History of Civilization I (Ch. 4-6)
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130 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 covenant | solemn agreement |
| theocracy | rule by God |
| 1500 BC | year the Ten Commandments were given |
| David | king of Israel who led it to the peak of its greatness as a nation-state |
| 1000 BC | year of Israel's peak of greatness- Reign of Solomon |
| Israel | Northern Kingdom after Israeli split |
| Judah | Southern Kingdom after Israeli split |
| 722 BC | year of the fall of Israel to the Assyrians |
| Assyrians | empire that defeated Israel |
| 586 BC | year when Judah fell |
| Chaldeans | empire that defeated Judah |
| Phoenicians | people who used their location & the Mediterranean Sea to become prosperous sea traders |
| murex | a kind of sea snail from which the Phoenicians learned to make dye for their wool & silk cloth |
| Carthage | an important Phoenician trading post that became a great & important city >1000 miles west of Canaan |
| alphabet | the most important thing the Phoenicians carried with them on their trading ventures |
| Greeks | the people who used the Phoenicians' alphabet to develop a true alphabet with symbols for the basic sounds of consonants & vowels |
| Hittites | the people known as great "borrowers" from the peoples they conquered, who lived in Asia Minor |
| Asia Minor | a peninsula of western Asia between the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea & the Euphrates River |
| iron | the resource first used by the Hittites to make weapons for war & conquest |
| Hattusas | the capital city of the Hittites, destroyed by the Assyrian Empire |
| Asshur | Shem's son for whom the Assyrians were named, who built the Assyrian capital city of Assur |
| Nineveh | city built by Nimrod that later replaced Assur as the capital of the Assyrian Empire |
| Tiglath-pileser III | the Assyrian leader responsible for the empire's drive to build a world empire in earnest in the 700s BC |
| Shalmaneser V | Assyrian king who deported the 10 tribes of Israel around 722 BC |
| Ashurbanipal | the last great Assyrian king who collected a library of about 100,000 cuneiform clay tablets, containing records of Assyrian historical events & memorable Mesopotamian literature |
| Sennacherib | the Assyrian king who boasted that the God of Judah could do no better than the gods of his conquered peoples |
| Chaldeans | the people from southern Mesopotamia who were part of the Assyrian Empire's defeat with combined cavalry forces |
| Medes | the people from the east who were part of the Assyrian Empire's defeat with combined cavalry forces |
| Scythians | the people from the north who were part of the Assyrian Empire's defeat with combined cavalry forces |
| 612 BC | year the Chaldeans conquered Nineveh, documented in the book of Nahum |
| Nabopolassar | king who conquered all of Mesopotamia & established the Chaldean Empire at Babylon |
| Nebuchadnezzar | Chaldean king who conquered the western part of the fertile cresent including Judah, destroyed Jerusalem & carried the inhabitants to captivity in Babylon; Nabopolassar's son |
| Babylon | the capital city of the new Chaldean empire |
| Nabonidus | the last Chaldean king, under whom the Chaldeans openly blasphemed God; Nebuchanezzar's son, who cared more for travel than gov't & was only king in name |
| Belshazzar | son of Nabonidus who was appointed to handle the actual business of gov't for him in Babylon, actually ruled the Chaldeans |
| 539 BC | year the Persians captured Babylon |
| 330 BC | year the Greeks conquered Persia |
| 700 BC | year of the rise of Greek city-states, Homer |
| 490-480 BC | years of the Persian Wars |
| 323 BC | year of Alexander the Great's death & his empire's division |
| Cyrus (the Great) | ruler who united the Persians & led them to victory over the Medes, and was led by God |
| Lydians | an important people in Asia Minor that the Medes had tried but failed to subdue, who feared Cyrus the Great |
| "Royal Road" | the great "highway" of the Persian Empire, which led from Susa to Sardis |
| Susa | the Persian capital city |
| Sardis | a city in Asia Minor, connected by the "Royal Road" to the Persian capital |
| Bible | the most important source for the knowledge of history & the only completely reliable source |
| Darius | Persian ruler who remembered Cyrus's commandment and supported the rebuilding of the Temple |
| Xerxes | Persian king who was murdered in his bed |
| Artaxerxes I | Persian king who killed his elder brother to aquire the throne |
| Darius II | Persian king who killed several brothers |
| Artaxerxes II | Persian king against whom all the provinces banded together to attempt his overthrow |
| Artaxerxes III | Persian king who was poisoned by a palace assistant |
| Arses | Persian king who was murdered along with his entire family |
| Darius III | Persian king who was killed by his own men as he ran to escape Alexander the Great & the Greeks |
| Javan | Japheth's son, father of the Greek line |
| Minoans | earliest civilization in the vicinity of Greece |
| Crete | central location of the Minoan civilization |
| Knossos | location of the Minoan palace which occupied more than 4 acres & contained an excellent plumbing system |
| Mycenaeans | Greek civilization which built an impressive culture on the mainland (1600-1200 BC) |
| Mycenae | the fortress city demonstrating great Greek architectural skill |
| Troy | city on the coast of Asia Minor that Mycenaeans burned after a 10-yr war |
| Dorians | invaders from the north of Greece who hastened the destruction of Greece, along with the Mycenaeans |
| Smyrna | possible city location of Homer, Greek mythologist |
| Mt Olympus | supposed location of the Greek gods |
| Zeus | king of the Greek gods, reminiscent of Babylon's Marduk |
| Apollo | the Greek sun god |
| Poseidon | the Greek god of the sea |
| Artemis | the Greek moon god |
| Athena | the Greek god of wisdom |
| Aphrodite | the Greek god of love & beauty |
| Hera | the Greek god of marriage, Zeus's wife |
| heroes | glorified human beings |
| polis | the Greek city-state, formed by tribes & villages (from large-group families) |
| acropolis | hilltop fortress surrounding the typical polis, served as seat of gov't & religion |
| agora | Greek marketplace- commerce, conversation, political debate |
| gymnasium | Greek place of physical training & games of skill |
| amphitheater | Greek outdoor theater |
| barbarians | the term the Greeks used when referring to non-Greek peoples, whom they considered worthy only of slavery |
| 776 BC | the first recorded date in Greek history, the first Olympic games were held |
| Olympic | held every 4 years by the Greeks to encourage unity among the city-states in honor of Zeus (so important that they would interrupt warring) |
| Thrace | Greek island north of the Aegean Sea |
| Ionia | Greek island east of the Aegean Sea, along the coast of Asia Minor |
| Darius I | Persian king who crushed Ionian revolt & demanded submission from mainland Greece |
| Marathon | Greek city north of Athens, location of battle defeat of Persians |
| Xerxes I | Darius's son who determined to avenge his father & conquer the Greeks |
| Hellespont | a strait where Europe & Asia Minor are < 1 mile apart, over which the Persians built a bridge in preparation to attack Greece |
| Leonidas | the Spartan king under whom the Greeks decided to block the Persian advance toward Athens at Thermopylae |
| Thermopylae | a narrow montain pass in central Greece about 6 miles from the Aegean Sea |
| Salamis | island where the Athenians relocated to avoid Persian defeat |
| monarchy | form of gov't: rule by one |
| aristocracy | form of gov't: rule by the "best" |
| monarchy (one-man rule) | the Greeks became the first people in world history to reject this form of gov't |
| oligarchy | form of gov't: rule by a few rather than one or many (when by a few rich men, may be called aristocracy |
| tyranny | a bad form of one-man rule gov't |
| democracy | form of gov't: rule by the many or the common people (rule by the poor) |
| Helots | the common laborers who farmed the land for the ruling class in Greek oligarchy |
| Peloponnesian | Sparta's alliance with Corinth, Megara, and other cities in Peloponesus, who joined Athens + her allies to ward off Persian invasion |
| Peloponesus | a region in southern Greece |
| Solon | an aristocrat who introduced democratic principles to Athenian gov't, with laws he developed to move Athens toward democracy |
| Pericles | an aristocrat who dominated Athens & brought its democracy to its fullest measure |
| representative | form of gov't in which the people elect a few men who represent them in the gov't |
| direct | Athens' form of gov't in which the people themselves made the big decisions of gov't directly, rather than indirectly through representatives |
| Delian League | Athens' defensive alliance formed to guard against possible future attacks by the Persians |
| Peloponnesian | war between Athens & Sparta, eventually also involving most of the Greeks & even the Persians |
| Thebes | the city that delivered a decisive defeat to Sparta, whereby the cities of Greece regained their independence from the attempt of Spartan oligarchy |
| philosopher | means "lover of wisdom" |
| Xenophanes | man who spoke for philosophers in general when he ridiculed Greek polytheism & anthropomorphism |
| anthropomorphism | ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things |
| Socrates | the first philosopher to insist that morality, or proper conduct, is a part of philosophy |
| Plato | one of Socrates' students who was inspired to become one of the greatest philosophers of all times |
| dialogues | the term for the 30 or more works that Plato wrote, recording his philosophy |
| Aristotle | Plato's most famous pupil, who recognized order, design, or purpose in the universe |
| Philip II | the king of Macedonia who was determined to become the master of all Greece |
| phalanx | a large group of foot soldiers armed with spears & shields, trained to charge the enemy as a group |
| Olympias | the jealous wife of Philip II, who developed a plot to have him murdered & cut his reign short |
| Alexander (the Great) | son of Philip II, who picked up the "world conquest" & became a hero |
| Persepolis | the chief city of the Persian homeland |
| Hellenic | describes Greek ideology, derived from "Hellenes"- another name for the Greeks |
| Hellenistic Age | the period of several hundred years between Alexander's conquest & the Roman Empire, during which Greek became the 2nd language of the world |
| Alexandria | the most important city in the Hellenistic world; the first & most famous in a series of cities named for Alexander the Great |
| Ptolemy | Alexander's general who took Egypt |
| Antipater | Alexander's general who took Macedonia |
| Laomedon | Alexander's general who took Syria |
| Syria | the name used during the Hellenistic Age for the western half of the fertile crescent, including all of Canaan |
| Seleucus | Alexander's general who took the eastern part of the fertile crescent & eventually Syria |
| Aesop | one of the best-known Greek authors, writer of famous fables |
| Herodotus | Greek historian who wrote a history of the Persian Wars |
| Thucydides | Greek historian who wrote the literary masterpiece "History of the Peoloponnesian War" |
| Parthenon | a beautiful temple to Athena, one of the best examples of Greek architecture found in Athens |
| language | the most important legacy of the Greeks, by which the gospel of Jesus Christ spread throughout the Roman world in the 1st century AD |
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