Athens and Sparta is an essential textbook for the study of Greek history. Providing a comprehensive account of the two key Greek powers in the years after 478 BC, it charts the rise of Athens from city-state to empire after the devastation of the Persian Wars, and the increasing tensions with their rivals, Sparta, culminating in the Peloponnesian Wars. As well as the political history of the period, it also offers an insight into the radically different political systems of these two superpowers, and explores aspects of social history such as Athenian democracy, life in Sparta, and the lives of Athenian women. More than this though, it encourages students to develop their critical skills, guiding them in how to think about history, demonstrating in a lucid way the techniques used in interpreting the ancient sources. In this new third edition, Anton Powell includes discussion of the latest scholarship on this crucial period in Greek history. Its bibliography has been renewed, and for the first time it includes numerous photographs of Greek sites and archaeological objects discussed in the text. Written in an accessible style and covering the key events of the period - the rise to power of Athens, the unusual Spartan state, and their rivalry and eventual clash in all out war - this is an invaluable tool for students of the history of Greece in the fifth century BC.

The Greek World is a collection of twenty-seven previously unpublished articles by distinguished scholars in the field of ancient history. The articles are thematically linked and cover a wide range of political, social, religious and philosophical topics in ancient history which take account of recent major developments in the study of ancient Greece. The contributors demonstrate how traditional, central topics in Greek history can be illuminated by examining the marginal elements of Greek society, such as far-flung communities on the edges of the Hellenic world, or the poor in its more famous cities.
This major work is both a reference collection of essays by leading specialists in their own fields and also a collective demonstration of new directions in Greek history.

This collection, first published in 1989, investigates aspects of the Spartan polity which have often been overlooked or underestimated. Viewed at least until the Renaissance as the epitome of classical virtues, Sparta has in the last two centuries suffered a rapid decline in reputation among liberal-minded scholars, repelled by many of the repressive measures employed by this remarkably successful city-state, which for centuries dominated mainland Greece. Recent studies have emphasised permanent problems which beset Sparta: the small size of her citizen body, the tensions between noble Spartiates and commoners, the ambiguous role of women, and, of course, the helots. Classical Sparta: Techniques Behind Her Success seeks to present this intriguing polis by exploring how its perennial difficulties were, for so long, ingeniously overcome. Specifically, the essays in this volume address themselves to broadly ideological issues, demonstrating how skilful propaganda and deception contributed significantly to the longevity of the Spartan state.

This collection, first published in 1989, investigates aspects of the Spartan polity which have often been overlooked or underestimated. Viewed at least until the Renaissance as the epitome of classical virtues, Sparta has in the last two centuries suffered a rapid decline in reputation among liberal-minded scholars, repelled by many of the repressive measures employed by this remarkably successful city-state, which for centuries dominated mainland Greece. Recent studies have emphasised permanent problems which beset Sparta: the small size of her citizen body, the tensions between noble Spartiates and commoners, the ambiguous role of women, and, of course, the helots. Classical Sparta: Techniques Behind Her Success seeks to present this intriguing polis by exploring how its perennial difficulties were, for so long, ingeniously overcome. Specifically, the essays in this volume address themselves to broadly ideological issues, demonstrating how skilful propaganda and deception contributed significantly to the longevity of the Spartan state.

In the past twenty years the study of Sparta has come of age. Images prevalent earlier in the 20th century, of Spartans as hearty good fellows or scarlet-cloaked automata, have been superseded by more complex scholarly reactions. As interest has grown in the self-images projected by this most secretive of Greek cities, increasing attention has focused on how individual Greek writers from other states reacted to information, or disinformation about Sparta. The studies in this volume provide new insights into the traditional historians' question, "What actually happened at Sparta?". But the implications of the work go far beyond Laconia. They concern preoccupations of some of the most studied of Greek writers, and help towards an understanding of how Athenians defined the achievment, or the failure, of their own city.

Euripides' interest in the psychology and social position of women is well known. Of the great Greek playwrights, he most directly reflects contemporary philosophical and social debates, and his work is of great value as a source for social history.
The important new studies in this volume explore Euripides' treatment of sexuality and Greek ideals of women's behaviour. Using a wide range of analytic techniques, seven scholars direct new light not only on Euripides' own views of women but also on the ideals and preoccupations of his contemporaries in this area. Athenian women of the classical period were used, in Plato's phrase, 'to a life in the shadows'. This book helps us to see how far the influence of these cloistered women extended into the sunlit world of men.

The work contains new articles by 27 specialists in ancient Greece. Periods studied range from Mycenean to the late Hellenistic; the Greek cultures in question are not only those of mainland Greece but include Asia Minor, Egypt and Italy.
A theme shared by many of the chapters in the volume is social history, and especially the history of those who were, metaphorically, at or beyond the margins of power - Women, the poor and slaves. In addition, several contributors look, in keeping with modern interests, at those who were on the literal margins of the Greek world. The work seeks to show how research into areas once disregarded as marginal can shed vital light on topics and authors traditionally seen as central. For example, Plato's reforms are illuminated through a consideration of his impatient and revolutionary attitude to women. Another essay shows how most potent symbol of old-fashioned, `central' Greek history, the Parthenon, can be understood more fully, as a political symbol, given a knowledge of the cosmetic techniques of (and the gossip about) the women of Classical Athens.
THe Greek World is a uniquely comprehensive and authoritative volume, in which social and political history interact in a way which is stimulating and enlightening. It is an essential library purchase for all scholars of ancient Greece.

eBook available with sample pages: PB:0415170427 EB:0203042166

Contents:
1. Euripides and Sparta 2. Laconica: Aristophanes and the Spartans 3. The Duplicitous Spartan 4. Two Shadows: Images of Spartans and Helots 5. Xenophon, Sparta and the Cyropaedia 6. `Blind Ploutos'?: Contemporary Images of the Role of Wealth in Classical Sparta 7. Images of Sparta: Writer and Audience in Isocrates' Panathenaicus 8. Plato and Sparta: Modes of Rule and of Non-rational Persuasion in the Laws 9. Aristotle on Sparta 10. Sparta Re(de)valued: some Athenian Public Attitudes to Sparta between Leuctra and the Lamian War

Euripides' interest in the psychology and social position of women is well known. Of the great Greek playwrights, he most directly reflects contemporary philosophical and social debates, and his work is of great value as a source for social history.
The important new studies in this volume explore Euripides' treatment of sexuality and Greek ideals of women's behaviour. Using a wide range of analytic techniques, seven scholars direct new light not only on Euripides' own views of women but also on the ideals and preoccupations of his contemporaries in this area. Athenian women of the classical period were used, in Plato's phrase, 'to a life in the shadows'. This book helps us to see how far the influence of these cloistered women extended into the sunlit world of men.

The study of the Spartans is now pursued more widely and intensively than ever. Indeed, no longer is Sparta the 'second city' of ancient Greece. This volume, the fourth in the established series on which Powell and Hodkinson have collaborated, breaks fresh ground, not least in the range of its contributors. The authors of the fourteen new papers represent nine different countries and demonstrate many of the fertile modern approaches to the history, the archaeology - and the still-influential image - of the city on the Eurotas.

Since its first appearance in 2008, this book has changed the landscape of Virgilian studies. Analysing closely the logic and the literary genres of Virgil's three poems, it politely confronts the modern orthodoxy that Virgil signalled distaste for the methods of his ruler, Octavian-Augustus. It refreshes the study of Virgil's poetry by comparing it with the detail (normally neglected by scholars) of Rome's civil wars after Julius Caesar's death, when Octavian's survival looked highly unlikely. And it argues that Virgil wrote as a passionate - and brave - partisan of Octavian, who - like a good lawyer - confronted his patron's undeniable failings in order to defend. Awarded in 2011 the prize of the Vergilian Society for 'the book that makes the greatest contribution toward our understanding and appreciation of Virgil'.

Thucydides is widely seen as the most dispassionate and reliable contemporary source for the history of classical Sparta. But, compared with partisan authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch, his information on the subject is more scattered and implicit. Scholars in recent decades have made progress in teasing out the sense of Thucydides' often lapidary remarks on Sparta. This book takes the process further. Its eight new studies by international specialists aim to reveal coherent structures both in Thucydidean thought and in Spartan reality. This volume is the second of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales applies to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the main sources on which historians depend, and analysing with a combination of historical and literary methods.

Athens and Sparta is an essential textbook for the study of Greek history. Providing a comprehensive account of the two key Greek powers in the years after 478 BC, it charts the rise of Athens from city-state to empire after the devastation of the Persian Wars, and the increasing tensions with their rivals, Sparta, culminating in the Peloponnesian Wars. As well as the political history of the period, it also offers an insight into the radically different political systems of these two superpowers, and explores aspects of social history such as Athenian democracy, life in Sparta, and the lives of Athenian women. More than this though, it encourages students to develop their critical skills, guiding them in how to think about history, demonstrating in a lucid way the techniques used in interpreting the ancient sources. In this new third edition, Anton Powell includes discussion of the latest scholarship on this crucial period in Greek history. Its bibliography has been renewed, and for the first time it includes numerous photographs of Greek sites and archaeological objects discussed in the text. Written in an accessible style and covering the key events of the period - the rise to power of Athens, the unusual Spartan state, and their rivalry and eventual clash in all out war - this is an invaluable tool for students of the history of Greece in the fifth century BC.

Greeks - in later times - saw Athens as 'the Hellas of Hellas', but in the classical period many Athenians thought otherwise. Athens might be a school of Hellas, but the school of Hellas was Sparta. Militarily and morally, Sparta was supreme. This book explores how Athenians - ordinary citizens as well as writers and politicians - thought about Sparta's superiority. Nine new studies from an international cast examine how Athenians might revere Sparta even as they fought her. This respect led to Plato's literary creation of fantasy cities (in the Republic and Laws) to imitate Spartan methods. And, after its military surrender in 404 BC, ruling Athenian politicians claimed that their city was to be remodelled as itself a New Sparta.

One of the most fertile and fast-developing themes of recent historiography is treated by the 10 new papers in this volume. The history of the ancient world has traditionally been studied with a view to tracing the origins of those grand developments which eventually occurred. The writing of history is often simplified, by modern scholars as by some ancient sources, so as to read almost teleologically. 'Who', it may have been asked, 'wants to understand what did not happen?' But the most respected of our ancient sources, Herodotos, Thucydides, Tacitus and others, frequently describe the actors in their narratives as guided by fears and hopes concerning developments which did not happen, or by reflection on events which had happened but which subsequently did not play out as anticipated. As Tacitus wrote of Boudicca's revolt, the Britons were motivated by past Roman offences 'and the fear of worse'. Such - superficially - sterile, even vague, expectations tend to be neglected in scholarly discourse. But not only were unfulfilled expectations facts in themselves; they generated real actions. Further, even real and quite grand events - such as a battle won in a campaign eventually unsuccessful - are likely to be neglected if they do not seem to have led to larger developments still: in short, if they are inconvenient for a grand narrative or a syllabus. Yet, history cannot be understood without such things. Restoring them to their due prominence offers scope for a wide-ranging scholarly activity which is not only legitimate but necessary.

Coins of the best-known Roman revolutionary era allow rival pretenders to speak to us directly. After the deaths of Caesar and Cicero (in 44 and 43BC) hardly one word has been reliably transmitted to us from even the two most powerful opponents of Octavian: Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius - except through coinage and the occasional inscription. The coins are an antidote to a widespread fault in modern approaches: the idea, from hindsight, that the Roman Republic was doomed, that the rise of Octavian-Augustus to monarchy was inevitable, and that contemporaries might have sensed as much. In this book eleven new essays explore the coinage of Rome's competing dynasts. Julius Caesar's coins, and those of his 'son' Octavian-Augustus, are studied. But similar and respectful attention is given to the issues of their opponents: Cato the Younger and Q. Metellus Scipio, Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius, Q. Cornificius and others. A shared aim is to understand mentalities, the forecasts current, in an age of rare insecurity as the superpower of the Mediterranean faced, and slowly recovered from, division and ruin.

Our ideas about ancient Athens are constructed very largely from the writings of Athenian authors. Relatively rare are our sources for how others - whether Greeks, Asiatics or Romans - saw Athens from the outside. Yet we can see that not only did many across the Mediterranean world resist the political power of Athens in countless wars over several centuries, but that there existed an intriguing variety of anti-Athenian ideologies. This volume traces negative thinking about Athens from the late archaic period to Roman times. It challenges the easy modern supposition that Athens was generally seen as the cultural emblem of Greece, and casts light on the thinking of ancient peoples who - nowadays - tend to exist in Athens' shadow.

This is the 7th volume from the International Sparta Seminar, in the series begun in 1989 by Anton Powell with Stephen Hodkinson. The volume is both thematic and eclectic. Ephraim David and Yoann Le Tallec treat respectively the politics of nudity at Sparta and the role of athletes in forming the Spartan state. Nicolas Richer examines the significance of animals depicted in Lakonian art; Andrew Scott asks what Lakonian figured pottery reveals of local consumerism. Nino Luraghi and Paul Christesen deal respectively with the way in which Sparta was viewed by Messenians and by Ephorus. Jean Ducat treats 'the ghost of the Lakedaimonian state', a major study of formal relations between Spartiate and perioikic communities. Thomas Figueira considers how Spartan women policed masculine behaviour. Anton Powell traces the development of Spartan reactions to political divination in the classical period.

This title includes ten new essays from a distinguished international cast that treat Spartas most famous area of activity. The results are challenging. Among the contributors, Thomas Figueira explores the paradox that Spartas cavalry was an undistinguished institution. Jean Ducat conducts the most thorough study to date of Spartas official cowards, the tremblers. Anton Powell asks why Sparta chose not to destroy Athens after the Peloponnesian War. And Stephen Hodkinson argues that the image of Spartan society as militaristic may after all be aamirage. This is the sixth volume from the International Sparta Seminar, founded by Powell and Hodkinson in 1988. The series has established itself as the main forum for the study of Spartan history.

"Augustus' Memoirs", written probably in the mid 20s BC, might have been one of the most revealing texts of Roman history - had they survived. Far longer than his surviving Res Gestae, the Memoirs seem to date from a period at which the wounds of Rome's civil wars were fresh, and the emperor's partisan past might be recalled with discomfort. Existing fragments and testimonia have suggested that the work was apologetic in purpose. In this, the first ever comprehensive study of the subject, a cast of internationally-respected scholars reconstruct aspects of the work, its importance for historians, and its relation to Roman literary genre. This book also contains, by kind permission of Oxford University Press, the fragments and testimonia of the Memoirs as they will appear, newly edited by Christopher Smith, in "The Fragmentary Roman Historians".

Xenophon has long been identified as a chief contemporary source, if not the chief source, for the history of classical Sparta. But his information has commonly been treated in restricted ways. Scholars who have studied Xenophon's oeuvre have tended to apply a knowledge of Athenian history and of general Greek literature rather than a specialist knowledge of Sparta. And specialist students of Sparta have commonly `mined' elements of Xenophon's work without sufficient regard either for the author's general characteristics and biases or for the variety of his literary genres. In this volume, 12 internationally-recognised experts on Sparta examine the quality of Xenophon's information on central topics of Laconian history, in the light of the author's political, literary and intellectual characteristics. This book is the first of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales will apply to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the main sources on which historians depend, and analysing with a combination of historical and literary methods. This book is the first of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales will apply to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the main sources on which historians depend, and analysing with a combination of historical and literary methods.

Crucial to the understanding of Athenian literature and the political history of numerous Greek states, the history of Sparta is, at last, receiving due attention. Here are fourteen original pieces of archaeological research from eminent scholars Han van Wees, Jean Ducat, H.W. Singor, Nicolas Richer, Ephraim David, Stephen Hodkinson, Nigel Kennell, Thomas Figueira, Massimo Nafissi, P-J Shaw, Paul Cartledge, Noreen Humble, Ellen Greenstein Millender and Anton Powell, first presented at a conference in Hay-on-Wye in September 1997.

The son of Pompey the Great cast a long shadow. Acclaimed by the Roman populace in his lifetime, his traditional virtues and military successes put to shame his civil war rival Octavian. After his death, he was passionately and safely abused by Octavian and poets as a marginal nuisance, a pirate. The image of a second rank' figure has been propagated into modern times by Syme and Zanker, but extensive ancient evidence makes possible a very different story. Here seven new studies from an international cast reconstruct a figure whose actions and image shaped not just the civil war period but also the character of the early principate.

The political aspects of Augustan poetry have attracted much academic interest. The aim of this study is to take account of the effects of Augustan propaganda not only on the work of contemporary Roman writers, but also on the critical tradition itself. The six essays presented in this volume explore the political themes in the work of major poets such as Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Propertius. Using traditional as well as post-structuralist approaches, the essays examine the controversies of the Civil Wars, the emerging issues of treason and free speech and changing representations of Cleopatra and female power.