What is the difference between ancient civilizations and middle ages?

Answer 1

No difference. They are the same time in history. Just different names.

Answer 2

There are doubtless many views on this. I will provide my own, and let other people do the same.

Without question, historians have regarded the middle ages as a period first of decline from ancient times, beginning with the fall of Rome, then as a recovery from that decline, ending in the Renaissance. My view is that the middle ages is entirely different.

Ancient Rome

Early in the history of Rome, it was a republic. People were prized because of their contributions to the society. As time passed, men acquired power, took over armies, used the armies to conquer territories they governed themselves for their own benefit, and the idea of contributions to society was regarded as an obsolete and foolish way of doing business. The process came to a logical conclusion, which was to concentrate power in the hands of one person, who was an emperor. From that point, the greatness of Rome was a reflection of the military power of an individual.

The emperors had qualities that were more or less luck of the draw: good, evil, weak, and crazy seemed to come in about equal numbers. There was a time when someone figured out that he should rule as well as possible, and this included carefully picking an heir who would do the same. This produced a series of emperor known as the Five Good Emperors: Nerva, Trajan, Antoninus Pius, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius. But Marcus Aurelius picked his son, Commodus, to follow, and this put things back on the basis of luck of the draw.

In the hundred years after the death of Commodus, over sixty men, with armies and provinces and mints to support them, claimed to be the emperor. One of these men died at an old age of natural causes, many years after he abdicated. The commonest way for the rest to die was murder. The second most common was in battle or campaigning. Of the few who died of natural causes, no two died of the same cause, one died of plague, one died of some unknown cause deemed to be natural, and one was struck by lightning.

It was during this time that arts, literature, architecture, and science in Rome went into deep decline. People did not have time to build or create great works. Survival was about all anyone could hope for.

Diocletian sought to stabilize things with a system analogous to that which produced the Five Good Emperors. The result was, at first, stability. The final outcome was that Constantine became the Emperor of a unified Empire. And that was when things really started to change.

There were two causes of the change, one being the adoption of Christianity, and the other being invasions of Germanic tribes, which the empire could not really resist. The acceptance of Germanic tribes into the Empire, ruling their own areas, was started by Emperor Theodosius in 376, when the Visigoths were allowed to settle on the Roman side of the Danube. The establishment of Christianity as the state religion was done by Emperor Theodosius in 380. He died in 395, and with his death the empire was permanently divided into a western half, which deteriorated rapidly under the weight of Germanic invasions, and an eastern half, which survived for more than a thousand years, until 1453. The date given for the fall of the Roman Empire, 476, is the date the last Emperor of the West abdicated in favor of the Emperor of the East.

The Middle Ages

A very curious thing happened next. The Germanic tribes all set up their own kingdoms: Visigoths, Vandals, the Ostrogoths, Burgundians, Franks, and in Britain, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. They conquered the land, and they conquered the people. But somehow, they were subverted and conquered by Rome. Those on the continent took the Latin language. They took Roman law to a large extent. But one thing all took was the Roman religion, which was Christianity. And it was Christianity that unifies the Middle Ages. And it was the Christianity of the Roman Church that dominated all the kingdoms founded by the Germanic tribes.

In the East, there was still the East Roman Empire, though we now call it Byzantine, after the city Constantine had renamed Constantinople. It was still going along in its very Christian way. Aged people of state were dying of natural causes again. Important people of court were going on pilgrimage and retiring to monasteries. The idea of a higher good was always tempered by a healthy self interests, but it had become dominant, at least in conversation.

In the West, the kingdoms created out of the chaos of the West Roman Empire took on a very different character, which developed into feudalism of a type not seen in the East. But it was a character the Byzantines could understand and sympathize with in a way they could not sympathize with their pagan ancestors.

Interestingly, the arts and sciences did not collapse with the West Roman Empire. The pause in building and writing that had come about in the third century, with the coming of imperial chaos, was reversed within a couple of centuries, as the newly Christianized West started building churches. The Romanesque style is well recognized, and early examples come from the sixth century. Pilgrimages required construction, or at least maintenance, of roads. Schools were being opened, and there are seven schools in Britain still in operation that date to the sixth or seventh centuries.

From the point of view of science, the Middle Ages provided some very important contributions. The chimney is one example; it made fireplaces possible. Imagine that. I could list literally dozens of important medieval inventions (I already have in another answer).

The kings of Western Europe of the Middle Ages were probably no less selfish or cruel than their Roman predecessors. But they were guided by, or held in check by, a Church that could either provide moral lessons or make things very uncomfortable for them.

We have to be careful about our understanding of the Church. It was not just the Roman Catholic Church. All along, there were other church organizations, some orthodox, such as the Oriental Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox, and some were heretical, such as the Catharists. In 1056, a permanent split divided the main body of the Church into the Roman Catholic Church in the West and the Eastern Orthodox Church in the East. And toward the end of the Middle Ages, the protestants were already on the rise. But regardless of the Church a king formally followed, it normally had some influence over his actions.

Conclusion

I will not claim that the Middle Ages were better than ancient times. And I will not claim that they were more fun. I will not even claim that the Christians were kinder and more considerate than the people who came before them (and if I did, I know there are Muslims who would disagree).

What I will claim is that a characteristic of the Roman Empire was that it was dominated by the personal ambitions of individuals, but the leaders of the Middle Ages were characteristically dominated, for better or worse, by religious considerations (regardless of the actual Church involved).

Answer 3

The Middle Ages was a period in European history between about 500 AD and 1400. ancient Egypt was the culture that thrived in Northeastern Africa between 3100 BC and 30 BC.

Answer 4

The old kingdom period was in 3rd millenium B.C. ruled by third-sixth dynasty; step pyramid built, and Great Pyramid built.

Royal statues built in the middle kingdom.