Pawczuk 1

Emily Pawczuk
HIST 134
Dyer
14 December 2014
Portfolio Reflection
Throughout this semester there have been many common themes we have come across.
One of the ones that has the biggest influence throughout almost every society, good or bad,
would be the military and police aspect of the civilizations. Almost every civilization has to have
some way of protecting themselves, and throughout ancient history it has varied with every
society.
For starters with ancient Mesopotamia, they had a military for security. They believed
that to protect themselves they must conquer other areas that seemed as though a threat might
arise. Another reason they went to war is to gain more money, they could tax more citizens if
they conquered more people. It was also thought that it was good to do on religious grounds,
bringing more citizens and land under their god (Warfare and Empire).
Many years later, after the Mesopotamians, there was Alexander the Great in the Greek
culture. Alexander was the son of Phillip II, and ruled much more with the military than his
father did. Although Philip did a lot with gaining land, Alexander did better. Alexander the Great
was an incredible leader, conquering many different civilizations, even the First Persian Empire.
He even had land in Egypt. But during his conquests, he did treat his new subjects fairly, they
were able to practice their religions they had before or turn to the Greek culture. He tried to

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spread Greek culture as much as possible during his conquests, but if the people did not want it,
he did not force it. He did not ever lose a battle, except turning away from trying to capture India
at the request of his troops, he was a fair leader, but vicious in war (Alexander the Great).
Finally there was Sparta, they were during a time between the Mesopotamians and
Alexander the Great, but their military and way of life was strong. They trained boys from the
age of seven to begin in the military. They boys would go off to camps and schools to be able to
fight and every man had to serve in the military at some point. Even the females went through
some training to fight while they learned how to run a household. This tough and intense training
made them the most feared soldiers throughout Greece. But besides that, they held their religion
in such a high regard even in their military. Before every battle and after, they would make a
sacrifice to worship their gods. The soldiers even went as far to do it before crossing some rivers
or valleys for safe passage to the battle. Sparta trained their soldiers so well, they never lost a
battle and were feared by everyone (Cartwright).
These three societies had a lot of military influence. They all had religion and culture as a
part of their war practices, which is something that militaries now also possess. But the problem
is, when suddenly war and fighting become about your god and wanting to please them, and now
about protecting yourself and your people, it gets out of hand. Each of these civilizations also
just wanted to protect themselves but they thought the best course of action was to conquer other
civilizations they assumed would pose a threat to their way of life. These different societies,
although had a strong military did not go about this in the right way. We can learn from the
mistakes of others, and from ourselves. As a society now we should not conquer those we feel
could threaten us, which is not right, we should be able to protect ourselves if they ever do strike.
War is never the answer to anything, but with that being said, we must also be ready in case we

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are ever threatened. Other cultures may fight because they do not like how we do things, but
maybe it is not just them hating us but the fact that our militaries are being used for the wrong
reasons. This goes for all societies in the modern world. We must think of our actions and how
they will affect others. Having a strong military will help us to succeed, but only if we use it
well.

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"Alexander the Great." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great>.
Cartwright, Mark. "Sparta." Ancient History. N.p., 28 May 2013. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.
<http://www.ancient.eu/sparta/>.
"Warfare and Empire." University of Chicago. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2014.
<http://mesopotamia.lib.uchicago.edu/mesopotamialife/article.php?theme=Warfare%20a
nd%20Empire>.