Part 10 (2/2)

Unfortunately, a group of Huns called the Hephthalites were unimpressed. After several decades of fighting, the Gupta Empire fell to the Hephthalites about 550 CE, and India returned to a collection of small, and usually squabbling, kingdoms.

Africa:

Where Axum Is the Place to Be

Unlike Europe and Asia, the African continent was relatively devoid of mega-powers during this period. Most of North Africa, including what had been the mighty Egyptian empire, was under Roman control.

But that's not to say there weren't some significant things going on. The cultural influence of the Bantu, who had long used their mastery of iron forging to enhance their agricultural skills, spread both east and west from what is now Nigeria. The Bantu language and customs came to dominate other groups who were more hunters and gatherers than farmers.

At some point, the Berbers of North Africa came up with the idea of using domesticated camels to transport goods such as gold, ostrich feathers, and ivory from areas in West Africa, such as the kingdom of Ghana to ports on the Mediterranean.

But the happening place on the continent was in Northeast Africa, on the site of modern-day Ethiopia. It was Axum, a city-empire right smack on the trade routes between India, Arabia, and Africa. In addition to easy access from the land routes of Africa, Axum also enjoyed the advantage of the Indian Ocean's monsoon winds, which s.h.i.+fted directions with the seasons. That meant a s.h.i.+p could go back and forth within a year and sail downwind all the way.

Also known as Aksum, the city exported gold, ivory, rhinoceros horn, hippopotamus hides, slaves, imported textiles, metal goods, raw metals, and luxury goods.

The Greeks heavily influenced Axum. Its coins bore inscriptions in both Greek and the Axumite written language, Ge'ez. And starting in about 350 CE, the city was the only Christian state in Africa outside the areas still controlled by Rome.

The Americas:

Doing Their Own Thing

While not as impressive in size and scope as their Old World counterparts, several cultures in the Americas nonetheless had some accomplishments worth noting in the first five hundred years CE.

Chief among them were two groups in what is now Mexico. On the Yucatan Peninsula, the Maya were building a collection of city-states, literally carved out of the jungle. Although they lacked metal tools, plows, or wheels, the Maya developed a written language, an advanced calendar, some pretty solid astronomy, and architecture rivaling that of ancient Egypt.

In 455, they founded Chichen-Itza, a city covering six square miles, which included pyramids, temples, a ball field, and housing. Unlike their European and Asian counterparts, however, the Maya did not form a centralized government, and spent much of their time fighting among themselves.

On the Mexican mainland, a bit north of what is now Mexico City, a group of fierce warriors called the Teotihuacanos established a vast metropolis about 1 CE. By 500 CE the population of the city of Teotihuacan may have reached two hundred thousand. The city's Pyramid of the Sun was the largest structure in the pre-Columbian Americas.

Farther south, in southwest Peru, the Nazca culture was carving 780 miles of lines in the desert floor. With mathematical precision, they created lines forming figures of spiders, killer whales, and geometric shapes that could only be discerned from the air above. The Nazca also developed an efficient subterranean irrigation system and were masters at ceramics.

TEOTIHUACaN, ANYONE?.

If you can name the largest city in the world around 500 CE that had an economy based on a volcanic by-product, well, you could've been an Aztec-even though the city had nothing to do with the Aztecs.In fact, Teotihuacan rose and fell hundreds of years before the Aztecs came along. But they're the ones who gave the metropolis its name, which in English means ”City of the G.o.ds.” We don't know what the actual inhabitants called it.The city was situated about 30 miles northeast of what is now Mexico City. It covered about eight square miles at its peak, and was laid out along a precise grid, with a 2.5-mile-long main street.The city was dominated by the Pyramid of the Sun. It loomed 216 feet tall, covered 547,000 square feet at its base and required a million cubic yards of building material, mostly volcanic rock.Speaking of which, the economy was based on obsidian, which craftsmen turned into spearheads, knives, sc.r.a.pers, figurines, and masks, as well as incense burners, pottery, and other goods that were traded all over Central Mexico.By the mid-eighth century, however, the place was pretty much a ghost town. A huge fire, possibly sparked by raids from outside cultures such as the Toltecs, destroyed much of the city, and the population dispersed.

In Northern Peru, a people called the Moche used millions of adobe bricks to build huge tiered pyramids. Like the Nazca, they were masters at pottery work.

And in what is now the central United States, the Adena and the Hopewell were building flouris.h.i.+ng trading cultures. They also built elaborate burial mounds, at least one of which stood seventy feet high.

Like most of their European, Asian, and African counterparts, the Teotihuacanos, Nazca, Moche, Adena, and Hopewell were all but dim memories by the end of the sixth century.

But while much of what would be considered ”civilization” had yet to occur in the Americas, the rest of the world was approaching the early stages of Middle Age.

Or at least the early Middle Ages.

SLICE OR DICE?.

Judging by the records left behind in the form of various artwork, the Nazca preferred to cut the heads off their captives, while the Moche liked to slit their throats.

WHO'S UP, WHO'S DOWN

The Romans: SLOWLY DOWN SLOWLY DOWN

Unlike many empires whose destruction was often swift and could be attributed to a single cause (drought, plague, fast food), the Roman Empire saw its fall brought about by a number of factors, which actually took a few hundred years to occur.

Chief among the reasons may have been its sheer size. A big empire means long borders to defend, especially in a world full of envious neighboring empires and restless nations of have-nots. The Roman Empire was pressured, often simultaneously, from lots of different directions-the mounted nomadic tribes of the Asian Steppe, the Germanic tribes in what is now Northern and Central Europe, the Berber peoples in North Africa.

That meant having either to pay a big army to keep out invaders, or bribe potential invaders not to invade. Coupled with an economy that relied heavily on imports while producing relatively little in the way of goods themselves, the continual drain of maintaining a ma.s.sive defense system meant high inflation. In 98 CE, the Roman denarius was 93.0 percent silver; in 270 it was 0.02 percent silver.

Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off its cares; the people that once bestowed commands, consuls.h.i.+ps, legions and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things-bread and circuses.-Juvenal, a second-century Roman satirist writing about Rome's transition from republic to empire.

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