Skip navigation
London Review of Books London Review Bookshop

Articles marked subscriber-only content are available to registered subscribers to the print edition of the London Review of Books. For information about subscribing to the LRB, click here. If you are already a subscriber and you wish to register for online access, click here. Articles marked not in archive are not currently available in the LRB online archive.

James Davidson

James Davidson’s books include Courtesans and Fishcakes, One Mykonos and The Greeks and Greek Love, which was published last year. He is a reader in ancient history at the University of Warwick.

From the London Review dated 10 July 2003

Versailles with Panthers

  • From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire by Pierre Briant, translated by Peter Daniels
  • Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD: reissue by Josef Wiesehöfer, translated by Azizeh Azodi

“Sometimes it seems that new conquests were undertaken merely so the king could look behind him at the colourful host of different kinds of soldier he was able to command, or so that his peoples could see themselves, as one more people was added to the collection . . . The king was ‘King of the countries containing all races’ or King of the peoples of many origins’, or just ‘King of Kings’. Too much Persianising of the provinces might seem to lessen an empire so conceived.” [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography

Search the web for James Davidson: Google · Yahoo! · AltaVista · Wikipedia

In the LRB archive

Plato Made It Up · 19 June 2008

  • The Atlantis Story: A Short History of Plato’s Myth by Pierre Vidal-Naquet, translated by Janet Lloyd  Buy this book

subscriber-only content No Beast More Refined · 29 November 2007

Zeus Be Nice Now · 19 July 2007

subscriber-only content Adrift from Locality · 3 November 2005

  • Apologies to Thucydides: Understanding History as Culture and Vice Versa by Marshall Sahlins  Buy this book

At the British Museum: James Davidson visits Persia’s ‘Forgotten Empire’ · 22 September 2005

Mr and Mr and Mrs and Mrs · 2 June 2005

  • The Friend by Alan Bray

I told you so! · 2 December 2004

Versailles with Panthers · 10 July 2003

  • From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire by Pierre Briant, translated by Peter Daniels
  • Ancient Persia from 550 BC to 650 AD: reissue by Josef Wiesehöfer, translated by Azizeh Azodi

Bonkers about Boys · 1 November 2001

  • Alexander the Great in Fact and Fiction edited by A.B. Bosworth and E.J. Baynham

subscriber-only content Face to Face with Merce Cunningham · 2 November 2000

subscriber-only content Too Young · 21 September 2000

  • Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas by Douglas Murray

Clinging to the Sides of a Black, Precipitous Hole · 24 August 2000

  • The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens by Danielle Allen

Himbo · 5 March 1998

  • Apollonios Rhodios: The Argonautika translated by Peter Green

Not currently in the LRB archive

 not available in archive Feel what it’s like · 2 March 2000

  • A World Full of Gods: Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire by Keith Hopkins

 not available in archive An Easy Lay · 30 September 1999

  • Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy edited by Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne
  • The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy edited by P.E. Easterling
  • Tragedy in Athens: Performance Space and Theatrical Meaning by David Wiles

 not available in archive How many gay men does it take to change an island? · 10 June 1999

 not available in archive Some Evil Thing · 18 February 1999

  • No Go the Bogeyman: Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock by Marina Warner

 not available in archive History as a Bunch of Flowers · 20 August 1998

  • The Greeks and Greek Civilisation by Jacob Burckhardt, edited by Oswyn Murray, translated by Sheila Stern

 not available in archive Tall and Tanned and Young and Lovely · 18 June 1998

  • Art, Desire and the Body in Ancient Greece by Andrew Stewart

 not available in archive Tuscanini · 16 April 1998

  • Olives: The Life and Lore of a Noble Fruit by Mort Rosenblum

From the LRB letters page