This exciting new guide is the ideal companion to Greece if you are a traveller with historical and archaeological interests, as it combines practical information with impeccable scholarly research.
Written by an expert on Greece's landscape and archaeology, the guide is unique in exploring a wide range of sites off the beaten track. It also tours all the best-known monuments and regions, from the Acropolis to Aegina, from Megara to Marathon and from Sounion to Salamis.
Beautifully illustrated with over 200 plates, maps, plans and drawings, it includes:
* precise descriptions of routes and individual sites
* artistic, historical, social and political background
* unprecedented coverage outside Athens
* detailed exploration of the post-classical, Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods.
Take it with you on your travels or read it at home; either way, you will gain a deeper appreciation and enjoyment of Greece's history and archaeology.

Contents:
Contents Forward Acknowledgements Information for the Reader Athens and Piraeus 1. Athens: a historical overview 2. The Acropolis 3. The slopes of the Acropolis and the Peripatos 4. The Areopagos, the Hill of the Nymphs, the Mouseion Hill with the Pnyx, the Philopappos Monument and the Kerameikos 5. The Greek Agora, the Roman Market, the Library of Hadrian and Monastiraki 6. Plaka, Olympieion, Ilissos Area, the First Cemetery and the Stadium of Herodes Atticus 7. The National Garden, main boulevards, National Museum, Lykabettos, Tourkovounia and the Academy at Kolonos Hippios 8. Piraeus and Daphni 9. Kaisariani and the monasteries and quarries on Hymettos Attica I: from Athens to Sounion and in the Mesogeia 1. Glyphada, Voula, Vouliagmeni, Vari and the southwest Attic coastal sites 2. From Anavyssos to Sounion 3. The Laurion, Thorikos, Porto Raphti and Brauron 4. The Mesogeia: Loutsa, Raphina, Spata, Markopoulo, Koropi and Paiania Attica II: the Plain of Marathon and the Battle of MArathon 490BC 2. The Marathon Area 3. Rhamnous 4. The Amphiareion of Oropos and Avlona Attica III: Pentelikon and Dionysos 2. Parnes with Phyle and Menidi 3. Eleusis 4. The Thriasian Plain The Megarid, the Attic Border Forts and Perachora 1. Megara 2. Alepochori and Vathichoria in the Megarian Hinterland 3. The Attic Border Forts: Aigosthenai, Eleutherai and Oinoe 4. The Isthmus of Corinth and Diolkos 5. Perachora The Islands of the Saronic Gulf: Salamis, Aigina and Poros 1. Salamis 2. Aigina 3. Poros Appendices 1. The Geography of Attica 2. The modern Structure: Administration and economy 3. The Flora 4. The Fauna 5. Some basic concepts of ancient architecture Glossary 6. Observations on Byzantine Church Building in Greece a) the Early Christian period (306-527) b) The Early Byzantine Period (527-843) c) The Middle Byzantine Period (843-1204) d) The Late Byzantine Period (1204-1460) e) the Post Byzantine Period (1460-1830) 7. List of the most important monuments in chronological order Index of Sites and Monuments Bibliography

Age-old scholarly dogma holds that the death of serious theatre went hand-in-hand with the 'death' of the city-state and that the fourth century BC ushered in an era of theatrical mediocrity offering shallow entertainment to a depoliticised citizenry. The traditional view of fourth-century culture is encouraged and sustained by the absence of dramatic texts in anything more than fragments. Until recently, little attention was paid to an enormous array of non-literary evidence attesting, not only the sustained vibrancy of theatrical culture, but a huge expansion of theatre throughout (and even beyond) the Greek world. Epigraphic, historiographic, iconographic and archaeological evidence indicates that the fourth century BC was an age of exponential growth in theatre. It saw: the construction of permanent stone theatres across and beyond the Mediterranean world; the addition of theatrical events to existing festivals; the creation of entirely new contexts for drama; and vast investment, both public and private, in all areas of what was rapidly becoming a major 'industry'. This is the first book to explore all the evidence for fourth century ancient theatre: its architecture, drama, dissemination, staging, reception, politics, social impact, finance and memorialisation.

Why did ancient autocrats patronise theatre? How could ancient theatre - rightly supposed to be an artform that developed and flourished under democracy - serve their needs? Plato claimed that poets of tragic drama "drag states into tyranny and democracy". The word order is very deliberate: he goes on to say that tragic poets are honoured "especially by the tyrants, and secondly by the democracies" (Republic 568c). For more than forty years scholars have explored the political, ideological, structural and economic links between democracy and theatre in ancient Greece. By contrast, the links between autocracy and theatre are virtually ignored, despite the fact that for the first 200 years of theatre's existence more than a third of all theatre-states were autocratic. For the next 600 years, theatre flourished almost exclusively under autocratic regimes. The volume brings together experts in ancient theatre to undertake the first systematic study of the patterns of use made of the theatre by tyrants, regents, kings and emperors. Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World is the first comprehensive study of the historical circumstances and means by which autocrats turned a medium of mass communication into an instrument of mass control.

This volume of 15 papers is a tribute to Petros Themelis for his significant contribution to Greek archaeology and especially to the excavation, study and conservation to the ancient site of Messene in the Peloponnese. An international cast of scholars has contributed essays on a wide range of subjects (Greek sculpture, epigraphy and architecture), which reflect the interests of the honorand. New, previously unpublished material from Messenia, Athens and elsewhere is here presented for the first time. The geographical and chronological range of the contributions to this book extends from the Geometric period to the Roman Empire and from Macedonia to Crete and Magna Graecia.