Chapter 3 Civilizations

In this chapter we see the rise of civilizations that most people today know about in the Greek, Roman, Persian, and Chinese empires. The Persian empire was the first empire that was talked about and were a powerful bunch. They were the first to have a set government system which was a monarchy where one leader had all the power. The king had people underneath him but they were pretty much pawns that just kept the people of the kingdom in line. The empire was a conquering one as they expanded a lot during their existence and were known for adopting certain traits or things from the conquered nations. But one civilization they had rivaled during their time was the Greeks. The greeks were run differently from the Persians as each city state had a say in the overall well being of the empire. It was a unique idea for that time as most civilizations were run like the Persian empire. The greeks and Persians clashed a lot because of their different styles and cause they were in each others way for conquering the land. Eventually after lots of large battles and years of loss the Greeks came out on top and were able to defend their land. But the wars left a scar on the Greek empire as the city of Athens was not willing to give up control of the empire and wanted to be the city state in charge. They also wanted to take away power from each city state which led to a war of Greece which led to the eventual fall of the empire. But these early empires set examples for the next wave of empires the Roman and Chinese empires. The Roman empire is one of the most well known empires in history. They were the first to use a democracy like system and were focused on conquering and expanding their empire. They had a senate, people could vote for their leaders, and they rewarded their people for serving in the army. But like every empire before it they became too big for their own good as their size led to their downfall. They grew so much that they could not keep their government together as a democracy eventually turned into a monarchy with puppet democracy aspects. Also they did not have enough resources to keep everyone in the empire happy. But at the height of the Roman empire another empire was also thriving in the same format as them and they were the Chinese. The chinese were successful because they were able to learn from their mistakes as a civilization and find ways to adapt and help the empire thrive. But their downfall was internal and also external as many people tried to conquer China.

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