The Hellenistic Age

This is Unit Five of Western Civilization One, part one of two: the Hellenistic Age, from Philip of Macedon's accession in three fifty-nine to the three kingdoms his son's generals carved by two eighty. Unit four closed on humanism, real and partial. Carry one idea through this unit. Greek culture spread across the Middle East, and Greek politics did not. Philip ended the polis at Chaeronea, and from then on Greeks lived under kings. Alexander conquered Persia in twelve years and ruled it as Persia had been ruled, keeping the satrapies and dying in Babylon as a Great King, not a citizen of anything. His generals made three monarchies over non-Greek majorities, governed by a Greek minority through inherited Persian methods. What went east was the cities, the language, the science and the gods; what stayed home was the citizen assembly. This part tells the conquest and the kingdoms; part two takes the culture, the schools, and the exam's procedures. By the end you will be able to define Hellenistic and say what Philip changed and what Chaeronea ended. To tell the conquest and explain why the army won. To describe Alexander as Great King and where his legacy lies. To name the three kingdoms with the exam's three adjectives. And to describe language, citizenship and the grid city.

Four entries on Macedon and Philip: the period in one summary, the kingdom to the north, the army Philip built, and the battle that ended a thousand years of polis independence.

Twelve years of conquest, then three centuries of kingdoms.

WC1 0401 What Hellenistic Means, in One Summary

Hellas is Greece, and Hellenistic means Greek civilization spread across the Middle East. The summary runs: twelve years of conquest, a king dead without an heir, generals carving kingdoms, three centuries of warring and trading dynasties, then Rome, from three thirty-eight to thirty B.C.E., Philip to Cleopatra. Rome's simultaneous rise overshadows the period, and the exam still weights it.

Bumpkins to the south, Greek enough for Olympia.

WC1 0402 Macedon: Warriors, Villages, and a Fractious Crown

Macedon lay north of Greece: villages of warriors and traders, Greek by language, bumpkins to the south, with an army of free citizens paid in loot. Its monarchy was plagued by rival relatives and nobles and raided by Thracians, and from three ninety-nine it fell into civil war for forty years. Macedon was Greek enough to compete at Olympia, so do not call it foreign.

The phalanx holds, the cavalry decides.

WC1 0403 Philip II Rebuilds the Army: Long Spears and Sworn Cavalry

Philip the Second reunified Macedon in three fifty-nine by rewarding loyalty and killing rivals. His noble cavalry swore to him personally; a new phalanx with longer spears pinned the enemy for the cavalry charge; northern gold paid drilled infantry and mercenaries, the largest Macedonian army ever fielded. The innovation is the combination: the phalanx holds, and the cavalry decides.

A thousand years of independence, ended and resented.

WC1 0404 338 BCE: Chaeronea and the End of Polis Independence

After a decade of bribery and threats, Philip crushed the Athenian-led coalition in three thirty-eight at Chaeronea, a name the witnesses supply, with the eighteen-year-old Alexander leading the cavalry. A new league under Philip, the League of Corinth, garrisoned Greece. A thousand years of polis independence ended, and was resented. The anchor names neither the battle nor the league; the exam expects both.

Three entries on the conquest: the pretext and Philip's murder, why forty-five thousand men beat an empire, and the burning of Persepolis.

Revenge as pretext, and a warning at Thebes.

WC1 0405 The Persian Pretext, Philip's Murder, and Thebes

Philip needed loot and chose Persia, calling it revenge, a pretext the anchor names as imperialism. A bodyguard murdered him in three thirty-six; Olympias's role is disputed, no verdict, and it rests on the anchor. Alexander, twenty, Aristotle's pupil and modeled on Achilles, purged rivals and sacked rebellious Thebes, killing thousands as a warning. The sack of Thebes is the record.

Beat the pieces before the empire concentrates.

WC1 0406 334 to 332: Why 45,000 Beat an Empire

Alexander crossed in three thirty-four with about forty-five thousand men, the anchor's figure, and won Anatolia and Syria by three thirty-two at Granicus and Issus, witness names. Persia mobilized slowly, and he beat its pieces before it concentrated, granting concessions to those who surrendered and honors even to brave losers. For most subjects it was a change of ruler, which is why it held.

Liberator in Egypt, arsonist at Persepolis.

WC1 0407 Egypt, Gaugamela, Persepolis, and Darius III, 330

Egypt welcomed Alexander as liberator and god. He won at Gaugamela, a witness name, and in three thirty burned Persepolis, historians concluding he ordered it to end resistance, while Persian gold funded the army and building at home. Darius the Third was murdered by his nobles. Darius's peace offer of half the empire may be Greek propaganda, and the anchor says so.

Three entries on Alexander as Great King and the end: Persian governance taken over whole, the refusal at the river and the desert march, and the legacy the anchor finds in the aftermath.

The next Great King, resented by his own army.

WC1 0408 Ruling as the Great King: Marriages, Satrapies, Babylon

Alexander kept the satrapies, enlisted Persian soldiers, honored Darius's family, and married his officers to Persian noblewomen in mass ceremonies to fuse the two peoples, taking the Persian system of governance over whole and making Babylon his capital. His goal was to be the next Great King. The Macedonians resented it: fusion was Alexander's policy, not his army's.

The river where the army said no.

WC1 0409 India, the Refusal, the Makran, and Babylon, 323

Alexander crossed Afghanistan and beat Porus in the Indus valley about three twenty-six, at the Hydaspes on the witness; the anchor dates it three twenty-seven, so say about. At the next river the army refused. The march back through the Makran desert cost more lives than India. He died in Babylon in three twenty-three, of exhaustion, wounds and drinking, leaving the empire to the strongest.

The legacy is in the aftermath.

WC1 0410 Cities and the Greek Diaspora: Alexander's Real Legacy

The anchor locates the legacy in the aftermath: cities named Alexandria, with Alexander's body in the Egyptian one, a century of Greek emigration, Greeks as a new ruling minority across the Middle East, intermarriage encouraged, and Persian administration inherited whole, royal road, governors and bureaucracy. Greeks were always a minority. Rule went Greek, not population.

Three entries on the kingdoms: the three the generals made and the exam's three adjectives, Greek pharaohs over Egyptian clerks, and the Seleucids who had too much land and too few Greeks.

Weakest, longest, richest.

WC1 0411 Three Kingdoms by 280: Antigonid, Ptolemaic, Seleucid

Civil war among the generals produced three kingdoms by two eighty: the Antigonids in Macedon and Greece, the weakest; the Ptolemies in Egypt, the longest lasting; the Seleucids in Mesopotamia and Persia, the richest and hardest to govern. Weakest, longest, richest are the exam's three adjectives. Rivalry between Ptolemies and Seleucids drove the period's wars, and Rome ended all three.

Greek pharaohs, and the cheapest wheat in the world.

WC1 0412 Ptolemaic Egypt: Greek Pharaohs, Egyptian Clerks, Record Harvests

The Ptolemies ruled as pharaohs while staying Macedonian Greek, with Greeks in the top ranks over an Egyptian bureaucracy and Greek soldier-colonies on the land. Obsessive papyrus records and a managed Nile gave the cheapest wheat from Spain to Mesopotamia; prosperity came from the bureaucracy. Cleopatra the Seventh was the first Ptolemy to speak Egyptian. The Rosetta Stone is Ptolemaic, on the anchor alone.

India traded for elephants, Parthia lost.

WC1 0413 The Seleucids: Too Big, Too Few Greeks, and the Silk Trade

The Seleucids returned India to Chandragupta about three ten, the anchor's date, for elephants, and lost Parthia in two forty-seven. Rebellion followed, yet they consolidated trade with roads and canals, and the anchor credits them with beginning the Silk Road, a claim that is the anchor's, since the witness dates the link later. The remnant was ended by Pompey in sixty-three B.C.E.

Two entries on life in a Hellenistic city: the layers of language and what citizenship became, and the grid cities with schools and free food.

Greek for the state, Aramaic for trade.

WC1 0414 Languages and Citizenship in a Hellenistic City

Greek served state and elite in the common dialect the witness names koine, which spread as the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world; Aramaic carried trade; local tongues stayed local, and kings rarely learned them. Citizenship became an elite mark holdable in several cities, no longer the polis's basic currency. Koine is witness-supplied; the anchor describes the layers without the word.

Grids, theaters, and free food for the poorest.

WC1 0415 Grid Cities, Public Services, and a Widened World

New cities rose on grid plans with forums, theaters and temples. The anchor calls Seleucid cities the first welfare state, state-funded schools, garbage collection, then free food for the poorest, for peace rather than charity; the phrase is the anchor's, attributed. Greeks stood above non-Greeks, and subject priests prophesied Greek downfall. Red Sea posts reached Eritrea, and native histories were translated into Greek.

Look at what you can now do. You can define Hellenistic as Greek civilization spread across the Middle East, describe Macedon as Greek by language and bumpkin by reputation, and say that Philip combined a long-spear phalanx with sworn cavalry and ended polis independence at Chaeronea. You can tell the conquest from the Persian pretext and Philip's murder through Granicus and Issus to Gaugamela and Persepolis, and explain that the army won by beating Persia's pieces before it concentrated. You can describe Alexander taking Persian governance over whole, the army's refusal in India, the Makran, and Babylon in three twenty-three, and locate the legacy in cities, emigration and inherited administration. You can name the Antigonids, Ptolemies and Seleucids as weakest, longest and richest, and describe Greek pharaohs over Egyptian clerks and a kingdom that traded India for elephants. And you can describe koine over Aramaic, citizenship as an ornament, and grid cities that fed the poor for peace. Part two opens on what those cities believed and taught, from Isis and Serapis to the Stoics, and ends on the theme: culture went east, politics stayed home.