Myrthe Bartels

In Book i of Plato’s Laws, the requisite quality of the leader of a symposium is illustrated through the contrastive example of the seasick steersman. The qualified steersman and the symposiarch should be ‘imperturbable’ (ἀθόρυβος) in the face of the perils of their tasks. Such people are not at all easy to find; yet they are essential if the Athenian’s provocative claim that the symposium is beneficial for paideia is to stand up to scrutiny. In order to illuminate the rare quality of resistance to seasickness, this contribution offers an examination of the metaphors of seasickness and θόρυβος. Both seasickness and θόρυβος can be used as an analogy or metaphor to conceptualize fear, and sources suggest that seasickness is thought to disappear with experience. The challenge is therefore to find people whose experience makes them undaunted to govern the symposium. These, it turns out, are the senior members (50 plus) and law guards of the Dionysiac chorus, which coincides with the symposium. Through their more advanced paideia, they are exposed to the consumption of wine and acquire the necessary familiarity with the practice. Since the symposiarch represents the law guard, it is no surprise that the description of the nocturnal council recalls that of the Dionysiac chorus, including the internal fault line between junior and senior members. The experience acquired by the law guards in the context of their education in the Dionysiac chorus and the nocturnal council therefore effectively rules out the possibility of a seasick steersman.

This contribution analyses the ancient Greek notion of eunomia in the philosophical prose literature of the fourth century BC. While the term eunomia is often translated as ‘good government’ or ‘good order’, such vague translations fail to capture the specifics of eunomia, and thus part of the philosophical debate about constitutions is lost. Closer inspection reveals that within the fourth-century constitutional debate, eunomia entails two distinct aspects: the excellence of the laws and their durability. These two aspects are predicated of various constitutions: the mixed constitution, of which Sparta and Crete are primary examples in the fourth century; the Athenian democracy as a paradigm of law-abidingness; and philosophical constitutions aiming at virtue. It is a hallmark of the last that such law codes start from marriage and childbirth and follow the course of human life.