“SPQR” but for ancient Greece
May 3, 2023 6:17 AM   Subscribe

I really enjoyed Mary Beard’s “SPQR,” particularly for the way it tried to explore behind the veil of myth, legend, and received wisdom that pervades Roman history. I’d love recommendations for similar works that cover ancient Greece. Thanks so much!
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell to Writing & Language (8 answers total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
It's a well over half-century old, and surely fusty by contemporary standards, but I found H.D.F Kitto's "The Greeks" very engaging and readable.
posted by bendybendy at 8:54 AM on May 3, 2023


I don't think they are as academic as Beard, but you could try Philip Matyszak's Ancient Athens on Five Drachmas a Day and A Year in the Life of Ancient Greece.
posted by paduasoy at 9:26 AM on May 3, 2023


I thoroughly enjoyed Will Durant's The Life of Greece. For excellent blogging, you might also l like A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, if for no other reason than the author's detailed look at Sparta.
posted by jquinby at 10:06 AM on May 3, 2023 [2 favorites]


Freeman’s _Greek City-States_, probably after you’ve read the (more common) stuff concentrating on Athens and Sparta.
posted by clew at 11:19 AM on May 3, 2023


Kitto from me too, echoing bendybendy . The book was the source for all the philosophy in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The Greeks is a hymn to the apogee of western civilisation: supported by slaves dying in horrendous circumstances in silver-mines it must be said, but nevertheless it gives us, even 2.5 millennia later, some idea of how to live:

Their ideal was not a specifically knightly idea, like Chivalry or Love; they called it aretê - another typically Greek word. When we meet it in Plato we translate it 'Virtue' and consequently miss the all the flavour of it. 'Virtue', at least in modern English, is almost entirely a moral word; aretê on the other hand is used indifferently in all the categories and means simply excellence. It may be limited of course by its context; the aretê of a race-horse is speed, of a cart-horse strength. If it used, in a general context, of a man it will connote excellence in the ways in which a man can be excellent - morally, intellectually, physically, practically.

Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send, and he can both build and sail a boat, drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a young braggeart at throwing the discus, challenge the Pheaceian youth at boxing, wrestling or running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and be moved to tears by a song. He is in fact an excellent all rounder; he has surpassing aretê.


Even in any translation try Xenophon's Anabasis. It is a great going-up-and-coming-back adventure story: predating LOTR by 2,300 years.

The Hot Gates, a short essay by William Golding inspired me to go to Thermopylae and pick two bay-leaves from the little hill where Leonidas pegged out.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:08 PM on May 3, 2023 [2 favorites]


I think Thomas Martin's Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times, updated in 2000, may be close to what you're asking for. It's detailed but concise and covers a lot of ground, probably a bit more dry than I would have liked but definitely not afraid to dig deeper into the myths of the period, and to explore what we can and can't know for sure about Greek history.

I'm just an interested layperson but found Martin's book to be a great overview and jumping-off point that started me on a nice reading binge about ancient Greek culture.
posted by mediareport at 5:08 PM on May 3, 2023 [2 favorites]


You can sample most of the first 90 pages of Martin's book at Google Books.
posted by mediareport at 5:13 PM on May 3, 2023


Looks like there's a 2nd edition "updated throughout" from 2013.
posted by mediareport at 7:12 AM on May 4, 2023


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