Not as excited about Ancient Greek history. Why?

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

While my presence on this board for some months now shows that I do indeed like roman history very much I have chosen to become a specialist of the Greek world. Why ? Because Greece is an area which was ( and still is ) very poor agriculturally, did not support a very large population ( for example Athens never reached the million inhabitants before the 19th or even the 20th century ) and yet it produced so many innovations in the real of the art, of the mind, of the actions too. The Greeks were exceptional painters from the minoan time onward, marvelous sculptors since at least the archaic period if not before, wonderful metal workers be it during the mycenian period or later, incomparable thinkers exploring ways which had never been contemplated before in politics, ethics, general philosophy, theology or sciences. They built structures which survived for centuries, even millenniums, without loosing the power of their original design despite earthquakes, explosions, and the general degradations caused by the passing time. Names stand out of their history, be they Pisistrate or Pericl

[Gladius Hispaniensis]

Do recall, however, that the mortality rate of the gladiatorial combats was roughly 10%

That's an intriguing little tidbit there MPC. May I ask where I could access that info?

[M. Porcius Cato]

Do recall, however, that the mortality rate of the gladiatorial combats was roughly 10%

That's an intriguing little tidbit there MPC. May I ask where I could access that info?

 

Grrr...I just finished a nice long reply with lots of references and <poof> it vanished.

 

From memory, Peter Green in the The Daily Mail reported some statistics from sources in Pompeii that led to a figure of 16.66%. Another scholarly article I found on JSTOR repeated the 1 in 10 figure. Another one pointed out that the figure depends on whether the contests were being held in Rome, where they could afford to have more professional gladiators killed.

 

Another important statistic derived from Roman price-controls on gladiators: a top-class gladiator cost 15,000 sesterces, which was about 15x the average Roman wage. Clearly, these guys weren't someone you wanted to slaughter wholesale.

 

Also, I looked up statistics on death in childbirth (see Wikipedia on 'maternal mortality,' which death of a mother within 42 days of giving birth). In Africa today, it's 1 in 16. Also, Jo Ann Shelton reports a surprising number of deaths from childbirth in the family of Pliny, who had access to the best health care in the ancient world. Given this, it's probably a fair guess that a mother was as likely to die in childbirth as was a gladiator in his next bout.

[DecimusCaesar]

I have an interest in ancient Greece, although it certainly isn't as strong as my interest in Rome. I think one of the main reasons for this is that Greek history is too incomplete. We know quite a bit about Athens and Sparta, less of Corinth and Thebes, while our knowledge of other city-states are very bare. The further back we go - to Crete and Mycenae - the less there is to see.

 

Another problem is the lack of primary sources. We might have Thucydides, Xenophon and Herodotus, but many of Greece's most interesting periods are inadequately covered. Take Alexander for instance - everything we know about him was written centuries after his death, usually by Romans like Arrian and Quintus Curtius Rufus. As a result, the struggles of the Greeks seem more distant.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

Evidence do exist for many things that are not reported in the texts of the great writers that make greek history less obscure and sometime it can in fact be studied more in dept than it's roman counterpart. Last year our main seminar on greek history was about the history of eastern Crete from the archaic to the roman period and while we had less than 25 useful classical texts on the towns of the area we were able to study the details of the negotiations between the cities and the shifts in trading roads and power during at least 500 years. True we had to translate the dorian dialect ourselve and work directly in the Inscriptiones Creticae of Guarducci in order to access the epigraphic source but it was a rewarding work. So the excuse that greek history is less attiring due to our lack of knowledge is rather a false argument.

 

The trouble is that this work is often disseminated in small publications or german books which were never translated ( be it in French or in English ) and that the knowledge is thus not well disseminated, but it does exist.

[Ursus]

Well, I suppose when one studies one culture, one has to have some passing familiarity with the other culture, as the two were entwined historically (and academically, in modern times). One merely chooses a preference between the two, if one so chooses at all.

 

For what it's worth, I think Roman political acumen, combined with Greek aesthetics (to which I might also add Egyptian theology) work for me as a powerful cultural artifice.

[Kosmo]

I like very much greek history. To name some things I would always like to read about: Arhaic Greece with the birth of polis and colonization, history of colonies and their relations with neighbours including "civilisation" of large parts of Europe while absorbing and spreading teachings from Middle East, Rhodos, the hellenistic kingdoms especially that of Lysimach and the seleucids, integration of the polis in the roman world, greek adventures in Central Asia, India and the Red Sea region, the kingdom of Bosphorus.

 

Greek history it's much more complicated then roman history. Rome was one political unit with a very stable order. The greek world was always one of division, of change and of constant fighting inside and outside of each polis/kingdom/league. It's confusing and by repetition becames boring. To follow closely in a narative the political history of the Greek world would be a nightmare. Roman history it's a perfect story and it's often told as a story.

[Pantagathus]

But the main problem is that many peoples think they can find it all in the roman culture which adapted so much greek material that to the untrained eye it seems to be the same. Also their is the difficulty of accessing the sources, for reading greek is much harder than reading latin and also because much is written not in texts but in stone on stelae found all over the greek area.

 

Also the achievements of some later peoples, especially Alexander of Macedon, are like walls behind which the greek culture is hidden from view. And of course the fact that Rome came to dominate most of western Europe does also explain a greater interest in the city of the Caesars than in the cities of the pusillanimous Greeks.

 

So they are passionate peoples studying the Greek world, but they are like the subject they study hidden behind the others...

Bryaxis, that is an extremely thoughtful and well articulated reply and one that speaks for my personal opinion quite closely.

[M. Porcius Cato]

If it's true that there are periods of Greek history as exciting as any Roman period, then it's also true that there's a tremendous opportunity for someone to write a fantastic new book or article.

 

This whole discussion also reminded me of a period in Greek history that I would put next to the late Roman republic in terms of excitement and historical importance--the life and times of Socrates, culminating in his trial and death.

[Pantagathus]

If it's true that there are periods of Greek history as exciting as any Roman period, then it's also true that there's a tremendous opportunity for someone to write a fantastic new book or article.

There definitely is and I plan to tackle it at some point in earnest. It might just have to be a long article but I'd love to flesh out enough to approach book length. However, not much has changed since this was written in 1886 except for better archaeological understanding to support a hypothesis:

 

 

[sonic]

For myself, part of the difficulty lies in what people mean by 'Greek'. I would love to learn more about the smaller poleis (have I remembered that correctly?), and the earlier periods of Greek history. Furthermore, don't forget that 'The Greeks' colonised large parts of the Mediterranean littoral, so we should also include 'Greek' cities outside Greece - I would love to learn more about Cumae in Italy, for example.

 

Yet the majority of books on these subjects appear to be in German. In English, the subject of 'Greece' is dominated by books on Sparta and Athens, the influence of which have probably been overrated as a result. I can accept that in her (brief) heyday, Athens was a cultural beacon for the world, and that Sparta was likewise a model for the ultimate military machine, but the period of their respective domination was relatively brief.

 

The rest of the Greek world has, as a result, been largely ignored by English writers. My main interest is military history, and so the Spartan Warriors and the policy of Pericles dominate all. What is needed is a series of translations of the German (and possibly other?) texts into English to make them available for us poor monolinguistic suckers, and a series in English on cities other than the big two. Only in that way will the Greeks begin to exert a fascination that is comparitve to their cultural influence.

[Pantagathus]

I would love to learn more about Cumae in Italy, for example.

It's a great example. Cumae (+ Pithekoussai) was the transmission point of orientalizing influences (alphabet, art, socio-religious institutions, etc...) into Etruria and Latinum in the Archaic causing a critical mass to be reached that laid the foundation of the greatest Empire ever known.

 

However, there is barely a single book in print on the history of the city by itself; usually it's only found worthy of footnotes or small chapters in compilations. Of the less than handful ever written or translated into english on the city, the newest was published almost 10 years ago and before that almost 40 years ago. The rest were either publish before the 1920's or are reprints of books written before the 1920's. (and there are only 1 or 2 of those that I've found)

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

I would love to learn more about Cumae in Italy, for example.

It's a great example. Cumae (+ Pithekoussai) was the transmission point of orientalizing influences (alphabet, art, socio-religious institutions, etc...) into Etruria and Latinum in the Archaic causing a critical mass to be reached that laid the foundation of the greatest Empire ever known.

 

However, there is barely a single book in print on the history of the city by itself; usually it's only found worthy of footnotes or small chapters in compilations. Of the less than handful ever written or translated into english on the city, the newest was published almost 10 years ago and before that almost 40 years ago. The rest were either publish before the 1920's or are reprints of books written before the 1920's. (and there are only 1 or 2 of those that I've found)

It is a fact that not much as been written in books on the town ( or greek cities in the west ) in English, and even in other languages it is not always much. But it is due to the fact that the english speaking world as not taken as much interest in this as in other topics, the italians doing a good part of the work themselve. Thus you have to learn to read in other languages than english in order to access the sources and go to your local universitary libraries to get access to the specialized reviews ( the yearly congress "Magna Graecia" held at Tarento and regularily published comes to my mind, the volumes are mainly but not exclusively in italian ). Also for those who want to learn more about the cities of southern italy the topographical bibliography collection is a good way to find quickly all the references to a town in both ancient and modern literature.

[Bryaxis Hecatee]

But the main problem is that many peoples think they can find it all in the roman culture which adapted so much greek material that to the untrained eye it seems to be the same. Also their is the difficulty of accessing the sources, for reading greek is much harder than reading latin and also because much is written not in texts but in stone on stelae found all over the greek area.

 

Also the achievements of some later peoples, especially Alexander of Macedon, are like walls behind which the greek culture is hidden from view. And of course the fact that Rome came to dominate most of western Europe does also explain a greater interest in the city of the Caesars than in the cities of the pusillanimous Greeks.

 

So they are passionate peoples studying the Greek world, but they are like the subject they study hidden behind the others...

Bryaxis, that is an extremely thoughtful and well articulated reply and one that speaks for my personal opinion quite closely.

Thank you for your kind words. By the way do you know of any UNRV like for the greek world ?

[Pantagathus]

Thank you for your kind words. By the way do you know of any UNRV like for the greek world ?

You're welcome & no I don't know of one, I guess the few of us who like the subject enough will just have to post more in the Hellenic folder here at UNRV!