Greek History: Archaic to Classical Age (Classics)

Introduction

The accomplishments of the ancient Greeks were remarkable. Without rich natural resources and hobbled by their endemic inability to stop fighting with one another, the Greek city-states nonetheless spread their civilization from Spain in the west to Pakistan in the east. It was in Greece that democracy first took root, and it was the Greeks who gave to the West many canonical forms of sculpture and architecture. Though the Greeks were eventually conquered politically by the Romans, their culture, as the Roman poet Horace pointed out, came out victorious: “Captive Greece took Rome, her captor, captive.” Greek culture continued to flourish for centuries after the Roman conquest and influenced the civilizations of Byzantium and the Muslim world. Today the Greek presence can be read in much of the vocabulary of Western languages and seen in the public buildings of Europe and the Americas. Periodization has traditionally divided the history of ancient Greece into the Bronze Age (c. 3000–1100 BCE), the Iron Age (c. 1100–750 BCE), the Archaic Age (c. 750–479 BCE), the Classical Age (479–323 BCE), and the Hellenistic Age (323–30 BCE). Where archaeology is concerned, material remains, including inscriptions, continue to be discovered and to provide new fruit for analysis. In terms of literary texts, however, very little new evidence has come to light in recent centuries. New interpretations, therefore, are frequently the product of bringing new skills to bear on old evidence. Often these tools of analysis are adapted from fields such as anthropology, sociology, political science, and gender studies. On the whole, changing views of the Archaic Age are grounded in applying these tools to material remains, as very little that was written in this time period survives. A tremendous amount of writing, however, has survived from the Classical Age, and in total the database of Greek literary texts written down from the late 8th century BCE through the 2nd century CE contains 20 million words.

Archaeological Evidence

Archaeology is a priceless tool for understanding Greek history in all its periods, but most dramatically in the earlier centuries for which little writing survives. Hurwit 1987 introduces the reader to the material remains of the Archaic era by placing them in their intellectual context. Snodgrass 1987 is more specialized and calls on archaeologists to expand the scope of their inquiries. Holloway 1991 covers a wide chronological period. For a history of the field, see Morris 1994. Whitley 2001 offers an excellent introduction to the methodology and history of Greek archaeology.

Holloway, R. Ross. 1991. The archaeology of ancient Sicily. London and New York: Routledge.
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Traces Sicily's rich heritage from the Palaeolithic to the late Roman period, working with a wide variety of kinds of material evidence. Includes treatment of coinage.
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Hurwit, Jeffrey. 1987. The art and culture of early Greece, 1100–480 B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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An art historical work informed by literary scholarship, this volume seeks to place Archaic material evidence in its historical and intellectual contexts, discussing, for example, the origins of Greek narrative, epic, and artistic representation.
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Morris, Ian, ed. 1994. Classical Greece: Ancient histories and modern archaeologies. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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In a volume that begins with a relatively rare history of the discipline, each of seven contributors offers a separate modern theoretical approach to ancient artifacts.
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Snodgrass, Anthony M. 1987. The archaeology of ancient Greece: The present state and future scope of a discipline. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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This smaller volume is at once an analysis of archaeology's place within the field of classical studies and an appeal for archaeologists to widen their scope to include more recent theory as well as rural Greece within their studies.
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Whitley, James. 2001. The archaeology of ancient Greece. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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An introduction to the objects, methods, and history of Greek archaeology. Preliminary chapters outline various “schools” of modern classical archaeology, including summaries of some of the most influential scholarship since the late 20th century. Numerous maps and illustrations.
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Epigraphic Evidence (Inscriptions)

In time, Greeks began inscribing laws, decrees, treaties, epitaphs, and other texts on stone pillars and other durable materials. Numerous collections of inscriptions have been made. As noted in Woodhead 1992, inscriptions are proof that the body of classical evidence continues to grow. Meiggs and Lewis 1988 contains inscriptions on many topics going down to the end of the 5th century, and Rhodes and Osborne 2007 continues the collection down to the death of Alexander. On the Athenian empire specifically, see Meritt, et al. 1939–1953 and Mattingly 1996. A considerable amount of the evidence for the Athenian empire of the 5th century BCE is epigraphic in nature. The Athenian Tribute Lists are a priceless guide to imperial finances, recording the one-sixtieth of each member's tribute that was dedicated to the goddess Athena. Mattingly 1996 offers a collection of essays on the uses of epigraphy in understanding the empire. The most extensive collection of Greek inscriptions is available online via the Packard Humanities Institute.

Mattingly, Harold B. 1996. The Athenian empire restored: Epigraphic and historical studies. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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A reprint of the author's many essays on reconstructing the empire through epigraphy.
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Meiggs, Russell, and David Lewis. 1988. A selection of Greek historical inscriptions to the end of the fifth century B.C. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Contains a wide variety of inscriptions, expanding on the famous collection published by M. N. Tod in 1933 under the same title. Requires knowledge of Greek.
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Meritt, Benjamin, Theodore Wade-Gery, and Malcolm Francis McGregor. 1939–1953. Athenian Tribute Lists. 4 vols. Vol. 1, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press; Vols. 2–4, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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A comprehensive catalogue and commentary; Vol. 3 is particularly mindful of students with little or no Greek and attempts to combine the inscriptions with a narrative history of the Athenian empire.
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Rhodes, P. J., and Robin Osborne. 2007. Greek historical inscriptions, 404–323 BC. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Includes both the original Greek and English translations of more than 100 4th-century inscriptions. With three indices and a concordance.
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Packard Humanities Institute. Searchable Greek Inscriptions.
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A priceless collection of inscriptions from all over the Greek-speaking world, constantly being updated.
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Woodhead, Arthur Geoffrey. 1992. The study of Greek inscriptions. 2d ed. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
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A concise instructional work touching on the history of the Greek alphabet and dating methods, along with very practical information for the student/scholar.
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Numismatic Evidence (Coins)

Like epigraphy, numismatics is a field that has much to offer the ancient historian. Its importance to our knowledge of the ancient economy is particularly significant. Kraay 1976 and Howgego 1995 provide excellent starting points for those interested in numismatics; Carradice 1995 emphasizes the way coins reveal the geographical extent and cultural diversity of the Greek world. Head 1983 is a thorough reference work.

Carradice, Ian. 1995. Greek coins. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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Traces the history of Greek coins from the 7th to the 1st century BCE, with emphasis on the extent of the Greek world and its cultural diversity. Includes a discussion of the impact of Greek coins on later civilizations.
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Howgego, Christopher J. 1995. Ancient history from coins. London: Routledge.
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An indispensable guide to numismatics for newcomers.
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Head, Barclay V. 1983. Historia numorum: A manual of Greek numismatics. New and enlarged ed. New York: Sanford J. Durst.
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A reprint of an essential 19th-century reference work, suitable for graduate students and scholars.
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Kraay, Colin. 1976. Archaic and Classical Greek coins. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Superb handbook that includes sections on Asia Minor, Crete, Athens, Corinth, the Peloponnese, central Greece, Macedon, Thrace, Sicily, and Magna Graecia as well as the Persian Empire.
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Early Literary Evidence

Increasingly beginning about 700 BCE, literature began to be written down, and the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus commissioned an edition of Homer's works. Poetry preceded prose, as the Greek world was originally an oral society in which skill at composition by means of patterned speech was paramount; listening preceded reading. By the mid-5th century, however, literacy had established a foothold in many of the Greek city-states, and Greek literature came to embrace many genres in both poetry and prose. Moore 1947 collects a large number of short poems in the original Greek; Lattimore 1960 offers them in English translation. Diels and Kranz 1956, a standard work, is for the advanced student of Greece, as it requires knowledge of several languages; English speakers at an earlier stage will profit from the translations in Freeman 1983 and Waterfield 2000. Jeffery 1990 assumes considerable interest in the topic.

Diels, Hermann, and Walther Kranz. 1956. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann.
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The standard Greek text, with bibliography. Requires knowledge of Greek, Latin and German.
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Freeman, Kathleen. 1983. Ancilla to the Presocratic philosophers: A complete translation of the fragments in Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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A very helpful volume for those who do not read Greek.
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Hesiod and Theognis. 1976. Hesiod and Theognis: Theogony, Works and Days, and Elegies. Translated by Dorothea Wender. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
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A very accessible translation of two important writers of the Archaic Age, Hesiod of Ascra in Boeotia and Theognis of Megara.
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Jeffery, Lillian Hamilton, with supplement by Alan W. Johnston. 1990. The local scripts of ancient Greece: A study of the origin of the Greek alphabet and its development from the eighth to the fifth centuries B.C. Oxford: Clarendon.
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A detailed scholarly study of a fascinating topic.
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Lattimore, Richmond, ed. and trans. 1960. Greek lyrics. 2d ed. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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A collection of Archaic and Classical age poetry in good English translations.
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Moore, John Andrew. 1947. Selections from the Greek elegiac, iambic, and lyric poets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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A collection, in the original Greek, of the most memorable poetry of the Archaic and Classical ages.
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Waterfield, Robin, ed. 2000. The first philosophers: The Presocratics and Sophists. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Translated with commentary. Includes a timeline and a concordance with Diels and Kranz. Provides a link between the earlier and later intellectuals who preceded Socrates.
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Ancient Historians

Written sources for political history pick up when we are talking about the 6th century, not only because of texts composed at that time but because somewhat later writers like Herodotus and Thucydides in the 5th century and Xenophon in the 4th had access to a living oral tradition that enabled them to write of earlier periods as well as of their own, although inevitably not all their sources were reliable. Ancient historians are among the many authors whose works are available in the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard University Press in the United States and William Heinemann in London. Greek appears on the left, English on the right. Some translations are outstanding, while others are lackluster. Some updating of the less dynamic translations is under way. Other new and excellent translations are constantly appearing, so that very lively translations of the three principal surviving Greek historians—Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon—are readily available. Somewhat later historians also wrote about these periods, such as Diodorus of Sicily, Arrian, Quintus Curtius, and Plutarch. Diodorus is available in the Loeb Classical Library; so is Plutarch, though his famous biographies are also available in many other editions. Plutarch's Lives must be used with care since he made a point of identifying himself as a biographer, interested in character, and much of his avowed purpose was to set up moral models and counter-models for future generations. His access to a wide variety of evidence no longer available to us, however—he had an excellent personal library—makes him a valuable source.

Historiography

Several books explore the nature of Greek, or ancient, historiography generally. Momigliano 1966 contains thirteen classic essays by one of the foremost 20th-century historians of antiquity. Fornara 1983 discusses historiography in its relationship to other genres. Marincola 1997 and Shrimpton 1997 are wide-ranging and examine vital questions in ancient historiography, while Marincola 2008 focuses on genre.

Fornara, Charles W. 1983. The nature of history in ancient Greece and Rome. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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An important study of the genre of history writing in antiquity, with a chapter on the use of speeches by historians and an epilogue on modern historiography.
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Marincola, John. 1997. Authority and tradition in ancient historiography. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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In the absence of written documents that they could footnote, on the basis of what authority did ancient historians make the claims that they did? Marincola explores this question in his very incisive study.
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Marincola, John, ed. 2008. Companion to Greek and Roman historiography. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. 2 vols. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
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A series of articles by prominent scholars discussing the genres and subgenres of classical historiography and exploring genres such as biography and epic that hover at the borders of historiography.
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Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1966. Studies in Historiography. New York: Harper and Row.
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A collection of the author's essays, including “George Grote and the study of Greek history,” “Some observations on causes of war in ancient historiography,” and “Historiography on written tradition and historiography on oral tradition.” Reprinted in 1985 (New York: Garland).
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Shrimpton, Gordon. 1997. History and memory in ancient Greece. Montreal and Kingston, ON: McGill-Queen's Univ. Press.
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Includes important modern parallels and an appendix (with K. M. Gillis) on Herodotus's source citations.
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Lost Historians

Several important studies explore and analyze what we know about historians whose works are largely lost. By far the most extensive collection of the fragments of Greek historians is Jacoby 1923–1940, which forms the core of Brill's New Jacoby (ongoing online). Pearson 1939 provides thoughtful analysis of the historians who preceded Herodotus. Von Fritz 1940 offers sound source analysis of several historians of Sicily whose work exists only in fragments; on Timaeus specifically, see Pearson 1987. Jacoby 1949 is central to an understanding of Athenian historiography. Barber and Miller 1995 is useful on Ephorus, whose now lost work formed the basis of much of the writing of Diodorus when it came to Classical Greek history.

Barber, Godfrey Louis, and M. C. J. Miller. 1995. The historian Ephorus. 2d ed. Chicago Ridge, IL: Ares.
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Barber's original work (Cambridge University Press, 1935) revised by Miller. Includes chapters on the life of Ephorus, the influence of Isocrates, Ephorus's biases and sources, and the causes of the Peloponnesian War.
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Jacoby, Felix. 1923–1940. Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker. 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann.
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For advanced scholars with a knowledge of Greek. Brill's New Jacoby, edited by Ian Worthington, is an ongoing online project, including several new authors (and a number of other fragments not included in Jacoby's original text), with facing English translations, a new critical commentary, and up-to-date bibliography. CD-ROM edition released in 2005 (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill).
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Jacoby, Felix. 1949. Atthis: The local chronicles of ancient Athens. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Seeks to demonstrate that the history of Athens known as “Atthis” and composed between c. 350 and 263 BCE does not, as previously argued, derive from priestly records but was composed in the 5th century BCE by Hellanicus of Lesbos. Reprinted in 1973 (New York: Arno).
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Pearson, Lionel. 1939. Early Ionian historians: Oxford: Clarendon.
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Contains chapters on the logographers Hecataeus, Xanthus of Lydia, Charon of Lampsacus, and Hellanicus. Reprinted in 1975 (Westport, CT: Greenwood).
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Pearson, Lionel. 1987. The Greek historians of the West: Timaeus and his predecessors. Atlanta: Scholars Press for the American Philological Association.
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Deals primarily with Timaeus and his account of Greek history down to the 3rd century BCE as it can be reconstructed from surviving authors who seem to rely on him.
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Von Fritz, Kurt. 1940. Pythagorean politics in southern Italy: An analysis of the sources. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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Analyzes political activities of the 5th century through comparison of Aristoxenos and Dicaearchos with Timaeus. Includes numismatic evidence. Reprinted in 1997 (New York: Octagon).
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Extant Historians

Very full historical commentaries on the texts of Herodotus and Thucydides are available; for these and other books on these authors, see Herodotus and Thucydides. On Xenophon, see Hirsch 1985 for material on Greek attitudes to Persians, and Gray 1989 for an exploration of Xenophon as a writer.

Gray, Vivienne. 1989. The character of Xenophon's Hellenica. London: Duckworth.
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An analysis of Xenophon's manner of presenting his material, breaking his approach down into conversationalized narrative, formal speeches, and sustained narration.
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Hirsch, Steven W. 1985. The friendship of the barbarians. Hanover, NH: Univ. Press of New England for Tufts Univ.
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A study of Xenophon's (and other Greeks') attitudes toward the Persians; includes sections on Plato and on the Spartan king Agesilaus.
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Beginnings of the Modern Historiography of Ancient Greece

The first history of Greece still consulted today for more than antiquarian interest is Grote 1846–1856, written when the author was caught up in the reform movement in England. Modern scholars also continue to use the work of three German historians at work around 1900: George Busolt, Karl Julius Beloch, and Eduard Meyer. Busolt 1893–1904 and Beloch 1912–1927 are both primarily political histories; Meyer 1954 also includes ancient Near East.

Beloch, Karl Julius. 1912–1927. Griechische Geschichte. 2d ed. Strassburg, Berlin, and Leipzig, Germany: K. J. Trübner.
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Its forty-seven chapters, placed between a detailed table of contents and register, are comprehensive. Reprinted in 1967 in 4 vols., Berlin: de Gruyter.
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Busolt, Georg. 1893–1904. Griechische Geschichten bis zur Schlacht bei Chaeroneia. 3 vols. Gotha, Germany: F. A. Perthes.
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A close examination of Greek history with a political emphasis. Reprinted 1967, Hildesheim, Germany: G. Olms.
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Grote, George. 1846–1856. A history of Greece from the earliest period to the close of the generation contemporary with Alexander the Great. London: John Murray.
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The oldest work on Greek history that is still useful today. Reprinted in 1971 (New York: AMS).
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Meyer, Eduard. 1954. Geschichte des Altertums. 5th ed. 4 vols. Basel, Switzerland: B. Schwabe.
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A wide-ranging history of the ancient Mediterranean. Reprinted in 1953–1958 in five volumes (Stuttgart, Germany: J. G. Cotta'sche).
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Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Histories

A number of more recent works treat Greek history as a whole. By far the most comprehensive are the pertinent sections of the Cambridge Ancient History published by Cambridge University Press and recently revised. This monumental undertaking, combining the labors of many scholars, was published originally between 1924 and 1939, with twelve text volumes and five plate volumes. Its revision to take into account new developments in evidence and perspectives began in 1970. The volumes that concern our time period are Boardman and Hammond 1982; Boardman, et al. 1988; and Lewis, et al. 1992. Less exhaustive surveys are found in Ehrenberg 1973; Sealey 1976; and Pomeroy, et al. 2008.

Boardman, John, and N. G. L. Hammond. 1982. The Cambridge ancient history, Vol. 3. Part 3: The expansion of the Greek world, eighth to sixth centuries BC. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1017/CHOL9780521234474Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Elaborate treatment of Greek colonization from Sicily to the Bosporus, plus chapters on the growth of Athens, economic and social conditions in the Greek world, and the material culture of Archaic Greece.
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Boardman, John, N. G. L. Hammond, David Lewis, and Martin Ostwald. 1988. The Cambridge ancient history, Vol. 4: Persia, Greece and the western Mediterranean, c. 525–479 BC. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Includes detailed study of the origins and expansion of the Persian empire, the rise of Sparta and Athens, the Persian Wars, and the early development of Italy.
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Ehrenberg, Victor. 1973. From Solon to Socrates: Greek history and civilization during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. 2d ed. London: Methuen.
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A close study of the evolution of Greek culture during the late Archaic age through the 5th century.
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Fine, John van Antwerp. 1983. The ancient Greeks: A critical history. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Stresses political and military history in depth.
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Lewis, David, John Boardman, J. K. Davies, and Martin Ostwald. 1992. The Cambridge ancient history. Vol. 5: The fifth century BC. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A thorough examination of the political and cultural history of the 5th century, with a focus on Athens.
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Pomeroy, Sarah, Stanley M. Burstein,Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. 2008. Ancient Greece: A political, social, and cultural history. 2d ed. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A broadly conceived account of different aspects of history, with illustrations in both black and white and color.
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Sealey, Raphael. 1976. A history of the Greek city-states 700–338 BC. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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Includes considerable information on scholarly debates.
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Greece in the Archaic Age

Because of advances in the discovery and interpretation of material remains, the Archaic age, once slighted in favor of the Classical age that followed, has been the subject of a great deal of scholarship in recent decades. Hall 2006 offers a broad history of the period. Collections of essays on different aspects of Archaic civilization appear in van Wees and Fisher 1998 and Shapiro 2007. For the central influence of the Near East on Greek culture, see Burkert 1992. Murray 1993 gives the reader a sense of the methodologies used by scholars of the Archaic era, and Tandy 1997 explores the period from the standpoint of economics.

Burkert, Walter. 1992. The Orientalizing revolution: The Near Eastern influence on Greek culture in the early Archaic age. Translated by Margaret E. Pinder and Walter Burkert. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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An important book examining the role of Near Eastern culture in shaping the development of early Greece.
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Hall, Jonathan. 2006. A history of the Archaic Greek world ca. 1200–479 BCE. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Emphasizes historiography, as well as political and cultural themes.
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Murray, Oswyn. 1993. Early Greece. 2d ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Strives to separate archaeological facts from earliest Greek legends.
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Shapiro, H. Alan, ed. 2007. The Cambridge companion to Archaic Greece. Cambridge Companions to the Ancient World. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Generally a good starting point, this Companion contains ten chapters by as many scholars, divided between historical and cultural topics.
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Snodgrass, Anthony. 1981. Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A lively history of the era, with numerous black and white plates and diagrams.
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Tandy, David W. 1997. Warriors into traders: The power of the market in early Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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An innovative revisionist analysis of the economic history of Greece in the Archaic period.
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van Wees, Hans, and Nick Fisher, eds. 1998. Archaic Greece: New approaches and new evidence. London: Duckworth.
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Fourteen essays on material evidence, iconography, literacy, and the military.
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Colonization

The spread of Greek civilization around the Mediterranean and beyond via colonization was key to the dynamic nature of the Archaic era. Graham 1999 and Boardman 1999 have never been replaced as standard works in the field. Brunt 1966 focuses on Athenian settlements. Dougherty 1993 deals with colonization in Greek thought. Tsetskhladze and De Angelis 1994 emphasizes the archaeological evidence.

Boardman, John. 1999. The Greeks overseas: Their early colonies and trade. Baltimore: Penguin.
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An amply illustrated introduction to the economic and cultural interactions between the mainland Greeks and their neighbors in other lands.
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Brunt, P. A. 1966. Athenian settlements abroad in the fifth century B.C. In Ancient society and institutions: Studies presented to Victor Ehrenberg on his 75th birthday. Edited by Ernst Badian, 71–79. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Examines the variety of Athenian settlements from colonies to cleruchies and their varying relationships to Athens.
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Dougherty, Carol. 1993. The poetics of colonization: From city to text in Archaic Greece. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Focuses on Greek representations of colonial origins.
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Graham, A. J. 1999. Colony and mother city in ancient Greece. Manchester, UK: Manchester Univ. Press.
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Stresses the varieties of relationships between at least seven Greek cities and their colonies. Includes translated decrees in appendices.
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Tsetskhladze, Gocha R., and Franco De Angelis, eds. 1994. The archaeology of Greek colonisation: Essays dedicated to Sir John Boardman. Oxford: Oxford Committee for Archaeology.
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Eight essays by different authors, with an archaeological emphasis.
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Tyranny

Although the word tyrannos eventually came to have negative connotations in mainland Greece, in the late Archaic period when tyranny began, a tyrant denoted simply a strongman who came to power outside the constitution. Andrewes 1963 is a classic study that examines different kinds of Greek tyrannies. McGlew 1996 explores the complex interaction of the tyrant with his subjects. Ogden 1997 studies tyrants in the Greek imagination. Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2000 collects essays on different aspects of the Peisistratid era, while Lavelle 2005 explores the relationship between Peisistratus and the democracy. Morgan 2003 engages the question of Greek (especially Athenian) thinking about tyranny. In mainland Greece tyranny was a 6th-century phenomenon, but it was found throughout Sicilian history in later periods as well. See Caven 1990 and Luraghi 1994.

Andrewes, Antony. 1963. The Greek tyrants. New York: Harper and Row.
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A superb survey of tyranny that has never been replaced, with chapters devoted to the military factor, the racial factor, and the economic factor.
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Caven, Brian. 1990. Dionysius I: War-lord of Sicily. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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A readable examination of the sources for the rule of this infamous figure that presents him in a more favorable light than has been customary.
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Lavelle, Brian M. 2005. Fame, money and power: The rise of Peisistratos and “democratic” tyranny at Athens. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Argues that the relationship between tyranny and democracy was far from the polarity generally assumed and portrays the rise of Peisistratus as fitting into an essentially democratic system already existing in 6th-century Athens.
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Luraghi, Nino. 1994. Tirannidi archaiche in Sicilia e Magna Grecia da Panezio di Leontini alla caduta dei Dinomenidi. Florence, Italy: Leo S. Olschki.
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A richly detailed study of the different kinds of tyranny found throughout Sicily and Magna Graecia, with elaborate footnotes and bibliography.
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McGlew, James. 1996. Tyranny and political culture in ancient Greece. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Born of resistance to the status quo, the author argues, the power of the tyrant ironically encouraged citizens to think in a similar way, thus making tyranny a self-limiting phenomenon.
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Morgan, Kathryn, ed. 2003. Popular tyranny: Sovereignty and its discontents in ancient Greece. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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A collection of essays that emerged from a conference held at UCLA in 1998, offering a variety of subtle perspectives on how Greeks, particularly Athenians, thought about tyranny.
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Ogden, Daniel. 1997. The crooked kings of ancient Greece. London: Duckworth.
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Treats the connection between tales of tyrants and colonization myths.
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Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Heleen, ed. 2000. Peisistratos and the tyranny: A reappraisal of the evidence. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben.
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The editor's historical introduction is followed by eight essays on cultural, literary, and numismatic topics.
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Greek Economy (Extending into the Classical Age)

The Greek economy from the Bronze Age through the Hellenistic age has been the focus of a great deal of research. While it treats the ancient economy generally, Finley 1982 is devoted to Greece. Morris 1994 surveys scholarship on the Greek economy since Finley 1985 in the form of a review of Cohen 1992. Austin and Vidal-Naquet 1977 contains many citations from Greek sources (translated) and was designed for undergraduates but is nonetheless very helpful to advanced students and of interest to the general reader. Schaps 1979 is an unusual study focused specifically on women's economic rights, and Cohen 1992 highlights the active role played by women and slaves in banking. Cartledge, et al. 2002 brings to bear the perspectives of the social sciences on the constantly expanding evidence.

Austin, M. M., and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. 1977. Economic and social history of ancient Greece. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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A study of central issues in social and economic history from the Homeric era through the 4th century BCE, with many inset passages from primary sources.
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Cartledge, Paul, Edward E. Cohen, and Lin Foxhall. 2002. Money, labour and land: Approaches to the economies of ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge.
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Makes good use of new developments in fields such as epigraphy, numismatics, and legal history. Several of these essays cluster around the issue of ancient slavery; others will be of value to economic historians.
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Cohen, Edward. 1992. Athenian economy and society: A banking perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Cohen argues for the functioning of a market economy in Classical Athens, accompanied by a sophisticated banking business.
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Finley, Moses I. 1985. The ancient economy. 2d ed. London: Hogarth.
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A groundbreaking work (1st ed., 1973) interpreting the ancient economy largely in terms of status relations.
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Finley, Moses I. 1982. Economy and society in ancient Greece. Edited with an introduction by Brent D. Shaw and Richard Saller. New York: Viking, 1982
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A collection of very important essays by Finley written over several decades, with a valuable introduction detailing both Finley's work and the Marxist stance that imbued his research.
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Manning, Joseph Gilbert., and Ian Morris, eds. 2005. The ancient economy: Evidence and models. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
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The combined efforts of specialists in different fields (historians, sociologists, and archaeologists as well as economists) make it possible for this book to offer new perspectives on the different kinds of evidence that survive from Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East.
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Morris, Ian. 1994. The Athenian economy twenty years after The ancient economy. Classical Philology 89: 351–366.
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A review of Cohen 1992 that analyzes the history of writing about the Athenian economy since Finley 1985 (first published 1973).
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Schaps, David. 1979. Economic rights of women in ancient Greece. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
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Looks at types of property, heiresses, midwifery, dowries, and the economy.
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Rise of Sparta

Sparta was anomalous among the Greek states, from which it was set dramatically apart by the dual kingship that survived into the Classical age and beyond, the relegation of agricultural labor (prized in other states) to the serfs known as helots, and the comparatively high status of its women. Sparta has been the object of increasing scrutiny since the late 1970s. Cartledge 1979 studies Sparta in its Laconian context. Fitzhardinge 1980 makes extensive use of material remains. Powell 1989 offers a collection of highly accessible essays on Sparta and its peculiarities. Hodkinson 2000 raises important questions about the Spartan economy. Despite the prominent role played by women in Sparta, Pomeroy 2002 is the only full-length study of Spartan women. Cartledge 2001 focuses on a variety of aspects of Spartan society. Luraghi and Alcock 2003 places helotry in the context of the history of unfree labor.

Cartledge, Paul. 1979. Sparta and Lakonia: A regional history 1300–362 BC. London and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
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Gives extensive treatment to pre-Classical Lakonia, as well as to helots and perioikoi.
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Cartledge, Paul. 2001. Spartan reflections. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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A collection of the author's essays on such questions as the position of Sparta in the development of the city-state, Sparta's contribution to early Greek military organization, Spartan women, and the politics of Spartan pederasty.
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Fitzhardinge, L. F. 1980. The Spartans. London: Thames and Hudson.
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A cultural and social history of Sparta, with extensive illustrations and a useful time chart.
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Hodkinson, Stephen. 2000. Property and wealth in Classical Sparta. London and Oakville, CT: Duckworth.
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Examines the economic realities behind Sparta's prominence from c. 550 to 371 BCE and offers an important challenge to traditional notions of equality among the Spartiates.
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Luraghi, Nino, and Susan Alcock, eds. 2003. Helots and their masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, ideologies, structures. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies.
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A collection of essays dealing with the origins and development of helotry as well as its ideological construction.
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Pomeroy, Sarah. 2002. Spartan women. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A pioneering study of Spartan women that brings together many different kinds of evidence.
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Powell, Anton, ed. 1989. Classical Sparta: Techniques behind her success. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
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A collection of essays by many authors, suitable for both undergraduates and graduate students.
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Persian Wars

The Archaic Age ended with the invasion of Greece by Persia, a turning point in the history of the Mediterranean whose end result was not, as might have been foreseen, the absorption of the Greek states into the Persian empire, but rather the development of a new sense of at least partial unity among the Greeks. Briant 2002 and Cawkwell 2005 trace events all the way from the founding of the Persian empire by Cyrus through the Macedonian conquest of Greece. Burn 1984 and Gershevitch 1985 provide extensive background, while Frost 1998 takes a close look at one politician, Themistocles. While Cawkwell looks at things from the Persian point of view, the military history of Lazenby 1993 seeks to examine the conflict through both Persian and Greek eyes. Wiesehöfer 1996 is a sweeping history that covers a period of 1,200 years. Herodotus 2009 guides the reader through our most important ancient source for the wars.

Briant, Pierre. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander: A history of the Persian empire. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbraun.
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An extremely detailed history of the empire and its workings.
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Burn, Andrew Robert. 1984. Persia and the Greeks: The defense of the West, c. 546–478 B.C. With a postscript by David Lewis. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
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Reprinted from the original 1962 edition. Includes discussion of the background of the ancient Near East prior to the 5th century, Iranian religion, Carthage, Etruria, and the Western Greeks, as well as the battles of the Persian wars. Lewis's postscript enriches the original work with new evidence from Persian texts.
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Cawkwell, George. 2005. The Greek wars: The failure of Persia. Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Asks questions such as why Xerxes' invasion failed, examining Greco-Persian relations from the standpoint of Persia.
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Frost, Frank. 1998. Plutarch's Themistocles: A historical commentary. Rev. ed. Chicago: Ares, 1998.
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A very valuable commentary on the life of the irreverent politician who shaped much of Athenian policy during and after the Persian Wars.
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Gershevitch, Ilya, ed. 1985. The Cambridge history of Iran, Vol. 2: The Median and Achaemenid periods. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Includes chapters on art, architecture, calendar systems, religion, and weights and measures in the Persian empire, as well as treating Persia's wars with Greece.
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Herodotus. 2009. The Landmark Herodotus: The histories. Edited by Robert Strassler; translated by Andrea Purvis; introduction by Rosalind Thomas. New York: Pantheon.
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Contains numerous maps and twenty-one appendices by experts on various topics.
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Lazenby, John Francis. 1993. The defence of Greece 490–479 BC. Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips.
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A military history of the Persian invasions of Greece that examines the conflict from both the Persian and the Greek points of view.
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Wiesehöfer, Josef. 1996. Ancient Persia: From 550 BC to 650 AD. Translated by Azizeh Azodi. London and New York: I. B. Tauris.
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A chronological account that also includes sections on daily life, a chronological table, and very useful bibliographical essays.
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Greece in the Classical Age

Where the Classical Age is concerned, many general works focus on Athens, but there are exceptions. Hornblower 1983 and Rhodes 2006 are both very good in incorporating the evidence of material culture. Kinzl 2006 offers a historical narrative as well as essays on many different topics.

Hornblower, Simon. 1983. The Greek world 479–323 BC. London and New York: Methuen.
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An exploration of Greece during the Classical period, with attention paid to states other than Athens and Sparta.
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Kinzl, Konrad\, ed. 2006. A companion to the Classical Greek world. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Includes essays on a wide range of topics, including the economy, warfare, religion, and the environment, as well as a narrative overview and a thorough treatment of the sources.
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Rhodes, Peter J. 2006. A history of the Classical Greek world: 478–323 BC. Blackwell History of the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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Makes clear the nature of the evidence for this time period and the caution with which it must be used.
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Athens and the Development of Democracy

Despite frequent and legitimate observations that the practice of slavery and the exclusion of women from government vitiate any claim that Athens was a democracy in the modern sense, the gradual evolution of a state that (formally, at least) rejected the perquisites of wealth and birth in choosing officials was a remarkable development in the history of the human community. In many ways, in fact, Athens was more democratic than modern states—in the large proportion of citizens who held at least one public office in their lives, for example, and in the number of officials who were selected by lot. Fortunately, a great deal of evidence survives to throw light on Athenian democracy and society.

The Physical City of Athens

Though the physical city of Athens is most famous for its Acropolis, its other remains are substantial as well. Osborne 2008, which deals with many different aspects of Athenian culture, is especially good on the physical environment. Camp 1992 focuses in the agora, where excavations are constantly ongoing; Hurwit 1999 is the most thorough study of the hill that dominated the city.

Camp, J. 1992. The Athenian agora: Excavations in the heart of Classical Athens. New York: Thames and Hudson.
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A thorough discussion of this important subject by a scholar who has spent many years in Athens.
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Hurwit, Jeffrey. 1999. The Athenian Acropolis: History, mythology, and archaeology from the Neolithic Era to the present. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A very readable history that approaches the subject from many angles.
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Osborne, Robin. 2008. The world of Athens: An introduction to Classical Athenian culture. 2d rev. ed. Joint Association of Classical Teachers. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A multi-authored text with an introductory historical outline followed by amply illustrated chapters on various aspects of Athenian civilization.
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Primary Sources

The essential sources for an understanding of Athenian democracy are to be found both in the sections on material evidence cited in other sections (Numismatic Evidence, Archaeological Evidence, Epigraphic Evidence) and in many authors whose works are available in the Loeb Classical Library editions, particularly the lawgiver Solon; the historians Thucydides and Herodotus; the tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; the comedian Aristophanes; the philosopher Plato; and the orators traditionally grouped under the rubric “The Ten Attic Orators”: Aeschines, Andocides, Antiphon, Demosthenes, Dinarchus, Hyperides, Isaeus, Isocrates, Lycurgus, and Lysias. Moore 1975 brings together several documents without which our understanding of Greek political history would be much more limited. Rhodes 1993 offers detailed commentary on the unique history of the Athenian constitution ascribed to Aristotle or one of his students. Lewis 2008 presents in Solon a man who saw Athens as a self-supporting system similar to the cosmos itself.

Lewis, John. 2008. Solon the thinker: Political thought in Archaic Athens. London: Duckworth.
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Offers a broad analysis of Solon as a political philosopher. Sees in Solon a combination of the new rationalism of his day and the persistence of the fatalism that characterized much Greek thought. Includes translations of the surviving fragments of Solon's work.
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Moore, John Michael. 1975. Aristotle and Xenophon on democracy and oligarchy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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A very valuable volume containing translations of the Aristotelian Constitution of Athens; the Constitution of Athens ascribed (wrongly) to Xenophon; the Spartan Constitution by the real Xenophon; and a piece on the Boeotian constitution by an author known as the Oxyrhynchus Historian because his work was found in a papyrus at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt.
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Rhodes, Peter John. 1993. A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A comprehensive commentary that treats the history of the text, its sources, its date, and its relationship to other accounts.
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Works of Reference

Hignett 1952 is a valuable handbook to Athenian constitutional history. Rhodes 1972 explores the membership and organization of the boule and its role in the governing of Athens. Hansen 1991 is the best guidebook available to the workings of the Athenian government, written by an expert who has devoted his life to its study. Develin 2003 is surprisingly accessible to the non-reader of Greek, considering the detailed nature of the work. Kirchner 1995 is very helpful to the advanced scholar; it is written in Latin and requires knowledge of the Greek alphabet.

Davies, John Kenyon. 1971. Athenian propertied families 600–300 BC. Oxford: Clarendon.
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An accessible history of Athenian individuals and families in the late archaic and classical periods.
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Develin, Robert. 2003. Athenian officials 684–321 BC. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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An essential reference work providing year-by-year lists of officials, including all available evidence pertaining to their service, with a large number of official decrees.
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Hansen, Mogens H. 1991. The Athenian democracy in the age of Demosthenes. Oxford and Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
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An eminently readable yet detailed account of the workings of the Athenian democracy at its height. Includes ample bibliography and a very useful glossary.
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Hignett, Charles. 1952. A history of the Athenian constitution to the end of the fifth century B.C. Oxford: Clarendon.
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A thorough treatment as far as it goes, but hampered by the exclusion of the 4th century.
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Kirchner, J. 1995. Prosopographia Attica. Chicago Ridge, IL: Ares.
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A scholarly encyclopedia of Athenians whose names are known to us, with family trees. Originally published in Berlin, 1901–1903.
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Rhodes, Peter John. 1972. The Athenian boule. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Examines the legislative, administrative, and judicial functions of this key body.
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Scholarship

Connor 1971 guides the reader through Athenian politics during the century when aristocratic ancestry ceased to be a prerequisite for holding political power. Davies 1978 offers valuable insights into the history of citizenship in theory and practice. Roberts 1982 questions the traditional view that 4th-century Athenian politicians did not hold office and hence could not be held to account for their actions. Osborne 1985 is an exceptional study in that it deals with the countryside as well as the city center. Ostwald 1986 is a classic study of how the democracy evolved. Ober 1989 explores what the rhetorical tactics employed in the courts and the assembly have to tell us about the way elites and non-elites worked together to make democracy a success.

Connor, W. Robert. 1971. The new politicians of fifth-century Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Explores changes in political paradigms during the 5th century in Athens, examining what changes and what stays the same, focusing on political groups and family ties, hetaireiai, and post-Periclean leaders (Cleon and his successors).
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Davies, John K. 1978. Athenian citizenship: The descent group and its alternatives. Classical Journal 73: 105–121.
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A central discussion of the age-old question of the determination of citizenship, focused on the ideology of citizenship in Athens.
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Ober, Josiah. 1989. Mass and elite in democratic Athens: Rhetoric, ideology and the power of the people. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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One of the most important of recent studies of Athens; uses the methods of social science to shed light on the dynamics of the democracy as revealed in the work of the orators.
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Osborne, Robin. 1985. Demos: The discovery of Classical Attika. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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The first attempt to provide an integrated account of a Classical city-state, giving due attention to the countryside as well as the urban areas of the polis.
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Ostwald, Martin. 1986. From popular sovereignty to the sovereignty of law: Law, society and politics in fifth-century Athens. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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A detailed scholarly study of the evolution of Athenian democracy, with close attention to the persistent undercurrent of oligarchic opposition.
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Roberts, Jennifer T. 1982. Athens' so-called unofficial politicians. Hermes 110: 354–362.
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Argues that 4th-century Athenian politicians did as a whole hold public office and were thus accountable for their actions.
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Growth of the Athenian Empire

Meiggs 1972 offers a detailed history of the Athenian empire, while the polemical McGregor 1987 defends the empire against its detractors. Stadter 1989 includes an important discussion of Plutarch's sources. Badian 1993 explores the interwar relations between Athens and Persia and calls into question the conventional interpretation of Thucydides's impartiality. Diodorus Siculus 2006 is a vital contribution to the study of 5th-century Greece, offering as it does a close commentary on the sections of Diodorus that parallel the period before the Peloponnesian War covered by Thucydides. Kagan 1969 and De Ste. Croix 1972 explore the origins of the Peloponnesian War, making use of evidence—inscriptions, for example—that were not available to 19th-century scholars. Kagan questions Thucydides's suggestion that Athenian power made the war inevitable and also downplays the role of Corinth in starting the war; De Ste. Croix questions just what it was that Thucydides really said.

Badian, E. 1993. From Plataea to Potidaea: Studies in the history and historiography of the Pentekontaetia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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Six essays, one new and five revised for this publication, on the period between the wars, by one of the foremost historians of antiquity.
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De Ste. Croix, Geoffrey Earnest Maurice. 1972. The origins of the Peloponnesian War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Deals intensively with the Megarian decrees and includes forty-seven appendices.
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Diodorus Siculus. 2006. Diodorus Siculus Books 11–12. 37. 1: Greek history 480–431 B.C. The alternative version. Translated with commentary by Peter Green. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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A lavishly footnoted edition of Diodorus's text (in English) that enables the reader to compare Diodorus's account of this period with that of Thucydides.
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Kagan, Donald. 1969. The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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In this first volume of his four-volume series on the war, Kagan tackles head-on the question of the war's inevitability.
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McGregor, Malcolm F. 1987. The Athenians and their empire. Vancouver: Univ. of British Columbia Press.
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Argues that the empire was a great achievement whose merits have gone unappreciated in modern times because of the negative connotations of imperialism in the modern world.
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Meiggs, Russell. 1972. The Athenian empire. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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This very valuable history of Athens's relationship with its allies from the inception of the Delian League to the end of the Peloponnesian War includes important chapters on the judgments made on the empire in the Classical period and a chart recording tribute payments for the years 453 to 420.
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Powell, Anton. 2001. Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek social and political history from 478 BC. 2d ed. London and New York: Routledge.
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A highly accessible study that also has detailed footnotes for those who approach the book as scholars.
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Stadter, Philip A. 1989. A commentary on Plutarch's Pericles. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
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A commentary on Plutarch's biography that pays considerable attention to Pericles's role in the period between the wars and includes an elaborate introduction.
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Beyond Athens and Sparta

In the later 20th century the Copenhagen Polis Centre began collecting and organizing data on hundreds of Greek poleis, large and small. Hansen and Nielson 2005 provides a lexicon of these many states; Hansen 2006 boils the data down. Work has also been done highlighting forms of social and political life beyond the world of the polis. Brock and Hodkinson 2000 examines ethnoi, amphictyonies, and confederacies. Morgan 2003 uses epigraphical, literary, and archaeological records to reconstruct early Greek community life. On the important role of the countryside in the life of the polis, see Osborne 1987.

Brock, Roger, and Stephen Hodkinson, eds. 2000. Alternatives to Athens: Varieties of political organization and community in ancient Greece. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Eighteen essays examining approaches to civic life that contrasted strongly with the democratic system often associated with ancient Greece.
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Hansen, Mogens H., and Thomas Nielsen. 2005. An inventory of Archaic and Classical poleis: An investigation conducted by the Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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A lexicon providing descriptions of more than a thousand identifiable Greek poleis.
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Hansen, Mogens H. 2006. Polis: An introduction to the ancient Greek city-state. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Founder of the Copenhagen Polis Centre, Hansen condenses here a great deal of the work on the polis that has been conducted there over past decades.
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McInerny, Jeremy. 1991. The folds of Parnassos: Land and ethnicity in ancient Phokis. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press.
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A study of non-polis formations such as the ethnos and the koinon, grounded in the study of a particular region, Phokis.
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Morgan, Catherine. 2003. Early Greek states beyond the polis. London: Routledge.
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A reconstruction of non-polis forms of association that focuses on central Greece and the northern Peloponnese.
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Osborne, Robin. 1987. Classical landscape with figures: The ancient Greek city and its countryside. London: George Philip.
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Uses recent archaeological finds to produce a long-overdue study of the Greek countryside, in its own right as well as in connection with the city.
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Studies of Specific Poleis and Regions

A variety of works offer close histories of specific poleis or regions. See Tomlinson 1972 for Argos, Legon 1981 for Megara, Demand 1982 for Thebes, Salmon 1984 for Corinth, Shipley 1987 for Samos, Gorman 2001 for Miletos, and for Sicily Braccesi and Millino 2000 and Janelli and Longo 2004.

Braccesi, Lorenzo, and Giovanni Millino. 2000. La Sicilia Greca. Rome: Carocci.
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Divided into three sections: foundations; Syracuse and Agrigentum; and Syracuse and Greek Sicily. Includes a detailed chronology.
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Demand, Nancy. 1982. Thebes in the fifth century B.C.: Heracles resurgent. London: Routledge.
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A study of the resurgence of Thebes after its unfortunate decision to side with Persia against the Greeks in the Persian Wars. Uses a wide range of evidence from poetry to pottery.
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Gorman, Vanessa B. 2001. Miletos, the ornament of Ionia: A history of the city to 400 B.C.E. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Traces the city's progress through monarchy, oligarchy, tyranny, and democracy and explores its relations with Persia and Athens.
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Janelli, Lorena, and Fausto Longo. 2004. The Greeks in Sicily. Photographs by Mark Smith. Venice: Arsenale Editrice.
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A lavishly illustrated book with full-page color photos, equally suited to graduate students and the general reader.
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Legon, Ronald. 1981. Megara: The political history of a Greek city-state to 336 B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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A history of Megara that rises above the paucity of the evidence to present a surprisingly detailed picture.
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Salmon, J. B. 1984. Wealthy Corinth: A history of the city to 338 BC. Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An excellent work on this important polis that includes chapters on the economy, government, population, coinage, and foreign policy.
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Shipley, Graham. 1987. A history of Samos 800–180 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon; New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Based on both archaeological and written sources, including inscriptions and coins.
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Tomlinson, Richard Allan. 1972. Argos and the Argolid: From the Bronze Age to the Roman occupation. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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A thorough treatment by a scholar who spent three years excavating in the Argolid.
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Peloponnesian War (431–404)

In part because of the extraordinary narrative of Thucydides and in part because of its intrinsic importance in Greek history, the Peloponnesian War has been the object of much study. Kagan's series on the war has been acclaimed as one of the great historical works of the 20th century; Kallet 1993 and Kallet 2002 demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, Thucydides was intensely concerned with the role of money matters in state policy. Cawkwell 1997 offers a remarkable combination of insights into both the war and its historian; Thucydides 1998 includes Xenophon's continuation of Thucydides's work down to the end of the war and selections from modern authors on Thucydides's work. McCann and Strauss 2001 compares the effects of the Peloponnesian War and the Korean War on the societies involved. Hanson 2005 focuses on the military aspects of the war, placing particular stress on the strains occasioned by each aspect of the fighting.

Cawkwell, George. 1997. Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. London and New York: Routledge.
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Perhaps the best study of Thucydides in close connection with his subject matter.
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Hanson, Victor Davis. 2005. A war like no other war: How the Athenians and Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War. New York: Random House.
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An exceptionally vivid account of the sorrows of this war.
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Kagan, Donald. 1974. The Archidamian war. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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The first volume of Kagan's close analysis of the war's military and diplomatic history. See also Kagan's shorter, one-volume The Peloponnesian War (2003, New York: Viking), aimed more at the general reader.
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Kagan, Donald. 1981. The peace of Nicias and the Sicilian expedition. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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The second volume of Kagan's three-volume series.
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Kagan, Donald. 1987. The fall of the Athenian empire. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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The final volume of Kagan's series.
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Kallet, Lisa. 1993. Money, expense and naval power in Thucydides' History 1–5.24. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Makes a decisive case against the traditional belief in Thucydides's indifference to economic concerns.
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Kallet, Lisa. 2002. Money and the corrosion of power in Thucydides: The Sicilian expedition and its aftermath. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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Argues that Thucydides offers a strong condemnation of Athens for failing to allocate its financial strength properly
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McCann, David R., and Barry S. Strauss, eds. 2001. War and democracy: A comparative study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War. London and Armonk, NY: East Gate.
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A collection of essays by classicists, Koreanists, and Americanists based on the proceedings of a conference held in 1995 at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC, and uncovering many similarities between the two wars.
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Thucydides. 1998. Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, a new translation, backgrounds, interpretations. Translated by Walter Blanco; edited by Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts. Norton Critical Editions. New York: W. W. Norton.
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Includes a number of essays on Thucydides's work as well as the section of Xenophon's Hellenica that continues the war to its end.
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Greece After the Peloponnesian War

The half-century between the end of the Peloponnesian War and the rise of Macedon under Philip II was a period of shifting alliances and frequent civil strife in the Greek poleis. Ryder 1965 studies the notion of a common peace through the Macedonian conquest. Hamilton 1979 is an unusually close study of the Corinthian War of 395–387. Buckler 1980 is particularly strong on topography and is grounded in careful inspection of the terrain. Cargill 1981 challenges common assumptions about the oppressiveness of the Second Athenian League. Strauss 1986 examines the crucial period of restoration and transition that followed Athens's defeat at Spartan hands in 403. Cartledge 1987 uses King Agesilaus as a jumping-off point for examining Sparta after the Peloponnesian War. Tritle 1996 is an essential contribution to the understanding of the Greek world in the 4th century and after. Lane Fox 2004 and Lee 2007 enhance our understanding of the experience of the Ten Thousand in the east and the makeup of the mercenary army.

Buckler, John. 1980. The Theban hegemony, 371–362 B.C. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Deals with the social and economic backgrounds of Theban leaders as well as the constitution of the Boeotian confederacy.
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Cargill, Jack. 1981. The Second Athenian League. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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Bases a favorable interpretation of the Second Athenian League in part on a new text and translation of the Aristoteles Decree of 377 BCE.
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Cartledge, Paul. 1987. Agesilaos and the crisis of Sparta. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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A long and detailed study, broken down into an introduction that gives background on Sparta at Agesilaos's birth and the nature of the evidence; a discussion of various themes such as the politics of Spartan patronage, Agesilaos's generalship, and the Athens/Sparta/Thebes triangle; and a chronological narrative.
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Hamilton, Charles D. 1979. Sparta's bitter victories: Politics and diplomacy in the Corinthian War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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The interactions and shifting alliances of the Greek states during the Corinthian War era.
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Lane Fox, Robin, ed. 2004. The long march: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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A collection of essays by twelve scholars on the remarkable story of the Anabasis, examining the famous text from twelve different angles, including historicity and its author's political and cultural milieus.
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Lee, John W. I. 2007. A Greek army on the march: Soldiers and survival in Xenophon's Anabasis. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A social and cultural history of Xenophon's mercenary companions.
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Ryder, Timothy Thomas Bennett. 1965. Koine eirene: General peace and local independence in ancient Greece. London: Oxford Univ. Press.
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An account of the attempts (not always successful) made by the Greeks in the decades after the Peloponnesian War to establish a peace among the various poleis that would be more enduring than the various truces of the 5th century.
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Strauss, Barry S. 1986. Athens after the Peloponnesian War: Class, faction, and policy 403–386 B.C. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Uses models from anthropology and demographics to explain how the Athenians rebounded so successfully from a seemingly devastating war.
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Tritle, Lawrence, ed. 1996. The Greek world in the fourth century: From the fall of the Athenian empire to the successors of Alexander. London and New York: Routledge.
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A collection of essays by various authors on the unique character of the 4th century, with extensive treatment of the Greeks of Asia Minor and the states of western Greece.
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Era of the Macedonian Conquest

Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander were compelling figures, and an extraordinary amount has been written about both the canny moves of Philip in consolidating his power in Macedonia and Greece and the equally astonishing career of Alexander.

Primary Sources for the Macedonian Conquest of Greece

Primary sources include many speeches of the Athenian orator Demosthenes and several of Aeschines and Isocrates. Several of Plutarch's Lives pertain to the era of Alexander, and Plutarch wrote a life of Alexander himself. All these authors, whose works are available in the Loeb Classical Library, used sources now lost to us.

Athens and Macedon

The failure of the Greek cities to recognize the Macedonian threat and to muster effective opposition to Philip has occasioned considerable interest among scholars. Most of this has focused on Athens and its statesmen. The three volumes of Schaefer 1885 are rich in detail. Sealey 1993 discusses the nature of Athenian politics. Harris 1996 focuses on the evidence from speeches given in Athenian courts. Mitchel 1970 presents a picture of Athens during the decades after its defeat by Philip.

Harris, Edward M. 1996. Aeschines and Athenian politics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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The first full-length study of Demosthenes's rival Aeschines, examining the reliability of court speeches as evidence for Athenian history and for the functioning of the Athenian democracy.
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Mitchel, Fordyce W. 1970. Lykourgan Athens: 338–322. Louise Taft Semple Lecture. Cincinnati: Univ. of Cincinnati Press.
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A study of Athens under the stewardship of the distinguished orator and financial manager Lycurgus.
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Schaefer, Arnold. 1885. Demosthenes und seine Zeit. 2d ed. 3 vols. Leipzig, Germany: Teubner.
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This 19th-century German undertaking remains a very valuable study of a crucial period in Greek history. Reprinted in 1979 (New York: Arno).
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Sealey, Raphael. 1993. Demosthenes and his time: A study in defeat. Oxford and New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Challenges Schaefer's view (shared by many) that Athenian political parties resembled modern ones in having distinct platforms, arguing that Athenian political groups were held together more by personal ties than by any specific ideology or agenda.
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Macedon

Hammond, et al. 1972–1988 offers a comprehensive history; Hammond 1989 contains a briefer but still very thorough treatment. Andronicos 1984 treats the remains in the area of the royal tombs and has excellent illustrations. For a discussion of Macedonian civilization in relation to Greek, see Badian 1982 and Borza 1990. Borza 1995 collects several of the author's essays on aspects of Macedonian history. On Macedonian royal women, see Carney 2000.

Andronicos, Manolis. 1984. Vergina: The royal tombs and the ancient city. Translated by Louise Turner. Athens: Ekdotike Athenon.
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A thorough analysis of not only the Vergina tombs but also the other remains in the area. Beautifully illustrated.
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Badian, E. 1982. Greeks and Macedonians. In Macedonia and Greece in late Classical and early Hellenistic times. Edited by Beryl Barr-Sharrar and Eugene N. Borza, 33–51. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art.
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Contains a discussion of Macedonian civilization in relation to Greek.
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Borza, Eugene. 1990. In the shadow of Olympus: The emergence of Macedon. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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A narrative history of the rise of the Macedonian kingdom through the reign of Philip II, based on literary and archaeological evidence. Emphasizes how Macedonia differed from the world of the Greek city-states.
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Borza, Eugene N. 1995. Makedonika: Essays by Eugene N. Borza. Claremont, CA: Regina.
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A broad range of the author's articles on early Macedonia and on the reign of Alexander the Great, reprinted by the Association of Ancient Historians as a tribute to Borza, an Association founder and former president.
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Carney, Elizabeth D. 2000. Women and monarchy in Macedonia. Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press.
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Includes individual biographical studies of all royal women named in ancient sources.
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Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière. 1989. The Macedonian state: Origins, institutions and history. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Offers a treatment of Macedonia that, while thorough, is more accessible to the general reader than the three-volume multi-authored version (1972–1988).
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Hammond, Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière, Guy Thompson Griffith, and Frank William Walbank, 3 vols. 1972–1988. A History of Macedonia. Oxford: Clarendon.
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A monumental undertaking utilizing all available evidence to present a positively encyclopedic history. The second volume treats the career of Philip II.
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Philip

Perceptions of the Macedonian conqueror inevitably vary according to one's perspective. Kienast 1973 examines Philip and Persia. For the Macedonian point of view, see Ellis 1976; for the Greek perspective, see Cawkwell 1978. Momigliano 1987 offers broad context.

Cawkwell, George. 1978. Philip of Macedon. London: Faber and Faber.
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Perceptive biography of Philip from a Greek viewpoint.
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Ellis, John R. 1976. Philip II and Macedonian imperialism. London: Thames and Hudson.
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Lucid treatment of Philip's reign from a Macedonian viewpoint.
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Kienast, Dietmar. 1973. Philipp II. von Makedonien und das Reich der Achaimeniden. Munich: W. Fink.
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The interplay between Philip and the empire that was eventually conquered by his son Alexander.
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Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1987. Filippo il Macedone: Saggio sulla storia greca del IV secolo a. c. With corrections and a new preface by the author and a bibliographic appendix by the author and Giampiera Arrigoni. Milan: Guerini.
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An update of Momigliano's important 1934 exploration of Philip in the context of his time, with a chapter on Macedon before Philip and one on theories of Panhellenism in the 4th century.
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Aspects of Greek Culture and Society

Greek society was highly stratified, with slaves or serfs bringing up the rear. Men and women had distinct roles, with women identified with the private sphere and men with the public. The Greeks were also markedly bellicose, but peace was highly prized, perhaps in part because it was so rare.

Social Stratification and Slavery

Class struggle, poverty and slavery were ubiquitous in the Greek world. Westermann 1955 is a detailed study that brings together a great deal of data, as does De Ste. Croix 1981. Finley 1980 and Garlan 1988 examine rationales put forward for slavery in antiquity, though Garlan limits himself to the Greek world; both books are suitable for undergraduates. Wiedemann 1981 is a useful teaching tool.

De Ste. Croix, Geoffrey Earnest Maurice. 1981. The class struggle in the ancient Greek world from the Archaic Age to the Arab conquests. London: Duckworth.
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Must-read for all serious students of antiquity, this monumental work of several hundred pages examines the dynamics of ancient society from a Marxist perspective.
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Finley, Moses I. 1980. Ancient slavery and modern ideology. London: Chatto and Windus; New York: Penguin.
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An exploration of how slave societies came into being and the social and economic conditions that kept them alive.
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Garlan, Yvon. 1988. Slavery in ancient Greece. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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Includes a discussion of the conditions of slaves throughout the Greek world.
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Westermann, William. 1955. The slave systems of Greek and Roman antiquity. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.
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The first quarter deals specifically with Greece.
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Wiedemann, Thomas, ed. 1981. Greek and Roman slavery. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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A valuable sourcebook, in English translation, containing texts and inscriptions, thematically arranged.
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Social and Family History

Since the later decades of the 20th century, interest in social and cultural history has been the focus of a great deal of research. Herman 1987 explores the role of ritualized friendship in Greek life. Our evidence for childhood in ancient Greece is quite limited, but see Golden 1990 and Neils and Oakley 2003. Pomeroy's 1994 edition of Xenophon's Oeconomicus offers a priceless window into the Athenian household. On the family, Patterson 1998 and Pomeroy 1998 have both been able to incorporate the feminist research of the later 20th century; Patterson includes the pre-Classical period, while Pomeroy deals with the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Figueira 2004 collects papers by many scholars on various aspects of Spartan society.

Cohen, David. 1991. Law, sexuality, and society: The enforcement of morals in Classical Athens. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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An exploration of what the framing—and application—of Athenian laws reveals about sexual values and practices.
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Figueira, Thomas, ed. 2004. Spartan society. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.
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Sixteen papers cover topics such as helots and Messenians, the Spartan economy, and Spartan women.
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Golden, Mark. 1990. Children and childhood in Classical Athens. Ancient Society and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
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A ground-breaking investigation in a challenging area where evidence is limited.
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Herman, Gabriel. 1987. Ritualised friendship and the Greek city. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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An examination of the ritualized friendships that characterized social and civic life in ancient Greece, including an appendix listing known networks of ritualized friendship during the Peloponnesian War.
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Neils, Jennifer, and John F. Oakley. 2003. Coming of age in ancient Greece: Images of childhood from the Classical past. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press in association with the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.
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Museum catalog from an exhibition.
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Patterson, Cynthia. 1998. The family in Greek history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Attacks traditional beliefs about the suppression and denigration of women in ancient Greece.
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Pomeroy, Sarah. 1994. Xenophon, Oeconomicus: A social and historical commentary, with a new English translation. Oxford: Clarendon.
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A new, annotated and footnoted edition that explores the text as a source for the family and the domestic economy in classical Greece.
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Pomeroy, Sarah. 1998. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and realities. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Includes in-depth case studies on specific families, including those of Demosthenes and Pasio.
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War and Peace

The Greeks spent an inordinate amount of time fighting one another. A number of works, consequently, deal with Greek warfare. These include land warfare, naval warfare, and the innovations of the Macedonians. Adcock 1957 explores changes in fighting methods with the passing of time. Hanson 2000 brings alive the nature of hoplite warfare; Kern 1999 connects siege warfare in the Greco-Roman world with practices elsewhere in antiquity; and Pritchett 1971–1991 examines the practice of war from in every imaginable dimension. Van Wees 2000 offers a wide variety of perspectives on violence in Greece. Yet despite their notorious bellicosity, Greeks were also interested in peace. Adcock and Mosley 1975 explores the theory and practice of diplomacy in the Greek world. Spiegel 1990 examines attitudes toward war and peace by a close study of Greek literature; Raaflaub 2007 takes on the phenomenon in a wide array of ancient cultures.

Adcock, Frank E. 1957. The Greek and Macedonian art of war. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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The evolution of tactics and strategy from the classical phalanx through the innovations of Epaminondas, Philip, and Alexander.
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Adcock, Frank, and Derek J. Mosley. 1975. Diplomacy in ancient Greece. London: Thames and Hudson.
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Treats the Classical period through the age of Roman domination.
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Hanson, Victor Davis. 2000. The Western way of war: Infantry battle in Classical Greece. 2d ed. with introduction by John Keegan. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A vivid and moving account of the experience of serving in a hoplite battle.
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Kern, Paul B. 1999. Ancient siege warfare. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Univ. of Indiana Press.
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Designed for both the scholarly and the general reader, this book examines the social ramifications of siege warfare, which touched women and children every bit as much as men.
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Pritchett, W. Kendrick. 1971–1991. The Greek state at war. 5 vols. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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A classic study unfolding over two decades that examines many aspects of the conduct of war in ancient Greece, covering topics such as military pay, religion and warfare, military discipline, and mercenaries.
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Raaflaub, Kurt, ed. 2007. War and peace in the ancient World. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.
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A wide variety of perspectives on the attitudes toward war and peace in eastern and western Asia and the Americas, as well as in Greece and Rome, emphasizing the persistence of a desire for peace across cultures.
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Spiegel, Nathan. 1990. War and peace in Classical Greek literature. Translated by Amiel Ungar. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew Univ.
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A review of Greek literature that makes clear a sincere yearning for peace in the Greek world.
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Van Wees, Hans, ed. 2000. War and violence in ancient Greece. London: Duckworth and Classical Press of Wales.
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Covers the whole span of Greek history from the Homeric poems to the Hellenistic era.
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Values

The many different kinds of texts that have survived from ancient Greece have made possible the reconstruction of values in a variety of areas. Hirzel 1907 remains one of the definitive studies of Greek ideas of justice. Adkins 1960 is a classic study of alternative paradigms for Greek thought about desirable behavior. Dover 1974 offers a window into the thinking of the average “Greek in the street.” Arthur 1984 explores the changes in the status of women that accompanied the development of democracy. Fisher 1992 examines hybris in Athenian law but also a wide variety of non-Athenian authors. Halperin 1990 discusses the erotics of Greek male culture. Raaflaub 2004 examines thinking about freedom in the 5th century. Roisman 2005 reconstructs Athenian ideas about masculinity from the works of the orators.

Adkins, Arthur W. H. 1960. Merit and responsibility: A study in Greek values. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Distinguishes two ways to judge human lives, by “merit,” which does not account for morality, and “responsibility,” which makes morality central.
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Arthur, Marylin. 1984. Early Greece: The origins of the Western attitude to women. In Women in the ancient world: The Arethusa papers. Edited by John Peradotto and John Patrick Sullivan, 7–58. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.
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A Marxist study that grounds the subjugation of women in classical Greece in the development of private property.
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Dover, Kenneth James. 1974. Greek popular morality in the time of Plato and Aristotle. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Relies primarily on comedy and oratory to reconstruct attitudes among ordinary people that might differ from those found in the philosophers.
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Fisher, N. R. E. 1992. Hybris: A study of the values of honour and shame in ancient Greece. Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips.
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Study of hybris both in Athenian law and in a wide variety of authors, with useful index of passages cited.
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Halperin, David M. 1990. One hundred years of homosexuality and other essays on Greek love. London and New York: Routledge.
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A collection of the author's essays, most of them previously published, on the construction of sexuality in the Greek world. Includes an important discussion of Diotima in Plato's Symposium.
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Hirzel, Rudolf. 1907. Themis, Dike und Verwandtes: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Rechtsidee bei den Griechen (Themis, Dike and relations: A study of the history of the idea of justice among the Greeks). Leipzig, Germany: S. Hirzel.
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A classic study of Greek ideas of justice that has still not been surpassed. Reprinted 1966, Hildesheim, Germany: Olms.
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Raaflaub, Kurt. 2004. The discovery of freedom in ancient Greece. Translated by Renate Franciscono, revised by the author. London and Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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An exploration of the origins of the concept of freedom in 5th-century Greece and the connections between freedom and other notions such as citizenship and equality, not excluding its paradoxical use as a tool of domination.
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Roisman, Joseph. 2005. The rhetoric of manhood: Masculinity in the Attic orators. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
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An important study of conceptions of manhood in classical Athens, grounded in the notions of masculinity found in the extant works of the Attic orators.
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