HIST 010 TEST #1 FULL STUDY GUIDE: 📝

Sumerians

The people who dominated southern Mesopotamia through the end of the third millennium B.C.E. They were responsible for the creation of many fundamental elements of Mesopotamian culture-such as irrigation technology, cuneiform, and religious conceptions.

Sargon

2340 B.C. leader of the Akkadians who overran the Sumerian city-state and set up the first empire

Hammurabi

Amorite ruler of Babylon (r. 1792-1750 B.C.E.). He conquered many city-states in southern and northern Mesopotamia and is best known for a code of laws, inscribed on a black stone pillar, illustrating the principles to be used in legal cases.

Nile River

The river in which early kingdoms in Egypt were centered around.

Menes

The king who unifed Egypt.

Khufu

Egyptian pharaoh who built the great pyramid

Nubia

A civilization to the south of Egypt in the Nile Valley, noted for development of an alphabetic writing system and a major iron working industry by 500 BCE

Hatshepsut

a ruler of the New Kingdom who boldly declared herself pharaoh around 1472 BC

Thutmosis lll

ruled egypt for almost 54 years, created the largest empire had ever seen

Kush

An African state that developed along the upper reaches of the Nile c. 100 B.C.E.; conquered Egypt and ruled it for several centuries.

Indo-Europeans

A group of nomadic peoples who may have come from the steppes

Assyrian Empire

this empire covered much of what is now mesopotamia, syria, palestine, egypt, and anatolia; its height was during the seventh and eigth centuries BCE. Dominated N. Mesopotamia with their main capital at Nineveh on the Tigris river. They were heavily influenced by the Babylonian culture to the south.

Phoenicians

located on eastern Mediterranean coast; invented the alphabet which used sounds rather than symbols like cuneiform

Cyrus II

Persian king who established the Persian Empire

Darius I

Third ruler of the Persian Empire (r. 521-486 B.C.E.). He crushed the widespread initial resistance to his rule and gave all major government posts to Persians rather than to Medes.

Myceneans

people from Greek mainland who conquered central Crete; warring people who grouped themselves into clans and tribes

Homer

A Greek poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey

Archaic Age

750-550 BCE, formation of city states, return of art and culture, new forms of government

Hoplite

A citizen-soldier of the Ancient Greek City-states. They were primarily armed as spear-men.

Polis

A city-state in ancient Greece.

Sparta

A powerful Greek miliary polis that was often at war with Athens. Used slaves known as helots to provide agricultural labor.

Helots

Spartan slaves

Oligarchy

A government ruled by a few powerful people

Athens

A democratic Greek polis who accomplished many cultural achievements, and who were constantly at war with Sparta.

Democracy

A political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

Persian Wars

A series of wars between the Greeks (mainly Athens) and the Persians in which the Greeks were usually victorious.

Battle of Marathon

(490 B.C.E.) Battle where the Persians who invaded Greece were defeated on the Plain of Marathon by an Athenian army.

Xerxes

(c. 519-465 BC) King of Persia; his armies invaded Greece but were eventually defeated by the Greeks.

Battle of Salamis

480 B.C.E. The battle that effectively ended the Persian war. The Greek fleet, although vastly outnumbered, defeated the Persian fleet. This helped end the Persian war, freeing Greece.

Battle of Platea

Battle where Sparta and Athens combined to defeat the Persians and end the Persian Wars that occurred in 479 BCE

Peloponnesian War

(431-404 BCE) The war between Athens and Sparta that in which Sparta won, but left Greece as a whole weak and ready to fall to its neighbors to the north.

Thucydides

Greek historian. Considered the greatest historian of antiquity, he wrote a critical history of the Peloponnesian War that contains the funeral oration of Pericles

Aristotle

A Greek Philosopher, taught Alexander the Great, started a famous school, studied with Plato

Phillip II

336 BC, was an ancient Greek king of Macedon from 359 BC until his assassination in 336. He was the father of Alexander the Great.

Battle of Chaeronea

Battle near Thebes in 338 BCE where the Macedonians defeated the Greeks from the various Greek city-states and made them join an alliance against Persia.

Alexander III

A determined reactionary Tsar who nevertheless sped forward with economic modernization

Battle of Granicus

Alexander's first battle against the Persians that ocurred in 334 BCE

Battle of Issus

Site of a Battle that took place in 333 B.C. between forces led by Alexander the Great and Persian King Darius III. Alexander emerged victorious when Darius was forced to abandon his army and flee. The battle reportedly claimed about 10,000 Persian lives but only 500 Greek lives. Afterwards Alexander gained possession of the royal treasure, which ended his financial troubles. In addition, he captured Darius' family. This was an extremely significant victory for Alexander and made Macedonian conquests inevitable. After Alexander's victory, Darius wrote him with an offer of friendship, alliance, and a large amount of money in return for his family, which Alexander rejected.

Battle of Gaugamela

Alexander's decisive victory over Darius III. Although outnumbered, Alexander's superior tactics and army earned the victory that would lead to the fall of the Achaemenid Dynasty. (331bc)

Darius III

Persian king who lost his empire to Alexander the Great.

Epigoni Wars

(323-276 BC)

Wars between generals after Alexander's death → led to Hellenistic Kingdoms

creates 3 Hellenistic empires

Hellenistic Kingdoms/Empires

Kingdoms/ empires that emerged in three types: ptolemaic egypt, seleucid egypt, and macedonia. They dominated the eastern mediterreanean/ middle east for more than a century.