A Short History Of Ancient Greece

The story of the ancient Greeks is one of the most improbable success stories in world history. A small group of people inhabiting a country poor in resources and divided into hundreds of quarreling states created one of the most remarkable civilizations ever. Comprehensive and balanced, A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture, Second Edition is a shorter version of the authors' highly successful Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, Second Edition (OUP, 2008). Four leading authorities on the classical world offer a lively and up-to-date account of Greek civilization and history in all its complexity and variety, covering the entire period from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic Era, and integrating the most recent research in archaeology, comparative anthropology, and social history. They show how the early Greeks borrowed from their neighbors but eventually developed a distinctive culture all their own, one that was marked by astonishing creativity, versatility, and resilience. Using physical evidence from archaeology, the written testimony of literary texts and inscriptions, and anthropological models based on comparative studies, this compact volume provides an account of the Greek world that is thoughtful and sophisticated yet accessible to students and general readers with little or no knowledge of Greece.

Classical Greece and its legacy have long inspired a powerful and passionate fascination. The civilization that bequeathed to later ages drama and democracy, Homer and heroism, myth and Mycenae and the Delphic Oracle and the Olympic Games has, perhaps more than any other, helped shape the intellectual contours of the modern world. P J Rhodes is among the most distinguished historians of antiquity. In this elegant, zesty new survey he explores the archaic (8th–early 5th centuries BCE), classical (5th and 4th centuries BCE) and Hellenistic (late 4th–mid-2nd centuries BCE) periods up to the beginning of Roman hegemony. His scope is that of the peoples who originated on the Greek mainland and Aegean islands who later migrated to the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and then (following the conquests of Alexander) to the Near East and beyond. Exploring topics such as the epic struggle with Persia; the bitter rivalry of Athens and Sparta; slaves and ethnicity; religion and philosophy; and literature and the visual arts, this authoritative book will attract students and non-specialists in equal measure.

In Greek History, someone has said, little that happened mattered much; it was what the Greeks thought that counted. This, broadly speaking, is the truth; and here I have tried to lay the main emphasis on Greek ideas, setting them against the background of historic events. Obviously the best clue to their understanding is to be found in what the Greeks themselves wrote; and, though no English version can be an adequate substitute, I have given in translation whatever passages appear to me most revealing. With these it has been my object to convey effectively the author’s meaning rather than slavishly to reproduce his phraseology; and I have taken, I confess, some liberty with the task, abbreviating by frequent omissions of words, clauses and even whole sentences, occasionally elaborating to bring out the full sense, and above all recasting the original syntactic construction in approximation to our own modern idiom. In the illustrations, similarly, I have here and there allowed myself the licence of reconstruction when details have suffered through accident or age. I have to record with gratitude my great debt to Mrs. Eric James and Mr. W. H. Plommer and Mr. L. F. R. Audemars for valuable criticisms and suggestions. My thanks are also due to Messrs. Methuen, the publishers of my “History of Greece,” for permission to produce this complementary volume. It may be that the reader will be encouraged to further study of the subject; and on certain points—few among many which limits of space have compelled me to summarize or omit—I have ventured to insert a cross-reference.

Revised edition of: A brief history of ancient Rome. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

With this first masterly volume in an epic reimagining of the Trojan War, David Gemmell has written an ageless drama of brave deeds and fierce battles, of honor and treachery, of love won and lost. He is a man of many names. Some call him the Golden One; others, the Lord of the Silver Bow. To the Dardanians, he is Prince Aeneas. But to his friends, he is Helikaon. Strong, fast, quick of mind, he is a bold warrior, hated by his enemies, feared even by his Trojan allies. For there is a darkness at the heart of the Golden One, a savagery that, once awakened, can be appeased only with blood. Argurios the Mykene is a peerless fighter, a man of unbending principles and unbreakable will. Like all of the Mykene warriors, he lives to conquer and to kill. Dispatched by King Agamemnon to scout the defenses of the golden city of Troy, he is Helikaon’s sworn enemy. Andromache is a priestess of Thera betrothed against her will to Hektor, prince of Troy. Scornful of tradition, skilled in the arts of war, and passionate in the ways of her order, Andromache vows to love whom she pleases and to live as she desires. Now fate is about to thrust these three together–and, from the sparks of passionate love and hate, ignite a fire that will engulf the world.

A Short History of Writing Instruction preserves the legacy of writing instruction from antiquity to contemporary times with a unique focus on the material, educational, and institutional context of the Western rhetorical tradition.

Revised and updated throughout, the fourth edition of Brief History of Ancient Greece presents the political, social, cultural, and economic history and civilization of ancient Greece in all its complexity and variety. Written by leading authorities on the classical world, this captivatingstudy covers the entire period from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic Era, while integrating the most recent research in archaeology, comparative anthropology, and social history.

Classical Greece and its legacy have long inspired a powerful and passionate fascination. The civilization that bequeathed to later ages drama and democracy, Homer and heroism, myth and Mycenae and the Delphic Oracle and the Olympic Games has, perhaps more than any other, helped shape the intellectual contours of the modern world. P J Rhodes is among the most distinguished historians of antiquity. In this elegant, zesty new survey he explores the archaic (8th - early 5th centuries BCE), classical (5th and 4th centuries BCE) and Hellenistic (late 4th - mid-2nd centuries BCE) periods up to the beginning of Roman hegemony. His scope is that of the people who originated on the Greek mainland and Aegean islands who later migrated to the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas, and then (following the conquests of Alexander) to the Near East and beyond. Exploring topics such as the epic struggle with Persia; the bitter rivalry of Athens and Sparta; slaves and ethnicity; religion and philosophy; and literature and the visual arts, this authoritative book will attract students and non-specialists in equal measure.