The Mental Floss History Of The World Part 9

Mount Vesuvius erupts, destroying Pompeii and the resort town of Herculaneum.

91.

The Han Empire defeats the neighboring Xiongu, or "Mongols," forcing them to move west into Central Asia.

100.

The first Chinese dictionary is published.

117.

The Roman Empire reaches its greatest geographic extent.

~200.

The Bantu tribes migrate into Central and South Africa and begin to dominate much of the area.

220.

After four hundred years, China's Han Dynasty collapses.

224.

The Sa.s.sanid Dynasty in Persia is founded by Ardashir I, who overthrows the Parthian Empire.

320.

The Gupta Empire begins with the accession of Chandra Gupta I to the throne of a small northern Indian kingdom.

350.

The Huns invade Persia.

391.

A North African named Augustine becomes a Christian priest, in the city of Hippo, in what is now Algeria.

391.

The Roman emperor Theodosius I makes Christianity the official religion of the empire.

395.

The Eastern and Western Roman empires are formally split by a codicil in the will of Theodosius I.

400.

What is now Afghanistan is invaded and its Buddhist culture destroyed by the Hephthalites, or "White Huns."

410.

The Visigoths, under Alaric I, enter Rome and help themselves to the city's goodies.

439.

The North African city of Carthage falls to the Vandals.

476.

The Western Roman Empire formally ends.

480.

The Hephthalites begin overrunning the Gupta Dynasty in India.

SPINNING THE GLOBE.

Rome (the City):

You May Have Heard of It...

The Silk Road was a good example that despite the old saying, all roads did not lead to Rome. But a whole lot of them not only led there, but were also built by subjects of the Roman Empire.

As imperial capitals go, Rome was pretty impressive. For the most part, the Romans were borrowers rather than innovators. But they made the most of what they appropriated from other cultures. While their architecture was heavily influenced by Greece, for example, the Romans added their own distinctive flourishes. As with most Roman cities, Rome was generally well laid out, and relatively clean by contemporary standards, even if the most popular way of disposing of bodily waste was basically throwing it out the window.

TOASTY UNDER THE TOGA.

During the first century CE, some of the cla.s.sier homes in Rome were built with terracotta tubes embedded in the walls. The tubes carried warm air from fires in the bas.e.m.e.nt: the first central heating systems.

But there was plenty of water to go around from a dozen aqueducts, and free heated public baths. And boy, were the Romans conspicuous consumers! The Mons Testaceus, a one-hundred- foot-high hill of broken pottery containers built up from nearby warehouses along the Tiber River during Rome's heyday, is still evident today.

Will anybody compare the Pyramids, or those useless though renowned works of the Greeks, with these aqueducts?-s.e.xtus Julius Frontinius, the city of Rome's water commissioner, 97 CE

The people who ruled over the city-and the sprawling empire it dominated-were a decidedly mixed lot. There were some great leaders, such as the much-traveled Hadrian, who in his twenty-one years as emperor visited much of the empire and consolidated Rome's control over it; or Constantine the Great, who was the first emperor to embrace Christianity and who founded the immodestly named city of Constantinople, which became one of the world's great metropolises.

THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR BOSSES...

The Roman emperor Gaius Caesar Germanicus was nicknamed "Little Boots" because he was brought up in army camps and sometimes dressed like a miniature soldier. The nickname stuck, and the world remembers him by its Latin version: Caligula.

And there were some real bozos, such as Vitellius the Glutton, who hosted three or four banquets a day, feasted on chow such as flamingo tongues and pike liver, then used a peac.o.c.k feather to induce vomiting so he could make room for more.

As the Roman Empire began to unravel from within and without, the capital city began to feel the pinch. Once comprising the foundation of the state's agrarian economy, many Roman farmers gave up competing with cheaper crops from outlying provinces and moved to the city. As early as 6 CE, Rome was importing 14 million bushels of grain per year, mostly from North Africa, and the city swelled to a population of more than 1.5 million by the third century.

But by the second century CE, the city of Rome was essentially a welfare state. Free food was handed out daily, and mammoth spectacles were staged to keep the natives from getting too restless.

In 395 CE, the empire permanently split into two pieces. The Eastern half trans.m.u.ted into the Byzantine Empire and lasted until the mid-fifteenth century. But in the West, invading Huns ravaged Italy in the middle part of the fifth century, and in 410 CE, the Visigoths sacked Rome itself.

PUCKER UP.

Roman husbands kissed their wives on the mouth at the end of the day, but their motive was not at all romantic. They were checking their spouses' breath to see if they had been sitting around drinking wine all day.

ROME BURNS: WHO DUNNIT?.

During the night of July 18, 64 CE, a fire broke out in the shops near the Circus Maximus, the city's mammoth stadium. It spread quickly and lasted more than a week. Ten of the city's fourteen districts, covering more than 70 percent of Rome, were destroyed.As soon as the smoke cleared, the shocked citizenry began pointing fingers at the emperor Nero. After all, this was a guy who had murdered both his mother and his wife in his climb to the top.Rumors were Nero wanted to build a glittery new palace in the heart of the city, and the Senate had balked at tearing down buildings already on the site. The fire would remove the Senate's objections. Armed thugs were said to have stopped efforts to fight the fire. Another rumor was that the emperor, who fancied himself a talented musician, had strummed his lyre and sung songs while Rome burned.Actually, Nero wasn't even in Rome when the fire started, and rushed back when he heard about it, throwing open public buildings and providing food to those fleeing the fire.But the mutterings continued, so Nero looked around for someone else to blame. He decided on a small, shadowy religious cult rumored to engage in sordid rites such as cannibalism and orgies. They were called "Christians."Nero had some Christians tortured. They pointed fingers at other Christians, giving Nero the excuse to order general persecution. Hundreds were executed in grisly fashion: burned alive, crucified, or torn apart by wild animals in the arena.Although it's most likely the fire started accidentally, some historians believe it's possible that Nero may have ordered the conflagration. It's also possible, according to others, that Christian zealots trying to fulfill biblical prophecies actually did start it.Whatever the truth, it would be more than two centuries before Christians got a respite from systematic persecution. Nero had far less time left. Within four years of the fire, he was ousted from office by the Senate and army, and killed himself.

China:

Bureaucracy at Its Finest

While the Roman Empire was definitely the big dog during the first five hundred years of this millennium, it was by no means alone.

In China, the Han Dynasty was midway through its 426-year run. Also at its height in the second century, it was as widespread and dominant in the East as Rome was in the (relative) West, extending over most of what is now China and reaching into Korea and Southeast Asia.

HAN MAN.

As something of a tribute to the most enduring of China's dynasties, the modern Chinese word that denotes someone who is from China translates as "man of Han."

The Han Dynasty, which rose to power in 206 BCE, was based on ideals espoused by the government-organization expert/philosopher Confucius (551479 BCE). Those ideals embraced good behavior, manners, education, and duty. And while Han emperors and officials certainly didn't live up to those ideals all the time, they did run a pretty efficient government.

At its peak, Han China probably had a population of more than 60 million, with the largest city of Luoyang serving as home to about 240,000. The empire, which was divided into 80 provinces, and subdivided into about 1,600 prefectures, was administered by a herd of 130,000 civil servants, who got their jobs only after taking competency exams.

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND YOUR PEN IN YOUR POCKET.

It was a capital offense to write the name of the Han emperor or speak directly to him.