Professor Pritchett, questioning the patron-izing and dismissive tone which a group of scholars has reserved for Herodotos, devotes his attention to four works of the past decade which have to do with Herodotos' source-citations, his epigraphical listings, his record for Scythia, and the treatment of the topography of Thermopylai by a geomorphological survey team, as well as some miscellaneous writings. His procedure is to take up passage by passage the examples where Herodotos has been charged with falsification in an effort to show that there exists in the literature evidence which mutes the allegations. He concludes with sections on a general appraisal of Herodotos by specialists and a discussion of Herodotos' audience. The monograph is of general interest to students of Greek historiography. There is an index of the Herodotean passages which are scrutinized.
Professor Pritchett, questioning the patron-izing and dismissive tone which a group of scholars has reserved for Herodotos, devotes his attention to four works of the past decade which have to do with Herodotos' source-citations, his epigraphical listings, his record for Scythia, and the treatment of the topography of Thermopylai by a geomorphological survey team, as well as some miscellaneous writings. His procedure is to take up passage by passage the examples where Herodotos has been charged with falsification in an effort to show that there exists in the literature evidence which mutes the allegations. He concludes with sections on a general appraisal of Herodotos by specialists and a discussion of Herodotos' audience. The monograph is of general interest to students of Greek historiography. There is an index of the Herodotean passages which are scrutinized.
The two great Persian invasions of Greece, in 490 and 480-79 B.C., both repulsed by the Greeks, provide our best opportunity for understanding the interplay of religion and history in ancient Greece. Using the Histories of Herodotus as well as other historical and archaeological sources, Jon Mikalson shows how the Greeks practiced their religion at this pivotal moment in their history. In the period of the invasions and the years immediately after, the Greeks--internationally, state by state, and sometimes individually--turned to their deities, using religious practices to influence, understand, and commemorate events that were threatening their very existence. Greeks prayed and sacrificed; made and fulfilled vows to the gods; consulted oracles; interpreted omens and dreams; created cults, sanctuaries, and festivals; and offered dozens of dedications to their gods and heroes--all in relation to known historical events. By portraying the human situations and historical circumstances in which Greeks practiced their religion, Mikalson advances our knowledge of the role of religion in fifth-century Greece and reveals a religious dimension of the Persian Wars that has been previously overlooked.
In a series of literary studies, Priestley explores some of the earliest ancient responses to Herodotus' Histories through the extant written record of the early and middle Hellenistic period. Responses to the Histories were rich and varied, and the range of Hellenistic writers responding in different ways to Herodotus' work is in part a reflection of the Histories'own broad scope. The Histories remained relevant in this later age and continued to speak meaningfully to a broad range of readers long after Herodotus' death. Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture explores a variety of discourses where Herodotus occupies an important place in the intellectual background, and, in particular, it draws attention to writers not usually categorized as historians in order to broaden our perspectives on Herodotus' cultural importance. Through discussions of contemporary discourse relating to, for instance, the Persian Wars, geography, the wondrous, aesthetics, literary style, and biography, it nuances our understanding of how ancient readers reacted to and appropriated the Histories to serve their own distinct rhetorical goals. The volume also contributes to scholarship that reappraises the very term 'Hellenistic', drawing attention to both diachronic continuities and synchronic diversity in ancient Greek literature.
The Malice of Herodotus can perhaps best be described as the world's earliest known book review. But it is much more than that, for in the course of 'correcting' with considerable vituperation what he saw as Herodotus' anti-Greek bias, Plutarch tells us much about his own attitude to writing history. So that together with Lucian's How to Write History (see Lucian A Selection in this series) it forms a basic text for the study of Greek historiography. It is also perhaps the most revealing example of Plutarch's prose style with its rhetorical variety and energy and odd mixture of good and bad argument. But in citing lost works, Plutarch has preserved valuable fragments which don't exist elsewhere and need to be assessed by all students of the Persian Wars. Greek text with translion, introduction and commentary.
The Professor Emeritus of Greek at Berkeley offers six original papers, the titles of which are indicative of the contents: - The Alleged Battle of Oinoa. - The General's Exhortations in Greek Warfare. - The General on the Battlefield. - Thucydides and Pylos. - The Roads of Akarnania. - Circumventions of the Thermopylai Pass. These studies are a by-product of Pritchett's studies on Greek military practices and Greek topography, and will be of interest to students of Greek historiography, since all involve problems of text and the veracity of the historians. The three topographical chapters, which are based on extensive autopsy and include some new discoveries, are accompanied with photographs and sketchmaps.
How did the city-state of Athens defeat the invaders from Persia, the first world empire, on the plain of Marathon in 490 BCE? Clever scholars skeptical of our earliest surviving source, Herodotus, have produced one ingenious theory after another. In this stimulating new book, bound to provoke controversy, Peter Krentz argues that Herodotus was right after all. Beginning his analysis with the Athenians’ first formal contact with the Persians in 507 BCE, Krentz weaves together ancient evidence with travelers’ descriptions, archaeological discoveries, geological surveys, and the experiences of modern reenactors and soldiers to tell his story. Krentz argues that before Marathon the Athenian army fought in a much less organized way than the standard view of the hoplite phalanx suggests: as an irregularly armed mob rather than a disciplined formation of identically equipped infantry. At Marathon the Athenians equipped all their fighters, including archers and horsemen, as hoplites for the first time. Because their equipment weighed only half as much as is usually thought, the Athenians and their Plataean allies could charge almost a mile at a run, as Herodotus says they did. Krentz improves on this account in Herodotus by showing why the Athenians wanted to do such a risky thing.
The essays collected in this book present the first comprehensive appreciation of The Fall of the Roman Empire from historical, historiographical, and cinematic perspectives. The book also provides the principal classical sources on the period. It is a companion to Gladiator: Film and History (Blackwell, 2004) and Spartacus: Film and History (Blackwell, 2007) and completes a triad of scholarly studies on Hollywood’s greatest films about Roman history. A critical re-evaluation of the 1964 epic film The Fall of the Roman Empire, directed by Anthony Mann, from historical, film-historical, and contemporary points of view Presents a collection of scholarly essays and classical sources on the period of Roman history that ancient and modern historians have considered to be the turning point toward the eventual fall of Rome Contains a short essay by director Anthony Mann Includes a map of the Roman Empire and film stills, as well as translations of the principal ancient sources, an extensive bibliography, and a chronology of events
Scholars have long been divided on the question of whether the Amazons of Greek legend actually existed. Notably, Soviet archaeologists' discoveries of the bodies of women warriors in the 1980s appeared to directly contradict western classicists' denial of the veracity of the Amazon myth, and there have been few concessions between the two schools of thought since. Postcolonial Amazons offers a ground-breaking re-evaluation of the place of martial women in the ancient world, bridging the gap between myth and historical reality and expanding our conception of the Amazon archetype. By shifting the center of debate to the periphery of the region known to the Greeks, the startling conclusion emerges that the ancient Athenian conception of women as weak and fearful was not at all typical of the region of that time, even within Greece. Surrounding the Athenians were numerous peoples who held that women could be courageous, able, clever, and daring, suggesting that although Greek stories of Amazons may be exaggerations, they were based upon a real historical understanding of women who fought. While re-examining the sources of the Amazon myth, this compelling volume also resituates the Amazons in the broader context from which they have been extracted, illustrating that although they were the quintessential example of female masculinity in ancient Greek thought, they were not the only instance of this phenomenon: masculine women were masqueraded on the Greek stage, described in the Hippocratic corpus, took part in the struggle to control Alexander the Great's empire after his death, and served as bodyguards in ancient India. Against the backdrop of the ongoing debates surrounding gender norms and fluidity, Postcolonial Amazons breaks new ground as an ancient history of female masculinity and demonstrates that these ideas have a much longer and more durable heritage than we may have supposed.
Did Jesus rise from the dead? Although 19th- and early 20th-century biblical scholarship dismissed the resurrection narratives as late, legendary accounts, Christian apologists in the late 20th century revived historical apologetics for the resurrection of Jesus with increasingly sophisticated arguments. A few critics have directly addressed some of the new arguments, but their response has been largely muted. The Empty Tomb scrutinizes the claims of leading Christian apologists and critiques their view of the resurrection as the best historical explanation.The contributors include New Testament scholars, philosophers, historians, and leading nontheists. They focus on the key questions relevant to assessing the historicity of the resurrection: What did the authors of the New Testament mean when they said Jesus rose from the dead? What historical evidence is needed to establish the resurrection? If there is a God, why would He resurrect Jesus? Was there an empty tomb? What should we make of the appearance stories? Apart from historical evidence, is belief in the resurrection justified?The Empty Tomb provides a sober, objective response to arguments offered in defense of Christianity''s central claim.
