Cleomenes on the Acropolis: An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford on 12 May 1997

The Spartan king Cleomenes, having seized the acropolis of Athens in 507 BC with the aim of suppressing the young democracy, is ordered by the priestess of Athena to withdraw from the goddess's shrine, where no Dorian is permitted to enter. Robert Parker uses this little incident to illustrate some of the multiple types of question that a Greek historian may choose to confront in the late twentieth century: questions about political history, about gender relations, about ethnicity. In particular, he takes up the priestess's attempt to debar a stranger from a sanctuary on ethnic grounds, and reflects on the role of shared cults in creating group solidarity at almost every level of society in Greece.