Editing Classical Period (section)

==Notes==
* Writing became more common during this time period. Beforehand in the bronze age literacy was the domain of scribes and a few priests and nobles and existed primarily for purposes of administration first and religious purposes second. In the classical world it was fairly common for men and women who were not at the bottom of society to know their letters and using them much more widely. Probably because the Phoenicians developed the basics of phonetic writing during the Dark Age and it's easier to learn a few dozen symbols that represent short sounds than hundreds of symbols which represent syllables and words. Literacy would decline after the classical period.
* Navies emerged as states realized the advantages of travelling over water as opposed to land, and pirates and enemy ships had to be accounted for. In the Medeterranian, the ship of choice was the Trireme.
* Philosophy and political science were at the fore.  Every conceivable society was attempted, from Athenian democracy, to monarchies and oligarchies, Rome's landed citizen republic, the theocratic dynasties in Egypt, and the brutal warrior-communes of Sparta.  Every society was aware of the growing masses in the cities and the need to keep the populace placated, whether through expanding franchise, brutal tyranny, manipulative privation, brazen demagoguery, ''panem et circenses'', or a combination thereof.
* The iconic marble statues were originally painted with colourful paints. The paints have just decayed much quicker than the stone they covered.
* Glass as something other than beads began to be made and used for cups, plates, jars and similar, as well as for windows to a limited degree. Glass blowing was a big industry in the Roman Empire, though it was still cloudy. Clear glass was exceptionally hard to make until the late middle ages when Soda Ash was introduced as a flux.
* Regular trade across the breadth of Eurasia had begun around 100 BCE. Silk from China, Spices from Southeast Asia and Sugar from New Guinea were routinely exported to Ancient Greece and Rome. The Routes were long, dangerous and involved numerous middle men. Never the less the profit was considerable. So much so that Roman Policians were concerned about the Trade Imbalance with the Far East.