Western Civilization

thousand Celts into Greece itself and caused consider-

able damage until he was defeated in 278B.C.E.

Other groups of Celts later attacked Asia Minor,

where the Greek Attalus I defeated them in 230B.C.E.

After his victory, Attalus gained control of much of

Asia Minor and declared himself king of Pergamum.

Such attacks led the Celts to be feared everywhere in

the Hellenistic world.

Political and Military Institutions

The Hellenistic monarchies created a semblance of

stability for several centuries, even though Hellenistic

kings refused to accept the new status quo and periodi-

cally engaged in wars to alter it. At the same time, an

underlying strain always existed between the new Greco-

Macedonian ruling class and the native populations.

Together, these factors generated a certain degree of ten-

sion that was never truly ended until the vibrant Roman

state to the west stepped in and imposed a new order.

The Hellenistic kingdoms shared a common political

system that represented a break with their Greek past.

To the classical Greeks, monarchy had been an institu-

tion for barbarians, associated in their minds with peo-

ple like the Persians. But the Greeks of the Hellenistic

world were forced to accept monarchy as a new fact of

political life, even while they retained democratic forms

of government in their cities.

Although Alexander the Great had apparently hoped

to fuse Greeks and Easterners—he used Persians as

administrators and encouraged his soldiers to marry

Easterners, as he himself did—Hellenistic monarchs

relied primarily on Greeks and Macedonians to form

the new ruling class. It has been estimated that in the

Seleucid kingdom, for example, only 2.5 percent of the

people in authority were non-Greek, and most of them

were commanders of local military units. Those who

did advance to important administrative posts had

learned Greek (all government business was transacted

in Greek) and had become Hellenized in a cultural

Aral

Sea

Caspian

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Black Sea

Red

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THRACE
INDIA
Pergamum
Ephesus
Susa
Persepolis
Alexandria
Rhodes
Cyprus
Tyre Babylon
Seleucia
Sparta
Athens
Pella
Memphis
Antioch
Bactra
Cyrene
Crete
Sardis
Za
gro
s (^) M
ts.
0 300 600 Miles
0 300 600 900 Kilometers
Ptolemaic kingdom Seleucid kingdom
Antigonid kingdom
Aetolian League
Mauryan Empire
Pergamene kingdom
Achaean League
MAP 4.2The Hellenistic Kingdoms.Alexander died unexpectedly at the age of thirty-two and did
not designate a successor. Upon his death, his generals struggled for power, eventually establishing
four monarchies that spread Hellenistic culture and fostered trade and economic development.
Q Which kingdom encompassed most of the old Persian Empire?
82 Chapter 4 The Hellenistic World
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