Here Stephen Tracy offers a vivid, fast-paced narrative that serves as a reading guide to Homer's monumental epic. He not only provides translations of key passages and traces the evolution of major themes in the Odyssey, but also helps new readers to understand the artistry of one of the best tales ever told. Aimed at advanced readers as well, this book stresses an appreciation of how Homer has ordered his narrative, covering such topics as character interaction, family relationships, elements of poetic language, and the symbolic treatment of death, rebirth, growth, and knowledge. Given the controversy over the way the Odyssey was composed and handed down, Tracy concentrates on presenting the poem as a highly unified work. His analysis of the narrative structure reveals the epic to be arranged as a series of parallel journeys. The journey, seen here as a symbol of growth and self-knowledge, is among the major themes discussed in detail, along with the importance of women as overseers of life's journeys and the need for the sons of heroes to grow up worthy of their fathers.

For a century following the end of the Lamian War in 322 B.C., Athens' harbour at Pireus was almost constantly occupied by a Macedonian garrison. The Macedonian presence dealt a crucial blow to Athenian independence and Athenian democracy, initiating the first in a long and intermittent series of foreign occupations. The twenty-eight papers in this volume are based on an international conference hosted by the University of Athens in May 2001, and focus on various aspects of Athenian art, archaeology and history in the century of Macedonian domination. They consider Athens' new role as a political stepping stone for potential Successors to the throne of Macedon - Cassander, Demetrios Poliorketes and Antigonos Gonatas were each able to secure Macedonia by using Athens as a power base - and the ways in which Athenian culture was affected by the Macedonian presence. They contribute to the ongoing debate about the reasons for the Macedonian ascendancy, the degree of independence accorded Athens by their Macedonian overlords, the third-century archon list, and changes in Athenian art and architecture.

Pericles, Greece's greatest statesman and the leader of its Golden Age, created the Parthenon and championed democracy in Athens and beyond. Centuries of praise have endowed him with the powers of a demigod, but what did his friends, associates, and fellow citizens think of him? In "Pericles: A Sourcebook and Reader, "Stephen V. Tracy visits the fifth century B.C. to find out. Tracy compiles and translates the scattered, elusive primary sources relating to Pericles. He brings Athens's political atmosphere to life with archaeological evidence and the accounts of those close to Pericles, including Thucydides, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Protagoras, Sophocles, Lysias, Xenophon, Plato, and Plutarch. Readers will discover Pericles as a formidable politician, a persuasive and inspiring orator, and a man full of human contradictions.

"In this new work Stephen Tracy continues to demonstrate his unique mastery of recognizing and identifying the 'hands' of the cutters of Athenian inscriptions, ca. 300-229 b.c. No student of Greece in the Hellenistic age can effectively carry on research without taking account of Tracy's remarkable analysis of its most important primary source material."--Ronald S. Stroud, University of California, Berkeley

"No other scholar comes anywhere near to Tracy in the ability to apply his method, which requires long practice and great patience."--Gary Reger, author of "Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, 314-167 b.c."