History of the World Chapter : The Greeks and Persians, Volume 2 (Patreon)

A Brief Look at Persia

As we turn our gave back west, we find that Athens and Sparta have fought each other to their bloody grave, ending the Golden Age of the Greek city states. Classical Greek civilization collapsed. The optimism that allowed the search for truth and beauty no longer existed. It was replaced mainly buy class warfare, as the rich and poor fought for the scraps of the remaining economy rather than trying to better the whole society. The Persians stood by the side, laughing and throwing a log into the fire every time it looked as if it would burn out.

The Persians themselves were doing quite well. Wealth poured fourth from the stability of empire and with it the decadence that came with it. The nobles of Persia turned from hardened barbarians to an effete gentry at record speed. An example of this was that Persian culture demanded only a single meal a day to maintain toughness. However this was circumvented by having meals last entire afternoons, from lunch until dusk with dozens of courses. The Persian royal court turned in on itself, with court intrigues taking up a large part of the energies of this era’s forgettable Kings of Kings. The royal harems were a large part of this, with the Shah’s consorts often becoming the most powerful forces in the realm. Persia and its realms settled into a happy and fat middle age.

Even at their lowest point, the Greeks were able to feel smug about their civilization. The Persians knew that they lacked heavy infantry and so hired Greek mercenaries liberally in their empire to supplement this. This resulted in a terrible embarrassment for their government, but also one of greatest adventures in history. A force of 10,000 Greeks were hired by a faction in a for the Persian throne. The Greeks were marched to the gates of Babylon only to realize that their claimant had already lost and they were stranded in the heart of the Persian Empire. The Greeks banded together under the leadership of Xenophon and determined to escape. They marched out of Mesopotamia and defeated the several Persian armies thrown against them. The Greeks marched through the mountains of Armenia to the Black Sea, facing only token resistance. Upon reaching the sea, they took a Greek fleet back home. Thus, the strength of the Hoplite again embarrassed the great Persian state.

Old Greece continues to die, but with a whimper

Sparta did not rule Greece for long. The Spartans were nearly as exhausted by the war as the Athenians, and not naturally an imperialistic people, the Spartans were happy to demand tribute from the aristocracies of the subject Greece. The Athenians piped up a few times, delusionally asking to be great again, only to be reminded that they lost. However, the new competition came from Thebes, originally the greatest city of Greece around 700 BC and left relatively unscathed from the Peloponnesian Wars. Thus a series of wars broke out between the two powers. The Thebans, further north than Athens and Sparta and thus with better soil, were not wedded to the Hoplite, which they supplemented with horseman and archers. Thus, the Thebans were able to deal the Spartans the first real victory against the Hoplite formation at the battle of Leuctra, wearing down the heavy infantry from a distance. This plucked the flower of young Spartan masculinity and Sparta never truly recovered. It says something about the Spartan character that upon hearing news of the crippling defeat, they refused to cancel the celebration of Diana, the patron goddess, which was that very day.

The Thebans likewise were unable to celebrate their success for before long yet another Greek state grew to outcompete them. In the far north of Greece lay the land of Macedonia, which was the frontier of civilization. Illyrian tribes mixed with semi civilized Greeks to make a rugged mountain people, skilled in war and hardy. Macedonia had always taken a backseat to the states further south, siding with first the Persians and then the Spartans, contributing little to either. The positive benefit of this was that the Pelopenesian wars and the later Spartan-Theban wars had little effect here. As Greece grew tired and jaded into middle age, Macedonia was in its teenage years.

This opportunity was captured by King Phillip of Macedon. He turned his capital Pella, into a center of culture and learning, elevating Macedon to a higher level of civilization. He bridled the proud Macedonian chiefs into a warlike officer class. He forged possibly the best army on earth out of the ingredients of the semi civilized mountain peasants. He combined the old strength of the Hoplite formation while destroying its weaknesses. He was likely the greatest European leader, that we know of, up to his time. The Hoplite armor was lightened for greater mobility while at the same time lengthening their spears. This was combined with strong ranged, skirmishing and sword wielding auxiliary units. He then made a crack cavalry force including the excellent Companion cavalry, handpicked from the Macedonian aristocracy. The military was professional, a last death knell to the citizen soldier and the democracy that came with it. This was likely the most balanced army in history, with few weaknesses and strong in every arm. Macedonia sat on the fence between civilization and barbarism, a dangerous point where it could use the ferocity of the Macedonian peasant in battle while at the same time using the drill and organization of the civilized world.

Philip used this military to invade Greece. The small city states created a coalition led by Athens and the defender’s forces were crushed outside that city. Many Greek states did not even resist, being so torn by class and local divisions they weren’t even able to decide that foreign conquest was a worse option than self rule. Anyhow, Phillip and the Macedonians were respectful and just conquerors, sparing the Greek city states any ravaging. Only Sparta remained independent. After a thousand years of independent city states, the Greek peninsula was united into a single empire. Old Greece died quietly. Wealth inequality was enormous with most of the population living in destitution. This was connected with the collapse of the Hoplite-militia and democracy, which eventually led to the rise of a unified empire over Greece. Civic pride died this way. The Macedonians were fair and peaceful, what else could a man ask for? Instead of fighting each other, the strength of the Greek people would be used to conquer the world.

Phillip’s genius was sadly never fulfilled. Before his planned invasion of the Persian empire, he died. Many think that he was poisoned by a coalition of his insane wife and his son Alexander, who despised him. History would have looked back on this as a great missed opportunity if his son had not been even more brilliant than he. Anyhow, Alexander inherited his father’s throne, upon which the Thracians of modern Bulgaria and the Thebes rebelled, thinking to break away in the confusion of the succession. Alexander put down both of these rebellions brutally, putting the city of Thebes to the sword. His cruelty made him infamous as Thebes was a great cultural center of the time, the equivalent of burning Rome today. After this he prepared to fulfill his father’s dream of conquering the Persian empire. By accomplishing this, Alexander would be rated among the greatest conquerors in ever in all of history, only surpassed by Genghis Khan.

Alexander

The Macedonians crossed the Bosphorus strait and defeated the local satrapy’s forces at the Granicus River, where the Persians were routed. This gave Alexander control of Western Anatolia, but he kept marching and fought the Persians at the Issus River in the mountains that open into Anatolia into Syria. Outnumbered two or three to one, while having to ford a river, and in one of his hardest fought battles, he defeated the armies of the Great King once again. He even seized the female relatives of the Great King, Darius the 3rd. He chivalrically sent them back, except for one daughter, who he married. The victory was so horrific for the Persians that it effectively immobilized them for several years and gave Alexander a free hand. Alexander then descended into Syria and Phoenicia unopposed. Strangely for a Greek, Alexander lacked a navy and so wished to seize every Persian port on the Mediterranean so the Persians would be unable to counter-attack Greece. Thus he was stuck in an epic siege of the island city of Tyre in Phoenicia, which remained loyal to the Persians. Once considered impregnable, he built a causeway to it using bags of sand to bring up the siege equipment, thus seizing it.

He then marched into Judea, in which the Jews happily submitted to him. This was followed by Egypt, who was so happy to throw off the Persian yoke that the natives even declared him a pharaoh and a God. Little did they know that in the long run the Greeks would become far crueler rulers than the Persians. In Egypt he founded the port city of Alexandria at the mouth of Nile. It would become one of the most important cities of Antiquity and still exists today.

After this lengthly side campaign, he decided to return to the main goal of Persia. In the passing time, the Great King had organized to finally defeat Alexander. The Greeks met the Persians at the Gaugamela in Northern Mesopotamia. Once again the Greeks were outnumbered two or three to one. However, the army was purely raised from the Eastern half of the empire, where the dearth of good heavy infantry was even more acute, thus repeating the same weaknesses Darius’ ancestors had when they invaded Greece a hundred and fifty years earlier. In one the most epic battles of history, Persian scythed chariots and elephants stood against Macedonians heavy cavalry and spearmen. The ancients reputed that a million men fought on this field, 180,000 is likely a more accurate number. After an endless swirling maelstrom, not hampered by the incredible flatness of the land, which the Persians flattened on purpose for their chariots, the Macedonian line held and Alexander launched a decisive cavalry charge at exactly the right moment and the Persian army broke. Darius fled the field but was killed by his servant who was disgusted by the shame of the defeat. Alexander found his corpse bloated in the desert sun and gave it a proper funeral. Such was his double-sided nature which we would see manifested in so many bizarre ways. He gave his enemies great respect but gave Thebes and his own people no mercy when they showed the slightest disloyalty

The defeat at Guagemela broke the back of Persia and left the road open to the main center of the Persian empire, Babylon. Alexander seized said city, respected its antiquity and civilization and made it his capital. He then marched into the heart of Persia, seizing the cities of Persepolis and Pasargadae, the capitals of the empire. He looted these and fair number of the high nobility of Persia committed mass suicide to escape the indignity of foreign conquest. He then marched north across Persia, surveying his new empire. Who could think that the Greeks, a series of small city states that the Great King probably had barely heard of before the disastrous wars would in little more than a hundred and fifty years conquer Persia? None except the Greeks themselves.

Persia started to begin to change Alexander. As a child, his mother fed him lies that Phillip wasn’t his real father, Zeus was (knowing Zeus’ marital and moral record, I would honestly prefer Phillip). This combined with a few prophecies and the Egyptians proclaiming him a God horrifically expanded his ego. He proclaimed himself a God, supposedly to cement his power among his new subjects, but all knew the real reason was his hubris. His Macedonian officry and troops were disgusted, men raised on the dying Greek beliefs of humanism and modesty and who were only recently independent tribesmen were not happy. The Persians meanwhile had no trouble with this, it wasn’t that far of a step from a king supported by divine power to a divine king itself, plus he would have to die at some point at least. Alexander was mystified and enamored by the beauty, antiquity and elegance of Persian society. He thought that Greek and Persian society should mix, taking the best qualities of each and leaving the worst. He took many Persian wives and encouraged his officers to do the same. His troops and officry, taught that all non Greeks were barbarians, were not as tolerant and considered Alexander bordering on a traitor to civilization. However, he was the greatest conqueror in history and elevated Greek civilization to world domination, its rightful place in the sun and so he was also worshipped by his men, although not as a god.

A prophecy told Alexander that Zeus had given him all of Asia for the conquering. Thus, Alexander was not happy with merely controlling the largest empire ever in history at that point but wished to push further east into Asia. After increasing his army with Persian recruits, he drove north into Central Asia, conquering the lands to the Oxus river and modern day Samarkand, wintering there. Hearing traders-talk of the wealth of India to the South, he turned to that direction. He subdued the mountains of Afghanistan, being one of the few conquerors to ever do so (the fact that the only others are Cyrus the Great and Genghis Khan speaks mountains to the skill and bravery of the Afghans). After a bloody campaign of burning down enough hill forts, the Afghan tribes momentarily bent their proud heads. Meanwhile, the wealthy cities of Bactria, now where Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan meet did likewise. Winding his way through the lands where the Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Elbruz mountain chains all meet in the heart of Asia, his army reached the fertile and tropical valleys of India.

Around 400 years have passed since we last looked upon India in anything but passing glance. That land’s rich history is the subject of next chapter, but all that you need know for the present is that the warlike Aryan tribes settled down to become warlike, but civilized farming kingdoms. Heroes and horses were replaced by high walls and elephants. The Greek conception of geography was that the inhabited world was surrounded by a massive ocean which was the edge of the world. Alexander thought that India lay near this great ocean and upon reaching it he would fulfill his life quest of the conquest of Asia. Thus his armies poured into the north of the Indus Valley in 327 BC.

There he faced the forces of the Indian king Porus, a mighty warrior renowned for his nobility and skill. There was a mighty battle along the banks of the Hydaspes river, a tributary of the Indus. An epic battle followed in which Alexander’s forces were tried by an Indian army of Longbowman, Chariots and Elephants. However Alexander was able to ford the river and defeat Porus’ army. When Alexander captured Porus and asked him how he should be treated, he replied “treat me how a king would treat a king”. Alexander, impressed by Porus, reinstated him as a client monarch of his kingdom with no punishment. Alexander had no time to squander and so pressed his men even further into India.

As they went further, the men came to realize the true size of India and the impossibility or close to it, of the task Alexander had set out to do. Five separate warring Indian kingdoms, realizing the real threat, united against Alexander. If Alexander was to ever reach his goal, many more battles would need to be won, just as incredible as those that had been won against Persia. Alexander was excited by the challenge and pushed his men forward. They would have none of it. Eight years had passed since they had left Macedonia and they missed home. They knew that Alexander’s lust for conquest would never end and so they would probably never go home. Thus, Alexander’s men mutinied and refused to go any further. Alexander was so disgusted by this that he spent days afterwards sulking in his tent, refusing to leave or consult his troops. Finally, he agreed with them, but made a journey home that would make them regret their decision.

He floated his men down the long Indus, conquering his way down it. Instead of returning to Babylon the way they came, he decided to cross the Gedrosian desert, where Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan meet today. This desert is incredibly harsh, without food or water and quite vast. Vast portions of his men died in this march. Only a handful made it back to civilization. The God Alexander had lost touch with the man and killed thousands of men for his own vainglory.

A brief look away from war and armies, to the definition of happiness and a time of great unhappiness

All this world spanning adventure brought back a wealth of information to the inquisitive Greek mind. This was lapped up the broad mind of Aristotle. Born in Macedonia, but studied and taught in Athens, he is likely symbolic of the entire empire. There he gained the approval of the Macedonian kings and ran a school in Athens for the study of knowledge. If there ever was a polymath, it was he. He wrote on practically all subjects; religion, government, art, ethics, oratory, nature, love etc… Describing his views on every single one of these subjects would be impractical in a history of the world simple since there was so much material. His speciality was the making of definitions to build assumptions off of. He made definitions for such things as beauty, good government and happiness. He felt that the happy man was he who lived a moderate life without excess and yet learned to love life. He was a great researcher of the natural world. Alexander sent him samples of all the animals and planets he found in his travels, which Aristotle kept in Athens. He was politically unadventurous. He was conservative and believed that a wise monarchy and aristocracy was the wisest political system and that slavery was the proper state of existence for those born into it. This likely came partially from his funding being conservative monarchs, but also Greece was in the hangover from the liberal Athenian golden age.

As an influence on thought, he was of the first-most importance. His work was so expansive and logical (for lack of a better word) that he was held up to be the standard for nearly 2,000 years. As late as the Middle Ages contradicting Aristotle in both the Christian and Islamic worlds was seen as foolish and borderline heretical. Aristotle was seen as the basic truth. Although, he was skilled and intelligent, no man can stand up to such a test. Over the years, his mistakes held back development in many ways. However, he had much positive effect as well. The rediscovery of his works sparked Golden Ages of the mind in both Islam and Christendom. His definitions are the foundations for many of the views we hold today.

Meanwhile, Alexander had returned to Babylon. He then spent his days in ecstatic feasting. This was merely meant to be a pause before his conquests would resume in a few years. He had already commissioned fleets to circumnavigate Arabia, probably for future conquest. After rebuilding his forces he may have driven after India once again. However, none of this came to be. Alexander upon his return, went about a great bout of drinking and feasting. He outdid himself and grew ill. He passed away at the age of 32 in 323 BC. Some believe that one of his generals poisoned him so that he wouldn’t keep doing his insane conquests. With him passed away one of the greatest conquerors in history, a man of many enigmas. He was brilliant at war, but burned out at a young age and ended up killing himself indirectly. He was magnanimous at times and cruel at others. He had great hubris, but also great vision. All can agree that he dragged history in a direction only he could have.

Greeks in foreign lands

The Death of Alexander left a great question on who would succeed his massive empire. His children were too young to inherit the throne and the generals around him too ruthless and capable to let them wait to older age. When Alexander was asked his opinion on the subject on his deathbed, he gave the incredibly helpful answer of “the strongest”. His generals, all able men, decided that this meant them, with each of them believing they were the sole one. Alexander’s children were routinely killed and each portion of the empire collapsed to different officers. The old Greek states rebelled against the central authority and Aristotle, a Macedonian who supported Alexander and the monarchy, was killed. The next few decades were an endless series of wars between the separate generals. Describing these wars would be unnecessary and dull in this narrative. The main figures were the Ptolemies based out of Egypt, the Seleucids based out of the old Persian heartland, the Antigonids based out of Anatolia and Lysismachus based out of Greece and Macedon. There were many near misses and points at which the empire could have reunited, but an alliance was formed against it or a last minute battle prevented it. What matters is that after the clouds of war had passed over the decades, the empire was divided once again. The Ptolemies ruled in Egypt, the Seleucids in Asia and the Antigonids in Greece and the Balkans. India was reconquered by the native Mauryan dynasty. Alexander’s dream of a united Greece and Asia was broken forever.

Even if a united Greek empire was broken, that did not weaken the influence of Greece in the conquered regions. Greece itself was dying, the soil was depleted. Olive oil, the main crop of Greece, had denuded the soil and now the rest of the Mediterranean outcompeted it. The soil had washed away into the sea. The cities were rife with class tension and had become upper class schemes to oppress the poor. Better opportunities simply lay abroad. This led to a wave of Greeks flowing into the conquered territories. Greeks set themselves up as the upper and merchant classes in the regions they conquered. They were almost entirely an urban people, settling in the cities. New Greek cities were created all over, whether they be Alexandria, Antioch, Seleucia, Philadelphia or Kandahar. The Greeks tended to scorn the native societies and so tried to transplant their societies and educate the barbarians in the Greek way of doing things. The Greek neighborhoods of these cities were practically Greek in every way except in climate. There were forums, agora, temples to Zeus and Artemis, bathhouses and gymnasiums. The native aristocracies. to gain acceptance took up the trappings of Greek society and life. One interesting example of the Greek influence were that some tribes in the Northern mountains of Iran took up the worship of Hercules as their main deity.

The Greek conquest was spread over a great area but was very thinly spread. The Greeks only settled in the cities, leaving the countryside, where the vast majority of people lived, completely unchanged. In fact, the higher tax rate of the Hellenistic states likely meant that the native peasantry viewed the Greek conquests as a step backwards. The Greeks did not even destroy the native aristocracies and merchant block, which was still very heavily Aramaen. The Greek conquest might simply be considered a change of fashion, like that from bell bottom jeans to skinny jeans. The fact that a thousand years of Greek influence were easily eradicated by the Arabs speaks volumes to how deep it actually was. One could actually make the argument that the empire was orientalizing the Greeks more than the Greeks were making the Asiatics Western. Far from the old city state ideal, the Greeks submitted themselves to a far away monarch who they would likely never see. Even in Greece, the kings referred to themselves as gods to be revered and worshipped. The Greek mind had stopped being freethinking and the age of philosophy had collapsed. The Greeks lost everything they fought for in the Persian Wars by winning.

Each one of these dynasties dealt with the conquest in different ways. The Ptolemies ruled a state that was like a blood diamond, beautiful but supported by cruelty. The Greeks formed the ruling mercantile class in the cities, like the other conquered lands. The Greeks to a certain extent assimilated. For example, the kings, who styled themselves pharaohs, married their siblings in old Egyptian custom. However, in most ways the Greeks still viewed the native peoples with condescension and maintained their old ways. A massive Jewish migration took place into Egypt, crowding into cities like Cyrene and Alexandria. Their massive birth rate helped to make them a significant minority. The Jews formed a sort of middle class between the Greeks and the native Egyptians. The Ptolemies controlled the seed collection of the Egyptian peasantry, thus meaning that if a peasant disagreed with the government, he would starve. This resulted in an exploitive tax rate and a horrifically poor peasantry. Egypt was facing the ramifications of giving up its own defense and would face thousands of years of extreme poverty among its indigenous population and political repression. The money from this flooded into cities like Alexandria. Alexandria became a massive city and seaport, along with the Ptolemaic capital, moving it away from away from the central valley to the coast. A world famous lighthouse was built to support it. It became a center for every possible art and science. Alexandria had the largest library of the classical world. The Ptolemies supported scientists and artists that made a Renaissance of Greek culture in a land far from Greece. The city was a center of manufacturing and was melting pot of cultures.

The Seleucids didn’t exactly follow in Alexander’s footsteps of meshing with Persian culture. They treated the natives more like a colonial people, while relying off Persians for their imperial institutions and help run their empire (just wait until the British show up). They built their capital at Seleucia near the old capital of Babylon and where Baghdad would eventually lie. Another important city was Antioch, on the coast of Syria. Antioch was a vital seaport and became one of the most important cities of Antiquity. In general the Seleucid empire was massive and overextended, stretching from the Aegean to India without controlling Greece to recruit more Greeks. This resulted in the whittling away of the empire, starting at the edges and eventually resulting in its total fall. Far Bactria in modern day Afghanistan rebelled under an independent Greek dynasty which would rule until 31 BC. They sat atop the silk road trade connecting the Near East with India and indirectly China. This melding of cultures resulted in a very strange art style in this region. For this reason one can find Greek style temples in Afghanistan.

In Europe, the Celtic outward migration from the Alps continued. Celts migrated down the Danube and the Balkans to the northern edges of Greece. The weakened Greece was unable to stop them and they drove down the peninsula, destroying the Greek armies at Thermoplyae and even burning Delphi, but eventually retreating from their raids. They drove across the Hellespont into the Balkans and defeated the Seleucids in Anatolia. They settled and conquered the central portion of Anatolia and it came to be called Galatia, named after the Gauls, which was the name for the Celtic inhabitants of modern France. Armenia also declared independence and carved the northern mountains away from the empire. A disastrous war followed with the Egyptians, in which Antioch was sacked. Meanwhile an Iranian horse tribe named the Parthians settled in the eastern boundary of the Seleucid domain in modern day North-Eastern Iran. They were quickly taken in by Persian culture and assimilated in anyone’s view except a native Persian’s. They became Seleucid vassals, however managing their own regional affairs. When the Seleucids were busy losing against the Ptolemies, they declared independence.

However, the Seleucid empire briefly had a renaissance in which it was able to reconquer the lost provinces in the east like Parthia and Bactria. However these provinces were again lost soon and the empire continued to decline. The Seleucid emperor in Oriental fashion insisted on being called a deity. The province of Judea, recently conquered from the Egyptians were infuriated by this. The Greeks rubbed the wound in deeper with more generally anti-Semitic legislation such as the illegalization of circumcision. Led by the brilliant leadership of Judah Maccabee, the Jews led a guerrilla campaign against the Seleucid government, in which they surprisingly won. An independent Jewish state carved itself out between the Ptolemies and the Seleucids. Since religious fanatics led the revolt, it became a religious theocracy. They knew that the Jews were a small people, and so to survive in an age of titans would have to expand. The Jewish state conquered the surrounding areas like Moab and Golan, forcing the native populations to convert by the sword. Thus the number of Jews was greatly increased. Much of the anxiety of Israel during Christ’s era was based around the fear that these new converts were not true and would turn out to be traitors and the bitterness of the forced conversions among said peoples.

The Greek Mind Evolves

The maturation of the Greek mind and all the information pouring in from the empires resulted in an explosion of science. As philosophy and free thought declined, science reached its apogee. Alexandria, with its library and enlightened government was especially productive. The Greeks made some incredible discoveries in this era. This process reached its climax and decline after the Roman conquest. One of them is the Antikythera mechanism, an analogue computer found on a ship sailing in the Aegean. It used clockwork to accurately predict the movement of the planets. Archimedes in Sicily developed many nearly unbelievable inventions like massive mirrors that could light ships on fire and huge cranes that could pick enemy ships up and then drop them to smash them against the sea. These inventions were not believed until the methods they could be used by were rediscovered in recent decades. Another was that the Egyptian Hero discovered a steam engine around the birth of Christ. He used it as a toy, seeing little practical purpose to it. That was a great issue with Greek science, it viewed the practical as lesser and sciences’ marriage with technology, so fruitful in the modern world, with disdain. The Greek scientist was supposed to be a gentlemen who’s physical work was done for him by slaves. Science and philosophy were meant to be purely aethereal work, done entirely by logical thinking without experimentation. This is how Aristotle was able to claim that heavier objects fell faster than slower objects, even though a simple test lasting less 20 seconds could have proven him wrong. The idea of using a steam engine for a practical purpose would be beneath a Greek. Also it may not have been economical either. The Greek slave culture expanded radically with the new empire. Neither the Persians nor the Egyptians had slavery on a large scale, but the Greeks introduced it into the their empire. Slaves and labor in general were simply so cheap that there was no point in using machinery. This was an issue China ran into in the 19th century due to overpopulation. Thus the Greeks may have been technologically capable of the Industrial Revolution but were not mentally or economically capable. That would have to wait nearly 2,000 years. Even as it reached it’s scientific apogee, the Greek mind declined. The free thought and intellectual atmosphere of the Greek Golden Age that led to the scientific age had collapsed and there were no batteries to replace the old when they ran out.

As free thought declined and science reached a decadent apogee, philosophy became the consolation of the Greek mind. As the Greeks saw all the religions of the empire, agnosticism became very common. With all this war and decline, people needed consolation. Popular philosophies, nearly religions came out of this. Diogenes was a wise man in Greece during Alexander’s time. He lived naked in a barrel the city of Sinope on the Black Sea, living like a human rat in the streets. He popularized the philosophy of cynicism, which did not carry today’s connotations. It believed that to be happy one should live an austere life and in accordance to nature. It’s followers were known to live to live almost like animals in the streets, propounding their philosophy. A cynic was meant to gain an understanding of the root causes of events and truth and to scorn finery. It later became an insult when many homeless pretended to be cynics to hide their terrible conditions. Possibly a completely opposite philosophy was that of Epicurus. A handsome and brave man, Epicurus believed that the gods existed, but didn’t care at all about mankind. Thus the only thing that truly mattered was pleasure. However, too much pleasure would ruin the body and so one should logically maximize pleasure by doing what was smartest in the long term. Yet another philosophy was Stoicism, founded by an ex slave named Zeno in Asia Minor. It held that nature was like one massive machine propelled by god who gave everyone a purpose. One’s job was to find one’s role and fulfill it. One could be happy by controlling one’s emotions and remaining rational even under the worst circumstances. Maintaining a rational mind and controlled attitude were the most important things in life. Finally, the beliefs of Plato were adulterated into a religion. Fake Platonic documents were forged and adulterated which spoke of a ladder of consciousness leading to the divine force of the universe. By submerging oneself, one could reach the greater universal consciousness and thus freedom of the spirit. One has to wonder how much this philosophy was influenced by the Yogis of India, who Alexander was in contact with. All of these philosophies spread across the Hellenic and Mediterranean worlds, with none of them gaining official religious status, but influencing the minds of many, like Confucianism in China.

A Final Recap and Epilogue

The Greek empires may have covered a massive area, but they were weak. Greeks were a puny percentage of the population and were overstretched by their sheer size. They were surrounded by invaders who would carve the empires apart. The Greek mind continued its upward flight towards the heavens but its engine had been running off fuel reserves for a long time before the captains realized. In the east, the Parthians carved out the entire eastern portion of the Seleucid Empire, taking the Persian section while the old Babylonian part continued to be run by Greeks. In the West, a new great power, the Roman Republic had risen and would consume Greece. The Greeks would survive this conquest and in many ways conquer the Romans. What can I say, the battle between Greeks and Persians continues for yet another chapter, albeit with more new costumes.