The Spartan king Cleomenes, having seized the acropolis of Athens in 507 BC with the aim of suppressing the young democracy, is ordered by the priestess of Athena to withdraw from the goddess's shrine, where no Dorian is permitted to enter. Robert Parker uses this little incident to illustrate some of the multiple types of question that a Greek historian may choose to confront in the late twentieth century: questions about political history, about gender relations, about ethnicity. In particular, he takes up the priestess's attempt to debar a stranger from a sanctuary on ethnic grounds, and reflects on the role of shared cults in creating group solidarity at almost every level of society in Greece.
- ISBN10 0199513848
- ISBN13 9780199513840
- Publish Date 17 September 1998
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 25 March 2008
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Clarendon Press
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 34
- Language English