The Religion Art and Literature of the Hellenistic Age Was

In 336 B.C., Alexander the Great became the leader of the Greek kingdom of Macedonia. By the time he died xiii years later, Alexander had built an empire that stretched from Hellenic republic all the way to India. That brief simply thorough empire-building campaign changed the world: Information technology spread Greek ideas and civilization from the Eastern Mediterranean to Asia.

Historians telephone call this era the "Hellenistic menstruation." (The word "Hellenistic" comes from the word Hellazein, which means "to speak Greek or place with the Greeks.") It lasted from the death of Alexander in 323 B.C. until 31 B.C., when Roman troops conquered the final of the territories that the Macedonian king had once ruled.

Macedonian Expansion

At the terminate of the classical catamenia, around 360 B.C., the Greek city-states were weak and disorganized from ii centuries of warfare. (Get-go the Athenians fought with the Persians; then the Spartans fought with the Athenians during the Peloponnesian War; and then the Spartans and the Athenians fought with i another and with the Thebans and the Persians.) All this fighting made it like shooting fish in a barrel for some other, previously unexceptional city-land to rise to power: Republic of macedonia, under the assertive rule of Male monarch Philip II.

Philip and the Macedonians began to expand their territory outward. They were helped along by a number of advances in armed services technology: long-range catapults, for example, along with pikes called sarissas that were about xvi feet long—long enough for soldiers to use not every bit projectiles, only every bit spears. King Philip'due south generals also pioneered the employ of the massive and intimidating infantry formation known equally the phalanx.

King Philip's ultimate goal was to conquer Persia and help himself to the empire's country and riches. This was not to be; King Philip was assassinated by his bodyguard Pausanias in 336 B.C. at his daughter'southward wedding, earlier he could enjoy the spoils of his victories. His son Alexander, known to history as "Alexander The Great," jumped at the chance to have over his father'south imperial project.

The new Macedonian rex led his troops across the Hellespont into Asia. (When he got there, he plunged an enormous sarissa into the ground and declared the land "spear won.") From at that place, Alexander and his armies kept moving. They conquered huge chunks of western Asia and Arab republic of egypt and pressed on into the Indus Valley.

The Hellenistic Age

Alexander's empire was a fragile one, not destined to survive for long. After Alexander died in 323 B.C., his generals (known as the Diadochoi) divided his conquered lands amongst themselves. Soon, those fragments of the Alexandrian empire had become three powerful dynasties: the Seleucids of Syria and Persia, the Ptolemies of Arab republic of egypt and the Antigonids of Greece and Macedonia.

Though these dynasties were not politically united–since Alexander'due south death, they were no longer part of whatever Greek or Macedonian empire–they did share a dandy deal in common. It is these commonalities, the essential "Greek-ness" of the disparate parts of the Alexandrian globe–that historians refer to when they talk most the Hellenistic Historic period.

Whorl to Go on

The Hellenistic states were ruled admittedly by kings. (By contrast, the classical Greek city-states, or polei, had been governed democratically by their citizens.) These kings had a cosmopolitan view of the world, and were particularly interested in amassing as many of its riches as they could.

Equally a result, they worked difficult to cultivate commercial relationships throughout the Hellenistic globe. They imported ivory, gold, ebony, pearls, cotton, spices and sugar (for medicine) from India; furs and iron from the Far East; wine from Syria and Chios; papyrus, linen and glass from Alexandria; olive oil from Athens; dates and prunes from Babylon and Damaskos; silver from Espana; copper from Cyprus; and tin from as far north as Cornwall and Brittany.

They as well put their wealth on display for all to see, building elaborate palaces and commissioning fine art, sculptures and improvident jewelry. They made huge donations to museums and zoos and they sponsored libraries (the famous
libraries at Alexandria and Pergamum, for instance) and universities. The university at Alexandria was domicile to the mathematicians Euclid, Apollonios and Archimedes, along with the inventors Ktesibios (the water clock) and Heron (the model steam engine).

Hellenistic Culture

People, like goods, moved fluidly around the Hellenistic kingdoms. Almost everyone in the erstwhile Alexandrian empire spoke and read the same language: koine, or "the common tongue," a kind of colloquial Greek. Koine was a unifying cultural forcefulness: No matter where a person came from, he could communicate with anyone in this cosmopolitan Hellenistic world.

At the same time, many people felt alienated in this new political and cultural mural. Once upon a time, citizens had been intimately involved with the workings of the democratic urban center-states; now, they lived in impersonal empires governed by professional bureaucrats. Many people joined "mystery religions," like the cults of the goddesses Isis and Fortune, which promised their followers immortality and individual wealth.

Hellenistic philosophers, too, turned their focus in. Diogenes the Cynic lived his life as an expression of protest against commercialism and cosmopolitanism. (Politicians, he said, were "the lackeys of the mob"; the theatre was "a peep show for fools.") The philosopher Epicurus argued that the most important thing in life was the pursuit of the private's pleasure and happiness. And the Stoics argued that every private man had within him a divine spark that could be cultivated by living a good and noble life.

Hellenistic Art

In Hellenistic art and literature, this breach expressed itself in a rejection of the collective demos and an emphasis on the individual. For instance, sculptures and paintings represented actual people rather than idealized "types."

Famous works of Hellenistic Fine art include "Winged Victory of Samothrace," "Laocoön and His Sons," "Venus de Milo," "Dying Gaul," "Boy With Thorn" and "Boxer at Rest," among others.

The Cease of the Hellenistic Age

The Hellenistic globe vicious to the Romans in stages, merely the era ended for good in 31 B.C. That year, in the Battle at Actium, the Roman Octavian defeated Marker Antony's Ptolemaic armada. Octavian took the proper name Augustus and became the commencement Roman emperor. Despite the Hellenistic period's relatively short life span, the cultural and intellectual life of the era has been influencing readers, writers, artists and scientists ever since.

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Source: https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/hellenistic-greece

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