We call Hellenistic age the period during which Greek culture became the common good of all Mediterranean countries; from the death of Alexander until the Roman conquest, we see it gradually assert itself, from Egypt and Syria to Rome and Spain, in enlightened Jewish circles as well as in the Roman nobility (1). The Greek language, in the form of the KOtvri or common dialect, is the organ of this culture.
In certain respects, this period is one of the most important in the history of our Western civilization. Just as Greek influences are felt as far away as the Far East, we see conversely, from the expeditions of Alexander, the Greek West open to influences from the Orient and the Far East. We follow, in its maturity and in its dazzling decline, a philosophy which, far from political concerns, aspires to discover the universal rules of human conduct and to direct the sciences. We witness, during this decline, the gradual rise of oriental religions and Christianity: then, with the rush of the Barbarians, the dislocation of the empire and the long silent recollection which prepares modern culture.
A magnificent idealistic impulse which penetrates the entire civilization with philosophical thought, but which soon stops and dies in crystallized dogmas, a turning of man upon himself which denies culture to seek support only in itself , in his will stretched by effort or in the immediate enjoyment of his impressions, such is the outcome of the 2nd century, of the great philosophical century of Athens. From this moment, the sciences expelled from philosophy will continue their independent life, and the third century is the century of Euclid (330-270), Archimedes (287-212) and Apollonius (260-270). 240), a great century for mathematics and astronomy, while at the Alexandria museum, whose librarian is the geographer Eratosthenes (275-194), the sciences of observation and philological criticism developed hand in hand.
As for philosophy, it takes an entirely new form and it does not, strictly speaking, continue in any of the directions that we have described so far: the great dogmatisms that we see born then, Stoicism and Epicureanism, do not resemble nothing that preceded them; however numerous the points of contact may be, the spirit is entirely new. Two traits characterize it: the first is the belief that it is impossible for man to find rules of conduct or to achieve happiness without relying on a conception of the universe determined by reason; research into the nature of things does not have its aim in itself; in the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, it also governs practice. The second trait, which more or less succeeds, is a tendency towards school discipline; the young philosopher does not have to seek what was found before him; reason and reasoning only serve to consolidate in him the dogmas of the school and to give them unshakeable assurance; but in these schools it is nothing less than a free, disinterested and unlimited search for truth; we must assimilate a truth already found.
By the first of these features, the new dogmatisms broke with the ignorance of the Socratics and reintroduced into philosophy the concern for reasoned knowledge; by the second, they broke with the Platonic spirit; neither lovers of free research like the Socratic Plato, nor authoritarian and inquisitorial like the author of the 10th book of the Laws. Rationalism, if you like, but doctrinaire rationalism which closes the questions, and not, as with Plato, methodological rationalism, which opens them.
These two very new features were not accepted without resistance, and we will see, beneath the great dogmatisms, the tradition of the Socratics continuing into the second century.
To fully understand the scope and value of these two features, it is appropriate to ask who were the men who introduced these novelties and how they reacted to the new historical circumstances created by Macedonian hegemony.
Athens remains the center of philosophy; but, among the new philosophers, none is an Athenian, nor even a continental Greek; all the Stoics known to us, in the first century, are metics coming from countries which are on the edge of Hellenism, placed outside the great civic and panhellenic tradition, subject to many influences other than Hellenic influences; and, particularly those of neighboring peoples of the Semitic race. A city in Cyprus, Cittium, gave birth to Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, and his disciple Perseus; the second founder of the school, Chrysippus, was born in Cilicia, in Tarsus or in Soles, and three of his disciples, Zeno, Antipater and Archedemus, are also from Tarsus; from strictly Semitic countries come Hérillus of Carhage, disciple of Zeno, and Boethus of Sidon, disciple of Chrysippus: those who come from the nearest countries are Cleanthes of Assos (on the Aeolian coast), and two other disciples of Zeno , Sphaerus of the Bosphorus and Dionysius of Heraclea, in Bithynia on the Euxine; in the generation following Chrysippus, Diogenes of Babylon and Apollodorus of Seleucia came from distant Chaldea.
Most of these cities did not have, like the cities of continental Greece, long traditions of national independence; and, because of the needs of commerce, their inhabitants were willing to travel to the most distant countries; the father of Zeno of Cittium was, it is said, a Cypriot trader who, coming to Athens on business, brought back Socratic books, the reading of which gave his son the desire to go and hear these masters (2). But these half-barbarians remained quite indifferent to the local politics of the Greek cities. This is clearly proven by the political attitude of the protagonists of the school during the century which elapsed from the death of Alexander (323) until the intervention of the Romans in Greek affairs around 205.
References
- (1) Cf. however M. J. Rostovstzeff, “Hellenism in Mesopotamia”, Scientia, XXVII, February 1, 1953, on the “indefinable Greek breath” that he notes in this region, in the absence of a deeper Greek influence , especially in religious matters.
- (2) Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, VII, 31.
Source: Émile Bréhier(1951). Histoire de la philosophie, Presses Universitaires de France. Translation and adaptation by © 2024 Nicolae Sfetcu
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