Right, this will be brief. There isn’t a lot to say here.
If you ever wanted to get really in the weeds about what classical Athens was like, then this is the book for you.
This is a very academically orientated book. It goes from subject to subject and explains what it is like for the ancient Athenians regarding that subject. Marraige, taxes, politics, everything you could ever want to know. Someone suggested it as a not too necessary primer before a reread of the works of Plato. I’ve got that coming as a project, so I figured why the fuck not throw this on too, to get myself into the spirit.
What else is there to say? It’s legible, its pretty thorough, and it does clarify a few things. Read it if you are terribly interested in classical Athens. Otherwise, don’t.
As always, I have a nit-pick. The author goes a little nuts with translation, or lack there of sometimes. Despite that the term Βασιλιας simply means king, and that Roberts says so in the bloody text, he continues to use it and many other terms where there English translation would have greatly improved the reading. It reminds me of those awful, pseudolinguistic listicles you would find online talking about ’10 words you cannot translate’ – followed by their translation (one of the worst offenders of which is the Greek Τιμη, which literally just means ‘price’). In the case of Βασιλιας there really isn’t any need to use the Greek term. There were a few other examples of this here and there. But again, nit pick.
Failures in Polymathy 