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The Shadow of the Parthenon: Studies in Ancient History and Literature
A lively combination of scholarship and unorthodoxy makes these studies in ancient history and literature unusually rewarding. Few of the objects of conventional admiration gain much support from Peter Green (Pericles and the "democracy" of fifth-century Athens are treated to a very cool scrutiny) but he has a warm regard for the real virtues of antiquity and for those who spoke with "an individual voice."
The studies cover both history and literature, Greece and Rome. They range from the real nature of Athenian society to poets as diverse as Sappho and Juvenal, and all of them, without laboring any parallels, make the ancient world immediately relevant to our own. (There is, for example, a very perceptive essay on how classical history often becomes a vehicle for the historian's own political beliefs and fantasies of power.)
The student of classical history will find plenty in this book to enrich his own studies. The general reader will enjoy the vision of a classical world which differs radically from what he probably expects.
The studies cover both history and literature, Greece and Rome. They range from the real nature of Athenian society to poets as diverse as Sappho and Juvenal, and all of them, without laboring any parallels, make the ancient world immediately relevant to our own. (There is, for example, a very perceptive essay on how classical history often becomes a vehicle for the historian's own political beliefs and fantasies of power.)
The student of classical history will find plenty in this book to enrich his own studies. The general reader will enjoy the vision of a classical world which differs radically from what he probably expects.
- GenresNonfiction
292 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
14 people want to read
About the author
Peter Green
48 books92 followersThere is more than one author by this name in the database.
Peter Morris Green was a British classical scholar and novelist noted for his works on the Greco-Persian Wars, Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age of ancient history, generally regarded as spanning the era from the death of Alexander in 323 BC up to either the date of the Battle of Actium or the death of Augustus in 14 AD.
Peter Morris Green was a British classical scholar and novelist noted for his works on the Greco-Persian Wars, Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age of ancient history, generally regarded as spanning the era from the death of Alexander in 323 BC up to either the date of the Battle of Actium or the death of Augustus in 14 AD.
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August 4, 2011
P. Green wrote a play in three parts. The first act is a witty assemblange of categorical aphorisms on long venerated features of Athenian culture like the Parthenon or the theatre. There are cynical and I approve their mocking character. What I find disturbing is the overemphatic adoption of the Ionian-origins model. Is not anything that Athenians did well and Mr Green likes? The second act is a review of modern historiography fashioned as personal accusations against the scholars themselves. Finally, the third one, the apogee of irrelevance, discusses the relationship between historians and religion but ends up being a dialectics between pagan and christian tradition. I only wish it ended the smart literary way it started.
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