Chapter 8 No Trojan Horses: the Legacy of Greek Political Thought in the Early American Republic

In: Brill's Companion to the Legacy of Greek Political Thought
Author:
Arlene W. Saxonhouse
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Type:
Chapter
Pages:
218–243
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004679344_010

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Abstract

Political writers of the late eighteenth century in America showed little serious engagement with the complexity of ancient Greek political thought or democratic practices, preferring instead to emphasise the novelty of their experiment in instituting a new form of republican government. It was republican Rome, not democratic Athens with its ‘petty factions’, to which the authors of the founding period in American turned. This antipathy to Greek democracy and Greek thought can be attributed to the emergence in the seventeenth century of liberal political thought with its emphasis on rights. Only in the nineteenth century, with the democratisation of the American republic and the impact of the Greek Wars of Independence, did Greek democracy appear as a beacon for Americans, though perhaps more as a rhetorical tool than as a guide for serious reflection on the nature and purposes of political life.

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Series:  Brill's Companions to Philosophy: Ancient Philosophy, Volume: 8 and  Brill's Companions to Philosophy, Volume: 8
Cover Brill's Companion to the Legacy of Greek Political Thought
E-Book ISBN:
9789004679344
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
16 Sep 2024
Front Matter
Introduction
Part 1 The Reproduction of Greek Political Thought
Part 2 Greek Thought in New Environments
Part 3 Variation and Adaptation
Part 4 Greek Thought and the Potential for Dissent
Back Matter

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