The Athenian philosopher and statesman Demetrius of Phalerum (ca. 350–280 B.C.E.) was a contemporary of Alexander. Surveying the changes in the Mediterranean world that had occurred during his lifetime, Demetrius did not marvel at Alexander's many military victories or link his conquests to the triumph of Greek culture and civilization. Instead he presented the recent history of his region as clear evidence of the awful power of Tyche, the goddess and personification of luck, fortune, and fate. If Tyche could topple the mighty Persian Empire, making the previously obscure Macedonians world conquerors in the process, what limits could there be on her influence over the lives of individual men and women? Demetrius's views on the power of Tyche were shared by many of his contemporaries. Living in an era where change and upheaval seemed to be the norm, people across the Hellenistic world gave new emphasis to the role of fortune in their lives. As you read this excerpt from Demetrius's writings, ask yourself what light it sheds on the connection between Alexander's conquests and larger philosophical and religious trends in the Hellenized world.

If you consider not an unlimited stretch of time or numerous years, but merely these last fifty years before us, you will understand there the cruelty of Fortune. For can you imagine that fifty years ago if some god had foretold the future to the Persians or their king, or the Macedonians or their king, they would have believed that the very name of the Persians would now be lost, who at one time were masters of almost the whole inhabited world, while the Macedonians, whose very name was formerly unknown, would now be masters of it all? Nevertheless Fortune, who makes no compact with our lives, causes events to happen in defiance of our expectations, and displays her power by surprises, is now, I think demonstrating to all mankind that by establishing the Macedonians as colonists amid the prosperity of Persia, she has merely lent these advantages to them until she decides to do something else with them.

Source: M. M. Austin, ed., The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest: A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation, 2d augmented ed.(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 61.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER