The Hellenistic Age: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions #548

by Peter Thonemann

The three centuries which followed the conquests of Alexander are perhaps the most thrilling of all periods of ancient history. This was an age of cultural in the third century BC, a single language carried you from the Rhone to the Indus. A Celt from the lower Danube could serve in the mercenary army of a Macedonian king ruling in Egypt, and a Greek philosopher from Cyprus could compare the religions of the Brahmins and the Jews on the basis of first-hand knowledge of both. Kings from Sicily to Tajikistan struggled to meet the challenges of ruling multi-ethnic states, and Greek city-states came together under the earliest federal governments known to history. The scientists of Ptolemaic Alexandria measured the circumference of the earth, while pioneering Greek Argonauts explored the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic coast of Africa.

Drawing on inscriptions, papyri, coinage, poetry, art, and archaeology, in this Very Short Introduction Peter Thonemann opens up the history and culture of the vast Hellenistic world, from the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) to the Roman conquest of the Ptolemaic kingdom (30 BC).

ABOUT THE The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Classics, Greece

160 pages, Paperback

Published April 22, 2018

Reviews

[Lili Kyurkchiyska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ако ви се чете нещо за елинистическата епоха, можете да започнете с това книжле. Цялата каша около Александровото наследство е чудесно изяснена (а това е важно, повярвайте ми), на основните аспекти е обърнато достатъчно внимание (с изключение на икономиката - май единственият сериозен пропуск) и определено няма да скучаете - човекът пише увлекателно (разбира се, не мога да дам гаранции, ако не сте направили нищо за общата си култура). Оказа се, че е написал и една доста по-обширна на същата тема, която от години си дреме в библиотеката ми The Hellenistic Age, така че явно е дошъл моментът да я уважа.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read, but featuring my pet hate; mentioning loads of interesting places that are NOT ON THE MAPS PROVIDED!
Asrgh! Do you know how blooming irritating that is! Inadequate mappage!!!
A couple of brief genealogies might be nice as well, because I like to know this stuff. Not bad, but could be better.

[Owen Hatherley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The emphasis falls slightly too much on the 'kings and battles' rather than the 'strange globalised scientific and literary culture' side of the subject.

[Faustibooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty good book that is exactly what it says it is: a very short introduction. Thoneman did a great job at summarising this broad and complex period in such a short book. I particularly loved the fourth chapter, which discussed the scholars and scientists of the Hellenistic Age. The way in which Eratosthenes managed to calculate the circumference of the earth is simply fascinating and impressive! Another great thing about this book is the many further references at the end.

All in all a good book for anybody willing to get into this exciting period!

[Michael Huang · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Hellenistic age starts with the conquer of Alexander the Great (AtG) and ended 3 centuries later when Rome united the last of the kingdoms from AtG’s generals (Octavian v Anthony). It’s an age of conquer, learning, and a golden time for cities in Asia Minor.

In the 2 decades after AtG’s death, there were 5 kingdoms ruled by AtG’s generals. Ptolemy ruled over about 4M souls, yet achieved consistent taxation of about 15% GDP. Among the contemporaries of AtG, Seleusus was closest to uniting the realm controlled by AtG. Before his assassination, he controlled about 25-30M ppl. During this period, a king’s job is to fight and govern. And many did. Antiguous the one-eyed was still on battlefield when he was 82. Seleusus gave territories in exchange for 500 war elephants. Most of the fighting occurred on Aegean basin and the coast of Levant. Many kings were competing for the same mercenaries.

The Hellenistic age is also one of learning, not just war. Erastothenes is a typical figure. He is a “philologos” (lover of learning) and nick named Beta for being second best in everything. Among the things he did is the accurate estimation of earth’s circumference (something Columbus would have benefited from some 17 centuries later). However, Alexandria’s library most definitely didn’t have 700K volumes.

This is also an age of encountering. In Afghanistan there were sites with Greek as well as Bactrian features. A shipwrecked Indian taught Eudoxus how to get to India. Eudoxus’s return brought him to Somali and he believed that a western African route can get to India. The Villa of Papyri (buried by Vesuius’s explosion) is full of Greek papyri. The Roman Cicero would write letter to friend asking them to buy Greek sculpture for him as decoration.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Hellenistic Age : A Very Short Introduction (2018) by Peter Thonemann is another very good Very Short Introductions book. The subject is nicely constrained and the history is fascinating. Thonemann is a Professor of Classics at Oxford.

The Hellenistic Greek age, for those like me who didn’t know, is the period of Greek history from the conquests of Alexander is 323BC to the Roman conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt in 31BC.

It’s incredible the Greeks ruled over areas from Afghanistan to Egypt and had settlements in modern day Ukraine.

The book is well done, first giving an overview of the historic period and then giving more detail to different areas and discussing the discoveries of various cities settled by the Greeks in different areas including modern day Afghanistan.

The Hellenistic Age is well written and is a great overview of a fascinating historical era.

[Brian Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good Very Short Introduction, this time covering the easily overlooked Hellenistic period. The second chapter provides an excellent overview of the political situation after the death of Alexander the Great, and the chapter on Ptolemaic Egypt is superb for even its brief coverage of Alexandrian scholarship.

Other chapters aren't so engaging but to be fair do help to provide more of an overview, such as by showcasing distant colonies and settlements away from the heart of the Mediterranean. It would have been nice to see more of specific subjects, such as deeper coverage of Pergamum, but all these VSI's have to make cuts somewhere.

Altogether a decent introduction to the period, if a little choppy, and has certainly instilled a wish to read more - which I figure is the purpose of these books.

[T SP · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tale of Eudoxus of Cyzicus is fantastic

[Jesse Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these very brief intro books! Always a lot of fun (especially for someone obsessed with Alexander the Great as a kid). I will say, I wish he had spent more time with the philosophers and poets at Alexandria; Apollonius and Callimarchus get only a few throwaway mentions, which was disappointing (I bought the book to prep for reading the Argonautica). But this is a minor complaint; I'd recommend this to anyone with an interest in Alexander and his successors, or even just Ancient Greece in general. 4 stars.

[Derek Frasure · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume focuses on Greek history between the death of Alexander the Great and the ascension of Augustus, ie. the titular Hellenistic Age. I screwed up by not reading the VSI to Alexander the Great first, but this book was still intelligible without any preparatory knowledge. Books in the VSI series vary considerably in quality, focus, method, etc. In this respect, this book was written at a much higher level than other entries I have read in VSIs coverage of classical studies. Most VSI books are written for undergraduates; this one would be suitable for beginning graduate students.

I found the first two chapters a difficult slough of mostly unfamiliar names, places, peoples, and dates. Empires change hands quickly and frequently during this period, the geographic area under discussion is massive, and the groups within it are diverse. One can be sympathetic to the immense task Peter Thomemann had before him in trying to cover this period in 120 pocket-sized pages. For the uninitiated reader, this is quite a challenge, though, as we go well beyond the familiar categories of Greece and Rome to discuss numerous other ethnopolitical groups including: Seleucids, Parthians, Antigonids, Ptolemies, and many more.

Chapters three profiles Demetrius the Besieger as a king and warlord. The details from this biography start to bring details from the first couple chapters into focus. The fourth chapter considers the place of scholarship and the arts in the Hellenistic world through the figure of Eratosthenes. The fifth chapter is an overview of the cross-pollination of Greek and Roman cultures with the cultures that occupy the margins of their worlds.

The sixth and final chapter is worth the price of the book alone. It considers the city of Priene in-depth because it represents a typical city on the margins of empires. Priene is fascinating because of how adaptable the people and their beliefs were to the reality that a new conqueror rode through every few years. They turned each ruler into a cult god to achieve favored status in tax policy, trade, and diplomacy with the various empires that laid claim to it. You can also see in Priene egalitarian roots in the physical architecture gradually give way to inequality in resources over time, as the population rises. Priene is both exceptional and unique, and it makes for an utterly fascinating study of life for the average citizen or slave in the Hellenistic Age.

As another reviewer pointed out, this book suffers from the frustrating flaw that it frequently references places and regions that are not marked on the maps that begin the book. The book also focuses on military and royal history more than other aspects, and I think that is a flaw since the last chapters proved more interesting (though, this may be my Marxo-feminist bias to avoid the masculine tendency to emphasize military history above social history). I was tempted to give it a 3/5 given the flaws; but due to the sheer amount I learned, and the high-level Thonemann respected me enough as a reader to operate at in an introductory book, I must give it 4/5.

[Oscar Vel · Rating 4 out of 5]

After my studies on Alexander the Great, I wanted to turn my attention to the period after his death: the Hellenistic period. This book has helped me to bring order to several historical facts scattered in my mind. I now know, for example, that the last Egyptian pharaoh, the enigmatic Cleopatra, belongs to the dynasty of the Ptolemaic Empire. In addition, I have also learned about the remaining empires: in Macedonia, that of the Antigons, and in the Near East, that of the Seleucids, the greatest of the three empires.

To a large extent, the topics covered in this book go back to the time before Christ, up to the rise to power of Julius Caesar. This makes sense; however, I know that other historians emphasize the importance of the first centuries after Christ as a direct consequence of Hellenistic precedents, for this is a time rich in religiosity and practical philosophy that resonates to the present day; Thonemann, on the other hand, barely mentions it in this book.

[Ryan Specht-Boardman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find the VSI’s can be rather inconsistent in their quality, so finding a good one is refreshing. This book has good coverage of the Hellenistic Age. I was particularly pleased by the extensive inclusion of cultural and scientific history included in this book (which often take backseats to political, military, or social histories). Like many of these books, there are so many names and places, a dramatis personae would have been useful, as would a map with more context.

[Mark Speers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun to read as I had very limited knowledge on this age in history previous to reading. In fashion with all the Very Short Introductions, this book was light on pages while remaining heavy with information.

[Omer Iqbal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great companion book if you’re reading about the hellenistic period, and want your history in broad strokes

[Melissa Barbosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this book was a delight! I learned so much and had lots of fun at the same time.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

super helpful little book and particularly interesting intro to a few social and cultural aspects of the hellenistic age

[Charles M · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterful survey of a sprawling subject in under 200 pages . For a reader who knows little about the subject it is an excellent introduction .

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book helpful to understanding the chaos that followed Alexander's conquests and the empires that emerged afterwards. However, it really is a brief introduction and since my knowledge is so limited I found its structure, which is not a continuous linear history, but first a rapid list of battles and competing kingdoms and then a review of other themes somewhat unsatisfying.