C. 600 BCE – C. 600 CE

KEY CONCEPT 2.2.3: COMPLEX SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS

A. Cities served as centers of trade, public performance of religious rituals, and political administration for states and empires.

•Persepolis

• Chang’an• Pataliputra

• Athens

• Carthage• Rome• Alexandria• Constantinople • Teotihuacan

You will add these to your Period 2 map!

Illustrative Example: AlexandriaAlexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in April 331 BC as Ἀλεξάνδρεια (Alexandria). It became an important center of the Hellenistic civilization and remained the capital of Hellenistic and Roman & Byzantine Egypt for almost one thousand years until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in AD 641. Hellenistic Alexandria was best known for the Lighthouse of Alexandria (Pharos), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; its Great Library (the largest in the ancient world; now replaced by a modern one); and the Necropolis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages.

Illustrative Example: Alexandria

Lighthouse of Alexandria Library of Alexandria

Carl Sagan on the library: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jixnM7S9tLw

B. The social structures of empires displayed hierarchies that included cultivators, laborers, slaves, artisans, merchants, elites, or caste groups.

Roman Hierarchy Indian Caste System

C. Imperial societies relied on a range of methods to maintain the production of food and provide rewards for the loyalty of the elites.

• The latifundia (Latin: lātus, "spacious" + fundus, "farm, estate")[1]

of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine.

• The first latifundia were accumulated from the spoils of war, confiscated from conquered peoples beginning in the early 2nd century BC. The prototypical latifundia were the Roman estates in Magna Graecia (the south of Italy) and in Sicily, which distressed Pliny the Elder (died AD 79) as he travelled, seeing only slaves working the land, not the sturdy Roman farmers who had been the backbone of the Republic's army.[2] Latifundia expanded with conquest, to the Roman provinces of the Maghreb and in Hispania Baetica, the south of Spain.

D. Patriarchy continued to shape gender and family relations in all imperial societies of this period.

• In the Han dynasty, the female historian Ban Zhao wrote the Lessons for Women, advice on how women should behave. She outlines the four virtues women must abide by: proper virtue, proper speech, proper countenance, proper merit.