Pierre Lévêque (; 11 August 1921, in

Chambéry Chambéry (, , ; Franco-Provençal, Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Savoie Departments of France, department in the southeastern ...

– 5 March 2004, in Paris) was a 20th-century French

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient h ...

and

Hellenistic Greece Hellenistic Greece is the historical period of Ancient Greece following Classical Greece and between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the annexation of the classical Greek Achaean League heartlands by the Roman Republic. This cul ...

Biography

Training

The son of an engineer, he spent his youth in the port of

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

. Readin
''La Cité grecque''
by Gustave Glotz, pushed him towards literary studies: he was received in 1940 in the

École normale supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

de la rue d'Ulm then at the agrégation de lettres in 1944. A member of the French School at Athens from 1947 to 1952, he studied in Greece archaic statuary of

Delos Delos (; ; ''Dêlos'', ''Dâlos''), is a small Greek island near Mykonos, close to the centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Though only in area, it is one of the most important mythological, historical, and archaeological sites in Greece. ...

and excavated the site of

Thasos Thasos or Thassos (, ''Thásos'') is a Greek island in the North Aegean Sea. It is the northernmost major Greek island, and 12th largest by area. The island has an area of 380 km2 and a population of about 13,000. It forms a separate regiona ...

. In 1955, under the direction of André Aymard, he defended his major thesis, dedicated to

Pyrrhus of Epirus Pyrrhus ( ; ; 319/318–272 BC) was a Greeks, Greek king and wikt:statesman, statesman of the Hellenistic period.Plutarch. ''Parallel Lives'',Pyrrhus... He was king of the Molossians, of the royal Aeacidae, Aeacid house, and later he became ki ...

- the minor one being dedicated to the Athenian poet

Agathon Agathon (; ; ) was an Athenian tragic poet whose works have been lost. He is best known for his appearance in Plato's '' Symposium,'' which describes the banquet given to celebrate his obtaining a prize for his first tragedy at the Lenaia in 4 ...

, under the direction of .

Works (selection)

*1961
''Nous partons pour... La Grèce''
*1964: ''L'aventure grecque'' *1964: ''Clisthène l'Athénien'', 1964 (with

Pierre Vidal-Naquet Pierre Emmanuel Vidal-Naquet (; 23 July 193029 July 2006) was a French historian who began teaching at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in 1969. Vidal-Naquet was a specialist in the study of Ancient Greece, but was als ...

) 'Cleisthenes the Athenian: An Essay on the Representation of Space and of Time in Greek Political Thought from the End of the Sixth Century to the Death of Plato'', Humanities Press, 1996*1966
''Nous partons pour... La Sicile''
PUF *1966: *1968: ''Empires et barbaries'' *1985: ''Bêtes, dieux et hommes'' *1985: ''Le Japon des mythes anciens'' *1990: ''La Naissance de la Grèce : Des Rois aux Cités'', collection «

Découvertes Gallimard (, ; in United Kingdom: ''New Horizons'', in United States: ''Abrams Discoveries'') is an Collection (publishing), editorial collection of Book illustration, illustrated monographic books published by the Éditions Gallimard in Pocket edition, ...

» (nº 86), série Histoire. Paris: Gallimard, 176pp., **1994: **1994: *1994: ''Les Grenouilles dans l'Antiquité'' *2003: ''Dans les pas des dieux grecs''

External links

Pierre Lévêque
on data.bnf.fr
''Hommage à Pierre Lévêque''
o
Kernos

''Souvenirs du vingtième siècle''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Leveque, Pierre 20th-century French historians French hellenists École Normale Supérieure alumni Members of the French School at Athens 1921 births Writers from Chambéry 2004 deaths