Volume 8, Number 5 · March 23, 1967
The Classical Cold War
By M.I. Finley
Thucydides and the Politics of Bipolarity
by Peter J. Fliess
Louisiana State University, 194 pp., $6.00
The Reluctant Warriors
by Donald Armstrong
Crowell, 204 pp., $5.95
The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy
by Anthony J. Podlecki
University of Michigan, 188 pp., $7.50
The books under consideration all touch on major Greek inventions: historiography, the theater, and especially politics. The word 'invention' is meant seriously and rather literally, though its appropriateness to politics has perhaps not been sufficiently noticed. One can see the beginnings at least as far back as 600 B.C. Solon in Athens discussed constitutional issues, justice, and class conflict not in terms of divine authority and precept, of royal and priestly prerogatives, but in terms of achieving a workable equilibrium within society, of distributing rights, duties, and privileges among the estates which constituted the community (the 'body politic,' more modern commentators would have said). At that moment politics and political analysis were in being, as they had never been in the older civilizations of the Near East, for all their dynastic conflicts, palace plots, power struggles, and wars. And two centuries later, in Thucydides, political thinking had reached a state of great sophistication and rigor of analysis.
Review, 2674 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |