Week 1

Questions for Aeschylus, Agamemnon

• Who was Aeschylus? What were his dates? For what accomplishments is he remembered? What role did he play in Athenian public life?
• When was the Oresteia first performed? Does the date of the performance suggest any political readings of the play?
• Identify the individual characters in the play.
• Identify the disputes (or crimes) in which each character is involved.
• The Watchman's Speech: 1 - 39
• Whose perspective oes the Watchman represent?
• For what does he watch and why?
• What do you know about what he thinks about Clytemnestra.
• Parados 40-103
• What point of view does the Chorus offer/take?  Who are they?
• How does the Chorus use similes establish the themes of conflict and vengence?
• Why is Artemis angry?  What are the consequences of her anger?
• According to the Chorus, what is the relationship between the wisdom, suffering and justice?  How do you respond to this equation?
• First Choral Ode 104-257
• What happened at Aulis?
• How would Agamemnon describe his choice?  Does the Chorus accept this description?
• What is the relationship between conflict and vengence in the Trojan War?  at Aulis?
• Can the Chorus determine who bears responsibility for the conflicts they describe?
• Chorus and Clytemnestra: 258-350
• Clytemnestra gives the Chorus two explanations for her knowledge of the events that had transpired at Troy. What are they?  Why does she give them two versions?  How do the versions differ?  Which does the Chorus accept?  Why?
• What do you know about what the chorus thinks about Clytemnestra?
• Second Choral Ode: 355-487
• What is the relationship between Zeus and justice?
• How does the Chorus imagine the effect of the "seduction of Helen" on Menelaus? on the people of Mycenae?
• What are the consequences of imaging these effects differently?
• Herald's Speech: 503-537
• What new information does the Herald give?
• What is the purpose/function of the Herald's speech?
• Chorus and Herald: 538-680 [and Clytemnestra]
• Do you think A. E. Houseman's "Fragment of a Greek Tragedy" was written with this scene in mind?
• Why does the chorus speak so indirectly to the Herald?
• Does Clytemnestra mean what she says?  Consider her language very carefully.
• Third Choral Ode: [Helen] 681-782
• To whom does the story of the lion cub refer?
• What is the importance of the "carpet scene?" Why does Agamemnon walk on the carpet? What does it mean that he does?
• How are the following themes developed in the play: revenge, necessity, persuasion, entanglement, hubris, heredity, justice?
• To what ends does Aeschylus use animal imagery in the play?
• What is Cassandra's role/function in the play?
• Do men and women exercise power differently in the play? How?
• What arguments might you make in favor of Agamemnon's behavior? Clytemnestra's? What arguments might you make condemning their actions?
• Does the play suggest a way that competing moral claims may be resolved?

Questions for Hansen, page 1-85.

• 1.What types of evidence do we have for Athenian law in the fourth century?
• 2.For what period of Athenian history is the evidence strongest?
• 3.What role did the "lot" play in various stages of Athenian constitutional history?
• 4.What was the purpose and effect of Pericles citizenship law?
• 5.Describe the reforms each of the following men made to the Athenian constitution in terms of the role and composition of the Boule (Council), Assembly (Ekklesia) and courts (dikasteria). Where appropriate, describe any new institutions their reforms created:
• Solon
• Peisistratus
• Kleisthenes
• Ephialtes
• Pericles
• 6.Describe the changes the oligarchs made to the Athenian constitution in the oligarchic revolution of 411 and under the regime of the Thirty in 404/3 (in terms of the role and composition of different institutional bodies).
• 7.Describe the constitution of Athens after the restoration of the democracy in 403 (in terms of the role and composition of different institutional bodies).
• 8.What is a polis? How does it differ from the modern notion of a "state."
• 9.How did Athenians use the word "democracy" differently than moderns?
• 10.How did Athenians opposed to deomcracy criticize democratic ideology?
• 11.What did Athenians understand liberty (eleutheria) to consist of?
• 12.What did Athenians mean by equality? What terms did they use to describe it?
• 13.How did Athenians distinguish between the public and private sphere?
• 14.How is normative equality different than natural equality?

Week 2

Questions for Aeschylus, Libation Bearers [Choephori]
 

1. Why does Aeschylus put so much emphasis on the identity of Orestes.
2. How is the Chorus like and different from the Chorus of the Agamemnon?
3. Compare this chorus' conceptions of justice and vengence to that of the Chorus in the Agamemon.
4. Do Orestes' and Elektra share the chorus' conception of justice and vengence?
5. At line 269 Orestes invokes the authority of Apollo - how is this justification different than those offered by Clytemnestra or Agamemnon.
6. Why must Orestes and Elektra communicate with Agamemnon?
7. In the "Great Kommos" do Elektra, Orestes and the Chorus ask for justice or vengence.
8. At 461 Orestes says that "might shall clash with might, justice with justice." How is this possible. What are the social consequences of Orestes' vision of justice?
9. Orestes links his claims for justice to claims for power? What are the consequences (if any) of his claim for power within his father's house for his claim to be acting with justice.
10. Consider Clytemnestra's dream. Who is the snake? How does this allegory compare to that of the "lion in the house" in the Helen Ode (line 716) of the Agamemnon.
11. Has Clytemnestra's character changed since the Agamemnon? How? Why?
12. How does Orestes behavior towards Clytemnestra (line 650 ff) compare to Clytmenestra's behavior towards Agamemnon in the Agamemnon (line 855 ff).
13. What purpose does Pylades serve?
14. How does Clytemnestra defend herself? How does Orestes justify himeslf? (885-930). Is Orestes justified in his actions?
15. What are the political consequences of his action? Why?
16. What are the personal consequences of his action? Why?
17. Clytemnestra, at the end of the Agamemnon invoked Zeus. Orestes, at the end of the Libation Bearers invokes Apollo. What is the logic of each invocation?
18. Are the Furies real or a product of Orestes imagination or both?
     

Questions for Hansen, 86-124

• 1.How were the inhabitants of Athens classified? What type of classification was this?
• 2.How did the Athenians classify their citizens according to age? What were the consequences of this classification?
• 3.What is Hansen's estimate of the demography of Athens (i.e., how many male citizens, metics, slaves, women, children)?
• 4.What legal procedures deprived citizens of citizenship status and legal rights?
• 5.What rights/privileges and obligations did citizenship-status guarantee or require?
• 6.What is a deme? What is its significance for the Athenian constitution and Athenian society
• 7.What is a "riding" (trittyes)? What is its significance for the Athenian constitution and Athenian society?
• 8.What is a tribe? What is its significance for the Athenian constitution and Athenian society?
• 9.How did Athens organize itself economically? What was is organization for its political and social order?
• 10.Define the following terms
  
  
  • eisphora
  • liturgy
  • dokimasia
  • euthynoi
  • antidosis
  • symmonies

Week 3

Chapter 6

• 1.How did the critics and defenders of the Athenian democracy use the word demos?
• 2.What groups within the demos dominated the Assembly/Ekklesia?
• 3.What is the Pnyx?
• 4.What is a bema?
• 5.What were the requirements for participation in the Assembly/Ekklesia?
• 6.How many people attended Assembly/Ekklesia meetings? What percentage of Athenian citizens did they represent in the 4th century BCE?
• 7.When did Athenians begin to be paid for attendance at meetings of the Athenian Assembly/Ekklesia?
• 8.How often did the Assembly/Ekklesia meet?
• 9.Who were the pryteneis? What did they do?
• 10.What was the Council/Boule?
• 11.What is the difference between the prytaneis and a prytanny?
• 12.How often did the Council/Boule meet?
• 13.What functions did the Council/Boule perform?
• 14.What happened at a kyria ekklesia? When was it held?
• 15.What do the following terms mean: epicheirontonia eisangelia epikleroi probolai
• 16.What happened at the second ekklesia of each month? What happened at the third and fourth ekklesia of each month?
• 17.Who called the meetings of the Assembly/Ekklesia?
• 18.What was an ekklesia synkletos?
• 19.The Athenians used two different calendars. What are they called and for what were they used?
• 20.Who were the proedroi and what did they do?
• 21.What do scholars imagine the seating arrangements at the Assembly/Ekklesia to have been?
• 22.What were the different types of agendas used for meetings of the Assembly/Ekklesia? How were they created and circulated?
• 23.What was a probouleuma [also called a boules psephisma]? Wh was it so important?
• 24.What does the use of probouleumata suggest about the nature of Athenian democracy?
• 25.What were procheirontia?
• 26.Did the Council/Boule's agenda always determine matters discussed at the Assembly/Ekklesia?
• 27.When did the Assembly/Ekklesia stop using proedroi and why? How had proedroi been chosen?
• 28.What does the term epistates signify? What did they do?
• 29.Who were the syllogeis tou demou? What did they do?
• 30.Describe the proceedings that opened a meeting of the Assembly/Ekklesia.
• 31.How were citizens paid for attending meetings of the Assembly/Ekklesia? How much did this cost the Athenian treasury?
• 32.How did speeches in the Assembly/Ekklesia differ from speeches in the Courts/Dikasteria?
• 33.Who spoke in the Assembly/Ekklesia? What were speakers called? What percentage of the total Assembly/Ekklesia attendance did these speakers represtn?
• 34.What legal penalties did a speaker face for misusing his authority? What honors might a speaker receive?
• 35.What were the Athenians who attended meetings of the Assembly/Ekklesia, but did not typically speak, called?
• 36.What was the difference between a speaker and a proposer of a decree?
• 37.What legal risks did a proposer of a decree face?
• 38.How did members of the Assembly/Ekklesia. vote? How were the votes counted and recorded?
• 39.Who was responsible for the publication of decrees of the Assembly/Ekklesia.
• 40.What was do the following terms mean: psephismata hypomosia graphe paranomon Metrosn
• 41.What were the powers of the Assembly/Ekklesia in the 5th century BCE? How and why did they change in the 4th century BCE?
• 42.What was the Heliastic oath? Who took it and when?
• 43.Who were the nomothetai?
• 44.What types of decisions did the 4th century Assembly/Ekklesia make? What was the Assembly/Ekklesia's most importan field of action in the 4th century bCE? Why?
• 45.What financial authority did the 4th century Assembly/Ekklesia have? How were its financial powers constrained?
• 46.What were kriseis?
• 47.How and when was the eisangelia procedure reformed? What was the effect of the reform?
• 48.What were hairesiai?
• 49.Who were the magistrates selected by Assembly election? why were they elected rather than chosen by lot?

Chapter 7

• 1.What are the differences between a thesmos, nomos and psephisma? How did the meanings of these words change over time?
• 2.Why and when did the Athenians revise their laws?
• 3.What was the anagrapheis tou nomou?
• 4.How were the laws revised in 403? What role did the Assembly/Ekklesia play in this revision? Where was the revision published?
• 5.What did 4th century bCE Athenians mean when they said, "the laws of Solon" or "the laws of Drako"?
• 6.How did Athenians organize their laws?
• 7.How did the revisions of 403 BCE effect Athenian law making?
• 8.What laws governed 4th century BCE law making?
• 9.What is the differenc between a graphe nomon and a graphe paranomon?
• 10.Who were the nomothetai and what did they do?
• 11.What were the procedures in the 4th century for adopting a new law or changing an old law?
• 12.After 403 BCE how did Athenians define "law?"
• 13.Why did magistrates and jurors have different obligations under this definition?
• 14.How do we know that Athenians distinguished between laws and treaties?
• 15.What was the consequence of treating laws as more authoritative than decrees?

• Chapter 8
  • 1. What does the term dikasterion mean?
  • 2.Why were courts important in the Athenian democracy?
  • 3.Whar are Athenian courts properly described as "amateur" courts?
  • 4.Who was eligible to serve on Athenian juries?
  • 5.How were jurors chosen annually?
  • 6.How were jurors chosen on a daily basis?
  • 7.What do selection procedures tell us about Athenian democracy?
  • 8.What does the archeological evidence of juror "tickets" consist of? What does this evidence tell us about the nature of jury service?
  • 9.What was the Heliastic oath?
  • 10.What do we know about the social identity of Athenian jurors?
  • 11.How often did the Athenian courts hold trials/hearings?
  • 12.How large were the juries?
  • 13.How many cases did a jury hear in a day?
  • 14.How were jurors paid? What were they paid?
  • 15.What authority did Athenian magistrates have over courts?
  • 16.How did the role of a magistrate/archon in an Athenian court change over time?
  • 17.What magistrates/archons typically supervised what kind of courts and what kind of cases?
  • 18.What is an "accusatorial" system of justice? How does it differ from a "prosecutorial" system?
  • 19.Who could initiate a law suit? How did this change over time?
  • 20.What is the difference between a dike and a graphe?
  • 21.What were the differences and similarities between Athenian legal procedures?
  • 22.What was a synergos, a logographos, and a sykophant? How were they different than what moderns mean by "lawyer?"
  • 23.How did Athenian law encourage the sykophant? Why did it?
  • 24.How did Athenian law discourage the sykophant? Why did it?
  • 25.What do the following terms mean: prosklesis graphe autographe paragraphe kleteres
  • 26.What were the magistrate/archon's duties and authority before the trial?
  • 27.What was the anakrisis? What happened at it?
  • 28.What was the prytaneia? What happened at it?
  • 29.What was the parastasis? What happened at it?
  • 30.Who were the diaitetes? What did they do?
  • 31.Who were the thesmothetai? What were the responsibilities regarding trials?
  • 32.How were jurors chosen on the day of trial?
  • 33.What was the klepsydra? Click here to see a picture of one.
  • 34.Describe the order of events on the day of trial?
  • 35.What different kinds of evidence could be used at trial?
  • 36.Who could be a witness?
  • 37.What was a proklesis?
  • 38.What role did precedent play in the decision of the jury?
  • 39.What did the jurors do after the parties presented their cases?
  • 40.How were votes counted?
  • 41.How may votes did it take to acquit?
  • 42.What were atimia and epobelia?
  • 43.How was the penalty determined if the plaintiff won?
  • 44.How did the dikasteria excercise political power?
  • 45.What is the difference between dikai idiae and dikai demosiai?
  • 46.What features characterized defendants in political trials?
  • 47.What were the most frequent legal procedures used in political trials? Who were they typically used against?
  • 48.What was the graphe paranomon? When was it introduced? What was its purpose?
  • 49.How was the graphe paranomon initiated and pursued?
  • 50.How many jurors heard a graphe paranomon?
  • 51.What happened if the plaintiff won a graphe paranomon?
  • 52.What were the political consequences of the procedure?
  • 53.What was the graphe nomon me epitedeion theinai?
  • 54.When was it instituted and why?
  • 55.How did it differ from the graphe paranomon?
  • 56.What was an eisangelia to the people? When was it instituted? Why?
  • 57.How was an eisangelia to the people initiated and pursued?
  • 58.What role did the Council/Boule play in the initiation of an eisangelia to the people?
  • 59.How was the defendant's position in an eisangelia to the people different than in other procedures (e.g., graphe paranomon).
  • 60.What court heard the eisangelia to the people?
  • 61.Against what kinds of officials did Athenians use the dokimasia and euthynai?
  • 62.What was the dokimasia and when did it occur.
  • 63.What was at issue in a dokimasia?
  • 64.Where were dokimasia heard?
  • 65.Who prosecuted the dokimasia?
  • 66.What happened to magistrates/archons who were rejected at the dokimasia?
  • 67.What happened to citizens who made accusations at a dokimasia, but failed to convince anyone (or up to less than half) to vote against the magistrate/archon?
  • 68.Why do you think Athenians held dokimasia?
  • 69.What was the epicheirontonia ton archon? How often could they occur?
  • 70.What happened to a magistrate/archon who lost an epicheirontonia?
  • 71.Who were the logistai? What did they do?
  • 72.What is the difference between an eisangelia eis ten boulen (eisangelia to the Council/Boule) and an eisangelia eis ton demon (eisangelia to the People/Demos).
  • 73.What were euthynai?
  • 74.Who were the synegoroi? What did they do?
  • 75.What charges could be made at an euthynai?
  • 76.Who were the euthynoi? What did they do? How are they different from euthynai?
  • 77.Who were the paredroi? What did they do?
  • 78.What happened after an accusation was laid at an euthynai.
  • 79.How long was the period of inspection of the magistrates?
  • 80.What conclusions can we draw about the role of euthynai in Athenian democracy based on the apparent rate of prosecution and conviction from them?

Chapter 9

• 1.According to Aristotle, what nine principles characterize the role of magistrates/archons in a democracy?
• 2.What two additional principles doe Hansen add?
• 3.Why is a priest not an archon?
• 4.What were the criteria that defined archons and what rights did they have?
• 5.Were members of the Council/Boule magistrates/archons? What arguments could be made for and against the proposition?
• 6.What were the functions of magistrates?
• 7.Into what analytical categories was Athenian political power divided? Who exercised power in each of these catagories?
• 8.How was the magistrates/archons' authority demonstrated and protected?
• 9.How many magistracies/archonships did Atheniens fill each year? How many of these did they fill by election?
• 10.How was the pool from which candidates were chosen limited?
• 11.How were the Chief Archons selected? Who were the Chief Archons?
• 12.How many times could the same citizen hold the same magistracy/archonship?
• 13.Why couldn't a citizen be selected for different offices two years in a row?
• 14.What magistracies/archonships tended to be underfilled? Which were always filled?
• 15.What kind of offices were filled by election? Why?
• 16.What effect did election have on the role of an office holder?
• 17.How were elections conducted? How were the votes counted?
• 18.What was the purpose of selection of magistrates by lot?
• 19.How did the principal of collegiality serve the democracy?
• 20.Boards of magistrates/archons divided their duties according to what principles?
• 21.How were magistrates/archons paid before the revolution of 403? After?
• 22.What is the significance of this change?
• 23.What other benefits than pay did magistrates/archons receive?
• 24.What costs might be associated with different magistracies/archonships?
• 25.What tasks did magistrates/archons perform?
• 26.Who were the grammateis and why were they important according to Hansen?

Week 4

Chapter 10

• 1.How was the Council/Boule different than other boards of magistrates/archons in Athens?
• 2.What was the Council/Boule central to Athenian democracy?
• 3.What six things do we know about the selection of Councillors?
• 4.Who supervised the selection of Councillors?
• 5.Why could the same person serve on the Council/Boule twice, but hold other magistracy/archonships only once?
• 6.What demographic reason made it so hard to recruit candidates for the Council/Boule? What steps did Athens take to overcome these limitations?
• 7.What does Socrates' service on the Council/Boule suggest about the place Council members had in Athenian politics?
• 8.What was the executive committee of the Council/Boule called? What were its duties? What were benefits for service on it?
• 9.How was it chosen?
• 10.Who was the epistates ton prytaneon? What did he do?
• 11.What was the tholos?
• 12.How many days a year did the Council/Boule meet?
• 13.Where did it meet?
• 14.Who were the proedroi? What did they do? How were they chosen?
• 15.Who was the epistates ton proedron? What did he do? How was he chosen?
• 16.What limitations were placed on the right to address the Council/Boule?
• 17.What limitations were placed on the right to propose decrees and probouleumata?
• 18.How were votes counted on the Council/Boule?
• 19.How Councilors paid?
• 20.What factors affected attendance at Council/Boule meetings?
• 21.What factors limited the power of the Council/Boule?
• 22.What were the two different kinds of boules psephisma? What did they govern?
• 23.What was the central role of the Council/Boule in the Athenian democracy?
• 24.What relationship did the Council/Boule have with the nomothetai?
• 25.What five rights/authority did the Council/Boule have regarding criminal law?
• 26.What was a katagnosis? How did one arise?
• 27.What three dokimasiai did the Council/Boule administer?
• 28.what sort of administrative duties did the Council/Boule perform?
• 29.What sources of revenue did Athens have in the 4th century BCE?
• 30.Who were the apodektai? What did they do? What was their relationship to the Council/Boule?
• 31.Why didn't the Council/Boule administer the central Athenian treasury?
• 32.What happened if their were more revues than expenses in a given year?
• 33.What was the Theoric fund? When was it established? Why was it important?
• 34.What were the Council/Boule's responsibilities regarding foreign policy? How did they administer these responsibilities?

Questions for Aristophanes' Wasps

1. Compare the slaves' discussion of their prophetic dreams to representations of prophecy and oracular interpretation in the Oresteia. After this comparison what questions occur to you about the relationship between religious piety and comic theater in Athens?
   
2. What is Philocleon's "problem" according to the slaves. Is this a problem for Philocleon or Bdelycleon.
3. Why does Bdelycleon object to Philocleon's "activities"?
4. Why is Bdelycleon's treatment of his father funny? Why is it disturbing?
5. Describe the Chorus - who comprises it? What is their relationship to Cleon? Why is their entrance scene funny? What political concerns does Aristophanes raise by his representation of the chorus?
6. How does Bdelycleon characterize Athenian political discourse? How does he criticize it?
7. Why does Philocleon think the demos [the ordinary citizens] have power in Athens? What is disturbing about his conception of the citizens' power?
8. Why does Bdelycleon think the demos has no power? If Bdelycleon is right, who has power in Athens?
9. Why does the Chorus think that the wasp is the best symbol of Athenian citizenship?
10. How does Bdelycleon's alternative of a "home court" parody an Athenian trial?
11. What life does Bdelycleon what his father to enjoy, as opposed to the life of a citizen/juror?
12. How does Philocleon's experience parody that life?
13. Is Aristophanes pro-democratic, pro-aristocratic or neither? If neither, what are his politics, if you can tell. If you can't tell, why can't you?
    
    

Questions for Plato's Apology

The Parties to the Litigation

• 1.How many trials do the primary sources refer to?
• 2.Who is the person(s) bringing the accusation?
• 3.Does this person have an affiliation with a social institution (e.g., a prosecutor who is an officer of the government) or does this person act as a private citizen?
• 4.How would you characterize the social, economic and/or political identity of the accusor?
• 5.Who is the person accused?
• 6.Does this person have an affiliation with a social institution (e.g., a minister of government) or does this person act as a private citizen?
• 7.How would you characterize the social, economic and/or political identity of the person accused?

The Tribunal

• 1.In what forum is the accusation raised? (e.g., a court, a legislative hearing).
• 2.What is the jurisdictional authority of the forum in which the accusation is raised? (e.g., a court and jury in an American civil trial cannot impose jail sentences on the defendant; some criminal courts in America cannot impose jail sentences of more than a year on defendants; ecclesiastical courts in the Middle Ages did not have the authority to hear charges of treason against the ruler of the country in which they were located; conversely, the criminal courts in those countries did not have the authority to hear criminal charges against persons who had taken holy orders).
• 3.What persons will evaluate the accusation? (e.g. a jury, a minister of state).
• 4.Is the person(s) evaluating the accusation affiliated in any way with the accusor?
• 5.How are the persons evaluating the accusation chosen?
• 6.How would you characterize the social, economic and/or political identity of the persons who evaluate the accusation?
• 7.Are the identities of the evaluators of the accusation comparable to those of the person bringing the accusation?
• 8.Are the identities of the evaluators of the accusation comparable to those of the person accused?

The Charge(s)

• 1.What is the law (or laws) that the person accused is claimed to have violated?
• 2.Is the law (or laws) written or part of an oral or common law tradition?
• 3.What is the origin of the law (or laws) (e.g., promulgated by a legislative body, an eccesiastical authority, developed by courts as part of the common law).
• 4.Can you briefly state or summarize the law and charge?
• 5.What conduct by the accused was alleged to have violated the law?
• 6.Do the sources reveal conduct by the accused that may have motivated the charges, but which, in of themselves, could not support accusations of wrongdoing or criminal behavior?

Chapter 1 - 5: 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 the Sophists?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 the myth in the 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?

 

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?

Week 5

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?

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? Who 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?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:

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?

 

• 1.What for Hansen is the most striking difference between the Athenian and modern democracies?
• 2.Who was "ho boulomenos"? What was his function or role in the Athenian democracy?
• 3.How were the activities of "ho boulomenos" subject to review?
• 4.What kinds of Athenians filled the role of "ho boulomenos"?
• 5.What does the phrase "rhetores kai strategoi" refer to? What does the "rhetor" do? By what other names was he called? 6.What does the "strategos" do? How were rhetors and strategoi selected? What functions and rights did the strategoi have? Did the rhetors have comparable functions and rights?
• 7.How did the functions/roles of rhetores and strategoi differ in the fifth and fourth centuries bce?
• 8.What accounts for the difference?
• 9.Why is the word "politician" a bad translation of the Greek word "rhetor"?
• 10.Who were the political leaders of Athens?
• 11.Why do scholars believe that political power was concentrated among the rhetors and strategoi? Why might this concentration represent a threat to the democracy?
• 12.From what segments of society did Athens recruit her political leaders during the 5th century bce? During the 4th century bce?
• 13.By what legitimate and illegitimate sources of income did Athenian political leaders get rich? Why did Athenians tolerate the pecuniary habits of their leaders?
• 14.What caused the increasing professionalism of political life in Athens?
• 15.What does the word "condottieri" mean? (if you don't know, look it up)
• 16.Why is not appropriate to speak of "political parties" in Athens?
• 17.What did Greeks mean by the words "stasis," "hetaireia," and "synomosia"?
• 18.What evidence do we have of collaboration between political leaders in Athenian politics?
• 19.What evidence do we have that political leaders were supported by large groups of citizens?

Questions for Hansen, Chapter 12

1.Who could be a member of the Areopagus? How were members of the Areopagus selected? What can we estimate about the composition of its membership (size, age, class, etc.)?2.How did the political authority of the Areopagus change in the 5th century?How did the political authority of the Areopagus change during the 4th century?3.What was apophasis? How did the procedure work?4.Summarize the facts of the Harpalos affair.5.What kind of political institution was the Areopagus? Was it democratic or undemocratic?

Week 6

Questions for Hansen, Chapter 13

1.What does the term "patrios politeia" mean? Why was this concept important for Greek political oratory in general and Athenian oratory in particular? Why didn't fourth century Athenian democrats like it?2.Why did fourth century Athenians attribute so much of their constitution to Solon? Were the historically correct to do so? 3.How did the democracy of Perikles' day differ from the democracy Athenians liked to attribute to Solon?4.How did the Athenian democracy of the fourth century differ from Periklean democracy?5.Why did critics of the 4th century democracy believe that it was as "radical" as the democracy of Perikles' day? (4 reasons)6.What does the word "kyrios" mean?7.Were the courts or assembly kyrios in 4th century Athens?8.What does Hansen believe are the primary characteristics of fourth century democracy? (He names 15.)9.How was the role of political rhetoric different in Athenian democracy than it is in modern democracies?10.What sort of political activity did Athens expect of her ordinary citizens?11.How did Athenian democracy prevent demagoguery?12.How did Athens keep its democracy amateurish? Why did it want to?13.How was Athens able to encourage citizens to participate in the democracy?14.Did the Athenian democracy depend on slavery and imperialism in order to function?

Week 7

Week 8

Introduction: p. 1-14

1.What are the similarities between Athenian and American "hyperlexis" [look it up if you don't know what it means]? [1-2]2.What are some differences Christ notes between Athenian and American "hyperlexis"? [2-3]3.What were Athenian criticisms of Athenian litigation? Why should we study these criticism? [3-4]4.What features of our sources for Athenian law make them difficult to interpret? [4]5.What features of forensic orations make these sources difficult to interpret? [4-5]6.Why does the uneven distribution of sources over time make the study of them more difficult? [5-6]7.What is the object of Christ's study? Why do the features of the sources which make them difficult to analyze it? [6-7]8.What biases have modern scholars of Athenian litigation typically suffered from? How have more recent scholars recognzied and corrected these biases? Have they been entirely successful? [6-8]9.Why does Christ believe an examination of the assumptions inherent in modern debates about litigiousness helpful for the study of Athenian litigiousness? [8]10.What does Christ conclude about the nature of the discussion of litigiousness in America? [8-9]11.What role does the rhetorical appeal to a better past play in American discussions of American litigiousness? [9-10]12.Why is discussion about litigiousness a useful object of historical study? [i.e., what does the study of this discussion tell us about the society?] [11-12]

1.What factors brought litigants before popular courts in increasing numbers after the Ephialtic reforms? [14-15]2.How did private citizens who were not personally active in politics contribute to the rise in litigation? [15-16]3.How did the sophists help fuel the Athenian legal revolution? [16]4.Why isn't the rise of litigation a good indicator of the rise of conflict in Athenian society? How might rising litigation have fostered social stabiliy? [16-18]5.What tools did Athenians have to ensure that they were not stuck with total losers when they selected magistrates by lot? [19] 6.What tools did they have to keep the rhetores in line? [19]7.Why were the popular courts the most distinctive feature of democratic rule in Athens? What sort of authority did the courts have?[19-20]8.What function did the Metrosn serve? [21]9.How did Athenians at the end of the 5th century bce reform the way they created laws? What was the effect of these reforms? What was the purpose? [21-22]10.Why does Christ believe that the reforms did not submit the demos to the rule of law? [22]11.The 4th century ideology that laws were kurioi reflected what idealized relationship between the laws and the people? [22-23] 12.What three features of Athenian legal regulation does Christ find noteworthy? [23-24]13.Why did critics of Athenian democracy believe that laws should be very detailed? [24-25]14.What were the difference between a dike and a graphe? [26]15.What events occurred before trial in the prosecution of a lawsuit? [26-27]16.How were judgments enforced? [28]17.Describe three ways in which Athenians discouraged the abuse of litigation. [28-32]18.Give three reasons why the wealthy were far more likely to litigate in Athens than ordinary Athenians? [32-4]19.For what reasons did Athenians litigate? What reasons did they say they litigated for? [34-35]20.Why was the trial a form of agon[contest; e.g., athletic, military, artistic competition]? [35]21.Why does Christ believe too much emphasis can be placed on the role of honor in Athenian litigation? [35-36]22.What do allegations of abuse tell us about the way Athenians litigated? What are the difficulties of this evidence? [36-37]23.Christ identifies three ways in which Athenian legal behavior in practice was less than what it was supposed to be at an ideal level. What are they? [37-39]24.What roles did the jurors play at the trial? [39-40]25.Upon what criteria did jurors make their decisions? [40-41]26.What kinds of arguments that moderns would consider "extra-legal" did litigants typically make to Athenian juries?27.Does Christ believe that Athenian courts were fair? [43] 28.What are the difficulties in determining how much Athenians litigated? What sorts of evidence does Christ analyze to answer this question? What conclusion does Christ reach? [43-47]

Christ, p. 48-71

1.How does Christ establish the "alterity" of the sykophant? [do you know what he means by "alterity"]. What kinds of evidence does he use? What kinds of arguments does he make. Is any of the evidence or arguments more/less compelling than others?2.Christ argues that "the creation of a sykophant was a cooperative social enterprise in the public arena." [p. 60] What does he mean?3.How were sykophants created?4.Why might one believe that sykophancy was a profession and/or a social class in Athens? Why would one be wrong to believe this?5.What role did the sykophant have in the articulation of Athenian civic ideology?

1.Who constituted the Athenian elite ("leisure class") and how were they defined?2.How did the discourse of sykophancy reveal divisions between economic classes in Athens in their most extreme form? [i.e. under the Thirty]3.Why would litigation present unique risks to a wealthy Athenian regardless of his political ideology?4.In what kinds of evidence do we find expressions of elite concerns about litigation? How are these types of sources different? How does the substance and style of elite expression within them differ?5.How did radical oligarchs use the idea of sykophancy to critique democracy?6.How and why was the treatment of sykophancy by the Attic orators different than that offered by radical oligarchs?7.How did the comic poets treat sykophancy? Does comedy offer any special interpretive problems? How was their use of the topic like the orators and how was it like the radical oligarchs? Why the similarities and differences.8.What does the persistance of sykophancy as a theme in Athenian writing suggest about the nature of the communication between the elites and demos in Athens on the nature of litigation?

Week 9

Chapter 4, p. 118-159

Chapters 5, 6 & Conclusion, 160-228

Week 10

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 lawAccording 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?

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?

1. Why does Cohen believe that an understanding of Athenian social values is particularly important to the study of Athenian law?
2. 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?)
3. 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?
4. How did Athenians define honor? How did one acquire or lose it?
5. Why was this conception of honor not democratic?
6. How could the un-democratic notion of honor exist within a democratic ideology?
7. Why do Athenian values of shame and honor foster vengence? Why is this "natural" according to Aristotle?
8. Why, according to Aristotle, does anger bring pleasure? Why do men take vengence?
9. Is it possible to strive too much for honor, victory or vengence? What limits the pursuit of honor, victory and vengence
10. How does Cohen explain the logical inconsistency of the Athenian value of honor, and its limitation of it?
11. 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?
12. How did attitudes towards competition play out within Athens' democratic ideology?
13. What did an Athenian orator mean when he said he and his opponent were in a state of emnity?
14. What function did emnity serve as a legal category?
15. What kinds of behavior were evidence of a state of emnity? What role did the law play in structuring relationships of emnity?
16. How did Athenian notions of egalitarianism get invoked in rhetorical discussions of emnity?
17. 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?
18. How does rhetorical invective and insult actually demonstrate respect for a rival? Why must one be cautious in interpreting invective in legal speeches?
19. 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?
20. Why, according to Cohen, did the nature of Athens political democracy promote intense rivalry and emnity?
21. Why is emnity an acceptable motive for prosecution to an Athenian jury, but not envy?
22. What consequences arise from the fact that Athenian values of emnity and envy, honor and vengence were often ambiguous and contradictory?

1. 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?
2. Cohen suggests that Athenians did not necessarily believe that their trials were meant to discover truth. Why?
3. What does Cohen mean by the phrase "the ideology of the rule of law?"
4. 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?
5. 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?
6. According to Cohen, how are moderns predisposed to look at Demosthenes' suit against Meidias? How, instead, should they look at the suit?
7. What is an antidosis?
8. 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?"
9. Why did the feud spread beyond Aphobus and Demosthenes? What did the feud have to do with Demosthenes' conflict with Meidias?
10. 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?
11. 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?
12. Why does Cohen believe that the reputation of Meidias and Demosthenes were at least as important as the factual evidence about their conflict?
13. How is Demosthenes' invocation of Athens' egalitarian ideals contradictory?
14. Why does Cohen believe that Demosthenes' settled his suit against Meidias?
15. What role did the Athenian legal system play in the public life of Athen's politicians, according to Cohen?
16. What was sycophancy? Why was it rhetorically treated by Athenian orators as the opposite of revenge?
17. 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?
18. In terms of Athenian legal rhetoric, what are "honorable" reasons to use the courts? What are "dishonorable" reasons?
19. 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?
20. Did Athenian litigants expect to settle their disputes in court? Why or why not?
21. What stake did "ordinary" jurors have in the legal feuds of Athens' economic and political elite?
22. What does Cohen believe is the crucial difference between the Athenian conception of legality and the modern?
23. Why does Cohen believe that classical Athens' legal system relied on private citizens to bring criminal lawsuits?

• 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?

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

• 1.Why were hubris and inuria (the Roman verision of hubris) important legal categories in the ancient world? [143]
• 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 Cohen’s 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]

• 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]

Week 11

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]

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].

Week 12

Week 13

Week 14

Imber's Home Page / Ath Lit Home Page / Required Books, etc. / Syllabus
 
 
 
 
 
  ks to a wealthy Athenian regardless of his political ideology?

1. 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?
2. 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?
   
3. 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.
4. Does Cohen believe that the Athenian political system was stable or unstable during its last century? Why?
5. Cohen describes Athenian society as "agonistic." What does he mean?
6. 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)
7. 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
8. 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?
9. How does characterizing the distinction between public and private violence as "rhetorical" permit Cohen (citing Bartlett) to criticize evolutionary accounts of Athenian legal history?
10. 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?
11. 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?
12. 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"?
13. How does Cohen believe "the law" operates within society?

1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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?
4. According to Aristotle, how do laws differ under different types of constitutions?
5. 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 ?
6. 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?
7. 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?
8. 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?
9. 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?
10. 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?
11. 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?
12. What is the parodox of Plato's rule of law according to Cohen?
13. 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?
14. How did Athenenian democrats define the rule of law? Why did Thirty represent the antithesis of the rule of law under this definition?
15. 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?
16. How does the democratic conception of the rule of law differ from that of Plato and Aristotle?

Chapter 4 (61-86)

1. Why does Cohen believe that an understanding of Athenian social values is particularly important to the study of Athenian law?
2. 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?)
3. 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?
4. How did Athenians define honor? How did one acquire or lose it?
5. Why was this conception of honor not democratic?
6. How could the un-democratic notion of honor exist within a democratic ideology?
7. Why do Athenian values of shame and honor foster vengence? Why is this "natural" according to Aristotle?
8. Why, according to Aristotle, does anger bring pleasure? Why do men take vengence?
9. Is it possible to strive too much for honor, victory or vengence? What limits the pursuit of honor, victory and vengence
10. How does Cohen explain the logical inconsistency of the Athenian value of honor, and its limitation of it?
11. 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?
12. How did attitudes towards competition play out within Athens' democratic ideology?
13. What did an Athenian orator mean when he said he and his opponent were in a state of emnity?
14. What function did emnity serve as a legal category?
15. What kinds of behavior were evidence of a state of emnity? What role did the law play in structuring relationships of emnity?
16. How did Athenian notions of egalitarianism get invoked in rhetorical discussions of emnity?
17. 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?
18. How does rhetorical invective and insult actually demonstrate respect for a rival? Why must one be cautious in interpreting invective in legal speeches?
19. 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?
20. Why, according to Cohen, did the nature of Athens political democracy promote intense rivalry and emnity?
21. Why is emnity an acceptable motive for prosecution to an Athenian jury, but not envy?
22. 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)

1. 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?
2. Cohen suggests that Athenians did not necessarily believe that their trials were meant to discover truth. Why?
3. What does Cohen mean by the phrase "the ideology of the rule of law?"
4. 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?
5. 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?
6. According to Cohen, how are moderns predisposed to look at Demosthenes' suit against Meidias? How, instead, should they look at the suit?
7. What is an antidosis?
8. 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?"
9. Why did the feud spread beyond Aphobus and Demosthenes? What did the feud have to do with Demosthenes' conflict with Meidias?
10. 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?
11. 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?
12. Why does Cohen believe that the reputation of Meidias and Demosthenes were at least as important as the factual evidence about their conflict?
13. How is Demosthenes' invocation of Athens' egalitarian ideals contradictory?
14. Why does Cohen believe that Demosthenes' settled his suit against Meidias?
15. What role did the Athenian legal system play in the public life of Athen's politicians, according to Cohen?
16. What was sycophancy? Why was it rhetorically treated by Athenian orators as the opposite of revenge?
17. 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?
18. In terms of Athenian legal rhetoric, what are "honorable" reasons to use the courts? What are "dishonorable" reasons?
19. 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?
20. Did Athenian litigants expect to settle their disputes in court? Why or why not?
21. What stake did "ordinary" jurors have in the legal feuds of Athens' economic and political elite?
22. What does Cohen believe is the crucial difference between the Athenian conception of legality and the modern?
23. Why does Cohen believe that classical Athens' legal system relied on private citizens to bring criminal lawsuits?

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)

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

• 1.Why were hubris and inuria (the Roman verision of hubris) important legal categories in the ancient world? [143]
• 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 Cohen’s 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 : 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]

• 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]

• 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].