Ancient Greek Politics

Η διδακτική αυτή προσέγγιση αφορά στο σχεδιασμό και την υλοποίηση της διδασκαλίας στο πλαίσιο ενός μαθήματος φιλοσοφίας σχετικά με τις θεωρίες της γνώσης στη Β΄ Γενικού Λυκείου,  με  βάση  το διδακτικό  βιβλίο  Αρχές  Φιλοσοφίας  στο  πλαίσιο  του  αναλυτικού προγράμματος.  Πιο  συγκεκριμένα,  θα  προσπαθήσουμε  να  προτείνουμε  τον  εμπλουτισμό του κεφαλαίου 3: Αναζητώντας τη γνώση, ενότητα τρίτη: Θεωρίες για την πηγή της γνώσης, χρησιμοποιώντας  στοιχεία  θεωρίας  της  γνώσης  και  της  αντίληψης  των  Προσωκρατικών.  Στόχος  μας  είναι  να  εμπλουτίσουμε  το  κεφάλαιο  αυτό  με  στοιχεία  προσωκρατικής  φιλοσοφίας ως παλαιότερης χρονολογικά και προϋπάρχουσας εκείνης της Κλασικής εποχής  και των Νεοτέρων χρόνων.

Cette étude tâche de dégager la double signification de la philosophie socratique comprise comme philosophie politique à l’aide d’une interprétation des Amoureux rivaux. Le refus d’accorder à ce court dialogue socratique une affiliation au corpus platonicien a jeté injustement de l’ombre sur la pertinence de son contenu : le discrédit des Amoureux rivaux a quelques limites qu’il est bon de montrer. La structure soignée du dialogue, qu’il est possible de mettre en lumière au moyen du Phèdre, invite à une interprétation attentive de cette architecture. Une telle lecture permet d’expliciter la parenté entre la philosophie et la politique dans la philosophie socratique. Les Amoureux rivaux présente deux dimensions politiques de la philosophie : une philosophie qui s’oppose à la philosophie physiologique en constituant plutôt un questionnement sur l’homme qui s’exprime dans un mode de vie réflexif, de même qu’une politique du dialogue, c’est-à-dire une bonne gouverne de la communauté dialectique.

Despite Daniel Ogden’s and Alex McAuley’s work in collecting, organizing, and rationalizing the often contradictory information delivered by the ancient sources, the Seleukid genealogy still appears to be the most complex and chaotic maze of marital relations in the Hellenistic world. This chapter offers a fresh look at the matter by approaching the royal dynasty holistically as an ensemble of familial forces, which fluidly interacted with diverse geographical and chronological contexts, rather than as a line of rulers hypothetically matched with concurrent consorts. In so doing, I will use the term dynastic politics as embracing the alliances— and ruptures— created through marriage and all that royal marriage implies: inheritance, legitimation, regency, interdynastic blood relationships, and dynastic continuity.

The appearance of hybris in the list of hunting dog names given in Xenophon’s Cynegeticus seems, at first glance, surprising. Why would Xenophon recommend such a term for man’s best friend? Often translated to mean violent arrogance, hybris, is socially and politically charged. This chapter explores how naming dogs, particularly in fourth century Athens, speaks to the tensions between the aristocratic hunting set, who, it appears, were Xenophon's intended audience, and the values of the Democracy.

There is a long-standing debate over which constitution Aristotle regards as best in Politics. I attempt to clarify his view by reconstructing four principles he uses to assess constitutions, in both ideal and more ordinary circumstances: (i) the supremacy-of-virtue principle, (ii) the more-virtuous-citizens-are-better-than-fewer principle, (iii) the equality principle, and (iv) the stability principle. I apply these principles to defend a rank-ordering of constitutions, which situates the ideal aristocracy of Books VII and VIII at the top, and tyranny, along with unmixed forms of democracy and oligarchy, at the bottom.

La proposition consiste à rechercher les catégories indiquées dans le cadre de conditions déterminées d’énonciation. Il s’agit de réfléchir autour de la notion d’agent en considérant deux figures singulières : le héros tragique et le citoyen démocratique, dont les caractères nous conduisent à la situation de l’Athènes du Ve siècle. En conséquence, le problème de la volonté et la constitution d’une notion d’agent responsable seront analysés à partir de l’intersection entre le domaine du discours tragique et le domaine de l’activité politique. Dans la conjonction de ces deux domaines, le problème crucial réside en la décision comme un processus subjectif. Notre idée centrale est que la figure du héros tragique évoque, avec ambiguïté, une antithèse politique mais aussi une métaphore du citoyen démocratique. Le héros tragique est une antithèse du citoyen démocratique parce que celui-ci prend uniquement des décisions comme partie d’une organisation collective, tandis que celui-là se présente en général sous une forme tyrannique. Mais le héros tragique est aussi métaphore du citoyen démocratique dans la mesure dans laquelle le processus subjectif réalisé par le héros opère comme recours de pensée des facteurs impliqués dans la prise de décision des citoyens réunis dans l’assemblée athénienne.

In the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, immigrants called 'metics' (metoikoi) settled in Athens without a path to citizenship. Galvanized by these political realities, classical thinkers cast a critical eye on the nativism defining democracy's membership rules and explored the city's anxieties over intermingling and passing. Yet readers continue to treat immigration and citizenship as separate phenomena of little interest to theorists writing at the time. In The Perpetual Immigrant and the Limits of Athenian Democracy, Demetra Kasimis makes visible the long-overlooked centrality of immigration to the originary practices of democracy and political theory in Athens. She dismantles the interpretive and political assumptions that have led readers to turn away from the metic and reveals the key role this figure plays in such texts as Plato's Republic. The result is a series of original readings that boldly reframes urgent questions about how democracies order their non-citizen members.

Los diálogos entre la historia y la teoría política vienen en continuo aumento en los últimos años. En ésta perspectiva, pero proviniendo del campo de la historiografía, debemos incluir el reciente trabajo de Pedro Barceló y David Hernández de la Fuente, que ya en su título anticipa lo que se hallará en él, una historia del pensamiento político griego que articula teoría y praxis. El libro, con prólogo de José Manuel Roldán Hervás, consta de cinco partes,

The first aim of this paper is to illustrate the various meanings of the word πονηρός (together with the antonym χρηστός) and especially its usage from the last quarter of V century b.C. to the first half of IV, both in theatrical literature and in political jargon; the semantic gap between the etymological sense of this term and its occurrences in post-Periclean age is due to the great social renewals in VI-V cent. and next to the decline of the democratic parabola in Athens. Consequently, the paper shows the tight connections between comic and political lexicon: according to Alessandro Grilli, all Aristophanes’ comedies concern politics and therefore refer to its vocabulary in order to inspire audience’s laugh and blame.

Esposizione di approfondimento per studenti liceali e di laurea triennale. Atene è l"altro polo nella gamma di possibili forme della polis greca. Il cammino di Atene è per certi versi opposto a quello di Sparta: se a Sparta l"ordine politico e sociale si va cristallizzando, Atene vive una continua evoluzione sociale e sperimenta soluzioni politiche sempre nuove; se Sparta è una polis creata da un gruppo ristretto di invasori che si impone sulla popolazione preesistente, gli Ateniesi si vantavano di essere autoctoni, di essere cioè la popolazione originaria del luogo; se la storia spartana è segnata dal contrasto fra il nucleo degli Spartiati residenti a Sparta e la popolazione asservita della campagna, al contrario quella di Atene è caratterizzata dall"eguaglianza di diritti fra abitanti della città e abitanti dei villaggi, e dalla fusione di centro urbano e campagna in una unica realtà politica; se Sparta risolve il conflitto politico solo imponendo l"uguaglianza totale dei cittadini, Atene invece saprà coniugare eguaglianza di diritti politici e diseguaglianze economiche. Infine, se Sparta finisce per incarnare l"ideale dell"oligarchia (il dominio dei pochi sui molti: da olìgos "poco" e arché, "comando"), ad Atene sarà si imporrà infine quelle che gli stessi Ateniesi definiranno "isonomia", cioè la "parità di diritti" di tutti di fronte alla legge (da isos, "eguale" e nomos "legge") e "democrazia", cioè il regime fondato sul potere del popolo (da demos, "popolo" e kratos, "potere).

The inseparable relationship between the cult of Dionysus and politics in antiquity emerged as early as in archaic poleis and continued to evolve until late-antique times. Surprisingly enough, most monographs dealing with Greek and Roman political thought pay little, if any, attention to the essential role played by Dionysiac imagery. The only exception in which the name of Dionysus comes to the fore is the Bacchanalian affair, which has been widely discussed both in relation to Roman religion as well as in relation to Roman politics. Apart from that affair, however, Dionysus/Bacchus is seldom mentioned in mainstream research on Greek and Roman political practice.To date, no monograph systematically addressing the role of Dionysus in Greek and Roman political thought has seen the light of day. In existing studies, interesting and valuable as they are, the issue has been discussed only partially or in passing. The present volume fills this important gap by introducing the political importance of Dionysus into the academic mainstream. It brings together 11 contributions from an international team of scholars, starting with four top specialists in the field, Cornelia Isler-Kerényi, Jean-Marie Pailler, Richard Seaford and Richard Stoneman. The contributors develop an interdisciplinary approach to the subject by combining sub-disciplines and types of evidence: historiography, poetry, coins, epigraphy, art and philosophy, while the chapters also follow a chronological order. Thus, the reader can follow how the political ideas and motifs rooted in Greek classical thought were continued, adapted and developed in successive periods, from Hellenistic to Imperial to late-antique times. The book therefore casts a decisive light on a still underrated aspect of Greek and Roman theological refection on politics, and greatly helps to better understand the ancient thinking on the nature of ruling.

In 346/5 BC, Aeschines prosecuted Timarchus, a well-known Athenian politician, under a procedure known as dokimasia rhētorōn. Timarchus was accused of illegally addressing the Assembly on account of his actions as a male prostitute and squanderer of his patrimony (Aeschin. 1.28-32, 154). In his accusation, Aeschines devoted much attention to the education and morals of Athenian citizens (Aeschin. 1.6-27) and Timarchus’ character and public career (Aeschin. 1.39-70, 106-115), conjuring the evidence of Homer and other poets to discuss homosexual love and the reliability of rumour (Aeschin. 1.125-40). As a result, doubts have been cast on Aeschines’ adherence to the legal issue at hand (Ford 1999; more cautiously Fisher 2001: 127-8), and it has even been suggested that the orator made up the procedure of dokimasia rhētorōn while actually prosecuting Timarchus under a graphē hetairēseōs (Lane Fox 1994: 149-51).

This paper puts these claims under scrutiny and argues that Aeschines’ rhetorical strategy in Against Timarchus was inextricably bound to the nature of the legal procedure. After reconstructing Aeschines’ plaint and the relevant legal allegations (Harris 2013), I shall provide a detailed analysis of his argument. Given the weakness of the legal charges against Timarchus, Aeschines abundantly relies on character evidence and pits the defendant against allegedly Solonian moral legislation. I will show that these evidence was relevant to the legal charges of prostitution and squandering of inheritance. Through a comparison with speeches dealing with other types of dokimasia (Lys. 16; 26; 31), moreover, I will show that Aeschines’ use of character evidence was engrained in the nature of the dokimasia rhētorōn and allowed the orator to prove that Timarchus was unfit for advising the dēmos on matters of public policy.

Abstract
This article examines the longstanding rivalry of Rome and Parthia, which began as an unintended consequence of Crassus’ decisive defeat at Carrhae in 53 BCE. It synthesizes the accounts and opinions of numerous Graeco-Roman writers from the Augustan Age to late antiquity in order to help illustrate the new and interconnected post-Carrhae world and its legacy. The rivalry of the Romans and Parthians became a primary focus of their foreign policies and drastically expanded their perceptions of the world in which they interacted. Even after the fall of the Parthians to the rebellious Sassanid Persians in the 220s CE, the Romans continued to find their three-century-long rivalry with the Parthians of interest and relevant to the changing world of late antiquity.

Este libro propone un análisis de las configuraciones políticas, las representaciones simbólicas y los valores afectivos que organizaron el accionar de los sujetos en la democracia ateniense. El desarrollo de la política democrática en la Atenas clásica supuso la capacidad del pueblo de limitar la opresión coactiva de los sectores aristocráticos, así como de construir un espacio específico de participación y disenso. Bajo estas condiciones, las representaciones simbólicas operaron como vehículo para procesar este singular suceso, dando cuenta al mismo tiempo de las pasiones extremas que este supo desatar y que se expresaron en conflictos políticos, en ocasiones con una inusitada violencia física y psicológica.El recorrido que se realiza considera en especial el rol de la asamblea y los tribunales, la dimensión socio-política de la comedia antigua y su vinculación con los procedimientos institucionales de la democracia ateniense, así como la interfaz que las experiencias emocionales tejían en el cruce entre tales procedimientos y las prácticas ideológicas, de las que formaban parte tanto las representaciones teatrales cuanto las elaboraciones conceptuales. La convergencia entre los particulares intereses de los autores de cada capítulo y el proyecto global desarrollado ha permitido redimensionar las problemáticas específicas y potenciar mediante la interacción y el intercambio las conclusiones alcanzadas. El enfoque elegido ha procurado generar cimientos más sólidos para una lectura integral de los fenómenos institucionales, políticos, cívicos, culturales y emocionales ligados a la democracia ateniense y sus proyecciones, que aun cuando no aparezcan deliberadamente tienen una presencia implícita en algunas de las idealizaciones de la mejor pólis, modelos en los que los remedios y los controles propuestos muestran que la democracia ya ha pasado dejando su huella en el horizonte del pensamiento de la política.

One of the most memorable features of Plato’s Republic is its apparent promotion of state censorship of music. Upon closer inspection, however, it is unclear whether this policy is meant to apply to city or soul—or both. This essay reads the Republic’s music censorship not as a practice of the state, but rather as a practice of the self, whereby individual reflection on music and its attendant pleasures awakens the rational part of the soul and habituates the person to the activity of reasoning. Although one might think that guarding citizens, and youths in particular, from exposure to “bad” music is essential for instilling the beliefs and behaviors most conducive to justice, such a policy is shown to be both unnecessary and counter-productive. As the conversation of the Republic itself dramatizes, justice entails confronting difficult tensions. Encouraging mindfulness towards music can facilitate the development of this important virtue.

In the history of literature, few stories have received as much attention as the astonishing story of Atlantis. Books on the subject runs into the thousands. Since Plato explicitly tells us the Atlantis story is “true,” the “general reader” assumes it to be so. On the other hand, the vast majority of classical scholars take the story to be what Plato explicitly denies it to be: invented myth.  There have been, of course, attempts to describe the character of the story as “intermediate” between the first two, i.e., a “likely story,” or as a “synthesis” of them, i.e., a myth written in the form of a history.

The most convincing exposition, in my view, of the Atlantis myth is by the French scholar Pierre Vidal-Naquet.  But, at the end of his analysis, Vidal-Naquet compares Plato’s story to a game – a game that was not “serious” because for Plato history always and inevitably takes the form of a progressive degeneration, so that humanity cannot escape its destiny. In this paper I hope to show that Plato’s philosophy of history is not negative but positive, for it contains the solution to humanity’s future well being both on earth and in the afterlife. I begin --to avoid bias—by presenting the main argument of those who uphold the historical existence of Atlantis. Second, I explain how, where and why the Atlantis story is introduced in Plato’s Timaeus, as well as discussing its relation to the Republic. Third, I expound Vidal-Naquet’s thesis, which is the most convincing interpretation to date and accords with much of what I have to say on the subject. Fourth, I endeavour to show how all this fits in with Plato’s new philosophy of history – a philosophy closely connected with his own historia peri phuseos, i.e., an inquiry into the origin and evolution of the present order of things.  Finally, I give a brief analysis of Plato’s theory of the mixed constitution and how such a constitution would prevent the destruction of contemporary Athens or any other state.

This work presents an in-depth study and reconsideration of early 5th-century BC Greek history. Focusing on Athens in the aftermath of the second Persian invasion, it reconstructs the chronology, events, and context of the first half of this century, through the figure of the prominent Athenian politician and general Cimon, son of Miltiades. The study deals with themes of politics, economy, religion, military and social issues, and reception.
The near-complete absence of contemporary sources means that the analysis is based mainly on later traditions. This study argues that present scholarship needs to be revised in favour of source criticism that reinterprets the surviving evidence, by setting it against its own contemporary context and by highlighting divergences among the sources.
The ancient tradition has reshaped and reinvented the memory of the period under study along with that of Cimon. By peeling away a complex of layered traditions, biased by cultural stereotypes and later perspectives, this monograph questions traditional approaches to the 5th century BC, opening new ways to address and interpret Classical Greek history.

The purpose of my dissertation is to analyse the negative comments concerning Pericles; the 5th Century BCE Athenian statesman and general. This will involve an assessment of both ancient and modern writers. It will include an exploration of his early career as well as the decisions he made whilst in high office. His personal life will also be examined to clarify to what extent it affected his judgement in politics. Larger themes such as Athenian Imperialism and financial greed will also be taken into account to confirm if Pericles' actions were all just simply part of the current social-political landscape of the polis of Athens. The eventual aim of my dissertation is to evaluate these various assessments and judge if there is substantial weight to them.

After locating Resp. 5.453b–454c in the wider context of the ‘triple wave’ (τρικυμία) literary motif, Section 1 concentrates on the terminological and argumentative peculiarities of the passage, and raises the central question addressed in this paper : why does Socrates refer to antilogy and eristic in the very context of the first wave concerned with the issue of the equal disposition of men and women to be guards of the ideal city ? Section 2 considers a possible answer to this question by examining the evidence available on the relation between the Republic and Protagoras, and the possible Protagorean background of Resp. 5.453b–454c. This examination turns out to be inconclusive. Section 3 then attempts to restore the original polemical context of the passage by considering some textual evidence on the Socratic discussion of the virtue of men and women

Characters bearing names which illustrate their own personality or feats – «speaking
names» – not only feature prominently in epic and mythic narrative, and in other ‘fictional’ literary genres, but also appear in historiography. In assessing the historical value of these characters and/or accounts, careful investigation is essential.
Sometimes we face simple coincidences, sometimes people were assigned a task because of their names, but certainly ancient historians who indulged in stressing the fatal course of events liked to repeat received traditions about ominous names.
In tales about origins, the oikist personalities (like Phalanthos or Battos) were understandably object of rich constructions playing on their speaking names; but historians could also create and introduce fictional characters with speaking names into near-contemporary events. The present paper focuses on two ephors with speaking names, Asteropos and Epitadeus. The former was probably the fictional founder of periodic asteroscopy, a practice of obscure origins and uncertain antiquity, the latter – in line with the meaning of his name – is credited with having proposed a bill to satisfy his own interests. Thus, Epitadeus seems to be a fictional character and therefore existing doubts on the historicity of his law are reinforced.

Although modern ‘representative’ democracy is conventionally distinguished from its ‘direct’ ancient Greek counterpart, the language of representation appears in many scholarly accounts of ancient Greek democratic institutions. This article explains why that language is apt. Nearly all ancient Greek political actors were portrayed by ancient authors as acting on behalf of and in the interests of others. The difference between ancient and modern democracy is not the use of political representation but ancient democrats’ preference for synecdochical representation over the metaphorical and subdivisional forms that predominate today, as well as the accountability measures that they applied to all (and only) metaphorical representatives.

Der Artikel unternimmt eine Neudeutung des Szenarios, welches den Hintergrund für die Entstehung der bekannten Gesetzesinschrift von Dreros bildet. Es wird argumentiert, dass wir diese Quelle vor dem Hintergrund der in den frühen Epen reflektierten frühstaatlichen Szenarien und der spezifischen sozio-politischen Umstände einer kretischen Polis interpretieren sollten. Hierbei wird zweierlei deutlich: Die Regelung reflektiert einen historischen Zustand, in dem aus der Notwendigkeit des inneren Friedens die Konkurrenz der Aristoi kanalisiert und beschränkt wurde. Zudem wurden wegen der zunehmenden Komplexität des gesellschaftlichen Lebens Aufgabenbereiche in Form von Ämtern institutionalisiert. Für deren Ausübung wurden Regeln eingeführt, um die noch nicht gefestigten Übergänge zwischen sozial gewachsenen und durch Institutionalisierung generierten Prominenzrollen zu definieren und zu wahren.

The present work aims to channel the strange method of Timaus’ account of the chora and to therein discover the most beneficial way(s) of speaking about her palpable influence on cosmogonic understanding and materialist politics. Taking-up the chora as spiritual center of the discourse serves to immediately undercut the silence that has blanketed her existence, and so marred her sprawling historical import, and extends a most crucial means of speaking about her productive capacities. A conceptualization of the chora that is suited to her all-receiving, all-generative, and feminine capacities ought be given the opportunity to resurface. The present work, along with the wider struggle to reverse a long-standing scholastic maltreatment of the choric concept, depends upon it. The chora is both delicate an elusive. And so, one cannot demand her full appearance or restrict her movement through traditional investigative means. Though left with a limited arsenal, the dismantling of one’s heavy-handed means of approaching the chora is a most necessary allowance. Only by encouraging her freedom of operation will the chora appear in her way within the hard-to-pin-down dialogue of the Timaeus as well as her varied manifestations within a wider history of cultural myth making and political life. The methodological tools cultivated here will invariably retrace steps taken by preceding thinkers in their own attempts to comprehend the choric narrative. This is quite intentional. Redeploying prior vocabularies developed around or about the chora denotes an earnest attempt to wean out weaker contemporary notions and to pinpoint precisely when such speaking of her has been inadequate and at times actively hostile.

The Greek city-state has traditionally been viewed as an entity that was divided into two distinct spheres (oikos and polis) and governed by two distinct arts (oikonomia and politikê technê). The aim of this article is to show that this image of the Greek city-state is not very accurate. The relationship between the oikos and the polis was not exclusive in classical poleis. Particularly in Athens during the democratic period, the polis was depicted as a family writ large, and to the extent that oikos was seen as an entity of its own, it was a part of the polis, not excluded from or opposed to it. My aim is to show that the art of the household and the art of politics were not distinct arts as has been claimed in modern political theory. Furthermore, although the collapse of the classical city-state during the Hellenistic era entailed a privatization of the household, it was not until modern times, from the late eighteenth century onwards—when the concept of the natural right to life and property became firmly established in juridical and political discourses—that the private sphere attained genuine autonomy.

Hace 2.500 años, Grecia se enfrentó a la invasión de una gran potencia que aspiraba a dominar todo el mundo conocido: Persia.

Las guerras médicas, nombre con el que han pasado a la historia, supusieron el momento culmen de las tensas relaciones que griegos y persas mantenían desde el  siglo VI a. C. En medio de una auténtica revolución cultural y política amenazada por el avance aqueménida, varias polis griegas decidieron unir sus fuerzas para hacer frente al todopoderoso Imperio de Jerjes.

Javier Jara, uno de los historiadores más destacados del periodo, analiza en detalle desde una novedosa perspectiva —la de los nuevos estudios de la guerra— la contienda que legó episodios tan decisivos como la resistencia de los hoplitas del rey espartano Leónidas en las Termópilas o la batalla naval de Salamina, representó finalmente el progreso del sistema democrático en Atenas y la evolución de la cultura clásica helénica, tal y como la conocemos en la actualidad.

Una de las figuras históricas más atractivas de la Grecia Arcaica es, sin duda, la de Solón. Miembro de una de las familias más distinguidas de Atenas, dedicó buena parte de su vida a limitar los excesos de los aristócratas, a introducir una serie de reformas para garantizar los derechos y obligaciones de sus conciudadanos y a elaborar una legislación para impedir que los poderosos pudiesen cometer en el futuro los desmanes que habían llevado a la ciudad de Atenas al borde del desastre. Solón se nos presenta, además, con voz propia, puesto que a su importante labor política y legislativa se añade su condición de primer poeta ateniense del que tenemos noticia.
La historia de Solón es la de un hombre a quien, a pesar de habérsele ofrecido explicíta e implícitamente el poder absoluto, la tiranía, sabe renunciar a ella tanto por responsabilidad moral cuanto por ahorrar sufrimientos a su patria y es también la del individuo que tiene que sobrellevar, una vez que abandona la política, la incomprensión que sus mectidas provocaron en sus contemporáneos. No obstante, la posteridad le recompensó elevándole a la categoría de Sabio y, al integrarlo dentro del grupo de los Siete Sabios, le convirtió en paradigma de moderación, de mesura y de justicia; con ello, su figura se proyectó más allá de su propio periodo histórico, sirviendo como ejemplo y modelo durante los siglos venideros. Este libro, que nos ofrece una visión integral de Solón, como político activo en la Atenas de su tiempo y como intelectual preocupado por los males de la sociedad, constituye un modelo de historia total conseguido a partir del estudio específico de una personalidad histórica de extraordinario interés.

Abstract
In Res Gestae 8, 5 Augustus boasts of having renewed «multa exempla maiorum» and of being himself responsible of «multarum rerum exempla». This could appear in line with Roman tradition about mos mairoum; actually, this statement, while giving moral excellence to Augustus (as the Greek RGDA declare more explicitly), can supports a monarchical rule. This is shown by comparison with Greek political thought (Isocr. Nic.; Pl. Leg. 709ss.; Arist. Pol. 1285a-b), with Cicero, with several texts of Julio-Claudian age.

Key-words: Res gestae; monarchy; example.


M. Capasso (a cura di), Quattro incontri sulla Cultura Classica (I Quaderni di ‘Atene e Roma’, 6), Lecce, Pensa Multimedia 2019 (il volume contiene gli Atti dell’VIII Congresso Nazionale dell’Associazione Italiana di Cultura Classica, Roma 18-19 ottobre 2014, “La pacificazione di Augusto fra realtà e propaganda”), pp. 103-148.

Plato’s “Republic” is generally held to promote equal education for men and women but to fall short of any sort of liberal feminism, since several passages demean women, and the education of women serves not their ends as individuals but the ends of the militaristic city.  Based on (i) previously-unnoticed evidence of Socrates’ concern with gender in the transition from the “true,” “healthy” city to the unhealthy, “luxurious” city in Book 2 and (ii) an analysis of the different reasons given for the various roles of women in the first two “waves” of Book 5, I argue that Plato’s Socrates is in fact a visionary liberal feminist.
It has not been noticed that in describing the citizens’ way of life in the “healthy” city in Book 2 Socrates suddenly emphasizes women’s (whether by nature or by Greek convention) domestic roles without ever mentioning women; in doing so, he hints that the needs men have for women is the topic he thinks should next be discussed in his and his interlocutors’ search for what justice is, since they have so far ignored it.  When Glaucon interrupts to demand luxuries for the “men,” he ignores Socrates’ concern with women as autonomous exchange partners and goes on to endorse only women’s roles that provide men with pleasure and service.  Subsequently “purifying” the city of luxury does nothing to remedy this omission.
It is not until Book 5 that someone else – Polemarchus – finally notices that women’s roles in the city require further study.  In response, Socrates derives proposals concerning women from various principles introduced earlier in the city in speech.  By identifying these principles and their different origins (was it Socrates or Glaucon who first introduced them?), I distinguish elements of the treatment of women in Book 5 which Socrates would endorse from those he would not, for which Glaucon (and to some extent Adeimantus) is responsible.  In the first wave, Socrates proposes equal education for women based on the principle in the “healthy” city that every individual should do what they are better at relative to others.  In the second wave, Socrates proposes abolishing the private family based on Glaucon’s premises that the citizens should be managed like herd animals (see 372d, 451c) and that they should do so looking only to the interests of the city, not of the individuals within it.  These premises are not compatible with Socrates’ own principles of autonomous exchange and specialization in the “healthy” city.
These conclusions are supported by exhaustive philological analysis, which reveals that throughout the “Republic” Socrates quietly but consistently portrays men as ambitious, foolish, and obliviously unjust as compared to women, while by contrast he always refers to human beings as limited, imperfect beings.
In sum, I seek to show that Socrates systematically hints at and wants to discuss how men should consider women to be equal, autonomous partners in exchanges of every kind (domestic, political, and pedagogical), but that such a discussion is repeatedly hindered by the androcentrism and misogyny of Glaucon and others.  The Republic is a radical critique of ancient Athenian patriarchy that anticipates second wave feminism in the twentieth century.

The letters of the kingss of the Hellenistic period are interesting for
their content and for their language. In both fields they are primary
historical sources. They show the Hellenistic states as they actually
functioned, their administrative and diplomatic dealings wim subjects
and with officials and occasionally with neighbors. They are not the
products of historians writing for posterity and interested according to
their bent in suppressing either the favorable or the unfavorable aspects
of their subject. Their authors were the principals themselves, concerned
of course with presenting thieir actions in a favorable  light but occupied
only with the execution of a particular design. They deal with details
and they are avowedly biased, but their bias cannot extend to obscuration
of the transaction. By showing the administration of details, they
make it possible to see behind the generalities of political historians and
to form a conception of the Hvins conditions wimin the Greco-oriental
kingdoms of the heirs of Alexander.

Uno studio su i limiti e le possibilità di traduzione della tragedia greca, attraverso una lettura critica dell'operazione pasoliniana nel contesto della realizzazione dell'Orestiade di Eschilo (1960) e delle accese critiche che ne derivarono.
In particolar modo, la monografia propone nel capitolo centrale un'analisi testuale della traduzione pasoliniana del momento culminante della trilogia, le Eumenidi, di taglio comparatistico rispetto al testo greco e ad altre versioni: francese (Mazon) e italiane (Valgimigli, Untersteiner, Pattoni).
Superando la sterile dicotomia fedeltà-infedeltà, si mettono in luce gli aspetti di un "incontro trasformazionale" tra due importanti autori distanti nel tempo, Eschilo e Pasolini.

Abstract.  The military strategy chosen by Pericles in 431 b.C., which refuses land battle, was due not only  to military and economic factors but also to the general principle of avoiding as much as possible risks and unnecessary casualties, even if this choice required to spend more money, goods, time (as Pericles says in Thuc. I 143, 5). This principle – which is opposite to the traditional values of hoplitism – is shown in several statements attributed to Pericles (in the works by Plutarch), sometimes relating to actual military campaigns conducted by Pericles (the siege of Samos). Finally, the strategic behaviour of Pericles is tied to the Periclean democratic ideology, to the idea of soma autarkes and to the value given to citizen’s body, which are given expression to in the Pericles’ Funeral Oration in Thuc. II 37 ff.
Key-words: Pericles; Plutarch; strategy; asphaleia; money