31 Hellenistic Civilization

Hellenistic Civilizataion

Alexander's Empire Divides | More Commerce and Greek Culture | Privelege, Power and Failed Revolutions..

Alexander's conquests stimulated change, but what had not changed was an inclination to turn events into myth. Some would describe Alexander as having had godly powers. Persia's Zoroastrian priesthood, reeling from the damage that Alexander had done to the prestige of their religion, described him as one of the worst sinners in history, as having slain many Persian teachers and lawyers and as having quenched many sacred fires. Some others in Persia would describe Alexander as a biological member of Persia's royal family – the Achaemenids. In Egypt, Alexander would become known as the son of the last pharaoh, Nectanebus. Arabs would come to know him as Iskander and would tell fanciful stories about him. And in centuries to come in Ethiopia, Christians would describe his father, Philip, as a Christian martyr, and they would describe Alexander as an ascetic saint.

An unreliable account of Alexander as he neared death describes him as offering rule to his generals. Another account describes him as putting the hand of one of his generals, Perdiccas, with the hand of his wife Roxana and naming Perdiccas as his heir. Perdiccas apparently did not wed Roxana – who was pregnant with Alexander's child. Perdiccas did favor making this yet to be born child Alexander's heir if the child was to be a son. But for some Macedonians it was unthinkable that their king would be the son of a "barbarian" woman from central Asia, and this was part of the conflict that produced the break-up of Alexander's empire.

Ptolemy I, Alexander's bodyguard turned ruler of Egypt. A leader in breaking up Alexander's empire. Ancestor to the Cleopatra of Caesar's time.

Those who didn't want Roxana's child as their king favored Alexander's half brother, Philip III. He was the illegitimate son of Philip II and one of Philip's mistresses, and he has been described as an epileptic and simpleminded.

When Roxana gave birth, it was a son, and the conflict in opinions as to who should succeed Alexander intensified. War among former subordinates of Alexander was averted for a short time by a compromise in which it was agreed that Philip III and Alexander's son, Alexander IV, would reign jointly while each was supervised by a general. But agreement didn't last and soon there would be war.

The joint rule of Philip III and Alexander IV was subject to the regency of a one of Alexander the Great's old comrades: Perdiccas. Perdiccas saw holding the empire together his responsibility, but with Alexander the Great dead there was no center influential or strong enough to hold the empire together. Perdiccas came into conflict with an old general who was in charge of maintaining order in Macedonia and Greece, Antigonus, who thought he should be the empire's supreme authority. Antigonus allied with Antipater. Perdiccas died in 322, assassinated by his officers while he was leading an army and trying to assert his authority against a Macedonian in Egypt: Ptolemy.

Antipater fought attempts at independence by Greeks in Athens, Aetolia, and Thessaly – the Lamian War – which he won at the Battle of Crannon in 322. He appointed himself supreme regent of all Alexander's empire and died of an illness in 319. His son Cassader emerged as the dominant power in Greece.

In Macedonia, Alexander the Great's mother, Olympias, believed that under Cassander's rule, her grandson would lose the crown. As Alexander's mother she still had some power. She had Philip III executed, and she also executed his wife and a hundred friends of Cassander. Cassander and his army marched from Greece into Macedonia, and there he won battles against Olympias' armies. In 316 he had Olympias executed, and he put Roxana and Alexander IV under guard, and in a few years he had them executed.

Cassander ruled in Macedonia and much of Greece. One of Perdiccas' assassins, Seleucus, had taken power in Babylon and extended his rule eastward through Persia and fought a war from 305 to 303 with India's Mauryan Empire. Seleucus settled with the Mauryan emperor and withdrew from what today is Afghanistan.

The new rulers in Alexander's disintegrated empire made themselves monarchs in the Macedonian tradition. Drawing from the Alexander legend, they attempted to have a striking personal appearance. They wore headbands similar to the one Alexander had worn, which became a symbol of monarchy, and they continued Alexander’s use of the title “king.” In meeting visitors they postured haughtily, while visitors were obliged to gesture submission, respect and deference.

The new monarchs sought support in religion, pretending that their bloody wars were the will of the gods. As had Alexander, they claimed themselves divine. The ruler in Egypt, a Macedonian named Ptolemy, claimed that he was descended from Heracles (Hercules) and Dionysus. He staffed his administration with Greeks rather than Egyptians, and many Egyptians continued to view his rule as foreign. But he attempted to appeal to the glory of Egypt’s ancient past and portrayed himself as a new pharaoh.

exander's conquests had stimulated trade from the border of India to as far west as what is now the French port city of Marseille, with Greek as its common language. A common currency had developed, as had new roads that made transport easier.

With the increase in trade had come expanded mining, manufacturing and shipbuilding. Freight carrying ships were built much larger, up to five tons in size, using methods of construction first applied to warships. In the 200s BCE, Egypt's port city of Alexandria became a center of imports and manufacturing. The Egyptians and Phoenicians produced and traded cotton cloth, and the Egyptians produced silk, paper, glass, jewelry, cosmetics, salt, wine and beer. In West Asia (the Mid-East), large workshops appeared alongside the small family stores that were common, and there the manufacture of woolens increased, along with asphalt, petroleum, carpets, perfumes, bleach and pain relieving drugs.

Across what had been Alexander's empire, at least a few privately owned businesses grew into large enterprises. With the increase in circulation of money, credit became more sophisticated. Money-changing grew into banking. By the 100s BCE, thirty-five Hellenistic cities would include private banks. ^note8 Private banks would be making loans. The use of checks would appear, and people could deposit their savings for safekeeping and collect interest, which was around ten to twelve percent annually. Many aristocrats – traditionally landowners – gave up their contempt for trade and enterprise and enthusiastically joined in the accumulation of wealth.

In West Asia and North Africa well-to-do tradesmen, intellectuals and aristocrats developed an interest in Greek culture – to the annoyance of those who believed that the old ways were best. From Marseille to India, Greek became the language of intellectuals. The Greek gymnasium became popular. It was a place for bathing and physical exercise – without clothes for the sake of freedom of movement in their exercises. The gymnasium was also a place for training in grammar, rhetoric and poetry. Those who passed through training at the gymnasium acquired a status similar to a modern college degree.

There was an increase in the migrations of individuals from city to city and from the countryside to the city. Individualism was replacing tribal ties, and a new cosmopolitanism was rising.

Among city governments was a greater desire for cooperation with other cities, such as offering other cities freedom from import and export duties to encourage trade. Cities began offering other cities exchanges of citizenship. This occurred first between Athens and Rhodes, then between the Peloponnesian cities of Messene and Phigalia. The island of Paros offered  exchanges of citizenship, as did Pergamum, Temnos, Miletus and others. Conflicts that previously might have erupted into war were now more inclined toward arbitration, with the arbiters often a commission from a third city.

Common legal formalities appeared among various cities. And, in place of trial by local juries, an inter-city system developed in which commissions came from other cities to hear cases and settle lawsuits that would otherwise have been subject to local prejudices, politics and passions.

An interest in science, art and literature increased. Rulers saw no threat in it, and they let it be. Some people read seriously, and many, including wives of the wealthy, read escapist works about life in the countryside with shepherds, shepherdesses, wooded valleys and true love.

Libraries collected serious works and grew in number. Pergamum had a great library. The library at Alexandria, Egypt, which opened in 283 BCE, became the most famous. It was to accumulate as many as four hundred thousand scrolls and several thousand original works and copies, and it had a scientific museum that attracted people from afar. The academy that Plato had founded still flourished, and Athens remained a famous center of philosophy, but Pergamum and Alexandria eclipsed Athens as intellectual and commercial centers.

The observation of fact was becoming widely recognized as important, and science was studied divorced from philosophy and metaphysics. People trained for various professions, including engineering and medicine. In medicine, corpses were dissected and studied. Doctors discovered the difference between motor nerves and sensory nerves, and for various parts of the body they created names that would be used into modern times. Specialists advanced the study of plants and herbs. Manuals were written on agriculture and farm management. In Alexandria, Euclid contributed to geometry by creating a system of proofs based on deduction.

Stimulated by what had been Alexander's expedition into Asia, map making and a study of geography improved. Pytheas of Massalia (Marseille) voyaged up the coast of Britain to Norway or Jutland and became the first Greek to hear of what today is called the Arctic Sea. One map maker, Eratosthenes (c273-194?) described the world as round and gave a reasonable figure as its circumference.

Philosophers and common people continued to believe that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was at the center of the moving heavenly bodies, but Hellenized astronomers began challenging these views. Astronomers calculated the movements of the sun, moon and planets with greater accuracy. Heraclides of Pontus (390-310) had discovered that the planets Venus and Mercury revolved around the sun. Then Aristarchus of Samos (310-c230) concluded that the sun was much larger than the earth, that the earth revolved around the sun and that the distance to the stars was enormous compared to the diameter of the earth's orbit around the sun. And other astronomers confirmed his views.

In the field of mechanics, Aristotle's school made advances in understanding levers, balances and wedges. In the mid 200s a Greek from Syracuse named Archimedes (287-212 BCE) worked on the relative densities of bodies and the theoretical principles of levers. He invented the ratio pi, the circuference of a circle compared to its diameter.  And he invented numerous mechanical contrivances, including machines used in war.

During the century that followed Alexander's death, societies around the Mediterranean provided education for the professions – mainly for sons of the wealthy. In some Hellenized cities, the children of common people were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and "civilized" behavior – with teachers using corporal punishment as their only recourse against the inadequacy of their pupils.

In western Asia Minor an elementary school education was also available to girls. Girls ended school at a younger age than did boys, who continued their education if their fathers cared to pay for it. But some upper class women did acquire higher education, and a few became philosophers. Women poets appeared. Around 218 BCE Aristodama of Smyrna was touring Greece, giving recitals and receiving honors. A woman named Hestiaea in Alexandria acquired a reputation as a scholar, and women were painting.

In some cities, Alexander had favored the common people over local nobles, who had been potential competitors against his power. Alexander had backed the creation of councils to tackle local issues. And among the monarchs who arose following the disintegration of Alexander's empire were those who supported popular participation in local government while maintaining their central authority. But with the passing of time, the participation by common people in local government declined, as the gap between the rich and poor widened. While assemblies elected by the common citizenry continued to meet and pass decrees, real power and influence was passing into the hands of men of wealth

City governments called on local men of wealth to help their city. Merchants contributed to the construction of temples, gymnasiums, schools and other city buildings, to the construction of bridges and covered sewers, and to other civic projects. They paid for city festivals and ceremonial sacrifices to the gods, for banquets, free meals for the hungry and prizes for school children. They patronized the arts, and they contributed to city beautification that included a proliferation of fountains and statues, and many of statues were of them.

With their rise in influence, these men of wealth began paying less in taxes than did common people. In Athens the courts were under the control of wealthy magistrates.

Being free from the daily labors that burdened poorer folk, men of wealth had the time to serve as diplomats. And in times of war, they profited from supplying armies with war material.

Continuous warfare added to the misery and insecurity of common people. And there was an endemic poverty. The population was small compared to modern times, but not small relative to the amount of food being produced. In Greece and West Asia a bad harvest still meant famine. In Greece, hunger prevailed because the area was not exporting enough in minerals or manufactured goods to exchange for food. Greece was still dependent upon imports to keep people fed. And in the place of exports in goods, men in Greece were still exporting themselves as soldiers.

Across Greece and West Asia, migration from the countryside to the cities created urban slums and overcrowding. With new supplies of slaves and an abundance of freemen looking for work came a drop in the wages, often while the price of food was rising. An abundance of slaves offered no incentives for creating devices that would replace muscle power and sweat, and those who labored were physically burdened beyond their ability to stay fit.

Mining was an especially hard occupation. Egypt's gold and quicksilver mines were worked by slaves, criminals and prisoners of war, including women, elderly men and children. Young men hacked the quartz loose. Older men broke the quartz into fragments. Children dragged the quartz to the grinders, powered by women who like others worked without rest, walking in circles and pushing levers that rotated a shaft. According to the Greek writer Agatharchides, in the mid-100s BCE, relief came only with death, which these miners welcomed.

As it was in Athens in the time of Solon, the wealthy feared revolt by those who were miserable. And from a few who empathized with the miserable came dreams of a better society. Some dreamed of a "brotherhood of man." In dreaming about a better world, some looked back to what they thought was an unspoiled past, to what they imagined were virtuous barbarians living according to nature. Some put into writing their ideas about a harmonious society. Around the mid-100s BCE a writer named Iambulus designed a society without class differences, a society in which people would be equal, sharing what they produced and taking turns in doing menial work. Iambulus saw his utopia as a democracy, and he saw people in his utopia acquiring equality in wisdom and relating to each other with love

The most serious attempt at changing society came with hate and violence back in 279 BCE in the port city of Cassanderia – formerly Potidaea – in Chalcidice. There a man named Apollondorus rode a wave of discontent that gave him power. His followers vented their anger on the wealthy with physical violence, and they confiscated wealth and property. Apollondorus established a communist dictatorship, and with money taken from the rich he hired an army of mercenaries to defend the revolution. To succeed, the revolution would have had to grow in power by spreading to other cities. Instead, after a few months, forces directed by the king of Macedonia, Antigonus II, who had been busy uniting Macedonia under his rule, overran Cassanderia and ended the revolution.

Failed revolution in Sparta

An attempt at revolution failed also in Sparta. There, a few people had bought up lands and had combined them into plantations worked by slaves. Sparta had no middle class as a buffer between rich and poor. As elsewhere in Greece, many landless Spartan men sold themselves abroad as mercenary soldiers, and by the mid-200s, with citizenship tied to the ownership of property, only 700 Spartans were fully enfranchised.

Sparta still had two kings, one of them, a young man named Cleomenes III, led a Spartan army in war alongside other Greek cities opposing Macedonia's attempt to renew hegemony in Greece. When he returned with his army from one of his battles, he ousted Sparta's second king and installed one of his brothers in that position. Then he embarked upon his revolution. He abolished debts and divided the land into 4,000 lots for Spartans and 15,000 lots for those who had come to live in villages surrounding Sparta. He created a new constitution, and his reforms allowed Sparta's army to grow in size and morale.

Cleomenes encouraged reformers elsewhere in Greece, and, across Greece, men of wealth and land responded with fear. They opposed reforms more than they did Macedonian hegemony, and they sought help from Macedonia. War erupted between Sparta and cities led by those resisting reforms. Cleomenes allied Sparta with other Peloponnesian cities. But in the year 222 the Macedonians annihilated Sparta's army, and for the first time a foreign army entered Sparta in triumph. Cleomenes fled to Egypt, and there he again took up what he saw as the cause of social justice. In Alexandria in 219 he tried to raise a revolt, but he failed and that year took his own life.

Hellenistic philosophy went through a peculiar evolution—or retrogression, it might almost be better to say. During the first stage it was still under the influence of Greek thought and consequently showed an elemental regard for reason as the key to the solution of  man's problems. During what may be considered a second stage, skepticism concerning all truth and all values resulted in the rejection of reason entirely. Toward the end of the civilization philosophy degenerated into a barren mysticism, with the consequence that the whole intellectual approach, whether based upon reason or experience, was thrown into the discard. Despite the fundamental differences in their teachings, the philosophers of the Hellenistic Age were all agreed upon one thing: the necessity of finding some way of , salvation for man from the hardships and evils of his existence.

The first and most important of the Hellenistic philosophies were Epicureanism and Stoicism, both of which originated about 300b.c.  The founders were, respectively, Epicurus and Zeno, who were residents of Athens, though the former was born on the island of Samos, while the latter was a native of Cyprus, probably of Phoenician descent. Epicureanism and Stoicism had several features in common. Both were individualistic, concerned not with the welfare of society " primarily, but with the good of the individual

Both were materialistic, denying categorically the existence of any spiritual substances; even divine beings and the soul were declared to be formed of matter. In Stoicism and Epicureanism alike there were definite traces  of defeatism, since both of them implied that the efforts of man are futile and suggested a retreat into Oriental quietism as an aim for the wise to pursue. Lastly, the two philosophies were similar in their doctrines that concepts and abstractions are nothing but names, that only particular things are real, and that all knowledge has its basis in sense perception.


At dawn the Greekhoplites charge in an extended line across the open ground. Their bronze armour and long spears prove too much for the lightly armed Persian infantry. Even so the Persian advantage in numbers means that the battle is hard fought, making Herodotus' account of the casualties (192 Athenian dead to 6400 Persians) somewhat hard to believe.

The Persian survivors are rescued from the beaches by the fleet, which then moves south to threaten Athens. The Athenian army marches rapidly home to defend the city, and the Persians decide against an assault. They withdraw across the Aegean.
A day or two after the event, 2000 Spartans arrive. They visit the battlefield as admiring tourists, to inspect the Persian dead. The fallen Athenians are buried beneath a great memorial mound (even today it stands 9 metres high). The survivors are acclaimed as heroes.Aeschylus, the great tragedian, fought that day. He will have much in his life to be proud of. But nothing, he says, can compare with being a veteran of Marathon.

Themistocles and the Athenian fleet: 490-480 BC

Nobody doubts that the Persians will be back, but the death of Darius in 486 extends the lull before the storm. Three years later a rich new vein of silver is discovered in the mining district of Laureion, which is owned and run by the Athenian state.

Themistocles persuades his fellow citizens to apply their windfall to a collective cause - the building of a navy stronger than any other in Greece. By 480 there are 200triremes in the Athenian fleet.

Thermopylae: 480 BC

A vast Persian force led by Xerxes I, the son of Darius, is making its way along the northern coast of the Aegean. The troops are described in mesmerizing detail by Herodotus, writing only half a century later. He lists 1,700,000 soldiers (counted by a Novel form of roll call), including 80,000 cavalry. They are accompanied by a fleet of 1207triremes, each with 200 men on board. Adding in subsidiary troops, Herodotus arrives at a grand total of 5,283,320 - not including eunuchs and female cooks.
These wildly improbable figures suggest the scale of the renewed threat as perceived in Greece. The only difference this time is that such a juggernaut moves slowly. There is time to plan.

At a central point of mainlandGreece, the Isthmus of Corinth, thirty-one city-states meet - in the autumn of 481 and again in the spring of 480 - to devise a strategy. It is agreed that all will combine their resources, both military and naval, in a common force under the command of Sparta.
The immediate question is where to make a stand against the advancing Persians. The chosen site is Thermopylae, a long narrow valley through which any army must pass if moving down the coast towards Athens.

Leonidas, one of the two Spartan kings, is in command of the Greek army when the confrontation comes. His Spartan contingent is as yet only an advance guard of 300 men. He stations them under his immediate command at the narrowest part of the pass.
The glittering Persian army has at its head the emperor himself, Xerxes, son of Darius. On two successive days he orders his best troops into the narrow defile. But as at Marathon, ten years earlier, the Persians suffer heavy losses from the longer spears of the Greekhoplites. The situation appears to be an impasse, almost literally - until it is resolved by treachery.
 

he Hellenistic Age 336-30 BC (from Alexander’s crowning to the death of Cleopatra)

The word Hellenistic comes from the root word Hellas, which was the ancient Greek word for Greece. The Hellenic Age was the time when Greek culture was pure and unaffected by other cultures. The Hellenistic Age was a time when Greeks came in contact with outside people and their Hellenic, classic culture blended with cultures from Asia and Africa to create a blended  culture. One man, Alexander, King of Macedonia, a Greek-speaker, is responsible for this blending of cultures.

To understand how the Kingdom of Macedonia dominated the Greek world, we need to first take a look at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, between Sparta and Thebes. As you read in the last chapter, Sparta defeated Athens in 404 BC, ending the Peloponnesian War. Though Sparta was victorious, it was also weakened by this war. Thebes, an ally of Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, became powerful after the conflict. Sparta and Thebes went to war over territory close to Thebes. The battle took place in Boeotia, near the city-state of Leuctra in July 371 BC.

Epaminondas, the Theban general, introduced a new fighting technique at Leuctra. As you remember, the Greeks fought in a phalanx, a solid block of men. The best men would form on the right side, or weak side, as a place of honor. The Spartan phalanx at Leuctra was twelve men deep. In the traditional formation, the best soldiers of one army would always face the weakest of the other.  Epaminondas placed his best soldiers on the left, guaranteeing that they would face the best Spartans. He also took no chances, forming his left side 50-men deep.  Epaminondas held the Theban right-side back, refusing to fight the Spartan left. The Theban left of 50-men deep pushed the Spartan right, trampling men and killing the Spartan king. Sparta was not used to losing battles. Sparta would go on, but this was the end of Sparta as the dominant Greek city-state, and the end of its control over most of the Peloponnese.

he Battle of Leuctra in Boeotia, Greece, just north of Athens. 1) The larger Spartan army in blue tries to out-flank the Theban right side. 2) Spartan cavalry is chased off the battlefield by the Theban cavalry. 3) The Theban right side includes peltasts, javelin throwers, which harass the Spartan left side. 4) The Theban left side includes a super phalanx 50-rows deep, which bears down on the Spartan right. 5) The Theban super phalanx, including the Theban "Sacred Band" of three-hundred men, rolls over the Spartan right, killing the Spartan king.

Watching the Battle of Leuctra and learning Theban tactics was a young man from Macedonia name Philip. Philip was a hostage in Thebes, as Thebes controlled Macedonia at this time. Philip returned to Macedonia in 365 BC. Six years later, in 359 BC, Philip became King of Macedonia. As king, Philip used both diplomacy and war to expand Macedonian territory. Philip married into the families of the surrounding kingdoms, and captured a gold mine, which provided Macedonia with wealth. Philip is given credit for creating the sarrisa, a long pike used in the Macedonian phalanx.

In the hope of a large reward a Greek (a certain Ephialtes, named by Herodotus to ensure his eternal infamy) informs Xerxes that a hidden path through oak woods on the nearby hills will bring troops, unseen, to the other side of the pass. A Persian contingent takes that route during the night.

Before dawn, spies bring Leonidas news of the imminent danger. He orders the main body of the army to retreat southwards. Then he prepares, with his 300 Spartanhoplites and a few others, to face an onslaught from both ends of the pass.








All the Spartans die, selling their lives at a high price - Herodotus writes that the terrified enemy soldiers had to be whipped by their commanders into confronting these Greeks. Their fate becomes the enduring monument to Spartan discipline and valour, captured in a famous epitaph inscribed on a column in the pass: 'Stranger, go tell the Spartans that we lie here - obedient to their laws.'

Now it is the Athenians who are in the front line against the victorious invaders. As the Persian army moves south towards Attica, the debate in Athens is whether to defend the city or make a strategic withdrawal.







Salamis: 480 BC

Themistocles, who has already persuaded his fellow citizen to invest in a navy, urges withdrawal. According to a story told by Herodotus, he makes good use of the Oracle at Delphi which has told them to put their trust in a 'wooden wall'. What the oracle clearly has in mind, he argues, is a ship.

His advice is accepted. Athens is evacuated, apart from a few stalwarts who interpret the 'wooden wall' differently; they retreat to the sacred precinct of the acropolis and build round it a wooden palisade. The rest of the inhabitants are taken by ship across the narrow strait separating Athens from the island of Salamis.










Reaching Athens, the Persians fire blazing arrows into the wooden barricade. Then, with some difficulty, they assault the steep acropolis. After slaughtering those sheltering in the temple, they seize the treasures and demolish the buildings. Athens, so recently given a new grandeur in the reign of Peisistratus, is reduced to rubble. But the destruction will make possible therebuilding of Athens and an even more glorious city.

Meanwhile the Greek fleet is gathered in the narrow stretch of water between Salamis and the mainland. Themistocles persuades his allies to make a stand here, prevailing over those Peloponnesian states who would prefer to abandon Attica and draw the line at the more defensible Isthmus of Corinth.








The Greek fleet is smaller than the Persian. It numbers only 380triremes (of which about half are Athenian), and the Greek ships are slower. Themistocles argues that these disadvantages will be irrelevant in a restricted space, where Greek fighting skills can tip the balance (as in the narrow pass atThermopylae).

His plan depends on the Persian fleet being enticed into the strait at the eastern end of the island of Salamis. Prompted by some deliberately misleading diplomacy, the Persians fall into the trap. As the Greek triremes begin to ram and sink them, panic spreads among the constricted Persian ships - making them ever more vulnerable. The Greek victory is overwhelming.
 








Read more:http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?ParagraphID=cee#ixzz4BFhQxTL5