Greek History

Abstract

I commence this review with a major contribution to the social history of classical Athens. Athenian social history is traditionally focused on polarities of class, status, and gender; while these polarities were obviously important, it is equally significant to adopt an interactionist approach and explore the shape of encounters between people belonging to the same or different groups. Rafał Matuszewski has chosen to focus on the interactions and communication between male Athenian citizens: in particular, the various spaces in which those interactions took place, as well as the means of communication. As regards the spaces, he explores in detail the noisy streets, the Agora, the various shops, workshops, and places of commensality and entertainment, the baths, the gymnasia, and the palaestrae. This is an excellent synthesis of a large number of social spaces in classical Athens, which have never been explored in the same detail as, for example, sanctuaries and cemeteries. Equally fascinating is the second part of the work and its detailed exploration of the body as a means of communication, alongside elements of material culture like clothes, houses, and graves. The wealth of material that is collected and examined and the interactionist framework employed have the potential to revolutionize how we study Greek social and cultural history; it is to be hoped that Anglophone readers will make the effort to engage seriously with this important German book.