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A pattern that was common among the ancient civilizations of China, Rome, Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India was that most of them started as a dictatorship, a monarchy, or a dynasty. Eventually, most of them changed to a democracy, republic, or to class systems. Almost all of the civilizations had one or two great leaders. For example, Egypt had King Tut, Greece had Alexander the Great and Rome had Julius Caesar.

China has had many different leaders through the years. Dynasties, or a series of rulers from the same decent, ruled this government. Some of the most powerful dynasties were the Shang, Zhou, and Qin. These dynasties and many others ruled from the times of 1500 BC to 1900 AD. The dynasty that lasted the longest was the Zhou Dynasty. It lasted from 1122 BC through 256 BC. The Qin Dynasty had one of the strongest central governments, but only lasted fourteen years. The most peaceful time was when the Han Dynasty ruled.

Another ancient civilization was the Romans. They started out as a monarchy government by having one ruler. Eventually an idea of republicanism overthrew the monarchy. The Romans thought that this would keep any one person from gaining too much power. The most powerful governing body was the senate. The senators elected two consuls each year. The consul s jobs were to supervise the business of government and command the armies. They could only serve one term, which was one year in length. Julius Caesar overthrew this by having the senate name him Dictator for life.

Greece was one of the most powerful civilizations of its time. The Athenian government evolved from a monarchy into an aristocracy. A monarchy is when a King or Queen exercises central power. In Greece, the government was headed by a privileged minority or upper class, which ruled his or her own city-states. They created a system based on the right of each individual citizen to speak out about issues.

India was an ancient civilization that had many rulers and empires. The first rulers were the Harappans. They ruled from 3500 BC through 1500 BC. The Aryans took over the Harappan empire around 1500 BC. Then, Alexander the Great came and took over control of India. After ruling for only a couple of years, he died. A few years later the Mauryan Empire took over. Next was the Ashoka. Finally, the Guptas ruled from 320 BC through 535 AD.

The last two civilizations were Egypt and Mesopotamia. Rulers of Egypt were called Pharaohs, and Mesopotamia had a class system wherein the highest class was the rulers. Besides the ruling families, the high class also included leading officials, and high priests. The small middle class had merchants, artisans, and lower priests. The majority of the people were at the bottom and were peasant farmers.

These are the ancient civilizations and what their governments were like. They had many great rulers and kings. Most of them followed the pattern of changing from one ruler into a republic or democracy.