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Diadochi and the Hellenistic Period

Alexander's Empire fragments into Seleucid Persia, Ptolemaic Egypt and Antigonid Macedonia (and other kingdoms) and gives rise to the Hellenistic Period.

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  • winston baby style avatar for user charlotte
    why was Alexander interested in conquering the world and how do you think other people viewed him,as great or as a tyrant.
    (12 votes)
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  • old spice man green style avatar for user Don Spence
    Was the Macedonian culture essentially the same as the Greek culture, or were all these Diadochi Greek rather than Macedon?
    (6 votes)
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    • spunky sam green style avatar for user History Helper
      Back in the ancient times, Macedon was a Greek kingdom. Though Macedon didn't belong to any of the major four Greek subethnic groups, they were still considered Greeks, at least culturally. The modern Macedonians are descended from Slavic migrants that came about a thousand years after Alexander.
      (12 votes)
  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Richard Sanchez
    At @ when the narrator mentions that these Empires had a large amount of Greek influence, does he refer to there Religious worship as well? What religion were the Seleucid, Ptolemaic, and Antigonid Empires practicing. Also, what Religion did the Roman's practice? Also, was Roman architecture heavily influenced by the Greeks at this point in history?
    (4 votes)
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    • leaf yellow style avatar for user Steve Schroeder
      Hi Richard, good questions! The short answer is that a lot of traditional Greek practices did spread, but a lot of local traditions remained and influenced Greek practices, as well. One common practice among the Hellenistic rulers was to associate themselves with the cult of a particular deity (essentially a version of divine kingship). Which god/cult varied from kingdom to kingdom. The Romans didn't have a lot of contact with the Hellenistic kingdoms until the mid-2nd century BCE, but there was a lot of interaction between Rome and Greek colonies closer to and in the Italian peninsula. So there was some influence from Greek culture prior to this point, but most of the major impacts came after Roman expansion to the East as it encountered the Hellenic successor states to Alexander's empire. For a more in-depth look at what the Romans believed (and some explanation of the Greek influences) I would recommend this article. http://www.ancient.eu/Roman_Religion/

      Hope that helps!
      (6 votes)
  • male robot hal style avatar for user SHADOWKNIGHT840
    Why are the Diadochi called the Diadochi? Does it mean something?
    (4 votes)
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  • purple pi teal style avatar for user amwilliams1503
    What is the Parthian Empire? Did I miss something? It just kind of popped up in the video?
    (2 votes)
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  • starky tree style avatar for user Chandu Bandaru
    Where did Olympia when Alexander die? And why did his family, if any left, try to take over his empire?
    (2 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user Georgia Watson
      Actually, he did have a son, Alexander IV. However, he wasn't yet born when Alexander died. In the ensuing question of who would be Alexander's successor, the Macedonians basically split - either they supported the Alexander IV as the heir, or Alexander the Great's uncle Philip III. It was decided that one of Alexander's military commanders would act as regent for Philip, and if Alexander's child was born male, he would be king. This never happened because civil war broke out and both Alexander IV and his mother were assassinated before he turned 14 (the age at which he could assume power).
      (9 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Andy Shen Si Eht Tseb
    What is the region on the map in light blue? I don't see what that is.
    Also, what countries emerged from the red regions that did not get submerged into the Seleucid, Ptolemaic or Antigonid empires?
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Freckledfrog
    It's still mind blowing to think that Alexander and his military were able conquered Persia and Egypt. What kind of military tactics did they have to defeat Persian Empire? How was this possible? and before Alexander started to conquer, what was Persian empire like?
    (3 votes)
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    • piceratops sapling style avatar for user Talha Ahmed
      Amazing military innovation by his father Philip and himself helped a lot. The Persians played right into his hands by fighting pitched battles with him. He was a competent and amazing general, who would put the management and safety of his army first, which is why they managed to get all the way to the Kush. The Persians were a very formidable force and their empire was progressive and amazingly administered. Alexander just beat them.
      (1 vote)
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Rhett Zhao
    Where is Alexander's resting place?
    (2 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user neveah.deleon
    yeah why was alaxander the greatest
    (1 vote)
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    • aqualine tree style avatar for user David Alexander
      If the set is "all the people who have ever lived", then claiming that Alexander was the subset of "the greatest person that ever lived" is not true.
      SO: Now we are down to the sub-set of "all who led conquests". Alexander belongs to that sub-set. Can it be claimed that among all those who led conquests, he was the greatest? Probably not. So THAT's why he is merely "great".

      Among the set of "all the human beings who have ever lived" there is a sub-set of "humans who have led conquests". Among that sub-set, there's a guy whose name was "Alexander". Somebody who thought a lot of him added "the great", so as not to get him confused with other Alexanders in the sub-set.
      (2 votes)

Video transcript

- [Instructor] Where we left off in the last video, Alexander dies in 323 BCE, at the young age of 32. And even though he conquered all of this territory, it was a very short-lived empire. And what happens next is a period known as the Wars of the Diadochi, and let me write down this word, Diadochi. Diadochi translates into successors, and these are the various leaders, and mainly generals, of Alexander who then fought for control of the empire. It's a very bloody period, a lot of different Diadochi going after each other, or after each other's families, and what eventually happens over the next few decades is Alexander's empire, the empire that he establishes, gets split up into a few major empires. What you see on this map here, you see most of Persia, and the Anatolian Peninsula right over here, really the bulk of the old Achaemenid Persian Empire. It gets under control of Seleucus, and he establishes the Seleucid dynasty, the Seleucid Empire. Let me write this down right here. This is Seleucid, so the Seleucid Empire. Egypt right over here, this gets taken control of another general of Alexander, Ptolemy, and he establishes the Ptolemaic Empire and the Ptolemaic dynasty. Ptolemaic. And then Macedon ends up under control once again of another Diadochi, remember the Diadochi are the successors, all of these characters right over here. These are three of the various Diadochi, three of the more successful Diadochi right over here. But what the Macedonian components of Alexander's Empire, for the most part, end up under the control of Antigonus's dynasty, which ends up being called the Antigonid dynasty. Antigonid. And this, and as you can see, it's not all of the empire Alexander established. What we have in red here, these are independent states that did not get subsumed into the Seleucid, the Ptolemaic, or the Antigonid Empires, You can imagine, over the next several hundred years, they're going back and forth, there's an ebb and flow of control of these various empires, but these are the three most significant, especially the Ptolemaic and the Seleucid. What this establishes is what a lot of historians refer to as a new period of especially this part of the world. When we go from shortly before the Persian invasions of Greece all the way to Alexander the Great, we refer to that as Classical Greece, but now we're going from Classical Greece, with the death of Alexander in the beginning of the Wars of the Diadochi for control, this sets up a new period, often referred to by historians as Hellenistic Period. And the Hellenistic Period is referring to the fact that all of this territory that was conquered by Alexander the Great, and later gets split after the Wars of the Diadochi between these Diadochi establishing these various empires, they had huge influence of Greek culture. You had ruling dynasties that were essentially Greek, whether you're in Ptolemaic Egypt, Seleucid Persia, or Antigonid Macedonia. Obviously the Macedonians were already a very strong Greek culture. And it's a time where you have the spread of the culture, you have a bit of fulfillment of Alexander the Great's goal of creating this very, this mashup, so to speak, of the various cultures of the region, the Greco, and the Persian, and the Egyptian cultures. Now the Hellenistic Period starts to end as each of these various empires get overthrown. The Seleucid Empire, in the third century BCE, it gets more and more overtaken by the Parthian Empire. Parthia starts as a satrap, a region, of the Seleucid Empire, but it eventually takes control over much of Persia. So this is the Parthanian, sorry, the Parthian Empire, right over here. And the last vestiges of the Seleucid Empire are eventually defeated by the Roman legions, and you'll see this is a common trend here because, at the time of Alexander, on the Italian peninsula, you start having a city-state that's becoming more and more powerful, and more and more of an empire. And as we will see, it starts to subsume a lot of the regions we talked about. Ptolemaic Egypt, it gets overthrown by the Roman Empire in 30 BCE, and the Antigonid dynasty gets overthrown by the Roman Empire, they're actually the first to get overthrown by the Roman Empire, in 168 BC. So this period, this Hellenistic Period, the takeaway, it's a period, I'm talking about hundreds of years in a matter of five or six minutes, but this is a period where you had significant Greek influence over a very large period, or a very large area of land, and it eventually ends with a lot of the western portions falling under Roman control, and the eastern portions, especially Persia, falling under Parthian control.