What can Herodotus say to today’s democracies? This essay begins from a puzzle about the very language of democracy in Herodotus’s Histories, namely the narrator’s notorious re-description of what the Persian Otanes called isonomia as a demokratia. Most interpreters wave off this difference as insignificant, but I show… Read more
The political history of Hellenistic Thebes was far from a success story. Razed to the ground by Alexander in 335 BC, the city never regained its former political significance. Nevertheless, there is a particular kind of Theban success in this period which is worth investigating: the agonistic achievements of Theban… Read more
It seems to me that both Greek and Chinese historical thinking originally investigated the past and reconstructed cultural memories with rationality, and I hope to get a better understanding of the basic characteristics of Greek and Chinese historiographies. To that purpose, this paper attempts to discuss the cyclic views of the… Read more
Citation with persistent identifier: Brélaz, Cédric. “Democracy and Civic Participation in Greek Cities Under Roman Imperial Rule: Political Practice and Culture in the Post-Classical Period.” CHS Research Bulletin 4, no. 2 (2016). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:BrelazC.Democracy_and_Civic_Participation.2016 https://youtu.be/24zyYPOtG_0 By the age of Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch the Greek popular Assemblies, the very nerve-centre of Classical… Read more
Citation with persistent identifier: Kosmin, Paul J. “A Short Introduction to the Seleucid Era.” CHS Research Bulletin 4, no. 2 (2016). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:KosminP.Introduction_to_the_Seleucid_Era.2016 https://youtu.be/cH1FGtVuma0 1§1 This brief paper is intended to supply background information for my presentation at the Research Symposium on Saturday, 30th April. The oral presentation will discuss the invention of… Read more
