The Greek word for Greece is Hellas, and so the Hellenistic era of Greece is the period when Greece dominated the world, spreading its language and culture from Africa and Italy to India, following in the path cut by Alexander the Great. Among the notable figures of this period are Euclid, still renowned for his work on geometry, Archimedes of Syracuse, who studied at the great Hellenistic Egyptian city of Alexandria, and Aristarchus of Samos who espoused a sun-centered universe. This was also the period in which the Venus de Milo was created.

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