Commemorating Victory in Classical Greece

Why Greek Tropaia

Bibliographic Data

ID20073400
AuthorsMatthew Trundle (0000-0002-6352-6179, corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages123-138
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueRituals of Triumph in the Mediterranean World (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/9789004251175_009
WikidataQ59202125
OpenAlexW2476354277
ISBN9789004251175
LanguageEN
Citations received11

This chapter argues that battlefield trophies emerged as a result of the Persian Wars and, therefore, in the fifth century. As a result of such an argument we may note that the Persians planned to (as at Marathon) or did indeed (as at Thermopylae) erect the first attested battlefield trophies on the Greek mainland. No evidence, as we shall see, attests trophies in Greece prior to the Persian invasions. This chapter contends that the Greeks adopted tropaia from the Persians and, therefore, from the east. It contends further that trophies emerged at a time when, and as a result of the fact that, in the results of pitched battles it became less easy to determine the winner from the loser. Keywords:battlefield trophies; Greece; Persian Wars; tropaia

Ancient history · Battlefield · Greeks · Linguistics · Persian · Political science · Politics · Victory · Byzantine Studies and History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy

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