Originally published in 1978, this volume comprises articles previously published in the historical journal, Past and Present, ranging over nearly a thousand years of Graeco-Roman history. The essays focus primarily on the Roman Empire, reflecting the increase, in British scholarship of the post-war years, of explanatory, structuralist studies of this period in Roman history. The topics treated include Athenian politics, the Roman conquest of the east, violence in the later Roman Republic, the second Sophistic, and persecutions of the early Christians. The authors have all produced original studies, a number of which have generated significant research by other ancient historians.

Originally published in 1978, this volume comprises articles previously published in the historical journal, Past and Present, ranging over nearly a thousand years of Graeco-Roman history. The essays focus primarily on the Roman Empire, reflecting the increase, in British scholarship of the post-war years, of explanatory, 'structuralist' studies of this period in Roman history. The topics treated include Athenian politics, the Roman conquest of the east, violence in the later Roman Republic, the second Sophistic, and persecutions of the early Christians. The authors have all produced original studies, a number of which have generated significant research by other ancient historians.

"The World of Odysseus" is a concise and penetrating account of the society that gave birth to the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey"--a book that provides a vivid picture of the Greek Dark Ages, its men and women, works and days, morals and values. Long celebrated as a pathbreaking achievement in the social history of the ancient world, M.I. Finley's brilliant study remains, as classicist Bernard Knox notes in his introduction to this new edition, "as indispensable to the professional as it is accessible to the general reader"--a fundamental companion for students of Homer and Homeric Greece.

M. I. Finley here reconstructs the "preliterary" background to Greek civilization by an examination of recent archaeological discoveries and a critical reappraisal of older archaeological evidence. He discusses the problems that dependence on such evidence poses for the historian, for, although archaeology reveals changes and even cataclysms, it rarely allows us more than a restricted view of a society under normal conditions. He points out the difficulties in reconciling the mythological "evidence" and the archaeological, particularly in Crete and Troy, and analyzes and distinguishes the elements of historic fact and legend in the Iliad and Odyssey.

Dr. Finley then traces the rise and development of distinctive Greek institutions and culture: the fall of the palace-centered "Mycenaean" state and emergence of the polis in Athens and Sparta, the taming of the Homeric hero and emergence of a shadowy concept, "the people." He shows how the Greeks tackled the problem of stasis—social conflict—and concludes with a discussion of the agon, the contest, that symbol of the tension between the individual and society that has been an element of Western societ ever since.

This admirable study has now been revised and enlarged by Professor Finley in the light of the latest archaeological evidence and relevant scholarship. It provides, succinctly and authoritatively, the background information needed for a proper understanding of classical Greek civilization.

"Technical progress, economic growth, productivity, even efficiency have not been significant goals since the beginning of time," declares M. I. Finley in his classic work. The states of the ancient Mediterranean world had no recognizable real-property market, never fought a commercially inspired war, witnessed no drive to capital formation, and assigned the management of many substantial enterprises to slaves and ex-slaves. In short, to study the economies of the ancient world, one must begin by discarding many premises that seemed self-evident before Finley showed that they were useless or misleading. Available again, with a new foreword by Ian Morris, these sagacious, fertile, and occasionally combative essays are just as electrifying today as when Finley first wrote them.

The business of politics - the vital process of conducting government through the dynamics of argument, conflict and decision-making - offers us one of the most revealing areas of insight into any society. Sir Moses Finley's exploration of politics in the city states of Greece and republican Rome yields insights into the arenas of political debate which have made a major impact on our understanding of the ancient world. The early political involvement of the free lower classes, the effect of war and conquest on political stability, and the ideological pressures which influenced the course of internal conflicts are salient themes in this stimulating investigation of the nature of government in Greece and Rome.