| Period or Event | Ruler | Time-Frame | Overview |
| Hellenic Period | 480-323 BC | Hellenic aka Classical Greece. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander the Great | |||
| Hellenic → Hellenistic | Since Alexander both reinvented and propagated Greece in unprecedentedly successful and ambitious manners, the end of his reign marks a turning point in Greek history. It was at this point that the new Greece fragmented and thereby became an idea, a culture and a way of life that took the world by storm. Alexander inherited a powerful kingdom and an excellent army: these two tools enabled him to spread Greece throughout most of the world. This reincarnated the concept of being Greek to encompass anybody subscribing to the culture. Although Greece was increasingly unstable due to many decades of warfare, Alexander not only united it but made it a global phenomenon which persists to this day.
Following Alexander’s death, a struggle for power broke out among his generals, which resulted in the break-up of his empire and the establishment of a number of new kingdoms. Macedon fell to Cassander, son of Alexander’s leading general Antipater, who after several years of warfare made himself master of most of Greece. He founded a new Macedonian capital at Thessaloniki and was generally a constructive ruler. Following Alexander’s death, the entirety of Greece had expanded and was a worldpower. After this, though, it fragmented and dispersed. Greece itself waned, although the concept of Greece became evermore fierce. |
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| Caygill, Marjorie. 1999. The British Museum: A-Z Companion to the Collections. London: The British Museum Press. |
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