Pre-modern Europe Exam 1
Hesiod
A Greek poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded as the first written poet in the Western tradition to regard himself as an individual persona with an active role to play in his subject. Ancient authors credited Hesiod and Homer with establishing Greek religious customs. He wrote the Theogony and Works and Days
Philo of Alexandria
A Hellenistic Jewish philosopher who lived in Alexandria, in the Roman province of Egypt. Philo used philosophical allegory to harmonize Jewish scripture, mainly the Torah, with Greek philosophy.
Antiochus IV
A Hellenistic king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. Notable events during the reign of Antiochus IV include his near-conquest of Egypt, his persecution of the Jews of Judea and Samaria, and the rebellion of the Jewish Maccabees.
Consul
A consul held the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic, and ancient Romans considered the consulship the highest level of the cursus honorum. Each year, the citizens of Rome elected two consuls to serve jointly for a one-year term.
Maccabees
A group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 167 BCE to 37 BCE, being a fully independent kingdom from about 110 to 63 BCE. They reasserted the Jewish religion, partly by forced conversion, expanded the boundaries of Judea by conquest and reduced the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.
Latifundia
A large landed estate or ranch in ancient Rome, typically worked by slaves.
Skepticism
A philosophical school of thought that questions the possibility of certainty in knowledge.
Proconsul
A proconsul was an official of ancient Rome who acted on behalf of a consul. A proconsul was typically a former consul. The term is also used in recent history for officials with delegated authority. In the Roman Republic, military command, or imperium, could be exercised constitutionally only by a consul.
Alexander the Great's Territorial Achievements
Alexander the Great invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted 10 years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of decisive battles, most notably the battles of Issus and Gaugamela. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety. At that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Beas River. Alexander invaded India in 326 BC, winning an important victory over the Pauravas at the Battle of the Hydaspes. He eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops, dying in Babylon in 323 BC
Solon
An Athenian statesman, lawmaker and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. His reforms failed in the short-term, yet he is often credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian democracy
Cleisthenes
An ancient Athenian lawgiver credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in 508 BC. For these accomplishments, historians refer to him as "the father of Athenian democracy.
Stoicism
An ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
Augustus Caesar
Augustus was a Roman statesman and military leader who became the first emperor of the Roman Empire, reigning from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. His status as the founder of the Roman Principate has consolidated an enduring legacy as one of the most effective and controversial leaders in human history.
Hoplite
Citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states who were primarily armed with spears and shields. Hoplite soldiers utilized the phalanx formation. The hoplites were primarily represented by free citizens—propertied farmers and artisans. Hoplites were not professional soldiers and often lacked sufficient military training. These existed at times in Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Syracuse, among others. Hoplite soldiers made up the bulk of ancient Greek armies.
Publicani
Collectors of taxes.
Aristotle: Empiricism
Empiricists say that knowledge comes from experience. In this sense Aristotle is definitely an empiricist. He says explicitly in a number of places "all knowledge begins with the senses."
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest, sustainable "pleasure" in the form of a state of tranquility and freedom from fear and absence of bodily pain through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of our desires. The combination of these two states constitutes happiness in its highest form.
Cynicism
For the Cynics, the purpose of life is to live in virtue, in agreement with nature. As reasoning creatures, people can gain happiness by rigorous training and by living in a way which is natural for themselves, rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, sex, and fame. Instead, they were to lead a simple life free from all possessions.
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar, better known by his nomen gentilicium and cognomen Julius Caesar, was a Roman dictator, politician, and military general who played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, usually rendered in English as Pompey the Great or simply Pompey, was a leading Roman general and statesman, whose career was significant in Rome's transformation from a republic to empire. He was for a time a political ally and later enemy of Julius Caesar.
Athenian Empire
In the years after 460, the Delian League became the Athenian Empire.
Sulla
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, known commonly as Sulla, was a Roman general and statesman and one of the canonical figures of Roman history. He had the distinction of holding the office of consul twice, as well as reviving the dictatorship.
Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire.
Patrician
Patricians are members of a group of citizen families who, in contrast with the plebeian class, formed a privileged class in early Rome. The origin of the class remains obscure, but the patricians were probably leaders of the more important families or clans who formed the major part, if not all, of the Senate of the primitive period, as well as the families from whom were drawn the most distinguished part of the early cavalry. They constituted an early nobility of birth.
Platonic idealism
Platonic idealism usually refers to Plato's theory of forms or doctrine of ideas. It holds that only ideas encapsulate the true and essential nature of things, in a way that the physical form cannot. We recognise a tree, for instance, even though its physical form may be most untree-like.
Plebeian
Plebeian, plural Plebes, member of the general citizenry in ancient Rome as opposed to the privileged patrician class. The distinction was probably originally based on the wealth and influence of certain families who organized themselves into patrician clans under the early republic, during the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Plebeians were originally excluded from the Senate and from all public offices except that of military tribune.
Mystery Cults
Religious schools of the Greco-Roman world for which participation was reserved to initiates. The main characterization of this religion is the secrecy associated with the particulars of the initiation and the ritual practice, which may not be revealed to outsiders.
Battle of Marathon
The Battle of Marathon took place in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. It was fought between the citizens of Athens, aided by Plataea, and a Persian force. The battle was the culmination of the first attempt by Persia, under King Darius I, to subjugate Greece. The Greek army decisively defeated the more numerous Persians, marking a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars.
Centuriate Assembly
The Centuriate Assembly was originally the democratic assembly of the Roman soldiers. The Centuriate Assembly organized the Roman citizens into classes and divided into units called "Centuries", and these gathered into the Centuriate Assembly for legislative, electoral, and judicial purposes.
Plebeian Council
The Concilium Plebis was the principal assembly of the ancient Roman Republic. It functioned as a legislative assembly, through which the plebeians could pass laws, elect magistrates, and try judicial cases.
Delian League
The Delian League was an alliance of Greek city-states led by Athens and formed in 478 BCE to liberate eastern Greek cities from Persian rule and as a defence to possible revenge attacks from Persia following the Greek victories at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea in the early 5th century BCE.
The Gracchus Brothers
The Gracchi, Tiberius Gracchus, and Gaius Gracchus, were Roman brothers who tried to reform Rome's social and political structure to help the lower classes in the 2nd century BCE. The brothers were politicians who represented the plebs, or commoners, in the Roman government.
The Punic Wars
The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between Rome and Carthage from 264 BC to 146 BC.
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate was a political institution in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome.
Theogony
The Theogony concerns the origins of the world and of the gods, beginning with Chaos, Gaia, Tartarus and Eros
Syncretism
The amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought.
Five Good Emperors
The ancient Roman imperial succession of Nerva (reigned 96-98 ce), Trajan (98-117), Hadrian (117-138), Antoninus Pius (138-161), and Marcus Aurelius (161-180), who presided over the most majestic days of the Roman Empire.
Delphi
The ancient sanctuary that grew rich as the seat of Pythia, the oracle who was consulted about important decisions throughout the ancient classical world. The ancient Greeks considered the center of the world to be in Delphi, marked by the stone monument known as the omphalos (navel).
Xerxes I
The fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid dynasty of Persia. Like his father and predecessor Darius I, he ruled the empire at its territorial apex. Xerxes I is notable in Western history for his failed invasion of Greece in 480 BC. His forces temporarily overran mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth until losses at Salamis and Plataea a year later reversed these gains and ended the second invasion decisively.
Zeus
The god of the sky, lightning and the thunder in Ancient Greek religion and legends, and ruler of all the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the sixth child of Kronos and Rhea, king and queen of the Titans.
Paterfamilias
The paterfamilias was the head of a Roman family. The paterfamilias was the oldest living male in a household, and exercised autocratic authority over his extended family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate".
Darius I
The third Persian King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his death in 486 BCE. A major event in Darius's life was his expedition to punish Athens and Eretria for their aid in the Ionian Revolt and subjugate Greece. Although ultimately ending in failure at the Battle of Marathon, Darius succeeded in the re-subjugation of Thrace, expansion of the empire through the conquest of Macedon, the Cyclades and the island of Naxos and the sacking of the city of Eretria.
Tribunes
Tribune was a title of various offices in ancient Rome, the two most important of which were the tribuni plebis and tribuni militum.
Principate
the rule of the early Roman emperors, during which some features of republican government were retained.