1st millennium BC

From Freepedia

(2nd millennium BC – 1st millennium BC – 1st millennium – other millennia)

---

Contents 1 Events 2 Significant persons 3 Inventions, Discoveries, Introductions 4 Cultural landmarks 5 Centuries and Decades

Events

The turn of the 1st millenium BC introduced a deep change in civilization throughout the ancient world. We can speak of a world making place for another, very different in nature.

The previous Bronze Age civilizations were made of small cities clustered around predominant palaces or temples, complex egypto-babylonian style writing systems reserved to an educated minority, and military emphasis on two-wheeled war chariots led by aristocrats.

The first millenium BC, by contrast, were times of Iron Age technology, growing cities with the anonymus crowd becoming an entity of its own, widespread popular use of easy-to-learn alphabetic writings, and new military tactics based on a better, heavily armed, heavily disciplined infantry now capable of defeating the chariots, best characterized by the Greek hoplite.

With the rise of great, densely populated cities and the growing role played by commoners in matters of war and peace, these were the times when the masses gained a voice of their own, and organized forms of democracy were experimented for the first time.

On the geopolitical level, as the previous period was a time of endless competition between regional powers, the 1st millenium BC pushed the imperialist ideals at a whole new scale, with a long succession of universal empires, starting with Assyria, followed by a last brief flash of Babylonia splendour, the Persian Empire, the Hellenistic civilization and the Roman Empire.

Imperialism itself also changed in nature. All powers of the millenia before were exchanging pure predator-and-prey relations. By contrast, starting with the Persian Empire most of the great empires of the 1st millenium BC developed a new philosophy of enlightened power, explicitely conquering peoples and nations "for their own good", for the purpose of imposing universal peace and prosperity. Whether or not this grand ideal was ever actually realized, the explicit philosophy of working for the good of all the peoples was unheard of until then.

By the end of the millennium, the Roman Empire was becoming the incarnation of the political ideals of the 1st millenium BC, the greatest and the most durable universal empire the Occident has known, with pretentions to fairly represent the interests of all conquered peoples and to be the guarantee of World peace and well being. Most conquered peoples were ready to accept and even take profit from the new situation, like the Greeks or the Celts, some others like the Jews threatened to reject being a mere piece of a global order.

The first millenium BC opened the doors to civilization, spreading it's reach to all classes and peoples, but from that point on, history will be dominated by the fundamental, all-pervasive issue of global division vs global unity.

• The Iron Age spread to Western Europe
• Egypt declined as a major power
• The Tanakh was written
• Buddhism was founded
• Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and created the Persian Empire (6th century BC)
• Sparta and Athens fought the Peloponnesian War
• Alexander the Great conquered Greece, Egypt, Persia and Afghanistan
• Hellenic Greek culture spread through the Mediterranean
• China was unified under the Qin Dynasty
• Celts invaded Western Europe
• The Roman Republic rose and fell
• Rome and Carthage fought the Punic wars
• The Maya civilisation began

Significant persons

• David, Israelite king
• Homer, Greek poet
• Zoroaster, founder of Zoroastrianism
• Gautama Buddha, Hindu prince, founder of Buddhism
• Mahavira, founder of Jainism
• Ashoka, ruler of the Mauryan empire
• Lao Zi, Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism
• Qin Shihuang, First emperor of China
• Confucius, Chinese philosopher
• Isaiah, Hebrew prophet
• Jeremiah, Hebrew prophet
• Ezekiel, Hebrew prophet
• Pericles, Athenian statesman
• Socrates, Greek philosopher
• Plato, Greek philosopher
• Aristotle, Greek philosopher
• Alexander the Great, Greek conqueror (4th century BC)
• Euclid, Alexandrian mathematician
• Archimedes, Greek scientist
• Cicero, Latin orator and philosopher
• Julius Caesar, Roman conqueror and dictator (c. 100 BC-44 BC)
• Virgil, Latin poet

Inventions, Discoveries, Introductions

• Iron use becomes widespread
• Buoyancy principle is discovered
• Geometry is developed
• Pythagorean theorem proved
• Eratosthenes proves that the earth is a sphere and estimates its diameter.
• The Phoenicians propagate the phonetic alphabet in the Mediterranean
• Many major religious and philosophical viewpoints are created, further explored or codified

Cultural landmarks

Centuries and Decades

10th century BC	990s BC	980s BC	970s BC	960s BC	950s BC	940s BC	930s BC	920s BC	910s BC	900s BC
9th century BC	890s BC	880s BC	870s BC	860s BC	850s BC	840s BC	830s BC	820s BC	810s BC	800s BC
8th century BC	790s BC	780s BC	770s BC	760s BC	750s BC	740s BC	730s BC	720s BC	710s BC	700s BC
7th century BC	690s BC	680s BC	670s BC	660s BC	650s BC	640s BC	630s BC	620s BC	610s BC	600s BC
6th century BC	590s BC	580s BC	570s BC	560s BC	550s BC	540s BC	530s BC	520s BC	510s BC	500s BC
5th century BC	490s BC	480s BC	470s BC	460s BC	450s BC	440s BC	430s BC	420s BC	410s BC	400s BC
4th century BC	390s BC	380s BC	370s BC	360s BC	350s BC	340s BC	330s BC	320s BC	310s BC	300s BC
3rd century BC	290s BC	280s BC	270s BC	260s BC	250s BC	240s BC	230s BC	220s BC	210s BC	200s BC
2nd century BC	190s BC	180s BC	170s BC	160s BC	150s BC	140s BC	130s BC	120s BC	110s BC	100s BC
1st century BC	90s BC	80s BC	70s BC	60s BC	50s BC	40s BC	30s BC	20s BC	10s BC	0s BC