Democracy and Classical Greece
The art of classical Greece, and its political and philosophical ideas, have had a profound influence on Western civilisation. It was in the fifth and fourth centuries BC that this Greek culture – material, political and intellectual – reached its zenith. At the same time, the Greek states were at their most powerful and quarrelsome.J.K. Davies traces the flowering of this extraordinary society, drawing on a wealth of documentary material: houses and graves, extant sculpture and vases, as well as the writings of historians, orators, biographers, dramatists and philosophers.Much of the material from these, the best-documented centuries in Greek history presents a formidable challenge to the interpreter. J.K. Davies builds, chapter by chapter, a coherent narrative of events from often sketchy or inconsistent sources, and shows how sometimes the same evidence can throw up quite different interpretations. He uses the material to create a rich and vivid picture of a changing society whose values and achievements have so influenced our own.Please note that this edition does not include illustrations.
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J. K. DAVIES
DEMOCRACY AND CLASSICAL GREECE
Harper Press
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF
First published by Fontana Press 1993
Copyright© J. K. Davies 1978, 1993
J. K. Davies asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN 9780006862512
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2015 ISBN 9780007381333
Version 2015-04-07
Contents
Introduction to the Fontana History of the Ancient World
I The Sources and their Limitations
VI Athenian Society in the Fifth Century
X Philosophers, Mercenaries and Monarchs
XI Athens and Thebes after 380
XII Athenian Society in the Fourth Century
NO JUSTIFICATION is needed for a new history of the ancient world; modern scholarship and new discoveries have changed our picture in important ways, and it is time for the results to be made available to the general reader. But the Fontana History of the Ancient World attempts not only to present an up-to-date account. In the study of the distant past, the chief difficulties are the comparative lack of evidence and the special problems of interpreting it; this in turn makes it both possible and desirable for the more important evidence to be presented to the reader and discussed, so that he may see for himself the methods used in reconstructing the past, and judge for himself their success.
The series aims, therefore, to give an outline account of each period that it deals with and, at the same time, to present as much as possible of the evidence for that account. Selected documents with discussions of them are integrated into the narrative, and often form the basis of it; when interpretations are controversial the arguments are presented to the reader. In addition, each volume has a general survey of the types of evidence available for the period and ends with detailed suggestions for further reading. The series will, it is hoped, equip the reader to follow up his own interests and enthusiasms, having gained some understanding of the limits within which the historian must work.
Oswyn Murray
Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History,
Balliol College, Oxford
General Editor
THE TRADITIONAL spelling of Greek names follows Latin rather than Greek practice; recently some scholars and translators have tried with more or less consistency to render Greek names according to their original spelling. In the interests of clarity we have adopted a compromise: generally geographical places and names of extant authors appear in their conventional Latinized form, other names in Greek spelling; but where this would lead to confusion we have not hesitated to be inconsistent. Apart from variations in the endings of names, the main equivalences are that Latin C represents Greek K, and in diphthongs Latin Å represents Greek ai. Where the difference in spelling is substantial, both forms are given in the index.
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS ago Arnaldo Momigliano wrote: âAll students of ancient history know in their heart that Greek history is passing through a crisis.â The observation still holds. Some difficulties are technical â those of establishing a chronology, restoring the text of documents written on stones now broken, or integrating events which take place in different areas. Others have to do with sources, such as the challenges to emancipate ourselves from politico-military history and from the leisure-class bias of our literary sources, or to link archaeological finds with the record from narrative sources. Most fundamental of all is the problem of deciding what counts as a satisfactory interpretative understanding of events and social structures. In this book I have tried to illustrate such problems and to meet such challenges, while not losing sight of the plain unrolling of events which for most of us most of the time counts as âhistoryâ. I am scarcely the best judge of whether that balance has been kept.
