Ancient Philosophy After Aristotle

The Hellenistic World

The history of the ancient world where the Greek language was spoken can be divided into three distinct periods: the era of independent city-states, which came to an end with the conquests of Philip and Alexander; the era of Macedonian dominance, which was finally extinguished with the Roman annexation of Egypt following Cleopatra's death; and, lastly, the era of the Roman Empire. The first of these periods is marked by freedom and disorder, the second by subjugation and disorder, and the third by subjugation and order.
The second period is known as the Hellenistic age. The advancements made during this time in the natural sciences and mathematics were among the finest ever achieved by the Greeks. In philosophy, this period saw the establishment of the Epicurean and Stoic schools, as well as the final formulation of Skepticism. Thus, although this period is not as philosophically significant as the era of Plato and Aristotle, it nonetheless retains importance. After the third century BCE, there were essentially no new developments in Greek philosophy until the advent of Neoplatonism (3rd century CE). Meanwhile, however, the Roman world was preparing for the triumph of Christianity.
The brief but impactful career of Alexander the Great rapidly transformed the Greek world. Within a decade, from 334 to 324 BCE, Alexander conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Samarkand, Bactria, and the Punjab. The Persian Empire, the greatest the world had known, was destroyed in just three battles. The inquisitive Greeks became acquainted with the ancient sciences of the Babylonians, as well as their old superstitions; similarly, they encountered Zoroastrian dualism and, to a lesser extent, the religions of India, where Buddhism was gaining prominence. Wherever Alexander went, even in the mountains of Afghanistan, along the banks of the Jaxartes, and near the tributaries of the Indus, he founded Greek cities, striving to replicate Greek institutions, albeit with some local self-governance. Despite his army being primarily Macedonian and most Greeks of Europe submitting to him unwillingly, Alexander regarded himself first and foremost as an apostle of Hellenism. However, as his empire expanded, he gradually adopted policies encouraging the friendly fusion of Greeks and barbarians.
He had several motives for this. On one hand, it was evident that his relatively small army could not indefinitely maintain control over such a vast empire by force alone and would ultimately depend on the pacification of the conquered populations. On the other hand, the East was accustomed to only one form of government—rule by a divine king—a role Alexander felt well-suited to assume. Whether he truly believed in his own divinity or embraced the attributes of a god purely for political reasons is a psychological question, as historical evidence is unclear. In any case, he enjoyed the obsequious flattery and servility he encountered in Egypt as the successor of the pharaohs and in Persia as the Great King. His Macedonian generals, known as "companions," behaved toward him much as Western nobles did toward their constitutional sovereigns: they refused to prostrate themselves before him, offered him advice, criticized him even at the risk of their lives, and at crucial moments controlled his actions. For instance, they forced him to return from the banks of the Indus rather than continue on to conquer the Ganges. Eastern populations, however, were more compliant as long as their religious prejudices were respected. For Alexander, this was not difficult: he only needed to identify Ammon or Bel with Zeus and declare himself the son of this god. Psychologists suggest that Alexander may have hated his father Philip and might have been involved in his assassination; he likely wished to believe that his mother, Olympias, like certain noble women in Greek mythology, had been the beloved of some god. Alexander's career was so miraculous that he may well have believed divine descent to be the best explanation for his extraordinary success.
The Greeks held a strong sense of superiority over the barbarians. Aristotle undoubtedly expressed the prevailing view when he remarked that the northern races were brave, the southern ones cultured, but only the Greeks combined both bravery and culture. Plato and Aristotle both considered it wrong to enslave Greeks but saw no such issue with barbarians. Alexander, not being a pure-blooded Greek, sought to break down this sense of superiority. He himself married two princesses of barbarian tribes and compelled his leading Macedonian generals to wed Persian women of noble birth. It is likely that the countless Greek cities he founded were primarily populated by male colonists, who, like Alexander, had no choice but to marry local women. The result of this policy would have been to instill in thoughtful minds the concept of humanity as a unified whole; the old allegiance to city-states and, to a lesser degree, to the Greek race no longer seemed appropriate to the circumstances. In philosophy, this cosmopolitan view finds its roots in the Stoics, but in truth, it began with the time of Alexander. This resulted in a mutual influence between Greek and barbarian cultures: barbarians learned something of Greek science, while Greeks absorbed many barbarian superstitions. As Greek civilization spread across a wider area, it became less distinctly Greek.
Greek civilization was predominantly urban. While many Greeks were engaged in agriculture, their contribution to what was distinctively Greek culture was minimal. From the time of the Milesian school and later, those Greeks who made significant contributions to science, philosophy, and literature were connected with wealthy trading cities, often surrounded by barbarian populations. This type of civilization was not established by the Greeks but by the Phoenicians. Tyre, Sidon, and Carthage relied on the physical labor of slaves in their lands and on mercenaries for their wars. Unlike modern capital cities, they did not depend on a large rural population of the same blood with equal political rights. A fitting modern analogy could be seen in the Far East in the second half of the 19th century. Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and other treaty ports of China were European enclaves, where the white population constituted a commercial aristocracy, living off the labor of coolies. In North America, north of the Mason-Dixon line, the absence of such labor forced white settlers to work the land themselves. This explains why the position of white people in North America is secure, while in the Far East it has already weakened significantly and may soon collapse entirely. Nonetheless, much of the culture of this type survives, especially industrialism. This analogy helps to clarify the position of the Greeks in the eastern regions of Alexander's empire.
Alexander's influence on the imagination of the peoples of Asia was great and enduring. The first book of Maccabees, written a century after his death, begins with an account of his life:
"And it came to pass after that Alexander, the son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Kittim, had smitten Darius, king of the Persians and Medes, and reigned in his stead, the first over Greece, and made many wars, and won many strongholds, and slew the kings of the earth, and went through to the ends of the earth, and took spoils of many nations, insomuch that the earth was quiet before him; whereupon he was exalted and his heart was lifted up."
Even today, in certain areas of the Himalayas, tribal leaders claim to descend from him. No truly historical figure has provided so rich an opportunity for myth-making.
After Alexander’s death, an attempt was made to preserve the unity of his empire. However, one of his sons was an infant, and the other was not yet born. Both had their supporters, but in the ensuing civil wars, both were eliminated. Eventually, his empire was divided among the families of three generals: one received the European, another the African, and the third the Asian part of Alexander's holdings. The European part ultimately went to the descendants of Antigonus; Ptolemy, who received Egypt, made Alexandria his capital; and Seleucus, after many years of war, took control of Asia, though he was too preoccupied with military campaigns to establish a permanent capital. Later, Antioch became the main city of his dynasty.
Both the Ptolemies and the Seleucids (the dynasty founded by Seleucus) abandoned Alexander’s ambition of merging Greeks with barbarians, establishing instead military tyrannies. These were initially based on the Macedonian forces loyal to them, supplemented by Greek mercenaries. While the Ptolemies maintained a firm grip on Egypt, in Asia, the dynastic conflicts—lasting for two centuries—were only brought to an end by Roman conquest. Over these two hundred years, Persia fell to the Parthians, and the isolation of the Bactrian Greeks grew ever more pronounced.
In the second century BCE, during which they rapidly declined, the Bactrians were ruled by Menander, whose Indian empire was vast. Two of his dialogues with Buddhist sages have survived in Chinese and partly in Pali translations. Dr. Tarn suggests that the first of these dialogues is based on an original Greek text, while the second, wherein Menander abdicates and declares himself a Buddhist saint, lacks documentary confirmation.
At that time, Buddhism was a proselytizing religion, energetically seeking new converts. Ashoka (264—228 BCE), the saintly Buddhist king, recorded in an inscription that has survived to our time that he sent missionaries to all the Macedonian rulers: “And this is the most important conquest, in His Majesty’s opinion—the conquest by the Law; and this has been accomplished by His Majesty both in his own domains and in all neighboring kingdoms up to a distance of six hundred leagues—even where the Greek king Antiochus resides, and beyond Antiochus’s realm, where four kings dwell, called by different names: Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas, and Alexander... and similarly here, in the realm of the king among the Ionians” (i.e., the Greeks of Punjab). Unfortunately, no record of these missionaries remains in the West.
Babylonia was under far deeper Hellenistic influence. As we have already noted, the only one of the ancients who, following Aristarchus of Samos, supported a system akin to Copernicus’s was Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris, who lived around 150 BCE. Tacitus, writing about Seleucia in the first century CE, describes it as a city that had not succumbed to barbarism but still honored its founder, Seleucus. “Three hundred citizens are chosen by wealth or wisdom to form a senate; the people also share in the government.” Across Mesopotamia and further west, Greek became the language of literature and culture and remained so until the Islamic conquest.
Syria (except for Judea) came entirely under Hellenistic influence in matters of language and literature. However, the rural population, being more conservative, preserved its traditional religion and language. In Asia Minor, the Greek coastal cities had influenced their barbarian neighbors for centuries, and this influence was strengthened by the Macedonian conquest. The first conflict between Hellenism and the Jews is recounted in the Book of Maccabees. It is a deeply intriguing story, unlike anything else in the Macedonian empire. I will pause on this account later, when I reach the origins and development of Christianity, as nowhere else did Greek influence meet with such staunch resistance.
From the perspective of Hellenistic culture, its most brilliant achievements in the third century BCE were centered in the city of Alexandria. Egypt was less exposed to the dangers of war than the European and Asian parts of the Macedonian dominions, and Alexandria was ideally situated for trade. The Ptolemies patronized the sciences, attracting many of the best minds of their time to their capital. Mathematics became, and remained until the fall of Rome, primarily Alexandrian. Although Archimedes was a Sicilian and lived in the one part of the world where Greek city-states maintained their independence (until his death in 212 BCE), he also studied in Alexandria. Eratosthenes was the chief librarian of the famous Alexandrian Library. The mathematicians and natural scientists associated more or less closely with Alexandria in the third century BCE were no less talented than the Greeks of earlier centuries and accomplished work of equal significance. However, they did not approach science as their predecessors did; they no longer concerned themselves with every aspect of it, nor did they engage with universal philosophy. They were specialists in the modern sense. Euclid, Aristarchus, Archimedes, and Apollonius were content to be mathematicians; they did not seek originality in philosophy.
This era was marked by specialization in all fields, not only in the sciences. In the self-governing Greek cities of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, it was believed that a capable person could engage in a wide range of activities. He could be, as needed, a warrior, politician, legislator, or philosopher. Socrates, though he disliked politics, could not remain indifferent to political disputes. In his youth, he had been a soldier, and (despite the denial in Plato’s Apology) had studied natural sciences. Protagoras, while teaching skepticism to aristocratic youth, found time to participate actively in practical life and even drafted a legal code for Thurii. Plato dabbled in politics, albeit unsuccessfully. Xenophon, when he was not writing about Socrates or acting as a slave owner, was a general in his spare time. Pythagorean mathematicians sought to govern cities. Everyone was expected to serve as a juror and fulfill various other public duties. By the third century BCE, this had all changed. The old city-states continued their politics, but it had become narrow and insignificant, as Greece was under the control of Macedonian armies. The real struggle for power was among Macedonian warriors, and it was not about principles, but merely about dividing territories among rival adventurers. In administration and technology, these somewhat uneducated warriors employed Greeks as experts; in Egypt, for example, excellent work was done in drainage and irrigation. There were warriors, administrators, doctors, mathematicians, and philosophers, but no one who combined all these roles.
This was an age in which a wealthy man with no desire for power could live a very pleasant life—provided he did not cross paths with a marauding army. Scholars who found favor with a prince could enjoy a luxurious life, but only if they were skilled flatterers and did not mind being the target of ignorant royal witticisms. Yet, there was no such thing as security. A palace coup could topple a scholar’s patron, a Galatian raid could destroy a rich man’s villa, and a hometown could be sacked during dynastic wars. It is no wonder that, under such circumstances, people began to worship the goddess Fortune, or Luck. There seemed to be no rational order to human affairs. Those who stubbornly sought reason retreated into themselves, deciding, like Milton’s Satan, that:
"Mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."
No one, except for the self-serving adventurers, had any motivation to engage in public affairs. After the brilliant period of Alexander’s conquests, the Hellenistic world descended into chaos, due to the absence of a despot strong enough to achieve lasting dominance or a principle powerful enough to unify society. The Greek intellect, when confronted with new political problems, demonstrated its complete incapacity to solve them. The Romans, though undoubtedly crude and dull compared to the Greeks, at least created order. The old disorder of the days of freedom was tolerable because every citizen enjoyed a share of that freedom. But the new Macedonian disorder, imposed upon subjects by inept rulers, was utterly unbearable, far more so than the subsequent subjugation to Rome.
Public dissatisfaction and fear of revolution were widespread. The wages of free laborers had likely fallen due to competition with the labor of eastern slaves, while at the same time, the prices of common goods were rising. We observe that even at the very outset of his career, Alexander found time to establish treaties aimed at keeping the poor in subjugation. "In the treaties concluded in 335 BCE between Alexander and the states of the Corinthian League, provisions were made ensuring that the Council of the League and Alexander’s representative would ensure there would be no confiscation of personal property, no redistribution of land, no cancellation of debts, nor any emancipation of slaves for revolutionary purposes." Temples in the Hellenistic world were the bankers: they held the gold reserves and controlled credit. At the beginning of the 3rd century BCE, the temple of Apollo at Delos lent money at a 10 percent interest rate, whereas earlier the rate had been higher.
Free laborers, finding their wages insufficient to meet even the most basic needs, if they were young and strong, could enlist as soldiers. The life of a mercenary was undoubtedly fraught with dangers and hardships, but it also offered great opportunities. There might be plunder in some wealthy eastern city, or a chance might arise for a lucrative rebellion. For a commander, it must have been perilous to attempt to disband his army, and this danger may well have been one reason why wars seldom ceased.
The old civic spirit more or less persisted in the ancient Greek cities but not in the new ones founded by Alexander, including Alexandria. In the earliest times, a new city was always a colony of settlers from an old city, remaining connected by ties of sentiment to its mother city. This sense of connection proved durable, as demonstrated, for instance, by the diplomatic actions of the city of Lampsacus on the Hellespont in 196 BCE. Lampsacus, a colony, was threatened with subjugation by King Antiochus III of the Seleucid dynasty and decided to seek protection from Rome. A delegation was sent, but it did not travel directly to Rome; despite the great distance, it first went to Marseilles, which, like Lampsacus, was a colony of Phocaea and, moreover, enjoyed favorable relations with the Romans. The citizens of Marseilles, upon hearing the ambassador’s speech, immediately decided to send their own diplomatic mission to Rome to support their kindred city. The Gauls, who lived further inland from Marseilles, joined forces with the people of Marseilles and sent a letter to their kin in Asia Minor, the Galatians, offering Lampsacus their friendship. Rome, naturally, welcomed the pretext to intervene in the affairs of Asia Minor, and through Rome’s intervention, Lampsacus retained its freedom until it became inconvenient for the Romans.
Generally, the rulers of Asia styled themselves as "philhellenes" and, as far as political and military needs allowed, maintained friendly relations with the ancient Greek cities. These cities desired, and when able, demanded as their right, democratic self-governance, freedom from tribute, and liberation from royal garrisons. It was worthwhile to seek reconciliation with them because they were wealthy, could supply mercenary soldiers, and many of them possessed important harbors. But if they sided with the losing party in a civil war, they opened the way for their total conquest. On the whole, the Seleucids and other dynasties that gradually arose treated them with tolerance, though there were exceptions.
The new cities, though enjoying some degree of self-government, lacked the traditions of the old cities. The citizens of these new cities were not of homogenous origin but came from all parts of Greece. They were mostly adventurers of the conquistador type or settlers akin to those in Johannesburg—irreligious pilgrims like the early Greek colonists or the pioneers of New England. Consequently, no city founded by Alexander constituted a strong political unit. This suited the royal authority but was a weakness in terms of the spread of Hellenism.
The influence of non-Greek religion and superstitions on the Hellenistic world was mostly, though not entirely, detrimental. This could have been avoided. The Jews, Persians, and Buddhists possessed religions that were decidedly on a higher level compared to the prevalent Greek polytheism, and even the best philosophers could have benefited from studying them. Unfortunately, it was the Babylonians and Chaldeans who most captured the Greek imagination. What impressed the Greeks most was their fabled antiquity; their sacred narratives reached back millennia and claimed to be older by several more. There was real wisdom to be found: the Babylonians could more or less accurately predict solar eclipses long before the Greeks could. But this was merely the foundation, and what the Greeks primarily absorbed was astrology and magic. "Astrology," says Professor Gilbert Murray, "seized the Hellenistic mind like a new disease afflicting the population of some remote island. The tomb of Ozymandias, as described by Diodorus, was covered with astrological symbols; the tomb of Antiochus I, discovered in Commagene, is likewise adorned. For kings, it was natural to believe that the stars favored them. But everyone was ready to catch the contagion."
It appears that a Chaldean named Berosus first taught the Greeks astrology during the time of Alexander. He gave lectures at Cos and, according to Seneca, "interpreted Bel." "This," says Professor Murray, "must mean that he translated into Greek the Eye of Bel, a treatise of seventy tablets found in the library of Ashurbanipal (686—626 BCE), but originally composed for Sargon I in the third millennium BCE."
As we shall see, even the best philosophers came to believe in astrology. This entailed, since astrology held that the future could be predicted, a belief in necessity or fate, which stood in opposition to the widespread belief in fortune. Undoubtedly, most people believed in both, without ever noticing their incompatibility.
This general confusion was bound to undermine morality even more than intellectual clarity. Centuries of uncertainty, though they may coincide with the highest sanctity among a few, are destructive to the prosaic, everyday virtues of respectable citizens. There seemed no point in being frugal, for tomorrow all one’s savings might be squandered in vain; no advantage in being honest, for the person with whom one dealt would surely deceive; no reason to cling tenaciously to any conviction, for all convictions seemed meaningless or lacked any chance of lasting triumph; no argument for truthfulness, for only flexible adaptability could ensure survival and prosperity. A man whose virtue had no source other than worldly prudence would become an adventurer in such a world if he had the courage, or if not, he would strive to remain unnoticed as a timid conformist.
Menander, who lived during this time, said:
“I have known many cases
Where men, not rogues by nature,
Were made so by misfortune, forced to be.”
This sums up the moral character of the 3rd century BCE, with few exceptions. Even among the few, hope had given way to fear; the goal of life was more to avoid misfortune than to attain any true good.
"Metaphysics recedes into the background; now individual ethics becomes paramount. Philosophy is no longer a torch leading a few fearless seekers of truth; rather, it is an ambulance following in the wake of the struggle for existence, picking up the weak and wounded."