History Chapter 12 - Hellenistic Period PDF

# Chapter 12 - The Hellenistic Period The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead. (Aristotle) ## The Years Following the Death of Alexander the Great The years following the death of Alexander the Great were politically chaotic but also quite decadent for c...

# Chapter 12 - The Hellenistic Period The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living differ from the dead. (Aristotle) ## The Years Following the Death of Alexander the Great The years following the death of Alexander the Great were politically chaotic but also quite decadent for citizens of Greece proper. Though portions of the new lands acquired by Alexander returned to local rule, the empire still remained massive. It was divided into four realms, each ruled by one of Alexander’s own military generals. Egypt, Cyprus, and part of the Middle East went to Ptolemy I; Seleucus I Nicator ruled Babylon, Persia, and Alexander’s holdings in India; Lysimachus took Thrace and the western section of Asia; and Antipater took Greece. ## Alexander’s Successors and the Aftermath However, the former Macedonian emperor was not childless. His wife, the Bactrian Princess Roxana, was pregnant at the time of Alexander’s death, and therefore, his potential direct heir could not yet lay claim to any of his father’s lands. Born in August of 323 BCE, Alexander IV was proclaimed the true leader of the unbroken empire, and Antipater named himself regent. When Antipater died in 319, he appointed someone older and more experienced to succeed him. This truly upset his son, Cassander, who started a war which he ultimately won in 317. It is suspected that Cassander poisoned Alexander IV along with Roxana in 310, leaving only Heracles, the illegitimate son of Alexander the Great and his Persian mistress, potentially vying for power. He, too, was assassinated, and by 305 BCE, Cassander had declared himself king. Cassander’s rule was completely chaotic and unstable, and after his death, the Kingdom of Macedon fell to his enemy, Demetrius I, when the former’s sons and heirs were killed in battle. Demetrius had no use for democracy and made his own selections for the archons of Athens as well as other administrators of the realm. ## The Spread of Greek Culture Outside Greece proper, Alexander’s conquered lands filled with Greek immigrants who sought new fortunes in the many cities their former emperor had founded along his warpath. The Egyptian Alexandria became a new haven of Egyptian-Greco culture, just as its founder had wished. It was a new age in the land of the pharaohs, one in which Greek-style philosophy and culture had become fashionable. The Ptolemaic Dynasty, ruled by descendants of a Macedonian general, was characterized by a Greek-style education with a focus on mathematics and science. The Great Library of Alexandria was built during that time, and it was filled with texts from the great minds of the realm. Alexander’s ceaseless empire-building had succeeded in spreading Greek culture throughout the known world. In the self-named cities he'd founded, Greeks, Persians, Indians, and Arabs walked shoulder-to-shoulder, reading and writing in Greek and learning the mathematical wonders as discovered by Pythagoras. They learned new philosophies using the Socratic method, and they became proud of their own education and sophistication over that of poorer-or what they considered barbaric-nations. ## The Rise of the Achaean League In about 280 BCE, the old Achaean League reunited, uniting the regions of southern Greece that lay adjacent to the Ionian Sea. Within several decades, the group had grown to comprise all of southern Greece from the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea. The military might of the entire realm was greatly reduced by this period, and though its leaders maintained standing armies, they required the assistance of the Roman Republic in fighting the lengthy Macedonian Wars. ## The Roman Conquests In the year 146 BCE, the Achaean League rebelled against its Roman allies for their annexation of political power and foreign policy in Greece. The League lacked the military might to back up its rebellion, however. Romans came to Greece en masse that year and won a decisive victory against their detractors. It was thus that the power of the Mediterranean passed seamlessly from the ancient Hellenistic lands into those of the Roman Republic. It has been falsely claimed that Greece underwent a cultural decline in the years prior to Roman occupation. This was not the case; it was merely by the point of the sword that the realm switched hands. There was no great dark age of Greece that heralded the coming of a new generation of conquerors, philosophers, and politicians; if anything, the dark age came with the Romans, not before. The Greeks were assimilated greedily by their captors, and all they achieved would soon appear to have been the achievements of Rome.