This full introduction compares geography today and in antiquity, and characterizes its place in modern Classical scholarship. It asks whether Greek geographical writings have been classified correctly, and offers new perspectives on the social context in which they were composed, emphasizing their grounding in lived experience. Concepts such as periplous are explained, but the use of ‘genre’ to account for the forms of prose writing that we possess is questioned. This leads to a discussion of the helpful notion of ‘common sense geography’. The characteristic topics covered by Greek geographers are surveyed, with a particular focus on change and instability. Discussion of techniques of distance measurement on land and at sea, the role of maps in antiquity, and ‘mental mapping’ is followed by a detailed survey of extant geographical writings and of geographical material within ancient philosophy, historiography, and poetry. I complete the chapter with a discussion of the texts selected for the volume, the fragile transmission process by which these mainly short or fragmentary texts have survived, the organization of the volume, and how the translation process has been managed.

This chapter presents a new, annotated translation of the three fragments of a satirical sketch of southern Greek communities, now attributed to one Herakleides Kritikos and probably written between 279 and 239 BC, together with an additional testimonium. An appendix presents a fragmentary papyrus (P. Hawara 80–1) containing a contemporary description of the Piraeus. The chapter introduction recognizes the literary and performative character of the text, its selective use of geographical information (as far as we can judge from the surviving passages, extending from Attica to Thessaly where we have the original ending of the work), its use of irony, and its geopolitical claims about the extent of ‘Hellas’. A new map clarifies the route followed by the first part of the text.

This chapter presents a new, annotated translation of the Circumnavigation of the Erythraian Sea (commonly known by the Latin title Periplus maris Erythraei or PME). Erroneously attributed to Arrian (see Chapter 27 of this volume), it was probably written in the 1st century AD, a generation or two before he was active, by a Greek-speaker from Egypt. The chapter introduction shows how the work is unlike any other that we have, in being a detailed overview of regions east of Egypt from the point of view of an experienced trader (possibly the Sosandros named by Markianos in Chapter 34), though also drawing upon a variety of written sources of disparate character. Consequently, we are presented with a combination of navigational information, useful to those commissioning or planning trade voyages, with enlivening facts such as marvels (paradoxa) that signify to the reader that its author is an educated man. He had perhaps been recruited to write a handbook for merchants, at a time when Roman naval presence in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean was increasing. Most famously, the work contains a plethora of information about specific commodities traded in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, exports from particular ports, and where those goods originated. A detailed map shows many of the ports mentioned in the text, while another clarifies the relationship between the prevailing winds of the Indian Ocean and the maritime itineraries described.

Chapter 1 sets out the main questions and contentions in the book. It explores the concept of freedom and identifies it as a central concept in Athenian democratic ideology in both the private and public spheres. Scholarly debates on the concept of freedom are outlined, with an especial emphasis on Isaiah Berlin’s notion of positive and negative freedom and its application to Athens in subsequent scholarship. Distinguishing democratic freedom from negative and republican versions, I argue that Athenians understood freedom as the ability to do “whatever one wished,” which I classify as a modified version of positive freedom. The focus on citizen agency in accomplishing his will differentiates Athenian democracy from other constitution types and affects its institutional features. The chapter closes with a brief overview of the rest of the chapters.

In an epistle written around the early ninth century, the Babylonian Jewish polemicist Pirqoi ben Baboi chastised Jewish communities around the Mediterranean for adopting certain Palestinian practices that he dubbed “customs of persecution” (minhagey shmad).1 He contended that these customs were not products of the authentic continuous transmission of Jewish tradition extending back to Moses on Mount Sinai, but erroneous corruptions introduced as a result of Roman persecution of Jews. The Babylonian rabbinic tradition, by contrast, was more authentic because Jews had enjoyed consistently peaceable conditions under Persian rule. They were therefore free to practice and preserve traditional Jewish law accurately in an over millennium-long unbroken chain of transmission.

The freedom and power of citizens was buttressed by the exclusionary effects on non-citizens. My reading of Apollodoros’ Against Neaira ([Dem.] 59) in Chapter 5 exemplifies the practical results of the ideology of freedom on all levels of Athenian society. The case calls into question the limits of citizenship and demonstrates how a status transgression can impair the jury’s own power. The prosecution speech alleges that Neaira, a resident foreigner, is guilty of pretending to be a citizen. As a foreign, female sex laborer, Neaira represents the antithesis of the model citizen. Neaira’s arrogation of citizenship privileges, however, gives her a measure of positive freedom and power. In contrast to other readings, I show that power struggles are crucial to analyzing the prosecution’s arguments. The prosecution attempts to show that instead of doing “whatever she wishes,” Neaira deserves to be subject to others doing “whatever they wish” to her. Apollodoros’ characterization of her transgressions as destabilizing citizenship indicates the centrality of autonomy and power to citizen identity. Hence, the importance of positive freedom was not simply theoretical, but practical.

In a landmark essay, Stephen Greenblatt discussed a telling comment attributed to Elizabeth I in 1601.1 The queen learned that the steward of the Earl of Essex commissioned Shakespeare’s own theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, to perform Richard II. Given the earl’s well-known seditious intentions, the queen responded, “I am Richard II. Know ye not that?” As Francis Bacon explained in his treatise indicting the Earl of Essex for treason, the earl’s steward supported the production “to satisfy his eyes with the sight of that Tragedy, which he thought soon his Lord should bring from the Stage to the State.”2 Greenblatt argues that the earl’s steward, and apparently the queen herself, recognized that the story had “the power to wrest legitimation from the established ruler and confer it on another.” In short, “the queen understood the performance as a threat,” and the steward understood its galvanizing potential. The earl commenced his ultimately unsuccessful rebellion against the queen the day after the performance.

Chapter 2 surveys phrases with the verb boulomai that describe the ability to do “whatever one wishes” or to live “however one wishes” as freedom in order to demonstrate that democratic freedom was understood as the ability to bring one’s will to fruition. These phrases are found in a wide range of genres, including history, philosophy, oratory, drama, and epigraphy. By defining themselves as free in contrast to slaves, Athenians perceived their actions and decisions as emanating from themselves rather than a master. Freedom was thus defined as not simply a prerequisite status for citizenship, in contrast to birth or wealth, but a personal capacity for action. This positive freedom was a central aspect of citizen identity, rendering scholarly accounts focused on negative freedom incomplete. The distinctive feature of democratic freedom was the insistence on the self as master of action; as a citizen, one did what one wished. Positive freedom gave rise to procedural components in Athenian administration and law, notably voluntarism and accountability, as well as served as a distinctive core marker of identity in contrast with other states, such as Sparta and Persia.

The sparse material remains of Jews from the Sasanian Empire include around twenty personal seals, which were used to validate legal, business, and personal documents.1 These objects typically bore the owner’s name and an accompanying image. The identity of the owner is ascertainable from both the names and type of script; Jewish owners likely used square or Hebrew script, Christians used Syriac, and Middle Persian was used by all groups, including Jews and Christians.2 The images on Jewish and Christian seals are often easily recognizable communal symbols. For example, some Jewish seals depict ritual objects, such as the shofar, palm fronds, and citron (Figure 5).3 These were common features of Jewish visual culture, present on coins minted by the Judean rebel Bar Kokhba in the first half of Figure 6. the second century and in late antique synagogue mosaics.4 Not surprisingly, many Christian seals feature crosses.

The nature of this boast is puzzling: What does the king of the Sasanian Empire, in this case Shapur I (r. 240–270 CE), have to do with rabbinic biblical interpretation? An anonymous interpolation explains that “King Shapur” in Rabbah’s boast is simply a nickname for Shmuel, an earlier prominent rabbi. According to the interpolation, Rabbah is therefore making a run-of-the-mill brag about besting his eminent rabbinic colleague, Shmuel. Even so, the fact that Shmuel’s high rank is conveyed through analogy to the Sasanian king is noteworthy. Such a comparison assumes that the rabbinic movement is a kind of microcosm of the Sasanian Empire, headed by prominent rabbis and kings respectively.

A lengthy talmudic story tells of a man from the city of Nehardea who entered a butcher’s shop in the city of Pumbedita and demanded some meat.1 When the man was told that he must wait until the attendant of Rav Yehuda b. Ezekiel is served, he rages, “who is Yehuda b. Shewiskel to receive before me!” – omitting Yehuda’s title “Rav” and employing a derisive portmanteau of Rav Yehuda’s patronymic “Ezekiel,” and the word for a type of roasted meat, shewisqa.2 When informed of the slight against him, Rav Yehuda excommunicates the man, while the rabbi’s students further advise him that this man regularly insults others by calling them slaves. Rav Yehuda cites a dictum, which he attributes to Shmuel, to the effect that anyone who calls others a slave is himself the descendent of slaves. This man then sues Rav Yehuda for defamation, and they appear before a judge. The man insists that, far from being a slave, he is in fact a descendant of the priestly and royal Hasmonean line. Rav Yehuda counters by conveniently furnishing another statement which he once again attributes to Shmuel: “Whoever says ‘I am descended from the house of the Hasmoneans’ is a slave.”

An early medieval Middle Persian Zoroastrian source known as The Provincial Capitals of Ērānšahr describes the provinces and major cities of the Sasanian Empire and supplies several of them with short foundation myths. In describing the establishment of the cities of Susa and Šuštar in Khuzistan, The Provincial Capitals reports that they “were built by Šīšīnduxt, the wife of Yazdgird, the son of Šābuhr, since she was the daughter of the Exilarch (rēš-galūdag), the king of the Jews (jahūdagān šāh), and was also the mother of Wahrām Gōr.”

Chapter 3 analyzes freedom as doing “whatever one wishes” in fourth-century oratory. As several scholars have noted, doing “whatever one wishes” appears ambivalent in forensic speeches. They argue that, since Athens was not an anarchic state, extreme freedom could be glossed as a threat to sociopolitical stability. In contrast to prevailing scholarship, however, I argue that the most dominant principle, even in these texts, is the preservation of positive freedom as justification for the litigant’s position. While acting “however one wishes” may be presented as objectionable, the rhetoric of that assessment emphasizes who is doing “whatever they wish” and whom they affect by doing so. Bad characters, whether a criminals, oligarchs, or metics, can be rebuked as undeserving of positive freedom and abusing the power that attends it. The limitation of another citizen’s ability to do what he wishes can also condemn the action. Doing “what one wishes” is not a byword for antidemocratic action, but can have such a connotation because of the particular actors or victims of the actions. It is the misuse of the natural qualities of a citizen that leads to censure.