Download SS 308 Democracy and Empire Part2

Hellenistic period
From the death of Alexander in 323-death of Cleopatra VII in 30
BC (4th-1st c. BC)
Andromache Karanika, Associate Professor of Classics, UCI
CHANGES

 New World. We have a new COSMOPOLIS (literally a
city state comprising the world).
 Greek is the new common language of government and
culture.
 “From citizens of minuscule city-states on the fringes of
the Persian empire, the Greeks had become partners in
the new rule of a vast territory that stretched from the
Mediterranean to the borders of India.”
 Ordinary people (Greeks and their subjects) retain
traditional values, religions, rituals, practices while
changing to adapt to a new world.
 Globalization of the time.
Game of THRONESSuccessors of Alexander

Importance of the period
 New dynamics

 New state formation
Power up for grabs by different people (and groups of people).
Imperial new world.
Multiethnic world.
Changes in philosophy: From Classical Plato and Aristotle (in an
aristocratic male dominated environment) philosophies of the
Hellenistic Age cater to a broader community.
New
philosophical trends that speak about human life (stoicism,
Epicureanism, Cynicism, Skepticism) and a stance towards life
and death.
 Women are not excluded from many philosophical schools.
 Women are not excluded from power.
 Roots for Culture, dissemination of culture, arts, science.
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
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Likewise, in visual arts, classical
preoccupation with the beautiful young
male diminished and the sculptural
repertoire expanded to include groups like
women (more), children, elderly, away
from early notions of beauty, even the
deformed.
 To the right the most famous statue of
god HERMES holding baby Dionysus
by sculptor PRAXITELES, in the
Museum of Olympia, GREECE.
Highly representative of CLASSICAL
art (5th-4th c. BC).
Changes in Art –
Going from this –
(idealized beauty)
Changes in Art: From fascination of classical naked male
beauty to different considerations including everyday
scenes
•
•
•
The so-called OLD MARKET WOMANpossibly a courtesan, statue of a woman
carrying chickens, Roman copy of a
Hellenistic original of the 3rd or 2nd c BC
now at the Metropolitan Museum in New
York, NY.
The ivy wreath in her head shows
connections with Dionysus and the cult of
Dionysus (BACCHUS).
During the Hellenistic period, artists
became concerned with the accurate
representation of childhood, old age, and
even physical deformity. The range of
subject matter was extended to include
genre-like figures from the fringes of
society. Fine, large-scale statues of
fishermen, peasants, and aged courtesans
became valued religious dedications,
sometimes placed in a park-like setting
within the sanctuary of the god.
ATHENS AND SPARTA

 Exceptions to the ‘global’ (as they would know it)
political trends.
 Democracy never fully restored in Athens, but Athens
continues to be the center of culture.
 Cultural changes: THEATER an arena.
The great
th
th
tragedies of the past (5
and 4
century) that
presented mythological themes and stories no longer
dominant. Instead a lighter genre, comedy, (but not
the comedy of the classical era which had political
sarcasm and arrows) instead the NEW COMEDY. Gentle
comedy, plays by MENANDER that reflect the new
political order, interests of upper class audience. New
literary genre (think of it as the predecessor of
European Comic Poets like French Moliere, Italian
Commedia Dell’ Arte etc).
Reconstruction of POIKILE STOA
where Zeno taught (Stoa> STOICS)

 The building was originally known as the Peisianaktios,
from its builder Peisianax. The name Poikile (Painted) is
derived from its famous murals painted by artists such
as Polygnotos.
New cultural centers
outside Athens

 Main cultural centers expanded from mainland
Greece to Pergamon, Rhodes, and new Greek
colonies such as Seleucia, Antioch and Alexandria of
Egypt.
 Larger number of Greek-speakers gave birth to a
common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine.
 Spread of Greek culture

HELLENISTIC EGYPT
 First Ptolemy I Soter, claimed ownership of Egypt in the period
between 323-301 during the “wars of the successors.”
 All male rulers got the name PTOLEMY.
 Women preferred names like Cleopatra, Berenice and Arsinoe.
 The Ptolemies built new temples worshiping the Egyptian gods as well
as classical Greek pantheon (conflation, syncretism)
 adopted the façade of Pharaohs
 During the reign of Ptolemies II and III Greek veterans were rewarded
with grants of farm lands, and Greeks were planted in colonies and
garrisons or settled themselves in the villages throughout the country,
we have the making of a new ‘colonial’ reality.
 Land was divided in two categories: ROYAL and RELEASED for other
purposes
 The Released land had four categories:
-cleruchic land (by kleros, lot) granted to soldiers
-gift land as reward for government officials
-temple land to provide support financially for temples
-private land for individuals (houses and gardens)

Eastern Horizons in the
Hellenistic Age

 Although after the wars of the successors things
seemed stable, there was the ‘adjustment of frontiers’
 Ptolemy II took over Egypt after his father’s death in
283 and pushed north in Syria, cities in Asia Minor:
Miletus, Halicarnassus, and islands in the eastern
Aegean (Samos) against the Seleucid Empire, and the
leader Antiochus I.
 Remember the Seleucids (Seleucus I Nicator, satrap
of Babylonia connected to Alexander) named his son
Antiochus, one of the main names that circulated (as
opposed to Ptolemies in Egypt).
PTOLEMY I (305 BC–282 BC) and
founder of the Ptolemaic dynasty

PTOLEMY I (SOTER)
and BERENICE (I)

 They married in 317 and had three children together: two
daughters Arsinoe II, Philotera and a son Ptolemy II
Philadelphus.
 Ptolemy left a stable kingdom to his son Ptolemy II.
Ptolemy II married Arsinoe I, mother of his legitimate
children (the daughter of Lysimachus) whom he accused
of plotting against him, divorced her, and later, according
to egyptian custom, married his own sister Arsinoe II
(hence the name PHILADELPHUS)
Ptolemy II Philadelphus
309–246 BCE

Major economic
activities

 Textile industry (think of today’s egyptian cotton)
 Papyrus
 Oil production- state monopolies (Ok, you understand we mean
olive oil….)
 Limitations on imports
 Generation of revenues for the royal family through taxes and fees.
 Strict currency control
 Extensive ‘business’ administration headquartered in Alexandria
for supervision, with agents (Greeks at the upper official and
executive level, Egyptian lower administrative). Note my
differentiation in the terms.
 Irrigation system central to agricultural success.
 King and Queen as joint CEOs of the economic enterprises.
Innovative historical work is being done on this front.
RING of PTOLEMY VI
(Philometor) as Egyptian pharoh
(from Louvre Museum, Paris.

 Note Pharaonic elements
In the depiction of Ptolemy
Why depiction on a ring?
Idea of seal.
The MUSEUM of ALEXANDRIA
and its LIBRARY

 Ptolemy I, perhaps with advice from Demetrius I of Phaleron, founded
the Museum and LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA.
 The MUSEUM to be thought as research center supported financially
by the king.
 located in the royal sector of the city.
 Scholars/scientists were housed in the same sector and funded by the
Ptolemaic rulers with full library privileges.
 The chief librarian served also as the crown prince's tutor
 the Roman historian Aulus Gellius wrote in his book Attic Nights that
the Royal Alexandrian Library was burned by mistake when some of
Caesar’s soldiers started a fire around 48 BC, which would have
burned about 40.000 books.
 A number of Hellenistic philologists, scientists and thinkers studied,
wrote, and experimented at the museum such as founding fathers of
mathematics, engineering, geography, and medicine (Euclid,
Archimedes, Aristarchus, later Hypatia when library restored).
R
Exact layout not known
 Imaginative
 Imaginative

reconstruction artistic
reconstruction of
of main street in
Alexandria
library
PAPYRI as SOURCES
for HISTORY

 MEDIA REVOLUTION Many have survived in Egypt because of the dry weather
conditions, in several languages.
 Different sorts of documents from private contracts to religious
texts to financial documents to private letters and school kids
writings.
 Papyri preserved (in fragmentary forms) works of earlier and
contemporary Greek literature (such as archaic female poet
Sappho, or Aristotle).
 Some examples of papyrological work:
 http://ancientlives.org/
 http://asp.classics.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/papyri.asp
Papyri and Library, what it would
look like

 One of the excavated
halls of the
MOUSEION
(MUSEUM), Note
theatrical setting
Papyri
Beatty Ezekiel Chester
Daniel-Esther (about
200 ce, papyrus codex);
subscriptio and end of
Daniel/Susanna
(PKoeln Theol 37v,
p.196)
 Papyrology a scholarly
discipline today
Papyri

Another example of an ancient
papyrus

Some magic on an ancient papyrus…
from the collection of “magical papyri”

 Term ‘magical’ refers to the content/text
What about Earlier
History of Pergamon?

 Legend that it was a colony of Arcadians (from the Peloponnese).
The earliest surviving evidence is by XENOPHON, ancient
historian, classical, who also fought in the area. Xenophon had
captured Pergamon in 399 (the same year that Socrates died) but
then Pergamon was recaptured by the Persians.
 LYSIMACHUS, king of Thrace had taken possession of it by 301,
but then soon after the kingdom of Thrace collapsed. Philetaerus,
Lysimachus’ lieutenant, had enlarged the city. After the collapse of
Lysimachus’ kingdom in Thrace, Pergamon became the center of a
new kingdom.
 Philetaerus bequeathed his possessions to his nephew Eumenes I
(263-241) in 261, who increased them and left as his heir Attalus I
(241-197 BC). Dynasty of the ATTALIDS.
PERGAMON (also Romanized name
PERGAMUM)

 Currently located (16 mi) from the Aegean Sea on a promontory
on the north side of river Caicus (modern town in Turkey,
Bergama). It was an ancient city that was reconstructed in a
grander scale in the Hellenistic period
 The Attalids were admired in antiquity as some sources show
they supported art (patrons of skilled artisans) and were careful
with taxation. Greek cities in their domains to maintained
autonomy.
 They sent gifts to Greek sacred places like Delphi and Delos,
and cultivated relations with Athens. They remodeled the
Acropolis of Pergamon after the Acropolis in Athens.
Sacred Space

 Athena, Temples.
 The Sanctuary of Asclepius in Pergamon became
famous and was considered one of the most famous
therapeutic and healing centers of the Roman world.
The most famous medical writer and physician
Galen (2nd c. AD) was born at Pergamon and
received his early training at the Asclepeion of
Pergamon.
th
19
c. sketch of
Pergamon

(reconstruction)
Pergamon Theater on
the slopes of hill

Dr. Karanika at the
Pergamon Theater

Great Altar of Zeus From
Pergamon Museum in Berlin


From BERLINPERGAMON MUSEUM
 http://www.smb.museum/en/museumsandinstitutions/pergamonmuseum/home.html


Model of the Acropolis
of Pergamon

Library of Pergamum

 Pergamum had 200,000 volumes, according to Plutarch.
 Built by Eumenes II and situated at the northern end of the
Acropolis, it became one of the most important ancient libraries.
 Ancient suggestion that all of the 200,000 volumes at Pergamum
were to given to Cleopatra for the Library of Alexandria as a
wedding present, emptying the shelves and ending the dominance
of the Library at Pergamum .
 When the Ptolemies stopped exporting papyrus, partly because of
competitors and partly because of shortages, the Pergamenes
invented a new substance to use in codices, called pergamum, greek
word: Pergamene, after the city. This was made of fine calfskin, a
predecessor of paper.
Making parchment- pergamene
PERGAMUM
 Making parchment
 Frankfurt Drawing
(from 16th c.)

BACK TO ALEXANDRIA-CLEOPATRA
(VII, Philopator)

 Daughter of Ptolemy XII, Auletes (=flute player) 69-30 BC.
 Her chosen cult name “Philopator” (=father-loving) shows her close
relationship with her father.
 The identity of Cleopatra's mother is unknown, but she is generally
believed to be Cleopatra V Tryphaena of Egypt, the sister or cousin
and wife of Ptolemy XII Auletes (some controversy on this).
 She was raised to the status of joint ruler from 55 BC on (she was just
14 years old) with her father, and also her brother, Ptolemy XIII whom
she also married as it was the custom among Ptolemies and other royal
families.
 Her father died in 51 so 18 year old Cleopatra and 10 year old Ptolemy
got the Ptolemaic throne.
 Her history intertwined with the history of Rome.
 She was driven away from the throne after getting in conflict with the
Roman troops in Egypt and the regent of Ptolemy XIII, a eunuch called
Pothinus> Cleopatra on exile in Syria with her sister Arsinoe IV.

What was going on in Rome at the
time that affected Cleopatra’s
fortune?

 Civil war. Battle between Caesar and Pompey (battle at Pharsalus, 48
BC)
 Julius Caesar defeated the troops of the Roman Senate, under the
command of Pompey the Great.
 Caesar's victory marked the end of the Roman Republic. Beginning of
empire
 Cleopatra started amassing an army close to Egypt’s borders and sought
an alliance with Caesar and the Egyptian throne back for herself.
 Became Caesar’s lover. Also married her younger brother Ptolemy XIV
(who was only 11 years old).
 The relationship between Cleopatra and Caesar was obvious to the
Roman people and caused a scandal because the Roman dictator was
already married to Calpurnia. SOURCES- propaganda against
Affair of Cleopatra and Julius
Caesar

 Caesar spent his winter in Egypt in 48-47.
 She soon became pregnant by Caesar and she gave birth
to a son, Ptolemy XV also called Caesarion or Little
Caesar.
 Cleopatra and Caesarion visited Rome between 46 BC and
44 BC.
 As a foreign head of state, she was not allowed inside
Rome's pomerium (boundary religiously sanctioned
around city of Rome and its surroundings)
 In 44 B.C., Caesar was stabbed to death at the Senate in
Rome >
 While in Rome there would be reaction against her.
 Cleopatra fled back to Egypt.
Life goes on: Mark
Anthony

 In 42 BC, Mark Antony, one of the triumvirs (with
Octavian –later Augustus- and Lepidus, the three man
commission for the restoration of the Roman Republic
(triumviri rei publicae constituendae) and who ruled Rome
in the power vacuum following Caesar's death,
summoned Cleopatra to meet him in Tarsus.
 Cleopatra arrived in great state, and so charmed Antony
that he chose to spend the winter of 42 BC–41 BC with her
in Alexandria. During the winter, she became pregnant
with twins, who were named Cleopatra Selene and
Alexander Helios. He and Cleopatra had another child,
Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Bust of Cleopatra,
Museum Berlin

Relief of Cleopatra and Caesarion at the
Temple of Hathor (Egyptian Goddess)
in Dendera, Egypt

Statue of
Cleopatra as
Egyptian
goddess
Basalt, second
half of the 1st
century BC.
Hermitage, Saint
Petersburg
Last phase of Civil Wars
in Rome.
 Battle of Philippi

(northeastern Greece)
in 42, forces of Mark
Anthony vs Octavian.
 FINAL Defeat of forces
of Mark Antony and
Cleopatra VII, in
ACTIUM in 31 BC, city
in Ionian Sea (western
Greece)
Queen Cleopatra, Coin minted in
Syria

Understanding
Cleopatra’s death
 Roman propaganda against
her for reasons that are

easy to understand (she was a threat to traditional
Roman values, a ‘foreigner,’ well educated etc etc). Her
enemies in Rome feared that Cleopatra "was planning a
war of revenge that was to array all the East against
Rome, establish herself as empress of the world at
Rome, cast justice from Capitolium, and inaugurate a
new universal kingdom.”
 Danger to Roman spirit, or female danger to Roman
spirit?
 Lost works by Cleopatra