Much effort has been invested by scholars in defining the specific character of the Homeric values as against those that obtained at later periods of Greek history. The distinction between the ‘shame-culture’ and the ‘guilt-culture’ introduced by E. R. Dodds, and that between the ‘competitive’ and the ‘cooperative’ values advocated by A. W. H. Adkins, are among the more influential ones. Although Adkins's taxonomy encountered some acute criticism, notably from A. A. Long, it has become generally adopted both in the (...) scholarly literature and in general philosophical discussions of Greek ethics. Objections to Adkins's approach have mainly concentrated on demonstrating that his denial of the cooperative values to Homer is untenable on general grounds and is not supported by Homeric evidence. Characteristically, Adkins's thesis concerning the centrality to Homer's ethics of the so-called ‘competitive values‘ has never received similar attention, probably owing to the fact that this is the point at which his picture of the Homeric society concurs with the influential reconstructions by W Jaeger and M. I. Finley. The present study oftimēandaretē, generally held to be the two competitive values central to the Homeric poems, purports to address this issue. (shrink)

Resumo: Propõe-se uma leitura de três episódios da Odisseia, nos quais há o uso de um phármakon. São Helena, Circe e Hermes as personagens que administram as phármaka. Trata-se de leitura: 1) vinculada a um projeto: o levantamento e a interpretação de discursos que se distanciem e/ou questionem a perspectiva da “guerra às drogas”, algo como um projeto de extração de elementos textuais que possam servir como ferramentas teóricas, na construção de uma perspectiva menos mortífera em relação às substâncias; 2) (...) guiada por três princípios, os quais podem ser ditos anticoloniais e antirracistas. Leitura centrada no phármakon, mas que o articula à comida floral dos lotófagos e à relação de xenía; dela, apresenta-se a proposta segundo a qual, no texto homérico, há a valorização de algo que pode ser chamado de multivalência.: The aim of this paper is to analyze three episodes of the Odyssey in which a pharmakon is used. Helen, Circe and Hermes are the characters that administer the pharmaka. This analysis is linked to a project - the survey of discourses that distance themselves and/or question the perspective of the “war on drugs”, a project that aims to extract textual elements that can serve as tools of thought in the construction of a less deadly path in relation to substances - and guided by three principles - which can be called anti-colonial and anti-racist. From this focus, centered on the pharmakon, also articulating it to the floral food of the lotophagi and the relationship of xenia, a thesis is put forward according to which, in the Homeric texts, one can find something that can be called multivalence. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss how the increasing social control of violence and aggression, which characterized the period from the Archaic to the Classical Age in ancient Greece, can be explained as an Eliasian civilizing process. Particularly crucial for this development is the question of how the city-state’s distinctive urban-political structures were the locus of this civilizing process. Accordingly, it is argued that not only are Elias’s key concepts analytically relevant to the ancient Greek civilizing process, but (...) also that they are to be reassessed in the light of the ancient Greek city-state culture. Thus, by the advancing of the argument that the civilizing process is not a uniquely western phenomenon, which occurred in western Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19th century, the analytical relevance of Elias is re-evaluated and augmented. (shrink)