The Athenian Empire (478-404 BC)
In this paper I raise 3 questions: (1) How, and how much, did the Athenian Empire change Greek society? (2) Why did the Athenian Empire (or a competitor state) not become a multiethnic empire like Persia or Rome? (3) In the long run, how much did the Athenian Empire’s failure matter?
The growth of Greek cities in the first millennium BC
In this paper I trace the growth of the largest Greek cities from perhaps 1,000- 2,000 people at the beginning of the first millennium BC to 400,000-500,000 at the millennium’s end.
The collapse and regeneration of complex society in Greece, 1500-500 BC
Greece between 1500 and 500 BC is one of the best known examples of the phenomenon of the regeneration of complex society after a collapse. I review 10 core dimensions of this process (urbanism, tax and rent, monuments, elite power, information- recording systems, trade, crafts, military power, scale, and standards of living), and suggest that punctuated equilibrium models accommodate the data better than gradualist interpretations.
Going with the Grain: Athenian State Formation and the Question of Subsistence in the 5th and 4th Centuries BCE
The questions I intend to ask in this paper focus on this very issue. My case study is 5th century BCE Athens. During this period, the so-called “Athenian Empire”, Athens experienced military growth, geographic expansion of its hegemony, and further population increase.
APOLLO AND HIS PURPOSE IN SOPHOCLES
Apollo actively intervenes in the fulfilment of Oedipus’ destiny through oracles and immanently in the onstage action. Rather than to punish him for any offence, the god’s purpose appears to be to impress upon Oedipus his existential insignificance. In the context of an ordered but absurd universe, Sophocles emphasises the paradox of the moral greatness of a man whose ‘official’ existential value is less than zero.
HEARD AND UNHEARD STROPHES IN THE PARODOS OF AESCHYLUS
In this paper I would like to suggest a metrical interpretation of the parodos of the Theban girls in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. I shall begin with the metrical part, then I should like to take a closer look at the semantic impact of this interpretation and, instead of a conclusion, show how this proposal would fit into the whole context of the play.
DEMOCRATISATION OF GREEK SOCIETY DURING THE ARCHAIC ERA?
In the modern scholarship of the Ancient Greek history there is a well known and well established conception of an universal democratisation of Greek society during the Archaic and Early Classical periods. It could be summarised roughly as follows:1 Af- ter the fall of the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilisation, in the so-called Dark Ages (11th to 8th centuries B.C.), the Greek communities were governed by the kings (basilees).
WORD-ENDS AND METRICAL BOUNDARIES IN ANCIENT IAMBIC TRIMETER OF COMEDY
The main purpose of the analysis is to study the relationship between metrical boundaries in deep structure and word-ends in surface structures that occur when the meter is realised.