A Political Biography . W.W. Tarn's Antigonos Gonatas , originally published in 1913. A lot has happened in the intervening 80 years. It is high time for another attempt at Gonatas' life, and this is what Janice Gabbert now offers, in 72 pages of text and seven of notes. The difficulties in dealing with the third century are well known.
Sources are few, problems many.
While one could justly complain that for many dozens of pages at a time the subject of Tarn's book sinks from view in a complex analysis of Aitolian politics or a discussion of Ptolemaic objectives in the Aegean, Tarn not only always brings us back to his main interest, but also shows why his digressions are crucial to his understanding of Antigonos' actions and policies. Again, if one can sometimes complain that in this way Tarn confects a false confidence that we know what Gonatas did and why he did it even when, in fact, we don't, Tarn offers a structure within which one can argue against him. He holds back nothing that might be relevant. Gabbert has taken a very different approach. Her focus is ostensibly entirely on her subject, his activities, his policies.