Faction & Civil Strife
The Greek word for the civil strife that tears a city apart from within — faction, sedition, and revolution.
Stasis named the breakdown of a polis into warring factions, the gravest internal threat any ancient city-state could face. Thucydides (5th c. BCE) gave it its definitive analysis in his account of the revolution at Corcyra, showing how civil war corrupts even the meaning of words and the sense of right and wrong. Aristotle later devoted Politics V to its causes and prevention, making stasis a central category in the study of revolution and political stability.
How it traveled
- IliadIos · -700explains
- AgamemnonAthens · -458explains
- HistoriesThurii (Magna Graecia) · -425explains
- Against EratosthenesAthens · -403explains
- History of the Peloponnesian WarAthens · -400explains
- Against AgoratusAthens · -399explains
- Concerning the Team of HorsesAthens · -397explains
- PanegyricusAthens · -380redefines
- Defense Against a Charge of Subverting the DemocracyAthens · -380explains
- RepublicAthens · -375explains
- ArchidamusAthens · -366explains
- On the PeaceAthens · -355explains
- HellenicaAthens · -354explains
- AnabasisAthens · -354explains
- CyropaediaAthens · -354explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- Constitution of the LacedaimoniansAthens · -354redefines
- ExordiaAthens · -349explains
- LawsAthens · -348explains
- LettersAthens · -348explains
- To PhilipAthens · -346explains
- On the False EmbassyAthens · -343explains
- On the EmbassyAthens · -343explains
- Third PhilippicAthens · -341explains
- PanathenaicusAthens · -339explains
- On the CrownAthens · -330explains
- Res Publica AtheniensiumChalcis · -325explains
- PoliticsChalcis · -322explains
- LettersAthens · -322explains
- Fourth PhilippicAthens · -322explains
Key passages(20)
Civil Wars · Appian of Alexandria
Civil Wars · Appian of Alexandria
Res Publica Atheniensium · Aristotle
Res Publica Atheniensium · Aristotle
Antiquitates Romanae · Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Jewish Antiquities · Flavius Josephus