The most recommended books about Athens

I have collaborated with Bettany over many years—in her scholarly documentary filmmaking, including programmes on Socrates of Athens (469-399). Socrates never wrote or published in written form a word of his philosophy, yet through his immediate and succeeding disciples (above all Plato and Aristotle) has been hugely influential. But was he a democrat, as his fellow Athenians understood that term? In 399 a jury of 501 of his peers, chosen randomly by lot, delivered their resounding—negative—verdict, and condemned him to death by hemlock poison for being undemocratically irreligious and for teaching his pupils undemocratic values. Plato violently disagreed, and the debate over Socrates has continued ever since. Since it can be made to appear that he was convicted by an illiberal jury on grounds of his use of (democratic) freedom of speech, his condemnation has often been used as a stick to beat the ‘tyranny of… show more.

If you want to know what Kafka’s The Trial would have been like without a sense of humor, try reading Aeschylus. Though this ancient Greek tragedian does not aim for laughs (and does not get any!) his depiction of the furies of conscience has an elemental power and purity like a Beethoven motif or a Picasso masterpiece. The Eumenides may well be the first-ever courtroom drama, with Orestes on trial for killing his mother Clytemnestra. Aeschylus goes straight at the most difficult of human emotions—guilt—and like Sophocles, he explores it specifically in a family context. Who, after all, makes us more guilty than our parents? 

From classical times when cities first appeared, Hall shows how culture and innovation merge to produce the urban civilization that we have today. Hall’s history is portrayed through his perspectives on 21 cities worldwide, which reflect his previous writings about world cities and the fact that the urban society we have invented is undergoing a rapid transition to a global world composed of cities that are all of one piece.

This is a comprehensive history of cities–read it, and you will be up to date on the history of cities from the point of view of technology and culture.

Roberts’ groundbreaking, game-changing story of the Peloponnesian War (really, wars) is richly detailed and comprehensive, a modernizing “leveling up” from Donald Kagan’s 2004 standard text. By centering her narrative in the impact of the war, rather than strategy and politics, Roberts brings home the terrible human cost of the conflict, and the book serves as a critical examination of what wholesale violence means to a society, from the high to the low. Roberts writes with incredible empathy, and her voice makes the book more than enlightening, it’s a deeply moving mediation on the depths of self-inflicted suffering as only human beings can engender. 

I read this years ago; it's one of the reasons I began writing historical romance novels. It's the story of Aspasia, a woman in ancient Greece. She's educated in a selective school for courtesans, beautiful, groomed for pleasure, and bought by a Persian man who comes seeking a courtesan from this famous establishment. He takes Aspasia back to Persia. Eventually, she is freed and returns to Athens, where she meets Pericles. Inspired in part by his love of Aspasia, Pericles initiated the building of the famous Acropolis in ancient Greece. 

I was fortunate to visit Athens after reading Glory and the Lightning, and standing on the Acropolis, I found myself thinking of Pericles and Aspasia, real people who lived and loved over 2,000 years ago. (And yes, I may have gotten a lump in my throat and one or two tears threatened.)

This book is pure poetry to me. It follows the lives of three sisters on the precipice of adulthood during 1930s Greece.

I love that when it was published in the 1940s here in Greece, it was seen as a scandalous piece of literature. I can see why - Liberaki writes fervently and openly about the trials and tribulations of female teenhood, detailing gossip, romance, and even the loss of virginity with such poise and vim that it is still relevant and relatable to women today.

It was the kind of book that my own Greek Yiayia (grandmother) was absolutely not allowed to get her hands on. This book, for me, has it all. It’s bucolic, romantic, and oozes beautiful imagery of the hot, dry summers in Athens and the surrounding countryside. A perfect character study.

Not a book about Thucydides, but a selection of the speeches – one of the most striking aspects of his approach to history is the way he includes set-piece debates, not so much as accurate transcripts of what was actually said as a means of exploring issues of war, peace, democratic deliberation and so forth. If you already own a copy of Thucydides, this may not be of much interest (unless you’re obsessive enough to compare Hanink’s translations with others), but if you’re new to the topic this may be a good place to start: the speeches are more accessible than the lengthy battle narratives, they’re the main basis for Thucydides’ reputation as a thinker about political issues, as well as the source of some memorable lines, and Hanink’s introduction does a good job of explaining all of this.

This book tells the story of how people use food to reimagine identities in the midst of an economic and social crisis.

It beautifully describes the setting of restaurants and delicatessans in Athens, Greece, and how people’s association with the source of their food, the countryside, became a touchstone for reinventing Greekness. An account that will challenge stereotypes and leave you with a new perspective on “Greek cuisine.”

The late Christian Habicht was one of the foremost authorities on Hellenistic Greece. His book is both a synthesis of his research and publications on this period and an incisive and in-depth narrative of Athens down to 30 BC, anchored in the ancient, especially inscriptional, evidence. He shows among other things how Athens remained a vital city in Greece and how its intellectual and social life continued to flourish but how limited its democracy was. Habicht’s book could not take into account recent and much-needed epigraphical publications of the city’s major state decrees and laws and new insights into chronology, but it is still an indispensable read.

Davidson demonstrates that sexual relationships with courtesans and youths in ancient Athens paralleled the markets in other luxuries such as fish and wine rather more than resembling the modern ideal of romantic love. In a society where marriages were mainly business arrangements made between families to ensure the production of legitimate heirs to their estates, such formal relationships were frequently loveless. This led the male partners and those as yet unmarried to resort to employing mistresses, courtesans, and youths as luxurious distractions from the mundane matter of marital maintenance of the bloodline.