & their advisers’ decisions, common people should be the utmost
concerns of emperors and their advisers.

• According to Confucius, it is possible to provide social order and harmony through personal ties of loyalty &
obedience.

There are 5 crucial links in his philosophy for a harmonious society:

Three Family ties:

1. father & son

2. elder brother & younger brother

3. husband & wife.

4. Political tie: ruler & subject

5. Social tie: friend & friend

According to Confucius, if these ties were honored, the state intervention would be need minimum for the lives of people &
if the educated men of wisdom are in charge for China, war and social disorder would end in China.

DAOISM

• Another philosopher called Lazoi in the late Zhou period made some suggestions & advises for the ills of the
Chinese society.

• The central concept in Daoism is Dao, which means Way. Dao is the creator of universe. It functions on a cosmic,
not human, scale.

• Lazoi suggested retreat into nature to end the social disorder.

• According to Lazoi, if human beings contemplate, they could adapt with the Dao or cosmic force and source of all
creation.

• Although his philosophy mostly concerned with the withdrawal from the worldly affairs, Lazoi did not leave out
giving advises to Chinese rulers. He criticized them because of their interest in war and pleasure and luxurious life
in their palaces.

• Like Confucius, he believed in the necessity that rulers should have wisdom and they should be honest
administrators for the wellbeing of society.

• Unlike Confucius, Lazoi did not see a strong state and righteous society as the primary goals of the wise men; he
saw these as the temporary concerns for the men of wisdom who basically deal with searching of hidden
meanings of the creation and human life.

LEGALISM

• Legalism is the third classical Chinese though. It developed in the age of the Qin dynasty, which ended the
recurrent destructive wars and unified China.

• A group of thinkers concerned with the question of how to end the wars in China believed that unity of the
country and a strong state would provide an actual peace in China. This group of political philosophers was called
as Legalists.

• According to the semi-legendary sources, Shang Yang, who had been a Qin ruler in the middle of the 4th century
B.C., was the founder of the Legalist school.

• They did not make reference to the earlier times; according to them in the earlier ages there was less population
and more food, therefore ruling was easier; changing conditions requires new methods of ruling.

• In the book of Shang Yang, it was argued that China should have absolute rulers.

• According to the Legalists, the war was necessary to expand the state power; therefore they favored conscription
to have a powerful army. The goals were to expand the strength and prosperity of China that could be possible
only with absolute rule and strict laws. The ruler should be absolute, but the law should be above the ruler.

• According to Shang Yang, people’s main duty is to serve the state with obedience and those who oppose the laws
should be punished severely.

Political Unification of China:

• The political unification in China was provided c. 221 B.C. by the Qin dynasty.

• The commander of the Qin Dynasty, Shi Huangdi, who was one of the intellectual followers of Shan Yang,
defeated his rivals and unified China.
 • Shi Huangdi struggled to establish a centralized state and gave importance to public works. However, his
excessive efforts to provide these led to the revolts and his weaker successor could not resist these. Hence,
another significant dynasty, the Han, replaced the Qin.

• The Han dynasty became the longest lived and most illustrious dynasty of China. Peasant birth man Liu
Bang managed to win the campaigns against the Qin dynasty. He was good at negotiation among different power
groups. He announced himself as the emperor of China in 202 B.C. With a brief interruption, the Han dynasty
founded by the Liu Bang ruled China for next 400 years.

• The time of the Han dynasty was the period of great creativity and innovation; great cities were established, trade
immensely expanded, merchant class flourished.

• The decline of the Han dynasty marked a period of civil warfare, rebellions, invasions, which dominated China for
hundred years.

WEEK 4/ Chapter 6 - Ancient Greece & The Hellenistic World, Part I

ANCIENT GREECE

The Aegean Area in the Bronze Age. Bronze Age Hellenic culture on the mainland

Key Concepts: polis, demos, tyrant, Athens, Sparta, city state, Persian, Peloponnesian, Alexander the Great, Hellenistic,

To be able to understand who the Greeks were, it is useful to remember Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations:

• Mycenaean civilization evolved on the Greek mainland and eventually conquered the Greek mainland and Crete.

• The Mycenaeans, who were more warriors than traders, dominated the Aegean from about 1400 B.C. to 1200
B.C.

• The Greeks could only guess that the walls and other structures must have been built by the giant Cyclopes –one-
eyed creature in Greek mythology– hence this type of masonry was named as Cyclopean masonry.

PRE-CLASSICAL PERIOD, 1100 B.C.-800 B.C.

Greek “Dark Ages”

• A new group of Indo-European speaking people, Dorians, who spoke a dialect similar to Greek, invaded the
mainland of Greece around 1100 B.C. The period between 1100 B.C. and 800 B.C. has been called Greek “Dark
Ages”, since many earlier accomplishments were lost: palaces were destroyed, artists & merchants disappeared,
villages and towns became abandoned places and people either perished or returned to nomadic way of life. This
period has been classified as Pre-Classical Greece.

Hellenes:

The two groups of Indo-European speaking people made up Hellenes, Greek people.

1. Dorians:

• After the collapse of the Minoan-Mycenaean civilizations beginning around 1200 to 1100 BCE, the Dorians
invaded from the North about 1000 B.C. and settling in the Greek mainland made Sparta their capital. They were
a militant tribal people.

2. The Ionians:

• Ionians who were from Asia Minor and the Greek Islands, were a trading society.

• By the 8th century B.C., these two groups Dorians & Ionians merged. In the Homeric texts, which were written
around 800 B.C, these people were called as Hellenes and others who were outside of the mainland Greece, such
as Persia and Egypt, as barbarians.

• They formed city states not kingdoms.

• Topography aided formation of small self-sufficient towns whose main occupations were farming and sea fishing.
No city could dominate another for very long and most cities grew to the point of sending extra people out of
town to found a colony somewhere else along the coast.

The Polis

The characteristic of Greek civilization was polis, which means city.

The Polis (in Greek language): city

Poleis, plural of polis in Greek.

• Poleis were more than cities, agricultural villages and towns, they were states or independent political units.

• Strong sense of common culture, language, myths and gods developed in the Greek city-states.

• They worshiped the gods and goddesses in common ceremonies, which provided people having a common sense
and belonging.

CLASSICAL PERIOD 800-400 B.C.

• After the disastrous years of the Dorian invasions, Greek civilization began to flourish and about 800 B.C. classical
Greek society began to take shape.

• The key stimulus for the emergence of Greek Civilization was revival of trade. In due time, Greeks had large
commercial network so much so that by 700 B.C, many Greek centers had trading contacts in Black Sea, Egypt,
and Southern Italy.

• Increased commercial life led to the emergence of merchant and artisan class in cities.

WRITING

• During the 8th century B.C., the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet for writing their own alphabet, which
was easier to learn than any other previous ones. (Some Greek letters: Α, Β, Σ, Π, Γ, Μ, Ν; α, β, σ, γ, π, μ, ν...).

• Through the development of the alphabet, literacy advanced. This also stimulated trade by providing exchange of
commercial information and enhancing cultural life.

ECONOMY

ECONOMY

• Cash crops, like olives & grapes were available; grain was imported, traditional grain growing was done only in
Thessaly.

• Mediterranean culture was market oriented & it was designed to produce for sale.

• Import of basic food was expensive, which was basic motive to search for access to adequate grain supplies.

• Greeks were in close interaction of Egyptian civilization.

• Around 660 B.C., the Greeks had given support to Pharaoh Psamtik, who regained control of Egypt from
Assyrians.

• His victory opened way for increased trade and communication and Greeks founded a trading town
named Naukratis on the western Egyptian coastline around 620 B.C.

The Role of Slavery in Economy

• The basic ingredient of the economy in ancient Greece was slavery, which continued to be so in the following ages
in the Mediterranean economy.
 • Aristotle justified slavery: “without slaves how would aristocrats learn what must be learned to maintain culture
or have time to cultivate political virtue?"

• In Athens, slaves enjoyed independence & could earn money of their own and they could be freed.

Development of Demos

Greeks developed the idea of direct democracy, demos, which inspired the idea of of representative democracies of
Western Europe after centuries.

How Greeks developed demos/idea of direct democracy?

In order to answer this question, it is useful to examine political life in ancient Greece in three phases:

ECONOMY

I. The domination of Tyrants, 700-500 B.C.

The hoplite soldier in full armour.

• The domination of aristocrats, their unfair taxation of peasants was challenged after 700 B.C.

• With the commercial expansion that began in the 8th century, the

domination of warrior aristocrats was challenged by merchants & urban artisans. They attempted to break the political
monopoly of land owners.

• The contest between these two groups –land owning aristocrats & merchants and peasants– led to emergence of
a ruling crisis. There was division in the ruling aristocracy in terms of how to rule.

• During the period of economic and social problems, tyranny was established in ancient Greece. Tyranny means
the absolute rule of one man.

• Tyrants generally had the support of poor farmers and politically powerless new wealthy people.

• They rose to the power with their military ability and support from hoplites.

• Tyrants won the support of the disadvantaged groups & promised for developing public works for the benefit of
lower classes.

• Tyranny contradicted traditions of community governance.

• Against Tyranny, Reformers existed in order to restore earlier ideals of citizenship & make legal innovations to
improve social & political inequalities.

• The well known example for reformers is Solon, in Athens, 6th century. He set up laws to ease burden of debts of
farmers by prohibiting slavery for such debts.

• During this period, the military character also changed: In earlier times, the warfare was conducted by small
cavalry groups and depended on individual courage. Around 700 B.C. a new type of solider came into being,
the hoplite phalanx.

• Hoplite phalanx was heavily armed infantry, who fought with spear and a wide shield. It became the basis of
Greek warfare and it remained so.

ECONOMY

II. The End of Tyranny ca. 500 B.C.

Hoplites in battle.

• By the end of the 6th cent. B.C. tyranny had disappeared from the Greek city-states and did not return in the same
form.
 • The last tyrants were hated for their cruelty and repressiveness.

• Agriculture changed: Landlords (aristocrats) were specialized in production, olives, grapes, cooking oil & wine.

• This led to emergence of new urban groups & small farmers against landlords by the 6th century.

• The contest between landlords (arsitocrats) & non-aristocrat urban groups (merchants, tradesmen, artisans) led
to social protest in the 6th century B.C against aristocratic elite.

III. The Rise of Demos, 500-480 B.C.

Direct Democracy

• A new political system emerged in ATHENS: Demos

Demos (in Greek): for people

Demos: Direct participation of citizens into state council for the benefit of people.

• Demos was not representative democracy, it was direct democracy, which was implemented by the direct
participation of the citizens in the council.

• Being a citizen is something very crucial in ancient Greek city-state. Being a native of a city, for example, was
precondition for a free person to become citizen. Migrants could not be citizen in the cities they went.

• Direct democracy was different from today's representative democracy. It depended on small size of city state
and intense participation of citizens.

• By 500 B.C., participation in public life became widespread ideal in many Greek city states.

ECONOMY

• Growing need for military and naval forces in the port cities depended on extensive recruitment.

• The dominant religion also supported this ideal of political unity and involvement. Each city-state had its own
patron god or goddesses. Regular rituals, ceremonies, plays, sporting events were calling attention to the power
and cohesion of the polis.

• Example of Socrates: He was a native of Athens. He was condemned by the council in Athens for corrupting his
students by encouraging skepticism and doubt; he was given choice between death and exile. He chose death
because he said, the city had been the source of his character and he owed it obedience; better to die than to be
apart from his city.

• Athens had undergone a political evolution before its democratic flowering in the 5th century.

• Solon’s reformers expanded citizenship rights of most men.

• Citizens could elect a council in order to monitor aristocratic government.

• But, this did not prevent emergence of tyrannical leader like Pisastratus, who had gained support against the
traditional noble councils between 546-527 B.C.

• He sponsored major new buildings & public works, which created new jobs so that he could dominate major
councils.

• After Pisastratus, a new reformer leader Cleisthenes, who re-established a new council, elected by all citizens.
That, prepared agendas for an assembly composed of the citizens themselves.

• These show that Athens was ready to become the most powerful and most fully developed Greek democracy of
the 5th century B.C.
 • After a few additional reforms in 462 B.C all decisions came from public assembly or had to be approved by this
assembly and all citizens could debate or propose in assembly meeting. (This means direct democracy).

• The full development of demos/ direct democracy occurred

ECONOMY

Was Athenian demos/direct democracy an ideal political model?

There were some shortcomings of this type of direct democracy:

• There was a limited participation in the public assembly, since only a minority of citizens had time to join
(especially people who dealt with rural jobs and traders, who travel continuously, did not have time to join)

• Only citizens could serve in army & in court as jurors. However, Athens had a considerable number of populations
who were not citizens of the city.

• Many adults were excluded from political rights; half of the males were not citizens, being slaves or foreigners
already.

• Women, slaves & foreigners were excluded from public assembly, they had no rights of political participation.

That is to say, the demos/direct democracy of Athens should not be idealized. It had its shortcomings. Nonetheless, in the
ancient world, it was the first system, which had the idea of participation of people into city politics.

• Furthermore, Athenian government was shaped by considerable aristocratic control behind the scenes.

• For example, the Athenian leader Pericles, who was an aristocrat, guided the city during the glorious time of
Athens, after the middle of the 5th century.

• The full development of the democratic system of government occurred under Pericles.

SPARTA

Sparta was an aristocratic alternative to the Athenian system in the region.

Military, strict discipline and aristocratic rule were the basic determinants of Spartan system.

Sparta and Athens were the two leaders of the region. They were in contest to have colonies and to become the leader of
all the city-states.

Athens and Sparta had colonies in Peloponnesia and in the Aegean Sea. However, the number of colonies of Athens was
much higher than Sparta’s colonies.

Spartan aristocratic rule was admired by traditional Athenians.

As a result of four centuries of Greek political evolution, between ca. 800-400 B.C., Greek colonies spread around the
Mediterranean.

This led to expansion of Greek culture & political ideas as well.

Olympic Games were the good indication of this.

The Parthenon on the Acropolis at Athens was built during the heyday of the Greek civilization.

SPARTA

• Philosophical schools such as those of Socrates and Plato were founded.

• After a period of great social tension democratic tendency gained ground & Athens took the lead.
 • After a few additional reforms in 462 B.C all decisions came from public assembly or had to be approved by this
assembly and all citizens could debate or propose in assembly meeting. (This means direct democracy).

• The full development of demos/ direct democracy occurred.

• The Delian League was formed by all ancient Greek city states, both by colonies of Athens and Sparta, under the
leadership of Athens, against the pressing outside enemy, Persia.

In this point, we need to know about the presence of a massive Persian Empire, ca. 550 B.C, under the leadership of Cyrus
the Great. It was the main adversary power against the Greek city stats, which were led by Athens.

• Classical Greek civilization was in competition with the Persian one.

• Cyrus the Great wanted to capture Greek colonies to obtain their wealth, trade networks.

• He managed to conquer them about 540 B.C

• Persia was as a big threat to Greek mainland, which led to cooperation of Athens & Sparta.

• In 480, Persian army invaded Greek peninsula, great success, captured Athens, and destroyed the city.

Persian Wars, 500-449 B.C:

• In Thermopylae, Athenians and Spartans blocked the Persian army.

• Greeks showed a success, they managed to make Persians to retreat.

• But this was not the certain defeat of Persians.

• They just retreated from Athens in 449 B.C; They stayed on the Greek frontiers to observe the right time to attack
Persians continued to exist in the borderlands until the time when Alexander the Great ultimately defeated
Persians and made retreat them to their original borders.

• After Persia’s defeat, Athens became a ruler of its own that many cities became completely dependent on
Athenian rule without having voice in politics.

• Authoritarian control of colonies based on military force and heavy tribute.

• Two growing colonial powers of the Greek peninsula were Athens & Sparta, who were competitors. Their biggest
concern was who was going to dominate the peninsula?

• While Sparta represented discipline, control, and military, Athens represented extensive trade, creative culture,
and democracy, in contrast with Spartan aristocracy.

PELOPONNESIAN WAR, 431-404 B.C.

Athens versus Sparta

After the retreatment of the Persians from Athens, the competing powers became the parties of the long lasted
Peloponnesian War between 431 B.C. and 404 B.C.

Alcibiades was the leading general in Athens. As the war prolonged, he was accused of mismanagement of Athens.

Alcibiades was an aristocrat and ambitious leader, who was eager to fight and conquer.

He saw war as an opportunity for personal glory; urging the democratic assembly, he rejected peace opportunities.

He joined the Spartan attack on Athens, but later, interestingly and ironically, he regained popular favor in Athens and again
became commander in navy.

He fled when Athens lost, but Spartans murdered him.

Alcibiades’ case used by historians as an example to show how democracies can choose dangerous leaders when they face
crisis and when the voters are attracted by promises of easy gains.

During the war, ordinary citizens worked hard; lower-class citizens, who were eager for government jobs & booty,
weakened the city state.

Countryside was invaded by Sparta & devastating plague occurred in Athens.

Athenians leader Pericles died, they were left without an effective leader.

In 404 B.C. Spartan general cut off food supply to Athens and Athens surrendered.

A POLITICAL AGE ENDED WITH ATHENS FALL

The period after the collapse of Athens in Peloponnesian War:

• After the collapse of the Athenian civilization as a result of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.), Spartan aim of
domination of Greek lands and islands was not feasible.

• By 355 B.C., periodic wars against Persians and wars among city states continued that Greece had returned its
disorganized city state structure.

• During the long lasted Peloponnesian War, Athens and Sparta ignored a growing in the north of their territories:
The Macedonian Kingdom.

• Alexander, the son of the Macedonian King Philip II (359-336 B.C.), decisively campaigned against the Greek city-
states.

• Greek city states became under the Macedonian rule.

• Greek city-states retained their own government structure and became tax tribute paying loyal units to
Macedonian Kingdom.

• Between 338 B.C. and 23 B.C, Alexander the Great continued his conquests

• The aim of Alexander the Great was to conquer the whole Persian Empire that he achieved to do so.

• The ultimate defeat of Persians was effectuated by Alexander the Great in 333 B.C.

A POLITICAL AGE ENDED WITH ATHENS FALL

• He conquered whole Persian Empire and moved into Egypt.

• He pressed into India, however he was refused by his men to progress in India.

• He wanted the Greek & Asian institutions to merge together.

• He settled Macedonian & Greek officials to Middle Eastern holdings of Macedonian Kingdom.

• He encouraged intermarriage between Greeks and Egyptians, Persians and other native people.

• He was a strong admirer of Greek culture and achievements. Therefore, he established centers of Greek learning
to promote Hellenistic culture.

• He recognized to accommodate various traditions in his multi-cultural empire.

• His unexpected death (in Babylon, 323 B.C.) was the end of the unity of Macedonian Empire.

A POLITICAL AGE ENDED WITH ATHENS FALL

 The lands that Alexander the Great conquered:

• Persia (overthrowing Persian Empire’s King Darius III).

• Asia Minor

• Assyria

• Mediterranean

• Egypt

• Mesopotamia

• Afghanistan, today’s Pakistan and the steppes on the border of India in Central Asia.

He founded or re-founded cities throughout the empire.

His intention was to make these cities administrative headquarters in the regions. Many Greeks were settled by veterans of
Alexander’s campaigns.

Naturally, this would yield to spread of Greek influence in overall Empire.However, the primary purpose could have been to
control new subjects of the Empire, rather than specifically to spread Greek culture.

After the death of Alexander the Great, his key generals divided Macedonian Empire into three parts and became ruler of
their territory.

1. The Ptolemies in Egypt

2. The Selelicious in Mesopotamia (Syria)

3. The Antigonids in Macedonia & Greece

Hence, the Hellenistic Period began. The period following the death of Alexander the Great is called the Hellenistic period.

HELLENISTIC PERIOD, 323 B.C. - 146 B.C.

Hellenism: derived from Greek

Hellene (in Greek Elen, in English Hellene) means “derived from Greek”

Hellenic means Greek

Hellenistic refers to the expansion of the Greek culture following the conquests of Alexander the Great and to the opulent
style of art and architecture associated with this; a blend of Greek, Persian, Egyptian and Indian cultures & art styles

• After Alexander’s unexpected death, various Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout this region.

• After his unexpected death Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout this region.

Hellenistic Kingdoms

Achean League: Confederation of Greek City States (Northern & Central Peloponnesian Peninsula)

Aetolian League: Confederation of cities in central Greece

HELLENISTIC PERIOD, 323 B.C. - 146 B.C.

• Hellenistic politics centered on military empires.

• Hellenistic leaders generated innovations that science & astronomy flourished.

 • This led to the installment of Greek culture and language in these lands and in Greek colonies as well.

• The rulers of these kingdoms still considered themselves Greek and furthermore, recognized that the other
Hellenistic realms were also Greek and not “barbarian”, as was described by Homerian texts.

• However, these successor states, which can be named as new kingdoms as well, were influenced by the
indigenous cultures, adopted local practices when they found it necessary or useful.

• Successor states enjoyed Greek prosperity; commerce, culture, exchange continued.

• Trade in Greek goods continued to flourish

• Many Greeks moved into Middle East & took part in government jobs and become merchants in the Middle East.

• As a result of imposition of Greek culture by the rulers and blending of people, people began to be Hellenized.

• Hellenized upper class and city dwellers dominated wealth, whereas native peasants suffered high taxes and
lacked adequate land.

• This mixture of Greek-speakers gave birth to a common Attica originated dialect, known as Hellenistic Greek

• The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization; it means new Greek cities and
kingdoms were founded in the Near &Middle East & Egypt. The most prominent ones were:

• Pergamon

• Rhodes

• Seleucia

• Antioch

• Alexandria

What happened to Athenian city-state or civilization, which was the leading city of Ancient Greece, in the Hellenistic
Period?

• Athens retained its position as the most prestigious place for higher education, especially in the areas of
philosophy and rhetoric; it had good libraries. Cicero was educated in Athens

Except for Athens, the following cities were prominent in the Hellenistic Period:

• Alexandria, after Athens, became the second most important center of Greek learning. The famous library of
Alexandria had 700,000 books.

• Pergamon: The city of Pergamon became a major center of book production, possessing a library of some
200,000 volumes, second only to Alexandria’s great library.

• Rhodes had a good quality school for politics and diplomacy. Mark Antony was educated in Rhodes.

• Antioch became another important metropolis for the Greek learning

• Seleucia replaced Babylon as the metropolis of Tigris in Mesopotamia.

• The development of cities served to the spread of Greek culture throughout the Near East and Asia.

• Many cities were under the nominal rule of a local king, they kept their autonomous structure. Greek dedications,
statues, architecture and inscriptions had been used. But, this did not led to termination of local cultures; instead,
a mixed culture emerged.

• Local gods were identified with the Greek deities so that Greek-style temples were constructed.

• Gymnasium became a common building in the cities, which absorbed Greek culture.
 • Greek language and literature spread throughout the lands of the former Persian Empire.

The End of the Hellenistic Period 146 B.C. (according to an alternative approach it is 30 B.C, the death of Cleopatra and
annexation of Egypt by the Romans in 30 B.C.)

• There were no unity, instead there were internal division. This led to decrease in production and frequent warfare
among the city states. This made them open to an outside attack in the 2nd century B.C.

Who was the attacker?

The growing Roman Republic, which turned out to be an empire.

• By 146 B.C. the Roman Republic conquered most of the mainland Greece and all of ancient Macedonia.

• By this time, Rome consolidated its political power in the Mediterranean, which marked the beginning “Roman
Period”.

WEEK 4/ Chapter 7 - Ancient Greece; Society, Arts & Culture, Part II

ANCIENT GREECE SOCIETY, ARTS & CULTURE

Key Concepts: Homer, Iliad and Odyssey, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian orders, Corinthian temples, sculpture, Agora, Gods.

ANCIENT GREECE-SOCIETY

In the Ancient Greece, there was a powerful land-owning aristocrat class.

Aristokratia = aristo-kratos (in Greek) à aristo: the best; to fit together kratos: to govern, to rule

Aristocracy means "the rule of the best".

• Many Athenians and people of the other city-states where democracy did not go so far, believed in the political
virtue of aristocracy which means "the rule of the best."

• Non-native people of the polis could not be citizens in the Greek city-states. Only natives, except slaves, could be
citizens.

• Free farmers were citizens and they had the right for participation in assembles.

• Councils played and important role in community governments/local governments, yet there was aristocratic
rule in the city-state.

Social Divisions: Men & Women

• Greek culture represented women as goddesses and powerful figures in religion and literature.

• Society was highly patriarchal which means firmly male-controlled family structure.

• Women had vital economic functions in farming and artisanship.

• Women’s rights on family possessions were protected by law.

• In culture, women held inferior status.

• If couples had too many children, infant girls were put to death.

• Pericles’ well-known sayings for women is meaningful. He defines women as “failed men”

• In Hellenistic time, conditions of women improved; they became more visible in public life, artists showed
interest, some aristocrat women gained new functions. For example, they could open a cultural club.

Ancient Greece-RELIGION
 • As it was mentioned in the section above, on the Polis, the gods and goddesses were associated with the spirit of
nature in ancient Greece. That is to say, the religion in ancient Greece was polytheistic.

• Greek mythology well describes the polytheistic Greek religion.

• Each city-state had its own patron & god & goddess. They had regular prayers for city's well-being.

• There was no major religion, unlike India.

Some mythological examples to gods and goddesses in ancient Greece:

• Zeus: Creator or father god

• Apollo: god of the sun and light; it was believed to regulate the daily passage of the sun.

• Poseidon: god of sea, inspiring war or human love & beauty.

• Specific gods regulated specific activities such as hunting, history or metal workings.

• Regularly conducted ceremonies to the gods had political importance, since people were in search of gods’ aid for
good harvest or good health.

• Homer depicted Trojan Wars as guided by gods & goddesses.

• In Greek polytheism or Greek mythology, there was no emphasis of after world and no spiritual consideration.

• Greek religion was more human-centered compared to worldly Indian religion. Greek religion had worldly
approach, while Indian religion had representations of higher planes of spirituality or a divine experience.

• Religious system of Greeks failed to satisfy spiritual needs of common people, like peasant & workers especially
during the times of political, social, and economic chaos. This was a kind of limitation of the Greek religion.

• Such limitations also led dissatisfaction for many literate and educated people.

• Religion presented stories about how the world came to be without giving any emphasis for systematic inquiry
and providing solutions for the difficulties and problems.

• Religion provided political loyalty, however could not create a base for an ethical thought.

• Hence, Greek thinkers generated philosophical systems, which challenged story-telling Greek religion.

• Philosophers urged people to make rational observation to understand the earth, nature and society so that
deduction became the one of the hallmarks of Greek and Hellenic culture.

Ancient Greece-POETRY

• Around 800 B.C., there was an increased interest in the historical events of the past.

• Ancient Greek people were perpetuated by people like Homer, who told stories about the heroic past of Greece.

• Greeks wanted follow in the footsteps of their ancient heroes.

• Iliad and Odyssey were the two great epic Greek poems originated in oral tradition of poetry.

• Homeric poems narrated the Greek society in “dark ages”, including the legendary Mycenaean War with Troy.

• It is accepted that Iliad and Odyssey were written down possibly by Homer.

• Homeric epics about the definitions of gods and human nature shaped the Greek way of thinking profoundly.

• After Homer, other Greek poets from cities, such as Sappho of Lesbos, Anacreon of Teos, Simonides of Cous and
Alcaeus of Mytilene, wrote poems that ranged from military songs to lyric statements.
 • A distinctive Greek art on architecture and sculpture also began to emerge. This will be discussed separately in
the following section.

PHILOSOPHY

Classical Greek philosophy stressed rationalism and skepticism to understand the universe.

Greek thinking was interested in mathematics, geometry, empirical discoveries in astronomy and science.

Socrates: He urged people to deal with the rational definitions of right and wrong and purpose of life on earth. In contrast
to earlier Middle Eastern religious traditions, Socrates proposed worldly/secular criteria in ethical system rather than
devising rewards and punishments of otherworldly systems. Socrates, in 399 B.C., was condemned for teaching doubt &
skepticism. He was the tutor of Plato.

Plato: He attempted to systematize his mentor’s (Socrates) teachings and founded The Academy in Athens to teach it. He
was the mentor of Aristotle.

Aristotle: He maintained this ethical system emphasizing moderation in human behavior against the instable political life in
Athens and excess of Gods and goddesses

Stoics: During the Hellenistic period, other ethical systems developed as well. One of the most important was Stoics, who
emphasized an inner moral independence. This independence should be accompanied by a disciplined body and personal
courage.

There was a constant tension between the educated elite and the common people in the Greek culture.

However, theatre plays and other forms of art were commonly shared.

Drama developed by the end of the 6th century B.C. as part of the annual Dionysiac /Dianosian, in Greek; Dianysos
(Dianisos: God of wine) festival in Athens with single actor.

Some great thinkers, like Socrates, emerged from ordinary people.

However, Greek philosophy was not open to common people.

Philosophers did not show any particular effort to convince ordinary people to participate in the elite circles, unlike China.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE

Model, Temple of Artemis, Ephesus, ca. 550 B.C.

Greek architecture deeply inspired the architecture in the Roman Empire. This impact led to the emergence of a Greco-
Roman style. When we visit Europe, Middle East, and North Africa –the territories of the Roman Empire– we face with
numerous examples of Greek, Hellenic, and Greco-Roman style. The Greek architecture constituted a base to various
architectural styles. Therefore, it is useful to have an introductory knowledge about it, in order to understand to whom
belong the temples and orders we visit in Turkey or elsewhere.

Mycenaen impact on the Greek architecture:

Mystery of Mycenae in Building Techniques

• When Greece regained an interest for monumental building around 800 B.C. Mycenae was already in ruins.
(Remember, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed, its cities disappeared ca. 1200 B.C.). The Greeks knew that they
still had the same materials as their ancestors; timber, mud bricks and stone, but they had forgotten the
techniques that the Mycenaeans had developed for their massive structures.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE

Buildings in the Greek Dark Age, 1100-800 B.C.

During the Dark Age of Greece, buildings had been mainly made of sun-baked mud brick with timber support frames and
thatched roofs.
 • Buildings were not meant to be monumental and most sacred places and were not temples but rather natural formations
such as caves.

• Stone was used only for the base of the buildings to keep water moister away from the mud walls, but these unworked
stones were generally just those that were found on the surface of the ground.

• The buildings themselves were competently built, but there was certainly little if any attempt of elaboration and
everything was kept on a relatively small scale as the proportions were dependent of the size of the tree trunks they could
find.

Orders:

• Greeks are credited with originating the three orders of the classical language of architecture which are Doric,
Ionic and Corinthian.

• Columns were understood by the Greeks to be anthropomorphic or representative of the body of a human.

• The base suggests the feet, the shaft the torso and the capital the head.

GREEK ARCHITECTURE

1. The Doric Order

• The Doric order was the earliest to be developed

• By the 6th century, a set of universal proportions for the Doric temple had been developed.

• The Doric order is made up of three elements; stylobate, column and entablature.

• The stylobate is a podium raised three steps on which the temple sits.

• The Doric column is further divided into the shaft and a square capital.

• The Doric column represents the proportions of a man’s body, its strength and beauty.

WEEK 4/ Chapter 8 - Anatolian Civilizations

THE HITTITES

Key Concepts: Hittite, Hattusas, Troy, Phrygia, Lydia, Suppiluliuma, Kadesh, Gordion, Sardis, Cybele, Delian League, Cyrus
the Great, Xerxes

• Anatolian land is a bridge among Asia, Europe, Mediterranean, and the Black Sea.

• Mild climate, reliable and regular rainfall made the prolific agricultural production possible in Anatolia.

• Its fertile land and mild climate attracted people from different regions to Anatolia, like Trojans, Thracians,
Phrygians, Lydians, Cimmerians, Persians, Greeks, Macedonians, Assyrians, etc.

THE HITTITES

Early People of the Central Anatolia:

Indo-European language speaking groups settled in Anatolia about 2000 B.C.

The Hurrians:

• The Hurrians settled in the east and south east of Anatolia about 2000 B.C.

• They were the earliest state builders.

 • Hurrians had a strong affect on Hittite culture, language and mythology.

• They lost their political power in the 2nd millennium B.C.

The Hattians:

• In the Hittite sources, the central Anatolia in the west of Euphrates was called as Hatti Land. Hattians, who were
regarded as native Anatolian people, settled in this area between the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C.

• Their center was Hattusas (Boğazköy in Çorum in Turkey), which became the capital of Hittite Kingdoms.

The Hittites:

• A group of Indo-European language speaking people settled in central Anatolia around 1700 B.C. There is no
accurate information about from where they came to Anatolia. The Empire of the Hittites stretched from central
Anatolia to Syria and Palestine, 1700 B.C.-717 B.C.

THE HITITTE EMPIRE, 1700-717 B.C.

• Labarnas I was the founder of Hittite dynasty

• The Hittites were in close contact with Mesopotamia.

• They adapted the heritage of Mesopotamian culture

• They trade with Mediterranean, which led to the transmission of Mesopotamian thought, political-economic
structure and ideas to the eastern Mediterranean.

• It is useful to examine the long-lasted Hittite Empire by dividing it into certain periods.

THE HITTITES

I. Old Kingdom, 1700-1500 B.C.

Labarnas I founded Hattusas (Boğazköy) as the capital city.

THE HITTITES

• The Hittite state was the earliest regular and stable state in Anatolia.

• Land belonged to the king or state.

• The Hittites had centralized political power.

• Territory was divided into districts, which were given to administrators in return for tax and providing soldiers for
central administration.

• During the Old Kingdom Period, Mursulis I (1620 B.C.-1590 B.C.) the Hittites defeated Babylon and put an end to
the Hammurabi dynasty.

• The king Telepinus held the political power conducted some reforms. The most important one was his foundation
of the high court Pankus to impelement justice. The high court even had the power to judge the Hittite king.

• There were recurrent fights for the throne after the death of Mursulis I.

II. MIDDLE KİNGDOM, 1500 B.C.- 1380 B.C.

 • The period of middle kingdom was a period of decline.

• Between 1500 B.C.-1380 B.C. there was a devastating plague and The Hittite territory became open to foreign
invasions,, and the Hittites lost their territories,. . There were fights over throne. All these led to the weakness in
the politics of ruling.

• After all those trubulent years, in 1380 B.C., the Hittite emperor Suppiluliuma managed to defeat enemies and
extend borders of the Hittite state.

THE HITTITES

III. NEW KINGDOM/IMPERIAL PERIOD 1200 B.C.-717 B.C.

• In this period, the Hittite state was at its peak. It consolidated its power over the territories it ruled.

• This period was an imperial period competition with Egypt for supremacy in the region.

• The power contest led to a war at Kadesh between the Hittites and Egyptians.

• As a result of the war, the first written international treaty, the Kadesh Treaty, was written in around 1276 B.C.

• Kadesh Treaty was in Akkadian cuneiform, in Hittite and Egyptian languages.

Basic Characteristics of the Hittites:

The Hittite Empire was a centralized and highly bureaucratic empire.

The capital had huge fortification walls.

Their religion was polytheistic.

They attributed divine power to the natural events, like storm, sun and moon.

Their belief system was highly influenced by the Mesopotamian civilization.

The End of the Hittites:

• There were massive attacks from a group of people who entered into Anatolia from sea around 1193 B.C.

• Who these people were was not known; the Hittites called them sea peoples of Mediterranean. They destroyed
Asia Minor & the Hittite Empire.

• The remaining Hittite cities were invaded by Assyrians, around 700 B.C.

People who could escape from the invasion of the “sea peoples” fled to northern Syrian and integrated with the native
people. They could not establish a political unity, they lived in city states. After the collapse of the imperial power of the
Hittite Empire, the natives of Anatolia, Luwians, Phrygians, and Urartians in eastern Anatolia, dominated the former
territories of the Hittites - between circa 1190 B.C. -712 B.C. .

After the disintegration of the Hittites, various small kingdoms were established in Anatolia between 1200 B.C. and 695
B.C.

TROY

• The geographical location of Troy was very crucial.It was on the crossroads between Anatolia, Aegean and
Balkans.

• Sedentary life began in and around Troy in the early Bronze Age around 3000 B.C. The city existed until 1395 A.D
until it became a deserted city around under the rule the Byzantine Empire.

• In Homer’s Iliad, Trojan War dated back to 1180 B.C.; it was between Greeks and inhabitants of Troy.

• Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and his brother Agamemnon, leader of the Achaeans, leaded the Greeks during the
long siege of city and during the war.
[Achaeans were the people who replaced Mycaneans, who disappeared around 1100 B.C, in the mainland Greece.
Remember that Mycaneans settled in mainland Greece and established Mycenaean civilization. Achaeans, in other words,
were the native Greek inhabitans where they used to live in today’s Attica region of Greece after the fall of Mycenaean
civilization]

Foundation of Troy; archelogical excavations

• Trojan War is narrated in detail in the Homer’s poetry Iliad and Odyssey.

• Until the 19th century, the presence of such a gigantic and prosperous city could not be found. Therefore, there
had been debates about whether the Trojan War was a legend or not.

• German Archeologist Heinrich Schliemann, who was highly inspired by Iliad, conducted excavations in Troy
between 1867 and 1890. He excavated the location as levels.

• When he reached to level II he thought that was the Troy in Iliad of Homer.

• In this level, he found out some of city’s treasures, such as daily and luxury artifacts made of gold, bronze and
silver: jewelery etc. now on display at the museums in Russia and Germany. Schliemann found a golden mask,
which he believed the mask of Agamemnon.

Golden mask of Agamemnon.

• The excavations of the following years revealed that Troy had 7 layers and Troy VII was the contemporary with
the Mycenaean graves, which dated back to ca. 1250-1150. Hence, scholarly studies indicated that Trojan War did
not take place in the particular time and place told in the poetic writing of Homer.

• Troy, which was established 2920 B.C, ended because of fire.

• Troy II was established on the region of Troy I, 2600-2450 B.C.

• Troy III, IV, and V were established on the place of Troy II and lived between 2450-1700 B.C also ended due to the
fires.

• Troy VI ended because of an earthquake, and inhabitants of Troy continued to live in their cities in the devastated
areas. This layer was called Troy VII, when the city experienced the Trojan War 1250-1040. The presence of bulks
of Mycenaean containers in layer VII led the archeologists to think that the war took place in this layer.

• Later scholarship, which discovered other levels of Troy, mentioned that Troy was destroyed probably by a war
around 1180 B.C., which dated back to the level VII.

• There are archeological evidence of fire, bulks arrows and spears. However, this archeological evidence does not
mean that the conflict was certainly the war, despite the ancient tradition told so.

• Archeological evidence changed the view that Troy was an insignificant late Bronze Age city.

• It was revealed that Troy was a very large city and was a superpower of its age, which controlled access to the
Mediterranean to the Black Sea, and from Asia Minor to the Balkans.

• Its citadel was unparalleled and unmatched in the wider region in the Balkans and Asia Minor as far as hitherto
known. The repairs to the citadel indicated that Troy was attacked repeatedly. Trojans strengthened and enlarged
them.

• There is no definite scholarly evidence about the language of Troy. Some studies indicated that some words had
similarities with Luwian language. However, it is not known yet that if the Luwian was the spoken language or
official language of the Trojans.

[Luwian language was Indo-European local Anatolian language. Some scholarly studies argued that it was spoken and
written in Troy and Western Anatolia in the Bronze Age. Luwian was written in two forms, with cuneiform and hieroglyph].
PHRYGIAN, 750 B.C.-600 B.C.

• The Phrygians used to live in Anatolia 1200-695 B.C. in and around today’s Ankara, Sinop, Konya and Manisa.

• They migrated to the Hittite land from west, from Danube, Macedonia, and crossed Dardanelle and settled
around Troy.

• Archeologists mentioned that they established their state and ruled central Anatolia in the 8th century B.C.

• Their capital was Gordion, today known as Polatlı around Ankara.

• Phrygians reached their peak in the 8th century; they had the highest prosperity and power under the rule of
king Midas.

• They had a central state.

• There is much information about the society. Homer defined them as warrior people.

• Their religion was polytheistic; the sun deity Sabazios and the moon deity Men, and Cybele deity of nature, i.e.,
“the mother” of gods are the well-known ones.

Cybele of Troy in Archeological Museum, İstanbul. Although Cybele was a deity of ancient Anatolian and Mediterranean, it
also became known as deity of Phrygians, because of their strong attachment to it.

• It is possible to see various tumulus in central Anatolia from Phrygian time.

• Phrygians put the deceased into engraved rocks or in the rooms under the land hills, tumulus.

End of the Phrygians:

• A new group of people, who were believed to be from Crimea in the north of Black Sea, invaded
Anatolia, Cimmerians.

• After the Cimmerian invasion, the land of the Phrygians was invaded by Alexander the Great in 333 B.C.

• They destroyed Gordion around 690 B.C. There was a chaos, disorder and fear in Anatolia during the 80 years of
Cimmerian invasion.

• Assyrians attacked Cimmerians and defeated them in 679 B.C.; the Lydians could draw out Cimmerians from
Anatolia in 679 B.C.

• The land of the Phrygians was invaded by Alexander the Great in 333 B.C.

• In 278 B.C, it was conquered by Gauls, from France.

• By 200 B.C Gordion was completely deserted.

LYDIAN, 649-540 B.C.

• A flow of new Indo-European people migrated to Anatolia around 900 B.C.

• They settled in the region between western Black Sea to the Lycian coast on the Mediterranean.

• There is no definite information from where they entered into Anatolia. Although there are some debates about
the possibility of they might be relatives of Phrygians, this could not be verified by scholars.

• They established their capital in Sardis, which is close to Manisa of today.

• Croesus (r. 560-546 B.C) was the well-known powerful king of Lydia.

• Under his rule, Lydia reached peak of its power and prosperity. However Lydian Kingdom suddenly ended during
his rule.

• Lydians were in close trade contact with Greek city-states on the other side of the Aegean Sea.
 • Lydians are the inventors of coined money in 7th century B.C.

• Lydian kingdom was quite wealthy. The king’s Croesus was famous with his wealth, which was known as Treasure
of Croesus. The phrase used for very rich people “as rich as Croesus” originated from this.

• Croesus was interested in dominating the neighbor cities, from which he took heavy taxes. Therefore, he
conducted military campaigns against Ephesus and other Ionian Aegean cities.

• Except Lycians (southeastern Aegean), almost all western Anatolia became under the rule of Lydians.

• In spite of his desire to dominate the neighboring cities, he also followed policy of cultural development.

• Ephesus was rebuilt during the rule of Croesus; Artemis temple, which was destroyed by Cimmerians, was re-
constructed.

• The close contact with Greeks led to a cultural synthesis between the Lydians and Greeks.

• Lydian kingdom was invaded by Persians.

Who were Persians, who departed from Elam entered into Anatolia, destroyed Anatolian Civilizaitons, and conquered
Greek lands?

• The foundation of the Persian Empire trace back to the Elamites, who were non-Indo-European speaking native
people in the neighboring regions of Mesopotamia.

• Susa or Elam were their centers.

• They were contemporaries with Mesopotamian civilizations, such as Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians
around 2700 B.C and 1000 B.C.

• Elamites’ languae was smiliar to those of Sumerians, Babylonias, and Assyrians.

• They established a civilization in the neighboring regions of the Babylonian Empire in Mesopotamia and over time
extended towards east and west. See the above map.

• Aryans, who established ancient Indian civilization, (see the reading in week 5), invaded Elamite territories around
1100 B.C. Aryans, the newcomers to Susa from Central Asian steppes and they built cities and palaces.

• Themost influential ones lived as two tribes in the region: The Medes, in Western Persia around Media, and the
Persians, in eastern Persia around Persis. (See the places in the map above).

• Of these 2 groups, the Persians, strengthened under the leadership of Achaemenid Dynasty and defeated the
Medes and ruled over the region alone.

• Their supremacy lasted until the time of the Achaemenid ruler Cyrus the Great.

• Therefore, the imperial power he established is also called as Achaemenid Empire (550 B.C-330 B.C).

• The city of Persepolis was the capital city of the Empire. It had magnificient palaces and threasuryof the empire.

PERSIAN EMPIRE, 547-330 B.C

• Cyrus the Great (r. 550-529 B.C) was powerful king of Persia, who expanded the borders of his kingdom toward
West.

• The main target of Cyrus the Great was expanding towards West to control main Mediterranean harbors and
trading roads from East to West.

• That's why he began his invasions with the nquest of the Lydian Kingdom state in 547 B.C.

• He also defeated Babylonian Kingdom in 539 B.C.

 • The following Persian kings followed the food steps of Cyrus the Great and aimed to control of the near East and
Greece.

• The Greek city-states under the Ionian League had lost their political independence and came under the rule of
Persians.

• They continuously revolted against the Persian rule.

• Darius the Great (r. 522-486 B.C.) had to deal with these revolts.

• All Greek city-states, such as the cities on the Dardanelles, the Ionian cities in the western Anatolia revolted
against Persian rule.

• After a while they decided to cooperate to oppose the Persian rule.

• Although the Persians suppressed severely these revolts, they did not give up resisting the Persian rule.

Persian Empire reached its fullest extent under the Darius, after he had captured the of Greek lands.

Under the rule of Persian King Xerxes (r.486 B.C-465 B.C.), Persian armies could march in Athens; looted and burnt the city
down.

After this disastrous event, under the leadership of Athens, the Delian League was founded, that is, all Greek city-states
gathered in the League to fight against the Persian rule.

The headquarters and meeting center of the Delian League was Delos Island, therefore, it was called Delian League. Delos
is one of the Cyclades islands near to Mykonos.

• The Greek forces of the Delian League could resists and won some victories against the Persians.

• However, it is important to recall the Peloponnesian Wars between city-states Athens and Sparta: Persians took
the advantage of the Peloponnesian Wars and aided Sparta against Athens.

• After the fall of Athens, as a result of the Peloponnesian War (431-404), Sparta agreed to leave the Greek city-
states in Anatolia under the rule of Persia. However, the city-states never accepted this decision and revolted
against Persians.

• Eventually, Persians, who retreated from Athens and returned to the Western coastline, could not able to rule
Greek city-states in the Western Anatolia.

• The decisive retreat of the Persians from Anatolia came true through the conquests of Alexander the Great. When
he captured Persia(333 B.C.), the royal treasury in Persepolis solved Alexander the Great’s economic problems
and a vast amount of money began to be used in the region.

• Remember that after the death of Alexander the Great, the vast land he conquered was divided into three by his
generals. (Reading in week 7).

• Mesopotamia/Syria was ruled by Seleucid. Under his rule, the people in the city of Parthia opposed the rule of
Seleucid and in due time dominated the territories of Achaeminds. (See the map of Achemenid Empire at the
beginning of this section.)

• The Parthians managed to end the rule of Seleucid and established their own empire, Parthian Empire (ca. 247
B.C-223 C.E), which adapted imperial and cultural traditions of Achaemind Empire.

• While the Parthians were ruling the former Achaemind land, a Persian dynasty, Sassanid Dynasty, claimed to rule
this land as the rightful heirs of Achaeminds. In this time, there was long lasted Roman-Parthian Wars, which
exhausted Parthian rule. (reading in week 10).

• The Parthians had to deal with this rival dynasty as well. A warrior and noble member of Sassanid Dynsasty killed
the last rule of the Parthians and established Sassanid Empire (224-651).

• Sassanid Empire was a supreme power in the near and middle East until the domination of the region by Muslim
conquests in the 7th century.
Religion

Zoroaster/Zarathushtra

• The religion of the Persians was similar to those of Aryans. Zoroaster was the founding father of the Persians
religion, which is called Zoroastrian. The general assumption about the life time of Zoroaster is around 1000 B.C.

• Like polytheistic religo of the Aryans, Zoroastrianism had various gods and goddess.

• He emphasized a moral order and wrote about the social disorder and problems of his age, like Confucius in China
or Buddha in India.

• In his writings, his message considered the life as the competition between good & evil/right and wrong; It was
human being who was able to choose between two for a better life.

WEEK 5/Chapter 9 - Rome; the Rise and Spread of Cristianity, Part I

Origins of Rome

• In Italy in pre-Roman period there were Etruscans, who established Etruscan civilization.

• Their name originated from the area they settled in about 1000 B.C., Etruria, which is today’s Tuscany.

• They had a distinctive culture in Europe and their language is not known. The language they used remained a
mysterious issue in scholarly discussions.

• Before the Roman rule in and around Italy and before Latin became a universal language, there were about 40
languages in Italy.

• Scholars demonstrated that they used a version of the Greek alphabet and the inscriptions of Etruscans go back to
700 B.C. and have no known cognates. However, scholarly works also demonstrated the language of the
Etruscans was not Indo-European.

• Therefore, there has been scholarly discussion about the origins of the Etruscans.

• There is no definite information from where they came and settled in Italy.

• Some scholars argued that they were seafaring people of Asia Minor/Anatolia, some others argued that their
origins trace back to Lydian people in the Aegean. They reached at height of their power between 700 B.C. and
500 B.C.

• Etruscans had powerful kings and organized military force, which led to form strong governments.

• Roman people, who lived as tribes, which were called Latin around Tiber River, were under the rule of Etruscans.
Later, Romans conquered and dominated them. Romans/Latins were Indo-European speaking people and
migrated to Italy around 1000 B.C.

• By about 800 B.C. Romans were in close contact with Greek settlements.

• Local Roman elites rebelled against Etruscans centralized rule in 510 B.C. and founded Republic in central Italy
about 500-450 B.C.

• They made a constitution, which avoided tyrannical control.

“Romulus and Remus were twin brothers. They were abandoned by their parents as babies and put into a basket that was
then placed into the River Tiber. The basket ran aground and the twins were discovered by a female wolf. The wolf nursed
the babies for a short time before they were found by a shepherd. The shepherd then brought up the twins. When Romulus
and Remus became adults, they decided to found a city where the wolf had found them. The brothers quarreled over
where the site should be and Remus was killed by his brother. This left Romulus the sole founder of the new city and he
gave his name to it – Rome. The date given for the founding of Rome is 753 BC. This story, of course, is only a legend. The
actual growth of Rome is less exotic and interesting.”

ROMAN REPUBLIC

There was a written constitution in the Roman Republic.

• Constitution of the early Roman Roman Republic favored aristocrats.

• There was domination of aristocrats in political matters and constitution in the Roman Republic.

• This aristocratic control, resembles to the aristocratic control where? [Remember Greek councils in antik Greek
city-states].

• Aristocrats formed the senate and gave some voice to lower class citizens

• Roman Republic issued a law code in 450 B.C. in order to protect property rights of ordinary people.

• property rights of ordinary people.

• The ordinary citizens, who were called Plebeians, had the right to elect their own representatives, tribunes.

• Senate served as the center of Roman political life.

• Consul, two chief executives, was elected by annual assembly.

• The early Roman economy resembled ancient Greece: great land owners, who were aristocrats, dominated
economy.

• The written law aimed to control arbitrary action of aristocrats and local assemblies, and and elected officials.
This control mechanism gave voice to people more than in the Greek political structure.

• In the early Republic, there was a patron-client relationship between the landlords and peasant; it was believed
that land owning aristocrats should aid and protect poorer citizens.

Expansion of Rome:

• Roman Republic had a solid army composed of citizen farmers and depended on discipline & self-sacrifice.

• Military supported by rich agricultural economy of central Italy.

• Challenges from rival tribes against the rule of Roman Republic in other areas in Italy began by 400 B.C.

• The Roman armies managed to control whole Italian peninsula.

• Then, Spain was conquered in 2th B.C., hence colonies in Spain were obtained· In order to control the western
Mediterranean, the Romans had to have Carthage, which was the former Phoenician colony. Roman Republic
needed to consolidate its political power in Carthage and its territories in order to consolidate its economic power
in western Mediterranean.

• If you look at the location of Carthage and its territories you can understand why Rome needed Carthage; without
having western Mediterranean it was impossible to move toward eastern Mediterranean. In other words, to be
able to become an empire of overseas, Rome must have Carthage and its territories.

• Therefore, Roman Republic captured Carthage and its colonies in the series of three wars, which have been
known as Punic WarsB.C-146 B.C.

• Punic means Phoenicia in Latin.

• Roman Republic defeated Carthage and became empire of overseas.

• It ruled the territories from Italy, Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, & disintegrated Hellenistic Kingdoms, Eastern
Mediterranean, Greece, Macedonia, and Asia Minor. See the map below.
 • During the Punic Wars many atrocities and brutal treatment of the people occurred.

• After the long lasted Punic Wars, Roman State granted Roman citizenship to elites of the conquered territories so
that it could gain loyalty of those who newly integrated into Roman domains.

Results of imperial expansion: The Crisis of the Republic

• Did you see the expansion of the Roman Empire on the map?

• Ruling this huge area disturbed economy.

• Before the Punic wars, farmers owned their lands through which they met their needs. The 2 nd Punic War
damaged the agricultural land in Italy very badly that the farmers had to flee to the urban area, to the cities.
Those who did not migrate to the cities became tenant farmers or they hired land.

• The land they left was acquired by the wealthy farmers, who grew grain, olives, and grapes for wine production.

• Land became cheap; slaves taken during the wars also provided cheap labor.

• Aristocrats monopolized the land in Rome and they forced farmers to leave abandon their lands.

• Small farmers could not compete with the cheap and good quality imported grain from central Italy.

• Farmers began to flee to cities, which made the population increase. Therefore, unemployed people occurred in
the cities. This also brought about demise of the free farmer class, which led to unbalance in Roman society &
Republican constitution.

• All these led to emergence of polarization and conflict in society between rich and poor, land owner and landless,
privileged and deprived.

Political leaders attempted to benefit from this conflict: Announcing their reform programs in order to ease the burden
of the disadvantaged groups, they addressed to people to gain their support. Let’s see some examples to these reformist
leaders:

Tiberius Gracchus, 133-123 B.C.

• Between 133 B.C. and 123 B.C., Gracchus was the tribune, who suggested land Reform & Social Legislation in
favor of poor.

• His preposition for land reform was denied in the senate.

• He had the support of people, but at the same his attempt generated hostility on the side of aristocrats. He was
vetoed by other tribune in the senate, which was under the domination of aristocrats.

• He was assassinated by conservatives by the Senate decision

Gaius Gracchus, 122 B.C.-121 B.C.

• Gaius Gracchus, brother of Tiberius Gracchus, became tribune. He had the support of all other tribunes, therefore
he constituted more threat for the Senate than his brother.

• Like his brother, he proposed land reform in favor of the poor farmers and veterans; he aimed to initiate the law
to stabilize the price of the grain.

• His aims and prepositions were disliked by the Senate, however he easily won the elections to be tribune in 122
B.C.

• He aimed to distribute citizenship to non-citizens in Italy. This created conflict in Rome, since citizens did not want
to share the benefit of being citizen with the other non-citizen people of Italy.

• He was not elected tribune in the 121 B.C. elections. The Senate taking advantage of the tension between Gaius
and his supporters issued a martial law and killed Gaius.
Marius versus Sulla,107 B.C.

The incident of Gaius Marius and Sulla points out the Senate’s position in Rome:

• Marius, who was not from the Roman aristocratic circle, was elected as consul in 107 B.C. He was assigned as
governor of Numidia, which was a vassal kingdom of Rome near Carthage.

• King of Numidia, Jugurtha, killed Italian and Roman traders, Romans declared war against Numidia in 111 B.C.

• Marius defeated Jugurtha; Jugurtha escaped and but war continued.

• The subordinate of Marius, Sulla, managed to trap and end the war.

• Marius’ celebrations of the victory, which ignored Sulla’s success, made him angry. This was the beginning of the
personal conflict between the two.

• Sulla was poor, but he was descendant of an aristocrat family.

• There were tribal attacks from the north of the Empire. Marius was re-elected as consul in order to lead the army
against these attacks.

• He made a change in army and used paid volunteers composed of landless farmers and poor rural people.
Gracchus brothers could not solve the problems of these groups in the past and they were still in need of help.
Therefore, Marius’s offer was an opportunity and career for them.

• These new members of the military –landless farmers and poor rural people– depended on Marius for rewards
and they had loyalty and trust to their military leaders, Marius, not to the Roman State.

• Development of personal loyalty and trust in the army annoyed the Senate, since it was a serious threat for its
authority.

• The personal hatred between Sulla and Marius initiated a civil war. Sulla, siding with senate, drove out Marius
during the civil war.

• Sulla not only became Senate in 88 B.C., he also declared himself as the dictator to reform the State.

• Sulla’s reforms in the constitution remained insignificant, since his actions of massacring of his opponents in the
military and innocent people marked his policies.

• Sulla lived in a luxurious life and remained indifferent to the economic and social problems of Rome.

Collapse of the Roman Republic

• After Sulla’s death in 78 B.C., two effective and ambitious men, Marcus Licinius Crassus and Cnaeus Pompey were
elected as consuls.

• They immediately abolished the constitution made up by Sulla.

• Pompey was given command to rule Mediterranean and to get rid of pirates by a special law. He extended his
power until Asia Minor where he gained victory in war. These gave him good reputation, prestige and popular
support. These were the qualities that annoyed the Roman Senate, as we saw in the section above.

• When Pompey returned to Rome in 63 B.C., the Senate feared that Pompey might establish his own rule like Sulla.

• Crassus feared from Pompey’s return to Rome as well. Crassus lacked military victory to strengthen his power and
he did not have the Senate’s confidence either. Therefore, Pompey’s return annoyed him that he allied with Gaius
Julius Caesar, who was from an old aristocrat family.

• Making a surprise, Pompey wanted to withdraw from his office, only asked the Senate to admire and appreciate
his achievements in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire and wanted land for the veterans in his army.
 • The Senate did not allow him to do this so that Pompey made alliance with his two enemies Crassus and Caesar
against the Roman Senate.

• This period is called triumvirate. However, each of them sought for their private interests, which led to the
collapse of the Roman Republic.

• Caesar was elected consul with extraordinary authority to govern Illyricum and Gaul for five years. First, he had to
conquer Gaul in order to gain victory.

• His victory in Gaul led to dissolution of alliance of the triumvirate. Crassus died had been killed in 53 B.C. while he
was attacking Parthians in the north east of Persia.(It is sufficient here to mention that the war between Parthians
and the Romans continued until the beginning of the first decade of the third century A.D. Parthian state was
opposing to be ruled by the Romans).

• After the death of Crassus, Pompey and Julius Caesar were only to oppose each other.

• Pompey sided with the Senate against Caesar to drive him out, since the Senate was in favor of Pompey to
command the Roman interests.

• Caesar refused this and a civil war broke out between the forces of the two.

• Caesar won over the forces of Pompey and declared himself dictator and took over the government in 49 B.C.

This was the end of the Republic in Rome.

WEEK 6: Chapter 10 - Rome Empire; Society, Arts & Culture, Part II

Julius Caesar (b. 100 B.C. – d. 44 B.C) attempted to form a new government and transformed the Roman Republic to the
Roman Empire.

Julius Caesar attempted various reforms, abolished aristocratic dominance in the Senate. Therefore, he was suspected by
traditionalist groups of the Senate with setting up a monarchy. Hence, he was assassinated by this group. After his death,13
years of civil war began.

Roman Empire was in chaos, there were series of civil wars in the Middle Eastern and Egyptian lands of the Empire.

By the way, heir of Julius Caesar, his grandnephew and adopted son, Octavian (63 B.C.-14 B.C) allied with two of the
Caesar’s officials, Marcus Antonius (ca. 83 B.C.-30 B.C.) & Lepidus to fight against the assassinators. This was the second
triumvirate effort in Roman politics.

They fought among themselves after a short while; Octavian ruled the western part of the Empire and Antonius ruled East
with Cleopatra, queen of Egypt.

Octavian defeated their army and fleet in Actium in 31 B.C. Hence, the civil war and conflict over the throne of the Empire
was over.

Octavian became the absolute ruler of the Roman Empire and ruled the Roman Empire and Mediterranean with the name
of his great uncle, Augustus Caesar.

Period of Stability and Peace under Augustus:

Arts and literature flourished under Augustus’s patronage

Augustus initiated public works projects

Following his death, Rome ruled by a series of Emperors

Marmoream relinquo, quam latericiam accepi

“I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”

from Suetonius' life of Augustus and refers to the accomplishments of Augustus.

Imperial Government

· The imperial government Octavian established had republican institutions, but it was ruled by a monarchy.

· The emperor controlled government, made appointments, military decisions, and issued new laws.

· He gave autonomy to local governments, as in the Republic’s time.

· The imperial government retained senate but filled it with his supporters

· It gave importance to family & discipline.

· Heavily relied on military to maintain control in provinces

· He maintained small military garrisons in newly conquered regions.

· Growing Empire rested heavily on tolerance & cohesion through laws.

· Local governments, including Greek city states gained autonomy as the harsh colonial policies of republic were revised.

The Primary duties of the Roman Emperor: (and all the emperors of the ancient empires).

· The Primary role of the emperor was to provide adequate food supply;

· Regulation of commerce

· Maintaining public works to attract public loyalty and recruitment

· Stable tax income

· Government supported religious ceremonies, no religious imposition

· Tolerance for other religions in different regions of the Emperor, like Egyptian gods & Jewish monotheism, but a later
emperor Neon (66-70 C.E, reacted fiercely against Jewish revolt: as long as citizens participate in government ceremonies to
honor emperor as a god, all religions were tolerated. The Jews of the Roman Empire refused to do so and they were
severely suppressed by some emperors, like Nero.

Period of peace and prosperity in the Roman Empire, 14 C.E. and 180 C.E.

Decline of the Roman Empire

· Around 180 C.E. the Roman expansion ended. This marked the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire.

· With the end of the Roman expansion crisis emerged:

· Lack of newly conquered lands meant limited new supplies of labor and economic growth.

· Devastating epidemics, plague in the 2nd C.E, led to population decrease

· After 180 C.E, there were recurrent civil wars for the throne since there was no principle for succession

· Quality of leaders decreased; they showed no interest in public work anymore, that is; the quality of imperial rule
declined.
· Cultural life declined.

· Civil wars and over-taxation and invasion made lives of the ordinary people dangerous and economic survival more
precarious

· Furthermore, the Romans had faced with a new problem in their frontiers: the problem of invasions of new tribes.
Invasions were more intense on the Western part of the Roman Empire.

· Consequently, by the 3rd century, many farmers gathered around the big land owner and asked their protection.
Moreover, they surrendered full control of their land to have military and judicial protection against imperial rule and
invaders. This meant decentralization of political and economic authority in the Roman Empire, especially in the western
part of the Empire. This foreshadowed feudalism of Europe, which will be discussed in the last course of this semester.

THE CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY: INVASIONS

There was huge pressure on Rome’s frontiers from the East and the West:

In the east the Sassanids (Pre-Islamic Iranian Empire, 226-651) ruled over the Mesopotamia and raided over the Roman
territory.

In the Western and northern frontiers a group of Indo-European speaking tribes, Germanic tribes, were raiding over the
territories of the Roman Empire.

The Most aggressive raids came from the Goths, a branch of the Germanic tribes, on the Danube frontier, by 250 C.E they
spread over Balkan provinces of the Roman Empire.

That is to say, in the 3rd century C.E. there were still some nomads who were looking for suitable territories to settle.

Scholarly studies indicate that Germanic tribes originated in Scandinavia.

There was a contest, conflict even aggressions for a long time between the Germanic invaders and Romans .However, over
time they learned to coexist together and share the benefits of the Roman trade network. The invaders did not attack to
the Roman institutions in order to replace them with theirs. This led to mixture of their cultures.

In the 3rd century, Western part the Empire was weakened by famine, disease, overtaxation and a weak military structure.

This damaged trade and agricultural production also declined that the farmers were not able to pay tax anymore. Hence,
tax revenues, on which the Roman Empire depended for its army, dropped.

This economic setback led to cities to shrink

The Germanic tribes attacked along the Rhine in West:

Some emperors tried to reverse the process of decline:

· The period from Diocletian (r. 208-305 C.E.) to Constantine (r. 306-337 C.E.) was one of the reconstruction
and reorganization.
· Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into two administrative territories as East and West. He appointed his
close ally Maximian as his co-emperor. Afterwards, to be able to govern more effectively the expanded Empire,
appointing two different Caesars, emperors to the east and west, he established tetrarchy, which is to be ruled by
four rulers. Tetra means 4 in Greek.
· He divided the vast territory of the Empire into four to be ruled by four men so that civil war and disorder
would be replaced by peace and order.
· In the years of Diocletian’s rule, Christianity was spreading from Middle East towards West and there were
already Christian groups in the Empire.
· Diocletian was not remembered with the changes he made in the political structure for an effective ruling,
instead, he became to be known with atrocities he conducted against Christians. According to him, Christians were
separatists and destructive. He advised the emperors who succeeded him to treat Christians in the same way.
 · When Diocletian retired in 305, he asked his co-emperor to do the same, however, the smooth succession did
not work out and five competing emperors emerged by 310.
· Of these five competing emperors, Constantine defeated his rivals and restored order in 324 C.E. and he
declared himself as the sole emperor of Rome. He ruled the Empire until 337 C.E.
· He established Constantinople as the second capital city in order to rule the Eastern part more efficiently.
[Constantinople derives from Konstantinoupolis, which means the city of Constantine. Do you remember what
does polis mean in Greek from the chapter on Ancient Greece?]
· Constantine used Christianity as a force to unify various populations of the Empire. He saw it as a crucial
social force to prevent chaos and conflict among the people. However, there is no definite information whether
Constantine himself converted to Christianity or not. Some scholars argued that he converted to Christianity, after
he won over his rivalries and entered into city of Rome and the sole emperor. Some others argue that he converted
while he was about to die, some argue that he never converted just used Christianity as a unifying force to restore
the order in the huge Empire. Whatever his personal choice was, Christianity began to spread gradually under his
reign in the Roman Empire.
· He was called as Constantine the Great since he has been accepted as the founder of the Eastern Roman
Empire, which is Byzantine Empire.
· After Constantine, his son Constantinus II (r. 337-361), then his cousin Julian (r. 361-363) came to the
throne.
Division of the Roman Empire
· When emperor Valentinian (r. 364-375) succeeded, the Germanic tribes were already attacking from the
Rhine River, but the greater danger was on the side of the Danube River: Visigoths, a branch of Goths, were
escaping from the Huns, who invaded their homeland in Ukraine. Therefore, they were raiding to the Roman
territories from Danube.
· Valentinian realized that he could not defend the huge Empire and appointed his brother Valens as co-ruler
(r.364-378). Valentinian ruled the western part of the Empire from Milan, Valens ruled the eastern part so that the
Empire was divided into two parts.
· The two emperors maintained their own courts and two parts of the Empire over time became increasingly
separate and different. Latin was the language of the West and Greek of the East.
· When Goths began to plunder the Balkans, Valens attacked them and died in 378.
· After Valens, Theodosius (r. 379-395) became the co-emperor of the East. His attempt to unify the Empire
unsuccessfully, after his death, the Empire remained divided.
The Western Part of the Empire

· The West became increasingly rural as the invasions grew.

· Peasants, who already became tenant farmers (serfs of the following decades), surrendered more to local landlords in
return for economic assistance and protection from invaders and imperial officials; invasions disturbed life in the Roman
cities.

· Weak central authority; increasing robber bands trade and communication that forced people towards greater self
reliance and primitive style of life.

The End of the Western Roman Empire:

· By the 5th century, the West highly made up of isolated units of rural aristocrats and their dependent laborers. The
only unifying institution was Church. This was the pattern of the early Middle Ages.

· In the early 5th century, not only invasions of the barbaric tribes in Italy was highly devastating, but also the “eternal
city” Rome was looted:
In 410, Visigoths plundered Rome.

In 452, the Huns, led by Atilla, invaded Italy.

In 455, the Rome was invaded by the Vandals.

· The Romans had lost control of their frontiers, and in the 5th century the tribes invaded the West and set up their own
domains. Political power from the Roman Emperors passed into the hands of Germanic chieftains. The year 476 C.E. is the
traditional date given for the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Italian king Flavius Odovacar deposed and replaced the
Western emperor Romulus Augustulus.

· The Eastern emperor (Zeno, r. 474-491) recognized Flavius Odovacar’s authority in the West. Odovacar also
acknowledged Zeno as the sole emperor, contenting himself to serve as Zenos’s governor of western province. Vandals and
the Anglo-Saxons, and later after 466, the Visigoths refused to claim at least titular obedience to the emperor in
Constantinople.

The Eastern Part of the Roman Empire

You will read about the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire in week 13. Therefore, it would suffice here to mention
that Constantinople, the capital city of the Byzantine Empire, became the center of a vital and flourishing culture, and
lasted until the 15th century. Its defensible location, skill of emperors, firmness and strength of its base in Asia Minor made
the emperors deflect and repulse invasions. Byzantine civilization was the unique combination of classical culture,
Christianity, Roman law and Eastern artistic influences. While Rome became an insignificant ecclesiastical town,
Constantinople flourished as the capital of the Empire.

Consequences of the Decline of the Western Roman Empire:

· The unity of Mediterranean civilization destroyed.

· Three new civilizations came into being:

I. Eastern Empire/Byzantine Empire, which composed of Hellenistic and Roman elements

II. Italy, Spain, and North Germanic Kingdoms formed a new Western civilization which meant destruction of Classical
Roman political structure. Greco-Roman political & intellectual philosophical tradition became the basis of later Western
Civilization.

III. In North Africa & Shores of Mediterranean various small kingdoms emerged and Christianity spread.

RISE AND SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY

· In the eastern part of the Mediterranean, Christianity emerged as a product of Judaism.

· Early Christianity focused on making reform on the Jewish religion in order to free people from hard rituals and
arrogant leaders.

· Christianity developed in a remote province and appealed to poor people. Therefore, it had little to do with Roman
Culture.

· Jesus of Nazareth initially was a Jewish prophet & teacher. [Nazareth is an ancient town in the Middle East, today it is
in the state of Israel]

· He was regarded as son of God by his disciples and followers, since his mother is believed to have given birth to him
under unusual conditions without having a sexual intercourse.

· The word Jesus originated from Greek, Christ “God's anointed” [anoint: to pour oil upon for religious reasons, to make
sacred]

· Jesus suggested a moral code, based on love, charity, humility, and abandonment of world concerns. The poor and
women were attracted to his teaching. His popularity among the ordinary people made him suspicious in the eyes of upper
classes & leaders of Jewish religion, whose religion was losing members. Polytheist Roman people saw him as a dangerous
agitator and they put him to death through crucifying in 30.

· His followers believed that on the third day after his death he was resurrected, which was accepted as the proof that
he was son of God by his followers. This time is celebrated as the Easter in Christian societies.

· After his crucifixion, his followers were organized to spread out new religious message, which came to be known as
Christianity.

· This helped to spread of Christianity among the Jewish communities in the Middle East and reached to the western
parts of the Roman Empire. By the 4th century C.E., Christianity gained many converts; 10 % of the Roman Empire
converted to from Paganism to Christianity.

Why did masses become Christian in the Roman Empire?

· Increasing inequality in the Empire, that is, poverty, slavery, landless farmers, poor city dwellers attracted to
Christianity, since its message offered them equality and its moral code of love, charity, modesty relieved their sorrows.

· One of close followers of Christ, which came to known as Saint Paul stressed that following Jewish practices was
unnecessary, because the new faith is universal.

· He explained basic Christian concepts to populations and wrote down message and philosophy of Christ so that
created Christian theology. Although there is a deep theological discussion about the origin of Christian theology, it would
suffice to mention in this introductory reading that there has been debate about the first Bible, the writer of it, the year it
was written and so on. One of the debatable issues is about woman’s position in the message of Christ: Although Jesus
himself attracted a large number of women followers, Paul in his writing stressed women's subordination to men as the
dangers of sexuality.
In early times, Christians and Jews, who converted to monotheism from polytheism, were persecuted by the Roman
Emperors, since they refused to honor them in imperial ceremonies as god.

SOCIETY, ARTS & CULTURE

Society

• Aristocrats, citizens –free farmers, artisans, merchants–, plebians/ordinary people, and slaves constituted the
Roman society.

• Society was highly patriarchal. Patriarchal values were imposed by the Roman law as well. According to Roman
law, husband is the judge of his wife; even he might kill her if she is disloyal to him. Husbands’ decision had to be
approved by family court.

• If husband divorced his wife because of adultery, woman lost one third of her property and had to wear special
garment.

• However, aristocrat women held political power via their husbands.

• Aristocrat women could freely appear in public. However, it is difficult to say that these privileges of aristocrat
women prevented persistence of inequality.

• Roman law was based on protecting property rights and family structure and only citizens could benefit from the
law, not all peoples of the empire.

Slavery

• Slavery was legal, as it was in classical Greece. Roman Economy depended on slave labor.

• Slavery increased in the Roman Empire. It was the source of agricultural production, since the citizens were not
eager to work on the land. Grain production & other agricultural products were provided by slaves.

• Roman society did not reproduce itself, it means it always needed slave labor in order to produce and military
expansion

• This had been the source of tension in the society; slaves versus masters and free population.

• When Roman agriculture began to be commercialized in the 2nd c. B.C., slavery spread and slaves were used in
manual works, mines under brutal conditions.

Religion

• The religion of the Romans was polytheistic. The gods of Romans and Greeks were very similar. Romans adapted
Greek gods and goddesses with different names.

Arts & Culture

Literature

• Literary activity of Rome was less impressive than Greeks. For example, Roman poet Vergil using Greek epic
tradition related Roman history with the legend of Iliad and Odyssey in his work Aeneid. Writers such as Cicero,
discussed the aspects of life, sorrows and joys and stressed importance of having moderation and dealing with
public works.

Architecture & Sculpture

• Roman sculptures used the styles of the Greek tradition, they depicted heroic scenes and busts of emperors and
heroes.

• Although Roman artists imitated Greek architecture, they also added their styles to it.

• Romans were advanced in engineering, which provided them building of huge stadiums, baths, and aqueduct for
carrying water to cities. Baths and stadiums did not exist only in Rome, but also in other cities throughout the
empire.

Augustus made Rome an imperial show off with its statues, fountains, temples, statues, and massive monuments. This was
about imperial and urban architecture. As for the ordinary people, plebeians, they lived in apartment building, called
insulae, means (islands). They were uncomfortably hot in the summer, cold in the winter; they were built by light concrete
and brick, therefore, easily collapsed. Fires were usual in the life of Romans; they could not be put out therefore led to
disaster. The living conditions of ordinary people might explain why they spent most of their time outdoors.

References:

Tim Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 B.C.), London,
New York, Routledge, 1994.

• The third monotheistic religion, Islam, arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century. Nomadic groups emerged
over the centuries in the uninhabitable deserts of the Arabian Peninsula (Bedouin or Arab). They depended on
camel and goat herding for their survival. Because of the dry topography of the peninsula, only limited number of
cities and small scale of agriculture could develop. Regional kingdoms and large cities developed on the coastlines
of the peninsula, like Mecca.

• Mecca is located in the mountainous region along the Red Sea. The city was founded by the Umayyad clan of the
Quaraysh Bedouin tribe. Umayyads were the prominent traders in Arabia. They controlled the caravan routes.
Mecca was the center of merchants elites. The presence of Ka’ba in Mecca also made the city important for the
polytheistic Bedouins. Ka’ba was the place of the religious deities in pre-Islamic Arabia.

• Medina is located in an oasis where various wells and springs made agriculture possible. Medina also had a share
in the long distance caravan route, although not as much as Mecca. While Mecca was dominated by the Umayyad
merchants, Medina was controlled by Bedouin, which means Arab nomads, and Jewish tribes. They were in
conflict, which made Medina to remain a impoverished city.

The Rise and Spread of Islam

• Islam based on the revelations by Prophet Muhammad in early 610. They were written as Quran. His wisdom and
skills as a leader attracted many followers.

· Prophet Mohammad was a merchant in Mecca. The trade network composed of caravan routes with camel nomads in
Arabian Peninsula. There were continuously clan rivalries on the caravan routes.

• Prophet Muhammad gained many believers of Islam in a short period of time. Bedouins, who converted to Islam
and gathered around Prophet Muhammad, were traders as well. They politically and economically constituted a
threat to the Umayyad notables’ trade networks. The Quraysh merchants began attacks in mid 620s to Muslims in
Medina. In 622, Prophet Muhammad had to leave Mecca for Media. Umayyads were against monotheistic
religion Islam as well, since they were polytheistic. He was welcomed in Medina like a hero. He settled the
quarrels among Bedouin clans. He secured Arabian Peninsula as the territories of Islam through his military
conquests between 622 and 632. (See the maps above and below).

• The conflict between the Muslims and the Quraysh with the Quraysh treaty. Prophet Muhammad returned to
Mecca in 629 and gradually won over the Umayyads. In a short period of time more than 10,000 members of the
Quraysh clan converted to Islam. Prophet Muhammad died in 632. When he died, there was still considerable
number of rival Bedouins tribes against the Muslims. His followers struggled to unify the Islamic community
against these rival tribes, therefore continued to military campaigns against them.

The Expansion of Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries. Peter N. Stearns, Michael Adas, Stuart B. Schwartz, Marc Jason
Gilbert, World Civilizations, The Global Experience, Third Edition, Vol. I, New York, San Francisco: Longman, 2001, p. 279.

Spread of Islam, period of four caliphates, 632-661.

Weaknesses of the adversary empires, which were Sassanian and Eastern Roman/Byzantine Empire, contributed to the easy
spread of Islam in Mesopotamia, North Africa and Persia.

Religious zeal of Islam, military skills and courage of its soldiers, and the weaknesses of the empires on the borders of
Arabia made possible successful Islamic conquests in Mesopotamia, North Africa, and Persia.

Consolidation in the Islamic Community

• While Islam was spreading towards west and north through conquests, some rival prophets emerged and rival
clans and Bedouin tribes against Islamic rule existed in the Arab peninsula. They were defeated by Abu Bakr (the
 first caliphate) with a series of campaigns, which are called Ridda Wars between 632 and 633. Ridda wars
provided consolidation of Islamic community.

• Once the consolidation was provided in the Arabian Peninsula, Arab armies began to raid borders of Persia and
Byzantium. Their successful initial raids indicated weaknesses of these empires.

I. Sassanian Empire

• Autocratic Sassanian emperors who ruled their people arbitrarily created disorder in society. Powerful landed
aristocrats, who cooperated with the emperors, controlled the revenues of the Sassanian Empire. Most of the
population in the empire consisted of peasants, who were exploited by Sassanian rulers. There was an economic
and social disorder that created unrest among the people. Zoroastrianism could not generate social unity and
enthusiasm in Sassanian society.

Arab attacks began to Sassanian Empire in the middle of the 7th century. Sassanian rulers could not resist Arab attacks.
Muslim Arab armies captured Sassanian cities and killed the generals. In 651, the last Sassanian ruler was assassinated so
that the destruction of the Sassanian an Empire was ensured.

II. Byzantine Empire

• Remember that Egypt, Mesopotamia/Syria, and Palestine were under the rule of the Eastern Roman
Empire/Byzantine Empire in the 600s. In this point, it is important to remember that after Constantine the Great
(r. 306-337), people gradually converted to Christianity and Christianity became a unifying factor in the Eastern
Roman Empire. (Reading in week 11). You will read about the divisions within the Christianity and emergence of
different fractions in it in the reading of week 13. However, it is important to note here that by 600s some
Christian groups in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire refused to accept the form of Christianity imposed
by the imperial government. They followed interpretations of other priests and established their own churches
and understanding of Christianity. Copts and Nestorians were among these Christian groups. They fell rapidly to
Muslim armies. Roman emperors were not tolerant to these fractions. They were heavily taxed and persecuted
by the imperial rule as heretics. Therefore, Christians of Egypt, Syria, and Palestine easily attracted to Islam during
the period of four caliphs (632-661).

• Furthermore, Muslim naval forces began to challenge the long lasting Byzantine supremacy in the eastern
Mediterranean by the 640s. However, Byzantine forces managed to repel them and prevented their attacks into
the Balkans and Asia Minor.

What were the motives for the Arab conquests?

• The Bedouins who inhabited Arabian Peninsula in fragmented and conflicting clans were unified by Islam. In other
words, Islam gave them new sense of common cause and strength.

• They could stand up against non-Arab rulers who detest them and played them against each other for a long time
as backward dirty barbarians.

• Campaigns were a source of booty for them. According to the principle of Islam, there is a promise of share to
Muslims in campaigns. That is to say, this was a source of income for the Muslim warriors.

• Tribute was taken by the Muslim rulers from places they conquered. This tribute was also a source of income.

• The opportunity to glorify their religion and gain prestige may have been a motive for the conquests of the Arabs.
However, in spite of the stereotype belief, the Jihad, which means forceful conversion of non-Muslims into Islam,
was not the main motives for the Arab conquests. There was an economic & social stimulus behind these
conquests: Non-Muslims, Christians and Jews were the source of income for the Muslims. If their main aim was to
gain new converts to Islam, they would not have the tribute income and specific tax imposed over non-Muslims,
in return for protection of the Islamic state. Muslims were exempted from this tax levied on non-Muslims.
Moreover, if they gained more believers of Islam, this would mean, when the converted males joined to the
Muslim army, more people share in the booth. This was undesirable for the Muslims. That is to say, if they aimed
to gain new conversions to Islam, this would mean they would lack the specific tax paid by the non-Muslims and
their share in the booty would decrease. Therefore, the basic aim of holy wars of Islam in the early years of its
expansion has been a mispresentation. They wanted to consolidate Islamic Empire’s economic and political power
through extensive conquests, which provided them to dominate trade in this vast region.

• There was an economic & social stimulus behind these conquests: Non-Muslims, Christians and Jews were the
source of income for the Arap Muslims. If their main aim was to gain new converts to Islam, they would not have
the tribute income and specific tax imposed over non-Muslims – in return for protection of the Islamic state.
Muslims were exempted from this tax levied on non-Muslims.
 • Moreover, if they gained more believers of Islam, this would mean, when the converted males joined to the
Muslim army, more people share in the booth. This was undesirable for the Muslims. That is to say, if they aimed
to gain new converts to Islam, this would mean they would lack the specific tax paid by the non-Muslims and their
share in the booty would decrease. Therefore, the basic aim of holy wars of Islam in the early years of its
expansion has been a mispresentation. They wanted to consolidate Islamic Empire’s economic and political power
through extensive conquests, which provided them to dominate trade in this vast region.

Succession problem

• After the death of Prophet Muhammad, succession problem arose, since there was no established rule about who
was going to lead the Islamic community. Moreover, the ages old tensions and personal conflicts over the amount
of the booty they share led to further divisions among Muslim Arabs. Although the nascent Islamic State and its
military victories made these conflicts to be forgotten for a while, over time they came to surface. Abu Bakr was
the religious and political successor to the Prophet as being the first caliph between 632 and 634. Omer was the
second one (634-644). The third caliph Osman was not very popular among the tribes of Medina and early
followers of the prophet, since he was from the Ummayad clan, which was the earliest enemy of the Prophet. The
tribal conflicts re-emerged in 656, when Osman, the third caliph, was killed by rebellious warriors. This event was
the sign of coming conflict for the succession, since Umayyads were enraged because of the murder of Osman.
Umayyads did not approve the forth candidate as the four caliph, Ali, who was cousin and son in law of the
Prophet.

• The succession for the Islamic leadership led to a civil war from 656-661 between the forces of Ali and the leader
of the Umayyads, Muawiye, a relative of Osman.

Ali’s forces were about to defeat the Umayyads in the war called Battle of Siffin in 657, Ali was stopped by an appeal for
mediation. The mutual attacks began again, the supporters of Ali, who were disappointed with his acceptance of mediation
appeal, renounced his leadership, they had to be suppressed through violent means. Finally, in 660 Muawiya announced
himself as the fourth caliphate in Jerusalem. In a year Ali was assassinated, his son Hasan pressurized to renounce his rights
over caliphate, Huseyin, second son of Ali, who was in preparation for a revolt against Umayyads, and his followers had
been killed in Karbala in 680.

This generated an everlasting conflict between Ali’s followers, which is called Shi’ites, and Umayyads.

• This conflict between these two groups has been called Sunni and Shia/ Shi’ite split in Islam.

The word Sunni originated from sunnah in Arabic, which means sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad that were
recorded as hadiths. The word Shia is the shortened form of the phrase Shiatu Ali in Arabic, which means followers of Ali.
The Shi’ite based their belief on the Quran and the Prophet Muhammad; they recognize Ali as the true follower of the
Prophet Muhammad and recognize them as the first caliph and did not recognize other four as caliphs. Sunni and Shia Islam
are the main branches of Islam.

THE UMMAYADS

• Muawiya founded the dynastic Umayyad Empire, which ruled the Islamic community. Arab conquests
continued from 661 to 750. (See the map above for the conquests between these years).

• Arab armies crossed North Africa, reached to Spain and threatened France. French general Charles Martel
managed to draw them out of France in 732. By 750, the Umayyads ruled an empire extended from Spain in the
west to the steps of central Asia in the east.

• They moved the capital city to Damascus, while Mecca remained as a religious center. They constructed an
extensive bureaucracy to run the extensive empire. Only Arab Muslims were allowed to take place in bureaucracy
and army. In the Umayyad Empire, only Arabs could be first class citizens. There were considerable number of
non-Arab converts to Islam, such as Persians and Turks, which were called mawali. Mawali suffered because of
discriminatory ruling of the Umayyads.

• Arab Muslim warriors in the garrison towns lived in separated units from local population, in order to prevent
their mixture with the cultures of conquered people and intermarriages, which would lead loss of the taxable
subjects.

The Umayyad Decline

• Rulers lived highly luxurious life in their opulent palaces. Their pleasure lives in palaces led to criticism of ordinary
people and other fractions of Islam. . Ordinary people challenged the Umayyad rulers, since their way of life was
 in contradiction with the message of Islam, Quran, which emphasized modesty, equality and cooperation of
people of all layers. Revolts began against the Umayyad rule. The first revolts began in the city of Merv, which
was on the eastern borders of Sassanian Empire/Persia.

• Of these revolting groups, the Abbasid family and its followers, began to campaign against the Umayyad armies in
747 and won over the army of the Umayyads in 750 in the Battle on River Zab around the tigris River. They
conquered Syria and captured the capital, Damascus. The Abbasids’ were descended from the uncle of the
Prophet Muhammad, al-Abbas. The great-great grandson of the prophet’s uncle, Abu al-Abbas, was the leader of
the Abbasid party, which won victories against the Umayyads. He eliminated all members of the Umayyad
dynasty in order to prevent further disputes over the ruling of the Islamic community. However, the grandson of
former caliph fled to Spain and established Caliphate of Cordoba (756-1030), which lived for centuries after the
Umayyads.

• In gaining these victories, Abbasids allied with the Shi’ites and other opposing fractions of Islam. They promised to
recognize all Muslims as the full members of the Islamic community.

• Abbasids established a centralized government and extensive bureaucracy in order to make effective tax
collection. Abbasid rulers defined themselves as the shadow of God on earth, which meant they held a superior
position from rest of the ordinary Muslims. They became isolated and not reachable caliphs. They made Baghdad
in Iraq the new capital. The office of vezir, who was prime minister to caliphs, had ascending growing authority.

• They encouraged non-Arabs to convert to Islam and declared the acceptance of all converts and mawali as equal.
All these propositions were in contradiction with the ruling of the Umayyads that Abbasids gained many
followers.

• However, in due time, the life style of the Abbasid rulers competed with those of the Umayyads and they ended
their alliance with Shi'i groups, moreover suppressed them as heretics.

The Abbasid Decline

• Sectarian divisions, growing inequalities, indifferent ruling of the Abbasid rulers, peasant revolts disturbed the
political unity and made difficult to control and rule the vast land of the Abbasids that their Empire disintegrated
between 9th and 13th centuries. Turkic people, who converted to Islam, migrated to Mesopotamia and over time
they became influential in the political life.

• The ills of the Abbasid Empire provided a base for Christian crusades of the West between 11 th and 13th centuries.

• Shi’ite revolts against the suppression of the Abbasid rulers continued until the 13th century.

• Problems for the succession continued even led to various civil wars.

• Third Abbasid Caliph, Al-Mahdi’s luxurious life, wives and concubines, and monuments built in his time, annoyed
ordinary people and different fractions of Islam. After his death, a civil war broke out, almost in a year later Harun
al-Rashid, came to the throne.

• Under Harun al-Rashid, luxurious living continued, powerful ministers usurp political authority of caliphs.

Contact with Europe:

• Harun, caliph of Islam, had contact with the most influential ruling dynasty of Europe, the French king
Charlemagne, who established a powerful empire in France & Germany in the 9th century, was seen as a new
hope for the revival of the disintegrated Roman Empire. Charlemagne sent messengers with presents to the
Abbasids in their capital Baghdad. Harun replied his gesture with showing the Europeans magnificent palaces,
mosques and treasuries of Baghdad.

• In spite of all its internal ruling problems of the Abbasids, Arabs controlled crucial trade routes to Asia, Europe,
and North Africa, and dominated Mediterranean trade when the Abbasids were at the height of their power. They
introduced new crops to Europe:

• Europeans met with sugarcane, rice, spinach, artichoke, eggplant, orange, lemon, coconut, banana; from Africa
with watermelon and sorghum; from Middle East with hard wheat, and semolina (the coarsely ground hard
wheat, from the Arab semoules), couscous (steamed bits of semolina dough coagulates in balls, then dried, and
sieved before cooking). After having learned these crops, the Europeans wanted to have the original places of
these crops and vast trade routes of the Arabs that this desire paved way to crusades.
See the map below the extensive trade network of the Abbasids.

Recurrent civil wars after Harun:

• After Harun's death, series of civil wars broke out among his sons. Their struggle for throne profoundly damaged
the legacy of the Abbasid rule and ended the authority of caliphs. During the civil wars, parties established private
armies, which composed of mercenary slaves.

• Over time, these mercenary armies became so influential that they could determine the succession. They became
very influential in suppressing a social unrest or revolt.

• Huge expenses were made for the construction of opulent palaces, mosques and big cities were built around
Baghdad.

• These large scale expenses along with increasing military expenses –to deal with the civil wars and revolts–costs +
construction of new cities lead to increase in taxation, which was a burden on rural population.

Destruction of the Mesopotamian Agriculture

Do you remember Mesopotamian people developed agriculture by constructing irrigation channels between Euphrates and
Tigris in the Bronze Age, between 4000 B.C. and 2000 B.C? The centuries old irrigation channels of Mesopotamia were in
disrepair.

• Heavy taxation and military intervention to suppress the peasant led to abandonment of agricultural fields. This
seriously damaged agriculture of Mesopotamia.

• Because of negligence of the Abbasid rulers, vital irrigation systems around the Tigris and Euphrates ruined, even
in some regions collapsed entirely.

• Some peasants, who were already in miserable condition because of the high imperial taxes, perished because of
flood, famine or violent assaults. Therefore, some had abandoned their land and organized as bandits or initiated
revolts, to which Shi’ite also supported. .

Women & Slaves

• The Abbasid politics made the lives of women and slaves unbearable:

• Women were secluded by some Middle Eastern societies since ancient times, however harem was an Abbasid
formation.

• Growing wealth of Abbasid elite generated a big demand for female & male slaves, who were mostly urban
slaves.

• Caliphs and his elite circles preferred their educated slave concubines to their wives. Slave women were allowed
to go to the market without veil and robes, while the wives and concubines of the caliphs were not allowed to out
of the palace.

• Slaves were captured or purchased in slave markets in surrounding non-Muslim regions, like Central Asia and
Africa.

• The harem and veil became two important signs for subjugation of women in the Abbasid Era.

• Areas close to the capital, such as Egypt and Syria separated themselves from the Abbasid rule.

• Independent regional kingdoms were established in the former provinces of the Abbasid Empire.

Buyid Dynasty

• Persian Buyid was one of these regional dynasties.

• After 9th century, Buyids of Persia captured Baghdad and did not recognize Abbasid rulers’ authority as caliphs.

• Buyid leaders took the title of sultan, means victorious in Arabic. From this time on this title was used for Muslim
rulers.
 • They dominated caliph & Abbasid lands, but could not prevent dissolution of the Abbasid rule.

Coming of Seljuk Turks:

• Around 1055, a new group of nomads from central Asia, Seljuk Turks, invaded the former Abbasid lands and
replaced Buyids as masters of Baghdad.

• The Seljuks were strict Sunnis. They attempted to eliminate shi'ite officals, who were given posts by Buyids.

• Seljuk military power for a while ended the threat of conquest by rival Shi'ite dynasties.

• Their defeat of the Byzantine army at Malazgirt provided these Turkic origin nomads to enter in to Anatolia in
1071. Seljuks established a vast empire that stretched from Aral Sea around Khorasan to Mesopotamia and
central Anatolia in the west. By the 13th century Mongol armies conquered the heartlands of the Abbasids
heartlands. Although Abbasids showed a sign of military strength between 1100 and 1258 –they repelled the
siege of Baghdad in 1157 and managed to have control of Iraq– Mongols’s destruction of Baghdad in 1258
indicated the end of the heyday of the Abbasids.

Islamic Learning

Despite their proclivity for warfare, early Islam was characterized by tolerance and interest in science. Muslims had been -
inheritors of the vast knowledge of the Ancient World via Byzantium and Jewish scholars, proficient in Greek, Hebrew
and Arabic served as translators preservation and advancement of mathematics, medicine, agriculture, astronomy, and
chemistry.

Intellectual Development

• Although, political unity was deteriorated, last centuries of Abbasid Rule witnessed period of cultural creation &
Expansion of Islam into South & Southeast Asia & Africa.

• Islamic learning flourished during the Abbasid Rule. Abbasids did not only interested in religious knowledge, but
also showed a great interest to the other kinds of knowledge. Arabs met with the heritage of the classical
civilizations and their traditions in the lands they conquered, such as Hellenistic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian, and
Mesopotamian civilizations and Christian & Jewish traditions.

• The Islamic contribution to human history in the first place was on architecture through the building of the great
opulent mosques. Arabs not only dealt with the religious and legal discourses related to the Islamic law, but also
showed great on science and mathematics. Another great contribution of Arabs was introducing Europe the
classical Greek works. Muslim and Jewish scholars in the Abbasid domains translated great works of Greeks about
medicine, astronomy, geometry, anatomy, and ethics.

• One of the contributions of Arabs to the humanity was introducing Europe the classical Greek works. Muslim and
Jewish scholars in the Abbasid domains translated great works of Greeks about medicine, astronomy, geometry,
anatomy, and ethics.

Chemistry & Medicine; Mathematics & Astronomy

• In addition to the intellectual interests of the Arabs, the gains and contributions of Arabs to humanity was on the
areas of chemistry and medicine: Al-Razi’s discoveries in chemistry paved way for later investigations. He
classified material substances into three, animal, vegetable and mineral.

• Al-Biruni calculated the weight of 18 major minerals.

• Muslim astronomers reorganized and renamed the constellations. Some of the names they used still are in use
today, such as Altair and Betelguese.

• Muslim scientists developed in medicine as well. Cairo, for example, had the best hospitals. Doctors and
pharmacists had to follow regularly courses and submit exams before they began their practice.

• Cabir (721-815), who is known as Geber in Europe, made important contributions to chemistry researches
through his analysis of metals and minerals.

• El-Razi (864-923) was born in Persia and lived in Baghdad. He studied for the formation of entities through
analyzing chemical materials. His main reputation is for his works on medicine. He emphasized the importance of
observation and experiment in medicine. With these methods, he discovered diseases of pox, intestine, measles,
and rheumatism.
He is the author of 30 volume encyclopedia el-Havi, which had been used for centuries as a reference work.

• Ibn-i Sina (or as known in Europe, Avicenna) (980-1032) had a wide range of interests, such as astronomy,
chemistry, physics, medicine, geology, psychology, logic, philosophy, music and poetry. He received systematic
education about all these since his childhood.

In his work Kitabü’ş-şifa, he explained his philosophical ideas.

His most famous work, which is known in Europe, made a great contribution to the medicine in the west.

• Some chemical terms, which are still in use today, passed into western languages from Arabic, such as:

Alcohol àel-kuul

Alkalià el-kali

Arsenic àel-zırnık

Talcàtalk

• 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 & 0

One of the great contributions of Arab scientists to humanity is their discovery of numbers between 1-9 and 0.

They wrote it with small line or notches: ٩, ٨, ٧, ٦, ٥, ٤, ٣, ٢, ١

Romans wrote these numbers with more straight lines: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII; VIII, IX

• They were also interested in translating books about medicine into Arabic. The work of Greek physician
Dioscorides De Materia Medica/Treatise on Medicine was one of these. Dioscorides was born in Anazarbus
(Anazarva near Çukurova Adana in Turkey ca. 20C.E).

Islamic Architecture
• The concept of Allah’s infinite power is evoked by designs with repeating themes.
• Human and animal forms are rarely depicted in decorative art as Allah's work is matchless.
• Calligraphy is used to enhance the interior of a building by providing quotations from the Qur'an.
• Islamic architecture focuses on the beauty of the interior rather than exterior spaces.
• Use of impressive forms such as large domes, towering minarets, and large courtyards are intended to convey
power.
The Grand Mosque Ka’ba in Mecca

The House and Mosque of the Prophet Muhammed, Medina

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, Open Course Ware.

• Functionality of mosque of the Prophet, which was used as house, gathering place for community, shelter for
those in need, place of prayer.
• Characteristics of Mosque of the Prophet: rudimentary hypostyle construction, minbar, no mihrab or minaret

The culture of Islamic Spain reached its apex in Moorish art and architecture.
Remember that in the middle of the 8th century the last of the Umayyads escaped to Spain and re-founded the dynasty
there. The Great Mosque of Cordoba was begun in 785 and is famous for its rows of double-tiered arches. Abbasid Palace
muqarnas vaulted corridor, ca. Baghdad, 1200

BYZANTINE EMPIRE-1

The term Byzantine or Byzantium originated from the ancient Greek city state Byzantion. Byzantion was named after its
founder and king Byzas (read as Vizas in Greek).

Byzantine Empire or Eastern Roman Empire was built on the traditions of the Late Roman Empire. The term Byzantine was
not used at that time. People of the Roman Empire did not call themselves as Byzantines, but as Romans.

The term Roman originates from Greek Romoi, it is plural of Romios, which means from Rome, it was used as Rum by
Seljuks.

Romans or people of the Eastern Roman Empire did not call themselves as Byzantine. History writers of the Roman Empire
did not use the term Byzantine. It has been used by modern historians since it suggested distinction from Roman Empire.

Remember that some Roman Emperors, such as Diocletian, (r. 208-305), Constantine/Konstantinos r. 306-337, Constantine
II/Konstantinos II (r. 337-361), Valentinian (r. 364-375) & Valens (r. 364-378), and Theodosius (r. 379-395) struggled to
establish political unification. Of these emperors Constantine the Great achieved this, but did not last very long. The
following emperors ruled the vast territories of the Roman Empire by appointing co-rulers that this brought about the
division of the Empire as West and East. When the Western Roman Empire ended (476), the Roman Empire continued to
live in the Eastern part.

Byzantine Empire dominated Balkan Peninsula, Northern Middle East, Mediterranean Coastline, and North Africa. See the
red part in the map below.

Constantine the Great (r. 306-337 C.E)

The Decisive victory: Milvian War 28 October 312

• There was a civil war for the throne in the Roman Empire in the 4th century. There were five competing generals,
of these Constantine managed to defeat others four and came to the throne as the sole emperor of the western
part. Remember that the Roman Empire was divided into two administrative territories by Diocletian as east and
west. Diocletian was the western Roman Emperor, when he died Constantine succeeded him. The last war
happened around the Tiber River between Constantine and Maxentius. Their armies met on the Milvian Bridge
War in 28 October 312.

• Maxentius was in Rome and he had the support of the senate.

• Constantine began to march in today’s France, Gauls, towards Rome to capture the city and to announce himself
as the sole emperor of Rome. There was hesitation among his soldiers since the soldiers of Maxentius were higher
in numbers.

Vision of Constantine

• The written sources of the time mentioned the vision of Constantine saw in the sky. Although this mystical event
was interpreted by Christian sources in different ways, all of them have common points in the story. Eusebius,
Christian historian of the time, was in Constantine’s army. In his work The Life of Constantine, he wrote that
“while his army was marching Constantine saw a cross of a shining light above the sun and it bore the
inscription conquer with this.”

His victory against Maxentius was seen by some as the symbol of the power of Christianity. While his army was marching
towards Tiber River he saw a cross of light above the sun.

• Historian Socrates and the friend of Constantine, Lacantius, also narrated the mysterious vision in a similar way.
Although it is difficult to argue about whether the event was real or not, first hand sources indicated that
Constantine experienced a mysterious event, whatever its meaning was. The event gave him courage that he
could spiritually encourage his forces to march over Maxentius, whose army was stronger.

• Constantine was declared as the Roman Emperor of Rome by the Roman Senate. When he visited the emperor of
the eastern part, Licinius, emperors issued an imperial writ, the edict of Milano, through which they declared
tolerance towards all religions of the Empire, including Christians, who were suppressed and persecuted by
Diocletian. The edict also guaranteed the return of the confiscated properties of Christians.
 • The co-administration of Constantine and Lucian did last very long, in 323 they were in civil war against each
other. Constantine was the victorious party of the war.

• There have been various scholarly debates about Constantine’s religion, whether he converted to Christianity or
not. Whatever his personal religious choice was, it is certain that Christianity gained ground under his reign and
after.

Nicene Council, May-June 325.

• However, different fractions emerged within Christianity. They differed in theological issue of Christ’s nature, his
relation with God. One of the most influential one was called Arianism, referred to the teaching of Arius (250-
336).

• The general belief in heartlands of the western and eastern parts of the Roman Empire was that Christ was son of
God and he had the same nature with God; Son is of one essence with God. Therefore, both of them are eternal
and perpetual. Followers of this belief defined God through three entities: God, Son and Holy Spirit, which are
identical in essence and nature –consubstantial– coexist in unity and eternal and equal. This has been
called Trinity doctrine in Christian theology.

• A high priest from Alexandria, Arius, challenged this belief: Questioning the trinity doctrine, he argued that God
and Christ were not consubstantial, thus he is not like him, he is not equal in dignity, and he is not eternal. He is a
human being, who was created by God with a certain mission for the salvation of humanity.

• Arius had many followers and was very popular among the masses in the eastern part of the Empire. The two
fractions not only led to theological discussions, but also began to create tension among their followers.
Constantine was anxious because of this tension, since it might disturb the unity of the empire. He sent
theologians to Egypt to compromise and to solve the conflict, but they return with no solution. Therefore, he
decided to gather a theological ecclesiastical council to discuss and conclude the discussion.

• The place was Nicaea for the consul, since it was close to the eastern provinces where the conflict emerged. The
place was the imperial palace in Nicaea. Around 300 bishops and their one or two priests joined to the council.
Constantine’s participation into the council as the head of it attributed a specific meaning to the history of the
Byzantine Empire: his presence in the council as emperor paved way for the state-church cooperation in the
following centuries.

The Decision of the Nicaea Council

• After long discussions, the council decided that God and Christ are consubstantial; they coexist in unity and
eternal and equal. In other words, they approved Trinity as the official doctrine of the empire that Arianism was
declared as heretic, its followers were excommunicated, and Arius and other high priests were sent to exile.
However, Arianists continued to spread his ideas. Condemnation of Arianism did not curb the influence of it, in
contrast, it became more influential so much so that Constantine pardoned Arian in 327 and his exile ended.

• Under the rule of Theodosius I/the Great (r. 379-395), Nicene Christianity became the official state religion of the
Roman Empire in 391. All other denominations and fractions were declared as heretics.

Konstantinopolis/Konstantiniyye/Constantinople/Istanbul

• Constantine made the old Greek city state Byzantine the new capital of the Roman Empire in 330. The city had
been called as New Rome. After he named the new capital Constantinople/Konstantinoupolis “city of
Konstantinos/Constantine, the city became to be extensively called Konstantinoupolis.

• When Constantine made Constantinople capital city of the empire, the western part of the empire was dealing
with the problems of invasions of the Germanic tribes, diseases and population decrease. Rome strategically was
not in a suitable location to rule the empire; from Rome, it was difficult to repel attacks, which generally heavily
came from beyond Danube.

• Constantine ordered construction of a great church, Church of the Holy Apostles. He dedicated to Holy Apostles,
in the capital. The church was unfinished when he died in 337. The church was completed during the time of his
son and successor Constantios II, who buried his father's remains there.

Raids to the Capital

 • After Constantine, his successors, such as Valen, Theodosius, and Arcadius, and Theodosius II, had to deal with the
raids of the northern Europe originated Gots, who were escaping from the invasions of Huns. Sometimes their
invasions threatened the Constantinople. Gots badly defeated Emperor Valen’s forces, for example, near
Hadrianopolis (Edirne), although later he reversed the situation in his favor. Byzantine emperors dealt with the
invasion threats by recruiting people from Middle East and using local forces. Under the rule of Thedosius II (408-
450), the city’s fortification walls, which were about 4 mile length, were constructed between 413 and 414 in
order to defend the city against Hun attacks. They protected Constantinople against attacks for 10 centuries.
These walls were called as Thedosius Walls.

• Constantinople was attacked by various groups between 5th and 11th centuries: Huns in 441, Slavs in 540, 559, and
581, Persians and Avars in 626 (Avars were Turkic origin people from Central Asia), Arabs: 669-79 and 717-18,
Bulgarians 813, 913 and 924, and Russians four times between 860 and 1043. In repelling these attacks for
centuries, Byzantine Empire exhausted its treasury and finances. In order to finance the army, emperors put more
and more taxes over peasants.

• When we think about the Seljuks’ defeats of the Byzantine armies in 1071 in Malazgrit and Ottomans’ defeats in
1302 in Bapheon/Koyunhisar, in 1329 in Pelekanon/Eskihisar, and in 1361 Sazlı-Dere Battle in
Hadrianopolis/Edirne, we should remember the centuries old resistance of the Byzantine Empire to protect its
capital city. During this process the Empire economically weakened, in addition, the quality of the Byzantine
Emperors changes over the centuries, their indifferent ruling and miserable lives of the populations also
contributed to the Byzantine decline.

Justinian/Jusinianos, (r. 527-565)

• Scholarly studies called the period of Justinian as the apex of the Byzantine Empire.

• As it was mentioned earlier, Eastern Empire relied on their local military bases and talented generals, through
which Byzantine forces drove back attacks of the Sassanian Empire & Germanic invaders.

• Justinian held a strong hierarchical control and had a co-ruler, who was his wife Theodora.

• Justinian faced with massive tax riots.

Nika Revolt:

One of the most destructive revolts in the capital occurred as a result of the horseracing; the two teams, blues and greens,
fought. As a result of this quarrel, many of the fans were imprisoned; some were punished with death sentence, which was
severely protested by the other followers. By the help of officials they were not executed, but the event ascended and
turned out to be a big revolt. In the following day, when Justinian came to the Hippodrome to make the opening speech of
the race season faced with thousands of people who protested him through shouting as Nika! Nika!, which meant the
imperative mood of “defeat”. Instead of shouting names of their teams, looking at the lodge of the emperor, they shouted
“defeat!” This led him to decide to abdicate, but his wife Theodora prevented this and changed his decision with her
encouragement. He managed to re-establish of his authority through killing of tens of thousands of protesters who
gathered in the hippodrome.

In order to resist new tribal invasions from north and east, Justinian aimed to restore the unity of eastern Mediterranean.
This meant invading the territories of the collapsed Western Roman Empire, which he achieved in 476. He campaigned in
Italy, North Africa, and Spain. However, the more he struggled, the more he exhausted treasury and labor, agriculture, and
economy.

He succeeded to take back North African and Italian provinces. However, this did not last very long, Persians began their
attacks, and Byzantine generals had to retreat and deal with the Persian attacks on the eastern borders. Although he could
not restore the great Roman Empire, under his reign Constantinople developed.

It became the largest city on the crossroads between Asia and Europe. Its population reached to 350,000.

However, spread of a plague from the conquered North African lands to the capital made the people to perish. People
frightened to store the crops and products coming to Constantinople, therefore, a food shortage occurred in the city.
Justinian himself died because of this plague. Hagia Sophia, Justinian, 532-537 AD Anthemius of Tralles & Isidorus of
Miletus
In the place of Hagia Sofia, the established first church was Megali Eklisia/Great Church. It was next to Hagia Irini, which was
acted as a cathedral until Hagia Sofia was finished.

Hagia Sophia, Justinian, 532-537 AD Anthemius of Tralles & Isidorus of Miletus

Constructions of new buildings contributed to the imperial vision of the city. The most famous and remarkable of these was
Hagia Sophia.

• Hagia Sophia was inaugurated by Constantine the Great’s son Contantine II (r. 337-361) in 15 February 360.

• It was burned down by people, when they protested the exile of the patriarch Chrysostom by emperor Arcadius
(r. 395-408). Chrysostom was the patriarch (the highest clerical authority in Eastern Church) under the rule of
Arcadius, who was liked very much by people. People liked Chrysostom very much since he was against
inequalities and privileges.

[Chrysostom ,in Greek Hrisistomos, which means golden mouth]

He was very outspoken about the corruption and bribery in the Eastern Church. Moreover, he was critical of the
extravagant and luxurious empress Eudoxia, wife of Arcadius. He was exiled by the emperor because of his stern criticisms
of imperial government and church. In order to protest his exile, people burned Hagia Sofia. Emperor withdrew his decision
of exile; however, as Chrysostom continued to his stern criticisms, he was punished by a second exile. He died while he was
in exile in 407.

• His exile and death in exile was also censured by the Roman Church. His death in exile led to tension to grow
between two churches. Arcadius declared his repudiation of the western Church. This deepened the already
existed conflict between the churches.

• Theodosius II inaugurated the second Hagia Sofia in 10 October 415. This was also burned down during the Nika
Revolt in 532.

Hagia Sofia was almost reconstructed third time by the order of Justinian. His aim was not only to repair the church, but to
build a magnificent symbol of Byzantine Empire. He wanted Hagia Sofia to have an entirely different basilica, which was
going to be larger and more majestic than its predecessors. Its architects were Isodore of Miletus & mathematician
Anthemius of Tralles. à Church of holy wisdom. It was inaugurated by Justinian with the Patriarch Eutychius in 537. The
mosaics inside were completed under the reign of Justinian II (565-578).

In an earthquake in 557, cracks occurred in the main dome; in the earthquake of 558 main dome and altar completely
collapsed. Its restoration was conducted by Isodoros the young, nephew of Isodoros of Miletus. It was completed in 562
with its present form. Today we see this Hagia Sofia in Istanbul.

Rival forces against Byzantine

I. Constantinople is under the Arab threat:

• After Justinian, his successors focused on defense of eastern borders, than attempted to conquer western
Mediterranean.

• Persian successes were reversed in 7th century and the population in North Middle East was forced to convert to
Christianity.

• Byzantine was still strong enough to resist against the new threat of in the middle of the 7th century, the Arabs.

• In the middle of 7th century, Arab navy challenged Byzantine naval supremacy in eastern Mediterranean and
repeatedly attacked to Constantinople. Arab armies easily conquered Empire’s provinces in eastern
Mediterranean.

• After 632 Islamic armies progressively raided the empire. The first serious siege of Constantinople by Arabs began
in 670 and lasted for 7 years. Byzantine forces managed to drive back Arab ships located in front of the city walls
through using igronpir or Greek fire. This was a specific inflaming weapon, which provided Byzantines many
victories since the fire was continuing to burn in the water as floating on the surface. The second threatening
siege lasted a year between 717 and 718. In 718, Byzantine army (Emperor Leo III) defeated Arab navy by the help
of Greek fire and Arabs had to draw back. However, Arabs did not fully drive back from the lands of the Byzantine
Empire, which continuously had to defend its borders against them. It is important to note that these wars put
burden on the people of the empire, especially on peasants, as they paid more taxes. This weakened the position
 of the small farmers, who asked help of greater land lords. Hence, aristocratic estate strengthened and aristocrat
generals’ power grew.

• Arabs continued to beset Byzantine naval forces in the 9th century when they invaded Crete Island in the
Mediterranean (remember Minoan Civilization reading in week 4).

II. Slavic threat

· The invasions of tribes were pressing the Byzantine Empire’s borders in its Balkan lands: Avars, Slavs, Bulgarians, and
Romanians/Vlachs.

• By the 6th century, there were Avar, Slavic and Bulgarian settlements in the Balkan lands of the Byzantine Empire.

[Slavs were Indo-European speaking people, who probably migrated to eastern Europe from Russia. According to the
Byzantine sources, they were in great in number on the southeastern Balkan borders of the Empire in 6 th century].

Of these settlements, Bulgarians had sovereignty under the Byzantine rule in late 7th century. From this point on, they
pressed Byzantine territory in the Balkans.

[Bulgarians are believed to be originated from Central Asia, Turkic-Anatolian or Indo-Arian people]

• In 10th century, Byzantine Emperor had to recognize Bulgarian kingdom and its ruler as tsar, in Slavic language,
which is means Caesar, as a result of continuous Bulgarian pressure. However, Byzantine forces put an end to the
Bulgarian kingdom in early 11th century.

• These successful repels of Arabs and Slavs between 7th and 11th centuries indicate that Byzantine Empire still was
showing signs of strength in spite of its economic problems resulted by the long lasting defense of this borders.

Iconoclasm, 730-787 & 814-842

• Emperor Leo III, who successfully defeated Arabs’ siege of Constantinople in 718, was not remembered with this
vital accomplishment. He had been remembered with his rejection of using icons during Christian worship.

• Using icons of Christ and Mary was an established tradition in Christianity.

In the beginning of 8th century, in Anatolia, many bishops who were leaded by the bishop of Nakoleia (Seyitgazi), were
against the usage of icons during worship. They believed that the usage of icons or the adoration of them, over time might
turn into adoration of idols, which denoted polytheism/paganism. According to Islam, the usage of icons is equal to the
usage of idols or fake gods, which is inappropriate in worship to God. Some scholars explained the increased popularity of
the usage of icons with the growing cultural influence of Islam. Christians may have wanted to preserve their peculiarity
through using icons.

Leo III and his supporters, who were against the icons, initiated a movement called iconoclasm, which meant elimination of
icons from churches. He initiated an imperial order to remove all the icons and idols in the overall Empire. As a start, he got
the icon of Christ on the front gate of the imperial palace removed in 726. Despite all the opposition of public and imperial
circles, his orders were implemented. In some regions icons were removed, in some others they were broken or
demolished.

• This act created anger in the Roman Church, which irritated and resented by the iconoclasm. It declared that the
attack to icons was a relevant reason for excommunication. This was an indirect threat to the Byzantine Emperor
Leo III. Hence, the already exited tension between Eastern and Western churches climbed. This was the sign of
the great schism of 1054 between the churches. (Remember the deep conflict between two churches over the
exile of beloved Patriarch Chrysostom in the reign of Arcadius with his wife Eudoxia,).

• In 787, Iconoclasm policy was ended by Irini, who was mother of the child emperor Constantine VI.

[Leo III’s son Constantine V and Constantine V’s son Leo IV were iconoclasts. Leo IV’s son Constantine VI was a child when
he came to the throne, therefore his mother Irini ruled the empire as his deputy. She was the first woman who legally ruled
the Byzantine Empire]

• Iconoclasm was restored by Leo V in 813. It lasted until 842 and ended with the death of the last iconoclast
advocator emperor Theophilus, who struggled against the recurrent Arab attacks in his reign.

In order to understand civilization in Eastern part of the Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire, we need to understand the
relationship between the Eastern and Western Churches.
Great Schism of 1054: The Split between Eastern and Western Churches

• Byzantine Emperors rejected interference of Papa, highest religious leader of the Western Church, in iconoclastic
dispute in the 8th and 9th centuries.

• Pope of the Western Church, Rome, did not approve of the position of the church in the Eastern Roman Empire.
According to Pope, the head of the Eastern Church, patriarch of the main church in Constantinople, were under
the suppression of the Byzantine Emperors. This is a humiliating for the church, therefore for the Christianity.
According to western Church, Byzantine state should not control and interfere in ecclesiastical matters in Eastern
Church. Moreover, personal animosities between the Patriarch (Cerularius) and Pope (Leo) and in the early
11th century also played role in the growing hostility between the churches.

• Finally, their disagreements reached its peak in 1054, when a theological discussion arose about the type of the
bread Christ ate during his last supper. They were in disagreement with the type of the bread, and the private
lives of the bishops and priests ob the matter of marriage. Nevertheless, these seemed to be additional excuses to
make acute their differences, which developed over the centuries. The main reason behind the hostility rooted in
a power contest: in west, Pope, who was acting as the head of Christians of all kingdoms, gained power to
influence political decisions of the kings. However, in Byzantine, emperor was both the head of the state and
church, and appointed bishops. In other words, the office of patriarch was under the authority of the emperor.

The term pope originates from the Greek word pappas, which means father. The term patriarch is originated
from patriarhis/patri-arhis: father+head,chief, which can be translated as ancestor, father. Pope is the title of the head of
the central church of the disintegrated Western Roman Empire, as Roman Church, or Catholic Church; Catholic, in Latin
Catholicus, is originated from ancient Greek Katholu, kath + olu: about whole, in general]

• When the disagreements were at their height Pope and Patriarch mutually excommunicated each other in 1054.
Hence, the two churches were formally separated. In fact, this was the culmination of gradual alienation over
many centuries.

• This separation gave the Eastern Church authority and jurisdiction over the Christians in the Eastern Church,
which was called Orthodox Church.

• Orthodox means both right believing and right worshipping.

• Orthodox Church has been recognized as the true bearer of the living tradition of the true faith.

• It is characterized by the tradition of Apostolic Church, which adheres to the faith and practices defined by the
first seven Ecumenical councils.

[The time and place of the seven councils: 1. Nicae, 325; 2. İstanbul, 381; 3. Ephesus, 431; 4. Halkidona, 451; 5. İstanbul,
553; 6. İstanbul, 680/681; 7. Nicae, 787]

• Excommunication and mutual condemnation of 1054 lasted formally until 1965, when Pope made a gesture and
visited the Patriarch of Istanbul in order to nullify the condemnations of 1054.

The years following the 1054 Schism were full of social and political disorder for the Byzantium. The unexpected defeats
and invasions signaled the beginning of the long period of the Byzantine decline.

THE LONG DECLINE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, 11th-15th CENTURIES

1071 Manzikert Defeat:

• Their crushing defeat at the Manzikert in 1071 against Seljuk Turks led to political and social turmoil. The
Byzantine lost its domination in Anatolia. The Manzikert victory of the Seljuks paved way for the settlement of
nomad Turks in Anatolia or Asia Minor where they established Seljuk State.

[Manzikert/Malazgirt is a town near city of Muş in Turkey]

• Seljuks’ victory over the Byzantine deeply affected the world history for many people and states, the Byzantine,
the Arabs, and the west.

• This defeat undermined the Byzantine authority in middle and eastern Anatolia that Byzantine never could
recover.
The Sultanate of Rum or Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate

• By 1100, Seljuks seized most of the territory of the Byzantine in Anatolia and established their state as the
Sultanate of Rum or Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate, which was the continuation of the Great Seljuk Empire.

• This had an economic meaning for the Byzantine Empire: the Byzantine lost their main sources of tax revenue and
territories, which supplied most of the Empire’s food, including its capital.

• Seljuks Turks domination of Anatolia also meant the end of the political domination of Arabs in Near East.

• As a result of the Turkic people’s invasions in central Anatolia, some Byzantine Rums escaped to the shores of the
Aegean Sea, some remained in their homelands and became under the rule of Seljuks. Since Seljuks became the
ruler of the land of the Rums, their state was called Sultanate of Rum.

Crusades

• As for the Roman Church, the presence of Muslim Seljuks in the middle of the Anatolia on the Byzantine borders
was unacceptable, as it constituted a threat for Western World.

• With the initiation of Pope, a series of campaigns were organized by the cooperation of various Christian
kingdoms against Muslims in the Middle East. The announced purpose was to seize heartlands of the Islam, which
used to be holly place for Christianity, like Jerusalem.

• The knights of kingdoms in the West formed the papal forces and initiated in total 8 crusades between 11 th and
13th centuries. Of these, the most successful was the first crusade, between 1096 and 1099, was the most
successful one that they almost captured almost all the holy land and established Christian kingdoms, in Edessa,
Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem, massacring native peoples of the region. Until the end of the 12 th century, conflict
in the region continued and cities changed hands in between two powers.

THE LONG DECLINE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, 11th-15th CENTURIES

Latin Invasion of Constantinople, 1204-1261.

As for Byzantine Empire, the fourth crusade resulted in a shocking event in Constantinople: Latins attacked Constantinople
and established a short lasted Latin Kingdom in the capital city of the Byzantine Empire between 1204 and 1261. This event
led to solidification of Great Schism between two churches.

During this time, Byzantine dynasty and inhabitants of the city withdrew to Nicaea. Byzantine rule continued to exit in its
remaining territories after the loss of Constantinople to Crusaders and central Anatolian lands to Seljuks. As you see in the
map below, the Empire of Trebizond was established by Komnenos dynasty during the attacks of crusaders to
Constantinople in 1204. Alexios Komnenos took the advantage of crusaders’ siege of Constantinople and went to the
ancient Pontus kingdom region and declared Empire of Trebizond.

[Pontos means in ancient Greek Sea.Pontos Kingdom was founded in about 301-281 B.C by Mithritades who escaped from
Kios/Gemlik to Pontus region.]

• The knights and Latin rulers not powerful enough to keep it on the face of the insistent Byzantine struggle to
recapture their capital. Byzantine rule was restored in Constantinople by emperor Paleologous in 1261, until it fell
to the Ottomans in 1453.

• However, despite the victory of taking back Constantine and ending Latin rule, there was no political unity in the
Byzantine Empire. Empire had lost most of its territories by 1300, it ruled directly Balkans and Constantinople, and
dominated empire of Trebizond. In Anatolia various principalities were established. Nicaea/İzmir and Bursa was
captured by the Ottoman principality. This was a clear indication of the Byzantine weakness and signal of the
approaching Ottoman threat to the capital of the Byzantine.

THE LONG DECLINE OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE, 11th-15th CENTURIES

• 13th century was the period of turmoil in Anatolia. There were conflicting Anatolian tribes and Byzantine attempts
to recover its lands.

• The competing Anatolian principalities in Anatolia gradually gathered around the leader of Osman principality and
eventually recognizing his power came under its rule.
How did the leaders of Anatolian principalities recognize Osman Bey as their common leaders?

• There was a decisive victory of Osman Principality against the Byzantine Army in 1302 in Bapheus (Koyunhisar,
near Yalova). Forces of a principality under the command of Osman Bey won over the army of an Empire, Roman
Empire, commanded by Andronikos II. Osman’s dynasty’s victory against an imperial army attributed him a
charisma and made him to become leader in the region.

• Another decisive victory of the Ottomans against Byzantine was at Pelekanon/Eskihisar in 1329. Nicaea, meeting
place of the first council under the Constantine Great in 325, fell to the Ottomans. Following this, for a long period
of time, Ottomans put Bursa, Nicomedia/İznik and Smyrna/İzmir under siege.

• Ottomans gradually took over the Balkan territories of the Byzantine Empire by 1371. As a result, Byzantine
accepted to be tribute payer to the Ottomans, Murad I.

When Ottomans entered into the Balkans, Byzantine was in turmoil not only in terms of politics, but also in terms of social
and religious issues. The weakening of central authority and Byzantine civil wars (1341-1347, 1373) led to the strengthening
of land lords and their exploitation of peasants. Peasants, in addition to the tax they paid for their produces, they were also
forced to conduct some extra work, like providing wood and straw, working in personal duties of the land lord. Ottomans
emerged in the Balkans as a unifying factor through pursuing a protective policy over the Balkan peasants. Such a policy
indicated a kind of social revolution in the Balkans. Ottomans did not conquer the Balkans forcefully, but took over them.
The Byzantine Empire was stuck in a very limited area. See in the map below. It was very apparent that Istanbul was going
to fell down.

• 13th century was the period of turmoil in Anatolia. There were conflicting Anatolian tribes and Byzantine attempts
to recover its lands.

• The competing Anatolian principalities in Anatolia gradually gathered around the leader of Osman principality and
eventually recognizing his power came under its rule.

How did the leaders of Anatolian principalities recognize Osman Bey as their common leaders?

• There was a decisive victory of Osman Principality against the Byzantine Army in 1302 in Bapheus (Koyunhisar,
near Yalova). Forces of a principality under the command of Osman Bey won over the army of an Empire, Roman
Empire, commanded by Andronikos II. Osman’s dynasty’s victory against an imperial army attributed him a
charisma and made him to become leader in the region.

• Another decisive victory of the Ottomans against Byzantine was at Pelekanon/Eskihisar in 1329. Nicaea, meeting
place of the first council under the Constantine Great in 325, fell to the Ottomans. Following this, for a long period
of time, Ottomans put Bursa, Nicomedia/İznik and Smyrna/İzmir under siege.

• Ottomans gradually took over the Balkan territories of the Byzantine Empire by 1371. As a result, Byzantine
accepted to be tribute payer to the Ottomans, Murad I.

• When Ottomans entered into the Balkans, Byzantine was in turmoil not only in terms of politics, but also in terms
of social and religious issues. The weakening of central authority and Byzantine civil wars (1341-1347, 1373) led to
the strengthening of land lords and their exploitation of peasants. Peasants, in addition to the tax they paid for
their produces, they were also forced to conduct some extra work, like providing wood and straw, working in
personal duties of the land lord. Ottomans emerged in the Balkans as a unifying factor through pursuing a
protective policy over the Balkan peasants. Such a policy indicated a kind of social revolution in the Balkans.
Ottomans did not conquer the Balkans forcefully, but took over them. The Byzantine Empire was stuck in a very
limited area. See in the map below. It was very apparent that Istanbul was going to fell down.

The Byzantine Empire ended in 1453 when Constantinople fell to the armies of Mehmed II. After this victory, he had been
named as Sultan Mehmed the conqueror/Fatih Sultan Mehmed. The end of the Roman Empire or Orthodox Christian
Civilization in 1453 had various consequences not only for Muslim Ottomans and Orthodox Christian Romans, but also for
the Europeans. This will be discussed in the reading the second semester.

BYZANTINE SOCIETY, ART & CULTURE

Language
 • Greek had been the dominant language in the Eastern Roman Empire from the point it took over the eastern
territories which had Greek and Hellenistic traditions. Not Latin, Greek was the common language. In Justinian’s
reign Greek became the official language of the empire.

• During reign of Emperor Heraclius (r. 610-641), who only spoke Greek, the empire took a decisively Eastern, as
opposed to a Roman direction.

State

• Emperor was head of state and church; he appointed bishops. Women held considerable power over emperors.
Justinian’s wife Empress Theodora and Leo IV’s wife and mother of Constanine VI Irini, are the best examples to
this.

• Byzantine state developed highly centralized bureaucracy, which shifted administration from military to
bureaucrats.

• Bureaucracy was highly dominated by aristocrats, who supported Emperors. However, talent also played role for
the people from all social classes to achieve their aims.

• In order to control different populations of the empire, emperors used elaborate system of spies.

• Hellenized Egyptians and Syrians were accepted into imperial bureaucracy in the capital.

• Imperial state regulated trade and controlled food and its prices. State paid attention to meet the needs of the
people in urban area, especially in Constantinople. Therefore, it regulated food prices in accordance with the
people’s economic ability. However, it imposed heavy taxes over the peasants as it had to defense Constantinople
against attacks over centuries.

• The military structure of the Byzantine Empire depended on local forces or accepted conscripts from different
provinces regardless of ethnicity. Those who join to the army were given a piece of land. This land could not be
sold. Sons could inherit the right to use it.

Society

• Society and economy were heavily depended on the policies in Constantinople.

• Emperor ruled the society with the notion of order. In some first hands Byzantine sources the society was roughly
divided into three as army, clergy and farmers. It is also possible to find more detailed classification in a source
dated back to the 6th century: 1. The clergy; 2. The Judiciary; 3. Counsellors (Senators); 4. Those dealt with the
finances; 5. Professional and technical; 6 Commercial; 7. Those who supply raw materials; 8. Subordinates and
slaves; 9. The old, the infirm, and insane/;the useless; 10. Entertainers –charioteers, musicians, actors

• The main source of income was taxation and agriculture. In contrast to general belief, Byzantine system did not
entirely depend on large estates worked by the slaves. Slave labor was not much used in land. It was largely used
in domestic service. Most of the slaves lived in cities.

BYZANTINE SOCIETY, ART & CULTURE

Cities

• Cultural life was focused on traditions of Hellenism & Orthodox Christianity shaped the cultural life in the empire.

• A book dated back to the 6th century mentioned 935 cities, before Justinian’s conquests of North Africa and Italy.
After these conquests, the number of the cities reached to 1,500.

• Remember that in the ancient times the city/polis was not equivalent of town, it denoted a self-administering
unit. There was a difference between cities, for example, Alexandria and Ephesus. In the Byzantine, the city
denoted a town provided with a rural territory. The cities of the 6th century were originally ancient cities. The
number of the cities Christian emperors established was very small and the new founded ones did not turn out to
be important centers.

• Early Byzantine cities were quite small. After Constantinople and Alexandria, Antioch, which had only 650
hectares size within walls, was the third biggest city of the Eastern Empire. In Nicaea, the enclosed area was 1,450
meters.
 • Transition from polytheism to Christianity was slow in overall Empire. While many temples were closed at the end
of 4th and early 5th centuries, in many places they continued to function. Their transformation into churches was
not immediate; they were gradually transformed into churches. As Christianity established more in the society,
more churches were established.

• The city provided notions of civilized life with public baths, theatres, hippodrome, and taverns. Hippodrome was
the most popular place for the people to socialize and to express their political, economic, and social dislikes to
the emperors.

• Theatre plays were important component of life; they began at noon and lasted until evening. Philosophers,
rhetoricians used to give public lectures in cities. The theatre and hippodrome were disliked and criticized by the
ecclesiastical circles.

Education

• As the Christianity spread in overall Empire, a pattern of liberal education began, which preserved its
characteristics since the Hellenistic period. The education of boys was in there stages, elementary, secondary, and
higher. For most of the population, the education ended in the elementary level. They learned very basic stuff at
this level, alphabet, reading, and counting. On the secondary stage, they read classical authors, mostly poets, and
certainly Homer. Higher education was available only in cities. Rhetoric was the standard pattern in the higher
education. However, students also had opportunity to study philosophy, which included the meaning what we
understand by science, medicine. Philosophy flourished in Athens and Alexandria; Medicine in Alexandria and
Pergamum and elsewhere; law in Beirut. The higher learning in the ancient world was not equivalent of university
in our sense. Although the school of Alexandria and Constantinople came closest to our concept of university, the
subjects taught were very limited.

Art & architecture

Byzantine Art became to denote Early Christian art. Art of the Eastern Roman Empire adapted to the needs of Christianity.
Therefore, not only church buildings, but also Christian iconography became a branch of art. The artistic achievements were
Christian in terms of content. Mosaic decorations of great churches indicate great achievement.

In architecture, it adopted Roman domed buildings, colorful religious mosaics & icon paintings.

WESTERN EUROPE; EARLY MIDDLE AGE, 6th-12th centuries

Key words: Church, Carolingian dynasty, trade, feudalism, banking, university, guilds

In the years following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Germanic invasions and settlement of the Germanic
tribes did not destroy Roman culture. Except in Britain and Gaul, Roman law, traditions of Roman government, Roman or
Latin culture and Roman culture coexisted with the new institutions that Germanic tribes founded.

In order to better understand the characteristics of Europe and the rise of western civilization, which is one of the subjects
of the second semester, it is useful here to review the problems of Western Europe from 500 to 900:

• Rome’s decline itself was the major problem in the region. Italy, from which the Roman Republic arose, was
fragmented, its cities & commerce deteriorated, its intellectual life ruined.

• In the absence of a powerful state authority in Western Europe, Church, as the center of Catholic world & the sole
organized powerful institution in the West, was divided as Western and Eastern Church in after 1054 Catholic
Church. (Reading in week 13).

• Emergence of Islam in the 7th century and Arab conquests and Arabs’ economic strength through their extensive
commercial networks in eastern Mediterranean constituted a serious threat to Western Europe in terms
economic, political and social domination. Muslim dominance reached to Spain throughout Middle Ages.

Arab invasions and presence in eastern Mediterranean in the early Middle Ages contributed directly and indirectly to the
formation of western Europe:

Indirectly, it made to drive back western Europeans into their native tribal regions. Living in their original places, they
inherited Judeo-Christian, Greco-Roman and Byzantine sources to form the Western culture.
 There was a direct effect of the Arab expansion for the formation of Western Europe: Arab raids diverted energies and
attention of the Byzantine Empire to protect its eastern borders so that Byzantine emperors could not attempt to re-
conquer the Western part of the Roman Empire with the intention of unity. In other words, Arabs prevented the Byzantines
from expanding and re-conquering western Empire. This allowed the Germanic peoples to gain supremacy in Western
Europe.

• As a result of the invasions and struggles to protect the borders of the Empire, the Roman Empire had little more
than subsistence economy.

• During this process, intellectual activity seriously diminished. Literate people mostly lived in the monasteries of
the Catholic Church and dealt with copying older manuscripts from Roman time. There was no any new
intellectual production.

Major actors in Western Europe in the early Middle Ages:

1. The church as the center of political & spiritual power

Church was the only example of solid institution after the Western Roman Empire's collapse in the 5th century.

• The Church copied the working of the government of the Roman Empire to administer Christendom: Bishops,
appointed by the central church, administrated regional churches and in return they owed alliance to the church's
central authority. These bishops had right to appoint local priests. However, although the pope had right to
appoint bishops, local lords interfered and claimed this right. This shows the political contest between religious
and civil local power.

• The main responsibility of the church headed by Pope was to regulate the doctrine of Christianity and to prevent
heresies, which threaten the unity of Christendom. (Remember the contest between western and eastern church
during the iconoclasm movement in the eastern Empire before the division of churches. (Reading in week 13).

• Western Church, which had been called as Catholic Church after the division of the churches in 1054, sponsored
extensive missionary activity in order to prevent conversion to Orthodox Christianity (eastern Christianity) and
spread Christianity to Germany and Scandinavia.

• Western Church developed an important chain of monasteries after the fall of the Roman Empire. The spiritual
focus they made in the monastery life constituted the essence of the medieval society. Monasteries also served as
institutions that provided education.

2. Carolingian Family: A Frank dynasty that attempted to restore the western Roman Empire.

• The Frank Carolingian dynasty took over Frank monarchy in the 8th century and dominated in northern France,
Belgium, western Germany.

• A member of Carolingian family, Charles Martel managed to defeat Muslims in 732 (the battle of Tours), who
attempted to enter Frank domains. This led the Arab Muslims to withdraw and remain in the borders of
Spain. [Remember the Byzantine defeats of Arabs in 717-718 C.E., during the second serious Arab siege of
Constantinople. (Reading in week 13). When we consider these two crucial military victories of the western and
eastern Roman Empire, it can be thought that Europe became the land of Christianity in the 8th century through
not letting Arab Muslims in to Europe]

• By the 9th century, a Carolingian ruler, Charlemagne, succeeded in establishing a powerful empire in the lands of
France & Germany. The rule of this vast area by the Carolingian dynasty led to the hope of revival of Roman
Empire in the West.

• After the death of Charlemagne in 814, the land he conquered was partitioned by his sons into four as:

Modern France

Germany

Low Countries

Switzerland & northern Italy

• This division led to rise of regional monarchies in Europe; politically separate regional monarchies were united
culturally by the spirit of Christianity.
 • Despite the problems it experienced after the fall of the Roman Empire, Western European society began to
experience economic and urban dynamism at the beginning of the 10th century. You will read in detail in the
beginning chapter of the second semester about the middle Ages in Europe. Therefore, it is suffice here to make a
brief introduction to the developments, which can be regarded as the dynamics, in Europe, in the early middle
Ages.

1. Revival of Trade & Agriculture

• New agricultural techniques developed so that commercial agriculture came up. This led to spread of commercial
network throughout western Europe. Hence, a common commercial zone occurred for western Europeans.

• The growth in the population between 10th and 13th centuries also contributed to the revival of trade and
agriculture. Population growth signaled economic vitality in the middle ages.

2. Feudalism

The social, economic and political structure known as feudalism began to develop in Europe in the 6th century and
reached to its most developed form in the 12th and 13th centuries in France. Feudalism is a label applied also other parts of
Europe –and Japan– where feudal characteristics are found. Feudal characteristics:

• Presence of land lords/land notables, aristocrats and their vassals –subordinate, dependant lords.

• Pattern of land holding based on granting fiefs in return for military service

• Existence of private armies; land lords had their own private armies

• Existence of serf as agricultural workers. They had protection from the landlord to some extent; they were
obliged to give certain portions of their production to the land lord and they had to work the land, they had no
right to leave the land. Although serfs could not be bought or sold like in modern term slaves, their lives were
under strict control of land lord.

• Presence of strong political power of local land lords, which was in contest with the authority of the king

Link Britannica, feudalism

3. Growth of Banking

• Italians, who were conducting extensive commercial activity through sea trading in the early Middle Ages,
introduced Europe with banking activity. This enlarged the extent of the trade and long distance exchange of
money and products.

4. Revival of Mediterranean Trade

• However, in this exchange eastern products were more valuable; European cloth and products were exchanged
for more luxurious good of the East; like spices, sugar, coffee, jewelry, and perfume. It is important to note that
Asian spices were not in demand only because of their taste; they were also useful for preserving perishable food
and making medicine.

5. Development of Trade within Europe

The governments of the regional monarchies/western kingdoms were weak. This provided merchants freer hand to
conduct commercial activity. Remember that state as an institution was not powerful in the early Middle Ages, unlike the
Church. The benefits of weak governments led to:

• When the governments did not interfere in economic activity, merchants had opportunity to make their own
commercial laws.

• Commercial leagues were established and commercial activity was administrated by these leagues. The pioneer
was the Hanseatic League, which was formed in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia.
 • These brought about the rise of a new merchant class in Europe. Merchants, non-aristocrat people, gained
strength in the commercial leagues. This strength of the merchants as non-aristocrat members of the western
society was unusual development.

• All the above mentioned developments in the economic sphere in Europe signaled the very beginnings of
capitalism in the Western Civilization.

6. Guild System

• Although the genesis of capitalism was taking place in Europe, most of the peasants and land notables did not
take place in the new emerging market system.

• The traditional economic activity focused on group protection more than individual profit making. Therefore, the
guilds of artisans sought for security and control of the extent of the productions, in order to prevent excessive
produce. In order to ensure their demands, they also made an ethical argument: according to them it was
important to protect good quality of the production, more production for more individual profit would mean low
quality products, which was not ethical.

7. Emergence of Universities

• Cathedral education evolved into university education by the 12th century. By this century, western scholars
became acquainted with the works of Greek philosophers and Arab mathematicians. Arab scholars not only
translated the works of Greek philosophers, but also wrote comments about them, these commentary works
were translated into Latin and influenced western scholars and student. This led to a vibrant intellectual
environment that in a short period of time cathedral education evolved into university education initially in Italy,
France, and England. First universities were founded in Italy, University of Bologna in 1158; in France, University
of Paris around 1150-1160, and in England, University of Oxford in 1167. The first universities gave specialized
training of theology along with other faculties.