This is the first detailed study of the foundation, history, government, growth, and decline of the cities founded in Syria by Seleukos I in 301 B.C., shortly after the time of Alexander the Great. Focusing on the relationship between the kings and the cities in their kingdoms, Grainger reveals that former theories concerning such a relationship require drastic revision. He argues that neither the kings nor the cities intended the cities to be autonomous or independent, as they were far too reliant on royal support. Throwing fresh light on a most important period in ancient history, this...

The cultural history of the Phoenicians seems to have stopped short at the time of Alexander the Great's destruction of the city of Tyre, yet in truth, these people survived the destruction of their cities and the confiscation of their lands to enjoy long periods of peace and prosperity. This study pursues the themes of trade and economic history and shows how the adaptation of the Phoenicians to life in the Hellenistic world reveals a number of features common to that world as a whole, but also some which are distinctive to the Phoenicians themselves. The first full account of the...

The imperial succession at Rome was notoriously uncertain, and where possible hereditary succession was preferred. But when the infamous emperor Domitian was assassinated in AD 96, he had no sons and had executed several family members who might have succeeded him; the uncertain situation provoked a dangerous crisis. John Grainger's study looks at this period of intrigue and conspiracy. He explores how, why and by whom Domitian was killed, the rule of Nerva, chosen to succeed him, and finally Nerva's own choice of successor, Trajan, who became a strong and respected emperor against the odds....

John Grainger's detailed study examines a period of intrigue and conspiracy, studies how, why and by whom Domitian was killed and investigates the effects of this dynastic uncertainty and why civil war didn't occur in this time of political upheaval.

In 1801 Britain and Bonaparte made an armistice, which became the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802. In the brief period of peace which followed, British attitudes underwent a major change, so that when war began again in May 1803 there was little or no dissent from the view that the war had to be fought to a finish and Bonaparte's power destroyed. This was partly the result of Bonaparte's underhand methods during negotiations; but it was also due to the conclusion reached by the many British visitors to France during the interval of peace that Bonaparte was extremely dangerous, anger at his...

Yorktown (1781), where a British Army, commanded by Lord Cornwallis, surrendered to the American forces under George Washington and their French allies, has generally been considered one of the decisive battles of the American War of Independence. This accessible and authoritative account of the battle and the wider campaign goes back to original source material (diaries, letters, speeches, and newspapers), offering both a narrative of the events themselves, and an analysis of how the defeat came about and why it came to be seen as crucial. It shows that the battle was really a siege, that it...

The Aitolians have had a bad press, regarded as pirates and brigands, and their state as a pirate state built on terrorist tactics. This book treats them as what they really were, a normal Hellenistic state. They constructed an original and successful polity which provided peace and prosperity for its inhabitants, and played a major part in Greek history for a century and a half.
The approach is chronological, beginning with the origin and formation of the league and its early expansion, and then dealing with its long duel with Macedon, and concluding with its destruction by Rome.
This...

This volume examines the use of a central concept in the self-definition of any Greek speaking male: Andreia, the notion of courage and manliness. The nature and use of value terms quickly leads the researcher to core issues of cultural identity: through a combination of lexical or semantic and conceptual studies the discourse of manliness and its role in the construction of social order is studied, in a variety of authors, genres, and communicative situations. This book is of interest to students of the classical world, the history of values, gender studies, and cultural historians.

This is the first detailed study of the collision of the two greatest powers of the Hellenistic world. The Roman Republic, victorious over Carthage and Macedon, met the Seleukid kingdom, which had crushed Ptolemaic Egypt. The preliminary diplomatic sparring was complicated by Rome's attempts to control Greece, and by the military activities of Antiocohos the Great, and ended in war. Despite well-meaning attempts on both sides to avoid and solve disputes, areas of disagreement could not be removed. Each great power was hounded by the ambitions of its subsidiary clients. When the Aitolian...

Pamphylia, in modern Turkey, was a Greek country from the early Iron Age until the Middle Ages. In that land there were nine cities which can be described more or less as Greek, and this book is an investigation of their history. This was a land at the margins of other great empires - Hellenistic, Roman, Arab and Byzantine - and is still off the beaten track, though Aspendos, Perge and Phaselis are all visited for their archaeology. Only one ancient source, Strabo, discusses the area at any length, and John Grainger therefore has to bring together a wide variety of exiguous and fragmentary...