Introduction

The guiding principle of this textbook is that students should not as a matter of course be asked to take statements on faith. Even a textbook aimed at undergraduates should always make the evidence available - the student may then check it and concur with the author’s use, or, just possibly, reject the author’s opinion and advance another. For reasons of space, exhaustive cataloging of the evidence was rarely possible, but the author hopes that in most cases sufficient evidence has been cited so that no assertion hangs in the air. When more than one reference is given, as a general rule the more important one is listed first - this is especially true when there are two parallel narratives (e. g., Xenophon and Diodorus from 411 to 362 BC), both of which need to be consulted. The useful abbreviation “cf.” - confer, “compare” - often serves to direct the student to a source which is at odds with the one followed in the text. Occasionally, for reasons of space a reference is given, but the accompanying argument suppressed in the hope that the instructor can supply it readily enough if necessary. Where something is not attested directly, the author has indicated this together with the nature of the argument used to establish the conclusion - the reader, of course, is free to disagree.

For the standard literary authors, many translations exist, and most will serve the student’s purpose most of the time. But even here the student may when it becomes necessary require assistance from the instructor with technically precise translation - the philologically inclined translator all too often fails to observe historically significant technicalities (for example, at Thuc. I 139,1 it is “embassies went back and forth” instead of, for example, the Penguin translation’s “they sent another embassy”; at Thuc. I 100,1 it is “also after these events (i. e., the fighting at Carystus)” instead of the Penguin translation’s “next”). In the case of inscriptions, papyri, and other less easily accessible texts, reference has been made, whenever possible, to existing collections of translations, preferably those with good notes. The editors and authors of the volumes from the series Translated Documents of Greece and Rome have rendered the student a service of incalculable value. All the same they could not translate every useful text, so the student, if the matter is important, may simply have to ask the instructor for assistance - many sources have never been translated, and some, such as Suidas, probably never will be.

One of the most important reference tools for the historian is Felix Jacoby’s monumental collection of the fragmentary Greek historians, Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker or FGrHist. Since the texts in this collection are steadily being translated and made available on-line under the title Brill’s New Jacoby, the references to it are simply given in the hope that all those fragments either are or soon will be fully available in translation. Each historian receives a number, and then the surviving testimonia (statements about the historian) and fragments (direct quotations from or paraphrases of the historian’s work) are numbered as well. For the most part the numeration has remained the same across both editions so an older book’s reference to FGrHist 70, T. 24 or Fr. 129 will correspond exactly to BNJ 70, T. 24 or Fr. 129. In Brill’s New Jacoby there is commentary on each testimonium and fragment.

It is one thing for the student to have access to the evidence; it is another to interpret it. Every category of ancient evidence and indeed every ancient historian such as Herodotus or Xenophon presents the modern historian with certain problems. A full discussion of all of these is an impracticality in a textbook of this size. All the same, some narrative sources are more fundamental than others for the simple reason that long sections of any account of Greek history are based primarily on them - e. g., the Persian Wars and their prehistory (chapters 9 and 10) on Herodotus. For the major prose authors - Herodotus, Thucydides, Diodorus, Xenophon, Arrian, and Polybius - a basic guide to some of the payoffs and pitfalls is provided in the relevant chapters; a few more such guides have very selectively been included (e. g., Plutarch).

The nonliterary evidence (inscriptions, papyri, coins, etc.) presents special problems. Where practicable, basic remarks on the interpretation of such evidence (e. g., Box 2.1 on the Linear B tablets) have been included, but for the most part the student will here have to rely on the notes in standard collections as well as on the guidance of instructors. Finally, a certain amount of “extracanonical” material is used in this textbook. Some of this (e. g., I and II Maccabees) should not give the classicist much pause, but others (e. g., an Akkadian letter of Suppiluliumas II or the Old Persian inscriptions) may. In these cases the author has striven to be as clear and as accurate as possible within the limitations imposed by the need to conserve space.

Next, scholarship on ancient Greece is not static. A textbook written in 1900 will have different “facts” from one written in 2000. For example, the descriptions of the battles of Cyzicus (410), Notium (406), Arginussae (406), and Aegospotami (405) in this textbook differ starkly from those in older ones. In 1900, the Lacedaemonians did not offer terms of peace to the Athenians after the Battle of Cyzicus; now they do. New evidence emerges; overlooked evidence is finally seen; once disparaged evidence is re-evaluated; and old opinions are abandoned and new interpretations advanced - rightly or wrongly. Some issues will probably always remain controversial. Every scholar, moreover, has some views which the scholarly community as a whole does not (yet?) share. The present author is no exception; but wherever his opinion differs starkly from that of his colleagues, he has noted it - and he has tried to present the reasoning and the evidence behind his view. Each reader is free to disagree.

At the end of each chapter, a basic and highly selective bibliography for further reading is given. Emphasis is placed on fundamental or newer discussions, and the following warning always applies: the newer works are not necessarily better and often presuppose an understanding of the older ones anyway. These bibliographies are mostly geared to the student’s need for finding out more about a specific topic and are meant as a starting point only. Reasons of space precluded exhaustive listing of every work consulted by the author (however much guilt the author feels at this, long lists of highly specialized articles would not have served any real purpose). Items in the Further Reading may present different opinions from the ones advanced in this book - such is the nature of scholarship; and the author hopes that students will be encouraged by such disagreement to consider issues independently and to form their own conclusions.

At the end of each chapter there also stand some questions for review. These are meant solely as aids to students wishing to note down the salient points of a given chapter. The question for further study, on the other hand, invites the student to think critically about an aspect of the chapter - occasionally even to argue against the opinion which the author has advanced.

The book opens with a chapter on the geography of Greece and contains at the end a glossary and several tables of rulers. The chapter on geography need not serve as much more than a resource to which students may be referred as it becomes necessary; and students may well use it in this way on their own when a book on their reading list mentions the “Hypocnemidian Locrians” or the “Thessalian Perioeci.” Some courses in Greek History will, however, include a lecture on the geographical setting of Greek history, and the author hopes that this chapter will prove itself suitable to that purpose also.

The glossary is designed to be a quick reference for basic information. For reasons of space it could not be encyclopedic in scope. All terms included in the glossary stand in boldface upon their first appearance in the text. I have included in the glossary every author mentioned in the text; in the case of the fragmentary historians, the glossary entry also contains the BNJ number. For other fragmentary authors, when students might be supposed to have problems in finding a translation, they are directed to one (usually the Loeb as the most readily available) if one exists. Toponyms, on the other hand, I have as a rule excluded from the glossary, though I have bent the rule when I thought that students might need to know more about the place than what they might ascertain from a map.

Particularly in the Hellenistic Age, the number of rulers whom one has to keep track of becomes little short of overwhelming, especially since names such as Ptolemy and Antiochus were repeatedly reused. For this reason a number of tables of rulers have been included at the back of the book as well; I have also added tables for the kings of Sparta and of Persia.

Here, at the end, a few remarks on the transliteration of Greek works and on the use of typefaces may be in order. As a general rule, where a standard English form of a proper name exists, I have retained it - Athens, Crete, Corsica, and Carthage instead of Athenai, Kreta, Kurno, and Karchedon. I have certainly not invented forms such as “Korsika.” Otherwise I have applied the traditional Latin system for the proper names - Herodotus, Thucydides, Aeschylus instead of Herodotos, Thoukudides, Aiskhulos - with a few mostly traditional deviations such as Solon instead of Solo or Peisistratus instead of Pisistratus. The very few additional departures - for example, Knosos with one medial “s” - will, I hope, be forgiven me. Complete consistency is unobtainable in any case. Where, however, a Greek term is required in the text, I do transliterate directly and print it in italics (e. g., Neodamodeis). Since such Greek terms inevitably stand in the glossary, on their first appearance they are both boldface and italic (e. g., Neodamodeis).

Rereading the book has made the author painfully aware of everything which he has left out. He would have dearly loved to include additional historiographical sections (for example, on Timaeus of Tauromenium or the Old Oligarch), more material on Greek law (especially the Law Code of Gortyn), more material on treaties and interstate relations, much more demography and far more institutional history especially of neglected corners of the Greek world (the Cyrenaean and Cyprian kings; the constitution of the Boeotian League; various oligarchies). There was limited space to give over to military developments, and coverage of one aspect (the Greek heavily armed infantryman or the Macedonian infantryman) meant neglect of another (the light-armed infantryman in the fourth century or the Macedonian cavalry respectively) as well as of naval developments almost completely. The decision to discuss Rhodes and Athens as surviving city-states in the Hellenistic world meant that Heracleia Pontica (as well as its chronicle’s compiler, Memnon) would not be discussed.

Still, the author hopes that the truly important matters have received sufficient shrift; and that much of the traditional cultural material from ancient history to which, say, a modern film or novel might without hesitation refer (e. g., Leonidas’ 300 Spartiates at Thermopylae, Alexander’s horse that was afraid of his shadow, the Colossus of Rhodes) has at least been mentioned somewhere along the way.