Political forms and Greek urbanism: the monumental architecture as a representation of tyrannical power between IV and vi centuries BC

Abstract

This project is presented in thematic deepening of scientific initiation research developed by the candidate at the Laboratory for the Study of the Ancient City (MAE-USP), between November/2009 and December/2011: consolidation of urban and architectural forms as a representation of Greek political space. This research aims at analyzing how political power - or its format - interferes in the disciplining of space, especially with regard to the incorporation of tyrannical ideology in large monumental buildings of the Greek West. Although the monumentality is, in our view, a contribution of the Greek foundations of Magna Graecia and Sicily, stimulating then other parts of the Hellenistic world, the poleis of Greece Balkan and Eastern Greece also harbored monumental architectural, urban forms and tyrannical, democratic or oligarchic governments. Thus, the data gathered about the monumentalization primarily of two Greek cities (Athens and Syracuse), between 6th and 4th centuries BC, serve to delimit a comparative analyse between different forms of political organization and social and urban planning, in order to elucidate the landscape of power. In time, data from other poleis as Metaponto, Kamarina, Himera, Miletus, Tasos, Cyrene and Taranto will be incorporated to give more density to the expected conclusions. (AU)