Paul Cartledge - Böcker

The contribution of the Ancient Greeks to modern western culture is incalculable. In the worlds of art, architecture, myth, literature, and philosophy, the world we live in would be unrecognizably different without the formative influence of Ancient Greek models. Ancient Greek civilization was defined by the city - in Greek, the polis, from which we derive 'politics'. It is above all this feature of Greek civilization that has formed its most enduring legacy, spawning such key terms as aristocracy, oligarchy, tyranny and - last but by no means least - democracy. This stimulating Very Short Introduction to Ancient Greece takes the polis as its starting point. Paul Cartledge uses the history of eleven major Greek cities to illuminate the most important and informative themes in Ancient Greek history, from the first documented use of the Greek language around 1400 BCE, through the glories of the Classical and Hellenistic periods, to the foundation of the Byzantine empire in around CE 330. Covering everything from politics, trade, and travel to slavery, gender, religion, and philosophy, it provides the ideal concise introduction to the history and culture of this remarkable civilization that helped give birth to the world as we know it.ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Ordet Sparta väcker någonting inom oss. Trots att det har gått mer än tvåtusen år lever detta mytiska namn kvar. Det har också gett upphov till två ord som ofta används, spartansk och lakonisk. Det som mer än något annat odödliggjort Sparta var slaget vid Thermopyle. Efter att perserna under det första försöket att kuva grekerna blivit besegrade vid Marathon gjorde man ett nytt försök. Xerxes samlade en gigantisk här som skulle kuva grekerna. När de grekiska stadsstaterna samlades för att enas om hur man skulle försvara sig fick Sparta ansvaret. Man bestämde sig för att försöka hejda perserna vid Thermopyle som var ett smalt pass mellan bergen och havet. Sparta deltog med 300 soldater (därav namnet på den senaste spelfilmen om Sparta) och några andra stater med ett par tusen soldater, alla under ledning av kung Leonidas. Mot dem stod en halv miljon perser. Under tre dagar stod de 300 emot alla stormningsförsök. Persernas förluster var enorma. På den tredje dagen förråddes grekerna av en man vid namn Efialtes. (Sedan denna dag är hans namn synonymt med mardröm på grekiska.) Detta möjliggjorde för perserna att vandra över bergen och anfalla grekerna bakifrån. När Leonidas upptäckte detta skickade han hem de övriga grekerna och de 300 stred till sista man. Tack vare att de uppehöll perserna tillräckligt länge kunde de övriga grekiska styrkorna samlas och man kunde så småningom besegra perserna. Detta slag har blivit legendariskt och spartanernas offer möjliggjorde att demokratin kunde växa sig starkare istället för att krossas av despotin. Sparta var nämligen ett demokratiskt samhälle. Inte utan stora inskränkningar men med ett avancerat lagsystem som hade instiftats för att ingen person eller instans skulle få för mycket makt. När Thomas Jefferson så småningom skrev den amerikanska konstitutionen byggde han i mångt och mycket på den spartanska. Sparta är odödligt i historien och när man läser denna bok förstår man varför och känner en tacksamhet för det offer som Sparta gjorde inför övermakten och despotin. Det är inte överord att säga att våra samhällen idag hade sett annorlunda ut om Leonidas hade accepterat Xerxes uppmaning att spartanerna skulle kapitulera och lägga ner sina vapen. Istället svarade Leonidas på ett sant lakoniskt sätt: "Kom och ta dem!" Paul Cartledge är professor i grekisk historia vid universitetet i Cambridge där han har undervisat sedan 1979, och s.k. Fellow of Clare College. Han är en av världens främsta kännare av det antika Sparta och hedersmedborgare i den moderna Sparta.

This investigation relies on a rash bet: to write the biography of two of the most famous statues in Antiquity, the Tyrannicides. Representing the murderers of the tyrant Hipparchus in full action, these statues erected on the Agora of Athens have been in turn worshipped, outraged, and imitated. They have known hours of glory and moments of hardships, which have transformed them into true icons of Athenian democracy.The subject of this book is the remarkable story of this group statue and the ever-changing significance of its tyrant-slaying subjects. The first part of this book, in six chapters, tells the story of the murder of Hipparchus and of the statues of the two tyrannicides from the end of the sixth century to the aftermath of the restoration of democracy in 403. The second part, in three chapters, chronicles the fate and influence of the statues from the fourth century to the end of the Roman Empire. These chapters are followed by an epilogue that reveals new life for the statues in modern art and culture, including how Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union made use of their iconography. By tracing the long trajectory of the tyrannicides -- in deed and art -- Azoulay provides a rich and fascinating microhistory that will be of interest to readers of classical art and history.

This book provides an original and challenging answer to the question: 'Who were the Classical Greeks?' Paul Cartledge - 'one of the most theoretically alert, widely read and prolific of contemporary ancient historians' (TLS) - here examines the Greeks and their achievements in terms of their own self-image, mainly as it was presented by the supposedly objective historians: Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon. Many of our modern concepts as we understand them were invented by the Greeks: for example, democracy, theatre, philosophy, and history. Yet despite being our cultural ancestors in many ways, their legacy remains rooted in myth and the mental and material contexts of many of their achievements are deeply alien to our own ways of thinking and acting. The Greeks aims to explore in depth how the dominant group (adult, male, citizen) attempted, with limited success, to define themselves unambiguously in polar opposition to a whole series of 'Others' - non-Greeks, women, non-citizens, slaves and gods. This new edition contains an updated bibliography, a new chapter entitled 'Entr'acte: Others in Images and Images of Others', and a new afterword.

Democracy is either aspired to as a goal or cherished as a birthright by billions of people throughout the world today -- and has been been for over a century. But what does it mean? And how has its meaning changed since it was first coined in ancient Greece? Democracy: A Life is a biography of the concept, looking at its many different manifestations and showing how it has changed over its long life, from ancient times right through to the present. For instance, how did the 'people power' of the Athenians emerge in the first place? Once it had emerged, what enabled it to survive? And how did the Athenian version of democracy differ from the many other forms that developed among the myriad cities of the Greek world? Paul Cartledge answers all these questions and more, following the development of ancient political thinking about democracy from the sixth century BC onwards, not least the many arguments that were advanced against it over the centuries. As Cartledge shows, after a golden age in the fourth century BC, there was a long, slow degradation of the original Greek conception and practice of democracy, from the Hellenistic era, through late Republican and early Imperial Rome, down to early Byzantium in the sixth century CE. For many centuries after that, from late Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, democracy was effectively eclipsed by other forms of government, in both theory and practice. But as we know, this was by no means the end of the story. For democracy was eventually to enjoy a re-florescence, over two thousand years after its first flowering in the ancient world: initially revived in seventeenth-century England, it was to undergo a further renaissance in the revolutionary climate of late-eighteenth-century North America and France -- and has been constantly reconstituted and reinvented ever since.

The ancient Greek world consisted of approximately 1,000 autonomous polities scattered across the Mediterranean basin and was remarkable for both its diversity and its uniformity. As Greeks dispersed throughout the Mediterranean, the different environmental and human ecosystems they encountered created important differences among widely scattered settlements: each Greek community developed its own unique set of socio-political institutions and social practices. Nonetheless, despite their dispersal and diversity, Greek communities were bound together by a network of commercial, cultural, diplomatic, and military ties and shared important commonalities, most notably language and religion.The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World, a collaborative effort by more than forty eminent scholars, offers twenty-one detailed and comprehensive studies of key sites from across the Greek world in the period between c. 750 and c. 480 BCE. During that period, Greeks confronted a series of demographic, political, social, and economic challenges and generated an array of responses that transformed the ways in which they lived, worked, and interacted. Much of what is now seen as distinctive about Greek culture--such as democracy, stone temples, and nude athletics--first developed during the Archaic period.The series is organized alphabetically by polis. Volume III contains detailed and up-to-date studies of Cumae and Pithecusae, The Cyclades, and Cyprus. Together with the other volumes in the series, the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World offers a new and unique resource for the study of ancient Greece that will transform how we understand a crucial era in antiquity.

The ancient Greek world consisted of approximately 1,000 autonomous polities scattered across the Mediterranean basin and was remarkable for both its diversity and its uniformity. As Greeks dispersed throughout the Mediterranean, the different environmental and human ecosystems they encountered created important differences among widely scattered settlements: each Greek community developed its own unique set of socio-political institutions and social practices. Nonetheless, despite their dispersal and diversity, Greek communities were bound together by a network of commercial, cultural, diplomatic, and military ties and shared important commonalities, most notably language and religion.The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World, a collaborative effort by more than forty eminent scholars, offers twenty-two detailed and comprehensive studies of key sites from across the Greek world in the period between c. 750 and c. 480 BCE. During that period, Greeks confronted a series of demographic, political, social, and economic challenges and generated an array of responses that transformed the ways in which they lived, worked, and interacted. Much of what is now seen as distinctive about Greek culture--such as democracy, stone temples, and nude athletics--first developed during the Archaic period.The series is organized alphabetically by polis. Volume VI contains detailed and up-to-date studies of Rhodes, Sicyon, Syracuse, Thebes, and Western Sicily. Together with the other volumes in the series, The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World offers a new and unique resource for the study of ancient Greece that will transform how we understand a crucial era in antiquity.

The ancient Greek world consisted of approximately 1,000 autonomous polities scattered across the Mediterranean basin and was remarkable for both its diversity and its uniformity. As Greeks dispersed throughout the Mediterranean, the different environmental and human ecosystems they encountered created important differences among widely scattered settlements: each Greek community developed its own unique set of socio-political institutions and social practices. Nonetheless, despite their dispersal and diversity, Greek communities were bound together by a network of commercial, cultural, diplomatic, and military ties and shared important commonalities, most notably language and religion.The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World, a collaborative effort by more than forty eminent scholars, offers twenty-two detailed and comprehensive studies of key sites from across the Greek world in the period between c. 750 and c. 480 BCE. During that period, Greeks confronted a series of demographic, political, social, and economic challenges and generated an array of responses that transformed the ways in which they lived, worked, and interacted. Much of what is now seen as distinctive about Greek culture-such as democracy, stone temples, and nude athletics--first developed during the Archaic period.The series is organized alphabetically by polis. Volume IV contains detailed and up-to-date studies of Cyrene, Delphi, Macedonia, Massalia, and Metapontion. Together with the other volumes in the series, the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World offers a new and unique resource for the study of ancient Greece that will transform how we understand a crucial era in antiquity.

The ancient Greek world consisted of approximately 1,000 autonomous polities scattered across the Mediterranean basin and was remarkable for both its diversity and its uniformity. As Greeks dispersed throughout the Mediterranean, the different environmental and human ecosystems they encountered created important differences among widely scattered settlements: each Greek community developed its own unique set of socio-political institutions and social practices. Nonetheless, despite their dispersal and diversity, Greek communities were bound together by a network of commercial, cultural, diplomatic, and military ties and shared important commonalities, most notably language and religion.The Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World, a collaborative effort by more than forty eminent scholars, offers twenty-two detailed and comprehensive studies of key sites from across the Greek world in the period between c. 750 and c. 480 BCE. During that period, Greeks confronted a series of demographic, political, social, and economic challenges and generated an array of responses that transformed the ways in which they lived, worked, and interacted. Much of what is now seen as distinctive about Greek culture--such as democracy, stone temples, and nude athletics--first developed during the Archaic period.The series is organized alphabetically by polis. Volume I contains detailed and up-to-date studies of Argos, Chalcis and Eretria, Chios-Lesbos-Samos, and Corcyra. Together with the other volumes in the series, the Oxford History of the Archaic Greek World offers a new and unique resource for the study of ancient Greece that will transform how we understand a crucial era in antiquity.

Democracy is either aspired to as a goal or cherished as a birthright by billions of people throughout the world today - and has been for over a century. But what does it mean? And how has its meaning changed since it was first coined in ancient Greece? Democracy: A Life is a biography of the concept, looking at its many different manifestations and showing how it has changed over its long life, from ancient times right through to the present. For instance, how did the 'people power' of the Athenians emerge in the first place? Once it had emerged, what enabled it to survive? And how did the Athenian version of democracy differ from the many other forms that developed among the myriad cities of the Greek world? Paul Cartledge answers all these questions and more, following the development of ancient political thinking about democracy from the sixth century BC onwards, not least the many arguments that were advanced against it over the centuries. As Cartledge shows, after a golden age in the fourth century BC, there was a long, slow degradation of the original Greek conception and practice of democracy, from the Hellenistic era, through late Republican and early Imperial Rome, down to early Byzantium in the sixth century CE.For many centuries after that, from late Antiquity, through the Middle Ages, to the Renaissance, democracy was effectively eclipsed by other forms of government, in both theory and practice. But as we know, this was by no means the end of the story. For democracy was eventually to enjoy a re-florescence, over two thousand years after its first flowering in the ancient world: initially revived in seventeenth century England, it was to undergo a further renaissance in the revolutionary climate of late eighteenth century North America and France - and has been constantly reconstituted and reinvented ever since.

The Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE is one of world history's unjustly neglected events. It decisively ended the threat of a Persian conquest of Greece. It involved tens of thousands of combatants, including the largest number of Greeks ever brought together in a common cause. For the Spartans, the driving force behind the Greek victory, the battle was sweet vengeance for their defeat at Thermopylae the year before. Why has this pivotal battle been so overlooked?In After Thermopylae, Paul Cartledge masterfully reopens one of the great puzzles of ancient Greece to discover, as much as possible, what happened on the field of battle and, just as important, what happened to its memory. Part of the answer to these questions, Cartledge argues, can be found in a little-known oath reputedly sworn by the leaders of Athens, Sparta, and several other Greek city-states prior to the battle-the Oath of Plataea. Through an analysis of this oath, Cartledge provides a wealth of insight into ancient Greek culture. He shows, for example, that when the Athenians and Spartans were not fighting the Persians they were fighting themselves, including a propaganda war for control of the memory of Greece's defeat of the Persians. This helps explain why today we readily remember the Athenian-led victories at Marathon and Salamis but not Sparta's victory at Plataea. Indeed, the Oath illuminates Greek anxieties over historical memory and over the Athens-Sparta rivalry, which would erupt fifty years after Plataea in the Peloponnesian War. In addition, because the Oath was ultimately a religious document, Cartledge also uses it to highlight the profound role of religion and myth in ancient Greek life. With compelling and eye-opening detective work, After Thermopylae provides a long-overdue history of the Battle of Plataea and a rich portrait of the Greek ethos during one of the most critical periods in ancient history.

The charismatic Alexander the Great of Macedon (356-323 B.C.E.) was one of the most successful military commanders in history, conquering Asia Minor, Egypt, Persia, central Asia, and the lands beyond as far as Pakistan and India. Alexander has been, over the course of two millennia since his death at the age of thirty-two, the central figure in histories, legends, songs, novels, biographies, and, most recently, films. In 2004 director Oliver Stone's epic film ""Alexander"" generated a renewed interest in Alexander the Great and his companions, surroundings, and accomplishments, but the critical response to the film offers a fascinating lesson in the contentious dialogue between historiography and modern entertainment. This volume brings together an intriguing mix of leading scholars in Macedonian and Greek history, Persian culture, film studies, classical literature, and archaeology - including some who were advisors for the film - and includes an afterword by Oliver Stone discussing the challenges he faced in putting Alexander's life on the big screen. The contributors scrutinize Stone's project from its inception and design to its production and reception, considering such questions as: Can a film about Alexander (and similar figures from history) be both entertaining and historically sound? How do the goals of screenwriters and directors differ from those of historians? How do Alexander's personal relationships - with his mother Olympias, his wife Roxane, his lover Hephaistion, and others - affect modern perceptions of Alexander? Several of the contributors also explore reasons behind the film's tepid response at the box office and subsequent controversies.

Ancient Monuments and Modern Identities sets out to examine the role of archaeology in the creation of ethnic, national and social identities in 19th and 20th century Greece. The essays included in this volume examine the development of interpretative and methodological principles guiding the recovery, protection and interpretation of material remains and their presentation to the public. The role of archaeology is examined alongside prevailing perceptions of the past, and is thereby situated in its political and ideological context. The book is organized chronologically and follows the changing attitudes to the past during the formation, expansion and consolidation of the Modern Greek State. The aim of this volume is to examine the premises of the archaeological discipline, and to apply reflection and critique to contemporary archaeological theory and practice. The past, however, is not a domain exclusive to archaeologists. The contributors to this volume include prehistoric and classical archaeologists, but also modern historians, museum specialists, architectural historians, anthropologists, and legal scholars who have all been invited to discuss the impact of the material traces of the past on the Modern Greek social imaginary.

The cultural wealth of the classical Greek world was matched by its material wealth, and there is abundant textual and archaeological evidence for both. However, radically different theoretical and methodological approaches have been used to interpret this evidence, and conflicts continue to rage as these different starting points produce clashing views on the significance and distribution of money, labour and land.Money, Labour and Land reflects the current explosion in ideas and research by assembling case-studies from an international selection of renowned US, British and European scholars. Drawing on comparative historical and anthropological approaches, sociological, economic and cultural theory, and developments in epigraphy, legal history, numismatics and spatial archaeology, this volume will be of interest to all students and scholars of ancient economies.

In this fully revised and updated edition of his groundbreaking study, Paul Cartledge uncovers the realities behind the potent myth of Sparta.The book explores both the city-state of Sparta and the territory of Lakonia which it unified and exploited. Combining the more traditional written sources with archaeological and environmental perspectives, its coverage extends from the apogee of Mycenaean culture, to Sparta's crucial defeat at the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC.

In this new edition, Paul Cartledge and Antony Spawforth have taken account of recent finds and scholarship to revise and update their authoritative overview of later Spartan history, and of the social, political, economic and cultural changes in the Spartan community.This original and compelling account is especially significant in challenging the conventional misperception of Spartan 'decline' after the loss of her status as a great power on the battlefield in 371 BC.The book's focus on a frequently overlooked period makes it important not only for those interested specifically in Sparta, but also for all those concerned with Hellenistic Greece, and with the life of Greece and other Greek-speaking provinces under non-Roman rule.

In this new edition, Paul Cartledge and Antony Spawforth have taken account of recent finds and scholarship to revise and update their authoritative overview of later Spartan history, and of the social, political, economic and cultural changes in the Spartan community.This original and compelling account is especially significant in challenging the conventional misperception of Spartan 'decline' after the loss of her status as a great power on the battlefield in 371 BC.The book's focus on a frequently overlooked period makes it important not only for those interested specifically in Sparta, but also for all those concerned with Hellenistic Greece, and with the life of Greece and other Greek-speaking provinces under non-Roman rule.

The cultural wealth of the classical Greek world was matched by its material wealth, and there is abundant textual and archaeological evidence for both. However, radically different theoretical and methodological approaches have been used to interpret this evidence, and conflicts continue to rage as these different starting points produce clashing views on the significance and distribution of money, labour and land.Money, Labour and Land reflects the current explosion in ideas and research by assembling case-studies from an international selection of renowned US, British and European scholars. Drawing on comparative historical and anthropological approaches, sociological, economic and cultural theory, and developments in epigraphy, legal history, numismatics and spatial archaeology, this volume will be of interest to all students and scholars of ancient economies.

The Hellenistic period (approximately the last three centuries B.C.), with its cultural complexities and enduring legacies, retains a lasting fascination today. Reflecting the vigor and productivity of scholarship directed at this period in the past decade, this collection of original essays is a wide-ranging exploration of current discoveries and questions. The twelve essays emphasize the cultural interaction of Greek and non-Greek societies in the Hellenistic period, in contrast to more conventional focuses on politics, society, or economy. The result of original research by some of the leading scholars in Hellenistic history and culture, this volume is an exemplary illustration of the cultural richness of this period. Paul Cartledge's introduction contains an illuminating introductory overview of current trends in Hellenistic scholarship. The essays themselves range over broad questions of comparative historiography, literature, religion, and the roles of Athens, Rome, and the Jews within the context of the Hellenistic world.The volume is dedicated to Frank Walbank and includes an updated bibliography of his work which has been essential to our understanding of the Hellenistic period.

The text of this inaugural lecture proposes that the newly established A. G. Leventis Professorship of Greek Culture is a new kind of chair: a chair not only for research but also for outreach, for the advancement of the public understanding of ancient Greek culture. After explaining its origins, and pondering the possible meanings of the Professorship's title, it seeks to explore four 'myths' about the ancient Greeks and their culture (or cultures), myths deliberately chosen to illustrate the huge range of the Hellenic tradition that is still actively at work in our own culture. These are: i. that there was an entity called 'Ancient Greece'; ii. that the ancient Greeks were technologically backward; iii. that the ancient Greeks really were (or looked) anything like they are depicted in such movies as 300; and iv. that the Greeks invented democracy in anything like the form in which we understand it today.

Ancient Greece was a place of tremendous political experiment and innovation, and it was here too that the first serious political thinkers emerged. Using carefully selected case-studies, in this book Professor Cartledge investigates the dynamic interaction between ancient Greek political thought and practice from early historic times to the early Roman Empire. Of concern throughout are three major issues: first, the relationship of political thought and practice; second, the relevance of class and status to explaining political behaviour and thinking; third, democracy - its invention, development and expansion, and extinction, prior to its recent resuscitation and even apotheosis. In addition, monarchy in various forms and at different periods and the peculiar political structures of Sparta are treated in detail over a chronological range extending from Homer to Plutarch. The book provides an introduction to the topic for all students and non-specialists who appreciate the continued relevance of ancient Greece to political theory and practice today.

Ancient Greece was a place of tremendous political experiment and innovation, and it was here too that the first serious political thinkers emerged. Using carefully selected case-studies, in this book Professor Cartledge investigates the dynamic interaction between ancient Greek political thought and practice from early historic times to the early Roman Empire. Of concern throughout are three major issues: first, the relationship of political thought and practice; second, the relevance of class and status to explaining political behaviour and thinking; third, democracy - its invention, development and expansion, and extinction, prior to its recent resuscitation and even apotheosis. In addition, monarchy in various forms and at different periods and the peculiar political structures of Sparta are treated in detail over a chronological range extending from Homer to Plutarch. The book provides an introduction to the topic for all students and non-specialists who appreciate the continued relevance of ancient Greece to political theory and practice today.

The relationship between law, politics and society in democratic Athens is a central but neglected aspect of ancient Greek history that is beginning to attract increasing interest. Nomos brings together ten essays by a group of British and American scholars who aim to explore ways in which Athenian legal texts can be read in their social and cultural context. The focus is on classical Athens, since that is where the evidence is fullest, but the range of sources examined is broad, including the whole spectrum of literary and epigraphical texts, with special reference to the corpus of Athenian forensic oratory. All passages from Greek are translated; technical and legal terms, modern as well as ancient, are explained in a comprehensive glossary. These essays are designed to be accessible to those interested in social history and legal anthropology, as well as to historians of the ancient world.

'Kosmos' is the word the ancient Greeks used for human social order. It has therefore a special application to the Greeks' peculiar social and political unit of communal life that they called the 'polis'. Of the many hundreds of such units in classical Greece the best documented and the most complex was democratic Athens. The purpose of this collective 1998 volume is to re-evaluate the foundations of classical Athens' highly successful experiment in communal social existence. Topics addressed include religion and ritualization, political friendship and enmity, gender and sexuality, sports and litigation, and economic and symbolic exchange. The book aims to make a major contribution, theoretical as well as empirical, towards understanding how the social order of community life may be sustained and enhanced.

'Kosmos' is the word the ancient Greeks used for human social order. It has therefore a special application to the Greeks' peculiar social and political unit of communal life that they called the 'polis'. Of the many hundreds of such units in classical Greece the best documented and the most complex was democratic Athens. The purpose of this collective 1998 volume is to re-evaluate the foundations of classical Athens' highly successful experiment in communal social existence. Topics addressed include religion and ritualization, political friendship and enmity, gender and sexuality, sports and litigation, and economic and symbolic exchange. The book aims to make a major contribution, theoretical as well as empirical, towards understanding how the social order of community life may be sustained and enhanced.

Volume 1 in the new Cambridge World History of Slavery surveys the history of slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world. Although chapters are devoted to the ancient Near East and the Jews, its principal concern is with the societies of ancient Greece and Rome. These are often considered as the first examples in world history of genuine slave societies because of the widespread prevalence of chattel slavery, which is argued to have been a cultural manifestation of the ubiquitous violence in societies typified by incessant warfare. There was never any sustained opposition to slavery, and the new religion of Christianity probably reinforced rather than challenged its existence. In twenty-two chapters, leading scholars explore the centrality of slavery in ancient Mediterranean life using a wide range of textual and material evidence. Non-specialist readers in particular will find the volume an accessible account of the early history of this crucial phenomenon.

The fascinatingly complex Spartan tradition has been central to western thinking since antiquity. Images or myths of ancient Sparta are still exceptionally influential today. Sparta is also one of the handful of ancient Greek cities well enough attested for the historian to attempt a convincing social portrait in the round. Over the past quarter-century Paul Cartledge has established himself as the leading international authority on ancient Sparta and the Spartan tradition. In addition to the three books he has authored and co-authored, he has published a score of articles and numerous reviews on this important subject. "Spartan Reflections", whose title is intended to capture both the influence of the Spartan tradition and Sparta's thought-provoking qualities, is a collection of thirteen essays, all either new or revised for publication in book form. Following a general introduction, the book is divided into three thematic sections, on Polity, Politics and Political Thought; Society, Economy and Warfare; and, the Mirage Re-Viewed.