SOCIAL
- Greek and Roman economies were based on commercial agriculture, trade and slavery
- It is said their was a tendency in Rome for large landlords to squeeze the farmers, forcing them to become laborers or to join the swelling crowds of urban lower class.
- Aryan social classes known as varnas,were party enforced divisions familiar in agricultural societies.
- Greek societies generated less tidy political structures than China and Persia, but their expansion and outreach affected a large portion of western Asia and eastern half of Mediterranean
- The eastern and western portion of a empire developed differently after the fall of Rome
- Intermarriage was rigid with the social hierarchy in Indian life
- In India, most people were peasant farmer's, were concerned with their family's food and survival.
- The caste system structured Indian's social framework but a strong emphasis on trade was also important
- Partly because of slavery partly because of the overall orientation of upper class culture neither Greece nor Rome was especially interested in technological innovations applicable to agriculture or manufacturing
- In Indian culture peasant families clustered together in villages for aid and protection
- A system of arranged marriages evolved in which parents controlled unions for children
- A brahman who killed a servant will get fined no more than if they killed an animal
- Low caste individuals had few rights and were abused by their masters
- This system of arranged marriages was usually for daughters to spouses they had never met
- Autocratic kings and emperors were prevalent throughout classical India. There were also aristocratic assemblies in some regional states with power to consult and decide on major issues
- The Chinese government established stability that led to intellectual study, philosophy, and political ideology
- The Chinese empire was indeed the largest political system in the classical world
- Government traditions established during the classical period included an impressive list of state functions
- Strong local rule was not the most significant or distinctive feature of Chinese government under the Qin and Han dynasties
- Two centuries of Gupta rule gave India its greatest classical period of political stability
- Mauryan empire was first to unify subcontinent
- Mauryan empire was highly aristocratic
- Mediterranean culture did not develop one single political system like Chinese Confucianism
- The Qin dynasty was fairly legalist in its efforts to weaken culture and strengthen the government
- India was fairly regional but was united by roads and a unified law code out into place by the Guptas
- Due to Indias regionalism empires enforced the government with a standing army
- Greece was fragmented into many city-states unlike other classical civilizations
- Both Han and Roman collapse came from nomadic invasion
- Persian Empire spread throughout India alowing new artistic styles and political concepts into their empire
- The Indian caste system was very rigid and formed political structure. It stressed the seperation of classes and laws that followed.
- An esat-west highway paved the way for simplified commerce and movement from the Indian border to the Mediterranean. This was the vital step toward the growth of new trans-regional commercial connections.
- The next major step in Indian political history was produced by political history was produced by political reactions to this incursion, in 322 B.C.E. when a soldier named Chandragupta Maurya seized power along the Ganges River.
- Early Mauryan Empires had to dpend heavily on power of their large armies.
- No single language was imposed during Grupta rule.
- Political culture in India was not very elaborate.
- Paper was invented under the Han rule.
- The great wall marked the settlement in which the Chinese permanently stayed.
- The development of chopsticks as a code of politeness at meals.
- Inoculation against small-pox introduced using cow-pox serum.
- Originally stories were passed down orally, but with the development of Sanskrit there was now a written language.
- Aryan migrants hunting and hoarding peoples originally from central Asia. They had their own impact on culture and social structure of their new home.
- People all began to settle similarly into smaller agriculture communities ruled by a more powerful central government.
- The Chinese demonstrated trade migration that was very effective.
- Water powered mills were introduced, allowing further gains in manufacturing.
- During the Qin dynasty Chinese territory extended to the south china sea reaching present day Hong Kong and even influencing northern Vietnam.
- The vast Indian subcontinent is partially separated from the rest of Asia, and particulary from Cast Asia, by Northern ranges, notably the Himalayas. Important passes through the mountains, linked India to other civilizaitons in the middle east.
- The Great Wall was an architectual masterpiece designed to protect the Qin from invaders.
- Under the Han, a new collar was invented for draft animals which allowed them to pull plows or wagons without choking.
- The guptas supported a vast university center, one of the worlds first, in the town of Nalamola that attracted students from other parts of Asia.
- Astronomer calculated length of solar year and calculated the circumferenece of the earth with remarkable accuracy and daily rotation identified seven planets.
- Persia at its height had at least had a population of 14 million.
- The population of Rome decreased from 1 million to 250,000 as a result of disease going around.
- During the Han Dynasty, the Chinese population was up to 6,500,000
Polynesian people migrated to isolated islands such as Fiji and Samoa by 1000 BCE for agricultural purposes
- Confusianism was a philosophy that told people to live virtuous lives and they will be rewarded. It started in the Zhou Dynasty and was not accepted till the Han Dynasty.
- Daoism embraced traditional Chinese beliefs in nature's harmony and added a sense of nature's mystery.
- The caste system set people into different classes and established relationships between Aryan invaders and the indigenous people
- Rig-Veda= the first epic consists of 1028 hymns dedicates to the Aryan gods and composed by various priests
- Buddhists sent missionaries to the Middle East, Hellenistic Kingdoms, and Sri Lanka.
- Indian Art=spherical shrines to Buddha.
- Greeks and Romans believed in many nature gods.
- Christianity emerged from Jews but was influenced by Romans
- The Shang and Zhou Dynasties developed a world view that stressed that every feature is balanced by an opposite.
- In literature, a set of Five Classics were written during the early part of the Zhou Dynasty.
- Indians invented the number system we use today, including zero and the decimal system, as well as negatives, square roots, sines, and a more accurate pi.
- The Han innovated the seismograph.
- Patriarchy was a main idealogy throughout.
- Hinduism encouraged political and economical goals.
- Buddhism/Hinduism had incarnation, Buddhism rejected the caste system, Buddhism believed in nirvana, Hinduism encouraged worldly pleasure.
- Agricultural implements improved steadily. Ox drawn plows were introduced around 300 BCE. Also, a new collar was invented, better seeds were found, and smaller amounts of land could support more families.
- Much trade focused on luxury items for the upper class, produced by skilled artisans in the cities- silks, jewelry, leather goods,and furniture.
- The rise of commercial agriculture in Greece and then around Rome wasone of the prime forces leading to efforts to establish an empire.
- The Indian economy remained strongly based on agriculture. This also affected the formation of Indian cities, making agricultural area very close to the cities; sometimes even incorporated into their cities.
- a substantial population of free farmers, who owned their own land flourished in both Greek and Rome. However powerful landlords constantly squeezed farmers into a working lower class job.
- The Han dynasty directly contributed to the expansion of chinas Territory into korea, Indo-China, and central China. This created contacts with India and the middle east.
- Aristotle produced labor systems. Athenians used slaves as household servants and also as workers. Sparta used slaves for agricultural work.
- Farming in Greece and in much of Italy was complicated by the fact that soil conditions were not ideal for grain growing and yet grain was the staple of life.
- Slavery was another key ingredient of the classical economy. Slaves provided the labor force for Athen's empire. Sparta used slaves for agriculture.
- Politics and formal culture in Greece and Rome were mainly affairs of the cities, meaning that they were of intense concern only to a minority of the population. Most Greeks and Romans were farmers.
- The Caste System described many key features of Indian social and economic life, structured India's social framework, but a strong emphasis on trade was also important.