A generation gap in late fifth-century-BC Athens

Abstract

The belief that there was a generation gap in Athens in the late fifth century BC is widely accepted by the scholarly community. This paper looks at how the generation gap thesis has come into being and challenges that view, seeking to show that the intergenerational differences became neither a subject of politics nor a political factor, although the young and the old did respond differently to the challenges and innovations that stirred both private and public life in Athens at the time.