Tyrants, Letters, and Legitimacy

Author(s):  
Sian Lewis

The chapter explores the part played by letters in how tyrants in the world of fifth- and fourth-century BCE Greece exercised power, with a specific emphasis on processes of decision-making and the role of state institutions that embedded the ruler within the wider political community. The focus is on the place and function of letters in the traditions surrounding the rulers of Syracuse (Dionysius I and II, Timoleon, and, moving into the Hellenistic period, Agathocles). A nuanced picture emerges: whereas the classical tyrants did not attempt to impose a model of rule through written communication within their poleis, where traditional oral methods of rule continued, in communications outside the polis tyrants moved gradually towards the letter as part of the consolidation of their rule.

2013 ◽  
pp. 1476-1501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Khan R. Rahaman ◽  
Júlia M. Lourenço

Virtually every city and region is engaged in activities to improve their relative global competitiveness. The Geographic Information System (GIS) is one of the powerful tools of information storage and information access, providing spatial data to different stakeholders and cities across the world. This chapter will highlight the role of GIS technology in empirical assessment of the competition among cities or regions, using a variety of data assembled by many different individuals, businesses, and institutions. This valuable information can be used in decision-making by stakeholders who are taking part in the competition and can be disseminated, accessed, and updated in a dynamic way. This chapter discusses the origins of urban competitiveness, dynamics and functions of competition, and current and future research possibilities made possible by GIS.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Aimée Vega Montiel

The 1995 Beijing Platform for Action posed strategies to have in media and information technologies an ally for gender equality. “Chapter J” identified core areas for this agenda: content and representation, access of women to decision-making positions at media and ICTs, gender mainstreaming in communication policy, access and use of women to media and ICTs. These strategies were reinforced by the World Summit on Information Society, that pointed out the prominent role of ICTs in women's human rights. The aim of this paper is to contribute to a constructive debate on gender and ICTs, by presenting some of the most significative trends in Latin America.


2011 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Phillip Sidney Horky

This article explores the historiographical traditions concerning Herennius Pontius, a Samnite wisdom-practitioner who is said by the Peripatetic Aristoxenus of Tarentum to have been an interlocutor of the philosophers Archytas of Tarentum and Plato of Athens. It argues that extant speeches attributed to Herennius Pontius in the writings of Cassius Dio and Appian preserve a philosophy of “extreme proportional benefaction” among unequals. Such a theory is marked by Peripatetic language and concepts, which suggests that these speeches derive from a single Peripatetic source, probably Aristoxenus. The reception of Aristoxenus' description of Herennius Pontius among Greeks and Romans is sharply divided. Greek theories of ethics among unequals such as those of Aristotle and Archytas, which aim for moderation, can be distinguished from that attributed to Herennius Pontius, which is circumstantial and stipulates extreme responses to extremes. Romans, in particular Appius Claudius Caecus and Sulla, espouse proverbial wisdom strikingly similar to the theory of “extreme proportional benefaction” associated with Herennius Pontius. Such comparisons suggest that starting in the late fourth century bce, Romans and Samnites may have held shared ideological principles, as defined against Greek cultural paradigms. Scholars are thus prompted to consider Herennius Pontius as a starting point for a much larger inquiry into shared ideology among non-Greeks in Italy during the Hellenistic period and beyond.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 26-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Devidas Menon ◽  
Tania Stafinski

“Evidence-informed” priority-setting in healthcare has become increasingly important in most health systems around the world. This paper presents the results of a two-part study of the role of academic health services research in healthcare priority-setting. First, a review of peer-reviewed literature was done to elicit the factors important to priority-setting. Second, a survey of authors of this literature was conducted to determine the value of relevant academic work to decision-making.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Piotr Szczekocki

<p class="Standard">In the article, the author focused on three theoretical and philosophical issues of the judicial enforcement law in Poland, connected with the new enforcement acts which entered into force on 1 January 2019. First, the judicial enforcement proceedings were presented as an element of the law application process. The axiological dimension of this law, the place and function of a court bailiff in the law application process and the introduction of general clauses, combined with the basic values of the court enforcement law in the form of efficiency, effectiveness and reliability, form the new picture of the judicial enforcement law. Secondly, the problem of a general clause as a “carrier” of extralegal criteria was discussed, which takes an important place in the process of enforcement law application in the new bailiff’s law. There is the special role of the “public interest” and the “interest of justice” clauses as normative constructions introduced by the legislator to judicial enforcement. Thirdly, an attempt was made to answer the question about the presence and possible limits of discretion (free decision-making) of a court bailiff in the surrounding of the new axiology of enforcement law, and especially the formulation of this issue in the process of operative interpretation of law by a court bailiff.</p>


Author(s):  
Nick Ceramella

<strong><strong></strong></strong><p align="LEFT">I<span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">n the Introduction to this article, I deal with the importance of speaking one’s </span>own language as a way to assert one’s identity. Then I pass on to the evolution of the English language from its start as Old English, spoken by only a few thousand Angles and Saxons.</p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">I remark how, at fi rst, it was contaminated by thousands of </span>Latin, French and Scandinavian words, of which contemporary English still bears many clear traces, but nobody has ever thought that English was ever in danger of disappearing. By contrast, in the long run, it became the mother tongue of the speakers in comparatively newly founded countries, such as the USA, Australia, and New Zealand, and owing to the spread of the British Empire, it has dramatically increased its appeal becoming the most spoken and infl uential language in the world. Thus, according to some linguists, it has led several languages virtually to the verge of disappearance. Therefore, I argue whether English has really vampirised them, or has simply contributed to make people understand each other, sometimes even in the same country where lots of diff erent tongues are spoken (e.g. Nigeria).</p><p align="LEFT">It is self-evident that English has gradually been taking the role of a common unifying factor in our globalised world. In this view, I envisage a scenario where English may even become the offi cial l anguage o f the E U with the c ontributions &amp; coming, though in varying doses, from all the speakers of the other EU languages.</p>


Author(s):  
David Blockley

‘Everything has structure’ considers the fundamental nature and role of structure and the relationship of structural engineering with other engineering disciplines and with architecture. Decision making is driven by the purpose of a man-made structure and how ‘fitness for purpose’ is realised. There is a need to understand how forces flow through a structure in order to ensure it meets its primary purpose of being strong and safe whilst at the same time meeting many other needs such as affordability, aesthetic, and regulatory and environmental criteria. The best structures are a harmony of architecture and engineering—where form and function are one and the flow of forces is logical.


Author(s):  
M. F. Burnyeat

In the fourth century BCE, Anaxarchus and Monimus compared the world to stage-painting, to express scepticism about sense-perception and the worthlessness of human affairs, respectively. But the comparison traces back to Democritus’ discussion of Anaxagoras’ famous claim, a century earlier, that ‘appearances are a sight of things unseen’. According to Vitruvius, they were influenced by what Agatharchus had written about stage-painting, something that can be assessed properly only by considering the genre of technical treatises and the claims of those who were first to write on a subject. The comparison with phenomenal experience should ultimately be credited to Anaxagoras, though the points that he and Democritus make differ, owing to their different views of how the macroscopic world is related to underlying reality. These texts are thus not about the early history of perspectival painting, but stem from a fifth-century epistemological debate about what, if anything, sense-perception reveals about reality.


Author(s):  
Stephen Mitchell

Until the end of the fourth century BCE the impact of Greek culture in Asia Minor was limited. Lykians, Karians, and Lydians offered alternatives to Hellenism and preserved their own languages until the end of the fourth century BCE. However, by 250 BCE these Anatolian languages ceased to be used in public or private documents, and polis organization became normative. After the overthrow of the Persian Empire the autonomy of Greek cities became the highest political objective. Greek civic decrees in the early Hellenistic period emphasized that democratic legitimacy depended on quorate citizen votes, the Greek language became the only medium for official public communication, and the native populations maintained their identity and independence by adopting polis organization. Between 400 and 250 BCE these populations did not merely absorb Greek cultural influence but underwent the encompassing experience of becoming Greek.


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