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During the middle of the 4th century BC,
Philip II had made the army of Macedonia
the most powerful in the region of Greece. Philip has been credited with fielding the first scientifically organized army in history. His infantry fought with pikes—weapons formed from long wooden shafts with pointed steel heads—of various sizes; the longest, the deadly
sarissa,
was about three times the height of the man holding it. This weapon enabled the Macedonians to face their enemies with a frightening array of points from three lines of soldiers. The Macedonians were also excellent riders, and their well-directed cavalry could pounce in unison on enemy flanks.
Thrace and Thessaly
in northern Greece fell to Philip's warriors. He then forced most of Greece to acknowledge his leadership.When Philip's son, who became known as Alexander the Great, came to the throne in 336, the Greek city-states must have breathed a sigh of relief. Surely
this boy-king, only 19 years old, would not be as daunting as the great Philip. Encouraged by Darius III of Persia, who bought Greek allies with gold and promises, Thebes and Athens
rose up against Macedonian leadership in 335. But Alexander was not easily discouraged. He marched quickly against Thebes, took the town by surprise, and razed it to the ground. Impressed, Athens capitulated without a fight, and was rewarded with leniency. The rest of Greece learned its lesson.
With Greece secured, Alexander crossed the Dardanelles. On the eastern
bank he thrust his spear into the soil as a token of his possession of Asia. During the next decade Alexander completed one of the most remarkable conquests in history. In 333 BC he conquered Asia Minor, then Syria,
then Egypt. In 331 he occupied Babylon and the next year he took the Persian capital, Persepolis, which he burned in revenge for damage the Persians had done to the Acropolis
in 480. King Darius was still at large, a frightened leader at the head of a frightened army. Alexander chose 500 of his best soldiers and led them on a chase well in advance of his main force. After 11 days he and 60 men caught up with the Persian army. The Persians were so demoralized by their Macedonian nemesis that even this small force unnerved them; they promptly murdered Darius and scattered.
Driven, some would say, by a dream of world domination, Alexander pushed on, across plains and mountains, to India. He crossed the Indus and, in 326 at Hydaspes, he defeated a strong Indian force that included 100
elephants. Alexander might have continued through India, but at that point his soldiers baulked. Unable to talk round his homesick troops, Alexander turned back to Baghdad, where he made plans for the administration of his vast empire. During his campaigns he had been wounded
several times and survived. But in Baghdad he grew ill, probably with malaria, and died at the age of 33. Alexander the Great was perhaps the finest general the world has ever seen.Alexander's empire was fragmented
after his death as regional leaders set up independent kingdoms. The largest of these were the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt and the Seleucid Empire, which at its height stretched from the Aegean Sea to the Indus River.
Through Alexander, whom many Greeks considered a barbarian, Greek culture reached regions as remote as India, Persia, and Mesopotamia. Greek traditions took root most firmly in Egypt, where Alexander had established a
new capital, named after himself. Alexandria
was a city of enormous buildings, dominated by the Pharos, a lighthouse standing more than 134 m (440 ft) tall and one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Alexandria also boasted a library housing nearly 500,000 scrolls.
The Greeks continued to excel in the arts and sciences during what came to be called the Hellenistic Age. One of the most sublime of all Greek statues, Nike of Samothrace—the Winged Victory—was carved in the Greek islands during the 2nd century BC. Syracuse boasted one of the greatest of all mathematicians, Archimedes (280-212). Euclid
wrote his treatise on geometry while living in Alexandria during the 3rd century BC. The island of Rhodes erected a magnificent statue of the sun god Helios in its harbour, known as the Colossus of Rhodes. Like Alexandria's Pharos it was one of the Seven Wonders of the World.The end of the Hellenistic Age is difficult to determine. The western
reaches of Alexander's empire had given way to insurrection and rebellion by the end of the 3rd century BC. In 148 BC, after several wars, Macedonia was finally subdued by the upstart Roman Empire. Afterwards it was a
Roman province. In Egypt the Ptolemies held out longer, falling to Rome in 30 AD. Through such defeats the old Hellenic kingdoms fell, but the influence of Hellenic culture endures to this day. |
