The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsNuggets of insight from "Secrets of Ancient Empires" YouTube
* Capital cities naturally grew populations because being in the capital is: Where it's at. In any civilization.
* Temples, importance of religion - called "temple towns."
* Sacrifices, offerings - integral rituals - actually, the early form of *taxation*.
* Fabulous Babylon.
* Idealistic Greece, totally dependent on slavery. Aristotle said it was a "necessary" condition.
* Routes to slavery: War captives, yes, but also *debt* - unable to pay, given over as slave to whom owed to.
* Private libraries in homes. Herculaneum has a house with a room plainly equipped with shelves. Call them "library rooms."
* To the Ancients, Egypt was already ancient. Cleopatra is as close to us as the pyramid builders were to the Ancients.
Kaleva
(36,341 posts)Caesar Augustus is closer to us in time, by about 3 hundred years, then he was to the end of the peak of pyramid building.
UTUSN
(70,740 posts)Somehow the history in school didn't get some critical points across, like how the "Dark" Ages came from the fall of the Romans - plus from volcanic eruptions that clouded over into Climate Change.
Funny haha, tidbit about the monks who created the gorgeous Illustrated scriptures - scribble/scribble - in the unheated buildings during Winter, little notes, "I am SO cold!"