The Hellenistic Age, the three extraordinary centuries from the death of Alexander in 323 B. C. to Octavian's final defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium, has offered a rich and variegated field of exploration for historians, philosophers, economists, and literary critics. Yet few scholars have attempted the daunting task of seeing the period whole, of refracting its achievements and reception through the lens of a single critical mind. Alexander to Actium was conceived and written to fill that gap.

In this monumental work, Peter Green—noted scholar, writer, and critic—breaks with the traditional practice of dividing the Hellenistic world into discrete, repetitious studies of Seleucids, Ptolemies, Antigonids, and Attalids. He instead treats these successor kingdoms as a single, evolving, interrelated continuum. The result clarifies the political picture as never before. With the help of over 200 illustrations, Green surveys every significant aspect of Hellenistic cultural development, from mathematics to medicine, from philosophy to religion, from literature to the visual arts.

Green offers a particularly trenchant analysis of what has been seen as the conscious dissemination in the East of Hellenistic culture, and finds it largely a myth fueled by Victorian scholars seeking justification for a no longer morally respectable imperialism. His work leaves us with a final impression of the Hellenistic Age as a world with haunting and disturbing resemblances to our own. This lively, personal survey of a period as colorful as it is complex will fascinate the general reader no less than students and scholars.

Peter Green is Dougherty Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin. A novelist and translator as well as a scholar, he is the author of many books, including The Laughter of Aphrodite: A Novel about Sappho of Lesbos (California, 1993).

"Green's magisterial narrative history covers Hellenistic society as it has never been covered before, boldly combining political and military events with cultural and intellectual developments."—Robert Taylor, The Boston Globe

"Green's style is lively, he draws striking parallels with recent history and recent persons; he paces his narrative in a way that makes it very readable, while deftly keeping the reader aware of the whole of his large-scale patterning of these complex and ramified chains of events. He punctuates narrative with more general discussion, and he picks out telling details that illuminate and remain in the memory. His story line is crisp, and his interpretation is eminently clear and vividly conveyed."—Jasper Griffin, New York Review of Books

"This is a work long awaited and badly needed. The professional scholar will learn much from it; the teacher will find it an invaluable aid in awakening the interest of students in this neglected period; the common reader will be informed and fascinated by this magnificent account of a time so much more like our own than the better known periods that preceded and succeeded it."—Donald Kagan, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"A welcome addition to the study of Hellenistic history, which has been notoriously overlooked. Green's text is supplied with the most complete indexing, chronologies, and genealogies that I have ever encountered in a history survey."—M. Johnston, The Classical Outlook