Empire of Alexander the Great; Ancient Globalization; Advances in Art and Science; government

1. T H E G R E E K W O R L D E X P A N D S
4 0 0 - 1 5 0 B . C . E .
Chapter 4

2. The Rise of Macedonia

3. Philip II of Macedonia (382-336 B.C.E)
Third and youngest son of King Amytas III
Sent to Thebes as a hostage at 14.
Protégé of Epaminondas.
Both older brothers died in battle.
Became king at age 34 .
Named his son, born in 359, Alexandros
(leader of men).
Through combination of war and
diplomacy, Philip II united Balkan
kingdoms.

4. Philip II’s Army
 Hoplite force
 Theban organization “The Companions” and elite
cavalry squad
 Exclusive to nobility
 Provided Philip with hostages to keep nobility loyal
 Alexander and “The Companions” educated by Aristotle who
arrived at court in 343 B.C.E.
 Battle of Chaeronea in 338: Athens defeated

5. Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.E.)
[R. 336-323 B.C.E.]
 Philip II was assassinated in 336 B.C.E. by one of
his own bodyguards.
 Alexander became King
 Greeks called him “sacker of cities”
 Romans called him Alexander the Great

6. Alexander’s Conquests
 Defeated Persia in 333
 Destroyed capitol city of Persepolis
 Gave amnesty to cities that surrendered, slaughtered civilians,
soldiers and livestock of cities that did not
 Invaded and conquered Egypt in 322
 Received as liberator from Persians
 Given double crown for Upper and Lower Egypt and named
Pharaoh
 Decided that Egypt would be capital of his empire and founded
the city of Alexandria
 Plans for library
 Never saw the city or the library

7. Alexander’s Empire

8. Alexander’s Idea of Governance
 Following defeat of Persian Empire.
 Attempted to create cohesion by requiring officers to marry
Persian women
 Officers must Adopt Persian dress and customs
 Planned to make Egypt center of his government.
 Did not interfere with local customs and culture.
 Adopted ideas of battle from the Assyrians and the
Greeks
 Adopted ideas of governance from Persia

9. Pediment on Alexander’s Sarcophagus

10. Final Campaigns
 Invaded Afghanistan and barely managed to hold it
 Defeated Indian warlord Porus at Battle of Hydaspes
in 326 B.C.C.E.)
 Alexander’s army refused to continue campaign through India
 Died in 323 (likely malarial fever)

11. Hellenistic Kingdoms
 Alexander’s legacy” “To the Strongest”
 Died without naming an heir
 Turmoil from 323 to 275 B.C.E.
 3 Successor Empires
 Ptolemaic Egypt
 Seleucid Asia
 Antigonid Macedon and Greece
 Western world ruled by Greco-Macedonians
 Returned to Greek customs and culture
 Hellenistic = “Greek-like”
 Cosmopolitan Empire

12. Hellenistic Kingdoms c. 303 B.C.E

13. Ptolemy’s Egypt
 Ptolemy ( 367 B.C.E. – 283 B.C.E.) a General in Alexander’s
army
 Perhaps his half-brother
 Asked only for province of Egypt
 Oversaw development of Alexandria as an academic center
 Scientific and medical advances in anatomy, astronomy,
mechanical engineering and physics
 Family ruled for 300 years
 Male heirs called “Ptolemy”; sisters called “Cleopatra”
 Followed Egyptian religious practices but spoke only Greek
 Most successful of the Hellenistic Kingdoms

14. Ptolemy I

15. Seleucid Asia
 Ruled by Seleucus (358-281 B.C.E.) immediately
following Alexander’s death
 Wife was a Persian
 Ceded much of the Indus Valley to the warrior-king
Chandragupta
 By mid third century B.C.E. Seleucids had lost most of Bactra
(Afghanistan) to local war lords
 Following Seleucus’ death in 281 B.C.E. his son,
Antiochus succeeded him. Antiochus was half-
Persian and ruled from the capitol, Antioch
 Antiochus III lost the kingdom to the Romans

16. Coin showing
Seleucus I

17. Seleucid Empire c. 200 B.C.E.

18. Antigonid Macedon & Greece
 Macedonian homeland was highly unstable following
Alexander’s death
 276 B.C.E. General Antigonus (382 B.C.E. -301
B.C.E.) took control of Macedonia.
 Dominated trade in eastern Mediterranean
 Dominated Greece
 Most effective army in the Hellenistic world

19. Antigonus I

20. Zeno of Citium

21. Rise of Stoicism under Antigonus
 Zeno of Citium (335-263 B.C.E.)
 Stoics based on stoa a colonnade
 Cosmos: an ordered whole in which all contradictions are
resolved for ultimate good.
 Evil is relative: misfortunes are merely incidents that will lead
to the final perfection of the universe.
 Everything that happens is pre-determined.
 People are free only in the sense that they can accept fate or
rebel against it.
 One can attain happiness (tranquility of mind) by accepting
that whatever happens must be for the best.

22. Epicurean Philosophy
 Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E.) based his theories on Democritus
who lived in the 5th century B.C.E.
 The universe is made up entirely of atoms;
 Every individual object or organism in a product of a combination of
atoms;
 Based on the randomness of atoms Epicurus concluded that
there is no ultimate purpose in workings of the universe
 Highest good cannot come from enduring hardship and suffering
 Misfortune is the chance by-product of random atomic actions
 gods do not intervene in human affairs
 Highest good is pleasure (a happy life)
 The moderate satisfaction of bodily appetites
 Intellectual pleasure of contemplating excellence and remembering past
enjoyments
 Serenity in the face of death
 No fear of gods

23. Similarities & Differences: Stoicism and Epicureanism
 Stoics
 Nothing is better than
“tranquility of mind”
 Focus on individual not the
community
 Pursuit of virtue is highest
importance
 Universal absolute of justice
is attainable
 Government exists for
benefit of citizens even when
it is unjust
 Duty to be active in politics
 Epicureans
 Nothing is better than
tranquility of mind
 Focus on individual not the
community
 Virtue is not an end in itself
 No universal absolutes of
justice
 Government is at best a
nuisance to be endured as
long as it benefits individual
 Stay away from politics

24. Skeptics
 Carneades (214-129 B.C.E.)
 Born in Cyrene, North Africa
 Student of Aristotle
 All knowledge is based on sense perception and is therefore
limited and relative
 No one can prove anything
 Because our senses can deceive us, they are unreliable
 We can say something “appears” to be a certain thing but we
cannot say we know it for certain
 One can have no definite knowledge of the supernatural, the
meaning of life or right or wrong
 The only recourse is to suspend judgment

25. Carneades of Cyrene
Is Socrates the philosophical father of skepticism?
What about scientific inquiry?
How can change exist without skepticism?

26. Hellenistic Cosmopolis
 By 300 B.C.E.
 Admired all things Greek.
 Common language;
 Fueled by Greek emigration to major cities around the
former Alexandrian empire;
 Greek homeland population decreased by 50%
 Cities were connected by trade;
 Infrastructure spending;
 Migration of workers from rural areas to cities in search
of work, increased wealth, opportunities;
 Militaries of Hellenistic Kingdoms kept roads and sea
lanes relatively safe for trade;

27. Ancient Alexandria
 Center of learning;
 Commercial port;
 500,000 inhabitants;
 Orderly grid of wide streets;
 Splendid public buildings and parks;
 Museum was the storehouse and showcase of Greek
culture;

30. Modern Alexandria

31. Economic Issues In Hellenistic Cities
 Agriculture: major occupation
 Small farmers suffered exploitative taxation
 Industrial production: based on individual labor of
artisans
 Artisans also suffered from exploitative taxation
 High unemployment
 Boom and bust cycle created constant extremes and wide
divisions between rich and poor

32. Religion in the Hellenistic World
 Intersection between religion and politics
 Early civilizations
 gods (one or more) protected a community and furthered its interests;
 failure to worship or obey the gods led to personal or communal misfortune;
 man’s duty to the gods
 Greeks: “man is a creature of the poleis”
 Man may have duties to the gods but these duties are in the service of the poleis
 Many gods and all are deserving of worship
 Hellenistic world
 Elites gravitated toward philosophy
 Rational relationship to the world and to religion
 “Rootless multiculturalism” fostered worship of many different gods and religious
diffusion (Greeks worshiped Egyptian and Persian gods; Persians and Egyptians
worshiped Greek gods)
 Septuagint: translation of Hebrew scriptures into Greek for Jews who did not live
in Palestine
 Majority of people still worshiped gods rather than engaged in philosophical
speculation

33. Scientific Revolution
 Hellenistic period called “most brilliant age in the
history of science before the 17th century.”
 Conversion of events, societies and cultures created a
globalized scientific community.
 Fusion of Greek, Egyptian and Mesopotamian/Persian science;
 Common language, affordable travel, improved
communication between scientific communities;
 Competition among patrons of science.

34. Achievements
 Measuring and mapping (astronomy, geography, geometry)
 Earth and planets revolve around the sun
 Euclid geometry
 Eratosthenes of Alexandria
 Circumference of the earth
 One might reach Asia by sailing West
 Medicine and Mechanics
 Archimedes of Syracuse
 Specific gravity
 Physical properties of pulley, lever, and screw
 Herophilus of Chalcedon
 Detailed description of the brain as the engine of intellect
 Arteries contain only blood not blood and air
 Heart functions to carry blood to all parts of the body

35. Sculpture
 Counter-positioning
 Creating action
 Realism
 Influence on sculpture of Renaissance

36. Winged Victory of
Samothrace or Nike
Of Samothrace,
Louvre Museum,
Paris

37. Laocoon and
His Sons , Vatican
Museum,
Vatican City

38. Dying Gaul,
Capitoline
Museums,
Rome

39. Importance of Hellenistic World in Development of
Western Civilization
 Cosmopolitan cities: greater public facilities and more
opportunity to a wider range of people.
 Wide cultural diffusion
 Greek language and culture may have been dominant but Egyptian,
Mesopotamian and Persian cultures provided important
contributions to Hellenistic cities and society
 Framework for Roman imperial government.
 Bridge between older civilizations and Rome.
 Romans emulated Hellenistic city planning, not Athenian
planning.
 Modernity: cosmopolitan population did not consider
themselves bound by the old prejudices and superstitions
of the past.