Introduction

Abstract

Abstract Gerald Else once described the sixth century B.C.E. as the “histrionic period of Athenian history. ‘ ‘ ‘ He coined the phrase to sketch the background for the beginnings of tragedy, but in a certain sense it can stand as an emblem for the entire archaic period throughout Greece. The archaic age (broadly defined as the period stretching from the eighth century B.C.E. to the time of the Persian Wars) has remained peculiarly recalcitrant for those attempting to reconstruct its history and culture. Much poorer in contemporary literary and archeological evidence than the classical era, the earlier period compels researchers to tum to later traditions and to different kinds of evidence for the work of reconstruction. As Else’s phrase implies, much of the tradition provides us with a very odd view indeed: not the “straight” version of history and politics that Thucydides promises for the classical period, but a fanciful and often fragmentary concatenation of ritual and playacting.