Sean Alexander Gurd
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199837519
- eISBN:
- 9780199919505
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199837519.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book offers an in-depth study of the role of literary revision in the compositional practices and strategies of self-representation among Roman authors at the end of the republic and the ...
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This book offers an in-depth study of the role of literary revision in the compositional practices and strategies of self-representation among Roman authors at the end of the republic and the beginning of the principate. It focuses on Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Martial, and Pliny the Younger, but also offers discussions of earlier Greek material, including Isocrates, Plato, and Hellenistic poetry. The book argues that revision made textuality into a medium of social exchange. Revisions were not always made by authors working alone; often, they were the result of conversations between an author and friends or literary contacts, and these conversations exemplified a commitment to collective debate and active collaboration. Revision was thus much more than an unavoidable element in literary genesis: it was one way in which authorship became a form of social agency. Consequently, when we think about revision for authors of the late republic and early empire we should not think solely of painstaking attendance to craft aimed exclusively at the perfection of a literary work. Nor should we think of the resulting texts as closed and invariant statements sent from an author to his reader. So long as an author was still willing to revise, his text served as a temporary platform around and in which a community came into being. Much more was at stake than the text itself: like all communities, such textual communities were subject to imbalances and differentiation in taste, ideology, capability and willingness to participate, and above all power, the ability to propose and enforce a specific set of textual choices.Less
This book offers an in-depth study of the role of literary revision in the compositional practices and strategies of self-representation among Roman authors at the end of the republic and the beginning of the principate. It focuses on Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, Martial, and Pliny the Younger, but also offers discussions of earlier Greek material, including Isocrates, Plato, and Hellenistic poetry. The book argues that revision made textuality into a medium of social exchange. Revisions were not always made by authors working alone; often, they were the result of conversations between an author and friends or literary contacts, and these conversations exemplified a commitment to collective debate and active collaboration. Revision was thus much more than an unavoidable element in literary genesis: it was one way in which authorship became a form of social agency. Consequently, when we think about revision for authors of the late republic and early empire we should not think solely of painstaking attendance to craft aimed exclusively at the perfection of a literary work. Nor should we think of the resulting texts as closed and invariant statements sent from an author to his reader. So long as an author was still willing to revise, his text served as a temporary platform around and in which a community came into being. Much more was at stake than the text itself: like all communities, such textual communities were subject to imbalances and differentiation in taste, ideology, capability and willingness to participate, and above all power, the ability to propose and enforce a specific set of textual choices.
Andreas Osiander
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198294511
- eISBN:
- 9780191717048
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198294511.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Following an analysis of the economic and ecological bases of society in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world, this chapter studies how and why the pre-Persian Greek pólis-world evolved — charting ...
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Following an analysis of the economic and ecological bases of society in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world, this chapter studies how and why the pre-Persian Greek pólis-world evolved — charting the rise of Athens, the rise of Persian Greek kingship, then the rise of Rome and the gradual absorption of the entire Mediterranean region into the Roman empire. It discusses what pre-Christian Greek and Roman authors — such as Plátôn (Plato), Aristotle, Isokrátês (Isocrates), Polýbios (Polybius), Sallust, Seneca, and Tacitus — had to say on the mutual relations of autonomous actors in the Mediterranean world. A special section is dedicated to an analysis of Thukydídês (Thucydides), showing that contrary to received wisdom he was far from an ancestor of Realist International Relations thought. In particular, he did not believe and never said that the ‘Peloponnesian War’ broke out because of a shift in the ‘balance of power’.Less
Following an analysis of the economic and ecological bases of society in the pre-Christian Mediterranean world, this chapter studies how and why the pre-Persian Greek pólis-world evolved — charting the rise of Athens, the rise of Persian Greek kingship, then the rise of Rome and the gradual absorption of the entire Mediterranean region into the Roman empire. It discusses what pre-Christian Greek and Roman authors — such as Plátôn (Plato), Aristotle, Isokrátês (Isocrates), Polýbios (Polybius), Sallust, Seneca, and Tacitus — had to say on the mutual relations of autonomous actors in the Mediterranean world. A special section is dedicated to an analysis of Thukydídês (Thucydides), showing that contrary to received wisdom he was far from an ancestor of Realist International Relations thought. In particular, he did not believe and never said that the ‘Peloponnesian War’ broke out because of a shift in the ‘balance of power’.
Alfonso Moreno
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199228409
- eISBN:
- 9780191711312
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228409.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This study shows how Classical Athens, the largest and historically most important of the Greek city‐states, depended for its survival on a supply of grain from overseas sources, especially (in the ...
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This study shows how Classical Athens, the largest and historically most important of the Greek city‐states, depended for its survival on a supply of grain from overseas sources, especially (in the fifth century bc) the conquered territories of its Aegean empire, and (in the fourth century) the distant steppes of Scythia (modern Ukraine and southern Russia). This trade was central to Athenian politics, and is here found to have been organized and controlled by powerful elites, a conclusion that challenges prevailing interpretations of Athenian democracy. New light is also cast on the nature of Athenian imperialism; the relationship of the city of Athens and its countryside; the relevance to the Athenian economy of fourth‐century rhetorical and philosophical schools (particularly that of Isocrates) and other elite networks; and the history of the Bosporan Kingdom in the northern Black Sea. A wealth of ancient textual evidence (from history, oratory, and drama) is presented alongside archaeology, aerial photography, epigraphy, and iconography. Revolutionary new discoveries, like the Grain‐Tax Law of 374/3 bc, and the vast building complexes lining the Crimean coast of the Azov Sea, are discussed comprehensively with older evidence, like the golden treasures from Graeco‐Scythian graves. Decades of foreign scholarship and discovery (especially in Russian) are synthesized and made accessible to English readers. Moving from the edges of the Greek world, to the islands of the Aegean, to the prosperous demes of Attica and the courtrooms and popular assemblies of Athens, this book presents a sweeping reinterpretation of Athenian economy and society.Less
This study shows how Classical Athens, the largest and historically most important of the Greek city‐states, depended for its survival on a supply of grain from overseas sources, especially (in the fifth century bc) the conquered territories of its Aegean empire, and (in the fourth century) the distant steppes of Scythia (modern Ukraine and southern Russia). This trade was central to Athenian politics, and is here found to have been organized and controlled by powerful elites, a conclusion that challenges prevailing interpretations of Athenian democracy. New light is also cast on the nature of Athenian imperialism; the relationship of the city of Athens and its countryside; the relevance to the Athenian economy of fourth‐century rhetorical and philosophical schools (particularly that of Isocrates) and other elite networks; and the history of the Bosporan Kingdom in the northern Black Sea. A wealth of ancient textual evidence (from history, oratory, and drama) is presented alongside archaeology, aerial photography, epigraphy, and iconography. Revolutionary new discoveries, like the Grain‐Tax Law of 374/3 bc, and the vast building complexes lining the Crimean coast of the Azov Sea, are discussed comprehensively with older evidence, like the golden treasures from Graeco‐Scythian graves. Decades of foreign scholarship and discovery (especially in Russian) are synthesized and made accessible to English readers. Moving from the edges of the Greek world, to the islands of the Aegean, to the prosperous demes of Attica and the courtrooms and popular assemblies of Athens, this book presents a sweeping reinterpretation of Athenian economy and society.
Katherine Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199291083
- eISBN:
- 9780191710582
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199291083.003.0005
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter focuses on a different form of evidence for the creation of the Athenian past, namely its public oratory. Through the public speeches of Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Isocrates, as well as ...
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This chapter focuses on a different form of evidence for the creation of the Athenian past, namely its public oratory. Through the public speeches of Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Isocrates, as well as of fragmentary texts, it examines the parameters of plausibility within which the orator was free to construct history, both buying into a commonly shared past and moulding that past for his audience. It considers whether orators favoured particular exemplary moments in history and, if so, whether these were the same as those which were dominant in local historiography. The orator, like the historian or the dramatist, played a vital role in helping the polis to formulate a past which was relevant to the present through its inclusion both of exemplary figures and events and of characteristics, which remained constant across time.Less
This chapter focuses on a different form of evidence for the creation of the Athenian past, namely its public oratory. Through the public speeches of Demosthenes, Aeschines, and Isocrates, as well as of fragmentary texts, it examines the parameters of plausibility within which the orator was free to construct history, both buying into a commonly shared past and moulding that past for his audience. It considers whether orators favoured particular exemplary moments in history and, if so, whether these were the same as those which were dominant in local historiography. The orator, like the historian or the dramatist, played a vital role in helping the polis to formulate a past which was relevant to the present through its inclusion both of exemplary figures and events and of characteristics, which remained constant across time.
Stephen Ruzicka
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199766628
- eISBN:
- 9780199932719
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199766628.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Asian and Middle Eastern History: BCE to 500CE, World History: BCE to 500CE
The first fourth-century Persian attack on Egypt most likely took place in 390/89–388/7. Security arrangements, in place by 391/0, involved use of Athens’ new fleet to deter any Spartan initiative in ...
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The first fourth-century Persian attack on Egypt most likely took place in 390/89–388/7. Security arrangements, in place by 391/0, involved use of Athens’ new fleet to deter any Spartan initiative in the west and installation on Cyprus of a force under Hecatomnus, the native satrap of Caria, to secure Cyprus and safeguard staging areas in Phoenicia. Despite lengthy preparations and the presence of experienced Persian generals, there is no evidence of any significant Persian-Egyptian battles in Egypt. This is best explained by noting that the Egyptian king, Acoris, faced with a usurper who had gained control of Upper Egypt and Memphis, dared not lose troops in battle and avoided engagement. The Persians, in turn, aware of the debilitating political situation, simply waited in the expectation that internal Egyptian discord would allow them to regain control of Egypt without fighting.Less
The first fourth-century Persian attack on Egypt most likely took place in 390/89–388/7. Security arrangements, in place by 391/0, involved use of Athens’ new fleet to deter any Spartan initiative in the west and installation on Cyprus of a force under Hecatomnus, the native satrap of Caria, to secure Cyprus and safeguard staging areas in Phoenicia. Despite lengthy preparations and the presence of experienced Persian generals, there is no evidence of any significant Persian-Egyptian battles in Egypt. This is best explained by noting that the Egyptian king, Acoris, faced with a usurper who had gained control of Upper Egypt and Memphis, dared not lose troops in battle and avoided engagement. The Persians, in turn, aware of the debilitating political situation, simply waited in the expectation that internal Egyptian discord would allow them to regain control of Egypt without fighting.
Alfonso Moreno
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199228409
- eISBN:
- 9780191711312
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228409.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter examines the role of the Black Sea as a source of grain for the Aegean Greek world, and particularly for Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries. It is argued that the beginning of ...
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This chapter examines the role of the Black Sea as a source of grain for the Aegean Greek world, and particularly for Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries. It is argued that the beginning of Athens' reliance on the Black Sea as more than a lucrative and strategic asset, and ultimately as the systematic source of most of its imported grain, first began near the end of the Peloponnesian War, with the collapse of Athens' Aegean empire. For most of the fourth century Athens and the Bosporan (Spartocid) Kingdom were bound in a tight social and economic relationship largely designed and determined by the mutual interests of their elites. Archaeological evidence and the iconography of Graeco‐Scythian art illustrate this interdependence. The “school” of the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates is argued to have been the crucial network along which this elite relationship functioned culturally and politically.Less
This chapter examines the role of the Black Sea as a source of grain for the Aegean Greek world, and particularly for Athens, in the fifth and fourth centuries. It is argued that the beginning of Athens' reliance on the Black Sea as more than a lucrative and strategic asset, and ultimately as the systematic source of most of its imported grain, first began near the end of the Peloponnesian War, with the collapse of Athens' Aegean empire. For most of the fourth century Athens and the Bosporan (Spartocid) Kingdom were bound in a tight social and economic relationship largely designed and determined by the mutual interests of their elites. Archaeological evidence and the iconography of Graeco‐Scythian art illustrate this interdependence. The “school” of the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates is argued to have been the crucial network along which this elite relationship functioned culturally and politically.
Brian Vickers
- Published in print:
- 1989
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198117919
- eISBN:
- 9780191671128
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198117919.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter shows that Plato's travesty of rhetoric influenced Kant, Croce, and continues to influence a majority of classicists and philosophers today. The chapter attempts to validate the ...
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This chapter shows that Plato's travesty of rhetoric influenced Kant, Croce, and continues to influence a majority of classicists and philosophers today. The chapter attempts to validate the Sophists, whose reputation has never recovered from the drubbing Plato gave it, drawing on Eric Havelock's sympathetic account of Protagoras, and making an evaluation of Isocrates. It appears that their school, with its conception of rhetoric as public debate in a society guaranteeing free speech — a debate in which both sides of the case are heard and those qualified to vote come to a decision binding on all parties — has much more to offer us than Plato's equation of it with cosmetics, cookery, and other more disreputable arts designed, according to him, to satisfy base pleasures rather than promote knowledge.Less
This chapter shows that Plato's travesty of rhetoric influenced Kant, Croce, and continues to influence a majority of classicists and philosophers today. The chapter attempts to validate the Sophists, whose reputation has never recovered from the drubbing Plato gave it, drawing on Eric Havelock's sympathetic account of Protagoras, and making an evaluation of Isocrates. It appears that their school, with its conception of rhetoric as public debate in a society guaranteeing free speech — a debate in which both sides of the case are heard and those qualified to vote come to a decision binding on all parties — has much more to offer us than Plato's equation of it with cosmetics, cookery, and other more disreputable arts designed, according to him, to satisfy base pleasures rather than promote knowledge.
Stephen Halliwell
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199570560
- eISBN:
- 9780191738753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570560.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter considers three prose-writers each of whom, in his own way, evaluates poetry in relation to prose. Gorgias' Helen, itself a kind of prose-poem, makes poetry fully part of a larger realm ...
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This chapter considers three prose-writers each of whom, in his own way, evaluates poetry in relation to prose. Gorgias' Helen, itself a kind of prose-poem, makes poetry fully part of a larger realm of discourse, logos. The capacity of logos in all its forms embraces both truth and deception; contrary to a prevailing line of interpretation, it is argued that Gorgias' conception of language does not collapse into a version of psychological relativism. Isocrates' more muted attitude to poetry, including his downgrading of its imaginative and emotional powers, is interpreted as a reflection of his own priorities of pragmatic utility. Finally, an analysis of the contentious views of Philodemus diagnoses in them an imperfectly realized desire to negotiate a path between moralism and formalism and also to separate the value of poetry definitively from that of prose.Less
This chapter considers three prose-writers each of whom, in his own way, evaluates poetry in relation to prose. Gorgias' Helen, itself a kind of prose-poem, makes poetry fully part of a larger realm of discourse, logos. The capacity of logos in all its forms embraces both truth and deception; contrary to a prevailing line of interpretation, it is argued that Gorgias' conception of language does not collapse into a version of psychological relativism. Isocrates' more muted attitude to poetry, including his downgrading of its imaginative and emotional powers, is interpreted as a reflection of his own priorities of pragmatic utility. Finally, an analysis of the contentious views of Philodemus diagnoses in them an imperfectly realized desire to negotiate a path between moralism and formalism and also to separate the value of poetry definitively from that of prose.
Sean Alexander Gurd
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199837519
- eISBN:
- 9780199919505
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199837519.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The oldest and the most long-standing way to think about literary revision in classical antiquity was to see it as a teaching tool whose goal was to create what Pierre Bourdieu called a habitus, that ...
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The oldest and the most long-standing way to think about literary revision in classical antiquity was to see it as a teaching tool whose goal was to create what Pierre Bourdieu called a habitus, that is, a set of skills and expectations regulating social performance. In Isocrates, in Plato, and much later in Quintilian, the practice of revision created subjects capable of giving advice, pursuing philosophical dialogue, and engaging in oratorical debate. The primary aim of revision for these authors was to teach specific cognitive skills; these skills were like revision but occurred mentally. The practice of literary revision was thus a way of training thought or producing selves.Less
The oldest and the most long-standing way to think about literary revision in classical antiquity was to see it as a teaching tool whose goal was to create what Pierre Bourdieu called a habitus, that is, a set of skills and expectations regulating social performance. In Isocrates, in Plato, and much later in Quintilian, the practice of revision created subjects capable of giving advice, pursuing philosophical dialogue, and engaging in oratorical debate. The primary aim of revision for these authors was to teach specific cognitive skills; these skills were like revision but occurred mentally. The practice of literary revision was thus a way of training thought or producing selves.
Daniel S. Richter
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199772681
- eISBN:
- 9780199895083
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199772681.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Post classical rhetoricians applied and adapted philosophical and scientific ideas about the nature of the human soul and the human community to describe the world as they saw it and wanted it to be. ...
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Post classical rhetoricians applied and adapted philosophical and scientific ideas about the nature of the human soul and the human community to describe the world as they saw it and wanted it to be. This chapter explores the tension between the desire to order experience into tidy dyads and the need to confront the multiplicity and variability of an ever-expanding and diversifying world. In doing so, this chapter turns from philosophy to rhetoric. While the Hellenistic and Roman Stoa turned away, for the most part, from the dyadic classification of the world into Greek and barbarian, post-classical public speech tended to preserve classical notions of “us” and “them.” The question is, what happens to mutually exclusive and all-encompassing divisions of the human community in the increasingly plural and fluid Mediterranean? It is true that peoples had been criss-crossing the Mediterranean for millennia prior to the fifth-century BCE and that cultural exchange had long defined Mediterranean as well as Near Eastern and North African history. What is of interest here is a moment at which certain intellectuals in Athens came to rethink the meaning of these movements in an effort to define lines between insiders and outsiders.Less
Post classical rhetoricians applied and adapted philosophical and scientific ideas about the nature of the human soul and the human community to describe the world as they saw it and wanted it to be. This chapter explores the tension between the desire to order experience into tidy dyads and the need to confront the multiplicity and variability of an ever-expanding and diversifying world. In doing so, this chapter turns from philosophy to rhetoric. While the Hellenistic and Roman Stoa turned away, for the most part, from the dyadic classification of the world into Greek and barbarian, post-classical public speech tended to preserve classical notions of “us” and “them.” The question is, what happens to mutually exclusive and all-encompassing divisions of the human community in the increasingly plural and fluid Mediterranean? It is true that peoples had been criss-crossing the Mediterranean for millennia prior to the fifth-century BCE and that cultural exchange had long defined Mediterranean as well as Near Eastern and North African history. What is of interest here is a moment at which certain intellectuals in Athens came to rethink the meaning of these movements in an effort to define lines between insiders and outsiders.
Elaine Fantham
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199263158
- eISBN:
- 9780191718892
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199263158.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues that Cicero accepted Isocrates' prescription of imitation as a necessary component in the orator's training. It is evidence of the development in thinking since the 4th century ...
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This chapter argues that Cicero accepted Isocrates' prescription of imitation as a necessary component in the orator's training. It is evidence of the development in thinking since the 4th century that what Isocrates assumed as part of the young orator's basic training has come to be a delayed but deliberate decision by or for the mature orator, who being mature has also the judgement to focus his choice where his natural talents lead him: with these modifications stylistic imitation should certainly be included in the account of the rhetorical training practised by Cicero's teachers and contemporaries at Rome.Less
This chapter argues that Cicero accepted Isocrates' prescription of imitation as a necessary component in the orator's training. It is evidence of the development in thinking since the 4th century that what Isocrates assumed as part of the young orator's basic training has come to be a delayed but deliberate decision by or for the mature orator, who being mature has also the judgement to focus his choice where his natural talents lead him: with these modifications stylistic imitation should certainly be included in the account of the rhetorical training practised by Cicero's teachers and contemporaries at Rome.
Sarah Broadie
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199639984
- eISBN:
- 9780191743337
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199639984.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter continues the discussion of Cambiano's on A 1, since Aristotle's chapters A 1-2 are evidently a continuous introduction. The problem of what exactly it is an introduction to, i.e. the ...
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This chapter continues the discussion of Cambiano's on A 1, since Aristotle's chapters A 1-2 are evidently a continuous introduction. The problem of what exactly it is an introduction to, i.e. the perennial question of the unity and diversity of Aristotle's metaphysical treatises, is considered here, although necessarily only in outline. It is also argued that, contrary to some scholarly opinions, this introduction should not be regarded as a protreptic to philosophy as such, i.e. as belonging to the genre of Aristotle's Protrepticus. Whereas that genre aims to promote the pursuit of sophia as a way of life, hence as ultimately an ethical choice or determination of the highest human good, the present text (it is argued) is meant to establish the nature of the highest or most paradigmatic form of cognition as such, leaving aside the question of ranking this in relation to other possible candidates for the highest good overall.Less
This chapter continues the discussion of Cambiano's on A 1, since Aristotle's chapters A 1-2 are evidently a continuous introduction. The problem of what exactly it is an introduction to, i.e. the perennial question of the unity and diversity of Aristotle's metaphysical treatises, is considered here, although necessarily only in outline. It is also argued that, contrary to some scholarly opinions, this introduction should not be regarded as a protreptic to philosophy as such, i.e. as belonging to the genre of Aristotle's Protrepticus. Whereas that genre aims to promote the pursuit of sophia as a way of life, hence as ultimately an ethical choice or determination of the highest human good, the present text (it is argued) is meant to establish the nature of the highest or most paradigmatic form of cognition as such, leaving aside the question of ranking this in relation to other possible candidates for the highest good overall.
Sławomir Sprawski
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748621255
- eISBN:
- 9780748651047
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748621255.003.0036
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
A book on Greek tyranny should not lack a chapter on Alexander of Pherae, a man who was remembered throughout antiquity as one of the most ferocious and wicked tyrants. The longest description of ...
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A book on Greek tyranny should not lack a chapter on Alexander of Pherae, a man who was remembered throughout antiquity as one of the most ferocious and wicked tyrants. The longest description of Alexander can be found in Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas, in which he was depicted as an incurably brutish man, full of savagery, strong sexual desire, and cruelty. Plutarch reports that the death Alexander suffered at the hands of his wife was the only or the first such case among the tyrants. This chapter re-examines the reputation of Alexander of Pherae among Greek authors as an archetypally wicked tyrant, showing that his military successes and the good opinion of Isocrates indicate that his support must have been wider than the histories suggest. Although opposition from within and outside Thessaly reduced his chances of building a popular tageia of the kind that Jason had, Alexander should still be credited with political vision and aims beyond personal power.Less
A book on Greek tyranny should not lack a chapter on Alexander of Pherae, a man who was remembered throughout antiquity as one of the most ferocious and wicked tyrants. The longest description of Alexander can be found in Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas, in which he was depicted as an incurably brutish man, full of savagery, strong sexual desire, and cruelty. Plutarch reports that the death Alexander suffered at the hands of his wife was the only or the first such case among the tyrants. This chapter re-examines the reputation of Alexander of Pherae among Greek authors as an archetypally wicked tyrant, showing that his military successes and the good opinion of Isocrates indicate that his support must have been wider than the histories suggest. Although opposition from within and outside Thessaly reduced his chances of building a popular tageia of the kind that Jason had, Alexander should still be credited with political vision and aims beyond personal power.
James Henderson Collins
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199358595
- eISBN:
- 9780199358618
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199358595.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
In fourth-century BCE Athens, the first professional philosophers developed different strategies to market their respective disciplines. Using different genres and discourses, they forged the ...
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In fourth-century BCE Athens, the first professional philosophers developed different strategies to market their respective disciplines. Using different genres and discourses, they forged the emerging genre of the “protreptic” (which means, literally, “turning or converting someone to a specific end”). Simply put, protreptic discourses use a “rhetoric of conversion” that urges a young person to adopt a specific philosophy among many in order to live a truly good life. This book argues that the fourth-century philosophers Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle used protreptic discourse to market philosophical practices and to define and legitimize a new cultural institution: the school of higher learning—the first in Western history. Specifically, the book investigates how competing educators in the fourth century produced protreptic discourses by borrowing and transforming traditional and contemporary “voices” in the cultural marketplace, including those of their competitors, who were similarly engaged in constructing “philosophy.” Each philosopher uniquely appropriated and transformed the discourse of his competitors into literary texts that introduced his respective discipline to potential students. This book locates in their historical context arguments about and representations of what constitutes a good life, why one should pursue such a thing, and how and with whom one should proceed. It develops a unique, interdisciplinary approach that draws on philosophy, history, literary studies, and performance theory.Less
In fourth-century BCE Athens, the first professional philosophers developed different strategies to market their respective disciplines. Using different genres and discourses, they forged the emerging genre of the “protreptic” (which means, literally, “turning or converting someone to a specific end”). Simply put, protreptic discourses use a “rhetoric of conversion” that urges a young person to adopt a specific philosophy among many in order to live a truly good life. This book argues that the fourth-century philosophers Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle used protreptic discourse to market philosophical practices and to define and legitimize a new cultural institution: the school of higher learning—the first in Western history. Specifically, the book investigates how competing educators in the fourth century produced protreptic discourses by borrowing and transforming traditional and contemporary “voices” in the cultural marketplace, including those of their competitors, who were similarly engaged in constructing “philosophy.” Each philosopher uniquely appropriated and transformed the discourse of his competitors into literary texts that introduced his respective discipline to potential students. This book locates in their historical context arguments about and representations of what constitutes a good life, why one should pursue such a thing, and how and with whom one should proceed. It develops a unique, interdisciplinary approach that draws on philosophy, history, literary studies, and performance theory.
Christopher Moore
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691195056
- eISBN:
- 9780691197425
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691195056.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter addresses non-academic uses of philosophia in the fourth century BCE, which provides the background against which one can understand Heraclides' use of the term. It shows how philosophia ...
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This chapter addresses non-academic uses of philosophia in the fourth century BCE, which provides the background against which one can understand Heraclides' use of the term. It shows how philosophia became a discipline in Plato's Academy only by understanding how the term philosophia was being used elsewhere. The key context comes from the educators Alcidamas, Isocrates, and the author of the Dissoi Logoi. The chapter shows that there is less reason to say that these educators competed over “ownership” of the term philosophos (even if at times they may have) or its true and universal meaning than that they gave varying retrospective reconstructions of the term's usage, differing, for example, in the relative emphases they give to practical teaching over the defensibility of research outcomes. To the extent that the academic view of philosophia “won,” this is not because that view was truer or more convincing, but because the Academy instigated a continued discipline that called itself philosophia more than Alcidamas or Isocrates did, neither of whom appear to have had success or interest in developing the sort of well-populated discipline crucial for maintaining a name.Less
This chapter addresses non-academic uses of philosophia in the fourth century BCE, which provides the background against which one can understand Heraclides' use of the term. It shows how philosophia became a discipline in Plato's Academy only by understanding how the term philosophia was being used elsewhere. The key context comes from the educators Alcidamas, Isocrates, and the author of the Dissoi Logoi. The chapter shows that there is less reason to say that these educators competed over “ownership” of the term philosophos (even if at times they may have) or its true and universal meaning than that they gave varying retrospective reconstructions of the term's usage, differing, for example, in the relative emphases they give to practical teaching over the defensibility of research outcomes. To the extent that the academic view of philosophia “won,” this is not because that view was truer or more convincing, but because the Academy instigated a continued discipline that called itself philosophia more than Alcidamas or Isocrates did, neither of whom appear to have had success or interest in developing the sort of well-populated discipline crucial for maintaining a name.
Ruby Blondell
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199731602
- eISBN:
- 9780199344956
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199731602.003.0011
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter concerns the encomium of Helen of Troy by the fourth-century rhetorician and educator Isocrates. Isocrates gives Helen’s beauty a value that is symbolic and transcendent, in order to ...
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This chapter concerns the encomium of Helen of Troy by the fourth-century rhetorician and educator Isocrates. Isocrates gives Helen’s beauty a value that is symbolic and transcendent, in order to make her, via the Trojan War, both an emblem of Panhellenic masculine achievement and a totemic symbol of Greece itself. He also introduces Theseus, Helen’s first abductor, to provide a mythic foundation for the Athenian hegemony characterizing his particular brand of Panhellenism. In order to make Helen a worthy emblem of Hellenic manhood the heroes’ desire for her is de-eroticized, their passion transferred to glorious combat, thus saving them from emasculation. Treating Helen as a figure for beauty as such, rather than an erotically compelling woman, also allows Isocrates to draw on homoerotic paradigms of heroic male glory. These strategies result, however, in a lack of serious attention to Helen herself. She becomes an untainted symbol of heroic glory at the cost of trivialization.Less
This chapter concerns the encomium of Helen of Troy by the fourth-century rhetorician and educator Isocrates. Isocrates gives Helen’s beauty a value that is symbolic and transcendent, in order to make her, via the Trojan War, both an emblem of Panhellenic masculine achievement and a totemic symbol of Greece itself. He also introduces Theseus, Helen’s first abductor, to provide a mythic foundation for the Athenian hegemony characterizing his particular brand of Panhellenism. In order to make Helen a worthy emblem of Hellenic manhood the heroes’ desire for her is de-eroticized, their passion transferred to glorious combat, thus saving them from emasculation. Treating Helen as a figure for beauty as such, rather than an erotically compelling woman, also allows Isocrates to draw on homoerotic paradigms of heroic male glory. These strategies result, however, in a lack of serious attention to Helen herself. She becomes an untainted symbol of heroic glory at the cost of trivialization.
Paola Ceccarelli
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199675593
- eISBN:
- 9780191757174
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199675593.003.0006
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The sixth chapter pursues the analysis of the contrast between public speech and letter writing in political and forensic contexts through a discussion of the mention of letters in the speeches of ...
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The sixth chapter pursues the analysis of the contrast between public speech and letter writing in political and forensic contexts through a discussion of the mention of letters in the speeches of the Attic orators. Particular attention is given to the use made of letters in the political speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines. Finally, after a survey of the letters and documents embedded in Isocrates’ speeches, the chapter discusses the ‘epistolary speeches’ of Isocrates, and more generally the first treatises in epistolary form, with an attempt at teasing out the reasons for the choice of this extraordinarily successful form, and its implications.Less
The sixth chapter pursues the analysis of the contrast between public speech and letter writing in political and forensic contexts through a discussion of the mention of letters in the speeches of the Attic orators. Particular attention is given to the use made of letters in the political speeches of Demosthenes and Aeschines. Finally, after a survey of the letters and documents embedded in Isocrates’ speeches, the chapter discusses the ‘epistolary speeches’ of Isocrates, and more generally the first treatises in epistolary form, with an attempt at teasing out the reasons for the choice of this extraordinarily successful form, and its implications.
Irene J. F. de Jong
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748680108
- eISBN:
- 9780748697007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748680108.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
The anonymous traveller, a subtype of the anonymous focalizer, is a device used in modern fiction. His minimal form is the dative participle ('for someone sailing from the Propontis, there is on the ...
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The anonymous traveller, a subtype of the anonymous focalizer, is a device used in modern fiction. His minimal form is the dative participle ('for someone sailing from the Propontis, there is on the left side’), but in Flaubert and Stendhal the anonymous ‘one’ focalizes extended descriptions. He is often, though not always, hypothetical ('someone who saw this would think’). Although the anonymous traveller resembles the hypothetical ‘you', he is formally distinct. The anonymous traveller first appears in Homer and is found in a variety of authors, including Isocrates and Plato, but does not seem to be a device of non-Western literature. It is helpful to think of the anonymous traveller as a literary meme, cultural units transmitted by imitation, without conscious borrowing.Less
The anonymous traveller, a subtype of the anonymous focalizer, is a device used in modern fiction. His minimal form is the dative participle ('for someone sailing from the Propontis, there is on the left side’), but in Flaubert and Stendhal the anonymous ‘one’ focalizes extended descriptions. He is often, though not always, hypothetical ('someone who saw this would think’). Although the anonymous traveller resembles the hypothetical ‘you', he is formally distinct. The anonymous traveller first appears in Homer and is found in a variety of authors, including Isocrates and Plato, but does not seem to be a device of non-Western literature. It is helpful to think of the anonymous traveller as a literary meme, cultural units transmitted by imitation, without conscious borrowing.
Michael Naas
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823279678
- eISBN:
- 9780823281596
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823279678.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This chapter revisits Jacques Derrida’s 1968 essay “Plato’s Pharmacy” on Plato’s critique of writing in order to ask about the values of life and living presence in Plato and in two ...
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This chapter revisits Jacques Derrida’s 1968 essay “Plato’s Pharmacy” on Plato’s critique of writing in order to ask about the values of life and living presence in Plato and in two rhetoricians/sophists with whom Plato seems to be in dialogue throughout the Phaedrus as well as the Statesman, Isocrates and Alcidamas. It is argued that what is at issue between Alcidamas and Isocrates, on the one hand, and Plato, on the other, is not only the question of speech and writing, and the related questions of memory and repetition, but, once again, the question of life and the value of life. What is waged in the gigantomachia between the rhetoricians or sophists and Plato is a battle over two different values for life, life as force and the power to persuade, on the one hand, and life as truth or as the force of truth, on the other. What we thus see in all three thinkers is at once a fear of the power of the written word and an absolute fascination with it, a fear of this new technology called writing and a fascination with the transformation in the values of life that it at once threatened and promised.Less
This chapter revisits Jacques Derrida’s 1968 essay “Plato’s Pharmacy” on Plato’s critique of writing in order to ask about the values of life and living presence in Plato and in two rhetoricians/sophists with whom Plato seems to be in dialogue throughout the Phaedrus as well as the Statesman, Isocrates and Alcidamas. It is argued that what is at issue between Alcidamas and Isocrates, on the one hand, and Plato, on the other, is not only the question of speech and writing, and the related questions of memory and repetition, but, once again, the question of life and the value of life. What is waged in the gigantomachia between the rhetoricians or sophists and Plato is a battle over two different values for life, life as force and the power to persuade, on the one hand, and life as truth or as the force of truth, on the other. What we thus see in all three thinkers is at once a fear of the power of the written word and an absolute fascination with it, a fear of this new technology called writing and a fascination with the transformation in the values of life that it at once threatened and promised.
Sian Lewis
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781904675532
- eISBN:
- 9781781380550
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781904675532.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
This chapter examines the connections between three influential philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates – and tyranny. It considers the accuracy of accusations that philosophers were ...
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This chapter examines the connections between three influential philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates – and tyranny. It considers the accuracy of accusations that philosophers were pro-tyrannical: that they courted the favour of existing tyrants and encouraged the wealthy young men whom they taught to aspire to tyranny themselves. The chapter discusses how all three philosophers and their ideas come together in the figure of Clearchus of Heracleia, who stands at the intersection between philosophy, personal ambition and civil strife.Less
This chapter examines the connections between three influential philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, and Isocrates – and tyranny. It considers the accuracy of accusations that philosophers were pro-tyrannical: that they courted the favour of existing tyrants and encouraged the wealthy young men whom they taught to aspire to tyranny themselves. The chapter discusses how all three philosophers and their ideas come together in the figure of Clearchus of Heracleia, who stands at the intersection between philosophy, personal ambition and civil strife.