As the Roman Republic first took shape, empires had already formed in the regions around the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt reached its peak around 1400 B. C.E., spreading its influence into parts of eastern Asia. The region we call the Middle East had seen the rise and fall of several powerful peoples, including the Babylonians, the Hittites, and the Assyrians. Their lands included parts of modern-day Turkey and Iraq. In Persia-today’s Iran-an empire first developed around 1750 b. c.e. and lasted for more than 1,000 years.
Around 700 B. C.E., various independent Greek cities, called city-states, began to emerge as powerful centers of trade along the Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Athens, one of these city-states, became a center of literature and philosophy, producing such great thinkers as Plato (c. 427-347 B. C.E.) and Aristotle (384-322 B. C.E.). Athens also developed a democratic political system, with decisions made collectively by all the free male citizens. (Women and slaves did not play a role in the political process in Greece or Rome.)
Republics and Democracies
The English word republic comes from the Latin respubli-ca, meaning "public things," or the people's common concerns. Today republic is used to define a type of government in which voters elect representatives who serve their interests in a central assembly of lawmakers. The republican system works at all levels of government—local, state, and national. The U. S. political system is also called a democracy, or democratic republic. In the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, however, a democracy meant all voters met face-to-face and decided political issues for themselves, not through elected representatives. The word democracy comes from the Greek demos, which means "people." The two major U. S. political parties, the Republicans and Democrats, take their names from republic and democracy.
Athens reached its peak as the premier Greek city in the mid-fifth century B. C.E. In the next century, Macedonia, just north of Athens, developed into the most powerful state in the region. It developed an effective army, and under King Philip II (382-336 B. C.E.), the Macedonians took control of their Greek neighbors. In 334 B. C.E., Philip’s son Alexander (356-323 B. C.E.) began a war of conquest that took him through Egypt, Persia, and Central Asia into India. When he was done, Alexander was known as “the Great,” and he ruled the largest empire the world had so far seen. Alexander’s empire did not last long, but Greek culture continued to influence the eastern Mediterranean region and parts of Asia.
Rome, which had first experienced Greek culture (also known as
Hellenism) largely through the Etruscans, made more direct contact with the Greeks at the start of the third century B. C.E. By then Rome had already spread its influence northward in the Italian peninsula and was moving southward as well. The Greeks controlled several cities in the southern half of the Italian peninsula, and some of them struck alliances with Rome rather than risk being attacked by its increasingly powerful army. With its new Greek allies and later expansion into Greece itself, Rome became more Hellenized. The Roman culture that developed under the empire blended Hellenistic ideas with the culture of other peoples and native Roman ideas. This so-called Greco-Roman culture became the foundation for Western culture, and it influenced Arab culture as well.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great was just 21 years old when he took over the kingdom of Macedonia. Almost immediately, he began a grand military campaign that lasted until his death. Romans and other ancient people considered him the greatest general ever—the standard used to judge other military leaders who followed him. In his biography of Julius Caesar (100-44 B. C.E.), the historian Plutarch (c. 46-c. 120) wrote that the great Roman general wept after reading about Alexander's life. "'Do you think,' said [Caesar], 'I have not just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that is memorable.'"
World History
