Scripta Antiqua 60
Isocrate l'Athénien ou la belle hégémonie. Etude des relations internationales au IVe siècle a.C.
Publication date :01/04/2014
Scripta Antiqua 29
This research aims at studying how treason – hostility from a close relation towards their community for an external enemy’s benefit – was perceived by the Athenian mentality of the 5th century. Even if there is no word or expression for the Athenians to gather every aspect of this behaviour, the word prodosia, by which they defined giving a close one up to the enemy (and which also implies the idea of abandonment in the face of danger) is the closest word to our “treason”.
The Athenians precisely defined the acts committed against the city in its relations to abroad by subjecting them to the special procedure of eisangelia: the characteristics of the agreement with the enemy to the detriment of the city make it possible to extend to several of them the qualification of prodosia, although the open violence against the fatherland, an act of adikia towards the community, regarded as a sacrilege in the common mentality, cannot be defined by this term. It appears that the moral conception of prodosia can overflow on the narrow legal definition of the term, of military and diplomatic order, which mainly indicates the handing-over to the enemy of an element of the city power. The study of this period, which goes from approximately 500 until the first years which follow the democratic restoration of 403 shows that the crises and highlights lived by Athens encouraged – linked to the history of other States, the great Persian Empire, but also similar communities like Sparta, Thebes, or the allied insular cities, and despite civil strife – the development of a feeling of belonging to the same community. It appears that at the end of the century, the Athenians are no longer in the situation to build a common identity, but rather to have to manage the identity which they forged, with the divergences which the appreciation of the past consequently entail when it is necessary to draw lessons from it for a new environment.
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Scripta Antiqua 60
Publication date :01/04/2014
Scripta Antiqua 127
Publication date :01/09/2020
Scripta Antiqua 41
Publication date :01/07/2012
Scripta Antiqua 185
In a constant concert for dialogue between literature and history, Louis Autin uses the tools of political sociology and studies deeply the work of Tacitus in order to investigate the winged words ...
Publication date :20/02/2025