Rome to Rhodes: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." Rome to Aetolian: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." Rome to Achaians: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." Rome to Seleucids: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further." Rome to Egypt: Bros before hoes
As much as we all love Rome they really were the biggest assholes ever. They did it so well for so long in various ways. It hard to look at the Romans as one civilization its like China.
It’s amazing to think many of the areas we think of as Islamic lands were in the past Greek like or the fact that Greek culture influenced such a large area of the world. Sad the many of these sites created by Alexander and his generals have been destroyed or lost over time. Imagine buried underneath the earth in Pakistan and Afghanistan are relics of this time period.
They were Greek and Christian, but with a little bit of vision, and discipline, we can overcome the fatalistic status quo dogma currently dominating the minds of the people, and realize those lands do not have to be Islamic and Arabized for ever, and can be liberated and made Christian and happy again.
@@alejandromadrid8075 During the Hellenistic Period, Christianity did not exist yet because Christ was not born yet, these people believed in the now gone Hellenic faith.
If anyone wonders, we know almost nothing about Gedrosia. It usually appears in most Hellenistic maps as an independent kingdom or state, but is hard to understand what happened exactly there. It was part of the Mauryan kingdom after the agreement between Seleucus and Chandragupta (at least the eastern half of the region, probably not all), but during the decline of the Mauryan dynasty the western regions broke away as independent petty kingdoms, and Gedrosia could be one of them. It possible became absorbed by the Seleucid Empire after Antiochus the Great expedition to the East, and later became part of the Indo Greek kingdom. However is hard to prove what happened exactly in Gedrosia until the arrive of the Saka peoples in late 2nd century BC.
I believe it always had a status of satrapy as part of a larger empire or kingdom. I remember reading that is was an arid and sparsely populated region and that suggests it's significance is limited.
27:00 My grandma came to Greece from Nikomidia (written: Nikomedeia), when the Turks threw out the Greeks in 1922... ;-) Her father was a plantage-owner in Nikomidia. In Greece, he got buried in the bottom of a deep well, since his new job was digging wells, and after an accident, where he got buried alive, he was directly left down there... Greeks from Asia Minor, having been much richer and educated than mainland-Greeks in 1922, got very hard exploited as cheap labour in Greece...
@@tornado4708 Ah, yes, of course. Greece psoposed the terms because it defeated the Turks in 1922. No, wait, it lost. Meaning the terms were dictated by the Turks. It;s just that Greece proposed to take the Greeks instead of leaving them get killed just like the Pontic Greeks and the Armenians were subjected to genocide during WWI, less than a decade before, by the Turks.Btw, most had already fled to Greece to save themselves. Lausanne Treaty simply sealed the legal status, that they lost everything in Turkey and had to make a living with what the Greek state could provide. But because few Turks lived in Greece as opposed to Greeks in Turkey, and on top of that Greece was a smaller country, there was very little for them in Greece. Which is why they were very poor refugees, having lost everything and getting abused by the locals.
@@jackdonith actually we had and have a lot of turks in Greece, most of them live in thrace and they are used by the Turkish state to promote its interests in Greece. That's why Turkey didn't take them back in the first place.
@@tornado4708 Well that was embarrassing, are you going to re-evaluate the source where you learned to make that argument? Maybe complain that they misinformed & embarrassed you, or just stop reading/listening/watching them?
Thank you for this presentation. I was reading Menander’s Dialogue recently and noticed something. The pressure of maintaining the Hellenistic identity versus the alternate pressure of Indianization seemed to have created an existential identity crisis in him. He in fact comes across as seriously depressed in some parts. Many of the Indo-Greek kings were most likely Hellenized native Bactrians. Caught between two world cultures, it destroyed their own.
The romans crushed the Seleucid kingdom, which had managed to take control of most of Alexander’s empire at that point, granted Egypt and Macedonia itself are outsized in importance in relation to their land area.
Ya the Greco-Bactrian/Indo-Greek Kingdoms really capture the imagination. It would definitely be cool to see some more archeology done in Afghanistan. Altho I heard that the main Greco-Bactrian site, Ai-Khanoum, was severely looted during the US occupation.
I am working on an M.Div and didn't expect to enjoy classical history so much. Thank you for these lectures. You do touch on more obscure material as you stated in your profile. This is a legitimate resource and should be recommended more in the algorithms.
Interesting overview of these successors to Alexander. I know you've done a lot of videos about subjects related to them, but it was clarifying to get an overview of all of them in one video. It's too bad there hasn't been great work to look into the history of the Greeks in India, but I guess there's very little information about them because of the lack of sources that made it to the West before the modern period that lead many early archeologists to look into stuff during the period of colonialism.
Loved this video. Chandragupta was a young man when Alexander invaded the Indus Valley, and, I understand, was inspired by that example to found the Mauryan Empire. Might you be interested at some future time to do a series on some of the less well known but nevertheless important monarchies and poleis of the late first millennium, Masillia for example, and the kingdom in southern Spain with which the Phoenicians were doing business. Also the kingdom around Crimea which had an arrangement with Athens to supply wheat, an arrangement which, I understand, persisted for centuries and was honored by both sides.
It's also notable in the case of the Crimean Greeks that this somewhat continued during the Roman era, as it became a client state, and continued to supply grain to Byzantine Constantinople, altho by that time under rule by Goths.
19:16 I have heard that the colossus standing over the opening of the harbor is considered to be very unlikely if not outright impossible with the methods of bronze working and large scale construction available at the time. Coupled with the fact that it stood for such a long time (meaning it was structurally sound) has lead many to say it was built in a more "normal" pose with the stories of it straddling across the harbor coming about due to the usual games Chinese whispers through the ages, and exaggerations/assumptions from later accounts writing based on the remains of the colossus which were still present in the area long after its collapse
It was placed on a base to the side of the port. The diea that it was standing over the entrance of the port was born in late medieval and renaissance time, in pictures that wanted to show that it was very big.
We don't really know the construction methods of the time. We just assume how they did it. There are many examples of unanswered ancient constructions...
I'm taking a lecture on the Diadochi right not, at university and after the lecture our professor basically turned to us and said "Even as professional historian, the time just after Alexander's death and the first Diadochi Wars are complicated to understand, let alone to easily explain." and my friend later said "That was good to hear. Whenever I read about the Diadochi I feel like a complete idiot." Because early Greek history is... comparatively easy, at least in broad strokes. Once one gets into details it becomes more difficult, as details are bound to be. But this early era of Hellenism has so much going on. It's crazy.
Even in Greek school textbooks the hellenistic period is usually just 1 lecture, a tiny chapter. Alexander died, his generals divided the empire and fought it out, till the Romans and other got the pieces, enter Roman era, the end. And then Greek history departments, I know of a course about Alexander but that's all. Nothing for hellenistic history. Archaeology gives a lot of examples, but history is greatly overlooked.
Your description of the development of Koine (4:30) seems to suggest that some Greeks consciously designed a simplified language for foreigners. The actual process of simplification takes place organically, as non-natives begin to use the language as their lingua franca, simplifying it in the process. And, yes, English is a good example of an international lingua franca.
For me it is interesting that Alexander went thousands of miles to the east and south but didn't even move on north or west from Hellas! No one ever mention this simple fact and it's very strange to me...
he went north from macedon at the beginning of his reign, the thracians up to the danube are really all he can hope to control more to secure from attack really. its about where the civilization and cities are.
What a great story! Very well narrated and documented. I wish you could have covered the Maccabean revolt a little further, but this was really a minor episode in the grand scheme of things. Thank you!
You just got a new subscriber, its very easy to lisen to you and everthing is well organized. Facinating stuff, Bithynia was particularly interesting for me
I think it's fitting that the most mixed and integrated kingdom was also the last to go. Definitely more in line with what Alexander wanted to achieve.
I think a better way of “hellenization” would be to encourage the Greek way of life giving the benefits to natives who adapt, but likewise, encourage customs and cultures from the native lands, along with settlers from those lands to spread in Greece. Finding which customs merge best and then slowly adapting to that where everyone can be more comfortable with the new status quo. And these practices would spread to the oriental parts of the empire where the natives don’t have to completely assimilate to an all Greek system. As well as adopting all of the most widespread languages used in the empire rather than encouraging only Greek. Maybe have 2-3 main languages that everyone is expected to learn but not required for all aspects of life.
there are few things that still remain, like greek philosophy in islamic theology, greek traditional medicine and some cuisine , i am sure there would be many more things
Somewhat. Greek art influenced Buddhist and Indian art, with its importation of sculpture. Obviously it's developed significantly since the Hellenistic era, but all Indian sculpture of gods and people such as the Buddha all descends from this Greek influence. Greek philosophy and science would be taken up by Islamic scholars, and be absorbed into the intellectual zeitgeist of the time. Genetically, it's thought that the Greek settlers bloodlines still lives on amongst some of the peoples in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan
Like Darryn mentioned, I know of Hercules being sculpted as a "protector-god" of Buddha in sculptures. Which is a Buddist tradition to have a symbol of great conquerors used as a lesser god protecting Buddha. An example today is Ghengis Khan for Mongol Buddhists and formerly Chinese Yuan Dynasty Buddhists. He is technically a lesser god today and is depicted wearing all white, like his statue today is silver.
There are around 50 Greece loan words in Persian, still used after 2300 years ,also some of most known Iranian sports have Greece origin. Koine was also very popular among the Persian astronomers and mathematicians of the Islamic era.
It always troubles how the great Greek civilizations which had so many heroic and epic moments in their history would bebroken up and rolled over by Rome in such humiliation fashion.
In some alternate universe, instead of killing Alexander's son, they made him a religious leader, like a Pontifex Maximus. For just enough unity to avoid some inter-greek conflicts and mimicking the Roman Republic just enough to fend them off and other external threats. But yeah nothing that I know off at least in Greek culture or history is a precedent to that.
Actually it was mostly their own fault as they did "the roll over" among themselves before. When Rome arrived in the East (Macedonia), Greek and Hellenistic kingdoms' war making capabilities were a shadow of their heroic days. The Peloponnesian wars, the selfish partition of Alexander's great Empire and even killing their own emperor plus his son, these were self inflicted humiliations.
Romans had started conquering Greek states in the early 3rd century BC (getting beaten repeatedly by Pyrrhus) at least and won in the late 1st century BC. That's about 2,5 centuries of hard fought wars. Also, the largest Greek state, the Seleucid empire was overthrown by Parthians, so Rome played no role there. In fact Romans got beaten when they tried to conquer this very state. And there was a Greek state in India until 1st century AD, far away from the Romans. In the end, the very Roman empire was called "Greek empire" by the very people of Italy, during the byzantine era. So, the quote that it was Greeks that actually conquered Romans seems true, if only cultural.
A great video and a great channel overall. You're truly a master of laying the stuff out in an accessible but not trivial manner. Just a minor correction for future videos: Bithynia should be pronounced /bɪˈθɪniə/, not /'bɪθniə/. The "y" in the middle should not only be heard, but it's where the accent is. Cheers!
@@user-be4nm1fq5w That the Romans adopted a portion of Hellenic culture, such as their tongue in the East, it is true. Mostly for pragmatic reasons. This said there are some inaccuracies: Greeks weren't the only ethnicity in the East, just one of the many subdued by the Romans and the whole mix ended up calling themselves "Romans" in time. "Roman" in the East kept mainly its political connotation (to keep the various peoples together) rather than an ethnic one. The Romans in the Western side didn't "become" Franks, Spaniards or Italians. They were mostly left on their own, but despite those Barbarian migrations were in the hundreds of thousands und effectively overtook "Roman rule", the bulk of the people living in those regions (in the millions) were or had already adopted Italic costumes after centuries of Italic colonization and domination. "Franks" replaced "Roman" in its political value yet not in its ethnic one. This is why, for example, millennia after said events, the Italian tongue is pretty much copy paste of Ancient Latin (vocabulary wise), French is somewhere 85% similar to Italian and Spanish slightly less. And all are known as Italic tongues (not Frankish or Germanic). Special case, on top of all, the Italians. Ancient Romans were no less Italian than modern day Italians. It is mostly the same ethnic group that just used a different name back then because nationality wasn't a thing yet (citizenship was what truly mattered and all Italics gained it in the late Republic as they were already seen as something closer than the Barbarians outside Italy. Some sort of "proto-nationality there"). Done, now if modern day Greeks like to call themselves "Romans" too I guess they are free to do so. Sounds a bit bizarre like hearing a Scotsman stating that he is "English" but if he really wants, he can do it. Have a nice day!
"I'm not rerecording this for a minor error... We're going to have to live with it and move on..." 😩I'm finding it hard to move on Thersites, I think about it every night before I try to sleep 😭😫😩
This reminded me of "In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great" which put forward the thesis that Alexander had a will but the successors then the Romans more or less ignored for various reasons. Has that gotten any traction as a hypothesis amongst historians?
Oooooooh maan.....when I heard about Philetairos, the Macedonian Nobleman who founded Pergamon, I literally cringed....some animal, a donkey or something I presume, stepped on and crushed his testicles when he was a kid?? My God that is HORRIBLE even simply imagining it, I feel bad for the man even more than 2,000 years later. And Im impressed he accomplished what he did, even after that happened to him.
Same here. Beyond the loss of testosterone and the ability to marry into other aristocratic families, there was a good deal of prejudice against eunuchs. Philetairos must have been an exceptionally clever man to navigate the Successor period as skillfully as he did.
I really enjoyed Ghost on the Throne by James S. Romm. He writes about what happens right after Alexander's death. 1/4 of the book is just the notes and bibliography. Lots of stuff to read.
As a student of the Stoic philosophy, and the ex husband of a Buddhist woman, it is no longer a mystery to me why Buddhism has so much in common with Greek philosophy and visa versa.
Helios ☀️ Helen Sun-ray The pantheon of Armenian gods, initially worshipped by Proto-Armenians, inherited their essential elements from the religious beliefs and mythologies of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and peoples of the Armenian Highlands. Historians distinguish a significant body of Indo-European language words which were used in Armenian pagan rites. The oldest cults are believed to have worshipped a creator called Ar[4] (or possibly Ara), embodied as the sun (Arev or Areg); the ancient Armenians called themselves "children of the sun".
These are great, many thanks!But i am confused as to which video i should watch next, since we will be looking at Rome, should i check the early Rome period Playlist?
Great video, it bears several repeated studies to absorb it all. Could you please do a video about the status of the cities that the Christian missionaries visited in the First Century?
I love your videos, and I truly appreciate all you have done on youtube (despite our differing political views). Thank you for consistently making historical lectures on such a variety of interesting subjects.
Thank you for your great videos! I read somewhere that Alexander was actually an Archangel and that he hunted down the last of the Nephilim in Persia and drove them into a great cavern in India sealing the hole with copper. Just as they say about angels, it was also written that he smelled amazingly wonderful all the time and that when he died his body showed no signs of decay for 6 days. Have you heard these things or have anymore information?
Because Hellenic was the main culture they adopted and used. Romans were not Greeks but they too imported many Greek teachers from Greece for their studies.
They were Greek! Before King Alexander they were separate kingdoms, city states! King Phillip under the influence of Ισοκράτης decided that in order expand Hellas and defeat Persians once and forever they had to unite Greek city states under one command and to do that he had first to conquer the "domestic enemy" the other Greek states and then as one March to Persia. Greek were and are notoriously known killing each other for 100s of years but when an external enemy is at the gates they unite and they dominate. We never bow in front of a conquerer and we always fight to be free so later we can start killing ourselves again.
I really like your teaching, you are a good teacher, but I'd like to see you show that these ancient cities and civilizations have come to this modern time and evolved into the present cities and countries of today I think that would be interesting. Thank you very much for your hard work and I'm sure you enjoy it.
The Colossus of Rhodes definitely did not straddle the harbor. That would have been a physical impossibility and has been debunked countless times for centuries. That popular belief only dates back to the Middle Ages and the only reference to it is a single sentence saying the Colussus stood "over sea and land" Your videos are very high quality but I'm surprised you made such a simple yet obvious mistake
Malana in Himachal Pradesh is an interesting place, supposedly descendants of Alexander's soldiers. Nice people and decent charris, last time I was there was late 80s.
The Library was destroyed four times, first by Julius Caesar, next by Aurelian (272) a third time by the Patriarch Theophilus (391) and finally by Caliph Omar (642). Most likely The Library ceased to function during the Third Century Crisis having been in decline ever since the fall of The Ptolomies its patrons.
@@panagenesis2695 The first three didn't care enough about it to protect it adequately while fighting their enemies in Alexandria. The Caliph was supposedly motivated by religious bigotry. The verdict is probably "not proven" in all these cases except Caesar's, where there is fairly good evidence that he burned down a warehouse in the harbour where scrolls from The Library were stored.
I have another question. It seems like most people start with the 3 main kingdoms after Alexanders dead: Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Empire, Antigonod Macedon. But I am reading a book which speaks about an agreement that is made after Alexanders dead: division of the kingdom 323. According to this agreement Alexanders empire is divided into small states with local governers/regents. Why is no one talking about this period before hellenism? Or am I just confused?
The hellenistic period is the single most important,glorious,prosperous and culturally aesthetic period in the history of the world and greeks,persians,israelíes,egyptians,phrygians,phoenicians all might as well feel proud their nations were a part of that.
Very interesting! But would you mind not smacking your lips together Between sentences? It bugs me a lot for some reason and your Etruscan video for example has no instances of lips smacking while a significant proportion of sentences in this video are prefaced with a lip smack. I’d really appreciate if you’d be mindful of that for my sake. Again, great video thanks for posting!
I love the phrase “gave birth to a male son” 😂😂 as opposed to a female son lol I found that really funny
Going to war with the Greeks was like getting into a scuffle with the gay pride parade. They were ahead of their time.
@@echo5226 yes except the common belief that the Greeks were socially accepting of gay people is a very well told lie
@@billychops1280 yeah, I heard about that. I was only kidding.
Rome to Rhodes: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."
Rome to Aetolian: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."
Rome to Achaians: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."
Rome to Seleucids: I am altering the deal. Pray I do not alter it any further."
Rome to Egypt: Bros before hoes
Rome to Bactria and Indo-Greece: "I don't even know who you are."
🤣
As much as we all love Rome they really were the biggest assholes ever. They did it so well for so long in various ways. It hard to look at the Romans as one civilization its like China.
It’s amazing to think many of the areas we think of as Islamic lands were in the past Greek like or the fact that Greek culture influenced such a large area of the world. Sad the many of these sites created by Alexander and his generals have been destroyed or lost over time. Imagine buried underneath the earth in Pakistan and Afghanistan are relics of this time period.
Hellenism is underrated. Thanks to Thersites for the video.
They were Greek and Christian, but with a little bit of vision, and discipline, we can overcome the fatalistic status quo dogma currently dominating the minds of the people, and realize those lands do not have to be Islamic and Arabized for ever, and can be liberated and made Christian and happy again.
@@alejandromadrid8075 During the Hellenistic Period, Christianity did not exist yet because Christ was not born yet, these people believed in the now gone Hellenic faith.
@@alejandromadrid8075 Christianity didn’t exist let LMAO what are you talking about 💀
@@BNSFGuy4723 Christianity didn't exist in 200 bce
If anyone wonders, we know almost nothing about Gedrosia. It usually appears in most Hellenistic maps as an independent kingdom or state, but is hard to understand what happened exactly there. It was part of the Mauryan kingdom after the agreement between Seleucus and Chandragupta (at least the eastern half of the region, probably not all), but during the decline of the Mauryan dynasty the western regions broke away as independent petty kingdoms, and Gedrosia could be one of them. It possible became absorbed by the Seleucid Empire after Antiochus the Great expedition to the East, and later became part of the Indo Greek kingdom. However is hard to prove what happened exactly in Gedrosia until the arrive of the Saka peoples in late 2nd century BC.
I believe it always had a status of satrapy as part of a larger empire or kingdom. I remember reading that is was an arid and sparsely populated region and that suggests it's significance is limited.
27:00 My grandma came to Greece from Nikomidia (written: Nikomedeia), when the Turks threw out the Greeks in 1922... ;-) Her father was a plantage-owner in Nikomidia. In Greece, he got buried in the bottom of a deep well, since his new job was digging wells, and after an accident, where he got buried alive, he was directly left down there... Greeks from Asia Minor, having been much richer and educated than mainland-Greeks in 1922, got very hard exploited as cheap labour in Greece...
That sucks to hear.
Very few good things to say about Turks.
@@tornado4708 Ah, yes, of course. Greece psoposed the terms because it defeated the Turks in 1922. No, wait, it lost. Meaning the terms were dictated by the Turks. It;s just that Greece proposed to take the Greeks instead of leaving them get killed just like the Pontic Greeks and the Armenians were subjected to genocide during WWI, less than a decade before, by the Turks.Btw, most had already fled to Greece to save themselves. Lausanne Treaty simply sealed the legal status, that they lost everything in Turkey and had to make a living with what the Greek state could provide. But because few Turks lived in Greece as opposed to Greeks in Turkey, and on top of that Greece was a smaller country, there was very little for them in Greece. Which is why they were very poor refugees, having lost everything and getting abused by the locals.
@@jackdonith actually we had and have a lot of turks in Greece, most of them live in thrace and they are used by the Turkish state to promote its interests in Greece. That's why Turkey didn't take them back in the first place.
@@tornado4708 Well that was embarrassing, are you going to re-evaluate the source where you learned to make that argument? Maybe complain that they misinformed & embarrassed you, or just stop reading/listening/watching them?
Thank you for this presentation.
I was reading Menander’s Dialogue recently and noticed something. The pressure of maintaining the Hellenistic identity versus the alternate pressure of Indianization seemed to have created an existential identity crisis in him. He in fact comes across as seriously depressed in some parts.
Many of the Indo-Greek kings were most likely Hellenized native Bactrians. Caught between two world cultures, it destroyed their own.
You really put out a lot of quality content. Ty again.
Man imagine the Roman empire vs a united Alexandrian empire. What a different world it would have been.
So many missed opportunities to crush that city before it got a foot hold!
That would have been a badass war🥺
The romans crushed the Seleucid kingdom, which had managed to take control of most of Alexander’s empire at that point, granted Egypt and Macedonia itself are outsized in importance in relation to their land area.
Ya the Greco-Bactrian/Indo-Greek Kingdoms really capture the imagination. It would definitely be cool to see some more archeology done in Afghanistan. Altho I heard that the main Greco-Bactrian site, Ai-Khanoum, was severely looted during the US occupation.
So sad we don't have many written records :(
Not with the Taliban Boys back in town
The Greco-Bactrian kingdom was the last independent Greek country for centuries
Sadly it is safer for it to stay lost ...
Indeed.
I am working on an M.Div and didn't expect to enjoy classical history so much. Thank you for these lectures. You do touch on more obscure material as you stated in your profile. This is a legitimate resource and should be recommended more in the algorithms.
Interesting overview of these successors to Alexander. I know you've done a lot of videos about subjects related to them, but it was clarifying to get an overview of all of them in one video. It's too bad there hasn't been great work to look into the history of the Greeks in India, but I guess there's very little information about them because of the lack of sources that made it to the West before the modern period that lead many early archeologists to look into stuff during the period of colonialism.
genuinely enjoy writing notes about the successors of Alexander, really appreciate this lecture!
40:42 "Empire for sale, in bad condition, needs new king and army."
Another great vid, dude. This is great stuff to help me sleep or relax. ^-^ will drop a donation when I'm home. Learned a lot from your videos.
Loved this video. Chandragupta was a young man when Alexander invaded the Indus Valley, and, I understand, was inspired by that example to found the Mauryan Empire.
Might you be interested at some future time to do a series on some of the less well known but nevertheless important monarchies and poleis of the late first millennium, Masillia for example, and the kingdom in southern Spain with which the Phoenicians were doing business. Also the kingdom around Crimea which had an arrangement with Athens to supply wheat, an arrangement which, I understand, persisted for centuries and was honored by both sides.
It's also notable in the case of the Crimean Greeks that this somewhat continued during the Roman era, as it became a client state, and continued to supply grain to Byzantine Constantinople, altho by that time under rule by Goths.
Excellent content, I can’t believe your knowledge and ability to communicate it so well on this period.
Achaia was a region that has it's own furniture
Somehow I've never heard this channel before. But you have got to be the most eloquent, perfectly enunciating speaker I've ever heard!
19:16 I have heard that the colossus standing over the opening of the harbor is considered to be very unlikely if not outright impossible with the methods of bronze working and large scale construction available at the time. Coupled with the fact that it stood for such a long time (meaning it was structurally sound) has lead many to say it was built in a more "normal" pose with the stories of it straddling across the harbor coming about due to the usual games Chinese whispers through the ages, and exaggerations/assumptions from later accounts writing based on the remains of the colossus which were still present in the area long after its collapse
It was placed on a base to the side of the port. The diea that it was standing over the entrance of the port was born in late medieval and renaissance time, in pictures that wanted to show that it was very big.
We don't really know the construction methods of the time. We just assume how they did it.
There are many examples of unanswered ancient constructions...
I'm taking a lecture on the Diadochi right not, at university and after the lecture our professor basically turned to us and said "Even as professional historian, the time just after Alexander's death and the first Diadochi Wars are complicated to understand, let alone to easily explain." and my friend later said "That was good to hear. Whenever I read about the Diadochi I feel like a complete idiot."
Because early Greek history is... comparatively easy, at least in broad strokes. Once one gets into details it becomes more difficult, as details are bound to be.
But this early era of Hellenism has so much going on. It's crazy.
Even in Greek school textbooks the hellenistic period is usually just 1 lecture, a tiny chapter. Alexander died, his generals divided the empire and fought it out, till the Romans and other got the pieces, enter Roman era, the end.
And then Greek history departments, I know of a course about Alexander but that's all. Nothing for hellenistic history. Archaeology gives a lot of examples, but history is greatly overlooked.
MACEDONIAN HISTORY 25 CENTURIES from KING PHILIP ! ! !
Your description of the development of Koine (4:30) seems to suggest that some Greeks consciously designed a simplified language for foreigners. The actual process of simplification takes place organically, as non-natives begin to use the language as their lingua franca, simplifying it in the process. And, yes, English is a good example of an international lingua franca.
Yea that was weird
For me it is interesting that Alexander went thousands of miles to the east and south but didn't even move on north or west from Hellas! No one ever mention this simple fact and it's very strange to me...
he went north from macedon at the beginning of his reign, the thracians up to the danube are really all he can hope to control more to secure from attack really. its about where the civilization and cities are.
He didn't go because he died in 33, so he hadn't the time.
So simple.
Persia was the great empire of the time, so going east first make sense.
Because they were all Pelasgians and didn't need to take his own people 😂
before 25 centuries PELLA -- PELAGIA MACEDONIAN LAND.
PHILIP and ALEXANDER are born in M A K E D O N I J A ! ! !
What a great story! Very well narrated and documented. I wish you could have covered the Maccabean revolt a little further, but this was really a minor episode in the grand scheme of things. Thank you!
I love that I found this channel I always loved studying this period
Solid stuff my dude, great encapsulation of why the period is so fascinating 👌
You two should collaborate on a Livestream!
You just got a new subscriber, its very easy to lisen to you and everthing is well organized. Facinating stuff, Bithynia was particularly interesting for me
Just found this channel through this video being recommended and now going on a binge. More good history content is always a good thing.
"Speaking often and for long periods of time can take your voice to the limit"
Well, if thats the case, than my wife has to be some kind of wonder
Thank you for all you put out on Middle East History &Roman/East Roman History!. This is one of the Best channels on UA-cam
Very informative video. I've only recently looked into Alexander and I'm loving it so far. Thanks for the documentary!
Thank you for this...really good intellectual boost on this Sunday pm. (From South Africa).
I think it's fitting that the most mixed and integrated kingdom was also the last to go. Definitely more in line with what Alexander wanted to achieve.
You are always so chill to listen to
I think a better way of “hellenization” would be to encourage the Greek way of life giving the benefits to natives who adapt, but likewise, encourage customs and cultures from the native lands, along with settlers from those lands to spread in Greece. Finding which customs merge best and then slowly adapting to that where everyone can be more comfortable with the new status quo. And these practices would spread to the oriental parts of the empire where the natives don’t have to completely assimilate to an all Greek system. As well as adopting all of the most widespread languages used in the empire rather than encouraging only Greek. Maybe have 2-3 main languages that everyone is expected to learn but not required for all aspects of life.
Great video thank you for taking the time to make it!
Are there any traces of Greek culture or heritage left in these eastern regions? Or has it been completely wiped out by Arab/Islamism?
there are few things that still remain, like greek philosophy in islamic theology, greek traditional medicine and some cuisine , i am sure there would be many more things
Somewhat. Greek art influenced Buddhist and Indian art, with its importation of sculpture. Obviously it's developed significantly since the Hellenistic era, but all Indian sculpture of gods and people such as the Buddha all descends from this Greek influence. Greek philosophy and science would be taken up by Islamic scholars, and be absorbed into the intellectual zeitgeist of the time. Genetically, it's thought that the Greek settlers bloodlines still lives on amongst some of the peoples in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan
Like Darryn mentioned, I know of Hercules being sculpted as a "protector-god" of Buddha in sculptures. Which is a Buddist tradition to have a symbol of great conquerors used as a lesser god protecting Buddha. An example today is Ghengis Khan for Mongol Buddhists and formerly Chinese Yuan Dynasty Buddhists. He is technically a lesser god today and is depicted wearing all white, like his statue today is silver.
Good ol' islam, protector of antiquity.
You need to update your hate protocols, China is the new Enemy of the Free World now.
This part of history of Anatolia and the East in general is very interesting. Post Achaemenids and Alexander, pre Rome and Sassanids.
There are around 50 Greece loan words in Persian, still used after 2300 years ,also some of most known Iranian sports have Greece origin. Koine was also very popular among the Persian astronomers and mathematicians of the Islamic era.
It always troubles how the great Greek civilizations which had so many heroic and epic moments in their history would bebroken up and rolled over by Rome in such humiliation fashion.
In some alternate universe, instead of killing Alexander's son, they made him a religious leader, like a Pontifex Maximus. For just enough unity to avoid some inter-greek conflicts and mimicking the Roman Republic just enough to fend them off and other external threats. But yeah nothing that I know off at least in Greek culture or history is a precedent to that.
Actually it was mostly their own fault as they did "the roll over" among themselves before.
When Rome arrived in the East (Macedonia), Greek and Hellenistic kingdoms' war making capabilities were a shadow of their heroic days.
The Peloponnesian wars, the selfish partition of Alexander's great Empire and even killing their own emperor plus his son, these were self inflicted humiliations.
Priam's revenge.
Honestly Alexander was kinda part of the problem, everyone wanted to emulate him so everyone because glory mad warlords.
Romans had started conquering Greek states in the early 3rd century BC (getting beaten repeatedly by Pyrrhus) at least and won in the late 1st century BC. That's about 2,5 centuries of hard fought wars. Also, the largest Greek state, the Seleucid empire was overthrown by Parthians, so Rome played no role there. In fact Romans got beaten when they tried to conquer this very state. And there was a Greek state in India until 1st century AD, far away from the Romans. In the end, the very Roman empire was called "Greek empire" by the very people of Italy, during the byzantine era. So, the quote that it was Greeks that actually conquered Romans seems true, if only cultural.
I'm from gedrosia modern Baluchistan ❤️
A great video and a great channel overall. You're truly a master of laying the stuff out in an accessible but not trivial manner.
Just a minor correction for future videos: Bithynia should be pronounced /bɪˈθɪniə/, not /'bɪθniə/. The "y" in the middle should not only be heard, but it's where the accent is. Cheers!
Not sure how I got to this channel but found the information excellent.
Great addition to UA-cam
Many thanks for uploading this video.
Very detailed explanation
Thersites merch? I'm thinking the Thersites bust on the front, and *CON-STAN-TIN-O-PLE* on the back shoulders.
i don't get it
It's pretty remarkable how successful Hellenization was in retrospect. You'd think there'd be much more rebellion.
Would you say Rome was successfully Hellenized or was it purely Roman?
It was the other way around.
Rome romanized the Greeks.
There's a good case to be made for both. Very interesting to realise.
@@user-be4nm1fq5w That the Romans adopted a portion of Hellenic culture, such as their tongue in the East, it is true. Mostly for pragmatic reasons.
This said there are some inaccuracies:
Greeks weren't the only ethnicity in the East, just one of the many subdued by the Romans and the whole mix ended up calling themselves "Romans" in time.
"Roman" in the East kept mainly its political connotation (to keep the various peoples together) rather than an ethnic one.
The Romans in the Western side didn't "become" Franks, Spaniards or Italians.
They were mostly left on their own, but despite those Barbarian migrations were in the hundreds of thousands und effectively overtook "Roman rule", the bulk of the people living in those regions (in the millions) were or had already adopted Italic costumes after centuries of Italic colonization and domination.
"Franks" replaced "Roman" in its political value yet not in its ethnic one.
This is why, for example, millennia after said events, the Italian tongue is pretty much copy paste of Ancient Latin (vocabulary wise), French is somewhere 85% similar to Italian and Spanish slightly less. And all are known as Italic tongues (not Frankish or Germanic).
Special case, on top of all, the Italians.
Ancient Romans were no less Italian than modern day Italians. It is mostly the same ethnic group that just used a different name back then because nationality wasn't a thing yet (citizenship was what truly mattered and all Italics gained it in the late Republic as they were already seen as something closer than the Barbarians outside Italy. Some sort of "proto-nationality there").
Done, now if modern day Greeks like to call themselves "Romans" too I guess they are free to do so.
Sounds a bit bizarre like hearing a Scotsman stating that he is "English" but if he really wants, he can do it.
Have a nice day!
@@ilFrancotti letters art architecture medicine mathematics science....Roman??????????
@@user-be4nm1fq5w why? They were both warmongers and narcissists. How many people died because of them and how many cultures destroyed.
Explosion of detailed words merging that was never heard before.
Great video
Interesting how so many cities in Mesopotamia just vanished … because of the river changes?
This was fascinating to listen. I always wondered what happened after Alexander's death and before Jesus. Still thirst for more though. Great video.
I really enjoyed this lecture. Thx.
I’ll always miss my time in the Seleucid Empire, thanks for the memories
"I'm not rerecording this for a minor error... We're going to have to live with it and move on..." 😩I'm finding it hard to move on Thersites, I think about it every night before I try to sleep 😭😫😩
This reminded me of "In Search of the Lost Testament of Alexander the Great" which put forward the thesis that Alexander had a will but the successors then the Romans more or less ignored for various reasons. Has that gotten any traction as a hypothesis amongst historians?
Historians don’t care about stuff like this it isn’t important plus we know what he was planning like arabia
This is a topic that was never done in the post Alexander the Great's Campaign.
I go an Egyptian tourism ad during the Ptolemaic Egypt section lmao
Oooooooh maan.....when I heard about Philetairos, the Macedonian Nobleman who founded Pergamon, I literally cringed....some animal, a donkey or something I presume, stepped on and crushed his testicles when he was a kid?? My God that is HORRIBLE even simply imagining it, I feel bad for the man even more than 2,000 years later. And Im impressed he accomplished what he did, even after that happened to him.
Same here. Beyond the loss of testosterone and the ability to marry into other aristocratic families, there was a good deal of prejudice against eunuchs. Philetairos must have been an exceptionally clever man to navigate the Successor period as skillfully as he did.
great lecture, I thoroughly enjoyed it. thank you
I am doing a Bsc in Ancient Studies at a top 40 university in the world and your lectures are way better than that of my professor.
University ranking is essentially commercial, corrupted and bs anyway.
Excellent Work!
I really enjoyed Ghost on the Throne by James S. Romm. He writes about what happens right after Alexander's death. 1/4 of the book is just the notes and bibliography. Lots of stuff to read.
Pompey to the Seleucids: “You’re done” 😂
Indian rulers still spoke Greek in The Life of Apollonius of Tyrana...
As a student of the Stoic philosophy, and the ex husband of a Buddhist woman, it is no longer a mystery to me why Buddhism has so much in common with Greek philosophy and visa versa.
Q:To whom do you leave your empire?
A: To the strongest!!
Wouldn’t Epirus be the first Hellenic kingdom destroyed by Rome?
Greco-Buddhist Bactria is such an awesome little bit of history.
Do you think Antiochus III was a successful or unsuccessful king?
Successful until he met the Romans
Nice video dude. Thank you.
Very informative
Helios ☀️
Helen Sun-ray
The pantheon of Armenian gods, initially worshipped by Proto-Armenians, inherited their essential elements from the religious beliefs and mythologies of the Proto-Indo-Europeans and peoples of the Armenian Highlands. Historians distinguish a significant body of Indo-European language words which were used in Armenian pagan rites. The oldest cults are believed to have worshipped a creator called Ar[4] (or possibly Ara), embodied as the sun (Arev or Areg); the ancient Armenians called themselves "children of the sun".
These are great, many thanks!But i am confused as to which video i should watch next, since we will be looking at Rome, should i check the early Rome period Playlist?
Moving toward-a new world ord-a a normal life is boring but super stardom close to post mortem goes home and barely knows his own daughter.
There were 2 big libraries in Alexandria, one inside the Museum and another one, the proper Library.
Excellent! Thank you!
Ghost on the Throne, great book that goes into the histort after the death of Alexander.
Great video, it bears several repeated studies to absorb it all. Could you please do a video about the status of the cities that the Christian missionaries visited in the First Century?
I dont think it is fair to say the world was globalized under the greeks when the Achaemenid Empire already had those areas united before hand
I love your videos, and I truly appreciate all you have done on youtube (despite our differing political views). Thank you for consistently making historical lectures on such a variety of interesting subjects.
How and where did you find the obsolete maps for your portrayal of history? Cite sources please!
Thank you for your great videos! I read somewhere that Alexander was actually an Archangel and that he hunted down the last of the Nephilim in Persia and drove them into a great cavern in India sealing the hole with copper. Just as they say about angels, it was also written that he smelled amazingly wonderful all the time and that when he died his body showed no signs of decay for 6 days. Have you heard these things or have anymore information?
Internet Nonsense for people easily lied to.
great lecture! thank you
If the Macedonians were not greek why would they need greek settlers in every single city that they founded ?????
Because Hellenic was the main culture they adopted and used.
Romans were not Greeks but they too imported many Greek teachers from Greece for their studies.
They were Greek! Before King Alexander they were separate kingdoms, city states! King Phillip under the influence of Ισοκράτης decided that in order expand Hellas and defeat Persians once and forever they had to unite Greek city states under one command and to do that he had first to conquer the "domestic enemy" the other Greek states and then as one March to Persia. Greek were and are notoriously known killing each other for 100s of years but when an external enemy is at the gates they unite and they dominate. We never bow in front of a conquerer and we always fight to be free so later we can start killing ourselves again.
I really like your teaching, you are a good teacher, but I'd like to see you show that these ancient cities and civilizations have come to this modern time and evolved into the present cities and countries of today I think that would be interesting. Thank you very much for your hard work and I'm sure you enjoy it.
The Colossus of Rhodes definitely did not straddle the harbor. That would have been a physical impossibility and has been debunked countless times for centuries. That popular belief only dates back to the Middle Ages and the only reference to it is a single sentence saying the Colussus stood "over sea and land"
Your videos are very high quality but I'm surprised you made such a simple yet obvious mistake
Malana in Himachal Pradesh is an interesting place, supposedly descendants of Alexander's soldiers.
Nice people and decent charris, last time I was there was late 80s.
Thank you and God bless you in Jesus Christ name Amen
This is my jam!
Can’t it be argued that Armenia was a great power due to their arrangement with Pontus and their overlordship of Parthia for a time.
do you have a spotify podcast? would be awesome
Thanks
Did you say the Library of Alexandria burned down during the Middle Ages? I remember learning that the Romans burned it down in the Ancient Era? 🤔
The Library was destroyed four times, first by Julius Caesar, next by Aurelian (272) a third time by the Patriarch Theophilus (391) and finally by Caliph Omar (642).
Most likely The Library ceased to function during the Third Century Crisis having been in decline ever since the fall of The Ptolomies its patrons.
@@alanpennie8013 What did all these people have against a library of all places?
@@panagenesis2695
The first three didn't care enough about it to protect it adequately while fighting their enemies in Alexandria.
The Caliph was supposedly motivated by religious bigotry.
The verdict is probably "not proven" in all these cases except Caesar's, where there is fairly good evidence that he burned down a warehouse in the harbour where scrolls from The Library were stored.
From Livy, who was a contemporary of Caesar.
The final destruction of the Library became in the late years of Roman Empire. About the early years of 5th century.
So I guess that's where the term "coining/coined" a new word/term comes from?
Not enough is said about Greeks ( Danaan, Dian, Dang) in Asia. Evidence is scene as far as Red River Valley in Vietnam.
We're on the map is Skopje ?
Where it belongs, with the slavic countries. What Skopje has to do with Alexander the Great and Hellenistic period?🤔
Maybe look on a map 1000 years later and you will find it!
@@iordanistzivas4902 SKOPJE TOWN IN MAKEDONIJA ! !
you in... Vranje.
Divide et impera
I have another question. It seems like most people start with the 3 main kingdoms after Alexanders dead: Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Empire, Antigonod Macedon. But I am reading a book which speaks about an agreement that is made after Alexanders dead: division of the kingdom 323. According to this agreement Alexanders empire is divided into small states with local governers/regents. Why is no one talking about this period before hellenism? Or am I just confused?
The hellenistic period is the single most important,glorious,prosperous and culturally aesthetic period in the history of the world and greeks,persians,israelíes,egyptians,phrygians,phoenicians all might as well feel proud their nations were a part of that.
Very interesting! But would you mind not smacking your lips together Between sentences? It bugs me a lot for some reason and your Etruscan video for example has no instances of lips smacking while a significant proportion of sentences in this video are prefaced with a lip smack. I’d really appreciate if you’d be mindful of that for my sake. Again, great video thanks for posting!