The Kingship Question
Paul Cartledge finds a new work struggling to deal with the complexity of Greek ideas of monarchy
Basileus. The Evidence for Kingship in Geometric Greece by Robert Drews
ix + 141 pp. (Yale University Press, 1983)
Monarchy is a topic of perennial attraction, not least but not only within the confines of this sceptre'd isle. Nowadays it may but rarely be literally hedged with divinity, but even where it is formally both constitutional and titular it still exudes its peculiar aroma of quasi-magical potency. The subtitle of Robert Drews's brief monograph is therefore nicely calculated to arouse widespread interest outside as well as inside the Classical fraternity.
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