1992 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Generation gap in the Athenian Democracy
| Project/Area Number |
03610197
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
History of Europe and America
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| Research Institution | University of Tokyo |
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Principal Investigator |
ITO Sadao University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, Professor, 文学部, 教授 (20011322)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HASHIBA Yuzuru University of Tokyo, Faculty of Letters, Assistant, 文学部, 助手 (10212135)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1991 – 1992
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| Keywords | Greece / democracy / family / generation gap / police / children / Athens / oligarchy |
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| Research Abstract |
Tension between the young and the old exists in all times and regions. It is so common that we are not justified in considering it as belonging only to classical Athens.
The generation gap in Athens in 420s B. C., however, is so unprecedented in Athenian history that we could treat it as one of the most striking scenes in Athenian democracy. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, the young men of the upper classes protested against the established oder of the radical democracy, which the old were staunch supporters of. Confrontation between the two generations was to be found in almost all phrases of the political and social life of Athens, e. g., ideology, religion, fashion and way of life.
How related to each other were the generation gap and the radicalism of the Athenian democracy ? Why did it emerge especially in this period ? Members of this project try to analyze this social phenomenon and search for its historical factor.
Ito pointed out the influence of some social groups tied with kinship, namely phratry and genos, to the Athenian democratic institutions. He asserts that the citizenship of Athens was premised on the introduction of children to a phratry. Hashiba made it clear that the generation gap did not result from a class struggle as M. Ostwald insisted in 1986. He bilt up a hypothesis that the decline of a paternal image, symbolically represented by Zeus, was the single most important factor in accounting for this phenomenon.
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