home | before 1000 BCE | 6th-15th centuries
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
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