Originally published on June 2, 2024 (Episode 362)
Introduction
Sometime around two and a half millennia ago, a cluster of cities and states around the northeastern Mediterranean began to do amazing things. They spread out across the Mediterranean and Black Seas, establishing towns and trading posts. As they sailed outward, they also explored inward, asking big questions that remain with us today. At the same time, they competed relentlessly—on the battlefield, in athletics, in trade, in the arts, and in every other aspect of life.
These were the people we call the Greeks. But how did such a diversity of peoples gain a common identity? Among their shared features, what were their differences? And despite our modern sense of kinship with them, how were they also profoundly unlike us, shaped by the wider ancient world?
About the Guest
Jennifer Roberts, Professor of Classics and History at the City College of New York and the City University of New York Graduate Center, joins me to survey the unities and diversities of ancient Greece. Her many books include The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece (OUP, 2019) and Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2011), both of which were the subject of previous conversations on this podcast. Her most recent book is Out of One, Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture, the focus of today’s discussion.
For Further Investigation
Jennifer Roberts, Out of One, Many: Ancient Greek Ways of Thought and Culture (Princeton, 2024)
—, The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece (OUP, 2019)
—, Herodotus: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2011)
Related Episodes
Jennifer Roberts on the Peloponnesian War (Episode X)
Jennifer Roberts on Herodotus (Episode X)
Additional Resources
Hunter Rawlings, “‘A Possession for All Time’? Why and how Thucydides still matters”, A public lecture given by Professor Hunter R. Rawlings III, President of the Association of American Universities, at the University of Bristol on 29th June 2012
💬 Listen & Discuss
How should we think about the Greeks—as one people, or as a fractured collection of rivals? Share your thoughts in the comments, and pass this episode along to someone who still thinks of Greece only as “the cradle of democracy.”
