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‘I have just finished reviewing the corrected paperback impression (1983) of G.E.M. de Ste. Croix's prizewinning The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World , which was first published in December 1981. This was an exacting task, partly because of the book's length (some half-million words in all) but mainly because of its exceptional empirical and conceptual richness. Happily, though, it was also a thoroughly exhilarating experience. Dr de Ste. Croix's ancient Greek world extends in time from about 750 BC to AD 600, encompasses all of what becarne the eastern half of the Roman Empire, and manages to include lengthy and penetrating discussions of such apparently extraneous topics as the ancient Greek democracy and the attitudes to property of the Christian churches besides a full-dress explanation of Gibbon's problem, the 'decline and fall' of Graeco-Roman civilisation.