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This chapter presents the evidence of Athens' economic exploitation of its Aegean empire in the fifth century bc, particularly the colonization of overseas territories and the division of land into an allotment system (cleruchies) in some cases clearly designed to produce grain surpluses for shipment to Athens. Special attention is given to Euboea and its role as Athens' chief fifth‐century granary, protected by a system of fortifications largely disregarded by previous scholarship. The Peloponnesian War and the political crisis of 411 bc which led to the loss of most of the island are examined in detail. The Athenian method of obtaining grain in the form of taxes is studied in the light of a new interpretation of the recently published Grain‐Tax Law of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros of the year 374/3 bc.

This chapter describes the fate of the Russian Army of General P. N. Wrangel after the evacuation of the Crimea in November 1920. Cossack units of the army ended up on the island of Lemnos. Units of the First Army Corps of General A. P. Kutepov were interned near the town of Gallipoli. Here they received humanitarian support from the French Army. Conditions of life were extremely hard. Morale among the Cossacks deteriorated rapidly. At Gallipoli, however, a harsh regime of discipline under General Kutepov had the effect of reviving the spirits of a large section of the First Army Corps, leading to the development of a myth of the ‘Gallipoli miracle’. Henceforth, this myth would play a vital role in binding the troops of the army together.

In the Greek pantheon there was a clear hierarchy. The most important gods were Zeus, Athena and Apollo, whereas other divinities, such as Poseidon, Artemis and Aphrodite, were clearly somewhat less important. This chapter asks how the Greeks actually constructed one of the less important gods, Hephaistos, by looking at such as aspects as his wife, the animal he is associated with, his lameness and his most important place of worship, Lemnos.

The account of the Argonauts’ launching of the Argo and departure from Iolkos in Greece in the first half of Book 1 establishes Greece as spatially and conceptually central in the poem, and the Argo as embodying normative Greek culture. The catalogue of Argonauts relates each of them to his home and gives each place a story connected with him. It progresses systematically around the Greek mainland and so links these places together to produce a Greek space that will exert a centripetal pull in the poem, a space of the heroes of Greek tradition. The scene of movement from city to shore emphasizes the significance of home. Scenes on the beach, where land and sea meet, are paradeigmatic of Greek society: the cooperative work of launching the Argo, the apportionment of rowing benches, which brings together traditional and contemporary models of Greek society, and the peaceful resolution of a quarrel, which provides a model of social harmony. The Argo and its company are thus an idealizing microcosm of Greek society. The episode at Lemnos is discussed as threatening the expedition by a confusion of categories that anticipates later events.

The chapter juxtaposes about thirty inscriptional and literary sources purportedly from Demades’s lifetime (although the book suggests dating some of the literary sources to later times) with almost 250 references in the literary texts of different genres from the mid-first century B.C. to the late Byzantine empire, revealing a gap of nearly 300 years between the death of Demades and the time in which most of the available literary evidence about his politics, character, looks, and oratory was produced. Contradictions between inscriptional and literary sources, and between references in literary texts, cast doubts on both the credibility of the literary evidence about Demades and the suggested criteria for establishing its authenticity. The chapter proposes to explain his contradictory image as an artificial rhetorical construct that served the educational and social needs of the Greek-speaking intellectual élite during Roman and Byzantine times, long after Demades’s death.

This chapter recapitulates the volume’s main achievements and sketches ways for expanding its methodology to other texts and to parts of Statius’ poem not covered in this book. It suggests that Valerius Flaccus’ epic is influenced by the same anti-Neronian ideology discussed in Chapter 1 and, like the Thebaid, reflects on the topic of imperial succession. The chapter surveys the political relevance of the Lemnos episode. It also argues that Statius’ reflection on the epic hero’s oscillation between the two poles of god and beast (discussed in Chapter 3 with reference to Capaneus and Tydeus especially) concerns other figures in the poem as well (Hippomedon, and by contrast Amphiaraus and Parthenopaeus). Finally, the chapter contains a summary of political views articulated by Statius in the Thebaid and suggests that the political ideas embedded in the poem were particularly close to the position of groups of survivors of Nero.

The Greek builders developed their control over water by careful observation coupled with trial and error, to determine where there would be ample water supply. They could amass the same kind of knowledge as modern engineers, although on a different (nonmathematical) basis. They were adept at utilizing observation but not at complicated technical manipulation of data, at least partly because of the defects in their mathematical system. They also were adept at utilizing discoveries made by their neighbors, such as the qanats of Persia. Unfortunately we do not know how much of the highly developed Mycenaean and Minoan water technology survived the “Dark Ages” of the first third of the first millennium B.C. The features of a karst landscape that tell modern engineers where to drill would have spoken equally strongly to their predecessors: 1. In limestone gaps between vertical or steeply dipping aquicludes (strata that hold water but do not transmit it) 2. In open faults or at fault intersections, especially in younger faults not resealed by precipitated calcite 3. At the noses of limestone spurs jutting into alluvium, places that are often the location of springs, but even if no spring is visible, one can find water at depth 4. On the peak of an anticline where tension opens the aquifer (cf. artesian wells) 5. Below surface drainage—especially in places with large solution openings (FAO, Vols. 4 and 5, pt. 1, p. 24) Thus, inspection of the karst terrane would have enabled the ancient water specialists to find and utilize springs, and also to know where to dig for wells. Such knowledge contributed directly to the success of ancient Greek cities. Inspection of and meditation on the natural environment over many centuries gave the Greeks the necessary models to develop highly sophisticated water systems. In what follows I am speculating, but in no case do these suggestions go beyond what would be possible given both time, intelligence, and necessity. In the case of either dolines/sinkholes or the kind of shaft that grows gradually upward, the lower end of the shaft is always or seasonally filled with water (see Fig. 7.3).

The development of prehistoric societies has always been viewed from one of two perspectives: a diffusionist approach, now largely out of fashion, which attributes the arrival of new styles and techniques to migration and trade; or an emphasis on the factors within a society that fostered change and growth. Alongside the tendency to look for internal explanations of change, interest in the ethnic identity of settlers has faded. Partly this reflects an awareness that easy identification of ‘race’ with language and culture bears no relation to circumstances on the ground: ethnic groups merge, languages are borrowed, important cultural traits such as burial practices mutate without the arrival of newcomers. Equally, it would be an error to see all social change as the result of internal developments merely enhanced by the effects of growing trade: the lightly populated shores and islands of the prehistoric Mediterranean provided broad spaces within which those in search of food, exiled warlords or pilgrims to pagan shrines could create new settlements far from home. If there were earlier settlers, the newcomers intermarried with them as often as they chased them away or exterminated them, and the language of one or the other group became dominant for reasons that are now beyond explanation. The Cyclades became the home of a rich and lively culture, beginning in the early Bronze Age (roughly 3000 BC onwards). The main islands were by now all populated; villages such as Phylakopi on Melos were thriving; on several islands small villages developed out of an original core of a couple of small homesteads. The obsidian quarries were still visited, and copper was available in the western Cyclades, whence it reached Crete; Cycladic products continued to flow outwards, though in quite precise directions: to the southern Aegean, but not, for some reason, northwards, suggesting that the opening of the seas was still partial and dependent on what other regions could offer the Cycladic islanders. The islanders appear to have imported little into their villages; very few eastern products have been found on excavated sites on the Cyclades.