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Once again the historian who wishes to understand this difficult period must try to read between the lines. It
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Donald Kagan |
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The development of hoplite warfare took place in this context of novel agrarianism, which promoted a particular type of moral excellence.
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Donald Kagan |
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Fair and good [kalon ... agathon] the man who falls fighting in the front rank, dying for the fatherland.
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Donald Kagan |
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The Spartan attitude reflected an important fact about the condition of the Greek world from 479 to 461: Its stability was apparent only and not real. The alliance between Sparta and Athens was not an alliance of states but of factions. The faction of Cimon and the faction that would be headed by King Archidamus were prepared to accept limits to the hegemonal claims of their states, but in each state there were significant elements of the p..
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Donald Kagan |
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The hoplites drove the tyrants from power and created broad oligarchies in their place.
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Donald Kagan |
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These georgoi in turn shaped the ideals, institutions, and culture that gave rise to the polis. Unlike any prior civilization, the culture of the Greek polis combined citizen militias with the rule of law. That involved having a broad middle class of independent small landowners that met in assemblies where the votes of these nonelite determined laws, and foreign and domestic policy. These smallholders gained in status as population growth ..
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Donald Kagan |
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Philolaus of Corinth (about 730 B.C.?) had supposedly enacted regulations ensuring that the farms at Thebes might remain the same number in perpetuity. The Corinthian Pheidon, "one of the most ancient of the lawgivers," purportedly argued that the population and the number of plots ought always to remain roughly equal. An even more shadowy figure, Phaleas the Chalcedonian, advanced the concept that all citizens of the polis ought to hold eq..
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Donald Kagan |
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This is arete; this is the best human prize and the fairest for a young man to win." The man who fights without pause among the promachoi "is a common good (xynon esthlon) for the polis and all the people (demos)." ... "If he falls among the promachoi and loses his dear life, he brings honor to his town (asty) and his people (laoi) and his father." Young and old alike lament him / and his entire polis mourns with painful regret. / His tomb ..
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Donald Kagan |