Key Facts
- Duration
- 323 BC – 31 BC
- Start event
- Death of Alexander the Great, 323 BC
- End event
- Battle of Actium, 31 BC
- Major cultural centers
- Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamon, Rhodes
- Wars of the Diadochi
- Lasted until 275 BC
- Roman victory at Corinth
- 146 BC, destruction of Corinth
Historical Context
3-Phase Analysis01 / Preceding Context
Classical Greece, dominated by city-states such as Athens and Sparta, gave way to a new era after Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great unified and then vastly expanded the Greek world. Alexander's campaigns between 334 and 323 BC stretched from Egypt to northwestern India, creating an enormous empire that fused Greek culture with those of Persia, Egypt, and the Near East.
02 / Defining Features of the Period
Following Alexander's death, his generals, the Diadochi, fought prolonged wars to divide his empire, eventually establishing successor kingdoms including the Ptolemaic, Seleucid, and Antigonid dynasties. Greek culture and the Koine dialect spread across the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Major cities like Alexandria and Antioch became centers of scholarship, commerce, and urban life, while Greece proper diminished in political importance.
03 / The Subsequent Transition
Rome's military power gradually absorbed the Hellenistic world. Defeats of Macedonia at Cynoscephalae and Pydna, and the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC, brought Greece under Roman control. The last Hellenistic kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt, fell after Octavian defeated Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, inaugurating the period of Roman Greece and the broader Roman imperial order.
Defining Features
Active Contemporaries
Entities maintaining operational status during this period.
EmpiresQty:6
- 4000 BCE–29 BCE
- 2499 BCE–63 BCE
- 2336 BCE–1404 CE
- 2332 BCE–107 BCE
- 2179 BCE–350 CE
- 2000 BCE–315 BCE
ConflictsQty:6
- 405 BCE – present
- 331 BCE – present
- 320 BCE–319 BCE
- 310 BCE – present
- 310 BCE–308 BCE
- 309 BCE – present