1. General description. a) The political and social changes in the time of Alexander the Great and the diadochi, at the end of the 3rd century B.C., brought about the disintegration of the Greek city-state and thus the loss of the inner force which the Greeks of classical times had found in their bond with their polis and its religion. All possibilities of the intellectual life seemed to have been exhausted by the speculative work of Plato and Aristotle, and by the empirical research of the latter and his school. It was therefore practical questions …