In a series of studies, Ian Moyer explores the ancient history and modern historiography of relations between Egypt and Greece from the fifth century BCE to the early Roman empire. Beginning with ...Herodotus, he analyzes key encounters between Greeks and Egyptian priests, the bearers of Egypt's ancient traditions. Four moments unfold as rich micro-histories of cross-cultural interaction: Herodotus' interviews with priests at Thebes; Manetho's composition of an Egyptian history in Greek; the struggles of Egyptian priests on Delos; and a Greek physician's quest for magic in Egypt. In writing these histories, the author moves beyond Orientalizing representations of the Other and colonial metanarratives of the civilizing process to reveal interactions between Greeks and Egyptians as transactional processes in which the traditions, discourses and pragmatic interests of both sides shaped the outcome. The result is a dialogical history of cultural and intellectual exchanges between the great civilizations of Greece and Egypt.
This book looks at the development of a range of responses to the Achaemenids and their Empire. Through a study of ancient texts and material evidence from the archaic and classical periods, Morgan ...investigates the historical, political and social factors that inspired and manipulated different identities for Persia and the Persians within Greece.
This book examines the impact of the Roman cultural revolution under Augustus on the Roman province of Greece. It argues that the transformation of Roman Greece into a classicizing 'museum' was a ...specific response of the provincial Greek elites to the cultural politics of the Roman imperial monarchy. Against a background of Roman debates about Greek culture and Roman decadence, Augustus promoted the ideal of a Roman debt to a 'classical' Greece rooted in Europe and morally opposed to a stereotyped Asia. In Greece the regime signalled its admiration for Athens, Sparta, Olympia and Plataea as symbols of these past Greek glories. Cued by the Augustan monarchy, provincial Greek notables expressed their Roman orientation by competitive cultural work (revival of ritual; restoration of buildings) aimed at further emphasising Greece's 'classical' legacy. Reprised by Hadrian, the Augustan construction of 'classical' Greece helped to promote the archaism typifying Greek culture under the principate.
Death to tyrants Teegarden, David
2013., 20131124, 2013, 2014-01-01
eBook
Death to Tyrants!is the first comprehensive study of ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation--laws that explicitly gave individuals incentives to "kill a tyrant." David Teegarden demonstrates that ...the ancient Greeks promulgated these laws to harness the dynamics of mass uprisings and preserve popular democratic rule in the face of anti-democratic threats. He presents detailed historical and sociopolitical analyses of each law and considers a variety of issues: What is the nature of an anti-democratic threat? How would various provisions of the laws help pro-democrats counter those threats? And did the laws work?
Teegarden argues that tyrant-killing legislation facilitated pro-democracy mobilization both by encouraging brave individuals to strike the first blow against a nondemocratic regime and by convincing others that it was safe to follow the tyrant killer's lead. Such legislation thus deterred anti-democrats from staging a coup by ensuring that they would be overwhelmed by their numerically superior opponents. Drawing on modern social science models, Teegarden looks at how the institution of public law affects the behavior of individuals and groups, thereby exploring the foundation of democracy's persistence in the ancient Greek world. He also provides the first English translation of the tyrant-killing laws from Eretria and Ilion.
By analyzing crucial ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation,Death to Tyrants!explains how certain laws enabled citizens to draw on collective strength in order to defend and preserve their democracy in the face of motivated opposition.
A study of archaeology and the early Church in Greece is long overdue. So far, no book has been published in English that examines the growth of Christianity in southern Greece from New Testament ...times until the medieval period, taking into account both contemporary theological expertise and a detailed knowledge of the numerous and exciting current archaeological excavations. Situated between Israel and Italy, Greece is now yielding vital evidence of the development of early Christianity. Mainland Greece and its surrounding islands is a vast region, and this book focus on an area rich in early Christian remains, namely the region stretching from Athens southwards. The book examines evidence relating to Christianity in New Testament times, particularly through the writings of St Paul and early theologians, and juxtaposes these texts with recent and current excavations at Corinth, with its twin ports of Kenchreai and Lechaion, and its chief sanctuary beyond the city at Isthmia, where St Paul worked during the celebration of the pan-Hellenic Games. Much of the excavation at Lechaion has been carried out underwater by divers pioneering new methods of preserving submerged material, since most of the harbor is entirely submerged. Later, particularly from the sixth century onwards, Christian basilicas were built throughout Greece. A number of these are examined, including those at Nemea and Epidaurus. Nemea provides unique evidence of an agricultural community guided by a bishop; numerous Christian artefacts have been excavated at the site. Epidaurus was honored as the birthplace of the healing god Asclepius, and early Christians inherited and developed these healing skills in unexpected ways. At other locations, monks developed a wide variety of lifestyles that were little known in the Western Church. The archaeology of Christian sites in Greece is a new and unfolding discipline; this book will encourage scholars and students to take these studies further.
This innovative book documents border porosities that have
developed and persisted between Greece and North Macedonia over
different temporalities and at different localities. By drawing on
geology's ...approaches to studying porosity, Dimova argues that
similar to rocks and minerals that only appear solid and
impermeable, seemingly impenetrable borders are inevitably
traversed by different forms of passage. The rich ethnographic case
studies, from the history of railroads in the southern Balkans,
border town beauty tourism, child refugees during the Greek Civil
War, mining and environmental activism, and the urban renovation
project in Skopje, show that the political borders between states
do not only restrict or regulate the movement of people and things,
but are also always permeable in ways that exceed state
governmentality.
Against the backdrop of ever-increasing nationalist violence during the last decade of the twentieth century, this book challenges standard analyses of nation formation by elaborating on the nation's ...dream-like hold over the modern social imagination. Stathis Gourgouris argues that the national fantasy lies at the core of the Enlightenment imaginary, embodying its central paradox: the intertwining of anthropological universality with the primacy of a cultural ideal.Crucial to the operation of this paradox and fundamental in its ambiguity is the figure of Greece, the universal alibi and cultural predicate behind national-cultural consolidation throughout colonialist Europe. The largely unpredictable institution of a modern Greek nation in 1830 undoes the interweaving of Enlightenment and Philhellenism, whose centrifugal strands continue to unravel the certainty of European history, down to the internal predicaments of the European Union or the tragedy of the Balkan conflicts.This 25th Anniversary edition of the book includes a new preface by the author in which he situates the book's original insights in retrospect against the newer developments in the social and political conditions of a now globalized world: the neocolonial resurgence of nationalism and racism, the failure of social democratic institutions, the crisis of sovereignty and citizenship, and the brutal conditions of stateless peoples.
Prevalent among classicists today is the notion that Greeks, Romans, and Jews enhanced their own self-perception by contrasting themselves with the so-called Other--Egyptians, Phoenicians, ...Ethiopians, Gauls, and other foreigners--frequently through hostile stereotypes, distortions, and caricature. In this provocative book, Erich Gruen demonstrates how the ancients found connections rather than contrasts, how they expressed admiration for the achievements and principles of other societies, and how they discerned--and even invented--kinship relations and shared roots with diverse peoples.
Gruen shows how the ancients incorporated the traditions of foreign nations, and imagined blood ties and associations with distant cultures through myth, legend, and fictive histories. He looks at a host of creative tales, including those describing the founding of Thebes by the Phoenician Cadmus, Rome's embrace of Trojan and Arcadian origins, and Abraham as ancestor to the Spartans. Gruen gives in-depth readings of major texts by Aeschylus, Herodotus, Xenophon, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Tacitus, and others, in addition to portions of the Hebrew Bible, revealing how they offer richly nuanced portraits of the alien that go well beyond stereotypes and caricature.
Providing extraordinary insight into the ancient world, this controversial book explores how ancient attitudes toward the Other often expressed mutuality and connection, and not simply contrast and alienation.
