The Kushans

(noun)

One of five branches of the Yuezhi, who invaded Bactria in 135 BCE, and spread southeast to form the Kushan Empire around 30 CE.

Related Terms

Examples of The Kushans in the following topics:

  • Expansion and Decline of the Kushan Empire

    • The Kushans spread from the Kabul River Valley to defeat other Central Asian tribes.
    • The Kushans were one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, an Indo-European nomadic people.
    • During the 1st and early 2nd centuries CE, the Kushans expanded across the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent.
    • The western Kushans in Afghanistan were soon conquered by the Persian Sassanid Empire.
    • The eastern Kushan kingdom was based in the Punjab.

  • Rise of the Gupta Empire

    • The Gupta Empire was believed to be a dynasty of the Vaishya caste, the third of the four Hindu castes representing merchants and farmers.
    • Historians believe Sri Gupta and his son may have been Kushan vassals, or rulers who swore allegiance to the Kushan Empire.
    • Chandragupta II conquered the western Indian region of Malwa after defeating the Western Kshatrapas, a branch of the Sakas, as well as expelling the Kushana Empire from the northern Indian city state Mathura.
    • Under Gupta rule, a number of notable scholars thrived, including Kalidasa, considered the greatest poet and dramatist of the Sanskrit language; Aryabhata, the first of the Indian mathematician-astronomers who worked on the approximation for Pi; Vishnu Sharma, thought to be the author of the Panchatantra fables, one of the most widely-translated, non-religious books in history; and the Hindu philosopher Vatsyayana, author of the Kama Sutra.
    • Explain the factors that contributed to the rise of the Gupta Empire

  • Establishment of the National Assembly

    • Its members had been elected to represent the estates of the realm: the First Estate (the clergy), the Second Estate (the nobility) and the Third Estate (the commoners) but the Third Estate had been granted "double representation" (twice as many delegates as each of the other estates).
    • On June 17, with the failure of efforts to reconcile the three estates, the Third Estate declared themselves redefined as the National Assembly, an assembly not of the estates, but of the people.
    • Following the storming of the Bastille on July 14, the National Assembly became the effective government of France.
    • In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on November 2, 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation."
    • Thus the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick, and the orphaned.

  • The Constitution of 1791

    • The Constitution of 1791 was the first written constitution of France that turned the country into a constitutional monarchy following the collapse of the absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
    • For instance, the Marquis de Lafayette proposed a combination of the American and British systems, introducing a bicameral parliament, with the king having the suspensive veto power over the legislature, modeled on the authority then recently vested in the President of the United States.
    • The greatest controversy faced by the new committee surrounded the issue of citizenship.
    • Redefining the organization of the French government, citizenship, and the limits to the powers of government, the National Assembly set out to represent the interests of the public.
    • The National Assembly was the legislative body, the king and royal ministers made up the executive branch, and the judiciary was independent of the other two branches.

  • The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

    • The Fall of the Western Roman Empire was the period of decline in the Western Roman Empire in which it disintegrated and split into numerous successor states.
    • The Roman Empire lost the strengths that had allowed it to exercise effective control; modern historians mention factors including the effectiveness and numbers of the army, the health and numbers of the Roman population, the strength of the economy, the competence of the Emperor, the religious changes of the period, and the efficiency of the civil administration.
    • The reasons for the decline of the Empire are still debated today, and are likely multiple.
    • The Ostrogothic Kingdom, which rose from the ruins of the Western Roman Empire.
    • Analyze, broadly, the causes of the fall of the Roman Empire.

  • The Fall of Constantinople

    • The restored Byzantine Empire converted to Catholicism to get aid from the West against the Ottoman Turks, but the Turks defeated them by conquering Constantinople, thereby causing the final collapse of the Byzantines.
    • In the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans.
    • The Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, widely regarded as the last large-scale crusade of the Middle Ages, failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottoman Turks.
    • A popular saying at the time was "Better the Turkish turban than the Papal tiara."
    • The conquest of the city of Constantinople and the end of the Byzantine Empire was a key event in the Late Middle Ages, which also marks, for some historians, the end of the Middle Ages.

  • The Double Disasters

    • In 1071, the Byzantine Empire suffered two important defeats, against the Turks in the Battle of Manzikert and against the Normans in Bari, sometimes called the Double Disasters.
    • At the end of the conflict, neither the Normans nor the Byzantines could boast much power.
    • The Normans had come from the Duchy of Normandy in West Francia, which in 911 had been granted to the Viking Rollo in the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte by the French king Charles the Simple.
    • The premature death of the former and the overthrow of the latter led to further collapse as the Normans consolidated their conquest of Sicily and Italy.
    • Map of Italy and the Illyrian coast in the year 1084, after the defeat of the Byzantines at Bari.

  • The Achaemenid Empire

    • Under Cyrus the Great and Darius the Great, the Achaemenid Empire became the first global empire.
    • The dynasty drew its name from Achaemenes, who, from 705-675 BCE, ruled Persis, which was land bounded on the west by the Tigris River and on the south by the Persian Gulf.
    • The unified form of the empire came in the form of a central administration around the city of Pasargadae, which was erected by Cyrus c. 550 BCE.
    • Between c. 500-400 BCE, Darius the Great and his son, Xerxe I, ruled the Persian Plateau and all of the territories formerly held by the Assyrian Empire, including Mesopotamia, the Levant, and Cyprus.
    • Cyrus II of Persia, better known as Cyrus the Great, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire.

  • The Legislative Assembly

    • From the beginning, relations between the king and the Legislative Assembly were hostile.
    • The King vetoed the decrees and dismissed Girondins from the Ministry.
    • When the king formed a new cabinet mostly of Feuillants, this widened the breach between the king on the one hand and the Assembly and the majority of the common people of Paris on the other.
    • His refusal united all the Jacobins in the project of overturning the monarchy by force.
    • The next day the Convention abolished the monarchy and declared a republic.

  • The Theme System

    • The Byzantine-Arab wars wrought havoc on the Byzantine Dynasty but led to the creation of the highly efficient military theme system.
    • The themes (themata in Greek)  were the main administrative divisions of the middle Byzantine Empire.
    • Thus, by the turning of the 8th century, the themes had become the dominant feature of imperial administration.
    • Map depicting the locations of the themes established during the Heraclian Dynasty of the Byzantine Empire.
    • The caption above the left ship reads "the fleet of the Romans setting ablaze the fleet of the enemies."