E. Badian

Founded by the Macedonian conqueror from whom it took its name, Alexandria became a stronghold of literature and learning, the splendid focus of the Hellenistic world. By E. Badian.

For nearly three hundred years, a Macedonian-Greek dynasty, who proved themselves to be able and adaptable rulers, held sway over the ancient Egyptian kingdom. By E. Badian

When Alexander assumed the despotic state of the Eastern monarchs he had overthrown, he aroused growing resentment among his loyal Macedonian followers. E. Badian carries the story on, to his early death in the year 323 B.C

E. Badian introduces Cicero, the master of Latin rhetoric, who long strove to preserve the traditional Republican oligarchy, but who perished at the orders of a military triumvirate that came to represent “the reality of power” in Rome.

E. Badian studies the political background of Alexander’s plans for world conquest.

E. Badian writes that the efforts of Antiochus Epiphanes to Hellenize his dominions led to a revolt in Judaea under the leadership of the Hasmonaean house, known as the Maccabees, who succeeded in re-asserting Jewish law and the Jewish religion in traditional form.

The monarchs of the East had developed an effective technique of establishing control of the Greek cities by volunteering to “liberate” them. This was a method, writes E. Badian, of which Roman statesmen quickly learned to take advantage.

At the close of the third century B.C., Rome and the Seleucid Empire confronted one another in the neutral ground of disputatious Greece. By E. Badian.