R. Malcolm Errington - A History of the Hellenistic World: 323 - 30 BC

Blackwell History of the Ancient World

This series provides a new narrative history of the ancient world, from the beginnings of civilization in the ancient Near East and Egypt to the fall of Constantinople. Written by experts in their fi elds, the books in the series offer authoritative and accessible surveys for students and general readers alike.

Published

A History of the Hellenistic World

R. Malcolm Errington

A History of the Ancient Near East, second edition

Marc Van De Mieroop

A History of the Archaic Greek World

Jonathan M. Hall

A History of the Classical Greek World

P. J. Rhodes

A History of the Later Roman Empire, AD 284621

Stephen Mitchell

A History of Byzantium

Timothy E. Gregory

In Preparation

A History of Ancient Egypt

Marc Van De Mieroop

A History of the Persian Empire

Christopher Tuplin

A History of the Roman Republic

John Rich

A History of the Roman Empire

Michael Peachin

2008 by R. Malcolm Errington

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First published 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

1 2008

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Errington, R. M. (Robert Malcolm)

A history of the Hellenistic world / R. Malcolm Errington.

p. cm. (Blackwell history of the ancient world)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-631-23387-9 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-631-23388-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Mediterranean RegionHistoryTo 476. 2. GreeceHistoryMacedonian Hegemony, 323-281 B.C. 3. GreeceHistory281-146 B.C. 4. Hellenism. I. Title.

DE86.E77 2007

938.08-dc22

2007027074

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Preface

The ancient Greeks did not know a Hellenistic world. If they had thought about creating periods for their own history, as modern historians do for their own convenience, I suspect they would have chosen the series of Roman defeats of the Macedonian monarchies beginning in 197 as the epochal events that substantially changed their world, not the role of the monarchies themselves. The Macedonians, for all the structural strangeness of their states, were in the last resort Greeks, their states Greek powers, and for many Greeks they were more beneficent leaders than Athens or Sparta had been in their heyday. I have therefore tried in this book to emphasize continuities with the past and to depict the Hellenistic world of the third and second centuries BC as a natural development of the events of the classical period. I have tried to pay particular attention to regional developments, which were conditioned by differing regional histories in the previous period, and to show that the Hellenistic world was a complex and constantly changing network of sociopolitical relationships at differing societal levels in this respect not fundamentally different from the classical period certainly not a mammoth static colossus that merely required the earthquake of Roman intervention to produce its collapse. I have therefore placed in the foreground the history of public events, of state and communal activities, the affairs of the monarchies, the cities, and the federations of cities, since the interplay of these structural entities provided the fundamental sociopolitical and economic conditions under which the people of the Hellenistic world lived. This book is therefore a history of important public events and developments, not an encyclopedia with a brief run-down on all aspects of cultural life in the 300 years covered by it.

I am grateful to A1 Bertrand for asking me to write a book of this kind and for his tolerance in waiting for its long-delayed completion, as well as to the generous and constructive criticisms of three anonymous readers, whose comments on an earlier version have produced substantial improvements.

R. Malcolm Errington

Berlin, June 2007

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