Important Questions: An Empire Across Three Continents | History Class 11 - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

Very Short Answer Type Questions

Q1: What are the sources worth reckoning about the Roman and Iranian empires?
Ans: These are:

• Textual sources including accounts of contemporary historians,
• Documentary sources including inscriptions and papyri, and
• Material remains including the things discovered by archaeologists through excavation and field surveys.

Q2: Mention the area controlled by Iran.
Ans: It was extended:

• From the south to the Caspian Sea,
• Down to eastern Arabia, and
• Larger parts of Afghanistan.

Q3: What do you understand by the term Princeps?
Ans: It was a Latin term meaning:

• Leading citizen, i.e. ‘the first citizen of the empire’ or ‘the emperor’.

Q4: What was seen specifically in the Roman empire?
Ans: It was its diverse culture that was bound together by:

• A common system of government.
• Briefly, it can be stated that there was unity in diversity in terms of the diverse cultures of people.

Q5: What was the specific or chief organ of government in the Roman Empire?
Ans: It was the army. As the available records of contemporary history state:

• There was a vast army consisting of six lakh soldiers in the fourth century.
• This organ of government had the power to determine the fate of emperors.

Q6: What do you understand by gender in connection with Roman society?
Ans: The term ‘gender’ incorporates in its scope:

• The family structure, and
• Other similar institutions of society in connection with the Roman empire.

Q7: What meaning does the term culture reflect on the culture of people during the Roman empire that existed from the first to the third half-century?
Ans: It implies the diverse nature of society:

• Learned about seven different languages, including Greek and Latin,
• Both were accepted as administrative languages, or
• It may be stated that these languages were patronized by the then rulers.

Q8: What is the condition of Egypt during the sixth century under Justinian, the ruler of the Roman empire?
Ans: It was:

• A more densely settled part of the empire in the fifth and sixth centuries than it would be even in the twentieth century.
• Income from taxes from those regions was worked out over 2.5 million solidi (gold coin) per year.
• It was equivalent to 35,000 pounds of gold.

Short Answer Type Questions

Q9: It is said that some specific events and circumstances add new words to the vocabulary. Can you state the event that added the term Draconian? Please, explain.
Ans: Yes, “Draconian” a specific term got popularity owing to Draco, the Greek lawmaker in the Roman empire.

• He, during the early sixth century B.C.E., had recommended a law in 398 C.E., which referred to workers being branded so they could be recognized if and when they ran away and tried to hide.
• It was gross inhuman treatment of the laborers i.e. the main active and sensitive part of the project/work.
• Hence, the pains inflicted upon labourers by branding so severe and harsh to mankind would have accumulated.
• Said law, we see, added to the dictionary since then for all kinds of rules, regulations, decrees, orders, implications, and ordinances equally implied.

Q10: Describe the living standard of aristocrats (nobles) during the Roman Empire.
Ans: These were those rich people called members of the senate in government, like councillors of the modern period.

• They owned a medium city-like area with all affluent and appurtenance facilities and ease.
• Hippodromes, fora, temples, fountains, and different kinds of baths were essential components of their possession.
• Every councillor had an income of 4,000 pounds of gold per annum from their properties, not including grain, rice, and other produce, which, if sold, would have exchanged for at least 1500 pounds.
• The second-class people came into being when Gallienus imposed a prohibition on the recruitment of senators into the army in order to prevent control of the empire from falling into their hands.
• Their income was one thousand or fifteen hundred pounds of gold per year.
• It has been mentioned by Olympiodorus, the historian of that period.

Q11: Who was Nero and why is he famous even today?
Ans: Nero was a Roman citizen known to the Greek language and one of the extremists among the slaves/workers/workmen coerced and tortured badly by their factory owners, landowners, and senators.

• He led the motion violently when a slave convicted as the murderer of Lucius Pedanius Secundus was being taken to execute under the order of the senate.
• He rebuked the population for watching deafly; the injustice, so severe, practised on the slaves.
• The crowd was ready to attack senators, and the jailer got blows of stones and was tortured in their hands.
• This was the first mass agitation led by Nero.

Q12: Describe some less-advanced states under the Roman Empire.
Ans:

• Numidia (modern Algeria) witnessed transhumance during the Roman Empire.
• There were pastoral and semi-nomadic communities.
• Transhumance was the regular animal movement of the herdsmen between the higher mountain regions and low-lying ground in search of pasture for sheep and other flocks.
• They had oven-shaped huts (Papalia) with them, all portable.
• In Spain, the villages called Costella were inhabited by the Celtic-speaking peasantry.
• However, with the expansion of Roman estates in North Africa, the pastures of these communities were drastically reduced and their movements more tightly regulated.

Q13: Discuss the traditional religious culture of Greece and Rome under the Roman Empire.
Ans:

• Both Greeks and Romans were polytheist.
• There were numerous cults in which gods like Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and Mars, along with several Greek and Eastern deities, were worshipped in thousands of temples, shrines, and sanctuaries throughout the empire.
• The above were mainly Roman/Italian gods.
• Polytheists had no common name or label to describe themselves.
• Judaism was diverse within the Jewish communities of late antiquity.
• Bishops were orthodox types and used to criticize the common Christians for beliefs and practices they did thereupon.
• They made a very rigid set of beliefs and practices.

Q14: Who was humiliated?

Ans: Humilores was the term incorporating jointly all lower classes of Roman society.

• They conferred a rural labour force, of which many were permanently employed on large estates.
• Workers in industrial and mining departments.
• Migrant workers for the grain and olive harvests.
• Building industry i.e. construction of houses, public-houses including palaces.
• Self-employed artisans were better fed than wage labourers (in big cities), including slaves.

Long Answer Type Questions

Q15: Outline the Roman administration, the structure of society, gender, literacy, culture, and economic expansion under the Roman Empire.
Ans: We would like to answer this question under the following sub-heads:
Administration:

• It was an aristocratic form of government.
• The administration was done through provinces under a single emperor.

Organs of the Roman government were:

• The emperor,
• The senate (wealthy families, mostly landowners),
• The army (equities consisting of ship owners, bankers, traders, and landowners, knights categorized under the middle class),
• The Humiliores (lower class) consisting of plebs Sordida addicted to the circus and theatrical displays and finally, the slaves.

Tacitus, the contemporary writer, says that the middle class was a client to the great senatorial houses.

• Early administration was called Principate alias aristocracy, in which the emperor was Princep (leading citizen), not the absolute ruler, but in reality, he exercised the real power.
• The senate was powerful till it was a republic, consisting of the wealthiest families of Roman and later, Italian descent.
• Some emperors treated the senatorial class with suspicion, brutality, and violence.
• Urban centres were developed, and a large portion of income was derived from taxation on provinces, urban centres, and villages.

Gender:

• Women were given independent legal rights.
• They were made heirs to their natal family's property.
• They could own and manage property independently.
• They were not transferred to their husband’s authority after marriage.
• Women were free to divorce their husbands, and the husbands were free to divorce their wives, requiring only a notice of intent to dissolve the marriage.
• Despite these rights, male domination was apparent, as described by Saint Augustine, who wrote about the coercive treatment of his father towards his mother.
• A large gap existed between the marriageable age of boys (30 years) and girls (19 years), leading to inequality.

Literacy:

• Advertisements and graffiti (wall writing) in Pompeii reveal casual literacy.
• The papyri survived for hundreds of years, including documents such as contracts written by professional scribes.
• The general public was illiterate, but soldiers, army officers, and estate managers were well educated.
• Languages used: Greek, Latin, Celtic, Aramaic, and Coptic.
• Greek and Latin were widely used and patronized by the emperor.
• Aramaic and Coptic were mostly in oral form as they had no developed script.

Culture:

• The diversity of religious cults and local deities was observed throughout the Roman Empire.
• There were multiple languages, including Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Coptic, and Celtic.
• Diversity was observed in dress styles, food habits, social organization (tribal/non-tribal), and settlement patterns.
• Aramaic was the dominant language group of the Near East (west of the river Euphrates).

Economic Expansion:

• The economic infrastructure consisted of harbours, mines, quarries, brickyards, and olive oil factories.
• Major trading items were wheat, wine, and olive oil.
• Wine and olive oil were transported in containers called amphorae.
• Spanish olive oil was mainly carried in a container called Dressel-20.
• North Africa became a major producer of olive oil.
• Major exporters of wine and olive oil (5th & 6th centuries): Aegean, southern Asia Minor (Turkey), Syria, and Palestine.
• Producer regions: Campania (Italy), Sicily, Fayum (Egypt), Galilee, Byzantium (Tunisia), southern Gaul (Gallia Narbonensis), and Baetica (Southern Spain).
• Well-organized commercial and banking networks.
• Water-powered milling technology and hydraulic mining techniques were developed.
• Papyri from the 4th-7th centuries reveal an affluent society where money was in extensive use.
• Egypt alone contributed taxes of over 2.5 million solidi (gold coins), roughly equal to 35,000 lbs of gold.

Social Hierarchies:
The hierarchy of society consisted of:

• Senators (Patres),
• Leading members of the equestrian class,
• People attached to the great houses,
• Plebs Sordida (lower class),
• Slaves.
• Two-thirds of senators were of Italian families.
• Middle class: Government servants, army, ship owners, traders, and bankers.
• Lower class: Humiliores, rural labourers, industry and mine workers, seasonal agricultural workers, construction workers, self-employed artisans, and slaves.
• Silver coins were exhausted in the 4th century, and gold coins circulated.
• Emperor Constantine I founded a new monetary system based on gold.
• Industrial and mining sectors contributed significant income.

Q16: How independent were women in the Roman world? Compare the situation of the Roman family with the family in India today.
Ans:

• Women had the right to inherit property from their fathers.
• They became independent property owners after their father’s death.
• The dowry system was prevalent.
• Married couples were not a single financial entity, and wives had legal independence.
• Women could divorce their husbands with a simple notice of intent.
• Marriageable age:
  • Males: Late 20s or early 30s.
  • Females: Late teens or early 20s.
• This age gap led to inequality in marriages.
• Most marriages were arranged.
• Women often faced domination by their husbands.
• Saint Augustine mentioned that his mother and most other women were regularly beaten by their husbands.
• Fathers had the legal right to kill unwanted children by exposing them to the cold.
• In India today:
  • Indian Succession (Reforms) Act, 2005 grants women equal rights to inherit property.
  • Divorce cases are increasing.
  • Women have 33% reservation in assemblies and parliament.

Q17: Who were plebs Sordida? Do they resemble modern film stars and sportsmen? How?
Ans:

• Plebs Sordida were the unkempt lower class in the Roman Empire, addicted to circus and theatre displays, including slaves.
• Their activities were confined to observing the moods of their owners (mostly senators) and keeping them entertained.
• No laws protected them from execution.
• They resemble modern film stars and sportsmen, as both are sources of public entertainment.
• Theatrical qualities are still preferred by the public, influencing media and culture.
• Entertainment today has become globalized, shaping modern society.

Q18: What period is referred to as “Late Antiquity,” and why is this phrase used?
Ans:

• The period from the 4th to the 7th century C.E. is called Late Antiquity.
• It represents the transition from the ancient to the medieval period.
• Constantine and Diocletian were key rulers.
• Diocletian divided power between the army and civilians, limiting the influence of senators.
• Constantine continued this division, bringing economic stability with gold solidus coins (4.5 grams each).
• Byzantium (modern Istanbul) was established as the new capital.
• Cottage industries and factories were promoted.

Q19: Name the three writers who described labour conditions in Rome and explain two labour control methods.
Ans:

• Writers: Tacitus, Columella, and Pliny the Elder.
• Two labour control methods:
  • Grouping slaves in teams (each group of ten) and sternly supervising them.
  • Chaining slaves together by their feet to reduce supervision costs and prevent escape.

Q20: Discuss the Roman bureaucracy during the early 5th century C.E.
Ans:

• The bureaucracy was affluent, as salaries were paid in gold.
• Corruption was rampant in administration and military supplies.
• Provincial governors were corrupt.
• Laws were passed to curb corruption.
• The government responded with violence to protests.
• Bishop Ambrose protested against the repression of civilians.