Lecture 9 -- Alexander the Great and His Successors

Summary Outline

Alexander’s conquest marked the beginning of a period that we call
“Hellenistic,” a term that comes from the word Hellas, the Greek word
for “Greece.”

In our last lecture, we talked about the Babylonian Exile and the return of
the exiles to Jerusalem under Persian rule. In this lecture, we will discuss
the conquests of Alexander the Great, which changed ancient Near
Eastern peoples greatly-the Judeans perhaps more than others.
In the second half of the 4th century B.C., a powerful Macedonian king named
Philip II consolidated control of all the Greek city-states to the south, then
began preparations for the invasion of the Persian Empire. However, Philip
was murdered before he could invade, and his 18-year-old son, Alexander,
succeeded him. Alexander consolidated his rule and, just two years after
becoming king, began his invasion of the Persian Empire. In 334 B.C.

Alexander and the Persian king, Darius III, fought three successive battles,
with Alexander always victorious. After the final battle in 331 B.C., Darius’s
own men murdered him, paving the way for Alexander to become ruler of all
the Persian Empire. Alexander pushed even further, into lands that had not
been subject to the Persians. After concluding his conquest, Alexander settled
in Babylon, where he ruled until his death in 323 B.C. In 332 B.C., during his
invasion ofthe Persian Empire, Alexander passed through Palestine on his way
to Egypt. Judea submitted peacefully to Alexander, but Samaria revolted, and
we have archaeological evidence of the suppression of this revolt. After ending
the Samaritans’ revolt, Alexander banished them from their most important city,
Samaria, the ancient capital of the northern kingdom of Israel, which he
made a Greek colony. Thereafter, the Samaritans have lived at the foot of
Mount Gerizim, in what is today the city of Nablus in the West Bank.

When Alexander died in 323 B.C., his empire was divided among his
generals. For our purposes, the most important generals were Seleucus
and Ptolemy. Seleucus got the territory from Asia Minor (modem Turkey)
through Syria and Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Ptolemy got Egypt, a very
Wealthy country in antiquity. The Holy Land lies right between the Seleucids
to the north and the Ptolemies to the south. During most of the 3rd century
B.C., the Ptolemies in Egypt ruled Palestine. During most of the 2nd century
B.C., the Seleucids to the north ruled it.

Alexander’s conquest and the policies of his successors resulted in a mixture
of Greek culture with the native ancient cultures, a mixture often referred to as
“Hellenistic” The Ptolemies and Seleucids established many specifically
Greek-style cities throughout their kingdoms, and Greek became the official
language. The rulers deliberately used Greek culture as a means of unifying
the diverse populations in their kingdoms. Jerusalem was not an exception to
this policy. A Seleucid king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, turned Jerusalem into
a Greek polis named Antiochia. This event led to a revolt, for the Jews were
not receptive to having Greek culture and religion imposed on them.
In our next lecture, we’ll look at some of the native populations in the area
during this period.

Names to Know
Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.): Son and successor of Philip II of
Macedon, defeated the Persian king Darius III and created a vast empire
stretching from southern Russia and northern India through Egypt and Asia
Minor. Alexander’s conquests mark the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
Seleucus I (c. 355-281 B.C.): One of Alexander’s generals who established
a kingdom in Asia Minor and Syria (the Seleucid kingdom).

Important Terms
Antiochia: Name given to Jerusalem by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV
Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.) after he refounded it as a polis.
Hellenistic: The period beginning with Alexander’s conquests.
polis: A Greek or Greek-style city.

Questions to Consider
1. Who do you think has the stronger claim to being the true Israel-the
Jews (Judeans) or Samaritans?
2. How did Alexander’s successors attempt to establish their legitimacy as
his heirs?

Lecture 9-Transcript
Alexander the Great and His Successors

In our last lecture, we talked about the Babylonian exile and the return of the
Judeans from Babylonia in exile under Persian rule. In today’s lecture, we
are going to talk about the conquests of Alexander the Great which had an
impact that lasted for centuries on the Ancient Near East and impacted the
Judeans just as much if not more as other ancient peoples living in the area.
Before we get to Alexander, we have to go back and talk a little bit about
what happens in Greece before the time of Alexander. In the 5th century
B.C., the Persians had invaded the Greek mainland twice, in 490 and 480.

After that, Athens became the leading city-state in mainland Greece. Athens
was not the only leading city state. There was another dominant powerful
city-state and that was Sparta. In the 5th century B.C., there were two power
blocks in mainland Greece centered on the city-states of Athens and Sparta.

By the second half of the 5th century B.C. these two power blocks came into
conflict with each other. A thirty year long war, called the Peloponnesian
war, which ended at the very end of the 5th century B.C., and left pretty much
all of Greece as a series of fragmented weak city-states with no one city-state
able to gain dominance over all of the others. This remained the picture then
in Greece in the 4th century B.C. until we get the rise of a kingdom located
on the fringes of the Greek world in the area of modern northeast Greece,
and that is the kingdom of Macedonia.

In the 4th century B.C., Macedonia was a warrior kingdom ruled by a warrior
king. In the second half of the 4th century B.C., a powerful warrior king
named Philip II led the Macedonians in a successful battle against the other
Greek city-states. This battle was called the Battle of Chaeronea and it was
fought in the year 338 B.C. After the Battle of Chaeronea, Macedonia now
is the ruler, the leader, of all of the Greek city-states. Two years after the
Battle of Chaeronea, Philip II began preparations for the invasion of the
Persian Empire but before he could actually invade the Persian Empire, he
was murdered. That occurred in the year 336 B.C.


With Philip II’s murder, he was then succeeded to the throne by his son,
Alexander. Alexander consolidated his position on the Macedonian throne
and then continued the preparations that his father had begun for an invasion
of the Persian Empire. Just two years after Alexander became king, he began
his invasion of the Persian Empire. Remember that at this point, the Persian
Empire reached all the way up to the borders of Greece itself
In 334, Alexander launches his invasion of the Persian Empire, crossing the
Hellespont with his Macedonian troops, and landing on Persian soil in the
area of ancient Troy, northwest Turkey today. Alexander then began to march
with his Macedonian troops eastwards through the Persian Empire. Of course
the Persian king was not just sitting back at home watching as a foreign army
invaded his country. He came out to meet and oppose Alexander in battle.

Eventually, Alexander and the Persian king fought three successive battles.
The Persian king at this point was named Darius III. In each of these three
battles against Darius, Alexander and his army were victorious. The final
battle was fought in the year 331 B.C., and after that last battle, Darius’ own
men murdered him, paving the way for Alexander to become ruler of all of
the lands of Persia. Alexander did not just sit back at that point. He continued
to march eastwards with his troops in the lands that had not even been subject
previously to the Persian Empire.

For example, Alexander marched into the area of modern Afghanistan and
into the area of southern Russia and across the Indus Valley River into the
area of India. Apparently, he was planning to invade the area of the Arabian
Peninsula when his Macedonian soldiers simply refused to go any further.
After his conquest, Alexander never returned to his native Greece. He set up
court in Babylon where he then ruled over this vast empire until his death in
the year 323 B.C.
For our purposes, there are several interesting and important things that
happened during the course of Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire.
Alexander’s last battle was fought against the Persian king in 331. A year
before that, in 332, Alexander had been marching eastwards through Syria
towards Mesopotamia, towards the area of modern Iraq, when he detoured
south to go to Egypt.

Why did Alexander detour to go to Egypt? Egypt in antiquity was a
fantastically wealthy country, the land of the Pharaohs, the land of gold.
Alexander wanted to make sure that he took Egypt. So in 332, Alexander
detours south to Egypt. As he went to Egypt, that took him through the area
of Palestine. So, our little neck of the woods is conquered by Alexander in
332 as he is on his way to Egypt.

While in Egypt, Alexander did two important things. Number one, he
established a new city on the coast which he named after himself, Alexandria.
The second thing that Alexander did was to go out into the desert to an
oasis at a place called Siwa where there was an oracle, an oracular shrine,
dedicated to Zeus, specifically a native Zeus worshipped as Zeus Ammon.
When Alexander approached this oracular shrine, we are told the priest of
Zeus Ammon came out and greeted Alexander as if he was a god.

Why is this important? It is because up until the time of Alexander, Greek
rulers and leaders were not worshiped as gods, if you think about the rulers
of Athens, for example, the leaders of Athens, in fact, quite the contrary. You
have frequent ostracisms, for example. They were not treated all that well.

Now for the first time we see the introduction of this notion that a ruler is
divine among the Greeks. This notion, actually, was a very ancient notion in
the Near East. Think about it, the Pharaohs and some of the ancient rulers of
Mesopotamia, they are either divine or they are semi-divine. What we see
here now is the beginning of Near Eastem influence on Greek culture by way
of Alexander. From the time of Alexander on, he and his successors then are
worshiped either as divine or as semi-divine, something that previously had
been completely alien to the Greeks.

Alexander’s conquest marked the beginning of a period that we call the
Hellenistic period. Where does this word “Hellenistic” come from? At its
root, the word comes from the word ‘hellas’ which is the Greek word for
Greece. You may also recognize the word Hellenic, which is an adjective
meaning Greek. You could say Greek food is Hellenic food, Greek
architecture, Hellenic architecture.

We call this period the Hellenistic period. It has at its root a word meaning
the beginning of the Greek period, but it is not exactly the Greek period. We
do not call it Hellenic period. We call it the Hellenistic period. Why is that?
It’s because it is not exactly Greek, it is Greek-like.

What do I mean, Greek-like? Alexander’s conquest marks for the first time
the introduction of Greek culture into the lands of the Ancient Near East.
While these lands were under the rule of the Persians, there was very little
contact with an influence of Greek culture with the native cultures and with
the native peoples. For the first time, the peoples of the Ancient Near East
are directly introduced to and exposed to various aspects of Greek culture
including Greek language, Greek food, Greek styles of architecture, Greek
gods and religion, Greek theatre.

So what we see now, beginning with Alexander’s conquest, is Greek
influence on the native cultures and peoples of the Ancient Near East, but
these cultures and peoples were very ancient, had very rich heritages of their
own. They did not simply wholesale abandon their own ancient heritage in
order to adopt Greek culture. No, instead what we see is an overlay of Greek
culture and various aspects of Greek culture mixed with, mingled with, the
native ancient cultures. lt is this mixture, this mingling of Greek culture and
native Near Eastern cultures that we refer to as Hellenistic, and hence we
refer to this period as the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

So in 332 B.C. Alexander passed through Palestine on his way to Egypt. He
probably did not go to Jerusalem despite the fact that there is a later Jewish
tradition that he did. He would have had no reason to go to Jerusalem and
visit Judea. He probably took the coastal road down to Egypt and passed
along that way.

As Alexander passed through the country, what he did was to leave the
administrative structure that had existed already under the Persians intact but
replaced the Persian officials with his own men. Judea submitted peacefully
to Alexander, but for some reason, Samaria did not. For some reason, the
Samaritans revolted against the governor who Alexander appointed and they
burned him alive. What happens then is that Alexander sends troops in to put
down this Samaritan revolt.

What is interesting about this is that we have evidence of the Samaritan revolt
that was found in a cave in the area of Samaria, a cave in a riverbed that is
called Wadi Daliyeh. In this cave, Bedouin found over 300 skeletons lying
on mats inside the entrance to the cave and with these skeletons, personal
belongings. What these represent, apparently, are the remains of Samaritan
refugees who, after the outbreak of the revolt, hid from Alexander’s troops
in this cave, were apparently discovered by Alexander’s troops. The troops
then built a fire at the entrance to the cave, and the people inside the cave
suffocated to death. All of the personal belongings that they had brought
with them remained with their physical remains, with their skeletons inside
the cave, and were then discovered by Bedouin, and the cave was then
excavated by archaeologists. Among the personal belongings that we have
from this cave are documents, personal documents, deeds to land, personal
correspondence that these people brought with them to the cave when they
hid out there. These documents then give us a very valuable insight on
this Samaritan population on the eve of the outbreak of the revolt against
Alexander.

After the end of the Samaritan revolt, Alexander punished the Samaritans.
In order to punish them, what he did was banish them from their most
important city, the city of Samaria. Remember that Samaria had been the
capital of the biblical kingdom of Israel way back when. Alexander now
banishes the Samaritans from the city of Samaria. He settles Macedonian
veterans at Samaria, so Samaria now becomes a Greek town, a Greek colony.
The Samaritans now live at the foot of their sacred mountain, at the foot of
Mount Gerizim in the biblical city of Shechem which today is the city of
Nablus in the West bank.

We actually have more archaeological evidence for the results, the outcome
of the Samaritan revolt in the city of Samaria. Excavations in the city of
Samaria brought to light the original biblical, that is the original Israelite
citadel at the top of the hill surrounded by its own fortification wall. When
the Macedonian veterans were settled here by Alexander, they apparently
refortified the citadel by adding round towers to it. These round towers are
still at Samaria, can still be seen very well. They are a very typical type of
round tower where the stones are laid entirely with the short ends facing out,
what we call headers. If the long end is facing out it is called a stretcher, but
if the short end of the block of stone is facing out, it is called a header. So all
of the stones are laid in neat rows of headers.

It is very interesting that we see the addition of round towers to the ancient
Israelite fortifications. This goes back to something that we have talked
about already, the fact that whenever you see a new defensive system
introduced, it reflects the introduction of a new offensive system of warfare.
Why add round towers to the ancient fortifications? What was the point of
round towers? This is something connected with events under Alexander.
One of the innovations that appears in warfare in the time of Alexander and
then continues through the Hellenistic period is the development of heavy
artillery, that is, large, torsion machines that can throw giant cannon shot, big
round boulders.

These big round boulders can be thrown at city walls for various purposes.
(Jne of the things that you do is to shoot these big stones, these big cannon
shot, in order to provide cover fire for your troops that are attacking the city.
You can also use these big pieces of cannon shot to batter away the city wall
and specifically, to batter away at towers. If a tower is square, has square
corners, those corners are going to be subject to being battered much more
quickly than a round tower. They are going to be much more vulnerable than
a round tower. So round towers are going to be much better at protecting
your city from artillery, from camion shot, than square towers are. So the
round towers that we see added to the ancient Israelite citadel at Samaria are
connected with the establishment of this new Macedonian veteran population
at the site and connected with the introduction of this new type of canon shot
warfare that we have, heavy artillery, beginning with the time of Alexander
the Great.

In 323 B.C. Alexander died. He was still quite young. He died in Babylon.
When Alexander died, there was no one person who was capable of
succeeding him to the throne. What happens after Alexander dies is that a
war breaks out over the succession to the throne. During the course of the
next 20 years, there were prolonged wars over the succession to Alexander’s
throne. During the course of this period of war, Alexander’s wives, he had
three wives, and his offspring were killed. Eventually, Alexander’s empire
was divided up between various of his generals.

For our purposes, two of Alexander’s generals are the most important. One
general was named Seleucus. Seleucus got the lion’s share of Alexander’s
empire. He got the territory from the area of Asia Minor, that is modern
Turkey, through Syria and Mesopotamia, the area of Iraq. He established
there a kingdom which was then ruled by his successors and which is called
the Seleucid kingdom or the Seleucid Empire.

The other important general for us is Ptolemy. Ptolemy got Egypt, which
remember was a very wealthy country in antiquity, and established a
kingdom ruled by his descendants which is called the Ptolemaic kingdom
or the Ptolemaic Empire. Notice where our little neck of the woods lies. The
holy land lies right smack in the middle between the Seleucids to the north
and the Ptolemys to the south.

As you can imagine, Palestine was a bone of contention between the
Seleucids and the Ptolemys with wars being fought and with the country
going back and forth. Basically, during most of the 3rd century B.C., Palestine
was under the rule of the Ptolemys in Egypt. During most of the 2nd century
B.C., Palestine was under the rule of the Seleucids to the north.

When Alexander’s empire was divided among his generals and their
successors, these successors of Alexander had a problem. That problem was
establishing their legitimacy in the eyes of the population that they ruled.
Why do I say that? In antiquity, generally speaking, the principle of rule was
dynastic. You had a dynasty and the successors to the throne were generally
related to the people who they followed. So a ruler was then succeeded by
his son or by his nephew or by some other blood relative or somebody who
had at least married into the family.

None of Alexander’s successors were related to Alexander in any way. Their
problem was establishing themselves as legitimate successors to Alexander in
the eyes of the populations that they ruled over. How do you go about doing
this? What they did was to imitate Alexander. Everything that Alexander had
done, they did.

Why did they do this? They did this in order to make themselves seem like
Alexander. If Alexander had been deified, had been worshiped as a god, well,
then they too were then going to be deified and worshiped as gods. Whatever
Alexander did, they followed in his footsteps. Remember that one of the
things that Alexander had done was establish a new city in Egypt which he
named after himself, Alexandria.

Following then in Alexander’s footsteps, all of these different successors,
the Ptolemys and the Seleucids established new cities around their kingdoms
which they named after themselves. We have, for example around the
Seleucid empire cities that are named Seleucia, and around the Ptolemaic
Empire or kingdom, cities that are named Ptolemais. In fact, in the 3rd century
B.C., the city of Aco, or acre, which is north of Hyfa on the Palestinian coast
was renamed Ptolemais.

Establishing these cities and naming them after themselves was not just a
tactic imitating Alexander. There actually was a whole other reason for this
as well, a very good reason. When these successors of Alexander established
cities and gave them names after themselves, what they were doing was
establishing cities that were specifically Greek cities. Sometimes these cities
were being established from scratch in a place where there had been no
city previously.

But many times what these rulers did was to take an already-existing city
or town and rebuild it. Build it so that it had new Greek style institutions,
a Greek style temple dedicated to Greek gods, a Greek style school or
gymnasium where the youth would be educated with a Greek education, a
Greek theater where Greek plays would be performed in the Greek language.
What these rulers were doing was not just establishing cities named alter
themselves, they were specifically establishing Greek-style cities throughout
their kingdom.

Why were they doing this? They were for a couple of good reasons. First of
all, if you were an inhabitant of one of these cities or towns, and suddenly
you had a nice new theater to watch plays in, and a good school to send your
kids to for a good education, and a beautiful temple to worship the gods in,
you would be pretty grateful and loyal to that ruler. One of the points of this
policy was to win the loyalty of the population by establishing these nice
new cities for the people, and that actually worked very well.

There was another reason why these rulers did this, because for the most part
the populations that they ruled over were pretty diverse. These were different
peoples, different ethnicities, spoke different languages, worshiped different
gods. These successors of Alexander deliberately used Greek culture as a
means of unifying the diverse populations in their kingdoms.

Now Greek becomes the official language of their kingdoms. The youth are
now being educated in the Greek manner. People are now familiar with Greek
gods and with Greek customs. You have a homogenizing influence with the
establishment of these Greek cities throughout the Hellenistic kingdoms.
If we look at the portraiture of Alexander and his successors, we can see again
this attempt to imitate Alexander and emulate him in every way possible.
There is a beautiful portrait head of Alexander that is posthumous; it was
made after Alexander’s death. It was found in Pergamtun on the western coast
of Asia Minor. What is important here is not that it depicts how Alexander
actually looked, we do not really know exactly how he looked, but it depicts
how people thought Alexander looked in antiquity.

Alexander is typically depicted as a young man, very beautiful, at his prime.
Notice a couple of things. Notice that he has a thick wavy mane of hair on
his head, so his hair is very sort of thick and wavy. He is shown as gazing
up towards the heavens. Sometimes Alexander is actually shown wearing a
lions mane cape on his head as we see for example on some coins. That, of
course, is an attribute of Hercules-Heracles, the Greek hero. So an aspect
of the fact that Alexander is divine or semi-divine being alluded to here. Of
course, gazing off towards heavens, stresses his connection with the gods up
ir1 heaven.

If we look at the coins of some of Alexander’s successors, both Ptolemys
and Seleucids, we see something very interesting. We see that they portray
themselves resembling Alexander. They too have the thick wavy mane of
hair, they too are gazing up towards heaven, they bare a resemblance to
Alexander. Of course, the Ptolemys and the Seleucids probably bore no
resemblance to Alexander at all because they were not related to Alexander,
but in antiquity the closest you got to mass media was coins. Coins were
more widely distributed than anything.

Most people in their everyday lives never actually saw the ruler, never
actually saw the king. What they saw instead were whatever statues or
portrait busts happened to get set up, and most of them probably never even
saw that, but if they didn’t see anything else, they saw the portraits that were
on coins. You did not know what they king actually looked like. You thought
he looked like the way he is depicted on the coin.

If these rulers are depicted on coins and in other portraits looking like
Alexander, you would think that that is actually what they looked like, and
therefore you would conclude even though it is not being said explicitly, that
if they look like Alexander, they must be related to Alexander. Another means,
in other words, of perpetuating this affliction that they are like Alexander and
they are Alexander’s legitimate successors is having themselves portrayed
looking like Alexander in art.

These Greek style cities that the Hellenistic kings, the Seleucids and the
Ptolemys established throughout their kingdoms, these Greek style cities
are what We call a “polis.” Polis is simply a Greek word meaning a city or
sometimes a city-state. Technically we refer to these Greek-style cities as
a polis. We have seen that these cities were established by the Hellenistic
kings throughout their kingdoms for various purposes including unifying
these diverse populations but also Winning the loyalty in favor of the people,
because people were very happy when the king came along and made their
city a Greek style city. It’s very interesting that Jerusalem was not exception
to this rule.

Under one of the Seleucid kings, Antiochus IV Epiphanies, Jerusalem was
turned into a Greek polis. It was renamed, after the kind, Antiochia, This
event, the re-foundation of Jerusalem as a Greek style city named Antiochia,
is going to preface and lead up to the outbreak of a Jewish revolt against
Antiochus because, of course, the Jews unlike other populations in the area
were not necessarily all that receptive to having Greek culture and Greek
religion imposed upon them.

We tie up here and in our next lecture, what we are going to be doing is
turning to look at some of the native populations in the area during the
Hellenistic period.