ABSTRACT
The period that opens in 322 BC is one of the most complexes in the whole history of the Aegean world. The death of Alexander and the lack of an heir capable of succeeding him and holding his empire together were to result in those conflicts between diadochoi which were to end only forty-two years later with the stabilization of the great Hellenistic monarchies and the division of the empire between the descendants of Ptolemy, Seleukos and Antigonos. In this vast maelstrom, where everything was decided by force of arms, Athens could play but a minimal part. The democracy restored by Demetrios Poliorketes was a mere caricature of the regime which had constituted the greatness of Athens. Athenian society had undergone considerable changes since the beginning of the fourth century, when, despite the effects of the Peloponnesian war, it was still essentially rural, as we see from the later comedies of Aristophanes.
