Overview of Hellenistic politics, society, and economics
Overview of Hellenistic culture
The Changing Framework of Politics
The end of the empire and the rise of the states
The shattering of Alexander's dream, 323–307 BCE
Hellenistic monarchies: The era of the successor states, 307–215 BCE
a) Antigonus and the Macedonian kingdom
b) Seleucus and the Seleucid kingdom
(1) Eventually lost Parthia and Bactria
(2) Also lost Pergamum
c) Ptolemy and the Ptolemaic kingdom
d) The Attalids of Pergamum win independence from the Seleucids in 263 BCE
The rise of Rome
Origins around 1000 BCE, but tradition provided its founding in 753 BCE
Etruscan and Greek connections
Republic formed in 509 BCE
Stirrings of empire: Control of Italy and beyond
a) The three Punic Wars (264-146 BCE)
b) Took Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica in 241 BCE
c) North African and Spanish interests
Triumph over Greece
a) Victory over King Pyrrhus of Epirus in 275 BCE
b) Antigonids support Carthaginians in second and third Punic Wars, instigating systematic Roman conquest of the Hellenistic kingdoms.
(1) The fall of Macedonia, 146 BCE
(2) The gift of Pergamum, 133 BCE
(3) The fall of the Seleucid kingdom, 65 BCE
(4) The fall of the Ptolemaic kingdom, 31 BCE
Caesar's conquests of Spain and Gaul in the first century BCE
The nature of government: The Hellenistic kingdoms versus the Roman Republic
Basic differences
Roman fear of monarchy gives rise to the Republic
a) Republican class structure: plebeians and patricians
b) General structure and procedures of Roman republican government
c) Greek historian Polybius writes favorably about the "Barbarian" constitution
of Rome
Civil war and the end of the Republic
The Tenor of Life
The Hellenistic political economy
Citizens as subjects, with pronounced class divisions (including slavery)
Experiences of women
Urban life
Alexander's vision of the city
Class and urbanity: growing cosmopolitanism
Trade is expanded and Greek culture permeates the non-Greek portions of the Hellenistic world via the migration of Greeks
Alexandria in Egypt
The capital of the Ptolemaic kingdom
The largest city of the Hellenistic world
An unmatched cultural center
a) The world's first museum
b) The largest library of the ancient world
Roman life
Roman conservatism and practicality were at times at odds with Hellenistic cosmopolitanism
Roman values:
a) Pietas
b) Gravitas
c) Constantia
d) Magnitudo animi
e) History and roots
f) Roman law
g) Family, the paterfamilias, and the Roman matron
Hellenistic Culture
Hellenistic cultural style and classicism: shifts in purpose and character since Hellenism
An enrichment of the older ideals
Koine, a version of Attic Greek, becomes the lingua franca of the Hellenistic world
Drama and literature
New Comedy
a) Definition
b) Menander, the leading exponent
(1) The comedy of manners
(2) The Woman of Samos
(3) His later influence
Theocritus
a) The pastoral
b) The idylls
Apollonius' Argonautica
Roman literature
a) The Latin language
b) Influenced by Greek genres and styles
c) Characteristics
d) The birth of Roman theater: Roman comedy
(1) Plautus
(2) Terence
e) Roman poetry
(1) Lucretius' On the Nature of Things
(2) Catullus's "small" epics, epigrams, and love poems
f) Cicero, the greatest writer of the age
(1) Philosophy
(2) Oratory
(3) Letters
Philosophy and religion
Nature of Hellenistic society
a) Everyday life in the Hellenistic cities
b) The rise of contradictory points of view
The four chief Hellenistic philosophies
a) Cynicism
(1) Definition
(2) Least impact on Hellenistic civilization
(3) The goal of autarky
(4) Diogenes
b) Skepticism
(1) Definition
(2) Later influence
(3) The goal of autarky
c) Epicureanism
(1) Definition
(2) Epicurus and his school
(3) Appeal to women and slaves
(4) Based on Democritus's atomism
(5) The goals of happiness and ataraxia
d) Stoicism
(1) Definition
(2) Key concepts
(3) The goal of autarky
(4) Similarity of Stoic ideals and Alexander the Great's dream
Hellenistic religious alternatives and fatalistic beliefs
a) Fate, a Babylonian belief
(1) Astrology
(2) Magic
b) The mystery cults
(1) Greek chthonic religions
(2) Dionysian and Orphic cults
(3) Egyptian cult of Isis
(4) Contributions to the atmosphere in which Christianity was born
Roman religion
a) Ancestor worship
b) Syncretism: incorporating Greek, Egyptian, and Persian deities into the Roman pantheon
Science and technology
Hellenistic scientists valued methodologies over speculation, unlike their Hellenic philosopher predecessors.
Astronomy
Aristarchus of Samos
Eratosthenes of Cyrene
Euclidean geometry
Archimedes
Roman military advances
Architecture
The defining role of religion
a) The altar
b) The temple
The Corinthian temple
a) Characteristics of the Corinthian column and temple
b) The Corinthian column as a symbol of Hellenistic influence
c) The Olympieum in Athens
(1) History
(2) Description
The altar
a) General changes to altars in the Hellenistic period
b) The altar of Zeus at Pergamum
(1) Description
(2) Its role in the beautification of Pergamum
(3) The idea of a "new" Athens
Sculpture
Comparison with Hellenic style
Boy Struggling with a Goose
a) Description
b) A genre subject
Dying Gaul
a) Why it was created
b) Description
c) Characteristics
Old Market Woman
a) Description
b) A genre subject
Aphrodite of Melos
a) Subject and description
b) Characteristics
"Interpreting Art" sidebar: Laocöon Group
The Legacy of Hellenistic Civilization and the Rise of Rome
