3/19/13

Today in class we talked about Athens losing the Peloponnesian war to Sparta and also the kingdom of Macedonia taking over Greece. Athens mainly lost because they became hubris after winning the war against Persia and thought they might as well go conquer Sparta like it was no big deal. They had many disadvantages such as shortages of people because they were still recovering from fighting with Persia. the main reason they lost was because of the spread of disease from contaminated grain that came over on a boat so it was partially bad luck I guess.Then, we talked a lot about Alexander the Great. He was given power over the Macedonian kingdom in his late teens. He conquered a huge amount of the world and died at age 32! His kingdom spread from Italy to Aphganistan, that is huge! He ruled in a hellenistic way by allowing all of the conquered people to become part of their empire. In this way he didn't just conquer this land to benefit himself, but also the people living their at the time by adapting to their ways of life and cultures in some respects. Although he may seem very nice he was not one to mess with. He showed this through torturing those who didn't like him or his ideas. He was a very amazing leader whose name definitely suited him very well.