26 Oligarchy, Part 1: Genesis w/ Matt Simonton

Ancient Greece Declassified

Dr. Lantern Jack

History, Education

4.8 • 587 Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2019

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How do ancient oligarchies compare with modern authoritarian regimes? How did civil war in oligarchies differ from civil war in democracies? What does the age-old ideological struggle between democracy and oligarchy imply about our future? These are just a few of the questions we discuss on this and the next episode.

This episode covers: what oligarchy actually is, and how this political form arose in the first place. The next episode – Oligarchy, Part 2: Nemesis – is going to be about the institutions of oligarchic regimes, how they maintained their power, and how they tended to break down in the end.

Joining us is ancient historian Matt Simonton of Arizona State University, author of the book Classical Greek Oligarchy, which won the Runciman Award in 2018. Stay tuned at the end of the episode for a chance to win an autographed, hard-cover edition of Classical Greek Oligarchy.

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The intro to this episode was provided by host Kate Armstrong of The Exploress Podcast, which time-travels through women's history, era by era, to explore their lives and their world. Check it out on your favorite app or at: theexploresspodcast.com

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Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/greecepodcast

Or make a one-time donation: paypal.me/greecepodcast

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Scholarly works mentioned during the conversation:

The First Democracies: Early Popular Government Outside Athens, by Eric W. Robinson

Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age, by Eric W. Robinson

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the fabulous ancient Greece declassified. I'm Kate Armstrong, and my podcast,
0:06.3	The Explorese, is all about time traveling back through history to find out what life was like for
0:11.6	ladies of the past. I love learning about women in history, but it often feels like I'm meeting them
0:17.3	in a cultural vacuum. What sort of underwear was Elizabeth the first wearing when she
0:21.7	dominated that English throne? What did ancient Egyptians use for contraception? Did the 19th century
0:27.8	hoops skirt trap women or did it liberate them? Each season, we examine a particular time and place,
0:34.3	walking with everyday ladies and the famous ones we think we know to discover what
0:39.2	it was like to be them. In season two, we've already traveled back to ancient Egypt and spent
0:45.0	seven juicy episodes in ancient Greece. So check it out. You'll find The ExploreS wherever you
0:51.1	get your podcasts or at my website, theexploresspodcast.com.
0:55.7	Take it away, Lantern Jack.
1:01.8	Hi, thanks for tuning in to ancient Greece, declassified.
1:11.1	Episode 26.
1:13.8	Oligarchy, Part 1, Genesis.
1:19.7	Oligarchy is a term that gets thrown around a lot nowadays in our political discourse.
1:24.6	Some pundits claim that America is turning into one.
1:28.7	In international affairs, we often hear about groups of oligarchs that dominate the politics of other countries.
1:33.9	Like most of our political terminology, the word oligarchy comes from ancient Greek.
1:39.7	And today, we're going to travel back in time to when the term was first coined in the 5th century
1:44.6	BC and examine the type of political regime it described.
1:49.0	We'll be joined by historian Matt Simonton, who quite literally wrote the book on classical
1:53.9	Greek oligarchy.
	...

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