IMAT Reading Skills and General Knowledge · History
The Ancient World: Early Civilisations, Greece and Rome
The first civilisations invented writing; Greece gave Europe the city-state and democracy; Rome built an empire and a Latin literature that schools still read.
Why this matters
This is the most asked era in the chapter. The 2023 ministry paper asked what a famous Latin prose work is, and the Cambridge papers asked about Greek city-states, Hannibal, the Rosetta Stone, the Seven Wonders and the borders of the Roman Empire.
Concept 1 of 5: Early civilisations and the birth of writing
Writing was invented where people first lived in cities and needed to record taxes, laws and trade. Each early civilisation is remembered for one thing it left behind: a script, a law code, a monument. Learn the civilisation, its modern country and its one famous object.
Definition
- Mesopotamia ("land between the rivers", the Tigris and Euphrates) is modern Iraq. The Sumerians there wrote cuneiform on clay tablets.
- Egypt wrote in hieroglyphs. They were deciphered thanks to the Rosetta Stone, which carries one decree in three scripts.
- The Phoenicians spread an alphabet of consonants that the Greeks adapted, adding vowels; Latin letters come from Greek.
- In the Americas the Maya, Aztecs and Incas built empires before Spanish conquest in the 1500s.
| Civilisation or object | Where (modern country) | Fact to remember |
|---|---|---|
| Sumerians | Southern Iraq | Cuneiform, one of the first writing systems, about 3200 BC |
| Babylon under Hammurabi | Iraq | Code of Hammurabi, a written law code of about 1750 BC ("an eye for an eye") |
| Ancient Egypt | Egypt, along the Nile | Hieroglyphs; the pyramids of Giza, built about 2500 BC |
| Rosetta Stone | Found in Egypt in 1799; now in the British Museum | One decree in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek; Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822 |
| Phoenicians | Lebanon coast; founded Carthage in Tunisia | Consonant alphabet, ancestor of the Greek and Latin alphabets |
| Maya | Southern Mexico, Guatemala | Hieroglyphic writing, precise calendar and astronomy |
| Aztecs | Central Mexico; capital Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) | Conquered by Hernán Cortés in 1521 |
| Incas | Andes, centred on Peru; capital Cusco | Machu Picchu; conquered by Francisco Pizarro from 1532 |
Practice this conceptself-check · 3 quick reps
Hieroglyphs belong to Egypt, cuneiform to Mesopotamia
Options swap the two. Egyptian writing is hieroglyphic and was decoded through the Rosetta Stone. Cuneiform (wedge-shaped marks on clay) is from Mesopotamia, the land of the Sumerians and Babylon. The Code of Hammurabi is written in cuneiform.
Concept 2 of 5: The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The list was drawn up by Greek writers as a tourist list of the most amazing human works around the eastern Mediterranean. Only one survives. The trick is to know the seven exactly, because the wrong options are famous monuments that are not on the list.
Definition
- The Seven Wonders are seven monuments listed by Hellenistic Greek writers (2nd century BC).
- Only the Great Pyramid of Giza, the oldest of them, still stands.
- Famous monuments that are not on the list: the Parthenon, the Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, Stonehenge, the Sphinx.
| Wonder | Where (today) | What happened to it |
|---|---|---|
| Great Pyramid of Giza | Egypt | Still standing: the only survivor |
| Hanging Gardens of Babylon | Iraq | Lost; some historians doubt they existed |
| Statue of Zeus at Olympia | Greece | Destroyed in late antiquity |
| Temple of Artemis at Ephesus | Turkey | Burnt and destroyed; a few ruins |
| Mausoleum at Halicarnassus | Bodrum, Turkey | Destroyed by earthquakes; gave us the word "mausoleum" |
| Colossus of Rhodes | Greece | Bronze statue of the sun god Helios, fell in an earthquake soon after it was built |
| Lighthouse (Pharos) of Alexandria | Egypt | Destroyed by earthquakes in the Middle Ages |
Practice this conceptself-check · 3 quick reps
Famous does not mean one of the Seven
The Parthenon, the Colosseum, the Great Wall and Stonehenge are world famous but are not among the Seven Wonders. The seven are the Pyramid, the Hanging Gardens, Zeus at Olympia, Artemis at Ephesus, the Mausoleum, the Colossus and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
Concept 3 of 5: Classical Greece: the polis, democracy and Alexander
Greece was never one country in ancient times. It was hundreds of small independent cities, each with its own laws and army, which sometimes united against an outside enemy and often fought each other. Athens and Sparta were the two great rivals, and Alexander of Macedon later carried Greek culture as far as India.
Definition
- A polis is a city-state: one city and its surrounding land, governing itself.
- Athenian democracy was direct: citizens voted in person in the Assembly. Only free adult male citizens could vote; women, slaves and foreigners could not.
- Sparta was a military state with two kings and a council of elders.
- Herodotus (the "father of history") wrote about the Persian Wars; Thucydides about the Peloponnesian War.
| Event or term | Date | What to remember |
|---|---|---|
| First Olympic Games | 776 BC | Held at Olympia in honour of Zeus |
| Reforms of Cleisthenes | 508 BC | Start of democracy in Athens |
| Persian Wars | 490 to 479 BC | Greek victories at Marathon (490), Salamis (480, at sea) and Plataea (479); the Spartans' last stand at Thermopylae (480) |
| Age of Pericles | About 461 to 429 BC | Golden age of Athens; the Parthenon built on the Acropolis |
| Peloponnesian War | 431 to 404 BC | Athens against Sparta; Sparta won |
| Alexander the Great | Reigned 336 to 323 BC | King of Macedon, pupil of Aristotle; conquered Persia and reached India; founded Alexandria in Egypt |
| Hellenistic age | 323 to 31 BC | Greek culture across the East; ended when Rome took Egypt after the battle of Actium |
Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps
Ancient democracy was direct, and narrow
Options describe Athens as if it were a modern parliament. It was not: citizens voted in person, with no elected representatives, and the vote belonged only to free adult men born of citizen families, a small part of the population.
Concept 4 of 5: Rome from foundation to fall: the key dates
Roman history has three stages: kings, then a republic, then emperors. The republic was destroyed by its own successful generals, Caesar above all, and his heir Augustus became the first emperor. Fix about eight dates and every Roman question can be placed in order.
Definition
- Monarchy (753 to 509 BC), Republic (509 to 27 BC, two consuls elected each year, advised by the Senate), Empire (from 27 BC).
- At its largest (AD 117, under Trajan) the empire reached from Britain and Spain to Egypt and Mesopotamia. Modern countries partly inside it include Portugal, Spain, France, Belgium, England, Slovenia, Romania, Egypt and Tunisia.
- Rome never ruled Ireland, Scotland's Highlands, Scandinavia (including Denmark) or most of Germany east of the Rhine.
- The empire split into West and East. The West ended in AD 476; the East (the Byzantine Empire, capital Constantinople) lasted until 1453.
| Date | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 753 BC | Legendary founding of Rome by Romulus | Romans counted years from it (ab urbe condita) |
| 509 BC | Last king expelled | The Republic begins |
| 264 to 146 BC | Three Punic Wars against Carthage | Hannibal of Carthage crossed the Alps with elephants in 218 BC; Carthage destroyed in 146 BC |
| 49 to 44 BC | Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, becomes dictator, is murdered on the Ides of March (15 March 44 BC) | The Republic collapses in civil war |
| 27 BC | Octavian receives the title Augustus | First emperor; start of the Pax Romana |
| AD 79 | Vesuvius erupts | Pompeii and Herculaneum buried |
| AD 313 | Edict of Milan by Constantine | Christianity tolerated; made the state religion by Theodosius in 380 |
| AD 476 | Last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, deposed by Odoacer | Conventional end of the Western Empire and of antiquity |
Practice this conceptself-check · 4 quick reps
Hannibal was Rome's enemy, not a Roman
Hannibal was a Carthaginian general, son of Hamilcar, who crossed the Alps to attack Rome. Options mix him with Roman leaders such as Octavian, Augustus or Mark Antony. Augustus and Octavian are the same man: Octavian took the title Augustus in 27 BC.
Caesar was never emperor
Julius Caesar was made dictator for life and was murdered in 44 BC, while Rome was still a republic in form. The first emperor was his adopted heir Octavian, called Augustus from 27 BC.
Summary — formulas & gotchas at a glance
A revision cheat-sheet for the formulas and gotchas above. Click any concept name to jump back to its full explanation.
Reference tables (5)
Early civilisations and the birth of writing8 rows
| Civilisation or object | Where (modern country) | Fact to remember |
|---|---|---|
| Sumerians | Southern Iraq | Cuneiform, one of the first writing systems, about 3200 BC |
| Babylon under Hammurabi | Iraq | Code of Hammurabi, a written law code of about 1750 BC ("an eye for an eye") |
| Ancient Egypt | Egypt, along the Nile | Hieroglyphs; the pyramids of Giza, built about 2500 BC |
| Rosetta Stone | Found in Egypt in 1799; now in the British Museum | One decree in hieroglyphs, Demotic and Greek; Champollion deciphered hieroglyphs in 1822 |
| Phoenicians | Lebanon coast; founded Carthage in Tunisia | Consonant alphabet, ancestor of the Greek and Latin alphabets |
| Maya | Southern Mexico, Guatemala | Hieroglyphic writing, precise calendar and astronomy |
| Aztecs | Central Mexico; capital Tenochtitlan (now Mexico City) | Conquered by Hernán Cortés in 1521 |
| Incas | Andes, centred on Peru; capital Cusco | Machu Picchu; conquered by Francisco Pizarro from 1532 |
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World7 rows
| Wonder | Where (today) | What happened to it |
|---|---|---|
| Great Pyramid of Giza | Egypt | Still standing: the only survivor |
| Hanging Gardens of Babylon | Iraq | Lost; some historians doubt they existed |
| Statue of Zeus at Olympia | Greece | Destroyed in late antiquity |
| Temple of Artemis at Ephesus | Turkey | Burnt and destroyed; a few ruins |
| Mausoleum at Halicarnassus | Bodrum, Turkey | Destroyed by earthquakes; gave us the word "mausoleum" |
| Colossus of Rhodes | Greece | Bronze statue of the sun god Helios, fell in an earthquake soon after it was built |
| Lighthouse (Pharos) of Alexandria | Egypt | Destroyed by earthquakes in the Middle Ages |
Classical Greece: the polis, democracy and Alexander7 rows
| Event or term | Date | What to remember |
|---|---|---|
| First Olympic Games | 776 BC | Held at Olympia in honour of Zeus |
| Reforms of Cleisthenes | 508 BC | Start of democracy in Athens |
| Persian Wars | 490 to 479 BC | Greek victories at Marathon (490), Salamis (480, at sea) and Plataea (479); the Spartans' last stand at Thermopylae (480) |
| Age of Pericles | About 461 to 429 BC | Golden age of Athens; the Parthenon built on the Acropolis |
| Peloponnesian War | 431 to 404 BC | Athens against Sparta; Sparta won |
| Alexander the Great | Reigned 336 to 323 BC | King of Macedon, pupil of Aristotle; conquered Persia and reached India; founded Alexandria in Egypt |
| Hellenistic age | 323 to 31 BC | Greek culture across the East; ended when Rome took Egypt after the battle of Actium |
Rome from foundation to fall: the key dates8 rows
| Date | Event | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 753 BC | Legendary founding of Rome by Romulus | Romans counted years from it (ab urbe condita) |
| 509 BC | Last king expelled | The Republic begins |
| 264 to 146 BC | Three Punic Wars against Carthage | Hannibal of Carthage crossed the Alps with elephants in 218 BC; Carthage destroyed in 146 BC |
| 49 to 44 BC | Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon, becomes dictator, is murdered on the Ides of March (15 March 44 BC) | The Republic collapses in civil war |
| 27 BC | Octavian receives the title Augustus | First emperor; start of the Pax Romana |
| AD 79 | Vesuvius erupts | Pompeii and Herculaneum buried |
| AD 313 | Edict of Milan by Constantine | Christianity tolerated; made the state religion by Theodosius in 380 |
| AD 476 | Last Western emperor, Romulus Augustulus, deposed by Odoacer | Conventional end of the Western Empire and of antiquity |
Latin authors and their major works10 rows
| Author | Main work | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Julius Caesar | De Bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War) | Caesar's own prose account of his conquest of Gaul, 58 to 50 BC, written in the third person |
| Cicero | Speeches against Catiline; De Re Publica; letters | Orator and statesman; the model of Latin prose style |
| Lucretius | De Rerum Natura | Poem explaining the Epicurean view that everything is made of atoms |
| Virgil | Aeneid; Georgics; Eclogues | Epic of Aeneas, who flees Troy and founds the Roman line in Italy; Dante's guide in the Divine Comedy |
| Horace | Odes; Satires; Ars Poetica | Lyric poet of the age of Augustus; source of "carpe diem" |
| Ovid | Metamorphoses | Poem of myths about transformations; Ovid was exiled by Augustus |
| Livy | Ab Urbe Condita | History of Rome from its founding |
| Seneca | Letters to Lucilius; tragedies | Stoic philosopher and tutor of the emperor Nero |
| Pliny the Elder | Naturalis Historia | Encyclopedia of the natural world; he died in the eruption of Vesuvius, AD 79 |
| Tacitus | Annals; Histories; Germania | Historian of the early emperors and of the Germanic peoples |
Watch out for (6)
- Hieroglyphs belong to Egypt, cuneiform to Mesopotamia→ Early civilisations and the birth of writing
- Famous does not mean one of the Seven→ The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
- Ancient democracy was direct, and narrow→ Classical Greece: the polis, democracy and Alexander
- Hannibal was Rome's enemy, not a Roman→ Rome from foundation to fall: the key dates
- Caesar was never emperor→ Rome from foundation to fall: the key dates
- De Bello Gallico is Caesar's prose, not a poem→ Latin authors and their major works
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