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The Late Bronze Age Collapse was a total systems collapse in the Eastern Mediterranean happening in ~1200 - ~1150 BCE. It manifested in the destruction or abandonment of most cities in the region, a huge decline in literacy, the collapse of centralized states, and the stop of global trade, all of this happening at roughly the same time. This mostly affected the regions of Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Anatolia, Levant, and finally Egypt (so the Mycenaean confederation, and the Hittite and Egyptian empires). However, the effects were felt by civilizations further east as well, including Assyria, Babylonia, Elam, and even the Indus Valley, and they suffered too because of this, though not as drastically as the Eastern Mediterranean civilizations.
Now, there is still a lot we do no know about this event, but a well accepted theory exists which incorporates everything that was going on a the time to explain the collapse. It starts out around 1200 BCE, with the Bronze Age civilizations mostly at their peak, though problems had already started before then. There was a devastating plague starting around 1300 BCE or so, and the kingdoms were still recovering from it. Around 1250 BCE some northern Mycenaean cities began to be destroyed, though the country managed to stabilize the situation at least for a while. And in 1210 BCE, Egypt was attacked by the first wave of the Sea Peoples, most notably the Sherden, who were defeated and even incorporated into the Egyptian army, and it is highly probable that they came from the destroyed Mycenaean cities in search of better lands. However, this was all just the very beginning, and it was about to get way worse.
The civilizations could may recovered from that pretty easily, but now there was much bigger problem - climate change, which ca
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The Code of the Nesilim (the Hittite word for themselves) is the main Hittite legal code, dating from as early as 1650 BCE and as late as 1500 BCE. This code dictated the laws in Hatti (the Hittite Empire) up to the state’s collapse around 1180 BCE. It discussed such issues as assault, murder, theft, divorce, treatment of slaves, property and business rights, and more. It came after the famous Code of Hammurabi in Mesopotamia (~1760 BCE), but surprisingly was less severe with the punishments, despite the Hittites having a reputation of being a society of fierce and ruthless warriors. This Hittite code is thought to have been authored either by the king or the Pankus (a council with legislative, administrative, and judicial powers, thought to have been almost as powerful as the king himself).
There are 200 known laws in the Code (not all are on Wikipedia, but you can still find the full list online), so obviously I can’t list them all. 1-24 deal with aggression and assault, 25-38 with marital relationships, 39-56 with obligations and service, 57-144 (the largest chunk by far) with property and theft, 145-161 with contracts and prices, 162-173 with religious matters, 174-186 with contracts and tariffs, and the most fun part is reserved for last, with 187-200 dealing with sexual relationships. Here are a few example laws from the whole code:
10. If anyone injures a person and temporarily incapacitates him, he shall provide medical care for him. In his place he shall provide a person to work on his estate until he recovers. When he recovers, his assailant shall pay him 6 shekels of silver and shall pay the physician's fee as well.
18. If anyone causes a female slave to miscarry, and if it is her tenth month, he shall pay 5 shekels of silver.
44. If anyone makes a man fall into a f
Egyptian mythology is by far the weirdest one from all I've read, but it's also probably the most funny one and you can see that the guys creating it were just having fun while making it. It wasn't centralized, so every city had its own slightly different version, with their preferred god being the creator deity, and it changed many times over the ~3500 years it was prominent in Egypt. So basically it starts out with there only being the chaotic primordial waters known as Nun, from which a creator deity emerges. That was usually Ra, later Amun-Ra, though depending on the city could also be Thoth, Sobek, Khnum, and others. In some cases there was also the Ogdoad, which was a group of eight primordial deities, which emerged from the waters and laid a cosmic egg from which the creator deity was born. Either way, there was now the creator deity, but they were actually both male and female. So this deity would proceed to, well, release their seed and, uh, eat it, since the mouth served as a sort of womb.
Now two new deities would be born and spat out so they could take forms. They were Shu and Tefnut, now definitely a male and a female, while the creator deity became fully male (I'll refer to him as Ra from now on), except with his eye serving as his female counterpart. The Eye of Ra could be many female deities, including Hathor, Sekhmet, Bastet, Serqet, and others, but I'll refer to it as Hathor, since this is the most often used form. Later on, after the world was created and populated, Ra got angry at his inhabitants and ordered the Eye to kill them all, and so she began. However, he had a change of mind and tricked her into stopping, which preserved at least a part of the population and allowed it to continue living. The Eye is portrayed as consistently angry and erratic and there are many stories of her running away and Ra having to get other gods to find here and bring her back.
Anyways, backtracking to the main storyline, at some point the two kids get lost in
I've already talked about the Sea Peoples in general, so today I will be focusing on their relations with Egypt, as after all we only know of them due to the various pharaonic inscriptions. So let's start at the beginning - we first learn of some of these peoples in the Kadesh inscriptions of Ramesses II (the Great). This pharaoh had already been ruling for almost 70 years, but at the very end of his reign (~1210 BCE) he still managed to fight off the invaders from the sea. This time they were mostly the Sherden, who may have come from Sardinia (or the other way around - that they migrated to Sardinia after the Bronze Age Collapse). They were defeated, but instead of being enslaved they were enlisted into the Egyptian army, either as bodyguards or regular soldiers.
The next Sea Peoples' invasions happened around 10 years later, with Merneptah now being the Egyptian pharaoh. He was in quite of a pickle, as at the same time as this Egypt was also being invaded by the Meshwesh from Libya, and also from the inside by many pretenders to the throne. Yet he succeeded in solving all these crises and the Sea Peoples were now once again defeated, those being Eqwesh (from Greece), Lukka (southwest Anatolia), Shekelesh (possibly from Sicily, or the other way around), even more Sherden, and Teresh (possibly from Troy, as it was destroyed right around this time).
By this point the Bronze Age Collapse had begun, and the civilizations of Mycenaean Greece, Hittites, and Cyprus soon fell, which produced even more refugees who joined the Sea Peoples. Around 1170 - 1150 BCE the third and largest invasion to Egypt began, with the old gang being now joined by Peleset (probably from Mycenaean Greece, who later settled in the southern Levant and became known as the Philistines), Tjeker (from Crete), Denyen, and Weshesh (both from Greece, possibly western Anatolia). The text is the inscription itself, detailing this invasion and mentioning the fallen civilizations (Hatti - Hittites, Alas
Auction
Time to talk about the Babylonian marriage market once again, as this is one of the more rememberable stories by Herodotus. Once a year, in every village, all women old enough to marry (but not yet married of course) would be gathered in a certain place (could be a building, but it could also have happened outside). The auctioneer then would present them one by one and put them up for sale, starting with the most attractive one. There were a lot of men there (not only from that village, but from other villages and even from the cities, as this event didn’t happen in cities) and they competed for the most attractive women, with the richest dudes (who usually arrived from the cities) winning. After that, the average looking women were put for sale, with average villagers buying them. Finally came the bad looking women, and the auctioneer would actually pay to anyone who would take them (using the money collected by selling attractive women). So, a win-win situation! For men, at least.
Now, I can’t say how credible this is, it could be just another case of Herodotus being Herodotus and writing down every tale he heard without checking. But to be honest, I think something like this could have happened, I wouldn’t put it past Babylon. I mean, if it did happen somewhere – that place would be ancient Babylonia, considering what other things went on there.
-Sanscydides
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Roman politics
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was a Roman politician in the mid-second century BCE. His highest reached office was the Tribune of the Plebs (basically a protector of the plebeian class in Rome, as the tribune could veto the actions of consuls and other magistrates, intervene on behalf of the plebeians in legal matters, convene and preside over the people's assembly, as well as do others things to protect the interests of the plebeians) in 133 BCE. He is known for proposing a law known as Lex Sempronia Agraria - a law which would limit the amount of land one citizen could own (no more than 500 jugera which is ~125 hectares).
This was one of the biggest problems in the Roman state, as very few citizens (the most wealthy ones with most slaves) owned most of the land, which left none of it for the middle-class army-serving Romans, forcing them to move to cities and look for other jobs. So while this reform was very popular among the regular people, the senators and other rich Romans vehemently opposed it. The Senate thus persuaded another tribune Marcus Octavius to veto it. Tiberius then proposed a vote to overturn the results of the last election and in this way remove his rival tribune. The people voted and Marcus Octavius lost his position, leaving Tiberius with no opposition to pass the law in the people's assembly.
This action was considered illegal and the Senate decided to prosecute him after his term ended. Tiberius, realizing that his life might be in danger after the year (in ancient Rome the term limits were one year) started running for re-election (which, while not technically illegal, wasn't really done by anyone). He even promised to shorten the military service, allow plebeians to act as jurors, and grant citizenship to Roman allies, all so he would have a better chance of winning. However, on the day of the election, he was warned that the senators are planning to kill him. One version of the events is that Tiberius gestured to his head to show that hi