Translated Documents of Greece and Rome – Serie

The first volume is devoted to the period which begins with the era of Greek colonization and ends with the close of the Peloponnesian War in 404 B. C. Charles Fornara has gathered together material compiled from inscriptions, ancient encyclopedias, scholia, and similar sources. The material, much of it translated by him for the first time, covers not only events of national significance - wars and treaties, the founding of towns and colonies, the dedication of temples - but also presents such records of daily life as ration lists, wine trade regulations, inventories of treasure, drinking songs, and financial records. The documents are accompanied by a brief commentary, which is basically intended to clarify obscurities in the text. An extensive glossary and indexes explain obscure terms of Greek social and governmental structure and permit detailed prosopographical analysis. This 1983 book will be welcomed by students and teachers of ancient history.

This is a collection in English translation of Greek and Latin sources for the study of Greek and Roman history, sources which are mainly inscriptions and papyri. They do not include the major authors such as Polybius and Livy. Where those authors have provided us with the broad outline of the Roman presence in the Greek world, this collection allows the student and reader to penetrate beneath what they have to tell us and to see details otherwise unreported. Much of this documentary material having never before been translated into English, it has been all too often neglected in colleges and universities at all levels. The theme of the present collection is the Roman presence in the Greek East, the nature of the Roman hegemony, the diplomatic moves on both sides, and the reaction of the Greeks, during the period from the last decades of the third century BC to the death of Augustus in AD 14. It includes such materials as treaties of alliance and friendship, honorary decrees, official letters of Roman governors, decrees of the Roman senate, dedications of statues, Roman laws, reports of embassies, religious cults, legal decisions, loyalty oaths to Rome, athletic contests, calendars, and minutes of an audience in Rome given by the emperor. Brief commentary and notes accompany the translations, making this book a collection to be welcomed by students and teachers of ancient history.

Greek and Roman history has largely been reconstructed from the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and other major authors who are today well represented in English translations. But much equally valuable documentary material is buried in inscriptions and papyri and in the works of Greek and Roman grammarians and scholars, and less well known historians and literary figures, of whose writings only isolated quotations have been preserved. Translated Documents of Greece and Rome has been planned to provide, above all, primary source material for the study of the classical world. It makes important historical documents available in English to scholars and students of classical history. The format of the translations is remarkable in attempting to reproduce faithfully the textual difficulties and uncertainties inherent in the documents, so that the reader without a knowledge of classical languages can assess the reliability of the various readings and interpretations. The author's purpose in compiling this book is to help the teaching of Hellenistic history at undergraduate and graduate level by providing students and teachers with a representative selection of accurately translated documents dealing with the political and social history of Greece and the Near and Middle East from c. 300 to c. 30 BC. The continuing vitality of the Greek cities in the Hellenistic period and the interaction of Greek and non-Greek cultures in the Near and Middle East after Alexander are the two themes to which the author pays particular attention. In accordance with the principles of this series, selections from readily available major authors such as Polybius and Plutarch have been excluded except where unavoidable. Instead the bulk of the selections have been drawn from papyrological and epigraphical sources, many of which have never been translated into English before. The texts include city decrees and regulations, royal letters and ordinances, records of embassies and judicial decisions, dedications, treaties, statue bases, and documents dealing with the establishment of festivals, dynastic and other religious cults, education and other endowments. Brief commentaries and bibliographical notes accompany each text. Students and teachers of ancient history and classical civilization will welcome this book. Those studying Jewish history and the historical background of early Christianity will also find it interesting.

The first volume is devoted to the period which begins with the era of Greek colonization and ends with the close of the Peloponnesian War in 404 B. C. Charles Fornara has gathered together material compiled from inscriptions, ancient encyclopedias, scholia, and similar sources. The material, much of it translated by him for the first time, covers not only events of national significance - wars and treaties, the founding of towns and colonies, the dedication of temples - but also presents such records of daily life as ration lists, wine trade regulations, inventories of treasure, drinking songs, and financial records. The documents are accompanied by a brief commentary, which is basically intended to clarify obscurities in the text. An extensive glossary and indexes explain obscure terms of Greek social and governmental structure and permit detailed prosopographical analysis. This 1983 book will be welcomed by students and teachers of ancient history.

The second volume of Translated Documents of Greece and Rome is a collection of English translations with commentary and bibliography, ancient and modern, of the major inscriptions and historical fragments relating to the history of Greece in the fourth century BC. The book is designed to supplement existing translations of the extant historical works of the period, so that the student who knows neither Greek nor Latin can study the fourth century in greater depth than has previously been possible. The period covered by this collection includes the restoration of the democracy at Athens in 403/2, the creation of the Second Athenian Naval League, the Theban hegemony, the Sacred and Social Wars, the rise of Philip of Macedon, the career of his son Alexander, the Lamian War and, finally, the first rounds of the battle for the succession. There are documents from places as far apart as Priene and Tegea, but the majority come from Athens. This collection includes such material as alliances and peace treaties, honorific decrees, catalogues of temple deposits and naval equipment, laws, accounts, dedications, legal decisions, royal correspondence, constitutions and some important fragments of narrative histories. This book will be welcomed by teachers and students of ancient history.