M. I Finley

In this beautifully illustrated and eye-opening book, the author and his associate have accomplished the near impossible: a brilliant history of the mysterious and little-known events on which our modern Olympic Games were patterned. They tell us not only what the actual sporting events and rules were, but who the athletes were and how they were trained, how the games were financed and managed, and how the participants viewed the games themselves....

The History of the Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

Slaves have been exploited in most societies throughout human history, but there have been only five genuine slave societies, and of these, two were in antiquity: classical Greece and classical Italy. In this major book, the distinguished historian Sir Moses Finley examines those two societies, not in isolation but in comparison with the other, relatively modern slave societies of the New World. Sir Moses considers how the ancient slave societies...

This is a book about the study and understanding of the history of the Greeks and Romans ; about the evidence that is available to the historians and its severe limitations ; about the practices of the historians in dealing with the evidence, and about alternative procedures that might be attempted ; in sum, about what we can know and what we are unlikely ever to know. Thus, Sir Moses Finley states his purpose, with characteristic clarity, at the...