Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110700733X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
This book explains why the democracy of classical Athens generously sponsored elite sport and idolised its sporting victors.
Author: Senior Lecturer David M Pritchard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139776363
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
Explains why the democracy of classical Athens generously sponsored elite sport and idolised its sporting victors.
Author: David M. Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108422918
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 313
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Book Description
Studies all four branches of the Athenian armed forces to show how they helped make democratic Athens a superpower.
Author: David M. Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107437388
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Athens is famous for its direct democracy and its innovative culture. Not widely known is its contemporaneous military revolution. Athens invented or perfected new forms of combat, strategy and military organisation and was directly responsible for raising the scale of Greek warfare to a different order of magnitude. The timing of this revolution is striking: it followed directly the popular uprising of 508 BC and coincided with the flowering of Athenian culture, which was largely brought about by democracy. This raises the intriguing possibility that popular government was one of the major causes of Athenian military success. Ancient writers may have thought as much, but the traditional assumptions of ancient historians and political scientists have meant that the impact of democracy on war has received almost no scholarly attention. This volume brings together ancient historians, archaeologists, classicists and political scientists to explore this important but neglected problem from multiple perspectives.
Author: Paul Christesen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139576798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
This book explores the relationship between sport and democratization. Drawing on sociological and historical methodologies, it provides a framework for understanding how sport affects the level of egalitarianism in the society in which it is played. The author distinguishes between horizontal sport, which embodies and fosters egalitarian relations, and vertical sport, which embodies and fosters hierarchical relations. Christesen also differentiates between societies in which sport is played and watched on a mass scale and those in which it is an ancillary activity. Using ancient Greece and nineteenth-century Britain as case studies, Christesen analyzes how these variables interact and finds that horizontal mass sport has the capacity to both promote and inhibit democratization at a societal level. He concludes that horizontal mass sport tends to reinforce and extend democratization.
Author: R. K. Sinclair
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521423892
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
The public aspects of the lives of Athenian citizens (c. 450 to 322 BC.) are assessed to establish the nature and extent of citizen participation in the governing democracy of that period.
Author: David M. Pritchard
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 029277205X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 161
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Book Description
In his On the Glory of Athens, Plutarch complained that the Athenian people spent more on the production of dramatic festivals and “the misfortunes of Medeas and Electras than they did on maintaining their empire and fighting for their liberty against the Persians.” This view of the Athenians’ misplaced priorities became orthodoxy with the publication of August Böckh’s 1817 book Die Staatshaushaltung der Athener [The Public Economy of Athens], which criticized the classical Athenian dēmos for spending more on festivals than on wars and for levying unjust taxes to pay for their bloated government. But were the Athenians’ priorities really as misplaced as ancient and modern historians believed? Drawing on lines of evidence not available in Böckh’s time, Public Spending and Democracy in Classical Athens calculates the real costs of religion, politics, and war to settle the long-standing debate about what the ancient Athenians valued most highly. David M. Pritchard explains that, in Athenian democracy, voters had full control over public spending. When they voted for a bill, they always knew its cost and how much they normally spent on such bills. Therefore, the sums they chose to spend on festivals, politics, and the armed forces reflected the order of the priorities that they had set for their state. By calculating these sums, Pritchard convincingly demonstrates that it was not religion or politics but war that was the overriding priority of the Athenian people.
Author: Donald G. Kyle
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9789004097599
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280
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Book Description
Author: Eric W. Robinson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521843316
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
First full study of ancient Greek democracy in the Classical period outside Athens, which has three main goals: to identify where and when democratic governments established themselves; to explain why democracy spread to many parts of Greece; and to further our understanding of the nature of ancient democracy.
Author: David Pritchard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781108525572
Category : Athens (Greece)
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Classical Athens perfected direct democracy. The plays of this ancient Greek state are still staged today. These achievements are rightly revered. Less well known is the other side of this success story. Democratic Athens completely transformed warfare and became a superpower. The Athenian armed forces were unmatched in size and professionalism. This book explores the major reasons behind this military success. It shows how democracy helped the Athenians to be better soldiers. For the first time David M. Pritchard studies, together, all four branches of the armed forces. He focuses on the background of those who fought Athens' wars and on what they thought about doing so. His book reveals the common practices that Athens used right across the armed forces and shows how Athens' pro-war culture had a big impact on civilian life. The book puts the study of Athenian democracy at war on an entirely new footing.
