RESCHEDULED TO FALL 2023 "The Structure of Power in Classical Athens: From Oikos to Polis"

The link between citizenship and freedom in Classical Athens is well established, but less so is the link between power and citizenship. Power is often thought of in terms of domination, i.e. who has power over whom. Another equally important aspect of power is the power to do things. In this talk, I will argue that an essential conception of power for Athenians was the power to effect outcomes. Focusing on the term kurios as indicating empowerment, I show that this conception is applied from the level of the household to the level of the city. While this approach does not deny the oppressive potential of power, it demonstrates that domination as the sole metric for power has obscured the relationship of individual citizens to the state and to each other, as well the empowerment of non-citizens.