Download or read book Literacy and Democracy in Fifth Century Athens written by Anna Missiou and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-02-17 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first full study of the relationship between literacy and democracy in fifth-century Athens. Through a close analysis of key democratic institutions, such as ostracism, the Council of 500, and the demes and tribes, Missiou argues that literacy was widespread among the common citizens of Athens.
Download or read book Democracy Empire and the Arts in Fifth century Athens written by Deborah Dickmann Boedeker and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Athens in the fifth century B.C. offers a striking picture: the first democracy in history; the first empire created and ruled by a Greek city; and a flourishing of learning, philosophical thought, and visual and performing arts so rich as to leave a remarkable heritage for Western civilization. To what extent were these three parallel developments interrelated? An international group of fourteen scholars expert in different fields explores here the ways in which the fifth-century "cultural revolution" depended on Athenian democracy and the ways it was influenced by the fact that Athens was an imperial city. The authors bring to this analysis their individual areas of expertise--in the visual arts, poetry and drama, philosophy, archaeology, religion, and social, economic, and political history--and a variety of theoretical approaches. The product of a colloquium at Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C., "Democracy, Empire, and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens" sheds new light on a much debated question that has wide implications. The book is illustrated and enriched by a comprehensive bibliography on the subject.
Download or read book The Politics of Orality written by Craig Richard Cooper and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents the sixth in the series on Orality and Literacy in the Ancient Greek and Roman Worlds. The present work comprises a collection of essays that explore the tensions and controversies that arise as a society moves from an oral to literate culture. Part 1 deals with both Homeric and other forms of epic; part 2 explores different ways in which texts and writing were manipulated for political ends. Part 3 and 4 deals with the controversies surrounding the adoption of writing as the accepted mode of communication; whereas some segments of society began to privilege writing over oral communication, others continued to maintain that the latter was superior. Part 4 looks at the oral elements of Athenian Law.
Download or read book Athenian Democracy written by John Thorley and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2005-06-20 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pamphlet outlines the development and operation of Athenian democracy to the end of the fifth century BC. Separate sections examine the prelude to democracy, the emergence of a democratic system, and the way this system worked in practice. A final section focuses on the questions: how should we judge the success of Athenian democracy? who benefitted? was it an efficient system of government? in what sense was Athenian democracy the forerunner of modern democracies?
Download or read book Athenian Democracy A Sourcebook written by Luca Asmonti and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a wide range of literary and epigraphic sources on the history of the world's first democracy, offering a comprehensive survey of the key themes and principles of Athenian democratic culture. Beginning with the mythical origins of Athenian democracy under Theseus and describing the historical development of Athens' democratic institutions through Solon's reforms to the birth of democracy under Cleisthenes, the book addresses the wider cultural and social repercussions of the democratic system, concluding with a survey of Athenian democracy in the Hellenistic and Roman age. All sources are presented in translation with full annotation and commentary and each chapter opens with an introduction to provide background and direction for readers. Sources include material by Aristotle, Homer, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Cicero, Tacitus and many others. The volume also includes an A-Z of key terms, an annotated bibliography with suggestions for further reading in the primary sources as well as modern critical works on Athenian democracy, and a full index.
Download or read book Athenian Democracy written by and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume in the LACTOR Sourcebooks in Ancient History series offers a generous selection of primary texts on Athenian democracy, which flourished in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, with an accompanying glossary and introductory notes. It provides for the needs of students at schools and universities who are studying ancient history in English translation and has been written and reviewed by experienced teachers. The texts selected include extracts from the important literary sources as well as some key inscriptions, some of which were previously difficult for students to access.
Download or read book Athenian Democracy written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes ancient accounts of Athenian democracy by Aristotle, Plutarch, and others *Includes footnotes, online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents In today's modern world every political regime, even the most authoritarian or repressive, describes itself as democracy or a Democratic People's Republic. The concept of rule by the people, on behalf of the people, has come to be accepted as the norm, and very few would overtly espouse the cause of dictatorship, absolute monarchy or oligarchy as the most desirable political system upon which to base the government of any country. It is also generally accepted that democracy, as a political ideology, began in Greece, specifically in Athens, in the 7th century B.C. and reached its zenith in the 5th century under the leadership of Pericles. Dating an exact starting point is impossible, but at the beginning of the 7th century B.C. Solon inaugurated a series of reforms that began the movement away from rule by individuals, or tyrants, and by the end of that century the reforms of Cleisthenes provided the basis of the Athenian democratic system that culminated in the radical institutions introduced by Ephialtes and Pericles in the 5th century. The result was the first, and possibly only, truly participative democratic state. Of course, not every inhabitant of Athens enjoyed the right to vote. Only full citizens could do that, and they represented approximately 30% of Athens's male population, numbering between 30,000 and 60,000 during Athens' Golden Age and declining rapidly throughout the Peoloponnesian War. The remainder was made up of metics and slaves, who vastly outnumbered free citizens and, indeed, almost all other slave populations in Hellas, a fact which the Athenians often conveniently chose to forget when singing the praises of their democracy. There is a very strong indication that foreign chattel slaves were an utter necessity to Athens' economy, and though they did not serve as fleet rowers as they would have done in Rome, they still carried out the myriad of unpleasant and demeaning jobs which allowed Athenian citizens the free time to actively participate in the city's politics. In many ways, without slaves, there would have been no democracy in Athens. Women also had vastly inferior rights in Athens than those of many other poleis (chiefly Sparta), and were virtually regarded as the property of their fathers, brothers and husbands. Women enjoyed no political rights and precious few legal ones, they were forced into arranged marriages at an extremely young age, and they were even fed differently from their brothers while growing up, leading to an average mortality age that was extremely lower than that of men of comparable social class. Ironically, between 322 B.C. and the 19th century, Athenian democracy was almost totally forgotten. If there was any mention of democracy in Athens at all, it was in reference to so-called but largely mythical notions of Solonian democracy as recorded in Plutarch's Life of Solon or Aristotle's Politics. At the beginning of the 19th century, scholars such as August Boeckh began the evaluation and study of democratic Athenian institutions, and inscriptions and the writings of Thucydides and Demosthenes, among others, were used to re-construct those democratic bodies and to gain an understanding of their workings. Later in the century, academics, particularly George Grote, provided new insights into the Athenian democratic processes, and today there is a much fuller understanding of what contributed to Athenian political life. That said, the questions of how and why Athens came to develop the political system it did remain a major area of academic contention. Athenian Democracy: The History of the World's First Democracy in Ancient Athens looks at the history of the democratic government Athens formed, as well as its legacy.
Download or read book Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens written by Josiah Ober and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book asks an important question often ignored by ancient historians and political scientists alike: Why did Athenian democracy work as well and for as long as it did? Josiah Ober seeks the answer by analyzing the sociology of Athenian politics and the nature of communication between elite and nonelite citizens. After a preliminary survey of the development of the Athenian "constitution," he focuses on the role of political and legal rhetoric. As jurymen and Assemblymen, the citizen masses of Athens retained important powers, and elite Athenian politicians and litigants needed to address these large bodies of ordinary citizens in terms understandable and acceptable to the audience. This book probes the social strategies behind the rhetorical tactics employed by elite speakers. A close reading of the speeches exposes both egalitarian and elitist elements in Athenian popular ideology. Ober demonstrates that the vocabulary of public speech constituted a democratic discourse that allowed the Athenians to resolve contradictions between the ideal of political equality and the reality of social inequality. His radical reevaluation of leadership and political power in classical Athens restores key elements of the social and ideological context of the first western democracy.
Download or read book The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy written by Johann P. Arnason and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-29 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy presents a series of essays that trace the Greeks’ path to democracy and examine the connection between the Greek polis as a citizen state and democracy as well as the interaction between democracy and various forms of cultural expression from a comparative historical perspective and with special attention to the place of Greek democracy in political thought and debates about democracy throughout the centuries. Presents an original combination of a close synchronic and long diachronic examination of the Greek polis - city-states that gave rise to the first democratic system of government Offers a detailed study of the close interactionbetween democracy, society, and the arts in ancient Greece Places the invention of democracy in fifth-century bce Athens both in its broad social and cultural context and in the context of the re-emergence of democracy in the modern world Reveals the role Greek democracy played in the political and intellectual traditions that shaped modern democracy, and in the debates about democracy in modern social, political, and philosophical thought Written collaboratively by an international team of leading scholars in classics, ancient history, sociology, and political science
Download or read book Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece written by Kevin Robb and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1994 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kevin Robb chronicles ancient Greece's "literate revolution", recounting how the Phoenecian alphabet silently entered Greece and, in the improved Greek version, conquered its major cultural institutions. He examines the progress of literacy from its origins in the eighth century to the fourth century B.C.E., when the major institutions of Athenian democracy - most notably law and higher education - became totally dependent on alphabetic literacy. By introducing new evidence as well as re-evaluating the older evidence, Robb shows that early Greek literacy can be understood only in terms of the rich oral culture that immediately preceded it - one that was dominated by the oral performance of epic verse, or "Homer". Only gradually did literate practices supersede oral habits and the oral way of life, forging alliances which now seem both bizarre and fascinating, but which were eminently successful, contributing to the "miracle" of Greece. Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece provides a fascinating look at the first society to become culturally dependent on the alphabet. In it, Robb elucidates how, in the space of four hundred years, total orality gave way to an advancing literacy. In the process of his investigation, he brings new light to early Greek ethics, the rise of written law, the emergence of philosophy, and the final dominance of the Athenian philosophical schools in higher education.
Download or read book Aspects of Athenian Democracy written by Walter Robert Connor and published by Museum Tusculanum Press. This book was released on 1990 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Three papers which aim to inform debate about the proper form of a modern democracy by consideration of the Classical Athenian model: City Dionysia and Athenian Democracy' by Connor; Perceptions of Democracy in Fifth Century Athens' by Raaflub; Solonian Democracy in Fourth Century Athens' by Hansen; Oikos/Polis: Towards a Theory of Athenian Paternal Ideology 450-399 BC'.
Download or read book Democracy beyond Athens written by Eric W. Robinson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What was ancient democracy like? Why did it spread in ancient Greece? An astonishing number of volumes have been devoted to the well-attested Athenian case, while non-Athenian democracy - for which evidence is harder to come by - has received only fleeting attention. Nevertheless, there exists a scattered body of ancient material regarding democracy beyond Athens, from ancient literary authors and epigraphic documents to archaeological evidence, out of which one can build an understanding of the phenomenon. This book presents a detailed study of ancient Greek democracy in the Classical period (480–323 BC), focusing on examples outside Athens. It has three main goals: to identify where and when democratic governments established themselves in ancient Greek city-states; to explain why democracy spread to many parts of Greece in this period; and to further our understanding of the nature of ancient democracy by studying its practices beyond Athens.
Download or read book City of Sokrates written by John Willoby Roberts and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the main features of Athenian life in the latter half of the fifth century BC, including aspects such as schooling, literacy, taxation, culture, the arts and philosophy. The contents of this edition have been extensively updated.
Download or read book Aspects of Athenian Democracy written by Robert Johnson Bonner and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1933 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens written by Rosalind Thomas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-03-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. The first significant attempt to study the implications of this view stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition and examines their character and interaction.
Download or read book Aspects of Athenian Democracy written by and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece written by Kurt A. Raaflaub and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2007-01-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a state-of-the-art debate about the origins of Athenian democracy by five eminent scholars. The result is a stimulating, critical exploration and interpretation of the extant evidence on this intriguing and important topic. The authors address such questions as: Why was democracy first realized in ancient Greece? Was democracy “invented” or did it evolve over a long period of time? What were the conditions for democracy, the social and political foundations that made this development possible? And what factors turned the possibility of democracy into necessity and reality? The authors first examine the conditions in early Greek society that encouraged equality and “people’s power.” They then scrutinize, in their social and political contexts, three crucial points in the evolution of democracy: the reforms connected with the names of Solon, Cleisthenes, and Ephialtes in the early and late sixth and mid-fifth century. Finally, an ancient historian and a political scientist review the arguments presented in the previous chapters and add their own perspectives, asking what lessons we can draw today from the ancient democratic experience. Designed for a general readership as well as students and scholars, the book intends to provoke discussion by presenting side by side the evidence and arguments that support various explanations of the origins of democracy, thus enabling readers to join in the debate and draw their own conclusions.
