Athens from Alexander to Antony - Tapa dura

Habicht has for years been established as...the leading authority on the history of Athens in the centuries between the fall of the Athenian Empire, in 404 B.C.E., and the establishment of the Roman Empire...The book now made available in English will surely be the standard work on the subject for the next thirty years. -- Jasper Griffin New York Review of Books Christian Habicht is a German scholar of very high quality...His Athens from Alexander to Antony is a welcome new account of this turbulent period...It is a first-class piece of work, likely to remain authoritative for many years, and the reader who tackles it will be rewarded. -- Hugh Lloyd-Jones Wall Street Journal Anglophone scholars will welcome this prompt translation of Habicht's excellent [Athens from Alexander to Antony]...The need for a new serious general history of Hellenistic Athens cannot be doubted, given that the last was W. S. Ferguson's Hellenistic Athens: An Historical Essay (London, 1911). Nor can it be doubted that Habicht, the distinguished epigraphist and veteran of many technical studies in this area, is the man for the job. -- Daniel Ogden Classical Review Christian Habicht has written a very readable general history of Hellenistic Athens...Habicht addresses the major difficulty in writing a historical narrative of this period: the scarcity of sources. He more than offsets the problem of fragmented literary texts with the insights that the surviving epigraphic evidence of decrees, lists, reports, and coinage adds to the picture of Athenian public life. With great skill in synthesizing this source material, Habicht builds his thesis that during the period from Macedonia's domination to Rome's subjugation, Athens remained a viable city with an active citizenry who participated in political, cultural, and international affairs. -- Randolph H. Lytton History [UK]

The conquests of Alexander the Great transformed the Greek world into a complex of monarchies and vying powers, a vast sphere in which the Greek city-states struggled to survive. This is the story of one city that, despite long periods of subjugation, persisted as a vital social entity throughout the Hellenistic age. Christian Habicht narrates the history of Athens from its subjugation by the Macedonians in 338 BC to the battle of Actium in 31 BC, when Octavian's defeat of Mark Antony paved the way for Roman dominion over the Hellenistic world. For nearly three centuries Athens strove unsuccessfully for sovereignty; its foreign policies were shaped by the dictates first of the Macedonian monarchy and later of the Roman Republic. Yet the city never relinquished control of internal affairs, and citizen participation in its government remained strong. Habicht chronicles the democracy's setbacks and recoveries over these years as it formed and suffered the consequences of various alliances. He sketches its continuing role as a leader in intellectual life and the arts, as Menander and other Athenian playwrights saw their work produced throughout the Greek world; and the city's famous schools of philosophy, now including those of Zeno and Epicurus, remained a stellar attraction for students from around the Mediterranean. In this study the author distills his research for all readers interested in the ancient Mediterranean world.