This volume collects and introduces some of the best writing on sexual behaviour and gender differences in ancient Greece and Rome including four chapters newly translated from German and French.For centuries discussions of sexuality and gender in the ancient world, if they took place at all, focussed on how the roles and spheres of the sexes were divided. While men occupied the public sphere of the community, ranged through the Greek and Roman worlds and participated in politics, courts, theatre and sport, women kept to the home. Sex occupied a separate sphere, in scholarly terms restricted...

This book introduces students to the complex and foreign world of Roman religion and to major trends in its study. Praised in the Enlightenment for its supposed tolerance, it has been vilified for persecuting the early Christians. It professed a profound conservatism and yet received myths from Greece and Asia and gods from every corner of the Empire.Clifford Ando presents fourteen papers on central topics in the study of Roman religion and its connections with Roman literature, history and culture. Subjects treated include the nature and development of religious authority and religious...

This book introduces students to the complex and foreign world of Roman religion and to major trends in its study. Praised in the Enlightenment for its supposed tolerance, it has been vilified for persecuting the early Christians. It professed a profound conservatism and yet received myths from Greece and Asia and gods from every corner of the Empire.Clifford Ando presents fourteen papers on central topics in the study of Roman religion and its connections with Roman literature, history and culture. Subjects treated include the nature and development of religious authority and religious...

P. J. Rhodes's reader focuses on the political institutions, political activity, history, and nature of Athenian democracy and introduces some of the best British, American, German and French scholarship on its origins, theory and practice.

This volume introduces the important aspects of the society of Sparta, the dominant power in Southern Greece from the 7th century BC and the great rival of democratic Athens in the 5th and 4th centuries. During this period Sparta evolved a unique social and political system that combined egalitarian structures, military ideals and brutal oppression, and permitted male citizens to focus on the practice of war. The system continues to fascinate scholars: its outlines are clear, but because of the nature of the evidence almost all detailed aspects of Spartan social practices and constitutional...

This work considers what the ancient Greeks thought of foreigners and their religions, cultures and politics, and what these beliefs and opinions revealed about the Greeks. The Greeks were occasionally intrigued by the customs and religions of the many different peoples with whom they came into contact; more often they were disdainful or dismissive, tending to regard non-Greeks as at best inferior, and at worst as candidates for conquest and enslavement. Facing up to this less attractive aspect of the classical tradition is vital, Thomas Harrison argues, to seeing both what the ancient world...

Introducing students to contemporary controversies over the nature of the ancient economy, this volume brings together 12 studies in the field. In 1973, Moses Finlay unveiled a comprehensive model of the economic underpinnings of classical civilizations. Since then, scholars have turned the study of the ancient economy into an academic battleground. In the last few years of the 20th century, a growing number of scholars have however aimed to move the debate beyond partisan controversies. This study takes account of these developments.

In the fifth century BC, the Athenian Empire dominated the politics and culture of the Mediterranean world.This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the history and significance of the Athenian Empire. It starts by exploring possible answers to the crucial questions of the origins and growth of the empire. Subsequent sections deal with the institutions and regulations of empire, and the mechanisms by which it was controlled; the costs and benefits of imperialism (for both rulers and ruled); and the ideological, cultural and artistic aspects of Athenian power. The articles collected here...