MA, J., N. PAPAZARKADAS and R. PARKER, (eds.),
Interpreting the Athenian Empire.
Duckworth, London, 2009. VIII,248p. Paperback. Lower corner fornt cover slightly dog's eared. Else fine. ‘The welcome aim of this book is to suggest new directions for Athenian imperial scholarship. It does so by offering a selection of essays across a broad variety of topics, from the Athenian economy and coinage to the effects of imperialism in little-known outposts of the empire such as Carpathos. Peter Liddell opens the volume with ‘European Colonialist Perspectives on Athenian Power: Before and After the Epigraphic Explosion’, a look at historical changes in the interpretation of the Athenian Empire prior to the twentieth century, particularly under the influence of the great epigraphic discoveries and publications of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. (…) Liddel is correct that ‘changes in perceptions of Athenian power have been inspired not always by the discovery of new evidence, but also by the intellectual milieu and colonialist and political perspectives of those who were engaged in the writing of history’ (p.13), and it is pleasant to see biases long informally recognised exposed openly. Such biases do not end with the turn of the nineteenth century and the end of Victorian era of empires, as Lisa Kallet demonstrates in the next chapter, ‘ Democracy, Empire, and epigraphy in the Twentieth Century’. (…) Chronology is (…) the debate Nikolaos Papazarkades analyses in chapter 3, ‘Epigraphy and the Athenian Empire: Re-shuffling the Chronological Cards’. (…) With Kurt Raaflaub’s fourth chapter, ‘Learning from the Enemy: Athenian and Persian ‘Instruments of Empire’, the interest of the book moves from changing perspectives on the Athenian Empire to specific questions about the ‘arch’. Raaflaub offers an extraordinarily thorough consideration of potential Persian influence on Athens’ instruments of power, in which he goes into much more detail than previous such studies and offers a more radical thesis, namely that ‘the entire range of Athenian instruments of empire was derived from Persian models’ (p.97). HIs summary of these instruments is a valuable study and collation of the sources. (…) John Ma continues the Persian theme in ‘Empires, Statuses, and Realities’ by arguing that we can and should link the Athenian Empire to theories of Achaemenid and Hellenistic imperialism. He is specifically focused on the ‘relation between power and liberty’ (p.125). (…) In the next article, ‘Did the Athenian Empire Promote Democracy?’ Roger Brock takes up an old question: did imperial Athens install democracy in her subject states? (…) there is very little evidence fo a ‘yes’ answer. Brock provides an excellent survey of the sources for and against, and concludes that the evidence is not strong. As he writes, ‘I am not attempting to deny perversely that the Athenian Empire promoted democracy at all’ (p.161), but we cannot conclude that it was Athenian policy. Pragmatism was the true policy. (…) No study of the Athenian Empire would be complete without a discussion of numismatics, and this is provided by John Kroll in chapter 8, ‘What about Coinage?’. He examines two questions: how much did Athens coin, and how far did her coinage circulate. What was the effect of allied coinage? Athenian coinage during the period of the empire was by far the most common coinage during the imperial period (p.199) (…). Kroll concludes that ‘Athenian silver coinage (…) was the common monetary instrument whose production, dissemination, and use were not activities that favoured political over commercial power, or vice versa, but means that simultaneously strengthened Athens’ wealth and supremacy in both domains’ (p.205). In the final essay, ‘The Attic Neighbour: The Cleruchy in the Athenian Empire’, Alfonso Moreno returns to another old question”: the cleruchy in the Athenian Empire, and, by extension, the popularity of Athens with her subjects. (…) Cleruchies were not just a cure for land hunger, Moreno argues; they were a huge source of profits (calculated on pages 214-15) to state and individual citizen. (…) It is a period of ancient history well worth visiting and studying again and again.’ (SARAH BOLMARICH in Hermathena, 2010, pp.105-1
€ 30.00
(Antiquarian)