After Alexander. Hellenistic civilization. Emergence and decline Economy and social sphere

3. Hellenistic science and philosophy. The influence of Hellenistic culture on the cultures of other eras and peoples.

4. Application.

5. Literature.

1. Cosmopolitanism of the Hellenistic culture.

Cosmopolitanism- the concept and practice of denying the reality or fruitfulness of the national factor, "groundlessness", the absolutization of universal human interests and values.

Empire of Alexander the Great.

In 334, the conquest of Asia by the Macedonian army began. At first, the army of Alexander the Great was small, and he did not have the goal of conquering the whole of Western Asia. However, the weakness of the Achaemenids was obvious. After a series of victories, Alexander overtook Darius on his way from Media to Parthia, and the satraps stabbed him to death. But Alexander also found himself in a very difficult position, trying to avoid internal contradictions among his entourage. AT Central Asia there was strong anti-Macedonian resistance, which was headed by the Sogdian Spitamen. In 328 - 327 years. BC. Alexander had to wage war in Central Asia. To win over the local elite to his side, he married Roxana, the daughter of Spitamen. This caused a crisis in relations with his inner circle. After an unsuccessful Indian campaign in 323, Alexander the Great died without leaving an heir.

For 10 years, he managed to create a huge state in which the financial system was strengthened, intensive urban development was carried out, and trade flourished. But after his death, the empire broke up into several large parts. One of the largest was the state of the Seleucids. In 312 Seleucus returned to Babylon. There began the so-called. "Seleucid era", and the largest Hellenistic state was created, which existed until the beginning of the II century. BC e, after which it was divided between Rome and Parthia.

The emergence of the Hellenic states contributed to the further interpenetration of Greek and Middle Eastern elements of culture. This process called Hellenism. The term was introduced in the 30s of the last century. It covers the time of III-I centuries. BC.

As a result of the events and processes associated with the creation and then with the collapse of the power of Alexander the Great, special forms of socio-economic relations began to take shape in Western Asia and Asia Minor. Many Macedonians and Greeks moved to this territory, bringing their customs and culture there. Commodity production developed. The political organization was based on a combination of the power of monarchies with self-governing communities. Cities that had their own possessions played a big role. The expression of the cultural community of this period was entrenched in the spread of two main languages - common Greek and Aramaic, although many regions retained their own languages and customs. There have been changes in life. The differences between the culture of the city and the countryside became clearer. Ideology flourished cosmopolitanism and individualism. It was the time of the development of science and art.

Hellenism, as such, ends in Asia Minor with the Roman and Parthian conquests.

Bronze statue of Alexander the Great. Roman copy after a Greek original from Herculaneum. Naples. Archaeological Museum. 330-320 AD BC.

In the period of early Hellenism, the Greeks, who set the tone and ruled the monarchies, played a large role, pushing the local nobility, who aspired to power, into the background. This was reflected in the character of many monuments of early Hellenism, which still preserved the traditions of classical art.

High Hellenism coincided with the fierce Punic wars, diverting the attention of Rome from the eastern regions of the Mediterranean, and lasted until the Romans conquered Macedonia in 168 and destroyed Corinth. During these years, Rhodes flourished, the rich Kingdom of Pergamon played a huge role under Attalus I (241-197) and Eumenes II (197-152), majestic monuments of Ptolemaic Egypt were created. This period of increased pressure of the local nobility on the Greek-Macedonian ruling elite and a stormy internecine war is characterized in art not only by the appearance of especially pathetic and dramatic images, a combination of tragic and idyllic themes, gigantism and intimacy in art, but also by the wide development of garden and park decorative sculpture.

2. Literature and art of the Hellenistic era.

The art of Hellenism is the art of huge states that formed after the collapse of the power of Alexander the Great, an artistic phenomenon of the stage when not the polis formation, but the despotic monarchy began to play the main role in the life of the slave society. The specificity of Hellenistic art is not only in the exceptionally intensive development of all artistic forms, but, above all, in their connection with both Greek and "barbarian" principles of culture.

The chronological boundaries of Hellenistic art are considered to be, on the one hand, the death of Alexander the Great - 323 BC. e., on the other hand, the year of the annexation of Egypt to Rome - 30 BC. e. Within Hellenism, sometimes periods of early (323 - middle of the 3rd century BC), high (middle of the 3rd - middle of the 2nd century BC) and late Hellenism (middle of the 2nd century BC) are distinguished - 30 BC). Territorially, Hellenistic art was widespread in a wide range of predominantly eastern Mediterranean. After the fierce struggle of the Diadochi for power in the first two decades of early Hellenism formed large monarchies: Macedonian, Hellespontian, Western Asian and Egyptian. Their struggle with each other and internal strife, which lasted until the middle of the III century BC. e., led to the falling away from them and the strengthening of numerous new kingdoms.

In the art of late Hellenism, the inconsistency of reality, the deep internal disharmony of life in Hellenistic cities, clearly came out. The struggle between Hellenic and "native" local ideas, tastes and moods intensified, hypertrophied individualism was accompanied by a fierce struggle for power, fear of those in power, predatory desire for profit. This is the time of economic stagnation in Rhodes, the significance of which passed to Delos, the beginning of the impoverishment of Ptolemaic Egypt, weakened by dynastic struggle, the years of the decline of the Kingdom of Pergamon, bequeathed by the last of the Atallides - Atall III in 133 to the Romans.

In literature, the political comedy of Aristophanes was replaced by the household comedy of Menander (end of the 4th-beginning of the 3rd century), Gerondas (3rd century BC) who told about the common people and sang of life away from cities, in the bosom of nature, the idylls of Theocritus (end of IV-beginning of III century BC), such monumental works as "Argonautics" by Apollonius of Rhodes (III century BC) also appeared.

The deep inconsistency of Hellenistic reality evoked noticeable contrasts in the art of this era, manifesting itself in the expression of feelings either dramatic or lyrical. The effect of violent emotions in works of art was sometimes combined with cold analyticity and rationality, just as new trends and forms coexisted with classicism and archaism (Fig. 1). The masters of Hellenism, both in literature and in the visual arts, liked to play with the effects of surprise, chance, different from the idea of inevitability that prevailed in the 5th century. The Hellenistic feeling of the boundless expanses of the world, which manifested itself, in particular, in the emergence of the common Greek language Koine, found a vivid expression in the forms of architecture.

1. Cosmopolitanism of the Hellenistic culture.

Cosmopolitanism is the concept and practice of denying the reality or fruitfulness of the national factor, "groundlessness", the absolutization of universal human interests and values.

Empire of Alexander the Great.

In 334. The conquest of Asia by the Macedonian army began. At first, the army of Alexander the Great was small, and he did not have the goal of conquering the whole of Western Asia. However, the weakness of the Achaemenids was obvious. After a series of victories, Alexander overtook Darius on his way from Media to Parthia, and the satraps stabbed him to death. But Alexander also found himself in a very difficult position, trying to avoid internal contradictions among his entourage. In Central Asia, there was strong anti-Macedonian resistance, led by the Sogdian Spitamen. In 328-327. BC. Alexander had to wage war in Central Asia. To win over the local elite to his side, he married Roxana, the daughter of Spitamen. This caused a crisis in relations with his inner circle. After an unsuccessful Indian campaign in 323. Alexander the Great died without leaving an heir.

For 10 years, he managed to create a huge state in which the financial system was strengthened, intensive urban development was carried out, and trade flourished. But after his death, the empire broke up into several large parts. One of the largest was the state of the Seleucids. In 312g. Seleucus returned to Babylon. There began the so-called. "Seleucid era", and the largest Hellenistic state was created, which existed until the beginning of the II century. BC e, after which it was divided between Rome and Parthia.

The emergence of the Hellenic states contributed to the further interpenetration of Greek and Middle Eastern elements of culture. This process was called Hellenism. The term was introduced in the 30s of the last century. It covers the time III-Ivv. BC.

As a result of the events and processes associated with the creation and then with the collapse of the power of Alexander the Great, special forms of socio-economic relations began to take shape in Western Asia and Asia Minor. Many Macedonians and Greeks moved to this territory, bringing their customs and culture there. Commodity production developed. The political organization was based on a combination of the power of monarchies with self-governing communities. Cities that had their own possessions played a big role. The expression of the cultural community of this period was entrenched in the spread of two main languages - common Greek and Aramaic, although many regions retained their own languages and customs. There have been changes in life. The differences between the culture of the city and the countryside became clearer. The ideology of cosmopolitanism and individualism flourished. It was the time of the development of science and art.

Hellenism, as such, ends in Asia Minor with the Roman and Parthian conquests.

Hellenistic world

2. Literature and art of the Hellenistic era.

The chronological boundaries of Hellenistic art are considered to be, on the one hand, the death of Alexander the Great - 323 BC. e., on the other hand, the year of the annexation of Egypt to Rome - 30 BC. e. Within Hellenism, sometimes periods of early (323 - middle of the 3rd century BC), high (middle of the 3rd - middle of the 2nd century BC) and late Hellenism (middle of the 2nd century BC) are distinguished - 30 BC). Territorially, Hellenistic art was widespread in a wide range of predominantly eastern Mediterranean. After the fierce struggle of the Diadochi for power in the first two decades of early Hellenism, large monarchies were formed: Macedonian, Hellespontian, Asiatic and Egyptian. Their struggle with each other and internal strife, which lasted until the middle of the III century BC. e., led to the falling away from them and the strengthening of numerous new kingdoms.

The rapid development of architecture in the Hellenistic era is largely due to the desire of the rulers to glorify the power of their monarchies in architectural monuments, the creation of large cities in remote areas of the ancient periphery, where the Greek soldiers reached.

A huge number of new cities arose in the Hellenistic era in various parts ancient world. They were called most often by the name of the monarchs who erected them - Alexandria, Seleucia, Antioch. Already in last years the reign of Alexander the Great, when about seventy cities were created by his order, and after his death by the Diadochos Seleucus - seventy-five new ones, the builders and architects had no shortage of work. The choice of a place for the founding of cities excluded random factors and took into account how natural conditions(the proximity of the sea harbor, river, fertile land), and the nature of trade and strategic routes. The principles of expediency, always put in the first place, sometimes excluded even the tempting prospects of the grandeur of the view or the external beauty of the future city. So, Alexander the Great rejected the flattering for him and initially delighted proposal of the architect Deinocrates to create a figurative statue from Mount Athos with a huge city in the palm of his left hand, having learned that there were no fertile soils near this place.

The nature of the planning of the Hellenistic cities was distinguished by strict orderliness. The straightness of sometimes wide, from ten to four meters, streets (Pergamum, Priene), their intersection at right angles, the location in the center of especially important public and religious buildings - all this was characteristic of most new cities, even if they arose on complex relief areas, on the slopes of the mountains, where the terrace planning of the regions was introduced (Priene, Seleucia).

The cities of Asia Minor flourished especially in the Hellenistic era, serving as centers of lively trade between East and West, the center of many crafts and industries, and large centers of culture and art. In Priene, Miletus, Sardis, Magnesia on Meander, Pergamon, numerous and majestic buildings were erected at that time.

Rapid construction was also going on on the rich trading islands of the Aegean Sea - Rhodes, Delos, Kos, Samothrace. Grandiose monuments were created in Egyptian Alexandria built by Deinocrates. Wide construction works were carried out in Athens, inferior, however, in the scope of architectural designs to other Hellenistic centers.

In order to protect the Hellenistic cities not only had powerful fortifications, but were sometimes divided into quarters, with their own defensive walls (Antioch, Demetrias). Sometimes, for the safety of the rural population, cities were surrounded by an additional many-kilometer ring of fortress walls. Acropolises were usually located on hills that provided the possibility of defense, as in Priene and Pergamum.

Clay and alabaster head of a Zoroastrian priest wearing a distinctive headdress of the Bactrian style, Takhti-Sangin, Tajikistan, 3rd-2nd centuries BC. BC e.

Hellenism- a period in the history of the Mediterranean, primarily the eastern one, lasting from the time of the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) until the final establishment of Roman domination in these territories, which usually dates from the fall of Hellenistic Egypt, headed by the Ptolemies (30 BC . e.) . The term originally denoted the correct use of the Greek language, especially by non-Greeks, but after the publication of the work of Johann Gustav Droysen "History of Hellenism" (- gg.), The concept entered the historical science.

The beginning of the Hellenistic era is characterized by the transition from the polis political organization to hereditary Hellenistic monarchies, the shift of centers of cultural and economic activity from Greece to Africa and Egypt.

Chronology [ | ]

The Hellenistic era spans three centuries. However, as noted, there is no consensus on the issue of periodization. So, with the filing of some, a report of its beginning can be kept from 334, that is, from the year the campaign of Alexander the Great began.
Three periods are proposed:

The term pre-Hellenism is also sometimes used.

Hellenistic states[ | ]

The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Greek culture to the East, but did not lead to the formation of a world empire. On the territory of the conquered Persian Empire, Hellenistic states were formed, led by the Diadochi and their descendants:

The Seleucid state centered first in Babylon, and then in Antioch.
The Greco-Bactrian kingdom separated from the Seleucid state in the 3rd century BC. BC e., whose center was in the territory of modern Afghanistan.
The Indo-Greek kingdom separated from the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the 2nd century BC. BC e., whose center was located on the territory of modern Pakistan.
The Pontic kingdom was formed on the territory of modern northern Turkey.
The Kingdom of Pergamon also existed in what is now western Turkey.
The Kingdom of Commagene separated from the state of the Seleucids and was located on the territory of modern eastern Turkey.
Hellenistic Egypt was formed on the territory of Egypt, headed by the Ptolemies.
The Achaean Union existed on the territory of modern Greece.
The Bosporus kingdom existed on the territory of the eastern Crimea and the eastern coast of the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov, at one time it was part of the Pontic kingdom.

New states are organized according to a special principle, which received the name, based on the synthesis of local despotic and Greek polis political traditions. The polis, as an independent civil community, maintains its independence both socially and politically even within the framework of the Hellenistic monarchy. Cities such as Alexandria enjoy autonomy and their citizens enjoy special rights and privileges. At the head of the Hellenistic state is usually a king, who has all the full power of state power. Its main support was the bureaucratic apparatus, which carried out the functions of managing the entire territory of the state, with the exception of cities that had the status of policies that owned a certain autonomy.

Compared with previous periods, the situation in the Greek world has seriously changed: instead of many policies at war with each other, the Greek world now consisted of several relatively stable major powers. These states represented a common cultural and economic space, which is important for understanding the cultural and political aspects of that era. The Greek world was a very closely interconnected system, which is confirmed at least by the presence of a single financial system, as well as the scale of migration flows within the Hellenistic world (the Hellenistic era was a time of relatively great mobility of the Greek population, in particular, continental Greece, at the end of the 4th century BC. suffering from overpopulation, by the end of the 3rd century BC began to feel a lack of population).

Culture of the Hellenistic Society[ | ]

Hellenistic society is strikingly different from that of classical Greece in a number of ways. The actual departure of the polis system into the background, the development and spread of political and economic vertical (rather than horizontal) ties, the collapse of obsolete social institutions, the general change in the cultural background caused serious changes in the Greek social structure. It was a mixture of Greek and Oriental elements. Syncretism manifested itself most clearly in religion and the official practice of deifying monarchs.

Mark departure to III-II centuries BC e. from the sublimely beautiful images of the Greek classics towards the individual and lyrical. In the era of Hellenism, there was a plurality of artistic movements, some of which turned out to be associated with the assertion of inner peace, others with a “severe love of rock”.

Hellenization of the East[ | ]

Historiography [ | ]

The tradition of focusing the attention of researchers on the classical period of antiquity was finally interrupted by the prominent German classical philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, expanding the scope of the material studied by antiquity studies to include the Hellenistic era.

In the architecture of the Hellenistic era, there is a violation of the strict style, resulting in eclecticism.

If the art of classical Greece pursued mainly cult goals, then Hellenistic art had decorative goals.

During the Hellenistic period, the people were eliminated by the monarchs from participating in state affairs, and this led to fundamental changes in the field of ideology, and in particular in literature. The growth of individualism, the weakening of civic feelings caused a refinement of the problems of literature. The gap between citizen and society is becoming ever more palpable. The man of the Hellenistic era felt lonely and helpless, he was lost in the wide world, he was excluded from the public life of the new extensive state formations. He was left with a sphere personal life, your closed world.

Less popular during the Hellenistic period was the philosophy of the skeptics, who declared all truth relative and all knowledge unreliable. Fighting the superstitions of the Stoics, the skeptics at the same time, like them and the Epicureans, preached "serenity" and "freedom from affects."

All these philosophical systems are characteristic of the Hellenistic era in that they lack local patriotism and contain concern for the happiness of the individual, more or less free from duties to the state.

The heyday of Hellenistic literature was the 3rd century BC. BC e. Big influence this literature was written at the end of the 4th century. BC e. "Characters" of Theophrastus, student of Aristotle. This work depicted types of people who are distinguished by a certain combination of features (flatterer, miser, chatterer, drunkard, shameless, superstitious, arrogant, etc.). In line with the "Characters" the so-called new (or "new Attic") comedy developed, which is sometimes called "comedy of characters".

Story ancient world, in which the Greek language was used, can be divided into three periods: the period of free city-states, which was put to an end by Philip and Alexander; the period of Macedonian domination, the last remnants of which were destroyed by the annexation of Egypt by the Romans after the death of Cleopatra, and finally the period of the Roman Empire. The first of these three periods is characterized by freedom and disorder, the second by submission and disorder, the third by submission and order.

The second of these periods is known as the Hellenistic Age. The work done during this period in the field of natural science and mathematics is the best ever done by the Greeks. In philosophy, during this period falls the foundation of the Epicurean and Stoic schools, as well as skepticism as a finally formulated doctrine; therefore, this period is still important in relation to philosophy, although not to the same extent as the period of Plato and Aristotle. After the third century BC, there is essentially nothing new in Greek philosophy until the Neoplatonists (third century BC). But meanwhile the Roman world was preparing for the victory of Christianity.

Alexander's short career suddenly transformed the Greek world. In ten years, from 334 to 324 BC, Alexander conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Samarkand, Bactria and Punjab. The Persian Empire, the greatest the world has ever known, was destroyed in three military battles. The inquisitive Greeks became acquainted with the ancient science of the Babylonians, and with it their old superstitions; in the same way, they got acquainted with the dualism of Zoroaster and, to a lesser extent, with the religion of India, where Buddhism acquired paramount importance. Wherever Alexander penetrated, everywhere - even in the mountains of Afghanistan, on the banks of the Jaxarta and along the tributaries of the Indus - he founded Greek cities in which he tried to reproduce Greek institutions, with some addition of self-government. And, although his army consisted mainly of Macedonians and most of the European Greeks obeyed him only involuntarily, he considered himself primarily an apostle of Hellenism. However, gradually, along with the expansion of the conquered territories, he adopted and began to pursue a policy of encouraging a friendly merger of Greeks and barbarians.

For this, he had a variety of motives. On the one hand, it was obvious that his armies, which were not particularly numerous, could not keep such a vast empire by force all the time and had, in the end, to depend on the appeasement of the defeated population of the occupied territories. On the other hand, the East was accustomed to only one form of government, that of a divine king, in whose role Alexander felt well suited. Whether he himself believed in his divinity or accepted all the attributes of a deity only for political reasons is a psychological question, since historical evidence is unclear. In any case, he enjoyed that low flattery, that servility with which he was surrounded in Egypt as the successor of the pharaohs and in Persia as a great king. His Macedonian generals - "companions" as they were called - behaved towards him in the same way as Western nobles towards their constitutional sovereign: they refused to prostrate before him, gave him advice and criticized even at the risk of his life, and at the decisive moment controlled his actions, for example, forced him to return home from the banks of the Indus, instead of moving forward to conquer the Ganges. The eastern population was more accommodating, as long as their religious prejudices were respected. For Alexander, this was not difficult: it was only necessary to identify Ammon or Bel with Zeus and declare himself the son of this god. Psychologists think that Alexander hated Philip and may have been involved in his murder; he would like to believe that his mother Olympia, like some noble women in Greek mythology, was the beloved of some god. Alexander's career was so miraculous that he could well believe that divine origin is the best explanation for his incredible success.

The Greeks had a highly developed sense of superiority towards the barbarians; no doubt Aristotle expressed the general opinion when he said that the northern races are bold, the southern races are cultured, but only the Greeks are both cultured and bold. Plato and Aristotle considered it wrong to enslave the Greeks, but not the barbarians. Alexander, who was not a full-blooded Greek, tried to break this sense of superiority. He himself married two princesses of the barbarian tribes and forced prominent Macedonian commanders to marry Persian women of noble birth. The innumerable Greek cities he founded may be thought to have been populated chiefly by male colonists, who were forced to follow Alexander's example by intermarrying with women from the local population. The result of this policy was to bring into the minds thinking people the concept of humanity as a whole; the old allegiance to the city-states and (to a lesser extent) to the Greek race no longer seemed appropriate. In philosophy, this cosmopolitan view originates from the Stoics, but in reality it appeared earlier - starting from the time of Alexander the Great. The result was the mutual influence of the culture of the Greeks and the barbarians: the barbarians learned something of Greek science, and the Greeks shared many of the superstitions of the barbarians. Greek civilization, having embraced a wider area, became less purely Greek,

Greek civilization was mostly urban. Many Greeks, of course, were engaged in agriculture, but their contribution to what was hallmark Greek culture, was very small. From the Milesian school onward, those Greeks who made outstanding contributions to science, philosophy, and literature were associated with the wealthy. trading cities, often surrounded by barbarian populations. This type of civilization was established not by the Greeks, but by the Phoenicians. Tire, Sidon, and Carthage depended on the physical labor of slaves in their own country and on mercenaries in their wars. They did not depend, as modern metropolitan cities do, on a large rural population of the same blood and with the same equal political rights. The most appropriate modern analogy could be seen on Far East in the second half of the nineteenth century. Singapore and Hong Kong, Shanghai and other open ports of China were European islands, where whites made up the merchant aristocracy, living off the labor of the coolies. AT North America, north of the Mason-Dixon line, since there was no such labor, the whites were forced to work themselves in agriculture. For this reason, positions white man in North America they are strong, while in the Far East they are already strongly shaken and can be completely destroyed. However, much of this type of culture survives, especially industrialism. This analogy will help us understand the position of the Greeks in the eastern parts of Alexander's empire.

Alexander's influence on the imagination of the peoples of Asia was great and lasting. The first book of Maccabees, written a century after his death, opens with an account of his life.

"And so it happened, Alexander, the son of Philip, a Macedonian, came from the land of Chetim (Hetton), defeated Darius, king of the Persians and the Medes, and the first of the rulers of Greece began to reign in his place, and waged many wars, and captured many fortresses, and killed kings of the earth, and went from end to end all the earth, and took prey from many peoples, so much so that the earth humbled itself, calmed down before him, and therefore he was lifted up in spirit, and his heart leapt. over lands and kings, and they became his tributaries. And after all this, he fell into illness and felt the approach of death. Therefore he called his servants - those who were of noble birth and were brought up with him from his youth. And divided his kingdom between them while he himself was still alive. This is not historically true. So Alexander reigned for twelve years, and then he died." He's like legendary hero continued to exist in the Mohammedan religion, and to this day the leaders of the small tribes in the Himalayas claim to be descended from him. It is possible that this is not so, since the sons who believed this also were brought up at Eton. None of the truly historical heroes provided such a magnificent opportunity for myth-making.

After Alexander's death, an attempt was made to preserve the unity of his empire. But of his two sons, one was an infant and the other had not yet been born. Each of them had supporters, but in the subsequent civil war both have been eliminated. In the end, his empire was divided between the families of three commanders, of which one received, roughly speaking, the European, the other - the African and the third - the Asian part of Alexander's possessions. The European part ultimately went to the descendants of Antigonus; Ptolemy, who received Egypt, made Alexandria his capital; Seleucus, who after many years of wars gained Asia, was too busy with military campaigns to have a permanent capital, but later Antioch was the main city under his dynasty.

Both Ptolemy and the Seleucids (as the Seleucus dynasty was called) abandoned Alexander's attempts to merge the Greeks with the barbarians and established military tyrannies based at first on that part of the Macedonian army that was subordinate to them, reinforced by Greek mercenaries. The Ptolemies held power fairly firmly in Egypt, but in Asia the mixed dynastic wars that lasted two hundred years were brought to an end only by the Roman conquest. During these two centuries, Persia was conquered by the Parthians, and the isolation of the Bactrian Greeks became more and more.

In the second century BC (after which they rapidly declined) they had a king, Menander, whose Indian empire was vast. Translated into Chinese and partly in the Pali language, two of his dialogues with Buddhist sages survived. Dr. Tarn suggests that the first of these is based on a Greek original; the second, at the end of which Menander abdicates the throne and announces that he becomes a Buddhist saint, has no documentary evidence.

At that time, Buddhism was a religion that actively recruited proselytes. Ashoka (264-228) - the holy Buddhist king - records in an inscription that has survived to our time that he sent missionaries to all the Macedonian kings: "And this is the most important conquest, in the opinion of His Majesty, the conquest according to the Law; and this is also carried out by His Majesty both in his own dominions and in all the neighboring kingdoms for six hundred leagues in the vicinity - even where the Greek king Antiochus lives, and beyond the dominions of Antiochus, where four kings live, differently called: Ptolemy, Antigonus, Megas and Alexander... and likewise here in the dominion of the king among the Ionians" (that is, the Greeks from the Punjab). Unfortunately, no account of these missionaries has been preserved in the West.

Babylonia was under a much deeper Hellenistic influence. As we have already seen, the only one of the ancients who, following Aristarchus of Samos, supported a system similar to that of Copernicus, was Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris, who lived about 150 BC Tacitus speaks of Seleucia in the 1st century AD as a city that was not subjected to corruption in a barbarian spirit, but Seleucus, who remembered his founder. A king, not an astronomer. "In it three hundred citizens are chosen by wealth or wisdom to serve as a senate; the people have their share of power." Throughout Mesopotamia and further west, Greek became the language of literature and culture and remained so until the Mohammedan conquest.

Syria (with the exception of Judea) completely fell under the influence of Hellenism in terms of language and literature. But the rural population, being more conservative, retained its usual religion and language. In Asia Minor, the Greek cities on the coast influenced their barbarian neighbors for centuries. This was reinforced by the Macedonian conquest. The first conflict of Hellenism with the Jews is narrated in the book of Maccabees. It's deep interesting story, unlike anything else in the Macedonian Empire. I will deal with this story later, when I get to the origin and development of Christianity. Nowhere did Greek influence meet with such stubborn resistance.

From the point of view of Hellenistic culture, its most brilliant successes in the third century BC were associated with the city of Alexandria. Egypt was less exposed to the danger of war than the European and Asian parts of the Macedonian possessions, and Alexandria was extremely conveniently located for trade. The Ptolemies were patrons of science and attracted many to their capital. the best people that time. Mathematics became, and continued to remain until the fall of Rome, chiefly Alexandrian. True, Archimedes was a Sicilian and lived in the only part of the world where the Greek city-states (until his death in 212 BC) maintained their independence, but he also studied in Alexandria. Eratosthenes was the chief librarian of the famous Library of Alexandria. The mathematicians and natural scientists associated more or less closely with Alexandria in the third century B.C. were no less talented than the Greeks of previous centuries, and did work of equal value. But they did not deal with science in the same way as their predecessors, that is, not in all its areas, did not discuss questions of universal philosophy; they were specialists in the modern sense. Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes, and Apollonius were content to be mathematicians; in philosophy they did not strive for originality.

This era is characterized by specialization in all branches, not only in the world of science. In the self-governing Greek cities of the fifth and fourth centuries BC, it was believed that a capable person could engage in a wide variety of activities. He could be, as needed, a warrior, a politician, a legislator or a philosopher. Socrates, although he did not like politics, could not stay away from political disputes. In his youth he was a warrior and (despite the denial of this fact in Plato's Apology) studied natural sciences. Protagoras, teaching skepticism to aristocratic youth, found time for active participation in practical life, developed a code of laws for Fury. Plato politicized, although without success. Xenophon, if he did not write about Socrates and did not act as a slave owner, was a commander in his spare time. Pythagorean mathematicians tried to achieve city government. Each had to serve on juries and perform various other public duties. In the third century BC, all this changed. True, the old city-states continued to pursue their policies, but they became narrowly limited and insignificant, since Greece was dominated by the Macedonian armies. A serious struggle for power was going on between the Macedonian warriors; it did not deal with questions of principle; it was only about the distribution of territory between adventurous rivals. In the administrative and technical fields, these more or less uneducated warriors used the Greeks as experts; in Egypt, for example, excellent drainage and irrigation work has been done. There were warriors, administrators, doctors, mathematicians, philosophers, but there was no one who was all of these together.

It was an era when a man with money and no desire for power could live a very pleasant life - provided that he did not get in the way of any marauding army. Scholars who ingratiated themselves with some prince could lead a luxurious life, but only if they were skillful flatterers and did not mind being the target of ignorant royal witticisms. But there was no such thing as security. Palace coup could displace his (learned flatterer) patron; the Galatians could destroy the rich man's villa; hometown could be plundered, as happened in the wars of dynasties. It is not surprising that under such circumstances people began to worship the goddess Fortune, or good luck. There seemed to be nothing rational in the arrangement of human affairs. Those who stubbornly searched for somewhere reasonable, went into themselves and decided, like Satan with Milton, that:

The mind is its own, special world. And he is in himself, inside, Able to turn heaven into hell and make heaven out of hell.

No one but self-serving adventurers had any motive to take an interest in public affairs. After the brilliant period of Alexander's conquests, the Hellenistic world fell into chaos for lack of a despot strong enough to achieve lasting supremacy, or for lack of a principle powerful enough to ensure social cohesion. The mind of the Greeks, when faced with new political problems, showed its complete inability to solve them. The Romans were certainly stupid and rude compared to the Greeks, but at least they created order. The old disorder of the days of freedom was tolerable, because every citizen enjoyed a share of this freedom; but the new, Macedonian disorder, imposed on the subjects by inept rulers, was completely intolerable, much more intolerable than the subsequent submission to Rome.

Public discontent and fear of revolution were widespread. The wages of the free laborers fell, presumably because of the competition of the labor of the Eastern slaves; meanwhile, the prices of consumer goods were rising. We see that, early in his career, Alexander found time to make pacts designed to keep the poor in subjection. "In the treaties concluded in 335 BC between Alexander and the states of the League of Corinth, it was provided that the Council of the League and the representative of Alexander were to see that in no city of the league there was any confiscation of personal property, no division of land, nor cancellation of the debt, nor the emancipation of the slaves for the purposes of the revolution." This essay is extremely interesting and contains many facts that are not easily found elsewhere. The temples in the Hellenistic world were the bankers: they owned the gold reserves and controlled the credit. At the beginning of the third century BC, the Temple of Apollo on Delosus was lending money at 10 percent; earlier the percentage was higher.

Free laborers who found wages insufficient even to meet their most basic needs, if they were young and strong, could be hired as soldiers. The life of a mercenary soldier was undoubtedly full of dangers and difficulties, but there were also great opportunities in it. Could be booty in some rich eastern city, a case of a profitable rebellion could present itself. It must have been dangerous for a commander to try to disband his army, and perhaps this danger was one of the reasons why the wars hardly stopped.

The old civic spirit was more or less preserved in the old Greek cities, but not in the new ones founded by Alexander, not excluding Alexandria. In the most early times the new city was always a colony of settlers from some old city and remained connected with its father city by bonds of feeling. This kind of feeling had great stability, as shown, for example, by the diplomatic activity of the city of Lampsacus on the Hellespont in 196 BC. This colonial city was threatened by submission to the third Seleucid king Antiochus, and he decided to turn to Rome for protection. An embassy was sent, but it did not go straight to Rome; despite the great distance, first went to Marseilles, which, like Lampsacus, was a colony of Phocaea and to which, moreover, the Romans were friendly. The citizens of Marseilles, after listening to the ambassador's speech, immediately decided to send their own diplomatic mission to Rome to support their sister city. The Gauls, who lived further inland from Marseilles, joined the Marseilles and sent a letter to their countrymen in Asia Minor, the Galatians, offering Lampsacus their friendship; Rome was naturally glad of the pretense of intervening in the affairs of Asia Minor, and thanks to the intervention of Rome, Lampsacus retained his freedom until it became inconvenient for the Romans.

In general, the rulers of Asia called themselves Philhellenes and were, as far as politics and military needs allowed, on friendly terms with the old Greek cities. These cities desired and (when they could) demanded, as their right, democratic self-government, exemption from tribute and freedom from the royal garrison. It was worth taking the time to reconcile them, because they were rich, could supply mercenary soldiers, and many of them had important harbors. But if they took the side of those who were losing in the civil war, they opened the way for their complete conquest. In general, the Seleucids and other dynasties that gradually arose treated them tolerantly, but there were exceptions.

The new cities, although they had some degree of self-government, did not have the same traditions as the old cities. The citizens of these cities were not of uniform origin, but came from all parts of Greece. They were mostly adventurers like the conquistadors or settlers in Johannesburg, impious pilgrims like the early Greek colonists or New England pioneers. Consequently, no city founded by Alexander represented a strong political entity. This was a convenience royal power, but a weakness in the sense of the spread of Hellenism.

The influence of non-Greek religion and prejudice on the Hellenistic world was mostly, but not entirely, bad. This might not have happened. The Jews, the Persians, and the Buddhists had religions that were definitely on a higher level than the common Greek polytheism, and they could be usefully studied even by the best philosophers. Unfortunately, it was the Babylonians and Chaldeans who most impressed the imagination of the Greeks. First of all, their fabulous antiquity impressed; their sacred tales went back millennia and claimed to be many millennia older. There was also genuine wisdom: the Babylonians could more or less correctly predict the eclipse of the sun long before the Greeks could. But that was only the basis for perception, and astrology and magic were perceived mainly. "Astrology," says Professor Gilbert Murray, "swept the Hellenistic mind as if new disease embracing the people of some remote island. The tomb of Ozymandias, as described by Diodorus, was covered with astrological symbols; the tomb of Antiochus 1, which was discovered at Commagene, is the same. It was natural for kings to believe that the stars were their patrons. But everyone was ready to accept the infection. "It seems that the Greeks were first taught astrology in the time of Alexander by a Chaldean named Berossus, who taught in Kos and, according to Seneca, "interpreted Belus." "This," says Professor Murray, "must mean that he translated into Greek "The Eye of Belus", a treatise on seventy tablets found in the library of Assurbanipal (686--626 BC), but compiled for Sargon the first in the third millennium BC.

As we shall see, most of even the best philosophers have come to believe in astrology. This entailed - since astrology believed that the future could be predicted - a belief in necessity or fate, which could be contrasted with the widespread belief in fortune. Undoubtedly, most people believed in both, completely oblivious to their incompatibility.

The general confusion was to lead to the destruction of morality, even more than to intellectual relaxation. Uncertainty that lasts for centuries, while it can be combined highest degree sanctity in the few is detrimental to the prosaic everyday virtue of respectable citizens. It seemed that there was no point in being frugal, since tomorrow all your savings could be wasted; there is no advantage in being honest, since the person towards whom you show it is sure to deceive you; there is no need to stubbornly hold on to any belief, for all beliefs have no value or chance of sustainable victory; there are no arguments in favor of veracity, since only flexible opportunism helps to save life and fortune. A person whose virtue has no other source than purely earthly caution will become an adventurer in such a world if he has courage, and if he does not have it, he will strive to remain invisible as a timid opportunist. Menander, who lived at that time, said:

I have known many cases. When people, not swindlers, Became such because of failures, but by coercion.

This sums up the moral character of the third century BC, minus a few exceptional people. Even among these few, hope gave way to fear; the purpose of life was rather to avoid misfortune than to achieve any real good.

"Metaphysics recedes into the background; now individual ethics become the most important. Philosophy is no longer a torch that leads a few fearless seekers of truth; rather, it is an ambulance karst, following in the wake of the struggle for existence and picking up the weak and wounded." The above quotation from Menander is from the same chapter.