World History

Section Five

Alexander and the Hellenistic Age

Alexander the Great

• Athens fell to the Macedonians losing their independence

• Greek culture survived and was spread by Alexander the Great

Macedonia

• Greeks saw the Macedonians as Barbaroi

• Thought they were backwards people and uncivilized

• Macedonians were of Greek ancestry and had many of the same values

• Philip II – Macedonian King – admired Greece and hired Aristotle to tutor Alexander

Philip II

• Wanted to conquer Greece

• built an large and well trained army

• He threatened, bribed, made alliances with Greek city-states to bring them under his control

• Athens and Thebes were against Philip II but he defeated them – Greece was under his control

Philip II

• Philip II wanted to continue his campaign of conquering land and take control of the Persian Empire

• He was assassinated at his daughters wedding by one of his own bodyguards – not really sure why but think that Philips father-in-law had offended him

• The assassin was killed by other bodyguards

Alexander

• Alexander’s mother was the Queen of Macedonia and made sure Alexander took the throne

• Alexander was twenty when he became king and continued his fathers push into Persia

• Gathered troops and crossed the Dardanelles strait

• Persia was now weak and an easy target for a strong Macedonian/Greek army

Alexander

• First victory over the Persians was at Granicus River

• Continued to march around the Persian Empire winning battle after battle in Palestine, Egypt, and Babylon

• He was trying to capture Darius III – Darius III was murdered by his bodyguards instead of letting him be captured by Alexander

Alexander in India

• Crossed the Hindu-Kush mountains and pushed into India

• Alexander fought war elephants in India for the first time

• pushed all the way to the Indus river – troops were tired and wanted to go home

• Alexander agreed and they went to Babylon • Alexander started creating a new plan of

conquest

Alexander’s Death

• Before he could leave on another campaign of conquest, Alexander caught a fever and died at the age of 32

• Commanders asked him before he died who will take control – he said “To the strongest”

• No one general was strong enough to take full control

• Empire was split up into three pieces among the three generals – Macedonia and Greece, Egypt, and the rest of Persia

Legacy

• Spread Greek culture to all the places that he captured

• Founded many new cities, most of them were named after him

• Greek soldiers, artisans, merchants and traders left Greece for these new cities

• From Egypt to India they built temples and statues

• Greek ideas were assimilated into the rest of society and Greeks took one local customs

Alexandria

• Located in Egypt• Trading city, port city, goods such as – Greek

marble, Arabian spices, African ivory• Greek architecture was used to build the city –

about 1 million people lived there• Pharos – 440 tall lighthouse• Museum was built as a center for learning• Had laboratories, lecture halls, and a zoo• Library had thousands of scrolls from all over the

ancient world – destroyed in fire

Role of Women

• How do we know what women’s roles were?

• From paintings, statues, written laws show that women had more rights during the Hellenistic period

• Women learned to read and write• Some became philosophers or poets• Women also helped their husbands rule

their kingdoms

Hellenistic Arts and Sciences

• New Philosophy – Stoicism by Zeno• Zeno – urged people to avoid desires and

disappointments by accepting whatever life brought to them

• High moral standards• Protect fellow humans• Taught that everyone was morally equal

because we have the power of reason – even women and slaves – even though they were unequal in society

Math and Science

• Scholars built on Greek, Babylonian, and Egyptian knowledge

• Pythagoras – made theory to find the relationship between the sides of a triangle

• Euclid – wrote Elements, became the basis for modern geometry and was used for hundreds of years

• Aristarchus – Earth rotated on an axis or orbited the sun – heliocentric – sun centered solar system

• This theory was not accepted until 2,000 years later• Eratosthenes – showed the earth was round and

calculated its circumference

Science

• Archimedes – most famous Hellenistic scientist

• Used physics to make practical inventions• Mastered the lever and pulley system• “Give me a lever long enough and a place

to stand on and I can move the world”• Showed how right he was when he used a

pulley system to pick up a boat and move it over dry land

Medical

• Hippocrates – studied illnesses and looked for cures

• Hippocratic oath attributed to him – set standards for physicians

• Greece will fall to the Romans but their influence still is felt all around the world today