Chapter 5 – The Classical Period: Directions, Diversities, and Decline by 500 C.E.

• Basic themes throughout – expansion and integration

• Adjusting to Expansion – philosophers communicate the central values of their own societies – Confucius, Buddha and Socrates (between 500 – 450 BCE).

• Integration involved two basic issues –how to govern new territories – how to create social cohesion

• Chinese and India more successful than Mediterranean

Beyond the Classical Civilizations

• Axum and Ethiopia: Axum defeated Kush around 300 BCE. Ethiopia in turn defeated Axum. Both these African kingdoms had active contacts with the eastern Mediterranean world until after Rome fell.

• The activities of Jewish merchants brought some conversions to Judaism in Ethiopians

• Christianity brought to Ethiopia by Greek-speaking merchants

• World’s oldest continuous monarchy

Shintoism – Japanese religion that provided for worship of political rulers and spirits of nature. This was the basis for the worship of the Japanese emperor as a religious figure. Rice god major deity.

Tori Gate entrance to a Shinto Shrine

By 400 CE, Japan’s imperial house emerges as a regional begins to win loyalty of other local rulers

By 600 C.E. Japan was ready for elaborate contact with China

Olmec: Central American’s first civilization 800-400 BCE. Developed agriculture, accurate calendars. Powerfully influence on later civilizations in the Americas.

Teotihuacan: Followed the Olmec. Built the first great city in the Americas and developed the first alphabet -400 BCE -400 CE

Mayan Pyramid

Maya – 300 – 900 CE – Classic culture emerging in southern Mexico and Central America contemporary with Teotihuacan; extended over broad region; featured monumental architecture, written language, calendrical and mathematical systems, and highly developed religion.

Inca: American culture centered in the Andes mountains. Domesticated the Llama ….

But this doesn’t occur until 12th Century!

• The Polynesians reached Fiji and Samoa by 1000 BCE, they spread their civilization to Hawaii 400 CE, by traveling in large outrigger canoes.

• Highly stratified caste system under powerful local kings

• Agriculture and herding societies are making contacts!

Decline in China and IndiaChina India

Huns attacked Decline in India not as strong as in China

Social unrest, overtaxed peasants

Huns destroyed Gupta Empire

Epidemics, weakened central government

For several centuries no native led an empire in India (Rajput)

China revived, first under Sui dynasty and later with the Tang.

Hinduism gained ground as Buddhism was unappealing to warrior caste

Popularization of Hindu

• A reaction to new religion ISLAM

• Strengthened interest in religious devotion

• Vernacular language HINDI used for popular reading of classical texts

Devi – Mother Goddess

Yellow Turbans – During the decline of classical China, the Yellow Turbans were a Daoist group that promised a golden age that was to be brought abut by divine magic

Sui and Tang: Chinese dynasties that followed that fall of the Han. Under Tang leadership especially, China enjoyed one of the most glorious eras in its history. Confucianism and the bureaucracy were revived.

Decline and Fall of Rome• Population declined

• Leadership faltered

• Economy flagged, tax collection became more difficult

• Despondency pervaded much of citizenry

• Decentralization foreshadows the manorial system of the Middle Ages – The Middle Ages in Europe after Rome leads to a feudal system (remember the Zhou dynasty in China???)

• Emperors Diocletian (divider) and Constantine (convert) slowed the spiral of decay (Christianity “official”, new eastern capital of Constantinople)

• Germanic tribes invaded in the 400s, little power or will to resist.

• Empire survived in the east as the Byzantine Empire

• Jesus of Nazareth - Jewish teacher who preached reforms in Judaism. His followers believed him to be the Messiah, the savior sent by God to redeem humanity.

• Paul – Early Christian leader who saw the faith in a different light. Instead of a reform of Judaism, Paul helped turn the faith into a new religion that welcomed non-Jews.

• Pope – Meaning papa or father; bishop of Rome and head of Roman Catholic church.

• Benedict: Founder of monasticism in what had been the western half of the Roman Empire, established Benedictine Rule in the 6th century; paralleled development of Basil’s rules in Byzantine Empire.

• Augustine: One of the greatest Christian theologians. Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt.

• Coptic Christianity: Largest branch of African Christianity, centered in Egypt (a minority group today).

The Appeal of Christianity• Greater missionary activity than Buddhism??

• Jesus preached compassion with great conviction and charisma, but had few followers in his lifetime – Apostle Paul as “second founder”

• Spiritual equality and afterlife replaced unsatisfying traditional polytheistic religion of the Romans & longing for salvation after death provided “faith” during an unstable era…

• Appealed to women, who were offered leadership opportunities in convents and who were encouraged to worship together with men, which was unlike the practices in Islam.

Justinian (6th Century) attempts to re-capture the Roman Heritage

Justinian law code basis for European and Russian lawMilitary conquests – last attempt to restore Medit. unity

Syncretism: The blending of cultures. Syncretism connects most strongly with religions; for example, Christianity’s adaptation of some of the features of the Roman religion.

Above is a contemporary image of the Hagia Sophia. It was a Christian church constructed in 534 C.E. under the rule of Emperor Justinian.

….See any Roman architectural syncretism? ……See any (later added) Islamic influence on this Christian church?

Byzantine mosaic , showing the Emperor Justinian and Bishop Maximian of Ravenna surrounded by clerics and soldiers.

The most famous of the surviving Byzantine mosaics of the Hagia Sophiain Constantinople – the image of Christ Pantocrator on the walls of the upper Southern gallery. This mosaic was made in the 12th century.

Coptic (Egyptian) icon of St. Mark from Alexandria, Egypt.

Interior of Hagia Sophia(Note the Arabic writing which demonstrates the Islamic conversion to a mosque after

Constantinople became Istanbul)

The New Religious Map – Post-Classical Period

• Classical civilizations declined – world’s major religions Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam flourished

• People sought solace in the spiritual world (MONASTICISM & BENEDICT = “Benedictan Monks”) as their temporal world was collapsing. (Party’s over....Thanks a lot Huns, Goths, and Franks!)

• Christianity became widespread in the West (includes Eastern Europe and emerging Muscovite “Russia”)

• Buddhism grew in China and the East

• Islam had became a dynamic force in the areas in between W & E.

• With Hinduism, Islam shared some commonalities; intense devotion, piety, and hope for a better life after this one.

• Each responded to political instability and to poverty. Each often took on features of local cultures, in a process called “syncretism”

Hinduism Buddhism Daoism

Changed little in is major tenets

Altered as it traveled beyond India – “cultural diffusion”

Reacted to Buddhism by organizing its beliefs based on magic / healing

Stayed in India

Buddha became more of a savior figure (Mahayana sect of East Asia) – Bodhisattvas – appealed to common people

Developed a clear hold on the peasant population of east Asia

Women in China - drawn to more meaningful life

Criticism of Chinese Gov. in vain-civil war!

Islam: Monotheistic religion in which the supreme being is Allah and the chief prophet and founder I Mohammad; developed in the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century C.E.

The World Around 500 CE

• The major themes in world history

1. Responses to the collapse of the classical empires

2. Reaction to new religions that developed

3. Increased skill in agriculture the development of early civilizations prepared parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia and the Americas for future changes.

Global Connections:

• Each of classical civilizations radiated trade

• Decline of classical authority meant overland routes became more precarious; thus sea lanes were used especially in Indian Ocean

• Missionaries and nomadic raiders took advantage of more porous borders