History Midterm 1- Jack Kaczorowski

Historians refer to the period from around 500 to around 400 B.C.E. as the Golden Age of Greece. Why was that period so-called?

The Greeks put forward innovations in architecture, sculpture, drama, and philosophy.

Following the collapse of the Hittite kingdom in Anatolia (1000 B.C.E.), which new regional power arose to fill the power vacuum?

The Neo-Assyrian Empire

The struggles of Penelope to protect her household are recounted in which Greek epic?

The Odyssey

Greek warships propelled by 170 rowers on three levels and equipped with a battering ram at the bow were known as...

Triremes

Why did the Peloponnesian War produce significant tensions in Athenian society?

The flood of refugees from the countryside led to overcrowding, producing social conflicts.

Why was the notion of citizenship such a radical innovation in ancient Greece?

The ancient world was otherwise characterized by monarchies and legal inequality

The concept of divine justice that helped establish the Greek polis is illustrated in which of Hesiod's epic poems?

Which were derived from the creation myths of the Near East

Who were the Sophists?

Traveling teachers who-for a fee-taught philosophy and rhetoric

What did the Athenians do that so enraged the Persian king Darius I?

The Athenians aided the Greek Ionian city-states in their uprising against their Persian overlords.

What does "the Socratic method" refer to?

A manner of teaching that features relentless questioning

Which of the following characterized the political state of the Greek world by the 350s B.C.E.?

A power vacuum in which no one city-state was capable of dominating the others

What was the ideal life to an Epicurean,?

A quiet life surrounded by friends and away from the public sphere

What precipitated the collapse of the Neo-Assyrian Empire?

A seventh-century BCE rebellion and a subsequent invasion by the Medes and Chaldeans

What was the term Helot used to designate in the Spartan society?

A slave in Sparta who was of Greek origin

What did the so-called King's Peace (386 B.C.E.) represent?

A treaty between Persians and the Spartans to look the other way when Persia invades Ionia in exchange for help in the Corinthian War.

Who was Aristotle's most famous pupil?

Alexander the Great

How can the Spartan governmental structure be best described

An oligarchy, consisting of a council of 28 elders; five annually elected magistrates, or ephors; and two hereditary military and religious leaders, referred to as kings but sharing a status similar to that of the other members of the oligarchy

Aristotle is renowned as the first scientist to attempt to collect and classify all available information on which of the following?

Animal species

Which of the following best describes the condition of the poorer local populations in Hellenistic kingdoms?

As many as 80% of adults still worked in subsistence agriculture on land they did not own

Which Greek city-state is renowned for having established the first democracy ("rule by the people") based on voting rights and full political participation for all male citizens?

Athens

Why did the Epicureans believe that people should not fear death?

Because death was nothing more than the painless separating of the body's atoms, of which all earthly matter was composed

Why were the Greeks able to defeat the Persian fleet in the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.E.?

Better strategic foresight, stronger weapons, warships were more effective

How did Socrates stun the trial participants during his trial?

By defending his right to question his fellow citizens' preconceptions about just living and proclaiming that he deserved a reward rather than punishment

How did wealthy Greek elites in the Hellenistic kingdoms contribute to the common good?

By donating money for public works projects, food, and medicine

What caused the collapse of the Ptolemaic kingdom in the 50s B.C.E.?

Cleopatra chose the losing side in the Roman civil war

What finally convinced Sparta to send Athens an ultimatum demanding that it curtail its aggressive foreign policy?

Corinth, a Spartan ally, threatened to ally itself with Athens if Sparta did not intervene on its behalf to prevent future Athenian aggression

Which ruler founded the Persian Empire?

Cyrus

Which of the following Persian rulers expanded the boundaries of the empire all the way to the edge of India and Greece?

Darius I

The procedure known as ostracism in fifth-century B.C.E. Athens served as a safeguard against what perceived danger to the state?

Despotism by any individual who had become so popular that he might overthrow the democracy

Why do historians use the term Dark Age when speaking of the eastern Mediterranean region between 1200 and 1000 B.C.E.?

Economic conditions were poor, and historians' knowledge of the era is limited.

How did Alexander's military conquests further the spread of science back home in Greece?

From geography to botany because he took along writers to collect and catalog new knowledge and promoted trade

Which of the following best describes ancient Greece's natural resources?

Greece had a mountainous, rocky terrain that was suitable for the cultivation of olives, grapes, and barley but little else

What change in Athens's democracy did Cleisthenes implement by about 500 B.C.E.?

He established a ruling council of 500 individuals chosen annually by lottery and representing the demes in proportion to the size of their populations

What was one reason that Alexander the Great (r. 336-323 B.C.E.) was able to inspire his soldiers?

He fought at the front lines and put him self in the positions of his men.

Although Aristarchus had proposed a heliocentric model of the solar system as early as the third century B.C.E., later astronomers rejected his model because...

He had based his calculations on a circular orbit of the sun rather than an elliptical one

What was the significance of King Philip II's victory at the battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.E.)?

He had defeated Greece and they were no longer a threat..

How did Pericles make citizenship more exclusive?

He sponsored a law restricting citizenship to those whose mother and father were both Athenian by birth.

Why did Philip II decide to attack Persia?

He was concerned that his own soldiers were dangerous without a war to occupy them.

What historian depicted the Persian Wars as a clash between East and West?

Herodotus of Halicarnassus

What Greek physician was regarded as a pioneer in using clinical observation to make medical diagnoses and may have been the author of the view that the human body consists of four humors, or fluids?

Hippocrates

Where did Alexander's troops finally mutiny?

India

The majority of Athens's population consisted of what class of people?

Individuals who lacked political rights

Why do historians consider the Greek victory over the far more numerous Persians during the great Persian invasion of 480-479 B.C.E. to have been truly significant and remarkable?

Innovative step of uniting to fight together to keep their independence and showed that poor and rich treasured political power

What simplified version of Greek became the common language for international commerce and cultural exchange in the Hellenistic world?

Koine

Why did Hellenistic science rarely produce practical results?

Leading scientists were more interested in theoretical discoveries, and the technology needed to produce practical applications did not yet exist

What experience does the term Diaspora describe for the Jews?

Lived outside the Jewish homeland but still followed Jewish law

What was the dominant form of political organization in the Hellenistic world?

Monarchy

Which form of family life was the general rule in ancient Greece?

Monogamy, in which men were permitted only one wife

Greeks that were in search of a personal religion that addressed both life on earth and the afterlife, joined what type of religions?

Mystery cults such as the cult of Demeter

Which of the following is a form of social and political organization in which a small group of men dominated policymaking in an assembly of male citizens?

Oligarchy

Why did astrology suddenly become popular in the Hellenistic era?

People felt a need for religion to bridge the disconnect between the precise nature of the heavens and the chaos of earthly life

Aspasia of Miletus exhibited so much knowledge and brilliance it attracted to her a certain high-ranking Athenian politician who wanted to marry her.

Pericles

According to Thucydides, what reason did Pericles offer for rejecting Sparta's ultimatum?

Pericles argued that giving in to Sparta's demand would be a sign of weakness and would only encourage Sparta to take further advantage of Athens

When the Greeks began writing again about 800 B.C.E., they adopted and adapted an alphabet they received from what people?

Phoenicians

Who was the lyric poet who wrote about intense emotions, especially love?

Sappho

What did initiates into Greek mystery cults generally hope to obtain?

Secret knowledge and divine protection

Athens met with disaster when its generals attempted to conquer Sparta's allies. Which allies?

Sicily

Why was Socrates put on trial by his fellow citizens in 399 B.C.E.?

Socrates' accusers charged him with impiety, arguing that his philosophy denied the existence of the gods and lured the youth away from Athenian moral traditions

Magna Graecia ("Great Greece") was the name the ancient Greeks used to describe which region of the World?

Southern Italy and Sicily, sites of some of the largest and most powerful overseas Greek settlements, including Naples and Syracuse

By the 350s B.C.E., which city-state's endless war-making and collaboration with the Persians caused so much strife that the weakened Greek city-states could not fend off the Macedonians?

Sparta

Important discussions about politics, philosophy, and social matters often took place at drinking parties for upper-class Greek men called...

Symposia

What finally led to Athenian defeat and the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War?

The Spartans enlisted the help of the Persians to build a navy that could force the Athenians to surrender

What is recounted in Homer's epic poem The Iliad?

The Trojan War and the Greek siege of the city of Troy

What did the successor kings rely on in order to maintain their kingdoms?

The administrative services of local urban elites, who were rewarded for their loyalty

The Hellenistic era inaugurated widespread social and political changes in the eastern Mediterranean world. What did this include?

The extensive movement of the Greek language into the Near East

Why were Assyrian women unlikely to rise to positions of political power?

The pursuits most admired by the Assyrian elite were warfare and hunting, which were exclusively male occupations

Upon his death, Alexander reputedly left his vast kingdom to who?

The strongest person..

In the Hellenistic world on what did women's social and political status largely depended on?

Their position in the socioeconomic hierarchy; wealthy women had far more opportunities available to them than did poor women

What farsighted leader convinced the Athenians to invest their resources of precious metals in the navy and later led Athens during the great Persian invasion of Greece?

Themistocles

Which strategy did early Persian rulers adopt to rule over their newly conquered peoples?

They allowed local people to keep their own beliefs and customs

What historical evidence suggests that the average Athenian workingman had a very poor standard of living?

They ate only two meals a day and little or no meat

How did the lives of the local populations change once Alexander expanded his empire from mainland Greece to Persia?

They changed very little; they were subject to the same administrative systems.

What political view did Plato and Aristotle share?

They disliked democracy.

Why were the political forms of the Greek city-states and the Greek concept of citizenship so unprecedented and unique?

They were based on the concept of citizenship for all free inhabitants and allowed for some degree of shared governing, except in tyrannies

The Delian League ensured that its members were protected from Persian attack but aroused the anger of many of its smaller members, why?

They were the rowers of the triremes but they could only share in building one ship or contribute cash(dominated by Athens)

What was Pericles' strategy for defeating the superior Spartan army?

To avoid land battles whenever possible while attacking Sparta and its allies by sea

What did the covenant established between Yahweh and the Israelites require the Israelites to do?

Worship Yahweh as their only god and live according to his laws

Was there equality for women in the ideal society described by Plato's Republic?

Yes, but women needed to uphold their duty as a mother.

Were homosexual relationships between men in Sparta accepted?

Yes, usually took place between an older man and an adolescent boy as a form of social and political education