9.4 Alexander Builds an Empire

The Peloponnesian War left Greece in chaos. Meanwhile, in Macedonia, Philip II unites his people together and looks to Greece to do the same (he really loves Greece).

His son, Alexander the Great, leads the Macedonians to conquer and claim Greece as their own.

King Philip II and Alexander the Great unite Greece by forming the League of Corinth (except Sparta who refuses) and prepare to take over all the lands controlled by Persia.

Philip dies before completing this plan, and Alexander the Great rises to power

Alexander had been tutored by Aristotle himself. He longed to rule Persia, and then go on to conquer the world.

334 BC he and his army blaze through EGYPT and MESOPOTAMIA, go on to take over the Persian Empire, and even take over parts of India.

Alexander is known for completing one of the most successful military campaigns in the history of the world.

In each region he conquers, he would introduce Greek culture and language to the people group there, but allow then to partially rule themselves and retain their cultural heritage.

As a result, the people under his rule were more willing to accept him as king over all of them.

After traveling 11,000 miles and fighting for 8 years, Alexander's army refuses to go on and comes home.

In 323 BC, Alexander the Great gets sick and dies before he is 33.

After his death, no one can agree who should be in control, so his generals begin fighting each other. The kingdom splits into separate nations.

Greek culture still survives and begins to spread into Egypt!

One of Alexander's accomplishments is building the city of Alexandria in Egypt.

This becomes a multicultural hub that replaces Athens as the center of learning and culture.

The Library of Alexandria held more than 700,000 collected scrolls of knowledge and had a museum where scholars would research and discuss ideas

Scholars built up the knowledge of medicine (based on Hippocrates) - brain is the center of the nervous system

Greek Mathematician Euclid creates and forms the study of Geometry

Astronomer Eratosthenes estimates (nearly accurately!) the circumference of the earth.

Hypatia (a woman!) creates the school of philosophy in Alexandria. She develops theories of math and invents tools to measure properties of water.

As Greek culture influences all the nations around it, Greece enters a new age of creativity and progress (similar to the Golden Age)!

The Library of Alexandria becomes a collection point for knowledge from around the world that is translated into Greek, thus spreading the knowledge farther than it had gone before.

Archimedes used math to invent machines (pulleys, levers, water pumps, etc) and define the basics of physics

Aristarchus used math to explain how the earth rotates around the sun and calculate the approx size of the sun and moon. (they previously assumed the sun rotated around earth)