| abstract | During the Hellenistic Age—roughly the last three centuries BCE—the
political history of the eastern half of the Ancient World was dominated
by three Macedonian dynasties: the Seleukids, ruling a vast land
empire in the Middle East and Central Asia (312–64 BCE); the Antigonid
kings of Macedonia, who tried to control Greece and the Balkans
until their kingdom was destroyed by the Romans in 168 BCE;
and the Ptolemies (323–30 BCE), who ruled a maritime empire in the
eastern Mediterranean from their capital Alexandria, an empire which
comprised Egypt but was not therefore an Egyptian empire. In the second
century BCE, the Attalid kingdom, based in Pergamon, emerged
as the predominant state in the Aegean region, and around 100 Pontos
on the Black Sea and Armenia temporarily became major Hellenistic
powers. |
