Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age

1142 Pages·1990·14.956 MB·English

by  Peter Green

ALEXANDER
TO ACTIUM
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE HELLENISTIC
AGE
PETER GREEN
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY LOS ANGELES
Title page: Tetradrachm of Demetrius I.
Photo by Ellen Kitzmiller.
The publication of this book was made possible in part by a
grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
© 1990 by Peter Green
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Green, Peter, 1924–
Alexander to Actium.
(Hellenistic culture and society ; 1)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Mediterranean Region—History—To 146 B.C. 2.
Greece—History—Macedonian Hegemony—323–281 B.C.
3. Greece—History—281–146 B.C. 4. Hellenism. I. Title.
II. Series.
DE86.G738 1990 938 86–4339
ISBN 978-0-520-08349-3 (pbk)
eISBN 978-0-520-91414-8
Dis manibus
F. E. Adcock
G. T. Griffith
W. K. C. Guthrie
J. E. Raven
with gratitude for much wisdom freely shared, and in
affectionate memory
The historian may well interest himself in the state of things,
the condition of society, the principles underlying a system of
government or a system of thought. But if he is to understand
historically and practice historical writing, he will have to
think of such analyses as steps in a chain of events, as matters
explanatory of a sequence of happenings. He will have to
concentrate on understanding change, which is the essential
content of historical analysis and description. History treats
fundamentally of the transformation of things (people,
institutions, ideas, and so on) from one state into another, and
the event is its concern as well as its instrument.
G. R. Elton,
The Practice of History
Chorus of all. All, all, of a piece throughout:
Thy Chase had a Beast in View;
Thy Wars brought nothing about;
Thy Lovers were all untrue.
’Tis well an Old Age is out,
And time to begin a New.
Dance of Huntsmen, Nymphs,
Warriours, and Lovers
John Dryden, The Secular Masque
ἆ μάκαρ, ὅστις ἔην κεῖνον χρόνον ἴδρις ἀοιδῆς,
Μουσάων θεράπων, ὅτ’ ἀκήρατος ἦν ἔτι λειμών·
νῦν δ’ ὅτε πάντα δέδασται, ἔχουσι δὲ πείρατα τέχναι,
ὕστατοι ὥστε δρόμου καταλειπόμεθ’, οὐδέ πῃ ἔστι
πάντῃ παπταίνοντα νεοζυγὲς ἅρμα πελάσσαι.
Choerilus of Samos
CONTENTS
LIST OF MAPS
PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PART ONE. ALEXANDER’S FUNERAL GAMES,
323–276 B.C.
1. Perdiccas, Eumenes, Cassander, 323–316
2. Antigonus One-Eye’s Bid for Empire, 316–301
3. Demetrius of Phaleron: The Philosopher-King in Action
4. Zeno, Diogenes, Epicurus, and Political Disenchantment
5. Theophrastus, Menander, and the Transformation of
Attic Comedy
6. The Politics of Royal Patronage: Early Ptolemaic
Alexandria
7. Early Hellenistic Art and Its Antecedents, 380–270:
Space, Pathos, Realism; or, The Horse as Critic
8. The Division of the Spoils, 301–276
PART TWO. THE ZENITH CENTURY, 276–222
B.C.
9. Ptolemy Philadelphos and Antigonus Gonatas, 276–239
10. The New Urban Culture: Alexandria, Antioch,
Pergamon
11. The Critic as Poet: Callimachus, Aratus of Soli,
Lycophron
12. Kingship and Bureaucracy: The Government of the
Successor Kingdoms
13. Armchair Epic: Apollonius Rhodius and the Voyage of
Argo
14. Events in the West: Sicily, Magna Graecia, Rome
15. Urbanized Pastoralism, or vice versa: The Idylls of
Theocritus, the Mimes of Herodas
16. The Road to Sellasia, 239–222
PART THREE. PHALANX AND LEGION, 221–
168 B.C.
17. Polybius and the New Era
18. Antiochus III, Philip V, and the Roman Factor, 221–196
19. The Spread of Hellenism: Exploration, Assimilation,
Colonialism; or, The Dog That Barked in the Night
20. Middle-Period Hellenistic Art, 270–150: Si
monumentum requiris . . .
21. Production, Trade, Finance
22. The Individual and Society: Slavery, Revolution,
Utopias
23. Ruler Cults, Traditional Religion, and the Ambivalence
of Tyche
24. From Cynoscephalae to Pydna: The Decline and Fall of
Macedonia, 196–168
PART FOUR. THE BREAKING OF NATIONS,
167–116 B.C.
25. The Wilderness as Peace, 167–146
26. Mathematics and Astronomy: The Alternative
Immortality
27. Technological Developments: Science as Praxis
28. Hellenistic Medicine; or, The Eye Has Its Limitations
29. Hellenism and the Jews: An Ideological Resistance
Movement?
30. Ptolemaic and Seleucid Decadence and the Rise of
Parthia, 145–116
PART FIVE. ROME TRIUMPHANT, 116–30 B.C.
31. Mithridates, Sulla, and the Freedom of the Greeks,
116–80
32. Late Hellenistic Art, 150–30: The Mass Market in
Nostalgia
33. Foreign and Mystery Cults, Oracles, Astrology, Magic
34. Academics, Skeptics, Peripatetics, Cynics
35. The Garden of Epicurus
36. Stoicism: The Wide and Sheltering Porch
37. Caesar, Pompey, and the Last of the Ptolemies, 80–30
CHRONOLOGY
GENEALOGICAL TABLES
NOTES
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX