The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens

Athens, 403 B.C.E. The bloody oligarchic dictatorship of the Thirty is over, and the democrats have returned to the city victorious. Renouncing vengeance, in an act of willful amnesia, citizens call for—-if not invent—-amnesty. They agree to forget the unforgettable, the "past misfortunes," of civil strife or stasis. More precisely, what they agree to deny is that stasis—-simultaneously partisanship, faction, and sedition—-is at the heart of their politics.

Continuing a criticis…