The Greeks
Name at least three of the most important things to accomplish for the Athenian known as Pericles:
1) Strengthen democracy
2) Build a powerful navy (lots of ships)
3) Beautify Athens
4) Rights for more citizens than before
Which general brought his army across the Rubicon River against the wishes of the Roman Senate?
Julius Caesar
Who were the "Etruscans?"
The first people who lived in Rome and kept the Romans under their authority until Rome conquered them.
This emperor was responsible for the building of the colosseum....name him:
Vespasian
What language was the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire (Constantinople) as well as in the Catholic Church?
Greek
What nationality was Alexander the Great?
Macedonian (north of Greece)
Which people fought in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC? Name the leaders!
*King Leonidas of Sparta
*King Xerxes of Persia
(Iran today is what used to be Persia)
What was a "symposium?"
A social gathering of the wealthy men of Athens, where they discussed poetry, politics, and other topics.
What is emperor Diocletian best remembered for doing?
Dividing the Roman Empire into 2 places
Rome and Constantinople
For what "crime" did Socrates end up taking his own life?
Corrupting the youth of the day by encouraging them to question everything.
Of all the virtues of the ancient Greeks, which one stood out as their defining characteristic?
Excellence in public performances
In 66 CE, there was a huge revolt of the Jews against the Romans, lasting four years. What were two of the major results from this event?
1. Destruction of the temple of Jerusalem
2. The killing, enslavement, and dispersal (the "diaspora") of Jews from their homeland.
What was the Roman praetorian guard's first responsibility?
To protect the emperor
Which Roman emperor blamed the Christians for burning Rome, and often set them on fire to light his gardens at night?
Nero
Thucydides was a Greek historian famous for detailing the events of which Greek war?
The Peloponnesian War
After Alexander the Great died, his empire quickly broke up among his generals and their new kingdoms. Their names were Antigonus, Seleucid, and this last one that ruled over Egypt ___________________.
Ptolemy
Addressing the pending fall of Rome in 476 CE, the great thinker of the time period, St. Augustine, through his written work The City of God portrayed what two worlds?
The attainable world of heaven (for the Christian) and the flawed, imperfect world of the living.
The Republic days of Rome had consuls, who had almost unlimited power, known as _______________, including the right to inflict the death penalty on lawbreakers.
imperium
The Pax Romana, approximately 200 years of relative peace in the Roman world, occurred during part of this emperor's reign. He began public infrastructure works, built monuments, and many projects to beautify Rome. Who was he?
Augustus Caesar (previously known as Octavian)
* "August" meant dignified, majestic, or of great importance
In the third century CE, "Arianism" became the largest and most persistent heresy in the early Christian church. It was started with the beliefs of an Egyptian Christian priest, named Arius. What did this heresy say about Jesus?
Arius stated that since God the Father had created Jesus, it did not make any sense for Jesus to be the same thing as God. Furthermore, it was impossible to be both human and perfect, since Jesus was human, he was imperfect and could not therefore be God, who was perfect.
Name the two most famous Greek mathematicians and provide something of the work they accomplished:
1. Archimedes - best remembered for his applications of geometry to engineering
2. Euclid - his work on geometry, the Elements, was still used as the standard textbook in many courses on mathematics well into the twentieth century.
Who were the first invaders of Rome, of whom Germanic tribes in the farther West claimed them to be "so cruel and so unstoppable" that they were the product of "unions between demons and witches, rather than normal humans."
The Huns
What was a Greek "agora?"
The agora was the center of the athletic, artistic, business, social, spiritual, and political life in the city.
(An open air meeting place)
Name the Carthaginian leader who was finally defeated in 207 CE by the Roman general Scipio, who was later renamed Scipio Africanus for the territory in Africa he claimed for Rome:
Hannibal
One of the Greek scientists, Anaximenes, created the theory of the four elements that, he argued, comprise all things – name these elements:
Earth, air, fire, and water