4. FROM THE CLASSICAL TO THE HELLENISTIC WORLD, 400

Introduction for Chapter 4

From the Classical to the Hellenistic World

400–30 B.C.E.

The Rosetta Stone

Dug out of the wall of a fort in 1799 by a soldier in Napoleon’s army near Rosetta, in the Nile River delta, this Hellenistic inscription in two different languages and three different forms of writing unlocked the lost secrets of how to read Egyptian hieroglyphs. The bands of text repeat the same message (priests praising King Ptolemy V in 196 B.C.E.) in hieroglyphs, demotic (a cursive form of Egyptian invented around 600 B.C.E.), and Greek. Bilingual texts were necessary to reach the mixed population of Hellenistic Egypt. Scholars deciphered the hieroglyphs by comparing them to the Greek version. They started with the hieroglyphs surrounded by an oval, which they guessed were royal names. (Art Resource, NY.)

ABOUT 255 B.C.E., AN EGYPTIAN CAMEL TRADER far from home sent a letter of complaint to his Greek employer back in Egypt:

You know that when you left me in Syria with Krotos I followed all your instructions concerning the camels and behaved blamelessly towards you. But Krotos has ignored your orders to pay me my salary; I’ve received nothing despite asking him for my money over and over. He just tells me to go away. I waited a long time for you to come, but when I no longer had life’s necessities and couldn’t get help anywhere, I had to run away . . . to keep from starving to death. . . . I am desperate summer and winter. . . . They have treated me like dirt because I am not a Greek. I therefore beg you, please, order them to pay me so that I won’t go hungry just because I don’t know how to speak Greek.

The trader’s plea for help from a foreigner living in his homeland reflects the changes in the eastern Mediterranean world during the Hellenistic Age (323–30 B.C.E.). The movement of Greeks into the Near East increased the cultural interaction between the Greek and the Near Eastern worlds and set a new course for Western civilization in politics, art, philosophy, science, and religion. Above all, Alexander the Great (356–323 B.C.E.) changed the course of history by conquering the Persian Empire, leading an army of Greeks and Macedonians to the border of India, taking Near Easterners into his army and imperial administration, and planting colonies of Greeks as far east as Afghanistan. His amazing expedition shocked the world and spurred great change in Western civilization by combining Near Eastern and Greek traditions as never before.

Politics changed in the Greek world when Alexander’s successors (who had been commanders in his army) created new kingdoms that became the dominant powers of the Hellenistic Age. The existing Greek city-states retained local rule but lost their independence in international affairs. The Hellenistic kings imported Greeks to fill royal offices, man their armies, and run businesses, generating tension with their non-Greek subjects. Egyptians, Syrians, or Mesopotamians who wanted to rise in Hellenistic society had to win the support of these Greeks and learn their language.

CHAPTER FOCUS What were the major political and cultural changes in the Hellenistic Age?

The Near East’s local cultures interacted with the Greek overlords’ culture to spawn a multicultural synthesis. Although Hellenistic royal society always remained hierarchical, its kings and queens did finance innovations in art, philosophy, religion, and science that combined Near Eastern and Greek traditions. The Hellenistic kingdoms fell in the second and first centuries B.C.E. when the Romans overthrew them one by one. But the cultural interaction between diverse peoples and the emergence of new ideas—unintended consequences of Alexander’s military campaigns—would strongly influence Roman civilization.