Significant Classical Civilizations

Significant “Classical Civilizations” • Chandragupta Maurya filled vacuum left when Alexander the Great retreated 500 BCE - 500 CE from India Greece • Ashoka declares Buddhism the official • Polis religion

• Sparta – military society • Ashoka expands trade, builds roads, hospitals, and rest houses • Athens – golden age • 320 CE India united under the Gupta Empire • Democracy – Chandra Gupta

• Persian Wars against Persia • Connected to China by the Silk Roads

• Delian League formed after the Persian Wars • Indian Ocean Trade – monsoons – centered in Athens • Patriarchal society • Peloponnesian War – Sparta wins • Women were legally monors • Philip of Macedonia next great leader • Women set themselves on fire • Alexander the Great • Advances in geometry and math – Arabic • Mediterranean Sea allowed for massive trade numbers

• Patriarchal – women were under authority of men China • Women could not own land and wore veils in public • Era of Warring States 403 – 221 BCE

• Slaves due to debt, prisoners of war, or • Qin – legalism dominated; Great Wall of bought from other areas of the world China; unified laws, currencies,

• Polytheistic weights, and measures

• Philosophers – Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle • Han dynasty 206 BCE – 220 CE – centralized rule; Wu Di – most important

emperor; civil service exams, foreign expansion; India tribute system

• Mauryan Empire in 320s BCE • Trade was important

• Silk Roads • Scholar-gentry highest level in society • Height of trade – population decreases 25% due to diseases • Wheelbarrow, horse collar, watermills, paper

• 509 BCE – Republic is formed – Senate

• Patricians and plebians Religions / Philosophies

• Expansion through Mediterranean world Christianity

• Carthage – Punic Wars • founded by a Hebrew, Jesus of Nazareth– 4 BCE • Julius Caesar conquered Gaul – declared emperor • Started as a sect of Judaism

• Octavian/Augustus = Pax Romana • New Testament

• Twelve Tables • Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire – 313 CE • Extensive roads

• Uniform currency

• Latin language

• Patriarchal; women supervised domestic affairs

• Adopted Christianity as the official religion in 380 CE

• Silk Roads – led from China through Asia and to the Mediterranean Sea

• Indian Ocean

• Mediterranean Sea