Download class 13 - Bradley University

The Demise of Athens & Greece:
“The Hellenistic World”
CIV 101-02
Sept. 23, 2015
“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.
After the Golden Age of Athens
WAR
• Persian Wars (480-478 BCE)
– Athens/Greece wins and ascends
• Golden Age of Athens/Greece (478-431 BCE)
• The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)
– Sparta Wins
– Corinthian War (395-387 BCE)
• In order to win, Sparta cuts a deal with Persia
• The rise of Macedon (355-336 B.C.E.)
– Here comes Alexander the Great
After the Golden Age of Athens
• The Decline & fall 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
– Macedonia rose
• Thought of themselves as Greek (lived on the
northern boarder
• Controlled Gold mines; the money bought
cooperation and built their military
Alexander the Great and the
Hellenistic era (336 BCE-31 BCE)
• Philip 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.
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.
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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Cynicism (Who? What?)
Skepticism (Who? What?)
Epicureanism (Who? What?)
Stoicism (Who? What?)
Cynicism
• Diogenes
–Autarky (self-sufficency) as goal
–If one never wants . . . One never lacks
Skepticism
• No primary figure listed in the text
– Pyrrho, Timon, Arcesilaus, Carneades,
Aenesidemus, and Sextus Empiricus (not on tests)
• Autarky (self-sufficency) 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 rule
Duty
Virtue
God will work it all out
And nature and reason are God-like
New Comedy
Menander
• Unlike Old Comedy, which parodied public figures
and events, New Comedy features fictional
average citizens and has no supernatural or
heroic overtones.
• Thus, the chorus, the representative of forces
larger than life, recedes in importance and
becomes a small band of musicians and dancers
who periodically provide light entertainment.
• https://www.britannica.com/art/New-Comedy
Science and Technology
–Aristarchus: Heliocentric theory
–Eratosthenes: Measures the earth
–Euclid: Geometry
–Archimedes: buoyancy, gravity,
mechanics, hydrostatics,
inventions.
Architecture
• The Corinthian column (and subsequent
buildings)
Headed for a 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.