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fully his decision to abandon the state as a useful concept (pp. 34-6) and not to explore its implications with greater sensitivity. He rushes on too quickly without having established suffi ciently what will remain a challenging, if not insupportable, proposition for many scholars. It is a pity that I. even passes over examining the structural qualities of these associations as organisations (cf. pp. 31-2), and thus despite the abundant data that he adduces concerning them provides little sense of how a typical genos, for example, might have run its affairs in the fourth century. Lacking such analysis, not only does the social character of the groups, and thus their degree or character of solidarity, remain obscure, but the mechanics by which their leading members coordinated with elements of the state like demes can hardly be invoked to test I.'s principal thesis. We are left also to wonder at how these associations operated with regard to the principal legislative bodies of the polis, the Boule and Ecclesia, much less the courts (for which some entities appointed members to serve as advocates, synêgoroi; cf. pp. 113-14, 149), where relations might not always have been so cooperative or cordial. Consequently, on the matter of property and fi nance, I.'s treatment is perhaps least rewarding, and reveals all the more tellingly why it is necessary to distinguish clearly institutions of the state from private parties. Students of Attic law and the ancient economy, for one, will have much to ponder in I.'s claims that members of associations had collective legal responsibility, say, before euthynai conducted by the polis just as with regard to the disposition of property (pp. 152-79). But, again, I.'s mixing of state institutions with private ones bedevils his discussion of the properties in question: he struggles with the concept of that property which the Athenians labelled dêmosion and assumes that the private associations acted as managers of what can only have been land and money owned by the state properly speaking (pp. 179-83). Not only does I. disregard the clear fact that the state appointed numerous magistrates to manage the property and allocate funds or other resources accordingly, usually for particular cults or major festivals, but goes so far as to claim that the dêmosion was nothing more than an ensemble of the property held by various associations (pp. 183-5)-that is, private groups like genê and phratries. What I.'s generally impressive study so well illuminates is how extensively the multitude of private and state entities overlapped and paralleled each other's efforts to fund and perform a welter of religious rituals across Attica. As to how the Athenians utilised such complex and many-layered forms of community for so long, I.'s stimulating contribution will no doubt shape serious inquiry for much time to come.
In this book P. analyses the military organisation of Athens and a number of related social, economic and cultural issues. As pointed out in the preface, each chapter (except Chapter 3) expands, updates or summarises earlier publications from the author. In Chapter 1 P. convincingly locates the main reasons for Athens' fifth-century military 'revolution' in her large population, economic advantage and democratic constitution. In regard to the latter, P.'s intelligent and stimulating approach is based on recent statistical findings by political analysts, which show how modern democracies, while generally avoiding fighting each other, tend to wage wars as frequently as other forms of government and to perform better: in turn, ancient Athens provides solid comparative ground to test modern theorisations of democracy and its war-making policies. P. rejects the long-settled idea that democracy emerged from military participation, although he acknowledges that social reforms tied to (esp. naval) warfare facilitated the process. Chapter 2 analyses in detail Athens' four military 'corps' (Thuc. 2.13). P. explains how hoplites were recruited and organised by tribal affiliation, but only briefly addresses the presence of metics among their ranks (p. 52), as attested by Thuc. 2.13.7 and possibly by the non-citizens recorded on tribal casualty lists. Archers are treated as the only regular (non-tribal) light corps: P.'s analysis would have been further enriched by a proper account of the role of other light troops (whose importance is acknowledged, pp. 78-81), which were clearly distinguished from the archers (e.g. Thuc. 8.71.2). The interesting case of the cavalry, which was often regarded by ancient literature as a safer service and concerningly attached to anti-democratic sentiments, would have benefited from a more extensive discussion of the evidence provided, for example, by dedicated casualty lists (SEG 48.83, IG II 2 5221-2: see P. Low, 'The Monuments to the War Dead in Classical Athens', in P. Low, G. Oliver, P.J. Rhodes [edd.], Cultures of Commemoration [2012], pp. 13-39, at 18-19) and public dedications (IG I 3 511-12) on the peculiar status and identity of the corps. The fourth-century decline of the archers and the cavalry is addressed mainly in terms of economic and political issues: these were certainly relevant, but there were also other detrimental factors, such as poor leadership, motivation, training and physical shape (e.g. Xen. Mem. 3.3.3-4, 3.5.5-7; Hipp. 1.13-14; B. Keim, 'Xenophon's Hipparchikos and the Athenian Embrace of Citizen philotimia', Polis 35 [2018], 499-522). Lastly we find the 'sailors' or, more correctly, the navy, for which P. highlights the interactions of different roles and social classes. His argument about the navy being an unappealing corps for farmers (pp. 45-6) does not seem to consider that the fleet regularly used to embark plenty of infantry, which means that infantrymen too, not just rowers, were often destined on overseas campaigns. This chapter, the longest in the book and one of the most engaging, convincingly dismisses assumptions about Solonian classes rigidly regulating access to Classical Athens' armed forces. Chapter 3 discusses ancient comedy and the navy. P. adopts a comparative approach with tragedy, historiography and especially forensic oratory, as a reflection of widespread popular views. The chapter explains why hoplite-centred warfare figures only as a part of Aristophanes' depictions and that his positive acknowledgement of the navy is consistent with the arguments of the orators.
CLASS DETAILS Lecture Time: Wednesdays 4 to 6 pm. Dates: 24 July to 23 October, excluding 14 August ('the Ekka' Public Holiday) and 25 September (mid-semester break). Venue: Room E302 in the Forgan Smith Building (Building No. 1) ANCH2040 THE WORLD OF CLASSICAL ATHENS 2 1. INTRODUCING THE COURSE This second-year course of 3 contact hours per week explores the fascinating social and cultural history of classical Athens and the intriguing institutional history of this state's democracy and armed forces from the popular uprising of 508 BC to its occupation by the Macedonians in 322. Classical Athens was around 20 times larger than an average-sized polis or Greek city-state. In the fifth century it controlled an empire of more than 250 city-states and remained a major military power in the next century. This famous polis developed democracy to a far higher level than any other state before the nineteenth century AD and laid foundations for the visual arts, the literature and the sciences of the ancient and the modern worlds. This second-year course puts these extraordinary achievements into perspective by analysing the economy, social base, cultural beliefs and state institutions of democratic Athens in the classical period. The World of Classical Athens: Politics and Society goes beyond the history of events, battles, personalities and individual pieces of art in order to investigate the economy, the society, the culture and the institutions that made such things possible and that formed the 'social context' in which this state's playwrights, orators, visual artists and intellectuals produced their famous works. Therefore, the richly illustrated lectures of this second-year course consider the territory and natural resources of the classical Athenians and the scope and the organisation of their economic activity. In addition, they analyse the different status groups of Attic residents, and the institutional and conceptual divisions of the citizen body. There are dedicated classes on the place of women in classical Athens and the man-made parameters that constrained their female lives. The World of Classical Athens: Politics and Society investigates the social and the political beliefs of lower-class Athenians as well as the founding myths and the popular views of the state's history that gave them their sense of self and of distinction from 'barbarians' and other Greeks. It introduces students to all the major classes of evidence for the cultural history of classical Athens. Each of the tutorials focusses on a play, a speech, an inscription or a treatise of this illustrious citystate. This second-year course surveys the development of Athenian democracy from 508 to 322, and explores its political and military institutions and what the Athenian dēmos or people thought were the fundamental principles of their dēmokratia. Major themes of this course are the extent to which the democracy transformed the economic and religious practices and the social and gender relations that the classical Athenians had inherited from their archaic forebears and whether this new system of government contributed to their amazing economic, cultural and military achievements in the classical period. The World of Classical Athens: Politics and Society enables students to develop a deep understanding of an ancient state of ongoing world significance and the general knowledge which is essential for research into the language and the literature of the ancient Greeks. This second-year course serves as the solid foundation that equips students to study ancient Athens or Greek history more generally at third-year level and beyond.