With a view to illustrating the challenges posed by classical political thought to contemporary political ideas and ideologies, I have chosen to adopt a topical approach in this volume. By comparison to a conventional author-by-author and chronological approach, the topical approach is far better suited to bringing out both the historical specificity of classical political thought, and its potential to be fruitfully set into dialogue with modern political practices, ideologies, and theories. As a result, this volume will best serve readers with significant interests in real political questions, such as whether the ancient Greeks and Romans had a concept of‘‘rights’’ (see Cartledge and Edge, chapter 10), whether private freedoms existed in the ancient republics (see Wallace, chapter 11, and part III, ‘‘The Virtues and Vices of One-Man Rule’’), and whether ancient democratic practice and ideology differed from those of modern democracy (see Liddel, chapter 9). This volume will also be useful to those who come to the ancient material hoping to explore different perspectives on topics they have investigated chiefly with reference to modernity - e. g., the problem of collective action (see Ober, chapter 5), the ideal of cosmopolitanism (see Konstan, chapter 30), and the question of‘‘civil religion’’ (see Osborne, chapter 8).
To make the same point more audaciously, the topical approach reflects our belief that the continuing importance of classical political thought should never be simply assumed. Traditional chronological and author-based surveys appear to make just such an assumption. Our view is that arguments are needed to show that classical political thought is still meaningful, useful, and interesting in modernity. For, as Bernard Williams has effectively demonstrated, ‘‘It is too late to assume that the Greek past must be interesting just because it is ‘ours’ ’’ (1993: 3). That is exactly right, because, as Williams says, channeling Nietzsche’s concern with ‘‘untimely meditations,’’ ‘‘We, now, should try to understand how our ideas are related to the Greeks’ because, if we do so, this can specially help us to see ways in which our ideas may be wrong’’ (1993:4).
The essays in this volume might be regarded as providing particular case-studies of ‘‘untimely meditations.’’ They begin to address the invitations offered by Nietzsche, Williams, and others of similar outlook, precisely by exploring the ancients’ historical particularity within an enlarged framework of philosophical speculation and interest.
Such commitments help our Companion to extend the contributions of other collections that have focused specifically on the usefulness of particular ancient thinkers (e. g., Aristotle, as in Tessitore 2002) or particular political regimes (e. g., Athenian democracy, as in Euben, Wallach, and Ober 1994a). But this Companion is the first general survey of the field that takes such ambitions seriously. Even 20 years ago, the questions we pursue were not squarely in the center of most scholars’ active research programs, despite certain notable exceptions (e. g., Euben 1990; Finley 1985a; MacIntyre 1984; Saxonhouse 1985). The surveys that have traditionally served students and teachers (e. g., Barker 1918; T. Sinclair 1951), and even newer handbooks (Rowe and Schofield 2000), have failed genuinely to address the issue of how best to reappropriate classical political thought within the framework of contemporary political thought and life. New questions have become more generally available through the work of interdisciplinary scholars and theorists who have returned to classical political thought because of their increasing dissatisfaction with contemporary liberal theory and the political cultures based on it (e. g., Douglass, Mara, and Richardson 1990).
Nevertheless, despite our confidence in the freshness and importance of the questions we explore, the present collection does not presume to give authoritative answers to these questions. To the contrary: our own ‘‘untimely meditations’’ are intended as open-ended stimuli to further study of classical antiquity in the same deeply interrogative spirit. It is hoped that readers will finish the volume with a fresh sense of the possibilities for further research and the opportunities offered to us by ancient political thought. From this vantage-point, we are cautiously optimistic that this volume will be of interest not only to students, but also to professional scholars striving to advance our collective understanding. Accordingly, in order to maintain the volume’s open-endedness, I have not made any effort to iron out substantive disagreements among my fellow contributors (see, for example, the essays of Chappell and Depew in chapters 25 and 26, respectively). In this sense, I have been guided by Socrates’ disconcerting insistence that everyone must think through the most important problems for himself or herself in the aporetic world of political discourse. Readers will hopefully find sources of guidance in these essays, yes, but they should not be tempted to seek any kind of ultimate resolution. Our goal is to enrich our understanding of permanent questions and problems without misleadingly suggesting that we offer unassailable or definitive answers.
As readers will have gathered, we understand ‘‘ancient political thought’’ to include political ideas and ideologies of all stripes, as they emerge from diverse genres of evidence, including drama, material culture, historiography, and oratory, as well as the works of the canonical philosophers. Greek and Roman political thought began with the earliest Greek poets (on which see Raaflaub, chapter 3, and Forsdyke, chapter 15), whose political interventions consisted in developing models of political virtue and critiques of civic vice. Questions of periodization will always be controversial with respect to end-points. I have focused attention on the most important early Christian writers (see Brown, chapter 31, and Breyfogle, chapter 32), in order to illustrate both their continuities with and departures from the earlier traditions of classical political thought. Augustine, in particular, should be understood as intervening in his own right, and all anew, in the central philosophical and political controversies of his day.
Yet, despite the volume’s wide range, our center of gravity is still the canonical philosophers, in particular Plato and Aristotle. These two figures are unique in receiving their own dedicated section (part V, ‘‘The Athens of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle’’), and their influence is felt widely in other chapters (see, e. g., Hahm, chapter 12; Hedrick, chapter 27; and Nadon, chapter 33). Naturally, these figures, among others, deserve more scrutiny than is possible in any such collection. But our goal of addressing the central topics and questions of political life, and thus our adoption of a topical approach, is most appropriate for explaining why the thought of these and other figures should be important to our contemporary thinking about political life. The ancients’ truly ‘‘untimely’’ qualities emerge most forcefully from asking real questions about politics and political theory, rather than from simply assuming that ‘‘we’’ should continue to study the ‘‘classics’’ because they are the (ancient) ‘‘greats’’ or because they are ‘‘ours.’’
World History
