The Alexandrian Exchange and the Four Humors............................

Lecture 6

I

n Hellenistic civilization, there were many different ways to think about
food, including using it to show off wealth, maintain health, or strike a
philosophical position. It was this wealth of attitudes that the Romans
adopted when they conquered Greece. In this lecture, you will learn how
the foodways and cuisine of Greece changed dramatically in the wake of
the vast empire of Alexander the Great. It can be argued that the Greeks also
changed the rest of the world in terms of food.

Hellenistic Civilization
 Alexander the Great was a Macedonian and, therefore, was
considered to be a semibarbarian by other Greeks. He incorporated
not only the entire peninsula of Greece into his empire, but also
conquered Palestine, Egypt, and the vast Persian empire, with lands
stretching all the way to modern Afghanistan and India. He founded
cities in all of these places—most called Alexandria.

 Greek culture was imported to these places. Even though politically

it didn’t hold up as a unifi ed empire, the successor states continued

to be ruled by Greek dynasties. Greek culture not only engulfed all

of these others, but Greek culture also became enriched by them.

All of these far-fl ung places become Greek-like, too—hence the

term “Hellenistic,” which dates from around 323 to 250 B.C., until

the Romans eventually sweep in and take over everything (and also

become Hellenized in the process).

 This is the fi rst major period after the agricultural revolution

of eight millennia before, in which there is a major exchange of

animal and vegetable species from East to West—all the way across

the Eurasian continent and also from Africa to Europe and Asia.

 During this Alexandrian, or Hellenistic, exchange, not only do

species and diseases travel back and forth, but whole civilizations