A highly stimulating introduction to the history of Ancient Greek civilization, from the first documented use of the Greek language in about 1400 BCE, through the glories of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, to the foundation of the Byzantine empire in about CE 330.

An accessible guide to philosophy, presenting a collection of 70 essays covering the major themes, theories and arguments of the most prominent thinkers of ancient Greece.

A highly stimulating Very Short Introduction to the history of Ancient Greek civilization, from the first documented use of the Greek language in about 1400 BCE, through the glories of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, to the foundation of the Byzantine empire in about CE 330.

Looking at the rich spectrum of ancient Greek society and culture, Christian Meier seeks to identify the key to what made ancient Greece so special, both in the ancient world and for us today.

Intended for high school and college students studying ancient Greece and Rome as part of a larger world history curriculum, this book's coverage of key wars and battles; important leaders, armies, organizations, and weapons; and other aspects of conflict will enable readers to better understand the complex role warfare played in ancient Western civilization.

An overview and descriptions of the auditory commitments of ancient Greek song, drama, and acoustic theory from the time of Homer to the death of Euripides, this is the first complete study of the cultural system of sound in Greece.

Some writers have so confounded government with society, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government (...) even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ... (shrink)

This book examines the progress of literacy in ancient Greece from its origins with the introduction of the alphabet in the eighth century to the fourth century, when the major cultural institutions of Athens became totally dependent on alphabetic literacy. Professor Robb introduces much new evidence and re-evaluates older evidence to demonstrate that early Greek literacy can only be understood in terms of the rich oral culture that immediately preceded it, one that was dominated by the oral performance (...) of epical verse, or "Homer". The eventual dependence of Athenian democratic institutions, notably law and higher education, on the technology of writing contributed to the "miracle" of Greece. (shrink)

This book, a companion volume to Professor Pollitt's The Art of Rome: Sources and Documents, presents a comprehensive collection in translation of ancient literary evidence relating to Greek sculpture, painting, architecture, and the decorative arts. Its purpose is to make this important evidence available to students who are not specialists in the Classical languages or Classical archaeology. The author's translations of a wide selection of Greek and Latin texts are accompanied by an introduction, explanatory commentary, and a full bibliography. (...) An earlier version of this book was published twenty-five years ago by Prentice-Hall. In this new publication Professor Pollitt has added a considerable number of new passages, revised some of his earlier translations and presented the texts in a different order which allows the reader to follow more easily the development of sculpture and painting as perceived by the ancient writers. The new and substantial bibliography, organised by topics as they appear in the book, emphasises works that deal directly with the literary sources or that supplement our knowledge of the personalities and monuments described in the sources. This collection will be welcomed by students and teachers of Greek art who have long been in need of an authoritative and reliable sourcebook for their subject. (shrink)

Every aspect of life (citizenship, business, literature, drama, art, sports, religion, and private life) in the ancient world was affected by political motives.

The hypothesis that democracies rarely fight each other is well-supported for the contemporary era. Yet evidence for it in another era of many democracies—Greece in the fifth century BCE—is weak at best. This article considers several reasons why the experience of the two eras may differ. It shows that the causal reasoning of the contemporary democratic peace depends on key assumptions about how institutions constrain leaders that did not apply well in ancient polities. Analysis of these differences helps (...) to clarify theoretical understanding of interstate relations in both eras. (shrink)

US conservatives have repeatedly turned to classical Greece for inspiration and rhetorical power. In the 1950s they used Plato to defend moral absolutism; in the 1960s it was Aristotle as a means to develop a uniquely conservative social science; and then Thucydides helped to justify a more assertive foreign policy in the 1990s. By tracing this phenomenon and analysing these, and various other, examples of selectivity, subversion and adaptation within their broader social and political contexts, John Bloxham here employs (...) classical thought as a prism through which to explore competing strands in American conservatism. From the early years of the Cold War to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bloxham illuminates the depth of conservatives' engagement with Greece, the singular flexibility of Greek ideas and the varied and diverse ways that Greek thought has reinforced and invigorated conservatism. This innovative work of reception studies offers a richer understanding of the American Right and is important reading for classicists, modern US historians and political scientists alike. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking study, Jean Pierre-Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece. Myth and Society in Ancient Greece takes us far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon to reveal a fundamentally other culture one of slavery, of masks and death, of scapegoats, of ritual hunting and ecstasies.Vernant's provocative discussion of various institutions and practices including war, marriage, and sacrifice details the complex intersection of the religious, social, and political structures (...) of ancient Greece. The book concludes with Vernant's authoritative genealogy of the study of myth from antiquity to structuralism and beyond.Jean Pierre-Vernant is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Study of Ancient Religions at the Collège de France in Paris. Janet Lloyd is a translator and writer living in England. Distributed for Zone Books. (shrink)

Jean-Pierre Vernant delineates a compelling new vision of ancient Greece that takesus far from the calm and familiar images of Polykleitos and the Parthenon, and reveals a culture ofslavery, of blood sacrifice, of perpetual and ritualized warfare, of ceremonial hunting andecstasies.In his provocative discussions of various institutions and practices including war,marriage, and the city state, Vernant unveils a complex and previously unexplored intersection ofthe religious, social, and political structures of ancient Greece. He concludes with a genealogy (...) ofthe study of myth from antiquity to the present, and offers a critique of structuralism.Jean-PierreVernant is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Study of Ancient Religions at the College de France inParis. (shrink)

In providing the first comprehensive account of these pervasive and crucial systems, A History of Trust in Ancient Greece links Greek political, economic, social, and intellectual history in new ways and challenges contemporary analyses of ...

This volume brings together eighteen articles which examine erôs as an emotion in ancient Greek culture. Taking into account all important thinking about the nature of erôs from the eighth century BCE to the third century CE, it covers a very broad range of sources and theoretical approaches, both in the chronological and the generic sense.

Ethics in ancient greece -- Ethics in ancient rome -- Selection of source texts.

Charts the progression of morals and values in the Greek world.

Reciprocity has been seen as an important notion for anthropologists studying economic and social relations, and this volume examines it in connection with Greek culture from Homer to the Hellenistic period.

Jean Pierre-Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet are leaders in a contemporary French classical scholarship that has produced a a stunning reconfiguration of Greek thought and literature. In this work, published here as a single volume, the authors present a disturbing and decidedly non-classical reading of Greek tragedy that insists on its radical discontinuity with our own outlook and with our social, aesthetic, and psychological categories. Originally published in French in two volumes, this new single-volume edition includes revised essays from volume one (...) and is the first English translation of both volumes.Pierre Vidal-Naquet is Director of Studies and Professor of Sociology at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes in Paris. Jean Pierre-Vernant is Professor Emeritus of Comparative Study of Ancient Religions at the Collège de France. Janet Lloyd is a translator and writer living in England. Distributed for Zone Books. (shrink)

Library POPULAR ETHICS IN ANCIENT GREECE Lionel Pearson STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD. ...

This article investigates the characteristic attitudes of the Greeks toward nature, which formed the perceptual framework for their ecological thinking. Two major attitudes are discerned. One regarded nature as the theatre of the gods, whose interplay produced observed phenomena, but whose localization gave them particular, restricted roles. The other attitude viewed nature as the theatre of reason, and made the beginnings of ecological thought possible. The contributions of several Greek forerunners in the field of ecology are characterized. The most consistent, (...) balanced ecological writer in ancient Greece was Theophrastus, but his conception of an autonomous nature, interacting with man, was overshadowed in the history of ancient and medieval thought by the anthropocentric teleology of Aristotle. (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone estudiar las características de los paralogismos de composición y división (Retórica II 24.II, 1401a), de la consecuencia (Retórica II 24.VI, 1401b20-30) y de la causa aparente (Retórica II 24.VII, 1401b30-34), de modo de analizar si Eurípides los utiliza en el agón de Andrómaca de los versos 577 a 746 This paper intends to study the characteristics of paralogisms due to composition and division (Rhetoric II 24.II, 1401a), due to consequent (Rhetoric II 24.VI, 1401b20-30), and due to (...) false cause (Rhetoric II 24.VII, 1401b30-34), in order to analyze if Euripides uses them in the agon in Andromache (577-746). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in Its SettingAndré LardinoisEva Stehle. Performance and Gender in Ancient Greece: Nondramatic Poetry in Its Setting. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. xi 1 367 pp. Cloth, $39.50.Both gender and performance have been the focus of much research in Greek literature since the mid-1970s, although they usually have been studied by different sets of scholars. A quick (...) gender analysis shows that gender studies, so far, have attracted mainly female scholars (with the prominent exception of Jack Winkler), while the study of the performance contexts of early Greek literature has been dominated by men: Claude Calame, Bruno Gentili, and Wolfgang Rösler, to name but a few. Eva Stehle, for the first time, combines both approaches to present a new reading of various passages in archaic and classical Greek literature.The book consists of six chapters with an introduction and a brief conclusion. The introduction opens with six ancient reports about performances, some of which touch upon the staging or self-presentation of the performers. This self-presentation can encompass many characteristics, including the performers’ physical fitness, social status, wealth, or gender. Stehle argues that the latter was considered particularly important in antiquity and is nowadays most easily detectable, because it is reflected in the language of the texts. This gendered self-presentation of the performers in turn has to be situated within the specific context of the performance. Stehle recognizes three types of performances in early Greece to which she relates the three major genres of poetry: (1) community performances (chapters 1–3), reflected mostly in choral poetry, (2) performances by bards of hexameter poetry (chapter 4), and (3) symposia (chapter 5), where most monodic lyric together with elegy and iambos was performed. Chapter 6 is devoted to Sappho, whose love poetry, Stehle argues, “was designed to escape the tyranny of the performance culture” (323).Another important concept discussed in the introduction is that of “psychological efficacy” (19–21). This relates to the effect a performance is supposed to have on the audience, besides entertainment. In chapter 1, Stehle discusses the psychological efficacy of community poetry, which, she argues, is to renew the community and provide a unifying discourse. Community poetry is mostly, but not exclusively, choral. A chorus can function as both reflection and model of the community, which means that it can speak for or to the audience. Among the fragments Stehle treats in this chapter are Alkman fr. 1, the Swallow Song (PMG 848), the Athenian praise song for Demetrios Poliorketes, Pindar’s Paian 9, Tyrtaios’ Eunomia, Solon’s Salamis elegy, and Archilochos frr. 98–99. [End Page 633]Chapter 2 (“Women in Performance in the Community”) continues the analysis of Alkman fr. 1 and further discusses Alkman fr. 3, Pindar’s Daphnephoria (fr. 94b), Korinna fr. 655, other evidence for songs sung by parthenoi, evidence for performances by adult women (chapter 2.2), and finally a number of inscriptions with women as subjects (chapter 2.3). (Inscriptions are also discussed at the end of chapter 6.) There is, according to Stehle, something of a paradox in the representation of the community by women, who otherwise lack a public voice. This paradox is resolved in Alkman’s partheneia fragments by having the young women downplay the efficacy of their voice. The same holds true for the young women in Pindar’s Daphnephoria fragment. In Korinna fr. 655 the poem “does not limit or depreciate women’s ability to speak effectively” (103), but it is unclear if this is a choral song. Adult women staged themselves as producers of warriors and proper wives. In other words, “women performing communal poetry combined the function of providing reflection and model with a staging of their own subordinate status in the community” (113). Stehle finds in the inscriptions a more positive expression of women’s identities, which she attributes to the “self-sufficient authority” of writing (115).The male body was associated with martial strength and aggressiveness, qualities which could be displayed in armed dances like the pyrrhiche but in other contexts were problematic for addressing the community. Therefore several strategies were developed to mitigate the aggressive... (shrink)

Film, Philosophy, and Reality: Ancient Greece to Godard is an original contribution to film-philosophy that shows how thinking about movies can lead us into a richer appreciation and understanding of both reality and the nature of human experience. Focused on the question of the relationship between how things seem to us and how they really are, it is at once an introduction to philosophy through film and an introduction to film through philosophy. The book is divided into three (...) parts. The first is an introduction to philosophy and film, designed for the reader with little background in one or the other subject. The second examines the philosophical importance of the distinction between appearance and reality, and shows that reflection upon this distinction is naturally provoked by the experience of watching movies. The final part takes a close and careful look at the style and techniques of Jean-Luc Godard's groundbreaking film Breathless in order to illustrate how such themes can be explored cinematically. The book addresses topics such as: Film: what it is and how to understand it The methods and concerns of philosophy The nature of cinematic appearances The history of metaphysics The relationship between cinema and life The philosophical relevance of film techniques. With a glossary of key thinkers, terms, and concepts, as well as sections on suggested films and further reading, this textbook will appeal to lecturers and students in undergraduate philosophy and film courses, and in courses focused on Philosophy of Film, Philosophy and Film, or Film-Philosophy. (shrink)

A comparative study of what the most influential writers of Ancient Greece and China thought it meant to have knowledge and whether they distinguished knowledge from other forms of wisdom. It surveys selected works of poetry, history and philosophy from the period of roughly the eighth through to the second century BCE, including Homer's "Odyssey", the ancient Chinese "Classic of Poetry", Thucydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War", Sima Qian's "Records of the Historian", Plato's "Symposium", and Laozi's "Dao (...) de Jing and the writings of Zhuangzi". The intention, through such juxtaposition, is to introduce the foundational texts of each tradition which continue to influence the majority of the world's population. (shrink)

Classicists have long been wary of comparisons, partly for ideological reasons related to the incomparability of ‘the Classical’, partly because of the often problematic basis and limited illumination afforded by such efforts as have been made: the -reception of the work of the Cambridge ritualists — such as J.G. Frazer and Jane Harrison — is a case in point in both respects. Interestingly, even the specifically comparative interests of the much more rigorous projects of the Paris School, at the Centre (...) Louis Gernet, have not had much resonance outside France, notwithstanding the enormous influence of their work concerning purely Greek subject matter. In part, perhaps, this was a result of the shift from Vernant's originally Marxist framework, in which societies were comparable in terms of an evolutionary sociological scheme, to a structuralist one, entailing an emphasis on the uniqueness of different cultural traditions. The emphasis on the uniqueness of the Classical world was only reinforced by post-structuralism and post-modernism, which in their strongest forms suggested that cultures, like languages, were fundamentally incommensurable, and thus not accessible to outsider knowledge, let alone comparable. Indeed, so virulent was the post-structuralist virus that disciplines to which we might have expected to be able to turn for guidance, like comparative religion, are only now recovering the courage ‘to compare religious phenomena, theologies or artefacts outside of footnotes or less heavily policed epilogues’. (shrink)

How were the aims of philosophy and the responsibilities of philosophers conceived in ancient Greece and China? How were the learned elite recruited and controlled; how were their speculations and advice influenced by the different types of audiences they faced and the institutions in which they worked? How was a yearning for invulnerability reconciled with a sense of human frailty? In each chapter of this fascinating analysis ancient Greek and Chinese ideas and practices are used as a (...) basis for critical reflections on the predicaments we continue to face today, with a particular focus on the key Greek ideas of the equal participation of all citizens in the political process, and on the key Chinese one of a dedication to the ideal of the welfare of all under heaven. (shrink)

Athens in Paris explores the ways in which the writings of the ancient Greeks played a decisive part in shaping the intellectual projects of structuralism and post-structuralism - arguably the most significant currents of thought of the post-war era. Miriam Leonard argues that thinkers in post-war France turned to the example of Athenian democracy in their debates over the role of political subjectivity and ethical choice in the life of the modern citizen. The authors she investigates, who include Lacan, (...) Derrida, Foucault, and Vernant, have had an incalculable influence on the direction of classical studies over the last thirty years, but classicists have yet to give due attention to the crucial role of the ancient world in the development of their philosophy. (shrink)

La « danse grecque antique » évoque en général des images de chœurs imposants et de festivités dionysiaques, ou encore d’Isadora Duncan dansant au milieu des ruines de l’Acropole. Dans cet article, j’étudie une figure peu connue de la danseuse de l’Antiquité : l’orchestris, ou danseuse de banquet. De ces femmes, marginalisées par leur genre et leur classe, il ne demeure que des traces éparses dans la littérature et les vestiges matériels. En réunissant ces traces, cet article met en lumière (...) la place de la danseuse de banquet dans l’imaginaire culturel grec. Il montre ensuite que l’exploration fictionnelle de la subjectivité des femmes dans le dialogue III des Dialogues des courtisanes de Lucien doit nous inciter à réfléchir à la façon dont le mouvement et l’incarnation ont pu constituer – à toutes les époques – des sources essentielles, bien qu’à jamais hors de notre portée, de la capacité d’agir des orchestrides. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’étudier comment, dans le monde grec antique, les femmes étaient nommées et comment s’articulait la différence des sexes en fonction du contexte d’apparition de leur nom. Il s’appuie sur la documentation épigraphique et plus particulièrement sur les décrets honorifiques – des textes gravés sur pierre souvent affichés dans l’espace public – qui honoraient une personne pour ses actions en faveur de la cité. Les femmes étaient honorées dans ces documents notamment lorsqu’elles exerçaient une charge religieuse, comme (...) celle de prêtresse. Cette étude, en partant d’un décret athénien honorant une prêtresse du nom de Timokritè, se demande où se joue le genre, en s’intéressant à la manière dont les prêtresses étaient désignées et en observant ce que la façon de les nommer indiquait sur leur statut et leur fonction. Il s’agit de montrer comment certaines femmes, en tant que prêtresses, occupaient grâce à leur statut de citoyennes des fonctions politiques de magistrates. (shrink)

This volume is the result of a three-year collaboration (funded by the American Council of Learned Societies and the British Academy) between scholars of early China and of ancient/Hellenistic Greece to investigate the emergent discourses of emotions in philosophy, medicine, and literature from around the fifth century BCE to the second century CE. It brings together scholars working on the history and philosophy of emotions in the two ancient traditions, and with different areas of expertise, to investigate (...) the emotions and their conceptualization at a crucial period in the cultural and intellectual development of both cultures. The project was motivated by a desire to make an intervention in the existing scholarship on emotions in both fields, which stands to benefit from a greater methodological self-awareness about the category of emotions and the kinds of commitments it entails. The volume aims to explore how the tools of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary investigation might be deployed to advance our understanding of the emotions in the two ancient societies and to use that understanding as a contribution to current research on the emotions more generally. (shrink)

Book Reviews K. Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. x + 13o. Cloth, $45.oo. Robb's book can perhaps best be viewed in the context of previous studies of orality and literacy in the ancient Greek world, especially those of E. A. Havelock: Preface to Plato , The Literate Revolution and Its Cultural Consequences , and The Muse Learns to Write . Havelock's work has stimulated much discussion, some of it (...) still very polemical , and insofar as Robb shares some of Havelock's beliefs about the influence of alphabetic literacy on Plato and other representatives of the so-called "Literate Revolution," he is vulnerable to similar criticisms. And yet Robb claims not only Havelock among "oralist pioneers" , but also such diverse scholars as P. Friedl/inder, J... (shrink)

In this article, it is claimed that it is not possible to find a modern capitalist order in Ancient Greece. This claim is supported by the economic activities and historical findings of the ancient period and it is also shaped by reference to the 'primitivist-modernist debate'. In this context, firstly, Mosses I. Finley's primitivist views that claim capitalism cannot be possible in ancient Greece will be explained by taking into consideration the accounting system, commercial activity, (...) social status, labor usages, and land treatments. Secondly, the article will analyze Michael I. Rostovtzeff’s objection to primitivist ideas, and reveal his thoughts by supporting modernist ideas on the existence of capitalism in ancient Greek. Based on these analyses, it is concluded that it is unreasonable to talk about the existence of capitalism in ancient Greece. (shrink)

This pioneering book compares Chinese and Western thought to offer a bracing and unpredictable cross-cultural conversation. The work contributes to the emerging field of Sino-Hellenic studies, which links two great and influential cultures that, in fact, had virtually no contact during the ancient period. The patterns of thought and the cultural productions of early China and ancient Greece represent two significantly different responses to the myriad problems that human beings confront. Throughout this volume the comparisons between these (...) cultures evince two critical ideas. First, that thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Through making comparisons, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange somewhat more familiar. Second, since we think through comparisons, we should think them all the way through. How valid and productive are the comparisons and contrasts made between particular works and different styles of thought that emerged from two different, although contemporaneous, cultural contexts? (shrink)

Substantial evidence supports the perspective that the people of Ancient Greece had a language for and some use for drugs, both for the purpose of medicine and poison; however, the question remains whether Ancient Greek civilization held a concept approximating what we today call drug addiction. This article explores the textual evidence for the use of two drugs, nepenthes and cannabis, in Ancient Greece. While the existence of nepenthes remains in doubt, the use of cannabis (...) is well documented. Either drug or both drugs may have been used in the rites of the Bacchic and Orphic mysteries, which might explain why there are so few references to these drugs in the Ancient Greek literature. (shrink)

Journeys of the self - have long been a fascination within the annals of human thought, nowhere more so than in the philosophical traditions of ancient Greece and Rome. At the heart of this exploration lies the concept of the "Constructed Self," a lens through which we examine how individuals' identities are molded, shaped, and defined by the prevailing norms, values, and social structures of their time. Within the realms of philosophy in Ancient Greece and Rome, (...) thinkers grappled with questions of individual identity, the influence of society on the self, and the interplay between personal agency and external forces. Among the guiding principles of many ancient Greek and Roman philosophers was the idea of "following nature." Rooted in the belief that living in accordance with nature's laws leads to a harmonious and virtuous life, this principle deeply influenced conceptions of the self. Additionally, the advancements in Greek medicine, particularly the humoral theory attributed to figures like Hippocrates and Galen, offered a lens through which philosophers explored the balance of bodily and mental health. This paper embarks on the journeys of the self through the philosophical landscapes of antiquity. By examining the works of philosophers such as the Stoics, Epicureans, Platonists, and Aristotelians, we seek to unravel the intricate tapestry of beliefs surrounding the formation and understanding of the self. These ancient thinkers offer profound insights into how social roles, cultural norms, and communal values intersect to create the framework within which individuals come to know and define themselves. In this exploration, we consider how the concept of the constructed self in Ancient Greece and Rome illuminates not only the individual's place within society but also the dynamic interplay between the personal and the communal. By scrutinizing the philosophical underpinnings of ancient Greek and Roman thought, we aim to uncover the enduring relevance of these ideas for understanding the nature of identity, agency, and selfhood in our contemporary world. (shrink)

Why did Greek philosophy begin in the sixth century BCE? Why did Indian philosophy begin at about the same time? Why did the earliest philosophy take the form that it did? Why was this form so similar in Greece and India? And how do we explain the differences between them? These questions can only be answered by locating the philosophical intellect within its entire societal context, ignoring neither ritual nor economy. The cities of Greece and northern India were (...) in this period distinctive also by virtue of being pervasively monetised. The metaphysics of both cultures is marked by the projection and the introjection of the abstract, all-pervasive, quasi-omnipotent, impersonal substance embodied in money. And in both cultures this development accompanied the interiorisation of the cosmic rite of passage. (shrink)