The word "Hellenism" is used in several distinct ways. The principal meaning is the emanation outward of culture and ideas from classical Greece to the rest of the world, with classical Greek culture and ideas either replacing local culture and ideas, or amending local customs. The second meaning of the word refers to the intensification of this process during the time of Alexander the Great, as proposed by Droysen in the early 19th century, and its continuation as a cultural force up until about 400 A.D. The third meaning is the general field of study of ancient Greek, which could include both processes just mentioned, plus scholarship since the time of the Greeks.
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"Hellenism" naturally dates back to Greek and proto-Greek times. Thucydides noted that Homer used the term Hellinikos to refer to the men following Achilles. In English, by the time of the Enlightenment, the term was used much more broadly, to refer to all phases of classical Greek life and society, especially in pre-classical and classical times. Scholars of proto-Greek society use the term "Helladic," in contradistinction to Hellenic, to refer to that segment of Aegean-Creten society that would eventually be known as Greek. The words "Greek" and "Hellenic" both have mythic origins. Graecus (Γραικός) and Hellen (Eλeνη) were the two sons of the mythic Deucalion, whose name may indicate a priestly or other leader status. During classical Greek times, Greeks referred to themselves as Hellenic, not Greek or Graeco. Four main groups (ethne) were united under the term "Hellinikos" (sons of Hellen/Hellin): Ionians, Dorians, Aeolians and Achaeans. Today, Hellenism refers primarily to the manner in which the culture of the ancient Greeks, both material and ideal, spread outward, replacing or supplementing other cultures' notions.
The study of ancient Greece and of Hellenism is often called Hellenic Studies. In the 19th century, J. G. Droysen (1883) used Hellenism to mean the civilization of the Greek-speaking world after Alexander, and his definition of the Hellenic period ranged up to the time of Jesus. He was interested in how Greek culture affected the eastern Mediterranean, taking the view that due to Alexander, Hellenism expanded out of its own home territory, and in a way that was historically rapid. Therefore, for Droysen, other nearby cultures could be described as Hellenic, indicating the degree to which they had received or accepted influence from the Greeks. Droysen's limited usage appealed to some 19th century historians, while many other scholars continued to use the term in the more general sense of referring to ancient Greece. The Journal of Hellenic Studies was begun in 1880 and remains a primary peer-reviewed journal for the study of Hellenism and all things Hellenic. Academics who study ancient Greece are frequently referred to as Hellenists, whether or not they are interested in studying the spread of Greek ideas beyond the boundaries of Greece. People who advocate or admire ancient Greek ways of life may also use the term to refer to themselves or to Greek influences and especially, Greek ideals. Hellenic scholars have been particularly interested in analyzing the growth of early Christianity, whose authors wrote in Greek and clearly availed themselves of Greek ideas. The presence of Hellenic ideas in ancient Palestine before the time of Jesus, and the relationship of the doctrine enunciated by Jesus to the Greeks is of course another main topic of western scholarship. This issue is important in the history of the West, but it is also a primary historical example of processes by which ideas are transmitted. The Hellenic processes of cultural transformation were diverse, ranging from the rapid spread of their language and their alphabet (itself adopted from a group known as Phoenicians, the actions of specific individuals who carried Greek culture to foreign places before Alexander (such as Thucydides, and Herodotus, to outright conquest. Droysen's insistence on using the term to refer to events during and after the time of Alexander is based on his notion that Alexander actively wanted to export his own culture and ideals to the rest of the world. Droysen views Alexander as the first Greek, perhaps the first known person in history, to begin a campaign of cultural influence via conquest. Much of Droysen's work was aimed at assessing just how Alexander attempted this, and whether his attempts were successful. In 1905, classicist J. P. Mahaffy at the University of Chicago published The Progress of Hellenism in Alexander's Empire, an accessible work meant to summarize nearly a century of work since Droysen. Mahaffy places the beginning of Hellenism, as an active philosophy attempting to export Greek ideals to the world, on the shoulders of Xenophon, who travelled outside of Greece and was influential in bringing Greek notions to Macedonia, Egypt and Syria. There were likely others, before Xenophon, who were hellenizing the eastern Mediterranean, and also bringing foreign influences back to Greece. Still, the notion that Alexander tried to unify the known world under one aegis remains a central thesis of Hellenic studies. What is clear is that by the time of Alexander, Greeks had a sense of their own culture and society, such that it was possible to regard it as clearly exportable. Alexander knew his own culture hadn't sprung up overnight, and for him, exporting Hellenic culture must surely have referred to a broad corpus of thinking as well as the religion and lifeways of his people. Alexander, having been the student of Aristotle, was the direct descendant of philosophical Athens. His beliefs about founding civilizations on proper principles were inherited from Plato, and so, Alexander's experiment in world conquest becomes one of the earliest and best known examples of idealism in action. Archaeologists have long been interested in the spread of Greek aesthetics and material culture to the rest of the world. Using artefactual data to delimit the sphere of Greek influence, as well as to judge the reciprocal effects of other cultures on Greece, archaeologists agree with Droysen that in the period before and after Alexander, Greek influence did indeed spread as shown by all manner of archaeological evidence. Some of this spread was aesthetic, as statues around the eastern Mediterranean grew to resemble those found in Greece, especially Athens. However, the exportation of this material culture could well be due to the fact that Greeks were producing artisans enough to supply nearby port towns and capitals with craftsmen familiar with the Greek style, as opposed to Alexander himself being responsible for Hellenism. As late as 410 A.D., people came from Africa, Asia and all parts of Europe to Athens and Alexandria to study in one of the many NeoPlatonic or other Hellenistic schools. Whatever the causes, Hellenism was a major cultural and historical movement that took ideas stated in Attic Greek and written down by Greeks and promulgated those ideas to a large part of the world as it was known during its initial phase. Hellenization is an historical predecessor to movements like Christianization. Many scholars have followed Droysen's lead by tracing the main phase of Hellenism back to Alexander. 20th and 21st century scholars frequently state that the heyday of Hellenization ended in 415 A.D. with the murder of Hypatia, head of the NeoPlatonic school in Alexandria, by a mob of angry Christians. Hence, the main phase of Hellenization is lengthy, from around 340 B.C. to 415 A.D., during which Greek culture and ideals dominated much of the civilized world.
