A history of the archaic Greek world, ca. 1200-479 BCE / Jonathan M. Hall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hall, Jonathan M.

Series:

Blackwell history of the ancient world

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greece--History--To 146 B.C.

Greece.

History.

Physical Description:

xxi, 366 pages ; 25 cm.

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Chichester, West Sussex : Wiley-Blackwell, 2014.

Summary:

A History of the Archaic Greek World provides theme-based coverage of the years 1200-479 BCE. By revisiting the evidence from the period with a critical and analytical eye, Jonathan M. Hall gives the reader the opportunity to investigate at first hand this crucial formative period of Greek history. In doing so, this book casts new light on traditional themes such, as the rise of the city-state, colonization, citizen militias, the origins of egalitarianism, and the emergence of a self-conscious Greek identity. Taking into consideration feedback from the first edition, the author has updated the text and added further material, including two new sections entitled "Archaeological Gaps: Attica and Crete" and "'Greek' Culture: Unity and Diversity"; he has increased illustrative material, and included a new guide to electronic resources. In addition, Hall has expanded the geographical coverage of all material considered within the book. The text continues to-provide an exceptionally wide range of archaeological evidence across a number of different specialties. The author brings a willingness to question existing notions, which allows the reader to become involved in the practice of history by probing and re-evaluating conventional beliefs. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 The Practice of History 1

The Lelantine War 1

The Lelantine War Deconstructed 4

What Is History? 8

History as Literature 11

Method and Theory 12

2 Sources, Evidence, Dates 16

Evaluating Sources 16

Dating Archaic Poets 21

Non-Literary Evidence 26

Ancient Chronography 29

Archaeological Dating 33

3 The End of the Mycenaean World and Its Aftermath 41

Mycenaean Greece 41

Gauging the Historicity of the Dorian Migration 44

Alternative Explanations 51

The Loss and Recovery of Writing 56

Whose Dark Age? 59

4 Communities of Place 68

Defining the Polls 68

The Urban Aspect of the Polis: Houses, Graves, and Walls 72

Political and Economic Functions 81

Cultic Communities 85

Polis and Ethnos 90

5 New Homes Across the Seas 96

On the Move 99

The Credibility of Colonial Foundation Stories 105

Pots and Peoples 111

A Spartan Foundation? Taras, Phalanthos, and the Partheniai 116

Hunger or Greed? 120

6 The Changing Nature of Authority 126

Charting the Genesis of the State 126

Kings or "Big-Men"? 127

The Emergence of an Aristocracy 134

Laws and Institutions 138

The Return of the "Big-Man" 144

Excursus I A Cautionary Tale: Pheidon of Argos 154

7 Fighting for the Fatherland 165

A Hoplite Revolution? 165

Some More Equal Than Others 174

Conquest, Territory, and Exploitation 181

Excursus II Archaeological Gaps: Attica and Crete 190

8 Defining the Political Community 200

Looking to the End 200

The Role of the Demos and the Great Rhetra 205

Drawing Boundaries 211

Land, Labor, and the Crisis in Attica 214

The "Second Sex" 220

Excursus III Evaluating the Spartan Mirage 227

9 The City of Theseus 235

The End of the Tyranny 235

The Birth of Democracy? 238

The Unification of Attica 243

Theseus: Democrat or Autocrat? 251

The (A)typicality of Athens 255

10 Making a Living 260

Conceptualizing Ancient Economic Activity 260

A Peasant Economy? 262

Plying the Seas 268

The Introduction of Coinage 275

Excursus IV The Rise of Persia and the Invasions of Greece 282

11 Imagining Greece 290

"Greek" Culture: Unity and Diversity 290

Greeks and Others: The External Dimension 293

The Emergence of Panhellenism: The Internal Dimension 301

The Invention of the Barbarian 308

12 Writing the History of Archaic Greece 312

The First Sacred War: Fact or Fiction? 312

The limits of Narrative History 317

Dividing up Time and Space 320.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781118301272

1118301277

OCLC:

841051180