Need help from Anient Greek enthusiasts

Miscellaneous General
1

I am looking for info on the following subjects of Hellenistic history:

  1. Any interesting or definitive books/ aricles on the “Dark Age/ 8th Century renaissance” period on beuracratic and govt organizations and trade.

  2. Any well sourced answers/books/ articles on the relationship and policies of tyrants with the poor ("thetes", lower rung “hoi mesoi”) in the Archaic period.

  3. A comparison of taxes and public work projects of Hellenic polises and Persian policies around the time of the 1st Persian war.

Much thanks for any help.

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Death of Sarpedon.

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Haha, great eye.

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What is known about those times is so largely based on Herodotus, that you might as well just read him, instead of contemporary, derivative stuff. That said you might take a look at “Hesiod’s Works and Days: A Translation and Commentary for the Social Sciences” by David Tandy and Walter Neale." Tandy is a classicist and Neale is an economist. The commentary in this publication is a wretched, fallacious, and totally unfounded imposition of Neale’s statist views on the text. But, it’s fun to refute in your head as you read it, and it covers the period you’re researching.

Again, read Herodotus.

Now on this topic, Herodotus can actually be supplemented with Persian Fire by Tom Holland, as he offers a fuller view of the Persian side.

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@Lilburne

Thanks for the suggestions

  1. I was hoping for more on definitive “Dark Age” History than Herodotus, Hesiod, and Homer. I was hoping there would be enough surviving Latin, Classical Greek, Byzantine Greek, and Classic Arabic commentary mixed with new archeology for other definitive modern works. Too bad if that is the case, as this era seems it could be of interest to a libertarian

The commentary on Hesiod would be welcome though (assuming I can be in good enough humour to sit through statist drivel), as I was unaware of any decent commentary on Hesiod.

To those (non Greek reading) interested in other commentaries on “Dark” Age lit: This has no value from a libertarian standpoint but those wishing to grasp Homer better; the Lattimore translation of*" The Iliad"* is unbeatable, and the commentary "A Companion to the Iliad" by Malcolm Wilcock is indispensable (and fairly easy to find) to understanding Homer and Doric Greece.

  1. Once again I thought there may have been a bit more. The Great Historian did make one of the most amusing observations about Pesistratus’ 2nd attempt to Tyranny in which clearly amused/bemused Herodotus (which makes it so damn funny)

I quote:

And here the device on which they hit was the silliest that I find on record, more especially considering that the Greeks have been from very ancient times distinguished from the barbarians by superior sagacity and freedom from foolish simpleness, and remembering that the persons on whom this trick was played were not only Greeks but Athenians, who have the credit of surpassing all other Greeks in cleverness.

There was in the Paeanian district a woman named Phya, whose height only fell short of four cubits by three fingers’ breadth [appox 6 ft] as altogether comely to look upon. This woman they clothed in complete armour, and, instructing her as to the carriage which she was to maintain in order to beseem her part, they placed her in a chariot and drove to the city. Heralds had been sent forward to precede her, and to make proclamation to this effect: “Citizens of , receive again Pisistratus with friendly minds. Athena, who of all men honours him the most, herself conducts him back to her own citadel.” This they proclaimed in all directions, and immediately the rumour spread throughout the country districts that Athena was bringing back her favourite. They of the city also, fully persuaded that the woman was the veritable goddess, prostrated themselves before her, and received Pisistratus back.

How awesome is that, and still relevant.

Once again to those reading wishing for Archaic sources, this should appeal to some Libertarians. The lyric poems of the (often funny) soldier of fortune Archilochus of Paros (whose poems were banned in ), the “Hustler” Hipponax, and the Ionian poets Phokylides of Miletus and Xenophanes. These are the “middle class” of the era. Compare their poems to the aristocratic poets of the day.

  1. Thanks for the Tom Holland suggestion, I was unaware of it. I have not read any of his works but I have heard nothing but good things about him. Maybe it is because I come from a Byzantine/Near East/ Orthodox background but I am somewhat frustrated by the “West’s” confused, chauvinistic or outright dismissive thoughts (if they bother thinking of it at all, which they often don’t) of Near Eastern culture, histories, mythologies, etc. It would be nice to see a decent historian cover the topic (it is a very rare treat), this definatly gets me excited.

Example: Did you know that the “Byzantine” Empire had more to it’s long history than a couple of “Great Men” and being a buffer zone for the West? In fact the people of the “Byzantine” Empire had no idea they were just a buffer zone fighting to perserve the west; hell the people of the Byzantine Empire didn’t even know they were the !

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have you read any of Joseph Campbell? You might be interested in his book “Occidential Mythology”: description “Occidental Mythology is a systematic and fascinating comparison of the themes that underlie the art, worship, and literature of the western world.”

here’s a link to site dedicated to his writings. his works uses the writings written by the people who lived during those times (of course when he covers periods and geography that offer records written on clay or paper) and uses the current archaeology to dig deeper into the lives of the people of those times. He was an amazing person and used various fields not only anthropology and history but also psychology. He lived in Japan for awhile and visited various places around the world.

Here’s a link to video’s (I don’t know the person on this myspace page that has all these videos but it is where I was able to find them all for free. Also it looks as if he has added the Michael Tsarion video’s mixed into Campbell’s. Campbell isn’t associated with Tsarion and this is simply somebody’s myspace page with their unique collection of video’s) that are completely amazing lectures. He is an inspiration, full of creativity, and gets me thinking every time I listen to him (or read his works). He took on way, way, way so much that for me to even attempt to fully discuss what he covered would only shame his actual enlightening perception. He said society needs a new mythology and pointed such stories as Star Wars as having such mythological power. He wrote a book called Creative Mythology that discusses how creativity is the new call of today (or the old call depends on how one looks at it) [description of this book: “The whole inner story of modern culture, spanning our entire philosophical, spiritual, and artistic history since the Dark Ages, and treating modern man’s unique position as the creator of his own mythology”]. This book was the last in a serious that first discussed Primitive Mythology, Oriental M., Occidental M., and then I believe this was the forth and last in the series. Last, cause it focused on modern times.

Well to not further crush and narrow what he had to say as he was a genius that first began to understand mythologies and the stories of old when he was around 12-13 and eventually fully developed this as he would say - his whole life. His most famous saying that he loved to say to everybody was:

follow your bliss

Here’s an excerpt from his bio. page:

"Joe graduated from Canterbury in 1921, and the following September, entered Dartmouth College; but he was soon disillusioned with the social scene and disappointed by a lack of academic rigor, so he transferred to Columbia University, where he excelled: while specializing in medieval literature, he played in a jazz band, and became a star runner…

After earning a B.A. from Columbia (1925), and receiving an M.A. (1927) for his work in Arthurian Studies, Joe was awarded a Proudfit Traveling Fellowship to continue his studies at the University of Paris (1927-28). Then, after he had received and rejected an offer to teach at his high school alma mater, his Fellowship was renewed, and he traveled to Germany to resume his studies at the University of Munich (1928-29).

It was during this period in Europe that Joe was first exposed to those modernist masters—notably, the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee, James Joyce and Thomas Mann, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung—whose art and insights would greatly influence his own work. These encounters would eventually lead him to theorize that all myths are the creative products of the human psyche, that artists are a culture’s mythmakers, and that mythologies are creative manifestations of humankind’s universal need to explain psychological, social, cosmological, and spiritual realities.

When Joe returned from Europe late in August of 1929, he was at a crossroad, unable to decide what to do with his life. With the onset of the Great Depression, he found himself with no hope of obtaining a teaching job; and so he spent most of the next two years reconnecting with his family, reading, renewing old acquaintances, and writing copious entries in his journal. Then, late in 1931, after exploring and rejecting the possibility of a doctoral program or teaching job at Columbia, he decided, like countless young men before and since, to “hit the road,” to undertake a cross-country journey in which he hoped to experience “the soul of America” and, in the process, perhaps discover the purpose of his life. In January of 1932, when he was leaving Los Angeles, where he had been studying Russian in order to read War and Peace in the vernacular…"

His bio. alone is amazing. Beginning with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show at the age of seven being his first deep inspiration he points out…

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I’m not sure the Greeks, Latins, and Arabs following Herodotus knew much (if anything) about the Dark Ages than what he wrote in his histories. That said, another ancient historian who MIGHT have trustworthy info you won’t find in Herodotus is Diodorus Siculus. And another thing you might want to check out is Aristotle’s Politics. He comments on the various political systems of the different city-states, and there’s some historical detail in those comments.

In addition to these, I highly recommend the Introduction to the Penguin Iliad and the SPLENDID BBC documentary series “In Search of the Trojan War” by Michael Wood.

Students who I have taught Herodotus to thought that anecdote was hilarious.

Thanks! I wasn’t familiar with Hipponax and Phokylides; I’ll have to look them up sometime. Xenophanes was something of a philosopher as well. In fact, Parmenides was his student. Also quite inspiring from a libertarian standpoint is Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.

Right. I believe, Constantinople’s official name was Nova Roma, and easterners called it “Rum”. They never stopped thinking of themselves as the Roman Empire, even after their ruling class came to speak Greek.