Suchergebnisse

To make generalisations, whether in speech or in print, is always a dangerous thing to do – dangerous not only in everyday affairs but also in scholarly research. All too frequently we are inclined to draw general conclusions from a larger or smaller number of special cases. Because the living voice of an age long past is no longer there to put us right, this inclination has become, from a danger, a positive menace in the study of history; and not least is it present in modern scholarship as concerned with ancient Greece.

AbstractScholars of race in antiquity commonly claim that Aristotle holds protoracist views about barbaroi or non-Greeks. But a careful examination of Aristotle's remarks in his Politics about slavery, non-Greek political institutions, and Greek and non-Greek natural qualities calls into question such claims. No doubt, Aristotle held views at odds with modern liberalism, such as his views about gender subordination and the exploitation of slave and nonslave labor. But claims that Aristotle holds protoracist views are regularly but erroneously asserted without careful consideration of relevant textual evidence. I argue that Aristotle neither categorically distinguishes Greeks and non-Greeks nor does he endorse the claim that Greeks are categorically superior to non-Greeks. Indeed, Aristotle regularly draws upon non-Greek political institutions in his own formulation of the best constitution and he praises the non-Greek constitution of Carthage as superior to that of Greek constitutions such as Sparta and Crete.

Adjustment of marriage tradition is one approach toward understanding processes of ethnicity. In this paper, the marriage tradition within the Greek-American community of Tucson, Arizona, is examined. Old ways of early immigrants, the ideal of endogamy and attempts to promote endogamy are reported. That ethnic group heterogeneity renders unqualified endogamy a fantasy is discussed. Ethnic group members adjust their marriage ideals as they concomitantly attempt to adjust the cultural identity of their exogamous spouses.

Greek colonization had a long and varied history; it had begun indeed had already accomplished its first great period of expansion before the first Greek historians wrote; it continued in different forms intermittently throughout the classical period, had a second great era under Alexander the Great and the early Hellenistic monarchies, and again persisted with modifications after Rome became mistress of the eastern Mediterranean. The result we all know: the Greek polis, that closely integrated self-governing community of citizens, became the dominant political unit and political ideal of the Mediterranean world, and left its indelible imprint, for good or ill, on the Western World.