VCE Ancient History flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Polis

The Greek city-state: an urban centre with its surrounding territory and citizen body, governing itself through its own institutions, laws and cults.

Oikos

The Greek household as an economic and social unit, comprising family, slaves and property; central to Greek ideas about citizenship and property.

Ekklesia

The Athenian citizens' assembly, open to adult male citizens, which voted on decrees, war and peace, and elected or allotted officials.

Boule

The Athenian Council of 500, chosen by lot each year, which prepared the assembly's agenda and supervised many administrative matters.

Helots

A servile population of Laconia and Messenia bound to the land and worked for Spartan citizens, whose numbers underpinned Sparta's economy and fears.

Metic

A resident foreigner in Athens who was free but not a citizen, paying a special tax and requiring a citizen sponsor for legal dealings.

Eponymous archon

The chief Athenian magistrate after whom the year was named; used as the standard dating formula in Athenian public and literary records.

Consular dating

Roman practice of naming the two consuls of a year to identify it, the backbone of Republican chronology in literary and epigraphic sources.

Stratigraphy

The archaeological principle that layers are deposited in sequence, so lower layers are generally older; disturbed layers complicate interpretation.

Radiocarbon dating

A method measuring the decay of carbon-14 in organic remains to estimate age, requiring calibration against known reference curves for accurate results.

Corroboration

Accepting a historical claim more confidently when independent sources of different types or origins agree, rather than relying on a single witness.

Survival bias

The tendency of the surviving evidence to over-represent durable materials, elite viewpoints and texts copied through later centuries, distorting the ancient record.

Demos

The Athenian citizen people, both as a political body exercising power in the assembly and as a social grouping contrasted with elites.

Thucydides

Fifth-century BCE Athenian historian of the Peloponnesian War, known for speeches, critical source use and an analytical focus on power and human nature.

Herodotus

Fifth-century BCE historian of the Persian Wars, writing wide-ranging ethnographic and causal inquiry that blends oral testimony, travel and moral reflection.

Tacitus

Roman senator and historian writing under the Principate, whose Annals and Histories analyse imperial power with compressed, pointed and often hostile characterisation.

Res Gestae

Augustus' own funerary inscription summarising his offices, expenditures and achievements, a first-person justification of his position in the state.

Princeps

The title 'leading citizen' adopted by Augustus to describe his position, presenting personal influence and restored Republic rather than monarchy.

Auctoritas

Augustus' claimed personal authority or moral influence, distinguished in the Res Gestae from formal legal powers, which he says he held no more than colleagues.

Imperium

The formal power of command held by Roman magistrates, including military authority and jurisdiction, granted for a defined term and sphere.

Tribune of the plebs

A plebeian magistrate whose person was sacrosanct and who could veto acts of magistrates and the Senate, a key tool in late Republican politics.

Clientela

The Roman patronage relationship in which clients owed deference and services to patrons, who offered protection and support, structuring political and social life.

Delian League

The alliance led by Athens from 478/477 BCE against Persia, which became an Athenian empire through tribute, garrisons and control of member states.

Pericles

Athenian statesman repeatedly elected general from the 440s to 429 BCE, associated with democracy, public building and the strategy of the war with Sparta.

Alexander the Great

Macedonian king from 336 to 323 BCE whose campaigns conquered the Persian Empire, spreading Greek settlement and creating successor kingdoms after his death.

Augustus

Octavian, victor at Actium in 31 BCE, who from 27 BCE held a package of powers creating the Principate and reshaping Roman government for centuries.

Agrippina the Younger

Claudius' wife and Nero's mother, a Julio-Claudian woman whose influence and eventual murder illustrate dynastic power and its limits at Rome.

Historiography

The study of how history is written: historians' methods, assumptions, genres and contexts, and how these shape the accounts they produce.

Continuity and change

An analytical framework asking what persisted and what altered over a period, and whether changes were rapid, gradual, intended or unintended.

Cause and consequence

Analysis distinguishing structural, contingent and ideological causes of events, and separating short-term from long-term effects on a society.

Epigraphy

The study of inscriptions on stone, bronze or other durable materials, a major source for laws, decrees, honours and administrative records.

Numismatics

The study of coins, useful for chronology, economic history and political imagery, since coin types and legends were controlled by issuing authorities.