Hellenistic Kingdoms and Culture: The Legacy of Alexander the Great

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Hellenistic Kingdoms and CultureThe Legacy of
Alexander the Great
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Macedonia

• Rugged frontier land in northern Greece
• 359 BCE King Philip II gains throne
• Born in Thebes
• Admired Greek culture
• Hired Aristotle to teach his son
• Demosthenes warns of Philips ambitions
• Battle of Chaeronea 338 BCE Athens and Thebes
  loose to Philip
• Philip murdered at daughters wedding feast

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Alexander

• Philips wife, Olympias beats others to the throne
  and places Alexander there to replace Philip (age
  of 20)
• Trained soldier and in the classic
• Swift and brutal in decisions
• Burned Thebes to the ground for rebelling
• Sold citizens into slavery
• Yet saved the house of Pindar the poet

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Conquest Begins

• 334 BCE crosses the Dardanelles to invade Persia
• First victory at Granicus River in Asia Minor
• Invaded Palestine
• Then Egypt
• Then Babylon
• Then Persian capitals
• Then on to India where his tired soldiers refused
  to cross the Indus river

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Continued Conquests?

• Alexander returned to Babylon
• Began to plan for his next invasions
• Sicily, Italy, Northern Africa
• Took ill with malaria
• On his death bed Alexander told people that he
  left his throne To the strongest
• Chaos ensued with generals vying for control
• Three separate countries were born
• Macedonia/Greece, Egypt, and Persia

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Aftermath of Alexander

• Hellenistic Culture!
• After Alexanders death4 generals divided his
  kingdom into separate states
• Alexander blended the ideas and cultures of the
  people Alexander conquered LEGACY!
• Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian (PIG E)
• Spread Greek architecture and arts
• Created new planned cities
• Alexandria, Egypt with a population over
  1,000,000
• Athens, Greece is the Philosophical capital

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Intellectualism

• Philosophy Stoicism Epicureanism
• Mathematics
• Pythagoras a2 b2 c2
• Euclid The Elements father of geometry
• Astronomy Aristarchus Earth rotates around the
  sun Eratosthenes Earth is round
• Physics Archimedes water screw,
• 3.14 (pie), lever and pulley
• Medicine Hippocrates causes of
• illness and Hippocratic Oath for doctors

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Archimedes