Kindle Notes & Highlights
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August 26 - August 29, 2023
When the Israelites walked from Egypt back up to Canaan, they weren’t moving into an empty country. There were already people living in Canaan. The people who lived up in the north of Canaan were called Phoenicians, and they were the greatest sailors in the ancient world.
The northern part of Canaan wasn’t a very good place to grow wheat, because it was rocky and sandy and dry. It wasn’t a good place to raise animals, because there wasn’t enough grass or water to make them fat and healthy. And it was hard to get into or out of—it was surrounded by steep craggy hills. So the Phoenicians pushed their boats out onto the water and sailed around the Mediterranean Sea. They became traders.
The Phoenicians were famous for making glass.
The Phoenicians were also known for making a beautiful purple dye out of snails.
The Phoenicians sailed all around the Mediterranean Sea. And they started colonies—little settlements of Phoenician people—in many of the places where they landed. One of the most famous cities was Tyre, over in Canaan. Another was Carthage, all the way over in North Africa.
The Phoenician civilization was at its height between 1200–700 BC/BCE.
Finally, that day came. The Assyrians rebelled against their masters, the Babylonians. They dug canals through the city of Babylon and flooded it with water, washing the city away. And then they started out to rebuild their empire.
The Assyrians raged up and down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, taking over every city in their path. They stampeded over to Canaan and scattered the Israelites like dust; the Israelites were never allowed to return back to their own land again. They marched up into Asia Minor and forced the people there to obey them. And one of the greatest Assyrian kings of all, Ashurbanipal, led his soldiers all the way down into Egypt—and took it over! Even the mighty pharaohs of Egypt had to obey Assyria.
Ashurbanipal became king of Assyria around 668 BC/BCE. He terrified his enemies. For fun, he went on lion-hunts, chasing the lions down on horseback and shooting arrows at them. And when he led his soldiers into battle, he fought like an angry lion himself. With Ashurbanipal leading them, the Assyrians were almost impossible to beat. Why were they so hard to conquer? The Assyrian soldiers fought in pairs. One man would hold a shield made out of baskets, tied together with leather. The other would shoot arrows from behind the shield. These basket shields were very light—but they kept arrows and
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Ashurbanipal became very rich. He ruled the biggest empire that the world had ever seen. But all across Assyria, people hated him. The cities conquered by Ashurbanipal obeyed him because they were afraid, but all the time they hoped that Assyria would soon collapse.
Ashurbanipal, the king of all Assyria, stood on his palace walls looking out over the city of Nineveh. He had spent years making Nineveh beautiful. It was his favorite city, and he was the strongest king in the world!
All of those clay tablets were thick and heavy. So Ashurbanipal built more and more rooms to keep them in. Soon he had collected thousands and thousands of clay tablets full of stories, prayers, instructions, history, science, medicine, and law. He had created the first library in the world. And Ashurbanipal’s wish came true. Although many of the tablets were destroyed in Assyria’s wars with other countries, some of them still survive today, thousands of years later. They can still be read. And because we have Ashurbanipal’s clay tablets, we remember him as the king who collected books—the
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After Ashurbanipal died, the Assyrian empire fell apart. And Assyria’s old enemies, the Babylonians, took over Assyria’s land. The Babylonians wanted revenge! Assyria had destroyed Babylon, so now the Babylonians destroyed Nineveh, Assyria’s most beautiful city. They broke down the walls and gates, ripped the doors off Ashurbanipal’s great library, and smashed hundreds of his precious clay tablets! Fortunately, some of the books survived so that we can still read them today. Then the Babylonians settled down to rule their own empire. The Babylonian Empire wasn’t quite as big as the Assyrian
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Long, long ago, a tribe called the Minoans settled down on the island of Crete. The Minoans entertained themselves in an unusual way—by leaping over bulls.
The Minoans of Crete disappeared, mysteriously, more than two thousand years ago. Their civilization came to a sudden end. All the Minoans left Crete.
Soon, strangers landed on the shores of Crete. They were the Mycenaeans, and they came from the city of Mycenae, in Greece.
They used these ships to sail to other islands. On each island, the Mycenaeans built a city called a colony. All of these cities were controlled by the Mycenaean king and his army. Soon the Mycenaeans had colonies all around the Aegean Sea.
With their armor, bronze weapons, and chariots, the Mycenaeans dominated the Aegean Sea and the islands in it. They were the first great Greek civilization.
But no matter how many walls the Mycenaean Greeks built, they couldn’t keep the barbarians out. The Sea People invaded them from the water. Other barbarians called Dorians came streaming down from the north. Greek cities were burned and destroyed. Greek armies were defeated. The Greeks fled away from these savage tribes. And soon the only people living in Greece were the barbarians.
For hundreds of years, the barbarians lived in Greece. But these tribes were a little bit like a bully who spends so much time fighting that he never gets his homework finished. They put so much energy into battles that they never learned how to read or write. They didn’t leave us any written records of their lives. The only thing they left behind them were ruined cities! And so we know very little about Greece during the time that the Sea People and the Dorians lived there. This time in Greece is called the Greek Dark Ages
The Mycenaeans settled in Crete around 1450 BC/BCE. The Greek “Dark Ages” stretched from around 1200 to around 700 BC/BCE.
The longer these barbarians live in Greece, the more civilized they become. They’re no longer wandering around looking for cities to attack. Instead, they’re settling into villages. They’re learning how to farm and fish. They’re becoming—Greeks!
We know more about these early Greeks than we know about the barbarians, because the early Greeks soon learned how to read and write.
The early Greeks didn’t use the same alphabet that we use. They used their own letters. They probably learned some of these letters from the Phoenicians, who had one of the first alphabets.
When the Greeks began to learn how to read and write, one of them decided to write down the old Greek stories that had been told out loud around Greek fires for years and years. His name was Homer, and he was the first great Greek writer. Tradition tells us that Homer was blind—so he listened to the stories he heard, and then wrote them down using the Greek alphabet. Homer wrote the story of a famous war—the Greek attack on the city of Troy. This war was called the “Trojan War,” and Homer tells about it in his long poem, the Iliad. After he finished the Iliad, he wrote another story, called
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The Olympics started when two cities in ancient Greece made peace, after fighting with each other for years and years. To celebrate the peace, they decided to have a festival—a big celebration—in honor of the god Zeus, the chief god of the Greeks. The festival was named after Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. The Greeks thought that Zeus and the other gods lived on Mount Olympus.
The Greeks decided that they would get together every four years to have the Olympics, and to run races in honor of Zeus. As time went on, more and more Greeks from different Greek cities came to the Olympic Games. And the Greeks added more kinds of events to their games. Instead of just running races on foot, they started racing horses as well.
But only men were allowed to compete in the Greek Olympics. Girls could watch, but they weren’t allowed to race or to do any of the other events. And married women couldn’t even watch.
Homer lived around 800 BC/BCE.
Together, the Babylonians and the Medes got together and destroyed Assyria. Now Babylon and Media were in charge, and the Assyrians had to obey.
Mesopotamia! But the Medes and Babylonians weren’t in charge for very long. A new nation was becoming stronger and stronger. This new nation was called Persia.
He dreamed that his baby grandson would grow up, take his power away, and become the ruler of the Persians. When he woke up, he was frightened!
Together, Harpagus and Cyrus convinced the Persians to follow Cyrus, rather than Astyges. Cyrus took power away from his grandfather and became the ruler of the Persians, just as Astyges had dreamed, so many years ago. And then he led the Persians in a war against the great empire of Media. After three years of fierce fighting, Cyrus conquered the king of Media as well. Now Cyrus, who had been raised by a shepherd on a mountain, ruled over the combined empires of the Medes and the Persians.
Cyrus was now the king of the Medes and the Persians. He was a great warrior—but he was also known as a good and fair king. Even though he had conquered the Medes, he let the Median people stay in their own homes. He even let Median noblemen have some of the power in his new, combined empire. After all, his empire was so big that he needed help. He couldn’t collect all the taxes, judge all the court cases, and settle all the problems himself! So he made both Persians and Medians officials in his kingdom. The Medians felt that they were being treated well—and so they didn’t try to rebel against
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Now Cyrus decided to make his empire even bigger. He wanted to conquer Asia Minor. Asia Minor was ruled by King Croesus, who was the richest king in the world. He had more gold than anyone else. Cyrus knew that if he could conquer Croesus, he would be rich as well. So he marched his army up to the kingdom of Croesus and conquered it.
Next, Cyrus turned his army to the east. Cyrus marched the Persian army all the way over to the Indus River. Now he ruled all the land between Asia Minor and India. The Persian Empire was as wide as it was tall.
However, Cyrus had one big advantage over Babylon. The Persians liked Cyrus, because he was a good, fair king. But the Babylonians hated their king. He had left the city of Babylon and had gone away to live in a distant desert. In his place, he had given his son Belshazzar control over the city. Belshazzar spent too much money on feasting and drinking, and not enough on the people of Babylon. So when Cyrus marched his army to Babylon, he didn’t meet much resistance. The Babylonians were sick and tired of their own king. So they didn’t fight very hard when Cyrus’s army arrived at the walls.
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Greece, across the Aegean Sea, was a completely different kind of country. The Greeks all spoke the same language, dressed the same way, and worshipped the same gods. They all came to the Olympic Games and feasted together. But the Greeks didn’t all obey a single king. Instead, each Greek city made its own laws. Each Greek city had its own army. And each Greek city had its own way of living. The Greeks were horrified by the thought of obeying one, single, powerful ruler. They liked their independence.
Athens and Sparta were the two largest Greek cities, but the people of these two cities lived in very different ways. Sparta was ruled by warrior kings, and all Spartan men were required to be soldiers. Boys went to school, but they didn’t learn philosophy, art, and music. Instead, when they were seven, they were sent away to special camps where they learned how to be obedient, disciplined fighters. They were taught to exercise so that their bodies would be strong. They were made to march long distances without socks or shoes, so that their feet would be tough. They weren’t given very much to
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When they were twenty, boys had to pass a special test of fitness and bravery. If they passed, they were allowed to join the army. They would stay in the army until they were old men! Even if they got married, they weren’t allowed to live with their families. Instead, they lived with the other soldiers in barracks. Boys who didn’t pass the test weren’t allowed to vote. They could never be full citizens of Sparta.
Girls were taught to exercise and be strong too, so that they could be the mothers of more boys who would fight for Sparta.
Spartan mothers were supposed to praise their sons for warlike behavior, and reward them for bravery. One Spartan mother told her son, who was leaving for battle, “Come back with your shield, or on it!” Since the losers of battles were forced to give up their shields, here’s what she was really saying: “Either win the battle, or come back dead!” Spartans would rather die than lose a fight.
Spartans were expected to obey their king. But the Greeks who lived in Athens had a different way of doing things. Everyone who lived in Athens had a say in how the city was run, because Athens was a democracy. That means that whenever a new law was written, the people of Athens could vote on whether or not it should actually be followed. Each citizen would have the chance to say, “Yes, this is a good law!” or “No, this is not a good law!” If more people voted Yes than voted No, the law would pass! They also voted on their leaders, on how much tax they should pay, and on whether they should go
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Athenian boys went to school, just like Spartan boys. But they didn’t learn how to fight. Instead, they were taught how to read and how to write on wax tablets.
Athenian girls were also different from Spartan girls. Athenian girls were taught to be housewives. Some girls learned how to read and write. But all girls learned, from their mothers, how to be domestic—how to manage a home, sew, raise a garden, take care of children, and manage slaves. Athenian women weren’t allowed to vote.
One of the most famous men in Athens was named Plato. Plato told the Athenians that a democracy had to have educated people in it! If they are ignorant, he said, people who know more than they do will become tyrants and tell them what to do.
That’s just what Plato meant when he said that ignorant people will always obey tyrants.
The Persians started to invade Greece. After all, the Persians had conquered almost all the rest of the land around them! Greece was one of the few countries that didn’t obey the Persian empire. And the Persians wanted Greece too.
Athens and Sparta decided that they had better stop fighting each other, and become friends and allies so that they could defend themselves against the Persians. The war against Persia began around 500 BC/BCE. It dragged on for years and years. Athens and Sparta fought battle after battle against the Persian invasion.
One of the most famous battles of the war was the Battle of Marathon.
