Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

by Edith Hall

Overview

"Wonderful…a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours." —Natalie Haynes, Independent

The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. Yet this accomplished people never formed a single unified social or political identity. In Introducing the Ancient Greeks, acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall offers a bold synthesis of the full 2,000 years of Hellenic history to show how the ancient Greeks were the right people, at the right time, to take up the baton of human progress. Hall portrays a uniquely rebellious, inquisitive, individualistic people whose ideas and creations continue to enthrall thinkers centuries after the Greek world was conquered by Rome. These are the Greeks as you’ve never seen them before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393351163
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/13/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	279,296
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Edith Hall is one of Britain’s foremost classicists, having held posts at the universities of Cambridge, Durham, Reading, and Oxford. She is the author and editor of more than a dozen works and now teaches at King’s College London.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xix

Maps xx

Timeline xxv

Introduction: Ten Characteristics of the Ancient Greeks 1

1 Seafaring Mycenaeans 29

2 The Creation of Greece 51

3 Frogs and Dolphins Round the Pond 75

4 Inquiring Ionians 101

5 The Open Society of Athens 127

6 Spartan Inscrutability 159

7 The Rivalrous Macedonians 181

8 God-Kings and Libraries 205

9 Greek Minds and Roman Power 229

10 Pagan Greeks and Christians 253

A Note on Sources 277

Suggestions for Further Reading 279

Index 289

Editorial Reviews

"Edith Hall’s characteristically original approach to the world of classical antiquity is on full display in this introductory survey of the ancient Greeks and their enduring accomplishments."

Froma Zeitlin

"Introducing the Ancient Greeks is informative and inspiring. With deep expertise and unabashed enthusiasm, Edith Hall surveys the whole history of the ancient Greeks and pinpoints the shared traits that explain their enduring achievements."

Sheila Murnaghan

"Penetrating…Ms. Hall is an engaging writer and an acute scholar."

Wall Street Journal - James Romm

04/14/2014
British classicist Hall (The Return of Ulysses) has composed a panorama of two millennia of Hellenic history, depicting Greeks as sea lovers who “felt trapped when they were far inland.” Starting with the Minoan and Mycenaean thalassocracies (a political system based on sea domination), Hall embarks on an odyssey toward the four long poems of Homer and Hesiod that offer “unforgettable scenes of fighting, sailing, and farming,” pausing to appreciate the three essential crops—“grains, vines, and olives”—at the heart of Greek identity. The meandering tour features a Who’s Who of Greek thinkers: scientists Thales and Anaximander; Heraclitus, first philosopher; Xenophanes of Colophon, “first skeptic”; Parmenides, founder of ontology; Zeno and his paradoxes; atomic theorist Democritus; comparative anthropologist Hecataeus; and Herodotus, historian and “Father of European Prose.” Greece’s “apex of creativity” in democratic Athens during the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. segues to the marching Argeads of Macedonia under Alexander the Great, who bequeathed his world empire “to the strongest.” Hall limns how the Greeks “colonized the minds of their Roman masters,” since “cultural hegemony has more lasting effects than political dominance.” The prose is fluid and lambent, and though chapters are lengthy, readers will welcome the volume’s accessibility. Maps & illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"What accounts for the glory that was Greece? In this vivacious and learned book, Edith Hall distills the essence of Hellenic culture to discover the secrets of its success and stamina. Filled with striking anecdotes and little-known facts, this book will delight any student of the ancient Greek world."

Adrienne Mayor

"A hearty, delightful voyage through 2,000 years of Greek history, written with wit and verve and deep insight."

Cleveland.com - Mark Gamin

"In Edith Hall’s new and groundbreaking study of ancient Greek culture, society, and mentality over a millennium and more, from Agamemnon to Constantine, theater takes its due place among the Greeks’ manifold memorable and pioneering achievements. Professor Hall acutely identifies and brilliantly explores ten defining qualities that together explain why we simply cannot do without the ancient Greeks."

Paul Cartledge

2014-03-29
British classicist Hall (Greek Tragedy, 2010, etc.) defines 10 characteristics that unified ancient Greek culture. The author focuses on an individual characteristic during a particular historical period: For example, the Mycenaeans, whose heroes and wars are the subjects of Greek culture's foundational epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, were, like all the Greeks who followed, seafarers. The Greeks' inherent suspicion of authority shaped their ethnic identity, which began to cohere in the eighth century B. C. around the idea that each free man had equal rights and privileges. (Hall is matter-of-fact about the miserable position of women in ancient Greece but is given to delightfully tart asides such as, "Medea [in Euripides' tragedy] is the Athenian husband's worst nightmare realized.") Their inquiring natures sparked the births of natural science and philosophy as intellectual disciplines in the sixth century B. C. Their insatiable competitiveness led Alexander the Great to conquer most of the known world but kept him from naming an heir and prevented his warring successors from presenting a united front against the rising threat of Rome. The Greeks' love of excellence and addiction to pleasure are among the other traits Hall explores. It's a clever way to organize 2,000 years of history, albeit slightly schematic—an impression reinforced by her tendency to frequently recap the 10 characteristics and a weakness for such this-will-be-on-the-test phrases as, "in the next chapter we ask" or "their achievements form the subject matter of this chapter." These mildly annoying academic mannerisms are trivial in comparison to Hall's wonderfully rich portrait of Greek culture's evolution and underlying continuity from the Bronze Age to the triumph of Christianity. Maintaining a judicious neutrality in the modern scholarly wars, the author acknowledges that the Greeks adopted many of their Near Eastern neighbors' best ideas and practices yet praises them for the unique "cluster of brilliant qualities" not found elsewhere in the ancient world. An excellent survey for general readers, refreshingly opinionated without neglecting to give conventional wisdom its due.

Kirkus Reviews