ABSTRACT
In general and literary history alike, the fourth century Bc stands out clearly as an era with a character all its own. The demise of Athens in 404 left Greece with an unstable system and a succession of short-lived power groups, none of which (e.g. Sparta or Thebes) was able to hold its position for long or prevent other cities (Athens or Corinth) from rising to power in their turn. The beneficiaries of this political vacuum were the Persian Empire and other states on the periphery of the Greek-speaking world, where enterprising monarchs set up new kinds of territorial state, disregarding political notions of the classical polis, but drawing on the rational administrative and military achievements of the Greek city-state.
