The Athenian Plague
During the years 430-426/5 BCE, a plague afflicted the city of Athens. At that time, Athens had just entered upon a three-decade war with her arch-enemy, Sparta, and her allies.
MARRIAGE IN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL PERIOD
MARRIAGE IN THE ROMAN IMPERIAL PERIOD Konstantinos Mantas (Athens) POLIS: Revista de ideas y formas políticas de la Antigüedad Clásica, 11 (1999), pp.…
Philip II, The Greeks, and The King 346-336 B.C.
The aim of this piece is to examine a congeries of diplomatic, political, and legal arrangements and obligations that linked the Greeks, Macedonians, and Persians in various complicated ways during Philip’s final years.
The Legacy of the Parthenon
Oddly enough, the Parthenon was not considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. To our modern sensibilities and academic curiosity, this seems like a gross oversight.
Can Atoms Make You Happy?
The Greek philosopher Epicurus established his school in Athens in 306 BCE. He was a prolific writer; the one biography that survives, that of Diogenes Laertius, claims that the full body of his writings occupied around 300 books…
Destructive state interest and panhellenism in Thucydides
Thucydides in his text about the war between Athens and Sparta derides individuals, either members of a community or states in an international system, acting to increase their own power at the expense of others and promotes the same individuals to act in ways that support the community.
The musical revolution of fifth-century Greece
Through a study of the ancient literature, most of which deals with music only incidentally, we will be able to understand how the New Music movement was encouraged by Greek culture, given an incentive by fifth-century society, and studied by some of the most brilliant philosophers and musicians Greek history has known.
Augustus and the Governors' Wives
Until the last century of the Roman Republic it was an established principle that officials assigned provinces outside of Italy would not be accompanied there by their wives, whose duty was to remain behind to look after their husbands’ interests.
Kapeleion: casual and commercial wine consumption in classical Greece
The symposion is consistently referred to as the framework around which all studies of Classical Greek drinking are built, regardless of a body of archaeological and literary evidence to suggest that this type of drinking was enjoyed primarily by a small minority of the elite male, and perhaps predominantly Athenian, population (although various forms of ritualised drinking were widespread throughout the Greek world).
Social Norms in the Courts of Ancient Athens
The Athenian court system plays little role in conventional explanations for Athens’ success as a well-ordered society. Instead, scholars tend to em- phasize the importance of informal social control and internalized norms in maintaining order.