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THE QUESTION IS RAISED WHETHER SOCRATES' ATTEMPT TO MAKE WOMEN EQUAL TO MEN IN THE FIFTH BOOK OF THE REPUBLIC IS SINCERE. RATHER, BY SETTING UP THIS EQUALITY BETWEEN THE MALE AND THE FEMALE, SOCRATES IS PERVERTING THE FEMALE AND TAKING AWAY HER PECULIAR BIOLOGICAL FUNCTION OF CHILDBEARING. ACCORDING TO PLATO, MALE, FEMALE, POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY MUST PRESERVE THEIR OWN SPHERES.

AN ANALYSIS OF TACITUS' DIALOGUE INDICATE TACITUS' CONCERN WITH THE CHANGING NATURE OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY UNDER VARIOUS POLITICAL REGIMES. THE PLATONIC FORMAT IS USED TO SUGGEST NEW MODES OF POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT WHEN THE GOVERNMENT UNDER WHICH ONE LIVES IS BADED ON SYCOPHANCY AND FALSEHOOD.

ANALYSIS OF TACITUS' DIALOGUE INDICATES TACITUS' CONCERN WITH THE CHANGING NATURE OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY UNDER VARIOUS POLITICAL REGIMES. THE TRANSITION FROM THE ROMAN REPUBLIC TO THE TYRANNY OF THE PRINCIPATE NECESSITATED THE CHAGE FROM A RELIANCE ON ORATORY TO A RELIANCE ON ART AS THE NEW MODE OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY.

Socrates's wife Xanthippe has entered the popular imagination as a shrewish character who dumps water on the inattentive Socrates. Such popular portrayals are intended largely to highlight what makes Socrates such an appealing character. But she also appears briefly in Plato's dialogue the Phaedo, the dialogue that takes place in Socrates's prison cell, recounts the conversation about death and immortality that took place there, and then reports the events surrounding Socrates's death after drinking the hemlock. After a review of the ancient anecdotes about Xanthippe and possible readings of those anecdotes, this article considers the significance of Xanthippe's presence early in the Phaedo for our understanding of the conversation between Socrates and his companions. In this way, Xanthippe moves from the role of the shrew to—if not exactly a muse—at least a question mark. That we even know her name may indicate a force of personality too readily scorned by those highlighting her shrewish nature.

Psychology departments seldom take their students back to the thicket of Freud's Collected Works. Medical schools turn to Hippocrates mostly for his oath, not for his skills at analyzing the pathologies of female hysteria. Those learning to study the universe today do not work through the elliptical paths of the stars and planets that Ptolemy developed so that he might keep the earth at the center of things. So, why should the discipline of political science be any different? Why should we teach our students about those methods employed by political scientists generations ago, methods that often look quite primitive next to the sophisticated tools of analysis and measurement that dominate current political science curricula?Why should one resist the forces that drive a discipline and a society to a sort of methodological amnesia? History may repeat itself, as the adage suggests, but methods of analysis often build on themselves to correct past inadequacies or they are replaced by those more able to address with precision the concerns of the discipline.

THE MODERN LANGUAGE OF TYRANNY HAS DISTORTED THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GREEK TERM "TYRANNOS." IN ANCIENT GREEK THE TERM WAS ACCORDED TO THE NEW AND ANCIENT FAMILIES. TYRANNY THUS SUGGESTED A FREEDOM FROM THE PAST. REASON, AS THE GREEKS UNDERSTOOD IT, ALSO ENTAILED A BREAKING AWAY FROM THE PHYSICAL WORLD. REASON AND TYRANNY THUS WORK TOGETHER AS EXPRESSIONS OF FREEDOM, BUT IT IS A FREEDOM THAT IN ITS TRANSCENDENCE OF BOUNDARIES LEADS TO TRAGEDY. AN EXAMINATION OF SOPHOCLES "OEDIPUS" DRAWS OUT BOTH THE GLORY AND THE FAILURE OF THE INDIVIDUAL ATTEMPT OF THE POLITICAL ACTOR TO RISE ABOVE THE HISTORICAL PARTICULAR AND THE MERE BODY TO BUILD A WORLD WHERE REASON ALONE IS POWER.

The opposition between the city and the family captures the opposition between the universal and the particular, the uniqueness of the individual given up to the community. Explores the place of filial and paternal (i.e. particularistic) ties within the universally oriented world of the city by looking at Socrates in Plato's Euthyphro. Care for the family comes into conflict with polity's need for impartiality. (JLN)

THE AUTHOR HOPES IN WHAT FOLLOWS TO ACCORD THE FEMALE A RESPECTED PLACE IN THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE CLASSICAL ATHENIAN AUTHORS WHO, IN DISCUSSING MAN'S PUBLIC LIFE, RECOGNIZED THAT THE POLITICAL COMMUNITY COMMUNITY COULD NOT BE UNDERSTOOD WITHOUT REFERENCE TO THE FEMALE AS SOURCE AND LIMITATION OF THAT LIFE. MY QUARREL IS NOT WITH THE ANCIENT ATHENIANS FOR THEIR TREATMENT OF WOMEN; THAT IS PAST. MY QUARREL IS WITH THOSE SCHOLARS, POLITICAL THEORISTS IN PARTICULAR, WHO HAVE FAILED TO RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANT ROLE THAT THE FEMALE PLAYS IN THE WRITINGS OF THE ANCIENT AUTHORS, A ROLE DENIED THEM IN THE ACTUAL POLITICAL AND SOCIAL WORLD OF THEIR TIME, AND WITH THOSE WHO HAVE FOUND IN THESE WRITINGS ONLY A QUAGMIRE OF MISOGYNIST PHILOSOPHIC PERSPECTIVES. BY IGNORING THE PRESENCE OF THE FEMALE OR BY DEMEANING IT, THEY DENY US THE BENEFIT OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES CONCEIVED WITH AN APPRECIATION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FEMALE FOR A COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF OUR LIVES AS POLITICAL BEINGS.1

FEMALE HAS BEEN STUDIED BY THE MAJOR POLITICAL PHILOSOPHERS OF THE PAST PRIMARILY IN HER ROLE AS A MEMBER OF THE FAMILY OR HOUSEHOLD. THIS ESSAY DISCUSSES 3 PLAYS WRITTEN DURING A PERIOD WHEN A SELF-CONSCIOUS APPRAISAL OF THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CITIZEN AS A MEMBER OF THE STATE & ALSO AS A MEMBER OF A FAMILY WAS FIRST EMERGING IN ANCIENT GREECE. CONVERTING PRIVATE INTO PUBLIC CONCERNS IS THE FOCUS.