G. J. Oliver provides a new assessment of the economic history of Athens in the Hellenistic era, when the city was no longer an imperial power and struggled to maintain its territory, both at home in Attica and overseas in the cleruchies. Oliver assesses how political and military change affected the fragile economies of the Athenian polis. Warfare in Attica required the Athenians to protect their domestic grain supply and seek out those beyond the city to provide commodities from abroad. Oliver stresses the economic importance of benefaction and civic honours, and shows how much the citizens of Athens contributed to the defence and finances of their city.
The year 2022 marks 2,500 years since Athens, the birthplace of democracy, fought off the mighty Persian Empire. This is the story of the three epic battles—Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis—that saved democracy, forever altering the history of Europe and the West. In 2022 it will be 2,500 years since the final defeat of the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, the Persian king. This astonishing clash between East and West still has resonances in modern history—and has left us with tales of heroic resistance in the face of seemingly hopeless odds. The Harvest of War makes use of recent archaeological and geological discoveries in this thrilling and timely retelling of the story, originally told by Herodotus, the Father of History. In 499 BC, when the rich, sophisticated Greek communities of Ionia on the western coast of modern Turkey rebel from their Persian overlord Darius I, Athens sends ships to help them. Darius crushes the Greeks in a huge sea battle near Miletus and then invades Greece. Standing alone against the powerful Persian army, the soldiers of Athens' newly democratic state—a system which they have invented—unexpectedly repel Darius's forces on the planes of Marathon. After their victory, the Athenians strike a rich vein of silver in their state-owned mining district, and decide to spend the windfall on building a fleet of state-of-the-art warships. Persia wants revenge. The next Persian king, Xerxes, assembles a vast multinational force, constructs a bridge of boats across the Hellespont, digs a canal through the Mount Athos peninsula, and bears down on Greece. Trusting in their "wooden walls," the Athenians station their ships at Artemisium, where they and the weather prevent the Persians landing forces in the rear of the land forces under the Spartan King Leonidas at the nearby pass of Thermopylae. Xerxes's assault is a disastrous failure, until a traitor shows him a mountain track that leads behind the Greeks. Leonidas dismisses the Greek troops, but remains in the pass with his 300 Spartan warriors where they are overwhelmed in an heroic last stand. Athens is sacked by the Persians. Democracy is hanging by a thread. But the Athenians convince the Greek allies to fight on in the narrow waters by the island of Salamis. Despite the heroism of the Persian female commander Artemisia, the Persian fleet is destroyed. The Harvest of War concludes by exploring the ideas that the decisive battles of Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis mark the beginnings of Western civilization itself—and that Greece became the bulwark of the West—representing the values of peace, freedom, and democracy in a region historically ravaged by instability and war.
An engrossing tale of a man who loses his memory due to being shelled in the Great War, eventually finds happiness with a young actress, and then is knocked down on a Liverpool street. He regains consciousness and knows he's a member of a prominent and wealthy family. He begins to reconstruct his life again, knowing all the while that something.and someone.is missing
The long honorary decree for Kallias of Sphettos, found in the excavations of the Athenian Agora in 1971, is here published for the first time, illustrated with general and detailed photographs, with a translation and line-by-line commentary. The author has further explored the wealth of information to be gathered from the inscription, which adds greatly to our understanding of Athenian history between the battle of Ipsos in 301 and the battle of Kouroupedion in 286 B.C., the ensuing peace with Demetrios, and the acquisition of foreign aid for the nationalist regime. These discussions are followed by an appendix giving the Greek texts of the literary and epigraphic testimonia, and a chronological table, which provides a historical summary at a glance for this troubled period.
Demetrius the Besieger offers the first historical and historiographical biography of Demetrius Poliorcetes (336-282 BC) to be published in English. Also known as 'The Besieger of Cities', Demetrius is an outstanding, yet enigmatic figure who presided over the disintegration of Alexander the Great's Empire after 323 BC, and the most fascinating and high profile of the Diadochoi, or Successors to Alexander the Great. His campaigns, initiatives, and personal life bestride the opening forty years of the so-called 'Hellenistic' age and are pivotal in its formation as he became the first of the Hellenistic Kings. As his name suggests, Demetrius was prodigious in his military adventures, and profligate in his private life, rendering him an icon for artists, writers, politicians, and soldiers for many centuries. He was especially famous for his spectacular siege operations against enemy cities, and gained his unique nickname from his innovation in building gigantic siege engines, which became legendary in the ancient world. However, much of Demetrius' life was enigmatic, oscillating wildly between successful and catastrophic ventures, and his intrinsic qualities remain debatable to this day. What is indisputable is that he presided over a formative period in history marked by great flux and enormous change. His endeavours resulted in the fusion of Asiatic and Greek cultures, producing the hybrid Hellenistic kingdoms which dominated the ancient world for some 200 years until the rise of the Roman Empire. The period is of crucial importance in ancient Greek history, and marks the point from which Hellenistic influence became fundamental in the development of modern Western culture.
