INTRODUCTION

Philip’s victory over the united forces of Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea (338 BC) and the conquests of his son Alexander (334-323 BC) marked a break in the political history of Greece. A Greek world centred on the Aegean and made up of autonomous city states gave way to the much larger Hellenistic monarchies. This political change resulted in a genuine transformation of mentalities. ‘The city state did indeed still exist… however, it declined to the level of municipal importance; it was not replaced by the framework of the state, which was too vast and illdefined, and, from this time on, the problem…of the human individual took centre stage.’1 More isolated from one another, more dependent on themselves, men and women increasingly devoted their time to private life and ‘care of the self’.2