Chapter 10, Ancient Greece, Day 2
Do Now: 1) How did Alexander the
Great effect Southwest Asia and
Northeast Africa?
After Alexander’s death, competition for empire
• Divided by generals – WHY in this way?
– Antigonus: Greece and Macedon
– Ptolemy: Egypt
– Seleucus: Persian Achaemenid empire
• Economic integration, intellectual cross-fertilization
Hellenistic Empires after Alexander
The Antigonid Empire (Greece)
• Smallest of Hellenistic empires
• Local dissent
• Issue of land distribution
– Heavy colonizing activity
Seleucid Empire (Persia)
• Massive colonization of Greeks
• Export of Greek culture, values as
far east as India
– Bactria
– Ashoka legislates in Greek and
Aramaic
The Ptolemaic
Empire (Egypt)
• Wealthiest of the
Hellenistic empires
• Established state
monopolies
– Textiles
– Salt
– Beer
• Capital: Alexandria
– Important port
city
– Major museum,
library
Trade and Integration of the
Mediterranean Basin
• Greece: little grain, but
rich in olives and grapes
• Colonies further trade
• Commerce rather than
agriculture as basis of
much of economy
Panhellenic Festivals
• Useful for integrating farflung colonies
• Olympic Games begin 776
B.C.E.
• Sense of collective
identity
Patriarchal Society
• Women as goddesses,
wives, prostitutes
• Limited exposure in
public sphere
• Sparta partial exception
• Sappho
• Role of infanticide in
Greek society and
culture
Slavery
• Scythians (Ukraine)
• Nubians (Africa)
• Chattel
• Sometimes used in
business
• Opportunity to buy
freedom
The Greek Language
• Borrowed Phoenician
alphabet (who invented
alphabet)
• Added vowels
• Complex language
Science and Mathematics
• Use of observable
evidence, rational thought
• Thales predicts eclipse, 28
May 585 B.C.E.
• Democritus, atoms
• Pythagoras, systematic
approach to mathematics
• Hippocrates, human
anatomy and physiology
Plato
• Systematized Socratic
thought
• Republic
– Philosopher kings
– Theory of Forms or Ideas
– Plato’s Cave
Socrates
• The Socratic method
• Student: Plato
• Public gadfly, condemned
on charges of immorality
• Forced to drink hemlock
Aristotle (389-322 B.C.E.)
• Student of Plato
• Broke with theory of Forms or
Ideas
• Emphasis on empirical
findings, reason
• Massive impact on western
thought
Religion
• Polytheism
• Zeus principal god
• Religious cults
– Eleusinian mysteries
– The Bacchae
– Rituals eventually
domesticated
Tragic Drama
• Evolution from public
presentations of cultic
rituals
• Major playwrights (fifth
century B.C.E.)
– Aeschylus
– Sophocles
– Euripides
• Comedy: Aristophanes
Hellenistic Philosophies
• Epicureans
– Pleasure, distinct from
Hedonists
• Skeptics
– Doubted possibility of
certainty in anything
• Stoics
– Duty, virtue
– Emphasis on inner
peace
Summary
• Can you use PERSIAN to describe the Ancient
Greek Civilization? Provide examples
• P
• E
• R
• S
• I
• A
• N