I have spent twenty years writing – or more accurately not writing – this book. When my editor, Beatrice Rehl, asked me in the mid-1990s if I would like to produce a new survey of Hellenistic art, after downing a stiff drink I immediately thought of reworking my own lectures (one semester’s worth from a course that I normally offer every three years). The resulting outline was a baggy monster: twenty-six chapters; hundreds of objects, facts, theories, and illustrations; and potentially enormous outlays of money that neither the Press nor I could afford – and, a fortiori, also well beyond any student’s pocket.

So, after several futile attempts over the years to put this dinosaur on a diet, I finally decided to kill it off and substitute something more evolved. Instead of a comprehensive chronological and geographical survey, I have chosen a selective, thematic, and socially grounded one. Regrettably, however, my space and illustration allowances are limited, so this step forward in one direction has dictated a step backward in another. I have had to forego detailed discussion of the eastern and western margins of the Hellenistic world (Baktria, India, Etruria, Rome), although in partial compensation, Baktria does make a cameo appearance in two chapters and Roman Italy in several others.