Europe - AP World History: Modern

Of these famous ancient Greek individuals, only Sophocles is famous for his dramatic, specifically tragic, plays. Socrates and Aristotle are both famous for their philosophical and scientific writings and teachings (Socrates taught Plato, who taught Aristotle, who taught Alexander the Great). Pericles was the most famous political figure in Republican Athens. Finally, Thucydides is remembered for his historical writings, particularly his History of the Peloponnesian War, a chronicling of a war that was fought between Athens and Sparta in the fifth Century BCE.

All of these men were ancient or classical historians. Thucydides famously wrote about the Peloponnesian War that was fought between Sparta and Athens; Herodotus is often considered “the Father of History” and wrote extensively on the history of wars between Greece and Persia; Livy was a Roman historian who wrote a colossal history of the Roman Empire; and Liu Xiang was a Chinese historian who lived from roughly 75 BCE to 6 BCE.

Draco and Solon are somewhat enigmatic figures in Ancient Athenian history. They were both lawmakers. Draco came first and extended democratic rights to those Ancient Greeks who were wealthy enough to afford armor (not the arbitrary distinction this might seem now, as these were the men who fought for/funded the defense of Athens). However, his laws were extremely harsh - prescribing punishment by death for just about every crime. It is from his name that we get the English word “draconian.” Draco’s legal system did little except pit the poor against the rich in Ancient Greece and so the Athenians turned to Solon to revise the political system in Athens. Although neither Draco nor Solon themselves created the institution of democracy in Athens, their legal codes and political reforms were the foundations upon which the original Athenian democratic society was able to grow.

The First Triumvirate of the Roman Empire was formed between Julius Caesar, Pompey Magnus, and Marcus Crassus. The Triumvirate had no legal authority and was formed solely to consolidate the power of these three men against the legal authority of the Roman Senate. Following Crassus' death, a civil war erupted betwen Pompey and Caesar that ended with Pompey's defeat and Caesar assuming the role of dictator of Rome until his assassination ten years later.

Thucydides is probably the most famous classical era historian. He is most famous for his writings on the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century B.C.E.

Euripides, Sophocles, and Aeschylus are the three Greek tragedians whose work has survived. Sophocles is probably the most famous of the three, although this is somewhat subjective, and he gave us the story of Oedipus.

Hippocrates is often considered to be the "Founder of Western Medicine." Among other things, Hippocrates is credited with advancing physiological and anatomical understanding. He also proposed the Hippocratic Oath which continues to influence doctors to this day.

According to Roman legend, the city of Rome was founded by twins Romulus and Remus in 753 BCE. This date would become extremely important as Rome established an empire over the entire Mediterranean, as they dated their years from this event, using the phrase "Ab Urbe Condita," or "from the founding of the city." This form of dating was the preferred usage in Europe until Christianity became dominant in the fifth century.

The story of Achilles, told famously in Homer's Odyssey and The Iliad, tells the tale of the Greek invasion of Troy and recounts the heroics of the Ancient Greek mythological hero.

The Roman pantheon of gods was very similar to the Greek pantheon of gods. The Roman equivalent of Zeus, the head god in the Greek religion, was Jupiter.

According to mythology, Romulus and Remus are two brothers who are raised by wolves in the wild. When they return to human society, they compete to found a city, and in the protracted disagreement, Romulus kills Remus and founds the city of Rome.

The two famous pieces of ancient Greek literature, The Odyssey and The Iliad, are a part of an oral tradition attributed to Homer.

As the question explains the Roman pantheon of Gods was based off of the Greek pantheon, but with different names. The head of the gods in Greece is Zeus, but in Roman religious practice his name is Jupiter. The only one of these which is incorrectly matched is Mercury and Athena. Mercury is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god of messengers called Hermes and Athena is the Greek version of the Roman god Minerva.

In Ancient Greek mythology the twelve primary gods and godesses live atop Mount Olympus. Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece and so a logical choice for a home for Gods in a religion where the gods routinely come down and intefere in the lives of humans.

Alaric the Visigoth was the leader of the Germanic "barbarian" people called the Visigoths. He is most famous for sacking Rome in 410 CE. This was a very crucial event in the fall of Rome. It was the first time the city had been sacked since Rome had become an empire, and it would be sacked twice more in the next century by the Vandals and the Ostrogoths.

Hadrian's Wall was built by the Emperor Hadrian in 122 CE to protect the Roman English territory from the raiding parties of the Celtic barbarians to the North in modern-day Scotland.

The Minoans lived on the island of Crete and were established traders and colonizers. The height of their civilization was between 3,000 and 2,000 BCE. They are thought to have settled in Greece and contributed to the rise of Greek culture. The Mycenaeans were people who lived in Greece from about 1,500 BCE to 1,000 BCE. They laid the foundations of the ancient Greek language and it is their culture that is described in Homer's Iliad.

The Carthaginian Empire arose in the 8th century B.C.E. when the Phoencian Queen Dido led a group of her people to North Africa to found a new settlement. The settlement quickly grew, absorbing Berber people along the way, and became the civilization of Carthage. Hannibal was the Carthaginian general who led an army of elephants over the Alps to attack the Roman Empire and defeated them on the battlefield. Famously he balked at sacking the city of Rome and allowed the Romans to recover, a decision that would eventually lead to his personal downfall and the downfall of his civilization.

As Christianity developed during the first century CE, its earliest followers were persecuted in the Roman Empire. Not until the Edict of Milan in 313 CE was Christianity even legal in the empire. Therefore "the widespread acceptance of Christianity" is the correct answer.

All of the other answer choices were true of Rome during the first century CE as it approached its height in the early second century CE.

The Roman Emperor held a number of different titles, including pontifex maximus, which is Latin for "chief priest". The title was held by Julius Caesar as a pre-Empire designation, but given to his adopted son Octavian. When Octavian became the first true Roman Emperor with the title Augustus, he kept the designation of pontifex maximus, which was passed on to later emperors.