Ancient Greece 15: Hellenism

01/01/10 • 4 min

In the last lecture, we saw the rise and fall of Alexander the Great. This lecture will be quiet brief as I am less interested in historical events and people and more interested in a concept that spread after the death of Alexander the Great. This concept his Hellenism.

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Ancient Greece 11: The Peloponnesian War

In the last lecture we witnessed the Persian Wars. We saw that the Greeks ultimately defeated the Persians as they advanced into Greece twice during the early fifth century. We also saw that these invasions resulted in three chief shifts in Greece. First, the Greek poleis were temporarily unified in the Delian League. Second, we saw that Athens took advantage of the Delian League to expand their own empire. And third, Sparta challenged Athenian authority and formed the Peloponnesian League. All of this took place between the 480s and 440s. By the 430s, the divisions in Greece were so strong that civil war had become inevitable. This civil war is called the Peloponnesian War and it shall be the focus of this lecture. This was the most pivotal war in Ancient Greek history because it will set the Greek poleis up for failure and invasion from Macedonia.

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Ancient Greece 20: The Pyrrhic War

In my lectures on Rome, I detail the rise of Rome in the Italian Peninsula. This lecture is one of three designed to discuss Rome in the contexts of Hellenism. Remember, when Greek power waned and even after the death of Alexander the Great, Hellenism remained very much alive. In these three lectures, we will be examining how Rome interacted with Greek kingdoms by examining a series of wars, The Pyrrhic War, the Macedonia Wars, and the Achaean War. This lecture studies the first of these, the Pyrrhic War.

Achilles - Strings by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100463 Artist: http://incompetech.com/