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5,400 | SpaceX's low launch prices, especially for communications satellites flying to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), have resulted in market pressure on its competitors to lower their own prices. Prior to 2013, the openly competed comsat launch market had been dominated by Arianespace (flying the Ariane 5) and International Launch Services (flying the Proton). With a published price of US$56.5 million per launch to low Earth orbit, Falcon 9 rockets were the cheapest in the industry. European satellite operators are pushing the ESA to reduce launch prices of the Ariane 5 and the future Ariane 6 rockets as a result of competition from SpaceX. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,401 | SpaceX ended the United Launch Alliance (ULA) monopoly of U.S. military payloads when it began to compete for national security launches. In 2015, anticipating a slump in domestic, military, and spy launches, ULA stated that it would go out of business unless it won commercial satellite launch orders. To that end, ULA announced a major restructuring of processes and workforce in order to decrease launch costs by half. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,402 | Congressional testimony by SpaceX in 2017 suggested that the NASA Space Act Agreement process of "setting only a high-level requirement for cargo transport to the space station [while] leaving the details to industry" had allowed SpaceX to design and develop the Falcon 9 rocket on its own at a substantially lower cost. According to NASA's own independently verified numbers, SpaceX's total development cost for the Falcon 9 rocket, including the Falcon 1 rocket, was estimated at US$390 million. In 2011, NASA estimated that it would have cost the agency about US$4 billion to develop a rocket like the Falcon 9 booster based upon NASA's traditional contracting processes, about ten times more. In May 2020, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine remarked that thanks to NASA's investments into SpaceX, the United States has 70% of the commercial launch market, a major improvement since 2012 when there were no commercial launches from the country. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,403 | In November 2022, the company announced COO Gwynne Shotwell and vice president Mark Juncosa would oversee Starbase, its Texas launch facility, along with Omead Afshar, who at the time oversaw operations for Tesla in Texas. Shyamal Patel, who was senior director of operations at the site, would shift to its Cape Canaveral site. "CNBC" reported that these executive moves demonstrated "the sense of urgency within the company to get Starship flying." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,404 | According to former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver, the company overall has a male-dominated employee culture, similar to that of the spaceflight industry in general. In December 2021, claims of workplace sexual harassment from five former SpaceX employees, ranging from interns to full engineers, were published. The former employees claimed to have experienced unwanted advances and uncomfortable interactions. Additionally, the accounts included claims of a culture of sexual harassment existing at the company and one where complaints made to executives, managers, and human resources officers went largely unaddressed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,405 | In May 2022, a Business Insider article alleged that Musk engaged in sexual misconduct with a SpaceX flight attendant in a private jet in 2016 citing an anonymous friend of a flight attendant. In response, some employees collaborated on an open letter condemning "Elon's harmful Twitter behavior". It also asks the company to clearly define SpaceX's "no-asshole" and "zero tolerance" policies, which it says is unequally enforced from one employee to the next. The next day, Gwynne Shotwell announced that those employees who were involved with the letter had been terminated and claimed that unsponsored, unsolicited surveys were repeatedly sent to thousands of people during the work day, and that some felt pressured to sign the letter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,406 | The company has also been described as having a work culture that pushes employees to work excessively, and was described as a burnout culture. According to a memo by Blue Origin, SpaceX expected very long work hours, work on weekends, and limited use of holidays. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=832774 |
5,407 | Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in Athens in the early 3rd century BCE. It is a philosophy of personal virtue ethics informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world, asserting that the practice of virtue is both necessary and sufficient to achieve (happiness, ): one flourishes by living an ethical life. The Stoics identified the path to with a life spent practicing the cardinal virtues and living in accordance with nature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,408 | The Stoics are especially known for teaching that "virtue is the only good" for human beings, and that external things, such as health, wealth, and pleasure, are not good or bad in themselves ("adiaphora") but have value as "material for virtue to act upon". Alongside Aristotelian ethics, the Stoic tradition forms one of the major founding approaches to virtue ethics. The Stoics also held that certain destructive emotions resulted from errors of judgment, and they believed people should aim to maintain a will (called "prohairesis") that is "in accordance with nature". Because of this, the Stoics thought the best indication of an individual's philosophy was not what a person said but how a person behaved. To live a good life, one had to understand the rules of the natural order since they thought everything was rooted in nature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,409 | Many Stoics—such as Seneca and Epictetus—emphasized that because "virtue is sufficient for happiness", a sage would be emotionally resilient to misfortune. This belief is similar to the meaning of the phrase "stoic calm", though the phrase does not include the traditional Stoic view that only a sage can be considered truly free and that all moral corruptions are equally vicious. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,410 | Stoicism flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century CE, and among its adherents was Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It experienced a decline after Christianity became the state religion in the 4th century CE. Since then, it has seen revivals, notably in the Renaissance (Neostoicism) and in the contemporary era (modern Stoicism). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,411 | Stoicism was originally known as Zenonism, after the founder Zeno of Citium. However, this name was soon dropped, likely because the Stoics did not consider their founders to be perfectly wise and to avoid the risk of the philosophy becoming a cult of personality. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,412 | The name "Stoicism" derives from the "Stoa Poikile" (Ancient Greek: ἡ ποικίλη στοά), or "painted porch", a colonnade decorated with mythic and historical battle scenes on the north side of the Agora in Athens where Zeno and his followers gathered to discuss their ideas. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,413 | The word "stoic" commonly refers to someone who is indifferent to pain, pleasure, grief, or joy. The modern usage as a "person who represses feelings or endures patiently" was first cited in 1579 as a noun and in 1596 as an adjective. In contrast to the term "Epicurean", the "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"s entry on Stoicism notes, "the sense of the English adjective 'stoical' is not utterly misleading with regard to its philosophical origins". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,414 | The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logic, monistic physics, and naturalistic ethics. Of these, they emphasized ethics as the main focus of human knowledge, though their logical theories were of more interest for later philosophers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,415 | Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions; the philosophy holds that becoming a clear and unbiased thinker allows one to understand the universal reason ("logos"). Stoicism's primary aspect involves improving the individual's ethical and moral well-being: ""Virtue" consists in a "will" that is in agreement with Nature". This principle also applies to the realm of interpersonal relationships; "to be free from anger, envy, and jealousy", and to accept even slaves as "equals of other men, because all men alike are products of nature". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,416 | The Stoic ethic espouses a deterministic perspective; in regard to those who lack Stoic virtue, Cleanthes once opined that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes". A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy", thus positing a "completely autonomous" individual will and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic single whole". This viewpoint was later described as "Classical Pantheism" (and was adopted by Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,417 | Beginning around 301 BCE, Zeno taught philosophy at the "Stoa Poikile" ("Painted Porch"), from which his philosophy got its name. Unlike the other schools of philosophy, such as the Epicureans, Zeno chose to teach his philosophy in a public space, which was a colonnade overlooking the central gathering place of Athens, the Agora. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,418 | Zeno's ideas developed from those of the Cynics, whose founding father, Antisthenes, had been a disciple of Socrates. Zeno's most influential follower was Chrysippus, who was responsible for molding what is now called Stoicism. Later Roman Stoics focused on promoting a life in harmony within the universe over which one has no direct control. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,419 | No complete works survived from the first two phases of Stoicism. Only Roman texts from the Late Stoa survived. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,420 | Stoicism became the foremost popular philosophy among the educated elite in the Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire to the point where, in the words of Gilbert Murray, "nearly all the successors of Alexander [...] professed themselves Stoics". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,421 | Diodorus Cronus, who was one of Zeno's teachers, is considered the philosopher who first introduced and developed an approach to logic now known as propositional logic, which is based on statements or propositions, rather than terms, differing greatly from Aristotle's term logic. Later, Chrysippus developed a system that became known as Stoic logic and included a deductive system, Stoic Syllogistic, which was considered a rival to Aristotle's Syllogistic (see Syllogism). New interest in Stoic logic came in the 20th century, when important developments in logic were based on propositional logic. Susanne Bobzien wrote, "The many close similarities between Chrysippus's philosophical logic and that of Gottlob Frege are especially striking". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,422 | Bobzien also notes that, "Chrysippus wrote over 300 books on logic, on virtually any topic logic today concerns itself with, including speech act theory, sentence analysis, singular and plural expressions, types of predicates, indexicals, existential propositions, sentential connectives, negations, disjunctions, conditionals, logical consequence, valid argument forms, theory of deduction, propositional logic, modal logic, tense logic, epistemic logic, logic of suppositions, logic of imperatives, ambiguity and logical paradoxes". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,423 | The Stoics held that all beings (ὄντα)—though not all things (τινά)—are material. Besides the existing beings they admitted four incorporeals (asomata): time, place, void, and sayable. They were held to be just 'subsisting' while such a status was denied to universals. Thus, they accepted Anaxagoras's idea (as did Aristotle) that if an object is hot, it is because some part of a universal heat body had entered the object. But, unlike Aristotle, they extended the idea to cover all accidents. Thus, if an object is red, it would be because some part of a universal red body had entered the object. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,424 | Stoics outlined what we have control over categories of our own action, thoughts and reaction. The opening paragraph of the "Enchiridion" states the categories as: "Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in a word, whatever are not our own actions." These suggest a space that is within our own control. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,425 | The Stoics propounded that knowledge can be attained through the use of reason. Truth can be distinguished from fallacy—even if, in practice, only an approximation can be made. According to the Stoics, the senses constantly receive sensations: pulsations that pass from objects through the senses to the mind, where they leave an impression in the imagination (phantasiai) (an impression arising from the mind was called a phantasma). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,426 | The mind has the ability to judge (συγκατάθεσις, "synkatathesis")—approve or reject—an impression, enabling it to distinguish a true representation of reality from one that is false. Some impressions can be assented to immediately, but others can achieve only varying degrees of hesitant approval, which can be labeled belief or opinion ("doxa"). It is only through reason that we gain clear comprehension and conviction ("katalepsis"). Certain and true knowledge ("episteme"), achievable by the Stoic sage, can be attained only by verifying the conviction with the expertise of one's peers and the collective judgment of humankind. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,427 | According to the Stoics, the Universe is a material reasoning substance ("logos"), known as God or Nature, which was divided into two classes: the active and the passive. The passive substance is matter, which "lies sluggish, a substance ready for any use, but sure to remain unemployed if no one sets it in motion". The active substance, which can be called Fate or Universal Reason ("logos"), is an intelligent aether or primordial fire, which acts on the passive matter: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,428 | Everything is subject to the laws of Fate, for the Universe acts according to its own nature, and the nature of the passive matter it governs. The souls of humans and animals are emanations from this primordial Fire, and are, likewise, subject to Fate: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,429 | Individual souls are perishable by nature, and can be "transmuted and diffused, assuming a fiery nature by being received into the "seminal reason" ("logos spermatikos") of the Universe". Since right Reason is the foundation of both humanity and the universe, it follows that the goal of life is to live according to Reason, that is, to live a life according to Nature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,430 | Stoic theology is a fatalistic and naturalistic pantheism: God is never fully transcendent but always immanent, and identified with Nature. Abrahamic religions personalize God as a world-creating entity, but Stoicism equates God with the totality of the universe; according to Stoic cosmology, which is very similar to the Hindu conception of existence, there is no absolute start to time, as it is considered infinite and cyclic. Similarly, space and the Universe have neither start nor end, rather they are cyclical. The current Universe is a phase in the present cycle, preceded by an infinite number of Universes, doomed to be destroyed ("ekpyrōsis", "conflagration") and re-created again, and to be followed by another infinite number of Universes. Stoicism considers all existence as cyclical, the cosmos as eternally self-creating and self-destroying (see also Eternal return). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,431 | Stoicism, just like Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, does not posit a beginning or end to the Universe. According to the Stoics, the "logos" was the active reason or "anima mundi" pervading and animating the entire Universe. It was conceived as material and is usually identified with God or Nature. The Stoics also referred to the "seminal reason" ("logos spermatikos"), or the law of generation in the Universe, which was the principle of the active reason working in inanimate matter. Humans, too, each possess a portion of the divine "logos", which is the primordial Fire and reason that controls and sustains the Universe. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,432 | The first philosophers to explicitly describe nominalist arguments were the Stoics, especially Chrysippus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,433 | Ancient Stoics are often misunderstood because the terms they used pertained to different concepts than today. The word "stoic" has since come to mean "unemotional" or indifferent to pain because Stoic ethics taught freedom from "passion" by following "reason". The Stoics did not seek to extinguish emotions; rather, they sought to transform them by a resolute "askēsis", that enables a person to develop clear judgment and inner calm. Logic, reflection, and focus were the methods of such self-discipline, temperance is split into self-control, discipline, and modesty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,434 | Borrowing from the Cynics, the foundation of Stoic ethics is that good lies in the state of the soul itself; in wisdom and self-control. Stoic ethics stressed the rule: "Follow where reason leads". One must therefore strive to be free of the passions, bearing in mind that the ancient meaning of "pathos" (plural "pathe") translated here as "passion" was "anguish" or "suffering", that is, "passively" reacting to external events, which is somewhat different from the modern use of the word. Terms used in Stoicism related to "pathos" include "propathos" or instinctive reaction (e.g., turning pale and trembling when confronted by physical danger) and "eupathos", which is the mark of the Stoic sage ("sophos"). The "eupatheia" are feelings that result from the correct judgment in the same way that passions result from incorrect judgment. The idea was to be free of suffering through "apatheia" (Greek: ; literally, "without passion") or peace of mind, where peace of mind was understood in the ancient sense—being objective or having "clear judgment" and the maintenance of equanimity in the face of life's highs and lows. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,435 | For the Stoics, reason meant using logic and understanding the processes of nature—the logos or universal reason, inherent in all things. According to reason and virtue, living according to reason and virtue is to live in harmony with the divine order of the universe, in recognition of the common reason and essential value of all people. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,436 | The four cardinal virtues ("aretai") of Stoic philosophy is a classification derived from the teachings of Plato ("Republic" IV. 426–35): | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,437 | Following Socrates, the Stoics held that unhappiness and evil are the results of human ignorance of the reason in nature. If someone is unkind, it is because they are unaware of their own universal reason, which leads to the conclusion of unkindness. The solution to evil and unhappiness then is the practice of Stoic philosophy: to examine one's own judgments and behavior and determine where they diverge from the universal reason of nature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,438 | The Stoics accepted that suicide was permissible for the wise person in circumstances that might prevent them from living a virtuous life. Plutarch held that accepting life under tyranny would have compromised Cato's self-consistency ("constantia") as a Stoic and impaired his freedom to make the honorable moral choices. Suicide could be justified if one fell victim to severe pain or disease, but otherwise suicide would usually be seen as a rejection of one's social duty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,439 | In philosophical terms, things that are indifferent are outside the application of moral law—that is without tendency to either promote or obstruct moral ends. Actions that are neither required nor forbidden by the moral law, or that do not affect morality, are called morally indifferent. The doctrine of things indifferent (, "adiaphora") arose in the Stoic school as a corollary of its diametric opposition of virtue and vice ( "kathekonta", "convenient actions", or actions in accordance with nature; and ἁμαρτήματα "hamartemata", mistakes). As a result of this dichotomy, a large class of objects were left unassigned and thus regarded as indifferent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,440 | Eventually three sub-classes of "things indifferent" developed: things to prefer because they assist life according to nature; things to avoid because they hinder it; and things indifferent in the narrower sense. The principle of "adiaphora" was also common to the Cynics. Philipp Melanchthon revived the doctrine of things indifferent during the Renaissance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,441 | Philosophy for a Stoic is not just a set of beliefs or ethical claims; it is a way of life involving constant practice and training (or "askēsis"). Stoic philosophical and spiritual practices included logic, Socratic dialogue and self-dialogue, contemplation of death, mortality salience, training attention to remain in the present moment (similar to mindfulness and some forms of Buddhist meditation), and daily reflection on everyday problems and possible solutions e.g. with journaling. Philosophy for a Stoic is an active process of constant practice and self-reminder. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,442 | Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of the ignorance of real good and ill ... I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together ... | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,443 | Prior to Aurelius, Epictetus in his "Discourses," distinguished between three types of act: judgment, desire, and inclination. According to philosopher Pierre Hadot, Epictetus identifies these three acts with logic, physics and ethics respectively. Hadot writes that in the "Meditations", "Each maxim develops either one of these very characteristic "topoi" [i.e., acts], or two of them or three of them." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,444 | Seamus Mac Suibhne has described the practices of spiritual exercises as influencing those of reflective practice. Many parallels between Stoic spiritual exercises and modern cognitive behavioral therapy have been identified. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,445 | Stoics were also known for consolatory orations, which were part of the "consolatio" literary tradition. Three such consolations by Seneca have survived. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,446 | Stoics commonly employ ‘The View from Above’, reflecting on society and otherness in guided visualization, aiming to gain a "bigger picture", to see ourselves in context relevant to others, to see others in the context of the world, to see ourselves in the context of the world to help determine our role and the importance of happenings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,447 | A fine reflection from Plato. One who would converse about human beings should look on all things earthly as though from some point far above, upon herds, armies, and agriculture, marriages and divorces, births and deaths, the clamour of law courts, deserted wastes, alien peoples of every kind, festivals, lamentations, and markets, this intermixture of everything and ordered combination of opposites. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,448 | Stoics considered sexuality an element within the law of nature that was not to be good or bad by itself, but condemned passionate desire as something to be avoided. Early exponents differed significantly from late stoics in their view of romantic love and sexual relationships. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,449 | Zeno advocated for a republic ruled by love and not by law, where marriage would be abolished, wives would be held in common, and eroticism would be practiced with both boys and girls with educative purposes, to develop virtue in the loved ones. However, he didn't condemn marriage per se, considering it equally a natural occurrence. He regarded same sex relationships positively, and maintained that wise men should "have carnal knowledge no less and no more of a favorite than of a non-favorite, nor of a female than of a male." Zeno favored love over desire, clarifying that the ultimate goal of sexuality should be virtue and friendship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,450 | Among later stoics, Epictetus maintained homosexual and heterosexual sex as equivalent in this field, and condemned only the kind of desire that led one to act against judgement. However, contemporaneous positions generally advanced towards equating sexuality with passion, and although they were still not hostile to sexual relationships by themselves, they nonetheless believed those should be limited in order to retain self-control. Musonius espoused the only natural kind of sex was that meant for procreation, defending a companionate form of marriage between man and woman, and considered relationships solely undergone for pleasure or affection as unnatural. This view was ultimately influential in other currents of thought. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,451 | A distinctive feature of Stoicism is its cosmopolitanism; according to the Stoics, all people are manifestations of the one universal spirit and should live in brotherly love and readily help one another. In the "Discourses", Epictetus comments on man's relationship with the world: "Each human being is primarily a citizen of his own commonwealth; but he is also a member of the great city of gods and men, whereof the city political is only a copy." This sentiment echoes that of Diogenes of Sinope, who said, "I am not an Athenian or a Corinthian, but a citizen of the world." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,452 | They held that external differences, such as rank and wealth, are of no importance in social relationships. Instead, they advocated the brotherhood of humanity and the natural equality of all human beings. Stoicism became the most influential school of the Greco-Roman world, and produced a number of remarkable writers and personalities, such as Cato the Younger and Epictetus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,453 | In particular, they were noted for their urging of clemency toward slaves. Seneca in his Letter 47 exhorted, "Kindly remember that he whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,454 | In St. Ambrose of Milan's "Duties", "The voice is the voice of a Christian bishop, but the precepts are those of Zeno." Regarding what he called "the Divine Spirit", Maxwell Staniforth wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,455 | Cleanthes, wishing to give more explicit meaning to Zeno's 'creative fire', had been the first to hit upon the term "pneuma", or 'spirit', to describe it. Like fire, this intelligent 'spirit' was imagined as a tenuous substance akin to a current of air or breath, but essentially possessing the quality of warmth; it was immanent in the universe as God, and in man as the soul and life-giving principle. Clearly, it is not a long step from this to the 'Holy Spirit' of Christian theology, the 'Lord and Giver of life', visibly manifested as tongues of fire at Pentecost and ever since associated—in the Christian as in the Stoic mind—with the ideas of vital fire and beneficient warmth. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,456 | Again in the doctrine of the Trinity, the ecclesiastical conception of Father, Word, and Spirit finds its germ in the different Stoic names of the Divine Unity. Thus Seneca, writing of the supreme Power which shapes the universe, states, 'This Power we sometimes call the All-ruling God, sometimes the incorporeal Wisdom, sometimes the Holy Spirit, sometimes Destiny.' The Church had only to reject the last of these terms to arrive at its own acceptable definition of the Divine Nature; while the further assertion 'these three are One', which the modern mind finds paradoxical, was no more than commonplace to those familiar with Stoic notions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,457 | The apostle Paul met with Stoics during his stay in Athens, reported in . In his letters, Paul reflected heavily from his knowledge of Stoic philosophy, using Stoic terms and metaphors to assist his new Gentile converts in their understanding of Christianity. This is seen, for example, in 1 Corinthians 11, in which Paul enjoins the ordinance of headcovering with a cloth veil by appealing to nature in a "reductio ad absurdum": "if there is something especially suitable about a woman’s head being covered, then she should be glad to wear a headcovering in "addition" to the long hair." Stoic influence can also be seen in the works of St. Ambrose, Marcus Minucius Felix, and Tertullian. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,458 | The Fathers of the Church regarded Stoicism as a "pagan philosophy"; nonetheless, early Christian writers employed some of the central philosophical concepts of Stoicism. Examples include the terms "logos", "virtue", "Spirit", and "conscience". But the parallels go well beyond the sharing and borrowing of terminology. Both Stoicism and Christianity assert an inner freedom in the face of the external world, a belief in human kinship with Nature or God, a sense of the innate depravity—or "persistent evil"—of humankind, and the futility and temporary nature of worldly possessions and attachments. Both encourage "Ascesis" with respect to the passions and inferior emotions, such as lust, and envy, so that the higher possibilities of one's humanity can be awakened and developed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,459 | Stoic writings such as "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius have been highly regarded by many Christians throughout the centuries. The Eastern Orthodox Church and Oriental Orthodox Church accept the Stoic ideal of dispassion to this day. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,460 | Middle and Roman Stoics taught that sex is just within marriage, for unitive and procreative purposes only. This teaching is accepted by the Catholic Church to this day. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19224834 |
5,461 | Ancient Egypt was a civilization in Northeast Africa situated in the Nile Valley. Ancient Egyptian civilization followed prehistoric Egypt and coalesced around 3100BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology) with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under Menes (often identified with Narmer). The history of ancient Egypt occurred as a series of stable kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known as Intermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,462 | Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power in the New Kingdom, ruling much of Nubia and a sizable portion of the Near East, after which it entered a period of slow decline. During the course of its history, Egypt was invaded or conquered by a number of foreign powers, including the Hyksos, the Libyans, the Nubians, the Assyrians, the Achaemenid Persians, and the Macedonians under the command of Alexander the Great. The Greek Ptolemaic Kingdom, formed in the aftermath of Alexander's death, ruled Egypt until 30BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,463 | The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River valley for agriculture. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which supported a more dense population, and social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended to assert Egyptian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a pharaoh, who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,464 | The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying, and construction techniques that supported the building of monumental pyramids, temples, and obelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems, and agricultural production techniques, the first known planked boats, Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty, made with the Hittites. Ancient Egypt has left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities were carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travelers and writers for millennia. A newfound respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period by Europeans and Egyptians has led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,465 | The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history. The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization. Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120,000 years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa had become increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the river region. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,466 | In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazing ungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs, and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,467 | By about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper (Southern) Egypt was the Badarian culture, which probably originated in the Western Desert; it was known for its high-quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,468 | The Badari was followed by the Naqada culture: the Amratian (Naqada I), the Gerzeh (Naqada II), and Semainean (Naqada III). These brought a number of technological improvements. As early as the Naqada I Period, predynastic Egyptians imported obsidian from Ethiopia, used to shape blades and other objects from flakes. In Naqada II times, early evidence exists of contact with the Near East, particularly Canaan and the Byblos coast. Over a period of about 1,000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley. Establishing a power center at Nekhen (in Greek, Hierakonpolis), and later at Abydos, Naqada III leaders expanded their control of Egypt northwards along the Nile. They also traded with Nubia to the south, the oases of the western desert to the west, and the cultures of the eastern Mediterranean and Near East to the east, initiating a period of Egypt-Mesopotamia relations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,469 | The Naqada culture manufactured a diverse selection of material goods, reflective of the increasing power and wealth of the elite, as well as societal personal-use items, which included combs, small statuary, painted pottery, high quality decorative stone vases, cosmetic palettes, and jewelry made of gold, lapis, and ivory. They also developed a ceramic glaze known as faience, which was used well into the Roman Period to decorate cups, amulets, and figurines. During the last predynastic phase, the Naqada culture began using written symbols that eventually were developed into a full system of hieroglyphs for writing the ancient Egyptian language. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,470 | The Early Dynastic Period was approximately contemporary to the early Sumerian-Akkadian civilisation of Mesopotamia and of ancient Elam. The third-centuryBC Egyptian priest Manetho grouped the long line of kings from Menes to his own time into 30 dynasties, a system still used today. He began his official history with the king named "Meni" (or Menes in Greek), who was believed to have united the two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,471 | The transition to a unified state happened more gradually than ancient Egyptian writers represented, and there is no contemporary record of Menes. Some scholars now believe, however, that the mythical Menes may have been the king Narmer, who is depicted wearing royal regalia on the ceremonial "Narmer Palette," in a symbolic act of unification. In the Early Dynastic Period, which began about 3000BC, the first of the Dynastic kings solidified control over lower Egypt by establishing a capital at Memphis, from which he could control the labour force and agriculture of the fertile delta region, as well as the lucrative and critical trade routes to the Levant. The increasing power and wealth of the kings during the early dynastic period was reflected in their elaborate mastaba tombs and mortuary cult structures at Abydos, which were used to celebrate the deified king after his death. The strong institution of kingship developed by the kings served to legitimize state control over the land, labour, and resources that were essential to the survival and growth of ancient Egyptian civilization. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,472 | Major advances in architecture, art, and technology were made during the Old Kingdom, fueled by the increased agricultural productivity and resulting population, made possible by a well-developed central administration. Some of ancient Egypt's crowning achievements, the Giza pyramids and Great Sphinx, were constructed during the Old Kingdom. Under the direction of the vizier, state officials collected taxes, coordinated irrigation projects to improve crop yield, drafted peasants to work on construction projects, and established a justice system to maintain peace and order. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,473 | With the rising importance of central administration in Egypt, a new class of educated scribes and officials arose who were granted estates by the king in payment for their services. Kings also made land grants to their mortuary cults and local temples, to ensure that these institutions had the resources to worship the king after his death. Scholars believe that five centuries of these practices slowly eroded the economic vitality of Egypt, and that the economy could no longer afford to support a large centralized administration. As the power of the kings diminished, regional governors called nomarchs began to challenge the supremacy of the office of king. This, coupled with severe droughts between 2200 and 2150BC, is believed to have caused the country to enter the 140-year period of famine and strife known as the First Intermediate Period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,474 | After Egypt's central government collapsed at the end of the Old Kingdom, the administration could no longer support or stabilize the country's economy. Regional governors could not rely on the king for help in times of crisis, and the ensuing food shortages and political disputes escalated into famines and small-scale civil wars. Yet despite difficult problems, local leaders, owing no tribute to the king, used their new-found independence to establish a thriving culture in the provinces. Once in control of their own resources, the provinces became economically richer—which was demonstrated by larger and better burials among all social classes. In bursts of creativity, provincial artisans adopted and adapted cultural motifs formerly restricted to the royalty of the Old Kingdom, and scribes developed literary styles that expressed the optimism and originality of the period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,475 | Free from their loyalties to the king, local rulers began competing with each other for territorial control and political power. By 2160BC, rulers in Herakleopolis controlled Lower Egypt in the north, while a rival clan based in Thebes, the Intef family, took control of Upper Egypt in the south. As the Intefs grew in power and expanded their control northward, a clash between the two rival dynasties became inevitable. Around 2055BC the northern Theban forces under Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II finally defeated the Herakleopolitan rulers, reuniting the Two Lands. They inaugurated a period of economic and cultural renaissance known as the Middle Kingdom. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,476 | The kings of the Middle Kingdom restored the country's stability and prosperity, thereby stimulating a resurgence of art, literature, and monumental building projects. Mentuhotep II and his Eleventh Dynasty successors ruled from Thebes, but the vizier Amenemhat I, upon assuming the kingship at the beginning of the Twelfth Dynasty around 1985BC, shifted the kingdom's capital to the city of Itjtawy, located in Faiyum. From Itjtawy, the kings of the Twelfth Dynasty undertook a far-sighted land reclamation and irrigation scheme to increase agricultural output in the region. Moreover, the military reconquered territory in Nubia that was rich in quarries and gold mines, while laborers built a defensive structure in the Eastern Delta, called the "Walls of the Ruler", to defend against foreign attack. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,477 | With the kings having secured the country militarily and politically and with vast agricultural and mineral wealth at their disposal, the nation's population, arts, and religion flourished. In contrast to elitist Old Kingdom attitudes towards the gods, the Middle Kingdom displayed an increase in expressions of personal piety. Middle Kingdom literature featured sophisticated themes and characters written in a confident, eloquent style. The relief and portrait sculpture of the period captured subtle, individual details that reached new heights of technical sophistication. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,478 | The last great ruler of the Middle Kingdom, Amenemhat III, allowed Semitic-speaking Canaanite settlers from the Near East into the Delta region to provide a sufficient labour force for his especially active mining and building campaigns. These ambitious building and mining activities, however, combined with severe Nile floods later in his reign, strained the economy and precipitated the slow decline into the Second Intermediate Period during the later Thirteenth and Fourteenth dynasties. During this decline, the Canaanite settlers began to assume greater control of the Delta region, eventually coming to power in Egypt as the Hyksos. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,479 | Around 1785BC, as the power of the Middle Kingdom kings weakened, a Western Asian people called the Hyksos, who had already settled in the Delta, seized control of Egypt and established their capital at Avaris, forcing the former central government to retreat to Thebes. The king was treated as a vassal and expected to pay tribute. The Hyksos ("foreign rulers") retained Egyptian models of government and identified as kings, thereby integrating Egyptian elements into their culture. They and other invaders introduced new tools of warfare into Egypt, most notably the composite bow and the horse-drawn chariot. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,480 | After retreating south, the native Theban kings found themselves trapped between the Canaanite Hyksos ruling the north and the Hyksos' Nubian allies, the Kushites, to the south. After years of vassalage, Thebes gathered enough strength to challenge the Hyksos in a conflict that lasted more than 30 years, until 1555BC. The kings Seqenenre Tao II and Kamose were ultimately able to defeat the Nubians to the south of Egypt, but failed to defeat the Hyksos. That task fell to Kamose's successor, Ahmose I, who successfully waged a series of campaigns that permanently eradicated the Hyksos' presence in Egypt. He established a new dynasty and, in the New Kingdom that followed, the military became a central priority for the kings, who sought to expand Egypt's borders and attempted to gain mastery of the Near East. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,481 | The New Kingdom pharaohs established a period of unprecedented prosperity by securing their borders and strengthening diplomatic ties with their neighbours, including the Mitanni Empire, Assyria, and Canaan. Military campaigns waged under Tuthmosis I and his grandson Tuthmosis III extended the influence of the pharaohs to the largest empire Egypt had ever seen. Beginning with Merneptah the rulers of Egypt adopted the title of pharaoh. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,482 | Between their reigns, Hatshepsut, a queen who established herself as pharaoh, launched many building projects, including the restoration of temples damaged by the Hyksos, and sent trading expeditions to Punt and the Sinai. When Tuthmosis III died in 1425BC, Egypt had an empire extending from Niya in north west Syria to the Fourth Cataract of the Nile in Nubia, cementing loyalties and opening access to critical imports such as bronze and wood. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,483 | The New Kingdom pharaohs began a large-scale building campaign to promote the god Amun, whose growing cult was based in Karnak. They also constructed monuments to glorify their own achievements, both real and imagined. The Karnak temple is the largest Egyptian temple ever built. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,484 | Around 1350BC, the stability of the New Kingdom was threatened when Amenhotep IV ascended the throne and instituted a series of radical and chaotic reforms. Changing his name to Akhenaten, he touted the previously obscure sun deity Aten as the supreme deity, suppressed the worship of most other deities, and moved the capital to the new city of Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna). He was devoted to his new religion and artistic style. After his death, the cult of the Aten was quickly abandoned and the traditional religious order restored. The subsequent pharaohs, Tutankhamun, Ay, and Horemheb, worked to erase all mention of Akhenaten's heresy, now known as the Amarna Period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,485 | Around 1279BC, Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great, ascended the throne, and went on to build more temples, erect more statues and obelisks, and sire more children than any other pharaoh in history. A bold military leader, Ramesses II led his army against the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh (in modern Syria) and, after fighting to a stalemate, finally agreed to the first recorded peace treaty, around 1258BC. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,486 | Egypt's wealth, however, made it a tempting target for invasion, particularly by the Libyan Berbers to the west, and the Sea Peoples, a conjectured confederation of seafarers from the Aegean Sea. Initially, the military was able to repel these invasions, but Egypt eventually lost control of its remaining territories in southern Canaan, much of it falling to the Assyrians. The effects of external threats were exacerbated by internal problems such as corruption, tomb robbery, and civil unrest. After regaining their power, the high priests at the temple of Amun in Thebes accumulated vast tracts of land and wealth, and their expanded power splintered the country during the Third Intermediate Period. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,487 | Following the death of Ramesses XI in 1078BC, Smendes assumed authority over the northern part of Egypt, ruling from the city of Tanis. The south was effectively controlled by the High Priests of Amun at Thebes, who recognized Smendes in name only. During this time, Libyans had been settling in the western delta, and chieftains of these settlers began increasing their autonomy. Libyan princes took control of the delta under Shoshenq I in 945BC, founding the so-called Libyan or Bubastite dynasty that would rule for some 200 years. Shoshenq also gained control of southern Egypt by placing his family members in important priestly positions. Libyan control began to erode as a rival dynasty in the delta arose in Leontopolis, and Kushites threatened from the south. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,488 | Around 727BC the Kushite king Piye invaded northward, seizing control of Thebes and eventually the Delta, which established the 25th Dynasty. During the 25th Dynasty, Pharaoh Taharqa created an empire nearly as large as the New Kingdom's. Twenty-fifth Dynasty pharaohs built, or restored, temples and monuments throughout the Nile valley, including at Memphis, Karnak, Kawa, and Jebel Barkal. During this period, the Nile valley saw the first widespread construction of pyramids (many in modern Sudan) since the Middle Kingdom. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,489 | Egypt's far-reaching prestige declined considerably toward the end of the Third Intermediate Period. Its foreign allies had fallen under the Assyrian sphere of influence, and by 700BC war between the two states became inevitable. Between 671 and 667BC the Assyrians began the Assyrian conquest of Egypt. The reigns of both Taharqa and his successor, Tanutamun, were filled with constant conflict with the Assyrians, against whom Egypt enjoyed several victories. Ultimately, the Assyrians pushed the Kushites back into Nubia, occupied Memphis, and sacked the temples of Thebes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,490 | The Assyrians left control of Egypt to a series of vassals who became known as the Saite kings of the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty. By 653BC, the Saite king Psamtik I was able to oust the Assyrians with the help of Greek mercenaries, who were recruited to form Egypt's first navy. Greek influence expanded greatly as the city-state of Naucratis became the home of Greeks in the Nile Delta. The Saite kings based in the new capital of Sais witnessed a brief but spirited resurgence in the economy and culture, but in 525BC, the powerful Persians, led by Cambyses II, began their conquest of Egypt, eventually capturing the pharaoh Psamtik III at the Battle of Pelusium. Cambyses II then assumed the formal title of pharaoh, but ruled Egypt from Iran, leaving Egypt under the control of a satrap. A few successful revolts against the Persians marked the 5th centuryBC, but Egypt was never able to permanently overthrow the Persians. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,491 | Following its annexation by Persia, Egypt was joined with Cyprus and Phoenicia in the sixth satrapy of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. This first period of Persian rule over Egypt, also known as the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty, ended in 402BC, when Egypt regained independence under a series of native dynasties. The last of these dynasties, the Thirtieth, proved to be the last native royal house of ancient Egypt, ending with the kingship of Nectanebo II. A brief restoration of Persian rule, sometimes known as the Thirty-First Dynasty, began in 343BC, but shortly after, in 332BC, the Persian ruler Mazaces handed Egypt over to Alexander the Great without a fight. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,492 | In 332BC, Alexander the Great conquered Egypt with little resistance from the Persians and was welcomed by the Egyptians as a deliverer. The administration established by Alexander's successors, the Macedonian Ptolemaic Kingdom, was based on an Egyptian model and based in the new capital city of Alexandria. The city showcased the power and prestige of Hellenistic rule, and became a seat of learning and culture, centered at the famous Library of Alexandria. The Lighthouse of Alexandria lit the way for the many ships that kept trade flowing through the city—as the Ptolemies made commerce and revenue-generating enterprises, such as papyrus manufacturing, their top priority. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,493 | Hellenistic culture did not supplant native Egyptian culture, as the Ptolemies supported time-honored traditions in an effort to secure the loyalty of the populace. They built new temples in Egyptian style, supported traditional cults, and portrayed themselves as pharaohs. Some traditions merged, as Greek and Egyptian gods were syncretized into composite deities, such as Serapis, and classical Greek forms of sculpture influenced traditional Egyptian motifs. Despite their efforts to appease the Egyptians, the Ptolemies were challenged by native rebellion, bitter family rivalries, and the powerful mob of Alexandria that formed after the death of Ptolemy IV. In addition, as Rome relied more heavily on imports of grain from Egypt, the Romans took great interest in the political situation in the country. Continued Egyptian revolts, ambitious politicians, and powerful opponents from the Near East made this situation unstable, leading Rome to send forces to secure the country as a province of its empire. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,494 | Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire in 30BC, following the defeat of Mark Antony and Ptolemaic Queen Cleopatra VII by Octavian (later Emperor Augustus) in the Battle of Actium. The Romans relied heavily on grain shipments from Egypt, and the Roman army, under the control of a prefect appointed by the emperor, quelled rebellions, strictly enforced the collection of heavy taxes, and prevented attacks by bandits, which had become a notorious problem during the period. Alexandria became an increasingly important center on the trade route with the orient, as exotic luxuries were in high demand in Rome. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,495 | Although the Romans had a more hostile attitude than the Greeks towards the Egyptians, some traditions such as mummification and worship of the traditional gods continued. The art of mummy portraiture flourished, and some Roman emperors had themselves depicted as pharaohs, though not to the extent that the Ptolemies had. The former lived outside Egypt and did not perform the ceremonial functions of Egyptian kingship. Local administration became Roman in style and closed to native Egyptians. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,496 | From the mid-first century AD, Christianity took root in Egypt and it was originally seen as another cult that could be accepted. However, it was an uncompromising religion that sought to win converts from the pagan Egyptian and Greco-Roman religions and threatened popular religious traditions. This led to the persecution of converts to Christianity, culminating in the great purges of Diocletian starting in 303, but eventually Christianity won out. In 391 the Christian emperor Theodosius introduced legislation that banned pagan rites and closed temples. Alexandria became the scene of great anti-pagan riots with public and private religious imagery destroyed. As a consequence, Egypt's native religious culture was continually in decline. While the native population continued to speak their language, the ability to read hieroglyphic writing slowly disappeared as the role of the Egyptian temple priests and priestesses diminished. The temples themselves were sometimes converted to churches or abandoned to the desert. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,497 | In the fourth century, as the Roman Empire divided, Egypt found itself in the Eastern Empire with its capital at Constantinople. In the waning years of the Empire, Egypt fell to the Sasanian Persian army in the Sasanian conquest of Egypt (618–628). It was then recaptured by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (629–639), and was finally captured by Muslim Rashidun army in 639–641, ending Byzantine rule. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,498 | The pharaoh was the absolute monarch of the country and, at least in theory, wielded complete control of the land and its resources. The king was the supreme military commander and head of the government, who relied on a bureaucracy of officials to manage his affairs. In charge of the administration was his second in command, the vizier, who acted as the king's representative and coordinated land surveys, the treasury, building projects, the legal system, and the archives. At a regional level, the country was divided into as many as 42 administrative regions called nomes each governed by a nomarch, who was accountable to the vizier for his jurisdiction. The temples formed the backbone of the economy. Not only were they places of worship, but were also responsible for collecting and storing the kingdom's wealth in a system of granaries and treasuries administered by overseers, who redistributed grain and goods. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
5,499 | Much of the economy was centrally organized and strictly controlled. Although the ancient Egyptians did not use coinage until the Late period, they did use a type of money-barter system, with standard sacks of grain and the "deben", a weight of roughly of copper or silver, forming a common denominator. Workers were paid in grain; a simple laborer might earn sacks (200 kg or 400 lb) of grain per month, while a foreman might earn sacks (250 kg or 550 lb). Prices were fixed across the country and recorded in lists to facilitate trading; for example a shirt cost five copper deben, while a cow cost 140deben. Grain could be traded for other goods, according to the fixed price list. During the fifth centuryBC coined money was introduced into Egypt from abroad. At first the coins were used as standardized pieces of precious metal rather than true money, but in the following centuries international traders came to rely on coinage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=874 |
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