Spartan Reflections

Spartan Reflections
Author: Paul Cartledge
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 300
Release: 2003-07-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780520231245

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"This is a book that scholars will read with pleasure, and a book from which advanced undergraduates and graduates will gain a sense of what Sparta was like as a culture, and (just as important) the nature and state of play of contemporary Spartan studies. And it will be accessible for the well informed lay reader as well."—Josiah Ober, author of Political Dissent in Democratic Athens "Paul Cartledge's aim, in this powerful collection of essays, is to shed light in dark places, to demythicize... Cartledge is shrewd, realistic, and far from starry-eyed. Over a quarter-century's exhaustive research, now updated, has gone into these densely documented and tightly argued essays. These Spartans, in the last resort, are exploitative slave-drivers, obsessed with keeping their serfs down (by annually killing off any resisters, among other things)... Modern idealizers of cold baths, black broth, mindless discipline and long route marches should read this book and, hopefully, have second thoughts."—Peter Green, author of Alexander to Actium

The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika

The Landmark Xenophon's Hellenika
Author: Robert B. Strassler
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 673
Release: 2010-12-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1400034760

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From the editor of the widely praised The Landmark Thucydides and The Landmark Herodotus, here is a new edition of Xenophon’s Hellenika, the primary source for the events of the final seven years and aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. Hellenika covers the years between 411 and 362 B.C.E., a particularly dramatic period during which the alliances among Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Persia were in constant flux. Together with the volumes of Herodotus and Thucydides, it completes an ancient narrative of the military and political history of classical Greece. Xenophon was an Athenian who participated in the expedition of Cyrus the Younger against Cyrus’ brother, the Perisan King Artaxerces II. Later Xenophon joined the Spartan army and hence was exiled from Athens. In addition to the Hellenika, a number of his essays have survived, including one on his memories of his teacher, Socrates. Beautifully illustrated, heavily annotated, and filled with detailed, clear maps, this edition gives us a new, authoritative, and completely accessible translation by John Marincola, an comprehensive introduction by David Thomas, sixteen appendices written by leading classics scholars, and an extensive timeline/chronology to clarify this otherwise confusing period. Unlike any other edition of the Hellenika, it also includes the relevant texts of Diodorus Siculus and the Oxyrhynchus Historian, with explanatory footnotes and a table that correlates passages of the three works, which is perhaps crucial to an assessment of Xenophon’s reliability and quality as a historian. Like the two Landmark editions that precede it, The Landmark Xenophon’s Hellenika is the most readable and comprehensive edition available of an essential history.

Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta

Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta
Author: Paul Cartledge
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Total Pages: 528
Release: 1987
Genre: History
ISBN:

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An account of a critical period of Greek history, focusing on a single career.

Xenophon and Sparta

Xenophon and Sparta
Author: Anton Powell
Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
Total Pages: 395
Release: 2020-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1910589985

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Xenophon has for long, and understandably, enjoyed a privileged position as a reliable source on Sparta. Commander of a grand military expedition of Sparta's devising, and a dependent of Sparta's influential king Agesilaos, Xenophon knew Sparta from the inside, and - as himself an Athenian in exile - was well placed to comment on Sparta's difference. The simplicity of his Greek style has a perfume of honesty. And yet... Recent research has with increasing force called into doubt Xenophon's motives and truthfulness - especially as regards Sparta. Analysis of his Hellenica reveals much evasion and euphemism about Sparta's failings - complicated by occasional outbursts against the iniquity of Spartan imperialism. His euphemistic Constitution of the Lakedaimonians (itself containing such an outburst), and his near-hagiography of the dead Agesilaos, have variously evoked trust and suspicion in historians. This book, by a distinguished team of specialists in Spartan history, is the first of a short series from CPW, approaching Spartan reality by way of close analysis of our main contemporary Greek sources: their access, their biases, the literary structure and the genre of their works.

Battle Descriptions as Literary Texts

Battle Descriptions as Literary Texts
Author: Johanna Luggin
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2020-02-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 3658278595

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Battle descriptions are usually seen as the raw material of the military historian, who uses them to explain why generals won or lost a given battle. This volume does not aim to contribute to this discussion; it rather approaches battle descriptions as literary texts that interact with the expectations of a given audience. Therefore literary traditions in structure, vocabulary and topics of battle descriptions should be explored. The transgression of genre-borders – also literary and fictional texts are included – and a broad comparative approach, combining evidence from the third millennium BC up to the 20th century AD, makes cultural specifics and differences more easily perceivable. Contents With contributions by Marcos Such-Guttiérrez, Pavel Čech, Hilmar Klinkott, Wolfgang Oswald, Kai Ruffing, Oliver Stoll, Martin M. Bauer, Reinhold Bichler, Christian Mileta, Simon Lentzsch, Sven Günther, Dennis Pulina, Johanna Luggin, Sonjar Koroliov, Magdalena Gronau and Martin Gronau. The Editors Dr. Johanna Luggin is a post-doc researcher in the ERC-funded project “NOSCEMUS – Nova Scientia: Early Modern Science and Latin” in Innsbruck, Austria. Dr. Sebastian Fink is a postdoctoral researcher at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence “Changes in Sacred Texts and Traditions”.

Sparta and Lakonia

Sparta and Lakonia
Author: Paul Cartledge
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 380
Release: 2013-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1135864551

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In this fully revised and updated edition of his groundbreaking study, Paul Cartledge uncovers the realities behind the potent myth of Sparta. The book explores both the city-state of Sparta and the territory of Lakonia which it unified and exploited. Combining the more traditional written sources with archaeological and environmental perspectives, its coverage extends from the apogee of Mycenaean culture, to Sparta's crucial defeat at the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC.

Aegean Greece in the Fourth Century BC

Aegean Greece in the Fourth Century BC
Author: John Buckler
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 576
Release: 2003-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047400100

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This book covers the political, diplomatic, and military history of the Aegean Greeks of the fourth century BC. It includes their power struggles, the Persian involvement in their affairs, and the ultimate Macedonian triumph over Greece.

Sparta

Sparta
Author: Stephen Hodkinson
Publisher: Classical Press of Wales
Total Pages: 534
Release: 2009-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1910589330

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Both in antiquity and in modern scholarship, classical Sparta has typically been viewed as an exceptional society, different in many respects from other Greek city-states. This view has recently come under challenge from revisionist historians, led by Stephen Hodkinson. This is the first book devoted explicitly to this lively historical controversy. Historians from Britain, Europe and the USA present different sides of the argument, using a variety of comparative approaches. The focus includes kingship and hegemonic structures, education and commensality, religious institutions and practice, helotage and ethnography. The volume concludes with a wide-ranging debate between Hodkinson and Mogens Herman Hansen (Director of the Copenhagen Polis Centre), on the overall question of whether Sparta was a normal or an exceptional polis.

Sparta: Unfit for Empire

Sparta: Unfit for Empire
Author: Godfrey Hutchinson
Publisher: Frontline Books
Total Pages: 329
Release: 2014-11-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1848322224

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The end of the Peloponnesian War saw Sparta emerge as the dominant power in the Greek world. Had she used this position wisely her hegemony might have been secure. As it was, she embarked on actions that her former allies, Thebes and Korinth, refused to support. The rise of Thebes as a threatening power to Sparta's control of Greece was largely the result of the brilliant exploits of Epaminondas and Pelopidas whose obvious examination of Spartan tactics allowed them to provide counters to them. ??While noting the political issues, Godfrey Hutchinson's focus is upon the strategic and tactical elements of warfare in a period almost wholly coinciding with the reign of the brilliant commander, Agesilaos, one of the joint kings of Sparta, who, astonishingly, campaigned successfully into his eighties.

Sparta's Kings

Sparta's Kings
Author: John Carr
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2012-12-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1783376341

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In ancient Greece, Sparta was unique in having a dual kingship two kings from different clans, the Agiads and the Eurypontids, reigning simultaneously. The institution was already well-developed by the 8th century BC, when Theopompos of the Eurypontid clan emerges as the first recorded Spartan king. At least fifty-seven men held office as Spartan king between Theopompos and the Agiad Kleomenes III who died in 222 BC. For almost all this period the Spartan kingship was primarily a military office, and thus the kings embody much of the military history of Sparta. Wherever Spartas main battles took place, there the kings were. Naturally, the character of the particular king would often determine the outcome of a battle or campaign. Leonidas I at Thermopylai was one example. At the other end of the scale the young and unwar-like Pleistoanax twice declined an encounter with the Athenians when sent against that city.John Carr offers a chronological account of the kings and their accomplishments (or lack thereof), from the founding Herakleidai clan to Kleomenes III and his successor, the dictator Nabis, and the Roman conquest in the middle of the 2nd century BC. The book is not intended to be a complete history of Sparta. It will be a human interest and war story, focusing attention on the kings personal qualities as well as their (or their generals) military accomplishments and, where applicable, their politics as well.