I.  Greece in the 4th century B.C.E.

• Sparta won the Peloponnesian War but failed to establish a new Greek order
• It took over the Athenian empire, but it quickly had a falling out with its former allies, Corinth and Thebes
• What followed was roughly 60 years of one polis or league after another struggling to become the main power in Greece (often doing so with the help of the Persians who enjoyed the divisions within Greece since it allowed them to do what they wanted over in Asia Minor
• Phillip of Macedonia
• Macedonia
• At the same time that the Greeks were fighting among themselves, just to the north of them a new power was arising
• The kingdom of Macedonia was a Greek-speaking area (although it was a dialect that many in the south could not understand)
• It was an area rich in resources and manpower, but was poorly organized—consisting primarily of tribal groups under the control of a king
• In 359 BCE, Philip II gains control of Macedonia and quickly proves himself to be a brilliant soldier and statesman
• He reorganized the Macedonian army, opening up the hoplite ranks to almost anyone,  equipping it with longer spears (12 feet), and making the Macedonian cavalry a weapon to be feared
• He then gradually began a conquest of Greece, playing the different poleis and leagues against each other.
• After his victory at the battle of Chaeronea (in Boeotia) in 338, Philip became the ruler of almost all Greece (a couple of minor areas in western Greece remained free—mainly because Philip did not see them as being worth the effort)
• Philip had made many enemies during his rise to power
• He was proud and boastful
• He was arrogant and a womanizer (he had four wives and a number of mistresses)
• Two years after he gained control of Greece, he was assassinated—debate over who did it (a jealous wife of his or a jealous husband of one of his mistresses) still rages

• Upon Philip’s death, the Macedonian crown went to his 20-year old son Alexander III
• Alexander is a hard person to understand (because there is as much legend about him as there is historical evidence)
• As a teenager, Alexander had been tutored by Aristotle (Alexander picked up his love of sciences from him)
• He had led the Macedonian cavalry since he was 18
• Alexander was handsome, charismatic, intelligent, and ambitious
• He also possessed a streak of ruthlessness (he had most of his male relatives killed upon becoming king so there would be no one else in the family that could possibly claim the crown)
• Still, Alexander proved to be a remarkable soldier, using propoaganda to demoralize the enemy and sharing the same risks as his soldiers in battle and hardships in camp
• Upon becoming king, Alexander turned his sights on Persia (claiming he wanted revenge for the invasions of Darius and Xerxes in the 5th century)
• In 334 BCE, he began an invasion of Persian territory (starting at Troy where he sacrificed animals and spoke of beoming the new Greek Achilles)
• Alexander had to move quickly to win—he had a much smaller army than the Persians and had almost no money (conquering enemy areas was the only way he could get more money)
• During the first two years of the war, he conquered all of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt (the last declaring him a god, after the way of the pharoahs—something Alexander thoroughly enjoyed but annoyed many Greeks)
• Two years later, he conquered Assyria (including modern day Syria and Iraq)
• In the final four years of his campaign, he conquered Persia (including modern day Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) and advanced all the way to the Indus River in India by 326 BCE
• After his conquests, Alexander began moving back toward Macedonia, solidifying his conquests
• However, in 323 (at the age of 33), Alexander died—reasons are disputed (malaria, drunkeness, or poison)
• During his life, Alexander had destroyed much, but had also built much—his legacy is still very much disputed today as to whether he was someone solely intent on his own ambitions or whether he truly sought to spread the Greek ways and culture to a large area
• The legacy of Alexander
• Alexander left a young son at his death, but the son was quickly pushed out of power
• The Macedonian generals fought amongst each other for control, and basically carved out kingdoms for themselves—three of which, Macedon, Ptolemaic Kingdom, and the Seleucid Kingdom (along with a significant number of semi-independent city-states)
• These kingdoms ruled vast stretches of territory throughout the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern areas
• The age of the polis was basically dead

• Cities
• Although most were no longer independent, cities played a vital role in the Hellenistic world
• Many grew to great size
• They served as administrative hubs, trading posts, and the heart of Hellenistic culture
• Of these cities, Alexandria, Egypt became the most important
• Located where the Nile River flows into the Mediterranean, Alexandria quickly grew to be the largest city in the region (and would remain so well into the Roman period)
• Its location made it an ideal spot for trading (bringing Egyptian and other Middle Eastern goods) to the sea where they could easily be transported throughout the Hellenistic kingdoms
• Its great library (the largest in the ancient world, with over 700,000 scrolls—equal to about 50,000 modern books) attracted scholars and artists from all over
• It also served as the capital for Ptolemaic Egypt
• Culture and Society
• Hellenic culture vs. Hellenistic culture
• Hellenic culture (the ways of the Classic Age of Greece and before)
• tended to be primarily inward looking
• often gloomy and pessimistic (not surprising considering all the strife)
• Hellenic literature focused more on public affairs than private lives
• Hellenistic culture
• More optimistic than Hellenic
• Big difference is the focus on the private, inner lives of individuals rather than the public world
• Hellenistic writing also gives women a larger place in society
• Alexandrian writer, Appolonius, wrote an epic poem titled the Voyage of the Argo about Jason and the Argonauts
• In the poem, Jason is quite different from earlier Greek heroes such as the bold Achilles or the ever-composed Odysseus—instead he is frequently at a loss over what he should do
• Throughout the poem, Medea (who loves Jason) frequently provides the answers to problems faced by the crew of the Argo
• Spread of Greek Culture
• The interaction between the Greeks and the peoples they ruled led to a spread of Greek ideas and culture throughout a vast region
• Still, Greek ideas were not the only ones available
• The ways and languages of other societies melded together with the Greek to form a new synthesis
• Aramaic, a semitic language from the Middle East competed with Greek for dominance in the Hellenistic world
• Changing Status of Women
• The literature from the Hellenistic world indicates that the status of women began to change somewhat from the old Greek ways
• Stories dealt with romantic love, eroticism, and domesticity much more than before
• Hellenistic art frequently portrayed hermaphrodites, a mythical creature that was half male, half female—suggesting that the feminine was as important a part of human nature as the masculine
• Hellenistic women gained some small improvements in political and legal status, but made considerable improvements in economic rights (even becoming able to own property on their own) and social rights (in Alexandria, it was not uncommon to see women at the gymnasium--unheard of in the Hellenic world)
• Philosophy and Religion
• Cynics
• Diogenes of Sinope was the founder of the Cynic movement
• Developed a philosophy that rejected all conventions of society
• He decided that happiness could best be found by satisfying one’s natural needs with simplicity—thus he lived as a beggar
• He was laughed at and called the dog—his followers were known as the doglike (kunikoi—from which our word cynic is derived)
• Meeting between Alexander and Diogenes
• Legend of Diogenes and the lamp
• Epicurians and Stoics
• Both began at roughly the same time (probably around 310 BCE)
• Both schools were empiricist and materialistic (that is they trusted only what they could detect with the senses)
• Epicurians
• Counseled that the best way to be happy was to withdraw from public life
• “Calm” and “Live in hiding” are famous sayings of the Epicureans
• They did not believe in life after death (you could not see a soul, therefore it did not exist)
• If there was no soul, no life after death, then what was the purpose of life
• To Epicureans, it was to avoid pain and pursue pleasure (though at moderation)
• Although some Greeks derided the Epicureans as atheists and sensualists, many (particularly the wealthy) found the Epicurean way offered both friendship and a sense of community
• Stoics
• Around 300 B.C., Zeno began a new school of philosophy that became a major influence on Hellenistic culture
• Stoicism was close to a religion, arguing that humans must live in harmony with nature (God) and within themselves (inner harmony)
• Stoics saw every thought and action as being good, evil, or indifferent.
• Examples of good include courage, wisdom, justice, and prudence
• Evil  was exemplified by cowardice, spendthrift, injustice, and foolishness
• Indifferent were those thoughts and acts that were neither good nor evil--life, health, beauty, and strength
• Stoics viewed passion as the root of all human misery--saw passion as being an illness of  a person's soul
• Given the Hellenistic world they inhabited, the Stoics fit in with their view of the world as a single entity--everyone was part of a worldwide polis and were children of the same god.
• Mystery Cults
• The traditional Greek religions came under attack on every front during the Hellenistic period
• One of the reasons for this was that many Greeks found the Olypian gods to be quite cold and distant and the ritual ways of worship too formalistic
• As a result, many people turned to new religions
• Key among these were a group of religions that become known as the “Mystery Cults”
• They offered not only ethical guidance, comfort, release from worries, reassurances about death, and a sense of unity—they also offered the chance at an afterlife and the joys of belonging to a secretive organization
• Some of these cults worshipped Demeter, Dionysius, and Serapis (a combination of the Egyptian Osiris and Greek Hades, the gods of the underworld)
• The most popular mystery cult was the one that centered around the Egyptian goddess Isis (who also became a popular Greek and Roman goddess)
• Isis was thought to combine the element of all female deities of antiquity
• The cult of Isis focused on the afterlife and the suffering of females—Isis was a tender and loving mother figure
• As might be expected, this cult became immensely popular among women (although men could belong also)
• Some of the attributes of these cults—the suffering mother figure, the Last Judgement, and blessed eternal life after death for those who were good—helped influence early Christian beliefs
• Hellenistic Judaism
• One of the most important consequences of Alexander's conquests was the mixing of Greeks and Jews--before this time, the two peoples had little contact with one another
• During the Hellenistic period, Greeks governed Judea for a while before a Jewish independence movement overthrew their rule
• Millions of Jews settled throughout the Hellenistic kingdoms--in Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, and even Greece
• This mixing of the "people of the book" with those of philosophy and myth often brought about violent, but creative results
• Jews were often persecuted, but many of them assimilated into the Greek culture and worked their way up in society
• During the struggle against Hellenism, the Jews developed a literature that dealt with spirtual resistance to foreign invaders, one that often revealed apocalyptic (hidden or secret) traditions, and predited a cataclysmic event that bring about a new redeemer known as "the annointed one" or Messiah
• The variety of different sects of Judaism (Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Hellenizers) meant there was no longer one united view of the religion, which opened the door to new theories and ideas
• By the end of the Hellenistic period, the diaspora (spreading of the Hebrews over a wide area) meant that the word Jew began to refer more to their religious beliefs than someone from Judea