Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander the Great

Abstract

This third edition of Ancient Greece has been expanded in its historical range down to the death of Alexander III 'the Great' of Macedon, and so has a new title: Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander the Great. Over the last ten years since the second edition of Ancient Greece, the authors have become convinced that it was necessary to give a fuller historical treatment of ancient Greece so that users of the book could learn what happened in Greece in the fourth century BC. This also means that the social history chapters could contain documents from this century, giving a fuller indication of what ancient Greek society was like. In addition, we feel that there is a need for a textbook, appearing in conjunction with this third edition, which will give the full background to the texts translated in Ancient Greece. This textbook, The Ancient Greeks: History and Culture from Archaic Times to the Death of Alexander, has the same chapter titles as Ancient Greece, and will provide students with the necessary background knowledge and details for understanding each historical period and social aspect of ancient Greece. Accordingly, many of the extensive comments accompanying individual documents have been reduced in scope and size in Ancient Greece itself. What we aim to give in this edition is enough commentary on each document to make it comprehensible, with the overall background to be given in the textbook. Our teaching from Ancient Greece over the last fifteen years has also taught us that less is often more. We have tried to give the necessary background for each document but have not tried to 'overload' the students with information. As first-year undergraduates tend not to follow up the detailed references to modern authors given with the documents in the first and second editions, these have been taken out and replaced with a shorter more useable selection of reading for each chapter, to be found in the Bibliography.