Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. The first significant attempt to study the implications of this view stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition and examines their character and interaction.

Despite its written literature, ancient Greece was in many ways an oral society. The first significant attempt to study the implications of this view stresses the coexistence of literacy and oral tradition and examines their character and interaction.

This volume deals with aspects of orality and oral traditions in ancient Greece, and is a selection of refereed papers from the fourth biennial Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece conference, held at the University of Missouri Columbia in 2000. The book is divided into three parts: literature, rhetoric and society, and philosophy. The papers focus on genres such as epic poetry, drama, poetry and art, public oratory, legislative procedure, and Simplicius’ philosophy. All papers present new approaches to their topics or ask new and provocative questions.

In this book, James Sickinger explores the use and preservation of public records in the ancient Athenian democracy of the archaic and classical periods. Athenian public records are most familiar from the survival of inscribed stelai, slabs of marble on which were published decrees, treaties, financial accounts, and other state documents. Working largely from evidence supplied by such inscriptions, Sickinger demonstrates that their texts actually represented only a small part of Athenian record keeping. More numerous and more widely used, he says, were archival texts written on wooden tablets or papyri that were made, and often kept for extended periods of time, by Athenian officials. Beginning with the legislation of Drakon in the seventh century B.C., Sickinger traces the growing use of written records by the Athenian state over the next three centuries, concluding with an examination of the Metroon, the state archive of Athens, during the fourth century. Challenging assumptions about ancient Athenian literacy, democracy, and society, Sickinger argues that the practical use and preservation of laws, decrees, and other state documents were hallmarks of Athenian public life from the earliest times.

Re-assesses the phenomenon of Greek 'local history-writing' and its role in creating political and cultural identity in a changing world.

This volume deals with orality and literacy in ancient Greece and what consideration of these areas yields for that society, its literature, traditions and practices. Individual chapters focus on art, comedy, historiography, oratory, religion, rhetoric, philosophy, poetry, tragedy, and on orality in contemporary cultures (Greek and South African), which have a bearing on the ancient world. By considering such factors as oral elements in various genres and practices and how these have shaped the texts we have today, as well as the extent of literacy and the impact of literacy on oral traditions and on singers/writers, the book presents another insight into ancient Greek society and its people.

Surveying the variety of ways in which written texts and oral discourse were involved in ancient religions, the contributions to this volume show that oral and written forms were intricately connected in both Greek and Roman state and private religions.