The shift from "Hellenic" to "Hellenistic" in the history of the Mediterranean world represents the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic
Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by
Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance of the city-state to that of larger monarchies. Furthermore, in this period the traditional Greek culture is changed by strong eastern, especially
Persian, influences. The usual periodization practiced by modern historians is to see the death of
Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. as dividing the
Hellenic period from the Hellenistic. Alexander and the Macedonians conquered the eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and invaded India; his successors held on to the territory west of the Tigris for some time and controlled the eastern Mediterranean until the
Roman Republic took control in the 2nd and 1st centuries B.C.
- Ptolemaic dynasty
- [Selucid dynasty]?
- Antigonid dynasty
- Roman Republic