ElAnt v1n6 - Kingship and the Origins of Power in Greek Society

KINGSHIP AND THE ORGANIZATION OF POWER IN GREEK SOCIETY

6-7 December 1993

1993 Conference
of the
Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory
Department of Classics
University of Texas at Austin

The aim of this conference is to investigate aspects of the organization and control of power within Greek society from the Mycenaean period into the Hellenistic period. It is being organized around the visit to PASP of Pierre Carlier of the Universite de Nancy, one of the leading authorities on the historical development of Greek kingship. His major work in this area is La Royaute en Grece avant Alexandre (Strasbourg 1984). He is also the author of a general study on the life and career of Demosthenes (1990). We hope especially to deal with the the origin and ideological basis of the institution of kingship in the Mycenaean period and to trace how the institution developed and was transformed through time.

Session 1: Proto-History Monday December 6

Pierre Carlier, Universite de Nancy: "Second thoughts on Mycenaean kingship" (resp. R. Palmer)
Sara Kimball, University of Texas at Austin: "Hittite kings and queens" (resp. Stieglitz)
Robert Stieglitz, Rutgers University: "The Ideology of Divine Kingship at Ugarit" (resp. Kimball)
Tom Palaima, UT Austin: "The Origin and Ideology of Mycenaean Kingship" (resp. Haskell)
Kevin Cauley, UT Austin: "The royal symbolism of the scepter: Mycenaean, Hittite, Hebraic" (resp. Reilly)
Carol Thomas, University of Washington: "Monarchy in ruins" (resp. Perlman)

Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, UT Austin: Closing Commentary

Session 2: History Tuesday December 7

Paula Perlman, UT Austin: "Public Authority and Social Organization in Early Gortyn and Knossos" (resp. Lenz)
Pierre Carlier, Universite de Nancy: "The regal law of succession in Sparta." (resp. Thomas)
John Lenz, Texas A&M: "'It Is Not Bad to Be a King' (Od. 1.362): Kings and Councils of Kings in Homer and the Early Polis" (resp. Sealey)
Raphael Sealey, Berkeley: "IG I3, 104 lines 11-12 dikazen de tos basileas in the Athenian law of homicide" (resp. Gagarin)
Greta Ham, UT Austin: "Ethnology and Kingship in Aristotle" (resp. Green)
Peter Green, UT Austin: "Delivering the Go(o)ds: Euhemerism and the Hellenistic Divine Kingship" (resp. Ham)

Jackie Long, UT Austin, and Carin Green, University of Iowa: Closing Comments

All participants have written articles or books dealing with rulers and/or political and economic systems in ancient societies:

Emmett L. Bennett, Jr., professor emeritus University of Wisconsin and adjunct professor of Classics UT Austin: Minoan and Mycenaean scripts.
Michael Gagarin, professor and chair of Classics at UT Austin: Greek law.
Carin Green, assistant professor of Classics at University of Iowa: Roman intellectual history and Roman ruler ideology.
Halford Haskell, associate professor of Classics at Southwestern University: Bronze Age trade, stirrup jars and their implications for Mycenaean political and economic organization.
Jackie Long, assistant professor of Classics at UT Austin: Ruler ideology in imperial Rome.
Ruth Palmer, visiting scholar at PASP UT Austin: Greek Bronze Age economy, Linear B.
Kent Reilly, assistant professor of anthropology at Southwest Texas State University: Development of political ideology and its symbolic images in Middle Formative Mesoamerica (900-500 B.C.).
Cynthia W. Shelmerdine, associate professor of Classics at UT Austin: Bronze Age archaeology, Mycenaean Studies.

Electronic Antiquity Vol. 1 Issue 6 - November 1993
edited by Peter Toohey and Ian Worthington
antiquity-editor@classics.utas.edu.au
ISSN 1320-3606