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Alexander the Great and the Mystery of the Elephant Medallions

Frank Holt

To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance—how he abetted the belief that ... More

To all those who witnessed his extraordinary conquests, from Albania to India, Alexander the Great appeared invincible. How Alexander himself promoted this appearance—how he abetted the belief that he enjoyed divine favor and commanded even the forces of nature against his enemies—is the subject of this book. Solid evidence for the “supernaturalized” Alexander lies in a rare series of medallions that depict the triumphant young king at war against the elephants, archers, and chariots of Rajah Porus of India at the Battle of the Hydaspes River. Recovered from Afghanistan and Iraq in sensational and sometimes perilous circumstances, these ancient artifacts have long animated the modern historical debate about Alexander. The book considers the history of their discovery and interpretation, the knowable facts of their manufacture and meaning, and, ultimately, the king's own psyche and his frightening theology of war. The result is an analysis of Alexander history and myth, a vivid account of numismatics, and a fascinating look into the age-old mechanics of megalomania.Less

Archaeology: The Discipline of Things

Bjørnar Olsen, Michael Shanks, Timothy Webmoor, and Christopher Witmore

The “science of old things,” archaeology is marked by its care, obligation, and loyalty to things, from ancient cities in the Mexican heartland and megalithic monuments in Britain to the perfume jars ... More

The “science of old things,” archaeology is marked by its care, obligation, and loyalty to things, from ancient cities in the Mexican heartland and megalithic monuments in Britain to the perfume jars of the ancient Greek city-state and Leica cameras. This book seeks to understand the diverse practices that arise through this disciplinary commitment to things.Less

Athens and Macedon: Attic Letter-Cutters of 300 to 229 B.C.

Stephen Tracy

Little of the historiography of third-century Athens survives, and much of what is known—or might be known—about the period has come down in inscriptions carved by Attic stonemasons of the time. This ... More

Little of the historiography of third-century Athens survives, and much of what is known—or might be known—about the period has come down in inscriptions carved by Attic stonemasons of the time. This book provides new insight into an unsettled and obscure moment in antiquity.Less

Caesar's Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History

Denis Feeney

The ancient Romans changed more than the map of the world when they conquered so much of it; they altered the way historical time itself is marked and understood. This book investigates time and its ... More

The ancient Romans changed more than the map of the world when they conquered so much of it; they altered the way historical time itself is marked and understood. This book investigates time and its contours as described by the ancient Romans, first as Rome positioned itself in relation to Greece, and then as it exerted its influence as a major world power. The book welcomes the reader into a world where time was movable and changeable and where simply ascertaining a date required a complex and often contentious cultural narrative. It investigates the pertinent systems, including the Roman calendar (which is still our calendar) and its near perfect method of capturing the progress of natural time; the annual rhythm of consular government; the plotting of sacred time onto sacred space; the forging of chronological links to the past; and, above all, the experience of empire, by which the Romans meshed the city state's concept of time with those of the foreigners they encountered to establish a new worldwide web of time. Because this web of time was Greek before the Romans transformed it, the book also provides a study in the cross-cultural interaction between the Greek and Roman worlds. It closely examines the most important of the ancient world's time divisions, that between myth and history, and concludes by demonstrating the impact of the reformed calendar on the way the Romans conceived of time's recurrence.Less

City and Empire in the Age of the Successors: Urbanization and Social Response in the Making of the Hellenistic Kingdoms

Ryan Boehm

In the chaotic decades after the death of Alexander the Great, the world of the Greek city-state became deeply embroiled in the political struggles and unremitting violence of his successors’ contest ... More

In the chaotic decades after the death of Alexander the Great, the world of the Greek city-state became deeply embroiled in the political struggles and unremitting violence of his successors’ contest for supremacy. As these presumptive rulers turned to the practical reality of administering the territories under their control, they increasingly developed new cities by merging smaller settlements into large urban agglomerations. This practice of synoikism gave rise to many of the most important cities of the age, initiated major shifts in patterns of settlement, and consolidated numerous previously independent polities. The result was the transformation of the fragmented world of the small Greek polis into an urbanized network of cities. This book provides a new approach to this encounter between imperial powers and cities in northern Greece and Asia Minor. Drawing on a wide array of archaeological, epigraphic, and textual evidence, it reinterprets the role of urbanization in developing the structure of Hellenistic empire and argues for the agency and centrality of local actors in the formation of these new imperial cities.Less

City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria

Edward Watts

This study of the men and ideas of late antique education explores the intellectual and doctrinal milieu in the two great cities of Athens and Alexandria from the second to the sixth centuries. It ... More

This study of the men and ideas of late antique education explores the intellectual and doctrinal milieu in the two great cities of Athens and Alexandria from the second to the sixth centuries. It sheds new light on the interaction between the pagan cultural legacy and Christianity. While previous scholarship has seen Christian reactions to pagan educational culture as the product of an empire-wide process of development, the book crafts two narratives that reveal how differently education was shaped by the local power structures and urban contexts of each city. Touching on the careers of Herodes Atticus, Proclus, Damascius, Ammonius Saccas, Origen, Hypatia, and Olympiodorus; and events including the Herulian sack of Athens, the closing of the Athenian Neoplatonic school under Justinian, the rise of Arian Christianity, and the sack of the Serapeum, this book shows that by the sixth century, Athens and Alexandria had two distinct, locally determined, approaches to pagan teaching that had their roots in the unique historical relationships between city and school.Less

A Critical History of Early Rome: From Prehistory to the First Punic War

Gary Forsythe

John Connelly (ed.)

During the period from Rome's Stone Age beginnings on the Tiber River to its conquest of the Italian peninsula in 264 B.C., the Romans in large measure developed the social, political, and military ... More

During the period from Rome's Stone Age beginnings on the Tiber River to its conquest of the Italian peninsula in 264 B.C., the Romans in large measure developed the social, political, and military structure that would be the foundation of their spectacular imperial success. This account draws from historical, archaeological, linguistic, epigraphic, religious, and legal evidence to trace Rome's early development within a multicultural environment of Latins, Sabines, Etruscans, Greeks, and Phoenicians. The book charts the development of the classical republican institutions that would eventually enable Rome to create its vast empire, and provides discussions of topics including Roman prehistory, religion, and language. The book offers a revisionist interpretation of Rome's early history through its innovative use of ancient sources. The history of this period is notoriously difficult to uncover because there are no extant written records, and because the later historiography that affords the only narrative accounts of Rome's early days is shaped by the issues, conflicts, and ways of thinking of its own time. This book provides an examination of those surviving ancient sources in light of their underlying biases, thereby reconstructing early Roman history upon a more solid evidentiary foundation.Less

Cultural Politics in Polybius's Histories

Craige Champion

William Joseph Sanders (ed.)

Polybius was a Greek statesman and political prisoner of Rome in the second century bce. His Histories provide the earliest continuous narrative of the rise of the Roman Empire. This study, informed ... More

Polybius was a Greek statesman and political prisoner of Rome in the second century bce. His Histories provide the earliest continuous narrative of the rise of the Roman Empire. This study, informed by recent work in cultural studies and on ethnicity, demonstrates that Polybius'ss work performs a literary and political balancing act of heretofore-unappreciated subtlety and interest. It shows how Polybius contrived to tailor his historiography for multiple audiences, comprising his fellow Greeks, whose freedom Rome had usurped in his own generation, and the Roman conquerors. The author focuses primarily on the ideological presuppositions and predispositions of Polybius'ss different audiences in order to interpret the apparent contradictions and incongruities in his text. In this way he develops a “politics of cultural indeterminacy” in which Polybius's collective representations of political and ethnic groups have different meanings for different audiences in different contexts. Situating these representations in the ideological, political, and historical contexts from which they arose, the book affords insights into a work whose subtlety and complexity have gone largely unrecognized.Less

Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East

Roger Bagnall

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the ... More

Most of the everyday writing from the ancient world—that is, informal writing not intended for a long life or wide public distribution—has perished. Reinterpreting the silences and blanks of the historical record, the author, a leading papyrologist, argues that ordinary people—from Britain to Egypt to Afghanistan—used writing in their daily lives far more extensively than has been recognized. Marshalling new and little-known evidence, including remarkable graffiti recently discovered in Smyrna, he presents an analysis of writing in different segments of society. His book offers a new picture of literacy in the ancient world in which Aramaic rivals Greek and Latin as a great international language, and in which many other local languages develop means of written expression alongside these metropolitan tongues.Less

Excavations at Nemea III: The Coins

Robert Knapp

Since 1974 the University of California at Berkeley has been sponsoring extensive excavations at the Panhellenic athletic festival center of ancient Nemea in the modern Greek province of Korinthia. ... More

Since 1974 the University of California at Berkeley has been sponsoring extensive excavations at the Panhellenic athletic festival center of ancient Nemea in the modern Greek province of Korinthia. With its well-documented excavation and clear historical context, the site offers an excellent opportunity for investigation and analysis. This book, the third in a series of publications on Nemea, is a detailed presentation of the more than 3,000 legible coins from all over the ancient world that have been unearthed there. The coins, which are mostly bronze but show an unusually high proportion of silver, reflect the periods of greatest activity at the site—the late Archaic and Early Classical, the Early Hellenistic, the Early Christian, and the Byzantine. More than a compendium of data, the study breaks new ground with its analysis and contextualization of numismatic evidence in an archaeological setting.Less

Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century A.D.

Noel Lenski

This book is a biography of the Roman emperor Valens and his troubled reign (A.D. 364–78). Valens will always be remembered for his spectacular defeat and death at the hands of the Goths in the ... More

This book is a biography of the Roman emperor Valens and his troubled reign (A.D. 364–78). Valens will always be remembered for his spectacular defeat and death at the hands of the Goths in the Battle of Adrianople. By the time he was killed, Valens' empire had been coming apart for several years: the Goths had overrun the Balkans; Persians, Isaurians, and Saracens were threatening the east; the economy was in disarray; and pagans and Christians alike had been exiled, tortured, and executed in his religious persecutions. Valens had not, however, entirely failed in his job as emperor. He was an admirable administrator, a committed defender of the frontiers, and a ruler who showed remarkable sympathy for the needs of his subjects. The book incorporates a broad range of new material, from archaeology to Gothic and Armenian sources, in a study that illuminates the social, cultural, religious, economic, administrative, and military complexities of Valens' realm. The book offers a nuanced reconsideration of Valens the man and shows both how he applied his strengths to meet the expectations of his world and how he ultimately failed in his efforts to match limited capacities to limitless demands.Less

From Alexander to Jesus

Ory Amitay

Scholars have long recognized the relevance to Christianity of the many stories surrounding the life of Alexander the Great, who claimed to be the son of Zeus. But until now, no comprehensive effort ... More

Scholars have long recognized the relevance to Christianity of the many stories surrounding the life of Alexander the Great, who claimed to be the son of Zeus. But until now, no comprehensive effort has been made to connect the mythic life and career of Alexander to the stories about Jesus and to the earliest theology of the nascent Christian churches. This book delves into a wide range of primary texts in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew to trace Alexander as a mythological figure, from his relationship to his ancestor and rival, Herakles, to the idea of his divinity as the son of a god. In detail, the book illuminates both Alexander's links to Herakles and to two important and enduring ideas—that of divine sonship and that of reconciliation among peoples.Less

A Greek Roman Empire: Power and Belief under Theodosius II (408-450)

Fergus Millar

Todd Keeler-Wolf and Allan Schoenherr (eds)

In the first half of the fifth century, the Latin-speaking part of the Roman Empire suffered vast losses of territory to barbarian invaders. However, in the Greek-speaking half of the Eastern ... More

In the first half of the fifth century, the Latin-speaking part of the Roman Empire suffered vast losses of territory to barbarian invaders. However, in the Greek-speaking half of the Eastern Mediterranean, with its capital at Constantinople, there was a stable and successful system, using Latin as its official language but communicating with its subjects in Greek. This book takes an inside look at how this system worked in the long reign of the pious Christian Emperor Theodosius II (408–50) and analyzes its largely successful defense of its frontiers, its internal coherence, and its relations with its subjects, with a flow of demands and suggestions traveling up the hierarchy to the Emperor, and a long series of laws, often set out in elaborately self-justificatory detail, addressed by the Emperor, through his officials, to the people. Above all, it focuses on the Imperial mission to promote the unity of the Church, the State's involvement in intensely debated doctrinal questions, and the calling by the Emperor of two major Church Councils at Ephesus in 431 and 449. Between the Law codes and the acts of the Church Councils, the material illustrating the working of government and the involvement of State and church is detailed and vivid.Less

Hesiod's Ascra

Anthony Edwards

In Works and Days, one of the two long poems that have come down to us from Hesiod, the poet writes of farming, morality, and what seems to be a very nasty quarrel with his brother Perses over their ... More

In Works and Days, one of the two long poems that have come down to us from Hesiod, the poet writes of farming, morality, and what seems to be a very nasty quarrel with his brother Perses over their inheritance. This book extracts from the poem a picture of the social structure of Ascra, the hamlet in northern Greece where Hesiod lived, most likely during the seventh century b.c.e. Drawing on the evidence of trade, food storage, reciprocity, and the agricultural regime as Hesiod describes them in Works and Days, the author reveals Ascra as an autonomous village, outside the control of a polis, less stratified and integrated internally than what we observe even in Homer. In light of this reading, the conflict between Hesiod and Perses emerges as a dispute about the inviolability of the community's external boundary and the degree of interobligation among those within the village. The book directly counters the accepted view of Works and Days, which has Hesiod describing a peasant society subordinated to the economic and political control of an outside elite. Through this analysis, the book suggests a new understanding of both Works and Days and the social and economic organization of Hesiod's time and place.Less

Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: A Sourcebook of Basic Documents

Thomas Hubbard (ed.)

The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome have been translated into modern, explicit English and collected together in this sourcebook. Covering an extensive ... More

The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome have been translated into modern, explicit English and collected together in this sourcebook. Covering an extensive period—from the earliest Greek texts in the late seventh century B.C.E. to Greco-Roman texts of the third and fourth centuries C.E.—the volume includes well-known writings by Plato, Sappho, Aeschines, Catullus, and Juvenal, as well as less well known but relevant and intriguing texts such as graffiti, comic fragments, magical papyri, medical treatises, and selected artistic evidence. These texts, together with introductions, clearly show that there was in fact no more consensus about homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome than there is today. The material is organized by period and by genre, allowing readers to consider chronological developments in both Greece and Rome. Individual texts are presented with a short introduction contextualizing them by date and, where necessary, discussing their place within a larger work. Chapter introductions discuss questions of genre and the ideological significance of the texts, while the general introduction to the volume addresses issues such as sexual orientation in antiquity, moral judgments, class and ideology, and lesbianism.Less

Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire

Clifford Ando

Giday WoldeGabriel (ed.)

The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that ... More

The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that stretched from the Tyne to the Euphrates. Moreover, the empire created this culture with a bureaucracy smaller than that of a typical late-twentieth-century research university. In approaching this problem, the book does not ask: Why did the Roman empire fall? Rather, it asks, Why did the empire last so long? The book argues that the longevity of the empire rested not on Roman military power but on a gradually realized consensus that Roman rule was justified. This consensus was itself the product of a complex conversation between the central government and its far-flung peripheries. The book investigates the mechanisms that sustained this conversation, explores its contribution to the legitimization of Roman power, and reveals as its product the provincial absorption of the forms and content of Roman political and legal discourse. Throughout, the book is informed by thinking on social formation by theorists such as Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, and Pierre Bourdieu.Less

Landscapes, Gender, and Ritual Space: The Ancient Greek Experience

Susan Guettel Cole

The division of land and the consolidation of territory that created the Greek polis also divided sacred from productive space, sharpened distinctions between purity and pollution, and created a ... More

The division of land and the consolidation of territory that created the Greek polis also divided sacred from productive space, sharpened distinctions between purity and pollution, and created a ritual system premised on gender difference. Regional sanctuaries ameliorated competition between city-states, publicized the results of competitive rituals for males, and encouraged judicial alternatives to violence. Female ritual efforts, focused on the reproduction and the health of the family, are less visible, but, as this study shows, no less significant. Taking a fresh look at the epigraphical evidence for Greek ritual practice in the context of studies of landscape and political organization, the book illuminates the profoundly gendered nature of Greek cult practice and explains the connections between female rituals and the integrity of the community. In an integration of ancient sources and current theory, the book brings together complex evidence for Greek ritual practice. The book discusses relevant medical and philosophical theories about the female body; considers Greek ideas about purity, pollution, and ritual purification; and examines the cult of Artemis in detail. This nuanced study demonstrates the social contribution of women's rituals to the sustenance of the polis and the identity of its people.Less

Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome

Arthur Eckstein

Nishanta Rajakaruna (ed.)

This study is the first to employ modern international relations theory to place Roman militarism and expansion of power within the broader Mediterranean context of interstate anarchy. The book ... More

This study is the first to employ modern international relations theory to place Roman militarism and expansion of power within the broader Mediterranean context of interstate anarchy. The book challenges claims that Rome was an exceptionally warlike and aggressive state—not merely in modern but in ancient terms—by arguing that intense militarism and aggressiveness were common among all Mediterranean polities from ca 750 B.C. onwards. The book explains that international politics in the ancient Mediterranean world was, in political science terms, a multipolar anarchy: international law was minimal, and states struggled desperately for power and survival by means of warfare. Eventually, one state, the Republic of Rome, managed to create predominance and a sort of peace. Rome was certainly a militarized and aggressive state, but it was successful not because it was exceptional in its ruthlessness, rather, it was successful because of its exceptional ability to manage a large network of foreign allies, and to assimilate numerous foreigners within the polity itself. This book shows how these characteristics gave Rome incomparably large resources for the grim struggle of states fostered by Mediterranean anarchy—and hence they were key to Rome's unprecedented success.Less

Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece

Kurt Raaflaub

This book presents a state-of-the-art debate about the origins of Athenian democracy by five scholars. The result is a critical exploration and interpretation of the extant evidence on this topic. ... More

This book presents a state-of-the-art debate about the origins of Athenian democracy by five scholars. The result is a critical exploration and interpretation of the extant evidence on this topic. The authors address such questions as: Why was democracy first realized in ancient Greece? Was it “invented” or did it evolve over a long period of time? What were the conditions for democracy, the social and political foundations that made this development possible? And what factors turned its possibility into necessity and reality? The authors first examine the conditions in early Greek society that encouraged equality and “people's power.” They then scrutinize, in their social and political contexts, three crucial points in the evolution of democracy, specifically the reforms connected with the names of Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes in the early and late sixth and mid-fifth centuries. Finally, an ancient historian and a political scientist review the arguments presented in the previous chapters and add their own perspectives, asking what lessons we can draw today from the ancient democratic experience. The book intends to provoke discussion, by presenting side by side the evidence and arguments that support various explanations of the origins of democracy, thus enabling readers to join in the debate and draw their own conclusions.Less

Pericles: A Sourcebook and Reader

Stephen Tracy

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 ... More

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? This book visits the fifth century B.C. to find out. It compiles and translates the scattered, elusive primary sources relating to Pericles. It brings Athens' 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. Pericles was first citizen at Athens when tragedy, comedy, architecture, rhetoric, philosophy, historiography, graphic arts, democracy, and empire were taking on forms that one way or another shape analogous undertakings today.Less