Nemesis
Nemesis

Author: David Stuttard

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2018-04-16

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0674919661

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Alcibiades was one of the most dazzling figures of the Golden Age of Athens. A ward of Pericles and a friend of Socrates, he was spectacularly rich, bewitchingly handsome and charismatic, a skilled general, and a ruthless politician. He was also a serial traitor, infamous for his dizzying changes of loyalty in the Peloponnesian War. Nemesis tells the story of this extraordinary life and the turbulent world that Alcibiades set out to conquer. David Stuttard recreates ancient Athens at the height of its glory as he follows Alcibiades from childhood to political power. Outraged by Alcibiades’ celebrity lifestyle, his enemies sought every chance to undermine him. Eventually, facing a capital charge of impiety, Alcibiades escaped to the enemy, Sparta. There he traded military intelligence for safety until, suspected of seducing a Spartan queen, he was forced to flee again—this time to Greece’s long-term foes, the Persians. Miraculously, though, he engineered a recall to Athens as Supreme Commander, but—suffering a reversal—he took flight to Thrace, where he lived as a warlord. At last in Anatolia, tracked by his enemies, he died naked and alone in a hail of arrows. As he follows Alcibiades’ journeys crisscrossing the Mediterranean from mainland Greece to Syracuse, Sardis, and Byzantium, Stuttard weaves together the threads of Alcibiades’ adventures against a backdrop of cultural splendor and international chaos. Navigating often contradictory evidence, Nemesis provides a coherent and spellbinding account of a life that has gripped historians, storytellers, and artists for more than two thousand years.

Tides of War
Tides of War

Author: Steven Pressfield

Publisher: Bantam

Published: 2007-01-30

Total Pages: 452

ISBN-13: 055390406X

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Narrated from death row by Alcibiades’ bodyguard and assassin, a man whose own love and loathing for his former commander mirrors the mixed emotions felt by all Athens, Tides of War tells an epic saga of an extraordinary century, a war that changed history, and a complex leader who seduced a nation. Brilliant at war, a master of politics, and a charismatic lover, Alcibiades was Athens’ favorite son and the city’s greatest general. A prodigal follower of Socrates, he embodied both the best and the worst of the Golden Age of Greece. A commander on both land and sea, he led his armies to victory after victory. But like the heroes in a great Greek tragedy, he was a victim of his own pride, arrogance, excess, and ambition. Accused of crimes against the state, he was banished from his beloved Athens, only to take up arms in the service of his former enemies. For nearly three decades, Greece burned with war and Alcibiades helped bring victories to both sides — and ended up trusted by neither. BONUS: This edition contains an excerpt from Steven Pressfield's The Profession. Praise for Tides of War “Pressfield’s battlefield scenes rank with the most convincing ever written.”—USA Today “Pressfield serves up not just hair-raising battle scenes . . . but many moments of valor and cowardice, lust and bawdy humor. . . . Even more impressively, he delivers a nuanced portrait of ancient athens.”—Esquire “Unabashedly brilliant, epic, intelligent, and moving.”—Kirkus Reviews “Pressfield’s attention to historic detail is exquisite. . . . This novel will remain with the reader long after the final chapter is finished.”—Library Journal “Astounding, historically accurate tale . . . Pressfield is a master storyteller, especially adept in his graphic and embracing descriptions of the land and naval battles, political intrigues and colorful personalities, which come together in an intense and credible portrait of war-torn Greece.”—Publishers Weekly

Heroes
Heroes

Author: Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2010-03-24

Total Pages: 744

ISBN-13: 0307485900

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Beginning beneath the walls of Troy and culminating in 1930s Europe, a magisterial exploration of the nature of heroism in Western civilization. In this riveting and insightful cultural history, Lucy Hughes-Hallett brings to life eight exceptional men from history and myth to explore our timeless need for heroes. As she re-creates these extraordinary lives, Hughes-Hallett illuminates the attractions and dangers of hero worship. This is a fascinating book about dictatorship and democracy, seduction and mass hysteria, politics and culture, and the tensions between being good and being great.

The Symposium and the Phaedrus
The Symposium and the Phaedrus

Author: Plato

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780791416174

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The Symposium and the Phaedrus are combined here because of their shared theme: a reflection on the nature of erotic love, the love that begins with sexual desire but can transcend that origin and reach even the heights of religious ecstasy. This reflection is carried out explicitly in the speeches and conversations in the dialogues, and implicitly in the dramatic depiction of actions and characters. Thus, the two dialogues deal with a theme of enduring interest and are interesting for both their literary and their philosophical character. In addition to the introduction, the book contains substantial commentaries and thorough endnotes. Key Greek terms are discussed for readers who are unfamiliar with the language. A special feature is a discussion on the importance of the dramatic and literary aspects of the dialogues for interpreting their philosophical content. The introductions deal with the nature of the dialogues themselves as philosophical texts and with Plato's philosophical assumptions and key concepts, as well as with the necessary background of Athenian society. The endnotes clarify any ambiguities and obscurities in the original text, identifying all references to people, places, gods, et cetera. The commentaries are designed to open up the dialogues for the reader, showing the issues that have been debated by commentators and considering some of the responses to them. They are designed to stimulate further reflection.

The Political Economy of Classical Athens
The Political Economy of Classical Athens

Author: Barry O’Halloran

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-11-26

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 9004386157

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Recently there has been a welcome revival of scholarly interest in the economy of classical Greece. In the face of increasingly compelling arguments for the existence of a market economy in classical Athens, the Finleyan orthodoxy is finally relinquishing its long dominion. In this book, Barry O’Halloran seeks to contribute to this renewed debate by re-interrogating the ancient evidence using more recent economic interpretative frameworks. The aim is to re-evaluate accepted orthodoxies and present the economic history of this emblematic city-state in a new light. More specifically, it analyses the economic foundations of Athens through the prism of its navy. Its macroeconomic approach utilises an employment-demand model through which enormous naval defence expenditures created an exceptional period of demand-led economic growth.