"The essays here collected were, with the exception of Professor Bury's, delivered as informal lectures during the Lent term of this year at Corpus Christi college, Cambridge ... [They were] a logical development of the employment of the Lewis collection [of objects of ancient art] as a stimulus to graduate work."--Preface (by the curator of the Lewis collection)

Appendix: Contents of the Lewis collection.

Preface.--The Hellenistic age and the history of civilization by Professor J. B. Bury.--Alexandrian literature, by E. A. Barber.--Hellenistic popular philosophy, by Edwyn Bevan.--The social question in the third century, by W. W. Tarn.