Hi there. You're listening to the Hellenistic Age podcast. Episode 36, Hellenistic cities, colonization, urbanization, and Hellenization.

Sometime in the early 3rd century BC, a man named Clearchos of Soly, a philosopher and author of a number of lost works, had decided to take a journey.

From what we can guess, he had probably departed from the eastern Mediterranean, perhaps

from his home on the island of Cyprus.

From there he likely traveled by Overland Route, passing through Asia Minor or the Levant

into Mesopotamia and through the Iranian heartland, before ending in this final destination at the

city we know as Aikhanum, located along the Amudaria River in modern Afghanistan, then known as

the province of Bactri in the Salukin Empire. We believe this to be the case, because of an inscription

dedicated by Clearchus listing the Delphic Maxims, a series of aphorisms

and sayings attributed to the Oracle of Delphi. What is remarkable about this is how despite

being separated by a distance of approximately 2,500 miles, the experiences of Cliarcus on each

end of the journey would have been surprisingly consistent. Thanks to one of the defining and longest lasting of the legacies of the Hellenistic age, the city.

Of course, urban civilization was no stranger in the lands of Nineveh, Babylon, Memphis, and Takshila.

But Cliarcus's venture from one end of the map of the Hellenistic world to the

other would have certainly involved him stopping along at least one of the major cities like

Pergamon and Antioch, in addition to one of the many smaller settlements lining the landscape

like nodes in a neural network. Everywhere he went, Cliarcus would have seen the same hallmarks, a genasium, the

bustling agora, a layout planned upon a rectangular grid pattern. Of course, differences would

inevitably arise based upon the location, but these cities, founded by the successors of

Alexander the Great and their descendants descendants would be part of the collective

idea known as a Hellenistic city, an institution that would be one of the great legacies that

would long outlive their founding dynasties. In this episode, we will be exploring the idea

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