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The Ancient World Part IV:
The Axial Age:
800-200 BCE
Time Line of Art History: The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In his famous book, "Organism," Abraham Maslow originated the idea of self-actualization within a hierarchial structure of physilogical and psychological needs. Within this structure are what Maslow calls "esteem needs." From the very beginning of time historians have made manifest evidence of man's expression of "esteem needs." Over 30,000 years ago in Chauvet France the discovery of dynamic, vibrant paintings of animals drawn on limestone cave walls stand as a testament to man's need to express his world through art.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty,
That is all ye know on earth and
All ye need to know.
-------- John Keats (1819) "Ode on a Grecian Urn"
Take the time to see the truth, to see the beauty that man has created across time and space. "Click away!"
The Eastern Mediterranean, 1000 B.C.E..–1 C.E.
Ancient
Greece, 1000 B.C.E..–1 C.E.
Time Line Index:
The Timeline Index : People, Periods, Places and Events in a chronological context.
India
Siddhartha Gautama, The Buddha
Timelines of Buddhist History 500 B.C.E. to the Present
The Hebrews
Timeline for the History of Judaism 3000 B.C.E. to the Present
The Greek World
Themistocles, Leader Battle of Salamis 524-460 B.C.E.
The Persian Wars 500-449 B.C.E.
Times of Rapid Religious Change
Between 800 and 200 BCE, a concentration of new and different religious beliefs emerged in China, Greece India, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. This lead to the founding or major development of Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Jainism, Judaism, Taoism. In 1949 the German philosopher Karl Theodor Jaspers coined the phrase "Achsenzeit" ("Axial Age" or "Axis age" in English) to describe this relatively short interval of rapid religious and spiritual evolution.
Readings:
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
Ancient India:
Reaction and Rebellion: Jainism and Buddhism
During the Axial Age, enlightened thinkers, throughout the known world, were developing new explanations of existence, and man's place within the order of the universe. In India, the Upanishads redefined the Aryan religious tradition. Led by ksatriya ascetics, this new development rebelled against the ritual superiority of the brahman class proliferated during the Vedic period. This movement gradually led to an integral transformation of Hindu thought. But, while these new thinkers quietly transmuted the Aryan belief system, two other luminaries, not only challenged the ritualism of the former tradition, but openly rejected the rigidity of class distinction, forming new religions. These transformations from traditional Hindu are what we define as the philosophies or religions of Buddhism and Jainism.
Buddhism:
The other major challenge to orthodox Vedism was founded by the son of a chief of a region called the Shakyas. This region lay among the foothills of the Himalayas in the farthest northern regions of the plains of India in Nepal. This founder, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, has many legends and stories that have accreted around his life. While we can't be certain which of these stories and legends are true and which of the thousands of sayings attributed to him were actually said by him, we do know that the basic historical outlines of his life are accurate.
The Theravada Buddhists believe that they practice the original form of Buddhism as it was handed down to them by Buddha. Theravada Buddhism dominates the culture of Sri Lanka, but is also very prominent in Thailand and Burma. While Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, spent several decades teaching, none of his teachings were written down until several hundred years later. In the third century, Asoka, the great Mauryan emperor, converted to Buddhism and began to sponsor several monasteries throughout the country. He even sent missionaries out to various countries both east and west. During his reign, the teachings of Buddha spread all across India and Sri Lanka.
Theravada Buddhism focused primarily on meditation and concentration, the eighth of the Eightfold Noble Path; as a result, it centered on a monastic life and an extreme expenditure of time in meditating. This left little room for the bulk of humanity to join in, so a new schism erupted within the ranks of Buddhism in the first century AD, one that would attempt to reformulate the teachings of Buddha to accomodate a greater number of people. They called their new Buddhism, the "Greater Vehicle" (literally, "The Greater Ox-Cart") or Mahayana, since it could accomodate more people and more believers from all walks of life. They distinguished themselves from mainstream Theravada Buddhism by contemptuously referring to Theravada as Hinayana, or "The Lesser Vehicle."
Tantrism and the Thunderbolt Vehicle
The final developments of Buddhism in India involve the growth of Tantric thought in both Buddhism and Hinduism. Vedism had always based itself on magic and ritualistic magic; in the fourth and fifth centuries BC, a new form of Hinduism, Tantrism, focused primarily on magic.
The Decline of Buddhism in India
We don't know why Buddhism declined in the last
half of the first millenium AD. By the time the Muslims began conquering India
in the twelfth century, the number of monasteries had severely declined. Buddhism,
which once had spread across the face of India, was a vital force only in
the areas of its origins. Scholars believe that the monasteries became detached
from everyday life in India. After centuries of patronage, the monasteries
had amassed a wealth of endowments. Life inside the monasteries was very good.
So the monasteries became very selective in admitting monks to the brotherhood.
Video Presentations
Ancient India:
Over 2,500 years ago, one man showed the world a way to enlightenment. This beautifully produced Buddhist film meticulously reveals the fascinating story of Prince Siddhartha and the spiritual transformation that turned him into the Buddha
Bridging World History: Annenburg Media
90 Second Multi-media Presentation Origins and Growth of World Religions
How do religions interact, adopt new ideas, and adapt to diverse cultures? As the missionaries, pilgrims, and converts of Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam moved around the world, the religions created change and were themselves changed
Readings:
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
Chinese Philosophy:
Pre-Confucian China and the Five Classics
At the heart of Chinese thought stand the five great classics, the traditional, time-honored works that define and originate Chinese culture and history. Chinese history, as the Chinese narrate it, blazes into existence with the great, partly divine heroes who teach the early Chinese all the arts of civilization: writing, law, architecture, art, and so on. These blatantly mythical figures are followed by three great sage kings, Yao, Shun, and Yü; the latter stands as the foundation of the first ruling dynasty in China, the Hsia. During the various cycles of dynastic change, from the Hsia to the Shang to the Chou, the Five Classics, or the Confucian Classics (even though they are not written by Confucius), were written down, or supposedly written down. These Five Classics constituted the program of learning for anyone in the upper classes, the ruling classes, or the educated classes. The Classics not only recorded early Chinese history infallibly, they also completely contained all the ethics and wisdom of China.
Confucius laid down a pattern of thinking followed by more people for more generations than any other human being on the face of the earth. No matter what religion, no matter what form of government, the Chinese (and most other East Asian civilizations) and their way of thinking can in some way be shown to have Confucian elements about them. But Confucius was no religious leader nor did he claim any special divine status (nor was any divine status claimed for him). He was, in fact, a relatively ordinary person; his family was from the lesser aristocracy that had fallen on extremely hard times when he was born in 551 B.C. in the province of Lu.
One cannot discuss Confucianism without at least mentioning the man the Chinese call "The Second Sage," Meng Tzu, or, in Latinized form, Mencius (372-289 B.C.) Mencius, like Confucius and Mo Tzu before him, concerned himself entirely with political theory and political practice; he spent his life bouncing from one feudal court to another trying to find some ruler who would follow his teachings. Like Confucius and Mo Tzu before him, he was largely unsuccessful in his endeavor. In fact, China had degenerated precipitously in Mencius's time: individual states were preying on and conquering others and the rulers of the time had no patience for what they considered prattling about the ancients and their ways. Also, rival schools, especially the Moist schools, were putting up a good fight as far as bending the ears of rulers are concerned.
We begin our short discussion of Taoism with the following warning: as all the Taoist writers tell us, it is in the nature of the Tao that it cannot be spoken of. Talking about Taoism in a clear and rational way is, in fact, not to talk about Taoism. That aside, Taoism is, along with Confucianism, the most important strain of Chinese thought through the ages. It is almost entirely different from Confucianism, but not contradictory. It ranges over entirely different concerns, so that it is common for individuals, philosophers, Chinese novels or films, etc., to be both Confucianist and Taoist. The Taoist has no concern for affairs of the state, for mundane or quotidian matters of administration, or for elaborate ritual; rather Taoism encourages avoiding public duty in order to search for a vision of the transcendental world of the spirit.
Mo Tzu (470-391 B.C.) is a curious figure among the early giants of Chinese thought. Unlike most of the other names he is associated with (Confucius, Lao Tzu, Mencius, Chuang Tzu, etc.), Mo Tzu, born Mo Ti, seems to have been of low birth, possibly the son of a slave. He was a thoroughgoing eccentric, as famous for his dress and manners as his thought. His direct legacy, Moism, died out fairly quickly; in spite of this, his thought is enormously influential for all Chinese thought to follow. He despised Confucians with a passion, regarding them as uptight, egotistical, pretentious, upper class, and characterized by a mindless devotion to empty rituals.
Though they are largely considered the great
Satans of Chinese history, the group of philosophers and administrators known
as the Legalists represent a first in Chinese government: the application
of a philosophical system to government. And despite their dismal failure
and subsequent demonization throughout posterity, the philosophical and political
innovations they practiced had a lasting effect on the nature of Chinese government.
Video Presentations
Ancient China:
Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism: Three Faiths of China
An intimate look at the origins and practice of China's three traditional schools of thought. Together these three teachings comprise the roots of Chinese civilization and culture.
Readings:
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
The Hebrews and the Evolution of Judaism:
The Two Kingdoms (920-597 BCE)
The experiment with the opulence and power of the great eastern kingdoms had ended in disaster for Israel. Solomon created the wealthiest and most powerful central government the Hebrews would ever see, but he did so at an impossibly high cost. Land was given away to pay for his extravagances, and people were sent into forced labor into Tyre in the north. When Solomon died (between 926-922 BC), the ten northern tribes refused to submit to his son, Rehoboam, and revolted. From this point on, there would be two kingdoms of Hebrews: in the north, Israel, and in the south, Judah. The Israelites formed their capital in the city of Samaria, and the Judaeans kept their capital in Jerusalem. These kingdoms remained separate states for over two hundred years.
The Chaldeans, following standard Mesopotamian
practice, deported the Jews after they had conquered Jerusalem in 597 BC.
The deportations were large, but certainly didn't involve the entire nation.
Somewhere around 10,000 people were forced to relocate to the city of Babylon,
the capital of the Chaldean empire. In 586 BC, Judah itself ceased to be an
independent kingdom, and the earlier deportees found themselves without a
homeland, without a state, and without a nation. This period, which actually
begins in 597 but is traditionally dated at 586, is called the Exile in Jewish
history; it ends with an accident in 538 when the Persians overthrow the Chaldeans.
When Cyrus the Persian conquered Mesopotamia and the whole of the Middle East, he did so for religious reasons. Unlike any conqueror before him, Cyrus set out to conquer the entire world. Before Cyrus and the Persians, conquest was largely a strategic affair; you guaranteed your territorial safety by conquering potential enemies. But Cyrus wanted the whole world and he wanted it for religious reasons.
Yavan in the House of Shem: Jews and Greeks (332-63 BCE)
In the Table of Nations in Genesis 10.1-32, which
lists the descendants of Noah and the nations they founded, the Greeks appear
under the name "Yavan," who is a son of Yaphet. Yavan is parallel
with the Greek word, "Ionia," the Greek region of Asia Minor; "Yaphet"
is parallel with the Greek word, "Iapetus," who is the mythological
father of Prometheus in Greek legend. Two other Greek nations appear in the
table: Rhodes (Rodanim) and Cyprus (Kittim and Elishah). The sons of Shem,
brother to Yaphet, are the Semitic (named after Shem) nations, including the
Hebrews. Imagine, if you will, the Hebrew vision of history. At some point,
in the dim recesses of time, after the world had been destroyed by flood,
the nations of the earth were all contained in the three sons of Noah. Their
sons and grandsons all knew one another, spoke the same language, ate the
same mails, worshipped the same god. How odd and unmeasurably strange it must
have been, then, when after an infinite multitude of generations and millenia
of separation, the descendants of Yavan moved among the descendants of Shem!
The Jewish state comes to an end in 70 CE, when the Romans begin to actively drive Jews from the home they had lived in for over a millenium. But the Jewish Diaspora ("diaspora" ="dispersion, scattering") had begun long before the Romans had even dreamed of Judaea. When the Assyrians conquered Israel in 722, the Hebrew inhabitants were scattered all over the Middle East; these early victims of the dispersion disappeared utterly from the pages of history. However, when Nebuchadnezzar deported the Judaeans in 597 and 586 BC, he allowed them to remain in a unified community in Babylon. Another group of Judaeans fled to Egypt, where they settled in the Nile delta. So from 597 onwards, there were three distinct groups of Hebrews: a group in Babylon and other parts of the Middle East, a group in Judaea, and another group in Egypt. Thus, 597 is considered the beginning date of the Jewish Diaspora.
Video Presentations
Ancient Israel:
Who Wrote the Bible? Is the Bible the Word of God? Why is the Bible full of Contradictions? This documentary explores questions at the heart of the great Christian faith in a fair open-minded fashion. It is NOT meant to be inflamatory but informative. The truth one will see is the Bible is NOT what it is thought to be. So what is the Bible? Find out! Visit www.IslamicVideos.net for more videos like this! Now since we can see Christianity is not what we thought it was, we can try and learn about Islam, a religion that many equate with terrorism. Search and learn about Islam as it is thought even by the most educated people on Earth to be the ultimate way to truth and happiness, in the truest sense of the word
Ancient Empires: The Assyrians
A quick tour of the Empires that had most impact on the writing of the Old Testament
Schematic Plan of the Temple-Herod's Temple Illustration-Black and White Sketch-City of Jerusalem-Herod's Temple - A Heart Message
Video Presentations
Ancient Persians:
Engineering an Empire:
The Persians Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V
The Persian Empire was one of the most mysterious civilizations in the Ancient world. Persia became an empire under the Cyrus the Great, who created a policy of religious and cultural tolerance that became the hallmark of Persian rule. Engineering feats include an innovative system of water management; a cross-continent paved roadway stretching 1500 miles; a canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea; and the creation of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Mausoleum of Maussollos. The rivalry between Persia and Athens led to a 30-year war known as the Persian Wars, the outcome of which helped create the world we live in
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Documentary
The Story of God: Zoroastrianism
Readings:
Washington State University-World Cultures to 1500
The Greek World:
During the Greek Dark Ages, the Greeks lived in small tribal units; some of these small tribes were sedentary and agricultural and some were certainly nomadic. They had abandoned their cities between 1200 and 1100 BC for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery; the Greeks believed that a cataclysmic and ferocious invasion of northern Greek barbarians, the Dorians, had wiped out the Mycenean civilization. In reality, the decline and abandonment of urbanization in Greece was probably due to a combination of economic collapse and pressure from northern migrations. Greek life during the "Dark Ages" wasn't dark; it was, in fact, a culturally creative period. This period gave the Greeks the religion their religion, mythology, and foundational history in their final forms; the close of the Dark Ages would also gave the Greeks the rudiments of their greatest political achievement: the polis , or "city-state."
It's hard for textbooks to say anything nice about the Spartans. Take up any world history textbook and read; you'll find that the Spartans were "an armed camp," "brutal," "culturally stagnant," "economically stagnant," "politically stagnant," and other fun things. The reality, of course, lies somewhere behind the value judgements. Greek history does, after all, come down to us through the eyes of the other major city-state in Greece, Athens, a bitter enemy and rival of Sparta. The two represent diametrically opposed concepts of the Greek polis and its relations with other city-states; they also represent diametrically opposed concepts of the individual's relationship to the state. Despite all the rhetoric in Athens and in the European historical tradition, we should keep in mind that the Spartans believed they lived in the best of all Greek worlds, and many of their Greek neighbors agreed with them. The rivalry, then, between Sparta and Athens, which would erupt into a disastrous war for Athens, was also an ideological and cultural rivalry.
Athens entered the Archaic Period in the same way so many of its neighbors, as a city-state ruled by a basileus , or "king." Unlike Sparta, however, Athens' history was not dominated by invasion of a neighbor, for the land around Athens was agriculturally rich and the city had a harbor so that it could trade easily with city-states around the Aegean. The power of the basileus slowly faded; underneath the basileus was a council of nobles, which were called the Areopagus, from the name of the hill on which they met. In the eighth century BC, these nobles gradually became very wealthy, particularly off of the cash crops of wine and olive oil, both of which require great wealth to get started. As their wealth increased, the nobles of the Areopagus slowly stripped the king of power until Athenian government imperceptibly became an oligarchy.
Like the Trojan War, the Persian Wars were a defining moment in Greek history. The Athenians, who would dominate Greece culturally and politically through the fifth century BC and through part of the fourth, regarded the wars against Persia as their greatest and most characteristic moment. For all their importance, though, the Persian Wars began inauspiciously.
When the Persians retreated from Greece, the Greek League began show tensions. Although Sparta had contributed the most to the war and had fought the deciding battle at Plataea, the victory over the Persians would not have been possible without the Athenian navy, which remained powerful after the war. All the Greek cities in Asia Minor lived under the direct threat of Persian invasion and revenge; Sparta, being a land-based military, was in no position to defend these city-states. So these city-states, and the city-states of the islands in the Aegean, turned to Athens and her powerful navy for protection and alliance.
Video Presentations
The Greek World:
Discovery Channell:
Lost Treasures of the Ancient World
History's Turning Points:
At Salamis Bay, the Golden Age began when the
Greeks expel the Persians, sinking 200 Persian ships while losing only 40
of their own. Themistocles not only was not rewarded for his victory, but
was removed as Athen's leader for being too arrogant.
The Western Tradtion:
The Rise of Greek Civilization
Democracy and philosophy arose from Greek cities at the edge of the civilized world.
Public Broadcasting System (PBS) Series
The Truth About Democracy Part 1 - Part 2
Athens – The truth about democracy Athens is revered as the birthplace of Western philosophy, art, science and perhaps the greatest political idea of all time – democracy. But in this fascinating documentary historian Bettany Hughes looks behind some of the myths of Athens’ golden age. She finds a very warlike and aggressive state, which was also capable of terrible mistakes, misdeeds and atrocities.
Was Sparta a unique achievement or a prototype of future totalitarianism? Weigh the facts in this documentary about the enigmatic ancient civilization. Historian Bettany Hughes explains Sparta's culture, history, and downfall despite battle-hardened warriors, martially trained children, and powerful, liberated women. Sparta was victorious as an imperial power but succumbed to its own rigidity and internal collapse.
Greek Philosophy:
What we like to think of as "philosophic thought" first appears in Greece in a poem, Theogony , written by Hesiod about 725 B.C.; the Theogony retells the myths of the gods and speculates in part about the origins of things and the order of the universe. What we generally call "Greek philosophy" was almost certainly derived by the Greeks from Egyptian culture, particularly natural science (physics and math) which preoccupied Greek thought up to the time of Plato. The Greeks seem also to have derived much of their philosophical theology from the Egyptians as well. These are not modern interpretations of Greek philosophy; the ancient Greeks themselves claim without dissension that their philosophy comes from Egypt. Whether the Greeks travelled to Egypt or whether the Egyptians colonized or visited Greece at some point (which is what the ancient Greeks thought) is a difficult question to answer.
Socrates, despite his foundational place in the history of ideas, actually wrote nothing. Most of our knowledge of him comes from the works of Plato (427-347), and since Plato had other concerns in mind than simple historical accuracy it is usually impossible to determine how much of his thinking actually derives from Socrates.
The most famous of Socrates's pupils was an aristocratic young man named Plato. After the death of Socrates, Plato carried on much of his former teacher's work and eventually founded his own school, the Academy, in 385. The Academy would become in its time the most famous school in the classical world, and its most famous pupil was Aristotle.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Aristotle represents for most of us an icon of difficult or abstruse philosophical thinking; to know Aristotle often provokes hushed whispers even from highly educated people. For all this reputation, though, Aristotle is actually quite an easy read, for the man thought with an incredible clarity and wrote with a superhuman precision. It really is not possible to talk about Western culture (or modern, global culture) without coming to terms with this often difficult and often inspiring philosopher who didn't get along with his famous teacher, Plato, and, in fact, didn't get along with just about everybody (no-one likes a know-it-all). We can say without exaggeration that we live in an Aristotelean world; wherever you see modern, Western science dominating a culture in any meaningful way (which is just about everywhere), Aristotle is there in some form.
Video Presentation and Links
The Greek Philosophers:
The Western Tradition
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle laid the foundation of Western intellectual thought.
Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates was born in Athens in the year 469 B.C., into the family of the sculptor Sophroniscus and Phaenarete. Socrates became the new philosophy founder and the teacher of the many of great philosophers.
The school founded by this antique philosopher, became a prototype of modern higher education. Contemporaries named him "the divine teacher" in his works it was spoken about an ideal society structure and immortality of soul. Ancient Greek thinker Plato said, that «time is a moving similarity of eternity.
The Secret Myths of Plato Part 1
Explores the problem of man and life after death. The Dialogue reflects on the ideas: If reincarnation is a learning experience, Where does learning occur? What kind of learning can make a person better than before?
The Sacred Myths of Plato: Phaedo
Dr. Peter Grimes Discusses Plato's Myth of the Soul
The Sacred Myths of Plato: The Republic
Dr. Pierre Grimes gives a discourse on the Myth of Er at the end of Plato's Republic.
Plato believed that one can only learn through dialectic reasoning and open-mindedness. Humans had to travel from the visible realm of image-making and objects of sense, to the intelligible, or invisible, realm of reasoning and understanding. "The Allegory of the Cave" symbolizes this trek and how it would look to those still in a lower realm. Plato is saying that humans are all prisoners and that the tangible world is our cave. The things which we perceive as real are actually just shadows on a wall. Just as the escaped prisoner ascends into the light of the sun, we amass knowledge and ascend into the light of true reality: where ideas in our minds can help us understand the form of 'The Good'.
Aristotle (together with Socrates and Plato) is one of the most important figures in Western thought. He was one of the first to systematize philosophy and science. His thinking on physics and science had a profound impact on medieval thought, which lasted until the Renaissance, and the accuracy of some of his biological observations was only confirmed in the last century. His logical works contain the earliest formal study of logic that we have and was not superseded until the late nineteenth century. In the Middle Ages, Aristotelian metaphysics had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions, and on Christian thought, where its legacy is still felt in Christian theology, for example in Orthodox theology, and especially within the Catholic tradition shaped by scholasticism. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today
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