Introduction to the Ancient World: Greece

Alexander and the Hellenistic Age

I. Alexander's Achievement

A. Macedonians and Persians; homonoia
B. Greek colonization; koine
C. economic; trade

II. Influence and impact

III. The Hellenistic Age (323-31 B.C.); political division:

A. Antigonids & Macedonia
B. Seleucids & Persia et al.
C. Ptolemies & Egypt (Cleopatra VII defeated by Octavian/Augustus in 31 B.C.)
D. Others, e.g. Pergamon; Attalus; Great Altar of Zeus

IV. The spirit of the times as reflected in sculpture

A. realism: women, Boxer, boy strangling goose
B. classicizing: Apollo Belvedere; mighty and flighty Aphrodites (cf. Venus de Milo earlier); also earlier 4th cent.: Praxiteles (Apollo the Lizard Slayer)
C. baroque, eccentricism, freakout: Farnese Bull (Punishment of Dirce), Laocoon
D. architecture as spectacle: Acropolis of Lindos (Rhodes), Fortuna Temple at Palestrina (near Rome)

Lecture 33 Images

Forward to Lecture 34