Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

1. Philip II

   • lived in Thebes but came to Greece to admire the culture
   • hired Aristotle as a tutor to his young son Alexander
   • gained the throne in 359 B.C
     • built a superb and powerful army
     • Through threats, bribery, and diplomacy, he formed alliances with many Greek city-states. Others he conquered
     • In 338 B.C., when Athens and Thebes joined forces against him, Philip II defeated them at the battle of Chaeronea
   • he was assassinated at his daughter's wedding
     • Philip's queen, Olympias, then outmaneuvered his other wives and children to put her own son, Alexander, on the throne.

2. Alexander was only 20 years old

   • already an experienced soldier who shared his father's ambitions
     • By 334 B.C. he had enough ships to cross the Dardanelles
       • Alexander won his first victory against the Persians at the Granicus River
         • He then moved from victory to victory
           • took Babylon in 331 B.C.
             • in 326 B.C., his troops for the first time faced soldiers mounted on war elephants
               • his soldiers were tired of the long campaign and refused to go farther east
                 • Before he could set out again, the thirty-two-year-old fell victim to a sudden fever. As Alexander lay dying, his commanders asked to whom he left his immense empire. “To the strongest,” he is said to have whispered.
                   • For the next 300 years, their descendants competed for power over the lands Alexander had conquered.

3. his legacy

   • His most lasting achievement was the spread of Greek culture.
   • Alexander founded many new cities, most of them named after him
     • generals who succeeded him founded still more
   • Local people assimilated, Greek ideas
   • encouraged a blending of eastern and western cultures when he had married a Persian woman and urged his soldiers to follow his example
     • a vital new culture emerged that blended Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Indian influences. This Hellenistic civilization would flourish for several centuries.
       • capital city: alexandria
         • located on sea lanes between europe/asia
           • its markets boasted a wide range of goods, from Greek marble to Arabian spices to East African ivory
             • home to almost a million people
               • one of the marvelous sites: Pharos, an enormous lighthouse that soared 440 feet into the air.
                 • The rulers of Alexandria built the great Museum as a center of learning
                   • Paintings, statues, and legal codes show that women were no longer restricted to their homes during the Hellenistic period
                     • women could learn to read and write
                     • some became philosophers and poets
                     • royal women held a lot of power
                     • In Egypt, the able and clever queen Cleopatra VII came to rule in her own right

4. Hellenistic culture

   • Hellenistic refers to “the time of Alexander,” when Greek learning, custom, and tradition blended with other ways of life
   • The elaborate new style reflected the desire of Hellenistic rulers to glorify themselves as godlike
   • Political turmoil during the Hellenistic age contributed to the rise of new schools of philosophy
     • Stoicism
       • founded by Zeno
       • urged people to avoid desires and disappointments by accepting calmly whatever life brought
       • preached high moral standards
       • They taught that all people were morally equal because all had the power of reason
       • influenced many Roman and Christian thinkers
   • scholars built on earlier Greek, Babylonian, and Egyptian knowledge
     • Pythagoras
       • derived a formula to calculate the relationship between the sides of a right triangle
         • His interest in the principles of mathematics, the relations between numbers, and the idea of a proof influenced Plato, Aristotle, and later western thought
     • Euclid
       • wrote The Elements
         • Euclid built a logical and rigorous geometry
           • The Elements had a powerful impact on Islamic mathematics, and Latin translations of Arabic versions first made it known in Europe
     • Aristarchus
       • argued that Earth rotated on its axis and orbited the sun
         • His ideas about Earth's motion inspired the Polish astronomer Copernicus in the early 1500s
           • used geometry to calculate the sizes and distances of the sun and the moon
     • Eratosthenes
       • showed that Earth was round and accurately calculated its circumference
     • Archimedes
       • applied principles of physics to make practical inventions
         • He mastered the use of the lever and pulley
           • used it to draw a ship over the land before a crowd of awed spectators
             • In 212 B.C., he devised machines of war to defend his hometown against Roman attack
               • He also invented the Archimedes screw, still used in many parts of the world to lift water to higher levels for irrigation
     • Hippocrates
       • studied the causes of illnesses and looked for cures
         • The Hippocratic oath attributed to him set ethical standards for doctors