Hellenistic Period (jan 1, 323 BC – jan 1, 30 BC)

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From the death of Alexander the Great to the Roman conquest of Alexander's successors in Egypt

ECONOMY
"The majority of people were farmers who lived in the countryside, and their lives continued to be dominated by hard work. There were relatively few advances in agricultural or production methods, and many people who lived in rural areas were actually worse off than they had been before, because of higher levels of rents and taxes. Wealthy and middling-status people in cities flourished, but poorer people in cities who depended on wages were hurt by inflation. Alexander and his successors did link East and West in a broad commercial network, however, and the spread of Greeks throughout the Near East and Egypt created new markets and stimulated trade."

"subsistence farmers who lived in the countryside. For them, the most important event of the 330s B.C.E. may have been a long-lasting drought, not Alexander’s conquests."

"The mainstays of Hellenistic agriculture remained the triad of grain, grapevines, and olive trees, which had been the core of Mediterranean crop raising since the Bronze Age, so prominent that “grain, new wine, and olive oil” are frequently mentioned together in Hebrew Scripture."

"At harvest time people offered some of their crops to the gods in thanks and set aside another — no doubt larger — portion for paying their rents and taxes. Another portion was saved as seed for the next year, but the largest portion was stored to be eaten over the next months. With what was left, farmers treated themselves to a festive meal, enjoyed along with music and dancing as a short break from work. Government intervened in rural people’s lives primarily in the collection of taxes, as much of the revenue for the Hellenistic kingdoms was derived from taxing land and agricultural products."

" Technology was applied to military needs, but not to those of food production."

PRODUCTION OF GOODS
"As with agriculture, although demand for goods increased during the Hellenistic period, no significant new techniques of production appear to have developed. Manual labor, not machinery, continued to turn out the raw materials and manufactured goods the Hellenistic world used."

"Apart from gold and silver, which were used primarily for coins and jewelry, bronze continued to be used for shields. Iron was utilized for weapons and tools."

COMMERCE
"In the conquered Persian capitals Alexander had found vast sums of gold, silver, and other treasure. This wealth financed the creation of new cities, the building of roads, and the development of harbors. It also provided the thousands who participated in his expeditions with booty, with which they could purchase commodities. The release of this vast Persian horde of money into the Greek world led to inflation, however, and prices on basic commodities such as flour and olive oil doubled or more. After a high point in about 300 B.C.E., prices gradually sank, but they never returned to prices of the earlier period. Those who depended on wages for a living were badly hurt by this inflation, and they did what poor people often do as they search for a better life: migrate, which in this case meant to the new cities of the East."

"Most of the great monarchies coined their money according to a uniform system, which meant that much of the money used in Hellenistic kingdoms had the same value. Traders were less in need of money changers than in the days when each major power coined money on a different standard."

"Overland trade was conducted by caravan, and the backbone of this caravan trade was the camel — a shaggy, ill-tempered, but durable animal ideally suited to the harsh climate of the caravan routes."

"Perhaps the most prominent good in terms of volume was silk, and the trade in silk later gave the major east-west route its name: the Silk Road. In return the Greeks and Macedonians sent east manufactured goods, especially metal weapons, cloth, wine, and olive oil. Although these caravan routes can trace their origins to earlier times, they became far more prominent in the Hellenistic period. Business customs and languages of trade developed and became standardized, so that merchants from different nationalities could communicate in a way understandable to all of them."

"The merchants and the caravan cities were links in a chain that reached from the Mediterranean Sea to India and beyond to China, along which ideas as well as goods were passed."

"Most trade in bulk commodities was seaborne, and the Hellenistic merchant ship was the workhorse of the day. The merchant ship had a broad beam and relied on sails for propulsion. It was far more seaworthy than the contemporary warship, the trireme (see Chapter 3), which was long, narrow, and built for speed. A small crew of experienced sailors could handle the merchant vessel easily. Maritime trade provided opportunities for workers in other industries and trades: sailors, shipbuilders, dockworkers, accountants, teamsters, and pirates. Piracy was always a factor in the Hellenistic world, so ships’ crews had to be ready to defend their cargoes as well as transport them."

"Slaves were a staple of Hellenistic trade, traveling in all directions on both land and sea routes. A few lists of slaves owned by a single individual have survived, and these indicate that slaves in one area often came from far away and from many different regions. Ancient authors cautioned against having too many slaves from one area together, as this might encourage them to revolt. War provided prisoners for the slave market; to a lesser extent, so did kidnapping and capture by pirates, although the origins of most slaves are unknown."

RELIGION
"More people turned to mystery religions, which blended Greek and non-Greek elements. Others turned to practical philosophies that provided advice on how an individual should live a good life. Themes of individualism emerged in Hellenistic art and literature as well."

"The transplanted religions, like those in Greece itself, sponsored literary, musical, and athletic contests, which were staged in beautiful surroundings among impressive new Greek-style buildings. These festivities offered bright and lively entertainment, both intellectual and physical. "

"Along with the traditional Olympian gods, Greeks and non-Greeks in the Hellenistic world also honored and worshipped deities that had not been important in the Hellenic period or that were a blend of imported Greek and indigenous gods and goddesses. Tyche (TIGH-kee), for example, the goddess and personification of luck, fate, chance, and fortune, became increasingly prominent during the chaotic years following Alexander’s death."

"We generally make a distinction between religion and magic, but for Greeks there was not a clear line. Thus they would write spells using both ordinary Greek words and special “magical” language known only to the gods, often instructing those who purchased them to carry out specific actions to accompany their words. Thousands of such spells survive, many of which are curse tables, intended to bring bad luck to a political, business, or athletic rival; or binding spells, meant to force a person to do something against his or her will. These binding spells included hundreds intended to make another person love the petitioner. They often invoke a large number of deities to assist the petitioner, reflecting the mixture of gods that was common in Hellenistic society."

"Some Hellenistic kings intentionally sponsored new deities that mixed Egyptian and Greek elements. When Ptolemy I Soter established the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, he thought that a new god was needed who would appeal to both Greeks and Egyptians. Working together, an Egyptian priest and a Greek priest combined elements of the Egyptian god Osiris (god of the afterlife) with aspects of the Greek gods Zeus, Hades (god of the underworld), and Asclepius (god of medicine) to create a new god, Serapis. Like Osiris, Serapis came to be regarded as the judge of souls, who rewarded virtuous and righteous people with eternal life. Like Asclepius, he was also a god of healing. Ptolemy I’s successors made Serapis the protector and patron of Alexandria and built a huge temple in the god’s honor in the city. His worship spread as intentional government policy, and he was eventually adopted by Romans as well, who blended him with their own chief god, Jupiter."

"The Egyptian cult of Isis became the most widespread of the mystery religions in the Hellenistic world, and later spread to Rome. She herself had not died and been reborn, but instead had brought her husband Osiris (now merged with Serapis) back to life (see “Egyptian Religion” in Chapter 1). Some of her followers believed she would provide them with a better afterlife, while others worshipped Isis more for benefits she might offer in this life: fertility in crops and animals, protection during childbirth, safety during voyages. People saw her as embodying exotic ancient wisdom, just as some people today believe that Egyptian ankh symbols or pyramid shapes bring good luck or have power."

HELLENISM AND THE JEWS
"Jews in Hellenistic cities were generally treated the same as any other non-Greek group. At first they were seen as resident aliens. As they grew more numerous, they received permission to form a political corporation, a politeuma (pah-lih-TOO-mah), which gave them a great deal of autonomy. The Jewish politeuma, like the rest of the Hellenistic city, was expected to obey the king’s commands, but there was virtually no royal interference with the Jewish religion. The Seleucid king Antiochus III (ca. 242–187 B.C.E.), for instance, recognized that most Jews were loyal subjects, and in his efforts to solidify his empire he endorsed their religious customs and ensured their autonomy."

SCIENCE
"The main advances in Hellenistic science came in astronomy, geography, and mechanics. The most notable of the Hellenistic astronomers was Aristarchus (a-ruh-STAHR-kuhs) of Samos (ca. 310–230 B.C.E.)."

"Aristarchus developed the heliocentric theory — that the earth and planets revolve around the sun." It went away until "Aristarchus’s heliocentric theory was resurrected in the sixteenth century C.E. by the brilliant Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus."

"Euclid (YOU-kluhd) (ca. 300 B.C.E.), a mathematician who lived in Alexandria, compiled a valuable textbook of existing knowledge. His Elements of Geometry rapidly became the standard introduction to geometry. Generations of students from the Hellenistic period to the twentieth century learned the essentials of geometry from it."

"Eratosthenes used mathematics to further the geographical studies for which he is most famous. He concluded that the earth was a spherical globe and calculated the circumference of the earth geometrically, estimating it as about 24,675 miles. He was not wrong by much: the earth is actually 24,860 miles in circumference. He drew a map of the earth and discussed the shapes and sizes of land and ocean and the irregularities of the earth’s surface. His idea that the earth was divided into large landmasses influenced other geographers and later shaped ordinary people’s understanding of the world as well. Using geographical information gained by Alexander the Great’s scientists, Eratosthenes declared that to get to India, a ship could sail around Africa or even sail directly westward, an idea that would not be tested until the end of the fifteenth century."

"The catapult became the first and most widely used artillery piece, shooting ever-larger projectiles. Generals soon realized that they could also hurl burning bundles over the walls to start fires in the city. As the Assyrians had earlier, engineers built siege towers, large wooden structures that served as artillery platforms, and put them on wheels so that soldiers could roll them up to a town’s walls. Once there, archers stationed on top of the siege towers swept the enemy’s ramparts with arrows, while other soldiers manning catapults added missile fire. As soon as the walls were cleared, soldiers from the siege towers swept over the enemy’s ramparts and into the city. To augment the siege towers, generals added battering rams that consisted of long, stout shafts housed in reinforced shells. Inside the shell the crew pushed the ram up to the wall and then heaved the shaft against the wall. Rams proved even more effective than catapults in bringing down large portions of walls."

MEDICINE
"The physician Herophilus (ca. 335–280 B.C.E.), for example, who lived in Alexandria, was the first to accurately describe the nervous system, and he differentiated between nerves and blood vessels and between motor and sensory nerves. Herophilus also closely studied the brain, which he considered the center of intelligence, and discerned the cerebrum and cerebellum. His younger contemporary Erasistratus (ca. 304–250 B.C.E.) also conducted research on the brain and nervous system and improved on Herophilus’s work. To learn more about human anatomy, Herophilus and Erasistratus dissected human cadavers while their students watched. Human dissection was seen as unacceptable in most parts of the Hellenistic world, so they were probably the only scientists in antiquity to dissect human bodies, although animal dissection became very common in the Roman period. "

“Along with their hands-on study of the human body, the Dogmatists [Herophilus etc.] also speculated about the nature of disease and argued that there were sometimes hidden causes for illness. Opposing them was an “Empiric school” begun by a student of Herophilus; these doctors held observation and experiment to be the only way to advance medical knowledge and viewed the search for hidden causes as useless.”


"The most deeply Hellenized non-Greek people were, ironically, those who conquered much of what had been Alexander’s empire: the Romans. The Romans derived their alphabet from the Greek alphabet, though they changed the letters somewhat. Roman statuary was modeled on Greek statuary and was often, in fact, made by Greek sculptors, who found ready customers among wealthy Romans."

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