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citizen has a direct impact on every policy decision, since he has a vote on each issue

opportunity to speak and be heard, and there is an incentive for the community to be involved in town meetings, referenda and other elections.

power in the hands of the people,

opportunity to know about all of the important decisions, but they also have the responsibility to get the information necessary to understand the issues and make the best choices for laws and policies

transparency to government

accountable to the people.

opportunity to voice her concerns, it's more difficult to brush concerns aside or to hide uncomfortable issues.

apathy of some citizens who don't choose to attend town assemblies or vote can result in something more like a representative system than a pure democratic one. Direct democracy also involves many more elections, which can be both inconvenient and expensive. Finally, because direct democracy is usually effective only in small societies, the influence of the media and government officials may be stronger there than in a larger setting.

A tax farmer was a person who bought the right from the Senate to tax all the people and business in a certain area

didn't set up any controls

Tax farming was a business, and the tax farmers were in it to make a profit.

Plus, since the tax farmer decided who got taxed and who didn't, you could bribe the tax farmer to make your taxes low or maybe tax your competitors out of business, or if you had enough bribe money,

you and your entire family could be sold into slavery.

Rome was going broke.

Under Roman law you could pay someone to vote for you.

Since they bought the position from the Senate, the Senate set the amount it cost and decided who actually got the job

Senate decided who got to build the roads, arenas etc.  So construction companies bribed the Senate to get the construction contracts.  Finally since the Senate made all the laws, people could bribe senators to make laws that they wanted.

Since there was no police force, there was no one to stop them.

Wealthy Romans hired guards and even built their own small armies to protect their homes and families.

Senators didn't trust each other, and they really didn't trust the legions. 

They even passed laws making it illegal for a legion to enter Rome.

while Italy’s trade with Europe and Asia produced wealth that created a large market for art.

Perspective. To add three-dimensional depth and space to their work, Renaissance artists rediscovered and greatly expanded on the ideas of linear perspective, horizon line, and vanishing point.

Vanishing point: The vanishing point is the point at which parallel lines appear to converge far in the distance, often on the horizon line. This is the effect you can see when standing on railroad tracks and looking at the tracks recede into the distance.

Shadows and light. Artists were interested in playing with the way light hits objects and creates shadows. The shadows and light could be used to draw the viewer’s eye to a particular point in the painting.

Realism and naturalism. In addition to perspective, artists sought to make objects, especially people, look more realistic. They studied human anatomy, measuring proportions and seeking the ideal human form. People looked solid and displayed real emotions, allowing the viewer to connect with what the depicted persons were thinking and feeling.

studying the world around them.

Rich families became patrons and commissioned great art. Artists advanced the Renaissance style of showing nature and depicting the feelings of people.

Bishops had become so powerful that it was mandatory for the king to take orders and consult the Bishop in everyday affairs over the state.

f you were born in one class of the society, you belonged to that class for your entire life with no chances of improving your status through hard work.

They were generally from a noble family or a wealthy family from some town.

He used to take tours around the country to many churches within the country. There was a seat reserved for the Bishop in every church in the country.

Listening to the plights of all the priests and clergymen below him; Levy taxes on the peasants; Settling of important issues such as annulment of marriage; Maintaining an army of his own to assist the king during war; Leading his army in the war was common in the Early Middle Ages for Bishops; Take care of the spiritual soundness of his diocese; Implement the code of the church in the diocese; Take care of the business of the church in their diocese and supervise the priests, nuns and monks in their activities.

he first constructions in Timbuktu were designed by African architects from Djenne and later on by Muslim architects from North Africa. Trade and knowledge were at their height.

Timbuktu became a celebrated center of Islamic learning and a commercial establishment. Timbuktu had three universities and 180 Quranic schools. These universities were the Sankore University, Jingaray Ber University and Sidi Yahya University. This was the golden age of Africa. Books were not only written in Timbuktu, but they were also imported and copied there. There was an advanced local book copying industry in the city. The universities and private libraries contained unparalleled scholarly works. The famous scholar of Timbuktu Ahmad Baba who was among those forcibly exiled in Morocco claimed that his library of 1600 books had been plundered, and that his library, according to him, was one of the smaller in the city.

The booming economy of Timbuktu attracted the attention of the Emperor of Mali, Mansa Mussa (1307-1332) also known as “Kan Kan Mussa.” He captured the city in 1325. As a Muslim, Mansa Mussa was impressed with the Islamic legacy of Timbuktu. On his return from Mecca, Mansa Mussa brought with him an Egyptian architect by the name of Abu Es Haq Es Saheli.

The Emperor also brought Arabs scholars to Timbuktu. To his great surprise, the Emperor has found that these scholars are underqualified compared to the black scholars of Timbuktu

Mansa Mussa's pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324 had made Mali known worldwide. The great rulertook 60,000 porters with him. Each porter carried 3 kilograms of pure gold, that is, 180,000 kilograms or at least 180 tons of gold (Reference: Volume IV UNESCO General History of Africa, pages 197-200). He had so much gold with him that when he stopped in Egypt, the Egyptian currency lost its value and as result, the name of Mali and Timbuktu appeared on the 14th century world map.

The geographical features of ancient Greece contributed to its advantage and disadvantage.

Greece is a strategic location for empire building because it served as the crossroads between Africa, Asia and Europe

climate, the mountains and the seas

temperate, making it comfortable to the people to be outside of their homes almost every year. This allowed them to engage in outdoor life within their city-states. They were able to interact with each other which enabled them to organize outdoor activities such as athletic competitions, public gatherings, entertainment and art shows, and meetings, which facilitate to the development of a rich and distinct Greek culture.

mountains

Almost 70 to 80 percent of Greece is covered and dominated with mountains

advantage of the mountains is that they contributed to the preservation of the purity of Greek culture.

were secluded to their area resulting to rare interactions with other cultures.

served as a natural barrier which acted like walls separating different communities.

hindered communication among communities and slowed down the introduction of new ideas and technology.

unified system of government

polis or the city-state

democratic government works better in smaller states

protection and security to the inhabitants.

disadvantage of this geographical feature is that only few lands were dedicated to farming

isadvantage is the the rocky lands and poor soil which are not suitable for the domestication of plants.

olives and grapes

domesticated sheeps and cattles as an alternative to farming

Having been surrounded by three major bodies of water served as an advantage because it allowed early Greeks to travel and trade

Greece to major trade routes allowed the prosperity in maritime commerce (

became fishers, sailors and merchants

excelled in ship buildings and voyaging because of their knowledge about seas around them

Greeks to depend heavily on trade

could not grow through trading

olive oil, wine, wool and pottery with grains and other natural resources, which had a limited supply during that time

trade encouraged cultural diffusion

Hellenistic culture

A farmer could now trade grain for meat, or milk for a pot, at the local market, which was seldom too far away.

where the climate and natural resources produced different things.

but was lucrative for the middlemen willing to make the journey.

luxury goods like spices, textiles and precious metals.

Cities that were rich in these commodities became financially rich, too, satiating the appetites of other surrounding regions for jewelry, fancy robes and imported delicacies.

linking cultures for the first time in history.

By the second millennium BC, former backwater island Cyprus had become a major Mediterranean player by ferrying its vast copper resources to the Near East and Egypt, regions wealthy due to their own natural resources such as papyrus and wool. Phoenicia, famous for its seafaring expertise, hawked its valuable cedar wood and linens dyes all over the Mediterranean. China prospered by trading jade, spices and later, silk. Britain shared its abundance of tin.

another was by sea

Cities grew up in the fertile basins on the borders of those rivers and then expanded by using their watery highways to import and export goods.

Women were not citizens and therefore could not vote or have any say in the political process.

about 20 percent of the population of Athens were citizens.

In Athenian democracy, every citizen was required to participate or suffer punishment.

Slaves and foreigners were not citizens and also could not participate in the democracy.

feudalism was a political arrangement that provided for the performance of these functions of government by a class of landed nobles.  Nobles bound by an interdependent system of personal ties; the heart was the feudal contract, which established relations between lord and vassal, the most important of which were protection and service.

knights were to be Christian, brave, faithful, generous, and protective of women and the poor; evidence of this code may be found the French epic The Song of Roland and the Spanish El Cid.

which supported the lord, his family, and his soldiers.  Landed estate organized as manors; each a self-supporting economic unit; the lord provided the land and protection; serfs provided the labor.

Serfs (=landless peasants) bound to the soil; could not be bought or sold individually; they passed new owners when land changed hands.  Medieval farming methods primitive; yield was low

The law followed in a feudal court was largely based on old Germanic customs. The court did not act in the public interest, as with us, but waited until the plaintiff requested service. Moreover, until the case had been decided, the accuser and the accused received the same treatment. Both were imprisoned; and the plaintiff who lost his case suffered the same penalty which the defendant, had he been found guilty, would have undergone.

The burden of proof lay on the accused, who had to clear himself of the charge, if he could do so.

Ordeals, however, formed a method of appealing to God, the results of which could be immediately observed. A common form of ordeal was by fire. The accused walked barefoot over live brands, or stuck his hand into a flame, or carried a piece of red-hot iron for a certain distance. In the ordeal by hot water he plunged his arm into boiling water. A man established his innocence through one of these tests, if the wound healed properly after three days. The ordeal by cold water rested on the belief that pure water would reject the criminal. Hence the accused was thrown bound into a stream: if he floated he was guilty; if he sank he was innocent and had to be rescued. Though a crude method of securing justice, ordeals were doubtless useful in many instances. The real culprit would often prefer to confess, rather than incur the anger of God by submitting to the test and ordeals.

a trial by combat.

very little known about the detailed life of peasants in Europe because the lords and the clergy did not keep records of the peasants

only

early records were concerning

duties

peasants owed their masters

slaves and serfs.

manors were divided into two:

Those who were full time servants would work every day of the week and would get a break to attend Mass on Sundays. Peasants were forbidden from leaving the lord’s manor without seeking permission. The condition of serfdom was hereditary and one would be tied to his master unless he saved enough to purchase some land or if he married a free person.  At the end of the twelfth century, the ties that bound peasants to their masters began to loosen.

Peasant life in the Middle Ages was confined to the manors,

The lords had great influence over the lives of the peasants;

Majority of the peasants worked three days a week in their lord’s land but they would work longer during the harvest and plantation periods

was where the peasants worked, tilled the land, planted and harvested on

he Church offered help to the neediest peasants in the form of food and necessities.

behalf of the lord

he peasants would receive a larger piece of land as long as they adhered to the condition that they work on the lord’s land before working on their own.

The plows and horses were so few and the peasants themselves spent the entire day working in the “demense”.

peasant also tended to the horses and cattle in meadows

Most peasants did not do much other than working, going to church and the occasional celebration.

hardly travelled outside their villages but they did have a sense of community amongst themselves

Peasant life was generally marked by having few possessions in the home

houses were basic shacks with benches, stools, wooden cups, bowls and spoons. Most households had a chest of drawers where the family would keep their valuable items. Peasants hardly slept on beds; they slept on straw mattresses on the floor. Given that they had few possessions even in terms of personal attires, they typically slept with their work apparels and covered themselves with animal skin.

Women

a small garden behind their house.

one part of the land, the “demense”

Church was also a source of education mainly for the peasant’s children who attended the local school that was part of the church. The peasants looked to the priests for baptism, marriage, and performance of last rites for the dying.  Christianity guided the moral decisions that peasant men and women made in their day-to-day life.

Education was meager and only available to a select group of boys.

young girls helped with chores in the house and they were married off as soon as they attained maturity; this was usually at the young age of thirteen or sixteen years.

Societal and economic development saw the rapid rise of cities and towns. As the ties between serfs and their masters became lose, the peasants were able to rent land and some even migrated to the towns. Catastrophes such as the Black Death, a plague that killed thousands of peasants made it difficult for lords to find peasants to work in their farms.