intolerance, intellectual and religious

intolerance, intellectual and religious
For most Greek states our evidence is too poor and patchy for us to be able to say much. We know a little about 5th-cent. bc Athens. Sir K. Popper famously praised it as an ‘open society’ but the tolerance of that society had limits. There is some evidence for literary censorship, though of a haphazard and perhaps ineffective sort. Phrynichus got into trouble near the beginning of the century for putting on a tragedy dealing with a sensitive political topic (Herodotus 6.21). Between 440 and 437 BC there were formal restrictions on ridicule in theatrical comedy (Fornara no. 111 with the important discussion of ‘political censorship’ at Dramatic Festivals of Athens3 364; cf. comedy (Greek), Old, §4). On the other hand there were no ‘witch-hunts’ against intellectuals, though Anaxagoras and other associates of [The entire page is 521 words long]

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