The world of Prometheus : the politics of punishing in democratic Athens / Danielle S. Allen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allen, Danielle S., 1971-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Punishment (Greek law).

Punishment--Greece--Athens--History.

Punishment.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (465 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2000.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

For Danielle Allen, punishment is more a window onto democratic Athens' fundamental values than simply a set of official practices. From imprisonment to stoning to refusal of burial, instances of punishment in ancient Athens fueled conversations among ordinary citizens and political and literary figures about the nature of justice. Re-creating in vivid detail the cultural context of this conversation, Allen shows that punishment gave the community an opportunity to establish a shining myth of harmony and cleanliness: that the city could be purified of anger and social struggle, and perfect order achieved. Each member of the city--including notably women and slaves--had a specific role to play in restoring equilibrium among punisher, punished, and society. The common view is that democratic legal processes moved away from the "emotional and personal" to the "rational and civic," but Allen shows that anger, honor, reciprocity, spectacle, and social memory constantly prevailed in Athenian law and politics. Allen draws upon oratory, tragedy, and philosophy to present the lively intellectual climate in which punishment was incurred, debated, and inflicted by Athenians. Broad in scope, this book is one of the first to offer both a full account of punishment in antiquity and an examination of the political stakes of democratic punishment. It will engage classicists, political theorists, legal historians, and anyone wishing to learn more about the relations between institutions and culture, normative ideas and daily events, punishment and democracy.

Contents:

pt. 1. The preliminaries

pt. 2. The process of punishing

pt. 3. Interventions in the conversation.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [405]-429) and index.

ISBN:

9786613379818

9781283379816

1283379813

9781400824656

1400824656

OCLC:

778432724