Download Babylonian Times • Mesopotamia lies between

Babylonian Times
• Mesopotamia lies between Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in present-day Iraq, Greek for “between
the rivers”. The rivers used to flow separately into the Persian Gulf, but today the coastline has
receded.
• Scribal schools were developed around 2000 BC and Hammurabi ruled ~1800- 1750 BC
during the high point of Old Babylonian Empire
• Babylonians in Mesopotamia wrote in mud, which they baked into clay tablets, many of which
which still survive today. (2 slides)
• Plimpton 322 is a mathematical tablet from Babylonian times that we'll talk more about later.
Greek Dark Age = 1100-750 BC
• History was written in verse, rather than prose, and subject to artistic license, rather than being
valued for accuracy and explanation. This poetry mixed history with folklore and myth. Homer
was believed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century BC, as Greece was transitioning out of the
Dark Age. He wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, about the mythical Trojan War. (~1190 BC)
Archaic Era = 800-480 BC.
• In 753 BC Rome was founded and ~700 BC was the rise of Greek polis, or city-states. (map
shows Rome on L, Babylon on R, Corinth above Sparta and Athens)
• Athens, Sparta and Corinth were 3 of the major city-states. They were a major development in
politics and provided models of ruling through a system of laws.
• Athens paved the way for a democratic government. The kleroterion was used to select jurors.
Slots in the device held volunteers names and black and white balls were dropped down a tube
to select them. Citizens inscribed the names of overly ambitious politicians that they wished to
“ostracize” from the city on an ostrakon. Democracy didn't become the most common form of
government until the mid-20th century AD. Athens had a direct democracy, while the republican
government in Rome was a representative democracy like our own.
• City-states were generally walled, with a central acropolis (citadel, fortress protecting the city),
main marketplace, and gymnasium for sports and socializing. They were still mainly a
collection of villages and not urbanized. The main difference was that the primary idea of
citizenship: you were a Spartan or Athenian before you were a Greek. For many, the key
characteristic was the idea of participation (by males) in government and self-rule.
• There was a constant rivalry between the city-states, even though they came together for the
Olympics and religious festivals.
• It's worth noting here that the polytheism of the time held gods responsible for areas of land like
specific cities and rivers, as well as for weather, social and political changes, etc. As society
grew more complex, the Greek gods were linked in a pantheon with complicated family ties
and hierarchies of power, the Greek/Roman mythology we know today. (Painting shows Jupiter
and Juno – known as Zeus and Hera to the Greeks – and is by Carracci ~1600 AD.)
• Before 600 BC, math in Greece was used primarily for commerce and construction, and
astronomy was used for time-keeping. Thales of Miletus (624-546 BC) is considered the
“father of science” and was among the “natural philosophers” after ~600 BC who applied logic
and reason to the accepted myths of natural phenomenon. He brought together math ideas from
Mesopotamia and Egypt to “invent” geometry. Thus began the idea of mathematics as
philosophy and knowledge rather than just a tool restricted to practical issues. The Greeks will
later recognize “seven sages” as the founders of their intellectual tradition. The full list tends to
vary, but it always includes Thales and Solon of Athens, who lived ~630 BC and laid the
foundations of democracy in Athens. This was also the time of Pythagoras (570-495 BC), who
we'll talk much more about later. At this time math was divided into geometry, the study of the
relative position and size of objects, including the Earth, and arithmetic, the study of numbers.
Classical Era = 480 BC – 600 AD
• 450 BC is the peak of Athenian power. (This is also about when the movie 300 takes place.)
443 BC begins the Golden Age of Athens under Pericles, who led Athens to become the
political and cultural center of the Greek world. 431 BC marks the Pelopenesian Wars between
Athens (democracy) and Sparta (oligarchy). Sparta ends up replacing Athens as the leading
power in Greece, but the cost of the war is widespread poverty throughout parts of Greece.
Meanwhile, across the Mediterranean Sea, Rome transformed from monarchy to republic (Latin
for “public thing”) in 509 BC.
• The theory of 4 elements – earth, air, fire and water – was put forth by Empedocles (490-430
BC). Leucippus (~480 BC) and his student Democritus (~460 BC) suggested that matter is
made of tiny, indivisible particles separated by empty space (atoms!). The essence of science –
thinking rationally and philosophically and making observations to satisfy human curiosity –
was absent from most earlier civilizations. (It was present in ancient India and China, but the
lineage of Western scientific thinking leads directly back to ancient Greece.)
• Socrates (469-399 BC) had a student named Plato (427-347 BC) who had a student named
Aristotle (384-322 BC). These three philosophers laid the foundation of classical thought and
established philosophy and a method of rational inquiry used to attempt to understand the world
and phenomena around us. Socrates questioned things like good and evil, courage and justice
and was concerned with ethics and truth. Plato was concerned with ethics, justice, the nature of
reality and the immortality of the soul. He thought the real world was an imperfect reflection of
an ideal theoretical and mathematically perfect world. Aristotle took a more practical view of
philosophy and wrote books on poetry, drama, ethics, politics, math, physics, logic, zoology and
anatomy that were the basis of Western and Islamic science and philosophy until the 17th
century AD. He was the single person with the greatest influence on the history of science. His
theories were plausible, well-thought out and based on common sense, but they lacked rigorous
logic and careful observation and many were later discovered flawed. His flawed theories were
accepted as fact centuries later by the Catholic church, setting back scientific progress in
Europe. By 370 BC, the many conflicts between the city-states had significantly weakened
their power. This is also when Eudoxus introduced his theory of planetary movement and
determined the length of a year.
• School of Athens painting by Raphael in 1510 AD. May feature:
◦ Democritus (in blue on left pillar): ~460 BC, atoms
◦ Empedocles (seated in brown next to him): 490-430 BC, 4 elements
◦ Pythagoras (with book): 570-495 BC
◦ Alexander the Great (with golden hat): 356-325 BC
◦ Hypatia (woman in white): 360-415 AD
◦ Socrates (standing above her in olive-green): 469-399 BC
◦ Plato and Aristotle (main figures in center): 427-347 BC and 384-322 BC
◦ Euclid or Archimedes (teaching in red on right): ~300 BC or 287-212 BC
◦ Claudius Ptolemy (next to him with back turned): 90-168 AD, gave more mathematical
treatment to Aristotle's atronomy