Citizen and Self in Ancient Greece: Individuals Performing Justice and the Law
Cambridge University Press, 8/10/2006
EAN 9780521845595, ISBN10: 0521845599
Hardcover, 606 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
Language: English
This 2006 study examines how the ancient Greeks decided questions of justice as a key to understanding the intersection of our moral and political lives. Combining contemporary political philosophy with historical, literary and philosophical texts, it examines a series of remarkable individuals who performed 'scripts' of justice in early Iron Age, archaic and classical Greece. From the earlier periods, these include Homer's Achilles and Odysseus as heroic individuals who are also prototypical citizens, and Solon the lawgiver, writing the scripts of statute law and the jury trial. In democratic Athens, the focus turns to dialogues between a citizen's moral autonomy and political obligation in Aeschyleon tragedy, Pericles' citizenship paradigm, Antiphon's sophistic thought and forensic oratory, the political leadership of Alcibiades and Socrates' moral individualism.
Introduction
1. Justice to the dead
prototypes of the citizen and self in early Greece
2. Performing justice in early Greece
dispute settlement in the Iliad
3. Self-transformation and the therapy of justice in the Odyssey
4. Performing the law
the lawgiver, statute law and the jury trial
5. Citizenship by degrees
Ephebes and demagogues in democratic Athens, 465–460
6. The naturalization of citizen and self in democratic Athens, c.450–411
7. Democracy's narcissistic citizens
Alcibiades and Socrates
Conclusion
Reference list.