Alexander’s the Great Civilization-Greek Bactrian Kingdom

by Makedonas82.

The Hellenicity of the “barbarian” Macedonians

Parts of the Phillip ivory shield that found in Vergina Tomb. You can see clearly the two Pan-Hellenic symbols in ancient Greece: The 16th Sun/Star(Vergina Sun) and the Meander(Greek key). The shield itself can be found in the museum of Vergina in Central Macedonia of Greece

DEFINITION OF THE “HELLENICITY” AND “BARBARIAN”

The invention of a barbarian antitype provided a completely new mechanism for defining the Hellenic identity. During the Archaic period, Hellenic self-definition was ”aggregative”. That is to say, it was constructed by evok­ing similarities with peer groups which were then cast in terms of ficticious kin relationships within the 'Hellenic Genealogy'. Hellenicity was defined contrary through differential comparison with a barbarian out-group. At this point, however, some qualification is necessary. By oppositional self-definition, Jonathan Hall means simply that perceived differences served as a basis for the construction of a specifically Hellenic identity. [1]

Hall argues at greater length in his books and articles in the 5th century, mainly as a consequence of the Persian Wars, the definition of Greek identity evolved from an “aggregative” no inclusive conception based on fictitious descent from the eponymous Hellen and expressed in forged genealogies (which may leave outside not only Macedonians and Magnetes, but also other goups such as Arcadians or Aitolians) into an “oppositional” one, turned against out-groups, relegating thus (fictitious) community of blood to the same level –if not to an inferior one (vide infra)– as linguistic, religious and cultural criteria. (In this perspective there is not much sense in opposing a putative compact, homo­geneous and immutable “Greekness” to the contested identities of groups such as the Aitolians, Locrians, Acarnanians, Thesprotians, Molossians, Chaones, Atintanias, Parauaians Orestians, Macedonians)

The Greek tribes quickly noticed that they did not speak the same tongue as their neighbours, and used the term "βάρβαρος" ("barbarian") for them, with the meanings "uncultured", "uncivilized" or "speaker of a foreign language". The term βάρβαρος is thought to be onomatopoeic in origin: "bar-bar"—i.e. stammering—may have been how the speech of foreign peoples sounded to Greek speakers. [2]

BARBARIAN IDENTIFICATION FROM THE ANCIENT GREEKS

According to several ancient writers named as barbarians all those who spoke a different tongue [Polybius, "History", 9-38-5; Strabo, "Geographica", 7-7-4; Herodotus, "Histories", book I, 56 and II, 158]

Discrimination between Hellenes and barbarians lasted until the 4th century BC. Euripides thought it plausible that Hellenes should rule over barbarians, because the first were destined for freedom and the other for slavery.[ Iphigeneia at Aulis, 1400 ]

Aristotle came to the conclusion that "the nature of a barbarian and a slave is one and the same".[Republic,I,5]

Aristophanes calls the illiterate supervisor a "barbarian" who nevertheless taught the birds how to talk.["The Birds", 199] The term eventually picked up a derogatory use and was extended to indicate the entire lifestyle of foreigners, and finally coming to mean "illiterate" or "uncivilized" in general. Thus "an illiterate man is also a barbarian".[The Clouds, 492 ]

According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (1st cent BC), a Hellene differed from a barbarian in four ways: refined language, education, religion, and the rule of law. In more detailing defined Hellenicity yas speaking the Greek language, having a Greek way of life, acknowledging the same gods and having fitting, reasonable laws. [Roman Antiquities, 1, 89, 4]

Isocrates declared in his speech Panegyricus: "So far has Athens left the rest of mankind behind in thought and expression that her pupils have become the teachers of the world, and she has made the name of Hellas distinctive no longer of race but of intellect, and the title of Hellene a badge of education rather than of common descent."[Panegyricus, 50]

Racial differentiation faded away through the teachings of Stoics, who distinguished between nature and convention and taught that all men have equal claim before God and thus by nature cannot be unequal to each other. In time, Hellene, to use the words of Isocrates, became a trait of intellect, not race.

Alexander the Great's conquests consolidated Greek influence in the East by exporting Greek culture into Asia and permanently transformed education and society in the region.

Greek education became identified with noble upbringing. Paul of Tarsus (a non Greek) considered it his obligation to preach the Gospel to all men, "Hellenes and barbarians, both wise and foolish".[Epistle to the Romans, 1, 14 ]

THE MACEDONIANS

The beginnings of Macedonian history are shrouded in complete darkness. There is keen controversy on the ethno­logical problem, whether the Macedonians were Greeks [3] or not [4]. Linguistic science has at its disposal a very limited quantity of Macedonian words, and the archaeological ex­ploration of Macedonia has hardly begun. And yet when we take into account the political conditions, religion and morals of the Macedonians, our conviction is strengthened that they were a Greek race and akin to the Dorians. Having stayed behind in the extreme north, they were unable to participate in the progressive civilization of the tribes which went further south, and so, when in the time of the Persian Wars they emerged on the horizon of the other Greeks, they appeared to them as non-Greeks, as barbarians.

When Alexander I of Macedon, who, though a vassal of Xerxes, had in the Persian War given many proofs of his sympathy with the Greek cause, desired to take part in the Olympic Games, to which only Hellenes had access, he was at first refused as a barbarian, and it was only when by a bold fiction he traced back the pedigree of his house, the Argeadae, to the Heraclid Temenus of Argos, that he was admitted as a competitor. Since then the kings of Mace­donia passed with the Greeks as Hellenes, and as descend­ants of Heracles; but, as before, so afterwards, the people were regarded as barbarians—even by Isocrates in his 'Philip'—though in the meantime many kings had done much for the introduction of Greek culture into their country. Even in Philip's day the Greeks saw in the Macedonians a non-Greek foreign people, and we must remem­ber this if we are to understand the history of Philip and Alexander, and especially the resistance and obstacles which met them from the Greeks. The point is much more important than our modern conviction that Greeks and Macedonians were brethren; this was equally unknown to both, and therefore could have no political effect. [5]

Quite apart from the local separation of the two peoples, the barbaric impression which the Macedonians made on the Greeks is explained by the close relationship in which the Macedonians lived for centuries with their barbarian neighbours, the Illyrians in the West, and the Thracians in the East. A strong Illyrian and Thracian influence can thus be recognized in Macedonian speech and manners. These however are only trifles compared with the Greek character of the Macedonian nationality; for example, the names of the true full-blooded Macedonians, especially of the princes and nobles, are purely Greek in their formation and sounds. [6]

Above all, the fundamental features of Macedonian poli­tical institutions are not only Greek but primitive Greek, a Homeric Greek. The old patriarchal monarchy over people and army lasted here down to the days of Philip and Alexander, a monarchy such as had once existed in all Greek tribes, until it had to give way to aristocratic forms of government under the dissolving influence of the Polis. One of the factors which explain the tenacious retention of the old monarchy is that the progressive idea of the Polis had not entered Macedonia. Another point is that the power of the king, who was supreme general, judge and priest, was tem­pered by the fact that the old Greek community in arms, in whose eyes the king was primus inter pares—which had once existed in primitive times among the Greeks—main­tained itself down to Alexander's day, and beyond, in the assembly of the army, which was possessed of definite privi­leges. But the Argeads were not at first lords of the whole Mace­donian nation. Originally the tribes of Upper Macedonia, the Lyncestae, Orestae and Elimiotae had their own princes or kings. Tedious struggles were necessary to incor­porate them into the Macedonian state, and it is likely that the mediatisation of these princely houses was only com­pleted under Philip, by whose hand the unified Mace­donian state was thus constituted. [7]

THE HELLENICITY OF THE MACEDONIANS

Jonathan Hall proceeds to a penetrating analysis of the shifting definitions of Hellenicity in Herodotus, Thucydides and Isocrates, our main sources for the evolution of the concept in the Classical period. About Thucydides in particular he writes that, contrary to Herodotus, he did not view Greeks and barbarians “as mutually exclusive categories” but as “opposite poles of a single, linear continuum”. Thus, the inhabitants of north-western Greece “are ‘barbarian’ not in the sense that their cultures, customs, or behavior are in direct, diametrical opposition to Greek norms but rather in the sense that their seemingly more primitive way of life makes them “Hellènes manqués”. [8] [9]

Hall challenges the view that Macedonia was marginal or peripheral in respect to a Greek centre or core, for the simple reason that such a Greek hard core never existed, since “‘Greekness’ is constituted by the totality of multifocal, situationally bound, and self-conscious negotiations of identity not only between poleis and ethne but also within them”, and because a view such as this “assumes a transhistorically static definition of Greekness” [10]

Jonathan Hall in his conclusions affirm the doubts about the possibility of answering the question concerning the “nationality” of the ancient Mace­donians. “To ask whether the Macedonians ‘really were’ Greek or not in anti­quity“, he writes, “is ultimately a redundant question given the shifting semantics of Greekness between the sixth and fourth centuries B.C. What cannot be denied, however, is that the cultural commodification of Hellenic identity that emerged in the fourth century might have remained a provincial artifact, confined to the Balkan peninsula, had it not been for the Mace­donians” [11]

There is also one more element which confirms the Hellenicity of the Macedonians. The epigraphic evidence of recent decades has also yielded a vast number of personal names. These are not only purely Greek from the very start, but also have a distinct local character which precludes the possibility of their being borrowed from the colonies on the coast. Epigraphic data of capital linguistic interest which have become available only after the Center of Hellenic Studies Colloquium of 1997 from Professor Miltiadis Hatzopoulos and important recent monographs and articles which seem not to have been accessible in the United States, if known, would have provided additional arguments and prevented some minor inaccuracies. [12]

Other epigraphic unique evidence are the “theorodokoi” catalogues which precisely list the Greek states (among them and Macedonia) visited by the theoroi, the sacred envoys, of the Pan-Hellenic sanctuaries and invited to participate through official delegations in sacrifices and contests celebrated in those sanctuaries. [13]

CONCLUSION

The question “Had the Macedonians an Hellenic consciousness ?” or "Were the Macedonians Greeks ?" perhaps needs to be chopped up further. The Macedonian kings emerge as Greeks by namely shared blood, and personal names indicate that Macedonians generally moved north from Greece. The kings, the elite, and the generality of the Macedonians were Greeks by criteria of religion and language. Macedonian customs were in certain respects unlike those of a normal polis, but they were compatible with Greekness, apart, perhaps, from the institutions which I have characterized as feudal. The crude one-word answer to the question has to be "yes."

NOTES
[1]- Jonathan Hall, Hellenicity, 2002, page 179
[2]- Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, 1989, "barbarous"
[3]- Ulrich Wilcken in “ Ancient Greek History” and in “Alexander The Great” - N.G.L. Hammond, Wallbank and Errington in three volumes “History of Macedonia”- Ian Worthington in his last book “Philip of Macedonia” e.t.c.
[4]- E. Badian, “Greeks and Macedonians”, in Beryl Bar-Sharrar – E. N. Borza (eds.), Macedonia and Greece in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Times and in “Herodotus on Alexander I of Macedon: A Study in some Subtle Silences”, in S. Hornblower (ed.), Greek Historiography,-E. N. Borza, in “the Shadow of Olympus” and in “The Emergence of Macedon”.
[5]- Volume “Macedonia: 4000 years of Greek History”, article from Sakellariou
[6]- Jean Kalleris, Les Anciens Macedoniens. Etude linguistique et historique
[7]- Ulrich Wilcken in “Ancient Greek History”, Greek edition, page 213
[8]- Irad Malkin (editor), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, Harvard Univeristy 2001, Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Definitions of Greek Ethnicity, page 169-172
[9]- Miltiadis Hatzopoulos, Macedonian Identities, Patakis publishing, 2008, Contested Ethnicities: Perception of the self and the other: the case of Macedon, page 51
[10]- Irad Malkin (editor), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, Cambridge, Mass. and London 2001, Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Definitions of Greek Ethnicity, page 166
[11]- Irad Malkin (editor), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity, Cambridge, Mass. and London 2001, Contested Ethnicities: Perceptions of Macedonia within Evolving Definitions of Greek Ethnicity, page 172
[12]- Miltiadis Hatzopoulos in “Macedonian institutions under the kings,1996” and Giannis Xydopoulos “ Social and cultural relations of Macedonians and the other Greeks, 2006”
[13]- Miltiadis Hatzopoulos, Macedonian Identities, Patakis publishing, 2008, Contested Ethnicities: Perception of the self and the other: the case of Macedon, page 55

The Hellenism of the Ancient Macedonians

Papercover: 294 pages
Publisher: Institute For Balkan Studies, Thessaloniki, 1965
Author: Apostolos Daskalakis, Member of the Greek Academy
Status: Rare and Out of print book

The present work represents the fruit of research into the Hellenism of an­cient Macedonia spread over many years, coupled with careful review and interpretation of all the ancient sources dealing with the subject. From the outset its planned aim has been not so much the writing of a history of Macedonia in ancient times, as the collection, critical study and evaluation of any material capable of serving to ascertain the Hellenic identity of the Macedonians and in general to examine their life, set within the range of Greek antiquity.

Admittedly, many of these facts have not been ignored in the views expressed or the conclusions already reached concerning the ancient Macedonians. Distinguished scholars and historians, both Greek and foreign, have made praise­worthy efforts to elucidate many facets of the country's past and their contribu­tions are far from negligible. Despite this, many subjects bearing not only on the language and make up of the nation, but also on the life in general of the old Macedonians, have hitherto remained unexplored, or at any rate not fully stud­ied; and there are many historical problems, particularly concerning the early history of Macedonia, yet to be solved. The partial or imperfect investigation of these problems has often led to faulty interpretations giving rise in their turn to contradictory judgements and questionable reasoning accompanied by violent disputes.

In this study I have examined all historical facts available in the sources of antiquity and have based my treatment and thinking in general about the Hel­lenism of ancient Macedonia on these alone. Wherever it has been possible or helpful to do so, some linguistic or archaeological material has been used. The work is above all historical, written by a historian and supported by data drawn from the sifting and checking of ancient sources.

The book is divided into five sections in each of which one of the principal subjects giving rise to controversy, or creating problems in history with regard to the Hellenism of Macedonia, has been dealt with by itself.

These are :

1. Origin of the ancient Macedonians: in this for purposes of research all information derived from ancient sources is recorded and also any geographical data found in the ancient authors, to corroborate conclusions reached.
2. The language of the Macedonians according to historical sources; here all ancient information concerning the language they spoke is cited and examined interpretatively.
3. The descent of the Arsead-Temenid Royal house of Macedonia, which ruled the country from unrecorded times down to Alexander the Great, a subject closely tied up with the national origin of the Macedonians and the foundation of the State.
4. Life of Alexandre the Philhellene, a man specially honoured by the Greeks, a subject of wider interest, dealing as it does with the first of Macedonian kings to lead his country into the Greek political horizon and lay the foundations of a Macedonian way of life on Greek lines, a topic which also offers a chance for a fuller historical study of the situation in Macedonia and the Greek wars of liberation against the Persians, as well as for the solution of many problems relating to Macedonia at that time.
5. The Athenian orators and what was said about Macedonian barbarism, a study refuting by means of historical research many existing misinterpret­ations of ancient texts concerning the conceptions of the Hellenism of the Macedon­ians held principally in Greece during antiquity.

These five sections of the present work, though written as separate studies, combine to give a general picture of the Hellenism of ancient Macedonia.

The book was first published in Greek and each of the five sections had a special bibliographical introduction, giving both the ancient sources on which my opinions were based and my conclusions regarding them. In the present Eng­lish edition, instead of these there is a general bibliography. The ancient texts, which would present a mass of material if quoted in full, have only been retai­ned in certain instances.

Below is a Review of the particular book fron N.G.L. Hammond (The Classical Review, New mSeries, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Dec., 1962), pp. 270-271 , Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical) that conserns the Greek edition.

The Professor of History in the University of Athens has in the past written a number of articles on aspects of Macedonian history, and he is now publishing some volumes on the subject, of which this is the first. It contains five parts; each is a separate study, complete with its own introduction, and they are connected with one another only by their bearing on the 'Greekness' of Macedonia. This system leads inevitably to much repetition, and this repetition combined with the very full, and sometimes verbose, style of Professor Daska-akis makes a very long book of the five topics. He writes with rhetorical power and conviction. At times he seems to protest too much, and he piles up all variety of arguments on the head of his reader. He tilts vigorously against his 'Slav' opponents, whose views, he asserts, are coloured by modern political prejudices. Absit omen! For there was nothing in Russian policy in the last war which the Greeks hated more than the proposal to set up an autonomous Macedonia as a Russian satellite.

The first part, 'The Origin of the Macedonians', begins well with its introduc­tion and sections on geography, and then the author takes the archaeological bull by the horns and hurls it to the ground. 'The archaeological excavations', he asserts, 'assure us in a manner which permits no doubt that Greek elements existed in Macedonia from prehistoric times and subsequently.' He is equally confident that archaeology has revealed Greeks in prehistoric Epirus. But in neither case does he discuss the evidence or say what objects he considers to have been specifically Greek (or in his terminology Achaean and Dorian) at Servia or Armenohori or Dodona. He seems to equate traces of Mycenaean civilization (or Achaean civilization as he calls it on p. 60) with the presence of Greek peoples, although he accepts Homer's placing of Paeonians in much of Macedonia at the time of the Trojan War and although Mycenaean remains are very rare in Epirus; and he sees in the Mycenaean-like style of the treasures found at Trebenishte, near Lake Ochrid, evidence of the survival there of 'the first Indo-European Greeks of the Mycenaean period, the Achaeans' into the latter part of the sixth century b.c. He may well be correct in his general views about the origin of the Macedonians, but he fails to carry conviction in
his use of archaeological evidence. He is much stronger on the literary sources, and he comments well on the famous passage in Herodotus i. 56, where a wandering tribe was called Makednon during its residence in the Pindus area and Dorikon on
entering the Peloponnese. He suggests that the tribesmen were tall (μακεδνοί) and the country was tall, i.e. mountainous, so that the tribe was called Makednon on two counts, and he holds the classical Macedonians to have been descended from the Dorians.

The second part deals with the language. Here the conclusions of Galleris are used, but his valuable glossary is not cited often (Les anciens Macedoniens, 1954). Inscriptions too are rarely used throughout the book. Professor Daska-lakis concentrates more on the literary sources and the names of persons and places, which go some way to support his positive conclusion that the Mace­donians spoke a dialect of Doric Greek. However, he makes too little of the difficulties. For example, Alexander the Great shouted out Μακεδονιστί (Plut. Alex. 51. 4), and he offered Philotas the chance of speaking patrio ser-mone (Q,. Gurt. vi. 9. 34 f.); later the Macedonians are said to have greeted Eumenes Μακ&ονιστΙ rfj φωντ\ (Plut. Eumen. 14. 4), and they were themselves recognized as different from the Spartans ck re των οπλών καΐ τής φωνής (Paus. iv. 29. 1). These passages are submitted to full discussion and some demolition, but they leave a suspicion that the Macedonians did speak a patois which was not recognizable at once as normal Doric Greek but may have been a north­west-Greek dialect of a primitive kind.

The third part, 'Argeadae-Temenidae', is the most convincing, because Professor Daskalakis goes very thoroughly into the literary sources, the names of the Macedonian kings, and the signs of Greek culture at the Macedonian court. This is a large task, well executed, and most readers will agree that the royal house was Greek in origin. The conclusion, which Professor Daskalakis draws, that their subjects were also Greeks of Dorian stock who had stayed in the Pindus area and were led in the early eighth century by the founders of the royal house into central
Macedonia, rests mainly on arguments of probability and will meet with conflicting views.

The fourth part, 'Alexander I the Phil-hellene', is a more straightforward piece of historical study. He puts his birth between 530 and 527 b.c., his competing at the Olympic Games in 496 b.c., and his death c. 454 b.c.; and he attributes to him the institution of the Pezetairoi and other administrative developments which are normally dated to the reign of Archelaus or to the fourth century.

The last part, 'The Athenian Orators and Charges of Macedonians being Barbarians', has a lighter theme but is thoroughly set forth. No doubt Demosthenes called Philip 4 a barbarian* and Aeschines called Demosthenes a barbarian and a Scythian', just as their modern counterparts might call their opponents 'Albanians' or 'Bulgars'. The interesting sentences in Herodes' πολιτείας and in the fragment of Thrasymachus are fully discussed, but I find it hard to believe with Professor Daskalakis that 'Isocrates indubitably . . . believed in the Greekness of the Macedonians' when I read chapters 105-8 and 154 of his Philippus. Isocrates thought the Macedonians to be un-Greek in accepting the rule of a king and probably he thought them un-Greek in blood (ούχ ομοφύλου γένους, in chapter 108). And this brings us back to a definition of Greekness, which must rest partly on archaeological evidence for the early period and on linguistic evidence for the fifth century.

This book is a valuable contribution to the study of an important area. We wish Professor Daskalakis success in carrying on the good work in his later volumes. The print is clear (I noted half a dozen misprints only); there is a full index of proper names; and the book ends with a hand-drawn map, which could be given clearer definition in a later volume.

University of
Bristol
N. G. L. HAMMOND

The 'Hellenization' argument contradiction

Whenever the issue of ancient Macedonian greekness arises, i notice the same contradiction over and over. Until now as we all know all the archaeological inscriptions found and mostly Pella's curse tablet of 4th cent. BC, which is the only ancient 'Macedonian' text we have, are proving that Macedonians spoke a dialect related to North-West Greek, and this is a something the entirety of the scientific community agrees on.

Now, if archaeologists discover eg. an inscription written in a different language, and its older than the existing ones, this is obviously evidence that Macedonia had a language/dialect which was not greek.But if they dont, as they havent found all these decades, this is only taken as evidence, that ancient Macedonia was simply 'Hellenized'.

In other words, according to what people claim, if they find archaeological discoveries, older than the existing in a different language that's proof Macedonia wasnt greek and if they dont, its proof Macedonia was 'hellenized' therefore it wasnt greek again.Same contradiction exists with other arguments i read every now and then about

Alexander declaring in every chance he was given that he was greek.

The explanation of some is usually that Alexander was doing "propaganda".

All these examples, mean exactly, nothing at all could be accepted as evidence that Macedonians were of greek origin since only evidence that they were not is counted.It is logical that in order to perform a genuine discussion of a theory people must permit the possibility of evidence that would count against it.

If you do not, the discussion cannot be genuine or constructive, because a discussion that is run with the presumption that nothing could count as a failure of a point is no real discussion at all, but rather its a joke.

Beware of the above guys, next time anyone will use the "Hellenization" argument against you.

In spite of the political turbulence and chaos of the fourth century BC, Greece was poised on its most triumphant period: the Hellenistic age. The word, Hellenistic, is derived from the word, Hellene, which was the Greek word for the Greeks. The Hellenistic age was the "age of the Greeks; during this time, Greek culture and power extended itself across the known world.

While the classical age of Greece produced great literature, poetry, philosophy, drama, and art, the Hellenistic age "hellenized" the world. At the root of Hellenism were the conquests of Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander. However, the Macedonians did more than control territory; they actively exported Greek culture: politics, law, literature, philosophy, religion, and art. This was a new idea, exporting culture, and more than anything else this exporting of culture would deeply influence all the civilizations and cultures that would later erupt from this soil: the Romans, the Christians, the Jewish diaspora, and Islam.

Macedon all during the age of the Greek city-states was an anomaly: it was a Greek kingdom. Located north-east of the Greek mainland and northwest of Asia Minor, Macedon was firmly entrenched on the European continent. The Macedonians were the Greeks who had to contend, then, with all the European tribes, many of which were war-like. So the Macedonians served as a kind of buffer for the Greeks, as the faithful Greeks who stood between the tribal Europeans and the Greek city-states. For all that, the Macedonians were deeply unappreciated by their fellow Greeks; they were looked on as no better than barbarians themselves, particularly since they had never developed or adopted the polis.

The Macedonians were ruled by a king, much like the Mycenean kings. The king came to power through inheritance, but first had to be approved by the army. Beneath the king was an aristocracy of nobles who had a limited amount of power; like all monarchies that shared power with an aristocracy, the balance of power frequently shifted from the king to the nobles and back again. Into this situation, at the peak of the political chaos roiling the Greek world to the south, stepped a powerful king who unified the country of Macedon and set his sights on conquering the whole of the Greek world: Philip of Macedon.

Despite the constant conflict, the Hellenistic world was an incredibly prosperous one. Alexander and his successors had liberated an immense amount of wealth from the Persian empire, and with this new wealth in circulation the standard of living rose dramatically. Each of the empires embarked on building projects, on scholarship, on patronage of the arts, and on literature and philosophy. The Ptolemies built an enormous library in their capital city of Alexandria, and sponsored the translation of a host of religious and literary works into Greek.This period really marked the first international culture in western, middle eastern, and north African history.

The Greeks imported their culture: political theory, philosophy, art, and literature all over the known civilized world. This culture would greatly alter the culture and religion of the Mediterannean. But the flow of culture worked in the opposite direction as well; non-Greek ideas and non-Greeks flowed into Greece (and Italy). They took with them their religions, their philosophies, science, and culture; in this environment, eastern religions in particular began to take hold in the Greek city-states both in the east and in Greece. Among these religions was Zoroastrianism and Mithraism; in later years, this international environment would provide the means for the spread of another eastern religion, Christianity.

This process of the "hellenization" ("making Greek") of the world took place largely in the urban centers the Greeks began to zealously build. While the Greeks had for a long time believed that monarchy was a sign of barbarity, they had to come to terms with the reality of their new form of government. So they compromised. While they accepted the monarchy, the set about building somewhat independent poleis that had the structure of the polis without its political independence. The growth of these cities provoked massive migrations from the Greek mainland, as Greeks settled in these new, far-flung poleis to assume lucrative positions in the military and administration.

Spread from Italy to India, from Macedonia to Egypt, Greek culture was the most significant of its times. The mighty empires of the Greeks hung onto this vast amount of territory for almost three centuries. Slowly, however, a new power was rising in the west, steadily building its own, accidental empire. By the time of Christ, the great Greek empires of the Hellenistic world had been replaced and unified once more into a single empire under the control of an Italian people, the Romans.

reference :history-of-macedonia.com