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.
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Title: On Roman time: the codex-calendar of 354 and the rhythms of urban life in late antiquity
Author: Salzman, Michele Renee
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Religion | Classical  History
Publisher's Description: Because they list all the public holidays and pagan festivals of the age, calendars provide unique insights into the culture and everyday life of ancient Rome. The Codex-Calendar of 354 miraculously survived the Fall of Rome. Although it was subsequently lost, the copies made in the Renaissance remain invaluable documents of Roman society and religion in the years between Constantine's conversion and the fall of the Western Empire.In this richly illustrated book, Michele Renee Salzman establishes that the traditions of Roman art and literature were still very much alive in the mid-fourth century. Going beyond this analysis of precedents and genre, Salzman also studies the Calendar of 354 as a reflection of the world that produced and used it. Her work reveals the continuing importance of pagan festivals and cults in the Christian era and highlights the rise of a respectable aristocratic Christianity that combined pagan and Christian practices. Salzman stresses the key role of the Christian emperors and imperial institutions in supporting pagan rituals. Such policies of accomodation and assimilation resulted in a gradual and relatively peaceful transformation of Rome from a pagan to a Christian capital.   [brief]
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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]
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Title: Interstate arbitrations in the Greek world, 337-90 B.C.
Author: Ager, Sheila L 1956-
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: A great deal of information has come to light over the past several decades about the role of arbitration between the Greek states. Arbitration and mediation were, in fact, central institutions in Hellenistic public life. In this comprehensive study, Sheila Ager brings together the scattered body of literary and epigraphical sources on arbitration, together with up-to-date bibliographic references, and commentary.The sources collected here range widely; Ager presents an exhaustive record of documents ranging from the settlement of a minor territorial squabble between two tiny city-states to the resolution of major conflicts separating the great powers of the day. In addition, Ager's introduction sets the documents in historical context and outlines distinctions among categories of arbitration. The work also includes indices to literary passages, inscriptions, persons, places, subjects, and Greek and Latin terms in the documents. This collection of many previously inaccessible texts will become a primary resource for any scholar or student working in the field of Hellenistic history.   [brief]
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Title: Asceticism and society in crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern saints 
Author: Harvey, Susan Ashbrook
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: Classics | Classical Religions | Classical  History
Publisher's Description: John of Ephesus traveled throughout the sixth-century Byzantine world in his role as monk, missionary, writer and church leader. In his major work, The Lives of the Eastern Saints , he recorded 58 portraits of monks and nuns he had known, using the literary conventions of hagiography in a strikingly personal way. War, bubonic plague, famine, collective hysteria, and religious persecution were a part of daily life and the background against which asceticism developed an acute meaning for a beleaguered populace. Taking the work of John of Ephesus as her guide, Harvey explores the relationship between asceticism and society in the sixth-century Byzantine East.Concerned above all with the responsibility of the ascetic to lay society, John's writing narrates his experiences in the villages of the Syrian Orient, the deserts of Egypt, and the imperial city of Constantinople. Harvey's work contributes to a new understanding of the social world of the late antique Byzantine East, skillfully examining the character of ascetic practices, the traumatic separation of "Monophysite" churches, the fluctuating roles of women in Syriac Christianity, and the general contribution of hagiography to the study of history.   [brief]
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Title: Between republic and empire: interpretations of Augustus and his principate
Author: Raaflaub, Kurt A
Published: University of California Press,  1993
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Representing five major areas of Augustan scholarship - historiography, poetry, art, religion, and politics - the nineteen contributors to this volume bring us closer to a balanced, up-to-date account of Augustus and his principate.
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Title: Athens from Cleisthenes to Pericles 
Author: Fornara, Charles W
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Classical Politics
Publisher's Description: By the mid fifth century B.C., Athens had become the most powerful city-state in Greece: a rich democracy led by Pericles that boldly gained control of an empire. Athens's strength under Pericles was the result of a complex interaction of events from the time of Cleisthenes. Fornara and Samons unravel the intricacies of the conflicting ancient sources to show how the development of both democracy and empire were interdependent in Athens's multifaceted evolution. The authors trace and contrast four stands of development: the history of the Alcmeonid family of Cleisthenes and Pericles, the nature and development of Athenian democracy, the growth of Athenian empire, and the burgeoning antagonism between Athens and Sparta. The fresh perspective thus afforded by this clear presentation will intrigue those with interests in both ancient economics and politics.The figure of Pericles is central to all four avenues of inquiry. His decision to create the enmisthos polis marked a fateful turn. Henceforth the democracy and the empire presupposed each other. Ultimately, Pericles's policies fueled Sparta's growing insecurity, resulting in her declaration of war on Athens in 431 B.C. and Athens's eventual fall.   [brief]
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Title: Leadership and community in late antique Gaul
Author: Van Dam, Raymond
Published: University of California Press,  1992
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Classical Religions
Publisher's Description: The rise of Christianity to the dominant position it held in the Middle Ages remains a paradoxical achievement. Early Christian communities in Gaul had been so restrictive that they sometimes persecuted misfits with accusations of heresy. Yet by the fifth century Gallic aristocrats were becoming bishops to enhance their prestige; and by the sixth century Christian relic cults provided the most comprehensive idiom for articulating values and conventions. To strengthen its appeal, Christianity had absorbed the ideologies of secular authority already familiar in Gallic society.   [brief]
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Title: Dynasty and empire in the age of Augustus: the case of the of the Boscoreale Cups 
Author: Kuttner, Ann L
Published: University of California Press,  1995
Subjects: Art | Art History | Classical  History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: The two silver skyphoi commonly known as the Boscoreale Cups of Augustus and Tiberius are indispensable for providing the documentation of one of the only two cycles of Roman imperial state reliefs to survive from the Julio-Claudian period. Ann Kuttner offers the first comprehensive examination of these historical treasures.Kuttner studies the Cups not only from the standpoint of art history but also as they relate to Augustan ideology and politics. When she began work on this book, the whereabouts of the Cups was unknown, and she had to rely on the illustrations in Monuments et Memoires (Fondation Eugen Pinot, 1901). The rediscovery of the Cups at the Louvre in late 1990 has allowed Kuttner to examine them directly.   [brief]
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Title: Imperial ideology and provincial loyalty in the Roman Empire
Author: Ando, Clifford 1969-
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Ancient History | Social Theory
Publisher's Description: The Roman empire remains unique. Although Rome claimed to rule the world, it did not. Rather, its uniqueness stems from the culture it created and the loyalty it inspired across an area that stretched from the Tyne to the Euphrates. Moreover, the empire created this culture with a bureaucracy smaller than that of a typical late-twentieth-century research university. In approaching this problem, Clifford Ando does not ask the ever-fashionable question, Why did the Roman empire fall? Rather, he asks, Why did the empire last so long? Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire argues that the longevity of the empire rested not on Roman military power but on a gradually realized consensus that Roman rule was justified. This consensus was itself the product of a complex conversation between the central government and its far-flung peripheries. Ando investigates the mechanisms that sustained this conversation, explores its contribution to the legitimation of Roman power, and reveals as its product the provincial absorption of the forms and content of Roman political and legal discourse. Throughout, his sophisticated and subtle reading is informed by current thinking on social formation by theorists such as Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, and Pierre Bourdieu.   [brief]
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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]
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Title: From popular sovereignty to the sovereignty of law: law, society, and politics in fifth-century Athens
Author: Ostwald, Martin 1922-
Published: University of California Press,  1987
Subjects: Classics | Classics | Classical  History | Classical Politics
Publisher's Description: Analyzing the "democratic" features and institutions of the Athenian democracy in the fifth century B.C., Martin Ostwald traces their development from Solon's judicial reforms to the flowering of popular sovereignty, when the people assumed the right both to enact all legislation and to hold magistr . . . [more]
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Title: Thundering Zeus: the making of Hellenistic Bactria
Author: Holt, Frank Lee
Published: University of California Press,  1999
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Archaeology | Ancient History | History
Publisher's Description: Thundering Zeus uses an innovative, interdisciplinary approach to resolve one of the greatest puzzles in all of Hellenistic history. This book explores the remarkable rise of a Greek-ruled kingdom in ancient Bactria (modern Afghanistan) during the third century B.C. Diodotus I and II, whose dynasty emblazoned its coins with the dynamic image of Thundering Zeus, led this historic movement by breaking free of the Seleucid Empire and building a strong independent state in Central Asia. The chronology and crises that defined their reigns have been established here for the first time, and Frank Holt sets this new history into the larger context of Hellenistic studies.The best sources for understanding Hellenistic Bactria are archaeological, and they include a magnificent trove of coins. In addition to giving a history of Bactria, Thundering Zeus provides a catalog of these coins, as well as an introduction to the study of numismatics itself. Holt presents this fascinating material with the precision and acuity of a specialist and with the delight of an admirer, providing an up-to-date full catalog of known Diodotid coinage, and illustrating twenty-three coins.This succinct, energetic narrative thunders across the history of Hellenistic Bactria, exhuming coins, kingdoms, and customs as it goes. The result is a book that is both a history and a history of discovery, with much to offer those interested in ancient texts, archaeology, and coins.   [brief]
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Title: The returns of Odysseus: colonization and ethnicity
Author: Malkin, Irad
Published: University of California Press,  1998
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Anthropology | Classical Literature and Language
Publisher's Description: This remarkably rich and multifaceted study of early Greek exploration makes an original contribution to current discussions of the encounters between Greeks and non-Greeks. Focusing in particular on myths about Odysseus and other heroes who visited foreign lands on their mythical voyages homeward after the Trojan War, Irad Malkin shows how these stories functioned to mediate encounters and conceptualize ethnicity and identity during the Archaic and Classical periods. Synthesizing a wide range of archaeological, mythological, and literary sources, this exceptionally learned book strengthens our understanding of early Greek exploration and city-founding along the coasts of the Western Mediterranean, reconceptualizes the role of myth in ancient societies, and revitalizes our understanding of ethnicity in antiquity.Malkin shows how the figure of Odysseus became a proto-colonial hero whose influence transcended the Greek-speaking world. The return-myths constituted a generative mythology, giving rise to oral poems, stories, iconographic imagery, rituals, historiographical interpretation, and the articulation of ethnic identities. Reassessing the role of Homer and alternative return-myths, the book argues for the active historical function of myth and collective representations and traces their changing roles through a spectrum of colonial perceptions - from the proto-colonial, through justifications of expansion and annexation, and up to decolonization.   [brief]
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Title: The school of history: Athens in the age of Socrates
Author: Munn, Mark Henderson
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Ancient History | Classical Politics
Publisher's Description: History, political philosophy, and constitutional law were born in Athens in the space of a single generation--the generation that lived through the Peloponnesian War (431-404 b.c.e.). This remarkable age produced such luminaries as Socrates, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, and the sophists, and set the stage for the education and early careers of Plato and Xenophon, among others. The School of History provides the fullest and most detailed intellectual and political history available of Athens during the late fifth century b.c.e., as it examines the background, the context, and the decisive events shaping this society in the throes of war. This expansive, readable narrative ultimately leads to a new understanding of Athenian democratic culture, showing why and how it yielded such extraordinary intellectual productivity. As both a source and a subject, Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War is the central text around which the narrative and thematic issues of the book revolve. Munn re-evaluates the formation of the Greek historiographical tradition itself as he identifies the conditions that prompted Thucydides to write--specifically the historian's desire to guide the Athenian democracy as it struggled to comprehend its future. The School of History fully encompasses recent scholarship in history, literature, and archaeology. Munn's impressive mastery of the huge number of sources and publications informs his substantial contributions to our understanding of this democracy transformed by war. Immersing us fully in the intellectual foment of Athenian society, The School of History traces the history of Athens at the peak of its influence, both as a political and military power in its own time and as a source of intellectual inspiration for the centuries to come.   [brief]
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Title: Gregory the Great: perfection in imperfection
Author: Straw, Carole Ellen
Published: University of California Press,  1991
Subjects: History | European History | Classical  History | Christianity
Publisher's Description: Gregory I (590-604) is often considered the first medieval pope and the first exponent of a truly medieval spirituality. Carole Straw places Gregory in his historical context and considers the many facets of his personality - monk, preacher, and pope - in order to elucidate the structure of his thou . . . [more]
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Title: Hellenistic constructs: essays in culture, history, and historiography
Author: Cartledge, Paul
Published: University of California Press,  1997
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: The Hellenistic period (approximately the last three centuries B.C.), with its cultural complexities and enduring legacies, retains a lasting fascination today. Reflecting the vigor and productivity of scholarship directed at this period in the past decade, this collection of original essays is a wide-ranging exploration of current discoveries and questions. The twelve essays emphasize the cultural interaction of Greek and non-Greek societies in the Hellenistic period, in contrast to more conventional focuses on politics, society, or economy. The result of original research by some of the leading scholars in Hellenistic history and culture, this volume is an exemplary illustration of the cultural richness of this period.Paul Cartledge's introduction contains an illuminating introductory overview of current trends in Hellenistic scholarship. The essays themselves range over broad questions of comparative historiography, literature, religion, and the roles of Athens, Rome, and the Jews within the context of the Hellenistic world. The volume is dedicated to Frank Walbank and includes an updated bibliography of his work which has been essential to our understanding of the Hellenistic period.   [brief]
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Title: The memory of the eyes: pilgrims to living saints in Christian late antiquity
Author: Frank, Georgia 1963-
Published: University of California Press,  2000
Subjects: Religion | Christianity | Classical Religions | Classical  History
Publisher's Description: Pilgrims in the deserts of Egypt and the holy land during the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. often reported visiting holy people as part of their tours of holy places. This is the first comprehensive study of pilgrimage to these famous ascetics of late antique Christianity. Through an original analysis of pilgrim writings of this period, Georgia Frank discovers a literary imagination at work, one that both recorded and shaped the experience of pilgrimage to living saints. Taking an important new approach to these texts, Frank finds in them a record of the writers' and readers' spiritual expectations and uses these fresh insights to add substantially to our understanding of the purposes and practices of pilgrimage. Frank focuses in particular on two important and well-known early texts - The History of the Monks in Egypt (ca. 400) and Palladius's The Lausiac History (ca. 420), situating these narratives in their literary, historical, and spiritual contexts. She compares these narratives to exotic travel writing and to tales of otherworldly journeys. Bringing in contemporary theory, she demonstrates the importance of sight as a means of spiritual progress and explores the relation between the function of sight in these narratives and in other expressions of visual piety in late antiquity Christianity, such as the veneration of relics and, eventually, icons. With its unique focus on the sensory dimensions of pilgrimage - especially visuality - this absorbing book widens our understanding of early Christian pilgrims and those who read their accounts. At the same time, it also sheds new light on the relation between religious experience and the senses, on literary representations of visual experience, and on the literature of pious travel.   [brief]
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Title: Interpreting a classic: Demosthenes and his ancient commentators
Author: Gibson, Craig A 1968-
Published: University of California Press,  2002
Subjects: Classics | Classical Literature and Language | Rhetoric | Classical  History
Publisher's Description: Demosthenes (384-322 b.c.) was an Athenian statesman and a widely read author whose life, times, and rhetorical abilities captivated the minds of generations. Sifting through the rubble of a mostly lost tradition of ancient scholarship, Craig A. Gibson tells the story of how one group of ancient scholars helped their readers understand this man's writings. This book collects for the first time, translates, and offers explanatory notes on all the substantial fragments of ancient philological and historical commentaries on Demosthenes. Using these texts to illuminate an important aspect of Graeco-Roman antiquity that has hitherto been difficult to glimpse, Gibson gives a detailed portrait of a scholarly industry that touched generations of ancient readers from the first century b.c. to the fifth century and beyond. In this lucidly organized work, Gibson surveys the physical form of the commentaries, traces the history of how they were passed down, and explains their sources, interests, and readership. He also includes a complete collection of Greek texts, English translations, and detailed notes on the commentaries.   [brief]
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Title: Imperatores victi: military defeat and aristocratic competition in the middle and late republic 
Author: Rosenstein, Nathan Stewart
Published: University of California Press,  1990
Subjects: Classics | Classical  History | Military History | Ancient History
Publisher's Description: Given the intense competition among aristocrats seeking public office in the middle and late Roman Republic, one would expect that their persistent struggles for honor, glory, and power could have seriously undermined the state or damaged the cohesiveness of the ruling class. Rome in fact depended on aristocratic competition, since no professional bureaucracy directed public affairs and no salary was attached to any public office. But as Rosenstein adeptly shows, competition appears to have been surprisingly limited, in ways that curtailed the possible destructive effects of all-out contests between individuals. Imperatores Victi examines one particularly striking case of such checks on competition. Military success at all times represented an abundant source of prestige and political strength at Rome. Generals who led armies to victory enjoyed a better-than-average chance of securing higher office upon their return from the field. Yet this study demonstrates that defeated generals were not barred from public office and in fact went on to win the Republic's most highly coveted and hotly contested offices in numbers virtually identical with those of their undefeated peers.Rosenstein explores how this unexpected limit to competition functions, reviewing beliefs about the religious origins of defeat, assumptions about common soldiers' duties in battle, and definitions of honorable behavior of an aristocrat during a crisis. These perspectives were instrumental in shifting the onus of failure away from a general's person and in offering positive strategies a general might use to win glory and respect even in defeat and to silence potential critics among a failed general's peers. Such limits to competition had an impact on the larger problems of stability and coherence in the Republic and its political elite; these larger problems are discussed in the concluding chapter.   [brief]
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