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Introduction 1
Sources: How We Know About the Ancient Greeks 1
Retrieving the Past: The Material Record 2
Retrieving the Past: The Written Record 3
A Synopsis of Written Sources by Period 5
The Physical Context: The Land of Greece 9
C h a p t e r O n e B
Early Greece and the Bronze Age 14
Greece in the Stone Ages 18
Greece in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (c. 3000–1600 BC) 18
Greece and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1200 BC) 26
C h a p t e r Tw o B
The Early Iron Age (c. 1200–750/700 BC) 43
Decline and Recovery, Early Iron Age I (c. 1200–900 BC) 43
Revival, Early Iron Age II (c. 900–750 BC) 49
Homeric Society 53
The End of Early Iron Age II (c. 750–700 BC) 62
v
C h a p t e r T h r e e B
Archaic Greece (750/700–480 BC) 71
The Formation of the City-State (Polis) 73
Government in the Early City-States 74
Emigration and Expansion: The Colonizing Movement 76
Economic and Social Divisions in the Archaic Poleis 79
Hesiod: The View from Outside 82
The Hoplite Army 85
The Archaic Age Tyrants 87
The Arts and Sciences 89
Panhellenic Institutions 99
Relations Among States 100
C h a p t e r F o u r B
Sparta 105
The Early Iron Age and the Archaic Period 106
The Spartan System 109
Demography and the Spartan Economy 117
Spartan Government 120
The Peloponnesian League 122
Historical Change in Sparta 122
The Spartan Mirage 123
C h a p t e r F i v e B
The Growth of Athens and the
Persian Wars 127
Athens from the Bronze Age to the Early Archaic Age 127
The Reforms of Solon 131
Pisistratus and His Sons 135
The Reforms of Cleisthenes 141
The Rise of Persia 143
The Wars Between Greece and Persia 147
vi
C h a p t e r S i x B
The Rivalries of the Greek City-States and the Growth of
Athenian Democracy 161
The Aftermath of the Persian Invasions and the Foundation of a New
League 163
New Developments in Athens and Sparta 166
The “First” (Undeclared) Peloponnesian War (460–445 BC) 167
Pericles and the Growth of Athenian Democracy 169
Literature and Art 172
Oikos and Polis 180
The Greek Economy 187
The Western Greeks After the Age of Tyrants 191
C h a p t e r S e v e n B
Greek Life and Culture in the Fifth Century BC 194
Greece After the Thirty Years’ Peace 194
The Physical Space of the Polis: Athens in the Fifth Century 197
Intellectual Life in Fifth-Century Greece 207
Historical and Dramatic Literature of the Fifth Century 209
Currents in Greek Thought and Education 220
The Breakdown of the Peace 225
Resources for War 229
C h a p t e r E i g h t B
The Peloponnesian War 231
The Archidamian War (431–421 BC) 233
The Rise of Comedy 241
Between Peace and War 244
The Invasion of Sicily (415–413 BC) 247
The War in the Aegean and the Oligarchic Coup
at Athens (413–411 BC) 252
The Last Years of War (407–404 BC) 256
vii
C h a p t e r N i n e B
The Fourth Century BC: Changing Ideas, C ontinuing
Warfare 261
Oligarchy at Athens: The Thirty Tyrants 262
The Trial of Socrates (399 BC) 263
The Fourth Century: Changing Ideas, Continuing Warfare 267
Law and Democracy in Athens 274
The Fourth-Century Polis 280
Philosophy and the Polis 283
C h a p t e r T e n B
Philip II and Macedonian Supremacy 297
Early Macedon 297
Macedonian Society and Kingship 298
The Reign of Philip II 301
Philip’s Plans for Greece 310
C h a p t e r E l e v e n B
C h a p t e r Tw e l v e B
The New World of the Hellenistic Period 346
The Struggle for the Succession 347
The Regency of Perdiccas 347
The Primacy of Antigonus the One-Eyed 351
viii
Birth Pangs of the New Order (301–276 BC) 353
Decline and Fall 354
The Polis in the Hellenistic World 356
The Macedonian Kingdoms 360
Hellenistic Society 363
Alexandria and Hellenistic Culture 364
Social Relations in the Hellenistic World 375
C h a p t e r T h i r t e e n B
Glossary 392
Art and Illustration Credits 403
Index 408
Color plates follow pp. 36 and 260
ix
T R A N S L A T I O N S U S E D B Y
P E R M I S S I O N
B
Arrowsmith, William. 1959. Orestes, from The Complete Greek Tragedies. Edited by David
Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Barker, Ernest, and R. F. Stalley. 1998. The Politics of Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Benardete, Seth. 1959. Persians, from The Complete Greek Tragedies. Edited by David Grene
and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Blanco, Walter. 1998. The Peloponnesian War, from Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War. Edited
by Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. New York: W. W. Norton.
———. 2013. The Histories, from Herodotus: The Histories. 2nd ed. Edited by Walter Blanco
and Jennifer Roberts. New York: W. W. Norton.
Burstein, Stanley M. 1985. The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra
VII. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Clayman, Dee L. 2014. Berenice II and the Golden Age of Ptolemaic Egypt. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Cornford, F. M. 1945. The Republic of Plato. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fowler, Harold N. 1914. Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus. Loeb Classical
Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
———. 1936. Plutarch, Moralia. Vol. X. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Gagarin, Michael, and Paul Woodruff, eds. 1995. “Encomium of Helen,” in Early Greek Polit-
ical Thought from Homer to the Sophists. Edited by Michael Gagarin and Paul Woodruff.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Green, Peter. 1997. The Argonautica of Apollonios Rhodios. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
———. 1996. Xerxes at Salamis. New York and London: Praeger.
Hanson, Ann. 1975. “Hippocrates: Diseases of Women 1.” Signs 1: 567–584.
Jameson, M. 1960. “A Decree of Themistocles from Troizen,” Hesperia 29: 200–201, modified
by P. Green.
———. 1970. Xerxes in Salamis. New York and London: Praeger.
Kitzinger, Rachel. 2016. Medea, from The Greek Plays. Edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James
Romm. New York: Penguin Random House.
x
Lombardo, Stanley. 1997. Homer, Iliad. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Marincola, John. 2009. The Hellenika, from The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenika. Edited by
Robert B. Strassler. New York: Random House.
Murray, A. T. 1936. Pseudo-Demosthenes, Against Neaera, from Demosthenes. Vol. VI. Loeb
Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
New American Standard Bible. 1995. La Habra, CA: Lockman Foundation.
Nisetich, Frank. 2005. The New Posidippus: A Hellenistic Poetry Book. Edited by Kathryn
Gutzwiller. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2016. Antigone, from The Greek Plays. Edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm.
New York: Penguin Random House.
Parker, Douglas. 1969. Lysistrata, from Aristophanes: Four Comedies. Edited by William
Arrowsmith. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Pomeroy, Sarah B. 1994. Xenophon: Oeconomicus, A Social and Historical Commentary. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
———. 2002. Spartan Women. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rhodes, P. J., and Robin Osborne. 2003. Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Ruden, Sarah. 2016. Agamemnon, from The Greek Plays. Edited by Mary Lefkowitz and James
Romm. New York: Penguin Random House.
Saunders, A. N. W. 1975. Demosthenes and Aeschines. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Tandy, David W., and Walter C. Neale. 1996. Hesiod’s Works and Days. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press.
Todd, O. J. 1968. Xenophon: Memorabilia and Oeconomicus. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Verity, Anthony. 2008. Pindar: The Complete Odes. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Warner, Rex. 1959. Medea, from The Complete Greek Tragedies. Edited by David Grene and
Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Waterfield, Robin. 1994. Plato. Symposium. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1998. Plutarch. Greek Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
West, M. L. 1991. Greek Lyric Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2005. “A New Sappho Poem.” Times Literary Supplement, June 26.
Wyckoff, Elizabeth. 1959. Antigone, from The Complete Greek Tragedies. Edited by David
Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
xi
P R E F A C E
B
T he history of the ancient Greeks is one of the most improbable success stories
in world history. A small people inhabiting a country poor in resources and
divided into hundreds of squabbling mini-states created one of the world’s most
remarkable cultures. Located on the periphery of the Bronze Age civilizations of
Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Greeks absorbed key technical skills such as writ-
ing and metallurgy in the process of developing a culture marked by astonishing
creativity, versatility, and resilience. Finally, having spread from Spain to India,
Greek culture was gradually transformed as it became an integral part of other
civilizations: Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic. In the process, the Greeks left a rich
legacy in every area of the arts and sciences that is still alive in contemporary
civilizations.
Almost three decades ago the original authors of this book set out to write a
new history of the country the English poet Lord Byron called “the land of lost
gods.” The goal of Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History (Oxford,
1999) was to flesh out the romantic images of Greece with the new understanding
of the realities of history gained from the patient scholarship of a half century
of talented historians. We also hoped to change the teaching of ancient history
in North America and elsewhere by giving full recognition to the significance of
both the Iron Age and the Hellenistic period in the formation of Greek civilization,
incorporating into the story of Greece the experiences of those who did not belong
to the elite (such as women and slaves) and using archaeological and artistic evi-
dence as primary sources—not as mere illustrations of what was already known
from written texts.
Since the publication of that book, Oxford University Press has afforded us
multiple opportunities to build on our work. In 2004 we published the first edi-
tion of A Brief History of Ancient Greece, which, although shorter than our first
work, placed greater emphasis on social and cultural history. Two further edi-
tions of this book followed in 2009 and 2014. As was true of the earlier editions,
every paragraph and sentence has been carefully reviewed. The readings have
been updated, new translations selected or prepared wherever necessary, new
images chosen, and suggestions and corrections sent to us by our readers incor-
porated into the text.
xii
This book has drawn on all the improvements made in our earlier work; the
art program, for example, combines photos from earlier editions of this book with
some from the latest edition of the larger book and includes new images and re-
vised maps as well. Because scholarship does not stand still, we have continued to
incorporate new knowledge in this edition, as we did in its predecessors. We have
included updated accounts of Bronze and Early Iron Age Greece, new material on
the western Greeks and Roman Greece, and expanded our discussion on different
topics of the social and cultural history, such as comedy, same-sex relationships,
and coins. Finally, we would particularly call readers’ attention to three features of
our book: the timeline at the beginning, which provides a brief but comprehensive
overview of Greek history; the extensive glossary at the end, which provides cap-
sule descriptions of many of the terms that occur in the book; and the color plates,
which bring our readers closer to the physical reality of the remarkable objects and
buildings the Greeks created.
All synthetic works depend on the work of innumerable people, whose names
will not necessarily appear in a text. We would like to thank them and our gener-
ous readers and students, from whose comments and suggestions we have greatly
benefited. We are indebted to Charles Cavaliere and his always-helpful staff at
Oxford University Press, who have been generous with their support and assis-
tance throughout the gestation of this project. Fortunately, a historian of Roman
Greece, Georgia Tsouvala, has joined our team and allowed us to expand our
treatment of Greek history beyond the Hellenistic world. Finally, we miss dearly
the keen eye of Lee Harris Pomeroy, who died while this edition was in progress.
Lee’s advice on the covers and images in the various editions of this book was
invaluable.
We would also like to thank the various publishers who have granted us per-
mission to reprint translations. All unattributed translations in the text are by the
authors. Abbreviations for standard works and place names follow those used in
The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). We
hope this new edition will continue to help teachers, students, and general readers
explore and enjoy the fascinating history of ancient Greece.
xiii
NEW TO THE FOURTH EDITION
• Expanded discussions of Greek comedy, numismatics, and same-sex
relationships
• Cross-cultural study of the western Greeks
• Substantially increased coverage of Roman Greece
• New translations of documents
• An extensively revised art program
• New and revised maps
• An extended timeline
• New coauthor Georgia Tsouvala
xiv
A B O U T T H E A U T H O R
B
xv
Jennifer Tolbert Roberts is Professor of Classics and History at the City College
of New York and the City University of New York Graduate Center. She received
her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Yale University. A past president of the Association
of Ancient Historians, she specializes in the political, military, and intellectual his-
tory of Greece during the Classical period. Her publications include Accountability
in Athenian Government (1982); Civilizations of the West: The Human Adventure, with
Richard Greaves and Robert Zaller (1992); Athens on Trial: The Antidemocratic Tra-
dition in Western Thought (1994); editions of Thucydides’s Peloponnesian War (1998)
and Herodotus’s Histories (2013), both with Walter Blanco; Herodotus: A Very Short
Introduction (2011); and The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient
Greece (2017), as well as numerous translations and journal articles. Her work has
been translated into several languages.
David W. Tandy earned his B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. He has been
Visiting Professor of Classics at the University of Leeds (UK) since 2011, after leav-
ing the University of Tennessee, where he taught Greek philology and history as
Professor of Classics and Distinguished Professor of Humanities for 34 years. His
books include Hesiod’s Works and Days: A Translation and Commentary for the Social
Sciences (1996); Warriors into Traders (1997); and Prehistory and History (2001). He is
also the author of journal articles and book chapters on the economies of the Near
East and the Mediterranean and on Homer, Hesiod, lyric poets, Lysias, Scopas,
Vergil, and Beowulf.
Georgia Tsouvala is Associate Professor of History at Illinois State University.
She received her B.A. from Hunter College and her Ph.D. in Classics from the
Graduate School of the City University of New York. She is the author of several
articles on Roman Greece, Plutarch, Greek epigraphy, and women’s history. Cur-
rently associate editor of Brill’s new journal Research Perspectives in Ancient History
and the president of the Alumni/ae Association of the American School of Clas-
sical Studies at Athens, she has won the Franklin Grant for her research on Greek
women athletes in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the Scott Jacobs Fund Grant
for her work on Alexander’s tradition, a Dow fellowship for her epigraphic study,
and the Gertrude Smith Fellowship (twice) for developing and leading summer
programs for the American School of Classical Studies in Greece. She is co-editor
of two forthcoming collections on Greek and Roman women’s history and on the
discourse of marriage in the Greco-Roman world.
xvi
T I M E L I N E
B
Political/ Cultural
Period Military Events Social Events Development
2800–2300 Cycladic
civilization
c. 1628 Eruption of
Thera volcano
xvii
Political/ Cultural
Period Military Events Social Events Development
1490 Mycenaeans
take over Crete
1450 Linear B script;
Bull Leaper fresco from
Cnossus
1200–900 Early Iron Age 1200 Unidentified 1200–1050 Palace system 1200 Cultural decline
(Submycenaean attackers loot and collapses
1125–1050) burn palace centers
(Protogeometric 1050 Small chiefdoms 1050 Iron technology
1050–900) established; migrations
of mainland Greeks to
Ionia
950 Monumental
building at Lefkandi
xviii
Political/ Cultural
Period Military Events Social Events Development
700–650 Evolution 700 Hesiod; period of
of hoplite armor and lyric poetry begins
tactics
625–600 Cypselid
620 Law code of Draco in dedications at
Athens Olympia
582–573 Pythian,
Isthmian, Nemean
games inaugurated
xix
Political/ Cultural
Period Military Events Social Events Development
525–505 Temple of
Apollo at Delphi built
by the Alcmaeonids
480–479 Persian
invasion of Greece:
battles of Thermopylae,
Artemisium, Salamis,
Plataea, Mycale; Xerxes
driven from Greece
Growth of democracy
in Athens; Themistocles
driven out of Athens and
flees to Persia
xx
Political/ Cultural
Period Military Events Social Events Development
460–445 “First”
Peloponnesian War 460s Prominence of Cimon
461 Reforms of Ephialtes c. 460–370 Hippocrates
at Athens; Pericles rises to of Cos
prominence
c. 460–439 Sicel 458 Aeschylus’s
League Oresteia
Herodotus at work on
his Histories
447–432 Construction of
Parthenon at Athens
445 Thirty Years’ Peace
c. 440 Death of
Ducetius 430 Death of Pheidias
431–404
Peloponnesian War 429 Death of Pericles Thucydides begins
his History of the
Peloponnesian War
425 Aristophanes’
424 After Battle Acharnians
of Sphacteria 292 423 Thucydides exiled
Spartans captured from Athens
by Athenians
422 Death of Brasidas and
Cleon at Amphipolis
continued
xxi
Political/ Cultural
Period Military Events Social Events Development
413 Slaves in mines
at Laurium defect to
Spartans at Decelea
xxii
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XIV
SUURI ONNETTOMUUS.
»Kuka tuo mies on, Gyuri»? kysyi kreivi Kantássy, joka myöskin oli
katsellut talonpoikaa jonkun aikaa ja ihaillut aito unkarilaisen tapaan
tuota hyvän hevosen selässä olevaa mainiota ratsastajaa.
HYVITYS.
Sillä aikaa oli András melkein jo saapunut kylään. Hän tiesi yhtä
hyvin kuin kreivikin, että illan hävitys oli ihmisten eikä Jumalan
toimeenpanema, ja aavisti, että noissa taloissa asuvat taikauskoiset
säikähtyneet raukat olivat tehneet tuo raukkamaisen teon ja
aiheuttaneet rikollisessa hulluudessaan tuon peloittavan
onnettomuuden, jonka estämisestä he nyt äreästi ja uhmaavasti
kokonaan kieltäytyivät.
»Älkää puhuko heille enää mitään, isä», sanoi äkkiä muudan ääni
pimeydestä. »He eivät ansaitse, että teidän ystävälliset silmänne
katselevat heidän ilkeitä kasvojaan sekuntiakaan enää».
»Niin onkin, mies, mutta ei puoleksikaan niin ilkeä kuin tuo synkkä
ja murhaava teko, jonka teidän rikolliset kätenne ovat panneet
toimeen tänä iltana. Peräytykää heti»! lisäsi hän, kun pari
talonpoikaa lähimmästä ryhmästä aikoi lähestyä häntä. »Kiellän teitä
puhumasta minulle, lähestymästä minua ja laskemasta kättänne
Csillagin lautasille, sillä teidän saastainen kosketuksenne voi sen
tappaa».