Hellenism

COLONIZATION AND ORIENTALISM

 Hellenic and Hellenistic

‘Hellenic’ means Greek.

‘Hellenistic’ refers to the expansion of Greek culture
following the conquests of Alexander the Great.
It also refers to the rich style of art and architecture
associated with this period.
 Hellenism in Modern History

Hellenism and the Hellenic past can not be

understood without an understanding of European
colonialism in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and
twentieth century.
 Is it really a Hybrid Culture?

Hellenistic civilization represents a fusion of the

Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East,
Middle East and Southwest Asia.
It represents hybrid Greco-Asian cultures.
But it is pragmatic cultural adaptation by the elites of
society, for much of the populations, life probably
continued as it before.
 Hellenism and Colonization

The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of

Greek colonization.
But it was distinguished from the colonization in the 8th-
6th centuries BC which established Greek cities and
kingdoms in Asia and Africa.
Those new cities were composed of Greek colonists who
came from different parts of the Greek world.
But they were not from a specific "mother city".
The main cultural centers expanded from mainland
Greece to Pergamon, Rhodes, and new Greek colonies
such as Seleucia, Antioch and Alexandria.

 Characteristics of new Hellenistic cities
 Hellenistic assumptions and attitudes unified social elites throughout the

Mediterranean World (Carthaginians, Romans, Egyptians, Jews).

 “All embraced Greek culture” whether in Greek states or not…

 Elites, merchants, bureaucrats spoke a common language (koine Greek)

 They were cosmopolitan, multiethnic, immigrant cities.

 All shared aspects of Hellenistic architecture, art, religion, philosophy,

drama, entertainment.

 They were the members of a broader world, not just of the city.
The “ Known ” World –
3c B . C . E .
 Hellenistic Culture

It is the blend of Greek culture

with Egyptian, Persian and
Indian influences.
 Alexandria
An African This city
city which became an
was the international
center for community
trade and with a mix of
Hellenistic customs and
culture. traditions.
Library at Alexandria
( 333 B . C . E .)
 Ancient Library of Alexandria
Contained a
collection of
500,000 papyrus
scrolls and
masterpieces of
ancient literature.
Was the first true
research library in
the world.
Scholars produced
commentaries on
ancient worlds of
literature.
 Philosophy
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT:
1. Stoicism:

 The belief that there was a divine power that

controlled the universe.
 Believed everyone should live in harmony
with natural law.
2. Epicureanism:
 - Taught that the universe was made of atoms and
ruled by gods who didn’t care about humans.

 Pergamum :
A New
“Hellenis
tic ”
City

Cosmopolita
n
Culture
 Trade in the
Hellenistic World
 Science and Technology
Astronomy- Aristarchus
estimated that the sun
was 300 times bigger
than Earth and that
the sun was the center
of the universe.
 Nobodyaccepted
this theory.
Instead they
thought the Earth
was the center of
the universe.
 Math and Physics
Euclid – Opened
the school for
geometry in
Alexandria.
Archimedes
accurately
estimated the
value of pi( ).
 Hellenism and Orientalism

Orientalism refers to the Orient or East, in contrast to

the Occident or West.
Orientalism can be regarded ‘as a Western way of
looking to East.
But it is style for dominating, restructuring, and
having authority over the Orient’.
In the late eighteenth century Orientalism became
‘something more historically and materially
defined’.
It was closely linked to European and, later, American
imperialism.
 Orientalism and Edward Said

A central idea of Edward Said is that Western

knowledge about the East is not generated from
facts or reality, but from preconceived archetypes.
This view accepts that all "Eastern" societies are
fundamentally similar to one another, and
fundamentally dissimilar to "Western" societies.
This ‘a priori’ knowledge establishes "the East" as
opposing to "the West".
Such Eastern knowledge is constructed with literary
texts and historical records that often are of limited
understanding of the facts of life in the Middle East.


EDWARD SAID
ORIENTALISM

 Oriental Culture

In the nineteenth century, when more artists travelled

to the Middle East, they began representing more
numerous scenes of Oriental culture.
In many of these works, they portrayed the Orient as
exotic, colorful and sensual.
Istanbul is an Oriental city for many tourists.
Many tourists only visit Grand Bazaar.
Anonymous Venetian orientalist painting, ‘The Reception of the Ambassadors in
Damascus', 1511, the Louvre. The deer with antlers in the foreground is not known
ever to have existed in the wild in Syria.
Cairo
 West and the Rest

Still, we see that the modern West has constructed

itself as separate from the Orient.
The world was divided as “the West and the Rest”.
In the time of colonization from the 18th century
onwards, this division became more visible and
dominant in the western thought.
The origin of this division goes back to Ancient
Greece.


 Greek and Barbarian

Ancient Greece is inseparable from two hundred years

of European colonialism.
There was a similar division like “Greek and
barbarian”.
Barbarian is a term for an uncivilized person, often
used pejoratively.
The term originates in the ancient Greek civilization,
meaning "anyone who is not Greek". Comparable
notions are found in non-European civilizations.

 “Other”

The Greeks used the term as they encountered scores

of different foreign cultures, including the Egyptians
, Persians, Celts, Germans, Phoenicians, Etruscans,
and Carthaginians. It, in fact, became a common
term to refer to all foreigners.
Barbarians are like children, unable to speak or
reason properly, cowardly, effeminate, luxurious,
cruel, unable to control their appetites and desires,
politically unable to govern themselves.
 The End of Hellenistic Period

In the 2nd to 1st centuries BC, Rome conquered

Greece piece by piece.
With the conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, the
Roman Empire controlled the Mediterranean.
Roman art and literature were copied upon
Hellenistic models.
Koine Greek remained the dominant language in the
Eastern part of the Roman Empire.
In the city of Rome, Koine Greek was in widespread
use among ordinary people, and the elite spoke and
wrote Greek as fluently as Latin.
