The Cambridge Ancient History: Volume 4, Persia, Greece and the Western Mediterranean, c.525 to 479 BC

The years covered by this volume saw events and developments of major significance in the Mediterranean world. The first section of the book examines the Persian empire, the regions it comprised and its expansion during the reigns of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes. In Greece, Sparta was attending maturity as the leader of a military coalition and Athens passed through a period of enlightened tyranny to a moderate democracy of dynamic energy and clear-sighted intelligence. Given the contrast between Greek ideas and Persian absolutism a clash between Greece and Persia became inevitable, and important chapters deal with the revolt of the Ionian Greeks against the Persians, and the two Persian invasions of Greece including the epic battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis. The third part of the volume turns to the Western Mediterranean. Italy now becomes a significant factor in the history of the area and this section covers the Italic peoples and their languages from the Bronze to the Iron age, and examines the Etruscans and their culture. Sicily is the subject of the final chapter. There the Greek city-states under Gelon of Syracuse and Theron ruler of Acragas repelled a Carthaginian onslaught at the battle of Himera. This new edition has been completely replanned and rewritten in order to reflect the advances in scholarship and changes in perspective which have been taking place in the sixty years since the publication of its predecessor.

List of maps; List of text-figures; List of chronological tables; Preface; Part I. The Persian Empire: 1. The early history of the Medes and the Persians and the Achaemenid empire to the death of Cambyses T. Cuyler Young Jr.; 2. The consolidation of the empire and its limits of growth under Darius and Xerxes T. Cuyler Young Jr.; 3. The major regions of the empire Amélie Kuhrt, I. Eph’al, Henri-Paul Francfort, A. D. H. Bivar, M. Mellink, A. Fol, N. G. L. Hammond and J. D. Ray; Part II. The Greek States: 4. The tyranny of the Pisistratidae D. M. Lewis; 5. The reform of the Athenian state by Cleisthenes Martin Ostwald; 6. Greece before the Persian invasion L. H. Jeffery; 7. Archaic Greek society J. K. Davies, G. S. Kirk, John Boardman, Colin Kraay, C. Roebuck, Oswyn Murray, N. G. L. Hammond and J. P. Barron; Part III. The West: 12. Italy from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age David Ridgway; 13. The Etruscans David Ridgway; 14. The Iron Age: the peoples of Italy Edward Togo Salmon; 15. The languages of Italy J. H. W. Penney; 16. Carthaginians and Greeks David Asheri; Bibliography; Index.