*Crete was home to brilliant early civilization, it was washed by the warm waters of the Aegean Sea. The British archaeologists who unearthed its ruins called then Minoans after Minos, a legendary king of Crete.
*Sparta�s location was important because they were in the southern part of Greece and isolated themselves from other Greeks. They looked down on trade and forbade their citizens to travel, and had little use for ideas or arts.
*The Trojan War had economic rivalry between Mycenaean�s and Troy, a rich trading city in present-day Turkey. Troy controlled the vital straits, or narrow passages, that connect the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
*The Greeks who farmed the valleys or settled on the scattered islands did not create a large empire as the Egyptians or Mesopotamians had.
*Victory in the Persian Wars increased the Greek sense of their own uniqueness. The gods, they felt, had protected their superior form of government � the city-state � against invaders from Asia.
*Despite its riches and powerful navy, Athens faced a serious geographical disadvantage. Sparta eventually allied itself with Persia the longtime enemy of the Greeks. In 404 B.C. with the help of the Persian navy, the Spartans captured Athens.
*The first Greek plays evolved out of religious festivals, especially those held in Athens to honor Dionysus. Plays were performed outdoors in large theaters gouged out of the sides of hills.
*Alexander intended to invade Persia just as his father did. He won his first victory against the Persians at the Granicus River. He never lost a battle. He fell victim of sudden fever.
* The cities of the Hellenistic world employed armies of architects and artists. Temples, palaces, and other public buildings were much larger and grander than the buildings of classical Greece.
*Greece is part of the Balkan Peninsula which extends southward into the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The Mediterranean and Aegean seas were as central to the Greek world as the Nile to Egypt.
*As trade expanded the middle class of wealthy merchant farmers came to dominate some city-states. The result was a form of government called oligarchy. In an oligarchy, power is in the hands of small, powerful elite, usually from the business class.
*As discontent spread through Greece, Athens moved slowly toward democracy or government by the people.
*At age seven, boys began training for a lifetime in the military. They moved into barracks where they endured a brutal existence. At the age of 20, a man could marry, but he continued to live in the barracks
*Athens' golden age
*Aristotle analyzed all kinds of government and found good and bad examples of each. Like Plato, he was suspicious of democracy, which he thought could lead to mob rule. N the end, he favored rule by a single strong and virtuous leader.
*Some of the values of the Greeks were their architecture, sculpture, painting, poetry, and drama.
CH 6
*Through firm but moderate policies, Augustus helped Rome recover from the long period of civil war. While he left the senate in place, Augustus created an efficient well-trained civil service charged with enforcing the laws.
*Out of chaos emerged Julius Caesar, an able commander who combined soaring ambition with a determined to make drastic reforms. For some time he dominated Roman politics with Pompey, one of Rome�s most brilliant generals.
*According to legend, when Hannibal was nine his father made him take a sacred oath. His father his swear himself �an enemy of the Roman people.� He was selected as the leader of the Carthaginian army.
*What little we know about Jesus comes from the Gospels. Jesus was born about 4 B.C. in Bethlehem, near Jerusalem. Growing up, Jesus worshiped God and followed Jewish law. As a young man he worked as a carpenter. At age 30 he began preaching to villagers near the Sea of Galilee.
*Paul was a martyr, who was killed during the reign of Nero.
*In 476 Odoacer a Germanic leader, ousted the emperor in Rome. Later, historians referred to that event as the �fall� of Rome. By then, however, Rome had already lost many of its territories and Roman power in the west had ended.
*In Alexandria an astronomer-mathematician Ptolemy proposed his theory that the Earth was the center of the Universe, an idea that was accepted in the western world for nearly 1,500 years.
*The poet Virgil wrote the epic poem the Aeneid to remind his fellow Romans of their great heritage.
*Over the centuries, thousands of Christians became martyrs, people who suffer or die for their beliefs.
*To meet its need for soldiers, Rome hired mercenaries, or foreign soldiers serving for pay, to defend its boarders. Many were German warriors who according to some historians felt little loyalty to Rome.
*Zealots called on Jews to revolt against Rome and reestablish an independent Israel. Some Jews believed that a messiah, or savior sent by god, would soon appear to lead the Jewish people to freedom.
*In the early republic, the most powerful governing body was the senate. Its 300 members were all patricians, members of the landholding upper class.
*At first, all government officials were patricians. Plebeians, the farmers, merchants, artisans, and traders who made up the bulk of the population, had little influence.
*roman engineers built many immense aqueducts, or bridge-like stone structures that brought water from the hills into Roman cities.
*To end disputes over questions of faith, councils of Church leaders met to decide official Christian teachings. They put together the New Testament, the 27 books of the Bible that contain the life and teachings of Jesus. They battled heresies, or beliefs said to be contrary to official Church teachings.
*As in Greece, Roman armies consisted of citizen soldiers who fought without pay and supplied their own weapons. The basic unit was the legion, made up of about 5,000 men.
*The Romans determined that they would never be ruled by a monarch again and set up a new government in which officials were chosen by the people. They called it a republic,, or �think of the people.�
*At first, Christianity remained a sect, or small group, within Judaism. Then Paul, a Jew from Asia Minor, began the wider spread of the new faith.