Alek Ristic

History 134
Mrs. Lark
August 13th, 2019

Portfolio Reflection Paper

“What can I, as an historian of the ancient world, learn and apply from the history of my

ancient ancestors to my own role in contributing to and acting responsibly for the betterment

of society?” To answer this question effectively I have decided to go with the Military/Police

section. The First individual that I will cover is Alexander the Great in civilization VI. The second

individual I will cover will be Achilles in the Mycenean civilization. The last individual I will cover

will be Hammurabi from 1792-1750 BC.

I selected Alexander the Great (From Module 6) because he is the greatest military

leader that we have learned about in this class. I choose this quote by Willian H McNeil

“Memory is not something fixed and forever. As time passes, remembered personal

experiences take on new meanings. A bitter disappointment may come to seem a blessing in

disguise; a triumph may later turn sour, while something trivial may subsequently loom large-all

because of what happens later.” I choose this quote because of the thought of my grandpa

telling me stories about his time in the military in WW2. I can see this mostly relating to

Alexander the Great because he is the best military leader of all time and must have had stories

for days. The stories go on from his kids’ kids, and many more generations that’s why we know

about it today. This is important for people to know because it teaches how a country or nation
was started or formed. Alexander formed Macedonia, and Greece by winning wars. Making it

relate to the military.

The second person I decided to write about is Achilles (From Module 5), who is also my

favorite person to learn about. Achilles relates to military because he is a war hero and will be

remembered as one of the best warriors ever. I think this quote by Michael Postma perfectly

describes Achilles “History is a lesson: a lesson of intentions, movements, experiments, and

human production; a lesson that builds integrity and character within our children. Is man

inherently good? Who controls the distribution of power and wealth? Whose government is for

which people? The study of history requires us to ask such complex questions as these.” The

lesson that can be learned is that war doesn’t solve all problems. Achilles was built to be the

most powerful warrior that was immune to everything other than obviously his achilleas

tendon. He develops into a human after killing hector and is confronted by Priam to give him his

son back for a proper burial ground. The lesson that was learned by Achilles in this reference is

that a battle will not solve problems over your issue. I feel like this can relate to society,

because it describes human nature. People are very revengeful, but revenge is never the

answer. History can teach you of how to behave with act. Certain lessons like Achilles’s story of

getting revenge for his cousin has made me think twice about how I should approach certain

situations towards life. I feel like there are many other stories that can relate to war, or revenge

not being the answer to everything. As history as shown us many times.

For my last individual I decided to talk about Hammurabi. I choose Hammurabi because

through conquest he made a united nation in Mesopotamia. A quote from William H McNeil

“This value of historical knowledge obviously justifies teaching and learning about what
happened in recent times, for the way things are descends from the way they were yesterday

and the day before that. But in fact, institutions that govern a great deal of our everyday

behavior took shape hundreds or even thousands of years ago.” This relates to both histories,

and about how having a strong Military brought a nation together. Hammurabi was an

awesome law enforcer, but I feel like his military power was underwhelmed, and under looked.

He brought a nation together, through conquest and united them. Society can see this and take

his lessons away of how he brought people together through alliances. His military power

brought people together, and this history lesson could be viewed as the bringing of people

together even if it was through conquest.

https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/historical-

archives/why-study-history-(1985)

https://www.ancient.eu/hammurabi/

http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol6/622-postma.aspx

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/achilles

https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/alexander-the-great