War and Society in the Greek World
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 0415121663
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The role of warfare is central to our understanding of the ancient Greek world. In this book and the companion work, War and Society in the Roman World, the wider social context of war is explored. This volume examines its impact on Greek society from Homeric times to the age of Alexander and his successors and discusses the significance of the causes and profits of war, the links between war, piracy and slavery, and trade, and the ideology of warfare in literature and sculpture.
The Complete Plays of Sophocles: A New Translation
The Oresteian Trilogy: Agamemnon; The Choephori; The Eumenides (Penguin Classics)
The Presocratic Philosophers: A Critical History with a Selection of Texts
The Psyche in Antiquity: Early Greek Philosophy: From Thales to Plotinus
Peloponnesian war, we often subdivide it into phases such as the Archidamian war and the Ionian war, with a gap in between containing the peace of Nikias and the Sicilian expedition.1 More importantly, however, we also habitually refer to a ‘first Peloponnesian war’ in 6 Graham Shipley the 450s. Why not, then, refer to 431–404 as the second Peloponnesian war? Or, for that matter, to the Peloponnesian war(s) of c.459–403? This is not a flippant point. I mean to show that we do an injustice to
Jerusalem’, he tells the men of Tyre and Sidon, ‘have you sold unto the Greeks’.1 From the location of their settlements and emporia, however, we can fairly infer that the majority of Greek settlers did not want such goods, or were not prepared to pay for them. Literary evidence supports this. For example, the Etruscans of Agylla—the same who stoned the Phokaians—enjoyed a high reputation among the Greeks 1 See also Amos (1:6, 9; 2:6) for the men of Gaza, Tyre, and Israel as slave-traders. What
example, through efforts to stimulate the birth rate and by drafting nonSpartiates into the armed forces; but the roots of the malaise—the economic difficulties of poorer citizens—were left untouched. (4) Finally, underlying these developments was a fundamental breakdown in the solidarity of the citizen body, especially in the longstanding compact between rich and poor upon which Sparta’s successful social system had been based. The first factor, which operated in a manner independent of external
cases outside the central period selected for detailed scrutiny. For example, although Brasidas (PB 177), the most prominent commander of the 420s, rose in position through merit, he also hailed from a background which gave him connections at Pharsalos in Thessaly (Thuc. 4. 78), and which put his father Tellis (PB 690) on the board of Spartiates who concluded the peace and alliance with Athens in 421. In the period after 386, the brothers and fellow-commanders Eudamidas (PB 295) and Phoibidas (PB
have restrained their behaviour towards ordinary citizens, since it was upon such men that their election depended. The ambition for foreign commands, however, made no such demands, but depended rather upon the possession of influence or a patron’s goodwill. There was less need for moderate behaviour towards ordinary Spartiates; on the contrary, there was a built-in incentive for would-be commanders and patrons to increase their personal status through the acquisition of additional property,