Title: Life in Ancient Athens: The Social and Public Life of a Classical Athenian from Day to Day
Author: TG Tucker
ISBN: –
Publisher: Macmillan, 1907. The rare full-leather edition.
Condition: Hardcover, full leather with ornate gilt on spine. In exceptional condition for its age. First marbled endpaper neatly removed, otherwise near-perfect.
With several plates and illustrations and a fold-out map. Please have a look here for images of illustrations.
Preface
THE aims which have been chiefly borne in mind during the
writing of this unpretentious volume are those of clearness
and accuracy. I have sought to leave an impression true and
sound, so far as it goes, and also vivid and distinct. The
style adopted has therefore been the opposite of the pedantic,
utilising any vivacities of method which are consistent with
truth of fact.
It is perhaps a platitude to urge that there can be little
lucidity among an accumulation of relatively unimportant, if
erudite, detail. The experience of every teacher or listener
will establish that point. One cannot see the wood for the
trees. It has therefore seemed good to select from the avail-
able material — which is sufficiently extensive — those matters
which count for most. No attempt has been made to elaborate
or refine, or otherwise to emulate the dictionaries of antiqui-
ties. On the other hand, it is claimed that there are incor-
porated unobtrusively in the following simple chapters the
results of all due study of the latest research, as well as the
conclusions of many years of professional intimacy with
Athenian antiquity.
Had I been aware of the existence of any book covering
the same ground as the present, I should scarcely have sought
publication. There are, indeed, a number of works, and some
of conspicuous excellence, dealing with Greek life, or with
phases of Greek life, in general. But I am aware of none
which treats solely of the one most interesting and important
period of the one most interesting and important community.
Nor am I aware of any which has in view precisely the same,
class of readers for whom this is primarily intended. The
admirable little work of Professor Gulick, The Life of the
Ancient Greeks, though necessarily containing a good deal of
the same detail, is written on different lines and with a
different scope. Obligation has been inevitable to the following standard
works: —
Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des Antiquiés Grecques et
Romaines.
Baumeister, Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums.
Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities.
Becker-Göll, Charikles.
P. Gardner and Jevons, Manual of Greek Aatiquities.
Guhl and Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans.
Gilbert, Greek Constitutional Antiquities (English translation).
Haigh, The Attic Theatre.
E. A. Gardner, Ancient Athens.
E. A. Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture.
Grote, History of Greece.
I am also indebted for some pregnant hints to–
Ridgeway, Early Age of Grecce.
J. E. Harrison, Prolegomena to Greek Religion.
Mahaffy, Social Life in Greece.
I have felt no difficulty in accepting Professor E. A. Gard-
ner’s view of the harbours of the Peiraeus and of the Long
Walls: the third or south wall, which appears on the plan at
page 12, in my opinion never existed.
I am very greatly indebted to Professor Percy Gardner, the
General Editor of this Series. To his special and intimate
knowledge of the most recent discoveries in this field I owe
a number of valuable corrections. His familiarity with the
whole store of ancient illustrations has also enabled him to
modify and improve my own selection to such an extent that,
in this particular, the book may be said to owe more to him
than to me. How highly such a service must be estimated by
a writer so far removed from the centre needs no elaborate
statement.
T. G. T.
July, 1906.