Transcript This Is The End - jsimmersworldhistory

This Is The End
Macedonia, Alexander, and the
Last Great Hurah of the Greeks
Macedon
• Located north of Thessaly
– Constant battles with the northern barbarian tribes
• Actually kept them from entering Greece
• Not well respected
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A dominant King
No poleis
Council of nobles
Not much attention paid to them
• Greek Culture
Phillip II: 359-336 bce
• Came to power at 27
– Overthrew his nephew
• Which really wasn’t that hard
– Great admirer of Greek culture
• 3 year prisoner in Thebes
– Military and Diplomacy
• Used both to pacify northern tribes
• Undermined Athenian control of northern Aegean
Sea
• Took Amphiplois- silver and gold mines
Macedonian Army
• National and professional
– Not the amateur’s of the Greek polis
– Farmers and hill people
• Turned into a national, but more importantly, loyal force
• Make-up
– 13 ft. pikes, not the common 9 ft.
– Open phalanx
• Use of pike important
– Companions
• Nobles and clan leaders
• Made up the calvary
Phillip’s Greek Invasion
• Phocians at war with Thebes and Thessaly
– Phillip accepts generalship of Thessalians
• Defeat Phocis
• Takes control of Thessaly
– Turns north
• Takes Thrace
• Direct threat to Athens
4th Century Greece
• Weak
– Losses in Peloponnesian Wars
• Man power and Navy weak
• No strong leader since Pericles
• No allies
– Society was divided
• Rich and poor
• Economy shot
– Empire
• What was left was breaking apart
– Overly cautious
• Demosthese breaks this
• Urged Athens to see the threat that Phillip was
Athens and Greece Fall
• 349 bce
– Phillip takes northern and central Greek cities
– Elected president of Pythian Games at Delphi
• Isocrates (436-338 bce)
– Saw Phillip as a leader that could take on Persia
• This war would bring a economic solution to social problems
– 340 bce
• Phillip attacks Perinthus and Byzantium
– Athens Navy saves them
– 338 bce
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Battles of Chaeronea and Boeotia
Alexander cavalry charge cements Athens fate
Greece falls to Phillip
Athens spared invasion, but gives up empire and must follow
Macedon
Greek Gov’t Under Phillip
• Not that harsh
– Though some atrocities committed
• Demosthenes
– Remain involved in politics
– Athens spared invasion
• Federal League of Corinth- 338 bce
– Delegates to make foreign policy without having to
consult Phillip
• But Phillip was the president of the League
• Polis and Greek autonomy lost for good
Eyes towards Persia
• Seat of power at Corinth
– Same spot where Greeks had held their
ground against Persia 150 years before
• Phillip sets sights on Persia
– But is assassinated in 336 bce
– Power falls to his son Alexander at age 20
Persia
• The largest and richest Empire in the World
– Size made it hard to control
• Darius III
– Ruled Persia at the time of Phillips death
– Inexperienced and also a bit lax with affairs
• Military
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Vast resources
Navy dominated the seas
Army was large and experienced
Truly what held Persia together
Didn’t scare Alexander though
Alexander Invades Persia
• Going in Weak
– Large army, but compared to Persia?
• No Navy
• No money
• Tactics
• Memmon- commander of Persian Navy
• Granicus River
– Alexander meets Persians
• Won easily
• Leads cavalry charge-inspiration
• Subsequent victories close off ports
Alexander’s Empire
• 336 bce
– Marches into Syria and meets Darius army
• Darius defeated and flees
– Takes Tyre- ends Persian naval threat
• Darius send peace offer and daughter
• Alexander refuses
– Takes Egypt
• 331 bce takes Mesopotamia, enters Babylon
• 330 bce takes the Persian capitol of Persepolis
– Stay a while then burns it
Con’t
• Hunt for Darius
– Finds body, killed by Bessus
– Now hunts down Bessus who is eventually
captured
• 327 bce
– Army goes through Khyber Pass (Pakistan)
• 324 bce
– Army is tired
– Returns to Persian Gulf
Death and Empire
• 323 bce- Alexander dies at age33 yrs old
– Fever or poison?
• Empire is split into provinces controlled by governors
– Infighting and civil war
• Ptolemy
– Dynasty 31 in Egypt, Cleopatra the last
• Seleucus
– Seleucid Dynasty in Mesoptamia
• Antigonus I
– Antigonid Dynasty in Asia Minor and Macedon
• The End
– All fall to Rome except Egypt
Hellenistic Culture
• Philosophy
– Lyceum
• Break from Aristotle
– Literary and historical studies
– Academy
• Turned away from Plato
• Pyrrho of Elis
– Skepticism
• Nothing could be known and nothing mattered
– Cynics
• Stuck with the natural thing
– Epicureans
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Epicurus of Athens (342-271 bce)
Search not for knowledge but human happiness
Atomist ideas
Liberation from fear of death, gods, or the
supernatural
• Goal was to achieve ataraxia
– Condition of being undisturbed without pain, trouble, or
responsibility
– Stoics
• Zeno of Citium in Cyprus (335-263 bce)
• Humans must live in harmony with themselves and
nature
• God and nature the same thing
• Guiding principle in nature was divine reason:
LOGOS
• Live a virtuous life in accordance with nature
• Misery came from passion, the disease of the soul
• The world was a single polis
• Literature
– 3rd and 2nd literature coming out of Alexandria
– The Museum and the library
• Research institute
• royal funds support scientist and scholars
– Copying, editing of best works
– History and chronology
• Architecture and Sculpture
– Vast health gave rise to building
– Sculpture-sentimental, emotional, realistic of 4th
Century
• Math and Science
– Euclid’s Elements
• Plane and solid geometry
– Archimedes
• Further progress in geometry, lever mechanics, and invented
hydrostatics
– Heraclides
• Mercury and Venus circulate around sun and Earth
– Aristarchus
• Heliocentric theory
• Sun stationary and Earth revolves around it in a circular
motion and rotates on its own axis