Classical Civilization in the

Mediterranean: Greece and

Rome
AP Ch. 4

Minoans

Lived on the island of Crete

King Minos and the capital of Knossos
Traded their pottery, swords, metal objects
Culture was very advanced but
disappeared about 1470 B.C.

Phoenicians
Fall of Crete left Phoenicians most
important traders in Mediterranean
Established number of city-states
Compete for trade:
Shipbuilding
Seafarers

Legacy of Phoenicia
Alphabet
Symbols represent sounds
Adopted by Greeks
Phonics
Spread by trade

The Persian Tradition

Cyrus the Great
The Law Giver
Empire by 550 B.C.E.
Zoroastrianism

Greece
Minoans
Crete

Greeks
Indo-Europeans
arrive by 1700 B.C.E.

Mycenae
by 1400 B.C.E.
destroyed c. 800 B.C.E.

Bronze Age Greece

Greece
Olympics
religious

City-States
Poleis
Sparta, Athens

Greece
Greece
Pericles
Athenian statesman

Peloponnesian Wars (431404 B.C.E.)

Philip II of Macedon (359336 B.C.E.)
Hellenistic Period (323100B.C.E.)
Alexandria

Alexanders Empire

Rome
Punic Wars (264-146 BCE)
1st- Rome wins Sicily
2nd-Hannibal/Scipio
3rd- Rome Conquers and
destroys Carthage

Collapse of Republic
(550-27 BCE)

44 B.C. Caesar named dictator for life

Reforms Rome
Assassinated in Senate

Roman Empire
Augustus first Caesar
Pax-Romana-Peace of Rome lasts 200
years from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius
Diocletian splits empire into
eastern and western halves
Constantine accepts Christianity

Diocletian Splits the

Empire in Two: 294
CE

Constantinople: The 2nd

Rome (Founded in 330)

Greek and Roman

Political Institutions

Greece
Democracy
demos, the people

Oligarchy

Rome
Government
Senate
Consuls
Assemblies

Law codes
12 Tables, by 450
B.C.E.

The Twelve Tables, 450

BCE
Providing political and social
rights for the plebeians.

Religion and Culture

Pantheon

Zeus, Apollo, Neptune, Mars, Venus

Mystery Religions
Philosophy
Socrates
Plato
Aristotle
Stoics

Culture
Sciences
Ptolemy
Pythagoras

Literature
Sappho
Sophocles
Iliad, Odyssey

Economy and Society in the

Mediterranean
Agriculture
poor soils
market farms

Trade
grain
luxuries

Society
slavery
family

Society
Political:
Autocratic w/democracy (variety of India with
Confucian similarities?)
Ethics, oratory and civic duty (China?)
Religious tolerance
Legal principles
Christianity refused allegiance
Greece=arts and literature
Rome=engineering

Classical Societal Comparative

Similarities

Developed empire
Agriculture
Science
Social Strata

Differences
Social mobility
Cultural glue- civic
duty, reincarnation,
self-restraint
Christianity in Rome

Cultural Comparisons
Similarities
Empires
Social strata headed
by elites
India and Med.-have
some common
heritage

Differences
Social mobility (Rome
to India)
Cultural glue
China and India
survived more intact
due to introduction of
Christianity
Med.-no world religion
Moral philosophy
(Cicero, Aristotle,
Confucius)