ABSTRACT
Since the first edition of this book was written, what is not altogether happily dubbed the ‘Hellenistic’ period (c. 323-30 BC) has at last been attracting something like its due attention. A few years ago the present writer presented an overview of some of the major results of this renewal of interest (Cartledge 1997; cf. Bilde et al. eds 1994; Bulloch et al. eds 1993; Green 1993a, Green ed. 1993b; Sirinelli 1993; Walbank 1991/2, 1992). Since then a major general study of the period as a whole has been published in English, and fortuitously enough by a distinguished scholar who is a major specialist in Spartan and Lakonian history (Shipley 2000, with invaluable bibliography at 475-536; cf. 1992, 1994, 1997).
