Page 112 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

according to Arrian, an ancient Greek historian, Alexander, “with a word of thanks for the gift, took the helmet and, in full view of his troops, poured the water on the ground. So extraordinary was the effect of this action that the water wasted by Alexander was as good as a drink for every man in the army.” Ever the great military leader, Alexander had found yet another way to inspire his troops.
Alexander the Great was the son of King Philip II of Macedonia, who in 338 B.C.E. had defeated the Greeks and established his control over the Greek peninsula. When Alexander became king after Philip’s death, he led the Macedonians and Greeks on a spectacular conquest of the Persian Empire, opening the door to the spread of Greek culture throughout the ancient Near East. Greek settlers poured into the Near Eastern lands to work as bureaucrats, traders, soldiers, and scholars. Alexander’s triumph gave rise to a new series of kingdoms that blended the achievements of the Eastern world with the cultural outlook and
attitudes of the Greeks. We use the term Hellenistic to designate this new order. The Hellenistic world was the world of Greeks and non-Greek Easterners, and it resulted, in its own way, in a remarkable series of accomplishments that are sometimes underestimated. They form the story of this chapter.
Macedonia and the Conquests of Alexander
Q FOCUS QUESTION: How was Alexander able to amass his empire, and what might his rule have been like if he had lived longer?
While the Greek city-states were continuing their frat- ricidal warfare, to their north a new and ultimately powerful kingdom was emerging. The Macedonians were probably not Greek; scholars are still unsure whether the Macedonian language was an archaic dia- lect of Greek or an altogether separate language. The Greeks certainly viewed the Macedonians as barbarians, although the Greeks allowed them to participate as “Greeks” in the Olympic games beginning in the fifth century B.C.E.
Unlike the Greeks, the Macedonians were mostly ru- ral folk and were organized in tribes, not city-states. Not until the end of the fifth century B.C.E., during the
74 Chapter 4 The Hellenistic World
reign of King Archelaus (ca. 413–399 B.C.E.), did Mace- donia emerge as an important kingdom. But his reign was followed by decades of foreign invasions and inter- nal strife until King Philip II (359–336 B.C.E.) took con- trol and turned Macedonia into the chief power of the Greek world.
Philip instituted military reforms that transformed Macedonia into a major military power. He created a new phalanx of infantrymen who were more lightly armed than Greek hoplites; each carried a smaller shield and a shorter sword. But the Macedonian infan- tryman’s chief weapon was a long thrusting spear— eighteen feet in length, or twice as long as the Greek hoplite’s spear. In this way, Macedonian infantrymen could impale an opposing hoplite force before the hop- lites could even reach them. The Macedonian phalanx was supported by strong cavalry contingents that served to break the opposing line of battle and create disorder in the enemy’s ranks. Philip also strengthened the bonds between the army and its leaders. Even the king shared in the dangers of battle, receiving many wounds. Philip’s new army defeated the Illyrians to the west and the Thracians to the north and east and was then drawn into the Greeks’ interstate conflicts.
Philip and the Conquest of Greece
The Greeks had mixed reactions to Philip’s growing strength. Many Athenians, especially the statesman and orator Demosthenes (duh-MAHSS-thuh-neez), came to have a strong distrust of the Macedonian leader’s inten- tions. Demosthenes delivered a series of orations, known as the Philippics, in which he portrayed Philip as ruthless, deceitful, treacherous, and barbaric and called on the Athenians to undertake a struggle against him. Other Athenians, such as Isocrates (eye-SAHK-ruh-teez), an important teacher of rhetoric, viewed Philip as a sav- ior who would rescue the Greeks from themselves by uniting them (see the box on p. 75).
Demosthenes’s repeated calls for action, combined with Philip’s rapid expansion, finally spurred Athens to action. Allied with a number of other Greek states, Ath- ens fought the Macedonians at the Battle of Chaeronea (ker-uh-NEE-uh), near Thebes, in 338 B.C.E. The Macedo- nian army crushed the Greeks, and Philip was now free to consolidate his control over the Greek peninsula. The independent Greek polis, long the basic political unit of the Greek world, came to an end as Philip formed an alliance of the Greek states that we call the Corinthian League because it met at Corinth. All members took an oath of loyalty: “I swear by Zeus, Earth, Sun, Poseidon,
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