Hellenistic

Hellenistic, the term designating a period of Greek literature and learning from the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE) to that of Cleopatra (31 BCE), when the centre of Greek culture had shifted to the settlements of the eastern Mediterranean, notably the great library of Alexandria. This period includes the poetry of Callimachus and Theocritus, the philosophy of Epicurus and the Stoics, and the scientific achievements of Aristarchus, Archimedes, and Euclid (see also Alexandrianism). A Hellenist is a student or admirer of Greek civilization, or, in a special sense promoted by Matthew Arnold in Culture and Anarchy (1869), a devotee of Hellenism (the life of intellect and beauty), which Arnold contrasted with Hebraism (the life of moral obedience) in his sketch of the two contending ideals within Western culture. Phrases or constructions derived from the Greek language (e.g. hoi polloi) are also called Hellenisms.

Hellenistic term used to denote the civilization, language, art, and literature of the Greek world from the late fourth to the late first centuries BC. (For the Greek world see GREECE; for the term ‘classical’ referring to the fifth and fourth centuries BC in Greece, see CLASSIC.) See also HELLENISTIC AGE, below.