
Aggregation and Antithesis in Ancient Greece
Richard Seaford(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 28. August 2025
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-1-009-51757-7 (ISBN)
Description
What is the relationship between forms of thought in literature, philosophy and visual art in ancient Greece, and how are these forms related to their socio-political and economic context? This is the question raised by Richard Seaford in his final book. His answer is framed in terms of the relationship between aggregation and antithesis. In Greece between the eight and fourth centuries BCE, Seaford traces a progressive and complex shift from aggregation to antithesis in literature, philosophy and visual art, and correlates this with the shift from a pre-monetary and pre-polis society to a monetised polis. In the Platonic metaphysics of being, he identifies a further move, the negation of antithesis, which he links with the non-circulating possession of money. In this characteristically ambitious and challenging study, Richard Seaford extends his socio-economic analysis of Greek culture to visual art and includes contrasts with Near Eastern society and art.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises; 20 Halftones, color
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 16 mm
Weight
471 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-51757-7 (9781009517577)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
RICHARD SEAFORD was Emeritus Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Exeter until his death in 2023. His books include commentaries on Euripides' Cyclops and Bacchae as well as Reciprocity and Ritual (1994); Money and the Early Greek Mind (Cambridge, 2004); Cosmology and the Polis (Cambridge, 2012); and The Origins of Philosophy in Ancient Greece and Ancient India (Cambridge, 2020).
Content
1. Defining terms; 2. Homer; 3. Opposites in Ionian Cosmology; 4. Opposites in the cosmology of Magna Graecia; 5. Visual art from the Near East to Greece; 6. The fifth-century unity of opposites: historiography, tragedy and vase painting; 7. Plato.