In 334 B.C. Alexander the Great took his Greek armies to the east and in only a few years completed his creation of an empire out of much of southwest Asia.
- an empire out of much of southwest Asia 一个包括亚洲西南部大部分地区的帝国
- out of 出自;得自
In the new empire, barriers to trade and the movement of peoples were removed; markets were put in touch with one another. In the next generation thousands of Greek traders and artisans would enter this wider world to seek their fortunes. Alexander's actions had several important consequences for the region occupied by the empire.
- artisan 工匠
The first of these was the expansion of Greek civilization throughout the Middle East. Greek became the great international language. Towns and cities were established not only as garrisons (military posts) but as centers for the diffusion of Greek language, literature, and thought, particularly through libraries, as at Antioch (in modern Turkey) and the most famous of all, at Alexandria in Egypt, which would be the finest in the world for the next thousand years.
- garrison 驻军之地
- military posts 军事哨所
-
diffusion传播 - as 比如
- the most famous of all (其中)最为著名的
Second, this internationalism spelled the end of the classical Greek city-state——the unit of government in ancient Greece——and everything it stood for.
- spell 导致;意味着
- city-state 城邦
Most city-states had been quite small in terms of citizenry, and this was considered to be a good thing. The focus of life was the agora, the open marketplace where assemblies could be held and where issues of the day, as well as more fundamental topics such as the purpose of government or the relationship between law and freedom, could be discussed and decisions made by individuals in person.
- citizenry 市民数量
- focus 中心;焦点
- agora 集市
- marketplace 市场
- assembly 集会
- issues of the day 讨论当天的各种焦点问题
- decisions 决断
The philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.) felt that the ideal city-state should have about 5,000 citizens, because to the Greeks it was important that everyone in the community should know each other. In decision making, the whole body of citizens together would have the necessary knowledge in order generally to reach the right decision, even though the individual might not be particularly qualified to of decide. The philosopher Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), who lived at a time when the city-state system was declining, believed that a political entity of 100,000 simply would not be able to govern itself.
- philosopher 哲学家
- the whole body of ... 全体...
- Plato 柏拉图
- Aristotle 亚里士多德
- decline 衰落
- a political entity 一个政体
- govern itself 自治
This implied that the city-state was based on the idea that citizens were not specialists but had multiple interests and talents——each a so-called jack-of-all-trades who could engage in many areas of life and politics. It implied economic and military self-sufficiency.
- imply 意味着;暗指
- multiple 广泛的
- interets and talents 兴趣和才能
- jack-of-all-trades 万事通
- so-called 所谓的
- self-sufficiency 自给自足
But with the development of trade and commerce in Alexander's empire came the growth of cities;
- came the growth of cities 城市也随之而来
it was no longer possible to be a jack-of-all-trades. One now had to specialize, and with specialization came professionalism. There were getting to be too many persons to know, an easily observable community of interests was being replaced by a multiplicity of interests. The city-state was simply too "small-time"
- specialize 专门化
- specialization 专门
- professionalism 专业度
-
There are ... to do有...要做 -
There were getting to be too many persons to know变得有太多人要去了解 - multiplicity 多样性
- an easily observable community of interests 显而易见的群体利益
- a multiplicity of interests 各种各样的利益
- small-time 小规模的;微不足道的
Third, Greek philosophy was opened up to the philosophy and religion of the East.
- be open up to 对...开放
At the peak of the Greek city-state, religion played an important part. Its gods——such as Zeus, father of the gods, and his wife Hera——were thought of very much as being like human beings but with superhuman abilities.
- being 生物
- be thought of as 被认为是
- were thought of very much as being like human beings 被认为是非常像人类的生物
Their worship was linked to the rituals connected with one's progress through life——birth, marriage, and death——and with invoking protection against danger, making prophecies, and promoting healing, rather than to any code of behavior. Nor was there much of a theory of afterlife.
- worship 礼拜
- ritual 仪式
- one's progress through life 生命历程
- invoke 祈求
- protection against 防护;防范
- prophecies 预言
- code 规范;准则
- afterlife 来世
Even before Alexander's time, a life spent in the service of their city-state no longer seemed ideal to Greeks.
-a life spent in the service of 终生为...服务
The Athenian philosopher Socrates (470-399 B.C.) was the first person in Greece to propose a morality based on individual conscience rather than the demands of the state, and for this he was accused of not believing in the city's gods and so corrupting the youth, and he was condemned to death.
- conscience 良心
- corrupting 腐败
Greek philosophy——or even a focus on conscience——might complement religion but was no substitute for it, and this made Greeks receptive to the religious systems of the Middle East, even if they never adopted them completely. The combination of the religious instinct of Asia with the philosophic spirit of Greece spread across the world in the era after Alexander's death, blending the culture of the Middle East with the culture of Greece.
- complement 补充
- receptive 能接受的
- instinct 本质
- philosophic 哲学的
- blend 融合
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