Athenian Democracy and Legal Change

2004 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
MELISSA SCHWARTZBERG
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Apparent Paradox ◽  
Legal Procedure ◽  
Greek World

The ancient Athenians regarded their ability to modify their laws as a fundamentally democratic trait; indeed, the faculty of “pragmatic innovation” was well known throughout the Greek world and was widely viewed as a key advantage that Athens had over its rival, Sparta. The Athenian commitment to legal change endured despite disastrous consequences at the end of the fifth century, a comprehensive revision of the laws, and the complication of legal procedure in the fourth century. In an apparent paradox, however, the Athenians also used “entrenchment clauses” to make certain laws immutable. Through analysis of entrenched laws and decrees, it is shown that the innovativeness that made Athens enviable also made it a difficult ally; entrenchment enabled the Athenians to make its commitments more credible. Although today entrenchment is typically used to protect crucial constitutional provisions, such as rights, in the ancient world it served a strategic purpose.

Demokratia and Arete in Ancient Greek Political Thought

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-215 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Wallach
Keyword(s):  
Political Thought ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
Three Stages ◽  
The Relationship

This article interprets demokratia and arete as dynamically related terms of political thought in ancient Greek culture, from Homeric times to the end of the classical era. It does so selectively, identifying three stages in which this relationship is developed: (1) from the Homeric to archaic eras; (2) fifth-century Athenian democracy, in which demokratia and arete are posed as complementary terms; and (3) the fourth century era in which philosophers used virtue to critique democracy. Relying mostly on evidence from writers who have become benchmarks in the history of Western political thought, the argument emphasizes the inherently political dimension of arete during this period of ancient Greek culture. Noting different ways in which arete is related to political power in general and democracy in particular, it also illustrates the manner in which arete is neither philosophically pristine nor merely an instrument of practical power. The effect of the research contradicts traditional and recent readings of democracy and virtue as inherently antagonistic. The aim of the article is to identify ancient Greek contributions to understanding the potential, contingencies and dangers of the relationship between democracy (as a form of power) and virtue (as a form of ethics) — one which may benefit both democracy and virtue.

Adeia in Fifth-Century Athens

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Alberto Esu
Keyword(s):  
Legal System ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Legal Procedure ◽  
Emergency Powers ◽  
Temporary Suspension

Abstract This article discusses the rationale of adeia (immunity) in the fifth-century Athenian legal system. It argues that adeia was designed to grant a temporary suspension of the effect of a law in exceptional circumstances without allowing for any permanent legal change. This article explores the origin of adeia and the relevant ideology underpinning the legal procedure. It provides a comprehensive reconstruction of the legal procedure and analyses the extensive use of adeia for collecting information during the investigation of the profanation of the Mysteries and the mutilation of the herms in 415 BC. This article also discusses the implications of the use of adeia for public investigation and emergency powers in Classical Athens.

South Italian Vases and Attic Drama

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Pickard-Cambridge
Keyword(s):  
Common Property ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Common ◽  
Original Production ◽  
Greek World

Professor Webster's attempt (C.Q. xlii, pp. 15 ff.) to prove that south Italian vases of the middle of the fourth century can be used as evidence of Athenian theatrical arrangements of half or three-quarters of a century earlier leaves me unconvinced. It, is true that, as he says, ‘the plays’ which the vases illustrate ‘come from Athens'— at least, most of them probably did: but (1) a number of scenes on the vases are not scenes presented in the plays at all, but are scenes suggested to the painter by descriptions in messengers’ speeches, or, quite possibly, by the story dramatized in the plays, but not by the Athenian poet's particular treatment of the story; (2) the plays —and the stories made popular by them—had been the common property of the Greek world for more than half a century, and there is no reason why Italian producers should have gone back to the original production in Athens, still less why Italian painters should have done so, even if they knew what the original production was like. (It is clear that Italian theatres of the fourth century were in various ways not like the fifth-century Athenian buildings.)

Heracles and the Apples of the Hesperides: A New Type

1905 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 157-162
Author(s):  
K. A. McDowall
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Greek Art

Of all types of Heracles in Greek art, that with the apples of the Hesperides is perhaps the most familiar. Yet in the archaic period it scarcely occurs, and even in the fifth century, though the scene is often represented among the Labours, when accessory figures are consequently present, there are few examples of the hero holding the apples in free sculpture. With the fourth century, however, the subject becomes common, for it is to Lysippus and his followers that we owe the type of the Wearied Heracles holding the apples, which has given rise to the popular conception. That this became the stock representation to the ancient world as to the modern we learn from Suidas καὶ γράφουσι δορὰν λέοντος φοροῦντα, καὶ ῥόπαλον φέροντα, καί γε μῆλα κρατοῦντα. The earliest representation of the type, best known from the Heracles Farnese, appears to be on a tetradrachm of Alexander, and there can be little doubt that its origin is due to Lysippus. The replica in the Pitti bears the inscription ΛΥΣΙΠΠΟΥ ΕΡΓΟΝ.

The Organization of Athenian Public Finance

2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. J. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
Adult Male ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Institutional Organization ◽  
Delian League ◽  
Basic Facts ◽  
Appointed Officials ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Greek World

Most of this article will be concerned with the institutional organization of Athens’ public finances, but to provide the background to that I begin with some basic facts about income and expenditure. Athens’ finances, and Athenian administration generally, were on a larger scale and more complex than those of most Greek states – partly because Athens itself was an exceptionally large state, with a territory of 1,000 square miles (2,600 square kilometres) and a body of adult male citizens numbering perhaps 60,000 before the Peloponnesian War and 30,000 after; and partly because, in addition to its domestic business, for much of the fifth century Athens had the business of the Delian League to deal with and for forty years in the fourth century it had the business of its Second League. The Delian League was without precedent in the Greek world as an alliance founded with a view to ongoing warfare, and as an alliance to which many members from the beginning and almost all members after a while made contributions by annual cash payments ofphoros(‘tribute’). Athens thus needed to develop skills in managing large and small sums of money to a much greater extent than other states. Athens’ administration depended largely on annually appointed officials, and our evidence gives prominence to the principle of accountability and to various accounting procedures; but, although Athens applied the principles in its own way, the principles were not distinctively Athenian or distinctively democratic: the use of rotating officials and of accounting procedures was widespread in Greek states of varying political complexions.

scholarly journals Making and Changing Laws in Ancient Athens

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Canevaro
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Stable Laws ◽  
Legal Change ◽  
Ancient Athens ◽  
Legislative Procedures ◽  
Fourth Century Bce ◽  
The Creation

This chapter explores the development of ideas about legislation and legislative procedures in ancient Athens. It isolates in Solon and in the Archaic lawgivers an ideology of legislation that mistrusted legal change. This ideology of legislation was still dominant throughout the fifth century BCE, but progressively came into conflict with democratic ideas and practices. The chapter examines how this conflict played out in the oligarchic revolutions and the democratic restorations at the end of the fifth century, and then discusses the creation of nomothesia procedures that reconciled the need for legal change with that for consistent and stable laws. The last part of the chapter follows the workings of these procedures throughout the fourth century BCE, and their progressive disintegration after the Lamian War.

Poverty, Inequality, and Well-Being in Fourth-Century Athens

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greek World

This concluding chapter brings together some of the threads running through the book. It argues that there is much to gain by viewing poverty in the ancient world as multidimensional, that poverty and well-being are fundamentally shaped by social relations, and the viewing the economic history of the Greek world through the perspective of the penetes and other groups who are categorized as poor is valuable and necessary.

scholarly journals Living by the Clock. The Introduction of Clock Time in the Greek World

Klio ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 103 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Sofie Remijsen
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Clock Time ◽  
Temporal Precision ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Greek World

Summary This paper discusses how the notion of clock time was introduced in the Greek world. On the basis of an analysis of the earliest (potential) references to hours and clocks in texts from the late fifth to the early third century BC in their historical context, and with reference to the earliest archaeologically attested clocks, it proposes a scenario for the conception and development of this conventional system. It offers a new interpretation of the problematic passage Herodotus 2.109 and argues that an hour-like unit was developed by late fifth century astronomers, under Babylonian influence, to denote the time in which a celestial body moves through a section of its diurnal circle. When this astronomical concept moved to the civic sphere in the second half of the fourth century, it changed from a scientific unit of duration to a civic unit for measuring the time of day. This shift probably took place in Athens, where the first references to hours appear in this period together with multiple experiments in clock making, as well as humorous reactions to the newfound sense of temporal precision. The paper will also show, however, that these first clocks did not yet tell seasonal hours – the type of hours that would eventually define Greco-Roman clock time – and still measured the lapse of time rather than enabling the location of moments in time. Greco-Roman clock time was only fully formed when it incorporated Egyptian notions of the hour in the Ptolemaic kingdom of the early third century BC.

A Wolf in the City

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cinzia Arruzza
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
The City ◽  
Shed Light

A Wolf in the City is a study of tyranny and of the tyrant’s soul in Plato’s Republic. It argues that Plato’s critique of tyranny is an intervention in an ancient debate concerning the sources of the crisis of Athenian democracy and the relation between political leaders and the demos in the last decades of the fifth century BCE. The book shows that Plato’s critique of tyranny should not be taken as a veiled critique of the Syracusan tyrannical regime but, rather, as an integral part of his critique of Athenian democracy. The book also offers an in-depth and detailed analysis of all three parts of the tyrant’s soul, and contends that this approach is necessary to both fully appraise the complex psychic dynamics taking place in the description of the tyrannical man and shed light on Plato’s moral psychology and its relation with his political theory.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document