Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History / Edition 3

by Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, David Tandy

Overview

A dynamic collaboration between four renowned scholars, here is the definitive portrait of the fountainhead of Western culture, an account that is thoughtful and sophisticated while remaining accessible to the nonscholar.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199846047
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/16/2011
Edition description:	Older Edition
Pages:	592
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1340L (what's this?)

About the Author

Sarah B. Pomeroy is Distinguished Professor of Classics and History Emerita at Hunter College and The City University of New York Graduate Center.

Stanley M. Burstein is Professor of History Emeritus at California State University, Los Angeles.

The late Walter Donlan was Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of California, Irvine.

Jennifer Tolbert Roberts is Professor of Classics and History at City College and The City University of New York Graduate Center.

David Tandy is Visiting Research Fellow in Classics at the University of Leeds, UK.

Georgia Tsouvala is Associate Professor of History at Illinois State University.

Table of Contents

Maps and Battle Plans     xii
Preface     xiii
Acknowledgments     xv
Timeline     xvii
Introduction     1
A Bird's-Eye View of Greek History     1
Sources: How We Know About the Greeks     4
Retrieving the Past: The Material Record     4
Retrieving the Past: The Written Record     5
Periodization     7
Frogs Around a Pond     7
City-States     8
Greek City-States     8
Early Greece and the Bronze Age     11
Domestication     13
Sources for Early Greek History     13
The Land of Greece     14
Greece and the Near East in the "Final Neolithic" Period (c. 4000-3000 BC)     18
Greece in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (c. 3000-1600 BC)     19
The Discovery of Aegean Civilization: Troy, Mycenae, Knossos     22
Minoan Civilization     24
Greece and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC)     31
The Years of Glory (c. 1400-1200 BC)     35
The End of the Mycenaean Civilization     46
The "Dark Age" of Greece and the Eighth-Century "Renaissance" (c. 1200-700 BC)     51
Sources for the Dark Age     51
Decline and Recovery (c. 1150-900 BC)     54
The New Society of the Dark Age     59
Revival (c. 900-750 BC)     63
Homer and Oral Poetry     64
Late Dark Age (Homeric) Society     67
Community, Household, and Economy in the Late Dark Age     80
The End of the Dark Age (c. 750-700 BC)     84
Archaic Greece (c. 700-480 BC)     97
Sources for the Seventh and Sixth Centuries     98
The Formation of the City-State (Polis)     99
The Ethnos     101
Government in the Early City-States     102
The Colonizing Movement     106
Economic and Social Divisions in the Early Poleis     111
Hesiod: The View from Below     116
The Hoplite Army     120
The Archaic Age Tyrants     123
Art and Architecture     126
Lyric Poetry     133
Philosophy and Science     138
Relations Between States     141
Panhellenic Institutions     144
Sparta     150
Sources for Spartan History and Institutions     150
The Dark Age and the Archaic Period     154
The Spartan System      158
Demography and the Spartan Economy     167
Spartan Government     170
Sparta and Greece     173
Historical Change in Sparta     175
The Spartan Mirage in Western Thought     177
The Growth of Athens and the Persian Wars     180
Sources for Early Athens     180
Athens from the Bronze Age to the Early Archaic Age     181
The Reforms of Solon     185
Pisistratus and His Sons     190
The Reforms of Cleisthenes     199
The Rise of Persia     201
The Wars Between Greece and Persia     204
The Other War: Carthage and the Greek Cities of Sicily     222
The Rivalries of the Greek City-States and the Growth of Athenian Democracy     225
Sources for the Decades After the Persian Wars     226
The Aftermath of the Persian Wars and the Foundation of the Delian League     227
The "First" (Undeclared) Peloponnesian War (460-445 BC)     235
Pericles and the Growth of Athenian Democracy     237
Literature and Art     242
Oikos and Polis     253
The Greek Economy     266
Greece on the Eve of the Peloponnesian War     272
Sources for Greece on the Eve of the War      272
Greece After the Thirty Years' Peace     274
The Breakdown of the Peace     277
Resources for War     282
Intellectual Life in Fifth-Century Greece     284
Historical and Dramatic Literature of the Fifth Century     286
Currents in Greek Thought and Education     293
The Physical Space of the Polis: Athens on the Eve of War     301
The Peloponnesian War     316
Sources for Greece During the Peloponnesian War     316
The Archidamian War (431-421 BC)     318
The Rise of Comedy     328
Between Peace and War     332
The Invasion of Sicily (415-413 BC)     335
The War in the Aegean and the Oligarchic Coup at Athens (413-411 BC)     341
Fallout from the Long War     349
The War in Retrospect     356
The Crisis of the Polis and the Age of Shifting Hegemonies     361
Sources for Fourth-Century Greece     362
Postwar Greece and the Struggle for Hegemony     363
Law and Democracy in Athens     374
The Fourth-Century Polis     382
Philosophy and the Polis     387
Phillip II and the Rise of Macedon     404
Sources for Macedonian History      404
Early Macedonia     405
Macedonian Society and Kingship     406
The Reign of Philip II     410
Macedonian Domination of Greece     421
Alexander the Great     429
Sources for the Reign of Alexander     430
Consolidating Power     432
From Issus to Egypt: Conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean (332-331 BC)     442
From Alexandria to Persepolis: The King of Asia (331-330 BC)     445
The High Road to India: Alexander in Central Asia     448
India and the End of the Dream     454
Return to the West     456
Alexander's Successors and the Cosmopolis     462
A New World     462
Sources for the Hellenistic Period     464
The Struggle for the Succession     466
The Regency of Perdiccas     466
The Primacy of Antigonus the One-Eyed     468
Birth Pangs of the New Order (301-276 BC)     472
The Place of the Polis in the Cosmopolis     476
The Macedonian Kingdoms     482
Hellenistic Society     486
Alexandria and Hellenistic Culture     487
Social Relations in the Hellenistic World     496
Epilogue      505
Glossary     511
Art and Illustration Credits     525
Index     531

Editorial Reviews

Four well-known classicists have taken the traditional chronology of Greek history texts and written a much-needed overview for modern students. By means of a chapter structure that is well designed and logical, they take us through each period of Greek history and introduce the defining historiographical and literary issues. Each chapter begins with a discussion of the sources for that period and includes annotated endnotes that deal extensively with recent scholarship. Unlike many other histories, the book goes into depth on the Hellenistic period, as well as the Bronze and Dark Ages. Although the Spartans and Athenians naturally dominate, the authors consider Sparta before Athens, reflecting the order in which the moderns have admired them. An appropriate balance is found between political, social, and cultural history, and the authors display no outlandish prejudices to derail this noble effort. Recommended for all academic and large public libraries.--Claibourne G. Williams, Ferris State Univ., Big Rapids, MI

Library Journal

From Pomeroy (Classics/Hunter Coll.), Stanley M. Burstein (History/Calif. State U niv., Los Angeles), Walter Donlan (Classics/Univ. of Calif., Irvine), and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts (Classics/City Coll. of New York), a comprehensive narrative history that emphasizes the "astonishing creativity, versatility, and resilience" of the culture shaped by the ancient Greeks. A poor, backward people occupying barely cultivable land on the periphery of the Mediterranean world, the Bronze Age Hellenes or Greeks (c. 3000-1150 B.C.) seem in retrospect an unlikely bet to become the progenitors of a great world civilization. While Bronze Age Greece eventually developed a distinctive culture and power base at Mycenae (c. 1600-1100 B.C. ), it derived most of its industrial skills from its more highly developed neighbors around the Mediterranean basin. And beginning around 1150 B.C., the authors speculate, a mysterious wave of invaders from the north wiped out the brilliant Mycenaean civilization, reducing Greek society to a culturally primitive "dark age" until around 750 B.C. The authors' account treats aspects of Greek life for which primary sources are sparse—-the role of women, for instance—-but it doesn't neglect the amazing political, artistic, architectural, philosophical, and literary achievements of classical Athens and other cities. The authors detail the development of Athens and Sparta, the creative tensions between them that helped defend Greece from Persian invasion, the ruinous wars that vitiated the Greek polis or city-state, and the extensive colonization (by the city-states) and conquest (by Alexander the Great) that spread Greek civilization from modem France to what is nowPakistan. While the Hellenistic kingdoms that resulted from the Alexandrian conquest were brutally absorbed into the Roman super-state, the cultural legacy of Greece remained pervasively influential in the Roman world and exerted a profound effect on the rise of Christianity. An accessible and well-balanced introduction to the culture and history of ancient Greece, useful for both student and general reader. .

Kirkus Reviews

"Ancient Greece is a sweeping, accessible historical narrative, punctuated by social and economic insights of one of the most complex and intriguing cultures of antiquity."—David Graf, University of Miami

"This text is an excellent choice for those seeking a comprehensive treatment of ancient Greek history. Its chronological reach is long, and it devotes a great deal of attention to social and cultural topics along with the standard political and military ones."—Eric Wild Robinson, Indiana University

"Ancient Greece is a very clear, comprehensive overview of Greek history, in its political, social, cultural, and intellectual dimensions, with particularly good coverage of the Archaic and Classical Periods, written by some of the top scholars in the field."—Philip Kaplan, University of North Florida

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