Athens wasn’t the first major city-state in Greece but it became the most prominent. Dr. Jeffrey Rusten, Professor, Cornell University, joins the show to discuss Athens’ rise to prominence in the Classical period.
Some topics explored
- Other major Greek city-states before Athen’s rise: Sparta, Thebes, and Argos
- Writings of Herodotus
- Writings of Thucydides
- Athens discovery of a local silver mine
- The creation of democracy in Athens
- Greco-Persian Wars
- Peloponnesian War
- In the Classical period, why Athens became the most prominent city-state
- It’s foreign policy
- Early rulers
- Socrates
- How other foreign states who took over Athens for a period of time—such as Sparta and the Kingdom of Macedon under Alexander the Great—treated the city
- What attributes that Athens possessed that made it prominent and attractive to citizens but also foreigners
Listen to the episode
The episode can be streamed below and is also available on major podcast apps: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Show Notes
- Professor Rusten is the author of many publications including the editing the books The Birth of Comedy: Texts, Documents, and Art from Athenian Comic Competitions, 486-280 (John Hopkins University Press) and Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War Book II (Cambridge University Press)
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