Deck 7: Western Asia, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Regional Systems, 600-200 B.C.E.

Question 1

Which members of a polis could participate in the decision-making process that affected all citizens?

A) All citizens
B) All male citizens
C) Free male citizens

Answer 1

Free male citizens

Question 2

Expansion of the Persian Empire began under the Cyrus the Great whose reign fell between which years?

A) 550-530 BCE
B) 530-522 BCE
C) 460-429 BCE

Answer 2

550-530 BCE

Question 3

What is the name of the supreme deity in Zoroastrianism?

A) Angra Mainyu
B) Ahura Mazda
C) Zoroaster

Answer 3

Ahura Mazda

Question 4

The Persian Empire is typically referred to as what?

A) Anatolian Persia
B) Achaemenid Persia
C) Indus Persia

Question 5

Which of the following rulers established a law code similar to that of Hammurabi's Code of 1500 years earlier?

A) Cyrus the Great
B) Darius I
C) Cambyses II

Question 6

Who produced most of the written accounts describing the Persian Empire of 2,500 years ago?

A) The Greeks
B) The Chinese
C) The Phoenicians

Question 7

Socrates, Plate, and Aristotle contributed to a broader philosophical and religious revolution known as what?

A) The Enlightenment
B) The Axial Age
C) The Renaissance

Question 8

Which of the following is true of the contributions of Greek thinkers to western philosophy?

A) They established complete consensus that human reason and evaluating evidence would reveal the ultimate truth about any item under inquiry.
B) All contributions rest upon the theory that nothing is truly knowable.
C) Some emphasized the value of human reason and evaluating evidence, while others questioned the possibility of there ever being an ultimate truth.

Question 9

What impact did Cleisthenes have on Athenian democracy?

A) He limited its expansion by placing property requirements on citizens.
B) He allowed women to vote in the citywide elections.
C) He provided opportunities for citizens of all backgrounds to participate in the political process.

Question 10

Which of the following is true of Solon's impact on Athenian democracy?

A) He expanded democracy for poor males at the expense of aristocrats and women.
B) He expanded democracy for the aristocracy at the expense of all other citizens.
C) He expanded democracy for all citizens equally.

Question 11

Which of the following rulers established a law code similar to that of Hammurabi's Code of 1,500 years earlier?

A) Cyrus the Great
B) Darius I
C) Cambyses II

Question 12

To varying degrees, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all believed what?

A) All citizens should be eligible to serve in government.
B) Only a handful of educated people should be eligible to serve in government.
C) Democracies are inherently unstable and therefore not useful in human societies.

Question 13

Zoroastrianism can generally be described as what kind of religion?

A) Monotheistic
B) Polytheistic
C) Atheistic

Question 14

Though many forces contributed to the decline of the Persian Empire, which of the following proved to be the final straw?

A) The death of the last living heir of the Achaemenid family in 424 BCE
B) Alexander the Great's army defeated Persian forces in 330 BCE
C) The Egyptian pharaoh took control of Persian in 404 BCE

Question 15

Which of the following could women, slaves, children, and resident foreigners not do?

A) Participate in the political process.
B) Participate in economic activities.
C) Participate in cultural functions.

Question 16

Which of the following statements is true of the Persian Empire?

A) Persian rules forced conquered peoples into exile.
B) Persian rulers allowed conquered peoples to maintain their economic activities.
C) Persian rulers forbid intermarriage between conquered peoples and Persians.

Question 17

Which of the following influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as a result of cultural transmission in the Mediterranean World?

A) Athenian naval supremacy
B) Egyptian social codes
C) Persian Zoroastrianism

Question 18

Which of the following pastoral Indo-European societies did the Persians displace from their homeland on the road to building their empire?

A) The Macedonians
B) The Anatolian Greeks
C) The Medes

Question 19

What is the significance of the Persian entrepreneur Irdabama?

A) She rose from commoner origins to become an independently wealthy business owner.
B) She became queen of the Achaemenid Empire following the death of her brother.
C) She served as the primary liaison between the Persians and the Medes.

Question 20

Which of the following generally describes Spartan society?

A) A robust democracy dedicated to ensuring equality to all members
B) A rigid military state that ruled its people and captives through force
C) An unorganized collection of villages lacking any formal government

Question 21

Where is the Hellenistic city of Alexandria located?

A) At the southern tip of Greece
B) On the island of Cyprus
C) On the northern coast of Egypt

Question 22

Describe Achaemenid relations with the Greek world.

Question 23

Which of the following generally describes Hellenism?

A) A culture based solely on the contributions of Greeks
B) A culture combining western Asian and Greek characteristics
C) A culture combining Greek and Roman characteristics

Question 24

Describe the trade links formed by the Achaemenid empire.

Question 25

How did Greeks view the many gods they believed in?

A) Immortal and more powerful than humans, yet similar in that they possessed human virtues and vices
B) Immortal and more powerful than humans, possessing characteristics superior to humans in all ways
C) Mortal but more powerful than humans, and incapable of any lapses in judgment

Question 26

Which of the following schools of thought emphasized cooperation with and acceptance of nature, and unity and equality of all people?

A) Zoroastrianism
B) Cynicism
C) Stoicism

Question 27

How did Achaemenids govern their empire?

Question 28

Describe phases of Achaemenid expansion.

Question 29

How did Achaemenid policy toward religion help or hamper efforts to control subject territories?

Question 30

What key principles underpinned Achaemenid law?

Question 31

How did trade that took place via the interlinked Mediterranean Basin affect participating societies?

A) New ideas and cultural influences were exchanged and adopted.
B) All trading partners eventually fell under Greek rule.
C) The poorest members of many societies eventually became the richest.

Question 32

Which of the following Hellenistic religions may have contributed to the development and acceptance of Christianity centuries later?

A) Mithraism
B) Stoicism
C) Cynicism

Question 33

Which of the following Greek kings destroyed the Persian Empire between 334 and 331 BCE?

A) Philip II
B) Alexander the Great
C) Xerxes

Question 34

How did Persian governments communicate with the central administration?

Question 35

Which of the following schools of thought advocated for living a simple life free of material things and pretense?

A) Zoroastrianism
B) Cynicism
C) Stoicism

Question 36

Which of the following generally describes Hellenistic cities following the death of Alexander the Great?

A) Cosmopolitan melting pots
B) Conservative and isolationist
C) Empty and culturally void

Question 37

Which of the following northern city-states rose up to conquer the disunified Greeks in 338 BCE?

A) Macedonia
B) Anatolia
C) Ionia

Question 38

What happened to the empire created by Alexander the Great following his death?

A) His top general maintained it intact for another 60 years.
B) Three of his former generals divided it and established dynasties of their own.
C) The Roman army took control of the entire empire within a month.

Question 39

Which of the following influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as a result of cultural transmission in the Mediterranean World?

A) Athenian naval supremacy
B) Egyptian social codes
C) Persian Zoroastrianism

Question 40

Which of the following descriptions regarding the Greeks relationship with the supernatural is most accurate?

A) Not all Greeks believed in the gods of their mythology, some might be considered atheists or agnostics.
B) All Greeks believed in the gods of their mythology without exception.
C) Most Greeks did not believe in the gods of their mythology, but none expressed this sentiment out of fear.

Question 41

Why did Alexander's early death lead to the breakup of his empire?

Question 42

What are the core principles of Socratic thought?

Question 43

How was ancient Greek democracy limited?

Question 44

How did Greek opinion about the gods change in the classical period?

Question 45

Which of the following Greek historians established an example of objective analysis in his work The Peloponnesian War ?

A) Herodotus
B) Thucydides
C) Pericles

Question 46

What similarities and differences exist between Plato's thought and Socrates's thought?

Question 47

What are the key principles of Cynicism?

Question 48

Describe Thales's thought and the context it responded to.

Question 49

Describe the differences and similarities between Democritus's thought and Xenophanes's thought.

Question 50

Describe the evolution of the Athenian constitution.

Question 51

What common threads held the Hellenistic world together?

Question 52

What markers separated elites from common people in the Hellenistic Greek world?

Question 53

What similarities and differences were there between Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity?

Question 54

What was the human role in the cosmos according to Zoroastrianism?

Question 55

Describe the political composition of the ancient Greek world.

Question 56

Whose work provided the main source of information on the Greco-Persian Wars?

A) Herodotus
B) Thucydides
C) Pericles

Question 57

How did Alexander govern his empire?

Question 58

What similarities and differences existed between the major Hellenistic kingdoms?

Question 59

Describe the ancient Athenian concept of citizenship.

Question 60

Describe the Spartan constitution.

Question 61

Why, despite so many differences, did the Hellenistic world cohere together?

Question 62

How did the customs of the peoples under Alexander's rule influence his method of governance?

Question 63

What are the Zoroastrian concepts of the afterlife and how did they affect Achaemenid behavior?

Question 64

What institution or practice was most important to maintaining Achaemenid power?

Question 65

How did Zoroastrianism differ from other ancient Mesopotamian religions?

Question 66

In what year did the Greeks decisively defeat the Persians?

A) 499 BCE
B) 479 BCE
C) 467 BCE

Question 67

How typical of a Greek city-state was Athens?

Question 68

What aspects of Plato's thought did Aristotle challenge?

Question 69

Which of the following best describes the Delian League?

A) A network of Persian armies led by Xerxes
B) A group of philosophers led by Pericles
C) A defensive alliance of Greek cities led by Athens

Question 70

How did mystery religions and cults differ to other religious practices before the Hellenistic period?

Question 71

What year did the Greco-Persian conflict begin?

A) 499 BCE
B) 480 BCE
C) 429 BCE

Question 72

What influence did Alexandria have on the Hellenistic world?

Question 73

What similarities and differences existed between Athens and Sparta?

Question 74

Who were the main protagonists in the Peloponnesian War?

A) Forces comprised of Athens and Sparta-led alliances
B) Persian armies and Sparta-led alliances
C) Forces comprised of Athens and Persian-led alliances

Question 75

How did Diogenes's thought and Zeno's thought differ?

Question 76

What role did Greek thought ascribe to women and how was this role challenged?

Question 77

How did Achaemenid religious principles influence their laws and vice versa?