The Mental Floss History Of The World Part 7

The Han Dynasty is considered a golden age when China enjoyed peace and prosperity. Part of this was a s.h.i.+ft in the judicial system, moderating the harsh "legalism" of Qin s.h.i.+ Huang with the more moderate ideals of both Taoism and Confucius.

Under "legalism," draconian laws were supposed to inspire obedience through fear of terrible punishments; there were so many laws, in fact, that everyone could be found guilty of something something. By contrast, Taoist and Confucian legal theorists said that fewer laws were needed, as long as leaders enforced them consistently and taught the common people the reasons behind them: preventing injustice and maintaining order. With popular understanding came respect for the law and a "harmonious" society.

The Maurya Empire:

Size Does Matter

Like Alexander and Qin s.h.i.+ Huang, Chandragupta Maurya was a great unifier. Maurya, born around 340 BCE, overthrew the ruling Nanda Dynasty of eastern India and kicked Alexander's governors out of western India before he reached the age of twenty. In 305 BCE he defeated Seleucus, the general whom Alexander put in charge of Persia, adding the modern territory of Afghanistan and Pakistan to his realm. Then he turned south to conquer southern India. In all, he conquered about 1.6 million square miles in two decades-a close second to Alexander's empire of 2.0 million square miles.

And Maurya was actually more successful than Alexander-because his empire survived. In fact, the Maurya Empire peaked under Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka. Ruling more than forty years, from 273 to 232 BCE, Ashoka consolidated control of southern India, established a centralized administration, and guaranteed the rule of law.

Ashoka was a spiritual leader as well, who embraced Buddhism and spread it throughout India after witnessing the terrible slaughter caused by one of his conquests. He also banned slavery, renounced further territorial expansion, and sent diplomats to open friendly relations with neighboring states. He built a huge system of roads, bridges, and ca.n.a.ls to connect the different parts of his empire, and lodges, hospitals, and temples to improve the lives of his subjects. Agriculture and commerce flourished, as Indian merchants traveled thousands of miles to trade luxury goods, including ivory, silk, spices, and gems.

DEVIATED SEPTUM, I SWEAR...

Indian surgeons invented plastic surgery around 600 BCE, beginning with the reconstruction of noses, which were often cut off as punishment for adultery. (Why cut something off just to put it back on? We have no idea.) The first text on plastic surgery was the Sushruta Samhita, Sushruta Samhita, by a renowned surgeon and teacher named Sushruta, who is called "the father of plastic surgery." Practicing in Banaras (Varanasi), Sushruta invented a nose-reconstruction technique that involved slicing off a patch of skin from the cheek, reattaching it to the area of the severed nose, molding it into a new nose, and creating new nostrils with two small pipes. Another Indian technique for nose reconstruction called for taking a skin graft from the b.u.t.tock. The techniques were perfected by the fourth century BCE, according to Vaghbat, a contemporary scholar who described them in two books. by a renowned surgeon and teacher named Sushruta, who is called "the father of plastic surgery." Practicing in Banaras (Varanasi), Sushruta invented a nose-reconstruction technique that involved slicing off a patch of skin from the cheek, reattaching it to the area of the severed nose, molding it into a new nose, and creating new nostrils with two small pipes. Another Indian technique for nose reconstruction called for taking a skin graft from the b.u.t.tock. The techniques were perfected by the fourth century BCE, according to Vaghbat, a contemporary scholar who described them in two books.

The reign of Ashoka is considered an Indian golden age. But make no mistake: the stability was based on overwhelming military power. Ashoka guaranteed peace in south Asia with a huge army of six hundred thousand foot soldiers, thirty thousand cavalry, and nine thousand war elephants.

Maya:

Taking It Higha

The boundary between Olmec civilization and the Maya is fuzzy, but the Maya definitely got rolling by 300 BCE, when their first cities emerged in the lowlands of Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula. Much of the s.p.a.ce for these settlements, and the farms supporting them, was hacked out of Central American rain forests.

Thousands of years after they were abandoned, these early Mayan cities stand out from the jungle (literally) because of the giant pyramids the Maya built. The Maya took this Olmec tradition to the "next level" by constructing stepped pyramids, some over a hundred feet tall, at cities such as Calakmul, Cival, and Nakbe. These cities had as many as ten thousand inhabitants.

WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREAT RESPONSIBILITY...

It wasn't all wine and roses for Mayan kings. In one of their more painful responsibilities, the kings had to pierce their foreskins with a stingray spine. The blood from the wound symbolized procreation, specifically the G.o.ds' creation of the universe. Meanwhile, piercing the ears allowed the kings to hear divine wisdom, and piercing the tongue meant they could speak with divine authority.

The growth of these cities was closely related to the rise of an aristocratic elite, including kings who doubled as high priests. According to the Mayan creation myth, the world was created by the children of the maize (corn) G.o.d, who ruled as an all-powerful king at the center of the cosmos. The Mayan kings linked their authority to his divine rule, symbolized by elaborate headdress made of maize leaves and priceless ornaments, including jade breastplates and jewelry made of jade, sh.e.l.l, bone, and pearl, which were buried with them when they died. Mayan kings a.s.sumed ceremonial names with religious meaning, such as K'ahk 'Yipyaj Chan K'awiil (Fire Is the Strength of the Sky G.o.d) and K'Inich Yax K'uk Mo' (Sun Green Quetzal Macaw).

The kings and n.o.bles carried out important ceremonial duties, and their doings were recorded with an elaborate pictorial writing similar to ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, often on the long staircases leading to the temples atop the pyramids. As priests, the king and n.o.bility would fast and possibly ingest hallucinogenic plants to enter divine trances that would reveal the will of the G.o.ds. They also honored the G.o.ds through human sacrifices (always of some other poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d, never themselves).

AN UNWELCOME DINNER GUEST...

Being a Persian va.s.sal was relatively easy until the king of kings showed up in your territory and, in the words of Herodotus, you "had to entertain the Persian army and provide a dinner for the king." On the march, Xerxes dined with fifteen thousand officers, family members, and an entourage (who got fancy food), plus another couple hundred thousand rank and file. Feeding all these people supposedly cost 400 silver talents, or about $100 million. While incredible, the price tag makes more sense when you consider it included gold and silver cups and bowls made especially for the occasion, as well as a giant pavilion where the king relaxed. The icing on the cake: when they moved on the next day, the Persians took it all with them!

Special Report: Mediterranean Fight League Round 1: Greeks vs. Persians. Fight! Greeks vs. Persians. Fight!

In 500 BCE, the Persians ran most of the known world, and it was an article of faith that they would rule forever. Meanwhile, the Greeks figured that they themselves were divinely favored over the "barbarians"-all those dirty, immoral, illiterate people who lived outside of Greece. So the two cultures were bound to clash when they came into contact.Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened in Ionia, on the west coast of Asia Minor (Turkey). Picking up the disunited Greek colonies was child's play for Cyrus the Great in the 540s BCE. The Athenians couldn't accept Persian oppression of their Ionian "brothers" in Asia Minor, so they encouraged the colonies to rebel...then acted surprised when the Persians took their encouragement seriously. Darius the Great invaded Greece in 490 BCE to punish Athens for stirring up trouble, but the plucky Athenians defeated him at Marathon. (The Spartans had skipped out to observe a religious festival, which always seemed to happen when the Athenians needed help.) But it wasn't over...not even close.Round 2: Greeks vs. Persians Greeks vs. Persians Athens-and the rest of Greece-got off easy the first time. But Darius's son Xerxes (p.r.o.nounced ZURK-sees) wasn't kidding around. Two hundred and fifty thousand strong, his mammoth invasion force included troops from all over the Persian Empire. The cream of the crop were the "Immortals," the elite Persian cavalry who, despite their name, would rather die than be defeated. There were ten thousand of these highly trained fanatics.Xerxes loved big engineering projects, and why not? With slave labor, they were free-although, not problem-free: Xerxes first wanted his engineers to build a giant floating bridge across the h.e.l.lespont, a sea channel almost a mile across separating Europe from Asia. When the first bridge was destroyed by a freak storm, Xerxes had the designers beheaded and the sea whipped for its insolence (standard procedure). Inspired by their predecessors' fates, the second engineering team produced not one but two much st.u.r.dier bridges, each composed of about three hundred s.h.i.+ps bound together with ropes a foot wide.Now the Greeks really started freaking out. Athens, the main target, sent envoys to Sparta begging for an alliance, but the Spartans were split on what to do. One side, led by King Leonidas, wanted to send an army to help Athens immediately. But the more conservative faction argued that Sparta was safe (finding yet another religious festival as an excuse).To shame the conservative Spartans into doing something, Leonidas bent the rules a little (okay...a lot) by recruiting three hundred like-minded men as a "bodyguard" and heading to a narrow strategic pa.s.s in northern Greece called Thermopylae. Incredibly, the Spartans managed to hold off a quarter million Persian soldiers for three whole days. Ultimately the Spartans vowed to stay and give their lives for the cause of freedom; their suicidal "last stand" inspired the rest of Greece to unite against the Persians.Of course, getting the Greeks to agree on anything was almost impossible. Luckily, they had a wily politician from Athens (where else?) to bring them together. One of history's most gifted political leaders, Themistocles (p.r.o.nounced "Thuh-MIST-oh-klees") knew Sparta would never help Athens unless the Spartans were in charge. So he persuaded the Athenians to give the Spartans overall command of the allied forces, including the Athenian fleet-even though everyone, including the Spartans, knew they were clueless about sea warfare. Then Themistocles privately persuaded the Spartans to let him do the naval planning. To help things along, he wasn't above distributing huge bribes and having a few opponents kicked out of Athens.Themistocles's most impressive accomplishment was getting the Athenians to evacuate their city. Although they had fortified part of the city on his advice, Athens was still largely defenseless. Now a brilliant speech persuaded them to recognize realities, pack up their belongings, and move to an island just off the coast. Typically for Themistocles, this was a bit devious. Xerxes knew he had to capture the people of Athens to truly subdue the city, and by moving them to an island, Themistocles was using the Athenians as bait for the Persian fleet. If he could lure the Persian fleet into the narrow channel between Athens and the island, the Athenian fleet could trap and destroy it.On the day of the battle, Xerxes watched the whole thing from the top of a nearby hill, where he relaxed on a golden throne, clearly expecting an easy victory. He was bitterly disappointed. The first great Greek victory, at Salamis, swept the Persian navy from the sea, eliminating half the invasion force. The second victory, on land, came two years later, outside the city of Plataea. Here the Greek army, united around ten thousand Spartan warriors, annihilated the Persian land army. (The Spartans could probably have done it alone, but it was nice that everyone came.)Round 3: Greeks vs. Greeks Greeks vs. Greeks Now that the Greeks had pulled together in a common cause, you might think they'd at least agree to stop fighting each other-but no such luck. After the Persian Wars ended in 479 BCE, Athens formed the Delian League, supposedly an "alliance" against Persia (named after Delos, the island where the alliance was "agreed" upon), which quickly turned into an Athenian Empire covering the Aegean Sea. The Athenian navy collected tribute payments from the "allies," money that paid for the navy that was used to collect the tribute, which paid for the navy, and so on. Wising up after the Persian attack, the Athenians also built huge stone walls around their city and its port, effectively canceling out Spartan combat skill.To counter Athens, the Spartans reformed their own club, the Peloponnesian League, which had no navy, but claimed total superiority on the ground. Basically, one side owned the sea, the other the land-a recipe for a b.l.o.o.d.y stalemate.Naturally suspicious of each other, in 433 BCE the Athenians and Spartans allowed a small dispute to spiral out of control. Ironically, it began with events totally unrelated to either city. Corinth, a traditional ally of Sparta, got into a slap fest with one of its own colonies, Corcyra (Corfu), Corcyra went to Athens for help, Corinth went to Sparta, and the war was on.The whole thing is too long and tedious to describe here, but the short version goes like this: safe behind their city walls, the Athenians watched the Spartans burn their fields and farmhouses year after year, knowing they could survive off the Athenian Empire. Meanwhile, the Athenian navy blockaded the Peloponnesian peninsula, the center of Spartan power, which was still able to produce everything it needed to continue fighting. There was no resolution in sight...until Athens fell under the sway of a young aristocrat named Alcibiades (p.r.o.nounced Al-sih-BUY-uh-deez).Young, rich, and handsome, Alcibiades was far too ambitious for his own good, or for the good of his country. Nonetheless, his eloquent speeches persuaded the Athenian a.s.sembly to mount a major invasion of the island of Sicily, which was largely allied with Sparta. This plan was a long shot at best, and just plain crazy at worst: at almost ten thousand square miles, Sicily was larger than the entire Athenian Empire! There were also hostile natives there living in isolated hill towns...perfect terrain for guerrilla warfare. To top it off, the Athenians probably weren't aware of any of this; Six hundred miles away, Sicily might as well have been on the moon.The defeat was total. With the loss of half its troops and navy, Athens was doomed. Its fate was sealed when the Spartans finally built a fleet that could challenge Athenian control of the seas. After Sparta's decisive naval victory over Athens at Aegospotami in 405 BCE, the Spartans were effectively bosses of Greece.But in the end, the Peloponnesian War had no real winners. Sparta's victory was hollow, as its core territories on the Peloponnesian peninsula had been impoverished by the twenty-seven-year war, and Athens was a wasteland. Greece's not-very-long golden age was over, and power was s.h.i.+fting to a small northern kingdom called Macedonia.

BONUS ROUND: ATHENS VS. THE PLAGUE.

When the Peloponnesian War began, the Athenians had no way of knowing that their strategy of waiting out the Spartan siege was placing them at risk for an epidemic. But the close quarters proved to be perfect breeding grounds for a mysterious, deadly disease. According to the Greek historian Thucydides, in the first stage "the throat and tongue became b.l.o.o.d.y and emitted an unnatural and fetid odor." After this came "sneezing, hoa.r.s.eness, and a hard cough. Diarrhea and vomiting ensued, accompanied by terrible pain." At this point, "the burning sensation was so terrible that the patient could not bear to wear clothing, and many went stark naked." Most died after a few days, while survivors often lost their fingers, toes, eyes, or genitals. Some escaped physical harm-but lost their memories entirely, unable to recognize friends or family.This plague struck Athens for the first time in 430 BCE, the second year of the war, and killed about one third of the total population, including refugees from the countryside-fifty thousand to eighty thousand people. According to Thucydides, the constant burning of bodies on funeral pyres so frightened the Spartan army outside the walls that they fled, convinced that a divine curse was at work. (When the Spartans are scared, you knowit's serious.) The second round picked off the great Athenian leader Pericles, who'd planned the city's grand strategy and kept its various political factions united during the early part of the war.But Athens not only survived-it fought on for another twenty-three years, almost defeating Sparta on several occasions. Overall, it's inspiring evidence that if they hate them enough, people can triumph over adversity to go on killing other people indefinitely.So what caused the Athenian plague? n.o.body knows. But contemporary medical experts have named a number of diseases as possible culprits, including the bubonic plague, Typhus, and typhoid fever.

Round 4: Alexander vs. Everyone Alexander vs. Everyone Alexander of Macedon may have been the greatest military genius of all time, but his father, Philip II, was the one who got the ball rolling. After the Peloponnesian War, Philip took advantage of Greek weakness to build Macedonia into a major player. He reorganized the Macedonian phalanx to include cavalry, a deadly new formation, armed with spears fourteen feet long, and crushed regional compet.i.tors. Then he headed south, annihilating the Greek armies at Chaeronea in 338 BCE....not only no Greek, nor related to the Greeks, nor even a barbarian from any place that can be named with honors, but a pestilent knave from Macedonia, where you can't even buy a decent slave.-Demosthenes, an Athenian politician, on Philip II of Macedonia Knowing the Greeks dismissed Macedonia as an ignorant Hicksville (it was), Philip invited famous Greek scholars to the royal court. That's how his son Alexander got Aristotle as his personal tutor. Aristotle was a perfect teacher for the teenage prince. Just as Philip planned, Alexander grew up a.s.suming two things: a right to rule Greece, and an obligation to punish Persia.While Alexander felt Greek enough, the Greeks themselves weren't so sure. After Philip died, the Greeks rebelled in 335 BCE, giving Alexander the first test of his reign. He pa.s.sed with honors, or horrors, depending on your perspective. He captured Thebes, the ringleader of the conspiracy, and burned it to the ground, shocking the rest of Greece into submission. But Alexander was just getting started. The real enemy, Persia, still had to be dealt with.First up, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). Here Alexander liberated the Ionian Greek colonies on the west coast, then headed east to defeat a huge Persian army at Issus in 333 BCE. Along the way he dealt with a famous puzzle called the Gordian Knot. According to legend, any man who wanted to conquer Asia had first to untangle this incredibly complicated tangle of rope kept at the city of Gordium. Alexander's solution was simple: he cut the knot in half with his sword. Next question?The next question was Tyre, an impenetrable island fortress off the coast of what is now Lebanon that had been founded by the Phoenicians. Alexander had an equally simple answer to this problem: his army built a kilometer-long causeway connecting the island to the sh.o.r.e. This seven-month project brought his siege engines within range of the city walls. Furious at the delay caused by Tyre's stubbornness, once the walls were breached Alexander ordered the city burned to ground-sensing a trend?Next came Egypt, the bread basket of the ancient world. In addition to the country's fabulous wealth, Alexander (who was fast developing a G.o.d complex) liked the sound of the word pharaoh, pharaoh, the ancient t.i.tle of Egyptian G.o.d kings. the ancient t.i.tle of Egyptian G.o.d kings.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THANK-YOU NOTES.

Alexander's first tutor was Leonidas (no relation to the Spartan king), a gruff old man hired to toughen him up. One day, when making a sacrifice to the G.o.ds, Alexander threw too much incense into the fire, and Leonidas scolded him, reminding him that incense was expensive: "When you conquer the lands where spice grows, you can use as much as you like, but until then, don't waste it!" Alexander never forgot this minor reprimand. Fifteen years later, when he conquered Giza (the spice warehouse of the ancient world), he sent Leonidas eighteen tons of frankincense and myrrh, worth its weight in gold, with a note thanking his old tutor for inspiring him as a boy...and advising him not to be such a cheap-skate.

SPIN CITY.

In addition to conquering the world and everything, Alexander the Great was an amateur city planner, and not a bad one at that. His pet project in northern Egypt, Alexandria, became one of the great cities of the ancient world-and indeed the modern world as well.Alexander chose as the location for the city a place with symbolic significance on the western branch of the Nile Delta, on an isthmus shaped like a Macedonian military cloak. Walking around the site, he personally laid out the defensive fortifications with chalk. He also chose the locations of the central market, the docks and harbor, and a slew of temples to both Greek and Egyptian G.o.ds, including the G.o.ddess Isis. To connect the city to an offsh.o.r.e island called Pharos, he ordered the construction of a stone causeway about 450 feet long. Later the Great Lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, would be constructed on Pharos.By midday the young conqueror ran out of chalk, but he refused to take a break. So his entourage provided him with barley flour (originally intended to feed their servants) to finish laying out the city walls. Of course, seagulls immediately descended on the free meal, and Alexander freaked out, interpreting this as a bad omen. But his clever Greek soothsayer, Aristander, put a good spin on it: just as it fed the gulls, the city would provide "abundant and helpful resources, feeding men of every nation."

After Egypt, Alexander chased Darius III into modern-day Iran and Afghanistan. The chase ended in Iran when Darius was finally betrayed by one of his own satraps, Bessus, who a.s.sa.s.sinated the Persian king, figuring it would please Alexander. But Bessus figured wrong. Alexander-a king himself, after all-was horrified to see royal blood spilled. A cla.s.sy guy, he covered the Persian king's body in his own cloak, handed Bessus over to Darius's family for execution, and ordered a lavish funeral for the king. He also married a few persian Princesses to cement his control.But Alexander was about to learn even his power was limited, in the only defeat he ever suffered, ironically delivered by his own troops.When his Macedonians arrived in northern India in 326 BCE, they had been away from home for eight years. They were entering a place the Greeks considered the edge of the world, where diseases such as malaria began to take a toll. After defeating an Indian army (including war elephants!) by the Indus River, they simply refused to follow Alexander any farther. He reluctantly led the army on the fifteen-hundred-mile trek back to Babylon, his new imperial capital.The mutiny was a discouraging setback for Alexander, who was also bored by the administrative duties of imperial government; he just wasn't made to stay in one place. Surveying a swamp-draining project in southern Mesopotamia in 323 BCE, he contracted a fever (probably malaria) and a few weeks later, the conqueror of the known world was dead. He was just thirty-three years old.

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WHO'S UP, WHO'S DOWN Rome: WAY UP WAY UP Alexander's empire didn't last, but it laid the groundwork for the most successful empire in history: Rome.Culturally and militarily, Rome was a notch below Macedonia through most of this period; Alexander didn't even think to send an amba.s.sador to the little town on seven hills in central Italy. But the Romans were descended from heroes (they were pretty sure) and were bound for greatness.According to Roman legend, the city was founded by refugees from Troy, the city besieged by Mycenaean Greeks in Homer's epic poem The Iliad. The Iliad. After Troy burned, around 1200 BCE, a Trojan hero, Aeneas, supposedly left western Turkey and settled in central Italy. Genetic evidence (from cows!) supports the ancient Roman founding myth, suggesting that Trojan refugees may indeed have settled there, bringing their livestock with them. After Troy burned, around 1200 BCE, a Trojan hero, Aeneas, supposedly left western Turkey and settled in central Italy. Genetic evidence (from cows!) supports the ancient Roman founding myth, suggesting that Trojan refugees may indeed have settled there, bringing their livestock with them.Several groups occupied central Italy, including the Etruscans, distant cousins of the Romans. Like extended families everywhere, the Romans and Etruscans weren't friendly. In the early days the Etruscans had the upper hand, and Etruscan kings ruled Rome for almost two hundred years. But when the Romans gave the Etruscans the Italian boot in 509 BCE, the tables began to turn.

ETRUSCANS/SNACSURTE.

The Etruscans are one of history's more mysterious peoples. Unlike almost any other culture in the world, they wrote "back and forth" across the page-from left to right for the first line, and right to left for the second. Weirder yet, the "backward" lines were literally written in reverse, with letters appearing as if reflected in a mirror.

The changes began at home, with the establishment of a republican political system based on elections. It consisted of the three-hundred-man Senate, chosen from the city's "patrician" aristocracy, and popular a.s.semblies open to members of any social cla.s.s. Each year the Senate chose two consuls, responsible for military affairs. While more democratic than most governments of the day, Rome's voting system-like any good voting system-was rigged so the lower cla.s.ses got fewer votes than the well-to-do.Already feeling imperial, the Roman Republic turned to its neighbors: first neighbors in Italy, then the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily. But it wasn't easy, especially after Roman involvement in Sicily brought them into direct confrontation with Carthage, a powerful rival to the south.Since its founding by Phoenician sea merchants in 814 BCE, Carthage had come to control a powerful maritime empire covering much of the western Mediterranean, including the north coast of Africa, Spain, and Sicily. When the first "Punic War" between Rome and Carthage began, in 264 BCE, Carthage was larger and more powerful than Rome. But the famed Roman legion helped Rome prevail.During the Second Punic War beginning in 218 BCE (yes, the one with the elephants in the Alps), the Carthaginian general Hannibal set out to avenge his city's earlier defeat, and he wasn't s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around. When he annihilated fifty thousand Roman troops at the battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, it became clear this was the most serious threat Rome had ever faced. But the Romans refused to give in, and by 202 BCE they had pushed Hannibal back to Africa, where the consul Scipio defeated him in what is now Tunisia.

Carthago delenda est! (Carthage must be destroyed!)-Cato the Elder

At this point, the Roman Empire was officially the dominant power in the western Mediterranean, and was quickly drawn into the complex wheelings and dealings of the eastern Mediterranean political scene. Here Alexander the Great's death in 323 BCE had left a rather confusing situation, which only worsened in the following century. Figuring it was too big for one man to rule-and hoping to avoid a civil war-Alexander's generals had divided his empire into three main parts: Seleucus got Mesopotamia and Persia (the "Seleucid" kingdom), Ptolemy got Egypt (the "Ptolemaic" kingdom), and a third general, Antigonus, got the rest. But these kingdoms were soon feuding with one another anyway (no surprise).

I foresee a great funeral contest over my body.-Alexander the Great's last words

Ironically, Roman expansion was fueled in part by the Roman Senate's desire to maintain a balance of power in different parts of the Mediterranean-always, of course, on Roman terms. Sometimes this involved switching sides when local allies got too strong. Other times the locals asked for it: in 89 BCE, for example, Mithridates of Pontus ordered the ma.s.sacre of 80,000 Roman citizens in Asia Minor. This was, of course, the last mistake Mithridates ever made.

EVEN THE ROMANS DIDN'T SPEAK LATIN...

As Rome expanded, its job was made easier by one of Alexander's key legacies: the common Greek language and culture of the ruling cla.s.ses. In fact, the Romans adopted Greek as their official language in the eastern Mediterranean and employed the Greek elite to keep things running smoothly.

THE QUOTABLE JULIUS CAESAR.

"I came, I saw, I conquered.""I would rather be first in a village than second in Rome.""If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.""Men are quick to believe what they wish were true."

In sharp contrast to the three kingdoms fighting in the eastern Mediterranean, the areas to the west, what are now Spain and France, were politically and technologically primitive-in a word, "barbaric." Dealing with backward Celtic tribesmen, the Romans weren't afraid to crack the whip (burn villages, lay waste to the countryside, crucify a couple thousand people...whatever) to establish their authority.Enter Julius Caesar, a precocious Roman senator who got himself elected consul in 59 BCE and invaded Gaul (modern France) a year later. Caesar's amazing conquests made him amazingly rich; under Roman law, successful generals got to keep most of the loot from foreign wars. Caesar used his incredible cash haul to buy political influence and gain control of the Senate. (Democracy and political corruption: two great tastes that taste great together.)In fact, Caesar's mind-boggling wealth allowed him to transform Rome from a worn-out republic into a one-man party. (Literally: free banquets, games, and public festivals were central to his strategy.) With the Roman public solidly behind him, his political opponents feared he would next declare himself king, Rome's big no-no. And the rest, as they say, is history: Caesar was stabbed to death on the floor of the Senate in 44 BCE, in a scene immortalized by Shakespeare and a number of so-so movies.Ironically, the a.s.sa.s.sination led to the thing the pro-republican conspirators feared most: the establishment of a true dictators.h.i.+p under Caesar's adopted son, Octavian, who was later voted the super-hero t.i.tle of Caesar Augustus by a brown-nosing Senate. In the Pax Romana, or Roman Peace, the entire Mediterranean world was united under Roman rule. But the Roman Republic was dead; from now on, one man would rule the Roman Empire.Slaves: BRIEFLY UP, THEN RIGHT BACK DOWN BRIEFLY UP, THEN RIGHT BACK DOWN Spartacus, who was born north of Greece, in Thrace, received training in the Roman army as a barbarian "auxiliary" (ally) before becoming a slave in 73 BCE. It's not clear why he was enslaved after serving Rome. However, his combat skills made him a natural candidate for the gladiator school at Capua, about one hundred miles from Rome.Here Spartacus and his fellow slaves learned how to entertain a Roman audience with dramatic hand-to-hand combat. Knowing they were going to their certain deaths, however, about eighty gladiators followed Spartacus into rebellion-using kitchen utensils as weapons.Before long they armed themselves with real weapons, slaughtering Roman soldiers who tried to stop them. Then they escaped to the countryside, where Spartacus incited a general slave uprising, attracting thousands of field workers to his cause. He led the rebel slaves to a mountaintop, where they built a fortified encampment.At first the Roman Senate viewed the uprising as a minor threat, but they soon learned better, and dispatched two commanders (praetors) to besiege the mountain and starve the slave army into submission. Spartacus launched a daring counterattack, ordering his soldiers to use vines to rappel down the side of the mountain.Of course the Roman Senate couldn't allow the slave rebellion to succeed, as the Roman economy was increasingly based on slavery. So they dispatched a new commander, Cra.s.sus, with twelve legions-a huge force-only to have the advance force of two legions annihilated by the slave army.Spartacus now led the rebels south, to Sicily, where he planned to rendezvous with pirates he'd hired to take them to safety. But the pirates never showed, and the slaves found themselves trapped on a narrow peninsula. (Lesson: never trust pirates.) Desperate, Spartacus decided he had no choice but to fight the Romans head on. Here the Romans finally defeated the rebel army, showing no mercy as they butchered sixty thousand runaway slaves, including women and children. Sixty-six hundred survivors were crucified along the Appian Way connecting Capua to Rome. However, the body of Spartacus was never found.Overthinking: UP-But What Does That Mean UP-But What Does That Mean?

Concurrent with the golden age of Athens, Greek thinkers produced thoughts so profound we call 'em cla.s.sics. Here's a quick run-down of the Cla.s.sics Club.Herac.l.i.tus, 535475 BCE. " "The only constant is change," said Herac.l.i.tus, who also observed "you can never step in the same river twice." A native of Ephesus, an Ionian Greek city in Asia Minor, Herac.l.i.tus is considered by some the founder of the Western philosophical tradition. His major contribution was the notion that the universe is always in motion-not static and unchanging, as in most traditional worldviews. Its motion isn't chaotic, but is structured by laws and relations.h.i.+ps that human beings can understand using reason. Herac.l.i.tus was a mystical thinker who said that as part of the universe, we can comprehend its profound harmony if we look deep inside ourselves.

Anaxagoras, 500428 BCE. " "No matter how small the object, it is composed of something smaller. And no matter how large, it is part of something larger." Also an Ionian Greek, Anaxagoras agreed with Herac.l.i.tus that the universe functions according to natural laws, adding that everything is made up of smaller const.i.tuents, which themselves are made up of even smaller things, etc., down to infinitesimally small essential units, which he called "seeds." For example, because it helps us grow, food must contain the "seeds" of skin, bones, hair, and so on. Anaxagoras studied natural phenomena such as stars, meteors, storms, and rainbows to understand the rules governing them.

Democritus, 460370 BCE. "Nothing exists except atoms and empty s.p.a.ce; everything else is opinion." With his teacher Leucippus, Democritus invented the theory of "atoms," tiny, spherical particles that can't be further subdivided, resembling the "seeds" of Anaxagoras. Democritus said atoms are always in motion, even in apparently solid objects; their interactions produce the physical properties we perceive with our senses. For example, a grape's "flavor" is simply the result of its const.i.tuent atoms interacting with the atoms that make up our taste buds and saliva.

Zeno, 490430 BCE. " "The goal of life is living in agreement with nature." Leave it to Zeno to sum up the meaning of life with a paradox. After all, he proved that nature was a lot more complicated then we think...because it's actually much simpler than it looks. Confused? Exactly! Exactly! Zeno's most famous paradox is the story of a race between Achilles and a tortoise. Achilles, who can run one thousand feet a minute, lets the one-foot-a-minute tortoise get a head start of one thousand feet. In his first minute, Achilles almost catches up with the tortoise, but in that time, the tortoise has moved forward another foot. In the next one-one thousandth of a minute, Achilles again arrives where the tortoise used to be-but the tortoise has again moved forward a tiny amount. Even though it makes no sense, it looks as if Achilles can never catch the tortoise. Why did Zeno pose this scenario, knowing its implications were false? Think about it. Zeno's most famous paradox is the story of a race between Achilles and a tortoise. Achilles, who can run one thousand feet a minute, lets the one-foot-a-minute tortoise get a head start of one thousand feet. In his first minute, Achilles almost catches up with the tortoise, but in that time, the tortoise has moved forward another foot. In the next one-one thousandth of a minute, Achilles again arrives where the tortoise used to be-but the tortoise has again moved forward a tiny amount. Even though it makes no sense, it looks as if Achilles can never catch the tortoise. Why did Zeno pose this scenario, knowing its implications were false? Think about it.

Socrates, 470-399 BCE. " "All I know is that I know nothing." Socrates doubted that anybody can know the truth with absolute certainty. He focused on rhetoric, a sophisticated technique of verbal persuasion that Athenian orators used to convince their audiences of statements that weren't always true. Ironically, Socrates used the same rhetorical tricks in his critique (a sort of complicated philosophical joke, which most people didn't get). Even more ironically, he considered his skepticism a patriotic duty-even though it infuriated his fellow Athenians, since he was attacking the Athenian democracy. When Athens was defeated by Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, his criticisms made him an attractive scapegoat, and in 399 BCE, he was put on trial on the vague charge of "corrupting the youth" with strange ideas. He was forced to commit suicide by drinking hemlock.

THE MUSIC OF THE WHAT?.

So what exactly is the "music of the spheres"? Does it refer to actual music? And what the h.e.l.l are the spheres, anyway? We're not promising this explanation will make sense, but here goes...Beginning with the Greek mathematician Pythagoras, ancient philosophers said that the cosmos was made up of crystal spheres of increasing size, with the bigger ones enclosing the smaller ones like Russian nesting dolls. The sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars were all mounted on different rotating spheres, nearer or farther from the Earth. There were twenty-two spheres in all, including the nine spheres of the solar system.The Greeks said that the proportions of the spheres reflected divine ideals. Pythagoras studied triangles and circles because he believed that these perfect shapes (later called "Platonic forms," after Plato picked up the idea) had mystical importance. The same mystical proportions applied to every aspect of reality, including music and s.p.a.ce.According to the ancient Greeks, "harmony" was closely linked to geometry, as both are ultimately based on combinations of whole numbers. Because the cosmic spheres were mathematically perfect, the Greeks believed their movement created musical harmony-even if humans couldn't hear it. Aristotle described the Pythagorean theory in these terms: "The whole universe is constructed according to a musical scale...because it is both composed of numbers and organized numerically and musically." Aristotle himself was skeptical, but Pythagoras practiced what he preached: at mystical ceremonies he used real musical performance to "heal" his students from being out of sync with the universe-whatever that means.