The Shadow of the Parthenon: Studies in Ancient History and Literature
Peter Green
Abstract
A combination of scholarship and unorthodoxy makes these studies in ancient history and literature unusually rewarding. Few of the objects of conventional admiration gain much support from the author—Pericles and the “democracy” of fifth-century Athens are treated to a very cool scrutiny—but he has a warm regard for the real virtues of antiquity and for those who spoke with “an individual voice.” The studies cover both history and literature, Greece and Rome. They range from the real nature of Athenian society to poets as diverse as Sappho and Juvenal, and all of them, without laboring any par ... More
A combination of scholarship and unorthodoxy makes these studies in ancient history and literature unusually rewarding. Few of the objects of conventional admiration gain much support from the author—Pericles and the “democracy” of fifth-century Athens are treated to a very cool scrutiny—but he has a warm regard for the real virtues of antiquity and for those who spoke with “an individual voice.” The studies cover both history and literature, Greece and Rome. They range from the real nature of Athenian society to poets as diverse as Sappho and Juvenal, and all of them, without laboring any parallels, make the ancient world immediately relevant to our own. There is, for example, an essay on how classical history often becomes a vehicle for the historian's own political beliefs and fantasies of power.
Keywords:
ancient history,
literature,
virtues,
antiquity,
Greece,
Rome,
Athenian society,
Sappho,
Juvenal
Bibliographic Information
Print publication date: 2008 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520255074 |
Published to California Scholarship Online: March 2012 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520255074.001.0001 |