In the ancient world war played a crucial part in shaping and changing social and political structures. The impact of war on the ancient societies of the Mediterranean world is the subject of this book and its companion, War and Society in the Roman World . John Rich and Graham Shipley have drawn together a fresh collection which extends beyond the traditional emphasis on political causes, tactics and strategy, and military organisation. Instead, warfare is viewed as a species of social action, affecting and affected by social conditions and ideology, and having social, economic, and cultural consequences. This conception of warfare as a social agency is considered through oringinal examiniation of the causes of war, booty, slavery, and other profits of war and their effects in Greek societies; war in literature and sculpture, including ideology of victory and warrior, and the critical construction of the image of the enemy.