The World of Prometheus
The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens
1st Edition
Published on 10. January 2009
464 pages
978-1-4008-2465-6 (ISBN)
Description
For Danielle Allen, punishment is more a window onto democratic Athens' fundamental values than simply a set of official practices. From imprisonment to stoning to refusal of burial, instances of punishment in ancient Athens fueled conversations among ordinary citizens and political and literary figures about the nature of justice. Re-creating in vivid detail the cultural context of this conversation, Allen shows that punishment gave the community an opportunity to establish a shining myth of harmony and cleanliness: that the city could be purified of anger and social struggle, and perfect order achieved. Each member of the city--including notably women and slaves--had a specific role to play in restoring equilibrium among punisher, punished, and society. The common view is that democratic legal processes moved away from the "emotional and personal" to the "rational and civic," but Allen shows that anger, honor, reciprocity, spectacle, and social memory constantly prevailed in Athenian law and politics.
Allen draws upon oratory, tragedy, and philosophy to present the lively intellectual climate in which punishment was incurred, debated, and inflicted by Athenians. Broad in scope, this book is one of the first to offer both a full account of punishment in antiquity and an examination of the political stakes of democratic punishment. It will engage classicists, political theorists, legal historians, and anyone wishing to learn more about the relations between institutions and culture, normative ideas and daily events, punishment and democracy.
Allen draws upon oratory, tragedy, and philosophy to present the lively intellectual climate in which punishment was incurred, debated, and inflicted by Athenians. Broad in scope, this book is one of the first to offer both a full account of punishment in antiquity and an examination of the political stakes of democratic punishment. It will engage classicists, political theorists, legal historians, and anyone wishing to learn more about the relations between institutions and culture, normative ideas and daily events, punishment and democracy.
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Danielle S. Allen is Associate Professor in Classical Languages and Literatures, Political Science, and the Committee on Social Thought and the College at the University of Chicago. She is a 2001 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation fellowship.
Content
PREFACE xi
INTRODUCTION 3
PART ONE: THE PRELIMINARIES 13
CHAPTER ONE What Is Punishment? 15
Introduction 15
"Revenge" versus "Punishment": Rereading the Oresteia 18
Studying Punishment as Authority: Reading the Prometheus Bound 25
Precis 35
CHAPTER TWO Institutional Context 39
Introduction 39
Penal Institutions and Democratic Power 40
The Lay Prosecutor and the Parameters of Judgment 45
CHAPTER THREE Cultural Context 50
Anger/Orge 50
ThE Agon and Honor 59
Reciprocity 62
Social Memory, Social Knowledge 65
Language 68
Conclusion 72
CHAPTER FOUR Punishment and Its Tragic Problems 73
The Mythic Imaginary 73
Method 75
Disease and Remedy 77
Power Tyranny, and Law 86
Conclusion 94
PART TWO: THE PROCESS OF PUNISHING 97
CHAPTER FIVE Initiation, Part One 99
Knowledge, Power, Action 99
Investigation 102
Initiation: Metics, Proxenoi, and Xenoi 107
Initiation: Slaves 109
Initiation: Women 111
CHAPTER SIX Initiation, Part Two 122
The Male Citizen Prosecutor 122
Back to the Bees and Wasps Again 128
The Household: Women and Men Together 134
City as Collective 141
CHAPTER SEVEN The Negotiation of Desert, Part One 147
The Magic of Speech 147
Pity and Anger 148
The First Norm of Public Agency: Deserving to Punish and Dispelling
Charges of Sycophancy 151
CHAPTER EIGHT The Negotiation of Desert, Part Two 168
Introduction 168
The Second Norm of Public Agency: Using Social Memory and Law 168
The Rule of Judgment versus the Rule of Law 179
The Rule of Law in Plato and Aristotle 183
The Third Norm of Public Agency: Shaping the Democratic Community 190
CHAPTER NINE Execution 197
War Peace, and the Formalism of Punishment 197
The Details: Punishments and Their Executors 200
Tvo Forms of Memory: Remembering and Forgetting 202
The Symbolism of Remembering and Forgetting 205
War and Peace, the Body and Silence 213
Punishments of Reintegration 224
Punishments that Redefine the "Whole" Community 232
The Amnesty 237
PART THREE: INTERVENTIONS IN THE CONVERSATION 243
CHAPTER TEN Plato's Paradigm Shifts 245
The Symbol of Leontios 245
Reform over Reciprocity 247
The Erasure of Orge 251
Undoing the Athenian "Principle of the Public": The Republic 257
The Just City and the Power of the Symbol 263
The Incurables and the Necessity for Anger/Orge in the Just City of the Laws 277
CHAPTER ELEVEN Aristotle's Compromises 282
On Justice and Desert 282
EPILOGUE: The Reform of Prometheus and Promethean Rebellion 293
APPENDIXES
A. The Number of Magistrates in Athens 305
B. The Nature and Scope of Arbitration in Athens 317
C. The Relative Frequency of Penal Words within Each Orator 323
D. Further Argument about the Decree of Cannonus 324
E. Catalog of Cases of Punishing (or Attempts at Punishing) in Tragedy 326
ENDNOTES 333
BIBLIOGRAPHY 405
INDEX 431
INTRODUCTION 3
PART ONE: THE PRELIMINARIES 13
CHAPTER ONE What Is Punishment? 15
Introduction 15
"Revenge" versus "Punishment": Rereading the Oresteia 18
Studying Punishment as Authority: Reading the Prometheus Bound 25
Precis 35
CHAPTER TWO Institutional Context 39
Introduction 39
Penal Institutions and Democratic Power 40
The Lay Prosecutor and the Parameters of Judgment 45
CHAPTER THREE Cultural Context 50
Anger/Orge 50
ThE Agon and Honor 59
Reciprocity 62
Social Memory, Social Knowledge 65
Language 68
Conclusion 72
CHAPTER FOUR Punishment and Its Tragic Problems 73
The Mythic Imaginary 73
Method 75
Disease and Remedy 77
Power Tyranny, and Law 86
Conclusion 94
PART TWO: THE PROCESS OF PUNISHING 97
CHAPTER FIVE Initiation, Part One 99
Knowledge, Power, Action 99
Investigation 102
Initiation: Metics, Proxenoi, and Xenoi 107
Initiation: Slaves 109
Initiation: Women 111
CHAPTER SIX Initiation, Part Two 122
The Male Citizen Prosecutor 122
Back to the Bees and Wasps Again 128
The Household: Women and Men Together 134
City as Collective 141
CHAPTER SEVEN The Negotiation of Desert, Part One 147
The Magic of Speech 147
Pity and Anger 148
The First Norm of Public Agency: Deserving to Punish and Dispelling
Charges of Sycophancy 151
CHAPTER EIGHT The Negotiation of Desert, Part Two 168
Introduction 168
The Second Norm of Public Agency: Using Social Memory and Law 168
The Rule of Judgment versus the Rule of Law 179
The Rule of Law in Plato and Aristotle 183
The Third Norm of Public Agency: Shaping the Democratic Community 190
CHAPTER NINE Execution 197
War Peace, and the Formalism of Punishment 197
The Details: Punishments and Their Executors 200
Tvo Forms of Memory: Remembering and Forgetting 202
The Symbolism of Remembering and Forgetting 205
War and Peace, the Body and Silence 213
Punishments of Reintegration 224
Punishments that Redefine the "Whole" Community 232
The Amnesty 237
PART THREE: INTERVENTIONS IN THE CONVERSATION 243
CHAPTER TEN Plato's Paradigm Shifts 245
The Symbol of Leontios 245
Reform over Reciprocity 247
The Erasure of Orge 251
Undoing the Athenian "Principle of the Public": The Republic 257
The Just City and the Power of the Symbol 263
The Incurables and the Necessity for Anger/Orge in the Just City of the Laws 277
CHAPTER ELEVEN Aristotle's Compromises 282
On Justice and Desert 282
EPILOGUE: The Reform of Prometheus and Promethean Rebellion 293
APPENDIXES
A. The Number of Magistrates in Athens 305
B. The Nature and Scope of Arbitration in Athens 317
C. The Relative Frequency of Penal Words within Each Orator 323
D. Further Argument about the Decree of Cannonus 324
E. Catalog of Cases of Punishing (or Attempts at Punishing) in Tragedy 326
ENDNOTES 333
BIBLIOGRAPHY 405
INDEX 431
