Alexander Zubarev
Chapter IV outline.
The Persians were developing in the Middle East, while Greeks were developing in Europe. After the Greek decline, the Romans would take control. The Persians developed a religion (Zoroastrianism), and advanced iron working. The book covers Persian empire very briefly, for some reason.
While the Persian Empire steadily developed, Greece was slowly gathering strength. From 800 to 600 B.C, strong city-states started to take hold in Greece. Some of the governments that ancient Greeks had were: oligarchy and monarchy, as well as some republics. This was good, since all of these governments had certain strengths and weaknesses, and Greeks took advantage of each. Two dominant city-states that were crucial to Greek Empire were Athens, which had strong commerce and trade (economy), and Sparta, a militaristic-type city-state, with the slaves as the backbone of the society and strength. These two city-states cooperated to bring what was then known as the mightiest empire in the world (the Persians), to a grinding halt.
English: Map of the Roman Republic in 40 BC after ...
Bust of Julius Caesar from the British Museum
English: Carthaginian empire through the Punic war...During the Peloponnesian Wars, both Athens and Sparta were greatly weakened by the fighting. Macedonia took advantage and unified all Greek city-states under their rule. Phillip II did that. His son, Alexander the Great, conquered Asia Minor, Phoenicians, Egypt, and most importantly, all of the Persian Empire. However, than a typical thing happened: after Alexander's death (which happened unexpectedly; Alexander was 33), 3 of his successors fought over their territories, allowing the Roman Empire to take control and annex the Greek civilization.
The republic of Rome started out as a "humble monarchy" around 800 B.C. The Romans hated the monarchy, and they drove out their hated Etruscan King circa 509 B.C.
Then the government got tricky; they had a lot of rival Latin colonies, but they eliminated them and subjugated them using "divide and conquer".