The period ranges from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 until the time when the Romans converted Macedonia into a Roman province in 148 BC and southern Greece became the province of Achea.
During Hellenism, the Greek polis loses its independence, Athens, its commercial and even cultural hegemony. There will no longer be city-states but monarchies, and differences between social classes will be accentuated. The period is also characterized by political instability.
According to the framework of the polis, Aristotle had defined man as a 'political animal' (zoon politikón), but with the disappearance of city-states, man becomes a 'social animal'. The frame of reference will be humanity and nature and will demand self-sufficiency and autonomy that was previously recognized as the privilege of the city.
It is an unstable time when security and happiness are the main desires. Happiness is sought in the unalterable laws of Cosmos and therefore is oriented towards a physics and ethic of naturalistic and cosmopolitan character, because both Platonic and artistic ethics seem valid only in the framework of the polis.
Science and philosophy are subordinated to practical purposes, wisdom now corresponds to the one who knows, but also to the one who knows how to live. Thus, Hellenistic philosophy, divided into logic, physics and ethics, is considered as a unified knowledge unified by the moral purpose.