The Mental Floss History Of The World Part 3

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN.

1550 BCE BCE.

Volcanic explosion of the island Thera devastates Mediterranean.

1500 BCE BCE.

The Jews leave Canaan for Egypt.

1300 BCE BCE.

Olmec civilization begins.

1235 BCE BCE.

Athens founded.

1200 BCE BCE.

Sea Peoples attack Hitt.i.te kingdom and Egypt; Dorians invade Greece; Jews flee Egypt.

1122 BCE BCE.

China's Zhou Dynasty founded.

1000 BCE BCE.

Kingdom of the Jews divided. Zoroaster is born (probably). Bantu expansion begins.

900 BCE BCE.

Olmecs begin building pyramids.

783 BCE BCE.

a.s.syrians conquer Jewish kingdom of Israel (Canaan).

771 BCE BCE.

Western Zhou Dynasty ends.

750 BCE BCE.

Dorian kingdom of Sparta founded.

729 BCE BCE.

a.s.syrians conquer Babylon.

671 BCE BCE.

a.s.syrians conquer Egypt.

625 BCE BCE.

a.s.syrian empire collapses.

607 BCE BCE.

Babylonians burn Jerusalem, kidnap the Jews.

554 BCE BCE.

Cyrus the Great seizes power in Persia and Medea.

539 BCE BCE.

Cyrus occupies Babylon and frees the Jews.

SPINNING THE GLOBE.

The Sea Peoples:

Somewhere in the Mediterranean...

The trouble started with a bang: the eruption around 1550 BCE of a Greek island in the Aegean Sea called Thera. The island was blown out of existence by an explosion that threw more than 16 cubic miles of debris into the air and sea, triggering a ma.s.sive tidal wave. At least 120 feet tall, the wave ripped across the Mediterranean, probably killing hundreds of thousands of people. This catastrophe may be the basis for the legend of Atlantis.

In the wake of the tsunami, a loose confederation of southern European tribes, the Sea Peoples, began migrating into the eastern Mediterranean. Some historians think the Sea Peoples originally lived in the Balkan Peninsula, but they may also have come from southern Italy and Sicily; one subgroup, the Denyen, were probably Greek. The Sea Peoples had no written language, and left no hints as to where they came from. Civilizations such as Egypt spent most of their time fighting the Sea Peoples. From their written records, we know they knew the names of some of these enemy tribes-Peleset, Tjeker, Shekelesh, and Weshesh-but that was about it.

The first civilization to go was the Minoan culture of Crete, which actually may first have been wiped out by the tidal wave. Archaeologists have found the remains of wrecked ports and stone walls that were knocked over by the water. In the wake of the disaster, Crete was resettled by the Sea Peoples as they fanned out across the eastern Mediterranean.

The Sea Peoples. .h.i.t the Hitt.i.te empire to the east, then Egypt to the south, around 1200 BCE. Records from these areas paint a picture of aggressive foreigners who greedily plundered gold and precious objects. They seemed to be both pirates and refugees. By all accounts they were fierce warriors. One Egyptian description remembered, "No land could stand before their arms...They laid their hands upon the land to the ends of the earth..."

According to Hitt.i.te records, the attackers ma.s.sed their s.h.i.+ps off the southwest tip of Turkey, raiding coastal cities and then heading inland to attack core territories. The a.s.sault was sudden and unexpected: at one coastal city in Syria named Ugarit, the governor received a letter on a clay tablet warning of the foreign invaders, but Ugarit was destroyed before he could react.

The Sea Peoples' attacks led to the collapse of the Hitt.i.te empire, weakening it so much that the Hitt.i.tes' rivals from northeast Turkey were able to capture and burn the capital, Hattusas, around 1200 BCE. Then the Sea Peoples headed south, sweeping across the modern countries of Lebanon and Israel before slamming into Egypt.

The first serious attack came in 1208 BCE, when four groups allied with tribes from Libya launched an all-out a.s.sault on the Nile Delta. Egypt's struggle with the Sea Peoples lasted more than thirty years, defining the reigns of seven pharaohs, devastating the kingdom's economic center, and almost causing a civil war. After many battles, the Egyptians had the situation under control by 1175 BCE. Ramesses III said he scored two decisive victories over the Sea Peoples on land and sea, then forced the Peleset tribe to settle in Egyptian-controlled Palestine, where they became known as the Philistines (both names probably come from "Peleset"). But in reality this might just be PR spin: the Peleset probably settled voluntarily, and then simply refused to leave. As the Philistines, they were remembered in the Old Testament as a foreign people who used iron weapons, destroyed Jewish holy places, and stole sacred objects.

They were coming toward Egypt, with all in flames...But the heart of this G.o.d, the lord of the G.o.ds, was prepared...I organized a fleet in the Nile Delta as strong as a wall...They were completely equipped both fore and aft with brave, well-armed fighters, Egypt's best, like roaring lions upon the mountains...-Ramesses III, on fighting the Sea Peoples

Although Ramesses III triumphed over the Sea Peoples, Egypt never fully recovered from the damage. A series of bad harvests resulted in economic chaos, and late in his reign Ramesses III discovered a conspiracy against him by his wife, Queen Tey, and son, Pentewere. They were tried for treason and executed along with more than forty senior officials. The coup was averted, but the weakened kingdom would be easy prey for new empires rising in the east.

The Dorian Invasion:

Return of the Heraclidae

While the Sea Peoples were busy spanking the Hitt.i.tes, foreigners called Dorians invaded the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilization of Greece. The northerners arrived in Greece around 1200 BCE, and because they came from the same area as the Sea Peoples, historians speculate that the two were related.

The Dorians' origins are mysterious, with most information coming from Greek mythology. According to their own oral history, the Dorians were descendants of the mythical hero Hercules (Heracles, in Greek). Hercules, the story goes, was robbed of his kings.h.i.+p in southern Greece by an evil Mycenaean king, Eurystheus. Seeking allies, Hercules traveled to northern Greece, where he performed superhuman tasks to make the area safe for human habitation, such as killing monsters. While he was there he also impregnated dozens of local princesses, and his various offspring founded a group of n.o.ble families collectively known as the Heraclidae. The Dorians claimed that they were descendants of Hercules, finally returning to reclaim his rightful inheritance in southern Greece.

This mythological story, called the "return of the Heraclidae," seems to hint at real historical events. But this is all speculation, because the Dorian invasion was the beginning of a Greek "Dark Ages" that left few historical clues. The large cities such as Mycenae, Thebes, and Tiryns shrank and even disappeared. Traditional arts such as pottery, weaving, and sculpture withered, and Greek society reverted to small-scale farming and animal herding. As long-distance trade routes collapsed, bronze tools and weapons were replaced by those of iron. Most important, written language vanished for about five hundred years-meaning we know very little about this part of Greek history. It's too bad, because this period saw one of the most important developments in the history of Western civilization: the founding of the "cla.s.sical" Greek city-states.

Athens:

Rockin' Democracy

Native Greek "h.e.l.lenes" founded Athens around 1235 BCE-conveniently just in time for the Dorian invasion. The h.e.l.lenes of Athens seem to have resisted the northern barbarians in many ways-for example, Athenians always distinguished their dialect, "Ionian," from "Doric" Greek, which they considered rough and primitive.

The people of Athens pushed back against their own aristocrats by establis.h.i.+ng governments elected by the people, although they had to proceed cautiously at first. In the eighth century BCE, the regular people reached a compromise with the aristocrats to get rid of the king, replacing their hereditary monarchs with elected "archons," selected from the aristocracy. Then the Athenians slowly limited the power of the aristocrats: at first the archons ruled for ten years at a time, but in 683 BCE their term was reduced to one year.

Many of Athens's democratic traditions were formalized in a const.i.tution in 590 BCE by a wise leader named Solon. Later, in the sixth century BCE, under the leaders.h.i.+p of an ambitious politician named Cleisthenes, the Athenians finally established a system of collective rule by all the male citizens, called "democracy"-from the Greek words demos demos ("people") and ("people") and kratos kratos ("power"). Any citizen could vote in the a.s.sembly, and aristocrats had no special privileges, though they retained their wealth-and with it, great power. ("power"). Any citizen could vote in the a.s.sembly, and aristocrats had no special privileges, though they retained their wealth-and with it, great power.

The Athenians were very protective of their democracy because the aristocrats occasionally staged coups to overthrow it. When they were in charge, the aristocrats formed an "oligarchy," or government by a small group relying on repression. The aristocrats pursued policies that angered regular Athenians-for example, giving themselves sweetheart deals from the public funds. (Shocking, we know.) From humble origins as a sleepy "one-horse town," Athens slowly grew into a cosmopolitan city of farmers, sailors, and merchants who built a system of trade alliances dominating the Aegean Sea. Beginning in the ninth century BCE, they sent colonists to the west coast of Anatolia (Turkey), across the Aegean Sea. These settlers founded "Ionian" Greek colonies, culturally related to Athens, which generally followed Athenian leaders.h.i.+p. During this time, other Greek cities were also establis.h.i.+ng colonies around the Mediterranean Sea, led by Corinth and Argos.

The Athenian army was composed of "hoplites," citizen-soldiers responsible for arming themselves with a helmet, spear, and small s.h.i.+eld. Although their equipment was about as good as that of the Spartans, on land the Athenians were no match for their warlike southern neighbors. They didn't have much time to practice, while the Spartans did nothing but.

An Athenian is always an innovator, quick to form a resolution and quick to carry it out. You, on the other hand, are good at keeping things as they are...While you are hanging back, they never hesitate; while you stay at home they are always abroad...And so they go on working away...seldom enjoying their possessions because they are always adding to them. In a word, they are by nature incapable of living a quiet life or allowing anyone else to do so.-An emissary from Corinth, in front of the Spartan a.s.sembly, comparing Sparta with Athens

The Athenians' strong point was their navy. The navy was made up of galleys powered by sails and oarsmen, called triremes ("three-fitted" in Greek, referring to the three lines of oars stacked on top of each other). The triremes were about 120 feet long, rowed by 170 oarsmen sitting on benches of three different heights. The s.h.i.+ps were equipped with long bronze underwater "beaks" for ramming enemy s.h.i.+ps.

Athens began investing in s.h.i.+ps in the sixth century BCE, and by 480 BCE it had the most powerful navy in the Greek world. Some wealthy citizens paid to build entire squadrons. However, the poor citizens who manned the oars sometimes went on strike, paralyzing the fleet.

Sparta:

One Bada.s.s City-State

That sort of thing would never be possible in Sparta. The Dorian invaders who conquered the southern Greek city of Messenia in the eighth century BCE set up a rigid cla.s.s system separating a tiny group of "citizens" from a giant population of native "helots," who worked in slavery-like conditions. The system became even more brutal after the helots tried to revolt in the seventh century BCE. By the fifth century BCE, there were about ten thousand citizens versus perhaps two hundred thousand helots. The Spartan hierarchy was incredibly strict: helots had no political rights or freedom of movement, and gave up half of every harvest to the Spartan overlords.

They would gladly eat the Spartans raw.-Xenophon, on Spartan helots

The Spartans were equally hard on themselves, creating a military society with one goal: training invincible soldiers to control the helots. Spartan life centered on military preparation. Weak and deformed newborn children were exposed to the elements and left to die by order of the state. Boys entered military school at the age of seven, where their first task was to weave a mat of coa.r.s.e river reeds they would sleep on for the rest of their lives. They were forced to run for miles while older boys flogged them, sometimes dying of exhaustion, and were encouraged to kill helots as part of a rite of pa.s.sage. At age twenty, after thirteen years of training, the surviving young men finally became soldiers. They served in the Spartan army until age sixty, living in communal barracks, where they shared meals and bunked together.

They were allowed to marry but rarely saw their wives until they "graduated" to "equals," at age thirty. Ironically, this gender separation helped Spartan women acc.u.mulate property and power. Women are believed to have owned about 40 percent of Sparta's agricultural land and were at least sometimes responsible for managing the labor of helots, making them far more "liberated" than other Greek women.

The Spartans created one of history's more unusual governments. Somewhat like in Athens, all male citizens age thirty and up formed an a.s.sembly. But that's where the similarities ended. In Sparta, the a.s.sembly picked a council of twenty-eight n.o.bles, all over the age of sixty, to advise not one but two kings. This dual-kings.h.i.+p was hereditary, but if the rulers were incompetent, they could be deposed by the real bosses of Sparta-a group of five powerful men called ephors, who were elected annually by the a.s.sembly, leading it in wartime, when the kings were away.

THE TROJAN WAR, OR WHY ANCIENT HISTORY DRIVES PEOPLE CRAZY.

The basic story of Homer's Iliad Iliad is pretty well known: the beautiful Helen is "kidnapped" by Paris, the prince of Troy. Enraged, her husband, King Menelaus, calls on his allies, the Mycenaean Greek kings, to punish the Trojans and get his wife back. But this war was probably just one part of the broader upheavals caused by the Sea Peoples and Dorians around the same time. So who's who in this big mess? (Keep in mind that all these theories are based partly on Greek mythology, which freely mixes fact and fiction.) is pretty well known: the beautiful Helen is "kidnapped" by Paris, the prince of Troy. Enraged, her husband, King Menelaus, calls on his allies, the Mycenaean Greek kings, to punish the Trojans and get his wife back. But this war was probably just one part of the broader upheavals caused by the Sea Peoples and Dorians around the same time. So who's who in this big mess? (Keep in mind that all these theories are based partly on Greek mythology, which freely mixes fact and fiction.)One theory says that the Dorians and the Sea Peoples were both related to the Trojans. This could make sense, because Hercules, the Dorians' heroic ancestor, also had a son with Queen Omphale of Lydia-a Trojan ally in western Turkey that was sometimes confused with Troy itself. The ancient Greeks also said that the Phrygians (another group often confused with the Trojans) migrated to Asia Minor from Thrace (Bulgaria). Several groups claiming descent from Hercules could have migrated from Thrace into Asia Minor and Greece simultaneously.But...what if this is all backward? Could the Greeks Greeks be the Sea Peoples? This makes at least as much sense: after all, it's the Greeks who sail across the sea, besiege Troy, and burn it to the ground in cla.s.sic Sea People fas.h.i.+on. Also, one of the common "nicknames" for the Greeks is the be the Sea Peoples? This makes at least as much sense: after all, it's the Greeks who sail across the sea, besiege Troy, and burn it to the ground in cla.s.sic Sea People fas.h.i.+on. Also, one of the common "nicknames" for the Greeks is the Danaoi, Danaoi, meaning "descendants of Danaos," an early mythical hero-and scholars believe that these people are the same as the Denyen, one of the Sea Peoples mentioned by the Egyptians. meaning "descendants of Danaos," an early mythical hero-and scholars believe that these people are the same as the Denyen, one of the Sea Peoples mentioned by the Egyptians.If the Greeks are the Sea Peoples, what about the Dorians? According to one Greek myth, when the Mycenaean Greeks were off fighting the Trojans, the Dorian descendants of Hercules were reclaiming their "rightful inheritance" in southern Greece; in other words, when the Mycenaeans were out of town, the Dorians sneaked in and stole their stuff. But according to another legend, the "return of the Heraclidae" happened a full eighty years after after the Trojan War ended. So there's that. the Trojan War ended. So there's that.What really really happened? Probably some combination of all the above: the Sea Peoples may have been a mix of Greeks, Trojans, Dorians, and a bunch of other folks who lived in the area, fleeing multiple catastrophes and creating even more catastrophes as they did so (the "cascade" or "big friggin' mess" theory). But it's anyone's guess! happened? Probably some combination of all the above: the Sea Peoples may have been a mix of Greeks, Trojans, Dorians, and a bunch of other folks who lived in the area, fleeing multiple catastrophes and creating even more catastrophes as they did so (the "cascade" or "big friggin' mess" theory). But it's anyone's guess!

Phoenicians:

History's First Globetrotters

Generally speaking, the ancients were pretty lousy sailors: in small wooden s.h.i.+ps, with only the position of the sun and the sh.o.r.e to navigate by, they were safest staying off the open sea altogether. But there was one exception: the Phoenicians.

The Phoenicians came from among the oldest Semitic tribes, and created a civilization on the Mediterranean's east coast. Expert sailors, they plied regional trade routes connecting the metropolitan centers of Egypt and Mesopotamia to olive oil, wine, marble, tin, and agricultural products from North Africa and Europe.

To help them cross hundreds of miles of open water, the Phoenicians may have invented the astrolabe, a complex device modeling the movements of the sun and stars that was later credited to a Greek inventor. Contemporaries noted the Phoenicians' ability to sail at night and out of sight of land, which allowed them to deliver in-demand goods to urban marketplaces twice as fast as their compet.i.tors.

THE UNITED STATES OF PHOENICIA?.