'The Eyesore of Aigina'
'The Eyesore of Aigina'

Author: Katerina Meidani

Publisher: Classical Press of Wales

Published: 2016-12-31

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1910589683

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Our ideas about ancient Athens are constructed very largely from the writings of Athenian authors. Relatively rare are our sources for how others -- whether Greeks, Asiatics or Romans -- saw Athens from the outside. Yet we can see that not only did many across the Mediterranean world resist the political power of Athens in countless wars over several centuries, but that there existed an intriguing variety of anti-Athenian ideologies. The 12 new studies in this volume, by a distinguished international cast, trace negative thinking about Athens from the late archaic period to Roman times. They challenge the easy modern supposition that Athens was generally seen as the cultural emblem of Greece, and cast light on the thinking of ancient peoples who - nowadays - tend to exist in Athens' shadow.

A Cultural History of Democracy in Antiquity
A Cultural History of Democracy in Antiquity

Author: Paul Cartledge

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-12-15

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1350284548

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This volume surveys democracy broadly as a cultural phenomenon operating in different ways across a very wide range of ancient societies throughout Antiquity. It examines the experiences of those living in democratic communities and considers how ancient practices of democracy differ from our own. The origins of democracy can be traced in a general way to the earliest civilizations, beginning with the early urban societies of the Middle East, and can be seen in cities and communities across the Mediterranean world and Asia. In classical Athens, male citizens enjoyed full participation in the political life of the city and a flourishing democratic culture, as explored in detail in this volume. In other times and places democratic features were absent from the formal structures of regimes, but could still be found in the participatory structures of local social institutions. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: sovereignty; liberty and the rule of law; the “common good”; economic and social democracy; religion and the principles of political obligation; citizenship and gender; ethnicity, race, and nationalism; democratic crises, revolutions, and civil resistance; international relations; and beyond the polis. These ten different approaches to democracy in Antiquity add up to an extensive, synoptic coverage of the subject.

The Achaean Federation in Ancient Greece
The Achaean Federation in Ancient Greece

Author: Emmanouil M. L. Economou

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 3030526976

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This book analyses ancient Greek federalism by focusing on one of the most organised and advanced Greek federal states, the Achaean Federation Sympoliteia. Unlike earlier studies that mainly focused on its political history, this book adopts an interdisciplinary approach, analysing aspects of the economic organization and institutions, and the political economy of the Achaean Federation, and combining these findings with political history. It also discusses the strategic choices made by significant historical figures such as generals Aratos and Philopoemen. The analysis of the Achaean Federation verifies the intertemporal federal axiom, which states that the success and viability of federal experiment is achieved when the benefits of participation for the member-states exceed the costs of conferring national sovereignty on supranational federal authorities. The book further argues that the Achaeans developed a system of sophisticated direct democratic procedures in decision-making on federal matters, as well as significant and highly sophisticated (for the era) economic institutions and federal practices, in order to achieve bonds of trust and legitimacy regarding their innovative federal structure. These practices included, among others, the creation of free market type economic institutions, a monetary union, federal budget, provision of public goods and a common defense and security policy for all the Achaean city-state members. Lastly, the book relates these findings to ideas on how the Achaean Federation would have dealt with a series of current global issues, such as European Union integration and problems such as Euroscepticism, Brexit and immigration.

Athens and Boiotia
Athens and Boiotia

Author: Roy van Wijk

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2024-01-25

Total Pages: 479

ISBN-13: 1009340581

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Were Athenians and Boiotians natural enemies in the Archaic and Classical period? The scholarly consensus is yes. Roy van Wijk, however, re-evaluates this commonly held assumption and shows that, far from perpetually hostile, their relationship was distinctive and complex. Moving between diplomatic normative behaviour, commemorative practice and the lived experience in the borderlands, he offers a close analysis of literary sources, combined with recent archaeological and epigraphic material, to reveal an aspect to neighbourly relations that has hitherto escaped attention. He argues that case studies such as the Mazi plain and Oropos show that territorial disputes were not a mainstay in diplomatic interactions and that commemorative practices in Panhellenic and local sanctuaries do not reflect an innate desire to castigate the neighbour. The book breaks new ground by reconstructing a more positive and polyvalent appreciation of neighbourly relations based on the local lived experience. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Athens and Sparta
Athens and Sparta

Author: Anton Powell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 827

ISBN-13: 113450375X

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Athens and Sparta is an essential handbook to the study of fifth century Greek history and society. It encourages the reader to engage critically with the evidence, presenting a wide selection of ancient source material along with clear analysis and narrative. This fully revised and updated second edition contains a new appendix on the controversy over the truthfulness of Thucydides, and fresh material on the representation of Athenian women in vase painting.

Excursions in Epichoric History
Excursions in Epichoric History

Author: Thomas J. Figueira

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 9780847677924

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In a test case for the study of epichoric Greek history (that not centered on Athens and Sparta), Thomas Figueira deploys a range of disciplinary methodologies to explore the political history of the ancient island city-state of Aigina, down to the Roman conquest of Greece. Excursions in Epichoric History combines previously published articles, revised and updated, and new essays to provide a set of alternative perspectives on the course of Greek foreign policy and institutional history.

The Demades Papyrus (P.Berol. inv. 13045)
The Demades Papyrus (P.Berol. inv. 13045)

Author: Davide Amendola

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2022-10-03

Total Pages: 612

ISBN-13: 3110602377

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Despite the significance of its contents, the so-called Demades papyrus (P.Berol. inv. 13045) has received scarce scholarly attention since the 1923 editio princeps by Karl Kunst. This unique late second-century BCE document of almost 430 lines was found in the Egyptian chora, but it is supposed to have been written in Alexandria, where it probably served as a textbook for the highest level of rhetorical education. Besides shedding new light on its find circumstances and physical aspects, the volume offers a full re-edition and commentary of the two adespota texts contained in it, namely a eulogy of the Lagid monarchy and a historical work consisting of a dialogue between Demades and his prosecutor in the trial of 319 BCE at the court of Pella. The aim of the accompanying introduction is to address the question of the origin, nature and purpose of such fragments and of the collection itself, as well as to show to what extent the papyrus contributes to a better understanding of some of the main historical events of the early Hellenistic period. This book is thus meant to fill a significant gap in Classical scholarship, all the more so as a close investigation of most of the topics dealt with therein has hitherto been lacking.

States of Memory
States of Memory

Author: David C. Yates

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-05-29

Total Pages: 361

ISBN-13: 0190673559

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The Persian War was one of the most significant events in ancient history. It halted Persia's westward expansion, inspired the Golden Age of Greece, and propelled Athens to the heights of power. From the end of the war almost to the end of antiquity, the Greeks and later the Romans recalled the battles and heroes of this war with unabated zeal. The resulting monuments and narratives have long been used to reconstruct the history of the war itself, but they have only recently begun to be used to explore how the conflict was remembered over time. States of Memory focuses on the initial recollection of the war in the classical period down to the Lamian War (480-322 BCE). Drawing together recent work on memory theory and a wide range of ancient evidence, Yates argues that the Greek memory of the war was deeply divided from the outset. Despite the panhellenic scope of the conflict, the Greeks very rarely recalled the war as Greeks. Instead they presented themselves as members of their respective city-states. What emerged was a tangled web of idiosyncratic stories about the Persian War that competed with each other fiercely throughout the classical period. It was not until Philip of Macedonia and Alexander the Great dealt a devastating blow to the very notion of the independent city-state at the battle of Chaeronea that anything like a unified memory of the Persian War came to dominate the tradition.

The Power of Individual and Community in Ancient Athens and Beyond
The Power of Individual and Community in Ancient Athens and Beyond

Author: Zosia Archibald

Publisher: Classical Press of Wales

Published: 2018-12-31

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 1910589926

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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.

Athenian Ostracism and Its Original Purpose
Athenian Ostracism and Its Original Purpose

Author: Marek Węcowski

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2023-03

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 019884820X

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Ostracism is by far the most emblematic institution of ancient Athenian democracy. This volume offers a reassessment of recently found ostraka (or potsherds, on which the names of the 'candidates' for exile were inscribed by citizens) from several Greek cities outside Athens, a thorough reconstruction of the history and of the procedure of ostracism in Athens, and a comprehensive account of the political circumstances of the introduction of the law on ostracism by Cleisthenes in 508/507 BCE. Marek Węcowski's original study focuses not only on the final stage, the day of the vote, but on the entire operation and procedure of ostracisation. Tracing the logic of the political play in Athens between the opening and final stages of ostracism, Węcowski argues that Athenian ostracism was a mechanism devised to impose compromise on the main players in Athenian political life, thereby avoiding the punishment of political elites by exile of leading politicians resulting from unpredictable votes by the citizenry. To support this hypothesis, Węcowski turns to the theory of the 'evolution of cooperation' as formulated by the American mathematician and political scientist Robert Axelrod based on the iterated prisoner's dilemma in game theory, applied as a probabilistic analogy to the dynamics of Athenian political life under democracy.