
The Children of Athena
Description
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In 146 BC, Greece yielded to the military might of the Roman Republic; some sixty years later, when Athens and other Greek city-states rebelled against Rome, the general Lucius Cornelius Sulla destroyed the city of Socrates and Plato, laying waste the famous Academy where Aristotle had studied.
However, the traditions of Greek cultural life would continue to flourish - across the eastern Mediterranean world and beyond - during the centuries of Roman rule that followed, in the lives and work of a distinguished array of philosophers, rhetoricians, historians, doctors, scientists, geographers and theologians.
Charles Freeman's accounts of such luminaries as the polymathic physician Galen, the soldier-botanist Dioscorides, the Alexandrian geographer and astronomer Ptolemy and the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus are interwoven with 'interludes' that counterpoint and contextualise a sequence of unjustly neglected and richly influential lives.
This is the story of a vibrant, constantly evolving tradition of intellectual inquiry across a period of more than five hundred years, from the second century BC to the start of the fifth century ad - one that would help shape the intellectual landscape of the Middle Ages and long after. The Children of Athena is a cultural history on an epic scale.
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Content
- Intro
- By the Same Author
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Prologue. The Banquet
- 1 Introduction: Greece Becoming Roman
- 2 Scrolls, Education and Travel
- 3 Philosophy and its Schools
- 4 The Historian: Polybius
- 5 The Polymath: Posidonius
- 6 The Geographer: Strabo
- Interlude One. The Res Gestae of Augustus and the Sebasteion of Aphrodisias
- 7 The Botanist: Dioscorides
- 8 The Philosopher and Biographer: Plutarch
- Interlude Two. Hadrian and the Patronage of Greek Culture
- 9 The Stoic Philosopher: Epictetus
- 10 The Politician, Historian and Philosopher: Arrian of Nicomedia
- 11 The Geographer and Astronomer: Claudius Ptolemy
- 12 The Satirist: Lucian of Samosata
- 13 The Medical Man: Galen
- 14 The Travel Guide: Pausanias
- Interlude Three. City Life in Second-century Asia Minor: Sagalassos
- 15 The Politician and Orator: Dio Chrysostom
- 16 The Rhetorician: Aelius Aristides
- 17 The Politician and Philanthropist: Herodes Atticus
- Interlude Four. The Clouds Darken: The Greek World in an Age of Crisis
- 18 The Philosopher: Plotinus
- 19 The Platonic Theologian: Clement of Alexandria
- 20 The Biblical Scholar: Origen
- Interlude Five. Constantinople and the Promulgation of Christian Orthodoxy
- 21 The Court Orator: Themistius
- 22 The Last of the Pagan Orators: Libanius
- 23 The Neoplatonist Philosopher and Mathematician: Hypatia
- 24 Afterlives
- Plate Section
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography and Notes on Sources
- Picture Credits
- About the Author
- An Invitation from the Publisher
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