Tag: Literature in the Ancient World

Articles

THE PLATONIC SAGE IN LOVE

How, then, one may ask, can the true philosopher have any truck with the passion of love? It is a basic axiom of Plato’s ethics, after all, that the irrational part, or aspect, of the soul, including the erotic impulse, should be subordinated to the reason, and that the passions, if not entirely eradicated, should at all times be reduced to ‘moderation’ by the exercise of the power of rationality.

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DEMOCRATISATION OF GREEK SOCIETY DURING THE ARCHAIC ERA?

In the modern scholarship of the Ancient Greek history there is a well known and well established conception of an universal democratisation of Greek society during the Archaic and Early Classical periods. It could be summarised roughly as follows:1 Af- ter the fall of the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilisation, in the so-called Dark Ages (11th to 8th centuries B.C.), the Greek communities were governed by the kings (basilees).

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THE ARCHAIC BIOGRAPHY OF HOMER

Thus the discussions about which of the epics might have been composed by Homer, as well as the considerations about his person and life seem to have taken place simultaneously, at the end of the 6th century. The increased interest in the person of the poet gives reason to assume that something in connection with those discussions might have also been put down at that time.