Changes in ancient Athens & Greece: “The Hellenistic World”

1. Changes in ancient Athens & Greece:“The Hellenistic World” CIV 101-03 February 12, 2016

2. Before the “Fall”of Athens (eventually, of Greece) • Persian Wars (480-478 BCE) • Athens/Greece wins and ascends • Victory largely due to naval strategies • Golden Age of Athens/Greece (478-431 BCE)

3. “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 and blame it all on “the mob,” misled by “not-philosophers.”

4. After the Golden Age of Athens • The Decline 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; Athenian prominence comes and goes, although GREEK influence around the region grows steadily.

5. After the Golden Age of Athens • Macedonia rising in the background • Thought of themselves as Greek (lived on the northern boarder) • The Greeks thought of them as outsider-barbarians • Controlled Gold mines; the money bought cooperation and built their military

6. After the Golden Age of AthensWAR • The Peloponnesian War with Sparta (431-404 BCE) • Plague hits Athens • Sparta Wins

7. After the Golden Age of AthensWAR • Corinthian War (395-387 BCE) • After losing the Peloponnesian War, Athens and other city states cut a deal with Persia, trying to overthrow Spartan rule • Sparta reverses the politics by cutting a new deal with Persia and thereby defeating the Athenian-led alliance. • The peace eventually settles most things among Sparta, Athens, and Persia such that all three thrive for a time.

8. Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic era (336 BCE-31 BCE) • Phillip (of Macedonia) • Invades and defeats the Greeks. • 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. • “Hellenized” (spread Greek mindset and ways) the Western world

10. 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.

11. Alexander’s Conquests/Campaigns http://www.usu.edu/markdamen/ClasDram/images/05/MapHellenisticKingdoms.jpg

12. 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 • Cynicism • Skepticism • Epicureanism • Stoicism

13. Cynicism • Diogenes • Autarky (self-sufficiency) as goal • If one never wants . . . One never lacks

14. Skepticism • No primary figure • Pyrrho, Timon, Arcesilaus, Carneades, Aenesidemus, and SextusEmpiricus • Autarky (self-sufficiency) as goal • + Doubt, esp. of the senses, and therefore, the quality of knowledge • (Descartes will later adopt this view)

15. Epicureanism • Epicurus • Keep one’s needs simple • Abstain from sex • Be free of fear • Embrace free choice • Make many fast friends

16. 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 • Nature and logic/reason areGod-like • Duty • Virtue • God will work it all out

17. New Comedy Menander • Unlike Old Comedy, which parodied public figures and events, New Comedy featured fictional average citizens and had no supernatural or heroic overtones. • Thus, the chorus, the representative of forces larger than life, receded in importance and became a small band of musicians and dancers who periodically provided light entertainment. • This form continues through the middle ages, giving us the troubadour. • https://www.britannica.com/art/New-Comedy

18. Science and Technology • Aristarchus: Heliocentric theory • No, Copernicus didn’t think of it first. BUT, this was among the ancient ideas/texts that was “lost” until the Renaissance. • Eratosthenes: Measures the earth • Euclid: Geometry • Archimedes: buoyancy, gravity, mechanics, hydrostatics, inventions.

19. Architecture • The Corinthian column (and subsequent buildings)

20. Headed for a real 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.