Slavery In Rome And China

Slavery was more important to Rome than China. This arises from the fact that Romans were constantly and rapidly conquering new territories, and slaves continued to flood in. This surplus of slaves lead them to be very cheap, cheaper than peasant labor, and therefore slaves were adopted as the major workers of the Roman economy. In China however, they were isolated, and there was little new territorial acquisitions from which slaves could be acquired. This lead to a lower number of slaves, making them more expensive and therefore less of a part of the economy. Slaves were treated harsher in Rome because they were so cheap and abundant that they were viewed as disposable. In China, where they were rarer and more expensive, they were viewed as more valuable and hence treated with greater caution.

Class Reflection

Interesting class. I may have gotten a little bit carried away with the whole democracy thing. I still am not convinced about the Republic being a democracy. Democracy is government by the people. In the Roman Republic, only members of an elite aristocracy could hold governmental posts. Therefore, the government is not by the people, but by the members of the aristocracy.

Class Reflection

Todays test was fair, despite the time restrictions. I think that being allowed to do the paragraph at home will be beneficial. Not much else about todays test that I can reveal.

Ancient Greece Exam

I am considering several topics for my compare-contrast paragraph:

• Gender Roles
• Political Structure
• Economics
  
• Religion
• Philosophy
  
• Artistic

I think the multiple choice section will be fairly easy. We have read the textbook sections on Greece fairly recently, and it will probably remain fresh in our minds.

Class Reflection

Mrs. Daley was absent for today's class (jury duty?). We began work on the Stearns book's section of Hellenism in India.

Class Reflection

I thought today's class discussion was quite perceptive. I find Aristotle's views, particularly those on gender roles, to be, while still patriarchal, much less extreme than those of Hinduism and Confucianism. I however met some disagreement in my group. If anyone has strong evidence to the contrary I would sincerely be intrigued in hearing it. I am beggining to feel the redundancy of our studies of Greece in Global Studies with those in AP World history lab. It is, I must say, quite frustrating.

Class Reflection

I thought today's video was quite interesting. What I found most shocking was the gender roles of Sparta. I had always thought of Sparta as the crude, barbaric, back-ward looking city-state, and Athens as the cultured, educated, and progressive city-state. Given these assumptions, I though for sure that Women would be treated much better in Athenian society than in Spartan. Alas, the opposite was surprisingly true as we saw in the video. I was also surprised similarly of the encouragement of Homosexual behavior by Sparta. In this case again, based on what I already knew about the two city-states, I expected that Athens would be much more accepting.

Is Geography Destiny?

Athens and Sparta were two civilizations that evolved in nearly identical geography. They were, however, radically different. If geography is the determining factor in destiny, how can this be so?