The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece

H. A. Shapiro

May 2007 · Cambridge University Press

About this ebook

The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece provides a wide-ranging synthesis of history, society, and culture during the formative period of Ancient Greece, from the Age of Homer in the late eighth century to the Persian Wars of 490–480 BC. In ten clearly written and succinct chapters, leading scholars from around the English-speaking world treat all aspects of the civilization of Archaic Greece, from social, political, and military history to early achievements in poetry, philosophy, and the visual arts. Archaic Greece was an age of experimentation and intellectual ferment that laid the foundations for much of Western thought and culture. Individual Greek city-states rose to great power and wealth, and after a long period of isolation, many cities sent out colonies that spread Hellenism to all corners of the Mediterranean world. This Companion offers a vivid and fully documented account of this critical stage in the history of the West.

About the author

H. A. Shapiro is the W. H. Collins Vickers Professor of Archaeology and Professor of Classics at The Johns Hopkins University. A Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, he is the author of Art and Cult under the Tyrants in Athens, Personifications in Greek Art, Myth into Art: Poet and Painter in Classical Greece, and co-author of Women in the Classical World. He has been a Visiting Professor at Munich University, Princeton University, and the University of Cape Town.