Anton Powell – författare

Euripides' interest in the psychology and social position of women is well known. Of the great Greek playwrights, he most directly reflects contemporary philosophical and social debates, and his work is of great value as a source for social history.The important new studies in this volume explore Euripides' treatment of sexuality and Greek ideals of women's behaviour. Using a wide range of analytic techniques, seven scholars direct new light not only on Euripides' own views of women but also on the ideals and preoccupations of his contemporaries in this area. Athenian women of the classical period were used, in Plato's phrase, 'to a life in the shadows'. This book helps us to see how far the influence of these cloistered women extended into the sunlit world of men.

Studying from the Mycenean to the late Hellenistic period, this work includes new articles by twenty-seven specialists of ancient Greece, and presents an examination of the Greek cultures of mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt and Italy.With the chapters sharing the theme of social history, this fascinating book focuses on women, the poor, and the slaves – all traditionally seen as beyond the margins of powerand includes the study of figures who were on the literal margins of the Greek world.Bringing to the forefront the research into areas previously thought of as marginal, Anton Powell sheds new light on vital topics and authors who are central to the study of Greek culture. Plato’s reforms are illuminated through a consideration of his impatient and revolutionary attitude to women, and Powell also examines how the most potent symbol of central Greek history – the Parthenon – can be understood as a political symbol when viewed with the knowledge of the cosmetic techniques used by classical Athenian women.The Greek World is a stimulating and enlightening interaction of social and political history, comprehensive, and unique to boot, students will undoubtedly benefit from the insight and knowledge it imparts.

In the past twenty years the study of Sparta has come of age. Images prevalent earlier in the 20th century, of Spartans as hearty good fellows or scarlet-cloaked automata, have been superseded by more complex scholarly reactions. As interest has grown in the self-images projected by this most secretive of Greek cities, increasing attention has focused on how individual Greek writers from other states reacted to information, or disinformation about Sparta.The studies in this volume provide new insights into the traditional historians' question, "What actually happened at Sparta?". But the implications of the work go far beyond Laconia. They concern preoccupations of some of the most studied of Greek writers, and help towards an understanding of how Athenians defined the achievment, or the failure, of their own city.

Studying from the Mycenean to the late Hellenistic period, this work includes new articles by twenty-seven specialists of ancient Greece, and presents an examination of the Greek cultures of mainland Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt and Italy.With the chapters sharing the theme of social history, this fascinating book focuses on women, the poor, and the slaves – all traditionally seen as beyond the margins of powerand includes the study of figures who were on the literal margins of the Greek world.Bringing to the forefront the research into areas previously thought of as marginal, Anton Powell sheds new light on vital topics and authors who are central to the study of Greek culture. Plato’s reforms are illuminated through a consideration of his impatient and revolutionary attitude to women, and Powell also examines how the most potent symbol of central Greek history – the Parthenon – can be understood as a political symbol when viewed with the knowledge of the cosmetic techniques used by classical Athenian women.The Greek World is a stimulating and enlightening interaction of social and political history, comprehensive, and unique to boot, students will undoubtedly benefit from the insight and knowledge it imparts.

Euripides' interest in the psychology and social position of women is well known. Of the great Greek playwrights, he most directly reflects contemporary philosophical and social debates, and his work is of great value as a source for social history.The important new studies in this volume explore Euripides' treatment of sexuality and Greek ideals of women's behaviour. Using a wide range of analytic techniques, seven scholars direct new light not only on Euripides' own views of women but also on the ideals and preoccupations of his contemporaries in this area. Athenian women of the classical period were used, in Plato's phrase, 'to a life in the shadows'. This book helps us to see how far the influence of these cloistered women extended into the sunlit world of men.

In the past twenty years the study of Sparta has come of age. Images prevalent earlier in the 20th century, of Spartans as hearty good fellows or scarlet-cloaked automata, have been superseded by more complex scholarly reactions. As interest has grown in the self-images projected by this most secretive of Greek cities, increasing attention has focused on how individual Greek writers from other states reacted to information, or disinformation about Sparta.The studies in this volume provide new insights into the traditional historians' question, "What actually happened at Sparta?". But the implications of the work go far beyond Laconia. They concern preoccupations of some of the most studied of Greek writers, and help towards an understanding of how Athenians defined the achievment, or the failure, of their own city.

This collection, first published in 1989, investigates aspects of the Spartan polity which have often been overlooked or underestimated. Viewed at least until the Renaissance as the epitome of classical virtues, Sparta has in the last two centuries suffered a rapid decline in reputation among liberal-minded scholars, repelled by many of the repressive measures employed by this remarkably successful city-state, which for centuries dominated mainland Greece.Recent studies have emphasised permanent problems which beset Sparta: the small size of her citizen body, the tensions between noble Spartiates and commoners, the ambiguous role of women, and, of course, the helots. Classical Sparta: Techniques Behind Her Success seeks to present this intriguing polis by exploring how its perennial difficulties were, for so long, ingeniously overcome. Specifically, the essays in this volume address themselves to broadly ideological issues, demonstrating how skilful propaganda and deception contributed significantly to the longevity of the Spartan state.

This collection, first published in 1989, investigates aspects of the Spartan polity which have often been overlooked or underestimated. Viewed at least until the Renaissance as the epitome of classical virtues, Sparta has in the last two centuries suffered a rapid decline in reputation among liberal-minded scholars, repelled by many of the repressive measures employed by this remarkably successful city-state, which for centuries dominated mainland Greece.Recent studies have emphasised permanent problems which beset Sparta: the small size of her citizen body, the tensions between noble Spartiates and commoners, the ambiguous role of women, and, of course, the helots. Classical Sparta: Techniques Behind Her Success seeks to present this intriguing polis by exploring how its perennial difficulties were, for so long, ingeniously overcome. Specifically, the essays in this volume address themselves to broadly ideological issues, demonstrating how skilful propaganda and deception contributed significantly to the longevity of the Spartan state.

The two-volume A Companion to Sparta presents the first comprehensive, multi-authored series of essays to address all aspects of Spartan history and society from its origins in the Greek Dark Ages to the late Roman Empire. Offers a lucid, comprehensive introduction to all aspects of Sparta, a community recognised by contemporary cities as the greatest power in classical GreeceFeatures in-depth coverage of Sparta history and culture contributed by an international cast including almost every noted specialist and scholar in the fieldProvides over a dozen images of Spartan art that reveal the evolution of everyday life in SpartaSheds new light on a modern controversy relating to changes in Spartan society from the Archaic to Classical periods

Athens and Sparta is an essential textbook for the study of Greek history. Providing a comprehensive account of the two key Greek powers in the years after 478 BC, it charts the rise of Athens from city-state to empire after the devastation of the Persian Wars, and the increasing tensions with their rivals, Sparta, culminating in the Peloponnesian Wars. As well as the political history of the period, it also offers an insight into the radically different political systems of these two superpowers, and explores aspects of social history such as Athenian democracy, life in Sparta, and the lives of Athenian women. More than this though, it encourages students to develop their critical skills, guiding them in how to think about history, demonstrating in a lucid way the techniques used in interpreting the ancient sources. In this new third edition, Anton Powell includes discussion of the latest scholarship on this crucial period in Greek history. Its bibliography has been renewed, and for the first time it includes numerous photographs of Greek sites and archaeological objects discussed in the text. Written in an accessible style and covering the key events of the period – the rise to power of Athens, the unusual Spartan state, and their rivalry and eventual clash in all out war – this is an invaluable tool for students of the history of Greece in the fifth century BC.

Athens and Sparta is an essential textbook for the study of Greek history. Providing a comprehensive account of the two key Greek powers in the years after 478 BC, it charts the rise of Athens from city-state to empire after the devastation of the Persian Wars, and the increasing tensions with their rivals, Sparta, culminating in the Peloponnesian Wars. As well as the political history of the period, it also offers an insight into the radically different political systems of these two superpowers, and explores aspects of social history such as Athenian democracy, life in Sparta, and the lives of Athenian women. More than this though, it encourages students to develop their critical skills, guiding them in how to think about history, demonstrating in a lucid way the techniques used in interpreting the ancient sources. In this new third edition, Anton Powell includes discussion of the latest scholarship on this crucial period in Greek history. Its bibliography has been renewed, and for the first time it includes numerous photographs of Greek sites and archaeological objects discussed in the text. Written in an accessible style and covering the key events of the period – the rise to power of Athens, the unusual Spartan state, and their rivalry and eventual clash in all out war – this is an invaluable tool for students of the history of Greece in the fifth century BC.

The two-volume A Companion to Sparta presents the first comprehensive, multi-authored series of essays to address all aspects of Spartan history and society from its origins in the Greek Dark Ages to the late Roman Empire. Offers a lucid, comprehensive introduction to all aspects of Sparta, a community recognised by contemporary cities as the greatest power in classical GreeceFeatures in-depth coverage of Sparta history and culture contributed by an international cast including almost every noted specialist and scholar in the fieldProvides over a dozen images of Spartan art that reveal the evolution of everyday life in SpartaSheds new light on a modern controversy relating to changes in Spartan society from the Archaic to Classical periods

The political aspects of Augustan poetry have attracted much academic interest. The aim of this study is to take account of the effects of Augustan propaganda not only on the work of contemporary Roman writers, but also on the critical tradition itself. The six essays presented in this volume explore the political themes in the work of major poets such as Virgil, Ovid, Horace and Propertius. Using traditional as well as post-structuralist approaches, the essays examine the controversies of the Civil Wars, the emerging issues of treason and free speech and changing representations of Cleopatra and female power.

Ten new essays from a distinguished international cast treat Sparta's most famous area of activity. The results are challenging. Among the contributors, Thomas Figueira explores the paradox that Sparta's cavalry was an undistinguished institution. Jean Ducat conducts the most thorough study to date of Sparta's official cowards, the 'tremblers'. Anton Powell asks why Sparta chose not to destroy Athens after the Peloponnesian War. And Stephen Hodkinson argues that the image of Spartan society as militaristic may after all be a mirage. This is the sixth volume from the International Sparta Seminar, founded by Powell and Hodkinson in 1988. The series has established itself as the main forum for the study of Spartan history.

This book locates the work of Virgil in the politics of his day. It examimes closely the logic and the literary genres of Virgil's poems. It rewrites, mainly from the Greek historians Appian and Dio, the political culture of a period frequently neglected or misunderstood, the decades following the death of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. And it argues that a guiding purpose in all three of Virgil's works, Eclogues, Georgics and Aeneid, was to address and to paliate the unpopularity, the weakness, of Caesar's heir, Octavian. Combining the literary analysis of Latin poetry with the criticism of Greek and Roman political writers in prose, the author offers numerous insights into the poetic values and the architectural achievement of Virgil.

This is the 7th volume from the International Sparta Seminar, in the series begun in 1989 by Anton Powell with Stephen Hodkinson. The volume is both thematic and eclectic. Ephraim David and Yoann Le Tallec treat respectively the politics of nudity at Sparta and the role of athletes in forming the Spartan state. Nicolas Richer examines the significance of animals depicted in Lakonian art; Andrew Scott asks what Lakonian figured pottery reveals of local consumerism. Nino Luraghi and Paul Christesen deal respectively with the way in which Sparta was viewed by Messenians and by Ephorus. Jean Ducat treats 'the ghost of the Lakedaimonian state', a major study of formal relations between Spartiate and perioikic communities. Thomas Figueira considers how Spartan women policed masculine behaviour. Anton Powell traces the development of Spartan reactions to political divination in the classical period.

The writings of Julius Caesar have beguiled by their apparent simplicity. Generations of readers have been encouraged to see them as a limpid record of positive achievement. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that the appearance of simplicity is achieved by devious and accomplished art. In nine original studies, focussing mainly on the Gallic War, the contributors trace systems of justification and omission, of measured praise and subtle criticism, which served to promote Caesar and to leave Roman enemies empty-handed. It is shown that Caesar's writing has an ingenuity of description which might seduce the casual Roman sceptic, and an artfulness of focus which now recalls the cinematographic. Even the notorious regularity of Caesar's syntax and his economy of vocabulary are revealed as pointed elements of a political manifesto. Far from being a plain and traditional record of warfare, Caesar's Commentaries are here shown to illuminate the political thinking of a man on his way to reshaping the world.

The history of Sparta is increasingly seen as important, not only for its own sake but also for understanding Athenian literature and the political history of numerous Greek states. Traditional approaches to Sparta are now being supplemented by contributions from archaeology and the social sciences. The renewed interest in Sparta is international. The volume includes, for the first time, original contributions from most of the world's leading authorities on Spartan history.

Xenophon has long been identified as a chief contemporary source, if not the chief source, for the history of classical Sparta. But his information has commonly been treated in restricted ways. Scholars who have studied Xenophon's oeuvre have tended to apply a knowledge of Athenian history and of general Greek literature rather than a specialist knowledge of Sparta. And specialist students of Sparta have commonly `mined' elements of Xenophon's work without sufficient regard either for the author's general characteristics and biases or for the variety of his literary genres. In this volume, 12 internationally-recognised experts on Sparta examine the quality of Xenophon's information on central topics of Laconian history, in the light of the author's political, literary and intellectual characteristics. This book is the first of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales will apply to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the main sources on which historians depend, and analysing with a combination of historical and literary methods.

Since its first appearance in 2008, this book has changed the landscape of Virgilian studies. Analysing closely the logic and the literary genres of Virgil's three poems, it politely confronts the modern orthodoxy that Virgil signalled distaste for the methods of his ruler, Octavian-Augustus. It refreshes the study of Virgil's poetry by comparing it with the detail (normally neglected by scholars) of Rome's civil wars after Julius Caesar's death, when Octavian's survival looked highly unlikely. And it argues that Virgil wrote as a passionate - and brave - partisan of Octavian, who - like a good lawyer - confronted his patron's undeniable failings in order to defend.

Nine new studies here explore, and reconstruct, determinant episodes of Greek, Hellenistic and Roman history. The authors argue that hindsight – especially in modern works – has falsified the past, by playing down or eliminating the record of ancient unfulfilled forecasts, and of trends in events which in the long term did not obviously prove predominant. The authors also highlight the efforts of the best-placed writers in Antiquity not to be misled by hindsight, but rather to give due weight to the working of hopes and fears, and of trends in events, which with remote retrospect would tend to be belittled or forgotten. The techniques demonstrated in this book open new fields of research across Ancient History: they illuminate almost every ancient episode for which there is evidence of what historical agents planned or anticipated. The authors show convincingly that, by giving due respect to trends observable, and to political predictions made, in Antiquity, historians of today are better placed to evaluate outcomes: to see how easily events might have developed differently, or even to show that concrete outcomes were different from those conventionally portrayed from hindsight.

Our ideas about ancient Athens are constructed very largely from the writings of Athenian authors. Relatively rare are our sources for how others - whether Greeks, Asiatics or Romans - saw Athens from the outside. Yet we can see that not only did many across the Mediterranean world resist the political power of Athens in countless wars over several centuries, but that there existed an intriguing variety of anti-Athenian ideologies. This volume traces negative thinking about Athens from the late archaic period to Roman times. It challenges the easy modern supposition that Athens was generally seen as the cultural emblem of Greece, and casts light on the thinking of ancient peoples who - nowadays - tend to exist in Athens' shadow.

The Ancient Lives of the poet Virgil, written in prose or verse, are of great, though controversial, influence. They have often been scorned by modern critics, for trying to construct biography of the poet from allegorical reading of his poems. Yet some elements of the Lives are trusted, and quietly adopted as canonical, such as the dating of Virgil's birth and death. Some vignettes in the Lives have been cherished for their image of an emotive poet (see jacket illustration). Less romantic detail in the Lives, as of Virgil's privileged material circumstances at the heart of the Augustan regime, has been less regarded. The present volume, from a distinguished international team, aims to revalue the Ancient Lives of Virgil in a variety of scholarly genres.Allegory in the Lives is here studied for its own sake, as part of a developed Graeco- Roman school of interpretation. The literary character of the verse Life attributed to Phocas is respectfully analysed. Certain political references within the best-known prose Life, the `Suetonian-Donatan', are shown to be apparently independent of allegory, and to be worth examining for new information on the poet's personal history. And ideas about Virgil received and developed with brio in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance are here traced back to the Lives of the poet composed in Antiquity.

Even Greeks – in later times – saw Athens as 'the Hellas of Hellas', the moral standard-bearer of Greek civilisation. But in the classical period many Athenians thought otherwise: Athens might be a school of Hellas, but the school of Hellas was Sparta. Spartan soldiers dominated the Greek mainland and beyond, and in 404 bc Sparta enforced the total military surrender of Athens. The cause of this supremacy was seen as the uniquely harmonious subordination of Sparta's citizens to their city's interest. This book explores Athenians' thinking about Sparta's military and moral ascendancy. In nine new studies from a distinguished international cast, the works of Athenian politicians, writers and artists are examined so as to reveal mentalities in the wider city which, at the extreme, might cause Athenians to revere Sparta even as they fought her. Such respect culminated not only in Plato's literary creation of fantasy cities (in the Republic and Laws) which imitated Spartan methods, but even in a short-lived claim by ruling Athenian politicians that Athens, after its military surrender, was to be remodelled as itself a New Sparta.

Thucydides is widely seen as the most dispassionate and reliable contemporary source for the history of classical Sparta. But, compared with partisan authors such as Xenophon and Plutarch, his information on the subject is more scattered and implicit. Scholars in recent decades have made progress in teasing out the sense of Thucydides' often lapidary remarks on Sparta. This book takes the process further. Its eight new studies by international specialists aim to reveal coherent structures both in Thucydidean thought and in Spartan reality. This volume is the second of a series in which the Classical Press of Wales applies to Spartan history the approach it is already using for the history of Rome's revolutionary era: focusing in turn on each of the main sources on which historians depend, and analysing them with a combination of historical and literary methods.

Coins of the best-known Roman revolutionary era allow rival pretenders to speak to us directly. After the deaths of Caesar and Cicero (in 44 and 43BC) hardly one word has been reliably transmitted to us from even the two most powerful opponents of Octavian: Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius – except through coinage and the occasional inscription. The coins are an antidote to a widespread fault in modern approaches: the idea, from hindsight, that the Roman Republic was doomed, that the rise of Octavian-Augustus to monarchy was inevitable, and that contemporaries might have sensed as much.Ancient works in other genres skilfully encouraged such hindsight. Augustus in the Res Gestae, and Virgil in Georgics and Aeneid, sought to flatten the history of the period, and largely to efface Octavian's defeated rivals. But the latter's coins in precious metal were not easily recovered and suppressed by Authority. They remain for scholars to revalue. In our own age, when public untruthfulness about history is increasingly accepted – or challenged, we may value anew the discipline of searching for other, ancient, voices which ruling discourse has not quite managed to silence.In this book eleven new essays explore the coinage of Rome's competing dynasts. Julius Caesar's coins, and those of his `son' Octavian-Augustus, are studied. But similar and respectful attention is given to the issues of their opponents: Cato the Younger and Q. Metellus Scipio, Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius, Q. Cornificius and others.A shared aim is to understand mentalities, the forecasts current, in an age of rare insecurity as the superpower of the Mediterranean faced, and slowly recovered from, division and ruin.

The study of the Spartans is now pursued more widely and intensively than ever. Indeed, no longer is Sparta the 'second city' of ancient Greece. This volume, the fourth in the established series on which Powell and Hodkinson have collaborated, breaks fresh ground, not least in the range of its contributors. The authors of the fourteen new papers represent nine different countries and demonstrate many of the fertile modern approaches to the history, the archaeology - and the still-influential image - of the city on the Eurotas.