Talk Description: I shall lead the graduate students through an overview of my reassessment of what has been traditionally termed Athenian imperialism, following on the example of Sir Moses Finley, who offered a “balance sheet of empire”. After 30+ years of research, I am presently consolidating my ideas into a final monograph, reflecting 3 earlier monographs, 10 articles, 12 reviews. We shall touch on these issues: the strategic and economic conditions under which the Delian League was founded and the evolution of the phoros ‘tribute’ system; early anti-Persian campaigning and achievement of stable deterrence (without the phantasm of a “mid-century” crisis); the alliance’s socioeconomic effects, including economic integration centered on Athens and an Aegean economy monetized by Attic coinage; the parallel sociocultural and religious integration, along with probing the powerful resistance to it; colonization, with its huge military and material ramifications; the evolution of group attitudes toward alliance and hegemony that conditions judgments of popularity and legitimacy, and incorporates the issue of Athens as “tyrant city” and the allies as “slaves”; and finally, Attic hegemony in collapse under the pressures of the Peloponnesian War.

Short Biography: Thomas Figueira was born on Broadway in Manhattan and educated in public schools in New York City and Poughkeepsie (NY). He received his BA from Fordham University (NYC) and his doctorate (under Michael Jameson and Martin Ostwald) at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Distinguished Professor of Classics and of Ancient History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick. In the Departments of Classics and of History, he teaches classical history, Greek and Latin languages and literatures, and classical humanities at all levels including graduate studies (with occasional teaching in the Department of Women and Gender Studies and the Honors program of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences). In addition to many contributions, articles, and reviews (over 150 in all), his books include Aegina: Economy and Society (1981); Athens and Aigina in the Age of Imperial Colonization (1991); Excursions in Epichoric History (1993); The Power of Money: Coinage and Politics in the Athenian Empire (1998); with T.C. Brennan & R.H. Sternberg) Wisdom from the Ancients: Enduring Business Lessons from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and The Illustrious Leaders of Ancient Greece and Rome (2001), and among his edited or co-edited works are Theognis of Megara: Poetry and the Polis (1985); Spartan Society (2004); Myth, Text, and History at Sparta (2016); Athenian Hegemonic Finances (2019); Ethnicity and Identity in Herodotus (2020); The Athenian Empire Anew: Classics@, Supp. 23, CHS, Harvard. He has had a long career of advocacy for faculty rights (AAUP chapter president), including organized labor (officer in NJEA and AFT chapters).

This talk will not be available on zoom and will not be recorded.