Between anarchy and tyranny: excellence and the pursuit of power and peace in ancient Greece

2001 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 91-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Kokaz

Ancient Greece is not unfamiliar to International Relations scholars. Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War has been especially influential in shaping our understanding of the ancient Greek international system, not only because it is the best historical source available, but also in light of the status it has achieved as the foremost classic of International Relations. Of particular interest to International Relations have been questions concerning the character of the system and the units within it, and how these have affected the dynamics of conflict and co-operation in the international arena. Many find the antecedents of the modern European states-system in the pattern of relations that emerged between the independent city-states of Hellas roughly between the eighth and fourth centuries BC. Like our contemporary international system, the ancient Greek international system was anarchic in the sense that it lacked an overarching common government.

Author(s):  
Salah Hassan Mohammed ◽  
Mahaa Ahmed Al-Mawla

The Study is based on the state as one of the main pillars in international politics. In additions, it tackles its position in the international order from the major schools perspectives in international relations, Especially, these schools differ in the status and priorities of the state according to its priorities, also, each scholar has a different point of view. The research is dedicated to providing a future vision of the state's position in the international order in which based on the vision of the major schools in international relations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 372-396
Author(s):  
Maja Spanu

International Relations scholarship disconnects the history of the so-called expansion of international society from the presence of hierarchies within it. In contrast, this article argues that these developments may in fact be premised on hierarchical arrangements whereby new states are subject to international tutelage as the price of acceptance to international society. It shows that hierarchies within international society are deeply entrenched with the politics of self-determination as international society expands. I substantiate this argument with primary and secondary material on the Minority Treaty provisions imposed on the new states in Central, Eastern and Southern Europe admitted to the League of Nations after World War I. The implications of this claim for International Relations scholarship are twofold. First, my argument contributes to debates on the making of the international system of states by showing that the process of expansion of international society is premised on hierarchy, among and within states. Second, it speaks to the growing body of scholarship on hierarchy in world politics by historicising where hierarchies come from, examining how diverse hierarchies are nested and intersect, and revealing how different actors navigate these hierarchies.


Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Hurwit ◽  
Ioannis Mitsios

The ancient city-state (or polis) of Athens was contiguous with the region known as Attica, a large, triangular peninsula extending southeastward from the Greek mainland into the Aegean Sea. In the western angle of Attica, on a coastal plain surrounded by four mountains (Hymettos, Pentelikon, Parnes, and Aigaleos), lay the city itself. Although the modern city has thickly spread up the slopes of the mountains as well as to the sea, the study of Athenian topography concentrates on the monuments, buildings, and spaces of the ancient urban core, an area roughly 3 square kilometers surrounding the Acropolis and defended in the Classical period by a wall some 6.5 kilometers in length. Athens is the ancient Greek city that we know best, and it is unquestionably the Greek city whose art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and political history have had the greatest impact on the Western tradition and imagination. As a result, “Athenian” is sometimes considered synonymous with “Greek.” It is not. In many respects, Athens was exceptional among Greek city-states, not typical: it was a very different place from, say, Thebes or Sparta. Still, the study of Athens, its monuments, and its culture needs no defense, and the charge of “Athenocentrism” is a hollow indictment when one stands before the Parthenon or holds a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone. This article will refer to the following periods in the history of Athens and Greece (the dates are conventional): late Bronze, or Mycenaean, Age (1550–1100 bce); Dark Age (1100–760 bce); Archaic (760–480 bce); Classical (480–323 bce); Hellenistic (323 –31 bce); and Roman (31 BCE–c. 475 ce).


Author(s):  
Bear F. Braumoeller ◽  
Benjamin Campbell

The history of systemic theory in international relations is a tragedy of bad timing: Interest in systemic theory and awareness of its importance preceded widespread understanding of the methodologies needed to formulate and test it. In the intervening decades, dyadic studies dominated empirical studies of international relations to such an extent that the influences of the international system on actors’ behavior and vice versa were all but forgotten. This need not be the case. Through the lenses of four methodologies, systemic theory can be surveyed to capture their logics in order to highlight the value and feasibility of systemic theorizing.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 333-336
Author(s):  
Nancy Lee Ruyter

In 1895, the book Dancing, a broad survey of world dance history, was published in London. Mainly written by Mrs. Lilly Grove (later Dame Lily Grove Frazer) after five years of travel and intensive research, it also includes four short chapters by other authors. It was issued in later editions after 1895 and is still an important early source for information about dance history. Of the 454 pages in Dancing, twenty-six are devoted to ancient Greece. I discuss some of Grove's sources, statements, and conclusions in relation to those of more recent writings about dance in ancient Greece.


1994 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hendrik Spruyt

By the end of the medieval era, three new competing institutions attempted to capture gains from trade and reduce feudal particularism: sovereign territorial states, cityleagues, and city-states. By the middle of the seventeenth century, city-leagues and city-states had declined markedly. Territorial states survived as the dominant form because they were able to reduce free riding, lower transaction costs, and credibly commit their constituents. The selection process took place along three dimensions. First, sovereign territorial states proved competitively superior in the economic realm. Second, states increasingly recognized only other sovereign territorial states as legitimate actors in the international system. Third, other actors defected to or copied the institutional makeup of sovereign territorial organization. The emergence of discrete territorial units in which only sovereign authorities represented their citizens as the predominant type of organization in international affairs created a new solution to the problem of markets and hierarchies.


Comunicar ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (44) ◽  
pp. 45-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Muellner

Evidence for annotating Homeric poetry in Ancient Greece is as old as the 5th Century BCE, when the «Iliad» and «Odyssey» were performed by professional singers/composers who also performed annotations to the poetry in answer to questions from their audiences. As the long transition from a song culture into a literate society took place in Ancient Greece from the 8th to the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, annotations were gradually incorporated into written poetic texts. By the 10th Century CE, the quantity of written annotations in the margins of medieval manuscripts has become huge. For the first two versions of «The Ancient Hero», a HarvardX MOOC, it was not possible to implement the set of annotation tools that we requested as a vehicle for close reading and assessment. Using a partial system, we were able to create a semblance of annotations in close reading self-assessment exercises. For the anticipated third version, we expect to have a complete set of textual and video annotation tools developed for HarvardX, including semantic tagging and full sharing of annotations. Such a system, which promises to make the educational experience more effective, will also inaugurate a digital phase in the long history of Homeric annotation.Las evidencias de anotaciones en la poesía homérica de la Antigua Grecia se remontan al siglo V (a.C.), cuando ya la «Ilíada» y la «Odisea» eran representadas por cantantes profesionales/compositores, que hacían anotaciones en la poesía para responder a los interrogantes de su público. A medida que la transición, desde una cultura de la canción a una sociedad alfabetizada, aconteció en este período de la Antigua Grecia, entre el siglo VIII al I y II (a.C.), las anotaciones se incorporaron poco a poco en los escritos poéticos. La cantidad de anotaciones escritas en los márgenes de los manuscritos medievales se volvió enorme hacia el siglo X. En las dos primeras versiones de «The Ancient Hero» en el MOOC de HarvardX no fue posible utilizar el conjunto de herramientas de anotación solicitadas como medio para una atenta evaluación de las lecturas. Utilizando un sistema parcial, hemos sido capaces de crear aparentes anotaciones en los primeros ejercicios de autoevaluación de lectura. En la tercera versión, disponemos ya de un conjunto completo de herramientas de anotaciones de texto y de vídeo, desarrollados para HarvardX, incluyendo etiquetado semántico y anotaciones compartidas. Dicho sistema nos permitirá una experiencia educativa más eficaz, inaugurando también una fase digital en la larga historia de la anotación homérica.


1988 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 903-921
Author(s):  
Rosemary A. Robbins

This paper is an account of studies of the linguistic transformation that took place in ancient Greece between the eighth and fourth centuries B.C., searching for factors which contribute to the shift in how humans perceived themselves. The group or force-field consciousness of the men of the Iliad and the linguistic factors which allowed “individuality” to emerge by the time of Plato is explored. The account relates the emergence of the notion of “madness” to the development of the individual and asks whether madness is an artifact of individuality and explores the relationship of these developments to our present underlying assumption of a duality in human nature composed of the rational and the irrational.


2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 469-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriaan Lanni

One of the earliest and the most famous statements of realism in international law comes from ancient Greece: the Melian dialogue in history of the Peloponnesian War. In 416 B.C.E., the Athenians invaded Melos, a small island in the Aegean that sought to remain neutral and avoid joining the Athenian empire. Thucydides presents an account of the negotiation between the Athenians and the Melian leaders. The Athenians offer the Melians a choice: become a subject of Athens, or resist and be annihilated. The Melians argue, among other things, that justice is on their side. The Athenians dismiss arguments from justice as irrelevant and reply with a statement that many scholars believe represents view: “We both alike know that in human reckoning the question of justice only enters where there is equal power to enforce it, and that the powerful exact what they can, and the weak grant what they must.”


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