Other Ancient Civilizations

I. Age of the Warring States

A. Early Neolithic period

1. 2000 BCE--Rise of cities and “states”

2. 1700 BCE--China enters the Bronze Age

a) Shang Dynasty--dominated by an aristocracy that combined military, priestly, and administrative roles


3. Chou Dynasty (1100 BCE)--kings delegated much of their power to 100 or so local rulers in a quasi-feudalistic political system--about 2000 years before Europe itself developed such a system.

B. Warfare and technological advances

1. The need to remain abreast of technological advances of adversarial states in order to not get overtaken by them

a) Draining of marshes, spread of irrigation to make more land available for cultivation to ensure the continuation of food surplus

b) Development of intensive farming--deep plowing with oxen, the use of organic fertilizers (animal dung and human night soil), planting of leguminous crops to restore nitrogen to the soil, and the cultivation of wheat and soya beans

c) Development of consumer products in addition to tools of war--in addition to swords, spears, and knives, Chinese craftsmen also manufactured spades, hoes, sickles, plows, axes, and chisels for use by peasants (Recall that in Egypt, the used of these kinds of tools was restricted to workers working on pyramids, monuments, temples)

2. Advances in agriculture fed the growth of cities, which provided a market to feed the growth of agriculture (a dialectic process, rather than a causitive one)

II. Ch’in Dynasty

A. Revolution from above--the Ch’in Dynasty consolidated its power at the expense of the ruling elites.


1. State of war--the 150 years of almost constant warfare that led to the establishment of the Ch’in Dynasty caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people (perhaps up to 1.5 million)--including thousands gratiously murdered (beheadings). In addition, as many as 120,000 people belonging to old elite families were exiled.

2. War on the merchant class--the Ch’in Dynasty, and the Han Dynasty that succeeded, were fearful of the potential threat posed by the growing wealth of the merchant class, and to counteract that the states seized control of the most lucrative trade--salt and iron making--in order to suppress rich traders and rich merchants. Taxes were higher on trading profits than on agriculture.

a) in order to survive, merchants and traders had to align themselves with either local bureaucrats, or with the royal court.

B. Religion and Philosophy--the years in which these elite classes battled each other for dominance also saw the emergence of rival philosophical systems to justify the conflicting political systems

1. Confucianism--Confucius (6th Century BCE) and his follower Mencius (4th century BCE) advocated a respect for tradition and ritual, combined with personal honesty and self-control.

a) Motzer sect demonstrated that even philosophy used to buttress rule by the elites could be used to undermine that authority (if elites failed to meet their obligations to rest of society).

b) Taoism--preached that individual salvation lie in withdrawing from world in order to master it, rather than engaging in collective action to attempt to change the world. Vied with Buddhism as a religious practice in much of Asia.

C. Emergence of “legalism”--emphasized government administrators rationally and objectively enforcing government edicts, which were portrayed as being for the well-being of the entire society.

D. Atttempts to close out the rest of the world

1. Great Wall of China

2. Destruction by first emperor of all references to prior traditions

3. Resulted in stagnation of technological advances--after initial flowering in the early centuries of empire

a) merchants became dependent upon state intervention, rather than developing an independent power base

4. Peasant life remained little changed--revolts caused by increasing pressure (particularly during times of famine), but even when these revolts were successful (like the revolt that succeeded in toppling the Ch’in Dynasty) simply changed leadership at the top, and resulted in negligible change at the bottom of society.



III. Greek City States

A. Emergence--many of the same forces that aided the emergence of a new civilization in Greece were similar to those forces that helped to create new civilizations in northern India and China--diffusion of new techniques in iron working and agriculture, the growth of trade, the growth of craft skills, and the development of an alphabet

B. Barrenness of land--in contrast to the development of other civilizations, however, Greece offered little in the way of agriculture--which led Greeks to “colonize” other lands.

1. Contact with Phoenician traders--who were widely travelled within the Mediterranean, and who exposed the Greeks to a wider diffusion of knowledge and techniques

2. Dispersal of Greeks--as mercenaries and exiles also led to the collection of disparate knowledge in Greece.


C. Importance of slavery--unlike other great civilizations, the creation of the surplus in Greece was largely reliant upon the use of slaves.

1. Slavery existed before civilization, but was used largely to supplement other labor, or to provide personal service to the ruling elites; agricultural work and artisnal crafts were left to the free and semi-free citizens

2. Slaves were usually non-Greeks seized as prizes of war. Their polyglot origins kept plotting among slaves at a minimum.

3. Spartan exception--there were no slaves in Sparta (located on the most fertile plain in Greece), although the ruling class lived off the tribute from “Helot” cultivators--and the ruling class emphasized austerity to minimize stress in the society.

D. Gifts of the Surplus--without slaves to produce the surplus, their would be little of what we think of as the flowering of Greek civilization.

1. Aristotle and Polybus spoke to the “necessity” of slavery

2. Democracy--most Greek city-states were ruled by oligarchies, who taxed those under them for state expenditures that benefitted mainly themselves. This created pressure from below to reform government; in Athens, this led to “democracy” (rule by the people) for male citizens--excluding women and slaves.

a) This in turn led to reaction from the economic elites, who accused those politicians who saw themselves as representing the non-elites of “demagoguery” and “rule by mob,” and often looked to forces outside Athens to help them overthrow democratic forces.

3. Advances in science, math, philosophy.

IV. Roman Empire--Rome largely appropriated most of their cultural and political institutions from the Greeks; Rome’s innovations lie in administering a huge empire and in feats of civil engineering (roads and aqueducts).

A. Roman Republic--after defeating the Etruscans in the 6th century BCE, Rome established a republic, and used the infantry conscripted (drafted) from the independent peasantry to fight wars of conquest to bring other settlements into the Roman sphere of influence.

1. Patrician control--this Roman Republic was not a true republic, in that not all people were represented in the political institutions, which were controlled by a few patrician families.

2. Patrician greed--as commanders of the Roman Legion, patricians took the lion’s share of conquered land.

3. Plebian resistance--patrician greed fed resistance to their rule by the lower sort, or “plebians,” but with relatively minor changes (allowing a few select plebians the right to hold political office) the patrician families were able to retain control of the government.

B. Roman Empire


1. Wars of conquest--The Roman practice of expropriating land from conquered peoples initially kept the plebians who did most of the fighting content, since they shared in a portion of the spoils of war. As time wore on, however, plebians received less and less land, while land prices in these conquered areas increased, causing them to go into debt and often lose the land they previously had received.

2. Slavery--became increasingly important to the ruling elite, who used slaves on the land they acquired to produce the surplus that provided them with the patrician lifestyle.

a) By the 1st century BCE there were more than 2 million slaves out of a population of 5.25 million people in the empire (or nearly 40% of the population)

b) Slavery led to the gradual impoverishment of free labor in Rome; the free populations stagnated, and many poor parents abandoned their children that they could no longer afford; these children often ended up being sold in slave markets.