The Hellenistic period in history began with the conquests of Alexander the Great in 334 BC and was a time of military and political domination of the Greek Macedonians in the Mediterranean and the Near and Middle East. The political domination of the Macedonians over other peoples from Egypt and Syria to India was accompanied by Greek, or Hellenic, cultural influence. They gradually yielded their place on the world stage to Roman and Parthian conquests in the early 1st century BC.
The Hellenistic period was a time of integration and blending of different cultures and religions of the East and West, accompanied by the subsiding of religious intolerance and national or tribal divisions. Numerous migrations of population followed, as well as the founding of new cities and states, and a gradual shift of cultural centers from Greece and Mesopotamia to the region of Syria and the eastern Mediterranean coast, particularly to newly built or renovated cities such as Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucia, Pergamon, Ephesus, Miletus, Tarsus, Smyrna, Ptolemais, and beyond. and more. It is believed that during that time, between Egypt and India, hundreds of new cities emerged. These cities were not built solely for defense and shelter, nor did they develop gradually around defensive towers. They were built systematically, with intersecting streets and divided into quarters; they had town halls, colonnades, parks, sports centers, theaters, odeons, and schools… The first universities were established in Pergamon and Alexandria, along with famous museums, cultural institutions with libraries, zoological and botanical gardens, workshops, cabinets, and residences for scholars. It is estimated that the Library of Alexandria contained a collection of approximately 700,000 scrolls at its peak, and the Pergamon library around 200,000 scrolls. It is also known that Macedonian and Syrian kings had significant libraries.
Most of the new cities grew at the crossroads of trade routes. The Eastern sense of comfort and luxury gradually conquered the Western world. There was a demand for increasingly finer clothing, Furniture, tableware… The feast became more diverse, and spices, scents, silk and jewelry entered the daily life not only of the richest. The world started moving, seeking common paths, common interests and efforts. There arose a need for education that enabled social prestige, as wealth, position in state service, and education began to be recognized as measures of a person’s value.
Hellenism is today understood as a synthesis of Greek and Eastern cultures, with Greek culture dominating. However, such an attitude is biased and in line with the positivist endeavor to highlight the superiority of Europeans over the rest of the world at all costs. In this spirit, Bertrand Russell wrote: “The barbarians learned some Greek science, while the Greeks learned many barbaric superstitions.” Avoiding such biases, it is necessary to realize that the influence was mutual and equal, no more Hellenic than Persian, Egyptian, or even Indian.
The influence of the East on the Hellenistic world was also obtain and apparent not only in everyday life, but also in all aspects of what will be a significant characteristic for Hellenism. Firstly, it involves the state and administrative apparatus inherited from Persia, with a two-thousand-year-old legislative tradition from Mesopotamia, and partly adopting the organization of Egyptian nomes. Such a structure enabled the integration of different cultures into a whole, while at the same time allowing for a certain cultural and religious autonomy for each of them. This system, which the Greeks of the classical period failed to develop through their loose civic alliances, will later facilitate the development of the Roman Empire by applying the same model.
The libraries and educational institutions of the Hellenic world had their models in the cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt, as well as a penchant for monumentality in architecture, reflected in the construction of the lighthouse of Alexandria on Pharos, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus… The traditional knowledge of the Chaldeans, magi, and Egyptian priests enabled The recent surge in science was heavily influenced by the mathematical and astronomical knowledge of Mesopotamia and Egypt, particularly during the emergence of science under the patronage of the Peripatetics in Greece. The Greeks were particularly influenced by the Hermetic knowledge of the Egyptians, as well as alchemy, medicine, and Babylonian astrology, which was first taught by the Chaldean Beroes on the island of Kos.
Further influence can be seen in religion and philosophy, where Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, Brahmanism, and Buddhism had a significant impact on Stoic and Eclectic philosophy, as well as on early Christianity, which emerged in the Hellenistic world. Although the influence of Indian philosophy is often overlooked today, it is known that during the Ptolemaic period, Buddhist converts taught in Alexandria, and the emperor Ashoka sent Buddhist missions to all Hellenistic kings. Greek philosopher Megasthenes, who resided at the court of Emperor Chandragupta, studied and wrote about Indian science and philosophy, attracting great interest in the Greek world. Indian medicine, in particular, gained significant popularity in the Greek world. In praise of the said influence from the East, Megasthenes, Strabo, Onesicritus, and a Roman physician named Cels from the 1st century have all written favorably about it.
During the first phase of Hellenism, largely thanks to these influences from the East, Greek science experienced further flourishing, reaching its peak. Knowledge in mathematics, physics, mechanics, geometry, astronomy, biology, and medicine far surpassed the level of understanding in the classical period. The greatest hotspot for scientific discoveries was the Alexandrian Museum. It was there that Euclid wrote his thirteen books of Elements (Stoikheia), in which he developed the foundations of geometry and mathematics. It was there that Archimedes of Syracuse studied, wrote his most significant works, and created his most important inventions, such as the Archimedean screw used for irrigation, the crane with a system of free pulleys, and the mechanically operated planetary model. Ctesibius invented the rotating water clock, a double-action piston water pump, a water organ with about twenty pipes, and Heron perfected a specific type of During the steam engine era, astronomy was studied in the Museum by Aristarchus of Samos, who is known for his statement that the fixed stars and the Sun remain immobile, while the Earth revolves around the Sun in a circular path, with the Sun at the center of this orbit. His successor, Eratosthenes of Cyrene, claimed that by traveling westward by sea from the Pillars of Hercules, or Gibraltar, one could reach India. He almost accurately calculated the Earth’s circumference and also introduced the widely accepted system of meridians and parallels in geography. Hipparchus of Nicaea was the first to measure the time difference of the equinoxes, the difference between the sidereal and tropical year, and constructed the first astrolabe. The greatest practical geographical discovery was made by the mariner Eudoxus of Cyzicus (around 115 BC), who discovered the monsoon route to India from Arabia, far from land, significantly shortening the journey. Special attention was given to medicine, and a new Alexandrian medical school was developed in the Museum, with Herophilus of Halkedon, the pioneer of anatomical study of the human body. Within the Jewish diaspora in Alexandria, there were also the so-called therapists. Although Alexandria stood out, there were other significant scientific centers: medical centers on the island of Kos, in Knidos, Pergamon, Smyrna, and Epidaurus, astronomical centers in Rhodes and Seleucia, mathematical centers in Elis, Cyrene, and Tarentum, and Athens continued to be the center of the philosophical world.
Greek philosophical works had a great influence on later Persian philosophy and science in general. It is thanks to the fact that in Persia, the Greek language remained the language of science, that numerous works of ancient authors were preserved in their original form even a thousand years later. Linguistic tolerance is evident from the records of the Indian ruler Ashoka in Greek and Aramaic.
Hellenistic art is now called the “baroque of antiquity”. Although it did not have the depth possessed by the art of the classical period, there is a known series of exceptional works, such as the Venus de Milo and the Nike of Samothrace. , Apollon Belvedere, Gal on the deathbed, Laocoon and his sons, and numerous works from Lysippos’ workshop or from the Pergamon School, the paintings of Apelles from Colophon and Protogenes from Rhodes. Greek visual art had a great influence on Indian Gandhara art in Bactria, known as Greco-Buddhist art, as well as on the later Kushan and Gupta art, and the art of “Culture X” in Ethiopia, and even a specific Egyptian-Greek style in Ptolemaic Egypt.
The Greek world of the 4th century BC is marked by the loss of civic and religious ideals that brought it the greatest prosperity in the previous centuries. The ideal of civic life was no longer in service of the city, but in the rights the city provides. Politicians were more interested in party interests than the welfare of the city, and priests in their own privileges rather than obligations towards the city. Thus, Demosthenes was not allowed to touch the money intended for the Eleusinian festivities, even when large amounts of the city’s reserves were being spent on them. The Classical period was in decline, politics and religion had distanced themselves they have grown out of ethical values.
The reaction to moral skepticism came from the field of philosophy that abandoned previous metaphysical thinking and focused on ethical issues through Socrates and his disciples, gradually shifting towards science through Aristotle. The cause of things was no longer important, but how they happen. Scientific research deepened with a critical spirit and empirical knowledge.
At the time when Philip II of Macedon took advantage of this internal disunity of Greece and Alexander the Great began his conquests, it started to be believed that science, with its advancement, would provide answers to many human needs. Science was expected to solve problems that politics and religion could no longer solve and to help achieve the long-awaited earthly happiness, which is very similar to the expectations of the modern world.
Indeed, science has ensured prosperity, improved production, facilitated work, enabled wider and better education, reduced travel time, and The new inventions were used in production, water and steam power in workshops, mills, construction sites, irrigation systems … Ships with movable sloping sails accelerated navigation, parchment and paper enabled the circulation of literary works. Life was relatively good, cultural life was enriched with sports or cultural competitions in which poets, singers, dancers, and actors performed. Philosophers gave lectures, and in addition to numerous religious ceremonies, dramatic performances of diverse spectrum also complemented the entertainment. Novels of literary type were written and retold. Astrologers, healers, and fortune tellers offered their services, and markets were full of goods from around the world.
The development of military techniques made no place completely safe, and new war inventions and tactics brought advantage to one side or the other, encouraging numerous conflicts. Rebellions, dynastic wars, and robberies were a daily occurrence. People were being killed in them. People were more concerned about avoiding accidents than about achieving good because what use is there in worrying about tomorrow when you don’t know what it will bring; what use is there in honesty when fraud reigns everywhere; what use is there in truthfulness when wealth can be acquired through lies and cunning tricks. It became clear that rational philosophy and scientific progress were not sufficient to solve the accumulated problems. Towards the end of the Hellenistic period, the world once again fell into deep moral skepticism.
The Hellenistic world did not live up to its initial endeavors, primarily those of Alexander, regarding political equality, friendly cooperation, and the unification of all nations, religions, and worldviews in homonoia, a unity of spirit and heart where all nations would live as brothers. However, by implementing policies of connectivity, Alexander’s successors managed to suppress religious intolerance and national and tribal divisions over the course of several centuries, so that it entered the consciousness of many. Hey people, the concept of humanity as a whole was planted. The philosophical concept of a citizen of the world, advocated by the Cynics and developed by the Stoics, was first attempted to be realized in practice by Alexander the Great. The practical application of this concept, on a larger scale for the first time, is a great achievement of Hellenism.