Popular tyranny : sovereignty and its discontents in ancient Greece / Kathryn A. Morgan, editor.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Morgan, Kathryn A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Despotism.

Greece--Politics and government--To 146 B.C.

Greece.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (353 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The nature of authority and rulership was a central concern in ancient Greece, where the figure of the king or tyrant and the sovereignty associated with him remained a powerful focus of political and philosophical debate even as Classical Athens developed the world's first democracy. This collection of essays examines the extraordinary role that the concept of tyranny played in the cultural and political imagination of Archaic and Classical Greece through the interdisciplinary perspectives provided by internationally known archaeologists, literary critics, and historians. The book ranges historically from the Bronze and early Iron Age to the political theorists and commentators of the middle of the fourth century B.C. and generically across tragedy, comedy, historiography, and philosophy. While offering individual and sometimes differing perspectives, the essays tackle several common themes: the construction of authority and of constitutional models, the importance of religion and ritual, the crucial role of wealth, and the autonomy of the individual. Moreover, the essays with an Athenian focus shed new light on the vexed question of whether it was possible for Athenians to think of themselves as tyrannical in any way. As a whole, the collection presents a nuanced survey of how competing ideologies and desires, operating through the complex associations of the image of tyranny, struggled for predominance in ancient cities and their citizens.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Imaginary Kings: Alternatives to Monarchy in Early Greece

Form and Content: The Question of Tyranny in Herodotus

Stick and Glue: The Function of Tyranny in Fifth-Century Athenian Democracy

Tragic Tyranny

Dēmos Tyrannos: Wealth, Power, and Economic Patronage

Demos, Demagogue, Tyrant in Attic Old Comedy

The Tyranny of the Audience in Plato and Isocrates

Tyrant Killing as Therapeutic Stasis: A Political Debate in Images and Texts

Changing the Discourse

Afterword

Bibliography

Notes on Contributors

General Index

Index Locorum

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-292-79782-6

OCLC:

609074990