Athens Victorious : Democracy in Plato's Republic

Examines the notion of freedom in Plato's Republic, the proper understanding of which notion is essential for understanding the dialogue's political message. This book offers an analysis of the section of the dialogue in which various constitutional options are discussed that lead to the conclusion that the dialogue is advocating democracy.

Plato''s Republic is typically thought to recommend a form of government that, from our current perspective, seems perniciously totalitarian. Athens Victorious demonstrates that Plato intended quite the opposite: to demonstrate the superiority of a democratic constitution. Greg Recco provides a brilliant rereading of Book Eight. Often considered an anticlimax, Book Eight seems to be a mere catalogue of mistakes but is in fact one of Plato''s most neglected literary creations: a mythic or epic restaging of the Peloponnesian War that pitted Sparta''s militaristic oligarchy against Athens'' democracy. In Plato''s reenactment, Athens wins. Recco argues that the values identified in Book Eight as distinctively democratic were the very ones that served as the unannounced touchstones of moral and political judgment throughout the dialogue.Athens Victorious is an important reinterpretation ofThe Republic. It is an excellent resource for students and scholars of Classical Studies, Philosophy, and Political Theory.