The Phoenician Women, Euripides' peculiar retelling and refashioning of the Theban myth, offers a portrait of Antigone before she becomes the actor we mostly know today from Sophocles' play. In this under-studied Greek tragedy, Euripides portrays the political and epistemological dissolution that allows for Antigone 's appearance in public. Whereas Sophocles' Antigone appears on stage ready to confront Creon with her appeal to the universal unwritten laws of the gods and later dissolves into the female lamenting a lost womanhood, Euripides' (...) Antigone experiences the opposite journey, thereby offering insights into the conditions that allow for her exposure in the political arena. A speech by Eteocles at the center of the play questions the existence of absolutes, calls injustice beautiful, and opens the door for Antigone 's entrance into the public sphere. With this speech Eteocles challenges us to consider the conditions of political openness in the modern age. (shrink)

The Phoenician Women, Euripides’ peculiar retelling and refashioning of the Theban myth, offers a portrait of Antigone before she becomes the actor we mostly know today from Sophocles’ play. In this under-studied Greek tragedy, Euripides portrays the political and epistemological dissolution that allows for Antigone’s appearance in public. Whereas Sophocles’ Antigone appears on stage ready to confront Creon with her appeal to the universal unwritten laws of the gods and later dissolves into the female lamenting a lost womanhood, Euripides’ Antigone (...) experiences the opposite journey, thereby offering insights into the conditions that allow for her exposure in the political arena. A speech by Eteocles at the center of the play questions the existence of absolutes, calls injustice beautiful, and opens the door for Antigone’s entrance into the public sphere. With this speech Eteocles challenges us to consider the conditions of political openness in the modern age. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, both urban planning and political philosophy originated in the work of one man, Hippodamus of Miletus. If Aristotle is right, then the study of Hippodamus's work should help us understand their history as interrelated fields. Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine with any degree of precision exactly what Hippodamus's contributions were to these two fields when the two fields are studied separately. In urban planning, Hippodamus was traditionally credited with having invented the ''grid pattern'' in which straight (...) streets intersect each other at right angles to form regular city blocks. However, as grid patterned cities have been discovered that were built before Hippodamus's birth, this traditional attribution must be false. In political philosophy, Hippodamus was credited with having written the first utopian ''constitution''. However, Aristotle's account of this constitution is so brief that it is difficult to determine what philosophical position lies behind it and, as that account makes clear, several of the laws governing Hippodamus's ideal city seem contradictory. In this paper, I argue that Hippodamus did significant work in both fields but that his intentions can only be seen clearly if his philosophical and architectural works are read together. This reading not only makes clear the unique contribution that Hippodamus made to both disciplines, but it shows how they were-and perhaps how they should be-related. (shrink)

The relationship between participatory democracy (the rule of and by a socially diverse citizenry) and constitutional liberalism (a regime predicated on the protection of individual liberties and the rule of law) is a famously troubled one. The purpose of this essay is to suggest that, at least under certain historical conditions, participatory democracy will indeed support the establishment of constitutional liberalism. That is to say, the development of institutions, behavioral habits, and social values centered on the active participation of free (...) and equal citizens in democratic politics can lead to the extension of legally enforced immunities from coercion to citizens and noncitizens alike. Such immunities, here called “quasi-rights,” are at least preconditions for the personal autonomy and liberty in respect to choice-making that are enshrined as the “rights of the moderns.” This essay, which centers on one ancient society, does not seek to develop a formal model proving that democracy will necessarily promote liberal constitutionalism. However, by explaining why a premodern democratic citizenry of free, adult, native males—who sought to defend their own interests and were unaffected by Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment ideals of inherent human worth—chose to extend certain formal protections to slaves, women, and children, it may point toward the development of a model for deriving liberalism from democratic participation. Development of such a model could have considerable bearing on current policy debates. (shrink)

The relationship between participatory democracy (the rule of and by a socially diverse citizenry) and constitutional liberalism (a regime predicated on the protection of individual liberties and the rule of law) is a famously troubled one. The purpose of this essay is to suggest that, at least under certain historical conditions, participatory democracy will indeed support the establishment of constitutional liberalism. That is to say, the development of institutions, behavioral habits, and social values centered on the active participation of free (...) and equal citizens in democratic politics can lead to the extension of legally enforced immunities from coercion to citizens and noncitizens alike. Such immunities, here called “quasi-rights,” are at least preconditions for the personal autonomy and liberty in respect to choice-making that are enshrined as the “rights of the moderns.” This essay, which centers on one ancient society, does not seek to develop a formal model proving that democracy will necessarily promote liberal constitutionalism. However, by explaining why a premodern democratic citizenry of free, adult, native males—who sought to defend their own interests and were unaffected by Enlightenment or post-Enlightenment ideals of inherent human worth—chose to extend certain formal protections to slaves, women, and children, it may point toward the development of a model for deriving liberalism from democratic participation. Development of such a model could have considerable bearing on current policy debates. (shrink)

This study makes a pair with the author's “Framing the Gift: The Politics of the Siphnian Treasury at Delphi,” Classical Antiquity 20 : 273–336. Like that essay, it argues that the function of a treasury is to provide a civic frame for ostentatious dedications by wealthy citizens: in effect, to “nationalize” votives. In this sense, the Athenian Treasury is a material trace, or fossil, of city politics in the 480s. The article tracks this function through the monument's iconography; its use (...) of marble from the medizing island of Paros; its relation to the “Alkmeonid” temple of Apollo; and the responses it evoked at Delphi and in Athens. Special attention is given to the methodological problem of finding meaning in non-iconic or non-representational features, such as building materials. The article concludes with a new reading of Pindar's sixth Pythian, for Megakles of Athens, which neatly encapsulates what was at stake in this building project. (shrink)

This article focuses on the introduction, diffusion and function of coinage in Sybaris and Metapontium, cities considered the first to mint coinage in southern Italy. In this paper, there is an effort to combine a series of numismatic data along with non-numismatic ones in order to draw broader conclusions on the introduction of coinage and its impact on the societies of these two poleis. The main argument is that coinage was introduced in order for the elite, rich landowners governing the (...) cities to profit from selling their agricultural products. Nevertheless, the demos benefited also from coinage, as the minting of fractions reveals. This group also had a certain political power in these two cities and their interests were taken into consideration by the ruling elites. The spread of the coinage of these two cities in southern Italy and other areas suggests that ultimately coinage served, already from the Archaic period, as an important tool for all kinds of economic transactions of which trade constituted the greatest part. (shrink)

Riassunto L’articolo analizza un passo di un’orazione demostenica in cui vengono invocate due leggi –la prima ascritta al legislatore Solone, la seconda al politico ateniese Aristofonte di Azenia – il cui contenuto divide la critica. Se la contestualizzazione della legge all’interno dell’argomentazione dell’attore Eussiteo permette di identificare il contenuto delle due leggi, l’analisi dell’attività legislativa di Solone e Aristofonte consente di chiarire il rapporto esistente fra la promulgazione della norma soloniana e la ripresa della stessa promossa da Aristofonte. Lo studio (...) della legge nel quadro delle riforme attribuite a Solone, infine, autorizza a difenderne la storicità e a propendere per il carattere genuino dell’attribuzione all’antico legislatore. (shrink)

Many of Menander's comedies are structured according to a rape plot pattern in which a young Athenian citizen usually rapes and impregnates a female citizen prior to the opening of the play. In most cases, the rape leads to a happy ending: the marriage of the rapist and victim. This casual treatment of rape is striking because in all other respects Menander's plays are not only scrupulously faithful to Athenian law, they also use Athenian legal and social norms as their (...) own generic conventions. Although the rape of a female citizen was a serious oense in Athenian law, potentially punishable with death, and a flagrant violation of the norms of Athenian citizenship, Menandrian comedy never morally or legally problematizes rape. This study considers how the comedies neutralize the potential legal signicance of rape and what this tells us about Athenian law and the ideology of democratic citizenship. It argues that by portraying a neutral form of rape, Menander's comedies implicitly articulate those factors which had the potential to bring "rape" within the purview of Athenian legal discourse. Menandrian Comedy's strategic fidelity to the norms of Athenian citizenship also tells us something about the gender ideology of Athenian democratic citizenship, that is, the ways in which relations between the sexes support and sustain civic relations between men in Athenian political culture and democratic ideology. While Menander's romantic plots uphold the laws of citizen marriage, they do not passively enact the legal constructs. In one common variant of the rape plot, the gendered construction of citizenship embedded in Athenian law is specically conjoined to democratic norms. In this type of play, a wealthy young citizen rapes and eventually marries the daughter of a seemingly poor citizen. By using rape to generate matrimonial unions between the rich and the poor, these plays extend democratic norms into the social arena. The formation of marriages across class lines disrupts the eects of intergenerationality in reproducing social and economic inequalities. (shrink)

While the concept of internationalization plays a key role in contemporary discussions on the activities and outcomes sought by universities, it is commonly argued that it is poorly understood or realised in practice. This has led some to argue that more work is needed to define the dimensions of the concept, or even to plot out stages of its achievement. This paper aims not to provide a definition of internationalisation for those working in higher education. On the contrary, it seeks (...) to open up discussion on internationalisation by considering Derrida's reflections on hospitality and the metaphysics of presence. In so doing, it will be shown that internationalisation is an ethical demand that is as much about being unsettled by thinking about ourselves and others, as it is about mobility programs and online education, and about being ‘late’ rather than surrendering to the space‐time compression of modernity. (shrink)

Following the idea first expressed by Heinrich Swoboda, there is a general perception that the meaning of ἀτιμία in Athens eventually evolved from the original ‘outlawry’, when an ἄτιμος was liable to being deprived of his property and slayed with impunity if he returned to the land from which he had been banished, into a certain limitation on civic status, which has often been rendered as a ‘disfranchisement’. Specific outcomes of this later form of ἀτιμία varied depending on the dating (...) and circumstances of individual cases, thereby giving rise to theories of a so-called full – or ‘total’ – and partial ἀτιμία. Still, whether it was viewed as ‘full’ or ‘partial’, this ἀτιμία did not inflict the death penalty. The precise dating of the transformation of ἀτιμία has also been debated, with opinions ranging from pre-Solonian times (L'Homme-Wéry) to the late sixth (Swoboda, Hansen, Manville) or the late fifth century (Scafuro). While the exact dating is unknown, this transformation was definitely over in the fifth century, when inscriptions and literary texts mentioned punishment by ἀτιμία alongside the death penalty and the confiscation of property. Thus, according to Raphael Sealey, ἀτιμία evolved ‘from a more severe to a milder sense’, and Alick R.W. Harrison pointed to the evidence that, by the fourth century, any willing Athenian could seize an ἄτιμος who happened to be in Athenian territory and surrender him to the θεσμοθέται, instead of killing him. (shrink)

In Aeschylus' "Supplices" the Danaids flee their cousins and take refuge at Argos. Scholars have noted similarities between the Argos of the play and contemporary Athens. Yet one such correspondence has generally been overlooked: the Danaids are awarded sanctuary in terms reflecting mid fifth-century Athenian μετοιϰία, a process providing for the partial incorporation of non-citizens into polis life. Danaus and his daughters are of Argive ancestry and take up residence within the city, yet do not become citizens. Instead, they receive (...) the right μετοιϰεῖν τῆσδε γῆς . As metics they retain control of their person and property, and are not liable to seizure by another. They are not permitted to own immovable property , but receive rent-free lodgings. Pelasgus and the other Argive citizens serve as their citizen representative . Casting the Danaids as metics highlights the similarities between Pelasgus and his predecessor, Apis. Both leaders were confronted by violent strangers demanding to live among the Argives, and sought to protect the autochthony and territory of Argos. Yet as suppliants the Danaids cannot be forcibly expelled. Pelasgus' solution is a grant of μετοιϰία approved by the Argive assembly. The emergence of μετοιϰία as a formal status at Athens is difficult to date. Most scholars place it between the reforms of Cleisthenes and Pericles' citizenship law . The "Supplices" provides evidence for a date in the 460s, and functions as a charter myth legitimizing μετοιϰία, much the way the Eumenides does for the Areopagus. The "Supplices" also fits well within the context of immigration and urban development leading to Pericles' law. The fact that the Danaid trilogy won first prize may be due to the Athenians' empathy for Argos as a risk-taking polis committed both to defending its identity and to acknowledging divinely sanctioned claims to refuge. (shrink)

According to classical and postclassical sources, the early Greek turannoi were, by definition, illegitimate rulers who overturned existing political arrangements and installed rogue monarchic regimes in their place. And on this one fundamental point at least, modern observers of archaic turannides seem to have little quarrel with their ancient informants. To this day, it remains axiomatic that Cypselus, Peisistratus, and the rest were autocrats who gained power by usurpation. Whatever their individual accomplishments, they were still, in a word, "tyrants." Relying (...) mostly on evidence from the contemporary literary and material records, my paper aims to challenge this time-honored conventional wisdom and restore the first turannoi to the political mainstream. (shrink)