top of page
Search
egopybu2000

The Sicilian Labyrinth, Vol. 1: A Classic Chess Book by a World-Class Player



72 philosophers, myth, and art. Chapter 10 contains an excellent account of the growth of mercenary forces. Among the Opportunis ts Iason of Pherai, Mausolos, Klearchos of Herakleia (in the Black Sea), and Dionysios and Dion receive unaccustomed but appropriate attention. A provocative book will incite question and disagreement. Again I select. There is no lack of clarity about Sparta' s reasons for failing "to exploit her dis tinguished performance in the Peloponnesian Wars" (p. 52); Davies himself gives the answer and Thucydides (1. 95.7) supplies what the Spartans believed or tried to believe. Twice a parallel wi th Rome is inapposi tely cited (p. 76: the Peloponnesian War "was meant to decide whe ther Greece .... would be united under Athenian hegemony"; p. 146: the Sicilian disaster "determined that Greek history would not go the way of Italian history"). There were not 9700 talents in the reserve fund in 454 (p. 92), nor, in my view, at any time. I regret his reluctance firmly to accept the Peace of Kallias (p. 93); his conclusion ("The arguments pro and con .... suggest that both views must be partly right") is impossible. In Thucydides 3.2.2 (p. 82) and 2.13. 3-5 (p. 106) the translations omit significant phrases. "Not a single Peloponnesian town was captured or held" by the Athenians in the Archidamian War (p. 131); Pylos and Kythera deserve mention. The lively style is marred by trite vulgarisms and colloquialisms ("lifestyle", "power centre", "triggered", "paranoid", "status envy", "pass the buck", "ego defined"). The professed compromise in spelling (p. 9) produces a remarkable farrago: Perikles, Sophocles, Cyzicos, Plataea, Platea (Index), Plataiai (map), Maussollos, Mausollos (Index), Mausseleion (Index; or is this an error?), kleruchy. Only one map is correctly labelled. The Index is a shoddy compilation (surely not by Davies?). The Date Chart, a glossary of Primary Sources (but Plutarch is not primary), and a list of Further Reading will prove useful to the non-specialist. This stimulating book is not a text. The student who knows some Greek history will profit from it; the layman will find it attractively informative; the scholar will find himself reexamining his ideas. I have read it twice, each time with enjoyment. Malcolm F. McGregor Vancouver Communi ty CoUege, Langara; University of British Colwnbia ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN THE GREEK ISLANDS (I) ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN SOUTHERN GREECE (II) by Dorothy Leekley and Robert Noyes. Park Ridge, New Jersey: Noyes Press, 1975-1976. Pp. 130, 150. $ 15. 15. There are many ways of finding out what is known about ancient Greek sites. Paulys RealenaycZopCidie der classischen AZtertwnswissenschaft is almost complete now, but it went into its second edition in 1894, so that the older articles are useful only for the ancient sources. The Enciclopedia deU'Arte Antica (9 vols, Rome 1957-1973) concentrates mainly on ancient art, though topography also takes up a large part. The Princeton Enayclopaedia of Classical 73 Sites appeared in 1976, but many items were written several years before. For the topography of Greece the Guide bleu (the 1967 edition, in the English translation of M.N. Clark and J.S. Hardman; the latest edition of 1974 is much abridged) and Kirsten-Kraiker, Griechenlandkunde (5th ed., Heidelberg 1967) give ample information, the latter with an extensive bibliography. A summary of our knowledge of those sites, mentioned by Pausanias, has been collected in N. Papachatzis' Pausanias edition, which, since it is written in modern Greek, is not accessible to every reader. Because of the number of current excavations in Greece (of which the best surveys can be made, working through the annual reports in the Bulletin de Corres pondance He l lenique News Letters in the A. J. A. Archaeologi cal Reports the Ergon of the Greek Archaeological Society and the Archaiologikon DeZtion) , much work is being published, but because of the many different periodicals it remains a labyrinth, out of which one has to find a way. Ariadne's thread is being offered by the books under review, which relate to archaeological excavation in the Greek Islands and in Southern Greece. The third volume will bear the title Archaeological Excavations in Central and Northern Greece, whereas "plans to publish a fourth volume...




The Sicilian Labyrinth, Vol. 1



The other great issue that animated political debate and practice during the Risorgimento, that is, the question of where the capital should be located, was also linked to the physical and political geography of the country. Once again, it was Napoleon who emphasized the problem of identifying the capital of the future united Italy which, although its regions had much more in common compared with countries that had already achieved political union, such as the various British kingdoms, lacks central cities due to the manner in which it is configured.Las Cases: Memoriale, vol. 2, p. 1288, 1290.


The most interesting proposal put forward by Minghetti in his project, however, relates to the creation of a parliamentary commission appointed to carry out special studies and provide appropriate suggestions for resolving the most evident contradictions in the administrative network.Minghetti: Ripartizione, cited from Petracchi: Origini delľordinamento, vol. 3, p. 338. 2ff7e9595c


0 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page