Herman Bengtson's book is, in fact, the history of the Hellenistic world presented in person, covering the entire time of its existence (IV-I centuries BC), from the generals of Alexander the Great, who divided the empire he created among themselves, to the last in the Ptolemaic dynasty of the Egyptian queen Cleopatra VII. One fascinating biography flows into another, and a picture of continuous movement appears before us, causing kaleidoscopic changes in Greece, Asia Minor and the Eastern Mediterranean. But all this happens only until Rome, having finally overcome Carthage and accumulated enough strength, begins to dictate its will to the Hellenistic kings. With the might of his legions, he subordinates one territory after another, and now the empires of the Seleucids and Ptolemies are collapsing and the Roman provinces of Macedonia, Pergamum, Bithynia, Crete and Cyrenaica, Cilicia and Cyprus, Syria and Egypt become Roman...Hermann Bengtson is a German historian and antiquarian, professor at the University of Würzburg, member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.