Midterm 1 Study Guide

arete

Manliness, courage, and the excellence appropriate to a hero. It was considered the highest virtue of Homeric society.

Plato

believed in a set of ideal truths that exist in their own realm distinct from the earth; believed in justice meaning that each person should do only that one thing to which his or her nature is best suited; concern for the redemption of the polis was at the heart of his system of philosophy. He began by asking the traditional questions: What is a good man, and how is he made?

Phillip II of Macedonia

came to power in 359; built a powerful army and turned Macedonia into the chief power of the Greek World; conquered the Greek states which brought an end to the polis; father of Alexander the Great; he century and a half between the Persian retreat and the conquest of Greece by this leader produced achievements of such quality as to justify the designation of that era as the Classical Period; although still under thirty, took advantage of his appointment as regent to overthrow his infant nephew and make himself king; formed the Federal League of Corinth;

Aristocratic values

emphasize competition and the need to excel, whatever the arena particularly in sport contests

Iliad and Odyssey

epic poems of Homer; tradition of oral poetry whose roots extend into the Mycenaean Age.

Troy

town that was sacked by the Myceanaeans on the coast of northwestern Asia Minor, giving rise to the epic poems of Homer—the Iliad and the Odyssey

Pelloponesian War

War between Athenians and Sparta in which Athens surrendered

Menes

__________________________ was a king who united the kingdoms of lower and upper Egypt and created FIRST Egyptian dynasty.

Homeric society

the chief values of the aristocrats of this world were to vie for individual supremacy in arete and to defend and increase the honor of the family.

Mount Olympus

the highest mountain in Greece, where the ancient Greeks believed many of their gods and godesses lived

Battle of Thermopylae

(480 B.C.E.) Battle in which Spartan king Leonidas and his army of 300 Spartans and other Greeks refused to surrender to the numerically superior Persian army at the pass of Thermopylae resulting in their destruction but did allow the other Greek forces to prepare for the Persian invasion.

Battle of Marathon

(490 B.C.E.) Battle where the Persians who invaded Greece were defeated by an Athenian army.

Cuneiform

"wedge-shaped," a system of writing developed by the Sumerians using a reed stylus to create wedge-shaped impressions on a clay tablet; used by Bablyonnians later on

Mummification

A process that took 70 days by the New Kingdom of embalming and drying corpses to prevent them from decaying since Egyptians believed the preservation of the body was essential for continued existence in the afterlife

Ziggerat

A pyramid shaped structure that formed part of a Sumerian temple in step like form that were often compares to mountains, with their peaks in the sky and their roots in the netherworld, linking heaven to earth, but their precise purpose is not known

Tigris-Euphrates River Valley

Also called Mesopotamia; this fertile region between the two rivers was the site of ancient civilizations in the Middle East; often called the "cradle" of Middle East civilization; By about 3000 b.c.e., when the invention of writing gave birth to history, urban life and the organization of society into centralized states were well established in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Mesopotamia and of the Nile River in Egypt.

Socrates

Although as a young man he was interested in speculations about the physical world, _________________________ later turned to the investigation of ethics and morality and brought philosophy down from the heavens to focus on human affairs that he believed reason could discover.

Epic of Gilgamesh

An epic poem from Mesopotamia, and among the earliest known works of literary writing that had a flood story

Solon

Athenian reformer of the 6th century, ________________________ established laws that eased the burden of debt on farmers, helped bring make many Athenian's enslaved abroad, forbade enslavement for debt, attacked the agrarian problem by canceling current debts and forbidding future loans secured by the person of the borrower; encouraging industry by offering citizenship to foreign artisans, and changed the constitution. to allow immigrants who were tradesmen and merchants to become citizens.

Aristotle

Believed without law and justice, human beings are the worst and most dangerous of the animals. He was a pupil of Plato's who founded his own school, the Lyceum; he began with observation of the empirical evidence, which in some cases was physical and in others was common opinion. To this body of information, he applied reason and discovered inconsistencies or difficulties. To deal with these, he introduced metaphysical principles to explain the problems or to reconcile the inconsistencies; his most striking characteristics are his moderation and his common sense. His epistemology finds room for both reason and experience; his metaphysics gives meaning and reality to both mind and body; his ethics aims at the good life, which is the contemplative life, but recognizes the necessity for moderate wealth, comfort, and pleasure.

Alexander the Great

Between 334 and 323 B.C.E. he conquered the Persian Empire, reached the Indus Valley, founded many Greek-style cities, and spread Greek culture across the Middle East; his rule marked a significant turning point in Greek thought as it was represented in literature, philosophy, religion, and art. His conquests and the establishment of the successor kingdoms put an end to the central role of the polis in Greek life and thought.

The Book of the Dead

Book of spells of magic that the Egyptians used to overcome the dangers in the afterlife; n the scene from a papyrus manuscript of this book, the deceased and his wife watch the scales of justice weighing his heart against the feather of truth.

Sparta

Greek city-state that was ruled by an oligarchy, focused on military, used slaves for agriculture, discouraged the arts; and had a board of ephors who controlled foreign policy, oversaw the generalship of the kings on campaign, presided at the assembly, and guarded against rebellions by the Helots.

Helots

Hereditary Spartan serfs. The turning point in Spartan history came about 650 b.c.e., when, in the Second Messenian War, this group rebelled with the help of Argos and other Peloponnesian cities.

Library of Alexandria

Housed the greatest collection of writings in the ancient world, founded in the third century b.c. at the behest of Alexander the Great that could be considered the first university.

Nile River

In Egypt, however, this river flooded at the right moment for cultivation, so irrigation was simply a matter of directing the water to the fields; alone made agriculture possible in Egypt's desert environment served as the major highway connecting Upper and Lower Egypt

Women in Homeric Greece

In the world described by Homer, ____________________ were a) chiefly to bear and raise children, but the wives of the heroes also had a respected position, b) presiding over the household, C) overseeing the servants, and D) safeguarding the family property.

Solon

In the year 594 b.c.e., as tradition has it, the Athenians elected __________________________ as the only archon, with extraordinary powers to legislate and revise the constitution. Immediately, he attacked the agrarian problem by canceling current debts and forbidding future loans secured by the person of the borrower; encouraged industry by offering citizenship to foreign artisans, and the development of the outstanding Attic pottery of the sixth century reflects his success; changed the constitution. to allow immigrants who were tradesmen and merchants to become citizens.

Persian Empire

Mesopotamian empire that conquered the existing Median, Lydian, and Babylonian empires, as well as Egypt and many others.

athletic contests

One of the prime forms of entertainment that WERE central to life in ancient Greece.

Cynics

Philosophy groups which believed in all pleasures of life where evil and should be scorned

polis

The Greeks looked to the ________________ for peace, order, prosperity, and honor in their lifetime and counted on it to preserve their memory and to honor their descendants after death. A burst of colonizing activity placed it from Spain to the Black Sea.

Classical Period

The century and a half between the Persian retreat and the conquest of Greece by Philip of Macedon (479-338 b.c.e.) produced achievements of such quality as to justify the designation of that era as them ___________________________.

trade

The fall of the advanced Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, however, virtually ended __________ with the old civilizations of the Near East and with different parts of Greece.

Neolithic Revolution

The switch from nomadic lifestyles to a settled agricultural lifestyle which represented changes in subsistence, settlement, technology, and population

civilization

These attributes—urbanism; technological, industrial, and social change; long-distance trade; and new methods of symbolic communication—are defining characteristics of the form of human culture called __________________________________.

Tutankhamun

To date, only one intact royal tomb has been discovered for this young Dynasty 18 king, named ______________________ with thousands of goods buried with him, although his tomb had been disturbed shortly after his death.

Amun

__________________________ is one of the eight entities in the Egyptian Hermopolitan cosmogony who in the New Kingdom, was elevated above his seven cohorts and took on aspects of the sun god Re.

Israelite

_____________ maintained a small, independent kingdom in the region between Egypt and Syria for several centuries and had a kingdom that ultimately fell to the Assyrians and later remained subject to other conquerors (Babylons).

Hoplite Phalanx

_______________ was the basic unit of Greek warfare in which infantrymen fought in close order, shield to shield, usually eight ranks deep.

Sargon of Akkad

_______________ was the ruler who first conquered the Sumerian city-states and established the first empire in Mesopotamia

Arete

__________________ was the highest virtue in Homeric society that meant manliness, courage in the most general sense, and the excellence proper to a hero.

Sumer

__________________ was the location of the oldest Mesopotamian cities; The fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur put an end to Sumerian rule, and the Sumerians gradually disappeared as an identifiable group.

Acropolis

__________________ was the religious and civic center of Athens that includes the Parthenon where most of the tragedies were performed in the theater of Dionysus on the south side of the Acropolis, and as many as 30,000 Athenians could attend

Minoan

___________________ was a Bronze Age civilization of seafaring people who depended on trade and economic relations on the island of Crete, on the islands of the Aegean, and on the mainland of Greece. and who were advanced, valued women, and were inherently more tranquil and pacific than others.

Phoenicians

___________________ were descendants of the Canaanites and other peoples of Syria-Palestine who sitting astride the trade routes had cities such as Carthage that were important sites for the transmission of culture from east to west.

hieroglyphics

____________________ was a writing system that was highly sophisticated, involving hundreds of picture signs many of them forming a syllabary of one, two, or three consonantal sounds and some conveying a word's meaning or category, either independently or added to the end of the word.

Code of Hammurabi

____________________ was the most famous legal document in antiquity that permitted the death penalty for anyone who sheltered or helped a runaway slave to escape.

Polis / Poleis

_____________________ was a community of citizens, who were theoretically descended from a common ancestor, belonged to subgroups, such as fighting brotherhoods or phratries, clans, and tribes, and worshipped the gods in common ceremonies.

Homer

_____________________ wrote epic poems such as the Iliad and the Odyssey whose roots extend into the Mycenaean Age -Iliad and the Odyssey.

Herodotus

______________________ was a Greek historian, who was considered the father of history and who accepted the evidence of legends and oracles, and who often explained human events in terms of divine intervention.

Mycenaean civilization

______________________ was a group of people who settled on the Greek mainland around 2000 B.C.; who invaded many surrounding kingdoms; expanded their presence through force and coercion

Nebukadrezzar

______________________ was the last independent king of Babylon who grew Babylon into one to greatest cities of the world and who set up a second capital in the Arabian desert and tried to force the Babylonians to honor the Moon-god above all other gods.

Law Code of Hammurabi

______________________ was the most complete collection of Babylonian laws that contains 282 case laws dealing with economics (prices, tariffs, trade, and commerce), family law (marriage and divorce), criminal law (assault, theft), and civil law (slavery, debt).

Dorians

_______________________ were legendary rude people from the north who spoke a Greek dialect different from that of the Mycenaean peoples and who according to the legend, joined with one of the Greek tribes, the Heraclidae, in an attack on the southern Greek peninsula of Peloponnesus, which was repulsed.

Oracle of Delphi

________________________ was an influential oracle that was used to persuade Sparta to attack the Athenian tyranny and that helped satisfy the human craving for a clue to the future.

Clisthenes

________________________ was considered the founder of democracy whose reforms were to diminish the influence of traditional localities, regions and the aristocracy in Athenian life and who made the deme, the equivalent of a small town in the country or a ward in the city, the basic unit of civic life thereby elevating the role of the assembly.

Hoplite phalanx

________________________ was the basic unit of Greek warfare in which infantrymen fought in close order, shield to shield, usually eight ranks deep and which was the backbone of the polis.

Xerxes

_________________________ was a Persian king who was successor to Darius who in 481 b.c.e., gathered an army of at least 150,000 men and a navy of more than six hundred ships to conquer Greece.

Tyrant

____________________________ made important contributions to the development of Greek civilization by a) breaking the grip of the aristocracy and put the productive powers of the most active and talented of its citizens fully at the service of the polis, b0 encouraging economic changes that helped secure the future prosperity of Greece, c/ increasing communication with the rest of the Mediterranean world and d) cultivated crafts and technology, as well as arts and literature.

Pericles

_____________________________ a persuasive speaker, a skillful politician, a respected military leader, an acknowledged patriot, and patently incorruptible Athenian leader who introduced a bill limiting citizenship to those who had two citizen parents.

Socrates

_______________________________ convicted and put to death for not honor the state's gods but rather introduced new divinities.

Pericles

_______________________________ was an Athenian leader noted for advancing democracy in Athens and for ordering the construction of the Parthenon.

Hammurabi

________________________________ was a great Babylonian Empire ruler who built on older Mesopotamian laws by compiling one of the great ancient code that upheld the individual rights of landholders against powerful officials who tried to take their land from them

Homeric society

_____________________________________was sharply divided into classes, the most important division being the one between nobles and three other classes: thetes, landless laborers, and slaves.

Cynics

a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.

Peloponnesian League

an alliance from the 6th to the 4th centuries BC, dominated by Sparta created and led by Sparta and included Corinth, Kythira, Melos, Pylos, Mantinea, Elis, Epidaurus, Boeotia, Lefkada and Ambracia. When the Spartans defeated Tegea, their northern neighbor, they imposed an unusual peace. Instead of taking away land and subjugating the defeated state, Sparta left the Tegeans their land and their freedom. In exchange, they required the Tegeans to follow the Spartan lead in foreign affairs and to supply a fixed number of soldiers to Sparta on demand.

Delian League

an alliance headed by Athens that says that all Greek city-states will come together and help fight the Persians

Thucydides

ancient Greek historian remembered for his history of the Peloponnesian War (460-395 BC); he took great pains to achieve factual accuracy and tried to use his evidence to discover meaningful patterns of human behavior. He believed human nature was essentially unchanging, so a wise person equipped with the understanding history provided might accurately foresee events and thus help to guide them. He believed, however, that only a few had the ability to understand history and to put its lessons to good use

Sophists

itinerant teachers who traveled from city-state to city-state in classical Greece, training people in public speaking, government, mathematics, ethics, and rhetoric

Indo-Europeans

large language family native to western Eurasia that comprises most of the languages of Europe together with those of the northern Indian Subcontinent and the Iranian Plateau.

irrigation

large-scale ___________ appeared only long AFTER urban civilization had already developed, so major waterworks were a consequence of urbanism, not a cause of it

Hellenistic Period

period of three centuries during which Greek culture spread far from its homeland to Egypt and deep into Asia that was larger than the world of Classical Greece, and its major political units were much larger than the city-states, though these persisted in different forms.

Mesopotamia

place of the first civilization

polis

the Greek city-state that came into being during the 8th bce and thereafter dominated the cultural development of the Greek people.

Bronze Age

the period 3100 to 1200 b.c.e. in the Near East and eastern Mediterranean; time period when civilization was emerging and man discovered how to combine tin and copper to make a stronger and more useful material—bronze.

Iron Age

the period period after 1100 b.c.e. following the Bronze Age; characterized by rapid spread of iron tools and weapons

Urban centers (cities)

usually had monumental buildings, such as temples and fortifications. These were vastly larger than individual houses and could be built only by the sustained effort of hundreds and even thousands of people over many years. Elaborate representational artwork appeared, sometimes made of rare and imported materials. New technologies, such as smelting and the manufacture of metal tools and weapons, were characteristic of urban life. Commodities, like pottery and textiles that had been made in individual houses in villages, were mass produced in cities, which also were characterized by social stratification—that is, the grouping of people into classes based on factors such as control of resources, family, religious or political authority, and personal wealth. The earliest writing is also associated with the growth of cities.

Culture

ways of living built up by a group and passed on from one generation to another. It includes behavior such as courtship or child-rearing practices; material things such as tools, clothing, and shelter; and ideas, institutions, and beliefs. Language, apparently a uniquely human trait, lies behind our ability to create ideas and institutions and to transmit culture from one generation to another. Our flexible and dexterous hands enable us to hold and make tools and so to create the material artifacts of culture. Because culture is learned and not inherited, it permits rapid adaptation to changing conditions, making possible the spread of humanity to almost all the lands of the globe.

Greek pantheon of gods

were seen as behaving much like mortals, with all the foibles of humans, except they were superhuman in these as well as in their strength and immortality