The Greek World 479-323 BC

Citation

Hornblower, S. (2011). The Greek World 479–323 BC (4th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The fourth edition runs to 432 pages in nineteen chapters and covers the period from the end of the Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great. Its organising principle, stated in the publisher's description, is regional variety: the book follows the Greek communities of the whole Mediterranean and beyond, not only Athens and Sparta. The chapters below follow the table of contents.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Opens the book and sets out its approach to the period and to the evidence for it, which the publisher describes as literary, epigraphic and archaeological.

Chapters 2–3: The beginning of the Delian League; Empire

These chapters take up the Athenian-led alliance formed after the Persian Wars and its development into an empire, the political backbone of the fifth-century story.

Chapters 4–8: South Italy and Sicily; Kyrene and Egypt; The Persian Empire, especially Asia Minor; Argos; Macedon, Thessaly and Boiotia

A sequence of regional surveys. The first three look at Greek settlement and contact in the west, in North Africa and Egypt, and under Persian rule in Asia Minor; the last two turn to Argos and to northern and central Greece. This block carries the book's theme of regional variety and is the main point of difference from histories centred on Athens.

Chapters 9–14: The run-up to the war; Corinth; Sparta; Athens; The Peloponnesian War; The effects of the Peloponnesian War

The book approaches the Peloponnesian War by first examining its causes, then the three leading states, Corinth, Sparta and Athens, before narrating the war itself and, in a separate chapter, its consequences.

Chapters 15–17: The Corinthian War; The King's Peace to Leuktra; the Second Athenian Confederacy; Leuktra to Mantineia and the Revolt of the Satraps

The fourth-century chapters cover the conflicts and settlements between the end of the Peloponnesian War and the battle of Mantineia, including the King's Peace, the Second Athenian Confederacy, Leuktra and the revolt of the Persian satraps.

Chapters 18–19: Philip; Alexander

The final two chapters are devoted to Philip and to Alexander and bring the narrative to 323 BC.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Introduction to Empire

• Delian League: the alliance of Greek states led by Athens after the Persian Wars, which the book follows into its imperial phase.
• Evidence: the literary, epigraphic and archaeological sources from which the period is reconstructed, and the problems of using them.

Chapters 4–8: Regional chapters

• Regional variety: the book's organising theme, that Greek history differed from region to region across the Mediterranean.
• Persian Empire: treated as part of the Greek world's environment, especially in Asia Minor.

Chapters 9–14: The Peloponnesian War

• Causes and effects of the war: separated into chapters of their own, with the leading states each given a chapter in between.

Chapters 15–19: The fourth century

• King's Peace and Second Athenian Confederacy: the interstate arrangements of the early fourth century.
• Revolt of the Satraps: Persian provincial rebellion as a factor in Greek affairs.
• Macedonian expansion: the careers of Philip and Alexander as the culmination of the period.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Breadth of geography. The table of contents gives the western Greeks, Cyrene and Egypt, Asia Minor, Argos, Macedon, Thessaly and Boeotia their own chapters. The fourth edition adds a new sub-chapter on islands and takes account of recent scholarship on poleis across the Greek world.
• Attention to evidence. The publisher stresses the literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence and the difficulties of using it, and the fourth edition revises its citation of fourth-century inscriptions and updates the bibliography.
• Reputation as a standard text. A review of the fourth edition in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review calls the book one of the leading textbooks on Greek history; reviews of the third edition in the Times Literary Supplement and Scholia Reviews praise its use of sources and its originality while remaining a standard history.
• Clear structure. Regional surveys, then the great war, then the fourth century and the Macedonian kings form an easily navigable sequence of nineteen chapters.

Limitations

• Not a first introduction. It is a detailed history built around evidence and scholarly debate; readers with no background in Greek history will find a shorter survey easier to begin with.
• Narrative of the war is not the whole design. Because the book spends several chapters on regions before reaching the Peloponnesian War, readers wanting a continuous political narrative must follow the order of chapters deliberately.
• Period limits. It begins in 479 and ends in 323; the archaic background and the Hellenistic aftermath are outside its scope.

Where It Fits in the Course

Hornblower is the detailed period history in the ancient history list. Paul Cartledge's Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction tells the story of Greece through eleven cities in a few short chapters and works well as a first orientation before Hornblower. Robin Lane Fox's The Classical World is a single-volume narrative of Greece and Rome, useful for the wider frame and for readers who want story before analysis. Marc Van De Mieroop's history of the ancient Near East to the Macedonian conquest supplies the eastern background to Hornblower's chapters on Persia and Alexander.

Martin Goodman's The Roman World 44 BC–AD 180 and Livy's The Early History of Rome belong to the Roman side of the course and are not substitutes for this book; they are best read alongside it as a comparison of how the two worlds are studied and which sources survive.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduates taking a course on classical Greek history and readers who already know the outline of the period. Start with a short survey if the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War are unfamiliar.

A practical reading plan:

• Core: Chapters 1–3 for the framework and the Athenian empire; Chapters 9–14 for the road to the Peloponnesian War, the leading states and the war's effects; Chapters 15–19 for the fourth century down to Alexander.
• Optional by interest: Chapters 4–8, the regional surveys, can be read selectively. They matter most for courses that emphasise the wider Greek world, Persia or Macedon.
• Alongside: read the ancient sources the book discusses, such as Thucydides, Xenophon and surviving inscriptions in translation, so that the discussion of evidence in each chapter can be tested against the texts. Use the updated bibliography to follow up topics for essays.