Saint Augustine (354-430) was bishop of the North African city of Hippo from 396 and a towering figure in the intellectual history of the Church.
Bishops were the most important religious figures in a Christian community, and often very powerful.

During the ancient civilization the Roman society was divided mainly among three classes :

(i) The Particians or the Rich.

(ii) The Plebeians or the Common People.

(iii) The Slaves.

In Rome, the slaves were employed in agriculture, mining, road construction, workshops and on ships. They were brutally exploited and as a result of it, many used to become crippled in the very young age.

• A practice of slave ownership in the United States that aimed to encourage the reproduction of slaves in order to increase a slaveholder’s property and wealth.
• Slave breeding involved coerced sexual relations between male and female slaves, as well as sexual relations between a master and his female slaves, with the intention of producing slave children.

Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures. In montane regions (vertical transhumance), it implies movement between higher pastures in summer and lower valleys in winter. The action or practice of moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle, typically to lowlands in winter and highlands in summer.

The Roman Empire had two types of territories – dependent kingdoms and provincial territory. The Near East was full of dependent kingdoms but they disappeared and were swallowed up by Rome. These kingdoms were exceedingly wealthy, for example Herod’s kingdom yielded 5.4million <i>denarii </i>per year, equal to over 125,000 kg of gold per year.

Transhumance is a type of pastoralism or nomadism, a seasonal movement of livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures.

Army: This was another key institution of imperial rule, and its position came after the emperor and the Senate. The Romans maintained a paid professional army. The soldiers had to put in a minimum of 25 years of service. The army was the largest single organized body in the empire. Its strength had become 600,000 by the fourth century. The army had the power to determine the fate of the emperors. The success of the emperor depended on his control of the army.

69 BCE was a tumultuous year. Four emperors mounted the throne in quick succession in that year. Other than that, the first two centuries were free from civil war and were relatively stable. Succession to the throne was based on family ascent. A natural or adopted heir could be made the next emperor. Even the army strongly followed this practice.

Augustan Age is considered to be the most peaceful period of the Roman Empire. So, armed conflicts for expansion of the territory were rare. Gradual extension of Roman direct rule was more common. It was accomplished by absorbing a whole series of ‘dependent’ kingdoms into Roman provincial territory.

The Roman Empire can be broadly divided into two phase, viz. ‘Early Empire’ and ‘Late Empire’. The period from 27 BCE to the main part of the third century CE is called the early empire. The period after that is called the late empire. Unlike the Iranian Empire, the Roman Empire was much more diverse in terms of territories and cultures. People of this Empire spoke many languages. But Latin and Greek were the most widely used language for the purpose of administration. The upper classes in the east spoke Greek, while those in the west spoke Latin

Women in Roman society were not given much power. Men played an important role in the politics and trades in Roman society but still there were time when women influenced the political process. The lives of woman in Roman society varied greatly on the basis of their position in the society. The Romans believed that all women should be under the control of male guardian like the father,husband or a male relative. Women in Roman times discriminated against and subjugated to abuse poets such as Horace and Juvenal. There were condition on the women in the Roman society that no women should possess more than half an ounce of gold,wear a dyed dress in a variety of colour or ride down in horse drawn carriage.

(i) The first Mesopotamian tablets, written around 3200 BCE, contained picture-like signs and numbers. These were about 5,000 lists of oxen, fish, bread loaves, etc. - lists of goods that were brought into or distributed from the temples of Uruk, a city in the south.
(ii) Mesopotamians wrote on tablets of clay. A scribe would wet clay and pat it into a size he could hold comfortably in one hand. He would carefully smoothen its surfaces.
(iii) Once the surface dried, signs could not be pressed onto a tablet : so each transaction, however minor, required a separate written tablet.

Public baths were a striking feature of Roman urban life (when one Iranian ruler tried to introduce then into Iran, he encountered the wrath of the clergy there! Water was a sacred element and to use it for public bathing may have seemed a desecration to them), and urban populations also enjoyed a much higher level of entertainment.

For example, one calendar tells us that spectacular (shows) filled no less than 176 days of the year!

Roman Empire:

1. Roman empire extended from Spain to Syria along the Mediterranean.
2. It had more of a diverse population in looking into its geographical expanse . It was characterised by many cultures but had common government with single ruler/emperor.
3. Greek and latin languages were used for adminstrative purposes.

Iranian empire:
 

1. It controlled major part of the  Caspian sea, large parts of Afghanistan and eastern Arabia.
2. The Parthians and Sasanians dynasties,ruled over the people of Iran. It was not as diverse as the Roman empire.
3. People spoke Persain language.

• Temples served as center of imparting education, where the priests used to serve as teachers.
• Land attached to temples was also used for industrial purposes.
• Temples were also engaged in sales and purchases of goods and also used to provide advance loans to the traders and charge interest thereon.
• The people offered grains, curd, dates, etc. to serve their deities. They also sacrificed ox, sheep, goat, etc. to offer their blessings.
• Temples also served as the centers for entertainment and provided a common platform for the people to meet each other and get a new boost.

• Early settlers (their origins are unknown) began to build and rebuild temples at selected spots in their villages. The earliest known temple was a small shrine made of unbaked bricks. Temples were the residences of various gods.
• Temples were centres of religious activities. They were dedicated to different gods and goddess.

City life began in Mesopotamia. The land between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers (part of modern Iraq) is called Mesopotamia. The plains lie in the north-east. The plains gradually rise to tree-covered mountain ranges with clear streams. Agriculture began in this region between 7000 and 6000 BCE. There is a stretch of upland (called steppe) in the north. This area was used by the herders. Tributaries of the Tigris serve as routes of communication into the mountains of Iran. The south is a desert. The first cities and writing emerged in the southern part. The Euphrates and the Tigris bring loads of silt to make the land fertile in this region.

Answer:
Kharjis were the breakway group of Ali’s followers. They were the sources of trouble for Arab state for half a century.

Although Ali won this war but he was unable to suppress the group led by Muawiya, a kinsman of Uthman and the governor of Syria. Then he fought another war with him at Siffin, which ended in a truce. After the War of Siffin, Ali’s followers got divided into two groups. Some remained loyal to them, while others who left them came to be known as Kharjis.

(i) The late Roman bureaucracy, both the higher and middle echelons, was a comparatively affluent group because it drew the bulk of its salary in gold and invested much of this in buying up assets like land.

(ii) There was of course also a great deal of corruption, especially in the judicial system and in the administration of military supplies. The extortion of the higher bureaucracy and the greed of the provincial governors were proverbial.

But Government intervened repeatedly to curb these forms of corruption -we only know about them in the first place because of the laws that tried to put an end to them, and because historians and other members of the intelligentsia denounced such practices.

(iii) This element of ‘criticism’ is a remarkable feature of the classical world. The Roman state was an authoritarian regime; in other words, dissent was rarely tolerated and Government usually responded to protest with violence (especially in the cities of the East where people were often fearless in making fun of emperors). Yet a strong tradition or Roman law had emerged by the fourth century, and this acted as a brake on even the most fearsome emperors. Emperors were not free to do whatever they liked, and the law was actively used to protect civil rights.

In the late Roman bureaucracy, the higher and middle echelons, was a comparatively affluent group because it drew the bulk of its salary in gold and invested much of it in buying up assets like land. There was, of course, a great deal of corruption especially in the judicial system and in the administration of military supplies.