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Philip
II
King of Macedon (359-336) who built the army that defeated a Greek coalition at Chaeronea (338) and achieved a peace settlement in which all the states except Sparta participated. TERM 2
Spear land
DEFINITION 2 Conquered territory that is protected by the king who distributes it to peasants in exchange for their service in an untrained infantry known as the king's foot companions. TERM 3
Aristotle
DEFINITION 3 Greek philosopher. A pupil of Plato, the tutor of Alexander the Great, and the author of works on logic, metaphysics, ethics, natural sciences, politics, and poetics, he profoundly influenced Western thought. In his philosophical system, which led him to criticize what he saw as Plato's metaphysical excesses, theory follows empirical observation and logic, based on the syllogism, is the essential method of rational inquiry. TERM 4
Darius III
DEFINITION 4 King of Persia (336-330) who was defeated in several battles by Alexander the Great. His murder by a Bactrian satrap effectively ended the Persian Empire. TERM 5
Roxanne
DEFINITION 5 The daughter of a minor Bactrian baron named Oxyartes of Balkh in Bactria (around modern-day Balkh province of Afghanistan), and married Alexander the Great at a young age, after he visited the fortress of Sogdian Rock.
Alexander romance
Alexander romance is any of several collections of legends concerning the mythical exploits of Alexander the Great. The earliest version is in Greek, dating to the 3rd century. Several late manuscripts attribute the work to Alexander's court historian Callisthenes, but the historical figure died before Alexander and could not have written a full account of his life. The unknown author is still sometimes called Pseudo-Callisthenes. TERM 7
Ptolemies
DEFINITION 7 An ancient dynasty of Macedonian kings who ruled Egypt from 323 B.C. to 30 B.C.; founded by Ptolemy I and ended with Cleopatra. TERM 8
Market economy
DEFINITION 8 An economy that operates by voluntary exchange in a free market and is not planned or controlled by a central authority; a capitalistic economy. TERM 9
Pergamum
DEFINITION 9 An ancient Greek city and kingdom of western Asia Minor in modern-day western Turkey. It passed to Rome in the second century B.C. and was noted for its sculpture and its library, which Mark Antony gave to Cleopatra. TERM 10
Serapis
DEFINITION 10 An ancient Egyptian god of the lower world, also worshiped in ancient Greece and Rome.
Archimedes
Greek mathematician and inventor from Syracuse who is noted for his discovery of Archimedes' principle (legend has it that he made this discovery while taking a bath and ran through the streets shouting Eureka!). Among his mathematical discoveries are the ratio of the radius of a circle to its circumference and formulas for the surface area and volume of a sphere and of a cylinder. TERM 17
Eleusinian mysteries
DEFINITION 17 The annual rites performed by the ancient Greeks at the village of Eleusis near Athens in honor of Demeter and Persephone. TERM 18
Cynics
DEFINITION 18 A member of a school of ancient Greek philosophers founded by Antisthenes, marked by an ostentatious contempt for ease and pleasure. The movement flourished in the 3rd century B.C. and revived in the 1st century A.D. TERM 19
Epicurus
DEFINITION 19 Greek philosopher who founded his influential school of Epicureanism in Athens (c. 306) and a utopian community called "The Garden." TERM 20
Stoicism
DEFINITION 20 An ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge, and that the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Seleucid king of Syria (175164), who who attempted to Hellenize the Jews and provoked the revival of Jewish nationalism and the revolt of the Maccabees. TERM 22
Hasidim
DEFINITION 22 A member of a strictly orthodox Jewish sect in Palestine in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C. that opposed Hellenizing influences on their faith and supported the Maccabean revolt. TERM 23
Maccabees
DEFINITION 23 The members of the Hasmonean family of Jewish leaders and rulers comprising the sons of Mattathias and their descendants and reigning in Judea from 167 to 37 B.C., especially Judas Maccabaeus and his brothers, who defeated the Syrians under Antiochus IV in 165 and rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem. TERM 24
Sadducees
DEFINITION 24 A member of a Jewish sect or party of the time of Jesus Christ that denied the resurrection of the dead, the existence of spirits, and the obligation of oral tradition, emphasizing acceptance of the written Law alone. TERM 25
Sanhedrin
DEFINITION 25 The highest court of justice and the supreme council in ancient Jerusalem.
