Continuity And Changes In Ancient Civilization

Since the beginnings of time, civilizations all over the world have been constantly evolving to where there has been either, gradual or sudden kinds of shifts. With the shift to new beliefs or technology, there also follows the resistance of losing traditional beliefs. Even during the time period before Christ, civilizations had trouble with adapting to the new, “modern” changes that occurred within their community. However, with changes there can also be numerous favorable effects of such alterations. Some examples include a multitude of different ancient time periods. Time periods with such examples includes, the Hellenistic Age and the resistance to new and sudden beliefs, the new way of ruling during the Han Dynasty, and even new clothing
Despite possible wrongful positions, change itself remains neutral and is only twisted to the people who cause it. The Hellenistic Age was one of the many examples of such. The Macedonian Empire, one of the largest land empires, was ruled by Alexander the Great, a very strategic king who was taught by Aristotle, and who also took over his father’s empire at the young age of 20. This was achieved by an important series of war between them and Persia. As Alexander established his empire, he had conquered new lands, in which he spread the Greek culture and implemented within them. He even created a city called “Alexandria”, which many people call as a “miniature Greece”. However, although much of Greek culture was kept, many things changed to benefit the rulers after the death of Alexander. These ill-intent changes is what cause a number of people to disapprove of change. The absolute rule of the rulers was one of those ill-will changes, as opposed to the Greeks government of a democracy. According to Document 3, an excerpt from Thomas Gallant’s book, “Alexander the Great, Story of An Ancient Life”, it states “At the same time, many people felt
As an effect of that, this has greatly affected people on a large scale. With new inventions that can make life easier, or even the introduction to new kinds of material can affect many people. The multitude and differing goods, was a major source of these changes. As places like China held silk, people of places like the Roman Empire craved for it as they never heard or had such a thing. They also believed the product to be used as a symbol for the wealthy. This belief was due to the fact of how the Chinese treasured the silk and how they gifted the product as well as, even wrapped an Egyptian pharaoh, in the silk. Despite the positivity towards the product, the Roman senate did not take joy in the silk as it had caused them to lose lots of money. For example, in Document 5, it states, “The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic [ground] [...] importation of Chinese silk caused a huge outflow of gold [...]” (Document 5). The access to silk had greatly affected the people of Rome as it allowed them to flaunt their wealth but at the same time, led to an economic loss for the government of Rome. In addition to that, the trade of silk had inspired the Silk Road, a route that went from China extending to the northern eastern part of Africa. From the Silk Road, many new trade routes were also inspired as shown within Document 1. In Document 1, the map exhibits how