West European Studies

The Persian, Peloponnesian, and Punic wars were among other things, wars for superiority

In all ages of civilization, wars have been part of the human society. In almost all the centuries, some nations or societies have been involved in wars. Every war has had its major causes and consequences according to the civilization of the society involved. These causes, the techniques used in the war and the aftermath of the war have changed as the society changes. The wars have evolved from the manual battles using simple weapons such as swords to very sophisticated weapons in the modern world such as nuclear and biological weapons or the more recent cyber war. The existence of wars in all ages of civilization has left historians with a lot of questions. The Persian, the Peloponnesian and the Punic war were wars of superiority between the fighting communities among other things (Burger, pp 15).

The Persian wars between the Persian Empire and the Greeks in 490 BC and the end of the fifth century can be considered as wars of superiority. Since the formation of the Persian Empire in the 6th century BC, the empire was perceived to be a threat of the states in Greece states. The wars resulted into the separation of the region which had enjoyed many years of interactions. In the first Persian war, the Greeks had superior weapons and tactics which were decisive against the Persians. The second war in the fifth century proved to be a war of superiority when the Hellenic League was formed by the Greek states as the Persian king made plans of large expeditions against them. The Greeks were able to defend their superiority while the Persians were able to defend their expansionism despite the superior weapons used by the Greeks in the war. The superiority of the Greeks culture and identity can be attributed to the events of the Persian war where their victories were an evidence of a superior culture (Stearns, pp 22).

The Peloponnesian war is another war of superiority in the ancient world. The Athens and the Sparta were two societies in Greece who had opposing economical and social ideologies. Each of the society desired to be superior over the other and control the region. This resulted into rivalry and confrontation between the two societies. The result was the terrible Peloponnesian war between 431 and 404 BC. In the 5th century BC, the Athens had attained absolute control over the region and the Greek felt that they had lost their superiority and autonomy in the land. This led to the formation of the Peloponnese league by the Greeks and the League of Delos by the Athenians (Hayes, pp 27).

The Punic war was not different. Carthage and Rome fought for superiority in the region during the first Punic war where Rome captured Sicily from Carthage and undermined her economic powers. In the second Punic war, Hannibal was determined to undermine the influence of Rome. He took assistance from the French and the Italian armies and was able to capture Iberian city from Rome. However, due to lack of a strong naval power, he was unable to capture Rome although Carthage gained superiority over Mediterranean region. Rome latter conquered in the third Punic war and regained her superiority (Stearns, pp 33).  

In conclusion, the Persian, the Peloponnesian and the Punic wars were in no doubt wars of superiority. Different powers fought military, economic and social superiority in their regions. To gain superiority, societies formed league against their rival which in some instances worked to their favor (Burger, pp 35).
How do historians identify groups as civilized

Historians and other scholars describe civilization as the process by which a society become civilized. Civilization is characterized by an organized society with organized social, political and economic structures. Modern civilized society is a society with developed agricultural and commercial systems, urbanization, religion, political and educational systems (Hayes, pp 41).

Many historians believe that civilization started in the Roman Empire. The roman civilization started developing in the tenth BC in Italia peninsula from a small agricultural society and developed to be the greatest civilization in the ancient world. The society developed to the Roman Empire which had an influence in most parts of Europe for several centuries (Stearns, pp 48).

The ancient Rome had well organized political, social and economic structures. The city of Rome which was the largest city in the ancient world enjoys the legacy of the home of ancient civilization. The population of Rome in the ancient world was up to a million people which is equal to the population of todays major towns such as London a century ago. There were well established legal systems, agricultural systems, culture, language, literature and art as well as educational systems. The Roman Empire like any other civilization in the ancient world had a well trained army which defended the empire and conquered new lands. The political leadership in Rome was initially headed by a king and latter by an emperor after the establishment of the Roman Empire (Hayes, pp 54).

The ancient Rome civilization was greatly influenced by the ancient Greek civilization. The Greek civilization fell after the Greeks were defeated by the Rome to establish the Roman Empire. However, the ancient Greek has over the centuries remained significant. The western culture and identity is based on the ancient Greek civilization. The modern political, literature and art, education and philosophies are founded on the ancient Greeks cultures. The ancient Greek world had organized social and political structures that were headed by military kings and the modern democracies are believed to have evolved from these systems of governance (Stearns, pp 60).

Until the 16th century BC, there were still people who were masked in mystery. Residing in the region lying to the west of Mesopotamia, the Persian people were a contrasting group of people among the European tribes of Indo. Some Persians were nomadic while others were living a settled life and were seen to be developing their own unique religion and culture which was different from great cities found in the west. At times, history is all about notions and nothing can emphasize more clearly this particular feature of history that the dramatic emergence on the world stage of the Persians, or the world stage which was basically centered in the Mesopotamia region. These historical ideas can explain the rapid increase of the power of the Persians not only within the region of Mesopotamia, but indeed throughout the world (Hayes, pp 64).

Despite the fact that the Persian Empire had immense power greatly influencing the entire Mesopotamian region and indeed the whole world, making it to be considered as the pioneer of the Roman Empire, the rise of Alexander the great as the Macedonian king posed a major threat to it. The Persian Empire was destroyed between 333 and 330 BC by Alexander the great. Within a period of only eighteen months, this great king had already cleared virtually all the Persian people out of the Anatolia region, a region they had occupied for more than two centuries. The great Macedonian king planned a mission to conquer the whole of the Persian Empire through his punitive expedition. Although the Persian ruler was sarcastically called Darius II, possessed a much superior military force than Alexander, the Macedonian king still managed to conquer the Persian Empire in 331 BC, when his military forces managed to cross the Euphrates River into Mesopotamia. After Darius II fled in 330 BC, Alexander entered Babylon. This marked the beginning of a new era for the Persians as their long history in the Mesopotamia region started developing into a new history. The Mesopotamia region thus first experienced the period of Hellenistic as well as the Greek and there after the Romans dominated the area between Euphrates and Tigris (Burger, pp 70).  

Development of democracy and republic by the Greeks and the Romans
Democracy as a word and also the concept it represents originated from the Mediterranian Sea communities. The origins of this noble concept can in fact be credited to the Greek people of the 16th century BC. The word democracy is derived from two words of the Greeks demos, which means people and kratein which means to rule. When these words are joined together they form democracy which basically means ruling people. The Greeks governance system was probably close to the true democracy as it is known today. According to the Greeks and the Romans, dictatorship was the worst form of government the governed could ever be subjected to and they thus shunned any ideologies biased towards dictatorship (Stearns, pp 78).

The civilization of the Greeks and the Romans was similar and was effectively divided into small states and cities and none could exceed a population of ten thousand people. Thus when a state or a city attained this population, it could earn the status of either a state or a city in order to ease the governance of people. According to the democracy of the Greeks and the Romans, no peoples representatives existed in the structures of governance. Rather, the people ruled themselves in a direct manner each individual was a member with life membership as far as decision making is concerned. This form of democracy was close to absolute democracy save for the fact that the slaves and the women were not considered as equal citizens and thus they did not have the right to vote (Hayes, pp 87).

The Romans were the first to establish a republic their republic was part of the civilization of the ancient Romans. The Roman Republic was basically characterized by the republican type of government. It started following the Roman Empire overthrowing in 509 BC, and lasted for more than four hundred and fifty years. It changed after its subversion via a long series of civil battles and later formed the Principate type of government as well as the imperial period. The republic of the Romans was governed under a sophisticated constitution that was mainly centered on the principles of checks and balances together with separation of power principles. The evolution of this particular constitution was significantly influenced by the great struggle between patricians or the aristocracy and the plebeians that is the talented Roman (Stearns, pp 92).

The democratic concept as developed by the Greeks was a major success in determining the best possible means through which people can be governed. They had democratic principles that favored absolute democracy where each person had the right to contribute to various decisions being made by the ruling authorities. However, the democratic concept of the Greeks had a major shortcoming in that it did not recognize slaves and women who formed more than fifty percent of the Greek population. The republic that was developed by the Romans was also a major success since it enabled the creation of a constitution that had ways of creating checks and balances as well as separating powers, thus enhancing integrity and accountability on the part of the leaders and rulers (Burger, pp 105).