Search Results

The Conclusion argues that the origins of Athenian dependence on imported grain date to the reforms of Solon in the early sixth century. It was at this time that Athens discovered or adapted the cleruchy as a social and economic tool, that the Athenian elite became involved in leading the city's first imperialist adventures overseas, and that Attica began to specialize in the intensive cultivation of cash‐crops. The Athenian democracy led to the intensification of all of these trends, and to the creation of an ideological system, deployed in rhetoric, to mask the serious incongruities between popular and elite interests. A need for imported grain drove Athens at different times to depopulate neighboring Aegean landscapes in order to extract grain surpluses, or to enlist the help of foreign kings, acting as Athenian citizens and benefactors. A supply system of such ruthlessness, sophistication, and ambivalence lay at the heart of Athenian democracy.

Chapter 2 contained criticism of sensory hedonism. Chapter 6 contains a defense of attitudinal hedonism about happiness. According to this theory, the atoms of happiness are episodes in which a person takes attitudinal pleasure in some state of affairs. Principles about attitudinal pleasure are presented, emphasizing how it differs from sensory pleasure. Attitudinal Hedonism about Happiness is explained and defended. Many writers seem to assume that ‘happy’ in ordinary English is multiply ambiguous. In Appendix C some typical claims of ambiguity are reviewed. In fact, there is not much evidence to support the claim that ‘happy’ is ambiguous. It appears that in its central uses in ordinary English, ‘happy’ is vague, but fundamentally univocal. To say that a person is happy means—roughly—that he takes on balance more attitudinal pleasure than displeasure in things.

This essay begins with a discussion of the introduction of majority voting at Athens. It then attempts to prove that Solon's Nomothesia must be dated in the same year as his archonship. The eupatrid monopoly of the machinery of state, the Solonian Council of Four Hundred, and ‘sortition from pre-selected candidates’ are discussed.

By 1962, Antony Andrewes had developed a new theory of the famous Seisachtheia or ‘shaking off of burdens’ of Solon: according to Andrewes, what Aristotle saw as a cancellation of debts was the abolition of a traditional and long-standing state of dependency, that of the Hektemoroi or ‘sixth-part payers’. In 1962, Ste. Croix was invited by Andrewes to comment on a preliminary draft and he sent a long letter in reply; in 1968 Andrewes again consulted Ste. Croix and received a further long response. Edited extracts from the 1962 letter, followed by that of 1968 are presented.

If the justification of violence is the main characteristic of sovereignty, then how can sovereignty be analyzed? I argue that judgments about the justification of violence are characteristic of democratic practice.

This introductory chapter establishes the premise of the book with a brief example from the Solon. In the introduction to this biography, Plutarch explains that Solon, the Athenian lawgiver and democrat, had a younger cousin, Pisistratus, who later as tyrant of Athens would undo many of Solon's reforms. He also mentions that Solon had been erotically attracted to Pisistratus when his cousin was a young man, and that later, when Pisistratus was ruling and Solon was politically at odds with him, the ‘erotic memory’ created goodwill between them. It argues that Plutarch has employed erōs as a device for interpreting history by attributing the reconciliation of democrat and tyrant to their erotic affair.

This chapter argues that Bacchylides 15, which narrates part of the embassy of Menelaos and Odysseus to Troy, discusses matters of fundamental concern to the city of Athens through a twin engagement: through performance, with the cult of Athena; textually, with Homer and Solon, both poets regarded as Athenian cultural treasures at the time of Bacchylides' composition. Performative and textual engagements, taken together, opens the way for a more excursive exploration of issues relating to Athenian cult and performance culture, and the issue of the security of poleis that the poem addresses, by way of the implicit parallel drawn between Athens and Troy, the site of the poem's narrative.

This chapter argues that the Histories are founded on the principle of the instability of human fortune. Herodotus' words echo closely those of Solon to Croesus and of Amasis to Polycrates; the same themes are picked up in the very last chapter of the Histories (9. 122). It has been suggested the even Herodotus saw his own role as enquirer and narrator as analogous to that of the travelling sage Solon. At any rate, the Histories are deeply marked by Solonian ideas. Every reversal in the Histories, every demonstration of the rule of the mutability of fortune is also an illustration of the force of the divine to disturb human affairs.

This chapter examines the uses of the nomos family of words in the fundamental, for the Greeks, practice of mousikē. It examines the wider context of mousikē practices and the elements that comprise it, as well as the role of the Muses, harmonia, the mousikos nomos and the early law-givers.

This chapter focuses on the constitutional crisis of Athens and the reforms that followed it. After the collapse of democracy four distinct governments—three oligarchic and one democratic—rose and fell in the span of roughly a decade. As the Athenians responded to the failures of these governments, they came to identify, collectively, the basic features that a governmental structure had to display to command their consent. The process of consensus-building revolved around the notion of patrios politeia. The meaning of patrios politeia evolved during the struggles. If under the first oligarchic government the notion expressed a vague connection with Athens' past, by the end of the civil war, it became closely associated with the concept of legality, particularly as embodied by Athens' archaic lawgiver Solon. When the constitutional struggles came to an end, the consensus on Solonian legality inspired a set of reforms, which created a new self-enforcing democratic constitution. The reforms were self-enforcing in the sense that they made both the oligarchs and the democrats better off.

The homoerotic themes abound in Greek lyric poetry reflect an aristocratic culture in which homosexual relations were at home in the symposium, athletics, and even civic/religious ritual. The earliest surviving lyric poetry is by Archilochus. Archaic Greek lyric generally describes age-differential pederastic relations, although there is some evidence for relations or attractions among age-equal youths in Alcman, Theognis, and Pindar. Only one text seems unequivocally to describe attraction to a slave, but Anacreon's Cleobulus or Ibycus' Euryalus could also very well be slaves. Fragments from the poems by Archilochus, Alcman, Sappho, Solon, Anacreon, Ibycus, Theognis, Simonides, and Pindar are presented.

This chapter discusses the history of political and legal reform, mass revolution, and the reports of various people's governments in Greece during the archaic period. Its larger focus on Athens is influenced by the state of their evidence, meager in any case but more extensive for that city, and by Athens' importance in the history of democracy. Economic problems drove some dependent farmers to breaking point. Some were sold abroad into slavery. Solon's reforms also make clear that many non-Eupatrids were prospering, both at the highest economic levels and among “middling” residents of Attica. Greeks typically linked greater political status with greater wealth. It was difficult for prosperous non-Eupatrids to achieve such status under the oligarchy. The Eupatrids' oppressive domination extended well beyond economic injustice. In the same breath, Solon mentions their “love of money” and their “arrogance.”

This chapter discusses the basic structure of Athenian government. It also describes how it resembled the governments of other Greek city-states, and reviews the intricate relationship between “society” and “government” in ancient Athens. It first introduces a conservative reconstruction of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. Not long after the period of Solon's reforms, Athens fell under the control of the tyrant Peisistratus and his sons. The important trends that began under Peisistratus are reported. In addition, Athenian history in the classical period is elaborated upon. The Lamian War (323–322) ended in Athenian failure. In 322, classical Athenian democracy and independent Athenian government both ended.

This chapter examines the wide range of contexts in which oaths were used in the political life of Athens and other states, and also of leagues and alliances, in ancient Greece. It focuses on oaths sworn by jurors, litigants, and witnesses, and considers the use of oaths in leagues such as the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League. The chapter also discusses three different ways in which oaths were used at critical points in Athens to secure acceptance of Solon's laws as well as ensure commitment to democracy and reconciliation.

This paper concerns the problem of the authorship of Solon’s transmitted poems. Within an oral tradition many elegies and iambus circulated under the ‘authorial’ and authoritative name of Solon in Attic symposia until the emergence of a definitive writing redaction. We argue that the first transcription of Solon’s poems was made by aristocratic circles in the first half of the fifth century and we offer some hypotheses also about the redactor of a Solonian syllogê which was the base text for the circulation of Solon’s work until the Hellenistic period.

Chapter four continues tracing the institutional growth of chiropractic, with special consideration to the role of ideas and theories in building the profession. This chapter considers the years between 1903 and 1910, when D. D. and B. J. Palmer tried unsuccessfully to share power at the Palmer School of Chiropractic. As the number of practitioners grew, the Palmers benefitted from professional collaborations and also faced competition from past-colleagues who became rivals. One of the first and most bitter disputes was with Solon Langworthy and his associates at the American School of Chiropractic and Nature Cure. In their publication Backbone, the American School chiropractors credited themselves with the discovery of major aspects of chiropractic theory, including the concept of spinal subluxations that today are widely understood to cause pain and bodily illness. Although short-lived, the American School marked the beginning of a debate between “Straights” and “Mixers” about whether to allow chiropractors to incorporate other therapies.

Chapter two argues that the main characteristic of ancient sovereignty is that the end of power justices the means of the exercise of violence. This is examined in a wide range of texts from Ancient Greece to the early Christendom. It also outlines how the other of sovereignty, democracy, relies on a notion of participation that is opposed to the justification of the means by the ends of power.

This chapter argues that Ovid’s didactic elegy (Ars amatoria) should be studied in the tradition of the genre’s founding father, Hesiod. The relationship between law and didacticism is encoded already in Hesiod’s Works and Days and continues thereafter in Greek elegy (Theognis and Solon). Ovid is part of this tradition. The courtroom setting, to which Ovid has repeated recourse, reproduces the trial setting of the Works and Days. Not unlike Hesiod, Ovid aims at an out-of-court settlement in contrast with the litigiousness of corrupt lords. Hesiod and Solon cast themselves as champions of justice in a world dominated by unjust rulers. Subtly but clearly, this is how Ovid envisages the relationship between his poetry and the laws of Augustus. The Roman poet aligns himself with the old and authoritative voices of legendary bards and lawgivers in competition with powerful leaders who attempt to control the juridical order.

This chapter compares the ideologies of government of Plutarch and of Pliny the Younger, setting the former’s thinking on leadership alongside Pliny’s restrained praise of the emperor Trajan in his Panegyric as a means of illuminating common elements in their political thinking. Pliny hoped to influence both Trajan and future emperors by praise rather than admonition, holding up a description of a good emperor to use as a mirror to check one’s success at reflecting the model. He praises especially Trajan’s humanity, ease of access to senators, fairness, respect for fellow citizens and subjects, and restraint of ambition. All these virtues may be paralleled by examples from Plutarch’s Solon–Publicola pair, and Numa, and other works. He too provides a mirror of virtue for his readers.