Greeks Book Critique on Ancient

¶ … Greeks

Book Critique On Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric

to hellenistic times

As the author of Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (Yale University Press, 1996), Thomas R. Martin is a highly-distinguished British scholar and educator and currently teaches at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is also a Jeremiah O'Connor Professor of Classics and holds a Ph.D. In Ancient Studies. Within the last ten years, Professor Martin has worked for a number of scholarly institutions and has served as the chairman for several important archeological projects in Greece, Italy and the Near East. He is the author of several important books, a few being Peoples and Cultures from 1560 to the Global Age (2000) and the Making of the West: A Concise History (2002) which is currently used in many college and university classes as required reading material.

Professor Martin's overall purpose for writing this book is to complement the electronic databases published in Perseus: Interactive Sources and Studies on Ancient Greece, versions 1.0 and 2.0 by Yale University Press in 1996 and according to Professor Martin, this book is intended "to contribute to the synergy that these different tools can create when used together and to expand the electronic texts with direct links to ancient sources" (ix).

Unlike any number of other books on the topic of ancient Greece, this book begins with a section on the Late Stone Age, due to "providing deep background on the material and social conditions of later Greek life that is essential for understanding Greek history" in the overall context of Europe and the Mediterranean region. The next section discusses the Bronze Age in the context of the ancient civilization of the Minoans of the island nation of Crete and their progeny of the Mycenaeans on the Greek mainland. During this period in Greek history, many wealthy and influential Greek monarchies arose and collapsed which led to a time known as the Greek Dark Ages, roughly from 1000 to 750 B.C.E.

This two hundred and fifty year-long era was filled with poverty and depopulation and as Martin sums it up, "there can be no doubt that remarkable changes in the basic conditions of Greek life came about" during this time which opened the way for the Archaic Age, circa 750 to 500 B.C.E. (x). One of the compelling aspects of this time period is that it served as the foundation for the development of the polis or city-state which gave birth to Greek government, politics, society, literature, the arts and Greek philosophy and made it possible for such figures as Pericles, Socrates, Aristotle and many Greek artists to come to the forefront of Western civilization.

The next section deals with the Classical Age of Greece in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C.E. And focuses primarily on the great and influential city-state of Athens and its cultural achievements and military struggles which have made "Classical Greece so well-known and so important in later centuries" (xi). This section also concentrates on the enduring legacies of such figures as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle and the amazing transformation of the kingdom of Macedonia into one of the greatest powers in the ancient Greek world, especially in relation to Alexander the Great and his plans for world domination. The final section discusses the great Hellenistic period which followed the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.E. when a number of monarchies that emerged from "Alexander's fragmented empire once again came to dominate Greek history" (xi).

According to Professor Martin, the writing of history with its panorama of superb literature, art, government and lifestyles, means that the scholar must "make observations and form interpretations which inevitably influence one another" (2), much like the timeline of Western civilization that runs from the prehistoric past to the present day and it so intricately intertwined that one cannot separate one event from another without interfering with facts, dates and outcomes.

As Martin reminds us, certain points in Greek history "are problematic or controversial, but my commitment to brevity requires that at many places nothing can be said about the complex inter-relationship of observation, interpretation and controversy surrounding issues" that in other texts might require such treatment and focus. Overall, Martin hopes that the readers of this book "will be challenged to convert their dissatisfaction with the book's omissions into energy for researching questions" that remained unanswered and require some type of exploratory activity (3).

Lastly, Professor Martin gives much attention to those who have helped him in the writing and preparation of this book, most notably the Editorial and Production Departments at Yale University Press and a number of prominent editors, researchers and scholars, all of whom have made this work a very important addition to the already burgeoning library of books on the history of ancient Greece and its contributions to Western civilization.

Although this book covers an extremely broad range of topics and subject matter, the most appealing areas are related to its coverage of culture and society in Classical Athens, the city which gave birth to Western literature, art, politics and the democratic system of government. Under the sub-heading "Tragic Drama and Public Life," Professor Martin explores the problematic relationship between the Greek gods and goddesses and human beings which formed the basis of Classical Athens's most enduring cultural innovation," being the creation of the tragic drama (130). Many of these plays are still today read and produced on a regular basis and were presented in ancient Greece and the city of Athens "as part of a drama contest in keeping with the competitive spirit characteristic of many events held in honor of the Greek gods" (131).

As a form of literature, Greek tragedies reached their peak as a dramatic form during the 5th century B.C.E. And were viewed almost on a daily basis by the citizens of Athens who took time out of their busy lives as merchants, traders and governmental officials to honor not only the gods but also the playwrights who created these enduring masterpieces of Western literature.

Some of the best-known Athenian tragedians were Aeschylus (525 to 456 B.C.E.), Sophocles (496 to 406 B.C.E.) and Euripides (485 to 406 B.C.E.). In the case of Sophocles, his most famous work is known as Antigone, probably produced around 441 B.C.E. which presented a drama based on the harsh conflict between a family's moral obligation to bury its dead in obedience to divine command and the male-dominated city-state's need to preserve its order and defend its values. Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, best-known as the main protagonist in Oedipus Rex, comes into conflict with her uncle when he forbids the burial of one of Antigone's brothers on the grounds that he was a traitor to the polis and his society.

As Martin sees it, this "horrifying story of anger and death deliberately exposes the right and wrong on each side of the conflict" and offers "no easy resolution on the competing interests of divinely sanctioned moral traditions" (133) and those of the state devised by men who at times sought their own financial gain and political power at the cost of ordinary and hard-working

Athenian citizens, both men and women.

In the section "Athenian Life for Women," Professor Martin discusses the fascinating role of women in the culture of the city of Athens which compared to the roles of women in today's society pales in relation to social status and the rights usually given to all citizens. Although Athenian women exercised a certain amount of power and earned status in both private and public life via their roles in the family and in religion, they were conspicuously absent from politics. In one tragedy by Euripides, the main character Melanippe states in a speech denouncing men who denigrate women that "Empty is the slanderous blame men place on women... women are better than men, for they manage the household and preserve its valuable property. Without a wife, no household is clean or happily prosperous... " (135). Obviously, this statement parallels the modern notion that women deserve equality with their male counterparts, for indeed "women allow the city-state to flourish by playing a very central role in the lives of not only their husbands but also their children and other members of Greek society" (136).

In the section "The Impact of New Idea," Professor Martin relates the details regarding the emergence of new ideas in Greek medicine during the Classical Period in the city of Athens which is most closely linked to Hippocrates of Cos, a young contemporary of the Greek historian Herodotus. Biographically, details on the life of Hippocrates are at best sketchy, but "he certainly made great strides in putting medical diagnosis and treatment on a scientific basis" (145). Prior to Hippocrates, almost all medical practices were based on magic and ritual, due to a lack of understanding on how the human body operates. But Hippocrates apparently viewed the human body "as an organism whose parts must be understood as part of the whole" and taught that physicians "should base their knowledge on careful observation of their patients and their responses to remedies and medicine" (146).