Greece and Rome……

• The Polis: City State-

• Women, Children and Slaves had no political rights in the Greek Polis

Greece and Rome……

Sparta-

Athens-

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.

Beowulf

The Black Death

1348- The Black Plague reaches the shores of Italy It is estimated that nearly 3/4th of Europe’s

population was killed