Aratus of Soli in Cilicia, ca. 315-245 BCE, was a didactic poet at the court of Antigonus Gonatas of Macedonia, where he wrote his famous astronomical poem Phaenomena (Appearances). He was for a time in the court of Antiochus I of Syria but returned to Macedonia. Phaenomena was highly regarded in antiquity; it was translated into Latin by Cicero, Germanicus Caesar, and Avienus.

The earliest systematic account of the constellations is contained in the Phaenomena of Aratus who described 43 constellations and named five individual stars.

Little is known of Hipparchus's life, but he is known to have been born in Nicaea in Bithynia. Only one work by Hipparchus has survived, and this is certainly not one of his major works. Most of the information which we have about the work of Hipparchus comes from Ptolemy.

Even if he did not invent it, Hipparchus is the first person whose systematic use of trigonometry we have documentary evidence. Hipparchus produced a table of chords, an early example of a trigonometric table. He did this by using the supplementary angle theorem, half angle formulas, and linear interpolation. Hipparchus was not only the founder of trigonometry but also the man who transformed Greek astronomy from a purely theoretical into a practical predictive science. He also introduced the division of a circle into 360 degrees into Greece.

Hipparchus calculated the length of the year to within 6.5 minutes and discovered the precession of the equinoxes. We believe that Hipparchus's star catalogue contained about 850 stars, probably not listed in a systematic coordinate system but using various different ways to designate the position of a star.

The work we have of his, Commentary on Aratus and Eudoxus, was written in 3 books as a commentary on 3 different writings. First, there was a treatise by Eudoxus now lost in which he named and described the constellations. Second, Aratus wrote a poem called which was based on the treatise by Eudoxus and proved to be a work of great popularity. This poem has survived and we have its text. Third, there was commentary on Aratus by Attalus of Rhodes, written shortly before the time of Hipparchus.

The 3 books on which Hipparchus was writing a commentary contained no mathematical astronomy. However towards the end of the second book, continuing through the whole of the third book, Hipparchus gives his own account of the rising and setting of the constellations. Towards the end of the third book, Hipparchus gives a list of bright stars always visible for the purpose of enabling the time at night to be accurately determined. It is thought that this work by Hipparchus was done near the end of his career.

Hipparchus also made a careful study of the motion of the moon. In calculating the distance of the moon, Hipparchus not only made excellent use of both mathematical techniques and observational techniques, but he also gave a range of values within which be calculated that the true distance must lie. He estimated that eclipses have a period of 126007 days. Hipparchus's calculations led him to a value for the distance to the moon of between 59 and 67 earth radii, quite remarkable in that the correct distance is 60 earth radii.

Hipparchus not only gave observational data for the moon which enabled him to compute accurately the various periods, but he developed a theoretical model of the motion of the moon based on epicycles. He showed that his model did not agree totally with observations, but it seems to be Ptolemy who was the first to correct the model to take these discrepancies into account. Hipparchus was also able to give an epicycle model for the motion of the sun, but he did not attempt to give an epicycle model for the motion of the planets.

Speaking to a bunch of dilettante philosophers on Mars Hall, Paul quoted a couple pagan poets: "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we are indeed his offspring'" (Acts 17:28). The words "In him we live and move and have our being" quote the sixth century BC poem Cretica by Epimenides. And "We are indeed his offspring" comes from Phainomena by Aratus.

Talking to Festus, Paul echoed an idiom for fighting against the gods or any other authority over you, "to kick against the goads" (Acts 26:14). This idiom is found in various sources (Pindar, Pythian Odes, 2; Euripides, Bacchae, 794-95; Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1617-24.

When Paul says, "Do not be deceived, 'Bad company corrupts good morals" (1 Cor 15:33), he's echoing Thais by Menander or the play Aiolos by Euripedes.

Paul says, "One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said, 'Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons'" (Titus 1:12). This quotes the sixth century BC poet Epimenides of Crete.

And Jude 14-15 quotes the pseudepigraphical book 1 Enoch 1:9.

In the context of Ancient Greek art, architecture, and culture, Hellenistic Greece corresponds to the period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek heartlands by Rome in 146 BC focuses on the history of 'Greece proper' (effectively the area of modern Greece) during this period.

During the Hellenistic period the importance of Greece proper within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centers of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria respectively. Cities such as Pergamon, Ephesus, Rhodes and Seleucia were also important, and increasing urbanization of the Eastern Mediterranean was characteristic of the time.

• 1 Macedonian dominance
• 2 Philip V
• 3 Rise of Rome
• 4 End of Greek independence
• 5 See also
• 6 Further reading

The quests of Alexander had a number of consequences for the Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks, making the endless conflicts between the cities which had marked the 5th and 4th centuries BC seem petty and unimportant. It led to a steady emigration, particularly of the young and ambitious, to the new Greek empires in the east. Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until the end of the 1st century BC.

The defeat of the Greek cities by Philip and Alexander also taught the Greeks that their city-states could never again be powers in their own right, and that the hegemony of Macedon and its successor states could not be challenged unless the city states united, or at least federated. The Greeks valued their local independence too much to consider actual unification, but they made several attempts to form federations through which they could hope to reassert their independence.

Following Alexander's death a struggle for power broke out among his generals, which resulted in the break-up of his empire and the establishment of a number of new kingdoms. Macedon fell to Cassander, son of Alexander's leading general Antipater, who after several years of warfare made himself master of most of Greece. He founded a new Macedonian capital at Thessaloniki and was generally a constructive ruler.

Cassander's power was challenged by Antigonus, ruler of Anatolia, who promised the Greek cities that he would restore their freedom if they supported him. This led to successful revolts against Cassander's local rulers. In 307 BC Antigonus's son Demetrius captured Athens and restored its democratic system, which had been suppressed by Alexander. But in 301 BC a coalition of Cassander and the other Hellenistic kings defeated Antigonus at the Battle of Ipsus, ending his challenge. Hellenistic Greek tomb door bas relief, Leeds City Museum.

After Cassander's death in 298 BC, however, Demetrius seized the Macedonian throne and gained control of most of Greece. He was defeated by a second coalition of Greek rulers in 285 BC, and mastery of Greece passed to the king Lysimachus of Thrace. Lysimachus was in turn defeated and killed in 280 BC. The Macedonian throne then passed to Demetrius's son Antigonus II, who also defeated an invasion of the Greek lands by the Gauls, who at this time were living in the Balkans. The battle against the Gauls united the Antigonids of Macedon and the Seleucids of Antioch, an alliance which was also directed against the wealthiest Hellenistic power, the Ptolemies of Egypt.

Antigonus II ruled until his death in 239 BC, and his family retained the Macedonian throne until it was abolished by the Romans in 146 BC. Their control over the Greek city states was intermittent, however, since other rulers, particularly the Ptolemies, subsidised anti-Macedonian parties in Greece to undermine the Antigonids' power. Antigonus placed a garrison at Corinth, the strategic centre of Greece, but Athens, Rhodes, Pergamum and other Greek states retained substantial independence, and formed the Aetolian League as a means of defending it. Sparta also remained independent, but generally refused to join any league.

In 267 BC Ptolemy II persuaded the Greek cities to revolt against Antigonus, in what became the Chremonidian War, after the Athenian leader Chremonides. The cities were defeated and Athens lost her independence and her democratic institutions. The Aetolian League was restricted to the Peloponnese, but on being allowed to gain control of Thebes in 245 BC became a Macedonian ally. This marked the end of Athens as a political actor, although it remained the largest, wealthiest and most cultivated city in Greece. In 255 BC Antigonus defeated the Egyptian fleet at Cos and brought the Aegean islands, except Rhodes, under his rule as well.

Antigonus II died in 239 BC. His death saw another revolt of the city-states of the Achaean League, whose dominant figure was Aratus of Sicyon. Antigonus's son Demetrius II died in 229 BC, leaving a child (Philip V) as king, with the general Antigonus Doson as regent. The Achaeans, while nominally subject to Ptolemy, were in effect independent, and controlled most of southern Greece. Athens remained aloof from this conflict by common consent.

Sparta remained hostile to the Achaeans, and in 227 BC Sparta's king Cleomenes III invaded Achaea and seized control of the League. Aratus preferred distant Macedon to nearby Sparta, and allied himself with Doson, who in 222 BC defeated the Spartans and annexed their city - the first time Sparta had ever been occupied by a foreign power.

Philip V, who came to power when Doson died in 221 BC, was the last Macedonian ruler with both the talent and the opportunity to unite Greece and preserve its independence against the "cloud rising in the west": the ever-increasing power of Rome. He was known as "the darling of Hellas". Under his auspices the Peace of Naupactus (217 BC) brought conflict between Macedon and the Greek leagues to an end, and at this time he controlled all of Greece except Athens, Rhodes and Pergamum.

In 215 BC, however, Philip formed an alliance with Rome's enemy Carthage, which drew Rome directly into Greek affairs for the first time. Rome promptly lured the Achaean cities away from their nominal loyalty to Philip, and formed alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest power in Asia Minor. The First Macedonian War broke out in 212 BC, and ended inconclusively in 205 BC, but Macedon was now marked as an enemy of Rome. Rome's ally Rhodes gained control of the Aegean islands.

In 202 BC Rome defeated Carthage, and was free to turn her attention eastwards, urged on by her Greek allies, Rhodes and Pergamum. In 198 the Second Macedonian War broke out for obscure reasons, but basically because Rome saw Macedon as a potential ally of the Seleucids, the greatest power in the east. Philip's allies in Greece deserted him and in 197 BC he was decisively defeated at the Cynoscephalae by the Roman proconsul Titus Quinctius Flamininus.

Luckily for the Greeks, Flamininus was a moderate man and an admirer of Greek culture. Philip had to surrender his fleet and become a Roman ally, but was otherwise spared. At the Isthmian Games in 196 BC, Flamininus declared all the Greek cities free, although Roman garrisons were placed at Corinth and Chalcis. But the freedom promised by Rome was an illusion. All the cities except Rhodes were enrolled in a new League which Rome ultimately controlled, and democracies were replaced by aristocratic regimes allied to Rome.

During the following years Rome was drawn deeper into Greek politics, since the defeated party in any dispute appealed to Rome for help. Macedon was still independent, though nominally a Roman ally. When Philip V died in 179 BC he was succeeded by his son Perseus, who like all the Macedonian kings dreamed of uniting the Greeks under Macedonian rule. Macedon was now too weak to achieve this objective, but Rome's ally Eumenes II of Pergamum persuaded Rome that Perseus was a potential threat to Rome's position.

Under the leadership of an adventurer called Andriscus, Macedon rebelled against Roman rule in 149 BC: as a result it was directly annexed the following year and became a Roman province, the first of the Greek states to suffer this fate. Rome now demanded that the Achaean League, the last stronghold of Greek independence, be dissolved. The Achaeans refused and, feeling that they might as well die fighting, declared war on Rome. Most of the Greek cities rallied to the Achaeans' side, even slaves were freed to fight for Greek independence. The Roman consul Lucius Mummius advanced from Macedonia and defeated the Greeks at Corinth, which was razed to the ground.

In 146 BC the Greek peninsula, though not the islands, became a Roman protectorate. Roman taxes were imposed, except in Athens and Sparta, and all the cities had to accept rule by Rome's local allies. In 133 BC the last king of Pergamum died and left his kingdom to Rome: this brought most of the Aegean peninsula under direct Roman rule as part of the province of Asia. Macedo-Ptolemaic soldiers of the Ptolemaic kingdom, 100 BC, detail of the Nile mosaic of Palestrina.

The final downfall of Greece came in 88 BC, when King Mithridates of Pontus rebelled against Rome, and massacred up to 100,000 Romans and Roman allies across Asia Minor. Although Mithridates was not Greek, many Greek cities, including Athens, overthrew their Roman puppet rulers and joined him. When he was driven out of Greece by the Roman general Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Roman vengeance fell upon Greece again, and the Greek cities never recovered. Mithridates was finally defeated by Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) in 65 BC.

Further ruin was brought to Greece by the Roman civil wars, which were partly fought in Greece. Finally, in 27 BC, Augustus directly annexed Greece to the new Roman Empire as the province of Achaea. The struggles with Rome had left Greece depopulated and demoralised. Nevertheless, Roman rule at least brought an end to warfare, and cities such as Athens, Corinth, Thessaloniki and Patras soon recovered their prosperity.

• Hellenistic civilization
• Hellenistic period
• Alexander the Great
• Hellenistic art

• Austin, Michel M., The Hellenistic world from Alexander to the Roman conquest: a selection of ancient sources in translation, Cambridge University Press, 1981. ISBN 0521228298

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Do please be reassured that there is no part of the human makeup that is of "the devil", that's tainted by "the devil", or that is of "this evil world". You might be consoled to know that there is no devil, there is no real location called Hell, there is no evil world, and there is no eternal punishment, condemnation, or destruction. God's love is full and free; it comes with ZERO -- 'Attached Terms and Conditions' -- there is no small print that can be rebelliously dismissed or carelessly overlooked!

This old 'Humanity-must- pay-for-its-defective-nature -with-death-and-divine-judgment' mythology is a later, provincial expression of humankind's first and most primitive cultural-religious story. The story arose from the notion that God - originally seen as a conclave of Gods or spirit-forces behind nature - may have His own agenda of need, or requirements, of which mortals should be aware. We mortals could then attempt to appease the God/Gods-of-Nature, so keeping the wolf from the door.

This story has prevailed, in one mythological form or another, for many thousands of years. It has gradually been interpreted and developed into the present world's colorful collection of religious and cultural stories, each one purporting to set out 'God's requirements' of human beings. The reality, however, that God is not needy in any sense and exacts no requirements upon us.

The human mind has always been capable of creating spiritual ideas and allegories, and of believing them to be real. As one race we have typically been over- ready to believe in anything by which we might somehow interpret or 'understand' our common life experience and find consolation in that. That is why our ancient spiritual ideas originated and why they quickly took root as our collective human mentality.

In sum, a little like scientists, we contrived a theory to help us deal with life's mysteries and its vicissitudes. But, unlike true scientists, the great majority of us have never had a longing for our abstract theories and stories about life to be revealed as inaccurate and unsatisfactory. So, instead, we succumbed to the one rigid mentality that we had created, and clung on to it, holding it sacred for thousands of years, having convinced ourselves that our very survival depended on it.

True scientists, however, have not sought to achieve a final result - to arrive at a fixed conclusion. Instead, they seek to go on making more and more theoretical progress. They actually want their mentality and their work to continue to evolve. That is the motivation and the joy of the scientist. The true scientist has that humble, simple and open faith from which flows an enduring drive, energy and joy. From the example of the Scientist, therefore, we learn a vital spiritual lesson.

Humanity's collective and dusty, ancient notions about itself and its environment are dream-like creations that the human mind once imagined, and then fully accepted into existence. We unwittingly allowed our preconceived ideas to envelope and cloud our inner perception of ourselves and of human life.

While that common mentality began to feel real to us and persisted so tenaciously, none of the underlying notions were true and accurate. They were misconceptions which we allowed to become age-old delusions. All the way through human history, we have in effect been allowing our most primitive cultural story to stand, and function, as our inner 'map' of Life. It has therefore only ever produced myths for us rather than a clean understanding of reality.

Despite the resulting, persistent and negative Self-Image that Humankind has been carrying, there is, and there has been, no fault in our essential human nature. The human spirit is, and always will be, intact and whole. The truth is that we are made in the express Image of God. And, that is a Self-Image that truly becomes us.

Nowadays, therefore, a good proportion of the population is awakening from that worn out dream which is, actually, now doing great harm in our world. Unless, globally, we can all allow ourselves a simpler and more open spirituality (through broader, more realistic and unifying religious contexts), one that is free to evolve with us, the current situation yet threatens us with extinction.

The wonderfully good news is that, yes, we do all enter the world with an intrinsic, native spirituality, a pure spirit that is our true essence. Our native spirituality is absolutely fine. In fact, it is glorious. The only reason that we have lost the awareness of this glory is that throughout the generations we have been taught, even from earliest infancy, to spiritually delude and denigrate ourselves. And, as already explained, our delusions have been powerful and extremely resistant to the light of reason.

To get a picture of what our native spirituality might be like, we can look at the experience of the newborn baby; we can learn to be 'mindful' - listen to our own hearts and souls; and we can review reliable common denominators across the wisdom given through all the world's works of scripture.

A newborn baby has no preconceptions about anything; its consciousness is as yet sound and unstructured. It knows no boundaries: It does not have any idea of itself as anything separate from anything else. It may be aware of pain or discomfort yet still has no notion of need, not even of a 'need to survive'. Its carers would say that the baby is needy; but the baby itself does not know of 'need'. Grown-ups look at the baby as a distinct and separate individual (a little person) but the baby does not yet conceive of individuality or separateness of any kind. It does not know of "you and me", "here and there", "up and down", "hot and cold", "good and bad"...

So, right at the beginning, the newly-conceived's experience is unified, its experience of everything being directly given via a whole consciousness (as yet undifferentiated/unstructured). This is a pure, unfiltered and original awareness of "Life, the Universe and Everything" or, as we say, "God".

The baby, as yet, has no self-awareness; it does not yet distinguish itself -- as a body, as a mind, as a soul/spirit, or as any aspect of a self. It thus experiences its complete oneness with all-that-is. This 'spiritual' experience is absolutely raw/simple/essential -- unveiled and direct. At this 'zero' stage of mental development it knows no distinction between 'itself ' and 'GodSelf'. The baby experiences God because it is Divine: It is one-with-The-All, one with God. "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these" -- Jesus of Nazareth.

In the New Testament, the apostle John explains (John 1: 12-13) that those who recognise and accept the self-disclosed spiritual identity of the man Jesus of Nazareth are, at the same time, realizing their own Divinity -- the truth that they too are conceived and born of God. The apostle Paul (in Acts 17:28) cites the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus, and other sages, saying, "We are his (God's) offspring". These are just one or two instances of the common denominators in the wisdom given across the world's various sacred writings. (Holy writings that originated in different historical eras and provinces.)

As we grow up and become spiritually complicated, we quickly 'forget' our oneness with everything, our oneness with God. We forget that our accumulating human illusions, while being practically necessary or useful, are not our ultimate reality.

However, an impression of ultimate reality remains in our cellular memory. And the ultimate reality itself is there hidden behind the useful, limited and mundane reality that we have since created for ourselves. Therefore, with much application, ultimate reality may finally be 'remembered' and realised in our experience by means of meditation (secular mindfulness may be one preferred route); art, films and literature; a broad study of spiritual wisdom; and research into and study of mysticism, both ancient and modern. Above all, there has to be a desire for this Self-actualization.

It is not to angels that God has subjected the world to come, a world of peace and happiness for all. But there is a place where someone has testified:

"What is humankind that you are mindful of them,

a child of mankind that you care for her/him?

You made them (flesh and blood) a little lower than the angels;

you crowned them with glory and honor

and put everything under their feet."

In thus putting everything under humankind (Genesis 1:26-27), God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation complete through what he suffered. Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (A paraphrase of Hebrews 2: 5-11)

By the time we all realise and experience who we truly are, the "world-to-come" will have come!

If we believe in the existence of sin, wickedness and evil it is because we are still unconsciously living entirely within a relative and illusory reality where 'bad' and 'good' are only relative concepts. God is the All, and is Freedom and Love. Apart from God, nothing truly has existence. Sin, evil, the devil, and Hell are the creations of our limited, relational (relative) minds. They have no part in God, our ultimate reality.