Mogens Herman Hansen

An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State

Polis

The Athenian democracy of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. is the most famous and perhaps most nearly perfect example of direct democracy. Covering the period 403-322 B.C., Mogens Herman Hansen focuses on the crucial last thirty years, which coincided with the political career of Demosthenes. Hansen distinguishes between the city's seven political institutions: the Assembly, the nomothetai, the People's Court, the boards of magistrates, the Council of Five Hundred, the Areopagos, and ho boulomenos. He discusses how Athenians conceived liberty both as the ability to participate in the decision-making process and as the right to live without oppression from the state or other citizens. Equality was conceived of as an equality not of nature but of opportunity.

Structure, Principles, and Ideology

The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes

Aus dem Inhalt: N. Demand: Poleis on Cyprus and Oriental Despotism H. Bowden: The Greek Settlement and Sanctuaries at Naukratis T. H. Nielsen: Was There an Arkadian Confederacy in the Fifth Century B.C.' T. H. Nielsen: A Survey of Dependent Poleis in Classical Arkadia J. Roy: Polis and Tribe in Classical Arkadia A. G. Keen: Were the Boiotian Poleis Autonomoi? M. H. Hansen: Were the Boiotian Poleis Deprived of Their Autonomia During the First and Second Boiotian Federations? A Reply P. Flensted-Jensen/M. H. Hansen: Pseudo-Skylax' Use of the Term Polis M. H. Hansen: City-Ethnics as Evidence for Polis Identity .

More Studies in the Ancient Greek "polis"

The first volume of The Athenian Ecclesia covers the author's articles on the subject in the period 1976-1983 on the working and functioning of the Athenian assembly. The book covers a variety of elements in the discussion of the Ecclesia, such as how many members the assembly consisted of, how they met and voted, concepts of nomos, psephisma, demos, dicasterion, and a comparative analysis on the Ecclesia and the Swiss Landsgemeinde.

A Collection of Articles 1976-1983

The Athenian Ecclesia

The second volume of The Athenian Ecclesia covers the author's articles on the subject in the period 1983-1989 on the working and functioning of the Athenian assembly. The book covers a variety of elements in the discussion of the Ecclesia, such as politicians, the political organisation of Attica, how the assembly met and what and of whom it consisted.

A Collection of Articles, 1983-1989

The Athenian Ecclesia II

Symposium August, 23-26 1995

Introduction to an Inventory of 'Poleis'

An Ancient Concept and Its Modern Equivalent : Symposium January 9, 1998

Polis and City-state

Thomas Heine Nielsen

This is the first ever documented study of the 1,035 identifiable Greek city states (poleis) of the Archaic and Classical periods (c.650-325 BC). Previous studies of the Greek polis have focused on Athens and Sparta, and the result has been a view of Greek society dominated by Sophokles', Plato's, and Demosthenes' view of what the polis was. This study includes descriptions of Athens and Sparta, but its main purpose is to explore the history and organization of the thousand other city states. The main part of the book is a regionally organized inventory of all identifiable poleis covering the Greek world from Spain to the Caucasus and from the Crimea to Libya. This inventory is the work of 47 specialists, and is divided into 46 chapters, each covering a region. Each chapter contains an account of the region, a list of second-order settlements, and an alphabetically ordered description of the poleis. This description covers such topics as polis status, territory, settlement pattern, urban centre, city walls and monumental architecture, population, military strength, constitution, alliance membership, colonization, coinage, and Panhellenic victors. The first part of the book is a description of the method and principles applied in the construction of the inventory and an analysis of some of the results to be obtained by a comparative study of the 1,035 poleis included in it. The ancient Greek concept of polis is distinguished from the modern term `city state', which historians use to cover many other historic civilizations, from ancient Sumeria to the West African cultures absorbed by the nineteenth-century colonializing powers. The focus of this project is what the Greeks themselves considered a polis to be.

An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis

This volume collects new, revised, and expanded articles about Aristotle's Politics by renowned classical scholar Mogens Herman Hansen. By addressing old controversies, and treating issues that have been ignored or neglected, Hansen sheds new lights on a range of issues of paramount importance for understanding the Politics: Aristotle's view of democratic freedom and political freedom as a value in itself; Aristotle’s silence as to the numerous federal states in the contemporary Hellenic polis world; the sixfold model of constitutions and the alternative model according to which all constitutions are either democracies or oligarchies or a mixed form of oligarchy and democracy. In a final article he shows that Aristotle took a positive view of the mixed forms of democracy, in particular an indirect form of democracy in which the power of the people was restricted to electing the magistrates and calling them to account whereas all political decisions were left to be made by the elected magistrates. By bringing these articles within the covers of a single volume, Mogens Herman Hansen’s writings on an important subject will be more conveniently available to students, scholars, and general readers interested in Aristotle’s Politics. Mogens Herman Hansen, emeritus reader in Ancient Greek at the University of Copenhagen, now associated with The Royal Library in Copenhagen, is a leading authority in Athenian democracy and the Greek City-State. He is a member of the British Academy and the Danish Academy for Sciences and Letters. He was formerly the Director of The Copenhagen Polis Centre 1993-2005.

Reflections on Aristotle’s Politics

Pernille Flensted-Jensen

Lene Rubinstein

Contains 35 articles devoted to different aspects of the Greek polis and is intended not only as a present for Mogens Herman Hansen on his sixtieth birthday, but also as a way of thanking him for his significant contributions to the field of Greek history over the past three decades.

Studies in Ancient Greek History

Polis & Politics

Symposium on the Occasion of the 250th Anniversary of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, July, 1-4 1992

The Ancient Greek City-state

This is the first ever documented study of the 1,035 identifiable Greek city states (poleis) of the Archaic and Classical periods (c.650-325 BC). Previous studies of the Greek polis have focused on Athens and Sparta, and the result has been a view of Greek society dominated by Sophokles', Plato's, and Demosthenes' view of what the polis was. This study includes descriptions of Athens and Sparta, but its main purpose is to explore the history andorganization of the thousand other city states.The main part of the book is a regionally organized inventory of all identifiable poleis covering the Greek world from Spain to the Caucasus and from the Crimea to Libya. This inventory is the work of 47 specialists, and is divided into 46 chapters, each covering a region. Each chapter contains an account of the region, a list of second-order settlements, and an alphabetically ordered description of the poleis. This description covers such topics as polis status,territory, settlement pattern, urban centre, city walls and monumental architecture, population, military strength, constitution, alliance membership, colonization, coinage, and Panhellenic victors.The first part of the book is a description of the method and principles applied in the construction of the inventory and an analysis of some of the results to be obtained by a comparative study of the 1,035 poleis included in it. The ancient Greek concept of polis is distinguished from the modern term `city state', which historians use to cover many other historic civilizations, from ancient Sumeria to the West African cultures absorbed by the nineteenth-century colonializingpowers. The focus of this project is what the Greeks themselves considered a polis to be.

I Athen skulle en retssag føres af de implicerede parter selv og pådømmes af en folkedomstol bemandet med flere hundrede nævninge, der blev udpeget ved lodtrækning. For at gøre retsplejen demokratisk ville man modvirke professionalisme, og det var strafbart at betale en advokat for at føre ens sag i retten.< Men på ét punkt gik athenerne på kompromis: De tillod de procederende at henvende sig til en professionel taleskriver - en logograf - der udarbejdede en tale, som de så lærte udenad og holdt for dommerne. Lysias var måske den mest elegante af de athenske logografer. Han levede i slutningen af det 5. århundrede f.Kr. og havde etableret sig som stenrig skjoldfabrikant med over 100 slaver i sit værksted. Men ved en oligarkisk revolution i 404 mistede han alt, og efter demokratiets genindførelse i 403 måtte han tjene til livets ophold ved at skrive retstaler for andre. Lysias blev berømt for sit smukke sprog og sin flydende stil, og talerne blev udgivet og bevaret som eksempler på god retorik. I oldtiden kendte man over 200 af hans taler og yderligere 200, som med større eller mindre ret blev tilskrevet ham. Af alle disse er kun 34 overleveret i middelalderlige håndskrifter - syv af dem er oversat i dette udvalg. Lysias' taler giver et autentisk billede af athenernes livsmønster og fortæller om næsten alt - fra den bedragne ægtemands drab på sin kones forfører til en forbitret anklage mod en embedsmand, der beskyldes for lovsvindel. Samtidig vidner talerne om en kultur, hvor talekunsten var højt værdsat, og hvor man åbent erkendte, at "fornuft uden veltalenhed er som et sværd, der sidder fast i skeden."

Lysias' Taler

Symposium, January 7-10, 2004

The Imaginary Polis

An Investigation

A Comparative Study of Thirty City-state Cultures

Kilder til demokratiets historie 1750-2000

Symposium August, 29-31 1996

The Polis as an Urban Centre and as a Political Community

Introduktion til det moderne demokrati og dets forskellige udtryksformer som både politisk ideologi og samfundsmæssig styre- og livsform herunder også set i relation til begreber som frihed, lighed og menneskerettigheder, og med en gennemgang af demokratiets status i EU

Demokrati som styreform og som ideologi

An accessible introduction to the polis (plural: poleis), or ancient Greek city-state. Mogens Herman Hansen addresses such topics as the emergence of the polis, its size and population, and its political culture, ranging from famous poleis such as Athens and Sparta through more than 1,000 known examples.

Mogens Herman Hansen

About

Books

Join the club