Early Western Civ Midterm

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

The Greeks forced the Persians to fight in a narrow strait between the island of Salamis and the coast, where their sturdier ships rammed the flimsier Persian ships.

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 Greeks so valued their political freedom that they joined forces to preserve it.

According to this map, which geographical feature appears to have been the most important to ancient Egyptian civilizations?

The Nile River

In order to combat Athens's growing power in the wake of the Persian Wars, Sparta led an alliance with its neighbors called the

The Peloponnesian League

Which of the following is best described as a Spartan social class that, although free, lacked citizen rights and was generally responsible for providing skill trade of craft services?

The Perioeci

In the image below is a relief of a trireme, a large Athenian warship. What was the purpose of the rowers seen here?

To ram opposing ships

Homosexual relationships between men in Sparta

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

Women in Greek city-states could also be citizens, an honor that

did not, however, grant them political rights, such as the right to vote or otherwise participate in political life.

The large rectangular building at the center in the image below was used in Athens primarily as a

divinity's residence.

which writing style is exemplified in this image

hieroglyphs

Greek tragedies played a significant role in Greek society by

illustrating conflicts and moral dilemmas that pertained to the society of citizens in a city-state.

The Epic of Gilgamesh anticipates the stories of the Hebrew Old Testament through

its account of one man who survived a devastating flood.

Greeks in search of a personal religion that addressed both life on earth and the afterlife joined

mystery cults such as the cult of Demeter.

Which of the following is considered to be evidence that Paleolithic peoples had a belief in some form of religion and/or the afterlife?

religious figurines

Which of the following is best described as a covered hall in which intellectuals and philosophers of ancient Greece gathered to hold debates and discussions?

stoa

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

symposia.

The Parthenon's frieze exemplifies Athenian confidence because it portrays

the Athenians in the presence of the gods.

Historians refer to the period from around 500 to around 400 B.C.E. as the Golden Age of Greece because during this period

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

The Mediterranean polyculture that the Minoans pioneered was based on

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

When the Thirty Tyrants were overthrown in 403 B.C.E., the Athenians restored their democracy and

proclaimed an amnesty to prevent further civil disorder.

In this portrayal of Athens, the long walls significantly provided

protection for the route between the urban center and the port.

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

triremes.

Who were the Sophists?

Traveling teachers who—for a fee—taught students philosophy and rhetoric

All of the following are cited as evidence of the Greek world enduring a Dark Age between 1200 and 1000 B.C.E., except?

lack of wine production

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

lottery

Socrates was the first philosopher in ancient Greece to

make ethics and morality the main focus of his teachings.

Polytheistic societies have

many gods

Which of the following are best described as panels carved in relief?

metopes

The vase pictured below emphasizing athletic prowess is from which Mediterranean civilization?

Greece

What does "the Socratic method" refer to?

A manner of teaching that features relentless questioning

Which of the following was one of the educational traditions of Golden Age Athens?

A mentor-protégé relationship whereby a male adolescent would learn from an older man by accompanying him in the course of his public functions, athletic exercises, and social interactions

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

A new form of political and social organization known as the polis, or independent city-state

Archaeologists and anthropologists are able to distinguish between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic parts of the Stone Age through which means?

A shift from hunter-gatherer practices to more agricultural practices

The term Helot was used to designate which of the following?

A slave in Sparta who was of Greek origin

Which Athenian leader led a failed invasion of Sicily and later switched sides to help the Spartans?

Alcibiades

Why have historians described the democracy created in mid-fifth-century Athens under Pericles as "radical"?

All citizens, regardless of wealth, enjoyed equal protection under the law because the court system was removed from elite control.

The Spartan governmental structure can best be described as which of the following?

An oligarchy, consisting of a council of twenty-eight 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

Which of the following is best defined as the study of human beings, including their behavior, biology, linguistics, and social and cultural variations?

Anthropology

Who was the patron god of the ancient Greek city of Corinth?

Apollo

Which Athenian dramatist satirized the Sophists for making "the weaker argument the stronger"?

Aristophanes

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

How did Pericles make citizenship more exclusive?

By granting citizenship only to those children whose mother and father were both Athenian by birth

Which of the following is best described as an urban center exercising political and economic control over the surrounding countryside?

City-State

How did Golden Age comedies differ from tragedies?

Comedies were openly critical of contemporary people and policies

The Greek word aretê signified "excellence," a concept that historians insist led the Greeks to do which of the following?

Compete fiercely with one another in all fields of endeavor, from the arts to politics, athletics, science, and war, for the public honor that achieving excellence bestowed

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.

Tyrants in Archaic Greece were most likely to do which of the following?

Cultivate the goodwill of the people through public works projects and other policies that favored the interests of the masses

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

Athenian radical democracy tried to balance which two competing goals?

Desire to ensure participation of as many ordinary Athenian males as possible while also ensuring that leadership positions were in the hands of elite citizens

The procedure known as ostracism in fifth-century B.C.E. Athens served as a safeguard against which of the following?

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

What style columns were used in creating the Parthenon?

Doric

Which of the following statements is justified by this map?

During the New Kingdom, Egypt expanded to its greatest extent.

Which of the following is considered to be the West's first united country?

Egypt

How did Egypt benefit from its geographic location?

Egypt's Nile River flooded annually, depositing a rich layer of topsoil ideal for growing, and the wide swaths of desert to the east and west protected Egypt against outside invasion.

Why were Egyptian deities portrayed with both human and animal features?

Egyptians believed that each god revealed him- or herself to humans through a particular animal.

Because the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flooded predictably every year and brought life sustaining nutrients and waters to the land, the Egyptians generally viewed their gods as kind, peaceful, and serene.

False

According to this map, Mycenaean civilization primarily occupied which region?

Greece

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.

The Olympic Games were open to any socially elite

Greek man good enough to compete

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

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

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

He insisted that absolute truth did not exist because every issue had two irreconcilable sides.

Whose The Histories 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

The majority of Athens's population consisted of

Individuals who lacked political rights

The early civilizations shown in this map developed along the geographic features they did in order to

Irrigate their agricultural fields

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

It applied the same rules and punishments to all, without regard to social standing or rank.

How did Greek settlement in the eastern Mediterranean abroad influence the development of Greek culture during the Archaic Age (c. 750-500 B.C.E.)?

It paved the way for the Greeks to imitate Near Eastern and Egyptian statuary.

who or what were ziggurats in ancient Sumer

Massive temples that served religious functions

Where and when did the first Western civilizations emerge?

Mesopotamia (4000-3000 B.C.E.), Egypt (3050 B.C.E.), and Anatolia (2000 B.C.E.)

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

Metics

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

Minoan palaces on Crete were not walled or fortified.

The relief sculpture of the Persian king, shown below, portrays the king as larger than his subjects. This portrayal is emblematic of

Near Eastern royal art.

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

The development of irrigation contributed to the growth of centralized authority because of the need to do which of the following?

Organize labor for canal maintenance

Aspasia of Miletus exhibited so much knowledge and brilliance that which high-ranking Athenian politician wished 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.

What major development occurred in the area highlighted in green on this map in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E., and why did it do so?

Philosophy; ideas were shared in this commercial crossroads.

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

Phoenicians.

Which of the following best characterizes developments during the era of "Greek colonization"?

Private Greek entrepreneurs built settlements that became colonies.

What was one of Pericles' most important democratic innovations?

Providing a modest salary to any officeholder selected by lottery, thus enabling even poor men to serve as public officials

What activity was most central in the lives of Paleolithic peoples?

Searching for food

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 in

Sicily.

The fifth-century B.C.E. handbook entitled Double Arguments contains this passage: "Some say that the good is one thing and the bad another, but others say that they are the same, and that a thing might be good for some persons but bad for others, or at one time good and at another time bad for the same person... [S]ickness is bad for the sick but good for the doctors. And death is bad for those who die but good for the undertakers and makers of grave monuments. . . ."

Sophism

Which of the following regions was home to the birthplace of the world's first cities?

Sumeria

In which civilization was the writing shown in the figure below employed?

Sumerian civilization

Zarathustra made a significant contribution to Western thought when he proposed which of the following?

That individuals determined their own eternal fate through the moral choices they made while on earth

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 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.

The evolution of hierarchy in human society, the development of agriculture, and the domestication of animals are all patterns of life that emerged from which period?

The Stone Age

What was the Sumerians' purpose in inventing writing?

The Sumerians invented writing to do accounting.

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

The ancient world was otherwise characterized by monarchies and legal inequality.

What environmental change is believed to have led to a radical change in the nomadic Paleolithic way of life?

The climate in certain Near East regions became milder and wetter, resulting in increased fertility of the land.

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

The demand was greater in Athens, since aspiring politicians needed the training in rhetoric that the Sophists offered to advance in Athens's democracy.

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

The events of the Trojan War

Which of the following was proposed by Thales and Anaximander?

The universe was governed not by the gods' wishes but by unchanging laws of nature.

Why did the ancient Israelites have such a powerful influence on Western civilization, when their kingdom never enjoyed the same level of political and military power as the other great empires in the Near East?

Their monotheism and sacred scripture made the Israelites a fundamental building block in the foundations of Western civilization.

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.

why were the Egyptian and Mycenaean Greek civilizations especially susceptible to invasion by the Sea Peoples?

They bordered waterways, which is how the Sea Peoples traveled.

The figures shown in the image below were found in private houses in Judah, likely owned by women. Why would Israelite religious authorities not have approved of the existence of these statues?

They challenged the authorities' monotheistic beliefs.

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.

Why did some Athenians criticize democracy and argue in favor of an oligarchy?

They worried that the poor, who lacked proper education and moral values, would exploit majority rule to pass laws against the wealthy.

Why were the Mesopotamians willing to believe in powerful gods whose personalities were childlike and arbitrary?

This view of the gods helped explain why unpredictable and often devastating events such as floods and wars occurred.

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

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

Why did the Akkadians conquer nearby territories?

To obtain wealth by acquiring valuable ore mines

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

Which of the following religions is described as having these three central concepts: "good thoughts, good words, good deeds?"

Zoroastrianism

In this portrayal of a Greek symposium, the female in the middle is likely

a hetaera.

Which of the following is best described as a central marketplace in which ancient Greeks gathered to shop, socialize, and discuss politics?

agora

Most early Paleolithic societies were characterized by a form of organization in which

all men and women had a roughly equal say in making important decisions

After the Persian Wars, a formal defensive alliance that included city-states in northern Greece, on the Aegean islands, and along the Ionian coast

became the basis for the Athenian Empire, because Athens required the other member city-states to fund warships built and manned by Athenians.

What likely caused the frequent warfare between Mesopotamian city-states?

competition over the region's limited resources

Which of the following is best described as a way of life of a group of people - the learned behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, often without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next?

culture

Golden Age sculptors shattered traditions from the Archaic Age not only by creating realistic and perfectly formed bodies, but also by

depicting their subjects in a state of movement.

Upon conquering foreign regions, neo-Assyrian kings

deported many of the conquered peoples to Assyria to work as slaves on building projects.

In his History of the Peloponnesian War, the Greek historian Thucydides broke with tradition by

describing the moral failures and miscalculations of the Greeks.

Ancient Greek religion was based on a pantheon of gods, each representing different strengths or forces, and the Greeks believed that

they had to try to please the gods through prayers, ritual offerings, and the avoidance of offensive behavior.

The Delian League ensured that its members were protected from Persian attack but aroused the anger of many of its smaller members because Athens

used its control of the league fleet to coerce dues from weaker members.

In Greek tragedies, leading characters, usually the high and mighty, suffered a reversal of fortune because of hubris, a Greek term for

violent arrogance.