Alexander the Great & the hellenistic world

1. Alexander the Great& the hellenistic world

2. The rise of macedonia Sparta’s defeat of Athens in 404 B.C. ended the Peloponnesian War but the conflict greatly weakened the Greek city-states Philip II (Alexander’s father) took advantage of this weakness and started the conquest of Greece after becoming king of Macedonia in 359 B.C. Despite the efforts of Athens (led by the orator Demosthenes) and Thebes to resist Philip’s plans, the Macedonians crushed the Greeks at Chaeronea in 338 B.C. Philip was named “hegemon” (supreme commander) of the League of Corinth and effectively ended the independence of the Greek city-states

3. The macedonian empire By 336 B.C., Macedonia controlled nearly all of Greece, with the exception of Sparta – why did Philip leave them alone? Philip’s armies defeated the Greeks with superior tactics, including the use of phalanxes armed with long pikes Philip was assassinated by one of his own guards in 336 B.C.

4. Alexander invades persia • Upon his father’s death, Alexander moved quickly to take control and assert his authority over the Greeks – he destroyed Thebes when it rebelled against him • Although Macedonian by birth, he had been trained by Aristotle and embraced Greek culture – his personal hero was the mythical figure of Achilles from Homer’s Iliad • To unite the Greeks and further his own ambition, Alexander carried forward his father’s plan for an invasion of the Persian Empire, starting in 334 B.C. • By 323 B.C., Alexander and his armies had conquered the entire Persian Empire and had even marched into India

5. ALEXANDER BUILDS AN EMPIRE

6. ALEXANDER’S LEGEND & LEGACY Alexander’s personal bravery and military tactics resulted in successive defeats for Persia at Granicus (334 B.C.), Issus (333 B.C.), and Gaugamela (331 B.C.) Persian emperor Darius III fled the battlefield after Gaugamela and was murdered by his own satraps Alexander adopted Persian ways and sought to mix Western and Eastern cultures to maintain his empire He even sought to deify himself as “Zeus-Ammon” and was probably megalomaniacal by the time of his death in Babylon in 323 B.C. at the age of 32

7. The birth of the hellenistic world • After Alexander’s death, his generals (Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Antigonus) divided his empire into three major parts • Hellenistic culture – a blending of Greek (Hellenic) culture with Persian, Egyptian, and Indian culture – was born • Koine ( a Greek dialect) became the common language of Hellenistic peoples in Greece, Egypt, and Southwest Asia The three parts of Alexander’s empire: *Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt *Seleucid dynasty in Asia *Antigonid dynasty in Greece and Macedonia

8. Hellenistic culture Identify major traits of the Hellenistic world pictured below