World History - Empires& integration - Essay Example

donian army and established hegemony over neighboring Greece, Thrace and Illyria after his decisive victory over the combined Greek forces at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C. After his assassination, his son Alexander III (356 – 323 B.C.), one of the greatest military geniuses of all time, quelled the Greek rebellion, subjugated the Persian Empire after the battles of Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela and extended the Macedonian Empire up to the Punjab in India. Alexander’s premature death led to conflicts of succession and his Empire was carved up among his generals into Macedonia and Greece (Antigones), Egypt (Ptolemy) and Asia (Seleucus).

With the Roman victories in the Macedonian Wars and the death of the last Macedonian king Perseus at Pydna in 168 B.C., followed by the Roman victories over Egypt and the Seleucid forces, Macedonia became a Roman province and the great Macedonian Empire disappeared (Macedonia, 2006). Alexander attempted to integrate all the disparate regions of his conquests into one unified Empire. He adopted Persian dress, retained defeated princes as governors of their provinces, discoursed with Indian philosophers, encouraged and legitimized intermarriages between his soldiers and the natives and himself married the Persian Emperor Darius’ daughter Barsine and the Bactrian, Roxanne.

He established programmes to introduce Greek and Macedonian culture to the Persians. After his death, which is considered to end of the Classical Period, large scale migration of Greeks and Macedonians into the conquered territories marked the Hellinistic Age, when the establishment of Greek speaking cities throughout the Empire and the increased movement of people and ideas spread Greek civilization to Asia and Egypt. This Hellenistic legacy lasted beyond the end of the Empire (The Encyclopedia of World History, 2001).

However, the disintegration of the Macedonian Empire and its’ absorption into the Byzantine, Slav and Turkish Empires led to the