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The Rhetorical Shape of International Conflicts, Vol. 12 - 2005, No. 4
Time of Deliberation and Space of Power: Athens and Rome, the First Conflict
The conflict between Greece and Rome is one of modern history’s first international conflicts. Writing in the second century AD, Alius Aristides views it as a discursive, linguistic and rhetorical conflict. Essentially, it can even be described as a conflict between silence and rhetoric. Rome, unique voice of Empire, is, in being a complying, fine-tuned orchestra, even more silent, and may be, already, our contemporary notion of consensus and our version of globalisation? Athens talks, debates, and retains the notion of the political as continuous creation of dissent. Hence Athens – or rhetoric – is victorious even when conquered.
