Intro to Part Two & Ch 3 (State & Empire)

After the first civilization, not much has changed for the second and third wave. This is surprising to me because I would think that the second time around, many things would be different/change. Monarchs continued to have the power to rule and women still had little to no power. But there was a great growth in populations and and a growing size of states and empires. These states and empires were: The Roman, Indian, Persian, and Chinese. Chapter 3 begins with The Persians and the Greeks. In the Persian Empire, they had Cyrus and Darius as the kings. These kings had absolute power and lived a very luxurious lifestyle with palaces and even rituals. In 500 B.C.E., the most impressive empire was the Persian empire, it was the world's largest.  The Greeks were Indo-European, just like the Persians. Greece emerged around 750 B.C.E. as a new civilization, but the civilization of Athens, Sparta, of Plato and Aristotle, of Zeus and Apollo were created and problems began to arise. The Greeks called themselves Hellenes. They began in a small peninsula that was divided. But then collisions began to happen with the Persians and the Greco-Persian wars had begun.