Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens

by Arlene W. Saxonhouse

• ISBN13: 9780521721585
• ISBN10: 052172158X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Illuminates the distinctive character of our modern understanding of the basis and value of free speech by contrasting it with the very different form of free speech that was practised by the ancient Athenians in their democratic regime. Free speech in the ancient democracy was not a protected right but an expression of the freedom from hierarchy, awe, reverence and shame. It was thus an essential ingredient of the egalitarianism of that regime. That freedom was challenged by the consequences of the rejection of shame (aidos) which had served as a cohesive force within the polity. Through readings of Socrates's trial, Greek tragedy and comedy, Thucydides's History, and Plato's Protagoras this volume explores the paradoxical connections between free speech, democracy, shame, and Socratic philosophy and Thucydidean history as practices of uncovering.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Prologue: Four Stories	p. 1
Introduction: The Invocation of Athens	p. 11
The Legacy of Free Speech	p. 16
Government as Ogre	p. 17
Government as "The People"	p. 24
Persecution and Texts	p. 34
Democratic Amnesia	p. 37
Aidos
The Tale of Two Gyges: Shame, Community, and the Public/Private Self	p. 57
Herodotus' Gyges	p. 57
Protagoras' Tale	p. 60
Shame and Guilt	p. 65
The Gaze, the Truth, and the "Other"	p. 71
Shame and the Liberal Individual	p. 76
Plato's Gyges	p. 81
Parrhesia: The Practice of Free Speech in Ancient Athens
The Practice of Parrhesia	p. 85
The Trial of Socrates	p. 100
Why Was Socrates Executed?	p. 100
Plato's Apology: The Unveiling of Socrates and the Transformation of Shame	p. 112
The Limits of Free Speech
Truth and Tragedy	p. 129
Parrhesia: Inclusion/Exclusion	p. 131
Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae	p. 134
Euripides' Phoenician Women	p. 138
Thucydides' Assemblies and the Challenge of Free Speech	p. 146
Free Speech and the Historical Method	p. 148
The Mytilenean Debate	p. 151
The Invasion of Sicily	p. 163
Protagoras' Shame and Socrates' Speech	p. 179
The Dialogic Context	p. 180
Youthful Shame	p. 183
Protagoras' Shame	p. 184
Socrates' Speech	p. 193
"Free" Words	p. 200
Coda	p. 203
Conclusion: Four Paradoxes	p. 207
Ancients and Moderns	p. 207
Democracy and Free Speech	p. 209
Socratic Philosophy and the Democratic Regime	p. 211
Shame and Amnesia	p. 212
References	p. 215
Index	p. 229
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