Athens: A Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age [Hardcover]

Christian Meier (Author), Robert Kimber (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 1998

A lively and accessible history of Athens's rise to greatness, from one of the foremost classical historians.

The definitive account of Athens in the age of Pericles, Christian Meier's gripping study begins with the Greek triumph over Persia at the Battle of Salamis, one of the most significant military victories in history. Meier shows how that victory decisively established Athens's military dominance in the Mediterranean and made possible its rise to preeminence in almost every field of human eavor--commerce, science, philosophy, art, architecture, and literature. Within seventy-five years, Athens had become the most original and innovative civilization the ancient world ever produced.

With elegant narrative style, Meier traces the birth of democracy and the flourishing of Greek culture in the fifth century B.C., as well as Athens' slow decline and defeat in the Peloponnesian War. The great figures--from politicians and generals like Themistocles and Alcibiades to the philosophers Socrates and Plato--emerge as flesh-and-blood human beings, firmly rooted in their times and places. This is history in the tradition of Simon Schama and Barbara Tuchman--learned, accessible, and beautifully written.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ancient Athens is remembered today as the cradle of a civilization that stands as an ideal of the reasoned life, as the source of radical transformations of thought that remain with us today in ideas of citizenship, freedom, political organization, and social obligation. Christian Meier gently reminds us, however, that in this context, Athens was a collective of landed citizens numbering fewer than 150,000 individuals spanning four generations in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.

Meier's sweeping narrative begins with the decisive Athenian victory at the battle of Salamis, when a hastily assembled fleet held off the much mightier navy of the Persian emperor, Xerxes. It was in war, Meier suggests, that Athens first came to see itself as a place unlike any other. When they were not battling Persians, Athenians often fought neighboring city-states over, say, who would have the right to host a round of Olympic games or control shipping lanes. (The Athenians, quipped Thucydides, "were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others.") The Athenian penchant for fighting with their neighbors--and, when neighbors were otherwise occupied, amongst themselves--led to the city-state's decline at the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404 B.C., when Meier's saga draws to a close.

Meier brings a flair for storytelling to his thoroughgoing portrait of Athens's shining moment, with a cast of characters strong on well-known figures like Solon, Alcibiades, Euripides, and Socrates. Meier also writes with self-effacing modesty, noting that his is but one interpretation among many and that history that, as his does, "obeys the law of narrative sequence [is] the most time-honored perspective for curtailing understanding." Yet Athens does nothing of the sort, offering instead a fine overview of the complexities of Athenian life from which every reader of classical history will profit. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Meier gets his massive study of Athens off to a marvelous start. It is 480 B.C., and the entire population of the city, around 100,000 people, have left everything behind in their race for the harbor, hoping to escape the approaching Persians and board ships to the island of Salamis, and safety. Defeated by the Greeks in a brilliant naval maneuver, the Persians head home, allowing the uninterrupted evolution of the peculiar "Greek way" democracy. "There are very few instances in history when so much was at stake in a single battle," writes Meier, a professor of ancient history at the University of Munich. Without the Greek victory at Salamis, he asks, "would there have been the incentive for such amazing growth of rational thought?" His answer is yes, and his book explains why. Following the battle of Salamis, east and west were no longer points on a compass, but two different worlds. Although the Persians allowed Greek culture to thrive in Asia Minor, it was the Greek peninsula with its difficult terrain and patchwork of small city-states that gave birth to a people stubborn and independent enough to reinvent the rules of world history. This remarkable age lasted about four generations, and even though their achievements changed history, the Greeks had lost their grip on major political power by the turn of the next century. Meier's re-creation of this era is thorough, compelling and greatly aided by the Kimbers' scholarly yet accessible translation. He succeeds in his stated goal of writing history as if it were a literary endeavor, creating a clear, indelible picture of a fascinating era. Editor, Stephen Hubbell.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: Metropolitan Books (September 16, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805048405
• ISBN-13: 978-0805048407
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,032,482 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars birth of the "west", February 10, 2003

By 

Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Athens: A Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age (Hardcover)

This book, which covers one of the most remarkable eras in the history of mankind, attempts to be both scholarly and literary/popular. Unfortunately, while the content of it is utterly fascinating, the way it is written - or translated - leaves much to be desired: the style is flat and dull, frequently unclear, and simply a chore to plod through.

That being said, it covers the flowering of Athens as an imperialist democracy after the defeat of the Persian invasion that briefly united Greece. In the wake of the peace that followed, Athens used the Delian League to create an empire, drawing enormous wealth into the city state and dominating innumerable smaller states, eventually threatening the hegemony of the Spartans in the Pelopponesus. By developing a naval empire, the Athenians needed to enlist the loyalty of lower classes to man the boats and serve as hoplites, which encouraged the development of direct democracy.

Meier meticulously covers the details of these developments in a masterful synthesis of scholarship - it is a kind of updating of the Kulturgeschichte of Burckhart and is very valuable. THe reader is treated to the unique characteristics of Athens as well: it was in an era before there were "specialists" and so everyone was expected to participate in the city's governance, sometimes by elections and sometimes by lot; for historical reasons, Greece had lacked heredity kingships (and empires) to fall back on, preferring instead to guard the independence of smaller and more directly governable city states.

What was particularly interesting was Meier's portrayal of the excitment - the sense that all boundaries were crumbling - that permeated Athens of this period. In this he is certainly correct: we see the rise of Perikles, the great Greek trajedians, the beginning of modern philosophy, the flowering of artistic realism, and new forms of architecture. Meier views all of these developments as of a living organism, mixing political history with art criticism and long interpretations of the contemporary events that the dramas may have been referring to. In spite of these achievements, Meier also studies the fatal flaws and contradictions of this democratic experiment, in Athens' need to subjugate others in the name of democracy, the tendency of the citizens to indulge in excess and sudden blame, and the rise of demagogues. Thus, the portrait of the city is very well rounded. From that point, Meier moves to more military history, chronicalling the catastrophies of the Peloponessian War in painful detail. It is here, really, that the notion of the West and Europe were born.

However, it is amazing to me that the book is so poorly edited. The prose is leaden and utterly lacking in style, as in so much of the academic tradition. But the content is so interesting and compelling that it kept my interest through 600 pages. Indeed, I want to read more on the period.

Recommended.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, but..., October 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Athens: A Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age (Hardcover)

I wasn't terribly impressed with this, considering his supposed standing as a scholar and historian. The first hundred or so pages regarding the Battle of Salamis and Solon's early notions of democracy are engaging, but the author soon settles into rather sweeping assertions that become less and less rooted in historical examples. He may very well be right about it all, and probably is, but posits far too little to support his observations on particularly art and literature as a reflection of the concrete belief in democracy that Athens had and others didn't. He writes well (rather it is well-translated), just found myself wishing for more meat and less gristle. Still and all, there's much to learn from it and it is an entertaining read.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Engaging, but not documented, July 3, 2001

By 

Richard R. Simpkins "Worlds Without End critic" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Athens: A Portrait of the City in Its Golden Age (Hardcover)

I thoroughly enjoyed Meier's narrative style, but was somewhat disappointed by his lack of references. Even outright quotations were not footnoted, and I often had no idea where the quote came from! Many of Meier's views are obviously well informed, but he certainly had time to address opposing views. The only reason that I can think of as to why he chose not to defend his views (but only describe them) is that he intended this work to me for popular instruction. If so, he succeeds. The book drags on during periods (such as early Athens) when he describes mostly sociological details, but becomes far more engaging when he actually has a personality to describe (such as Solon or Pericles). Since the book focuses on the fifth century, there is scant information on earlier figures, such as Cylon and Pissistratus. This is unfortunate, because the title (and thickness of the book) suggests a more exhaustive account of the polis in question. Finally, Meier deals well with the interactions between Athens and other poleis, though I still would like to see him address opposing theories and document his sources. If I were grading for a scholar, I would give this three stars, but if you are a beginner at this topic, the current rating of four is more appropriate.