AAdmin 
Forum Emperor!
Posts: 2233
(7/31/05 1:11 am)
Reply
|
Hellenistic Civilization -- an almost Modern World
Hellenistic Civilization -- an almost Modern World
--------------------------------------------------
HELLENISTIC CIVILIZATION
.Alexander's Empire Disintegrates
.Interstate Commerce, Cooperation and Hellenism
.Diffusion of Religions
.Hellenism and the Jews
.Misery and Dreams of Revolution
.Hellenistic Philosophies: Search for a Way of Life
-----------------------------------------------------------
Alexander's Empire Disintegrates
An unreliable account of Alexander as he neared death describes him as offering rule to his generals. Another account describes him as putting the hand of one of his generals, Perdiccas, with the hand of his wife Roxana and naming Perdiccas as his heir. Perdiccas apparently did not wed Roxana -- who was pregnant with Alexander's child. Perdiccas did favor making this child Alexander's heir if the child was to be a son. To some Macedonians, however, it was unthinkable that their king should be the son of a "barbarian" woman from central Asia. This was the beginning of the break-up of Alexander's empire and the spilling of much more blood. It was another failure that was to plague monarchies through antiquity. It was a failure that would leave the Hellenistic civilization that followed Alexander weak and vulnerable to a power that was rising in the west: Rome.
Those opposed to Roxana's child as Alexander's heir favored Alexander's half brother, Philip III, a simpleminded and illegitimate son of Philip II and one of Philip's mistresses. When Roxana gave birth to Alexander's son, Alexander IV, the different opinions about who should succeed Alexander intensified, and civil war appeared imminent. But war was averted by a compromise in which it was agreed that Philip III and Alexander IV would reign jointly while each was supervised by a general.
In Epirus, Alexander's mother, Olympias, supported her grandchild, Alexander IV, and was hostile toward Philip III. With Perdiccas also favoring her grandson, she sought an alliance with Perdiccas and offered Perdiccas marriage to her daughter -- Alexander's full sister.
Another actor in this grand drama was Alexander's general and former bodyguard, Ptolemy, who was at the head of a significant number of Alexander's former troops. Conveniently for his ambitions, he believed that he and his fellow generals would be unable to keep Alexander's empire unified, and he proposed that they divide the empire among themselves. Less than a year after Alexander died, Ptolemy murdered the man Alexander had put in charge of Egypt: Cleomenes. And in the place of Cleomenes, Ptolemy, with his army, took power in Egypt.
Alexander's generals and governors made a show of their devotion to Alexander's memory, and, except for Ptolemy, they spoke of the need to keep the empire unified. But between them came rivalry. The aged Antipater and those Alexander had assigned to govern various parts of his empire resented and feared Perdiccas' power. And Antipater, who governed Macedonia and Greece, joined with two other generals, Antigonus and Craterus, and prepared for war against Perdiccas. Power rivalry was again manifesting itself as one of the bigger sins of all time.
War erupted first over Alexander's bones, which Ptolemy is reported to have buried in the Egyptian city of Memphis. Perdiccas went with an army into Egypt against Ptolemy, but when Perdiccas needlessly lost many of his troops crossing the Nile it angered his troops, and they mutinied. A group of Perdiccas' officers assassinated him in his tent. And with the elimination of Perdiccas, the remaining generals agreed that Antipater should be regent to both Alexander's son and to Philip III. A military officer named Seleucus -- who had led the mutiny against Perdiccas -- was chosen to govern Babylon, and Antigonus was chosen commander-in-chief of what had been Alexander's army in the east.
Antigonus Fails to Unite the Empire
Antigonus took command of the most powerful naval forces in the Aegean, and in eastern Asia Minor (Cappadocia) he warred against and executed the man Alexander had assigned there as governor. Meanwhile, in 319, Antipater died of natural causes. His son, Cassander, replaced him as the ruling general in Macedonia and Greece, and the hostility between Olympias and Antipater became a feud between her and Cassander. Olympias had raised an army and claimed rule over Macedonia. Philip III, aware that Olympias opposed his sharing rule with her grandson, allied himself with Cassander. Feeling threatened by this, Olympias had Philip III, his wife and a hundred friends of Cassander executed. Cassander then marched from Greece into Macedonia with his army. He won battles there against Olympias' armies. He had Olympias executed, and he put Roxana and Alexander IV under guard.
It was Antigonus who controlled Alexander's great treasury in West Asia, and he hoped that by asserting his power he could unite Alexander's empire. Fearing his power, the other generals united against him. Seleucus fled from Babylon to Egypt and allied himself with Ptolemy. Cassander also allied himself with Ptolemy; as did a Macedonian general named Lysimachus who governed Thrace. In 315, with mercenaries of many nationalities, Antigonus and Ptolemy fought each other, and Antigonus forced Ptolemy out of Syria. Then Antigonus cited Cassander for crimes against Olympias and sent his troops to Greece, while in 313 Antigonus' son, Demetrius, fought and lost to Ptolemy at Gaza.
In 312, Ptolemy moved against Antigonus by sending Seleucus with a small army back to Babylon. In 311, Cassander had Alexander IV and his mother, Roxana, executed. The struggle between Antigonus and the alliance of Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander and Lysimachus continued for ten years, to 301 BCE, when the alliance against Antigonus triumphed, Antigonus losing the battle of Ipsus in Asia Minor and his life.
Seleucus emerged as nominal ruler of territory from Syria to Bactria. Lysimachus ruled Thrace, and in name he became ruler of Asia Minor. Cassander continued to rule in Macedonia and much of Greece. Ptolemy formally declared Egypt as his independent kingdom. And Antigonus' son, Demetrius, was left with command of a powerful Greek navy and the support of only a few island cities in the Aegean Sea. Demetrius thought of himself as carrying on his father's struggle to unify Alexander's empire, but reasonable hope for unification had come to an end.
The New Monarchies
The new rulers made themselves monarchs in the Macedonian tradition. Drawing from the Alexander legend, they attempted to have a striking personal appearance. They wore headbands similar to the one Alexander had worn, which became a symbol of monarchy, and they continued Alexander’s use of the title “king.” In meeting visitors they postured haughtily, while visitors were obliged to gesture submission, respect and deference.
The new monarchs sought support in religion, pretending that their bloody wars were the will of the gods. As had Alexander, they claimed themselves divine. Ptolemy claimed that he was descended from Heracles and Dionysus. He attempted to appeal to the glory of Egypt’s ancient past, and he portrayed himself as a new pharaoh, but he staffed his administration with Greeks rather than Egyptians, and many Egyptians continued to view his rule as foreign.
Seleucus claimed lineage that extended back to the god Apollo, and he claimed that his rule was under the special protection of both Apollo and Zeus. Zeus, he claimed, resided at a temple in his capital city, Antioch, and Apollo resided in a temple at Daphne, just outside Antioch.
More Wars, a Celtic Invasion, and New Boundaries and Dynasties
Alexander's prestige had rested on his military conquests, and the new monarchs believed that military prowess was a part of their prestige. They would fight one another for territory and make war a way of life in their time. Armies as large as sixty to eighty thousand would go into battle -- to be thought the maximum size for armies as late as the eighteenth century.
Cassander apparently died of an illness, and his enemy Demetrius extended his rule in Greece, Demetrius taking power in Athens and starving the city into surrender. By 294, after more warring, he won control over Macedonia and named himself its king. But in 288, Seleucus and Lysimachus drove him out. In 285 Demetrius surrendered to Seleucus, and he died two years later.
Friction developed between Lysimachus and Seleucus over who would succeed Demetrius as king of Macedonia. Seleucus proclaimed himself king of Macedonia, but Lysimachus extended his rule there, and Seleucus invaded Lysimachus' territory in Asia Minor. In 281, Seleucus defeated Lysimachus at a battle in which Lysimachus died. And this left Greece and Macedonia open to a series of wars and power struggles.
Celts to the northwest of Greece and Macedonia heard of the anarchy in Greece and Macedonia, and they had heard stories of gold and silver offerings to Greek gods in temples there. They invaded, and in Macedonia they defeated, captured and executed a newly crowned king. In Greece they burned and looted as they went. They invaded Thrace and Asia Minor. Seleucus' son, Antiochus I -- the first successor in a long line of Seleucid kings-- was unable or unwilling to send a force against them, and cities in Asia Minor had to defend themselves as best they could. Antigonus II -- Demetrius' son and the grandson of the once heroic Macedonian general, Antigonus I -- rallied a force against the Celts and drove them from Thrace and Macedonia.
Antiochus ruled from Syria. He had given up hope of ruling Macedonia, and he befriended Antigonus II, taking support where he could find it. Not having the power base in Macedonia and Greece that Alexander had, and not having Alexander's reputation, Antiochus' hold on what had been Alexander's empire to Bactria was tenuous at best. He allowed some Celts to settle in central Asia Minor. But he lost control over western and northwestern Asia Minor, where Pergamum, with financial help from Ptolemy II, won its independence and detached neighboring cities. Ptolemy II sent troops into Asia Minor and took the coastal city of Eupheus, while the Seleucid dynasty also lost a large part of Cappadocia in eastern Asia Minor.
The East Fragments and is Invaded by the Parthians
The region in southwestern Persia called Persis (which included the city of Persepolis) had become an independent collection of tribal monarchies that remembered the glorious past of the Persian emperors Darius the Great and Artaxerxes. Bactria was ruled by a governor whom the Seleucids ignored. Territories east of Bactria were conquered by India's first great empire, under Chandragupta. And the Seleucids did little if anything to stop the migrations into northern Persia by a people called Parthians, whom the Seleucids saw as no significant threat. From steppe lands east of the Caspian Sea, the Parthians were settling down in northern Persia and absorbing Persian culture. They founded their own towns, and around the year 250 BCE a Parthian chief founded a Persian-style hereditary monarchy called the Arsacids. Then in 246, the governor of Bactria formally declared Bactria's independence, and he allied Bactria with the empire of Chandragupta's Buddhist grandson: Asoka.
Drawing mainly from Greek and Macedonian support, the Seleucids continued to control Syria, Mesopotama, Palestine and parts of Persia. Colonies that Alexander had founded in Persia and Bactria remained Greek islands in a sea of eastern peoples. And in these colonies, Greek and Macedonian ways were being diluted by the taking of Asian women as wives.
----
Interstate Commerce, Cooperation and Hellenism
Power rivalries, war and authoritarian rule left the world much as it had been before Alexander, but in some other respects the world had changed. The trade and commerce that Alexander stimulated continued to expand. This expansion was stimulated by arms production and a demand for iron, by the building of new roads that made transport easier, by the creation of a common currency, and by Greek as the common language of business from the border of India to as far west as what is now the French port city of Marseille.
With an increase in trade came expanded mining, manufacturing and ship building. Freight carrying ships were built much larger, as much as five tons, using methods of construction first applied to warships. Egypt's port city of Alexandria became a center of imports and manufacturing. The Egyptians and Phoenicians produced and traded cotton cloth, and the Egyptians produced silk, paper, glass, jewelry, cosmetics, salt, wine and beer. In West Asia, large workshops appeared alongside the small family stores that were common there. The manufacture of woolens increased in West Asia, along with asphalt, petroleum, carpets, perfumes, bleach and pain relieving drugs.
Across what had been Alexander's empire, some privately owned businesses grew into large enterprises. With the increase in circulation of money, credit became more sophisticated. Money-changing grew into banking. Private banks began making loans. The use of checks appeared, and people could deposit their savings for safekeeping and collect interest, which was around ten to twelve percent annually. Many aristocrats -- traditionally landowners -- gave up their contempt for trade and enterprise and enthusiastically joined in the money making.
The Spread of Hellenism
With Alexander's conquests also came significant cultural change. In West Asia and North Africa, well-to-do tradesmen, intellectuals and aristocrats who were neither Greek or Macedonian, including those who were Jews, had begun developing an interest in things Greek -- to the annoyance of those who believed that the old ways were best. From Marseille to India, Greek became the language of intellectuals. The Greek gymnasium became popular. It was a place for bathing and physical exercise -- without clothes for the sake of freedom of movement in their exercises. The gymnasium was also a place for training in grammar, rhetoric and poetry. And those who passed through training at the gymnasium acquired a status similar to a modern college degree.
The increase in trade and travel enhanced an awareness of distance places. An increase in migrations from city to city and from the countryside to city cut people off from their old tribal ties and increased individualism. So too did the increase in commerce. A new cosmopolitanism was rising. Among city governments came a greater desire for cooperation with other cities, such as offering other cities freedom from import and export duties to encourage trade. Cities began offering other cities exchanges of citizenship. This occurred first between Athens and Rhodes, then between the Peloponnesian cities of Messene and Phigalea. The island of Paros offered an exchange of citizenship, and such exchanges arose between Pergamum, Temnos, Miletus and others. Conflicts that previously might have erupted into war were now more inclined to be arbitrated, with the arbiters most often being a commission from a third city.
Common legal formalities appeared among various cities, and in place of trial by local juries an inter-city system developed in which commissions came from other cities to hear cases and settle lawsuits that would otherwise have been subject to local prejudices, politics and passions.
Learning and the Arts
In Greek cities in Italy and cities in West Asia and North Africa arose a new interest in science, art and literature -- interests that remained largely unrestricted by those rulers who had succeeded Alexander, not because these rulers were libertarians but because they saw little threat in it to their rule. Some people read seriously, and many, including wives of the wealthy, read escapist works about what they believed were the good-old-days: a rural life that was idealized, with shepherds, shepherdesses, wooded valleys and true love.
Libraries collected serious works and grew in number. Pergamum had a great library. The library at Alexandria, Egypt, became the most famous. It accumulated as many as four hundred thousand scrolls and several thousand original works and copies, and it had a scientific museum that attracted people from afar. The academy that Plato had founded still flourished, and Athens remained a famous center of philosophy, but Pergamum and Alexandria eclipsed Athens as intellectual and commercial centers.
The observation of fact was becoming widely recognized as important, and science was studied divorced from philosophy and metaphysics. People trained for various professions, including engineering and medicine. In medicine corpses were dissected and studied. Doctors discovered the difference between motor nerves and sensory nerves, and for various parts of the body they created names that would still be used into modern times. Specialists advanced the study of plants and herbs. Manuals were written on agriculture and farm management. And, in mathematics, Euclid contributed to geometry by creating a system of proofs based on deduction.
Stimulated by what had been Alexander's expedition into Asia, map making and a study of geography improved. Pytheas of Marseille voyaged up the coast of Britain to Norway or Jutland and became the first Greek to hear of what today is called the Arctic Sea. One mapmaker, Eratosthenese, described the world as round and gave a reasonable figure as its circumference.
Philosophers and common folk continued to believe that the sun revolved around the earth, that the earth was at the center of the movement of heavenly bodies, but Hellenized astronomers began challenging these views. Astronomers calculated the movements of the sun, moon and planets with greater accuracy. Heraclides of Pontu discovered that the planets Venus and Mercury revolved around the sun. Then Aristarchus of Samos concluded that the sun was much larger than the earth, that the earth revolved around the sun and that the distance to the stars was enormous compared to the diameter of the earth's orbit around the sun. And other astronomers confirmed his views.
In the field of mechanics, Aristotle's school made advances in understanding levers, balances and wedges. And in the mid 200s a Greek from Syracuse named Archimedes worked on the relative densities of bodies and the theoretical principles of levers. He invented the ratio pi. 28 And he invented numerous mechanical contrivances, including machines used in war.
Formal Schooling
Professions that required education belonged mainly to the sons of the wealthy. But a part of Hellenism was education for the poor as well as the rich. In the more progressive Hellenized cities of West Asia and North Africa, elementary schools for the children of common folk were established. Children learned reading, writing and arithmetic. They memorized lessons about the glories of Greek culture. They were taught "civilized" behavior -- and, as in Greece centuries before, educators saw physical punishment as their only recourse against inadequate effort by their pupils.
In western Asia Minor an elementary school education was provided for girls and boys. The girls ended school at a younger age than did boys, who continued their education if their fathers cared to pay for it. But some women did acquire higher education, and a few became philosophers. In the 200's, women poets began to reappear. Aristodama of Smyrna toured Greece giving recitals and receiving many honors. A woman named Hestiaea acquired a reputation as a scholar, and women were painting.
-------
Diffusion of Religions
From Greece through West Asia, a growing interest in knowledge brought turmoil in religion. Before Alexander, religions tended to be local, tribal or national. After Alexander, religions knew no frontiers. Religions traveled from city to city with the new migrants. Numerous eastern cults spread westward as far as Greece. In Greece the rise of individualism and a diminishing identity with the old Olympian gods was accompanied by some people adopting astrology29 and some people adopting asceticism and rejecting worldly society. Some Greeks adopted doctrines preoccupied with repentance, salvation, resurrection and life after death. Many often spoke of a goddess named Fortune. Across Greece and West Asia a few among the Hellenized responded to the new individualism and cosmopolitanism by abandoning religion. Some others decided that all the gods worshiped across the world were really Zeus, that Zeus was the universal god. Some worshiped new gods, such as the healing god called Asclepius, which appeared in such cities as Epidaurus in Peloponnesia, the island city of Cos, and in Pergamum. Greeks spread the worship of Dionysus as far east as the Indus Valley, and some eastern peoples had begun worshiping Dionysus by another name, including some Hebrews outside of Judah who worshiped Dionysus under the name of Sabazios.
The Hellenized in Syria adopted the god Hadad, who was described in the Old Testament as Rimmon. And Hadad was another god whom some called Zeus. In Syria a local stone goddess whom the Persians had transformed into a goddess called Ahahita, now, in Hellenistic times, became the goddess Atargatis and Hadad's consort. She was both a Greek goddess and Syria's greatest of goddesses, and people came from all over Asia to be purified in her sacred pool of water.
The Spread of Isis Worship from Egypt
Ptolemy the First attempted to bring Egyptians closer to his Hellenized followers by creating a new religious cult that drew from Egyptian mythology. He gave the Egyptian god Osiris a new temple in the Egyptian quarter of Alexandria and a new name, Serapis. Serapis was described as a member of a trinity of gods that included Isis, the mother of all and the cleanser of sins. Rounding out the trinity was the son of Isis and Serapis: Harpocrates.
Priests, clad in white, initiated people into Ptolemy's cult by baptism -- submerging them in the Nile or sacred water from the Nile-- which was believed to remove one's sins, a conversion that often evoked considerable emotion. The daily routine of the priests of this faith included their leading ceremonies with the singing of hymns and sprinkling sacred water. Members of the cult believed that they would be judged after death, and they hoped that with death they would pass into an everlasting life.
To many native Egyptians this attempt by the Ptolemies to create a new religion from Egyptian mythology appeared as a lack of faith in their own gods, and most Egyptians rejected the new cult. But some Greek women in Egypt found in the worship of Isis an appeal that other fertility goddesses, virgin goddess warriors, and Aphrodite lacked. Isis was a mother and a bearer of children. She knew suffering, and she offered her worshippers understanding. To women Isis was a friend, and to them she was the glory of womanhood. She was said to have ordained that women should be loved by men, that she invented the marriage contract, that she ordained women to bear children and that children should love their parents. Isis’ unique qualities helped spread worship of her and Serapis through the Aegean, to Italy and the Western Mediterranean. And in centuries to come some of Isis’ statues would serve as images of the Madonna.
Scholarship by the Zoroastrian Priesthood
Alexander's conquest of Persia and Persia's subsequent rule by the Seleucid dynasty diminished the power and influence of the Zoroastrian priesthood, and in their new isolation, Zoroastrian priests devoted themselves to scholarship. They wished to date their prophet, Zarathustra, but with Zoroastrianism having adhered to oral history rather than writing, the priests had no writings to research. Instead they researched through writings of the Babylonians, believing that events about something as important as their prophet would surely have been recorded by the scribes of Babylon. They found a vague reference to a great event having taken place in Persian history in 539 BCE. This was the conquest of Babylon by Darius. But the Zoroastrian scholar/priests chose to interpret this great event as the time when Zarathustra received his revelation from the God Mazda -- another instance of priestly writing interpreting events as they pleased.
-----
Hellenism and the Jews
In the middle of the transformations from Marseille to India were the Jews. Contact between them and the peoples around them had increased, beginning with the military colonies Alexander had established at Samaria and Gaza and the Greek bureaucrats and soldiers who filled Palestine. Alexander's successors, Perdiccas, Antigonus and the Ptolemies, also established cities in Palestine, and their armies frequently passed back and forth across the land, including Judah -- called Judea by those speaking Greek. Some Jews were taken as slaves. Some of Judea's young men joined the invading armies as mercenaries, and Jews became military colonists for various kings -- mainly for Ptolemy. After Judea came under the rule of Ptolemy, many Jews emigrated to Egypt, especially to Alexandria. Some other Jews migrated along the Mediterranean and Black Seas and settled in Asia Minor.
Cultural Diffusions and Preservations
Ptolemy interfered in Judea's affairs more than had the Persians. His tax collectors were more prevalent, but he allowed the Jews the freedom of worship and the same autonomy that they had enjoyed under the Persians. Judea's Jews continued to be governed by their High Priest and Council of Elders, and most Jews continued to worship Yahweh.
Many Jews, especially in rural areas, were among those in West Asia who preferred their old ways. It was from them that a revolt against Hellenism would come in the following century. Nevertheless, for the time being, many Jewish merchants, aristocrats and intellectuals came to admire Greek education, Greek schools and libraries. Some of them found lofty ideals in Greek philosophy, significance in Greek logic, and beauty in Greek art. Many Jews were attracted by the excitement of Greek athletic games and tournaments, and in Jerusalem a Greek-style amphitheater and gymnasium were built. Many Jews adopted Greek dress. Jews with Greek names -- including Alexander -- became common. Many Jews who traveled had a Hebrew name for use within their community and a Greek name for contacts with others. And Jews began using Greek style grave inscriptions.
Influenced by Hellenism, Jews began giving titles and honors to women. Some among them tolerated the mixed marriages that Ezra had forbidden. Some Hellenized Jews abandoned circumcision, restrictions on foods and other laws that their Hellenized neighbors thought barbaric. A few Hellenized Jews decided that people everywhere worshiped the same god under different names and that religions could therefore be united. Some others decided that Yahweh was not just the god of the Jews but the god of the whole world. Some of these Jews wanted to convert non-Jews to their god. And in places outside Judea, where Jews and gentiles spoke Greek, some curious gentiles came to Jewish synagogues, listened, and were converted to Judaism.
Some Jewish writers in Egypt wished to instill in their fellow Jews a pride in their Jewish heritage, to counter the feelings of cultural inferiority that many felt. Near the end of the 200s, a Jewish scribe named Demetrius wrote a work describing Judean kings, and he tried to prove that all of Jacob's many children could have been born within seven years. Other Jewish writers attempted to describe Jewish culture as the oldest in the world and the Jews as teachers of other peoples rather than having been influenced by others.
Greek was the language of educated Jews, and Greek translations of the Zoroastrianism of the Persians made Zoroastrian ideas more accessible to literate Jews. But Aramaic remained the language of most Jews -- in Judea and Mesopotamia -- and an effort was made to preserve Hebrew as the main language of literature and religious gatherings, while Jewish scribes writing in Hebrew adopted Greek literary forms in their religious writings. And scholars believe that in these adoptions, Jewish scribes borrowed concepts that were not commonly known to Jews before the rise of Hellenistic society, including concepts borrowed from Plato's Book of Wisdom and Aristotle's Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs.
The Septuagint
Perhaps because most literate Jews could no longer read Hebrew, Jewish scribes in Alexandria were put to work translating into Greek the Five Books of Moses. The finished product became known as the Septuagint. Demonstrating their conviction that the Septuagint was the final word on Jewish history, the high priests in charge of the work proclaimed a curse upon any changes that might be made to it. And it would be Judaic doctrine that seventy-two translators had worked independently of each other on the translation and had produced exactly the same result, word for word -- a miracle in keeping with the belief that the books were the works of divine intervention.
The Septuagint was written in a Greek that was difficult for Greeks and Greek speakers to understand, and because Jews from different areas used words differently and interpreted what they read differently, when the Septuagint was distributed to Jews outside of Alexandria it created confusion. For the sake of clarification, different Jewish communities ignored the curse that had been put on making changes to the Septuagint, and they inserted new words to fit local meaning. With the passing of decades, the Septuagint was reproduced by hand and more changes were made. Then other writings were imperfectly translated into Greek and added to the Septuagint: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Kings, Judges, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, and Daniel. The last book of the Old Testament, the Book of Esther, would be translated into Greek around 77 BCE. It would be from the Septuagint that various other translations would be made: an old Latin translation, Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Georgian, Slavonic, Jerome's Latin Vulgate and others that led to the King James version, commissioned in England in 1604 of the Common Era (CE).
The Book of Ecclesiastes
The author of the Old Testament’s Book of Ecclesiastes called himself "the preacher." And he claimed to be a “son of David,” an expression used commonly to describe oneself as a Jew rather than as an actual son of David. But some in modern times would believe that Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon, despite it being unlikely that Solomon in his old age would have turned his view of the world upside down and written about futility and the evils of oppression. Some others estimate that Ecclesiastes was written several hundred years after Solomon: around 200 BCE.
"The Preacher" began Ecclesiastes by writing:
Vanity of Vanities! All is vanity... All things are wearisome... The eye is not satisfied with seeing. Nor is the ear filled with hearing.
The Preacher was not as optimistic as the writer of the Book of Proverbs, where it was written that if one honors the Lord "your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine." The Preacher denied that people could apply themselves and better their lot. He suggested that there was no hope in this world. "That which has been," he wrote, "is that which will be." (Ecclesiastes 1:9) He held that knowledge was futile: "What is crooked," he wrote, "cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted... in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain." (Ecclesiastes 1:15-18)
The Preacher described himself as having built houses for himself, as having planted vineyards, gardens and fruit trees and as having made parks for himself. He claimed that he had collected silver, gold, slaves and many concubines, and that all this had been in vain. Then he got to the heart of his message, a message that made it more likely that his writing would be included with the other writings that were scripture: Without Yahweh, he wrote, all is in vain, "For who can eat and who can have enjoyment without Him?" The Preacher described Yahweh as having power over everything. "There is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it," he wrote. "That which will be has already been, for God seeks what has passed by." (Ecclesiastes 3:14-15)
Some Jews had been asking why unrighteous people were enjoying success while some who devoutly worshiped Yahweh were suffering hardship and deprivation. The Preacher had an answer for them: he wrote that in a world controlled by God there was wickedness because God was testing people "in order for them to see that they are but beasts." "All go to the same place," he wrote, and "all came from the dust and all return to the dust." (Ecclesiastes 3:18-20)
In Chapter 4, Verse 2, the Preacher congratulates the dead, whom he claimed were better off than the living. "But better off than both of them," he writes, "is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun."
In Chapter 5, Verse 10 the Preacher denounces the incentives that make free enterprise work. "He who loves money," he writes, "will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income." Expressing a disbelief in rewards, he writes:
The race is not to the swift, and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning, nor favor to men of ability. (Ecclesiastes 9:11)
In Chapter 8, Verse 2 the Preacher delivers an old, conservative message, which must have pleased the priestly authorities: he calls on his readers to obey their rulers, to "Keep the command of the king, because of the oath before God." Then, in Verse 5, he made an incongruently optimistic comment: "He who keeps a royal command experiences no trouble, for a wise heart knows the proper time and procedure."
Toward the end of his message, the Preacher contradicts what he wrote about the blessing of being dead or never having been born. Life, he claims is worth living: "Surely," he writes, "a live dog is better than a dead lion." "Go then," he continues. "Eat your bread in happiness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works." (Ecclesiastes 9:7) "Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun, for this is your reward in life, and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 9:9). Then, in his next verse, the Preacher advises to do what "your hand finds to do" and to do it "with all your might. Yet he claims (in 9:12), that man is "like fish caught in a net or birds trapped in a snare."
------
Misery and Dreams of Revolution
In some cities, Alexander had favored the common people against local nobles, who were potential competitors with him for power. In some cities, he had backed the creation of councils to tackle local issues. And the monarchs who followed Alexander also supported popular participation in local government. But, with the passing of time, participation in local government by common people declined. The gap between the rich and poor widened. And local power and influence gravitated toward men of wealth.
City governments called on local men of wealth to help their city, and in prosperous times such merchants contributed to the construction of temples, gymnasiums, schools and other city buildings and to the construction of bridges, closed sewers and other civic projects. They paid for city festivals and ceremonial sacrifices to the gods, for banquets for local people, free meals for the hungry, and prizes for school children. They patronized the arts, and they contributed to city beautification that included a proliferation of fountains and statues. Many of the statues were of these patrons, to honor their services. Being free from the daily labors that burdened poorer folk, men of wealth had the time to serve as diplomats. And, in times of war, they contributed to supplying armies with war material.
While assemblies elected by the common citizenry continued to meet and pass decrees, real power passed into the hands of these men of wealth -- as happened in Athens, where the courts, which had been controlled by common citizens, came under the control of wealthy magistrates. And as a result of their rise in influence, these men of wealth began paying less in taxes than did common people.
Misery, Slavery, Low Productivity and Urban Crowding
Aside from the misery and insecurity created by continuous warfare, there was in Hellenistic times a misery that was economic in its origins. The wealthy could afford an abundance of luxury goods, but for the multitude there was deprivation. The population was small compared to modern times, but not small relative to the amount of food being produced. In Greece and through the Middle East a bad harvest still meant famine. In Greece, hunger prevailed because the area was not exporting enough in minerals or manufactured goods to exchange for food. Greece was still dependent upon imports to keep people fed. And in the place of exports in goods, men were exporting themselves as soldiers.
Across Greece and West Asia, migration from the countryside to the cities created urban slums and overcrowding. With new supplies of slaves and an abundance of freemen looking for work came a drop in the wages, often while the price of food was rising. An abundance of slaves offered no incentives for creating devices that would replace muscle and sweat, and those who labored were physically burdened beyond their ability to stay fit.
Many people in normal times were barely able to survive, and often they became dependent on relief in the form of free grain. From the landless in the countryside came calls for land redistribution, and small landowners called for relief from their debts. The landless in the towns and cities had no trade organizations or labor movement to enhance their power. Strikes were not tolerated by those who had power and influence, and strikes were almost impossible where there was slavery.
Mining was an especially hard occupation. Egypt's gold and quicksilver mines were worked by slaves, criminals and prisoners of war, including women, elderly men and children. Young men hacked the quartz loose. Older men broke the quartz into fragments. Children dragged the quartz to the grinders, powered by women who like others worked without rest, walking in circles and pushing levers that rotated a shaft. According to the Greek writer Agatharchides, relief came only with death, which these miners welcomed.
More Utopian Dreams
As it was in Athens before Solon's reforms, many who were wealthy feared revolt by those who were miserable, and from a few who empathized with the miserable came dreams of a better society. Some dreamed of a "brotherhood of man." In dreaming about a better world, some looked back to what they thought was an unspoiled past, to what they imagined were virtuous barbarians living according to nature. Some put into writing their ideas about a harmonious society. A writer named Iambulus designed a society without class differences, a society in which people would be equal, sharing what they produced and taking turns in doing menial work. Iambulus saw his utopia as a democracy, and he saw people in his utopia acquiring equality in wisdom and relating to each other with love.
A Failed Revolution and a Growing Unity in Macedonia
The most serious attempt at changing society came with hate and violence. In 279 BCE, a man named Apollondorus rode a wave of discontent that gave him power in the Macedonian port city of Cassanderia (formerly Potidaea). His followers vented their anger on the wealthy with physical violence, and they confiscated wealth and property. Apollondorus established a communist dictatorship, and with money taken from the rich he hired an army of mercenaries to defend the revolution. To have succeeded the revolution would have had to grow in power by spreading to other cities. Instead, after a few months, forces directed by the king of Macedonia, Antigonus II, who had been busy uniting Macedonia under his rule, overran Cassanderia and ended the revolution.
Failed Reforms in Sparta
Sparta remained like many other cities. Among the Spartans debt had increased. A few people had bought up lands and had combined them into plantations. Sparta had no middle class as a buffer between rich and poor. As elsewhere in Greece, many landless Spartan men sold themselves abroad as mercenary soldiers, and by the mid-200s, with citizenship tied to the ownership of property, seven hundred Spartans were fully enfranchised.
Sparta still had two kings, Agis IV and Leonidas. Agis proposed reforms. To increase the number of landowners and enfranchise more Spartans he proposed the cancellation of debts and a redistribution of lands into small units. Those with large holdings united behind Leonidas. Wishing to avoid civil war, Agis went into exile, where, in 241, he was murdered. Thirteen years later, Leonidas' son and heir, Cleomenes III, led a Spartan army in war alongside other Greek cities opposing Macedonia's attempt to renew hegemony in Greece. Concerned with military strength, Cleomenes decided that returning to the institutions of old Sparta would bring Sparta added military strength. When he returned with his army from one of his battles, he ousted Sparta's second king and installed one of his brothers in that position. Then he embarked upon his revolution. He stayed the same regarding the Helots, but for others he abolished debts, he nationalized the land, dividing it into 4,000 lots for Spartans and 15,000 lots for those who had come to live in villages surrounding Sparta. He created a new constitution for returning to the old Sparta, and his reforms allowed Sparta's army to grow in size and morale.
Cleomenes encouraged reformers elsewhere in Greece. Across Greece, men of wealth and land responded with fear. They opposed reforms more than they did Macedonian hegemony, and they sought help from Macedonia. War erupted between Sparta and cities led by those resisting reforms. Cleomenes allied Sparta with other Peloponnesian cities. But the Macedonians annihilated Sparta's army, and for the first time a foreign army entered Sparta in triumph. Cleomenes fled to Egypt, and there he again took up what he saw as the cause of social justice. In Alexandria, he tried to raise a revolt, but he failed and took his own life.
-----
Hellenist Philosophies: Search for a Way of Life
Some people in Hellenistic society adhered to the school of philosophy called Cynicism, a school of thought some other philosophers saw as hardly worthy of the name of philosophy. The founder of Cynicism was Antisthenes, who was about forty when he watched Athens defeated in the Peloponnesian War. He was a former student of Socrates, and he witnessed the execution of Socrates. Like Plato, Antisthenes was disgusted with the world around him. He had grown tired of what he saw as the worthless quibbling of refined philosophy. He saw himself as a teacher, and he left the company of other philosophers and preached to common people in market places, speaking to people in a manner he thought they could understand. He told people that virtue demanded withdrawal from involvement with a world that was immoral and corrupt.
Antisthenes' best known disciple was Diogenes -- decades before Alexander the Great. Diogenes disliked his father's profession: money changing. He rejected chasing after wealth. He found virtue in having few or no possessions, in simplicity and in modest wants. He rejected fame and honor, but his demonstrations of asceticism were so novel to his fellow Greeks that it attracted great attention, and many Greeks came to think of him as extraordinarily wise. In his old age his fame was enough that Alexander visited him and asked if there was any favor he wished, and Diogenes, the story goes, replied that he wanted only that Alexander stand out of his sunlight.
In the Hellenistic times that followed the death of Alexander, a few philosophers adopted the thinking and style of Antisthenes and Diogenes. They wandered from place to place, and at town squares they discussed social conventions and simple virtues. It was with these Cynics that the word cosmopolitan was coined, a word used to signify that they belonged to no state. They advocated salvation from worry and conflict by what some in modern times would call dropping out. They were entertaining to listen to, but Cynicism would forever remain a small and barely influential movement. For most people the call to drop out made no sense: they were already barely able to feed and clothe themselves and their families. The Cynics were little interested in economic realities. Only a few could go about without working, living off what was provided by those who labored in the fields or at other occupations. For most who had to struggle to get by the Cynics must have appeared as much the intellectual babblers that Antisthenes thought other philosophers to be.
The Epicureans
Another philosophy that focused on how one should live was Epicureanism. Like the Cynics, they believed it best to purge oneself of the appetite for power or fortune, and they too favored withdrawal from the corruptions of society. Nevertheless, they wished to keep the wealth and possessions that helped make life pleasant, and most Epicureans were people who had accumulated some wealth.
Epicurus was from an Athenian family from the island of Samos. He went to Athens at the age of eighteen to confirm his Athenian citizenship -- the year before Alexander died. Later he took up residence in the city of Mytilene, and there, at the age of thirty, he acquired recognition as a philosopher.
Epicurus was influenced by the materialism of Democritus. A soul, he said, is warm breath -- atoms that after death dissolve with our bodies. He believed that humanity created its destiny without interference from capricious spirits. He claimed that it was frightening to be at the mercy of gods and demons and that religion created unnecessary terrors and fears. But he escaped from the unpopularity of atheism by speaking of gods as if they were nature rather than nature's creators. The gods, claimed Epicurus, should be worshiped with neither fear nor hope. Do not fear death, he said, for death is but eternal sleep and the dead feel no pain or torment.
Epicurus addressed the ultimate question about life by claiming that life was worth living. He saw life as possibly joyous – if one had an adequate sensitivity to the world of beauty and good friendships, good health and freedom from drudgery. He believed in the pleasures of contemplation, physical beauty, attachments to others.
Epicurus believed that the driving force of life is the avoidance of pain. He believed that the essence of virtue is avoiding inflicting pain upon others. He believed that the avoidance of pain for oneself and for others should take precedence over the pursuit of pleasure. He believed that by applying self-control as one pursued pleasure one could avoid the painful consequences that can accompany such pursuits. He believed that pleasure should be adjusted to equilibrium in one's body and mind, that an excessive devotion to the gratification of appetites produced misery rather than happiness and should therefore be avoided.
In addition to believing in possessions, Epicurus and his followers differed from the Cynics in their belief in community. Epicurus was political insofar as he saw that it was in the best interest of society that people carry out agreements that promote fellowship. This implied a contractual form of government. But Epicurus and his followers did not advocate group action for social change. They saw political struggle as creating a distress that should be avoided. They advocated civic tranquility and a search for peace of mind. They advocated living unnoticed, abstaining from public life and from making enemies -- an approach to politics that suited those living under authoritarian rule who wished to continued living comfortably.
Unlike the Cynics, the Epicureans were interested in theories of knowledge -- epistemology -- and they believed that knowledge about the nature-of-things helped one discover the best way to live. In their disputes with other philosophers, Epicureans questioned various methods of arriving at truth. They recognized that Aristotle's logic was limited by its use of redundancies, and in place of Aristotle's logic they advocated a search for truth through a process of confirmation and disconfirmation. For example, when a person far from you comes closer and closer, you confirm or reject that it is the person you suspected it to be -- which is what scientists were to do as microscopes and telescopes advanced their ability to perceive.
Epicureanism, like agnosticism and atheism in modern times, appealed to that minority of people who preferred cold rationality to comforting beliefs in divine intervention and everlasting life. But Epicureanism also appealed to those who claimed to believe in God. Epicureanism was to be the avowed philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, who must have found Epicureanism compatible with the Deism popular in his day, which also placed God outside of human affairs. Jefferson was to describe Epicureanism as the most rational philosophical system of the ancients. And his Epicureanism was to find expression in his contribution to the American Declaration of Independence, in its phrase "pursuit of happiness."
The Stoics -- Precursors to Christianity
The Stoics clung to the traditional view of godly intervention in human affairs. They rejected Epicureanism, including the belief that one's purpose in life should be to seek happiness. The purpose in life, they held, was to serve God's plan. And central to their ethics was the belief that people had to choose between God's purpose and error. The Stoics believed in a god that was a supreme being and divine fire from which came all that exists in heaven and earth, a god the Greeks called Zeus. They sought to explain various gods as being one god. And they attempted to explain the myths of various religions as representations of universal truths.
The founder of Stoicism was Zeno of Citium, who was seven years younger than Epicurus. On a business trip from his native Cyprus, Zeno arrived in Athens at the age of twenty-two, ten years after the death of Alexander, and there he became involved in philosophical debates and stayed. Zeno was influenced by the dissatisfactions expressed by Cynics, but rather than seeking withdrawal he dreamed of change. In the place of separate, independent societies he dreamed of one great nation under a set of divine laws to which everyone consented, a nation in which all were bound together by love. He embraced the notion of brotherhood of man that came with Alexander's attempt to unite a great variety of people into a single empire. He believed that God was the father to all and that all men were therefore brothers.
Zeno borrowed from Plato and Aristotle. He believed in social harmony. He believed that all humanity had a soul -- a divine spark -- that eventually returned to divine eternity. The universe, he believed, was in essence a manifestation of godly reason, and he saw passion as detrimental to reason and therefore ungodly.
At the heart of Stoicism was the phrase "thy will be done." The Stoics believed that God worked in mysterious ways, that humanity was able to see only a tiny portion of God's plan. They explained the existence of evil within this master plan as God exercising people for virtue – as if God were conspiring with evil.
The Stoics believed that people exercised virtue by freeing themselves from conceit, by adhering to a humility that would better open them to follow what God had destined for them. This included being indifferent to worldly success, rank or status, similar to the Cynics.
Seeing life as planned by God, Zeno and his followers believed in facing all circumstances with resignation. They believed that one should accept and compose oneself for whatever came one’s way. The Stoics believed that self-discipline was the starting point of virtue and necessary in their contemplation of God. They saw freedom as a state of mind. An individual, they believed, could be free whatever his circumstances, including imprisonment if he contemplated God. For the Stoics, poverty and slavery affected only the body, and what affected only the body was a matter of lesser importance than that of attitude. The poorest slave, they held, could be a king in his own soul.
Some Stoics actively opposed slavery, and some opposed the power of the wealthy, while others were advisors to kings and saw monarchs as noble servants and as a part of the Divine Plan. Most Stoics believed that the violence that would be involved in overthrowing existing institutions would be worse than existing injustices, and some of them believed that society would improve if people would only obey their rulers. And, in keeping with their belief in the brotherhood of man, some favored change through reason and agreement – as if conflicting interests and conflicting views could be overcome by education or collective revelation.
Like Plato, the Stoics tended to be utopian. Borrowing a title from Plato, Zeno in his own book entitled The Republic described a world state of people joined voluntarily under a common, divine law, free from sexual jealousy and family rivalries. In his republic there would be no need for courts of law, and love and sharing would make money unnecessary.
The Skeptics
Among the Hellenized, where freedom to speak and variety in ideas was extensive, one more school of philosophy was bound to emerge. This was Skepticism. The founder of Skepticism was Pyrrhon, who, while campaigning as a soldier with Alexander, had come into contact with a great variety of conflicting beliefs. He saw contrary belief as a source of trouble in the world, and when he was in his thirties he established himself as a teacher in the city of Elis, in the northwest of Peloponnesia. He argued that equally valid arguments could be made on either side of any question and therefore it was best to draw no conclusion about the nature of things.
In rejecting conclusions, Pyrrhon was left with intuition and faith. In Skepticism some found justification for believing in their god or gods, and they practiced religion as insurance against damnation. Not believing in conclusions, Pyrrhon believed that one should live according to one's circumstances and desires. What mattered, concluded Pyrrhon, was living well and living unperturbed.
But the imperturbability that Pyrrhon sought eluded him. He made much money teaching his doctrine of Skepticism, and he spent much time attacking a philosopher named Arcesilaus,30 whom he believed had copied his ideas and was endangering his source of wealth.
A few followers of Pyrrhon supported his Skepticism by trying to demonstrate inconsistencies and contradictions in the conclusions of others. They examined the logic of Aristotle and concluded that people could not deduce their way to truth from a self-evident premise. They also examined materialist philosophy and its belief in knowledge drawn from sense-experience, and like Plato, Hindus and others they concluded that the senses were unreliable and an invalid source of knowledge.
The Skeptics were drawing conclusions about humanity’s inability to draw conclusions. They were themselves contradictory at a time when they and others were viewing knowledge as absolute: that an idea was either wholly true or wholly false. They failed to grasp that knowledge of any subject consisted of a mix of specifics and generalizations. They failed to see that people could grasp realities partially while missing the whole, that knowledge was approximation and that some ideas were more accurate than others. Pyrrhon and the Skeptics had not yet achieved a scientific point of view: that it was useful to choose between rival hypotheses and that hypotheses should be based on verifiable generalizations drawn from sense perceptions.
link
_________
Less Balkanian Dogmatic Paranoia.
More Rational Ancient Hellenic Wisdom.
Reminder 1: Purpose of Illyria Forums
Reminder 2: Rules of the Forums
Important 1: Announcements!
Important 2: 4 ALL Mods! Yahac's Proposal! |
Email This To a Friend
Topic Commands
Click to receive email notification of replies 
Click to stop receiving email notification of replies