* The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Philip II of Macedon, was king of Macedonia.
• Macedonia was a large, relatively empty kingdom to the north of Greece.
• For decades Macedonia had been in decline. Yet, Philip was about to change all that.
• Macedonia had long been under the thumb of the Greeks. During his youth, Philip himself was kept as a hostage by the Greek city of Thebes.
• After the Peloponnesian war, Greece's main power players, Athens and Sparta, were weakened and exhausted. The time was ripe for Philip to thrust his backwater kingdom into the civilized world.
• Phillip began by conquering his neighbors, first Thessaly, then Thrace, then Molossia were added to the Macedonian empire. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Philip II of Macedon, was king of Macedonia.
• Yet, things did not go so well in Greece proper.
• The Athenians and Thebans both still held sway over large territories.
• As Philip slowly dismantled their empires, they fought back fiercely.
• The Greeks might be all too willing to kill one another, but when a foreign enemy appeared, they generally united to protect themselves from the invaders.
• Yet, Philip was more than just a conqueror. Rather than attempting to invade wholesale, Philip used the wealth of his new empire to begin establishing his own league of allies, forming a Macedonian party. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Philip II of Macedon, was king of Macedonia.
• As more and more key city-states joined his cause, Philip was able to pressure the remaining Greek city-states into submission.
• The end result was the League of Corinth, an alliance that included most of Greece with Philip of Macedon at their head.
• The lone holdouts were the warlike Spartans. Philip sent an emissary to the Spartans saying, 'You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city.'
• The Spartans replied with just one word, 'If.'
• So, Philip decided to leave the Spartans alone.
• Nevertheless, rather than having to conquer the Greeks, Philip sought to lead them, and after a brief period of resistance, they fell into line. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Philip II of Macedon, was king of Macedonia.
• The Greeks respected Macedon's martial prowess, and the Macedonians respected the cultural and intellectual achievements of the Greeks.
• With the Macedonians leading the charge, Greek culture was poised to conquer the world.
• Yet, just as everything was looking so grand, Philip was assassinated in a lovers quarrel with his ex-boyfriend, Pausanias.
• The rule of the empire fell to Philip's son, Alexander. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Alexander's Conquest
• So, much has been made of Alexander's greatness that we often forget that Alexander inherited much from his father.
• Philip left Alexander a wealthy empire around the Aegean Sea.
• Alexander received the combined power of the Macedonian army and its many allied Greek states.
• Alexander also received a top notch education from the greatest mind of his time, Aristotle, who returned to the Macedonian court after years spent studying and teaching in Athens.
• Finally, Alexander had watched his father turn a cultural backwater of a kingdom into the most powerful empire in Europe.
• With these advantages, Alexander began a lightning campaign of conquest. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Alexander's Conquest
• Alexander's campaign is noteworthy for its speed, its breadth, its tactics and its strategy.
• The same Phalanx formation, which had so frustrated the Persians invading Greece, was now mobilized and brought to the enemy with devastating effectiveness.
• First Asia Minor was ripped from Persian control.
• Next, the Levant and Syria fell to the Macedonians.
• Alexander pressed south into Egypt, which welcomed him as a liberator and showered him with gifts.
• Doubling back, Alexander drove his army through the old kingdoms of the Fertile Crescent. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Alexander's Conquest
• Alexander's campaign is noteworthy for its speed, its breadth, its tactics and its strategy.
• Alexander then pressed on to the heart of the Persian Empire and smashed it to bits, dissolving an empire, which had once been the largest in the world and adding it to his own.
• Yet, Alexander was not finished. He pressed further east than even the Persians had dared to tread.
• He invaded modern day Pakistan and subjugated its peoples, and even pressed across the Indus into the Indian subcontinent. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Alexander's Conquest
• Up until this point, Alexander was undefeated, but it was in India, on the banks of the Hyphasis River, that Alexander first tasted defeat - not at the hands of enemies but from his own soldiers.
• Thousands of miles from home, exhausted and war weary and absolutely terrified of India's war elephants, Alexander's soldiers mutinied, and the progress of the Macedonian war juggernaut ground to a halt.
• Alexander was forced to turn back and lead his army on the long and dangerous journey home.
• Yet, no one could say that the campaign had failed.
• In just over a decade, Alexander had conquered an empire stretching from the Adriatic Sea to the Himalayas.
• This was, in essence, the entire known world of classical times.
* The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Alexander's Conquest
• Throughout his conquest, Alexander showed that, like his father, he was a keen politician as well as a powerful warrior.
• He burned the cities that resisted him, killing their men and selling their women into slavery. Yet, he showed remarkable leniency toward those who opened their gates to him.
• Moreover, he made allies of his fiercest opponents, expanding their kingdoms and making them his vassals.
• Along the way, Alexander wove himself into the mythologies and religions of the peoples he conquered.
• At Troy, he visited the tomb of Achilles, endearing himself to the Greeks. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Alexander's Conquest
• Throughout his conquest, Alexander showed that, like his father, he was a keen politician as well as a powerful warrior.
• Along the way, Alexander wove himself into the mythologies and religions of the peoples he conquered.
• In Jerusalem, he respected their strange god and accepted a place in their prophesies.
• In Egypt, he took on the role of liberator, expanded the freedom of the Egyptian people, named himself the son of the Egyptian god, Amun, and took up the title 'king of the universe.'
• Alexander continued this process throughout his conquests, pardoning the weak, forming alliances with the strong and donning the regalia and trappings of authority from every culture he visited. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Hellenization
• Yet, Alexander did more than just conquer and destroy. He also built.
• Alexander's empire spanned more barriers than just mountains and rivers.
• Cultural divisions, linguistic distinctions, religious differences - all these threatened to tear his empire apart.
• To unify these disparate cultures into a single civilization, Alexander established Greek-style cities across his empire and installed clever Greeks to run his empire for him.
• These cities became administrative centers, run by imported Greeks.
• To make the new Greek administrators feel at home, each city strove to be more Greek than Greece. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Hellenization
• Alexander's empire spanned more barriers than just mountains and rivers.
• In a relatively short time, Greek went from an obscure language, spoken in a tiny corner of the world, into the official language of an empire spanning some two million square miles.
• This process of spreading Greek culture and language is known as Hellenization and marks the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
• In the end, Alexander did not get to enjoy the fruits of his empire for long. He never even made it home.
• Alexander died in Babylon, though our sources are not clear whether it was from poison, sickness or pure exhaustion. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Hellenization
• In the end, Alexander did not get to enjoy the fruits of his empire for long. He never even made it home.
• Alexander died in Babylon, though our sources are not clear whether it was from poison, sickness or pure exhaustion.
• With no clear heir, Alexander's empire was in danger of collapsing as soon as it was formed.
• Alexander himself was of no help. On his deathbed, he bequeathed his empire 'to the strongest.'
• As no one was sure who this meant, Alexander's generals and kin fell to fighting among each other. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (336-123 B.C.) • The Rise of Alexander the Great
• Hellenization
• In the end, Alexander did not get to enjoy the fruits of his empire for long. He never even made it home.
• In the end, Alexander's empire was divided into four smaller kingdoms:
• the Kingdom of Macedon,
• the Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor,
• the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt and far to the east,
• the Seleucid Empire.
* The Hellenic Age of Greece (479-336 B.C.) • The Library at Alexandria
• Have you ever wondered at the fact that people all over the world speak English? I do!
• Throughout most of history, languages have tended to break off from one another.
• People who speak the same language get separated somehow and over the years, these groups' languages shift away from each other.
• First they become different accents, then different dialects, then entirely different languages.
• Yet, there is a force that counteracts this natural tendency, and that is an empire.
• Empires span many different states, with many different languages.
• For obvious reasons, the language of the dominant empire ends up being adopted by its member states. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (479-336 B.C.) • The Library at Alexandria
• Yet, there is a force that counteracts this natural tendency, and that is an empire.
• Empires span many different states, with many different languages.
• For obvious reasons, the language of the dominant empire ends up being adopted by its member states.
• Imperial administrators tend to impose their language on the states they govern, and member states, in turn, attempt to learn the imperial language.
• This helps them communicate with their overlords. It also allows them to share in the knowledge and information available in the empire.
• Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon was Alexander the Great's empire. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (479-336 B.C.) • The Library at Alexandria
• Yet, there is a force that counteracts this natural tendency, and that is an empire.
• As we discussed, Alexander the Great's empire was not long lived. It broke into several smaller kingdoms almost as soon as it was formed.
• Yet there was one enduring aspect of Alexander's campaign of conquest, and that was Hellenization.
• The result of this was that Greek culture, philosophy, art and language were quickly spread across the ancient world.
• Though Alexander's empire soon crumbled, the Greek administrators stayed put, and Greek soon became the universal language of the ancient world.
• Linguistic expansion under Alexander spread Greek as a common language. * The Hellenic Age of Greece (479-336 B.C.) • The Library at Alexandria
• Linguistic expansion under Alexander spread Greek as a common language.
• Everyone who was anyone in the Mediterranean basin could read and write Greek.
• Later, under the Romans, everyone who was anyone could read and write Latin.
• Just like nowadays everyone who's anyone in the world can read and write English.
• The importance of a common language cannot be understated.
• So what if you've got a cool written language, it doesn't help a lick if people don't understand it. What's the point of being able to read and write if you don't know the language? * The Hellenic Age of Greece (479-336 B.C.) • The Library at Alexandria
• Linguistic expansion under Alexander spread Greek as a common language.
• Thus, though writing had been invented and refined for almost a thousand years, knowledge was still restricted to people who shared a common language.
• Though earlier empires made efforts at linguistic unification, none were equipped with a full alphabet like the Greeks had.
• This alphabet had very few characters, making it easier to learn, but it also included vowel sounds, allowing people unfamiliar with Greek to sound out the words.
• The Greeks even added little accent marks to their writing to make it even easier to read. The result was that Greek quickly became the universal language of the ancient world.