from 2650 BC. The three famous pyramids of Giza date from the 2500’s. The largest of the Giza pyramids is 481 feet high and contains 2.3 million stone blocks. Egyptian farmers rather than enslaved people probably provided the labor. SEE FIGURE 2
of the Buddha, was the first and most widely known Chinese philosopher. As a teacher, he stressed two worldly virtues: proper conduct and benevolent love.
509 BC–476 AD Roman Republic and Empire
1400 BC Moses
The empires of the Middle East after 3000 BC — in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, Persia, India — arose in river valleys and areas of regional trade. By contrast, the first and greatest empire in the west — the Roman — developed after 750 BC around the Mediterranean Sea. It took Rome 500 years to conquer Italy but only half that time to absorb Spain, Gaul, Britain, Germany, the Balkans, North Africa, and areas of western Asia. Organized as a republic in 509 BC, Rome featured consuls elected by patricians, a senate of elders, tribunes representing the people, and a legal code. Nevertheless, the republic was undermined by Rome’s huge expansion, concentration of wealth, constant wars, and a crisis in military manpower. Political violence flared after 91 BC, followed by civil wars among military leaders that culminated in the establishment of centralized authority under Augustus in 27 BC. For the next five centuries, until the western empire was overrun by barbarian invaders, Rome was ruled by emperors, some extraordinarily able, many brutal and ineffective. SEE FIGURE 3
The Jews, like other ethnic Semites including Arabs, trace their ancestry to Abram (Abraham), who lived during the second millennia BC. According to Hebrew scripture, Abram was summoned by God to take his family from Mesopotamia to the land of the Canaanites (modern day Israel and Palestine). Generations later, having been drawn into the Nile Delta by drought and famine, the Jews found themselves enslaved by the Egyptians. It was here that Moses, a Jew raised by Egyptian royalty, heeded a call from God to lead his people on an exodus through the Sinai — where God conveyed Ten Commandments and established a covenant with Israel. Moses died after years of wandering the desert, having brought the Jews within sight of the Promised Land. After 1400 BC, Joshua would lead the successful re-entry into Canaan and establish the Jews in the hill country, where under tribal leaders and kings, and balanced among competing powers, they maintained their independence for more than 600 years.
Figure 3. This heroic statue of Augustus Caesar is from the collection of the Vatican museum in the capital of the old Roman Empire. Image courtesy of Library of Congress.
563–483 BC The Buddha in India 551–479 BC Confucius in China Philosophy burst upon India and China
490–404 BC Classic Greece at its Peak
By the 8th century BC Greece had developed trading centers and an extended network of colonies in the Black Sea and western Mediterranean. This unusual expansion produced a unique culture, secular and individualistic, featuring speculation about nature and careful methods of observation and inference. In the 5th century BC, after the Persian Empire had expanded into Asia Minor, the cities of mainland Greece fought off Persian attack and emerged with astonishing victories. Afterwards Athens took the lead in organizing a defensive league, generating proceeds sufficient to support the world’s first democratic government, construction of the Parthenon, and military expansion in the Aegean. Sparta responded by leading an alliance of city-states against Athens in a 50 year war that ended in mutual exhaustion. Greek art, culture, and philosophy, reflected in the achievements of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, remained highly regarded. When Alexander the Great of Macedonia invaded and conquered Persia after 336 BC, he carried many Greek ideas with him to the Middle East.
simultaneously in the sixth century before the Christian era. In India a polytheistic worship based on sacred literature (Vedas) had become embedded in rituals conducted by and for a priestly class. This early Hindu orthodoxy was now challenged by ethical alternatives, especially Buddhism. Its founder, Siddhartha Gautama, was born a prince but in early life became pre-occupied with human suffering. Achieving enlightenment, i.e. becoming the Buddha, through meditation, he recognized a close connection between suffering and desire and sought to minimize the latter through self- discipline and restraint. This perspective was the root of a belief system that in succeeding centuries spread in various forms throughout India, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. In the Chinese empire it encountered, temporarily replaced, and was ultimately supplanted by Confucian thought. Confucius, a contemporary
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