- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Euripides’s Poetic Game and Law of Composition
- 2. Anthropomorphism
- 3. The Protection of the Self and the Role of <i>Sophia</i>
- 4. Some Connotations of <i>Sophia</i>
- 5. Polyneices’s Truth
- 6. Hecuba’s Rhetoric
- 7. Eros in Euripides’s Poetics: Sex as the Cause of the Trojan War
- 8. The Lewd Gaze of the Eye
- 9. The Power of Love: Who Is Aphrodite?
- 10. Phaedra
- 11. Hermione: The <i>Andromache</i>
- 12. Female Victims of War: The <i>Troades</i>
- 13. The Survival in Poetry
- 14. Figures of Metalepsis: The Invention of “Literature”
- 15. The Failure of Politics in Euripides’s Poetics: Politics in the <i>Suppliant Women</i>
- 16. Political Philosophy: A Universal Program of Peace and Progress
- 17. How to Deliberate a War
- 18. Democracy and Monarchy
- 19. The Battle
- 20. The Rescue of the Corpses
- 21. Return to Arms
- 22. The Polis’s Loss of Control and Authority
- 23. The Bacchants’ Gospel and the Greek City
- 24. Pentheus and Teiresias
- 25. Dionysus’s Revenge: First Round
- 26. Revenge Prepares Its Murderous Weapon
- 27. Initiation and Sacrifice
- 28. Victory and Defeat
- 29. Euripides’s Poetry
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Index Locorum
How to Deliberate a War
How to Deliberate a War
- Chapter:
- 17. How to Deliberate a War
- Source:
- Euripides’s Revolution under Cover
- Author(s):
Pietro Pucci
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
This chapter examines Aithra's rhetorical appeals urging her son Theseus to wage war against the Thebans in order to recover the bodies of those who died in battle outside the gates of Thebes. In Suppliant Women, Aithra calls on Theseus to use Athens's force “to compel violent men who prevent the dead from obtaining due burial and rites, and to stop those who are confounding the law of all Greece.” In trying to convince Theseus, Aithra seems to imply that he is disregarding not only the reverence owed to suppliants, but also, and more importantly, the divine law concerning the burial of corpses. Aithra's readiness to have her son risk the dangers of war is the theme that most strikes Theseus. This chapter considers how Aithra transforms and sublimates her natural motherly love into eros for Athens, and how Theseus turns into a family man and a fable-like character who impersonates a glorious legend.
Keywords: rhetoric, Theseus, war dangers, Thebes, Suppliant Women, Aithra, Athens, burial, divine law, eros
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- Title Pages
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Euripides’s Poetic Game and Law of Composition
- 2. Anthropomorphism
- 3. The Protection of the Self and the Role of <i>Sophia</i>
- 4. Some Connotations of <i>Sophia</i>
- 5. Polyneices’s Truth
- 6. Hecuba’s Rhetoric
- 7. Eros in Euripides’s Poetics: Sex as the Cause of the Trojan War
- 8. The Lewd Gaze of the Eye
- 9. The Power of Love: Who Is Aphrodite?
- 10. Phaedra
- 11. Hermione: The <i>Andromache</i>
- 12. Female Victims of War: The <i>Troades</i>
- 13. The Survival in Poetry
- 14. Figures of Metalepsis: The Invention of “Literature”
- 15. The Failure of Politics in Euripides’s Poetics: Politics in the <i>Suppliant Women</i>
- 16. Political Philosophy: A Universal Program of Peace and Progress
- 17. How to Deliberate a War
- 18. Democracy and Monarchy
- 19. The Battle
- 20. The Rescue of the Corpses
- 21. Return to Arms
- 22. The Polis’s Loss of Control and Authority
- 23. The Bacchants’ Gospel and the Greek City
- 24. Pentheus and Teiresias
- 25. Dionysus’s Revenge: First Round
- 26. Revenge Prepares Its Murderous Weapon
- 27. Initiation and Sacrifice
- 28. Victory and Defeat
- 29. Euripides’s Poetry
- Bibliography
- Subject Index
- Index Locorum