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Phryne Made Naked by Hyperides, or Rhetoric of Gesture in Ancient Athens (Towards the problem of nonverbal elements in the discourse)

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In Ancient Greece, the following types of gestures were in use (simplifying an unjustly complicated fivefold classification proposed by D. Lateiner and reducing it into three points): 1) conscious and ritualized gestures; 2) conscious but not ritualized gestures, of individual character; 3) unconscious gestures. In connection with the "rhetoric of gesture", this article deals mainly with gestures of the second category. After citing various examples from political and legal history of Archaic and Classical Athens, the author aims to demonstrate that in the framework of culture of conscious non-ritualized gestures, more restrained gestures were correlated (at least in the sources' perception) with a political position, which was also considered more moderate, and non-restrained gestures - with a radical position.

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Les historiens d'aujourd'hui, sans délaisser pour autant les realia , accordent de plus en plus de place dans leurs recherches à l'image que les sociétés du passé ont donnée d'elles-mêmes, à la manière dont elles ont reconstruit leur histoire, au mode de fonctionnement de cet imaginaire. L'historien de l'Antiquité ne saurait ignorer cette orientation de la recherche, et ce d'autant plus que la plupart des sources qu'il utilise, de par leur caractère même (récits historiques, discours politiques, réflexions de philosophes, etc.) lui of frent une matière particulièrement riche. D'autres ont déjà commencé à l'explorer. Je voudrais, pour ma part, tenter de montrer comment s'est élaborée, à partir de la fin du v e siècle, l'image d'un Solon, fondateur de la démocratie athénienne.
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"The sixth century is a very contentious time; Fame, Money, and Power unambiguously advances our understanding of Peisistratos and archaic Athens. No one else has tackled so many of the difficult issues that Lavelle has taken on." --David Tandy, University of Tennessee "Well researched and engaging, [Fame, Money, and Power] painstakingly builds [its] case for how the various phases of Peisistratos's career developed." --Tony Podlecki, University of British Columbia The Athenian "golden age" occurred in the fifth century B.C.E. and was attributed to their great achievements in art, literature, science, and philosophy. However, the most important achievement of the time was the political movement from tyranny to democracy. Though tyranny is thought to be democracy's opposite and deadly enemy, that is not always the case. In Fame, Money, and Power, Brian Lavelle states that the perceived polarity between tyranny and democracy does not reflect the truth in this instance. The career of the tyrant Peisistratos resembles the careers and successes of early democratic soldier-politicians. As with any democratic political system, Peisistratos' governance depended upon the willingness of the Athenians who conceded governance to him. This book attempts to show how the rise of Peisistratos fits into an essentially democratic system already entrenched at Athens in the earlier sixth century B.C.E. Emerging from the apparent backwater of eastern Attika, Peisistratos led the Athenians to victory over their neighbors, the Megarians, in a long, drawn out war. That victory earned him great popularity from the Athenians and propelled him along the road to monarchy. Yet, political success at Athens, even as Solon implies in his poems, depended upon the enrichment of the Athenian d?mos, not just fame and popularity. Peisistratos tried and failed two times to "root" his tyranny, his failures owing to a lack of sufficient money with which to appease the demos. Exiled from Athens, he spent the next ten years amassing money to enrich the Athenians and power to overcome his enemies. He then sustained his rule by grasping the realities of Athenian politics. Peisistratos' tyrannies were partnerships with the d?mos, the first two of which failed. His final formula for success, securing more money than his opponents possessed and then more resources for enriching the d?mos, provided the model for future democratic politicians of Athens who wanted to obtain and keep power in fifth-century Athens.
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