Customer Reviews

The Hellenistic Age: A Short History (Modern Library Chronicles)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As the title suggests ("A Short History") this treatment of the period sacrifices depth for brevity. Not being familiar with the subject I enjoyed this well-written introduction. Not only is the book a good first overview, it has plenty of notes geared towards further study and a short guide to further reading indicating what the author considers current best texts--as well as the usual bibliography.

Peter Green has crafted a very readable and well-rounded history of the Hellenistic Age in the eastern Mediterranean, from the death of Alexander to Rome's conquest of the squabbling Greek kingdoms. It is nice to see such an accessible, cheap volume put out by a major historian in the field. The reason that I don't give it 5 stars is because at times it feels extremely rushed. A lot of detail is sacrificed, and trying to follow some events is mind boggling.

While the book itself is good, the real reason to own this volume is for the appendices. There are some excellent tables depicting the very convoluted family trees of the various Hellenistic dynasties. The Ptolemy tree is an especially welcome addition. The maps are nothing terribly special, but there are a number of them and they're crisp, clear and easy to read. (The Aegean one is a little squished, but it is well-labeled.) The chronological table is also wonderful for making sense of this fast-paced era.

This book is more than worth its price tag for an introduction into the era. More advanced students will want to look at Dr. Green's 'Alexander to Actium', but this little book has a lot of good stuff inside.

This book is definitely a "Short History" and not an introduction to the Hellenistic Age, because it takes a lot of prior knowledge for granted. A Western Civilization college instructor, I was looking up terms like "Argeads" by the second page. Moreover, if you thought that last sentence was awkwardly constructed check out the 3rd sentence of the first chapter: "The bridegroom, to begin with, was the bride's uncle - in fact, the brother of Philip's powerful but repudiated wife, Olympias, till recently an exile in Epirus, plotting revengeful mischief, but now back in Aegea as mother of the bride." If you have time to slog through nonsense like that then God bless you - buy the book. If, however, you value readability (which few classical scholars are able to provide, because they spend time reading those incredibly long complex sentences in Latin and Greek) keep looking. One last note, this is most definitely "history," which is the interpretation of past events; there will always be some sort of bias.

It's very hard to write gripping history, but Green here succeeds. He gives an appropriate median of history and soap opera in retelling the story of the post-Alexandrian dynasties. Green is frankly an excellent writer. His hundred-page introduction to the Hellenistic age is a pleasure to read. The work is also supplemented with a lengthy chronology, maps and a few genealogies. This is great classical writing, have no doubt.

This excellent - and occasionally harrowing - overview of the Hellenistic age is very much worth reading. It's much less long than his earlier account (Alexander to Actium, published some 20 years earlier). For that reason, it is better for neophytes and beginners, especially those who want a very good overview of a crucial and interesting period in the history of an area stretching from Greece to Pakistan. But it is also a tasty morsel for experienced Hellenists, who certainly know Green's work from his other brilliant writings. As for the allegation that Green hasn't been to the places he discusses, that's absurd. Green might be a professor, but he's notorious for leaving the ivory tower and going and spending time in the places whose history he charts. I said earlier that the account is harrowing. It is because of the horror show of suffering, violence, war, uncertainty and instability that characterizes the entire age -- especially for ordinary people -- which still manages to be one of the more pleasant ever to hit that particular fraught troubled region. Why were things so bad? It is as though one petty despot, psycho, and/or satrap after another tries his hand at domination in each and every one of the little city states (especially when his master isn't paying attention) in the area. To sum up, give Green a chance. Read either this book or one of his many others, or perhaps a translation. He's a marvelous guide to the past.

The Hellenistic Age encompasses the three centuries immediately following the death of Alexander and ends with the Pax Romana established by Octavian following his defeat of Cleopatra and Antony. In 19th century Germany, Johann Gustav Droysen used the term "Hellenistic" to describe this time, using it in its biblical sense meaning "imitating or acquiring Greek language." To Drosyen, it was divine intervention that facilitated the dissemination of Christianity. Those living through three hundred years of bloody and shifting dynasties would surely have disagreed with its providence.

Greek culture is viewed as superior to Roman culture, and 5th century Periclean age culture is the best of all. Not only is the era immediately following this viewed in modernity as a period of decline, but it was viewed as such at the time, as well. Whether or not Alexander had attempted to unite the world but instead left it in disarray, Green argues, the factors that would set the Hellenistic world in motion were already in place, including the decline of Athens in 404. The intelligentsia of the age looked to the past for innovation. Among its functions, the Library of Alexandria served primarily to recover and edit what this age had produced. The world shifted from public to private, and as the number of "idiots" grew, people lost interest in political and civil life and turned to books. Formalized pederasty was displaced as familial, rather than civic, masculine bonding became the new norm.

Scientific advancement came to a standstill, serving only to further pragmatic aims of its rulers in building improved artillery. During this time, scientists were familiar with steam power and could make effective pistons, but they never combined the two to make a steam engine. Green argues that this is because slave revolt came to be regarded as an existential threat to any established hierarchy. In order to keep idle hands busy, physical labor was employed at every level, giving slaves a monopoly over the creation of energy. All energy was to be muscle power, and anything that stopped this, such as a steam engine, would result in a revolution. Nothing but automation would do away with slavery, and Green argues that the Industrial Revolution proves him right. The history of the common people did not change from Periclean Greece to Hellenistic Greece and would not until the Industrial Revolution freed them from being a source of energy.

Unfortunately, much of the book is filled with what Green calls a "dynastic soap opera." He discusses the Successors and the dynasties in such minute detail but in such limited space that it is absolutely coma-inducing. Green provides moments of discovery and analysis, but if you're looking for an in depth treatment of this era, look elsewhere.

Having just read and struggled with Peter Green's much larger 1992 book on the same subject, "Alexander to Actium", I decided to read this book. I have to report that the most negative criticism about his larger book, a bothersome use of exotic foreign language phrases and rambling discussions, was much improved. His larger book focused on 25 or so topics chronologically, but this book sticks more closely to a chronologic storyline. Keep in mind that Green is considered one of the experts on the subject matter, so even though a lot of information is covered, it is high quality. The Hellenistic Era is a hot topic of research at the moment. It's a tough era to study, but clearly much important history happened during it, it ties the Greek and Roman eras together, and that is why I believe historians are giving the era another look. If you have a favorite book on the era, let me know and why. Thanks.

I thought this was supposed to be a survey for those of us not expert on the topic, so why is he dragging in 19th-Century Greek poets, and using terms nonexperts won't know? And what's with the love of foreign terms? De haut en bas, indeed! (Yes, I know what it means. But there are some terms I don't know and couldn't find, including untranslated Greek. I had Greek decades ago in college. Most readers probably never had it.) Substantively, I'd have liked more on the Seleucids. He refers to the Parthians eventually taking over while the Seleucids were having their dynastic quarrels, but doesn't go any farther on that topic. He seems much more interested in the parts taken over by Rome: Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt. Also, the grammar is awful. Doesn't anyone copy edit anymore?

Hmmm... a former professor who cannot spell the word "engrossed." What did you profess, exactly? (see review above).

Peter Green is one of the world's most eminent scholars of ancient Hellas. His *Xerxes at Salamis* is a classic of historical writing and an engrossing read. While this book is not his best effort, he was hamstrung by the Modern Library's page requirements (not to mention assumptions about the readership of such a book).

When I ordered this book I thought that I was going to purchase a History book. I was interested to figure out what happened during an era that influenced profoundly the western civilization and the spread of Christianity. Instead I found out that this book is grossly uninformative. Green does not really write History, he writes a novel about the Hellenistic age. Essentially it is a modern type of psycho-mythography involving a few central characters and hundreds of minor characters with Greek names. The book is loaded with Mr. Green's speculations, fantasies and psychological interpretations! Mr. Green is a very good writer and I am sure that he can pass this novel as history to innocent readers. I am a Professor as Mr Green used to be but I am a basic scientist and I always try to avoid passing to my readers my speculations as facts. I guess that certain modern historians lack this ethic.