تاریخ جهان از ماموت تا فیسبوک (۱۶)

600 BCE--------------------------------------500 BCE
CHILD OF THE TIME
Growing up in Sparta
From the moment he or she was born, every Spartan boy or girl belonged to the state. A council of elders would inspect the newborn baby to see if it was healthy and strong. If it seemed weak, it would be left to die on a hillside. The lives of both boys and girls were dedicated to the military power of Sparta.

To the barracks
At the age of seven, a boy was taken from his family and send to military school to be turned into a soldier. The boys lived and slept in barracks, where they were taught the arts of war. Their sisters started their education at the same age. They learned to wrestle, run, and throw the javelin. The Spartans believed that this training would produce strong mothers, who would give birth to strong sons.

Toughening up
Young Spartans were trained to be tough. The boys were made to go barefoot at all times-which would have been painful over rough, thorny ground - and were kept permanently short of food. Once a year, they were taken to the sanctuary of the goddess Artemis and publicly whipped to test their resilience.

Everything to prove
Before he became a citizen, a young Spartan had to prove his courage and ferocity in a special ritual. He was sent out alone into the countryside at night, armed with only a dagger and allowed to kill any helot he came across. Helots were despised slaves, who were forced to farm the land for the Spartans.

Life as a warrior
At the age of 20, a Spartan man became a full-time soldier called a hoplite, a name derived from his large heavy shield, called a hoplon. From then on, he lived as part of a pack of 15 men who ate, drank, trained, and fought together. He would have to marry by the age of 30, to produce the next generation of warriors.


585 BCE
Solar eclipse
Thales of Miletus, a Greek city-state in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), correctly predicted a solar eclipse. Thales was one of the earliest Greek philosophers-thinkers who asked questions about the natural world.

590 BCE
African pharaohs
The kings of Nubia, a kingdom on the Nile in what is now Sudan, made their residence at Meroe. The Nubian rulers modelled themselves on the pharaohs. They wrote in a type of hieroglyphs and buried their dead in pyramid tombs.

559-486 BCE
THE PERSIAN EMPIRE
In a little over 30 years, King Cyrus the Great of Persia (ruled 559-530 BCE), a small unimportant kingdom in what is now southern Iran, conquered the largest empire the world had yet seen. It was known as the Achaemenid Empire, from the name of its ruling dynasty. Under King Darius (ruled 522-486 BCE), the empire set its sights on the lands of Greece.

The city of Persepolis
Darius I built Persepolis as his ceremonial capital. Its magnificent pillared halls reflected the might and splendour of the empire.

Persian lands
Cyrus the Great's conquests stretched from Anatolia (Turkey) in the east, to Afghanistan in the west,. His son Cambyses II (ruled 630-522 BCE) added Egypt, and Darius I added Thrace (southeast Balkans).



"I am Cyrus, King of the World, Creat King, Mighty King!"
Cyrus the Great, 538 BCE
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Important Persians
These soldiers, who Once decorated the walls of Darius's palace,represent the king's personal bodyguard. In real life, the king had 10,000 importants - if one was killed, a new recruit immediately replaced him.

The Royal Road was a 2.575-km (1,600-mile) highway that ran from the city of Susa in Persia all the way to Sardis in western Turkey.

People power
The city-state of Athens choose a new form of government: democracy (meaning "rule of the people"). All male citizens were able to vote on major decisions affecting the city. Women, foreigners, and slaves were excluded.

587 BCE
Nebuchadnezzar
When the Jews rebelled against Babylonian rule, Nebuchadnezzar II ordered the destruction of their temple in Jerusalem. The city was burned and thousands of Jews were sent to Babylonia




563 BCE
Birth of the Buddha
According to tradition. Siddhartha Gautama was born a prince in northern India. He was so distressed by human suffering that he gave up his life of luxury and fasted beneath a tree for six years until he reached enlightenment. He became known as the Buddha, the ënlightened one", whose teachings are followed by millions of people today.

Carving of the Buddha's footprints, 1st century BCE

550 BCE
Birth of Confucius
Confucius (kong Fuzi) was a Chinese philosopher and teacher whose writings stressed respect for family elders, authority, and tradition.
Confucianism, the way of life based on his teachings, would have great influence on Chinese ideas and politics.

550 BCE
Rice of the Celts
In central Europe, the Celts began spreading out from their original heartland in the northern Alps Austria and Switzerland). They controlled long-distance trade in salt and iron, and their rich burials included luxury goods of Greek and Etruscan origin, traded through the city of Massilia (Marseilles,France).

535 BCE
Battle at sea
Phoenicians founded the city of Carthage (modern Tunis) in 814 BCE.
Growing rivalry with the Greek city of Massilia led to a sea battle at Alalia, off Corsica. The Greeks lost, leaving Carthage in control of the western Mediterranean.

Roman Republic
Rome was still a tiny city-state when its citizens decided to throw out their kings and govern themselves. They set up a republic headed by two consuls - elected magistrates who ruled with the help of the Senate.
Emblem of the RomanRepublic. In Latin, "SPOR" stands for Senatus Populusque Romanus, which means "Senate and people of Rome".

Sporty Greeks
This Bronze discus belonged to an athlete called Exoidas, who won a sporting contest with it. The Greeks competed in many sports, including running, discus, boxing, wrestling and javelin.
History Year by Year/Peter Chrisp, Joe Fullman, Susan Kennedy