History

Sumptuously illustrated in color and packed with information, The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece is now available for the first time in paperback. Offering fresh interpretations of classical Greek culture, the book devotes as much attention to social, economic and intellectual aspects as to politics and war. Paul Cartledge and his team of contributors ask what it was like for an ordinary person to partake in "the glory that was Greece." They examine the influences of the environment and economy; the experience of workers, soldiers, slaves, peasants and women; and the roles of myth and religion, art and culture, and science and education. This is a cultural history from the bottom up, which lays bare the far-reaching linguistic, literary, artistic and political legacy of ancient Greece, and seeks justification for Shelley's claim that "we are all Greeks." Paul Cartledge is Professor in Greek History in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge and is Fellow and Director of Studies in Classics at Clare College, Cambridge. He is the author of several books about ancient Greece, including Spartan Reflections (California, 2001), Hellenistic and Roman Sparta (Routledge, 2001) and Sparta and Lakonia (Routledge, 2002).

Using primary sources the political, military, social, cultural and religious histories of Ancient Greece are covered. There are relevant time lines, maps, plans and photographs. Particular attention is also given to the society, literature and architecture in its golden age.

This book examines the development of ancient Greek civilization through a path-breaking application of social scientific theories. David B. Small charts the rise of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations and the unique characteristics of the later classical Greeks through the lens of ancient social structure and complexity theory, opening up new ideas and perspectives on these societies. He argues that Minoan and Mycenaean institutions evolved from elaborate feasting, and that the genesis of Greek colonization was born from structural chaos in the eighth century. Small isolates distinctions between Iron Age Crete and the rest of the Greek world, focusing on important differences in social structure. His book differs from others on Ancient Greece, highlighting the perpetuation of classical Greek social structure into the middle years of the Roman Empire, and concluding with a comparison of the social structure of classical Greece to that of the classical Maya civilization.

The end of the Peloponnesian War saw Sparta emerge as the dominant power in the Greek world. Had she used this position wisely her hegemony might have been secure. As it was, she embarked on actions that her former allies, Thebes and Korinth, refused to support. The rise of Thebes as a threatening power to Sparta's control of Greece was largely the result of the brilliant exploits of Epaminondas and Pelopidas whose obvious examination of Spartan tactics allowed them to provide counters to them. While noting the political issues, Godfrey Hutchinson's focus is upon the strategic and tactical elements of warfare in a period almost wholly coinciding with the reign of the brilliant commander, Agesilaos, one of the joint kings of Sparta, who, astonishingly, campaigned successfully into his eighties.

The first people to develop an alphabet with vowels were those of Ancient Greece. They were also the first to have an Olympic competition over 3000 years ago. Readers will get a unique perspective into life in Ancient Greece in this illustrated, graphic novel-style volume. The book takes a peek at the life of a magistrate and his family, while providing details about what life was like in this ancient culture.

The Greek myths have a universal appeal, beyond the time and physical place in which they were created. But many are firmly rooted in specific landscapes: the city of Thebes and mountain range Cithaeron dominate the tale of Oedipus; the city of Mycenae broods over the fates of Agamemnon and Electra; while Knossos boasts the scene of Theseus' slaying of the Minotaur. Drawing on a wide range of classical sources, newly translated by the author, and illustrated with specially commissioned drawings, this book is both a useful read for those visiting the sites and a fascinating imaginative journey for the armchair traveler. The itinerary includes twenty-two locations, from Mount Olympus to Homer's Hades, recounting the myths and history associated with each site and highlighting features that visitors can still see today.Scholarly text, supported by quotes from primary sources and contemporary research, as well as the enticing stories of gods and goddesses, heroes and villains, enrich the reader's literal or simply literary experience of these sites, whose significance still resonates today.

From the epic poems of Homer through the glittering art and architecture of Greece's Golden Age to the influential Roman systems of law and leadership, the classical world established the foundations of our culture as well as many of its most enduring achievements. Now available in a smaller, more convenient format, the astonishingly in-depth and widely praised Oxford History of the Classical World offers the general reader the definitive companion to the Graeco-Roman world. The first volume, Classical Greece and the Hellenistic World, covers the period from the eighth to the first centuries B.C., a period unparalleled in history for its brilliance in literature, philosophy, and the visual arts. It also treats the Hellenization of the Middle East by the monarchies established in the area conquested by Alexander the Great. The second volume, Classical Rome, covers early Rome and Italy, the expansion of the Roman republic, the foundation of the Roman Empire by Augustus, its consolidation in the first two centuries A.D., and the later Empire and its influence on Western civilization. The editors, John Boardman, Jasper Griffen, and Oswyn Murray--all eminent classicists--intersperse chapters on political and social history with sections on literature, philosophy, and the arts, and reinforce the historical framework with maps and historical charts. The two volumes also offer bibliographies and a full index, as well as black and white photographs integrated into the text. The contributors--thirty of the world's leading scholars--present the latest in modern scholarship through masterpieces of wit, brevity, and style. While concentrating on the aspects essential to the understanding of each period, they also focus on those elements of the classical world that remain of lasting importance and interest to readers today. Together, these volumes provide both a provocative and entertaining window into our classical heritage.

Thucydides, Pericles, and the Idea of Athens in the Peloponnesian War is the first comprehensive study of Thucydides presentation of Pericles radical redefinition of the city of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Martha Taylor argues that Thucydides subtly critiques Pericles vision of Athens as a city divorced from the territory of Attica and focused, instead, on the sea and the empire. Thucydides shows that Pericles reconceputalization of the city led the Athenians both to Melos and to Sicily. Toward the end of his work, Thucydides demonstrates that flexible thinking about the city exacerbated the Athenians civil war. Providing a thorough critique and analysis of Thucydides neglected book 8, Taylor shows that Thucydides praises political compromise centered around the traditional city in Attica. In doing so, he implicitly censures both Pericles and the Athenian imperial project itself."

The story of this military powerhouse of ancient Greece, and its nearly two centuries of battlefield triumphs.   During the eighth century BC, Sparta became one of the leading cities of ancient Greece, conquering the southern Peloponnese, and from the mid-sixth century BC until the mid-fourth, Sparta became a military power of recognized importance. For almost two centuries the massed Spartan army remained unbeaten in the field. Spartan officers also commanded with great success armies of mercenaries or coalition allies, as well as fleets of war galleys.   Although it is the stand of the Three Hundred at Thermopylae that has earned Sparta undying fame, it was her victories over both Persian invaders and the armies and navies of Greek rivals that upheld her position of leadership in Greece. Even a steady decline in Spartiate numbers, aggravated by a terrible earthquake in 464 BC, failed to end Spartan dominance. Only when the Thebans learned how to defeat the massed Spartan army in pitched battle was Sparta toppled from her position of primacy.   In this volume, Scott Rusch examines what is known of the history of Sparta, from the settlement of the city to her defeat at Theban hands, focusing upon military campaigns and the strategic circumstances that drove them. Rusch offers fresh perspectives on important questions of Spartan history, and illuminates some of antiquity's most notable campaigns.

The pioneering ideas of John Kenyon Davies, one of the most significant Ancient Historians of the past half century, are celebrated in this collection of essays. A distinguished cast of contributors, who include Alain Bresson, Nick Fisher, Edward Harris, John Prag, Robin Osborne, and Sally Humphreys, focus tightly on the nexus of socio-political and economic problems that have preoccupied Davies since the publication of his defining work Athenian Propertied Families in 1971. The scope of Davies' interest has ranged widely in conceptual, and chronological, as well as geographical terms, and the essays here reflect many of his long-term concerns with the writing of Greek history, its methods and materials.

Classical Athens boasted some of the most original and influential achievements in literature, art, philosophy, medicine and politics. This best-selling book, now issued in a second edition, provides a comprehensive and highly illustrated introduction to its history, society, culture and values aimed at the student and the general reader. The text has been extensively revised from the first edition and the bibliography updated. A wide range of topics is discussed, but the book refuses to divide up the Athenian world neatly into separate compartments, insisting that sense can only be made of the society by making connections between its history, institutions, values and environment. The book can be used either on its own or as an accompaniment to students learning Greek with the Reading Greek course.

This is the first general monograph on ancient Greek dress in English to be published in more than a century. By applying modern dress theory to the ancient evidence, this book reconstructs the social meanings attached to the dressed body in ancient Greece. Whereas many scholars have focused on individual aspects of ancient Greek dress, from the perspectives of literary, visual, and archaeological sources, this volume synthesizes the diverse evidence and offers fresh insights into this essential aspect of ancient society.

The Greek gods are still very much present in modern consciousness. Although Apollo and Dionysos, Artemis and Aphrodite, Zeus and Hermes are household names, it is much less clear what these divinities meant and stood for in ancient Greece. In fact, they have been very much neglected in modern scholarship. This book brings together a team of international scholars with the aim of remedying this situation and generating new approaches to the nature and development of the Greek gods in the period from Homer until Late Antiquity. The book looks at individual gods, but also asks to what extent cult, myth and literary genre determine the nature of a divinity. How do the Greek gods function in a polytheistic pantheon and what is their connection to the heroes? What is the influence of philosophy? What does archaeology tell us about the gods? In what way do the gods in Late Antiquity differ from those in classical Greece? This book presents a synchronic and diachronic view of the gods as they functioned in Greek culture until the triumph of Christianity.