Lecture Three Part 1 This brief segment explores the Odyssey and its “captain” Odysseus as a metaphor for governing the Greek city state. On the surface the Odyssey is a story about a voyage and homecoming, but the subtext has to do with the agenda of the city state. The Greek word for captain, kubernêtes, […]
Lecture Two Part 1 A) from Odyssey i: [1] Tell me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the people with whose customs and thinking [noos] he was acquainted; many things he suffered at […]
Lecture One A. Here is an essential fact about ancient Greek religion (for a working definition of this general term, see item B): not only were the gods worshipped. Heroes too were worshipped. The worship of heroes was very much like ancestor worship. (Compare similar customs in other traditional societies, including the […]
Background Lecture For this series, we have provided an on-line text of the Homeric Odyssey, translated by Samuel Butler and revised by Gregory Nagy and Timothy Power. This revised translation includes glosses of key Greek words in the text. The entire Odyssey can be found here (or by using the button on the menu to […]
Punishment in Ancient Athens Danielle S. Allen, University of Chicago Part I) Introduction Ask any modern citizen to name a punishment meted out by their state and odds are the first thing she will say is “imprisonment.” Ask the same citizen then to say why modern states use imprisonment as their preferred penalty, and he’ll […]
Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Citizen and Social Critic ©Josiah Ober, Princeton University Suggested Reading: Plato, Apology Plato, Crito Socrates of Athens is an enduring presence in the western imagination, in part because he presents us with a mass of contradictions: Most eloquent of men, yet he never wrote a word; ugliest yet […]
Women and Family in Athenian Law K. Kapparis, University of Florida Suggested Reading: Apollodoros, Against Neaira (Transmitted among the speeches of Demosthenes, as number 59) Demosthenes 57, Against Euboulides Athenian authors of the classical period imagined a mythical past where women were subject to similar restrictions in their legal standing and social roles as in […]
Sycophancy and Attitudes to Litigation Matthew R. Christ, University of Indiana Suggested Reading: Aristophanes, Wasps Athens gave birth not only to democratic legal process but also to a lively discussion of the proper role of law and litigation in the lives of the citizens of a democracy. While Athenians were committed to their system of […]
Athenian Homicide Law: Case Studies Michael Gagarin, University of Texas at Austin Suggested Reading: Antiphon 1, Against the Stepmother Lysias 1, On the Murder of Eratosthenes We know of relatively few prosecutions for homicide in classical Athens and it is tempting to conclude that homicide was relatively rare, except during the brief rule of the […]
Law and Economy in Classical Athens. [Demosthenes]: Against Dionysodorus Edward M. Harris, Brooklyn College Suggested Reading: Demosthenes 56, Against Dionysodorus Sometime around 322 BCE a man named Dareius brought a private action in an Athenian court against a merchant called Dionysodorus. Dareius and his business partner Pamphilus had made a loan to Dionysodorus and his […]