Citation with persistent identifier: Schlosser, Joel Alden. “Herodotean Democracies.” CHS Research Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2016). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:SchlosserJ.Herodotean_Democracies.2016 I. 1§1 To study the past, let alone antiquity, at a time when present challenges are both stupendously urgent and complex beyond understanding often feels quite dissonant. How can we possible turn our backs… Read more
Citation with persistent identifier: Scharff, Sebastian. “Improving the Public Image Through Athletics: Young Victors in Hellenistic Thebes.” CHS Research Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2016). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:ScharffS.Improving_the_Public_Image_through_Athletics.2016 Introductory remarks 1§1 The Hellenistic history of Thebes begins with a tragedy: following the rumor that Alexander had died in Illyria, the Thebans rose against their… Read more
Citation with persistent identifier: BAI, Chun Xiao. “The Cyclic Views of the Human Condition in Thucydides’ Archaeology and Sima Qian’s Preface to Historical Records.” CHS Research Bulletin 5, no. 1 (2016). http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hlnc.essay:BaiX.The_Cyclic_Views_of_the_Human_Condition.2016 1§1 The commencement of historiography may be a coincidence. In ancient societies, there were many methods for people to… Read more
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
