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Hellenistic Culture: Fusion and Diffusion
The miracle of Greece is not single but first the unrivaled rapidity and variety and quality of its achievement, and then its success in permeating and imposing its values upon alien civilizations. What combination of factors gave rise to the first we can only speculate; for the second we have tangible evidence. In this book, Moses Hadas sets forth and illustrates some of the ways in which Greek modes of thought, Greek taste, and Greek ideals became part of the continuing European heritage.
- GenresHistory
330 pages, paper
First published January 1, 1959
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March 22, 2012
Fusion and diffusion: these are the operative words. Hadas concludes his book with these words: “It was Rome and the Church which gave Europe the configuration of its culture, in the wider sense of the word, and shaped the lives of all Europeans. Both Rome and the Church are products of Hellenistic fusion.”
Through twenty chapters, with headings such as “Education, gentlemen, scribes, saints,” Historiography,” “Cult and mystery,” “Blessed landscapes and havens,” “An elect, with sovereignty and without,” etc, he evokes this Hellenistic world, the world that evolved after the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was a world dominated by Greek culture, even though the Greeks did not live in a single land, but were spread over various empires. It was an adapted culture, not the culture of Pericles and the builders of the Parthenon, but something more generalized – I’m tempted to call it Greek culture “light,” though this does not really do it justice. In a way, it reminds me of our own times, in which American culture has spread all over the world and affected, whether in a positive or a negative sense, the way people think and live, their tastes and preferences.
Hadas goes on to explore the consequences of this cultural spread, both on the cultures that came under the influence of the Greek worldview and on the dominant culture itself, as it was exposed to eastern traditions and ideas. He is particularly interested in the symbiosis between the Greek and the Jewish worlds. He puts much emphasis on the Hellenistic influence on Jewish writing, on historians like Josephus, and late biblical works like the Maccabees, and how in turn this influence was passed on to Christian thinkers; he is also interested in how the eastern approach to history, as exemplified by the general trend of the Bible to show that history has a guiding principle, an intention, to which men’s actions are subordinated, superseded an older analytical Greek approach, which put man as the prime mover: “[The Greek historian] Thucydides, for example, provides telling characterizations of an Alcibiades, a Nicias, a Cleon, but only in order to make the events in which they participated intelligible. [The Roman historian] Livy provides a gallery of saints for their own sake, because it is a good thing for Romans to bear their saints in mind.” (p.259) The Hellenistic world is a complex subject covering both a very big geographical area (from Greece east as far as India) and a long period of time (c. 323 BC to 479 AD). Hadas touches on how Greek art reached India and how the depictions of the Buddha show a stylized Greek technique. He quotes ancient sources that make clear that Indian thinkers were aware of Greek ideas and vice versa. He even mentions the possibility that a Roman legion may have ended up in China and settled there decades before the Christian era (see: http://www.archnews.co.uk/featured/51...).
All in all, this is a stimulating book about an era that is important for the development of European civilization but unfortunately not well known today. Even students of ancient Greek and Latin tend to concentrate more on “the glory that was Greece” and “the grandeur that was Rome,” giving the intervening period only cursory attention.
I confess, I bought this particular book only because, being old, it was the cheapest I could find on the subject, but it was more than worth it. Mr. Hadas’ thoughtful style is a pleasure to read, and the book gives one more than enough food for thought.
Interesting quotes:
“When intercourse became general, cultural influences naturally moved in both directions, but hellenization of barbarians was far more massive than barbarization of Hellenes.” (p. 10)
Hadas paraphrasing Isocrates: “‘Greek’ denoted a man’s education rather than his race.” (p. 14)
(p. 31) “Inevitably, and with justification according to the dictum of Isocrates, upper-class natives came to look upon themselves as Hellenes, and at the same time (by an intelligible paradox) to despise themselves as barbarians.”
(p. 67) “Hoi apo tou gymnasiou – the alumni – constituted the center of gravity of a community, politically and socially. These men were bound together by the common experience of a special kind of education; they had studied the same books and imbibed the same ideals, and they set the tone for what a Greek was expected to be.”
“The educational practices and objectives [of Greek education] are of the type we should call liberal arts – the type best calculated to perpetuate a cultural ideal and therefore most germane…”
(p. 89) “After the conquests of Alexander, proud people on the eastern periphery of the Greek world found themselves degraded to the position of ‘natives’ and their ancient cultures despised as barbarian.”
(p. 15) Diogenes (the cynic philosopher who moved to Athens from his native Sinope): “‘I am a cosmopolites.’ His is the proud assertion of a ragged exile’s consciousness of his own worth in the face of a bourgeois society which scorned him, a rebellious reaction against every kind of coercion imposed by the community upon the individual.”
(p. 180) “The Hellenes of Alexandria and the chora [hinterland] doubtless projected themselves into the character of their heroes, and these were idealized in an attempt to preserve their Hellenic integrity against the encroachments of a ‘barbarian’ civilization.”
(p. 70) Chief delights of the Elysian Fields [Greek heaven]: “discussions for philosophers, theaters for the poets, dancing, concerts, intelligent conversation around the banquet hall.”
Through twenty chapters, with headings such as “Education, gentlemen, scribes, saints,” Historiography,” “Cult and mystery,” “Blessed landscapes and havens,” “An elect, with sovereignty and without,” etc, he evokes this Hellenistic world, the world that evolved after the conquests of Alexander the Great. It was a world dominated by Greek culture, even though the Greeks did not live in a single land, but were spread over various empires. It was an adapted culture, not the culture of Pericles and the builders of the Parthenon, but something more generalized – I’m tempted to call it Greek culture “light,” though this does not really do it justice. In a way, it reminds me of our own times, in which American culture has spread all over the world and affected, whether in a positive or a negative sense, the way people think and live, their tastes and preferences.
Hadas goes on to explore the consequences of this cultural spread, both on the cultures that came under the influence of the Greek worldview and on the dominant culture itself, as it was exposed to eastern traditions and ideas. He is particularly interested in the symbiosis between the Greek and the Jewish worlds. He puts much emphasis on the Hellenistic influence on Jewish writing, on historians like Josephus, and late biblical works like the Maccabees, and how in turn this influence was passed on to Christian thinkers; he is also interested in how the eastern approach to history, as exemplified by the general trend of the Bible to show that history has a guiding principle, an intention, to which men’s actions are subordinated, superseded an older analytical Greek approach, which put man as the prime mover: “[The Greek historian] Thucydides, for example, provides telling characterizations of an Alcibiades, a Nicias, a Cleon, but only in order to make the events in which they participated intelligible. [The Roman historian] Livy provides a gallery of saints for their own sake, because it is a good thing for Romans to bear their saints in mind.” (p.259) The Hellenistic world is a complex subject covering both a very big geographical area (from Greece east as far as India) and a long period of time (c. 323 BC to 479 AD). Hadas touches on how Greek art reached India and how the depictions of the Buddha show a stylized Greek technique. He quotes ancient sources that make clear that Indian thinkers were aware of Greek ideas and vice versa. He even mentions the possibility that a Roman legion may have ended up in China and settled there decades before the Christian era (see: http://www.archnews.co.uk/featured/51...).
All in all, this is a stimulating book about an era that is important for the development of European civilization but unfortunately not well known today. Even students of ancient Greek and Latin tend to concentrate more on “the glory that was Greece” and “the grandeur that was Rome,” giving the intervening period only cursory attention.
I confess, I bought this particular book only because, being old, it was the cheapest I could find on the subject, but it was more than worth it. Mr. Hadas’ thoughtful style is a pleasure to read, and the book gives one more than enough food for thought.
Interesting quotes:
“When intercourse became general, cultural influences naturally moved in both directions, but hellenization of barbarians was far more massive than barbarization of Hellenes.” (p. 10)
Hadas paraphrasing Isocrates: “‘Greek’ denoted a man’s education rather than his race.” (p. 14)
(p. 31) “Inevitably, and with justification according to the dictum of Isocrates, upper-class natives came to look upon themselves as Hellenes, and at the same time (by an intelligible paradox) to despise themselves as barbarians.”
(p. 67) “Hoi apo tou gymnasiou – the alumni – constituted the center of gravity of a community, politically and socially. These men were bound together by the common experience of a special kind of education; they had studied the same books and imbibed the same ideals, and they set the tone for what a Greek was expected to be.”
“The educational practices and objectives [of Greek education] are of the type we should call liberal arts – the type best calculated to perpetuate a cultural ideal and therefore most germane…”
(p. 89) “After the conquests of Alexander, proud people on the eastern periphery of the Greek world found themselves degraded to the position of ‘natives’ and their ancient cultures despised as barbarian.”
(p. 15) Diogenes (the cynic philosopher who moved to Athens from his native Sinope): “‘I am a cosmopolites.’ His is the proud assertion of a ragged exile’s consciousness of his own worth in the face of a bourgeois society which scorned him, a rebellious reaction against every kind of coercion imposed by the community upon the individual.”
(p. 180) “The Hellenes of Alexandria and the chora [hinterland] doubtless projected themselves into the character of their heroes, and these were idealized in an attempt to preserve their Hellenic integrity against the encroachments of a ‘barbarian’ civilization.”
(p. 70) Chief delights of the Elysian Fields [Greek heaven]: “discussions for philosophers, theaters for the poets, dancing, concerts, intelligent conversation around the banquet hall.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review