This is the first full account of the Aitolian League in modern times, based wholly on original source material, describing its origin, its rise and fall, and refuting the old libel which describes it as a pirate state.

Greek and Roman history has largely been reconstructed from the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Tacitus, and other major authors who are today well represented in English translations. But much equally valuable documentary material is buried in inscriptions and papyri and in the works of Greek and Roman grammarians and scholars, and less well known historians and literary figures, of whose writings only isolated quotations have been preserved. Translated Documents of Greece and Rome has been planned to provide, above all, primary source material for the study of the classical world. It makes important historical documents available in English to scholars and students of classical history. The format of the translations is remarkable in attempting to reproduce faithfully the textual difficulties and uncertainties inherent in the documents, so that the reader without a knowledge of classical languages can assess the reliability of the various readings and interpretations. The author's purpose in compiling this book is to help the teaching of Hellenistic history at undergraduate and graduate level by providing students and teachers with a representative selection of accurately translated documents dealing with the political and social history of Greece and the Near and Middle East from c. 300 to c. 30 BC. The continuing vitality of the Greek cities in the Hellenistic period and the interaction of Greek and non-Greek cultures in the Near and Middle East after Alexander are the two themes to which the author pays particular attention. In accordance with the principles of this series, selections from readily available major authors such as Polybius and Plutarch have been excluded except where unavoidable. Instead the bulk of the selections have been drawn from papyrological and epigraphical sources, many of which have never been translated into English before. The texts include city decrees and regulations, royal letters and ordinances, records of embassies and judicial decisions, dedications, treaties, statue bases, and documents dealing with the establishment of festivals, dynastic and other religious cults, education and other endowments. Brief commentaries and bibliographical notes accompany each text. Students and teachers of ancient history and classical civilization will welcome this book. Those studying Jewish history and the historical background of early Christianity will also find it interesting.

The first detailed examination of the collison of Rome and the Seleukid kingdom which ended in the battle of Magnesia, 189 BC, provides a case study in ancient diplomacy and war.

"This book does genuinely fill a significant gap . . . and will serve as a reliable guide to the sources and scholarship on Greece in the third century."—Stanley Burstein "The Aetolians of the 3rd cent. BCE (even more than the Macedonians, if not quite at the level of the Gauls) were the bogey-men and whipping-boys for every Greek state, from Athens to Achaea, that considered itself more civilized. Polybius in particular couldn't stand them. Primitive, treacherous, murderous, piratical—the epithets pile up like snow on Helicon. Yet, paradoxically, these sub-Homeric ruffians also instituted a remarkably modern-sounding democratic federation, which even (despite Greek ethnic exclusiveness) offered membership to non-Aetolian groups. Resolving the paradox has stimulated Scholten to produce a really wonderful book. He has reinforced the scanty literary sources with some of the most thorough epigraphical and numismatic work I have ever seen in a work of scholarship. Best of all, he has walked every inch of Aetolia and knows its geography backwards. His research (while not palliating the Aetiolians' "predatory economic self-service," a nice phrase) sets their federation in its political context as never before, and, what's more, does so in elegant and drily ironic prose. The Politics of Plunder invites comparison with N.G.L. Hammond's Epirus, and will, I suspect, in the long run prove a more durable and substantial achievement."—Peter Green

A comprehensive reassessment of federalism and political integration in antiquity, including detailed descriptions of all the Greek federal states.

A great deal of information has come to light over the past several decades about the role of arbitration between the Greek states. Arbitration and mediation were, in fact, central institutions in Hellenistic public life. In this comprehensive study, Sheila Ager brings together the scattered body of literary and epigraphical sources on arbitration, together with up-to-date bibliographic references, and commentary. The sources collected here range widely; Ager presents an exhaustive record of documents ranging from the settlement of a minor territorial squabble between two tiny city-states to the resolution of major conflicts separating the great powers of the day. In addition, Ager's introduction sets the documents in historical context and outlines distinctions among categories of arbitration. The work also includes indices to literary passages, inscriptions, persons, places, subjects, and Greek and Latin terms in the documents. This collection of many previously inaccessible texts will become a primary resource for any scholar or student working in the field of Hellenistic history.

The Greek World After Alexander 323–30 BC examines social changes in the old and new cities of the Greek world and in the new post-Alexandrian kingdoms. An appraisal of the momentous military and political changes after the era of Alexander, this book considers developments in literature, religion, philosophy, and science, and establishes how far they are presented as radical departures from the culture of Classical Greece or were continuous developments from it. Graham Shipley explores the culture of the Hellenistic world in the context of the social divisions between an educated elite and a general population at once more mobile and less involved in the political life of the Greek city.