Title: The concept of neutrality in classical Greece
Author: Bauslaugh, Robert A
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Law | Classical History
Publisher's Description: Looking at Classical warfare from the perspective of the non-belligerents, Robert A. Bauslaugh brings together the scattered evidence testifying to neutral behavior among the Greek city-states and their non-Greek neighbors. Were the Argives of 480/479 B.C. really "Medizers," as many have accused, or were they pursuing a justifiable policy of neutrality as they claimed? On what basis in international law or custom did the Corcyraeans claim non-alignment? Why were the leading belligerent states willing to accept the inclusion of a "neutrality clause" in the Common Peace of 371? These questions have not been asked by historians of international law, and the answers provide a far more complex and sophisticated picture of interstate relations than has so far been available.Despite the absence of exclusively diplomatic language, the concept of respect for neutrals appears early in Greek history and remains a nearly constant feature of Classical wars. The problems confronting uncommitted states, which have clear parallels in modern history, were balanced by widespread acceptance of the need for limitations on the chaos of warfare.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: The other Greeks: the family farm and the agrarian roots of western civilization
Author: Hanson, Victor Davis
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | European History
Publisher's Description: For generations, scholars have focused on the rise of the Greek city-state and its brilliant cosmopolitan culture as the ultimate source of the Western tradition in literature, philosophy, and politics. This passionate book leads us outside the city walls to the countryside, where the vast majority of the Greek citizenry lived, to find the true source of the cultural wealth of Greek civilization. Victor Hanson shows that the real "Greek revolution" was not merely the rise of a free and democratic urban culture, but rather the historic innovation of the independent family farm.The farmers, vinegrowers, and herdsmen of ancient Greece are "the other Greeks," who formed the backbone of Hellenic civilization. It was these tough-minded, practical, and fiercely independent agrarians, Hanson contends, who gave Greek culture its distinctive emphasis on private property, constitutional government, contractual agreements, infantry warfare, and individual rights. Hanson's reconstruction of ancient Greek farm life, informed by hands-on knowledge of the subject (he is a fifth-generation California vine- and fruit-grower) is fresh, comprehensive, and absorbing. His detailed chronicle of the rise and tragic fall of the Greek city-state also helps us to grasp the implications of what may be the single most significant trend in American life today - the imminent extinction of the family farm.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Making modern mothers: ethics and family planning in urban Greece
Author: Paxson, Heather 1968-
Published: University of California Press,  2004
Subjects: Gender Studies | Sociology | Anthropology | Anthropology
Publisher's Description: In Greece, women speak of mothering as "within the nature" of a woman. But this durable association of motherhood with femininity exists in tension with the highest incidence of abortion and one of the lowest fertility rates in Europe. In this setting, how do women think of themselves as proper individuals, mothers, and Greek citizens? In this anthropological study of reproductive politics and ethics in Athens, Greece, Heather Paxson tracks the effects of increasing consumerism and imported biomedical family planning methods, showing how women's "nature" is being transformed to meet crosscutting claims of the contemporary world. Locating profound ambivalence in people's ethical evaluations of gender and fertility control, Paxson offers a far-reaching analysis of conflicting assumptions about what it takes to be a good mother and a good woman in modern Greece, where assertions of cultural tradition unfold against a backdrop of European Union integration, economic struggle, and national demographic anxiety over a falling birth rate.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: An archaeology of Greece: the present state and future scope of a discipline 
Author: Snodgrass, Anthony M
Published: University of California Press,  1987
Subjects: Classics | Archaeology | European History
Publisher's Description: Classical archaeology probably enjoys a wider appeal than any other branch of classical or archaeological studies. As an intellectual and academic discipline, however, its esteem has not matched its popularity. Here, Anthony Snodgrass argues that classical archaeology has a rare potential in the who . . . [more]
Similar Items

Title: Warriors into traders: the power of the market in early Greece
Author: Tandy, David W
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Ancient History | Classical History | Economics and Business | Anthropology | Politics
Publisher's Description: The eighth century dawned on a Greek world that had remained substantially unchanged during the centuries of stagnation known as the Dark Age. This book is a study of the economic and cultural upheaval that shook mainland Greece and the Aegean area in the eighth century, and the role that poetry played in this upheaval. Using tools from political and economic anthropology, David Tandy argues that between about 800 and 700 B.C., a great transformation of dominant economic institutions took place involving wrenching adjustments in the way status and wealth were distributed within the Greek communities.Tandy explores the economic organization of preindustrial societies, both ancient and contemporary, to shed light on the Greek experience. He argues that the sudden shift in Greek economic formations led to new social behaviors and to new social structures such as the polis , itself a by-product of economic change. Unraveling the dialectic between the material record and epic poetry, Tandy shows that the epic tradition mirrored these new social behaviors and that it portrayed the stresses that economic change brought to the ancient Aegean world.Tandy brings in comparative evidence from other small-scale communities beset by changes, spotlighting the specific plight of one community, Ascra in Boeotia, on whose behalf Hesiod sang his Works and Days . The result is a lively, moving account of a human dilemma that, many centuries later, is all too familiar.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a sourcebook of basic documents
Author: Hubbard, Thomas K
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Gender Studies | Classics | GayLesbian and Bisexual Studies
Publisher's Description: The most important primary texts on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome are translated into modern, explicit English and collected together for the first time in this comprehensive sourcebook. Covering an extensive period - from the earliest Greek texts in the late seventh century b.c.e. to Greco-Roman texts of the third and fourth centuries c.e. - the volume includes well-known writings by Plato, Sappho, Aeschines, Catullus, and Juvenal, as well as less well known but highly relevant and intriguing texts such as graffiti, comic fragments, magical papyri, medical treatises, and selected artistic evidence. These fluently translated texts, together with Thomas K. Hubbard's valuable introductions, clearly show that there was in fact no more consensus about homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome than there is today. The material is organized by period and by genre, allowing readers to consider chronological developments in both Greece and Rome. Individual texts each are presented with a short introduction contextualizing them by date and, where necessary, discussing their place within a larger work. Chapter introductions discuss questions of genre and the ideological significance of the texts, while Hubbard's general introduction to the volume addresses issues such as sexual orientation in antiquity, moral judgments, class and ideology, and lesbianism. With its broad, unexpurgated, and thoroughly informed presentation, this unique anthology gives an essential perspective on homosexuality in classical antiquity.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Restless dead: encounters between the living and the dead in ancient Greece
Author: Johnston, Sarah Iles 1957-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | Classical Religions | Classical Literature and Language | Intellectual History | Folklore and Mythology | Cultural Anthropology
Publisher's Description: During the archaic and classical periods, Greek ideas about the dead evolved in response to changing social and cultural conditions - most notably changes associated with the development of the polis, such as funerary legislation, and changes due to increased contacts with cultures of the ancient Near East. In Restless Dead , Sarah Iles Johnston presents and interprets these changes, using them to build a complex picture of the way in which the society of the dead reflected that of the living, expressing and defusing its tensions, reiterating its values and eventually becoming a source of significant power for those who knew how to control it. She draws on both well-known sources, such as Athenian tragedies, and newer texts, such as the Derveni Papyrus and a recently published lex sacra from Selinous.Topics of focus include the origin of the goes (the ritual practitioner who made interaction with the dead his specialty), the threat to the living presented by the ghosts of those who died dishonorably or prematurely, the development of Hecate into a mistress of ghosts and its connection to female rites of transition, and the complex nature of the Erinyes. Restless Dead culminates with a new reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia that emphasizes how Athenian myth and cult manipulated ideas about the dead to serve political and social ends.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Sappho's lyre: archaic lyric and women poets of ancient Greece
Author: Rayor, Diane J
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Classical Literature and Language | Literature in Translation | Poetry
Publisher's Description: Sappho sang her poetry to the accompaniment of the lyre on the Greek island of Lesbos over 2500 years ago. Throughout the Greek world, her contemporaries composed lyric poetry full of passion, and in the centuries that followed the golden age of archaic lyric, new forms of poetry emerged. In this unique anthology, today's reader can enjoy the works of seventeen poets, including a selection of archaic lyric and the complete surviving works of the ancient Greek women poets - the latter appearing together in one volume for the first time. Sappho's Lyre is a combination of diligent research and poetic artistry. The translations are based on the most recent discoveries of papyri (including "new" Archilochos and Stesichoros) and the latest editions and scholarship. The introduction and notes provide historical and literary contexts that make this ancient poetry more accessible to modern readers.Although this book is primarily aimed at the reader who does not know Greek, it would be a splendid supplement to a Greek language course. It will also have wide appeal for readers of' ancient literature, women's studies, mythology, and lovers of poetry.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Hesiod's Works and days
Author: Hesiod
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Economics and Business | Classics | Sociology | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: This new, annotated translation of Hesiod's Works and Days is a collaboration between David W. Tandy, a classicist, and Walter Neale, an economist and economic historian. Hesiod was an ancient Greek poet whose Works and Days discusses agricultural practices and society in general. Classicists and ancient historians have turned to Works and Days for its insights on Greek mythology and religion. The poem also sheds light on economic history and ancient agriculture, and is a good resource for social scientists interested in these areas. This translation emphasizes the activities and problems of a practicing agriculturist as well as the larger, changing political and economic institutions of the early archaic period.The authors provide a clear, accurate translation along with notes aimed at a broad audience. The introductory essay discusses the changing economic, political and trading world of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E., while the notes present the range and possible meanings of important Greek terms and references in the poem and highlight areas of ambiguity in our understanding of Works and Days .   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Water scarcity: impacts on western agriculture 
Author: Engelbert, Ernest A
Published: University of California Press,  1984
Subjects: Environmental Studies | Water | Agriculture
Similar Items

Title: Early Greek law
Author: Gagarin, Michael
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: Classics | Classical Politics | Law
Publisher's Description: Drawing on the evidence of anthropology as well as ancient literature and inscriptions, Gagarin examines the emergence of law in Greece from the 8th through the 6th centuries B.C., that is, from the oral culture of Homer and Hesiod to the written enactment of codes of law in most major cities.
Similar Items

Title: The revolutions of wisdom: studies in the claims and practice of ancient Greek science 
Author: Lloyd, G. E. R. (Geoffrey Ernest Richard) 1933-
Published: University of California Press,  1989
Subjects: Classics | Classical History
Publisher's Description: G.E.R. Lloyd's wide-ranging and historical study of the development of Greek science is a valuable contribution to current debates in the philosophy of language, on the analysis of scientific revolutions, and the rationality of science.
Similar Items

Title: Prayers in stone: Greek architectural sculpture ca. 600-100 B.C.E
Author: Ridgway, Brunilde Sismondo 1929-
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | Art | Art and Architecture | Art History
Publisher's Description: The meaning of architectural sculpture is essential to our understanding of ancient Greek culture. The embellishment of buildings was common for the ancient Greeks, and often provocative. Some ornamental sculpture was placed where, when the building was finished, no mortal eye could view it. And unlike much architectural ornamentation of other cultures, Greek sculpture was often integral to the building, not just as decoration, and could not be removed without affecting the integrity of the building structure. This book is the first comprehensive treatment of the significance of Greek architectural sculpture. Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway, a world-class authority on ancient Greek sculpture, provides a highly informative tour of many dimensions of Greek public buildings - especially temples, tombs, and treasuries - in a text that is at once lucid, accessible, and authoritative.Ridgway's pragmatism and common sense steer us tactfully and clearly through thickets of uncertainty and scholarly disagreement. She refers to a huge number of monuments, and documents her discussions with copious and up-to-date bibliographies. This book is sure to be acknowledged at once as the standard treatment of its important topic.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: The Greeks and the irrational
Author: Dodds, E. R. (Eric Robertson) 1893-
Published: University of California Press,  1962
Subjects: Classics
Similar Items

Title: Hesiod's Ascra
Author: Edwards, Anthony T
Published: University of California Press,  2004
Subjects: Classics | Classical History | Classical Politics | Classical Literature and Language | Economics and Business
Publisher's Description: In Works and Days, one of the two long poems that have come down to us from Hesiod, the poet writes of farming, morality, and what seems to be a very nasty quarrel with his brother Perses over their inheritance. In this book, Anthony T. Edwards extracts from the poem a picture of the social structure of Ascra, the hamlet in northern Greece where Hesiod lived, most likely during the seventh century b.c.e. Drawing on the evidence of trade, food storage, reciprocity, and the agricultural regime as Hesiod describes them in Works and Days, Edwards reveals Ascra as an autonomous village, outside the control of a polis, less stratified and integrated internally than what we observe even in Homer. In light of this reading, theconflict between Hesiod and Perses emerges as a dispute about the inviolability of the community's external boundary and the degree of interobligation among those within the village. Hesiod's Ascra directly counters the accepted view of Works and Days, which has Hesiod describing a peasant society subordinated to the economic and political control of an outside elite. Through his deft analysis, Edwards suggests a new understanding of both Works and Days and the social and economic organization of Hesiod's time and place.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Citizenship, gender, and work: the social organization of industrial agriculture 
Author: Thomas, Robert J
Published: University of California Press,  1992
Subjects: Sociology | Labor Studies | Anthropology | Gender Studies | Agriculture
Publisher's Description: Why do farm workers earn less and have a lower status than blue-collar employees in comparable jobs? Robert J. Thomas answers this question through a multi-method study of agricultural work and labor markets. Fieldwork as a lettuce harvester provides valuable insights from the perspective of undocum . . . [more]
Similar Items

Title: Arete: Greek sports from ancient sources
Author: Miller, Stephen G
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Classical Literature and Language | History | Ancient History | Sports
Publisher's Description: From the informal games of Homer's time to the highly organized contests of the Roman world, Miller has compiled a trove of ancient sources - Plutarch on boxing, Aristotle on the pentathlon, Philostratos on clay dust as an anti-perspirant and on the buying and selling of victories, Vitruvius on literary competitions, Xenophon on female body building. With fully twice as many texts as the highly successful first edition, this new version of Arete offers readers an absorbing lesson in the culture of Greek athletics from the greatest of teachers - the ancients themselves.These sources, which Miller himself has translated, provide unparalleled insights into ancient athletic practices and competitive festivals. They emphasize the fundamental role of athletics in education and shed light on such issues as the role of women in athletics and the politics and economics of the games. Ultimately they demonstrate that the concepts of virtue, skill, pride, valor, and nobility embedded in the word arete and so closely associated in the modern mind with Greek athletics are only part of the story from antiquity.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: The reign of the phallus: sexual politics in ancient Athens
Author: Keuls, Eva C
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: Classics | History | Art and Architecture | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: At once daring and authoritative, this book offers a profusely illustrated history of sexual politics in ancient Athens.The phallus was pictured everywhere in ancient Athens: painted on vases, sculpted in marble, held aloft in gigantic form in public processions, and shown in stage comedies. This obsession with the phallus dominated almost every aspect of public life, influencing law, myth, and customs, affecting family life, the status of women, even foreign policy.This is the first book to draw together all the elements that made up the "reign of the phallus" - men's blatant claim to general dominance, the myths of rape and conquest of women, and the reduction of sex to a game of dominance and submission, both of women by men and of men by men.In her elegant and lucid text Eva Keuls not only examines the ideology and practices that underlay the reign of the phallus, but also uncovers an intense counter-movement - the earliest expressions of feminism and antimilitarism.Complementing the text are 345 reproductions of Athenian vase paintings. Some have been reproduced in a larger format and gathered in an appendix for easy reference and closer study. These revealing illustrations are a vivid demonstration that classical Athens was more sexually polarized and repressive of women than any other culture in Western history.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: The making of fornication: eros, ethics, and political reform in Greek philosophy and early Christianity
Author: Gaca, Kathy L
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Classics | Classical Philosophy | Classical Religions | Classical Politics | Christianity | Ethics | Social and Political Thought | Ancient History | Intellectual History
Publisher's Description: This provocative work provides a radical reassessment of the emergence and nature of Christian sexual morality, the dominant moral paradigm in Western society since late antiquity. While many scholars, including Michel Foucault, have found the basis of early Christian sexual restrictions in Greek ethics and political philosophy, Kathy L. Gaca demonstrates on compelling new grounds that it is misguided to regard Greek ethics and political theory - with their proposed reforms of eroticism, the family, and civic order - as the foundation of Christian sexual austerity. Rather, in this thoroughly informed and wide-ranging study, Gaca shows that early Christian goals to eradicate fornication were derived from the sexual rules and poetic norms of the Septuagint, or Greek Bible, and that early Christian writers adapted these rules and norms in ways that reveal fascinating insights into the distinctive and largely non-philosophical character of Christian sexual morality. Writing with an authoritative command of both Greek philosophy and early Christian writings, Gaca investigates Plato, the Stoics, the Pythagoreans, Philo of Alexandria, the apostle Paul, and the patristic Christians Clement of Alexandria, Tatian, and Epiphanes, freshly elucidating their ideas on sexual reform with precision, depth, and originality. Early Christian writers, she demonstrates, transformed all that they borrowed from Greek ethics and political philosophy to launch innovative programs against fornication that were inimical to Greek cultural mores, popular and philosophical alike. The Septuagint's mandate to worship the Lord alone among all gods led to a Christian program to revolutionize Gentile sexual practices, only for early Christians to find this virtually impossible to carry out without going to extremes of sexual renunciation. Knowledgeable and wide-ranging, this work of intellectual history and ethics cogently demonstrates why early Christian sexual restrictions took such repressive ascetic forms, and casts sobering light on what Christian sexual morality has meant for religious pluralism in Western culture, especially among women as its bearers.   [brief]
Similar Items

Title: Athens and Macedon: Attic letter-cutters of 300 to 229 B.C
Author: Tracy, Stephen V 1941-
Published: University of California Press,  2003
Subjects: Classics | Classical History | Archaeology | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Little of the historiography of third-century Athens survives, and much of what we know - or might know - about the period has come down to us in inscriptions carved by Attic stonemasons of the time. In this book Stephen Tracy, the world's preeminent expert in this area, provides new insight into an . . . [more]
Similar Items