Classical Rome
For all the democratic reforms attributed to the ancient Greeks,only Athens and its allies accepted this form of “equality under the law”,and even then the rights were brief in duration and limited to the citizens.Because of the stubborn autonomy that each city state claimed for itself,it is hard to sum up Greek social and Class relationship.
In general Greeks,despised kings,prized local identities often quarreled among themselves and nonetheless cooperated in matters of athletic competition.
They also agreed about the superiority of the Greek language, religion and commerce compared with those of other peoples.They rarely mixed with non-greek slaves,who did the work too indignified for Greeks to do,were grudgingly accepted.
Family and marriage were valued because survival depended on having enough children so that the next generation would protect the city with an army and take care of the citizens in old age.
Rome
Early Rome overturned its Etruscan and became a republic dominated by a group of men who made decisions for all citizens.These leader called senators.And they came from an aristocratic called the participants.
Commoners owned small plots of land and were full citizens of the early republic,but their role in government was limited to veto power plebiscites and election of their own spokesperson,called Tribunes.Class struggles led to civil wars and disintegration of republicans institutions.
As Rome acquired land outside the Italian peninsula,Two changes occurred that affected Roman society:First,the patrician class benefited because successful wars increased its wealth and power,second ,the old system of running Roman politics failed to cope with the new empires demands.
The plebeians abandoned their small farms and move to the city for economics opportunities.Rome’s leaders were increasingly compelled to provide”bread and circuses” to keep the unemployed citizens content.Popular disenchantment with the new arrangement and the leader tendency to foment civil war motivated like Julius Caesar and Mark antony experiment with new forms of government.Though the office of Caesar means both emperor and proved popular,there was still an undercurrent of discontent from classes as diverses as the original patricians of the republic days and newly acquired slaves,numbering up to one-third of the city’s population.Spartacus led a throng disgruntled slaves in 73 B.C.E,requiring eight legions to quash the uprising,Julius Caesar,the hero of the new imperial age, murdered in the senate by old guard republicans of Ides of March,44 B.C.E.
Caesars adapted by expanding the opportunities for citizenship and by giving slaves and freedmen opportunities to gain wealth and improve their status.However,there is no evidence that wealth disparities diminished over the whole imperial period.The steady rise of inadequacies of the Roman religion led to the spread of Christianity among all ranks for Roman society.
The Americans
Mesoamericans and andean peoples became more hierarchical and stratified as urbanization increased.Birth,lineage and occupation determined one’s in these civilizations.
The overall class structures was pyramidal with rulers and nobility on top,Followed by Priestly class,warrior class, merchants and traders,artisans and crafts workers,then agriculturalists with servants and slaves on the bottom.The whole schema was cemented together by a mythology that resembled that of Shang China or Pharaonic Egypt:The God approved of the elites as concerning such things as astronomy,Calendrical calculations and rituals which enabled them to stay in power.
While there is some evidence of lower class discontent,the preponderance of evidence indicates that wars, invasions and ecological bottlenecks not internal class conflicts were primarily responsible for the decline of classic Mesoamericans civilizations.
Literary Classics and Monasteries
The ability to read and write was considered almost magical potentate and peasant alike in the ancient world.This fascination with the written text explains why those ancient religions that survived are scripture based.Reading and writting became particularly useful as cities and civilization required more complex administration and organization.At first ,writting was complicated and unwieldy and few could master the thousands of symbols in each written laugauge.As a result certain societies honoured the Scholarly class or compelled their administrators to pass literacy tests.I. In the new world only the Maya devised written language utilizing a system 800 glyphs.
Some ancient scripts evolved and became syllabic or hybrids of pictures and sounds which reduced the number of symbols from thousands to hundreds.When ugarit reduced its symbols to 30,cuneiform became the standard script in the near East for law and literature.The Phoenicians were important because they perfected the alphabet letters to represent sounds.Soon the Greeks added vowel and the alphabet,as we know it was invented.The alphabet was simple enough that many could learn it and gain access to literature and history and thus power.Israrel gave an institutional place to the prophet as a critic of the rulling king and priest,and the prophet’s critiques.Once it was written down became a powerful statement to future generations about the limits of power.Greece flourished in the fifth century B.C.E. in the arts and sciences because it too encouraged literacy among its people.
In many civilizations monastic societies were seen as separate from the secular society.The roots for western monasticism came from Anthony of the desert and “Desert of Fathers and mothers of Egypt,indicating Eastern Christian influence on the Latin church.Benedict is called the father of the monastic movement in the west.His rule came at the critical time for western civilization,Because various barbarian tribes had broken through the frontiers and were destroying cities and institutions ,Yet the empire had taken few measures to preserve its manifold culture heritage.The Monasteries of Benedict and his Followers provided an alternate society,a counterculture with its own meritocracy and value systerm.By the end of the period it was the monasteries that powerfully preserved culture and encouraged progress:They showed hospitality to displaced refuges they developed and retaught agricultural techniques ,They recopied precious manuscripts and they eventually returned re-civilize the people that were once were proud Roman Citizens.The only Western library of the sixth century C.E that functioned after Rome’s decline was Benedict’s vivarium.Similarly Hindus and Buddhists honoured monastic institutions as well as individual ascetics.
History Knowledge 