H.D.F. Kitto: The Greeks (1951)

The Greeks has long been touted as the best basic introduction to the culture of ancient Greece, where the foundations for much of the way we think and live today were laid but which still can seem strangely alien from a viewpoint two and a half millennia years later. Now over sixty years old, is it still worth reading?

Clearly, the book itself has not changed in any way (especially as mine is quite an elderly copy). It remains an excellent basic description of ancient Greece, concentrating on the aspects of the culture which are especially influential. Kitto is occasionally self-indulgent, getting carried away by his love of the literature, as when he translates large portions of the first book of the Iliad which are not directly relevant to the aims of the book (though it does illuminate aspects of the culture almost in the way that a lengthy Bible quote would shed light on Western culture, or a section from the Koran would on Arab thought). My background (growing up with a parent who had not just studied classics, but who wrote books about Greece and Rome alongside translations of ancient texts) does not make me an ideal test for the use of The Greeks as an introduction, but from what I can see it does seem to do the job it sets out to do.

One thing which has certainly changed is the correctness of the assumptions Kitto makes about how much of Greek culture is already known to the general reader. Kitto assumes a certain amount of knowledge in his readers, and in the 1950s he would have been able to assume more than would be the case today; after all, most British schools still taught at least Latin in those days, and hardly any do so today. This has two consequences: the number of people who have any idea that the book might be interesting to them is smaller, and the likelihood is that they will find it far harder to understand. On the other hand, web sites like Wikipedia will fulfil many of the needs which The Greeks was intended to, so it is not as useful as it once was.

Edition: Pelican, 1958
Review number: 1456

Mary Renault: The Mask of Apollo (1966)

Edition: New English Library, 1968
Review number: 1389

The Mask of Apollo is one of my favourite straight historical novels (using the word "straight" to distinguish it from crossover historical crime novels, which seem to have taken over fiction set in the past since the sixties).

Set in the fourth century BC, the narrator of the novel is a notable Athenian actor named Nikeratos, who travels to Syracuse (then a Greek city) and accidentally becomes involved with the city state's turbulent politics. Syracuse was ruled by a tyrant, Dionysius, who is dying as Nikeratos approaches the city from the sea, fresh from a triumph in Athens with a play written by the ruler himself. The problem is with his successor. Dionysius had a son, also named Dionysius, but kept him from any semblance of power during his lifetime , leaving him lacking in both judgement and confidence. He also has a nephew, Dion, who is highly respected and who was given many privileges by his uncle (including the right to appear in his presence armed, something no one else was allowed to do). But even so Dion is not likely to be named as the successor over Dionysius' own son, nor (with his suspicious involvement with the foreign "sophist" Plato) popular with other powerful figures in the Syracusan court.

The combination of theatre and politics works well. Renault makes Nikeratos a character based on ideas of what an important actor manager would be like in the twentieth century, a Terry or someone from that kind of acting family. I don't normally like the use of characters with a modern outlook in historical novels, but here it works well.This is partly because nothing is really known about what an ancient Greek theatrical production was like backstage, and it seems likely that the concerns of actors then were similar to those of actors today: gossip about other people in the profession, upstaging and working together, the audience's lack of understanding, and, of course, sex. And in other ways, the character is not at all contemporary. Nikeratos is a proper pagan Greek, who believes that an old fashioned mask of Apollo given to him by another actor is periodically inhabited by the spirit of the god, and treats it as a kind of shrine.

The Mask of Apollo could be considered an archetypical historical novel. It is narrated by an (imaginary) character at the centre of a series of interesting historical events, who knows people the reader may well have heard of (Plato, Dionysius father and son, Dion; Aristotle and Philip of Macedon - the father of Alexander the Great - are also mentioned). Nikeratos isn't interested in politics, and becomes involved with the Syracusan power struggles unwillingly - and this is useful to the story, because he constantly needs things explained to him which would not be needed by a more involved politician but are going to also be unfamiliar to many readers. The history of Greek Syracuse is probably not terribly well known today, but it is eventful and has fascinating characters, so makes an excellent choice of subject for a historical novel. It also balances out the much better known Athenian characters (Plato in particular, as someone whose influence on the development of European culture is immense), even though Nikeratos is himself from that city. And even in the parts of the book set in Athens, Renault manages to combine the relatively unfamiliar with things which are much more likely to be obscure or unknown to a modern reader.

The background is meticulously researched yet made accessible to the reader without becoming a series of lectures on the ancient Greek way of life. In fact, I would say that the novel is one of the very greatest of its type, not just one I like personally. Renault does not indulge in the kind of literary games which can be seen in The French Lieutenant's Woman, almost contemporary, but still achieves a literate power without this postmodern slant.

One of the themes explored by the novel is the nature of personal pagan religious feeling. Nikeratos' attitude to the mask is one of several examples of devotion to a god or goddess to whom an individual worshipper feels a particular affinity. This is striking as it is a major difference to today's largely secular western  world, where even those who attend places of worship tend to separate off their everyday life from their religious observances; the chosen deity was a major part of the worshipper's daily life, with an idol (like the mask) as a focus for the relationship. Evangelical Christians talk about a personal God, but the very fact of monotheistic belief makes this God seem much more remote and unconcerned than who is a patron of your profession, or shares your name; and the Protestant history of deism (a God who is relatively uninvolved with His creation) in their theology makes this remoteness even greater. Ignoring the issue of whether or not either the pagan or Christian gods are real, this seems to me to be less appealing to the imagination.

So The Mask of Apollo is interesting, readable, thought provoking, well researched, and has good characters. I would rate it at 9/10.

C.S. Lewis: Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956)

Edition: Fount, 1978 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 975

All of Lewis' fictional writing is an apologetic for Christianity, except for this novel. It still has a related message, but one which is simpler and broader in scope: it is an attack on the ideas of rationalism, on the view that the material world is all there is.

The story of Cupid and Psyche is quite well known, even though its first appearance is quite late for Greek or Roman myth (in Apuleius' Golden Ass). Psyche was a girl so beautiful that she aroused the jealousy of Venus, who sent her son Cupid to destroy her. But he fell in love, and carried Psyche away to a mysterious palace where all her wants were met. He visited her every night, but would not permit her to see his face, because his glory would overwhelm her. After some persuasion from Psyche, Cupid brought her jealous sisters to visit her, only to poison her mind by asking what kind of monstrous lover would be unwilling to show his face to her. Staying awake after they made love, Psyche uncovered a lamp to see Cupid as he was, only for some oil to spill and wake the god. He returned to heaven and she mourned him until, after the gods took pity on her, she was made an immortal and married to her lover.

The story is adapted by Lewis principally through being told from the point of view of one of the sisters, Orual or Maia, who is made far from spiteful, not even realising the emotion that prompts her to act for what she rationalises as Psyche's own good. The three sisters are made the daughters of a Middle Eastern barbarian king in the period of ancient Greek civilisation, who on the one hand grow up in a country which belongs to the anti-rational, frightening goddess Ungit (whose idol is a grotesque black stone) but who on the other have a Greek tutor, who acts as the voice of rationalism.

The crucial moment in the novel is when Orual visits Psyche in the palace built for her by her lover. The magnificent buildings and gardens Psyche sees are invisible to her sister; with the eyes of rationalism, it seems to Orual that Psyche is living in a mountain valley in the open. This is the essence of what Lewis wants to say, that there are experiences which are beyond rational explanation and that it is wrong to reject them. It is not even enough to regard others' descriptions of their mystical experiences as metaphors, as Orual does when Psyche offers her a magnificent wine (invigorating spring water) from a beautiful cup (her hands). Clearly, this kind of parable in no way proves Lewis' point, but it certainly provides an interesting illustration.

Whether or not the reader agrees with Lewis, and even if it is read as a simple story with no deeper meaning, Till We Have Faces is an enjoyable novel.

Christian Meier: Athens (1993)

Translation: Robert and Rita Kimber, 1998
Edition: John Murray, 1999
Review number: 587

The Golden Age of Athens (approximately the fifth century BC) is one of the most amazing times in human history. Western culture owes a great deal to ancient Greece, and much of what formed us can be traced to this one city over the three or four generations during which it was a major power. The role call of great names includes Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Socrates, Plato, Demosthenes, Pericles, Thucydides and Xenophon; and reverence for "the cradle of democracy" ensures it a vast symbolic importance in the world today. Christian Meier's book seeks to show how a city of under 200,000 - even when virtually disregarded slaves, women and inhabitants of foreign extraction are included - rose to such a position; what it was like and how it changed during its Golden Age; and what brought about its downfall.

Given the paucity of Athenian resources when compared to the city's ambitions (even given the discovery of rich silver mines on their territory), the eventual fall of Athens is hardly surprising; once a major expedition failed (the attack on Sicily) it was just a matter of time. The rise is more interesting. Meier writes about the foundation of democracy and why it might have overcome the aristocratic oligarchy which preceded it; and why Athens was for a long time one of the biggest and richest Greek cities without the political power which might be expected to go with this position. Given the small number of literary sources, even from the Golden Age, these are issues which can form the basis for endless argument, and Meier concentrates on saying enough to fit in with his theme, the unique quality of Athenian civilization.

The democracy which developed in Athens was radically different from the system that we give that name to today. It was participatory, rather than representative, and vast sections of the population were excluded, either by law or because they were too poor to be greatly involved. The wealthy tended to dominate, especially those who came from the old aristocratic families. After the downfall of Pericles, who dominated Athens for a generation, demagogues took over (including Aristophanes' butt Cleon) and their policy of appealing to the lowest common denominator quickly led to ruin - which could be seen as a warning to many of today's politicians.

Meier does not mention the problems inherent in taking the ancient accounts at face value, but he has little choice but to do so. (It is also hardly feasible to preface every second statement with a warning about its accuracy. In one or two places the danger is spelled out - for example, in deriving a picture of the teachings of the Sophists from the writings of Plato.)

It seems to me that Meier has done a really good job, and has produced a book which is interesting to the layman - and probably contains just about everything they might want to know about its subject.

Aristophanes: Lysistrata (411 BC)

Translation: Patric Dickinson, 1957

Edition: Nick Hern, 1996
Review number: 568

One of the reasons that Aristophanes' plays still work - even though the situation and people they are satirising are thousands of years out of date - is the way that they develop their ideas. The modern equivalent in feel to his humour would probably be a combination between political and absurdist stand-up comedy. This usually works by taking a sensible idea and developing it to the point of absurdity, while Aristophanes does almost exactly the opposite. He takes an absurd idea (becoming a bird because you're fed up with human politics, making a private peace treaty with the enemy in a long running war) and develops it as though it were serious.

In the case of Lysistrata, the absurd idea must have seemed completely ludicrous in a society in which it could be seriously debated whether women had minds at all. As in Women in Power, the play is about women taking over masculine politics. (And it should be remembered that another level of absurdity is provided by the fact that all the female parts would originally have been played by men in drag.) What they want is an end to the long-running Pelopponesian War - a motivation in several of Aristophanes' surviving plays - and the way that they intend to achieve this is to deny sex to their husbands until they see sense.

The potential for comedy in this scenario is fairly obvious, and Aristophanes makes a good deal out of it. The funniest moments are the women - desperate for sex themselves - trying to sneak past Lysistrata; Myrrhine - the name is the equivalent of something like 'sexpot' in then current Greek slang - working her husband up to a peak of frustration; and the delegation of Spartan men bent double to try to hide their erections. Not subtle, but very funny.

Not as clever as The Frogs (my favourite Aristophanes play), Lysistrata is continually funny and must have been extremely hard hitting as satire when first performed, by men to an audience of men telling them that women could run public affairs better than they were.

M.I. Finley: Ancient History - Evidence and Models (1985)

Edition: Penguin, 1985
Review number: 293

Ancient History is a short collection of essays about one of Finley's major interests, the historical methods used by ancient historians. It is a more homogeneous collection than some of Finley's other cobbled together sets of journal articles.

None of the articles is a general exposition of Finley's criticisms of the methods of his field, though, each being concerned with specific issues which he feels are particularly prone to cause errors in method (such as cliometrics - statistical history - or the history of warfare). Basically, what he has to say can be summarised as two generic faults: non-application of standard historical methods and insights, and misapplication of these methods and insights.

Both of these errors seem to stem from the way in which ancient history is generally taught, as an option within classics rather than an option within history. This means that the discipline is at heart literature oriented rather than historical method oriented. The first error then arises through giving an over-privileged position to the literary sources, particularly those which have a traditional reputation for accuracy (such as the works of Thycydides). Assertions made by these authors are then accepted without question, important conclusions are made by shaky inference from what they say, and generalisations are made from isolated phrases scattered among works by several authors. They might mention a particular item of interest to modern historians in passing, often in different contexts widely separated in time and location, and from conflicting points of view - and none of this is necessarily taken into account. Finley is even able to expose conclusions based on the parts of the historical literature known to be false, such as the speeches put into the mouths of prominent people, which at best reflect the writers' views of what ought to have been said. (A good example of this is given by Finley's discussion of the causes of specific wars, as ancient writers tend to record immediate causes - x insulted y - while historians today are interested in underlying ones - y's seapower undermining x's prosperity.)

The second error arises when historians do try to apply methods such as statistical analysis to ancient historical problems without an understanding of the sort of materials to which such an application is appropriate. The problem here is again related to difficulties with documentary sources; Finley praises analyses of certain archaeological artefacts (for example, studies using pottery distribution to explain features of ancient economics). However, methods appropriate to medieval and modern documents tend to give misleading answers for the ancient world. The reasons for this revolve around the fact that no ancient culture kept official records in the way that we do. (Ptolmaic Egypt may seem to be an exception to this, with copious official-looking documents, but Finley uses a fair amount of space to argue that this is not in fact the case.) Where documents have survived, a rare occurrence, it is often difficult to establish why they were preserved, and without knowing this, their significance is hard to understand. (Finley's example is an Athenian public monument recording the redistribution of property belonging to a group of people exiled for impiety, which remained in the Athenian market place for hundreds of years after a political coup enabled them to return.)

As usual, Finley's arguments are rational and convincing; it is sad that he continued to need to make them throughout his long career.

M.I. Finley: The World of Odysseus (1954)

Edition: Pelican, 1972
Review number: 272

The World of Odysseus is the book which made Finley's name as a classical scholar. He takes a fresh look as a historian at Homer's two great poems, which (even if not by the same hand) show many similarities in the world they depict. He uses insights derived from studies of other peoples based on an oral tradition to assess how the Odyssey and Iliad might relate to historical fact. (Poems like the Nibelungenlied and the Yugoslav poetry studied by Milman Parry include events and people known from more conventional historical sources, making this easier.)

Finley manages to distinguish two kinds of writing in Homer, other than principally fanciful episodes (like the Cyclops encounter in the Odyssey). There are distorted reflections of some past time, and insertions from the poet's own time. Sometimes they are combined, as in the descriptions of chariot fighting: the poet knows that chariots were used, but not how (because the use had died out by his time), so imagines them to be a kind of taxi to get to the battlefield, where the hero gets out to fight on foot. The description of gift exchange, which closely parallels similar systems known to anthropologists, is ancient; similes involving iron are contemporary.

Finley discusses many issues related to his theme, and is always interesting and convincing. There is the relationship between the poems and the Linear B tablets; between the poems and the excavations by Schliemann and others at Hissarlik and in Greece; between the works of Homer and Hesiod, near contemporaries; how later editing (known to have occurred) might have affected the poems; the existence and identity (identities) of Homer; the attitude towards the gods revealed in the poems (a downplaying of the more homely, primitive gods like Dionysus and Demeter). To a non-classicist like myself, his conclusions always seem to make sense. It is the romantic weight of the poems themselves, as evidenced in the desire to connect Hissarlik to the Troy of the Iliad by going beyond the archaeological evidence, which meant that The World of Odysseus caused such controversy.

M.I. Finley: The Legacy of Greece (1981)

Edition: Oxford University Press, 1982

This collection of essays from scholars is intended to re-examine the role that ancient Greece has played in shaping our modern culture. It consists of fourteen articles by leading classical scholars covering various fields which are generally considered to be strongly influenced by Greek culture, including philosophy, science, figurative art, religion and so on, or covering the interaction between Greece and other cultures that have shaped our own (specifically Jewish and Christian). The book is completed with an article examining how Greek ideas have been passed down through the last two thousand years, and how those who lived during that period thought of Greek culture.

Being classicists, each writer tends to dwell on that part of their essay which summarises what makes up that particular aspect of Greek culture, which is not really what they were intended to do (at least as far as I see it). Most of them say less about modern culture, and some of them have quite old-fashioned and personal ideas about the modern side of the field about which they are writing - I disagreed with just about everything the writer on drama has to say about twentieth century theatre, for example. Still, each essay is of interest.

It is the last article - the history of attitudes to ancient Greece - which is perhaps the best, though I always like Finley's writing (he wrote the introduction and the first piece, on politics, as well as editing the book as a whole).

Peter Green: Classical Bearings: Interpreting Ancient History and Culture (1998)

Edition: Thames and Hudson, 1998
Review number: 86

Classical Bearings is a collection of (independently written) essays on classical history and literature arranged more or less chronologically by subject. The range of subjects within these fields is quite large, from Mycenean history and Homeric literature to the early Roman Empire.

Although now a senior academic, Peter Green first made his name by a strong attack on the parochial world of the classics scholar, and his work is still extremely critical of the academic fashion. His views are always original and based on an understanding of not only the particular issue at hand but of the whole of the Greek and Roman scene - though particularly the Greek.

Every article is worth reading, and all contain interesting insights. This is partly because of the vast range of knowledge which Green has, and which is a consequence of the way in which classics used to be taught.