Hellenistic and Roman periods (323 BC – 4th century AD)            2ND    

Main articles: Hellenistic Greece and Roman Greece

See also: Wars of Alexander the Great and Roman Empire

The Antikythera mechanism (c. 100 BC) is believed to be the earliest mechanical analog computer (National Archaeological Museum, Athens).

Coin depicting Cassander, First post-Argead leader of Hellenistic Greece and Founder of Thessaloniki

The Roman-era Rotunda inThessaloniki.

After a period of confusion following Alexander's death, the Antigonid dynasty, descended from one of Alexander's generals, established its control over Macedon by 276 BC, as well as hegemony over most of the Greek city-states.^[27] From about 200 BC the Roman Republic became increasingly involved in Greek affairs and engaged in a series of wars with Macedon.^[28] Macedon's defeat at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC signaled the end of Antigonid power in Greece.^[29] In 146 BC Macedonia was annexed as a province by Rome, and the rest of Greece became a Roman protectorate.^[28][30]

The process was completed in 27 BC when the Roman Emperor Augustus annexed the rest of Greece and constituted it as the senatorial province of Achaea.^[30] Despite their military superiority, the Romans admired and became heavily influenced by the achievements of Greek culture, hence Horace's famous statement: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit ("Greece, although captured, took its wild conqueror captive").^[31] The epics of Homer inspired the Aeneid of Virgil, and authors such asSeneca the younger wrote using Greek styles. Roman heroes such as Scipio Africanus, tended to study philosophy and regarded Greek culture and science as an example to be followed. Similarly, most Roman emperors maintained an admiration for things Greek in nature. The Roman Emperor Nero visited Greece in AD 66, and performed at the Ancient Olympic Games, despite the rules against non-Greek participation. Hadrian was also particularly fond of the Greeks; before he became emperor he served as an eponymous archon of Athens. He also built his Arch of Hadrian there. Greek science, technology and mathematics are generally considered to have reached their peak during the Hellenistic period.^[32]

Greek-speaking communities of the Hellenized East were instrumental in the spread of early Christianity in the 2nd and 3rd centuries,^[33] and Christianity's early leaders and writers (notably St Paul) were generally Greek-speaking,^[34] though none were from Greece. Greece itself had a tendency to cling on to paganism and was not one of the influential centers of early Christianity: in fact, some ancient Greek religious practices remained in vogue until the end of the 4th century,^[35] with some areas such as the southeastern Peloponnese remaining pagan until well into the 10th century AD.                   

                                                                                                                                        TO BE CONT.