This century is particularly notable because of the great and rapid conquest of the entire Middle East and portions of Central Asia and- India by Alexander, paving the way for the spread of Greek culture.
Back to Africa: 500 to 401 B.C.
Kush continued its prosperity with extensive trade routes. The ruins of both Napata and Meroe still stand today and there are the remains of pyramids like those of Egypt but also Hellenistic pillars, Arabian arches and even hieroglyphs with Hindu-like symbols, all suggesting a cosmopolitan atmosphere. Axum continued to exist still farther south. (Ref. 175)
The Egyptians revolted successfully against the Persians under the 28th, 29th and 30th dynasties, but late in the century, as we shall see, the Macedonian-Greek Alexander took over the old Persian territories, including Egypt. The city of Alexandria was founded just before Alexander's death in about 323 B.C. and there was soon accumulated there a great research library containing perhaps 400,000 manuscripts in literature, mathematics, astronomy and medicine. Later, as Alexander's empire was divided, the Macedonian general, Ptolemy, took over Egypt and helped make it into a great commercial nation.
A portion of what is now Libya went with Egypt as part of the Persian Empire and then later Alexander's. Otherwise the chief point of interest was Carthage which in- creased in population and power and participated in intermittent wars with Sicily. Between 310 and 306 B.C. the navies of Carthage and the Sicilian Greeks were in a terrible conflict with the Carthaginians gathering a great invasion force of about 1,500 vessels. In so doing, however, they had to leave the gates of Hercules unguarded, thus making it possible for the first time in some years for the ships of other Mediterranean nations to reach the Atlantic. (See WESTERN EUROPE, this chapter). To pay their soldiers, after conquering Sicily, the Carthaginians engaged the finest Sicilian Greek artists to make dies for casting new Sicilian-Carthaginian coins, and these were soon circulating wherever the north Africans had business dealings.
In the post-Alexander period at the end of the century the Libyan Greeks of Cyrene became the major source of learned men at the court of the Ptolemies in Alexandria. Cyrene exported chiefly horses and silphium, an herb used in Roman cooking. (Ref. 66, 211)
By 300 B.C. permanent settlement in the Tichit Valley in the southwest Sahara had ended because of desiccation. The Sudanese Negroes, stretching across the continent just south of the Sahara now had iron technology and with greater population, better agricultural methods and possibly greater social cohesion, they were able to expand southward throughout Africa at the expense of indigenous inhabitants whom they conquered, absorbed or displaced. In the early centuries they confined themselves to the drier regions where their cereals could grow. These were the people known in the east and south as "Bantu", although actually the name refers to their language, rather than to any particular tribe. (Ref. 68, 45)
Back to The Near East: 500 to 401 B.C.
Nomadic tribes roamed the deserts of Arabia and in the south there was the Himyarite civilization, as previously described. Otherwise this entire area shared a common fate under first the Persians and then Alexander.
In this century Xenophon remarked on the size and succulence of the dates from the date trees of Mesopotamia. Palms had flourished there since 50,000 B.C. and the net- work of canals that were built were ideal for the palms which lined them, and they did not impinge on the grain growing land. An average date palm produces one hundred pounds of rich, sugary fruit each year for sixty years or more, and a very good tree may produce one-half as much again. Figs were also grown and eaten in these ancient days. (Ref. 211)
Iraq and Syria were completely dominated by the Persians until the excursions of Alexander late in the century. He destroyed the Persian army at Gaugamele on the upper Tigris in 331 B.C. and brought an end to the Persian Achaemenid rule. It is said that in the same year Alexander tried to rebuild the Tower of Babel, but the initial clearing of the land alone took 10,000 men some two months to complete, and he had to give up the task.
As others, the ancient city of Ur was dying and the final blow came at the end of the century as the Euphrates changed its course to run some ten miles to the east of this city and there was no more river traffic. (Ref. 8, 176, 238) More detail concerning Alexander's conquests will be given under the section on the UPPER BALKANS later in this chapter.
As noted in the last chapter the state religion of Persia was Zorastrian monotheism and the ancient gods were out of favor. As the century opened the Persian Empire was deteriorating under a series of weak rulers. Finally Darius III, the last of the Achaemenids (338 - 330 B.C.) lost the empire to Alexander of Macedonia. We shall give more details a little later in this chapter, but a point not often emphasized is that every Persian grandee had bodyguards and troops of Greeks as mercenaries, and this meant that Alexander's chief opponents were of ten Greeks, and they may not have resisted too well ' After Alexander's death Persia was administered from Syria by General Seleucus, who soon became orientalized and founded the Seleucid Dynasty. (Ref. 8)
As the Persian influence waned, Greek domination increased and the bulk of Asia Minor easily became part of Alexander's empire. In the east, but still west of Armenia, in the regions known as Pontus and Cappadocia, a Persian noble, Mithridates, independent of his cousins in Iran, carved out his own empire. The same occurred in Armenia at the end of the century when a Persian satrap made the country independent of the Seleucids (317 B.C.) and founded a dynasty that ruled for a century. In both of these satrapies, as well as in Bithynia, farther west, the basic population was still Phrygian. (Ref. 28)
Back to Europe: 500 to 401 B.C.
In the last third of this century, all these islands were conquered by the men of Alexander the Great, but his control was short-lived. By 323 B.C. Rhodes was independent again and Cyprus belonged to Egypt until Demetrius Poliocertes, aspirant to the throne of Macedon, took Cyprus again. Then in 307 he besieged Rhodes, using 30,000 men to build siege towers and engines, but all of this failed. (Ref. 38, 222)
Throughout the peninsula there was endless conflict between the slaves and the ruined proletarian masses who demanded that the state support them. Up until about 378 B.C. the police force of Athens consisted of about 300 state-owned Scythian slaves. At the beginning of the century Sparta, having won the Peloponnesian War with the help of subsidies from Persia, dominated southern Greece; then, by forming an "Arcadian League", Thebes took over control from about 370 to 360 B.C.; then Athens, with growing special- ization of professional soldiers and generals, professional orators and financial experts be- came supreme for awhile. But in the last part of the century the unity which the Greeks could not find among themselves was forced on them by Philip of Macedon. The battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.) was the end of Greek liberty and the beginning, in some sense, of Greek unity. (Ref. 28, 8)
In spite of the wars this was one of the great eras of culture. Plato lived until well into this century and the political problems always remained a central issue for him and he became a frustrated politician. The mainly hereditary tripartite class division of the "Republic" corresponded closely to the divisions of 6th century B.C. Greek society, with an aristocracy that guided the state, citizens who fought for the polis and slaves and foreigners who labored. Plato brought together diverse intellectual strands from different parts of the Greek world and he did so with a consummate artistry that few have even equaled, giving to subsequent Greek and European philosophy its central themes and problems, as well as much of its working vocabulary. It is not generally realized that Plato also wrote medical speculations, logical but without any direct experimentation and leading to many faulty conclusions about the human body, errors that persisted well into later centuries and were difficult to eradicate. (Ref. 47, 125)
Near the end of the century Aristotle, a pupil of Plato, returned from his travels with Alexander to found the Peripatetic School or Lyceum. Scientific material of all kinds had come to him through the Greek-Macedonian armies' conquests (Please see next section UPPER BALKANS) and his work became the basis of knowledge even 1,500 years later in the Middle Ages of Europe. Aristotle pioneered in biology, embryology and physiology and was a champion of inductive reasoning. Three great structural ideas appeared in this era which rule the mind of contemporary mankind today: ( l) Science, in the broad sense, including history and relation of man to the total environment; (2) the idea of one universal God of righteousness; and (3) the concept of world policy.
Theophrastus followed Aristotle as head of the Lyceum and established the basic concepts of botanical science, collecting data from as far as India. Democritus, early in the century, had described the universe as being composed of atoms (indivisible particles incapable of destruction) and a vacuum. This theory was rejected by Aristotle but was to be emphasized again in the 1st century B.C. by Lucretium.
Hippocrates also lived well into this century. He described a mumps epidemic and some three and four day fevers which may have been tertian and quartan malaria. Other diseases described suggest diphtheria and either tuberculosis or influenza. Nothing was mentioned that suggested small-pox, measles or plague at that time. Whether all the teachings that we have come to accept as Hippocratic writings are actually the work of one man, or many, is not known. There were simultaneously great medical centers on Cos and on the Asia Minor mainland at Cnidos and the final collections of "Hippocratic" writings at the great library at Alexandria in the last part of this century may have actually been contributions from many Greek physicians. Injuries to bone and joints made up a large part of medical practice and manipulations to reduce fractures and dislocations were sophisticated and sometimes associated with very complex bandaging and mechanical devices. The cautery was used and there was extensive use of minor surgical procedures for tumors, fistulas, ulcers and hemorrhoids. The juice of the opium poppy and of the mandragora[61] was available for anesthesia and pain relief . Books numbering seventy-two and treatises at about fifty-nine have been credited to Hippocrates. Case histories of some diseases are superb, but the anatomy, physiology and therapy, of course, was of ten poor and the specific diagnosis of any disease was seldom given. The ethics, conduct and appearance of the physician was emphasized. (Ref. 229,125, 140)
Of incidental interest is the fact that it was not until this century that the new raised wheat bread from Egypt became popular in Greece. (Ref. 211) The last third of the century saw the affairs of Greece subjected to the domination of their Macedonian neighbors - originally enemies and then allies. This situation will be discussed at greater length in the next section.
The Macedonians, occupying most of the area we know as Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, were kin to the Greeks and their language was almost Greek, but they were more purely Nordic than any people to the south and their appearances and customs were similar to the wild Celts of the period. Philip II, who became Macedonian king in 359 B.C. by simply seizing the throne after he had been appointed regent for his nephew, was a leader-king of the ancient Nordic-Aryan type. Having previously been held hostage for a short time in Thebes, he had gained much knowledge of the Greeks and he immediately developed an army trained in the effective Theban phalanx formation and proceeded to enlarge his kingdom to the north by subduing the Thracians with their gold mines of Mount Pangaion and then east and south to the upper part of the Aegean Sea. In spite of drunkenness and other personal vices, he was probably the best educated man of his time and with his son's tutor, Aristotle; it was he who planned most of the greatness that his son Alexander achieved. After he gained an Aegean coastline and the Thracian gold he soon conquered the coastline of Thessaly. Although there was much bickering and changes of alliances in Greece the main obstacle to Philip's control of the entire peninsula was always Athens, where Demosthenes constantly used his oratorical abilities to denounce him. His troops finally defeated an Athenian coalition, however, in 338 B.C. at Chaeronea in Boeotia. Subsequently, at a congress of Greek states Philip was elected, or at least recognized, as Captain-General of all the Greeks for an all-out war against the old enemy, Persia. Thus Macedonia rose to political importance by assimilating aspects of Hellenism. (Ref. 28, 72, 179)
Actually the great battle with Persia was not enjoined until after Philip's assassination and Alexander's coronation as king. Within a few years Alexander had conquered all western Asia and a part of India and Egypt, carving out an empire 3,000 miles wide and in most regions up to 1,000 miles from north to south, thus approaching the size of the United States. As accompanying maps will show, the boundaries were almost identical with the previously existing Persian Empire. All of this was conquered within about twelve years without motorized vehicles and only about 35,000 men including some 5,000 mercenaries. He initiated the use of a torsion catapult to shoot arrows and stones, beginning a whole new era in siege warfare. (Ref. 222, 213) At least thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands of Greeks followed in Alexander's footsteps, emigrating to the East and giving a deep Hellenic imprint over and above the purely military conquest. Alexander died in 323 B.C. at the age of thirty-three years, a man of tremendous vanity, at times kind and considerate and at other times vicious, cruel and destructive. He died in Mesopotamia, possibly of malaria. (Ref. 125)
Alexander set up no competent administrations in the various conquered areas and after his death the empire rapidly collapsed, with division of the territory among the various Greek generals. Initially the divisions were as follows:
General Seleucus controlled the Asian part of the old Persian Empire and the south half of Asia Minor except the coast, clear across southwest Asia to the Indus
General Antigonus kept Macedonia itself, but by 301 B.C. he was killed in battle and his son Demetrius I was defeated as Lysimachus took the area of Thrace and Cassander took Macedonia and Greece
General Ptolemy took Egypt, along with most of the coast of the eastern Mediterranean, including Judea and the old Phoenicia and the coast of Asia Minor
NOTE: Insert Map 22. THE EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT
In 400 B.C. the Gauls plundered Etruria in northern Italy, conquering Felsina, which subsequently became known as Bononia. Ten years later, under King Brennus, they sacked Rome itself and retreated only after the payment of 1,000 pounds of gold. Thus began the long Roman-Gallic wars which did not end until the time of Julius Caesar in the 1st century of the Christian era. In spite of the Gauls, Perusia, which had broken free from Clusium, was the most powerful Etruscan center in the upper Tiber Valley. The Clusines spread their alphabet up the Adriatic coast to Venetia and the northeast and it became the basis of the alphabets of Venetia, Illyria and Raetia as well as of the German and Scandinavian runes. Meanwhile the Romans also had to continue to fight the Etruscan city-state of Veii, destroying it about 396 B.C. and then take on the powerful and highly civilized Samnite tribes of southern Italy. The only Etrurian power left in the immediate vicinity of Rome was Tarquinii and a seven year war flared up with it in 358 B.C. In 343 B.C. the Greek cities in Campania (Naples area) joined the Samnites in their campaign against Rome, but in spite of all this warfare some advancement of civilization did occur in Rome. The Compromise of Camillus in 367 B.C. gave concessions to the Plebes and internal dissension stopped, leaving energies free for expansion. The Appian Way was started at this time. While the Etruscan towns had always remained small, chiefly in the 5,000 to 10,000 bracket, early in this century Rome probably passed the 10,000 mark and drew level with Tarentum, the largest Greek city in Italy. (Ref. 75, 8, 136)
Although after the destruction of Veii by the Romans the Etruscan preponderance in central Italy came to an end, some Etruscan cities still flourished. Vulci had failed to help Veii in its death struggle and continued to exist as a thriving city. After a forty year truce, fighting again flared up between Rome and Tarquinii with the former the final victor in 314 B.C. At long last Caere had finally broken with Rome and had joined Tarquinii in its last days. Its independence gone, Caere still was a great cosmopolitan city to which Roman sons were sent to learn the Etruscan language and literature. (Ref. 75)
In the last of the century the Gauls actually settled down in northern Italy (Cisalpine Gaul) laying the foundations for the cities of Turin, Bergamo and Milan. The Kyllyrioi disappeared from Sicily in the early century and slavery became the only form of involuntary labor and this remained so after the island was conquered by the Romans. (Ref. 249) (For more about Sicily, see NORTH CENTRAL AFRICA).
The population of this region was essentially Celtic, particularly in Austria and Germany, although some Germanic tribes were wandering down from Scandinavia about the Vistula River and these may have been pushed somewhat west at this time by Huns leaving the region of the Volga. McEvedy (Ref. 136) writes that there were still no Teutons south of the latitude of Berlin and that this was to remain so for two more centuries. East of the Germanic tribes were the Balts and the Slavs.
The Hallstatt Celtic culture in Austria was based on salt which was mined particularly at Salzburg and at Durrnberg near Hallein. In Bohemia tin became an important export. The newer La Tene Culture evolved full flow