Daily Life in the Hellenistic Age: From Alexander to Cleopatra by James Allan Evans (PDF)

Description

The Hellenistic world, ushered into existence in 323 b.c.e. through the conquests of Alexander the Great, stretched from India in the east to Sicily in the west. Within this vast region, society was multicultural, but the dominant culture was that of the Greeks (who called themselves Hellenes). The Hellenistic Age carried on the legacy of classical Greece in the visual arts, literature, science, technology, religion, and urban daily life. In Daily Life in the Hellenistic Age, James Allan Evans guides the reader through the vast conquered lands of the shortlived Hellenistic empire and its successor kingdoms. In lively narrative chapters, Evans explores such topics as marriage customs; women in Hellenistic societies; festivals, sports, and spectacles; symposia (drinking parties); the agricultural and commercial components of the polis (city-state); food and drink; education; science and technology; and the legacy of the Hellenistic age in the modern world. This revised and updated paperback edition includes two maps.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: About the Author James Allan Evans, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classical, Near Eastern, and Religious Studies, University of British Columbia, is the author or editor of numerous articles and books, including The Power Game in Byzantium: Antonina andthe Empress Theodora and Arts and Humanities through the Eras: Ancient Greece and Rome, 1200 b.c.e.–476 c.e.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I read this book cover to cover in one weekend, it’s that good. Readers should note that it’s not a thorough explanation of day-to-day life of a single city or class of people, but a broad overview of daily life for all people in the 300+ years of Hellenistic history, something that can’t be done in minute detail in a book of this size. Nevertheless, it has plenty of fun tidbits of lesser-known information and a leaves you with a better understanding of the stages of the Hellenistic Age as a whole (even for someone like me, who’s been a student of it for 20+ years). Those looking for specifics should continue to go to academic journals, but anyone who wants a good read with well-organized information to better understand the age: this book is highly recommended. My two (tiny) complaints are that page 138 of the softcover edition seems to be missing a line of text in the second paragraph, and the author still uses “the Ukraine” to refer to Ukraine, which is an outdated convention.

⭐Unlike the previous reviewer, I would assess this to be excellent at what it proposes to be, an overview of daily life in the Hellenistic Age. It provides just that, an excellent overview. If you want an 800 page tome, then look for an Oxford Handbook. This does not pretend to be or aspire to be an exhaustive study.

⭐The author has inluded a lot of textual material that is well organized. The section on housing, for example, is 8 pages of solid prose with no line art or floor plans. The index is almost solely people and places with no clues as to where particular subjects may be found. The section on urban and country living does contain material on occupations but no mention at all of money, coinage, incomes, etc. It is almost impossible to get a feel for what most people daily concerns would have been.

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