How Did The Hellenistic Culture Change The Makeup Of The Known World?

In 336 B.C., Alexander the Slap-up became the leader of the Greek kingdom of Macedonia. By the time he died thirteen years later on, Alexander had congenital an empire that stretched from Greece all the fashion to India. That cursory only thorough empire-building entrada inverse the world: It spread Greek ideas and culture from the Eastern Mediterranean to Asia.

Historians call this era the "Hellenistic flow." (The word "Hellenistic" comes from the word Hellazein, which ways "to speak Greek or identify with the Greeks.") It lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. until 31 B.C., when Roman troops conquered the last of the territories that the Macedonian king had one time ruled.

Macedonian Expansion

At the stop of the classical period, effectually 360 B.C., the Greek city-states were weak and disorganized from two centuries of warfare. (First the Athenians fought with the Persians; then the Spartans fought with the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War; so the Spartans and the Athenians fought with one another and with the Thebans and the Persians.) All this fighting made it easy for another, previously unexceptional city-state to rise to ability: Macedonia, under the assertive rule of King Philip II.

Philip and the Macedonians began to expand their territory outward. They were helped along by a number of advances in armed services technology: long-range catapults, for example, along with pikes chosen sarissas that were near 16 feet long—long enough for soldiers to use not as projectiles, but equally spears. Male monarch Philip'due south generals also pioneered the apply of the massive and intimidating infantry germination known as the phalanx.

King Philip's ultimate goal was to conquer Persia and help himself to the empire's land and riches. This was not to be; King Philip was assassinated by his babysitter Pausanias in 336 B.C. at his daughter's wedding, before he could enjoy the spoils of his victories. His son Alexander, known to history as "Alexander The Great," jumped at the chance to take over his father'south imperial project.

The new Macedonian rex led his troops across the Hellespont into Asia. (When he got there, he plunged an enormous sarissa into the ground and alleged the land "spear won.") From there, Alexander and his armies kept moving. They conquered huge chunks of western Asia and Egypt and pressed on into the Indus Valley.

The Hellenistic Age

Alexander's empire was a frail 1, not destined to survive for long. After Alexander died in 323 B.C., his generals (known as the Diadochoi) divided his conquered lands amid themselves. Soon, those fragments of the Alexandrian empire had become iii powerful dynasties: the Seleucids of Syria and Persia, the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Antigonids of Greece and Macedonia.

Though these dynasties were not politically united–since Alexander's expiry, they were no longer part of any Greek or Macedonian empire–they did share a not bad deal in common. It is these commonalities, the essential "Greek-ness" of the disparate parts of the Alexandrian world–that historians refer to when they talk about the Hellenistic Age.

Scroll to Proceed

The Hellenistic states were ruled absolutely by kings. (Past contrast, the classical Greek city-states, or polei, had been governed democratically by their citizens.) These kings had a cosmopolitan view of the earth, and were specially interested in amassing as many of its riches as they could.

As a result, they worked hard to cultivate commercial relationships throughout the Hellenistic earth. They imported ivory, gold, ebony, pearls, cotton, spices and sugar (for medicine) from Bharat; furs and iron from the Far East; wine from Syria and Chios; papyrus, linen and drinking glass from Alexandria; olive oil from Athens; dates and prunes from Babylon and Damaskos; silver from Kingdom of spain; copper from Republic of cyprus; and tin from as far north as Cornwall and Brittany.

They also put their wealth on display for all to see, building elaborate palaces and commissioning fine art, sculptures and extravagant jewelry. They made huge donations to museums and zoos and they sponsored libraries (the famous
libraries at Alexandria and Pergamum, for instance) and universities. The university at Alexandria was abode to the mathematicians Euclid, Apollonios and Archimedes, along with the inventors Ktesibios (the water clock) and Heron (the model steam engine).

Hellenistic Culture

People, like appurtenances, moved fluidly around the Hellenistic kingdoms. Almost anybody in the former Alexandrian empire spoke and read the same language: koine, or "the common tongue," a kind of colloquial Greek. Koine was a unifying cultural force: No matter where a person came from, he could communicate with anyone in this cosmopolitan Hellenistic world.

At the same fourth dimension, many people felt alienated in this new political and cultural mural. One time upon a time, citizens had been intimately involved with the workings of the democratic metropolis-states; now, they lived in impersonal empires governed by professional bureaucrats. Many people joined "mystery religions," like the cults of the goddesses Isis and Fortune, which promised their followers immortality and individual wealth.

Hellenistic philosophers, likewise, turned their focus inward. Diogenes the Carper lived his life as an expression of protest against commercialism and cosmopolitanism. (Politicians, he said, were "the lackeys of the mob"; the theatre was "a peep show for fools.") The philosopher Epicurus argued that the almost important thing in life was the pursuit of the individual's pleasure and happiness. And the Stoics argued that every private human being had within him a divine spark that could be cultivated past living a good and noble life.

Hellenistic Fine art

In Hellenistic art and literature, this alienation expressed itself in a rejection of the commonage demos and an emphasis on the private. For example, sculptures and paintings represented actual people rather than idealized "types."

Famous works of Hellenistic Art include "Winged Victory of Samothrace," "Laocoön and His Sons," "Venus de Milo," "Dying Gaul," "Boy With Thorn" and "Boxer at Remainder," among others.

The Stop of the Hellenistic Age

The Hellenistic earth fell to the Romans in stages, but the era ended for expert in 31 B.C. That yr, in the Battle at Actium, the Roman Octavian defeated Marker Antony's Ptolemaic armada. Octavian took the name Augustus and became the showtime Roman emperor. Despite the Hellenistic menses's relatively brusque life span, the cultural and intellectual life of the era has been influencing readers, writers, artists and scientists ever since.