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WEBSITES
The Democratic Experiment
www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/greekdemocracy_01.shtml
The ancient Greeks famously invented democracy, but what was their version of democracy actually like and how did it differ from the 21st-century kind? Professor Paul Cartledge, who appears in Athens: The truth about democracy, answers these questions.
Laurium
www.mlahanas.de/Greece/Cities/Laurium.htmlBrief account of these classical Greek silver mines, with a map and photographs.
The art and archaeology of Attica
www.davidgill.co.uk/attica/Great photographs of the Acropolis, Agora, Kerameikos and Pnyx in Athens and of other monuments elsewhere in Greece.
Women in ancient Greece
www.womenintheancientworld.com/women%20in%20ancient%20greece.htm
Thoughtful accounts of women in Athens and Sparta.
How was a trireme built?
http://home.tiscali.nl/~meester7/engtrireme.htmlWell-organised and informative enthusiast's site on these ancient Greek warships.
Pericles' Funeral Oration
www.constitution.org/gr/pericles_funeral_oration.htmThe version of the oration, made in about 460 BC, reported by the contemporary Greek historian Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War.
Europe's oldest 'book' read with high-tech imaging
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/06/060606-greek-scroll.html
Article in National Geographic News about the discovery and investigation of the Derventi Papyrus, found in 1962 near Thessaloniki and dated to the 4th century BC. It is not only one of the oldest surviving Greek papyri but is also considered to be extremely important to the understanding of religious and philosophical developments in ancient Greece.
The Eleusinian Mysteries
http://users.erols.com/nbeach/eleusis.htmlDetailed academic article on the mysteries, their origins and influences. Includes a good bibliography.
BOOKS
What's Wrong with Democracy? From Athenian practice to American worship
Loren J Samons II (University of California Press, 2007)Confronting many of the beliefs we hold dear but seldom question, Professor Samons examines Athens' history in the 5th and 4th centuries BC to test the popular idea that majority rule leads to good government.
Get 'What's Wrong With Democracy' from Amazon
Read feature by Loren J Samons II on this website.
The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles
Edited by Loren J Samons II (Cambridge University Press, 2007)This collection of essays reveals the political, religious, economic, social, artistic, literary, intellectual and military infrastructure that made the Age of Pericles possible.
Get 'The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Pericles' from Amazon
The Archaeology of Athens
John M Camp (Yale University Press, 2004)A comprehensive narrative history of the monuments of the ancient Greek city-state, from the earliest times to the 6th century AD.
Get 'The Archaeology of Athens' from Amazon
Democracy and Classical Greece
J K Davies (Fontana Press, 2nd ed. 1993)The art of classical Greece, and its political and philosophical ideas, have had a profound influence on Western civilisation. It was in the 5th and 4th centuries BC that this culture – material, political and intellectual – reached its zenith, and it is this period that this book examines.
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The Greek World 479–323BC
Simon Hornblower (Routledge, 3rd ed. 2002)Coverage of the broader Mediterranean world in which Greek culture flourished, as well as a close examination of Athens, Sparta and the other great city-states of Greece itself.
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The Greeks: A portrait of self & others
Paul Cartledge (Oxford Paperbacks, 2nd ed. 2002)Who were the classical Greeks? This book provides an answer by exploring how Greeks (adult, male, citizen) defined themselves in opposition to a number of others (non-Greeks, women, slaves, non-citizens and gods) as presented by supposedly objective historians of the time such as Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon.
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Women in Classical Athens
Sue Blundell (Bristol Classical Press, 1998)This book takes as its starting point the images of women in the Parthenon sculptures, in order to investigate two levels of feminine experience in classical Athens: the human and the divine. It finishes with the women who did not appear on the Parthenon: prostitutes, slaves and alien women.
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Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy
Edited by Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne (Cambridge University Press, new ed. 2004)A collection of essays that discuss the ways in which performance was central to the practice and ideology of democracy in classical Athens, from the theatre to the law court and from gymnasium to symposium.
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Polis: An introduction to the ancient Greek city-state
Mogens Herman Hansen (Oxford University Press, 2006)Addresses such topics as the emergence of the polis, its size and population and its political organisation, with Athens and Sparta among the more than 1,000 known examples.
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Salamis: The greatest battle of the ancient world, 480BC
Barry S Strauss (Hutchinson, 2004)The culminating battle in a 20-year struggle between the Persian empire and the Greeks was won by the latter with the help of a little treachery, a brilliant strategy and a lucky wind.
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The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, theology and interpretation
Gábor Betegh (Cambridge University Press, 2004)First comprehensive study of the Derveni Papyrus.
Get 'The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, theology and interpretation' from Amazon
Greek Mysteries: The archaeology of ancient Greek secret cults
Edited by Michael B Cosmopoulos (Routledge, 2002)Analyses the most recent discoveries and re-evaluates older evidence. It focuses not only on the major cults of Eleusis and Samothrace, but also on the lesser-known mysteries elsewhere in Greece from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman empire period.
Get 'Greek Mysteries: The archaeology of ancient Greek secret cults' from Amazon
