1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910811726403321

Titolo

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

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Austin, : University of Texas Press, c2003

ISBN

0-292-79782-6

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (353 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

MorganKathryn A

Disciplina

320.938/09/014

Soggetti

Despotism

Greece Politics and government To 146 B.C

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

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 -- DÄ“mos 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

Sommario/riassunto

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.