Before Alexander the Great ruled, King Phillip the II of Macedonia (382-336 BC) developed the Macedonian military and wanted to integrate all the Greek people in the Peloponnesian Peninsula and Asian Minor. In 338 BC, Phillip defeated all the city-states except for Sparta and the city-states sent men to him to help conquer the Persians. 

Alexander was to be the next king of Macedon and was tutored by Aristotle. His goal was to unite all of the civilized world under one Greek ruler. Alexander was not known as a brutal conqueror, and many kingdoms allowed him to take over and soldiers surrendered to his armies willfully. 

In 334 BC, Alexander conquered Asia Minor, and the next year he continued south, taking over Syria, Phoenicia, Palestine, and Egypt. After the Siege of Tyre in 332 BC, he invaded the Mesopotamian region and officially defeated the Persian Empire in 331. Alexander became the successor to the Persian Kingdom. 

As he pushed eastward, Alexander established cities and made it as far as modern-day India. Many people thought of Alexander as a god and on his coins there were often lightning bolts. In 323 BC, Alexander the Great died, leaving his conquests to be fought over for four decades after his death. The successor kingdoms of his empire are known as the Hellenistic Kingdoms, and his former generals were the new kings. The most prominent of the new areas were the Kingdom of Greece and Macedon, the Seleucid Kingdom, and the Kingdom of Egypt. 

This time period is known as the Hellenistic Period. During this period, scientists started studying medicine to try to get a better understanding of the human body. Hippocrates (460-370 BC) had at least 60 texts about medicine. He started Greek medical practices and many later scientists followed in his footsteps. Herophilus of Chalcedon continued these studies and even used criminals and live subjects. Notably, he was one of the first scientists to study the human nervous system. 

In Ancient Greece, religion was connected to literature as well as the religious rites. Each city-state had its own religious rites. In the book “Theogony”, the muses are the source of men’s judgment and the history of the gods. Its author Hesiod thought the origin of all things was chaos, then came earth. Hesiod also believed in divine sanctions and thought that when heaven created men, it gave them good and evil at birth and the sources of good and evil are outside of man. 

Prometheus was chained by the god Zeus. However, after Zeus let him go, he tried to trick Zeus by giving him a meatless sacrifice. When Zeus was not fooled, Prometheus gave fire to men. In the “Theogony”, the gods created nature, rivers, the sun, the moon, and the stars through procreation. Zeus made the goddess Hecate, who men must placate through sacrifices and prayer. 

The Ancient Greek gods were thought to marry each other. Zeus married Themis, then he seduced Leto. She bore his sons Apollo and Artemis, then he married Hera. Needing the help of the sons of heaven to defeat the Titans, with whom he was at war, he rewarded the gods with positions and promises. 

War and conflict are basic to the gods of Mount Olympus, and no resolution of peace can be achieved. Zeus is the supreme god, but he is not omnipotent and often worries about being overthrown. Unlike in Hebrew literature, where God is seen as being all-knowing and only acts justly, the Greek gods often deceive each other and lie, and need sacrifices for their power. In ancient Greek literature, the gods represent mankind, they are sinful and often do harm to each other for their own personal benefit. 

The first festivals were in Athens in the 5th century BC. They were held in the honor of the gods, and had competitions and dramatic plays. Dramatic plays were the most popular events at these festivals, and were composed of a chorus of twelve men and another actor (the main character) who was separated from the rest of the actors. Most of the Greek tragedies and dramas have been lost, and what we still have comes from only three playwrights. 

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) was one of the three main Greek playwrights. Of his over 80 plays, we only have six of them left today. Most of his plays had religious aspects and in his plays the gods often tempted people into doing wrong things. In his play about the Persian Wars, King Xerxes of Persia was tempted into invading Greece by Zeus. Oresteia was a series of three plays focusing on the character Orestes written by Aeschylus. 

The playwright Sophocles wrote the play Oedipus Rex in which oracles can tell the fate of someone. The Oracles said that the main character Oedipus would eventually kill his father and marry his mother, so when his parents heard this at his birth they threw him out. He lived with a Corinthian family, and on his way to Thebes, had an altercation with a man who happened to be his father, and he killed him. When he made it to Thebes, he married the queen of Thebes who happened to be his mother. 

Euripides was an anti-religious playwright and loathed the conservative politicians of Athens. Many of his plays were attacking Greek culture and traditions. On the other hand, Aristophanes was a conservative playwright who loved tradition and hated Euripides and the philosopher Socrates. Aristophanes even made a play making fun of Euripides called The Frogs. In the play Euripides and another playwright are weighed on a scale that measures virtue, and Euripides has ten times less virtue than his opponent. 

The Classical Period of Greek art was the period where many great temples and statues were built in Greece, like the Acropolis, the Parthenon, both dedicated to the goddesses Athena. There was also a giant marble statue of Athena, but it is mostly gone now. Many bronze sculptures were made in the 400s as well. The great sculptures Pheidias and Polykleitos made many of the great statues, like the giant statue of Zeus and the boy holding a spear. 

The Greeks were much more religious than the other pagan nations at their time. They observed strict burial rites for their dead and every Greek home had an altar. The dead relatives must be provided offerings from their family. The domestic religion of the relatives existed alongside the religion of the Mount Olympus gods. The gods on Mount Olympus were all related to each other, and were often hostile to humans and sacrifices would nourish them. Most Greeks just prayed and sacrificed to their own gods in order to get a reward, and did not think of them as all-powerful.