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23990 results in Ancient history

Page 1002 of 1200

  • 3c - Central Asia and Eastern Iran

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 165-193

  • Summary

    Achaemenid culture in Central Asia is rooted in a distinctive local tradition and differs markedly from what one finds in Persia. The sequence of Achaemenid conquests include: Babylon (539), Bactria, Saka (530 and death of Cyrus), Egypt (Cambyses, 525). The whole of Central Asia was not won by conquest, however; between 550 and 547 the remnants of the Median Empire fell into the hands of Cyrus. According to many writers, the so-called 'Achaemenid' assemblage in Central Asia could begin as early as the beginning of the seventh or even the eighth century. This period is characterized by the appearance of a distinctive type of white wheel-made pottery whose distribution coincides with Central Asia. Parthia-Hyrcania and Seistan are within the Iranian sphere of influence, pottery of the plateau. It is a fact that the whole of East Iranian mythology is linked to a concept of mounted warrior.

  • 3b - Syria-Palestine under Achaemenid rule

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 139-164

  • Summary

    In 539 BC Cyrus overcame Nabonidus, the last king of Babylonia; as a consequence, Syria-Palestine fell into the Persian king's hands, and thus began the period of Persian rule in the history of these countries. Until 525, Palestine marked the farthest limit of Persian rule. However, as a result of Cambyses' conquest of Egypt in that same year, the entire region west of the Euphrates took on a unique geopolitical significance in the context of the Persian Empire. This chapter explores the history of the region in the general context of the Achaemenid Empire from the standpoint of the imperial authorities. The area extending from the Euphrates to southern Palestine is designated in the Eastern sources from the Persian period by the territorial term 'Beyond the River', which is Mesopotamian in origin. One question of paramount significance for the history of Palestine in the Persian period concerns the ethnic composition of the population of the province of Samaria.

  • Preface

  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp xvii-xxii

  • Summary

    In this volume we come to the transition from the archaic to the classical period in the Eastern Mediterranean. It is marked by the major events by which the Achaemenid empire of Persia came into conflict with the Greek city states, events which brought the concepts of Greek and Barbarian, freedom and despotism into the sharpest focus. But collision did not rule out influence, before and after the two years, 480 and 479, in which battle was most closely joined.

    We begin by considering the geography and earlier history of the Iranian uplands where the Persian empire originated; it is now possible to do more than has previously been done in setting the archaeological against the literary picture; in the process it becomes clear how little we can say with confidence about the Median kingdom which Cyrus overthrew. But Cyrus' stature as a great leader can be more closely placed in its historical context and more justice than usual done to his son Cambyses.

    That the empire survived for more than a generation was the work of Darius, who rescued it from disintegration and gave it solid institutions which carried it through the reverses sustained by his son Xerxes. The Persepolis excavations and the new texts which they produce are now making it possible to draw a picture of these institutions and their attendant culture which is at least partly independent of the Greek authors through whose eyes the empire has usually been seen.

  • 3a - Babylonia from Cyrus to Xerxes

  • from 3 - The major regions of the empire
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 112-138

  • Summary

    This chapter presents an outline of the history of Babylonia from Cyrus II to Xerxes. The historiographic texts from Babylonia providing an outline of the main political events are very sparse, the major one being the Nabonidus Chronicle, which covers the whole reign of Nabonidus, last king of Babylonia, the rise of Cyrus and his conquest of Babylonia. The major political event which is partly reflected in Babylonian documents is the seizure of royal power by Bardiya, the brother of Cambyses. Bardiya was killed by Darius and his fellow conspirators on 29 September, and no Babylonian text dated by him later than 20 September has yet been found. On Bardiya's assassination Babylonia revolted immediately under the leadership of the Babylonian Nidintu-Bel who took the name Nebuchadrezzar (III). Xerxes' relations with Babylonia have been generally sought in the development of his titulature; the earliest texts like those of his Achaemenid predecessors regularly call him 'King of Babylon and Lands'.

  • 1 - The early history of the Medes and the Persians and the Achaemenid empire to the death of Cambyses

  • from PART I - THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 1-52

  • Summary

    The Median and Achaemenid periods define a critical disjunction in history. Iranians, more particularly the Medes and the Persians, first appear in history in the ninth-century BC cuneiform texts touching on the western half of the plateau. For some time thereafter the Medes and Persians are only two of several ethnic and political groups found in the Zagros mountains. Only late in the seventh century BC do the Medes apparently begin to become the dominant power even in Media. Cyrus is the son of Cambyses, grandson of Cyrus, and a descendant of Teispes. Cambyses succeeded to the throne in September 530 BC after Cyrus' death. Four years after ascending the throne Cambyses marched against Egypt. Amasis, the shrewd penultimate ruler of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, attempted to bolster his defences by securing the aid of the Cypriots and other islanders in order to cut off any possibility of a Persian invasion by sea.

  • 14 - The Iron Age: the peoples of Italy

  • from PART III - THE WEST
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 676-719

  • Summary

    The trend towards more permanent settlements and diversified economies continued unabated in the Iron Age and led to the development of distinct and stable regional cultures. The most characteristic of Apulian craft products, the pottery, brightly illustrates the strength and independent taste of the local culture. Traditional, conservative and selective in their use of Greek models, the Apulian potters produced types and designs largely of their own invention. Geographical proximity made it very easy for Apulian traders and craftsmen to import and often imitate the products of the Greek world. From the ninth century, there were close contacts and frequent exchanges between the Mid-Adriatic region and the Liburnian and Istrian zones across the Adriatic. The rivers that traverse the Mid-Adriatic region served as arteries of communication with Tyrrhenian Italy. The Roman tradition about the Umbri being the most ancient people of Italy becomes understandable, and the more innovatory and evolved character of their language as compared with Oscan.

  • 12 - Italy from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age

  • from PART III - THE WEST
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 623-633

  • Summary

    In approximately 740 BC, an amphora of Greek type bearing various inscriptions was deposited in the cemetery of the Euboean establishment at Pithecusa on the Bay of Naples. 'Apennine', 'Sub-Apennine' and 'Proto-Villanovan' are among the adjectives that describe certain cultural features of the Middle, Recent and Final Bronze Ages in Italy; pottery and other cultural material may thus, for example, be defined as 'Proto-Villanovan' in appearance but not in date. The cultural term 'Villanovan' was coined in the mid-nineteenth century to describe certain Iron Age funerary material excavated in the first instance near Bologna, and, later in the same century, south of the Apennines in southern Etruria as well. There are, however, a number of cases of Proto-Villanovan objects in Villanovan graves at certain coastal and mainstream centres of southern Etruria. At Vetulonia, one Proto-Villanovan ossuary is apparently associated with an Early Iron Age fibula in the Poggio alia Guardia cemetery.

  • 5 - The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes

  • from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
    • By Martin Ostwald, William R. Kenan, Jr, Professor of Classics, Swarthmore College, and Professor of Classical Studies, University of Pennsylvani
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 303-346

  • Summary

    There is little contemporary evidence for the history of Athens in the decade following the fall of the Pisistratid tyranny. Herodotus wrote some sixty or seventy years after Cleisthenes' reforms, and the internal history of Athens is for him incidental to other concerns. Membership in a deme constituted the most important indication of Athenian citizenship. The substitution of the deme for the phratry as the smallest political unit was one way in which the influence of the noble families was fragmented. The new tribal organization will have had an impact on legislation and policy-making. The Solonian constitution became much more populist than it had been under Solon. For disuse under the tyranny had brought about an eclipse of Solon's laws and had made Cleisthenes enact new legislation in his attempt to gain the favour of the masses. It was in this connexion that the law on ostracism was enacted.

  • 9 - The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes

  • from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 491-517

  • Summary

    In the Persian records 'the lands beyond the sea' were mentioned first at the time of Darius' campaign in Europe. In this campaign only some of the Allies were involved. The Allies as a whole were Boeotia, Phocis and the Peloponnesian states, apart from Argos and probably Achaea. For the campaign, Darius appointed Datis, a distinguished Mede, as commander in the field and Artaphernes, his own nephew, as his personal representative. The ratio between the fighting men and the other personnel is much as in the expedition sent by Athens to Sicily. A few days were spent in organizing the base at Eretria. The Greeks were superior in armament for hand-to-hand fighting. The Greeks attacked with a 2.4 metre long spear and a sword, whereas the Persians relied on a short spear and scimitar and on the archery in which they excelled.

  • 7c - Material culture

  • from 7 - Archaic Greek society
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 414-430

  • Summary

    Athens' achievements in the Persian Wars, the brilliance of Periclean Athens and the activity of her own historians have ensured that even of the archaic period, before the Persian Wars, Athens occupies the centre of the stage. Almost all the substantial building activity of archaic Athens appears to fall in the period of the tyrants. The Athens left by the tyrants was already remarkable for the variety and number of its public buildings. Most plentiful source of material evidence for late archaic Athens is pictorial, mainly figure-decorated vases and to a lesser degree works of sculpture in the round or in relief. The Thessalians were the cavalrymen par excellence of the mainland and had been much involved in the local wars of central Greece, from the Lelantine to the first Sacred War. The ordinary Greek cavalryman is shown on vases bare-headed and fighting with spear only, and the occasional mounted archer appears.

  • 6 - Greece before the Persian invasion

  • from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 347-367

  • Summary

    This chapter concerns the general situation in Greece during the last quarter of the sixth century and the start of the fifth: the years when Persia's defeat and annexation of the non-Greek kingdoms which bordered the Aegean to east and south brought the power of her empire significantly near to the Greeks of the Aegean and the mainland itself. Sparta herself had recently been expending her military resources in challenging successfully the power of Argos for control of the districts north and east of Parnon: the Thyreatis and Cynuria down to and including Cythera. In 519, Cleomenes and the military League entered Boeotian politics. At the request of Athens, King Cleomenes undertook to arrest the Aeginetan medizers. He went, apparently, with little or no military support, and this gave his opponents at Sparta, foremost among them his co-king Demaratus, the chance to stiffen the Aeginetan resistance.

  • 16 - Carthaginians and Greeks

  • from PART III - THE WEST
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 739-790

  • Summary

    In the fifth century, Motya developed into a strongly-walled town, half of whose population was Greek and which conducted flourishing commerce with Elymians and Greeks. It became one of the key points of Carthaginian control over the narrow passage between Africa and Sicily, and the main naval base for Carthaginians in their wars against the Sicilians. The striking prosperity of sixth-century Selinus and Acragas speaks eloquently against the assumption that Malchus' 'long wars' in Sicily were waged against the Greeks. For this reason it has been very plausibly argued that his enemy may in fact have been Punics from Motya and elsewhere who tried to resist their mother-city's attempts to dominate them. Some frontier clashes between pro-Punic Selinus and the Acragantines may have served as a pretext for Gelon's propaganda. There is no better evidence of the vitality of Sicilian civilization in the first quarter of the fifth century than the swift rise of Acragas and Syracuse.

Page 1002 of 1200