As expected of a Cambridge Companion, the scope of this volume is comprehensive and wide-ranging: it covers several hundred years, with a principal focus on the two centuries from Archaic to Hellenistic times. It comprises 34 essays by Classical scholars, and is arranged in five main sections: Urban Fabric, Inhabitants, Business and Commerce, Culture and Sport, and Politics. An additional section on Reception is concerned with Roman Athens, rediscovery and archaeology.
While it would be impossible within 500 pages to do justice to every aspect of a city of such significance as Athens, this book comes close to achieving that. Chapters include some niche titles, such as ‘Death and Disease’, ‘Sex and the City’, and ‘Armed Forces’. Many chapters take an interdisciplinary approach. For example, one on ‘Animals in Athenian Life’ draws on artefacts, vase painting, mythology and literature, offering a rich cross-section of genres which is not usually expected of an introductory volume of this nature. This makes the work an engaging and instructive read, although those seeking an introduction to Athenian civilisation, for example to guide sixth-form study, will need to take a selective approach. Many chapters cover an extensive timespan; for example, ‘Water and Waste Management’ traces Athens’ water supply from the Late Neolithic Age to the Roman period. But this breadth does not come at the expense of some illuminating detail, such as regulations for the use of drinking water from the Halykos well in Attica.
A more superficial coverage is given to commonly published areas of Classical scholarship, such as literature, history and philosophy, which form the backbone of OCR's Ancient History and Classical Civilisation specifications, and which are core components of a Classics degree course. There is little or no preferential emphasis on the high Classical period of the later fifth century. This is not a book for readers looking for a political or military history of Athens or for detailed exploration of Classical authors and texts. While there are some interesting insights into the composition of Athens’ fighting forces which might inform a study of the Peloponnesian War, the reader will find here no historical account or analysis of battle strategy. Drama belongs mainly in the chapter called ‘Theatrical Spaces’, which offers a detailed account of Athens’ theatres, but does not investigate the playwrights or their output. Similarly, while the book has a useful introduction to the various philosophical schools which flourished in Athens from Plato to Zeno, which is informative on the appearance of the schools and the lives of their founders, the approach in this chapter is biographical rather than philosophical: there is no evaluation of ideologies or discussion of the reception of these philosophies within the city of Athens. The sophists too are perhaps a surprising omission.
The book is primarily an archaeological and anthropological biography of a city. Its structure gives prominence to the physical spaces of Athens and its environs: not only is the first section, devoted to Urban Fabric, the longest, but even in subsequent sections the buildings and archaeological remains are the foundation for discussion of social institutions. Most of the chapters favour material primary sources over literary texts. Throughout the book there is plentiful and fascinating use of inscriptions and particularly extensive use is made of the burials of the Kerameikos. For the student of the architecture and sculpture of the Acropolis, there are rich pickings to be found in several of the chapters. Generous and intimate detail is given to the topography of Athens (where many of the contributors are based), but Athens’ wider empire, the Delian League, lies outside the scope of the book.
To the editors’ acclaim, what is remarkable, given the diverse authorship (among the 33 contributors at least eight nationalities are represented), is the homogeneity of style, both in the structure of the essays and the style of writing. Frequent cross-referencing between the chapters lends uniformity to the volume. Each chapter is written with a conciseness which makes it informative rather than interpretative, leaving little room for authorial voice. The one reference to Elgin's ‘looting’ of the Parthenon sculptures is a rare exception to this. Despite the conciseness of language, this is a very readable work, accessible to the lay person and informed scholar alike.
The Cambridge Companion to Athens would suit any reader from an ambitious sixth-form student, perhaps researching an Extended Project Qualification, to the more seasoned academic. Each section concludes with a Further Reading section and a select bibliography, mostly of very recent and contemporary publications; links to digital resources also facilitate further study. The level of detail in the descriptions of the city's monuments would perhaps also serve to make it intriguing reading for the exceptionally informed traveller. But its principal value is as a starting point for research. It would be a welcome addition to a school library as enriching reading for older students, but in a school its greatest benefit would be for those teaching Ancient Athens at A Level or GCSE, whether or not they come from a Classics background.
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