Greece and Rome……
• The Polis: City State-
• Women, Children and Slaves had no political rights in the Greek Polis
Greece and Rome……
Classical Greece-• Period from 500 to 339 B.C.
• The Greeks unify and defeat the Persians and Athens emerges as the leading state of Greece.
• Pericles– Direct Democracy.
Greece and Rome……
The Culture and Art of Classical Greece
• Classical Greek art dominates most of Western Art History
• Architectural.
• Drama
•Philosophy
•Socratic Method– “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Greece and Rome……
Plato•The Republic
• Rules, Warriors and Commoners“The Allegory of the Cave.”
Aristotle
•Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Constitutional Government.
Greece and Rome……
The Founding of Rome
•Romulus and Remus
• Kingdom, Republic, Empire
The Roman Republic• Two classes were the Patrician and the Plebeians•Two Consuls ran the government and armies•The Praetors handled the civil law as it applied to citizens• By 287 B.C. all male citizens were supposedly equal under the law howevera few wealthy patrician and plebeian families formed a new ruling class.
Greece and Rome……
Roman Culture
•Poetry– The Aeneid by Virgil shows the virtues of the idealRoman. This included duty, piety, and loyalty.
Caesar’s reforms alienated many of Rome’s elite who considered him a tyrant
In 44 B.C. they assassinated him
Octavian emerged in power
Greece and Rome……
Greece and Rome……
Octavian consolidated his rule and in 27 B.C., the Senate bestowed upon him the title Augustus
“Augustus” has religious connotations suggesting a divine or semidivine nature
Augustus ruled virtually unopposed for 45 years in “a monarchy disguised as a republic”
Pax Romana
http://www.roman-emperors.org/impindex.htm
Greece and Rome……
Germanic invaders toppled Rome’s authority in the late 5th Century A.D. but no clear successor to centralized authority emerged The Franks temporarily
revived empire; the high point of which was the reign of Charlemagne from 768-814
The Middle Ages
Middle Ages/Medieval Period: 476 to 1453 C.E. Also known as the Dark Ages "Middle Age:” invented by Italian scholars in the early 15th Century. Until this time it
was believed there had been two periods in history, that of Ancient times and that of the period later referred to as the "Dark Age.“
Renaissance means “rebirth” The humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning that
originated in Italy in the 14th century and later spread throughout Europe. The period of this revival, roughly the 14th through the 16th century, marking the
transition from medieval to modern times.
Middle Ages
Rome attacked in 476 C.E. The beginning of the Middle Ages is often called the "Dark Ages”
Fall of Greece and Rome Life in Europe during the Middle Ages was very hard. Very few people could read or write and nobody expected conditions to
improve. Only hope: strong belief in Christianity; heaven would be better than life on
earth. In contrast:
The Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa studied and improved on the works of the ancient Greeks
Civilization flourished in sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, and the Americas.
476 C.E.Fall of Rome
1066 C.E.Norman
invasion of Britain
1095-1291C.E. Crusades
1306-1321 Dante’s Divine
Comedy
1386 C.E.Chaucer begins writing
Canterbury Tales
1455 C.E.Printing
Press
Beowulf Composed sometimebetween
850 C.E. 900 C.E. 1453Fall of
Byzantine Empire with invasion of
Ottoman Turks
306 C.E.Constantine comes to power in Eastern Roman Empire; beginning of Byzantine Empire
1347 Bubonic Plague
450 C.E.Anglo-Saxons invade
England
1375-1400 Sir Gawain &
Green Knight
War Religion
TURMOIL
Crusades
Feudalism: The Middle Ages’ social order
• Church became deeply involved in government• Christianity provided the basis for a first European "identity,"
unified in a religion common to most of the continent until the separation of Orthodox Churches from the Catholic Church in 1054.
• Crusades: Popes, kings, and emperors unite and defend Christendom from the perceived aggression of Islam
Beowulf
Beowulf is an Anglo-Saxon epic poem which relates the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother.
He then returns to his own country, Geatland, and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath.