Not only did the people that

Alexander conquer adapt Greek

culture, but people throughout his

empire would adapt things found

throughout his empire.

This Winged Victory of Samothrace is an excellent example of Hellenistic art

Greek + Egyptian + Persian + Indian = Hellenism

The center of the Hellenistic World was Alexandria in

Egypt. Its most imposing building

was the lighthouse. It was

somewhere between 375 -450 feet high. It was

considered one of the 7 Ancient

Wonders of the World

By 1325, due to two earthquakes, the lighthouse was deemed unfit and you couldn’t enter it anymore. Shown is the Fort

Quitby built on its site, and some of its stone was used to build the fort.

• The Colossus of Rhodes was one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. It was destroyed in an earthquake in 226 BCE

Science & Technology

• Aristarchus (310 – 230 BCE) was an astronomer

• Believed Sun was 300 times the size of Earth (instead of smaller than Greece – you can fit 1 million Earths inside the Sun)

• Also thought that the earth & planets revolved around the Sun

• But most astronomers choose to agree with another well know astronomer named Ptolemy (not the ruler) who said the earth was at the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. That theory would prevail for 1800 years until Copernicus

• Hipparchus made the earliest samples of Trigonometric tables

• Invented longitude & latitude systems using the naked eye

• 1st to develop a reliable method to predict eclipses.

• Considered one of the greatest if not the greatest ancient astronomers

• Eratosthenes – nickname was beta, because he was the 2nd in many fields

• Used geometry to figure out the circumference of the earth – he was off by about 120 miles!

• Euclid is known as the “Father of Geometry”

• His proofs and propositions were our main source until the 1900’s.

• His book Elements was the most widely used book on this subject9(x + y) = 9x + 9y

• Archimedes – one of the top minds of his era.

• Too many discoveries to list (Archimedes screw, value of pi, explained how the lever worked and invented the compound pulley.

• Discovered principle of buoyancy in his bathtub. Story goes he was so excited he ran in the streets naked crying “Eureka” (I have found it)

He also invented burning mirrors to destroy ships, and the steam engine, although he

didn’t know what its use would be

• Zeno – founded the school of Stoicism

• Stoics believed in a Divine Force or Power who controlled the universe

• Vices, human desires, power, and wealth were all distractions, sounds a bit like Buddha & Hinduism

The School at Athens by The School at Athens by

RaphaelRaphael