It is hoped that readers will in particular find much assembled here between the
covers of one volume which they could otherwise locate only in a widely scattered
variety of scholarly publications; and which they will not find in other volumes on this
difficult period of ancient Greek History: chapters on government, the environment,
art, philosophy, rhetoric, religion, society; on far distant regions to which ancient
Greek civilization had spread or by which it was influenced, from the ‘Pillars of
Hercules’ to Persia and India, and from the Crimea to North Africa. The historical
narrative, while in many ways the backbone of any historical investigation, has been
placed at the end of the volume in order to allow attention to be drawn to the many
other aspects – not to negate its essential function.