Cities of the Gods Communist Utopias in Greek Thought

by Dawson, Doyne

• ISBN13: 9780195069839
• ISBN10: 0195069838
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1992-07-09
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Modern studies of classical utopian thought are usually restricted to the Republic and Laws of Plato, producing the impression that Greek speculation about ideal states was invariably authoritarian and hierarchical. This book, however, sets Plato in the context of the whole ancient tradition of philosophical utopia. It distinguishes two types of Greek utopia, relating both to the social and the political background of Greece between the fifth and third centuries B.C. There was a lower utopianism, meant for literal implementation, which arose from the Greek colonizing movement, and a higher theoretical form which arose from the practical utopias. Dawson focuses on the higher utopianism, whose main theme was total communism in property and family. He attempts to reconstruct the lost utopian works of the Stoics, arguing that their ideal state was universal and egalitarian, in deliberate contrast to the hierarchical and militaristic utopia of Plato; and that both theories were intended to bring about long-range social reform, though neither was meant for direct implementation. Dawson offers an explanation for the disappearance of the utopian tradition in the later Hellenistic age. A final chapter traces the survival of communistic ideas in early Christianity.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 3
The Birth of Utopia	p. 13
The Time of Cronus	p. 13
The Pythagorean Life	p. 14
The Sexual Communism of the Barbarians	p. 18
The Low Utopias and Sparta	p. 21
The Ecclesiazusae of Aristophanes	p. 37
Household and City: The Social and Political Background of Greek Utopiamism	p. 40
The Platonic Utopia: A City Without the Household	p. 53
The Paradox of Socrates	p. 53
The Paradox of Plato	p. 62
The Method of Plato	p. 71
High Utopia and Low Utopia	p. 77
The Academy in Politics	p. 92
Aristotle	p. 93
The Social and Political of Platonic-Aristotelian Utopianism	p. 99
The Cynic Way: A Life Without the Household	p. 111
The Problem of Cynic Political Thought: A Contradiction in Terms?	p. 111
The Search for the Historical Diogenes	p. 113
A Definition of Early Cynicism: An Activist Ascetic Elite	p. 120
The Social Teachings of the Cynics	p. 130
The Republic of Diogenes	p. 146
The Stoic Utopia: A World Without Households	p. 160
Cynic and Stoic	p. 160
The Sources	p. 166
The Outlines of the Stoic Ideal World	p. 175
The Stoics and Society	p. 187
The Stoics and Politics	p. 195
Comments	p. 206
The End of Utopia	p. 223
The Decline of the Stoic Utopian Tradition	p. 223
The Survival of the Old Stoic and Cynic Traditions	p. 243
The Ghosts of Utopia	p. 258
Primitive Christianity	p. 258
Gnostic Christianity	p. 264
Patristic Christianity	p. 276
Bibliography	p. 291
Index	p. 301
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