T h e A m e r i c a n U n i v e r s i t y o f R o m e HSM 201 - Survey of Western Civilization I

Session 6

The Hellenistic Age: Expansion of Greek Ideals.

Globalization of the Mediterranean World? Greek culture pervades Near

East for centuries.

Evolution of Greek art…perfecting art as perfecting politics?

Apollo of Tenea Apollo of Piombino Critian Boy Hermes and Dionysius 560 500 480 350, Praxiteles

Athens: Political zenith of the Polis

> Athens heads the Delian League, and controls the Eastern Mediterranean;> Reconstruction of the city walls;> Strategos Cimon leads to further victories against Persians at sea;> Athens coerces the subject poleis into the alliance; by force; exploitation; slave society; > Social unrest: more power to the thetes (people);> Pericles, 460, aristocrat & populist, enfranchisement of the people & its political power & prerogatives, anti-Spartan politics, construction of great temples of the Acropolis, Phidias architect.

> Resentment over the power of Athens, after the victory over Persia…the last battle at Plataea was fought by Sparta;> Corinth, close to Athens, fights Athenian control of the seas, allied with Sparta in a rival league;> 431…exclusive powers on land and sea;> Siege to Athens, 429. Epidemics. Demagogues take power, refuse peace;> Alcibiades attacks Syracuse;> Brief oligarchic government; Athens in exile create government; democracy restored 409;> Internecine fights in Athens, defeat of fleet in 404.

The decline of Athens and the Poleis: The Peloponnesian Wars

Athens and the Profusion of Ideas and Philosophies - and Arts (amidst the political decline)

Political philosophy (concerned with the state) in the context of the destruction of Greek poleis;

> failure of the Poleis and its “scale”

> Corinthian War (395-387); front against Sparta; peace brokered by Persia;

> Epaminondas of Thebes defeats Spartans 371; the 3rd player

Plato (429-347) In The Republic: the ideal society (aiming at social harmony & order, over liberty or equality) should be comprised of three classes—philosopher kings, military men, and merchants. People's membership in a class would depend on their education: Those who had completed the highest level of education would make the wisest decisions and thus should be the rulers of society; its “guardians” following the Idea of the Good – incorruptible?)

Aristotle (384-322 BC) the founder of the scientific approach (observing the material world) to political theory. His Politics, which classified governments as monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies, according to their control by one person, a select few, or many persons, successfully combined an empirical investigation of the facts and a critical inquiry into their ideal possibilities, thus providing a challenging model of political studies.

The deteriorated state of the polis was the important subject of their thinking. The government type: democracy, in crisis. The scale: not Greece, perhaps not even the current poleis, that had grown too much (need of a novel system? limit their size?). Aristotle proposed a combination of Mo+Ar+De systems to reorganize the polis (nothing new). Opposed in thinking politics as means to an end, or politics as an end in itself.

The military expansion of Macedonia, after securing Greece, its naturally first target

Objectives in this flash conquest? (336-323)

> Expansion of Greek culture? His globalization?

> Control of more resources for Macedonia? (this territory was not very well developed at the start); Plunder?

> Rejects peace treaty proposal; Continues war;

> Alexander overestimated the strength of Persians? Underestimated his strategies?

> Do his campaigns seem to stop? Do they show any planning? Was there an idea for ruling it?

> Was does it mean to found Alexandrias everywhere?

> Apply the ideas of his mentor?

> Special skills to rule? How about adoption traditions? Marriages and integration, new nobles loyal (destroying nevertheless the centers of Persian power)

The aftermath of Alex: Division of the empire and perseverance of Greek culture

> The three successors seem to adopt the local traditions in support of their political process of legitimacy;

> Two-faced power: lo locals and to Greeks;> Ptolemaic power in Alexandria and Egypt for 3 c.

The city evolves and prospers; the countryside is exploited; any different from the real Pharaohs?

> Revival of the Persian Empire;> The less fortunate: Macedonia;> Explosive growth of (free & unregulated) trade; > Cultural advances, the birth of Hellenism.

The division of the empire and the birth of the Hellenistic world

Hellenistic Art: syncretism between Greek Classical art

and Oriental traditions

> What were the principal themes of Hellenistic architecture and sculpture?

150 BC 150 BC Rhodes (copy?) 150-100 BC

Q of chapter 4 of the Expansion of Greece> What conditions led to the growing number of mercenaries in the 4th c.

BC.

> Why did Plato’s ideal polis differ from Aristotle’s?

> What accounts for the remarkable success of the Macedonian

conquests?

> What characteristics defined and distinguished the three major

Hellenistic kingdoms?

> Why as prosperity so unevenly distributed in the Hellenistic economy?

> What was the relationship between Epicureanism and Stoicism?

> What were the principal themes of Hellenistic architecture and

sculpture?

> Why did science and medicine flourish in this period?

> What changes occurred during the Hellenistic period to the polis-based

culture of classical Greece?