Alexander to Actium: The Historical Evolution of the Hellenistic Age

Couverture
University of California Press, 1993 - 970 pages
0 Avis
The Hellenistic Age, the three extraordinary centuries from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to Octavian's final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, has offered a rich and variegated field of exploration for historians, philosophers, economists, and literary critics. Yet few scholars have attempted the daunting task of seeing the period whole, of refracting its achievements and reception through the lens of a single critical mind. Alexander to Actium was conceived and written to fill that gap.

In this monumental work, Peter Green--noted scholar, writer, and critic--breaks with the traditional practice of dividing the Hellenistic world into discrete, repetitious studies of Seleucids, Ptolemies, Antigonids, and Attalids. He instead treats these successor kingdoms as a single, evolving, interrelated continuum. The result clarifies the political picture as never before. With the help of over 200 illustrations, Green surveys every significant aspect of Hellenistic cultural development, from mathematics to medicine, from philosophy to religion, from literature to the visual arts.

Green offers a particularly trenchant analysis of what has been seen as the conscious dissemination in the East of Hellenistic culture, and finds it largely a myth fueled by Victorian scholars seeking justification for a no longer morally respectable imperialism. His work leaves us with a final impression of the Hellenistic Age as a world with haunting and disturbing resemblances to our own. This lively, personal survey of a period as colorful as it is complex will fascinate the general reader no less than students and scholars.
 

Avis des internautes - Rédiger un commentaire

Aucun commentaire n'a été trouvé aux emplacements habituels.

Table des matières

part one ALEXANDERS FUNERAL GAMES 323276 B C
3
Ptolemy Philadelphos and Antigonus Gonatas
137
Polybius and the New Era
269
Antiochus III Philip V and the Roman Factor
286
Exploration Assimilation
312
Production Trade Finance
362
Slavery Revolution
382
Ruler Cults Traditional Religion and the Ambivalence
396
Science as Praxis
467
Hellenistic Medicine or The Eye Has Its Limitations
480
An Ideological Resistance
497
Ptolemaic and Scleucid Decadence and the Rise
525
Mithridates Sulla and the Freedom of the Greeks
547
The Mass Market
566
Foreign and Mystery Cults Oracles Astrology Magic
586
Academics Skeptics Peripatetics Cynics
602

The Decline and Fall
414
The Wilderness as Peace 167146
435
The Alternative
453
The Garden of Epicurus
618
Droits d'auteur

Autres éditions - Tout afficher

Expressions et termes fréquents

Fréquemment cités

Page xii - 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.
Page 457 - That, if a straight line falling on two straight lines make the interior angles on the same side less than two right angles, the two straight lines, if produced indefinitely, meet on that side on which are the angles less than the two right angles.
Page 452 - All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again ; according to the ordainer of order and mystical mathematics of the city of heaven.
Page 195 - This condition will be satisfied by poems on a smaller scale than the old epics, and answering in length to the group of tragedies presented at a single sitting.
Page 141 - THE GREAT KING, THE LEGITIMATE KING, THE KING OF THE WORLD, KING OF ASSYRIA, KING OF (ALL) THE FOUR RIMS (OF THE EARTH), KING OF KINGS, PRINCE WITHOUT RIVAL, WHO RULES FROM THE UPPER SEA TO THE LOWER SEA...
Page 202 - Her mind veered: now she thought she'd give him the magic stuff to quell the bulls; now not, but would herself die with him; then the next moment that she'd neither help him nor perish, but rather just stay put, and bear her fate in silence. Finally, indecisive, she sat herself down and said...
Page 482 - My own view is that those who first attributed a sacred character to this malady were like the magicians, purifiers, charlatans and quacks of our own day, men who claim great piety and superior knowledge. Being at a loss, and having no treatment which would help, they concealed and sheltered themselves behind superstition, and called this illness sacred, in order that their utter ignorance might not be manifest.
Page 482 - I am about to discuss the disease called "sacred." It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men's inexperience, and to their wonder at its peculiar character.

Références à ce livre

Tous les résultats Google Recherche de Livres »

À propos de l'auteur (1993)

Peter Green is Dougherty Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. A novelist and translator as well as a scholar, he is the author of many books, including The Laughter of Aphrodite: A Novel about Sappho of Lesbos (California, 1993).

Informations bibliographiques