World History

1
World History

• Section Five
• Alexander and the Hellenistic Age

2
Alexander the Great

• Athens fell to the Macedonians losing their
  independence
• Greek culture survived and was spread by
  Alexander the Great

3
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

4
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

5
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

6
Alexander

• Alexanders 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

7
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

8
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

9
Alexanders 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

10
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

11
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

12
Role of Women

• How do we know what womens 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

13
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

14
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

15
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

16
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