Greece Books

I'm interested in ancient oratory and i think M. Gagarin has made an excellent job presenting the life and works of Antiphon.

Michael Gagarin deserves high praise for this volume on a very underappreciated Greek author. Until this book appeared, English readers were limited to the (good, but meager) annotations in the Loeb Classical Library's edition of the Minor Attic Orators. This volume contains the entire corpus of Antiphon...making it more useful, in this respect, than several volumes in this (outstanding) series containing only selected parts of larger works. No other text is needed for the average classicist not specializing in oratory than this for the study of Antiphon.

This book is well written, and easily read and understood by the average reader. It explores not only the history of Praxiteles most famous creation, but also deals with the female nude in the Ancient Hellenic world. The book helps explain the attitudes of people towards female nudity, and make sense of the appearance of the various female nudes of antiquity. I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

This is the most Stupendous work in Classics since Herodotus. Art is even cooler than Socrates. He is more handsome than Pythagorus, and we think he is awesome. Go Art! It Makes You Think.

This book is mainly a general synthesis of the state of archaeological knowledge and research on the Greek Archaic and Classical periods, with some great explanation of the most important controversies (such as the gender division in society, the continuity of religion from the Dark Age, or the Orientalizing influence, etc) to be found in the study of this culture and period. However, the author takes great pains with his writing, so as not to have another dry accademic book with piles of extremely interesting information buried under tones of arid sentences.

As a result, you soon find yourself immerse in a fascinating, colourful world, so different from what many classicists want to give as as "Classic Greek Culture" as to really be a totally "New World". Here, temples and stoas are painted in bright colours, fire-eaters and dancers perform in the Agoras next to philosophers who discuss ethics. This is not, however, a way to make Greek culture look less important than it was. I think the author succeeds in communicating to his readers what the archaeologists have known for some time. These very same archaeologists, though, had to first overcome the reticence shown by the "Classicist Establishment" to consider the overwhelming evidence that Ancient Greece had very little to do with what they had been teaching at Western universities for decades (if not centuries).

Thus, the author begins his book by making the point that much of the vision of "Classical Greece" that we have inherited is really a 18th-century-cum-Victorian Eurocentrist construct, a somewhat imperialistic (one could even say [...]?)ideal of what a "perfect society" should be, and an excuse to model many typical western institutions on.

But don't get the wrong idea that this is the aim of the book. As I said before, the author just intends to give an up-to-date synthesis on what archaeologists have to say. Of course, when the subject is one so dear to,and near, the very core of European identity, controversy is unavoidable. Whitley just states the most important of these controversies, but sometimes, and although he doesn't seem keen on taking positions, his own views show through.

On the whole, the world glimpsed through the pages of this book is so fascinating that I found I needed to know more about some of the issues, so I went to the "Further reading for each chapter" section, and now have a nice pile of books to read on the subjects of Greek Sanctuaries (a truly fascinating topic, especially once you've visited Delphi).

I recomend this book for people who are intersted in the subject and want to have up-to-date information, but also as a well-written, never boring introduction to the wonders of Ancient Greece, a culture that, even if we don't know it, is part of ourselves and does not deserve the many clichés we have attached to it.....It needs to be better known....just as we need to know it better

Archimedes is(even dead)one of the 3 great mathematicians.Many people have been inspired by his immortal progects in mathematics.Reader read this book and you wont be sorry.

Dr. Darling starts the book with the phrase "This is a book about fragments" and she is right. Our knowledge of ancient Greek architecture is and will always be, fragmentary. She draws you in from this first sentence, and the book gets better and better from there. Dr. Darling makes you think and her book is full of stories and anecdotes which make the subject matter come alive. A must-read for those interested in Greek architecture.

This collection of excerpts from ancient sources concerning
athletes, athletic contests, skills, prizes, and the
athletic "mystique" is excellent. For it gives a
generous overview from different sources, from different
ancient venues, and from different time periods. The
reader gains a growing sense of the awe and reverence
in which skilled as well as beautiful athletes were
held, both by spectators at the events as well as
through the fame which they gained that was passed
down in inscriptions, statues, poetry, and the
memories of those who heard of their skills and
victories even in distant places.
The excerpts are not excessively long, but they are
highy interesting and instructive. The topics covered
by chapters are: the Earliest Days of Greek Athletics/
Nudity and Equipment/ The Events at a Competition
(Running, Wrestling, Boxing, Pankration, Pentathlon,
Equestrian, Music, Poetry and Prose Composition, Acting,
Painting)/ Organization of a Panhellenic Festival/ Local
Festivals/ Role of the Games in Society/ Women in
Athletics/ Athletes and Heroes/ Ball Playing/ Gymnasion,
Athletics, and Education/ Spread of Greek Athletics in
the Hellenistic Period/ Greek Athletics in the Roman
Period/ Amateurism and Professionalism/ Nationalism
and Internationalism/ Our Ideal and the Reality.
As the author, Stephen Miller, explains in the
"Introduction": "A definition of -arete- would
include virtue, skill, prowess, pride, excellence,
valor, and nobility, but these words, whether taken
individually or collectively, do not [completely]
fulfill the meaning of -arete-." *** "...the word
-arete- still carries with it a notion of ephemeral
excellence and of transient triumph that make its
translation an exceedingly risky business."
In any particular chapter, the sources cited
may include: Pausanias (author of the famous Guide
Book to Greece), statue inscriptions, Athenaeus
(author of the multi-volume -Deipnosophists-,
Scholars at Dinner), Diodorus Siculus, poetic
excerpts from the -Greek Anthology-, Plutarch,
the ancient poet Pindar, Plato's dialogues, Aristotle's
treatises, as well as many other Greek and Roman
sources.
The title which I chose for this review comes from
the chapter titled "The Events at a Competition"
and shows both the striving for excellence,
and the transience of the accomplishment (if
not the fame). The 3 excerpts concern the
athlete Phayllos of Kroton, who was a pentahlete.
Some of the ancient writers thought the pentathlete
was the physically most perfect and beautiful
of the athletic competitors. The excerpts come
from "The Suda", "a lexicon compiled toward the end
of the 10th century after Christ and based upon a
variety of earlier material" [Miller]. As "The
Suda" says: "Beyond the dug-up area": beyond
measure. A metaphor from the pentathlon [jumping
pit]. It is said to come from the pentathlete Phayllos
of Kroton who, when the skammata used to be 50 feet,
first exceeded them with his jumps, as the epigram
on his statue says: 'Five and fifty feet flew Phayllos'."
The transience and the agony of ancient competitions,
for they were even more brutal in some physical
aspects than any modern events, come in the 3rd
excerpt: "'To jump beyond the dug-up area': with
reference to doing something hyperbolically, because
Phayllos jumped more than 50 feet and tore up his
leg."
-- Robert Kilgore.

The Argive Heraion, by Christopher Pfaff, is excellent because the detail is quite comprehensive. The author not only describes the general appearance of the temple, but even provides various cross-sections of such temple design as the tiles of the roof of the temple! It's a beautifully presented book, and I cannot wait for Part 2 which I believe is due for completion in 2008!

This study on the transition between the Middle Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age at Argolid, is complete. Soren Dietz has done an exhaustive enquiry of material from Asine, Mycenai, Argos, Prosymna and Miloi creating a more detailed sequel of style to the already existing one. Moreover, all the burial contexts are discussed and dated thoroughly. As a result the hole period is divided to subperiods, more accurate than before and more detailed (for example MHII Late,MHII Final, MHIIIA and MHIIIB). One more example Dietz's good work is that he adopts the "high chronology" for the Aegaean Bronze Age, dating the Thera eruption at c. 1645 B.C. consequently reforming all the existing middle helladic and early mycenaean dates. Anyone interested seriously in the Bronze Age of Greece should read this book!