Herodotus

Herodotus came from a wealthy Greek family. He grew up around the time of the Greco-Persian Wars. They lifestyle, values and life for boy and a man at this time is described in his accounts in his series of books titled, The Histories. His accounts began the Western style of telling history through a systematic and connective narrative based on research (evidence). In his account of the Persians, they do not have an image of gods or temples or altars because they do not believe in them. Compared to the Greeks who have gods like Zeus that people will climb the highest mountain to offer him a a sacrifice. The Persians do not offer a sacrifice to the gods, rather they find a pure ground to conduct a ritual. The sacrificer does not usually ask for something for himself but for the welfare of the king and all of the Persian people. For young boys manliness begins with courage to participate in wars. This si the greatest proof of manhood. The second is a man with many sons. Men carefully educate their sons at the age of five to twenty years old. They only each them how to ride horse, shoot arrows and tell the truth. The boys do not have any contact with their father until they are five years old in fear of getting attached to the boy and in case the child dies for some reason the father does not want to be saddened with the loss of his son.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Second Wave of Civilizations

Image
The second wave of civilization came from the increase in numbers from the first civilization. From villages to states and empires means an increase in people. The second wave from the Roman, Persian, Indian and Chinese empires simply outnumbered the first civilizations from Mesopotamia and Egypt.  This new growth in numbers mainly came from Eurasia, Middle East, China and India.  between 500 B.C.E. and 500 C.E. Many of these empires did not cross each others paths because each civilization was building their own empire under political systems, cultural values, and organizing society. The largest of them was the Persian Empire as the Achaemenid dynasty. The Persian Empire conquered much of the land surrounding them and grew to be about 35 to 50 million people. This empire ruled under a monarch (kingship) and used elaborate rituals for the royalty. The Greek civilization known as the Hellenes, was similar to the Persian Empire because they were also very diverse with many different
Read more

Culture & Religion (Ch 4)

Image
Now that these dynasties were becoming more established, they were also creating morals and values that almost everyone followed. These turned into parts of their culture and religion. It can be seen in China during the time of 500 B.C.E. Confucianism, from the teachings of Confucius,  and Daoism were rising. In the Middle East it was Zoroastrianism from the Persian prophet Zarathustra. Later it was known as Hinduism which later also branched off to Buddhism. Judaism became the religion of Israel and later spread to the branch of Christianity and Islam. In Greece, they still looked to the writings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and others for rational reasoning and expressions. (Strayer, 2016). Many of these groups of civilizations were looking for a way to connect to a higher power spiritually, spreading the need for religion. People wanted to look up to something for guidance and direction. To be able to follow the teaching and values set in place by the religion. Religion began to
Read more

CH 7

Image
The trade route began with the what is known as the Silk Road that was between Eurasia. Goods from each civilization were being traded between groups. Things that were not available in other areas were now being used as goods to be traded for other items. The name comes from China who had silk to trade. However, goods were not the only things being traded. Contact with other people left illnesses and diseases behind like smallpox and measles. The bubonic plague or black death was also traveling along the Silk Road. Boats would come to the areas closer to the water to exchange goods along the Silk Road also. But they too were getting the sicknesses that were spreading. While this was a great way to create peace among the other groups, it was exposing them to things they were not used to. Cultures, economic, politics and religious values were also being exchanged. Seeing how other civilizations or cultures were living their lives in their societies gave birth to new religions, political
Read more