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The Hellenistic Age
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 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).
Drawing on inscriptions, papyri, coinage, poetry, art, and archaeology 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).
176 pages, Hardcover
Published July 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
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December 29, 2016I would like a really thorough comprehensive serious but well-written book on the Hellenistic age. This is not that. This is a brief introduction -- smoothly written and engaging, and a good introduction, but it barely scrapes the surface.
But we need a good introduction, and I'm going to be recommending Thonemann in the absence of the magisterial book I really want. Start here.
The Victorians cut history into periods like a neat cake. It's like the joke about everyone getting up on January 1st 1800 and putting away their wigs and powder and getting out their top hats. There were the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Greeks ended with Alexander and the messy bit in between is the Hellenistic. That would in fact have been fine, because really Alexander's conquests did smear Greek culture out from Turkey to India and across the Middle East and North Africa, and that did change it in fascinating fundamental ways. But the Victorians sneered at the Hellenistic, and this sneering was so solid and pervasive that I absorbed it unthinkingly when studying classics in the 1980s, and it wasn't until I saw Machiavelli throwing in anecdotes and comparisons to Antiochus that I realised there was a holistic way of seeing Antiquity and I hadn't been doing it. So I read pretty much everything Hellenistic available for the Kindle. If this book had been in print then, it would have been a great place to start and go out from.
But we need a good introduction, and I'm going to be recommending Thonemann in the absence of the magisterial book I really want. Start here.
The Victorians cut history into periods like a neat cake. It's like the joke about everyone getting up on January 1st 1800 and putting away their wigs and powder and getting out their top hats. There were the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Greeks ended with Alexander and the messy bit in between is the Hellenistic. That would in fact have been fine, because really Alexander's conquests did smear Greek culture out from Turkey to India and across the Middle East and North Africa, and that did change it in fascinating fundamental ways. But the Victorians sneered at the Hellenistic, and this sneering was so solid and pervasive that I absorbed it unthinkingly when studying classics in the 1980s, and it wasn't until I saw Machiavelli throwing in anecdotes and comparisons to Antiochus that I realised there was a holistic way of seeing Antiquity and I hadn't been doing it. So I read pretty much everything Hellenistic available for the Kindle. If this book had been in print then, it would have been a great place to start and go out from.
February 8, 2024
Despite the way the book presents itself it really isn’t a summary or overview but a series of thematic vignettes. There is a brief sketch in the first chapter of the political situation, but each subsequent chapter takes as its focus a single subject and explores it in isolation. There is no effort made to be comprehensive, which would of course be difficult in a book this size anyway. So after the political summary, we get a discussion of kingship via the career of Demetrius, a look at the Museum and Hellenistic scholarship through Eratosthenes, a look at relations in the easternmost realms by looking at Aï Khanoum and Ashoka’s India, and a look at a Hellenistic city via Priene.
I’m of two minds about this: for me it was often a positive feature since I’ve read general surveys of the period, and it was interesting to read something so short that gave a little more depth to its topics. This book could never go into as much detail as Peter Green’s Alexander to Actium for example, or Graham Shipley’s The Greek World After Alexander. By focusing on specific aspects and narrow topics, the depth of coverage was about the same as it might be in those books. On the specific topics covered (my favorite being Priene and what it tells us of Hellenistic social order and everyday society) the accounts offer clear enough guidance in an engaging and conversational style that makes it easy to follow. So I learned something new anyway, which was nice and somewhat unexpected.
On the other hand, I was hoping (as I think many who pick it up will) for a summary of the most important aspects of the Hellenistic world. I’m doing a class on the Hellenistic Era and it would have an abbreviated summation of the key points I could use. For most seeking an easy introduction, less scary than the massive tomes just mentioned, it may seem like they only learned about isolated aspects of the Hellenistic World and are in the dark about most of what happened. Which is entirely accurate. Thonemann argues consistently that the period is too vast and experiences too varied to generalize excessively about “ordinary” Hellenistic life. By sticking to vignettes he tries to convey that. Learning about life in Priene, he stresses, does not explain much about life in the Seleucid realms or in Greece itself.
So whether you enjoy this book or not will depend on what you want out of it. If you are okay just learning about a narrow and selective collection of themes, then this book is easy to read and very accessible. As the main argument is that the Hellenistic world was vast and varied dramatically this seems to fit with the approach taken. If you are seeking something more comprehensive, you may need to look to those books mentioned above. A book this size will always face compromises – whether the ones chosen here are acceptable or not will be up to the reader.
I’m of two minds about this: for me it was often a positive feature since I’ve read general surveys of the period, and it was interesting to read something so short that gave a little more depth to its topics. This book could never go into as much detail as Peter Green’s Alexander to Actium for example, or Graham Shipley’s The Greek World After Alexander. By focusing on specific aspects and narrow topics, the depth of coverage was about the same as it might be in those books. On the specific topics covered (my favorite being Priene and what it tells us of Hellenistic social order and everyday society) the accounts offer clear enough guidance in an engaging and conversational style that makes it easy to follow. So I learned something new anyway, which was nice and somewhat unexpected.
On the other hand, I was hoping (as I think many who pick it up will) for a summary of the most important aspects of the Hellenistic world. I’m doing a class on the Hellenistic Era and it would have an abbreviated summation of the key points I could use. For most seeking an easy introduction, less scary than the massive tomes just mentioned, it may seem like they only learned about isolated aspects of the Hellenistic World and are in the dark about most of what happened. Which is entirely accurate. Thonemann argues consistently that the period is too vast and experiences too varied to generalize excessively about “ordinary” Hellenistic life. By sticking to vignettes he tries to convey that. Learning about life in Priene, he stresses, does not explain much about life in the Seleucid realms or in Greece itself.
So whether you enjoy this book or not will depend on what you want out of it. If you are okay just learning about a narrow and selective collection of themes, then this book is easy to read and very accessible. As the main argument is that the Hellenistic world was vast and varied dramatically this seems to fit with the approach taken. If you are seeking something more comprehensive, you may need to look to those books mentioned above. A book this size will always face compromises – whether the ones chosen here are acceptable or not will be up to the reader.
September 1, 2018
Succinct and eye-opening introduction to a profoundly important historical era
My knowledge of this period was so poor that I had to have it defined. The Hellenistic Age refers to the entire sphere of Greek influence over a 300 year period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the final capitulation of Cleopatra’s Egypt to Rome in 31 BC. Geographically, in this period the territory controlled by Alexander’s successors and influenced by Greek culture stretched from Egypt to India.
(By contrast, Hellenic history is the story of Greece itself, such as the rivalry between Athens and Sparta.)
The brilliance of this little book by Peter Thonemann, small in format and only 152 pages in length, is that it provides a fascinating introduction to a complex and important period of world history.
The generals who were successors to Alexander battled for power and eventually the empire was carved up into half a dozen separate states ruled by separate dynasties with vast armies and absolute power. These self-crowned kings promoted Greek art and culture while supporting sumptuous palaces and vast bureaucracies by taxing the mostly non-Greek subjects of the lands they controlled.
The motto for the period might have been, “Head East Young Man!” as Greeks and Macedonians migrated across what is present day Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan as far as present day India to help rule the Hellenistic empires succeeding Alexander’s conquests.
The intellectual accomplishments of the period are astounding. A polymath named Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who headed the Library of Alexander in the third century BC, not only assumed the earth was round but also calculated its circumference by measuring the angle of the sun’s rays relative to each of two points a known distance apart. OK, he was off by 15% — but 1700 years later Columbus had to reassure sailors who were afraid of sailing off the edge of a flat earth and he misjudged the distance to India by a much greater margin!
The book contains an illustration of an astronomical instrument from the second century BC recovered from a shipwreck off the Peloponnese. The “Antikythera mechanism”, with 30 precision-tooled metal gears, looks as though it was made by an English clockmaker in the 1600s. Hellenistic development of right angle gearing allowed one of the great inventions, the watermill for grinding grain. Other inventions were applied to pumps for irrigation of the Nile delta.
Readers will be more familiar with Hellenistic art, architecture, literature, and philosophy which formed the foundation of Roman culture and whose achievements are found in art museums and libraries today. Less well known: Greek philosophers could be found teaching in what is now Afghanistan.
Finally, because this was a complex period of dynastic rise and fall and of separate kingdoms spread over a vast area, the author helps us understand the period by focusing on a single ruler, Demetrius, whose power was based upon charisma, personal wealth, military success and clever political generosity. Near starvation, the City of Athens virtually deified him when he provided a gift of grain. “Early Hellenistic kings were expected to look and behave like young Demetrius, handsome and radiant, rich and warlike, fighting on horseback at the head of his troops,” observes Thonemann.
Perhaps one reason this period is so little part of our education is that it is complicated and such surveys of the period as exist are lengthy. Thonemann has an addendum containing suggestions for “further reading” for those whose interest has been whetted by his little volume. For many, however, his well-written survey will in the meantime help plug a gap in our knowledge of this important period of our cultural history.
My knowledge of this period was so poor that I had to have it defined. The Hellenistic Age refers to the entire sphere of Greek influence over a 300 year period between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the final capitulation of Cleopatra’s Egypt to Rome in 31 BC. Geographically, in this period the territory controlled by Alexander’s successors and influenced by Greek culture stretched from Egypt to India.
(By contrast, Hellenic history is the story of Greece itself, such as the rivalry between Athens and Sparta.)
The brilliance of this little book by Peter Thonemann, small in format and only 152 pages in length, is that it provides a fascinating introduction to a complex and important period of world history.
The generals who were successors to Alexander battled for power and eventually the empire was carved up into half a dozen separate states ruled by separate dynasties with vast armies and absolute power. These self-crowned kings promoted Greek art and culture while supporting sumptuous palaces and vast bureaucracies by taxing the mostly non-Greek subjects of the lands they controlled.
The motto for the period might have been, “Head East Young Man!” as Greeks and Macedonians migrated across what is present day Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan as far as present day India to help rule the Hellenistic empires succeeding Alexander’s conquests.
The intellectual accomplishments of the period are astounding. A polymath named Eratosthenes of Cyrene, who headed the Library of Alexander in the third century BC, not only assumed the earth was round but also calculated its circumference by measuring the angle of the sun’s rays relative to each of two points a known distance apart. OK, he was off by 15% — but 1700 years later Columbus had to reassure sailors who were afraid of sailing off the edge of a flat earth and he misjudged the distance to India by a much greater margin!
The book contains an illustration of an astronomical instrument from the second century BC recovered from a shipwreck off the Peloponnese. The “Antikythera mechanism”, with 30 precision-tooled metal gears, looks as though it was made by an English clockmaker in the 1600s. Hellenistic development of right angle gearing allowed one of the great inventions, the watermill for grinding grain. Other inventions were applied to pumps for irrigation of the Nile delta.
Readers will be more familiar with Hellenistic art, architecture, literature, and philosophy which formed the foundation of Roman culture and whose achievements are found in art museums and libraries today. Less well known: Greek philosophers could be found teaching in what is now Afghanistan.
Finally, because this was a complex period of dynastic rise and fall and of separate kingdoms spread over a vast area, the author helps us understand the period by focusing on a single ruler, Demetrius, whose power was based upon charisma, personal wealth, military success and clever political generosity. Near starvation, the City of Athens virtually deified him when he provided a gift of grain. “Early Hellenistic kings were expected to look and behave like young Demetrius, handsome and radiant, rich and warlike, fighting on horseback at the head of his troops,” observes Thonemann.
Perhaps one reason this period is so little part of our education is that it is complicated and such surveys of the period as exist are lengthy. Thonemann has an addendum containing suggestions for “further reading” for those whose interest has been whetted by his little volume. For many, however, his well-written survey will in the meantime help plug a gap in our knowledge of this important period of our cultural history.
January 1, 2018
This book is short and provides a brief overview of the Greek influence from the death of Alexander the Great to the takeover by the Roman Empire.
I was given an advanced reader copy in exchange for a review. This is the kind of book I would use as a reference to know what kind of information I needed to look up further. It's not that the book does not have facts, references and black and white pictures, it's just all on a very basic level and unable to try cover everything. As often is the case of history books about ancient peoples, part of the problem is there only is what information there is. Another is the author assumes you have a basic knowledge of what and whom is being referenced. In other words, some parts were confusing.
I was given an advanced reader copy in exchange for a review. This is the kind of book I would use as a reference to know what kind of information I needed to look up further. It's not that the book does not have facts, references and black and white pictures, it's just all on a very basic level and unable to try cover everything. As often is the case of history books about ancient peoples, part of the problem is there only is what information there is. Another is the author assumes you have a basic knowledge of what and whom is being referenced. In other words, some parts were confusing.
November 18, 2023
I want to separate the merits of the book itself from my appreciation of them. Well book seemed well done. But I thought it was kind of dull. It covers what it asserts might just be the most interesting period in history (if I remember right), so I expected to be more engaged than I was. It's cute, though, and small, and I'm glad I read it: now I have read at least something about the history of the peoples in the lands conquered by Alexander the Great beginning with his death at 32 in 320-something B.C. and ending around 32 B.C. —even if I have already forgotten it.
January 10, 2017
An engaging introduction to a historical era that I am embarrassingly unfamiliar with (beyond what I got in school in various wide-scope 'world' history classes). The author has the easy style that comes with expertise in the subject matter--without the need to show off. I admit to getting a bit bogged down in Chapter 2, which covers several centuries worth of the ebb and flow of dynasties (the who ruled where at what time thing); once clear of that I had a great time.
There is no formal bibliography; however, there are recommended reading suggestions for each of the 6 chapters. I just might read one or two--I became intrigued by Antigonus the One-Eyed and his son Demetrius the Besieger--and I want to know more.
There is no formal bibliography; however, there are recommended reading suggestions for each of the 6 chapters. I just might read one or two--I became intrigued by Antigonus the One-Eyed and his son Demetrius the Besieger--and I want to know more.
August 31, 2019
An pretty detailed yet succinct and easy-going introduction to a fascinating age - a must-read for ancient history
February 29, 2020
Very disappointing. Very short book, learned as much from a text book chapter. Maybe you will feel differently.
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February 23, 2021Read for hellenistic literature and culture course
March 10, 2017
Not quite as in depth as Walbank but a much clearer and more readable introduction.
September 13, 2016
Good sketch.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews