S. R. F. Price (1954–2011)

I can't recommend this book too highly ~ I found it completely enjoyable, enormously informative as well as extremely readable. The back cover of the Penguin paperback edition says 'We still live in the shadow of the classical world' ~ I'd rather say we still live in the light of that world. In the same way that we look back to the Classical era to throw some light on our modern world, the Greeks and Romans harked back to times 'whose myths, history and buildings were an elaborate engagement with an already old and revered past'. Although Tacitus said 'Omnia, [...] quae nunc vetustissima creduntur, nova fuere' (All the things we now believe ancient were once new: Tac., Annals, 11:24) it's also true the ancient world still has resonance and is very much alive today: much we deem 'new' is old.
Price and Thonemann's chronological narrative is well-constructed, taking us from the so-called Dark Ages of the early Aegean civilisations of the Minoans, Mycenaeans and Trojans to the age of Augustine ~ from the mid-Second millennium BC to AD425. The sheer scope of the undertaking, the broad sweep of history, is underpinned by lucid clarity in the writing, meticulous research and a schema which can be easily understood by lay reader and Classics student alike, the general ideas firmly rooted in circumstances and events.
I like the inset boxes within the text, which explain or explore in depth or give more information on peripheral issues, e.g., Evans and Knossos, Black Athena, Hellenism in Asia Minor, Flaubert's 'Salammbo'...
Under the aegis of 'memory', the three themes of the work are communal identity and the spatial, conceptual and changing ideas of 'Europe' as a geographical entity and at the same time an historical and cultural construct.
Sadly, although Simon Price has recently died, the writers also provided a helpful measure of size (p.9) utilising the normal archaeological unit of the hectare (perhaps unfamiliar to non-specialist readers?) in easily-visualised equivalents, viz., a British football pitch is roughly one hectare, an American one half a hectare. If you wish to think in terms of acres, double the number of hectares (or, to be more precise, multiply by 2.5). They also tell us Windsor Castle occupies just over 10 hectares or 26 acres. This kind of small but telling detail, even if only a rule of thumb for ancient settlements, is useful.
Myths are also debunked: Rome did NOT plough salt into the soil of fallen Carthage to make it infertile ~ that particular canard, which has a curious longevity, was invented by an historian writing in 1930. Carthage was dismantled after its defeat in 146BC, its population sold into slavery. In the previous year Corinth had also revolted, and the Romans sacked it the same way they did Carthage ~ it was 'devoted' to the gods of the underworld.

The funniest thing I came across in the book was J. Caesar's writing on the Hercynian forest and the hunting of elk. Elks could not bend their legs, so they slept leaning against trees. Hunters covertly weakened the trunks so, when resting elks subsequently pushed over the trees, they could thus capture the fallen animals! I laughed out loud.

The style has an easy fluency, and there are sidelights on received opinions and assumptions, and lots of challenges to things like post-event 'alterations' of history, as well as small gobbets of information missed out by many Classical Studies courses, e.g., the Alexandrian scholars' selection of what was 'canonical' and what was not, and how the Romans referred to the authors selected by Aristophanes of Byzantium as 'classici' ('of the first class') from which we derive our concept of the 'Classical'. I'm fond of this sort of trivia.

This is a really seriously good book. I'm impressed with it. Tho' the lack of footnotes / endnotes is unusual in a volume of this type, the authors did at least insert an index. It's so well-ordered one can follow it with ease. Clarity in perception and in writing is evident ~ the one is not always mirrored in t'other, especially where Classicists are concerned!
Definitely five + 5 stars!… (altro)