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Video Description
Alexander the Great didn’t just conquer the world — he fused it. Professor Jiang explains how Greece, Persia, and the Jewish tradition collided into a new ‘Hellenistic’ civilization. Through the Library of Alexandria and the translation of the Bible into Greek, three worldviews melted together and set the stage for Christianity. Jiang reads Herodotus and Thucydides against the grain, showing how the glorious story of ‘Western Civilization’ was itself manufactured — for empire.
Full Video Transcript
Good morning. So, let us review what we learned last class, and then we will discuss the Greeks today.
So, as I discussed last class, there are three major principles to geopolitics.
And once you master an understanding of these three principles, then you will see the world much more clearly, okay?
The first idea is that the competition within states is greater than the competition between or amongst states.
And this is the idea of elite overproduction.
So the historian Peter Turchin, he looked at the Father Roman Republic, the French Revolution.
He looked at many similar events in human history.
And he discovered that what drives crisis is the fact that you have too many elite
competing for limited position of status and power, okay?
And that’s what drives a lot of conflict within the nation state.
Another way of framing this is that the conflict in states is not between rich and poor,
but between the have a lot and have some, but want more, okay?
so usually between the upper nobility and the lower nobility we see this
throughout human history so next class we will discuss the Rome okay and we’ll
discuss that and we will understand that a lot of conflict was between the upper
nobility and the low nobility so Julius Caesar did what he did because he was
all the low nobility and was trying to reach the upper nobility okay so this is
the first principle that you need to understand that what drives a lot of conflict is elite
overproduction okay that’s number one number two is the elite has no loyalty okay this is really
important principle to understand the elite don’t have loyalty to their people or to their state
or even to the families they will do whatever is necessary for them to accumulate power okay
and this idea of Game of Thrones right so I’m not sure if you’ve seen a television show or read the
book series Game of Thrones but the world is Game of Thrones and these people who love power they
will kill their parents they will kill their brothers they will kill their own children in
order to amass power from themselves okay so the Game of Thrones is a very nasty affair the third
thing is that war is often about maintaining that status quo okay or the
idea of equilibrium if you look at World War one tens of millions of people died
okay and you cannot possibly understand what happened or you have problems
explaining what happened because the military strategy in World War one was so
idiotic right you just threw millions of people at each other but if you
understood that war is really about maintaining the status quo that maybe
you have excess population of males and if you don’t get rid of them then they
will engage in violent revolution okay you understand that war is really about
maintaining a status quo then World War one makes a lot more sense okay so these
are three major ideas I want you to understand and once you understand these
three ideas it’s a lot easier for you to understand the movement of history okay
so we’re so we will use an example from China’s history so you have you have a
clear understanding of how this works okay so let’s talk about the warring states period this
is something that hopefully you all know really well okay so during the warring states period you
had lots of really powerful states okay you have the jiao you have the wei you have the chu okay
and um at this point in history you could believe that any one of the three would become the empire
they would unite the entire um middle kingdom because they had access to rivers so it’s easy
for them to transport soldiers and do good they had a large population they were on fertile ground
okay and then over here is this poor backward and isolated people called the qing and these
these were barbarians, okay?
So how was it possible for the Qing,
who are these barbarians, not very advanced,
very poor, limited population,
to eventually conquer all of China, okay?
Well, once you understand these three principles,
we can now explain it.
Because what’s happening is that the Zhao,
the Wei, and the Chu are pretty stable states, okay?
And so the major problem is the overproduction,
the conflict between the upper nobility
and the lower nobility.
And the way that we resolve the issue is by waging war against each other.
But waging war against each other not to conquer each other,
but in order to reduce the domestic conflict within their nation states.
And as such, war became a ritual in which it was like a chess game, okay?
The point was not to destroy each other, the point was just to maintain equilibrium, maintain a status quo.
And as a result, these states became stable,
But in other words, for stable, it’s stagnant.
And now what’s happening is, first of all,
the Qing is being recruited into the wars
because the Qing is poor.
Therefore, they can provide mercenaries, okay?
Once they do that, what happens is that these mercenaries
learn all the innovations of the Zhao, Wei, and Chu
in terms of military strategy, okay?
So you have this massive infusion of innovation
into the Qing, all right?
So the Qing is being energized.
We call this energy, right?
Innovation, energy, and ideas.
But not only that, but you have talented people
of the lower nobility, right?
They want to become officials.
They want to become generals.
But there’s opportunities for them.
So where do they go, guys?
They go to the Qing, okay?
Now you have people coming in as well.
And now what’s happening is that the Qing
has this massive infusion of energy, innovation, talent.
And so now they can just bulldoze everyone, okay?
And now you’re like, wait a minute here.
Surely the Zhao, the Wei, and the Chu recognize the danger of the Qing
and they will respond by uniting together and then destroy the Qing, okay?
That never happens.
Why?
The reason why is that once you enter an equilibrium,
you understand the world through this equilibrium.
So in their perspective, the Qing became stronger,
but that’s okay because all we’ll do is we’ll just bribe them or we will have them become part
of this system why would they want to take us over why can’t we just live happily ever after
okay so it is impossible for the jiao the way the two to imagine that the qing would one day
overtake them okay another way of saying this is that once we come once you reach an equilibrium
the people inside the equilibrium become lazy stupid and arrogant okay and that’s and that’s
why the Qing is easily able to destroy all three together. In fact, the lower nobility in all three
states probably supported the takeover, right? Because now they have opportunities to rise within
their societies, okay? And that’s the pattern of human history. And we see this over and over.
All right, so now let’s move on to the West, okay? Yeah, yeah. So the equilibrium means that the war
made the like the status competition between within the countries more stable yeah equilibrium
just means they’ve reached a balance point okay oh yeah and things are just staying the same and so
people think that things will stay the same forever so they can’t imagine change happening
but the thing about human society is that things always change okay so remember the pattern of the
warring states well guess what this repeats over and over so look at that mesopotamia so as we
discussed about Mesopotamia you have the first city Uruk and what they will do is that as they expand
as a city they will develop colonies along the Tigris and Euphrates and then these become
warring states as well and as we discussed what will happen is over time they reach an equilibrium
basically a status quo or rules to make sure that the elite stay in power okay and one important
rule that they have is we can go to war against each other but we cannot destroy each other’s
temple why because the temple is the house of your patron god if you kill the pigeon god
then the god will be very angry and will kill all of you okay so this creates an equilibrium because
where do they put all their gold and wealth the temple so you can go and conquer people but you
but you can’t touch their gold and their wealth,
and therefore you cannot expand.
So this creates the idea of equilibrium.
But as I discussed, what happened
is that because of the equilibrium,
energy will flow into a poor isolated area called Uma.
And from Uma emerged a man named Luka Zaghi,
who’s like, you know what?
Screw this system.
I’m going to go for it all, OK?
So he dares destroy a temple.
And before, this was unimaginable, because if you destroy a temple, the gods can come in from the heavens and destroy you, right?
That didn’t happen.
But now, Lugazagi has destroyed the equilibrium, and now he has access to wealth.
And so he’s very quickly able to overwhelm the other city-states.
At this time, the other city-states call for help from mercenaries, the Akkadians, who will come and conquer the entire region, okay?
And establish an empire called the Akkadian Empire, led by Sarga.
but now that they are an empire they will now also reach an equilibrium and this talent will flow
somewhere else to energize another region okay so now what will happen is that the Babylonians
will come the Assyrians will come eventually from the Zagos mountains a new people called the
Persians remember the Persians have a religion called Zoroastrianism will come and conquer all
this area and then they will expand outwards and conquer both Anatolia and Egypt okay and at this
point in history now there’s a new border area called the Greeks okay the Athenians Athens and
Sparta and Athens and Sparta the Greeks encounter Persia because they will send in mercenaries to
help Persia and these mercenaries will learn Persian war tactics and bring them back to Greece
but not only that but with an empire the Greeks have an opportunity to get wealthy how through
piracy right piracy and then this will force the persians now to invade the greek mainland to stop
this piracy okay again this is a pattern throughout history the margins will get wealthy by committing
piracy because why not right okay and so now the empire is forced to go invade um greece and guess
what they lose this is unimaginable how is that possible that some barbarians the greeks are able
to defeat a vast empire the world’s largest empire the first great world empire called the persians
well this happens all the time okay why well the pattern is this okay so let’s look at empire let’s
look at borderlands okay borderlands are just you know the barbarians all right the empire has three
major advantages mass organization and death and what this means is that empire just is has a lot
of people it has essential like bureaucracy so this is like bureaucracy is able to conscript
these individuals and it doesn’t matter they lose a lot of battles they uh can keep on foreign
soldiers at the enemy okay but the portlands have three advantages that counteract these three other
advantage okay then they are uh energy uh openness and cohesion okay meaning that the people work
really hard they’re not afraid to die they’re open so they want to learn from other people
and they are united as a people and this defeats an empire because the empire the people are not
that energetic most of them are slaves actually um the empire is a bureaucracy so it’s very stagnant
it’s very insular it’s close-minded and it’s not and then empire is not united it’s often divided
okay that’s why throughout human history the borons are able to conquer the um empire okay
so um okay so the persians invade uh greece they get caught they get defeated and now greece
becomes the center of the world or part or major power okay so let’s not discuss greece okay so in
greece remember that we discussed greece before we said that greece becomes the center of innovation
in the world because of three factors. The first is Homer, who is probably the greatest
poet, prophet in human history. We read the Iliad together. He also wrote the Odyssey.
And these are the two founding texts of Greek civilization. The alphabet, right? They’re now
able to, using the alphabet, write down all their thoughts and quickly transmit their thoughts
throughout time and space. The last, of course, is the polis. The polis is their system of government
where all the citizens are involved in politics and the polis there’s like thousands of them and
they’re often small like maybe a thousand ten thousand people the two major polices are athens
and sparta and athens and sparta are both greek but they’re different societies in fact they’re
nothing alike okay so let’s go over why well first of all sparta is on flat land the peloponnese
And if you’re on flat land, you can use agriculture.
But to use agriculture, you need slaves, okay?
So Sparta became a war society
that conquered the surrounding people
and turned them into slaves called helots.
So these helots were serfs, slaves, who farmed.
And so Sparta became a war society
based on military dominance.
The entire society was centered around
how to take young boys, German great warriors,
so that they could defend their land, okay?
The Spartans were also very conservative.
Why?
Because your concern is to maintain control over the helots.
If you went over to conquer other places,
the helots could rebel against you, okay?
And so if you want to know what this place is like,
think China, okay?
This is very similar to China.
And as a result of this system,
Sparta was an oligarchy, meaning ruled by the few.
So only Spartans who were born to both a Spartan father
and a mother were citizens.
Everyone else was not a citizen.
So even if your father was Spartan,
but your mother was not Spartan, you were not a citizen.
Okay, so there’s a massive class hierarchy in Sparta,
and the reason why is, for them,
the priority was to maintain the status quo, okay?
The Athenians are different people.
The Athenians don’t have good farmland,
but they have a good harbor, okay?
So, and the territory around them, it’s mountainous.
So they can’t really grow crops, but they do,
but they are able to grow a crop called olives, okay?
So they have a lot of olive trees.
And so what happens is the Athenians have no choice
but to be expansionists, okay?
So they develop a really strong navy,
and they focus on trade and piracy,
and that’s how they sustain themselves over time.
So, whereas the Spartans are conservative,
the Athenians are both open and expansionist.
And also, what’s really important to understand
is that if you’re a navy, you have to be a democracy.
The rule in Greece is that if you fight for us,
you can vote, you can speak in public,
you can participate in politics.
Now, Sparta was a land army with hoplites.
Hoplites are elite soldiers.
And as a result, they were an oligarchy, okay?
only a few of them fought but athens was a uh democracy because at a navy in a navy everyone
could roll okay to be hop you to buy weaponry you have to train for like decades but the athenians
had a navy where anyone could just roll okay and so they were democracy all right and so over time
because Athens is a democracy that’s expanding, Sparta is a land power, Athens will start to
increase in power, Sparta will decrease in power, and eventually these two will come in conflict
with each other, okay? It’s something called the Peloponnesian War. Eventually this gives rise to
Thebes, and eventually over time these three states, Athens, Thebes, and Sparta will reach an
equilibrium, okay? So similar to the warring states where they intermarry each other and they
use war as a way to resolve their domestic tensions as opposed to try to conquer each other
and this gives opportunity for a new power to arise that was previously thought of as backward
poor and isolated and this power is called macedonia so what macedonia is going to do is
they’re going to take all the major military innovations of sparta thebes and athens to create
the world’s most powerful army okay and what else i’m going to do is they’re going to recruit a lot
of talent from these places and then what’s going to happen is that macedonia is going to come and
conquer the entire greek mainland the macedonians will be the first to unite greece okay now who
who’s doing all this his name is philip ii okay philip ii is probably the greatest military genius
one of the greatest military geniuses in human history but we don’t remember him
because he has a son who’s actually more famous than he is and his name is who?
Alexander the Great. Why is Alexander the Great more famous?
Because Alexander the Great will take everything that Philip II built and he
will use it to conquer Persia okay and then what will happen is that as this
system reaches another equilibrium a new power arise that will overflow this
entire system and this power is called rome okay which we’ll discuss next class okay so you see
how this pattern works right it’s a consistent pattern throughout human history all right okay
so what happened is that axiom the great will conquer the persian empire all right uh where’s
the persian empire egypt anatolia the levant mesopotamia this is persia um okay so this is
like the entire world and like this small army okay it’s not even the entire greek army it’s
basically as macedonians only this small army the macedonians they’re able to come and they’re able
to conquer all of it okay and the question then is how well the same reason why uh the ching was
able to conquer the jiao the way in the true right because of elite competition elite overproduction
within these areas because um the elites have no loyalty so so a lot of these leads were switching
sides over time so what probably happened was that these certain elites invited alexander to come
over and then they switched sides so he was very quickly able to bulldoze also remember that when
you reach an equilibrium you become lazy stupid and arrogant right so this guy darius he is now
the um king of kings okay he’s leaving the persians and he always believed that at some point
alexander would stop okay he’d be like you know what you have egypt you have the lot you have
anatolia you have pasha mesopotamia you know what i’ll do i’ll give you all this territory
plus i’ll give you half my treasury so darius thought he could just bribe alexander and his
father philip ii would have been like that’s a great deal i’m happy sure but alexander was not
like that okay alexander is considering himself the son of god and you will discover that all
these great conquerors believe that they are divinity that they are the son of god and they
came on earth in order to unify the world okay genghis khan was like this julius caesar was like
was like this napoleon was like this all these great conquerors are unlimited like their appetite
for conquest is insatiable so and this was unimaginable for these people like we’re giving
you like all the money in the world and i said that’s not enough okay we’ll give you the entire
world that’s not enough man i want it all so he kept on going and he killed there sorry and then
darius died and he conquered the entire um persian empire the problem though is that alexander was
being co-opted by the persian elite remember it was part of the persian elite that invited
Alexander come over and a lot of the Persian elite were switching sides so Alexander was incorporating
more and more of the Persian elite into his army as well as into his administration and so his
Macedonian army is not happy about this so they get together and they assassinate him okay
and now the world is divided among his generals okay and this creates what we call the Hellenistic
age okay the world of the Greeks and what is special about this world is now all three major
cultures that came after the collapse of the Bronze Age. The Jews, the Greeks, and the Persians
come together in what we call syncretism. Syncretism just means a combining of religions
to create the basis for Western civilization, okay? The syncretism will also give birth to a
new religion that forever changes the world, and it is called Christianity, okay? So Christianity
is comes from a merger of these three major worldviews okay now once the greeks conquer
the world they have a problem which is there’s not that many of them okay so how do they control
the world well they control the world through religion through culture so the what they will
do is um a man named aristotle who is um a macedonian and like this is something that
you do not learn in history class and it is such an important fact okay but the important fact is
this for the second the man who conquered greece and aristotle is one of the most famous philosophers
in human history they were childhood best friends okay they grew up together and it’s something that
you will never ever learn in school okay but it’s a very important fact that you you need to
understand so another way of saying this is that um the macedonians had a plan to conquer the world
for a long long time so what would happen is that philip ii would go to greece to learn all the
military innovations but aristotle would go to learn all the intellectual innovations of greece
so his teacher was plato okay so he learned from plato and the academy and what aristotle
will do is he will take greek knowledge and systemize it into a knowledge of empire okay
so what do i mean by that all right so we discussed plato we discussed how for plato
what matters is the spirit the mind okay the soul the immaterial so this is the good or the god
the good and the good emanates and creates the shadow world which is the world that we live in
but our goal in life is to return to the good by seeking knowledge by learning truth
um by learning something called sacred geometry so for plato secret geometry are these shapes
that underpin reality okay so once you’re able to master sacred geometry you’re able to master
the fabric of the universe and so that’s what plato taught now if you’re an empire you don’t
want this crap okay why because as an empire you want to maximize the energy of each individual
you want the person to work as hard as possible to make as much money as possible because that energy
than can be sucked up by the empire okay if you’re just sitting around reading books that’s
the we don’t want that crap okay so now what aristotle has to do is create a new philosophy
that counter counters plato actually aristotle probably didn’t create this he probably stole
it from someone else hey but the philosophy is very simple for aristotle he doesn’t talk about
the spirit world he only talks about the material world okay first for aristotle what makes the
world move is cause and effect so i push you you move forward you move forward you bump someone
else and that person bumping someone else okay cause and effect now this theory implies that
there must have been a god called a prime mover okay because someone must have been the first to
move things and that person must mean god okay but what’s important about the in this idea is
the prime doesn’t matter because the prime move is the first to move we don’t have to worry about
him anymore okay all we have to worry about is the goal the end okay we don’t have to worry about
beginning with the word about the end what is the end the end is something called telos telos okay
purpose okay when what this means is that we’re all here to achieve our purpose in life okay so
you are students what’s your purpose to learn so if you learn if you learn you become a good
student because you’re fulfilling your purpose i’m a teacher my purpose is to teach as well as i can
okay so work hard and produce energy for the empire okay so that this is the aristotle um idea
and this is important um because this conflict between plato and aristotle is really the
underlying conflict in all of western philosophy okay we’ll see this all the time we will see this
emerge in um europe with um and so plato becomes what we call the rationalist so descartes and
Aristotle becomes what we call the empiricist, okay?
So please remember this conflict, empiricist, all right?
Plato believes in mind over matter.
Aristotle says, mind doesn’t matter, let’s focus on matter.
Okay, that’s all that matters.
I don’t know mind.
Let’s just focus on matter, okay?
And the British Empire will adopt this idea.
In fact, all empires will adopt this idea,
including the American Empire, all right?
Okay, any questions before we go to the PowerPoint?
Okay, this is all clear, okay?
All right, so let’s go to the PowerPoint, the Greek legacy.
Okay, all right, so as I discussed, the geography of Greece is really important.
So Greece is a very poor place that is mountainous and hilly.
So it’s almost impossible for an empire to develop in Greece
because there’s not enough wealth, there’s not enough resources to support an empire.
So during this time, there are thousands of policies that are in conflict with each other,
and this allows for massive innovation what’s also important about greece is that it is by the sea
which allows greece to access different parts of the world okay if you cross the aegean you get
into persia which is the wealthiest part of the world the mediterranean gives access to egypt
as well as to northern africa as well okay so greece really benefited from this geography
that’s why greece was so innovative because you can actually steal knowledge from egypt it’s still
a lot of knowledge from egypt okay it’s something that is not really knowledge but you can see how
close egypt is okay so the greeks sold a lot of knots from egypt and from anatolia mesopotamia
and persia but they also steal knowledge from northern europe as well okay so remember that
the two major city-states are Sparta and Athens. Thebes is the third major city-state Macedonia
is up here somewhere sorry where’s Macedonia around here somewhere okay and the thing about
Macedonia is that throughout most of this history it doesn’t really matter and throughout this most
of this history is actually a subject of Persia it’s a very mountainous area and so it was poor
backwards for the longest time okay okay so this is a map of sparta now sparta becomes the military
power of the greeks because um as you can see the peloponnese it’s pretty flat which allows
for agriculture with agriculture you need slaves so the spartans had to go conquer the people and
turn them into slaves called the helots and their main concern in life became how do we keep the
helots under control because they’re outnumbered ten to one okay so the helots were both the major
resource of sparta but they’re also the major danger to sparta and the spot didn’t really care
about anyone else so the spartans were concerned first and foremost about how to turn their boys
into warriors and so the first thing they did that’s most important is they took the children
away at age six or seven or five okay because remember we discussed this previously if you
want people to be great warriors you have to create anxiety in them okay if they are loving
people they don’t want to kill other people but if they are divorced from their parents they have
conflict with their parents they don’t really like life they’re really good at killing okay
so these boys were taken were taken away from parents at age uh five or six and then they were
put with other boys where they were beat up every day they were beat up every single day when they
were 14 15 they um had a mentor who was like maybe 30 years old and they became lovers okay and that’s
how you build camaraderie um fraternity in the army and they went 18 19 then initiation um ceremony
where at night they would hide in the fields and wait for a helot a slave to break curfew okay if
if you stay up outside if you stay outside um beyond sun um set then you broke the law and so
what these soldiers would do is they would hide wait for a hell out to break curfew and then go
and split the guy’s throat okay and that was basically the graduation ceremony for the
spawns this this is a brutal brutal people but guess what guys the romans were the same thing
the Aztecs were the same thing, the Americans are the same thing, okay?
All right, so what’s important to understand is that at this time in history,
the Greeks are developing massive innovation in military warfare
because they’re always at war with each other.
And the major innovation is called the hoplites, okay?
The hoplites is basically to create a wall together so you can bow those over your enemy.
Also in this time in history, the Persians are developing horse archers,
and this is a major military innovation for them.
What’s really important for us to understand is that these two innovations happen because of their
distinct geography. You couldn’t have horse archers in Greece because the land is too hilly,
the land is too poor to support horse archery, okay? You can’t have hoplites in Persia because
the land is too wide, okay? So what this means is that yes, Persia is the dominant empire in the
the world but when they go to Greece to attack the Greeks they cannot use their
horse archers which is their major military innovation and as a result the
Greeks are able to use hoplites and bulldoze over the Persians all right so
this is the Battle of Marathon which is the first great military engagement
between the Greeks and the Persians the Greeks again the Athenians especially
Athenians they’re going and causing a lot of problems for Persians they are
committing piracy they’re also going around and encouraging Greeks
Greeks under the Persian rule do not pay taxes.
Greeks do not like to pay taxes.
It’s still true even today, okay?
Greeks hate paying taxes.
And so this is the first major confrontation between the Athenians and the Persians called
the Battle of Marathon.
And this is 490 BCE and the Athenians won because as I told you, the Persians use horse
archers.
They can’t use horse archers in Greece.
forced to use um infantry but when it comes to infantry versus infantry the greeks are the best
at that so avoid head-on collisions with the greeks okay all right so um this will lead to a
series of wars between persia and greece and what will happen is that there will be two major in
invasions and they will both fail okay the the one that i’m most uh interested in is the purple okay
this is the last major invasion of the persians into greece what happened is that they will
create this land which okay uh on the bosphorus they basically have ships as a language and they
will cross over and this leads to the famous battle of ferberpilly okay you may have seen
the movie 300 where 300 spartans stood against like you know a lot of persians well uh the
Now the Persians eventually crush the Spartans and what they will do is they will take Leonidas
who’s the king of the Spartans and they will cut off his head and put him on a pike, okay?
And this is considered a major insult to the Greeks.
Then what they will do is they will go to Athens, which is here, and they will burn
down Athens.
And at this point the war should be over, right?
But what happens is the Athenians are like, you know what, we’re a polis.
A polis is not a place, it’s a people.
So what we’ll do is, we’ll get on our ships and sail off.
And the Persians are like, you can’t do that, man.
Athenians are like, yeah we can, man.
So Athenians sail off and the war continues, okay.
Athens should have been destroyed, but it’s not destroyed.
And at this point, the Persians have won the war.
And all the Persians have to do is stay where they are and land their navy, okay, they have
a massive navy, into Sparta.
Because Sparta has a weakness, right?
Sparta has helots.
So all they do is land in Sparta, and the helots will rise up against Sparta, and the war is over.
Game over, okay?
The problem with empires is they’re lazy, stupid, and arrogant, okay?
So Xerxes, who’s leading this invasion, he thinks that, you know what?
This strategy of winning a war for attrition, it’s not honorable.
Because I want to go back and build a monument to myself, okay?
So I want to face the Greeks in a major confrontation.
And this confrontation is called the Battle of Salamis, okay?
The Battle of Salamis.
And where’s Salamis?
Yeah, right here, okay?
And this is considered the greatest naval battle in human history
because it forever changed the course of human history.
Now, at this point, I keep on saying this, the war is over.
You don’t have to do anything.
Just let troops into Sparta, the Peloponnese,
and the helix will rise up and destroy the Spartans,
and the war is over.
You’ve conquered all of Greece, okay?
do not risk your Navy in a military confrontation so of course the Persians
decide we’re gonna risk our Navy and so this leads to the Battle of Salamis
which ever again forever changed the course of human history alright so this
this is another map showing you what what happens okay and now we are in the
Battle of Salamis and we know about the Battle of Salamis because of a
name named Herodotus Herodotus who wrote a book called histories and he’s
considered a thought of history because he wrote the first historical work what he did is he
basically went around greece and collected memories of the persian wars um a few decades after the
fact and he wrote it all down okay um if you read the histories it’s really funny it’s really
interesting but we have to take it with a grain of salt okay so he writes about the battle of
uh from merpoli okay and again at this point in his history the war is over you don’t have to do
anything. But again, Xerxes says, I want a monument, okay? I want to witness a great
battle between my navy and the Greek navy, okay? So he sends his navy into battle, and of course,
they get destroyed, because again, it’s really important, you don’t fight the Greeks face on,
okay? You don’t do that, because the Greeks are heavily armored, and you’re not. Okay, so this is
greek trireme. So greek trireme, the thing to recognize about is it’s mainly soldiers. So
they’re really fast. They have some soldiers on top, marines on top. So they’re really good at
ramming you and destroying your ship. The leader of the Athenian navy, his name is
Themistocles. And Themistocles is one of the greatest generals in Athenian history. He’s
actually the guy who proposed that athens build a navy um athens discovered a civil mine and they
used all the silver to build their navy to prepare for the persian invasion okay and it was for
themistocles who led the athenians against the persians okay and this is what the battle looks
like okay so you have you still have this massive persian army converging against the athenians
but again guys don’t fight the greeks head-on okay so they’re like you know we’re gonna fight
them head on so you see this massive army converging against the athenians and now they’re
they’re converging against each other okay and the athenians destroy them okay yeah don’t fight the
greeks head on all right and now the entire persian navy is scattered the war is over now
because now the persians have lost the navy which means that they cannot we supply they have no more
mobility and so what will happen next is that the uh so yeah the athenians destroy the persian navy
what happened next is um the spars will not destroy the remaining persian forces in greece
okay this is why you don’t do i can’t i’m sorry it’s just the dumbest thing i’ve ever seen okay
they won the war and they screwed it up okay uh once you lose the navy you can’t resupply once
Once you can’t resupply, you’ve lost the war, all right?
So, this is from Herodotus, all right?
So, what’s going to happen is the war, the Battle of Salamis is lost.
But, you know, the Persians still have this huge army in Greece.
And so, the Persian king, Xerxes, he’s like, I’m out of here, man.
You know, I came here to burn down Athens.
I’ve done that.
I’m going to go home now.
And I’m going to let my general, Mardonius, take care of the Greeks, okay?
So, Modonius is like, you know, I don’t really want to fight these guys anymore.
So, Modonius sends an envoy to the Athenians and said, you know what?
The king of kings, Xerxes, says this.
We’re really sorry we burned down your city.
Really sorry we burned down your temple.
But we’ll give you a lot of money.
So, please stop fighting us, okay?
And this is what the envoy says to the Athenians.
Okay, can you read, please?
Why are you so mad as to love your war against the king?
For neither can you get the better of him, nor can you resist him forever.
You are acquainted with the multitude of Xerxes’ army and their achievements.
You have heard of the force that is even now with me,
so that even if you should get the better of us and conquer,
of which, however, you can have no hope if you think soberly,
another much more numerous will come against you.
Okay, so this is the idea of empire, right?
Just mass organization and death.
We are infinite in our resources.
We are infinite in our wealth.
We can just throw army after army after army against you.
Athenians, you’re like this small little city, okay?
Give up already.
And the Athenians respond with this, okay?
We ourselves are aware of this, that the power of the Medes…
Medes, Medes. Medes is Persian, okay?
Oh, Medes is far greater than ours,
so that there was no need to insult us with that.
But nevertheless, being ardent for liberty,
we will defend ourselves in such manner as we are able.
But do not you attempt to persuade us to come to terms with a barbarian, for we will not be persuaded.
Go then and tell Mardonius that the Athenians say,
So long as the sun shall continue in the same course as now, we will never make terms with Xerxes.
But we will go out to oppose him, trusting in the gods who fight for us,
and in the heroes whose temples and images he, holding them in no reverence, has burned.
okay so these two passages show you the difference between empire and the borderlands right the
empire is about mass organization death the borderlands the greeks are about openness
energy and cohesion okay the athenists say to the persians we know you’re bigger than us we
know you’re stronger than us but we believe in liberty we believe in each other we believe in
our gods and therefore we’ll fight you to the end okay all right so what will happen is that
Now that Xerxes is gone, now that the navy is scattered, Mardonius is kind of screwed, okay?
And so what happens is the Spartans face off against Mardonius in the Battle of Paltia,
and they will destroy Mardonius. Mardonius is killed.
And so one of the soldiers says to the king of the Spartans,
Passenius, your uncle Leonidas was killed by the Persians and they put his head on a spike.
why don’t you return the favor and put the head of mardonius on us on a spot on on a
pike and show it to the world and show how great the greeks are and this is posonius response to
this okay can you read posonius answered i admired your good intentions and your foresight but you
have failed to form a right judgment for having highly extolled as told me my country and my
achievement you have thrown all down against me to nothing by advising me to insult the dead body
and saying that if i do so i shall increase my fame which is more fit for barbarians to do than
greeks and which we abhor even in them i cannot therefore in this matter please the uh ajanitai
ajanitai nor those who nor those to whom such things should be pleasing it is sufficient for
me to please the spartans by doing and speaking what is right as leonidas leonidas whose death
you exhort me to avenge i affirm that he has been amply avenged both he and all the others who fell
at their mob play have been avenged by the countlessness of these men however do not you
hereafter come to me with such a proposal nor give such advice and be thankful that you escaped
of punished okay so what he’s saying is that we won because the gods favor us why do the gods
favor us because we are virtuous because we are loyal to the gods we’re loyal to ourselves
we are not the barbarians we are not the persians we are the spartans okay so you can see at this
time in history how um for the greeks what matters is their virtue their faith and their loyalty okay
but guess what this all changes when they become an empire okay so I want you guys to remember this
and what we’re going to do now is we’re going to compare contrast this when what happens when they
become an empire okay um okay so the persons are scattered and they’re never they’re never going
to come back and now it’s the athenian empire and so what um the athenians propose is you know what
it’s always possible that the Persians will want to return, so we need to set up an alliance to
defend ourselves against the Persians. And they call it the Delian League. Why? Because they agree
that they will pool the resources together as a defense fund against the Persians. So think of
like NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and they agree that they will put all their gold
in a place called Delos okay an island in Delos somewhere um yeah it’s somewhere yeah it’s right
here it’s a small island in Delos right here okay you guys see it and so no one’s allowed to touch
this so what happens is that the Athenians are like you know what it’s probably safer with us
so the Athenians basically steal all this gold and now the Delian League is long is no longer
a alliance but a empire the athenian empire where everyone now has to pay tribute to athens okay so
all that’s happened is before these greek city states have to pay tribute to the persians and
now they have to pay tribute to the athenians okay it’s probably a worse deal for everyone
and what do the athenians do with all this gold they spend it on this okay it’s called the
parthenon it’s still there in athens if you want to go visit it it’s it’s lost its former glory
okay but this is what the parthenon looked like during the age of pericles during the age of the
athenian empire okay this is a statue of athena it’s pure gold they didn’t have to do this but
they were like you know what we’re going to enjoy our empire they built uh the the athenian statue
okay and so at this time in history the athens is beautiful it’s wealthy and what that does is
it makes you lazy arrogant and stupid okay all right so this is facilities and he wrote um the
peloponnesian war um and he discusses why athens went to war with sparta okay and what he says is
what’s because sparta is the hegemon and athens is the rising power and therefore they were bound
a clash okay that’s not what happened athens was the hegemon athens with the empire and its allies
rebellion against it and it would drag sparta into the war okay that’s what that’s what what
really happened all right so this is what the war looks like the athenians have their empire
the spartans have their alliances and what’s going to happen is the allies are going to try to break
out of the athenian empire okay they’re going to drag sparta into the war sparta does not want to
fight athens but athens forces sparta to fight it because athens is very expansionist okay so
you can see how this red is now encroaching on the peloponnese which is historically
uh spartan uh territory right now the problem is that remember sparta has a weakness the helots
if the athens ever choose to land forces on its coast the helots would all rise up together and
overwhelmed spartans okay so sparta must protect its periphery from uh athenian encroachment so
this is what leads to the war okay this doesn’t make sense okay sparta does not want this war
the athenians are extremely aggressive they’re expanding everywhere and sparta is forcing this
war and the allies use this opportunity in order to try to break out of the athenian uh empire and
And so most of the Peloponnesian War is actually
between Athens and its former colonies and allies, okay?
Because Athens is a mafia state.
Now, what’s important for us to understand is that
because of the nature of this war,
the way they fought the war was strange, okay?
So Sparta’s not trying to destroy Athens,
and Athens is not trying to destroy Sparta.
It’s really easy for Athens to destroy Sparta, right?
All Athens has to do is land forces in Sparta
and let the helots rise up.
But Athens doesn’t want to do that,
because it would destroy the equilibrium, OK?
You don’t know what would happen if the helots were
to take control of Sparta.
They might come after you, Athens, OK?
So Athens is a status quo power.
Therefore, it wants to maintain the equilibrium.
Now, let me ask you this question.
How could Sparta defeat Athens?
Very easily, right?
They could just free the helots, right?
Now their army rises 10 times.
They can now overwhelm Athens.
But Sparta doesn’t want to do that,
because it would destroy their equilibrium, OK?
destroy their social order, it would destroy their oligarchy, it would create a democracy
basically.
And they don’t want that, okay?
So they’re trying to fight the war in a way that allows them to maintain the equilibrium.
And that’s why the war is fought in a very strange way, okay?
They’re not trying to destroy each other, they’re trying to maintain a balance of power.
What happened is that Sparta will eventually defeat Athens, but it’s just not to destroy
Athens because if you destroy Athens, then Thebes and other powers could arise which
good trial and spot okay all right all right so the leader of um athens at this time is pericles
and pericles is famous for the funeral oration which is considered like the most famous speech
in um western civilization and i i i’m sorry uh but a university they will teach you that the
funeral ration is a speech about democracy it’s not a speech about democracy if you actually read
it it’s a speech about empire okay um for whatever reason the british americans believe that athens
was the greatest democracy in the world and they can do no wrong no no no it’s an empire and it’s
concerned only with maintaining its empire okay so we’re going to read from the funeral oration
and the feeling remember about funeration is that athens is not a war lots of athenians are getting
killed in this war and the custom is for uh there to be a massive state funeral to celebrate the
war dead and you give it a a speech to commemorate the war dead okay so we can’t read all the speech
but i want to show you a very important paragraph in the speech okay all right comfort therefore not
condolence condolence okay is what i have to offer to the parents of the dead who may be here
Numberless are the chances to which, as they know, the life of man is subject.
But fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot of death, so glorious that which has caused your mourning.
Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead.
stead not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost but will be to the state at
once a reinforcement and a security okay so he’s talking to these uh parents whose sons are now
dead okay and remember like during the persian wars the athenians were like we’re virtuous people
we believe in liberty we believe in our gods we believe in each other and that’s why we’ll win
this war okay now what pericles is saying to these parents is you know what your sons were useless
anyway but now they died for empire which is good right now you can be proud of your sons who are
worthless but now that they died for empire we can celebrate them so what should you guys do
you should have more children so that you can protect the empire okay all right that’s what
he’s saying he’s also saying to um the athenians listen i know these men are dead and they have
children but don’t worry because what we’re going to do is we will put these children into an into
an orphanage and raise them to be soldiers so that they can go and fight for the empire and
die like their fathers okay this is now empire guys all right so um this is the plague of athens
So again, what Pericles should be doing
is embarking on a massive war of expansion against Sparta.
And Sparta would lose very quickly.
Pericles doesn’t do that
because he doesn’t want to fight the Spartans.
If he defeats the Spartans,
it creates an imbalance of power in the Greek mainland, okay?
So what he does is he forces everyone
to seek shelter within Athens.
Because remember, Sparta is a land power.
He doesn’t want to face Sparta on land.
So he forces everyone to go into Athens
and hide behind the city walls.
Guess what happens if you put a lot of people in one place?
You get the plague, guys.
Okay?
This kills a third of the Athenian population,
including Pericles and his two sons.
All right.
So, can you read this?
So, what’s happening is that you have these different islands
who are either rebelling against the Athenians
or who say to the Athenians,
we don’t want to be part of this stupid war, okay?
And the Athenians go to them and says,
too bad, guys.
Okay, keep on going.
Athenians, for ourselves we shall not trouble you with specious pretenses, either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Medes, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us, and make a long speech which would not be believed, and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the list…
Lacedonians, these are the Spartans, okay?
Lacedonians, although they’re colonists, or that you have done us no wrong,
will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both.
Since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes,
it’s only in question between equals and power,
while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
Okay, so, you know, the Persians, when they went to the Athenians,
basically said we are a vast empire you can’t defeat us and let’s just be friends and if and
and now that the athenians have defeated the persians now they’re the empire basically what
they say to everyone else is we’re not going to bother trying to be your friends we’re not going
to bother trying to convince you that we’re right and you’re wrong we’re just stronger than you to
shut up and obey okay this is the entire point of the athenians the thing is even worse than the
persians okay remember the the athenians fought the persians for liberty once they become an empire
and others want liberty too bad because athenians are stronger might makes right okay all right um
so this war will drag on and because as an empire you become lazy stupid and arrogant
if athenians will do stupid things like go invade a uh people that don’t even that even
that part of this war okay sicily so remember um the athenians it’s a mafia state what they do is
they collect tribute from the allies but as this war striking on they need more money so they
decided to conquer conquer more people so they decide let’s go conquer sicily because it’s very
wealthy they send a massive expedition against sicily they get they lose they drag syracuse
which has a navy into the war now sparta syracuse combined against the athenians and the persians
to come in as well, okay?
And the allies turn against Athens.
And what they will do is they will blockade Athens
from thrice, which is where Athens gets most of its wheat.
So now Athens is gonna starve, so Athens surrenders,
and this ends the Peloponnesian War.
And this time, remember, the Spartans could choose
to destroy Athens, they don’t choose to
because they’re not interested in winning the war,
they’re only interested in maintaining
the status quo, equilibrium, okay?
And of course, this gives rise to Macedonia, okay?
Now remember, this is really important.
For the second, what he will do is he will go
into the Greek mainland and learn all the major innovations
of the Thebans, the Athenians, and the Spartans.
And he will create something called the Macedonian phalanx,
which becomes the most dominant military force
in history at this point.
He has a childhood best friend, Aristotle,
who will go to Athens and learn from Plato,
and he will systemize all Greek knowledge
so that he can take this knowledge
and turn it into a tool of empire, okay?
Okay, so Philip II will focus on
military conquest of the world,
but Aristotle will focus on cultural imperialism, okay?
All right, so what makes Philip II such a genius
is to understand, listen,
the Persians have their horse archers,
the Athenians and the Spartans have their hoplites,
okay, I’m sorry, but what I can do is,
I can take all these major innovations together
and combine them into one military package.
And that allows me for coronation, okay?
So I can have flexibility and mobility in my army.
The problem, though, is that for that to happen,
you need to make sure that every soldier
is highly motivated, that every soldier wants to fight.
Now, traditionally, if you have an army,
different sections of your army get special privileges.
Usually the cavalry, because these are aristocrats,
they get all the privileges,
and everyone else, their life sucks.
But what Philip II understood is like,
no, no, no, I need to make sure that everyone is happy.
So he focused on increasing the morale of his soldiers.
And it’s very easy, guys, okay?
All you do is be meritocratic.
If a soldier’s doing a good job, you promote him.
If a soldier’s doing a bad job, you demote him.
And you think that’s easy, but it’s not,
because what it means is it will overturn the social hierarchy, okay?
Because the aristocrats are just used to, like, doing whatever they want.
But Philip II was insistent, no, no, no, every soldier will be treated fairly.
This is going to be a meritocracy, and this is what allowed him to create the world’s greatest army, okay?
Now, once you have these different forces in place, you can now have major military innovation.
And what is major military innovation?
Well, it’s something called the anvil and hammer, okay?
Basically what would happen is like your infantry will lock with the other infantry in place, okay?
It’s called the anvil. And then what will happen is your cavalry will sweep in from behind to smash the enemy cavalry
that’s called the hammer. And this is what allowed Alexander the Great to conquer all of Persia because no other army
had witnessed such a powerful force and you can’t possibly respond to it, okay?
Once the army, once the infantry locks you in place, you can’t escape. Then the cavalry comes in and smashes you
apart, okay? The anvil and the hammer.
So, what happened is that Philip II will go conquer Greece, because remember, at this time, Greece are divided into city-states, they’re all fighting each other.
And they’re not interested in actually conquering each other, they’re just interested in maintaining equilibrium.
So, Philip II is like, you know what, screw this system, I’m going to come, break all the rules, and I’m going to conquer everyone.
So, this is the Battle of Chaeronea, which is where he defeats a combined force of the Thebans and Athenians, and now he controls all of mainland Greece.
mainland greece and now he’s ready to do what is what he really wants which is to conquer persia
why because persia is where the money is right greece is poor persia is wealthy therefore i’m
gonna take this army and go conquer persia um so this is the year 336 when philip ii has conquered
all mainland greece and he’s now ready to invade persia in fact he has also spies throughout persia
he also has diplomats throughout persia negotiating with the local elites okay so he’s
not ready to go and conquer uh persia uh unfortunately gets killed okay so he goes to
the wedding of his daughter and his bodyguard kills him and this historical debate as to
who killed this but the answer is pretty simple okay his wife his wife olympias why would olympias
who is the mother examiner great kill her husband it’s really simple um if you’re a king you
marry a lot of foreign women for alliances olympias is not macedonian and um so there’s a lot
of people in the macedonian court who dislike her absolute great is here to the throne but as a
young man he was notorious for being a thug okay he’s not like philip second is very deliberate
he’s very strategic i think the great is basically a thug so philip second was worried about about
Alexander the Great. So later in his life, he married a Macedonian woman, and they had a son
together, okay? What this means now is that this son is now here to the throne and not Alexander
the Great. Olympias taught Alexander the Great from day one that you are special, Alexander.
You are not the son of Philip II. You’re the son of God. Son of God, okay? And so Olympias,
when she felt that Philip II was about to steal the throne from Alexander, she had him killed.
And we know because after Philip II was killed, who else did he kill?
The wife, the new Macedonian wife, as well as a son, right?
So this is a nasty person.
Philip II will take Philip’s great army and he will go conquer Persia with it.
And this is what his conquest path looks like.
He will do this in like 10 years’ time.
He’ll conquer the entire world basically in 10 years’ time.
what’s important is the way that he moves okay he moves really quickly with
small army which tells us that he needed cooperation from local elites okay
remember at this time in history Persia has reached an equilibrium it’s stagnant
there’s no innovation going on there’s a lot of competition between the upper
nobility and the lower nobility okay so the lower nobility part was probably
helping Alexander conquer Persia two things I want to keep you to understand
this map first of all is like the moment that um alexander reaches persia he goes to troy
once he go to troy because achilles went to troy so alexander saw himself as the new achilles
okay in fact um he had memorized the iliad and he took the iliad with him wherever he went okay so
that’s the first thing i want you to um appreciate also what he did during the war was he took one
one of his enemies tied his enemy to the back of his chariot and rolled the guy around okay just
like achilles did to hector the other thing that’s really important even more important is like you
see what happened when he visits egypt okay he conquers egypt and then he decides to go all the
way over here to amman okay why does he do that because there’s a oracle at amman and he spent a
few days with his oracle and his oracle told him his secret the secret is this you are not the son
of the second you’re the son of god which who is zeus amon okay so zeus is the king king of the
gods in the good tradition amon is king of the gods in the egyptian tradition so in other words
alexander was born to rule the world he was destined to conquer the world and this explains
why when he conquered most of persia and darius said to him you know what here’s a billion dollars
go away. Alexander’s like, no, screw you. I want all of this. Okay. Not only that, but even after
he conquered Persepolis, which is the capital of Persian Empire, he kept on going to India.
Okay. The only reason why he stopped is his soldiers got sick of fighting. The other thing
about Alexander that’s really important is he was known for his atrocities. So he burned down the
city of Thebes and he burned down the city of Persepolis. Why would he do that? Well, if you
understood that he saw himself as a son of God then it’s possible we will never
know okay it’s possible like burning down Thebes and burning down Persepolis were
ritual sacrifices necessary to prove that he was a son of God okay so yeah he
did a lot of like bad things but there’s really nothing random of what he did he
thinks he thinks he did work for diplomatic military purposes all right
So, this is a map of his conquests, okay?
This is the burning of Persepolis.
You can actually still visit Persepolis today in Iran, okay?
What he was doing during his conquests was that he was slowly killing off his father’s most loyal men.
So, Parmenion, who was Philip II’s top general, Alexander killed.
And then Cletus, who was also not top general, he killed as well, okay?
Now, historically, we remember these events as random acts of violence, but they’re not, okay?
Alexander slowly needed to kill off his father’s men so that he could create his own empire, okay?
And so, what happened was that eventually, the other generals were like,
you know what, eventually, Alexander’s going to come and kill us as well.
So, they conspired and poisoned him.
And now what they will do is, they will fight amongst themselves and create the Greek world, okay?
It’s divided into four major parts.
And the four major parts are Ptolemaic takes Egypt,
which is the wealthiest part of the empire.
Then you have Macedon, then you have Anatolia,
and then you have the Seleucid Empire, okay?
All right?
So the problem, though, is once you conquer most of the world,
you have to rule over the world.
And there aren’t that many Greeks.
So what they will do is they will build Greek cities
to settle their veterans and invite more groups to come help them govern um um the empire but they
also need to recruit bureaucrats okay so um they recruit these persian bureaucrats because they’re
very effective but they also recruit jews as well into the empire okay because jews are a foreign
people okay because remember the because these people the greeks need to admit to control and
manage their empire okay all right so what i want you to focus now is on egypt okay because
historically egypt was the center of the world it was the cultural capital of the world and egypt
helped to help give science and math to uh greece okay now the greeks are like controlling egypt and
egypt is like wait a minute here you guys were barbarians now you’re controlling us why is this
happening so now the greeks need to explain what’s happening and so what they do is they create
cultural imperialism all right okay uh this is um the greek world so they’re building greek cities
all around um the world and these cities are very similar there’s an amphitheater sorry uh
this is a better map okay this is program okay so you can see what it looks like you have an
epitheater which is where they stage greek theater you have a gymnasium you have um an agora like
they’re like if you go to these cities they’re all very similar to each other okay and this is greek
art which takes over the world as well all right let’s just tell them in a second and he and his
father told him the first they will create something called the library of exandria okay
the library what what it will do is it will take all the greek knowledge in the world it will
systemize it and sometimes it as textbooks to be taught throughout the world okay so this is really
a university um to show you how wealthy the egyptians are the uh when they built the library
of alexandria they um needed original manuscripts and so they said to the athenians hey can we
borrow some original plays and the greeks are like no you can’t uh because we really love our
our Euripides and our Aeschylus and Sophocles.
You can’t just take this stuff, this stuff is priceless.
And the Egyptians said, you know what we’ll do?
We’ll give you like a billion dollars as a deposit.
And the Athenians, well, that’s a lot of money.
Oh, sure, okay.
All right, so the Athenians lend these scrolls
to the Egyptians in Alexandria to copy.
And then after some time, the Athenians said to Ptolemy,
hey man, give us back our scrolls.
And then Ptolemy’s like, keep the money.
That’s how wealthy they were.
They had all the money in the world.
They didn’t care.
Keep the money.
$10 million, keep the money, man.
And the Athenians were pissed, okay?
They were really, really pissed about this.
Don’t ever trust, yeah.
Anyway, this is the Library of Alexandria.
It’s part of something called the Museon, okay?
So what’s really important for us to understand
is that a university is not really about education.
It’s not really about literacy, culture.
It’s really about a tool of empire
to create a cultural understanding of the world
that allows the empire to rule over people, okay?
So the Library of Alexandria is an example of this,
because remember, the Greeks are ruling over the Egyptians.
And the Egyptians are like, why are you ruling over us?
And the Greeks are like,
because we’re culturally superior to you.
And how do you prove it?
By censoring Egyptian culture, okay?
by downplaying Egyptian culture, and by upplaying, by promoting Greek culture, okay?
This is cultural imperialism.
Now, this is really important.
As part of the cultural imperialist project, the Egyptians, under Ptolemy,
they also started to work with the Jews, okay?
Why? Because Egypt needed to control the Levant as well, okay?
Who’s in the Levant? The Jews.
The Jews are problematic because they were loyal to the Persian Empire, okay?
So how do you make them loyal to you?
well you bribe them how do you bribe them by getting your priest by saying the priest you
know what we love your tradition we love your culture let us translate your bible into greek
so that we can celebrate your bible and spread it around the world and this is what we call the
septuagint the septuagint okay it’s really important uh in our history um and so the jews
were like yeah that’s a great great thing but not only that but because um of the library of
Alexandria, a lot of Jews were going to Alexandria to help contribute to the
scholarship there, okay? So eventually a third of the people of Alexandria will
become Jews, okay? But Jews are spreading throughout the Greek world. And so now
what you’re seeing is a massive syncretism between all three major
religions, okay? The Greeks, the Jews, and the Persians. Because the Persians are
administrators in this empire the Greeks are ruling this empire and the Jews are
helping build this empire okay so this will merge all three major worldviews
and this will give us Christianity all right so that is the Greek world all
right any questions was was this clear okay so what will happen is like next
class, we’ll discuss Rome, okay? Because Rome will now conquer this empire, and then this will allow
for the rise of Christianity, and we will do this next week, okay? So everything was clear today, right?
Source: Predictive History