I found some really cool clips from the movie Alexander that show some recreations (on a Hollywood budget!) of the big battles and big cities of the period we are studying. I thought I'd at least share them with you in case you are curious to see how it all looked. I tried to put them into the homework where they are relevant. So you don't have to watch them, but feel free to check them out! :-)

“Don’t be fooled by the heroic image. Behind the boyish good looks, Alexander is basically Saddam Hussein (former dictator of Iraq). One minute he’s your best [friend], the next minute he’s cutting your head off. So when the city of Thebes rebels, he doesn’t just punish it, he destroys it. He’s basically saying to all the other Greek cities out there, “Cross me at your peril (doom)!” And you know what? It works.”

“Alexander continues to believe he’s special. Whenever anybody resists him, he takes it as a personal affront (insult). He not only defeats them, he massacres them. This… serves as an example to the rest of the world.”

“His Macedonian infantry is armed with the sarissa, a razor-sharp spear 18 feet long. His men face the enemy using a phalanx formation… In such a grouping, the long spears carried by every man, even the guys four rows back, become effective weapons. This has a distinct advantage over the style of leaving the fighting to the men in the front rank, one row at a time."

“But if you examine the results of Alexander’s instruction, you will see that he educated… the Indians to worship Greek gods, and the Scythians to bury their dead, not to devour them!… [W]hen Alexander was civilizing Asia, Homer was commonly read, and the children of the Persians, of the Susianians, and of the Gedrosians (Iranian peoples) learned to chant the (Greek) tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides… through Alexander, Bactria (modern day Afghanistan) and the Caucasus (East of the Black Sea) learned to revere the gods of the Greeks… Alexander established more than seventy cities among savage tribes, and sowed (planted) all Asia with Greek magistracies (governorships), and thus overcame its uncivilized and brutish (stupid and violent) manner of living… Those who were vanquished (defeated) by Alexander are happier than those who escaped his hand…”

“Alexander’s empire was definitely visually impressive, but it wasn’t actually much of an empire. Like, Alexander specialized in the tearing down of things, but he wasn’t so great at the building up of institutions to replace the things he’d torn down. And that’s why, pretty soon after his death, his Empire broke into multiple successor states called the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Each was ruled by one of Alexander’s generals, and they became important dynasties. The Antigones in Greece and Macedonia, the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Selucids in Persia, all of which lasted longer than Alexander’s empire. But the dead Alexander had a huge impact on culture. He gave the region its common language, Greek, which facilitated conversations and commerce. Greek was so widespread that archaeologists have found coins in what is now Afghanistan from the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom with pictures of their kings and the word “king” written beneath the pictures — in Greek. This is also why, incidentally, the New Testament of the Bible was eventually written in Greek. Although Alexander was mostly just conquering territory for the glory and heroism and greatness of it all, in his wake emerged a more closely connected world that could trade and communicate with more people more efficiently than ever before. Alexander didn’t make those things happen, but they probably wouldn’t have happened without him.”

The blending of cultures in the Hellenistic world brought significant changes to society. Some of the most dramatic changes were caused by the exchange of ideas by people from different cultures. This exchange led to new advances in philosophy, literature, and science. As Greek influence spread through Alexander’s empire, so too did interest in Greek philosophy. Contact with other cultures led to changes in classical philosophy, which absorbed and reacted to ideas from these other cultures. Partly as a result of these changes, new schools of philosophy developed in the Hellenistic world. One new school of philosophy created in the Hellenistic world was Cynicism. Its students, called Cynics, rejected the ideas of pleasure, wealth, and social responsibility. Instead, they believed that people should live according to nature, with none of humanity’s created institutions. As a result, many Cynics gave away all their possessions, begged for food, and lived in public buildings. Another new school of philosophy, the Epicureans, taught that people should seek out pleasure, which they equated with good, and try to avoid pain, which they considered evil. One way to find pleasure, the Epicureans believed, was to develop close friendships with people who shared similar ideas. The most influential of the new schools of philosophy was Stoicism. The Stoics placed great emphasis on reason, self-discipline, emotional control, and personal morality. Unlike the Cynics, they did not believe that people should withdraw from society in order to find happiness. Instead, they argued that people should identify their proper role in society and strive to fulfill that role.