Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: In Plato’s Statesman , the stranger compares the statesman to a weaver. The modern reader does not know a priori how the statesman and the weaver resemble one another and therefore could be compared, but Socrates the younger reacts as if the comparison is natural. This note suggests, with reference to the gender division of labour in ancient Greece, that the male ‘weaver’ did not do much weaving but was a supervisor, which means that the fundamental similarity between a statesman and a weaver is that both managed subordinates. This cultural knowledge explains why the comparison seems natural to Socrates the younger.
Source: The Classical Quarterly
Author: Fredrik Sixtensson
Institution: Stockholm School of Economics
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,450
OpenAlex ID: W4409271767