The World of Late Antiquity and
Arabia Before Islam
HIST 1007
9/6/13
Cultural Hegemony
Alexander’s Empire
Alexander’s Empire
• Political heir to
Achaemenid Empire
• Hellenic Culture
• Aristotle (384-322BCE)
• “to the strongest”
Diadochi
• Seleucids (r. 311-63BCE) – Mesopotamia and
Iran
• Ptolemaic Dynasty (r. 303-47BCE) – Egypt
• Antigonids (r. 306-167BCE) – Macedonia
• Other smaller dynasties…
Diadochi
Hellenistic Age
• Hellenization
• Cultural Hegemony
Iskandir
Alexandria
Empire
• Neo-Assyrians – Dominance
• Achaemenid Persians – Hegemony
• Alexander the Great – Cultural Hegemony
The Roman Empire
• 290BCE – Italy
• 264-202BCE – Western Mediterranean
• 200-30BCE –
Eastern
Mediterranean
• 59-51BCE - Gaul
Pax Romana
The Byzantine Empire
Constantine the Great (r. 306-337) and
Constantinople (324)
From Milan to Thessalonica
• 313: Edict of Milan:
Ends persecution of
Christians
• 325: First Council of Nicaea:
Nicaean Creed
• 380: The Edict of
Thessalonica:
Nicaean Christianity
becomes state religion
of Roman Empire
Justinian the Great (r. 527-565)
Hagia Sophia
Extent of Justinian’s Empire
Justinian’s Plague, 541-767
•
•
•
•
•
541 – outbreak of bubonic plague
Flea bites infected rat
Flea bites human
Infected human sneezes
25% of Mediterranean
population dead
• 40% of Constantinople
Sasanian Empire (224-651)
First Byzantine-Sasanian War (572591)
Emperor Justin II (r. 565-578)
and
Shahanshah Khosrau I (r. 531579)
Chaos in Constantinople
• Maurice Tiberius
(r. 582-602)
• Phocas (r. 602-610)
• Heraclius (r. 610-641)
Byzantine-Sasanian War (602-628)
Heraclius and the True Cross
Arabia Before Islam
• Jahiliyya
• Tribal
• Pastoral
• Pagan
• Small kingdoms
on fringes
• Christian and
Jewish communities
Petra
Palmyra
Mecca and the Hijaz
• Pilgrimage
center
• Market center
• Quraysh
Mecca as Pilgrimage Center
The Ka`aba today,
in 1880, and at the
time of the Prophet
(as portrayed in a 16th
century Ottoman
manuscript).
Mecca as Market Center
Markets of the Arabs
Ghassanids and Lakhmids
Poetry and Arab Culture
•
•
•
•
•
Oral culture
Dialects and literary language
Mu`allaqat
Seven qasida, best poems of pre-Islamic era
The Hanging Poems