Best of
Greece

2007

Portrait of a Priestess: Women and Ritual in Ancient Greece


Joan Breton Connelly - 2007
    Connelly presents the fullest and most vivid picture yet of how priestesses lived and worked, from the most famous and sacred of them--the Delphic Oracle and the priestess of Athena Polias--to basket bearers and handmaidens. Along the way, she challenges long-held beliefs to show that priestesses played far more significant public roles in ancient Greece than previously acknowledged.Connelly builds this history through a pioneering examination of archaeological evidence in the broader context of literary sources, inscriptions, sculpture, and vase painting. Ranging from southern Italy to Asia Minor, and from the late Bronze Age to the fifth century A.D., she brings the priestesses to life--their social origins, how they progressed through many sacred roles on the path to priesthood, and even how they dressed. She sheds light on the rituals they performed, the political power they wielded, their systems of patronage and compensation, and how they were honored, including in death. Connelly shows that understanding the complexity of priestesses' lives requires us to look past the simple lines we draw today between public and private, sacred and secular.The remarkable picture that emerges reveals that women in religious office were not as secluded and marginalized as we have thought--that religious office was one arena in ancient Greece where women enjoyed privileges and authority comparable to that of men. Connelly concludes by examining women's roles in early Christianity, taking on the larger issue of the exclusion of women from the Christian priesthood. This paperback edition includes additional maps and a glossary for student use.

The Nation and Its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece


Yannis Hamilakis - 2007
    It also shows how, in return, national imagination has created and shaped classical antiquities and archaeological practice from the nineteenth century to the present. Yannis Hamilakis covers a diverse range of topics, including the role of antiquities in the foundation of the Greek state in the nineteenth century, the Elgin marbles controversy, the role of archaeology under dictatorial regimes, the use of antiquities in the detention camps of the Greek civil war, and the discovery of the so-called tomb of Philip of Macedonia.

Memoirs


Nana Mouskouri - 2007
    Her fascinating story ranges from her earliest childhood memories of mid-1930s Greece to her unstoppable rise to the summit of her profession. She tells of life as a child, experiencing the horrors of war and privation, victimized by bitter parental discord, and stigmatized by her father's fatal addiction to gambling. She was a shy inhibited teenager with a passion for singing, a girl compelled to choose between her love of classical music and her fascination with popular song. As a highly successful adult, she has been racked by uncertainty and the torments of love, a woman struggling to balance music with her role as wife and mother. Here she describes life from her beginnings in the nightclubs of Athens to her triumphs on the world's most glittering stages. Nana launches us into her international tours, taking us to Canada, the United States, Japan, and Australasia as well as every country in Europe. She describes how she fought to win over audiences everywhere. Hers is a rich and astonishing life, studded with exceptional encounters and friendships. The incomparable trumpeter Quincy Jones, a musician Nana had secretely worshipped since childhood, introduced her to the United States and became her producer. Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, and the Empress Farah Diba of Iran are among the galaxy of extraordinary figures who played a vital part in Nana's career. Intimate and rich in humanity and music, like a spotlit global tour, Nana's book is an event.

Macedonia Passage: Dangerous Cargo


Wright Gres - 2007
    The original captain and cook have mysteriously disappeared and a sinister cargo is hidden in the yacht's bilges. When Captain Frank Brown joins the schooner crossing the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean for the owners, things begin to heat up. The beautiful and enigmatic Turkish intelligence agent, Nevser Chase, joins Brown and his crew as they work to figure out just what kind of adventure and danger they're in, who they can trust, and how they can stay alive.

Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity


David N. Sedley - 2007
    Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on whether the cosmos was the product of design or accident. In this book, David Sedley examines this question and illuminates new historical perspectives on the pantheon of thinkers who laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Versions of what we call the "creationist" option were widely favored by the major thinkers of classical antiquity, including Plato, whose ideas on the subject prepared the ground for Aristotle's celebrated teleology. But Aristotle aligned himself with the anti-creationist lobby, whose most militant members—the atomists—sought to show how a world just like ours would form inevitably by sheer accident, given only the infinity of space and matter. This stimulating study explores seven major thinkers and philosophical movements enmeshed in the debate: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the atomists, Aristotle, and the Stoics.

The Seer in Ancient Greece


Michael Flower - 2007
    Unlike the palm readers and mediums who exist on the fringe of modern society, many seers were highly paid, well respected, educated members of the elite who played an essential role in the conduct of daily life, political decisions, and military campaigns. Armies, for example, never went anywhere without one. This engaging book, the only comprehensive study of this fascinating figure, enters into the socioreligious world of ancient Greece to explore what seers did, why they were so widely employed, and how their craft served as a viable and useful social practice.

How To Draw Magical Creatures And Mythical Beasts (You Can Draw Anything)


Mark Bergin - 2007
    This title helps you learn how to draw assorted creatures from stories and fables. It includes background information on the subject being drawn. It covers a comprehensive range of popular subjects, with sections on material, composition, perspective and technique.

Take the Taste of Greece with You: The Taste of Greece


Litsa Bolontzakis - 2007
    Cooking with olive oil and the herbs and spices of the Mediterranean is like bringing the warm sun into your kitchen year-round. The recipes are authentic, traditional, and the results are guaranteed.

Images of Pederasty


Eva Cantarella - 2007
    The book shows how painters used the language of vase-painting to cast pederasty in an idealizing light, portraying it as part of a world in which beautiful elite males display praiseworthy attitudes, such as moderation, and engage in approved activities, such as hunting, athletics, and the symposium. The book also incorporates a comprehensive catalogue of relevant vase-paintings, compiled by noted archaeologist Keith DeVries. It is the most comprehensive treatment available of an institution that has few modern parallels.

Greece and the Greek Islands


Martin Howard - 2007
    Greece and the Greek Islands - Small Panorama by Martin Howard takes you on a virtual tour of Greece.

Great Moments in Greek Archaeology


Vasileios Petrakos - 2007
    The contributors—a veritable who’s who of the most venerable names in Greek archaeology—include both those who have excavated at the sites in question and scholars who have spent a lifetime studying the monuments about which they write.  Presented here are the legendary sites of ancient Greece, including the Athenian Acropolis, Olympia, Delphi, Schliemann’s Mycenae, and the Athenian Agora; the most iconic sculptures in the Greek world, such as the Aphrodite of Melos and the Nike of Samothrace; and several fascinating chapters on underwater archaeology discussing the Kyrenia and Uluburun shipwrecks and the astonishing bronze masterpieces raised from the sea. This is the first book to bring together the archaeological legacy of ancient Greece in a concise and accessible way while still preserving the excitement of discovery.

The Headlong God of War: A tale of Ancient Greece and the Battle of Marathon


Jon Edward Martin - 2007
    Funded by the most powerful man in the Middle East and carried out by his trusted lieutenants, this attack is intended to bring an end to Western democracy.] This is not the attack on the Twin Towers or the Pentagon in the U.S., but the invasion of Europe by the Persian Empire in 490 B.C. On a narrow plain that sweeps down to the Bay of Marathon in Greece, citizens of the world's first democracy will make a desperate stand against the greatest power of the ancient world, the Persian Empire.

The Epic City: Urbanism, Utopia, and the Garden in Ancient Greece and Rome


Annette L. Giesecke - 2007
    At the Shield's center lay two walled cities, one at war and one at peace, surrounded by fields and pasturelands. Viewed as Homer's blueprint for an ideal, or utopian, social order, the Shield reveals that restraining and taming Nature would be fundamental to the Hellenic urban quest. It is this ideal that Classical Athens, with her utilitarian view of Nature, exemplified. In a city lacking pleasure gardens, it was particularly worthy of note when Epicurus created his garden oasis within the dense urban fabric. The disastrous results of extreme anthropocentrism would promote an essentially nostalgic desire to break down artificial barriers between humanity and Nature. This new ideal, vividly expressed through the domestication of Nature in villas and gardens and also through primitivist and Epicurean tendencies in Latin literature, informed the urban endeavors of Rome.

The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology


Roger D. Woodard - 2007
    More than a compendium of isolated facts, 'The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology' is thoughtfully composed by a team of international experts who highlight important themes in three sections. The first part examines oral and written Greek mythology and the uses of these myths from the epic poetry of the eighth century BC to the mythographic catalogs of the early centuries AD. The second section looks at the relationship between ancient Greek myth and Greek culture and investigates the Roman appropriation of the Greek mythic tradition. Section three follows the reception of Greek myth from the Middle Ages to modernity, taking in such factors as feminist scholarship, cinema and literature. Important for its reach and breadth, its integrated approach and its up-to-date treatment, 'The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology' is fundamental for anyone seeking a broader understanding of the myths and their influence on western tradition.

The Cambridge Companion to Archaic Greece


H.A. Shapiro - 2007
    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.

A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography


John M. Marincola - 2007
    to the fourth century C.E. Provides a series of interpretative readings on the individual historians Contains essays on the neighbouring genres of tragedy, biography, and epic, among others, and their relationship to history