The Ideology of Democratic Athens: Institutions, Orators and the Mythical Past

The book investigates Athenian democratic ideology through the social memory of its mythical past, proposing a novel approach that opens new frontiers of investigation in ancient history and the social sciences. It offers four case studies, illuminates the impact of Athenian democratic institutions on ideology, myth, and social memory, and provides up-to-date overviews of several values in Greek thought. It challenges the dichotomy between Marxist and culturalist interpretations of Athenian democratic ideology, demonstrating that it was a fluid set of ideas, values, and beliefs shared by the Athenians as a result of a constant ideological practice influenced by the institutions of the democracy.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 264 pages
Publication date: 31 May 2022
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

The book investigates the construction of democratic ideology in Classical Athens through a study of the social memory of Athens' mythical past. It proposes a novel approach to Athenian democratic ideology that opens new frontiers of investigation in ancient history and the social sciences. The introduction clearly sets out the aims and methodology of the book and its place within the scholarship in ancient history and the social sciences. Four case studies illuminate the impact of Athenian democratic institutions on ideology, myth, and the use of social memory. The book offers a long-awaited new interpretation of the Athenian funeral oration for the war dead and provides clear overviews of Athenian democratic institutions based on the most recent scholarship. It also provides up-to-date overviews of several values in Greek thought, such as charis, hybris, and eugeneia. The debate on Athenian democratic ideology has long been polarised around two extremes. A Marxist tradition views ideology as a cover-up for Athens' internal divisions, while another tradition, sometimes referred to as culturalist, interprets it neutrally as the fixed set of ideas shared by the members of the Athenian community. Matteo Barbato addresses this dichotomy by providing a unitary approach to Athenian democratic ideology. Analysing four different myths from the perspective of the New Institutionalism, he demonstrates that Athenian democratic ideology was a fluid set of ideas, values, and beliefs shared by the Athenians as a result of a constant ideological practice influenced by the institutions of the democracy. He shows that this process entailed the active participation of both the mass and the elite and enabled the Athenians to produce multiple and compatible ideas about their community and its mythical past.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474466431