Western Civilization I / Unit 8 WC1 0727 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Reading a Map of the Invasions
The idea
The exam's invasion map shows arrows across the fifth-century empire and asks which people followed which arrow or where a kingdom settled. The method is to fix four end points and read backward: Vandals end in North Africa, Visigoths in Spain, Ostrogoths in Italy, Franks in Gaul. The Huns are the arrow with no kingdom, pushing from the east and vanishing after four fifty-three.
In practice
Four questions. An arrow from beyond the Danube through the Balkans to Rome and on to southern Gaul and Spain: the Visigoths, Adrianople to Alaric to Spain. An arrow across the Rhine in four oh six through Gaul and Spain into Africa: the Vandals. An arrow from the east that stops at Rome's gates in four fifty-one and turns back: Attila's Huns. A people already on the map's northern edge who expand into Gaul without leaving home: the Franks under Clovis. A fifth, the trick: the arrow into Italy ending in a kingdom at Ravenna after four ninety-three is Theodoric's Ostrogoths, and the state that approved it lies off the map's eastern edge, at Constantinople.
Where people slip
Britain is a different case. No arrow conquers it; the Roman army leaves in four oh seven, and the map goes blank. And Constantinople's territory stays Roman on every correct map, since the East did not fall.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
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