CMS150 - Winter 2001

Trials of Conscience: Litigation

and the Rhetoric of Identity

 

---

Week 1

• Class 1
• Class 2 [1/11/01]
  • Plato, Apologia
    • Please prepare a case analysis for the Apology of Plato. You will not have to hand this in, but you will not be able to pass Tuesday's quiz unless you have completed the analysis.

Week 2

• Class 1 [1/16/01] [Stone, 1-67]
  • What is a polis?
  • What were the political differences between the oligarchs and democrats in Athens?
  • What were Socrates' politics?
  • What methodological differences characterize Plato and Aristotle?
  • Why might it be fair to characterize Plato as a totalitarian?
  • Is it fair to characterize Socrates as a totalitarian?
  • Does Homer offer support for arguments against democracy?
  • Who was Polycrates? What does he mean when he says that Socrates "corrupted" the youth of Athens?
  • Who were Critias and Alcibiades? Why might Athenians have complained about their conduct and their association with Socrates?
  • Who were Pindar and Theognis? Why might they have been the poets Socrates is claimed to have used to criticize democracy?
  • Who was Hesiod? For what was he famous? Would Socrates have used him the way he was said to have used Pindar and Theognis? Why or why not?
  • What did Socrates think virtue and knowledge were? What was the relationship between the two?
  • Why did these questions have political implications?
  • What did Athenians think about these questions?
  • What did the Sophists think about these questions?
  • Why did Socrates dislike them?
  • How did the education sophists offer differ from the education men like Plato received?
  • What did the Sophists Antiphon and Alcidamas teach? Why would socratics have disliked it?
  • What is Socrates critique of the Assembly in the Protageras
  • What was Protagoras' myth that explained democracy?
  • Why do you think that Socrates (at least as Plato and Xenophon portray him) never engaged in an explicit debate on the merits and weaknesses of democracy as a form of government?
  • What is Stone's critique of Socrates method (irony, elenchus, aporia)?
  • What benefits did democracy bring to Athens according to Herodotus and Aschylus [
  • What does the Greek word, arete, mean. How did Socrates define it?
  • Why does Aristotle criticize this definition? How does Aristotle define the relationship between courage and virtue? How does Stone criticize Socrates' definition and description of the relationpship between courage and virtue?
  • How do Aristotle and Socrates' definitions of courage relate to their understanding of democracy?
  • What does Stone mean by Socrates technique of "negative dialectic?"
  • What are the problems with this technique according to Socrates' critics?
  • What do you think that some of the benefits of this technique may be?
  • Was Socrates a teacher?
  • What reasons does Stone suggest motivated Socrates to deny that he was a teacher
  • Why was it dangerous for Socrates to be considered the teacher of Critias and Alcibiades
  • Why might democrats reasonably argue that Socrates' teaching corrupted the young men who like to attend him?
  • What interest might Plato have in surpressing mention of Socrates' students' roles in the overthrow of the democracy?
  • If we were to judge Socrates by his students, how might the careers of Critias and Alcibiades inform our judgments?

    
     

     
     
     
     
     

• Class 2 [1/18/01]
  •  Chapter 6: 68-89
    • What was the difference for Socrates between doxa and epistme.
    • What does the practice of definition offer philosophical argument?
    • How did Socrates efforts at definition influence his students Plato and Antisthenes?
    • How did Antiphon criticize Plato's theory of the forms?
    • How does Stone criticize Socrates pursuit of definition?
    • What, according to Stone, are the anti-democratic implications of Socrates practice?
    • How does Stone criticize Plato's use of Socratic definition to critique democracy?
    • According to Stone, how do Xenophon and Plato's account of the Delphic oracle differ?
    • Do the Gorgias and Meno suggest, according to Stone, that Socrates was anti-democratic or anti-political?
    • Does Socrates pursuit of definition make political life or the rule of law (as a theoretical matter) impossible?
    • Does it make men like Critias and Alcibiades inevitable?
  • Chapter 7: 90-98
    • What is the difference between normative and ethical rules?
    • How do Socrates' attitudes towards rhetoric differ in the Phaedrus, Gorgias and Apology?
    • How do Aristotle's attitudes towards rhetoric differ from those of Socrates?
    • How, according to Stone, does Aristotle's treatment of generality and particularity differ from Socrates? How does it improve on Socrates?
  • Chapter 8: 99-116
    • Why, according to Aristotle and Stone, must one live in a polis to experience justice?
    • Why did Athenians consider participation in politics necessary for civic identity?
    • Why does Stone find Socractes self-characterization as Athen's gadfly inconsistent with Socrates assertion that a just man can survive in a democracy only by refusing to participate in public life?
    • How do the fates of Melos and Mytilene demonstrates problems inherent in empire according to Stone?
    • Why, according to Stone, does the fate of Melos reflect as badly on Socrates (who did not participate in the debate) as it did on the democratic Assembly?
    • Stone says that there was a great need for Socrates to make his position clear to the city in its crises. Why?
    • What link does Stone see between the death of Theramenes, and that of Socrates?
    • What was the legal or constitutional question at issue in the trial of the generals of the Arginusae?
    • What was the procedural gambit that compelled Socrates to take a stand on the legal/constitutional issue involved in the trial of the generals?
    • Stone suggests that Socrates was not as brave in the trial of the Generals as Socrates suggests in the Apologia. Is this fair? What is Stone's argument and how might Socrates have countered it? [
    • Can you make an argument that Socrates conduct with respect to Leon of Salamis' arrest was not as brave and independent as Socrates suggests in the Apologia? What range of actions were open to Socrates to take?
    • How does Socrates' conception of the soul reflect a new development in Greek philosophical teaching?
    • What are the political consequences of Socrates' conception of the soul?
    • How would an Athenian have evaluated Socrates' conception of the soul and its political consequences ?
  • Chapter 9: 117-129
    •  What is Socrates' attitude toward the demos [the people of Athens]?
    • What was Socrates' economic position? What is your evidence for that assessment?
    • Is it reasonable to assume that Socrates would be a spokesman for the interests of his own economic class? Why or why not?
    • Why would Athenians be disturbed if citizens made disparaging remarks about the humble origins or employment in trade of other citizens?
    • Is Socrates' disdain for those engaged in politics limited to ordinary Athenians? What evidence do we have that he scorned members of the elite who engaged in politics?
    • Is Aristophanes' characterization of Socrates as "Sparta-mad" fair or a comic exaggeration?
    • What was the contrast in styles between Spartan and Athenian life that Athenians imagined?
    • What were the political implications of affecting a Spartan style in Athens?
    • In fact, what was Spartan culture and society like?
    • Why does the Athenian aristocratic affectation of Spartan style seem so odd to moderns
    • What was Sparta's attitude towards Athenians in particular and foreigners in general?
    • What did Socrates say the secret of Sparta was? How should we interpet his description of Sparta?
    • What should we conclude about Socrates admiration for Sparta on the one hand, and his refusal to leave Athens after being convicted?
  • Chapter 10: 133-139
    • What role did the comic theater play in Athenian political life according to Stone?
    • What does the fact that Socrates was regularly targeted by Athenian comic playwrights tell us about his place in Athenian public life
    • In the Apologia, Socrates claims that the comic playwrights have shaped the jury's perception of him. Is this a fair charge? What perception of Socrates would the jurors have had from the comic writers? How strongly would this perception have influenced their own analysis of Socrates?
    • How does Stone think Athenians would have evaluated a charge of atheism against Socrates? What's the basis for his argument? [137-139]
  • Chapter 11: 140-173
    • According to Stone, what three events caused the jokes that the comic playwrights had made about Socrates to cease to be funny?
    • How does Socrates explain these events?
    • What does the word synomosias mean? Why does Socrates deny taking part in any?
    • What does the word hetaireias mean? What role did hetaireias play in Athenian political life?
    • Why were there no pro-democratic synomosias or hetaireias?
    • How did the democracy respond to the activities of hetaireias? Why this response?
    • How did the Athenian democracy end after the victory of Sparta in 404?
    • What two factors guaranteed the safety of the Thirty after Sparta's victory?
    • Stone describes the struggles in Athens in 411 and 404 as a three-cornered class struggle? What were the three parties to the struggle?
    • Why did the victors in the struggle fail to maintain power?
    • What role did Socrates play in these struggles? Could the role he played in the struggles be related to his fate at trial?
    • Why does Stone feel that the portrayal of Socrates in the Euthyphro demonstrates what Nietzche called the "icy" character of Socratic logic
    • What are the different characterizations of the word thes in Greek? [149-
    • Why is Socrates' use of the word in the Euthyphro telling?
    • Why does Socrates' invocation of his pro-democratic follower Chaerephon not help him at trial?
    • What protection did the amnesty of 403 BCE offer Socrates?
    • From what could the amnesty not protect Socrates?
    • Why did the Critias and the Thirty Tyrants want possession of Eleusis?
    • How did they conduct themselves at Eleusis
    • How did the opponents of democracy lose control of Eleusis?
    • Why was the conduct of the aristocrats in Eleusis so damaging to Socrates?
  • Chapter 12: 174-180
    • What role did Socrates' followers play in the revolutions of 411 and 401?
    • What sorts of relationship did Plato and Xenophon have with Athens?
    • How is Xenophon's accounts of Socrates and his circle different than Plato's?
    • According to Xenophon, what did the Thirty forbid Socrates to do?
    • How does Socrates' confrontation with the Thirty over this issue compare to his confrontation with the Thirty over Leon of Salamis?
    • How does Socrates' confrontation with the Thirty in Xenophon compare to his attitude towards the democracy in Plato?
    • Who were Critias and Charmides?
    • To what does Xenophon attribute the hostility of the Thirty towards Socrates? To what does Stone attribute their opposition to Socrates?
    • What attitudes toward the Thirty are attributed to Plato in the Seventh Letter? What problems, if any, does this source pose?
    • How does Stone characterize Plato's attitudes and behavior with respect to Critias and Charmides?
    • What problems does the Athenian history of democracy pose for Critias' rule [as leader of the Thirty] over Athens? How does Critias solve these problems? How does he defend his solution in Xenophon?
    • How does Plato (according to Stone) propose to solve the same problems that plagued Critias?
    • What is Plato's vision of the Republic, the perfectly organized society? Who are the Guardians, what is their role in the Republic and how is it justified? Who are the epikouroi? What is their role in the Republic?
    • How will the leaders of Plato's Republic deal with opposition and dissent?
    • What role would the family have in Plato's Republic? Why ?
    • What analogies does Stone draw between Plato's Republic and Critias' Athens?
  • Chapter 13: 174-175
    • How can Stone characterize Critias as the "chief witness for the prosecution," when he is dead at the time of Socrates' trial?
    • What were Anytus' politics? From what two sources can we know? [
    • Stone offers three ancient accounts of Anytus' life after the death of Socrates. What are they? What are the sources for these accounts? Why are they less than trustworthy?
    • What evidence do we have that the Athenians supported the jury's decision to kill Socrates?
    • To what does Stone attribute the emnity between Socrates and Anytus? Based on what sources?

Week 3

• Class 1 [1/23/01]
  • Stone, The Trial and Death of Socrates (p. 181 -248)
  • Chapter 14: 181-196
    • What does Stone claim was the biggest surprise of Socrates' trial? Why?
    • What does the word megalegoria mean and why is it relevant to an analysis of Xenophon's Apologia?
    • Who is Xenophon's source for his account of the trial of Socrates?
    • According to Xenophon, why did Socrates "throw" his own trial?
    • According to Xenophon, how did he accomplish this?
    • What evidence do we have of the jury's response to Socrates' tactic of megalegoria (besides the verdict)?
    • When does Socrates make his best argument against the death penalty? What is it?
    • Why did the jury's verdict of conviction on the principal charges increase the likelihood that they would vote against the death penalty?
    • What does the jury's verdict on the penalty suggest about their reception of Socrates' speech?
    • What counter-penalty does Xenophon say Socrates proposed? Why?
    • What is the signficance of the contradiction between Xenophon's and Plato's account of the counter-penalty?
    • Why was Socrates' proposal in Plato's Apologia that he be given free meals for the rest of his life in the Prytaneum so offensive to the demos?
    • How do we know that the prosposed penalty of a 30 mina fine was substantial?
    • What reason does Socrates offer in the Crito for refusing to flee Athens to avoid the death penalty?
    • What reason does he offer in the Phaedo?
    • Why does Stone criticize Socrates for his treatment of Xanthippe?
    • What is the theory of philosophical suicide and death that Socrates argues in the Phaedo? On what opposition does it depend?
  • Chapter 15: 197-209
    • Why does Stone think Socrates' jury was reluctant to convict?
    • To what Athenian democratic ideals could Socrates have appealed to win? Why didn't he make this appeal?
    • According to Stone, what was the greatest weakness in the prosecution's case?
    • What did the charge of "atheism" mean in the classical world?
    • Do you agree with Stone's argument that comic treatment of the gods in Athenian theatre demonstrates that "Athens was not shocked either by disbelief or disrespect for the gods?"
    • Why was Socrates' impiety a political crime?
    • What does Stone believe the charge that Socrates did not worship "the gods of the city" imply?
    • To what purpose does Stone believe that Aschylus used the myth of the Orestes in his trilogy?
    • Who are the gods of the city to whom Athena pays tribute at the end of the Oresteia?
    • What do we know about Athenian worship of these gods?
    • Why would it be unlikely that Socrates would have worshipped these gods?
  • Chapter 16: 210-214
    • Who was Libanius?
    • In Libanius' Apology, how does Socrates characterize Athens and criticize Anytus?
    • Would the jury have been persuaded by such a speech?
    • Do you agree with Stone's argument that Socrates could have defended himself but invoking freedom of speech and putting Athens on trial?
  • Chapter 17: 215-224
    • What do the following words mean: isotes, isonomia, isegoria and isologia?
    • Why does Herodotus say that isegoria helped the Athenians win the Persian Wars?
    • How did the Spartan Assembly operate? How did its operations compare to the Athenians' ?
    • How does the Speech and Debate Clause of the American Consitution protect free speech in the U.S. [Art. I, sec. 6].
    • What evidence does Aeschylus offer for the importance of free speech in Athenian society?
    • What evidence does Sophocles offer for the importance of free speech in Athenian society?
    • What word does Euripides use for freedom of speech?
    • What evidence does Euripides offer for the importance of free speech in Athenian society? [221-223]
  • Chapter 18: 225-230
    • Why does Stone say that Socrates was the first to articulate the idea of the social contract?
    • How does Socrates imagine the contract between state and citizen?
    • How did the first Greek philosophers theorize freedom of speech?
    • How did Socrates and the Platonists theorize freedom of speech?
    • How did philosophers after the rise of Macedon theorize freedom of speech?
    • What was Socrates' attitude towards freedom of speech as it was practiced in Athens?
  • Epilogue: 231-247
    •  Why did E.R. Dodds argue that Athens persecuted philosophers, scholars and scientists? (what Stone characterizes as a "witch-hunt")
    • What is Stone's critique of Dodd's argument?
    • Who was Diopeithes and what do we know about him?
    • Who was Hermippus? Why does Stone think that he is an unlikely prosecutor of Aspasia? Who was Aspasia?
    • How does Stone think Plutarch came to believe that Pericles and his associates were the objects of impiety trials in Athens?
    • What is the easiest way to undermine the authority of Roman authors who wrote about the Athenian witchhunts?
    • What is the earliest source of information regarding the trial of Anaxagoras?
    • What is the richest source of legendary matrial about Anaxagoras?
    • Why have people erroneously believed that Anaxagoras was tried for impiety? How do the Socratic sources demonstrate that he was not tried for impiety?
    • Is it fair to characterize Greek philosophy as an aristocratic activity?

      
       

       
       
       

• Class 2 [1/25/01]
  • Cohen, Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens (p. 1-118)
  • Chapter 1 (1-24)
    • According to Cohen, how does the plot of Aeschylus' Oresteia capture the standard account of the development of legal institutions in Athens?
    • According to Cohen, the standard account of Athenian legal history suffers from three types of analytical presuppositions. What are they?
    • These presuppostions have lead scholars to make what sort of conclusions about the Athenian legal system?
    • How does Cohen characterize the role of conflicts and dispute within a society? How does his view differ from that inherent in the "standard account" of Athenian legal history.
    • Does Cohen believe that the Athenian political system was stable or unstable during its last century? Why?
    • Cohen describes Athenian society as "agonistic." What does he mean?
    • What are the characteristics of "functionalist theories" of societies and their institutions, according to Cohen?
    • Why are functionalists interested in studying feud and warfare? What do they conclude the function of feud and warfare is?[
    • What are some of the criticisms scholars have made about the functionalist account of feud? (be able to identify at least three)
    • How do evolutionary theories of legal history account for feuds? (By the way, do you know what Cohen means by "acephalous societies?" If not, you should look up "acephalous" and think about it.)
    • Why is Cohen critical of evolutionary theories of law
    • According to Cohen, why does the example of the Kotaro brothers' request for kataki-uchi demonstrate the inherent limitations of evolutionary accounts of legal history?
    • Rather than reading the Orestia as a monument to the end of feud, how does Cohen suggest we might read it?
    • How does characterizing the distinction between public and private violence as "rhetorical" permit Cohen (citing Bartlett) to criticize evolutionary accounts of Athenian legal history?
    • According to Wilson's study of the Corsican feud, what is feud fundamentally about?
    • Can feud co-exist with centralized institutions of legal and political authority?
    • Rather than define feud soley as a homicidal activity ("blood feud") how does Cohen believe we should characterize the feud or feuding behavior?
    • What does this type of definition of feud do to our understanding of the role of conflict and the role of litigation within a society?
    • In Athens, private citizens rather than state agencies inititiated litigation (even for criminal prosecutions). What are the consequences of this fact for our understanding of the nature of disputing in Athens, according to Cohen?
    • How, therefore, should we understand the nature of litigation in classical Athens
    • Why does Cohen adapt the old French adage, "always mistrust the law"? How does Cohen believe "the law" operates within society?
  • Chapter 2 (25-33)
    • What did the term stasis mean to the classical Greeks. How does the story of Peithias in Corcyra demonstrate the relationship between law, feud and politics?
    • According to Thucydides, what was the cause of stasis? How did different Greek cities attempt to limit the consequences of stasis?
    • How can stasis promote and preserve community values?
    • Under what conditions can stasis threaten civil society?
    • Why don't modern scholars believe that theories of "factionalism" help illuminate the problem of stasis in Greek societies?
    • How does Aristotle link the concepts of equality and stasis in the Politics?
    • Why does Aristotles understanding of the relationship between equality and stasislead him to conclude that political stability in democracies and oligarchies is always precarious?
    • How does Aristotle link human envy to stasis?
    • How does private competition become a matter of public or political upheaval in the oligarchic examples Aristotle offers?
    • How does envy cause stasis in democracies?
    • What role does the law play in Aristotle's [and Plato & Thucydides'] analysis of stasis?
  • Chapter 3 (34-57)
    • What does it mean that Greek political theorists, regardless of their own political ideology agreed that "the rule of law" was the best way to contain the destructive effects of envy, competition and stasis?
    • According to Cohen, what is Aristotle's "censorial" model of the rule of law? What is Plato's model of the rule of law? What was the model offered by Athenian democrats? How do they differ from each other?
    • According to Aristotle, why is the human capacity for reason (logos) not sufficient to sustain political association?
    • Why does the rule of law make political association possible? Upon what inherent feature of the human personality does the rule of law depend? Therefore, according to Aristotle, what must all political constitutions or governments be concerned with?
    • According to Aristotle, how do laws differ under different types of constitutions?
    • How does Aristotle's view of the rule of law differ from that of modern legal theorists?
    • Why does Aristotle believe that radical democracies are hostile to the rule of law? What, according to Aristotle are the crucial defects of the rule of law under such constitions ?
    • What are the two components of constitutional government, according to Aristotle? How do these features of constitutional government protect political communities from the flaws inherent in democracy?
    • What is Aristotle's view of the "natural" moral state of human beings and human communities? What conclusions does this lead Aristotle to make about the nature of the "ideal" state?
    • Does Plato believe in the rule of law? On what two principles does Plato rest his understanding of the rule of law?
    • What is the inherent tension between these principles and how does Plato resolve it?
    • In the Laws, Plato recommends approaching the reform of human society at two separate levels. What are they and what are the consequences, for Plato, of so defining reform? [
    • Why, according to Plato, is conflict the primary obstacle to the rule of law?
    • Why, according to Plato, is education critical to overcoming that obstacle?
    • How, according to Plato's Laws, does the law rule in an ideal state? How is this conception of political organization different from that articulated in the Republic?
    • How do education and the rule of law address the political problems of faction and domination?
    • What does Plato believe to be the true source of social disorder? How does he theoretically solve these problems with respect to political institutions? With respect to human nature?
    • What is the parodox of Plato's rule of law according to Cohen?
    • What is the role of legislation in Plato's ideal state? What are the theoretical limitations of the rule of law in his ideal state?
    • How did Athenenian democrats define the rule of law?
    • Why did Thirty represent the antithesis of the rule of law under this definition?
    • For the democrats, what did the rule of law prevent?
    • Of what does liberty consist under democratic ideology? What limits individual liberty under democratic ideology?
    • How does the democratic conception of the rule of law differ from that of Plato and Aristotle?
  • Chapter 4 (61-86)
    • Why does Cohen believe that an understanding of Athenian social values is particularly important to the study of Athenian law?
    • What does Cohen believe that Aristotle's Rhetoric is a useful source for Athenian normative values [do you know what he means by "normative" values, expectations, etc?)
    • According to Cohen, Aristotle provides evidence that Athenians divided or categorized their social relations into five classes. What are they? How do these categories demonstrate that Athenians were competitive and what were they competitive about?
    • How did Athenians define honor? How did one acquire or lose it? Why was this conception of honor not democratic?
    • How could the un-democratic notion of honor exist within a democratic ideology?
    • Why do Athenian values of shame and honor foster vengence? Why is this "natural" according to Aristotle?
    • Why, according to Aristotle, does anger bring pleasure? Why do men take vengence?
    • Is it possible to strive too much for honor, victory or vengence? What limits the pursuit of honor, victory and vengence How does Cohen explain the logical inconsistency of the Athenian value of honor, and its limitation of it?
    • Why, according to Aristotle, are men envious?
    • How is envy different from rivalry and emulation? Which of these emotions is good for the community and which are bad? Why?
    • How did attitudes towards competition play out within Athens' democratic ideology?
    • What did an Athenian orator mean when he said he and his opponent were in a state of emnity?
    • What function did emnity serve as a legal category?
    • What kinds of behavior were evidence of a state of emnity?
    • What role did the law play in structuring relationships of emnity?
    • How did Athenian notions of egalitarianism get invoked in rhetorical discussions of emnity?
    • According to Cohen, how does Demosthenes speech, On the Trierarchic Crown, illustrate the tension between the egalitarian democratic ideology of Athenian politics and the hierarchical organization of Athenian society resulting from its agonistic values?
    • How does rhetorical invective and insult actually demonstrate respect for a rival?
    • Why must one be cautious in interpreting invective in legal speeches?
    • Why didn't the jury for Demosthenes speech in defense of Ctesiphon regard his claims to honor and his invective against Aeschines as anti-democratic
    • Why, according to Cohen, did the nature of Athens political democracy promote intense rivalry and emnity?
    • Why is emnity an acceptable motive for prosecution to an Athenian jury, but not envy?
    • What consequences arise from the fact that Athenian values of emnity and envy, honor and vengence were often ambiguous and contradictory?
  • Chapter 5 (87-118)
    • Cohen suggests that while classical Athens did not use the "blood feud" as an organizing principle of conflict, thinking about conflict in Athens in terms of feuds is helpful for three reasons. What are they?
    • Cohen suggests that Athenians did not necessarily believe that their trials were meant to discover truth. Why? What does Cohen mean by the phrase "the ideology of the rule of law?"
    • Why is a feud like a game? [
    • How does Bourdieu describe the "game of honor"?
    • How does Bourdieu define honor for the North African community he studies?
    • What is the role of the community or public opinion in the the game of honor?
    • What does Cohen mean when he says that the challenge of the game of honor is to perform discursively a social identity which the community will validate?
    • According to Cohen, how are moderns predisposed to look at Demosthenes' suit against Meidias? How, instead, should they look at the suit?
    • What is an antidosis?
    • How did Aphobus use legal procedures against Demosthenes? Why did he use so use them?
    • Why does Cohen think that it is fair to characterize the conflict between Aphobus and Demosthenes as a feud?
    • Why didn't the legal judgment Demosthenes obtained in his initial lawsuit serve to end the feud? What role did the courts play in the "feud?"
    • Why did the feud spread beyond Aphobus and Demosthenes? What did the feud have to do with Demosthenes' conflict with Meidias?
    • What is hubris?
    • Why does Demosthenes begin his speech against Meidias by characterizing himself as a defendant (even though he was the plaintiff)? Why does Cohen think that this was a logical position for him to take?
    • What does this characterization tell us about what Demosthenes anticipated the jury's concerns would be?
    • Why does Demosthenes' insist that Meidias' conduct was a matter for public concern and not a private incident in a private feud?
    • Why was the fact that the incident took place within the context of the rivalry between Meidias and Demosthenes as chorus masters a problem for Demosthenes? How does Demosthenes attempt to solve this problem?
    • Why does Cohen believe that the reputation of Meidias and Demosthenes were at least as important as the factual evidence about their conflict?
    • How is Demosthenes' invocation of Athens' egalitarian ideals contradictory?
    • Why does Cohen believe that Demosthenes' settled his suit against Meidias?
    • What role did the Athenian legal system play in the public life of Athen's politicians, according to Cohen?
    • What was sycophancy? Why was it rhetorically treated by Athenian orators as the opposite of revenge?
    • What factors relating to Athenian social valuesand to the organization of their courts made discovery of the "factual" truth in a dispute difficult to determine?
    • In terms of Athenian legal rhetoric, hat are "honorable" reasons to use the courts? What are "dishonorable" reasons?
    • What was the role of a witness in an Athenian trial?
    • Why might perjury not be considered lying in a feuding society?
    • If juries could not rely on witnesses to tell the factual truth, how did they make their decisions?
    • Did Athenian litigants expect to settle their disputes in court? Why or why not?
    • What stake did "ordinary" jurors have in the legal feuds of Athens' economic and political elite?
    • What does Cohen believe is the crucial difference between the Athenian conception of legality and the modern?
    • Why does Cohen believe that classical Athens' legal system relied on private citizens to bring criminal lawsuits?

Week 4

• Class 1 [1/30/01]
  • Cohen, Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens (p. 1-118)
  • Chapter 6 (119-142)
    1. According to Cohen, what three factors make it difficult for us to determine what actually happened between Ariston and Conon? Why doesn't it matter for the purpose of Cohen's analysis?
    2. Why is Ariston's case substantively and procedurally like Demosthenes' case against Meidias?
    3. Why does Ariston say his friends advised him to sue Conon on a private charge of assault rather than other pursue other legal options? What other legal options did he have?
    4. What were the two factors, according to Cohen, that determined what type of charges litigants brought in Athens? How do these factors explain the advise Ariston's friends gave him according to Cohen?
    5. What is the difference, according to Cohen, in the way moderns and classical Athenians conceived of the trial?
    6. What is the "feuding context" which Ariston provides for his dispute with Conon?
    7. Why is Ariston careful to assert that Conon is a heavy drinker?
    8. What does Ariston say that Conon actually did when he assaulted Ariston? Who helped him?
    9. Why, according to Cohen, was this assault a perfect example of hubris [reread p. 93-94 if you can't remember what hubris is]?
    10. What does Cohen believe will be Conon's strategy in response to Ariston?
    11. Ariston's self-presentation and Conon's expected response reveal two different and contradictory expectations about public behavior in Athens. What are they?
    12. What conception of the rule of law and its role in public life does Ariston argue for? What does Cohen find remarkable and revelatory about this argument?
    13. What is Ariston's second rhetorical strategy? Why does Cohen characterize it as "ritualistic?"
    14. What points does Ariston make in appealing to the self-interest of the demos? [
    15. In what court did the Simon (in Against Simon) bring his case?
    16. What was the "feuding context" of the case? How are the rhetorical topoi involved in the presentation of the feuding context similar to those used in Against Conon?
    17. Why does the does the defendant (the speaker in Against Simon) say that he did not pursue a case against Simon? How does this explanation cast light upon Ariston's self presentation in Against Conon?
    18. What is the particular conflict that gave rise to the lawsuit in Against Simon?
    19. Why does the defendant argue that Simon shouldn't have brought a lawsuit at all, much less one in the Areopagus? How does his argument shed light on the arguments Ariston anticipated Conon would make in Against Conon?
    20. Describe the facts in the third case (Lysias 4) which Cohen analyzes
    21. Why does this case lend itself to an anlysis comparable to that suggested by Cohen for Against Simon and Against Conon?
    22. Describe the facts of the last speech (Against Teisis) which Cohen analyzes.
    23. Why does this case lend itself to an anlysis comparable to that suggested by Cohen for Against Simon and Against Conon?
    24. Why do the four cases Cohen analyses support the argument that non-homicide assault cases in Athens arose out of feuding behavior?
    25. In such feuds, what role does the trial in court play?
    26. What were the two, contradictory, normative descriptions of behavior that litigants invoked before the courts?
    27. Why does Cohen believe that David Herlihy's analysis of Renaissance Florence provide a useful comparanda to classical Athens?
    28. What does the comparison to Florence lead Cohen to assume about the identity of the litigants involved in feuding behavior?
  • Chapter 7 (143-162)
    1. Why were hubris and inuria (the Roman verision of hubris) important legal categories in the ancient world? [143]

       
        

    Part I &endash; evidence concerning the range of reference that the word hubris might have in the sexual sphere

    1.  
    2. How did 5th and 4th century bce Athenian writers use to word hubris? [you might want to look at the definition Cohen originally offered at p. 943-94]. [144-45]
    3. What kinds of conduct are referred to as hubristic in sexual contexts? [145]
    4. Why are monarchs, tyrants and the wealthy more prone to hubris than ordinary folks?[145]
    5. Why, according to Aristotle, should a tyrant seduce a boy out of passion rather than as an expression of power? [145-47]
    6. Did heterosexual hubristic sexual aggression require physical violence?  Was sexual agression hubristic if the woman  consented? Why or why not? [147-149]
    7. Why is it irrelevant for Cohenís purposes whether accusations of hubristic sexual aggression are true or not? [149]
    8. Why do Plato and Xenophon believe that the voluntary assumption of the passive role in homoerotic sex involved submitting to hubris? [149-151]
    9. How did Greeks view/evaluate the behavior of active partners in homoerotic sex? [151]

       
        

    Part II &endash; hubris and the legal regulation of certain forms of illegitimate sexuality
     

    1. How does the modern law of rape differ from the Athenian law of hubris (regarding allegations of sexual aggression)? [151]
    2. What was the law of hubris? [152]
    3. How was the act of hubris defined in Athens? [152-153]
    4. What interpretive problems does this method of definition raise for modern scholars? [153]
    5. Why is it easier for scholars to analyze adultry as a type of hubristic sexual aggression in Athens than seduction? [155]
    6. According to Cohen, what for Aeschines is more important than the fact that Timarchus sold his sexual favors?  Why? [155-156]
    7. What role, according to Cohen, did the legal definition of "consent" or "capacity for consent" play in regulating sexual conduct in Athens? [157-159]
    8. What factors lead Cohen to conclude that familes could charge men who had sexually compromised minor male children with hubris? Why? [159-160]
    9. According to Cohen, the idea of hubris makes sense only in what types of societies? [161]
    10. What role did litigation play, according to Cohen, in the regulation of legitimate, private, violence in Athens? [162]
  • Chapter 8 (163-180)
    1. How could disputes within families affect behavior of Athenians in the conduct of their public disputes? [164]
    2. Why was it so difficult for Mantitheus to prove that Boeotus was not his half brother? Why was it difficult for the jury to assess the competing claims of Mantitheus and Boeotus? [164-165]
    3. Why was Mantitheus anxious to demonstrate that he had attempted to settle his dispute with Boeotus in the second law court speech we have involving both men? [166-167]
    4. Why did Athenians view inheritance litigation (especially where there was no immediate heir) as a game of chance? [168-169]
    5. What was the downside of winning such a game? [169-171]
    6. How did courts ultimately decide the inheritance game? [171-174]
    7. Why did the litigant in Iseus 6 (On the Estate of Philoctemon) have to explain elementary issues about kinship (e.g., direct vs. collateral descent) and inheritance law to the jury? What are the risks in relying on litigants for this information? [175]
    8. What did David Daube mean by the problem of the "self-understood" in legal history? [175-176]
    9. What do the inheritance cases tell us about the way Athenians understood their own kinship system? Would traditional scholars of kinship accept this conclusion? [176-177]
    10. Why, according to Cohen, are many traditional scholars of kinship guilty of the fallacy of "objectivism" ? How should they instead view claims about kinship? [177]
    11. Why, according to Cohen, did kinship terms like cousin (anepsios), not acquire a technical meaning in Athenian courts [178-179].
    12. How does Cohen characterize modern models of legal process? [179]
    13. In contrast, how was the law of inheritance at Athens shaped and applied? [180]
  • Chapter 9 (181-195)
    1. .How does Cohen believe his account of litigation in Athens differs from traditional accounts [181]
    2. Why and how does Cohen use comparative information when discussing Athens? [181-182]
    3. Why for Cohen is the fact that all Greek political thinkers believed that the rule of law was the solution to conflict and violence not particularly useful for a modern scholar's analysis? [182]
    4. Why does Cohen believe it is imperative to understand Athenian values in order to understand Athenian litigation? [183]
    5. What, according to Cohen, was the function of the trial court in Athenian litigation? [183]
    6. What features of Athenian litigation were in tension with the Athenian conception of the democratic rule of law? [183-84]
    7. How did Athens resolve these tension? [184-185]
    8. What did Athenian jurors do when they made a judgment, according to Cohen [185-186]
    9. What did the will to litigate imply in Athens? [186-187]
    10. How did Athens resolve the tension between its egalitarian ideals and its hierarchical aspirations [187-188]
    11. How did this resolution benefit the demos?[188]
    12. How, according to Cohen, is the trial of Socrates an excellent example of the Athenian conception of the legal process? [188-190]
    13. How does the Athenian conception of legal process differ from the modern? [190]
    14. According to Aristotle, what makes legal rhetoric possible? [191]
    15. Why did the rhetorical nature of Athenian litigation make social control by the demos possible? [191-193]
    16. How did the exercise of social control by the demos promote stability in Athenian politics?
    17. Why, according to Cohen, should litigation in Athens be viewed as part of the process of conflict [194-195].

     

• Class 2 [2/01/01]
  • Questions on Suetionius, Dio and Livy
    1. If Suetonius were our only source for the trial of Rabirius, what would be your perspective on:
       • the events that transpired between Rabirius and Saturninus
       • the nature of political parties and political conflict in Rome at the time of Rabirius' trial
       • Caesar's role and motive in Rabirius' trial
       • the nature of Rabirius' trial?
    2. What order of events does Suetonius imagine for the order of events in the prosecution of Rabirius?
    3. What outcome for the trial of Rabirius does Suetonius suggest?
    4. If Cassius Dio were our only source for the trial of Rabirius, what would be your perspective on:
       • the events that transpired between Rabirius and Saturninus
       • the nature of political parties and political conflict in Rome at the time of Rabirius' trial
       • Caesar's role and motive in Rabirius' trial
       • the nature of Rabirius' trial?
    5. What order of events does Dio imagine for the order of events in the prosecution of Rabirius?
    6. What outcome for the trial of Rabirius does Dio suggest?
    7. According to Livy
       • What is Horace's crime?
       • Why does Horace's crime present the king (Tullus), with a political problem? What is that problem?
       • Why does the duumviri procedure solve that problem for the king?
       • What is Horace's defense? Why is it successful?
       • Did Horace get off scot-free? Why not?
       • What legal/constitutional principal does Horace's trial establish? Why?
    8. What was the political nature of the struggle in which Saturninus died? Can you identify what in Suetonius and Dio leads you to that conclusion?
    9. How did the Senate's actions in the struggle with Saturninus raise constitutional questions?
    10. How did the perduellio trial of Gaius Rabirius force the Senate (and the people) of Rome to revisit this constitutional question?
        • What would be the constitutional implications if Rabirius lost?
        • What would be the constitutional implications if Rabirius won?
        • Why would Labienus and Caesar have won if the trial were started, but then disrupted?

---

Week 5

• Class 1 [2/06/01]
  • Riggsby, Chapter 1
    1. Riggsby suggests that the most important purpose of a Roman trial was to determine the truth about a contested matter. How does this understanding of the trial's purpose differ from other ways of understanding Roman trials? How does it differ from Cohen's understanding of the purpose of an Athenian trial?
    2. What types of criminal charges and courts does Riggsby study? What evidence does he use? What are the strengths and limitations of this evidence according to Riggsby?
    3. What kind of people composed a Roman jury? What does Riggsby mean when he refrst to the normative expectations of jurors? Why will understanding these expectations help us understand criminal trials? How will studying "judging paradims" help us understand the jury's normative expectations? How will Riggsby discover what the judging paradigms of Roman jurors are?
  • Riggsby, Chapter 2
    1. Why is it hard to define ambitus?
    2. How do the concepts of market exchange and gift exchange help Riggsby explain the purpose of ambitus legislation?
    3. What was the purpose of ambitus legislation?
    4. What techniques does Cicero use to defend clients charged with ambitus?
  • Riggsby, Chapter 3
    1. What kinds of cases were heard under the lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis. How did the Roman conception of sicarius develop?
    2. What were the factual allegations at issue in the cases of Roscius and Cluentius?
    3. Why, according to Riggsby, could Cicero use a broader range of exempla in homicide cases than in ambitus cases (do you know what exempla are?).
    4. Why and how does Cicero use the rhetorical figure of dilemna (do you know what the rhetorical figure of dilemna is?) in homicide cases?
    5. How does Cicero treat political issues in homicide cases. Does he treat these issues differently in the pro Cluentio than in the pro Roscio? How is the treatment of political issues in homicide cases different than in ambitus cases?
  • Cicero, pro Rab. perd.
    1. Why is Cicero acting as Rabirius' advocate?
    2. Why, according to Cicero, is Labienus' use of the perduellio procedure against the interest of the people of Rome. He gives both procedural and substantive reasons. Identify one of each.
    3. What kind of man did Labienus suggest Rabirius was? What sort of evidence did he offer in support of his suggestion? How does Cicero handle Labienus' accusations about the "life and morals" of Rabirius?
    4. Can you tell from Cicero's speech, what political and legal steps Labienus took to initiate perduellio proceedings? What role did Cicero play in this process?
    5. Based on Cicero, and the other primary sources you've read, can you reconstruct the events which led to and included the trial(s) of Rabirius? [Note, there is no "right" answer to this question &endash; there are good analyses of the evidence that support different chronologies. Be able to explain why you think what things happened and when].
    6. Why is the SCU (senatus consultum ultimum) constitutional?
    7. Why, according to Cicero, is Rabirius right to rely on the SCU for his part in the events involving Saturninus? What kind of evidence does he offer for this argument?
    8. What, according to Cicero, will be the consequence to Rome if Rabirius is found guilty? What kind of evidence does he offer for this argument?

     

• Class 2 [2/08/01]

---

Week 6

• Class 1 [2/13/01]
  • prepare for midterm
• Class 2 [2/15/01]
  • Discussion Questions: Ginzburg, The Judge and the Historian (p. 1-110)
    1. Why has Ginzburg written this book?
    2. What events led to the trial of Leonardo Marino? Who were Marino's co-defendants? What is the procedural history of this case?
    3. Why do the transcripts of the preliminary investigation remind Ginzburg of transcripts of the Inquisition? What does this analogy suggest about Ginzburg's view of the Marino trial?
    4. How, according to the principles of 19th century historiography, is a historian like a judge? What, according to the Ginzburg, are the consequences of the 19th century "judicial" model of historiography for historians?
    5. What was the reaction of Bloch and the Annales school of historians to the judicial model? Why did they have this reaction? What are the consequences of the Annales model of historiography for historians?
    6. What is Ginzburg's "judicial" model of historiography? What are the consequences of his model for the history he writes of the Marino trial?
    7. How, for Ginzburg, are the evaluations of Judge Lombardi and Judge Minale of Marino's confession, examples of Febvre's description of a historian at work? What does this description suggest about the way history is made? What does it suggest about the way law is made?
    8. What, for Ginzburg, are the evidentiary problems inherent in Marino's confession?
    9. What, for Ginzburg, are the evidentiary implications of Sgt. Rossi's testimony?
    10. What, for Ginzburg, are the evidentiary implications of Don Vincenzi's testimony?
    11. Besides the evidentiary difficulties presented by Marino's confessions, what evidentiary problems did the Marino case present for the prosecution? What conclusions does Ginzburg suggest we should draw from these evidentiary difficulties? Does he actually state this conclusion? Why not?
    12. What errors of logical interpretation did the judges and prosecutors in the Marino case make according to Ginzburg?
    13. What was the purpose of the Marino trial?

---

Week 8

• Class 2 [3/01/01]
  • Discussion Questions: Ginzburg, The Judge and the Historian (p. 110-211)
    1. Ginzburg notes a prfound divergence in the ways judges and historians work. What is that divergence?
    2. What three obstacles did the technique of "imaginary biography" allow historians to overcome. Give some specific examples of imaginary biography?
    3. In analyzing Eileen Power's book, Medieval People, Ginzburg notes that the author fills in documentary gaps with the use of elements taken from larger diachronic and synchronic elements. What does Ginzburg mean by the terms "diachronic" and "synchronic"?
    4. Why are judicial sources helpful to historians who wish to write histories that include "personal" treatments of members of non-elite classes?
    5. Ginzburg notes that the author's of "imaginary biographies" integrate diachronic and synchronic elements from the larger context in two ways. What are they?
    6. How does the methodological distinction between historical compatibility and generic plausibility permit Ginzburg to criticize the methods of the judge and prosecutor in the trials of the Calebresi Three?
    7. How, according to Ginzburg, do judges and historians treat the issue of context differently? What considerations do context raise for a judge? How do historians think of context?
    8. What is the risk of reducing the role of judge to historian? Why?
    9. According to Ginzburg, what role should doubt play in a judicial analysis of evidence? Should this role be different in a historian's analysis of evidence?
    10. Ginzburg offers as an alternative to the principle in dubio pro reo the fascist principle, in dubio pro republica. Why?
    11. What are the principal points of criticism that Ginzburg has with the written opinion in the trial of the Calabresi Three?
    12. What issue did the United Penal Section of the Italian Supreme Court decide in it's review of the Milan appellate court's trial of the case?
    13. If you wanted to argue that the trial of the Calabresi Three was a political trial, how could you use the appellate history of the case to support your argument?

---

Week 9

• Class 1 [3/06/01]
  • Homework: Read, Turner, Dramas, Fields & Metaphors
    • What does Turner mean by the following terms
      • social process
      • program
      • liminal or liminoid
      • root paradigm
      • social drama (and each of its four phases)
      • field
      • arena
      • social anti-structure
      • multivocality
      • metaphor
      • communitas
    • Analyze Chris Matthew's argument that "George W. Bush is the Wasp Michael Corleone," in terms of the analysis of metaphor Turner provides in chapter 1 (especially p. 25-31).
    • How did Znaniecki's distinction between natural and cultural systems influence Turner?
    •  What "root metaphor" might be at stake in the trial of Rabirius? Describe the trial as a social drama. Identify each of the four phases of the social drama.
    •  
• Class 2 [3/08/01]
  • Homework: Read, Trask, Joan of Arc

---

Week 10

• Class 1[3/13/01]
  • Homework: Read, Pernoud, Joan of Arc : By Herself and Her Witnesses (p. 1-137)
• Class 2 [3/15/01]
  • Homework: Read, Pernoud, Joan of Arc : By Herself and Her Witnesses (p. 138 -274)

---

Week 11

• Class 1 [3/20/01]
  • Homework: Read, Sullivan, The Interrogation of Joan of Arc
  • Questions
    1. According to Sullivan, the clerics who questioned Joan of Arc had benefited from the intellectual training for three different types of professions. What were the professions and what did they training they offered have in common?
    2. Joan did not receive the intellectual training her interrogators did. What does Sullivan believe are the consequences of this fact for their interrogation of Joan?
    3. According to Sullivan, the questions about the Fairy Tree demonstrate that Joan and her fellow villagers divided the world into three categories of phenomena and the clerics divided it into two. What were the categories and why and how did the clerics' world view clash with that of Joan?
    4. How and why might Joan's understanding of her voices have changed during the course of her life?
    5. Joan's enemies suggested that she adopted male dress out of her own illicit desire. Joan's defenders argued that she was compelled to do so by God. Is there a third way to understand Joan's dress?
• Class 2 [3/22/01]
  • Homework: Read, La Roy Durie, Montaillou : The Promised Land of Error

---

Week 12

• Class 1 [3/27/01]
  • Homework: Read, La Roy Durie, Montaillou : The Promised Land of Error
• Class 2 [3/29/01]
  • Homework: Read, La Roy Durie, Montaillou : The Promised Land of Error

---

Week 13

• Class 1 [4/3/01]
  • Homework: Read, Natalie Zeamon Davis Fiction in the Archives
• Class 2 [4/5/01] (last class)