{"title":"Old Comedy and Athenian Power","authors":"Leah Lazar","doi":"10.1163/20512996-12340427","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this article, jumping off from Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s treatment of Aristophanes and the Megarian Decree, I argue that Old Comedy is an underutilised category of evidence for the study of the popular intellectual history of Athens. My particular focus here is the Athenian empire: how does Old Comedy present Athenian power and what does this comic presentation tell us about how at least some ordinary Athenians understood it? Can one popular Athenian imaginary of the empire be constructed through analysis of Aristophanes and his contemporaries? I will argue that Old Comedy, taken as a corpus, presents a very Athenian empire, that is to say one focused on Athens and its exploitation of others. The comic poets, therefore, likely assumed parochialism and myopia on the part of their audience, but also significant topical interest in the mechanisms of Athenian power, particularly those which brought revenue to Athens. This impression of highly topical engagement with the empire is corroborated by bringing Comedy into dialogue with other sources, in particular the epigraphic record.</p>","PeriodicalId":43237,"journal":{"name":"POLIS","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"POLIS","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/20512996-12340427","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"CLASSICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
In this article, jumping off from Geoffrey de Ste. Croix’s treatment of Aristophanes and the Megarian Decree, I argue that Old Comedy is an underutilised category of evidence for the study of the popular intellectual history of Athens. My particular focus here is the Athenian empire: how does Old Comedy present Athenian power and what does this comic presentation tell us about how at least some ordinary Athenians understood it? Can one popular Athenian imaginary of the empire be constructed through analysis of Aristophanes and his contemporaries? I will argue that Old Comedy, taken as a corpus, presents a very Athenian empire, that is to say one focused on Athens and its exploitation of others. The comic poets, therefore, likely assumed parochialism and myopia on the part of their audience, but also significant topical interest in the mechanisms of Athenian power, particularly those which brought revenue to Athens. This impression of highly topical engagement with the empire is corroborated by bringing Comedy into dialogue with other sources, in particular the epigraphic record.
在这篇文章中,我从杰弗里-德-斯蒂-克鲁瓦(Geoffrey de Ste. Croix)对阿里斯托芬(Aristophanes)和《梅加里安法令》(Megarian Decree)的论述出发,认为《旧喜剧》是研究雅典大众思想史的一类未被充分利用的证据。我在此特别关注雅典帝国:《旧喜剧》是如何展现雅典权力的,这种喜剧表现形式告诉我们至少一些普通雅典人是如何理解雅典权力的?通过对阿里斯托芬及其同时代人的分析,能否构建出一种雅典人对帝国的通俗想象?我将论证,《旧喜剧》作为一部文集,展现的是一个非常雅典化的帝国,也就是说,一个以雅典及其对他国的剥削为中心的帝国。因此,喜剧诗人很可能假定他们的受众是狭隘和近视的,但同时也对雅典的权力机制,尤其是那些为雅典带来收入的机制有着浓厚的兴趣。通过将《喜剧》与其他资料,特别是书信记录进行对话,可以证实这种对帝国高度关注的印象。