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Alexander and Hellenistic Culture
Alexander and Hellenistic Culture
This map shows how Alexander the Great’s kingdom was broken down after
his death. His death marked the beginning of the Hellenistic (or “Greek-like”)
period.
Alexander’s Impact on World History
• Spread Greek culture beyond the Greeks
– “Pan-Hellenism”
– Founded numerous cities
– Married a daughter of Darius
• Encouraged his soldiers to take Persian wives
– Worshiped foreign gods and goddesses
• Recognized as foreign incarnations of Greek gods
– Encouraged trade throughout his empire
– Settled Greeks throughout his empire
• Greek culture became “Hellenistic” as it spread and
mingled with other cultures
Alexandria, Egypt
• City in Egypt founded by, and named after,
Alexander the Great
• Ptolemy came to rule Egypt after Alexander’s
death
• Ptolemies built a university in Alexandria –
“Library of Alexandria”
– Included 700,000 volumes written on papyrus
– Center of research and scholarship
Hellenistic Science
• Many practical, useful inventions
Considered by many to be the most famous of all Hellenistic sculptural ensembles. The monument’s
west front has been reconstructed in Berlin (this image).
All around the platform was a sculptured frieze almost four hundred feet long populated by some one
hundred larger-than-life size figures. The subject is the battle of Zeus and the gods against the giants. It
is the most extensive representation Greek artists ever attempted of that epic conflict for control of the
world.
In the third century BC, King Attalos I had successfully turned back an invasion by the Gauls in Asia Minor.
The large scale of the Altar of Zeus alluded to the Pergamene victory over those barbarians.
Reconstructed West front of the Altar of Zeus
The Hellenistic Period Pergamon, Turkey ca 175 BC
The Hellenistic Period
A Roman poet vividly described the
strangling of Laocoön and his two sons
by sea serpents while sacrificing at an
altar. The gods who favored the Greeks
in the war against Troy had sent the
serpents to punish Laocoön, who had
tried to warn his compatriots about the
danger of bringing the Greeks’ wooden
horse within the walls of their city.
• Stoics (Stoicism)
– Zeno of Citium (334-262 B.C.E.)
– Acceptance, courage, patience
– Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 C.E.) was a Stoic
philosopher (wrote Confessions)
– Stoic belief in human brotherhood influenced Christianity
• Epicureans (Epicureanism)
– Epicurus (341-270 B.C.E.)
– No life after death
– Pleasure and pain measure what is good and bad
– Life is to be enjoyed, particularly by searching for knowledge
Hellenistic Philosophy: Cynicism
• True freedom arises from realizing that if one wants
nothing, then one will never lack anything.
• Isolation from the society
• Denial of physical comfort
• Autarky, or self-sufficiency, as the goal of life
• Diogenes, the most prominent Cynic
• Alexander: if I were not Alexander, I would prefer to
be Diogenes.
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes and Alexander
• Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
• Banished from his country, Diogenes spent
most of his life in Athens, though he died in
Corinth. He called himself the “Dog,” and held
up the life of animals as a model for mankind.
His task was the “recoining of values,” and to
the civilization of Hellenic and Hellenistic
world he opposed the life of animals and of
the barbaric people.
Hellenistic Philosophy: Skepticism
• Nothing could be known for certain
• All ideas and values must be questioned.
• Truth is unknowable
• Autarky as the goal of life.
• Pyrrho of Elis was the founder of Skepticism.
Hellenistic Philosophy:
Epicureanism
• How to achieve happiness:
• The best way to keep one’s wants simple, and thus to achieve
happiness, was to abstain from sex and focus instead on
friendship.
• Also not to indulge in excessive desires
• Resist fame, power and wealth
• Freedom from fear: fear of the gods, of death, and of the
hereafter.
• Pleasure is the absence of pain
• Ataraxia, the desireless state, the goal of life
• Epicurus was the founder of Epicureanism
Epicurus
Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoicism
• The world is governed by the divine logos, or reason,
or nature.
• Freedom and happiness consist of living in harmony
with logos
• A resigned and deterministic outlook, but never
apathetic.
• Emphasis on dedication to work and duty
• Worldwide brotherhood
• Autarky (self-sufficiency) as the goal of life
Hellenistic Literature
• Few Hellenistic works had enduring value
• Preserved classical Greek heritage
– Spread throughout Alexander’s former empire
– Particularly at Alexandria, Egypt
– Middle East kept and preserved Greek heritage
during the fall of Rome and Europe’s Dark Ages
• Europeans rediscovered this Greek heritage during the
Crusades
Hellenistic Culture in the Roman World
• Greek cities of southern Italy piqued Roman
interest in Greek culture
– Many southern Italian, Sicilian, and other
Mediterranean cities which came under Roman
control had been founded by Greeks
• Romans spread Greek culture throughout
their own empire
– Much Roman art generally copied Greek art
Hellenistic Civilization Declines
• Endured for approximately 300 years
• Wealth and power in the hands of a few
• Reliance on slavery
– Free persons could not find work
– Slave labor cheaper (in the short-term) than
investments in new inventions and technologies
– Slave revolts
• Continuous warfare among city-states
• Easy target for Roman conquest
Review Questions
1. Under what circumstances did Alexander the
Great come to the Macedonian throne?
2. Name at least three modern-day countries
which were conquered by Alexander the Great.
3. What does the term Hellenistic mean?
4. Describe the work of a Hellenistic scientist or
mathematician.
5. Describe a Hellenistic philosophy.
6. What caused the fall of Hellenistic society?
7. Imagine that you are a Babylonian living during
the time of Alexander. How might you view
Alexander’s conquests? Would you consider
him “great”?