Kingdom of Macedonia was north of Greece

1
This was a deserved reputation for a long
time Plagued by periodic barbarian invasions from
the Balkans and by frequent civil wars, Macedonia
remained a minor kingdom too troubled by its own
problems to be a major source of concern for the
Greeks
Greek city-states considered Macedonia to be
outside the Greek world and inhabited by a bunch
of barbarians Not worthy of serious consideration
unless their help was needed in a war
Kingdom of Macedonia was north of Greece
2
PHILIP II

• Situation changed in 359 BC
• When Philip II became king
• Educated in Thebes , familiar with Greek military
  techniques, and a very skillful politician
• Genius at sizing up a situation and figuring out
  how to exploit it for his own advantage
• Recognized that the Greek city-states would be
  easy pickings for anyone bold enough to attack
  them

3
MACEDONIAN ADVANTAGES

• No single city-state was strong enough to resist
  him and it was unlikely that they would be able
  to form any sort of alliance against him
• The Macedonian army had become a formidable
  fighting force
• Based on heavily armed cavalry units,
  supplemented by light cavalry and hoplite
  infantry
• More mobile and more effective than anything the
  Greeks had
• Also possessed strong esprit-de-corps

4
DEATH OF PHILIP II

• By playing one city-state off against the other
  and through the basic superiority of his army,
  Philip had taken control of Greece by 338 BC
• Imposed lenient terms on the defeated city-states
  and even tried to win their support by vowing to
  attack Persia to avenge all the trouble the
  Persians had caused Greece in the past
• But he was the midst of planning this campaign
  when he was assassinated at his daughters
  wedding
• Succeeded by his 20-year old son, Alexander

5
ALEXANDER CREATES AN ARMY

• Determined to carry out his fathers planned
  invasion of Persian Empire
• Already had extensive military experience as his
  fathers chief general
• Needed Greek soldiers but Greeks did not deliver
  promised numbers
• Attacked Thebes in 335 and burned it to the
  ground
• Slaughtered entire population or sold them into
  slavery
• Taught Greeks a lesson and Greek recruitment into
  his army skyrocketed
• had final force of 30,000 soldiers and 5000
  horsemen

6
START OF ALEXANDERS CONQUESTS

• Invaded Persia through Asia Minor in 334
• Defeated Persian army every time they met
• Then headed into Syria and took over the entire
  Mediterranean coast without any real resistance
• Invaded Egypt where he was proclaimed pharaoh
• Built city of Alexandria to celebrate event at
  the mouth of the Niles
• Would become one of the greatest cities in the
  ancient world

Lighthouse at Alexandria
7
END OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE

• Left Egypt in 331 and headed for Babylon
• Persians tried to block him but were beaten again
• Persian emperor Darius was now on the run
• Fleeing to Persiapolis
• Alexander attacks and destroys the city
• Alexander finally caught Darius and his army at
  Ecbatana in July 330
• Darius is killed by his own men as Alexander
  approaches
• Persian Empire collapses

Darius
8
ALEXANDERS AMBITION

• Alexander continues to conquer eastward
• Convinced that it was his destiny to conquer all
  territory up to the edge of the world
• Some Macedonian advisors were against this plan
• Also did not like the way Alexander had gone
  native
• Wearing Persian clothes, adopting Persian
  rituals, appointing Persians to important
  positions, adding Persian contingents to the
  army, and marrying a Persian princess
• Several conspiracies were launched to overthrow
  Alexander
• He discovered all of them and killed all those
  involved

9
TO THE EDGE OF THE WORLD

• Marched east through Armenia, Afghanistan, and
  Pakistan and then crossed the Indus River into
  India
• Involved in some terrible battles in India but
  kept moving east
• At the Hyphasis River, his men refused to move
  any further
• Simply worn out and homesick
• Alexander ultimately gave in and agreed to return
  home

10
PUNISHMENT

• Took southern route home through the horrible
  desert of southern Pakistan
• For reasons of revenge
• Felt betrayed by mutiny in India and decided to
  punish his men by marching them through the
  desert
• 50 of the army died during this march and those
  who survived suffered terribly
• Finally made it back to Babylon in 324

11
ALEXANDERS PLAN

• Was not interested in organizing an
  administration to govern his empire
• Obsessed with creating a Macedonian/Persian
  master race
• Ordered officers to marry Persian women
• Wanted to create a new Macedonian/Persian ruling
  class which would permanently join East and West
• By blending conquered and conqueror, he hoped to
  install an element of stability in his empire

12
DEATH OF ALEXANDER

• In June 323, Alexander died at the age of 32
• In the midst of planning the invasion of Arabia
• Exact cause of death is unknown
• Maybe pneumonia, malaria, alcoholic poisoning, or
  food poisoning
• No one will ever know for sure

13
LEGACY

• Brilliant general and leader
• Seems at time to be a hero come to life from one
  of Homers poems
• Major contribution was the destruction of the
  Persian Empire
• Opened the door for the penetration of Greek
  culture into the Middle East
• Big weakness was lack of concern for
  administrative matters
• Liked to conquer, not consolidate
• Liked to fight, not govern
• Empire died with him as a result
• Virtually guaranteed by absence of any sort of
  centralized administrative structure

14
CIVIL WAR

• Half-brother Philip III (mildly retarded) and son
  by Persian wife, Alexander IV set up as dual
  rulers
• Real power was in hands of Alexander IVs mother,
  Roxanne, and a group of generals
• Factions developed among ruling clique
• Quickly turned into a bloodbath in which all the
  major contenders were murdered
• Generals, Alexander IV, Philip III, and Roxanne

Roxanne
15
SUCCESSOR KINGDOMS
Antigonus Gonatus took Macedonia and part of
Greece He and his successors would rule it until
the Romans displaced them in the second century BC
Ptolemy took over Egypt, Cyprus, Palestine, and
Phoencia Ptolemies would lose everything but
Egypt but would hang on to it until last of the
Ptolemies, Cleopatra, took wrong side in Roman
civil war and was forced to commit suicide in 31
BC
Second line of contenders finally came to a
semblance of a settlement
Selecus took over Syria, most of Asia Minor,
Mesopotamia, and western Persia Seleucid Kingdon
would later divide in half and incorporated into
the Roman and Parthian empires
Alexanders empire would become permanently
divided into independent, frequently hostile,
kingdoms ruled by the descendants of his
Macedonian officers
16
SUCCESSOR KINGDOM RULERS

• Successor kings were not native rulers governing
  with local support
• They were outsiders who depended on the support
  of large bureaucracies and mercenary armies
• Turned to Greece for these bureaucrats and
  soldiers
• Became a special elite sitting on the top of
  native populations who supported them with heavy
  taxes
• Always remained a foreign element, both outside
  and above the native populations they ruled
• Never won the hearts and minds of their subjects

Ptolemy of Egypt
17
HELLENISTIC AGE

• Certain degree of unity to the post-Alexander
  world
• Greek culture had spread from Aegean world to
  rest of known world
• Same political institutions, educational systems,
  art forms could be found everywhere
• Uniform coinage, systems of finance, laws and
  even language caused development of local and
  international commerce
• Civilized world had become unified in a cultural
  and economic sense
• Mainly Greek in origin and operation but also
  contained doses of Mesopotamian influences
• Mixture of Greek and Mesopotamian elements into a
  worldwide, unifying, hybrid civilization is known
  as Hellenistic Civilization

18
GREEK GODS

• Greek gods were closely identified with
  particular cities and places
• Athena with Athens, for example
• Greeks regarded individual gods as their special
  protective deities
• No way in which this kind of association could be
  transplanted elsewhere
• New cities of the successor kingdoms were filled
  with people from all over the world
• Not a closed population who all believed together
  in a single protective god or goddess
• If Greeks still wanted to worship their special
  god or goddess, they now had to do so on their
  own or in small groups
• Worship of the gods was no longer a part of civic
  and public life
• It now became a matter of private devotion for
  the individual

Aphrodite
Athena
19
HYBRID GODS

• Religion of transplanted Greeks mingled with
  native religions
• Result was often fusion of Greek gods with native
  gods
• Serapis
• Fusion of Egyptian god Osiris with minor Greek
  god Apis
• Invented by Ptolemies and proved to be very
  popular
• Viewed as a kind and gentle god
• Believed to have some control over healing the
  sick and injured
• Generally worshipped in small groups (or cults)

20
MYSTERIES OF ISIS

• Cult of Serapis operated on two levels
• For majority of worshippers, he was an attractive
  universal god prayed to in numerous private
  shrines
• For small devout minority, there was a side-cult
  to his worship
• The Mysteries of Isis
• Ceremonies and rituals which were believed to
  grant followers immortality if done regularly and
  correctly
• Did not believe that a person could escape
  physical death
• But did believe the soul would live on if a
  person devoted their life to the Mysteries

21
OTHER HYBRID GODS

• Serapis just one example of hybrid god
• Others included
• Cybele the Great Mother
• Adonis
• Reflection of the growing personalization of
  religion
• Its retreat from the public realm to the sphere
  of the individual
• And when religion entered the individual or
  private sphere, then questions such immortality
  and divine compassions became important

Cybele
Adonis
22
POPULAR PHILOSOPHIES

• They developed partly in response to the mixture
  of Greek and non-Greek culture
• But also partly due to increased concern for the
  importance of the individual as opposed to the
  group
• As Greeks settled throughout the world and were
  cut off from the stability, security, and sense
  of community that membership in their old native
  city-states had given them, many turned to these
  popular philosophies to give them a sense of
  permanence and worth as individuals

23
CYNICISM I

• Taught that the main source of unhappiness was
  that men were too attached to society, its
  conventions, and material possessions
• Taught that being attached to wife, children,
  native country, or any sort of material
  possession was dangerous because fate could wipe
  them out at any time
• Argued that in order to be truly free and happy,
  a person had to liberate himself from his
  attachment to things of the material world

24
CYNICISM II

• Teles argued that citizenship was a form of
  slavery
• All its obligations and duties weighed men down
  with unnecessary burdens and made them unhappy
• Better to be a woman or a slave since they were
  excluded from the burdens of political
  involvement
• Teles even claimed the poor were happier than the
  rich because they did not have to worry about
  property or possessions
• Only way to achieve true happiness was to cut
  yourself off from the world, give up all material
  possessions, family, citizenship, etc and find
  happiness in the mere fact of being alive

25
EPICUREANISM I

• Believed that the main sources of unhappiness
  were fear and desire
• These emotions should be avoided or eliminated to
  achieve true happiness
• And replaced with the pursuit of pleasure
• Not just hedonistic self-indulgence
• Because excessive pleasure was no better than
  pain and fear
• Men should pursue simple and attainable pleasure
• Pleasure that could be obtained without much
  effort
• Too much effort in the pursuit of pleasure would
  cause anxiety, excessive desire, and even pain
• Pursue simple pleasures with moderation and life
  will become happier and better

26
EPICUREANISM II

• The best way to overcome fear was through
  knowledge
• Pursuit of knowledge for its own sake was selfish
  vanity
• Man should only know as much as was necessary to
  be free from fear of all natural phenomena and
  from the gods
• Believed that all natural phenomena had a
  physical explanation
• Once man understood these explanations, his fear
  (which was based on ignorance and/or
  superstition) would disappear
• And man would be closer to true happiness

27
STOICISM I

• Believed that the universe ran according to
  natural laws
• Which fit into a divine master plan for mankind
• Every living thing had a predestined part to play
  in this master plan
• To be happy, one had to find out and understand
  precisely what mans role was in this plan
• The soul was the thing that brought order to the
  body and which brought the body into harmony with
  the universe and the divine master plan
• Men needed to follow the dictates of their souls
  to live according to the master plan and
  understand it
• Since men had the power to think, they also had
  the power to accept or reject their role in the
  master plan
• Rejecting ones role would lead to unhappiness
  because you were rejecting your own true nature
• Men should therefore cheerfully and willingly
  accept their part in the divine place and Not
  resist or struggle against it

28
STOCISM II

• Each individual has his unique place in the
  universe and his duty lay in performing whatever
  functions were attached to that place
• Not striving to change it
• Stoics therefore accepted, without complaint,
  everything that happened to them in life
• The only way to preserve inner calm and
  tranquility
• Taught that virtue should always be practiced
• Not because of its outcome but because it was the
  essential ingredient in the divine plan
• A person should do good because he was supposed
  to
• Not because he might benefit materially from
  doing so

29
SUMMARY

• All the popular philosophies developed at least
  partly in response to the emphasis on the
  individual during the Hellenistic Age
• Each was concerned with personal behavior and
  happiness
• Each was unconcerned with, even hostile to, such
  collective entities as the state
• Entities that had been of prime importance during
  the days of the Greek polis but which had
  declined with the dispersion of Greeks and Greek
  culture throughout the civilized world
• Growing individualism was the most important
  psychological development of the Hellenistic Age
  and a great step towards the development of
  modern attitudes towards the individual and his
  relationship with society