History of Ancient Greece

From the Archaic Period to the Hellenistic Period

Articles selected by Vincent Azoulay, in collaboration with Nicolas Stromboni.

(Texts published before 2012 are available in French only)

The publication of a special issue of the Annales dedicated to the history of ancient Greece (69-3) was not a given. For a long time this topic occupied only a marginal place in the journal, especially prior to 1950: only three articles on Greek antiquity were published during the first twenty years of the Annales, all focusing on economic and financial subjects(Gustave Glotz, Andréas Michael Andréades, Édouard Will). Though it subsequently faded into the background, this strand of economic history was revived in the mid-1990s by an article by Raymond Descat, and has also been revisited in Julien Zurbach’s recent article on social status in archaic Greece.

Though relatively few in number, the articles on ancient Greek history that have since appeared in the Annales nevertheless hold a magnifying—if partially distorted—mirror up to the historiographical evolutions that took place during the second half of the twentieth century. Among them can be found the big names of the 1950s and 60s (Édouard Will, Louis Gernet and Jean-Pierre Vernant), at a moment when they had not yet received the recognition that they enjoy today. From the 1970s on, the journal published articles on antiquity more regularly, reflecting the new methodologies that were emerging in ancient history. An important place was afforded to historical anthropology and to structuralist approaches to myths and religions (Louis Gernet, Jean-Pierre Vernant, Marcel Detienne, Nicole Loraux, Pauline Schmitt-Pantel), as well as the Indo-European perspectives then in vogue and influenced by the work of Georges Dumézil (Bernard Sergent and Dominique Briquel). Nevertheless, the Annales never abandoned the social history of the ancient Greek world, as demonstrated by the articles by Paul Veyne that appeared in 1969 and 1982 (and the critiques that followed) or that by Jean Ducat.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the Annales published an issue entirely devoted to ancient history for the first time (indeed the only time until 2014). Edited by François Hartog, its reflections centered on the production of ancient sources (archaeological, epigraphical, and papyrological as well as “literary”). This issue marked the beginning of a series of studies that attempted to grasp the ways ancient Greeks produced their own historical discourse, and which were more broadly interested in the construction of knowledge (François Hartog, Catherine Darbo-Peschanski, Pascal Payen and, more recently, Karin Mackowiak and Claude Calame). On the other hand, cultural history was rather underrepresented, as was women’s history (with the exception of an article by Giulia Sissa and a brief critical note by Claude Mossé). It was not until 2012 that a special issue on “Gender Regimes” was published, coordinated by Violaine Sebillotte and Didier Lett and containing several articles on antiquity.

One final element deserves to be highlighted in this broadly drawn historiographical survey: the regular publication of articles relating to politics in ancient Greece (Marcel Detienne, Claude Mossé, Nicole Loraux, Catherine Darbo-Peschanski, Egon Flaig, Françoic de Polignac, Anna Heller). The special issue on “Politics in Ancient Greece,” published in 2014, represents a continuation of this tradition, fifty years after it first began.