Reproducing Athens

Reproducing Athens

Author: Susan Lape

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-10

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1400825911

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Reproducing Athens examines the role of romantic comedy, particularly the plays of Menander, in defending democratic culture and transnational polis culture against various threats during the initial and most fraught period of the Hellenistic Era. Menander's romantic comedies--which focus on ordinary citizens who marry for love--are most often thought of as entertainments devoid of political content. Against the view, Susan Lape argues that Menander's comedies are explicitly political. His nationalistic comedies regularly conclude by performing the laws of democratic citizen marriage, thereby promising the generation of new citizens. His transnational comedies, on the other hand, defend polis life against the impinging Hellenistic kingdoms, either by transforming their representatives into proper citizen-husbands or by rendering them ridiculous, romantic losers who pose no real threat to citizen or city. In elaborating the political work of romantic comedy, this book also demonstrates the importance of gender, kinship, and sexuality to the making of democratic civic ideology. Paradoxically, by championing democratic culture against various Hellenistic outsiders, comedy often resists the internal status and gender boundaries on which democratic culture was based. Comedy's ability to reproduce democratic culture in scandalous fashion exposes the logic of civic inclusion produced by the contradictions in Athens's desperately politicized gender system. Combining careful textual analysis with an understanding of the context in which Menander wrote, Reproducing Athens profoundly changes the way we read his plays and deepens our understanding of Athenian democratic culture.


Athens After Empire

Athens After Empire

Author: Ian Worthington

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-10-09

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 0190633999

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A major new history of Athens' remarkably long and influential life after the collapse of its empire To many the history of post-Classical Athens is one of decline. True, Athens hardly commanded the number of allies it had when hegemon of its fifth-century Delian League or even its fourth-century Naval Confederacy, and its navy was but a shadow of its former self. But Athens recovered from its perilous position in the closing quarter of the fourth century and became once again a player in Greek affairs, even during the Roman occupation. Athenian democracy survived and evolved, even through its dealings with Hellenistic Kings, its military clashes with Macedonia, and its alliance with Rome. Famous Romans, including Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, saw Athens as much more than an isolated center for philosophy. Athens After Empire offers a new narrative history of post-Classical Athens, extending the period down to the aftermath of Hadrian's reign.


Civic Obligation and Individual Liberty in Ancient Athens

Civic Obligation and Individual Liberty in Ancient Athens

Author: Peter Liddel

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2007-10-11

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 019922658X

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A fresh approach to the old problem of the nature of individual liberty in ancient Athens. Using modern political theory as a springboard, Peter Liddel argues that the ancient Athenians held liberty to consist of the substantial obligations (political, financial, and military) of citizenship.


The Feminine Matrix of Sex and Gender in Classical Athens

The Feminine Matrix of Sex and Gender in Classical Athens

Author: Kate Gilhuly

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-11-24

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1139475282

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In The Feminine Matrix of Sex and Gender in Classical Athens, Kate Gilhuly explores the relationship between the prostitute, the wife, and the ritual performer in Athenian literature. She suggests that these three roles formed a symbolic continuum that served as an alternative to a binary conception of gender in classical Athens and provided a framework for assessing both masculine and feminine civic behaviour. Grounded in close readings of four texts, 'Against Neaira', Plato's Symposium, Xenophon's Symposium, and Aristophanes' Lysistrata, this book draws upon observations from gender studies and the history of sexuality in ancient Greece to illuminate the relevance of these representations of women to civic behaviour, pederasty, philosophy, and politics. In these original readings, Gilhuly casts a new light on the complexity of the classical Athenian sex/gender system, demonstrating how various and even opposing strategies worked together to articulate different facets of the Athenian subject.


The Theatrical Cast of Athens

The Theatrical Cast of Athens

Author: Edith Hall

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-10-12

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 0199298890

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An examination of ancient Greek drama, and its relationship to the society in which it was produced. By focusing on the ways in which the plays treat gender, ethnicity, and class, and on their theatrical conventions, Edith Hall offers an extended study of the Greek theatrical masterpieces within their original social context.


The Regime of Demetrius of Phalerum in Athens, 317-307 BCE

The Regime of Demetrius of Phalerum in Athens, 317-307 BCE

Author: Lara O'Sullivan

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13: 9004178880

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Erudite and urbane, a scion of the Peripatos, Demetrius of Phalerum dominated Athenian political life for a decade (317-307 B.C.E.) with Macedonian support. Viewed by some as the embodiment of the longed-for 'philosopher-king', Demetrius has been seen a test case for the interplay of philosophical training and political praxis in antiquity. This book, through a close re-examination of the fragmentary and diffuse testimonia for Demetrius decade, argues that such a view misunderstands his legislative, constitutional and financial reforms, which should rather be seen within the context of Macedonian suzerainty, Athenian self-interest, and contemporary social changes. Such a context also affords a better understanding of the dynamic relations between the Macedonian generals and the preeminent Greek city at the dawn of the Hellenistic era.


Envy and Jealousy in Classical Athens

Envy and Jealousy in Classical Athens

Author: Ed Sanders

Publisher: Emotions of the Past

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0199897727

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The author applies to Athenian culture and literature insights on the contexts, conscious and subconscious motivations, subjective manifestations, and indicative behaviours of envy, jealousy, and related emotions, derived from modern (post-1950) philosophical, psychological, psychoanalytical, sociological, and anthropological scholarship. This enables an exploration of both the explicit theorization and evaluation of envy and jealousy in ancient Greek texts, and also the more oblique ways in which they find expression across a variety of genres - in particular philosophy, oratory, comedy and tragedy.


Children and Childhood in Classical Athens

Children and Childhood in Classical Athens

Author: Mark Golden

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2015-06-30

Total Pages: 505

ISBN-13: 1421416875

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A thoroughly revised and updated edition of Mark Golden’s groundbreaking study of childhood in ancient Greece. First published in 1990, Children and Childhood in Classical Athens was the first book in English to explore the lives of children in ancient Athens. Drawing on literary, artistic, and archaeological sources as well as on comparative studies of family history, Mark Golden offers a vivid portrait of the public and private lives of children from about 500 to 300 B.C. Golden discusses how the Athenians viewed children and childhood, describes everyday activities of children at home and in the community, and explores the differences in the social lives of boys and girls. He details the complex bonds among children, parents, siblings, and household slaves, and he shows how a growing child’s changing roles often led to conflict between the demands of family and the demands of community. In this thoroughly revised edition, Golden places particular emphasis on the problem of identifying change over time and the relationship of children to adults. He also explores three dominant topics in the recent historiography of childhood: the agency of children, the archaeology of childhood, and representations of children in art. The book includes a completely new final chapter, text and notes rewritten throughout to incorporate evidence and scholarship that has appeared over the past twenty-five years, and an index of ancient sources.


Kinship in Ancient Athens

Kinship in Ancient Athens

Author: S. C. Humphreys

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-11-08

Total Pages: 1627

ISBN-13: 0191092401

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The concept of kinship is at the heart of understanding not only the structure and development of a society, but also the day-to-day interactions of its citizens. Kinship in Ancient Athens aims to illuminate both of these issues by providing a comprehensive account of the structures and perceptions of kinship in Athenian society, covering the archaic and classical periods from Drakon and Solon up to Menander. Drawing on decades of research into a wide range of epigraphic, literary, and archaeological sources, and on S. C. Humphreys' expertise in the intersections between ancient history and anthropology, it not only puts a wealth of data at readers' fingertips, but subjects it to rigorous analysis. By utilizing an anthropological approach to reconstruct patterns of behaviour it is able to offer us an ethnographic 'thick description' of ancient Athenians' interaction with their kin that offers insights into a range of social contexts, from family life, rituals, and economic interactions, to legal matters, politics, warfare, and more. The work is arranged into two volumes, both utilizing the same anthropological approach to ancient sources. Volume I explores interactions and conflicts shaped by legal and economic constraints (adoption, guardianship, marriage, inheritance, property), as well as more optional relationships in the field of ritual (naming, rites de passage, funerals and commemoration, dedications, cultic associations) and political relationships, both formal (Assembly, Council) and informal (hetaireiai). Among several important and novel topics discussed are the sociological analysis of names and nicknames, the features of kin structure that advantaged or disadvantaged women in legal disputes, and the economic relations of dependence and independence between fathers and sons. Volume II deals with corporate groups recruited by patrifiliation and explores the role of kinship in these subdivisions of the citizen body: tribes and trittyes (both pre-Kleisthenic and Kleisthenic), phratries, genê, and demes. The section on the demes stresses variety rather than common features, and provides comprehensive information on location and prosopography in a tribally organized catalogue.