Poverty in Athenian Public Discourse
From the Eve of the Peloponnesian War to the Rise of Macedonia
- 286 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
Poverty in Athenian Public Discourse
From the Eve of the Peloponnesian War to the Rise of Macedonia
About this book
While previous research has focused on the public discourse of wealth, little attention has thus far been paid to the perception of poverty and attitudes toward it in classical Athens. This e-book argues that a public discourse of poverty in Athens can be reconstructed from sources dating from the 430s to the 330s BC. Athenian democracy promoted ideas about poverty that could substantially contribute to the stability of the political system, while simultaneously differentiating between destitution and "good poverty" – the latter being a legitimate condition for a citizen and beneficial to the polis. After a preliminary discussion of the debate over the definition of poverty in the social sciences, Lucia Cecchet explores the web of beliefs and the collective imaginary of poverty that emerge from classical Athenian sources addressed to large audiences: drama and oratory. The frequency with which images and ideas about "the poor" occur in these sources testifies to an ongoing discussion of the causes and effects of poverty and even possible solutions to this social problem. These sources allow us to investigate how these topics were used in drama, in the Assembly and in the jury courts to arouse emotions and influence public decisions.
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Table of contents
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
- INTRODUCTION
- CHAPTER ONE: THE BACKGROUND OF PUBLIC IMAGERY: PERSPECTIVES ON DESTITUTION IN THE ODYSSEY
- CHAPTER TWO: BEGGARS ON STAGE: ACTING OUT THE IMAGINARY OF POVERTY IN ATHENIAN DRAMA
- CHAPTER THREE: WAS POVERTY A REAL ISSUE IN FOURTH-CENTURY ATHENS?
- CHAPTER FOUR: POVERTY AS AN ARGUMENT IN FOURTH-CENTURY PUBLIC SPEECHES
- CHAPTER FIVE: KALOS KAI PENÊS: THE RHETORIC OF GOOD POVERTY
- CONCLUSIONS
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- GENERAL INDEX
- INDEX OF SOURCES