att_1442646023994_4th sems-european history-mid term(1)

BSENGLISH4TH EUROPEAN HISTORY BY: FARAZ AHMED

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ROMAN CIVILIZATION

There is a myth that Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, twosons of Mars, the god of war. Before it, these both brothers were thrownin river by their uncle but Shepherd saved them. The brothers later on,defeated their uncle and made their own city on the bank of the river in753 BC. This is actually the beginning of Roman Civilization. This beginningis same as that of Greek Civilization i-e city states were established.People were easily settled due to favorable climatic conditions andfertility of the soil. After killing his brother, Romulus became the firstking of Rome, which is named for him. At that time the well-knowncivilization was of Greeks.

Rome after its fine establishment went for various attempts toexpand its territory. The principle aim of Roman Emperors was tostrengthen their empire as much as possible. They wanted to rule theworld. In 4th century, Rome captured southern zone. It was the mid of the3rd century when Rome conquered Italian Peninsula. Now the next targetwas to capture Carthage; a very strong city state in North-Africanregion. To achieve the target, Romans went for three war attemptsduring 264 BC to 146 BC. These wars are known as “Punic Wars”. In theThird Punic War (149–146 B.C.), the Romans captured and destroyed thecity of Carthage and sold its surviving inhabitants into slavery, making asection of northern Africa a Roman province. At the same time, Rome alsospread its influence in east, defeating King Philip V of Macedonia in theMacedonian Wars and turning his kingdom into another Roman province.Rome emerged as a very strong empire in a very short time interval.

In the beginning, the governmental setup of Roman Empire was ofKingship. During 753-510 BC, the Emperor was the supreme authority inthe empire. Two Magistrates and 300-Senators were working to look afterthe state affairs. Magistrates also served as commanders in chief ofarmy. Magistrates were selected by free-men while the senators wereselected by Emperor. They all were obedient to Emperor and had dummyrole in government.


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Later on, during 510-46 BC, the power was shifted to Republicans(Res-Publica; things that belong to public). Kings and all other monarchywere overthrown; all powers were transferred to free-men. Theyintroduced new government system. This system also had a senate but nowthe senate was headed by a council of two members. New posts ofQuesters (financial officers) and censors were introduced. Censors jobwas to conduct elections. The council used to choose censors after every18 months. In this system, all these council members, senators andquesters were selected by free-men.

In 46 BC, the government was headed by Julius Ceaser. He went formany expansions and became the strongest person of his time. Republicansturned to Emperors due to his policies. He increased the number ofsenators from 300 to 900 and also the Questers number was increasedfrom 2 to 8. The senators chose him Dictator for one year. In the verynext year 45 BC, Ceaser dismissed the working council and elected himselfas council for lifetime with the help of senators. He now became the King.In 44 BC, he was killed. After this murder, the power was shifted to hisson Octavian (44-27 BC). Octavian throughout his reign kept fightingagainst the murderers of Ceaser and at last in 27 BC, he defeated them.As an honor, he was given the title of “Augustus” and was made king forhis lifetime.

From 27 BC, the decline of Roman Civilization began. In 3rd AD, Romeentered into period of extreme decline. There was no one to look after theeastern and western part, these parts were growing apart from empireand were confronted by many problems. The Western Rome was weakeningsocially and economically day by day. As a result, the Barbarians in 476 ADattacked and conquered most of the provinces of it. The same was thesituation in Eastern part; Army was dominated by the Barbarians herealso.

Romans were very conscious about their cultural, traditional andreligious values. Wherever they went they worked in architecturaldevelopment. They never created any disturbance in the conquered areas.They were Pagans i-e worshiped more than one god. They changed the


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names of gods. The King god Zeus was changed to Jupiter and QueenGoddess Hera was changed to Juno. Romans were inspired from PersianCivilization and used to worship their kings; they called king as the shadowof God.


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ADVENT OF CHRISTIANITY AND ROLE OF CHURCH DURING DARK AGES

Jesus Christ was born in 1st AD century. As he started spreadingChristianity, the people rejected with some allegations. People alleged himof spreading Judaism, so they handed him over to Judas. Judas afterhaving conversation with Christ came to know that he is talking somethingdifferent. Christ said that he is talking about the Supreme Being. Judascalled him in court and the court then alleged him of talking againstgovernment policy. Court decided to crucify Christ and he was crucified atthe age of 33. This incident was the beginning of Apostolic Period.

Apostles were the direct followers of the Jesus Christ. It is believedin Christianity that Christ after his death came on earth to guide hisfollowers i-e Apostles. They were spiritually guided by the Christ. Apostlescalled the spiritual waves as the blood of the Christ, and due to this logicpeople were more attracted towards the Christ even after his death.Later on, the Post Apostolic Period began that enlarged for about 100years. During this period, official persecution of Christianity began.Christianity was regarded as the most persecuted religion of the state.Mithras Isis also condemned Christianity.

312 AD proved as the most successful year of advent of Christianityin Roman Empire. In this year, the Roman Emperor Constantine acceptedChristianity. After this all the Bishops and Churchmen were changed.Constantine founded the base of expansionist policy. He expanded hisKingdom from east to west. After six year, in 330 AD, Constantinople wasconstructed in Eastern front of Roman Empire. The newly build city wasmade the capital of Rome after Theodosia. In 394 AD, he banned over thepromotion of all religions except Christianity. Christianity was made theofficial religion of the state in 395 AD. The Emperor was working to makehis empire a Holy Roman Empire. His all focus was on this agenda and therewas no one to look after the Eastern and Western front of the state.Barbarians invaded many provinces of the Rome and the Roman declinationbegan. But Christianity was saved by Bishops to get their personalbenefits. This was the beginning of the Dark Ages of the Church.


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The period from 395-600 AD is known as the dark age of the church.In the era the Bishops presented a fake document “Donation ofConstantine” which carried a letter. That letter was said to be issued byConstantine in which he has asked to give all religious and political powersto the church. As a result the Bishops started enjoying the powers inevery field i-e Political-Economical-Religious and many more. Bishopscreated many new posts in the church like Arch-bishops, Cardinals, Monksand Nuns etc……. Manipulation of the church was at its peak. Anybodytalking anything against this system was given harsh punishment. Thecourts of that time were known as Ecclesiastical Courts. These courtswere headed by churchmen. All the judicial hearings and law makingprocess was also in their control. They had made many laws to facilitatethemselves.

Ex-communication

Anybody speaking against Christianity or Church or disobeyedthe rules was first ex-communicated from religion and was declaredto be killed by any individual.

Tithe

It is a name of a tax that was due for every earning person.According to it, every earning person will give 10% of his salary tothe church. Churchmen were free of it. Bishops were given freehand to use it as they were not answerable to anyone.

Indulgence

It was the name of a letter. According to this every accusedperson was asked to pay specific amount to the church.

Interdict

A tool used by churchmen to save themselves from religiousduties. The churchmen were not baptizing the children, were notperforming their church duties and were also not taking part inmarriages.


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Charlemagne was the strongest person of the time. He conqueredmany empires including France. At that time people thought that hemight finish up this manipulation of religion but all their hopesdestroyed when Charlemagne asked the Pope to put the crown on hishead in 768 AD during the coronation ceremony. Then the peoplerealized that he is also having Pope’s support.


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GREEK CIVILIZATION

Greek civilization is the greatest civilization of the ancient times.This civilization has a unique beginning from city states. Many of theancient civilization grew up near water (river) because of the fertile landand fine climatic conditions. Same was the case with Greek people; theyestablished small towns near different rivers. These towns were later onconverted into cities. About 150 city states were established that time.Only five are known to us i-e Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and Argos.All the city states were collectively called Polis. These city states werevery far from each other, but even though they had resemblance in manyfields of life i-e religion, tradition, culture and language. The onlydifference was found in social and political hierarchies of the states. Inorder to understand these differences we need to study two major citystates i-e Athens and Sparta.

Athens is one of the most important city states of GreekCivilization. Being the state of very intellectual people, this was alsoknown as the state of nobles. People were free to think as compared toSparta, but they were not liberal enough as modern age. Thegovernmental system settled in Athens from the start till 500 BC wasDictatorship but due to some problems it was overthrown by Nobles.Democracy was introduced that was working under the control of Nobles.There existed an assembly of 50 council members and 5 judges. All thecouncil members and judges were elected by freemen. Council members andjudges used to meet 40 times in a year to discuss the issues of the state.The council was bound to work within its limits; it was not allowed toincrease its power. The council was answerable to freemen but thejudiciary was not. In the society, there existed four classes of people i-eFreemen, Women, Merchants and Slaves, these all were given importancerespectively. Freemen were most important. Women were not given equalrights. They were neither allowed to be a part of the assembly nor couldthey cost the vote. They were treated as slaves of their husbands.Foreigners usually came for trade and later on settled there. Slaves werewell treated in Athens. They could restart their lives as they were given


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an opportunity to become good person.

Sparta is another important city state of Greek Civilization. Thisstate was having Dictatorship as their governmental system. On the top,there were two Kings of the state. Both the Kings were given equalpowers. They also had a so called assembly that consisted of 28 councilmembers and 5 judges. Like Athens, council members and judges wereelected by freemen but here they were finally appointed by Kings. Kingswere enjoying real power. Assembly was working as a puppet. Assemblywas answerable to Kings. Due to the kingship system, the society was veryharsh. People were not free to think neither they could discuss the stateissues. The main objective of anyone was to dedicate his life to army.People were only concerned to warfare. Slaves were treated badly. Theywere not allowed to marry. They were not given any opportunity to begood citizens.

The religion in all the city states of Greece was same. The peoplewere strong followers of Paganism; follower of many gods. They didn’tbelieve in Supreme authority. They had different gods for differentpurposes.

Zues King god

Hera Queen goddess

Poseidon Sea god

Appolo Sun god

Artenis Moon goddess

Greeks are known as the pioneers of Olympics games. These gamesare called Olympics because in start these were celebrated at a mountainknown as Olympia. This mountain is in Athens; Greek city state. Greeksthought that the King god “Zues” is present at that mountain, that is whythey used to go there and conducted a festival to pay tribute to their god.This continued till the Greek Civilization was at its peak. But when thecivilization began to decline, they stopped to arrange the festival. Later


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on, in 1896, these games were restarted by France.

490 BC is the year when a series of war between Greek and Persiansbegan. The very first war was in 490 BC and is known as the Battle ofMarathon. Persians had attacked the Athens and the battle was fought inMarathon; a place name. People of Athens were afraid because Persianswere much stronger than them. Phillip ides; an Athens ran 20km towardsSparta but they refused to help them. Athens left the state and ran away.But when the battle was won by Athens, Phillip ides ran for 42km to tellthe Athens that they have won but he was died on the way. He could nottell them. Later on two other battles were also fought.

Thermopylae was fought in 480 BC. In this battle Sparta had helped Athensand collectively, they had won it.

Salamis was fought in 480 BC. This was also won by Greeks.

In 338 BC King of Macedonia Phillip-II achieved a historicalimportance in the Greek Civilization. The King snubbed all the rebelliousarmies and became the King of Greece. Phillip was killed in 336 BC. Afterhim, his son Alexander became the King of Greece at the age of 18 only. Heconquered many areas. In 334 BC, he crossed the Asia Minor, defeated thePersian and conquered Syria and Egypt. In 325 BC, his troops demandedreturn but Alexander died at the age of 33. The two great Kings of Greecefather and son both died. The impact of Greece also died with their death.After both of them, there was nobody to look after the state. So thegreat civilization came to its decline.


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att_1442646023994_4th sems-european history-mid term(1)

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