Hellenistic period

It has been suggested that Hellenistic Greece be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since January 2024.

Part of a series on the
History of Greece
Neolithic Greece Pelasgians
Greek Bronze Age Helladic Cycladic Minoan Mycenaean Greece 1750 BC–1050 BC
Ancient Greece Greek Dark Ages 1050 BC–750 BC Archaic Greece 800 BC–480 BC Classical Greece 500 BC–323BC Hellenistic Greece 323 BC–31 BC Roman Greece 146 BC–330
Medieval Greece Byzantine Greece Frankish and Latin states 1204
Early modern Greece Venetian Crete Venetian Ionian Islands Ottoman Greece
Modern Greece Septinsular Republic War of Independence First Hellenic Republic Kingdom of Greece National Schism Second Hellenic Republic 4th of August Regime Axis occupation (Collaborationist regime, Free Greece) Civil War Military Junta Third Hellenic Republic
History by topic Agriculture Art Constitution Economy Judaism Military Names
Greece portal
v t e

In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Mediterranean 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 which had come under significant Greek influence, in particular 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, Hellenistic kingdoms were established throughout south-west Asia (Seleucid Empire, Kingdom of Pergamon), north-east 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 the 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 Western Asian, Northeastern African, and Southwestern Asian.^[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 Rome 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 Hadrian in AD 138,^[8] and the move by Roman 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 scholarship has been that of 31/30 BC.^[11][12][13]