Babylonian Times • lies between and , in present-day , Greek for “between the rivers”. The rivers used to flow separately into the , but today the coastline has receded. • Scribal schools were developed around 2000 BC and ruled ~1800- 1750 BC during the high point of Old Babylonian Empire • Babylonians in Mesopotamia wrote in mud, which they baked into clay tablets, many of which which still survive today. (2 slides) • Plimpton 322 is a mathematical tablet from Babylonian times that we'll talk more about later.

Greek Dark Age = 1100-750 BC • History was written in verse, rather than prose, and subject to artistic license, rather than being valued for accuracy and explanation. This poetry mixed history with folklore and myth. Homer was believed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, as was transitioning out of the Dark Age. He wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, about the mythical Trojan War. (~1190 BC)

Archaic Era = 800-480 BC. • In 753 BC was founded and ~700 BC was the rise of Greek polis, or city-states. (map shows Rome on L, on R, above and ) • Athens, Sparta and Corinth were 3 of the major city-states. They were a major development in and provided models of ruling through a system of laws. • Athens paved the way for a democratic government. The kleroterion was used to select jurors. Slots in the device held volunteers names and black and white balls were dropped down a tube to select them. Citizens inscribed the names of overly ambitious politicians that they wished to “ostracize” from the city on an ostrakon. Democracy didn't become the most common form of government until the mid-20th century AD. Athens had a direct democracy, while the republican government in Rome was a representative democracy like our own. • City-states were generally walled, with a central acropolis (citadel, fortress protecting the city), main marketplace, and gymnasium for sports and socializing. They were still mainly a collection of villages and not urbanized. The main difference was that the primary idea of citizenship: you were a Spartan or Athenian before you were a Greek. For many, the key characteristic was the idea of participation (by males) in government and self-rule. • There was a constant rivalry between the city-states, even though they came together for the Olympics and religious festivals. • It's worth noting here that the polytheism of the time held gods responsible for areas of land like specific cities and rivers, as well as for weather, social and political changes, etc. As society grew more complex, the Greek gods were linked in a pantheon with complicated family ties and hierarchies of power, the Greek/Roman mythology we know today. (Painting shows Jupiter and Juno – known as Zeus and Hera to the Greeks – and is by Carracci ~1600 AD.) • Before 600 BC, math in Greece was used primarily for commerce and construction, and astronomy was used for time-keeping. Thales of Miletus (624-546 BC) is considered the “father of science” and was among the “natural philosophers” after ~600 BC who applied logic and reason to the accepted myths of natural phenomenon. He brought together math ideas from Mesopotamia and to “invent” geometry. Thus began the idea of mathematics as philosophy and knowledge rather than just a tool restricted to practical issues. The Greeks will later recognize “seven sages” as the founders of their intellectual tradition. The full list tends to vary, but it always includes Thales and Solon of Athens, who lived ~630 BC and laid the foundations of democracy in Athens. This was also the time of Pythagoras (570-495 BC), who we'll talk much more about later. At this time math was divided into geometry, the study of the relative position and size of objects, including the Earth, and arithmetic, the study of numbers.

Classical Era = 480 BC – 600 AD • 450 BC is the peak of Athenian power. (This is also about when the movie 300 takes place.) 443 BC begins the Golden Age of Athens under , who led Athens to become the political and cultural center of the Greek world. 431 BC marks the Pelopenesian Wars between Athens (democracy) and Sparta (oligarchy). Sparta ends up replacing Athens as the leading power in Greece, but the cost of the war is widespread poverty throughout parts of Greece. Meanwhile, across the , Rome transformed from monarchy to republic (Latin for “public thing”) in 509 BC. • The theory of 4 elements – earth, air, fire and – was put forth by (490-430 BC). Leucippus (~480 BC) and his student (~460 BC) suggested that matter is made of tiny, indivisible particles separated by empty space (atoms!). The essence of science – thinking rationally and philosophically and making observations to satisfy human curiosity – was absent from most earlier civilizations. (It was present in ancient and China, but the lineage of Western scientific thinking leads directly back to .) • Socrates (469-399 BC) had a student named Plato (427-347 BC) who had a student named (384-322 BC). These three philosophers laid the foundation of classical thought and established philosophy and a method of rational inquiry used to attempt to understand the world and phenomena around us. Socrates questioned things like good and evil, courage and justice and was concerned with ethics and truth. Plato was concerned with ethics, justice, the nature of reality and the immortality of the soul. He thought the real world was an imperfect reflection of an ideal theoretical and mathematically perfect world. Aristotle took a more practical view of philosophy and wrote books on poetry, drama, ethics, politics, math, physics, logic, zoology and anatomy that were the basis of Western and Islamic science and philosophy until the 17th century AD. He was the single person with the greatest influence on the history of science. His theories were plausible, well-thought out and based on common sense, but they lacked rigorous logic and careful observation and many were later discovered flawed. His flawed theories were accepted as fact centuries later by the Catholic church, setting back scientific progress in Europe. By 370 BC, the many conflicts between the city-states had significantly weakened their power. This is also when Eudoxus introduced his theory of planetary movement and determined the length of a year. • School of Athens painting by Raphael in 1510 AD. May feature: ◦ Democritus (in blue on left pillar): ~460 BC, atoms ◦ Empedocles (seated in brown next to him): 490-430 BC, 4 elements ◦ Pythagoras (with book): 570-495 BC ◦ (with golden hat): 356-325 BC ◦ Hypatia (woman in white): 360-415 AD ◦ Socrates (standing above her in -green): 469-399 BC ◦ Plato and Aristotle (main figures in center): 427-347 BC and 384-322 BC ◦ Euclid or Archimedes (teaching in red on right): ~300 BC or 287-212 BC ◦ Claudius Ptolemy (next to him with back turned): 90-168 AD, gave more mathematical treatment to Aristotle's atronomy

Hellenistic Age, Ptolemaic Period and • Alexander the Great (Alexander of Macedonia) was born in 356 BC. He claimed to be descended from the gods, namely from Hercules on his father's side and Achilles, hero of the Trojan War, on his mother's side. • In 10 years time, Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, the largest empire the world had ever seen. The Hellenistic Age began with the death of Alexander in 323 BC and lasted until 31 BC. During this time, Greek ideas, especially in art and culture, spread well beyond Greece to Asia, Rome and Egypt. • After Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC, became the ruler of Egypt and became king/pharaoh in 304 BC. (Remember Egypt was part of Alexander's empire.) The Ptolemaic Period of Greek rule in Egypt, during which time Ptolemy I's lineage ruled, lasted 300 years. (Sidenote: The was inscribed in 196 BC with a decree of Ptolemy V. It's inscribed in Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, – a language used in northern Egypt, and . Discovered by the French in 1799, who knew Ancient Greek, this is what allowed Western civilization to finally understand the hieroglyphs on Egyptian artifacts.) During this time, Egypt became more stable and methods of improved there. Ptolemy I Soter moved the capital of Egypt form Memphis (present-day Cario) to , which became the greatest city the world had ever seen • The Library at Alexandria was founded ~300 BC. It was the first form of a university and attracted scholars from throughout the region. • Euclid wrote his Elements in 290 BC, and 200 BC marked the peak of Alexandrian learning. (Slide shows the oldest surviving fragments of Euclid's Elements, dated to ~100 AD.) • Rome was at a crossroads of major trade routes connecting Europe, Asia and North Africa. This brought money, ideas, art, etc. to contribute to the rise of Rome. The Roman Republic consisted of free men and slaves. Most significant free men were citizens (the rest were Latins, foreigners and former slaves). Citizens were divided into Patricians, landowners who could be members of the Senate, and Plebeians. • This was the time of Archimedes (287-212 BC), who studied at the Library at Alexandria. He was a mathematician, engineer, and inventor, and an example of how in Roman Times even the Greek thinkers had circled back to more practical applications in their work compared to Classical philosophers. • By the 2nd century BC, Rome was in a near-constant state of war, flux, and social discontent even as the Republic expanded east into the Mediterranean, North Africa and Greece. Farms fell into disrepair and debts mounted while men were off to war. In 72-71 BC Spartacus led a group of 120,000 disaffected slaves and rebels in an uprising in the south of . • Julius Caesar was born in 100 BC. Today he is thought of as a skilled orator, author and military leader, but at the time he was also known for going into debt in pursuit of political power and was widely distrusted among the Roman elite as unprincipled in his drive for money and power. He claimed ancestry to the kings of early Rome and to the goddess Venus, and was a womanizer who had many affairs. In 48 BC, the Library at Alexandrian was burned during Caesar’s civil war. (“The” burning of the Library may be a myth, and the destruction may actually have occurred during several burnings spread over many centuries.) In 46 BC, Caesar was declared dictator of Rome, which, until then, was still a republic. Meanwhile, in Egypt, , the daughter of Ptolemy XII, was born in 68 BC. She was the third of six children and became pharaoh in at age 17 (since her two older sisters were killed while plotting against her father before his death). According to Egyptian tradition at the time, she and her brother, Ptolemy XIII, were to be king and queen (and husband and wife!). Instead, her power-hungry brother wanted sole rule and exiled her. When Julius Caesar invaded Egypt in 48 BC, Cleopatra became his lover, mostly because she feared for her life and wanted the protection afforded by aligning herself with him. During a subsequent battle, Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile under the weight of his own golden armor. (This battle was started by Cleopatra's younger sister, also in an attempt for power.) Cleopatra then ruled Egypt with her youngest brother Ptolemy XIV, until her love-child with Julius Caesar was born, whom she named Ptolemy Caesar, and she had her brother assassinated so that her son could become king. From then on she was a rather beloved ruler of Egypt. Then there's the whole drama with Cleopatra and (after Julius Caesar dies), which includes him cheating on his wife and marrying her without divorcing first, and ends with Cleopatra and Antony declaring themselves living incarnations of the gods Isis and Osiris and declaring their children as the rulers of the land currently dominated by Rome. Although Antony was Roman and was supposed to be splitting rule of the land with Octavius (who will soon be the first Emperor Augustus), Octavius takes exception to this and declares war on Cleopatra, which ends with Antony committing suicide and then Cleopatra doing the same. • Julius Caesar was assassinated 2 years after coming into power by a group of conspiring senators at the hand of Marcus Brutus (Ides of March, “Et tu, Brute?”) The Republic that the senators were trying to save actually ended with the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. The Senate declared him a deity 2 years after his death. (2 slides)

Roman Empire = 27 BC – 395 AD • In 27 BC, Augustus Caesar founded and ruled the . (In the statue, there is a small Cupid, son of Venus, at his feet riding on a dolphin, Venus's patron animal. This is a reference to the claim that he descended from the goddess Venus, the same claim that was made by his great uncle Julius.) After his death in 14 AD, the rulers of Rome were “weak , incompetent, insane, or all 3. This was the era... of the most gory excesses of Rome.” • The Empire soon invaded Britain and continued to become more urbanized, with buildings and temples in the cities throughout mirroring those in Rome. (At it's height in 117 AD it included everything shown. Point out location of Pompeii, halfway between Rome and tip of Italy.) • In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted and buried Pompeii. People were killed instantly by heat surges over 480 F which reached more than 6 miles from the site of the eruption. Pompeii was covered in 80 feet of ash that rained down over the 6 hours following the eruption, which, coincidentally, was the day after Vulcanalia, the festival for the Roman god of fire. • The next year marked the completion of the Colosseum in Rome, which could hold 50,000 spectators. • By 166 AD, German tribes had invaded northern Italy. The famous Ludovisi Battle Sarcaphagus from ~250 AD depicts Romans battling Ostrgoth barbarians at the time. Notice how the Romans in the relief are shown in armor with clean-shaven faces and expressions of calm superiority, while the beards, hairstyles and clothing are clearly different on the barbarians, who are all shown in agonized submission. The writhing figures struggling closely together convey the chaos and drama of hand-to-hand battle. The striking heroic poses and clear command of the situation demonstrated by the Roman soldiers must have made this a powerful piece of imperial propaganda. • During the Crisis of the Third Century the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague and economic depression. During this fifty-year period, 20-25 different people tried to claim the title of Emperor and assume power over all or part of the Empire. The Crisis ended with the establishment of the Tetrarchy in 285 AD. (The green and yellow will soon become the Eastern Empire and the pink and purple the Western Empire.) • Over the next 70 years, the division of the Empire will be redrawn several times during the Civil Wars of Tetrarchy. The Battle of Milvian Bridge took place outside of Rome in 312 AD between the Christian Constantine the Great and the pagan Maxentius. Although the battle was primarily over political power and leadership of the Western Roman Empire, Constantine's victory was a major turning point in the rise of Christianity. In 324 AD, Constantine established a “second Rome” at , renaming it (now known as Istanbul, show on previous slide). • In 395 AD, the final division was made, creating the Western Roman Empire and the . Through the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire faded and was replaced by a patchwork of “barbarian” kingdoms across Europe, including the Goths and the Vandals, but the Byzantine Empire flourished with culture from Constantinople.