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23990 results in Ancient history

Page 818 of 1200

  • Chapter 1 - Introduction

  • Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Temple University, Philadelphia
  • Book:
    Plague and the Athenian Imagination
    Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    13 December 2007, pp 1-7

  • Summary

    τίς δñτ↾ ἰατρός ἐστι νũν ἐν τῇ πόλει;

    Who is the doctor now in the city?

    Aristophanes, Wealth 407

    τñς δὲ πόλεως <κακῶς> βουλευσαμένης ἰατρὸς ἂν ϒενέσθαι

    You would become a doctor for this badly counseled city.

    Thucydides 6.14 (Nicias on the debate over the Sicilian expedition)

    If this road, before it opens into the grove of the Muses, leads us over by the temple of Asclepius, so is this for acquaintances of Aristotle only further proof that we are moving in the right footsteps.

    Jacob Bernays

    This study, an examination of the effect of the great plague of Athens on the Athenian imagination, will try to show that Jacob Bernays, the first great proponent of the medical interpretation of Aristotelian katharsis (and the uncle of Dr. Sigmund Freud's wife), himself stepped closer to a truth about Athenian tragedy than he had realized, because the Muses indeed sit quite close to the temple of Asclepius on the south slope of the Acropolis in Athens. For, assuming Aristotle did visit the Theater of Dionysus in Athens to witness dramatic performances, an activity he subordinated to reading them as texts, a few steps, even a brief glance over his shoulder, would have taken him into the Athenian City Asklepieion, the shrine of the Greek god of healing (see Figure 1).

  • Chapter 2 - Death, myth and drama before the plague

  • Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Temple University, Philadelphia
  • Book:
    Plague and the Athenian Imagination
    Published online:
    22 September 2009
    Print publication:
    13 December 2007, pp 8-17

  • Summary

    I begin with broad and general (and, probably to some, overly simplistic) thoughts about the poetics of mortality in Greek thought and their pertinence to discussing subsequently the response of the Athenian imagination to the plague. This foundation is a necessary prelude to the consideration of both disease language in Chapters 3–6 and the relationship between healing, poetry and theater in Chapters 7–9. From its beginnings in Homer's Iliad, Greek poetry broadly concerns itself with man's attempts to grapple emotionally and intellectually with the basic reality of his own mortality. As Sheila B. Murnaghan observes (Murnaghan 1992: 242), early Greek epic is “preoccupied with defining human life by exploring the line that separates men and gods.” In archaic epic, the heroic code posits that the hero receives “immortal glory” (kleos aphthiton) in return for risking an even earlier death than the normal men whose name dies with them, although they do live longer (Redfield 1975; Nagy 1979). The heroes live on through the songs of the poets. Near the beginning of the most important era of Greek drama, Pindar, in poems such as Pythian 3, promises to preserve the kleos of mortals through song and urges his listeners not to hope for more than their mortal lot. Athenian tragic drama itself, which draws its plots from the epics of the heroic age, thus by necessity continues the concern with the inevitability of death.

  • 8 - Warfare and the state

  • from Part I - Archaic and Classical Greece
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 248-272

  • Summary

    States make war and war makes states. This chapter argues that the concept of state is perfectly compatible with polities in which legitimate force exists within an oligopolistic rather than a monopolistic system. Two kinds of violence producers were set apart. At one end stood the 'booty-chaser', represented by Homer's Odysseus and his historical successor, the Phocaean Dionysius. At the other end stood the fighting potential of an entire community, mustered and fielded by the central political authority. Thucydides also points to the circumstances that conditioned the emergence of the most pre-eminent classical Greek example of the monopolistic state and establishes the approximate date of this momentous event. The one Greek state to succeed where all others had failed is of course classical Athens. The chapter focuses on what ensured that success was partly possession of two major violence-related institutions, sea-power and hegemony, and partly a determined effort to achieve a high degree of financial independence.

  • 12 - War and Society

  • from Part II - The later Roman Empire
    • By Andrew Fear, Lecturer in Ancient History, University of Manchester
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 424-458

  • Summary

    For inhabitants of the early Empire, the Roman army was a somewhat distant feature of society. In the realm of high politics the relationship between soldier and civilian had also changed greatly. The Roman state in the fourth century had become in most respects a para-military one. Work in the civil service was now described as militia. The militarization of society came with a general loss in esteem for the army. By its very nature and composition no army is likely to behave as if it were composed of angels and there is plenty of evidence of military brutality and abuse of civilians from the early Empire. On the other hand, there was also frequent pleading for exemption from conscription on the grounds that the prospective recruit did not meet the minimum standards for army life.

  • 3 - Reconstructing ancient warfare

  • from Introduction: The Historiography of Ancient Warfare
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 54-82

  • Summary

    Close examination of ancient historical narratives, whose authors' methods and attitudes need to be evaluated, is essential for all reconstructions of ancient warfare. This chapter discusses the problems of this material. The fullest and most regular information about ancient warfare is provided by the sequence of Greek and Latin historians whose accounts of significant public events were usually dominated by military action, but these are complex texts. The dominance of literary convention affected the earliest historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, since they were still subject to the influence of earlier traditions of narrative, especially the Homeric poems in the case of Herodotus. The basic business of gathering information created problems for constructing a clear narrative, both of the chaos of battle and the wider dimensions of warfare; in addition to the 'Whatley' problem of the partial memory of any participants, personal interests of key informants and national agendas must be considered.

  • 8 - Military forces

  • from Part II - The later Roman Empire
    • By Hugh Elton, Professor of Ancient History and Classics, Trent University
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 270-309

  • Summary

    This chapter examines the military forces of the Roman Empire in three parts: the structure of armies, the structure of regiments, and the structure of individual careers. The first section of the chapter deals with the structure of the Roman army above the level of operational units. All late Roman armies were made up of individual regiments that had their own histories and traditions. The second section focuses on establishment strengths, though regimental units were under strength for much of their existence. The third part deals with the structures of units made up of individuals. It is sometimes argued that the late Roman army suffered from severe shortages of manpower and was thus forced to rely on non-Roman manpower. Soldiers were either conscripts or volunteers, but it is not possible to assess the relative importance of the two. Conscripts also came from annual levies of both free Romans and barbarians settled within the empire.

  • 15 - War and society

  • from Part II - The Hellenistic World and the Roman Republic
    • By J. Lendon, Professor of History, University of Virginia
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 498-516

  • Summary

    In the Peloponnesian War Athens is found hiring barbarian specialists, light infantry from Thrace. The conception of warfare as a collation of crafts had, it is attractive to suppose, a number of historical consequences. Military excellence as craft could also undermine civic harmony by reducing the dependence of the rich citizen upon his neighbours. By the third century Rome was a full member of the Hellenistic cosmos, trading and treating and fighting with Greece, the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Hellenized maritime power of Carthage. The Roman cult of virtus manifests itself in the degree to which Roman society was adapted to the making of war. For war held a different place in Roman than in Hellenistic culture. If the Romans were like the shark, the Greeks were like the dolphin: both ravening predators, but the one morose and single-minded, the other playful and inquisitive.

  • 6 - War

  • from Part I - Archaic and Classical Greece
    • By Peter Krentz, W. R. Grey Professor of Classics and History, Davidson College, North Carolina
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 147-185

  • Summary

    An Attic inscription from the early Peloponnesian War records an expedition of thirty triremes, each with five volunteer marines, forty hoplites, ten archers and ten peltasts. Fleets mentioned in Thucydides often averaged more than thirty soldiers per ship, and in fact most of the land battles in the Peloponnesian War were fought against invaders who came by sea. This chapter treats land and sea campaigns in parallel. On campaign Greeks took their armour and weapons, provisions, camping supplies, tools, and medical supplies. In his Acharnians Aristophanes vividly describes what the scene leading up to a fleet's departure would have been like. Greek soldiers also liked camping in sanctuaries, which offered good practical advantages for military camps, since they were prepared to house large numbers of visitors. Naval battles were even rarer than battles on land. The circumvallation sieges were hugely expensive. Greek campaigns simply ended with a general dismissal and a rush to get back pay.

  • 7 - Battle

  • from Part I - Archaic and Classical Greece
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 186-247

  • Summary

    Assessment of Greek land warfare must also reckon with currently popular 'face-of-battle' studies. Viewed positively, the 'face-of-battle' approach has revived attention to the role of morale in battle and the details of small unit combat. For some a phalanx can be found in Homer and the introduction of hoplite armour did not 'revolutionize' warfare. The Persian Wars and fifth-century Athenian imperialism would call the agonal system into question and begin teaching the art of generalship. Naval and siege warfare played central roles in classical Greece, but they were much simpler, inexpensive and less lethal before c. 500 BC. Siege warfare was little known in the Greek mainland before that time; naval warfare was more common but still relatively undeveloped. New developments in these two spheres tended to begin at the eastern and western fringes of the Greek world, as a result of contact with foreign peoples, and then to make their way dramatically to centre stage on the Greek mainland.

  • 1 - International relations

  • from Part I - The Late Republic and the Principate
  • Edited by Philip Sabin, King's College London, Hans van Wees, University College London, Michael Whitby, University of Warwick
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Warfare
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    06 December 2007, pp 1-29

  • Summary

    Roman ways of thinking about the Roman empire and its neighbours largely precluded the creation of structures similar to those of the post-Renaissance West. To understand Roman international relations, this chapter first looks at the ideological frameworks within which they operated, and then deals with other aspects such decision-making and the role of governors. Under the Republic, the Senate received and sent embassies. Under the Principate, the emperor was the ultimate decision maker. Embassies went to and from the emperor. Under the Republic, the Senate debated any treaties entered into by governors, whereas under the Principate, all governors acted to some extent under the auspices of the emperor. It is a truism that religion and politics could not be separated in ancient Rome. This was never more the case than in interstate relations. The chapter also deals with the acts of symbolism and the issue of practicalities in diplomatic relations in the Roman empire.

Page 818 of 1200