Olympia: A Journey to Four Dimensions

"The publication "Olympia. A Journey to Four Dimensions" is a "digital album" with three-dimensional reconstructions of the most important buildings of ancient Olympia, which are presented with emphasis on historical accuracy and construction details. For the first time the site of ancient Olympia is presented in a book, as it was in its heyday, exclusively through digital pictures.

The main part of the book consists of large coloured images of the various monuments of Olympia, as well as general perspectives of the site, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. Architectural monuments and areas that no longer exist in their original form come to life through the use of computers and of three-dimensional graphics programs.

The book has been created as part of the activities of the Foundation of the Hellenic World for the Olympic Games that were organized in our country in 2004. At the same time, a series of twelve postal cards has been published with select pictures from this book. The production of digital reconstructions was done exclusively by the 3D Reconstruction and Animation Department (http://3d.fhw.gr/) of the Foundation of the Hellenic World."

Olympia: A Journey to Four Dimensions is available in Greek or English.

A Greek Army on the March: Soldiers and Survival in Xenophon's Anabasis

"Professor [John W.I.] Lee provides a social and cultural history of the Cyreans, the classical Greek mercenary soldiers depicted in Xenophon's Anabasis. While the Cyrean army has often been thought of as a single political community, Lee reveals that in fact the soldiers' lives were shaped largely by their participation in a set of smaller social communities: the formal unit organization of the lochos ('company') and the informal comradeship of the suskenia ('mess group'). Drawing on a wide array of ancient literary and archaeological evidence, along with comparative perspectives from military sociology and modern war studies, he examines the full range of the Cyreans' experience, including the environmental conditions of their campaign, ethnic and socio-economic relations amongst the soldiers, equipment and transport, marching and camping, eating and drinking, sanitation, and medical care. He also accords detailed attention to the non-combatants who accompanied the army. Anyone interested in ancient Greek warfare or in Xenophon's Anabasis will want to read this book."

Scheduled for release February 29, 2008

Strassler's The Landmark Herodotus released by Pantheon Press

Robert Strassler, the 70-year-old president of Riverside Capital Management Corp., a private investment firm, is a Harvard graduate who describes himself as a historian of the ancient Mediterranean. Back in 1996, he edited "The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to The Peloponnesian War," that was published by CBS Corp.'s Free Press. This book received excellent reviews and sold over 24,000 copies. It has taken 10 years for a sequel "The Landmark Herodotus" is now available from Pantheon with 20,000 copies in print.

When Wall Street Journal columnist, Jeffrey Trachtenberg asked Strassler why it took so long to write this sequel, Strassler says, "Thucydides is more narrowly focused. He was interested only in military and political history. Herodotus is interested in everything. He wants to know what people wear, what gods they worship, what crops they grow. I needed 11 appendices for Thucydides to provide context, but we have 21 for Herodotus, and we could have done another five to 10."

When asked about the reliability of Herodotus' chronicles, Strassler replies, "There are a lot of questions. He does tend to write about fables, things that aren't real. His job was to tell you what he heard. He's critical, but there are anecdotes where you don't know if he's pulling your leg, or his leg is being pulled. For example, he said he saw a sign on one of the Pyramids. He asked his Egyptian guide about it and says he was told that the sign listed the amount of garlic, leeks and onions consumed by the workmen over the 20 years it took to build the pyramid. Do you think he believed it? But he put it in his book. You can't always be sure. And he wasn't an eyewitness to everything. But this book has survived for 2,500 years, and it offers a huge panorama of his world."

If you wish to learn even more about Herodotus, I would highly recommend an audio course offered through the Teaching Company, Herodotus: Father of History presented by Professor Elizabeth Vandiver of Whitman College.