Greek astronomy was geometrical, not dynamic. The ancients thought of the motions of the heavenly bodies as uniform and circular, or compounded of circular motions. They had not the conception of force. There were spheres which moved as a whole, and on which the various heavenly bodies were fixed. With Newton and gravitation a new point of view, less geometrical, was introduced. It is curious to observe that there is a reversion to the geometrical point
____________________
* Posidonius was Cicero’s teacher. He flourished in the latter half of the second century. B.C.
-216-
of view in Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, from which the conception of force, in the Newtonian sense, has been banished.
The problem for the astronomer is this: given the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies on the celestial sphere, to introduce, by hypothesis, a third co-ordinate, depth, in such a way as to make the description of the phenomena as simple as possible. The merit of the Copernican hypothesis is not truth, but simplicity; in view of the relativity of motion, no question of truth is involved. The Greeks, in their search for hypotheses which would «save the phenomena,» were in effect, though not altogether in intention, tackling the problem in the scientifically correct way. A comparison with their predecessors, and with their successors until Copernicus, must convince every student of their truly astonishing genius.
Two very great men, Archimedes and Apollonius, in the third century B.C., complete the list of first-class Greek mathematicians. Archimedes was a friend, probably a cousin, of the king of Syracuse, and was killed when that city was captured by the Romans in 212 B.C. Apollonius, from his youth, lived at Alexandria. Archimedes was not only a mathematician, but also a physicist and student of hydrostatics. Apollonius is chiefly noted for his work on conic sections. I shall say no more about them, as they came too late to influence philosophy.
After these two men, though respectable work continued to be done in Alexandria, the great age was ended. Under the Roman domination, the Greeks lost the self-confidence that belongs to political liberty, and in losing it acquired a paralysing respect for their predecessors. The Roman soldier who killed Archimedes was a symbol of the death of original thought that Rome caused throughout the Hellenic world.
-217-
Part III. Ancient Philosophy after Aristotle
CHAPTER XXV The Hellenistic World
THE history of the Greek-speaking world in antiquity may be divided into three periods: that of the free City States, which was brought to an end by Philip and Alexander; that of the Macedonian domination, of which the last remnant was extinguished by the Roman annexation of Egypt after the death of Cleopatra; and finally that of the Roman Empire. Of these three periods, the first is characterized by freedom and disorder, the second by subjection and disorder, the third by subjection and order.
The second of these periods is known as the Hellenistic age. In science and mathematics, the work done during this period is the best ever achieved by the Greeks. In philosophy, it includes the foundation of the Epicurean and Stoic schools, and also of scepticism as a definitely formulated doctrine; it is therefore still important philosophically, though less so than the period of Plato and Aristotle. After the third century B.C., there is nothing really new in Greek philosophy until the Neoplatonists in the third century A.D. But meanwhile the Roman world was being prepared for the victory of Christianity.
The brief career of Alexander suddenly transformed the Greek world. In the ten years from 334 to 324 B.C., he conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Samarcand, Bactria, and the Punjab. The Persian Empire, the greatest that the world had known, was destroyed by three battles. The ancient lore of the Babylonians, along with their ancient superstitions, became familiar to Greek curiosity; so did the Zoroastrian dualism and (in a lesser degree) the religions of
-218-
India, where Buddhism was moving towards supremacy. Wherever Alexander penetrated, even in the mountains of Afghanistan, on the banks of the Jaxartes, and on the tributaries of the Indus, he founded Greek cities, in which he tried to reproduce Greek institutions, with a measure of self-government. Although his army was composed mainly of Macedonians, and although most European Greeks submitted to him unwillingly, he considered himself, at first, as the apostle of Hellenism. Gradually, however, as his conquests extended, he adopted the policy of promoting a friendly fusion between Greek and barbarian.
For this he had various motives. On the one hand, it was obvious that his armies, which were not very large, could not permanently hold so vast an empire by force, but must, in the long run, depend upon conciliation of the conquered populations. On the other hand, the East was unaccustomed to any form of government except that of a divine king, a role which Alexander felt himself well fitted to perform. Whether he believed himself a god, or only took on the attributes of divinity from motives of policy, is a question for the psychologist, since the historical evidence is indecisive. In any case, he clearly enjoyed the adulation which he received in Egypt as successor of the Pharaohs, and in Persia as the Great King. His Macedonian captains—the «Companions,» as they were called—had towards him the attitude of western nobles to their constitutional sovereign: They refused to prostrate themselves before him, they gave advice and criticism even at the risk of their lives, and at a crucial moment they controlled his actions, when they compelled him to turn homewards from the Indus instead of marching on to the conquest of the Ganges. Orientals were more accommodating, provided their religious prejudices were respected. This offered no difficulty to Alexander; it was only necessary to identify Ammon or Bel with Zeus, and to declare himself the son of the god. Psychologists observe that Alexander hated Philip, and was probably privy to his murder; he would have liked to believe that his mother Olympias, like some lady of Greek mythology, had been beloved of a god. Alexander’s career was so miraculous that he may well have thought a miraculous origin the best explanation of his prodigious success.
The Greeks had a very strong feeling of superiority to the barbarians; Aristotle no doubt expresses the general view when he says
-219-
that northern races are spirited, southern races civilized, but the Greeks alone are both spirited and civilized. Plato and Aristotle thought it wrong to make slaves of Greeks, but not of barbarians. Alexander, who was not quite a Greek, tried to break down this attitude of superiority. He himself married two barbarian princesses, and he compelled his leading Macedonians to marry Persian women of noble birth. His innumerable Greek cities, one would suppose, must have contained many more male than female colonists, and their men must therefore have followed his example in intermarrying with the women of the locality. The result of this policy was to bring into the minds of thoughtful men the conception of mankind as a whole; the old loyalty to the City State and (in a lesser degree) to the Greek race seemed no longer adequate. In philosophy, this cosmopolitan point of view begins with the Stoics, but in practice it begins earlier, with Alexander. It had the result that the interaction of Greek and barbarian was reciprocal: The barbarians learnt something of Greek science, while the Greeks learnt much of barbarian superstition. Greek civilization, in covering a wider area, became less purely Greek.
Greek civilization was essentially urban. There were, of course, many Greeks engaged in agriculture, but they contributed little to what was distinctive in Hellenic culture. From the Milesian school onwards, the Greeks who were eminent in science and philosophy and literature were associated with rich commercial cities, often surrounded by barbarian populations. This type of civilization was inaugurated, not by the Greeks, but by the Phoenicians; Tyre and Sidon and Carthage depended on slaves for manual labour at home, and on hired mercenaries in the conduct of their wars. They did not depend, as modern capital cities do, upon large rural populations of the same blood and with equal political rights. The nearest modern analogue is to be seen in the Far East during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Singapore and Hong Kong, Shanghai and the other treaty ports of China, were little European islands, where the white men formed a commercial aristocracy living on coolie labour. In North America, north of the Mason-Dixon line, since such labour was not available, white men were compelled to practise agriculture. For this reason, the hold of the white man on North America is secure, while his hold on the Far East has already been greatly diminished, and may easily cease altogether. Much of his type of culture, especially
-220-
industrialism, will, however, survive. This analogue will help us to understand the position of the Greeks in the eastern parts of Alexander’s empire.
The effect of Alexander on the imagination of Asia was great and lasting. The first Book of the Maccabees, written centuries after his death, opens with an account of his career:
«And it happened, after that Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came out of the land of Chettiim, had smitten Darius king of the Persians and Medes, that he reigned in his stead, the first over Greece, and made many wars, and won many strong holds, and slew the kings of the
