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Topalidu, Maria

Electronic Sumy State University Institutional Repository

76power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and finally to theLeague of Corinth led by Macedon. The Hellenistic period (323-146 BC) is when Greek cultureand power expanded into the near and middle east. This period beginswith the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest. Roman Greece, the period between Roman victory over theCorinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC and the establishmentof Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in330 AD. the final phase of Antiquity is the period of Christianization duringthe later 4th to early 6th centuries, taken to be complete with the closureof the Neoplatonic Academy by Justinian I in 529 AD.History. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge fromthe Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization.Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but theGreeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create theGreek alphabet. From about the 9th century BC written recordsbegin to appear [2]. Greece was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern largely dictated by Greekgeography, where every island, valley and plain is cut off from itsneighbours by the sea or mountain ranges [3].The Lelantine War (c.710 - c.650 BC) was an ongoing conflictwith the distinction of being the earliest documented war of the ancientGreek period. It was fought between the important poleis (city-states)of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Bothcities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, thoughChalcis was the nominal victor.A mercantile class rose in the first half of the 7th century, shownby the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC. This seems to haveintroduced tension to many city states. The aristocratic regimes whichgenerally governed the poleis were threatened by the new-found wealthof merchants, who in turn desired political power. From 650 BC onwards,the aristocracies had to fight not to be overthrown and replaced bypopulist tyrants. The word derives from the non-pejorative Greekτύραννος tyrannos, meaning “illegitimate ruler”, although this wasapplicable to both good and bad leaders alike [4-5].A growing population and shortage of land also seems to havecreated internal strife between the poor and the rich in many city states.In Sparta, the Messenian Wars resulted in the conquest of Messeniaand enserfment of the Messenians, beginning in the latter half of the 8thTOPALIDU MARIAANCIENT GREECEAncient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greekhistory lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth.At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourishedduring the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian leadershipsuccessfully repelling the military threat of Persian invasion. TheAthenian Golden Age ends with the defeat of Athens at the hands ofSparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.Chronology. There are no fixed or universally agreed upondates for the beginning or the end of Classical Antiquity. It is typicallytaken to last from the 8th century BC until the 6th century AD, orfor about 1300 years.Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek DarkAges (c.1100-c.750 BC), archaeologically characterised by theprotogeometric and geometric style of designs on pottery, succeededby the Orientalizing Period, a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Assyrian,Phoenician and Egyptian cultures.Traditionally, the Archaic period of Ancient Greece is taken inthe wake of this strong Orientalizing influence during the 8th centuryBC, which among other things brought the alphabetic script to Greece,marking the beginning of Greek literature (Homer, Hesiod). The Archaicperiod gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, in turn succeededby the Hellenistic period at the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may thus besubdivided into the following periods [1]: The Archaic period (c.750-c.500 BC) follows, in which artistsmade larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, hieratic poses with thedreamlike “archaic smile”. The Archaic period is often taken to endwith the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens in 510 BC. The Classical period (c.500-323 BC) is characterised by a stylewhich was considered by later observers to be exemplary (i.e.“classical”) - for instance the Parthenon. Politically, the Classical Periodwas dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century,displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before98prevent Athens from becoming a Spartan puppet, Cleisthenes respondedby proposing to his fellow citizens that Athens undergo a revolution: thatall citizens share in political power, regardless of status: that Athensbecome a “democracy”. So enthusiastically did the Athenians taketo this idea that, having overthrown Isagoras and implementedCleisthenes’s reforms, they were easily able to repel a Spartan-ledthree-pronged invasion aimed at restoring Isagoras [7]. The adventof the democracy cured many of the ills of Athens and led to a“golden age” for the Athenians.Classical Greece. Athens and Sparta would soon have to becomeallies in the face of the largest external threat ancient Greece wouldsee until the Roman conquest. After suppressing the Ionian Revolt, arebellion of the Greek cities of Ionia, Darius I of Persia, King of Kingsof the Achaemenid Empire, decided to subjugate Greece. His invasionin 490 BC was ended by the heroic Athenian victory at the Battle ofMarathon under Miltiades the Younger.Xerxes I of Persia, son and successor of Darius I, attempted hisown invasion 10 years later, but despite his overwhelmingly large armyhe was defeated after the famous rearguard action at Thermopylaeand victories for the allied Greeks at the Battles of Salamis and Plataea.The Greco-Persian Wars continued until 449 BC, led by the Atheniansand their Delian League, during which time the Macedon, Thrace, theAegean Islands and Ionia were all liberated from Persian influence.The dominant position of the maritime Athenian “Empire”threatened Sparta and the Peloponnesian League of mainland Greekcities. Inevitably, this led to conflict, resulting in the Peloponnesian War(431-404 BC). Though effectively a stalemate for much of the war,Athens suffered a number of setbacks. The Plague of Athens in 430BC followed by a disastrous military campaign known as the SicilianExpedition severely weakened Athens. An estimated one-third ofAthenians died, including Pericles, their leader [8].Sparta was able to foment rebellion amongst Athens’s allies,further reducing the Athenian ability to wage war. The decisive momentcame in 405 BC when Sparta cut off the grain supply to Athens fromthe Hellespont. Forced to attack, the crippled Athenian fleet wasdecisively defeated by the Spartans under the command of Lysander atAegospotami. In 404 BC Athens sued for peace, and Sparta dictated apredictably stern settlement: Athens lost her city walls (including theLong Walls), her fleet, and all of her overseas possessions.century BC, an act without precedent or antecedent in ancient Greece.This practice allowed a social revolution to occur [6]. The subjugatedpopulation, thenceforth known as helots, farmed and laboured for Sparta,whilst every Spartan male citizen became a soldier of the Spartan Armyin a permanently militarized state. Even the elite were obliged to liveand train as soldiers; this equality between rich and poor served to diffusethe social conflict. These reforms, attributed to the shadowy Lycurgusof Sparta, were probably complete by 650 BC.Athens suffered a land and agrarian crisis in the late 7th century,again resulting in civil strife. The Archon (chief magistrate) Draco madesevere reforms to the law code in 621 BC (hence Draconian), but thesefailed to quell the conflict. Eventually the moderate reforms of Solon(594 BC), improving the lot of the poor but firmly entrenching thearistocracy in power, gave Athens some stability.By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominantin Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. Each of themhad brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under theircontrol, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime andmercantile powers as well.Rapidly increasing population in the 8th and 7th centuries hadresulted in emigration of many Greeks to form colonies in Magna Graecia(Southern Italy and Sicily), Asia Minor and further afield. The emigrationeffectively ceased in the 6th century by which time the Greek worldhad, culturally and linguistically, become much larger than the area ofpresent-day Greece. Greek colonies were not politically controlled bytheir founding cities, although they often retained religious andcommercial links with them.In this period, huge economic development occurred in Greeceand also her overseas colonies which experienced a growth incommerce and manufacturing. There was a large improvement inthe living standards of the population. Some studies estimate thatthe average size of the Greek household, in the period from 800 BCto 300 BC, increased five times, which indicates a large increase in theaverage income of the population.In the second half of the 6th century, Athens fell under the tyrannyof Peisistratos and then his sons Hippias and Hipparchos. However, in510 BC, at the instigation of the Athenian aristocrat Cleisthenes, theSpartan king Cleomenes I helped the Athenians overthrow the tyranny.Afterwards, Sparta and Athens promptly turned on each other, at whichpoint Cleomenes I installed Isagoras as a pro-Spartan archon. Eager to1110Hellenistic Greece. The Hellenistic period lasted from 323 BC,which marked the end of the Wars of Alexander the Great, to theannexation of the Greece by the Roman Republic in 146 BC. Althoughthe establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenisticsociety and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until theadvent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.During the Hellenistic period, the importance of “Greeceproper” (that is, the territory of modern Greece) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centers of Hellenisticculture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egyptand Seleucid Syria respectively.The conquests of Alexander had numerous consequences forthe Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks andled to a steady emigration, particularly of the young and ambitious, tothe new Greek empires in the east [9]. Many Greeks migrated toAlexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities foundedin Alexander’s wake, as far away as what are now Afghanistan andPakistan, where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-GreekKingdom survived until the end of the 1st century BC.After the death of Alexander his empire was, after quite someconflict, divided amongst his generals, resulting in the PtolemaicKingdom (based upon Egypt), the Seleucid Empire (based on theLevant, Mesopotamia and Persia) and the Antigonid dynasty basedin Macedon. In the intervening period, the poleis of Greece wereable to wrest back some of their freedom, although still nominallysubject to the Macedonian Kingdom.The city states formed themselves into two leagues; the AchaeanLeague (including Thebes, Corinth and Argos) and the Aetolian League(including Sparta and Athens). For much of the period until the Romanconquest, these leagues were usually at war with each other, and/orallied to different sides in the conflicts between the Diadochi (thesuccessor states to Alexander’s empire).The Antigonid Kingdom became involved in a war with theRoman Republic in the late 3rd century. Although the FirstMacedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion,continued to make war on Macedon until it was completely absorbedinto the Roman Republic (by 149 BC). In the east the unwieldySeleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump surviveduntil 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt untilGreece thus entered the 4th century under a Spartan hegemony,but it was clear from the start that this was weak. A demographic crisismeant Sparta was overstretched, and by 395 BC Athens, Argos, Thebes,and Corinth felt able to challenge Spartan dominance, resulting in theCorinthian War (395-387 BC). Another war of stalemates, it endedwith the status quo restored, after the threat of Persian intervention onbehalf of the Spartans.The Spartan hegemony lasted another 16 years, until, whenattempting to impose their will on the Thebans, the Spartans suffered adecisive defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC. The Theban general Epaminondasthen led Theban troops into the Peloponnese, whereupon other city-states defected from the Spartan cause. The Thebans were thus ableto march into Messenia and free the population.Deprived of land and its serfs, Sparta declined to a second-rankpower. The Theban hegemony thus established was short-lived; at thebattle of Mantinea in 362 BC, Thebes lost her key leader, Epaminondas,and much of her manpower, even though they were victorious in battle.In fact such were the losses to all the great city-states at Mantinea thatnone could establish dominance in the aftermath.The weakened state of the heartland of Greece coincidedwith the Rise of Macedon, led by Philip II. In twenty years, Philiphad unified his kingdom, expanded it north and west at the expenseof Illyrian tribes, and then conquered Thessaly and Thrace. Hissuccess stemmed from his innovative reforms to the Macedon army.Phillip intervened repeatedly in the affairs of the southern city-states,culminating in his invasion of 338 BC.Decisively defeating an allied army of Thebes and Athens at theBattle of Chaeronea (338 BC), he became de facto hegemon of all ofGreece. He compelled the majority of the city-states to join the Leagueof Corinth, allying them to him, and preventing them from warring witheach other. Philip then entered into war against the Achemaenid Empirebut was assassinated by Pausanias of Orestis early on in the conflict.Alexander, son and successor of Philip, continued the war.Alexander defeated Darius III of Persia and completely destroyed theAchaemenid Empire, annexing it to Macedon and earning himself theepithet “the Great”. When Alexander died in 323 BC, Greek powerand influence was at its zenith. However, there had been a fundamentalshift away from the fierce independence and classical culture of thepoleis-and instead towards the developing Hellenistic culture.1230 BC, when it too was conquered by the Romans. The Aetolianleague grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided withthe Seleucids in the Roman-Syrian War; when the Romans werevictorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic.Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian leagueand Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romansin 146 BC, bringing an end to the independence of all of Greece.Roman Greece. The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule in146 BC, Macedonia becoming a Roman province, while southern Greececame under the surveillance of Macedonia’s praefect. However, someGreek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoidtaxation. The Aegean islands were added to this territory in 133 BC.Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula wascrushed by the Roman general Sulla. The Roman civil wars devastatedthe land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as theprovince of Achaea in 27 BC.Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as theRoman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman. The Greek languageserved as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy, and many Greekintellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome._____________________________1. Pomeroy, Sarah B. (1999). Ancient Greece: a political, social, andcultural history. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195097429. http://books . goog l e . com / books?i d= INUT 5sZku1UC&h l = el &sour ce=gbs_navlinks_s.2. Hall Jonathan M. (2007). A history of the archaic Greek world, ca.1200-479 BCE. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9780631226673. http://books.google.com/books?id=WGNH-oxXiAUC&dq=.3. Sealey Raphael (1976). A history of the Greek city states, ca. 700-338B.C. University of California Press. pp. 10-11. ISBN 9780631226673. http://books.google.com/books?id=kAvbhZrv4g UC&dq=.4. “Online Etymology Dictionary”. Etymonline.com. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=tyrant. Retrieved 2009-01-06.5. “Тyrant-Definitions from Dictionary.com”. Dictionary. reference.com.http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tyrant. Retrieved 2009-01-06.6. Holland T. Persian Fire. - Р.69-70. ISBN 978-0-349-11717-17. Holland T. Persian Fire. - Р.131-138. ISBN 978-0-349-11717-18. Typhoid Fever Behind Fall of Athens // Live Science. - January23. - 2006.9. Alexander’s Gulf outpost uncovered // BBC News. - August 7. - 2007.

Ancient Greece

SocioEconomic Challenges Journal (Sumy State University)

76
power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and finally to the
League of Corinth led by Macedon.
 The Hellenistic period (323-146 BC) is when Greek culture
and power expanded into the near and middle east. This period begins
with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest.
 Roman Greece, the period between Roman victory over the
Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC and the establishment
of Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in
330 AD.
 the final phase of Antiquity is the period of Christianization during
the later 4th to early 6th centuries, taken to be complete with the closure
of the Neoplatonic Academy by Justinian I in 529 AD.
History. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from
the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization.
Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the
Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the
Greek alphabet. From about the 9th century BC written records
begin to appear [2]. Greece was divided into many small self-
governing communities, a pattern largely dictated by Greek
geography, where every island, valley and plain is cut off from its
neighbours by the sea or mountain ranges [3].
The Lelantine War (c.710 - c.650 BC) was an ongoing conflict
with the distinction of being the earliest documented war of the ancient
Greek period. It was fought between the important poleis (city-states)
of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both
cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, though
Chalcis was the nominal victor.
A mercantile class rose in the first half of the 7th century, shown
by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC. This seems to have
introduced tension to many city states. The aristocratic regimes which
generally governed the poleis were threatened by the new-found wealth
of merchants, who in turn desired political power. From 650 BC onwards,
the aristocracies had to fight not to be overthrown and replaced by
populist tyrants. The word derives from the non-pejorative Greek
τύραννος tyrannos, meaning “illegitimate ruler”, although this was
applicable to both good and bad leaders alike [4-5].
A growing population and shortage of land also seems to have
created internal strife between the poor and the rich in many city states.
In Sparta, the Messenian Wars resulted in the conquest of Messenia
and enserfment of the Messenians, beginning in the latter half of the 8th
TOPALIDU MARIA
ANCIENT GREECE
Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek
history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to
146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth.
At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished
during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian leadership
successfully repelling the military threat of Persian invasion. The
Athenian Golden Age ends with the defeat of Athens at the hands of
Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC.
Chronology. There are no fixed or universally agreed upon
dates for the beginning or the end of Classical Antiquity. It is typically
taken to last from the 8th century BC until the 6th century AD, or
for about 1300 years.
Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark
Ages (c.1100-c.750 BC), archaeologically characterised by the
protogeometric and geometric style of designs on pottery, succeeded
by the Orientalizing Period, a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Assyrian,
Phoenician and Egyptian cultures.
Traditionally, the Archaic period of Ancient Greece is taken in
the wake of this strong Orientalizing influence during the 8th century
BC, which among other things brought the alphabetic script to Greece,
marking the beginning of Greek literature (Homer, Hesiod). The Archaic
period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, in turn succeeded
by the Hellenistic period at the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.
The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may thus be
subdivided into the following periods [1]:
 The Archaic period (c.750-c.500 BC) follows, in which artists
made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, hieratic poses with the
dreamlike “archaic smile”. The Archaic period is often taken to end
with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens in 510 BC.
 The Classical period (c.500-323 BC) is characterised by a style
which was considered by later observers to be exemplary (i.e.
“classical”) - for instance the Parthenon. Politically, the Classical Period
was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century,
displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before
98
prevent Athens from becoming a Spartan puppet, Cleisthenes responded
by proposing to his fellow citizens that Athens undergo a revolution: that
all citizens share in political power, regardless of status: that Athens
become a “democracy”. So enthusiastically did the Athenians take
to this idea that, having overthrown Isagoras and implemented
Cleisthenes’s reforms, they were easily able to repel a Spartan-led
three-pronged invasion aimed at restoring Isagoras [7]. The advent
of the democracy cured many of the ills of Athens and led to a
“golden age” for the Athenians.
Classical Greece. Athens and Sparta would soon have to become
allies in the face of the largest external threat ancient Greece would
see until the Roman conquest. After suppressing the Ionian Revolt, a
rebellion of the Greek cities of Ionia, Darius I of Persia, King of Kings
of the Achaemenid Empire, decided to subjugate Greece. His invasion
in 490 BC was ended by the heroic Athenian victory at the Battle of
Marathon under Miltiades the Younger.
Xerxes I of Persia, son and successor of Darius I, attempted his
own invasion 10 years later, but despite his overwhelmingly large army
he was defeated after the famous rearguard action at Thermopylae
and victories for the allied Greeks at the Battles of Salamis and Plataea.
The Greco-Persian Wars continued until 449 BC, led by the Athenians
and their Delian League, during which time the Macedon, Thrace, the
Aegean Islands and Ionia were all liberated from Persian influence.
The dominant position of the maritime Athenian “Empire”
threatened Sparta and the Peloponnesian League of mainland Greek
cities. Inevitably, this led to conflict, resulting in the Peloponnesian War
(431-404 BC). Though effectively a stalemate for much of the war,
Athens suffered a number of setbacks. The Plague of Athens in 430
BC followed by a disastrous military campaign known as the Sicilian
Expedition severely weakened Athens. An estimated one-third of
Athenians died, including Pericles, their leader [8].
Sparta was able to foment rebellion amongst Athens’s allies,
further reducing the Athenian ability to wage war. The decisive moment
came in 405 BC when Sparta cut off the grain supply to Athens from
the Hellespont. Forced to attack, the crippled Athenian fleet was
decisively defeated by the Spartans under the command of Lysander at
Aegospotami. In 404 BC Athens sued for peace, and Sparta dictated a
predictably stern settlement: Athens lost her city walls (including the
Long Walls), her fleet, and all of her overseas possessions.
century BC, an act without precedent or antecedent in ancient Greece.
This practice allowed a social revolution to occur [6]. The subjugated
population, thenceforth known as helots, farmed and laboured for Sparta,
whilst every Spartan male citizen became a soldier of the Spartan Army
in a permanently militarized state. Even the elite were obliged to live
and train as soldiers; this equality between rich and poor served to diffuse
the social conflict. These reforms, attributed to the shadowy Lycurgus
of Sparta, were probably complete by 650 BC.
Athens suffered a land and agrarian crisis in the late 7th century,
again resulting in civil strife. The Archon (chief magistrate) Draco made
severe reforms to the law code in 621 BC (hence Draconian), but these
failed to quell the conflict. Eventually the moderate reforms of Solon
(594 BC), improving the lot of the poor but firmly entrenching the
aristocracy in power, gave Athens some stability.
By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant
in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. Each of them
had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their
control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and
mercantile powers as well.
Rapidly increasing population in the 8th and 7th centuries had
resulted in emigration of many Greeks to form colonies in Magna Graecia
(Southern Italy and Sicily), Asia Minor and further afield. The emigration
effectively ceased in the 6th century by which time the Greek world
had, culturally and linguistically, become much larger than the area of
present-day Greece. Greek colonies were not politically controlled by
their founding cities, although they often retained religious and
commercial links with them.
In this period, huge economic development occurred in Greece
and also her overseas colonies which experienced a growth in
commerce and manufacturing. There was a large improvement in
the living standards of the population. Some studies estimate that
the average size of the Greek household, in the period from 800 BC
to 300 BC, increased five times, which indicates a large increase in the
average income of the population.
In the second half of the 6th century, Athens fell under the tyranny
of Peisistratos and then his sons Hippias and Hipparchos. However, in
510 BC, at the instigation of the Athenian aristocrat Cleisthenes, the
Spartan king Cleomenes I helped the Athenians overthrow the tyranny.
Afterwards, Sparta and Athens promptly turned on each other, at which
point Cleomenes I installed Isagoras as a pro-Spartan archon. Eager to
1110
Hellenistic Greece. The Hellenistic period lasted from 323 BC,
which marked the end of the Wars of Alexander the Great, to the
annexation of the Greece by the Roman Republic in 146 BC. Although
the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic
society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the
advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.
During the Hellenistic period, the importance of “Greece
proper” (that is, the territory of modern Greece) within the Greek-
speaking world declined sharply. The great centers of Hellenistic
culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt
and Seleucid Syria respectively.
The conquests of Alexander had numerous consequences for
the Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks and
led to a steady emigration, particularly of the young and ambitious, to
the new Greek empires in the east [9]. Many Greeks migrated to
Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded
in Alexander’s wake, as far away as what are now Afghanistan and
Pakistan, where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek
Kingdom survived until the end of the 1st century BC.
After the death of Alexander his empire was, after quite some
conflict, divided amongst his generals, resulting in the Ptolemaic
Kingdom (based upon Egypt), the Seleucid Empire (based on the
Levant, Mesopotamia and Persia) and the Antigonid dynasty based
in Macedon. In the intervening period, the poleis of Greece were
able to wrest back some of their freedom, although still nominally
subject to the Macedonian Kingdom.
The city states formed themselves into two leagues; the Achaean
League (including Thebes, Corinth and Argos) and the Aetolian League
(including Sparta and Athens). For much of the period until the Roman
conquest, these leagues were usually at war with each other, and/or
allied to different sides in the conflicts between the Diadochi (the
successor states to Alexander’s empire).
The Antigonid Kingdom became involved in a war with the
Roman Republic in the late 3rd century. Although the First
Macedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion,
continued to make war on Macedon until it was completely absorbed
into the Roman Republic (by 149 BC). In the east the unwieldy
Seleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump survived
until 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt until
Greece thus entered the 4th century under a Spartan hegemony,
but it was clear from the start that this was weak. A demographic crisis
meant Sparta was overstretched, and by 395 BC Athens, Argos, Thebes,
and Corinth felt able to challenge Spartan dominance, resulting in the
Corinthian War (395-387 BC). Another war of stalemates, it ended
with the status quo restored, after the threat of Persian intervention on
behalf of the Spartans.
The Spartan hegemony lasted another 16 years, until, when
attempting to impose their will on the Thebans, the Spartans suffered a
decisive defeat at Leuctra in 371 BC. The Theban general Epaminondas
then led Theban troops into the Peloponnese, whereupon other city-
states defected from the Spartan cause. The Thebans were thus able
to march into Messenia and free the population.
Deprived of land and its serfs, Sparta declined to a second-rank
power. The Theban hegemony thus established was short-lived; at the
battle of Mantinea in 362 BC, Thebes lost her key leader, Epaminondas,
and much of her manpower, even though they were victorious in battle.
In fact such were the losses to all the great city-states at Mantinea that
none could establish dominance in the aftermath.
The weakened state of the heartland of Greece coincided
with the Rise of Macedon, led by Philip II. In twenty years, Philip
had unified his kingdom, expanded it north and west at the expense
of Illyrian tribes, and then conquered Thessaly and Thrace. His
success stemmed from his innovative reforms to the Macedon army.
Phillip intervened repeatedly in the affairs of the southern city-states,
culminating in his invasion of 338 BC.
Decisively defeating an allied army of Thebes and Athens at the
Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), he became de facto hegemon of all of
Greece. He compelled the majority of the city-states to join the League
of Corinth, allying them to him, and preventing them from warring with
each other. Philip then entered into war against the Achemaenid Empire
but was assassinated by Pausanias of Orestis early on in the conflict.
Alexander, son and successor of Philip, continued the war.
Alexander defeated Darius III of Persia and completely destroyed the
Achaemenid Empire, annexing it to Macedon and earning himself the
epithet “the Great”. When Alexander died in 323 BC, Greek power
and influence was at its zenith. However, there had been a fundamental
shift away from the fierce independence and classical culture of the
poleis-and instead towards the developing Hellenistic culture.
12
30 BC, when it too was conquered by the Romans. The Aetolian
league grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided with
the Seleucids in the Roman-Syrian War; when the Romans were
victorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic.
Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian league
and Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romans
in 146 BC, bringing an end to the independence of all of Greece.
Roman Greece. The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule in
146 BC, Macedonia becoming a Roman province, while southern Greece
came under the surveillance of Macedonia’s praefect. However, some
Greek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoid
taxation. The Aegean islands were added to this territory in 133 BC.
Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was
crushed by the Roman general Sulla. The Roman civil wars devastated
the land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as the
province of Achaea in 27 BC.
Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the
Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman. The Greek language
served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy, and many Greek
intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome.
_____________________________
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Ancient Greece

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