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Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century BC

Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century BC

Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century BC

John Buckler
Hans Beck, McGill University, Montréal
October 2021
Paperback
9781009113861
AUD$54.50
exc GST
Paperback
exc GST
Hardback

    The streams of Greek history in the fourth century are highly controversial. Sandwiched between the Classical fifth century and the Hellenistic period, the era has invited various readings, most prominently the verdict of decrepitude and decline. Recent discoveries, however, indicate that the period was not simply illustrative of the political, social, and economic weaknesses of the Greek city-state. This book examines the fourth century from an area with its own regional dynamics: central Greece, a region often considered as a backwater for macro-politics. The authors disclose a vivid tension between regional politics in Boeotia and its adjacent territories and Greek affairs. They provide a meticulous and, at times, microscopic investigation into the region's military and political history, together with detailed analyses of the topography of the places 'where history was made.' The result is a dazzling account of Greece's power transition crisis on the eve of the Macedonian conquest.

    • Important contribution to the interpretation of a controversial era in Greek history
    • Explores in detail the politics of a previously-neglected area of Greece
    • Examines the interaction between regional politics and panhellenic affairs - a new approach to this period in history

    Reviews & endorsements

    'Well-written and carefully researched, the volume offers many novel and interesting insights into the nature of Roman imperialism and hegemony in Italy as well as into local conditions in the southern parts of the peninsula, along with ample demonstration of relevant research.' De novis libris iudicia

    See more reviews

    Product details

    October 2021
    Paperback
    9781009113861
    329 pages
    227 × 150 × 20 mm
    0.51kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Prologue: power politics in fourth-century Greece
    • Part I. Alliance:
    • 1. A survey of Theban and Athenian relations between 403 and 371 BC
    • 2. The incident at Mt. Parnassus, 395 BC
    • 3. The Battle of Coronea and its historiographical legacy
    • 4. The King's Peace, alliance, and Phoebidas' strike (382 BC)
    • 5. Sphodrias' raid and the evolution of the Athenian League
    • Part II. Hegemony:
    • 6. The re-establishment of the boeotarchia (378 BC)
    • 7. The Battle of Tegyra, 375 BC
    • 8. Plutarch on Leuctra
    • 9. Alliance and hegemony in fourth-century Greece: the case of the Theban hegemony
    • 10. Xenophon's speeches and the Theban hegemony
    • 11. The phantom synedrion of the Boeotian Confederacy, 378–335 BC
    • 12. Boeotian Aulis and Greek naval bases
    • 13. Epaminondas and the new Inscription from Cnidus
    • Part III. Domination:
    • 14. Thebes, Delphi, and the outbreak of the Sacred War
    • 15. Pammenes, the Persians, and the Sacred War
    • 16. Philip II, the Greeks, and the King, 346–336 BC
    • 17. A note on the Battle of Chaeronea
    • 18. Philip's designs on Greece
    • 19. Epilogue.
      Authors
    • John Buckler

      JOHN BUCKLER is Emeritus Professor of Greek History. Selected publications include The Theban Hegemony, 371-362 B.C. (1980), Philip II and the Sacred War (1989) and Aegean Greece in the Fourth Century B.C. (2003).

    • Hans Beck , McGill University, Montréal

      HANS BECK is John MacNaughton Professor of Classics at McGill University in Montreal and has published widely in the field of Greek federalism. He is the author of Polis und Koinon (1997).