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Tyranny and Political Culture in Ancient Greece by James F. McGlew Pdf
Resistance to the tyrant was an essential stage in the development of the Greek city-state. In this richly insightful book, James F. McGlew examines the significance of changes in the Greek political vocabulary that came about as a result of the history of ancient tyrants. Surveying a vast range of historical and literary sources, McGlew looks closely at discourse concerning Greek tyranny as well as at the nature of the tyrants' power and the constraints on power implicit in that discourse. Archaic tyrants, he shows, characteristically represented themselves as agents of justice. Taking their self-representation not as an ideological veil concealing the nature of tyranny but as its conceptual definition, he attempts to show that, although the language of reform gave tyrants unprecedented political freedom, it also marked their powers as temporary. Tyranny took shape, McGlew maintains, through discursive complicity between the tyrant and his subjects, who presumably accepted his self-definition but also learned from him the language and methods of resistance. The tyrant's subjects learned to resist him as they learned to obey him, but when they rejected him they did so in such a way as to preserve for themselves the distinctive political freedoms that he enjoyed. Providing a new framework for understanding ancient tyranny, this book will be read with great interest by classicists, political scientists, and ancient and modern historians alike.
Author : Kathryn A. Morgan Publisher : University of Texas Press Page : 388 pages File Size : 45,5 Mb Release : 2013-10-11 Category : History ISBN : 9780292759404
The nature of authority and rulership was a central concern in ancient Greece, where the figure of the king or tyrant and the sovereignty associated with him remained a powerful focus of political and philosophical debate even as Classical Athens developed the world's first democracy. This collection of essays examines the extraordinary role that the concept of tyranny played in the cultural and political imagination of Archaic and Classical Greece through the interdisciplinary perspectives provided by internationally known archaeologists, literary critics, and historians. The book ranges historically from the Bronze and early Iron Age to the political theorists and commentators of the middle of the fourth century B.C. and generically across tragedy, comedy, historiography, and philosophy. While offering individual and sometimes differing perspectives, the essays tackle several common themes: the construction of authority and of constitutional models, the importance of religion and ritual, the crucial role of wealth, and the autonomy of the individual. Moreover, the essays with an Athenian focus shed new light on the vexed question of whether it was possible for Athenians to think of themselves as tyrannical in any way. As a whole, the collection presents a nuanced survey of how competing ideologies and desires, operating through the complex associations of the image of tyranny, struggled for predominance in ancient cities and their citizens.
Discover the birthplace of philosophy and democracy: ancient Greece. Explore its history, religion, culture, and more, from the Age of Tyrants through Alexander the Great.
Tyrants and tyranny are more than the antithesis of democracy and the mark of political failure: they are a dynamic response to social and political pressures.This book examines the autocratic rulers and dynasties of classical Greece and Rome and the changing concepts of tyranny in political thought and culture. It brings together historians, political theorists and philosophers, all offering new perspectives on the autocratic governments of the ancient world.The volume is divided into four parts. Part I looks at the ways in which the term 'tyranny' was used and understood, and the kinds of individual who were called tyrants. Part II focuses on the genesis of tyranny and the social and political circumstances in which tyrants arose. The chapters in Part III examine the presentation of tyrants by themselves and in literature and history. Part IV discusses the achievements of episodic tyranny within the non-autocratic regimes of Sparta and Rome and of autocratic regimes in Persia and the western Mediterranean world.Written by a wide range of leading experts in their field, Ancient Tyranny offers a new and comparative study of tyranny within Greek, Roman and Persian society.
Tyranny and Democracy in Ancient Greece by Charles River Editors Pdf
*Includes pictures *Includes ancient Greek accounts of the tyrants and democracy in Athens *Includes a bibliography for further reading "States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters. Like State, like man." - Plato, The Republic Tyranny in ancient Greece was not a phenomenon limited to any particular period. Tyrants could be found in power throughout Greece, ruling poleis from the 7th century B.C. right through to the 2nd century B.C., when Roman domination effectively put an end to this form of government throughout the Hellenistic world. That said, the heyday of tyranny was undoubtedly the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., and it is in this period, known as the "Age of Tyrants," that large numbers of tyrannies arose, particularly in the Peloponnese. The "Age of Tyrants" ended on the Greek mainland with the expulsion of the Peisistratidai in 510 B.C., but it continued in other parts of the Greek world, particularly in the Greek cities of Sicily, where tyranny did not finally end until the removal of Dionysius II of Syracuse in 344 B.C. In Asia Minor, tyranny survived the Persian conquest until the days of the Roman conquest. The governments of the majority of the Greek states in the Archaic and Classical periods were in the hands of local aristocrats, and it is a modern preoccupation with the Athenian democracy or Sparta's unique system that has tended to obscure this fact. Oligarchy was the norm, and political power derived from wealth and birth. As the wealth of city states grew, so, too, did the number of citizens who, despite personal wealth, found themselves outside the very limited aristocratic elite that conspired to maintain the political power of the few. In today's modern world every political regime, even the most authoritarian or repressive, describes itself as democracy or a Democratic People's Republic. The concept of rule by the people, on behalf of the people, has come to be accepted as the norm, and very few would overtly espouse the cause of dictatorship, absolute monarchy or oligarchy as the most desirable political system upon which to base the government of any country. It is also generally accepted that democracy, as a political ideology, began in Greece, specifically in Athens, in the 7th century B.C. and reached its zenith in the 5th century under the leadership of Pericles. Dating an exact starting point is impossible, but at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. Solon inaugurated a series of reforms that began the movement away from rule by individuals, or tyrants, and by the end of that century the reforms of Cleisthenes provided the basis of the Athenian democratic system that culminated in the radical institutions introduced by Ephialtes and Pericles in the 5th century. The result was the first, and possibly only, truly participative democratic state. Ironically, between 322 B.C. and the 19th century, Athenian democracy was almost totally forgotten. If there was any mention of democracy in Athens at all, it was in reference to so-called but largely mythical notions of Solonian democracy as recorded in Plutarch's Life of Solon or Aristotle's Politics. At the beginning of the 19th century, scholars such as August Boeckh began the evaluation and study of democratic Athenian institutions, and inscriptions and the writings of Thucydides and Demosthenes, among others, were used to re-construct those democratic bodies and to gain an understanding of their workings. Later in the century, academics, particularly George Grote, provided new insights into the Athenian democratic processes, and today there is a much fuller understanding of what contributed to Athenian political life. That said, the questions of how and why Athens came to develop the political system it did remain a major area of academic contention.
Death to Tyrants! is the first comprehensive study of ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation--laws that explicitly gave individuals incentives to "kill a tyrant." David Teegarden demonstrates that the ancient Greeks promulgated these laws to harness the dynamics of mass uprisings and preserve popular democratic rule in the face of anti-democratic threats. He presents detailed historical and sociopolitical analyses of each law and considers a variety of issues: What is the nature of an anti-democratic threat? How would various provisions of the laws help pro-democrats counter those threats? And did the laws work? Teegarden argues that tyrant-killing legislation facilitated pro-democracy mobilization both by encouraging brave individuals to strike the first blow against a nondemocratic regime and by convincing others that it was safe to follow the tyrant killer's lead. Such legislation thus deterred anti-democrats from staging a coup by ensuring that they would be overwhelmed by their numerically superior opponents. Drawing on modern social science models, Teegarden looks at how the institution of public law affects the behavior of individuals and groups, thereby exploring the foundation of democracy's persistence in the ancient Greek world. He also provides the first English translation of the tyrant-killing laws from Eretria and Ilion. By analyzing crucial ancient Greek tyrant-killing legislation, Death to Tyrants! explains how certain laws enabled citizens to draw on collective strength in order to defend and preserve their democracy in the face of motivated opposition.
The Age of Tyrants by Charles River Charles River Editors Pdf
*Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts of the tyrants *Includes a bibliography for further reading "States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters. Like State, like man." - Plato, The Republic Tyranny in ancient Greece was not a phenomenon limited to any particular period. Tyrants could be found in power throughout Greece, ruling poleis from the 7th century B.C. right through to the 2nd century B.C., when Roman domination effectively put an end to this form of government throughout the Hellenistic world. That said, the heyday of tyranny was undoubtedly the 7th and 6th centuries B.C., and it is in this period, known as the "Age of Tyrants," that large numbers of tyrannies arose, particularly in the Peloponnese. The "Age of Tyrants" ended on the Greek mainland with the expulsion of the Peisistratidai in 510 B.C., but it continued in other parts of the Greek world, particularly in the Greek cities of Sicily, where tyranny did not finally end until the removal of Dionysius II of Syracuse in 344 B.C. In Asia Minor, tyranny survived the Persian conquest until the days of the Roman conquest. The governments of the majority of the Greek states in the Archaic and Classical periods were in the hands of local aristocrats, and it is a modern preoccupation with the Athenian democracy or Sparta's unique system that has tended to obscure this fact. Oligarchy was the norm, and political power derived from wealth and birth. As the wealth of city states grew, so, too, did the number of citizens who, despite personal wealth, found themselves outside the very limited aristocratic elite that conspired to maintain the political power of the few. These disenfranchised "new" men came, more and more, to resent their lack of political influence, and this dissatisfaction was fueled by the increasing use of the hoplite as the main weapon of the period, which brought all male citizens closer to each other and emphasized the interdependence that existed between individuals. The sense of camaraderie engendered a growing understanding of the potential power of the armed citizen. With that realization came the emergence of individuals who were not prepared to accept the status quo but instead were willing to exploit the discontent and the power of the citizen body to seize power for themselves. Aristotle noted that tyrants generally combined the role of a general with that of a popular leader, demagogos. To the ruling elites such a usurper was known as turannos or tyrant. The Age of Tyrants: The History of the Early Tyrants in Ancient Greece looks at the various people, places, and reigns during a crucial part of Ancient Greek history. Along with pictures depicting important people, places, and events, you will learn about tyrants in Greece like never before.
Author : Johann P. Arnason,Kurt A. Raaflaub,Peter Wagner Publisher : John Wiley & Sons Page : 506 pages File Size : 42,5 Mb Release : 2013-04-29 Category : History ISBN : 9781118561676
The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy by Johann P. Arnason,Kurt A. Raaflaub,Peter Wagner Pdf
The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy presents a series of essays that trace the Greeks’ path to democracy and examine the connection between the Greek polis as a citizen state and democracy as well as the interaction between democracy and various forms of cultural expression from a comparative historical perspective and with special attention to the place of Greek democracy in political thought and debates about democracy throughout the centuries. Presents an original combination of a close synchronic and long diachronic examination of the Greek polis - city-states that gave rise to the first democratic system of government Offers a detailed study of the close interactionbetween democracy, society, and the arts in ancient Greece Places the invention of democracy in fifth-century bce Athens both in its broad social and cultural context and in the context of the re-emergence of democracy in the modern world Reveals the role Greek democracy played in the political and intellectual traditions that shaped modern democracy, and in the debates about democracy in modern social, political, and philosophical thought Written collaboratively by an international team of leading scholars in classics, ancient history, sociology, and political science
Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece by Kurt A. Raaflaub,Josiah Ober,Robert Wallace Pdf
This book presents a state-of-the-art debate about the origins of Athenian democracy by five eminent scholars. The result is a stimulating, critical exploration and interpretation of the extant evidence on this intriguing and important topic. The authors address such questions as: Why was democracy first realized in ancient Greece? Was democracy "invented" or did it evolve over a long period of time? What were the conditions for democracy, the social and political foundations that made this development possible? And what factors turned the possibility of democracy into necessity and reality? The authors first examine the conditions in early Greek society that encouraged equality and "people’s power." They then scrutinize, in their social and political contexts, three crucial points in the evolution of democracy: the reforms connected with the names of Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes in the early and late sixth and mid-fifth century. Finally, an ancient historian and a political scientist review the arguments presented in the previous chapters and add their own perspectives, asking what lessons we can draw today from the ancient democratic experience. Designed for a general readership as well as students and scholars, the book intends to provoke discussion by presenting side by side the evidence and arguments that support various explanations of the origins of democracy, thus enabling readers to join in the debate and draw their own conclusions.
The Greek Discovery of Politics by Christian Meier Pdf
Why the Greeks? How did it happen that these people--out of all Mediterranean societies--developed democratic systems of government? The outstanding German historian of the ancient world, Christian Meier, reconstructs the process of political thinking in Greek culture that led to democracy. He demonstrates that the civic identity of the Athenians was a direct precondition for the practical reality of this form of government. Meier shows how the structure of Greek communal life gave individuals a civic role and discusses a crucial reform that institutionalized the idea of equality before the law. In Greek drama--specifically Aeschylus' Oresteia--he finds reflections of the ascendancy of civil law and of a politicizing of life in the city-state. He examines the role of the leader as well as citizen participation in Athenian democracy and describes an ancient equivalent of the idea of social progress. He also contrasts the fifth-century Greek political world with today's world, drawing revealing comparisons. The Greek Discovery of Politics is important reading for ancient historians, classicists, political scientists, and anyone interested in the history of political thought or in the culture of ancient Greece.
An incisive exploration of the way Greek myths empower us to defeat tyranny. As tyrannical passions increasingly plague twenty-first-century politics, tales told in ancient Greek epics and tragedies provide a vital antidote. Democracy as a concept did not exist until the Greeks coined the term and tried the experiment, but the idea can be traced to stories that the ancient Greeks told and retold. From the eighth through the fifth centuries BCE, Homeric epics and Athenian tragedies exposed the tyrannical potential of individuals and groups large and small. These stories identified abuses of power as self-defeating. They initiated and fostered a movement away from despotism and toward broader forms of political participation. Following her highly praised book Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, the classicist Emily Katz Anhalt retells tales from key ancient Greek texts and proceeds to interpret the important message they hold for us today. As she reveals, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Aeschylus's Oresteia, and Sophocles's Antigone encourage us—as they encouraged the ancient Greeks—to take responsibility for our own choices and their consequences. These stories emphasize the responsibilities that come with power (any power, whether derived from birth, wealth, personal talents, or numerical advantage), reminding us that the powerful and the powerless alike have obligations to each other. They assist us in restraining destructive passions and balancing tribal allegiances with civic responsibilities. They empower us to resist the tyrannical impulses not only of others but also in ourselves. In an era of political polarization, Embattled demonstrates that if we seek to eradicate tyranny in all its toxic forms, ancient Greek epics and tragedies can point the way.
Political activity and political thinking began in the cities and other states of ancient Greece, and terms such as tyranny, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy and politics itself are Greek words for concepts first discussed in Greece. Rhodes presents in translation a selection of texts illustrating the formal mechanisms and informal workings of the Greek states in all their variety. From the states described by Homer out of which the classical Greeks believed their states had developed, through the archaic period which saw the rise and fall of tyrants and the gradual broadening of citizen bodies, to the classical period of the fifth and fourth centuries, Rhodes also looks beyond that to the Hellenistic and Roman periods in which the Greeks tried to preserve their way of life in a world of great powers. For this second edition the book has been thoroughly revised and three new chapters added.
Tyranny from Ancient Greece to Renaissance France by Orest Ranum Pdf
This Palgrave Pivot examines how prominent thinkers throughout history, from ancient Greece to sixteenth-century France, have perceived tyrants and tyranny. Ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle were the first to build a vocabulary for tyrants and the forms of government they corrupted. Thirteenth century analyses of tyranny by Thomas Aquinas and John of Salisbury, revived from Antiquity, were recast as short observations about what tyrants do. They claimed that tyrants govern for their own advantage, not for the people. Tyrants could be usurpers, increase taxes, and live in luxury. The list of tyrannical actions grew over time, especially in periods of turmoil and civil war, often raising the question: When can a tyrant be legitimately deposed or killed? In offering a brief biography of these political philosophers, including Machiavelli, Erasmus, More, Bodin, and others, along with their views on tyrannical behavior, Orest Ranum reveals how the concept of tyranny has been shaped over time, and how it still persists in political thought to this day.
