This illustrated study comprises a comprehensive and detailed account of the historical development of Greek military architecture and defensive planning, specifically in Arkadia in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. Employing data gathered from the published literature, and collected during the field reconnaissance of every site, the fortification circuit of each Arkadian polis is explored. In this way, the book provides an accurate chronology for the walls in question; an understanding of the relationship between the fortifications and the local topography; a detailed inventory of all the fortified poleis of Arkadia; a regional synthesis based on this inventory; and the probable historical reasons behind the patterns observed through the regional synthesis. Maher argues that there is no evidence for fortified poleis in Arkadia during the Archaic period. However, when the poleis were eventually fortified in the Classical period, the fact that most appeared in the early fourth century BC, strategically distributed in limited geographic areas, suggests that the larger defensive concerns of the Arkadian League were a factor. Although the defensive responses to innovations in siege warfare and offensive artillery of the Arkadian fortifications follow the same general developments observable in the circuits found throughout the Greek world, there does exist a number of interesting and noteworthy, regionally specific, patterns. Such discoveries validate the methodology employed and clearly demonstrate the value of an exclusively regional focus for shedding light on a number of architectural, topographical, and historic issues.

Combining archaeological and textual evidence the author suggests that most of the 8th Century settlements that would become the city-states of classical Greece were defined as much by the boundaries of civilised' space as by their urban centres.

"This book presents a new model for the cluster of ancient kingdoms that clustered around the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea during the Iron age, ca. 1200-600 BCE. Rather than presenting them as ancient versions of the modern nation-state, characterized by homogenous ethnolinguistic communities like "the Aramaeans" or "the Luwians" living in neatly bounded territories, this book sees these polities as being fundamentally diverse and variable, distinguished by demographic fluidity and cultural mobility. This conclusion is reached via an examination of a host of evidentiary sources, including site plans, settlement patterns, visual arts, and historical sources. Together, these lines of evidence lead to the awareness that this time and place consists of a complex fusion of cultural traditions that is nevertheless distinctly recognizable unto itself. This book thus proposes a new term to encapsulate that diversity: the Syro-Anatolian Culture Complex"--

"Citadel to City-State serves as an excellent summarization of our present knowledge of the not-so-dark Dark Age as well as an admirable prologue to the understanding of the subsequent Archaeic and Classical periods." -- David Rupp, Phoenix The Dark Age of Greece is one of the least understood periods of Greek history. A terra incognita between the Mycenaean civilization of Late Bronze Age Greece and the flowering of Classical Greece, the Dark Age was, until the last few decades, largely neglected. Now new archaeological methods and the discovery of new evidence have made it possible to develop a more comprehensive view of the entire period. Citadel to City-State explores each century from 1200 to 700 B.C.E. through an individual site -- Mycenae, Nichoria, Athens, Lefkandi, Corinth, and Ascra -- that illustrates the major features of each period. This is a remarkable account of the historical detective work that is beginning to shed light on Dark Age Greece.