The defining element of the Hellenistic world is most certainly warfare. With his newfound sources of wealth Philip was able to bolster his already large native force with troops of every kind. Siege trains were relatively new in Greek warfare, and had previously only been employed with any effect by Dionysius I of Sicily; afterwards, Syracuse continued to be a centre of the study of siege technology, and this process culminated with the machines of Archimedes in the third century. One of the main characteristics of warfare among the Diadochoi was the fact they were not yet tied to states and were largely fighting over the empire that had been left by Alexander. The economic and administrative forms of Roman imperialism that were now taking place in the provinces could prove more lucrative and less dangerous for the ruling classes than military campaigning.

The relationship existing between the three major Hellenistic empires, the Antigonid in Macedonia and the rest of Greece, the Seleucid in western Asia, the Ptolemaic in Egypt and adjacent territories, was one of uneasy peace interrupted at quite frequent intervals by outbreaks of warfare in certain disputed border regions. In the case of relations between cities and kings, royal commands were phrased as polite requests, and were acceded to by the cities ostensibly out of a sense of proper gratitude to their benefactors. The relationship, both between two cities and between a city and individual foreign citizens, illustrates the degree to which friendly cooperation was considered to be the proper mode of interaction between Greek cities in the Hellenistic era. In embarking on the process of dominating the Hellenistic world, the Romans entered into relations with a culture older and far more sophisticated than their own, not least in regard to diplomacy and international relations.

The Hellenistic world was a world well acquainted with literature and literary composition, and although in the third century it had had a number of distinguished historians of its own, there followed a long period, during which it produced little major historical writing apart from the work of Polybius. Polybius of Megalopolis was one of the thousand leading men of Achaea who were deported to Italy after the battle of Pydna in 168. Naturally historical and narrative works contribute much information regarding social, economic and cultural matters, just as non-historical works of all types and of all periods contain numerous anecdotes and incidental details relating to the political and military affairs of ancient period in Rome. The main categories of non-literary evidence available to the historian of the ancient world are documents written on papyrus, coins, inscriptions, and the enormous range of material remains, from great buildings to tiny domestic articles, which are recorded and studied by archaeologists.

This chapter focuses on the economic activities and interactions of Hellenistic world, and the role of the kings in creating the parameters of society. It describes regional diversities and the transformation of the polis as a focus of social life. The most basic demographic facts are unknown, for no reliable picture can be drawn of population figures in most areas, or of changes in them. Piracy provide a specific example of how the phrase Hellenistic Society is a convenient but misleading label for a set of developing and ad hoc solutions to the very various immediate or longer-term needs and problems which had to be solved within certain boundary conditions by governments and individuals. The royal land policy impinges directly on the greatest cultural phenomenon of the Hellenistic world, the transformation and revitalization of the Greek polis in areas where it was long established, together with its relentless spread into area after area of erstwhile non-Greek lands.

This chapter considers the effect on agriculture of the changed political, social and cultural conditions which followed Alexander's conquest of the East. The Hellenistic world was a world of kings and, had interested themselves in the agricultural development of their kingdoms, so their Hellenistic successors showed similar concerns. Alexander had shown interest both in the draining of Lake Copais in Boeotia and in the irrigation system of Babylon. In Egypt large-scale reclamation projects in the Fayyum, recorded both in the papyri and from archaeological excavation. Most of the information on plants is again from Egypt where an archive from Philadelphia in the Fayyum, the papers of Zenon, manager of the gift-estate of the dioiketes Apollonius, gives a detailed picture of intensive agricultural activity in the mid third century BC. Under Philadelphus attempts were made to increase cereal production by the introduction of a second crop of summer wheat, probably einkorn.

After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his generals divided the empire and for more than thirty years fought one another for a larger portion of Alexander's heritage. One of these warlords was Seleucus, who on Alexander's order had married Apame. The Seleucid dynasty sprang from the Macedonian-Iranian union. This chapter focuses political organization, financial organization and the internal structure of Seleucid Iran. Alexander and the Seleucids preserved the Persian division of the empire into enormous satrapies. As the Seleucid standard was identical with the Attic standard which was followed in the greater part of the Hellenistic world, the trade from the Indian Ocean to the Adriatic Sea was based on the same monetary system. Greek settlers in Iran wanted to remain Greeks. Alexander's colonists demanded 'A Greek education and a Greek way of life' in Iran and after Alexander's death some of them began to return home, since they felt deprived of Greek civilization.