a new history of Athens

Nicolas Siron, Editor

(Perrin, 400 pages, 2024)

The story of ancient Athens seems to be well known: Democracy takes place in the Assembly on the Pnyx, Athena is honored on the Acropolis, foreigners are numerous and inferior to citizens, and so on. Recent archeological research, however, invites us to rethink our vision of Classical Greece and its capital. This means changing our perspective, looking not upward to the Acropolis and the Pnyx but downward to the public square that is the Agora.

Indeed, starting from the Agora allows us to move away from a static and disembodied Athens to re-create the bustle of the Greek city through the daily practices of its citizens, be they judge, housewife, merchant, or philosopher. We are invited to imagine the sensory urban landscape with its scents of myrtle, iris, and honey, and visualize its inhabitants playing ourania, the game of “celestial ball,” or phaininda, the “game of feint” and ancestor of rugby. Teeming with economic and industrial activities, the Agora embodied the effervescence of daily life, as well as being a privileged site of Athenian politics. Merchants of all kinds disrupted the Council’s debates while pigs for sale in the market mingled with people gathered around Socrates. This book debunks the many clichés about Classical Athens through a series of questions delineated in sixteen chapters: Were women confined to a life of reserve and discretion? Was the information that circulated impervious to fake news? Were laws accessible to all? Were the statues simply works of art?

Nicolas Siron and his fellow contributors, all from a new generation of scholars, offer a vibrant history of ancient Athens, accessible to a wide audience without sacrificing any scientific ground. In so doing, they greatly renew our political, social, and religious vision of the ancient Greek city. This book is likely to become a must-read for those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Classical Athens.

Nicolas Siron is a historian specializing in Ancient Greek History and member of the ANHIMA (Anthropologie et histoire des mondes antiques) center in Paris. His publications include Témoigner et convaincre. Le dispositif de vérité dans les discours judiciaires de l’Athènes classique (Éditions de la Sorbonne 2019; Prix Zographos 2020).