History Questions/Essay

I. Choose five of the following terms or individuals and in short essays (of 2 or 3 paragraphs roughly 300 - 400 words) explain their historical importance and significance. (10 points each). [note I am not asking for a canned biography, but an evaluation of their historical significance—in your own words]

a. Code of Hammurabi

b. the Punic Wars (between Rome and Carthage)

c. Religious reforms of Akhenaton

d. Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey

e. Peloponnesian War 431-404 B.C.

f. Pericles and the Periclean Age

g. Alexander the Great and Hellenism

h. Julius Caesar

i. Justinian and the Corpus Juris Civilis

j. The five “good emperors”

k. Paul of Tarsus

II. Major Essays. Choose two of the following questions and respond in essays of about 300-900 words (1-3 pages) each. [25 points each]

1.  The growing complexity of human societies from tribal hunter/gather bands to neolithic agricultural villages to urban civilizations brought changes in political systems, and in economic and social organization. What were some of the most important transformations?  Trace these developments in Mesopotamia or Egypt.

2. Compare and contrast the institutions of Periclean Athens with those of Sparta in the 400s BCE. What social and political forces help explain the distinctive institutions of Sparta?

3. Analyze the reasons for the collapse of the Roman Republic in the 1st century B.C.E.  What new institutions did Augustus create and how successful was he in restoring stability to the Roman World?

4.  Why were early Christians persecuted in the Roman Empire?  How did Christianity spread through the Roman world to become the dominant religion in the late-Empire and after?