A Landscape of Conflict? Rural Fortifications in the Argolid (400–146 BC)

This is the first systematic study of Late Classical and Hellenistic rural fortifications in ancient Argos and the city-states of the Argolic Akte. Based on one of the largest regional corpora of Greek fortified sites, the volume investigates the function of rural fortifications by placing them in the context of their surrounding lan

A Landscape of Conflict? Rural Fortifications in the Argolid (400-146 BC) is the first systematic study of Late Classical and Hellenistic rural fortifications in the territories of ancient Argos and the city-states of the Argolic Akte (northeastern Peloponnese). Based on one of the largest regional corpora of Greek fortified sites to date, the volume investigates the function of rural fortifications by placing them in the context of their surrounding landscape. This approach – combining ‘traditional’ methods of ancient history and landscape archaeology with GIS-based data analyses – helps to readdress the long-standing tension between ‘military-strategic’ and ‘non-military’ research agendas in Greek fortification studies, and highlights that Classical and Hellenistic rural fortifications are neither a priori fortified farmsteads nor parts of military-strategic networks of territorial defence. Instead, rural fortifications emerge in this monograph as multifunctional and multifaceted sites, which open a new window into different forms of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ conflict in the ancient countryside and bear witness to a remarkable degree of local motivation and agency. The study thus demonstrates how ancient fortifications can provide an unexpected and so far much underappreciated opportunity for writing local or regional Greek histories – political and military as well as social and economic – from archaeological sources.

Chapter 1: Introduction ;

Chapter 2: The Landscape of the Ancient Argolid ;

Chapter 3: A Typology of Ancient Fortifications ;

Chapter 4: Dating Ancient Fortifications in the Argolid ;

Chapter 5: A Regional Study of Fortifications in the Argolid ;

Chapter 6: Rural Fortifications as Territorial Defences ;

Chapter 7: Rural Fortifications as Local Defences ;

Chapter 8: Conclusions ;

Bibliography ;

Catalogue ;

Appendix: The Masonry Technique and Chronology of Fortifications in the Argolid ;

Index of Sources ;

General Index

Anna Magdalena Blomley studied Classical Archaeology at the Universities of Heidelberg and Oxford, and received a DPhil from the University of Oxford in 2018. Her research lies at the intersection of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, exploring political, social and economic structures through the study of ancient landscapes, and combining traditional archaeological approaches with epigraphic studies and GIS-based methods of data collection and analyses. She is currently the Esmée Fairbairn Junior Research Fellow in Classics at New College, Oxford, where her work focuses on ancient Thessaly (Greece).

• By (author) Anna Magdalena Blomley

'Alles in allem ist Anna Blomley ein substanzieller wie lesenswerter Beitrag zur Erforschung des antiken griechischen Festungswesens gelungen, der die geographische Diversitat und Multifunktionalitat landlicher Fortifikationen in der Argolis eindrucklich vor Augen fuhrt. Im Licht der, was die Chronologie anbelangt, schwierigen Datengrundlage zeigt sich dabei nicht zuletzt das grose Potential einer landschaftsarchaologischen, mit raumlichen GIS-Analysen angereicherten Methodik. Gleichwohl kunftige Feldforschung in der Argolis die Ergebnisse Blomleys moglicherweise modifizieren kann, werden die von ihr ausgelegten Pfade zum Verstandnis der landlichen Fortifikationen nachhaltig Orientierung bieten.‘ [translated] ‘All in all, Anna Blomley has produced a substantial and highly readable contribution to the study of ancient Greek fortifications, vividly demonstrating the geographical diversity and multifunctionality of rural fortifications in the Argolis. … Although future fieldwork in the Argolis may modify Blomley’s findings, the paths she has laid out will continue to provide valuable guidance for understanding rural fortifications.’ - Johannes Fouquet (2025): GNOMON 97

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‘This volume is very thought-provoking for studies of the Argolid and broader considerations of fortifications and regionality: it is a very fine piece of work, based on extensive research and powerful analysis, and is to be congratulated. It will be a basis for all future research about the landscapes and cities-states of the Argolid.’ – Clemence Weber-Pallez (2024): The Classical Review

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