Alexander the Great was king of Macedonia from 336 BC to 323 BC, during this period he conquered the Persian empire, spread the Greek culture and language throughout Asia Minor, from Egypt and Macedonia to India (Fiero 136). The Hellenistic period began with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ended in 31 BC, in this period the Greeks dominated the entire Mediterranean, which is why it receives the name Hellenistic, because it derives from the Greek “Hellas” which means Greece (Goodman ). The religion of the Greeks began in the second millennium BC, the Greeks believed not only in one true god but in many of them. When the Hellenistic period began, the religion was similar to that of the classical period and in later times like Christianity, it was full of complexity and deities and beliefs that corresponded to what these people needed or wanted and when that changed their religion has also done the same over time. This constant change in people's needs has led to confusion and new religions or cults and has caused many people to change their faith or lose it completely, which has given way to Christianity, so with all this change it has caused many aspects of classical religion. era to become something similar but completely different, like architecture. The architecture that the Greeks built underwent some changes between Ancient Greece and the Hellenistic period, in Ancient Greece there were two different types of architecture, the Doric order and the Ionic order. The Hellenistic period was very theatrical and brought to the Greeks another type of architecture, the Corinthian order. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay To begin with, the Greek religion is believed to have originated around the Aryan invasion in the second millennium BC, when the Aryan invaders came across two people who had been living in the region of Greece since the Neolithic, they merged to form that which today is considered the Greek culture, giving rise to what is known as the Minoan-Mycenaean civilization, which flourished in the period from 1600 BC to 1400 BC. Before these invasions, Helladic communities were scattered geographically and when the Hellenistic period began the foreign attacks pushed everything in their path, causing many conflicting beliefs and confusion about the extraordinary systematization that took place. The marriage of the gods was an attempt at union, although there was conflict between these gods, the classical Greek pantheon was a mixture of gods from many cultures, the conflict that came with the classical period put these gods to the test, the people expected immediate union and physical rewards from these gods, which made the reality harsh for some people, this form of religion was more for the rich and sophisticated, it did not satisfy the needs of the peasants, who were very superstitious. Once said gods were put on trial this opened up the opportunity for Greek countryside religion, people did not trust their gods to help them in their daily conflicts, this was a very philosophical time where new religious thinking was being implemented. Greek philosophers wanted a more rational way to connect man and nature, not a vague mythological one, with the dispersal of the Jewish people that was the result of Alexander the Great's conquest and the Jews were scattered everywhere played a role in the dismissal of the old beliefs, many of these Jews converted to Christianity which spread throughout Palestine. “The religion of the early Greeks is strikingly different from Christianity and other monotheistic religions. It has often been misinterpretedby people who assume that because it is a religion it must look like Christianity, and by people who think that because it is not like Christianity or other monotheistic religions it is not a religion at all” (Lloyd-Jones456) the religion of the Greek people it was far from Christianity, where Christians worshiped one, worshiped many. Their views on death and the afterlife also differed. “The story is as follows. When someone dies, his daemon, who cared for him while he was alive, tries to lead him to a place where they need to gather and submit their cases to judgment. Then they must go to the house of Hades with that spirit as their guide who has the task of leading them from here to there. When they have been there as long as necessary and have experienced what they have experienced, another guide takes them back after many long passages of time.” (Rice and Stambaugh 178-179). Hell in Greek literature was very different from Christian hell, we know it was not eternal. The hell of Hades was just one of many realms, and their hell was a place where people could move to different realms of punishment. Furthermore, the architecture of ancient Greece was the architecture created by the Greek speaking people, the buildings they used to create were big and grand, cute and symmetrical. The monuments they built were used to serve the living, not the dead. Temples were the most common form of architecture, but they were used for the worship of gods and politics, there were two different types of architecture in ancient Greece; The Doric order and the Ionic order, these two orders were the most common type of architecture used in ancient Greece. The Doric columns were the simplest, having the capital which is the top or crowning, they are circular with a square at the top, but do not contain a base. Doric was a very simple but powerful architecture. The Parthenon is a good example of simple Doric architecture. On the other hand, the Ionic wells were much higher than the Doric ones. They were thin and also contained flutes which were carved into the top to the bottom of the column, they also contained a unique feature which is entasis and which created a bulge in the column which gave the straight appearance of these columns. even from a distance. This Ionic style was a little more decorative than Doric simplicity. The Erechtheion is an example of Ionic architecture. After Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, ancient Greek architecture began to spread throughout Western Asia and even India. The Hellenistic period begins after the classical period where architecture was derived from ancient Greece and ancient Rome since the fall of the Roman Empire, the architecture of the Roman Empire was ceased and modified except for the Byzantine Empire whose architecture it changed into its own distinct architectural style over time. They no longer followed the systematic order of the classical era. Many of these new styles were implemented in the Hellenistic period in the construction of temples, public buildings and monuments, some of these buildings were theaters and gymnasiums, which were like places to exercise, temples were built on a much larger scale and complexity, the Pergamum mausoleum merged space and also sculpture by placing heroic statues near the great staircase. Greek architecture consisted of simple pillar and lintel construction techniques, it remained so until Roman times when the arch was developed to span large distances. Now Greek architects had to use many more stone columns to support the horizontal beams above, that being said they couldn't make buildings with a large interior space, without putting rows and rows of supporting columns. The Hellenistic period is very theatrical and brings with it the Corinthian order. Corinthian is the third order.