Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens

Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens PDF Author: Andrew Alwine
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477308032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Much has been written about the world’s first democracy, but no book so far has been dedicated solely to the study of enmity in ancient Athens. Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens is a long-overdue analysis of the competitive power dynamics of Athenian honor and the potential problems these feuds created for democracies. The citizens of Athens believed that harming one’s enemy was an acceptable practice and even the duty of every honorable citizen. They sought public wins over their rivals, making enmity a critical element in struggles for honor and standing, while simultaneously recognizing the threat that personal enmity posed to the community. Andrew Alwine works to understand how Athenians addressed this threat by looking at the extant work of Attic orators. Their speeches served as the intersection between private vengeance and public sanction of illegal behavior, allowing citizens to engage in feuds within established parameters. This mediation helped support Athenian democracy and provided the social underpinning to allow it to function in conjunction with Greek notions of personal honor. Alwine provides a framework for understanding key issues in the history of democracy, such as the relationship between private and public realms, the development of equality and the rule of law, and the establishment of individual political rights. Serving also as a nuanced introduction to the works of the Attic orators, Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens is an indispensable addition to scholarship on Athens.

Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens

Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens PDF Author: Andrew Alwine
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477308032
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Get Book

Book Description
Much has been written about the world’s first democracy, but no book so far has been dedicated solely to the study of enmity in ancient Athens. Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens is a long-overdue analysis of the competitive power dynamics of Athenian honor and the potential problems these feuds created for democracies. The citizens of Athens believed that harming one’s enemy was an acceptable practice and even the duty of every honorable citizen. They sought public wins over their rivals, making enmity a critical element in struggles for honor and standing, while simultaneously recognizing the threat that personal enmity posed to the community. Andrew Alwine works to understand how Athenians addressed this threat by looking at the extant work of Attic orators. Their speeches served as the intersection between private vengeance and public sanction of illegal behavior, allowing citizens to engage in feuds within established parameters. This mediation helped support Athenian democracy and provided the social underpinning to allow it to function in conjunction with Greek notions of personal honor. Alwine provides a framework for understanding key issues in the history of democracy, such as the relationship between private and public realms, the development of equality and the rule of law, and the establishment of individual political rights. Serving also as a nuanced introduction to the works of the Attic orators, Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens is an indispensable addition to scholarship on Athens.

Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens

Enmity and Feuding in Classical Athens PDF Author: Andrew T. Alwine
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781477308028
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Democratic Law in Classical Athens

Democratic Law in Classical Athens PDF Author: Michael Gagarin
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 1477320377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The democratic legal system created by the Athenians was completely controlled by ordinary citizens, with no judges, lawyers, or jurists involved. It placed great importance on the litigants’ rhetorical performances. Did this make it nothing more than a rhetorical contest judged by largely uneducated citizens that had nothing to do with law, a criticism that some, including Plato, have made? Michael Gagarin argues to the contrary, contending that the Athenians both controlled litigants’ performances and incorporated many other unusual features into their legal system, including rules for interrogating slaves and swearing an oath. The Athenians, Gagarin shows, adhered to the law as they understood it, which was a set of principles more flexible than our current understanding allows. The Athenians also insisted that their legal system serve the ends of justice and benefit the city and its people. In this way, the law ultimately satisfied most Athenians and probably produced just results as often as modern legal systems do. Comprehensive and wide-ranging, Democratic Law in Classical Athens offers a new perspective for viewing a legal system that was democratic in a way only the Athenians could achieve.

Insults in Classical Athens

Insults in Classical Athens PDF Author: Deborah Kamen
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299328007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Scholarly investigations of the rich field of verbal and extraverbal Athenian insults have typically been undertaken piecemeal. Deborah Kamen provides an overview of this vast terrain and synthesizes the rules, content, functions, and consequences of insulting fellow Athenians. The result is the first volume to map out the full spectrum of insults, from obscene banter at festivals, to invective in the courtroom, to slander and even hubristic assaults on another's honor. While the classical city celebrated the democratic equality of "autochthonous" citizens, it counted a large population of noncitizens as inhabitants, so that ancient Athenians developed a preoccupation with negotiating, affirming, and restricting citizenship. Kamen raises key questions about what it meant to be a citizen in democratic Athens and demonstrates how insults were deployed to police the boundaries of acceptable behavior. In doing so, she illuminates surprising differences between antiquity and today and sheds light on the ways a democratic society valuing "free speech" can nonetheless curb language considered damaging to the community as a whole.

Emotions, persuasion, and public discourse in classical Athens

Emotions, persuasion, and public discourse in classical Athens PDF Author: Dimos Spatharas
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110618176
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book is an addition to the burgeoning secondary literature on ancient emotions. Its primary aim is to suggest possible ways in which recent approaches to emotions can help us understand significant aspects of persuasion in classical antiquity and, especially audiences' psychological manipulation in the civic procedures of classical Athens. Based on cognitive approaches to emotions, Skinner's theoretical work on the language of ideology, or ancient theories about enargeia, the book examines pivotal aspects of psychological manipulation in ancient rhetorical theory and practice. At the same time, the book looks into possible ways in which the emotive potentialities of vision -both sights and mental images- are explained or deployed by orators. The book includes substantial discussion of Gorgias' approach to sights ' emotional qualities and their implications for persuasion and deception and the importance of visuality for Thucydides' analysis of emotions' role in the polis' public communication. It also looks into the deployment of enargeia in forensic narratives revolving around violence. The book also focuses on the ideological implications of envy for the political discourse of classical Athens and emphasizes the rhetorical strategies employed by self-praising speakers who want to preempt their listeners' loathing. The book is therefore a useful addition to the burgeoning secondary literature on ancient emotions. Despite the prominence of emotions in classicists' scholarly work, their implications for persuasion is undeservedly under-researched. By employing appraisal-oriented analysis of emotions this books suggests new methodological approaches to ancient pathopoiia. These approaches take into consideration the wider ideological or cultural contexts which determine individual speakers' rhetorical strategies. This book is the second volume of Ancient Emotions, edited by George Kazantzidis and Dimos Spatharas within the series Trends in Classics. Supplementary Volumes. This project investigates the history of emotions in classical antiquity, providing a home for interdisciplinary approaches to ancient emotions, and exploring the inter-faces between emotions and significant aspects of ancient literature and culture

Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe

Enmity and Violence in Early Modern Europe PDF Author: Stuart Carroll
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009287338
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 501

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Book Description
In this original study Stuart Carroll transforms our understanding of Europe between 1500 and 1800 by exploring how ordinary people felt about their enemies and the violence it engendered. Enmity, a state or feeling of mutual opposition or hostility, became a major social problem during the transition to modernity. He examines how people used the law, and how they characterised their enmities and expressed their sense of justice or injustice. Through the examples of early modern Italy, Germany, France and England, we see when and why everyday animosities escalated and the attempts of the state to control and even exploit the violence that ensued. This book also examines the communal and religious pressures for peace, and how notions of good neighbourliness and civil order finally worked to underpin trust in the state. Ultimately, enmity is not a relic of the past; it remains one of the greatest challenges to contemporary liberal democracy.

Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts

Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts PDF Author: Mike Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351598171
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts breaks new ground by exploring different aspects of forensic storytelling in Athenian legal speeches and the ways in which forensic narratives reflect normative concerns and legal issues. The chapters, written by distinguished experts in Athenian oratory and society, explore the importance of narratives for the arguments of relatively underdiscussed orators such as Isaeus and Apollodorus. They employ new methods to investigate issues such as speeches’ deceptiveness or the appraisals which constitute the emotion scripts that speakers put together. This volume not only addresses a gap in the field of Athenian oratory, but also encourages comparative approaches to forensic narratives and fiction, and fresh investigations of the implications of forensic storytelling for other literary genres. Forensic Narratives in Athenian Courts will be an invaluable resource to students and researchers of Athenian oratory and their legal system, as well as those working on Greek society and literature more broadly.

Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens

Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens PDF Author: David Cohen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521388375
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
Using comparative anthropological and historical perspectives, this analysis of the legal regulation of violence in Athenian society challenges traditional accounts of the development of the legal process. It examines theories of social conflict and the rule of law as well as actual litigation.

Athenian Law and Society

Athenian Law and Society PDF Author: Konstantinos A. Kapparis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317177517
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Athenian Law and Society focuses upon the intersection of law and society in classical Athens, in relation to topics like politics, class, ability, masculinity, femininity, gender studies, economics, citizenship, slavery, crime, and violence. The book explores the circumstances and broader context which led to the establishment of the laws of Athens, and how these laws influenced the lives and action of Athenian citizens, by examining a wide range of sources from classical and late antique history and literature. Kapparis also explores later literature on Athenian law from the Renaissance up to the 20th and 21st centuries, examining the long-lasting impact of the world’s first democracy. Athenian Law and Society is a study of the intersection between law and society in classical Athens that has a wide range of applications to study of the Athenian polis, as well as law, democracy, and politics in both classical and more modern settings.

War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens

War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens PDF Author: David Pritchard
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521190339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 479

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Book Description
Analyses how the democracy of the classical Athenians revolutionized military practices and underwrote their unprecedented commitment to war-making.