1000 BCE to 500 CE

Survival, Power and War

India, Empire and Chaos -- rise and fall of the Maurya and Gupta empires

Empire and the Ancient Chinese -- monarchy and rebellion from the Zhou to Liu-Song dynasties

Middle East Empires and Judaism, to the 400s BCE -- Israel, Judah, Assyrians, Persians and the rise of Judaism

Greeks, Democracy and Slavery -- draconian Athens, Sparta, Athenian democracy, the culture of slavery

The Greeks at War, 494 to 371 BCE -- the Greco-Persian and Peloponnesian Wars and end of Spartan power

Alexander the Great and Hellenistic Civilization -- empire, dissintegration, Jews and failed revolutions

Rome Staggers to Empire -- from early republic to the Mediterranean's great hegemonic power

The Roman Republic's Civil Wars and End -- from Tiberius Graccus the younger to Caesar's nephew, Octavian

Roman Emperors, Prosperity and Decline -- from Augustus Caesar to Constantine the Great

The Roman Empire Disintegrates -- Christian emperors fail. Rome burns and the empire is overrun

The Parthian and Sassanid Empires -- more rise and fall

Africa, Iron and Empire -- the Nubians, iron in the west, Askum and Meroe, the Bantu

The Ancient Japanese -- from the legend of Jimmu to the rise of the Yamato dynasty

The Americas, Southeast Asia and Oceania -- the Olmecs and Teotihuacán, Maya, Polynesians

Attempts at Knowledge and Wisdom

Hindus, Jains, and the Buddha -- changing Hinduism, the Upanishads, Buddhists, epic literature

Religion and Philosophy in China -- conqurors, human sacrifice, Confucius, Mozi, Buddhism, Taoism, I-ching

Confucianism and Buddhism to Korea -- from animism to wars fought under the banner of Buddhism

Myths among the Ancient Japanese -- creation, and ancestors descended from the gods

Religion, Myth and the Ancient Greeks -- stories by Homer and Hesiod, cults, resurrection, the Olympics and war

Greek philosophers before Socratics -- Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras, Xenophanese, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, et cetera

Socrates, Plato and Aristotle -- gods of Homer, nature of idea, categories and science

Cynics, Skeptics, Stoics and Epicureans -- Antithenes, Diogenes, Pyrrho, Arcesilaus, Zeno of Citium, Epicurus

Hellenism and Jews -- cultural diffusions, integration and trade versus religious traditionalists

The Gods of Rome -- heavenly bodies, religious authority, importations, anti-druids, family values

Philosophy and the Roman Empire -- Cicero, Senaca, Plutarch, Lucian, Marcus Aurelius, Galen, Plotinus

Jews, Rome and Jesus -- from the loss of indepence (63 BCE) to the cruxificion

Jewish Revolts and Christian Identities -- Jews and Christians divide. Christians create hierarchy

Christianity Triumphant -- martyrdom, growth, establishment, Eusebius' ideological adaptation, intolerance

Additional Church Ideology -- Augustine overthrows Eusebius, rival bishoprics and rival views of Christ's nature

Ancient Zoroastrians -- gods and the Persians, Zarathustra, optimism against evil

Manichaeism, a Universalist Faith -- the prophet Mani and his demise, 3rd century CE