The World of Prometheus

The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4774777
AutoresVirginia Hunter (autor de correspondencia)
Año2002
Volumen56
Número1/2
Páginas182
Fecha de publicación2002-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoREVIEW
RevistaPhoenix (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1192488
OpenAlexW2028342243
IdiomaEN

For Danielle Allen, punishment is more a window onto democratic Athens' fundamental values than simply a set of official practices. From imprisonment to stoning to refusal of burial, instances of punishment in ancient Athens fueled conversations among ordinary citizens and political and literary figures about the nature of justice. Re-creating in vivid detail the cultural context of this conversation, Allen shows that punishment gave the community an opportunity to establish a shining myth of harmony and cleanliness: that the city could be purified of anger and social struggle, and perfect order achieved. Each member of the city--including notably women and slaves--had a specific role to play in restoring equilibrium among punisher, punished, and society. The common view is that democratic legal processes moved away from the emotional and personal to the rational and civic, but Allen shows that anger, honor, reciprocity, spectacle, and social memory constantly prevailed in Athenian law and politics.Allen draws upon oratory, tragedy, and philosophy to present the lively intellectual climate in which punishment was incurred, debated, and inflicted by Athenians. Broad in scope, this book is one of the first to offer both a full account of punishment in antiquity and an examination of the political stakes of democratic punishment. It will engage classicists, political theorists, legal historians, and anyone wishing to learn more about the relations between institutions and culture, normative ideas and daily events, punishment and democracy

Democracy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Law