For various good reasons, there is but a small number of general histories of the Archaic period in Greece, with the works of R. Osborne (Greece in the Making, 1200–479 bc [2nd ed. 2009]) and J. Hall (A History of the Archaic Greek World ca. 1200–479 bce [2007]) as the most recent Anglophone overviews. German scholarship has avoided such overviews, making S.-H.'s new contribution the only recent update in German since the 1960s (E. Homann-Wedeking, Das archaische Griechenland [1966]; Germans also had a translation of J. Charbonneaux, R. Martin and F. Villard, Das archaische Griechenland: 620–480 v. Chr. [1969]). While scholars and amateurs of the Archaic period may be tempted by such scarcity to seek out S.-H.'s work, it is targeted at the wider public and its contribution is less than innovative.
Throughout, S.-H. deploys a meta-narrative of ‘the evolution of the polis’ which informs her structure and selection of material. Reiterated claims of development and institutionalisation accompany a structure that is at once thematic and implicitly chronological. More and more case studies are given as the book progresses, with descriptive passages crowding out analysis. While the subtitle's reference to ‘the city and the sea’ does not find a reflection in the book's content, we are led sequentially through the so-called ‘worlds’ of the palace, Homer, colonies, the polis, farmers, aristocrats and tyrants. The chapter on tyrants is particularly problematic, arguing without foundation that aristocrats, such as the Bacchiads in Corinth and Geomoroi on Samos, hindered the development of polis institutions until a seventh-century revolution in hoplite tactics forced structural changes throughout all communities (pp. 225–6). Her attempt to link supposed structural changes and the advent of tyrants leads to confusion when she concludes the chapter by stating that tyrants worked with pre-existing forms (p. 254).
In the final chapter, we arrive at ‘the world of citizens’, implying also ‘the time of citizens’. This last chapter exposes most clearly the flaws in S.-H.'s method, as she argues that restructuring and redefinition of the citizen body was a widespread development aimed at integrating citizens more fully into polis structures in the late Archaic period. While evidence of tribal reform is limited, she also does violence to Herodotus’ evidence for tribal reform in Cyrene by arguing that colonists of different origins were dispersed among tribes, rather than segregated according to background (pp. 266–7; Hdt. 4.161) – this ‘integration’ conjecture suits her overall thesis. She concludes with the Cleisthenic reforms in Athens, thus giving her meta-narrative a democratic ending.
As the book is aimed at an amateur or novice readership, such a meta-narrative may have been deemed to facilitate the flow of the book, and the descriptive case studies to maintain interest. However, the end product will be overly superficial and thesis-driven for readers beyond the amateur or novice level.
