PolledHistory: World History #2

 Hello! If you didn't know, last week we began a World History where we cover a broader view of all of world history in a 6 part series that begins on 2 November and ends more than a month later on 9 December. 

This second episode covers history from 750 BC to 500 AD,but  really it is 753 BC to 476 AD - the Classical Era. Last time we did 4000-750 BC - the Preclassical Ancient World - that includes the beginnings and growth of early civilizations until the Iron Age.

The Classical Era has multiple starting definitions, but most people say it is around 800-700 BC with the growth of Ancient Rome and Greece. In 753 BC, about four hundred years after the chaotic Bronze Age Collapse, an insignificant city was founded. According to legend, two twin brothers, named Romulus and Remus,  settled a city in the Italian peninsula along the Tiber river. However, they fought and Romulus commited fratricide, murdering his twin brother. Nevertheless, he would grow to become the first king of the Roman monarchy - the first government of Rome.

Around the same time, the Greeks began a dveelopment too. After a long dark age where there were little Greek texts and information, they began to come out of this period of darkness to a new, more prosperous period of history called Archaic Greece. The key features of Archaic Greece is artistic and poltical improvisation. The Greek city states (Ancient Greece was not one, firm entity but a collection of separate, often conflicting cities with their own governments) strengthened and began to colonize the Mediterranean, putting them in competition with the Phoenicians, some Lebanese maritime civilization that spread from the Levant to North Africa and even Iberia, making colonies of their own.

Among these colonies was one called Carthage in the North African coast in modern day Tunisia. This will be very important soon. Carthage grew to become its own maritime power just like the Greeks and the Phoenicians. Also in the Near East, the Assyrians reached their height, taking much of the Near East before collapsing to the Neo Babylonian Empire, which, though successful for a short time, would be overencompassed soon. There was the Median Empire, an empire formed by a Persian people group that dominated for a short time, before the Median king's grandson called Kurus, king of the vassal state of Anshan, invaded and proceeded to make the largest empire the world hsd ever seen after invading Babylonia and further into Asia and Lydia (a smaller but still relevant nation in Anatolia known for its wealth). By the end of Kurus (we call him Cyrus)' reign, the Persian empire ruled modern day Turkey, the Levant (Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, etc), Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq), Persia and Susiana (modern day Iran), modern day Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the list goes on. 

The Middle East after Cyrus was the Persian Empire under Cyrus' Achaenemid dynasty, Egypt, and in the Mediterranean was Archaic Greece, various Italic groups, which included the still irrelevant Rome, and the many Greek, Phoenician, and Carthaginian colonies. 

Let's look at the other side of the world in East Asia. The last time we talked about this part of the world, ae left off with the Zhou Dynasty, a very long lasting dynasty that invented many things for China, such as iron, crossbows, and horses. Confucius and other philosophers lived during this time. The Zhou Dynasty was the longest lasting of all Chinese dynasties and it  collapsed in 256 BC when the Qin dynasty, but we're already in 256 BC - much too far.

Let's also see South Asia. Indian civilization was something we have not yet covered in the last episode. Indian civilization of some form was very old, tracing back to the Indus Valley civilization in 6000 BC. What succeeded this early spring of society was the Vedic Period where new traditions and religions rose in the region. The Vedic period began because of an entry of the Indo Aryans that entered Northern India from the east. People think they come from the Caucasian steppe. The Vedic Period ends in aeound 500 BC.

In the Americas, the first well known Mesoamerican civilization were the Olmecs, which, though small, had a lot of success for being the earliest great Mesoamerican empire. The Mesoamericans did not have access to horses and many other vital technologies and/or resources which restricts them from expansion.

Back to the Middle East. Cyrus' sucessor, Cambyses II, invades Egypt, and then dies for Darius to succeed him. Darius had huge success, achieving the territorial height of the Persian Empire and dying in 486 BC. This is why he is known as "Darius the Great". Darius started a war with the Archaic Greeks which failed for the Persians. His son, Xerxes, however, would not let the Greek victory slide, sending a second and stronger campaign into Greece, having more success, but ultimately being repulsed after decisive Greek victories at Plataea, Salamis, etc. 

Around the same time, in 509 BC, the Romans, after a scandal with their seventh king, overthrew the monarchy and implemented the Roman Republic, a new system of government. They grew and became an increasingly powerful republic in the Italian peninsula.

Carthage had even faster gowth, colonizing the North African coast.  However, they did do some really horrible things such as child sacrifice, which was a Phoenician religious tradition. Nevertheless, they had a powerful navy and often conflicted with Syracuse, a strong Greek colony in Sicily. 

The Archaic period in Greece ended after the second Persian campaign and afterwards Athens, one of the more influential city states, grew to become the powerful Delian League, but all this power was lost with the Peloponnesian war when Sparta and a few other city states gathered to beat the Delian League and did, weakening Athens. After the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, a city in the Peloponnese (a peninsula in Southern Greece) would be in the centerstage for a while until it too was overencompassed by Thebes. In the end, a new power from the north - Macedonia - emerged, and either peacefully or forcefully took over all of Greece, uniting it in the 340s BC. This was while the Persians were in a slow decline.

Philip II, king of Macedon, was assassinated and his son inherited his dream to take over the Persian Empire, so with a small army, he set out and managed to conquer the huge empire it was and then controlled most of the known world east of Greece. In several decisive battles, Macedon had became the world's major power. So in the Middle East and Mediterranean, Greece (Mavedon) became the world superpower, ruling modern day Greece, Egypt, Turkey, Syria, the Levant (the eastern coast of the Mediterranean which includes Lebanon and Syria), Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. That was a huge empire but it would not last too long, at least in a stable form because generals would fight over it after Alexander's sudden death in 323 BC. In the end, the empire was divided into conflicting sucessor states or Diadochi. This era of Diadochi is known as the Hellenestic Era where Greek culture would spread to the area of the conquests of Alexander. In India, the Mauryan Empire under the highly succesful king Chandragupta Maurya united most of modern day India and South Asia, coming into conflict with the Seleucids, one of the Diadochi. The Hellenestic empires would decline slowly mostly because of two competitors we will see later.

A few decades later came the first showdown between a Rome that had just recently finished the conquest of Italy against Carthage, the Phoenician-made maritime society. Starting in 264 BC, the First Punic War was fought. The Romans managed to build a ship (because before that, they did not know how to construct naval vessels) after a Carthaginian ship was found wrecked on the coast and was copied. The Romans then attacked Sicily, almost took Carthage itself but failed, and won in 241 BC, taking the island of Sicily (besides for Syracuse), and later Sardinia and Corsica too.

Tensions rose before another war took place between the two powers, and in 218 BC, Hannibal Barca crossed the Alps from Iberia, to Southern Gaul, and then crossing them to Northern Italy. He would deliver three major decisive victories where the Romans suffered massive casualties. Nevertheless, the Romans did not surrender and in the end, Scipio Africanus went to North Africa, defeated Hannibal at Zama, and winning the Second Punic War in 202 BC. The end of the Second Punic War granted Rome Iberia and punished Carthage. Rome would defeat Carthage one more time in 146 BC after a long siege lead by Scipio Aemilianus, a grandson of Scipio Africanus, ending in the death of Carthaginian civilization as a whole and expanded Roman hegemony.

What also happened in  146 BC? The Romans, which had waged war against the Greeks in Greece, attacked and razed Corinth, which was a brutal event. This victory was a great step into Roman domination over the Diadochi, in the same time,the Diadochi, namely the Seleucids were being attacked by a new Persian empire - Parthia. Eventually, Roman general Pompey took over the Seleucids and several decades later, Augustus, the first Roman emperor, destroyed the Hellnestic Era by defeatjng Ptolemaic Egypt after a civil war. During Tiberius' (the stepson of Augustus) reign, a small group called the Christians formed. However, this previouslt insignificant and persecuted group would grow.

Rome became an empire in 27 BC when the Republic collapsed because of political instabillity. As an Empire, it woud live another 1500 years. Its golden age was during 96-180 AD, with prosperity, but then it faced a crisis which I have covered - where there was political chaos. This crisis ended with the reforms of Diocletian, forming a system of four leaders - the Tetrarchy - though Constantine would reunite the empire and Christianize it. (And build Constantinople) Constantine then was succeeded by his sons, and then, after several more emperors, came Theodosius I - a Roman general who united the empire after a brief split, and then separated it permenantly into east and west in 395 AD. The Western Roman Empire would only last 81 years. The East would last more than 1000. 

In China, the Qin Dynasty quickly collapsed after a short period  of hegemony, and in 207 BC was succeeded by the Han. The Han were a huge, prosperous, and organized dynasty, uniting the brief period of disorder after the end of the Qin. The Han fell in around 200 Ad to rebellion and internal strife.

The last thing today were the Guptas, the next powerful Indian empire that dominated from about 300-600 AD,  a scientific empire which advanced in poetry, astronomy and mathematics. And that's all for today. We end with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a declining nation state, (due to Germanic invasions, intenral economic problems, and civil wars) in 476 AD, when Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain, deposed Romulus Augustulus, the last Weestern Roman emperor.