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BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO THE ANCIENT WORLD

This series provides sophisticated and authoritative overviews of periods of ancient history, genres of classical literature, and the most important themes in ancient culture. Each volume comprises approximately twenty‐five and forty concise essays written by individual scholars within their area of specialization. The essays are written in a clear, provocative, and lively manner, designed for an international audience of scholars, students, and general readers.

ANCIENT HISTORY

Published

A Companion to the Roman Army
Edited by Paul Erdkamp

A Companion to the Roman Republic
Edited by Nathan Rosenstein and Robert Morstein‐Marx

A Companion to the Roman Empire
Edited by David S. Potter

A Companion to the Classical Greek World
Edited by Konrad H. Kinzl

A Companion to the Ancient Near East
Edited by Daniel C. Snell

A Companion to the Hellenistic World
Edited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to Late Antiquity
Edited by Philip Rousseau

A Companion to Ancient History
Edited by Andrew Erskine

A Companion to Archaic Greece
Edited by Kurt A. Raaflaub and Hans van Wees

A Companion to Julius Caesar
Edited by Miriam Griffin

A Companion to Byzantium
Edited by Liz James

A Companion to Ancient Egypt
Edited by Alan B. Lloyd

A Companion to Ancient Macedonia
Edited by Joseph Roisman and Ian Worthington

A Companion to the Punic Wars
Edited by Dexter Hoyos

A Companion to Augustine
Edited by Mark Vessey

A Companion to Marcus Aurelius
Edited by Marcel van Ackeren

A Companion to Ancient Greek Government
Edited by Hans Beck

A Companion to the Neronian Age
Edited by Emma Buckley and Martin T. Dinter

A Companion to Greek Democracy and the Roman Republic
Edited by Dean Hammer

A Companion to Livy
Edited by Bernard Mineo

A Companion to Ancient Thrace
Edited by Julia Valeva, Emil Nankov, and Denver Graninger

A Companion to Roman Italy
Edited by Alison E. Cooley

A Companion to the Etruscans
Edited by Sinclair Bell and Alexandra A. Carpino

A Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome
Edited by Andrew Zissos

A Companion to Science, Technology, and Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome
Edited by Georgia L. Irby

LITERATURE AND CULTURE

A Companion to Classical Receptions
Edited by Lorna Hardwick and Christopher Stray

A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography
Edited by John Marincola

A Companion to Catullus
Edited by Marilyn B. Skinner

A Companion to Roman Religion
Edited by Jörg Rüpke

A Companion to Greek Religion
Edited by Daniel Ogden

A Companion to the Classical Tradition
Edited by Craig W. Kallendorf

A Companion to Roman Rhetoric
Edited by William Dominik and Jon Hall

A Companion to Greek Rhetoric
Edited by Ian Worthington

A Companion to Ancient Epic
Edited by John Miles Foley

A Companion to Greek Tragedy
Edited by Justina Gregory

A Companion to Latin Literature
Edited by Stephen Harrison

A Companion to Greek and Roman Political Thought
Edited by Ryan K. Balot

A Companion to Ovid
Edited by Peter E. Knox

A Companion to the Ancient Greek Language
Edited by Egbert Bakker

A Companion to Hellenistic Literature
Edited by Martine Cuypers and James J. Clauss

A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its Tradition
Edited by Joseph Farrell and Michael C. J. Putnam

A Companion to Horace
Edited by Gregson Davis

A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds
Edited by Beryl Rawson

A Companion to Greek Mythology
Edited by Ken Dowden and Niall Livingstone

A Companion to the Latin Language
Edited by James Clackson

A Companion to Tacitus
Edited by Victoria Emma Pagán

A Companion to Women in the Ancient World
Edited by Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon

A Companion to Sophocles
Edited by Kirk Ormand

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East
Edited by Daniel Potts

A Companion to Roman Love Elegy
Edited by Barbara K. Gold

A Companion to Greek Art
Edited by Tyler Jo Smith and Dimitris Plantzos

A Companion to Persius and Juvenal
Edited by Susanna Braund and Josiah Osgood

A Companion to the Archaeology of the Roman Republic
Edited by Jane DeRose Evans

A Companion to Terence
Edited by Antony Augoustakis and Ariana Traill

A Companion to Roman Architecture
Edited by Roger B. Ulrich and Caroline K. Quenemoen

A Companion to Sport and Spectacle in Greek and Roman Antiquity
Edited by Paul Christesen and Donald G. Kyle

A Companion to Plutarch
Edited by Mark Beck

A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities
Edited by Thomas K. Hubbard

A Companion to the Ancient Novel
Edited by Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne

A Companion to Ethnicity in the Ancient Mediterranean
Edited by Jeremy McInerney

A Companion to Ancient Egyptian Art
Edited by Melinda Hartwig

A Companion to the Archaeology of Religion in the Ancient World
Edited by Rubina Raja and Jörg Rüpke

A Companion to Food in the Ancient World
Edited by John Wilkins and Robin Nadeau

A Companion to Ancient Education
Edited by W. Martin Bloomer

A Companion to Ancient Aesthetics
Edited by Pierre Destrée & Penelope Murray

A Companion to Roman Art
Edited by Barbara Borg

A Companion to Greek Literature
Edited by Martin Hose and David Schenker

A Companion to Josephus in his World
Edited by Honora Howell Chapman and Zuleika Rodgers

A Companion to Greek Architecture
Edited by Margaret M. Miles

A COMPANION TO GREEK ARCHITECTURE

Edited by

Margaret M. Miles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Preface

Plutarch’s resonant comments on the temples of the Athenian Acropolis are quoted often because they ring true: “although they were built in a short time, they were made for all time. As for beauty, each of them was immediately venerable, and yet each looks even now as if it were just recently finished: thus each blooms with freshness, untouched by time, as though evergreen vitality and ageless spirit had been mingled into their creation” (Plut. Per. 13.3). Plutarch was writing some 600 years after their construction, and despite the cranes and scaffolding of recent conservation, his description is still apt. Yet the “ageless spirit” he encountered on the Acropolis is infused into much of Greek architecture across the Mediterranean. Readers wishing to investigate that spirit, and the background, context and impact of these buildings, will find some explanations and histories in the essays collected here.

This is an exciting time to study Greek architecture because so much new information and many new buildings have been brought to light in excavations. New computer‐driven technologies improve the accuracy of documentation and greatly enhance reconstruction, so we can understand the original appearance of the buildings much better than ever before. Historical study of inscriptions and archaeological evidence has refined our understanding of the social and religious contexts of the buildings so that the many motives that drove their construction may be interpreted ever more persuasively. Much more remains to be done: an astonishing number of temples, stoas, theaters, and other buildings have never been properly measured and recorded, or even fully excavated. This is still a young field of investigation, building on a deep and admirable foundation laid by two and half centuries of previous study.

The editor of a volume with so many authors inevitably will owe debts to many colleagues and friends: I wish to express my wholehearted appreciation to my coauthors for their generosity in providing these essays and many original images, and for their patience. And on behalf of the authors whose work is collected here, I extend warm thanks to the many excavations, ministries, museums, and research institutes that provided us with photographs and drawings, in Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey, Egypt, the United Kingdom, and the United States. I offer personal thanks to the staff and students of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, where this volume was begun while I was the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Classical Studies. I am also grateful to Blackwell’s Copyeditor Felicity Marsh and Production Editor Vimali Joseph, and to Dylan K. Rogers, of the University of Virginia and the American School in Athens, for his invaluable help with the editorial process.

Margaret M. Miles

Irvine, California