Greek history.(Subject Reviews)

When you have finished with that TV tie-in paperback or novelization of the screen adaptation of the classic work of fiction, why not have a look at the hard copy of the hypertext from the multimedia interactive database? Thomas Martin's [sup.B*.Ancient] Greece(1) is just this: an extended, printed version of his contribution to Perseus 1.0 and 2.0, with added `convenience and portability' (ix), but fewer pictures and sources. Not that you would have noticed: it looks just like a book. M. sets out to survey for the general reader not only all ages from Stone to Hellenistic, but also all spheres of life from baking bread (168) to making war (passim). Notoriously difficult as it is to write an account which fully integrates social, economic, and cultural history with political and military history, M. bravely resists the temptation of sticking all matters cultural in a separate chapter, and tries instead to forge links between, for instance, `tragic drama and public life' (130-5) or `hardship and comedy in wartime Athens' (162-6). Talks sometimes works very well, and even where it does not, the attempt is commendable. The book is deliberately unevenly paced so as to allow for the occasional more expansive treatment amidst the general brevity. My own feeling is that philosophy gets a disproportionate amount of space, although others may approve of devoting thirteen pages to the lives and thoughts of Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, when the historical narratives of 403 to 355 B.C. and of the entire Hellenistic period get two pages each. On the other hand, I am fairly confident that most readers will wonder that Isokrates has done to deserve two pages to himself (185-7), when Solon's seisakhtheia rates no more than an unsatisfactory ten lines (84-5). Otherwise, this is a good introduction to Greece: comprehensive, decently written, and usefully illustrated (though Plans 1 and 2 on pages 102 and 118 only make sense when swapped round). Ever since Herodotus, historians have grappled with the problem of how far back to trace origins, and M.'s decision to begin with the migration of Homo sapiens into Europe (45,000 years ago) might seem the ultimate answer. Yet Michael and Reynold Higgins go one better, with a timechart starting at the `birth of planet earth' (4,550 million years ago). This is in fact not unreasonable, since their book is [sup.B**.A] Geological Companion to Greece and the Aegean.(2) It will, I imagine, become a much-consulted work of reference for archaeologists, not only because it offers an impressive range of geological descriptions and maps, but also because it manages to explain the basic principles and jargon of geology in less than 15 pages. For historians, its main value will lie in its coverage of changing coastlines, hot and cold springs, and mineral resources, notably marble quarries (as is recognized in the index, where the relevant entries are much more detailed than the rest). Trivia with which to amaze your friends include the information that the Maeander meanders no longer (13) and that, once upon a time, Samos boasted a unique indigenous species of proto-giraffe (146). Throughout, the reader is treated to little gobbets of history in the style of the Blue Guide, which often seem out of place. Unless, of course, there is a connection between the facts that Thebes was built on `conglomerates and sandstones deposited in lakes on the floor of the graben during the Early Pliocene' and that `its most famous king ... killed his father and married his mother' (74-6). Not content with taking on several billion years of the past, H. and H. boldly go into the future with a chapter on Geological Hazard Assessment well worth consulting when you plan your next holiday, and with a prediction (54) that in about 500 years' time Sparta will suffer the next earthquake as big as the one which triggered the Helot revolt in 464 B.C. (7.2 on the Richter Scale, apparently). That fateful earthquake takes on a significance even greater than usual in Lukas Thommen's [sup.B**.Lakedaimonion] Politeia,(3) a revisionist history in which almost everything that is famous and notorious about Sparta turns out to have developed at a later stage, or more gradually, than we thought. The most marked turning point comes, not in the mid-seventh or sixth century (let alone with our imaginary friend Lykurgus in the eighth or ninth), but in the mid-fifth century, when the quake shakes up everything from the organization of the Peloponnesian League, via Spartan education and marital relations, to the style in which houses are built (125-46). T.'s main concern in all this is to trace constitutional developments narrowly defined, that is to say, the changing roles of kings, elders, and ephors, as well as the minor magistracies, down to the Peloponnesian War. He argues that these were subject to constant tinkering, driven by new challenges in international relations, and by competition within the elite, rather than by conflict between mass and elite. When he is concerned with such constitutional matters, T. makes a strong and lucid case, even if, in view of the scrappiness of our sources, he may be a little too sure that nothing exists unless we have contemporary evidence for it. When dealing …