Ancient Rome, Phoenicians, Alexander the Great & Ancient China Notes
Rome
Rome’s origins can be found among the Iron Age tribe called Latins, who invaded the Italian Peninsula at the beginning of the 1st millennium BCE (1000 BCE). The Latins founded the city of Rome in the lower valley of Tiber River in 753 BCE, due to the convenient access to Mediterranean Sea. The two founding legends are Romulus & Remus and The Aeneid. Central Italy received continuous infusions of eastern Mediterranean people influencing Latin culture: Etruscans, (northern Italy) who were experts in the arts of Metallurgy, town building, and city planning. The Greeks, (southern Italian Peninsula & Sicily) who were masters of arts and philosophy; The Phoenicians, who brought their alphabet, commercial and maritime skills. The Romans borrowed urban planning, chariot racing, the toga, bronze and gold crafting and the most ingenious structural principle of Mesopotamia architecture, the arch. From the Greeks, the Romans borrowed a pantheon of gods and goddesses, linguistic and literary principles and the classical style.
Etruscan Kings ruled the Latin population for three centuries, but in 509 BCE, the Latins overthrew the Etruscans. Over the next two hundred years, monarchy will give way to a government “of the people (res publica).” The agricultural population of ancient Rome consisted of a powerful class of large landowners, the patricians, life members of the Roman Senate. A more populous class of small farmers called plebeians, who headed the Popular Assembly, gave civil & military authority to the Imperium, two elected magistrates called consuls. The Roman Senate controlled the lawmaking process. Plebeians, using their service as soldiers leverage in the Roman Army, and their power to veto laws by the Senate, through their leaders called Tribunes, made their voices heard. By 287 BCE, Plebeians will gain the right to make laws and intermarry with patricians. However, no sooner had Rome become a Republic than it adopted an expansionist course that would erode these democratic achievements.
Obedience to the Roman state and service in its powerful army were essential to the life of the early Republic. After expelling the last of the Etruscan kings, Rome extended its controll over all parts of the Italian peninsula. By the middle of the third Century BCE (350 BCE), having united all of Italy by Force or negotiation, Rome positioned itself to rule the Mediterranean Sea. A long standing rivalry with the Phoenicians and the city of Carthage, stronghold in northeastern Africa will led into the the Punic Wars (three wars from 264-146 BCE). After the defeat/destruction of Carthage, Rome assumed naval and commercial leadership in the Mediterranean Sea. Rome demanded from conquered territory provincial taxes, soldiers to serve in the Roman Army, tribute, and slaves. Roman governors were selected by the Senate from among the higher ranks of military to rule conquered territory. Usually, local customs of religion and customs will continue unmodified. The Romans will introduce the latin language, law, built aqueducts, bridges, paved roads and eventually granted people in conquered territory Roman citizenship.
Military: The army consisted of citizens who served for two years. By the 1st Century, the military had become a profession where men could serve 25 or more years. Non-Citizens could earn Roman citizenship by service in the military for 25 years. Josephus (37-100 CE), a Jewish Historian describes the superiority of the Roman military machine, which he estimated at 300,000 armed men.
Fall of the Republic- The disappearence of the small farmer signaled the decline of the Republic. Roman imperialism controlled by the Senate, wealthy entrepreneurs called equestrians, changed the republic. The army also became very powerful due to its control over provinces. Precious metals, booty and slaves from foreign conquest brought enormous wealth to army generals and influential patricians. Captives of war, were shipped to Rome and auctioned off to the highest bidders, usually patricians, whose farms became large plantations (latifundia) worked by slaves. The increased agricultural productivity of large landowners drove lesser landowers to sell their land and eventually drove them out of business. Many small farmers were forced to sell their land to neighboring patricians, and moving to the cities to join the growing unemployed population.
In 46 BCE, an army general named Gaius Julius Ceasar triumphantly entered Rome and established a dictatorship. Ceasar, who spent 9 years conquering Gaul (present-day France and Belgium), described his campaigns in Commentaries on the Gallic War. His brief, but successful campaigns in Syria, Asia Minor, and Egypt, where his union with Egyptian Queen Cleopatra (69-30 BCE) produced the famous boast: “Veni, Vidi, Vici (“I came, I saw, I conquered”) Caesar will codify laws, regulate taxation, reduced debts, sent large numbers of unemployed to overseas colonies, inaugurated public works projects, granted citizenship to non Italians, and reformed the Western Calendar to comprise 365 days and twelve months (of which July is named after himself). Threatened by Caesar’s popular reforms and his contempt for republican institutions, a group of senators led by Marcus Brutus assassinated him in 44 BCE. Despite his inglorious death, the name Caesar would be used as a honorary title by imperial successors.
Following the assassination of Caesar, a struggle for power will ensue between Caesar’s first lieutenant, Mark Anthony (80-30 BCE) and his grandnephew/adopted son Octavian (63-14 BCE). Octavian’s army defeated the combined forces of Mark Anthony and Cleopatra in 31 BCE. In 43 BCE, Octavian will gain approval of the Senate to rule for life and be given the title, Augustus (the revered one).
Phoenicians
Classical Greek writer Herodotus attributed the invention of the alphabet to a sea faring civilization along the fertile strip of land between the eastern Mediterranean and the mountains of modern Lebanon. The Bronze Age of this group were the Canaanites who developed the small but aggressive city-states of Sidon, Tyre, & Byblos and became skilled sailors. Ruled by a King and a Council of Elders, the Canaanites worshiped Astarte (Earth Mother), Baal and various other gods in a Hamitic-Semitic Origin. The name Phoenician related to the word “phoenix,” is known in the Greek texts of the 8th Century as meaning “purple-red,” which refers to one of the major Phoenician industries, textile dyeing (royality). By 1000 BCE, the Phoenicians established trading posts on the southern coasts of Cyprus, Sicily, Sardinia, modern day Spain (exporting gold & silver), and built temples in Knommos, Crete.
The Phoenician economy made for trade of cedar trees (wood), fine ivory, copper, jewelry, bronze tools, glass, and bronze tools including weapons. These goods were highly prized and widely distributed throughout the ancient world. Due to rivalry with the Greeks in Sicily and Italy, the Phoenicians created the colonies of Carthage ( meaning ‘New Town’ - 8th Century BCE) and Uticia to give control of the narrow strait between Sicily and North Africa. These colonies would also protect the Phoenician trade route west, where explorers sailed down the Atlantic Coast and possibly as far north as Britain.
Alexander the Great (Continued from Europe Notes)
Ironically, the failure of the Greek city-states to live in peace would lead to the spread of Hellenic culture throughout the civilized world. Manipulating the shifting confederacies to his advantage, Philip of Macedonia eventually would defeat the Greeks in 338 BCE. When he was assassinated two years later, his twenty year old son, Alexander (356-323 BCE) assumed the Macedonian throne. A student of Aristotle, Alexander brought to this role as ruler the same far reaching ambition and imagination that his teacher exercised in the intellectual realm. Alexander was a military genius. Within 12 years, he created an empire that stretched from Greece to the borders of modern India. With the help of 35,000 Greeks and Macedonians equipped with catapults and battering rams, Alexander will conquer the walls of the best defended cities of Asia Minor, Egypt, Syria, and Persia. Finally, in Northwest India, facing the formidable army of the King of the Ganges (believed to be Chandragupta) and his force of 5000 elephants, Alexanders troops refused to go any further. Shortly thereafter, the thirty-two year old general died (probably of malaria), and his empire was split into three segments: Egypt was governed by the Ptolemy dynasty, Persia under the leadership of the Seleucid rulers (Seleucus Nicator), and Macedonia-Greece governed by the family of Antigonus the One Eyed.
The era that followed called the Hellenistic (Greek like) lasted from 323-30 BCE. The Hellenistic Age blended Greek, African and Asian cultures and carried the Greek language/culture (art & literature) across the ancient world, especially to cities named after Alexander. Alexandria of Egypt would replace Athens as the cultural center, boasting a population of more than a million people and a library of half a million books (the collection was destroyed by fire when Julius Caesar besieged the city in 47 BCE.)
Ancient China
Ancient Chinese civilization emerged in the fertile valleys of two great waterways: the Yellow and Yangzi Rivers. By 3500 BCE, the Neolithic Villages of China were producing silk, a commodity that would bring wealth and fame to Chinese culture. Urban cities, metallurgy, and writing will develop by the 2nd millennium. By 1750 BCE, the Chinese had developed a script of 4500 characters, the basis for writing throughout East Asia today. The Bronze Age coincides with the rise of a warring tribe known as the Shang (1520-1027 BCE).
Shang rulers were hereditary kings, who were regarded as intermediaries between the people and the spirit world. They were only limited by the councils of China’s land owning nobility claiming authority from the Lord on High (Shang-ti). Royal authority was symbolized by the dragon representing strength, fertility, and life giving water. Occupants of the Dragon’s Throne, China’s early Kings defended their position by way of bureaucracy and huge armies of archer-warriors recruited from the surrounding provinces. Soldiers were usually peasants, who farmed during peacetime.
The sacred right to rule was known in China as the Mandate of Heaven. This concept was defined when the rebel Zhou tribe justified their assault on the Shang by claiming that the Shang Kings had failed to rule virtuously; hence heaven withdrew its mandate. The King is charged with maintaining the will of heaven on Earth, the King’s political authority required obedience to pre-established moral law, which in turn reflected the natural order.
Government Civil Service
According to the Chinese, the natural order, determined human intelligence and ability, as well as a person’s place in society. Within the natural hierarchy, those with greater intellectual abilities should govern and those with lesser abilities should fulfill the physical needs of the state. The Zhou dynasty used these principles to establish civilized China’s political and social hierarchy, selecting local authorities from aristocrats of their choosing. By the 2nd Century BCE, the Chinese put into practice the world’s 1st system whereby individuals were selected for government service on the basis of merit, education, and examinations.
Yin/Yang- The ancient Chinese perception that the natural order dominated all aspects of China’s long history, lies in its oldest texts called The Book of Changes. The Book of Changes originates in the Shang era but is not recorded until the 6th Century BCE. It is based on the balance of the four seasons, five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, and water) and the five powers of creation (cold, heat, dryness, moisture, and wind). The mythology describes the cosmic marriage of Heaven and Earth, signifying the order of nature represented by yin and yang. Yang, the male principle represents light, hardness, brightness, warmth, and the sun. Yin, the female principle represents darkness, softness, moisture, coolness and the moon. Both describe the creative energy of the universe.
Daoism - associated with the name Lao Zi “The Old One” existed as early as 1000 BCE, but was not written in the Dao de Jing (The Way and Its Power) until the 6th Century BCE. Dao or the “Way” is based on the natural principle to manifest the harmony of all things. It is understood only by those who live in total simplicity and in harmony with nature. Daoist practice meditation and breath control and illustrate the complementary/harmonious function of positive and negative elements in ordinary things.
