12.3 Europe: 300 to 201 b.c.

Europe

Back to Europe: 400 to 301 B.C.

At 300 B.C. there were Celts in every part of Europe excepting Scandinavia, the southern portions of Italy and Greece and Russia. Most of the European river names such as the Rhine, Main (Moin), Neckar, Lahn, Ruhr, Isar, etc. are Celtic in origin. If the various Celtic tribes could have gotten along together and made a concerted effort they could have created one of the greatest empires in European history, but they didn't. (Ref. 91 )

Southern europe

Eastern mediterranean islands

Crete had become a haven for Mediterranean pirates. The Cylades were under Greek control. South of Asia Minor Rhodes had become a powerful commercial state. The "Colossus of Rhodes" was completed in 280 B.C. by the sculptor, Chares, after twelve years of work with the spoils left by Demetrius' unsuccessful siege in the previous century. Rising 120 feet, this bronze statue of the sun god was so large that a ship could pass between its legs. (Ref. 28 , 222 )

Greece

This was a time of considerable chaos and confusion in the Greek peninsula. The Galatian Celts in about 280 B.C. raided from high up in the Balkans down through Macedonia and into Greece proper and were defeated only with great difficulty. The Celtic army probably had no more than 30,000 men and was led by Brennus, of the same name as the chieftain who had sacked Rome over a century before. Greece was divided among the Aetolian League, which expanded in the north central and western area by force, the Achaean League, which expanded by contract and the independent states of Sparta and Athens. The former was defeated in 222 B.C. by a coalition of Achaeans with the Macedonian King Antigonus Doson.

Although there was a shift of Greek science and medicine to Alexandria, philosophy was still prevalent in the homeland. Epicurus founded Epicureanism, a belief that pleasure is the chief good, but that the greatest pleasure may be obtained through a life of temperance and simplicity. The great evil that afflicts man is fear of gods and fear of death. The ultimate aim of all Epicurean theories and teaching was to rid humanity of these two fears. (Ref. 47 , 91 )

Upper balkans

When the Macedonian leader, Cassander, died in 297 B.C., Demetrius I (Poliocertes) returned again to try for the king-ship. He did take Athens in 295 B.C. but was eventually deserted by his own troops and became a prisoner of Seleucus for the rest of his life. (Ref. 222 ) Celtic peoples were collecting in the upper Balkan area, fighting among themselves and periodically raiding southward, shattering all balance of power in Alexander's old empire and the first divisions among his generals and their immediate successors.

The Macedonians, themselves, were completely overrun for a short while. At the end of the century as Hannibal gave Rome its most terrible war, Philip of Macedon sided with Hannibal and the skirmishes of Macedonian soldiers with Romans in this issue of the main war was called the First Macedonian War.

An Illyrian kingdom was set up at this period with a capital at Scodra (modern Scutari, Albania) but because of Illyrian piracy tendencies the Romans had cause to war also against them and ultimately defeat them. South and west of Macedonia, the small but strong kingdom of Epirus flourished and even attacked Italy across the Adriatic Sea at the instigation of the local Greek city-states. (Ref. 28 )