Secret History #20: The Hellenistic World

Peter Turchin, historian who analyzed the fall of the Roman Republic, French Revolution, and similar crises across human history to identify patterns in societal collapse.

Political elites across all civilizations and time periods who compete for power and status. These are individuals positioned in upper or lower nobility who prioritize personal power above all other allegiances.

Political elites and state leaders who face the challenge of managing excess male populations and preventing revolutionary movements. The principle was demonstrated through World War I’s seemingly idiotic military strategy.

The major Chinese states during the Warring States period: Zhao, Wei, and Chu, which were powerful, wealthy, and seemingly destined to unite China, versus Qin, a poor, backward, isolated people considered barbarians by the established states.

Alexander the Great, who conquered the vast Persian Empire not primarily through military superiority but through co-opting and being co-opted by Persian elites seeking to replace their own imperial leadership.

Persian nobles and elites within the Persian Empire who facilitated Alexander’s conquest by defecting, switching sides, and inviting foreign conquest as a means to advance their own positions within or against the existing imperial hierarchy.

Plato, who taught about the spiritual world and sacred geometry as paths to truth, versus Aristotle, who created or adopted a materialist philosophy focused on cause-and-effect and purposeful action. This conflict represents the underlying tension in all Western philosophy.

Aristotle, who developed or adopted the concept of telos as part of his materialist philosophy, creating a framework that empires from Greece to Britain to America would adopt for maximizing subject productivity and energy extraction.

The Greek city-states and poleis scattered across a mountainous, fragmented landscape with extensive coastlines providing access to multiple civilizations including Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia, and northern Europe.

Athens and Sparta, the two dominant Greek city-states during the Peloponnesian War, who fought not to destroy each other but to maintain a balance of power that preserved their respective social orders and oligarchies.

Pericles, the leader of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, who delivered the famous Funeral Oration traditionally taught as a celebration of democracy but actually serving as propaganda for empire and population replacement.

Philip II of Macedonia, the father of Alexander the Great, who transformed Macedonian military capabilities and conquered the Greek city-states by breaking the equilibrium-maintaining warfare conventions that had preserved the status quo.