The Folds Of Parnassos

Independent city-states (poleis) such as Athens have been viewed traditionally as the most advanced stage of state formation in ancient Greece. By contrast, this pioneering book argues that for some Greeks the ethnos, a regionally based ethnic group, and the koinon, or regional confederation, were equally valid units of social and political life and that these ethnic identities were astonishingly durable. Jeremy McInerney sets his study in Phokis, a region in central Greece dominated by Mount Parnassos that shared a border with the panhellenic sanctuary at Delphi. He explores how ecological conditions, land use, and external factors such as invasion contributed to the formation of a Phokian territory. Then, drawing on numerous interdisciplinary sources, he traces the history of the region from the Archaic age down to the Roman period. McInerney shows how shared myths, hero cults, and military alliances created an ethnic identity that held the region together over centuries, despite repeated invasions. He concludes that the Phokian koinon survived because it was founded ultimately on the tenacity of the smaller communities of Greece.

A cultural and literary history of mountains in classical antiquity The mountainous character of the Mediterranean was a crucial factor in the history of the ancient Greek and Roman world. The Folds of Olympus is a cultural and literary history that explores the important role mountains played in Greek and Roman religious, military, and economic life, as well as in the identity of communities over a millennium—from Homer to the early Christian saints. Aimed at readers of ancient history and literature as well as those interested in mountains and the environment, the book offers a powerful account of the landscape at the heart of much Greek and Roman culture. Jason König charts the importance of mountains in religion and pilgrimage, the aesthetic vision of mountains in art and literature, the place of mountains in conquest and warfare, and representations of mountain life. He shows how mountains were central to the way in which the inhabitants of the ancient Mediterranean understood the boundaries between the divine and the human, and the limits of human knowledge and control. He also argues that there is more continuity than normally assumed between ancient descriptions of mountains and modern accounts of the picturesque and the sublime. Offering a unique perspective on the history of classical culture, The Folds of Olympus is also a resoundingly original contribution to the literature on mountains.

A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean presents a comprehensive collection of essays contributed by Classical Studies scholars that explore questions relating to ethnicity in the ancient Mediterranean world. Covers topics of ethnicity in civilizations ranging from ancient Egypt and Israel, to Greece and Rome, and into Late Antiquity Features cutting-edge research on ethnicity relating to Philistine, Etruscan, and Phoenician identities Reveals the explicit relationships between ancient and modern ethnicities Introduces an interpretation of ethnicity as an active component of social identity Represents a fundamental questioning of formally accepted and fixed categories in the field

Strabo's Geography, completed in the early first century AD, is the primary source for the history of Greek geography. This Guide provides the first English analysis of and commentary on this long and difficult text, and serves as a companion to the author's The Geography of Strabo, the first English translation of the work in many years. It thoroughly analyzes each of the seventeen books and provides perhaps the most thorough bibliography as yet created for Strabo's work. Careful attention is paid to the historical and cultural data, the thousands of toponyms, and the many lost historical sources that are preserved only in the Geography. This volume guides readers through the challenges and complexities of the text, allowing an enhanced understanding of the numerous topics that Strabo covers, from the travels of Alexander and the history of the Mediterranean to science, religion, and cult.

The ancient Greek hymnic tradition translated beautifully and accessibly. The hymn—as poetry, as craft, as a tool for worship and philosophy—was a vital art form throughout antiquity. Although the Homeric Hymns have long been popular, other equally important collections have not been readily accessible to students eager to learn about ancient poetry. In reading hymns, we also gain valuable insight into life in the classical world. In this collection, early Homeric Hymns of uncertain authorship appear along with the carefully wrought hymns of the great Hellenistic poet and courtier Callimachus; the mystical writings attributed to the legendary poet Orpheus, written as Christianity was taking over the ancient world; and finally, the hymns of Proclus, the last great pagan philosopher of antiquity, from the fifth century AD, whose intellectual influence throughout western culture has been profound. Greek Poems to the Gods distills over a thousand years of the ancient Greek hymnic tradition into a single volume. Acclaimed translator Barry B. Powell brings these fabulous texts to life in English, hewing closely to the poetic beauty of the original Greek. His superb introductions and notes give readers essential context, making the hymns as accessible to a beginner approaching them for the first time as to an advanced student continuing to explore their secrets. Brilliant illustrations from ancient art enliven and enrichen the experience of reading these poems.

Seers featured prominently in ancient Greek culture, but they rarely appear in archaic and classical colonial discourse. Margaret Foster exposes the ideological motivations behind this discrepancy and reveals how colonial discourse privileged the city’s founder and his dependence on Delphi, the colonial oracle par excellence, at the expense of the independent seer. Investigating a sequence of literary texts, Foster explores the tactics the Greeks devised both to leverage and suppress the extraordinary cultural capital of seers. The first cultural history of the seer, The Seer and the City illuminates the contests between religious and political powers in archaic and classical Greece.

The story of Thermopylae, the famous last stand of the Greco-Persian Wars: how it was fought, how it has been remembered, and what it has come to mean.

In the ancient Greece of Pericles and Plato, the polis, or city-state, reigned supreme, but by the time of Alexander, nearly half of the mainland Greek city-states had surrendered part of their autonomy to join the larger political entities called koina. In the first book in fifty years to tackle the rise of these so-called Greek federal states, Emily Mackil charts a complex, fascinating map of how shared religious practices and long-standing economic interactions faciliated political cooperation and the emergence of a new kind of state. Mackil provides a detailed historical narrative spanning five centuries to contextualize her analyses, which focus on the three best-attested areas of mainland Greece—Boiotia, Achaia, and Aitolia. The analysis is supported by a dossier of Greek inscriptions, each text accompanied by an English translation and commentary.