HIST 101 Exam 1 Review

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

"To the most powerful"

What does the art and literature of the Hellenistic Age (323-30 B.C.E.) reveal about that society?

(1) The overwhelming impact of royal wealth (2) Increased emphasis on private life and emotion (3) Greater interaction of diverse peoples

What was the Sumerians' purpose in inventing writing?

Accounting and lists

Which New Kingdom pharaoh caused resistance and turmoil when he tried to force Egyptians to worship only the god Aten?

Akhenaten

Who was Aristotle's most famous pupil?

Alexander the Great

What was significant about Aristophanes, an Athenian playwright whose comedies made harsh references to prominent leaders?

Aristophanes so fiercely satirized Cleon, the city's most prominent leader early in the Peloponnesian War, that Cleon sued him. A citizen jury ruled in Aristophanes'' favor, upholding the Athenian tradition of free speech.

Until the conquests of Philip II and Alexander, how did the Greeks regard the Macedonians?

As barbarians

What political view did Plato and Aristotle share?

Athenian democracy was a bad system because it did not restrict decision making to the most educated and moderate citizens.

Which city-state is renowned for having established the first democracy 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 all matter consists of tiny, invisible, and irreducible pieces called atoms in random movement, death is nothing more than the painless separating of the body's atoms.

What was the one reason that Alexander the Great was able to inspire his soldiers?

By leading charges against the enemy

As a result of Solon's reforms, how were council members who prepared the agenda for the assembly chosen?

By lottery

Which term did the Greeks use to denote astronomers?

Chaldean

What is, perhaps, the clearest demonstration of the importance of Jews in the Hellenistic world?

Christianity

How did Hellensitic sculpture differ from the sculpture of the classical era?

Classical artists gave their subjects' faces and idealized serenity but Hellenistic sculptures depicted intense personal feelings.

Who were the Sophists?

Competitive intellectuals and teachers in ancient Greece who offered expensive courses in persuasive public speaking and new ways of philosophic and religious thinking beginning around 450 B.C.E.

Upon conquering foreign regions, what steps did the neo-Assyrian kings take?

Conquered peoples were either deported or those allowed to stay in their homelands had to make annual payments to the Assyrians.

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

Cultural and religious tolerance with military strength

Which ruler founded the Persian Empire?

Cyrus

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

Darius I

From what source was Athen's wealth during the Golden Age largely derived?

Delian league dues, war spoils, and taxes on seaborne trade

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

Direct participation by as many adult male citizens as possible. He created demes - constituent units for the city-state's new political organization by grouping country villages and urban neighborhoods into units.

In what way did Zarathustra make a significant contribution to Western thought?

Emphasis on ethical behavior and on a supreme god

Why did Athens attract more Sophists than other similarly sized Greek city-states?

Every ambitious man wanted rhetorical training because it promised power in Athens's assembly, councils, and courts

Laborers on the many massive royal construction projects of the New Kingdom consisted primarily of which group of people?

Free workers

The development of agriculture and the domestication of animals were key elements in which key transition in human living?

From a hunting gathering way of life to a sedentary agricultural way of life

The Epic of Gilgamesh (an ancient Mesopotamian poem) tells what story?

Gilgamesh kills monsters, defies the powers of the god ishta, and embarks on a mission to discover the secrets of immortality but ends in failure.

Though non-Greeks came to occupy important positions in the administration of the Hellenistic kingdoms, they were rarely admitted to the highest rungs of Hellenistic society - why?

Greeks and Macedonians saw themselves as too superior to mix with locals.

How did the fifth-century Sophist Protagoras offend many Athenians?

He argued that there could be no absolute standard of truth because every issue had two irreconcilable sides.

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, how did the Greek historian Thucydides break with tradition?

He made power politics, not divine intervention, history's primary force. He also described human moral failings in his narrative.

How did Socrates stun the trial participants during his trial?

He refused to beg for sympathy and repeated his dedication to goading his fellow citizens into examining how to live justly.

How did Pericles make citizenship more exclusive?

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

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

He took along knowledgeable writers to collect and catalog new knowledge.

What is most likely to have contributed to the emergence of patriarchy in the wake of the Neolithic Revolution?

Hierarchy in Paleolithic times contributed to the emergence of the patriarchy. In the Neolithic Revolution, men began to dominate agriculture and took over long-distance trade. Women mastered new domestic tasks. This gendered division of labor increased men's status.

Where did the forces of Athens meet with disaster when its generals attempted to conquer Sparta's allies?

In Sicily, esp. its greatest city Syracuse

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

In return for their worshipping him exclusively as their only god and living by his laws, Yahweh would make them his chosen people and lead them into a promised land of safety and prosperity.

Where did Alexander's troops finally mutiny?

India

How did Israelite law differ from the legal codes previously established in Mesopotamia?

Israelite law applied the same rules and punishments to everyone regardless of rank. The law also eliminated eye-for-an-eye punishment and protected slaves against mistreatment.

What does the term Diaspora describe in the experience of the Jews?

Jews who did not return to their homeland could maintain their Jewish identity by following Jewish law while living among foreigners. "dispersion of population"

What was the first great unified Egyptian state?

King Menes united upper and lower Egypt called the "Old Kingdom"

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

Koine

What characterizes Polytheistic societies?

Many gods were thought to control different aspects of life, including the weather, fertility, and war. Each city-state honored one deity as its protector. City dwellers built ziggurats - temple towers.

Where and when did the first Western civilizations emerge?

Mesopotamia 8000 BC China 4000 BC Northwestern India (Pakistan, Indus River Valley) 5500 BC Americas 2500 BC

Why do some historians speculate that the Minoans did not engage in warfare among themselves?

Minoan communities did not build elaborate defense walls.

How did Zoroastrianism view the world?

Moral dualism - saw the world as a battlefield between the divine forces of good and evil. Ahura Mazda, the embodiment of good and light, struggled against the evil darkness represented by Ahriman.

What were Greeks in search of a personal religion that addressed both life on earth and the afterlife likely to join?

Mystery cults

How may the Spartan governmental structure best be described?

Oligarchic city-state

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

What kind of equipment did Cuneiform writing employ?

Originally invented for accounting. A system of wedge-shaped marks pressed into clay tablets.

Why did the development of irrigation contribute to the growth of centralized authority?

Positions of authority were needed to allow some people to supervise the complex irrigation system that supported agricultural surpluses.

Which four events were included in the original Olympics?

Running, wrestling, jumping, and throwing

What does Queen Hatshepsut's reign as Egypt's "female king" demonstrates about women in New Kingdom Egypt?

She demonstrated that a women could ensure safety and prosperity by maintaining goodwill of the gods toward the country and its people.

In general, how did the ancient Sumerians view slavery?

Slaves held the lowest status in society but slavery could happen to anyone with no regard to race or origin

What Hellenistic philosophy argued that, although fate controls people's lives, one should nonetheless cultivate excellence, good sense, justice, courage, and temperance?

Stoicism

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

Symposiums

By the time of the New Kingdom, religious practices in Egypt for the wealthy and poor alike were centered upon what exactly?

The Afterlife

What does "the Socratic method" refer to?

The Athenian philosopher Socrates' method of teaching through conversation, in which he asked probing questions to make his listeners examine their most cherished assumptions.

After the Persian wars, what resulted from a formal defensive alliance that included city-states in northern Greece, on the Aegean islands, and along the Ionian coast?

The Delian League

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 remarkable?

The Greek forces included both the social elites and poor men. Their success showed that rich and poor Greeks alike treasured political freedom.

How did Egypt benefit from its geographic location?

The Nile River - regular floods enriched the soil. Desserts flanking Egypt protected it from invasion. Its geography also supported seaborne commerce and overland trade with Africa.

When the Greeks began writing again about 800 B.C.E., they adopted and adapted which alphabet?

The Phoenician alphabet

What political institutions did the Greeks establish as they began to recover from two centuries of economic devastation and population decimation?

The Polis

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

The Trojan War

What was the Mediterranean polyculture that the Minoans pioneered based on?

The cultivation of olives, grapes, and grains in a single, interrelated agricultural system.

How may we best describe ancient Greece's natural resources?

The most plentiful resource was timber. Others include scattered deposits of metal ore and clay, various quarries of fine stone. Barley was a staple in the Greek diet. Grapes and olives were also important crops.

What did the New Kingdom pharaohs (1569-1081 B.C.E.) do following the expulsion of the Hyksos?

The restricted the power of the regional governors and promoted national identity. The pharaohs created a standing army and engaged in regular diplomacy with neighboring monarchs. They sent their armies into foreign wars to gain territory and show their superiority.

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

The settlements in southern Italy and Sicily, such as Naples and Syracuse

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

The system of mutual rewards by which the kings and their leading urban subjects became partners in government and public finance.

Jewish prophets came to believe in what explanations for the hardships their people had endured?

Their defeats were divine punishment for neglecting the Sinai covenant and mistreating the poor

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

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

Themistocles tricked the Persian king into attacking the Greek fleet in the narrow channel between the island of Salamis and the west coast of Athens, where Xerxes could not send all his fleet into battle simultaneously.

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

They charged him with impiety and luring young men away from Athenian moral traditions.

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

They helped the Ionia rebels against their Persian-installed tyrants.

The Greek word arete signified "excellence" - so what did it lead the Greeks to do?

To compete

What basic tenant did Plato hold fast to throughout his long career, despite the fact that his thinking continued to evolve and never constituted a unified system?

Ultimate moral qualities are universal, unchanging, and absolute, not relative.

Which ideas were proposed by Thales and Anaximander?

Unchanging laws of nature (rather than gods' wishes) governed the universe

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) rejected Plato's metaphysics - so what did he maintain when it came to explanations of the nature of reality?

Understanding depended on observation

How were tyrants in Archaic Greece most likely to act?

Usually preserved their city-state's laws and political institutions. Rallied support by promising support for poor citizens.

In Greek tragedies, leading characters, usually the high and mighty, suffered a reversal of fortune because of hubris - to what did this term refer?

Violent arrogance that transformed one's competitive spirit into a self-destructive force

How should we describe women in Egyptian society?

Women generally enjoyed the same rights as free men

Of what kind of people did the majority of Athen's population consist?

Women, slaves, and metics

What was the term used for foreigners who received permanent residence status in exchange for paying taxes and serving in the military?

metics