Pity and Power in Ancient Athens

by Edited by Rachel Hall Sternberg

• ISBN13: 9780521285629
• ISBN10: 0521285623
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-06-16
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Ancient Athenians resemble modern Americans in their moral discomfort with empire. Athenians had power and used it ruthlessly, but the infliction of suffering did not mesh well with their civic self-image. Embracing the concepts of democracy and freedom, they proudly pitted themselves against tyranny and oppression, but in practice they were capable of being tyrannical. Originally published in 2005, Pity and Power in Ancient Athens argues that the exercise of power in democratic Athens, especially during its brief fifth-century empire, raised troubling questions about the alleviation and infliction of suffering, and pity emerged as a topic in Athenian culture at this time. The ten essays collectively examine the role of pity in the literature, art, and society of classical Athens by analysing evidence from tragedy, philosophy, historiography, epic, oratory, vase painting, sculpture, and medical writings.

Table of Contents

The nature of pity

Pity and politics

The pitiers and the pitied in Herodotus and Thucydides

A generous city: pity in Athenian oratory and tragedy

Athenian tragedy: an education in pity

Engendering the tragic Theates: pity, power, and spectacle in Sophocles' Trachiniae

Pity in classical Athenian vase painting

The civic art of pity

A crying shame: pitying the sick in the Hippocratic corpus and Greek tragedy

Pity in Plutarch

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