History

A comprehensive examination of the art and culture of the ancient Greek kingdoms of the great Hellenistic period The Hellenistic Age spanned the three momentous centuries from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. to the crowning of Emperor Augustus and the establishment of the Roman Empire. This splendidly illustrated volume examines the rich diversity of art forms--including sculpture in marble, bronze, and terracotta; gold jewelry; engraved gems; and coins--throughout the Hellenistic kingdoms of ancient Greece, and especially in the great city of Pergamon (in present-day Turkey). Featuring more than 250 objects from major museums around the world, including the renowned collection from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, and essays by an international team of specialists, this book describes the historical context in which these sumptuous works of art were created, and provides a new understanding of this period of masterful artistic accomplishment.  

Everything we know about Alexander comes from ancient sources, which agree unanimously that he was extraordinary and greater than everyday mortals. From his birth into a hypercompetitive world of royal women through his training under the eyes and fists of stern soldiers and the piercing intellect of Aristotle; through friendships, rivalries, conquests and negotiations; through acts of generosity and acts of murder, this book explains who Alexander was, what motivated him, where he succeeded (in his own eyes) and where he failed, and how he believed that he earned a new "mixed" nature combining the human and the divine. This book explains what made Alexander "Great" according to the people and expectations of his time and place and rejects modern judgments asserted on the basis of an implicit moral superiority to antiquity.

The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies is a unique collection of some seventy articles which together explore the ways in which ancient Greece has been, is, and might be studied. It is intended to inform its readers, but also, importantly, to inspire them, and to enable them to pursue their own research by introducing the primary resources and exploring the latest agenda for their study. The emphasis is on the breadth and potential of Hellenic Studies as a flourishing and exciting intellectual arena, and also upon its relevance to the way we think about ourselves today.

Taking in the bulk of Alexander the Great's Asian conquests, the Seleucid Empire encompassed remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the dynasty's ancestral homeland. Paul Kosmin shows how rulers over lands to which they had no historic claim transformed the territory into a coherent space.

The Hellenistic period began with the considerable expansion of the Greek world through the Macedonian conquest of the Persian empire and ended with Rome becoming the predominant political force in that world. This new and enlarged edition of Michel Austin's seminal work provides a panoramic view of this world through the medium of ancient sources. It now comprises over three hundred texts from literary, epigraphic and papyrological sources which are presented in original translations and supported by introductory sections, detailed notes and references, chronological tables, maps, illustrations of coins, and a full analytical index. The first edition has won widespread admiration since its publication in 1981. Updated with reference to the most recent scholarship on the subject, this new edition will prove invaluable for the study of a period which has received increasing recognition.

This Companion volume offers fifteen original essays on the Hellenistic world and is intended to complement and supplement general histories of the period from Alexander the Great to Kleopatra VII of Egypt. Each chapter treats a different aspect of the Hellenistic world - religion, philosophy, family, economy, material culture, and military campaigns, among other topics. The essays address key questions about this period: To what extent were Alexander's conquests responsible for the creation of this new 'Hellenistic' age? What is the essence of this world and how does it differ from its Classical predecessor? What continuities and discontinuities can be identified? Collectively, the essays provide an in-depth view of a complex world. The volume also provides a bibliography on the topics along with recommendations for further reading.

The Greek World After Alexander 323-30 BC examines social changes in the old and new cities of the Greek world and in the new post-Alexandrian kingdoms. An appraisal of the momentous military and political changes after the era of Alexander, this book considers developments in literature, religion, philosophy, and science, and establishes how far they are presented as radical departures from the culture of Classical Greece or were continuous developments from it. Graham Shipley explores the culture of the Hellenistic world in the context of the social divisions between an educated elite and a general population at once more mobile and less involved in the political life of the Greek city.

The Hellenistic Age, the three extraordinary centuries from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to Octavian's final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, has offered a rich and variegated field of exploration for historians, philosophers, economists, and literary critics. Yet few scholars have attempted the daunting task of seeing the period whole, of refracting its achievements and reception through the lens of a single critical mind. Alexander to Actium was conceived and written to fill that gap. In this monumental work, Peter Green--noted scholar, writer, and critic--breaks with the traditional practice of dividing the Hellenistic world into discrete, repetitious studies of Seleucids, Ptolemies, Antigonids, and Attalids. He instead treats these successor kingdoms as a single, evolving, interrelated continuum. The result clarifies the political picture as never before. With the help of over 200 illustrations, Green surveys every significant aspect of Hellenistic cultural development, from mathematics to medicine, from philosophy to religion, from literature to the visual arts. Green offers a particularly trenchant analysis of what has been seen as the conscious dissemination in the East of Hellenistic culture, and finds it largely a myth fueled by Victorian scholars seeking justification for a no longer morally respectable imperialism. His work leaves us with a final impression of the Hellenistic Age as a world with haunting and disturbing resemblances to our own. This lively, personal survey of a period as colorful as it is complex will fascinate the general reader no less than students and scholars.

'The best reason to study Hellenistic art is for its own sake' writes Professor Pollitt in the Preface to Art in the Hellenistic Age. 'But', he continues, 'I would suggest that there is an additional quality that should make the art of the Hellenistic age of particular interest to modern audiences: the fact that in background and content it was the product of an age in many ways similar to our own ... The result of the historical conditions (of the age) was an art which, like much modern art, was heterogenous, often cosmopolitan, increasingly individualistic, and frequently elite in its appeal'. This 1986 book is an interpretative history of Greek art during the Hellenistic period - i.e. from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, to the establishment of the Roman Empire at the end of the first century BC - which also explores ways in which that art is an expression of the cultural experience and aspirations of the Hellenistic age.

With its emphasis on the dynasty's concern for control of the sea - both the Mediterranean and the Red Sea - and the Nile, this book offers a new and original perspective on Ptolemaic power in a key period of Hellenistic history. Within the developing Aegean empire of the Ptolemies, the role of the navy is examined together with that of its admirals. Egypt's close relationship to Rhodes is subjected to scrutiny, as is the constant threat of piracy to the transport of goods on the Nile and by sea. Along with the trade in grain came the exchange of other products. Ptolemaic kings used their wealth for luxury ships and the dissemination of royal portraiture was accompanied by royal cult. Alexandria, the new capital of Egypt, attracted poets, scholars and even philosophers; geographical exploration by sea was a feature of the period and observations of the time enjoyed a long afterlife.

In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's conquests in the late fourth century B.C., Greek garrisons and settlements were established across Central Asia, through Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) and into India. Over the next three hundred years, these settlements evolved into multiethnic, multilingual communities as much Greek as they were indigenous. To explore the lives and identities of the inhabitants of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, Rachel Mairs marshals a variety of evidence, from archaeology, to coins, to documentary and historical texts. Looking particularly at the great city of Ai Khanoum, the only extensively excavated Hellenistic period urban site in Central Asia, Mairs explores how these ancient people lived, communicated, and understood themselves. Significant and original, The Hellenistic Far East will highlight Bactrian studies as an important part of our understanding of the ancient world.

With a range of social, artistic, economic, political, and literary perspectives, the contributors provide a lively exploration of the tensions and opportunities of life in the Hellenistic Mediterranean.