Post by Emperor AAdmin on Feb 12, 2009 1:17:03 GMT -5
The Diffusion of Greek Culture
Interwoven with the sorry tale of discord and decline following Alexander's death, is a real success story: the triumph of Greek culture, also known as Hellenism (after Hellas, the Greek name for their homeland). The Greek colonization that had been going on since 800 B.C., followed by Alexander's conquests, created an economic and cultural sphere spreading from southern France to India, and from Arabia to Siberia. This was the closest thing to a universal society the world had seen since Babel. Throughout this huge area people understood the Greek language, and Greek art was a common sight. The three hundred years between Alexander and Cleopatra were an exciting time of progress as well. At the beginning of this era came new philosophers, notably Epicurus and Zeno (the founder of Stoicism). The field of science produced such outstanding figures as Eratosthenes, Archimedes, Euclid and Aristarchus. Alexandria in particular became famous as the learning center of the world, with its library of more than 500,000 scrolls.
Alexander encouraged Hellenism by building new cities wherever he went. Before he was done he named one after his horse Bucephalus, one after his dog Peritas and seventeen after himself. Seleucus followed that example aggressively, because when he took over the only Greek parts of his kingdom were Ionia (a district too far from the center to be much help), and his army of about 50,000 soldiers. In the course of his reign Seleucus started at least sixteen new colonies named Antioch or Antiochia (after his father, Antiochus), five Laodiceas (after Laodice, his mother), four Apameas (after his Persian wife Apama), one Stratonicea (after Stratonice, a Macedonian woman he married after Apama's death), and nine Seleucias (after himself, naturally). Later Seleucid kings, despite the troubles they had with their unwieldy empire, somehow found the time to establish at least twenty more communities. This was done as fast as they could persuade Greek immigrants to settle in them, and served the purpose of promoting unity throughout the realm. Each city was designed pretty much the same way, with streets in a grid pattern and all of the features the Greeks needed for good living: an agora, gymnasium, theater, council halls, public halls and baths. Yet these cities lacked the autonomy that many Greeks considered essential for good government; the Macedonian founders came from a land without cities, and thus had little experience with or sympathy for democracy. Consequently it was the kings, and not the people, who ruled the Greek cities of Asia, and they did so as autocratically as the Oriental monarchs of previous eras.
Many new settlements were nothing but military camps, which failed to take root; east of the Euphrates the whole project was only superficially successful, producing a string of Greek cities surrounded by a countryside that steadfastly remained non-Greek. The Iranian plateau was not settled at all, leaving a vaccuum for the Parthians to fill when they arrived. As a result, Alexander, Seleucus and Antiochus I may have brought in enough Greeks to maintain their rule in an alien land (an estimated 100,000 families), but the complete cultural fusion which they wanted never took place; in the long run, this contributed to the disintegration of the kingdom. In Syria, however, western civilization came to stay (until Islam arrived, anyway), and the three cities of Antioch, Laodicea and Apamea were the pride and nerve center of the Seleucid kingdom. Antioch quickly grew to house between 90,000 and 150,000 inhabitants, making it the second largest city in the known world; only Alexandria in Egypt was larger. Another spectacular success was Seleucia on the Tigris River(4). It replaced Babylon as the largest city in Iraq, and became the second capital of the empire, where the heir to the throne resided. Its location in the geographic center of the realm, where roads from every direction met, turned it into a major commercial center as well, dominating the economy of half a continent in its heyday.
Around 200 B.C., Macedonia and Greece ran out of people to export, so after that the cultural winds started blowing in the opposite direction. For example, the Babylonians gave the Greeks several elements of their culture, notably astronomy, astrology, and geometry. A Babylonian priest named Berosus wrote a three-volume work in the Greek language called the Babyloniaca, which preserved the history of his native land; his Alexandrian counterpart, Manetho, did the same thing for Egypt. The Greeks also became dissatisfied with their religion, which portrayed the gods as silly oversized people and offered no promising afterlife nor comfort to those in distress. They started investigating other religions for answers to their questions about life, and invented some new creeds before they were done: the cult of Serapis in Egypt, Mithraism in Persia, perhaps even Mahayana Buddhism in northern India. Sometimes this syncretism produced bizarre hybrids; the many-breasted fertility goddess Cybele became Diana of the Ephesians, and was seen as an Asian version of Artemis, the chaste huntress of Greek mythology. The restoration of Persian culture by the Parthians and the furious rejection of Hellenism by the Jews under the Maccabees are the best examples of the reversals suffered by the Greeks in the latter part of this period.
xenohistorian.faithweb.com/neareast/ne06.html#Hellenism