Changes in ancient
Athens & Greece:
“The Hellenistic World”
CIV 101-03
February 12, 2016
Before the “Fall”
of Athens (eventually, of Greece)
• Persian Wars (480-478 BCE)
– Athens/Greece wins and ascends
– Victory largely due to naval strategies
• Golden Age of Athens/Greece (478-431
BCE)
“The Fall of Greece”
• Anyone who tries to blame this all on
the sophists or rhetoric . . . Simply
doesn’t understand history.
– Some historians and philosophers lean that
way and blame it all on “the mob,” misled
by “not-philosophers.”
After the Golden Age of Athens
• The Decline of the Greek Polis (431-336
BCE)
– Increased trade and Athenians/Greeks who
moved out of Greece “diluted” the
Athenian/Greek Polis
– Chronic warfare weakened all of Greece;
Athenian prominence comes and goes,
although GREEK influence around the region
grows steadily.
After the Golden Age of Athens
–Macedonia rising in the background
• Thought of themselves as Greek
(lived on the northern boarder)
• The Greeks thought of them as
outsider-barbarians
• Controlled Gold mines; the money
bought cooperation and built their
military
After the Golden Age of Athens
WAR
• The Peloponnesian War with Sparta (431404 BCE)
–Plague hits Athens
–Sparta Wins
After the Golden Age of Athens
WAR
–Corinthian War (395-387 BCE)
• After losing the Peloponnesian War, Athens and
other city states cut a deal with Persia, trying to
overthrow Spartan rule
• Sparta reverses the politics by cutting a new
deal with Persia and thereby defeating the
Athenian-led alliance.
• The peace eventually settles most things among
Sparta, Athens, and Persia such that all three
thrive for a time.
Alexander the Great and the
Hellenistic era (336 BCE-31 BCE)
• Phillip (of Macedonia)
– Invades and defeats the Greeks.
– formed all-Greek polis’s (except Sparta) into the
Corinthian League, misleading the Greeks into thinking
that Greece survived.
• Phillip was assassinated, but his young son,
Alexander, was more than up to the task of ruling.
– Educated by Leonidas and Aristotle
– From 334 to 323 BCE, campaigned and took over most
of the Persian Empire and beyond.
– “Hellenized” (spread Greek mindset and ways) the
Western world
Alexander’s Hellenic Empire,
after Alexander
• Alexander left no heir, so his generals
battled each other and split up his empire
– Antigonid Greece
• Firm control of Greece never established
– Seleucid Asia
• Combines Greek and Macedonian influences, mostly
in the cities.
– Ptolemaic Egypt
• Most stable. Run in a centralized way.
Alexander’s Conquests/Campaigns
http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/images/05/MapHellenisti
cKingdoms.jpg
Some Great Hellenic Contributions
• Medicine
– treats the heart as a pump and pulse as important
for diagnosis
– Some advances in surgical procedures
• Philosophy: These will come back later in the
Western world
–
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–
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Cynicism
Skepticism
Epicureanism
Stoicism
Cynicism
• Diogenes
–Autarky (self-sufficiency) as goal
–If one never wants . . . One never lacks
Skepticism
• No primary figure
– Pyrrho, Timon, Arcesilaus, Carneades,
Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus
–Autarky (self-sufficiency) as goal
• + Doubt, esp. of the senses, and
therefore, the quality of knowledge
• (Descartes will later adopt this view)
Epicureanism
• Epicurus
–Keep one’s needs simple
• Abstain from sex
• Be free of fear
• Embrace free choice
• Make many fast friends
Stoicism
• Zeno
• avoid suffering by leading a life of apatheia-objectivity, rather than not caring, and self control.
• The Stoic's life should be based on reason and in
harmony with the universe. Instead of avoiding the
community and its potential temptations, like
ascetics, Stoics felt themselves to be part of a
universal community of man
–
–
–
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Nature and logic/reason are God-like
Duty
Virtue
God will work it all out
New Comedy
Menander
• Unlike Old Comedy, which parodied public
figures and events, New Comedy featured
fictional average citizens and had no
supernatural or heroic overtones.
• Thus, the chorus, the representative of forces
larger than life, receded in importance and
became a small band of musicians and dancers
who periodically provided light entertainment.
• This form continues through the middle ages,
giving us the troubadour.
• https://www.britannica.com/art/New-Comedy
Science and Technology
–Aristarchus: Heliocentric theory
• No, Copernicus didn’t think of it first. BUT, this was
among the ancient ideas/texts that was “lost” until
the Renaissance.
–Eratosthenes: Measures the earth
–Euclid: Geometry
–Archimedes: buoyancy, gravity,
mechanics, hydrostatics, inventions.
Architecture
• The Corinthian column (and subsequent
buildings)
Headed for a real fall
• These fragmented empires will not be a
match for Rome. Not enough coherence.
Insufficient cultural sense of unity.Too few
coalitions.
• Too many wars among themselves.
• Between 148 BCE and 31 BCE, Rome
conquers all.