When it comes to history, the word prehistoric doesn’t mean dinosaurs. It means the time before writing. Only then from the pen did we start to get details. The first thousand years from around the Mediterranean and Iran is called classical antiquity. This period includes Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, a bunch of different religions, and interesting people like Alexander the Great. Go online and you’ll find an awesome overview by the Khan Academy that only takes a few hours. So in the span of watching a movie, you can scrunch in 1,000 years.
What’s so special about this period is that it’s had great effect on you. Why? Because Persia affected Greece, Greece influenced Rome, Western Rome became most of Europe, and Europeans incorporated much of Canada and the US. So a lot of our culture comes from this era.
Persia and Greece
Writing began around 800 BC, but the good stuff came a few hundred years later. Herodotus started recording history, Hippocrates is the father of medicine, Pythagoras and Euclid were really good at math, Plato started the first university, and Aristotle devised the subjects we still study today. These weren’t the first smart people on Earth, they were just the first to write everything down. That being said, they were also pretty smart since many of their philosophies and theories are still being taught today. Not to mention tons of our words and phrases still come from this time.
The Romans
When most people think of Rome, they imagine the empire but that’s not fair. There were three periods. From its founding in 743 to 509 BC, it operated like a regular kingdom with one major exception—sometimes the kings were elected. So it was initially a city-state like everywhere else. Then from 509 to 27 BC, Rome was a republic with senators and consuls. Sometimes senators were elected (by the army) and sometimes they were appointed, while consuls were generally elected by the senate. This system operated in various forms until Julius Caesar won a civil war and declared himself dictator for life. His rule includes the expansion of Rome beyond the Italian peninsula and the story of Cleopatra (who was basically a tramp).
After Julius, came his nephew—later renamed Augustus. That’s when Rome became known as an empire. Further expansion continued under a number of emperors—some good, some bad—until Constantine, who made the strongest impression by launching the conversion to Catholicism.
The empire then split into East and West, and the West fell in 476 to Germanic tribes. The East, known as the Byzantine Empire, lasted until 1453, when it fell to the Ottoman Turks. So it’s over 2,000 years from commencement to the Eastern fall, but historians say the official empire only lasted from Augustus in 27 BC to the fall of the West. Still a very long time.
Summary
CanAmerica is the amalgamation of First Nations people and those previously ruled by Western Rome. This means that in addition to long houses, lacrosse, and the canoe, we have been heavily influenced by Europeans. And this greatly affects you. Why? First, it’s why we have so many Latin words and Greek philosophies. Second, it’s why you were probably born a Christian.
The period after antiquity is called the Middle Ages. It goes for another thousand years and is when small kingdoms and the Catholic Church run most of Europe. It’s also when Charlemagne (a king in France) teams up with the Pope to form the Holy Roman Empire (something completely different), and when you get the formation and expansion of Islam.
The Middle Ages end around the 1500s when things really start to cook. The Protestant Reformation splits up the Catholic Church, we get modern day democracy and capitalism, Michelangelo and da Vinci hit the scene, and of course there were oodles of inventions. We’ll have another piece on this sometime in the future, which means watching another film. In the meantime, be happy for your past. Among all the gore, a lot of great people did a lot of great work.
P.S. Check out the article on Ancient Greece.