Lesson 4: Hellenistic Culture

Hellenistic Culture

By MARGARET JACKSON

During the Hellenistic Era, scientists, writers, philosophers, and poets moved to the new Greek cities in Egypt and Southwest Asia. Many came to use Alexandria’s library. It had more than 500,000 scrolls. Alexandria also had a museum that brought people to study and do research.

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The Hellenistic kings built new cities and rebuilt old ones. They brought in Greek architects to design the new baths, temples, and theaters in the Greek style. The kings and other rich citizens hired Greek sculptors to make statues. Hellenistic sculptors developed new styles. They did not carve ideal versions of the perfect human body. They showed people more realistically. They even showed people being angry or sad.

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Hellenistic Arts​

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Multiple Choice

How did Greek sculpture change

during the Hellenistic Era?

• They showed people as perfect and flawless

• They showed people more realistically.

• They showed only young people.

• The sculptures did not have faces.

Writers wrote drama, poetry, and histories at this time, but most of this writing has been lost or destroyed. Appolonius of Rhodes wrote an epic poem called Argonautica. It is about Jason, his crew, and their adventures sailing the seas. Another poet, Theocritus, wrote short poems about nature and its beauty.

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Athens was still the center of Greek drama. Writers in Athens invented a new kind of comedy. The plays were about love and relationships of ordinary people. Menander was the best-known of these new playwrights. He lived from 343 b.c. to around 291 b.c.

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Multiple Choice

Which city-state was the center of Greek drama?

• Athens

• Sparta

• Alexandria

During this time, the most famous philosophers still went to Athens. The two most important Hellenistic philosophers were

Epicurus and Zeno.

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Epicurus developed Epicureanism. This philosophy taught people that happiness should be the goal of life. Today, epicurean

means a love of good food or comfortable things. To Epicurus, happiness meant spending time with friends and not worrying.

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Thinkers and Scientists

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Multiple Choice

This philosophy taught people that happiness should be the goal of life

• Stoicism

• Epicureanism

• Hellenistic

• Zenoism

A thinker named Zeno developed Stoicism. Stoics believed that happiness came from following logic and reason. Emotions, like anger or sadness, caused problems. Today we call someone a stoic if they do not seem to be affected by joy or sadness. Stoics also believed that people were happy when they did their duty to the community.

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Multiple Choice

the philosophy of the Stoics, which says

that people should use reason and not emotion

• Stoicism

• Epicureanism

• Hellenism

​Science flourished during the Hellenistic Era. Scientists of that time had only simple instruments, but they performed experiments and made discoveries. Aristarchus was an astronomer. Astronomers study stars, planets, and other objects outside the Earth's atmosphere. Aristarchus said that the sun was at the center of the universe and that Earth went around the sun.Other astronomers thought he was wrong.

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Multiple Choice

The Greek scientist who stated that the sun is the center of the solar system

and that the Earth revolves around it was

• Epicurius.

• Euclid.

• Hypatia.

• Aristarchus.

Eratosthenes was a scientist in charge of Alexandria’s library. He figured out that Earth was round. He also measured the circumference of Earth, or how big around it was. The estimate that Eratosthenes made was only 185 miles (298 kilometers) off the actual distance.

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Euclid was a mathematician who wrote Elements. The book teaches plane geometry—a branch of mathematics concerned

with how points, lines, angles, and surfaces work together.

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Multiple Choice

the astronomer who concluded that

Earth is round

• Hippocrates

• Euclid.

• Eratosthenes

• Hypatia.

Archimedes was the most famous scientist of the Hellenistic Era. He worked on solid geometry—the branch of mathematics concerned with the study of spheres [ball-like shapes] and cylinders [tube-like shapes]. He figured out the value of pi, which is

used to measure how much space a circle covers. Its symbol is π.

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​Archimedes was also an inventor. He invented the catapult, a war machine that hurled rocks, arrows, and spears at the enemy. When the Romans attacked Syracuse, the catapults worked so well that it took three years to capture Syracuse. When Romans got inside the city walls. They massacred most of the people, including Archimedes.

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Multiple Choice

Who was the most famous scientist of the Hellenistic Era.

• Eratosthenes

• Archimedes

• Euclid

• Aristarchus

Open Ended

Name something that Archimedes invented.

Hellenistic thinking and culture had long-lasting effects. More than 700 years after the Hellenistic Era, the mathematician Hypatia lived in Alexandria. Like the earlier Greeks, she studied philosophy and mathematics. She believed in the use of reason instead of superstition.​

Multiple Choice

Who was the Greek mathematician that believed

in reason rather than superstition?

• Hypatia

• Hellen

• Archimedes

• Hippocratic

The four kingdoms that formed from Alexander’s empire often fought wars against each other. Some Greek city-states became independent, but they did not have strong armies. They were not free for very long.

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Rome was a city-state in central Italy. In the late 200s b.c., Rome conquered all of Italy. The Greeks tried to stop Rome. They supported Rome’s enemies in wars. The Romans won all those wars, though. Soon, Rome gained control of the Greek mainland.

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​Greece and Rome

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Multiple Choice

How did the Greek city-states react to

Rome’s growing power?

• They tried to stop Rome but could not.

• They joined forces with Rome.

• They both lives in their own city-states in peace.

• They conquered Rome.

Open Ended

Name at least 1 idea or discovery that emerged during

the Hellenistic Era?