David Rosenbloom - University of Maryland Baltimore County

David Rosenbloom - University of Maryland Baltimore County
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David Rosenbloom
University of Maryland Baltimore County
Dept. of Ancient Studies
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450 Performing Arts and Humanities Bldg.
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Books by David Rosenbloom
Money, Warfare and Power in the Ancient World: Studies in Honour of Matthew Freeman Trundle.
by
David Rosenbloom
Arthur Pomeroy
, and
Jeremy Armstrong
J. Armstrong, A.J. Pomeroy, and D. Rosenbloom, Money, Warfare and Power in the Ancient World: Stu...
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J. Armstrong, A.J. Pomeroy, and D. Rosenbloom, Money, Warfare and Power in the Ancient World: Studies in Honour of Matthew Freeman Trundle. London: Bloomsbury, 2024. This volume memorializes the life and work of our dear friend and colleague, Matthew Trundle.
Αισχύλος Πέρσες
Antonis Petrides' Greek translation of my 2006 book augmented by Theodoros Stephanopoulou's tran...
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Antonis Petrides' Greek translation of my 2006 book augmented by Theodoros Stephanopoulou's  translation of the play into modern Greek and Stravros Tsitsiridis' supplements on iconography, expanded treatment of the play's modern reception,  and updated bibliography.
Aeschylus: Persians. London: Duckworth, 2006. Uncorrected Proofs.
Articles and Chapters by David Rosenbloom
NAVAL SERVICE AND POLITICAL POWER IN CLASSICAL ATHENS: AN INVERSE RELATION (Proofs)
Money, Warfare and Power in the Ancient World: Studies in Honour of Matthew Freeman Trundle
, 2024
Perhaps in reaction to claims that service on Athenian triremes offered citizen rowers a 'democra...
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Perhaps in reaction to claims that service on Athenian triremes offered citizen rowers a 'democratic education' or over time proved the worthiness of thētes (marginalized citizens) to exercise citizenship in the Athenian democracy, lines of correlation and causation among socioeconomic status, military function, political power and the evolution of democracy at Athens have been decentred. 1 The first proposition to be dismissed is that naval power played a causal role in the formation and evolution of democracy at Athens, or, indeed, anywhere in the Greek world. 2 Non-democratic poleis, such as Sparta and Corinth, maintained navies; this had no discernible effect on their political organization. These cities used slaves, non-citizen perioikoi and mercenaries as rowers. Democratic Athens, mutatis mutandis, adopted such practices with increasing frequency over the course of the fifth and fourth centuries bce (Thuc. 1.121.3, 143; 7.63.3; IG I 3 1032). 3 Athens, by contrast, had employed large numbers of thētes as rowers after the creation of the fleet and the victory at Salamis in 480. Indeed, increasing democratization at Athens in the half-century between the reforms of Ephialtes in 462 and the oligarchic takeover of 411 was predicated on the agency of these citizens in the democratic process as dicasts and assemblymen rather than on their active service as rowers. Military service may explain or justify power of the lower classes; but such service did not constitute their power. This was a result of their activity in majoritarian institutions coordinated by prosecutors and orators classified as ponēroi ('bad' , 'base' and 'inauthentic' [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.2-9,13; cf. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 28). 4 Athens became increasingly democratic after 462, not because marginalized citizens rowed in the fleet, but because they no longer rowed in the fleet in such large numbers over such long periods of service. As rowers and citizens, thētes remained virtually invisible in Athenian society and politics from 480 through 428. 5 The exercise of their rights and assertion of the power of their numbers in the courts and assembly were the basis for their visibility and political power. Vincent Gabrielsen has pointed out that the long-term employment of Athenian citizens as rowers would have risked 'demographic suicide' for them and their city. 6 This chapter argues a corollary to this premise: long-term employment as rowers would have been 'political suicide' for thētes in Athens' direct democracy, in which the exercise of power required physical presence in political and legal venues. Naval service was a fulltime occupation that hindered rowers' participation in democratic institutions. Thucydides' Pericles reminds the Athenians in 432 that 'sea power is a matter of art, and like any other art, it is not possible to practise it at any old time as an avocation; rather,
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The democratization of Athens (462-411) relied more on citizens' political agency than naval service, highlighting their role in majoritarian institutions.
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"Aeschylus's Athens between Hegemony and Empire"
A Companion to Aeschylus
, 2023
J. Bromberg and P. Burian eds. A Companion to Aeschylus. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 373-88.
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Darius condemns Persian actions as impious hybris, predicting suffering for perpetrators at Plataea, linking divine punishment to human failure.
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"The Rhetoric and Theatrics of the Unspeakable in Tragedy"
E. Papadodima ed. The Faces of Silence in Greek Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter.
, 2020
"A ambivalência de Aristotéles: Pathê e Technê na Retórica e na Poética," in Maria Cecília de Miranda N. Coelho ed., Retórica, Persuasão e Emoções: ensaios filosóficos et literários. Belo Horizonte: Relicário Edições, 2018: 121-162. Translated by Bernardo C. D. A. Vasconcelos.
"The Comedians' Aeschylus," in R. Futo-Kennedy ed., Brill's Companion to the Reception of Aeschylus.Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018, 54-87.
"Appendix B: Material Conditions and Visual Meaning," in M. Lefkowitz and J. Romm eds., The Greek Plays. New York: Modern Library, 2016, 799-804.
Drama enjoyed widespread popularity in antiquity. In towns and cities throughout the ancient worl...
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Drama enjoyed widespread popularity in antiquity. In towns and cities throughout the ancient world, theaters were landmarks essential to the idea of community. Stone theaters cropped up throughout the Greek-speaking world from the fourth century b.c. onward; towns and cities in the Hellenistic and Roman periods built, remodeled, and expanded their theaters. As a result, many surviving theaters date from a much later time than their original construction and over the years were adapted for spectacles and uses besides drama. The reconstruction of theaters as they were in the fifth century b.c. presents challenges.
"The Politics of Comic Athens," in M. Fontaine and A. Scafuro eds., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (Oxford, 2014): 297-320.
"Athenian Drama and Democratic Political Culture," in D. Rosenbloom and J. Davidson eds., Greek Drama IV: Texts, Contexts, Performance (Oxford: Aris & Philips, 2012): 270-99.
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Democratic freedom in Athens prioritizes moral order, managed through emotions like pity, fear, and anger.
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"Introduction," in D. Rosenbloom and J. Davidson eds., Greek Drama IV: Texts, Contexts, Performance (Oxford: Aris & Philips, 2012): 1-30.
"Scripting Revolution: Democracy and its Discontents in Late Fifth-Century Athens." in A. Markantonatos and B. Zimmermann eds., Crisis on Stage: Tragedy and Comedy in Late Fifth-Century Athens,” Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012) 405-41. Offprint.
A. Markantonatos and B. Zimmermann eds., Crisis on Stage: Tragedy and Comedy in Late Fifth-Century Athens,” Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes
, 2012
“The Panhellenism of Athenian Tragedy,” in D. Carter ed., Why Athens? A Reappraisal of Tragic Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011): 353-81. Offprint.
"The Origins of East-West Symbolic Geography in Ancient Greece: Imperialism, Ethnography, and Culture," New Zealand Association of Classical Teachers Bulletin 39 (2011): 42-55.
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The Trojan War myth serves as a formative narrative for east-west conflict, explaining historical antagonisms between Greeks and Persians through cultural thefts.
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“Staging Rhetoric in Athens,” in E. Gunderson ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009): 194-211.
“Empire and its Discontents: Trojan Women, Birds, and the Symbolic Economy of Athenian Imperialism,” in J. Davidson, F. Muecke, and P. Wilson eds. Greek Drama III: Essays in Honour of Kevin Lee. Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 87 (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2006): 245-71.
“Chrêstoi vs. Ponêroi: the Ostracism of Hyperbolos and the Struggle for Hegemony in Athens after the Death of Perikles, Part I.” TAPA 134.2 (2004): 55-105.
“Chrêstoi vs. Ponêroi: the Ostracism of Hyperbolos and the Struggle for Hegemony in Athens after the Death of Perikles, Part II.” TAPA 134.1 (2004): 323-58.
: The ostracism of Hyperbolos, a ponêros and sykophant, realized a comic plot, bordered on...
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: The ostracism of Hyperbolos, a ponêros and sykophant, realized a comic plot, bordered on pharmakos ritual, and inaugurated a period of increasingly violent stasis between chrêstoi and ponêroi that included the affairs of the Hermai and the Mysteries and the oligarchic takeovers of 411 and 404. The stasis ends with the labels ponêros and chrêstos negotiable. Over the next two generations, citizens of Hyperbolos' profile attained hegemony in Athenian society and the dikasterion evolved as the authoritative venue for the allocation of the labels. This marks the moment when ostracism is an institutional relic. This is the second and final part of a paper whose first part appeared in TAPA 134.1 (2004).
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The ostracism of Hyperbolos solidified the alliance between the demos and chrêstoi, reinforcing traditional power structures in Athens.
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“Aristogeiton son of Cydimachus and the Scoundrel’s Drama,” In J. Davidson and A. Pomeroy eds. Theatres of Action. Papers for Chris Dearden. Prudentia Supplement (Auckland: Polygraphia, 2003): 88-117.
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