Age of Conquests

The world that Alexander remade in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death in 323 BCE. His successors reorganized Persian lands to create a new empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean as far as present-day Afghanistan, while in Greece and Macedonia a fragile balance of power repeatedly dissolved into war. Then, from the late third century BCE to the end of ...

The world that Alexander remade in his lifetime was transformed once more by his death in 323 BCE. His successors reorganized Persian lands to create a new empire stretching from the eastern Mediterranean as far as present-day Afghanistan, while in Greece and Macedonia a fragile balance of power repeatedly dissolved into war. Then, from the late third century BCE to the end of the first, Rome’s military and diplomatic might successively dismantled these post-Alexandrian political structures, one by one.

During the Hellenistic period (c. 323–30 BCE), small polities struggled to retain the illusion of their identity and independence, in the face of violent antagonism among large states. With time, trade growth resumed and centers of intellectual and artistic achievement sprang up across a vast network, from Italy to Afghanistan and Russia to Ethiopia. But the death of Cleopatra in 30 BCE brought this Hellenistic moment to a close―or so the story goes.

In Angelos Chaniotis’s view, however, the Hellenistic world continued to Hadrian’s death in 138 CE. Not only did Hellenistic social structures survive the coming of Rome, Chaniotis shows, but social, economic, and cultural trends that were set in motion between the deaths of Alexander and Cleopatra intensified during this extended period. From Alexander to Hadrian provides a compelling narrative of the main events that shaped ancient civilization during five crucial centuries. Many of these developments―globalization, the rise of megacities, technological progress, religious diversity, and rational governance―have parallels in our world today.

安傑羅．查尼歐提斯Angelos Chaniotis

普林斯頓大學高等研究院歷史研究學院教授，也是牛津大學萬靈學院（All Souls）的前院士。他曾撰寫多部著作與文章，並擔任《希臘銘文補充調查報告》（Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum）的資深編輯，以及古典研究期刊《謨涅摩敘涅》（Mnemosyne）的編輯。

譯者簡介

黃楷君

政大阿拉伯語文學系、廣播電視學系畢業，曾任出版社編輯，現為文字工作者、譯者、內容力有限公司特約譯者。譯有《手寫時代》、《穆罕默德：宣揚謙卑、寬容與和平的先知》、《福爾摩沙．美麗之島》（合譯）、《時光出土：考古學的故事》、《原始富足：布希曼族的生存之道，以及他們能教給我們什麼？》等書，及合著《吹過島嶼的歌》。