Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World

by Peter Wilson, Eric Csapo, John Richard Green, et al.

Why did ancient autocrats patronise theatre? How could ancient theatre - rightly supposed to be an artform that developed and flourished under democracy - serve their needs?

Plato claimed that poets of tragic drama drag states into tyranny and democracy. The word order is very deliberate: he goes on to say that tragic poets are honoured especially by the tyrants, and secondly by the democracies (Republic 568c).

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 3110795965
• ISBN13: 9783110795967
• Release Date: October 2022
• Publisher: de Gruyter
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 2.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 8.1" x 11.1"