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Hellenistic period

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The Nike of Samothrace is considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Hellenistic art.
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In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC,[1] which was followed by the ascendancy of the Roman Empire, as signified by the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the Roman conquest of Ptolemaic Egypt the following year, which eliminated the last major Hellenistic kingdom.[2][3] Its name stems from the Ancient Greek word Hellas (Ἑλλάς, Hellás), which was gradually recognized as the name for Greece, from which the early modern 19th century historiographical term Hellenistic was derived.[4] The term "Hellenistic" is to be distinguished from "Hellenic" in that the latter refers to Greece itself, while the former encompasses all the ancient territories of the period that had come under significant Greek influence, particularly the Hellenized Middle East, after the conquests of Alexander the Great.

After the Macedonian conquest of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BC and its disintegration shortly thereafter in the Partition of Babylon and subsequent Wars of the Diadochi, Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout West Asia (Seleucid Empire, Kingdom of Pergamon), Northeast Africa (Ptolemaic Kingdom) and South Asia (Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, Indo-Greek Kingdom).[5][6] This resulted in an influx of Greek colonists and the export of Greek culture and language to these new realms, a breadth spanning as far as modern-day India. These new Greek kingdoms were also influenced by regional indigenous cultures, adopting local practices where deemed beneficial, necessary, or convenient. Hellenistic culture thus represents a fusion of the ancient Greek world with that of the Western Asian, Northeastern African, and Southwestern Asian worlds.[7] The consequence of this mixture gave rise to a common Attic-based Greek dialect, known as Koine Greek, which became the lingua franca throughout the ancient world.

During the Hellenistic period, Greek cultural influence reached its peak in the Mediterranean and beyond. Prosperity and progress in the arts, literature, theatre, architecture, music, mathematics, philosophy, and science characterize the era. The Hellenistic period saw the rise of New Comedy, Alexandrian poetry, translation efforts such as the Septuagint, and the philosophies of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Pyrrhonism. In science, the works of the mathematician Euclid and the polymath Archimedes are exemplary. Sculpture during this period was characterized by intense emotion and dynamic movement, as seen in sculptural works like the Dying Gaul and the Venus de Milo. A form of Hellenistic architecture arose which especially emphasized the building of grand monuments and ornate decorations, as exemplified by structures such as the Pergamon Altar. The religious sphere of Greek religion expanded through syncretic facets to include new gods such as the Greco-Egyptian Serapis, eastern deities such as Attis and Cybele, and a syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism in Bactria and Northwest India.

Scholars and historians are divided as to which event signals the end of the Hellenistic era. There is a wide chronological range of proposed dates that have included the final conquest of the Greek heartlands by the expansionist Roman Republic in 146 BC following the Achaean War, the final defeat of the Ptolemaic Kingdom at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian in AD 138,[8] and the move by the emperor Constantine the Great of the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople in AD 330.[9][10] Though this scope of suggested dates demonstrates a range of academic opinion, a generally accepted date by most of scholarship has been that of 31/30 BC.[11][12][13]

  1. ^ [CHAMBERS Dictionary of WORLD HISTORY]
  2. ^ Art of the Hellenistic Age and the Hellenistic Tradition. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2013. Archived here.
  3. ^ Hellenistic Age. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2013. Retrieved 27 May 2013. Archived here.
  4. ^ "Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age". www.penfield.edu. Retrieved 2017-10-08.[permanent dead link]
  5. ^ Professor Gerhard Rempel, Hellenistic Civilization (Western New England College) Archived 2008-07-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  6. ^ Ulrich Wilcken, Griechische Geschichte im Rahmen der Altertumsgeschichte.
  7. ^ Green 2008, pp. xv–xvii.
  8. ^ Chaniotis, Angelos (2018). Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 4.
  9. ^ "Hellenistic Age". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Retrieved 8 September 2012.
  10. ^ Green, P (2008). Alexander The Great and the Hellenistic Age. Phoenix. p. xiii. ISBN 978-0-7538-2413-9.
  11. ^ Anderson, Terence J.; Twining, William (2015). "Law and archaeology: Modified Wigmorean Analysis". In Chapman, Robert; Wylie, Alison (eds.). Material Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice. Abingdon, UK; New York, NY: Routledge. p. 290. ISBN 978-1-317-57622-8. Retrieved 20 August 2019.
  12. ^ Andrew Erskine, A companion to the Hellenistic world. Blackwell companions to the ancient world. Ancient history. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Lt, 2003.
  13. ^ R. Malcolm Errington: A History of the Hellenistic World. 323-30 B.C. (Oxford 2008)

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