BOOKS OF ANCIENT GREECE AND THUCYDIDES

Books of Ancient Greece and Thucydides

Books of Ancient Greece and Thucydides

Ancient Greece by Thomas Martin

This compact, comprehensive, and bountifully showed history of very old Greece takes us from the pebble Age origins of Greek civilization to the early Hellenistic time span following the death of Alexander the Great. Designed for non-specialist readers, it will be a welcome and needed resource for all who wish to learn about this important subject (Martin, 1996).

In Chapter 6, the author introduces the political/social matters. If you desire more detailed data, especially a gaze at the causes historians accept as true such and such happened, I very powerfully suggest John V. A. Fine's "The very old Greeks," one of the very best history publications I've ever read. Of course it's an allotment longer, but it's worth it. Once again, if you're reading for pleasure, I recommend this one first, and then Fine's book, which is a bit harder to follow (Martin, 1996).

In Chapter 8, Thomas Martin begins with a prehistory of late Stone Age activity that provides background for the conditions of later Greek life. He then recounts the civilizations of the Minoans on the isle of Crete and of their successors, the Mycenaeans, on the mainland; the Greek Dark Age and the Archaic Age; the academic Age of Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.; the transformation of the kingdom of Macedonia into the utmost power in the Greek world; and the period after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C., when monarchies appearing from Alexander's fragmented domain once again came to override Greek history. The narrative integrates political, infantry, communal, and cultural annals, with a focus on the development of the Greek city-state in the eighth to fourth centuries B.C. and on the humanity, literature, and architecture of Athens in its Golden Age. The book extends the coverage of the Perseus overview, with its new sections on Greek prehistory, the Bronze and Dark Ages, and the Hellenistic period (Martin, 1996).

Thucydides

According to Thucydides, his aim is to produce a truthful account of the war, avoiding the temptation to blend historical events with myths and legends. In doing so, the Greek historian introduces a term on which all realist theories of international relations have since been founded—the balance of power. Thucydides was the first historian to work with the assumption that the rise of a powerful ...