"... The present study concentrates on two periods in the history of the Greek language: Hellenistic (300 - 150 B.C.) and Roman (150 B.C. - 300 A.D.). Its aim is to describe and map the gradual contamination of Classical dialects by the Hellenistic Koine, their ultimate disappearance on the one hand, and the range of intraregional variation in Hellenistic Greece and the process of 'koineization' from the angle of interregional adjustment on the other. It is hoped that the contrastive study of linguistic variation (found in a variety of public and private inscriptions) in a diatopical and diachronic framework will add to our understanding of the mechanism of linguistic innovations in general ..."--Preface.