ABSTRACT
Periodization, as we have had on more than one occasion to observe, is a bane as well as a boon for the historian. The ‘Hellenistic’ epoch of Greek history is both dubiously named and chronologically imprecise, its fluctuating limits depending on its contested definitions. Yet some individuating term is required to pick out the era between the reign of Alexander the Great of Macedon (336-323 BC) and the engorging by Rome of a Greek-speaking world that had been hugely expanded by and following Alexander’s conquests. ‘Hellenistic’ will have to do, subject to two major caveats. First, the Greek word hellēnizō after which J.G. Droysen coined the modern label in the last century did not carry in its own time the universal cultural significance that Droysen wished to impute to it. Secondly, Droysen’s conception of the era as essentially characterized by a fusion of Greek and oriental civilizations is viciously anachronistic-Plutarch poured into a Hegelian mould, in Claire Préaux’s apt phrase.1
