"The teacher of Hellas" : Athenian democratic ideology and the "barbarization" of Sparta in fifth-century Greek thought / Ellen Greenstein Millender.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Microformat

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Millender, Ellen Greenstein.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Ancient history.

Ancient history--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Ancient history.

Ancient history--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

viii, 431 leaves ; 29 cm

Production:

1996.

Summary:

This dissertation examines the construction of Sparta as the antithesis of both Athens and Hellas in Greek literature produced in the second half of the fifth century B.C.E. An investigation of Spartan representations in Herodotus' Histories, Athenian drama, and Thucydides' History reveals that Sparta's role in fifth-century thought was the outgrowth of Athenian political self-definition and the development of Athenian democratic ideology. Athenian-based authors at first used democratic ideology to legitimize Athens' leadership in the Aegean by creating the image of Athens as the defender of Hellas against Persian domination. As Athens' democratic ideology crystallized in the context of increasing rivalry with Sparta, it was soon appropriated by writers whose focus shifted from the barbarian East to the new enemy in the Peloponnesus. The need to defend Athenian hegemony against the threat posed by Sparta and the Peloponnesian League led to the creation of another set of powerful images, collectively labeled "Sparta." By both transferring common stereotypes of barbarian society to depictions of Spartans and altering the conception of the "non-Hellene" to accommodate perceived Spartan differences, several authors of this period created a "barbarized" Sparta, a secretive and backward society in which women acquired unnatural freedom and power, and tyranny and treachery abounded. This process manifested itself in a number of ways. While Herodotus links Lacedaemon with the barbarian world through his anomalous ethnographic treatment of Sparta, Euripides' and Aristophanes' portrayal of Sparta as a society characterized by lawlessness, perfidy, and an inverted sexual hierarchy relegates it to the conceptual space usually occupied by non-Greek peoples in fifth-century works. In Thucydides' work, Sparta operates as the diametrical opposite of Athens' ideological creation of itself as the model Greek city. By investigating such portrayals of Sparta, the dissertation offers a new approach to the study of Classical Sparta and examines the matrix of assumptions and values through which the Athenians formed their conceptions of self and other.

Notes:

Thesis (Ph.D. in Ancient History) -- University of Pennsylvania, 1996.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

University Microfilms order no.: 96-36186.

OCLC:

187449805