Online Encyclopedia

Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.

HELLENISM (from Or. EAXspiL'sty, to i...

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V13, Page 246 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
» Make a correction to this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Spread the word: del.icio.us del.icio.us it!

See also:

HELLENISM (from Or. EAXspiL'See also:sty, to imitate the Greeks, who were known as "EAAi7ves, after "EAA17v, the son of See also:Deucalion) . The See also:term " Hellenism " is ambiguous. It may be used to denote See also:ancient See also:Greek culture in all its phases, and even those elements in See also:modern See also:civilization which are Greek in origin or in spirit; but, while See also:Matthew See also:Arnold made the term popular in the latter connexion as the See also:antithesis of " Hebraism," the See also:German historian For the microscopical characters and for figures of transverse sections of the rhizome, see See also:Lanessan, Hist. See also:des drogues, i. 6 (1878). J. G. See also:Droysen introduced the See also:fashion (1836) of using it to describe particularly the latter phases of Greek culture from the conquests of See also:Alexander to the end of the ancient See also:world, when those over whom this culture extended were largely not Greek in See also:blood, i.e. Hellenes, but peoples who had adopted the Greek speech and way of See also:life, Hellenistai. Greek culture had, however, both in " Hellenic " and " Hellenistic " times, a See also:common essence, just as See also:light is light whether in the See also:original luminous See also:body or in a reflection, and to describe this by the term Hellenism seems most natural. But whilst using the term in the larger sense, this See also:article, in deference to the associations which have come to be specially connected with it, will devote its See also:principal See also:attention to Hellenism as it appeared in the world after the Macedonian conquests. But it will be first necessary to indicate briefly what Hellenism in itself implied.

No verbal See also:

formula can really enclose the life of a See also:people or an See also:age, but we can best understand the significan of the old Greek cities and the life they See also:developed, when, looking at the See also:history of mankind as a whole, we see the See also:part played by See also:reason, active and See also:critical, in breaking down the barriars by which See also:custom hinders See also:movement, in guiding movement to definite ends, in dissipating groundless beliefs and leading onwards to fresh scientific conquests—when we see this and then take See also:note that among the ancient Greeks such an activity of reason began in an entirely novel degree and that its activity in See also:Europe ever since is due to their impulsion. When Hellenism came to stand in the world for something See also:concrete and organic, it was, of course, no See also:mere abstract principle, but embodied in a See also:language, a literature, an See also:artistic tradition. In the earliest existing See also:monument of the Hellenic See also:genius, the Homeric poems, one may already observe that regulative sense of See also:form and proportion, which shaped the later achievements of the See also:race in the intellectual and artistic See also:spheres. It was not till the See also:great colonizing See also:epoch of the 8th and 7th centuries B.C., when the name " Hellene " came into use as the antithesis of " See also:barbarian," that the Greek race came to be conscious of itself as a See also:peculiar people; it was yet some three centuries more before Hellenism stood fully declared in See also:art and literature, in politics and in thought. There was now a new thing in the world, and to see how the world was affected by it is our immediate concern. I. THE EXPANSION OF HELLENISM BEFORE ALEXANDER: III the 5th See also:century B.C. Greek cities dotted the coasts of the Mediterranean and the See also:Black See also:Sea from See also:Spain to See also:Egypt and the See also:Caucasus, and already Greek culture was beginning to pass beyond the limits of the Greek race. Already in the 7th century B.C., when Iellenism was still in a rudimentary See also:stage, the citizens of the Greek See also:city-states had been known to the courts of See also:Babylon and Egypt as admirable soldiers, combining hardihood with discipline, and Greek mercenaries came to be in See also:request through-out the Nearer See also:East. But as Hellenism developed, its social and intellectual life began to exercise a See also:power of attraction. The proud old civilizations of the See also:Euphrates and the See also:Nile might ignore it, but the ruder barbarian peoples in East and See also:West, on whose coasts the Greek colonies had been planted, came in various degrees under its spell. In some cases an outlying See also:colony would coalesce with a native See also:population, and a See also:fusion of Hellenism with barbarian customs take See also:place, as at Emporiam in Spain (See also:Strabo iii. p.

16o) and at See also:

Locri in S. See also:Italy (Polyb. xii..5. so). See also:Perinthus included a Thracian See also:phyle. The stories of See also:Anacharsis and Scylas (See also:Herod. iv. 76-8o) show how the leading men of the tribes in contact with the Greek colonies in the Black Sea might be fascinated by the See also:appeal which the See also:exotic culture made to. mind and to See also:eye. The great developments of the century and a See also:half before Alexander set the Greek people in a very different light before the world. In the See also:sphere of material power the repulse of See also:Xerxes and the See also:extension of Athenian or Spartan supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean were large facts patent to the most obtuse. The See also:kings of the East leant more than ever upon Greek mercenaries, whose superiority to barbarian levies was sensibly brought See also:home to them by the expedition of See also:Cyrus. But the developments within the Hellenic sphere itself were also of great consequence for its expansion outwards. The See also:political disunion of the Greeks was to some extent neutralized by the rise of See also:Athens to a leading position in art, in literature and in See also:philosophy. In Athens the Hellenic genius was focussed, its tendencies See also:drawn together and combined; nor was it a circumstance of small moment that the See also:Attic See also:dialect attained, for See also:prose, a classical authority; for if Hellenism was to be propagated in the world at large, it was obviously convenient that it should have some one definite form of speech to be its See also:medium. r.

The Persians.—The ruling race of the East, the See also:

Persian, was but little open to the influences of the new culture. The military qualities of the Greeks were appreciated, and so, too, was Greek See also:science, where it touched the immediately useful; a Greek See also:captain was entrusted by See also:Darius with the exploration of the See also:Indus; a Greek architect bridged the See also:Bosporus for him; Greek physicians (e.g. Democedes, See also:Ctesias) were retained for enormous fees at the Persian See also:court. The brisk See also:diplomatic intercourse between the Great See also:King and the Greek states in the 4th century may have produced effects that were not merely political. We certainly find among those members of the Persian See also:aristocracy, who came by See also:residence in See also:Asia See also:Minor into closer contact with the Greeks, some traces of See also:interest in the more ideal See also:side of Hellenism. A See also:man like the younger Cyrus invited Greek captains to his friendship for something more than their utility in See also:war, and procured Greek hetaerae for something more than sensual See also:pleasure. There. is the See also:Mithradates who presented the See also:Academy with a statue of See also:Plato by See also:Silanion, not improbably identical (though the supposition implies a correction in the See also:text of See also:Diogenes Laertius) with that Mithradates who, together with his See also:father See also:Ariobarzanes, received the citizenship of Athens (Dem. See also:xxiii. 141, 202). Exactly how far Greek See also:influence can be traced in the remains of Persian art, such as the royal palaces of See also:Persepolis and See also:Susa may be doubtful (see Gayet, L'Art persan; R. Phene Spiers, See also:Architecture East and West, p. 245 f.), but it is certain that the engraved gems for which there was a demand in the Persian See also:empire were largely the See also:work of Greek artists (See also:Furtwangler, Antike Gemmen, iii. p. 1 r6 f.).

2. The Phoenicians.—As See also:

early as the first half of the 4th century we find communities of Phoenician traders established in the See also:Peiraeus (C.I.A. ii. 86). In See also:Cyprus, on the frontier between the Greek and Semitic worlds, a struggle for ascendancy went on. The Phoenician See also:element seems to have been dominant in the See also:island when See also:Evagoras made himself king of See also:Salamis in 412, and restored Hellenism with a strong See also:hand. The words of Isocrates (even allowing for their rhetorical See also:colour) give us a vivid insight into what such a See also:process meant. " Before Evagoras established his See also:rule, they were so hostile and exclusive, that those of their rulers were actually held to be the best who were the fiercest adversaries of the Greeks; but now such a See also:change has taken place, that it is a See also:matter of emulation who shall show himself the most ardent phil-hellen, that for the mothers of their See also:children most of them choose wives from amongst us, and that they take See also:pride in having Greek things about rather than native, in following the Greek fashion of life, whilst our masters of the See also:fine arts and other branches of culture now resort to them in greater See also:numbers than were once to be found in those quarters they specially frequented " (Isoc. 199= Evag. §§ 49, 50). Even into the original seats of the Phoenicians Hellenism began to intrude. Evagoras at one See also:time (about 386) made himself See also:master of See also:Tyre (Isoc. Evag.

§ 62; Diod. xv. 2, 4). His See also:

grandson Evagoras II. is found as See also:governor of See also:Sidon for the Persian king 349–346. (Babelon, Perses Achemenides, p. cxxii.; cf. Diod. xvi. 46, 3). Abdashtart, king of Sidon (374–362 B.C.), called Straton by the Greeks, had already entered into See also:close relations with the Greek states, and imitated the Hellenic princes of Cyprus (Athen. xii. J31; C.I.A. ii. 86; Corp. inscr. Semit. i. 114). The Phoenician colonists in See also:Sardinia See also:purchased or imitated the work of Greek artists (Furtwangler, Antike Gemmen, 109).

3. The Carians and Lycians.—The seats of the Greeks in the East touched peoples more or less nearly related to the Hellenic stock, with native traditions not so far remote from those of the Greeks in a more See also:

primitive age, the Carians and the Lycians. It came about in the last century preceding Alexander that the first of these peoples was organized as a strong See also:state under native princes, the See also:line founded by Hecatomnus of Mylasa. Hecatomnus made himself master of See also:Caria in the first See also:decade of the 4th century, but it was under his son See also:Mausolus, who succeeded him in 377–376 that the See also:house See also:rose to its See also:zenith. These Carian princes ruled as satraps for the Great King, but they modelled themselves upon the See also:pattern of the Greek See also:tyrant. The See also:capital of Mausolus was a Greek city, See also:Halicarnassus, and all that we can still trace of his great See also:works of construction and adornment shows conformity to the pure Hellenic type. His famous See also:sepulchre, the See also:Mausoleum (the remains of it are now in the See also:British Museum), was a monument upon which the most eminent Greek sculptors of the time worked in rivalry (Plin. N.H. See also:xxxvi. 5, § 30; Vitruv. vii. 13). His court gave a welcome to the vagrant Greek philosopher (Diog. Laert. viii.

8, § 87). Even the Carian See also:

town of Mylasa now shows the forms of a Greek city and records its public decrees in Greek (C.I.G. 2691 c,d,e=See also:Michel 471). In See also:Lycia, which in spite of " the son of Harpagus " and King See also:Pericles, had never been brought under one man's rule, the Greek influence is more limited. Here, for the most part in the See also:inscriptions, the native language maintains itself against Greek. The proper names are (if not native) mainly Persian. But the Greek language makes an occasional See also:appearance; Greek names are See also:borne by others beside Pericles. The coins are Greek in type. And above all the monumental remains of Lycia show strong Greek influence, especially the well-known " Nereid Monument in the British Museum, whose date is held to go back to the 5th century (See also:Gardner, Handbook of Gk. Scuip. p. 344). 4.

See also:

South See also:Russia.—Hellenic influences continued to penetrate the Scythian peoples from the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, at any See also:rate in the matter of artistic fabrication. Our See also:evidence is the actual See also:objects recovered from the See also:soil. (See See also:SCYTHIA.) 5. Egypt.—From the time of See also:Psammetichus (d. 610 n.c.) Greek mercenaries had been used to prop See also:Pharaoh's See also:throne. At the same time Greek merchants had begun to find their way up the Nile and even to the Oases. A Greek city See also:Naucratis (q.v.) was allowed to arise at the Bolbitinic mouth of the Nile. But the racial repugnance to the Greek, which forbade an See also:Egyptian even to eat an See also:animal which had been carved with a Greek's See also:knife (Hdt. ii. 41), probably kept the soul of the people more shut against Hellenic influences than was that of the other races of the East. 6. See also:Macedonia.—In Macedonia the native chiefs had been attracted by the See also:rich Hellenic life at any rate from the beginning of the 5th century, when Alexander I., surnamed " Phil-hellen," persuaded the See also:judges at See also:Olympia that the Temenid house was of See also:good Argive descent (Hdt. v. 22).

And, although their enemies might stigmatize them as barbarians, the Macedonian kings maintained that they were not Macedonians, but Greeks (cf. &zn p "EXX v See also:

Mai e.bbvicev ulrapxos, Hdt. v. 20). It was not probably till the reorganization of the See also:kingdom by See also:Archelaus (413–399) that Greek culture found any abundant entrance into Macedonia. Now all that was most brilliant in Greek literature and Greek art was concentrated in the court of Aegae; the See also:palace was decorated by Zeuxis; See also:Euripides spent there the end of his days. From that time, no doubt, a certain degree of See also:literary culture was See also:general among the Macedonian See also:nobility; their names in the days of See also:Philip are largely Greek; the Macedonian service was full of men from the Greek cities within Philip's dominions. The values recognized at the court would naturally be recognized in See also:noble families generally, and Philip See also:chose See also:Aristotle to be the educator of his son. How far the See also:country generally may be regarded as Hellenized is a problem which involves the vexed question what right the Macedonian people itself has to be classed among the Hellenes, and Macedonian to be considered a dialect of Greek.' As the literary and See also:official language, Greek alone would seem to have had any status. ' See, among See also:recent writers, on one side Kaerst, Gesch. des hellenist. Zeitalters, pp. 97 f., and on the other Beloch, Griech. Gesch., [i.] 1-9; Kretschmer, Einleitung in See also:die Gesch. d. griech.

Sprache, p. 283 f. ; O. See also:

Hoffmann, Die Makedonen, ihre Sprache u. ihr Volkstum (1go6). 7. In the West: the Native Races of See also:Sicily.—Italy and the south of See also:Gaul had not remained unaffected by the neighbourhood of the Greek colonies. Under the rule of the See also:elder and younger See also:Dionysius in the 4th century, the hellenization of the Sicels in the interior of Sicily seems to have become See also:complete (See also:Freeman, History of Sicily, ii. 387, 388, 422-424; Beloch, Griech. Gesch. iii. [i.] 261). The alphabets used by the various See also:Italian races from the 5th century were directly or indirectly learnt from the Greeks. The peoples of the south (Lucanians, Bruttians, Mamertines) show a Greek principle of nomenclature (See also:Mommsen, Unterital.

Dialekt, p. 240 f.). The See also:

Pythagorean philosophy, whose seat was in See also:southern Italy, won adherents among the native chiefs (Cic. De senec. 12, cf. Dio Chrys. Orat. See also:Car. 37, § 24). From the Greeks of southern Gaul Hellenic influences penetrated the See also:Celtic races so far that imitations of Greek coins were struck even on the coasts of the See also:Atlantic. IT. AFTER ALEXANDER THE GREAT.—When we See also:review generally the extent to which Hellenism had penetrated the See also:outer world in the See also:middle of the 4th century B.C., it must be admitted that it had not seriously affected any but the more primitive races which dwelt upon the See also:borders of the Hellenic lands, and here it would seem, with the doubtful exception of the Macedonians, to have been an affair rather of the courts than of the life of the people.

On the other hand it must be taken into See also:

account that Hellenism had as yet only been a very See also:short while in the world. What would have happened had it continued to depend upon its spiritual force only for See also:propagation we cannot say. Everything was changed when by the conquests of Alexander (334–323) it suddenly rose to material supremacy in all the East as far as See also:India, and when cities of Greek speech and constitution were planted by the might of kings at all the See also:cardinal points of intercourse within those lands. The values honoured by the rulers of the world must naturally impress themselves upon the subject multitudes. The Macedonian chiefs found their pride in being champions of Hellenism. Of Alexander there is no need to speak. The courts of his successors in Asia Minor, See also:Syria and Egypt were Greek in language and See also:atmosphere. All kings liked to win the good word of the Greeks by munificence bestowed upon Greek cities and Greek institutions. All of them in some degree patronized Greek art and letters, and some sought fame for themselves as authors. Even the barbarian courts, their neighbours or vassals, were swayed by the dominant fashion to See also:imitation. But by the courts alone Hellenism could never have been propagated far. Greek culture had been the product of the city-state, and Hellenism could not be dissevered from the city.

It was upon the See also:

system of Greek and Macedonian cities, planted by Alexander and his successors, that their work rested, and though their dynasties crumbled, their work remained. See also:Rome, when it stepped into their place, did no more than safeguard its continuance; in the East Rome acted as a Hellenistic power, and if, when the legions had thundered past, the brooding East " plunged in thought again," that thought was largely directed by the Greek schoolmaster who followed in the legions' See also:train. From our See also:present point of view we may therefore regard this work of Hellenism as one continuous process, initiated by the Macedonians and carried on under See also:Roman See also:protection, and ask in the first place what the institution of a Greek city implied. The See also:Character of the New Greek Cities.—The See also:citizen bodies at the outset were really of Greek or Macedonian blood—soldiers who had served in the royal armies, or men attracted from the older Greek cities to the new lands thrown open to See also:commerce. To See also:fix their See also:European soldiery upon the new soil was an obvious See also:necessity for the Macedonian chiefs who had set up kingdoms among the barbarians, and the lots of the veterans (except in Egypt) were naturally attached to various See also:urban centres. The cities, of course, See also:drew in numbers beside of the people of the See also:land; Alexander is specially said to have incorporated large bodies of natives in some of the new cities of the Eastern provinces (Arr. iv. 4, I; Diod. xvii. 83, 2; See also:Curtius ix. 10, 7). It may generally be taken for granted that the See also:lower strata of the city-populations' was mainly native; to be included in the city population was not, however, to be included in the citizen body, and it remains a question how far the latter admitted members of other than European origin (Beloch iii. [i.] 414). The statements, for instance, of See also:Josephus that the See also:Jews were given full citizen rights in the new See also:foundations are probably false (Willrich, Juden and Griechen vor der makkabdischen Erhebung, 1895, p.

19 f.). The social organization of the citizen-body conformed to the See also:

regular Hellenic type with a See also:division into phylae and, in Egypt, at any rate, into demi (Liban. Or. xix. 62; Satyrus, frag. 21=F.H.G. iii. 164; See also:Sir W. M. See also:Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics, i. 6o; See also:Kenyon, Archiv f. Papyr. ii. 74; Jonguet, See also:Bull. corr. See also:hell. xxi., 1897, 184 f.; Liebenam, Stddteverwaltung, 220 f.). The cities appear equally Hellenic in their political See also:organs and functions with See also:boule and demos and popularly elected magistrates.

Life was filled with the universal Hellenic interests, which centred in the gymnasium and the religious festivals, these last including, of course, not only athletic contests but performances of the classical dramas or later imitations of them. The wandering sophist and rhetorician would find a See also:

hearing no less than the musical artist. The language of the upper classes was Greek; and the material background of See also:building and decoration, of See also:dress and See also:furniture, was of Greek See also:design. A greater regularity in the See also:street-plans seems to have distinguished the new cities from the older slowly grown cities of the Greek lands, just as it distinguishes the cities of the New World to-See also:day from those of Europe. See also:Alexandria and See also:Antioch were both traversed from end to end by one See also:long straight street, crossed by shorter ones at right angles; See also:Nicaea was a square from the centre of which all the four See also:gates could be seen at the ends of the intersecting thoroughfares (Strabo xii. 565); similar characteristics are noted in the rebuilt See also:Smyrna (ib. xiv. 646). Sometimes the Greek city was not an absolutely new See also:foundation, but an old See also:Oriental city, re-colonized and transformed. And in such cases the old name was often replaced by a Greek one. Thus See also:Celaenae in See also:Phrygia became See also:Apamea; Haleb (See also:Aleppo) in Syria became Beroea; See also:Nisibis in See also:Mesopotamia, Antioch; Rhagae (Rai) in See also:Media, Europus. In some cases the old name was See also:left unchallenged, e.g. Thyatira, See also:Damascus and See also:Samaria.

Even where there was no new foundation the older cities of See also:

Phoenicia and Syria became transformed from the overwhelming See also:prestige of Hellenic culture. In Tyre and Sidon, no less than in Antioch or Alexandria, Greek literature and philosophy were seriously cultivated, as we may see by the great names which they contributed. The process by which Hellenism thus leavened an older city we may trace with peculiar vividness in the See also:case of See also:Jerusalem; we see there the younger See also:generation captivated by its ideals, the appearance of gymnasium and See also:theatre, the eager See also:adoption of Greek political forms (1 Macc. I. 13 f.; 2 Macc. 4., 10 f.). A. Characteristics of Hellenism after Alexander.—To the number of Greek city-states existing before Alexander were now therefore added those which extended Hellas as far as India. With the enormous extension of Greek territory a great shifting took place in the old centres of gravity. What changes in the character of Greek culture did the new conditions of the world bring about ? Hellenism had been the product of the See also:free life of the Greek city-state, and after Chaeronea the great days of the city-state were past. Not that all See also:liberty was everywhere extinguished.

Under Alexander himself the Greek states were restive, and See also:

Aetolia unsubdued; and, with the break-up of the empire at Alexander's See also:death, there was once more See also:scope for the See also:action of the individual cities among the See also:rival great See also:powers. In the history of the next two or three centuries the cities are by no means ciphers. See also:Rhodes takes a great part in Weltpolitik, as a See also:sovereign ally of one or other of the royal courts. In See also:Greece itself the overlordship to which the Macedonian king aspires is imperfect in extent and only maintained to that extent by continual See also:wars. The Greek states on their side show that they are capable even of progressive See also:Government. political development, the needs of the time being met by the mere material, now came to be used in profusion for adornment. federal system, by larger unions of equal members than the leading cities of the past would have tolerated, with their extreme unwillingness to forego the least shred of sovereign See also:independence. The Achaean and Aetolian Leagues are See also:independent powers, which the Macedonian can indeed check by garrisons in See also:Corinth, See also:Chalcis and elsewhere, but which keep a See also:field clear for Hellenic freedom within their borders. See also:Sparta also is a power which can See also:cross swords with the Macedonian king, and Cleomenes III. aspires to unite the See also:Peloponnesus under his headship. As to the cities outside Greece, within or around the royal realms, Seleucid, Ptolemaic or Attalid, their degree of freedom probably differed widely according to circumstances. At one end of the See also:scale, cities of old renown, e.g. See also:Lampsacus or Smyrna, could still make good their independence against See also:Antiochus III. at the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. At the other end of the scale the cities which were royal capitals, e.g.

Alexandria, Antioch and See also:

Pergamum, were normally controlled altogether by royal nominees. At Pergamum indeed and (at any rate after Antiochus IV.) at Antioch, forms of self-government subsisted upon which, of course, the court had its hand, whilst at Alexandria even such forms were wanting. Between the two extremes there was variation not only between city and city, but, no doubt, in one and the same city at different times. In Syria the independent action of the cities greatly increased during the last weakness of the Seleucid See also:monarchy. With the extension of the single strong rule of Rome over this Hellenistic world, the conditions were changed. Just as the Macedonian See also:conquest, whilst increasing the domain of Greek culture, had straitened Greek liberty, so Rome, whilst bringing Hellenism finally into secure See also:possession of the nearer East, extinguished Greek freedom altogether. Even now the old forms were long religiously respected. Formally, the most illustrious Greek states, Athens, for instance, or See also:Marseilles, or Rhodes, were not subjects of Rome, but free See also:allies. Even in the case of civilates stipendiariae (See also:tribute-paying states), municipal See also:autonomy, subject indeed to interference on the part of the Roman governor, was allowed to go on. Boule and demos long continued to See also:function. The old catchword, " autonomy of the Hellens," was still heard and indeed was solemnly proclaimed by See also:Nero at the Isthmian See also:games of A.D. 67.

But during the first centuries of the See also:

Christian era, this municipal autonomy, by a process which can only be imperfectly traced in detail, decayed. The demos first sank into political annihilation and the See also:council, no longer popularly elected but an aristocratic See also:order, concentrated the whole See also:administration in its hands. By the end of the 2nd century A.D., claims made by the imperial government upon the municipal See also:senate are more and more changing member-See also:ship of the order from an See also:honour into an intolerable See also:burden, and See also:financial disorganization is calling on imperial officials in one place after another to undertake the business of government. After See also:Diocletian and under the Eastern Empire the Greek world is organized on the principles of a vast bureaucracy. With this long process of political decline from Alexander to Diocletian correspond the inner changes in the See also:temper of the Hellenic and Hellenistic peoples. There were, of course, Socl changes. marked See also:differences between one region and another. But certain general characteristics distinguished at once Greek society after the Macedonian conquests from the society of the earlier age. When the vast field of the East was opened to Hellenic enterprise and the See also:bullion of its treasuries flung abroad, fortunes were made on a scale before unparalleled. A new See also:standard of sumptuousness and splendour was set up in the richest stratum of society. This material elaboration of life was furthered by the existence of Hellenistic courts, where the great ministers amassed fabulous riches (e.g. Dionysius, the state secretary of Antiochus IV., Polyb. xxxi. 3, 16; See also:Hermias, the See also:chief See also:minister of Seleucus III., and Antiochus III., Polyb.

V. 50. 2; cf. See also:

Plutarch, See also:Agis 9), and of huge cities like Alexandria, Antioch and the enlarged See also:Ephesus. It is significant that whereas the earlier Greeks had used See also:precious stones only as a medium for the engraver's art, unengraven gems, valuable for their Already before Alexander See also:pan-hellenic feeling had in various ways overridden the See also:internal divisions of the Greek race, but now, with the vast mingling of Greeks of all sorts in the newly-conquered lands, a generalized Greek culture in which the old See also:local characteristics were merged, came to overspread the world. The See also:gradual supersession of the old dialects by the Koine the common speech of the Greeks, a modification of the Attic See also:idiom coloured by Ionic, was one obvious sign of the new order of things (see GREEK LANGUAGE). In its artistic, its literary, its spiritual products the age after Alexander gave evidence of the change. In no See also:department did activity immediately stop; but the old freshness and creative exuberance was gone. Artistic pleasure, Art and grown less delicate, required the stimulus of a more film. I sensational effect or a more striking See also:realism, as we may see by the Pergamene and Rhodian See also:schools of See also:sculpture, by the bas-reliefs with the genre subjects drawn from the life of the countryside, or, in literature by the sort of See also:historical See also:writing which became popular with See also:Cleitarchus and See also:Duris, by the studied emotional or rhetorical point of See also:Callimachus, and by the portrayal of country life in See also:Theocritus. At the same time, artists and men of letters were now addressing themselves in most cases, not to their See also:fellow-citizens in a free city, but to kings and courtiers, or the educated class generally of the Greek world. In those departments of intellectual activity which demand no high ideal See also:faculty, in the study of the world of fact, the centuries immediately following Alexander witnessed notable advance.

Scientific See also:

research might prosper, just as See also:poetry withered, under the patronage of kings, and such research had now a vast amount of new material at its disposal and could profit by the old Babylonian and Egyptian traditions. The medical schools, especially that of Alexandria, really enlarged knowledge of the animal See also:frame. Knowledge of the See also:earth gained immensely by the Macedonian conquests. The literary schools of Alexandria and Pergamum built up grammatical science, and brought literary and artistic See also:criticism to a fine point. If indeed the earlier ages had been those of creative and spontaneous life, the Hellenistic age was that of conscious criticism and See also:book-learning. The classical products were registered, studied, assorted and commented upon. Men travelled and read more. Books were in demand and were multiplied. See also:Libraries became a feature of the age, the kings leading the way as collectors, of books, especially the rival dynasties of Egypt and Pergamum. The library attached to the Museum at Alexandria is said to have contained at the time of its destruction in 47 B.C. as many as 7oo,000 rolls (Aul. See also:Gell. vi. 17.

3). Even smaller cities, like Aphrodisias in Caria, had public libraries for the instruction of their youth (Le Bas, III. No. 1618). With the general decay of ancient civilization under the Roman empire, even scientific research ceased, and though there were literary revivals, like that connected with the new Atticism under the Antonine emperors, these were mainly imitative and artificial, and even learning became at last under the See also:

Byzantine emperors a jejune and formal tradition (see GREEK LITERATURE). The See also:diffusion of the Greek race far from the former centres of its life, the mingling of citizens of many cities, the close contact between Greek and barbarian in the conquered lands—all this had made the old sanctions of civic See also:religion as ponoand civic morality of less account than ever. New soppy. guides of life were needed. The Stoic philosophy, with its See also:cosmopolitan note, its fixed dogmas and See also:plain ethical See also:precept,,s, came into the world at the time of the Macedonian conquests to meet the needs of the new age. Its ideas became popular among See also:ordinary men as the older philosophies had never been. The Stoic or Cynic preacher, attacking the ways of society, in pungent, often coarse, phrase, became a See also:familiar figure of the Greek See also:market-place (P. Wendland, Beitrilge zur Gesch. d. griech. Philosophie, 1893).

Although the cults of the old Greek deities in the new cities, with their splendid apparatus of festivals and See also:

sacrifice might still hold the multitude, men turned ever in large numbers to See also:alien religions., See also:felt as more potent because See also:strange, and the various gods of Egypt and the East began to find larger entrance in the Greek world. Even in the old Greek religion before Alexander there had been large elements of See also:foreign origin, and that the Greeks should now do honour to the gods of the lands into which they came, as we find the Cilician and Syrian Greeks doing to See also:Baal-tars and Baalmarcod and the Egyptian Greeks to the gods of Egypt, was only in accordance with the primitive way of thinking. But it was a sign of the times when See also:Serapis and See also:Isis, See also:Osiris and See also:Anubis began to take place among the popular deities in the old Greek lands. The origin of the cult of Serapis, which See also:Ptolemy I. found, or established, in Egypt is disputed; the familiar type of the See also:god is the invention of a Greek artist, but the name and religion came from somewhere in the East (see discussion under SERAPIS). Before the end of the znd century B.C. there were temples of Serapis in Athens, Rhodes, See also:Delos and Orchomenos in See also:Boeotia. Under the Roman empire the cult of Isis, now furnished with an official priesthood and elaborate See also:ritual, became really popular in the Hellenistic world. King See also:Asoka in the 3rd century B.C. sent Buddhist missionaries from India to the Mediterranean lands; their See also:preaching has, it is true, left little or no trace in our Western records. But other religions of Oriental origin penetrated far, the See also:worship of the Phrygian Great See also:Mother, and in the znd century A.D. the religion of the See also:Mithras (Lafaye, Culte des diviniMs alexandrines, 1884; See also:Roscher, articles " Anubis," " Isis," &c.; F. Cumont, Mysteres de Mithra, Eng. trans., 1903; See also:Les Religions orientales clans le paganisme romain, 1906). The Jews, too, by the time of See also:Christ were finding in many quarters an open See also:door. Besides those who were ready to go the whole length and accept See also:circumcision, numbers adopted particular Jewish practices, observing the See also:Sabbath, for instance, or turned from polytheism to the See also:doctrine of the One God. The synagogues in the See also:Gentile cities had generally attached to them, in more or less close connexion a multitude of those " who feared God " and frequented the services (Schiirer, Gesch. d. jiid.

Volks, iii. 102-'35). Among the religions which penetrated the Hellenistic world from an Eastern source, one ultimately overpowered all the See also:

rest Christi- and made that world its own. The inter-action of unity. See also:Christianity and Hellenism opens large See also:fields of inquiry. The teaching of Christ Himself contained, as it is given to us, no Hellenic element; so far as He built with older material, that material was exclusively the sacred tradition of See also:Israel. So soon, however, as the See also:Gospel was carried in Greek to Greeks, Hellenic elements began to enter into it, in the writings, for instance, of St See also:Paul, the appeal to what " nature " teaches would be generally admitted to be the adoption of a Greek mode of thought. It was, of course, impossible that speaking in Greek and living among Greeks, Christians should not to some extent use current conceptions for the expression of their faith. There was, at the same time, in the early See also:Church a powerful current of feeling hostile to Greek culture, to the See also:wisdom of the world. What the attitude of the New People should be to it, whether it was all See also:bad, or whether there were good things in it which Christians should appropriate, was a vital question that always confronted them. The great Christian School of Alexandria re-presented by See also:Clement and See also:Origen effected a durable See also:alliance between Greek See also:education and Christian doctrine. In proportion as the Christian Church had to go deeper into See also:metaphysics in the formulation of its belief as to God, as to Christ, as to the soul, the Greek philosophical terminology, which was the only vehicle then available for precise thought, had to become more and more an essential part of Christianity.

At the same time Christian See also:

ethics incorporated much of the current popular philosophy, especially large Stoical elements. In this way the Church itself, as we shall see, became a propagator of Hellenism (see See also:Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, 1888; Wendland, " Christentum u. Hellenismus " in Neue Jahrb. f. kl. Alt. ix. 1902, p. 1 f.; and Die hellenistischromische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum u. Christentum, 1907). B. Effect upon non-Hellenic Peoples.—Hellenism secured by the Macedonian conquest points d'appui from the Mediterranean to India, and brought the system of commerce and intercourse into Greek hands. What effect did it produce in these various countries? What effect again in the lands of the West which See also:fell under the sway of Rome? (i.) India.—In India (including the valleys of the See also:Kabul and its See also:northern tributaries, then inhabited by an See also:Indian, not, as now, by an Iranian, population) Alexander planted a number of Greek towns.

Alexandria " under the cities. Caucasus " commanded the road from See also:

Bactria over the See also:Hindu-Kush; it See also:lay somewhere among the hills to the See also:north of Kabul, perhaps at Opian near Charikar (MacCrindle, Ancient India, p. 87, note 4); that it is the city meant by Alasadda the capital of the Yona (Greek) country " in the Buddhist Mahavanso, as is generally affirmed, seems doubtful (See also:Tarn, loc. cit. below, p. 269, note 7). We hear of a Nicaea in the Kabul valley itself (near See also:Jalalabad ?), another Nicaea on the Hydaspes (See also:Jhelum) where Alexander crossed it, with Bucephala (see See also:BUCEPHALUS) opposite, a city (unnamed) on the Acesines (See also:Chenab) (Arr. vi. 29, 3), and a See also:series of foundations strung along the Indus to the sea. Soon after 321, Macedonian supremacy beyond the Indus collapsed before the advance of the native Maurya See also:dynasty, and about 303 even large districts west of the Indus were ceded by Seleucus. But the See also:chapter of Greek rule in India was not yet closed. The Maurya dynasty See also:broke up about 18o B.C., and at the same time the Greek rulers of Bactria began to See also:lead expeditions across the Hindu-Kush. See also:Menander in the middle of the and century B.C. extended his rule from the Hindu-Kush to the See also:Ganges. Then " Scythian " peoples from central Asia, Sakas and Yue-chi, having conquered Bactria, gradually squeezed within ever-narrowing limits the Greek power in India. The last Greek See also:prince, Hermaeus, seems to have succumbed about 30 B.C.

It was just at this time that the Graeco-Roman world of the West was consolidated as the Roman Empire, and, though Greek rule in India had disappeared, active commercial intercourse went on between India and the Hellenistic lands. How far, through these changes, did the Greek population settled by Alexander or his successors in India maintain their distinctive character? What influence did Hellenism during the centuries in which it was in contact with India exert upon the native mind? Only extremely qualified answers can be given to these questions. Capital data are possibly waiting there under ground—the Kabul valley for instance is almost virgin soil for the archaeologist—and any conclusion we can arrive at is merely provisional. If certain statements of classical authors were true, Hellenism in India flourished exceedingly. But the philhellenic Brahmins in See also:

Philostratus' life of See also:Apollonius had no existence outside the world of See also:romance, and the statement of Dio See also:Chrysostom that the See also:Indians were familiar with See also:Homer in their own See also:tongue (Or. liii. 6) is a traveller's See also:tale. India, the sceptical observe, has yielded no Greek inscription, except, of course, on the coins of the Greek kings and their Scythian rivals and successors. To what extent can it be inferred from legends on coins that Greek was a living speech in India? Perhaps to no large extent outside the Greek courts. The fact, however, that the Greek character was still used on coins for two centuries after the last Greek dynasty had come to an end shows that the language had a prestige in India which any theory, to be plausible, must account for.

If we argue by See also:

probability from what we know of the conditions, we have to consider that the Greek rule in India was all through fighting for existence, and can have had " little time or See also:energy left for such things as art, science and literature " (Tarn, loc. cit. p. 292), and it is pointed out thata casual reference to the Greeks in an Indian work contemporary with Menander characterizes them as " viciously valiant Yonas." How long is it probable that Greek colonies planted in the midst of alien races would have remained distinct? Mr Tarn builds much upon the fact that the descendants of the Greek Branchidae settled by Xerxes in central Asia had become bilingual in six generations (Curt. vii. 5, 29). But the Greek race before Alexander had not its later prestige, and we must consider such a sentiment as leads the See also:Eurasian to-day to cling to his Western parentage, so that the instance of the Branchidae cannot be used straight away for the time after Alexander. Certainly, the new festival being started in honour of See also:Artemis at See also:Magnesia. had the Greek colonies in India been active political bodies, we could hardly have failed to find some trace of them, in civic architecture or in inscriptions, by this time. Perhaps we should rather think of them as resembling the Greeks found to-day dispersed over the nearer East with interests mainly commercial, easily assimilating themselves to their environment. A See also:notice derived from See also:Agatharchides (about 140 B.c.) possibly refers to the activity of these Indian Greeks in the sea-borne See also:trade of the Indian Ocean (See also:Muller, Geog. Graeci See also:mica. i. p. 191; cf. Diod. iii. 47.

9). As to what India derived from Greece there has been a good See also:

deal of erudite debate. That the Indian See also:drama took its origin from the Greek is still maintained by some scholars, though hardly proved. There is no doubt that Indian See also:astronomy shows marked Hellenic features, including actual Greek words borrowed. But by far the most See also:signal borrowing is in the sphere of art. The stream of Buddhist art which went out art .Greek eastwards across Asia had its rise in North-West India, and the remains of architecture and sculpture unearthed in this region enable us to trace its development back to pure Greek types. It remains, of course, a question whether the tradition was transmitted by the Greek dynasties from Bactria or by intercourse with the Roman empire; the latter seems now almost certain; but the fact of the influence is equally striking on either theory. How far to the east the distinctive influence of Greece went is shown by the See also:seal-impressions with See also:Athena and See also:Eros types found by Dr See also:Stein in the buried cities of See also:Khotan (See also:Sand-buried Ruins of Khotan, p. 396), and according to Mr E. B. Havell, there exist " paintings treasured as the most precious See also:relics and rarely shown to Europeans, which closely resemble the Graeco-Buddhist art of India " in some of the See also:oldest temples of See also:Japan (Studio, vol. See also:xxvii. 1903, p.

26). See A. A. See also:

Macdonell, History of See also:Sanskrit Literature (1900) p. 411 f., and the references on p. 452; V. A. See also:Smith, Early History of India (1901); Grunwedel, Buddhist Art in India (Eng. trans., edited by Dr See also:Burgess, 1901); W. W. Tarn, " Notes on Hellenism in Bactria and India " in Journ. of Hell. Studies, xxii. (1902); Foucher, L'Art See also:greco-bouddhique du Gandhdra (1905).

(ii.) See also:

Iran and Babylonia.—The colonizing activity of Alexander and his successors found a large field in Iran where, up till his time, hardly any walled towns seem to have existed. Greek Cities now arose in all its provinces, superseding in cities. many cases native market places and villages, and holding the vantage-points of commerce. Media, See also:Polybius says, was defended by a See also:chain of Greek cities from barbarian incursion (x. 27. 3); in the neighbourhood of See also:Teheran seem to have stood See also:Heraclea and Europus. In Eastern Iran the cities which are its chief places to-day then See also:bore Greek names, and looked upon Alexander or some other Hellenic prince as their founder. Khojend, See also:Herat, See also:Kandahar were Alexandrias, Mery was an Alexandria till it changed that name for Antioch. When the farther provinces broke away under independent Greek kings, a Eucratidea and a Demetrias attested their See also:glory. Even in a town definitely barbarian like Syrinca in 209 B.C. there was a See also:resident See also:mercantile community of Greeks (Polyb. x. 31). The bulk of Greek historical literature having perished, and in the See also:absence of both archaeological data from Iran, we can only speculate on the inner life of these Greek cities under a strange See also:sky.

One precious document is the See also:

decree of Antioch in See also:Persis (about 206 B.c.) cited in a recently discovered inscription (See also:Kern, Inschr. v. Magnesia, No. 61; Dittenberger, Orient. gr. Inscr. i. No. 233). This shows us the normal organs of a Greek city, boule, ccclesia, prytaneis, &c., in full working, with the See also:annual See also:election of magistrates, and ordinary forms of public action. But more than this, it throws a remarkable light upon the solidarity of the Hellenic See also:Dispersion. The citizen body had been increased some generations before by colonists from Magnesia-on-Meander sent at the invitation of Antiochus I. The Magnesians are instigated by pan-hellenic See also:enthusiasm. And we see a brisk diplomatic intercourse between the scattered Greek cities going on. It is especially the local religious festivals which bind them together.

Antioch in Persis, of course, sends athletes to the great games of Greece, but in this decree it determines to take part in The See also:

loyalty, too, expressed towards the Seleucid king implies a predominant interest in pan-hellenic unity, natural in colonies isolated among barbarians. A See also:list is given (fragmentary) of other Greek cities in Babylonia and beyond from which similar decrees had come. In the middle of the 3rd century B.C. Bactria and See also:Sogdiana broke away from the Seleucid empire; independent Greek kings reigned there till the country was conquered by nomads from Central Asia (Sacae and Yue-chi) a Greek kingdoms. century later. Alexander had settled large masses of Greeks in these regions (Greeks, it would seem, not Macedonians), whose attempts to return home in 325 and 323 had been frustrated, and it may well be that a racial antagonism quickened the revolt against Macedonian rule in 250. The history of these Greek dynasties is for us almost a See also:blank, and for estimating the amount and quality of Hellenism in Bactria during the 1So years or so of Macedonian and Greek rule, we are reduced to building hypotheses upon the scantiest data. Probably nothing important bearing on the subject has been left out of view in W. W. Tarp's learned discussion (Journ. of Hell. See also:Stud. xxii., 19(32, p. 268 f.), and his result is mainly negative, that palpable evidences of an active Hellenism have not been found; he inclines to think that the Greek kingdoms mainly took on the native Iranian colour.

The coins, of course, are adduced on the other side, being not only Greek in type and See also:

legend, but (in many cases) of a peculiarly fine and vigorous See also:execution; and excellence in one See also:branch of art is thought to imply that other branches flourished in the same milieu. Tarn suggests that they may be a " See also:sport," a spasmodic outbreak of genius (see BACTxiA and works there quoted). In these out-lying provinces the See also:national Iranian sentiment seems to have been most intense, and it is interesting to see that under Alexander Hellenism appeared as " belligerent civilization," in the See also:attempt to suppress practices like the exposure of the dying to the See also:dogs (an exaggeration of Zoroastrianism) and, possibly also, abhorrent forms of See also:marriage (Strabo xi. 517; Porphyr. De abstin. 4. 21; Plut. De fort. Al. 5). The west of Iran slipped from the Seleucids in the course of the 2nd century B.C. to be joined to the See also:Parthian kingdom, or fall under See also:petty native dynasties. Soon after 130 Babylonia too was conquered by the Parthian, and Mesopotamia before 88.

Then the reconquest of the nearer East by Oriental dynasties was checked by the advance of Rome. Asia Minor and Syria remained substantial parts of the Roman Empire till the See also:

Mahommedan conquests of the 7th century A.D. began a new process of recoil on the part of the Hellenistic power. In Babylonia, also, in Susiana and Mesopotamia, Hellenism had been established in a system of cities for 200 years before the coming of the Parthian. The greatest of all of them stood here—almost on the site of See also:Bagdad—See also:Seleucia on the See also:Tigris. It superseded Babylon as the See also:industrial See also:focus of Babylonia and counted some 600,000 inhabitants (See also:plebs See also:urbana) according to See also:Pliny, N.H. vi. §122 (cf. See also:Joseph. See also:Arch. xviii. § 372, 374; for coins, probably of Seleucia, with the type of Tyche issued in the years A.D. 43–44 see Wroth, Coins of See also:Parthia, p. xlvi.). The list of other Greek cities known to us in these regions is too long to give here (see Droysen, loc. cit., and E. Schwartz in Kern's Inschr. v.

Magnesia, p. 171 f.). In Mesopotamia, Pliny especially notes how the character of the country was changed when the old See also:

village life was broken in upon by new centres of population in the cities of Macedonian foundation (Pliny, N.H. vi. § 117; cf. K. Regling, " Histor. geog. d. mesopot. Parallelograms," in See also:Lehmann's Beitrage, i. p. 442 f.). We do not look in vain for notable names in Hellenistic literature and philosophy produced on an See also:Asiatic soil. Diogenes, the Stoic philosopher (See also:head of the school in 156 B.c.), was a " Babylonian," i.e. a citizen of Seleucia on the Ifeiienicia-Tigris> ; so too was Seleucus, the mathematician and trann cviture. astronomer, being possibly a native Babylonian; See also:Berossus, who wrote a Babylonian history in Greek (before 261 B.c.) was a Hellenized native. See also:Apollodorus, Strabo's authority for Parthian history (c.

8o B.C. ?), was from the Greek city of Artemita in See also:

Assyria. When the Parthians See also:rent away provinces from the Seleucid empire, the Greek cities did not cease to exist by passing under barbarian rule. Gradually no doubt the Greek colonies were absorbed, but the process was a long one. In 140 and 130 B.C. those of Iran were ready to rise in support of the Seleucid invader (Joseph. Arch. xiii. § x84; See also:Justin xxxviii. xo.6-8). Just so, See also:Crassus in 53 B.C. found a welcome in the Greek cities of Mesopotamia. Seleucia on the Tigris is spoken of by See also:Tacitus as being in A.D. 36 " See also:proof against barbarian influences and mindful of its founder Seleucus" (See also:Ann. vi. 42). How important an element the Greek population of their See also:realm seemed to the Parthian kings we can see by the fact that they claimed to be themselves champions of Hellenism.

From the reign of See also:

Artabanus I. (128/7–123 B.c.) they See also:bear the epithet of " Philhellen " as a regular part of their See also:title upon the coins. Under the later reigns the Tyche figure (the personification of a Greek city) becomes common as a See also:coin type (Wroth, Coins of Parthia, pp. liii., lxxiv.). The coinage may, of course, give a somewhat one-sided See also:representation of the Parthian kingdom, being specially designed for the commercial class, in which the population of the Greek cities was, we may guess, predominant. The state of things which prevails in modern See also:Afghanistan, where trade is in the hands of a class distinct in race and speech (Persian in this case) from the ruling race of fighters is very probably analogous to that which we should have found in Iran under the Parthians.' That the Parthian court itself was to some extent Hellenized is shown by the See also:story, often adduced, that a Greek See also:company of actors was performing the Bacchae before the king when the head of Crassus was brought in. This single instance need not, it is true, show a Hellenism of any profundity; still it does show that certain parts of Hellenism had become so essential to the lustre of a court that even an Arsacid could not be without them. Artavasdes, king of See also:Armenia (54?–34 B.C.) composed Greek tragedies and histories (Plut. Crass, 33). Then the prestige of the Roman Empire, with its prevailingly Hellenistic culture, must have told powerfully. The Parthian princes were in many cases the children of Greek mothers who had been taken into the royal harems (Plut. Crass. 32).

Musa, the See also:

queen-mother, whose head appears on the coins of Phraataces (3/2 B.C.–A.D. 4) had been an Italian slave-girl. Many of the Parthian princes resided temporarily, as hostages or refugees, in the Roman Empire; but one notes that the nation at large looked with anything but favour upon too liberal an introduction of foreign See also:manners at the court (Tac. Ann. ii. 2). Such slight notices in Western literature do not give us any penetrating view into the operation of Hellenism among the Iranians. As an expression of the Iranian mind we have the Avesta and the Pehlevi theological literature. Unfortunately in a question of this See also:kind the dating of our documents is the first matter of importance, and it seems that we can only assign See also:dates to the different parts of the Avesta by processes of fine-drawn conjecture. And even if we could date the Avesta securely, we could only prove borrowing by more or less close coincidences of See also:idea, a tempting but uncertain method of inquiry. Taking an See also:opinion based on such data for what it is See also:worth, we may note that See also:Darmesteter believed in the influence of the later Greek philosophy (Philonian and Neo-platonic) as one of those which shaped the Avesta as we have it (Sacred Books of the East, iv. 54 f.), but we must also note that such an influence is emphatically denied by Dr L. See also:Mills (Zarathushtra and the Greeks, See also:Leipzig, 1906).

Outside literature, we have to look to the artistic remains offered by the region to determine Hellenic influence. But here, too, the preliminary See also:

classification of the documents is beset with doubt. In the case of small objects like gems the place of manufacture may be far from the place of See also:discovery. The architectural remains are solidly in situ, but ' Ce sont les Tadjik de l'Afghanistan qui constituent les trentedeux See also:corps de metier, qui tiennent boutique, expedient les marchandiscs, representent, en un mot, la See also:vie industrielle et commerciale de la nation. Ce sont aussi les Tadjik des villes qui forment la classe lettree, et qui ont empeche les Afghans de retomber dans la barbaric." (See also:Reclus, Nouvelle Geograph. univ. ix. p. 71.)we may have such vast disagreement as to date as that between Dieulafoy and M. de See also:Morgan with respect to domed buildings of Susa, a disagreement of at least five centuries. It is enough then here to observe that Iran and Babylonia do, as a matter of fact, continually yield the explorer objects of workmanship either Greek or influenced by Greek See also:models, belonging to the age after Alexander, and that we may hence infer at any rate such an influence of Hellenism upon the tastes of the richer classes as would create a demand for these things. For gems see " Gobineau " in the Rev. archeol., vols. xxvii., See also:xxviii. (1874); See also:Menant, Recherches sur la glyplique orientate, ii. 189 f.; E. Babelon, See also:Catalogue des camees de la Bibl. Nat.

(1897), p. 56; A. Furtwangler, Die antiken Gemmen, pp. 165, 369 ff.; Figurines: Heuzey, Fig. See also:

ant. du Louvre (1883) p. 3; J. P. See also:Peters, See also:Nippur, ii. 128; Military standard: Heuzey, Comptes rendus de l'Acad. d. Inscr. (1895) p. 16; Rev. d'Assyr. v. (1903), p.103 f.

See also:

Alabaster See also:vase: Sykes, Ten Thousand See also:Miles in See also:Persia, p. 445. In the case of the architectural remains, the Greek tradition is obvious at Hatra (Jacquerel, Rev. archeol., 1897 [ii.), 343 f.), and in the relics of the See also:temple at Kingavar (Dieulafoy, L' Art See also:antique de la Perse, v. p. to f.). If any vestige of Hellenism still survived under the See also:Sassanian kings, our records do not show it. The spirit of the Sassanian monarchy was more jealously national than that of the Arsacid, and alien grafts could hardly have flourished emasiarelaa under it. Of course, if Darmesteter was right in seeing a Greek element in Zoroastrianism, Greek influence must still have operated under the new dynasty, which recognized the national religion. But, as we saw, the Greek influence has been authoritatively denied. At the court a limited recognition might be given, as fashion veered, to the values prevalent in the Hellenistic world. The story of See also:Hormisdas in See also:Zosimus is suggestive in this connexion (Zosim. His!. nov. ii. 27). See also:Chosroes I. interested himself in Greek philosophy and received its professors from the West with open arms (Agath. ii.

28 f.); according to one account, he had his palace at See also:

Ctesiphon built by Greeks (See also:Theophylact. Simocat. v. 6). But the account of Chosroes' mode of action makes it plain that the Hellenism once planted in Iran had withered away; representatives of Greek learning and skill have all to be imported from across the frontier. For Hellenism in Babylonia and Iran, see the useful article of M. See also:Victor Chapot in the Bull. et memoires de la See also:Soc. Nat. des Antiquaires de See also:France for 1902 (published 1904), p. 206 f., which gives a conspectus of the relevant literature. (iii.) Asia Minor.—Very different were the fortunes of Hellenism in those lands which became annexed to the Roman Empire. In Asia Minor, we have seen how, even before Alexander, Hellenism had begun to affect the native races and Persian nobility. During Alexander's own reign, we cannot See also:Creek trace any progress in the Hellenization of the interior, cities nor can we prove here his activity as a builder of of the cities. But under the dynasties of his successors a Dtadochi. great work of city-building and colonization went on.

Antigonu s fixed his capital at the old Phrygian town of Celaenae, and the famous cities of Nicaea and Alexandria Troas owed to him their first foundation, each as an Antigonia; they were refounded and renamed by See also:

Lysimachus (301–281 B.C.). Then we have the great system of Seleucid foundations. See also:Sardis, the Seleucid capital in Asia Minor, had become a Greek city before the end of the 3rd century B.C. The See also:main high road between the See also:Aegean See also:coast and the East was held by a series of new cities. Going west from the Cilician Gates we have See also:Laodicea Catacecaumene, Apamea, the Phrygian capital which absorbed Celaenae, Laodicea on the Lycus, Antioch-on-Meander, Antioch-Nysa, Antioch-See also:Tralles. To the south of this high road we have among the Seleucid foundations Antioch in See also:Pisidia (colonized with Magnesians from the Meander) and Stratonicea in Caria; in the region to the north of it the most famous Seleucid colony was Thyatira. Along the southern coast, where the houses of Seleucus and Ptolemy strove for predominance, we find the names of See also:Berenice, See also:Arsinoe and Ptolemais confronting those of Antioch and Seleucia. With the rise of the Attalid dynasty of Pergamum, a system of Pergamene foundation begins to oppose the Seleucid in the interior, bearing such names as Attalla, Philetaeria, Eumenia, Apollonis. Of these, one may note for their later its Hellenization was still far from complete; but Christianity celebrity See also:Philadelphia in See also:Lydia and See also:Attalia on the Pamphylian had assimilated so much of the older Hellenic culture that the coast. The native Bithynian dynasty became Hellenized in the Church was now a main propagator of Hellenism in the backward course of the 3rd century, and in the matter of city building regions. The native See also:languages of Asia Minor all ultimately Prusias (the old Cius), Apamea (the old Myrlea), probablyPrusa, gave way to Greek (unless Phrygian lingered on in parts till the and above all See also:Nicomedia attested its activity. While new See also:Turkish invasions; see Mordtmann, Sitzungsb. d. buyer.

Ak. Greek cities were rising in the interior, the older Hellenism of 1862, i, p. 30; K. See also:

Holl in See also:Hermes, xliii., 1908, p. 240 f.). the western coast See also:grew in material splendour under the muni- The effective Hellenization of Armenia did not take place till ficence of Hellenistic kings. Its centres of gravity to some the 5th century, when the school of Mesrop and Sahak gave extent shifted. There was a tendency towards concentration Armenia a literature translated from, or imitating, Greek in large cities of the new type, which caused many of the lesser books (Gelzer in I. v. Mailer's Handbuch, vol. ix. See also:Abt. i. towns, like Lebedus, Myus or See also:Colophon, to sink to insignificance, p. 916.) while Ephesus grew in greatness and See also:wealth, and Smyrna rose (iv.) Syria.—In Syria, which with See also:Cilicia and Mesopotamia, again after an extinction of four centuries. The great importance formed the central part of the Seleucid empire, the new colonies of Rhodes belongs to the days after Alexander, when it received were especially numerous. Alexander himself had Seleucid the riches of the East from the trade-routes which debauched perhaps made a beginning with Alexandria-by-Issus empire, into the Mediterranean at Alexandria and Antioch.

In See also:

Aeolis, (mod. See also:Alexandretta), Samaria, See also:Pella (the later of course, the centre of gravity moved to the Attalid capital, Apamea), Carrhae, &c. Antigonus founded Antigonia, which I'ergamum. It was the irruption of the Celts, beginning in was absorbed a few years later by Antioch, and after the fall 278-277 B.C., which checked the Hellenization of the interior. of Antigonus in 301, the work of planting Syria with Greek Not only did the Galatian tribes take large tracts towards the cities was pursued effectively north of the See also:Lebanon by the house north of the See also:plateau in possession, but they were an element of of Seleucus, and, less energetically, south of the Lebanon by the perpetual unrest, which hampered and distracted the Hellenistic house of Ptolemy. In the north of Syria four cities stood monarchies. The wars, therefore, in which the Pergamene pre-eminent above the rest, (r) Antioch on the See also:Orontes, the kings in the latter part of the 3rd century stemmed their aggres- Seleucid capital; (2) Seleucia-in-Pieria near the mouth of the sions, had the glory of a Hellenic crusade. Orontes, which guarded the approach to Antioch from the sea; The minor dynasties of non-Greek origin, the native Bithynian (3) Apamea (mod. Famia), on the middle Orontes, the military and the two Persian dynasties in See also:Pontus and See also:Cappadocia, were headquarters of the kingdom; and (4) Laodicea " on sea " (ad Hellenized before the See also:Romans drove the Seleucid out See also:mare), which had a commercial importance in connexion with Native of the country. In See also:Bithynia the upper classes seem to the export of Syrian See also:wine. Of the Ptolemaic foundations in dynasties. have followed the fashion of the court (Beloch iii. [i.], Coele-Syria only one attained an importance comparable with 278); the dynasty of Pontus was phil-helienic by ancestral that of the larger Seleucid foundations, Ptolemais on the coast, tradition; the dynasty of Cappadocia, the most conservative, which was the old Semitic Acco transformed (mod.

See also:

Acre). The dated its See also:conversion to Hellenism from the time when a Seleucid See also:group of Greek cities east of the See also:Jordan also fell within the princess came to reign there early in the 2nd century B.C. as the Ptolemaic realm during the 3rd century B.C., though their wife of Ariarathes V. (Diod. xxxi. 19. 8). But Hellenism in greatness belonged to a somewhat Iater day. The whole of Cappadocia was for centuries to come still confined to the castles Syria was brought under the Seleucid See also:sceptre, together with of the king and the barons, and the few towns. Cilicia, by Antiochus III. the Great (223-187 B.C.). Under his When Rome began to interfere in Asia Minor, its first action son, Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (175-164), a fresh impulse was was to break the power of the Gauls (189 B.c.). In 133 Rome given to Syrian Hellenism. In r See also:Maccabees he is represented Hellenism entered formally upon the heritage of the Attalid as writing an order to all his subjects to forsake the ways of their under kingdom and became the dominant power in the fathers and conform to a single prescribed pattern, and though Roman Anatolian See also:peninsula for 1200 years.

Under Rome the in this form the account can hardly be exact, it does no doubt 'w'w' process of Hellenization, which the divisions and represent the spirit of his action. Other facts there are which weakness of the Macedonian kingdoms had checked, went forward. point the same way. We now find a sudden issue of See also:

bronze The coast regions of the west and south the Romans found See also:money by a large number of the cities of the kingdom in their already Hellenized. In Lydia " not a trace " of the old language own name—an indication of liberties extended or confirmed. was left in Strabo's time (Strabo xiv. 631); in Lycia, the old Many of them See also:exchange their existing name for that of Antioch language became obsolete in the early days of Macedonian rule (See also:Adana, See also:Tarsus, See also:Gadara, Ptolemais), Seleucia (Mopsuestia, (see Kalinka, Tituli Asiae minoris, i. 8). But inland, in Gadara) or Epiphanea (Oeniandus, Hamath). At Antioch Phrygia, Hellenism had as yet made little headway outside itself great public works were carried out, such as were involved the Greek cities. Even the Attalids had not effected much here in the addition of a new See also:quarter to the city, including, we may (Korte, See also:Aiken. Mitth. xxiii., 1898, p. 152), and under the Romans, suppose, the civic council chamber which is afterwards spoken the penetration of the interior by Hellenism was slow. It was of as being here.

With the ever-growing weakness of the Seleucid not till the reign of See also:

Hadrian that city life on the Phrygian plateau dynasty, the independence and activity of the cities increased, became rich and vigorous, with its material circumstances of although, if, on the one hand, they were less suppressed by a temples, theatres and See also:baths. Among the villages of the north strong central government, they were less protected against and east of Phrygia, Hellenism " was only beginning to make military adventurers and barbarian chieftains. Accordingly, itself felt in the middle of the 3rd century A.D." (Ramsay in when See also:Pompey annexed Syria in 64 B.c. as a Roman See also:province, See also:Kuhn's Zeitsch. f. vergleick. Sprachforschung, xxviii., 1885, he found it a See also:chaos of city-states and petty princi- p. in this region as See also:late as the 4th century The See also:Nabataeans and the Jews above all had Romas P 3)• palities. See also:period. curse violators in the old Phrygian speech. The lower classes encroached upon the Hellenistic domain; in the at Lystra in St Paul's time spoke Lycaonian (Acts xiv. south the Jewish raids had spread desolation and left many In that part of Phrygia, which by the See also:settlement of the Celtic cities practically in ruins. Under Roman protection, the cities invaders became See also:Galatia, the larger towns seem to have become were soon rebuilt and Hellenism secured from the barbarian peril. Hellenized by the time of the Christian era, whilst the Celtic Greek city life, with its political forms, its See also:complement of speech maintained itself in the country villages till the 4th festivities, amusements and intellectual exercise, went on more century A.D. (See also:Jerome, See also:Preface to Comment, in Epist. ad Gal. largely than before. The great See also:majority of the Hellenistic remains book ii.; see J. G. C.

See also:

Anderson, Joaarn. of Hell. Stud. xix., 1899, in Syria belong to the Roman period. Such local dynasties as p. 312 f.). Cappadocia at the beginning of the Christian era were suffered by the Romans to exist had, of course, a Hellenistic was still comparatively t ownless (Strabo xii. 537), a country, complexion. Especially was this the case with that of the Herods. of large estates with a servile peasantry. Even in the 4th century Not only were such marks of Hellenism as a, theatre introduced by Herod the Great (37—34 B.C.) at Jerusalem, but in the work of city-building this dynasty showed itself active. Sebaste (the old Samaria), Caesarea, Antipatris were built by Herod the Great, See also:Tiberias by Herod Antipas (4 B.C.—A.D. 39). The reclaiming of the See also:wild See also:district of Hauran for civilization and Hellenistic life was due in the first instance to the house of Herod (See also:Schurer, Gesch. d. See also:jud. See also:Volk.

3rd ed., ii. p. 12 f.). In Syria, too, Hellenism under the Romans advanced upon new ground. See also:

Palmyra, of which we hear nothing before Roman times, is a notable instance. As to the effect of this network of Greek cities upon the aboriginal population of Syria, we do not find here the same disappearance of native languages and racial charac-Oreek teristics as in Asia Minor. Still less was this the case culture la syrla. in Mesopotamia, where a strong native element in such a city as See also:Edessa is indicated by its epithet tat o131cp/3apos. The old cults naturally went on, and at Carrhae (See also:Harran) even survived the See also:establishment of Christianity. The lower classes at Antioch, and no doubt in the cities generally, were in speech Aramaic or bilingual; we find Aramaic popular nicknames of the later Seleucids (K. O. Muller, Antiq. Ant. p. 29).

The villages, of course, spoke Aramaic. The richer natives, on the other hand, those who made their way into the educated classes of the towns, and attained official position, would become Hellenized in language and manners, and the " Syrian See also:

Code " shows how far the social structure was modified by the Hellenic tradition (Mitteis, Reichsrecht and Volksrecht in den ost. Provinzen des See also:ram. Kaiserreichs, 1891; Arnold See also:Meyer, Jesu Muttersprache, 1896). Of the Syrians who made their See also:mark in Greek literature, some were of native blood, e.g. See also:Lucian of See also:Samosata. One may notice the great part taken by natives of the Phoenician cities in the history of later Greek philosophy, and in the poetic movement of the last century B.C., which led to fresh cultivation of the See also:epigram. Greek, in fact, held the field as the language of literature and polite society. Possibly at places like Edessa, which for some 350 years (till A.D. 216) was under a dynasty of native princes, Aramaic was cultivated as a literary language. There was a See also:Syriac-speaking church here as early as the and century, and with the spread of Christianity Syriac asserted itself against Greek. The Syriac literature which we possess is all Christian.

But where Greek gave place to Syriac, Hellenism was not thereby effaced. It was to some extent the passing over of the Hellenic tradition into a new medium. We must remember the marked Hellenic elements in Christian See also:

theology. The earliest Syriac work which we possess, the book " On See also:Fate," produced in the circle of the heretic Bardaisan or Bardesanes (end of the and century), largely follows Greek models. There was an extensive See also:translation of Greek works into Syriac during the next centuries, handbooks of philosophy and science for the most part. The version of Homer into Syriac verses made in the 8th century has perished, all but a few lines (R. See also:Duval, La Litt. syriaque, 1900, p. 325). (v.) The relation of the Jews to Hellenism in the first century and a half of Macedonian rule is very obscure, since the state- The /ews. ments made by later writers like Josephus, as to the visit of Alexander to Jerusalem or the privileges See also:con- ferred upon the Jews in the new Macedonian realms are justly suspected of being fiction. It has been maintained that Greek influence is to be traced in parts of the Old Testament assigned to this period, as, for instance, the Book of See also:Proverbs; but even in the case of See also:Ecclesiastes, the canonical writing whose See also:affinity with Greek thought is closest, the coincidence of idea need not necessarily prove a Greek source. The one solid fact in this con- nexion is the translation of the Jewish See also:Law into Greek in the 3rd century B.C., implying a Jewish Diaspora at Alexandria, so far Hellenized as to have forgotten the speech of See also:Palestine. Early in the and century B. c. we see that the priestly aristocracy of Jerusalem had, like the well-to-do classes everywhere in Syria, been carried away by the Hellenistic current, its strength being evidenced no less by the intensity of the conservative opposition embodied in the party of the " Pious " (See also:Assideans, ,iIasidim).

Under Antiochus IV. Epiphanes (176—165) the Hellenistic aristocracy contrived to get Jerusalem converted into a Greek city; the gymnasium appeared, and Greek dress became fashion-able with ' the See also:

young men. But when Antiochus, owing to political developments, interfered violently at Jerusalem, the conservative opposition carried the nation with them. The revolt under the Hasmonaean See also:family (Judas Maccabaeus and his brethren) followed, ending in 143—142 in the establishment of an independent Jewish state under a Hasmonaean prince. But whilst the old Hellenistic party had been crushed the Hasmonaean state was of the nature of a See also:compromise. The See also:Mosaic Law was respected, but Hellenism still found an entrance in various forms. The first Hasmonaean " king," See also:Aristobulus I. (104—103), was known to the Greeks as Phil-hellen. He and all later kings of the dynasty bear Greek names as well as See also:Hebrew ones, and after Jannaeus Alexander (103—76) the Greek legends are common on the coins beside the Hebrew. Herod, who sup-planted the Hasmonaean dynasty (37—34 B.C,) made, outside See also:Judaea, a display of Phil-hellenism, building new Greek cities and temples, or bestowing gifts upon the older ones of fame. His court, at the same time, welcomed Greek men of letters like Nicolaus of Damascus. Even in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, he erected a theatre and an See also:amphitheatre.

We have already noticed the work done by the Herodian dynasty in furthering Hellenism in Syria (see Schurer, Gesch. des judisch. Volkes, vols. i. and ii.). Meanwhile a great part of the Jewish people was living dispersed among the cities of the Greek world, speaking Greek as their mother-tongue, and absorbing Greek influences in much larger measure than their brethren of Palestine. These are the Jews whom we find contrasted as Hellenists " with the " See also:

Hebrews " in Acts. They still kept in See also:touch with the mother-city, and indeed we hear of See also:special synagogues in Jerusalem in which the Hellenists temporarily resident there gathered (Acts vi. 9). A large Jewish literature in Greek had grown up since the translation of the Law in the 3rd century. Beside the other canonical books of the Old Testament, translated in many cases with modifications or additions, it included See also:translations of other Hebrew books (See also:Ecclesiasticus, See also:Judith, &c.), works composed originally in Greek but imitating to some extent the Hebraic See also:style (like Wisdom), works modelled more closely on the Greek literary tradition, either historical, like 2 Maccabees, or philosophical, like the productions of the Alexandrian school, represented for us by Aristobulus and See also:Philo, in which style and thought are almost wholly Greek and the reference to the Old Testament a mere pretext; or Greek poems ' on Jewish subjects, like the epic of the elder Philo and Ezechiel's tragedy, Exagoge. It included also a number of forgeries, circulated under the names of famous Greek authors, verses fathered upon See also:Aeschylus. or See also:Sophocles, or books like the false Hecataeus, or above all the pretended prophecies of ancient Sibyls in epic See also:verse. These frauds were all contrived for the See also:heathen public, as a means of propaganda, calculated to inspire them with respect for Jewish antiquity or turn them from idols to God. For Jewish Hellenism see Schurer, op. cit. iii.; Susemihl, Gesch der griech. Lit. in der Alexandrinerzeit, ii.

6o1 f.; Willrich, Juden and Griechen (1895), Judaica (190o); See also:

Hastings' Dict. of the See also:Bible, art. " Greece "; Encyclop. Biblica, art. " Hellenism "; Pauly-Wissowa, art. " Aristobulus (15) "; also the work of P. Wendland cited above. Through the Hellenistic Jews, Greek influences reached Jerusalem itself, though their effect upon the Aramaic-speaking Rabbinical schools was naturally not so pronounced. The large number of Greek words, however, in the language of the Mishnah and the See also:Talmud is a significant phenomenon. The attitude of the Rabbinic doctors to a Greek education does not seem to have been hostile till the time of Hadrian. The See also:sect of the See also:Essenes probably shows an intermingling of the Greek with other lines of tradition among the Jews of Palestine. See Schurer ii. 42-67, 583; S.

Krauss, Griech. u, latein, iehnworter See also:

im Talmud (1898) ; Jewish Encyclopedia, art. " Greets Language." (vi.) In Egypt the See also:Ptolemies were hindered by special considerations from building Greek cities after the manner of the other Macedonian houses. One Greek city they found existing, Naucratis; Alexander had called Alexandria into being; the first Ptolemy added Ptolemais as a Greek centre for Upper Egypt. They seem to have suffered no other community in the Nile Valley with the independent life of a Greek city, for the Greek and Macedonian soldier-colonies settled in the See also:Fayum or elsewhere had no political self-existence. And even at Alexandria Hellenism was not allowed full development. Ptolemais, indeed, enjoyed all the ordinary forms of self-government, but Alexandria was governed despotically by royal officials. In its population, too, Alexandria was only semi-Hellenic; for besides the proportion of Egyptian natives in its lower strata, its commercial greatness drew in elements from every quarter; the Jews, for instance, formed a majority of the population in two out of the five divisions of the city. At the same time the prevalent See also:tone of the populace was, no doubt, Hellenistic, as is shown by the fact that the Jews who settled there acquired Greek in place of Aramaic as their mother-tongue, and in its upper circles Alexandrian society under the Ptolemies was not only Hellenistic, but notable among the Hellenes for its literary and artistic brilliance. The state university, the " Museum," was in close connexion with the court, and gave to Alexandria the same pre-See also:eminence in natural science and literary See also:scholar-ship which Athens had in moral philosophy. Probably in no other country, except Judaea, did Hellenism encounter as stubborn a national antagonism as in Egypt. The common description of " the Oriental " as indurated in his antagonism to the alien conqueror here perhaps has some truth in it. The See also:assault made upon the Macedonian devotee in the temple of Serapis at See also:Memphis " because he was a Greek " is significant (Papyr.

Brit. See also:

Mus. i. No. 44; cf. Grenfell, See also:Amherst Papyr. p. 48). And yet even here one must observe qualifications. The papyri show us habitual marriage of Greeks and native See also:women and a frequent adoption by natives of Greek names. It has even been thought that some developments of the Egyptain religion are due to Hellenistic influence, such as the deification of Imhotp (Bissing, Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 1902, See also:col. 2330) or the practice of forming voluntary religious associations (See also:Otto, Priester and Tempel, i. 125). The worship of Serapis was patronized by the court with the very See also:object of affording a mixed cultus in which Greek and native might unite.

In Egypt, too, the See also:

triumph of Christianity brought into being a native Christian literature, and if this was in one way the assertion of the native against Hellenistic predominance, one must remember that Coptic literature, like Syriac, necessarily incorporated those Greek elements which had become an essential part of Christian theology. From the Ptolemaic kingdom Hellenism early travelled up the Nile into See also:Ethiopia. Ergamenes, the king of the Ethiopians Ethlopis. in the time of the second Ptolemy, "who had received a Greek education and cultivated philosophy," broke with the native priesthood (Diod. iii. 6), and from that time traces of Greek influence continue to be found in the monuments of the Upper Nile. When Ethiopia became a Christian country in the 4th century, its connexion with the Hellenistic world became closer. (vii.) Hellenism in the West.—Whilst in the East Hellenism had been sustained by the political supremacy of the Greeks, in Greek Italy Graecia capta had only the inherent power and culture See also:charm of her culture wherewith to win her way. At la the See also:Carthage in the 3rd century the educated classes Roman seem generally to have been familiar with Greek world. culture (See also:Bernhardy, Grundriss d. griech. Lit. § 77). The philosopher See also:Clitomachus, who presided over the Academy at Athens in the 2nd century, was a Carthaginian. Even before Alexander, as we saw, Hellenism had affected the peoples of Italy, but it was not till the Greeks of south Italy and Sicily were brought under the supremacy of Rome in the 3rd century s.c. that the stream of Greek influence entered Rome in any See also:volume. It was now that the Greek freedman, L.

Livius Andronicus, laid the foundation of a new Latin literature by his translation of the Odyssey, and that the Greek dramas were recast in a Latin See also:

mould. The first Romans who set about writing history wrote in Greek. At the end of the 3rd century there was a circle of enthusiastic phil-hellenes among the See also:Ross an aristocracy, led by See also:Titus Quinctius See also:Flamininus, who in Rome's name proclaimed the autonomy of the Greeks at the Isthmian games of 196. In the middle of the 2nd century Roman Hellenism centred in the circle of Scipio Aemilianus, which included men like Polybius and the philosopher See also:Panaetius. The visit of the three great philosophers, Diogenes the " Babylonian," See also:Critolaus and See also:Carneades in 15j, was an epoch-making event in the history of Hellenism at Rome. Opposition there could not fail to be, and in 161 a senatus consultum ordered all Greek philosophers and rhetoricians to leave the city. The effect of such See also:measures was, of course, transient. Even though the opposition found so doughty a See also:champion as the elder See also:Cato (See also:censor in 184), it was ultimately of no avail. The Italians did not indeed surrender themselves passively to the Greek tradition. In different departments of culture the degree of their independence was different. The system of government framed by Rome was an original creation. Even in the spheres of art and literature, the Italians, while so largely guided by Greek canons, had something of their own to contribute.

The mere fact that they produced a literature in Latin argues a power of creation as well as receptivity. The great Latin poets were imitators indeed, but mere imitators they were no more than See also:

Petrarch or See also:Milton. On the other hand, even where the creative originality of Rome was most pronounced, as in the sphere of Law, there were elements of Hellenic origin. It has been often pointed out how the Stoic philosophy especially helped to shape Roman See also:jurisprudence (Schmekel, Philos. d. mittl. See also:Stoa, p. 454 f.). Whilst the upper classes in Italy absorbed Greek influences by their education, by the literary and artistic tradition, the lower strata of the population of Rome became largely hellenized by the actual influx on a vast scale of Greeks and hellenized Asiatics, brought in for the most part as slaves, and coalescing as freedmen with the citizen body. Of the Jewish inscriptions found at Rome some two-thirds are in Greek. So too the early Christian church in Rome, to which St Paul addressed his See also:epistle, was Greek-speaking, and continued to be till far into the 3rd century. with the Greek See also:classics, became rarer and rarer as The general culture declined, till in the dark ages (after age• ids [e the 5th century) it existed practically nowhere but in See also:Ireland (See also:Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, i. 438). In Latin literature, however, a great See also:mass of Hellenistic tradition in a derived form was maintained in currency, wherever, that is, culture of any kind continued to exist.

It was a small number of monkish communities whose care of those narrow channels prevented their ever drying up altogether. Then the stream began to rise again, first with the influx of the learning of the See also:

Spanish See also:Moors, then with the new knowledge of Greek brought from See also:Constantinople in the 14th century. With the See also:Renaissance and the new learning, Hellenism came in again in See also:flood, to form a chief part of that great See also:river on which the modern world is being carried forward into a future, of which one can only say that it must be utterly unlike anything that has gone before. In the East it is popularly thought that Hellenism, as an exotic, withered altogether away. This view is superficial. During the dark ages, in the Byzantine East, as well as in the West, Hellenism had become little more than a dried and shrivelled tradition, although the closer study of Byzantine culture in latter years has seemed to discover more vitality. than was once supposed. Ultimately the Greek East was absorbed by See also:Islam; the popular See also:mistake lies in supposing that the See also:Hel- See also:Siam lenistic tradition thereby came to an end. The Mahommedan conquerors found a considerable part of it taken Ptolemaic kingdom. over, as we saw, by the Syrian Christians, and Greek philosophical and scientific classics were now translated from Syriac into Arabic. These were the starting-points for the Mahommedan schools in these subjects. Accordingly we find that Arabian philosophy (q.v.), See also:mathematics, See also:geography, See also:medicine and See also:philology are all based professedly upon Greek works (Brockelmann, Gesch. d. arabischen Literatur, 1808, vol. i.; R. A.

See also:

Nicholson, A Literary History of the See also:Arabs, 1907, pp. 358-361). Aristotle in the East no less than in the West was the master of them that know ''; and Moslem physicians to this day invoke the names of See also:Hippocrates and See also:Galen. The Hellenistic See also:strain in Mahommedan civilization has, it is true, flagged and failed, but only as that civilization as a whole has declined. It was not that the Hellenistic element failed, whilst the native elements in the civilization prospered; the culture of Islam has, as a whole (from whatever causes), sunk ever lower during the centuries that have witnessed the marvellous expansion of Europe. Different elements (literature, philosophy, art, &c.) are dealt with in works dealing specially with these subjects, among which those of Susemihl, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Erwin Rohde and E. Schwartz are of especial importance for the literature; those of See also:Schreiber and Strzygowski for the later Greek art. Sketches of Hellenistic civilization generally are found in J. P. See also:Mahaffy's Greek Life and Thought (1887), The Greek World under Roman Sway (189o), The See also:Silver Age of the Greek World (1906); See also:Julius Kaerst, Gesch. d. heilenist. Zeitalters (See also:Band ii., publ. 1909); and in Beloch's Griechische Geschichte, vol. iii.

(for the century immediately succeeding Alexander). R. von Scala's " The Greeks after Alexander," in Helmolt's History of the World (vol. v.), covers the whole period from Alexander to the end of the Byzantine Empire. P. Wendland's Hellenistisch-romische Kultur in ihren Beziehungen zu Judentum u. Christentum (1907) is an See also:

illuminating monograph, giving a conspectus of the material. For Hellenistic Egypt, Bouche-Leclercq, Histoire des Lagides, vol. iii. (1906). (E. R.

End of Article: HELLENISM (from Or. EAXspiL'sty, to imitate the Greeks, who were known as "EAAi7ves, after "EAA17v, the son of Deucalion)

Additional information and Comments

There are no comments yet for this article.
» Add information or comments to this article.
Please link directly to this article:
Highlight the code below, right click, and select "copy." Then paste it into your website, email, or other HTML.
Site content, images, and layout Copyright © 2006 - Net Industries, worldwide.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.

Links to articles and home page are always encouraged.

[back]
HELLENISM 		[next]
HELLER, STEPHEN (181 1888)

Site © 2006 - Net Industries