POLISPub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340435
L.J.A. Klein
{"title":"Praxis as Property: the Concept of Justice in Plato’s Republic","authors":"L.J.A. Klein","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340435","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340435","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Scholarship on the Republic has tended to stress the centrality of the tripartite soul to the Republic’s conception of justice. Yet since Socrates’s task in the dialogue is to show the desirability of justice in the ordinary Athenian sense, any emphasis on idiosyncratic psychology would render his account of justice fundamentally beside the point. This paper suggests a way out of this dilemma. It argues that Platonic justice in the Republic represents a shrewd twist on the entirely conventional, distributive Athenian notion of justice as refraining from seizing for oneself what belongs to another. Plato’s twist is to substitute the performance of one’s own activity (<styled-content lang=\"el-Grek\" xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\" xmlns:ifp=\"http://www.ifactory.com/press\">πρᾶξις τα ἑαυτοῦ</styled-content>) for the possession of one’s household goods (<styled-content lang=\"el-Grek\" xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\" xmlns:ifp=\"http://www.ifactory.com/press\">ἕξις τα ἑαυτοῦ</styled-content>) as the proper object of justice. The paper then shows how this account of Platonic justice makes sense both textually and contextually, before concluding.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340434
Vladimir Gildin Zuckerman
{"title":"Political Performativity in Performance Culture: Xenophon’s Hipparchikos and the Dithyrambic Chorus","authors":"Vladimir Gildin Zuckerman","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340434","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340434","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines Xenophon’s suggestion for conducting cavalry displays in <em>Eq. mag</em>. 3 and develops the argument that the text is a significant document of Xenophon’s thought about political performativity as well as of 4th century Athenian political culture. I argue that one of Xenophon’s strategies to reform the relationship between the Athenian demos and the ideologically fraught elite institution of the cavalry was to conduct public displays that draw on the aesthetics and formal features of New Dithyramb. On the basis of my analysis, I argue that understanding political performances requires closer attention to specific audience expectations, aesthetic norms, and cultural power, and suggest that Xenophon was a political thinker and actor who was highly attentive to such issues in the Athenian context.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"2012 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881430","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340436
Stephen Oppong Peprah
{"title":"The Concept of Partnership in Book II of the Republic","authors":"Stephen Oppong Peprah","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340436","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article critically analyses the concept of ‘partnership’ (<em>koinōnia</em>) in Book <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">II</span> of the <em>Republic</em> (Pl. <em>Resp</em>. 369b–374e), a concept it believes grounds Plato’s political thesis. It attempts to determine the nature of the concept, explore the agential capacities of the partnering agents, identify the original and derivative rational principles that could emerge from it, and argue that these rational principles are also moral principles. Platonic social justice spells out one of the rational and moral principles that emerge from the partnership. In this regard, the paper aims to show, <em>inter alia</em>, the connection between Platonic partnership and social justice and how such connection helps to explain, for instance, the quality of relationship that could exist between the rulers and ruled in Kallipolis. Incidentally, the paper compares Platonic partnership in respect of his defence of justice with Glaucon’s contractarian moral thesis in connection with his pean for injustice.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340437
Mary Townsend
{"title":"Socratic Contempt for Wealth in Plato’s Republic","authors":"Mary Townsend","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340437","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the <em>Republic</em>, Plato’s Socrates argues that the wealthy feel contempt for the poor, and the poor feel hatred for the rich. But why is Socrates, leading a life of scandalous poverty, without taking wages for philosophical work, an exception to this rule? Instead of hatred, envy, or no emotion at all, Socrates consistently treats wealth and the wealthy with ridicule and <em>kataphronēsis</em> – active looking-down or contempt – while meditating on the temptation of the poor to appropriate the excess flesh of the wealthy (<em>Resp</em>. 556d). It is contempt that allows Socrates to remain free and wageless, away from the tempting distortion wealth has on the soul (<em>Resp</em>. 330c, 554a–b). Socrates therefore insists his philosopher-kings should be paid only in food, the same reward he proposes for himself in the <em>Apology</em>. Instead of securing freedom from murderous <em>epithumia</em> through moderate property, Socrates implies only contemptuous poverty can safeguard a philosophic life.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340433
Matthew K. Reising
{"title":"The King’s House or the Tyrant’s Palace? Rethinking Persia in Herodotus’s History","authors":"Matthew K. Reising","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340433","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340433","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article contributes to the scholarly movement beyond rigid classifications of East and West by arguing that the Persia of Herodotus’s <em>History</em>, commonly understood to be a tyrannical regime, possessed both external and internal freedom. It was once common to argue that, for Herodotus, internal freedom was the exclusive purview of the Greeks. Recent scholarship has shown that Herodotus laced the <em>History</em> with several incriminating parallels between Greek and Barbarian political practices, thereby casting doubt on the claim that Herodotus uncritically supported Greek supremacy. This article reverses that method and argues, contrary to previous scholarship, that Herodotus offers several indications in the <em>History</em> that he knew Persia was a politically free regime. By examining the three prominent theories on the ancient definition of tyranny and showing their inapplicability to Persian government, I offer an even-handed defense of Persia that neither excuses real cruelty nor condemns without justification.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"91 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-05-02DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340438
Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo
{"title":"The Dangers of Demagogues and Democratic Revolution: on Aristotle’s Education of the Serious","authors":"Kenneth Andrew Andres Leonardo","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340438","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340438","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article concerns the dangers of demagogues in democracies described in the <em>Politics</em> and the edifying purposes of Aristotle’s ethical works in relation to the politically ambitious student. The translation of <styled-content lang=\"el-Grek\" xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\" xmlns:ifp=\"http://www.ifactory.com/press\">σπουδαῖος</styled-content> as serious is key to understanding the connection between these works. Although similar arguments appear elsewhere in his <em>Corpus</em>, Aristotle’s arguments in the <em>Great Ethics</em> are unique because the audience is warned about the dangers of political rule and is ultimately led away from the pursuit of it. Aristotle appears to specifically lead this class of politically ambitious students toward a serious pursuit of virtue, justice, and prudence with a final view to both friendship and citizenship. This emphasis is significant because an ‘individual who is serious-about-rule’ (<styled-content lang=\"el-Grek\" xmlns:dc=\"http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/\" xmlns:ifp=\"http://www.ifactory.com/press\">σπουδάρχης</styled-content>) is excessively eager for office. Furthermore, ‘those serious-about-rule’ are dangerous when they act as demagogues, and this is one cause of revolutions in democracies.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140881727","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-01-03DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340429
Andrew Meadows
{"title":"Origins and Ends: Money and Power in and beyond Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War","authors":"Andrew Meadows","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340429","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340429","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article examines the disconnect between, on the one hand, the insistence on the part of multiple characters in Thucydides’ first book on the need for the Peloponnesians to invest in naval power to defeat Athens, and, on the other, the failure to act on this in the narrative of books 2–7. It then analyses the numismatic evidence for the way in which Sparta does then act upon this advice in the course of the Ionian War, and suggests that Thucydides’ view that this was done primarily with Persian support may be missing a (brief) Spartan attempt to create a fiscally self-supporting empire.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139376149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-01-03DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340430
David Lewis
{"title":"Fafner and the Rhinemaidens’ Treasure, Fifty Years On","authors":"David Lewis","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340430","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340430","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article discusses G.E.M. de Ste. Croix’s contentions about the effect of Helotage on Spartan foreign policy articulated in chapter <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">IV</span> of <em>Origins of the Peloponnesian War</em>, namely that Sparta’s Helot population was uniquely dangerous, constraining Sparta’s ability to send large numbers of citizen hoplites abroad lest it be exposed to the threat within. It shows that while certain arguments advanced by Ste. Croix are no longer tenable in light of subsequent research, others still stand up to critical scrutiny fifty years on; furthermore, other points neglected by Ste. Croix reinforce his overall claims.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"104 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139376175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-01-03DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340432
Mirko Canevaro, David Lewis
{"title":"Between ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’ and The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (and beyond): The Popularity of the Athenian Empire Revisited","authors":"Mirko Canevaro, David Lewis","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340432","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340432","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article discusses the fortune of Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s famous article ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’, and reassesses its basic thesis that the Athenian Empire was popular among the lower classes of the allied cities in the light of recent developments in the field. After surveying the article’s immediate and more recent reception, and discussing its relation with <em>The Origins of the Peloponnesian War</em> and <em>The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World</em>, it isolates four key new trends in Greek history that, while going against some of Ste. Croix’s basic convictions, end up reinforcing his overall case. These are: a renewed attention to the mass and elite dichotomy, with recent work interpreting Greek oligarchy as a fundamentally reactive and anti-demotic regime; the recognition of the continued relevance of Persian meddling in the later fifth-century; a sea-change in Attic epigraphy which has led to the post-dating of several ‘imperial’ decrees; the new recognition of the dynamism of the Greek economy, and of the economic function of the Athenian Empire itself. Finally, the article addresses the paradigm of class struggle and stresses how democracy and economic dynamism, to which the Athenian Empire contributed, fostered the growth of slave markets and worsened the exploitation of ‘marginal’ regions as slave suppliers.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139376176","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
POLISPub Date : 2024-01-03DOI: 10.1163/20512996-12340425
Nino Luraghi
{"title":"50 Years after OPW: History and Historiography","authors":"Nino Luraghi","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340425","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340425","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This short preface is meant to explain the purpose of the present volume and point to the diverse approaches and lines of argument pursued by the contributors.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139376146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}