Vox Populi, Vox Deorum? Athenian Document Reliefs and the Theologies of Public Inscription

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9313053
AutoresWilliam Mack, William J Mack (0000-0003-0970-2546, University of Birmingham, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen113
Páginas365-398
Fecha de publicación2018-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Annual of the British School at Athens (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0068-2454 • E-ISSN: 2045-2403
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0068245418000072
OpenAlexW2905227746
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas93

This article argues that, by concentrating on a reading of the depictions of deities on the Athenian document reliefs as symbolic representations of states rather than as divinities, previous scholarly approaches to them have failed to explore the role they ascribe to the gods in collective decision-making and the exercise of public authority. This article resituates the interpretation of these monuments in the context of other monuments depicting the gods and recent approaches to them, and the other ways in which public inscriptions, both at Athens and elsewhere, make reference to divine actors, through their erection in sacred spaces and the use of the theoi heading. It then examines the range of possible readings of the relationship between divine agency and political decision-making which these monuments privilege and argues that they reflect a conventional understanding that, in general, Athenian decision-making was underpinned by the gods

Agency (philosophy · Archaeology · Art · Context (archaeology · Epistemology · Interpretation (philosophy · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Politics · Privilege (computing · Reading (process · Sociology · Biblical Studies and Interpretation · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Law · Philosophy