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

flected the pictorial language of almost half of
the world. Classical Greek art, therefore, changed
its character in the Hellenistic era, especially as
new capitals in Alexandria, Pergamon, and Antioch
acquired wealth and influence. In architecture,
a new form of column was preferred, based
upon one designed earlier in the fourth century
B.C. and named after the wealthy merchant city of
Corinth. In the new Corinthian column, ornamentation,
usually foliage, was added to the
Ionic design. This luxurious design was suited to
the vast scale of buildings in the newly founded
cities of the East (the Corinthian capital of Epidaurus,
for example, built around 300 B.C.).
Sculpture de-emphasized the harmony and refinement
of classical Greece, and instead aimed
for dramatic impact. The Altar of Zeus in Pergamon
(ca. 170 B.C.) contains sculpture representing
the struggle of the gods and the giants portraying
wild motion and frenzied expression, all
on a grand scale. As Alexander’s conquests, the
altar was meant to be impressive.
During this age, wealthy families began collecting
art. Nature, especially flora, was often
portrayed in painting and design. The art of portraiture
also began, perhaps as a reaction to a
perceived loss of personal identity with the expanding
world and its blending cultures or, alternately,
due to the abundance of impressive
political, military, and scholarly figures of the
Hellenistic Era. Early Roman art in Pompeii es-
The Silk Road was not, strictly speaking, a
“road”: rather, it constituted a set of overland
routes from the Chinese capital at Chang’an
(Xian) all the way to Antioch, Damascus, and
other cities of the Levant. Nor was it typical for a
single journeyer to travel the entire route: instead,
merchants would cover a certain distance
to a trading town and exchange their wares,
which continued to move westward or eastward.
At several points, mountains and other obstacles
created forks at which it became necessary to
take either a northerly or southerly route, for instance
either north to Samarkand (in modern
Uzbekistan) or south into Bactria, or present-day
Afghanistan; but the ultimate destination was the
same. At the height of the Silk Road’s early histopecially
embraces the Hellenistic era, where a
mosaic of Alexander himself at the Battle of Issus
was found.
Though it may be interesting to speculate
what Alexander might have accomplished had
he lived to an old age and come to grips with the
problems of governing his expanded empire, it
is certain that Alexander’s career was sufficient to
change the course of human history. Gone was
the small democratic city-state, along with the
homogenous civilization concentrated along the
Aegean Sea. The new culture of unity sought to
bind the empire together as a social, political,
and economic whole. It was this new culture of
the Hellenistic Age that civilized Rome and led
to Rome’s creation as a world state.
Further Reading
BRENDA WILMOTH LERNER
Arrian. The Campaigns of Alexander. Trans. by Aubrey de
Sélincourt. Harmondsworth, England, and Baltimore:
Penguin Books, 1971.
Fox, Robin Lane. Alexander the Great. New York: Dial
Press, 1974.
Green, Peter. Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution
of the Hellenistic Age. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1990.
Plutarch. Plutarch: Lives of Noble Grecians and Romans.
Edited by A.H. Clough, trans. by John Dryden. 2
vols. New York: Modern Library, 1992.
Exploration
& Discovery
2000 B.C.
to A.D. 699
The Silk Road Bridges East and West
Overview
The opening of the Silk Road, which ultimately
linked China with Europe, was one of the most
important undertakings in the history of exploration
prior to the period from A.D. 1400 to
1600. Indeed, the creation of the Silk Road was
a phenomenon in many ways mirrored by the
great Age of Exploration some 1,500 years later.
Both were enormous ventures that involved numerous
individuals, yet in both cases, it was
possible to trace the impetus to one or two people.
In the more recent example, that would be
Prince Henry the Navigator, whereas in the case
of the Silk Road, the honor belongs to the second-century
B.C. Chinese traveler Chang Ch’ien,
or perhaps his emperor, Han Wu ti.
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