Let Us Obey: the Rhetoric of Spartan Identity in Tyrtaeus 2W (Mnemosyne DOI: 10.1163/1568525X-12342342) (original) (raw)
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Paper: The Poetry of Tyrtaeus: The Military Rhetoric of Archaic Sparta Working Paper: Version 1.0
The early lyric poetry of Tyrtaeus, a 7 th century BC poet, celebrates the military ethos of Archaic Sparta. A "Spartan writing for other Spartans," Tyrtaeus glorifies the collective spirit of duty necessary to create the communal mindset necessary for a cohesive, effective hoplite phalanx. Tyrtaeus accomplishes two things with his poetry: he redefines the notion of arête [excellence; virtue] away from the aristocratic, Homeric ideal of the individual warrior-hero. For Tyrtaeus, an authentic arête comes from the actual group battlefield experience of the hoplite soldier. Secondly, we know that the Spartan agōgē required training in oratory and rhetoric. We get to read in Tyrtaeus what it meant to be a "speaker of words" as a Spartan warrior. Tyrtaeus poetry gives us insight into some of the rhetorical tropes and methods employed by the Spartan hoplite phalanx-a rhetoric that was at times reflective, could instill "enthusiasm," and always on the move.
The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory (Routledge, 2019)
The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory, 2019
Focusing on extant speeches from the Athenian Assembly, lawcourts, and Council in the 5th–4th centuries BC, these essays explore how speakers constructed or deconstructed identities for themselves and their opponents as part of a rhetorical strategy designed to persuade or manipulate the audience. According to the needs of the occasion, speakers could identify the Athenian people either as a unified demos or as a collection of sub-groups, and they could exploit either differences or similarities between Athenians and other Greeks, and between Greeks and ‘barbarians’. Names and naming strategies were an essential tool in the (de)construction of individuals’ identities, while the Athenians’ civic identity could be constructed in terms of honour(s), ethnicity, socio-economic status, or religion. Within the forensic setting, the physical location and procedural conventions of an Athenian trial could shape the identities of its participants in a unique if transient way. The Making of Identities in Athenian Oratory is a fascinating look at this understudied aspect of Athenian oratory, and will be of interest to anyone working on the speeches themselves, identity in ancient Greece, or ancient oratory and rhetoric more broadly. TABLE OF CONTENTS IntroductionJakub Filonik, Brenda Griffith-Williams, and Janek Kucharski Part 1: The politics of naming and individuals’ rhetorical identities 1. Civic and local identities in Athenian rhetoric Roger Brock 2. The two Mantitheuses in Demosthenes 39 and [Demosthenes] 40: a case of Athenian identity theft? Brenda Griffith-Williams 3. Constructing the identity of Timarchus in Aeschines 1 Rosalia Hatzilambrou 4. Constructing gender identity: women in Athenian trials Konstantinos Kapparis Part 2: The rhetorical construction of civic identities 5. Athenian identity and the ideology of autochthony: an institutionalist approach Matteo Barbato 6. Lysias and the rhetoric of citizen honour Benjamin Keim 7. Archaism, performance, and civic status in Lysias 10 Against Theomnestus Alex Petkas 8. Seeing others as Athenians in Demosthenes’ third Philippic Judson Herrman Part 3: Social and material dimensions of Athenian identities 9. The rich and the poor, conflicts and alliances: socio-economic identities and their uses in the Demosthenic corpus Lucia Cecchet 10. Prosecutorial identities and the problem of relevance Janek Kucharski 11. Space, place, and identity in Antiphon On the Murder of Herodes Christine Plastow. Index Index locorum
"War as Spectacle: Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Display of Armed Conflict", eds A. Bakogianni and V. Hope (Bloomsbury Academic): 93-109, 2015
How to be a good warrior was a profound concern for ancient Greek society at all times, but the socio-political and military changes of the archaic period make it a pressing theme for the lyric poets. 1 While scholars have rightly moved away from the view that lyric poetry represents the birth of a new self-consciousness, 2 it remains the case that lyric is distinctive for its focus on personal experience, and that for the aristocratic males who formed the audiences at symposia, the nature and meaning of warfare was a major point of interest in their lives. Lyric is adept at creating a snapshot and rich in its use of imagery and metaphor, and so it is not surprising that it revels in vivid and visually oriented descriptions of warfare.
The Discourses of Identity in Hellenistic Erythrai: Institutions, Rhetoric, Honour and Reciprocity
Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought, 2021
Recent research in the field of New Institutionalist analysis has developed the view that institutions are grounded not only upon authoritative rules but also upon accepted practices and narratives. In this paper I am interested in the ways in which honorific practices and accounts of identity set out in ancient Greek inscriptions contribute towards the persistence of polis institutions in the Hellenistic period. A diachronic survey of Erythraian inscriptions of the classical and Hellenistic periods gives an impression of the adaptation and proliferation of forms of discourse established in the classical period. It demonstrates the ongoing prominence of the rhetoric of identity in conversations that went on not only between peer polities and within real or imagined kinship groups but also in negotiations between powerful and weak state entities and in inward-facing discourses on euergetism.
Maria Youni, Noboru SATO, Paulo Martins, Myrto Aloumpi, Nick Fisher, Vasileios Liotsakis, Maria Kythreotou, Stefano Ferrucci, Flaminia Beneventano della Corte, Alessandro Vatri, Andreas N . Michalopoulos, Ioannis Konstantakos, Andreas Serafim
This conference aims to shed new light on the capacity of rhetoric, as used in Greek and Roman prose (mainly oratory and historiography) and poetry (mainly in tragedy and comedy), to promote either bonding and affiliation or distancing and division between the speaker and the audience. From the ancient Greco-Roman courts and assemblies to today’s political discourse, rhetoric is inherently divisive. It focuses on appealing to core groups and defining oneself against others. In his sturdy book, A Rhetoric of Motives, Kenneth Burke argues that a fundamental purpose of rhetoric is identification: a speaker gives signs to the audience, mainly through language, indicating that his “properties” are the same or similar to those of the audience, thereby affirming a community with the audience and forging proximity. This is what Burke calls “consubstantiality” – the sharing of substance between two individuals – a process that ends in persuasion. Rhetoric also has the capacity to generate division or prolong hostility, persuading the audience by setting up people, matters or ideas as antithetical to the listeners. Rhetoric, in other words, creates a community: a conscious, psychological attachment to a group and the belief that this group has shared interests that are, in turn, at odds with those of other groups that may be constructed or implied by the speaker. Psychological and social studies indicate that the activation of group attitudes and identities and inter-group relations – in-group solidarity and out-group hostility – have a huge effect on the behaviours and attitudes in target audiences (e.g. Miller et al. 1981; Conover 1984; Lau 1989; Huddy 2003). The techniques of unity and division in respect to rhetoric have been widely studied in classical scholarship, but only in a fragmentary way: there is no single, systematic and comprehensive study of these techniques. This gives scope for further research since there are several open questions: what forms does the rhetoric of identification take in Greek and Roman prose and poetry? What do these forms tell us about the speaker’s purpose, and how does he exploit them to the best rhetorical effect? What sources do we have about the reaction of the audience? How much difference does the nature of the speeches – forensic, deliberative and epideictic – make in the exploitation of the rhetoric of community and division? Topics may include, but are not limited to considerations of: a. language; b. emotions; c. performance; d. memory; e. humour theory; f. gender-based approaches; g. religion; h. narrative, argumentation, ēthopoiia and other techniques that reinforce affiliation/ disaffiliation to groups.
Abstract (English Version): A Greek Lawgiver in the Epitome of Pompeius Trogus: Justin’s account of Lycurgus This paper aims to explore the perception of the “other” in Latin historiography, analyzing a passage on a Greek lawgiver, Lycurgus of Sparta, in Justin's Epitome of Pompeius Trogus. The purpose is to examine how a Latin writer defines and describes an ancient lawgiver from the Greek tradition, and how Lycurgus can be relevant for the Roman readers during the Imperial Age. In his Epitome of Pompeius Trogus, Justin summarizes, in fact, some crucial information on Lycurgus and his constitution. In the account from the third book, the author provides a biographical sketch on the lawgiver and a summary of the traditional Spartan laws (such as frugal customs, land distribution, the prohibition of gold and silver coins). A closer look at Justin's exposition reveals some elements that this text has in common with Plutarch and other Greek sources. Since Trogus was presumably active during the Augustan age, it is also important to remark that Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus is a later text than the Historiae of Trogus. A re-examination of Justin's text might, therefore, help us to clarify which traditions about Sparta's kosmos the imperial author had selected and included in his Epitome. The taste for anecdotes and moralizing contents is probably one of the reasons why Justin preserves, in the summary of the third book, not only the laws of Sparta but also biographical details on Lycurgus. Thus, this account testifies an interest in the Greek lawgiver as a moral exemplum in the imperial age, appropriate for both Trogus' and Justin's period.