The Hellenistic World of Alexander

[Ptolemy]

Alexander's conquest of Persia, which ultimately spread Greek culture throughout the Near East, is among the most significant event in Western history. For centuries the educated elite classes in Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt spoke Greek and Greek traditions in art, architecture and literature dominated urban culture. This remained true even after the Roman's conquered the Greco-Macedonian kingdoms that succeeded Alexander's empire. Modern scholars use the word Hellenistic to describe Greek history and culture after Alexander's conquests.

Alexander and his successors founded a large number of cities throughout the former Persian Empire (Alexander was said to have founded seventy cities himself). Some of the most important of these cities were Alexandria on the Nile Delia, Seleucia on the Tigris river, and Antioch on the Orontes river in Syria (now part of modern Turkey). Many of the earliest foundations were military colonies, settled bv soldiers from Alexander's army but in the centuries that followed the new cities attracted settlers from mainland Greece, Macedonia, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor like the classical Greek poleis, they had bodies of citizens organized into denies and tribes; they even had councils and assemblies, although thev did not have the same political independence as classical cities but were subject to the Hellenistic monarchs. They were equipped with the public buildings that defined the Greek way of life; theaters, Greek-style temples, and especially gymnasia. The gymnasia were partly athletic facilities for the nude exercises and sports that were the favorite pastime of the Greek leisure class, but thev were also schools and cultural centers.

Greeks also settled in older cities, such as Babylon, which acquired a theater, a gymnasium, and an agora in this period. The Hellenistic kings funded large-scale buildings, such as the Stoa of Attalus in the Athenian marketplace, or whole projects, &uch as the complex of buildings on the acropolis at Perga-mum—with its library, theater, temples, and enormous, elaborately decorated altar of Zeus. The result is that many of the Greek world's most impressive architectural remains date to the Hellenistic period.

Today, scholars debate the effects of "Hellenization"—Greek influence— on the native populations of the Greco-Macedonian kingdoms. Some argue that Greek and native populations were segregated from one another, with little social or cultural mixing. In this view, the ruling class was composed almost exclusively of Greco-Macedonians, and Greek cultural institutions (like the gymnasia or Hellenic religious festivals) appealed only to Greeks, while indigenous traditions continued undisturbed among natives. Others point out the substantial evidence for intermarriage between Greeks and natives and argue that the participation of natives in government is well attested at some levels. It is likelv that the reality is complex and that the picture of a neat division between Greek and native cultures is too simplistic.

For example, it is often impossible to determine the biological or racial background of individuals mentioned in Hellenistic documents. To obtain positions in the administration, natives might acquire a Greek education and take Greek names. Intermarriage between Greeks and natives is well attested, and people with Greek and native names might belong to the same family. Manv people used two different names.

The problem of language in the Hellenistic world is equally complicated. On the one hand. Greek became the dominant literary and administrative language. In this period a standard form of Greek called koine (meaning "common") gradually replaced the different dialects. However, the native languages of the Near East continued in use, not only as spoken languages; documents and some literary works were written in them. The two most important native languages were Aramaic (a Semitic language widely spoken in the territories ruled by the Seleucids) and Egyptian (written in hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic script).

While a small number of the highest administrative posts were reserved for Greeks and Macedonians, the lower-ranking officials who kept records and collected taxes in the kingdoms' towns and villages could be either Greeks or natives who had learned Greek. The administrative structures of the kingdoms also reflected local traditions. For example, in Egypt, the nome remained the basic division of the kingdom, as it had been under the pharaohs; the Seleucids used a system of satraps and city governors similar to the Persian system.

The Ptolemies were careful to portray themselves in ways that appealed to Greco-Macedonians and also to native Egyptians: While their coins featured Greek-style portraits and Greek legends, they also appear on the walls of Egyptian temples in sculpted images like those of the pharaohs, with inscriptions in hieroglyphs. Egyptian law continued in use side-bv-side with Greek law. Both Ptolemies and Seleucids generously supported native cults and temples. Respect for old traditions of government and the use of native elites in administration helped maintain a stable and efficient rule.

[Ptolemy]

Religion in the Hellenistic World

Throughout the Hellenistic world, Greek style temples were constructed to traditional Hellenic gods (such as Zeus) and their priesthoods were prestigious civic offices. The great Hellenistic cities all had their own Greek religious festivals, complete with competitions in athletics, poetry, drama, and rhetoric, and inscriptions commemorating the winners show that they usually had Greek names
.
The Hellenistic rulers also established a cult of themselves. Alexander believed he was divine, claiming to be the son of Zeus or of the Egyptian sun-god Amen. The Seleucids and the Ptolemies found this tradition convenient; they encouraged cities and towns to dedicate altars, shrines, priesthoods, cult-statues, and festivals to them (or at least did not discourage this). The ruler-cult was especially important in Egypt, where the pharaohs had also been worshipped as gods.

At the same time, the worship of native Near Eastern gods continued in much the same way as before. The Hellenistic kings paid for renovations to the temples of the most important native gods, and these temples and their priesthoods continued to function. On a different level, local deities such as the Egyptian household sod Bes (see p. 33) remained popular.

But perhaps the most interesting feature of Hellenistic religion is the way in which strange combinations of Greek and native ideas are attested at all levels of society (this promiscuous mixing of religious practices, like the wide-ranging mixture of cults in early Egypt, is sometimes called syncretism). For example, in the second century a.d., the most important temple in the Egyptian village of Karanis was a shrine to the local crocodile-god Sobek, attached to a large cemetery full of mummified crocodiles. Another temple was devoted to the god Sarapis-Zeus-Amen-Helios: Here two ancient Egyptian gods, Sarapis and Amen, have been associated with Greek equivalents, Zeus and Helios ("Sun"). This god shared the temple with the Egyptian goddess Isis and also with thcpopularcrocodilegod. Inscriptions and art objects recovered from the village mention both Greek and native Egyptian gods.

Source: The Ancient Mediterranean World: From the Stone Age to A.D. 600
By Robin W Winks, Susan P Mattern-Parkes

[Ptolemy]

Hellenism's spread outward from the greek city-states received a major impetus from the conquests of Alexander the great late in the 4th ce. B.C.E. From the mediterranean basin to northern India, Alexander's forces aided the spread of Hellenistic ideas, urban structures, and political concepts. For three centuries, the successor states to Alexander's empire developed Hellenistic institutions and ideas in Middle East, making them an important part of the general cultureal framework in tha region. In northern India and central Asia, Greek themes blended with local traditions creating distinctive culture syntheses. This blend, which was reflected in art and sculpture, reached a high point in the Buddhist sculpture of Gandhara in the 1st cen. CE. Hellenistic artistic influence has been traced as far east as China.

"The Encyclopedia of World History" edited by Peter N Stearns, page 24

[pankration]

For close to 30 years many researchers have shown strong evidence that the Asian martial arts are descended from the greek combat system known as pankration. Here is a small progression timetable:
pankration---Alexander brings the Greek influence to Indian wrestling and kicking---Buddhist monks go from India to China and set up Shaolin schools to protect themselves---Japanese and Korean traders bring their systems back to their countries spawning Karate, Hapkido and the rest. Now we have come full circle with UFC and other "ultimate" systems that really are copies of the pankration fought by Dioxippus and others during Alexander's time.

New issue of www.fightingbest.com and new announcement on www.pankration-novel-patrida.com.

[Ptolemy]

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

Hellenistic civilization


The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Hellenism immediately over the Middle East and far into Asia. After his death in 323 B.C., the influence of Greek civilization continued to expand over the Mediterranean world and W Asia. The wars of the Diadochi marked, it is true, the breakup of Alexander’s brief empire, but the establishment of Macedonian dynasties in Egypt, Syria, and Persia (the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae) helped to mold the world of that day into a wider unity of trade and learning. 1
While the city-states of Greece itself tended to stagnate, elsewhere cities and states grew and flourished. Of these the chief was Alexandria. So great a force did Alexandria exert in commerce, letters, and art that this period is occasionally called the Alexandrian Age, and the end of Hellenistic civilization is generally set at the final triumph of Roman power in Alexandria in the 1st cent. B.C. Pergamum was also prominent, and there were other cities of influence (e.g., Dura). 2
The bounds of the known world were extended by navigators, who learned, for example, about the North Sea. The upsurge of commerce brought a great increase of wealth to merchants and in general to the upper classes; this wealth was also reflected in a tendency toward the ornate and superimpressive in architecture, although town plans and buildings of the period have proportions and grace rarely excelled. It should be noted, however, that the increase of wealth did not reach the poor, who in general were more impoverished than they had previously been. 3
Education, however, was much more widespread than ever before, and Greek was the fashionable language of the educated world. The result was a great increase of volume in literature (see Greek literature, ancient) and a tendency for writing to divide into popular literature for the wide audience and specialized writing for narrow, highly intellectual circles. The libraries of Alexandria and Pergamum were centers of literary criticism and the compiling of anthologies and catalogs. The literature of the Hellenistic period has been stigmatized since the Renaissance as imitative and ponderous, but actually there was a great richness in some of the writing. Not only were there outstanding poets such as Callimachus and Theocritus but there were also new forms that emerged, such as the complicated but frequently charming romances and the works of Lucian. Similarly some of the finest—and some of the most familiar—ancient sculptures to survive to our day are Alexandrian (e.g., the Venus of Milo and the Dying Gaul). 4
Philosophical disputation was popular among the educated, and the contributions of the Stoics and the Epicureans to the world were great. The greatest contribution of the age was the preservation and enrichment of the Greek heritage for the use of Rome and succeeding civilizations. As Rome gradually overshadowed the Mediterranean world, the Romans learned much from the peoples they conquered, and Hellenistic civilization was absorbed rather than extinguished. 5
See studies by M. I. Rostovtzeff (3 vol., 1941), M. Hadas (1959), J. C. Stobart (3d ed. 1960), G. T. Griffith and W. W. Tarn (rev. ed. 1961), P. Grimal, ed. (1969), and F. E. Peters (1971). 6

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