World History I: Final Test Review

4.1: Early People of the Aegean
Minoans

• Minoan civilization developed on the island of Crete; they absorbed many ideas from older civilizations, like Egypt and Mesopotamia, as the Greeks would be influenced by them.
• This movement of ideas from east to west is hinted in the legend of Europa's kidnapping, in which Zeus (as a bull), kidnapped Europa while she was gathering flowers.  He carried her across the Mediterranean Sea to the island of Crete, the same way ideas moved.
• It is not known how the Minoans called themselves; this name was given by the British archeologist who unearthed their ruins, after their legendary king, Minos.
• Minoan civilization peaked between 1600 B.C. and 1500 B.C.
• Their success was based on trade, not conquest.
• Through trading throughout the Aegean, they came in contact with Egypt and Mesopotamia, acquiring and adapting ideas and technology in fields such as writing and architecture.
• Minoan rulers lived in a vast palace at the ancient city of Knossos, in Crete; this palace had many rooms, banquet halls, artisan working areas and shrines.
• Shrines are areas dedicated to the honors of gods and goddesses.
• Walls of this palace were covered with colorful frescoes.
• Frescoes are watercolor paintings done on wet plaster.
• These frescoes tell us much about Minoan society; thanks to them we know Minoans gave importance to the sea, worshiped the bull and a mother goddess. and that women appeared freely and may have enjoyed more rights than in other civilizations.
• Minoan civilization vanished around 1400 B.C. for archaeologically unknown reasons, yet it is certain Mycenaean invaders played a role.
• It is also thought a sudden volcanic eruption on a nearby island or an earthquake that led to a tsunami may have occurred.

Mycenaeans

• Mycenaeans are the first Greek-speaking people of whom we have written record.
• They spoke an Indo-European language, like the Aryans.
• They conquered the Greek mainland before Crete.
• Mycenaeans were sea traders, like the Minoans; they dominated the Aegean from about 1400 B.C. to 1200 B.C.
• They reached outside of the Aegean, to Sicily, Italy, Egypt and Mesopotamia.
• Mycenaeans learned a lot from the Minoans, like the art of writing, as well as many Egyptian and Mesopotamian customs they later passed on to Greeks.
• Mycenaeans lived in separate city-states on the mainland; a warrior-king ruled each from a thick-walled fortress he built.
• Archaeologists have found wealthy rulers buried with fine gold ornaments.
• Mycenaeans fought in the Trojan War, which took place around 1250 B.C.

Trojan War

• This ten-year war is said to have originated due to economic rivalry between Mycenae and Troy, a rich trading city in present-day Turkey.
• Troy controlled the vital straits (narrow water passages) that connected the Mediterranean and Black seas.
• In Greek legend, the war's cause was Paris, a Trojan prince who kidnapped Helen, wife of a Greek king.  According to legend, the Mycenaeans sailed to Troy to rescue her, where they fought for the next 10 years until they burnt Troy.
• Mycenaeans won the Trojan War and burnt Troy.
• This war was regarded as a legend until Heinrich Schliemann, a wealthy German businessman, sent out to prove the war's existence, in the 1870s, and found evidence of fire and dating to 1250 B.C.
• Though scholars agree the Trojan War happened, some of its events are known to be legends.
• The Dorians invaded the Mycenaeans from the north shortly after they won the Trojan War.
• Dorians were Greek-speaking people, like the Mycenaeans.
• Greek civilization seemed to step backward as Mycenaean power faded around 1100 B.C. up to 900 B.C. because people abandoned their cities and trade declined, due to this people forgot many skills like the art of writing.
• We know about the Trojan War greatly due to epic poems like the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are credited to the poet Homer, who lived around 750 B.C.
• According to tradition, Homer was a blind poet who wandered from village to village, singing of heroic deeds.
• His tales were passed down orally for generations before they were written.
• The Iliad is our chief source of information about the Trojan War, even though it's filled with gods, goddesses, and has a talking horse.
• This poem starts with Achilles, the mightiest Greek warrior, who withdrew from battle because he considered he'd been unfairly treated and insulted by his commander.
• The Greeks start losing, but Achilles refuses to rejoin until his best friend is killed.
• The Odyssey is another of Homer's epic poems; this one tells Odysseus' struggles on his return home from winning the Trojan War to his faithful wife, Penelope.
• Odysseus encounters many things on his long voyage, like a sea monster, a race of one-eyed giants, and a beautiful sorceress who turns men into pigs.
• The Iliad and the Odyssey reveal about the Greek's values through the heroes they focus on: honor, courage, and eloquence are some of these values.
• Homer's epics have inspired European artists and writers for almost 3,000 years.
• Several centuries passed in obscurity in Greece after the Dorian invasions, people lived in small isolated villages with little contact, yet they slowly forged a new Greek civilization that would dominate the region in the future and influence the present age.

4.2: The Rise of Greek City-States

• The Mediterranean and Aegean seas were as central to Greece's development as the Nile was to Egypt.
• Greeks adapted a lot of Mesopotamian and Egyptian traits to their civilization; however, their government was very unique.
• Greece was divided in individual polis (city-state).
• Greece's geography was very different to that of past civilizations that rose in fertile valleys.
• Greece is part of the Balkan peninsula, which extends southward into the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
• The peninsula is divided into isolated valleys by mountains.
• There are also hundreds of rocky islands.
• Greeks did not create an empire like the Persians or the Egyptians; they built many small city-states, cut off from one another by mountains or water.
• Each city-state, or polis, consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside.
• Greeks defended the independence of their small city-states; war was frequent due to endless rivalry.
• The Greeks were linked to the outside world through the seas.
• The Grek coastline had hundreds of bays that offered safe harbors for ships.
• Greeks became skilled sailors and carried cargoes of olive oil, wine, and marble to parts of the eastern Mediterranean.
• They returned with grains, metals, and ideas they adapted to their needs.
• One of the main ideas Greeks got through trading was the alphabet from the Phoenicians, which they adapted.
• The alphabet adapted by the Greeks became the basis for all later alphabets, including ours.
• The word "alphabet" comes from the Greek names for the first two letters of the alphabet: "alpha" and "beta".
• By 750 B.C. many Greeks had to leave their city-states due to rapid population growth led to a scattering of Greek colonies all around the Mediterranean (from Spain to Egypt).
• Greeks brought with them their ideas and culture.
• Greek polis were typically built on two levels.
• The acropolis (high city) stood on top of a hill; it had great marble temples dedicated to different gods and goddesses.
• The acropolis was the highest and most fortified point of a city-state.
• On flatter ground (below the acropolis) lay the walled main city with its marketplace, theater, public buildings, and homes.
• Populations of polis were generally small, because of this, citizens (free residents) had a sense of responsibility for the polis' triumphs and defeats.
• Free men spent a lot of time outdoors in the warm climate of Greece; they went to the marketplace and debated issues that affected their daily lives.
• The whole of a polis' community joined in festivals to honor their special gods and goddesses.
• In Greece, citizen's rights were unequal and male landowners held all the political power.
• Greek government evolved between 750 B.C. and 500 B.C.
• At first, the ruler of the polis was a king; this type of government in which a hereditary ruler exercises central power is a monarchy.
• Power slowly shifted to a class of noble landowners who were also the military defenders of the polis because they were the only ones who could afford bronze weapons and chariots; this government in which a hereditary landholding elite rules is called an aristocracy.
• At first, the aristocrats defended the king, but they won power for themselves.
• Trade expanded and a new middle class of wealthy merchants, farmers, and artisans emerged; the result of their challenges to the nobles led to an oligarchy, which is where a small, wealthy elite rules.
• Military technology developed as well.
• By 650 B.C. iron weapons replaced bronze ones because iron was cheaper, due to this more people could afford equipment.
• The phalanx also emerged, this was a massive tactical formation of heavily armed foot soldiers; this required a lot of training to master and created a sense of unity among citizen-soldiers.
• The phalanx reduced class differences.

Sparta

• The city-state of Sparta is one of the greatest known; it was built when Dorian invaders from the north conquered Laconia and settled here.
• Laconia is in the southern part of the Peloponnesus.
• Dorians turned conquered people into state-owned slaves called helots.
• Spartans made helots work the land.
• Helots outnumbered their rulers greatly, so the Spartans controlled them with brutal strictness.
• The Spartan government consisted of:
• 2 kings
• a council of elders who advised the monarchs
• an assembly that approved major decisions
• This assembly was made up of all citizens; citizens were male, native-born Spartans over the age of 30.
• Within the assembly, 5 ephors (officials) who ran day-to-day affairs were elected.
• Lycurgus, a Spartan lawgiver, set up a tough system of education at Sparta in which children weren't given shoes to harden their feet and were accustomed to wearing a single garment a whole year.  Education was very strict.
• Newborns were examined, those that appeared sickly were left to die.
• At age 7, boys moved into the barracks, where they were toughened by a coarse diet, hard exercise, and rigid discipline to make them excellent soldiers.
• Boys were encouraged to steal food to develop cunning and supplement their diet; however, they were beaten severely if caught.
• At age 20, a man could marry but continued to live in the barracks.
• At age 30, a man could move out of the barracks and partake in the assembly after further training.
• Men still ate in the barracks for another 40 years.
• Girls were toughened up to and respected because they had to produce healthy sons for the army.  Spartan women had more rights than other women of the same time.
• Women were expected to exercise and be strong.
• Women in Sparta had to obey their fathers and husbands, yet could inherit property and were often left responsibilities when their husbands went off to war.

Athens

• Athens was located in Attica, which is just north of the Peloponnesus.
• Athenian government developed periodically.
• First there was a monarchy, in which a single hereditary king ruled.
• By 700 B.C. there was an aristocracy in which landowners held power and chose the chief officials, judged major court cases and dominated the assembly.
• Athenian wealth and power grew with the aristocracy, yet discontent spread among ordinary people.
• Soldiers and merchants resented nobles' power and argued their service earned them more rights.
• Foreign artisans were also mad because foreigners couldn't become citizens.
• Farmers were also mad because they had to sell their land and themselves and their families to slavery to pay their debts.
• A democracy, or government by the people, surged in Athens due to the working class' discontent; however, this democracy was very different to the one we have today.
• Solon was a wise and trusted leader that was appointed archon, or chief official, in 594 B.C.  After being given a free hand to make needed reforms, he:
• outlawed debt slavery and freed those who had been sold into slavery for debt
• opened high offices to more citizens
• granted citizenship to some foreigners
• gave the assembly more say in important decisions
• encouraged the export of wine and olive oil
• Even after Solon's reforms citizen was limited and many positions were only for the wealthy, so discontent remained and led to the rise of tyrants, who were people who gained power by force.
• Tyrants weren't always bad and often won support from merchants and the poor by imposing reforms to help them.
• Pisistratus was an Athenian tyrant that seized power in 546 B.C., he mainly benefited the poor through his reforms; he:
• helped farmers by giving them loans and taking land from nobles
• gave jobs to the poor through new building projects
• gave poor citizens a greater voice, weakening the aristocracy
• Cleisthenes was another reformer in 507 B.C., he:
• broadened the role of ordinary citizens in the government
• set up the Council of 500
• Members of this council were chosen by lot from among all citizens over the age of 30.
• The council prepared laws that would be considered by the assembly as well as supervising the government's day-to-day work.
• made the assembly a genuine legislature (lawmaking body) that debated laws before approving or rejecting them
• All male citizens belonged to the assembly and were expected to participate.
• Athens' democracy was very limited; it only included citizens, and citizenship was required to male landowning men.  Still, it was a big say compared to the generation.
• Women, merchants, kids of non-citizens and slaves were excluded in the government.
• Even though women didn't participate in the government; they were important in religion, as well as in their households, even though generally not seen in public.
• Poor women of Athens worked outside home and were therefore seen.
• Aristotle said: "The man is by nature fitter for command than the female, just as an older person is superior to a younger, more immature one".
• Athenian girls received little to no formal education and boys attended school if their families could afford it.
• In Spartan schools, reading, writing, music, poetry, and public speaking were taught.
• Military training was a part of education but not a primordial one; Athens encouraged young men to explore many areas of knowledge.

Greek Unity

• Despite independent spirits and economic rivalry between the city-states; they shared a common culture, a language, honored the same ancient heroes, participated in common festivals and prayed to the same gods.
• Greeks were polytheistic, like most ancient people.
• According to their myths, the gods lived on Mount Olympus, in northern Greece.
• Zeus was the most powerful Olympian; he presided over the affairs of gods and humans.
• Ares was the god of war, a son of Zeus.
• Aphrodite was the goddess of love, a daughter of Zeus.
• Athena was the goddess of wisdom; she gave her name to the city of Athens and was a daughter of Zeus.
• Processions, sacrifices, feasts, plays, choral singing and athletic competitions were ways to honor the gods.
• Greeks consulted oracles, who were priests or priestesses through whom the gods were thought to speak.
• Despite Greek religion, some Greek thinkers came to believe the universe was regulated not by the gods but by natural laws,
• As Greece grew, outside contact grew as well.
• Barbaroi was the term used by the Greeks to describe people who didn't speak Greek.
• The English word barbarian comes from here.
• Phoenicians and Egyptians were amongst these barbarians.

4.3: Conflict in the Greek World
Persian Wars

• In 499 B.C. Ionian Greeks rebelled against Persian rule.
• Darius I, king of Persia, was furious of how the Athenians had been treated, so he sends a huge force to Marathron where Athenians triumph despite seeing outnumbered.
• Themistocles knew the victory at Marathon had only brought a temporary lull in fighting; he urged Athenians to prepare warships and other defenses.
• Athens won Marathon with little to no external help, even though they asked.
• Darius died before he could attack again, but his son Xerxes sent a much larger force to conquer Greece in 480 B.C.
• By this time, Spartans and Athenians fought against a common enemy: the Persians.
• Spartans heroically guarded the mountain pass at Thermopulae, led by the great warrior-king Leonidas; however, the Persians triumphed, burned Athens and marched south.
• Greece was empty.  They all went to the strait of Salamis and lured the Persian navy into the narrow strait.  The boats they built, following Themistocles' orders, were much smaller than Athenian warships, which sank due to their big size whilst Xerxes watched from a distance.
• Greeks defeated the Persians on land in Asia Minor next year and put an end to Persian invasions.
• Athens was considered the strongest city-state after war, so they established an alliance to protect themselves; this is called my modern scholars as the Delian League after Delos, which is where they met.
• Athens dominated the Delian League and was slowly creating an empire.
• The treasury was moved from Delos to Athens.
• Some money was used to rebuild Athens.
• Athens didn't let allies withdraw.

Age of Pericles (460 B.C. - 429 B.C.)

• The years after the Persian Wars, from 460 B.C. to 439 B.C., were a golden age for Athens under Pericles, an able statesman who was a wise and skilled leader.
• He made the government a direct democracy, so people participated directly in daily government affairs instead of electing representatives that'd do it for them.
• The Assembly (Ecclesia) met several times a month by the time of Pericles.
• The Council of 500 (Boule) was the one that conducted daily government business.
• Pericles believed everyone should partake in the government, regardless of wealth or social class.
• Due to this Athens began to pay a stipend, or a fixed salary, to men who participated in the Assembly and the Council of 500.
• This allowed poor men to serve in the government.
• Athenians also served in juries, which were panels of citizens that made the final judgment on a trial.
• Athenian juries consisted of hundreds or even thousands of jurors; citizens over 30 were chosen to serve on the jury for a year.
• Athenian citizens could also vote to send away anyone who threatened their democracy through the process of ostracism; the person with the largest number of votes cast against him was ostracized and therefore had to live outside the city for about 10 years.
• Pericles directed the rebuilding of the acropolis the Persians had destroyed.
• Aspasia was an educated, foreign-born woman that helped Pericles turn Athens into the cultural center of Greece.

Peloponnesian War

• A lot of Greeks outside Athens resented their power and success, so Sparta and their allies formed the Peloponnesian League to counter the Delian League.
• In 431 B.C., warfare broke out between Sparta and Athens; this war lasted 27 years and engulfed all of Greece, split into enemy camps.
• Sparta defeated Athens in the Peloponnesian War; one of the advantages they had over Greece is the fact Sparta was inland so the Athenians couldn't use their navy.  Also, Sparta's army just had to march north to attack Athens.
• Pericles let everyone into the walled city when the Spartans came; this overcrowding caused a plague that killed many Athenians, including Pericles.
• By the end of the war, Sparta had even allied with Persia.
• In 404 B.C., Sparta captured Athens with help from the Persian navy, yet they did not destroy Sparta but stripped them of their fleet and empire.
• This war led to a decline of Greek power.
• Athens was able to recover economically and remain the cultural center of Greece, yet its spirit and vitality declined.
• Whilst Greeks fought amongst themselves a new power rose in Macedonia, a kingdom to the north of Greece.

4.4: The Glory That Was Greece
Philosophers

• Greek thinkers are called philosophers, which means lovers of wisdom.
• These thinkers explored mathematics, music, logic, and rational thinking.
• Their goal was to discover the laws that governed the universe.
• Some philosophers were also interested in ethics and morality.
• These philosophers debated on what the best type of government was and what standards should rule human behavior.
• Sophists questioned accepted ideas; to them, success was more important than moral truth.
• Sophists developed skills in rhetoric, the art of skillful speaking.
• After the Peloponnesian War many young Athenians followed the Sophists, yet some older ones accused them of undermining traditional Greek values.
• Socrates was an Athenian stonemason and philosopher.
• Wrote no books; passed his days in the town square asking people about their beliefs using the Socratic method.
• He thought by doing this he helped others seek truth and self-knowledge.
• Was put on trial when he was 70 years old; enemies accused him of corrupting the city's youth and failing to respect the gods.
• Socrates was condemned to death by a jury of 501 and accepted this by drinking a cup of hemlock, a deadly poison.
• Plato was Socrates' student; most of what we know about Socrates comes from him.
• He hated democracy and distrusted it because of Socrates' condemning.
• He fled Athens for 10 years and set up a school called the Academy when he returned.
• He emphasized the importance of reason, like his teacher, Socrates.
• Wrote The Republic, which is his vision of an ideal state; it was divided into three classes: workers to produce, soldiers to defend, and philosophers o rule.
• The wisest would be a philosopher-king with ultimate authority.
• Thought men were smarter and stronger than women, in general, but that some women were superior to some men.
• He believed talented women should be educated to serve the state.
• Aristotle was Plato's most famous student; he developed his own ideas about government by analyzing all forms.
• He, like Plato, was suspicious of democracy, and favored a single, strong and virtuous leader.
• He addressed the question of how people should live, for him, the goal was to pursue the golden mean.
• He promoted reason as the guiding force of learning.
• He set up a school, the Lyceum, for the study of all branches of knowledge.
• Left writings on politics, ethics, logic, biology, literature, and many other subjects.
• University courses were based largely on the works and ideas of Aristotle, at first.
• Argued every object on Earth had an ideal form.

Arts

• Greek architects sought to convey a sense of perfect balance to reflect the harmony and order of the universe.
• The Parthenon, in the acropolis of Athens, is the most famous example of Greek architecture; it is dedicated to the goddess Athena and its basic plan consists of a rectangle with tall columns that support a gently sloping roof.
• Early Greek sculptors carved figures in rigid poses, but by 450 B.C. they developed a new style that emphasized more natural forms; their work was lifelike and idealistic.
• The only Greek paintings that have survived are on pottery; they offer us unique views of every day Grek life.
• Greeks developed a style of literature that later Europeans considered a model of perfection.
• Greek literature began with the epic poems of Homer; Sappho also sang of love and of the beauty of her island home, while the poetry of Pindar celebrated athletic triumph.
• The first Greek plays evolved out of religious festivals, especially those held in Athens to honor Dionysus, god of fertility and wine.
• Plays were performed in large outdoor theaters with little or no scenery.
• Actors wore elaborate costumes and stylized masks.
• A chorus sang or chanted comments on the action taking place on stage.
• Greek dramas were often based on popular myths and legends.
• The greatest Athenian playwrights were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; all three wrote tragedies.
• Sophocles and Euripides survived the Peloponnesian War.
• Euripides' plays suggest people are the cause of human misfortune and suffering, not the gods.
• Tragedies are plays that told stories of human suffering and ended in disaster,
• The purpose of tragedies was to stir up and then relieve pity and fear.
• Oresteia was one of Aeschylus' plays, in this play he showed a powerful family torn apart by betrayal, murder, and revenge and how horrifying the wrath of the gods can be.
• Antigone was one of Sophocles' plays, in this play he explores what happens when an individual's morals conflict with the laws of the state,
• Antigone is a young woman whose brother was killed during a rebellion.
• King Creon forbids anyone to bury the traitor's body, but Antigone buries her brother anyway and is sentenced to death.
• Comedies were humorous plays that mocked people or customs.
• Aristophanes is the writer of almost all surviving Greek comedies.
• In Lysistrata, he shows the women of Athens banding together to end a war against Sparta.
• Herodotus is often called the "Father of History" because he visited many lands and collected information before writing The Persian Wars.
• Herodotus described his work with the term "historie".
• Herodotus is biased towards the Greeks over the Persians.
• Thucydides is another historian who was a few years younger than Herodotus.
• He wrote about the Peloponnesian War since he had lived through it.
• Was not very biased.

4.5: Alexander and the Hellenistic Age
Alexander the Great

• Alexander inherited the Macedonian empire from his father, Philip II.
• Philip II had lived in Thebes and come to admire Greek culture as a youth.
• His father sent him to Greece for 3 years as a well-treated captive as part of a treaty.
• Here, Philip learned a lot about Greek general Epaminondas' tactics.
• Philip II gained the throne in 359 B.C. after his brother and father died, with hopes of conquering the city-states to the south.
• To do this, he built a powerful army and formed alliances with many Greek city-states, others he conquered.
• Athens and Thebes joined forces against him in 338 B.C., Philip defeated them at Chaeronea and then brought all of Greece under his control.
• This was a decisive battle in which Alexander fought.
• Philip II earned to conquer the Persian empire, but was assasinated by a bodyguard at his daughter's wedding before he could do this.
• Assassination is the murder of a public figure, usually for political reasons.
• It is said Alexander had to do with this assassination, to rise to power.
• Philip II hired Aristotle as a tutor for Alexander.
• "Philip gave Alexander life, but Aristotle taught him how to live it".
• Alexander was a great soldier and slept with the Iliad under his pillow; Achilles was his hero.
• Philip had lost an eye because where his wife Olympias was from snakes were very commonly used in different rituals, yet it represented Zeus, so Philip once saw his wife in the bed with a snake and thought it was Zeus, so he took out his eye with which he had seen it.
• Macedonia was tribal, yet Philip unified them when he rose to power.  He successfully established:
• a permanent army
• united Macedonia
• united Greece and Macedonia
• Even if it was necessary to do so by force.
• Demosthenes was one of the best orator in history; he wrote the Philipies, speeches that convinced Greeks to fight and rebel against Philip.
• Demosthenes studdered, had bad posture, a low tone, and did not think quick, yet he wrote and was committed to being the best orator.
• Demosthenes shaved his head and went to a cave by the sea; he said he wouldn't come out until he fixed his defects, so he put rocks in his mouth to stop studdering, a sword in his back for posture, and raised his tone talking beside the sea.  After his hair grew back, he went back as the best orator.
• When Alexander was 12, he saw a huge horse no one could tame, this was Bucephalus; Alexander figured out he was scared of his own shadow so he turned him and could mount him.
• Olympias, who was a barbarian and Philip's queen, outmaneuvered his other wives and their purMacedonianan children to put her son, Alexander, on the throne.
• Alexander was femenine, which made things between him and his father a little bad.
• Philip was an alpha male and married often.
• Even though Alexander was 20, he was already an experienced soldier and very passionate.
• He started organizing the forces required to conquer Persia, which was not the great power it had once been.
• Darius III was weak and provinces often rebelled, yet it was still very big, stretching 2,000 miles from Egypt to India.
• By 334 B.C. he had enough ships to cross the Dardanelles, the strait that separates Europe from Asia Minor.
• Before fighting the Persians he went to Achilles' tomb in Illium and took his shield.
• He also went to Gordium, where king Midas lived, there was a carriage with an untiable know there; whoever could untie it would conquer the world.  Alexander cut the knot.
• Alexander first attacked and beat the Persians at age 12 at the Granicus River; he kept winning through the south and east, but Darius III was murdered before Alexander arrived.
• He kept marching farther east and crossed the Hindu Kush into northern India, where he faced soldiers mounted on war elephants for the first time by 326 B.C.
• They had to go back because his soldiers were tired, yet Alexander never lost a battle; at Babylon, he began planning a new campaign.
• Alexander goes to the oracle and asks "Did I avenge my father?" the oracle replies "You avenged Philip but your father is Zeus".
• Alexander begins to drink a lot and kills his best friend, Cletus whilst drunk.
• This makes him depressed for a couple of days.
• Alexander's goals and objectives were:
• to spread Greek culture
• to unite Macedonia and Persia
• to be worshiped as a god-king
• Alexander died due to a severe and sudden fever when he was 32; he never conquered any more.
• Before dying, he whispered to his generals "To the strongest".
• No leader proved strong enough, so Alexander's empire was divided and given to three different generals:
• Macedonia and Greece
• Egypt
• Persia
• For the next 300 years, his descendants competed for land he had conquered.
• Alexander spread Greek culture throughout; he also named cities after him (Alexandria) in a lot of places.
• Local people had to assimilate, or absorb, Greek ideas, like the Greeks adopted their customs.
• Alexander encouraged the blending of eastern and western cultures; he married a Persian woman and encouraged his soldiers to do so too.
• The Hellenistic culture emerged after him; it consisted of a blend between Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Indian influences.
• We know about him thanks to historians, Plutarch wrote a lot about him.

Hellenistic Age

• Alexandria, Egypt stood at the heart of the Hellenistic world.
• It was located on the sea lanes between Europe and Asia; its markets boasted a wide range of goods.
• The plans for the city were drawn by a Greek architect.
• Alexandria soon became home to almost a million people.
• The Pharos was an enormous lighthouse that soared 440 feet in the air.
• Alexander and his successors encouraged the work of scholars.
• The rulers of Alexandria built the great Museum as a center of learning.
• It boasted laboratories, lecture halls, and a zoo.
• The Library of Alexandria had thousands of scrolls with accumulated knowledge of the ancient world; sadly, this library was later destroyed in a fire.
• During the Hellenistic period, women began acquiring new roles since the legal codes no longer showed restriction to their homes.
• Women painted, made statues, and learned to read and write; some even became philosophers or poets.
• Royal women also held considerable power and worked alongside husbands and sons, yet in Egypt, Cleopatra VII came to rule in her own right.
• Hellenistic cities employed a lot of architects and artists because their temples and palaces were much larger and grander than those of classical Greece.
• The elaborate style showed the desire of Hellenistic rulers to be glorified as gods.
• Political turmoil during the Hellenistic age led to the rise of new schools of philosophy.
• Stoicism was the most influential, founded by Zeno, it urged people to avoid desires and disappointments by accepting calmly whatever life brought.
• Stoics preached high moral standards, such as the idea of protecting fellow humans' rights.
• All people were considered morally equal in Stoicism because they had reason; this included women and slaves.
• Stoicism later influenced many Roman and Christian thinkers.
• Great astronomical and mathematical advances took place during the Hellenistic age; these based themselves on earlier Greek, Babylonian, and Egyptian knowledge.
• Ptolemy was the Egyptian astronomer who developed a model of his theory of the geocentric, or Earth-centered, structure of the universe.
• This remained as the accepted model of planetary movement up until the sixteenth century, when it was disproved.
• Archimedes was the most famous Hellenistic scientist, as a Greek mathematician and inventor, he mastered the use of the lever, the pulley, and invented what is known as the Archimedean screw, a simple machine that transfers water from a low level to a higher level with a windmill or animals' power.
• Archimedes' screw simplified irrigation.
• He demonstrated the power of his lever by drawing a ship over the land before a crowd of awed spectators.
• Pythagoras derived a mathematical formula to calculate the relationship between the sides of a right triangle.
• Euclid wrote The Elements, a textbook that became the basis for modern geometry.
• Aristarchus was an astronomer that used mathematics and careful observation to conclude the Earth rotated on its axis and orbited the sun.
• This heliocentric, or sun-centered, theory wasn't accepted up until 2,000 years later.
• Eratosthenes was an astronomer that showed the Earth was round and accurately calculated its circumference.
• Hippocrates was a Greek physician that studied the causes for illnesses and looked for cures about 400 B.C.
• The Hippocratic oath he made set ethical standards for doctors, who swore to "help the sick according to my ability and judgment but never with a view to injury and wrong".
• Doctors today still do a very similar oath.
• Rome soon replaced Greece as the dominant power in the Mediterranean with its conquest of Asia Minor in 133 B.C.
• Greek legacy remains, even to this day their ideas about law, freedom, justice, and the government are influential.