Related Papers
ANCH2040 The World of Classical Athens: Politics and Society: Course Summary, Second Semester 2024, The University of Queensland (Australia).
David M Pritchard
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens
2021 •
Dylan K Rogers
Athens was an ancient city like no other. Named for a goddess, epicenter of the first democracy, birthplace of tragic and comic theater, locus of the major philosophical schools, artistically in the vanguard for centuries, it looms larger than any other ancient polis in contemporary thought from historical scholarship to tourist attractions. The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens is a comprehensive and up-to-date introduction to the ancient city, its topography and monuments, inhabitants and cultural institutions, religious rituals and politics. Chapters in the volume link the religious, cultural, and political institutions of Athens to the physical locales in which they took place, so that readers gain a sense of the life and realia of the ancient city. Discussion of the urban plan with its streets, gates, walls and public and private buildings will give readers a thorough understanding of how the city operated, how various people flowed through it, what they saw, heard, smelled and perhaps tasted. Drawing from the newest scholarship on various aspects of the city as well as on-going excavations of its Agora, sanctuaries, and cemeteries, this volume examines how the city was planned, how it functioned, and how it was transformed from a democratic polis into a Roman urbs.
Development and Political Theory in Classical Athens
Barry R . Weingast
Harvard Ph.D. dissertation, 2013
Rethinking Athenian Democracy
Daniela Cammack
Conventional accounts of classical Athenian democracy represent the assembly as the primary democratic institution in the Athenian political system. This looks reasonable in the light of modern democracy, which has typically developed through the democratization of legislative assemblies. Yet it conflicts with the evidence at our disposal. Our ancient sources suggest that the most significant and distinctively democratic institution in Athens was the courts, where decisions were made by large panels of randomly selected ordinary citizens with no possibility of appeal. This dissertation reinterprets Athenian democracy as “dikastic democracy” (from the Greek dikastēs, “judge”), defined as a mode of government in which ordinary citizens rule principally through their control of the administration of justice. It begins by casting doubt on two major planks in the modern interpretation of Athenian democracy: first, that it rested on a conception of the “wisdom of the multitude” akin to that advanced by epistemic democrats today, and second that it was “deliberative,” meaning that mass discussion of political matters played a defining role. The first plank rests largely on an argument made by Aristotle in support of mass political participation, which I show has been comprehensively misunderstood. The second rests on the interpretation of the verb “bouleuomai” as indicating speech, but I suggest that it meant internal reflection in both the courts and the assembly. The third chapter begins the constructive part of the project by comparing the assembly and courts as instruments of democracy in Athens, and the fourth shows how a focus on the courts reveals the deep political dimensions of Plato’s work, which in turn suggests one reason why modern democratic ideology and practice have moved so far from the Athenians’ on this score. Throughout, the dissertation combines textual, philological and conceptual analysis with attention to institutional detail and the wider historical context. The resulting account makes a strong case for the relevance of classical Athens today, both as a source of potentially useful procedural mechanisms and as the point of origin of some of the philosophical presuppositions on which the modern conception of democracy and its limits depends.
From the "National" to the Political Consciousness in Athens of the 6th century BCE, and the Emergence of Democracy
Eleni Krikona
This paper addresses the construction of a " national " identity of the Athenian inhabitants during the tyrannical governance of Peisistratos and his sons (561/0-511/0 BCE 1) mainly through a series of religious practices, such as the transfer of cults from the rural areas to the city (asty) of Athens, the reorganization of the Panathenaia, the establishment of the City Dionysia, etc. The present paper investigates how this developed " national " consciousness in the late 6th century, in the sense of the citizens' nationalization within the borders of the Athenian city-state, could enable the political unification of Attica and the emergence of Democracy, taking into account the constitutional reforms of Kleisthenes the Alcmeonid, after the expulsion of the Peisistratidai. This paper focuses on the interpretation of the concept of political equality and the formation of a political identity of the Athenians in the late 6th century onwards, two notions which are treated here as very closely integrated. It was that political consciousness, following the constitutional changes of Kleisthenes, which led the Athenians to their first great military victories in the early 5th century over the Persians. These victories, which indisputably confirmed the strength of the constitution, will be brought, in short, into discussion in order to clarify the transition of Athens from the narrow borders of an archaic city-state to the rise of its naval empire in the " golden " 5th century via the newly-established Democracy.
Athens and the Tyranny of a Democratic State
2017 •
Gill Oluwatosin Adekannbi
Democracy, the celebrated symbol of socio-political success, seems the most popular legacy of Athens to the modern world. Yet, Athens also has a record of what has been seen as tyrannical use of power and ‘abuse of human right’ in her inter-state relations. Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian war (The History of the Peloponnesian War) has been a basis for the theory of political realism, ‘might is right’ which is used to explain the international aggression of the democratic Athens. Using an interpretive research approach, this paper takes some look at the Athenian path to democracy and particularly considers the Melian Dialogue, a passage in Thucydides’ work that enunciates the implications of political realism exemplified by the Athenians' treatment of the Melians. While political realism implies international anarchy when power and conflicting national interests set the standard of what is deemed right, a democratic government led by this code could also act tyrannically...
The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought
Introduction of 'The Hellenistic Reception of Classical Athenian Democracy and Political Thought'
2018 •
Mirko Canevaro
This chapter introduces the main themes and questions of the volume. It discusses the complex processes through which Hellenistic Greeks engaged with Classical Athenian political models. It is necessary to study a very wide range of Hellenistic evidence in order to examine through what media and in what contexts Hellenistic Greeks embraced, adapted or rejected Classical Athenian political ideals and models. This introduction also explains the structure of the book, with short summaries of the individual chapters and their place within the whole volume.
Monthly Review
New Light on Athenian Democracy
1989 •
Thomas Patterson
Democratizing Courage in Classical Athens
Ryan Balot
The Athenian Democracy of Classical Period
Mika Ojakangas
