‘The Eyesore of Aigina’

Our ideas about ancient Athens are constructed very largely from the writings of Athenian authors. Relatively rare are our sources for how others — whether Greeks, Asiatics or Romans — saw Athens from the outside. Yet we can see that not only did many across the Mediterranean world resist the political power of Athens in countless wars over several centuries, but that there existed an intriguing variety of anti-Athenian ideologies. The 12 new studies in this volume, by a distinguished international cast, trace negative thinking about Athens from the late archaic period to Roman times. They challenge the easy modern supposition that Athens was generally seen as the cultural emblem of Greece, and cast light on the thinking of ancient peoples who – nowadays – tend to exist in Athens’ shadow.