Bøker av Jon D. Mikalson

The foundational writings of Isocrates, newly translated and placed in historical context.

Jon Mikalson uses the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides to explore popular religious beliefs and practices of Athenians in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. and examines how these playwrights portrayed, manipulated, and otherwise represented popular religion in their plays.

Drawing from various sources, Mikalson traces the religious cults and beliefs of Athenians from the battle of Chaeroneia in 338 BC to the devastation of Athens by Sulla in 86 BC, demonstrating that traditional religion played a central role in Athenian private, social and political life.

The two great Persian invasions of Greece, in 490 and 480-79 B.C., both repulsed by the Greeks, provide our best opportunity for understanding the interplay of religion and history in ancient Greece. Using the Histories of Herodotus as well as other historical and archaeological sources, Jon Mikalson shows how the Greeks practiced their religion at this pivotal moment in their history.