Western Civilization From Prehistory to the Renaissance

Western Civilization

From Prehistory to the Renaissance

Early Civilizations

What do historians mean by "pre-history?" What was life like for early humans during these years?

There are many things that we as citizens of the modern world take for granted. First among these is probably the enormous amount of recorded information that we have at our fingertips. Everything from our purchases, to our places of employment, to the times and places of our births and deaths are stored either on paper or on computer. And there is much more too - countless novels, and films, and compact discs preserve, each in its own way, a bit of our thoughts and dreams, our expectations and aspirations. But there was once a time when this was not so; a time in the remote past before human beings had any way of recording events and thoughts and memories for future generations or even for sharing among their own contemporaries. This was the time before history, for history is the sum total of the recorded experience of humankind, the experiences that he himself purposely set down and saved up.

For the untold ages before the dawn of recorded history, we have only the work of archeologists and paleontologists to tell us of the life of our ancestors. It was a way of life very different from our own, a way of life preserved in objects buried in the earth, silent mementoes that speak only in the language of the interpretations that we make of them. The remains of tools and weapons, pottery shards, dried out ears of grain, pieces of plants and bits of meat mixed up among the ashes of long-cold campfires - these are but a few of the relics that remain of early man. Taken together, they create a picture of a society that moved to rhythms at once unfamiliar and familiar. Bushmen and pygmies, native tribesmen in the heart of the Amazon, and other still-living peoples in the remote corners of the world still follow the way of life of prehistoric man. It was a way of life that revolved around hunting and gathering. Early humans moved from place following the movements of the animals they ate. Men hunted, and women gathered plants and looked after the children. Nothing existed that could not be found in nature, or made from something found in nature. Our distant ancestors' only technology consisted of fire, and their own hands and minds. Men chipped spear and arrowheads from stone and bone. Their women sewed animal skins, or wove together strip of bark and grass to make clothes for the band. It was a simple existence. A life of hunting and gathering provided only enough food for very small groups of people to live together. The near constant movement made building permanent homes, and creating complex equipment impractical and unnecessary.

However, as time went by, some people did find a way to make their lives more secure. Some nameless human being in what is now Iraq discovered that he could take the seed of a plant and place it in the ground and cause it to grow where he wanted it to grow. Whole fields of grain could be cultivated in one place, and because of this constant food supply, people could settle down together in one spot. Even better, some people found that instead of following animals, there were certain animals that could be made to follow you. These became the first domesticated animals, and in a short time, these animals provided our ancestors with meat, milk, and even wool. And once the band's residence had become permanent, and the people were guaranteed of a steady food supply, enterprising individuals discovered that they had a lot more time on their hands to tend to the tasks of daily life and to explore the world around them. Hastily constructed temporary shelters gave way to sturdy huts. Tools and weapons became more elaborate as people had more time to devote to their construction and development. Natural resources were put to new and ingenious uses. Lumps of clay were molded into shapes and allowed to dry in the heat of the sun or the fire, and so our forbears produced the first pottery. Some rocks were softer than other rocks and could be beaten into shape or heated to high temperatures to make them more malleable. And so, thousands of years ago human beings began to make implements out of metal.

Permanent villages, a ready food supply, and better tools meant many more things as well. People congregated together into larger and larger groups. More people meant more hands to do the work. Improved technologies freed up some of these villagers to do things other than the work necessary for their own physical survival. While others worked the fields, and tended the animals, they began to specialize in particular crafts. One became a full-time potter, another a blacksmith, and still another a maker of small boats or fishing equipment. Such specialists made goods not only for themselves, but also for their fellow villagers. They exchanged their pots or boats for basketfuls of grain, or for sheep, or joints of meat. A specialization of production was developing, and along with it an economy based upon mutual exchange of goods and services. As many of the materials required by the new crafts and technologies could not be found everywhere, villages began to trade with one another. A village that was located near plentiful supplies of copper exchanged its goods with a village downriver that had a good supply of clay or lapis lazuli, or possibly even gold and silver. For as human society grew more complex, there were goods and services that began to be produced that had little to do with the physical necessities of survival. Neolithic man, as a group, had at last freed himself from the need to worry about his daily survival. Human beings could turn their mind to other things.

The use of luxury goods like ivory and gold was symbolic of a much more significant development. The growing specialization among workers meant that certain objects were now produced for other than utilitarian purposes. Figurines and even clothing and weapons might have a social or religious purpose that had little connection to the physical needs of the village. More people and greater diversification meant that in order for the village to run smoothly there had to be some sort of organization. Soon, just as particular individuals worked at particular jobs, a handful of individuals came to devote the bulk of their time to organizing things. They apportioned the village's fields, or watched over the irrigation ditches. They made sure that the goods that were produced were made to the appropriate standards. These people soon formed a class by themselves, a class that was raised above that of the other villagers. As people of exalted rank, they became the consumers of the new luxury goods. And as their freedom from physical labor allowed them to cultivate their minds, they created a demand for more and more unusual productions. Everyday objects became aesthetic creations, and so art was born. Furthermore, these high-ranking people were able to devote greater and greater amounts of time to all of the organizational aspects of human existence. The gods who watched over the fields and the flocks, and who, in the already long-forgotten prehistoric past, had taught the craftsmen their crafts became their special province. Religion itself became a specialty, a realm of abstruse knowledge that required the attention of experts. Priests performed rituals and sacrificed to the gods that life might continue as it was meant to, that all the things that had become essential to human existence might be preserved and perpetuated. So much information was now needed to ensure the proper running of the world that people could no longer remember it all. They needed a way to record it. Thus, stood man on the threshold of civilization and history.

Section Two: The World of the Greeks

Question # 5:

Why is Alexander remembered by historians as "The Great?" Did his achievements go beyond the mere acquisition of a vast empire? List and explain the many different kinds of benefits that resulted from his conquests. Do you agree that he should be called "great?" Has doing this assignment helped you to understand how historians evaluate and interpret famous individuals in history? How? Be specific.

Greatness comes in many forms. Yet throughout most of history, the greatness of kings

Was measured in terms of their conquests and military prowess. It was for this reason that, down through the ages, Alexander of Macedon was accorded the title of "Great." To be the great victor in war, and to add to the territories that he had inherited was the ambition of most every monarch from the days of the pharaohs down nearly unto our own time. As recently as the early years of the Twentieth Century, power and success were still measured in terms of imperial might. The British, French, and other empires spread across the globe. And although neither country was in the strict sense "ruled by a monarch," the idea behind the concept remained the same. Territorial expansion was a means toward achieving glory and immortality.

Of course, things have changed in the more than two thousand years since Alexander's time. In recent centuries, the way of the warrior has lost something of its old luster, and would-be conquerors have found it increasingly essential to justify their ambitions by other means. So, in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries we have the concept of the White Man's burden, and the idea of the Western Powers bringing enlightenment and civilization to the benighted races of the Earth. Still more recently, however, even these "noble" ideas have lost their moral weight. Man as he stands at the beginning of the Third Millennium tends to see the cultures and societies of his fellow man as being equally of value. Each has its good points to offer to the world. Each has its own contributions to make. By the same token, all human beings, no matter where they might live, and no matter what religion they might practice, or customs they might follow, are entitled to pursue their lives as they see fit. Force is never justified because no one way is right.

Still, Alexander remains great in the eyes of contemporary historians. Even in the light of modern values and re-evaluations, his accomplishments still rank him as one of the most important figures of all time. Alexander the Great ultimately ruled an empire that extended from Greece to India, and from the Persia to Egypt. It was a vast realm that included many different peoples and societies. As a result of Alexander's conquests these people were brought together into a single community, and though, his empire did not long outlive him, the fusion of peoples and ideas that he made possible continues to influence us to this day. Prior to Alexander's appearance on the world scene, the Western world was broadly divided into two major sections. First, in the far west, there was the Greek World of which Macedon was at the northern edge. Second, there was the sprawling Persian Empire that included all of the ancient Middle East and also Egypt and those parts of the Indian Subcontinent that border modern-day Iran. These two regions had been since very early times largely distinct. Asia, or the Persian Empire, was for the most part, a land of autocratic kings, and highly centralized and authoritarian regimes. Religion was central to daily life, and cities were often dominated by huge temples and their associated priesthoods. Life was exceedingly traditional and changed little over time. In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, the people had worshipped the same gods and followed similar customs for millennia. Art and architecture tended to be relatively static and stylized. However, the peoples of the Middle East had a long and very ancient history of powerful states, and in comparison to Greece and Macedon were rich in resources. The fertile valleys of the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile produced vast surpluses of grain and supported large populations. There were also metals and minerals of various kinds, and a wealth of skilled craftsmen. History had been long recorded in these lands where writing had first been invented.

In contrast, the Greek World was, at this time, something of a geographic backwater. Rugged mountains divided the region into a host of small, warring, city states. Small farms and vineyards clung to the hillsides, and the Greek People were forced to turn to the sea for much of their livelihood. Yet this less productive environment, and the compartmentalized political situation that it produced, was also strangely enervating. The few centuries before Alexander saw an amazing burst of creativity such as has been rarely witnessed in all of human history. Greek art and architecture shed the strict confines of the ancient canons as bold pioneers worked out the mathematical laws of harmony and proportion. Artists and artisans produced works that mirrored the appearance of the real world. They captured ideas and emotion is their creations. And just as their artists explored new directions, so too did the Greek's thinkers and philosophers. Men such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle developed the basic forms of logical thought and reasoned argument that we still use today. Hippocrates and others explored the natural world with scientific eyes, and together with the rational ideas of the philosophers laid the groundwork for modern science and technology. While many of the material results of their work lay far in the future, they nevertheless began what would become a profound transformation of human society.

It was Alexander's Empire that brought together all these disparate ideas and peoples. In the centuries that followed, the East would become "Hellenized," adopting many aspects of Greek thought and culture. The enormous economic and human resources of Asia would be placed at the disposal of the new philosophies and ways of thinking. Art, architecture, technology, and literature - indeed, virtually every aspect of human culture would benefit from this exciting and stimulating exchange of ideas and talents. The city that Alexander founded, Alexandria, would become the seat of the greatest library in the Ancient World, and a sort of university of the enlarged Greek World. As a result of Alexander's conquests, the religious ideas of Persia, Greece, Egypt, and Judea would mingle together and eventually bring forth new world religions. Furthermore, Alexander the Great's conquest of the known world would create an example for others to follow. And with the establishment of the Roman Empire, it would lead to the development of the concept of a world state, of a society governed by universal laws, a world united and at peace. We still may not have achieved this ancient dream, but we're working on it.

Clearly, Alexander is one of the few individuals in history who truly deserves the title "Great." While many of his accomplishments were clearly unintentional, they would never have happened without him. Alexander left a legacy of conquest and military expansion, but he also cultivated a respect for alien cultures that made his empire a melting pot. His empire, and its successor states forged a new world that benefited all the people, and not just the rulers' treasuries. While historians have seen different things in Alexander down through the centuries, they are all correct in admiring his achievements. And just as Alexander understood the need to understand other peoples and their cultures, so too must historians realize that the world is ever-changing, and that the historians of today do not look at the world around us with the same eyes as their predecessors. People are people and all respond to the circumstances and expectations of the time in which they live. Alexander was no less a great man when his most glorious accomplishment was the creation of an unbeatable army, and no more to be despised when his endless subjugation of other peoples led to the development of a more dynamic and united world. History is in the eye of the beholder.

Section Three: The World of the Romans

Question # 3:

Why was Julius Caesar assassinated? Did his actions appear to you to be tyrannical? After his death, his murderers made no plans for government, think that the Republic, once freed of the dictator, would be restored automatically. Do you consider this to be a naive idea? Why or why not? Why is Caesar such a controversial and interesting figure? Do you see ay parallels between him and Alexander the Great?

Julius Caesar was assassinated because his killers believed that he was trying to destroy the Roman Republic. To destroy the Republic was to destroy the old Roman way of life, and with it, the old Roman virtues of thrift, modesty, self-reliance and hard work. Julius Caesar was only the latest and most brilliant in a line of over-mighty consuls who had brought Rome to the brink of out-and-out dictatorship. Sulla and Marius, and before them, the Brothers Gracchi had all disturbed the traditional order of Roman society. But far more than any patrician or plebian conspiracy, what had really changed Rome was its empire. The ideal Roman Republic, if it had ever really existed, had existed centuries before, back in the days when the Romans had first expelled the Etruscan kings. Rome then was a small city and ruled only its own hinterlands. It was not a great power in the world, or even Italy. In fact, four and a half centuries before Caesar Rome was little more than a poor, backward city state on the fringes of civilization. The Etruscans were the leading nation in the Italian Peninsula, and the Roman people were, of necessity, frugal and industrious. Within the confines of such a small society, there was no one who was extremely wealthy, nor inordinately powerful. A close-knit tribal society, the newly founded Republic functioned according to traditional lines. Patrician or Plebian, all Romans were part of one big family.

This all changed however, as Rome grew stronger and the Etruscans weaker. Eventually, Rome usurped Etruscan supremacy and came to dominate all of Italy. And then came Hannibal and his ultimate defeat. Rome fell heir to the Carthaginian possessions in Spain and North Africa and embarked on the road to becoming a world power. Enormous amounts of wealth, and enormous numbers of slaves poured into Rome, changing it society forever. The city grew, and the gap between rich and poor swelled enormously. Plebeians like the Gracchi agitated for the rights of the common man, and in so doing subverted the traditional Roman class system. Wealthy men like Sulla, with their spreading networks of clients became more and more powerful. They seized the choice positions and the choice commands. More and more the Roman Republic came to resemble a military dictatorship as each political faction and its leader backed up his position by force of arms. And then came Caesar.

Julius Caesar was a classic Roman dictator in his resorting to military force to maintain his position. After conquering Gaul, he had been ordered to return to Rome without his troops. He defied the Senate's orders and crossed the Rubicon with his army. Yes, this was the act of a tyrant, but only in so far as the Senate was the legal master of Rome, and Caesar had openly defied its authority by a superior show of force. For by this time, the Senate was ineffectual. It was dominated by factions, and by the political and economic greed of a handful of wealthy and manipulative men.

Rome was tearing itself apart. No one was paying any attention to the common people or their welfare. Caesar had been ordered to return to Rome alone almost certainly to be murdered. The Senate feared not his becoming sole dictator, but the loss of its own power and privilege. Julius Caesar was enormously popular with the bulk of the Roman population, the very population whom the leading factions in the Senate were daily raping and abusing. It was only a handful of old-fashioned stoics, like Brutus, who truly feared for the Republic.

Convinced of their own righteousness, Brutus and his fellow conspirators fell on Caesar on the Ides of March in 44 B.C. The great threat to the old Republic and the old Roman ways was dead, and Brutus and his cohorts were convinced that order would be restored of its own accord. But the death of Caesar did not eliminate the other powerful Romans waiting in the wings. It did not turn back the clock to the days when Rome was a tiny and insignificant city on seven hills by the banks of the Tiber. The nightmare that the conspirator sought to prevent was only too real in the aftermath of Caesar's death. Julius Caesar had been careful to walk a fine line between appearing to eager for power, and being too obedient to the Senate. Other men had no such qualms. Caesar's great skills as a diplomat, a general, and even a thinker, had been the glue that held the state together. With his death, civil war broke out between the remaining factions. And it was a war to the death. One man would eliminate his rivals, and with the deaths of those rivals, their entire network of clients would come crashing down with them. One man, one patron, and one generalissimo would be left in charge of Rome.

Of course, we know from history that that one man was Octavian, Julius Caesar's nephew. Octavian capitalized on his adoptive name, and on his uncle's legacy. Like Julius Caesar he avoided being too ostentatious and offending both the Senate and traditional Roman sensibilities. Antony made himself an Eastern Potentate, and let himself be seduced by a foreign queen - or so the Romans liked to remember it. Octavian worked within the Roman system just as Julius Caesar had. For just like Alexander, Caesar had understood the many different aspects of power. He understood how to use overwhelming force, when overwhelming force was necessary. He knew how to be diplomatic when that served his ends. And he knew how to appeal to a people's spirit. As Alexander worshipped at the temple in Babylon, Julius Caesar sacrificed himself on the altar of the Roman people. Octavian followed Caesar's example, defeated all of his rivals, and won from the Senate, the "legitimate" governing body of Rome the title of Imperator, or generalissimo.

We know that title today as "emperor." And in the years that followed the emperor would become more and more like a powerful king than a mere military commander. This too is owed to Caesar. Whether or not he ever intended to make himself king of Rome is open to question, but the fact that every one of his actions was geared toward making him the one supreme power in the state is enough to say that it was Julius Caesar who brought about the final destruction of the old Republic. In truth, the world of which his murderers' dreamed was long gone, but the shell remained. Caesar might have used his awesome powers, and by example, Octavian used them as well, to restore some semblance of the old Republican government. Instead Octavian created an empire that was built on his uncle's work. Caesar and Octavian forever altered the old Rome, but without the strong rule of Augustus Caesar that followed the calamities of the Republic's last century, it is perhaps doubtful that the Roman state would have survived. The vast, universal empire that gave rise ultimately to modern Europe might have been torn apart by internal dissensions, its great legacy swallowed up by the thirst for power of long-dead Roman aristocrats.

Section Four: The Middle Ages

Question # 1:

Chapter 6 discusses Rome's "Three Heirs" - the European, Byzantine, and Islamic civilizations, each of which emerged after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. In a short essay, describe each of these areas: geographic location, form of government, type of religion dominant, quality of economic and cultural life. Be sure to compare and contrast each area.

The unified world of Ancient Rome was succeeded by three major civilizations: the Byzantine, the European, and the Islamic. Of these three, the Byzantine Empire is the only one that can truly be described as a direct successor to the old empire. Following Rome's division into an Eastern and a Western half, the capital of the Eastern Empire remained in the city that Constantine had founded - Constantinople. Constantinople was the seat of an empire that, at its height, included all of Greece and the Balkans, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and much of North Africa, Sicily and Italy. It was a state that was largely dominated by the Christian Church and by Jesus Christ's earthly representative the Emperor. The doctrine and beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox Church suffused nearly every aspect of Byzantine society. People argued in the streets over the most minor and obscure theological questions. Churches an monasteries proliferated widely. And the Emperor was as much the autocratic head of the Church as he was of the state. In short, unlike in modern American, church and state were entirely inseparable in Byzantium. While many aspects of Ancient Roman life and culture continued as before, they were affected in every way by both Christianity, and by the capital's relocation in the East, in the heart of the Greek World.

Greek became the language of government, religion, culture, and everyday speech. The old Homeric epics were discussed and retold as frequently as all the episodes of the Bible. Great thinkers studied ancient, pagan philosophers such as Aristotle alongside the works of church fathers like St. John Chrysostom. Byzantine Civilization, much more than either of Rome's other two successors, genuinely blended both the Classical and Medieval Worlds. In art and architecture and music, Byzantine tastes represented a continuation of the developments of the late Empire, its solid, flat, stylized forms ideal for the representation of an ever present, yet unchanging mystical universe. The world of the Byzantines was a reflection of that other world, but it was also a reflection of the catastrophes that had befallen the old empire. Except for Constantinople, the great and flourishing cities of Roman times had disappeared. The population had retreated into the countryside. A new military aristocracy faced the continual threats of Barbarian hordes and Islamic invasion. The peace and order of the old Roman world largely disappeared, yet Constantinople continued on as the greatest city in Europe, a capital of the arts, culture, religion, and commerce. Constantinople and its empire were Europe's gateway to the East.

But beyond Byzantium, in the western half of the old Roman Empire, things were very different indeed. The Barbarian invasions had destroyed the old universal order of Rome. Roman law, government, and security were replaced by countless little feudal entities, each constantly at war with one another, and joined only by a complex series of interpersonal bonds. Christianity was the only king in this vast forested land, but it was a different kind of Christianity than that found in the Byzantine Empire. The Roman Catholic Church was headed by the Pope with his capital in what remained of the city that had once ruled the world. Even when later on, Charlemagne united the Franks and the Germans, and was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by the Pope, the division between sacred and secular remained. For centuries, the break with the past seemed almost complete. Many of the old cities were abandoned or their buildings converted to other uses. Art and architecture were crude and haphazard, as befitted a people constantly at war, and frequently on the move. States began to develop in some areas, but as with everything else, they were fragmented. The insecurity of life and property drove many people into monasteries and convents. Soon these havens from the world became also the last remaining places in which the old learning was preserved. Monks copied out the old classical and Christian texts, thus preserving much knowledge for the future. However, as for the present, few Western Europeans were literate, and that included their leaders. Roman law was replaced by tribal custom, Classical literature and philosophy by bold sagas, and warrior epics.

Yet, from all this destruction, there emerged a society that was a fusion of both the old and the new. Unlike Byzantium which looked continually to the past, the people of Medieval Europe eventually created a whole new culture that was neither tribal nor Classical. The soaring forms of Gothic art and architecture resembled nothing in the Roman World, but they gave expression to the spirituals aspirations of an entire people. Gothic painting led directly to the great masters of later days, and medieval writers like Dante and Chaucer created a whole new literature in the emerging vernaculars. Latin was not dead, but more and more its use as relegated to the church and to law and international discussion. Medieval churchman such as St. Thomas Aquinas and Abelard and William of Ockam devised whole new ways of looking at the Gospels and at the world. The civilization of Medieval Western Europe - a blend of Classical, Christian, and tribal influences - led directly to the creative explosion of the Renaissance, and onwards to Modern Europe and America.

Most removed from the other two civilizations - on the surface at least - was the world of Islam. In the Seventh Century, Mohammed, an Arab visionary, heard the word of God in the desert. His new religion caught on quickly, and soon most Arabs were Moslem. Fired up by their faith, these hardy warriors quickly overran much of the Byzantine Empire and all of the Persian (Sassanid) Empire. The civilization that resulted from these conquests was a blend of East and West. From Spain to Afghanistan, and from the Caucasus to Egypt, the people of the Caliphate were united by a common religion and a common speech. Like Eastern Orthodoxy in Byzantium, religion pervaded every aspect of Islamic life. The Caliph was both supreme religious leader and secular ruler. Every aspect of Moslem life as governed by the rules laid down in the Koran, and the interpretations of those laws by later scholars. The Koran was the basis of all law and the source of all authority, as it was the revealed word of Allah. The Caliph was, like his Byzantine counterpart, an autocrat, though his court and manner of ruling reflected even greater Persian influence than that seen in Constantinople.