Plato’s Phaedrus on Philosophy and the City

2018 ◽  
pp. 101-105
Author(s):  
Brian Elliott
Keyword(s):  
Class Struggle ◽  
Social Conditions ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Commercial Development ◽  
Territorial Expansion ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

This paper offers an interpretation of the dramatic setting of Plato’s Phaedrus as an allegory of the situation of the philosopher within Plato’s Athens. Following Jean-Pierre Vernant’s work on the place of class struggle and warfare within the ancient Greek city-state in his Myth and Society in Ancient Greece I decipher key passages on the Phaedrus as implicit responses to Plato’s experience of the city. The key themes that emerge are: the relation between the country and the city; the connection between leisure, luxury, and territorial expansion; the prospects for philosophical rule in the city; and the assessment of writing as a product of urban and commercial development. In my concluding paragraphs I suggest that Plato’s dialogues should more generally be regarded as a confrontation with the social conditions of the city-state as Plato experienced them. I also suggest that Platonic writings such as the Phaedrus are best interpreted allegorically as well as literally to ensure that multiple levels of meaning are drawn out through close analysis.

Topography of Athens

Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Hurwit ◽  
Ioannis Mitsios
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
History Of ◽  
City States ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

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).

Civic Institutions

2009 ◽  
pp. 196-210
Author(s):  
Sara Forsdyke
Keyword(s):  
Parallel Evolution ◽  
Formal Institutions ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
The Rich ◽  
City State ◽  
The City ◽  
Civic Institutions

This article looks at the parallel evolution of civic institutions, all of which culminated in the polis, the ‘city-state’, as the backdrop to the rich cultural legacy of the fifth and fourth centuries. Historians have demonstrated that the formal institutions of the Greek city-state are best understood as emerging from, but still very much embedded within, a much broader range of collective practices and discourses. Nevertheless, it is the dynamic interplay between the institutional structures of the state and these broader practices and discourses that has been the focus of much of the most fruitful scholarship on the ancient Greek city-state over the past thirty years. The discussion then turns to some of the most interesting areas of investigation in current scholarship on the interaction between formal institutions and broader cultural activities and norms in the Greek city-state.

scholarly journals ROMAN NAMES IN OLBIAN PROSOPOGRAPHY

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-30
Author(s):  
N. O. Son
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Origin ◽  
Single Individual ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
City Population ◽  
General Number ◽  
Late Roman Period ◽  
New Phenomena ◽  
The City

Prosopographical data is one of the most important sources for the study of ethnic structure of the Ancient Greek population in the Northern Pontic area. It should be noted that prosopography reflects mostly wealthier and usually socially privileged strata, the representatives of city elite and the officials whose names are recorded in epigraphic records. Roman names from Greek and Latin inscriptions of the first centuries AD in the lapidary epigraphy from Olbia are presented in the paper. The names are put in the order according not to their traditional classification but to another approach basing on the name structure. Consequently the Roman names are divided into three groups: 1 — names with Greek structure; 2 — names with Roman structure and 3 — those composed of a single name. Each group consists of subgroups in which the ethnic origin of name is determined. Greek names with Roman structure, Roman (Latin) names with Greek structure, as well as mixed names including the elements of various ethnic and linguistic origin fit into this classification well. According to the name structure it can be already suggested that the bearers of the names of first group did not have the Roman citizenship, while the names of the second group belonged to the Roman citizens. Having received the Roman citizenship the names of new citizens should have consisted of three or two parts, not always Latin, but the name structure had to become traditional Roman one. The classification proposed the possibility to understand fundamental Greek traditions and new phenomena in prosopography of the first centuries AD. The list of names with short information is presented in the Appendix. Nineteen Roman names with Greek structure (personal name and patronymic in the genitive case) and twenty four names with Roman structure are recorded in the Olbian lapidary epigraphy. They appeared in the city onomastics comparatively late: in the first half of the 2nd century. There are only four names with Roman elements in the group of names of Greek structure. They have mostly mixed nature and compound Greek and Roman, Greek, Roman and Iranian, Roman and Iranian elements. The group of names with Roman structure and Roman components contain mostly names consisting of two parts, peculiar for the Late Roman period onomastics. The subgroup of names with mixed elements contains the spesimens of two and three parts of Greek and Roman, Roman and Iranian and Roman and Thracian origin. It should be also noted that each single individual name cannot be considered the direct representation of ethnicity of its bearer. The third group of Roman prosopography in Olbia is represented by a single name. Such names do not clearly indicate the social position of their bearers: they could be either socially depended or full citizens. Consequently, there are 52 names with at least one Roman element. If we proceed from the fact that the Olbian onomastics of the first centuries AD is represented by 299 names, the Roman names make approximately 17.4 % and the people with Roman citizenship was approximately 8.4 % of general number of the Olbiopolites whose names are recorded in epigraphic monuments of Olbia. Unlike Chersonesos and Tyras the members of Olbian civic community rarely received the rights of Roman citizenship and the percentage of names with Roman elements was lower here. This fact indicates first of all a certain peculiarity of Roman-Olbian relations in the general Roman policy towards North Pontic region. This circumstance reasoned the later and relatively weak Roman provincial influence on the city population which reflected in the prosopographical material from Olbia.

Conclusion

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Kamen
Keyword(s):  
Social Economic ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Athenian Democracy ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
The City

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. Through close analysis of various forms of evidence—literary, epigraphic, and legal—this book demonstrated that classical Athens had a spectrum of statuses, ranging from the base chattel slave to the male citizen with full civic rights. It showed that Athenian democracy was in practice both more inclusive and more exclusive than one might expect based on its civic ideology: more inclusive in that even slaves and noncitizens “shared in” the democratic polis, more exclusive in that not all citizens were equal participants in the social, economic, and political life of the city. The book also showed the flexibility of status boundaries, seemingly in opposition to the dominant ideology of two or three status groups divided neatly from one another: slave versus free, citizen versus noncitizen, or slave versus metic versus citizen.

Tomb cult and the ‘Greek renaissance’: the past in the present in the 8th century BC

Antiquity ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 62 (237) ◽  
pp. 750-761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Morris
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Greek City ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Complexity ◽  
Early Modern Italy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common ◽  
Multiple Meanings ◽  
City State

Greek society was changing rapidly in the 8th century BC. The archaeological record reveals population growth, increasing political complexity, artistic experiments and a strong interest in the past. Because these processes resemble those at work in early modern Italy, the period has often been referred to as the ‘Greek renaissance’ (e.g. Ure 1922; Hägg 1983a; cf. Burke 1986). This paper is about the glorification of the past in the 8th century, and its relationship to the rise of the polis, the Greek city state. I concentrate on one particular phenomenon, the spread of cults at tombs dating to the Mycenaean period (c. 1600-1200 BC). I argue that the common renaissance analogy has limited value, and that the 8thcentury Greeks created a past narrowly focussed on the persons of powerful ancient beings, from whom they could draw authority in the social upheavals which came about as the loose, aristocratic societies of the ‘Dark Age’ (c. 1200-750 BC) were challenged. Tomb cults go back at least to 950 BC, but after 750 they were redefined and used as a source of power in new ways. I have adapted my subtitle from Maurice Bloch’s well-known paper ‘The past and the present in the present’ (1977), where he argues that rituals bring the past into the present to form a system of cognition mystifying nature and preserving the social order. The argument here is slightly different. I stress the variety of the cults and the range of meanings they must have had, making their recipients highly ambiguous figures. The same cults could simultaneously evoke the new, relatively egalitarian ideology of the polis and the older ideals of heroic aristocrats who protected the grateful and defenceless lower orders, while standing far above them. Bloch's paper borrowed Malinowski’s idea of culture as a ‘long conversation’; developing the analogy, I look at the multiple meanings which any statement in such a conversation may have for the different actors.

Persönliche Frömmigkeit und religiöses Erlebnis Wesenszüge der griechischen Religion am Beispiel von Heilkulten

Numen ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-472
Author(s):  
Alexander Rubel
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Direct Contact ◽  
The Other ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek Religion ◽  
Roman Religion ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Personal Relation ◽  
City State

Abstract Ancient Greek healing cults can be studied in the context of “personal piety.” This article emphasizes personal aspects of the Greek religion. It shows that the concept of “polis religion” does not embrace major aspects of ancient Greek piety. I analyze the direct and personal relation of worshippers in healing cults, especially that of Apollo, with the deity. By doing so, I put forward a new reading of Greek religion in the context of the concept of “personal piety” developed in Egyptology. The well-known “embeddedness” of religion in the structures of the Ancient Greek city-state led to a one-sided view of ancient Greek religion, as well as to aspects of ritual and “cult” predominating in research. Simultaneously, aspects of “belief ” are often labelled as inadequate in describing Greek (and Roman) religion. Religion as ritual and cult is simply one side of the coin. Personal aspects of religion, and direct contact with the deity, based on “belief,” are thus the other side of the coin. It follows that they are also the fundament of ritual. It is necessary to combine “polis religion” with “personal piety” to display a complete picture of Greek religion. The Isyllos inscription from Epidaurus is presented here as a final and striking example for this view. It reports the foundation of a cult of the polis on behalf of a personal religious experience.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

1979 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 171-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Mason
Keyword(s):  
Social Conditions ◽  
Exact Equation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Valid Comparison ◽  
Essential Function ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The City

‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that the practice of religion will be influenced by the social conditions prevailing in any given locality.’ The debate on this statement is largely concentrated for present purposes into a consideration of activities between c1100 and c1250 in two distinctive societies: Westminster abbey and its environs and, in contrast, the city and diocese of Worcester. The essential function of Westminster abbey was, of course, intercessory, and while this role was shared with Worcester cathedral, the latter church had also a wide-ranging pastoral responsibility. In this sense, no exact equation can be made, yet the richness of the records which both churches accumulated presents adequate material for a valid comparison in other respects. It is not intended, and is, indeed, impossible to make an arbitrary definition of Westminster as town and Worcester as countryside. Elements of both were contained in Westminster and Worcester alike.

The Athenian Empire

2009 ◽  
pp. 64-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polly Low
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Imperialism ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
City State ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

This article argues that problems of terminology also plague the study of the Athenian Empire, drawing attention to the many ancient Greek words that have been translated as ‘empire’. Arriving at the right terms to describe Athenian ‘imperialism’ would go hand in hand with the larger process of understanding other features of Athens' hegemony. For example, while the financial aspects of the Athenian Empire are heavily discussed, the cultural imperialism of the city-state still needs to be analysed more fully. Further study may well show that the major importance of the empire lies in its role as the transmitter of Hellenic culture during the period of Athens' dominance and not in its place as a decisive moment in the history of imperialism.

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