Alexander The Great Research Paper

The transformation of the Iatros began with Alexander the Great whose conquest through Egypt, in 322-321 BC, led to the foundation of Alexandria. As he took control of Egypt Alexander the Great continued his conquest East and left one of his Generals in charge, Ptolemy I. Eventually, Alexander the Great died which lead to a power vacuum amongst his generals, who went to war with one another. In light of these events, Ptolemy I declared himself the ruler of Egypt and sought to make Alexandria the economic and cultural capital of the Greek world. Ptolemy I, had a tremendous advantage with the wealth and papyrus of Egypt and was able to basically build Alexandria from the ground up. Alexandria invested heavily into culture and science and attracted the greatest engineers and architects to build the city. Nutton mentions that around 300 BC Ptolemy I built the two intellectual institutions that attracted all the great intellectuals of their time, including doctors.

Before Alexandria each city state identified themselves more locally such as Athenian, Spartan, or Corinthian rather than a unified Greek culture. Therefore, Alexandria sought to gather all known knowledge and amass a wealth of texts and books of the world. It also brought in the brightest thinkers and gave them a place to stay and eat and no cost so they further their knowledge. Therefore, these Alexandrian scholars worked to define the culture of the past and codify for the new world by collating classical culture of the past for their own use. However, as we see today, what came out of this was something completely was not classic Greek culture, but something new and from what they interpreted of the past. Today, we call they culture they developed