The history of the hellenistic world has long been more popular than has widely been realized. This volume seeks to contribute to that popularity. Here are fourteen new perspectives on the period from a distinguished and international group of scholars. Their varied papers are grouped together around five themes: Structure and System; King and Court; Family and Kinship; Landscape and People; Art and Image. The book is conceived as a sister-volume to CPW's sucessful Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence, edited by Nick Fisher and Hans van Wees (1998).



Daniel Ogden has published several books on diverse aspects of ancient social history, including Polygamy, Prostitutes and Death: The Hellenistic Dynasties (CPW/Duckworth, 1999).



Preface Introduction. From Chaos to Cleopatra - Daniel Ogden STRUCTURE AND SYSTEM 1. The interpretation of hellenistic sovereignties - John Davies 2. Eratosthenes' chlamys-shaped world: a misunderstood metaphor - Klaus Zimmermann KING AND COURT 3. The kings of Macedon and the cult of Zeus in the hellenistic period - Sylvie le Bohec-Bouhet Translated by the editor 4. Hunting and the Macedonian elite: sharing the rivalry of the chase - Elizabeth Carney 5. The politics of distrust: Alexander and his Successors - Waldemar Heckel FAMILY AND KINSHIP 6. O brother where art thou? Tales of kinship and diplomacy - Andrew Erskine 7. The Egyptian elite in the early Ptolemaic period. Some hieroglyphic evidence - Alan B. Lloyd 8. Families in early Ptolemaic Egypt - Dorothy Thompson LANDSCAPE AND PEOPLE 9. The king and his land. Some remarks on the royal area (basilike chora) of hellenistic Asia Minor - Christian Mileta 10. Hidden landscapes: Greek field survey data and hellenistic history - Graham Shipley 11. Steppe and sea: the hellenistic north in the Black Sea region before the first century BC - David Braund ART AND IMAGE 12. Hellenistic mosaics - Ruth Westgate 13. How the Venus de Milo lost her arms - Shelley Hales 14. Celluloid Cleopatras or Did the Greeks ever get to Egypt? - Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones Maps Index