CLST3104 - Greek World After Alexander the Great

This class is designed as a detailed investigation of the world created by Alexander the Great. We will cover the three hundred year period known as the Hellenistic Age from the career of Alexander the Great (354-323 BC) until the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium (31 BC). This was a period during which the world of the Greeks underwent extraordinary and far-reaching changes, as Greek culture was established as far afield as northwestern India, central Asia and Egypt. In the same period kingdoms controlled by Alexanders's Successors used Greek culture to define their rule, establishing a Greek culture of the elite in regions which previously had been dominated by the Persians. As Greek and non-Greek worlds collided, a new interpretation of Greek culture emerged, giving rise, among other things, to universities and professional schools, state subsidized health care, triumphalist architecture, the heroization of the noble savage, coinage with royal portraits, the deification of men and a multitude of other social, artistic and political forms familiar to us. It was an age of radical change, dislocation, as Greek populations colonized regions previously unkown to them.