After the death of Alexander of Macedonia, popularly known as Alexander the Great,

in 323 BCE, and before the Roman Empire

took hold of the area just after the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE. The Mediterranean

region, from the modern-day Balkans over to modern-day Turkey, and to some degree, stretching

even as far as Western Europe and the

Indian subcontinent, the cultures in these regions were all heavily influenced by Greek

culture. This was in part a consequence of colonization throughout this region, with Greek

settlements and kingdoms springing up via migration and conquest throughout Asia and Africa.

But it was also a consequence of trade and the export of Greek culture, which, for a variety

of reasons, was relatively well developed compared to the many other distinct cultures of

the era in that area. And thus, when a new Greek song came to your town or a new Greek drama was

performed, that became the cat's meow, superseding, a lot of the locally grown work in terms of

cultural influence. The Greek language became the common language of trade and culture. Greek

clothing was adopted and

rift upon by people throughout this region, and Hellenistic aesthetics became dominant,

and many places nudging aside the local understanding of what looks good and replacing it

with the Hellenistic ideal, Hellenistic referring to the Greek cultural vibe of this moment in time, which interestingly was actually defined in part by its moving away from ideal shapes and figures.

Classical Greek statues and paintings focused on godlike caricatures ripped straight out of mythology, stories of ancient Athens and Sparta, gods and

demigods, that sort of thing. These characters basically strutted around doing heroic things,

or, at times, rested calmly, luxuriously, enjoying an idealized version of the good life,

appearing fairly stoic as a caricaturized world and the

life that it contained went about its business around them. Hellenic Greek art, in contrast,

...