Gale - Science and Its Times Vol 01 (2000 BC to AD 699).pdf

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mouth of the Nile river, Alexander founded the great city, his namesake, Alexandria. Alexander was welcomed into Egypt as a liberator by Egyptians weary of Persian rule. In truth, the disorganized army of Egypt would have offered little resistance to Alexander. While in Egypt, Alexander made pilgrimages to the temple and oracle (priest) of Amon-Ra, the Egyptian sun god who was comparable to the Greek Zeus, and to the temple and oracle of Zeus Ammon. During the dangerous trip through the desert to Siwah, where the oracle of Zeus Ammon was located, Alexander was declared to be the son of Zeus who was destined to rule the world. Alexander was pleased with this declaration, but was more concerned with confirming that the great Libyan desert was indeed a barrier to discourage an invasion of Egypt from the west. During his time in Egypt, Alexander exchanged letters with Darius. Darius offered Alexander a truce and some selected Persian provinces, but Alexander declined the offer. In mid-331 B.C. Alexander returned to Persia in search of Darius. Alexander and his armies marched toward Babylon, an ancient capital in Persia where Darius was mounting an opposition, and toward one of the greatest battles in antiquity. The two armies met at Gaugamela (in modern Iraq). The Macedonians, upon spotting the vast number of Persian army campfires at night, surmised the Persian forces too numerous to defeat. Alexander’s men encouraged him to attack at night, as the cover of darkness would provide a surprise advantage. Alexander, realizing the hazards of night battle, insisted he defeat Darius in an equally matched battlefield. The two armies clashed the next morning on a wide plain. Darius’s men greatly outnumbered Alexander’s by at least 100,000 men; some historians claim Darius’s forces to be almost a million strong. In front of Darius’s royal squadron were scythe-bearing chariots and 15 elephants. Darius commanded his army from inside his chariot, and was slow to amend his battle plans as conditions changed on the battlefield. Alexander seized upon this misjudgment. Darius failed to bestow sufficient command to his subordinates, so that his army lacked the ability to take advantage of Alexander’s weaknesses. Alexander routed the Persian army, while Darius again deserted the men who where fighting for him by fleeing into the mountains. Alexander marched to Babylon, occupied the city, and was declared King of Persia. Alexander benevolently appointed Persians as provincial governors, but also burned the royal palace to the ground. Alexander continued his pursuit of Darius, eventually learning that the former king had been arrested by a Bactrian prince. By the time Alexander made his way to Darius, Alexander found him in his coach murdered by his own men. Alexander had the assassins executed and gave Darius a funeral fit for royalty. Alexander continued eastward towards India, recrossing the Hindu-Kush mountains in 327 B.C. The route to India, roughly down the Cabul valley and through the Khyber pass contained difficult terrain and Alexander encountered much local resistance. When he reached India in 326, Alexander was met by Taxiles, a local reigning prince of Punjab. Taxiles honored Alexander with elephants and other gifts, and convinced Alexander to help him settle a dispute with an enemy, Porus, who was reportedly almost 7 feet (2.1 m) tall. Porus was just east of the Hydaspes river, which Alexander intended to cross before the Himalayan snowmelt and seasonal tropical rains made it impossible. The battle with Porus, fought at the Hydaspes river, taxed Alexander as none had before. Porus had a well-equipped army with more infantry than Alexander, chariots, and over 200 elephants to terrify Alexander’s cavalry horses. Alexander defeated Porus and the Indians after a fierce battle using surprise tactics to essentially corner Porus along the rising river during a storm. Alexander had hoped to reach India’s Ganges river or a natural ocean border to his eastern empire, but shortly after the battle with Porus, Alexander’s Macedonian armies had had enough. After almost nine years and 11,000 miles (17,703 km), they did not mutiny, but persuaded Alexander in 325 B.C. to turn westward towards Macedonia and home. In 323 B.C. Alexander returned to Babylon, which he intended to make the capitol of his new empire. In early June of the same year, Alexander fell ill with a fever and lingered for almost 10 days before he died. The exact cause of Alexander’s death remains a mystery, but malaria or typhoid fever remain the most probable explanations. The wear of Alexander’s decade-long campaigns and multiple wounds probably rendered his body unable to tolerate either of these common, but serious, diseases. Alexander attended a large banquet more than a week before he died, and the possibility of poisoning was suspected at the time of his death. The herbalists of Babylon, however, possessed no lethal concoctions with an action sophisticated enough to poison its victim over a 10-day time period. Poisons of the day acted quickly, even for those presumed to be demigods. Exploration & Discovery 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699 S C I E N C E A N D I T S T I M E S V O L U M E 1 33
Exploration & Discovery 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699 As for Alexander’s successor, some histories claim Alexander, in his words, willed his empire “to the strongest.” Other accounts name Alexander’s general Perdiccas as his heir, with Alexander shortly before death joining the hands of Perdiccas and Alexander’s pregnant wife Roxanne. Most likely, Alexander died without naming a successor. Impact The turbulent times that followed Alexander’s death saw his generals and others vying for pieces of Alexander’s empire for almost 300 years, eventually leaving it vulnerable to a new power rising in the west, that of Rome. Alexander’s son, Alexander IV, was born shortly after his father’s death, and for a time it was agreed that the infant would share kingship with Alexander’s younger half-brother Arrhidaeus. Olympias soon arranged for the murder of Arrhidaeus, and Alexander IV was slain at age 12. With Alexander’s bloodline out of the picture, the military leaders shared an empire split into three large kingdoms and several smaller states. The three generals with the largest prizes included Ptolemy, founder of the Ptolemic dynasty in Egypt, Seleucus, who founded the Seleucid dynasty that ruled over Persia, and Antigonus, who ruled over Asia Minor, and whose successors would eventually win control over Macedonia. Ptolemy made himself a monarch in the Macedonian tradition of Alexander, and founded a dynasty that lasted until the Caesars conquered Egypt. Ptolemy, like Alexander, claimed he was a descendent of the gods. Ptolemy attempted to forge a religious bond with the Egyptians by introducing a new religion that, like the religion of Hellenism, drew from mythology. One of the new gods, Isis, gained some popularity, but for the most part, Egyptians rejected the new religion. Ptolemy was somewhat more successful appealing to the glory of Egypt’s ancient past and declaring himself a new Pharaoh. By staffing his administration with Greeks rather than Egyptians, many continued to view Ptolemy’s rule as foreign. Some of his successors would be embraced by the Egyptians. The last descendent of Ptolemy was a princess who was also pharaoh, Cleopatra. Antigonus won Greece and the league of Greek cities that were subject to Alexander. The Antogonids also ruled until the coming of Rome. Seleucus won a reduced portion of the Persian empire, and claimed lineage that extended back to the god Apollo. Seleucus further claimed that Zeus resided at his capital, Antioch. Despite these divine affiliations, Seleucus’s Persian prize was the least successful during the Hellenistic Age. Greek culture became widespread throughout the known world during the Hellenistic Age. The Hellenistic Age encompassed Alexander’s lifetime until approximately two centuries after his death. From southern coastal France to India, Greek became the language of the intellectual elite. As a result of Alexander, Greek athletic events would be held in the heat of the Persian gulf, and tales of the Trojan horse or the love story of Cupid and Psyche would be told in Punjab. Homer would be translated into Indian, and distant religions such as Buddhism would become familiar to Greeks. No longer contained to the “frog pond,” (Alexander’s characterization of the Mediterranean) Greek influence spread across the entire Near East, and blended Greek and Oriental cultural currents. Even as the Roman legions arrived, much of the Near East continued to regard Greek culture as supreme and the one most worthy of imitation. Alexander hoped to create a new broadened cosmopolitan tradition by merging the cultures of antiquity. Intermarriage was encouraged and the cultural snobbery of the classical Greeks was dismissed. In 324 B.C. Alexander married a Persian noblewoman, Roxana, who bore his son after his death. In all, over 10,000 of Alexander’s men married local women, and Alexander often rewarded them dowries or orders to demobilize and return home. Many historians assert that Alexander sought a long-term solution to the prejudices of East versus West, and a new class of nobility with mixed blood would cement a permanent bond between the two cultures. In an additional marriage assumed to enhance his legitimacy as King of Persia, Alexander married Stateira, one of the daughters of Darius. Nevertheless, after Alexander’s death, many of the marriages of officers and Persian noblewomen were dissolved. Alexander also adopted a modified eastern style of dress, and provided instruction on Greek and Macedonian culture to the Persians. When Macedonian troops were demobilized, Alexander replaced them with Persians, creating an integrated force. The Macedonians with pikes were placed in the front rank; the Persians bearing swords and javelins followed in rows behind them. Alexander did not tolerate the actions of his men who showed prejudice toward the vanquished. Inspired by Alexander, classical Greek art was no longer the concern of a few cities, but re- 34 S C I E N C E A N D I T S T I M E S V O L U M E 1
Page 1 and 2: VOLUME1 2000 B . C . to A . D . 699
Page 3 and 4: Science and Its Times VOLUME1 2000
Page 5 and 6: Contents 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699 Maya
Page 7 and 8: Preface 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699 Arran
Page 9 and 10: Contributors Amy Ackerberg-Hasting
Page 11 and 12: Introduction: 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699
Page 13 and 14: universe and the mathematical laws
Page 15 and 16: Chronology 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699 na
Page 17 and 18: Exploration & Discovery 2000 B.C. t
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Exploration & Discovery 2000 B.C. t
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Life Sciences & Medicine 2000 B.C.
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Mathematics Chronology c. 2000 B.
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Trisecting an angle seems like an e
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to make calculation easier by linki
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triangle, for example, could be con
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A.D. to the late sixth century A.D.
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some important mathematical concept
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Mathematics 2000 B.C. to A.D. 699 A
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exported some mathematics to the We
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Background Long before the inventio
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through the contacts between mercha
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B.C.) and Aristotle (384-322 B.C.),
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ducing some useful results, but no
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of modern arithmetic calculation, c
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The Historical Relationship of Logi
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3. A circle can be drawn with any c
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In modern times, the huge number of
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nique called the method of exhausti
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By the time Euclid (c. 330-c. 270 B
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Background In its modern and elemen
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Impact Our word “algebra” is de
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Hipparchus considered every triangl
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tended seagoing journeys and explor
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numbers for centuries. Around A.D.
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Overview The zero was invented thre
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Further Reading Kaplan, Robert. The
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y a confederation of city-states, a
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His misfortunes began in 522, when
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Propositions 10 through 12 offered
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In fact the historical existence of
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Most likely Geminus came from the G
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other problem of long standing amon
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had yet to gain formal definition.
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ing two of the famous problems that
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Pythagoras of Samos. (Corbis Corpor
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ics: because of the massive destruc
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Archimedes c. 287-212 B.C. Greek ma
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of duplicating the cube by a number
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argued that all existing things do
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Wang Hs’iao-t’ung fl. c. 625 Ch
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gational instruments. Eratosthenes
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Physical Sciences Chronology c. 6
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siderable attention: optics (or per
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Parmenides argued that reason is su
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lated problem is that of Continuity
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tant, most concern his ethical teac
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Barnes, Jonathan. The Presocratics.
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ules for calculating solar and luna
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Egyptian civilization dominated by
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world around them. This was particu
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Overview Keeping track of the passa
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Dreyer, J.L.E. A History of Astrono
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uler maintained his positive relati
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Overview During the second century
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defended heliocentrism in the secon
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posites to be the truest substances
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Due to its far greater sophisticati
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ens stretched on infinitely above t
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Overview Located in a seismically a
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Impact Opinions vary as to whether
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In Physics, Aristotle made a distin
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Physical Sciences 2000 B.C. to A.D.
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share the same dimensions of base a
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attempting to extract general laws
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variation in the apparent diameters
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Physical Sciences 2000 B.C. to A.D.
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Epicurus. (Bettmann/Corbis. Reprodu
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Saint Isidore of Seville 560-636 Sp
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He was a native of Madaura, Numidia
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has long puzzled scholars, some of
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much easier rolling surface than ca
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complexity, in part, derived from h
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god would more likely resemble the
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trivium and quadrivium) that were t
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Marcus Manilius 48? B.C.-A.D. 20 Ro
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Shih Shen fl. c. 350 B.C. Chinese a
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Menelaus of Alexandria. Sphaerica (
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General Bibliography 2000 B.C. to A
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