Fathers and Sons in Athens: Ideology and Society in the Era of the Peloponnesian War

by Barry S. Strauss

Overview

Father-son conflict was for the Athenians a topic of widespread interest that touched the core of both family and political life, particularly during times of social upheaval. In this vivid account of the intermingling of politics and the private sphere in classical Athens, Barry Strauss explores the tensions experienced by a society that cherished both youthful independence and paternal authority. He examines father-son relations within the Athenian family and the way these relations were represented in a wide variety of political and literary texts. His inquiry reveals that representations of patricide, father beating, and son murdering did not necessarily coincide with actual instances but rather served as metaphors for intergenerational tensions fueled by democracy, the sophists, and the Peloponnesian War.


Strauss points out that major Athenian accounts of father-son conflict—such as the myth of the Athenian national hero, Theseus, and the plays of Euripides and Aristophanes—were either produced or enthusiastically revived during the war. He traces the relation between the use of familial metaphors in these accounts and fluctuations in Athenian wartime ideology: as the fortunes of Athens shifted, citizens went from confidence in their elder statesman Pericles to enthusiasm over a new generation of young politicians led by Pericles' ward Alcibiades, and back to an insistence on what Athenians called the "paternal" rule of older leaders. In emphasizing the blurring of boundaries between family and state, or private and public, in Athens, Strauss encourages us to reflect anew on the distinction between these concepts and on the difficulties of putting that distinction into practice today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691015910
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	03/06/1997
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	299
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Barry S. Strauss is Director of the Peace Studies Program and Professor of History and Classics at Cornell University. He is author of Athens after the Peloponnesian War: Class, Faction, and Policy 403-386 B.C.

Table of Contents

	Preface
	List of abbreviations
1	Introduction: Solidarity Or Conflict?	1
2	Intellectual Paternity	21
	Appendix to Chapter 2: Patrios and Pater	57
3	Solidarity: Proud Fathers, Obedient Sons	61
4	Conflict: The Sons of Theseus	100
5	The Hour of the Son, ca. 450-414 BC	130
6	The Return of the Father, 413-399 BC	179
	Conclusion	212
	Notes	221
	Bibliography	253
	Index	276

Editorial Reviews

The best study in print of father-son relations in Athens.
— James M. Williams

History: Reviews of New Books

The best study in print of father-son relations in Athens.

History: Reviews of New Books - James M. Williams

Particularly noteworthy is Strauss's lucid demonstration of how the rhetoric of familial breakdown informed political discourse in the wake of the disastrous Athenian defeat in Sicily. . . . One of the most original and interesting works on classical Athens to appear in years.

The Historian - Stanley M. Burstein

This work is exciting and important not only for its thesis but for the new and often exhilarating way in which we see language and history and texts combined and interpreted.

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews - Thomas M. Falkner

Particularly noteworthy is Strauss's lucid demonstration of how the rhetoric of familial breakdown informed political discourse in the wake of the disastrous Athenian defeat in Sicily. . . . One of the most original and interesting works on classical Athens to appear in years.
— Stanley M. Burstein

The Historian

This work is exciting and important not only for its thesis but for the new and often exhilarating way in which we see language and history and texts combined and interpreted.
— Thomas M. Falkner

Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

This work is exciting and important not only for its thesis but for the new and often exhilarating way in which we see language and history and texts combined and interpreted.
— Thomas M. Falkner

Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This work is exciting and important not only for its thesis but for the new and often exhilarating way in which we see language and history and texts combined and interpreted."—-Thomas M. Falkner, Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews

"Particularly noteworthy is Strauss's lucid demonstration of how the rhetoric of familial breakdown informed political discourse in the wake of the disastrous Athenian defeat in Sicily. . . . One of the most original and interesting works on classical Athens to appear in years."—-Stanley M. Burstein, The Historian

"The best study in print of father-son relations in Athens."—-James M. Williams, History: Reviews of New Books

From the Publisher