Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-14T14:51:32.190Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Narrative V - The Hellenistic Greek world, c. 300–30 BCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Paul Cartledge
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

It is a moot point whether Alexander was the first ‘Hellenistic’ ruler, or the last great monarch of the ‘classical’ age. At any rate, Alexander's reign both spanned the transition between the two epochs and hugely hastened the full flowering of the post-classical dispensation. ‘Hellenistic’ as a term of art carries a number of different notions and applications: a fusion of some sort between Greek and – especially oriental – non-Greek cultures; a culture that was Greek-ish, in which, though the language of government and high culture was Greek, ‘native’ cultures not only survived but actually contributed something positive to the mix; and, perhaps above all, an epoch of transition, during which Greeks were less and less masters of their own destiny, and within which indeed they succumbed ultimately to the imperial power of Rome.

The wars of the Alexandrine succession lasted at least twenty-two years, until the Battle of Ipsus in 301 or even the Battle of Corupedium in 281. The resulting ‘Hellenistic’ political pattern saw a vastly enlarged Greek world that now embraced Egypt on the continent of Africa and stretched as far east in Asia as Pakistan, parcelled up into a relatively small number of territorial monarchies. The two most considerable of these, the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, were based respectively in Syria and in Egypt, and more or less inevitably doomed to clash repeatedly.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×