This work surveys all available evidence on Athenian settlements and settlers of the fourth century B.C., calling several conventional interpretations about them into question, through a rigorous preference for evidence over speculation. Three chapters trace a chronology of events relating to the settlements, examine their personnel collectively, statistically, and individually, and discuss evidence for their political, economic, and religious institutions. Long appendixes establish improved texts of numerous inscriptions relevant to the topic and provide several kinds of data on more than 1000 definite, probable, or possible settlers.

During the fourth century BC the number of Greeks who did not live as citizens in the city-states of southern mainland Greece increased considerably: mercenaries, pirates, itinerant artisans and traders, their origins differed widely. It has been argued that this increase was caused by the destruction of many Greek cities in the wars of the fourth century, accompanied by the large programme of settlement begun by Alexander in the East and Timoleon in the West. Although this was an important factor, argues Dr McKechnie, more crucial was an ideological deterioration of loyalties to the city: the polis was no longer absolutely normative in the fourth century and Hellenistic periods. With so many outsiders with specialist skills, Alexander and his successors were able to recruit the armies and colonists needed to conquer and maintain empires many times larger than any single polis had ever controlled.

The Greek world in the fourth century BC may be regarded as the overlooked stepchild in the study of ancient Greek history, sandwiched between the brilliant achievements of classical Athens and the accomplishments of Alexander the Great. Yet this was the time of Plato and Aristotle, of Scopas and Lysippus, continuing the developments of the classical era while preparing those of the Hellenistic period to come. Athenian democracy settled into nearly a hundred years of stability, while the Greeks in Asia and the West reached a modus vivendi with their neighbours. The papers collected in this volume present a survey of the struggles of Athens, Sparta and Thebes to dominate Greece in the fourth century BC - only to be overwhelmed by the newly emerging Macedonian kingdom of Philip II. Additionally, the situation of Greeks in Sicily, Italy and Asia is portrayed, showing the geographical and political diffusion of the Greeks in a broader historical context. This text should provide the reader with a clearly drawn picture of the main events and leading personalities in this decisive period of Greek history.

By taking a look at colonization and subalternity, this book offers a different view on Classical Greece and its modern legacy.