Peter W. Rose - Class in Archaic Greece-Cambridge University Press (2012) PDF

CLASS IN ARCHAIC GREECE
Archaic Greece saw a number of decisive changes, including the emer-

gence of the polis, the foundation of Greek settlements throughout the
Mediterranean and Black Sea, the organization of pan-Hellenic games
and festivals, the rise of tyranny, the invention of literacy, the com-
position of the Homeric epics and the emergence of lyric poetry, the
development of monumental architecture and large-scale sculpture,
and the establishment of"democracy." This book argues that the best
way of understanding them is the application of an eclectic Marxist
model of class struggle, a struggle not only over control of agricultural
land but also over cultural ideals and ideology. A substantial theo-
retical introduction lays out the underlying assumptions in relation
to alternative models. Material and textual remains of the period are
examined in depth for clues to their ideological import, while later
sources and a wide range of modern scholarship are evaluated for their
explanatory power.
PETER w. ROSE is Professor of Classics at Miami University of

Ohio. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard and taught at Yale for eight
years. His publications include Sons of the Gods, Children of Earth:
Ideology and Literary Form in Ancient Greece (1992), and articles on
Pindar, Sophocles, Homer, Marx and the study ofwomen in antiquity,
Thucydides, Cicero, film and pedagogy, Marxism and ideology.
CLASS IN ARCHAIC GREECE
PETER W. ROSE
...,.:.:._,,, CAMBRIDGE
::: UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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© Peter W. Rose 2012
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Rose, Peter W. (Peter Wires), 1936--
Class in archaic Greece / Peter W. Rose.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-521-76876-4 (hardback)
1. Greece - Economic conditions - To 146 B.c. 2. Greece - Social conditions - To 146 B.c.
3. Social classes - Greece - History. 4. Social conflict - Greece - History. I. Title.
Hc37.R67 2012
938 - dc23 2012002654
ISBN 978-0-521-76876-4 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To Irina, Liubasha, and Daniel
"But, as changes do happen, it 1s desirable that they should be
explained."
Arnaldo Momigliano
Contents
Preface page viii

List ofabbreviatiom Xlll
Introduction: theoretical considerations I
1 Class in the Dark Age and the rise of the polis

2 Homer's Iliad: alienation from a changing world
3 Trade, colonization, and the Odyssey 134
4 Hesiod: cosmogony, basilees, farmers, and justice 166
5 Tyranny and the Solonian Crisis 201
6 Sparta and the consolidation of the oligarchic ideal

7 Athens and the emergence of democracy
References
Index
Vll
Preface
The origin of this book is on one level very simple: Kurt Raaflaub asked
me to write a short piece on this topic, then when my first draft was
four times too long, encouraged me to consider writing a monograph. His
fellow-editor, Hans van Wees, though I never had the pleasure of meeting
him face-to-face, also gave much helpful advice - not least with his own
excellent offprints. I am indebted as well to David Roselli, James McGlew,
Virginia Hunter, Page duBois, Mark Golden, Arch Christopherson, Rick
Wolff, Tracy Rihle, Steve Tuck, and David Tandy for helpful comments on
earlier drafts or parts thereof. Since I could not bring myself to incorporate
all of their suggestions, I hereby absolve them of all remaining errors.
Special thanks are due to Steve Nimis, who alone among my circuit of
friends and colleagues has read the whole text and offered other sorts of
valued support. Thanks as well to Daniel Tompkins for his insights on the
works of Moses Finley.
I have a unique debt to Walter Donlan, whose advice and encourage-
ment at an early stage played a key role in my decision to attempt this quite
daunting task. Based especially on a grueling three-hour phone conversa-
tion about a draft of my chapter on the Dark Age, I know that the tragic
death of this very dear man soon after I had sketched a fuller version of that
chapter deprived me of what I'm sure would have been a much-needed and
trenchant critique. At a dinner in 2002 with colleagues after a joint session
of CAMWS on recent developments in Homeric scholarship, Walter com-
plained in his playfully churlish way, "I've learned a lot from you guys, but
you've obviously learned nothing from me." This was of course blatantly
untrue. The problem, which may be relevant in my text as well, is that we
have all internalized and taken for granted so much of his compelling work
that we tend to focus on the relatively few areas where we disagree.
Though my training and teaching have been primarily in ancient litera-
ture, my interest in the history of the Archaic Period dates back to the late
1950s when I audited a lecture course on the period by H. T. Wade-Gery,
Vlll
Preface 1X
who was visiting for one semester at Harvard. I have no recollection of

ever having talked with the great man, but I was totally entranced by his
lectures, not to mention the succinct elegance of his written arguments
about Homer (1952) and the whole Archaic Period (1958). I recall stim-
ulating discussions with Donald Kagan, when, as a young instructor, I
audited one of his graduate seminars. Since then I have read extensively
in other scholars about the period; and my Greek Civilization course,
which I have taught for many years, is shamelessly weighted in favor of
the Archaic Period. In adducing archaeological and art-historical evidence
I am very much dependent on the published works I have been able to
read.
While I attempt in my introduction to offer an overall account of my
theoretical assumptions, I recognize that I cannot count on all readers read-
ing my text from cover to cover and have therefore felt obliged to repeat
or expand on some of those theoretical grounds in analyzing specific phe-
nomena where they seem to me most useful for the convenience of readers
who are only interested in a particular topic. By "theoretical assumptions"
I refer in my introduction primarily to the senses in which my approach is
Marxist. Though I do address the question of the nature of the evidence
briefly at the end of my introduction, more specifically methodological
considerations of approaches to the often radically heterogeneous evidence
for different periods are primarily engaged with in connection with those
periods.
Again on the assumption that many readers may chose to read only
specific chapters, there are pieces of evidence that are relevant to more than
one chapter. A more serious area of what I consider unavoidable repetition
arises from the unique role of Athens in the surviving evidence. I treat
the Solonian Crisis and data about Peisistratos first in connection with the
causes and character of tyranny in general, secondly in a separate chapter
devoted exclusively to Athenian developments down to the end of the
Archaic Age, where the focus is more upon the unique factors that led to
Athenian democracy. There is a chronological regression if not extensive
repetition in the separate chapter on Sparta, where I return to some issues
of polis formation dealt with in an earlier chapter.
Though I address his work more systematically in my introduction and
in passing where relevant throughout my text, I should note here that I
read Jonathan Hall's A History of the Archaic Greek World: ca. I200-479
BCE only after I had already completed more than one draft of most of
my text. On a number of issues I was gratified that we had read the same
scholarship and reached similar conclusions. On many other issues Hall
X Preface
compelled me to rethink my conclusions and in some cases impelled me

towards more equivocal formulations than I had initially thought justified
by the evidence. But the most stimulating and ultimately affirming aspect
of his text in relation to my own project was Hall's central focus on
historiography and his militant, scornful dismissal of methodologies that
reflect the "theoretical or ideological preferences of the historian" (2007:
287, my emphasis). His powerfully articulated position on this matter
has caused me to modify significantly my theoretical introduction and
many formulations in the rest of my text, at the same time that what I
perceived as the paucity of explanation in his text as a whole confirmed my
commitment to posing the sorts of questions I pose. In particular, beside his
enviable command of the archaeological data, his minimalist engagement
with the surviving literary remains of the period attests to his relative lack
of interest in matters of ideology: he offers a brief, trenchant critique of
Morris's concept of a "middling ideology" (Hall 2007: 178-9) and presents
scattered, if usually acute, citations from Homer, Hesiod, Trytaeus, and the
Theognis corpus on particular points but does not engage with the more
or less complete texts as such or explore the range of ideas and values that
emerge from the fragments of lyric - in the broad sense of that term. This
relative exclusion of course saves him from engaging seriously with the
mountain of literary and semi-literary discussions of Homer, Hesiod, and
the lyric poets (among whom I include of course the elegiac and iambic
poets).
The second edition of Robin Osborne's Greece in the Making (2009)
appeared when my "final" version was already being assessed by a reader
for Cambridge University Press. Only as I went through a "final" version
correcting typos have I been able to make very selective use of a work
that challenges a number of my assumptions and, for example, appears
to consider discussion of Homeric politics and Homer's class sympathies
as minimally "productive" (2009: 349) and dismisses the existence of an
"aristocracy" as "a modern fantasy" (2009: 209). Overall I have enormous
respect for Osborne's major contributions to our understanding of ancient
Greece and, as my text attests, have made abundant use of his work. But
clearly we view the world and history in radically different terms.
To the extent possible within the limitations of a single book I have
tried throughout to cite and explicate the archaic texts that alone give us
access to what and how the Greeks of this period thought and felt, though
I am well aware that what has survived is not only radically skewed in favor
of those males who controlled the means of ideological production but
also, with few exceptions, radically fragmentary. But since, as I argue in
Preface X1
my introduction, class conflict is most often carried out on the ideological

plane, these texts are crucial to my whole project.
On the assumption that a Marxist approach is likely to provoke a higher
level of skepticism than more traditional approaches like those of Hall
and Osborne, my text engages in a more or less constant dialogue with as
much of the relevant traditional scholarship as I have been able to read.
I try to quote these authorities sufficiently to clarify both my agreements
and disagreements. This may render my text less easily readable than an
uninterrupted account of my conclusions, followed, as, for example, in
Hall's text, by a brief section of "Further Reading" or in Osborne's by
"Bibliographic Notes" for each chapter. However, I do feel that I need to
show very openly the process by which I have arrived at my conclusions,
exposing what I have been able to read and what I have failed to read out of
the usually bottomless accumulation of potentially relevant discussions of
all matters classical. I also believe my readers are entitled to a clear enough
selection of alternative views to make their own judgment of the validity of
my readings. I am painfully aware that I could well spend the rest of my life
trying to read everything potentially relevant to my project. Since alas I can
pretend to no first-hand expertise in dealing with archaeological data, I have
been especially at pains to specify the sources of my necessarily tentative
conclusions. Moreover, since one of my goals in this study is to demonstrate
where a Marxist approach differs from and where it coincides with non-
Marxist approaches, this format best facilitates this goal. Finally, I hope
perhaps too optimistically that my attempt to engage by rather generous
citation of alternative views may free me from the usual charge against
Marxists of a "dogmatic" or "Procrustean" imposition of my conclusions
at the same time that it offers serious students of the period a broad account
of other scholars' diverse approaches to an inherently conflict-laden area of
study.
Translations unless otherwise noted are my own. I avoid quoting Greek
letters except in quoting other scholars who use them. I use capitals to
mark beginnings of lines of poetry only to insist that my sources - not my
translations - are poetry: I make no attempt at rhythm or equal lengths,
and am often awkwardly literal in attempting to convey to my reader as
much as possible of what I take to be the force of the original. Occasional
italics are used to indicate stress suggested by word order or particles like ge.
I give the transliterated Greek for a small number of keywords that change
historically or which have no close English equivalents. In transliterating
Greek, I use circumflexes to distinguish Greek eta and omega, I usually
have k's for Latin e's and -os endings for Latinate -us, but in the case of
X11 Preface
very common names I give the modern form (e.g., Achilles, not Akhilleus,
Archilochus notArkhilokhos, Herodotus, not Herodotos). Moreover, there
is inevitable fluctuation in the practice of the scholars I quote, so that some
confusion about names is unavoidable.
I would like finally to thank the staff of Cambridge University Press who
have been involved in this project. Michael Sharp was both conscientious
and sympathetic in dealing with several readers and to my eternal thanks
found the finest of all possible final readers, Paul Cartledge, who kindly
made his role known to me at a conference on Class and the Classics at
the British Academy in July 2010 organized by Edith Hall. For a variety
of reasons and in view of various commitments, virtually no further work
on the book was possible after that date, but it goes without saying that
his decision that the book was worthy of publishing entails no necessary
agreement with any particular argument of my text. I would like to thank
Josephine Lane and her predecessor Elizabeth Hanlon, who have been
consistently helpful and patient in responding to my many queries. Last
but not least I would like to thank my copy-editor Andrew Dyck, whose
patience, eagle eye, and sensitive ear have saved me from many an error.
Any remaining infelicities are purely mine.
Abbreviations
C Campbell, David (ed., trans.) (1982-91) Greek Lyric.

3 vols. Cambridge, MA.
CAH The Cambridge Ancient History (1923-39 [1st edn.], 1961-2005
[2 nd edn.]). Cambridge.
D-K Diels, Hermann and Walther Kranz (eds.) (1964) Die
Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Zurich and Berlin.
FGH Jacoby, F. (ed., comm.) (1923-) Die Fragmente der
griechischen Historiker. Berlin and Leipzig.
G Gerber, Douglas E. (ed., trans.) (1999) Greek Elegiac Poetry:
From the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, MA.
IC Guarducci, M. (ed.) (1935-50) Inscriptiones Creticae. 4 vols.
Rome.
JG Inscriptiones Graecae (1873-) Berlin.
L-P Lobel, Edgar and Denys Page (eds.) (1955) Poetarum
Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Oxford.
LSJ Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott (1940) A
Greek-English Lexicon. New edn. rev. Henry Stuart Jones.
Oxford.
MECW Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels (1975-) Collected Works.
New York.
ML Meiggs, Russell and David Lewis (1988) A Selection of Greek
Historical Inscriptions: To the End ofthe Fifth Century B. C
Rev. edn. Oxford.
PMG Page, Denys (ed.) (1962) Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford.
w West, M. L. (ed.) (1971-72) Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante
Alexandrum Cantati. 2 vols. Oxford.
Xlll
Introduction: theoretical considerations
CLASSICISTS AND CLASS
To discuss class in any period of classical antiquity- but perhaps especially

in the Archaic Period - is to encounter a paradox: virtually no account
of the period seems able to dispense with the concept of class - even if
it only appears in references to "aristocrats," "nobles," "ruling class," or
"slaves" or the undifferentiated "demos"; yet very few scholars, especially in
the English-speaking world, offer any theoretical account of what such a
concept implies about the nature of the society they are analyzing.'
Latacz, for example, in a popular recent account of Homer, posits a
fully formed class system in the Mycenaean (he prefers ''Akhaian" 1996: 37)
period, a dominant class that survives - albeit initially depressed by-the
devastations of the Sea Peoples (or whoever destroyed all the Mycenaean
centers except Athens). The no longer "Dark" Ages see their reassertion of
leadership in trade and Ionian colonizations laying the foundations of the
prosperity of Ionia, which culminates in the eighth century, during which
' I was in the process of correcting an embarrassing number of typos in my "final" read-through of my
chapter on Sparta when a bibliographic note in A. Powell (2001: 256), which I happened to be using
as a text in a course on the Age of Pericles, warmly recommended Cartledge'sAgesilaos for a "full-scale
analysis of Sparta's political, social and educational workings." I have owned a copy of Cartledge's
book for several years but never read it: "judging the book by its cover," I assumed it was confined
to fourth-century developments. Reading the chapter "Agesilaos and the Spartan Class Struggle," I
encountered the sentence I now quote in Chapter Six note 73. This cites Cartledge 1975, which as
a Marxist and Arethusa subscriber I had of course read when it appeared but completely forgotten.
Reading it over was a strange experience: so many of the issues I address in the following introduction
were dealt with there with admirable concision. At the same time I felt a certain sadness: the implicit
promise of classical historians explicitly engaging with Marx's texts has alas not been fulfilled- with
the great exception of de Ste. Croix's work (1981), which, amazingly, Cartledge cites as "forthcoming"
(1975: 79 n. 35) six years before its actual appearance. In a prefatory note (76) he thanks de Ste.
Croix for inspiration and "devastating criticism" - a blessing indeed. In a more recent work (2002:
3) Cartledge decribes how "my historical interests and researches had opportunely shifted away
from the material (social and economic) and the political (broadly interpreted) to the intellectual or
social-psychological ... I had become especially concerned to interpret and understand the mindset
or the mentality of the Greeks."
2 Theoretical comideratiom
these "aristocrats" virtually "commission" (he uses but also balks at the
word 1996: 66) Homer to "reflect" their self-conscious self-congratulation.
He traces a purely aristocratic audience back to Mycenae, but sees only the
prosperity of the late eighth century as the appropriate context in which the
fully self-conscious and optimistic aristocracy wants to embrace its glorious
past heritage (1996: 63 and passim). The only other class he alludes to is the
class of "merchants," called into being - he argues-by the very success of
what he posits as aristocrat-led colonial and trade adventures (Latacz 1996:
57). So too Ian Morris (e.g., 1986a, 1987) among others finds "class" and
class ideology, and clear evidence of class struggle in burials, but devotes
relatively little attention to theorizing the phenomenon of class that plays
so key a role in his analysis. His influential opposition of "ruling class" and
"middling" ideologies (1996) is posited initially as exclusively within the
aristocracy while the rest of society is subsumed in a vaguely hypostatized
''polis," but he subsequently moves to straightforward declarations that
"Most Athenians imagined themselves as middling men" (2000: 153, my
emphasis). 2
Beyond a general tendency of classicists to eschew theory, I believe
that the more than century-and-a-half-long anxiety ("a specter is haunting
Europe"; MECW 6: 482), culminating in the half-century-long Cold War,
associated in people's minds with Marx's dynamic theorization of class in
1847 (Communist Manifesto) and with the turmoils and tragedies led by
self-proclaimed followers of Marx explains more fully the general reluc-
tance to engage theoretically with a concept that classicists seem so often
to find as indispensable as it is troublesome. 3 Thus, Starr, for example,
2 Morris (2000) seems to me to blur this distinction between a ruling class ideology and what
everyone in the polis believes. Kurke, whose enterprise in Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold {1999)
is explicitly dependent on Morris's ruling class-middling opposition {19--22), has the great virtue
of acknowledging directly her own hypostasis of "the city," but justifies it by "our very limited
real knowledge about who exactly is doing what in this period" {17 n. 46), a genuine problem
to be sure, but one which seems to constitute no barrier to her own very elaborate explorations
of ideological struggles in this same period. In fairness to Morris, whose ongoing quest for new
theoretical paradigms is awesome, I should note that his essay on "Hard Surfaces" (2002) is strikingly
sympathetic to a number ofloosely defined Marxist approaches and even critiques Kurke's approach
as "unable to find an external grounding for economic categories in humanity's ability to appropriate
nature or the equity of the distribution of its fruits" (2002: 18). See below further on Kurke and
Morris.
3 Anton Powell offers a more "delicate" explanation {he is presumably thinking primarily of British
scholars): "Aversion from thoughts of social differences has traditionally been common among
classical scholars, inspired partly by a delicate reluctance {which the Spartan oligarchs might well
have understood) to introduce divisive conversation into their own group" {1989a: 180--1). In another
text he offers a more explicitly political account: "The internal conflict which most threatened Greek
communities was one between rich and poor, and many scholars of recent times have found analysis
in those terms uncongenial because it recalls modern social tensions" (2001: 272). Finley {1967: 201)
Classicists and class 3
whose celebration of the aristocracy of the Archaic Period has much in
common with that of Latacz, goes out of his way to dismiss scornfully any
relevance of "Klassenkampf' (1977: 19). His use of the German term, in a
sense, lets the ideological cat out of the bag: he wants to evoke, without
naming Marx. 4 Another strategy that reveals the same anxiety is the use of
scare quotes around the word "class" (e.g., J. Hall 2007: 127; Foxhall 1997:
120). One of the subordinate goals of the following study is to highlight
on the one hand, the ways in which classical scholars' fear of being dubbed
"Marxists" or - the usual derogatory substitution - "economic determin-
ists" (e.g., Kurke 1999: 12 n. 27) has often mystified the role of class in the
history of this period and, on the other, to emphasize how the analyses of
many non-Marxist classicists both presuppose and confirm some funda-
mental Marxist propositions about the nature and functioning of human
societies.
This is not to suggest that self-proclaimed Marxists have either ignored
classical antiquity or failed to offer theoretical accounts of the nature and
meaning of class in particular periods of that era. On the contrary, Marxists
such as George Thomson (1946, 1955, 1961) and Margaret Wason (1947)
must share a considerable part of the responsibility for non-Marxist ana-
lysts' reluctance to engage in a potentially endless and potentially fruitless
ideological debate about the nature of class and its implications for under-
standing any specific society in any specific historical period. 5 G. E. M. de
Ste. Croix devotes a minimum 6 of ninety-one very large, painstaking pages
(1981: 19-m) to defending the appropriateness of applying Marxist notions
of class and class struggle to the analysis of the ancient Greek world. In
the process he offers not only a detailed exploration of Marx's own texts
but also his detailed critique of what he considers both misguided Marxist
approaches (e.g., Thomson, Wason, Vernant 1988a [1974], cf. Ste. Croix
1981: 41 and 63) and the alternative Weberian focus on statuses advocated
put it more bluntly: "There is effectively a thick wall of silence and contempt which in our world
cuts off Marxist thinking from 'respectable' thinking, at least in the one field which I know well, and
that is the study of ancient civilization." How much the situation has improved since 1967 remains
to be seen.
4 His footnotes (1977: 200---1) do specify Marx. Cf. Donlan, "We must be careful above all not to
import the modern concept of Klassenkampfinto the picture. The Greek tyrant was no popular
revolutionary leading his people against an oppressive aristocracy" (1999 [1980]:189----90, n. 7). For
the context of Donlan's comment see on tyranny below in text.
5 Yvon Garlan (1988: 8---14) summarizes some of the debate over slavery between East and West
German scholars. McKeown (1999: n8---21) treats Eastern European classical scholarship somewhat
more sympathetically.
6 One could reasonably argue that a great deal more of his text is an ongoing polemic for his
methodology.
by Moses Finley (1973, cf. Ste. Croix 1981: 58 and 85-96) and followed by
most classicists. 7
In the following introduction I will try to explore as many of the over-
lapping lines of argument that dismiss a Marxist approach as seems prac-
ticable. While these arguments will gradually contribute to clarifying my
alternative approach, I will then set forth more directly the key theoretical
assumptions of the following chapters.
MOSES FINLEY AND THE DISMISSAL OF CLASS
Given the enormous influence of Finley's approach in the general dismissal

of class among clasicists, it may be useful to explore it in some detail, even
if on some points I necessarily echo de Ste. Croix. I. Morris, in his foreword
to the reissue of Finley's Ancient Economy, declares, "No book this century
has had such a great influence on the study of Greek and Roman economic
history" (1999: ix). Earlier Finley was dubbed by Arnaldo Momigliano "the
best living social historian of Greece" and "the most influential ancient
historian of our time" (Momigliano 1980: 313, cf. Nafissi 2005: 235-6 and,
more cautiously, J. Hall, who calls him "one of the most influential eco-
nomic historians of the twentieth century" 2007: 235). At the same time
the complex problem of Finley's ambiguous relationship to Marx, though
7 Ober (1989: 38) is unusual in that he actually attributes his own usage of the term ideology to Finley
{19826: 17, 1983a: 122-41) and offers his own version of a transcendence of class (see Rose 2006: 106--
11). I. Morris cites the Marxists E. P. Thompson and Eric Hobsbawn for what he calls a "heuristic and
analytical" use of "class" but does not elaborate {1987: 177). Of texts I have read recently Manville
{1990) is perhaps the most adroit is skirting the concept of class and substituting status and privilege
despite the heavy emphasis in his major sources ([Aristotle] Ath. Pol. and Plutarch) on open conflict
between rich and poor (cf., for example, 71, 76--7, 159---60, 190--1). Stein-Holkeskamp also implicitly
endorses Finley, who is the only authority she cites for distinguishing between "'Schicht,' 'Klasse,'
'Stand,' und 'Status"' (1989: 8 n. 3). Keith Hopkins, in a volume dedicated "To Moses," emphatically
endorses Finley's "elevation of status ... at the expense of class," which has "drawn the fire of those
Marxists [he names none] who are still trying to milk the rhetoric of class struggle and the dominant
mode of production." He argues that the great virtue of Finley's approach is that it was a rare attempt
to assimilate cultural value into economic analysis" (Hopkins 1983: xiii my emphasis), a comment
that suggests to me that he had read neither Marx nor any serious Marxists. Van Wees's very title,
Status Warriors {1992), accurately reflects the emphasis of his entire analysis of Homeric poetry.
For his part, Finley got his revenge by referring to Ste. Croix's book as "an eccentric, Procrustean
definition of the essential Marxist categories'' in his contribution on "ancient society" to A Dictionary
ofMarxist Thought (Finley 19836: 22). Most recently J. Hall, though he does occasionally offer useful
insights on class, seems far more comfortable with a focus on "status'': he even sums up his view of
the sixth-century emergence of an aggressively self-conscious merchant class by declaring, "While
earlier, landed wealth had- at least in part - derived fom status, there was now an increasing demand
that the acquisition of wealth from other sources should be recognized with a concomitant status . .. "
{2007: 284, my emphasis).
Moses Finley and the dismissal ofclass 5
significant for my project, would entail a very long digression. 8 In 1967,
for example, after a correspondent accused a review he had published of
"ill-applied Marxism" he offered a terse but eloquent - even courageous at
that historical moment - defense, e.g., (1967: 202): "Properly understood,
Marxism is not a dogma. For an ancient historian, it is a way of looking at
men [sic] and events which helps to pose fruitful and significant questions."
I. Morris in his Foreword (1999: xvii-xviii) essentially finesses the problem:
''As a serious student of Weberian sociology, Finley would have made a
strange communist." Momigliano (1987) addresses the problem briefly (see
below) as do Shaw and Saller (1981). My own sense, to be very brief, is
that Marx's own writings deeply impressed Finley, but that the stigma of
Marxism arising from Cold War hysteria and the sheer stupidity of some
Marxist and anti-Marxist polemics - not to mention his own painful expe-
rience with the Internal Security Subcommitte of the U.S. Senate aka the
McCarran Committee (Tomkins 2006: 95) - led him to distance himself
as far as possible from the label and to seek in Weber an acceptable the-
oretical framework for addressing questions raised by Marx such as the
necessity of a proper theory in the writing of history (1981: 3-23, 1985a
[1987] and passim), the role of slavery in ancient society (Finley 1936, 1981:
97-198, 1983b, 1987, 1998 [1980]), the relationship of political to economic
structures (e.g., 1973a, 1981: 24-40, 1983a, 1985a), the nature of imperialism
(1981: 41-61 [= 1978], 1985a: 67-87), etc. While more than half of Weber's
The Agrarian Sociology ofAncient Civilizatiom (1976 = Agrarverhiiltnisse
im Altertum, 1909) is devoted to ancient Greece and Rome, Marx's more
sustained discussion of precapitalist forms in the Grundrisse was first pub-
lished in Moscow in 1939 and only became available in the west in 1953
(Marx 1973: 7). Though Weber categorically dismissed any comprehen-
sive theory of history - Marxist or Hegelian (cf. Giddens 1971: 163, 194,
F. Jameson 1988: vol. 2: rn)-the temptation to separate Weber too radically
from Marx must also be resisted: as Finley himself pointed out, "Marx was
the specter haunting Weber" (1981: 18). Moreover, as Giddens repeatedly
stresses, the Marxism against which Weber reacted most rigorously was
Engels's pseudo-scientific transference of the dialectic to nature, which
"thus obscures the most essential element of Marx's conception" (Giddens
1971: 189, cf. xiv-xv). Giddens is then at pains to stress the fundamen-
tal harmony between much of Weber's analysis of religion and ideology
with Marx's dialectic of subject and object (Giddens 1971: 2rn-12) Finally,
8 In thinking about this problem of Finley's relation to Marxism, however, I would like to acknowledge
again the great help offered by Daniel Tompkins in sharing with me his ongoing work on Finley,
some of which has appeared in print (2006 and 2008).
Finley himself had some serious criticisms of Weber (1985a: 88-rn3).

Jameson (1988c vol. II: 4), I think, hits the nail on the head in terms
that apply perfectly to Giddens as well as Foucault - and I would even
add Polanyi: "In reality, Weber's most influential legacy to the anti-Marxist
arsenal lay not in some idealistic reaction against a materialism he himself
clearly shared with Marx but rather in the strategic substitution, in his own
research and theorization, of the political for the economic realm as the
principal object of study, and thus, implicitly, as the ultimate determining
reality of history." More specifically, the focus on "power," which Giddens
(1981: 3) claims Marx undertheorized, is part of this heritage.
To focus on what is most relevant to my project, I quote in full Finley's
initial discussion in Ancient Economy of Marx's conception of class:
There is little agreement among historians and sociologists about the definition of
'class' or the canons by which to assign anyone to a class. Not even the apparently
clear-cut, unequivocal Marxist concept of class turns out to be without difficulties.
Men are classed according to their relation to the means of production, first
between those who do and those who do not own the means of production;
second, among the former, between those who work themselves and those who
live off the labor of others. Whatever the applicability of that classification in
present-day society, for the ancient historian there is an obvious difficulty: the
slave and the free wage labourer would then be members of the same class, on
a mechanical interpretation, as would the richest senator and the non-working
owner of a small pottery. That does not seem a very sensible way to analyse ancient
society. (Finley 1973a: 49)
I resist the temptation to italicize, as does Ste. Croix, "on a mechanical

interpretation." I am struck earlier in the passage by the rhetorical antithe-
sis between the confusion of (ordinary? real?) historians and sociologists
and "even the apparently clearcut, unequivocal Marxist concept of class."
While any reader of Marx would agree that the "relation to the means
of production" is a decisive component of Marx's concept, among people
who take Marx seriously very few indeed would call his concept of class
"clearcut and unequivocal." 9 The fact is he used the term class in more than
one sense, and his concept of class developed over many years. Most serious
accounts of his concept tend to begin with a lament over the fact that the
third volume of Capital breaks off after a page and a half of introductory
matter in a chapter entitled "Classes" (1967: 885-6). 10
9 Finley (1985c: 183-4), without acknowledging how misleading and purely rhetorical his earlier
characterization of Marx's view of class was, focuses on the different senses in which Marx, in the
course of his long career, uses the term as further grounds for dismissing it.
10 Beyond Ste. Croix's fairly elaborate efforts at extricating a definition of class from Marx, see (for
an almost random sampling) Giddens (1971: 36--38), Bettelheim {1985), Resnick and Wolff {1987:
Finley's second distinction, between those owners of capital who work
themselves and those who live off the labor of others, is rather ambiguous.
If Finley is referring to capitalists who also work at their own factories
beside their workers, Marx dismisses their claims to be "workers" as pure
mystification (e.g., Marx 1976: 300). Presumably Finley is referring to
independent and individual producers, who have no one else working for
them. For Marx this is essentially a precapitalist phenomenon, although of
course he was aware that such individuals continued to exist in the margins
of capitalist society. His whole concept of "alienated" or "estranged" labor
is based on the assumption that under fully developed capitalism "the
distinction between the capitalist and the land rentier, like that between
the tiller of the soil and the factory worker, disappears and ... the whole
of society must fall apart into the two classes - the property owners and the
propertyless workers" (MECW3: 270, his emphasis). Finley's phrase, "those
who live off the labour of others," is as close as he comes to the decisive
concept of exploitation. While earlier, in discussing the distinction between
the Greek words ploutos and penia, he cites with apparent approval Veblen's
distinction between "exploit and drudgery" (Finley 1973a: 41; Veblen 1934:
15), yet the rest of his discussion of Marx completely ignores the category
of exploitation (cf. Ste. Croix 1981: 91).rr
Ste. Croix also attacks Finley's reductio ad absurdum in accusing Marx of
implicitly offering no basis for distinguishing "the slave and the free wage
labourer." In a special appendix on the matter (1981: 504-5) Ste. Croix
initially has recourse to a highly technical distinction in Marx between
"constant capital," according to which the slave is simply and literally a
"tool," 12 and "variable capital," the category to which the free wage-earner
belongs. 13
109-63), Bendix and Lipset (1966), Wright (1985 and 1989), Poulantzas (1973: 58----98; 1978: 13-35),
Bottomore (1983 s.v.), Carver (1987 s.v.). Chilcote (2000: 89-132) offers a particularly full romp
through the whole range of theories of class, starting with Adam Smith and David Ricardo. As Eric
Roll observes in his history of economic thought, "As ... these doctrines [the theory of classes and
the class-struggle, etc.] have become parts of fiercely-held and as fiercely-attacked, political dogma,
it is not easy without becoming involved in doctrinal battles to formulate them in a manner which
is understandable and makes some sense" (Roll 1992: 231). Thus even the most "neutral" of scholars
would never call Marx's theory of classes "apparently clearcut, unequivocal."
n As Kyrtatas (2002) emphasires, the very concept of economic exploitation was alien to the Greeks,
but that does not mean that the phenomenon did not exist.
12 The image, of course, comes from Aristotle, Pol 1253632-33, "the slave is a living [soul-possessing
empsychon] possession, even as every servant is an instrument taking precedence over [inanimate]
instruments."
'l Applying a term like "variable captital" to antiquity strikes me as hopelessly misleading. Throughout
his varying analyses of capitalism Marx is constantly at pains to historicire the specific preconditions
of the capitalist mode of production by repeated specific contrasts to earlier modes, most commonly
Despite the enormous ideological enforcement of the notion of "free-

dom" in Classical Athens (e.g., Raaflaub 2004: 227-35, 243; Cartledge 1993),
I suspect that the "free" laborers working alongside slaves, though receiv-
ing perhaps twice the pay of a slave (Jones 1956: 190),14 might nonetheless
feel great bitterness at their own lot. Though the phrase "wage-slavery" is
a modern coinage, we cannot assume that the ideological distinction for
these workers between "free" and "slave" was always a sufficient consola-
tion for sharing with slaves a similar relation to the process of production.
Moreover, if they worked full-time, they would have no leisure to partici-
pate in the political life of the city, a major component of their "freedom." 15
Furthermore, there is considerable evidence that ancient aristocratic atti-
tudes viewed those who worked for others as little different from slaves -
as Finley himself spelled out (1973: 40-41). To the extent that free work-
ers did have a sharply different sense of themselves from slaves - and we
have no direct evidence from such workers - it attests to the success of an
ideological offensive surrounding the category of slavery.
To support his dismissal of Marx's relevance to antiquity Finley has
recourse to a further rhetorical gesture: to cite a Marxist against Marx:
Half a century ago Georg Lukacs, a most orthodox Marxist, made the correct
observation that in pre-capitalist societies, 'status-consciousness ... masks class
consciousness'. By that he meant, in his own words, that 'the structuring of society
slave labor and serfdom. The following is perhaps the most concise of many formulations: "This
transformation [into capital] can itself only take place under particular circumstances, which meet
together at this point: the confrontation of, and the contact between, two very different kinds
of commodity owners; on the one hand, the owners of money, means of production, means of
susbsistence, who are eager to valorire the sum of values thay have appropriated by buying the
labour-power of others; on the other hand, free workers, the sellers of their own labour-power,
and therefore the sellers of labour. Free workers, in the double sense that they neither form part
of the means of production themselves, as would be the case with slaves, serfs, etc., nor do they
own the means of production, as would be the case with self-employed peasant proprietors" (Marx
1976: 874, cf. Marx 1973: 463 and 471-72). It is only within this specific market and production
relation between capitalist and worker that the latter can be viewed as "variable capital." What
the capitalist expends on raw materials and instruments of production remains a constant, whereas
"that part of capital which is turned into labour-power does undergo an alteration of value in the
process of production. It both reproduces the equivalent of its own value and produces an excess, a
surplus-value, which may itself vary, and be more or less according to circumstances" (Marx 1976:
317). See below for Marx on Greek slavery.
14 This refers to the end of the fifth century. Elsewhere (189) he suggests that free laborers in mines
might have received a bit more than twice the wage of a slave. However, the inscription for the
building of the Erechtheum for this same period indicates slaves and free workers received exactly
the same pay for the same work (Finley 1982a: 100-1).
15 In another context Finley quotes with apparent approval Sir Keith Hancock: "'The Boers very soon
convinced themselves that the artisans' work and slaves' work were the same thing"' (Finley 1982a:
194). Kyrtatas (2002: 143) states of the Greeks themselves (especially Aristotle): "whenever human
beings worked in a way that the product of their labour belonged to another human being, they
were regarded, for all practical purposes, as slaves." The issue in my view, however, is not ancient
attitudes but the actual relations of production.
into castes and estates means that economic elements are inextricably joined to
political and religious factors; that economic and legal categories are objectively
and substantively so interwoven as to be inseparable: In short, from neither a Marxist
nor a non-Marxist standpoint is class a sufficiently demarcated category for our
purposes. (Finley 1973a: 50; Lukacs 1971: 55-59, Finley's emphasis)
In his footnote Finley cites the opening essay of Lukacs's text as support for
his hyperbolic description of him as "a most orthodox Marxist." The title
of that essay is indeed "What is Orthodox Marxism?" What Finley does
not indicate is that at the time of its publication (1922, see the 1967 preface
reprinted in Lukacs 1971: xvi) it was a radical defense of the Hegelian
element in Marx, a daring attempt to counter what became the dominant
Stalinist orthodoxy of Marxism as "science," an attempt that led to the
book's condemnation by Bukharin, Zinoviev, and others (Bottomore 1983:
291). 16 But a more relevant omission by Finley is the fact that the primary
goal of the essay from which Finley takes his quote is precisely an analysis
of class consciousness. The chief point of Lukacs's discussion of precapitalist
societies is to stress the reasons why class consciousness did not arise in the
past but can arise under capitalism and must arise if real human liberation
is to be achieved. Lukacs is, however, far from suggesting the irrelevance of
Marx to the analysis of these societies:
Status-consciousness - a real historical factor - masks class consciousness; in fact it

prevents it from emerging at all ... Thus class consciousness has quite a different
relation to history in pre-capitalist and capitalist periods. In the former case the
classes could only be deduced from the immediately given historical reality by
the methods ofhistorical materialism. In capitalism they themselves constitute this
immediately given historical reality. (Lukacs 1971: 58, his emphasis)
What Finley ignores is that status consciousness is precisely conscious and

subjective: the relationship of individuals to the mode of production is
objective whether they are conscious of it or not. Thus, as de Ste. Croix
(1981: 58) points out, when it comes to discussing class struggle, Finley can
'6 In his deathbed interviews Lukacs was asked why he thought History and Class Consciousness still had
an international impact. He replied, "The book has a certain value because in it questions are raised
which Marxism evaded at the time" (1983: 77, my emphasis). Martin Jay also cites the following from
Luka.cs's Preface to the reissue of the text in 1967: "It is undoubtedly one of the great achievements
of History and Class Consciousness to have reinstated the category of totality in the central position
it had occupied throughout Marx's works and from which it had been ousted by the 'scientism' of
the social-democratic opportunists" (Jay 1984: 85; Lukacs 1971: xx). In explaining why he was not
eliminated during the Stalinist purges, he notes among other reasons, "In addition - and this is
perhaps a cynical observation - I had very inferior living quarters that were less attractive to the
NKVD" (1983: 97). This speaks volumes about the mentality of many of the prime movers of those
purges.
IO Theoretical comideratiom
see only conscious, political struggles. 17 The slave who does the minimum
amount of work that will evade punishment or who runs away is, in Marxist
terms, engaging in class struggle - albeit without class consciousness in the
strong sense of the term, a struggle which in certain circumstances (e.g.,
during the Peloponnesian War, cf. Thucydides 7.27.2) may have political
consequences, but by no stretch of the imagination could be termed a
specifically political struggle.
It is also striking that Finley's use of Lukacs aims at supporting his
own version of Polanyi's focus on the "embedded" economy: 18 he seems
to be arguing that if the economy is inextricably conjoined with political,
religious, and legal categories, this somehow invalidates a Marxist approach.
This is a particularly odd use of Lukacs, who is especially concerned to
use Marxism to elucidate the "social totality," i.e., "the concrete totality
of the historical world, the concrete and total historical process" (Lukacs
1971: 145, cf. Jay 1984: 81-127). 19 Moreover, Polanyi himself credits Marx
with an important role in the development of the distinction between
embedded and disembedded economies: "Its [the distinction's] sociological
background was first mooted by Hegel in the 1820s and developed by
Karl Marx in the 1840s" (1968: 82). Reading over Polanyi's broad-view
essay "Societies and Economic Systems" (1968: 3-25), I was struck by how
little of it - though based on a great deal of anthropological research
of the twentieth century - Marx would disagree with. Both Marx and
Polanyi are concerned in a major way (see further below) to attack the
ahistoricism of capitalist economists who either project capitalist views of
human nature into the past or simply dismiss the past. Both stress that
'7 In a later work Finley returns to class, and class conflict, and alludes scornfully to "the current bad
habit of pinning the Marxist label on any and every political analysis that employs a concept of
class" (1983a: 9-10). A footnote (10 n. 29) alludes to his earlier case for "status" and assures us, "My
return in the present work to 'class' (in the sense intended in ordinary discourse, not in a technical
sense, Marxist or other) does not imply a change of view." The fact is, however, that the kind of
class conflict he discusses (loosely that of "the rich and the poor") has nothing to do with any sort
of status conflict, which operates primarily within a given class.
'8 "To employ a metaphor, the facts of the economy were originally embedded in situations that were
not in themselves of an economic nature, neither the ends nor the means being primarily material.
The crystallization of the concept of the economy was a matter of time and history. But neither
time nor history have provided us with those conceptual tools required to penetrate the maze of
social relationships in which the economy was embedded" (Polanyi et al. 1957: 242). This seemingly
utterly despairing view of the fruits of "time and history" are then triumphantly answered by the
following: "This is the task of what we will here call institutional analysis" (ibid.)
'9 F. Jameson's chapter (2009: 201-22) on Luka.cs's History and Class Consciousness is particularly
eloquent in sorting out the distortions involved in the postmodern "war on totality" and emphasizing
that in Lukacs "'totality' is not ... a form of knowledge, but rather a framework in which various
kinds of knowledge are positioned, pursued, and evaluated. This is clearly the implication of the
phrase 'aspiration to totality'" (210--n).
Moses Finley and the dismissal ofclass II
an all-pervasive obsession with profit-making is not a primary or eternal

human characteristic but a product of capitalism. 20 A key difference is
Polanyi's (like Finley's) awareness of but lack of interest in exploitation:
"We deliberately disregard in this presentation the vital distinction between
homogeneous and stratified societies, i.e., societies which are on the whole
socially unified and such as are split into rulers and ruled" (1968: 16,
cf. 13-14). Polanyi is well aware that his key "institutions" of reciprocity
and redistribution can entail gross inequalities:
Obviously, the social consequences of such a method of distribution may be

far-reaching, since not all societies are as democratic as the primitive hunters.
Whether the redistributing is performed by an influential family or an outstanding
individual, a ruling aristocracy, or a group of bureaucrats, they will often attempt
to increase their political power by the manner in which they redistribute the
goods. (1968: 13)
Finley's primary grounds for allegiance to the concept of status are para-
doxically based on a special application of the Marxist concept of social
relations that become a "fetter" 21 on the development of productive force.
The ideological commitments of the ruling classes in Greece and Rome,
Finley argued, blocked them from the fullest exploitation of their own
resources and political power: "They lacked the will; that is to say, they
were inhibited, as a group ... by over-riding values" (1973a: 60). 22 To be
20 Polanyi: "it is on this one negative point that modern ethnographers agree: the absence of the
motive of gain" (1968:8); Marx: "Among the ancients we discover no single inquiry as to which form
of landed property, etc. is the most productive, which creates maximum wealth. Wealth does not
appear the aim of production" (1965: 84).
21 ''At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict
with the existing relations of production or - this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms -
with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From
forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fitters" (MECW 29:
263). Lekas {1988) turns this formulaic statement into a central ground for his critique of Marx's
comments on antiquity. See Konstan's excellent review (1990), which nicely refutes a reading of
Marx as dogmatically committed to "a linear development of forces of production within a given
society such that they come ultimately into conflict with the prevailing form of economic and social
relations" {84). Marx, in a famous passage to be discussed later, certainly laid out such a scenario,
but in the Grundrisse {1973: 106--7), Konstan points out that "Marx, even when he was thinking
of universal history and not just of ancient societies, could produce a sequence of historical stages
that correspond in a broad way to an increase in the forces of production (however loosely defined),
without insisting that each stage causally determines the transition to the next by an evolution of
the productive forces specific to its form of labor" {1990: 87).
22 The relative failure of Greco-Roman civili7.ation to advance technologically is similarly presented
by Finley as due to the ruling class's attitude toward manual labor as a consequence of slavery
(Finley 1982b [1965]: 176--95). See, however, Cuomo {2007: 3-4) for an explicit critique of Finley on
this point and Oleson (2008: 5-6), who refers to Finley and "this now discredited interpretation."
Greene (2000) offers a more sustained focus on Finley and ancient technology.
sure, Marx in general envisioned this sort of blockage as triggering an "era

of social revolution," whereas Finley saw in these status-specific values an
explanation of the stable but inherently stagnant character of the ancient
economy. At the same time this focus on the self-conscious values of the
ruling class blocked Finley himself from exploring the unconscious, struc-
tural shifts in a period of some fifteen hundred years ("the period between
1000 BC and AD 500" 1973a: 29) that he chose to homogenize. Indeed, as
his long-time friend Arnaldo Momigliano observed shortly after Finley's
death, "he was never a Marxist in any ordinary sense" (1987: 3): "Finley,
because of his increasing distrust of the Marxist categories, had become
reluctant to enter into questions of change: he liked analysis of situations
rather than explanation of change" (6). Momigliano adds charmingly:
"But, as changes do happen, it is desirable that they should be explained"
(ibid.).
FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF CLASS
A more substantial objection to class as the primary focus of analysis is

raised by feminists arguing that gender is a more elemental consideration
for the study and understanding of society. This is an enormously complex
issue. 23 Unquestionably an adequate account of any society must include
a full assessment of the available evidence for gender relations. 24 For this
period, with the exception of Sappho, all the evidence is male and mostly
hostile, as Sue Blundell (1995: 10) starkly puts the problem of evidence:
"the women of Ancient Greece are to a large extent creatures who have
been invented by men." The struggles of contemporary feminists for equal
2l For a sampling of the debates over the relationship of class to gender - mostly with a contemporary
focus - see Brenner 2000, Vogel 1983, Saf!ioti 1978, Meulenbelt et al. 1984, Mies 1986, Scott 1988,
1996a and b, Okin 1979, Butler and Scott 1992, Hansen and Philipson 1990, Hennessy (1993). On
women in antiquity Pomeroy's classic {1975) is still an excellent starting point, but see Arthur's
[Katz's] thoughtful and learned critique (1976). There are some excellent essays in the two Arethusa
special issues (Sullivan 1973 and Peradotto 1978). In particular Arthur's [Katz's] article {1973: 7----58)
addresses directly relations of class and gender. See also Duby and Perrot (1991), Rabinowitz and
Richlin (1993), Hawley and Levick {1995), Loraux {1995), Humphreys {1993). Apart from Arthur
[Katz] 1973 and Rose {1993), I am aware of very little sustained focus directly on the relationship of
gender to class in recent feminist scholarship on ancient Greece. DuBois 1995: 2, 32 raises the issue
of class, but it does not figure prominently in her analysis of Sappho. So too in duBois 1988: 13, she
makes this tantalizing observation: "The views of Marx and Lukacs on production in capitalism
coexist with and illuminate the theories of gender proposed by psychoanalytic theory and lived by
all of us."
24 Cartledge (2002: 78---104) offers an admirably concise synchronic overview of Greek ideologies of
gender, but does not raise questions of class apart from a parenthetic "women like the wife of
Iskhomakhos are clearly represented as belonging to the Athenian ruling class" (102).
Feminist critiques ofclass 13
rights, equal access to jobs with equal pay, control of their bodies, sexual
freedom, daycare, full political participation, etc. only highlight the severe
constraints under which ancient Greek women lived. More relevant, my
more limited goal in this text is to explain change. 25 In that context I
will argue that class, whatever its inadequacy for explaining everything of
importance about a society, provides the best vehicle.
Departing from the pervasive gender-blindness in Marxist approaches,
Ste. Croix makes a sustained argument for viewing married women at least
as a separate class: "married women (who may be regarded in principle as
monopolizing the reproductive function), have rights, including above all
property rights, markedly inferior to those of men; and they have these
inferior rights as a direct result of their reproductive function, which gives
them a special role in the productive process and makes men desire to
dominate and possess them and their offspring" (1981: 100). 26 He goes on
to insist that many individuals belong to more than one class and that a
woman's class position needs to take account of "whether her economic
and legal condition is very different from that of her menfolk" (ibid.). The
complexity of this formulation, which plays a very small role in his vast text,
suggests some of the difficulty of a merely token effort to combine class and
gender. I also find it hard to move from this more-or-less exclusive focus
on female reproductive power to female slaves, free-born metic prostitutes,
or property-owning Spartan women. Moreover, in this connection (but cf.
180-1) Ste. Croix makes no mention of the very substantial contribution
to material production women characteristically were expected to make
through spinning and weaving27 - not to mention in farm work (e.g.
Hesiod WD 405-6). While I will try to take account of relevant evidence
where issues of gender are clearly implicated in those of class, I make no
pretense to an adequate focus on gender as such.
25 Both Osborne (19976) and Patterson (2007: 168---174, cf. 1986) have argued compellingly that Pericles'
citizenship law of 451 BC had a significant impact on the status of women in classical Athens. But
even this change was a consequence of a male initiative.
26 His argument bears some affinity with the theorization by Harwood (1994: 96), who argues, on
the analogy of Marx's account of the emergence of classes, "Gender arises and individuals become
engendered in the course of struggle for the child. And just as the yarn is also labor (alienated labor
when the yarn is viewed as the capitalist's private property), so is the baby."
27 I like to think that Marx's extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin classics with their repeated
allusions to women weaving at least partly inspired his declaration in The German Ideology that
"slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule jenny [a machine for spinning
textile fibers into yarn], serfdom cannot be abolished without improved agriculture, and ... in
general, people cannot be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink, housing and
clothing in adequate quality and quantity. 'Liberation' is a historical and not a mental act" (MECW
5: 38).
TOWARD DEFINING "MARXIST"
Though I do not agree with all of Ste. Croix's arguments, much of his
overall argument for the usefulness of Marxist approaches seems cogent
to me. In any case the work of explicitly Marxist classicists by no means
exhausts the possibilities for a broadly "Marxist" account of antiquity. By
"Marxist" I refer not only to the works of Marx and Engels but as well
to the whole vast body of thought that derives from and is inspired by
the surviving writings of Karl Marx - and to a much lesser degree of
Frederick Engels, whose attempt to present Marxism as a "science" (Anti-
Duhring, 1878, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880) was responsible for
many intelligent readers rejecting "Marxism." 28 Since the work both of
the founders and the followers is, like any serious body of theory, full of
ambiguities, errors, and divergent developments, 29 I feel free to pick and
choose what makes most sense to me in what I know of this body of
thought. I accept the potential inconvenience of labeling myself a Marxist
in lieu of the drawbacks of having others pin on me a label I might otherwise
be tempted to avoid. This enables me to emphasize openly what I find most
compelling in this tradition rather than devote my primary energies to the
tedious task of spelling out all my disagreements with or qualifications of
this or that statement by any thinker in the tradition. Rather than embroil
myself in all the polemics within Marxism, I will follow my own path and -
to echo Marx echoing Dante - fascia dir le genti. At the same time, the
reader is entitled to some specifics about what to expect from a "Marxist"
account of class in the Archaic Period. This will take the form of addressing
first some of the other serious objections leveled against a Marxist approach
28 The essay "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" was excerpted from the former, fuller work. See
the Tucker Anthology (Marx-Engels 1978: 683-717). Stalin embraced and imposed the idea of
Marxism as a "natural science" in his - alas - widely read pamphlet, "Dialectical and Historical
Materialism." It opening sentence gives the whole flavor of his approach: "Dialectical Materialism
is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party. It is called dialectical materialism because
its approach to the phenomena of nature, its method of studying and apprehending them is
dialectical while its interpretation of the phenomena of nature, its conception of these phenomena,
its theory, is materialistic" (1940: 5, his emphasis). Though Marx followed developments in the
"hard" sciences, in no sense did he ever assert that his own "scientific" discoveries about the
inner workings of capitalism were applicable to "the phenomena of nature" - a truly preposterous
move! Nicolaus rightly comments, "Marx was sparing to the utmost with the adjective 'scientific"'
(1973: 53).
29 For example, Sahlins (1976: 55-125) offers a compelling analysis of the history of anthropological
theory in precisely these terms. Bettelheim (1985) offers a useful overview and meditation upon
the various shifts, contradictions and errors in Marx's conceptuali7.ations of class and class struggle
through his long writing career. But Bettelheim does so from within a Marxist perspective. So too
Nicolaus in his fine foreword to his translation of Marx's Grundrisse (1973) notes significant shifts
in Marx's formulations.
Marx and precapitalist societies 15
and secondly, a brief summary of what I take to be essential components
of such an approach.
MARX AND PRECAPITALIST SOCIETIES
If one leaves aside the output of the Cold War cottage industry devoted
to proclaiming Marx was wrong about everything, 30 many readers of Marx
have found his analysis of capitalism compelling but argue that applying
Marxist ideas to precapitalist societies entails an unwarranted imposition
of contemporary conceptions on societies that both conceived of them-
selves and operated on radically different bases. Marx himself responded
to an early version of this critique. In a long footnote to Capital Vol I,
Marx writes, "I seize this opportunity of briefly refuting an objection made
by a German-American publication to my work Zur Kritik der Politischen
Okonomie, 1859." He goes on to quote his now famous/notorious decla-
ration (see below for a fuller account) about "the economic structure of
society" constituting
the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to
which correspond definite forms of social consciousness ... In the opinion of the
German-American publication that is all very true for our own times, in which
material interests are preponderant, but not for the Middle Ages, dominated by
Catholicism, nor for Athens and Rome, dominated by politics. In the first place,
it strikes us as odd that anyone should suppose that these well-worn phrases about
the Middle Ages and the ancient world were unknown to anyone else. One thing
is clear: the Middle Ages could not live on Catholicism, nor could the ancient
world on politics. On the contrary, it is the manner in which they gained their
livelihood which explains why in one case politics, in the other case Catholicism
played the chief part. For the rest, one needs no more than a slight acquaintance
with, for example, the history of the Roman Republic, to be aware that its secret
history is the history oflanded property. And then there is Don Quixote, who long
ago paid the penalty for wrongly imagining that knight errantry was compatible
with all economic forms of society. (Marx 1976: 175-6)
This attempted refutation, with its heavy sarcasm, cryptic brevity, and
apparent crude reflectionism, while it does raise a valid problem inherent
3° A student of mine once quoted his economics professor announcing, "Next time we'll spend fifteen
minutes on Marx. It's more than he's worth, but what the Hell: it's in the textbook." Such a
dismissive attitude toward so rich and influential body of thought is the consequence of many years
of industrious Cold War efforts to demonstrate its absolute irrelevance. Even an author who devoted
a great deal of time to Marx takes a characteristic Cold War patronizing tone: "In fact, by and large
it will appear that strictly speaking Marx was almost never 'right.' His facts were defective by the
standards of modern scholarship, his generalization reckless and sweeping" (Elster 1986: 3). He does
go on to concede, "we may find that a theory can be shot through with errors of detail, even have
basic conceptual flaws, yet remain immensely fertile in its overall conception" (ibid.).
in the Hegelian habit of trying to understand previous eras exclusively in
terms of their own dominant self-conceptions and in complete neglect of
their mode of production and general social organization, does not directly
address the question of Marx's relevance to precapitalist societies. It is cer-
tainly true that analyzing capitalism was the major focus of Marx's life-work
and the explicit goal of the first volume of Capital - one of the relatively
few works he actually published in his lifetime: "it is the ultimate aim of
this work to reveal the economic law of motion of modern society" (1976:
92). But the subtitle of that work is ''A Critique of Political Economy," by
which he means both serious investigators of the functioning of capitalism
and vulgar apologists of capitalism.31 One of the most consistent targets of
his critique is the attempt by capitalist ("bourgeois") economists to present
capitalism ahistorically as "natural" - as "eternal." Thus he is constantly
insisting that "the bourgeois mode of production [is] a particular kind of
social production of a historical and transitory character" (1976: 174 n. 34,
my emphasis);
these formulas [propounded by bourgeois economists], which bear the unmistak-
able stamp of belonging to a social formation in which the process of production
has mastery over man, instead of the opposite, appear to the political economists'
bourgeois consciousness to be as much a self-evident and nature-imposed necessity
as productive labour itself. Hence the pre-bourgeois forms of the social organiza-
tion of production are treated by political economy in much the same way as the
fathers of the church treated pre-Christian religions. (1976: 174-5)
He is constantly citing examples from pre-capitalist societies, to which he

devoted a substantial portion of his preparatory notes for writing Capital
(Marx 1965: 67-120, 1973: 471-514). In a note to the passage just cited he
quotes his own earlier critique of precisely the ahistoricism of bourgeois
economists:
The economists have a singular way of proceeding. For them there are only
two kinds of institutions, artificial and natural. The institutions of feudalism
are artificial institutions, those of the bourgeoisie are natural institutions. In this
they resemble the theologians, who likewise establish two kinds of religion. Every
l' "Let me point out once and for all that by classical political economy I mean all the economists
who, since the time of W. Petty, have investigated the real internal framework [Zusammenhang]
of bourgeois relations of production, as opposed to the vulgar economists who only flounder
around within the apparent framework of those relations, ceaselessly ruminate on the materials
long since provided by scientific political economy, and seek there plausible explanations of the
crudest phenomena for the domestic purposes of the bourgeoisie" (1976: 174-5 n. 34). The most
amusing and - alas - the most tedious portions of the Grundrisse are focused on detailed critiques
of Darimon, Proudhon, Bastiat, Malthus, Ricardo, the Physiocrats, Carey, Rossi, Gallatin, Wade,
Wakefield, as well as Adam Smith, et al.
Economic determinism? 17
religion which is not theirs is an invention of men, while their own is an emanation
of God ... Thus there has been history, but there is no longer any. (1976: 175 n. 35
citing MECW 6.174, my emphasis) 32
Marx, whose knowledge of the classics of Greece and Rome and of
medieval history was absolutely extraordinary (Prawer 1976, Lekas 1988:
55-56, McCarthy 1990) peppers the text of Capital and his Grundrisse with
contrasts between fundamental aspects of capitalism and those of earlier
societies. Contrasting, for example, the mystification oflabor embedded in
capitalist commodities, he points to medieval Europe: "The corvee can be
measured by time just as well as the labour which produces commodities,
but every serf knows that what he expends in the service of his lord is a
specific quantity of his own personal labour-power" (1976: 170). In the
Grundrisse, for example, he is at pains to historicize the category of money:
This very simple category, then, makes a historic appearance in its full intensity
only in the most developed conditions of society. By no means does it wade its
way through all economic relations. For example, in the Roman Empire, at its
highest point of development, the foundation remained taxes and payments in
kind. (1973: 103)
The whole burden of his critique of "bourgeois" political economy is that
it, not he, imposes on the past its own historically contingent categories of
analysis, that his own goal is precisely to appreciate the historical specificities
of the capitalist mode of production by contrast with a wide-range of pre-
capitalist social formations.
ECONOMIC DETERMINISM?
Nonetheless, however carefully Marx seeks to historicize his accounts of

different modes of production, his very focus on this aspect of societies has
long provoked the dismissal of his approach as "economic determinism." 33
32 This last comment eerily anticipates Francis Fukuyama's The End ofHistory and the Last Man (1992).
33 Giddens in 1971 wrote: "This [Marx's use of the term "materialism"] definitely does not involve the
application of a deterministic philosophical materialism to the interpretation of the development of
society. Human consciousness is conditioned in dialectical interplay between subject and object, in
which man actively shapes the world he lives in at the same time as it shapes him" (21). Yet in 1981
he wrote: "If by 'historical materialism' we mean the conception that the history of human societies
can be understood in terms of the progressive augmentation of the forces of production, then it
is based on false premises, and the time has come to finally abandon it. If historical materialism
means that 'the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles', it is so patently
erroneous that it is difficult to see why so many have felt obliged to take it seriously" (1-2). He,
however, lays the foundation for his later "third way" with this sop for Marxists: "If Marx's project
be regarded as the furthering, through the conjunction of social analysis and political activity, of
Quite apart from those ready to dismiss Marx on the basis of second-hand
Cold War assessments, this issue is still hotly debated within Marxism.
Reading over the famous essay on "Contradiction and Overdetermina-
tion" (in Althusser 1969) and the long, Althusser-inspired discussion of the
issue by Wolff and Resnick (1987: 38-108 and passim) - the fullest of which
I am aware - I am struck by what seems to me the impossibility of any
straightforward resolution of the issue. It seems to me that there is a strong
tension in Marx's own words throughout his life between a polemical insis-
tence on the priority of the economic sphere and his nuanced appreciation
of the impact of political, cultural, and ideological elements upon the func-
tioning of what may only analytically be isolated as "economic" elements.
The earliest version is from The German Ideology of 1845-47:
The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real
premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are
the real individuals, their activity and the conditions of their life, both those which
they find already existing and those produced by their activity. (MECW 5: 31)
He goes on to specify "producing the means of subsistence." But even here
there is room for emphasizing the potential range of what those "conditions
of their lives" include and a strong emphasis on the dialectical interaction
of inherited conditions and potentially transforming human activity. The
mature Marx of Capital I (1867) - the only "real" Marx for Althusser -
still speaks of the "economic law of motion of modern society" (1976: 92,
my emphasis), though he is at pains in his second preface to insist that
economic "laws" are fundamentally different for different historical epochs
(1976: 100-102) and, being historically contingent, are thus fundamentally
different from the laws of nature. The Critique of the Gotha Program
(1875) and the famous posthumously published fragment from Book III
of Capital on the "Realm of Necessity and the Realm of Freedom" are
primarily focused on economic issues. 34
At the same time, for all the obvious appeal to Marx of metaphors from
the hard sciences ("laws of motion," etc.) and his strong polemical sense
of the neglected role of material production, of class, and of the relations
of production, his analyses of concrete historical situations (e.g., The Class
Struggles in France (1848-49), The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon
forms of human society in which the mass of human beings can attain freedoms and modes of
self-realization in excess of any they may have enjoyed before, who can dissent from it? Certainly I
do not" (24-5). Divorcing Marxist social analysis and activism from a focus on modes of production
and class struggle is a nice trick. See below on the postmodern dismissal of Marx.
34 These late texts, not published before the project of MECW collapsed, are perhaps most easily found
in the Tucker anthology (Marx-Engels 1978: 525-41, 439-42).
Base and superstructure 19
(1851-52), The Civil War in France (1870-71) display a highly nuanced sense
of the mutual interplay of a whole host of "determinations." Indeed, at the
outset of the Grundrisse, in discussing the method of political economy, he
counterposes to its false procedures "a rich totality of many determinations
and relations" (1973: rno).
BASE AND SUPERSTRUCTURE
Let us look briefly at the key passage by Marx which he himself cites in his
refutation (quoted above) of the charge that his approach is only relevant to
the capitalist era. In the Introduction to his 1859 book, A Contribution to the
Critique ofPolitical Economy, Marx offered in summary form an account
of his study of political economy and, most famously or notoriously,
the general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the
guiding principle of my studies ... In the social production of their existence,
men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will,
namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of
their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production
constitutes the economic structure, the real foundation, on which arises a legal
and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social
consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general
process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men
that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their
consciousness. (MECW 29: 262-3)
It would be hard to exaggerate the amount of ink devoted to these few

sentences. In no small measure because so much of Marx's surviving texts -
few of which were polished for publication - are so complex, multidimen-
sional, and in many cases exploratory, 35 both critics and followers of Marx
have fastened on this passage as Marx's own magic key to all his thought.
As Althusser has pointed out, however, Marx's spatial metaphor of base and
superstructure is merely suggestive and descriptive: it by no means spells
out the actual nature of the relationship between the economic structure
and all the other facets of the social totality (Althusser 1971: 135-36). Indeed,
I would argue that what is perhaps unique to Marxism is not that it offers
a pat amwer to this question, but that it insists that we confront and
take seriously3 6 the nature of the relationship between the specific mode
35 Gayatri Spivak has a wonderful discussion of the differences between those texts (a majority) of
Marx in which he explores issues in quest of self-clarification and those polished for publication, in
which he assumes a more pedagogical stance (Spivak 1987). See also Nicolaus 1973.
36 F. Jameson (1989: 383) puts this especially well: "'Base and superstructure' is not really a model, but
a starting point and a problem, something as undogmatic as an imperative simultaneously to grasp
of production, the relations of production and the whole range of other
elements that constitute a specific social formation. 37 Let me stress that
even in this passage about base and superstructure, Marx claims initially
only that the base "conditiom (bedingt) the general (uberhaupt) process of
social, political, and intellectual life." These two equivocations are impor-
tant in suggesting his discomfort with a simple determinism. "Conditions"
is not the same as "determines.'' 38 Moreover, the obviousness of this point
would I think not be disputed were it not for the assumption of danger-
ous political baggage accompanying any central proposition of Marx. Few,
for example, would raise objections to the following statement arising out
of the same principle by classicist Stephen Hodkinson (who, as far as I
know, claims no interest in Marx): "In most societies whose economies are
dependent primarily upon sedentary agriculture the distribution of land
and the rules governing its tenure and inheritance exercise a fundamental
influence upon the nature of the social system" (1989: 80, my emphasis).
In his magisterial Property and Wealth in Classical Sparta (2000), Hodkin-
son's sole reference to Marx appears to dismiss his work as merely another
example of "ideologically-linked perceptions of Spartan property owner-
ship" (14). But Hodkinson's rationale for his whole project - one might
well say his life's work as a scholar - strikes me as a perfect example of the
usefulness of the base-superstructure model: "In studying property and
wealth, one is consequently penetrating into almost every facet of Spartiate
life and tackling directly the fundamental questiom posed above regarding
the success and crisis of the classical Spartan polis" (4, my emphasis). So
too Oswyn Murray- not, as far as I know, a self-proclaimed Marxist -who
nonetheless cites Engels's straightforward version of Marx's starting point:
"The origins of social structures are almost infinitely varied, but there are
certain basic constraints. One of the most important of these is economic.
culture in and for itself, but also in relation to its outside, its content, its context, and its space of
intervention and of effectivity. How one does that, however, is never given in advance." This is not to
deny that sociological approaches such as Bryant's (1996) consider this relationship and occasionally
offer useful insights that go beyond simple refl.ectionism, but there is a residual Hegelianism in the
priority that Bryant grants to ideas ("moral codes," "the 'Spirit' of Hellenism," etc.).
37 The term "social formation" rather than "society" is warmly endorsed by Finley (1983b: 21) who
takes it from Perry Anderson (1974: 22 n. 6), who takes it from Poulantzas (1978: 15-16 [French
edition 1968]), both of whom explicitly define themselves as Marxists. In those authors the term
social formation emphasizes that any mode of production entails some combination of different
modes in which one mode is dominant. Thus, for example, in antiquity independent small farmer
production continued alongside production in which slaves were decisive. At a certain point (to be
explored below) the impact of slave production on other aspects of the social totality is such that it
can reasonably be called dominant in the mode of production.
38 In this context I especially like Bruce Trigger's distinction between "constraints" and "determinants"
(1991: 555-61).
In order to survive, a society must produce a sufficiency; in order to cre-
ate a culture, it must produce a surplus, as Engels explained long ago"
(Murray 1990: 3). Walter Burkert, clearly no Marxist, takes for granted in
an almost "vulgar Marxist" way the obvious relevance of beginning with
the economic and technological base and moving from there to a polit-
ical and economic superstructure: "The economic base for the advance
in the third millennium was the intensified cultivation of the olive and
vine, which moved the centre of gravity from the fertile plains of northern
Greece to the mountain slopes of southern Greece and the islands; at the
same time, the art of metal-working arrived from the East. Both innova-
tions demanded and strengthened a central organization of exchange and
political administration" (1985: 20).
Marx does go on to speak of "determination" apropos of consciousness
in a polemically anti-Hegelian formulation, "It is not the consciousness
of men that determines (bestimmt) their existence, but their social exis-
tence that determines their consciousness" (ibid.). This formulation is an
emphatic repudiation of what was at the time the dominant Hegelian model
stressing the priority of ideas and consciousness over specific historical real-
ities. But a clearer version of Marx's conception of the relation of material
conditions to historical developments is the more dialectical formulation
in his Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852), "Human beings (die
Memchen) make their own history, but they do not make it just as they
please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but
under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the
past" (MECW 11: 103). These "circumstances" are never conceived of by
Marx as solely "economic."
Engels, in a much-discussed late letter (1890) attempts to counter the
charge of simple economic determinism by what many have seen as a series
of equivocations: ''According to the materialist conception of history, the
ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduc-
tion of real life. More than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted.
Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is
the only determining one he transforms that proposition into a meaning-
less, abstract, senseless phrase." Echoing the passage of Marx on base and
superstructure quoted above, he continues:
The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure-
political forms of the class struggle and its results, to wit: constitutions established
by the victorious class after a successful battle, etc., juridical forms - and even
reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants, political,
juristic, philosophical theories, religious views, and their further development into
systems of dogmas - also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical
struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. (Marx-Engels
1978: 760-65, emphasis in the original}
Still he goes on to assert repeatedly that "the economic movement finally

asserts itself as necessary;" "the economic ones [assumptions and condi-
tions] are ultimately decisive." He goes on at some length to illustrate how
the roles of state power, law, ideology/philosophy can "react back as an
influence upon the whole development of society, even on its economic
development. But all the same they themselves are again under the dom-
inating influence of economic development." He argues, "I consider the
ultimate supremacy of economic development in these spheres too, but
it comes to pass within the conditions imposed by the particular sphere
itself'' (my emphasis). This nod to the relative autonomy of the various
ideological spheres is important. But to the extent that Engels succeeds in
rescuing his apparent equivocations, it is by his final emphasis on dialectics:
What these gentlemen [sc. the simple economic determinists and those who accuse
Marxism of mechanical determinism] all lack is dialectics. They always see only
here cause, there effect. That this is a hollow abstraction, that such metaphysical
polar opposites exist in the real world only during crises, while the whole vast
process goes on in the form of interaction - though of very unequal forces, the
economic movement being by far the strongest, most primeval, most decisive -
that here everything is relative and nothing absolute - this they never begin to see.
Hegel has never existed for them. (Marx-Engels 1978: 765)
What differentiates Marx's approach from the vast majority of his critics is a
radically different and dialectical epistemological position, nicely summa-
rized by Giddens in his more sympathetic phase: "Human consciousness is
conditioned in dialectical interplay between subject and object, in which
man actively shapes the world he lives in at the same time that it shapes him"
(Giddens 1971: 21). This epistemological position precludes the simple cause
and effect analyses of traditional empiricism, but it does not - cannot -
predict the specific weight of any given factor in a specific historical devel-
opment, which can only emerge from a concrete analysis. Thus "economic
determinism" in Engels's formulation seems to emerge as both "sometimes
yes, sometimes no" ("everything is relative") and somehow "ultimately" a
stronger element in the interplay of various other determinants. But for
those readers looking for straightforward "causes" impacting on a passive
society of human beings, readers committed to an empiricist cause-and-
effect determinism, no dialectical explanation will ever prove satisfactory:
hence my initial pessimistic declaration that no "straightforward" solution
to the "economic determinist" debate is possible. 39
Althusser's brilliant critique of Engels's letter attacks precisely the notion
of the "ultimate" - or in his translation of the letter "the last instance" -
status of the economic. In a famous line he argues, "the lonely hour of the
'last instance' never comes" (1969: 113). His alternative, "overdetermina-
tion," a term drawn from Freud's analysis of dream elements, stresses that
the economic contradictions of a society never operate in any independent
or straightforwardly determining way but interact "dialectically" with a
whole array of other factors. What seems to disappear in this otherwise
compelling analysis is any specific analytic value to a focus on class, the
mode of production, and its relations of production.
Resnick and Wolff, inspired by Althusser, offer their own dense formu-
lation of overdetermination as the path out of determinism:
Marxian theory ... is motivated by, focused upon, and aims at an ever deeper
knowledge of a selected subset among the many aspects of the social totality. These
are economic aspects and, in particular, the class processes and their interrelations
within the social totality ... This knowledge aims to specify both how the class
relations it designates as its objects are overdetermined by the nonclass aspects of the
social totality and how these class relations participate in the overdetermination of
those nonclass aspects. This knowledge aims, by means of exactly this specification,
to determine the contradictions in those class relations and the dynamic motion
that those contradictions produce. (Resnick and Wolff 1987: 96-7)
As I read this, what appears a potentially mutual process of "overdeter-

mination" by economic and non-economic elements acquires a "dynamic
motion" arising from the knowledge of "class relations." Thus I still want
to argue that a Marxist approach to the analysis of any social formation, of
any period of history does entail attributing something unique to the move-
ment arising from class relations viewed as a consequence of an ongoing
struggle - now hidden, now open - over the means of production.
In Engels's letter cited above, at one point he acknowledges, "Marx and I
are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes
lay more stress on the economic side than is due it. We had to lay more stress
39 Nicolaus (1973: 26--36 and passim) offers a particularly succinct distillation of Hegel's relation to
Marx, a topic scattered through virtually every serious account of Marx (e.g., McLellan 1973, whose
index has thirty-six references to Hegel, mostly with an 'f."). Marcuse's major engagement with
Hegel's philosophy (1960: 3-248) aims "to elucidate those implications of Hegel's ideas that identify
them closely with the later developments in European thought, particularly with the Marxian
theory" (xv). F. Jameson 2009 devotes more than a hundred very heavy pages (3-123) to a defense
of Hegel's dialectic as an essential prerequisite to grasping Marx's use of dialectic.
on the economic side vis-a-vis our adversaries, who denied it ... " (Marx-
Engels 1978: 762). While few today would actually "deny" the economic
aspects of ancient society, I am struck by the degree to which so many
classical scholars still appear anxious to minimize their importance. 40 As
indicated earlier, in the following text I will try in passing to pinpoint
the rhetorical strategies by which classical scholars have shied away from
concepts of class and class struggle - even when their own analysis points
inexorably in that direction.
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS DETERMINANTS
As noted earlier in connection with Finley's preference for status over

class, one key aspect of Marx's focus on the economic is his emphasis on
its uncomcious character: in contrast to capitalist economists' tendency to
see conscious human greed as the eternal motor force of human nature,
Marx stresses that normally people are uncomcious of the functioning of
the mode of production into which they are born, nor do they normally
register consciously the slow changes that may take place in that mode
of production but which nonetheless condition their lives. The mode of
production 41 in Greece during the period discussed in this book consisted
of all the factors affecting how human beings produced their means of
survival and the disposable social surplus. Specific constraints were the
whole range of ecological factors (see Snodgrass 1982: 657-95 for Central
Greece and Thessaly, Hammond 1982: 696-703 for the Peloponnese) such
as the scarcity and extreme quality variations of arable land, the depen-
dence on rain rather than irrigation, which in Egypt and Mesopotamia
imposed forms of cooperation not relevant for Greece.42 A number of
4° Finley, in the introduction to the collection he edited on landed property in Greece, remarks
sarcastically on "the curious predilection of students of classical antiquity for not studying in depth
some of the most fundamental aspects of ancient society" (1973b: 9). Seaford, in his dazzling review
of Kurke 1999, points to precisely this gaping lacuna in her elaborate exploration of ideological
struggles in the Archaic Period (Seaford 2002: 158---59). It is symptomatic of J. Hall's gingerly
handling of economic aspects of Greece in the Archaic Period that he takes up the topic of "Making
a Living" in the tenth of his twelve chapters (2007: 235-54), focusing on the issues of peasantry,
trade, and coinage.
41 Marx admittedly used the term in more than one sense, but each sense is compatible with the others
and I believe compatible with the sense in which I use it here. G. A. Cohen (1978: 79-84) offers an
elaborate overview of these different senses.
42 Mann (1986: 185) rightly stresses the difference between rain-watered soils and those of Mesopotamia,
but it is unclear to what extent the shift to iron led to dramatic increases in agriculture: Hesiod,
some two to three hundred years after the introduction of iron to Greece (Snodgrass 1971: 217-
22) still urges on his audience a plow made entirely of wood - as did Thomas Jefferson in 1795
(see discussion in Chapter 4). In defining class relations, can we really say with Mann, "iron plowers
Comcious and uncomcious determinants 25
changes during this period - some, as we shall see, still hotly debated,
such as a gradual shift in emphasis from herding to more intensive agri-
culture, the use of fallow fields vs. more intensive manuring, long-term
deforestation or erosion - were probably not consciously or only dimly
perceived by the producers even as their very engagement in productive
activity impacts upon and eventually transforms their environment. 43 It is
at least debatable how conscious Greeks were of the gradual change from
bronze to iron tools. At the same time, every one involved in and affected
by production must have been acutely aware of who controlled what sort
of productive land and how much land, and what specific crops, were
possible and desirable. This ongoing tension of conscious and unconscious
factors central to Marxist approaches is often ostensibly endorsed by cit-
ing with approval Marx's dictum quoted earlier, that "people make history
but not under conditions of their own choosing," but immediately these
authors are at pains to emphasize "knowledgeable agents" (e.g., Giddens
1981: 16). 44 At the same time, while revolutionary changes in the economic
base may occur with striking and devastating rapidity - as for example
the destruction of the whole Mycenaean redistributive system 45 - Marx
insists that it is in "the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic - in
short, ideological forms [that] men become conscious of this conflict and
fight it out" 46 (MECW 29: 203, my emphasis). This emphasis on the more
restrained aristocrats by a loose, communal, and even democratic structure of power" (Mann 1986:
197)? I find it amusing that Mann describes his initial inspiration as the desire to "refute Karl Marx
and reorganize Max Weber" (vii) but ends up offering a most mechanical technologism to explain
historical change. The idea of iron's democratizing potential originates, as far as I know, with the
Marxist archaeologist Gordon Childe (e.g., 1954: 191) and proved unduly optimistic.
4l Many have commented, for example, on the gradual deforestation of Greece as a consequence not
only of the conscious act of cutting down trees but of raising goats - probably without registering
consciously that the goats ate the new trees' shoots and thus precluded natural reforestation (e.g.,
Osborne 2009: 22).
44 I. Morris even goes so far as to endorse Stedman Jones's triumphalist dismissal of Marx, "Marx
famously observed ... that 'Men make their own history, but they do not make it under circum-
stances chosen by themselves, etc... : The great contribution of cultural historians like Stedman
Jones lies in showing how often people have made history as they pleased, with discursive forces"
(Morris 2000: 16). Stedman-Jones ends his article by calling for clearing away "the unsorted debris
left by the death of Marxism" (1996: 33). As Niall McKeown points out, "few theories have had their
death announced quite so often as Marxism" (1999: 103).
45 I am of course using the word "revolutionary" here as Marx usually does in the sense of fundamental
structural change, which may be very rapid or in some cases may take centuries (e.g., the agricultural
"revolution"). I do not mean to imply that the end of the Mycenaean period was the consequence
of a specific political revolution (see Chapter 1).
46 Marx's sense of the power of ideas is well illustrated in one of his earliest published texts: "The weapon
of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force must be overthrown by
material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses"
(MECW 3: 182). "As philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds
Theoretical comideratiom
conscious aspects of class struggle operating in conjunction with the uncon-

scious factors is another way of understanding a dialectical view of deter-
minations rather than a mechanical model of economic determinism: 47
Marx insists that historical change must be understood in relation to
the whole range of factors summed up in the notions of "culture" and
"society" as well as specifically economic factors. Complaints about Marx-
ist "reductionism" thus ignore how fully Marx's own analysis assumes as its
real object the "total social phenomena" (cf. Mauss 1967:1), "the concrete
totality of the historical world, the concrete and total historical process"
(Lukacs 1971: 145). 48
SEPARATING OUT THE ECONOMIC
A subtle variation on the idea of economic determination implicitly fused

with the concept of the "embedded economy" is the recurrent complaint
by many critics of Marx about the separating out of an economic sphere
in discussing societies which did not themselves separate out such a sphere
and societies in which the areas we may think of as "economic" are so
thoroughly integrated with culturally symbolic systems such as kinship and
religion. There are two analytic problems here. One is the issue whether
it is legitimate to ask questions about a society the members of which did
not ask of themselves. Here I would assert that the answer is clearly, yes. 49
its spiritual weapons in philosophy. And once the lightning of thought has squarely struck this
ingenuous soil of the people the emancipation of the Germans into human being.r will take place"
(ibid. 187, emphasis in original).
47 I find it rather ironic that people who have read very little or no Marx are quick to dismiss him as an
"economic determinist," but feel very comfortable in appealing to Weber, who so much more justly
fits the label: "The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when asceticism
was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to dominate worldly morality, it did
its part in building the tremendous cosmos ofthe modern economic order. This order is now bound to
the technical and economic conditions of machine production which today determine the lives ofall
individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic
acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized
coal is burnt. In Baxter's [a seventeenth-century Presbyterian writer on Puritan ethics] view the care
for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the 'saint like a light cloak, which can be
thrown aside at any moment'. But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage" (Weber
1958: 181, my emphasis) .
.S As noted earlier F. Jameson 2009 (210-14) focuses on the postmodern critique of precisely this
aspiration to totality; see also below. Postmodernist theorists who passionately denounce the existence
of"extra-discursive domains" (e.g., Stedman Jones 1996: 30) seem to ignore as well a whole range of
unconscious behaviors and developments. Stedman Jones grudgingly acknowledges that phenomena
like urbanization or population growth "far exceeded what could be grasped by an examination of
individual intentions" (27-8), but instead of seriously theorizing such phenomena he simply returns
to his diatribe against Foucault.
49 Here I fully agree with Finley: "we have the right to study such economies, to pose ques-
tions about their society that the ancients themselves never thought of" (197µ: 23). Marx,
of course, went further and argued that only the historical process makes some key analytic
Separating out the economic 27
Any analysis of the past that is to be relevant to our era is bound to pose
the questions that are meaningful to our era whether or not they attracted
the attention of the periods under consideration. The alternative, after all,
is to take the past at its own word. 50 More specifically Marx attacked the
readiness of Hegelian historians - and they are still around 5' - to
detach the ideas of the ruling class from the ruling class itself and attribute to
them an independent existence ... If we thus ignore the individuals and world
conditions which are the source of the ideas, then we can say, for instance, that
during the time the aristocracy was dominant, the concepts of honor, loyalty,
etc., were dominant ... Once the ruling ideas have been separated from the ruling
individuals and, above all, from the relations which result from a given stage of
the mode of production ... it is very easy to abstract from these various ideas 'the
Idea', the thought, etc., as the dominant force in history ... Whilst in ordinary life
every shopkeeper is very well able to distinguish between what somebody professes
to be and what he really is, our historiography has not yet won this trivial insight.
It takes every epoch at its word and believes that everything it says and imagines
about itself is true. (MECW 5: 60-62)
concepts - e.g., the concept of labor in general as opposed to specific types of labor, or the
concept of value - available. He cites Aristotle repeatedly in this connection, e.g.: "Aristotle there-
fore himself tells us what prevented any further analysis: the lack of a concept of value ... The secret
of the expression of value, namely the equality and equivalence of all kinds of labour and because
in so far as they are human labour in general, could not be deciphered until the concept of human
equality had already acquired the permanence of a fixed popular opinion. This however becomes
possible only in a society where the commodity-form is the universal form of the product of labour,
hence the dominant social relation between men as possessors of commodities. Aristotle's genius is
displayed precisely by his discovery of a relation of equality in the value-expression of commodities.
Only the historical limitation inherent in the society in which he lived prevented him from finding
out what 'in reality' this relation of equality consisted of' (Marx 1976: 151-2). The passage is also a
good example of Marx's conception of the intimate but not mechanically determinist relationship
between a mode of production and the production of concepts (c£ his more elaborate comments
in the Grundrisse 1973: 103--6). Polanyi, without mentioning Marx, is clearly following his lead in
his focus on Aristotle (1968: 17-18, c£ 78---n5).
50 J. Hall's normative dictum that "it should be the specific character of the available evidence rather
than the theoretical or ideological preferences of the historian that dictate the most appropriate
method to apply to a body of material" (2007: 287) is on one level merely common sense: one
cannot, as he well argues, build an account around a series of events if there are virtually no reliably
attested events. But on another level Hall comes perilously close to falling back on the empiricist
delusion that the data speak for themselves. At the same time he himself in fact eloquently defends
the use of anthropological theoretical models to make plausible reconstructions from very partial
data (e.g., 2007: 283).
51 I. Morris 2000 struck me as peculiarly "Hegelian" in the sense that he repeatedly gives priority to his
alleged concept of to meson. He claims, for example, "to meson . .. provided the values which made
democracy thinkable. To understand Greek democracy, we must first understand this worldview"
(2000: n3). This appears at least to dismiss both politics and economics as relevant contributing
factors, considerations of which are largely absent throughout Morris's text, which bizarrely, in my
view, projects the middling ideology back into the early Iron Age. To be sure, I also suggest that
the origins of democracy might be seen in a putative egalitarian, meritocratic phase of the early Iron
Age. But one would still need to account for the emergence of a whole array of social, political, and
economic factors countering that phase. Moreover, such a phase is at best one possible inference
from the spotty archaeological record (see discussion in Chapter 1).
This is not to deny that discourses construct versions of reality. But their
power in context does not exempt them from critical testing in the light of
material realities they are often designed to obscure.
The second analytic problem is a consequence of separating out for anal-
ysis any aspect of what one recognizes as a complex totality, which of course
any human society is. While Marx unquestionably placed heavy emphasis
on material production, even in the first early sketch of his overall concep-
tion of society and history, the German Ideology (1845-47), he is careful to
insist that what he sets out analytically first among three "premises of all
human existence" is not temporally separate from the other two: "These
three aspects of social activity are not of course to be taken as three different
stages, but just as three aspects . .. which have existed simultaneously since the
dawn of history and the first men, and which assert themselves in history
today" (MECW 5: 41-43, my emphasis). Yet even a generally sympathetic
critic of Marx can cite the first sentences of this section of the German Ide-
ology to indict Marx for granting primacy to the economic: "Experience is
first of all, and always primarily, the production of necessities: 'life involves
before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many
other things. The first historical act is thus the production of the means
to satisfy these needs, the production of material life itself'" (Sahlins 1976:
140, his emphasis). The analytically first premise is transformed by Sahlins's
context and emphasis into an absolute and temporal priority. Sahlins fails
to point out that the second premise "that the satisfaction of the first need,
the action of satisfying and the instrument of satisfaction which has been
acquired, leads to new needs" is also called by Marx "the first historical act"
(loc. cit.). Moreover, the third premise, sexual reproduction and the family,
has obviously just as clear a claim analytically to "priority'' as a premise of
human existence.
Sahlins, like Finley (as noted above), Donlan, I. Morris, and many others,
was heavily influenced by Polanyi's notion of an "embedded" economy
(Tandy and Neale 1994: 16) and seems to consider the embeddedness of an
economy to constitute a ground for dismissal of Marx. Yet no less a figure
than Levi-Strauss rightly defended Marx and Engels's clear understanding
of this phenomenon:
Actually Marx and Engels frequently express the idea that primitive, or allegedly
primitive, societies are governed by 'blood ties' (which today we call kinship
systems) and not by economic relationships ... The temporal category applicable
to them has nothing to do with the one we employ to understand the development
of our own society. Nor does this conception contradict in the least the famous
dictum of the Communist Manifesto that 'the history of all hitherto existing society
Foucault and the limits ofoverdetermination 29
is the history of class struggles.' In the light of Hegel's philosophy of the state, this
dictum does not mean that the class struggle is co-extensive with humanity, but
that the ideas of history and society can be applied, in the full sense which Marx
gives them, only from the time when the class struggle first appeared. (1967: 333) 52
FOUCAULT AND THE LIMITS OF OVERDETERMINATION
As noted above, embracing an analytical model committed to giving equal

weight to every possible contributing determinant risks either the silliness of
Forrest's embrace of "confusion" (see below) or the bewildering sophistica-
tion of Althusser's strong version of"Overdetermination." This embracing
of the sheer complexity of causation in Althusser's pupil 53 Foucault takes
the form of what seems to me, for all its brilliance, the abandonment
of any goal of explanation in history. ''Archaeology," Foucault's metaphor
for his new approach, 54 "tries to define not the thoughts, representations,
images, themes, preoccupations that are concealed or revealed in discourses;
but those discourses themselves, those discourses as document, as practices
52 Elsewhere in the same text Levi-Strauss comments bitterly in response to a critic named Jacques
Revel, "Marx and Engels knew incomparably more anthropology almost a hundred years ago than
Revel knows today" (1967: 336).
53 In a 1983 interview Foucault declares categorically, "I have never been a Freudian, I have never
been a Marxist, and I have never been a structuralist" (1988: 22). James Miller notes apropos of
Althusser: "He nevertheless proved to be a spellbinding teacher, a quality that helped him recruit
an unprecedented number of normaliens [i.e., his students at the Ecole Normale Superieure],
including Foucault, into the Communist Party." He goes on to quote a comment by Foucault:
"In the immediate postwar period the Communist Party exercised ... a triple legitimacy: historical,
political, and theoretical. .. Over anyone who pretended to be on the left, it 'laid down the law'.
One was either for, or against; an ally, or an adversary" (Miller 1993: 57).
54 I well understand that this apparent dismissal of Foucault constitutes a heresy. Robin Osborne, for
example, in his introduction to a collection of papers from Past and Present, writes: "This volume
records the impact made, directly or indirectly, upon Greek and Roman history by the work of
Michel Foucault ... It is Foucault's more general influence on the field that is at issue here. That
influence stems from his perception that all social relations are power relations" (Osborne 2004:
2). First of all it strikes me that only a group of scholars who have never troubled to read Marx
seriously would be surprised to learn that "all social relations are power relations": this is implicit and
explicit in all of Marx's analyses of relations of production. But as F. Jameson has argued apropos
of Foucault, "For Marxism, indeed, the categories of power are not the ultimate ones, and the
trajectory of contemporary social theory (from Weber to Foucault) suggests that the appeal to it is
often strategic and involves a systematic displacement of the Marxian problematic. No, the ultimate
form of the 'nightmare of history' is rather the fact of labor itself, the intolerable spectacle of the
backbreaking millennial toil of millions of people from the earliest moments of human history.
The more existential versions of this dizzying and properly unthinkable, unimaginable spectacle -
as in horror at the endless succession of 'dying generations,' at the ceaseless wheel of life, or at the
irrevocable passage of Time itself - are themselves only disguises for this ultimately scandalous fact
of mindless alienated work and the irremediable loss and waste of human energies, a scandal to
which no metaphysical categories can give meaning. The scandal is everywhere known, everywhere
repressed - un secret de tous connu" Qameson 1988c: II 162).
obeying certain rules ... It is not an interpretative discipline" (1972: 138-9,
his emphasis). He declares, "In our time history aspires to the condition
of archaeology, to the intrinsic description of the monument" (1972: 7, my
emphasis). 55 Foucault's notion of "description" presupposes the immense
glut of data from or about all levels of society surviving from the seventeenth
century to the present. At the same time his emphasis on "discontinuity"
seems to displace or at least defer the question of explanation.5 6 Lemert and
Gillen are at pains to warn us against seeing Archaeology ofKnowledge "as
Foucault's methodological program" (1982: 48) and point out that "most
of its vocabulary disappears thereafter" (ibid.: 55-6). To be sure, at other
times Foucault's model seems to be a Nietzschean "genealogy'': "One has
to dispense with the constituent subject, to get rid of the subject itself,
that's to say, to arrive at an analysis which can account for the constitution
of the subject within an historical framework. And this is what I would
call genealogy, that is, a form of history which can account for the consti-
tution of knowledges, discourses, domains of objects, etc., without having
to make reference to a subject which is either transcendental in relation to
the field of events or runs in its empty sameness throughout the course of
history" (1980: 117, cf. 1977: 139-64).
At the same time Foucault's thought is so permeated with Marxist
thought, with which he is in a more or less constant polemical dialogue,
that it would take at least a book-length study (e.g., Poster 1984, 1989, who
is a strong partisan of Foucault) to sort out what is in the spirit of Marx
and what entails a radical rejection of Marx. I will give only one exam-
ple. For all his emphasis on the centrality of discourses, repudiating the
"linguistic turn," he argues in terms very congenial to a Marxist approach:
"I believe one's point of reference should not be to the great model of
language (langue) and signs, but to that of war and battle. The history
which bears and determines us has the form of war rather than that of
55 I found quite amusing Stedman Jones's ferocious denunciation of Foucault's residual Marxism
(1996), cited with apparent enthusiasm by I. Morris (2000: 15-16), who nonetheless returns to a
more "Marxist" position by citing a study ofland distribution and invoking Geertz's "hard surfaces''
(16--17). Stedman Jones, as noted earlier, is scarcely the first or doubtless the last to proclaim
triumphantly "the death of Marxism" (1996: 33).
56 In the famous interview entitled "Truth and Power" Foucault expresses his shock and annoyance at
being characterized as "a philosopher who founds his theory of history on discontinuity." Offering a
sophisticated account of a "whole new 'regime' in discourse and forms of knowledge," he argues, "it
was these different regimes that I tried to identify and describe in The Order of Thing.r, all the while
making clear that I wasn't trying for the moment to explain them, and that it would be necessary to
try to do this in a subsequent work" (1980: n1-13, my emphasis). Yet he did not, as far as I know,
write this subsequent work of explanation. Nonetheless he does hint at various points that the needs
of capitalism required new regimes of medical practice, discipline, and sexuality.
The postmodern dismissal ofMarx 31
language: relations of power, not relations of meaning" (1980: 114). Later
in the same interview he returns to the idea of war only to distance himself
from unthinking Marxist invocations of "class struggle": "it's astonishing to
see how easily and self-evidently people talk of war-like relations of power
and class struggle without ever making it clear whether some form of war
is meant, and if so what form" (ibid. 123). Still later in the same interview,
asked about the role of intellectuals, he argues in favor of abandoning
a "universal" focus and concentrating struggles "within specific sectors,
at the precise points where their own conditions of life or work situate
them ... They have met with problems that are specific, 'non-universal',
and often different from those of the proletariat or the masses. And yet
I believe intellectuals have actually been drawn closer to the proletariat
and the masses, for two reasons. Firstly, because it has been a question of
real, material, everyday struggles, and secondly, because they have often
been confronted, albeit in different form, by the same adversary as the
proletariat, namely, the multinational corporations, the judicial and police
apparatuses, the property speculators, etc." (ibid. 126).
In dealing with the Archaic Age, and especially with its immediate
antecedents, the evidence is so sparse, fragmentary, and ambiguous, that it
is perhaps impossible to talk of "explanation" but rather what one hopes are
not completely implausible conjectures that do not violate that evidence.
Yet the kind of "archaeology" of knowledge advocated by Foucault (e.g.,
1970, 1972) - for all its appeal to a "post-structuralist" sensibility - entails
a fundamental break with the notion of historiography as explanation
and comes perilously close - for all its sophisticated theorization - to
Henry Ford's vision of history as "just one damned thing [or episteme]
after another."57 While the injunction to avoid superficial totalizations is
salutary, to me a conception of history as the deployment of the "space of
a dispersion" (Foucault 1972: rn) is not enough.
THE POSTMODERN DISMISSAL OF MARX
While there is a very full and complex body of work - much of it also
inspired by Althusser - that defines itself as "postmodern Marxism" (e.g.,
Resnick and Wolff 1987, Callari et al. 1995, Kellner 1989a), Foucault
57 For an enlightening overview of fundamental problems ofhistoricization from a Marxist perspective

see F. Jameson 1988a. I at least find it ironic that at a time when some of the wisest archaeologists of
our era (Daniel and Renfrew 1988 and Snodgrass 2006, a reprint of earlier articles) were calling for
a revolution in archaeology- a decisive shift away from description toward explanation - Foucault
invoked archaeology as pure description.
represents perhaps the most compelling of so-called "postmodernist" dis-
missals of Marx, what Fredric Jameson has dubbed the "demarxification"
of France (1989: 374). Jean-Frall<;:ois Lyotard in defining the "postmodern
condition" reduces Marxism to the practice of self-styled "communist"
countries: "in communist countries, the totalizing model and its totalitarian
effect have made a comeback in the name of Marxism itself'' (1984: 13, my
emphasis). The implication seems to be that any effort to offer a "totaliz-
ing" - i.e., comprehensive - account of society leads, via a silly pun of a
Cold War type, to a totalitarian society. As Fredric Jameson points out in
his introduction to Lyotard,
Lyotard is, after all, writing in the wake of a certain French "post-Marxism,"
that is, an enormous reaction on all levels against various Marxist and Commu-
nist traditions in France, whose prime target on the philosophical level is the
Hegel/Lukacs concept of 'totality' (often overhastily assimilated to Stalinism or
even to the Leninist party on the political level). (F. Jameson 1984b: x)
It would be hard to exaggerate the influence of Jacques Derrida on the

whole range of discourses that call themselves or are dubbed by others as
"postmodern." As with Foucault, a full, fair assessment of Derrida's rela-
tion to Marxism would merit at least a book-length study. 58 My more
limited purpose here is to signal both my awareness that for a considerable
period many of the most sophisticated and influential figures of Western
intellectual life felt the need to distance themselves from what they per-
ceived as "Marxism." In a 1989 interview with the American Althusserian
Michael Springer, Derrida offers a fascinating picture of the tight little
world of high theory at the Ecole Normale Superieure, where Althusser
was a professor and Derrida first a student in 1952, then himself a professor
for nearly twenty years. Derrida attempts to explain how it was possible
to have cordial relations for twenty years, to have deep reservations about
major elements of Althusser's intellectual project, yet never to have argued
them out openly:
I wanted to ask questions. At every step, I would have liked to have had a long
discussion with him and his friends and asked them to respond to questions I
felt necessary. The fact is - as strange as it might seem - this discussion never
took place. And yet we lived in the same "house," where we were colleagues for
twenty years and his students, and friends were often, in another context, mine.
Everything took place underground, in the said of the unsaid. It's part of the
French scene and is not simply anecdotal. (2002: 158)
58 Jameson (2009: 102-12, 127-80) goes a long way in this task.

The postmodern dismissal ofMarx 33
As he explains elsewhere in this interview, the key source of the "unsaid"
on his part was the fact that Althusser and his friends were members of
the French Communist Party, that Derrida was not, but felt that what
Althusser was trying to achieve within the Party was positive and that
any attempt to challenge it on intellectual grounds would inevitably be
interpreted as simply anti-communist (152). For Derrida, the ultimate
Socrates of our era - relentlessly questioning the presuppositions of all
propositions - Marx was no less "metaphysical" than Hegel (159-60).
Derrida insists, however, "I did read Marx, you know" (159), though his
great translator and disciple Gayatry Spivak does declare, "Derrida seems
not to know Marx's main argument" (1993: 97). At the same time, both
the earlier interview, which indicates that Derrida read all of Althusser's
work and Derrida's moving tribute (2001: 111-18) at Althusser's funeral,
which speaks of the ways in which Louis was "inside" him, suggest that
the appearance of simple indifference or hostility to Marxism may be very
misleading. What is perhaps most significant, however, for understanding
the widespread French disenchantment with Marxism was the disgraceful
role of the French Communist Party, which supported the repression in
Hungary in 1956. 59 In any case, for many years followers of Derrida did
not seem to feel a need to read Marx and rejected a focus on class as old-
fashioned essentialism. 60 After the collapse of the Soviet Union Derrida
did indeed exhort us to read Marx in very strong terms: "It will always be
59 Derrida (2002: 164), tells chis damning anecdote about Alchusser and the Party in 1956: "With the
repression in Hungary in 1956, some of chose communist intellectuals began to leave the Party.
Gerard Genette, who was a Party member until 1956, told me chat he went to see Alchusser after the
Hungarian revolc to impart his distress, anguish, reasons, and probably to ask his advice. Alchusser
supposedly told him: 'But if what you say were true, then the Party would be wrong!' This seemed
to Alchusser to be precluded, and he proceeded to demonstrate ad absurdum chat what Genette was
saying needed to be corrected." J.-P. Vernant, who fought in the Resistance and had been a member
of the Jeunes Communistes, also left the Party at chis point (personal conversation).
60 I base chis in part on many conversations over many years with pupils of Derrida. It is striking chat
in Peggy Kamuf's Derrida Reader (1991) of more than 600 pages, there is one footnote reference to
Marx (481 n. 14), where he is lumped with Socrates, Descartes and Freud as a seeker after "truth."
Michael Ryan's heroic effort to fuse Marxism and Deconstruction (1982) notes chat "in early texts he
[Derrida] suggests chat Marxism itself is subject to deconstruction, chat it belongs to the metaphysics
of presence" and traces a gradual process by which Derrida expressed more sympathy for Marx.
Spivak in two extremely difficult essays (1984 and 1993) explores some grounds for parallels. In the
earlier essay she cites an interview from 1980 in which Derrida declares "though I am not and have
never been an orthodox Marxist, I am very disturbed by the antimarxism dominant now in France
so chat, as a reaction, through political reflection and personal preference, I am inclined to consider
myself more Marxist than I would have done at a time when Marxism was a sort of fortress" (Spivak
1984: 245 n. 14). This last phrase of course alludes to the dominant role of the French Communist
Party in the years following the end of World War II. Poster (1975: 36-41) underlines both the
post-war prestige of the Party due to its wartime role in the Resistance and its positivistic "scientific"
and Stalinist orientation.
a fault not to read and reread and discuss Marx - which is to say also a
few others - and to go beyond scholarly 'reading' or 'discussion'. It will be
more and more a fault, a failing of theoretical, philosophical, and political
responsibility" (1994: 13). Was this a sincere change of position, or was
this perhaps only said in the confidence that Marx's "grand narrative" and
insistence on the primacy of production will be easily recognized as the
illusions of an era safely dismantled by floating signifiers, absent centers,
chains of arbitrary contingencies, and the irreducible plurality of struggles?
Whatever Derrida's own final position was on the relevance of Marx as
an analytical approach, the political influence of deconstruction is most
obvious perhaps in the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985).
They describe their project with a rhetorical question:
Why should we broach this task through a critique and a deconstruction of the
various discursive surfaces of classical Marxism? Let us first say that there is not
one discourse and one system of categories through which the "real" might speak
without mediations. In operating deconstructively within Marxist categories, we
do not claim to be writing "universal history," to be inscribing our discourse as
a moment of a single, linear process of knowledge. Just as the era of normative
epistemologies has come to an end, so too has the era of universal discourses. (1985:
3, my emphasis)
Their intentions, like those of Anthony Giddens with his "third way"
(1998), are admirably directed toward bringing about a better form of
society on the assumption that Soviet Marxism, which is so often mis-
leadingly described as "classical Marxism," was so total a failure 61 that
virtually nothing beyond a vaguely conceived project of human liberation
is worth salvaging from the vast body of Marx's work, while accepting as
"realistic" the dominant structures of modern capitalism. As Slavoj Zizek
has rightly observed, the proponents of this dismissal of class, "as a rule,
leave out the resignation at its heart - the acceptance of capitalism as 'the
only game in town', the renunciation of any real attempt to overcome the
existing capitalist liberal regime" (Zizek 2000: 95). Subsequently he makes
perhaps the more relevant point that this very shift in perspective on class
requires historicizing: "The passage from 'essentialist' Marxism to post-
modern contingent politics (in Laclau) ... is not a simple epistemological
progress but part of the global change in the very nature of capitalist society"
61 The brilliant work of Boris Kagarlitsky (e.g., 1988, 1995, 1999, 2002), who was jailed under Brezhnev
for "anti-Soviet" activities, as well as under Yeltsin, offers a more balanced and complex insider's
critique and evaluation of the Soviet experience than is usually available in the West. See also
F. Jameson's thoughtful chapter on "Actually Existing Marxism" (2009: 367-409).
The Archaic Period: attempting explanation vs. radical skepticism 35
(ibid: 106). 62 Fortunately my own project does not entail charting the future
course of capitalism, which happens not to look very bright at the current
moment. But Zizek's approach has some affinity with Jameson's somewhat
different analysis, which is precisely to historicize the postmodern turn by
the application of Marx's fundamental analytical concept of the mode of
production, as is clear from his subtitle, Postmodernism, or The Cultural
Logic ofLate Capitalism (1991). It is the work of Fredric Jameson, beginning
with his Marxism and Form (1971) - primarily focused on the Frankfurt
School and Sartre - that perhaps more than any other contemporary work
has convinced me that the Marxist categories of mode of production and
class, whatever the complexities and valid questions raised about their
application to contemporary capitalism, offer viable modes of analysis for
precapitalist societies.
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD: ATTEMPTING EXPLANATION

VS. RADICAL SKEPTICISM
Though conclusions about a period as inherently murky as the Archaic

Period must all be inherently provisional, I hope the effort is worthwhile
to look for a meaningful pattern of development that goes beyond, for
example, George Forrest's perhaps slightly playful declaration, after explor-
ing various examples of Greek colonization, "These examples show how
foolish it is to generalize about colonization. We must argue for confusion,
a confusion which by 600 BC found Greeks established in southern France,
northern Africa, Egypt, etc." (Forrest 1986: 26, my emphasis). Similarly,
J. K. Davies (1997) has raised such a host of provocative questions - not
least about the very term polis - about the endlessly debated "rise of the
polis" as to make Forrest's caution here too seem the only safe path. In
the same vein Jonathan Hall brackets his recent overview of the period
with cautionary tales demonstrating why he believes it is not possible to
say anything securely about either the alleged Lelantine War (1-8) or the
alleged First Sacred War (276-81). His fundamental creed seems to be,
"agnosticism is to be preferred to credulity" (2007: 106) - a formulation
with which it is hard to argue. But caution too has its price. Though Hall
notes changes that take place and opts for a "processual account, focusing
on spheres such as society, economics, and culture" (2007: 282, cf. 16) - he
summarizes these processes as "shifting residence patterns, land use, social
62 For a fuller discussion of the relation of Marxism to postmodernism see F. Jameson 1991 and 1988c,
Wood 1986, Wood and Foster 1997, Eagleton 1996a.
differentiation, and ethnic and social self-definition" (283) - I think it is

fair to say that he offers very little in the way of explanation that might,
for example, connect causally "land use" and "social differentiation."
Though I have already inevitably stated or implied many of my own
views in exploring various critiques of Marxism, I will at this point attempt
to state as concisely as possible my own understanding of what I take
to be the salient features of a Marxist approach to class as a vehicle for
explanation and leave it to the reader to decide whether, overall, it offers
a useful explanatory framework for phenomena and developments in the
Archaic Age.
MARXISM AND CLASS
Perhaps the key distinguishing feature of a Marxist approach to class is its

insistence on the relational nature of class: a class is called into existence
by an historical process which sets it in opposition to another class, and
it exists as a class only in that opposition. This implies that individual
members of a class may have all sorts of differences between them 63 but
function as a united class only in that relation of opposition. 64 Moreover,
the same individuals may have different class identities insofar as they find
themselves in different oppositions. The grounds for this opposition grow
out of the mode by which a society produces, exchanges, and distributes
an economic surplus: 65 in Marxian terms there are no classes and no class
6l Van Wees (1992) and many others have explored in depth all the factors leading to potentially
deadly conflicts between members of the ruling class in Homer, all of whom vis-a-vis the demos and
slaves usually function as a class. Indeed, one must posit an intense sense of competition with other
members of their own class as one of the most characteristic features of the archaic Greek ruling
class, a factor which, as we shall see, leads some members of this class at moments of intense pressure
to form alliances with their class enemies.
64 Manville (1990: 58-64) offers a valuable and subtle account of all the sorts of groupings in which
individuals find themselves and which they create for themselves: it seems almost as if class is the
only sort of grouping he avoids discussing; nor does Manville discuss the relationships between
these various aspects of individual identities. But as Ste. Croix rightly insists, "Class is essentially a
relationship, and members of any one class are necessarily related as such, in different degrees, to
those of other classes. The members of a Weberian class or status group as such, need not have any
necessary relationship to the members of any class or status group as such" (Ste. Croix 1981: 90, his
emphasis).
6 5 Polanyi's associate, Harry W. Pearson, offered a trenchant critique of the whole concept of a "surplus"
(Polanyi et al. 1957: 320-41). First of all he distinguished the concept of an "absolute surplus," which
presupposes that there is an easily determined biological level of subsistence despite the fact that
many societies subsist with deadly levels of undernourishment and all its consequences but still
dance and make war, and, secondly, a "relative surplus," which is set aside in accordance with
specific institutional priorities, as, for example, in redistributive economies of the Mycenaean type.
His main target is the potentially deterministic idea popularired by Engels that creation of a surplus
of itself brings about the development of economic institutions. He rightly points to the systematic
Exploitation direct and indirect 37
struggle in a society which operates at the level of simple subsistence for all
its members or one in which the surplus is equitably distributed. For this
reason I think it is important to make a clear distinction between those
precapitalist societies which operate at or near a subsistence level and those
societies which did produce a substantial surplus and in which that surplus
was both very unequally divided and produced by the exploitation 66 of one
class by another. As we shall see below and is already adumbrated in my
opening summary of Lactacz, some scholars have argued that the Dark
Age preserved key elements of the Mycenaean class system, while others
have argued that the devastation led to at least a couple of centuries of pre-
civilized social formations in the technical sense of civilization implying
an urban concentration and the production of a substantial social surplus.
But no one as far as I know has argued that from the late eighth century
on Greece was not an area with a developed urban culture and a system
of production that entailed a sharply unequal distribution of the socially
created surplus.
EXPLOITATION DIRECT AND INDIRECT
Whenever one class substantially monopolizes the means of production -

in the Greek case, agricultural land - for its own benefit or exploits the
productive labor of another class in order to arrogate to itself control of the
socially created surplus, class struggle results. The direct, forced exploita-
tion of slave labor is obvious as is the use of hired labor or the labor of
those locked into debt-bondage; but it may strike some readers as extreme
to argue that monopolizing the best agricultural land entails a kind of
"exploitation" even if no direct use of those excluded from production
is involved. Indeed, it is obvious that the economic and political power
derived from direct exploitation and control of the means of production is
precisely what permits a ruling class to exclude some categories of persons
from full participation in the production process. Certainly the distinction
between enforced unemployment- all too clear as I write -vs. extraction of
surplus labor (labor beyond what is necessary to provide for the sustenance
or "reproduction" of the laborer) is important. But in the context of an
"waste" of wealth associated with the "prestige economy" (337) to highlight the differences from the
alleged "logic" of capitalism, where in fact vast waste is institutionalized on some radically different
bases. He does not, however, in my view, demolish what he himself dubs the "heuristic" (325) value
of the concept in relation to exploitation, a concept in which he appears to have no interest.
66 I entirely agree with de Ste. Croix's declaration that "the essence of class struggle is exploitation or
resistance to it" (1981: 3, 44, and passim), though I think his concept of the nature of "exploitation"
of "free" smallholders or landless thetes deserves some expansion (see below).
overwhelmingly agricultural economy it is obvious that the power to mini-

mize the land available to whole categories of society and to exclude entirely
others from control of any land is essential to preserving the conditions of
maximum extraction of wealth by the most powerful landowners. At the
same time the sense of class resentment among those who are marginalized
or excluded vis-a-vis agricultural land may well be greater than that of those
who are integrated into direct exploitative relations as slaves or serfs. 67 In
the Archaic Greek context, excluding some people from access to the land
seems to have been one striking feature of the formation of the polis and
the associated "colonization" (see Chapters I and 3 below). 68 As we shall
see in the Odyssey, Eumaios is no friend of the suitors; but Odysseus, in
his impersonation of the landless beggar, expresses far greater bitterness
toward the suitors as representatives of a privileged ruling class (see Chap-
ter 3). This struggle against the power of the large landowners may, to
echo the Communist Manifesto, be "open" or "hidden." This distinction in
turn often corresponds to whether an exploited class is or is not capable of
self-conscious, united action. 69
67 As I write more than ten percent of the U.S. workforce suffer unemployment due to the irrespon-
sibility of those who control the key levers of wealth and through their lobbyists control much
of government, while thousands-if not millions-of inhabitants of the Gulf of Mexico are losing
their means of earning a living due to the irresponsible greed of British Petroleum. While neither
situation fits the classic sense of "exploitation," both do reflect an organization of the economy that
guarantees the wealth of the few at the expense of the many.
68 As Marx noted about the concept of "overpopulation," "In different modes of social production
there are different laws of the increase of population and overpopulation, the latter identical with
pauperism. These different laws can simply be reduced to the different modes of relating to the
conditions of production, or, in respect to the living individual, the conditions of his reproduction
as a member of society, since he labours and appropriates only in society. The dissolution of these
relations in regard to the single individual, or to part of the population, places them outside the
reproductive conditions of this specific basis and hence posits them as overpopulation, and not only
lacking in means but incapable of appropriating the necessaries through labour, hence as paupers"
(1973: 604).
69 In a famous passage of the Eighteenth Brumaire Marx describes the French peasantry as follows:
"The small-holding peasants form a vast mass, the members of which live in similar conditions
but without entering into manifold relations with one another ... The great mass of the French
nation is formed by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form
a sack of potatoes. Insofar as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that
separate their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes, and
put them in a hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class. Insofar as there is merely a local
interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no
community, no national bond and no political organization among them, they do not form a class.
They are consequently incapable of enforcing their class interests in their own name" - which surely
does not imply that they had no class interests (MECWn: 187). It is obvious from the whole context
that Marx does in fact view the peasants as a class, but not in the strongest sense of the term. Thus
some Marxists have used this passage to argue that only a completely self-conscious group constitutes
a class in the "true" Marxist sense of the term; but I think this entails ignoring the rhetoric of the
Slavery: open vs. hidden class struggle 39
SLAVERY: OPEN VS. HIDDEN CLASS STRUGGLE
For many scholars of classical antiquity, not to mention Hellenophile

history buffs, the only form of class struggle in ancient Greece worthy of the
name is, to echo the Communist Manifesto, the struggle between "freeman
and slave." An enormous bibliography attests to the centrality of this issue
in classical scholarship. 70 Neither the centrality of slavery to Greek society
nor the human horror of it can be seriously questioned.71 However, the
Marxist distinctions between "hidden" and "open" class struggle, between
a "class in itself'' and a "class for itself'' are essential in any exploration of
class in any period of Greek history. As de Ste. Croix explained,
At Athens and in other Greek cities where slavery was already highly developed
in the Classical period we never hear of slave revolts ... The reason is simple
and obvious: the slaves in each city ... were largely imported "barbarians" and
very heterogeneous in character, coming from areas as far apart as Thrace, South
Russia, Lydia and Caria and other parts of Asia Minor, Egypt, Libya, and Sicily,
sharing no common language or culture." (1981: 146)
Cartledge (1993: 170) cites this passage to question the phrase "simple
and obvious" and devotes a long, very learned article to exploring the
more complex reasons for the "seemingly total absence" of "slave revolts
in Classical Greece (c. 500-300 BC)." In the process he elaborates, by full
comparison with studies of U.S. slavery, an excellent account of what I
would call the "hidden class warfare" waged by Greek slaves: "sabotage of
one type or another" (1993: 29), flight,7 2 and theft being the most obvious,
but simply doing the least work they could get away with is, in terms of
passage. Marx's major point is that because of the French peasantry's inability to "enforce their class
interests in their own name" Louis Napoleon was able to exploit them as his own political base.
7° I have cited the very important contributions of M. I. Finley to this debate (see Chapter 1).
The listings under "slavery" in de Ste. Croix 1981 take up almost a whole column of tiny type.
Yvon Garlan (1988) is richly annotated with a wide range of scholarly discussion. Recent polemical
discussions are Osborne (1995) and Cartledge (1985a and 1993). Page duBois (2003 and 2009) has
offered a scathing indictment of classicists' complicity in silencing the grim realities of ancient
slavery.
7' The most common targets of modern reappraisals of ancient slavery are the relatively apologetic
texts of Westermann (1955) and Vogt (1975). A small sample from the latter must suffice: "It cannot
be denied that the Athenians were very mild in the way they treated their slaves ... There were no
slave revolts during this period, and nothing in those laws that have been preserved suggests that
the free citizens were permanently afraid that their slaves might revolt. So a slave's life must have
been tolerable" (1975: 4--5).
72 Cartledge (1993: 29) notes that the title of a lost comedy of Aristophanes, "'The Runaway-
catcher' ... strongly suggests the ubiquity of the phenomenon." The report by Thucydides (7.27.5)
of "more than 20,000" runaways could of course be only a guess, but Cartledge (1993: 35 n. 61)
suggests "this report could have been based ultimately on a documentary source, namely the records
of the Spartan booty-seller ... operating at Dekeleia."
production, perhaps the most effective sabotage. The oft-quoted comment

of Eumaios in the Odyssey, "Wide-seeing Zeus takes away half of a man's
excellence (arete) whenever the day of slavery seizes hold of him" (17.322-
3), in context implies specifically that slaves are inherently people who,
without the external compulsion applied by a master, 73 do a poor job. In
accounts of modern slavery it is often clear that the struggle to do as little
work as possible was the key to survival. In Cuba, for example, "during the
cutting season, when the success of the crop depended upon speedy day and
night operation, slaves were often worked to death" (Foner 1962: 189). In
the ancient mines, including the mines at Laurium in "enlightened" Attica,
slaves were regularly worked to death.74 The very personal and individual
effort to endure slavery with as little effort as possible nonetheless from
the perspective of the mode of production represents struggle against a
system of exploitation that affected a whole class of individuals and the
overall productivity of the society. The great exception in ancient Greek
slavery to this "hidden" character was slavery in Sparta. The Helots, having
a common ethnic consciousness, did rebel openly when circumstances
seemed propitious.75
The only clear evidence of open class struggle in the Archaic Period
is the Solonian crisis: small and middling farmers in Attica in the late
seventh and early sixth century engaged in some sort of concerted open
struggle against exploitative landlords culminating in the choice of Solon
as fully empowered mediator. As de Ste. Croix rightly stresses "the small,
free, independent producers (mainly peasants, with artisans and traders)
who worked at or near subsistance level ... must have formed an actual
majority of the population in most parts of Greece ... and must have been
73 Ste. Croix (1981: 54) rightly underlines Marx's dictum: "Direct forced labor is the foundation of the
ancient world; the community rests on this as its foundation" (Marx 1973: 245).
74 Marx argued that in general in ancient society "where the use-value rather than the exchange value of
the product predominates" slavery was less savage [than in the capitalist U.S. South of his own time].
"Hence in antiquity over-work becomes frightful only when the aim is to obtain exchange-value in
its independent monetary shape, i.e., in the production of gold and silver. The recognized form of
work here is forced labour until death. One need only read Diodorus Siculus [he quotes in a note
the grim account in 3-13] ... As soon as peoples ... are drawn into a world market dominated by
the capitalist mode of production ... the civilized horrors of over-work are grafted onto the barbaric
horrors of slavery, serfdom, etc." (Marx 1976: 345). Earlier, stressing the way in which the product of
labour mystifies its own production, he observes, "The taste of porridge does not tell us who grew
the oats, and the [labour] process we have presented does not reveal the conditions under which it
takes place, whether it is happening under the slave-owner's brutal lash or the anxious eye of the
capitalist, whether Cincinnatus undertakes it in tilling his couple of acres, or a savage, when he lays
low a wild beast with a stone" (ibid. 290--1).
75 Cartledge 1993 focuses on the helots' open resistence at the end of his article qualifying de Ste. Croix's
"simple and obvious'' phrase. See Chapter 6 below.
The explanatory power ofclass struggle 41
responsible for a substantial proportion of its total production - the greater
part of it" (1981: 52). The "centrality" of slavery arose from its decisive role
in liberating the large landowners from farm labor and supplying them
with the surplus that supported their political domination. The ways in
which the "free" smallholders and landless thetes were exploited is less
obvious than in the case of slaves, but, as the Solonian Crisis suggests,
they were in principle capable of comcious class struggle. These examples
do suggest that, despite the general assumption by Marxists (cf. Lukacs
cited above) that precapitalist classes lacked class consciousness, under
certain circumstances it is legitimate to deduce that oppositional classes
"for themselves" did emerge in antiquity.7 6 Few indeed would argue that
the ruling class of ancient Greece was devoid of class consciousness.
Moreover, according to this model, non-aristocratic wealthier farmers
like Hesiod or, later, what some have called the hoplite "class" 77 can simulta-
neously function as a class in opposition to the aristocracy when it threatens
or exploits them and in other contexts form with the aristocracy a unified
class vis-a-vis slaves, whom they both exploit. To this extent I believe that
in discussing the Archaic Period, it is legitimate to look for differing levels
or degrees of class consciousness. Indeed, much of the effort of ruling-class
ideological struggle is directed at preventing class consciousness in those
outside the ruling class while fostering intra-class solidarity.
THE EXPLANATORY POWER OF CLASS STRUGGLE
A key claim of Marxism is that this class struggle, whether open or hidden,
exp/aim fundamental social and political changes. In what sense or on what
levels? Marx, as noted earlier, argued that "the mode of production of mate-
rial life conditiom the general process of social, political, and intellectual
life" (MECW 29: 203, my emphasis). He goes on to argue that "changes
in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of
76 Thus Eric Hobsbawm, a widely respected Marxist historian, has declared categorically, "while class
in the objective sense [i.e., the relations of groups to the mode of production] can be said to
have existed ever since the break-up of society based essentially on kinship, class consciousness is a
phenomenon of the modern industrial state" (Hobsbawm 1971: 7). I realize that the sense in which
Hobsbawm's declaration is true depends upon defining full class consciousness as entailing a dear
awareness precisely of one's most important identity being determined by one's place in the mode
of production and that, accordingly, it is only the capitalist mode of production that fosters such an
awareness. It seems legitimate to me, however, to look for evidence of relative self-awareness in the
behavior and - in this period - the artistic production of the only class that produced analyzable
remains, the ruling class.
77 Van Wees 2001 in particular raises substantial challenges to the common assumption of a unified
hoplite class (cf. J. Hall 2007: 155-63), discussed below.
the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is
always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the
economic conditions of production ... and the legal, political, religious,
artistic or philosophic - in short, ideological forms in which men become
conscious of this conflict and fight it out" (MECW 29: 263, my emphasis).
While the changes in the Archaic Period are clearly not of the same
order as the structural change from feudalism to capitalism, I strongly
dissent from Finley's argument that that the whole period from rnoo BC to
AD 500 is best understood as a single unit (Finley 1973a: 29).7 8 A focus on
continuities alone - regardless of their obvious importance - constitutes
a refusal of history. Moreover, as I shall argue below, viewing class strug-
gle exclusively in terms of slavery fundamentally distorts its role in this
period.
CLASS AND IDEOLOGY
In this connection one key area where de Ste. Croix seems to me to offer
an inadequate account of the nature of class struggle is precisely on the
ideological plane, 79 a subject to which he devotes less than fifty of his
537 pages of text and appendices. Of these fifty pages a disproportionate
number are devoted to Christianity. This is no small matter. Though in
the popular imagination "class struggle" evokes images of workers in the
street throwing rocks at the police, 80 open class conflict occurs only in
relatively rare periods of crisis. Most of the time class struggle is carried
on in the hidden ways cited above in the case of slavery but among the
legally "free" predominantly in the sphere of ideology. 81 In relation to
78 I will continue to use the older designations BC and AD rather than the now fashionable BCE and CE.
This relatively recent practice, which has becomes dominant in an amazingly short period, strikes
me at least as ideologically suspect. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that this usage normalius
the peculiar reality of which we are heirs - regardless of our religious beliefs or lack of them - that
one specific religion has imposed itself on the sense of time not only in the "West" but virtually the
whole world. It also implicitly effaces all the specific histories in which that conception of time was
something very real.
79 There is of course a virtually bottomless bibliography on "ideology" in various senses. Eagleton, for
example, begins his chapter "What Is Ideology?" with a short list of sixteen different senses of the
term (1991: 1-2). Mclellan begins his discussion with the declaration "Ideology is the most elusive
concept in the whole of social science" (1986: 1). I attempt below to specify the senses in which I
will use the term. See also Rose 2006: 101-3 and rather more elaborately 1997:151---66.
8° C£ Donlan quote above in note 4. He seems to make a sharper distinction between "class warfare"
and "class conflict" than is warranted. As the earlier quote from Foucault suggests, "warfare" is most
often a metaphor for actual class struggle.
81 Here again Finley's terse 1967 defense of Marxism is remarkable for its clear insiglrts: ''A central
question then is, why the history of all hitherto existing society is so often the history of the absence
Class and ideology 43
slavery de Ste. Croix rightly stresses the ideological role of sheer terror in
savage punishments of any acts of resistance. I also agree with his broad
generalization: "'An essential function of the ideology of a ruling class is to
present to itself and to those it rules a coherent world view that is sufficiently
flexible, comprehensive and mediatory to convince the subordinate classes
of the justice of its hegemony" (1981: 411). But this formulation is a direct
quote from the American Marxist historian of North American slavery
Eugene Genovese (1971: 33), and its implications are hardly explored or
elaborated in Ste. Croix's own accounts of ideology, which he does not
seem to distinguish in practice from propaganda. For all the richness of his
exploration of Marxist and non-Marxist sociological accounts of class, he
shows no awareness of the work of Gramsci (1971), the great theoretician of
"hegemony," nor of Althusser (1969, 1971, Althusser and Balibar 1970), 82
nor - most surprisingly-his great contemporary British Marxist theorist,
Raymond Williams (1977). All three of these thinkers are central, in my
view, to any serious account of class struggle on the ideological level -
as is the work of Fredric Jameson, much of it subsequent to Ste. Croix's
monumental opus, but at the same time drawing deeply on the insights of
the Frankfurt School Qameson 1971), the output of which seems also to
have had no impact upon the thinking of Ste. Croix.
The work of the Frankfurt School, often alluded to simply as "Crit-
ical Theory" Qameson 1971, Jay 1973 and 1984, Benhabib 1986, Kellner
1989b, Bottomore 2002), addressed perhaps the greatest single inadequacy
of Marx's conception of class and class struggle, namely, its rationalism.
Despite his many deep insights into the ruses of ideological distortion and
into the human capacity for self-serving self-deception, the fundamental
optimism of Marx is that people, once they become aware of their own
interest, will act to realize it through structural changes in the organization
of class struggles or of their abortive nature. That is the theme of Marx's little book, The Eighteenth
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, which I have long thought to be the best introduction to Marxist
historical writing. To understand chis phenomenon one must come to grips with the notion ofideology
in the rather technical sense in which it was used by Marx" (Finley 1967: 202, my emphasis). I do
of course disagcee with the word "absence." He amplifies a bit earlier in the same passage: "The
remarkable fact is chat for much of history, slaves, serfs, untouchables, poverty-stricken peasants
failed to struggle. They sabotaged or ran away some ofthe time, but most of the time, even when they
gcumbled, they did what was required of chem" (ibid., my emphasis). Sabotage and running away
are what I would call "hidden" as opposed to "open" class struggle. But Finley's main point is chat
much of the time ideology succeeds in sustaining exploitative relations. At the same time, I chink
he underestimates the role of struggle precisely within ideology.
82 De Ste. Croix (1984: 109 n. 50) remarks dourly chat "through its influence on Louis Alchusser and
his followers, Structuralism seems to me to have done serious damage to the study of Marxism in
France." See further discussion of Alchusser below.
of society. The experience of Nazism, for which much of the German work-
ing class voted, by the members of the Frankfurt School, all of whom were
German Jews forced to emigrate to the United States, led them to explore
with the tools of Freudian psychoanalysis and the sociological insights of
Durkheim, Weber, and other non-Marxist thinkers the rich array of fac-
tors that mystify exploitative relations. From another direction Lukacs in
History and Class Comciousness explored all the formidable intellectual tasks
necessary for the working class under capitalism to achieve the full con-
sciousness essential to their liberation. The net effect of both approaches
was to place far greater weight on ideological analysis. 83
To speak very summarily, 84 Gramsci, also a victim of triumphant fas-
cism, was compelled in his own way to explore more deeply the subtle
range of elements that sustain an exploitative regime. He makes a basic
distinction between "domination," the monopoly of brute force and terror
on which any dominant class ultimately relies to maintain its position, and
"hegemony," the leadership of society that seeks to elicit the consent of
the governed. This latter process of legitimization depends on persuading
the underclasses - most often the exploited classes - either of the moral
and intellectual superiority of the ruling class or - faute de mieux - of the
impossibility of altering the status quo. This is the perspective that is pre-
supposed by the Genovese quotation cited above. Althusser, building on
Gramsci, analyzed the specific institutions - the "ideological apparatuses of
the state" 85 - and practices by which a dominant class proffers and instills
in members of the subjugated classes a version of their identity congenial
to the interests of the dominant class. Althusser begins his famous essay
by posing the very elementary question of how any society- any mode of
production - reproduces itself. Obviously every society recognizes it needs
to reproduce the meam of production, first the tools and raw materials,
and the laborers to use them, then the skills these laborers require to make
effective use of means of production. But, he asks, how are the relatiom of
production reproduced? What does it take for an exploited class to accept
its exploitation by another far smaller class? This is an unreal question for
all those who are predisposed to take for granted that such a social division
is "natural," for, as Roland Barthes put it, "the very principle of myth"
83 See P. Anderson's critique of Western Marxism for precisely this emphasis (P. Anderson 1976).
84 For a fuller discussion and specific references to these authors see chapter 1 of Rose 1992.
85 I am well aware that the "state" in the strong sense of the word did not exist in the Archaic Period
(c£ Cartledge 2002: 19, J. Hall 2007: n9-20). However, from at least the late eighth century there
certainly was a dominant class to whom I think it is legitimate to attribute the sponsorship and
organi7.ation of public religious practice including contests in athletics, music, and poetry as well as
the construction of religious buildings.
Class and ideology 45
[sc. ideology] is that "it transforms history into nature" (1972: 129). 86 But
if one takes the concept of ideology seriously, it is the most basic question.
Althusser's answer is that a key, perhaps the key function of the state is
to guarantee the reproduction of these relations of production, to guaran-
tee that the exploited majority accepts docilely its exploitation. The state
as such Althusser, following Gramsci, argues can be divided into appara-
tuses of "domination" - the monopoly of violence (whether "legitimate"
in Weber's terms or not) through the police and army - and ideological
apparatuses, the various means of persuasion by which those in power seek
to create "hegemony" by convincing those they exploit that they live in the
best possible society or, to put it more brutally, that there is no alternative to
their suffering, that it is "natural." Among those apparatuses he cites are the
religious apparatus, the educational apparatus, the family apparatus, the
legal apparatus, the political apparatus (= "the political system including
the different parties"), the trade-union apparatus, and the communications
apparatus ("press, radio and television, etc.") (Althusser 1971: 143). Many of
these, of course, are not immediately relevant to the Archaic Period or the
Dark Age. Moreover, many classical historians have been at pains to stress
the relative statelessness of much of the Archaic Period. But a moment's
reflection on the enormity of the social investment in our own society in
the various means of constructing specific views of reality and values is
relevant. 87 Althusser's major point is to stress the massiveness of the task
of convincing the exploited vast majority of the population to acquiesce in
their own exploitation for the benefit of a relatively small minority (1971:
130-34). We might still be inclined to believe that this process is only opera-
tive in advanced capitalism, where the state has assumed enormous powers
and functions to such an extent as the agent of capitalism. But Bourdieu
makes the point that in societies essentially lacking a state the investment
of the ruling class in the perpetuation of its privileges is proportionately
greater:
86 Cf. Marx: "One thing, however, is clear: nature does not produce on the one hand owners of money
or commodities, and on the ocher hand men possessing nothing but their own labour-power. This
relation has no basis in natural history, nor does it have a social basis common to all periods of
human history. It is clearly the product of many economic revolutions, of the extinction of a whole
series of older formations of social production" (Marx 1976: 273).
87 As merely the tip of an iceberg, consider these suggestive titles: Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988); Stuart and Eli7.abeth Ewen, Channels of
Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping ofAmerican Consciousness (1982), Stuart Ewen, All Consuming
Images: The Politics of Style in Contemporary Culture (1988); W. F. Haug, Critique of Commodity
Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality and Advertising in Capitalist Society (1986).
In societies that have no "self-regulating market" (in Karl Polanyi's sense), no

educational system, no juridical apparatus, and no State, relations of domination
can be set up and maintained only at the cost of strategies which must be endlessly
renewed, because the conditions required for a mediated, lasting appropriation
of other agents' labour, services, or homage have not been brought together.
(Bourdieu 1977: 183, his emphasis) 88
Althusser argues that both sorts of apparatuses, the repressive and the
ideological, are necessarily "sites of struggle" between those in power and
those exploited by power, though he has been criticized for projecting too
pessimistic a picture of the inequality of the forces engaged in the struggle.
A closely related Althusserian concept is interpellation from Latin inter-
pellare, in the sense of "to address, accost, speak to." 89 He argues that
ideology works by proffering subjects a version of their identity that they
voluntarily accept, but which then "subjects" them to a whole set of ide-
ological practices that in turn construct their subjugated identity. Thus if
one acquiesces in being addressed as "fellow Catholics" or "fellow Evangel-
icals" or "fellow Americans," one becomes enmeshed in specific behaviors
that define the individual in ways that may not be consonant with her
best interests. Through his analysis of interpellation Althusser incorporates
the whole analysis of the construction of individual identities within the
sphere of ideology and class struggle.
Raymond Williams (1977: 121-35) historicized the production of ideol-
ogy by noting that in any given ideological construct, there are likely to be
both "residual" elements of ideology no longer in tune with contemporary
developments and anticipatory elements manifested in a new "structure
of feeling" as well as those dominant elements directly responding to the
realities of the present class configuration. 90
Just as a Marxist view of class insists on its relational character, so a
properly Marxist analysis of ideology implies that it too is a response to
a perceived threat from a class in opposition. But as suggested in the
Genevese quote above, ideology is not simply the same as propaganda,
a conscious imposition of falsehoods aimed at an oppressed underclass,
but is a simultaneous self-deception by the ruling element. 91 As Fredric
88 For Bourdieu's complex relationship to Marxism see Rose 2006: n6-21.

89 C£ Lewis and Short, s.v. B 3, hardly the most common sense of the word.
9° There is an intriguing parallel between the three phases Williams ascribes to ideology and I. Morris's
efforts to offer a more nuanced picture of the status of pottery in any given historical formation:
again we find the dominant style, a residual style, and experiments that look to future developments
(1987: 14-18).
91 I. Morris (1993b: 23) denounces the "propagandistic fallacy - identifying a culpable intrusion of
politics into the sacred." I would agree that viewing many rituals, religious and quasi-religious
Ideology, archaeology, and the sources 47
Jameson well puts it, "ideology is designed to promote the human dignity
and clear conscience of a given class at the same time that it discredits its
adversaries; indeed, the two operations are one and the same" (1971: 380). In
this connection he has elaborated what he calls a "double-hermeneutic" of
ideological constructs (1971: 117-20). Precisely because a ruling class wants
simultaneously to convince its victims and itself ofits essential excellence, it
projects a utopian vision ofitself that is simultaneously self-serving and yet
designed to have a deep appeal to the aspirations of the majority. The very
fact that this vision is not the reality entails a potential threat for the ruling
class: its victims may use the ideal vision as a grounds for rejecting the
rulers' hegemony. Thus a Marxist view of ideology rejects the widespread
use of the term simply to describe the "belief-system" of a whole period or
an entire society or an entire polis viewed as a homogenized entity in favor
of a more ambiguous and inherently dialectical process.
IDEOLOGY, ARCHAEOLOGY, AND THE SOURCES
Ste. Croix seems to conceive of the process of struggle on the ideological

plane exclusively in terms of surviving written texts. Indeed, apart from a
passing predictable allusion to the Thersites episode in book 2 of the Iliad,
he ignores the evidence of Homer entirely and begins his account with the
age of the tyrants. Implicitly he rejects - or at least totally ignores - the
evidence of archaeology for ideological struggle. This brings us face to face
with two problems in discussing the Archaic Period arising from the nature
of the evidence, which is radically heterogeneous. The mute stones and
bones, shards and trinkets of archaeology as well as the more or less readable
remains of the visual arts require a different sort of analysis from the literary
primary sources for the period (epic and lyric), which in turn require a
different approach from the analysis of written testimonia from later periods
phenomena such as temple and shrine building or the alleged recovery by Sparra of the bones of
Orestes (Boedeker 1993) exclusively as cynical, conscious impositions upon the credulous majority
grossly oversimplifies the menral processes involved. But I would still mainrain chat these acts also
served the deep ideological needs of the actors and their agendas toward chose they exploited or
hoped to exploit. As cited in the text, "consciousness lies to itself" (Levi-Strauss and Eribon 1991:
108). The whole issue relates to what is usually dismissed as Marxist scorn for religion by the ciracion
of one notorious phrase out of context. Without denying chat religion played many different roles in
nineteenth-century Europe from the roles it played in archaic Greece, I chink the whole paragraph
of Marx's comment suggests a far more dialectical critique than the relenclessly cited final phrase:
"Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and also the protest against real
distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a hearcless world, just as it is
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" (MECW 3: 175, emphasis in original,
translation slighcly modified).
(especially Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristotle, and Plutarch). 92 In dealing
with archaeological evidence we need to consider in what sense we can speak
of "ideology." One built-in problem with traditional Marxist ideological
critique is its presumption of an opposition between the "ideological"
and the "real." In dealing with the Archaic Age it is terribly tempting -
especially for those of us with a primarily literary training - to present texts
as "ideology" and archaeology as the "real" (cf. Rose 1997: 166-89). But
Ian Morris has rightly insisted that all three of the major categories in his
magisterial survey of the archaeological evidence for the period - burials,
sanctuaries, and settlements - are socially symbolic acts, not transparent
material realia (I. Morris 1998: 4-10 and passim). 93 Nonetheless, the sense
in which grave finds or the remains of an altar suggest a specific, self-serving
social and political message is radically different from the ways in which
a surviving written text articulates a whole range of values, emotional
responses, and intellectual conceptions of the world. As Morris himself
acknowledges, "one problem with the archaeological evidence is that it is
better suited to showing the results of structural change than its workings
or causes" (1987: 201). 94
PRIMARY TEXTUAL EVIDENCE
This is certainly not to suggest that eliciting from the texts of Homer, Hes-
iod, the Homeric Hymns, and the remains of Greek lyric a clear picture of
92 See for example, I. Morris's excellent discussion of the problems with these sources (1987: 24-26).
Raaflaub 1993 offers a very useful overview of the written sources for the rise of the polis. While
Raaflaub (1998), for example, is at pains to distinguish his analysis of the sense in which Homer
relates to historical reality from simple, direct reflection, Latacz (1996: 66) speaks unashamedly of
"reflection." Richard P. Martin (2008) offers a wide-ranging, thoughtful meditation and protreptic
on various relationships between texts and material culture.
93 C£ the argument of a Marxist archaeologist: "Since artifacts are the product of human actions and
are also used to carry out actions, it follows that their meaning derives from their relationship with
beliefs. Each and every artifact has an ideological component" (M. P. Pearson 1984: 61). This, as far
as it goes, is in harmony with I. Morris (1987, 1992) and the more implicit notion of ideology that
seems to lie behind de Polignac's (1995) analysis of cult sanctuaries and Antonaccio's (1995) analysis
of hero shrines (see below). However, as I shall try to make dear subsequently, I have problems with
Morris's use of"ideology" in Morris 1987 and 2000.
94 D'Agostino and Schnapp (1982) offer a useful meditation on the problems of analyzing the funerary
evidence that plays such a major role in discussing the Dark Age and continues to be an important
factor in the attempt to understand the Archaic Period as a whole. After reading Morris's heavy
invocation of the notion of ideology in archaeological evidence I was struck by the relative absence
of discussions of ideology in J. Hall, whose consistent focus on material evidence is one of the
distinctions of his work. He offers a thoughtful critique of Morris's notion of a "middling ideology"
(2007: 178-81) but otherwise seems relatively uninterested in ideology in literary texts as well:
Homer's values and audience are for him unproblematically "aristocratic" (2007: 199, 273). While
often very perceptive citations from Homer and Hesiod are scattered through his text, the substance
of the poems is never addressed.
''Archaic':· periodization and chronology 49
the workings of class ideology in the period is a straightforward process -
far from it. A profusion of often overlapping critical discourses - the "lin-
guistic turn" in philosophy, literary and social theory, in "structuralism,"
"post-structuralism," "deconstruction," "postmodernism," etc., 95 - cumu-
latively has raised important new questions not only about all "texts" in the
broadest sense of the term, but also specifically about orality and literacy
especially relevant to our period. As noted earlier, these discourses have also
tended to dismiss Marxism and the whole realm of the political. Moreover,
since it is in the very nature of ideology that, as Levi-Strauss so succinctly
put it, "consciousness lies to itself'' (Levi-Strauss and Eribon 1991: 108), the
picture that we elicit from literary texts is by no means necessarily or even
likely to be an unmediated reflection of the actual material realities of class
in the period. 96 To aim at this requires a judicious if inherently tentative
distillation of all three types of evidence. How judicious my efforts have
been will of course be decided by each reader. The use in turn of more
self-consciously "historical" ancient sources composed after the Archaic
Period - especially Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristotle and the Aristotelian
"Constitution of the Athenians" (= Ath. Pol.), and Plutarch- has been rad-
ically problematized by a whole array of critiques from those focused on the
unreliability of oral sources to the ideological agendas of the contemporary
political realities of these authors' periods to the sometimes overly ingenious
applications by modern scholars of criteria of "plausibility'' (admittedly a
procedure we are to some extent all stuck with in the face of what often
appear to be hopelessly confusing ancient data). Moreover, there is at times
a kind of implicit competition between scholars to demonstrate who 1s
most rigorously skeptical and who most hopelessly na"ive. 97
"ARCHAIC": PERIODIZATION AND CHRONOLOGY
The perhaps arbitrary presupposition of this book as a whole is that there

is a recognizable entity called the Archaic Period. But the very process of
95 The work of Jonathan Culler (1975, 1981, 1982, 1988) has offered particularly lucid guidance through
these sometimes opaque discourses. See also Eagleton 19966 and Jameson 2009.
96 I fully endorse I. Morris's view: "we should rather think of the epics themselves as artifacts ... The
poems and the archaeological record can only be properly understood when read alongside each
other and woven together, as remnants of competing eighth-century efforts at self-fashioning, out
of which classical Greek civilization was created" (19976: 559). More specifically, Van Wees (1992)
rightly stresses the possibility that much in the poems may be fantasy - fantasy that is nonetheless
evidence of the values, ideals, and aspirations and thus the ideology of the target audience.
97 As noted earlier, this is certainly a leitmotif of J. Hall's historiographic focus (2007), but it struck me
most in the at times harshly impatient tone of the contributions of Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Blok
to the volume of reappraisals of the evidence for the tyranny of Peisistratos (Sancisi-Weerdenburg
2000).
periodization entails a great many assumptions that are themselves open to

the charge of being ideological. Ian Morris in an impressive chapter (1997a)
offers an intriguing historical overview of differing theorizations and ter-
minological designations of the character and chronological parameters of
periods98 that have variously been dubbed the "Heroic Age," the "Myce-
naean Age, " t h e "Dark Age, " t h e "Iron Ag e, " t h e "Age of 1'.evo
n 1utlon,
· "
"The Age of Experiment," The Greek Renaissance," and the "Orientaliz-
ing Revolution." Echoing Foucault (1970: xi), he stresses the inevitability of
the role of the "'positive unconscious of knowledge"' in shaping historians'
efforts at periodization (I. Morris 1997a: 131). While I cannot here engage
in this fascinating debate and pragmatically accept the more or less agreed
upon parameters of the ''Archaic Age", i.e., c. 800-500 Bc, 99 in dealing with
the problem of discussing the relevant evidence I cannot avoid confronting
the underlying assumptions of various suggested periodizations within or
immediately preceding the Archaic Age (itself a term derived from art his-
tory) such as "the "Iron Age" (i.e., based on a technological innovation),
the ''Age of Revolution" (based on a perception of comprehensive change)
and the "Orientalizing Revolution" (based again primarily on art history),
the ''Age of Tyrants" (based on a specific political arrangement), the "Lyric
Age" (based on specific types ofliterary production), or the "Rise of Persia,"
an approach that raises not only the problem of chronological breaks but of
geographic scope. 100 Particularly in dealing even summarily with the period
98 The most provocative brief discussion of the implications of periodization of which I am aware is
by Fredric Jameson 198.4a: 178-80.
99 J. Hall speaks of "a longstanding convention that the lower chronological terminus for the Archaic
Period is marked by the Persian War of 480--479" (2007: 285). Though he himself adheres to this
terminus, he raises good questions about its validity. It is impossible to deal adequately with the
impact of Persia on Greece as if it ended in 479. Its role in the rest of the fifth century, ultimately
decisive in the Peloponnesian War, and its centrality in the politics of the fourth century, during
which it was able to dictate the terms of"peace," and its ultimate conquest by Alexander constitute
a most significant continuum. Unfortunately Jeffrey offered no serious rationale for ending her
account of the period in 500. I freely acknowledge that my decision to end with the reforms of
Kleisthenes may entail unconscious ideological commitments. I did somewhat wince when reading
in J. Hall, "Marxism, for example, tended to eschew explanations that attributed change to external
conquerors and invaders in favor of those privileged technological factors and internal class-based
revolutions" (2007: 53). I had, however, at the time I read this already raised this question in
connection with the consequences of Greek colonization (see below).
' 00 Looking at the "Time-Lines" offered in a number of recent general histories of Greece, I find the
following: Sparkes {1998) "Dark Age: rr0o--900, Geometric Period: 900--700, Orientalizing Period:
7oo---600, Archaic Period: 600--480," Pomeroy et al. in their 1999 volume have "Early Dark Age:
rr5~00, Late Dark Age: 900--750, Archaic Period: 750--490" (xx). In the 2004 abbreviated edition
of their history they have "Archaic Period 750/700--490" (xvi), but in the 2nd edn. {2009) they have
a typo "Archaic Period 750/700--780" (xviii), presumably meaning 480. Finally, Thomas Martin
{1996) has The Archaic Age "approximately 75~00 Be." Ian Morris speaks of the "early Iron
Age" being "conventionally divided into the 'Dark Age,' c. rroo--750 BC, and the Archaic Period,
''Archaic':· periodization and chronology 51
immediately preceding the Archaic Age proper, i.e., the so-called "Dark
Age," where any absolute chronology is dependent upon Greek finds in the
Near East, where, despite the existence of reliable ancient calendars, there
is still dispute about the dates of specific events (e.g., Lemos 2002: 24-25),
there are tremendous problems in arriving at any reliable dates. 101 The chief
reason is that pottery, because of its durability and virtual omnipresence, is
the sole means of establishing relative chronology. However, as Snodgrass
has pointed out, the terms most characteristically used by archaeologists,
terms like Protogeometric, Geometric, or Early Iron Age, are misleading
insofar as they suggest clear, datable parameters. 102 The pottery styles rep-
resent a "continuous evolution, without any detectable break." Use of these
terms "to describe whole periods gives the misleading impression that, at a
given time, a single pottery style prevailed throughout Greece, and that the
impulse for artistic change took place more or less simultaneously every-
where. In fact, the 'Protogeometric' style of one area may arise only toward
its close in another area, and many overlap by a century or more with the
'Geometric' of the latter region" (Snodgrass 1982: 664-65). 103 The same
problem arises with the parameters of the Early Iron Age (Snodgrass 1971:
106-133). In the following text I have therefore tried to adhere to the prin-
ciple Snodgrass recommends: ''Although the chronology of these centuries
remains only very approximate, a better way of understanding the develop-
ments in the various regions of Greece is to assign them conventional dates
in years Be" (1982: 665). While attempting as fully as the evidence permits
c. 750---500 Be" (1987: 7). Not only is there some significant variation in the dates of these divisions,
but, as noted above, the basis for differentiating periods depends either on art-historical categories
(Geometric, Orientalizing, Archaic) or a straightforward political category approach (Oligarchy,
Tyranny, and Democracy). Increasingly much of this period is described simply as the "Iron Age"
or "Early Iron Age" (EIA) (e.g., I. Morris 19976: 535-59) based on the displacement of Bronze Age
metallurgical practice following the breakdown of trade bringing in the essential copper and tin
for the making of bronze. Snodgrass (2000: xxiv) in the Foreword to his reissue of The Dark Age
ofGreece, comments: "Despite the fact that I still strongly maintain the position implied by that
phrase, I nevertheless regret not having named the book, say, The Early Iron Age of Greece."
101 For a general assault on the chronologies used by archaeologists see Vickers 1987. For chronological
disputes about the Dark Age see Papadopoulos 1993 and I. Morris 199µ. J. Hall 2007 also has a
good discussion {30-40).
102 Even more confusing for the non-archaeologist are the various short-hand designations - not to
mention abbreviations-for the periods preceding ProtoGeometric. The pottery from the period of
the flourishing of the Mycenaean Empire {1300-1200 Be) may be called simply "Mycenaean" but is
more often referred to as Late Helladic (LH) III A2, III B, while pottery after the major destructions
about 1200 BC, are referred to as "Late Mycenaean" (LM) or LH III C and Sub-Mycenaean. See
the useful table in Vermeule {1972: 314-15).
103 Although more recent scholarship has doubtless challenged many of the approximate dates offered,
Snodgrass's table of the range of various pottery styles in various areas of the Greek world from
n50 to 700 BC dramatically clarifies the problem of assigning dates to specific styles (1971: 334-35)
without specifying the area.
to adhere to strict chronology, I will focus on those topics where the role
of class seems to me most relevant, recognizing that some topics have very
different time frames from others. Indeed, a general problem in treating
any historical period is an inevitable tension between the diachronic and
synchronic - between a "narrative" and a topical approach. Insofar as my
utopian goal is to convey some sense of the dialectical interaction of the
multiple factors constituting the social totality in any particular phase, the
diachronic takes precedence; but this entails returning to some topics again
and again.
THE PROBLEM OF THE TERMINOLOGY OF CLASS
The terms "aristocracy" and "aristocrats" are so deeply embedded in the

scholarship of this period that even if I personally tried to avoid them, my
citations would be replete with them. 104 The terms are problematic in at
least two senses. Chronologically the process of class formation in the Dark
Age and early Archaic Period requires critical examination, not dogmatic
declarations or uncritical assumptions: at what point is it legitimate to
speak of an "aristocracy" and what precisely is implied by the application
of the term? The latter point constitutes the second problematic aspect of
these terms - especially for readers brought up in Europe or the United
Kingdom. Any serious consideration of the formation and development
of aristocracy in the post-Roman era (e.g., Powis 1984) of western Europe
and Britain reveals some parallels but also striking differences - most
obviously in durability, relative stability, actual power, and terminology.
While we find, for example, in Homer rare instances of the comparative
and superlative forms of the term basileus, generally agreed to designate
some sort of rule (see fuller discussion below in Chapter 2), Greece never
' 04 Osborne (2009: 209-IO) vigorously protests: "The idea that there was a set of people who thought
that political power was their birthright and who associated only with each other [a red herring],
sharing a single 'aristocratic ideology', is a modern fantasy. Throughout this book I have referred
simply to the elite." Ste. Croix declares, "'elites' is one of the most imprecise of sociological
obfuscations" (1984: 109). Osborne (2009: 209) is also understandably, given his views, dismissive
of the term "Eupatridai," but how does he explain a funerary inscription (JG XII,9 296) from
Eretria dated to the sixth century BC: Xaip!wv :i\8rivaios Ev1raTp16wv ev8cx6e KEha[1] ("Xairion,
an Athenian of the Eupatrids, lies here"). The genitive plural Eupatrid8n clearly designates a whole
category of individuals. The centrality of birth to the pre-Solonian political order is also suggested
by the wording ofDrakon's law on homicide, which specifies, "let the Fifty-One select these men
on qualifications of noble birth (ar{i}st[inden)" (ML no. 86 = JG I3 104 = Stanton 1990: 27). The
same criterion is mentioned by the Ath Pol (1) for the judges at the trial of the Alkmaionidai after
the Kylonian affair (c£ Rhodes 1993: 97-98).
The problem ofthe terminology ofclass 53
approached the sort of class consolidation that led in Europe to codified
degrees within the aristocracy- terms like viscount, count, duke, marquis,
baron, lord (cf. Powis 1984: 12-13). Certainly in the period under discussion
in this book the large landowners in Greece never achieved the degree of
control over society exercised by an aristocracy during substantial periods
of European history, nor were its efforts at ideological legitimation so
apparently successful. The degree to which or the point at which they
claim inherited excellence - a key factor in feudal and subsequent claims
to aristocratic status - needs to be closely examined.
But if the Greek ruling class seems always from its moment of emergence
to have faced serious challenges, how are we to identify the class-based
sources of those challenges? There are, terminologically speaking, three
commonly invoked contenders: "peasants," "hoplites," and "slaves." The
applicability of the term "peasant" to Greek agricultural conditions raises, I
believe, more problems than it solves, though it has figured prominently, as
we shall see, especially in scholarly discussions of Hesiod but also in analyses
of the Solonian Crisis and the emergence of democracy (e.g., Wood 1988).
For some scholars (e.g., Thalmann 1998) the opposition between "slave"
and "free" represents the only class conflict worth discussing in dealing
with the whole of classical antiquity, and Marx and even more so perhaps
Engels bear some responsibility for that view. 105 I have already hinted at
the problematic nature of claims for a "hoplite class" and will examine the
10 5 The famous opening of the Communist Manifesto has seemed to many to reflect chis view: "The
history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician
and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed ... "
(MECW 6: 482, my emphasis). The range of terms, though implying different historical epochs,
also implies potentially subtler distinctions in types of oppression. But it is the common designation
of classical antiquity as representative of the slave mode of production (Marx usually refers to the
"ancient" mode, e.g., MECW 29: 263) chat has consolidated chis opposition as the opposition.
As noted earlier, Ste. Croix offers a more accurate, nuanced view of the ancient Greek situation:
"The fact that the propertied classes [his preferred term] of the Greek and Roman world derived
the bulk of their surplus from the exploitation of unfree labour makes it is possible for us to
consider chat world as (in a very loose sense) a 'slave economy' or 'slave society' even though
we have to concede chat during a large part of Greek and Roman history peasants and ocher
independent producers may not only have formed the actual majority of the total population
but may also have had a larger share (usually a much larger share) in production than slaves and
ocher unfree workers" (1981: 209). His argument is chat it was the control of the surplus along
with the leisure provided by slave labor chat allowed the "propertied classes" to dominate political
and cultural life. Though he does not acknowledge it, his view seems to me to be essentially
the same as Finley's: "Given the existence of slavery - and it is a given, for our sources do
not permit us to go back to a stage in Greek history when it did not exist - the choice facing
individual Greeks was socially and psychologically imposed" (1959: 162). However, decisions over
who controlled what land and how much ofit were open choices and therefore the main focus of class
struggle.
matter in some detail below. The Greeks, like other slave-owning societies,
tended to naturalize the institution by discussing it openly as little as
possible: only at the end of the Classical Period in the fourth century BC do
we find in Plato and Aristotle something approaching a serious theorization
of slavery. 106 Though I will attempt to ferret out what evidence there is
in the surviving texts of the Archaic Period and discuss the grounds for
significant developments in the institution, I see those developments more
as consequences than as decisive causes of class struggle in the Archaic
Period. My conviction in the following text is that the most relevant
form of class conflict107 in this period is over control of the chief prize in
material production, agricultural land in a country at least three quarters of
which consist of mountains. Terminologically this struggle is mystified far
more than the potential struggle of slave and free. Those who controlled
larger quantities of land designated themselves as basileis (in Homer and
Hesiod basilees), usually misleadingly translated as "kings" or "princes,"108
as agathoi (literally "good" men) 109 or aristoi ("best" men). The rest of "free"
society are designated derogatorily as kakoi ("bad," "base," "worthless"),
more neutrally collectively as demos, a term which seems originally to have
designated a village, then all those occupying the same socially organized
territory, then all the people excluding the leadership (Donlan 1970). At
some point they are also homogenized as politai ("citizens"). These terms
of course have a history, to which, as far as the evidence allows, I will pay
close attention. A specifically Greek distinction between free men outside
the ruling class is between small landowners (for which I can think of
106 One crucial reason why, apart from the Spartan Helots and Thessalian penestai, Greek slaves were
unlikely to develop a potential for concerted class struggle is clearly theorized by Plato in the Laws
(6.777d): "chose who are going to be slaves more docilely (raion) are neither fellow-countrymen
of one another nor as far as possible speak the same language" (cited by Vidal-Naquet 1986: 206).
Vidal-Naquet's essay (1986: 205-23) is echoed forcefully by Castoriadis: "The important thing about
slavery is not chat there were slaves, it is chat the question was not and could not be raised" (in
Leveque and Vidal-Naquet 1996: 127). But the question of the degree of participation by members
of the demos was raised-from the beating ofThersites to the institution of isegoria (equal right to
speak) and isonomia (equal rights before the law).
107 Finley rightly concludes chat we are "compelled ... to distinguish between a basic institution and
the basic institution" (1959: 161). Clearly slavery was a basic, a fundamental institution of Greek
society, but its role in class struggle and in significant change was severely circumscribed. For an
overview of Marxist and ocher perspectives on slavery see Garlan's impressive introduction (1988:
1-23). For a riveting explorations of some of the implication of ancient Greek slavery and its
"naturali2ation" in much classical scholarship see duBois 1991 and 2003.
108 See Chapter I for fuller discussion of chis term.
109 One alternative for "good" man, eiis, only appears in the singular, presumably for reasons of
euphony. C£ also esthloi. On chis point Bryant (1996: 31) cites Nietzsche's Genealogy ofMorals, for
the class force of these terms.
The problem ofthe terminology ofclass 55
no specific Greek term) and thetes, landless freemen available for hire by
larger landowners. Since there is no easy English equivalent, I keep this
Greek term, while calling the former category "smallholders" or "middling
farmers," the mostly silenced majority of the Greek population.
CHAPTER I
C'-ass in the Dark Age and the rise ofthe polis
COLLAPSE OF THE OLD ORDER
Social structures rarely start with a tabula rasa (cf. Bintliff 1994: 212). We
know from the Mycenaean Linear B tablets - i.e., as a consequence of the
fact that Mycenae had acquired craft literacy - that Mycenaean society
was monarchic, bureaucratic, hierarchical, with sharply differentiated cate-
gories of officials, priests, workers, and slaves (Ventris and Chadwick 1973:
119-25; cf. Kazanskiene 1995). What is not at all clear is what if anything
survived the hundred-year period (roughly 1200-1100) of destruction and
decline. As my opening account of Latacz in my Introduction suggests,
some scholars surmise that even the apparent cataclysm of this century still
left the ruling class of the Mycenaean period significantly in control of the
best land and of decision-making. In this vein some scholars emphasizing
the continuities with the Bronze Age reject the very notion of a "Dark Age"
(e.g., Papadopoulos 1993: 194-97). 1 Others posit varying degrees of radical
social dissolution and reconstitution on new grounds. What are most rele-
vant to the central focus of this study are two closely interrelated questions:
what can we know or reasonably surmise about classes after the collapse
of Mycenae? What developments in class relations led to the emergence of
the polis?
With these two questions uppermost, I will attempt to sort through the
conflict-ridden accounts of the development of social structures during
1 See also his citations of the work of S. P. Morris loc. cit. On the legitimacy of the concept of a Dark
Age I am persuaded by I. Morris's reply to Papadopoulos (199µ) and Snodgrass's more elaborate
defense (2006: 158-72). See also Sourvinou-Inwood 1993: 13 n. r). Lemos, for different reasons, rejects
the concept: "Recognizing that exchange and interaction in a variety of aspects were in full operation
during this period [late n th and 10th centuries BC] completely dismisses the idea of a 'dark age' and
makes clear that this is the period of the beginning of Early Greece" (2002: 225). That the period was
in some sense the beginning of early Greece does not, it seems to me, negate its relative "darkness"
compared to the literate periods that preceded and followed it. Without fetishizing texts, which
have their own opacities and ambiguities, I still feel that interpreting archaeological data in the total
absence of texts is an especially "dark" undertaking.
Collapse ofthe old order 57
this long period during which there are no written records and at the
same time significant indications of radically different developments in
different parts of Greece. The chief sorts of evidence - accumulating all the
time - are pottery, burials, settlements, shrine dedications, and - only at
the end the period - temples and fortifications. On these slippery grounds
elaborate theories have been erected often using the support of comparative
anthropology. In a sense issues of class haunt these discussions - but most
often under the harmless-sounding term of "social stratification," an all but
dead metaphor of society as equivalent to geological layers laid down over
time by the impersonal forces of nature: by the end of the period some
small percentage of the society just happens to be in control of most of
the wealth produced in that society, and the rest of the people just happen
barely to get by. Even more homogenizing is the admittedly convenient
use of "culture" to designate the whole of a society in a particular period
(e.g., Snodgrass 2006: 170). The scandal of Marxism is that it insists there
is a causal relationship between the existence of a small wealthy ruling
class and the existence of a relatively poor majority. It does not deny that
there are natural differences in people's abilities. It does argue that there
is nothing inevitable about these differences manifesting themselves in the
exploitation of the many by the few, and it denies that the consolidation
of classes naturally assigns all the highest human qualities to the exploiting
minority. 2 My own modest goal is to find the most plausible model that
can account for the available material data and the circumstances implied
once we have written data.
Of the many theories for the collapse of the Mycenaean world itself
(Thomas and Conant 1999: 20-26, cf. Snodgrass 1971: 299-323), only two
2 As Marx put it in responding to the account of the origin of capital offered by the apologetic discipline
that was then called "political economy," "this primitive accumulation plays the same role in political
economy as original sin does in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell on the human
race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote about the past. Long, long
ago there were two sorts of people: one, the diligent, intelligent, and above all frugal elite; the other,
lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original
sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but
the history of economic original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means
essential. Never mind! Thus it came to pass that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter
sort finally had nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty
of the vast majority, who, despite all their labour, have up to now nothing to sell but themselves,
and the wealth of the few that increases constantly, although they have long since ceased to work.
Such insipid childishness is every day preached to us in the defense of property" (Marx 1976: 873-4).
That human talents can be devoted to more than the quest for lucre and power is eloquently argued,
for example, in Che Guevara's "Speech to Medical Students and Health Workers" (Guevara 1997:
95-105), a text I wish were required reading for our own health professionals. The worldwide work
of poorly paid Cuban doctors suggests his views were not in principle unrealizable or in violation of
any alleged human nature.
Class in the Dark Age and the rise ofthe polis
entail relevant class issues: the alleged Dorian invasion and the theory
of internal collapse due to some sort of class-based revolution. Snodgrass
(ibid.) has argued that part of the problem with traditional accounts of
the coming of the Dorians (e.g., Starr 1961a: 62, cf. Stubbings 1975: 354,
Winter 1977) - quite apart from chronological difficulties - is a failure to
understand that in terms of dialect and culture, the Dorians were not exter-
nal to Mycenaean culture (Snodgrass 1971: 312). 3 Thus if their movements
are in fact the cause of the century-long breakdown, this would explain
the absence of any serious evidence of a "foreign" intrusion. But if this is
the case, are we to understand that the Dorians represented some sort of
underclass or peripheral element within the Mycenaean social formation?
There is no direct or even indirect evidence to suggest this. But if the
Dorians, as some sort of out-group, did cause the destruction, we would
reasonably expect them to drive out or kill off the ruling class of the older
order. 4
The second theory of an internal revolution - to some degree associ-
ated with Tainter's theory of the inherent tendency of complex societies
to self-destruct (Thomas and Conant 1999:24-26, Tainter 1988: rn-11) -
entails not only a high degree of speculation but, some have argued, a
serious contradiction of the evidence that is available. Snodgrass argued
that revolutions usually entail a winner, whereas the archaeological record
of the early Dark Age implies that everybody lost (1971: 313 citing Desbor-
ough 1966). As noted earlier, Marx, in the opening lines of the Manifesto,
describes open class warfare as something that "ended, either in the revo-
lutionary re-constitution of society at large, or in the common destruction
of the contending classes" (MECW 6: 482, my emphasis). System collapse,
vague as it is, has a certain appeal - especially if one sees the "system"
not exclusively in terms of the Greek mainland but a Mediterranean-wide
l For a recent overview of the Dorian question that also "absolves" them of "responsibility for the
destruction of the Mycenaean palaces" see J. Hall (2007: 43----51). His earlier, very thorough exploration
of the question (1997: 4----16, n4-31) also contains critical perspectives on burials that strike me as
devastating for the sweeping inferences I. Morris (1987, 2000) draws from them. Lemos (2002:
191----93) also summarizes the debate. Her own conclusion is so cautiously worded that I am not
sure whether she is endorsing the Dorian invasion (I think she is) or simply falling back on a vague
notion of unspecified "people": "It is beyond question, however, that both the tradition and the
archaeological record, supported by the linguistic evidence, reflect movement of people during the
course of the Late Helladic III C and SM [Sub-Mycenaean] periods [i.e. 1200----noo ec] Some of
the Aegean regions were abandoned, while others were populated and then destroyed or abandoned
again. People went as far as Cyprus looking for better and safer places to live."
4 This, for example, seems to be the assumption of Hammond in his discussion of early Laconia (1982:
735). Desborough, who follows closely the literary tradition, especially Thucydides, argues: "The
aim of these invaders (i.e., Thessalians, Boeotians and Dorians) was rather to destroy the centres of
resistance in the royal citadels than to lay waste the territories they intended to occupy" (1975: 7n).
Collapse ofthe old order 59
system of interdependent trade relations radically convulsed by a whole
series of shocks, triggered perhaps in the first instance by the collapse of the
Hittite Empire, but eventually embracing Egypt and the whole of the Mid-
dle East. The weakness of the great powers may have triggered or resulted
from incursions from the so-called "Sea Peoples" - possibly a combination
of Philistines, Etruscans, Sicels, and Sardinians (Barnett 1975: 359-78).
Dickinson (2006: 43-57), after an exhaustive and critical overview of a
wide variety of theories of the collapse, very tentatively opts for a version
of Hooker's thesis (1982) of a peasant rebellion as at least explaining part
of the collapse:
If Halstead's model of the palace economy is accepted and it is assumed that the
ordinary settlements' agricultural economy was not organized from the palaces,
a localized but severe drought, or some other problem that produced real food
shortages over a wide area, could well lead to civil disturbances, as a semi-starving
populace demanded supplies that they imagined the palace administration to have
in their control. This could produce a breakdown of order and seizure of stores by
force. (Dickinson 2006: 55)
There is little conviction in Dickinson's overall explanation of the possible

multiple factors leading to the collapse, but exploring the ways in which
the "redistributive" palace economy might have entailed gross inequities
provoking a chain reaction of assault from the social bottom which suc-
ceeded in destroying what it lacked in resources - human and material -
to replace with a more equitable distribution has at least the virtue of
suggesting some meat on the bare bones of "system collapse."
Archaeology then gives us no clear grounds for understanding how and
why Mycenaean society collapsed, but it does suggest some major problems
in positing a purely foreign incursion that left no traces behind.5 What-
ever other consequences of the collapse remain hidden, the collapse clearly
emerges in the archaeological record as an "economic disaster" (Snodgrass
1971: 365, my emphasis) entailing a massive loss of population (Desbor-
ough 1972: 18 gives the staggering estimate of a ninety percent decline in
the course of a century), 6 the loss of basic technologies such as writing,
monumental architecture, elements of metallurgy, jewelry-making, and
5 Popham's overview of the destruction issue (1994) does not even mention the Dorians, dismisses
the system-collapse theory on the grounds that the extent of defensive fortifications implies a major,
well-organized military threat, and opts for the "sea-peoples," whom he identifies (like Barnett 1975)
very tentatively with western peoples from Sardinia, Sicily, and perhaps even from Etruria.
6 More cautiously Langdon (1993: 9) notes: "Estimates of population decline range from 75 percent to
an incredible 90 percent." Donlan (1989b: 134 and note) offers a useful overview of various estimates.
I find it interesting that I. Morris (2000: 196), despite his disagreement with Snodgrass's reading of
the burial evidence, still declares: "population fell by perhaps 75 percent between 1250 and noo."
60 Class in the Dark Age and the rise ofthe polis
wall-painting (Snodgrass 1971: 224) as well a severe restriction of inter-
society communications. Thomas and Conant, while they lament the
alleged exaggeration by other scholars of the level of destruction (1999:
xvi-xviii, cf. I. Morris 1987: 2), still argue repeatedly that the destruction of
the Mycenaean administrative system is the essential precondition of the
rise of the polis.
CLASS AFTER THE COLLAPSE
Under these circumstances what are we to posit as the likely fate of the
Mycenaean ruling class? Most modern scholars have generally followed
Finley's lead in positing both a downgrading and a continuity with Myce-
naean political arrangements: the supreme monarch, the wanax, probably
a warrior king,7 disappears, the minor local official, the pa2 -si-reu, becomes
the chieftain or "king" - as basileus is so often misleadingly translated (Fin-
ley 1957: 141-44, cf. Snodgrass 1971: 387). 8 This entails of course a reading
backward from Homer even by scholars who generally reject Homer as his-
torical evidence. But would these new power-figures, the basilees (plural),
be bloodline-descendants of the Mycenaean ruling class? Would they have
ruled monarchically or collectively or democratically, i.e., as leaders depen-
dent on persuasion rather than coercion? Especially for the early Dark Age,
one needs to be constantly reminded of the differential developments in a
Greece where communities are isolated from one another to a degree not
true for several centuries before. Thus, for example, it seems more likely that
in areas like Attica, which saw no direct destruction of the palace center,
or Euboea, both of which were near traditional coastal sea routes, more of
the old social and economic hierarchy would have survived than in western
areas like Mycenae or Pylos that were sacked and burned or which expe-
rienced massive emigration (Snodgrass 1971: 388, 2006: 165). 9 Snodgrass,
relying on the traditions preserved as late as Pausanias (second cent. AD),
C. Morgan (2009: 46), however, declares: "it is now clear that earlier depopulation is largely an
artifact of archaeological research."
7 If the identification of references in the Hittite records to Akawasha or Ahhiyawa with Achaeans and
to Denyen with Danaoi are valid (Stubbings 1975: 339-40), then the rulers of Mycenaean kingdoms
seem to have personally led expeditions.
8 The normal Attic plural of this noun is basileis, used most often by scholars discussing the term in
Homer and Hesiod, both of whom use the Ionic nominative plural basi!Pes, though Hesiod uses a
contracted form basi!Ps for the vocative. I will use basil~es for both poets as much as possible to avoid
"kings."
9 Lemos (2002: 219) vigorously rejects Whitley's distinction between "stable and unstable settlements"
(Whitley 19916: 348---52). It strikes me as a half-full-half-empty argument. Whitley's general point
about the tendency of big-man societies to be unstable accords well with the anthropological evidence.
The general disappearance of "kings" at the end of the Dark Age suggests that the chieftain form of
one-man rule proved ultimately unstable as well.
Class after the collapse 61
argues that if the royal figures cited in these traditions were real, "they may
sometimes have had to share the territory with others who had no claim
to royal blood, but could muster the necessary retinue to challenge them"
(1971: 388). Donlan more clearly emphasizes the role of competence in the
establishment of leadership in these communities: "we must suppose that
the social, economic, political system of the small damos [the territory and
its people] - now totally disconnected from any central administration -
was simple. It would have consisted of a small group of families, engaged
in subsistence farming and herding, who followed the lead of their ablest
man. The local leader, a 'big-man' type, was called basileus" (1989a: 20,
my emphasis). 10 At the same time, communities like Lefkandi and the
refuge settlement of Karfi in Crete in the twelfth and eleventh centuries
show that Mycenaean communities lived on even if in new sites (Snodgrass
1971: 361), n though, for obscure reasons, both these communities were later
abandoned.
A number of other considerations suggest that the political and ideo-
logical break with Mycenae was extensive. Not only were the tombs of the
old ruling class thoroughly ignored, except in Crete the Mycenaean system
of group burial emphasizing the kinship link was abandoned for a simple
form of single-cist burial that had been the most common practice before
the rise of Mycenaean civilization (Snodgrass 1971: 186, 190; cf. 2006: 133).
A parallel breakdown of the Mycenaean social order may be inferred at the
lower ends of the economic and social scale: to many archaeologists and
historians (e.g., Desborough 1972: 329-55, Snodgrass 1971: 380-88, 1993:
39, Starr 1961a: 63-64) the archaeological record suggests such a level of
poverty and depopulation in the eleventh century that the preconditions
of the systematic exploitation of the small farmers, craftspeople, and slaves
10 Bintliff (1994' 220) misleadingly collapses "big-man society" througbout the Dark Age with aris-
tocracy as the antithesis of "egalitarian." He appears not to know Donlan's work or recognize a
distinction between, on the one hand, a more or less exalted leader who has to persuade his followers
and constantly demonstrate his generosity to them and, on the other, an aristocracy ready to coerce
allegiance. At the same time his emphasis on the process of wealth consolidation and intermarriage
among the families of basil2es (223) offers a plausible model of aristocratic class formation. Carlier
(2006, 1996) vigorously rejects the "big-man" thesis and insists that Homeric basilees are "kings."
It seems to me that he misinterprets a number of key passages where the plural is used (e.g., 1984:
145-50, 2006: 103), but rigbtly stresses that monarchic basil2es were a known phenomenon in the
eigbth century.
11 More recently Snodgrass has argued against the reliance on Lefkandi as a basis for arguments about
continuity: "It is a nice irony that Lefkandi, the site without which none of the arguments cited at
the beginning would have been advanced in so strong a form (whether about the continuity of the
polis, or more especially about the survival of oriental links of the Myceneaean world) was a middle
Helladic site with a thin Mycenaean occupation, to which a return in force was evidently made only
in the final stages of the Bronze Age. By their very choice of such a site, one group of Greeks in the
twelfth century BC made a kind of statement about the rejection of Mycenaean culture, leaving it
to their descendants to rebuild the Near Eastern links on an entirely fresh basis" (2006: 170).
can no longer have existed. This is not to suggest that slavery, an integral
part of the Mycenaean system (Ventris and Chadwick 1973: 123-25), must
have completely disappeared. As Snodgrass argues: "a few slaves no doubt
remained in the possession of the better off'' (1971: 393). In general the
older authorities on the Dark Age (Snodgrass 1971 and Desborough 1972:
especially 329-55) differ most from more recent accounts in the grimness
of the overall picture they offer of life in Greece throughout this period.
Lemos, who limits her discussion to the late eleventh and the tenth cen-
tury, is emphatic in stressing the peacefulness and prosperity of this period
(2002: 191). Indeed much of Sahlins's indictment of the negative picture
normally presented of "stone age" hunter-gatherer societies may, mutatis
mutandis, be relevant to the unrelievedly grim image most of us grew up
with of the Dark Age. He speaks of the "Zen road to affluence, departing
from premises somewhat different from our own: that human material
wants are finite and few, and technical means are unchanging but on the
whole adequate. Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can enjoy an unpar-
alleled material plenty- with a low standard of living" (1972: 2). 12 It may
be that if this period was in general as egalitarian as many archaeologists
suggest and leadership depended primarily on competence and the capacity
to persuade the community, the real roots of democracy are to be found in
the memories of this meritocratic period.
How then are we to envision the class structure of the period once the
breakdown had run its course, i.e., from 1100 to c. 900? On this there
is considerable - perhaps irresolvable - disagreement. As one influential
figure in the debate sums it up: "There is a long-standing division of
opinion between those who believe that Greek society of the early Iron Age
was in general rather egalitarian, and those who on the contrary hold that
it was markedly stratified. Broadly speaking, archaeologists have tended to
make up the former group and historians ... the latter" (Snodgrass 1993:
35). I. Morris, who quotes this comment (I. Morris 1997a: 123 and again
2000: 96), himself argues that "a considerable degree of social hierarchy
survived the twelfth-century catastrophes" (1987: 2) and interprets the rise
of the polis in the eighth century as a consequence of a long period of
class struggle, i.e., "the struggle of dependent peasants against a Dark Age
aristocracy" (9). 13 Though I too believe class struggle was a crucial factor in
'2 Reading Sahlins's chapter on "The Original Affiuent Society" (1972: 1-40) I was struck by the
parallels in perspective of the guru of many young anarchists, John Zerzan (1994).
' 3 C£ I. Morris 1987: 177: "I would suggest that the structural revolution of the eighth century is best
understood as a consequence of class struggle."
Class after the collapse
the emergence of the polis, Morris's approach has come in for and merits
serious questioning. 14
Snodgrass compellingly argues apropos of the debate over the degree of
social differentiation that, when it comes to explaining the rise of the polis,
"it makes a lot of difference which side is right ... If genuine aristocracies
controlled Greek society for centuries before the appearance of the polis,
then either something happened to weaken their grip, or they actively
turned to state-formation as a means of maintaining it or strengthening it -
possibly both in succession. If on the other hand social differentiation had
traditionally been slight, then the developments of the eighth century
take on a different guise, as products of a power-struggle between newly
arisen groups" (1993: 36). 15 Note that either option implies what I at least
14 Presumptuously and regrettably I myself have elsewhere described it as "preposterous" (Rose 1997:
178). The very idea of constructing a whole series of complex changes in social "ideology" (his
oft-repeated term) in the absence of any texts seemed to me highly suspect. At the same time I
must now acknowledge that I underestimated the potential symbolic functions of burial. For a more
archaeologically oriented and nuanced critique that also questions Whitley's reconstruction of the
"ideology" of burial in this period see Papadopoulos 1993. Papadopoulos does not directly address
the class arguments of either I. Morris or Whitley but attacks their exclusive focus on Athens, their
chronologies and methodological assumptions in choosing relevant evidence. Morris's reply (1993a)
depends in part on highly technical arguments about chronology that are beyond my competence
to evaluate. A key factor in I. Morris's overall argument, as far as I understand it, is that early Iron
Age burials entailed a systematic exclusion of non-ruling class dead, a practice that in turn has led
to exaggerated claims about the degree of underpopulation. This struck me as an argument from
silence. Moreover, as Walter Donlan has pointed out to me, it implies an amazing degree of control
by a ruling class to be able to exclude people from one of the most sacred of rituals among most
known peoples. This of course would not preclude those with power imposing burial in more remote
locations that may have escaped the archaeologist's trowel. Though the concept was difficult for me
to imagine, Snodgrass now accepts it (2006: viii), and Papadopoulos acknowledges that "invisible
burials ... are facts established for many cultures." He is more troubled by "the 'toing-and-froing' in
time of exclusion and formal burial of part of the community- that is to say, the blatant reversals of
the fate of!. Morris's kakoi, who at one time receive formal burial, then they do not, then they do,
then they do not, and finally they do again. Although, as I. Morris persuasively argues, this may well
be the result of intense struggle within a highly stratified community, it may equally be the result
of the way one measures structure, in this case mortuary variability, in the archaeological record"
(Papadopoulos 1993: 183-84). I. Morris's case for exclusion as explaining the population level is
hardly strengthened by the agreement between Desborough, Starr, Thomas and Conant, Snodgrass,
et al. about the general, striking array of evidence (not just burials, but settlements) for a massive
drop in population after the fall of the Mycenaean palaces. As argued in the text, it is the low level of
population that seems to me the strongest argument against a high degree of social differentiation in
this period. Whitley, who agrees with Morris about later exclusion, does not support his analysis of
the protogeometric period (1991a: 84). Humphreys's review of!. Morris (1990) is fully as dismissive
as Papadopoulos. I. Morris's subsequent elaboration (2000) of his 1987 thesis - now subordinated
to a vast expansion of his middling vs. ruling class thesis - has alas restored my initial incredulity -
much reinforced by Jonathan Hall (1997: 123--31).
15 Hagg's account of burial in Argos (19836) would seem to support Snodgrass's view that the differen-
tiation was relatively late, i.e., an eight-century phenomenon. Poor people seem to have opted for
pithoi burials. The tendency for larger cist graves "becomes more obvious towards the second half
of the eighth century" (28). He concludes, "the homogeneous society of the Protogeometric times
would call some form of class struggle as decisive in the rise of the polis.
Snodgrass's further argument in favor of a relatively slight degree of social
differentiation down to the eighth century also strikes me as compelling:
the low level of population, the tiny size of most excavated settlements
in the earlier Iron Age - isolated and usually containing well under 500
people - was simply inadequate to generate a sharply differentiated ruling
class (1993: 39). It is hard to speak of "exploitation" when the social unit
produces very little or no surplus. 16
In so far as one can generalize, Snodgrass's analysis seems to me to
fit well with Donlan's picture of the period down at least to the middle
of the ninth century: villages headed by warrior big-men and chieftains
(Donlan 1985 and 1989a) 17 with relatively small bands of followers whose
loyalty depended not on kinship or any aristocratic principle of legitimacy
but the success of the chief in protecting the community, solving dis-
putes fairly, and enriching it through raiding other communities (Donlan:
1989a). Solidarity was presumably reinforced at this stage both by the "nat-
ural" effects of kinship as well as the leader's use of communal meals and
ritual practice including all the males. 18 The problem is that consideration
of specific areas always seems to challenge any "general" picture. Lemos
had developed by the end of the 8th century into a differentiated society with at least two distinct
classes, each with its-characteristic burial customs. Still, it should be stressed that the differences
between rich and poor tombs is not so striking as in many other societies" (31).
16 An indirect archaeological confirmation in my mind of the major emergence of an aristocracy in the
late ninth/early eighth century is the reappearance of the artistic use of bronze: "About 800 BC ••• a
resurgence in the artistic use of bronze took place, resulting in the small human and animal figures"
(Mitten and Doeringer 1968: 19). Osborne (1998a: 24-27) stresses the prominence among these of
horses - "a sign of status, of conspicuous expenditure, and of power" - in the eighth century, "which
disappear virtually completely from the sanctuaries of southern Greece around 700 Be."
17 Sahlins (1963) rather sharply distinguishes the charismatic and far less stable big-man of Melanesia
from the more solidly legitimated chiefs of Polynesia; but the Greek picture for the early Iron Age
entails presumably a greater fluidity: though most of Homer's basil2es at Troy are sons of basil2es,
suggesting the status of chiefs, their genealogies rarely extend back more than two generations and
they, like big-men, must constantly demonstrate their prowess to stay in power. Raaflaub 1993: 90
n. 32 argues: "These basileis were neither kings nor aristocrats, and the paramount basileus is no
king either, if such words are to be used in any precise sense. Given their later connotations, such
terms are mostly misleading and useless; they should be avoided altogether." Van Wees (1992: 28 and
passim) is highly skeptical of the whole concept of big-men and chiefs as relevant to understanding
Homer. He makes a very compelling case for his version of what the poems assume about political
leadership, but his project is by definition unconcerned with what may have preceded the poems.
18 Bintliff, based on an unpublished paper by Paul Halstead showing how "traditional Mediterranean
farming societies convert surplus crop production into capital investment in animal stock," argues
that this might explain the big-man or basileus engaging in extravagant feasting with meat as a
status symbol (1994: 222). Seaford (2004: 39-44 and passim), focusing on Homeric evidence and
the broader anthropological account of animal sacrifice in Burkert (1983), makes a very compelling
case for both the centrality of communal meals to social solidarity and to its essentially egalitarian
character.
(cf. Crielaard 2006), for example, argues that at Lefkandi Donlan's account
of the paramount basileus fits well as an explanation of the high status of
the so-called "hero of Lefkandi," but argues that already at the occasion of
his burial (c. 950 Bc)'9 this form of rule was being decisively displaced by
an aristocracy- a development generally attributed to the eighth century:
The construction and destruction of a copy of his own house where members of
the local ruling class might have dined with him may have further symbolized the
end of a political era. The mound that covered the building required the effort
of the whole community, the demos of Homeric society. Thus, the whole demos
was involved in marking the end of a political institution and the beginning of
another. In this new order, members of the local ruling class buried their dead at
the entrance to the building which denoted some continuity. In reality, however,
the political and social structures of the community had changed: the equally
distributed wealth in the rich graves at the Toumba cemetery illustrates the shift
from the rule of a paramount basileus to that of an aristocracy. (Lemos 2002: 218)
She goes on to describe this aristocracy as securing "its prosperity for

seven generations" (219; she counts a generation as twenty-five years), 20
after which the site becomes mysteriously uninhabited. Perhaps this early
experiment in regime change produced its own contradictions leading, in
Marx's phrase, to "the common ruin of the contending classes" (MECW 6:
482). But it is worth noting that the original reason for excavating the site
was its strategic position on the Lelantine plain, the site of one of the first
wars over territory in the late eighth century (Popham et al. 1980: ix). 21 It
may be, as Lemos speculates, that the ruling class generally moved to nearby
19 Lemos, heavily involved in sorting out the pottery ofLefkandi (Catling and Lemos 1990), describes
the date as "the end of MPG" (2002: 218). If one has recourse to her discussion ofabsolute chronology
{24-26) this emerges as 950 BC. Not least of the frustrations of attempting to make some sense of
the Dark Age are the disagreements between major authorities. Lemos, has a date fifry years later
than Snodgrass (1983a: 167), who cites the report of the excavation by Popham and Sackett (1980).
Boardman, in his widely used textbook {1996: 31) also gives a date of "about 1000 B.c." for the
heroon. In their short report on the "hero" Popham et al. cautiously speak of "probably between
the years 1000 and 950" (1982: 171). I. Morris's awesomely imaginative reading of this site (2000:
195-238) as implying an invention of a heroic age in contrast to an iron age 200 years before Hesiod
requires a willing suspension of disbelief.
20 Antonaccio (2002: 31-32) argues that the man buried in Tomb 79 may in fact have succeeded to the
status of basileus, in which case Lemos's assumption of a change in the type of rule would not hold.
I. Morris's flamboyant reading of the "hero" ofLefkandi (2000) is decisively rejected by Antonaccio
(2002: 34 and 37 n. 30).
21 J. Hall begins his history lesson with a "deconstruction of the Lelantine War" (2007: 4-8), con-
cluding, "we do not know when - or even whether - the Lelantine War occurred" (8). Yet even he
acknowledges that Thucydides (1.15), whatever his agenda, is unlikely to have made up his account
out of whole cloth (4). Hall's "Derridean" tour de force, though raising many valid points about
Plutarch et al., strikes me as a good example of the recent "gotcha" style of skepticism about the whole
period. J. K Davies declares, "the 'Lelantine War' of an earlier generation has largely faded from
sight" (2009: 16). Given other evidence of wars over land in the eighth century (see, for example, on
Eretria when Lefkandi was destroyed near the end of the eighth century.
In any case, despite the surprising date of the displacement of the basileus,
Lemos's analysis - itself not free from speculation - gives some material
confirmation to the speculatively constructed account of the process which
more generally in the later half of the eighth century culminated in the
birth of the polis.
The history of Nichoria in the area of Messenia in some respects repre-
sents the other end of the spectrum of social formations in the Dark Age
and may be more typical of those areas not naturally suited for extensive
trade as were Lefkandi and Athens. During the Mycenaean Period it was
a feudal appendage of the empire centered at Pylos, under the leadership
of a pa2 -si-re-u, surrounded by a cohort of larger landowners (te-re-ta) and
supported by a subordinated population of 600-800 (Thomas and Conant
1999: 34-36). It appears to have been deserted from about 1200 BC until
about 107522 when a group of perhaps thirteen or fourteen families (about
sixty people maximum) settled on this strategically appealing hill. They
"used portions of the remaining stone foundations to erect their individ-
ual one-room houses ... Upon the groundwork of ruined houses from the
Mycenaean Age, the new inhabitants threw up 'flimsy superstructures of
organic material"' (Thomas and Conant 1999: 36-37, quoting McDonald
et al. 1983: 57). For roughly a hundred years there is no indication of any
social differentiation, but beginning about 975 there are now perhaps forty
families and roughly two hundred inhabitants whose homes are clustered
around a larger structure that in the ninth century was only about a third
the length of the massive heroon at Lefkandi. By 850 or so this structure
was enlarged and seems to have become the collection and redistribution
Sparta below), I am tempted to say of the Lelantine War, se none vero, e ben trovato. Osborne (2009:
146--47), though he throws in a cautious "if we take the autobiographical information seriously,"
seems to find quite plausible that "Hesiod's own day may have been marked by serious warfare."
V. Parker's ambition "to remove" the doubt of another critic "once and for all" (for allemal zu beseit-
igen 1997: n) may be excessive, but in this battle of probabilities, I found his case more compelling
than Hall's.
22 Foxhall's account {1995) of Nichoria's essential continuity with Mycenaean social and economic
structures leaves me with the impression that she has read totally different data from those on which
Thomas and Conant rely: "Its excavators believe that it was deserted for about a century from
ca. 1200. However, a thin, random scattering of twelfth-century sherds may attest to uninterrupted
occuation" (Thomas and Conant 1999: 36). Foxhall sees in cattle bones not evidence of pastoralism
but a local ruling class, freed of control from Pylos, living high on the beef, so to speak. Aside
from one cryptic reference to a "different scale" {246), her account makes no mention of the drastic
drop in population assumed by other accounts of the early Dark Age. Lefkandi, which Snodgrass
estimates at well below 500 souls (see below) she describes as "hardly insignificant in size" {249) and
sees it as a proto-polis. Wbitley's more recent survey of the evidence for Nichoria (2001: 84-86),
which he calls a typical Dark Age settlement, supports the view taken by Thomas and Conant.
J. Hall too calls "Nikboria ... more typical, perhaps" of Dark Age settlements (2007: 60).
center for the community. 23 In the early period of "big-man" leadership,
presumably the whole male community participated in collective ritual
banqueting. It is plausible that the size of this building was a consequence
of its function as the locus of communal feasts 24 aimed at binding fol-
lowers to leaders (Murray 1983). A hundred years later, i.e., c. 750, the
entire community was burned and abandoned. The data, such as they are,
suggest an initial leaderless collection of displaced persons who achieve
some stability in a relatively defensible site, eventually come to "depend"
in some sense on a leader, though there is no particular evidence of military
danger before the settlement's destruction. Judging from the expansion of
his house, the leader's status seems to have increased over time, but there
is no clear evidence of greater wealth or status aside from a larger home,
which may have functioned as a community center with perhaps a role in
economic collection and redistribution as well as some religious functions.
In the latter half of the eighth century, when other evidence suggests a more
general pattern of military conflict over land, 2 5 the community is wiped
out. The analyses of both Lefkandi 26 and Nichoria suggest that with the
gradual growth of population some chiefs emerged as paramount chiefs,
commanding limited loyalty from leaders of smaller bands. How then are
we to understand the transition from these smaller groups coalescing to
the full emergence of the polis?
23 Lemos notes that in the hero/in at Lefkandi the "main feature of this room [sc. the Apse Room] is
the large number of pits closely spaced in its south-east corner ... They may have been dug to hold
large storage vessels" (2002: 144).
24 Seaford has an excellent, suggestive description of the formulaic (2004: 46) accounts of feasts in
Homer stressing their integrative function, "the egalitarian participation of the whole group" (2004:
40) and citing Burkert 1983 for the fact that "the ancient, regular and highly ritualized slaughter and
distribution of the animal ensures that everybody has a share, that there is an 'equal feast' {41, my
emphasis). Cf. Nimis (1987: 23-42).
25 J. Hall, ever emphasizing what we can't know, rightly declares: "It is impossible to establish whether
there really was any connection between the destruction ofNikhoria and the First Messenian War"
(2007: 173). He also questions whether land was an important motive for the Spartan conquests
(2007: 170-2) but does not cite Tyrtaeus' reference to the soil of Messenia (see below).
26 For all his imported trinkets and atypically "grand" architecture, the "hero ofLefkandi" still seems to
have been at best a very successful paramount chief I. Morris cites but rejects the sensible suggestion
of Popham and Lemos that the "hero" should be thought of as a "warrior trader" (Morris 2000:
250, Popham and Lemos 1996). Given Euboean early engagement in trade, this is plausible. The
earlier connections of Lefkandi with deracinated Mycenaeans (Snodgrass 1971: 361) suggest perhaps
that this was a nostalgic effort to recreate a god-king image with considerably fewer resources at the
disposal of those who would benefit most from such a gesture. Raaflaub notes that other scholars
have raised the question whether his apparent divinization and wealth will remain a unique example
for long {1993: ro4 n. 173). But Snodgrass restores our sense of the modest proportions of even this
community. Writing in 1983, he argues that the "evidence of the Lefkandi cemeteries has yet to attest
to a population of much more than fifty people" and that to "credit it with a stable population of at
least 500 is to imply that something like 32 farther cemeteries, of the same periods and of the same
order of magnitude as the four considered here, must once have existed" {1983a: 169, his emphasis).
A TENTATIVE MODEL OF THE TRANSITION
Snodgrass, 27 Qviller, and Donlan, for example, relying on a combination

of Homeric data and comparative anthropology- especially that of Sahlins
(1963) - offer a convincing analysis of the process by which a society
dominated by these "big-men" and "chiefs" could have changed into a
set of poleis dominated by aristocrats. These analyses elucidate but do
not highlight the changing forms of economic exploitation, the means
of accumulating and distributing a socially generated surplus. Though of
course different parts of Greece are likely to have evolved at different rates
and, as, for example, Davies and Whitley rightly remind us, not all areas
of Greece took the same path (J. K. Davies 1997, Whitley 1991a: 187 and
passim), some such model of gradually escalating change as the following
seems to account for the data of archaeology in Central Greece (cf. I. Morris
1998) and the Homeric poems. 28
Under economic conditions very near bare subsistence level with low
population and virtually limitless land in proportion to the population,
powerful warriors, who in some but not all cases may have been survivors
of the Mycenaean ruling class, amass a band of followers who together raid
the flocks or destroy the crops of neighboring little communities. 29 These
27 Snodgrass, like most archaeologists (c£ Vermeule, Whitley, Lemos), is extremely skeptical about
many of the claims made for the historicity of the society portrayed in Homer (1974 = 2006:
173----93) but does concede that the poems are "of priceless worth for eighth-century Greece if sifted
carefully enough" (1971: 393).
28 Like Donlan, I believe it is legitimate to use Homer to amplify the archaeological record of the
pre-polis period, but with I. Morris (see note above) I am convinced that a reading of the poems
as purely a reflection of a given set of social, political, or economic conditions is inadequate. At
the same time I find Geddes's radical skepticism (1984) about the historicity of Homeric basil;,, as
salutary as it is excessive. Van Wees, bucking the tide of archaeological skepticism, argues for an
essential harmony of the picture oflife in the poems ("the economic organization of the household,
the social organization up to the level of the town, and the political organization up to the level of
the state appear not only coherent but also entirely compatible with what we know of conditions in
Greece in the eighth and early seventh century" (1992: 58). Raaflaub 1998 offers a helpful overview of
changing assumptions about the degree of internal consistency of the social and political picture as
well as the historicity of the subject matter of the Homeric poems. He argues that recent scholarship
has "shifted the burden of proof to the side of those who continue to deny the substantial historicity
of Homeric society or the 'Homeric World'" (169). He also notes that the general tendency has been
away from Mycenaean associations towards later and later dates, concluding, "the epics are grounded
in the time of their creation and reflect the outlook, ideology, and culture of this period" (186). He
ends by tentatively endorsing the arguments of Van Wees (1992), Burkert (1976), West (1966), and
others for a date in the first half of the seventh century as against the previously near-canonical dating
of the Iliad about 750 and the Odyssey some twenty-five years later (for further discussion of dates
see below). He notes, however, that the later dating inevitably escalates the degree of "archaizing"
we then need to attribute to the poet(s) (188).
29 I find compelling Snodgrass's case (1971: 378---80, 1980: 35-7, cf. Donlan 1989b: 143-45) for the
relative predominance of animal husbandry in the earlier period and a gradual shift to greater
A tentative model ofthe transition
communities are in essence egalitarian even if on the military level they are
meritocratic. The leader owes his position first and foremost to his actual
prowess on the field of battle, to his ability to protect the settlement of his
followers, and to redistribute fairly the collective surplus of the community
and whatever new wealth is acquired by raiding. 30 Though his leading
contribution entitles him to a greater share of the surplus than the rest of the
band and his home is larger and his share of the community's land is greater
than those of the rest, his generosity is a key to his success, and his home and
lifestyle are not radically different from those of his followers, 3' with whom
he has a personal, face-to-face relationship reinforced by charisma. 32 As
reliance on agriculture with major consequences for expansion of the population. Burford is quite
militant in denying that "Greek land use underwent a major transformation during the Dark Age
from being predominantly pastoral to an arable regimen ... Mixed farming to a greater or lesser
degree had always been the pattern" (1993: 75). The question hangs perhaps on her equivocation -
"to a greater or lesser degree." Tandy, despite his disagreements, following I. Morris, about the
pace of population growth, also associates it with a shift in emphasis from pasturalism to grain
production (1997: 19 and passim). This is disputed by Lemos (2002: 196). The title of a Museum
catalogue of an exhibit of Geometric Art, From Pasture to Polis (Langdon 1993), takes Snodgrass's
concept for granted. Hurwit in his essay in that collection makes this interesting suggestion: "One
of the clearest archaeological features of the Early Dark Age - the relative dearth of sites - may best
be explained by a surge in pastoralism" (1993: 23). That crops were sometimes a target is suggested
by Achilles' reference in Book 1: the Trojans never "drove off my cattle or in truth my horses,/ Nor
in Phthia with its rich earth the nurse of men/ Did they destroy my harvest" (1.152-6). Marx in a
footnote to Capital points out: "Truly comical is M. Bastiat, who imagines that the ancient Greeks
and Romans lived by plunder alone. For if people live by plunder for centuries there must, after all,
always be something there to plunder; in other words, the objects of plunder must be continually
reproduced. It seems, therefore, that even the Greeks and Romans had a process of production,
hence an economy, which constituted the material basis of their world as much as the bourgeois
economy constitutes that of the present day world" (Marx 1976: 175 n. 35). Homer's text could be
cited to explain M. Bastiat's confusion, but the world of the similes and the shield restore some
sense of the underlying reality of agricultural production in a world where plunder seems the main
activity of the ruling class.
3° Cf. Whitley 1991a: 184' "Big men could offer some of the security that had previously been provided
by the palaces. But big men also needed to attract followers, when followers were hard to come by.
Though they may have wished to behave like Mycenaean kings, their position always depended on
constant exertions to maintain any kind of following."
l' Snodgrass, writing to be sure before the excavation of the hero/in at Lefkandi, points out the general
picture, "Among the hundreds of burials known from Greece in this period, some few at least must
be those of aristocrats and rulers; yet, south of Macedonia, there is barely a grave between the early
eleventh and the late tenth century which can be called rich" (1971: 386, cf. Donlan 1985: 294). His
use here of the term "aristocrat" seems careless and contradicts the thrust of his analysis quoted in
my text. Strasburger long ago (1953) underlined the relative modesty of the lifestyle of even the most
exalted Homeric "kings'': Odysseus boasts of his prowess in plowing and mowing (Od. 18.366--75)
and can build his own boat (Od. 5.234-61); Nausicaa, daughter of the magically wealthy "king" of
Phaeacea, still does the family laundry (6.57-65) and though "slaves" (dm6es) harness the wagon for
her (69-71), her princely brothers are the ones who unyoke her wagon and carry the laundry inside
(Od.7-4-7).
l 2 Sahlins (1963) stresses the individual charismatic character of the big-man's leadership as compared
to the chief's status being inherent in the office. For the concept of charismatic leadership see Weber
Donlan, relying on comparative anthropological models, has convincingly
argued, such leaders have "charismatic authority" when they engage in
persuasion, but they cannot "compel" the obedience of their followers
(1979: 42-44). At the same time in addition to getting a greater share
of the dasmos (division of spoils) when raids are successful, the big-man
expects regular "gifts" from the demos in return for military protection and
settling local disputes. 33 His model has some striking affinities with the
picture presented by Levi-Strauss, whom, as far as I know, he does not use.
Levi-Strauss notes; ''Around 1560, at Rouen, Montaigne met three Brazilian
Indians ... and he asked one of them what privileges the chief (he used the
term 'king') enjoyed in his country; the native, who was himself a chief,
replied that 'it was to march foremost in any charge of warre' ... For me,
it was an even greater cause for astonishment and admiration to be given
exactly the same reply four centuries later" (Levi-Strauss 1974: 310). Levi-
Strauss goes on to argue that "in fulfilling these obligations, his primary
and principal instrument of power lies in his generosity. Generosity is
an essential attribute of power among most primitive peoples" (ibid.). 34
Moreover, he notes, apropos of a leader's attempt to exploit a bogus posture
of literacy to enhance his authority, that those who distrust a leader feel
free to drift away from his band and join another, suggesting again that in
such social formations bonds of kinship are far from decisive in holding a
band together (1974: 296-300).
In order to amass a larger following and in the interest of enhancing his
own prestige and ensuring some relative regional stability, the big-man tries
to build alliances with other leaders through a system of reciprocal gift-
giving (Finley 1978) and by taking in wanderers and beggars (Qviller 1981:
(1968). What is often ignored in Weber is his insistence that charismatic leadership arises first because
the people consider themselves in a disorienting state of crisis and second because people attribute
to the charismatic leader superhuman, i.e., divine support. This seems to me the best explanation of
the origin of such Homeric epithtets as "diotrephees" (Zeus-nurtured) and "diogeneis" (Zeus-born)
or Hesiod's explicit declaration, "basil2es are from Zeus" (Th. 96). Granting this, I nonetheless find
the concept of charisma too often masks a failure to explore the rhetorical strategies that render one
speaker consistently more persuasive than another.
33 E. Harris 1997: 108---109 conveniently summarizes the evidence from Homer and Hesiod (II. 9.149-
56 = 291-97, 12.310-21, 17.225-6; Od. 13.13-15, 19.194--98; WD 36-39). Van Wees, in his brilliant
exploration of the analogy between archaic Greek ruling class and nineteenth- and twentieth-century
mafias in Sicily and the U.S., rightly stresses how easily this sort of reciprocity becomes a fa~de for
extortion and exploitation (1999a: 6--7 and passim); but I am positing an historical development from
a putative period when this reciprocity was perceived as essentially just by the whole community to
a period when its assumed fairness seemed less and less credible. As I will argue below, the central
conflict of the Iliad arises precisely over the issue of whether the community or the chief ultimately
controls the dasmos.
34 See Bourdieu 1977: 171-83 for a more nuanced account of the gift economy and its breakdown with
a running critique of "economism."
A tentative model ofthe transition 71
122-23, 139). 35 The need for more impressive gifts may have played a role
in the expansion of trade. Snodgrass suggests that the earliest trade was for
metals, first for copper and tin, later for iron (cf. Od. 1.183-84). Presumably
the metals were used for agricultural implements as well as weapons, but
weapons seem to have been the chief goal (Snodgrass 1971: 335-36, 2006:
126-43, cf. Gray 1954). To acquire luxury goods to offer as gifts, the chief
sells his agricultural surplus first probably to traders from the east, subse-
quently perhaps abroad either in person or through intermediaries, 36 thus
setting in motion a whole dynamic beyond his imagining (see below for
fuller discussion of trade and colonization). Whenever the wealth acquired
by trade or raiding is inadequate to make appropriate gifts, he extorts
more "gifts" from his followers to support his relations with lesser chiefs
(cf. the extra gifts extorted from the Phaeacian demos to compensate for
the extraordinary gifts bestowed upon Odysseus at Od. 13.13-15). 37 It is also
plausible, as Bintliff (1994: 223) suggests, that intermarriage within chiefs'
families contributed to the consolidation of wealth and class. 38
As long as a chief's followers believe that reciprocity is broadly sustained
in the society as a whole - even if what is reciprocated is mainly "protection"
for livestock and produce, communal meals, and credibility in settling
35 Van Wees makes an interesting case that at least in the Homeric poems only wanderers are taken in
as retainers and the household of the basileus sustained very few of these (1992: 104).
36 Tandy argues that more important than deciding if big-men were personally "agents" of trade is
recognizing that they were its chief beneficiaries (1997: 75). He stresses repeatedly that most early
trade was in luxury goods not subsistence goods. But presumably, since the chief wealth of the
Greek big-men and chiefs was agricultural wealth, it must somehow be exchanged for foreign luxury
goods. Schaps (1998: 7) makes the point that it really does matter who is the agent since the agents
are presumably the ones who get richer as a consequence of trade; and Tandy takes for granted
that the aristocrats were in fact getting richer as a result of these exchanges. For what it is worth,
"Menees" - who represents himself as the social equal of Odysseus - carries out his metal trading
personally, but see Chapter 3 below on the Odyssey. Snodgrass (1983b) stresses the evidence for the
transport of metal ores. He also underlines the strong possibility that early trade was carried out on
a more cooperative basis than contemporary conceptions of trade migbt suggest: "a galley required
a crew of 50 (or more: Humphreys (1978: 300, n. ro) trained oarsmen who either had to be paid
or take a share in the profits of a venture. Humphreys (1978): 168 notes the telling point that in
Herodotus 2.152.4 the whole crew of the ship of Colaeus of Samas makes the dedication of the tithe"
(1983b: 17). Crielaard (2006) makes a strong case, with numerous citations from the Odyssey, that
the ruling class ofLefkandi were personally heavily engaged in seafaring. At the same time he begins
by stressing the relative uniqueness of the Euboean western coastal area.
37 Thalmann (1998: 262) rigbtly remarks apropos of the society depicted in the Odyssey, "redistribution
in this society is predominantly the How upwards and then horizontally, not to any great extent
back down. Goods, that is, are extracted from the community by the leaders and then redistributed
among the ruling class as gifrs of varying kinds to cement relations between leading households."
At the same time he ignores the evidence of equality in the distribution of communal meals stressed
by Seaford (2004: 41), who points out that in the scene on the beach of Pylos a community of 4,500
is represented as having an "equal" share in the feast.
38 On the role of this "traffic in women" see Levi-Stauss (1969) and the awesome feminist critique by
Gayle Rubin (1975).
disputes - all is well. As the leader's territory expands, he resorts to gifts
of land to woo the adherence of lesser warrior chiefs. 39 This very process
entails a fatal contradiction: the more followers he attracts in this way the
less direct control of the decisive ancient source of wealth - agricultural
land- the big-man retains. Nonetheless, if these efforts at building alliances
are successful and his son is also a good warrior, he may be able to pass
on his role to his son and thereby establish at least a shaky principle of
inherited power or a "chiefdom" in anthropological terms. To the extent
his war-making keeps his territory free of invasion and perhaps brings
in slaves, his followers devote more of their labor to agriculture than to
animal-husbandry, which increases the food supply and population. 40 This
in turn increases the value of land, more and more of which, thanks to his
gifts, is owned by the chief's warrior band, while presumably the poorer
farmers are pushed off to marginal land at the same time that their share
of the economic burdens of sustaining this warrior ruling class increase.
In this period the primary power struggles are between the paramount
chief and the subordinated local leaders, who vie for supremacy in part
through conspicuous consumption, attempting to awe the poorer masses
by their superior accoutrements and lavish funerals. The legitimacy of the
paramount chief is meanwhile undermined by his increased exploitation
of his poorer followers by extortion of "gifts" both to retain the adherence
of his warriors and to compete with them in conspicuous consumption.41
39 In Homer the most frequent grants of land are in the form of the temenos, said to be the gift of the
people (Donlan 1989b) and represent "the ideal relationship between leaders and d~mos . .. one of
fairness, mutual obligation, and generosity" (145). When Agamemnon offers seven cities to Achilles
(IL 9.149-56) or when Menelaus speaks of wanting to give Odysseus a city in Argos (Od-4-174-5) or
Eumaios expected a gifr ofland from Odysseus (Od. 14 62-6), we must conclude that a different
sort of relationship to land-ownership is at stake. See Qviller's list of Homeric distributions or offers
of land (1981: 132-34). One of Qviller's main theses is that the pressure on the paramount basileus
to be the most generous to fellow members of the ruling class led to ever-escalating extortion from
the d~os and a consequent discrediting of the institution of monarchy.
40 Lemos herself, as noted earlier, dismisses the argument of Snodgrass that there was a gradual shift
from pastoralism to agriculture (2002: 191 and passim) and alludes to various other scholars who
have questioned Snodgrass's thesis. Again the situation may have varied widely in different parts
of Greece, and it is quite unlikely that agriculture was ever completely abandoned. But a distinct
shift in emphasis over time still strikes me as highly plausible. Cf., for example, Thomas and
Conant's suggestive account of the settlement at Nichoria c. 1075: "This settlement lasted about a
century, its members surviving more by hunting deer and pasturing animals - especially cattle -
than through intensive agriculture" (1999: 36). As Hammond puts it, "In such times of turmoil and
movement men took their herds with them, because survival depended rather on pastoralism and
stock-breeding than on agriculture and arboriculture" (1982: 703). Of course, the degree of"turmoil
and movement" varied in different parts of Greece. Certainly Thucydides assumes that early Greeks
did not "plant the earth" through fear of someone else taking away their produce (r.2.2).
41 Qviller well quotes Marshall Sahlins: "a big-man's quest for the summits of renown is likely to
bring out a contradiction in his relations to his followers, so that he finds himself encouraging
Exploitation at this point may also include the enclosure of previously
common land. 42 At the same time, the general wealth of the society -
so unequally divided as it is - attracts more and more serious warfare,
now no longer confined to rustling and destroying enemies' crops but
aiming at permanent acquisition of territory (Qviller 1981: 140). This in
turn necessitates levels of expensive fortifications 43 and planning beyond
the capacities of the paramount chief (cf. Runciman 1982: 363, Snodgrass
1971: 415). His landowning warrior ruling class join together, displace him
from his paramount role, and either win or coerce44 the allegiance of the
poor farmers by inventing the concept of citizenship, which presumably
entailed formalized private property tied to the promise of fixed land
allotments (kleroi), allotments that guarantee them a subsistence level of
land while preserving of course the control of the best land by the ruling
class (Snodgrass 1993: 38-39). 45 This new oligarchy, which now may more
justifiably be designated by the self-serving term "aristocracy," 46 substitutes
defection - or worse, an egalitarian rebellion - by encouraging production" (Sahlins 1963: 293;

Qviller 1981: 132, my emphasis).
42 Van Wees calls attention to Laertes' "'fine farm ... which Laertes once acquired as a result of very
hard labour' ( Od. 24.205-7)" (1999a: II, 15-16). He notes that the reference to gathering stones for
fences in the job Eurymachos sarcastically offers the beggar Odysseus (18.359) also supports this view.
43 Raaflaub 1993: 93 n. 43 notes the relative rarity of stone fortifications before the mid-eighth century,
but his focus inn. 44 on the wooden fortifications of Iliad 12.54-57, 258---60 and Odyssey 7.44-45 is
suggestive. Anyone who has watched a Western film is familiar with the relatively elaborate wooden
stockades of the U.S. forces. Medieval Russia too was full of wooden fortifications. Such stockades
would of course normally leave no trace for the archaeologist studying the Archaic Age of Greece.
In any case by 800 BC the evidence of stone fortifications is clear (Snodgrass 1977: 21-24). But in
this same place Snodgrass goes on to argue that the presence of temples is far more secure evidence
for the institutions of the polis than fortifications. So too de Polignac (1995) has made a strong case
for the decisive role of extra-urban sanctuaries in the creation of the polis.
44 Donlan proposes both the "cooperative" model of state formation and the "class" or "conflict"
analysis as options for understanding the process (2001: 3-4). Subsequently in the same text he is
unambiguous in stressing how much worse off the demos was under aristocratic rule than under
chiefs (5-7). Snodgrass also speaks of "negotiation or a show of force" (1993: 38).
4 5 A particular attraction of Snodgrass's theory is that it would explain how relatively quickly many
poleis ran out of available land and had to resort to coloni7.ation, on which see below in the text.
Burford seems to assume communal control of the land going back to the Dark Age and a system of
community-controlled allotments similar to those in overseas settlements even in "the communities
of old Greece" (1993: 17). Citing Bourriot (1976), she argues: "The Classical city-state had its roots
far back in the Dark Age; the rights of community and family were interdependent, and there was
no stage before the existence of community in which property rights existed only within the kinship
group, the genos, or some other family-based unit" (1993: 234 n. 4). Hurwit (1985: 44, following
Forrest 1966: 149---50) suggests that the hectemorage we hear of in the time of Solon (see below)
probably began in the Dark Age in the guise of an acceptable "exchange" of wealth for protection.
If so, this might have functioned as an additional spur to coloni7.ation; but I am unaware of any
evidence for the very specific institution of hectemorage anywhere outside of Athens. See further
discussion below.
46 See my introduction for the general problems with this widely used term. The primary distinction
between the terms "aristocracy" and "oligarchy" is the ideological insistence of the former on inherited
for the role of paramount chief an array of annual, rotating offices, and
invests real power in a collective council (boule) of the major landowners.47
Through their monopoly of the juridical process - whatever it was - this
new ruling class achieved a new level of coercion by which to expand their
landholdings. 48
In dealing with the centrality ofland-ownership to the existence of classes
and the inevitably related categories of "rich" and "poor" in so many of our
sources, we must constantly keep in mind the scale of ancient Greece, where
perhaps only some twenty percent of the total landmass was arable, where
it has been estimated that only about forty percent of Attica's roughly 2,400
sq. km was under cultivation (Van Wees 2001: 51, cf. Foxhall 1992 and 1997,
M. Jameson 1992), and the largest known farm in Attica was probably only
one hundred acres (Ste. Croix 1966: 112). 49 Compared to the wealth of the
ancient Near East- not to mention the utterly obscene levels of difference in
wealth in our own society- the richest Greeks of the Archaic Period, though
they have been described as "very wealthy indeed" (Foxhall 1997: 131), were
only so relative to the poorest of their countrymen.5° Here again we are
superiority. As Calhoun long ago pointed out (1934), the elaborate vocabulary of this ideological
claim - so prominent, for example, in Pindar (c£ Rose 1974) - is for the most part conspicuous by
its absence. As noted by Antonaccio (1993: 64), this does seem one component in the resort to hero
worship; the relatively rare genealogies of most Homeric heroes suggest this was a relatively new and
rather fragile form oflegitimation.
47 Van Wees, while arguing for an essential harmony of the Homeric picture of the "city," acknowledges
"an important difference between Homeric and Archaic towns" is that the latter are "governed by
magistrates with limited terms of office and restricted spheres of authority"; but he situates this
change in the mid-seventh century (1992: 56) - significantly later than most other scholars place the
emergence of the polis. J. Hall, however, also sees the seventh and sixth centuries in general as more
decisive than the alleged "renaissance" of the eighth (2007: 285 and passim).
48 McGlew's analysis of the shield of Achilles as evidence for a world in which monarchic basilies
are essentially irrelevant to both juridical procedures and even defense does seem to offer a way of
understanding the new system at its ideal best (1993: 55).
49 This figure is based on a skeptical calculation by Ste. Croix. He notes that the next largest attested
"landholdings in Attica for which we are given actual figures are the ancestral estate of Alcibi-
ades ... and the land purchased in the late 390s by Aristophanes," both of which are "c. 70 acres"
(1966: m). I have been told by an Ohio farmer that full-time farming in Ohio with less than a 1,000
acres is not economically viable, though of course many get by with less. Thucydides commented
on the poverty of Attic soil (1.2.5), and Snodgrass's description of its relative poverty as compared to
the Peloponnese (1982: 659---60) echoes that assessment.
5° I. Morris (2000: 140--42), ever pressing his "middling" thesis, challenges Foxhall's analysis by using
comparative data to argue "in comparative terms - the only way to judge such matters - this
landholding pattern is extreme(,, egalitarian" (140, his emphasis). Despite his use of"only," comparing
land-poor Greece with almost any other culture strikes me as quite irrelevant: the difference between
five acres and seventy acres is still huge in terms of the labor and the produce involved. Nonetheless,
Burford, commenting on land wealth in general, notes: "For a comparatively small number it
provided really vast riches'' (1993: 67). But this is immediately qualified by a note: "But not in
Attica, most likely" (1993: 241 n. 38). Following J. K. Davies (1971), she argues that the really big
Athenian fortunes we hear of - from the fifrh century mostly (Nicias, Kallias, Hipponicus, the
confronted by striking geographic disparities. Beside the relative modesty
of Nichoria until its destruction about 750 BC there is not only the striking
wealth of ninth-century tombs in Lefkandi, but the suggestive if all but
unique burial of the so-called "rich lady of the Areiopagos" (Coldstream
1995, Smithson 1968) of about 850 BC. The placing and contents of the
burial suggested to Smithson such complete continuity with Mycenaean
royalty that she dubbed the lady gune Arriphronos ("wife of Arriphn1n")
from the Athenian king list of Kastor of Rhodes (FGH 250F4, Smithson
1968: 83). The extraordinary sophistication of one of the pieces of jewelry
implies not only extensive contacts with the East but the likelihood of
eastern craftsmen in Athens and Euboea, which in turn imply "an Athenian
society with refined tastes and high standards" (Smithson ibid.), where, as
so often, "society" refers to a tiny proportion of the entire population.
The unique five-granary top of a terracotta chest suggests that already in
the mid-ninth century there was extensive grain production in Attica and
perhaps some pre-Solonian system of measuring wealth by grain output
(Smithson ibid.). The wealth and display in the graves of women both
at Lefkandi and Athens imply at the very least that women of powerful
males functioned as status symbols. Whether they "had responsibilities
in economic affairs" (Smithson ibid.) is perhaps possible; but the equally
strong possibility that the "hero" of Lefkandi's wife was murdered in order
to be buried with him (Thomas and Conant 1999: 95-96) makes me
hesitant to infer that wealthy burial implied any meaningful social power
for women. Moreover, whatever the social pretensions of eastern mainland
Greek ruling classes, unlike later European aristocracies, they were never
so strong or independent as to be able to ignore completely the potential
opposition of the rest of their communities.5' One might indeed argue that
insofar as their establishment ofpoleis entailed the substitution of some sort
of voting, shouting, or using the lot to replace the principle of inherited
monarchy, they locked themselves into a certain level of dependence on
the demos - however thoroughly they succeeded in limiting access to office
to themselves. J. Hall rightly stresses that incorporating the principle of
government by consensus (i.e., eliciting the consent of the demos in major
Alkmaionids, Kirnon, Miltiades, Peisistratos) - came from mining and overseas connections. A few,
like the Hermocopids Adeimantus and Oeonias, owned huge estates abroad (1993: 70--71). Davies
(1971: 40--41) stresses that most of the kinds of non-agricultural wealth attested for the fifth and
fourth centuries were "new sources" as compared with wealth as understood in the time of Solon.
fl The only exception, if it is one, would be tyrants rich enough to hire enough foreign mercenaries
to overwhelm all domestic opposition. But most tyrants seem to have had substantial support from
the demos (see Chapter 5 below).
decisions) should not be confused with genuinely egalitarian rule - else we
should be compelled to view Sparta as a true democracy (2007: 181-87).
MILITARY CONSIDERATIONS
A much debated factor in the transition from some sort of chiefdom to

a polis dominated by an aristocracy is the role of military organization
and performance. The older paradigm saw something essentially correct
in Homer's apparent picture of bronze-armored "heroes" dominating the
military function and weakly supported by presumably lightly clad aux-
iliary troops whose contribution to victory was negligible (e.g., Donlan
1999: 39). The subsequent emergence - usually dated to the mid-seventh
century (Raaflaub 1997: 58 n. 7, Hall 2007: 157-58) - of a "middle class" of
fully armed "hoplites" now working cooperatively in a tightly regimented
phalanx was seen as decisive both in a new sense of po/is-solidarity and
subsequently in the rise of tyranny. The class aspect of this older paradigm
was focused in the economic role of a broader distribution of the socially
generated surplus resulting from some combination of improved farming
and expanded trade.
This analysis is now widely rejected. The painstaking reading of the
battle scenes in the poems - especially by Latacz (1977), Pritchett (1985:
7-32), and Van Wees (1986, 1988, 1994) - has led to widespread dismissal
of what used to be called "the hoplite revolution," especially in connection
with tyranny (see below) (e.g., I. Morris 1987: 196-201, Raaflaub 1997: 49-
59, Van Wees 2001, Hall 2007: 155-70). There is now general agreement
that in Homer's accounts of battle "the pitched battle was the decisive
element" (Pritchett 1985: 33) and "the heavy-armed were the bulwark of
battle" (ibid. 27). Van Wees, for example, who dismisses Latacz's case for
full hoplite warfare in Homer, argues for what he calls open promachoi
(front-rank warriors) warfare, in which a loose formation, of mostly fully
armed members of the ruling class and the demos advance or retreat in a
very loose formation, from which the more "heroic" individuals dash forth
to attack the enemies' front ranks, then dash back into the mass for rest
and protection. He sees pure ideology at work in the poet's focus on those
in the front ranks and posits a long, gradual process by which this relatively
open warfare - still, he argues, compatible with the picture of warfare in
Tyrtaeus 52 - is transformed into a tighter, more strictly disciplined phalanx
52 The dynamics of the actual process of fighting- perhaps never totally recoverable, however plausible
Van Wees's reconstruction - need to be sharply distinguished from the whole ideological apparatus
Military considerations 77
of the type associated with warfare in early Sparta and characteristic of
warfare in the Classical Period. 53 Even then Hall cites compelling evidence
for the front ranks being occupied by the better-equipped, self-styled aristoi,
who were supported by the less well-accoutered ranks. He notes the advice
of Xenophon (Mem.3.1.8) in the fourth century and others to put the best
warriors in the front and the rear so that the "worst" (kheiristoz) in the
middle can be "pushed forward by the rear" (J. Hall 2007: 163).
Without denying the epic genre's built-in bias toward the achievements
of a handful of basilees, I think it is worth remembering what any viewer of
modern war movies or reader of great war novels like War and Peace or Red
Badge of Courage knows intuitively: though war is inherently a collective
enterprise, focus on too many characters produces a diffuse and boring
story. As Kirk rightly stressed, "These generic scenes [of mass fighting]
are used sparingly, because in themselves they tend to be uninteresting"
(1962: 354). What is more troubling about this analysis is that apart from
the common assumption of aristocratic class bias on the part of the poet,
the class politics of this long, gradual process often disappear as if there
were some neutral, automatic dynamic at work leading inexorably from the
loose, open promachoi style to the tighter phalanx. 54 My suspicion, stated
above and for which I can cite no evidence beyond perhaps one suggestive
exhortation by Hector (Iliad 15.494-99), 55 is that as land gradually became
more precious and more the object of warfare- as opposed to rustling cattle
and sheep - the non-ruling-class warriors collectively came to consider
the risks of warfare more valid as their own plots of land increasingly
associated with the conduct of warfare. Here I think the traditional perception that Tyrtaeus
represents a radically different conception of the conduct and values at play is correct (e.g., Donlan
1999: 40--43). See Chapter 6 below in the text on Sparta. I still find compelling Carcledge's case
for a "relatively sudden" change (Cartledge 1977: 20). At the same time, I agree with the case
made by Snodgrass (1965), one of the first scholars to challenge the thesis of "political hoplites," a
strong proponent of the gradualism of the change, that there is no necessary or at least immediate
connection between the adoption of hoplite tactics and political change.
53 Though Van Wees has ample evidence for his open promachoi, it is perhaps a sign of the fluctuating
historical references that so trouble Snodgrass that the Myrmidons are described as in an emphatically
tight formation (fl. 16.210--17).
54 Cawkwell (1989) makes a compelling case that even in the fifth and fourth century the often assumed
tightness of the hoplite phalanx is a misconception: his description of this most "advanced" hoplite
warfare has much in common with Van Wees's description of Homeric warfare. See also Krentz
(1985) for a defense of a more open structure in hoplite warfare than is implied in the popular rugby
push-and-shove analogy. I find it striking that Heskel, in explaining Macedon's lack of a hoplite
force before the reforms of Philip II, sees the Macedonian aristocracy's fear of being undermined by
hoplites as the key factor (Heskel 1997: 169-70).
55 This passage is Raaf!aub's point of departure (1993: 41) for exploring the rise of the polis, but he does
not make the explicit connection between the increasing value ofland and the gradual shift to more
organized hoplite warfare. However, as indicated in the text, he does make this point in Raaf!aub
1997: 54----55·
were perceived as the stake in war (cf. Raaflaub 1997: 54-55). Moreover, as
Raaflaub rightly stresses, this military force is already a central component
of the politics of Homeric society in the form of the assembly, before
which every major decision is debated, and which is presumed to have -
in some equivocal sense - an "equal" share in the booty (Raaflaub 1997:
55, cf. Seaford 2004: 39-47). It is valuable to move away from a simple
military technologism as an explanation of fundamental political change,
and it seems more plausible to me that the shift towards more emphasis
on agriculture and the growth in population led to a changed perception
of the stake of the majority of landowners in the success of the polis (now
defined very strictly in terms of a specific territory (see below) dictated the
evolution of the phalanx rather than the other way around. If this surmise
is correct, then it is a good example of a change in consciousness that
arises from a gradual, long-term shift at the level of production over which
people have little individual control and little conscious awareness. Nor do
I believe that the gradual, relative displacement of the central military role
of the big-man and his immediate followers by a more mixed military force
was devoid of political consequences. Rather the heightened sense of the
need to guarantee territorial integrity seems to me a key element in winning
over the majority of small farmers to a far more intensive collectivity than
the warrior chief and his band.
Moreover, the same scholars who now dismiss a hoplite revolution
because of a closer reading of Homer's account of warfare seem undis-
mayed by the implications of dating the Iliad a full hundred years later
than what used to be the more or less canonical date of c. 750 Bc,56 i.e.,
precisely to the period to which archaeological evidence about the types
of armor dated a significant shift in shields and breastplates (Cartledge
1977). 57 Cartledge argues that aristocrats themselves, as warfare over land
displaced raids for booty, felt compelled to enlist the military services of
the wealthier farmers since numbers of combatants now became decisive.
56 Janko (1982: 231) sums up the resulcs of his painstaking examination of primarily linguistic criteria
for arriving at relative dates as well as absolute chronological parameters. All in all I see more reasons
to stick with these dates than to endorse the very particularise arguments of West and Burkert for
seventh-century dates and the slippery assumptions of Nagy and Seaford about a text substantially
fluid over two hundred years (see below). In the case of Burkert and West I am reminded of M. I.
Finley's "methodological rule: no argument may legitimately be drawn from a single line or passage
or usage. Only the patterns, the persistent statements have any standing" (1978: 149).
57 Van Wees, though an exponent of a long gradual development of the phalanx, confirms chat
the decisive innovations in armor took place between 720 and 700 BC (2004: 49-50). Raaf!aub
rightly stresses Hanson's point that "battle tactics usually do not follow changes in equipment but
equipment develops as a consequence of changing needs on the battlefield" (1997: 50, cf. Hanson
1991: 63-84).
Ideological weapom 79
So too, as argued above, it seems plausible to me that over time, as the non-
aristocrats saw that they had more and more stake in battles over land,5 8 the
relative military superiority of aristocrats diminished- even as the new ide-
ology of polis solidarity, fostered presumably by the aristocrats themselves,
called into question aristocratic claims of inherent superiority. 59
IDEOLOGICAL WEAPONS
A major component of the success of the aristocracy in constituting itself

as the new ruling class of the new polis institutions appears to have been
its offensive on the ideological plane to win the support of the "demos" -
now no longer the term for the whole community, but for the majority
exclusive of the leaders (Donlan 1999 [1970]). 60 I find highly misleading
the widespread assumption (e.g., I. Morris 1987, etc., Scully 1990) that
in itself the rise of the polis entailed a threat to aristocratic oikoi (houses
in the broad sense of the term). Rather we need to understand the polis
as the creation of the aristocracy - as the solution to its conflict with
58 Stressing the spread of aggressive wars in the seventh century, Snodgrass argued that farmers would
have had "no vested interest in war" (1965: 114-15). However, every aggressive war presupposes at
least some effort at defense; and Snodgrass himself argues chat hoplite warfare is in fact better suited
to defense than aggression (n5). Moreover, farmers without good land, if offered the equipment and
the prospect of acquiring very good land, might be lured into accepting the risk. Surely in Sparta at
some point the attraction of acquiring good new land - in spite of the fact chat Laconia was already
better endowed with more good land than most of the rest of Greece - must have outweighed
whatever reluctance is attributed to the audience ofTyrtaeus' poems.
59 My most basic objection to I. Morris's middling vs. ruling class thesis, which alas we shall have
to return to in subsequent chapters, is chat it posits a relatively rigid separation of two ideological
positions where I see mostly the same people in the ruling class juggling over time a contradiction
built into their resort to the polis form in displacing one-man rule, namely, the contradiction
between, on the one hand, fostering polis solidarity as a means of controlling the demos and, on
the ocher, legitimating their privileges as unique and better than chose of the demos. I have no
trouble envisioning the same people embracing habrosyne in their private symposia and preaching
"middling" ideals in public. Our daily experience of chis sort of political hypocrisy should at least
make chis plausible.
60 Donlan stresses chat the sense of demos meaning the whole community continues throughout the
Archaic Period, but already in Homer usually refers to the people exclusive of their leaders. Only in
Theognis does it first emerge as dearly disparaging, but already in Hesiod, "we have an intimation
of oppression by the basileis and an awareness of oppression on the part of the demos - a tension
not observed in the Homeric poems" (Donlan 1999: 227 = 1970: 385). In view of the need of the
aristocracy to win support of the demos, I find unfortunate Tandy's emphasis on "Tools of Exclusion"
(1997: esp. 141-65, my emphasis). To be sure the line between what now can be called "aristocrats"
and the rest of the community was hardened (see below in the text on the contradictions of aristocrats'
position). But I. Morris, following Aristotle, is surely right to stress chat the essence of the polis is
some new sense of koinonia, and a major goal of the new ruling class is more plausibly sought in
the mechanisms of commonality than in exclusion. As Marx put it, "Every class which is aiming
at domination ... must first conquer political power in order to represent its interest in turn as the
general interest" (MECW 5.46--47, my emphasis).
the monarchic chieftains. Like many radical solutions to political crises,
this particular solution soon triggered a whole new set of conflicts. This
more dialectical conception of the emergence of the polis emphasizes the
readiness of the aristocracy to make substantial compromises and sacrifices
in order to achieve the overarching goal of displacing the chieftains and
consolidating their control of the best land. Once having won the demos
over from their individual leaders, the new collective leadership appears to
have turned to a new level of self-assertion and in all likelihood a more
intensive, systematic form of exploitation that soon alienated their new ally,
the demos. But that is a story for a later chapter. We need first to explore the
ideological offensive by which they sought the allegiance of the demos to the
new polis order. Fears over land, religion, and the manipulation of images
seem to have played decisive roles. The key, interrelated, evidence consists
in fortifications, temples to tutetlary divinities, religious sanctuaries, and
changes in pottery decoration.
FORTIFICATIONS
One consequence of the new level of fear over land led, as noted above, in
many places to the building of defensive walls, which entailed the shifting
of big landowner wealth from conspicuous consumption in such imagery
as funerals (see below) and bronze dedications (Osborne 1998a: 24-27)
to investment in the "common" good. By 800 BC the evidence of stone
fortifications is clear (Snodgrass 1977: 21-24).
Overall the new emphasis on fortifications implies both a coming
together of a community through fear and a recognition on the part of
the wealthier ruling class that a major redirection of the socially generated
surplus was in their own best interest.
RELIGION
But in this same place Snodgrass, as noted earlier, goes on to argue that
the presence of temples 61 is far more secure evidence for the institutions
of the polis than fortifications. How are we to understand the heavy new
emphasis this implies upon the role of tutelary divinities of the polis? Some
historians of religion are primarily concerned to stress the continuities
61 Salmon, for example, notes that at Perachora the Bacchiads may be credited with building a primitive
apsidal temple c. 800, "but the scale of the predecessor of the present temple of Apollo shows that
it can only have been a public undertaking" (1984' 59).
Religion 81
between Mycenaean/Minoan religious practice and later religious phe-

nomena. Ventris and Chadwick, for example, note that the name Athena
appears once with an epithet that corresponds "exactly" to the Homeric
potnia (1973: 126). Dietrich, moving via parallels between Spartan dedica-
tions that began only in the tenth century and older offerings from Cretan
Gortyn, concludes that Athena's "nature as a City-goddess seems firmly
grounded in the Minoan age" (1986: 47). But as with burial and pottery
style, it appears that the breakdown of the Mycenaean order led to a return
to an earlier form of worship with a distinctly egalitarian aspect:
The peculiar form of the Greek sacrificial ritual is of very great antiquity and
post-Mycenaean at one and the same time ... The fire altar which stands open
to the sky is the most essential part of the sanctuary. This is not an exchange of
gifts celebrated by a hierarchical society of gods, king, priests, and commoners:
together on the same level, men and women stand here about the altar ... This
amounts to a negation of the Mycenaean organization: no king stands higher
than all others, no priest can appropriate the sacral portions for himself. From
the corporate beginning of the equality of men in contrast to the divine, the path
could lead on through aristocracy to democracy to humanity. (Burkert 1985: 53)
It is precisely this egalitarian form of sacrifice that predominates in Homer
(Seaford 2004), and its displacement by temples where dedications signi-
fying wealth are combined with emphasis on communal solidarity in the
worship of the city's tutelary deity62 is not ideologically neutral or simply, as
Seaford suggests, a more permanent means of marking collective sacrifice.
Temples in which we find a dramatic increase in expensive, self-promoting
dedications as well as the pooling of community-wide resources in wealth
and labor express what becomes the hallmark of aristocratic contradictory
goals: to bind the community of small landowners together in some greater
sense of collectivity and at the same time to insist on their own difference
and superiority.
It seems very plausible that eighth-century developments drew on age-
old traditions, but pure gradualism and the weight of tradition seem inad-
equate to explain the widespread appearance within roughly a fifty-year
period of the construction of stone temples implying a massive com-
mitment of the economic surplus of the social formations involved. 63
62 To be sure, as the dedication to Athena at her temple in Troy(//. 6.297-3rr) attests, Homer was well
aware of the polis form of worship, but it is not just the war camp that illustrates the older form:
Seaford (2004: 39-47) rightly emphasizes the outdoor sacrifice at Nestor's Pylos (Od. 4.5-8).
63 Sourvinou-Inwood (1993: rr), who takes both de Polignac and I. Morris to task for various errors
including inadequate attention to gradualism, nonetheless concludes "early Greek sanctuaries devel-
oped out of the sanctuaries of the Dark Age through a continuous process of development and
Mazarakis Ainian directly relates the development to the displacement of
the basileis by aristocracy:
The archaeological evidence indicates that the erection of the first 'urban' temples,
roughly coincided with the abolition of the old regime [sc. the basileis] and the
inauguration of a new one in which several individuals participated in the man-
agement of the communal affairs. The erection of monumental 'urban' temples
from the late 8th century BC onwards can hardly be explained otherwise than as
a communal decision, implicating communal resources; the same stands for the
monumental 'suburban' and 'extraurban' temples which started being built roughly
at the same time. The same argument applies to the comtruction offortification walls,
which also require not only communal effort but communal resources. (Mazarakis
Ainian 1997: 384, my emphasis)
There is an interesting slippage in this analysis from the focus on "several

individuals participat[ing] in the management of the communal affairs"
to insistence on a "communal decision." Again the term "class" is side-
stepped - a strategy we will see repeatedly in accounts of the Archaic
Period - and an undefined "community" or the ''polis" is invoked. Though
of course it is true that the new aristocratic class was in no position to
impose its will by force upon the majority of small landholders and in this
sense the decision may rightly be called "communal," 64 the politics of that
decision nonetheless deserve at least some exploration. We must assume
that the large landowners whose representatives had successfully taken
over the "management of the communal affairs" should be credited with
initiative in this major redistribution of the community's resources and
were engaged in a massive effort to persuade the rest of the community to
support it. As suggested above, playing on fear over the security of the land
seems the most plausible grounds for arguing not only for fortifications but
also for the temples - for invoking with new fervor the alleged power of the
divinity to protect the community. We get a pathetic - and already heavily
ironic (see further discussion below) - picture of the reinforcement of this
mentality in Iliad 6, when Hector is urged by a priest to abandon the battle
in order to instruct the women of Troy to make an offering and prayer to
change without rupture ... the multifaceted changes observed in eighth-century sanctuaries and the
great increase in their number took place in interaction with, in the context, and as a result of a set
of circumstances of which the emergence of the polis was the most important. The polis put religion
at its centre, forged its identity through religion."
64 Murray concludes chat the modesty of the materials (terracotta and lead) of early dedications
"demonstrate[s] the wide range of social classes involved, or (to put it another way) show the
nature of Greek religion as an expression of communal values, rather than an elite activity" (1991:
26). However, when it comes to stone temples (not discussed by Murray) something more than
spontaneous communal feeling would seem to be at work.
Religion
the goddess Athena, who has both a temple and an image on whose knees
the offering can be placed. The anger of the goddess over the decision
of Paris and the source of the gift in Paris's rapacious travels (6.290-92)
guarantee that the gesture is futile. As stressed in my introduction, a proper
understanding of the workings of ideology does not necessarily imply that
these uses of religion entail a conscious, sinister plot by the aristocracy:
they may have sincerely felt inspired to take measures which turned out to
foster their own interests. To cite Levi-Strauss again, "consciousness lies to
itself."
So too de Polignac (1995) has made a strong case for the decisive role
of extra-urban sanctuaries in the creation of the polis. Not only did these
mark the limits of the territory claimed by each polis, but, in other elabo-
rations (1994, 1996) 65 he stresses their economic and political role as points
of exchange and contact between aristocrats of contingent communities, a
component of the emergence, especially in the eighth century, of various
rituals - the Olympic games are only the most famous - fostering the sig-
nature dualities of the Greek aristocracy, competition and solidarity. In the
same vein Polignac has interpreted the shift of conspicuous consumption
in this period away from local funerals to extra-territorial dedications of
very expensive bronze tripods at shrines (especially Olympia and the cave of
Odysseus at Ithaca) where aristocrats gathered for communal meals (1996).
In general he envisions a gradual three-step process: first, open-air rural
gatherings of scattered individuals or neighboring communities (Burkert's
egalitarian religious practice, see above); then gradual domination of these
gatherings as occasions for display by local basileis of generosity in com-
munal meals and of solidarity/competition with neighboring basileis in
dedications; finally, assertion of control over the sanctuary- often marked
by constructions - by the sovereign polis. For sanctuaries near the sea (e.g.,
the Heraion at Samos or at Croton) in particular he stresses their growing
economic function as safe locations for exchange even as they affirm the
sovereignty of the polis (1994: 16-17).
Another religious component, I believe, of the ideological struggle asso-
ciated with the rise of the polis - mostly in the latter half of the eighth
century- is the often blurred, interrelated complex of tomb cult and hero
cult. Farnell (1921: 340 and 342), followed by Coldstream (1976), associated
the widespread archaeological evidence of interest in or "ten dance" at long-
neglected Mycenaean tombs, which was not clearly distinguished from
65 The French version of the 1994 text appeared subsequent to the French version (1984) of his Cults,
Territory, and the Origin ofthe Greek City-State, published in English in 1995.
hero cult proper, with the rise of Homeric epic in the latter half of the
eighth century and indeed saw this phenomenon as a direct consequence
of the rise of the epic.
More recent scholarship has seen the epic (to be discussed more fully
below) as itself part of a more complex, interrelated set of developments in
which pan-Hellenism, epic, and cult mutually reinforce each other. What
is disputed is the specific class character of these developments. 66 I will
discuss pan-Hellenism and epic in the following chapter, arguing in both
cases for a less unidirectional understanding of the class dynamics entailed
in each.
It is only fairly recently that a case has been made for a sharp distinction
between "tomb cult," tendance - often intermittent - at actual Mycenaean
tombs, and "hero cult," which entails regular ritual actions such as proces-
sions and votaries at constructed shrines devoted to named figures, even if
the designation is no more precise than the word "hero" itself (Antonaccio
1995: 6). Both phenomena entail ideological agendas aimed at legitimating
various claims, but the most obvious agenda - local ruling classes fabri-
cating impressive "heroic" genealogies - may not be the whole story. As
argued in the introduction, ideological constructs are not the same as uni-
vocal propaganda: they must attempt to persuade a subordinated group
that their interests coincide with those of the dominant group. In this
case Antonaccio, presumably following an argument of Snodgrass (1982:
116-18), 67 suggests that small farmers were not simply being duped into
celebrating the claims of the self-styled aristoi to a kind of genetic superi-
ority (contra I. Morris 1987: 194), though that clearly was one function: 68
tomb cult may also have been presented as a vehicle to legitimate the whole
66 Berard (1983), for example, following Coldstream (1976), stresses the relationship between hero-
worship and the need of the aristocracy for legitimation. See below for I. Morris and Antonaccio.
Hiller (1983), if I follow his argument, seems to attribute to the growth in trade and colonization
the effect of raising the self-esteem of participating Greeks, who then felt they could compete with
the heroic model available in traditional memories. Burkert as discussant (in Hagg 1983a: 15) sounds
quite skeptical.
67 Snodgrass (1982) associates chis function with what he sees as a sharp increase in agriculcure over
pastoralism, a hotly debated contention, as we have seen.
68 Cf. Antonaccio, who suggests chat "claims of descent from heroes did not reflect real kinship
relations, but constituted a legitimating device chat allowed such individuals to forge links with the
past in a civic context ... Within the polis, hero cult functioned to create fictitious kinship chat may
have served individuals and families" (1993: 64, my emphasis). The tentativeness of "may" is due
perhaps to the fact chat there in no firm early evidence for an aristocracy legitimated by claims of
heroic ancestry. It must at best be an inference from modest beginnings in Homer (e.g., Glaukos'
boast to Diomedes, fl. 6.150-2rr and discussion in Chapter 2) and later claims. Antonaccio explicitly
avoids the term class, which she interprets in a very specific sense: "The 'rise of the polis' in Greece
entailed the appearance of formal structures of authority, but not classes or castes chat had exclusive
access to chem" (ibid.).
Pottery images
community's claim to control of the key productive force of the period, the
land. "The demos could be claiming its own ancestors by such a strategy"
(Antonaccio 1993: 64, cf. 60). "The motivation was to claim ownership of
the land by ancestral tombs" (ibid. 70 n. 85).
More broadly, it would be hard to exaggerate the role of cult and ritual
in the complex process of forging a specific polis identity in the shift from
communities dominated by chiefs and big-men. We can only extrapolate
from the extraordinary centrality of religion to polis identity69 so abun-
dantly illustrated by later evidence - much of it inevitably from Athens
(Sourvinou-lnwood 1990). Various polis-wide cults, phratry cults, deme
cults all seem most reasonably to be understood as associated with the
process of polis formation (ibid. 318) and comparable developments are
reasonably posited for Sparta and other newly organized poleis (ibid. 316).
It seems likely that the system of limited one-year priesthoods came in at
the same time as the institution of one-year magistracies. The question
that seems almost never asked, however, is who is most likely to have
organized and persuaded people to turn away from one-man rule to these
presumably new institutions. Sourvinou-lnwood repeatedly argues: "Com-
mon cult was the established mode for expressing community in the Greek
world, for giving social groups cohesion and identity'' (1990: 301), "religion
became the polis' central ideology, structuring and giving meaning to all
the elements that made up the identity of the polis, its past, its physical
landscape, the relationship between its constituent parts" (ibid. 304-5).
What she does not say, but what I believe is a legitimate inference, is that
it was the aristocracy that benefited most from a cohesiveness that muted
any distinction between exploiter and exploited.
POTTERY IMAGES
The issue of religion in connection with funerals and shrines raises the
complex, perhaps impossible question of the role of class ideology in vir-
tually the only art surviving from the loosely defined Dark Age, namely
painted pottery. Whitley has suggested that there are two primary scholarly
modes of understanding this art. The first views art as a purely autonomous
69 J. Hall offers characteristically acute qualifications and counter-examples (2007: 83-87), not all
equally convincing. He rightly suggests the greater importance of aristocrats than some spontaneous
communal piety: "Nor is it entirely clear that the construction of a monumental temple testifies to
a collective effort on the part of a neonate citizen community rather than signaling, for example,
the ability of a powerful individual to mobilize labor and resources" (86). Nonetheless Greece was
not Egypt: some persuasion and some form of payment or mobili2ation must be envisioned at the
core of such a "monumental" undertaking.
unfolding of an internal aesthetic dynamic, based on the "belief that artistic
change is governed by an internal logic." Whitley, following Podro (1982),
dubs this the German idealist approach. The second approach looks to art
for indications of "social evolutions and social divisions" (1991a: 67-68).
Though he attempts to show some concern for the aesthetic aspects of
works he discusses, his own primary focus is the social implications of the
changes in all the material remains salvaged by archaeologists from the
whole period. Here his work overlaps with that of I. Morris (1987), whose
only interest is in the social implications of the burial evidence. Though
Morris, as noted above, speaks repeatedly of "ideology," his approach brack-
ets the question whether the actual style and the changes in style over the
approximately 600 years ("roughly 1100 to 500 Be": 1987: 1) meaningfully
respond to or shape the social and political changes he posits. Whitley's
approach therefore engages with far more complex theoretical issues, to
which he devotes considerable attention.
Whitley is at pains to distance himself from Marxism and is scornfully
dismissive of what he takes to be a Marxist approach to the issue: "To view
material culture and, more importantly, prehistoric art as simply material
ideology, the means through which a particular (and, ofcourse, unjust) social
order is naturalized, as Shanks and Tilley have done ... is to ignore aesthet-
ics" (1991a: 196, my emphasis). At the same time, as noted above, specific
to, if not unique to, Marxism is the insistence that there is a meaningful
connection between the fundamental processes by which a society main-
tains its material existence, its social relations, political structures, and its
intellectual and cultural productions. Whitley begins his chapter on "theo-
retical perspectives" by endorsing a quotation from Michael Podro arguing
that we are required to "see how the products of art sustain purposes and
interests which are both irreducible to the conditions of their emergence
as well as inextricable from them" (Whitley 1991a: 13, Podro 1982: xviii). I
take this nicely dialectical statement to mean that art does have a crucial
sort of autonomy - it is not reducible to the conditions of its emergence,
i.e., all the material, historical, social conditions its creation presupposes -
but at the same time art is "inextricably" bound up with those conditions.
Podro, in introducing his study of the German aesthetic tradition, seeks in
this passage to distinguish what he dubs an "archaeological" approach to
art (Podro 1982: xviii), one concerned with all the conditions of emergence
of works of art, from the subject of his study, "critical history," an approach
which demands the dialectical perspective cited approvingly by Whitley.
Whitley's own approach, which attempts to juggle rather than transcend
dialectically the opposition between approaches presupposing the pure
Pottery images
autonomy of art and those seeking social meaning in art, insists on "the
priority of the consideration of context rather than formal comparison. An
archaeological understanding of art (or material culture) must concentrate
primarily upon the conditions of emergence of any work or style" (1991a:
13, my emphasis). His conclusions on the aesthetic plane, though they may
be valid for the specific object of his study, strike me as verging on the
normative and insufficiently tied to the specific conditions of possibility of
this type of art: "I have argued that it is when such social preferences are at
their strongest, and when the artist has the least artistic freedom, that this
art is at its most successful, at its most aesthetically pleasing." (1991a: 196).
He goes on to conclude that "an iconographically minimalist interpretation
of these scenes is more fruitful than an iconological one" (ibid.). The more
blatantly normative and arbitrary aestheticist tone becomes clearer in his
invocation and apparent endorsement of Michael Baxandall: "Baxandall
argues that the worth of a fine work of art is in large measure a product
of the economy, not the profligacy, with which it achieves its effects" (ibid.,
my emphasis). Lovers of baroque art beware!
An iconographic approach - attempting to attribute specific symbolic
values to individual abstract motifs - does seem hopelessly speculative in
the absence of contemporary written evidence of such associations.7° But
even if we cannot know securely why such patterns were so relentlessly
satisfying to ordinary Greeks for such a long period, two broad options
seem inescapable if unremarkable: these patterns either reflected a sense of
the actual orderliness of the world or represented a comforting projection
of order felt to be absent from the world of the audience.
Whatever his limitations, Whitley, compared to other treatments I have
been able to read of the period, deserves our gratitude for his heroic effort to
engage with very difficult theoretical questions and offer a specifically social
interpretation of the joint artistic and burial evidence of an extraordinarily
difficult set of data, where it seems every potential piece of evidence is open
to radically different interpretations and the very interpretative enterprise
itself is liable to rather harsh dismissal in toto (e.g., Papadapoulos 1993).
Following the chronological breaks established for Athenian pottery (Sub-
mycenaean, Protogeometric, the ninth century [= Early Geometric to
Middle Geometric I], the early eighth century [=Middle Geometric II to
70 Hurwit (1993: 14 n. 1 reviews some of the unconvincing attempts at decoding the alleged symbolism
of all the motifs of Geometric Art. Schweiu.er writes categorically, ''All Geometrically stereotyped
motifs are abstractions of naturalistic motifs in Minoan-Mycenaean art" (1971: 26). But assuming
chis is true, how can we understand chis impulse to abstraction, and is the naturalistic origin really
relevant to the impact of a geometric pattern resulting from the combination of these motifs?
Late Geometric I], the late eighth century [= Late Geometric II]), Whitley
attempts to assess for each of these five periods the social and political
implications of the burial and pottery data. His conclusions are intriguing
for anyone trying to understand the role of class in the Dark Age. While
space does not permit an adequate summary of his summary, I will try to
give at least a feel for his approach:
I. The Submycenaean period is characterized by an undistinguished
style of pottery and a general lack of clear demarcation in all symbolic
forms ... An egalitarian society (not a society without inequalities, but one
where such inequalities are not given ideological authority) ... seems the
most likely interpretation of the Submycenaean pattern (1991a: 181).
II. During the Protogeometric period, a transformation is effected ... A
symbolic classification is effected with little room for ambiguity. Style was
not, however, used to amplify social roles already realized in the choice
of artifacts deposited ... The kind of society which seems best to fit this
pattern is system graded by age and sex.71 There are, however, perhaps
already indications of hierarchy, exclusivity, and selectivity in the persons
accorded visible recognition at death (1991a: 181-82).
III. The ninth century ... witnessed the most profound changes. The
principles of selectivity and exclusivity begin to operate at every level ...
Style has become embedded in social display ... Access to exotica and
patronage of potters and goldsmiths were now used to define, establish,
and legitimate a new "aristocracy" (not a true aristocracy, but simply those
families which had attained a certain preeminence) (1991a: 182).
IV. The early eighth century witnessed both the elaboration and the
dissolution of this pattern ... Amongst the ruling-class burials, two pat-
terns are now discernible. In some burials ... style takes over completely
the task of social signification from other forms of material symbolism.
Highly visible and elaborately decorated grave markers not only indicate
but actively concretize an aristocratic social order ... Some ruling-class
burials had opted out of this system ... They adopted a profligate and
invisible manner of recognition at death whereby the sheer number, and
not the type, of artifacts becomes the main expressive medium (1991a: 182).
V. In the late eighth century, there was a complete breakdown of the
aristocratic order that had characterized previous periods ... Both metal
artifacts and motifs cease to play any role in the realization of social iden-
tities at death, and the breakdown of aristocratic order and taste lead to a
71 Bourdieu offers a penetrating analysis of a society in which age and gender are the main criteria for
establishing a hierarchy of power (1977: 164-65 and passim).
Pottery images
confusing variety and unevenness in the art of the period ... The ideolog-
ical representation which this indicates ... is one of isonomia, one surely
appropriate for the early polis. (1991a: 182-3).
Finally, though harshly criticized (e.g., Papadopoulos 1993) for his con-
centration on the evidence of Athens - by far the most complete set of data
for the whole of the Dark Age - Whitley is at pains to emphasize that the
patterns in Athens should not be generalized, that Argos and Knossos, for
example, are radically different.
Nonetheless, most of Whitley's broad conclusions about Athens are in
harmony with and a few conflict with the picture I have drawn from other
scholars of the broad outlines of developments in the Dark Age in central
and southern Greece. That picture stressed a long "egalitarian" period and
the gradual emergence of a ruling class. However, where other scholars see
the consolidation of aristocratic dominance in the creation of the polis,
Whitley, like I. Morris, thinks he sees the "breakdown of the aristocratic
order that had characterized previous periods" and infers an ideology of
"isonomia" - roughly "equality in the face of custom-law" and Herodotus'
term for democracy (3.80.6) - already in the later eighth century. I find quite
incredible the suggestion that anything like true participatory democracy
emerged in the polis at this date; on the contrary, the displacement of the
persuasive big-man or chieftain entailed, I believe, a sharp curtailment of
popular input in decision-making. The small committee of heads of the
major families replaces or severely curtails resort to the open assembly.
At the same time, some new conceptualization of group solidarity seems
an inescapable consequence or perhaps a necessary precondition of the
emergence of the polis. To understand this contradiction we need to look
more deeply into the ideological moves most probably associated with the
creation of the polis.
First, however, I would like to explore briefly the dialectic of art and
the material, social, and political presuppositions of art in this period.
For me one of the most provocative observations of Whitley points to a
pervasive bias in most of the discussions of the art of the period I have
been able to read: "Surely it is this resistance to figured decoration, and
the accompanying preference for purely Geometric forms, that needs to be
explained, and not the origins of the few figures that do appear" (1991a: 48,
my emphasis). While I find no such explanation in Whitley's own analysis,
he points to a striking phenomenon among art historians. For example,
Janson's widely used History ofArt (1977: 94) devotes not even a complete
sentence to non-figurative vases, then skips immediately to discussion of
the figures on late Geometric vases. The Oxford History ofWestern Art skips
non-figurative Geometric art completely and informs us only that "the
earliest phases of pictorial art in the so-called Geometric period (c. 900-
700 BC) are dominated by scenes initially involving simple animal motifs
against a background of geometric motifs" (Kemp 2000: 24, my emphasis).
Robertson's weighty History of Greek Art commendably devotes two and
a quarter pages to an aesthetic discussion of non-figurative vase painting
before plunging into the representation of figures (1975: 15-18). He does
attest in passing both to the stubborn adherence to non-figurative and the
invasion of the social into the aesthetic sphere: "It looks as though figures
were first introduced as a regular element into their decorative repertory
through pressure from reasons outside the purely aesthetic, that is through
the memorial intention of the big grave vases" (20). Pedley's short chapter
on "The Dark Ages and Geometric Greece c. 1100-700 Be" begins with a
page-and-a-half huge blown-up image of a horse and warrior from a figured
vase of c. 750 BC (1993: 102-3).72 Hurwit, despite the date 1100 in his title,
announces frankly in his Preface, "I am concerned about origin: the origins
of representation ... " (1985: 9).73 Nearly three centuries of predominantly
non-figural art are regularly summed up either in detailed descriptions of
actual motifs and or dismissive aesthetic judgments, which never ask why
this art could have appealed to those who used it for such a long time.
An interesting exception is Bernhard Schweitzer's Greek Geometric Art
(1971), which offers an historical and class-based account. He points out that
geometric ornamentation long preceded and significantly resisted Minoan
art: "The comparatively primitive nature of this style of ornament, its
widespread distribution through the mainland and islands, and, especially,
the obstinacy with which it resisted the wave of Minoan influence which
had long been spreading from Crete, indicate that it was deeply rooted in
a newly developing class of society" (1971: 12-15, my emphasis). It may be
that this new class is a class subordinated to the Minoan-oriented rulers
of the Mycenaean world. In any case, Schweitzer suggests that the return
to geometric ornamentation, beginning in the thirteenth century - albeit
on a new basis effected by centuries of Minoan-developed expertise -
"was certainly partly the result of the desire amongst a substratum of the
population, which had been suppressed for a long time, to do away with
the alien styles of Mycenaean court art" (15).74
72 The third (2002) and fourth edition (2007) have a full page image of a bronze horse dated 750--700,
i.e., a date that in many scholars' view is well past the end of the "Dark Age."
73 Hurwit's subsequent essay does devote more attention to the aesthetics of non-figurative vase
painting (1993: 29-31) sandwiched in between more concentrated focus on figuration.
74 It is striking chat Snodgrass (2006: 158-72) points emphatically to the close parallels between pre-
Mycenaean and post-Mycenaean material culture - focusing especially on hand-made, unpainted
Conclusiom 91
A number of factors - our own fascination with figuration, the archaeol-
ogist's fascination with "rich" graves, the omnipresence of glass and plastic
in our own world - tend to distort our perception of the role of pottery in
the ancient world generally. The humblest slave or peasant as well as the
richest aristocrat depended on pottery for an enormous spectrum of uses.
The sheer quantity of surviving pottery struck me afresh reading Lemos's
account of the fill in just one large building in Lefkandi - 26,000 sherds
(Carling and Lemos 1990: 3).75 If Schweitzer is right about the class base of
geometric designs, it is best to understand this style as the preferred deco-
ration of the vast majority of Greeks who were not part of a leisured ruling
class and see its predominance over several centuries as confirmation of the
relatively egalitarian character of Dark Age societies until the late ninth
century. Robertson plausibly suggests that only pressure from the newly
forming ruling class explained the shift to figuration - precisely of scenes
most congenial to their self-promotion: horses and chariots, the formal
public display of the corpse, the public procession for formal burial, and
finally celebration of the arena in which they claimed special distinction -
warfare and piracy. It is not pure accident that the first known repre-
sentation of the protogeometric period is a horse (Hurwit 1985: 58), the
quintessential marker of wealth in the agriculturally challenged world of
Greece.
CONCLUSIONS
I have tried as conscientiously as I was able to trace the elements of class

identity and class conflict as suggested by the ambiguous and conflict-
ridden archaeological data for the preliterate "Dark Age." I found a rel-
atively long period of subsistence-level economic activity during which a
proto-democratic, meritocratic form of big-man and chieftain leadership
is predominant, that is, during which the community was in a face-to-face
relationship to leadership compelled to persuade the demos. This is grad-
ually supplanted by the emergence of a plurality of wealthy land-owners
who initially function as the warrior ruling class, sub-chiefs surrounding
the bigger chiefs, but eventually supplant the chiefs and "invent" the polis,
where their collective leadership is bought at the price of a substantial
redirection of the social surplus toward fortifications, temples for tutelary
pottery - and posits a conscious rejection of Mycenaean culture, but never even raises the issue of
class.
75 Snodgrass (2006: 82) apropos of Beazley's immense feat of cataloguing vases speaks of "tens of
thousands."
divinities, and hero cults in lieu of individual conspicuous consumption
in funeral display. The creation of the polis entails a deeply contradictory
movement in which the demos is given an elementary economic stake in
guaranteed kleroi, and an ideological appeal to solidarity in shared religious
sites and practices as well probably in more collective defense of the home
territory, but at the same time suffers a decline in participation in political
decision-making and, to the extent that an aristocratic ideology of inher-
ited superiority emerged,7 6 a decline in status to kakoi and the likelihood of
more systematic exploitation. The forms of exploitation we can only infer
from Homer and later evidence. But, as argued in the Introduction, simply
on the assumption that the ruling class monopolized the best farmland,
they precluded members of the demos from enjoying the full fruits of their
agricultural labor.
While the written record, which I have not been able to bracket com-
pletely even heretofore, is no less fraught with controversy and is itself
inextricably imbricated with archaeological data, the character of the evi-
dence it can yield for class struggle on the ideological plane is of a radically
different order and merits separate treatment.
76 As noted above, in the absence of direct evidence from this early period, apart from the ambiguities
of Homer's account, this must remain an inference from subsequent heavy emphasis on a whole
vocabulary of inherited excellence: the terminology Calhoun finds largely missing in Homer, begins
to appear very quickly in the fragments of elegy and lyric (see below).
CHAPTER 2
Homer's Iliad: alienation from a changing work/
Homer, 1 one element widely claimed as part of an aristocratic ideological

offensive associated with the creation of the polis form (e.g., I. Morris
1987, Latacz 1996, Thalmann 1998), merits separate even if ruthlessly brief
discussion both as to the conditions of the possibility and the ideological
implications of the two poems associated with that name. 2
' I feel a distinct discomfort in attempting within the compass of this study to summarize and extend
my views of Homer, which I have spelled out elsewhere (Rose 1992: 43-140, Rose 1997: 151----99) in
fairly substantial detail. On some points of course I would now modify portions of my argument
in the light of subsequent scholarship, but I would stand by much of what I have already written,
some of which I have cannibalized in what follows. What is impossible in a brief summary is to give
anything like a fair account of the opposing perspectives that I previously attempted to answer. As
far as possible I have avoided repeating here the bibliographical references of my earlier texts. If my
comments here sound arbitrary or - the favorite put-down of Marxist approaches - "Procrustean,"
I beg the gentle reader to consult my earlier discussions.
2 Nagy endorses the etymology of the "generic function of the name H6meros 'he who fits [the Song]
together'" (Nagy 1979: 296, my emphasis). This fits well with his view that "the genius behind our
Iliarls artistic unity is in large part the Greek epic tradition itself' (79). Our contemporary experience
of TV soap operas and HBO series suggests that a committee can indeed compose works with
considerable consistency in characters and ideological thrust, but emphasizing the obvious traditional
aspects of these poems fails to account for their radical uniqueness. In Lynn-George's Derridean
reading of the Iliad (1987) it is always the "text" that is responsible for the specific features worth
noting. De Jong's narratological approach (1987) rightly challenges the traditional assumptions about
the "objectivity" of Homeric narration and insists on the distinction between the historical person(s)
responsible for the text we have and the constructed voice of the narrator(s) in the poem. Her
emphasis on "focalization," the various means by which the narrator manipulates the "way in which
the hearer/reader forms an opinion of this [fictional] world and its inhabitants" (225), has important
implications for the study of class ideology in the poem, but that is not part of her project. At the
risk of appearing old-fashioned, I will speak of the "poet" without making any assumptions as to
whether the same poet was ultimately responsible for both the Iliad and the Odyssey or whether
"Homer'' designates an actual person, an idea learnedly dismissed at great length by West 1999b.
West, however, in his scathing reply (2004) to a review of his work (2001) by Nagy, does insist on a
"written Iliad" (as he had in 2001: 3): "What the tradition gives us is not a 'mass of multiple versions'
but a single version that has suffered trivially from interpolation and corruption. That single version
may indeed bear the imprint of differing versions that its author, an oral poet by profession, had
recited on different occasions. But he laboured to produce a single, coherent written version, and the
more deeply one studies the Iliad, the more one is impressed by the measure of his success in doing
so" (my emphasis). Janka, though he points to inadequacies in the Oxford Classical text, nonetheless
93
LITERACY AND THE NEAR EASTERN CONNECTION
The very existence of Homer's Iliad is a major historical development

that requires explaining. I persist in adhering to the traditional date of
about 750-700 BC (cf. Janko 1982: 231), a date that corresponds with the
first unambiguous indications of literacy3 in Greece, and at least roughly
with the first evidence of pan-Hellenic gatherings as well as dramatically
increased contacts with the Near East. In general Marxism shares "the ten-
dency of modern cultural theories to approach culture as a system evolv-
ing through its own processes of internal economic and social dynamics,
which reduces all outward influences to negligible parameters" (Burkert
1992: 7, cf. J. Hall 2007: 53). Such an approach is quite inadequate to
account for the dramatic changes that are summed up in the phrase the
"orientalizing revolution.'' 4 The rise of the Assyrian Empire and its con-
committant drive for metals and pressure on Phoenicia (loosely the "eastern
Mediterranean coast from modern Syria to southern Lebanon and Galilee,"
OCD 3rd edn. s.v.) triggered the significant penetration of Greek areas 5 -
especially Euboea - by Phoenican traders and craftsmen, including - so
Burkert argues - charismatic healers, story-tellers, and purveyers ofleather
scroll books (1992). He makes a strong case - despite his reliance on often
late evidence and some highly speculative parallels - that what looks like
a purely Mycenaean body of "heroic" myth presupposed by Homeric epic
argues: "There is fundamentally only one text of the Iliad" (1990: 331). But since we will have occasion
repeatedly to deal with the alleged "death of the author" in various guises in the following chapter
(most commonly in the voluminous works of Gregory Nagy), I will state categorically here - aping
Marx - my own belief that poets make poems, but they do not make them just as they please; they
do not make them under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly
encountered, given and transmitted from the past (c£ MECWn: 103).
3 W. V. Harris (1989: 45 with notes) suggests that the actual invention of the Greek alphabet took place
"in or shortly before the eighth century B.c., probably well before 750." So also B. Powell (1989,
1997: 20; c£ Powell 2002), who also strongly endorses an eighth-century date for Homer.
4 Though I focus on Greek colonization more fully below in connection with the Odyssey, the issue
of the geographic limits of my inquiry haunts both the Dark Age and the whole Archaic Period.
In a brilliantly suggestive article Ian Morris offers a refreshingly "political" reading of the new
Mediterreanism - especially ofHorden and Purcell (2000) - by pressing the analogy to globalization
that he suggests informs much of the paradigm shift from Finley's model of "static cells, rigid
structures, and powerful institutions" (Morris 2005: 31) to the new emphasis on "fluidity and
connectedness."
5 Euboeans seem to have participated in the founding of Al Mina in the course of the eighth century.
Kearsley (1999) suggests that level nine from the second half of the eighth century might have been
a Euboean mercenary/pirate encampment called into existence by Assyrian imperialism in the area,
an encampment that soon turned into a Greek and Phoenician trading post. Boardman (1999: 145)
points out that her dating has been challenged, but does not dispute that the earliest settlement was
by Euboean Greeks. Let me take this opportunity to thank Kathleen Lynch for clarifications about
Euboean pottery.
Literacy and the Near Eastern connection 95
contains, for example, central elements from the epic of Gilgamesh and the
Mesopotamian cosmological account Enuma Elish. More strikingly per-
haps, he argues that the entire lost epic story of the Seven against Thebes
has no historical basis but derives from Mesopotanean demon stories. In
the same vein B. Powell has even argued that most of what we think of
as traditional Greek myth going back to Mycenae (Nilsson 1932) is just
as much a creative eighth-century adaptation of Near Eastern material as
the "orientalizing" visual art of the same period. Finally, West cites literally
hundreds of parallels between Homer and Near Easern texts (1999a: see list
of passages discussed 642-46). Without denying any of the suggested par-
allels, Seaford makes a central point relevant to my own approach: "Each
of the Homeric epics is, when compared with the epic narratives of other
cultures, including the Mesopotamian, unusually centered around a crisis
that is both political and economic" (2004: 71, my emphasis). 6 Intriguing
as the Near Eastern parallels are to anyone who has taught mythology, I
reject the notion that "episodes, motifs, and themes in the Iliad become
more intelligible when placed in a wider context of similar [Near Eastern]
myths" (Louden 2006: 7). More intelligible to whom? Such an approach
turns our attention away from exploring the range of possible meanings
for a specifically Greek, eighth-century audience.7
Literacy, the appearance of a Phoenician-inspired Greek alphabet, is
most frequently associated with dramatically increased trade contact with
the Phoenicians, contacts already in evidence in Euboea at Lefkandi in the
tenth century and Eretria and Chalkis in the late ninth and early eighth.
Greek traders were in Al Mina (on the northern Syrian coast) by the end
of the ninth century (Burkert 1992: n, Boardman 1990). 8 This has led
to the widespread assumption that the primary motive for the adoption
and adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet was as a commercial aid to
merchants (W. Harris 1989: 45), and Burkert notes: "it is in connection
with these [trade] routes that the first examples of Greek script appear, in
Euboea, Naxos, Pithekoussai, and Athens" (1992: 12).
6 Seaford's subsequent analysis (2004= 72-73) points to political and economic elements especially in
the Enuma Elish, but I chink he is right to emphasize the centrality of political and economic crises
in the Homeric poems - even if we might define chose crises in somewhat different terms. Griffin
(1977) long ago argued convincingly chat the Homeric poems are radically different in outlook from
the whole body of fragments of early Greek epic.
7 De Polignac (1992) makes an excellent case for the need to move beyond citation of external influences
without exploring the internal evolutions chat, at a specific historical moment, render the external
element capable of being assimilated and adjusted to local realities.
8 Coldstream (1982) stresses chat there is firm evidence of Phoenician contacts with Euboea antedating
the founding of Al Mina and anticipates Burkert's German text in suggesting the decisive role of
Phoenician craftsmen - not only in Euboea but in Crete and Cos.
Homer's Iliad: alienation from a changing world
The assumption, however, that the invention of the Greek alphabet was
initially solely for purposes of trade, though plausible enough, may not be
the whole story. As B. Powell points out, not a scrap of early Greek writing
shows any hint of commercial activity or even numbers (1997: 24-25). 9 A
vigorous minority (e.g., Wade-Gery 1952, now joined emphatically by B.
Powell 1991, 1997, 2002) has argued that the long epic poem itself, the very
length of it necessitating performance over a minimum of three days by a
plurality of reciters, is the most likely motive for the creation of the true
alphabet. 10
Certainty is unlikely to emerge on either account. But if we consider the
implications of the invention of the alphabet for class relations in Greece,
the earliest surviving evidence is at least suggestive. Hurwit, notes, "The
earliest Greek inscription of any real length, incised on the shoulder of a
prize-jug from Athens dated to ca. 7 40-730, begins with the perfect hexam-
eter line 'He who now of all the dancers most playfully dances ... ' ... And
there is the only slightly longer inscription, mostly in hexameters, on a cup
from Pithekoussai:
I am Nestor's cup, good to drink from.

Whoever drinks from me will at once be seized
By desire for fair-crowned Aphrodite.
(Hurwit 1993: 28, cf. B. Powell 1989: 337}
9 Wilson (2009) counters that many early inscriptions are of the type "I belong to X," and suggests
that early traders migbt well have needed a means of distinguishing cargoes belonging to different
shippers.
10 Goold declared Wade-Gery's theory "impossible" but declined to elaborate (1960: 272-3 n. 1). His
own view is that "Homer was a collector and stitcher of lays who effected the first great literary
exploitation of the alphabet by compiling and preserving in rwo designedly comprehensive epics the
vast treasures of oral literature ... Homer found in the alphabet the elixir oflife whereby the mortality
of the spoken word was vanquished and whereby he could pass beyond the limitations of time and
compass imposed by a single recitation" (290). I do not find his overall thesis very convincing, but at
least he makes some good arguments for closely associating Homer with the emergence of writing.
I also agree with his phrase, "designedly comprehensive." Burkert's emphasis on the Phoenician use
ofleather scrolls (1992: 30--33, 120) seems to me to solve the technological obstacles raised by Kirk,
Jensen, Nagy, and Seaford about papyrus (see Rose 1997: 168-71 for references); but B. Powell, who
gives new weigbt to Wade-Gery's arguments, sees no problem in assuming adequate importation of
papyrus in the eigbth century (1997: 30 n. 54) and dismisses the evolutionary model of Nagy (and by
implication those of Kirk and Seaford; ibid.). Thougb he comes at the problem of the authenticity
=
of the text as we have it from a different angle, I am in general persuaded by A. Parry (1966 1989:
104-40). I was deligbted to read M. L. West's categorical endorsement of this article (2001: 3 n. 1).
Like A. Parry, Bernard Knox, to be sure focusing on only one massively disputed passage, i.e., the
notorious duals in Iliad 9, still seems to me to be making a very telling argument in favor of the
essential preservation of "Homer's" version (Knox 1990: 22): "There seems to be only one possible
explanation of the survival of these dual forms in the text: that the text was regarded as authentic,
the exact words of Homer himself And that can only mean that there was a written copy."
Literacy and the Near Eastern connection 97
Not only does this latter inscription imply familiarity with the Iliad (11.632-
35), but both inscriptions evoke an aristocratic world of contests, dancing,
amateur poetizing, and sexual joking - in short the world of festivals and
symposia. Indeed, B. Powell notes the close parallel between this cultural
world and the Odyssey's "account of the good life on Skheria, where 'ever
to us is the banquet dear, and the lyre, and dancing, and fresh linen and
warm baths, and the couch' (Od. 8.248-50)" (B. Powell 1989: 337).
Eric Havelock has explored provocatively a wide range of implications of
literacy for Greece (1963, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1986), though to the best of my
knowledgen he did not explicitly explore its implications for class. But given
the extreme likelihood that the vast majority of Greeks remained illiterate
at least until the fifth century BC, 12 the literacy of the aristocracy, attested
already in the mid-eighth century BC, must have contributed substantially
to the ever-widening gap between the consciousness of the masses and
that of the ruling class. To be sure, I believe that Havelock, like every
pioneer, was not free of exaggeration, especially in describing the utter
passivity, the near hypnosis of the oral audience (1963: 198-9 and passim). 13
n The first Classics course I took at Harvard in 1957 was Havelock's "History of the Greek Mind,"
in which he was working out a number of the ideas chat appear in Preface to Plato. I also took a
course with him subsequently on Plato's Republic in Greek, where again a number of key ideas to
appear later were being worked through. Ironically perhaps it is therefore not easy for me to sort
out the "oral" Havelock from the "written" Havelock. Although Havelock was an active socialist
in the 1930s (Golden 2004: 149, 152), by the 1950s he was fully committed to the liberal political
vision implicit in his The Liberal Temper in Greek Political Thought (1957, c£ 1950). In his work on
literacy I find only one dismissive passing reference to class struggle (1986: n8). Although it would
seem an almost inevitable move to relate Plato's bitter sense of alienation from the doxa of hoi polloi
to Plato's intense engagement with the implications of literacy, I believe Havelock never explicitly
did so. Whatever my subsequent disagreements with him, I take chis occasion to express my sense
of profound gratitude for his teaching and his friendship. His many contributions to the field of
Classics deserve far better than William Calder's invidious description of him as "an opportunistic
English leftist" (Calder 1998: 291, cited by M. Golden 2004= 149).
12 Gagarin (2008: 41) speaks of "widespread diffusion of alphabetic writing in Greece during the
first century afrer its discovery ... written ... by individuals from a full range of social classes, who
learned to write themselves." A note ad loc. acknowledges the aristocratic character of the sources and
speaks of an "inherent bias" in such evidence. See also 42 n. 9. Our evidence is to be sure extremely
chin for the social diffusion of writing. W. V. Harris, who represents himself as the pessimistic wing
in the debate over the degree of literacy (12 and passim), nonetheless acknowledges, "The skill was
certainly not confined to aristocrats or to a class of specialists" (1989: 48). Lang's survey (1991) of
early writing stresses "the variety of uses, both ephemeral and lasting, both prosaic and poetic, in a
variety of local alphabets" (77).
' 3 In fairness I should note chat Havelock himself comments, "This picture of his [i.e., chat of the oral
auditor of Homer] absorption in the tradition is over-simplified. There are clear signs in Homer
himself chat the Greek mind would one day reach out in search of a different kind of experience"
(1963: 199). Yet he goes on to argue chat "the Greek tongue therefore, as long as it is the speech of
men who have remained in the Greek sense 'musical' and have surrendered themselves to the spell of
the tradition, cannot fame words to express the conviction chat 'I' am one thing and the tradition is
another; chat 'I' can stand apart from the tradition and examine it; chat 'I' can and should break the
Nonetheless, the growing bitterness of aristocratic scorn of hoi kakoi (the
base or simply the bad) or hoi polloi (the many) was probably in no small
measure reinforced by the sense of their own greater critical acumen and
breadth of mental experience as a consequence of their literacy. 14 B. Powell
argues that the acquisition of literacy "created a class of literati scarcely
distinguishable from what we think of as the Greek aristocracy" (2002:
140), an argument we will return to below.
PAN-HELLENISM
The occasion and written preservation of the long epic is, I believe,
best understood as part of the new pan-Hellenism 1 5 manifested in such
phenomena as the great games16 and regional gatherings in Ionia and
the islands (Wade-Gery 1952, Taplin 1992: 39-41). 17 Pan-Hellenism is a
spell ofits hypnotic force" (ibid., my emphasis). I will argue below that Homer and his protagonist
Achilles did precisely that.
14 Long (1999: 16) cites "the rise of literacy" as one among many factors conspiring to produce early
Greek philosophy. But Havelock (e.g., 1963: 278----93; 19666: 44-67) was surely right to stress the
early thinkers' very specific sense of competition with the oral tradition in terms that presuppose
critical reflection on written texts orally performed. This is not to deny the critical role of other
factors, and Seaford has rightly reminded us of the contributions of "monetization" (2004).
15 Emphasizing pan-Hellenism in connection with the emergence of the Homeric poems is not
intended to dismiss the countertendencies, the ambiguity of"cultures within ancient Greek culture"
(Dougherty and Kurke 2003) or the potential "porousness'' of Greek identity at the edges (J. Hall
2007: 272). Another aspect of centrifugal particularism in this period is signaled by Coldstream's
focus on regional pottery styles in the eighth century (1983: 25): "the diversity of late geometric
pottery can offer a constructive contribution ... Dorians, Ionians, and all other Greeks were proud
to be parochial - and with good reason."
16 The year 776 used to be accepted as the canonical beginning of the Olympic games and of the
Archaic Period (c£ Bickerman 1968: 75). C. Morgan (1993: 25 with notes) suggests the irrelevance
of this date, ultimately deriving from Hippias' doubtless speculative victory lists preserved in the
Chronika of Eusebius (AD 26o----c. 340, Christesen and Martirosova-Torlone 2006, c£ J. Hall 2007:
32-33) to the material evidence and argues "a competition coinciding with either of the stages of
escalation of dedication, at the beginning of the eighth century or during the last quarter, is perhaps
more likely." See also Lee's discussion of the date and possible range of events in the eighth century
(1988). J. Hall sees the great games as essentially a phenomenon of the sixth century (2007: 271-2).
In any case he argues that the games were far more about aristocratic class solidarity than Greek
identity as such, a phenomenon that, following E. Hall (1989), he dates to the Persian Wars and
self-serving Athenian propaganda.
17 I find Jane Carter's (1995: 285-312) exploration of performance at ancestor cult rituals intriguing but
not convincing as an account for the dramatically expanded scale and pan-Hellenic breadth of the
Homeric poems. IfI have properly followed his argument, Vincent Farenga (1998) also seems to see
a fundamental connection between putative funeral eulogies and the social function of the Homeric
poems in adjusting people's consciousness to the polis; but not all the dots in this argument seem
to connect, for me at least. Wbile there is no evidence for poetic contests at Olympia, Taplin (1992:
39 n. 54) suggests "it should not be ruled out as an original occasion for Homer." The evidence
for poetic performances in Ionia is later (H. Ap. 146-50), but see Taplin's long note (40 n. 56).
Gentili (1988: 156) cites Hesiod fr. 357 Merk.-West for contests at Delphi, Sparta, and Delos. See
Pan-Hellenism 99
complex phenomenon. On one level it is reflected most obviously in the
dramatic increase during the eighth century in the importance of Olympia
and Delphi, 18 shown by the quantity and character of dedications, though
somewhat different factors seem to have been at work in those different
venues. The most basic factor seems to have been the concomitant process
of state formation, i.e., the emergence of the polis and stresses associated
with that process (C. Morgan 1993: 19). If, as I have argued, potential con-
flict over land played a significant role in the emergence of the polis, the role
of what Renfrew has dubbed "peer-polity interaction" (1988) at such pan-
Hellenic festivals may have been a significant factor in defusing tensions
and fostering a sense of the solidarity of the new poleis. Olympia seems to
have evolved from what was initially a meeting place for "the petty chiefs
of the west, at which they reinforced their status at home and amongst
their fellow rulers via the dedication, and perhaps also the circulation of
prestige goods" (C. Morgan 1993: 21).
Archaeologists have found a veritable flood during the eighth century
of dedications of high-quality bronze tripods, "an ideal status symbol and
commodity for conspicuous consumption ... [which] suggests a material
emphasis on display rather than communality" (C. Morgan 1993: 22).
However, those who have viewed Olympia as primarily an exercise in
solidarity of a Greek-wide ruling class simply hostile to the interests of the
polis fail to recognize the ambiguity of the ruling class's relation to the polis:
The richer man who could afford a tripod gained greater social rewards for greater
material investment; his dedication was seen by his fellows at Olympia, as well as
those in his home community, who already knew what kind of man he was and how
he fulfilled his material obligations at home. (C. Morgan 1993: 24)
Up to a point aristocratic displays of pan-Hellenic "generosity" continued
to be a source of prestige at home, but had dialectical consequences in the
eventual reaction of the demos:
The emergence in many poleis of ruling individuals or families who sought to
consolidate their own power and exclude their rivals by identifying closely with
also Heiden's intriguing discussion (1996) of the structure of the Iliad in terms of the three-day
performance model proposed first by Wade-Gery (1952: 13-16). Schein (1997: 349-51) also finds a
three-part structure and, like Heiden, cites alternative versions of the breaking points.
18 C. Morgan also associates the increase in the importance of Delphi with threatening conflicts within
the early polis: "Genuine Delphic responses were not open-ended, nor did they predict the future.
The oracle did not bestow divine authority upon rulers, but rather sanctioned their decisions to
act upon particular issues. The foundation of the Delphic oracle is therefore an indication of a
crisis in political authority which may have been caused by any number if internal factors (including
population increase or changes in wealth distribution) or external pressures such as warfare" (1993:
28----9, my emphasis).
l00 Homer's Iliad: alienation from a changing world
the cities they led, produced a clearer perception of what constituted the interests
of the state;'9 and these interests included discouraging or controlling the private
activities of aristocrats. (C. Morgan 1993: 35)
Another way in which we might understand pan-Hellenism is as a defensive

reaction to the impact of these major contacts with far more sophisticated
cultures to the east and south of Greece (Trump 1980: 257, cf. Tandy
1997: 123, Winter 1995, contra J. Hall 2007: 255-61). Aristocrats, who were
presumably the dominant political force at this time, might at the same time
have seen such events as occasions, as Tandy has argued, for celebrations
of aristocratic class solidarity (1997: 180) and arenas for demonstrations of
their alleged innate superiority. 20 For the new aristocracy, presumably the
plural basileis we encounter in the Odyssey and Hesiod (see chapters 3 and 4
below), drawn from the military ruling class around the paramount chiefs of
the earlier Dark Age (see chapter I above), was perhaps losing its dominant
role in the military function it presumably once enjoyed, 21 collective games
both fostered its sense of inter-polis solidarity and offered an occasion for
symbolic demonstration of its alleged superiority over ordinary members
of the demos (Rose 1992: 147-8, I. Winter 1995: 259-60), who were in all
likelihood eligible to compete, 22 but overwhelmingly lacked the leisure
and the special training needed for victory. Pace Tandy, this very function
would argue against viewing the audiences at these gatherings as exclusively
aristocratic: what is the point of impressing the masses if they are not there
to be impressed? 23 In this connection the archaeological evidence is decisive:
'9 Though I think C. Morgan nicely states the unintended "blowback" of aristocratic display, it is
characteristic, as noted earlier, of Classics discourse to speak of the disembodied "state" or polis. But
if generally the ruling class constituted the rulers of the archaic polis, pressure on the ruling class has
to be understood as coming from the demos, i.e., as class pressure.
2 ° Can we legitimately read back from Pindar the fusion of the glory of the victor with the glory
of his polis? If, as later, the polis was the recognized sponsor of individual competitors, there is a
great ideological opportunity for the aristocrats to present themselves as the ideal essence of their
respective poleis. Kurke (1991: 163---94) explores Pindar's efforts to put the best face on aristocratic
participation in the games as a benefit to the victor's polis.
2 ' There is a strong tendency, as noted in the previous chapter, in modern scholarship on Homeric
warfare (e.g., Raaflaub 1997 with bibliography and J. Hall 2007: 155-163) to dismiss the formerly
canonical idea of a post-Homeric hoplice revolution; but Hall does stress (ibid. 163-4), as does
Van Wees (1986, 1988, 1994, 1997), the role of the front-rank fighters (promakhoi).
22 David Young (1984) argues chat this must be the case later. In his 2004 BriefHistory he cites such
evidence as there is to argue that there was never a specific class barrier, however much circumstances
may have favored wealthier competitors (95-97). However, Herodotus's story (5.22) of the attempt
early in the fifth century to exclude Alexander I of Macedon from the Olympic games on the
grounds chat he was not truly Greek suggests that chis ethnic sensibility may well have extended
back to the foundation of the games.
23 Rolley (1983: 133-34) argues for a categorical change in the Archaic Period from the role of sanctuaries
in the Mycenaean period: "Les sanctuaires myceniens sane ceux d'une societe, et de groupements
Pan-Hellenism IOI
the continued dedication at Olympia - though in dramatically increased

numbers - of "small, simple" figurines (C. Morgan 1993: 23) proves that the
site was not exclusively a gathering of ruling classes. Offerings of jewelry
strongly suggest that women also frequented the sanctuary (C. Morgan
1993: 24-25).
Throughout the Archaic Period we will see a persistent tension between
the affirmation of pan-Hellenic aristocratic solidarity and the claim of
aristocrats to represent the essence of their specific poleis in competition
with the rulers of other poleis. Here indeed we have "status warriors."
Furthermore, if we assume aristocratic sponsorship of a massive new focus
on religious practice, these more collective religious events may be seen as
a natural extension of the build-up of their divine protectors to a wider
scale: how can a purely local divinity offer protection equal to that of
long-recognized pan-Hellenic divinities? 24
It is difficult to say whether the pan-Hellenism of travelling bards (Nagy
1979: 7-9 and passim) in the eighth century was more a contributing factor
or simply a reflection of a widespread sentiment. Certainly the degree to
which they could forge a common Greek idiom simplified their task in the
differing communities where they performed. It has also been suggested
(Hiller 1983) that the very fact of renewed contacts with areas closed off
during the darker periods of the Dark Age, but of which some memories
were preserved in oral traditions, triggered renewed pride and a sense of
connection with a more "heroic" past.
A further possible reason for fostering a sense of collective Greekness
may have been the emergence of far heavier resort to slavery- especially by
the aristocracy. 2 5 Slavery was central to the Mycenaean kingdoms (Ventris
and Chadwick 1973: 123-24 and passim), but it is hard to imagine it survived
humains, do mines par des princes. Le temenos archaique, isole de l' agglomeration, mais, par la, acces-
a
sible, en principe, tous au meme titre, sous reserve du respect de regles religieuses independences
du status de chacun, est celui d'une societe en evolution rapide, otl le stade aristocratique n'a ete
qu'une etape." C£ Taplin: "A large proportion of the local community, often including women and
children, would gather at the sanctuaries and stay there for several days and nights" (1992: 39).
24 Renfrew also suggests that these pan-Hellenic interactions were "critical in the wider dissemination
and development of Greek religion" (1988: 23).
25 In an excellent conference paper (at Scripps College, April 2005) E. Harris made a strong case for
the full development and centrality of slavery in Homeric society against the widely echoed and
(Harris argued) politically motivated claim of Eduard Meyer that slavery was insignificant in Greece
until the onset of Athenian democracy. Finley, though he pronounces Meyer's views as "as close
to nonsense as anything I can remember written by a historian of such eminence" (1998: 48), and
acknowledges the existence of "slaves in number'' in Homer (1978: 54) sees the real emergence of a
slave-based society in Athens as due to the reforms of Solon (see discussion later in my text). Rihll
1996 offers an excellent critique of Finley's theory of slavery, though I would not subscribe to her
economics-free view of the linkage between slavery and politics.
!02 Homer's Iliad: alienation from a changing world
to a significant degree in the subsistence-level farming of the eleventh and
tenth centuries. 26 However, by the late eighth century a middling farmer
like Hesiod depended on the labor of slaves and occasional hired "free"
labor (e.g., WD 597-602). 27 The larger the landholdings of an aristocrat,
presumably the more his wealth is likely to have depended on slave labor
(Ste. Croix 1981: 112-204) or the exploitation of tenant farmers. As noted
earlier, vis-a-vis slaves, Greek landowners large and small constituted a
single class. Indeed, without the exploitation of just a few slaves and
hired hands it hard to see how a middling farmer like Hesiod could have
considered the export of a surplus a sufficiently relevant topic to include it
in his overview of the farmer's year - despite his personal lack of experience
of the sea (WD 642-62). 28
Moreover, the notion that trade, in and of itself, explains the genera-
tion of wealth entails a serious mystification: trade generates production.
Whether what is traded is metals, luxury goods, or subsistence foodstuffs,
human labor must be expended in the production of those surplus goods.
Metals in particular suggest the brutalizing slave-labor of ancient mining; 29
luxury goods imply a high degree of division of labor in which an agri-
cultural surplus is extracted to support that division. 30 Thus the increase
26 Snodgrass (1971: 393) suggests chat "a few slaves no doubt remained in the possession of the better
off."
27 On the complex issue of free labor in ancient Greece see the collection edited by Garnsey (1980).
Foxhall (2007: 72), relying on comparative dara from various areas and historical periods of the
Mediterranean, has argued for the severe limits of culcivation possible for a family unit with one pair
of draft animals. She also makes a strong case for the centrality of estimates of the amount of land
chat can be ploughed in a day as the foundational unit for archaic (and classical) Greek landholdings.
Though she is cautious about the degree of farm slavery in any given area, the whole logic of her
argument, it seems to me, points toward the necessity of slavery or ocher forms of exploiration of
labor to create any agricultural surplus. C£ M. Jameson 1977/78 and 1992. Rihll (1996), who makes
a perhaps unduly rigid case for the priority of supply over demand for slaves, nonetheless makes
a very plausible argument for a dramatic increase in the availability of and the trade in slaves as a
consequence of the massive movement of Greeks around the Mediterranian, where enslavement of
the native populations was presumably common.
28 For a fuller discussion of Hesiod and in particular the assessment of Hesiod by A. T. Edwards, see
Chapter 4.
29 See the passage from Diodorus Siculus (3.12-14; 5.36--38) cited by Marx (Introduction note 74
above). J. G. Davies (1955) confirms the accuracy of the horrors there described. The Laurion mines
in Attica were exploited from the Bronze Age on for copper and silver (Whitley 2001: 381). Snodgrass
(1983b) makes a strong case for the preponderance of Archaic shipping being devoted to meral ores
and marble.
30 Tandy (1997: 119) rightly raises the issue of the equivalence on the basis of which goods were traded,
though his own solution, as Schaps (1998: 5) points out, is purely speculative. The very concept
of "cheating" in trade implies there is some objective criterion for an honest basis of exchange,
something it took many centuries to theorize and which is still by no means universally agreed
upon. While it would cerrainly be anachronistic to project a fully articulated labor theory of value
back into the early Archaic Age, I chink it is still important to insist on the contribution of exploited
labor to the creation of the new wealth chat is so in evidence in the second half of the eighth century.
Pan-Hellenism !03
in trade presupposes an increase in slavery or a dramatic increase in the
exploitation of "free" labor. We have no direct data about who controlled
early mining,3' though it seems obvious that the aristocrats had the greatest
interest in its success, so that between mining and the presumed expansion
of aristocratic landholdings it seems quite probable to me that slavery was
already extensive by the eighth century.
But if we have a reasonably clear idea of why trade with the East expanded
significantly in this period and why it was led by Euboeans, and even why
Phoenician migrant craftsmen may have settled in Euboea, it is still a puzzle
why an oral poetic technique that presupposes centuries of development,
the content of which purports to be purely Mycenaean (Nilsson 1932),
rather suddenly assumes so major a role in the cultural life of Greece
and displays such striking evidence of "contamination" by Near Eastern
elements, not only in a significant number of incidents, but in more
fundamental respects such as the representation of relations between gods
and mortals, formulae, similes, and even plot structure (Burkert 1992:
115-20).
If the pan-Hellenic impulse was, as I suggested, in part at least a defen-
sive reaction to the influx of Near Eastern cultures, it seems to me plausible
that Euboea, the center of the foreign influence, 32 was also the likely place
where a dramatic escalation of the importance of oral heroic tradition
had its start (West 1988 and 1992, B. Powell 1989, 1991, 1993a and b). 33 It
also seems plausible enough to me that, as Latacz and others have sug-
gested, aristocrats, who were most capable and susceptible of wholesale
adoption of elements of Eastern culture, were also the most likely to fos-
ter an age-old form of poetry that celebrated Greek military prowess and
specifically perhaps a victory over Easterners. It is a common phenomenon
throughout the world for the ruling classes of relatively backward areas to
adopt and adapt enthusiastically- but not without some ambivalence - the
Redfield (1983: 225) does in fact invoke explicitly a labor theory of value for the Odyssey chat at a
certain point seems to turn into an elaboration of the Victorian sexual pun on "spending" (239).
3' The fact chat Odysseus' alleged guest-friend Menees is a trader in metals, bringing iron in quest
of bronze (I.18o-84), suggests chat despite the blatant class scorn of trade and profit exhibited on
Phaeacia (8.159-64), Homer's audience found it quite plausible chat a peer of the "king" of Ithaca
would engage in such trade. See further discussion below.
32 Popham (1983) tentatively suggesrs chat Euboeans acquired key information about western sites and
routes from Phoenicians at Al Mina.
33 Lenz (1993) raises some good questions in defense of the older assumption chat Homer must have
worked primarily in Ionia. In any case it is probable chat bards wandered a great deal from place
to place (c£ Od. 17.382-86). I have argued elsewhere against the assumption - derived from the
idealizations projected in the Odyssey- chat there were "house-poers" maintained on a regular basis
by eighth-century aristocrats (Rose 1992: n3-14).
cultural artifacts and practices of more sophisticated cultures with which
they come into contact. 34 One thinks immediately of Horace's paradox-
laden lines, Graecia capta forum victorem cepit et arteslintulit agresti Latio
("Captured Greece captured its savage conqueror/and brought the arts
into rustic Latium," Epist. 2.1.157-58). It was, of course, the Roman aris-
tocracy that adopted Greek culture with both enthusiasm and in notable
cases profound ambivalence. In the later Archaic Period, for which we
have better documentation than for the still "dark" eighth century, Kurke
has described the politics of habrosyne (delicacy, luxuriousness), the full
embrace of eastern luxurious lifestyle, including dining on couches, and
"feminine" clothing (Kurke 1992) by substantial elements of the Greek aris-
tocracy. At the same time that Greek aristocrats were hungry to adopt many
elements of more sophisticated Near Eastern cultures they were encounter-
ing, they perhaps also experienced a self-defensive sense of their uniqueness
as Greeks. Moreover, the politics of the early polis entailed, I believe, pres-
sures from below on the Greek ruling class that were of no concern to the
comparatively superrich ruling classes of the ancient Near East. Certainly
the Greeks' ambivalence about trade and specifically about the Phoenicians
as symbolic representatives of the whole phenomenon suggests a broader
anxiety about Greek identity as such (Dougherty 2001: 78, 102-21). The
likelihood that foreigners were banned from participating in the various
pan-Hellenic competitions also suggests that one of their functions was
fostering a new sense of Greekness. 35 Of course to the extent that exploited
smallholders and landless thetes experienced a sense of solidarity with their
aristocratic exploiters as members of the same polis and members of the
"community'' of Greeks, they were less likely to perceive themselves pri-
marily in relation to their class identity. The ever precarious hold on power
of the Greek ruling class rendered particularly urgent the task of fostering
a sense of polis solidarity.
THE AUDIENCE
The idea that the Iliad and the Odyssey, with their enormous length and
being in Goold's phrase "designedly comprehensive," can be fit into the
34 The Cuban nationalist Jose Mard mocked past Latin American ruling classes as "a masquerader in
English breeches, Parisian vest, North American jacket, and Spanish cap" (1977 [1891]: 91). Himself
a sophisticated, European-trained intellectual, Mard articulates in the same essay ("Our America,"
referring to America below the Rio Grande) an intense reaction against outside influences on Latin
American culture. More immediate to the Archaic Period I. Morris (2005: 48) notes that sixth-century
Sicilians, while they imported "only a narrow range of Greek drinking vessels ... simultaneously
elaborated indigenous traditions."
35 J. Hall (2007: 272) expresses skepticism that the mention in Herodotus (5.22.1-2) of exclusion of
non-Hellenes in the early fifth century was valid for earlier periods.
The audience
intimate confines of an aristocratic symposium and other purely aristocratic
gatherings (B. Powell 2002: 140) strikes me as inherently implausible. The
prospect of a greater audience and greater occasions, such as the pan-
Hellenic festivals, alone seems to me sufficient impetus for creations of
such scale with such a richly pan-Hellenic thrust.
Thus it does not follow that, if aristocrats in the eighth century and
perhaps earlier promoted the allegedly age-old Mycenaean-based sagas as a
celebration of Greekness and as a prop for their claims of exalted ancestry,
what we have in Homer is unambiguous aristocratic self-congratulation.
Oral poetry celebrating martial exploits of kings and big-men may well
have gone back to at least the sixteenth century BC (West 1988), but a
complex interplay of factors seems to have triggered both the uniquely
mammoth form we have preserved as specifically "Homer" and much of
its content.
If those who believe, as I do, that pan-Hellenic festivals and a full three-
day span for performance played a decisive role in the size and writing
down of these enormous poems, how are we to conceive of the audience
and their relation to these performances? It seems to me, pace Latacz,
Tandy, and co., highly implausible that the poets who performed at these
collective gatherings were exclusively creatures of the aristocracy. The very
name Demodokos (= welcomed by the demos), as well as the fact that he
has to be summonedby the basileus and that poets are lumped by Eumaios as
demiourgoi who travel from town to town ( Od. 17. 382-86) argue against the
existence in the eighth century or early seventh (West 1995, Burkert 1976)
of full-time court poets (Van Wees 1992: 52). Moreover, oral poets may be
presumed to be especially sensitive to the ideological commitments and
aspirations of their audience (Finnegan 1977: 214-75). Few would seriously
argue that only aristocrats made up the audience of these regional religious
gatherings where alone poems of the scale of the Iliad make sense. While -
like any form of popular entertainment - the poem seeks to cater as far as
possible to the spectrum of values in its putative audience, it does have an
ideological thrust; it is neither completely "open" nor radically "closed." 36
The assumption of a heterogeneous class audience goes a long way in my
36 There has been a significant debate about the degree to which Homer's texts are, in the con-
temporary jargon, "open" or "dosed" texts (Peradotto 1997: 388-92, citing Doherty 1995 and
Katz 1991). Thalmann expresses his affinity for Doherty's approach (Thalmann 1998: 291-95) and
strongly argues, with a few gestures toward "gaps," for an ideologically dosed Odyssey, on which
see Rose 1999a and discussion below. Of course from the perspective of a Derridean reading
(Lynn-George 1987) the Iliad, by virtue of being a text, is inevitably shot through with ambigu-
ities and contradictions. For the Odyssey the tension between open and dosed is argued impres-
sively by Peradotto in terms of narrative and linguistic theory. See further discussion below in
Chapter 3.
view toward explaining differing and potentially conflicting ideological

messages in the poems. 37
READING FOR IDEOLOGY
How does one assess the ideological thrust of a literary text? More specif-
ically, how are we to read Homer, because, whatever its putative origins
in performance, I believe with B. Powell (e.g., 2002) and others that it
is and was at its inception a text. 38 If in fact it was created for perfor-
mance at three-day festivals, a variety of performers (Homeridai?) would
have to learn their portions from such a text. In addition to considering
the occasion and conditions of reception of the work- matters in the case
of Homer necessarily in the realm of speculation - we need to consider,
however summarily, the nature of the formal properties of the work and
the extent to which they imply an ideological bias. In this context one
must also ask whether there are aspects of the work that operate against
the grain of its formal properties. In the case of a narrative poem, the
general shape and size of the narrative, the "voice" or voices it projects, 39 its
major themes, repeated motifs, or symbols, its tone or range of tones merit
consideration. Moreover, "narrative" is not an ahistorical essence: Without
endorsing too simplistic a version of the trajectory "from mythos to logos"
37 West, apropos of the difference between the Theogony and Works and Days in the treatment of
"kings" remarks: "One is tempted to find a parallel in the Kara-Kirgiz minstrels, of whom it is
recorded chat 'they vary their songs according to their audience, inserting the praise of their families
when singing before the wealchy ones, and bitter reproof of their arrogance when singing to the
people' (Nilsson, Homer and Mycenae, p. 195, from Radlov)" {West 1966: 44). Finnegan {1977: 191)
describes "itinerant Hausa praise singers" in West Africa "picking on wealchy and powerful men to
'praise' in return for gifrs." A failure to come up with the desired gifts "is likely to resulc in hurtful
and derogatory 'praise songs,' so the victim pays up." Readers of Nagy 1979 will of course recognize
his categories of praise and blame poets. My own view is the chat the heterogeneity of Homer's
audiences led to much subtler approaches to the class positions of its members.
38 Russo 1987 makes a persuasive case for dictation based on the presence of the sorts of "errors"
chat would characterize an oral performance and be unlikely in a purely written text, but we are
here in a realm of pure speculation with no thoroughly compelling parallels to the eighth-century
circumstances. C£ Janka 1998.
39 I agree with Lynn-George's critique (1987: 104-5) ofBakhcin's argument chat there is but one voice
in Homer's epics. Bakhcin is attempting to clarify the specificity of the novel's "polyglossia" and
"dialogic" character by a negative picture of the "monologic" epic {1981: 3-40). See also Peradotto
{1990: 53 and passim), who uses central concepts ofBakhcin to illuminate the tensions of the Odyssey
but like Lynn-George rejects his characterization of epic. De Jong's emphasis on different narrative
voices and focalizations, as noted above, rightly complicates the issue of value judgments builc into
the text's various "voices." Her discussion of reported speech ignores the work ofVolosinov {1973:
n5-40) which anticipates some of her insights, but he argues "various different classes will use one
and the same language. As a resulc, differently oriented accents intersect in every ideological sign.
Sign becomes an arena of the class struggle" {1973: 23).
Reading for ideology 107
(Nestle 1978), 40 I think it is important to insist that narrative for Homer
and his audience entails a centrality radically different from its later func-
tions: just as characters within the poem can make an argument primarily
by telling a story (Diomedes narrating the fate of Lykourgos, Glaukon
narrating the tale of Bellerophon, Phoenix narrating the tale of Meleager,
Achilles adopting the paradigm of Herakles, etc.), so the meaning of the
poem as a whole is embedded in the unfolding of the plot. Finally, one
needs to assess the relationship of all these elements to what we can know
or reasonably posit are the major sources of social, economic, and political
tension within the target audience.
The relevance of the work to an audience in our own time4' lies not
in some take-home moral (e.g. Hammer 2002, L. Golden 2005), but,
I would argue, in the working out of that very process which sharpens
our perceptions of the workings of ideology in general. Precisely because
class struggle is an ongoing process in which we - like it or not - are
implicated, Vernant, stressing the historical continuity between Greece
and our era, argued that the form of tragedy's transhistorical interest is best
understood within the framework of Marx's declaration that "the forming
of the five senses is a labour of the entire history of the world down to the
present" (MECW 3: 302, Vernant 1988b: 239-40). The same argument is I
believe relevant to Homer. Our perceptions of the world are to a significant
degree shaped by the literary forms we have inherited from Greece, one
of the symbolic systems through which we organize our social relations.
To the extent that, as anthropologists insist, we are human by virtue of
our dependence on specific systems of symbolization (Geertz 1973: 47-50,
cf. White 1959: 3-32), the study of ideology reveals the play of fundamental
social conflicts in those systems, of which literature is a major one. In this
sense Althusser argued that "ideology in general has no history" in the same
sense that Freud argued "the uncomcious is eternal' (Althusser 1971: 160-1,
his emphases).42 In its basic functions, broadly considered, the workings
of ideology, like the psychic processes of the human mind, are inherent
features of human beings.
40 See discussion below of Havelock and orality.

41 L. Golden (2005: xviii-xxiii), citing a 1943 article by Harold Cherniss and invoking the universal
human condition, posits an absolute and dated antithesis of pure poetry and pure history by virtue
of which only a focus on pure poetry can offer any contemporary relevance of ancient texts. He
claims more recent support for his view from Latacz (1996).
42 This claim is easily misunderstood. I would agree with Page duBois (1988) that the content of the
unconscious, e.g., specific symbols of gender relations, is historically variable, but I would still argue
that the processes of the unconscious, e.g., symbolization, condensation, displacement, censorship,
etc., are transhistorical.
THE WORLD OF ACHILLES VS. THE HISTORIANS' WORLD
There is a rich body of usually very careful scholarship devoted to examining

the "world" embedded in the Homeric poems - its economy, its political
structure, its social hierarchy, its values or ethics. While it is acknowleged,
for example, that such analyses "can only discover literary worlds" (Ulf
2009: 83) - I would say rather "ideological constructs" - such studies almost
inevitably marshal bits and pieces of evidence in the poems to construct as
credible as possible an image of a potentially "real" historical society. 43 Too
often such an image strips away the emotional intensities of the experience
of the poem. 44 Long ago, for example, Moses Finley demonstrated that,
as compared with the world of the Mycenaean tablets, "the regime that
we see in the poems was, above all, one of private ownership ... there
was free, untrammeled right to dispose of all movable wealth ... that the
transmission of a man's estate by inheritance, the movables and immovables
together, was taken for granted as the normal procedure upon his death"
(1981 [1957]: 217). This is a reasonable enough argument about an image of
a "real" society in the poems. Yet the experience of the poems stresses the
pathos of the fragility of possession and of the transmission by inheritance.
The battle scenes of the Iliad are full of deaths that thwart the "normal
procedure":
[Diomedes] pursued Abas and Polyidos,
Sons of Eurydamas, aged interpreter of dreams:
For them as they went forth the old man did not explain their dreams,
Rather strong Diomedes stripped away their lives.
And he went after both Zanthos and Thoas, two sons of Phainops,
Both of them, his only children: but he was being worn away by grim
old age,
And bore no other son to leave amid his possessions.
There Diomedes stripped them of life, took away the dear spirit
From both, but to the father lamentation and grim griefs
He left, since he would not welcome them returning alive
From battle. More distant relatives would divide his wealth.
(fl. 5-148-58)
43 C£ Donlan: "Although it [Homeric society] is not an 'historical society' in any sense of the word,
we can, in a scientific manner, extract a real society from it" (1997: 649, my emphasis). He proceeds,
as have so many others, to tell us chat the oikos is the fundamental social and economic unit of the
society. That seems a likely enough inference about eighth-century Greek society. But in the Iliad
we do not encounter an oikos chat is not doomed (chat ofHektor, of Priam, of Peleus). In the Odyssey
to be sure the oikoi of Nestor and of Menelaos - or in the la-la land of Alkinoos - can be counted
as functional; but the oikoi more centrally focused upon by the narrative - chose of Odysseus and
of Agamemnon - are profoundly distressed.
44 Hammer (2002: 10-14) offers a useful overview of the theoretical case for finding "policies" embedded
in the narrative and in the narrative performance.
The world ofAchilles vs. the historiam' world
The implicit tragedy for the first father of two sons is spelled out explicitly
for the father of the second pair. This "brief pathos" is enormously expanded
in the elaborated pathos of Hector, his son, and his wife, the imminent
death of Priam and enslavement of Hecuba, and finally, the pathos of
Peleus's imminent loss of his only heir. None of this invalidates Finley's
general picture, but it does open up the gap between attempting to suggest
the power of the ideological construct vs. a sociological analysis.
Finley is at great pains to demonstrate that the various uses of the
term temenos do not necessarily imply that there was an area of publicly
controlled land set aside to give to effective basileis (1981: 224-28; cf. Donlan
1989b). What does not emerge from his analysis is any sense of the way in
which in context the references to the temenos given Bellerophon (6.194-
5), offered Meleagros (9.576-80), the one Achilles tauntingly suggests was
offered to Aeneas (20.184-5), and, finally, the one elaborated on the shield
of Achilles (18.550-60) fit on the ideological level into a sustained utopian
vision of a perfect meritocracy upheld by Achilles and utterly invalidated
by the rule of Agamemnon.
Finley's article, backed by the fuller analyses of The World of Odysseus
(1978; 1st edn. 1954), on a certain level set the gold standard for analyses of
"Homeric society." 45 Looking at the range of Mycenaean terminology for
social class, he stresses the fact that anax is already vestigial and "basileus
climbed the social ladder until eventually it displaced anax completely"
(219-20). Both before and since Finley there is of course an all but bot-
tomless bibliography on Homeric basileis46 and the associated structure of
authority, much of it full of insightful observations about the behaviors of
basileis in the poems, but overwhelmingly focused - as my own brief com-
ments about it in Chapter 1 - on eliciting what can plausibly be deduced
about an actual structure of leadership during a given phase of the Dark
Age. 47 But the experience of the listener-reader is an initial confrontation
45 Cairns, despite some serious reservations in his review (1993) of Van Wees's Status Warrior.r, declares,
"No tutor can now send his/her students to The World ofOdysseus without also requiring chat they
read Van Wees" (7).
46 I offer here what is at best a random sampling of items chat happen to be in my files and personal
library to suggest the obsessiveness with which chis topic has been explored: Fanta 1882, Finsler
1906, Nilsson 1927, Calhoun 1934, Jachmann 1953, Starr 1961b, Oliva 1963, Finley 1978, Deger 1970
and Deger-Jalkotzy 1991, C. G. Thomas 1966 and 1978, Andreev 1979, Gschnitzer 1965, c£ 1971 and
1991, Donlan 1979, 1984, 1985, 1989a and b, 1997, Mondi 1980, Qviller 1981, Drews 1983, Carcledge
1983b, Geddes 1984, Rihll 1986 and 1992, McGlew 1989, Raaflaub 1997b, Antonaccio 2006, Carlier
2006 (c£ 1984: 137-214 and 2000), Mazarakis Ainian 2006, Van Wees 2006b, Ulf 2009. For a fuller
sampling see Sakellariou 1989: 336--38.
47 Antonaccio (2006: 388) has recencly summed up the apparent consensus on chat historical construct:
"Our notion of the Iron Age basileus has emerged from several decades of scholarship on the Homeric
poems and on the past twenty or so years of archaeological research. It is more or less accepted chat
with a set of contradictory impressions which only gradually begin to sort
themselves out into more fundamental contradictions. Initially we seem to
have a dual kingship overseeing an assembly of all the Greek warriors: the
priest Khryses beseeches
all the Akhaians,

But most of all the two sons of Atreus, commanders [kosmetore a dual form] of
the hosts. (1.15-16)
It then appears that Agamemnon alone has the authority to ignore the
wishes of the entire army (1.22-25). But when disaster hits the army, it is
Achilles who is able to summon the assembly to deal with the crisis (1.54).
Nestor, seeking to mediate the resulting conflict, advises Achilles,
Don't you, son of Peleus, be willing to strive with a basileus
In opposition, since he never has the same portion of honor (time),
A scepter-hearing king (basileus), to whom Zeus gave glory (kudos).
(1.277-79)
Yet a few lines earlier we heard Agamemnon declare: "You are the most
hateful to me of Zeus-nurtured kings (diotrepheon basileon)" (1.176); and
we have heard Achilles, holding a scepter, swear his withdrawal and hurl it
to the ground (1.233-46). Agamemnon specifically cites the scepter of the
priest Chryses as a sign of his god-protected status that may not protect
him should he bother the king again (1.26-28). The poet devotes nine
lines (2.100-8) to describing Agamemnon's inherited scepter just before he
makes his disastrous lying test of the troops he is supposed to command
with it. I don't believe this is just lazy use of formulaic language; rather the
poet draws us into a web of contradictory roles, divine interventions, and
human values which only work themselves out through the development
of the plot. A key element in this working through are the symbolic
associations key objects like the scepter take on as they are incorporated in
the unfolding of the plot. 48
some important individuals whose graves have been discovered and published merit the identification
of basileus in the Iron Age, the inheritors of the qa-si-re-we. These individuals are more chiefs than
kings ... , but perhaps more Big Men than chiefs. The status of basileus as seen in Homer is not
striccly inherited, and claims to power were contestable by ochers."
"8 Thucydides 1.9.4 cites the transmission (paradosei) of the scepter as proof of the accumulated
power and wealth of Agamemnon. At least since Lessing (1962 [1766]: 81-83) the symbolic force of
Homer's focus on chis scepter as well as the scepter on which Achilles takes his oath of withdrawal
(1.234-39) has been recognized. Alas, following through just the symbolic associations of the scepter
alone could make a substantial chapter. Easterling {1989) offers an excellent overview of both the
data in Homer and some of the possible interpretations. Mondi {1980), though I do not agree
with his emphasis on the divinity of the scepter-bearing king, does draw attention to a number
The world ofAchilles vs. the historiam' world III
A more socio-historical approach to the poem might reasonably con-

clude: "The epic 'focuses almost exclusively on the positive side of the
position of women; it emphasizes women's inclusion in society as a whole,
rather than her exclusion from certain roles, it celebrates the function that
women do perform, instead of drawing attention to their handicaps or
inabilities"' (Raaflaub 1997b: 640, quoting Arthur 1973: 13-14 with appar-
ent approval; her emphasis). Yet the narrative immediately confronts us
with a woman torn from her family to be a slave for life, it seems, to a
brutal basileus, who boasts she will serve his bed and loom far, far away
from her homeland (1.29-31). Her status as object, as symbol of ruling-
class male prestige becomes immediately clear when Agamemnon demands
another prize "just as good" (antaksion 1.136). When the heralds lead away
Briseis, the poet tells us she went "against her will" (aekous' 1.348), but
her will is irrelevant within the power dynamics of the poem. We later
learn from her wrenching lament over the corpse of Patroklos that she had
no say in a marriage arranged by her father, that she saw her husband and
three brothers slaughtered in the destruction of her homeland, and her best
but futile hope was some regularization of her status as the concubine of
the man who destroyed her homeland and family (19.290-300). Whatever
their admirable qualities, all women in the poem know they are pawns in
the war: Helen faces death should she fail to gratify a man she despises
(3.415-17); 49 all the others - including Andromache - face slavery. One of
the more disgusting speeches in the poem is Nestor's effort to arouse the
dispirited Greek army by urging
of significant appearances of the scepter in both poems. Berard (1972) even invoked its symbolism
of political power in connection with a bronze spearhead found along with iron ones in the tomb
of the "hero" of Lefkandi. One might focus as well on how the spear that Achilles inherits from
Peleus, too heavy for Patroklos to wield {16.140--44), symbolizes the unique martial excellence of
Achilles as his birthright as well as the pathos of Patroklos' inadequacy as surrogate. As suggested
below, a key ideological element in play in the Iliad is what qualities as well as what symbols
one inherits. Mark Edwards has an excellent brief discussion of symbolism in the Iliad (1987:
rr4-16).
49 Without attempting here a full theorization of Homer's gods, I would argue that the dialogue
between Helen and Aphrodite is not a psychodrama in which Helen is arguing against her
own sexual desire for Paris (e.g., L. Golden 2005: xiv). Rather Aphrodite confronts her with
the terrible consequences if she fails to use her sexual attractiveness to attach herself to a male
protector:
Do not provoke me, stubborn girl, lest I become angry and abandon you,
And hate you as much as now terribly I have loved you,
And in the midst of both sides I will contrive dreadful hatreds,
Of the Trojans and the Danaans, and you would perish an evil death.
(3.414-17)
Therefore, let no man press hard to return homeward
Before he has lain down beside a wife of the Trojans.
(2.354-5)
When the Greeks and Trojans swear oaths before the duel of Paris and
Menelaos, they pray to Zeus that
Whoever of whatever side first should bring about pain over the oaths,
May their brains pour upon the ground just as this wine,
Theirs and their childrens,' and their wives be subjected to others.
(3-299-301)
Achilles, after deciding to return to battle, cites the imminent grieving of

Trojan wives as the ultimate validation of his anticipated triumphs (18.121-
25). Repeatedly the sexual subjugation and grief of women are offered as
the measure - the pawns - of male prowess and integrity. Whether we look
to political, social, or gender "realities" in the poem, the true ideological
messages are embedded in the narrative; for as many have argued, "the
medium is the message."
THE FORM OF THE ILIAD
The form of the Iliad might be approached from several angles. We are
aware, from very fragmentary remains, of other lost "epics" (Griffin 1977,
Huxley 1969, West 2003), but none seems to have had the extraordinary
scope of the Homeric poems nor, broadly speaking, the same take on the
world (Griffin 1977 and Slatkin 1991: 21-28). In a very real sense both
poems are unique and appear not only to have distilled a long tradition
but formally to have obliterated it.5°
As noted above, the poet of the Iliad is presumably heir to a long tradi-
tion of formulaic praise poetry focused primarily on the martial achieve-
ments of the ruling class (klea andron, the glorious deeds of men). Milman
Parry's decisive study of its formulaic character as well as work by Parry and
others on type scenes (arming, assemblies, duels, sacrifices, banquets, etc.) 51
5° C£ the dictum of Walter Benjamin, "A major work will either establish the genre or abolish it; and
the perfect work will do both" (1977: 44). To be sure, as Huxley (1969) and West (2003) attest, epics
continued to be composed, but their fragmentary remains suggest that nothing afrer the Iliad and
the Odyssey so profoundly imposed itself on the consciousness of the Greeks. I confess I have never
understood how this distinctiveness of the Homeric poems fits in with Nagy's conception of the
"tradition."
51 See especially Milman Parry 1971: 404-7 (his review of Walter Arend's 1933 study of type scenes),
Fenik 1968, 1974: 133-232, M. Edwards 1987: 71----97 and passim). Parry preferred to call type-scenes
"themes" (1971: xii); and this practice is followed by Lord 2000: 68----<)8.
The form ofthe Iliad 113
has led to the widespread assumption that a traditional style must imply a
traditional, "conservative" perspective on the world. 52 The complexity of
the hexameter line and the elaborate flexibility ("extension") and economy
Parry demonstrated in the systems of formulae for major characters and
commonly used objects implied that relatively few formulae were likely to
have been created from whole cloth by the "final" poet in the tradition.
Joseph Russo stated with particular clarity and eloquence the case for a
thoroughly conservative Homer (1976).53 Reviewing all the subtle con-
straints of the formulaic hexameter line, he focused also upon constraints
of diction and argued for the regularities of incident and final outlook,
finding
a perfect continuum up from the verbal or formular level ... up to the level of
story or plot ... The traditional poet, reciting before his audience, must hold out
to them a coherent world-picture, with everything in its place ... Such a world
picture shows certain unvarying constants. Men should be in their proper ranks
and roles in society, with the proper behavior and values carried out at each
rank; the Olympian gods should be performing their customary roles, whether on
Olympus or in the world of men, as guardians of those special virtues and chosen
individuals that they customarily support. (1976: 295-6)
Taken together, the assumption of an exclusively aristocratic audience,54
acceptance of Havelock's emphasis on the extreme passivity of an oral
52 Despite many impressive insights, Lynn-George's declaration chat "the hour of oraliry has already
passed" (1987: 55) and his sustained critique (55-80 and passim) of Milman and Adam Parry's
conceptions of Homer's language struck me as ahistorical and gratuitously arrogant. It is much
easier to find both Parrys "naive" if one completely brackets the different historical problems to
which they attempted to offer solutions. For an excellent, balanced account of the flaws and rich
contributions of Milman Parry see Russo 1971 and J. Foley 1988. See also Adam Parry's nuanced
introduction to his father's papers (M. Parry 1971) and his posthumously published lecture (A. Parry
1972). I admit I was shocked at what seemed the utterly simple-minded dogmatism of a quotation
from M. Parry in Hammer 2002: 8: "But in practice, if we keep in mind the directness which is
from every point of view the mark of Homeric sryle, and firmly exclude any interpretation which
does not instantly and easily come to mind, we shall find chat there is hardly a case where a variery of
opinion is possible" (M. Parry 1971: 154). Only when one looks at the full context in which Parry is
discussing how we distinguish a particularized epithet from an ornamental one does the quotation
make perfect sense. It clearly has nothing at all to do with interpretation of the poem as a whole!
53 In fairness, I should note chat eight years earlier Russo explored very compellingly "Homer against
His Tradition" (1968). The latest statement of his conception of the poems' composition of which
I am aware is in his introduction to his commentary (1992: 14-16).
54 I do not attribute to Russo belief in an exclusively aristocratic audience in chis text, but elsewhere
he declares: "As in archaic Greece, the Irish poets move within an essentially aristocratic sociery"
(Russo 1972: 623). His invocation here (1976) of the traditional functions of myth in traditional
cultures, invoking such conservative theorists as Malinowski and Kluckhohn (see his n. 32, page 296),
implies chat Homer's audience was the classless homogenized mass presupposed in most accounts
of myth in "primitive" societies. In harmony with chis conception of the audience, Russo cites and
endorses Havelock's concept of Homer as a "tribal encyclopedia" (Russo 1976: 299, Havelock 1963:
Chapter IV).
audience, and focus on a fundamentally traditional style go a long way,
I believe, toward reinforcing the widespread assumption of heavily aristo-
cratic bias in the poems. 55 I will argue, however, that the Iliad shows us a
world "out of joint" where men are precisely not in their proper ranks and
roles, where their behaviors are "improper" and the Olympian gods fail to
guard the "chosen individuals that they customarily support."
THE PLOT AND MAJOR THEMES OF THE ILIAD
One needs to look at the plot of the poem and its major themes before con-
cluding that the poet's elemental economic interests vis-a-vis his audience,
and his inherited style and - broadly speaking - subject matter automat-
ically determined his political sympathies. 56 The very essence of an oral
style is that it must convey its "message" through the medium of narrative:
what the characters do and say, what happens to them from beginning
to end of the story, what objects they use constitute its meaning for its
audience. First of all the plot of the Iliad is a tragedy. 57 By this I do not
mean in Aristotelian terms an edifying tale of human error, painful recog-
nition of human responsibility, and acceptance of the superior wisdom
55 Alternatives to this virtual consensus (e.g., Latacz 1996, I. Morris 1986a) must begin with Calhoun
1934 (see further discussion below). Geddes (1984) relies heavily on it. Though there are clearly
alternative ways to interpret the data, I am intrigued by Dalby's focus on certain forms of vagueness
in the poet's account of Homeric kings' houses and diet to conclude that the poems' "perspective
on kings' houses is much like that of the tenant farmer or craftsman who seldom visited a rich
man's house and, if doing so, never went beyond the porch and big hall ... Epic concerns deserve
to be seen less as projection into a heroic past of the worldview of eighth-century aristocrats, more
as the projection into wealthy society of the worldview of quite humble people: 'Homeric society'
is built on the perceptions of the poorest, least aristocratic, the least powerful of eighth century
Greeks" (1995: 278----9, c£ Strasburger 1953 and Dickinson 1986: 34-35). Farron (1979-80), though
he cites with apparent approval an early version of my views on the Odyssey (Rose 1975), like
Geddes and Dalby, fails to do justice to the complexity of the class perspectives embedded in the
poems.
56 Pace Tandy, who devotes abundant space to the possible material circumstances and functions of
the poets (1997: 166----93), but says nothing about what is in the poems. So too Russo in his 1976
text does not cloud his world-picture with any reference to what actually happens in either the Iliad
or the Odyssey. There are, of course, many, many possible approaches to the narrative structure of
the poem (e.g., de Jong 1987, Heiden 1996, Louden 2006). Though as noted above, I do not find
Carter's account of the occasion of the poems compelling, I completely agree with her point about
the use of data within the poems to envision the conditions of actual performance in the second
half of the eighth century: "Homeric scholars carefully avoid confusing the methods of warfare
employed in the Iliad with the manner of fighting practiced in eighth-century B.c. Greece ... Yet
most make little distinction between the occasions of bardic entertainment within the epics and
actual performances in Late Geometric life" (1995: 286).
57 When Latacz speaks apropos of the poet of the Iliad of the "basic optimism of his view of the world"
{1996: 57), I wonder if we have read the same poem.
The plot and major themes ofthe Iliad 115
or even ultimate "justice" of the gods. 58 Plato objects to the Iliad and to
tragedy (Resp. 379c-38oc and passim) for the same reason that censors in
Naples were ill-disposed toward operas with unhappy endings (Ashbrook
1982: 39): such endings openly or implicitly call into question the justice
of the powers that are beyond human control. In this sense Plato's instinct
about the subversive potential of tragedy is more insightful than Aristo-
tle's ingenious efforts to render it socially useful. What strikes me most
in the tragedy of the Iliad is the pervasive negation, articulated mostly by
Achilles, of key elements in the inherited body of stories, assumptions,
and specific historical trends exhibited in the society of the poem. 59 A
potentially simple, self-congratulatory tale of barbarian crime (Paris's theft
of Helen from his host Menelaos) and punishment by Greeks (the total
destruction of the criminal's city) 60 is subsumed in a tale of the disastrous
58 At least as far back as Plato's Republic (598d) a strong connection between Homer and tragedy
has been recognired, and many eloquent things have been written on that theme (e.g., Griffin
1980, Macleod 1982, Redfield 1975, Rutherford 1982, Seaford 1994). Yet I am wary of the almost
unavoidable temptation to abstract from "tragedy" in this loose sense some universal lesson about a
universally conceived "human nature" (c£ L. Golden 2005). Even more distracting is the quest for
an Aristotelian "fatal Haw" (e.g. Nagler 1974' 137). Aristotle is central to Redfield's interpretation of
the Iliad as a whole (1975) as he is to L. Golden's (2005: especially 126--50). See Knox's insightful
review (1989c [1976]) of Redfield. I do not believe that the world constructed in the Iliad is focused
on precisely the same ethical, philosophical, or political concerns as the world conceived by fifth-
century tragedians or fourth-century philosophers. For all his apparent dismissiveness of Marx, I
think Geertz is nearest the spirit of Marxist historicism in arguing that although "the governing
principle of the field [anthropology] [is justly] 'the basic unity of mankind"' (1973: 36], "there is
no such thing as a human nature independent of culture" (49), that every culture is different and
"it is in understanding that variousness - its range, its nature, its basis, and its implications - that
we shall come to construct a concept of human nature that, more than a statistical shadow and
less than a primitivist dream, has both substance and truth" (52). Using narrative theory Peradotto
offers a suggestive if highly ahistorical account of the "tragic" as entailing "the nonachievement (or
frustration) of desire or its achievement ... [tending] to stress the mortality and relative impotence of
the human subject in the face of what might be termed most generally consistent external resistance-
the will of the gods, 'fate,' 'the way things are,' laws of nature inferred from experience, the
incommensurability of the world, the inevitability of death" (1990: 48, his emphasis). However,
he quickly invokes Aristotle and a view of "justice" (ibid.) that I believe is alien to the element of
negation and protest in the Iliad.
59 This is one reason I am wary of the comparative myth approach: Louden (2006: ro-rr and passim)
invokes Old Testament parallels to justify the morality of the gods in the Iliad. But Plato (Resp.
391a) rightly cites Achilles' reply to Apollo: "You have damaged me, far-darter, most destructive
of all the gods ... Surely I would have punished you, if the power at least were available to me"
(II. 22.15-20).
60 Kakrides (1971: 31) rightly speaks of Aphrodite, Helen, Menelaus, Paris as "the central figures of
the myth." Kullmann (1960: 43-44) explores the greater centrality of Paris in the tradition and the
possibility that Hektor was invented by the Iliad poet. C£ Kullmann 1984, M. Edwards 1990. Hektor
does seem to me a plausible creation by the final poet. I was long ago struck by how commonly
scholars designate him as the "older brother" of Paris simply because he functions as the Trojan
commander-in-chief on the battlefield. This seems to me to fit the meritocratic ideology of the
Iliad. Paris is the figure about whom there is substantial mythic material outside the Iliad. Perhaps
consequences of social breakdown within the invading Greek army (the
wrath theme) and the deaths - enacted and imminent - of all the most
admirable characters, culminating in a bond of deep sympathy between
the chief Greek hero and the King of Troy. The initial "Oedipal" trian-
gle (the older Menelaos competing with younger Paris for sexual access
to Helen) is still present but marginalized by the shift of emphasis first
to the triangle of Agamemnon, Achilles, and Briseis, then to unambigu-
ously sympathetic Trojans - Hektor, Andromache, Hecuba, and Priam -
in ways that negate any sense of "justice" in the imminent obliteration
of Troy.
LINKS OF THE WRATH THEME AND THE TROY THEME
As noted by Bowra, for example, the plot of the Iliad is "complex in the
sense that the theme of the wrath of Achilles is worked into the larger theme
of the fate of Troy" (Bowra 1972: 98, cf. Latacz 1996: 82-90). The subtlety of
this deserves more space than I can give it. Hektor is immediately made the
measure of Achilles' value to the Achaians in Achilles' oath of withdrawal
(1.240-44). Though we are led initially to deduce that Khryseis would be a
prize resulting from a raid on the island of Khryse, when Achilles narrates
to Thetis the cause of his wrath, he begins with a raid on Thebe, "the holy
city of Eetion" (1.366), who just happens to be the father of Andromache.
One of the clearest testimonials not only to Achilles' prowess but his
unique pre-wrath decency is a central element in Andromache's moving
speech spelling out her total dependence on Hektor: Achilles killed her
father and all seven of her brothers, but - unlike any other victor we hear
of - did not strip off her father's armor; on the contrary, he gave him a
respectful burial, burning the armor with the body and then ransomed
her mother (6.414-27). When the embassy arrives at Achilles' tent he is
playing a "dear-toned lyre/Lovely, elegantly adorned, and upon it a silver
yoke-piece,/Which he took away from the spoils, after destroying the city
of Eetion" (9.186-88). These subtle little touches prepare us for the more
obvious ways in which the individual wrath tragedy becomes inextricably
entwined with the massive tragedy of the destruction of Troy, since the
death of Hektor at Achilles' hands is clearly represented as implying the
defeat of Troy.
significantly he is called basileus (4.96 Alexandrai basilli), a term never applied to Hektor. I find it
interesting that Latacz's summary of the "raw form" of the Troy saga begins with Paris and never
mentions Hektor (1996: 84-5).
Achilles' tragedy 117
ACHILLES' TRAGEDY
What provokes Achilles' tragedy is the gap opened by Agamemnon's hybris

(1. 203) 61 between, on the one hand, the utopian ideal of heroic society as
a perfect meritocracy (e.g., 12.310-21) with democratic reciprocity under
the ultimate control of the whole (male) community and, on the other,
the reality of greedy exploitation by the relatively cowardly beneficiary
of inherited wealth and power (2.101-8). Achilles, who shows his sense
of responsibility to the community's welfare in summoning the assembly
(1.54) and defending the necessity of the seer's saying what he knows to
the assembled community (1.85-91), first directly challenges Agamemnon
in defense of the principle that the "sons of the Achaeans" control the
distribution of the socially acquired surplus won by raiding and rapine
(1.122-26). It cannot be overemphasized, I believe, that Achilles' initial
conflict with Agamemnon is an essentially comervative defense of what was
loosely assumed to be the status quo. 62 Paradoxical as it may seem in a
society so committed to raiding and rapine, Agamemnon, by divorcing the
idea of a prize from its symbolic function as a socially awarded indicator of
actual contribution to the "work" of the community, has invented greed.
Achilles indeed seems to have invented a word for it, indeed in a superlative
form that occurs nowhere else in the whole known corpus of Greek litera-
ture, namely, philokteanotate, literally "most loving of possessions" (1.122),
reinforced by panton ("of all men").
The pivotal decision 63 of the wrath plot, Achilles' decision not to kill
Agamemnon, but to withdraw from the war, arises from his recognition
61 As Fisher notes, "in chis exemplary case, then, we find as clear a case as could be wished of hybris-
language used to denote the moral and social offensiveness of an act of deliberate, major, public,
humiliation, committed explicitly to increase the agent's sense of his own superiority; there is the
clear implication chat an act of such hybris rightly produces great anger and desire for revenge"
(1992: 153).
62 Seaford too argues, "Reciprocity between leader and warrior, the form of centralized reciprocity
known as redistribution ... has been destroyed by the leader's selfish control of the process ... It
seems chat the right to redistribute booty belongs only nominally to the people, in fact to the
leader ... Agamemnon's control of the process has produced not just a rife between himself and
Achilles but a generalized crisis" (2004: 37, my emphasis; c£ Rose 1992: 70--82).
63 Decision-making in Homer has provoked a mammoth discussion with which I cannot fully engage
here. Snell's contention chat in Homer "mental and spiritual acts are due to the impact of external
factors, and man is the open target of a great many forces chat impinge on him, and penetrate his very
core" (1953: 20, c£ Dodds 1951: 1-27) was more than adequately answered, in my view, by Lesky's focus
on "double" motivation (2001 [1961]), divine and human, often working simultaneously but in no
case removing human beings from responsibility for their acts. Thus in book one the idea of calling
the assembly is said to have been put in Achilles' phrenes (wits, mind) by Hera (1.55), the decision
not to kill Agamemnon entails a dramatic intervention of Athena, who does not command, but
attempts successfully to persuade Achilles (r.207 and 214). The challenge to Agamemnon's demand for
another prize, the sweeping verbal abuse of Agamemnon's cowardice, and - most important - the
that the very community, the "sons of the Achaians" - in defense of whose
control of the distribution of prizes he has denounced Agamemnon - is
now acquiescing in Agamemnon's theft of his own prize: "You (plural,
emphasized by ge) who gave her are taking her away" (1.299). 64 It is this
passivity of the army over their own ultimate control of the hierarchy of
power in their society that wins Achilles' scornful characterization of them
as "nobodies" (outidanoisin) (II. 1.231) who allow their king to "feed" on
them (demoboros basileus). Even Nestor, who preaches Achilles' subordi-
nation to Agamemnon, tells Agamemnon to leave the girl alone, "as the
sons of the Achaians first gave her as a prize" (1.275). The same idea, that
the Greek army as a whole is responsible for acquiescing in Agamemnon's
violation of the community's procedures, is echoed byThersites (2.235-40),
who is then brutally repressed - to be sure in the name of one-man rule -
but precisely by one who is exercising collective leadership. 65 Odysseus,
decision chat the whole army is responsible for tolerating Agamemnon's outrage are presented
as entirely due to the initiative of Achilles. I believe, however, following Lesky (1961 [2001]),
chat Homer's audience understood all Achilles' decisions to emanate from who Achilles "is" as a
character in the narrative, chat the interventions of the gods artistically reinforce a sense of the
cosmic importance of the human actions. Of the endless discussions of Homeric gods, in addition
to Lesky, I am especially fond of the observations ofWillcock (1970). Hammer (2002: 49-79 offers
a generally compelling analysis of the issues of divine power and human agency chat builds on and
qualifies Willcock at certain points. Reading Hammer's chapter, especially his focus on the social
construction of "chance," I was struck by how often the gods, for all the personalization, seem
almost equivalent to chose circumstances not of our own choosing within which we "make history."
64 Much as I am an admirer of Lattimore's translations of Homer, he has seriously misled several
generations of students about the whole meaning ofAchilles' withdrawal by his failure to distinguish
the crucial plurals here (aphelesthe ge dontes) from the singular soi earlier in the line. Leaf, Lang, and
Myers, use "thee" and "ye." Fit:,gerald perversely resorts to a passive: "I am robbed of what was given
me." Fagles rightly gives the point a separate line: "You Achaeans gave her, now you've snatched her
back." Lombardo, too, though more a crude paraphrase than a translation, at least gets the point
correctly, "You, all of you, gave her and you can take her back." He goes on to have Achilles say to
Agamemnon, "But anything else of mine in my black sailing ship/You keep your goddamn hands
off, you hear?"
65 Marks (2005) has recently revived the argument of Feldman (1946/47) et al. chat it is misguided to see
any evidence of class struggle in the figure ofThersites. He relies in part on post-Homeric references
to Thersites' noble birch and in part on Nagy's analysis (1979: 259-64) of the characteristics of
blame poetry and specifically iambic poetry. He conveniently leaves out Nagy's point of departure,
namely, Aristotle's Poetics, in which blame poetry and comedy are given a distinct class twist and
are associated with the "worse sort" (kheirous 1448a17, phauloter8n 1449a5-6) and chat which is
"ugly/shameful" (aiskhrou 1449a6-7). I at least don't find in Nagy's own brief comments any hint
either way as to the class identity ofThersites. However, he did direct the thesis of Eddy Lowry (1991),
which sees Thersites as an anticipation of the comic genre and medieval downs (cf. Rosen 1988).
Lowry ends with a false antithesis: "The conflict between Odyseus and Thersites is not based on
political philosophy or grounded in friction between social classes in pre-historic or archaic Greece.
It is rather the earliest example of a conflict resulting from a technique of persuasion and advocacy
by means of shame-causing words" (Lowry 1991: 288----9). Draining a rhetorical conflict of its specific
content is a bit like saying the conflict between Rigoletto and the Duke is really about the difference
between baritones and tenors! Marks's opting for social status rather than class, while typical of so
working with both Nestor and Agamemnon to undo the disastrous con-
sequences of Agamemnon's deluded leadership, voices here the utter scorn
of the demos (2.200-2) that Donlan has pointed to as the hallmark of
the new class relations of the polis (Donlan 2001). 66 Yet Odysseus himself
(14.83-85), Nestor (9.106-m), and the ever subservient Diomedes (9.37-
39) directly point out the inadequacy of Agamemnon as a leader. The
consequence is thus a de facto collective leadership by the wiser and braver
Achaean ruling class. At the same time it is inadequately appreciated that
the central wrath theme of the poem entails a demonstration of the moral
and intellectual bankruptcy of the "structure of authority" (cf. Donlan
1979) 67 in the world of the Iliad. The last words we hear of Agamemnon
in the poem are Achilles' and Hermes' warnings to Priam. Achilles' tone
is described by the poet as "jeering" or "sarcastic" (epikertomeon 24.649),
which to me suggests a reminder of Achilles' continuing bitterness toward
Agamemnon. Yet Achilles' phrasing is relatively indirect: if Agamemnon
should learn of Priam's presence in Achilles' encampment, there would be a
much classical scholarship, seems to me in chis case to ignore the degree to which the scene with
Thersites makes concrete the general distinction between Odysseus's treatment of any who was a
"king and eminent man" (basilea kai eksokhon andra 2.188) and his treatment of a "man of the dbnos"
(demou andra 2.198), whom he found shouting and whom he would strike with the scepter, just as he
strikes Thersites. Offering a concrete, narratively elaborated exemplar of a formulaic generalization
is a basic strategy of the poem: we hear formulaically of the "Trojans' wives and innocent children"
repeatedly (6.95, 276, 310) before we are painfully confronted with Andromache and innocent baby
Astyanax (6.366--502). Kirk's questioning ofThersites' role as a "man of the people" is based on the
entirely a priori assumption chat "chis outrageous person ... would not be permitted to open his
mouth in assembly if he were a common soldier" (1985: 139). If, as I will argue, a major theme of
the Iliad is a nostalgic evocation of the passing of the meritocratic, egalitarian political structure of
the earlier Dark Age, chis brutal silencing of a man of the demos functions for some of the audience
as a marker of how much has changed. For a fuller discussion of the ambiguities of the Thersites
episode see Rose (1988) and Thalmann (1988).
66 The famous simile of Zeus's anger at "men/who through violence in the assembly choose crooked
precedents (themistas)I and drive out justice, not regarding the vengeance of the gods" (16.386-8)
can be read, I believe, either as an expression of fear of the demos in tune with Odysseus here and
suggestive of the rider on the Spartan rhetra (see below) or as a Hesiodic indictment of crooked
basilees.
67 Donlan's extremely valuable article (1979) lays out systematically the interplay of three factors:
first "established social position ... a complex of inheritance, remote divine sanction, age, personal
wealth and number of followers" (53), second "standing based on ability," and third: "collective
authority" in terms chat point at the end of his article (65-66) toward precisely the historical
shift I see as central to the ideological conflict in the poem. Where I part company from him
is in his dismissal of the more "literary" elements in the poem, elements chat protest and negate
his - statistically driven? - conclusion chat "despite serious ambiguities in definition and some
questioning of its validity it is evident from the text chat position-authority is universally recognized
as the necessarily weightier element in the initiation of action" (64). I find especially useful his
contention chat "collective authority" always sides with "position-authority" and thus indicates
the polis dominated by aristocrats. This helps resolve the seeming paradox chat Agamemnon, the
"monarch," points towards the collective rule of chose who have inherited wealth and power while
the rebellious "subordinate" Achilles harks back to a specifically Dark Age form of "monarchy."
"postponement" (anablesis) of the ransoming of Hektor's body (24.653-55).
Given the enormous emotional sympathy generated in this scene for the
ransoming, this euphemistically stated allusion to Agamemnon's greed and
brutality is especially damning. Hermes' follow-up warning to Priam is
more explicit:
And now indeed you have ransomed your dear son, and gave a lot:
But for you alive, even three times as much ransom they would give -
The sons you left behind, if Agamemnon
Son of Atreus were to recognize you, and all the Achaeans recognized you.
(24.685-8) 68
Achilles' disillusionment and negation of such a society reaches its deepest
point in book 9, where moralizing critics see only excessive pride. 69 He
68 Postlethwaite's interpretation of the whole scene between Achilles and Priam is aimed at refuting
Zanker's argument that "Akhilleus' conduct toward Priam in Book 24 of the Iliad reaches beyond
the norms of reciprocity evident in the dealings of other characters within the poem and does indeed
display a degree of altruism" (Postlethwaite 1998: 93, Zanker 1996: 73----92, cf. Zanker 1994' rr5-250).
While his reading well argues for Achilles' continuing alienation, his complete indifference to gifts,
the lack of reconciliation in Book 19, Postlethwaite sees this solely as a strategy to "declare his own
authority and to demean his old adversary" (ro3). It seems to me that he is determined to preserve
not only the recent dogma about the absolute centrality of reciprocity but also the traditional view
of Achilles as pure narcissist, thus upholding the dogmatic version of the self-asserting heroic code
laid out by Adkins (1970) and quite convincingly qualified by Zanker (1994' 2-42) ... despite the
slightly embarrassing title of his book: The Heart ofAchilles. It is gratifying to look at the great Walter
Burkert's 1955 dissertation on the ancient Greek concept of pity. At a time when Snell's theory of
the fragmented Homeric mind was hegemonic, Burkert offers an eloquent defense of the unified
Homeric person precisely apropos of the issue of Achilles' pity (1955: ro8-25).
69 In my view - or perhaps I should say - as memory serves me, Adam Parry (1956) and Cedric
Whitman (1958: 181-220) stand out as virtually unique in their focus on the profound alienation
Achilles gives voice to in rejecting the various appeals of the embassy. Ironically - so it seems to me
in light of his pervasive scorn of the Parrys and two brief references to Whitman - Lynn-George
(1987) offers the richest contemporary exploration of that alienation. While I cannot escape the
feeling that many of his best insights are already present in Whitman, the curious mix of brilliant
dose readings and tiresome Derridean puns and playful metaphors insists that his sole interest is
in the self-reflexivity and "play" of the text: politics and history have no place in his analysis. At
the same time I must acknowledge that I often found myself savoring his scathing review (1982)
of Griffin 1980. Richard Martin's chapters 5 and 6 - and really his entire book (1989) - constitutes
the richest tribute to Adam Parry's brilliance. He devotes eleven pages (148-59) to summarizing his
own and other major critiques (Claus 1975, Reeve 1973, Nimis 1986, Friedrich and Redfield 1978) of
this seven-page article by a twenty-eight-year-old assistant professor. Martin then launches into an
extraordinarily rich exploration of all the ways - "at the level of diction, higher linguistic structures,
beyond the phrase and into the realm of rhetoric" (1989: 222-3) - that Achilles' speech deviates
fom and surpasses the performances of all other speakers in the Iliad. However, Martin's primary
concern is precisely speech pe,formance and only accidentally - so to speak - does he offer evidence
of Achilles' profound alienation from so many key values expressed in the rest of the poem. I was
also struck by the seven key references to Whitman in Seth Schein's brief account of the "structure
and interpretation" of the Iliad (1997: 345-59): despite all that has been written about Homer since
1958, Whitman remains one of the best analyses of the Iliad as a poem. As someone who attended his
lectures during the period he published his book, I make no attempt in my own analysis to sort out
repudiates the whole logic of the genre of heroic praise poetry (klea andron),
which posits a bond of gratitude/reciprocity (kharis) between fellow war-
riors, public honor (time) for the living hero, and immortal glory (kleos) as
an adequate compensation for a heroic death in battle:
There was, after all, no kharis
For fighting relentlessly against enemy men.
Equal the portion for him who hangs hack and if one fights full force.
We are in the same [degree of] ttme, both the base man and the good one.
Equally they perish, both the deedless man and the one who has done many
deeds. (9.317-20)
Here again Achilles' alienation is expressed in terms of a radically conserva-

tive defense of an older traditional ideal.7° He announces he will go home
and live on the abundant wealth accumulated by Peleus,
For not worth my life is not even all they say
Ilion acquired, a well-inhabited city,
Before, in peacetime, before the coming of the sons of the Akhaians.
(9.401-403)
The community's control of the dasmos system of distributing the

socially created surplus - in defense of which he initially had challenged
Agamemnon - is now recognized as a dead letter. Agamemnon alone
controls it for his own advantage 71 despite the enormous disparity
between Achilles' and his own contribution in the acquisition of that
surplus:
With my ships I emptied twelve cities of people,
On foot I declare [that I emptied] eleven throughout the fertile Troad.
From all these cities, treasures many and fine
I chose out, and bringing them all, would give them to Agamemnon,
and document my general deep debts to his work. Hainsworth 1993 ad loc. gives an ample selection
of others' as well as his own illustration of the moralizing (and trivializing) dismissal of Achilles'
speech. C£ Griffin 1995: 25-28, who sees Achilles in terms of the familiar opposition between heroic
aggression and "serving the good of the community." This ignores the politics of the community's
acquiescence in its own loss of control over both the social surplus and the hierarchy of power in
the community.
7° Cf. Said 1979: 23: "Mais par cette kharis (a laquelle d'ailleurs le chef peut le 'pousser' otrunein
en IL 15.7 44) le guerrier 'empo rte' (aresthai) a son tour une kharis, c' est-a-dire un droit a la
reconnaissance du roi. Et Achille au chant IX (v. 316-317) comme Glaucos au chant XVII (v.
147-148) soulignent egalement que !'absence de cette reponse genereuse constitue un scandale
intolerable."
7' It is hard to avoid seeing a double irony in Agamemnon's use of "we Akhaians'' dividing the spoils if
Troy is taken (date8metha /;id'Akhaioi 9.138): not only did he denounce a similar offer fi-om Achilles
in book I as "cheating" (125-32), but in book 9 he uses the formula precisely when he is declaring
his own complete control of the dasmos.
Son of Atreus: he, remaining behind beside the swift ships,
Would receive them, and distribute (dasasketo) a few, but would keep many.
(9.328-33)
Moreover, Agamemnon's greed has transformed his own apparent generos-

ity into a crude demand for subordination. Great diplomat that he is,
Odysseus in his otherwise word-for-word catalogue of gifts has suppressed
the final lines of Agamemnon's orders:
Let him be subdued (dmetheto 72 ) - Hades, you know, is unassuaged and
unsubdued:
Therefore too he is the most hated by mortals of all the gods -
And let him submit (hyposteto lit., stand below) to me, by as much as I am
kinglier (basileuteros)
And as much as I claim in age I am older born.7 3 (9.158-61)
As many have observed, it is this suppression of the meaning of Agamem-

non's gifts that provokes Achilles' famous denunciation oflying in response
to Odysseus's catalogue;
For hateful to me is that man equally with the gates of Hades
Who hides one thing in his mind, but speaks another.
(9.312-13)
The affection-filled appeal of Phoenix, especially the paradigm of Melea-

ger, whose imminent death Phoenix includes in his story (9.566-72) and
thus also makes the emphasis on gifts irrelevant, reinforces Achilles' sense
of alienation from his community at the same time that it opens up a
prospect of somehow saving that community without accepting its acquies-
cence in the anomalous rule of Agamemnon. The fundamental equation in
heroic society between material perquisites and honor from the community
(cf. 12.310-21) no longer makes any sense to Achilles, who envisions now
a transcendent form of honor coming directly from the nature of reality
(Zeus), completely divorced from a corrupted human community - even
as it implies staying at Troy and dying: 74
72 This is a very strong word used of subduing enemies, breaking horses, and forcing wives to submit
to their husbands.
73 Polanyi notes that "In the potlatch of the Kwakiutl it is a point of honor with the chief to display his
wealth of hides and to distribute them; but he does this also in order to place the recipients under
an obligation, to make them his debtors, and ultimately, his retainers" (1968: 13-14).
74 It has become a diche of Homeric scholarship, arising from Achilles' allusion to his mother's
formulation of a "choice" {9.410--13) between a long life if he returns home or early death and
immortal glory if he stays, to declare that Achilles decides to stay for the sake of immortal glory
(e.g., Segal 1994= 85). Such a view fits all too easily with the account of Achilles as self-absorbed,
narcissistic (e.g., MacCary 1982: 81-83 and passim, L. Golden 2006: 72, 102 and passim), etc. What
Phoenix, venerable father, Zeus-nurtured, not at all

Do I need this sort of honor [ttmes, i.e., gifts from the community], but I
understand that I am honored [tettmesthai] in the estimation of Zeus,
Which will hold me beside the curved ships, as long as breath
Remains in my chest and my own knees have power to move. (9.607-10)
Most commentators (e.g. Hainsworth ad loc., who invokes a vague "fate")

seem to miss the extent to which Phoenix's appeal has succeeded: Achilles
concedes he will not after all go home, though his subsequent declaration
that "when dawn appears/ we will consider whether we will return to
our land or stay" (9.618-19) attests to his confusion between impossible
alternatives.
Ajax's appeal, based on the bond oflove between comrades (9.630), the
only heroic value that still retains its hold on Achilles, elicits on the one
hand, a repeated rejection of a community dominated by Agamemnon,
who in effect expelled him from it, rendering him a "wanderer stripped
of time" (9.648)7 5 and, on the other, a clearer statement of his commit-
ment to saving the community by killing Hektor. However, the purely
individual basis for this return entails an utterly impracticable adoption
of the paradigm of Meleager in a sense opposite to the one intended by
Phoenix: just as Meleager waited until the battle came to his own house,
Achilles imagines he can wait until Hektor reaches his own shelters and
ships (9.650-55). What seems to have led many readers to fail to recog-
nize how far Achilles has yielded to the appeals of Phoenix and Ajax is
is clearly implicit in these lines and more explicit at 18.98-106 is that he stays first because he accepts
the paradigm of Meleager and hopes to save his community without accepting its meaningless
rewards - meaningless because he, like Meleager (9.565-72), is doomed; but also because he has just
spelled out the ways in which Agamemnon's crime has completely invalidated the positive social
symbolism of gifts. Secondly, later, as he spells out to Thetis in book 18, he stays out of remorse
for the death of Patroklos and his other comrades, whom he is determined to avenge regardless of
the cost (18. 98-116, discussed further below). I must say I find Buchan's argument (2004' 6) more
perverse than Socrates' in the Hippias Minor (37of), which he cites, in declaring "Achilles, the figure
who supposedly exemplifies truth, is an objective liar - at least in the context of Iliad 9." If someone
changes his mind in circumstances where he is under enormous persuasive pressure, this is neither
lying nor a demonstration that he "utters words that are hopelessly polysemous'' (ibid.). From the
perspective of deconstruction all words are potentially "hopelessly polysemous"; but poets, speakers,
and readers do their best to muddle through and place some temporary constraints on Protean
discourse. So too, if by "superego" we mean the internalization of social values - a "conscience" -
Achilles' full acceptance of his responsibility for not only the death of Patroklos but "the other
comrades'' (18.102-3) fits that definition; and MacCary's claim, ''Achilles has never developed a
superego, since he has had no oedipal experience" (1982: 81), is meaningless.
75 Hammer (2002: 94---95) explores some of the potential semantic range of metanast2s - "vagabond,"
"refugee," "Mitwohner"(Gschnitz.er), "migrant," "outsider," "immigrant."
Odysseus's utterly misleading report to the assembled elders only of what
Achilles had replied to him (9.677-87).
Achilles' dilemma, his total alienation from the politics and values of
a community headed by Agamemnon beside his deep affection for and
sense of responsibility for the members of that community, leads to the
fatal compromise of sending Patroklos to try to stave off the burning of the
Greek ships and killing of the Greeks by Hektor. The death of Patroklos and
the subsequent killing of Hektor do not end Achilles' alienation - though
in book 19 he grudgingly goes through the motions of reconciliation with
Agamemnon 76 and in book 23 demonstrates through his tact and generosity
all the attributes of an ideal leader. The sublime book 24 achieves a unique
sublation (Aujhebung) and deepening of Achilles' alienation by expanding
it to include the perspective of his bitterest enemy, Priam, the father of
his dearest friend's killer. Vindicated by the embassy as the culmination of
the plan of Zeus to grant the aid asked for by Thetis, Achilles in book 9
took some comfort in the idea that he had time directly from Zeus (9.608).
In book 24, in the face of his own imminent death and confronted by
the spectacle of the utter degradation of the great king of Troy, he offers a
consolation that is no consolation by expressing his utter sense of alienation
from Zeus himself: 77
76 Donlan (1979: 69 n. 13) singles out for ridicule Whitman's "purely literary" interpretation of book 19.
While I acknowledge that for Homer's target audience it is highly probable that the formal unsaying
of the wrath and the reestablishment of a formally united Akhaian force against Troy were important
preconditions of the following battle books, I hope it is more than deference to a revered teacher
to argue that Whitman's intuition, insofar as it concerns the continuing, seething alienation of
Achilles, was correct. Donlan makes no mention of the long argument over food with Odysseus
(19.154-237), which not only reinforces our sense of Odysseus' practicality, but also of Achilles'
deep impatience with a process he recognizes as an essential precondition of getting at Hektor.
Whitman also noted Achilles' striking indifference as to whether Agamemnon will give him the
promised gifts or simply "keep them beside yourself" (19.145-46, Whitman 1958: 206). Said rightly
makes a strong case that Achilles' refusal to participate in the banquet is precisely a refusal of social
integration (1979: 18, citing Redfield 1975: 107-8 and Motto and Clark 1969). Cf. Nimis 1987:
23-39.
77 Much as I admire Macleod's commentary on book twenty-four, I cannot agree that in this speech
"there is endurance and sadness, but no bitterness" (1982: 13, my emphasis). He rightly makes the
comparison with the Bellerophon passage, but what is precisely most striking about that passage is
the absence of any moral justification for the gods' hatred, the picture of an utterly arbitrary reversal
of fortune of a seemingly perfect hero leading to the bitterest destitution, wandering in alienation
from all human society (oios alato . .. paton anthr8p8n aleein8n: 6.201-2) and even the same eating
metaphor (hon thumon kated8n: 6.202) as in the Niobe passage. Taplin well quotes Simone Weil:
"such an accumulation of violences would be cold without that accent of incurable bitterness which
continually makes itself felt, although often indicated only by a single word, sometimes only by a
play of verse, by a run-over line" (Taplin 1980: 17; Weil 1956 [1940]: 29, my emphasis). Attempts
to extract a socially positive moral from book 24 (e.g., Hammer 2002, L. Golden 2005) strike me
as misguided, as trivializing the tragic vision of the poem as a whole. To be sure, the bonding of
Priam and Achilles is deeply moving; but it emerges from their shared sense of alienation from their
But pray come and sit down on my chair, and our griefs all the same
We shall let lie at rest in our hearts, suffering though we are.
For no consequence comes of chill grieving:
For this is the way the gods have spun fates for poor mortals,
To live suffering. But they themselves are free of cares.
For two storage jars lie on the threshold of Zeus,
[Full] of gifts such as he gives, [one jar] of evils, but the other one of good
things.
The man to whom Zeus delighting-in-thunder gives, after mixing the two,
Sometimes meets with evil, sometimes with good:
But the man to whom he gives from the jar of miseries, he makes a thing
of disgrace (lobeton),
And evil ravenous hunger drives him upon the shining earth,
And he roams about honored neither by gods nor men. (24.522-33}
Formally, the organization of the passage seems to offer Priam the con-
solation that at least he, like Peleus, has had a mixture of good and evil
that sets him above the lot of the thoroughly wretched wandering beggar.
But Achilles has twice described his alienation from his community by the
image of the wanderer without honor (atimetos metanastes 9.644, 16.59),
and the gods' turning on a hero they had previously shown extraordinary
honor is summed up earlier in the image of Bellerophon, who "wandered
alone on the Al~ian plain,/ eating his own heart, shunning the path trod-
den of men" (6.201-2).7 8 The word lobeton here is unique in the Iliad, but
the verb form is used both by Achilles (1.232) and by Thersites (2.242) of
Agamemnon's treatment of Achilles. In book 9 one of the demands made
by Achilles that Adam Parry described as of the sort "that can never be
satisfied" (1956: 6) is that Agamemnon "pay me back all the soul-grieving
disgrace (loben)" (9.387). Thus, though Achilles is well aware that he, like
Priam, has received both good gifts and evil ones, his language reveals his
deep sense of association with the utterly wretched victim of the gods'
arbitrariness. Moreover, the very gifts of the gods to Peleus are associated
with his marriage to a goddess, a marriage Achilles has already denounced
(18. 83-87). In any case, the final "consolation" offered by Achilles in this
speech is singularly bleak:
respective societies and of inconsolable grief at their respective losses. Earlier in book 24 Priam twice
expressed his wish to die (24.224-27, 244-46), had bitterly denounced all the Trojans as "disgraceful
scoundrels" (24239) and beat them away with a cudgel. He then denounced his surviving sons in
extraordinarily bitter terms (24.253-64).
78 Adam Parry once pointed out to me Achilles' association with wanderers - not only in the repeated
image of the atimhos metanast2s, but his closest human ties at Troy, Patroklos (23.85---90) and Phoinix
(9.447-82).
But since the sky-dwellers have led on this suffering for you,
Always about your city there are battles and slaughterings of men.
Bear up, and do not grieve your heart unremittingly:
For there are not at all any gains from mourning your son,
Nor will you raise him up before you suffer yet some other evil.
(24.547-51)
One should not miss here the clear allusion to the imminent destruction of
Troy and Priam's own brutal death that preclude any comforting take-home
moral.
Achilles' second speech of consolation to Priam is even grimmer. He
invokes the figure of Niobe initially as a pattern of one who has suf-
fered terribly from the jealous gods through loss of all her children, yet
accepted her human need to eat. Commentators on the Niobe paradigm
(Kakrides 1930/i949, Willcock 1964, Macleod 1982: ad loc., etc.) point to
the ways in which the paradigm is shaped to fit the circumstances of Priam
(children lying unburied, need of eating, even the metaphorical image of
"eating/digesting sorrows" as an echo of Priam's words at 24.639). But it is
worth exploring a subtext in which the paradigm fits Achilles. The "crime"
of Niobe is to assert her purely human excellence in defiance of jealous
and ferociously vindictive gods. She has achieved what her society defined
as the chief excellence of women, producing numerous children. Achilles
asserted he was and had proved he was "the best of the Akhaians." That
affirmation of his purely human excellence led from his point of view to
the loss of his dearest loved one and the imminent loss of his own life. The
final image Achilles leaves us with 79 repeats from the two-jars speech the
bitter opposition of divine carefree pleasure (here dancing nymphs) and
divinely imposed human suffering: Niobe's mortal grief brooding over the
injustice of the gods immortally:
Now somewhere amid the rocks, in the lonely mountains,

In Sipylos, where they say are the couches of the goddesses -
Nymphs, who dance about Akheloios [a river/god]
There, though a stone, she chews over her griefs from the gods.
(24.614-17}
The metaphor of eating/digesting (pessei) does more than echo Priam's

metaphor at 24.639: it grimly undercuts whatever consolation there is in
the image of literal eating.
79 Kakrides (1930) declares these lines are a later addition: to me they are the truest climax of the
paradigm.
Tutelary gods and kimhip with divinity 127
TUTELARY GODS AND KINSHIP WITH DIVINITY
A number of other motifs and symbolic objects reinforce this pervasive

questioning and negation of values assumed in the tradition and plausibly
associated with the ideological agenda of the class that fostered the emer-
gence of the polis. Both the notions of tutelary divinities and kinship with
divinity, so central to the whole aristocratic polis-founding project, 80 are
subjected to savage irony. I have alluded already to the representation of
Hektor piously leaving the battlefield to urge his mother to lead the older
women of Troy in a sacrifice to Athena. But the sacrifice is a robe brought
by Alexander from Sidon on the fatal trip when he stole Helen (6.289-92),
and Athena, insulted by the judgment of Paris (24.29-30), turns away from
the sacrifice (6.311). A more categorical dismissal of the concept of the pro-
tective deity is the grim exchange in book 4 between Zeus and Hera, who,
judging from early temples, was one of the more commonly worshiped
tutelary goddesses. Zeus, after evoking the ferocity of Hera's hatred of Troy
by the image of her readiness to "eat raw" Priam, his sons, and all the
Trojans (4.33-36) expresses his own highest regard for Troy in terms of a
threat to lay waste a city dear to Hera. She replies:
To be sure there are three cities that are by far dearest to me,
Argos and Sparta and also wide-wayed Mycenae.
Sack these completely, whenever they become hateful to your heart.
I will not stand up [as protector] before them, nor shall I begrudge
them to you. (4.51-54)
As Griffin rightly remarks, "this scene ... is a nightmare picture for men.
Punctilious service to the gods, even divine affection, is no defence; the
will of another god ... overrules any human claim" (1980: 197).
The ultimate irrelevance of kinship with divinity, 81 a particularly dear
ideological legitimation of the Greek aristocracy associated with hero cult,
is repeatedly underlined with heavy irony and tragic bitterness. In the case
of Tlepolemos, son of Herakles and grandson of Zeus, the poet chooses
to make the efficacy of divine kinship an explicit interest in the encounter
between him and Sarpedon, first introducing them in a full line as "son and
grandson of cloud-gathering Zeus" (5.630). Tlepolemos proceeds to insult
80 Whatever the actual date (R. Hunter 20056) of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, its existence
testifies to the deep investment of the aristocracy in mythic kinship with divinity (Irwin 20056: 38
and passim) - as indeed does the catalogue of women in Od. rr. C£ West 1985: 8--9.
81 In Russo's terms, "the Olympian gods ... as guardians of those ... chosen individuals they custom-
arily support" (1976: 296) are in these instances malfunctioning.
Sarpedon by claiming that his descent from Zeus is a lie because he is "far
inferior to those men/who were begotten from Zeus among earlier people"
(5.635-36), then boasts about his own father Herakles. Sarpedon easily kills
him with a spear-blow to the throat, but is himself struck on the thigh
by Tlepolemos' spear. The poet comments of Sarpedon, "his father still
thrust off destruction" (5.662). The little word "still" (eti) points forward
to book 16 and Sarpedon's fatal encounter with Patroklos, a purely mortal
figure. Though Zeus hauntingly sheds down "bloody drops" (16.459) in
grief for Sarpedon, he can do no more for his son than guarantee him a
decent funeral. Sarpedon's cousin Glaukon comments bitterly, "The man
who was best has perished,/Sarpedon, Zeus's son: but not even (oude) his
son does he defend" (16.521-22).
The encounter ofAeneas and Achilles comes as near to a comic treatment
of the motif of divine parentage as is perhaps permissible in this tragic
poem. Apollo, in the guise of Lykaon, urges Aeneas to confront Achilles.
Aeneas, based on past experience of Achilles' superiority, is understandably
reluctant. Apollo then resorts to a highly mechanical invocation of the
divine hierarchy: Aeneas's mother Aphrodite is of higher status than the
mere sea nymph Thetis; therefore Aeneas should be able to best Achilles
(20.105-9). 82 Aeneas does confront Achilles; but after launching into a silly
long boast about his parentage (20.203-41), he only barely escapes with his
life when rescued by Poseidon (20.291-327).
The bitterest repudiation of divine kinship is expressed by Achilles him-
self. His superiority as a spearman is explicitly presented by Nestor as a
consequence of his divine mother (1.280). Her help is invoked by Achilles
to bring about the humiliation of Agamemnon through the plan of Zeus.
Yet when Patroklos has been killed and his mother points out that Zeus
has accomplished all Achilles had asked for, he replies,
My mother, so then these things the Olympian has brought to
accomplishment for me:
But what enjoyment of them is there for me? - since my dear comrade
has perished,
Patroklos, whom I honored beyond all my comrades -
The equal of my own life [lit. "head"]. I have lost/destroyed (apolesa)
him, and my armor Hektor,
82 Thalmann 1998: 248-49 cites chis passage to argue chat "hierarchical chinking about social orga-
nization is by no means foreign to Homeric epic" and "a divinity's power to help her mortal son
depends on her own father's place on chis scale." I would agree chat such hierarchical chinking is
very much a part of the world depicted in the poem, but would argue chat chis passage - in view of
the outcome of the contest berween Aphrodite's son and Thetis's son - treats such chinking quite
ironically.
Tutelary gods and kimhip with divinity 129
After slaying him, stripped off - huge armor, a wonder to look at,
Beautiful: these the gods gave to Peleus as shining gifts,
On that day when they cast you into the bed of a mortal man.
Would that there, among the immortals of the sea,
You [continued] to dwell, and Peleus had married a mortal bride.
(18.79-87)
This almost "filmic" focus on symbolic objects such as the armor of Achilles
is a fundamental characteristic of Homeric style. In its immediate context
this wish, triggered by this focus, can be read as expressing sympathy for
the eternal grief his divine mother must endure (M. Edwards 1991: 157).
But in the broader context of Achilles' sense of the meaninglessness of
Zeus's favor, it expresses the repudiation of divine parentage and points
toward Achilles' adoption of the paradigm of Herakles, Zeus's most loved
son, who nonetheless, like Zeus's most loved city Troy (cf. 4.44-49), was
doomed to destruction by the hatred of Hera (18.117-19). Moreover, the
armor of Achilles, like the spear of Achilles, symbolized earlier his unique
superiority, the inadequacy of Patroklos to assume Achilles' identity as the
helmet and breastplate are stripped from him by Apollo (16.791-800) in
a uniquely surreal and horrifying scene. They equally symbolize Hektor's
delusion (16.800, 845-67, cf. 17.192-209). So too Hektor's desire to add
Automedon to his conquests is frustrated by the immortal horses, "which
to Peleus the gods gave as dazzling gifts" (16.867, cf. 17.71-78). But here
in book 18 they take on the ironic force of the merely apparent favor of
kinship with the divine.
So too Achilles' new armor, the elaborate gift from the gods through the
mother whose divinity is the emblem of his actual excellence, 83 orchestrates
the vast aristeia that culminates in the killing of Hektor and symbolizes
antithetically the whole "world" that Achilles will lose by the death implicit
in his return to battle. 84 The dazzling new weapons are juxtaposed to
83 Repeatedly divine birch is an inference from demonstrated excellence. Thus Bellerophon, who we
have been told explicitly is the son of a mortal (6.155), is recognized by the Lykian king as "the goodly
son of a god" (6.191) after his more than mortal martial achievements. So too Priam, Hektor's all
too mortal father, says of his son, "he was a god among men, nor did he seem/ To be the child of a
mortal man, but of a god" (24258----59). This motif too, I believe, points to a radically meritocratic
ideology in the poem.
84 I realize chis is a hopelessly arbitrary-sounding declaration, given the vast amount of scholarly
ingenuity and occasional insight chat have been devoted to the passage. I find a reassuring echo of
my view in Taplin's excellent article: "Ac chis point we are made to contemplate the life chat Achilles
has renounced and the civilization chat Troy will never regain" (1980: 25). Over the years I have of
course read many other discussions (e.g., Atchity 1978, Stanley 1993) of chis topic, but must resist
the temptation to dwell on it. Mark Edwards (1987: n5-16) is particularly good on the futility aspect
of the shield symbolism and symbolism in Homer generally. He elaborates further on the shield
Thetis's loss, the taint of mortality, 85 that insists on the futility of divine
favor:
Hephaistos, truly is there then any, as many goddesses as there are in
Olympos,
Who has endured so many grim griefs in her mind,
As many sufferings as Kronos's son Zeus has given to me out of all of
them?
Out of the other sea-goddesses he forced me to lie with a man,
Aeakos's son Peleus, and I endured the bed of a man,
Very much against my will. He for his part, fastened to
Grim old age, lies in his halls, but for me now there are other [griefs]:
Since he gave me a son both to give birth to and to raise up,
Outstanding of heroes, and he shot up like a new tree,
After I raised him like a plant in the fruitful swell of a garden,
In curved ships I sent him off to Ilion
So he could fight with Trojans. But him will I not welcome hack again,
Returned home inside Peleus's house. (18.429-41)
The ultimate futility of this tragic link of god with mortal, the daz-
zling weapons that will not save him from early death, is underlined by
Hephaistos:
Would I were able so to hide him away
From death hateful-to-hear-of, whenever his dread destiny comes,
As there shall be lovely arms for him . . . (18.464-46)
THE HISTORICAL MOMENT OF THE ILIAD
How does this pervasive negation and alienation, this bitter irony about
tutelary gods and divine kinship - articulated by the chief protagonist of
the poem and supported by the poet's own voice - speak to the ideological
conflicts of the poem's historical moment? The chief conflict between
Agamemnon and Achilles marks what is presented as the incomprehensible
at 278--86 and of course in great detail in his commentary (1991: 200--33). Hammer (2002: 104-13)
offers a succinct overview of other interpretations before offering his conception of the shield as "an
artifact of transition" that "links the audience to the Trojan past" {109).
85 In the same vain is Zeus's consolation to Achilles' immortal horses, another tragic gift from divinity
to mortals:
Ah sad pair, why did we give you to lord Peleus -
A mortal, but you two are both ageless and immortal?
Surely so that among wretched men you have pains?
For surely I suppose there is nothing more miserable than man
Of all the things that breathe and move upon the land.
{17.443-47)
The historical moment ofthe Iliad 131
triumph of inherited wealth and power divorced from innate capacity over
the demonstrably "best of the Achaians." Achilles is "best," as it is always
necessary to point out to the superficial moralizers like Hainsworth, not
only on the battlefield, but because of the warmth and decency of his
pre-wrath human relations, his relentless concern before his wrath for the
welfare of the community (1.54, 122-23; 9.325), his utterly unique freedom
from greed and his capacity to respect even a slain enemy (6.416-19), and
his extraordinary generosity (9.616, book 23 passim). 86 These qualities are
often counterpointed with negative images of Agamemnon: Agamemnon
is gratuitously cruel to old Chryses (1.25-32), ferocious to the seer whose
analysis he accepts (1.102-17), while Achilles is marked by his sympathy
and courtesy to the terrified heralds who have come to take away his
beloved (1.329-44). Where ferocious Agamemnon, in perhaps the ugliest
lines in the whole poem, prevents Menelaos from ransoming a captive and
calls for slaughter of all the Trojans "even the male child a mother carries
in her womb" (6.55-60), Achilles recalls for the hapless Lykaon, whom
he had ransomed once before, that before Patroklos's death he ransomed
many Trojans (21.100-2), even as he had ransomed Andromache's mother
(6.425-27). Ajax stresses that before his wrath, Achilles was honored beyond
all others for his "love of comrades" (,Philotetos hetairon) (9.630-31). Where
Achilles accepts full responsibility for the death of Patroklos and "the other
comrades" (18.98-105 cf. 19.61-62) and adopts the paradigm of Herakles'
death in accepting the necessity of his own death, Agamemnon, using
the paradigm of Herakles' birth, offers an "apology" (19.85-136) aimed at
explaining away as much responsibility as possible. 87 As a creative, utopian
response to the major changes of the eighth century this message seems to
me to speak very bitterly to the gradual disappearance of the charismatic,
genuinely persuasive and genuinely superior warrior chief characteristic
86 Many readers have tried to see Achilles' enactment in book 23 of the perfect monarchic basileus -
smoothing over co nil.ices and very generous with gifts - as proof of his reintegration with the society
still formally headed by Agamemnon. Such a view would require the excision of book 24
87 Dodds, in his brilliant chapter on Agamemnon's apology (1951: 1-27) declares: "By impatient modern
readers these words of Agamemnon's have sometimes been dismissed as a weak excuse or evasion
of responsibility. But not, I chink, by chose who read carefully" (3). Pained as I would be to be
included in chis category, I nonetheless chink the contrast between Achilles' (never mentioned by
Dodds) and Agamemnon's relations to "external divine interventions'' is striking (see earlier note 63
on human and divine motivation). To be sure, as Dodds argues, Agamemnon accepts the "juridical"
responsibility to make restitution for his at2; but I chink the poet consistently presents him as the sort
of character who avoids as much responsibility as possible. Thus in book I he denounces Kalkhas
but grudgingly accepts his analysis while refusing to give up his prize without "compensation." In
book 2 he is easily deceived by the dream from Zeus precisely because he is unwilling to face the
obvious consequences of having driven off his best fighter.
of an earlier era 88 - an era when the dynamics of leadership implied the
ultimate control of the social surplus by the community as a whole. This
sort ofleadership was in the process of being replaced by those whose claim
to legitimacy rested on the fas;ade of a meritocratic ideology and the reality
of accumulated wealth, a massive array of subservient followers and an
inherited scepter (2.101-9 ), all too readily available for the violent repression
of kakoi who speak out of turn. Thus the "greed" of Agamemnon is not, I
believe, just an individual trait but the mark of the unilateral appropriation
of the social surplus by this new sort ofleadership, the collective leadership
by the big landowners of the emergent polis.
On one level the central conflict of the poem speaks primarily to a
conflict within the ruling class over one-man rule 89 versus the emerging
domination by a collectivity legitimized by wealth and inheritance. But,
as I have argued, in the utopian vision projected in the poem meritocratic
leadership is at least proto-democratic in so far as it depends on persuasion
and assumes the final authority of the "sons of the Achaeans" over the
division of the collective wealth and the concomitant establishment of the
hierarchy of authority and prestige. In the oft-quoted exchange between
Sarpedon and Glaukon, the members of the regular military forces of
the community are envisioned keeping a jealous oversight of the relation
between the performance of the basileis and their material privileges (12. 317-
21). It is the failure of the "sons of the Akhaians" to respond adequately
to Agamemnon's violation of their social and political role that provokes
both Achilles and Thersites to denounce them respectively as "nonentities"
(outidanoisin 1.231) as "base disgraces, Akhaian women no longer Akhaian
men" (kak' elenkhe: Akhaiides, ouket' Akhaioi 2.235).
88 As Hesiod's song at the funeral games for Amphidamas suggests (WV 654), "kings" had not totally
disappeared by the end of the eighth century. Wade-Gery refers as well to King Hektor of Chios
(of about 800 BC) and King Agamemnon of Chios (of about 700 BC (Wade-Gery 1952: 7). Carlier
notes that he has "collected ancient traditions about thirty-five royal dynasties in archaic Greece"
and comments: "It is not likely that all these traditions are late fictions" (2006: 108 with note 22).
That Achilles and his defense of the "sons of the Akhaians'" control of the social surplus is a utopian
ideological construct is underlined by the reality even within the poem of the dark side of the power
of kings (e.g., 1.80-83, 2.195).
89 Drews's absurd denial of this form (1983) in Homer was well answered by Cartledge (1983b) and
Donlan (1984). If "absurd" sounds too harsh, consider "heinous'' in Cartledge's review. Sakellariou
(1989: 358-62) surveys the Homeric evidence in his relentless way. He also devotes an inordinate
amount of space to the refutation of"Marxist" (including Runciman!) obviously dated comments on
Homeric kingship (1989: 345---50, 354---55, 363-66). At the same time, rereading Engels's quotations
from Marx's notes on the American anthropologist Lewis H. Morgan (e.g., Engels 1942: 94---96)
about Homer, I was struck by the obviously more than casual attention Marx paid to small details
in Homer's text including the use of epithets for minor characters.
The historical moment ofthe Iliad 133
But alongside this utopian element there is, embedded in the text, an
overall vision of the sheer destructiveness of this leadership 90 : not only does
the poem as a whole, for all its sympathy with the alienation of Achilles,
focus clearly on its disastrous consequences for the rest of the army (bitterly
acknowledged by Achilles himself at 18.98-105), but the poem's scathing
indictment of Agamemnon invites a more general questioning of a political
order ultimately dependent on the harsh wielding of the scepter on the
backs of men of the demos. In this sense the poem gives voice to the
discontents of the masses, whose decisive contribution to victory peeks
through in the battle descriptions (Van Wees 1992 and 1999), but whose
fate seems to be, as underlined by Haubold (2000), to be destroyed by their
leaders. It maybe that in the real world of eighth-century Greece the less
than ideal behavior of actual basileis, who were perhaps extracting more
"gifts" from the demos than services and judgments justly rendered (cf.
9.296-8).
Thus in terms ofWilliams's (1977) three simultaneous levels of ideology,
we may say that Achilles' backward-looking idealization of the Dark Age
meritocratic social and political regime is "residual," and that the presenta-
tion of the reality of a social order successfully dominated by Agamemnon,
Odysseus, and Nestor's de facto collective leadership points to the poet's
own time, whereas the protests of Thersites and the muted voice of the
destroyed laos analyzed by Haubold, and the violation of the "sacred" city
emphasized by Scully (1990) illustrate a "structure of feeling" that will assert
itself in future class struggles.
90 I am intrigued, if not fully convinced, by Nagy's etymology of the name Achilles, enthusiastically
endorsed by Peradotto as figuring a "tale about a hero who brings distress, akhos, to the people,
lawos" (Peradotto 1990: 104-5; Nagy 1976a; 1979: 69-74). Griffin points out that the name "may
have meant no more than that his early death grieved them" and compares the name of Penthesilea,
whose name "more obviously means the same thing" (1995: 20). Peradotto goes on to point out that
"most folktales, in fact, have merely functional names, like Calypso's, or none at all: Cinderella,
Little Red Riding Hood, Oedipus, Hippolytus, The Fisherman and his Wife, the Frog King" (105).
My hesitation grows out of M. Parry's demonstration of the sheer elaborateness of the system of
Achilles' name-epithet combinations, implying for me a very long tradition during which a sense
of etymology might disappear (M. Parry 1971: especially 39-83). Apart from the possible play on
the alleged etymology in the second line of the Iliad, nothing else in the poem suggests the sort of
self-conscious playing with etymology so striking in the Odyssey (Dimock 1956/7, Peradotto 1990)
and in Hesiod.
CHAPTER 3
Trade, coloniza,tion, and the Odyssey
GREEK "coLONIZATION"
We have already glanced at the case for Greek colonization as "confusion"

(Forrest 1986: 26). There is an old debate over ancient trade sometimes
cast in misleading terms as the "primitivists" versus the "modernizers."
Cartledge summarizes the case against the modernizers as follows: "The
conception of the Greek ruling class as commercial was mistaken twice
over: it overlooked the real sources of their wealth, that is, agriculture,
pasturage, piracy and plunder; and it failed to grasp that direct involvement
in commerce was incompatible both with Greek notions of aristocracy and
citizenship and with the dominant psychological attitude to labour" (1983a:
3). He himself declares, without offering a source: "In pre-industrial Europe
international trade is reckoned, on far better evidence, to have accounted
for but a small part of total economic activity, no more than two per cent
of G.N.P." (1983a: n). G. E. M. de Ste. Croix reserved some of his bitterest
barbs for historians who spoke of "a wholly imaginary 'merchant class"'
(1981: 41).
Tandy (1997), who endorses Cartledge's account and declares himself
a primitivist, nonetheless proclaims by his very title a concept that is
anathema to the primitivists, Warriors into Traders: The Power ofthe Market
in Early Greece. As we have already noted, Latacz (1996) took as self-
evident that the expansion of trade was under the leadership of the Greek
aristocracy. So too Chester Starr declared: "One principal mark of the
Aegean world in and after the eighth century was overseas voyaging, as
this was without a doubt initially in the hands of aristocrats" (1992: 46, my
emphasis, cf. Starr 1977: 46-47, 75). 1 The most relevant questions for this
1 J. Hall's formulation seems to endorse the initiative of the aristocracy while positing a later emergence
of a merchant class: "Economic opportunities overseas offered new sources of wealth and, although
these were initially exploited largely by aristocrats, by the sixth century there had emerged a new
class of non-agricultural producers who demanded a social and political status concomitant with
their wealth" (2007: 15).
134
Greek "colonization " 135
chapter are: what was the class make-up of traders and settlers; what role
did class play in the motives for the vast spread of Greek settlements around
the Mediterranean beginning about the middle of the eighth century BC;
and what were the political and class relations within these settlements
and in their relations with the indigenous peoples in the lands where they
settled? Finally, how are we to understand the specificity of the text of the
Odyssey - its role in the ideological struggles of its historical moment -
in relation to these developments and the major developments we have
already discussed in connection with the Iliad?
There are grounds both in Homer and in archaeology for asserting
the existence of warrior traders. Achilles personally trafficked in the slaves
he made of his prisoners (II. 21.40-41); Athena assumes the identity of
Mentes, a family friend of Odysseus and presumably of the same class, who
sails about in order to trade iron for bronze (Od. 1.182-84). Antonaccio
makes a compelling case that the "heroes" of Lefkandi trafficked in or
sought by raiding exotic antique orientalia to enhance their status (2002).
However, granting the existence of warrior traders hardly explains the scale
of movement beginning late in the ninth and dramatically escalating in
the eighth century. Contented people are less likely to leave their homes
than discontented people. 2 Hesiod's father left Asia Minor presumably
sometime in the eighth century, "needing a good living ... fleeing not
abundance, wealth, nor prosperity, but miserable poverty" (WD 634-8). 3
Archilochus is said to have been the son of a leader of a colony from Paros
to Thasos and therefore from a "prominent" family-whatever that implied
on so poor an island as Paros. 4 But he may5 also have been the illegitimate
son of a slave woman (Kritias D-K 44). 6 Kritias assumes that the motive
for Archilochus's engaging in colonization was economic (dia penian kai
aporian). Archilochus himself testifies to both the pan-Hellenic character
of the colony and the wretchedness that motivated it: "We, the misery of
2 C£ E. Will (1979: 60; my translation): "Expatriation is normally only a last resort more or less
desperate, especially in civilizations where human beings are attached to the land by religious ties."
3 I fail to find in the text the slightest hint that Hesiod presents Kyme as "a city implicitly ruined by
hybris" {Nagy 1990: 7 4).
4 Roland Martin {1984) even mentions a grandfather of Archilochus involved in the process. In any
case Archilochus seems to have been part of a second or third group of Parians arriving about 650
in a colony begun sometime in the last quarter of the eighth century. Tandy (2004= 186) puts the
founding about 680.
5 Kurke 2007: 143-44 points out that the name Kritias gives for this slave mother, Enipo, means
"blame," "abuse" and suggests this is simply a function of the tradition of blame poetry. The current
fashion is to reject all alleged biographical data about archaic poets in favor of traditional personae.
6 Dover {1963: 209) also raises serious doubts about allegedly autobiographical data in the fragments
of Archilochus. The fragments themselves, however, seem to confirm his participation in a colony
at Thasos, which in turn raises the question of his class status.
136 Trade, colonization, and the Odyssey
the pan-Hellenes, have gathered together to Thasos" (102 W).7 He harps
on the unattractiveness of the place: "This [island] like the backbone of an
ass,/Stood crowned with wild woods" (21 W) and contrasts it with the far
more attractive locations of colonies in southern Italy:
For the place is not at all lovely or desirable

Nor lovable, like one about the streams of Siris.
(22 W)
The final line indicates an awareness of more appealing colonial sites in

southern Italy, and chronologically Pithekoussai near Naples is generally
considered the earliest Greek colony, dated about 770 BC (J. Hall 2007: 98).
It is a likely if unprovable inference that the many descriptions of battle
and losses associated with warfare in Archilochus' fragments are all part of
an account of the colony's struggles with the Thracians of the mainland
opposite Thasos (Roland Martin 1984: 175), where the richest gold mines
were to be found. Gentili argues:
A specific tone of epic history can be detected in all the fragments that seem
to belong to this second level [i.e., immersion in political events] in the poet's
work, and they represent a new departure in the history of archaic literature. The
new epic no longer deals with mythical wars fought in the remote past but with
armed skirmishes between Greek settlers and the indigenous populations {largely
Thracian) whom they encountered ... Some fragments ... almost sound like a war
diary, where occasional, unheroic aspects of the soldier's life are described along
with everything else. (1988: 194-5)
Archilochus himself certainly alludes to Thasian losses, presumably mili-

tary: "I weep for the evils of the Thasians, not those of the Magnesians"
(20 W). At the same time, if we believe Kritias, he was forced to leave
Thasos, and a number of his fragments suggest his role as a mercenary
(1, 2, 15, 216 W). Tandy (2004: 185-86) also catalogues Archilochus's
extensive geographic knowledge and even proposes that fr. 2, in which
Archilochus plays on his reliance on his doru, might just as well refer to a
ship as a spear, the usual translation.
The overall picture we get from this earliest written source for coloniza-
tion is the centrality of economic need as a motive, the relatively low social
status of the colonists, and the reality of stiff resistance from the indige-
nous peoples. Moreover, as has been frequently noted, 8 the overall persona
7 Roland Martin (1984' 176) speaks of "starvelings" lfameliques) from all Greece.
8 Seidensticker (1978) has a useful overview of these parallels with abundant bibliography citing earlier
explorations. See also Russo 1974.
emerging from Archilochus's fragments bears some striking affinities with
the character of Odysseus that I believe fits what I have called the "coloniz-
ing element" of this historical period, an element with aspirations toward,
perhaps even kinship ties with the aristocracy, but also profoundly alienated
from some of its pretensions, profoundly aware of the fragility of the social
hierarchy, and heavily committed to endurance and self-reliance rather
than the simplest forms of the shame-culture ethic. 9 What most sharply
differentiates Odysseus from Archilochus or other eighth- and seventh-
century voyagers, is encapsulated by Hartog in the rhetorical question:
"Were not the colonization expeditions that the Greeks undertook from
the eighth century BC on, within the Mediterranean area, conceived as one-
way voyages for those who, as volunteers or conscripts selected by lot, set
out under the leadership of an oikistes (founder), never to return?" (2001:
16, my emphasis). The point highlights what I will focus on below - the
extraordinary space devoted to the class dynamics of Ithaca in the Odyssey.
Robin Osborne (1998b: 251-70), after a withering critique of the very
widespread invocation of overpopulation 10 as the primary cause of colo-
nization, has pointed to the Homeric evidence for wanderers, for a readiness
to settle far from home for long periods of time. He has also raised com-
pelling questions about the reliability of late sources for state-sponsored
"colonization" - a term that, despite its prevalence among scholars, is,
as he argues, particularly misleading for the eighth- and seventh-century
settlements. n He makes a strong case for the essentially private, individ-
ual, heterogeneous, and informal nature of these early settlements. Indeed,
9 The concept of"shame-culture" to describe Homeric values was first introduced into classical studies
by Dodds (1951: 17-18), who argues "the strongest moral force which Homeric man knows is not
the fear of god, but respect for public opinion."
10 Salmon invokes overpopulation as the main reason for colonization from Corinth but proceeds to
a suggestive analysis of a passage in Aristotle about land tenure in Corinth, and concludes: "Some
landless men may have been deprived of citizenship or excluded from the rights of citizenship which
were now defined for the first time; and/or some citizens with little or no land will have been given
plots. The foundation of the colonies is an admirable context for both" (1984: 63-4). Tandy (2004:
185) speaks of "an enormous increase in population density on the mainland of Greece." I think
that a combination of increased population and, far more significantly, a radically unequal division
of land in the new poleis best explains the extraordinary number of men who left the mainland in
this period.
11 I certainly agree that the modern connotations of "colonization" are highly misleading for the Greek
phenomenon described by that name. But the term is so deeply established in the scholarship that
I have not felt I could avoid it. Snodgrass (2005) offers a provocative analysis of the ways in which
internalized versions of British imperialism have affected the way British scholars have analyzed
"Greek colonization." (He notes as well the way in which the seemingly inevitable use of "Greek"
suggests a non-existent nation-state.) Osborne 2009: 111-23 also rejects the term and offers a far
more sustained reexamination of the patterns and nature of settlements by Greeks - even he cannot
avoid the potentially misleading implication of a "national" identity pointed out by Snodgrass -
around the Mediterranean.
John-Paul Wilson (1997) in turn makes a strong case for the irrelevance for
this period of the later distinction between apoikia (a state-sponsored for-
eign settlement) and emporion (a trading post). 12 Finally, Carol Dougherty
has offered an intriguing analysis of several later accounts of settlement-
foundations that suggests a consistent pattern of mystification of the
process, with individual murder, pollution, purification by Apollo, and
a Delphic injunction substituting for the collective violence against the
indigenous people, 13 the forced expulsion from Greece of politically threat-
ening factions, and the ex post facto, religiously sanctioned adoption by
these same communities of economically successful settlements (1993a). 14
Subsequently she analyzed other story patterns and metaphors - marriage,
riddles, athletic victory (1993a: 197 and 1993b) - that put the best possible
face on the often brutal process of appropriating the land of other peoples.
Even granting that many stories of "official" settlements sent out from
mainland poleis may represent ex postfacto constructions and accepting that
'2 Malkin (1998: 13) alludes to the same ambiguity in more cautious language. Roland Martin {1984)
cites considerable evidence that, in the case of Thasos, Paros was fully involved from the outset and
strong ties between colony and metropolis were maintained for centuries. The degree of "official"
involvement in any given settlement doubtless varied widely. Osborne (2009: 13) seems to me to
offer the most judicious account of what is likely to be genuine in the Theran Cyrene decree. He
later comments: "It is not always easy to distinguish being pushed from jumping" {2009: 119). In
any case, he agrees with the main point: "the scale of Greek settlement abroad in the late eighth
century is startling" (2009: 122).
'3 She well cites Dunbabin {1948: 43): "At least half the Greek colonies were built on sites previously
occupied by native towns, and it is likely that most were. In every case of which we hear, the Greeks
drove out the Sicels or Italians by force" (Dougherty 1993a: 197 n. 34). She also suggestively quotes
Nikias's speech from Thucydides in which he speaks of the expedition against Syracuse as being
like "going to settle a city among foreign and enemy people for whom it is necessary ... straightway
to conquer the land or know that if they fail, they will encounter complete hostility" (Thucydides
6.23, Dougherty 1993a: 187). If many of these settlements were indeed militarily achieved, it may
be that this is the period in which to locate the beginnings of the trade in specifically non-Greek
slaves (Rihll 1996). It is also possible that geometric vases depicting men fighting from ships with
men off the ships (e.g., Schweitzer 1971: plates 27-28, 34, 38) depict what may have been a common
experience of the times. On the other hand, Snodgrass notes that Dunbabin has come in for some
criticism in understating the degree in at least some settlements of accommodation and the high
level of intermarriage as a mediating factor (Snodgrass 2005: 50-56). Malkin 2002 has explored
the "Middle Ground" concept in examining the data at Pithekoussai, Kyme, and Campania. He
focuses on the popularity of Homeric scenes - especially depicting Odysseus - on locally produced
vases beginning in the second quarter of the seventh century. Of course, Nestor's cup (dated to
c. 7 40-730, Hurwit 1993: 28) comes from Pithekoussai. The pattern of Greek penetration of Iberia
is again somewhat different, as suggested by the title of Dominguez's essay, "Greeks in Iberia:
Colonialism without Colonization" (2002). Finally, Antonaccio (2005) also emphasizes "hybridity"
in the Sicilian evidence.
'4 McGlew, whose study of tyranny appeared in the same year as Dougherty 1993a, is little concerned
with chronology in his analysis of later constructions of tyrants and founders, but points to some of
the same mythic elements (1993: 157-82 and passim). At the same time he offers a useful discussion
of the later more imperialistic foundations self-consciously directed by tyrants and compatible with
Osborne's suggestion that in at least some cases state-sponsorship was ex post facto.
simple "overpopulation" is not an adequate explanation, one still would
like to know what would explain the extraordinary scale of the simulta-
neous expansion of trade contacts and overseas settlements. This brings
us back to our speculative reconstruction of the process of polis formation
at least in Central Greece in the eighth century. We posited a dual and
contradictory policy on the part of the large landowners, the basileis with
their large, fertile temene and domination of grazing land and enclosure
of the outlying land of the community. 1 5 In ending the supremacy of the
big-men or chiefs, they sought to foster among the peasantry a sense of
koinonia or solidarity around the project of defense of the land and the
worship of the tutelary deity, now frequently enshrined in an expensive
stone temple. While consolidating their control of the best farmland, the
new aristocrats may, as Snodgrass suggested, have formalized allotments of
less productive land to small-scale producers that, in the short term, secured
their subsistence. Meanwhile they are likely to have sought, through the
celebration of their "heroic" ancestry (Antonaccio 1993: 64) and the sym-
bolic demonstrations of their alleged inherited superiority16 in the great
games, to legitimize their economic domination over the "ordinary," nom-
inally "free" agricultural workers, who in the past at least had enjoyed
a more "face-to-face" relationship with their charismatic chiefs. They in
turn, as noted above, were ultimately compelled to persuade their followers,
whose willing support was essential. If Garnsey's (1988, cf. French 1964)
argument about sixth-century Attica, namely, that the problem was not
overpopulation but radically skewed division of land and the preference of
aristocrats for selling their surplus grain abroad, can be plausibly extended
to much of the Greek mainland during the earlier Archaic Period, and if
the widespread later practice among Greek landowners of dividing their
land equally between male heirs was in place, the class basis for massive
'5 Donlan (19896: especially 133-34 and n. 21), while arguing against Finley (1957) that basileis could
take privately owned land from members of the d;mos, does concede that "Dark Age strong men
were [not] averse to confiscating the cultivated fields of neighboring groups," citing Od. 4.174.
"Even within communities defenseless widows and orphans could be deprived of their arourai
(II. 22.489)." He also points to evidence that the strongest chiefs were in the best position to take
over unused land at the outskirts of the community, citing Od. 18.357 (137). Moreover, as this
last-cited passage suggests, the chiefs would be best situated to hire the necessary extra labor or
command it from slaves (c£ Od. 24.222-24, where the reference to slaves gathering stones may
imply the same sort of enclosure of land at the outskirts).
'6 To be sure, there is no direct evidence that the ideologeme (F. Jameson 1981: 76 and passim) of
inherited excellence was characteristic of the early participants in the Great Games. I draw this
tentative inference from its prominence in the victory odes of Pindar, which may of course reflect
specifically fifrh-century ideological struggles (Rose 1992: 140--84). On the other hand, the claim of
the Phaeacian Euryalos that there is no greater kleos (glory) that a man can win than that derived
from athletic achievement (Od. 8.147-8) is suggestive.
Trade, colonization, and the Odyssey
settlement and resort to trade becomes clear. 17 This picture would be even
clearer if Salmon's account (cited above) of the exclusion of some small-
holders from the polis community in the very process of polis formation
in Corinth were known to be more widely characteristic of the process.
In any case, poorer smallholders in the polis would be all too willing to
support challenges to the status quo or take advantage of opportunities
to "flee miserable poverty" (Hesiod WD 638). Richer farmers might find
most attractive Hesiod's advice to resort to trade as a means of bettering
their positions vis-a-vis the "aristocrats" on the principle that "superiority
(arete) and distinction (kudos) follow upon wealth" (WD 313). This is not
to deny that aristocrats ever engaged in trade, but rather to locate the
impetus for such massive new settlements and the concomitant expan-
sion of trade in the simultaneous will of so many poorer Greeks to seek
broader opportunities and the eagerness of aristocrats to be rid of poten-
tially divisive elements. There is good evidence that this process started in
the ninth century, i.e., well before the full emergence of the polis, which
some (e.g., Malkin 1998: 13) believe was itself strongly influenced by the
new settlements. This suggests that pressure on the small farmers was an
ongoing and escalating process to which formation of the polis was in part
a desperate response to establish some sort of stability at the same time that
it sharpened the division between those identified with the new order and
those who felt, or were forcibly, excluded from it.
A further class- and gender-based factor in the settlement movement
arises directly from the institution of slavery, clearly more prevalent among
the larger landowners. We noted above the tradition that Archilochus was
the son of an aristocrat and a slave woman. Dougherty (1993a and b) and
McGlew (1993) have offered such a rich array of quasi-mythic material
about the prevalence of bastard sons of aristocrats as founders that it is
impossible in any particular case to assert that such-and-such a founder
was in fact the illegitimate son of an aristocrat. At the same time the fact that
virtually all slave-owning societies entail the sexual exploitation of slave-
women and the resulting class ambiguity of their male offspring is relevant
'7 As noted in the Introduction, Marx pointed out that those who control the specific mode of
production are the ones who in any specific historical phase define "overpopulation": "In different
modes of social production there are different laws of the increase of population and overpopulation,
the latter identical with pauperism. These different laws can simply be reduced to the different modes
of relating to the conditions of production, or, in respect to the living individual, the conditions
of his reproduction as a member of society, since he labours and appropriates only in society.
The dissolution of these relations in regard to the single individual, or to part of the population,
places them outside the reproductive conditions of this specific basis, and hence posits them as
overpopulation, and not only lacking in means but incapable of appropriating the necessaries
througlr labour, hence as paupers" (1973: 604, my emphasis).
to understanding the class-bases of early Greek settlements. 18 McGlew in
particular has offered a compelling analysis of the status of bastards in
Homer and their close connection with leaving home to found new poleis
(McGlew 1993: 162-66). Thus even the relatively privileged leadership of
many settlements may well have shared with the poorest members of the
new community a sense of the fundamental injustice of the social order in
the mainland communities. It is striking that in one of his Cretan lies to
Eumaios, Odysseus declares himself "the child of a rich man" but a "bought
mother gave me birth." After expressing his bitterness at the division of his
father's property, he offers his self-characterization as a born fighter with no
interest in "work" (ergon), devoted to warfare and raiding ( Od. 14.200-26)-
a very ''Archilochan" figure.
Trade, once begun, whether home-inspired or in imitation of the Phoeni-
cians, has a tendency to take on a life of its own. Lin Foxhall (1998) offers
a refreshing, consumer-focused analysis that breaks with the conventional
assumption that only the ruling class benefited from a trade almost exclu-
sively in "luxury'' items. She cites abundant evidence that communities
that produced and exported their own wine, grains, fabrics, and perfumes
nonetheless also imported these same commodities - in quantities that
presuppose consumption by a far greater proportion of the populace than
just the ruling class. The resulting spiral of consumption and production 19
18 Cf. Menelaos's impressive wedding feast for his suggestively named bastard son Megapenthes ("great
sorrow/trouble") at Od. 410--19. McGlew, who offers some of the most suggestive evidence about
bastards, is, on this issue, apparently committed to an absolute disjunction of myth and reality:
he accepts without question Malkin's conclusion that founders "came from the highest orders of
society and usually acted as the representatives of the state" (McGlew 1993: 162, cf. Malkin 1987:
30). Malkin cites as authority for this statement A. J. Graham (1971: 30; 220). In Graham's 1964
edition (I could find no 1971 edition, there is a 2nd edition in 1983, which has the same text on page
30 as tire earlier one) on page 30 he states: "From the early period tlrere is no sure example of an
oikist who was intended by the metropolis to further its imperial or commercial policies." Without
mentioning bastardy, he declares that the tyrants sent their sons, then generalizes without citing
further evidence: "The leaders of the colonies were members of the ruling house in the mother
city." Again indifference to chronology is a problem here, but even McGlew's own accounts of
state-sponsored settlements by tyrants in the sixth and fifth centuries often entailed the de facto
exclusion from the home polis of potentially disruptive bastard sons.
19 As noted earlier, the increased production associated with expanded trade strongly suggests an
increase in slavery and in the division of labor. Indeed, slaves may well have been one of the earliest
"commodities'' imported from the periphery to the homeland. It is noteworthy tlrat Laertes is served
by a Sicilian woman (Od. 24.211) and the suitors suggest selling Telemachos' unwelcome guests to
the Sicilians (Od. 20.383). At 15.384-88, the disguised Odysseus summarizes the sources of slaves:
conquest, abduction and consequent sale. The latter is the case of both the Phoenician maid who
stole the child Eumaios and ofEumaios himself Phoenicians seem likely marketers. Eumaios' home,
"Syrie," has long puzzled commentators (e.g., Stanford ad loc. and Heubeck and Hoektra ad loc.).
We are told Laertes paid (ed6ken) twenty oxen for Eurykleia, but no geographic origin or human
source is given (r.430--31). Presumably Marx's distinction between money as a measure of value vs. a
goes some way towards explaining the appearance in this period of wealth
in the hands of men lacking the increasingly self-conscious attributes of
the ruling class and accordingly perceived by them as a serious threat to
the stability of society (e.g., Alcaeus 360 L-P, Theognis 39-60 and passim,
Solon 15 W). So too the egalitarian thrust of new settlements with pre-
sumably more or less equal lots for at least all the original participants may
have contributed to a consciousness among the colonizing sectors of the
population that called into question the pretensions of the ruling class of
birth.
THE IDEOLOGY OF THE ODYSSEY
The preceding analysis, based on the data of archaeology and source-

criticism primarily of non-Homeric data, seems to me a necessary context
for considering the ideological 20 thrust of the Odyssey, which, whether or
not by the same poet as the Iliad, responds to a very different world from
that of the Iliad. The Iliad looks back bitterly to a disappearing world,
dominated by warfare and raiding, where the big-man warrior chief rules a
society idealized as a true meritocracy in which the community of fellow
warriors retains ultimate control over the social hierarchy. The Odyssey,
though it shares, as I shall argue, a similar defensive commitment to the
superiority of meritocratic one-man rule, is fully immersed in the moment
of expanding settlements and trade. Redfield described Odysseus as "the
economic man" who "does a kind of cost-benefit analysis of everything,
weighing present expenditure against hoped-for utilities" (1983: 228). He
sees him as the embodiment of the sort of middle-class upward mobility
which we have already noted is articulated in Hesiod (WD 313). 21 Earlier,
Horkheimer and Adorno, coming to the Odyssey from a radically different
political perspective, also saw in Odysseus the "prototype of the bourgeois
individual" and "instrumental rationality'' (1972 [1944]: 43). As potentially
misleading as these contemporary analogies are, they are a useful corrective
means of actual exchange (1973: 187) is relevant here, as in the exchange in the Iliad of armor worth
a hundred oxen for armor worth only nine (6.236). See Seaford (2004): 27 and 34. On Phoenicians
in the Mediterranean and in the Odyssey see Dougherty (2001): 102-17.
20 The concept of "ideology" figures prominently in both Peradotto (1990) and Katz (1991), but in
both cases refers to the ideology of textual strategies considered from the perspective of narratology.
Thalmann (1998) has, from my perspective, the great advantage of considering the relation between
what he sees in the text of the poem and what can be known or reasonably surmised about the
history and society that produced the poem. For a more detailed assessment of Thalmann see Rose
1999a.
21 Note too that Odysseus, in one of his Cretan lies, while expressing his own lack of interest in work
(e,;g-on) or profiting his household (oik8pheM), adds that it "nourishes radiant children" (14.222-3).
This seems a passing nod to a "Hesiodic" perspective on life-choices.
The ideology ofthe Odyssey 143
to the insistence of so many classicists that, to cite a distinguished recent
example, "the poem configures within its narrative a discourse that is essen-
tially aristocratic" (Thalmann 1998: 1, my emphasis). 22 Carol Dougherty
(2001) has more recently offered a powerful reading of the poem that
insists on the centrality of trade, profit, and the settlement movement both
in the narrative and in the consciousness of the protagonist while nicely
respecting the deep ambivalences of the text on issues of class. 23
To an extraordinary degree the interpretation of the ideological - in
many different senses of that term - thrust of the Odyssey has been cast in
terms of a debate over the degree to which the text is dosed/unified (e.g.,
Doherty 1995, Thalmann 1998, A. T. Edwards 1993a, Farron 1979/80) or
open/indeterminate (e.g., Pucci 1987, Katz 1991, Peradotto 1990, Felson-
Rubin 1994), though both sides are at pains to acknowledge openings in the
closed text and elements of closure in an open text. Feminist readings have
been primarily concerned with gender ideology, while Farron, Thalmann,
and A. T. Edwards have focused on class. To anticipate my conclusions in an
oversimplified form, I will argue that the text is indeed relatively univocal
on matters of gender: though it is beyond the scope of my present study, I
believe the Iliad, despite the relative rarity of a focus on women, is more
deeply sympathetic to their plight as victims of males than the Odyssey,
which repeatedly articulates misogynistic positions absent from the Iliad.
On the class level, however, I have argued and will argue again here for
a significant degree of ambiguity. Here I believe the dualities may best be
grasped in terms of Fredric Jameson's version of a double hermeneutic.
Some of the authors cited above seem to speak about ideology as if it
should be internally consistent and univocal so that departures from that
ideal are seen as somehow failures of the poet to adequately control his own
text. Jameson has been particularly effective in countering conceptions of
ideology as monolithic, both within and outside of Marxism. 24 Because
ideology operates through persuasion, it incorporates, albeit in the most
22 Thalmann repeatedly acknowledges the possibility that there are significant elements in the text
"which seem to throw a questionable light on hierarchical relations" (85) or verge toward a "blur-
ring of class boundaries" that "would undo its main ideological program" (95), but argues that
"Odysseus ... in the end vindicates the determining role of birth and class" (99). See Rose (1992
and 1999a).
23 Malkin (1998: 2 and passim), though he is aware of the late eighth-century date normally attributed
to the composition of the Odyssey, argues that the tales of the hero's adventures are more relevant
to what he calls the "protocolonization" movement of the late ninth and early eighth century.
While this is plausible enough as an explanation for the more fantastic aspects of the tales, I think
Dougherty makes a more convincing overall case for the links between the poem and developments
in the second half of the eighth century.
24 Eagleton too, like the best of Marxist critics, insists "an ideology is never a simple reflection of a
ruling class's ideas: on the contrary, it is always a complex phenomenon, which may incorporate
conflicting, even contradictory, views of the world" (1976: 6-7).
self-serving fashion, as much as possible of what it takes to be the aspirations
of its perceived opponents. Moreover, because it entails the self-image and
self-esteem of the group whose interests it serves, ideology always comprises
a strong utopian element, a projection of its own group's highest aspirations.
The double hermeneutic of a specific ideological construct requires sorting
out the overlapping strains of those elements most obviously designed to
foster the interests of the dominant group and those elements that respond
to the aspirations and discontents of the dominated group and point
toward an alternative vision of the social order. Moreover, as argued above,
an ideological construct aimed at a heterogeneous audience in a moment of
radical changes is inherently shot through with ambiguities and potentially
mixed messages. This does not mean that it lacks in Thalmann's phrase a
"main ideological program" (1998: 95).
GENDER IDEOLOGY
In the Odyssey, as has been well demonstrated by, for example, Doherty,
Katz, Felson-Rubin, Wohl 1993, and Murnaghan 1987a and b, the ideology
of the dominant male has incorporated a utopian image of near female
equality in the Phaeacian queen Aret~ and in Penelope functioning in the
absence of a male kyrios, at the same time that it indulges in misogy-
nistic fantasies of castrating temptresses, female monsters, slatternly slave
girls, and deadly, traitorous wives, then reincorporates the positive female
characters in an androcentric hierarchy, whereby the faithful wife is firmly
excluded from any political role and securely shut up in the women's
quarters. 25 Control of women's economic production and reproductive
capacity - which, as Wohl (1993: 21 and passim) echoing Halperin (1990:
137-42) has stressed, is completely fused with notions of potentially disas-
trous female sexual desire - emerges as a major ideological "thrust" of the
poem as a whole. But, as indicated in my introduction, gender ideology is
not the primary focus of the present study.
SOPS FOR THE RULING CLASS
As in the case of the Iliad the weight of the epic genre as such tilts heavily
towards the celebration of the ruling class and specific elements that foster
their own self-regard while justifying or mystifying the exploitation of
25 Felson-Rubin (1994) and Foley (1978) present a generally more optimistic version of the gender
relations in the poem.
Sops for the ruling class 145
slaves, thetes, and - the almost absent majority- more or less independent
small farmers. 26 Perhaps the central element in the self-serving ideology of
the ruling class is the fusion of a meritocratic insistence that only the truly
best man should rule with the repeated enforcements of inherited excellence
and of the continuity of ruling-class superiority and wealth from generation
to generation. Odysseus's superiority has been massively demonstrated
in his survival of so many threats at sea, in his superb skills at verbal
manipulation in so many varied social contexts, in his physical prowess
in athletic contests and specifically martial prowess in the slaughter of the
suitors. The support in the poem for the ideology of inherited excellence
is perhaps most obviously implied in the carefully modulated maturation
of Telemachos culminating in the exclamation of the rejuvenated Laertes,
What a day this is for me, dear gods! Oh, I am so happy!

My son and my grandson are competing over excellence (aretes).
(24.514-15)
This ideology is replicated even in more casual-seeming contexts. Thus for

example, when Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, approaches the good suitor
Amphinomos, he addresses him as follows:
''Amphinomos, truly you seem to me to be very sensible:

For such a man too was your father - since I've heard of his fine
reputation -
That Nisos the Doulichian was both noble (eun) and rich -
From this man they say you were begotten, and you appear like
a kindly man." (18.125-28)
In the same vein are the idealized picture of the continuity of power in
Pylos (e.g., 3.405-12) and the repeated emphasis on the ruling-class look
(e.g., 4.62-64, 13.223, 21.334-35, 24.252-53). 27
Ruling-class members of the audience can also easily read the comment
of Eumaios about slaves losing half their arete when they become slaves and
26 As congenial in many respects as I find Farron's full focus on the anti-aristocratic elements in the
Odyssey (he cites Rose 1975 with approval in his first footnote), he suppresses precisely the ambiguity
that was a central feature of my original formulation of the problem of assessing the ideological
posture of the poem.
27 Richard Martin {1993: 229-34) offers an interesting exploration of the possible thematic implications
of the first epithet applied to Telemachos, theoeides ("looking like a god"). I suggest that one further
implication is to link him with his father, to whom this epithet is not applied, but his son literally
mistakes him for a god when he first sees him (16.183-85). Nausikaa also suggests Odysseus looks like
a god (6.280) after a similar beauty treatment by Athena. Most dramatically perhaps, after his last
makeover by Athena, he is described as "in form like the immortals" (demas athanatoisin homoios,
23.163).
the need to keep a constant eye on slaves to get adequate work out of them
(17.319-23) as justification of slavery and its hierarchy, just as the loyalty of
the good slaves to the true master and the savage punishment of the disloyal
slaves may offer them the same comfort. It is obviously possible to read
the whole ending of the poem as the punishment of bad aristocrats (e.g.,
Lateiner 1993) and the restoration of the true meritocratic order through
the kind of symbolic contest system so dear to the Greek ruling class. As
A. T. Edwards (1993a) has especially stressed, much in the poem reinforces
the values of the polis, dominated by the ruling class, over the countryside,
where the overwhelming majority of productive work is carried on. The
idealized world of the Phaeacians virtually excludes the countryside, and
the demos is reduced to the role of reimbursing aristocratic generosity to
the visiting Odysseus (13.14-15). But is this the whole picture or, more
precisely in Thalmann's terms, is this the "main ideological program" of
the poem as a whole? Are the politics of the poem so one-sided and
straightforward? A double hermeneutic looks as well at those elements that
call the dominant ideology into question and project an alternative utopian
VlSlOn.
THE SUBVERSIVE SIDE OF THE ODYSSEY: THE PLOT (TAKE ONE)
Since so much recent discussion of the Odyssey has adopted an essentially

apolitical narratological approach, 28 it may be worth the risk of oversimpli-
fication to explore briefly the elements in the plot structure that I consider
point toward the necessity of a complex political reading. The opening
of the poem does not name the hero until line 21 (cf. Peradotto 1990:
28 Since writing my review of Thalmann (Rose 1999a) I have read so many apolitical analyses of
the poem that, despite continuing serious disagreements with his overall conclusions, I find my
admiration for the seriousness and subtlety of his confrontation with the recoverable "realities" of
the Dark Age, Geometric, and Archaic Ages in analyzing the poem has grown exponentially. At the
same time I do not mean to disparage other approaches which have much enriched my readings of
the poem. I yield to no one in my admiration for the poem's self-reflexivity (Rose 1992: 112-19), but
I think that in much of this narratological scholarship there is a de facto censorship of the social and
political aspects of the text - characteristic of the Cold War popularity of the "New Criticism" in
the 195os and carried out in what Fredric Jameson has called the "deMarxification of France" during
the late 196os, 197os, and 198os - in the hypostasi2ation of narrative as such. Thus, for example,
Richard Martin (1984: 46 n. 37), citing Todorov (1977: 53-65, see especially 63), appears to endorse
"the theory that the Odyssey's overriding concern is with the practice of narrative per se." A narratively
constructed voice is always - whatever else it is - a class voice, i.e., it is positioned in relation to
perceived class conflicts, either taking sides (what Gramsci would call an "organic intellectual") or
attempting a posture above or outside the fray (what Gramsci called a "traditional intellectual," see
Gramsci 1971: 5-23, 330 and passim). Moreover, this focus on narrative as such rarely engages with
the historical specificity of oral narrative.
Divine justice? 147
115). 29 The first word is andra - "the man." Though the epithet polytro-
pon (either one who makes many turns or who is turned many times)
may have identified Odysseus for an audience that grew up on oral per-
formances, the phrase "when he [had] sacked the holy city of Troy" (1.2)
could suggest Agamemnon to the audience (cf. 9.263-6, where Agamem-
non is described as the one who sacked Troy). The net effect is to focus
attention on the identity of the protagonist, whose name, character, and
attributes are central concerns throughout. This focus is "political" in the
sense widely acknowledged to the extent that the identity of this "hero" is
relentlessly differentiated from the major protagonists of the Iliad, 30 which
we are compelled, in the absence of other texts, to view as in some sense
the "tradition." Though I have been at pains to argue that the Iliad itself in
the figure of Achilles negates much of what is represented as "traditional"
assumptions in the rest of the poem in harking back to an earlier ideal of
how society should function, I also argued that this represents primarily
a conflict within the ruling class, despite elements in the text that speak
to those outside it. The cumulative account in the Odyssey of the identity
of Odysseus represents a radical subversion of fundamental aspects of the
ruling-class ideal fostered by the Iliad.31
DIVINE JUSTICE?
The issue of divine justice, immediately raised by Zeus in the first narrative
segment of the poem seems to offer a qualification or partial negation of
the two-jars passage in Iliad 24: human beings are responsible for suffering
more than the divinely allotted measure of suffering as a consequence
of their own folly (1.32-34). Athena's challenge to Zeus, however, cites the
unjustified sufferings of Odysseus -with the loaded pun on the hero's name:
"Why now, Zeus, are you so angered (odusao) at him?" (1.62). This can
be read as reinstating Achilles' vision of the perverse arbitrariness of divine
dispensations (Poseidon as gratuitously vindictive) or inviting the audience
to seek in the ensuing narrative some other grounds for understanding
the "justice" of Odysseus's sufferings (e.g., the ever-popular deduction that
29 Nagler 1990 examines the proem primarily with a view to what I present below quite differently,
namely, the issue of Odysseus's responsibility for the deaths of all the suitors.
Jo Pucci (1987) in particular has offered an especially intense intertextual confrontation of the two
poems. C£, for example, Segal 1994, especially chapter 5, incorporating his earlier article, "Kleos and
Its Ironies in the Odyssey" (1983).
J' Post-Homeric aristocrats dearly were far more comfortable appropriating the paradigm of Achilles
as the greatest of martial heroes (e.g., Pindar Isthm. 8) than swallowing the paradigm of Odysseus
(e.g., Pindar Nem. 8).
he too is "foolish" in asserting his name to Polyphemos after blinding him).
Reinhardt has pointed to a certain convergence of the seemingly primitive
wrath of Poseidon and the more pervasive evidence in the poem that Zeus,
as representative of the gods in general, despite his denials to Athena in
Book 1, is angry at Odysseus, rejecting his sacrifice after his escape from the
cave of Polyphemos (9.553-55, cf. Reinhardt 1996: 82-90) and perceptible
behind the categorical demonstration in the episode ofAiolos that Odysseus
is "a man who has become hateful to the blessed gods" (rn.74). Jenny Clay
offers a useful demonstration of the indissoluble coexistence of what she
calls a "double theodicy" throughout the Odyssey: both appeals for justice
from the gods and declarations of their arbitrary dispensations are voiced
repeatedly by the same characters (Clay 1983: 221-39). She does not explore
the politics of these theodicies. To argue that the gods are just is usually to
argue that the existing social, political, and economic order is just. On the
other hand, appeals to the gods for justice are often the recourse of those
most oppressed by the existing order.32 But to insist that the gods are
arbitrary and vicious is to imply that the existing order is radically unjust. 33
Side-by-side with this hostile view of the gods in the poem is the view
we have already seen in the figure of Athena, i.e., some gods love those
mortals who are most like themselves. 34 This is normally the vehicle of the
conservative thrust of Homeric religion: all the basilees "are Zeus-nurtured"
or "born of Zeus," an ideologeme challenged in part in the Iliads presen-
tation of Zeus's support for Achilles over Agamemnon and, as we shall see,
more radically challenged in the specific character of Athena's attachment
to Odysseus. A further thread in the theology of the poem points toward
Hesiod and the realities of late eighth-century class conflict. Hesiod illus-
trates the common characteristic of oppressed peoples in many periods in
many societies of appealing to the idea of divine justice/punishment as
an ultimate compensation for the "criminal" depredations of their ruling
classes (see further discussion below). Zeus's appeal to the paradigm of
32 C£ James C. Scott (1985: 332) on Malaysian peasants: "If it requires no great leap of imagination
to reverse the existing social order, then it should come as no surprise that it can easily be negated.
This is precisely what is involved in nearly all the millennial religious ideologies that formed the
normative underpinning of a host of large-scale peasant revolts throughout history ... The radical
vision contained in millennial and utopian ideologies can best be understood as a negation of the
existing pattern of exploitation and status degradation as it is experienced."
ll As noted in the previous chapter, the obviousness of this came home to me especially reading a
biography of Donizetti, which pointed out that the Naples censors in the 182os "retained a marked
preference ... for happy endings, as they believed that they affirmed the status quo and upheld the
principle that benevolent intervention could reconcile differences" (Ashbrook 1982: 39).
34 Rather paradoxically Clay (1983: 46--51 and passim) makes the wrath ofAthena against all the Akhaians
who were at Troy - including Odysseus - a central feature of her analysis, yet acknowledges that
at the outset of the poem Athena has given up her wrath against Odysseus. This is Clay's rather
theological reason for the structural emphasis on Ithaca in the poem as a whole.
Divine justice? 149
Aegisthos' punishment can be seen in conservative terms as punishment

for a violation of the social hierarchy headed by Agamemnon. The punish-
ment of the suitors on this reading also simply confirms that they violated
the Zeus-sanctioned hierarchy of Ithacan society, a society that should be
ruled by Odysseus. On the other hand, it is precisely within the framework
of Odysseus's disguise as a wanderer and a beggar that the notion of divine
justice is most frequently invoked. It is the lowly pious Eumaios who first
in lthaca35 articulates the divine protection of the humblest members of
society: "From Zeus are all/ Strangers and beggars" (14.57-8). This would
seem to imply that the economic ills of beggars are not blameworthy and
to that extent the consequence of divine arbitrariness. Odysseus, in his first
lying tale to Eumaios, speaks of his successful supplication of the Egyptian
king, "who feared the wrath of Zeus/ God of strangers, who most of all
is outraged at evil deeds" (14.283-4). Struck with a footstool by Antinoos,
the beggar curses him:
"If somewhere there are gods and avenging Furies for beggars36
May the end-point of death come upon Antinoos before his marriage."
(17 .475-76)
A further aspect of the theology of the poem not accounted for in Clay's
duality also speaks to the historical realities of the eighth century. Dimock's
account of the meaning of Odysseus's self-naming and the symbolism of
the Cyclops episode seems to me to point in this direction. Odysseus's
shouting of his name is
a case of deliberate self-exposure for the purpose of being somebody rather than
nobody. To blind the son of Poseidon is to defy him, is both to challenge nature
to do her worst, and to demonstrate her ultimate impotence to crush human
identity. It is challenging nature in the sense that the sailor does, every time he
goes to sea. The hero's colonizing eye as he approaches the Cyclopes' island,
the remark that they have no ships or shipwrights, the shipbuilding technique
employed in the blinding of Polyphemus and the mention of axe, adze and auger,
the tools which enable Odysseus to leave Kalypso and set sail on his raft, all
this sounds very much as though Odysseus' crime against Poseidon were the
crime of all those who go down to the sea in ships. But Poseidon will not get
his revenge. In the Odyssey navigation is a practical possibility; the elements are
conquered. (Dimock 1956/7: 56)
There is a tantalizing fusion in this analysis of universalizing the text and

historicizing it: Dimock points to the details that fix the symbolism in a
35 To be sure Nausikaa earlier uses the same formula at 6.207-8.

36 Russo 1992 ad loc. notes that the ge after ptakhan probably indicates the poets awareness that he is
extending the notion of divine avengers to a new category of beneficiaries.
specific historical moment of radically increased seafaring and foreign set-
tlement, but decontextualizes the situation first by suggesting Odysseus's
fate is that of all sailors at all times, but most of all by mystifying the
specific theology of the passage by speaking of "nature." Of course read-
ing this passage in terms of the Levi-Straussian opposition of nature and
culture is irresistible for those familiar with the model (e.g., Kirk 1970:
162-71, Rose 1992: 134-39), but for eighth-century Greeks "nature" is the
gods. The insight built into this episode, as into the Prometheus myth (see
Chapter 4 below) and many others, is that every increase in human tech-
nological mastery of the world is a diminution of the power of the gods: 37
the gods as such hate Odysseus precisely because he represents that advance
in what Horkheimer and Adorno dubbed "instrumental reason."
THE PLOT OF THE ODYSSEY: TAKE TWO
On a broader view the issue of divine justice raises the question of the
overall shape of the plot of the Odyssey. If the Iliad narrative is a tragedy
ending in a denunciation of Zeus's dispensations and an image of frozen
grief and eternal tears (Niobe 24.614-20, cf. 713-14), the Odyssey as a whole
is a success-after-trial story, 38 explicitly invoking the pattern of a Herakles
who essentially triumphs over adversity and achieves reconciliation with
Hera, transcends mortality, and wins an immortal bride (11.601-26). 39 The
contrast is stark with the Herakles paradigm invoked by Achilles (//.18.117-
19 ). There is a pervasive tension throughout the poem between the world as
a cruel, unjust place and the affirmation that long-term success is possible,
a vision which seems entirely appropriate to the colonizing element: while
"expendable people" were being arbitrarily driven from their homes by the
new aristocracy, in many respects things were getting better: more people
were achieving various goals through seafaring. 40
37 C£ Cain, whose descendants are "all such as handle the harp and organ" and "an instructor of every
artificer in brass and iron" (Genesis 4.21-22 King James Version).
38 Peradotto (1990) makes a subtle case for a tension between the closure of a success story and the
openness - represented most of all by Teiresias's prophecy of a further journey not carried out in the
Odyssey - of an ambiguous future. His analysis of the implications of this prophecy is compelling,
but the tensions he posits - between myth and Miirchen, between "centripetal" and "centrifugal" -
are by no means equal on both sides.
39 Clay (1983: 91----95) stresses the violent, frightful aspect of Herakles' appearance (11.601-14) and,
focusing on the damning account in book 21 of Herakles' murder of his guest Iphikles, sees him
primarily as a foil to Odysseus's "humane" heroism. I find this characterization a bit strange for a
hero about to murder 108 guests - albeit unwanted ones - in his own house.
40 Consider again Peradotto's characterization of "tragic" and "comic" plots as "the non-achievement
(or frustration) of desire or its achievement ... The one tends to stress the mortality and relative
impotence of the human subject in the face of what might be termed most generally consistent
The plot ofthe Odyssey: take two
Zeus's opening speech in book I also initiates the paradigm of the house
of Atreus that organizes so much of the subsequent narrative (Holscher
1967, cf. Katz 1991: 29-53 and passim). This parallel and contrast is "politi-
cal" in the sense that it calls into question - on different terms than the Iliad,
which also challenges it - bad monarchy based on inherited power divorced
from merit.41 The overall weighting of the narrative toward the situation
in Ithaca (i.e., books 1-4 and 13-24) reinforces the impression that this
poet is more concerned with specifically, "realistically" political situations
than with fantastic adventures, which, we may surmise, were the most
traditional material associated with the "return" (nostos) story.42 Book 1
of the Odyssey, like book I of the Iliad, confronts us immediately with the
most basic of political questions: who shall rule and on what basis?
Antinoos, one of the two chief suitors, says bluntly to Telemachos, the
son of the absent monarch,
May the son of Kronos not make you basileus in sea-surrounded Ithaca,
A thing which is yours by birth - hereditary (geneei patroi'on). (1.386-7)
Telemachos' reply makes clear both that he considers himself a legitimate
contender for the position - one which is highly desirable both economi-
cally and socially- and that he realizes it is a matter of contention:
Antinoos, even if you are offended at me for what I say,

This thing I would wish to win if at least Zeus grants it.
Do you declare this the worst thing fashioned among human people?
For surely it's not a bad thing to be a basileus. Straightway his house
Becomes wealthy and he himself more honored.
But the truth is, you see, that there are many other basilees of the
Akbaians
In sea-surrounded Ithaca, both young ones and old ones.
Some one of these might take hold of this thing, since radiant
Odysseus died.
But I will be lord of our household
And slaves, whom radiant Odysseus got for me by raiding. (1.389-98)
external resistance - the will of the gods, 'fate,' the 'way things are,' laws of nature inferred from
experience, the incommensurability of the world, the inevitability of death. The ocher represenrs an
optimistic, wish-fulfilling emancipation from this external resistance" (1990: 48, his emphasis).
4' Holscher argues, rightly I chink, against the analyst attempt to find many different versions of the
Agamemnon saga in different parts of the poem, chat it is precisely the attempt to "confront" the
fates of ocher heroes with chat of Odysseus chat is specific to chis poem {1967: 15-16).
42 Woodhouse {1930: 20) assumed the adventures incorporated "folk-tales ... dateless and ageless." So
too Clay assumes chat the poet "could have spun out Odysseus' adventures to dominate the poem.
There is no dearth of material" {1983: 214). Reinhardt, however, argues: "We cannot assume chat
these adventures were already in a heroic, 'Homeric' form before they entered the epic through chis
poet" {1996: 64). His concern is not with the antiquity of the raw material, but the means by which
it was accommodated to the exploration of the hero's identity.
The language of this passage is politically complex. The repeated neuters
referring to the exercise of one-man rule (ho 387, tout' 390, touto 391, ti
kakon 392, tod' 396) point to what is obvious from the confusion of the
singular and plural forms of basileus: the term itself no longer unambigu-
ously designates one-man rule - or in Donlan's anthropological terms, the
"paramount basileus." 43 Antinoos uses the term first to designate one-man
rule, but Telemachos, after praising the economic and social attractions
of one-man rule, acknowledges that there is on little Ithaca a plurality of
males who bear the title basilees, all of whom are potential contenders for
the role of chief, just as in relatively small Thespiai Hesiod addresses a
plurality of basilees (WD 202).
The assembly in book 2 reinforces and deepens the explicitly political
focus of book 1. Telemachos, while appealing in vain for the support of the
demos, demonstrates pathetically his own incapacity to assume the role of
paramount. At the same time the confrontation brings out for the first time
in Greek history the fundamental opposition of the "many" and the "few":
Mentor does his best to support Telemachos' indictment of the suitors,
first by the threat of a harsher exercise of one-man rule over an ungrateful
demos (2.230-4), then by an ironic view of the role of the suitors vis-a-vis
the demos:
But the truth is, you see, that I don't at all blame the aggressively
manly suitors
For committing violent deeds through the evil contrivings of their
minds:
For they gamble their own lives when they violently devour
The household of Odysseus, who, they declare, will nevermore
return.
But now I am outraged at the rest of the demos, how all of you
Sit in silence, but not at all seizing upon them with words,
You don't restrain the suitors who are few while you are many.
(2.235-41)
Leokritos, speaking for the enraged suitors, breaks up the assembly by

pointing to what is the more relevant political issue for the ruling class: the
relative weakness of one man confronted by a plurality of united ruling-
class rivals (2.242-57). Through their subsequent mockery they explore
other political options: that Telemachos might bring against them allies
of his father's from the mainland, that he might poison them, or that he
43 As noted in the previous chapter, I find Drews's argument (1983) chat basileus never designated
one-man rule untenable. See Donlan's justly harsh review (1984). Cartledge (19836: 51) dubs it a
"remarkably perverse book."
The plot ofthe Odyssey: take two 153
himself might perish on his journey, in which case the suitors would divide
up his possessions (2.325-36). This would seem to imply the dismantling
of the very economic concentration associated with one-man rule. Clearly
at issue - especially in the first two books, but really throughout the whole
so-called "Telemachy" - is the future of inherited one-man rule. Athena in
the guise of Mentor raises in harsh terms the question whether Telemachos
is worthy of his paternity and offers the observation - scarcely reassuring
to believers in inherited excellence! - that
Few sons, you know, turn out to be the same as their fathers;
The majority are worse, but a few are better than their fathers.
(2.276-7)
The burden of the first four books politically is the sketch of the crisis of one-
man rule and the focus on the "education" essential for the heir to become
worthy of inherited power. As in a later period of Greece, to insist that
inherited nature needs the supplement of education is in itself threatening
to an aristocracy that prefers the comfort of automatic transmission of excel-
lence (cf. Rose 1992: 3rn-12 and passim). This education of Telemachos -
scarcely complete by the end of the poem when his lack of good sense
almost leads to the failure of his father's revenge (22.139-57) - entails espe-
cially learning to converse with and learning the histories and values of
the older generation of monarchs (Nestor and Menelaos), and acquiring
age-mate allies from the same class (Peisistratos). 44 It is carried forward by
his father from book 16 onward.
A further political problem explored in books I to 4 - one which has
received a great deal of attention of late - is the ambiguous status of the
wife of the paramount during his prolonged absence: is she in some way
related to the acquisition of the role of paramount by a successor? Is she
the legitimate head of the household during the minority of the son? At
what point is it appropriate for her to remarry on the presumption that
the paramount is dead? 4 5 The sheer variety of female figures explored in
the Odyssey- wives, supernatural enchantresses, queens, slaves, monsters -
raises the broader political question, addressed all too briefly above, of
women's political, social, economic, and ideological roles in the world of
the poem.
44 It also seems to entail nudges toward his own future marriage within the right set of class relations:
he gets a bath from Nestor's daughter {3.464---65) and a wedding gift for his future bride from Helen
{15.125-29).
45 These questions inform in various ways the rich array of recent work focused on Penelope and the
roles of women in the Odyssey, e.g., Murnaghan 1987a and 1987b, Katz 1991, Felson-Rubin 1994,
Doherty 1995, Cohen 1995, Karydas 1998, Heitman 2005.
1 54 Trade, colonization, and the Odyssey
When we finally get to Odysseus in book 5, we are invited to register
throughout the next eight books the full range of ways in which this protag-
onist differs from and implicitly calls into question the qualities and values
that emerged from the Iliad. I am not the first to argue that these elements
cumulatively delineate an alternative class-based identity (e.g., Jacoby 1933,
Stanford 1963, Rose 1975, Farron 1979/80, Redfield 1983, Peradotto 1990,
Dougherty 2001). Odysseus' identity as a shipbuilder (5-234-62), wan-
derer, traveler, potential trader (8.159-63), and potential settler (9.125-39) -
not to mention bard (Segal 1994: 149, Dougherty 2001: 52-59, Rose 1992:
139) - implies an appeal to 46 primarily those discontented, rejected/ejected
elements of the newly emergingpoleis I have called the colonizing element.
Odysseus's most general characteristic - played out most dramatically in
his interaction with Polyphemos-is his metis, his crafty, manipulative intel-
ligence including effective lying, for which he claims his kleos reaches the
heavens (9.19-20). As Detienne and Vernant note, "certain aspects of metis
tend to associate it with the disloyal trick, the perfidious lie, treachery -
all of which are despised weapons of women and cowards" (1978: 13). The
association with women is particularly relevant to the Odyssey, where it is
precisely her capacity for metis that constitutes the primary basis of the
homophrosyne (like-mindedness) of Penelope and her husband (cf. 6.181-
85). But this association also underlines the great distance from the assumed
norm of straightforward speech in the Iliad. Agamemnon's lie in book 2 of
the Iliad is demonstrated by its consequences to be a disaster. As noted in
the previous chapter, another virtual lie by a human character in the Iliad
is Odysseus's suppression of Agamemnon's explicit demand for Achilles'
subordination (9.158-61), to which Achilles' pointedly replies,
One must really speak out his speech without worrying about the
consequences,
In just the way I think it and how it will be brought to completion ...
For hateful to me is that man like the gates of Hades,
Who hides one thing in his mind, but says something different.
(9.309-13)
Odysseus in the Odyssey ironically - comically? - echoes these lines even as

he is launching into a major lie:
46 Apart from Nicolai (1983), Doherty {1995), and Thalmann (1998: 291-305), I am aware of very little
serious exploration of the implied audience constructed within the texts of Homer - perhaps because
of the widespread overly simple assumption that only aristocrats are envisioned. But as Thalmann
and I. Morris {1986a) have rightly assumed, even a piece of aristocratic propaganda implies a target
audience that includes more than just aristocrats.
The plot ofthe Odyssey: take two 1 55
For hateful to me is that man like the gates of Hades,

Who, giving way to poverty, speaks words that are deceitful
(14.156-57)
Though, as I have argued, Achilles is a strikingly alienated hero in crucial

respects, in many respects he is obviously held up as the embodiment of
all the finest imaginable qualities in his historical moment. Certainly the
ideal of candor articulated here seems to me in harmony with the poem
as a whole. 47 The gods of course repeatedly lie to mortals, but the most
relevant lie that comes to mind in the Iliad- aside from those of Odysseus
in book IO on his night raid - is the markedly comic lie of Hera in her
seduction of Zeus - a lie which only confirms the stereotype of lying as
characteristic of manipulative females. Athena, Odysseus's patron goddess
in the Odyssey is of course the daughter of Metis in Hesiod (Th. 886-900),
but we have no way of knowing whether this genealogy is traditional or
an invention of Hesiod's. 48 What is clear in the text of the Odyssey is
that she not only controls the entire plot (Felson-Rubin 1994, Murnaghan
1995) but explicitly defines herself in terms more generally associated with
Hermes (cf. Burkert 1985: 139-43 and 156-59) when she identifies herself
affectionately to Odysseus on Ithaca even as she sums up his identity:
A wily (kerdaleos) one and a cheater (epiklopos) he'd be who surpassed

you
In all tricks (dolois), even if a god should come up against you.
Hard man, man of multifarious manipulations (poikilometa), insatiable
of tricks (dolois), so you weren't about to -
Even when you were right in your own land - leave off of your deceits
(apataon)
And cheating tales (mython klopion), which are dear to you from head
to toe.
But come, let us no longer say these things, since both of us know
Profitable tricks (kerde'), since you are far the best of all mortals
In planning and in tales, while I among all the gods
Am celebrated (kleomai) for manipulation (meti) and profitable tricks
(kerdesi). (13.291-9)
The adjective kerdaleos and the noun kerdos insist on the gaining of profit
as the goal of their trickery, the antithesis of the aristocratic ideal of perfect
47 For Buchan's view chat Achilles here is "an objective liar" see note 74in the previous chapter. This use
of "objective" reminds me of chose victims of Stalin's purges who confessed they were "objectively"
guilty.
48 Detienne and Vernant 1978: 57---60 certainly assume chat it is Hesiod's invention.
reciprocity. 49 Epiklopos, dolos, klopios, and metis insist on the deceitful
means by which this profit is sought. These identities must be situated
within the aristocratic class scorn of trading so explicit among the young
Phaeacians, who are the perfect analogues in la-la land of the suitors in the
real world of Ithaca. Politely they invite Odysseus to participate in their
athletic contests, through which, like eighth-century aristocrats, they seem
to believe there is "no greater kleos for man" (8.145-48). When he refuses,
citing his sufferings, he is abused as follows:
Stranger, I don't even liken you to a person who's conversant
With athletics, the many such that there are among people,
But rather to one plying his trade with a many-oared ship,
A leader of sailors who are traders,
A man mindful of his cargo and with a keen eye for return loads
And profits to be snatched (kerdeon harpaleon). Nor do you seem
like an athlete. (8.159-64)
Odysseus' identity is repeatedly explored in the poem through puns on

his name (Dimock 1956/7, Peradotto 1990) 50 culminating in a memorable
digression on how his grandfather Autolykos gave him the name. The
grandfather is thereby especially held - far more than Laertes - as the
source of Odysseus' nature. Autolykos is introduced as one who
... surpassed mankind
In thievery (kleptosunei) and the [misleading] oath.5' The god himself gave him
[this ah ili ty]
- Hermes. (19.395-7)
N. 0. Brown has argued that Hermes' role as subordinate messenger for

Zeus is an historical development due to the eighth-century domination of
aristocrats (1947: 48-50). More relevant to the Odyssey, I believe, is Brown's
49 Jacoby (1933: 178) went so far as to declare that the governing motif of the two epics could be
summed up respectively in the slogan Honor (time) and Property (khremata). He cites many
passages emphasizing Odysseus' keen interest in acquiring wealth. He even suggests (note the date!}
the modern superficial viewer of the poem might find Odysseus "unAryan" (unarisch) (182)!
5° Rather than the convenient English pun "odium/odious'' for the Greek odyssomai (= to be angry
at) preferred by Stanford (1964 on 19.407---9) and Peradotto, I prefer Dimock's emphasis on the
connection of the verb to the noun odune (= pain, c£ Stanford 1964 on 19.275). Alluding to
characters in Western films, he sees the best English equivalent as "Trouble," glossing the name in
full middle and active senses as inflicting and suffering pain, the perfect example of which is killing
the wild boar just after the boar inflicts a serious wound {19.449-53).
51 Stanford 1964 ad loc. explains that an outright false oath is punishable by the severest penalty {c£
Hesiod) and argues accordingly that Autolykos must have excelled in ambiguous oaths. But the
poet of the Odyssey may not have been that punctilious. Van Wees points out that in the Iliad one
dimension of the humor of Hera's seduction of Zeus is her cool perjury (fl. 15.34-46, Van Wees
2006a: 17).
Ithaca: the beggar vs. the suitors 1 57
analysis of the rhetorical strategy of the later "Homeric" Hymn to Hermes, 52

where he interprets the myth of the hymn as a concerted device to reverse
the evaluation of all the aristocratic scorn heaped on merchants as liars and
cheats (1947: 69-105).
The elaborate parallels and counterpoints to the myth of Agamemnon's
homecoming, recently explored by Katz (1991), most explicitly suggest
the ideological agenda of the Odyssey poet to displace earlier aristocratic
paradigms of ruling-class success. The figure who in the Iliad represents the
greatest imaginable concentration of wealth and power and in the tradition
achieves the very pinnacle of military success and martial kleos (cf. 9.263-
64), is shown to be an overconfident fool. His wife Clytemnestra emerges as
the very essence of female duplicity, a misogynistic construction, which, as
Katz stresses, overshadows the celebration of Penelope as the exception (1991:
28). This is in line with the oft-discussed repudiation in the underworld
scene of Achilles' choice of death and - perhaps more ambiguously-Ajax's
absolutism.
ITHACA: THE BEGGAR VS. THE SUITORS
But, as I first argued in 1975 (but cf. Donlan 1973: 243), it is in the choice
of the disguise of the beggar that the most striking political dynamics of
the poem are played out. Undermining the whole confidence implicit in
the ruling-class look discussed above is a pervasive counter-motif of the
deceptiveness of appearances initiated with Athena's disguise as Mentes
(1.105-6) and culminating in the disguise of Odysseus as a beggar. Athena's
disguise in book I as the socially acceptable trader Mentes, an old family
friend of Odysseus, and Odysseus's own later disguise, in testing his father,
as an aristocratic guest-friend of Odysseus (24.263-68), suggest that there
is nothing inevitable about the choice of someone at the very bottom of the
social hierarchy as the vehicle of Odysseus's observation and analysis of the
political situation in his homeland. Through eight books (14-21) Ithacan
society- the behavior of slaves, suitors, and the queen - is assessed through
their treatment of what is for Achilles only a nightmare metaphor for his
sense of alienation, namely, a "dishonored wanderer" (cf. II. 9.648, 16.59).
I would stress the word treatment since the long sojourn with Eumaios
is, pace Thalmann, far from a simple homily on the virtues of the loyal
52 Clay (1983: 29) suggestively points out chat the identifying epithet polutropos in the first line of the
poem, an epithet which M. Parry cited as an example of a "particulari2ed epithet" (1971: 154), is
applied twice to Hermes in chis Hymn (13 and 439). Hermes is also called polumetis (319).
slave from the master's perspective. 53 Repeatedly Eumaios demonstrates his

fundamental decency by his strict adherence to absolute hospitality for the
lowest of society's rejects. After rescuing the stranger from his ferocious
dogs, he offers him food and drink, setting him down on his own bedding
(14.36-51). When Odysseus thanks him for his kindness, Eumaios dourly
states the code of hospitality in the most absolute terms:
Stranger, it is against divine law (themis) for me, even if one worse than you
should come,
To dishonor a guest. For from Zeus are all
Strangers and beggars. A gift small and dear
Is what (can) come from us. (14.56-59)
Eumaios goes on to explain the modesty of any gift coming from slaves as
a category (hemetere) and to generalize on the lot of slaves in terms that I
at least do not see as toadying in the least, but rather giving a sympathetic
voice to their circumstances:
For this is the way of slaves,
Ever full of fear, when masters exercise power over them -
Masters who are new. (14.59-61)
What is especially hateful about the slaves associated with the suitors is
their arrogant treatment of the poor beggar. Both Melanthios (17.215-34)
and Melantha (18.321-36 and 19.65-69) are singled out for criticism for
their rude treatment of the beggar.
But the fullest and, I would say, most obviously political marking of the
treatment of the beggar is that of the suitors. Whitman long ago noted their
characterization as the newly dominant oligarchs of the eighth century:
Homer's ... effort to make them real has led him to imagine them as young
oligarchs. Doubtless he found adequate models of highhandedness and violence
in the sons of the rich families of his own time, and the contrast between these
53 A. T. Edwards's long and subtle article, {1993a) which takes issue with Rose 1992 on a number of
points, also offers a powerful reinforcement of what I earlier dubbed "class ambivalence" in the
anomalous elaboration and valorization of the values of the countryside (agros) against the usual
celebration of the polis, of the arbitrariness of the social hierarchy against the hierarchical securities
claimed for inherited excellence. Edwards, however, prefers the more postmodern terms of"indeter-
minacy'' and "undecidability." He succumbs again and again to Pucci's Derridean celebration of the
"irony" of disguise and I. Morris's univocal aristocratic propaganda model. This leaves him at the
end with a strange perversion of the intentional fallacy: "Homer strives in his poetry to reproduce, to
disseminate and reinforce an [aristocratic] ideology ... Yet ... the inclusion of the voice of the agros
in the Odyssey has the unintended effect of threatening this reproductive process" {1993a: 77, my
emphasis). On such a reading the choice of disguise as a vehicle and the choice of the long focus on
the countryside, not to mention the choice of the representation of the suitors as hateful, arrogant
aristocrats are all accidents of the traditional plot that the poor poet is helplessly stuck with.
Ithaca: the beggar vs. the suitors 1 59
essentially unheroic dynasts and the mythic individuals in the epic tradition would
lend itself to the contrast between Odysseus and the suitors. (1958: 306)
In the Odyssey war is only a memory, a theme for the entertainment of

the idle rich (8.579-80): neither Telemachos nor the suitors show any
expectation that either war or systematic raiding is in their future. Theirs
is a life of feasting, a bit of sport, and sex with the slave girls. The only
kleos (fame, renown, reputation) to be sought by Telemachos is from travel
to visit other members of the leisure class (1.93-95) or from the reflected
glory of his father (1.240). As noted earlier, like eighth-century aristocrats,
the young men of Phaeacia seem to believe that there is "no greater kleos
for man" than what he wins in athletic contests (8.145-48).
For Whitman this success in characterization entails a serious moral
loss: the slaughter of the suitors "is meant to be a reestablishment of right
order, but an orgy of blood vengeance peers through the moral scheme"
(ibid.). Katz has argued against the general consensus that the suitors are
more or less self-evident exemplars of hybris, violating all the rules of
hospitality and courtship (Sai:d 1979, cf. Fisher 1992, Lateiner 1993, Seaford
2004: 44), that little in the recoverable rules of courtship seems to justify
what she calls the "criminalization" of the suitors and argues this element
must be understood as part of the "ideology of exclusion" that insists on
the inviolability of the union of Penelope and Odysseus (Katz 1991: 170-
73). This argument seems to me a bit circular: the suitors of Penelope
are criminals because trying to win Odysseus's wife is conceived of as a
criminal act. But both Whitman's and Katz's approaches point to the need
to find in the poem's own terms some adequate grounds for the wholesale
slaughter of the suitors, some basis that we can at least imagine a substantial
portion of an eighth-century audience responding to positively rather than
with moral indignation. 54 My own view, untenable if only aristocrats are
=
54 Nagler (1990: 345) says of the fact that "Odysseus (the 'savior of the oikos,' 2.59 17.538) has to kill
his own retainers": "This is the central problem of the Odyssey, and the poet will try in many ways to
construct a reason for such a distasteful necessity." Nagler's solution is to focus on the seemingly odd
emphasis on followers who die by their own folly in the proem: "the most effective way [to avoid
Odysseus's blame] is to project the situation into mythic language and indirectly propose that he
did not kill the suitors at all: qua crew members they undid themselves by their own aTacr6aAiai,
their criminal folly." One would think such a strategy badly undermined by the bitter speech of
Eupeithes:
Oh my friends, surely a great achievement this man has devised against the Argives,
Leading some with his ships - many men and good ones -
He destroyed the hollow ships, he destroyed the troops (laous),
Others, after he came back he killed- far the best of the Kephallenians."
(24. 426--29)
envisioned as the target audience, is that the long build-up of specifically
social and economic abuse directed relentlessly at this social outcast speaks
to the deep resentments of what I have called the colonizing element- those
smallholders and landless men who were either driven off to distant lands
or who chose to leave or longed to leave a situation in which they were being
squeezed out of access to tillable land. If the enslavement for debt obtaining
in the Athens of Solon of a century or so later also was characteristic of the
behavior of eighth-century large landowners, this build-up of rage against
the ruling class would appeal as well to these victims.
The pattern of the suitors' - and their followers' - response to the
presence of a beggar at their endless feasting is set by the representation of
the goatherd Melanthios already noted: verbal abuse followed by physical
assault (17.217-34). Odysseus's reaction is his characteristic repression of
an immediate impulse, a further feature that distinguishes him from the
typical Iliadic hero. 55 Subsequently Odysseus himself speaks in protest, but
in this initial encounter it is Eumaios who rebukes Melanthios, focusing on
the elegance of his clothing (presumably - cf. earlier reference to clothing
of suitors' slaves 15.330-34 and A. T. Edwards 1993a: 61), his dawdling in
the city and the neglect of herds (17.244-46). Presentation of the city as
the locus of wealth, luxury, and reprehensible leisure anticipates a more
developed anti-aristocratic critique from the perspective of the alienated
middling farmer (A. T. Edwards 1993). But words similar to those of the
slave Melanthios in the mouth of Antinoos, one of the two chief suitors,
more clearly evoke the odious arrogance of the ruling class. Sarcastically he
taunts Eumaios:
0 most distinguished swineherd, why have you led this fellow here
To the city? Surely don't we have enough other wanderers,
Irksome beggars, polluters of [our] banquets? (17.375-77)
This fits far better with Haubold's (2000) than with Nagler's view. Nagler does acknowledge (rather
implausibly) chat in "chat late revelation ... Eupeithes all but 'blows the cover' of the whole poem"
(1990: 346). He concludes: "Oddities in the text often draw oblique but unmistakable attention to
ethical contradictions" (1990: 347). I have argued chat these ambiguities are best understood as the
poet's attempt to speak to the ideological investments of a heterogeneous audience. At the same time
I am struck by a perhaps inappropriate parallel from contemporary popular culture. Many action
films seem to reveal a desire on the part of the filmmakers to construct enemies so odious chat the
audience is allowed to enjoy various hideous forms of punishment. In Lethal Weapon 2 one of the
South African villains is beheaded by a Hying surfboard. The cheater audience laughed.
55 One might call the whole Iliad a study in short tempers. I am not chinking only of the behavior of
Achilles, whose restraint of his first impulse to kill Agamemnon requires the elaborate intervention
of Athena, or Agamemnon's furious response to being challenged: even Patroklos - though "the
sweetest and most compassionate of the Homeric warriors" (A. Parry 1972: 10) - has come to live
in the house of Peleus because of killing a playmate over a child's game (Iliad 23.85---90).
Ithaca: the beggar vs. the suitors
The nearest parallel is the divine scorn of human beings expressed in Iliad
book I by Hephaistos:
Surely these will be sorry deeds indeed not to be endured any longer
If you two quarrel in this way for the sake of mortals,
And drive wrangling among the gods: nor will there be any pleasure
In the noble (esthles) banquet. (1.573-76)
The Near Eastern view of human beings as literally the slaves of the gods
seems operative in this sharply hierarchical Iliadic dismissal of concern for
the inferior species as beneath the dignity of the ruling class's luxurious
feasting. 56 In the Odyssey the suitors' concern for their feasting is given a
sharply class point by the whole motif of relentless driving hunger (Rose
1992: rn8-12). Indeed, the symposium-like exclusiveness of their feasting
is also pointedly contrasted to the older pattern of chieftains feeding the
whole community: Nestor feeds 4,500 members of his community on the
beach (3.7-8, cf. Seaford 2004: 41). Moreover, Antinoos's scornful focus on
the number of potential wanderers and beggars attests to the extensiveness
of the phenomenon, as does Alkinoos's earlier reference to the cheats and
thieves "such as the black earth nourishes in abundance far and wide
(poluspereas)" (11.364-65). So too Eumaios complains of wandering liars
(14.124-27).
Odysseus goads Antinoos, who again upbraids him as "bane of the
banquet" (17.446). When he hurls a stool at him, Odysseus replies in terms
that imply an earlier identity as a warrior and owner of herds, now reduced
to begging by the imperious force of hunger:
Indeed there's neither agony nor any pain in his heart

Whenever a man, fighting over his own possessions,
Is struck- either about his cattle or white-shining sheep:
But Antinoos struck me because of wretched Belly, 57
Cursed, who gives many sufferings to people.
(17.470-44)
In the parallel scene in which the other chief suitor, Eurymachos, sarcasti-
cally offers the beggar a job on his estate and mocks him for laziness and
excessive concern for his "insatiable belly" (18.357-64), Odysseus's reply
56 But see Fehr 1990 on the entertaining role of" akletoi" (= "uninvited") guests at aristocratic banquets;
his best literary examples are from the Odyssey.
57 It is clear, I chink, from the many elaborations of the impact of gast2r chat the term is personified
(see references in Rose 1992, cited above).
constructs his identity as a hardworking independent farmer, with an inti-
mate appreciation of good oxen and fully capable of fighting as a hoplite -
just the sort of man being driven to settlement abroad:
Eurymachos, would that there might be a contest of work for the two of us,
In the spring season, when the days become long,
In grassland, I would hold a well-curved sickle for my part,
And you would hold the same for yours, so we might make trial of work,
Going hungry till well into the dusk, with grass in ready supply.
But if in turn there be oxen to drive, really good ones,
Glistening big ones, both glutted with grass,
Of the same age and equal in pulling-power, whose strength was unbroken,
And let there be a plot of four measures, and the clod would yield beneath
the plow,
Then you would see me, ifI could cut a straight furrow through.
But if in turn the son of Kronos should also stir up war from somewhere
Today, had I however a shield and two spears
And a helmet all of bronze, fitted to the temples,58
Then you would see me, mingling with the front-rank men in the
forefront of battle,
Nor would you address me insulting me for my belly.
But you behave quite arrogantly (ma/a hybrisdeis), and your mind
is unfeeling,
And perhaps you think that you are someone big and strong,
Because you consort with few men and those not good ones. (18.366-83)
This extraordinary speech (see Russo 1992 ad loc.) lays out a bitterly anti-
aristocratic assault precisely from the perspective of the hard-working inde-
pendent farmer. It is not only the evocative details of the farmer's life but
the emphasis on the fusion of insensitive arrogance towards the hungry
and downtrodden with the self-deluding high self-regard that points at a
whole class whose pretensions are a function in part of their insularity. I
refer not, of course, to the literal fact that these suitors live on a relatively
remote Greek island and the Phaeacians who have chosen to live apart from
the rest of human kind (6.4-8): those Greeks who had left the mainland
and engaged in trade and settlement abroad may well have been struck by
58 Stanford (1964 ad loc.) stresses that this is not full hoplite equipment, but as Van Wees has stressed
(2oooa), the progress toward uniform hoplite equipment was a slow one. Moreover, J. Hall (2007:
163-65) may be right that even later the best-equipped rich tended generally to be in the front ranks,
while less well equipped warriors were normally in a supportive role, not in the front ranks. This
boast could then be read as further proof of Odysseus's identity as a "true" aristocrat. But the whole
cast of the passage seems to me to point to the unjustified arrogance of the aristocratic suitors. What
is clear here, I think, is that precisely as land became more valued - note the emphasis here on
agriculture, not herding as in 17.472 - non-aristocrats were drawn into its defense. Vidal-Naquet
(1986: 15-38) rightly stresses the centrality of agricultural land in the "real" world of Ithaca.
the exaggerated self-esteem and nai:vete of the ruling class that maintained
control of the mainland poleis while driving off what they considered the
"excess" population (cf. Qviller 1981: 137).
It might be argued that after all Antinoos and Eurymachos are not typical
of all the suitors, though the minor figure Ktesippos (= "horse owner")
later repeats the pattern (20.286-302, cf. Fenik 1974: 175-85). Most of the
suitors do give alms to the beggar without insulting him; and in one of
the most famous passages in the poem, the disguised Odysseus attempts
to warn the kindly Amphinomos. The passage is often seen in philosophic
or theological terms (see Russo 1992 ad loc. with references there), but I
think it is best understood as a specific vision of late eighth-century social
and economic insecurity, a vision which here too focuses on the insular
illusions of the economically advantaged:
The earth raises nothing more fragile than the human creature -
Of all such things as breathe and move upon the earth.
For he asserts that he will never later suffer evil,
As long as the gods supply success/prowess (areten) and his knees move
lightly:
But when indeed the blessed gods bring about painful things as well,
These too he bears against his will, with an enduring heart.
For such is the mind of earth-dwelling human creatures
As the day that the father of men and of gods leads on. (18.130-37)
This piece of "wisdom" is applied to the suitors and culminates in a wish

that Amphinomos might go home and avoid the coming slaughter. As A.
T. Edwards has also pointed out (1993a: 63 and passim), 59 this motif of
social downward mobility, so prominent in Odysseus's lies, in the account
of Eumaios's life-trajectory, and in Eumaios's bitter comment on the con-
sequences of slavery, is in irreconcilable tension with the aristocratic cele-
bration of inherited excellence implying a secure key to the justice of the
existing social hierarchy. Moreover, this potentially shattering mobility is
a structural element in the plot of the Odyssey. the hero is reduced to a
59 To be sure, A. T. Edwards, as noted, is committed to the view of a strictly aristocratic agenda on

the part of the poet and focuses on efforts in the poem to "contain the power of this voice which
threatens to disrupt the poem's ethical geography" {1993a: 66) and argues that the picture ofLaertes'
humiliating exile in the country undermines whatever is positive in the portrait of Eumaios (ibid.,
followed by Thalmann 1998: 57-59). This strikes me as a two-edged sword; whatever aristocratic
pathos is evoked by the image of the degraded former basileus is matched, I think, by the implied
insistence on Laertes' actual identity as just the sort of hardworking, conscientious farmer that his
son invoked in his bitter reply to non-working Eurymachos. This view seems in harmony with
Hanson's extended focus on Laertes' farm (1995: 47-50). He even says: "Laertes' farm, like the type
of agriculture described in Hesiod's Works and Days . .. " {50).
zero - a mere "seed" of life at the end of book 5; we follow his movement
in Phaeacia from zero to hero; his tales to the Phaeacians trace his down-
ward spiral from hero to zero; back in Ithaca he moves finally in a "real"
social context from zero back to hero. For those in the audience who had
experienced this sort of radical mobility so characteristic of the eighth cen-
tury, the emphasis on the power of external circumstances to define social
identity and status would ring truer than the relatively nai:ve confidence of
the stay-at-home suitors that they are "naturally" the best people.
To repeat: an ideological construct aimed at a heterogeneous audience
seeks to appeal to the aspirations and biases of as much of that audience
as possible. 60 There is thus unquestionably much in the text of the Odyssey
that should have appealed to eighth-century aristocrats. But in the very
heart of even ruling-class utopian projections of themselves are ambiguous
elements. This is perhaps most obvious in the central reinforcement of
a meritocratic ideology. On the one hand, the intra-ruling class tension
between one-man rule and collective ruling-class rule renders the relentless
celebration of one man's overwhelming superiority to all his competitors 61
potentially uncomfortable for the new class-based rulers of the polis. On
the other, while every ruling class enjoys the view that its privileges are well
deserved, there is also a "left" utopian meritocratic ideal - summed up by
Marx in the slogan "from each according to his ability, to each according
to his needs" (Marx and Engels 1978). Such an ideal, I have argued, may
well be part of the historical memory from the early Dark Age when
leadership based on superior martial prowess may have been combined
with a redistributive economic system emphasizing the generosity of the
leader. In any case, what I have called the colonizing element in Greek
society, the first generation of whom did in many cases become the new
ruling class in the foreign settlements where presumably the first allotments
ofland were more or less equal ( Od. 6.10) and probably generous, whatever
their resentments of their home-polis rulers, surely aspired to the same
ideals and leisurely lifestyle. But on the basis of their greater experience
of the world and their survival of its vicissitudes, they may well have felt
superior to the stay-at-home leisurely landlords. There are other pieces
of ruling-class ideology (what Fredric Jameson calls "ideologemes") that
60 I find quite unconvincing Doherty's attempt (1995: 87-126) to see the audience in Phaeacia as the
"implied audience" - in part for reasons she herself gives (91), but primarily because she does not
engage at all with the problem of the range of possible audience options open to a poet of such a
poem in the late eighth century.
61 This tension complicates, I believe, what might appear as a simple celebration of the status quo in
Richard Martin's fascinating explication (1984) of elements of"instruction of princes" embedded in
the text of the Odyssey. See Chapter 4 below on Hesiod's attitude toward one-man rule.
this colonizing element were likely to have endorsed: fear of women's
intelligence and reproductive capacity, the belief that slaves need constant
supervision by their masters (17.320-23), and commitment to the sanctity
of the individual oikos.
At the same time, the oppositional aspects in the characterization of
Odysseus as ship-builder, sea-farer, potential merchant, potential settler
on distant land, as a man of metis - tricks, lies, theft - should not be
swept aside in a univocal reading. Surely, as Stanford (1963) long ago
emphasized, this atypical hero stuck in the throat of many a later aristocrat
(e.g., Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato). Moreover, the long build-up of
rage at the arrogance of the leisure-loving, stay-at-home suitors viewed from
the perspective of a man who has traveled widely, who knows intimately
what it is to do the hard labor of a small landowner, who is aware of
his own repeatedly tested merits - however unprepossessing his current
circumstances - taps into a specifically class-based antagonism that finds
an outlet in a gruesome bloodbath - one that may have been deeply
satisfying to what I have dubbed the colonizing element.
A protagonist so sharply differentiated from both the suitors and the
easy-living Phaeacians (an early protest against the appeals of habrosyne?
See Chapter 5 below) offered small comfort to a leisured class. Moreover,
the poem insists on the potential of the people to exact revenge from truly
obnoxious members of the ruling class (16.375-82, 424-29, cf. 2.239-41).
At the same time, for all the celebration of the virtues of its protagonist,
the poem also gives voice to the destructiveness of his impact on the
community (24.426-29, cf. Haubold 2000: especially 126-44). Finally,
while the poem's celebration of monarchy has been viewed primarily as
backward-looking (Finley 1978: 48) - a "residual element" in Williams's
terms - in the context of the poem's highly negative account of the new
leisure class embodied in the suitors and glanced at ambivalently in the
Phaeacians, the expressed longing for a paternalistic monarch to check the
abuses of the rich may rather represent what Williams (1977: 128-35) called
a "new structure of feeling" anticipating the return of monarchy - in the
literal sense of "one-man rule" - in the form of tyrants, a political option
not far off.
CHAPTER 4
Hesiod: cosmogony, basil~es, farmers, and justice
"CHRONOLOGY," "TEXT," AND "AUTHORSHIP"
I use scare quotes for these topics because scholarship focused on Hesiod
in recent years has so thoroughly challenged the relevance of the latter
two terms as traditionally understood, and they are inevitably imbricated
with the issue of chronology. Thus the approach of some highly respected
scholars has cast serious doubt on whether there remains any meaningful
sense in which these texts have something useful to tell us about the early
history of the Archaic Period. One scholar has summed up the situation
thus: "in the special case of early Greek poetry the author is a trope ofthe text
in a very radical sense and ... the relationship of that trope to any historical
or geographical reality - indeed, to anything outside the strategies ofthe text
itself- is likely to be so complex that any hope of recomtructing it may be
misplaced" (Lamberton 1988: 36, my emphasis).
A key figure in this development is Gregory Nagy, whose similar
approach to Homer we have already had occasion to touch on in pass-
ing. His insistence, anticipated by Geoffrey Kirk (1960 cf. 1962: especially
301-34), that both Homer and Hesiod were purely oral poets innocent of
writing, whose "creations" were not fixed as texts until the sixth or fifth
century BC (Nagy 1982: 46, cf. Nagy 1992), results in viewing the texts we
have as blurry amalgams - virtually precluding their status as meaningful
data for any period more specific than the whole Archaic Period. Indeed
this logic is best illustrated in the work of Jensen, who analyzes Homer's
text as a reflection of sixth-century Peisistratid cultural policy (1980: 159-71,
cf. Seaford 1994: 144-90).
When it comes to "text," one might imagine that this approach would
entail a generous openness to accepting as "Hesiodic" virtually everything
that survives attached to that name. But adherents of a purely oral Hesiod
sharply distinguish a creative oral phase from a "rhapsodic" phase during
which the product of oral creativity is more or less accurately reproduced
166
"Chronology, " "text, "and ''authorship"
but still subject to (tasteless or clumsy) accretions. Thus Kirk, for example,
wants to remove from the Theogony at least "the variant descriptions of
Tartarus in lines 736 to 819, the Typhoeus episode which immediately
follows [i.e. lines 820-80], and the list of goddesses with mortal lovers from
965 to the end" (Kirk 1960: 73). Kirk then launches into attacks on a host of
other lines and phrases containing "unperceptive distortions of established
Homeric formulas," "gross misuse or misunderstanding of well-known
traditional phrases" (1960: 76, his emphasis), and even what he dubs "anti-
traditional distortions" which reflect "the sterile passion for going one better
than the familiar phrase" (77). Reading through his catalogue of rejected
lines and phrases, one almost gets the surreal sense of Hesiod as a bumbling
but ambitious rhapsode with complete concordances of the Homeric poems
in hand, trying in vain simultaneously to sound just like Homer, but
stubbornly determined to somehow outdo the master. I do not wish to
disrespect the careful labor and awesome learning that often underlie such
approaches to the text. But I cannot escape the feeling that those scholars
who find inconceivable written texts of the eighth or seventh centuries
create great and ultimately unnecessary problems. 1 Written texts are by no
means necessarily fixed texts, but they are considerably more fixed than the
fluid oral transmissions envisioned by these scholars. Moreover, it seems to
me quite unnecessary to assume, despite the common, pan-Hellenic Ionic
dialect shared by Homer, Hesiod, Callinus, and Tyrtaeus, that formulaic
composition necessarily entailed the degree of rigidity presupposed by
Kirk's catalogue of horrors. 2 M. Parry demonstrated compellingly that
within the Homeric poems once a given phrase was fitted into a given
metrical pattern there is a very strong pressure to use that exact phrase
whenever its essential idea was appropriate and not to develop metrically
equivalent alternatives (M. Parry 1971: 6-7 and passim). I do not think that
it follows necessarily that poets working broadly within the same tradition
' To be sure, as far as I know, Nagy has never engaged in the sort of chopping up of the text illustrated
by Kirk; I would argue, however, that this relentless quest for the urtext is a natural consequence of
Nagy's view of a floating text.
2 Kirk's criticisms range from the relatively mild "unpleasant" to "disastrous" to "quite nonsensical"
to "another abortion" to "inept and contorted" to "feeble and untraditional" to "real distortions" to
"jejune and ineffective" (1960: 78). One of the admirable goals of Nagy's assault on the traditional
autobiographical emphasis on Hesiod is to combat the "commonplace visualization of Hesiod as
a primitive landlubber of a peasant who is struggling to express himself in a cumbersome and
idiosyncratic poetic medium that he has not fully mastered" (Nagy 1982: 67). It is hard not to feel
such a "commonplace visualization" of Hesiod plays a role in Kirk's approach to the text, yet his
approach is "logical" for him as well as for Nagy if one begins with his assumptions about how the
text came about. Finnegan {1977) has richly documented the grounds for abandoning the rigidity of
M. Parry's and A. B. Lord's (2000) distinctions of "oral" and "literate."
168 Hesiod: cosmogony, basilees, farmers, and justice
did not have access to or feel free to develop alternative formulas - especially
if, as I believe, they had access to writing. 3 Thus, short of establishing my
own text, I accept provisionally the texts of West (1966 and 1978), which at
least have far fewer square brackets than the text of Rzach (1958) in which
I first studied Hesiod.
The "authorship" of "Hesiod" is at least as dangerous a scholarly mine-
field as the text. Not only are there militant separatists who believe dif-
ferent poets composed the Theogony and the Works and Days, but a more
"postmodern" approach has emphasized the comtructed character of the
poet's voice including such apparently autobiographical details as his con-
secration by the Muses as a singer, his previous role as a shepherd, his feud
with his brother Perses, his participation in the funeral games of Amphi-
damas, his dedication of his prize to the local Muses, his father's emigration
from Aeolian Kyme, and even his association with Boeotia, Askra, and Mt.
Helicon (cf. Nagy 1982 and 1992, Lamberton 1988). Nagy, ever the lover of
ingenious etymologies (see above on "Homeros" and ''Achilles"), has sug-
gested that even the name "Hesiod" attached to these texts and embedded
in Theogony 22 is itself a construct of the oral tradition: "The very name
Hesiodos at Theogony 22 means something like 'he who emits the Voice"' -
in effect a kind of pun based on the "expression 6ssan hieisai (emitting
a [beautiful/immortal/lovely] voice), describing the Muses themselves at
Theogony IO, 43, 65, 67'' (Nagy 1982: 49, cf. Nagy 1979: 296-97). 4 This fits
in with his broader contention "that 'Homer' and 'Hesiod' are themselves
the cumulative embodiment of this systematization [of values common to
all Greeks] - the ultimate poetic response to panhellenic audiences from
the eighth century onward" (Nagy 1982: 46).
Griffith (1983) has carried this view further by elaborating the idea
present in Nagy that different constructed "personalities" characterize sub-
genres within the broad spectrum of hexameter, elegiac, and other metrical
3 G. P. Edwards 1971: 55-73, though he is still committed to an oral Hesiod who did not use writing,
concludes "alternative expressions exist quite widely in Homer as well as in Hesiod ... many of these
departures could have arisen in the ordinary creative process of oral verse-making" (72). As far as I
know, no one questions that Callinus and Tyrtaeus used writing. Havelock {1966a) strongly implies,
but does not state explicitly, that Hesiod displays types of argumentation that are incompatible with
pure orality. Most (2006: xxii-xxiii) seems to take Hesiod's literacy for granted.
4 Janka {1982: 168----9) makes the following counter-argument: "That a poet should have a suitable name
does not of course disprove his historicity, or suggest that the name is the product of the tradition;
otherwise we would have to deny Stesichorus' existence as much as Homer's or Hesiod's. Poetry, like
other trades and professions, tended to run in families ... His [Hesiod's] own naming is explained if
his father was himself the bearer of poetic traditions from that most fecund border-region which also
produced the Homeric epic, and wished his new-born son would in turn hand on the traditional
epos."
"Chronology, " "text, "and ''authorship"
forms available to poets of the Archaic Period. 5 This view in turn is most
congenial to narratological approaches which concentrate on the ways the
constructed voice of the narrator manipulates ("focalizes") the message for
the implied audience (the "narratee").
It seems to me that the full implications of Nagy's just emphasis on the
pan-Hellenic character of this implied audience need to be incorporated into
this approach: the position of the narratee is always already a class position,
and a pan-Hellenic audience presupposes not a homogenized audience but
one that confronts the artist with its class heterogeneity. As a result, the
narrative strategies of the artist play a decisive role in an attempt either to
minimize this heterogeneity or to heighten it. To anticipate my argument,
the "narrator" of the Works and Days makes this heterogeneity explicit by
addressing directly at times the basilees and at other times "Perses" and
through him an audience of small to moderate landholders. 6 The narrator
of the Theogony explicitly addresses only the Muses and by staging his own
consecration by them lays claim to universalizing discourse (Nagy 1992). A
neatly segregated audience of aristocrats listening to Homer and a different
audience exclusively of small to middling farmers listening to the Works
and Days - but not the Theogony? - is for me at least unimaginable. 7 At the
same time Homer and Hesiod, as compared with poetry clearly associated
with the aristocratic symposium (Murray 1990: 9) or choral lyric with very
5 C£ Nagy (1982: 50): "the persona of Hesiod as reflected by his poetry is purely generic. This is not to
say chat Hesiod is a fiction: his personality, as it functions within his poetry, is just as traditional as the
poetry itself" Most (2006: xiv-xv) offers an alcernative etymology based on Hesiod's father's travels:
"his name seems to derive from two roots meaning 'co enjoy' (hedomai > hesi-) and 'road' (hodos) -
'he who takes pleasure in the journey,' a perfectly appropriate name for the son of a mercantile
seaman." He goes on to accept Nagy's version: "But within the context of the proem to the Theogony
in which Hesiod names himself, his name seems to have a specific and very different resonance. For
Hesiod applies to the Muses the epithet ossan hiesai, 'sending forth their voice,' four times within
less than sixty lines."
6 As noted in my introduction, I avoid as much as possible the term "peasant," which has become a
bitter point of contention (e.g., against the term Hanson 1995: 98 and passim, for the term Millett
1984: 86----93, against the term A. T. Edwards 2004= 2-5 and passim, yes and no Tandy 2001: 159-78
and Tandy and Neale 2006: 26; against Osborne 2009: 139). See also de Ste. Croix 1981: 208-26 and
J. Hall 2007: 237-42. See further discussion below.
7 Van Wees (2009: 448) reassures us: "The main aim of Works and Days was not to remind poor
peasants chat they would starve if they did not work; it was to persuade landowners who enjoyed -
or at least aspired to - a life of leisure to devote their time instead to close supervision of agriculcural
labor, with an eye to maximum productivity." I believe chis grossly distorts the poet's sense of the
radical heterogeneity of his pan-Hellenic audience. See further discussion below. A. S. Brown (1997:
39) seems quite comfortable with separate audiences: "we can most readily imagine the poem [Works
and Days] being performed to peasant audiences. However, it seems very likely chat the Theogony was
performed at the funeral games of Amphidamas at Chalcis, a very much more aristocratic occasion."
This separation ill jibes with echoes of the WV in chat most aristocratic of poets, Alcaeus (341 and
347 C), and the general appropriation of all of Hesiod by the later Greek tradition.
170 Hesiod: cosmogony, basil~es, farmers, and justice
specific communal audiences in mind (Gentili 1988), stand out - perhaps
paradoxically- as far less bound to the values of a single class. But as in the
case of Homer, Hesiod's discourse nonetheless stakes out political positions
that have ideological implications for the class conflicts of its historical
moment. 8
This brings us to "chronology." As is clear from the preceding discussion
of Homer, I am persuaded by the arguments of B. Powell et al. about the
connection of writing to the composition of the monumental poems and
by Janka's efforts to establish a reasonable basis for a chronology of Homer,
Hesiod, and the Homeric Hymns, efforts which in any case jibe well with
a host of other considerations that need not be rehearsed here. The latter's
final list of absolute ranges thus seems to me a valid basis for analysis of the
ideological thrust of these texts: "the Iliad: 750-725, the Odyssey: 743-713,
The Theogony: 700-665, The Erga: 9 690-650" (Janko 1982: 231).
THE THEOGONY: COSMOLOGY
Nagy remarks, "a basic function of a theogony is to confirm the author-

ity that regulates any given social group" (1982: 56). 10 This generalization,
based on a survey of various cultures, does not lead Nagy to spell out pre-
cisely what authority or what social group is at stake in Hesiod's Theogony.
I would argue that in the period of the poem's primary composition the
issue of what form of rule best meets the needs of the most people was
very much in the air and a matter of intense ideological struggle. It is by
no means clear that Hesiod's version of the cosmogony was a straight-
forward endorsement of what was presumably the predominant political
8 In emphasizing a political reading of Hesiod I do not wish to imply rejection of many other types
of readings. I am, for example, quite sympathetic to the psychoanalytic reading of Caldwell (1987,
especially 87-103). I would argue, however, that this universalizing discourse of the unconscious is
one of the means by which a psychologically intuitive poet puts across or "sells" his more conscious
political vision. It is what F. Jameson, following Norman Holland (1968), calls "psychic compromise
or horse-trading" (1979: 141).
9 While Stewart (1970: 37), for example, uses the designation Erga to indicate his rejection of the
authenticity of the "Days" section of the WV, Janka's list of abbreviations (1982: xiv) lists Erga as
standing for Works and Days.
10 Burkert (1999) explores a number of functions, among which, especially apropos of Enuma Elish, he
declares: "Cosmogony ends in the installation of religious hierarchy which gives legitimation also
to earthly power" (102). However, he goes on to offer a more dialectical view: "Still, in the midst of
the praise of the established power, there remains the message that this has not always been so and
hence does not need to remain so forever; 'fettered gods' may be approached and used for certain
goals; it is imaginable that they could rise again. Even utopian alternatives may take their origin
from there: crooked-minded Cronos has been released to rule the 'Islands of the Blest'; excellent
men may hope to arrive there, definitively leaving the reign of Zeus" (104). To be sure, in Hesiod's
reference to the "Islands of the Blest" (WV 168-73) there is no hint of Cronos.
The Theogony: cosmology 171
order, i.e., the rule of oligarchs styling themselves basilees. Even if one were
to take the extreme view that the reference to the poet's participating in
funeral games for Amphidamas is pure fiction (WD 654-57, cf. West 1978:
321), one would still have to acknowledge that the poet's audience would
find funeral games for a great warrior leader plausible and his account of
the monarchic individual basileus in the Theogony corresponding to a real
option. In general I am struck by how rarely discussions of the politics of
Hesiod pay any attention to the distinction between a single ruler and a
collective leadershipn - both forms of rule claiming the title of basilees. Yet
I will argue that in Hesiod as in the Odyssey this is a key focus of ideological
struggle.
The two terms "cosmogony" and "theogony" entail a distinction which
Hesiod's poem refuses, a distinction between, on the one hand, "natural"
phenomena like the earth, sky, sun, moon, stars, seas, mountains, day
and night, and, on the other, anthropomorphic divinities which modern
readers mainly think of as the Olympians of Homer's poems. Hesiod
tells us, in effect, "all things (except those that are mortal) are gods."
"Gods" are accordingly not only everything beyond human control1 2 -
including phenomena like Fate, Doom, Death, Sleep, Dreams, Blame,
Misery, Deceit, Sex, Old Age, Strife (cf. Th. 211-25) - but everything
not human or not created by human beings. The same scholars who
are at pains to stress that virtually everything in the Theogony is highly
likely to be "traditional" often quote Herodotus's declaration of the unique
impact of Homer's and Hesiod's construction of divinity: "these were the
ones who made a theogony for the Hellenes, gave the gods their names,
distinguished both their prerogatives (timas) and their specific capacities
(technas), and signified their visual appearances (eidea)" (2.53.2-3). My own
view is that both Homer and Hesiod offered such unique13 and arresting
combinations and arrangements of very fluid 14 traditional material that
competing versions were virtually eclipsed. I also suspect that the new
n A. T. Edwards, for example, in an otherwise painstaking study, seems to see no significance in the
repeated references to the plural basilles whom he associates exclusively with the rulers of Thespiai.
12 One is reminded of Snell's famous description of the Homeric mind: "Mental and spiritual acts
are due to the impact of external factors, and man is the open target of a great many forces which
impinge on him, and penetrate his very core" (1953: 20). Hesiod, who does not show us any human
beings besides the created first woman and the troubles she represents for his contemporary males,
seems far more interested here in the forces that impinge on human life than on portraying conscious
human agents.
' 3 Vernant speaks unashamedly of the "profound originality of Hesiod" (1969: 44).
' 4 One clear mark of this fluidity are the many points where Hesiod's conception of the cosmos and
theogony differs sharply from the scattered indications of Homer's (D. Clay 1992 and J. Clay 2003:
12, 16 n. 13).
technology of writing played a key role in both the composition and the
authoritative dissemination of these works. But the crucial point, and here
at least I agree with Nagy, is that these works corresponded to a very
widespread craving for the construction of a pan-Hellenic identity, one
which spoke both to the political and metaphysical anxieties of a period of
profound changes.
The rise of the polis, the ongoing shift from the leadership of one chief
to the domination of political life by a collectivity of those who controlled
the best land, the associated tensions of distinguishing "citizens" from the
outcasts either forced or induced to seek new homes far away, the dramatic
increase in trade and living contacts with older, far more sophisticated
cultures as well as with simpler, more "backward" cultures - all these factors
(by no means a complete list) may plausibly be cited as contributing to the
anxieties that led to a longing for some specifically Hellenic1 5 comprehensive
vision of the cosmos and all the factors perceived as beyond human control.
Though it is thoroughly likely that a very long tradition of oral accounts
of the origins of the gods preceded Hesiod, the divergence already noted
between hints in Homer and Hesiod's version points to considerable fluid-
ity in that tradition, especially if one imagines different traditions associated
with different dialects preceding the triumph of the Ionic versions16 and
something like a steady influx of more or less compelling competing Near
Eastern accounts of ultimate realities. I will stress what I take to be the
specifically politicaf-7 import of Hesiod's version.
THE SUCCESSION STORY
While Hesiod on one level clearly aims at accounting for "everything

that is" (Burkert 1999), embedded in that account is his major goal of
celebrating the ascendancy of Zeus. It is sometimes casually assumed that
in Homer Zeus is "both king and father" of the Olympian pantheon (e.g.,
J. Clay 2003: 12), but in fact in Homer he is only the patriarchal ''father
of both men and gods" (West 1966 on 1. 883, Calhoun 1935). Hesiod gives
'5 This of course is not to deny the clear evidence of Hesiod's incorporation of Near Eastern elements
(West 1999a, Burkert 1999, Walcot 1966). I do assume chat Hesiod's audience would not be aware
of the ulcimate "foreign" sources of significant elements in his account.
'6 The essential harmony of the mini-cheogony sung by Hermes in the later Homeric Hymn to Hermes
(427-32) may attest to the popularity of a genre of cheogonic poetry but surely bears witness to the
preeminence of Hesiod's version.
'7 In considering the policies of the poem I was struck over and over by the insights of Norman
0. Brown's modest essay introducing his translation (1953), insights often incorporated in later
scholarship as if self-evident.
The succession story 173
a specifically political thrust to his cosmogony/theogony by his emphasis
on the concept of kingship. In the prologue of the Theogony, in one of the
several anticipations of his own themes attributed to the Muses, the poet
describes how after their birth they dance and
... sing the assigned portions (nomous) and prized haunts of all
The immortals, sending forth their lovely voices.
Then they went to Olympos, glorying in their beautiful voices,
In their ambrosial dance. About them the black earth gave hack an echo
As they were hymning, and a lovely din rose beneath their feet
As they were returning to their father. He rules as king (embasileuei)
over the sky,
Himself holding the lightning and the smoking thunderbolt,
After conquering by might his father Kronos. But well did he in each detail
Assign their portions (nomous)' 8 to the immortals and contrive their honors
(ttmas). (Th. 65-74)
Much of Hesiod's political vision is implicit in these introductory lines. Like

Homer, he insists that a king must "rule by might" (cf. iphi anassein) and
thus emphasizes victory over his opponent and devotes a whole line to his
invincible weapons. On this level again we encounter the enduring appeal
of the meritocratic ideal that I argued was an essential feature of the rule of
big-men and chiefs during the earlier Dark Age. At the same time the very
essence of Zeus's "kingship" is his wise distribution of powers and privileges
to his subordinates (emphasized twice in these lines). Hesiod is at pains to
emphasize that Zeus's own military supremacy is not, so to speak, a simple
gift of nature but a direct consequence of his political intelligence, closely
tied precisely to his distribution of "honors" (timai), which stabilize and
order the cosmos. His thunderbolts and lightning, like his alliance with the
mighty Hundred-handers, are available to Zeus because he released them
and the Cyclopes from bondage (624-28). Hesiod, normally so chary of
dialogue, underlines the political character of this alliance by focusing on
a banquet - a key institution of the Dark Age leader - given by Zeus and
a speech by him exhorting them:
Do you show forth both your great strength and irresistible hands
Over against the Titans in baneful battle,
Remembering our kindly friendship, what you had suffered before
You arrived hack at the light, from beneath your painful chaining,
Under the misty darkness, through our plans. (649-53)
18 Dietakse nomous here is admittedly a modern "correction" of dietaksen hom8s, but echoes line 65
above. See West 1966 ad loc.
So too the most abstractly conceived attributes of Zeus's success (sdelos =
competitiveness, nik~ = victory, kratos = might, bie = force, cf. 384-85,
the children of Styx) are a direct consequence of his political promise that
those who joined his faction would not lose their prerogatives (geraon)
but retain the honor (timen) each had held before while those who were
"without time and without a geras under the rule of Kronos would achieve
them" (392-96). Though Hesiod clearly uses these traditional terms (time,
geras, later dasmos 425, cf. 885) in a far weightier sense than in Homer, his
language does cast the exercise of "kingship" very much in terms of a tra-
ditional war-chief who is himself preeminent in battle, but whose position
depends on his generosity - most obviously in giving banquets - and on
his fairness in the distribution of booty. He does not inherit kingship, but
after his victories is in effect "elected": "the blessed gods ... then urged him
(otrunon) to be king (basileuemen) and to rule/the immortals" (881-85).
Moreover, his first act as ruler is to conduct a dasmos (diedassato) of timai
(timas 885).
THE FEMALE SIDE OF SUCCESSION
As Arthur has argued especially well (1982), the trajectory of Zeus's rise to
the kingship of the cosmos is inextricably bound to a process by which
a cosmos dominated by the female (most obviously Gaia = Earth) is
transformed into a stable patriarchy: 19 in Hesiod females are not simply a
different class as a consequence of their reproductive capacity (cf. Ste. Croix
1981: 98-m) but a different and distinctly suspect species (Loraux 1978:
43-54). The whole process begins with Gaia's parthenogenetic production
of Ouranos (126). Their union produces children whom he perceives as a
threat (155) and represses within Gaia's womb. She retaliates by thinking
up a "treacherous wicked trick" (dolien kaken . .. tekhnen): she persuades
her youngest son Kronos to castrate his father with a "jagged-toothed"
sickle (160-81). One consequence of this is the birth of Aphrodite from
the genitals of Ouranos. Aphrodite represents not only "the female force
which lays men low" (Arthur 1982: 67) but the very possibility and - from
the perspective of the poet - character of human sexuality. Accompanied
by Eros and Himeros (Desire),
'9 C£ also J. Clay 2003: 18: "The history of the gods as a whole can be viewed as an account of the
various attempts on the part of the supreme male god to control and block the female procreative
drive in order to bring about a stable cosmic regime."
The female side ofsuccession 175
She holds this honor (timen) from the beginning and was alloted
This portion among human beings and immortal gods:
Maidens' chats, smiles, and deceits,
Sweet delight and love-making and kindliness. (203-6)
Given Hesiod's well-deserved association with misogyny, it is worth under-

lining that not all these characteristics are bad - indeed, I would argue,
more are good than bad: it is only the potential for "deceits" that cast a
pall over "chats" and "smiles." Ambivalence and distrust are more common
than simple "hatred" (if one takes "misogyny" literally) in Hesiod's rep-
resentations of female figures. Gaia, for example, is key to Zeus's decisive
unbinding of the victims of Kronos, who side with him in his battle with
the Titans (626). She is key to his survival (494), gives the key advice to
the other gods to urge Zeus to become king (884) and the key advice to
Zeus himself that he swallow M~tis (891). But, on the other hand, it is on
her advice to Kronos that Zeus's father swallows all his children (463), and
Gaia gives birth to Typhoeus (821), the final threat to Zeus's supremacy.
Hesiod is often assumed to have some deeply personal attachment to the
figure of Hecate, but a close reading of her attributes has well established
that she is the very essence of the ambiguity and arbitrariness of divine aid
(J. Clay 1984: 34 and passim, cf. 2003: 130-38).
In any case, although sexual desire may be the common lot of human
kind, just as different age groups experience it differently, so do different
classes. Those whose lives are primarily defined by hard work and severely
limited resources are more likely to experience desire as painful frustration
than as gratification, as a mostly unachievable distraction from necessary
work (Redfield 1993: 56), and as a strain on limited material and human
resources (ibid. 49), whereas those who live lives ofleisure are more likely to
place a higher value on sexual activity and enjoy the literary elaboration of
its various vagaries. In the Odyssey, after Odysseus has properly intimidated
all the Phaeacians with his mastery of controlled insulting speech (8.166-
85), his display of physical prowess with the discus (8.186-98), and his
boasting of military prowess (8.215-29), King Alkinoos in effect withdraws
his earlier boast (8.102-3) and sums up his people's merits as follows:
We are not perfect boxers nor wrestlers,

But we run swiftly on our feet and are best with ships.
Always dear to us are the banquet and the lyre and dances,
Changes of clothing, warm baths, and beds (eunai).
(8.246-49)
Changes of clothes are clear markers of a privileged lifestyle (Van Wees

2005). Hainsworth cautiously comments on eunai, "no more than 'bed'
is required for the sense ... , but the erotic nuance cannot be excluded"
(Heubeck, West, Hainsworth 1988 ad loc.). Not only the numerous passages
in which eune is linked formulaically with philotes ("love/love-making") but
the specific context reinforces the association here of eunewith sex: Alkinoos
smoothes the socially roughened waters by summoning Demodokos, who
sings an erotic tale of the adultery of Aphrodite and Ares in which the
idea of "bed" and its metonymic association with sexual intercourse are
central. 20 The suitors in Ithaca may have "their knees loosened and be
bewitched by eros" at the sight of Penelope (18.208-12), but the slave-
women are always available to ease their pain (e.g., 20.6-8). Thus Homer
underlines the centrality of stress-free sexuality in his portrait of the lifestyle
of the ruling class of his own time, an experience of sex radically different
from that of the starvation-haunted imagination of the small landowner in
the same period. 21
THE UTOPIAN SIDE OF THE SUCCESSION
The second stage in the succession story encompasses the birth and saving
of Zeus and his overthrow of his father Kronos. Some scholars (e.g., Kirk
1962: 88) have complained of the vagueness of the account of Kronos's
overthrow, but I think that is the point: the poet is anxious to suggest that
Zeus's behavior toward his father is less violent and brutal than that of
Kronos to Ouranos. As the Erinyes in the Oresteia point out (Eu. 640-
42), the very fact that Zeus displaced his father undermines his credibility
as the defender of patriarchy; and Hesiod is at pains to mitigate this
potential critique of his hero. Zeus's capacity for massive violence 22 towards
his enemies is deferred to his struggle with the collectivity of the Titans
and his defeat in single combat of Typhoeus. But the threat of other males
is bound up - as the case of Gaia's production of Typhoeus underlines -
with the reproductive threat of the female. Thus the real climax of Zeus's
2 ° C£ 8.269 (lekhos . .. kai eunen), 277 (demni ), 282 (demnia), 292 (lektronde trapeiomen eunethentes),
295 (koimethenai), 296 (demnia), 314 (demnia), 337 (lektrois).
2' Osborne (2009: 31-34) has an excellent analysis of the potentially disastrous dynamics of family size
among subsistence farmers.
22 Kirk is so impressed with the emphasis in the poem on Zeus's political intelligence that he is inclined
to excise all this violence. In the interesting discussion that follows his presentation at the Fondation
Hardt he is reluctantly persuaded by his interlocutors (Verdenius, van Fritz, Solmsen, Grima!, Le
Pena 1960: 101-4) to acknowledge that there is no inherent incompatibility between a leader being
supremely strong and supremely intelligent. I would argue this is precisely what constitutes the core
of the utopian political vision of the poem.
The dark side 177
achievement of a stable rule over the cosmos is his swallowing of Metis
before she can give birth to a male who would overthrow Zeus (886-
900) and his giving birth to Athena by a male version of parthenogenesis
(924-6). The swallowing of Metis represents a fantasy not only of male
appropriation of female reproductive capacity but also of total control of
the female while exploiting her talents: Metis has no independent existence
apart from offering her advice to Zeus (899-900).
As frequently noted, the most positive spin on Zeus's kingship arises
from his other marriages and offspring once he has literally swallowed and
contained the female threat: Themis (Primordial Right), who gives birth
to "Horai" (= the Minders? see West 1966 ad loc.), namely Eunomie =
Good Order, Dike= Justice, and Eirene = Peace, 901-2) and the Moirai;
Eurynome, who gives birth to the Charites; Demeter, who gives birth to
Persephone; and crucially - perhaps finally2 3 - Mnemosyne, who gives
birth to the Muses. Cumulatively these marriages project a utopian vision
of the cosmos as not only well ordered, but characterized by civilization
at its most appealing. Again to emphasize the ambiguity in this heavily
weighted patriarchal ideological move, in implicitly acknowledging the
superior intelligence of the females Gaia, Metis, and Athena - and for
that matter Styx - the poet builds into his tale some potentially positive
counterpoint to the running current of fear and distrust of females. This
positive aspect attains full force in his ecstatic celebration of the Muses
as the source authorizing his own knowledge (Nagy 1992). Burkert (1999)
indeed cites this as one of the functions of cosmogony: "Through the
consciousness of poets, another function seems to evolve: the wise man,
the ideal singer, should know 'everything'-what was, what is, and what
shall be' - this makes up the Muses' song for Hesiod" (103).
THE DARK SIDE
At the same time those scholars who place exclusive emphasis on Zeus's
"justice" tend to downplay the darker potentialities of the Prometheus
episode, stressing the folly of the latter and the cleverness of the former.
But as West points out, "it has long been recognized that in the original story
Zeus did not see through the trick, but was thoroughly deceived" (1966 ad
v. 551). One consequence of Hesiod's presumed innovation in celebrating
the intelligence of his hero is to insist on the malice of Zeus towards
•J Since at 34 the Muses enjoin the poet to sing chem always first and last, some scholars feel chis is
where the poem of Hesiod should end (c£ J. Clay 2003: 30)
human kind. Just as the sufferings of Odysseus at the hands of Poseidon
are ultimately a statement of the resentment of the powers deemed beyond
human control at the human acquisition of seafaring technology, so in this
tale human beings' acquisition of control of fire and concomitantly their
mastery of cooking 24 meat trigger the ferocious retaliation of Zeus. Without
the "crime" of Prometheus, human beings remain undifferentiated from
the gods (535) 25 and, anthropologically speaking, scavengers of raw, rotting
meat or pure vegetarians, who cannot eat wheat, which like meat must be
cooked (Vernant 1988b: 191). The chief emphasis of Vernant's analysis is on
the new ambiguity of the human condition: "Pandora['s] double nature is,
as it were, the symbol of the ambiguity of human existence" (199). 26
The form Zeus's punishment takes, the creation of the "race" of women
(cf. 590), imposes on human kind a grim ambiguity analogous to the two
jars on the threshold of Zeus invoked by Achilles in Iliad 24.527-33: 27
the male must choose between the disaster of childlessness or accept the
frightening option of marriage, where the best he can hope for is a mixture
of good and evil, while facing the real prospect of unrelieved misery (602-
rn). What is often passed over in this episode is the continuity between
the fear of children concomitant with the fear of women in the succession
story and Hesiod's description of the real sources of misery in this choice.
In the Theogony version this has relatively little to do with a focus on the
personality of the wife (suggested only by "mischievous deeds of women":
603), but is primarily focused on the character of the children: Good
children take care of you when you are old and helpless (605), but
... he who meets with baneful offspring,

Lives having in his breast incessant suffering,
In his spirit and in his heart, and this is an incurable evil.
(6rn-12)
24 Vernant, in his earlier French version of his account of Prometheus (1969), lays a somewhat heavier
emphasis on the distinction between Prometheus's gift's association with the whole range of civilizing
technologies (as in the Prometheus Bound and the myth as told by Plato's Protagoras) and the emphasis
on the technology of cooking than in the English version {1988b). In both he stresses that cooking
is essential for eating grain and underlines the close parallel between hiding fire as the means of
rendering sustenance edible and hiding sustenance (bion: WD 42).
25 As West points out ad loc. of ekrinonto: "the word denotes a 'settlement' in the legal sense ... a defini-
tive division between parties, however arrived at." I interpret this to imply that before Prometheus's
crime human beings had no real separate existence (c£ Vernant 1969: 186-7). This would tie in with
other mythic versions that attribute the creation of human beings to Prometheus.
26 A. S. Brown {1997) especially emphasizes, as have others, the ambiguity in terms of a deceptively
attractive exterior (a product of artifice) and a disastrous interior. This is unquestionably built into
Hesiod's accounts but does not I think exhaust the ambiguities surrounding Hesiod's representation
of male-female relations.
27 J. Clay (2003: 122) points out that "the connection is already made in the Scholia ad loc."
The dark side 179
Without denying that bad children are also a source of potential grief for
aristocrats, I think it is important to resist the tendency to universalize
everything Hesiod says: in a society with no provisions for the welfare of
the aged, the situation of old people who are childless or cursed with heart-
less children is radically contingent on their economic resources. What
Hesiod portrays is the especially agonizing dilemma of the economically
insecure. At the same time the indictment of women as drones consuming
the product of male labor, while it has a grimly literal force for the obses-
sively parsimonious farmer and his abused wife, 28 adumbrates what is more
explicit in the Works and Days - the semi-conscious fear specific to but not
confined to Greek males that intercourse entails the loss of "vital bodily
fluids." 29 Thus the psychological problems of the textually constructed
"average" Greek male with the dynamics of his patriarchal oikos are pro-
jected onto the cosmos: what cannot be resolved in real life is solved in
the utopian projection of the ideal kingship of Zeus (cf. Levi-Strauss 1967:
226); but in a kind of return of the repressed, Zeus's projected "justice" is
undercut by the account of his gratuitous 30 malice towards mankind.
The tragedy of the Iliad arose through the radical disjunction of the
exercise of supreme power (Agamemnon) and the proper capacities for
supreme power - supreme martial prowess (Achilles) and political wisdom
(Odysseus, Nestor). This disjunction's disastrous consequences are first
manifested in a conflict over the dasmos, the division of the wealth and
associated honors (timai) acquired through military success. In the Odyssey
the limitations of the aristocratic ideal's heavy weighting toward martial
prowess is supplemented if not supplanted by the trader-colonist's cele-
bration of guile and practical intelligence (metis). This is combined with
the dramatization of the multiple threats of females to male supremacy
and the consolidation of patriarchy in the idealization of the "properly"
subordinated wife (Wohl 1993). The utopian vision of the succession story
28 West pointedly comments apropos of 373-74, "Women stole food because they were kept half-
starved by their husbands, who resented their habit of eating," an argument he supports with
numerous references. Sussman argues that the denigration of women's work in Hesiod at least in
part reflects the transition from less labor-intensive pastoralism to more labor-intensive agriculture.
However, women's participation in agriculture - following the plow (cf. WD 405-6), and probably
in gathering the sheaves and winnowing - was probably greater than during a putative pastoral
phase. And this is apart from the other labor (weaving and assorted household chores) Hesiod
chooses to ignore.
29 Cf. Onians (1951: 177-78, 193). Viewers of the film Doctor Strangelove will recall that this fear is by
no means restricted to early Inda-Europeans.
30 Redfield (1993: 53-54) and J. Clay (2003: 96----97), for example, are at pains to argue from genealogy
and other mythic sources that human beings are descended from Titans or Giants and therefore
somehow "legitimately" perceived as threats to Zeus's supremacy, but this distorts precisely the
gratuitousness of Zeus's malice in Hesiod's version and therefore the pervasive ambivalence towards
the gods that his version shares with the Odyssey in particular.
in the Theogony insists upon the perfect fusion of military prowess with
metis combined with the "final" solution of the female threat, but the
Pandora/Prometheus story reinstates some of the underlying pessimism of
the majority of Greeks confronted by the reality that the shift away from
one-man rule, whatever its drawbacks, to the utterly self-serving collective
rule of the self-styled basilees seemed irreversible. Under this new dispen-
sation the "average" Greek male - the middling to small farmer - could
look forward to a life of unremitting toil and anxiety over his sustenance
and his future. The temptation of an abused class to blame their troubles
not on those with real power but on those even more powerless than they
(women, immigrants, the "racially" other, etc.) is not confined to Archaic
Greece.
KINGSHIP IN HESIOD
Many scholars (e.g., Van Wees 1999a: 3, 7-8; cf. Tandy 1997: 207) -
have stressed the sharp difference in Hesiod's attitude toward basilees in
the Theogony, on the one hand, where we find a strong, positive associa-
tion between the Muses and the basilees as well as a plot celebrating the
"kingship" of Zeus, and, on the other, in the Works and Days, where the
central theme of justice (dike) is repeatedly deployed in explicit attacks
on basilees, characterized as "gift-gobbling" 3' dispensers of "twisted" justice
(WD 36-39). To be sure, there is a radical disjunction in tone and rhetorical
strategies between the two poems. I find highly plausible the suggestion
that the prize-winning poem Hesiod performed at the funeral games of
"King" Amphidamas was the Theogony (e.g., Wade-Gery 1958: 5, cf. West
1966: 44-46): the occasion then would elicit the most positive response of
the poet qua praise poet of basilees as a category. But invoking, as West
(1966: 44) and Nagy (1982: 47) do, the model of Kirghiz oral singers (first
suggested by Nilsson 1933: 195) who praise the rich when they sing for
them and denounce them when they sing for the poor, flies in the face
of the correct emphasis - especially in Nagy (1982: 43 and passim) on the
pan-Hellenic language and assumptions of the poems. If one recognizes a
continuity in Hesiod with the Odyssey's 32 apparently nostalgic opposition
l' The very term is symptomatic of the breakdown of any sort of genuine "reciprocity" celebrated by
Polanyi, but, as noted in the Introduction, he was well aware of its potential for gross inequalities.
32 Millett (1984: 103-4) is at pains to dismiss any continuities between Hesiod and Homer. Charac-
teristically he completely ignores the Theogony as if it had no relevance to "Hesiod and his World."
Thus he raises, but does not bother to answer the question "Was the same poet the author of both
the Works and Days and the Theogony, or just the Works and Days?" {85).
Works and Days and ambiguity
between the monarchic "big-man" basileus and the emergent collective

basilees, then Hesiod's two preserved major works begin to look more like
two sides of the same coin.
Hesiod in the Theogony, rather than "speaking truth to power," antici-
pates a strategy dear to Pindar and central to Pliny's Panegyricus as well as
familiar in all too many totalitarian regimes of our own era: by offering
those in power a utopian projection as a flattering vision of what they
ought to be, the praise poet presumes to instruct them in their proper
function (cf. Richard Martin 1984), implicitly enjoining them, as Pindar
put it, genoi' hoios essi mathon ("may you become what you (really) are -
once you've learned it [from me]": P. 2.72). In the account of the good
basileus appended to his opening hymn to the Muses Hesiod constructs an
image of the basileus who uses "straight judgments" (itheieisi dikeisi 85-6)
to settle disputes through his mastery of the Muses' gift - i.e., as Have-
lock suggests (1963: 107-9), his capacity to cite the appropriate metrical
prescriptions (themistes 84) from Zeus, in defense of which Achilles had
challenged Agamemnon (II 1.238-9). Note too that the functioning of this
basileus is individual and public (toi, tou, auton, ho 83-86): "all the people
see him as he decides between precedents/rules (themistas) with straight
judgments." 33 Thus there is a deeper harmony in the political vision of
kingship in the Theogony with the treatment of kingship in the Works and
Days than is often recognized.
WORKS AND DAYS AND AMBIGUITY
If the generally celebratory account of Zeus's achievement of kingship on

Olympos in the Theogony is structurally reinforced by its association with
justice and the arts of civilization, it is rendered puzzlingly ambiguous by
the implication of Zeus's malice toward humankind in the Prometheus
tale. In the Works and Days, which in some respects far more explicitly
celebrates Zeus's association with justice, the ambiguity 34 of Zeus's relation
to human beings is at the same time a far more central theme:
ll To be sure Hesiod uses plurals (80, 82, 88, etc.) in designating the category of basilles who illustrate the
positive influence of the Muses, but I believe it is legitimate to underline the illustrative functioning
of the individual figure. Havelock goes further: "Here is a prince, a local lord of the manor, no
unregulated autocrat, but the father of his people. His leadership resides in his arete; not brute force
but the power of persuasion is his weapon" (1963: 107-8).
34 Vernant's extremely influential essay of the myth of races (see below) is insistent throughout on the
ambiguities oflife portrayed in the Works and Days and the ambivalence of the poet toward the world
around him (1969: 26, 38, 39, 42, 46). See also the excellent article of Gagarin (1990), where my only
serious disagreement is with the characterization in passing (18o--81) of the Theogony as relatively free
of ambiguity. In discussing the Works and Days he is particularly insightful about the ways in which
Through him mortal men are equally both nameless (aphatoi)
and famous (phatoi),
Both spoken of and passed over in speech on account of great Zeus.
For easily he makes one strong, but easily brings low one who is strong,
Easily he diminishes the conspicuous man (arisdelon) and makes greater
the obscure one,
Easily he straightens the crooked man and withers the very proud/manly
(agenora) man. (3-7)
In the context of the subsequent exhortation to Zeus to "straighten judg-

ments (themistas) with justice" (9), scholars and translators are tempted to
make all of the preceding categories ethical categories. The old Loeb of
Evelyn-White (1954), for example, translated both arisdelon and agenora as
"the proud." 35 While the latter term may have that connotation, there is no
necessarily negative judgment in either term: 36 the real rhetorical emphasis
is on the incantatory anaphoric "easily" (rhea/rheia four times) that stresses
the arbitrary power of Zeus regardless of the will or behavior of human
beings. At the same time there is the appeal to Zeus to align himself with
justice, exactly the ambivalence about the powers beyond human control
that we saw in the Odyssey: beside the harsh reality of arbitrary and vin-
dictive gods is the poignant appeal for divine justice. West suggests that
in the case of his first pair of terms "Hesiod may think of his aphatoi and
phatoi in terms of social class" (1978: 139). As noted earlier, it is precisely on
the fluidity of social class that Odysseus in his guise as a beggar meditates
grimly (e.g., 18.130-42), and the sympathetic characters (e.g., Nausikaa
6.188-89) present poverty as a consequence of the arbitrariness of divine
dispensations.
None could deny the subsequent explicit focus on ambiguity in the
poet's highlighting his new perception (the force of ouk ara) that there is,
after all, not just one form of Strife (Eris) as the Theogony had indicated,
the "hardhearted" daughter of Night (Th. 225), but a second positive form,
more "striving" than "strife," the spirit of ambition and competition rather
than the contentious spirit that leads to deadly warfare and nasty court cases
(11-24). It is possible to see in this negative characterization of warfare an
implicit dismissal of what in Homer is the chief arena of men's highest
aspirations (Bryant 1996: 87). The positive valuation of the human quality
the arbitrariness of Zeus casts a pall of ambiguity over most of Hesiod's posited rules (177-78). The
passage here seems to elaborate on Iliad 20.242-43: "Zeus both increases excellence/success (arete)
for men and dimishes it/ in whatever way he wishes. For he is the mightiest of all."
35 Most (2006) gets it right: "Easily he straightens the crooked and withers the manly."
36 Agenor is clearly positive at Th. 641.
that drives men to work represents Hesiod's best effort to put a positive
spin on what he perceives as the tragic consequences of Zeus's hostility to
humankind in imposing the necessity of work. As in Genesis, humankind
are punished for their acquisition of knowledge - in this case knowledge of
fire and all it implies 37 - by the necessity of eating their bread in the sweat
of their faces and tilling the ground (cf. Genesis 3.19-24). The gratuitous
malice of Zeus is grimly underlined by his laugh. 38
Though cast in a universalizing discourse of mankind, this dark vision of
the human condition presumably spoke differently to different components
of the poet's audience, or, to try to speak in narratese, the constructed
narratee of this discourse does not seem to me likely to be primarily the
aristocrats whose lifestyle we see characterized in the suitors of Penelope or
the Phaeacians in the Odyssey. 39 Van Wees has rightly stressed the intense
emphasis on acquiring wealth and as great a surplus as possible. But his view
seems to me to entail a number of false antitheses: ''Archaic poetry leaves
no doubt that a powerful acquisitive drive, rather than a struggle for mere
self-sufficiency, shaped the archaic economy" (2009: 450, my emphasis).
This conveniently leaves out the evidence of the suffering bottom layers
and counts only the "status warriors" at the middle and top. It is not
irrelevant that Alkinoos declares that "the black earth nourishes many
people - cheats and thieves, fashioning lies" (Od. 11.364-66), that the
suitors complain of beggars (17.375-77) and maintain one - a "beggar of
the whole community" (ptokhos pandemios) as a regular feature of their
banqueting (18.1-3), that the decent swineherd declares "all strangers and
beggars are from Zeus" (14.56), or that the "Belly" (gaster) is repeatedly
alluded to (17.228 and 557, 18.364 and 380) or invoked as an independent
force (7.216-18, 15.344-45, 17.286-89 and 473-74). Nor is it irrelevant that
Archilochos characterizes the "colonists" of Thasos as the "misery (oisdus)
of all the Greeks" (102 W) or that many seem to have been forced to
emigrate (Qviller 1981). Van Wees declares sarcastically: "Hesiod's rhetoric
of 'toil,' then, cannot be taken at face value any more than his rhetoric of
37 J. Clay (2003: n9) notes that while in the Theogony version of the Prometheus myth the emphasis
is clearly on fire's role in cooking meat and in sacrifice, in the Works and Days fire's broader
implications are available if not explicit. At the same time Vernant (1969: 189, c£ 200--1) rightly
stresses the absence in Hesiod of any developed sense of technology and the fundamentally religious
value he places on work, which is simultaneously represented as central to the human condition but
an external imposition, a tragedy.
38 J. Clay (2003: n9 n. 44) well quotes Neit2el, "I have always felt this outburst oflaughter as peculiarly
horrifying (schrecklich) ... Whoever has once 'heard' this laugh of Zeus will never again forget it"
(Neit2el 1976: 417).
39 One gets the odd impression reading Van Wees's overview (2009) that Hesiod's main goal is to get
the basilees to strip down and get behind that plow.
'hunger"' (2009: 447, my emphasis). 40 The late eighth century appears to
be a period of both widespread increases in prosperity for the fortunate
few and widespread wretchedness for many. 41 Indeed, this may go a long
way toward explaining the many levels on which Hesiod's poem stresses
the ambiguity of the human condition. To be sure, he encourages those
who can in principle acquire significant wealth to do so. But his multiple
references to the prospects of starvation (WD 230, 300, 302, 363, 404, 577,
638, 647), however heavily moralized, presuppose a menacing reality. If
he has a special target audience in mind, this poet seems often to speak
especially to those who would have responded with passionate sympathy
to Odysseus' challenge to Eurymachos to a contest of agricultural work.
The bitterness of the Odyssey poet toward the suitors parallels the harshness
of this poet's account of his legal dispute with Perses, his scornful reference
to the "gift-gobbling kings" (38-39), whom he calls bluntly "idiots" (nepioi
40). It is significant that here he uses the plural of a specific group of basilees
relevant to the putative suit between Perses and the poet in the small area
of Askra. This corresponds to Telemachos' declaration that there are many
basilees on Ithaca who might aspire to be the one basileus (1.390-96). The
overlap in the term reflects, as noted earlier, the tension between the living
memory of monarchic rule and the de facto collective rule of the suitors.
As also noted earlier, this poet, unlike Homer, explicitly addresses differing
class audiences and makes clear by his tone his own posture toward each.
In addressing Perses, as many have noted, he addresses something of a
moving target (West 1978: 36-39, J. Clay 2003: 34-36), but most of the
time Perses is a stand-in for a would-be middling farmer who, lacking
the wisdom Hesiod has to impart thanks to the Muses, faces the real
prospect of starvation, of being reduced, like Odysseus, to the status of a
beggar.42
So too the subsequent account of how the gods have "hidden
livelihood/life (bion) for human beings" (42) and the retelling of the
Prometheus/Pandora (now named) myth speaks clearly to those who suf-
fer from working to survive. The image of "hiding" evokes for farmers
especially the literal "hiding" of the seed in the ground as the essential
prerequisite of recovering bios from its hiding place through the labor of
40 I must say I was shocked reading this account of Hesiod after being fully persuaded by Van Wees's
account of the ferocious rapaciousness of Mafia-like aristocrats (1999b and 2000b). I wonder whom
he conceived of as their victims.
41 As Garnsey and Morris point out at the beginning of their article on "Risk and the polis," "hunger
was never far away in ancient Greece" (1989: 98).
42 A common, but deeply misleading, universalizing move of interpreters is to declare that Hesiod is
addressing "us" (e.g., J. Clay 2003: 34).
agriculture. The motif of deeply negative ambiguity receives especially full

elaboration in this version of the creation of the female: many lines are
devoted to the description of her beauty, her important skills (spinning
and weaving), and her clothing43 and rich adornments (63-65, 72-76); but
these are countered by "painful longing and limb-consuming sorrows ... a
dog-like (i.e., shameless) mind and a thieving character" (66-67), "lies and
seductive speech and [again!] a thieving character" (78). The nasty poem
about women by Semonides of Amorgos is an important gloss 44 on the
specifically class positioning of this so often generalized display of "Greek"
misogyny. As the Dark Age archaeological evidence abundantly demon-
strates and the texts of Homer repeatedly imply, rich males glory in their
leisure-loving, beautiful women as adornments. 45 Like Hesiod, Semonides
offers a sweepingly negative picture of women as greedy, lazy, lustful, and
deceitful, using an array of animal analogies. The most beautiful - and
laziest - is the "mare, delicate (habre), 46 with long tresses" (57 W). We
noted earlier the strong association in land-hungry Greece of horses with
the aristocracy. For all her faults, such a woman is, like Pandora,
... a beautiful sight to behold (kalon theema) -

For others! But for the man who holds her [as wife] she becomes
an evil (kakon)
Unless he be some tyrant or scepter-bearing man,
Who adorns his spirit (thumon aglai'sdetai) with such things.
(7.67-70 W)
Scorning the luxury of a "trophy wife," the middling Greek farmer, ever
fearing a bad harvest and the prospect of humiliating begging or actual
starvation, is more likely to express smoldering resentment of every mouth
he feels bound to feed and to denigrate all the household work expected of
farming women.
4l Van Wees (2005: 20) stresses the seductiveness of women's clothing in Homer.
44 Loraux justly comments that in many respects Semonides' poem is "a reading of Hesiod" (1978: 54).
45 This is not to deny that Greek misogyny crossed class lines, but even Loraux, who begins her essay
on Hesiod with Hippolytos' appeal for some alternative to reproduction of the species via females,
acknowledges that Homeric heroes (she cites Agamemnon's statement that sex between men and
women is themis: 1978: 46) seem to have a different view of the relations between the sexes. See also
Van Wees 2006. If in fact the elaborately adorned presumed spouse of the "hero" of Lefkandi was
murdered ("the position of her hands ... has raised the suspicion that she may have been bound,
perhaps a victim of suttee"), the dangers of being a trophy wife ran high indeed (c£ Thomas and
Conant 1999: 95-96). Helen, as noted in Chapter 2, is threatened by Aphrodite herself that she
will "die a bad death" (kakon oitin oliai 3.417) if she refuses to use her sex to hold on to her male
protector.
46 On habrosyne as a marker of class see Kurke 1992, discussed more fully below.
THE AGES OF MAN MYTH
The subsequent account of the ages of mankind myth, offered as in

some sense a parallel (cf. heteron logon: rn6) explanation of present-day
human misery to the Prometheus/Pandora myth, is striking for the com-
plete absence of gender reference, 47 suggesting that, however strong the
inclination in this poet and in his putative audience to blame everything
bad in life on women, it is only one of several alternative ways of con-
ceiving of the oppressive contradictions of their existence. Levi-Strauss has
argued convincingly that a general characteristic of myth (and I would add
of ideology) is to confront insoluble social contradictions by spinning out
alternative narrative "resolutions" (1967: 226-27). In the case of the ages
myth the enormously influential reading by Vernant emphasizes primarily
its parallels with the succession story in the Theogony, which need not detain
us here. More problematic is Vernant's heavy reliance on Dumezil's tripar-
tite conception of Inda-European social structure: a class of priests/kings,
a warrior class, and a class comprising both farmers and craftsmen. 48
Hesiod's expressed wish that he were born before or after his own period
(WD 174-75) is rightly stressed by Vernant to imply not a linear temporal
sequence, but a cyclical, ultimately atemporal, description of a permanent
structure of society. Without denying the brilliance of Vernant's many
demonstrations of the subtle range of details that reinforce his compelling
analysis, I would stress that he himself offers the best statement of the
severe limitations of his analysis in relation to the relevance of this myth to
Hesiod's contemporaries. This arises from the centrality of the opposition
of dike (loosely "justice") and hybris (loosely "violence/arrogance") 49 in the
three pairs of races: the golden age is distinguished from the silver age, the
47 Nonetheless I use the locution "mankind" because the myth seems to presuppose only males.
48 For a sympathetic overview of Dumezil's work see Littleton 1973 (especially 1-22). The quest to
reconstruct Inda-European origins has engaged many brilliant minds, and a Marxist should be
the last to deny that "the tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the
brain of the living" (MECW n: 103). At the same time, whatever the hold of what Raymond
Williams has designated as "residual elements," ideological constructs by their very nature respond
to perceived contemporary conflicts. As Graf points out, "while there is some evidence of this
trifonctionnalite among the ltalo-Celts and the lndo-lranians, there are few traces of it among the
Greeks ... Dumezil's students have made little headway" (1993; 43). To be sure, Graflargely ignores
the impressive work of what may be called the Vernant-Detienne school of the study of myth. But
Vernant himself points out the apparent irrelevance of the warrior to Hesiod's account of his own
society (1969: 44).
49 Fisher (1992: 185-200) devotes a substantial chapter to hybris in Hesiod. His major thesis is to insist
that the idea of dishonor is more central than violence (193), but usually both notions are combined.
I recall the definition offered by Wade-Gery in a lecture many years ago - "the violent disregard of
another man's self-esteem." Fisher does rightly emphasize that hybris in Hesiod, as in later Athenian
legal texts, "is not exclusively, but it is typically, an activity of the top classes" (195).
The ages ofman myth
bronze age from the age of heroes, and early iron age from late iron by
the degree to which each practices either justice or the violent disregard of
traditional behaviors. Vernant rightly poses the question:
Why does Dike occupy this central place in Hesiod's preoccupations and in his
religious universe? ... The reply no longer arises from the structural study of myth
[the primary focus ofVernant's essay], but from an historical research aiming at
disengaging the new problems which the transformations of social life, towards
the seventh century, posed for the small Boeotian farmer and which stimulated
him to rethink the material of the old myths in order to modernize their sense.
Such an inquiry does not enter the framework of the present study. (1969: 44)
But Vernant, still a Marxist at heart,5° ends his essay by sketching the
centrality of class warfare to Hesiod's ideological position:
The world of Hesiod, contrary to that of the Age of Gold, is a mixed world where
there coexist side by side but opposed by their function, the little and the great, the
base (villain), deiloi, and the noble, esthloi [he cites here WD 214], 51 the farmers
and the kings. In this contentious (discordant) universe, there is no help except
Dike. (1969: 46, my emphasis)
Class conflict is more explicit52 in Hesiod's third try at expressing the
contradictions of his universe. This version entails neither women nor
tripartism: he explicitly addresses his fable (ainos) of the hawk and the
nightingale to the basilees, the tale of a seemingly unmitigated confrontation
between two entities radically unequal in power. Scholars have - perhaps
correspondingly - taken radically different stands on the implications of
this little fable. 53 My own unoriginal view (cf., e.g., Lamberton 1988: 121-
24; J. Clay 2003: 39-42) is that the poet offers a stark picture of the logic of
the amoral domination oflife in nature of the strong over the weak only to
50 In conversation after a lecture in Los Angeles (Jenny Clay was present, though I do not know if she
recalls this comment) he noted that for twenty years he was a member of the French Communist
Party, but like so many, while proud of its record of fighting fascism, withdrew from it as a
consequence of Stalin's anti-Semitism and the 1956 revelations by Khrushchev. See my Introduction
on Derrida and the role of the invasion of Hungary. The Wikipedia article on Vernant, for whatever
it is worth, also speaks of his involvement with the Jeunes Communistes and Communist Party, but
fails to mention his leaving it.
51 A. T. Edwards (2004= 102) insists that in Hesiod terms such as esthlos, agathos, or deilos refer "to
moral qualities alone." While Hesiod does seem to see the social hierarchy entirely as a matter of
wealth (WD 313), it is not clear to me that he can avoid entirely the class associations of these terms.
52 Levi-Strauss points out that the contradictions underlying the generation of mythic narratives often
become more explicit in subsequent reconfigurations (1967: 221).
53 For a rather full listing of various views see J. Clay 2003: 39 n. 26. Welles (1967: 17-18) is almost
unique in taking the hawk's final words as the whole truth of the fable. More recently J. Hall seems
to take a position not far from that of Welles: "Ultimately, however, it is difficult to read it as
anything other than an unapologetic assertion that the vice-like grip of the community's leaders
conforms to the laws of nature" (2007: 181). Such a reading is more or less self-evident only to the
degree one ignores the context of the poem as a whole.
set up his subsequent sermon on dike, 54 which culminates in the declaration
that dike is the unique characteristic of specifically human society in accord
with the will of Zeus:
Perses, you cast these things close to your wits,

And now listen to Dike, forget hybris completely.
For the son ofKronos appointed this rule for human beings:
On the one hand, for fish and beasts and winged birds
To eat55 one another, since there is no dike among them;
But to human beings he gave dike, which is far
The best. (274-80)
A remarkable feature of this whole section is the pointed shifting of the

addressee. Hesiod begins, as noted, with an explicit address to the basilees,
which even appears to be deferential: "Now I'll tell a tale to kings, who
themselves as well have understanding" (202). But immediately after com-
pleting the tale he brusquely shifts focus to Perses, insisting that the impli-
cations of the tale do not apply to one of his class and are misleading as
well for those in the higher class:
But you Perses, listen to Dike, and don't exalt hybris:

For hybris is bad for a poor/low-class man (deiloi): not even a ruling-class
man (esthlos}5 6
Is easily able to carry it, but he is weighed down under it/her,
After encountering Disasters (Ateisin). (213-16)
The kings are now scornfully referred to in the third-person denunciation

of those who violate justice:
The road on the other side is better

To go along, the road to what's just. Justice has power over hybris
When it comes to the end: once he's experienced it, the fool (nepios)
realizes it. (216-18)
Hesiod, who earlier called the kings nepioi (40), seems to have them in
mind here, but more clearly alludes to them in the following lines, echoing
54 For a sustained discussion of the implications of the term dike in Hesiod see Havelock 1978: 193-217.
For a brief overview of its range of meanings see Knox 1989b: 14-15.
55 The focus on eating clearly links this exhortation with the threat of the hawk to eat the nightingale.
56 Pace A. T. Edwards, it is hard to see esthlos here as purely an ethical term since the whole point is the
effects of immoral behavior on a person in this socio-economic category. As Fisher points out (1992:
195), "here, above all, hybris is used as the primary opposite of justice, and should therefore denote
the settled intent to commit a variety of unjust acts, or such acts themselves, and is perceived as a
serious threat to a community, as almost all scholars recognize; it follows that the terms deilos and
esthlos in the following lines must indicate social status, not moral worth."
The ages ofman myth
their earlier epithet, "gift-gobblers" (cf. 39) and specifying their role in
issuing judgments:
For straightway Oath (Horkos) runs along with crooked judgments (dikeisi),
There's an outcry when Dike is being dragged, where men lead her off-
Gift-gobbling men, and with crooked judgments they decide the precedents
(themistas). (219-21)
It is sometimes argued that Hesiod's general picture of society is pre-polis

(A. T. Edwards 2004, see below),57 but the elaboration of what has well
been called his hymn to Dike is now cast in terms of a juxtaposition
of the polis that observes dike versus the polis that does not (225-47).
Given the oft-noted parallel between Hesiod's account of the just city and
Odysseus's praise of the city of a good king (Od. 19.108-14), it is striking that
Hesiod presents the two cities ambiguously in terms of plural pronouns
(hoi 225, toisi 227, 228 autois, 238 hois, 239 tois). At 230 he speaks of men
of straight judgments (ithudikeisi andrasi) and at 240-41 of the likelihood
that the criminal behavior of one man can destroy a whole polis. It is
possible to read this account of the two cities as primarily placing the
responsibility for a city's moral conduct on the entire male community
even if acknowledging the disastrous consequences for the community of
a single criminal individual,58 but the implication that Hesiod has basilees
in mind here too is strengthened by the immediate shift in addressee at the
end of the juxtaposition:
Basilees, you yourselves turn your attention to
This sort of justice. (249-50)
At this point Hesiod pulls out all the stops in his organ-blast invocation
of divine punishment for criminal basilees. The oft-discussed shift from
shame-culture to guilt-culture (Dodds 1951: 28-63) has, I believe, a sig-
nificant class dimension. Aristocrats in particular are more prone to see
57 Osborne 2009: 130 rather oddly, it seems to me, invokes Hesiod and the Homeric poems as "one
of the best illustrations of the irrelevance of the polis to the existence of sophisticated political
understanding." Cf. his summing up of "political organization in Iliad and Odyssey": "Monarchical
rulers too are good to think with, even, perhaps especially, in a community that lacks them. We
should see the Homeric poems as retaining such rulers not because they were still a feature of society
of 'Homer's own day', nor indeed because the poems preserved a fossilized kingship from earlier
epic tradition, but because they are integral to the effective exploration of the isues with which the
poet wished, as predecessors within the tradition may long have wished, to entertain his audience"
(2009: 144, my emphasis). It would take a great deal of space to spell out and respond to all the
questions begged in this summary.
58 Bryant (1996: 87) sees here "principles of collective responsibility," but rightly acknowledges, "it
is not the powerful who suffer first or foremost from the collapse of justice, but the weak and
impoverished."
the world in terms of competition for prestige and status - to be in Van
Wees's terms "status warriors" or in Dodds's terms to view the world as a
"shame culture" in which the highest value is what one's peers say about
you. Without denying that relatively poor men can be obsessive about
their family "honor" (Campbell 1964, Bourdieu 1977), I think the attempt
to foster a sense of guilt, to encourage those with power to internalize a
sense that supernatural forces are observing their every move, suggests a
strategy that reflects a new if limited access to public discourse by a class
that feels oppressed and powerless.59 The sermon on dike, as it shifts to
direct address to the basileesloligarchs, lays the heaviest emphasis on the
supernatural oversight that alone can check their exercise of power:
For being present, near among humankind,
The immortals take note how many with crooked judgments (dikeisin)
Wear each other down, not caring about the watchful regard/vengeance
(opin) of the gods.
For there are upon the much-nourishing earth thrice ten thousand
Immortal guardians of Zeus - guarding over mortal humans:
These keep watch over judgments (dikas) and wicked deeds,
Clothed in mist, wandering everywhere upon the earth. (249-55)
The Odyssey too invoked a vision of invisible guardians of human

behaviors - especially toward the downtrodden (17.484-87), but the elab-
oration here of invisibility and pervasive oversight designed to frighten the
carefree powerful is quite striking and culminates in a nightmare vision of
the virgin Dike, daughter of Zeus, a spy more powerful still, who
Whenever any one harms her by crookedly scorning her,
Immediately, sitting beside her father Zeus the Kronian
She reports the unjust minds of men, so that the demos
Pays the penalty of their basilees' folly, basilees who, planning
wicked deeds,
Twist judgments askew when they declare them crookedly.
(258-62)
Shifting to a final direct, harsh indictment of the basilees, he addresses them

for the last time in the poem:
Keeping these considerations in mind, 0 basilees, straighten up your
declarations,
You gift-gobblers, forget absolutely about your crooked judgments
(dikeon).
For his own self he fashions evils - the man fashioning evils for another,
59 Here again the observations of James Scott (1985: 332-33) about religion as one of the "weapons of
the weak" are relevant.
The ages ofman myth
And the evil plan is most evil for the one who has planned it.
Seeing all things and understanding all things, the Eye ofZeus
Even now, ifhe wishes, casts his gaze on these deeds, nor does it escape
his notice,
What sort of"justice" this is that [our] polis holds within it. (263-9)
As Vernant argued, confronted with the power of the esthloi, the deiloi had
only dike to appeal to, and Hesiod conjured up a strikingly powerful vision
of supernatural power as a counterweight to that perceived imbalance. At
the same time, the qualification "if he wishes" recalls earlier hints of the
unreliability of Zeus's commitment to dike (Bryant 1996: 89).
One of the great frustrations of Hesiod's text for the historian, however,
is the apparent narrowness of the sphere in which the power of the oligarchs
is represented. Nothing in the text alludes to the seizure ofland, land rents,
crop seizures, debt-slavery, or burdensome taxes - the most traditional
forms of exploitation in agricultural societies. 60 Hesiod's passionate wrath
is focused primarily on the juridical function of the basilees. Moreover, the
text suggests that not even this power is unavoidable:
Rather let us right now settle our quarrel

With straight judgments (dikeis), which are the best from Zeus.
For already we made a division of our allotment, and you, snatching
much extra,
Carried it off, greatly honoring the basilees,
Gift-gobblers. (35-39)
The implication of this passage seems to be that Hesiod and his brother,
having been cheated by the judgment of the bribe-taking basilees, have
the option of making their own settlement without a second recourse to
the basilees. Furthermore, there is no hint that the basilees benefited
from the earlier judgment except through the bribes, 61 i.e., they got no
land out the process. Embarrassing not only for a Marxist analysis, but,
it seems, for most traditional historians, is the fact that we seem to find
in Hesiod's text all the passion of a class struggle that is only at most tan-
gentially related to the means of production. As A. T. Edwards has argued
(2004: 1-29 and passim), the primary solution historians have hit upon is
60 Van Wees (2009: 466 n. 13) cites a number of vague references to stealing in the Works and Days
(352, 356, 359-60; c£ 320--26) and declares: "These passages clearly refer to illegitimate seizure of
property" (my emphasis). Yes, that is a definition of theft, but nothing in the context suggests what
sort of property - a shovel or a farm.
61 To speak of "bribes" is to adopt the point of view of Hesiod. Gagarin (2008: 16) has recently
discussed the conflict resolution depicted on the shield of Achilles and concluded: "The two talents
of gold mentioned at the end (507-8) is not a large enough amount to be the blood-price, and so
like most scholars, I take it as a prize for the elder whose settlement is accepted as best."
to read back onto Hesiod the terms of the sixth-century Solonian crisis,
where, whatever the puzzling lacunae in the data, struggle over ownership
of the land and exploitation of the poor by the rich appear to be essential
features. Edwards' own solution is to argue that Hesiod's Askra repre-
sents a pre-polis, village-centered social formation of independent farmers'
households (oikoi), considerably less complex than the societies assumed in
Homer. He suggests that the chief source of the poet's animus against the
basilees is their attempt to incorporate Askra within the polis of Thespiai
through their manipulation of the judicial system. While Edwards offers a
convincingly detailed account of this simpler village society and its asso-
ciated values, I find his account hard to reconcile with the pan-Hellenism
stressed by Nagy: though Edwards pays a certain lip-service to the post-
modern emphasis on "Hesiod" as a constructed "persona," most of the
time he seems to present a poem so focused on the specific circumstances
of Askra and Thespiai that one begins to wonder where its pan-Hellenic
appeal could reside. Thespiai is in fact never mentioned in the poem, and
it is clear from the sermon on dike that Hesiod was well aware of the
existence of poleis62 ruled by basilees - whether collectively or monarchi-
cally. On this point it is hard not to agree with West: "He [sc. Hesiod]
is writing a wisdom poem and giving advice of a universal character. It is
not just for recitation in Ascra or Thespiae, and what is formally addressed
to local rulers is really for 'kings' anywhere" (1978: 151). Moreover, for all
the vagueness as compared with the sharp focus on dike, dike's opposite
pole, hybris (134, 146, 191, 213, 214, 217, 238) figures repeatedly in Hesiod's
moral vocabulary and in his indictment of basilees. It may well suggest to
his audience a wide array of violent crimes.
What I find new and compelling in Edwards's analysis is the evocation
of the lifestyle and values of the village community, which, as he points out,
survived as the norm for most farmers even in the later complex world of
the classical Athenian polis (2004: 167-68). He may also be right in stressing
the intense resistance of this more egalitarian type of community to the
power-grab by the larger landowners by exploiting at the judicial level the
traditional prestige of the Dark Age big-man. In this scenario there are no
immediate economic gains by the basilees, but their successful consolidation
of their power in the polis formation established the preconditiom for the
sort of exploitation assumed in the poems of Solon.
At the same time Hesiod does bear witness to the insecurity of the life of
an independent subsistence farmer, his vulnerability to the threat of starva-
tion and the necessity of begging aid from his more successful neighbors,
62 One can even read line 269 as referring to Hesiod's own environment as a polis.
The ages ofman myth 193
a situation ripe for the sort of debt-bondage that appears to be assumed
by Solon (see Chapter 5). Indeed, A. T. Edwards points to precisely the
grounds for what becomes the basis for debt-bondage: "The prosperous in
effect purchase their prestige though their capacity to make loans to less
successful neighbors" (2004: 113). Andrewes (1956: 82) and French (1964:
14-15), for example, suggest that in Attica in the late seventh century
the opening up of trade and the availability of luxury goods induced the
large landowners to care less for the prestige of many unprofitable depen-
dents and seek more liquid assets through enslavement. Hesiod's world, as
Edwards rightly argues, has not reached that stage, but I think Edwards
underestimates the extent to which there is a relationship between the
situation he describes and subsequent developments. Indeed, he himself
makes a strong case for an early date for the conquest of Askra by Thespiai,
thus consolidating the domination of the polis form (2004: 166-73). Hes-
iod's solution to the threat of poverty and the vulnerabilities it entailed, his
impassioned exhortation to work, may reflect in part a shift in the form of
agricultural production (cf. Sussman 1978); but I confess I find the detailed,
more or less mutually exclusive arguments of Hanson (1995: 26-126) and
Edwards (2004: 127-58) about the specifics of Hesiod's mode of farming
intriguing but not finally completely convincing. 63 While I cannot quite
agree with Nelson's claim that Hesiod is only aiming at conveying the
"feel" of farming rather than its reality (1996), I do think that the text
is calculated to speak meaningfully to a pan-Hellenic audience of small
to moderate farmers, capable of responding whether their particular area
includes, for example, olive production or vegetable gardening or a heavier
reliance on stock-breeding than is suggested by the poem. Indeed at the
outset of his farmer's year Hesiod insists explicitly on the general validity
of his exhortations for all areas of Greece:
This surely is the rule/norm (nomos) for plains and those who live
Near the sea and those who inhabit the valleys of the glens
Far from the surging sea, a rich spot. (388-91)
Again, apropos of agriculture, I must say that I think Van Wees confronts
us with a false antithesis: "Hesiod does not offer a useful practical guide to
agriculture, but moral advice" (2009: 465 n. 7, his emphasis). Both moral
advice and some practical advice are genuine aims of the text. In a still
63 Insofar as the debate is about whether Hesiod practiced "extensive" farming aimed primarily at
subsistence or "intensive" farming aimed primarily at producing a profitable surplus, I agree with
J. Hall that "the picture is ... inconsistent." But I think it goes beyond the evidence about poets to
explain the inconsistency by suggesting that "the poet himself was a participant in aristocratic com-
petition" (2007: 240). Surely he did compete as a poet, but this is no more inherently "aristocratic"
than the competition of potters, carpenters, and beggars (c£ WD 25-26).
predominantly oral culture socio-economic reproduction requires a great
deal of redundancy in the whole socialization process. Havelock's notion
of a "social encyclopedia" (1963: 27 and passim) was an inadequate concept
insofar as it homogenized Homer's audience. But the idea that an oral
culture embeds accounts of both values and basic technologies (Havelock
1963: 81-84 gives as an example "a complete and formulaic report on
loading, embarking, disembarking, and unloading" of ships in book 1
of the Iliad) is fundamentally sound. Hesiod, to be sure, does not cover
everything a farmer might need to know, but neither is the whole section on
the farmer's year and sailing (WD 381-694) reducible to exclusively moral
preaching. It spells out the practical implication of the moral injunction to
work, but in so doing it also embeds a great deal of practical technological
advice about the basic timing of various procedures, the acquisition and
manufacture of basic equipment, appropriate clothing, etc.
SLAVERY IN HESIOD
What is unmistakable is the assumption of slavery and hired labor as essen-

tial components of this mode of farming. A longstanding consensus of
scholars is at pains to stress that neither Homer's nor Hesiod's society is a
"slave" society in the strong sense of the term. 64 The technical aspects of
the debate focus on such issues as the centrality of slavery to the mode of
production, whether slaves produce commodities for exchange, the ade-
quacy of the supply of slaves, the degree to which slave-labor creates a true
leisure class, etc. The ideological aspect of the debate is often passed over in
silence, 65 namely, Marx's designation - so offensive to many classicists - of
64 C£ A. T. Edwards 2004: 1-8 for a recent overview of the debate. See also Chapter 1 above and note
25 on E. Harris's forthcoming discussion.
65 I find it striking chat West's very full commentary has no listing under slavery in its general index
and on the Greek word dm8ios (at 430) he discusses only the form of the word, which occurs more
commonly without the iota, e.g., at 470. Under "servants" he comments on 459: "dm8es is Hesiod's
regular word for the house-serfs ... On their status c£ G. Nussbaum, CQ ro, 1960, 213-218" (West
1978: 273). As far as I can discover, chat is all he has to say on the topic. Nussbaum argues against the
word "slave" - though he readily acknowledges the reality of the institution - on the grounds chat
Hesiod's usage show no consciousness of slavery in the sense of the later relentless opposition of slave
vs. free (doulos!eleutheros). So too Raaf!aub 200,i: 37-41. Dm8os is often described as designating a
status somehow less degraded than "words formed on the stem doul-, more closely associated with
strict chattel slavery" (A. T. Edwards 2004: 103, who seems inclined to accept I. Morris's suggestion
chat the term should be translated as "dependent" rather than "slave" (c£ I. Morris 1987: 177-79).
Liddell and Scott (LSJ s. v.) see an etymology from the verb dama8, meaning "came, subdue, conquer"
and give the sense "a slave taken in war. hence any slave." They view doulos as "properly a born slave,
opp. to andrapodon (a slave taken in war)." Nussbaum (1960: 218 n. 1), citing "Boissacq" [sic] (c£
Boisacq 1950), argues for an etymological link of dm8s with domo- 'house,' which would actually
confirm the idea of born in the house like the later term oiket2s. Wbile it is certainly true (pace
Nagy) chat etymologies are often a shaky prop for actual usage, I at least see nothing in Hesiod's
Slavery in Hesiod 195
all of classical antiquity as a slave society and the associated opprobrium of
such a designation. 66 What I think is clear from the texts is that Hesiod
envisions his target audience of farmers as having no difficulties in acquir-
ing (cf. kteten 406) either the slaves needed for the tasks assigned nor the
hired labor (thetes and erithoi, cf. WD 602) he considers appropriate. The
fact that Hesiod exhorts his audience to work alongside his slaves (459)
certainly suggests that we are far from the aristocratic world of vicious
overseers enforcing the wishes of a completely leisured ruling class. 67 But
such a non-laboring ruling class seems clearly envisioned in the Odyssey's
portrait of the Phaeacian ruling element and of the suitors. 68 The Odyssey
and Iliad, as noted earlier, also attest to a developed market in slaves: Euryk-
leia was bought for twenty oxen ( Od. 1.430-31), so too Eumaios was bought
by Odysseus (14.115-16), as was presumably the Sicilian woman who looks
after Laertes (24.211). Achilles not only sold Lykaon (II. 21.40), but refers
to selling many others (21.102). Moreover, it is hard to imagine the point
of Hesiod's digression on seafaring-trade if his audience are not assumed
references suggesting that his dm8es are any less slaves than, for example, the agricultural douloi
or oiketai discussed by Xenophon (Oec. 5.16, 7.35). Indeed, at 608 their appropriate treatment is
combined with that of plough oxen.
66 Ste. Croix (1981: 209) argues: "The fact that the propertied classes of the Greek and Roman world
derived the bulk of their surplus from the exploitation of unfree labour makes it possible for us to
consider that world as (in a very loose sense) a 'slave economy' or 'slave society', even though we have
to concede that during a large part of Greek and Roman history peasants and other independent
producers may not only have formed the actual majority of the total population but may also have
had a larger share (usually a much larger share) in production than slaves and other unfree workers."
DuBois 2003: 6--7 and passim eloquently catalogues classicists' censoring out of slavery.
67 Xenophon's Oeconomicus certainly ideali2es the "gentleman" (kalos k'agathos) lskhomachos, who
"works'' at farming; but his primary interlocutor Kritoboulos represents the reality of a life including
the "necessity" (ananken) of making many large sacrifices, entertaining many foreigners on an
impressive scale, furnishing dinners for citi2ens, keeping horses, paying for choruses, overseeing
gymnastic competitions, outfitting a ship in wartime, and chasing after boys (2.5-7). Indeed, it
emerges in the extended discussion of the choice and training of the overseers or bailiffs (12.2-
14.10) that lschomachos too is often compelled by his need to conduct sacrifices (banquets?), court
cases, and liturgies to be away from the farm, and that the main work is overseen by his bailiffs
(plural 12.2). In general I am struck by the parallel between Xenophon's perspective and Gogol's,
who in his Dead Souls has a lengthy portrait of the ideal hardworking estate-master, but in most
of his book shows the reality of a corrupt leisure class, often living far away from their estates or
letting everything slide even when they live among their serfs. Van Wees's collapse between the
Works and Days and Xenophon's Oeconomicus is, however, quite misleading, as is his comment:
"slaves took care of threshing and storage (597-9, 607-8) while the farmer relaxed in the shade,
enjoying good food and wine (582-96)" (2009: 447). He is well aware that threshing took place
in late June and that the account of the farmer's lonely picnic refers to the period of paralyzing
heat - "the slack period between the threshing in late June and the vintage in early September"
(2009: 457).
68 As noted in the chapters on Homer, there is significant ambiguity in the picture projected of a
"leisure" class (e.g., Strasburger, 1953) in which a princess does the laundry and her brothers carry
in the clean laundry and unyoke the wagon. Nonetheless the self-definition of the Phaeaceans does
not seem to include farm work or even the ruling class engaging in the seafaring of which the king
boasts.
to produce a surplus suitable for exchange, a commodity that presupposes
slave labor.
To be sure, Hesiod's insistence that labor is no disgrace but in fact the
only path for upward social mobility is rightly cited in sharp contrast to the
scorn of work characteristic of a slave-owning society and is indeed quietly
subversive of ruling-class values (A. T. Edwards 2004: 105, Bryant 1996: 87):
From works men become both rich in flocks and prosperous,
And too by working far dearer to the immortals.
Work is in no way a disgrace, but not working is a disgrace:
But if you work, soon the workless man will envy you
For being wealthy: upon wealth follow success/excellence (arete)
and glory (kudos).
But however you are by way of fortune, working is better,
If you would turn your silly mind away from others' possessions
Toward work and concern yourself with life/livelihood, as I bid you.
[A sense of] Shame (aidos) is not good for a man in need to mind,
Shame, which both greatly damages men and also profits them,
Shame attends upon lack of wealth, shamelessness (tharsos) upon wealth.
(WD 308-319, omitting 310 with West) 69
Key ruling-class values and attributes - divine favor (cf. Dii phile (dear to
Zeus), diotrephes (Zeus-nurtured), etc. in Homer), wealth (cf. aphneios in
Homer), freedom from ordinary labor,7° excellence/success (arete), fame
(kudos), the shame-culture obsession with avoidance of disgrace (oneidos,
anaides, anaideia, etc.) - are here refigured and reassessed in relation to
work. The celebration of hard work, parsimony, self-reliance, and the
positive evaluation of constant, internalized anxiety over the passage of
time (e.g., 392-95, 410-13, 457, etc.) represents a set of values sharply
differentiated from the implied values of the leisured ruling class portrayed
in the Odyssey and the warrior ruling class in the Iliad.
HESIOD ON SAILING AND TRADE
In analyzing the Odyssey and in particular the wrath of Poseidon, I empha-

sized the element of crime in the relative success of seafaring in an age
69 West in his commentary ad loc. omits line 310. He well notes "the hammering repetition of the epy-
["work"] root, which in 299-316 (not counting 310) appears thirteen times. The climactic anaphora
of the repeated aid8s is in the same spirit."
7° This value is implicit in banquets, sports, and the celebration of warfare and pirating, but c£ the
young Phaeacian's scorn of merchants (Od. 8.159-64) and Achilles' bitter hyperbole chat he would
rather be "tied to the soil, wage-working (tMteuemen) for someone else/a man without a kl2ros
[land-allotment], who had not much livelihood/than rule over all perished dead" (Od. 11.489----91).
Hesiod on sailing and trade 1 97
of "colonization" and dramatically expanded trade. At the same time it is

significant that most ancient merchants "had ... no more than a carrying
trade and did not, themselves, produce" (Marx 1973: 223). Mentes, carrying
a shipload of iron and seeking a return load of bronze, is not assumed to be
the owner or director of an iron mine that produces primarily or exclusively
for export. Hesiod, whose main goal as a farmer is to produce a sufficiency,
to avoid starvation, to be ideally in a position to pay back neighbors and
offer loans if necessary. He envisions trade, which he himself and pre-
sumably many or most farmers in his situation does not engage in, as a
potentially lucrative supplement to the main tasks of the farmer. Marx uses
the arbitrary distinction between "excess" or "superfluity" or "overflow"
for what a Hesiod would exchange and "surplus" for production geared
entirely toward exchange, a form of production that only becomes gen-
eralized under capitalism (e.g., Marx 1973: 204-5). The very tentativeness
of the process is underlined by Hesiod's repeated references to the dan-
gers of seafaring, which is introduced by the epithet duspemphelou (618) -
something like "rough and stormy," literally "providing rough escort" -
presumably not just a personal opinion of Hesiod's but a term traditional
in Ionian accounts of sailing (West 1978 ad loc.). In this context even
the traditional Homeric epithet of the sea, polyphloisboio (648), "much-
roaring," is sinister. Only if the prospective merchant picks the appropriate
season, will he avoid smashing his ship and losing the men (665-66), and
this is immediately qualified by a grim reference to the arbitrariness of
Poseidon and Zeus (667-69). Springtime sailing is distinctly discouraged
by the poet (682-84), which triggers his ominous last words on the subject:
[If you sail then] with difficulty would you escape harm (kakon),
but these things too
People do in the ignorance of their minds.
For wealth (khremata) constitutes life (psyche) for pathetic mortals.
It's a terrible thing to die amid the waves: but I bid you
Consider all these things in your mind, as I tell you.
And don't put all your livelihood (bion) in hollow ships,
But leave most of it behind and load the smaller part:
For it's a terrible thing amid the waves of the sea to meet with misery.
(684-91)
This scarcely ringing endorsement of seafaring and trade must be balanced

against the earlier autobiographical data, which imply that his father, who
"used to sail again and again (ploisdesk' is a frequentative form) in ships
in quest of a good living" (634) was sufficiently successful to buy a farm
large enough for his sons to fight over. In this sense Hesiod again attests
to the economic ambiguity of the period: on the one hand, a great deal
of desperation and fear of downward mobility; on the other, a drive for
wealth and a certain confidence that success is in principle attainable.
HESIOD'S SENSE OF HIS AUDIENCE
What is truly extraordinary about the Works and Days is the poet's implicit
sense that - for all the threat of the hawk to devour the nightingale - he
can get away with his blunt critique of the collective basilees who seem to
dominate his little corner of Boeotia. If I am right in seeing a censored,
indirect, albeit passionate indictment of the emergent aristocracy in the
Odyssey, it is hard not to posit something more than a shift in genre to
explain Hesiod's defiant tone in the Works and Days. For all his apparent
lack of a sense of community, his lack of explicit appeals to solidarity of
small landowners, and the purely individual focus on hard work as the
only "solution" to the ever-lurking threat of starvation, Hesiod's poem
presupposes a sense of an audience beyond the directly addressed basilees
(e.g. WD 249) and the oft-exhorted brother Perses. Marx speaks of French
peasants as forming a class insofar as they have the same relation to the
mode of production, but only like potatoes in a sack: their functioning
as individual producers militates against their development of an explicit
sense of collective consciousness and program of action. Their only hope
is in a monarchic protector (MECW 11: 187) - not unlike Hesiod's utopian
version of the good basileus. But Hesiod's very choice of subject matter, the
farmer's year, implies a recognition that most of his audience is more like
himself than the basilees who are threatening their relative independence
and autonomy.
WOMEN AND CLASS
While this picture is by no means simple, the issue of class is enormously

complicated by the terms in which Hesiod constructs women as what might
well be designated as a separate class, one in his eyes far more responsible
than the basilees for the misery of small and middling male farmers as a class.
The usual arguments against viewing women as a class - that rich women
have a radically different relation to production from poor - not to mention
slave -women, that their consciousness is far more a function of their social
and economic standing and activities than their gender - may well apply
to Homer's women, though this too is highly debatable. But Hesiod's
lumping together of women is so categorical and so negative, especially
in view of his specifically economic focus on women as non-productive
Women and class 1 99
consumers of the fruits of male labor (Th. 590-602) that it appears to offer
support to the view of women as a class. The patriarchal mystification of
the very substantial labor women do within the household - especially in
subsistence farming societies - as well as Hesiod's convenient failure to
acknowledge in his sweeping condemnation of women the farm labor he
himself designates for women (WD 405-6, 602-3) point toward the forms
of systematic exploitation of women's labor within this and other modes
of production. Hesiod glances only indirectly in his mundane version of
the choice of Achilles (see above) and symbolically (in the Theogony) at
the aspect of women that for Ste. Croix was the most crucial ground for
seeing women as a class, i.e., their reproductive function. In my admittedly
limited knowledge, one of the most insightful early analyses of "woman's
estate" was by Juliet Mitchell (1972: especially 99-122). She broke with
the traditional Marxist emphasis on women's role in production to insist
that the full emancipation of women must take account of their roles
in four areas: production, reproduction, sexuality, and the socialization of
children. Hesiod, as we have seen, represses any serious account of women's
role in production and finds their role in reproduction an essential but
deeply threatening reality. Women's role in sexuality fills him with fear
and longing, while he ignores completely women's role in the socialization
of children.71 The struggles of women, because until relatively recently
they were conducted largely on an individual basis, 72 do not play the
same role as class struggles in explaining historical change. 73 This is not to
7' This role is explored very fully - if, too imaginatively - in Slater 1968. Hesiod does mention chat
Hecate, in addition to all her other attributes, is kourotrophos ("nurturer of children" Th. 450, 452).
So too Peace (Eir;n; WD 228). But chat is the only hint I can find of an awareness chat children do
indeed need tropM (nourishment/bringing up) - much less an awareness chat it entails considerable
and essential labor.
72 One might argue chat Aristophanes' comic ridicule of the very idea of concerted action by women
(Lysistrata, Thesmophoriazousai, Ekklesiazousai) masks a real fear of the discontents of women
exacerbated by the endless war with Sparta. In The Reign ofthe Phallus, Eva Keuls points to a hint
in the Lysistrata of something like organized protest by women against the Sicilian expedition. Her
charming suggestion chat women were responsible for the breaking off of phalluses on the herms of
Athens (1985: 387----92) alas finds no echo in the data we have for chis event.
73 Mitchell's own retrospective ("Reflections on Twenty Years of Feminism" 1986), is filled with rather
grim observations and rhetorical questions. Though she tries to end on an optimistic note, she
scarcely sees much straightforward progress. She notes, for example, "our aim was equal pay; a
tragic effect of our achievement was to remove pay as an obstacle and then to erode the conditions
of employment, to help lower the expectation of social security, state benefits, trade union sup-
port ... workers' solidarity ... to make way for a mobile, flexible worker and the self-employed. In
fighting for equal pay, in no way was chis our intention, but the passing of the law did facilitate
the change" (43). More broadly she comments: "If we look back at the history of feminism, to
its fies and starts, its uneven development over the past 300 years, do its times of effiorescence
coincide with a particular type of social and economic transition chat temporally places women in
a vanguard position either through their new entry or newly acknowledged entry into production?
This possibility makes sense to me" (46).
say that the sufferings of half the human species throughout so much of
recorded history should be dismissed as unworthy of historical analysis.74
Hesiod's fascinating projections of the violent origins of human sexuality
(Th. 164-206), his highly eroticized visions of goddesses (Th. 5-10, 64-70,
241-60) and virgins (Th. 572-78, WD 519-24) beside his savage fears of
adult women seen as greedy sexual predators (WD 373-74, 586-88, 703-5),
his central obsession with fathers' fears of their male children beside his
horror of dying childless, all deserve and have received elaborate study.75
But his railing at corrupt basilees, his idealization of the just monarch, his
obsession with dike sustained by the highest of deities, and his assumption
that hardworking, independent-minded subsistence farmers and farmer-
traders are the class-conscious core of his society point directly toward the
major developments of the seventh and sixth centuries. Though we have
only Athenian contemporary evidence from Solon and far more ambiguous
later evidence about the rise of tyranny during the seventh and sixth
centuries, it seems clear that in the period immediately succeeding Hesiod
small and middling farmers did somehow organize themselves sufficiently
to bring about major changes in a number of poleis, rebelling against the
most oppressive oligarchs and opting once again for one-man rule.7 6
74 In Rose 1993 I attempt to explore some of the theoretical problems associated with applying a Marxist
model to the study of women in antiquity. Certainly there has been wonderfully rich exploration of
gender issues in our times, beginning with Sarah Pomeroy's ground-breaking work (1975).
75 See, for example, in addition to Pomeroy 1975, Arthur 1982 and 1983, and Zeiclin 1994 and my
earlier citations of feminist scholarship devoted to Hesiod.
76 C£ Fisher 1992: 198: "Some time later more valuable weapons than the appeal to the moral sense
and to the possibility of Zeus' punishment became available to chose disgruncled with the hybris
and injustice of such as the Bacchiadai of Corinth. In Hesiod, as in Solonian and Classical Athens,
hybris may be committed by chose of any social status but it is more commonly the behaviour of
the rich and powerful, and it is then more dangerous for their societies, and equally ruinous for its
agents in the long run." I hope by now it is superfluous to point out Fisher's preference for "status''
even where his own analysis clearly implies "rich and powerful" vs. their opposites.
CHAPTER 5
Tyranny and the Solonian Crisis
THE "woRLD" OF THE SEVENTH AND SIXTH

CENTURIES: THE EVIDENCE
The "worlds" of Homer and Hesiod, as so many scholars have chosen to

describe them, are a consequence of the sustained, more or less complete
quality of these texts, which permit a level of formal and other types of
analysis denied us for the rest of the Archaic Period, where the contem-
poraneous written record is all too comparable to the broken shards, par-
tially excavated cemeteries, mutilated statue fragments, randomly preserved
coins, scattered structural stones, and column drums of the archaeological
record. I feature the Solonian Crisis in my title because I believe that the
fragments of Solon's poetry, preserved primarily in the Aristotelian Comti-
tution ofAthem and in Plutarch's Life ofSolon, constitute the best contem-
porary evidence for the phenomenon of tyranny.' But the huge Athenian
slant of classical scholarship and the bottomless, ever-expanding bibliogra-
phy on Solon attest to the enormous problems of interpreting these data. 2
Moreover, I focus in this chapter on the light Solon sheds on tyranny3 and
try to bracket until a later chapter those aspects of his rule that seem to
be unique to Athenian developments. Other contemporary seventh- and
sixth-century literary evidence, summed up under the loose rubric "lyric
poetry," including elegy, choral lyric, and monody (i.e., solo songs), by its
1 According to Greg Anderson (2005) there should be no such chapter. Much of his "daring" analysis
turns out from his footnotes to be in harmony with much contemporary scholarship, but since he
ignores any possible sense of a widespread crisis to which tyranny might represent a response and
since he systematically finesses the distinction between one-man rule and oligarchy, I will presume
to proceed.
2 Irwin's review {2005c) of Miilke (2002) offers a useful overview of some recent work on Solon, but
she appears to be unaware of de Ste. Croix's posthumous contributions (2004). Somewhat more
recent is J. D. Lewis (2006) and the generous collection edited by Blok and Lardinois (2006).
3 I find some consolation for this reliance on Solon in the fact that the so-called "revisionist" scholars
dealing with helotism in Sparta rightly resort to the evidence of Solon as the best indication of a
general economic- or "agricultural" in their terms - crisis. See Luraghi 2004: 240-41, Birgalias 2003:
2 59·
201
202 Tyranny and the Solonian Crisis
very heterogeneity and fragmentary character, presents formidable inter-
pretative problems but precious evidence for the consciousness of people -
primarily ruling-class males - living through and responding to these var-
10us crises.
Herodotus, writing in the second half of the fifth century, whose text
constitutes what comes closest to our earliest sustained account of the
period, selects for himself only those bits and pieces of the oral memory
of the Archaic Period that fit his own literary and ideological agenda,
an agenda that relentlessly colors whatever "evidence" he offers for our
period (Osborne 2002, cf. Rosalind Thomas 1992: 110-13, 1989: 284-85). 4
By "evidence" I refer not only to what we may optimistically designate
as "facts," but more relevant to my approach, alleged echoes of archaic-
period ideological struggles. In general the very sparseness and radical
ambiguity of the evidence about tyranny dictate (however perverse it may
seem) exploring critically a fuller array of alternative constructions of the
phenomenon than in dealing with the texts of Homer and Hesiod.
Herodotus, primarily concerned with the Persian Wars, effects a rela-
tively complete collapse between the "Great Kings" of Persia - primarily
Darius and Xerxes - and the very different phenomenon of tyranny
in Greece. 5 Moreover, Persian-appointed Persian and Persian-supported
Greek governors in the territory oflonia controlled by Persia are also called
tyrants (e.g., Aristagoras 5.37) - as is Miltiades in the Chersonese (6.34),
despite the very strong likelihood that he was acting there as the agent of
Peisistratos (6.39). One-man rule in any form is, in Herodotus's eyes, an
evil: he is not particularly interested in how the phenomenon came about,
4 Most modern treatments of Herodotus (e.g. Immerwahr 1966, Fornara 1971, V. Hunter 1982, Dewald
2003 and 2006, Flory 1987, Lateiner 1989; Van Wees, Carcledge and Greenwood, Hornblower, Cobet
in Bakker et al. 2002; see also Arethusa issue Herodotus and the Invention ofHistory= Boedeker 1987,
not to mention Plutarch's ancient attack On the Malice ofHerodotus), spell out various dimensions
of his complex "agenda." For a balanced appreciation of his contributions to the "science" of history
see de Ste. Croix 1977.
5 Ferrill 1978 righcly stresses Herodotus's consistent hostility to chose he calls "tyrants," but under-
estimates the degree of ideological collapse in his assessment of chose for whom he uses the terms
basileus or monarchoi. Victor Parker (1998) is at pains to stress chat "most of the time wpavvos is for
Herodotus a neutral term, which he demonstrably uses as a synonym for ~acnAEVS and µ6vapxos"
{1998: 162). Again he underestimates the degree to which Herodotus tends to generalize an indictment
of one-man rule of any kind, a point well emphasized in Kurke {1999: especially 66-68). Dewald
(2003) makes a useful distinction between the "despotic template" focused on the "overarching and
unifying theme of imperial despotism" and the "viewpoints of the individual logoi about the Greek
tyrants'' {49), where Herodotus is capable, despite his general distaste for one-man rule of any kind,
of paying tribute, for example, to the megaloprepeie ("magnificence") of Polycrates {3.125; Dewald
2003: 44). Parker goes on to make the interesting argument chat the specifically negative force of
the term derives from Solon and is largely confined to Athenian authors. Anderson (2005: 2n),
following Austin (1990) and Dewald (2003: 38---39), righcly points to the subservience to Persia of
late sixth-century Ionian tyrants as a major factor in the subsequent negative view of tyranny and its
fusion with Persian autocracy.
The "world" ofthe seventh and sixth centuries: the evidence 203
though he has a fair amount to say about how the Peisistratids achieved and
lost power (1.59-64, 5.62-65), and his "mythic" account of Deioces (1.96-
100) is highly suggestive (see below). He is far more interested in evidence of
criminal perversity in his comments on the Kypselids of Corinth (3.48-5J;
5.92) than in specific policies and mentions Prokles, the tyrant of Epidau-
ros, only as a footnote to a crime of Periander's (3.50-52); Polykrates is of
primary interest in pointing a moral about the fragility of human success
(3.39-43 and 120-25), his successor Maiandrios in pointing a moral about
tyranny entailing inevitable injustice despite good intentions (3.142-43).
For Herodotus Kleisthenes of Sikyon's fabulous "Homeric" betrothal of
his daughter (6.126-31) is an impressive antecedent to the birth of Pericles,
while his dealing with tribes in Sikyon is considered solely as a footnote
to the tribal name-changes effected in Athens by his grandson (5.67-68).
About Thrasyboulos of Miletos we hear of one clever trick (1.21-22) and a
piece of sinister advice (5.92-93). Any sort of chronology of their reigns is
arrived at by more modern if sometimes tortuously speculative means. I cite
here for the reader's convenience the very tentative dates offered in the third
edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary of some of the more frequently
discussed tyrants: Pheidon of Argos (? 680-660), Kypselos of Corinth
(c. 657-627), Periander of Corinth (c. 627-587), Orthagoras and Kleis-
thenes of Sikyon (c. 665-570), Polykrates of Samos (c. 535-c. 522), Peisis-
tratos of Athens (c. 560, c. 557, c. 546-527), Hippias of Athens (527-510). 6
This is not to deny that in passing Herodotus offers potentially useful
information for a modern historian attempting to understand the phe-
nomenon of tyranny, but both the arbitrariness of his accounts and his
own ideological agenda render his use a very tricky proposition.
In examining tyranny, we would like to know what was the role of class
conflict in its emergence,? what ideological moves were associated with
its appearance, what specific strategies or policies spoke to the conditions
of its emergence, and, finally, what were the consequences for the class
alignments of Greece for this period of these strategies and policies, i.e., to
what extent it succeeded, why and where it failed.
The Comtitution ofthe Atheniam (= Ath. Pol.), attributed to Aristotle in
antiquity but more often than not now assigned to a pupil of his, 8 is our
6 Stein-Holkeskamp (2009) offers somewhat different dates, an indication of just how shaky our
evidence is.
7 Anderson (2005: 196) enthusiastically endorses Cawkwell's (1995) dismissal of any role for "the
people" in the phenomenon of tyranny.
8 Rhodes, in his massive commentary on Ath. Pol. (1993), reviews the arguments pro and con Aris-
totelian authorship (58-63) and concludes: "Aristotle could have written this work himself, but I do
not believe he did (63)." Ste. Croix's posthumously published essay from the 196os on "TheAthenaion
Politeia and Early Athenian History" (2004: 255-325) has in a sense reopened the issue: Rhodes has
most important source after Herodotus and Thucydides for developments
in Athens and is by no means free of serious problems. But it does, like
Plutarch's Life ofSolon, contain substantial quotations from Solon's poems, 9
which, together with the fragment of the law of Drakon (Fornara 1977:
18-19) and the fragments of Solon's laws, are our only texts (apart from
one inscription, Fornara 1977: 38, ML 11) from Attica for the late seventh
and whole of the sixth century (Rushenbusch 1966: vii-viii). Given the
apparent readiness of some contemporary scholars to minimize Ath. Pol.
and Aristotle's Politics as sources, I think it should be stressed that these
authors clearly had access not only to a great deal more of Solon's poetry
than is quoted but also to a wealth of lyric texts from the seventh and sixth
centuries. There are some important comments on tyranny in Aristotle's
Politics, which, in the few places where they conflict with Ath. Pol., seem
to be more reliable (Ste. Croix 2004: 273-77).
These sources about the rise of tyranny and especially those about the
Solonian crisis, which offer the fullest account of the circumstances that
led ultimately to tyranny in Athens, speak repeatedly of the oppression
of the poor by the rich or by the aristocrats or gnorimoi. 10 Ath. Pol., for
example, introduces the Solonian crisis as follows:
It happened that for a long time the nobility (tous gnorimous) and the common
people (to plethos) were divided into factions (stasiasai). For their constitution
(politeia) was oligarchical in all other respects, and, in particular, the poor together
with their wives and children were enslaved (edouleuon) to the rich (tois plousiois).
written an "Afterword" to the essay (Ste. Croix 2004: 325-27), in which he notes that Chambers
in his commentary accepts Aristotelian authorship (1990). More important than that question
is what sort of evidence the author of the text had available and specifically whether Solon's laws
were still extant in the fourth century BC. Scafuro (2006) has recently reconsidered Ruschenbusch's
criteria in his collection of Solon's laws (1966) and, bucking the "I'm-more-skeptical-than-thou"
trend, actually suggested adding a couple of laws - preserved at least in "kernel" form in the text of
Demosthenes' speeches.
9 The historical and textual authenticity of the fragments attributed to Solon along with Theognis (see
below) have, like the texts of Homer and Hesiod, come under attack in the name of so-called "oral
poetics" (e.g., Nagy 1985, Lardinois 2006, Stehle 2006). Symptomatic perhaps is the fact that Stehle
begins her essay with an implicit dismissal ofLinforth's argument (1919: 9) that "Solon's poems were
recorded in writing by himself" (c£ Stehle 2006: 79), a suggestion I at least find highly plausible.
The strongest grounds for calling some of the fragments into question is their reappearance verbatim
or virtually verbatim in the corpus attributed to Theognis, all of which cannot be dated to the same
period (see Figueira and Nagy 1985: 1). Irwin (2006) offers a brilliant dose reading of these parallel
passages to elucidate their imbrication in an ongoing ideological struggle. Irwin 2005c also offers
an impassioned and compelling defense of the authenticity of the major political fragments. About
the specific laws attributed to Solon (Ruschenbusch 1966) there are solider grounds for doubt (see
Scafuro 2006, Blok 2006, Rhodes 2006 and Chapter 7 below), but not the sweeping skepticism
that now seems so popular.
'0 See, for example, Aristotle, Pol 5.1305a22-23, 1310612-16. I discuss the problem of sources further
below in connection with McGlew's book.
The "world" ofthe seventh and sixth centuries: the evidence 205
And they were called "pelatai" [wage-workers?]" and "sixth-parters" (hektemoroi),

for on the basis of this payment they worked the fields of the rich. All the land
was in the hands of the few; and if they [sc. the pelatai and hektemoroi] did not
turn over the payments, both themselves and their children were subject to seizure.
Loans were entirely contracted on bodies until the time of Solon, who became the
first protector (prostates) of the demos. (Ath. Pol. 2.2)
Some have rejected this account, pointing to the fourth-century polit-
ical character of such terms as prostates (e.g., Cawkwell 1995: 73). This
conveniently ignores the fact that Ath. Pol.'s account is essentially in har-
mony with the thrust of Solon's poems as well as the evidence (see below) of
Theognis and Herodotus about the rapaciousness of the seventh- and sixth-
century aristocracies. Yet despite the overwhelming thrust of such evidence
as there is about tyranny, a number of scholars have shown a distinct dis-
inclination to explore tyranny primarily in terms of class conflict. Indeed
I have at times been amazed at how some scholars (e.g., G. Anderson
2005) manage to say very intelligent, learned things about tyranny and
never so much as allude to the emphasis in such sources as we have on the
oppression of the poor by the rich.
I will examine a number of accounts of tyranny that in varying degrees
acknowledge and/or mystify the role of class in the phenomenon as sug-
gested by the exiguous surviving evidence. In an earlier footnote I have
already quoted as an example of the widespread tendency to dismiss a
Marxist approach not even by name but by a scornful resort to a German
word chosen to evoke instant distaste: "We must be careful above all not to
import the modern concept of Klassenkampfinto the picture. The Greek
tyrant was no popular revolutionary leading his people against an oppres-
sive aristocracy'' (Donlan 1999[1980]: 189-90 n. 7). 12 Andrewes, while
11 Rhodes (1993) ad loc. offers a lengthy disquisition on the history of the word, which seems to have
developed from simply "neighbor" to "one who is dependent on or works for another."
12 It is dear from the context of chis comment chat Donlan's conception of class and class warfare is
very narrowly confined to formal "systems" and open, violent dashes: "In the absence of a true 'class
system,' class warfare is not possible. The number of recorded incidents ofbloody violence between
the upper and lower classes during the Archaic Period is quite small" (190, my emphasis). Note how,
after dismissing a "class system," he immediately speaks of "upper and lower classes." He goes on
rightly to dismiss the overly simple formulation of Arnheim (1977: 121-29). If he thus dismisses
class "warfare," in his text, on the other hand, he seems quite comfortable with the notion of
"class conflict": "Signs of class conflict, the result of political and economic exploitation by ascendant
aristocracies, are evident from the time of Hesiod on. Sporadically there arose in various Greek
states individual strong men, usually men of wealth and ancestry, called tyrannoi, 'tyrants,' who
opportunistically grasped political power for themselves" (39, my emphasis). Students of the modern
era will be well aware chat opportunism is alas by no means incompatible with true class warfare.
In any case, the distinction between "class warfare" and "class struggle" more or less corresponds to
Marx's own distinction in the Communist Manifesto between class struggles which "carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight" (MECW 6: 482, my emphasis).
acknowledging in very general terms the decisive role of "economic condi-
tions" in the crises that led to tyranny throughout Greece (1956: 147), speaks
only of the "incompetence or mere anarchy of the aristocrats" (ibid.), not of
their greed (cf. Van Wees 1999a and 2002c), and while alluding repeatedly
to demands for redistribution of land, Andrewes never discusses as such
the radical inequalities in land-ownership which are the presupposition of
such demands.
RULING CLASS VS. MIDDLING IDEOLOGY?
Illustrative of the problem of evidence and the overhasty dismissal of Marx is

a recent elaborate and ambitious attempt (Kurke 1999) to elucidate a major
area of ideological struggle of the period. Kurke relies overwhelmingly on
the text of Herodotus, to a significant degree on that of fourth-century
Aristotle, and only very selectively on surviving poetic and philosophic
fragments from the Archaic Period itself. Kurke's central focus on coinage
by definition excludes from consideration the seventh and at least the first
half of the sixth century. ' 3 Reading Kurke's text I found myself again and
again wondering how many of the posited ideological struggles would have
taken the form they show in Herodotus before the emergence and practice
of Athenian democracy and the frightful threat to Greece posed by the
Persian kings. A more serious problem with Kurke's approach, trenchantly
analyzed by Seaford (2002, echoed 2004: 15 and passim), is its allegiance to a
postmodern exclusive concern with discourse, representation, paradigms,
and codes that are cut loose from any articulated notion of class, while
constantly speaking of "political" struggles - struggles allegedly confined
to an intra-ruling-class split.'4
Kurke's whole project is explicitly (1999: 19-22) linked to Ian Morris's
attempt (1996) 15 to subsume the entire spectrum of seventh- and
sixth-century ideological conflict under his rubrics of "ruling class" and
1l Schaps (2004: 101-2) cites the late (twelfth cent. AD) account and the archaeological discovery that
at first seemed to confirm the idea that Pheidon of Argos, often called the first tyrant, "was the first
of all people who coined money." Chronological problems render this impossible, but I suspect
that the idea of so deeply associating tyranny with coinage had its origin here. J. Hall has a usefully
corrosive account of the hopelessly contradictory evidence about Pheidon (2007: 145-54).
14 Given the dose dependence ofKurke's project on I. Morris's theorization of a middling ideology, it
is striking that Morris's critique (2002: 18) ofKurke's project in Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold is so
dose to that of Seaford.
1 5 Kurke specifically cites the 1996 version of Morris's thesis. By the time of Morris 2000 it had assumed
the proportions of what I am tempted to call an obsession -one projected back to the early Iron Age,
producing apropos of the "hero ofLefkandi" a wildly fanciful "Hesiodic" myth of ages and viewed
in the fourth century as everyone's view. For a critique of pieces of the 2000 version see Anderson
2005: 185-86 n. 31. The fullest discussion of the 2000 version of which I am aware is Kistler 2004.
Ruling class vs. middling ideology? 207
"middling" factions within the aristocracy. In place of "anti-aristocratic"
thought (Donlan 1973 [1999]) or even "non-aristocratic" poetry
(A. Griffiths 1995), this view emphasizes a conflict within the ruling class
between those who see their best interest in fostering a (mystified) sense of
solidarity and common interest within the polis and those determined to
celebrate their superiority and "otherness."
In discussing the formation of the polis, I have argued above for a
contradictory tension rather than an open split between, on the one hand,
the aristocracy's goals of fostering a sense of citizen solidarity to wean the
mass of small farmers away from their dependence upon and allegiance
to a monarchic chief or big-man and, on the other, insisting on their
own difference, their innate superiority as descendants of gods and heroes,
offered as a warrant for their exercise of political decision-making, their
control of the best land, and their leisured lifestyle. This secondary goal,
not surprisingly, provokes hostile reactions of which, I believe, we can see
clear indications already in the Odyssey and in Hesiod. Kurke posits "a
democratic trend first in the sumptuary legislation associated with various
tyrants and lawgivers" (1992: 103, my emphasis). While I think both Kurke
and I. Morris, like many other scholars, are perhaps in too great a hurry
to find signs of an emergent "democracy," they are surely right in focusing
on the ways in which the relative success of the aristocracy's first goal,
fostering a sense ofpolis solidarity, provokes a need for some rethinking and
adaptation on the part of the more thoughtful members of the ruling class.
This element, in order to retain the most vital aspects of their position,
gives up some of the public signs of their real privilege and may even
preach "modesty" of sorts, but in private, i.e., in the symposium, the
more self-indulgent majority of aristocrats flaunts its lifestyle - celebrated
most obviously in sympotic vase-painting and poetry (Neer 2002: 19-
22, Murray 1990, Pellizer 1990)16 - in lavish public dedications, in pan-
Hellenic games, and in funeral displays and monuments (Osborne 1998a:
77-85, 133-55). Much alleged evidence has been brought forth in support
of this "middling/ruling class" opposition. Particularly suggestive is the
argument that the fostering of the "middling" ideology had the unintended
consequence of preparing those outside the ruling class for the emergence
16 Pellizer (1990: 181) argues plausibly enough that "probably the use of the symposion was not limited
to aristocratic or tyrannical circles, but must have been practiced also in wider strata of society such
as mercantile, artisan, or peasant classes, as one can deduce from certain hints in Aristophanes and
from the proliferation of sympotic scenes in vase painting." However, the hints of resentment of
banqueters - already present in the Odyssey and the pervasive Puritanism of Hesiod - suggest the
strong association of the symposium with the wealthiest members of the polis. Philokleon's behavior
at the symposium in Aristophanes' Wasps cuts both ways: it reinforces the sense of his boorishness,
but also underlines the association of the symposium with the political and economic ruling class.
of democracy (I. Morris 1996: 36-42). But as G. Anderson has recently
pointed out (2005: 185 n. 31), there is no hint that the aristocrats who
bonded at the Great Games and flocked to Delphi and Olympia were at all
excluded from power in their respective poleis: quite the contrary, success
at Olympia continued (ridiculously enough!) to constitute a meaningful
political credential down until at least the time of Alcibiades (Thuc. 6.16).
What is troubling about this analysis 17 is first its implicit or potential
Hegelianism: political ideologies contend with each other and at a certain
point cast up a new formation that is "realized" in the institutional form
of democracy without any reference to material conditions of the control
of the mode of production or even actual political struggles. The vogue of
mentalites, 18 cut loose from any specific social, political or economic reali-
ties, erases all other considerations. Only, it seems, as an afterthought does
I. Morris rightly acknowledge the continuing reality of oligarchic domina-
tion: "Many poleis entrusted themselves to the guardiamhip of oligarchies
throughout the classical period. On the whole, it seems that democracy was
only tried out when a military crisis raised the stakes and made it impossible
for the guardians to claim to represent the middle" (I. Morris 1996: 41, my
emphasis). This analysis completely brackets out any consideration of the
property relations that were the essential presupposition of any ruling class.
The reality of oligarchy throughout the whole period19 - in particular the
unique prestige of Sparta (see Chapter 6 below) - casts serious doubt on
the alleged collapse of elitist ideology. To be sure, Persian domination of
Ionia required an adjustment of the class-based celebration of "orientaliz-
ing" values, 20 but the mystification of continuing aristocratic domination
17 Irwin (2005a: 58---62) has an excellent critique of I. Morris 2000, in which I especially admire chis
point: "Behind Morris' thesis lies a simplistic rendering of the relationship between members of the
elite to their developing poleis as either positive or negative. But chose in the archaic period who
considered themselves as belonging to a ruling class no doubt had several different relationships
to their various poleis, finding themselves in a plurality of contexts in turn evoked a spectrum of
responses and degrees of connection to their polis: panhellenic competition, war, political struggles,
one's oikos ('household')." I have tried to underline the contradictory and dialectical relationship of
the aristocracy to the poleis chat I believe they created.
18 I. Morris 2000: 13 and 279 actually speaks of "mind-reading."
1 9 Jonathan Hall puts the period in proper perspective by citing one estimate chat during the so-called
"age of tyrants'' "only twenty-seven out of hundreds of states are known to have been subject to
tyranny over a period of 150 years" (2007: 142). At the same time Cawkwell (1993: 371-72, especially
n. 38) reasonably speculates chat there may have been several minor tyrannies crushed by Sparta
in the Peloponnese without ever being recorded in the spotty historical record - especially spotty
where the Peloponnese is concerned.
2 ° Kurke (1992: 102) cites chis explanation as an instance of"modern misreadings." I would agree chat
the roots of opposition to Eastern habrosyne long antedate the confrontation with Persia. Indeed,
as noted in another connection, J. Hall righcly cites the "porousness" of the boundaries between
Greeks and non-Greeks early in the period (2007: 272). He follows Edith Hall in arguing chat it
was only the Persian invasion chat prompted a new emphasis on the difference between Greek and
Ruling class vs. middling ideology? 209
of land-ownership in response to pressure from below took many forms
that with hindsight seem contradictory but attest perhaps better to the
flexibility and adaptability of rulers vis-a-vis ruled rather than to a real
redistribution of power downward. It is the essence of a ruling class that
it needs subordinated classes to exploit and must take whatever steps are
necessary to sustain that key relationship, resistance to which may be as
adaptable as the rulers themselves.
A further difficulty with the invocation of a middling ideology is that,
despite the clear acknowledgement that this is a division within the ruling
class, the rest of society is treated as a homogenized body of "citizens"
whose presumed ideology is then dubbed "civic." 21 This is in part a natural
temptation in view of the ruling-class nature of our sources, but it assumes
precisely what we do not know: that the manipulation from above by
the more "progressive" element in the ruling class - their interpellation of
small and middling farmers as fellow citizens, as "brothers" in an imagined
community2 2 - was completely successful, that whatever grievances and
resentments the economically disadvantaged majority felt against those
with the best land and effective decision-making power were adequately
overcome by these middling ideological practices. Moreover, just as the
aristocrat Tolstoy was rightly seen by Lenin as the authentic voice of the
Russian peasantry under the specific historical conditions of his writing
(cf. Macherey 1978: 299-322), it is possible that some of the evidence
cited for a middling ideology really is more directly "anti-aristocratic" 23 -
that Archilochus, for example, on occasion authentically articulated the
barbarian. In any case, I chink it is a mistake to underestimate the impact of major political events
on ideological constructions of identity. The process is dialectical.
21 See note I in the Introduction for the problem of the hypostatization of the polis and discussion
below of McGlew.
22 Andrewes (1961) and Bourriot (1976) show that imaginary kinship ties were an invention of the
eighth century - "a creation of the aristocratic state rather than of the monarchies of the Greek
dark ages" (Andrewes 9) - designed to foster (spurious) solidarity in the polis. For the concept of
"imagined communities" see B. Anderson 1983.
23 Jonathan Hall's critique of the middling-ideology thesis tends to take the form of stressing the
adlrerence to aristocratic values of some of the sources enlisted by I. Morris for the "middle." He
argues: "Ultimately, the elegiac poets do not challenge the aristocrats' right to rule ... What is more
of a concern is the correct comportment chat aristocrats should adopt and the necessity of avoiding
abuse of the delicate relationship of reciprocity between ruling class leaders and the communities
over which they governed" {2007: 180). This seems to me to concede a major point of Morris's
focus on a split within the ruling class over how best to sustain their potentially precarious rule.
Depending upon who hears it, critique of "improper" aristocratic comportment could well be
received as "anti-aristocratic" - especially when recourse to tyranny emerges as a viable alternative.
To expect a fully articulated critique of the status quo as the key criterion of genuine opposition
is to ignore the need precisely for articulated, credible alternatives. As noted in the Zizek quote in
my introduction, many so-called "postmodernists" express bitter unhappiness with many aspects of
capitalism, but {thanks no doubt in large measure to the miserable failure of the Soviet Union to
deliver a credible alternative) despair of all alternatives.
2IO Tyranny and the Solonian Crisis
perspective of landless agricultural colonists with whom he identified or
Hipponax positioned himself more with the genuinely poor than with
simply adaptable aristocrats, or Semonides, like Hesiod, has more to tell us
about the mentality of small and middling farmers than big landowners. 24
In any case, presumed class origins, 25 as many revolutionaries of the past
two centuries have made very clear, are a poor criterion for assessing the
actual political positions of any given protagonist in class struggle.
A further problem with the ruling-class/middling focus is that, paradox-
ically perhaps, although radically different responses to tyranny are central
to Kurke's focus on coinage, her analysis does not account for the fact that
all aristocrats - whether they strategically adapted their lifestyles to the
presumed values of the polis or flaunted their differences and superiority to
the masses - hated tyranny, even if, as individuals, they relentlessly aspired
to it. 26 This is far better understood, I would argue, by focusing on the
very emergence of the aristocratic class as a class through its struggle to
displace one-man rule by creating the polis form. The inherent contradic-
tions of competition between aristocrats - their identity as status warriors -
explains the constant appeal of being the single best and the simultaneous
elaboration of civic structures to preclude the emergence of an individual
who is "more equal" than his fellow aristocrats.
Finally, as Seaford rightly points out,
there is no evidence for ruling class hostility to coinage before Plato and Aristotle,
and even they are interestingly ambivalent towards it ... The crucial economic
division in the polis is not between aristocrats hostile to coinage and traders
who welcome it, but rather between those who are imagined to be economically
self-sufficient (the 'free') and those who have to work for others. The intro-
duction of abstract value embodied in coinage actually reinforces this imagined
self-sufficiency, for it conveniently concentrates automatic (and so self-sufficient)
power (over labour) in durable objects that are easy to transport, to store, to
conceal. (Seaford 2004: 15)
Though I think this final formulation runs the risk of glossing over the
extent to which even ostensibly "self-sufficient" small landholders were
still the victim of those who monopolized the majority of the best land,
24 Robinson, though generally supportive of Morris, also raises some questions about the middling
concept (1997: 66--67). Seaford's critique (2002) is more thorougbgoing and in tune with my own
perspective.
25 Seaford, for example, suggests chat Kurke may have dismissed the evidence ofHerakleitos ofEphesos
"because of the credible report ofHerakleitos' ruling class background" (2002: 154).
26 This also seems to me to be a major problem with G. Anderson's argument (2005) chat tyrannoi were
just more successful aristocrats. A,; Wallace righcly argues, "rival aristocrats moscly hated tyrants and
tried to kill chem" (2009: 416).
Tyranny and land 211
Seaford is clearly right to shift attention away from an exclusive focus

on what members of the ruling class may suggest about themselves to the
issues of power over labor and the illusiom of self-sufficiency of those whose
leisure was precisely a consequence of their power over the labor of others.
TYRANNY AND LAND
Using primarily fourth-century Attic evidence that in principle has long

been available, Lin Foxhall (1992) has calculated that 9% or about 2,000 out
of the total of 22,000 households controlled 35% of the cultivable private
land and in all likelihood another 10% of cultivable "public" land. 27 The rest
of the citizen households either owned no land (perhaps 5,000 households)
or "perhaps another 5000 owned less than the so-called 'subsistence-portion
of 60 plethra (5.5 ha)," while the roughly 10,000 other households had this
subsistence minimum or a bit more. She draws striking political and eco-
nomic conclusions from this analysis that wipe out the pleasant picture
of an Athenian democracy firmly in the hands of small, fully independent
farmers: ''Although peasant smallholders were most likely the overwhelm-
ing majority of the citizen body, they did not, as a group, control a similarly
overwhelming proportion of the primary meam ofproduction, that is, land.
It is generally agreed that it is even less likely that they controlled a sub-
stantial proportion of other economic resources: shipping, mining, and
slave-operated workshops, to mention a few, were generally activities of
rich households. Therefore, it is evident that the overall economic control
ofAthem was in the hands ofthe ruling class, not peasant households. And if
this is so, given the substantial overlap between political and economic power
in Athens, it is doubtful whether the model of the 'peasant-democracy',
in which smallholders are considered to have held the most power, can
seriously be maintained" (1992: 156, my emphasis). 28
27 Cf. M. Jameson 1992 and Van Wees 2006b: 366: "Such a highly polarized regime, under which a
ruling class of 10--20% of the population controls sufficient land and labour not to have to work
while the remaining 8~0% of the population does not have enough land to survive without
additional income, is exactly what prevailed in Athens before Solon, according to our sources."
Morris's and Bintliffs assumption that the Athenian ruling class represented roughly 50% of the
population (I. Morris 1987 cited by Bintliff 2006: 328) seems to me untenable in light of these
arguments by Van Wees and Foxhall - not to mention J. K. Davies's analysis of the liturgical class
in Athens as between I and 2% (1981: 27-28).
28 It seems to me that this analysis significantly qualifies the implicitly optimistic conclusion of many
analyses of the outcome of the Solonian crisis that "Attica was a land of independent farmers, in
possession of their own fields'' (I. Morris 2002: 40, cf. Osborne 2009: 2II and 213, Wood 1988). Not
that this is literally untrue, but the implications of "independent" need to be seriously qualified.
We must inevitably point out that only in Athens and only in the
fourth century do we have anything like the evidence available to offer
such an analysis, hemmed about as it necessarily must be with cautious
caveats about the inadequacy of our grounds for any statistical account of
population or land use. Nonetheless, precisely because Athens is recognized
as the most democratic of ancient Greek poleis and had clearly experienced
tyranny, the implications of this plausible analysis for the rest of Greece
in earlier periods are dramatic. It suggests that neither the reforms of
Solon nor the alleged major exiles of aristocrats under the Peisistratids
entailed a substantial realignment of property relations in favor of the
poorer majority of citizens. 29 "Oppression" and "exploitation" are very
vague abstract terms. In traditional Marxist discourse they evoke primarily
the sufferings of the nineteenth-century factory worker, who works long
hours and is rewarded with only a small proportion of the new value
that his labor produces. But crucial forms of oppression and exploitation
require no apparently direct economic relationship between oppressor and
oppressed, exploiter and exploited: simply by monopolizing control of the
majority of the means of production in a society with severely limited
overall resources, the owners of great wealth close off the life-options of
the poor, create psychological and, in indirect ways, economic dependency
that in turn reinforces the economic and political power of the rich. For, as
Foxhall argues compellingly, those who control the majority of the means
of production tend to control the levers of political power in society. 30
On the basis of the available data it is perhaps impossible to ascertain
the specific forms of exploitation of the poor by the rich in the late seventh
and early sixth century BC in Attica, but some theories are more plausible
than others. Control of the land and the labor necessary to exploit the land
are central elements in any serious attempt to explain the crisis and the
specific measures taken by Solon to attempt to resolve it (e.g., Bintliff 2006,
29 Here I agree with Cawkwell (1995: 75): "There is absolutely no evidence that Pisistratus redistributed
any land whatever; even the estates of disgruntled aristocrats who went into exile appear to have been
left intact (cf. Hdt. 6.103.3)." Stein-Holkeskamp (2009: 113) agrees about land, but I think overstates
the negative case: "It is certainly the case that none of these tyrants put forward a progressive
reform program that in any way improved the demos' situation. They did not undertake a radical
land distribution." Improving the public water supply, for example, clearly did improve the demos's
situation. V. Parker takes for granted, without citing any grounds, that "Peisistratus confiscates these
properties and redistributed them ... The economic crisis that had earlier seemed so severe simply
disappeared during the tyranny" (2007: 30).
30 A striking indirect confirmation of Foxhall's figures is the oligarchic coup in Athens in 404: the
leaders disarmed all but 3,000 of the citizens and deprived them of their land (Ath. Pol. 35.4, 37.12,
cf. Van Wees 2002a: 80 n. 51). The number 3,000 is very close to her 2,000 and suggests that the
oligarchs included only the uppermost level of those not in Daviess {1971) liturgical class. Moreover,
depriving the rest of the citizens of their land suggests the limitless land-greed of this class.
Tyranny and money 213
Forsdyke 2006, I. Morris 2002, and Van Wees 2006c).31 Given the relative
explicitness of Solon's testimony, his poems remain the clearest basis for
understanding the phenomenon of tyranny.
If this is true of Athens, the relationship between the phenomenon of
tyranny in general and control of the land needs far closer attention than it
generally receives. For example, it was precisely the alleged political clout
of the so-called "hoplite" class, assumed to be a majority of prosperous
landowners, that for Andrewes and many other scholars 32 going back -
somewhat erratically, to be sure - to Aristotle (Van Wees 2002a: 72-77)
was the political and economic basis and motive force behind the resort to
tyranny. But given the reality of the economic diversity of hop lites, the sharp
differences in access to land-ownership suggested by Foxhall's analysis,
and the absence of any institutional framework - there were no standing
"armies" in which they might develop a collective political consciousness
(Van Wees 2002a) - this seemingly class-based theory will not hold. 33
TYRANNY AND MONEY
A class-related issue often alleged in the interpretation of the Solonian Crisis

and the rise of tyranny is, as noted above, the role of coined money, which
3' These more recent discussions generously cite from the potentially bottomless bibliography on the
Solonian Crisis. Irwin too, though she does not really engage with the non-discursive aspects or, as
I. Morris, following Geertz, argues, "the hard surfaces" of the period (I. Morris 2002), nonetheless
has a formidable bibliography.
32 Salmon, for example, sees the adoption of the hoplice method by the Bacchiads as "the most
momentous" development: "Whatever the nature of the weapons of the phalanx in the Bacchiad
period, they were soon turned, under Cypselus' leadership, against the Bacchiads themselves'' (1984:
73-74). Later in his text he repeats the general thesis chat "the strength behind the political upheavals
in the mid-seventh century was provided by hoplites," but goes on to make an argument chat sounds
more in tune with Van Wees's approach: "Hoplices will have supported Cypselus for a variety of
reasons; but none of chem depended on the fact chat they were hoplices" (1984' 191). I chink
Snodgrass's more dialectical treatment of the issue is most plausible. The process of military reform
was a long one; tyrannies arose from conflict within the aristocracy: "The tyrants themselves were
almost always dissident aristocrats, who exploited the unpopularity of their fellows in the ruling
class ... It was their policies once in power chat were innovatory; and there is no reason why these
should not have included the furtherance of the military reform" (1980: 112). This implies, I chink,
chat after taking power they won considerable support from chose capable of arming themselves.
33 Gabrielsen (2002) in his response to Van Wees accepts the general validity of his argument in
connection with hoplices and tyranny (89), but raises some good points to qualify Van Wees's
sweeping dismissal of any connection between military function, socio-economic class, and political
constitution. Cawkwell (1995: 81-82) rejects any connection between tyranny and hoplices. Focusing
on Peisistratos, he argues: "There were as many hoplices opposed to him as in his support, and to
judge by the battle of Pallene probably more (Hdt. 1.63)." I must admit chat I do not quite see how
chis passage from Herodotus contributes to his argument either way. De Ste. Croix's posthumously
published essay on the tele (2004: especially 18) does posit hoplices as having in general a shared,
relatively high economic base, but included metics (51) and, at least in the fifth century, men
probably supplied with armor by the state (21). In any case, he makes no claims one way or the
other about their class-consciousness or political stances.
gradually displaced the use of gold and silver bullion and direct barter
(Schaps 2004: m). Without denying the importance of the invention of
coinage, I would agree with Seaford (2004) that much more relevant to
understanding the period was the growing importance of the money-form,
i.e., the use of measured quantities of gold and silver in various social
transactions. Solon does speak of khremata (4.6 W), a term which became
the most common Greek word for "money," though it literally only means
"things that are useful" or "goods" or simply "wealth" - the sense in which
Hesiod used it (e.g., WD 320) and perhaps Homer as well (e.g., Od.
14.385). The more technical term for specifically coined money is nomisma,
and means literally "conventionally established measure" or "currency."
It occurs for the first time in Herodotus, though a fragment of Alcaeus
(69 C/67 L-P) does speak of Lydian staters (cf. Kurke 1999: 4). 34 There
seems now to be something of a scholarly consensus that Greek coined
money appeared only in the second half of the sixth century, i.e., some
fifty years after the Solonian crisis (ibid. 7). 35 Nonetheless, even on the
assumption that khremata in Solon refers to the use of measured bullion
as a means of exchange and more important of storage of wealth, 36 its role
in transforming the character of class relations as we have tried to tease
them out of the texts of Homer and Hesiod is potentially tremendous and
again - as well emphasized recently by Seaford (2004: n) - unconscious long
before it becomes explicit in texts. 37 Andrewes, who erroneously assumed
an earlier date for coinage than is now acceptable, nonetheless put the case
for this transformation succinctly:
34 Seaford points out chat a stater "generally is a coin, but could also be a unit of weight"
(2004: 89).
35 Kraay (1976: 35) dates the beginning of silver coins to "the years around the middle of the century."
He notes: "The Athenians ... attributed to Solon certain distinctive features of coinage which
probably did not in fact begin until near the middle of the century" (56).
36 It may be relevant chat Solon sums up traditional notions of wealth (ploutos) by reference to "lots of
silver and gold and wheat-bearing land" (24.1-2 W).
37 The emergence of the money-form must of course be related to a shift in Attic agriculcure, of which
we get hints in Solon's laws (see below), in the direction of production for export of oil and wine
and away from grains, more effectively imported from the rich lands north of the Black Sea. A hint
of the sorts of social transformations chat can accompany such a shift is suggested by Marx's account
of sixteenth-century England: "In England, for example, the import of Netherlands commodities
in the sixteenth century and at the beginning of the seventeech century gave to the surplus of wool
which England had to provide in exchange an essential, decisive role. In order then to produce
more wool, cultivated land was transformed into sheep-walks, the system of small tenant-farmers
was broken up, etc., clearing of estates took place etc. Agriculcure thus lost the character of labour
for use value, and the exchange of its overflow lost the character of relative indifference in respect of
the inner construction of production" (1973: 257). "Exchange of overflow" is the way, I chink, Marx
would characterize Hesiod's tentative advice about seafaring and trade.
Hesiod lived in a world of barter, where values were measured directly, one sort
of good against another. In such a world there were practical limits 38 to the
accumulation of wealth as Hesiod envisions it, in kind, and though debt was a
serious matter among Hesiod's farmers, there were limits to that too. When wealth
began to be measured in the compact and imperishable medium of silver, these
limits were removed. The wealthy could store up all the silver they could amass
for as long as they liked, and it became both easier and more disastrous for the
poor to borrow. The change from barter widened the gap between the rich and
the poor. (1956: 82)39
The key element he points to is that wealth in the course of the seventh
century became less the symbolic capital of numerous dependents and barns
full of agricultural surplus and increasingly capital in the "money-form,"
even if that form did not for a significant period assume the form of coinage.
Rather than positing a simple, homogeneous hostility on the part of the
ruling class to the money-form or specifically to coinage, as does Kurke
(1999), we need to recognize with Andrewes that it was primarily the ruling
class that benefited from this shift, this structural disappearance oflimits on
individual wealth. Indeed, Schaps, without specifically repudiating Kurke's
analysis, echoes von Reden (1995: passim and 1997: 161-76) in stressing the
degree to which coinage would have been congenial to aristocratic values
of "reciprocity both in gift giving and in hospitality ... Coins could be
subsumed into a preexisting worldview in which giving and taking were
essential ways of defining and reinforcing the social order, ways that also
offered a means of moving up or down within the social order" (2004: rn8).
At the same time, as the ambiguity of Schaps's final phrase suggests and his
subsequent discussion illustrates at length, it is also true that growth of the
money-form introduced a threatening set of economic, social, political, and
even metaphysical elements into the world of seventh- and sixth-century
Greece.
We have already noted in another connection Redfield's argument that
Odysseus as "the economic man ... does a kind of cost-benefit analysis
of everything, weighing present expenditure against hoped-for utilities"
(1983: 228). Odysseus' articulation of the fact that returning home with
more wealth will render him "more respected and lovable to all men"
38 As Murray puts it (1990: 4): "Agricultural surplus is the primary form of surplus; and {as we all
know) it is problematic because it cannot be accumulated without limit, and because its value can be
realized only through its employment within a relatively briefperiod" (my emphasis).
39 Seaford points to a notable if exceptional anticipation of this storage function of the money-form:
"there is evidence for precious metal as a store of value in the passage in which Odysseus is said to
have gathered possessions on his journeys, 'gold and bronze and much-worked iron', that would
feed one man after another to the tenth generation" (2004: 89, his emphasis, c£ Od. 14.323-5).
(11.358-60) evokes for Redfield the sort of middle-class upward mobil-

ity articulated in Hesiod: "Excellence/success (arete) and renown (kudos)
attend upon wealth" (WD 313). With the option now of unlimited accu-
mulation of wealth in non-agricultural surpluses, a social hierarchy which
the aristocracy desperately sought to base on birth (and implicitly on land-
ownership) was subjected to a potentially frightening new vulnerability.
Alcaeus bitterly endorses a Spartan's complaint:
For they say indeed that once upon a time Aristodamos

Spoke in Sparta a saying not silly:
"Money/wealth (khremata) makes a man,
And no poor man is noble (eslos) or held in honor."
(360 C)40
So too Theognis sarcastically addresses Wealth as a divinity:
0 Wealth, most beautiful and most desirable of all the gods,

With you even one who is base (kakos) becomes noble (esthlos).
(m7-8 W)
The collection surviving under his name 41 is full of bitter laments at the
effect of wealth in confusing a social hierarchy based on noble birth, most
notoriously in the invocation of a kind of "miscegenation" arising from the
power of wealth:
In the case of rams and asses and horses, Kyrnos, we seek

The well-horn (eugeneas), and one wants them to mount females
From those that are noble/good (agathon). But a noble (esthlos) man has
no qualms about
Marrying a base (kaken) woman horn of a base (kakou) father,
If she gives him lots of money,
Nor does a woman spurn being the bedfellow of a base (kakou) man -
Who's rich: on the contrary, she wants wealth rather than a noble
(agathou) husband.
Money is what they honor: both the noble (esthlos) marries a wife horn
from a base (kakou) man
And the base (kakos) fellow marries a nohle's daughter: wealth mixes up
breeding.
So then don't be surprised, son of Polypais, that the breeding of the citizens
Is being muddied: for what is noble (esthla) is being mixed with what's
base (kaka). (183-92 W)
40 Hodkinson (2000: 2 and 77) emphasizes chat Alcaeus is quoting a Spartan and argues chat the
general greed for wealth was especially associated with Sparta in this period. The odd-looking form
eslos is Lesbian dialect for esthlos ("good"/"noble").
41 For the problems of dating and evaluating chis corpus see the introduction of Figueira and Nagy
1985.
It is noteworthy that Theognis here indicts not just the upward mobility
of the kakoi, but the readiness of agathoi/esthloi to marry wealth regardless
of "bloodlines."
Not only is the social hierarchy (reflected in the relentlessly repeated
opposition of the class terms agathos/esthlos vs. kakos) 42 threatened by the
accumulation of great wealth in fewer hands: our earliest reference to
the political institution of tyranny is also the earliest post-Homeric use
of the compound polykhrysos = "[possessing] abundant gold," which in
Homer characterized Mycenae as the home of the wealthiest basileus,
Agamemnon (II. 7.180, 11.46; Od. 3.304). Archilochus, more or less firmly
dated to the "middle third of the seventh century" (Jacoby 1941: 101) and
thus perhaps only a couple of decades after Hesiod, offers in one of his
poems a character who proclaims:
Not for me is there any concern about Gyges with all his gold (polykhrysos),
Neither has envy ever seized me, nor am I angry at
The deeds of the gods, and I don't ask for a big ryranny.
For it's a thing far from my eyes. (19 W)
Striking in the emphatic denials is the assumption that envy of tyranny,

resentment of it, and desire for it would be the expected responses. More-
over, pace I. Morris (1996: 35), 43 Archilochus does not seem to me to be a
good candidate for expressing a "middling" ideology, if by that we mean
an aristocrat who embraces a modest lifestyle. Archilochus' speaker here
(Charon the carpenter according Aristotle Rhet. 3.1418b) insists that he
comes from a totally different social, economic, and political place. To
judge by Alcaeus and Theognis, it is class-conscious aristocrats who resent,
envy, and desire tyranny. 44 In any case they attest to the fact that Greek
tyrants are most likely to arise from their own warring aristocratic factions.
Thus, for example, Alcaeus (129 C) denounces Pittakos 45 for first having
42 Though, as acknowledged earlier, gender oppression is not our focus, nonetheless I cannot resist
pointing out that Theognis' terminology does not allow for a female (animal or human) to be herself
esth/2 or agatM, while a female designated as kak2n requires the explanatory masculine kakou, i.e.,
born of a base father. Appropriate females are only those whose fathers are agathoilesthloi.
4l I. Morris cites first the two usual fragments in the version of Archilochus as "anti-Homeric," the
casting off of a shield and the celebration of the short, bow-legged soldier (5 and II4 W). For a just
critique of this diche see Russo (1974) and Seidensticker (1978). On the same page Morris goes on
to cite the Gyges fragment.
44 Irwin (2005a: 244) nicely states the contradictory relationship: "The tyrant is both the epitome and
travesty of aristocratic values: supreme aristocrat, hero and victor in the struggles of aristocratic
factionalism, and the subverter of aristocratic values in his distribution to the d2mos of aristocratic
privilege and status ... in order to achieve that end" (her emphasis).
45 Gomme (1957: 257) disputed Page's argument (1959: 169-79) that Pittakos must have been an
aristocrat despite Alcaeus's insults aimed at his paternity: "he was probably avryp Tc3v aa-rc3v, µEao,
rroAiT1),, like Aristogeiton (Thuc. VI. 54.2)." But then Gomme assumes this is true of Solon, which
sworn oaths with Alcaeus and his companions (hetairon 16) and then having
seized the tyranny himself. Theognis, in lines full of self-serving contradic-
tions, asserts that the noble (agathoi) have never destroyed a city, but sees
tyranny-literally "one-man rule" (mounarkhoz) - coming as a consequence
of the wickedness of the "leaders" (hegemones) of the demos, who realisti-
cally can only be fellow aristocrats (cf. Nagy 1983: 84). Indeed, he seems to
acknowledge this complicity in calling the prospective monarch "the one
who will set straight/ chastise our wicked hybris" :46
Kyrnos, this city is pregnant, and I fear lest it give birth to a man
Who will be chastizer/straightener (euthuntera) of our wicked hybris.
For these citizens (astoi) are still sensible (saophrones), 47 but the leaders
Have turned themselves so as to fall into abundant wickedness.
No city, ever, Kyrnos, has its noble men (agathoi) destroyed:
But whenever it pleases the base (kakoisin) to engage in hybris,
They both destroy the people (demon) and give judgments (dikas) to the
unjust (adikois)
For the sake of their own profits (oikeion kerdeon) and power,
Don't hope that city will long remain unshaken,
Even if now it rests in abundant peacefulness,48
Whenever these things become dear to base men (kakoisi):
Profits that come conjoined with damage to the demos,
For from these arise rival factions (stasies) and civil slaughters of men
And one-man rulers (mounarkhoi): may they never be pleasing to this
city! (39-52)
This fascinating account of the causes of tyranny on the one hand confirms
Van Wees's comparison of archaic-period aristocrats to Mafia bosses (1999a,
2000b), who self-righteously proclaim their own honor while denouncing
the shamelessness of their rivals - even as they all seek wealth by any and
does not seem to be the case. On the status of Pittakos as elected tyrant see Romer 1982 and Irwin
2005a.
4'> Fisher (1992: 208 with notes) cautiously cites West's argument (1974: 68) chat these lines ought to be
dated "before (though perhaps very shortly before) the rule ofTheagenes, not later than the 63os."
Citing lines 39-40, West comments: "It needed no special foresight to chink in terms of a tyrant,
after the recent examples of Cypselus at Corinth and Orthagoras at Sicyon" (ibid.). Fisher proceeds
to cite as well Figueira/Nagy who predictably see in the text no concrete historical data. In general
I was struck by how little interest in tyranny as such emerges from Fisher's account of hybris in
archaic poetry (1992: 201-46), where so many of the instances refer - however vaguely - to abusive
behavior by aristocrats.
47 Knox has pointed out that for conservative Greeks sophrosyni and its cognates refer to proper
subordination to one's "betters" (1961: 17).
48 The word translated as "peacefulness" (Msykhia) for later aristocrats like Pindar becomes a virtual
political slogan for a settled, hierarchical aristocratic world where everyone knows and keeps his
place (c£ J. H. Finley 1955: 168-71).
all means. At the same time, as we will see with Solon, the blame for
tyranny is placed squarely on this lust for wealth - summed up in the term
hybris manifested in violations of dike - and its disastrous consequences
for the demos, which here seems inescapably to refer to all non-aristocrats
(Donlan 1970). The very comprehensiveness of the terms hybris and kerdea
are far from the specificity of coinage, but they do suggest that the same
people who are committed to grasping greed (kerdeon) and to corrupt
exploitation of their judicial role (dikas) are the fundamental cause of
tyranny. Moreover, the emphasis on hybris and the allusion to corrupt,
profit-motivated judgments (dikas) suggests we are not far from the world
of Hesiod. It seems plausible, following the analysis of Andrewes, that the
shift to the money-form of wealth accelerated the rapacity of the aristocrats,
but its essential thrust was by no means confined to one form of wealth.
Our earliest sources, then, clearly associate the phenomenon of tyranny
with the exploitation of one class by another: the rapacity of the wicked
causes damage to the demos.
It also seems plausible that the ability to accumulate extensive financial
resources - implicit at least in the association of Gyges' tyranny with lots of
gold- played an important role in the rise of at least some tyrants, who seem
to have found access to considerably more wealth than their aristocratic
rivals (Boersma 1970: 13). 49 Herodotus' account of the three attempts of
Peisistratos to seize the tyranny of Athens suggests the inadequacy of the
older system of building aristocratic alliances and the decisive role of major
wealth in acquiring the mercenary power necessary to impose himself on
the polis (Schaps 2004: 124-27, Herodotus 1.59-64). 50 As noted above,
Herodotus tells us that Peisistratos' first two attempts as tyranny failed: the
third time "he fortified his tyranny with many mercenaries5 1 and revenues,
49 This seems to be the main thesis of Cawkwell's analysis of tytanny. His article ends (1995: 86): "The
new and dominant element in Greek society in the seventh and sixth centuries was the emergence
of rich men ... The people did not come into it. The age was the age of dynasts. Thucydides was
right [i.e., 'the early tyrants were essentially rich men,' cf. 83], and Aristotle and the fourth century
generally and all his latter-day satellites wrong." I am struck by the harsh, dogmatic tone of this
otherwise subtle and sophisticated historian, who has chosen in this polemical text to ignore the
significant ancient evidence of where in general this dramatic increase in wealth came from. The
decisive remains of Solon's poetry attest eloquently that the people did "come into it" as the victims
of unrestrained exploitation, and even Theognis - never to be accused of sentimental populism -
testifies clearly that the greed of the leaders damages the demos.
5° See my final chapter for Connor's arguments that Peisistratos was welcomed by the Athenians in his
first two attempts.
51 Lavelle (1992: 92) puts together a pretty compelling circumstantial case to conclude, "Thracians,
Skythians, or any foreign mercenary bodyguards were impossibly expensive, militarily ineffective, and
both socially and politically undesirable." I find less persuasive his effort to paint the Peisistratids as
financially strapped. This thesis requires declaring "Peisistratos is credited with a relatively modest
derived partly from Attik~ and partly from the river Strymon" (1.64, cf.
Ath. Pol. 15.2). Earlier in the same passage Herodotus mentions generous
contributions from Thebans and military support from Argos and both
financial and military support from Naxos, all of which suggests, with much
other evidence, that tyranny had some characteristics of a consolidated
political movement, by no means seen as inimical to the interests of all the
rich men of Greece. At the same time, focusing solely or primarily on the
wealth of tyrants as the source of tyranny (e.g., Cawkwell 1995) entails a
narrow focus on an important element in the meam by which some tyrants
achieved power without examining the phenomenon of tyranny as a whole
in terms of what we can reasonably surmise about the extraction of wealth
in this period and how it was distributed or accumulated.
In addition to the social and political threats associated with the money-
form, it has plausibly been associated as well with the quest of the so-called
pre-Socratic philosophers for some underlying reality (the unlimited, water,
fire, atoms, etc.) from which the multiplicity of experiential life may be
derived. Seaford (2004: 175-291) has recently elaborated on this association
which, to the best of my knowledge, was first proposed by George Thomson
(1961: 300-1, cf. Seaford 2004: 188) relying directly on Marx's analysis of the
money-form.52 Seaford well quotes Herakleitos: "all things are an exchange
for fire and fire for all things, like goods for gold and gold for goods"
(D-K B90, Seaford 2004: 12 and 94). While full examination of this thesis
would take us very far from exploring class conflict in the Archaic Age,
this development, rightly associated by Havelock (1963: 197-214) with
the growing gap in worldviews between the literate ruling class and the
still primarily illiterate majority, does have ramifications for the play of
ideologies in this period. The anthropomorphic divinities, which are both
the basis of the unifying civic religion and the ultimate source of the
aristocracy's claim to be in some sense literally descended from the gods
(cf. Irwin 2005b), are implicitly and in some cases even explicitly dismissed
by the most intellectually advanced elements in the ruling class itself. Thus
for example, Xenophanes declares:
building program after all and the money could recirculate in taxes" (90). He cites Boersma (1970)
in support, but see further discussion below. H. W. Parke's presumably dated overview (1933: 7-13)
of mercenaries in the service of tyrants still pulls together a general picture that cites what evidence
there is and stresses the overall assumption that tyrants had lots of money.
52 In an earlier Marxist account of "The Character of Early Greek Science" (Farrington 1947: 1-27),
not money but early human technology is offered as the inspiration of early accounts of natural
phenomena. Farrington endorses Cherniss's conclusion that there is in the earliest thinkers "no
evidence of material monism at all" (Farrington 1947: 4, cf. Cherniss 1935).
s
Solon account ofthe crisis 221
Both Homer and Hesiod attribute to the gods all things

That among human beings are objects of shame and blame:
Stealing and committing adultery as well as deceiving one another.
(D-KBn)
Obviously if the gods don't commit adultery, they cannot be the sources
of the human aristocracy or the comforting eponymous ancestors of whole
ethnic groups, as spelled out, for example, in the Hesiodic Catalogue of
Women 53 (West 1985: 8-11). Xenophanes' monotheism (D-K B23-26) may
be on one level idiosyncratic, but on another it is symptomatic of a
whole intellectual trend culminating in Democritos, Plato, and Epicu-
rus, in which the religion of the masses - and with it the pretensions of a
ruling class to be literally descendants of the gods - is assumed to be false
and utterly inadequate to account for the "realities" of the world. But more
immediately it undermined for the most literate segment of society any
grounds for faith in their own literal superiority through descent.
SOLON'S ACCOUNT OF THE CRISIS
A more subtle consequence of this new ruling-class sophistication, which

anticipates Plato's strategy, is to insist on traditional piety while absolving
divinity of ultimate responsibility for human sufferings - the antithesis
of Achilles' vision of the two jars of Zeus and Hesiod's vision of Zeus's
all-determining power (especially WD 3-7).54 Thus Solon begins his most
53 Jonathan Hall alludes (without a specific reference) to the argument that this catalogue should be
dated to the mid-sixth century (2007: 274). Frost (1996) argues that it was a specific response to the
emergence of a written text of Homer intended to supplement the genealogical claims of aristocrats
who lacked a Homeric warrant. He relates it to the ingenious services of Akousilaos and Pherekydes
in providing Miltiades and Peisistratos with heroic ancesrry (1996: 87). See also Irwin 20056 and
Mast's useful overview (2006: xlvii-lix).
54 Irwin (2005a: 113-15), following Jaeger (1966), stresses a continuity with Zeus's speech at the outset
of the Odyssey insisting on human responsibility for sufferings hyper moron. While it is legitimate
to stress the motif of human responsibility via its anthithesis - human folly (atasthalia) - in the
Odyssey, this approach simply ignores the complexity of this issue in the poem: Athena immediately
challenges the simplicity of Zeus' claim by pointing to Odysseus's sufferings as not a consequence
of folly. I have tried above to show how the two strands of explanation are intertwined throughout
the text of the poem. Indeed Solon's fragments suggest his own vacillation between a passionate
(political?) insistence on ultimate divine justice (e.g., 13 W) and his perhaps later less public
meditations on human ignorance of the divine and even his acknowledgment of the sheer arbitrary
injustice of divine dispensations: "On all actions there lies danger, nor does one know/ when he
begins something, how it is going to hold up./ But one man, trying to act well, without foreseeing
it,/ falls into great and grim disaster/ while to another who is acting badly the god gives in every
matter/ excellent good fortune, a liberation from his foolishness" (13.65-70 W). I wrote this before
reading J. D. Lewis's more philosophically oriented attempt to connect Solon with Xenophanes and
the pre-Socratics in general (2006: 14-18). I certainly agree with his emphasis on Solon's focus on
human responsibility and his bracketing out of direct divine engagement in human affairs. I am
categorical account of the crisis of Athens by absolving the gods, making
pious obeisance to the protective divinity of the city, and then insisting on
human responsibility:
Our city will never be destroyed in accordance with Zeus's
Decree and the minds of the immortal gods:
For such is the great-spirited guardian - mighty in her paternity -
Pallas Athena, who holds her hands over it.
The citizens themselves (autoi) wish to destroy the great city
Through their mindless acts, trusting wealth (khremasi),
And the unjust (adikos) minds of the leaders of the demos, for whom,
ready at hand,
Awaits suffering many pains arising from their great hybris:
For they know not how to check their [desire for] surfeit (koron}5 5 nor
arrange the present
Festivities of their banquet in peacefulness (hesykhiei) ...
(4.1-10 W)
The similarities to the language of Theognis are striking:56 here too those
obsessed with wealth threaten the destruction of the polis; they are des-
ignated as the leaders of the demos - here, as in Theognis, clearly not
proto-democrats (Nagy 1983: 84-85) - they stand accused of injustice, and
their luxurious lifestyle is associated with a valorization of "peacefulness"
(hesykhia). Striking too, in light of Andrewes's focus on the unlimited char-
acter of money wealth, is the implication that their quest for surfeit of
less persuaded by Lewis's arguments for attributing a "cosmic" (surely not "cosmetic") view of the
polis to Solon, and his distinctly odd assumption that Solon's sense of his audience is irrelevant to
understanding his poems (5, c£ 23).
55 Irwin (2005a: 207-20) devotes many pages to arguing for the originality of Solon's use of koros
here. Helm (1993: 8--10) rightly emphasizes the key shift in Solon from the fact of "satiety" to the
"satisfaction of desire rather than of need" (8), "the subjective sense of desire for too much" (9).
J. D. Lewis (2006: 30-31) closely follows Helm, but categorically dismisses any interest in actual
political or economic developments in the period (2006: 1-3). He is accordingly more interested
in the psychology and epistemology of the processes that lead to improper behavior in the polis
(30-41). What I take to be original in Solon's usage is ironizing the concept of an implied natural
limit in relation to what he elsewhere underlines is inherently limitless, namely, the desire for wealth,
a relatively new phenomenon, which I would relate, following Andrewes, to the shift from a barter
economy with its natural limits to wealth to an economy increasingly based on the money-form,
where natural limit disappears. Irwin 2006 offers a compelling analysis of the subtle differences in
wording between passages where Theognis and Solon seem to overlap but in fact display radically
different political assumptions about the responsibility for hybris and the sources of at;.
56 Gentili (1988: 62) also calls attention to the similarity of the language while rightly underlining
the different political implications in their different contexts. More elaborately Nagy (Figueira and
Nagy 1985: 42-46) apropos of the Theognidea points to the "generalized mode in which social strife
is described by the poetry" and illustrates his point with citations of Solon and Mimnermos. C£
Nagy 1983: 83: "The situation is generalized, even universalized." But, as pointed out in the previous
note, Irwin (2006) succeeds in making important distinctions between similar sounding lines in
Solon and Theognis.
s
wealth (koros) is unrestrained, a point Solon states more categorically in

another poem:
Of wealth there is established no declared limit (terma) for men:
For those of us who now have the greatest livelihood (bion)
Strive eagerly for twice as much: 57 who could satisfy (koreseien) all of them?
( 13.7 1-73 W)
Subsequently Solon speaks of their growing wealthy through "unjust

deeds," i.e., wholesale theft; like Hesiod 58 he allegorizes Dike and like
Theognis points to the threat of factional strife (stasis) within the commu-
nity, war, and the deaths of many. What is new and specific59 compared
to Theognis are the references to poor citizens being sold abroad as slaves
(4.23-25) and, in his subsequent defense of his actions (36 W), the claim
that he freed the enslaved earth by removing horoi (normally "bound-
ary stones"), 60 and restored to Athens citizens who had been sold abroad
57 Irwin (2006: 58) translates diplasion speudousi as "show twice as much zeal," taking diplasion adver-
bially rather than as the direct object of an elliptic ekhein.
58 Irwin (2005a: 155----97) examines in excruciating detail the relationship of Solon to Hesiod, relying
heavily on Jaeger (1966) and to a lesser degree on Solmsen (1949) and Adkins (1985).
59 Irwin 2005a: 229-37 rightly stresses the ways in which Solon's rooting his comments in a concretely
Athenian context counters the "universalizing" discourse emphasized by Nagy 1983 at the same
time that Solon subverts the terminology of that discourse. I must say I find irksome J. D. Lewis's
universalizing gesture apropos of Solon 4 when he declares: "It is striking how individualized the
connections are between the polis and each one ofus (2006: 43, my emphasis); c£ "To demonstrate
our Hawed understanding of ourselves, Solon continues ... " (44, my emphasis).
60 The problem with horoi arises from the fact that in early Greek the term refers only to boundary
stones and only in the fourth century is it attested as a marker indicating a debt-lien on land. The
attempt by E. Harris (1997) to see the reference to horoi here as purely metaphorical, as in Solon's
claim that "I stood like a boundary stone in the disputed space of these [two opposed groups]"
(37.9-10 W), and the "shaking off of burdens'' (seisakhtheia) as only a metaphor for ending civil
conflict ignores not only the clear implications of the plural number of horoi, but the emphasis of
the whole context:
She would bear witness with me in the judgment of Time,
The greatest mother of the Olympian divinities,
The best mother, black Earth (Ge), from whom I once
Raised up the boundary markers, planted in plenty of places,
She, in the past serving as a slave, now free. (36.3-7 W)
The emphatic alliteration (p_ollakMi p__ep}gotas, p_rosthen) and the elaborated image of the goddess Ge,
followed immediately by evoking the literal enslavement ofAthenian citizens confirm to me that here
horoi have their literal sense. Osborne (2009: 210) seems, however, to have anticipated the problem
addressed by Harriss argument, albeit in a more cautious form: "such markers [of mortgaged
property], which survive in considerable numbers from the late fifth and fourth centuries BC, are
not archaeologically attested at an earlier date, and, although there is no reason to believe that land
could not be used as security on a loan in the seventh century BC, the idea that removing boundary
markers c. 600 BC meant one-off clearance of debt is improbable." Jonathan Hall records another
option: "Since Solon has already accused the leaders of the demos of seizing sacred and public
property, it could be that the horoi marked ruling class appropriation of common land, akin to the
and others "who had fled/were exiled under constraining poverty/want
(khreious)" (36.8-15 W).
While the details of the crisis Solon describes are fraught with endless
scholarly debate and many questionable theories, I am amazed that anyone
reading these fragments could conclude: "Neither the evidence of Solon's
poetry nor the results of archaeological surveys 6' support the view that
economic factors brought on the stasis Solon sought to end" (E. Harris 2002:
427, my emphasis). It is a radically narrow conception of the "economic"
that can thus dismiss the heavy emphasis on the enslavement of the poor
by the greedy rich and a threatening civil war arising from the avarice
of the community's leaders. After reading through a number of tightly
argued, mutually exclusive theories of the precise nature of the Solonian
crisis (e.g., E. Harris 2002, Rihll 1991, Van Wees 2006c), I conclude that
the available evidence is inadequate to account for the specific mechanisms
by which the rich were oppressing the poor. What I think is clear from the
parallels to Theognis and Alcaeus is that those who controlled the best land
were somehow dramatically escalating their economic position to such a
degree that the rest of the community were ready to resort to open conflict
and welcomed any leader who offered to restrain these depredations and
improve the lot of the poor. Not only later testimony (Ath.Pol., Plutarch)
but Solon himself makes very clear that a key demand of the poor was a
redistribution of the land. Defending his actions, he declares:
... for what I said [I would do], I accomplished with the gods' [help],
But I did other things not senselessly, nor was it pleasing to me with a
tyrant's
Violence to ... , nor that the nobles (esthlous) have an equal portion
With the base (kakoisin) of the rich soil of the fatherland. (34.6----9)
land enclosures in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, and that Solon restored such land to
the community" (2007: 195). This seems to accord with Gernet's view (which he attributes ulcimately
to Fusee! de Coulanges) that horoi marked the 'eminent domain of the eupatrids' (1981: 305), "the
symbolism of 'eupatrid ownership'" (309). Stanton 1990: 56 anticipates Ste. Croix's account (200,i:
n5) which notes the date of stone horoi but suggests wooden ones in the seventh and sixth century.
Ober (1995b: 103), to illustrate the impossibility of what precisely a pre-Solonian horos signified,
throws out the "mere speculation" that "horoi had marked areas of Attica in which the movements
of Athenians of a certain status (e.g., hektemoroi, the enslaved, or non-Eupatrids) were restricted
(e.g. areas they could not leave or enter)." A note credits Adcock (196,i: 33-34) with the possibility
the horoi were not "of stone indelibly inscribed."
61 E. Harris here alludes especially to another article by Foxhall (see below) in which she establishes
that there was no shortage of land in Attica, overpopulation, or culcivation of marginal land in this
period - all elements cited in various attempts to explain the crisis. At the same time, I certainly do
not read her article as dismissing economic issues in the Solonian Crisis.
s
Solon's use of the same class-laden terminology found in Theognis (i.e.,
kakoi/esthloi) 62 confirms other evidence in his fragments that in many
respects he shared the value-system of the aristocracy (cf. Gentili 1988:
159-60). Indeed, he speaks of money/wealth versus alleged innate superi-
ority (arete) in terms almost exactly like those of Alcaeus and Theognis
in their denunciations of a threatening social mobility associated with
wealth/money:
For many kakoi are rich, and many agathoi are poor.
But we shall not exchange with these [toutois, sc. kakois]
Their wealth for our excellence (aretes), since the one is fixed forever,
But wealth (khremata) one mortal has at one time and another at
another. (15 W)
Other fragments (23?, 24.5, 25, 26?) attest to Solon's embracing the protocols
of aristocratic pederasty. 63 Yet any accounting of the Solonian Crisis or
of tyranny as a widespread phenomenon that ignores the centrality of
farmland seems to me far off the mark. It is clear from Solon's own comment
that, despite his radical relief of the burden of debt and debt-slavery, he did
nothing to redistribute the lands of his fellow aristocrats. At the same time,
the dramatic implications of the slow movement toward the money-form
in the Archaic Period illustrate again how changes - not to be sure in the
mode of production, but in the mechanisms by which the socially created
surplus is accumulated and distributed - have enormous consequences of
which the actors of history become only belatedly conscious. Nonetheless,
this technological change in the form of wealth cannot in itself explain the
momentous development of tyranny during this period.
62 It is symptomatic ofJ. D. Lewis's refusal of economic and politicial analysis in favor of psychologizing
conflict (see especially (2006: 45-46) that he translates the last lines of fragment 34 "nor to subject
my rich fatherland to an equality of shares beween good and evil men" (2006: 36). "We should take
Solon at his word: he saw both the agathoi and kakoi not as organized classes, but rather as akin to
a pack of hounds, each one of them expecting loot, forming gangs for the moment only, against
whom he makes a defense 'in all directions.' More deeply, Solon's exhortations depend upon the
psychic factors that motivate each man to act as he does rather than upon the legal institutional or class
structures that men might create in acting as they do" {45-46, my emphasis). Without denying that
Solon focuses on the mentality of those who threaten social order, I would argue that his attempt
to solve the crisis by making laws seems almost gratuitous if this purely individual psychological
analysis is the real essence of his view of Athens' troubles. Lewis, to be sure, sees Solon's laws as
following naturally from his psychology {46), even as later he defines tyranny as due to "noetic
failures" (2006: nr).
63 These features do not in my view invalidate Irwin's attempt to bring out the ways in which Solon's
texts are still "transgressive" (2006). Balot begins his discussion of Solon by noting the sharp split
between those who see Solon as "a forward-looking democrat or as a conservative elitist intent on
preserving aristocratic privileges'' (2001: 73). Balot himself seems to have no interest in classes as such,
and while underlining Solon's heavy indictment of the greed of the rich, continually emphasizes his
"neutrality.'' See below.
TYRANNY, DJKP,, AND HYBRIS
McGlew begins his fascinating book-length treatment of tyranny with

an elaborate bracketing out of the relevance of a class analysis of the
phenomenon. McGlew focuses on a very real historiographic dilemma
that is, as noted at the outset of this chapter, broadly true of the whole
Archaic Period, but especially acute in the case of tyranny: since the whole
period is prehistoric in the sense that we have no historically self-conscious
contemporary accounts and are confined to poetic fragments, ambiguous
archaeological data, and ideologically distorted accounts from later peri-
ods, attempts by modern historians to retrieve what "really" happened are
inherently speculative. 64 In assessing the historical record of the tyrants,
the fact that the very concept of tyranny became a key ideological compo-
nent in the fifth- and fourth-century self-definition of Athenian democrats
(and Athens is of course overwhelmingly our greatest source of literary
accounts of the phenomenon) means that we have a wealth of uniquely
"mythologized" data on tyranny - precisely the problem I raised apropos
of Kurke's use of Herodotus. After poring over the available data and the
major modern accounts of tyranny for a long time, McGlew describes his
own historiographic crisis: "I have come to doubt whether the distinc-
tion between the 'real' and the 'ideological' tyrant ... does justice either
to the interpretations and uses of tyranny in the fifth century or to its
appearance and collapse in archaic Greece" (1993: 2). He goes on to com-
plain that "this bifurcation of tyranny into reality and ideology ... still
dominates our understanding of archaic Greece" (4) and to illustrate the
point summarizes what he sees as the misguided dismissal of the "political
language and self-presentation" of the tyrants as having "had little to do
with their common, but hardly universal, political achievement: displac-
ing political power from an aristocratic ruling class (to which the tyrants
64 The scholarship for rhis period is laced wirh such comments as, "we can rarely have any confidence
rhat we can strip away invention from tradition or distinguish genuine from invented elements
within a tradition" (Osborne 1996: 189, c£ 2009: 4). I was struck by rhe similarity of Blok's
statement of the dilemma (2000: 34) - though she is only interested in Peisistratos - to McGlew's,
which she apparently had not seen: "But if we observe rhe concerns of the later written testimonies,
and conclude rhat they shed more light on the mentality of the fifrh and fourth century than on
rhe events of the sixrh, how to approach Peisistratid rule? It is certainly possible to analyse [sic]
rhe later accounts in terms of rheir contemporary concerns, to draw some distinctions between rhe
gist of oral traditions (in which specific patterns of repetition may be an important lead) and rhe
impact of democratic judgments, and rhus attempt to extract somerhing of the original core out of
rhe accumulated mixture. But it is impossible to do so without being to some extent arbitrary, be it
in judging rhe material under discussion or in delineating the tyranny it portrays." Though I was
struck again and again by Blok's learning and intelligent insights, I was also struck by her apparent
lack of interest in rhe evidence rhat focused on rhe economic causes of tyranny.
Tyranny, dik~, and hybris 227
belonged) and toward citizens" (4, my emphasis). In this context, McGlew
complains of "pre-Althusserian Marxists" (he names none) who have "split
[tyranny] asymmetrically into infrastructure and superstructure. Its rise
and existence are explained in terms of the political, social, and economic
interests of individuals and social groups, while the language with which
tyranny was presented and understood is treated as logically and perhaps
chronologically secondary: as if language did nothing more than ratio-
nalize the extraordinary power of the tyrant after the fact" (3). McGlew's
own approach is to take very seriously the "self-representation of the early
tyrants and the attacks made on them by their enemies" and the ensuing
"interaction between tyrants and the poleis that were quickly learning to
challenge them" (5).
I focus at length on McGlew's posing of the historiographic problem
both because in many respects I found his book compelling and enlighten-
ing reading and because in a particularly sophisticated way it succeeds in
both alluding to and dismissing the very possibility of an analysis of tyranny
in terms of class struggle. Words, ideas, discourse are indeed powerful his-
torical forces, not merely "secondary" phenomena. As noted earlier, this is
precisely the realm in which, according to Marx, people "fight out" class
struggle; and it is a disservice to Marx, not to mention Althusser - either
by self-proclaimed Marxists or those who dismiss Marx - to suggest that
looking for evidence of "political, social, and economic interests of indi-
viduals and social groups" is somehow incompatible with taking discourse
very seriously. As Marx himself put it at a very early age, "the weapon of
criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons, material force
must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material
force as soon as it has gripped the masses" (MECW 3.182, my emphasis). The
"theoretical" critique of aristocracy adumbrated in the poems of Homer and
explicit in varying degrees in the poems of Hesiod, Archilochus, Semonides,
Tyrtaeus, Phocylides, Solon, and Xenophanes (Donlan 1973 [1999]), when
combined with what McGlew posits as the tyrants' "self-presentation,"
clearly became a criticism by weapons in many Greek poleis of the seventh
and sixth centuries. There is also an inescapable circularity in McGlew's
approach. While scornfully dismissing a separation of the real and the
ideological, he himself assumes that by sifting through the mythologized
accounts of tyranny he can arrive at the tyrants' own, actual, real "political
language and self-representation." Indeed, what makes his work compelling
is how convincingly he reconstructs these neglected elements of tyranny.
Central to this inherently speculative reconstruction are the the-
matics of dike and hybris, an emphasis which our brief citations of
contemporary evidence suggest is entirely appropriate. 65 These two Greek
words, as we have already noted in Hesiod, are so laden with historically
shifting connotations that translating them as simply "justice" and "out-
rageous" or "violent" behavior seems hopelessly inadequate. Hybris is the
word Achilles uses to sum up the behavior of "King" Agamemnon that
initially merits in his mind killing the king, and on second thoughts com-
pletely withdrawing his own services from a community that tolerates such
a leader. 66 In throwing down the scepter in token of his withdrawal, he
describes its appropriate function as "preserving the themistes of Zeus," the
traditional norms of acceptable behavior viewed as divinely sanctioned -
norms violated by Agamemnon's theft of his prize. Thus from its first
occurrence hybris is associated with a violation of traditionally acceptable
norms even if the word dike is absent. Dike, as we have noted, is absolutely
central to Hesiod's denunciation of the basilees of his own society as it is to
his idealization of the monarch of the cosmos as the ultimate guarantor of
the triumph of dike. 6 7
Perhaps the most mythologized account of the origin of tyranny but
paradoxically the most suggestive of the tyrants' own rhetoric is Herodotus's
story of the origin of monarchy among the Medes in the figure of Deioces.
The desperation of the people for an honest and convincing dispensation of
dike becomes Deioces' vehicle for establishing himself as absolute monarch.
First he wins wide acclaim for his astute and compelling settling of disputes,
then withdraws his services from the community until the desperation of
the people leads them to accede to his demands for a bodyguard and fortress
65 As Osborne describes the basic context of the emergence of tyranny, the necessity of finding some
vehicle for "justice" is central: "Where there is bitter mutual mistrust, a long legacy of resentment,
and no traditional source of authority chat can summon cautious or sentimental conservatism to
its aid, the path to openly ignoring any rules is clear, and the only security comes from establishing
personal rule" (2009: 181).
66 This example fits especially well a definition of hybris noted earlier chat I recall hearing in a lecture
by Wade-Gery more than forty years ago, namely, "the violent disregard of another man's self-
respect." C£ Fisher's definition {1992: 1): "The serious assault on the honour of another, which is
likely to cause shame and lead to anger and attempts at revenge" (cited by I. Morris 1994c: 57).
Michelini {1978) nicely explores the language of hybris associated with plants, where it is closely
associated with overfeeding (see on Solon below). For poor peasants and women the term hybris is
more likely to imply physical abuse and shameless exploitation. Otanes in Herodotus' indictment
of tyranny alludes to violating women (3.80.5): despite the relative silence of archaic sources on
the sexual exploitation of women by aristocrats, the experience of other peasant societies makes
chis form of hybris by aristocrats all too plausible. Achenaeus's Deipnosophistai 6.258----59 preserves a
suggestive story from Erychrae (dated by Huxley 1966: 48 to "about 700 ac") ofoligarchs humiliating
the citizens and compelling daughters, wives, and sons to participate in "common gatherings" -
presumably their symposia.
67 For a very full discussion of the range of meanings of dike in Hesiod see Havelock 1978: 193-217.
Tyranny, dik~, and hybris 229
(Herodotus 1.96-101, cf. McGlew 1993: 81-83). McGlew, using such stories
and Aristotle, argues: "It seems likely that archaic tyrants used justice not
only as an argument for establishing their power but also as a program
for exercising it" (81, my emphasis). He illustrates this compellingly and at
length (see especially 60-74).
What is generally absent from McGlew's study is any serious exploration
of the sources of injustice or hybris. His own sources focus so frequently
on the abuses of the aristocracy that he cannot avoid passing references to
aristocrats (e.g., 65, 81, 89, 96, no, 126, and passim). For him apparently
this is an obvious but uninteresting side-effect of the phenomenon of
tyranny: his real interest - the major theme of his book - is the way in
which the very discourse of absolute power promulgated by the tyrants
provoked the polis not simply to repudiate tyranny but to arrogate to
itself this new discourse of sovereignty: "The rise of tyranny signaled the
demise of the simple aristocratic polis of archaic Greece (even when the
aristoi remained politically powerful); the elimination of the tyrant gave
the polis the political equipment to rule itself. Despite its violence and
spontaneity, the overthrow of tyranny was a politically creative moment.
What it created was the autocratic polis, in whose name citizens acted and to
whom they were accountable" (149). This is a stirring and in many respects
a convincing theme. 68 But McGlew's relentless focus on the abstract entity
of the polis mystifies what he acknowledges in passing in the section just
quoted: in most - I would say all - the post-tyranny cities about which we
have any credible data, 69 the "aristoi remained politically powerful." It is
at the same time highly plausible and very significant that the experience
of tyranny radically transformed the dynamics of class struggle within the
polis. But the constant invocation of the abstracted polis tout court gives
the highly misleading impression that tyranny eliminated meaningful class
differences in the polis. McGlew does not seem interested in exploring
how the experience of tyranny transformed class relations within the polis.
Moreover, there is again the unstated implication that the developments
in Athens, where alone we have some relevant data, can be generalized
68 This theme is adumbrated by Andrewes, especially in his account of Peisistratos: "Under this surface
the ground was being prepared for the democracy which was set up three years after the expulsion
of Hippias. The essential factor is the effect on the ordinary man of replacing aristocratic faction
by a stable, continuous and paternal government ... The patronage of the tyrants weakened the
dependence of the demos on any lesser patron" (1956: 114). This view of tyranny is scornfully
dismissed by G. Anderson (2005).
69 This includes - however briefly- the Athens in which Isagoras was able to bring about the exile of
the Alkmaionids and all their followers.
and a teleologically driven scholarly obsession with the emergence there of
democracy is represented as a general phenomenon. 70
As suggested above, a compelling account of the general nature of aris-
tocratic hybris in the Archaic Period is offered by Van Wees's elaboration of
the parallel between Greek aristocrats and the Mafia of nineteenth-century
Sicily and the contemporary United States (1999a, 2000b):
The Mafia analogy casts a bleak new light on the history of archaic Greece: it
helps us to make sense of the forms of oppression alluded to by ancient sources,
and to explain what caused the crises which led to coups d'etat by tyrants, all over
Greece, to calls for the redistribution ofland in Sparta, and to the reforms of Solon
in Athens. (1999a: I, my emphasis)
Adducing a wealth of references in Homer, Hesiod, and Solon, he argues
for "a general scramble to obtain land and other resources - as much
as possible and by any conceivable means, legitimate or illegitimate -
leading to increasing monopolization of resources in the hands of the
ruling class" (1999a: 11). The very precision of some of Solon's laws points,
he argues, to the range of aristocratic abuses of access to water, land, and
even manure (14-15). The highly abstract discourse of dike and hybris finds
its materialization in specific laws.
TYRANNY AND LAW
What specific policies can we attribute to Solon and the tyrants in general
and what are their implications for the class character of the phenomenon
of tyranny? The clear conclusion of entrenched skeptics like Blok and
Sancisi-Weerdenburg (2000) is "virtually nothing." They were anticipated
by Cawkwell, who declared (1995: 77): "To talk of 'policies' in all these
matters is to go far beyond what is known." Sancisi-Weerdenburg goes so
far as to suggest that nothing in the written accounts should be accepted
unless it is confirmed in the archaeological record (her favorite phrases are
"there is not a shred of evidence," "this remarkable lack of evidence," 83).
This, however, ignores the fundamental differences between these types of
"evidence" eloquently spelled out by Snodgrass (2006: 4-77). Moreover,
after acknowledging in a footnote the conclusion of Mieth (1993: 34) that
"building-inscriptions identifying the sponsor or initiator of the project
are not to be expected on archaic architecture" (2000: 81 n. 8), she goes
7° Jonathan Hall has a salutary discussion of how "we are sometimes tempted to endow earlier events
with a teleological inevitability" - especially in connection with the emergence of democracy (2007:
181). See Chapters 6 and 7 below.
Tyranny and law 231
on to conclude sarcastically: "In this absolute silence of the sources, we

might speculate that the tyrant and his sons were extremely modest (or
busy concealing their real purposes) and deliberately refrained from having
their names inscribed on monuments or statues. This possibility hardly
seems worth considering" (2000: 83). She proceeds to argue that
the whole cultural programme of Peisistratos and sons rests on a series of

hypotheses ... The main foundation for these hypotheses is the assumption that
we know exactly how tyranny worked in this period [my emphasis] ... What we do
know, however, is only how a century after these events Herodotus, Aristotle and
Thucydides thought [her emphasis] it worked ... That they were essentially correct
is nothing but a hypothesis, and, as I will argue, an implausible one. (84-85)
I think there are few scholars indeed so hardy as to claim that they "know
exactly how tyranny worked in this period;" but then not all hypotheses
are equal. As noted earlier, neither Blok nor Sancisi-Weerdenburg shows
the slightest interest in issues of class apart from alluding to typical aris-
tocratic behaviors, nor do they deign to look at tyranny as a widespread
phenomenon crying out for some meaningful, if tentative, general analysis.
A crude listing of items gleaned from various sources immediately sug-
gests the difficulty of sketching a valid general account that fits all known
tyrants,7 1 but may nonetheless be suggestive: fostering the rule of law,72
specifically anti-sumptuary laws, fostering the growth of state institutions
and citizen identification with the polis, ambitious building projects, col-
onization, cultural policies that entailed fostering public religious festivals
and more private monodic poetry.
A key element in McGlew's thesis as well is the role of laws 73 and
specifically of Solon's discourse of law (e.g., his Hesiodic championing of
Eunomia, 4.32-33 W), in empowering the "autocratic polis." The precise
content of Solon's term eunomia may be disputed, but in the context of
7' Pleket (1969: 19) begins his account of tyranny by quoting Edouard Will, "La tyrannis est une
meme reponse donnee en divers lieux ade memes problemes" [1955: 486], and Forrest, "Any general
explanation is dangerous and yet we must feel chat a general explanation can be found for such a
general phenomenon as the tyrant" (1966: 104). Pleket himself offers his own nuanced account of
what the problems and answers were, but does not finally reject the quest for a general theory.
72 Gagarin (2008: 72) well cites a passage from Euripides' Suppliants {429-34) in which tyrants are
presented as the very antithesis of written laws: "There is nothing more detrimental to a polis than
a tyrant. First of all, when there are no public laws (nomoi koinoi), one man holds power by keeping
the law all for himself, and there is no more equality. But when the laws are written, the weak man
and the rich man have equal justice (dik2)." This fifth-century cliche chat tyranny was the antithesis
oflaw is still echoed by Gehrke (2009: 395).
73 V. Parker (2007) makes a good case for his own lumping together of "tyrants and lawgivers." Rihll
{1989) offers a similar title. So too R. W. Wallace (2009: 411-26) lumps together under "charismatic
leaders'' tyrants, lawgivers, and sages," noting significant overlaps.
his opening insistence that the gods are free of responsibility for Athens'
troubles, it clearly implies that human beings are capable of remedying
those ills by the construction of "good government" - to put it most
vaguely - and the essence of his means for bringing that about was the
creation of specific laws:
Laws (thesmous) equally for both the base (kakoi) and for the noble (agathoi),
Binding each to straight justice (diken), 74
I wrote. (36.18-20 W, cf. 31 W)
Salmon (1997: 63) argues along with McGlew that tyrants, much bad press
to the contrary, were "at least partly responsible for the establishment of the
rule of law," curbing the "arbitrary rule of aristocrats (dorophagoi basilees
in Hesiod's words)", and giving "greater definition to the administration
of justice." Though the earliest surviving written laws are not from cities
associated with tyrants, written laws emerge at roughly the same time as
tyranny (c. 650; cf. Gagarin 2008: 39) and in this sense both phenomena
can be seen in McGlew's terms as symptomatic of a widespread quest for
dike.
While the introduction of written laws undoubtedly had major conse-
quences for the terms in which class struggle was conducted, accounts of
early law often take for granted what needs explaining, i.e., the role of class
struggle in the resort to written laws. Gagarin, for example, in his earlier
work on Greek law (1986) objected to the "most commonly accepted view
[that] explains the writing down oflaws as part of a political struggle by the
people for relief from the arbitrary power of their aristocratic rulers" (1986:
121).7 5 Like McGlew, Gagarin preferred to emphasize the public enactment
of legislation and its concomitant public inscription as a stage in the ever-
increasing sovereignty of the polis regardless of the specific class orientation
of specific poleis. Yet his very statement of this argument for the irrelevance
of class entails slipping in a class-based argument:
The public inscription of the early law codes would not necessarily strengthen
the supporters of one particular form of government, democratic, aristocratic,
74 J. D. Lewis disputes at some length Havelock's and Gagarin's interpretations of dik2 in Solon (2006:
49-55). My simpler point here is to emphasize the direct connection Solon makes between Dike and
laws. What I find quite mystifying is Lewis's unexplained shift from repudiating class analysis (c£
2006: 45-46) and translating agathos and kakos as "good" and "evil" in fragment 34 while translating
the same terms here (as does almost every other commentator of whom I am aware) "noble" and
"base" (2006: 122, 123), not to mention his final endorsement of Van Wees's Mafia analogy (2006:
n9) for "local strongmen."
75 Ironically Rosalind Thomas (1996: 10--n) seems to accuse Gagarin of precisely this error.
Tyranny and law 233
oligarchic, or tyrannical, but rather, by reducing the feuding among members ofthe
ruling class and by increasing the reach and the efficiency of the judicial system, it
would probably support whatever group happened to be ruling in the city at the
time. (1986: 141, my emphasis)
This apparently class-neutral, flexible formulation in fact takes for granted
the existence of a disastrously feud-prone ruling class in the period when
written laws first emerge. In his more recent work (2008) Gagarin puts a
distinctly heavier emphasis on the role of the whole community- however
narrowly it may have been defined - in terms that I believe imply class
struggle: 76
The important role of non-ruling class groups like the polis in these laws means
that these groups, whose role is documented in Greece as early as the assem-
blies and mass armies that we find together with kings and heroes in the poems
of Homer ... must have been growing in power along with the ruling class
groups ... Ruling class groups undoubtedly played a large role in the governance
of all these archaic cities, but collective bodies evidently had no qualms about
asserting their own authority too. (85)
Those who see early law as primarily directed at regulating inter-ruling-
class feuding (e.g., Osborne 1997a and 2009: 175, cf. Whitley 1998) rely
heavily on the evidence of the earliest surviving law from Dreros (ML
no. 2) and one from Gortyn (ML 41), which specify a limited term for
presumably ruling-class offices, but Gagarin points out that "out of the
hundred or so archaic laws that survive, only these two restrict the iteration
of office ... More widely attested are laws imposing fines or otherwise
punishing officials who do not properly carry out their duties ... Since
it seems unlikely that the ruling class would often impose penalties on
themselves, the impetus for these regulations probably came from non-
ruling-class groups" (87).77 In any case, discussion of law requires some
perspective on the concept of the state.
76 To be sure, in his introduction Gagarin is at pains to dismiss the relevance of class conflict: "The
ultimate cause of this legislation was not so much conflict, between rich and poor or between
competing aristocratic families, as the pressure of population growth, economic expansion, and
increasing diversity" (2008: 9). See earlier discussion of "overpopulation."
77 In his earlier book Gagarin's "best evidence" for the public appointment of a lawgiver is Drakon in
the context of the feuding associated with the failed attempt ofKylon at seizing a tyranny in Athens.
He quotes with approval the judgment of Andrewes: "Popular discontent may have played a part in
promoting the change [sc. the publication of Draco's law]. But strife within the governing class may
well have shown itself as a danger in the recent affair of the Kylonians, and that may have weighed
more" (Andrewes 1982: 370, my emphasis; c£ Gagarin 1986: 137 n. 50). See now his more extended
discussion of Drakon's law (2008: 93-109).
TYRANNY AND STATE APPARATUSES
While it is something of a cliche to stress the relative absence in early

Greece of the "state" as we understand it today, a key element in the poli-
cies of the tyrants seems to have been precisely to construct some of the
rudiments of a state beyond the obvious role of law. Sancisi-Weedenburg
makes an interesting case for viewing the Peisistratid tyranny in terms of
a basic distinction between informal power, based on charisma and per-
sonal resources and structural power, based on control of the resources
of society (2000: 6).78 She stresses the joint tyranny of the brothers after
the death of Peisistratos and uses the epitaph of Archedike (whose name
fits well with McGlew's emphasis on the centrality of claims of dike in
the rule of the tyrants) to confirm her argument that tyranny should be
seen as a "family business." The most striking challenge in her argument
is a series of questions about how, if at all, Peisistratos' rule related to
the formal governmental structures set up by Solon and which Aristotle
insists Peisistratos did not disturb. Relevant, I think, in this connection
is Diogenes Laertius's account of Solon attempting to warn his fellow
citizens of the threat of Peisistratos: "Rushing into the assembly armed
with spear and shield, he warned them of the designs of Pisistratus ... And
the council, comisting ofPisistratus' supporters, declared that he was mad"
(= IO W, Gerber's translation, my emphasis). True, this is a very late
source, 79 but it does suggest something completely left out of Sancisi-
Weedenburg's argument, namely, the likelihood that Peisistratos, in addi-
tion to using all the traditional aristocratic family resources that she rightly
stresses, also "worked" the system put in place by Solon. 80 Thucydides in
fact makes a point she ignores, that the Peisistratids always made sure "one
of their own was among the magistrates" (6.54.6), and goes on to spec-
ify that Peisistratos himself held the archonship at least once. This would
give him and his family in principle precisely access to whatever resources
the government of Athens could command. In fact in this same passage
Thucydides argues that their financial extractions were more than matched
78 The distinction comes from Donlan 1997, which does not appear in her bibliography.
79 Rihll (1989) argues that chronological grounds make unlikely that Solon was still alive at this point.
He does seem to have lived long enough to object to Mimnermos's prayer to die at sixty, preferring,
"May the fate of death come at eighty" (20 W). He also puts a more positive spin on old age: "I
grow old - always learning lots'' (18 W).
80 I am mystified by Cawkwell's citation of this fragment (1995: 74) to support his contention that
"Pisistratus was not a popularly appointed tyrant." If the council referred to is the Solonian council
of 400, whose members were chosen by lot, and a majority of them were supporters of Pisistratus,
this suggests to me at least a very significant popular base.
Tyranny and state apparatuses 235
by their contributions to the city: "Exacting only a twentieth of the pro-
duce (ton gignomenon), 81 they beautified their city, 82 carried through their
wars, and conducted the (public) sacrifices" (6.54.5). Aristotle describes
money-raising techniques of Cypselus, Periander, and Hippias ( Gee. 2.2
1346a33-1347a16; Arist. fr. 611.20 Rose; cf. Salmon 1984: 195-97). It may
be only the arbitrariness of our sources that obscures a general tendency
of tyranny to formalize the extraction of a sufficient portion of the social
surplus to sustain government as such. E. Harris (2002) has suggested that
aristocrats before Solon continued the the sort of extraction of "gifts" associ-
ated with Alkinoos's seeking compensation for the rich gifts given Odysseus
(Od. 13.14-15) in return for "protection" - what Van Wees, on the Mafia
analogy, might call a "protection racket." If so, this would have been a
function of individual greed since the aristocratic "governments" seemed
to have had no real structures to support financially beyond their coun-
cils of heads of rich families. Kylon, Peisistratos' predecessor in attempted
tyranny at Athens, had, according to Thucydides (1.126.3-5), mercenary
troops paid for by his father-in-law, Theagenes, the tyrant of Megara. The
detail preserved in scholia on Aristophanes that Kylon was apprehended
while "looting the sactuary of Athena" (Stanton 1990: 27) suggests he may
have seen acquiring capital of his own as a necessary prerequisite of a suc-
cessful tyranny. Solon's laws refer to expenditures from "naucratic silver",
which Seaford argues is "the first evidence for precious metal stored by the
state" (2004: 93). One might think that to the extent that "justice" was
a crucial factor in their winning significant popular support, burdensome
taxes on the masses would seem to be ruled out, though the story of the
bitter Attic farmer telling an unrecognized Peisistratos that he should take
81 This phrase, which literally means "things being grown" is regularly translated "income" (e,g.,
Crawley, Warner, Lattimore), but Bodin-Romilly (Bude translation) is better with "produits." A,;
de Ste. Croix points out, only produce from land could be adequately measured for purposes of
taxation or classification (the tell): "An Athenian merchant of Solon's day (or, for chat matter, the
fifrh or fourth century) could have no conception of an 'annual net profit' in the modern sense, or
anything like it ... The accounting system of antiquity, even in the heyday of Greek and Roman
civilization ... could not distinguish properly between capital and income" (2004: 42). This means
chat realistically only farmers could be taxed on their incomes. I assume the reference to a ten percent
tax in the Ath. Pol. (16.4) is wrong. Of course a tax on farm produce would not be incompatible
with various port taxes to skim off some wealth from merchants.
82 Herodotus uses very similar language at 1.59: "There indeed Peisistratos ruled the Athenians, neither
disturbing the existing offices nor changing the laws, he controlled the city in accordance with what
was established, adorning it beautifully and well." This evidence from our best fifth-century sources
is ignored by G. Anderson (2005) in his effort to minimize any difference between the Peisistratids
and ordinary aristocrats. So too Sancisi-Weedenberg, quoted above. Yet it is precisely fifth-century
witnesses, in principle hostile to tyranny, who were most likely to have seen with their own eyes
clear material evidence of the tyrants' building programs.
his ten percent of "aches and pains" (Ath. Pol. 16.5) suggests that there
was significant resentment from the poorer subsistence farmers that ill
accords with the "golden age" image. 83 But perhaps after the more arbi-
trary depredations of the aristocrats, who gave nothing good in return,
the Athenians at least could see some positive consequences of the five
percent loss. 84 The tyrants from their perspective may have considered
the political risk of taxes worth the gains in achieving a stable source of
financing for an increasingly centralized state; and the scale of some of their
public projects was inherently beyond the imaginable resources of any indi-
vidual rich aristocrat. 85 In this sense one might say that they reinvented
83 Blok 2000: 32 dismisses chis as "the typical kind of a tale of a fair ruler who rewards the critical
frankness of a poor farmer." Perhaps, but again, since she ignores the sort of economic distress that
summoned tyranny into existence, she is accordingly all the more prone to discount evidence of
policies designed to paper over the continuing economic distress of poor Athenian farmers. See
Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2000: 11 n. 9. Welwei (1992: 235-36) is probably right that taxes in this period
are unlikely to be collected in money form (but see Kim 2002 on small-denomination coins), but
his argument that the state in this period was incapable of collecting and storing taxes in the form of
produce strikes me as arbitrary. If for considerable years previously large landowners felt capable of
collecting a sixth from their tenants and Solon saw no insurmountable problem in figuring out who
was producing five hundred measures of barley (de Ste. Croix 2004= 36--37), I see no reason why the
polis could not manage to approximate a tax of a twentieth and transform it into more liquid assets.
If, moreover, Solon already has silver in naukraries (Seaford 2004: 92----93), it seems likely chat the
storage convenience of silver would soon assert itself in these transactions.
84 Pleket (1969: 45-46) stresses the account in Ath Pol. (16.2-3) of Peisistratos providing "money to
help the impoverished peasants, in part 'so that they would not waste their time in the city but
spread out in the country."' He argues apropos of the tax: "For Peisistratus it was the only way to
support the small peasant- the iustitia distributiva of taxation- and of course fatten his own purse."
Cawkwell (1995: 75) argues chat "one is probably safe to dismiss it [sc. the account of Peisistratos
making loans to poor farmers] as pure fabrication." He assumes, perhaps rightly (but again see Kim
2002 on small coin denominations), that "there are very unlikely to have been loans of money in
chis period" (ibid). But if "taxes" were collected from produce, it would have been quite possible to
make loans of feed grain and seed - just as big landowners had presumably done for generations.
One should note that taxing the rich and the poor at the same rate reinforces the existing divisions
in wealth: the system of liturgies in the fifrh-century Athenian democracy constituted a de facto
more "progressive" form of taxation.
85 Boersma (2000), recanting his earlier work (Boersma 1970), is now inclined to dismiss any significant
role of the Peisistratids in a building program. He argues, for example: "The initiatives for the
construction and rebuilding of the Athena temple and the ocher buildings which were erected on
the hill must have been taken by prominent Athenian aristocrats in different functions, such as
members of the priesthood of Athena Polias. The initiatives were undoubtedly approved of and
supported by the entire community" (2000: 53). This last phrase is quite striking: it seems to imply
chat there existed in sixth-century Athens under a tyranny (whatever chat means) a mechanism for
the expression of the approval and support of "the entire community." Does he envision proposals
for temples coming before the Solonian assembly and being voted on? In a throw-away line he
declares: "Their [sc. the Peisistratids'] involvement in the building of the Olympieion and in ocher
projects such as the water supply of the town, is also reported. However, these activities fall outside
the scope of this contribution" (2000: 54). Yet the thrust of the contribution as a whole - especially
in the context of such relentlessly skeptical essays (Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2000) - is to discredit in
toto the idea of a Peisistratid building program and suggest that such building as there was reflected
just typical aristocratic self-advertisment. But water works in particular, also recorded for ocher
the Dark Age system of redistribution. At the same time, their very need
to make public displays of their own power and wealth - one thinks of
the Cypselids' gold colossus at Olympia (Salmon 1984: 196) 86 - may have
cumulatively contributed to the public perception that they- like the aris-
tocats who preceded them -were more trouble than they were worth, while
the encouragement of a public fas;ade of participation may have kindled
aspirations for the reality of political power.
Althusser, it seems to me, offers a particularly useful way of understand-
ing forms of the institutionalization of power that at least point toward
the creation of a "state" (Osborne speaks of the "statelessness" of the Greek
city: "no agency within the city monopolized legitimate violence" 1997a:
79). Gehrke (2009) however has recently reiterated the grounds on which
we can in fact legitimately speak of archaic "states." The state as such,
Althusser, following Gramsci, argues, can be divided into apparatuses of
"domination" - the putative monopoly of violence (whether "legitimate"
or not) - and ideological apparatuses, the various means of persuasion
by which those in power seek to create "hegemony'' by convincing those
they exploit that they live in the best possible society. This often entails
the darker insistence that any alternative to the status quo is impossibly
utopian. Among those apparatuses he cites are the religious apparatus, the
educational apparatus, the family apparatus, the legal apparatus, the polit-
ical apparatus (= "the political system including the different parties"), the
trade-union apparatus, and the communications apparatus (press, radio
and television, etc.") (Althusser 1971: 143). Many of these, obviously, are
not immediately relevant to the Archaic Period or the Dark Age. But a
moment's reflection on the huge size of the social investment in our own
society in the various means of constructing specific views of reality and
values is relevant. 87 Althusser's major point is to stress the massiveness of the
task of convincing the exploited vast majority of the population to acqui-
esce in their own exploitation for the benefit of a relatively small minority
tyrants, are the sort of activity one associates with the actions of a government- not just the obvious
sort of self-promoting aristocratic endeavor. The grotesque scale of the Olympieion, like chat of
the Artemisium at Ephesos, suggests precisely the intention of demonstrating something beyond the
aristocratic norm.
86 C£ the solid gold bowl in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts dedicated by the sons ofKypselos. There
is a color photo in Christopoulos and Bastias 1975: 236.
87 To repeat from my Introduction, as merely the tip of the iceberg, consider these suggestive titles:
Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988);
Stuart and Elizabeth Ewen, Channels ofDesire: Mass Images and the Shaping ofAmerican Consciousness
(1982), Stuart Ewen, All Consuming Images: The Politics ofStyle in Contemporary Culture (1988); W.
F. Haug, Critique ofCommodity Aesthetics: Appearance, Sexuality and Advertising in Capitalist Society
(1986). These largely precede the vast expansion of opinion-shaping media through cable television.
(1971: 130-31). We might still be inclined to believe that this process is only
operative in advanced capitalism, where the state has assumed enormous
powers. But Bourdieu makes the point that in societies essentially lacking a
fully developed state, the investment of the ruling class in the perpetuation
of its privileges is proportionately greater. 88 Moreover, it is precisely the
anomalous character of tyranny that renders the hypothesis (to grant Blok
her due) of a substantial need of legitimation so likely.
Althusser argues that both sorts of apparatuses, the repressive and the
ideological, are necessarily "sites of struggle" between those in power and
those exploited by power. Apropos of the legal apparatus, such as it was in
antiquity and to a large extent still is, Osborne nicely cites the comment
Plutarch attributes to Anacharsis: 89 "Laws are like the webs of spiders,
catching small pests but broken by the powerful" (1997a: 75, cf. Plu. Sol.
p-3).
The tyrants by all accounts made the clearest bid to monopolize violence
with their bodyguards and apparent control of military forces (whether
those of the polis90 or more often, it seems, mercenaries, cf. Van Wees
88 Again I repeat a point from my Introduction though here with a somewhat different text. It is
not easy to excerpt Bourdieu's complex but compelling argument: "The acquisition of a clientele,
even an inherited one, implies considerable labour devoted to making and maintaining relations,
and also substantial material and symbolic investments, in the form of political aid against attack,
theft, offence, and insult, or economical aid, which can be very costly, especially in times of scarcity.
As well as material wealth, time must be invested, for the value of symbolic labour cannot be
defined without reference to the time devoted to it, giving or squandering time being one of the most
precious gifts" (1977: 180, his emphasis). I chink chis passage, though based on Bourdieu's research in
Morocco, nicely evokes the seventh-century relationships of aristocrats to their tenants, relationships
chat were being broken down by the emergence of the money-form. He sums up chis transition
in the following terms: "In societies which have no 'self-regulating market' (in Karl Polyani's [sic]
sense), no educational system, no juridical apparatus, and no State, relations of domination can
be set up and maintained only at the cost of strategies which must be endlessly renewed, because
the conditions required for a mediated, lasting appropriation of other agents' labour, services, or
homage have not been brought together. By contrast, domination no longer needs to be exerted in
a direct, personal way when it is entailed in possession of the means (economic or cultural capital)
of appropriating the mechanisms of the field of production and the field of cultural production"
{1977: 183-84, emphases in original).
89 On Anacharsis as a Greek fiction see Kurke 1999: 7 4 n. 21.
9° For Andrewes and most earlier accounts of the rise of tyranny the role of hoplite warfare was
decisive. This picture, as noted earlier, has now been widely questioned (e.g., by Van Wees, see earlier
discussion of hoplites). Lavelle {1992) has brought up good arguments against foreign mercenaries
playing a key role in the rule of Peisistatos, but I am not convinced chat their association with ocher
tyrants is entirely a fiction. I am myself inclined to relate their appearance to what I have in my
Odyssey chapter called the "colonizing element," people either violently ejected from the new poleis
or who chose to leave their homelands in quest of opportunities elsewhere. Archilochus (216 W)
declares, "I shall be called a mercenary like a Karian." At the same time we have concrete references
to exiled aristocrats like Alcaeus and his brother taking up chis profession (Alcaeus 350 C = Strabo
13.2.3). Fornara 1977: 28 (c£ ML no. 7) dates the names of Greek mercenaries in Egypt to 591 BC: it is
hard to believe mercenaries served so far from home before serving in various conflicts nearer home.
2002a: 81). But they also - along with early aristocracies and such potential
tyrants as Solon - used laws as a mechanism for attempting to control the
internal contradiction of a ruling class whose main conscious endeavors
were directed at becoming by means fair or foul "more equal" than those
they in some sense recognized as members of their own class. At the same
time they saw these laws as a vehicle for institutionalizing and legitimating
their claims to represent dike for the rest of the community, who in various
ways economically sustained this ruling class.
A more cynical view of the motivation behind aristocratic law before
Solon (e.g., Osborne 1997a and 2009: 175-76) and prior to laws as used
by the tyrants has much in common with Foxhall's assessment of Solon's
property classes. After a sweeping and at times devastating dismissal of
interpretations of Solon's reforms by I. Morris, Chrimes, Andrewes, Forrest,
Starr, Finley, Rihll, Manville, and Gallant (Foxhall 1997: 114-19, where see
references), she argues, "generally the poleis of archaic Greece were little
more than a stand-off between the members of the ruling class who ran
them ... ; magistrates and other state institutions might in many cases be
little more than a means by which the ruling class took turns at power"
(119). She then proceeds to a more explicitly - even if gingerly set off in
scare quotes - class-based analysis:
Such competing ruling class groups are pulled in two ways at once: on the one
hand, they aim to outdo their rivals, but, on the other hand, they share interests
of group (virtually 'class') solidarity with them. Concomitantly, oppressed groups
of dependents are well documented in Archaic and Classical Greece. At one level
the ragged bundle of institutions we call the 'state' in Archaic Greece is little more
than the concrete outcome of the attempt to resolve these tensions. (120)
This picture of fundamental class conflict takes us rather far from McGlew's
focus on the implementation by the tyrants of "justice" and the sovereign
polis.
In turning more specifically to Solon's reforms, Foxhall implicitly under-
lines the continuity between aristocratic law and Solonian law. She argues:
"Solon's arbitration of the troubles of his time must have amounted to
In any case, Van Wees (2002a) has rightly stressed the very small numbers of groups who succeed
in coups. Lavelle makes his economic case easy by assuming the large number of 300 mercenaries.
Drews (1972) makes hoplite mercenaries a decisive factor in the appearance of tyranny, which he is
anxious to show has nothing to do with economics and is mainly a function of the examples of Gyges
and Psammetikos inspiring good old Greek philotimia (ambition). Singor (2000: 107-8) appears
terribly impressed with Drews's arguments. Both these scholars, like those who focus primarily on
money, confuse the means by which power was acquired with the question of why it was successfully
acquired and held from those who previously held it and how it was exercised.
(re)defining who the ruling class were so that the comfortable turn-taking
of power might be re-established on a 'new' basis. This is epitomized by the
tele [= the grain-production-based citizen categories]" (122). After survey-
ing the archaeological evidence for cultivation and settlement in Attica, she
concludes: "This pattern hardly suggests over-population or a landscape
approaching its carrying capacity in the Archaic Period ... ; such an assess-
ment does not tally with the bleak picture of Attic agriculture generally
presented" (127). She goes on to argue that the general picture of increasing
wealth throughout Greece in this period suggests that "in Athens by the
early sixth century not only were the wealthy wealthier, but more people
might have had a claim to taking turns at power on the basis of newly
acquired wealth (however that wealth was acquired)" (128). Certainly the
abandonment of aristocratic birth as a criterion for holding office and the
switch to measurable quantities of wealth fits in with Seaford's emphasis
on the monetarization of penalties in Solon's and other early laws (2004:
90-93). This may initially have benefited primarily those who already had
lots of measurable wealth, but it did in principle open up the hierarchy of
political power. 91 Foxhall suggests that
membership ofthe ruling class group which constituted the state was synonymous with
the land-holding group. Those outside this circle, at any socio-economic level,
gained access to land only through them, via the dependency relationships for
which so much confused evidence abounds in the classical sources (the hectemoroi 92
and all that). (129, my emphasis)
91 Ste. Croix's "radical reinterpretation of the evidence" (2004: 5) for the meaning of the tele agrees
with the general political interpretation that "Solon ... achieved the fundamental change by making
property instead of blood the standard of political rights" (6). His key argument is that "with the
exception of the Pentakosiomedimnoi (five hundred medimnoi [a grain measure unit]), whose name
is of a different kind from the others, the tele already existed as recogni7.able military and social
groups" (7; the Ath. Pol. 7.3 also indicates that there were four earlier divisions). The fact that Ath.
Pol. (7.4) mentions an alternate theory explaining the category of the hippeis (horsemen) not based
on land production but on their ability to maintain a horse shows that the author did not have the
unambiguous text of the law before him, but was homogenizing the criteria on the basis of what
seemed to him more "logical" (eulog8teron), namely, that all the tele be based on the same criteria.
De Ste. Croix argues that the lumping together of "wet and dry" measures renders these criteria
unworkable and adds, following George Thomson (1951-53), that the measurement standard must
have been barley, the most durable staple of Greek food production (36). Accepting the interpretation
of zeugites as "the man in the battle-line, the zeugos" (he endorses Beloch's argument that zeugites
is the ox, not its owner), he argues that only in the case of the pentakosiomedimnoi, who alone
could serve as treasurers, was there need for a criterion that presupposed the only reliable capital,
namely, land, whereas many who could afford to raise horses or buy armor might not be producing
substantial quantities of barley (51).
92 A great deal of ink has been spilled on the subject of hektemoroi, a term that does not appear in
Solon's surviving poems but is prominent in different spellings in Ath. Pol. and Plutarch's Life of
Solon. For recent attempts at making sense of these endlessly debated late data see Van Wees 1999a,
briefly discussed below.
Her assessment of what the grain quantities of Solon's tele would mean in
contemporary outputs in Attica 93 leads to the conclusion that "the top three
classes must have been very wealthy indeed," while the lowest category, the
thetes, "must have covered most of the population". If this is what Solon
means by the demos, "then a goodly chunk of the demos may have been
'poor' only in relative terms, and their poverty was very much a perspective
from the top looking downward. Clearly the thetes must have included
everyone from those with a tiny scrap of garden to substantial kulak-like
landholders, and the odd hoplite" (131). 94
Foxhall sidesteps the issue of who was formerly excluded from the upper
echelons of Athenian society and how their wealth was acquired in order to
avoid the formerly popular strategy of positing a new "merchant" class. This
invocation of a new class is, as already suggested, unacceptable because, as
Osborne, for example, puts it, "such trading networks [beginning about
700 BC] brought considerable profit ... but their effect on Athenian society
is more likely to have been to increase competition between members of
an elite than to create a new elite" (2009: 213). At the same time, as noted
above, the fragments of Alcaeus and Theognis especially bear witness to the
perceived threat of some non-aristocrats with lots of money. Since ruling
classes tend to respond with hyperbolic rhetoric to any perceived threat
to their monopoly of power, the problem may be that numerically these
"nouveaux riches" were a very small fraction of the society as a whole, and
blowing them up into a full-scale class is the real problem. But Foxhall,
without explaining who she thinks is at stake and where they came from,
leaves us with very little insight either into the causes of the crisis or the
direction of Solon's attempted solution. Moreover, by shifting the focus
away from the enslaved debtors and aroused demos to these mysterious
possessors of new wealth and to self-regulation within the whole ruling
class, she leaves us still puzzled by the primary emphasis in our sources on
a conflict between the greedy rich, who controlled most of the land, and
the angry poor.
Accounts of Solon's measures such as those of Foxhall95 and E. Har-
ris throw little light on the extreme circumstances that led to Solon's
93 If Ste. Croix is right that a grain standard - not wet and dry - was only relevant for the pen-
takosiomedimnoi, then attempts to quantify the income of all three top categories are obviously
misconceived.
94 Again, if de Ste. Croix is right that all hoplites were self-designated as zeugitai, this last detail must
be wrong. This more optimistic view of income distribution in Attica does not really jibe with
Foxhall 1992, summarized earlier.
95 In the case of Foxhall this is particularly disappointing since her earlier article on control of the land
in fourth-century Attica (1992) for me at least offers the most concretely suggestive evidence of the
circumstances that might well have led to an earlier crisis.
being granted extraordinary powers or upon the sweeping range of his
legislation,9 6 insofar as we can recover it, or, finally, on the whole phe-
nomenon of tyranny so central to the actions and preserved words of
Solon, not to mention the crucial evidence in Alkaios (Page 1959: 149-243)
and Theognis that this period as a whole was convulsed by class con-
flict (cf. Van Wees 2000b, Osborne 2009: 178-80). Solon's statement that
many of those whom he freed of slavery had been sold so long ago that
they had forgotten the Attic dialect (36.8-15 W), points to the long-term
abuse of subsistence farmers (cf. E. Will 1979: 64 n. 3). Osborne suggests
that the success of Athenian overseas trade in wine and olive oil, attested
by the Athenian amphorae of the so-called SOS type, may have led the
big landowners to "maximize agricultural production, and in particular
saleable agricultural production such as olive oil" and therefore to put
"more pressure on the poor in order to turn still more land over to inten-
sive agriculture" (2009: 213). 97 Van Wees may be right to argue that Solon
did in fact by lifting the horoi - especially if they represented illegitmate
claims of Eupatrid ownership (Gernet 1981) - expropriate some land that
he felt had been illegitimately occupied (1999a: 17). But if Foxhall's account
(1992) of land-ownership in the fourth century BC has any validity, Solon
did not substantially change the overall pattern of land-ownership.
TYRANTS AND ARISTOCRATS: LOPPING OFF HEADS OR

ALL IN THE FAMILIES?
Let us return to trying to discover and assess the specific policies of tyrants.
Salmon (1997: 62), author of the authoritative treatment (1984) of the
tyranny of Corinth, for which, besides tyranny in Athens, we have the fullest
array ofliterary and archaeological evidence, is undeterred by the problems
of separating the real from the ideological so central to McGlew's treatment:
he offers a concise and often compelling summary of what he sees as the
96 I discuss Solon's legislation in more detail in Chapter 7 below.

97 While few scholars today would agree with Manville's insistence on population pressure as a major
factor in the crisis (1990: 120), he is right to stress that both olive oil and wine production are
long-term, relatively high-risk enterprises most likely to have been engaged in by those with greater
wealth. Devoting more land to these commodities as well perhaps as selling grain abroad for higher
prices (Garnsey 1988: rn) rather than absolute shortages may have intensified the desperation of
subsistence farmers, who depend on grain both for immediate survival and the seed for next year's
planting. Any relatively bad crop would put them in debt to those who controlled the surpluses.
French may also be right that, although true coinage clearly came later (pace Manville 1990: n8),
the aristocracy in an age of increasing trade and greater availability of luxury goods for the rich,
may have gradually preferred more "liquid" assets than hopelessly indebted followers and therefore
moved towards sale of them as slaves (French 1964: 14-15).
Tyrants and Aristocrats: lopping offheads or all in the families? 243
"constructive achievements" of tyranny in general, an analysis that suggests

the inadequacy of presenting tyrants as simply a return of the "big-man"
(e.g., J. Hall 2007: 137-43) or even as virtually indistinguishable from
other aristocrats (G. Anderson 2005). To be sure, the historical memory
of big-men may well have played a key role in the readiness of members
of the demos to support one-man rule; but it was the specific experience
of rapacious aristocratic rule for some fifty to one hundred years that
seems to have been the decisive factor. Moreover, the scale of seventh- and
sixth-century communities and the very experience of community after the
emergence of poleis are bound to have transformed the consciousness of
the demos and therefore confronted the tyrants with a radically different set
of challenges from those faced by Dark Age big-men and their face-to-face
communities.
Following Aristotle (Pol. 5-1305a22-23, 13rnb12-16) Salmon cites as "one
of the most important constructive achievements of the tyrants" the fact
that "they acted as champions of people against the rich (,Plousioi), and they
were trusted by the people because they attacked the gnorimoi ... Tyrants
took a step without which development was impossible - they removed
aristocracies from power" (63). This account would seem to fit Herodotus's
picture, for example, of Kypselos and Periander:
Kypselos ... after he became tyrant ... drove many of the Corinthians into exile,
many he deprived of their wealth, and by far the most he deprived of their
lives ... So now Periander at the outset was milder than his father, but later
consorted with Thrasyboulos the tyrant of Miletus through messengers, [and]
became still far more bloody-minded than Kypselos." (5.92e-f)
This change is ascribed to advice from Thrasyboulos to cut off "the ears
of wheat that stood above [the rest]," meaning "to murder those of the
citizens who were distinguished above others" (5.92f-g). Herodotus also
tells us of forty pentekonters filled with the enemies of Polykrates sent
off to Egypt with instructions to Cambyses that they should never return
(3.44). If these accounts are true, we would expect either that the land of
these exiled and murdered aristocrats was held directly by the tyrants or
that it was redistributed. Herodotus gives no hint of this, though at least
one later source indicates precisely that. 98 But if tyrants did redistribute
98 Salmon (1984: 188) records an account from Nicolaus of Damascus ("probably following Ephorus")
that is entirely positive about Kypselos: "Once in power, Cypselus recalled those who had been exiled
by the Bacchiads, restored rights to those who had been deprived of them, drove the Bacchiads into
exile, and confiscated (,d;m,use, 'made public') their property." Salmon concludes, however, that "it
is safer to reject every detail of Cypselus' early career and his revolution that Nicolaus gives unless
there is some special reason to accept it" (189).
2 44 Tyranny and the Solonian Crisis
the land of those whom they killed or exiled, then like English kings
they must have given it in major chunks to their own loyal ruling-class
followers rather than to the poorer members of the demos. The heavy resort
to colonization by the Kypselids (Salmon) 99 is best interpreted I believe
in the light of earlier less formal colonization as primarily a means of
maintaining a potentially explosive imbalance in land tenure. Thus I find
Salmon's account a misleading overstatement ifby "removed from power"
he implies that aristocracies no longer controlled a disproportionately large
share of the best farmland, a substantial majority of economic power that
is the concomitant of great wealth and - certainly after the fall of the
tyrants - the most important political offices in the state. But if by this
phrase he refers to checking severely what we can only guess was the
unbridled rapaciousness of the early aristocracies, his words seem justified.
Noteworthy, however, is the degree to which Salmon in his account of the
fall of the Kypselids stresses the orderly continuity of oligarchic resumption
of power. (1984: 230). Thus G. Anderson (2005), who attacks wholesale
any differentiation of tyrants from aristocrats, strikes me as half right:
tyrants do seem to have checked the most abusive practices of their local
aristocrats, but on the whole preserved their privileges and in many places
seem to have maintained close ties and fully embraced - albeit on a greater
scale - major aspects of the aristocratic lifestyle, including participation in
horse-racing and self-promoting public display.
The issue of the degree to which the aristocracy was checked by the
tyrants or, according to some accounts, killed off by them raises the thorny
question already glanced at of just how much mobility/stability there was
in the Greek ruling class. One can point, as noted above, to the exiles
Alcaeus and Theognis (Van Wees 2000b) to emphasize downward mobil-
ity in Mytilene and Megara. Stahl emphasizes the inherent instability of
a class so committed to competition (1987: 91). It may be another half
full/half empty sort of argument, but looking at Davies's "Table 1" (1971:
back pocket) of family links between identifiable members of the Athenian
ruling class - especially if one takes into consideration the extreme arbi-
trariness of the available evidence - I at least am struck by the relative dura-
bility of the Kodridae and Neliadae, Philiadae, Alcmaeonidae, 100 Salaminioi,
et al. in spite of all the political turmoils of the most radical democracy
known to ancient Greece. Secondly, the ideological elaboration of inherited
99 Perhaps this is the best way to understand Herodotus's confusing account of the forty penteconters
full of Polykrates' enemies who eventually established a colony in Crete (3.44-45).
' 00 Anderson (2005) gives a compelling summary of the power of the Alkrnaionidai over a couple of
centuries - without even mentioning Pericles.
Comtructing polis identities 2 45
superiority - not to mention the ideal of hesykhia (e.g., Pindar P. 8.1 and
passim, Thucydides 1.69.4, 70.9) - putatively going back to the rediscovery
or invention of Mycenaean heroic ancestry and heavily in evidence even
in democratic Athens (Rose 1992, 1995), suggests to me that, whatever was
the actual instability experienced by the ruling class, they saw themselves
and imposed on others a sense of their essential stability as a class in control
of most of the socially created surplus. Moreover, this class retained power
in all those states that fended off democracy in the fifth and fourth cen-
turies and set the pattern of de facto oligarchy colluding with monarchy so
characteristic of the Hellenistic period. 101
CONSTRUCTING POLIS IDENTITIES
If one putative goal of the aristocrats who first established the polis form
was to create a sense of citizen identity, the cultural policies of the tyrants
should be situated in this context as a continuation, systematization, and
radicalization of what was already a long-term goal of the class from which
most tyrants arose. At the same time I think we should differentiate sharply
policies aimed at the mass of the citizenry and those specifically aimed at
their fellow aristocrats. One intriguing and apparently lasting dimension of
the legislation enacted by some tyrants (Kypselos of Corinth, Kleisthenes
of Sicyon) aimed at the citizenry at large entailed altering the traditional
tribes, which, as Salmon (1997: 65) convincingly suggests, "may have been
designed as a conscious change from the hereditary principle, "102 that is,
the major ideological prop of aristocracy in its strictest sense as a class
whose legitimacy depends upon claims of superior ancestry (see Rose 1992,
Donlan 1999: 52). A further "constructive achievement" cited by Salmon
(1997: 65) related to the administration of justice but a more explicitly
political policy was encouraging "the use of central institutions" (65) such
as the council of four hundred and the assembly in Athens or the probouloi
(councilors) in Corinth. This, together with changes in tribal names, he
argues, "gave citizens a much clearer sense of their identity" (66).
101 It is of course beyond the scope of this study to trace the multiple shifts in the political configurations
of the Hellenistic era, but the behavior of Phocion may serve as a paradigm: "Working with
Antipater, he limited the Athenian franchise to the nine thousand or so with capital in excess
of two thousand drachmas ... So, in the fall of 322, with a Macedonian garrison in Piraeus to
keep the many-headed rabble subdued, Antipater and the kaloi k 'agathoi . .. of Athens put the
propertied classes in control ... The picture is all too familiar" (Green 1990: 40-42). If a drachma
still represented one day's pay for a skilled workman, the cutoff point of 2,000 drachmas is not
very high and goes well beyond the one or two percent Davies posits for the liturgical class.
102 Andrewes 1956: 59 accepts the spirit of Herodotus's account and concludes: "Here then is one
tyranny with a racial prejudice."
BUILDING PROGRAMS
We have had occasion already to glance at some comments on the tyrants'

building programs, but it is in the context of both centralization and
citizen identity that Salmon focuses on the evidence of the tyrants' extensive
building programs, consisting both of public amenities like improving the
water supply and more obviously ideological and centralizing projects like
huge temples:
The consciousness of identity is partly determined by looking at oneself; in the

matter of physical amenities, the tyrants did more than any others in the Archaic
Period to create that consciousness and enable citizens to look with pride at their
cities. (Salmon 1997: 67)
In his earlier work on Corinth he notes that Kypselos
provided Corinth with an elaborate system of fortifications ... The new temples
were ostentatious, as if a comparison with what had gone before was deliberately
invited. Cypselus, like many other tyrants, will have created magnificent buildings
to call attention to his own standing as well as to that of the gods for whose worship
they were intended. (1984: 62)
He also notes that Periander was responsible for the creation of the diolkos,
the dragway across the Isthmus that must have dramatically facilitated
Corinthian trade with the west (1984: 136-39) and is scarcely the sort of
ostentatious construction one would expect from aristocrats.
The origins of the Doric style in temple architecture are believed by
some (e.g., Hurwit 1985: 181-2; Biers 1996: 135-36) to derive from Corinth,
also the creator of the black-figure style of vase painting in the early seventh
century and clear leader in vase painting until c. 550 BC. Corinth is also
credited with the invention of terracotta tiles (Biers 1996: 136). Some of
these developments may antedate the first of the Corinthian tyrants, but the
tyrants seem to have encouraged artistic development. We hear of specific
ties of Kypselids with Egypt as well as with Lydia: it is conceivable that the
vague term "orientalizing" style deserves more specific association with the
expansive policies of these early tyrants. The earliest known large, all-stone
temple (c. 580) was erected in the Corinthian colony of Corcyra (modern
Corfu) (Biers 1996: 156). A temple at Thermon, dated c. 630, displayed ter-
racotta metopes, which were made either in Corinth or under Corinthian
direction (cf. Biers 1996: 137). 103 The temple of Apollo at Corinth,
103 Lawrence and Tomlinson (1983: 124) state categorically: "The clay of the Thermum panels proves
that they were made in Corinth and exported to Thermum."
Building programs 2 47
c. 560-540, is notable for an array of refinements that anticipate the other-
wise unique features of the Parthenon. The solid gold bowl dedicated by
the Kypselids at Olympia still attests today to their extravagance and their
bid to awe the minds of the rest of the Greeks. At Samos under Polykrates
Herodotus describes
the three greatest works of all the Greeks. One is a tunnel through the base of
a mountain 150 fathoms high ... through which water flowing through pipes is
conveyed to the city from an abundant spring ... The second is a breakwater into
the sea round the harbour ... The third of their achievements is the largest of all
temples known to us. (Hdt. 3.60, quoted by Rihll and Tucker 1995: 405)
Supplying water104 and building harbors strike me at least as quintessen-

tially government projects, not what one would expect of self-aggrandizing
aristocrats, who might well build a temple. But here again the tyrant seems
to have far outdistanced any aristocratic rivals by the sheer scale of his
temple.
Both Polykrates and Peisistratos seem to have overextended themselves
in beginning temples so large that they were unable to complete them. The
Peisistratids seemed to have underlined their support of civic institutions by
substantial building in the agora (Shapiro 1989: 5-8 and passim; Biers 1996:
164), the Enneakrounos fountainhouse, the Olympieion (only begun),
the sanctuary of the Dioskouri or Anakeion (Shapiro 1989; 149-50), and
an Acropolis temple. 105 As noted above, Theagenes of Megara built an
aqueduct leading to a public spring (Pausanias 1.40.1). Cumulatively it
seems to me hard to deny that public works were a general policy of most
of the tyrants about whom we have any remotely reliable information.
The chief goal was probably fostering a sense of polis solidarity by stressing
public amenities as well as public religion to counter their apparent failure
to make any substantial change in the property relations of their respective
poleis. I do not think, however, the programs were on a scale large enough
to justify the Keynesian arguments of some scholars that a major goal was
relief of unemployment.
104 One of the few concrete things we hear about Theagenes, tyrant of Megara, apart &om marrying
his daughter to Kylon, the would-be tyrant of Athens, is that he built an aqueduct (Pausanias
r.40.1, c£ Oost 1973: 188). I confess I have no original theory about his slaying the flocks of the
wealthy: was it just a feast for the masses? Were the flocks on land stolen &om the demos? Since the
source for this (Arist. Pol 1305a24-26) mentions a non-existent river, it is hard to go very far with
it. See Oost (1973: 189-90).
10 5 As noted earlier Boersma 2000 substantially recants his earlier detailed account ofAthenian building
policy in the Peisistratid period (1970). At issue is what can only be an inference - one scornfully
rejected by Sancisi-Weerdenburg and Blok - that major expenditures for public buildings during
the tyranny significantly reflect the wishes of the tyrants.
COLONIZATION AND TRADE
If, as we have surmised from the skimpy evidence, the tyrants as a group did
little or nothing to alter the profound inequalities ofland distribution, this
may explain their widespread resort to colonization and the encouragement
of trade. Coming to power several generations after the first more informal
initiatives associated with the consolidation of the polis and encouragement
by aristocrats of colonization as a means of preserving their unequal prop-
erty relations, the tyrants were in a position to appreciate the new prestige
of successful colonies and substantial material advantages of special trade
relations arising from what had now become more formal ties between
colony and "mother" city. Salmon (1984: 209) notes: "Our sources serve
us better for Cypselus' colonies than for any other aspect of his work as
tyrant" (see his detailed discussion). While Solon is more associated with
bringing poor people back to Attica than with sending out colonies, he is
said to have promulgated a law that punished fathers who did not teach
their sons a trade. He is also said to have forbidden the sale of grain from
Attica at the same time that he encouraged export of wine and olive oil.
Peisistratos's seizure of Sigeion and apparent blessing of the tyranny of
Miltiades in the Chersonese suggest a keen interest in controlling access
to the Hellespont and Black Sea. As noted earlier, Herodotus' confusing
tale of Samian dissidents sent by Polykrates to be killed by Cambyses but
who, after an unsuccessful attack, with Spartan aid (Cartledge 1982), later
founded Kydonia in Crete, is perhaps best understood as another instance
of a tyrant founding a colony with potentially disruptive elements of the
local population.
TYRANNY AND VASE PAINTING?
Whether or in what sense one can reasonably speak of the tyrants' influence
on vase painting is highly debatable. Corinthian pottery certainly flourished
under the tyrants in the seventh century, but whether the tyrants were in
any way responsible is quite unclear. The growing sophistication of vase-
painting in Attica and the development during the sixth century specifically
of the difficult kylix (drinking cup) genre with its self-evident preference
for Dionysiac, erotic, and symposiastic themes, seem to fit all too well the
general cultural atmosphere of the ruling class fostered by the Peisistratids.
The shift in Athenian ruling-class female dress during the second half of
the sixth century from the heavier and less revealingpeplos to the thinner,
more elegant chiton certainly seems to fit in with these other indications of
Ideological apparatuses 2 49
self-conscious sophistication and gratifying lives ofleisure - precisely when

I. Morris and Kurke announce the decline of habrosyne and the leisured
lifestyle in general. At the same time the Pesistratids, after a potentially
personal self-aggrandizement with images of Herakles (Boardman 1974:
216), are believed by some to have fostered a more public "nationalistic"
consciousness by encouraging, beginning in the second quarter of the sixth
century, a veritable explosion of paintings devoted to Theseus (Calame
1996: 401). 106 Calame notes that the first quasi-systematic representations
of Theseus's confrontations with various monsters on the route to Athens,
in obvious competition with the far better-attested exploits of Herakles,
begin with the appearance of the red-figure style, i.e., about 530 BC, while
representations of the less admirable exploits like the rape of the pre-
pubescent Helen and the carrying off of the Amazon queen Antiope are
generally excluded (403). 107
IDEOLOGICAL APPARATUSES
In this connection, however, Salmon does not discuss108 what in Althusse-

rian terms we might call the self-conscious construction at least by Peisis-
tratos - and probably by Kleisthenes of Sikyon - of ideological apparatuses
of the state, vehicles for the systematic regular assault precisely on the
sense of identity of the subject population. For this Althusser uses the term
interpellation derived from the Latin word to "hail" or "accost" someone
106 Boardman (1972) dates the focus on Theseus to 5ro and after, which accords with the recent
arguments of G. Anderson (2003: n3, 134-46). Boardman makes an interesting if inherently
speculative case for a strong association between the Peisistratids and Herakles, in particular
citing many scenes of Herakles accompanied by Athena in a chariot as a reference to the story
told in Herodotus (1.60) of Peisistratos's use of a tall beautiful woman dressed as Athena to
lead him to the Acropolis. In his second article Boardman (1975) finds a Peisistratid association
with Herakles connected to the mysteries at Eleusis, where the Peisistratids are credited with a
substantial building that could be as early as 540 BC. Cf. Connor 1996a on the centrality of Theseus
to Athens' ambiguous fifth-century identity. He points out that there is no evidence Peisistratos
dressed as Herakles. Jonathan Hall (2007: 226--30) usefully attempts to sort out the chronology
and the rationale for the tyrants' personal agenda in associating themselves with Herakles and
their more public agenda in celebrating Theseus. He points out the popularity of Theseus as early
as the Fran~ois vase (c. 570). See also H. A. Shapiro's wonderful if mostly apolitical account of
sixth-century representations of the hero {1991).
107 Connor {1996a), focusing on Theseus' relation to Athenian civic identity in the fifth-century
evidence, underlines the problematic character of this questionable hero for his role in the creation
of an Athenian civic identity. It is all very well to lament crude invocations of propaganda and
manipulation in the politics of Greek religion, but not necessarily helpful to bracket out, as Connor
seems to, the question of who most benefits from specific constructions of civic identity.
108 In his earlier, fuller account of the Cypselids Salmon discusses in some detail what he calls their
"religious" policies {198,i: 201-202) without serious exploration of how these may have affected or
been intended to affect the consciousness of ordinary Corinthian citizens.
(1971: 170-83). Ideology works best he argues by persuading its targets to
accept a version of their own identity that serves the interests of the rulers,
most basically the "reproduction of the relations of production" (184), but
a whole array of other ultimately related interests are served by interpella-
tion. Americans of a certain age may recall with some bitterness Lyndon
Johnson's constant interpellation of them as "Maw fella Amurikans" in his
efforts to sell them the Vietnam War; more recently we have been told
we are "good people" in our war against "terrorists" who "hate our values."
Herodotus claims that Kleisthenes tranferred the performance of tragic cho-
ruses for Adrastos to Dionysos and some other ceremonies from Adrastos
to Melanippos (5.67). The Peisistratids "interpellated" the Athenian citi-
zenry not only, as we have noted, with their massive building program -
of which the scale of the Olympieion, 109 only completed by Hadrian, is
the clearest symbol today- but with the Panathenaia, a festival Peisistratos
did not initiate but substantially expanded and exploited. While the very
name of the festival seems to proclaim its ideological agenda, we hear that
Peisistratos added to it regular recitations of "heroic" Homer (Shapiro 1993:
92-rn7). As Gentili suggests,
by assimilating the figure of the contemporary aristocrat to that of his heroic

forebears, it [regular recitation of Homer] tended to create among the lower
classes a certain predisposition toward social integration into the order of the
polis. (1988: 156)
While I think this is a plausible account of the intention of the tyrant, I
have tried to suggest in my account of the Homeric poems that alterna-
tive interpellations were available for non-aristocratic listeners (cf. Heiden
1991) - that Homer too was a "site of struggle."no The Dionysiac festival
was apparently a humble event among subsistence farmers, which Peisis-
tratos expanded and enriched with choral performances. This festival then
would seem to have interpellated the mass of Athenians both as tillers of
the soil and as ''Athenians." The Dionysia led to the invention of tragedy
with a single actor and chorus, which Else has plausibly interpreted as a
form designed to win the masses over to sympathy with the sufferings of
"great persons" and lessen their envy and resentment of those who held
power over their lives (1965: especially 76), a form thus aimed precisely at
109 Travlos 1971: 402 notes "The temple built by Peisistratos was almost twice as long [as an earlier
temple on the site] and had not only the same dimensions but also the same plan as its Hellenistic-
Roman successor."
110 Kleisthenes ofSikyon's banning of recitations of Homer because of the prominence of Argos in the
Iliad both confirms that Homer could indeed be a "site of struggle" and suggests that such regular
public recitations were by no means the unique brainchild of Peisistratos.
Tyranny and aristocratic identity: the poets
that homogenization of identity so evident in both McGlew's and Salmon's
invocation of the abstracted constructions ''polis" and "citizens. "III Its subse-
quent development is a nice illustration that this particular "site of struggle"
lent itself to radically different meanings over time. n 2
TYRANNY AND ARISTOCRATIC IDENTITY: THE POETS
From the ideological programs (fortifications, n 3 temple and sanctuary

building, athletic contests, public festivals, hero cults) we speculatively
attributed to the early aristocrats who seemed to have invented the very
concept of the polis to the tyrants' better-attested sponsorship of poets,
festivals, and dazzling public buildings I would argue we can trace a con-
sistent goal of homogenizing or distracting the potentially conflicting class
components of the polis.
We have explored only in connection to Homer and Hesiod the rela-
tions between artistic form, "message," and putative audience. One of the
most striking features of the Archaic Period is the apparent creation of a
profusion of new artistic forms, though this impression is most probably
in many cases only a consequence of the fact of literacy. The Homeric
poems themselves attest to the existence of many other literary forms:
public religious choruses (II. 1.472-4), antiphonal choral performances
for ruling-class dinner parties (II. 1.603-4), love songs accompanied by
the kithara (Paris in II. 3.54), wedding songs (II. 18.492-93), solo work
songs accompanied by the lyre and eliciting dancing and singing from
the workers (II. 18.569-72), collective courting dance and song (II. 18.593-
605), funeral dirges (II. 24.720-21), and short mythological narratives with
an erotic tinge (Od. 8.266-366), etc. (cf. Bowra 1961: 4-6, Kurke 2007,
Rosalind Thomas 1995). While it is plausible that other popular forms,
e.g., lullabies, maiden songs, not attested by Homer had a long history
before the emergence of literacy, it seems clear that the seventh and sixth
m C£ Manville, who even more than McGlew idealizes the construction of an undifferentiated citizen
identity - his preferred metaphor of the polis is a "public all-embracing corporation" (1990: 171) -
declares that its unification "leveled older distinctions based on a hierarchy of status in the regional
corporations" (181, my emphasis). Citizens thus become "shareholders": "Solon had created the
corporation; Kleisthenes now more precisely defined its shareholders" (1990: 188, my emphasis).
112 See discussion below in my final chapter of Connor's focus on democratic aspects.
113 Salmon discusses at some length the special geographical vulnerability of Corinth that made
building fortifications a high priority, but we should probably include among the frequent if not
universal policies of tyrants a more systematic focus on their military/naval capacity. While the
alleged "thalassocracies" of Polykrates and the Kypselids are probably both mythic inventions, they
do seem to have built up naval capacities beyond the wildest dream of the aristocratic governments
that preceded them.
centuries experienced a profusion of artistic experimentation not only in
the well-attested visual arts, but also in poetry. Moreover, as my brief refer-
ences to songs in Homer already imply, ancient Greece was very much what
Herington has well dubbed a "song culture: a society whose prime medium
for the expression and communication of its most important feelings and
ideas was song" (1985: 3), an analysis that well dovetails with Havelock's
emphasis on the strong persistence of orality in post-Homeric audiences.
All levels of society sang and listened to lots of song and interacted socially,
most commonly through song, at public rituals, in political and private
gatherings, and when preparing for battle. As Gentili summarizes the period
of the seventh and sixth centuries, lyric poetry (in the broader sense that
includes iambic and elegiac poetry) occupies "the middle ground between
tradition and innovation" (1988: 61, cf. Kurke 2007).n4 As for innovation,
we hear specifically of the creation of the dithyrambn 5 by Arion (testimonia
1 C),n 6 closely associated with the tyrant of Corinth, and the epinician
by Ibykos (p. 8 C), a court poet of the tyrant of Samos. Whether Aleman
invented the maiden song (,Partheneion) or simply worked with an old form
not previously attested, we will probably never know. So too whether or
not Archilochus invented the iambic meter and the abuse poetry associ-
ated with it, he certainly set an enduring stamp on it, n7 while other forms
illustrated by the corpus of his fragments suggest at the very least a striking
versatility.
Decribing the specific target audiences for the surviving forms is not as
straightforward as is sometimes suggested by the distinction between, on
the one hand, elegy and monody, assumed to be confined to the aristocratic
114 Kurke rightly stresses "the intensity of ideological contestation" (2007: 145) but alas this turns out to
be only about the now familiar opposition of ruling class (= habrosyne) vs. middling values. Tyranny
is mentioned only in connection with fifth-century Sicilian tyrants and Pindar, exploitation not at
all.
11 5 Archilochus declares in fgr. 120 W that he knows "how to start off the lovely song of lord
Dionysos,/ the dithyramb, when my wits are thunderstruck with wine." Presumably he refers to a
more spontaneous folk version than the type introduced by Arion. It is hard to believe that such a
popular god had no song associated with him before Arion - especially since most of us are prone
to song while drinking the god's gift.
116 A late source attributes to Solon's elegies the claim that Arion first introduced tragedy {3oa W).
117 West and Nagy have been at pains to stress the totally fictional character ofArchilochus's invective as
well as other details about his alleged "biography." Although what I am tempted to call "Nagyism"
has all but swept the field (e.g., Kurke 2000), I am persuaded both by the specific argument of
Carey about Lycambes as well as by his concluding comments about the nature of early archaic
personal poetry: "As a general rule, the archaic solo poet uses his own person and represents the
events he narrates or judges as belonging to his own life or the lives of those around him. But
though he writes about himself he usually sees two aspects to his experience, the individual and the
general. It is as a rule true that the archaic monodists use their own experience to express a truth
of general validity" (1986: 67).
Monody and the containment ofthe aristocracy 253
symposium, and, on the other, choral poetry, assumed to be by definition
communal.n 8 In the case of Pindar, for example, where in the fifth century
we have a substantial quantity of data, Kurke (2007: 157) makes a sharp
distinction between epinicia for private victors and those for tyrants and
dynasts. Sappho seems to have composed for both intimate gatherings and
for more public events like weddings. While it is usually assumed that
elegy is confined to the ruling-class symposium, Irwin, for example, makes
a strong case that at least in the case of Solon's Salamis poem - and probably
for other poems - he violated the boundary of the symposium by reciting
it in the agora (2006: 40-44, contra Bowie 1986). Tyrtaeus's elegies seem
to have been publicly sung in Sparta (Kurke 2000: 74, Lycurgus Agaimt
Leocrates rn7). As suggested above, in looking at the cultural policies of
the tyrants we can legitimately distinguish between those forms designed
to foster communal solidarity, such as the choral performances at the
Dionysia, which led ultimately to tragedy, the most public of public forms,
and those aimed at the consciousness of fellow aristocrats with, I will argue,
a radically different implicit agenda.
MONODY AND THE CONTAINMENT OF THE ARISTOCRACY
Louis XIV, having lived through the rebellion of nobles against monarchic
power (the Fronde of 1648-53), effected over time an elaborate shift in
their lifestyles and values to the life of the court, a life devoted to opera,
ballet, ever more sophisticated etiquette and erotic intrigues. n9 There are
obviously huge differences between the creation of absolutist monarchy
in seventeenth-century France and the world of tyranny in seventh- and
sixth-century BC Greece. It would also certainly be inaccurate to suggest
that the tyrants invented a lifestyle devoted to drinking, feasting, love-
affairs, and sports. We have already seen such a lifestyle adumbrated in
the Phaeacians and Penelope's suitors. Gentili describes Demodokos, the
poet of the Phaeacians, as "the prototype of the singer integrated into a
homogeneous society dedicated to agriculture, navigation, and the pursuit
of pleasure in its various forms: athletic contests, banquets, music, dance,
exercise and bodily adornment, the joys of love" (1988: 155). I argued
"8 Kurke 2000 constructs a dichotomy between "symposium" poetry and the "public sphere," but the
lines are not so clear as her diagram suggests.
"9 Thus, for example, Bluche writes: "Depuis pres de trente ans le Roi ne songe qu'a eviter !es
conditions d'une nouvelle Fronde: la cour du Louvre, celle des Tuileries, et celle de Saint-Germain
ont deja obei a ces principes. La haute noblesse, attiree et retenue par une vie brillante, se trouve
sous surveillance des qu'elle accepte de graviter autour du soleil royal" (Bluche 1986: 518).
2 54 Tyranny and the Solonian Crisis
apropos of Hesiod that different classes experience - and textualize -
sexual desire differently. The organization of sexuality by Greek males (of
all classes) flows to a very significant degree from their obsession with
passing their land to "legitimate" heirs - i.e., those genetically derived
from the male owner. This dictated the corresponding obsession with
female virginity and married chastity only for wives, which entailed early
marriage and heavy seclusion for legally acceptable women. This seclusion
in turn severely limited the degree to which marriage could entail any
serious "meeting of minds" as well as of bodies. Fear of too many children
seems in turn to have limited the frequency of the latter. These structural
factors tended to confine serious sexual and emotional attachments to
prostitutes and members of the same gender. 120
Archilochus and Sappho, neither of whom is associated with tyrants'
courts, 121 explore complexities of emotional states associated with eros in
ways strikingly different from Homer and certainly from Hesiod. 122 It is at
least a plausible inference from their fragments that both poets performed
some of their works for intimate ruling-class gatherings and others for
a broader community audience. Alcaeus is also clearly not a poet at a
tyrant's court (129, 141, 302, 332, 348 C), though the combination of the
extremely fragmentary nature of his surviving work and his fondness for
120 Pomeroy (1975: 89) and Dover (1989: 66). Demodokos' tale suggests that, despite or because of its
dangers, adultery retained strong attractions.
121 Kurke (2000: 63) makes the useful distinction between pre-tyranny poets (Archilochus, Hip-
ponax, Kallinos, Tyrtaeus, Solon, Stesichorus, Sappho, andAlcaeus), who were not "professionals,"
and those associated with tyrants (Ibykos, Anakreon, Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides), who
increasingly display the characteristics of full-time professionals.
122 Serious engagement with the representations of love and sex in Archilochus and Sappho would
require very substantial separate analysis, only peripherally related to issues of class. The striking
range in Archilochus from the seemingly delicate romanticism of the expressed wish to be able
to "touch Neobule's hand" (n8 W), presumably a potential legitmate spouse, and accounts of
his internal suffering from er6s (191 W) and pothos (193, 196 W) that may entail a hetaira, to the
sophisticated but rather explicit description in the Cologne papyrus of a seduction of Neobule's
sister, probably in a temple sanctuary (Gentili 1988: 185-88), to the gratuitous crudeness of his
description offellatio performed by a prostitute (42-44 W) suggests a persona deliberately refusing
class-based categorization. There is some suggestion in one fragment of a certain anxiety about
social status in terms of appearances versus reality of privilege based on wealth and birth: the
speaker in a mutilated papyrus (23 W) asks his female addressee, "Do I seem to have come to such
a point of destitution (anolbies)? Did I appear to you to be a wretched man (aner deilos)? Neither
am I such a one, nor am I the son of such men." Sappho's apparently purely aristocratic world has
seemed to many to imply a significant degree of segregation of the sexes, but the degree of formality
we should attribute to her group of "companions'' (160 C) as well as the character of her erotic
relationships is hotly debated (e.g., Gentili 1988: 72-89, duBois 1995, Holt Parker 1993, Hallett
1979, Stehle 1997). Holt Parker (2005) makes a compelling case for Sappho's public engagement
with the same politics engaged in by Alcaeus, criticizing members of rival families (71, 986, 99 C),
complaining about the power of wealth (148 C). Her class snobbery is suggested by her mocking
of a country girl (agroi6tis: 57 C) and her joking about a rustic groom (no C).
Monody and the containment ofthe aristocracy 2 55
metaphor (e.g., 119, 208, 249 C, cf. 306 [f]) makes one hesitate to claim
a great deal about the meaning of specific fragments. Athenaius refers to
Alcaeus as "warlike" (polemikos 15.673c-d = Alcaeus 362 C), and we can
see grounds for this characterization in the fragments - exhortations to
anti-tyrannic martial courage (129, 140, 383? C). We can surely posit almost
an obsession with noble birth - both in invocations of the traditions of
"our fathers" (testimonia 24, 25, 26 C, Alcaeus 6.12f., 130b, 371?, 394?) and
in the ferocious denunciation of those with allegedly base-born fathers (67,
70, 72, 75 C). But thanks mostly to imitations in Horace he is most famous
for celebrations of drinking (333-35, 338, 342, 346, 347, 352, 369, 401 C,
etc.). There are also a few fragments that allude to pornai (117, 299 C) and
a few suggesting pederastic love (368, 430, 431 C).
Granting then that apart from poets associated with tyranny there is
full evidence of erotic themes and celebrations of drinking, nonetheless I
think there is more to the well-attested sponsorship by tyrants of poets
such as Anakreon, Arion, Ibykos, and Simonides than personal entertain-
ment and self-indulgence, though there is no reason to doubt that the
tyrants themselves enjoyed these entertainers. The same poets may well
have created works for both public and private events: Herodotus's tale
of the intended murder of Arion (1.24) takes for granted that his elab-
orately staged dithyrambs had broad appeal that included the humblest
sailors. Ibykos's elaborately mythical encomium of the young Polykrates
(282 C) - nicely analyzed by Gentili (1988: 127-30) 123 - already demon-
strates, whether it was performed at a private banquet or more publicly,
what is to become the core strategy of the usually public epinician, namely,
a tactfully indirect parallel between the person being praised and a narrative
drawn from the vast resevoir of Greek myth, much of it already celebratory
of the descendants of gods. Ibykos's more obviously erotic124 and presum-
ably private poetry could, at times, also draw on myth. Fragment 282 C,
for example, has tantalizing bits of elaborate praise of a boy, who may
be the god Eros, and narrative suggesting the love affair of Eros and a
young girl (kora). Another fragment (286 C), like one attributed to Sappho
123 In a long and intricately argued article (1985) Woodbury attempted to solve chronological problems
about the dates oflbykos by positing a "Samian family-regime early in the century, in the generation
before the famous Polycrates" (217). Wbile I have no alternative solution to the thorny chronological
problems he raises, I still think this poem fits better with the famous Polykrates. In any case,
Woodbury's interpretation of the main thrust of the poem fits nicely my argument about the
ideological agenda of the tyrants: "The poem's thrust has been from the traditional celebration of
bravery to the present celebration of beauty, and the promised praise of the beauty of Polycrates,
as guaranteed by the fame of the poet, is the climax of the poem's course" (206).
124 Cicero, for example, declares that "of all the [ancient] poets it appears from his writings that Ibykos
=
ofRhegium quite to the greatest extent was aflame (jlagrasse) with love" (Tusc. 4.71 12 C).
(169A C), 125 begins by drawing a contrast between the orderly world of
nature and the speaker's passion, only to turn to a simile comparing that pas-
sion and nature at its wildest ("like Thracian Boreas [the north wind] flash-
ing under lightning's impact") that then turns into a metaphor ("darting
from the Kyprian [Aphrodite] with parching fits of madness - black, shame-
less - it mightily ambushes [?] my wits from their foundations"). Perhaps
his most famous fragment compares the onslaught of Eros upon the speaker
first to being "cast into the limitless nets of the Kyprian [Aphrodite]," then
to an aged racehorse entering the contest against his will (aekon). The
chariot race was of course the most prestigious locus of aristocratic ago-
nistic display. Both poems stress the utter helplessness of the ruling-class
victim of Eros - a far cry from the stern, crude warnings of Hesiod's farmer
voice:
Don't let a woman with a finely-decked bottom deceive your mind,

Chattering seductions, as she's hunting for your granary.
The man who trusts a woman, trusts in cheats. (WD 373-75)
The surviving private poetry of Anakreon is sufficient to allow for

some first-hand impressions. He seems to take special pleasure in fus-
ing metaphorically the primary pursuits envisioned in his poetry - wine-
drinking, sports, games, and sex. Thus he speaks of "being drunk with love"
(methuon eroti 376 C) and of "drinking love" (erota pinon 450). We hear,
as in Alcaeus (C 322), of throwing the dregs of the wine (kottabos) to the
beloveds (415 C). Another aristocratic game provides another metaphor:
"The dice-bones (astragaloz) of Eros are/[Acts of] madness and lots of shout-
ing" (C 398). In another fragment Anakreon announces his intention to
"box against Eros" (pros Eroti puktalisdo 396 C, cf. 346.2.1 kh}lepoi d' epuk-
talisdo[n). Very like Ibykos, he also uses aristocratic horse-racing as an erotic
metaphor:
Boy, glancing maidenly,

I come on to you, but you don't perceive it,
Not knowing that you are my
Soul's charioteer. (360 C)
Though there are fragments - perhaps of public poems - in which he

praises martial valor (401, 426, 393 C, epigram rno D), characteristic of the
private symposium is this fragment of an elegy (2 W, cf. 356a and b C):
12 5 Campbell notes that the ascription of this fragment to Sappho was rejected by Wilamowitz as well
as Lobel and Page.
I do not like a man who, drinking his wine beside a full mixing bowl,
Narrates quarrels and tear-inspiring war,
But the one who, mixing together the radiant gifts of both the Muses
And Aphrodite, calls to mind the lovely banquet.
Like Xenophanes' more austere account of the ideal symposium (1 W), this
fragment suggests there was nothing inherently uncongenial to the cultural
world of tyranny in barring martial topics from the symposium. 126 My sus-
picion is that tyrants in general were inclined to discourage their fellow
aristocrats from defining themselves primarily in terms of martial valor, but,
given the reality of external military threats and in a number of cases their
own expansionist ambitions, could not afford to dispense with the heroic
spirit altogether. 127 In any case, the explicit focus of Anakreon's elegiac
fragment on the erotic alternative fits the general picture of encourage-
ment of individual gratification. Though little in his fragments is explicitly
political, his ferocious denunciation of a nouveau riche (388 C) clearly puts
him in the same aristocratic camp as Theognis.
Situating Simonides primarily in the context of the tyrants' cultural
policies is in one sense obvious - in view of his well-attested "greed"
(philokerdeia) and his association with Polycrates, the Peisistratids, and
with autocratic figures like Skopas and the Aleuadai, not to mention the
Spartan regent Pausanias. However, his very fame, the length of his life,
which took him well into the fifth century, his encomia for Athenians
killed in the Persian wars, and - I would argue - the decontextualization
of so many of his fragments as a consequence of his perceived importance
have led to a heavy emphasis on the "progressive" character of his thought
and have aligned him in the minds of many scholars with the "middling"
ideology in conflict with the "ruling-class" ideology or, as Gentili prefers,
setting him against Pindar:
Pindar sought a conservative solution to the crisis in the old order created by the
rise of the new artisan and mercantile class - a solution calling for a renovation
of the aristocratic ethic through a new conception of the relation between human
and divine and "new highways of song" appropriate to it. The alternative was
to follow Simonides in assuming a more progressive position, one that would
replace the old aristocratic absolutism with a new relativism better suited to the
126 It may well be, as Gentili (1988: 158) argues, that Xenophanes' explicit attacks on Homer alienated
him not only from tyrants, but also from a broad spectrum of Greeks. I think, however, Gentili
underestimates the degree to which tyrants were caught in a conflict between fear of their own
aristocrats' independence and need for competent military leadership.
127 Bluche, in the passage cited above (1986: 518), goes on to describe how Louis XIV transformed the
notion of military success into the celebration of service to the king.
changed social situation and the views of those who had worked with success to
replace an oligarchy oflineage and innate excellence with a meritocracy of acquired
wealth. (1988: 153, my emphasis)
Earlier, apropos of the famous fragment of Simonides' encomium for the

dynast Skopas of Thessaly, Gentili again offers a class analysis of Simonides'
position in somewhat different terms:
What is involved is a different perspective on reality, and a new measure of man,

more suited to the changed political conditions of Greek society and to the con-
tinuing development of the new exchange economy that had replaced the landed
wealth (ploutos) of the past with a new wealth derived from colonial expansion and
business (kerdos) ....The new plutocratic agathoi, unlike the aristocratic agathoi
of an earlier age, could only boast the unstable wealth acquired through the toils
and risks of trade. (1988: 64)
He goes on to elaborate Simonides'
realistic ethic, a combination of intellectual pessimism and moral optimism, 128

[which] amounted to a deconsecration of the loftiest ethico-religious values of
the now declining archaic aristocracies; but it too was nourished by an ideal, one
that was equally lofty and more in tune with the new historical reality, the ideal
of the democratic citizen living a just life in accordance with the interests of the
city. (1988: 65)
I think neither I. Morris nor Kurke would deny the strong impact of
Gentili's formulations on their approaches to the middling-ruling class
opposition and specifically Kurke's emphasis (1999) on the "new exchange
economy." Gentili is a figure who justly commands enormous respect. 129
Moreover, my general thesis in this work that class conflict and class ideo-
logical struggle have exceptional explanatory power in analyzing this whole
period might well take comfort in Gentili's explicit class analyses. However,
to echo the famous dictum of Mark Twain, I believe reports of the "death" -
or dramatic decline - of the old aristocracy are highly exaggerated, as are
the rise of a completely separate merchant class and the appearance of the
"democratic" citizen. Wealth in land was hardly a phenomenon of the past:
indeed, Foxhall, as noted earlier, compellingly suggests that one function
of Solon's tele was to open landed wealth to those who had acquired wealth
" 8 It is hard not to see in chis phrasing a conscious echo of Gramsci's famous slogan, "pessimism of the
mind, optimism of the will." As noted in my Introduction, even non- or anti-Marxist continental
intellectuals tend to be far more cognizant of the Marxist tradition than English and American
scholars. Gentili's epigraph for chis chapter (c£ 1988: 61) is taken from Frankfurt School Marxist
philosopher Herbert Marcuse.
" 9 See Thomas Cole's excellent tribute in his introduction to his translation of Gentili (1988: xi-xviii).
through trade, and there is abundant evidence from the whole of classical
antiquity that wealth acquired by non-agricultural means tended to be
quickly converted into landed wealth. Moreover, a sharp differentiation
between landed wealth and wealth gained from trade ignores the degree
to which the former tended to be enhanced by the latter. Finally, I would
suggest, with some hesitation, that Gentili's readings of Simonides tend
to ignore precisely the most probable performance context for the quoted
fragments.
The relatively long passage of Simonides quoted in Plato's Protagoras,
for example, comes from an encomium of a dynast. It is worth at least
posing the question, how likely is it that such a patron would be offered
an idealization of "the democratic citizen"? We might also ask if the con-
ventions of encomiastic poetry - as studied primarily in the fuller, later
texts of Pindar and Bacchylides (e.g., Bundy 1962a and b, Hamilton 1974,
Nisetich 1980: 40-61) - suggest an alternative way of understanding this
striking fragment:
For a man to be truly good (agathon)

Is difficult - good with both hands and feet and mind -
Foursquare built without a flaw ...
Nor in my view is the saying of Pittakos current
In good harmony, though spoken from a wise
Man: he said it's hard to be a good (esthlon) man.
A god alone might have this privilege, but for a man it's not
Possible not to be had (kakos),
Whenever irremediable disaster seizes hold of him.
For every man, when he's doing well, is good (agathos),
And had (kakos) ifhe is doing badly:
For the most part they too are best (aristoi)
Whomever the gods love.
Therefore never will I, seeking what is
Impossible to exist, cast my portion of lifetime
Towards an empty, unrealizable hope -
The man utterly devoid of fault, from among those of us who
Feed on the fruit of the broad-based earth:
I'll let you know if I find him.
I praise and love all -
Whoever of his own will does
Nothing shameful (aiskhron): against Necessity
Not even the gods can fight.
I am no lover of casting blame, since to me at least that man is
satisfactory
Who is not had (kakos) nor too lazy,
Who at least knows the justice (dikan) that benefits the polis
(onesipolin),
A sound (hygies) man: nor shall I find fault
With him: for of fools
The generations are utterly without limit.
All things are fair/noble (kala) with which
Nothing shameful (aiskhra) is mixed.
Certainly compared with the strict class sense in which both Solon and
Theognis used the terms agathos, esthlos, and kakos, there is a radical refig-
uring of the terms insisting on their dependence for the most part on
circumstances beyond human control. However, the sense of human suc-
cess as a function of the gods' whims is already implicit in the two-jars
passage in the Iliad and a commonplace in the Odyssey. I tried to bring
out its force in the opening lines of Hesiod's Works and Days. It is fully
elaborated in Semonides I W, dated at the end of the seventh century BC:
My boy, the outcome of all the things that are

Loud-thundering Zeus controls and arranges in whatever way he
wishes.
Understanding (nous) is not for mortals, but, creatures of a day,
They live just as animals do, knowing nothing
Of how the god will bring each thing to its outcome. (1.1-5 W)
He even glances at the social mobility he associates pessimistically with the

idle hopes of all:
Hope persuades and nourishes them all

As they strive after what is unachievable: some wait for a day
To come, others for the circuit of years:
There's none of mortals who doesn't think that next year
He will arrive - a friend to Wealth and good men/ good things
(agathois). (1.6-10 W)
Moreover, within the encomiastic tradition, one needs to consider, as

Gentili rightly insists in another context, the difficulty - I would say the
inherent ambiguity - of the relation of patron and poet (1988: 165-6).
The value for a tyrant of an encomium as positive propaganda depends
precisely on the credibility of the paid poet's independence; hence a great
deal of space is devoted in preserved encomia to the poet's insistence on
his "objectivity" and commitment to truth (Gentili cites Pindar fr. 205
Sn.-Maehl.). Thus it seems plausible to me if unprovable that the fragment
from the encomium for Skopas is best read as an elaborate construction of
the speaker's independence, as a foil to the explicit praise of Skopas, which
Monody and the containment ofthe aristocracy
presumably constituted the lost climax of the poem. That praise would be
saved from the charge of any exaggeration precisely by the prior insistence
that the poet does not seek to find human perfection. At this point in his
career, the audience might well consider Skopas to belong to the category
of "those whom the gods love." Viewed in this way, the fragment is most
fascinating in what it concedes ideologically as preface to its praise of a
man whose autocratic power is best situated in the context of the Greece-
wide crisis that so often led to tyranny. In the context of widespread,
bitter disillusionment with the aristocracy, Simonides, with a disingenuous
posture of daring, deconstructs the absolutist grounds of the aristocracy's
favored self-definitions as agathoi and esthloi. But it is noteworthy that his
point of departure is a saying by the tyrant Pittakos, who also seems to have
called into question the absoluteness of the terms. Moreover, if McGlew is
right in stressing the thematics of dike and hybris to the rise of tyranny, I
think it is plausible both to read the emphasis on doing nothing aiskhron as
equivalent to not commiting hybris and the striking neologism onesipolis as
pointing not to some as yet non-existent "democratic citizen" but precisely
to the claim of the tyrants to bring about justice through the institutions
of the polis.
Another famous fragment of Simonides, often cited as proof of his hostil-
ity to tyranny, I would also argue is best understood within the framework
of encomiastic conventions. In fragment 581 C Simonides harshly criticizes
Kleoboulos, who was the tyrant of Lindos:
Who, ifhe trusts his own mind, would praise the inhabitant ofLindos,
Kleoboulos,
When he opposes to the ever-flowing rivers and spring blossoms
To the flame of the sun and the golden moon,
To the sea's whirling eddies the might of a stone-slab?
For all things are less than the gods: a stone
Even mortal hands shatter: this was the judgment
Of a foolish man.
While we have noted some evidence of considerable cooperation between

some tyrants, it is worth recalling that they also were highly competitive.
Thus a harsh critique of another tyrant - not at all qua tyrant - is by no
means inherently uncongenial to a tyrant patron. This critique, I would
suggest, is best understood not as a gratuitous independent poem (Camp-
bell 1967: 393), but as a foil to a common motif of encomiastic poetry, the
celebration of the superiority of the fame that results from poetic memo-
rialization as compared with the apparent durability of stone statues or
memorial steles, both forms characteristic of the Archaic Age in the nar-
rower sense of that term. Gentili (1988: 163) cites in another context the
famous opening of Pindar's Nemean 5:
I am no maker of statues, so as to fashion lazy treasures that stand fixed
Upon their same base. But, 0 sweet song,
On every merchant ship and on every skiff, set forth to carry the news ...
(1-3)
Though there are few fragments of Simonides clearly attributable to epini-

cians and the genre seems to have been invented by Ibykos, I think it is
plausible to insist that the bulk of his poetry consisted either of direct enco-
mia of tyrants and other powerful persons or epinicia designed precisely to
lift the utterly ephemeral athletic achievements of tyrants and aristocrats
into a realm comparable to heroic martial exploits memorialized by ancient
epic. Focusing solely on the mildly playful or parodic elements preserved
as curiosities in the tradition (Gentili 1988: 152) runs the risk of distorting
the essential harmony of Simonides' poetic activity130 with the goals of the
tyrants' cultural policies to divert the energies of the aristocracy away from
factional strife toward love affairs and sports.
THE POLIS OF TYRANTS AS A SITE OF STRUGGLE
As I suggested earlier, Althusser's notion that these apparatuses devised by

the rulers to control the ruled are indeed "sites of struggle" is in my view
the best way of understanding the sharp split between those scholars who
stress the cynical class-interested motivations of the tyrants and Solon and
those who have emphasized what they perceive as the relentless progress
toward the self-government of the demos, most fully realized in the emer-
gence of Athenian democracy. Unlike the much-criticized evolutionary
model (Manville 1990: 28-29, cf. Foxhall 1997: 114), Althusser's analysis
implies a dialectical approach in which class conflict triggers attempted
solutions by rulers to contradictory situations followed by antagonistic
responses from the ruled and unanticipated consequences that in turn trig-
ger new contradictions. As Foxhall rightly argued, members of the ruling
class, from the earliest point at which we know anything about them,
are torn between the luxury of potentially deadly competition with each
1 3° Gentili (1988: 71) actually argues chat "Simonides' observations [as cited by Plato] are in line with
chose of his contemporary Xenophanes, who contrasted the useless aret2 of the athlete with the
sophia of the poet." I find it hard to believe chat a poet who gained so much of his income from
composing epinicia would ever publicly align himself with Xenophanes' position.
The polis oftyrants as a site ofstruggle
other and the necessity of class solidarity in controlling their "oppressed
groups of dependents" (1997: 120). Their options are constrained by the
very conditions that create their wealth and privileges: their control of the
majority of the best agricultural land depends upon pacifying the same
essential mass that demanded redistribution during the Solonian crisis.
Solon seems to have attempted to blunt these demands by some enhance-
ment of the limited political participation of the demos. Further efforts at
pacification attempted by the Peisistratids and their fellow aristocrats to
the extent that they were ideological, i.e., attempts at persuasion, open up
the possibility for their target populations to appropriate them for their
own ends. If, as is frequently speculated, the early aristocrats devised the
polis together with a new emphasis on tutelary deities and hero cults as
a way to displace big-men who offended their own sense of worth, they
inevitably created the possibilty that fragmented subsistence farmers, who
perhaps had thought of themselves as the wards, followers, and material
sustainers of a particular awesome big-man or chief, might now begin to
think of themselves as "Corinthians" or ''Athenians" or "Thebans" and in
turn develop a threatening new sense of entitlement as such. So too the
later recourse to laws may have been motivated primarily by a self-serving
desire to regulate aristocrats' trading off of power among themselves. But
in the process their legitimating lip-service to the support of the demos1 3'
opened up the possibility of the demos taking itself more seriously. More-
over, as Manville, anticipating Gagarin 2008, has rightly stressed, "once
laws were written down, recorded and stored permanently, the exclusive
prerogative of aristocrats to make and interpret the rules of social behav-
ior faded" (1990: 79). More generally, as I have argued elsewhere (Rose
1999b: 28-30), one way of understanding the reforms of Solon is to see in
them a trade-off on behalf of his primary goal of preserving the essential
property relations that enabled the existence of the Athenian aristocracy:
rather than acceding to what seem to have been powerful forces demand-
ing a complete redistribution of the land, Solon offered the demos a taste
of purely political power in the assembly and the courts. 132 At the same
'l' C£ Osborne's citation of the text of the earliest law with its ambiguous reference to the demos,
1997a: 75·
132 It would be hard to overestimate the brilliance - or the devastating long-term consequences - of
this strategy of offering the masses political power in lieu of economic power. C£ Marx's passing
analysis of the U.S. separation of political rights from the economic sphere ("civil society" in
Hegelian terminology). After citing Alexander Hamilton on the abolition of property qualification
for electors and represenatives, he argues: "The political suppression of private property not only
does not abolish private property; it actually presupposes its existence. The state abolishes, after its
fashion, the distinctions established by birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it decrees that
times, his attempt through the new definitions of class based on wealth to
"produce a stable and responsible elite" and establish "property ownership
as a fundamental divide" (Osborne 2009: 208) also entailed the abolition
of the ideologically decisive principle of inherited class identity. 133 Even if
in the short run this was irrelevant to the poorest elements in Athens, it
did open the way to a radically new way of conceiving of their identity as
citizens who could in principle ascend the ladder of privilege solely through
the acquisition of wealth. Solon's sumptuary laws (Ruschenbusch's sixth
category of laws: 1966: 26), like those of Periander (Salmon 1984: 199-
200), aimed at curtailing the flamboyant public display of wealth, not the
disparities of which they were an offensive symbol. But while I. Morris
suggests elaborate funerals were curtailed already in eighth-century Athens
in response to a civic spirit of isonomia, the seventh century sees life-size
and even greater than life-size dedications (e.g., Nikandre to Artemis at
Delos) and the sixth-century life-size funerary monuments like the Kroisos
kouros at Anavysos. 134 So too Peisistratos, while preserving those essential
property relations, sought to alleviate the most friction-causing abuses of
the big-landowners by improving the justice system (Ath. Pol. 16.5) and
to blur class distinctions by fostering a sense of polis solidarity and pride,
measures that had the unforeseen consequence of giving the demos a new
sense of self-confidence and entitlement.
I should perhaps clarify in this context the grounds for my critique of
what I see as the potentially mystifying celebration in McGlew, Manville,
and many others of the fostering by the tyrants, Solon, and subsequently
birch, social rank, education, occupation are non-political distinctions; when it proclaims, without
regard to these distinctions, chat every member of society is an equal partner in popular sovereignty,
and treats all elements which compose the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. But
the state, nonetheless, allows private property, education, occupation to act after their own fashion,
namely, as private property, education, occupation, and to manifest their particular nature. Far from
abolishing these effective differences, it only exists insofar as they are presupposed ... Where the
political state has attained to its full development, man leads, not only in thought, in consciousness,
but in reality, in life, a double existence - celestial and terrestrial. He lives in the political community,
where he regards himself as a communal being, and in civil society where he acts simply as a private
individual, treats other men as means, degrades himself to the role of mere means, and becomes
the plaything of alien powers" (MECW 3: 153-4).
133 The centrality of birch to the pre-Solonian political order is suggested by the wording of Drakon's
law on homicide, which specifies, "let the Fifty-One select these men on qualifications of noble
birch" (ML no. 86 = JG I3 104 = Stanton 1990: 27). The same criterion is mentioned by the Ath
Pol. (1) for the judges at the trial of the Alkmaionidai after the Kylonian affair.
134 J. Hall (2007: 170) argues chat the name Kroisos is best understood as pointing to the Alkmaionid
clan, who, according to Herodotus (Hdt. 6.125), had a relation of guest-friendship with the Lydian
king. As noted eearlier, anyone who has seen the grave stele for Megakles (Pic6n et al. 2007: 71) in
the New York Metropolitan Museum can easily imagine the awesome clutter of aristocratic display
in Attica, presumably concentrated in the agora.
The polis oftyrants as a site ofstruggle
by Kleisthenes of a sense of citizen identity and solidarity. As a Marxist
I should be the last to denigrate aspirations for true community. But
as Plato, a most insightful conservative, pointed out, a city of rich and
poor is really two cities "living in the same place and always plotting
against each other" (Resp. 8.551d). Plato is speaking of oligarchy where
access to political participation is restricted to the wealthy, but down to
the 450s even in "democratic" Athens access to the highest offices was
restricted to the top three Solonian categories, those dubbed by Foxhall as
"very wealthy indeed" (1997: 131, cf. Van Wees 2001: 61). 135 To the extent
that fostering citizen solidarity obscured the remaining very substantial
disparity in wealth and enabled continued exploitation of the labor of a
substantial portion of the polis it constituted an ideologically self-serving
mystification of the actual relations of citizens to one another. In terms of
class struggle what does seem to have been a very positive gain through
Solon and at least some of the tyrants is that the conditions under which
the aristocracy might extract surplus value from the peasantry had been
rendered more difficult. In this sense the cry for dike did find some concrete
institutionalization. We should not forget however that to the extent that
the citizens were "liberated" without changing the fundamental disparities
in land-ownership, the aristocracy may have turned increasingly to slave
labor (Finley 1980: 78). At the same time I agree with E. Harris (2002) that
ending debt-slavery should not be confused with ending debt-bondage,
which Harris demonstrates continued at least till the fourth century BC. As
Rihll suggests in rejecting Finley's account of the rise of slavery in Athens, "it
could be argued that such people [those no longer subject to debt-slavery]
would have been worse off after their liberation and thus more, not less,
likely to labour for their 'ex-lords' as wage labourers" (1996: 93 n. 29).
In any case, the seasonal nature of agricultural labor virtually guarantees
that substantial use of wage labor at harvest time was far more practicable
than buying enough slaves to do all the agricultural work. Moreover, bad
harvests and periodic droughts are not banned by new laws, and small
farmers are no less likely after the reforms of Solon to need "tiding-over" at
such times by loans from the large landowners, who thus retain substantial
power over them.
' 35 Ste. Croix thinks that "in the half-century between 508/7 and 457/6 most offices were probably
opened to all classes which could possibly aspire to them - even the archonship to the Zeugitai in
457/6" (2004: 27-28). This may be unduly optimistic, but it may also take for granted that poorer,
uneducated Athenians could not possibly aspire to high office.
CONCLUSIONS
The nature of our contemporary sources about tyranny, the surviving

poetry of the period, is, as Nagy and Carey have suggested in different
terms, by its very nature cast in such general terms - especially dike and
hybris - that we can extract from it and from the deceptively specific
later accounts only a broad picture of aristocratic grasping and internal
competition that provoked a widespread return to one-man rule as a means
of curbing the most blatant abuses. The tyrants and lawgivers, themselves
members of the competitive aristocracy, may have been in some cases
ruthless in exiling or murdering their immediate personal enemies, but
seem to have done nothing to disturb substantially the existing pattern of
land-ownership on which aristocracy as a social formation depended. At
the same time one can say broadly that their reliance on the money-form
led to a short-term transformation of "aristocracy" to "oligarchy" if by these
terms we refer to formal categories of power based on birth versus categories
based on wealth. But one must always keep in mind the reality articulated
by Simonides that concentrations of wealth in specific families over time
lead almost inevitably to claims of innate superiority: asked who were the
"well-born" (eugeneis), he answered "those who come from people who
have been rich for a long time (tous ek palai plousion)" (47 gin Campbell
1991).
The policies of the tyrants display both a continuity and a dramatic sys-
tematization of what we posited as the policies of the aristocrats responsible
for the creation of the polis form: the use of public building, religion, col-
onization, and poetry to foster simultaneously and contradictorily a sense
of collective identity and a sense of awe at the difference and superiority
of the rulers. Their success in the first goal might retrospectively be seen
as guaranteeing the ultimate failure of the second as, for the most part, a
chastened and more adaptable oligarchy replaced the tyrants.
CHAPTER 6
Sparta and the consolidation ofthe oligarchic ideal
Before examining the sixth-century developments that led to the emer-

gence of democracy in Athens, I wish to reiterate a point stressed earlier
in McGlew's throwaway words, "the aristoi remained politically powerful"
(McGlew 1993: 149). So too I. Morris, as noted earlier, almost grudgingly
acknowledged: "Many poleis entrusted themselves to the guardianship of
oligarchies throughout the classicalperiod. On the whole, it seems that democ-
racy was only tried out when a military crisis raised the stakes and made
it impossible for the guardians to claim to represent the middle" (Mor-
ris 1996: 41, my emphasis). Scholars too impressed by the evolutionary
model love to see the whole Archaic Period as a forced march toward
the inevitable triumph of democracy in Athens and often speak as if the
whole Greek world more or less followed suit. 1 One might argue, however,
that the history of the fifth century and the fourth showed that Athenian
democracy - however dazzling and inspiring some of its aspects may be
to modern eyes - was ultimately no match for the forces of an entrenched
and class-conscious oligarchy. Moreover, it was the unique level of wealth
flowing into Athens from her empire that financed a level of participation
' I do not wish to suggest chat Athenian democracy as a constitutional form was unique, and there
are many signs chat the db-nos in many places was gaining more say. The famous inscription from
Chios, dated 575-550 (ML 8) appears to give important powers to the d2mos and is often cited as the
earliest "democracy." I do nonetheless chink democracies were relatively rare and very vulnerable.
This is not to deny chat ocher poleis besides Athens developed distinctly "democratic" institutions
(c£ Gehrke 2009: 397 on Chios, and more generally Robinson 1997), but even in these it seems likely
chat, as at Sparta (see below), these institutions were kept in line by oligarchs. Gehrke, for example,
plausibly suggests chat the very designation of a council at Chios as "the people's" (d2mosie) "justifies
the assumption chat it co-existed with another council with a more traditional, aristocratic, character,
similar to the Athenian Areopagus" (2009: 397). Whatever one chinks about the overall conclusion
of Bradeen's contribution to the debate over the popularity/unpopularity of the Athenian Empire
(1960), he does score some points against assuming "democracy of the Athenian type" (263) not only
"in the smaller cities of the Empire" but in most of the larger ones about which we have credible
data. The local oligarchs had many years of experience running things as well as all the power chat
went traditionally with ownership of the best land.
268 Sparta and the comolidation ofthe oligarchic ideal
by the poor inconceivable in any other polis (Finley 1985b: 86-87). 2 In
any case, before exploring what I would call the specific dialectical process
that led to "democracy" in Athens, it behooves us to take a hard look at
the alternative solution devised in Sparta to the class conflict that led to
tyranny in many other Greek poleis and ultimately to democracy in Athens
and a few other states. Sparta's approach was in key respects unique, but
not only its problems but many of its solutions are to a significant degree
parallel to what we have seen in other poleis during the seventh and sixth
centuries. However, the final configuration of Spartan society was not only
militarily supreme at the end of the period but, to judge by later sources,
ideologically supreme.
What would we like to know about Sparta in this period and what sort
of answers are the available sources likely to give us? In the first place,
what was the role of class conflict in the emergence of the specific social
and political arrangements of the Spartan system? That question of course
presupposes that we can know what the Spartan system was in the Archaic
Period and specifically what was the configuration of classes in that system:
what were the sources of tension and the specific means devised to contain
them? We would also like to know the role of class in Sparta's relations with
the rest of Greece - both her concrete policies vis-a-vis class configurations
in other poleis and the ideological impact of Sparta on the rest of Greece.
THE SOURCES
To approach these questions we need first to consider the available sources,

which, as we have so often seen, dictate the inevitable tentativeness of our
answers. If the historiographic problems of tyranny arise primarily from
the hatred it inspired in later narrators, those of Sparta arise not only from
the idealization - the "Spartan mirage" (Ollier 1933/i943) - of its later
admirers but from Sparta's own combination of myth-making (Hooker
1989, A. Powell 1989) and its general rejection of textualization: with the
all-important exceptions of Tyrtaeus and Aleman - the first perhaps from
2 Jones (1964: 5---6), Ober (1989: 24), and ochers have disputed chis by pointing to the restoration
of the democracy after the loss of empire and even the expansion of pay for participation despite
the economic straits of the fourth century. My own view is chat the very power of participation
developed in the fifth century - thanks to the wealth of the empire - best explains the power of
the politically self-conscious demos in the fourth century to reorder economic priorities and extract
proportionately more from what remained of the liturgical class. Demosthenes repeatedly complains
of how well festivals were organized while the military foundered. But the fact remains, as Finley
argued, we know of no ocher ancient Greek democracy chat paid the poor to participate.
The sources
the mid-seventh century, 3 the second from the late seventh - we have only
the accounts of non-Spartan Sparta-lovers and Sparta-haters to go on, none
of which is contemporary with the Archaic Period. Paradoxically, however,
the very sense of Sparta's uniqueness and the curiosity her successes inspired
mean that we have from these sources more detailed comments and spec-
ulations about Spartan class-relations than we have for any other polis -
including Athens - for the period down to 500 BC.
Of course in specific authors there are nuances that could be explored at
great length; but while I define the scope of class very broadly, tracing every
piece of potential information about Sparta is not our task here. Generally
pro-Spartan authors, like Xenophon, Plato, and Plutarch, for whom Sparta
is in varying degrees a model in their quest for the ideal state, may make
telling criticisms; while relatively more hostile authors, like Herodotus,
Thucydides, or lsokrates, may offer key data that may be considered to
Sparta's credit. In the case of late fragmentary accounts, the sympathies
of the authors may not be clear; but as in the case of tyranny, there is a
tendency to produce more specific details the further the source is from
the Archaic Period. I will discuss briefly the approaches of those sources
nearest chronologically to the Archaic Period.
As was the case with tyranny, the agenda of Herodotus colors what he
considers most relevant in discussing Sparta: what aspects of the Spartan sys-
tem contributed to the roles she played in the conflict with Persia, namely,
as terrific hop lites but as hopelessly stupid and self-serving strategists. 4 Car-
tledge has also noted Spartans' relevance to a concomitant ethnographic
Herodotean agenda:
Sparta is the only Greek state that Herodotus treats in his ethnographic manner,
describing some of the Spartans' customs as if they might be as unfamiliar and
outlandish to his audience as those of the Nasamones. The Spartans, that is,
function as Herodotus' Greek Other, a kind of control on the Greek side of the
Greek-barbarian polarity. (2002: 95)
Thucydides tells us that due to his twenty-year exile, he was "present at

the affairs of both sides, and not less at those of the Peloponnesians on
3 Down-dating Tyrtaeus seems to be the new fashion: Nafissi 2009: 121 reviews some of the chrono-
logical arguments. P.-J. Shaw's analysis (1999) is the most radical and renders any tentative dates I
might mention quite irrelevant.
4 A. Powell 2001: 97---98 in attempting sensibly enough to counter the impression of Spartan stupidity
by stressing their long-term successes suggests this widespread scholarly impression "may have been
encouraged by words of Thucydides." But Herodotus seems to me a far more telling critic in focusing
on the reluctance of Spartans at Salamis and their self-serving and stupid obsession with a wall across
the Isthmus.
account of my exile" (5.26.5-6). It is a reasonable inference from this that
he spent a significant amount of time in Sparta 5 and may well have been
acquainted with fellow exile Alcibiades and, in such a face-to-face society,
members of the Spartan ruling class. His radical commitment to purely
contemporary history (1.3) dictates that he has little to say directly about
Sparta in the Archaic Period, although the general character of Spartan
society and policy are central concerns.
Xenophon, who lived some twenty years in Sparta and was the intimate
friend of its king Agesilaos, should in principle be our most reliable source
for the specific institutions of Sparta at least in the early fourth century. But
not only is his Socratic-inspired idealization a problem, he has chosen an
utterly ahistorical framework in attributing all institutions to the mythical
Lycurgus, whom he places in the time of the Herakleidai (Lipka 2002a:
35-36). Indeed, the only remotely historical moment in his text is the
problematic chapter 14, in which he laments the present-day departures
from Lycurgan laws.
Plato and Aristotle, explicitly concerned to describe an ideal state, do not
always refer directly to Sparta; but Plato in particular, given the close par-
allel between elements in his ideal in the Republic and Spartan institutions
otherwise attested, clearly was very intrigued by what he took to be Spartan
institutions. At the same time his account in the Republic of the first of the
"worse types" of societies (Resp. 545a1), the timocratic society, its limita-
tions and decline, is specifically designated with reference to the "Lakonian
constitution (kata ten Lakoniken . .. politeian 545a2). In the Laws, a more
explicit - one might say more "realistic" - attempt at designing an ideal
state, the Athenian stranger's two interlocutors are a Spartan and a Cretan,
assumed initially at least to have very similar institutions, which the Athe-
nian examines, criticizes, and, with the help of his interlocutors, weaves
into a highly elaborate set oflaws for a putative colony (Magnesia). Plato's
pupil Aristotle, on the basis of concrete research presumably by his pupils
into the constitution of Sparta, now lost except for brief fragments, offers
scattered comments and criticisms primarily in his Politics.
Any reader of Plutarch's Life of Lycurgus - especially the opening
chapters - cannot but be struck by its tentativeness, not to say its silliness.
Many representations of the utopian provisions attributed to Lycurgus are
5 A. Powell 2001: 105-7, noting that a number scholars have doubted Thucydides' uncharacteristically
detailed account of the activities and death of Pausanias, underlines that "the historian states that he
spent much time with the Peloponnesians during his exile of twenty years'' {106) and concludes "there
should be no certainty that Thucydides has seriously misrepresented the measures he [Pausanias] did
take" {107).
The sources 271
highly suspect. Yet Plutarch cites both Xenophon and Aristotle and clearly
had access to other credible data, including the poems of Tyrtaeus. He is,
for example, our only source for the so-called Great Rhetra. Pausanias, who,
Starr declares, "should be the last rather than the first author consulted by
a student of early Spartan developments" 6 (1965: 262 = Whitby 2002: 29),
does have at hand the poems ofTyrtaeus (e.g., Paus. 4.6.5 = 5-1-2 W, Paus.
4.14.4-5 = 6 and 7 W).
The value of Tyrtaeus as a source,? like all our other sources from the
Archaic Period, has been subjected to a potentially withering set of ana-
lyses. Thus, for example, even though the surviving fragments of Tyrtaeus
seem primarily addressed to Spartans, the fact that they are composed in
essentially the same Ionic dialect as Homer, Hesiod, and Callinus suggests
that he may have been available to a wider Greek audience. Bowie (1990:
223) cites Reitzenstein (1893: 46) for the argument that due to the general
absence of "specific fighters or foes ... early elegy can be suitable for singing
by members of any polis. "There are however, sufficiently specific indica-
tions in these fragments of uniquely Spartan elements that they remain
our best starting point for exploring the Spartan phenomenon. 8 At the
same time the widespread assumption that elegiac couplets were only per-
formed at ruling class symposia has led, I believe, to an untenably narrow
and circular conception of Tyrtaeus' target audience. 9 Athenaeus, admit-
tedly a very late source, declares: "The Spartans themselves in their wars
march in time to the poems ofTyrtaeus, which they recite from memory"
(testimonia IO G). Lycurgus, the fourth-century Athenian orator, though
he brings up the unlikely claim that Tyrtaeus was an Athenian (Agaimt
Leocrates rn6 = testimonia 4 G, cf. Plato Lawsi. 629a = testimonia 2 G),
6 Luraghi (2008: 68) notes, "Thanks to the fourth book of Pausanias' Description of Greece, there
is virtually no event or complex of events in archaic history for which the evidence of the ancient
literary sources can be said to approach, in terms of comprehensiveness and level of detail, chat for the
Spartan conquest of Messenia. This is slighcly embarrassing." In no small measure the publications
of Luraghi could be said to be devoted to spelling out chis embarrassment - and the implications of
Starr's judgment in 1965.
7 Starr well remarks apropos of the lamented loss of the works of Sosibius, a third-century Lacedae-
monian, "for my part I would rather have 200 consecutive new lines from Tyrtaeus" (1965: 260 =
Whitby 2002: 29).
8 After reading various contemporary assaulcs on the authenticity of the fragments of Solon and
Tyrtaeus, it is almost amusing to turn back and read Werner Jaeger's essays on these poets (1966,
German originals 1926 and 1932 respectively), where he recites the various earlier arguments of
German scholars - including his mentor Wilamowitz - condemning chis or chat poem or the entire
corpus as a fifth- or fourth-century fabrication. See Meier 1998: 236-38. Luraghi 2oo8: 68-106. Plus
fa change ...
9 Meier (1998: 240) notes the declaration chat Solon performed his Salamis elegy in the agora and
argues against chose who would limit Tytaeus to the aristocratic symposium.
claims that the Spartans passed a law requiring that troops who had taken
the field gather in the tent of the king to hear all the poems of Tyrtaeus
(rn7). He then gives us our second longest poem from Tyrtaeus (= IO W).
Plutarch, also late, reports that "Leonidas of old, when asked what sort
of poet he thought Tyrtaeus was, replied: 'A good one to incite the hearts
of the young"' (testimonia II G). In any case I will argue that the poems
themselves make clear that they are directed not at a tiny ruling class but
at all potential hoplite warriors, especially the young ones.
Though we must keep in mind that all class relations are inherently
relations between classes, for the purpose of analysis we can make some
initial distinctions. Using Tyrtaeus for the earliest period as our touchstone
for the plausibility of non-Spartan sources, including archaeological and
anthropological approaches, we can explore at least three sorts of class
relationships within Sparta: the internal relationship between those clas-
sified as Spartiate citizens, the relationship between these "pure" Spartans
(Spartiates) and the enslaved "captives" 10 (helots) of Laconia and Messe-
nia, and the relationship between Spartiates and those who "lived around"
Sparta (,Perioikoi). Historically of course all these relationships are them-
selves interrelated: though the details are murky at best, the formation of
the Spartiates as such must have been intimately connected with the process
by which they succeeded in dominating and systematically exploiting their
immediate Laconian and western Messenian neighbors. A fourth aspect,
intimately tied to the "Spartan mirage" but also central to understanding
aristocratic ideology in the Archaic Period, is the relation of Sparta to the
classes of the rest of Greece.
TYRTAEUS AND THE MESSENIAN WARS
We noted earlier Qviller's (1981) point that in Homer wars and raids are
primarily over women and cattle, not for land, but in the late eighth
and early seventh centuries we hear of wars over land, the chief source
of wealth in a now predominantly agricultural society.n This seems to be
'0 In using chis term in scare quotes I am certainly not endorsing any particular etymology of the term
"helot," on which there exists both a plethora of ancient and modern speculation (c£ Ducat 1990:
7-12, Nafissi 2009: 120), none of it, I believe, relevant to my project.
11 Qviller (1981: 140) cites the war between Megara and Corinth and the shadowy Lelantine War in
Euboea, now disputed by J. Hall (2007: 1-8), who also questions lust for land as a motive in the
conquest of Messenia (2007: 172-3) but says nothing ofTyrtaeus fr. 5.3 W: "good to plougb, good
to sow," a phrase cited by Qviller (ibid.). Van Wees's survey of archaic imperialism (2003: 72) I
believe completely corroborates and extends Qviller's point: "Sparta's conquest of Messenia was
no anomaly, but merely the most spectacular instance of a form of imperialism characteristic of
Tyrtaeus and the Messenian wars 273
the context in which to situate polis formation and the emergence of a
self-conscious aristocratic class. Sparta's wars in Messenia not only fit in
with this general trend in Greece as a whole but, thanks to the survival
of substantial fragments of Tyrtaeus, offer us the most reliable context for
understanding the early dynamics of class struggle and class ideology in the
Spartan sphere of power. Rich farmland is explicitly the stake in the war:
Messenia is "spacious" (eurukhoros), "good for plowing, good for sowing"
(Tyrtaeus 5.2-3 W). Tyrtaeus specifies that it took twenty years for "the
fathers of our fathers" to acquire it (5.4-8 W). 12
Two wars in Messenia are generally deduced from Tyrtaeus - one in
the late eighth century in which the initial conquest and enslavement
of the local population was achieved and, taking "fathers of our fathers"
literally (e.g., Andrewes 1938: 96, n. 2, Luraghi 2003: no and n. 4), the
second more or less in the decade 650-640, the war in which Tyrtaeus
was himself somehow active13 against the rebellious Messenians and, fol-
lowing Aristotle, some reluctant or downright rebellious Spartans. Aristotle
(Pol. 5-1306b36-1307a2) notes that in general revolutions occur when "some
are very poor and some are very rich" and cites the example of Sparta during
the Messenian war: "This is proved from the poem of Tyrtaeus, entitled
'Good Order' (Eunomia); for he speaks of certain citizens who were ruined
by the war and wanted to have a redistribution of the land," a demand
we also hear coming from the Athenian smallholders at the time of the
Solonian Crisis perhaps half a century later. Pausanias (4.18.2-3) credits
Tyrtaeus with resolving (dielue) the crisis in some way. 14
archaic Greece ... The earliest datable conquests of chis type were made by Corinth and Syracuse
in the eighth century BC, which is perhaps also when Sparta conquered Laconia and Argos began
subjecting its neighbors. In none of the ocher areas need expansion have begun earlier. The latest
datable wars which resulced in the creation of serfs fell in the decades 580---560 BC."
12 Luraghi (2008: 71-73) is at pains to argue chat the first conquest "was not an all-out war of regional
expansion, all the more so since for him [sc. Tyrtaeus] Messene was not the whole region, but
probably only a settlement or a portion of the region." Looking at Luraghi's own excellent map of
Messene (2), I chink it is clear chat the best part of"Messene" -the part best described as "spacious"
(eurukhoros), "good for plowing, good for sowing" (Tyrtaeus 5.2-3 W) - is the whole flat valley
of the Pamisos River, with Ichome and the town Messene more or less at its center at the edge
of the western ("Ichomaian ") mountains. Once chis was relatively secured, it is plausible enough
chat later "mop-up" operations would incorporate chose who had fled to the Aigalion Ridge area
and the relatively fertile-looking western coastal plains. Not surprisingly Luraghi (2oo8: 70) seems,
somewhat equivocally, to prefer a non-literal reading of "fathers of our fathers."
13 Various late sources describe Tyrtaeus ludicrously as a blind, lame schoolmaster from Athens and/or
as a general. Jaeger notes chat the papyrus chat uses the first plural "we will obey our leaders" (19.11,
c£ 2.10 W) categorically precludes Tyrtaeus being himself a general (1966: 117 n. 1).
14 The Suda credits the shadowy figure of Terpander of Lesbos with "bringing Spartan souls into
harmony" during a "time of civil strife" (9 C). This was perhaps a mythic motif arising from the
assumption chat the Spartans themselves were devoid of any musical sense.
2 74 Sparta and the comolidation ofthe oligarchic ideal
Though it may be a later designation (Meier 1998: 239), it is striking that
his poem is called Eunomia (Good Order), the same term Hesiod uses for
the first offspring of the union of Zeus and Themis (god-given Law) (Th.
902), and Solon used to describe the power that "shows forth all things
well-ordered and fitting, and often puts shackles upon the unjust" (3.32-33
W). In each case the term seems to point toward some felicitous structural
adjustment in response to a perceived ethical and political crisis arising
from class conflict. 1 5 To be sure, in Hesiod's case I am assuming, as argued
above, that the utopian vision of Zeus's triumph over brutal forces and his
"marital" unions in the Theogony are relevant to the explicit class conflict
articulated in the Works and Days.
THE SPARTAN "soLUTION": THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SPARTAN

CLASS SYSTEM
Tyrtaeus's fragments give us some indication of the terms in which he at

least and presumably the kings and elders responded to the crisis:
After hearing Phoebus from Pytho they bore homeward
The oracles of the gods and his words that bring fulfillment:
Let them initiate the planning - the god-honored kings,
For whom the lovely city of Sparta is a care,
And the aged-horn elders; but then let the men of the demos 5
With straight statements responding in turn,
Both speak what is noble and do everything just (dikaia),
Nor resolve anything <twisted> for this city.
Let victory and power follow the mass of the demos.
For Phoebus showed forth to the city in this way about these IO
matters. (4 W)
I translate the text as printed by West and accepted by Gerber, but the
text and interpretation of line 8 are hotly disputed. Van Wees (1999b)
15 Gerber in his Loeb edition of Greek Elegiac Poetry (1999: 37) cites Andrewes 1938 for the definition,
"a condition of the state in which citizens obey the law, not a condition in which the laws are good"
(1938: 89). This view is somewhat anticipated by Jaeger in footnote where he attacks the "monstrous
misinterpretation of evvoµia as meaning 'just distribution' derived from v~µw (Ehrenberg, p. 84),
comparable to icrovoµia in the sense of 'equal distribution' ... evvoµia rules where citizens obey
and respect good v6µos; the v6µ01 EO KEiµevo1 of the fourth century do not therefore exhaust the
meaning of evvoµia" (1966: 95). The significant difference between Andrewes and Jaeger is chat
the latter specifies "good v6µos.'' I find it hard to believe chat either Tyrtaeus or Solon - different
as their conceptions of "good" law may have been - would concede indifference to the quality of
the laws they advocated. But I should note chat the definition cited by Gerber is at the very outset
of Andrewes's valuable article and offered apropos of Hesiod's usage. Raafl.aub (2006) stresses the
connections between Tyrtaeus and Solon, but is more concerned with the debate over the "Great
Rhetra" than with a definition of the meaning of the term for each source.
The Spartan ''solution':· the comtruction ofthe Spartan class system 275
has recently made a strong case for taking the dative in line 6 as a true
dative rather than an instrumental dative, i.e., the men of the demos should
respond to the straight statements coming from the kings and elders rather
than with straight statements of their own. Moreover, Van Wees endorses
the reading of line eight in Diodorus, which was "corrected" by Bach, who
also added the word translated as "crooked"16 : instead of enjoining the
people not to plan anything crooked agaimt this city, Tyrtaeus is exhorting
the people no longer to plot agaimt this city. On this reading the statement
about "victory and power following the people" refers not to some ulti-
mate popular sovereignty, but literally to military victory: if they return to
unquestioning obedience to the direction of the kings and elders, they will
win the war. This interpretation credits Tyrtaeus with no role in the radical
transformation of Spartan society, but rather with a passionate endorse-
ment, propped up by an alleged religious blessing from Apollo, of what
may be assumed to be the entirely traditional Spartan constitutional struc-
ture - an essentially Homeric one - in which the kings and their advisors
make proposals to the assembly, which has no right to respond other than
by the anticipated endorsement or the rare shouting of disapproval. 17
This interpretation insists that the Eunomia poem of Tyrtaeus has, in
Van Wees's phrase, "nothing to do with the Great Rhetra" 18 - four to
seven lines19 of Greek prose - which, as Cartledge noted (1980: 91), "has
16 Ogden's whole fanciful argument (1994) hangs on chis addition of Bach, which he describes as
"universally accepted" (87 n. 19), not even mentioning Diodorus's reading, much less Andrewes's
interpretation.
17 Raaf!aub (2006: 394---95) objects, citing the dubious example of Thersites and the "temptation"
episode in book 2 of the Iliad, "neither there nor here does chis mean chat 'kings' or 'leaders' are
meant to have absolute power and the community is supposed simply to accept whatever they
propose."
18 Though, as is clear from my text, I am strongly attracted to Van Wees's reading, Lipka's smart brief
notes (20026) on parallels in language between the Rhetra, Herodotus, and Xenophon make his
case for an influence of the Rhetra on the language of Tyrtaeus 4 W very tempting. Certainly the
closeness ofTyrtaeus 49 to the language of the Rhetra does not seem to me adequately dealc with by
Van Wees, who wants to take it in an entirely different sense from chat of the Rhetra. Nafissi (2009:
126--28) argues: "The rhetra is not a law but a supposed founding prescription for the establishment
of the state, which is projected back to the beginning of the institutions which existed in archaic
Sparta ... The rhetra, however, is not simply a fake: it is a retrospective reconstruction inserted into
an intentional elaboration of a past chat was largely accepted by Spartan society" (127). I confess I
am not quite sure what chis means: who inserted it where and when? I am attracted by Hodkinson's
suggestion chat the ultimate source for what he considers chis earliest prose constitutional document
was "the pamphlet on the laws ofLykourgos which the former king Pausanias wrote during his exile
after 395 ac" (2000: 28---9).
19 Seven lines in Gerber's little Loeb volume, which prints the Rhetra as part of Tyrtaeus' Eunomia
(i.e., 4 W). I quote Gerber's translation of both the Rhetra and the rider: "After founding a temple
of Zeus Syllanios and Athena Syllania, tribing the tribes and obing the obes, establishing thirty
as a council of elders along with the kings, hold apellae season after season between Babyca and
Sparta and the comolidation ofthe oligarchic ideal
been the subject of more scholarship than any other text of comparable
length in Greek history" (cf. Ogden 1994: 85). 20 To a significant degree
many of Van Wees's arguments were anticipated by Andrewes (1938). 21
Both associate the Rhetra and its problematic "rider" with a later revolu-
tionary upheaval about 600 BC, when, it is argued, the cumulative stresses
associated with maintaining the conquest of Messenia, the subjugation of
its inhabitants, and - following Aristotle - rebellion of the poor at home
led to the series of radical measures traditionally associated with the shad-
owy figure of Lycurgus, widely considered a mythic creation 22 to legitimate
all the features associated with the so-called homoioi, usually translated as
"equals" or "peers," but perhaps better understood as "homogenized men"
(cf., A. Powell 2001: 226). These measures may have been gradually imple-
mented and built on some very traditional elements, but cumulatively
constructed the widely recognized uniqueness of Sparta.
Hodkinson, based on Herodotus's account of the Lydian king Croe-
sus seeking the aid of Sparta as the leading power of Greece (Herodotus
1.65-69), concludes that "the decisive changes had already been made by
around the mid-sixth century" (2000: 3). He distinguishes "analytically" -
i.e., not chronologically - "four essential strands" of the Spartan response
to the ongoing crisis to which Tyrtaeus and Aristotle's paraphrase of Tyr-
taeus bear witness: "a military system ... an economic system ... a political
system ... a social and ritual system which marked out from birth to grave
a common, public way of life which every non-royal citizen was to follow"
(ibid.). I will examine each of these systems, though not in Hodkinson's
order.
Cnacion, thus bring in and set aside (proposals), but the rigbc to speak in opposition and the
power belong to the people ... Afterwards, however, when the multitude distorted and perverted
proposals by subtraction and addition, the kings Polydorus and Theopompus subjoined the fol-
lowing: If the people should speak crookedly, the elders and kings are to be setters-aside." {1999:
42-43).
20 Reading chrougb Wade-Gery's three linked dense articles {1943-44) on the Rhetta, I often chougbc
of Cartledge's words and was shocked when I added up the pages chat they only came to thirty-two.
On one level Wade-Gery's analysis is a model of formidable learning, historical imagination, and
relentless logic. On the ocher, the sheer wealch of detail makes it hard to distill his final argument.
He argues, I chink, chat the Rhetra was all of a piece (no rider), chat it was an enactment of
legislation passed by the Spartan assembly more or less contemporaneously with Tyrtaeus, chat its
main thrust was to define "certain things about the composition and powers ofthe Gerousia" {1944'
116, his emphasis).
21 Andrewes later, according to an odd note of Wade-Gery's, "recanted" (Van Wees 19996: 23), but left
no account of his reasons.
22 Starr, for example, concludes: "To connect chis reform with Lycurgus ... seems unnecessary ... A
modern scholar must rigbtly be more than suspicious about his role or even his historical existence"
{1965: 271= 2002: 41 Wbicby).
The political system 2 77
THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
Since the Grand Rhetra was preserved erroneously among the poetic frag-
ments of Tyrtaeus, we have already glanced at the political system. On this
level, while Sparta's eventual uniqueness is not to be denied, it is well to
underline some of the commonalities with what we have noted in Solon
and the actions of the tyrants. The reference in the Rhetra to "tribing the
tribes and obing the obes" 23 seems to imply some sort of reorganization
of the traditional Dorian three tribes, presumably related to tightening the
military organization of the demos. So too Kleisthenes of Sikyon reorga-
nized the tribes of his city2 4 and the tribal reorganization of his grandson
in Athens, which had dramatic military consequences, 25 is rightly seen as
following a tyrannical pattern. The emphasis in the Rhetra on holding reg-
ular assemblies and giving- then severely qualifying - the right of criticism
and emendation to the demos parallels in part at least Solon's increasing
the powers of the Athenian assembly. 26 Two of the many disputed aspects
of the Rhetra as a political document are the apparent downgrading of the
kings and the absence of any reference to the five ephors, elected annually
from the citizenry at large. The Rhetra may have specified the number
of the elders for the first time and lumped them with the arkhagetai, a
word Gerber translates as "kings," but which means simply "leaders" and
elsewhere is used of leaders of new colonies. 27
A long time ago Wade-Gery, in a telling phrase, described early Sparta's
Eunomia, which he assumed was the same as the Great Rhetra, as "a sort
of inoculation, whereby they accepted a harmless form of the disease and
rendered themselves immune against the real thing" (1925: 558). 28 Even
23 Nafissi (2009: 126) argues: "If obai means villages, as it did in Roman times and as Hesychios seems
to confirm, this alludes not only to the people's distribution into civic subdivisions but to their
settlement in villages."
24 Van Wees (2003: 39-40) offers the attractive suggestion that Kleisthenes' seemingly bizarre degrading
names for tribes was a strategy of denigrating subject populations.
2 5 See discussion of Greg Anderson in Chapter 7.
26 I agree with those who see the supposed "rider" as part of the original document (contra Ogden
1994), insisting that the gerousia and kings had the final word. As Wade-Gery argued apropos of this
final line, "this does not remove the demos' power of amendment altogether, still less does it remove
the power of discussion: the contingency cxi O'KOA1av ~po!To ["if the demos formulates crooked" -
his translation, 1943: 71] is impossible unless both powers remain" (1943: 64).
27 Nafissi (2009: 126) makes much of the potential sense of archagetai as "founders, leaders of colonies."
"The rhetra must be referring to the first Heraclid kings, Eurysthenes and Procles, and to the
foundation of Sparta." I think the term need mean nothing more than "first(-rank) leaders," i.e.,
the kings.
28 I recall him saying charmingly in a lecture at Harvard in the late 195os something like: "Someone
once said, indeed I said it myself fifty years ago, that Sparta inoculated itself against democracy."
Either he was comically exaggerating the time gap or my own memory is faulty.
if one detects in such a comment a de facto acceptance of the evolution
of democracy as the normal pattern of Greek development, the implicit
metaphor of democracy as a dangerous disease does neatly point up both
the later Spartan aristocratic horror of democracy and the uniqueness of
the Spartan response to the challenges that led Athens and other archaic
poleis to acquiesce in tyranny and make some concessions to the perceived
pressure from below. Meetings of the Spartan assembly may, on some
accounts (Andrewes 1966: 7-8), have been more numerous than those in
Athens on any given occasion, and Thucydides' account of the congress
at Lakedaimon (1.66-78) attests to the assembly's hearing open debate -
including foreign envoys, then in the strictly Spartiate second assembly
(1.79-88) the opinion of the king and the - apparently decisive - speech
of the elected ephor, Sthenelaides. At the same time it is important to
remind ourselves that the damos of Sparta, which at its maximum of 8,000
may have been larger than the 6,000 quorum required in Athens for an
ostracism, consisted only of those whose landholdings and helot labor
enabled them to provide their own equipment and contributions to the
common messes. Those who fell below those economic criteria were not
participating citizens.
The gerousia is conspicuous by its absence in these later data - unless
we grant that the king, a member of the gerousia, can be assumed to speak
for that group as a whole. In the inevitable scholarly conflict over this
issue, represented in the Whitby collection (2002) by the juxtaposition of
Andrewes (1966) and de Ste. Croix (1972: 131-38), Andrewes underlines
the various points at which the gerousia is absent from such testimony
as we have and stresses the relative power of the assembly and the kings,
while de Ste. Croix, focusing on accounts of various political trials in
Sparta, insists upon the dominance of the oligarchic gerousia. His view
of the irrelevance of the assembly is somewhat qualified by D. M. Lewis
(1977: 36-39), who nonetheless quotes with approval Finley's compelling
question: "Can we imagine that the obedient, disciplined Spartan soldier
dropped his normal habits on those occasions when he was assembled
not as a soldier but as a citizen, while he listened to debates among those
from whom he otherwise was taught to take orders without criticism or
hesitation?" (Finley 1968: 152-53). Certainly Andrewes fails to mention the
infantile and easily manipulable system of voting by shouting (Plut. Lye.
26.2-3) and passes in silence over the fact that there were no written laws
(Plut. Lye. 13.1-3), and no clear mechanism for passing new laws, 29 no
29 This is one obvious problem with Wade-Gery's reading (1943-44).

The political system 2 79
judiciary apart from the gerousia - the point stressed by de Ste. Croix -
and certainly no court of appeal; indeed, "Spartans were reportedly not
permitted so much as to criticize the laws" (Cartledge 1978: 37). Moreover,
Andrewes also ignores the substantial evidence (Aristotle Pol. 2.127ob6-16,
Hodkinson 2000: 20, 33, 172, 359-60) of systematic bribery of the ephors
and gerousia, not to mention the kings, the most obvious mechanism by
which the rich then as now retain de facto control of whatever there is
of government machinery. Thus Andrewes' conclusion that Sparta had
"in some ways a more open constitution than most oligarchies" (1966: 16,
cited by Cartledge 1978: 34), even granting our substantial ignorance of the
day-to-day operation of most Greek oligarchies, 30 seems unduly generous.
The monarchic principle, which seems, to judge from Homer and the
temporary successes of tyranny, to have continued to hold broad appeal
for the demos, was retained but diffused by duplication.31 Certainly in the
Rhetra, as noted above, the power of the kings is closely associated with
the power of the twenty-eight gerontes (literally "old men," but already in
Homer a term for the king's intimate advisors). 32 What may be newest
in this arrangement and what bears an interesting resemblance to Solon's
solution in strengthening the people's assembly is the declaration that
the demos is permitted to respond after the kings and elders have had
their say, and "victory and power shall follow the majority of the demos"
(cf. Tyrtaeus 4 W), where, unlike Van Wees's reading of the earlier portion
of fragment 4, the context clearly implies a strongly democratic principle.
3° Cartledge, rightly I believe, dismisses as a "distorting aspect of the 'mirage' ... the theory of the
'mixed constitution' (µtKTT]) developed perhaps in the fifth century but not apparently applied to
Sparta until the fourth" (1978: 34). Ostwald's little book on oligarchy focuses solely on the problem
of definition and represents his abandonment of a project to offer "an extended study of oligarchic
states in ancient Greece of the classical period" (2000: 7) and refers his readers to Whibley (1975).
Whibley notes in his preface: "For the study of Oligarchic Constitutions in Greece there are no
adequate materials. No oligarchic state has left us any historical literature; nor have we the record
of the internal workings of any oligarchy" (1975: v). Much of his short text is an elaboration of
observations by Aristotle. Since 1896 the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia has provided a detailed account
(chapter XI) of the Boeotian Confederacy. See Bruce (1967: 157-64) and Larsen 1955, who explores
the theoretical assumptions of at least fifth-century oligarchy.
l' Hodkinson assumes plausibly enough that the "kingships, Gerousia and assembly were already in
existence before the promulgation of the Great Rhetra" (1997: 88). Hammond (1982: 734) gives the
traditional account of the origin of the double kingship from Herodotus 6.52 and finds it more
probable than "a sophisticated explanation of political expediency." Hodkinson subsequently in the
same article endorses the view of Finley and Carlier that one cannot speak simply of Homeric sur-
vivals (c£ Meier 1998: 188---89): "[In] many respects ... royal powers were greatly reduced, sometimes
under the smokescreen of the official list of privileges whose ambiguous formulation could conceal
major changes of substance. One related change was the dramatic rise of the ephorate ... which
figures prominently from the mid-sixth century" (1997; 92).
l2 Tyrtaeus' epithet presbygeneas (old-born) may insist on the literal age of this particular body. Plut.
Lye. 26.1 declares that the minimum age for the office was sixty.
But Plutarch tells us, and the "addition" seems compatible with what
else we know of the Spartan government, that the kings Polydoros and
Theopompos added a provision that if the demos said something "twisted"
(skolion), the elders and kings could override it (Plu. Lye. 6.3-4). The need
for this "supplement," which probably was part of the original, testifies
to a certain nervousness on the part of the ruling element. A probably
subsequent dose of inoculation, the addition to the power structure of five
annually elected ephors, seems on occasion to have entailed some check
on kingly power, but maintained intact the rest of the system (Hammond
1982: 330). Plutarch observes: "The establishment of the ephors was not
a loosening but a tightening of the constitution, and though appearing
to be aimed at the demos, it made the aristocracy more extreme" [literally
"more vehement": sphodroteran] Lye. 29.6). I believe, however, following the
insight of Finley quoted by Lewis, that it was essentially what Hodkinson
dubbed the "social and ritual system" (see below) combined with the daily
experience of the military system that constructed what strikes us as an
extraordinarily disciplined and compliant demos - a demos highly unlikely
to "abuse" its potential power to block the wishes of the kings and gerousia.
THE MILITARY SYSTEM
The military system, which seems likely to have been the key goal of all
the changes, must be intimately connected with the economic changes
and changes in the "social and ritual" systems 33 since the well-attested
consequences were a full-time hoplite army, apparently unbeatable for
almost two hundred years. At the same time, Herodotus' account of the
Spartans' very close victory over Argos at the time of Croesus's request
(Hdt. 1.82) and his earlier account of the Spartans' defeat by Tegea and
their long struggle to wipe away the shame of that defeat (Hdt. 1.65-68)
suggest that the military transformation was scarcely an overnight success
story. 34 In other poleis we have looked at the now largely discredited case
for earlier accounts of tyranny as a comequence of the integration of an
alleged hoplite class into the polis. The case rested in part on the cliche
that hoplite armor was expensive and never supplied by the state (e.g.,
Birgalias 2003: 260). Not only has this general assumption about archaic
33 The dose linkage of the system of messes with the reorganization of the military system is dearly
suggested by Herodotus' attribution of both in the same sentence to Lykourgos after Sparta's defeat
by Tegea (1.65-66).
34 Welwei (2004) argues Herodotus badly distorts Sparta's defeat by Tegea: he envisions a miscalculation
on the part of Sparta in sending initially too small a force, then subsequently redressing a small
defeat by a decisive victory. See further below.
The military system
Greece been effectively challenged by Van Wees (2001, cf. 2002a), but in
Sparta it appears that a hoplite "class" was created out of a previously class-
divided military force by providing the indigent Spartiates with sufficient
land not only to participate in the common messes, but implicitly to equip
themselves adequately. 35 Tyrtaeus is cited by Eustratius in his commentary
on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics to support the idea that the Spartans in
Tyrtaeus' time drew up troops in front of them and beat them if they gave
ground (9 W). Another fragment is often cited for proof of the specifically
hoplite tactics 36 of close formation and mutual interdependence:
But let a man, spreading his legs firmly, hold his place with both feet
Fixed upon the ground, biting his lip with his teeth,
His thighs and shins below, and his chest and shoulders
Having covered with the belly of his broad shield:
In his right hand let him brandish his strong spear,
And let him shake his fearful crest above his head:
By accomplishing mighty acts let him learn to make war,
And let him not stand out of range of missiles since he has a shield,
Rather, going close hand to hand, with his long spear
Or his sword jabbing, let him overpower an enemy man,
And setting foot beside foot, and pressing shield upon shield,
Crest on crest and helmet on helmet,
And chest on chest, after drawing near, let him fight with a man,
Grasping either the handle of his sword or his long spear.
(11.21-34 W)
At this point Tyrtaeus specifically addresses the light-armed troops

(gumnetai literally "naked men") 37 :
But you light-armed men, beneath a shield each from one point or another
Crouching, strike with large stones,
And with your smooth spears hurling at them,
Standing close to those who are fully armed. (11.35-8 W)
35 Finley (1968: 149) raises the question: "How did the individual Spartiate obtain his arms and
armour? ... The choice lies between (a) individual procurement from perioeci by payment in natu-
ralia (or, conceivably, iron spits) and (b) procurement and distribution by the state. I know of no
ancient text which gives the answer ... My own preference is for the public supply system, because
the ocher seems insufficiently reliable and because we do have textual evidence (Xen. Lac. Pol n.2;
13.n; cf. Ages. 1.26) that once the army had marched off, the state took responsibility for repair
and replacement (as it must have done for the initial procurement even at home when helots were
enrolled as hoplites, e.g. Thuc. 4.80.5)." On the ocher hand, the economic system (see below) seems
at least initially designed to furnish each potential hoplite with self-sufficiency - of which adequate
equipment would seem to be a key part.
36 C£ fl. 16.2n-17.
37 Van Wees (2003: 41) points out that subject people in Argos were apparently referred to as "naked"
(gumn2tai or gumn2sioi). it is tempting to view Tyrtaeus's reference here specifically to men conquered
in the first Messenian war forced to serve against their country in the second war.
Later military configurations of course also included the participation of
light-armed troops, but this passage seems to envision them as somehow
awkwardly mixed in with the fully armed warriors - a far cry from the later
image we get of a tightly organized phalanx (Van Wees 1994 and J. Hall
2007: 167). While the details of the "tribing" and "obing" are obscure and
need not detain us, it seems clear that the reorganization of the army as
a whole was effected by clearer divisions which presumably were tied in
somehow with the decisive common messes, small groups of only fifteen.
There is uniform ancient emphasis on the quantity and strenuousness of the
training, and A. Powell, citing Xen. Cons. Spart. 11.5, stresses the difficulty
of some of their manoeuvres (2001: 232). But its most important feature
was its economic basis.
THE ECONOMIC SYSTEM
Essential to the provision of a full-time hoplite army was an allotment of

enough land and enough helot labor to relieve the hop lites of all necessity to
support themselves. Aristotle's account of the circumstances under which
Tyrtaeus composed his Eunomia focuses on sharp class divisions within
Spartiate society between the rich and the poor, with the latter demanding
a division of the land. As Hodkinson underlines, "the evidence ofTyrtaeus'
poem implies that the territory ofLakonia was unequally divided; otherwise
how could some Spartiates have been reduced to poverty by the temporary
loss of Messenia, and what would have been the point of demanding a
redistribution of the land?" (2000: 76). There is also abundant indirect
evidence of dramatic inequalities in wealth during the sixth century and
beyond (see below). There is widespread agreement now that Plutarch's
utopian vision of an equal division of all the agricultural land controlled by
Sparta (Lye. 8) was sheer fantasy (e.g., Cartledge 1987: 167). But there is still
substantial debate over the terms on which a division of the very substantial
new farmland 38 acquired by the decisive defeat and subordination of the
helots was based. Hodkinson argues:
Certainly, it is likely that the newly-conquered Messenian territory was parcelled

out among those who had participated in the original conquest, as was later planned
when the Spartiates hoped to conquer Tegea (Hdt. 1.60). There is, however, no
certainty ... that every single citizen shared in it. (2000: 76)
38 Hodkinson (2000: 144-45) estimates the agricultural land of Messenia controlled by Sparta at "over
100,000 ha." and notes that this figure is close to the 92,500 ha. arrived at earlier by Figueira.
The economic system
This final qualification, which Hodkinson cautiously connects with the
"enigmatic episode of the Partheniai" (ibid.), does tie in with the suggestion
spelled out above that the very process of polis formation entailed not only
guaranteeing kleroi to those designated as "citizens", but also excluding
a significant number who were either encouraged or forced to seek new
homes abroad. Whatever mythic elements were attached to the founding
of Sparta's only colony in Southern Italy at Taras (traditionally dated to
706 Be), its plausible date and material reality bear witness to the exclusion
of a significant number of Spartans around the time of the first conquest
of Messenia (c. 700). Here too Sparta's solutions have clear, recognizable
affinities with those resorted to by other early poleis.
What is radically new is the creation of an economically independent
hoplite force devoted to full-time military training. We still cannot speak
of a hoplite "class" in Sparta in the usual sense that that term has been
employed, if by that we imply that the so-called homoioi were economically
more or less on the same level. Clearly vis-a-vis the subordinated helots the
Spartiates did form a unified class, as such grim institutions as the annual
declaration of war on the helots and the krupteia imply (see below). But
Hodkinson in particular (and he distills an immense body of scholarship)
has amply demonstrated that striking and indeed growing disparities in
wealth characterized the Spartiates of the sixth century and of course later
(2000: 65-186 and 209-368, cf. Cartledge 1987: 167-69). A. Powell speaks
aptly of "an oligarchy within an oligarchy" (2001: 103). The most obvious
evidence is Spartan participation in the most expensive and vainglorious
of the Olympic games, the four-horse chariot races. 39 Hodkinson also cites
(several times) the following passage from the pseudo-Platonic dialogue
Alcibiades I, dramatically set in the late fifth century:
You have only to look at the wealth of the Lakedaimonians, and you will perceive
that our [sc. Athenian] riches here are far inferior to theirs. Think of all the
land that they have both in their own country and in Messene. Not one of our
estates could compare with theirs in extent and excellence, not in ownership of
slaves, especially the helot class, nor of horses, nor of other livestock that graze in
Messene. (122d, Hodkinson 2000: 79, 133, etc.)
The actual economic arrangements that sustained the system have pro-
voked intense debate - especially between two of the most learned of
39 Hodkinson (2000: 77-78) cites Demara cos (Hdc. 6. 70, early fifth century), Euagoras (Hdc. 6.103, no
date indicated except chat it is earlier than the victories of the elder Milciades, who had been banished
by Peisistratos and murdered by his sons), and Lichas (Thucydides 5-50 in 420 ac). Elsewhere
Hodkinson cites evidence for fifth-century Spartan victors commissioning life-size bronze statues
to commemorate their victories (2000: 173). See also his chapter 10: 303-333.
Lakonophiles, Figueira and Hodkinson (cf. Cartledge 1987: 172-74). Tak-
ing Tyrtaeus at his word and adducing a wealth of comparative data,
Hodkinson (2000: 125-31) has argued for a fixed proportion - i.e., the fifty
percent mentioned by Tyrtaeus - versus later evidence specifying a fixed
quantity, i.e., a fixed rent. Figueira has recently offered a compromise: "I
would suggest that the fixed rents were a specification of the 50% levy and
the fixed rents and the 50% levy were necessarily simultaneous provisions
in the late archaic and classical periods" (2003: 200). 40 What is at stake in
this debate is the degree of ease of administration, which entails the ques-
tion of how much drain on the time of the Spartiate master was required
under either system and what opportunities each system offered the helots
for security in bad years and profit-making in good years. Whatever the
correct answer, 4' we can assume that the Spartiate master devoted as little
oversight as he could get away with; and we have reason to believe from
fourth century evidence that some helots at least acquired some substantial
wealth.
More intriguing and suggestive of the internal contradictions of this
particular ruling class are the indications Hodkinson teases out of the
sparse evidence of the mechanisms by which the very greed of this class
entailed its dynamic of self-destruction. The allotments of kleroi from
the conquered territory of Messene were - whether equal or not - initially
generous enough to supply each citizen with the means to meet his monthly
contributions to the obligatory common messes, 42 membership in which
was in turn the precondition of citizenship. Due to institutions of the
landowning class - one more or less general throughout archaic Greece as
far we know - the others more or less unique to Sparta - by the fourth
century the Spartiate ruling class had dwindled to less than 1,000 through
the relentless exclusion of those Spartiates who became too poor to pay
their mess dues. The first and common Greek institution, formally called
40 I must confess that the more often I read this, the less sure I am that I understand it. In general
Hodkinson seems to me to make the stronger case. In any case Tyrtaeus is the only really contem-
porary evidence we have. Luraghi, to be sure, disputes that the lines that speak of the economic
arrangement refer to the helots (2008: 73-74). Bizarrely, here he cites Pausanias in support of his
position.
41 Figueira's excruciating review (200¥) of the bits and pieces of evidence on the Spartan kleros
(land allotment) is symptomatic of the extraordinary problems of balancing the possibility of solid
evidence about early Sparta against all the factors militating against the survival of such evidence.
Hodkinson's more leisurely account of the sources on property and wealth (2000: 19-64) is more
readable but all the more daunting. The fact that these two careful scholars do not agree on some
substantial issues further attests to the necessity here too of designating all conclusions as tentative.
42 Based on Dikaiarchos and other late sources, Hodkinson mentions barley meal, wine, cheese, and
figs (133) and later adds (from the same source) "'about ten Aiginetan obols' for providing the
side-dishes called the opsonia" (2000: 171).
The economic system
"partible inheritance," i.e., the equal division of land among the heirs, in
most of Greece seems to have included only the male heirs, but in Sparta
daughters also inherited. 43 Hodkinson makes a strong case for Sparta using
the same standard as the law of Gortyn in Crete, namely, that a daughter
was entitled to half the amount of the sons' shares, which might take the
form of a "dowry" (Hodkinson 2000: 94-103). The Spartans were also
entitled apparently to make gifts of their land to whomever they pleased
(Aristotle Po/ 2.127oa19-22, cf. Hodkinson 2000: 80). 44 The interplay of
these institutional factors with the drive of the wealthy families to hold on
to and increase their wealth through various marriage arrangements 45 led
eventually to the situation denounced by Aristotle:
The land [in Sparta] has fallen into the hands of the few ... Approximately [or
'nearly'] (o-xe66v) two-fifths of all the land is possessed by women, both because of
the many heiresses (epikleroi) that appear, and because of the practice of giving large
dowries ... As a result, although the land was sufficient to support 1,500 cavalry
and 30,000 hop lites, their number was not even 1,000 ... The polis withstood not
one single blow, but collapsed owing to the shortage of men. (Pol. 2.127oa15-b6,
cited by Hodkinson 2000: 80)
4l I was intrigued to find in reviewing Ste. Croix's discussion of women as a class the following concise
anticipation of Hodkinson's argument: "Ac Sparta, the fact chat daughters could inherit in their
own right and chat the patrouchos (the Spartan equivalent of the Athenian epikMros) did not have
to marry the next-of-kin must have played a major part in bringing about the concentration of
property in a few hands which reduced the number of adult male Spartan citizens (the homoioi)
from eight or nine thousand to hardly more than a thousand by the date of the baccle ofLeuctra in
371 B.c." (1981: 102). He goes on to make the point chat the Athenian provisions about the epikleros,
which strike many today as barbarous and arbitrary, resulced in "greater equality of property among
citizen families" and is therefore "likely to have been one of the factors making for the exceptional
strength and stability of the Athenian democracy" (ibid.).
44 Pomeroy (2002: 46) dates chis only to the period of the alleged decree of Epitadeus (Plue. Agis 5)
sometime after the Peloponnesian War, but Hodkinson (2000: 44-45, following SchUtrumf 1987)
argues chis decree was a third-century BC fiction. So too Carcledge 1987: 167 citing Forrest (1968:
137): Epitadeus, "if he existed, does does not belong to the fourth century or, if he does, did not
create the trouble." Pomeroy acknowledges the grounds for skepticism about Epitadeus (2002: x),
but does assume "major economic changes associated with him occurred at the end of the fifth or in
the early fourth century" (ibid.). At issue is how early economic inequalities developed or whether
there ever was anything like economic equality. On chis I agree with Hodkinson. But Pomeroy
(2002: 46) assumes other phenomena, such as wife-sharing, were consequences of chis decree. This
does not seem to me to jibe with the evidence (admittedly confusing) of Herodotus (e.g., 6.62-5
on the birch of Demaratos). For what it is worth, there is also the heavy emphasis in Plutarch on
the impossibility of "adultery" existing in Sparta (Lye. 15.6-10), attributing a joking version of its
impossibility to one Geradas, whom he describes as "a Spartan of chose very ancient" (tan sphodra
palaifin).
45 Carcledge 1987: 168 adds, "In a 'malchusian' - or Hesiodic (WD 376) - way they aimed to limit
their male offspring to a single son; and any daughters they sired they would seek to marry off to
the sons of other wealthy houses."
IDEOLOGICAL APPARATUSES OF THE SPARTAN STATE
So much for the strictly economic aspects of the internal class arrangements
of the Spartiates. What Hodkinson calls the "social and ritual system" and
Figueira cites as processes associated with the "tightness of social inte-
gration and the sharpness of delineation of the civic persona" (2004b: x)
Althusser would call the "ideological apparatuses of the state" directed at
sustaining the illusions of internal class solidarity and "interpellating" the
controlled majority with a specifically subordinated identity. Figueira spec-
ifies, "education, marriage, sexuality, gender socialization, rites of passage,
male commensality, agonistic behavior, class exploitation, and communal
violence" (2004b: x). 46 I will explore briefly each of these "apparatuses,"
though not necessarily in this order since in some cases there is considerable
overlap between his categories. Cumulatively they represent - and this was
clearly their great appeal to Plato (Rose 1992: 331-69) - the most thorough-
going and self-conscious state-sponsored construction of identities in the
whole of classical antiquity.
EDUCATION
Ducat begins his excellent essay47 on Spartan education (1999: 43) with a
focus on the centrality of ideology to any educational system:
Its [sc. education's] principal aim is not to drum into them [children] a certain
quantity of knowledge thought to be basic, but to shape dissimilar individuals
in order to make them conform to the collective norm; thus they can eventually
be integrated into the social structure, and the latter can perpetuate itself in
accordance with its self-appointed model, which is education's essential purpose. 48
A central component of the Spartan educational apparatus was the regular
recitation of poems of Tyrtaeus, and I am struck by the degree to which
some scholars who battle at great length over the interpretation of "his-
torical" data in his fragments ignore or take for granted the ideological
content of his poems, which seem to have constituted a significant part of
Spartan "education." 49 Long ago Jaeger (1966: 117 [1932]) pointed rightly
4'> In much of the following attempt at a rapid overview I am substantially indebted to A. Powell's
useful overview (2001: 218-70).
47 For fuller detail see Ducat'a book-length study (2006) .
.,s See Bourdieu and Passeron 1977 for a devastating analysis of the French educational system from
this same perspective.
49 I. Morris of course has not neglected this aspect of Tyrtaeus, whom he claims for his middling
ideology (1996: 35). J. Hall vigorously protests (2007: 166-70), but I do not think presenting
Tyrtaeus as a pure elitist works too well either. See further discussion below. See also the full
comments of Meier 1998: 243-324.
Education
to the radical assault on key elements of aristocratic ideology at the outset
of what looks like a complete poem:
I would not call to mind nor set a man in my account -
Neither for the excellence/success (arete) of feet nor for wrestling,
Not even if he had both the great size and the might of the Cyclops,
And conquered in running Thracian Boreas,
Not even if he were more exquisite in beauty than Tithonos,
And more wealthy than Midas and Kinyras,
Not if he were more kingly than the son ofTantalos, Pelops,
And had the sweet-talking tongue of Adrastos,
Not even if he had every sort of fame except for impetuous
battle-courage (alkes). (12.1-9 W)
Jonathan Hall, calling attention to the use of such class terms as agathos
(Tyrtaeus I0.2 W) and esthlos (?),5° has argued recently "an attentive reading
of Tyrtaeus ... reveals not so much an egalitarian ethos as an expression
of class chauvinism" (2007: 168). The picture is, I think, more complex.
Tyrtaeus is invoking the typical range of purely individualist ruling-class
achievements on which its sense of superiority normally depended (phys-
ical prowess in athletics, imposing stature and physical beauty, wealth, an
aura of royal bearing, eloquence - the very qualities except for eloquence
celebrated among the Phaeacians, as well as the Spartan ruling class), but
Tyrtaeus is suggesting that any Spartan can qualify as a true agathosl"noble"
if he meets the sole criterion of courage in battle. The poem continues:
For a man does not become (ginetai) an agathos in war
If he does not endure on the one hand looking at blood-drenched killing,
And jab at the enemy, standing close.
This is excellence/success (arete), this is the prize - the best among mortals -
And becomes the most beautiful/noblest thing to carry off for a
young man. (12.10-14 W)
Hall seems to ignore the fact that Tyrtaeus' exhortations are addressed to
young men (neoi II.IO, I0.15 W) who seem to need his encouragement.
He is offering them the "prize" - equated with and surpassing the coveted
aristocratic athletic prizes - of instant access to the status of nobility by
demonstrating courage in battle. At the same time he is invoking a very
5° Perusing the few fragments of Tyrtaeus, I don't find a usage of esthlos in an obvious class sense. At
12.15 Tyrtaeus uses the neuter ksunon esthlon touto = "this is a good thing shared by the polis and
the demos." Jaeger indeed notes (1966: 120): "It is the first time in Greek history that this thought
appears." Tyrtaeus also speaks of kleos esthlon (12.31 W) chat attends the man immortali2ed by heroic
death, a phrase I would almost translate "ennobling glory" rather than assume it is a glory available
only to chose already perceived as esthloi. See further discussion.
specific version of noblesse oblige: those in his audience - and I don't agree
that only the pre-Messenian War nobility are his audience - who already
considered themselves true aristocrats are challenged to prove it in the one
arena that from Tyrtaeus' perspective matters, namely, the battlefield.51
The emphasis on the "front ranks," where Hall envisions only aristocrats
were stationed, may slant the case in their favor, but the whole thrust of
Tyrtaeus's mission and message seems to me to be directed at the need for
incorporating the mass of reluctant Spartiates in a unified force. Rather
than calling this a "middling" ideology, I would call it a specifically Spartan
"homogenizing" ideology. Even if, as seems plausible, the institutions that
led to full implementation of the acceptance of the ideology of the homoioi
took several generations (Hodkinson 2000: 3), the ideological seeds were
clearly planted by Tyrtaeus.
Beside the homogenizing ideology of the ennoblement through battle
courage is the celebration by Tyrtaeus of what Vernant dubbed "la belle
mort" (1991: 50-74) 52 - the elaboration of the grotesque logic of achieving
"immortality" through death in battle. As Jaeger rightly stressed (1966: 121)
this ideologem is sharply differentiated from the quasi-existential Homeric
concept of immortal kleos, which is radically individualist: only the adapted
pattern of Hektor 53 viewed as dying for the polis is salvaged from Homer.
Fragment 12 continues:
This is a common good for both the city and the whole demos,
Whichever man, standing firmly, remains among the front ranks -
Relentlessly, has absolutely no thought of shameful flight,
Committing his life and his bold spirit,
And cheers with his words the man next to him as he stands beside him.
This man becomes agathos in war.
Swiftly he makes the enemies' ranks turn tail -
Savage though they be - and by his eagerness holds back the wave
of battle.
He himself, if fallen amid the front ranks, loses his own dear life,
5' Tyrtaeus could be said in this poem to be elaborating what Adkins called a "persuasive definition"
(1960: 38---40) of the key quality claimed by the aristocracy, namely, aret2. We have already seen
Hesiod reduce this to a matter of wealth (WD 313).
52 Vernant, I believe, takes for granted what I have been arguing, namely, that Tyrtaeus not only is
speaking to the nobility claiming direct descent from Herakles but is arguing that the right death
confers true "nobility": "Sparta thereby uses the prestige of the epic warrior's achievement and of
heroic honor as a means of competition and social advancement' (1991: 65, my emphasis).
53 Though Hektor to be sure articulates a strong po/is identification (e.g., "One bird [sign] is best: to
ward off [the enemy] on behalf of your fatherland": II. 12.243), he also articulates to Andromache a
very traditional individual heroic compulsion deriving from his father's training to confront death
for kleos (6.440--46). His final soliloquy before confronting Achilles recapitulates this idea (22.303----5),
the very passage with which Vernant begins his meditation on "la belle more" (1991: 50).
Education
Bestowing good kleos on his city (astu) and on the marshaled hosts
and on his father,
Because many times through his chest and shield with its central knob
And through his breastplate he was pierced from the front.
Him do both young men and old equally bemoan,
And the whole polis is pained with agonizing longing,
Both his tomb and his children are objects of distinction among the people,
And his children's children and his family line thereafter.
Nor ever does his noble (esthlon) kleos nor his name perish,
But though he is under ground, he becomes immortal,
Whichever man, displaying his superiority (aristeuonta), keeping his place,
and fighting
For his land and his children, raging Ares destroys. (12.15-34 W)
Striking here again is the emphasis on becoming (ginetai 20, 32) an agathos
and achieving all the perquisites in public esteem associated with both the
Homeric hero and the winners in the Great Games through the appropri-
ately achieved death in battle.
The poem culminates in the positive utopian picture of the wonderful
life awaiting the war hero who actually survives (lines 35-42) and ends with
the exhortation that is surely directed at the whole fighting force, not just
the aristocrats:
Now let every man (tis aner) try to reach the pinnacle of this excellence/
success (aretes)
Try with his spirit, not letting go of war. (12.43-4 W)
Another homogenizing ideological move illustrated in Tyrtaeus relates

to the strongly ideological motif of divine descent so dear to the Greek
aristocracy. Here I think he engages in a balancing act worthy of Pindar.
On the one hand, the claim that the royal families descended from Herakles
is a crucial factor in Tyrtaeus' exhortations to the mass of Spartiates to obey
their kings. This seems clear in a lacuna-plagued papyrus fragment of which
in despair I quote Gerber's prose translation: " ... dear to the gods ... let us
obey (the kings since they are?) nearer to the race (of the gods?). For Zeus
himself, the son of Cronus and husband of fair-crowned Hera, has given
this state [astu] to the descendants of Herakles. With them we left windy
Erineus and came to the wide island of Pelops ... of the grey-eyed" (2 W,
Gerber 1999: 37-39). The claim of divine favor and direct gift of the state
to the kings is combined with the insistence that the mass of Spartiates
(among whom the poet includes himself) are Dorians (i.e., from "windy
Erineus") and therefore entitled to a dominant role in the Dorian south of
Greece. Hall, citing this fragment, therefore seems justified in declaring,
"it was only the royal houses of Sparta and their aristocratic kindred that
considered themselves to be descended from Herakles; most Spartans, by
contrast, thought of themselves as non-Heraclid Dorians" (2007: 168). 54
He accordingly concludes that fragment II W must be addressed only to
aristocrats - and not just any aristocrats, but implicitly exclusively to the
kinfolk of the kings. A consideration of the full context makes such a
reading to me at least questionable at best:
[Don't panic!] On the contrary - for you are the race of unconquered
Herakles -
Take heart. Not yet does Zeus hold his neck turned down [against us].
And don't be afraid of the mass of men, and don't be frightened into flight.
But let a man hold his shield against the front ranks,
Counting his life on the one hand hateful, but on the other death's black
Fates equally dear as the rays of the sun.
For you know how tear-drenching Ares' works are unforeseeable,5 5
And you have learned the temper of grim warfare,
And you have been among those who are fleeing and those who
are pursuing,
0 young men, and of both you have reached satiety. (II.I-IO W)
I find it hard to believe that a poet elsewhere so deferential to the kings

would choose to take this tack with the kings' relatives, who are then
described as having been among those who fled and are assumed to need a
great deal of encouragement to stand and fight. I also find it hard to believe
that such an audience would be addressed as neoi - "young men." The
whole point of the fragment is to exhort frightened young warriors to take
a stand. Pindar, fond as he was of "true" aristocrats and committed as he
was to celebrating alleged direct descent from heroes and gods, repeatedly
indulges in the flattering fantasy that the whole of the community addressed
somehow participates in the descent of their local heroes (e.g., 0/. 9 or any
of the odes to Aeginetan victors -e.g., N. 6, N. 7, N. 8, P. 8). Here I think it
54 R. Parker also lays great stress on the direct tie of the kings to divinity through Herakles (1989: 152-
53). Boardman (1992) takes for granted that both "the Spartan people and the Spartan kings traced
their ancestry back to Herakles via his sons who led the Dorians into the Peloponnese. Tyrtaeus'
words [sc. 11.1 W] carry the claim back into the seventh century and it was surely much older" (25).
C£ 29: "In Tyrtaeus' lines the call to the Spartans goes on to a detailed and graphic appraisal of
the criteria for good order and military discipline in a hoplite army fighting for its fatherland" (my
emphasis).
55 Gerber translates aide/a as "destructive," a common translation of a word that literally means either
"making unseen," i.e., obliterating, or simply "unseen," i.e., unknowable, obscure. The context
seems to me to be emphasizing the uncertainty of the outcome as an element in the encouragement,
just as further on he stresses that more of the brave than the cowards survive.
Education 291
is far more plausible that Tyrtaeus is embracing the whole Spartiate class as
descendants of Herakles and to that extent interpellating them as homoioi
than that he focuses solely on the younger generation of the kings' relatives.
Ideology in general, and Spartan ideology in particular, thrives on con-
tradictions. Logically the Spartans cannot simultaneously be Dorians from
the north or "sons of Herakles" who entered the Peloponnese generations
after the Trojan War, and at the same time claim descent from Menelaos -
much less from Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and Argos (Hooker 1989:
130-31).56 The fiction of the "return" of the Heraclidae papers over this con-
tradiction, but if anything it was aggravated by the simultaneous attempt
to claim the heritage of Homeric sovereignty in Sparta. In line with this
trend the Spartans about 700 BC began worshiping at a Mycenaean site
near Sparta which had been unused for five hundred years and called it
the Menelaion, a shrine of Menelaus and Helen, the Homeric rulers of
Sparta (Cartledge 1992: 50-51, 55). But since Menelaus was after all only
the aggrieved party in the Trojan War, the Spartans threw in as well wor-
ship of Agamemnon, Homeric king of Mycenae and Argos, because he
represented the supreme commander of Akhaian forces at Troy.5 7 This
particularly contradictory claim of direct descent from Agamemnon was
bolstered in the sixth century, as Herodotus tells us (1.68), by the osten-
sible fiction of stealing the alleged bones of Orestes from Tegea as the
prerequisite to establishing Spartan supremacy in the Peloponnese as a
whole (Hooker 1989: 131, Hdt. 1.67-68).58 The claim of kinship with
56 Nafissi (2009: n8---19) attempts to sort out the mythic background of Spartan identity as does, more
elaborately, Luraghi (2008: 46---67).
57 Cartledge tentatively dates the worship of Agamemnon at Amyklai to about 550 (1979: 139).
58 Welwei (2004) is at pains to insist that in the sixth century this elaborate myth of Orestes' bones,
which as he notes were duly deposited in the very agora of Sparta, could not have represented
a claim to leadership of the whole Peloponnese and that Herodotus has seriously misrepresented
the whole incident. Again I find myself amazed at some historians' faith in their own calculations
of probabilities about so murky a period in dismissing our only surviving sources; but, following
Cawkwell (1993), he does raise important questions about the nature of Sparta's alliances in the
sixth century, on which see further below. IfI rightly understand Boedeker's chapter on this episode
(1993), she claims initially that Orestes "transcended family claims ... It is an advantage for the
troubled state that Orestes has no descendants at Sparta [Tisamenus?]; he belongs to no family
but to Lakedaimon as a whole" (169). She goes on to argue: "The possession of Orestes' remains
thus marks for Sparta its right to 'Pelopid' leadership of other states, while obviating any potential
divisions within the polis" (170, her emphasis). To the extent though that "Lakedaimon as a whole"
now "owns" this heritage, it succeeds somehow in being simultaneously Dorian, Heraklid, and
Pelopid. It is all very well for Boedeker, citing I. Morris (Boedeker 1993: 166, I. Morris 19936: 23),
to warn us against the "propagandistic fallacy - identifying a deliberate and culpable intrusion of
politics into the sacred"; but it seems to me that her own analysis simultaneously juggles a religious
impulse with a heavy emphasis on political and social tensions to which this ritual act offers a
politically useful solution. Again, because consciousness lies to itself, we do not need to posit either
pure cynicism or pure religion.
Agamemnon, was, according to Herodotus, quite explicit: when Gelon,
tyrant of Syracuse, demanded leadership of the Greek forces as the price of
his aid, Herodotus quotes a Spartan bursting out, "Pelopid59 Agamemnon
would groan greatly if he heard that Sparta had been robbed of her com-
mand by Gelon and Syracusans" (Hdt. 7.158-59). Herodotus even informs
us that this pretense of a connection with Agamemnon went so far that the
Spartan kings' heralds claimed descent from Agamemnon's herald, Talthy-
bios, to whom even a shrine (hiron) was dedicated (Hdt. 7.134)! Thus I
think it would be no strain to imagine that Tyrtaeus was fully capable, in
the interests of uniting a frightened and - following Aristotle - divided
army, of the ideological move of attributing to them all the family-line of
Herakles.
Ennoblement and immortality through martial valor and a racial claim
to descent from the greatest of Greek heroes are the key elements in
Tyrtaeus' ideological reinforcements. I have stressed the educational con-
tribution of Tyrtaeus in preparing the way for the full homogenization of
the Spartiate hoplite army before looking at other evidence for the Spar-
tan socialization/educational system, because he and Aleman (see below)
are the only reliable textual survivals of early Sparta. As Ducat (1999), fol-
lowing Kennell (1995), points out, not only is the evidence for the more
formal elements in that system (centrally Xenophon's Comtitution of the
Lacedaimoniam and Plutarch's Life ofLycurgus) late, but this evidence along
with other frequently cited later details represents an amalgam of different
historical layers that are hard and in many cases impossible to separate
out. 60
MARRIAGE, SEXUALITY, AND GENDER SOCIALIZATION
On the issues of Spartan marriage, sexuality, and gender socialization (to

echo once more Figueira's list 2004b: x) in constructing the "appropriate"
homogenized identities of Spartiate hoplites, there is again a wealth of
relatively late, ideologically slanted, and heavily debated data. As far as
class is concerned, the centrality of women to the concentration of wealth
59 Describing Agamemnon as "descendant of Pelops" rather than by his traditional Homeric epithet
"Atreides" (son of Atreus) also implies Spartan claims to rule of the whole of the "island of Pelops."
6° Cartledge in his review of Kennell (1997) and in his updated essay on "A Spartan Education" (2001:
79-90) takes Kennell to task for "a regrettable tendency to allow hypothesis (his own) to become
fact" (1997: 99) and in general to be "too extreme and severe" in his (modish) skepticism: "There
are," Cartledge argues, "sufficient fits between what we learn from Plutarch and Xenophon to justify
the hypothesis of significant continuity, or at any rate the accuracy and extensiveness of Plutarch's
readings in Classical sources" (2001: 85).
Ma"iage, sexuality, and gender socialization 293
over time, discussed above, seems clearly enough to argue for the greater
importance of Spartan women's class role than their gender identity. 61
Redfield long ago argued: "The women ... are crucial to our understanding
of Sparta, since their special position can be explained only in terms of
the peculiar Spartan solution to the relations between the private and
public spheres, between oikos and polis" (1977/78: 149). Again we find
the careful wording of conflict in terms that censor out class, though it
soon becomes clear that Redfield is focusing primarily on the economic
role of Spartan women. Following and apparently endorsing the harsh
criticisms of Spartan women by Plato (Laws 6.78od5-781b3, 7.806a1-b5)
and Aristotle (Pol. 2.1269b12-127oa29), he sees rich women as a crucial
and active force in the ultimately destructive concentration of Spartan
wealth in fewer and fewer hands. They were "not only the counters but
also actors6 2 in the transactions of marriage-exchange ... They demanded
of the men that they increase the status of the oikos by every means: by
performance, and by acquisition. They were not themselves subject to the
norms which they enforced; their enforcement could thus be unequivocal,
while their avarice could be unbounded" (160). The relative freedom of
Spartan women, compared to their cloistered sisters in so many other
61 Pomeroy acknowledges that "'Spartan women' applies only to women of the highest civic class"
(2002: x). Her separate chapter on "Ruling Class Women" (2002: 73----93) focuses only on members
of the royal family. Given the paucity of evidence, she has an understandably brief chapter on "The
Lower Classes" (95-103).
62 Pomeroy, different as her perspective is from that of Redfield, is also at pains to stress the active
role of Spartan women in a whole array of circumstances. She declares, for example, apropos of
'wife-sharing': "It is apparent from his [Xenophon's] language that the wife is an active participant
in the arrangement whereby she produces children for a partner in addition to her husband" (2002:
39-40). She then quotes at length from Lac. Pol. 1 (5-10). This language, to me at least, emphasizes
the overwhelming decision-making of males: "He [Lykourgos] required the elderly husband to bring
in some man whose body and spirit he admired, in order to beget children. On the other hand,
in case a man did not want to have intercourse with his wife but wanted children of whom he
could be proud, he [Lykourgos] made it legal for him to choose a woman who was the mother of
a fine family and well born, and ifhe persuaded her husband, he produced children with her" (my
emphasis). The only hint of women's possible satisfaction with such arrangements - which is not
the same as being "an active participant" - is Xenophon's declaration that "the wives want to get
possession of two oikoi" (Lac. Pol. 1.9). By the time of writing her conclusions Pomeroy writes,
''According to Xenophon, women took the initiative in husband-doubling arrangements for the
sake of producing children who would inherit from more than one father" (2002: 136). In her earlier
work Pomeroy had declared: "It is difficult to believe that Spartan women, who were notoriously
outspoken ... passively submitted to being lent by their husbands as childbearers to others. While
there is no firm evidence to confirm the hypothesis, I find it easier to believe that the women also
initiated their own liaisons" (1975: 37). Millender (1999) is at pains to stress both the relative lateness
of any evidence about Spartan women and its filtering through Athenian ideological investments in
portraying Spartan women as "topsy-turvy." She sees their actual role as passive.
2 94 Sparta and the comolidation ofthe oligarchic ideal
poleis, doomed to a life of spinning and weaving, 63 their training not only
in gymnastike, but also in mousike (Plato's Laws 806a1-2), the apparently
real prospect of many Spartan citizen women to experience more than one
sexual partner in their lifetimes, the prospect that - unlike the Lysistratas of
the rest of Greece - their husbands might actually discuss with them serious
political matters and even listen to their advice - all this is weighed in the
balance against their alleged avarice and implicitly dismissed. Cartledge
(1981b), who offers a more comprehensive overview of Spartan women
than Redfield, draws up a more explicit balance-sheet of those aspects of
which "a modern feminist 64 might approve" and those distinctly unlovely
features of Spartan women's roles as baby-making machines by which such
a feminist "is unlikely to be over-impressed" - i.e., "by the way in which
Spartan women were trained to act, and obliged to look like men; by their
restricted or non-existent choice in the matter or manner of acquiring a
husband; by the way in which they were 'seized' and 'had' as wives in
the domicile of their husbands, who could 'lend' them for extra-marital
procreation." (1981b: 105).
Many other aspects of the organization of gender relations as they bear
on the formation of the hoplite class-mentality and, one could argue,
physical attributes, suggest a more complex picture. Xenophon, who lived
6l As noted in an earlier chapter, when I first read in Marx and Engels's German Ideology the statement
chat "slavery cannot be abolished without the steam-engine and the mule-jenny [a key piece of
weaving equipment]" (MECW 5: 38), I wondered whether long study of the Classics played a role
in chat formulation: Helen, Calypso, Penelope of course all weave. Alexander wanted his sisters to
teach Greek weaving to the women of the Persian king's family: they were appalled. C£ the tributes
of Latin epitaphs: lanifica pia pudica ftugi casta domiseda ("wool-making, pious, modest, frugal,
chaste, stay-at-home") or domum servavit, lanam fecit ("she looked after her home; she made wool")
(Sandys 1927: 64).
64 Cartledge seems to be arguing against Pomeroy's relatively positive comments on Spartan women
in Pomeroy 1975, whom he cites critically (1981b: 85 n. II = Pomeroy 1975: 42). In her book-
length treatment (2002) she offers a sustained response (2002: 159-160), blaming "the influence of
Marxism and ofM. I. Finley" (159) for excessive emphasis on the utopian element in the sources and
specifically in treating women, giving "priority to the testimony of Aristotle over chat of Xenophon
and Plutarch" (160). She particularly objects to Cartledge's picturing Spartan women as "'passive'
victims." She points out his "Victorian stance" on homosexual relations among women and dismisses
as "anachronistic" his attempt to "discuss Spartan women in terms of contemporary feminist criteria
and goals'' (160). This does strike me as a bit disingenuous given chat Cartledge was responding
to Pomeroy's own earlier declaration chat "Dorian women ... enjoyed many freedoms, and among
Dorians the Spartans were the most liberated of all" (cited above). If it is improper to focus on
manifestations of human freedom in the past, we may wonder what exactly one should look for in
the study of the past. I would argue on the contrary chat it is only by the most informed, rigorous
critique of actual social arrangements in the past and in ocher societies (insofar as they are knowable)
and of their utopian projections chat we can hope to move towards more satisfactorily grounded
freedom in the future. I imagine chat the Pomeroy of 1975, if not of 2002, would agree.
Ma"iage, sexuality, and gender socialization 2 95
as an Athenian exile in Sparta for some twenty years, 65 sets forth the
eugenic logic according to which the Spartans - uniquely as far as our
sources go - gave women serious athletic training (Xen. Lac. Pol. 1.4, Plut.
Lye. 14.2) and an adequate diet (Xen. Lac. Pol. 1.3-4). 66 We noted in the
Introduction de Ste. Croix's focus on women's reproductive function as a
factor in his case for women as a distinct class (1981: 98-103). In Sparta
this function seems to have merited more than an obsession with female
chastity: on the contrary, in addition to the emphasis on women's physical
development, the desire to maximize the number of Spartan males seems
to have led to some degree of wife-swapping (Hodkinson 2000: 81-82).
To be sure, the women involved still cannot be presumed (pace Pomeroy)
to have had any say in the process - nor in the arrangements designed to
consolidate property, such as several brothers sharing one wife (Hodkinson
2000: 82).
The fragments of Alkman, presumably from the generation after Tyr-
taeus (Gerber 1970: 82-3; Podlecki 1984: no, Calame 2001: 8 n. 20), repre-
sent the only other surviving texts from Archaic Laconia. What Campbell
says of fragment 1 (PMG 1), "there is little agreement over its interpre-
tation. It bristles with difficulties, both in details and major questions"
(Campbell 1983: 156), is more or less true of the fragments as a whole. My
limited goal is to see what they suggest about Spartan class relations and
the ways in which the organization of gender relations may have shaped
those relations. Fragment 1, regularly described as a "partheneion," 67 is by
far the longest and most readable among the mostly distressingly lacunose
and cryptic fragments in Denys Page's edition (1962) and offers us a unique
picture of the assumed consciousness of pubescent Spartan girls, who are
presented as primarily focused on female beauty and sexual attractiveness.
A number of details firmly tie these speakers to what Kurke (1992) has
dubbed habrosyne, the celebration - or here we might speak of taking for
granted - of a lifestyle enriched by elaborate eastern luxury: purple gar-
ments, an elegantly-crafted golden snake bracelet, a Lydian headband -
"adornment of violet-eyed young women" (1.64-69). As we have noted
65 Whatever ideological distortions Xenophon was guilty of, A. Powell is probably rigbt to declare, he
"probably knew more of classical Sparta than any other surviving writer" (2004: 139).
66 For the physical impressiveness of Spartan women Redfield cites Aristophanes' Lysistrata: "Lampito
(the bearer of a noble name) is shown off primarily as a magnificent physical specimen; she could
throttle a bull and has superb breasts (Lysistrata 8o--84)" (1977/78: 148). Recall West's note on Hesiod
WD 373-4, "Women stole food because they were kept half-starved by their husbands, who resented
their habit of eating," an argument he supports with numerous references. To the extent this was
true non-Spartan Greek women would have been strikingly small by comparison.
67 Calame (2001: 3) argues "the category of the Partheneia was probably not defined before the
Alexandrian period."
earlier, horses and horse-racing in Greece are the special pride of the richest
aristocrats: these girls invoke a horse simile (1.46-49 like "a prize-winning
one") and a horse metaphor, and distinguish at least three different types
of horses (1.58-59). Whether or not the poem envisions competing cho-
ruses, as some have suggested (e.g., Campbell 1983: 158-9), the idea of
intense competition over beauty and singing success pervades the whole
poem.
In both fragment I and fragment 3 expressions of the female speaker's
desire for other girls (1.73-77; 3.79-81 have provoked the most comment
and in particular alleged parallels to the poetry of Sappho. Plutarch, in
discussing the prevalence of male homosexuality among the Spartans, com-
ments, "this [sort of] loving was so approved among them [the Spartans]
that even beautiful and noble women loved maidens" (Lye. 18.4). Some
have argued that in strictly gender-segregated Greece arousing homoerotic
feelings in young girls was a "social vehicle for imparting sensual awareness,
and sexual self-esteem, to women on the threshold of marriage and matu-
rity" (Hallett 1979: 456). 68 But precisely in Sparta it is not clear that genders
were strictly segregated: Pomeroy (2002: 14, 24-27 and passim) has stressed
the opportunities for some sort of mutual acquaintance suggested by the
emphasis in the ancient sources on female exercise and public athletic con-
tests. What is suggested by Plutarch's comment is that the homosexuality
so characteristic of the archaic Greek male aristocracy seems to have been
part of the cultural experience of Spartan aristocratic women. We can only
speculate on how this may have affected the heavy state encouragement of
male bonding among the homogenized warrior ruling class, but it seems
plausible that it contributed to its intensification.
Xenophon's denials to the contrary (Lac. Pol. 2.13), there seem to be
pretty solid grounds for attributing systematic homosexual subordination
of young Spartan males to their older messmates (Cartledge 1981a). The
rationale for this bonding, articulated, for example, by Phaedrus in Plato's
Symposium (178d1-18ob8), is that the older lover is both the teacher and
guardian of the younger lover's military performance. 69 The bonding of
both sexual ties and obligatory male commensality (i.e., the common
68 Hallett is focusing on Sappho and acknowledges the closeness of her position to that of Merkelbach
(1957), but she states succinctly the position of Calame apropos of both Aikman and Sappho. He
coins "the term homophily to mean the asymmetrical link between an adolescent provoking erotic
desire of an adult but being only his or her philos" (2001: xiii, c£ 248---52). The attempt to link
Aikman, whose poems are dearly tied to a public ritual (even if the nature of the ritual is obscure),
and Sappho, who often writes in purely private mode, is vigorously rejected by Stehle (1997: 87-88).
69 As Ducat (1999: 54) comments, "this is pure ideology." He stresses anthropological parallels of
pederasty as an element in ritual initiations and argues that "it developed by fitting into the social
Ageig~ for male children, agonistic behavior, and rites ofpassage 297
messes in which every Spartan male was apparently expected to partici-

pate on a daily basis) may have been designed to weaken the bonds of
family (Cartledge 2001 226-27), which Hodkinson (2000: 81 and passim)
nonetheless argues remained quite strong. 70
MALE COMMENSALITY
It appears from later evidence that the structural adjustment of the ruling
class of Sparta went much further than in any other known polis in response
to the double threat of war in Messenia and a rebellion of the poor at
home.71 The truly wealthy Spartans, while retaining their landholdings,
surrendered their more ostentatious perks and adopted a lifestyle (clothing,
diet, and training) in common with their poorer mess-fellows as part of a
"package" designed to preserve the main outlines of the property relations.
Ostentation now took the more communal form of sharing with their
mess-mates the game garnered from their estates and supplying wheat bread
instead of the prescribed barley bread.7 2 Thucydides tells us quite explicitly:
"It was the Lakedaimonians who first began to dress simply ... and in
general those who had great possessions adopted a lifestyle that was as
much as possible like that of the many" (Thuc. 1.6, cf. Hodkinson 2000:
20-21).
AG6GP, FOR MALE CHILDREN, AGONISTIC BEHAVIOR,

AND RITES OF PASSAGE
At the same time key habits of subordination to various authorities were

part of daily life and fundamental to the educational system for males.
practices and the value-systems which came into being in the course of the seventh century" (his
emphasis).
70 Ducat (1999: 45) also lays heavy emphasis on the role of the family in education which is neglected
in the sources precisely because it was largely the same as the role of the family in other societies.
It is precisely in the period between birth and seven years that key elements of the personality are
shaped. Moreover, Ducat argues that during much of the post-seven years Spartan children are likely
to have slept at home. Cartledge, however, argues that the Spartan boy "lived all his life away from
home" (2001: 85).
71 Cf. Hodkinson: "These changes were conceived in a context of conflict" (1997: 88).
72 A. Powell (2001: 231), basing his argument in part on the great frequency of Spartan names with the
element hipp- (= horse), suggests that horse-raising was another important outlet for ostentation by
the presumably frustrated superrich. This fits well with Hodkinson's emphasis on chariot-racing, the
most expensive and least personally engaging of Greek "sports" (Hodkinson 2000: esp. 303-33, cf.
Hodkinson 1989: 96--100). He suggests that the only reason the extraordinary dedicatory inscription
of the multi-victoried horse-racer Damonon (from the late fifth or early fourth century) was allowed
in Sparta was that, uncharacteristically, he drove his chariots himself
A Spartan male child was removed from his family "at the age of seven
to embark upon the grueling system of state education known as the
agoge' 73 (Plu. Lye. 16.4; Cartledge 1981b: 90). On one level the whole
goal of the system after years of different levels of tests was election to
the obligatory messes in groups of about fifteen (Plu. Lye. 12.2) - in so
many ways suggestive of modern fraternities at their worst, with even a
"blackball" system (Plu. Lye. 12.5-6). But they differed in key respects.
As already noted in connection with systematic pederasty, they were not
all age-mates by any means: "elders" were always included and controlled
excessive drinking and "hybristic" behavior (Xen. Lac. Con. 3.1-5, cf. Fisher
1989). Moreover, as implied above, the rich ate with the relatively poor,
and though they might contribute better fare on occasion, they dressed
the same way and mostly shared the same dreary diet. Sharp hierarchies of
age were built into the whole system of the agoge, reinforced by the state
religion. The religious system as far as we can know it was tightly controlled
by the state and reinforced military values, discipline, and subordination
to authority: even the goddess Aphrodite was represented armed, as were
other divinities (R. Parker 1989: 146). Rites of passage and regular obligatory
public choral performances organized according to age groups were further
reinforcements (Xen. Lac. Con. 4.2, Plu. Lye. 21.1-4). The most elaborate
public enforcement were the funerals of kings (Xen. Lac. Con. 15.9, cf. Lipka
2002a: 248-51). As R. Parker remarks, "Nothing brings out the realities of
hierarchy and power as well as a funeral" (1989: 153).
Alongside the elements designed to foster male bonding was apparently
a very heavy emphasis on competition in the socialization of Spartiate
males. Hodkinson (1999) has reviewed the evidence for non-equestrian 74
athletics activity in Sparta and concluded that despite some striking state-
imposed restraints on the glorification of victors in the Great Games, a great
variety of local Lakonian contests as well as team sports were an integral
part of Spartan life. Thus it would be a great mistake to take Tyrtaeus's
subordination of athletics to prowess in combat as at all disparaging the
former. Ducat (1999: 55) stresses that massive competition built into Spartan
daily life - especially perhaps in the age period of twenty to thirty -
was also a means of testing for subsequent ruling-class responsibilities.
73 Cartledge (2001: 83) offers a suggestive analysis of the Spartan educational terminology: "Literally,
this [agoge] means a 'leading' or 'raising' and might therefore be thought by us to be more appropriate
for cattle than humans. But the Spartans could not have agreed less: they extended the cattle-rearing
metaphor to the groups and sub-groups into which the boys were divided and subdivided."
74 As Hodkinson stresses in his later treatment of equestrian contestants at Sparta (2000: 306), apart
from the anomalous Damonon, the rich owner of a horse-team normally did not personally engage
in the risky contest but hired a charioteer.
The relation ofSpartiates and helots 2 99
Cartledge contends (2001: 88-90) that the "ultimate rationale and raison
d'etre" of the whole agoge system was the krypteia or as Cartledge dubs it
(88) the "Secret Service Brigade": ''An elite few of the eighteen-year-olds
were specially selected ... to kill, after dark, any of the Spartans' enslaved
Greek population whom they should accidentally-on-purpose come upon
either in Lakonia or more especially in Messenia."
THE RELATION OF SPARTIATES AND HELOTS
Among Figueira's catalogue of processes contributing to the "tightness of

social integration and the sharpness of delineation of the civic persona"
(2004b: x) the last two items ("class exploitation and communal violence")
clearly refer to the Spartiates' relation to the helots 75 and again illustrate the
principle that in actual life ideological practices function ultimately only in
relationships between classes, whatever the analytical advantages of focusing
on distinct target groups. Tyrtaeus is again our most reliable starting point
for the element of "class exploitation" in the relationship between Spartiates
and helots, 76 already discussed in connection with the economic system. He
bluntly - perhaps gleefully77 - describes the oppression of the indigenous
people and the specific terms of their exploitation:
Like asses worn out by great burdens,
Bearing to their masters under painful necessity
Half of all the crops that the field brings forth.
(6W)78
75 Cartledge 1987: 165 comments "The appearance of a massive theoretical and empirical study of class
struggle in the ancient Graeco-Roman world as a whole (Ste. Croix 1981) has confirmed my earlier
view (Cartledge 1975) that the dominant and decisive contradiction or tension of Spartan society
can fruitfully be analyzed in terms of a class struggle between the Spartiates and the Helots." He
goes a bit further: "Here, then, was class struggle in the purest or completest form known in ancient
Greece" {165-66).
76 Luraghi's argument (2004: 235-36) that Tyrtaeus in fragments 6-7 Wis not talking about "helots"
strikes me as a quibble. The word, whatever its etymology, was widely used by the Greeks to refer
to all the unfree inhabitants of Laconia and Messene (Cartledge 2003: 13). I completely agree with
Hodkinson (2003: 249-51) that elaborate comparative arguments over the distinction between "serfs"
and "slaves" are unproductive. Ironically, Patterson's contribution to the Luraghi-Alcock conference,
given the degree to which his initial quest for a "crisp definition of the distinctive attributes of
slavery" (2003: 289) seems to have influenced Luraghi, emphasizes the "fuzzy boundaries" (291) his
subsequent work has led him to envision. At the same time I agree with Cartledge's protest (2003:
17) against those scholars who seek to "deny, or at any rate to minimize, the gulf in status between
Helots and all (or most) other slaves ... in Classical Greece."
77 With so little context it is difficult to assess the tone. West (1974: 188) apropos of the very fragmentary
papyrus {23 W) comments, "C£ fr. 6-7 for the unexpected compassion which Tyrtaeus shows for
the Messenians' sufferings." "Unexpected" indeed, given the ferocity of so much of his poetry.
7 8 Hodkinson (1992: 127----9) discusses the various interpretations of the grammatically difficult "panth m
in the manuscripts and concludes that there is no inherent improbability in the common view
I have already alluded to the debate over the issue of a fixed proportion
versus a fixed rent. In any case, the specific character of Spartan exploita-
tion of the helots, what Hodkinson, consciously or unconsciously echoing
Marx, recently described as "the social relatiom ofproduction between Spar-
tiates and helots" (2003: 251, my emphasis), is of course subject to debate,
and the very paucity of the evidence has led to considerable use of com-
parative models. Since generally I find Hodkinson the most learned and
credible of "Laconophiles," I will try briefly to summarize his account.
Both archaeological evidence and simple common sense suggest that the
Spartiates were more likely to intervene in some regular way with helots
nearer to Sparta, where the masters were normally obliged to participate in
daily messes, than with those 30-70 kilometers distant (2003: 266). The
most plausible structure, which has the slim support of a gloss of a unique
word in Hesychios's lexicon of rare words, is the employment of an over-
seer, whose responsibilities would increase proportionally to the distance
from the master (268). Hodkinson speculates that these "leaders of the
helots" (mnoionomoi) might well be potentially exploitative helot overseers
who profited relatively significantly from the arrangement and therefore
contributed substantially to the control of the helot masses (275-78). At
the same time archaeological surveys suggest that the Messenian helots
lived in "nucleated" villages as opposed to the scattered estates near Sparta
(270-71) and might thus be presumed to develop or maintain a sense of
collective identity. There is even some evidence of the practice of tomb cult
among them, which, as we have seen, can both foster a collective sense of
ownership of the land and legitimate the claims of an ruling class (274). 79
that Tyrtaeus specifies half of all the crops went to the masters, though he argues that this may
have been a variable figure. He points out that this share "has in fact been a common practice in
many societies" (129). An Ohio farmer confirmed this to me. In 2000: 125-31 Hodkinson elaborates
his argument for the fixed proportion rather than, as some scholars (see above on Figueira) have
argued, a fixed quantity of rent, which could seriously threaten the survival of helots in bad years.
This proportion does raise, it seems to me, problems with understanding hekt2moroi in Athens as
"oppressed" to the point of rebellion by having to surrender only one sixth of their crops to their
landlords. See alternative suggestions in the text.
79 Luraghi 2002 seems to me to be somewhat disingenuous about the possible significance of tomb
cult in Messenia. In a long note (57 n. 69) he declares space does not permit "detailed treatment
of the evidence of cult at Bronze tombs from the Geometric to the Hellenistic age, particuLarly rich
in Messenia" (my emphasis). Then after a long citation of sources he ends the note saying: "For
my argument, it is sufficient to point out that the topographical distribution of Archaic and early
Classical evidence for this form of cult shows dearly that it cannot be associated exclusively with
the Helots, ifat alt' (my emphasis). Ten pages later, he declares: "There are no traces of specifically
Helotic cults, either in Lakonia or in Messenia, which might have functioned as a focus for the
Helots' collective identity" (67-68, my emphasis) and cites his own earlier note. One wonders what
it would take to prove that tomb cult in areas substantially inhabited by helots were "specifically"
helotic.
The relation ofSpartiates and helots 301
Though Hodkinson's emphasis in this piece is primarily on understanding
how the Spartiates might have successfully controlled such distant estates,
the picture that emerges, on the one hand, considerably softens the impres-
sion of relentless degradation and oppression of the helots implicit in many
recorded practices but, on the other, allows us to envision the circumstances
under which a considerable sense of Messenian identity80 and solidarity
might have been sustained in spite of so many mechanisms of oppression
and intimidation.
A related - and naturally much debated - issue is the degree of disparity
between the numbers of helots and the numbers of Spartiates. Though we
cannot mechanically assume that the degree of Spartan anxiety was directly
proportional to this disparity, it clearly has to have played a key role. As
Figueira puts it, "the scale of Helotage moved agrarian dependency to the
central point in the social structure" (2003: 220, my emphasis). His own
conclusion, relying on elaborate analyses of the carrying capacity of the
land as well as the key figures offered by Herodotus of 5,000 Spartiates
and 35,000 helots at Plataea, is "our range for the Helot population in
Lakonike c. 480-479, when the Spartans were themselves close to their
apogee in numbers, is 75,000 to 118,000, perhaps 3-5 times the number of
the Spartiates" (2003: 220). Scheidel's "simplified model" results in lower
figures, but as he candidly acknowledges the spread in possible numbers
is disconcerting about the method itself: "The highest total of 55,800
exceeds the lowest figure of 17,700 by 215%" (2003: 244). One is left
with the impression one started with from the evidence of Herodotus and
Thucydides: whatever the exact numbers, the disproportion of helots to
Spartans was such as to make the latter very nervous.
The Spartan relationship with their enslaved helots, while not quite
unique (the only parallels Hodkinson cites are in Thessaly and in Syracuse,
Sicily: 1997: 96), 81 certainly entailed serious contradictions. We discussed
80 I think Luraghi (2002: 50 and passim), following Figueira's lead {1999), makes a very strong case
that a sense of Messenian identity was most likely forged as a "by-product" of the Spartan invasion
and subsequent Spartan measures designed precisely to interpellate them as a group - a group of
inferiors to be sure, but a group. At the same time, Figueira (1999: 216, 220) points to the post-
earthquake blurring between "nationalist" identity as Messenians and class identity as an oppressed
and exploited group which seems to have led some helots of Lakonian origin to identify with those
of Messenian origin. Certainly this would not be the only time in history when "nationalism"
trumped class. Moreover, it is easy to envision circumstances in which Messenians could have served
in Lakonia and Lakonian helots in Messenia, further contributing to a degree of homogeni2ation
(212).
81 Van Wees 2003 significantly adds to the number of subject populations reduced to serfdom for a
least a generation, but Sparta still remains an exception in the duration and harshness of its regime.
Hodkinson complains that "the ascription of Sparta's transformation solely to the helot problem
earlier the problem of deciding at what point Greeks avoided enslaving
Greeks. What does seem to have been an early pattern is that enslaved
Greeks were usually sold to other communities: Eumaios was bought from
Phoenicians ( Od. 15.482-83); Melanthios, a slave himself, threatens to sell
the beggar Odysseus "far from Ithaca" (17.250). Solon speaks of Athenians
enslaved for debt and sold outside of Attica (Solon 36.8-12), though he
goes on to mention others shamefully enslaved "here" - presumably in
Attica. One might argue that his freeing of both types attests to widespread
discomfort with living side by side with enslaved former neighbors. In any
case the fact that the helots were ethnically homogeneous - either Messeni-
ans or Laconians - living and working on land owned by their ancestors, 82
meant that they had a radically different level of class consciousness from
the generally more heterogeneous slaves elsewhere in Greece. They were
apparently quick to rebel whenever conditions seemed propitious: we know
about their major rebellion after a devastating earthquake in 464 BC only
because the seriousness of the crisis forced the Spartiates to seek outside
help; but presumably there were numerous earlier rebellions more success-
fully quelled and kept from the knowledge of outsiders (A. Powell 1989b:
186). Herodotus (3.47.1) mentions that the Samian rebels against Polykrates
is too extreme" (1997: 96). Granting that causality is almost always complex and is more often
dialectical than according to the bat-hitting-the-ball model so dear to empiricists, Hodkinson's own
demonstration of the centrality of the economic relationship between Spartiates and helots to the
"success" of the Spartan system goes very far in the direction of such an ascription.
82 Even this seemingly self-evident piece of what he dismissively dubs the "modern vulgata" is chal-
lenged by Luraghi, primarily in 2004. His basic argument there, if I follow it, is that the ancient
evidence is so slight and contradictory (he examines this in detail in Luraghi 2003, which, though
based on "forthcoming" in 2004= 227, was written before Luraghi 2004), that we can only make sense
of it by invoking models. The key model he invokes is from Orlando Patterson's comparative study
of slavery (1982). While anyone dealing with the Archaic Period must acknowledge frequent reliance
on models and what in connection with the sophists is called the "argument from eikos," i.e., a calcu-
lation of probabilities, Luraghi's invocation of that argument here strikes me as especially dubious:
"The main reason for being skeptical of the modern vulgata on the origins of helotry concerns its
inherent implausibility, in a purely Greek perspective as well as in the light of comparative evidence"
(2004: 236, my emphasis). He goes on to argue, citing Patterson, that "'attempts by a conquering
group to enslave a conquered population en masse and in situ were almost always disastrous failures"'
(2004: 237). Van Wees (2003), assembling an impressive array of Greek evidence for just this form of
imperialism in the Archaic Period, also invokes the obvious, tragic example of the Spanish conquest
of the Americas to demonstrate the "success" of such conquests. More recently one might explore
atrocities and forced labor in Leopold II's Congo. Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997)
virtually generalizes the pattern of technologically advanced societies successfully overcoming and
subordinating numerically greater societies. Need one mention Caesar's De Bello Gallico? Again this
does not diminish the unique aspects of the Spartan "solution" to what Luraghi rightly calls "a wider
problem, that is, how wealthy and powerful individuals in seventh- and early sixth-century Greece
were able to secure a workforce to till their lands" (2004: 240). In this connection he rightly draws
attention to Solon's picture of Athenian big landowners enslaving their fellow Athenians: the very
success of aristocrats in enlarging their holdings confronted them with a labor-force crisis that was
also a social crisis.
The relation ofSpartiates and helots
(c. 525) claimed the Spartans agreed to help them in order to "pay back
good deeds (euergesias) because earlier the Samians themselves had come to
their aid with ships against the Messenians." How and Wells (ad loc.) and
others assume this must refer to the so-called "Second Messenian War."
However, in view of the Spartan secretiveness - especially about their major
vulnerability- this could allude to an otherwise silenced rebellion. Though
disputed, Plato alludes to another rebellion in 490 (Laws 6.698e2-3), that
explained Sparta's lateness in appearing at Marathon. W. P. Wallace (1954,
supported by P.-J. Shaw 1999: 275), who adduced a number of more recent
pieces of evidence in support of Plato's statement, declares: "Whether the
Messenian revolts were two or three in number is surely a literary rather
than an historical question - there must, in three centuries of oppression,
have been more revolts than that, although perhaps only two or three of
them could properly be called 'wars"' (1954: 32 n. 5). Such an a priori
assumption may raise a chuckle among today's hyperskeptics, but a num-
ber of reasonably attested coercive Spartan practices 83 suggest the constant
fear of helot rebellion: the notorious annual declaration of war on the
helots permitting pollution-free murder of "uppity" helots (Plu. Lyc.28.4,
citing Aristotle), 84 and the special deceit recorded by Thucydides by which
more than two thousand helots were lured to their deaths by promises of
freedom for declaring their excellence as soldiers (4.80). 85 As noted above,
the krypteia mentioned by Plutarch (Lye. 28.1-3) and assumed to derive
from Aristotle (Whitby 1994: 105) entailed the ephors from time to time
sending out young Spartans who were supposed to keep hidden by day
and kill helots by night. 86 There seems to have been an evening curfew as
a controlling measure which facilitated marching armies out at night to
prevent the helots having a clear idea of how many of their masters were
out of town (A. Powell 1989b: 181).
83 As Hodkinson acknowledges, we cannot firmly date any of these measures and there seems to be a
greater emphasis in contemporary scholarship on the gradualness of the process, but they are part
of the structural "logic" of a system set in place in the seventh century (1997: 86). I would say that
this system had its own internal dialectic necessitating ever escalating forms of repression.
84 Birgalias (2003: 256) questions the reality of this declaration and stipulates: "If we are, however,
to accept its veracity, then we should date its origins to period after the defeat at Leuctra and the
loss of Messenia." Figueira (2003: 222) far more convincingly dates it to the "middle or late seventh
century."
85 Harvey 2004 seems to me to have more than adequately answered those scholars who reject this story
as a fabrication (e.g., Talbert 1989: 24 n. 16, Whitby 1994: 98----99, Paradiso 2004, who concludes:
"The information in Thucydides derives from a propagandistic manipulation of reality": 188).
86 Whitby (1994' 105) notes the krypteia is briefly alluded to in Plato's Laws (6336) as merely a form of
training in endurance with no mention of killing helots.
In addition to these more blatant coercive measures, the Spartans seemed
to have developed an array of ideological measures designed to interpellate
helots as innately inferior. As stressed in an earlier quotation from Fredric
Jameson, "ideology is designed to promote the human dignity and clear
conscience of a given class at the same time that it discredits its adversaries;
indeed, the two operations are one and the same" (1971: 380). Spartan
ideology well illustrates this dual focus, even as some of its juggling of
more contradictory aspects well illustrates Jameson's metaphor of ideology
as "psychic horse-trading." 87 More blatant ideological apparatuses were
employed to foster Spartiate self-esteem while instilling in the helots a
sense of their inferiority. Althussser stressed that ideology is not simply
a set of ideas or discourses but a set of practices - physical actions like
genuflecting in church or saluting the flag that instill a specific sense of
one's identity. Helots were compelled to engage in degrading dances (Fisher
1989: 34, Plu. Lye. 28.4). At the same time helot males together with their
wives were forced to participate in full-scale mourning at the death of a
Spartan king (Tyrtaeus 6 and 7 W) and celebrate the installation of new
kings. Doubtless the especially frequent festivals featuring dignified choral
singing and dancing conducted by the Spartiates (Plu. Lye. 21-22) also
contributed to this interpellation of Spartiates as superior and helots as
inferior. Whitby (1994: rn7) notes that Myron of Priene "records various
degrading practices to which helots were subjected: they had to wear a
cap made of animal skin, were subjected to a certain number of beatings
each year to remind them of their servitude, and might be killed if they
were thought to be too vigorous." While helots are often distinguished
from chattel slaves by their having families 88 and are described as the
87 The context of Jameson's comment, a typically dense formulation, is a more psychoanalycically

focused description of the operation of a work of art; but I chink he would agree chat broadly
speaking the concept is central to effective ideology: "To rewrite the concept of the management
of desire in social terms now allows us to chink repression and wish-fulfillment together within
the unity of a single mechanism, which gives and takes alike in a kind of psychic compromise
or horse-trading, which strategically arouses fantasy content within careful symbolic containment
structures which defuse it, gratifying intolerable, unrealizable, properly imperishable desires only
to the degree to which they can again be laid to rest" (1979: 141). The concept for me at least
makes more intelligible the extraordinary level of repression combined with towering self-esteem so
characteristic of Spartan society.
88 Luraghi (2004: 229) declares: "There is no hint in the sources to the effect chat the Spartiates
recognized family ties among helots any more than ocher Greek slave owners recognized chose
among their slaves." He proceeds immediately to dismiss the indirect evidence of Thucydides, not
bothering to include the detail in Thucydides' account chat after the ten years of war against the
helots the rebels were allowed to leave "with their wives and children" (r.ro3.3). The apparent success
of the helots in self-reproduction and even perhaps expansion of their population again makes some
recognition by the Spartans of their own interest in encouraging some family feeling among the
only self-reproducing slaves in Greece, the wives of helots do not seem
to have been free of the sexual exploitation characteristic of other Greek
slave-women: we hear of special categories such as nothoi (bastards) and
mothakes or mothones, whereby "the identification of at least some members
of these categories as the offspring of Spartan fathers and Helot mothers
seems virtually certain" (Cartledge 1981b: rn4, cf. Hodkinson 1997: 46-55,
2000: 336-7, 2003: 259).
The fundamental question which was put clearly in terms of class war-
fare by de Ste. Croix is whether the very conquest and subjugation of
the helots was the decisive factor in not merely economically enabling the
transformation of Spartan citizens into full-time warriors but the chief rea-
son for that transformation. De Ste. Croix's view was not based on some
a priori Marxist dogmatism but solidly on the emphatic, unambiguous
testimony of Thucydides: "'So far as the Helots were concerned, most
Spartan institutions had always been designed primarily with a view to
security'' (Thuc. 4.80.3, Cartledge's translation 2001: 88-89, my emphasis).
Various "revisionist" scholars 89 have challenged this position, which is now
called either "the modern vulgata" (Luraghi 2003 and 2004) or simply a
"stereotype" (Birgalias 2003: 249). Birgalias's point of departure in particu-
lar strikes me as a perfect example of the sort of false antithesis that results
from a total bracketing out of class and of the possibility of viewing major
developments dialectically: "This [article] will call into question certain
stereotypes and demonstrate that the system of helotage was a product of
the attempt to find a resolution to the agricultural question which affected
not only Sparta but the whole Greek world from the mid-seventh and
throughout the whole of the sixth century. I will attempt to show that
it was in this way that the helots influenced the organization of Spartan
society, and not as a population group that created a sense of fear and
insecurity in the citizen body, which consequently resulted in the political
and social choices or extreme actions" (Birgalias 2003: 249, my empha-
sis). Birgalias rightly situates the dialectic of Spartans and helots within
a broad Greek crisis of the seventh and sixth centuries, which is a class
crisis precisely because it is an "agricultural question" in a society where
agriculture is the chief means of producing an economic surplus, on which
helots a reasonable if unprovable inference. Indeed in an earlier article Luraghi himself wrote: "There
are reasons to assume that, unlike most staves in the Greek world, the Helots did have an identity as
a group. First of all, the Helots probably had more family continuity than was normally the case with
staves in the Greek world. The fact that the Spartiates tended not to manumit them made of the
Helots a selfproducing slave population" (2002: 68, my emphasis).
89 A further example is Talbert 1989, well answered by Cartledge 1991.
depend all the privileges of those who live above bare subsistence. But it
scarcely follows that because Sparta's resort to "the system of helotage" was
a response to this crisis that it did not entail a transformation of "the orga-
nization of Spartan society" that included an internalized "sense offear and
insecurity" that in turn "resulted in political and social choices or extreme
actions."
Whitby, who acknowledges (2002: vii), as do other important contem-
porary scholars of Sparta (e.g. Hodkinson 2000: ix, A. Powell 2001: xv,
Cartledge in Cartledge and Harvey 1985: xvi-xvii), the important influ-
ence of de Ste. Croix as his teacher, also attempts in a thoughtful, wide-
ranging article (1994) to challenge de Ste. Croix's analysis, repeatedly plac-
ing "the Spartan class struggle" in scare quotes. He reviews the evidence
of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon in particular and attempts to
reconstruct the Spartans' own perception of their relationship to their sub-
jugated population. He acknowledges various Spartan strategies to humil-
iate and intimidate helots and underlines the considerable success of this
policy in the evidence of helot loyal service in a variety of military conflicts.
He insists that "for a considerable portion of their history Spartans regarded
helots as a desirable commodity of which they wanted more" (1994: no).
He concludes: "Whatever the attractions of the notion of a Sparta hoist
with its own petard of rebellious helots, there are weaknesses in the evidence
which should be recognized by those who will continue to be drawn by
this view. I prefer the alternative of a Sparta whose citizens were sufficiently
arrogant to believe the myths of their own superiority" (1994: m). 90 The
scandal of a Marxist approach to class conflict is that it purports to be not
about comcious selfconceptiom: Whitby is very probably right that many-
perhaps most - Spartans in their day-to-day interactions with helots were
constantly reinforced in their sense of their own infinite superiority and in
many circumstances confidently took for granted the success of their own
90 Nafissi (2009: 133) offers a similar but far less nuanced analysis based on the assumption that
somehow the sheer arrogance of the Spartans guaranteed the whole system as virtually anxiety-free:
"Common scholarly opinion probably overestimates the importance of the Helots and uniform
hoplite culture in the construction of Classical Sparta. The latter was more an effect than a cause
of the historical process which led, in the first half of the sixth century, to a deep political reform.
Fuelled chiefly by the Spartans' se/festeem, its main features were the high census required to qualify
as citizen and equality between those who qualified - much to the disadvantage of the Helots,
whose status and conditions probably now began to take their classic form" (my emphasis). The
next sentence, apparently devoid of any sense of irony, testifies, I think, to the amazing durability
of the Spartan mirage: "By this time the civic institutions formed a complex system of honors, the
wrestling-ground so to speak, where the proud Spartans competed in the contest of virtue." To be
sure, the metaphor undoubtedly alludes to Kennell's title, The Gymnasium of Virtue (1995), but in
both cases there seems to be little questioning of the content of this sort of "virtue."
techniques of intimidation. 91 Presumably they made a conscious decision
in the seventh century that control of so much fine new land in Messenia
was a perfectly acceptable solution to the internal dissension over Laconian
land-ownership. But at some level they must have internalized the reality
that controlling so large a population working the land of their ancestors for
the benefit of "strangers" required no ordinary measures. Correspondingly,
at whatever precise date they worked out their system - their day-to-day
practices (epitedeumata) so widely acknowledged as the secret of their suc-
cess - they had to have had some awareness of the harsh trade-off they
were accepting in order to sustain economically the potentially threaten-
ing bottom of their own ethnic group and preserve the still considerable
privileges of the most economically advantaged stratum of their society.
If not far sooner, this political uncomcious must have exploded into sharp
consciousness with the helot uprising of 464 that may have required ten
years 92 to quell and humiliating requests for outside help. But if in fact
the Spartiates regularly sang the songs of Tyrtaeus, they must have got-
ten regular reminders that the initial conquest took twenty years 93 and
9' The analogy of racism in U.S. history (not to mention the unmentionable present or South
Africa under Apartheid) presents the same contradictory picture of extreme self-congratulatory
arrogance and underlying fear. Orlando Patterson nicely reminds his audience at the Luraghi-
Alcock conference of a public declaration by a "freedom-loving South Carolinian, in 1822, long
before the abolitionist movement was taken seriously: '[Negro slaves] should be watched with an
eye of steady and unremitting observation ... Let it not be forgotten, that our Negroes are freely the
JACO BINS of the country; that they are the ANARCHISTS and the DOMESTIC ENEMY; the
COMMON ENEMY OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY, and the BARBARIANS WHO WOULD, IF
THEY COULD, BECOME THE DESTROYERS OF OUR RACE"' (uppercase in the original)
(Patterson 2003: 306). This sort of internalized fear of the oppressed by the oppressor - regardless
of whether the oppressed are at any particular time capable of mounting a serious threat - is a
significant factor, as I argued in connection with Hesiod, in Greek misogyny. The use of helots in
the Spartan army is cited by Birgalias as evidence that the Spartans could not have simultaneously
engaged in the krypteia or massacred 2,000 helots as reported by Thucydides. This suggests to
me thick ideological blinders to the regular practices of modern imperialism. I think especially of
India, where widespread use of local troops (remember Gunga Din?) was combined with many a
massacre. Leopold II used Congolese troops with white officers to carry out massive slaughter of the
indigenous people, just as Caesar had used Gauls to slaughter Gauls.
92 A. Powell (2001: rn), citing Gomme on Thucydides r.103.1, notes, "It is an unresolved question
whether the helot revolt lasted between nine and ten years, as stated in the surviving text of of
Thucydides, or for about half that time, as suggested by the order of events in his narrative."
93 Luraghi (2004: 237) as a point in favor of his argument of the "inherent implausibility" of traditional
ways of conceiving of the helots writes: "A formerly independent group, with a full social structure
and its own ruling class, cannot be reduced to slavery without huge bloodshed." He manages by
a sleight of hand I cannot follow to dismiss the evidence of Trytaeus, but a war of twenty years,
followed by a rebellion that Tyrtaeus seems to feel threatens the very survival of Sparta suggests to me
precisely "huge bloodshed." Hodkinson (2003: 262) makes the additional point against Luraghi that
if we take seriously the implications of the final lines of Tyrtaeus fragment 5 W ("in the twentieth
year the enemy fled from the high mountain range of Ithome, abandoning their rich farmlands"),
the "full social structure" would have been destroyed by the Hight of the ruling class, who alone
would have had the "guest-friends" (kseinoi) and means to Hee.
the subsequent rebellion threatened the very survival of Sparta as Tyrtaeus
conceived it. 94
THE PERIOIKOI
While the perioikoi (= literally "those living about or around," i.e., around
Sparta) have received a fair amount of scholarly attention recently (e.g.,
Shipley 1992, J. Hall 2000, Eremin 2002, Mertens 2002, Hansen 2004),
the written evidence is almost nil, and the archaeological evidence can only
suggest the parameters of the possible. Thus these analyses surpass most of
the necessarily cautious texts about the Archaic Period in their "perhapses,"
"possiblys," "uncertains," and "need nots." Moreover, the questions asked
have often focused primarily on issues of political status: are their "settle-
ments" to be counted as poleis or komai? Eremin opts for komai (2002: 276).
Are they not Lakedaimonian citizens or citizens lacking certain rights of
participation? Mertens opts for the latter (2002: 285 and passim), provok-
ing a long response from Hansen 2004, while Hodkinson, acknowledging
that they were regularly included in references to hoi Lakedaimonioi, for
the purposes of his study uses "the word 'citizen' ... to signify those who
possessed the most complete citizen rights, i.e., the Spartiates" (2000: 7
n. 5). Traditionally the perioikoi have been viewed almost exclusively as
traders and craftsmen (especially producers of armor and weapons) fulfill-
ing functions which were strongly discouraged if not totally absent in the
activities of Spartans themselves. Shipley (1992) stresses that the naturally
fragmented landscape and the significant distances from Sparta of some
of the settlements will have encouraged relative autonomy, some potential
cultural diversity, and predominantly agricultural activity alongside trading
and crafts as in most Greek communities.
What is unknowable are the specific mechanisms by which Sparta
extracted the economic surplus from these areas. Plutarch's highly mythical
Life of Lycurgus pictures the lawgiver as persuading "his fellow citizens to
make one parcel of land of all their territory and divide it up anew ... He
distributed the rest of the Lakonian land to the perioikoi in thirty thousand
94 Carcledge's account of the town of Sparta (2001: 14-15), for example, takes for granted the connection
and the associated consciousness of the organi7.ation: "Not only did all adulc Spartan citizens act
together politically in the central place but most of chem also resided there more or less permanently.
How come? Speculation as to the ultimate origins of messing as a social practice (one not unique to
Sparta) aside, the answer briefly put is chat Sparta was in origins and essence a 'conquest' state. Its
territory, some 8000 sq. km in all, was easily the largest in the entire Greek world, and Sparta town
was mapped ideologically in the image of an armed camp on constant military alert. This state of
alert was directed ... against the enemy within, their many times more numerous labour force of
serf-like Helots."
The perioikoi
lots and that which belonged to the city of Sparta in nine thousand lots
(kleroz) to as many Spartiates" (Plu. Lye. 2-3, cited by Hodkinson 2000:
67). The very disparity in numbers even in this fanciful construction sug-
gests that the Spartiates should have faced similar problems of control and
used similar coercive and ideological means as those employed vis-a-vis the
helots; however, what evidence there is suggests this was not true or only
partially true. As for coercive techniques, Mertens defends the credibility
oflsokrates' claim that "the ephors have the power to put to death without
trial as many [perioikoz] as they please" (Isokrates 12.181; Mertens 2002:
294), but comments "they [the ephors] had no reason for killingperioikoi
at random" (295). Like the helots, some, but apparently not all, perioikoi
attended the funerals of kings (Mertens 2002: 287). Shipley notes that the
richest agricultural areas would at least have had royal temene (farmland
set aside for exalted persons) presumably worked by helots; but nothing he
describes precludes other Spartiates owning land here and extracting wealth
either by helot or perioikic labor. He agrees with Cartledge that extraction
of regular tribute is unlikely (Shipley 1992: 223, Cartledge 1979: 180), but he
deduces from the absence of prosperity that "Sparta successfully prevented
the accumulation of surpluses in perioikic hands" (224).
For my purposes, apart from the largely unanswerable economic ques-
tions, the most tantalizing aspect of the perioikoi is how we are to conceive
of their role as a - perhaps the- major source of hop lites to supplement what
we have seen as an increasingly limited force of full Spartiates, since hoplites
seem to have been the decisive force in maintaining the overall exploitative
class system. Herodotus describes the line-up of troops at Plataea as fol-
lows: "on the right wing were 10,000 Lacedaemonians, of whom 5,000 from
Sparta were attended by 35,000 light-armed helots -seven to a man" (9.28).
Earlier he specifies that ''5,000 picked Lacedaemonian troops drawn from
the outlying towns" marched to Plataea (Hdt. 9.11). Thus Mertens notes
(2002: 288) "the perioikoi contribute a permanent, increasingly important
and by 425 BC fully integrated part of the Lakedaimonian army." Shipley
ends his article by citing with approval the comment of Antony Andrewes:
"With all the admiration lavished by Xenophon and others on Spartan mil-
itary virtue, it is important to remember how much of it actually belongs
to the perioikoi" (Andrewes 1967 [1971]: 165, Shipley 1992: 226). For me
this tribute only intensifies the mystery of how the Spartiates institution-
ally and ideologically juggled the training of these potential "equals" while
maintaining their fiercely separate sense of themselves as a master race.
Shipley suggests that the better-off perioikic farmers were simply expected
to serve (224), but he ignores the problem that the Spartan army was a
3rn Sparta and the comolidation ofthe oligarchic ideal
full-time professional force because they were supported by the helots and
trained all the time. Such a force could campaign any time of the year
that seemed propitious for victory. How would a force of typically amateur
hoplite farmers be integrated ideologically or practically into the full-time
professional Spartan army? Cartledge argues that perioikic hoplites must
have been drawn from the "ranks of the wealthy," who "will have derived
their surplus from the exploitation of chattel slaves" who were not helots
(1979: 179). This suggests a rather numerous wealthy class that ill accords
with the general picture of the subjugation of the perioikoi as a whole; but
if one recalls Plutarch's figure of 30,000 as a presumably educated guess
about the size of the perioikic population, perhaps it is not unreasonable
to assume that one-sixth of this number were economically independent
enough to act as hoplites and perhaps keep the rest of their countrymen
in line. Shipley suggests that their loyalty - or the absence of meaningful
rebellion until after the Spartan defeat at Leuctra (371 BC) had destroyed
or deeply impaired the repressive apparatus of the Spartan state - may be
attributed precisely to the benefits they enjoyed as hoplites, "as collabora-
tors with the Spartiate ruling class and sharers in the profits of the Spartan
system." But he can only cite the occasional distribution of booty after a
successful campaign as an example of such profits (224). The real question
in my mind is how the rigid socialization of a specifically military ruling
class could accommodate simple integration of this clearly subordinated
element. Lazenby has given the question of the role ofperioikoi in the army
the fullest consideration I have found and concluded that they must have
served in separate units (1985: passim). Hodkinson (2000) suggests that the
role of perioikoi in Messenia consisted in keeping the lid on the Messeni-
ans, but Luraghi (2002: 57-59, 61-63) has pulled together interesting bits
of evidence suggesting that significant numbers of perioikoi participated
in the rebellion of 464 and may even have played a leadership role as a
result of their hoplite training. He stresses that perioikoi were a substan-
tial component of the population of the new city founded at lthome by
Epaminondas. But again these later data do not throw much light on the
centuries during which the perioikoi seemed to have accepted their lot.
SPARTA'S ROLE IN THE PELOPONNESE
In connection with Welwei's account of the story of Orestes' bones, the

issue of Sparta's relations with other poleis and ethne in the Peloponnese
arose. The common assumption about Sparta's relations with her neighbors
in the sixth century is that it was "dominated by the fear of a Messenian or
s
Sparta role in the Peloponnese 311
Helot revolt being instigated by one or more of her neighbours" (Cartledge
1987: 13, cited by Cawkwell 1993: 369). So too Osborne has stressed the
causal link between Sparta's "unique oppression of the Messenians" and the
aggressive policies in the Peloponnese designed to ensure that "other cities
easily accessible from Messenia had reasons to protect Spartan rather than
helot interests" (2009: 275). Cawkwell (1993) challenged this common and
inherently plausible account by pointing to the Spartan confidence in its
home security when it was "prepared to send a force to Asia to help Croesus
in his need (Hdt.1.83) ... Similarly a Spartan army was sent to Samos, large
enough to attempt a siege of the city (Hdt.3.56.1)." He does not, however,
really dismiss the relevance of helots and the necessity of repression to
any assessment of Spartan sixth-century policy. He suggests rather: "The
truth may well be that after the savage repression of the Messenian Revolt
in the seventh century, in the sixth the Helots were quiescent, 95 and it
was not until 490 and the first invasion of the Persians that thoughts of
revolt took hold but from that mysterious and abortive uprising onwards
they were a constant check on Sparta's freedom of military action" (1993:
369). Cawkwell acknowledges in a note that "scholars have sharply dif-
fered" (what else is new?) "over Plato's mention of a Messenian war which
prevented the Spartans from supporting Athens in time in 490 (Laws
698e1-2)" but expresses his belief that it merits being credited (ibid. n. 28).
His main goal is to argue that before the First Peloponnesian War there
was not the sort of Sparta-dominated league assumed and illustrated in
Thucydides' history, but rather "essentially a series of defensive alliances"
(1993: 272). He associates a shift from a policy aimed at conquering more
territory as Messene had been conquered to a policy of building such
alliances with the episode of bringing home the bones of Orestes and con-
nects with it the undated reference in Pausanias (Paus. 7.1.8) to fetching
the bones ofTisamenus, the son of Orestes (1993: 369-70). Contra Welwei
he implicitly connects this change with a bid to present Sparta as leader
of the ''Akhaians" - noting king Cleomenes' declaration to the priestess
of Athene's temple that "he was not a Dorian but an Akhaian" (Hdt.
5.72). Cawkwell's explanation of the logic behind this shift entails reading
backward the fourth-century version of the Peloponnesian League, which
he dubs "an ugly bargain: in return for military service Sparta guaranteed
95 Figueira (1999: 212) makes the interesting suggestion that "the availability of Messenian land for
settlement by dependent laborers might have been a factor in the hypothetical quiescence of the
Helots during the sixth century." In a note (235-36) he suggests that land freed by the flight of
Messenian resisters may have been distributed to Lakonian helots under land pressure in Lakonia.
landed aristocracies against social changes inevitable with large urban pop-
ulations led by demagogues. In preventing urbanization Sparta held down
the mass of people in the Peloponnese" (373). In sixth-century terms Sparta
abandoned a policy of potentially endless conquest in favor of offering her
neighbors protection against tyranny: in exchange Sparta took care "that
they conducted their government in accordance with oligarchy serviceably
[i.e., in the interests of] only for the Spartans themselves" (Thuc. 1.19).
What Cawkwell does not adequately explore, it seems to me, is precisely
what de Ste. Croix hauntingly described as "the Spartans [living] on top
of a potentially active human volcano" (1972: 90, see further discussion
below). Whether or not the helots of the sixth century were as intimidated
and quiescent as Cawkwell suggests, the decision of the Spartans to aban-
don conquest in favor of alliances to protect oligarchies from their own
potentially explosive class relations has to be seen I think as a recognition
on Sparta's part that maintaining what they had achieved in Messene was
a full-time job. As Hodkinson notes, Sparta's "creation in the later sixth
century [of] the Peloponnesian League was a unique phenomenon, the first
hegemonic, multi-state, political organization in Greek history. Its success
and part of its rationale - namely, Sparta's guarantee of support for oli-
garchic regimes - depended on two distinctive features of her society: her
unusual capacity to avoid tyranny and her unique, full-time hoplite citizen
body" (1997: 92). Serious doubts have been cast on Sparta's later claims to
be the sworn enemy of tyranny and liberator of many Greek cities from
tyranny (Osborne 2009: 274-75, Hooker 1989: 128-29), but Cawkwell
makes I think a relatively strong argument from silence that Herodotus
and Thucydides both thought that this claim was justified and that the
suppression of many minor tyrannies in the Peloponnese might well have
failed to be recorded. Moreover, the fact that so small a Spartiate force
succeeded in imposing its will on so much of the Peloponnese suggests not
only their military prowess but their ideological triumph in projecting an
image so congenial to the ruling classes of Greece. Anton Powell (2001: 97)
has rightly cautioned against the easy slippage - evident perhaps already
in Thucydides - from personal repulsion felt at many aspects of Spartan
life and values to the underestimation of the intelligence of the Spartan
ruling class. Their readiness to make radical compromises in the face of
class challenges and to devise elaborate social and ideological mechanisms
to sustain their fundamental priorities were decisive in their success in
preserving oligarchic domination not only in their own community but in
so much of Greece.
Sparta and the oligarchs of Greece
SPARTA AND THE OLIGARCHS OF GREECE
While, as indicated above, it is ultimately futile to separate the targets of

ideological apparatuses into rulers and ruled because of the simultaneity
of ideology's operation, it is nonetheless true that Sparta's uniquely elab-
orate measures for socializing its own ruling class and for masking sharp
differences in wealth between those it recognized as full citizens are key not
only to its internal stability but to what we might designate as a fourth set
of class relations - its pan-Hellenic appeal to Greek aristocrats extending
from the mid-sixth century, when Herodotus describes it as the first power
in Greece (Hdt. 1.56), to well into the Christian era. This is not the place to
define or trace the history of the Spartan mirage, much of which develops
in the later fifth century BC and in some sense culminates but certainly does
not end with Plutarch in the second century AD. 96 I am concerned here to
explore briefly the putative relationship of the Spartan image during the
latter part of our chosen slice of time.
There is of course an apparent paradox in the admiration of Sparta by
aristocrats outside the system. The Greek aristocracy was, during most of
the Archaic Period, primarily a leisured class, while Sparta, as Pericles was
keen to argue (Thuc. 2.39.1), seems to have represented the very antithesis
of leisure. The total absence of surviving Spartan poetry after Alkman for
many epitomizes this paradox (e.g., Podlecki 1984: n6), since it is above
all from the poetry of Mimnermos, Anakreon, Ibykos, Sappho, Alcaeus,
Theognis, and Pindar that we have developed our sense of the aristocratic
ideal (Donlan 1999 [1980]: especially 35-n2). 97 Central to this ideal were
96 In addition to Ollier's ground-breaking study (1933/i943) and Tigerstedt (1969) see Hodkinson's
opening chapters (2000: 1-64). Christesen (2004) offers a usefully succinct overview. As for his
major thesis about the "value system," yet another version of the homogenizing, painfully familiar
oikos!polis dichotomy that appears at least blissfully innocent of "middling ideology," I hope by
now that my readers would recognize the inadequacy of such a classless formulation: the oikoi of
a Hesiod - much less of a Perses - were not the same as the oikoi of the Alkmaionids or other
Eupatrids. Moreover, in "successful" oligarchies it was precisely the heads of the richest oikoi who
set the agenda of the polis. This is not to deny that to many aristocrats the Spartans may well have
seemed to have settled the problem of the potentially threatening majority. They are likely to have
equated the helots with the db-nos as it should be and perceived all Spartiates as perfect aristocrats.
It was aristocrats who were constantly torn between their competitive drive to be better than all
the rest and their drive to find mechanisms for preventing other aristocrats from achieving such a
position. Certainly from this perspective the establishment of homoioi must have had some appeal.
97 It is symptomatic of this apparent paradox that Donlan's admirable study has only two brief
references to Sparta in its account of the aristocratic ideal in the Archaic Period. Apart from Tyrtaeus
(there is no discussion of Aikman) he has no texts to analyze. I should stress that inclusion of the
name of Pindar - very much a figure of the fifth century - is a consequence of Pindar's regular
participation in the symbolic displays of wealth and physical prowess in the
great games, love affairs (mostly homosexual), elaborate clothing with gold
ornaments, fine food, drinking parties (symposia) often involving heavy
drinking and potentially violent feuds, as well as, later in the period, a move
toward claims and putative demonstrations of intellectual superiority. 98 As
I have argued above, alongside the pressure from below to modify their
ostentatious lifestyle, the "politics" and practice of habrosyne (Kurke 1992)
did not disappear with the Persian threat even if they took new forms: the
rich body of red-figure painting attests to the continued appeal of behaviors
beyond the means and many of the values of the vast majority of Greeks.
At first blush the traditional picture of Spartan values and lifestyle seems
far removed from this world. Tyrtaeus, as we have seen, denounces athletic
prowess as irrelevant compared to the highest virtue, which is prowess in the
hoplitefrontline (12 W). Virtually full-time military training, homogenized
clothing and hairstyles, a diet of black broth and barley bread, a strict ban
on drunkenness, a state-supervised sex life, and virtual illiteracy99 might
seem to have little to offer the pampered ruling class of the rest of Greece.
Even accepting this idealized amalgam of practices as the full truth, the
Greek aristocrat seems to have been drawn to Sparta precisely to the extent
that the Spartans appeared truly unbeatable in hoplite warfare (Ollier 1933:
47). The Spartans' projection of their image, not infrequently validated
during the Archaic Period, as a pure military meritocracy that won its
power by unmatchable prowess spoke to the deepest Greek male aspira-
tions, nurtured no doubt by a steady diet of Homer and atavistic memories.
Privileged classes in general desperately wish to believe that their privileges
are merited: the Spartans seemed living proof that this was in principle at
inclusion by other scholars in accounts of the Archaic Period, a tendency I have protested against
in vain (Rose 1992: 142--52). One consequence is precisely to reinforce the evolutionary model
of democracy's alleged triumph and ignore the tremendous enduring appeal of aristocratic values
throughout the fifth century. At the same time I must acknowledge that Kurke (1991) has rightly
corrected my exclusive emphasis on Pindar's links with the aristocracy by stressing ways in which
he attempts in some poems to "negotiate" differences in class values.
98 I am thinking here simply of the connection between the symposium setting and the "wisdom"
poetry of figures like Solon and Theognis and at least some of the so-called "pre-Socratics" (e.g.,
Xenophanes, Empedocles).
99 As noted earlier, Plutarch (Lye. 16.6) speaks of minimal literacy and Cartledge (1978) has supported
this claim, while offering some nuances. Boring's book-length study (1979) valiantly elicits hints of
possible state storage of documents and notes some relatively early names scratched on dedications,
but does not really get us beyond "minimal literacy" for the Archaic Period (17-49). Millender
(2001) has reopened the issue and stressed again the state use of documents in some sort of archive.
Treaties were drafted during the Peloponnesian War, and those who aspired to higher office clearly
needed to be able to read. However, it is hard to elicit from this the sort ofliterary elite consciousness
associated with aristocrats in the rest of Greece.
Sparta and the oligarchs of Greece
least possible - however much the idea was debated in other more open
communities (e.g., Donlan 1973). Moreover, recent research has suggested
that precisely the economic reality of the ever-growing disparity between
the very rich and increasingly poorer Spartiates has significantly qualified
the traditional picture of Spartan "equality." As noted above, Hodkinson's
study of the Olympic victory lists and a key inscription by a Spartan listing
local Laconian victories has demonstrated an ever-growing participation
by Spartans in the most wealth-flaunting of contests, the four-horse char-
iot race. These data also suggest that Laconia was itself glutted with local
contests constantly offering opportunities to play out aristocratic compet-
itive drives and displays of symbolic superiority (Hodkinson 1997: 93-94,
2000: 303-67). As also noted above, wealthy Spartiates seem to have reg-
ularly enriched the spare diet of the common messes with contributions
of game and the "luxury" of wheat bread, while a careful reading of the
accounts of entertainment of foreigners by Spartan kings suggests a very
high level of luxury (Fisher 1989: 34-35). Moreover, the common messes
can also be seen as simply the institutionalization of the favorite aristocratic
institution of the symposium. Hodkinson notes that fragments of Aleman
(Page PMG 19 and 17) describe an early symposion and this was essentially
"refashioned into messes of homoioi in the 6 th century" (Hodkinson 1997:
91 citing Bowie 1990: 225 n. 16). The examination of sixth-century pot-
tery and shrine dedications suggests the ruling class continued to live very
well: dedications "provide little support for the idea of a general increase
in austerity" (Hodkinson 1997: 95). The very clothing of the Spartans, a
red robe, while scorned by Aristotle as very ordinary (Pol. 1294b27-9), was
perhaps close enough to purple to suggest royalty to the rest of Greece
(cf. Aes. Ag. 956-60), while the obligatory long hair was, for the rest of
Greece, a clear sign of aristocratic lifestyle. 100 Pederasty, the special delight
of Greek aristocrats, seems to have been systematically institutionalized for
whole age groups: teenage boys were regularly sodomized from the age of
twelve by those in their twenties in what appears to be an extreme form
of fraternity hazing (Cartledge 1981a) 101 as well as a mode of emotional
bonding mitigating some at least of the ferocity of state-sponsored compe-
tition. Evidence from the Classical period suggests it may also have been
a vehicle for cementing political alliances (Cartledge 1981a: 28-29). More
broadly, systematic subordination at one life-stage seems to reinforce the
100 Admittedly komai at Lysias 16.18 is an emendation, but its appropriateness to the context attests to
a widespread association of long hair with aristocratic lifestyle, cf. Thuc. r.6.
101 Cf. the strong hints of sado-masochisim and barely suppressed homoeroticism in the Animal House
hazing sequence (Rose 2000/r).
ferocity of the will to dominate at a later stage, a necessary trait in ruling
classes under severe challenge. Finally, the picture of a Spartan life without
art or literature needs to be seriously qualified. While literacy does seem
to have been very modest in Sparta, 102 the centrality of choral singing and
dancing to the Spartan way of life suggests that a lively oral poetic culture
flourished (Plu. Lye. 21). Accounts of visitors flocking to Sparta to observe
her eroticized rituals of naked boys and girls suggest as well that admiration
for the associated singing and dancing was also very widespread. Thus not
only through sheer military prowess but on the cultural and ideological
level as well Sparta was able to enlist much of the Greek ruling class in her
campaign to suppress democracy at any cost.
m• Cartledge (1978), after a full survey of the then available evidence, endorses "the unequivocal
statement of Plutarch (Lyk. 16.10, Mor. 237a) that the Spartans ... were taught as much reading
and writing as needful" (32) and concludes: "The Spartans ... dwelt primarily in a world of oral
discourse, a world in which they were well fitted to survive" (33).
CHAPTER 7
Athens and the emergence ofdemocracy
Given the enormous ideological burdens that have been laid upon the
term "democracy" in our own era, it is perhaps impossible to explore
the Athenian phenomenon in isolation, nor is it perhaps desirable if by
that we mean with no regard whatsoever for the ideological role Athenian
democracy has played in our own era. 1 Titles like Democracy Ancient and
Modern (Finley 1985b [1973]), Demokratia: A Conversation on Democracies,
Ancient and Modern (Ober and Hedrick 1996), or Origim of Democracy
in Ancient Greece (Raaflaub, Ober, and Wallace 2007) insist upon the
present relevance of the Greek phenomenon - however conscientiously
these authors seek to distinguish the ancient from the modern.
In their impressively concise introduction to their collection of essays,
Democracy 2500? Questions and Challenges, I. Morris and Raaflaub clear
away mountains of nonsense about 508/ 507 BC as the origin or source of
what is called "democracy" in our era, in many ways a negation of the very
idea of "power to the people" (1998: 2, citing Wood's excellent critique,
1996: 62). 2 They highlight most of the key questions underlined by the
brief flurry of public interest in this alleged arche of present-day democracy:
How central to what became Athenian democracy in the fifth and fourth
centuries were the events of this year? Was this a "vision from above or
below" as a recent article put it (Pritchard 2005), i.e., was democracy the
brainchild of the aristocrat Kleisthenes or was he essentially implementing
the expressed will of the Athenian demos? To put it in terms most relevant
to my project: what was the class character of these events? Offering a
quick romp through the historiographic roots of these questions based on
' As Walter Benjamin argued, "every image of the past that is not recognized by the present as one of
its own concerns threatens to disappear irretrievably" (1969: 255).
2 For a more radical critique of contemporary U.S. "democracy" see Noam Chomsky, Deterring
Democracy (1991), Herman and Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy ofthe Mass
Media (1988), and Larry M. Bartels, Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy ofthe New Gilded
Age (2008).
Athem and the emergence ofdemocracy
the work of Turner (1981) and Roberts (1994), 3 I. Morris and Raaflaub
point to the question first reraised (that is, after Aristotle) in the eighteenth
century: what was the contribution, if any, to Athenian democracy of the
reforms of Solon? The issue of the potential contribution of Peisistratos
is raised only as a source of embarrassment from the historian/activist
George Grote in the nineteenth century, but it cannot be ignored. Finally,
they raise some basic historiographic questions about any contemporary
inquiry into the "origins" of Athenian democracy: at what point does the
ideal of disinterested scholarship lead us to uninteresting scholarship? Put
more positively, even if we emphasize all the ways Athenian democracy
was not like our contemporary form of government, cannot the study of
its origins and nature open our minds to important ways of rethinking
our present-day conceptions of what is possible in government? Can any
of us escape our own ideological investments? Perhaps not. But there are
radical differences in the degree to which scholars interrogate and render
explicit those investments. As noted in an earlier chapter, the impact of
developments in the ancient Near East on developments in Greece disturbs
a certain Marxist preference for purely internal dynamics of class conflict.
So too, in the debate in this 1998 volume between Ober and Raaflaub,
the impact of extra-Hellenic (sc. Persian) and extra-Athenian (especially
Spartan) factors in the development of Athenian democracy disturbs any
simple pattern of purely internal Athenian class conflict. I would, however,
reassert my commitment to a version of Marxism by arguing that the
parameters of potential Athenian responses to these external threats were
indeed set by the immediate and long-term developments in Athenian class
relations.
In looking at "democracy" in the Archaic Period we are, by definition,
looking only at the emergence of what later came to be called "democ-
racy," by no means offering a full assessment of what specifically Athenian
democracy became in the fifth and fourth centuries under the impact of
war with Persia, war with Sparta, and defeat by Sparta. Even to apply
the term "democracy'' to the late sixth century development entails an
anachronism: 4 as we will explore below, the earliest terms for what we will
3 M. H. Hansen 1994, citing his own earlier historiographic overview (1992), offers an admirably suc-
cinct account of the relative emphases on Solon, Kleischenes and Ephialces. He celebrates Kleischenes
but argues chat the study of the ideals and institutions decisive for Athenian democracy points toward
the age of Demosthenes (c£ Hansen 1999). Unlike virtually every ocher scholar I have been reading
on these issues, he acknowledges and succinctly describes the Marxist class-based view of democracy
deriving from Aristotle's Politics, Book 3 {1994' 36--37). See also Frost 1981: 33, quoted below.
4 Raaflaub {1996: 148) suggests the term was coined in the early years of the 460s. His note ad loc.
cites and counters the view of Hansen 1991: 69-71 chat the term existed in the time of Kleisthenes.
Raaflaub discusses the issue more fully in Raaflaub 1995. He is at pains to stress - as have many
Athenian comciousness during the Archaic Period
study seem (to judge from Herodotus) to have been isonomia, "equality
before the law," 5 and isegoria, something like, "an equal right to speak in
the assembly'' - things which in principle at least may have existed already
in the assembly created by Solon, but seem to have gained a new urgency
in the revolutionary events of the late sixth century. At the same time, the
two components of the Greek word demokratia, demos = the people in the
sense Donlan (1970) saw emerge in the eighth century, i.e., the whole adult
male population excluding the ruling class, and kratos in its full semantic
range - "strength, force, violence, power, rule, dominion" - offer a succinct
vehicle for exploring this revolution.
ATHENIAN CONSCIOUSNESS DURING THE ARCHAIC PERIOD
Despite the strong bias of our sources toward the actions of ruling-class
individuals, it is worth exploring what we can know or reasonably surmise
of the Athenian demos in the course of the Archaic Period and examine
what sorts of "violence" it exhibited to acquire what sorts of "power."
More concretely, what specific institutional factors instantiated this power?
Here the whole range of developments we have explored from Mycenae
to tyranny is relevant to the specific late sixth-century developments in
Athens. 6
Turning to the evidence for Athens, we find that, apart from short dedi-
catory inscriptions (Raubitschek 1949),7 the only surviving archaic-period
ochers - chat Athenian democracy as such only emerged after the reforms of Ephialtes in the late
46os and of Pericles in the 450s. For Wallace's counterarguments (1998) see below.
5 There are grounds (e.g., Stanton 1990: 120) for understanding the same term from differing class
perpectives: the aristocratic skolion celebrating the tyrannicides may imply by it the system of
aristocratically controlled competition for office. Ostwald indeed {1969: 96-136) is at pains to insist
through an exhaustive philological examination of every instance of the term chat it is not equivalent
to demokratia; but the other examples he examines from Herodotus {3.1.42-43 and 5.37.2) suggest
to me chat for chose who favored some sort of "democracy," it is close enough. See Frost's review
of Ostwald {1970) suggesting the limitations of a purely philological approach. Hansen {1994: 28)
argues, however, chat "it must be taken as evidence for political ideology and terminology in the
age of Herodotus and not of the age of Kleischenes." It is striking chat Rausch {1999: v) in his
Foreword explains chat he uses the term isonomia in his title as a substitute for "democracy" to avoid
contemporary overtones. Foe older discussions of the term see Vlastos 1953: 337-66.
6 Though we read the period rather differently, on chis point I quite agree with I. Morris chat it was the
"Archaic social order chat made democracy possible" {1996: 19). On the ocher hand, I have repeatedly
in the foregoing dissented from chose scholars who tend to present the whole Archaic Period as an
irreversible march toward democracy tout court. I will examine subsequently the scant evidence of
democracy in ocher poleis before it was imposed by the Athenian Empire ("coercive democracy"? -
a phrase recently coined by Scott McClellan a propos of the policies of George Bush in the Middle
East), but I am still convinced chat in its fullest - i.e., most radical - form it was a uniquely Athenian
phenomenon and, as Finley rightly insisted {1988: 86-87), dependent on the income from empire.
7 ML date no. 14 in their collection with a question mark to the late c;th century. Raubitschek organi2es
his material first by type (column dedications, low bases for marble, low bases for bron2e, pillar
320 Athem and the emergence ofdemocracy
literary text, the fragments of Solon, has inspired an endless flood of com-
mentary. Thus ironically we are almost back to problems of the Dark Age:
apart from Solon's fragments we have to deduce the material and ideolog-
ical struggles of the sixth century and earlier from the visual evidence and
questionable later accounts - mainly Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristotle's
Politics, and the Comtitution ofAthem (Ath. Pol.) produced by Aristotle's
school. Following Finley (The Use and Abuse of History, 1987 [1957], esp.
Chapter 1), most treatments have stressed the oral character of this evi-
dence and explored the specific character of oral evidence (e.g., Frost 1990:
8, Rosalind Thomas 1989 and 1992). The fifth- and fourth-century Athe-
nians themselves and Athenophiles like Herodotus took such interest in
the earlier history/mythology of their area viewed through the lens of their
own ideological preoccupations that the task of eliciting coherent accounts
from this welter of data has attracted the energies and imaginations of the
vast majority of those strange creatures who call themselves "Classicists." In
offering a relatively brief account of the emergence of democracy in Athens
in the sixth century, we are led by the elitist bias of our sources to focus
inevitably on three major leaders: Solon, Peisistratos, and Kleisthenes. But,
as suggested above, before embarking on that task, it is worth exploring at
least briefly the specific factors about the history of the people- the silenced
majority - of Attica that may have contributed not only to the produc-
tion of such leaders but the people's consciousness of themselves in their
interactions with them. To put it another way- since we were at pains to
sort out Sparta's commonalities with other poleis of the seventh and sixth
century as the essential context for exploring Spartan exceptionalism -
what hints can we discover that might at least point towards Athenian
exceptionalism? 8
The first striking fact as we look back to the dawn of our period is
that Athens was the only major Mycenaean palace-center not destroyed
monuments types A and B, supports for tripods and bronze bowls, stelai and altars, marble basins,
and unclassified fragments. Within each of these categories he aims at a chronological ordering, but
if the reforms of Kleisthenes are for us a key turning point, his indications of date are sometimes
frustrating, e.g., "last quarter of the sixth century" (3), "only one after 480 B.c." {61), "sometime after
the middle of the sixth century" (212), "a date ca. 500 B.c." {330). Nonetheless his account of the
historical value of the inscriptions as a whole {455-78) is occasionally illuminating even though the
vast bulk of the material in his volume falls after our cutoff point. Stroud (1978) makes a powerful
case against the radical skepticism of Hignett {1962) for the survival into the fourth century of a
substantial quantity of documentary data available to Aristotle, his pupils, and the Atthidographers.
8 Leveque and Vidal-Naquet {1996: 105-6) explicitly raise the question: "In what way was the demos
of the Athenians ... radically different from the Lacedaemonian damos?" They stress the substantial
presence in the Athenian db-nos of both peasants and artisans, both of which groups were excluded
from the Spartan "warrior damos."
Athenian comciousness during the Archaic Period 321
by whatever or whoever it was that over the hundred years 1200-1100

devastated all the other major Mycenaean sites (e.g., Welwei 1992: 49).
We might accordingly presume that more of Athens' social and political
hierarchy survived than in other Mycenaean centers; 9 and this may explain,
for example, I. Morris's conviction, since he has focused so much on
Athenian evidence, that a substantial hierarchy survived in all of Greece
during the Dark Age. If Morris is right about Athens, it also undercuts, I
must acknowledge, the idea that the real roots of democracy are to be found
in the Dark Age face-to-face relations of the community with big-men who
had to persuade their followers of their leadership goals. Whitley, however
(1991a: 96-97), while acknowledging distinctions between rich graves and
poor graves in the Sub-Mycenaean Period (i.e., 1125-1050, cf. Snodgrass
1971: 154-55), seems inclined to posit an egalitarian society in Attica with
status more a function of age and gender, while Lemos (2006: 516-17, see
also 526) sees some signs of hierarchy already in this period but emphasizes
that it becomes clearest only in the ninth century.
We also hear vague accounts of Athens serving as a home to many
refugees and as a way station for the massive emigrations that eventually
turned the coast of Asia Minor into a Greek homeland. 10 We might deduce
from this relative continuity that the demos of Athens, i.e., its non-ruling-
class population, might be more prone than others to accept continued
domination by heirs of the old ruling class. But it is also possible that
their experience of contact with refugees from many other parts of Greece
9 Welwei (1992: 39-44) attempts on the basis of the Pylos tablets to sketch the social and political
structure of Mycenaean Athens. Lemos (2oo6: 524) argues on the basis of the absence of tholos
tombs near the acropolis but their presence elsewhere in Attica that "it was outside Athens that
the most important Mycenaean centers were located." She dates the real importance of Athens
beginning in the Sub-Mycenaean Period. Diamant declares categorically, "there is absolutely no
evidence that the state, as a political entity, survived the Dark Age ... Mycenaean civilization had
broken down completely by the end of the 12th century B.C." (1982: 43).
10 Welwei (1992: 53) dismisses these accounts along with the king list. He notes (54) that neither
Homer nor Hesiod mentions sons of Kodros or descendants of Neleus ruling in Ionia. He suggests
the claim was tied to a fifth-century imperialist effort at legitimating Athens' role in Ionia. But
would this explain, for example, the Athenians' profound grief over the destruction of Miletus in
494 (Hdt. 6.21)? Certainty is perhaps unattainable, but it does seem plausible that if more of the
Mycenaean structure survived in Athens, refugees from western Greece, where the destruction was
complete, would flock to Athens. Herodotus (1.146--47), himself from the coast of Asia Minor, took
an Athenian role in the settling of Ionia very seriously and emphasizes common religious practice
(Andrewes 1982: 36o--63). At the same time, Connor (1993), offering a close reading of Herodotus,
stresses the heterogeneity of the settlers of Ionia and makes a compelling argument that relatively
backward Athens, especially in the eighth and seventh centuries during a period of aristocratic
dominance, might well have been eager to appropriate an Ionian identity and associated habrosyn2
(c£ Kurke 1992). It would also not be the first or the last time that a ruling class used bogus notions
of ethnicity to submerge class identity.
contributed to a more cosmopolitan perception of the Greek world and a

more self-conscious sense of their specific Athenian identity.
As noted earlier, the impressive burial of the so-called "rich lady of
theAreiopagos" (Coldstream 1995, Smithson 1968) dated about 850 BC, the
period when Lemos finds an intensification of competition over burial sym-
bolism, suggested to Smithson such complete continuity with Mycenaean
royalty that she dubbed the lady gune Arriphronos ("wife of Arriphn1n")
from the Athenian king list of Kastor of Rhodes (FGH Vol. 2B 250.F4 =
1140-42, Smithson 1968: 83). The very existence of such a list might
suggest, n what we might expect from the survival of Mycenaean Athens,
that the institution of monarchy was more deeply rooted and enduring
there than elsewhere in Greece. Diamant, on the contrary, suggests that
the myth of Kodros implies that ''Athens disposed of the institution of
kingship long before other areas" (1982: 46). The extraordinary sophistica-
tion of one of the pieces of jewelry in this grave implies not only extensive
contacts with the East but the likelihood of Eastern craftsmen in Athens
and Euboea, which in turn imply "an Athenian society with refined tastes
and high standards" (Smithson ibid.), where, as so often, "society'' really
includes only the presumably tiny proportion of the population consti-
tuted by the ruling class. The unique five-granary top of a terracotta chest
suggests that already in the mid-ninth century there was extensive grain
production in Attica and perhaps some pre-Solonian system of measuring
wealth by grain output (Smithson ibid.). What is unrecoverable but impor-
tant to consider is whether the labor producing this extraordinary wealth
was already slave labor - unlikely? - or extracted from a semi-dependent
peasantry. What is self-evident but rarely accounted for is that as soon as a
family acquires control of more agricultural land than it can cultivate itself,
some other source of labor is required. 12
One relevant aspect of Attica on which there is still considerable debate is
the question of at what point one can speak of a collective entity ''Attica" -
at what point did something like the extensive area of classical Attica, not as
great as the territory controlled by Sparta but larger than that of any other
Greek polis (Raaflaub 1991: 567 and 572), 13 achieve the status of a recognized
unity - recognized both internally by its inhabitants and externally by its
" Kastor of Rhodes, writing chronologies in the first century BC, has many lists of kings: the more
one reads the less credible he seems. The last king's reign he dates to 684'683. The last seven all
conveniently ruled for exactly ten years each (cf. Andrewes 1982: 364).
' 2 The happy king overseeing the harvesting of his royal temenos on the shield of Achilles (II. 18.550--60)
seems to command a substantial community labor force.

' 3 Pritchard (2005: 137), reviewing G. Anderson (2003), refers to Attica as "around fifty times larger
and more populous than the average-sized khora {'countryside') of a Greek city."
neighbors?14 Thucydides (2.15) expresses his clear belief that the unification
of Attica was effected by the early king Theseus, but in terms that imply
considerable prior independence:
At the time of Kekrops and the first kings Attica, until Theseus, was inhabited
by cities (poleis) having both town-halls and archons, and except when they were
afraid of something, they did not come together to the king to take counsel, but
each group conducted public business and carried out its counseling on its own.
(2.15-1)
A very late, but influential source, Plutarch's Life of Theseus, attributes

not only the unification of Attica but even the invention of democracy to
Theseus, i.e., in the generation before the Trojan War (Plut. Vit. Thes. 24). 15
Greg Anderson has recently made an impressive, if highly debatable, case
for attributing the process of unification in its entirety at the end of our
period to Kleisthenes, who, G. Anderson argues, concocted the myth of
Theseus to mask the radical innovation: "Only in 508/7, with the passage
of Kleisthenes' political reforms, did a unified Attica become a functional
reality" (2003: 5, on Theseus 134-46). 16 While he is right to stress the rigor
of Kleisthenes' efforts at unification and the probable fluidity of borders
before Kleisthenes, there was a remarkable homogeneity of material culture
already in the Dark Age (Whitley 1991a: 57-58). Moreover, central to polis
formation in the eighth century was the use of sanctuaries to stake out as
much territory as possible (de Polignac 1995); nor is it legitimate to dismiss
14 Anderson (2003: 13-42) offers the most thorough review of the evidence and many compelling
arguments against previous assumptions of an early unification. His claim, however, that "the
consensus view that this citizen body [sc. of the Solonian era] already included individuals from all
over Attica is no more than an assumption, for which there is no conclusive support either in Solon's
poems or in ancient accounts of his various laws and reforms" goes perhaps too far. In fragment 2 W
Solon uses Attikos as implicitly interchangeable with Athenaios (see below). In 36.n W he speaks of
the Attic dialect (glossan . .. Attiken) after claiming he had brought back many to Athens (36.8----9),
implicitly equating the Attic dialect with Athens. Anderson is clearly right that before Kleisthenes'
reforms we have no specific grounds for saying with any precision what constituted the boundaries
of Attica, and he adduces some impressive arguments about an "internal" exile of Alkmaionids,
Peisistratids et al. (27-34). I still see this terminology in Solon as evidence that in Solon's time there
was an easy and significant equation of Attica with Athens. Jeffery, who assumes unification of sorts
by 700 (1976: 84), suggests that in the seventh century "the peasant demesman thought of himself
as Attic and, for example, Rhamnousian, not an 'Athenian'" (87). See further discussion below.
15 One of Theseus's less savory adventures suggesting this dating was the failed attempt at steal-
ing/raping the prepubescent Helen (Plu. Life ofTheseus 34). It is perhaps significant that Herodotus,
despite his assumed Athenian bias, has only one reference in his text to Theseus (9. 73), narrating the
Spartan invasion ofAttica in attempting to recover Helen. Diamant (1982) has effectively demolished
the case for a Mycenaean synoecism as well dismissing the historicity of Theseus.
16 As such the claim is not new (e.g., Welwei 1992: 2) but as far as I know nowhere else argued with
such thoroughness and vigor. (We will evaluate his arguments below.)
the efforts of the tyrants17 at creating a collective identity or to present

public dedications of ambitious aristocrats as somehow contrary to the
goal of fostering a collective Attic identity in the masses. We have argued
throughout for the tension in the aristocracy between competitive self-
promotion and the concerted effort to foster a homogenizingpo/is identity
as the necessary precondition of their continued dominance. 18 In the case
of tyrants as a group there was a tension or a "contradiction" between
their need to create a civic identity as a counterweight to local aristocratic
influence through control of the best land and their need to project an
image of themselves as dramatically superior to their aristocratic rivals.
One of the dearest myths of the Athenians was the belief in their
"autochthony" (Loraux 1986, 1993, 2000). The simplest, etymologically
straightforward interpretation of the term implied that the Athenians had
always inhabited the "same land" (aute khthon, cf. Rosivach 1987: 300) as
opposed to peoples, like the Dorians, who had a history of migrations. This
is the point of Thucydides' claim, where indeed the word autochthony is
not used but is implicit: ''Attica, at any rate, since it was for the longest
time free of factionalism because of the lightness (i.e., poverty) of its soil,
the same people inhabited always" (1.2.5-6). 19 But as early as Homer the
first or early king of Athens is described in more truly mythic terms as
"great-hearted Erechtheus, whom once upon a time Athena,/daughter of
Zeus raised, and the grain-giving plough-land (aroura) gave birth to him"
(II. 2.547-8). Two different elaborations of this aetiological tale survive from
the fifth-century and later sources. One version even makes the virgin god-
dess Athena in some sense the "mother" of Athens' first king and by that
mythic logic the mother of all citizens of the city of Athena. The humble
craftsmen's god Hephaistos is said to have attempted to rape Athena and
in the process to have ejaculated on her thigh. In disgust she wiped off the
sperm with a piece of wool and threw it on the ground from which sprung
Erichthonios, half snake, half human (Loraux 2000: 2). Athena was said to
'7 Anderson acknowledges chat the tyrants are associated with "the very earliest evidence we have for
initiatives designed to establish formal institutional links between the center and the periphery"
(2003: 22) but is at pains to minimize chem. He acknowledges chat the road markers of Hipparchus,
indicating the half-way points from the altar of the twelve gods to various communities within
Attica "covered the region fairly comprehensively" (2003: 22) but concludes - rather implausibly I
chink: "Nor is there any serious likelihood chat chis or any earlier era saw a significant growth in
what we might call a 'civic consciousness,' or a shared Athenian identity, among people in all parts
of Attica" (2003: 23). Contra see Frost 1990.
'8 Pritchard's thoughtful review essay on Anderson's book well argues for a more "dialectical" approach
to the behavior of the aristocracy (2005: 154-6).
'9 Boch Gomme and Hornblower in their commentaries ad loc. rightly see the concept there. For
Herodotus's use of the term see Rosivach 1987.
have embraced the child, thus in some sense acknowledging it as her own,
but then handed it off to the daughters of Kekrops to raise. The scene is
represented on a number of vases (Loraux 1993: 27-34). 20 Loraux, primarily
concerned with fifth- and fourth-century Athens, stresses the democratic
ideological potential of the myth: "the autochthonous Erichthonios could
also properly be called 'son of the gods,' and Athenian tradition was fond
of this illustrious title, which was extended to the whole community of
andres Athenaioi [Athenian males]" (2000: 9, cf. 33-34, cf. 1993: 45), 21 who
were accordingly referred to - especially by poets (e.g., Eur. Med. 824)
as "Erechtheidai" (sons of Erechtheus). In this version only the mythic
ancestor Erechtheus or his doublet Erichthonius is born from the earth,
but in the funeral oration version all Athenian men - especially those who
have died in defense of the "motherland" - were celebrated as born of the
earth. 22
Noteworthy in the account of semi-impregnation of the virgin mother
is the modest class status of the implicit "father" in this myth, and Hep-
haistos seems to have had an especially honored place in Athenian reli-
gious practice. 23 A more aristocratic pairing of divinities pitted Zeus's
brother Poseidon in competition with Athena for guardianship of the land
of Attica, a competition proudly celebrated on one of the pediments of
the mid-fifth-century Parthenon (Shapiro 1998: 149). Significantly, Athena
wins by her gift of the olive, and that may be a clue to the date of the
origin of the myth if we could know at what point Attic olive oil became
a decisive trading commodity. 24 It is plausible, but of course unprovable,
20 Loraux's examples are all from the fifth century. T. H. Carpenter argues that the earliest surviving
painting of Athena receiving the infant Erichchonios from Gaia is on a black-figure lekychos from
the end of the sixth century (1991: 7 4). Shapiro (1998: 132) interprets a vase from about 580 as
depicting Kekrops and his daughters. He cites ocher textual (e.g., Od. 7.81) and archaeological
evidence arguing for an early date for the myth.
21 For what Shapiro calls "the continuing Athenian dialogue on autochchony" see in addition to his
chapter (1998) and Loraux's multiple elaborations, Nimis 2007.
22 Loraux 1993: 42 cites Plato's Menexenus, a parody of a funeral oration, as the clearest (most blatant?)
example of chis topos.
23 Parke (1977:171-72) notes "since Hephaistus ... was long associated with Athena, the Hephaisteia
[festival in honor of Hephaistus] in some form was probably of considerable antiquity." He earlier
points out chat the name of the festival called the Chalkeia "implies an origin reaching back into
the Brome Age. In the classical period the festival was associated both with Hephaistus the god of
smiths and with Athena ... Except at Athens he [Hephaistus] was little worshipped on the Greek
mainland" (92).
24 Jeffery (1976: 85) notes chat in the seventh century the great landowners of Attica "were evidently
exporting ... the fine Attic olives and olive-oil, stored in the plain, ballooning Attic 'SOS' amphorae
which have been found in every quarter of the Mediterranean, from Spain to Cyprus." Pride in Attic
oil may well have preceded major exportation. Diamant (1982: 46) suggests a seventh-century date
for the decisive shift toward olive and grape cultivation. Foxhall (2007: 17-18), however, declares,
that some of these unifying myths may have been elaborated at the time
of the formation of Athens as a true polis sometime in the eighth century.
Loraux at times seems quite indifferent not only to chronology but to
any distinction between the whole community and specifically aristocratic
claims of divine ancestry: "Every ancestor of a heroic line or community is
characterized by the name which he bears, and which he transmits, in one
way or another, to his descendants" (2000: IO, my emphasis). In an earlier
work she declares unambigously: ''Autochthony, then, is a civic myth. To
give it its historical moment, let us call it a myth of the 'classical city,'
or even better, a myth of the fifth century'' (1993: 41); so too Rosivach
(1987). I think, however, in view of the Homeric pedigree, that it is at least
plausible, if unprovable, that this myth, though heavily elaborated in the
fifth century, dates from the period of the early Dark Age migrations as
a means of insisting on the difference between native Athenians and the
immigrants flooding Attica. 25 But the real challenge of Loraux's approach
in invoking Lacan's term "imaginary" 26 for the role of this myth in the
consciousness of Athenians is the question whether the implication of it
that she sees as most central, namely, the denial of the female reproductive
role in the construction of male citizen identity, can be read back into
the sixth century or earlier yet. Given the abundant evidence we found
in Hesiod and Semonides especially (cf. Loraux 1993: 72-110), but also
in the Odyssey, of profound male fear of the female, it seems plausible to
include this ideological aberration in our sketch of the consciousness of the
Athenian demos.
"There is no archaeological evidence for the large-scale production of olive oil in seventh and sixth
century BCE Attica, as one might expect to find, if it had been regularly exported in substantial
quantities."
25 Loraux (1993: 4) alludes scornfully to chis interpretation as an instance of too crude an attempt to find
some "witness to reality - perhaps a hidden, disfigured reality, but one that functions nonetheless
as a basis of truth for the fable." Touche1 Still she has nothing serious to say of the implications of
the Homeric allusions to "earth-born" Erechtheus.
26 I was struck, reading Anika Lemaire's heroic attempt (very ambiguously favored with a wildly ironic
preface by the "master" himself) to clarify Lacan's impenetrable prose, by a phrase in her efforts
to define his concept of the "imaginary": "Lacan defines the essence of the imaginary as a dual
relationship, a reduplication in the mirror, an immediate opposition between consciousness and its
other in which each term becomes its opposite and is lost in the play of reflections. In its quest for
itself, consciousness thus believes chat it has found itself in the mirror of its creatures and loses itself
in something which is not consciousness" (1977: 60). Loraux is explicitly aware of the dangers of
the "'application of the categories of individual psychology to a whole group"' (1993: 19--20 citing a
French historian). But essentially what she is discussing is ideology, which entails, as I argued in the
Introduction, citing Levi-Strauss, chat "consciousness lies to itself," a concept not too far removed
from consciousness losing itself in something that is not itself, but which it believes is icsel£ Very
loosely the term "imaginary" is used both by Loraux and Leveque and Vidal-Naquet (1996 passim)
to designate the whole configuration of Athenian ideas and fantasies about themselves.
When we move from the slippery world of myth to something more
plausibly historic, the first reliable "fact" we know specifically about early
Athenian class relations is that their ruling oligarchs were called - presum-
ably called themselves - Eupatridai (literally "sons of good/noble fathers")
(Plut. Vit. Thes. 25, cf. Ath. Pol. 13.2 and Rhodes 1993: 67, 183). 27 Both
sources also mention farmers and craftsmen as classes, and while Rhodes
argues that neither of these categories would in the sixth century have a
credible claim to the archonship (contra see de Ste. Croix 2004 and R
W. Wallace 1998), it seems quite plausible that Athenian society was early
explicitly conceived of in these terms: the first two categories seem to con-
form to a view of the early polis as dominated by those claiming "noble"
birth and those who have been given some sort of guarantee to land own-
ership. At what point craftspeople - presumably landless? - acquired full
citizen rights is an open question; but the prominence of Hephaistos in
Athenian myth and ritual (see above) and the extraordinary quality of the
locally produced jewelry in the Rich Lady Tomb of 850 suggest this may
have been relatively early. 28
Unlike the Bacchiads of Corinth or other early oligarchies, the Eupatrids
were not a specific clan, but a collection of clans with presumably a legal
status, i.e., before Solon annual magistrates could be chosen only from
this class. 29 The self-consciousness of the title suggests they placed great
2 7 As a general term indicating "exalted" ancestry we find already in the Iliad (6.292) Helen is
described as eupatereia ("of a good/noble father"). The next surviving instance of which I am
aware is a funerary inscription (JG XII,9 296) from Eretria dated to the sixth century BC: Xaipiwv
il\S,,vaios Eu1raTp16wv ~v8cx6e KEiTa[1] ("Xairion, an Athenian of the Eupatrids, lies here"). The
genitive plural Eupatridon clearly designates a whole category of individuals. Ste. Croix (2004: 81)
rightly emphasizes that before the Solonian constitution took effect "virtually the whole of such
rudimentary 'state machinery' as existed at Athens must have been entirely in the hands of the
eupatrids, and that there was no other apparatus which could be used to coerce the eupatrids if - as
would be only too natural - they refused to work the new constitution, or quietly sabotaged it" (see
further discussion below).
28 Connor (19966: 221) points out that the deme name Daidalidai suggests an organization of craftsmen.
Cf. S. Morris (1992: 25½9).

2 9 I find puzzling Ostwald's extreme caution in defining this class: "Since time immemorial the political
leadership of Attica had been in the hands of men whose claim to social prominence rested on a
combination of landed wealth with membership in old distinguished families and clans. That
membership was primarily conferred by birth; to what extent it was acquired by marriage we do not
know. For that reason it is [t]empting to speak of the governing class as 'nobility' or 'aristocracy,'
and if in the following we adhere to this practice of modern scholars, we do so for convenience
only and in the knowledge that no titles or other appellations differentiated the members of this
class from commoners and that we have no way of telling to what extent wealth or social status
depended on inheritance" (1986: 3). The first sentence mystifies the priority of economic control of
the best land over acquired status and gives weight to presumed "social prominence" over what we
can actually know distinguished this class, i.e., the right to contend for annual political offices. The
issue of acquisition by marriage suggests Ostwald is thinking of Theognis's bitter comments about
emphasis on the ideology of inherited excellence, which would be in some

tension with the egalitarian potential of the autochthony myth, if, as seems
probable to me, the myth goes back to the period of mass immigrations.
We must assume that the early kings of Attica, 30 who more than any others
could claim continuity with the Mycenaean heritage as opposed to the
putative meritocratic big-men of other parts of Dark Age Greece, were
displaced by a self-conscious aristocracy in the process of transforming at
least a significant portion of Attica into the polis of Athens. Given what we
posited as the dual and contradictory goals of the aristocratic founders of
the polis, namely, to foster a sense of citizen collective identity and at the
same time insist upon their own superiority on the basis of descent from
gods and heroes, it is tempting to see the myth of autochthony as both a
charter31 for asserting a communal identity distinguishing Athenians from
refugees and through its linkage with kingship a ground for aristocratic
superiority. Aristocrats of the fifth century still were clearly committed
to the ideology of inherited excellence (Rose 1992). Kirnon, for example,
traced his lineage back to Ajax's son Philaios (Rosalind Thomas 1989: 161-
73), and we have already noted that Solon claimed descent from the early
king Kodros (Plu. Vit. Sol. 1).3 2
What is clear from the archaeological evidence is that no other settlement
in the area could challenge the preeminence of the fortress of the Athenian
acropolis during and after the Mycenaean Period. 33 At the same time, as
rich men without "noble" ancestors marrying into the ruling families of Megara. While it is true
that the ruling classes of the Greek Archaic Period never codified their status as did those of medieval
Europe with a carefully calibrated hierarchy of cicles such as "count," "duke," "baron," etc., it seems
entirely plausible chat in archaic Athens the term "Eupatrid" was widely current - that members
of the class knew who was in their class and that those not in it were well aware of who belonged
to the ruling class. The explicitness of the term may well have reinforced the class consciousness of
both rulers and ruled and therefore be relevant to the specific remedies proposed by Solon.
30 Welwei (1992: 80 n. 9) seems sympathetic to the thesis of Drews (1983) that there were no basileis
anywhere in Greece after the collapse of Mycenae. He does cite counterviews. See Donlan's (1984)
and Carcledge's (1983b) scathing reviews of Drews.
3' I use the term "charter" in the sense elaborated by Malinowski (1926: 39) in his analyses of the myths
of origin of the Trobriand Islanders.
l• The suggestive table in the back of Davies's Athenian Propertied Families (1971) implies a very
substantial portion of what he dubs the "liturgical class'' - chat is, those wealthy enough to perform
expensive public services - traced their lineage back to the early king Kodros and to the father
of Nestor, Neleus, again implying a memory of a substantial influx from western Greece. Shapiro
(1998: 130) underlines the fact that the idea of autochchony did not imply "that the early kings of
Athens were all native Athenians, for the family of Kodros and Neleus clearly was not."
33 Diamant (1982: 42) declares that "the complete absence of Linear B tablets from Athens constitutes
another argument against a palace center there" but goes on to concede: "The lack of any obviously
strongly fortified citadel sites from the rest of Attica, however, would seem to support the establish-
ment of a capital at Athens." Chadwick points out that the tablets we do have "would have long
since crumbled away, but for the accident that the buildings in which they were kept were destroyed
by fire" (1976: 18), so Diamant's first point is irrelevant.
is clear from the citation above from Thucydides, other poleis existed and
were an important part of the consciousness of inhabitants of Attica. 34
What is also clear, as we have already briefly explored in connection with
Solon and Peisistratos, is that (pace G. Anderson) fostering a sense of
collective Athenian identity was a major goal of sixth-century leaders, a
goal substantially achieved by the end of our period. 35
Another potentially relevant element in this slender portrait of the Athe-
nian demos is the claim made by Thucydides, mentioned earlier, that c. 632
BC the Athenians came out of the fields "with the whole demos" (pandemei)
to lay siege to and drive the would-be tyrant Kylon from the acropolis
(1.126). This has suggested to some loyalty to the ruling Eupatrids (e.g.,
Andrewes 1982: 368, Jeffery 1976: 87), but hatred of Megara may have been
more relevant.
Certainly the picture of the demos that emerges from Solon's fragments,
some forty years later, suggests their high level of assertiveness. He speaks
of their "arrogance" (hyperephania 4b W). In another fragment he describes
the individuals of the demos who desired a redistribution of the land
as coming with "plunder" in mind and full of hopes for "riches" and
"abundant wealth" (34.1-2 W) and complains that they now improperly
view him as their enemy (34.5-6 W). Twice he speaks of the necessity
of "holding back" (kateskhe 36.22 W, 37.6) the demos, and twice he raises
the prospect of serious bloodshed (4.20; 37.25), implying that the demos,
though presumably armed with little more than farm implements, was
34 Connor (1996b: 221) mentions from various sources Thorikos, Eleusis, four townships near
Marathon, and Daidalidai.
35 Connor 1994 has well argued the case for not viewing Athenian civic identity as an unproblematic
given. Citing compelling evidence for various influxes of new citizens at various periods, he argues
chat the function of such myths as autochchony was to "mask divergences in status and situation"
(38). He, like so many ocher classicists, opts for the term "status"; but we are familiar by now with the
many devices by which Greek ruling classes sought to mystify class differences and how successfully
chis process has been internalized - especially during the Cold War - by anglophone classicists. For
a particularly militant statement of the case for "vertical" vs. "horizontal" social structures, i.e., for
unproblematically hierarchical kin structures versus conflictual class structures elementarily defined
as "rich against poor," see Frost 1981. I find it amusing chat he speaks of "the Aristotelian-Marxist
concept of horizontal class structure" (33) and in a footnote proceeds to dub it "the CAH doctrine
of Athenian policies." The Marxist "conspiracy" appears far more successful than I ever dreamed!
For Marx's relationship to Aristotle see McCarthy 1990 and 1992. In an earlier text describing
Athenian society before 480 Frost argues: "Leadership was based on the intuitive respect accorded
an aristocracy of birch" (1976: 67, my emphasis). This seems to presuppose chat the Solonian Crisis
or the deadly feuds of the sixth century never happened or left no trace in the consciousness of
poorer Athenians. R. W. Wallace (1998) well states the case against such a deferential image of the
Athenian d;mos. As noted above, G. Anderson (2003) reserves for Kleischenes basically all the credit
for a united Athenian consciousness.
ready to fight. 36 He also expresses his scorn of their collective intelli-
gence, though he throws them some consolation about their individual
cleverness:
While each of you individually treads in the tracks of the fox,
When you are all together, there's a silly mind in you.
(11.5-6 W, cf. 9.6; 6.4)
I think it is significant that he uses the second person plural here: clearly
his poems were not just addressed to ruling-class sympotic audiences. To
engage in a kind of dialogue with the demos - even insultingly - is still to
acknowledge their importance. 37
We have noted earlier Solon's readiness to have recourse to the derogatory
class designation kakoi ("wicked," "base") for the people of the demos as a
whole (34.9, 36.18 W). 38 What we cannot know is whether the poetry with
this language was kept strictly within ruling-class circles or how members
of the demos would have reacted to hearing such terminology applied to
themselves. In the period before his archonship Solon himself seems to have
interpellated Athenians so as to cause them to see themselves as citizens of
an especially great polis. He seeks to shame them by declaring in his poem
exhorting them to conquer Salamis:
Let me indeed become a Pholegandrian or a Sikinite,
After changing my fatherland, instead of being an Athenian:
For swiftly this tale would be [spread] among people:
"This man's Attic - one of the Salamis-abandoners." (2 W)
Naming two tiny, obscure islands as alternatives to being Athenian invites
his audience to see themselves as implicitly great - but for their failure to
take Salamis. Another fragment of what we might see as part of Solon's
"campaign" to achieve leadership expresses his deep pain at seeing on the
point of collapse (klinomenen literally "leaning over" or "tottering") the
"oldest land of Ionia" (4a W) - another appeal to its citizens to see their
city as unique in its prestige and united in their alleged ethnic identity.
36 Lev~que and Vidal-Naquet (1996: 106-7), citing Xenophon's account of the conspiracy ofKinadon
(Hell. 3.36-8), speak of "skewers, hatchets, and pitchforks" - weapons, as Kinadon argued, "for all
men who work the earth."
37 G. Anderson's emphasis on Solon's low opinion of the demos (2003: 65-66) ignores the evidence
in his poems that they posed a serious threat of open bloodshed (W 36.25). Since he was denying
them what they wanted most, redistribution of the land, his assumed snobbish disdain of the demos
by no means precludes his recognizing the need to offer them substantial alternative political gains
(Rose 1999b).
38 Gerber in his Loeb translation (1999) appears embarrassed by these usages but acknowledges implic-
itly their class meaning. He translates 34.8----9, "to share the country's rich land equally between the
lower and upper class" and 36.18-20, "I wrote laws for the lower and upper class alike."
In the post-Solonian sixth century the account of Athenians' earlier
rejection of the tyranny of Kylon needs to be compared with Herodotus's
tale of alleged Athenian simple-mindedness in being fooled by Peisistratos's
hoax of dressing up a large, beautiful woman as Athena. Herodotus (1.60)
is scandalized to the point of redundancy by what appeared to him such
a violation of Athenian sophistication. W.R. Connor (1987) after giving
an overview of modern scholars who have shared Herodotus's scorn and
skepticism, applies an anthropological model from Renaissance Venice
to shed a positive light on the incident. Eschewing the assumption that
public rituals represent a unidirectional view of political leadership as
exclusively propaganda and manipulation, he argues for "communication
in two directions" (41). In the case of Peisistratos's procession he cites a
wide variety of Greek ritual models to argue:
The populace joins in a shared drama, not foolishly, duped by some manipulator,
but playfully, participating in a cultural pattern they all share ... The crowds
might have chosen to express coolness, disinterest or downright hostility. Instead
it appears that they delighted in the shared drama and let their enthusiasm be
known. The ceremony thus served as an expression of popular consent - two-way
communication, not, as so often assumed, mere manipulation (44).3 9
This reading, admittedly highly imaginative, actually, it seems to me, makes
better sense of the larger Herodotean context. His account of the first
tyranny of Peisistratos stresses that the assembly voluntarily voted him a
bodyguard, 40 that he did not disturb the existing offices (tzmas) nor alter the
39 Sinos (1993) repeats much of Connor's analysis but rather than a playful entrance into the "drama"
on the part of the Athenians she sees a potentially dangerous readiness to enter into a "heroic" world.
Blok (2000: 39-48) blithely dismisses the ancient evidence and argues that the incident only makes
sense as occurring after the battle of Pallene, when, thanks to regular recitations of Homer, the
Athenians would instantly recognize the event as parallel to Odysseus's victory over the suitors with
the aid of Athena. G. Anderson (2003: 68---71) offers a peculiarly fanciful alternative interpretation
focused on Megakles bringing back an Athena allegedly removed from the acropolis by the rival
Boutadai (a simpler version of this is in Frost 1990: 7). In this view Peisistratos has no political
support, is simply used by Megakles and then discarded. Anderson assumes arbitrarily that the
non-consummation of the marriage was a later fiction. Yet this striking detail, so characteristic of
Herodotus's interest in the sex lives of the monarchic element in ancient society, perfectly illustrates
what Gayle Rubin dubbed the "sex/gender system" (1975: 159) in the "traffic in Women." The male
use ofwomen as passive pawns in their political games here backfires precisely because, as Levi-Stauss
put it, "woman can never become just a sign and nothing more ... since in so far as she is defined
as a sign she must be recognized as a generator of signs" (1969: 496): Megakles' daughter articulated
her mistreatment to her mother, who articulated it to Megakles (Hdt. 1.61.2).
40 G. Anderson (2003: 74), determined to erase the Solonian assembly, scornfully describes this as the
on(yevidence of sixth-century action by the assembly, masking the fact that it is evidence by stressing
how easily the assembly was duped. But it is possible I think to read this vote as a sign that the
Jgmos at this point was not averse to one-man rule and genuinely well disposed toward Peisistratos,
whom Anderson presents as a mere pawn of Megakles (see previous note).
laws (thesmia) but "controlled the city in accordance with established prac-
tices, adorning it beautifully and finely" (Hdt. 1.59.6-60.1). This behavior
might well have found favor with the same demos that rejected an attempt at
tyranny by Kylon with a foreign army from their traditional enemy Megara
(R W. Wallace 1998: 17) and, at the very least, violated the presumed
pan-Hellenic truce of the Olympic games period.4' Herodotus tells us that
the aristocratic rivals who drove Peisistratos out (Megakles and Lykurgus)
soon fell foul of one another. It is plausible that Megakles' decision to side
with Peisistratos and arrange his restoration in the number-one spot was
based at least in part on an awareness that Peisistratos would be welcomed
by the demos. Moreover, his rule might well have struck the demos as prefer-
able to feuding aristocrats who, within living memory, had done their best
to bleed them dry.
We have had occasion earlier to discuss the issue of religion and alleged
"manipulation" or simple "propaganda." Herodotus's account of Peisis-
tratos's return entails the most explicit charge by an ancient source of
conscious religious manipulation by rulers and utter gullibility on the part
of the ruled: he and Megakles "devise (mekhanontai) for the return an
affair by far - as I find - the most simpleminded (euethestaton)" (Hdt.
1.60.3). In an impressively wide-ranging article Ian Morris explored "the
interpretation of ritual action in Archaic Greece" (1993b). Marx, Marxism,
"neo-Marxism" 42 come up repeatedly in his text - sometimes negatively
and sometimes positively - but unlike so many of the classicists I have
noted who dismiss Marx, Morris does seem to have actually read some
Marx. He quotes what is probably the statement in Marx most relevant to
the study of religion and ritual, namely, the declaration in his 1859 Preface
to A Contribution to the Critique ofPolitical Economy, that it is "the legal,
political, religious, aesthetic, or philosophic - in short, the ideological
forms in which men become conscious of this conflict [sc. over the eco-
nomic conditions of production] and fight it out" (I. Morris 1993b: 20). 43
41 Thucydides (1.126) mentions that in accordance with what he took to be the meaning of the Delphic
oracle (apparently complicit in this attempt) Cylon planned his attack to coincide with the Olympic
games. I have not been able to find any definitive statement about the truce associated with the
Olympic games; but given their early prestige, it seems plausible that an attack during this period
might well offend the religious sensibilities of members of the Athenian demos.
42 I must confess that I have never gotten a clear idea of what those who have recourse to this term
mean to imply by it.

43 Feldman and Richardson point out in their survey of theories of myth up to 1860 that despite
his apparently "casual or merely derisively hostile" interest in myth, "Marx became and remains a
mythologist of much originality and extraordinary importance. For it is his work and influence that
most powerfully moves myth toward its wide modern usage as a near-synonym of 'ideology.' ... He
so broadened and deepened the meaning of 'ideology' as to make it include not only politics and
political thought but also philosophy, religion, art, or myth as well" (1972: 488).
Morris's own agenda, after a dizzying range of possible models of analysis
is, not surprisingly, to "combine archaeological and textual evidence in
new ways" (37). 44 He is surely right, following Connor (1988) to stress
the full imbrication of what modern scholars distinguish as 'political" and
"religious" elements and right too to dismiss the "propagandistic fallacy-
identifying a deliberate and culpable intrusion of politics into the sacred"
(23) as the sole way of understanding such phenomena as Peisistratos' use
of ''Athena" or Kylon's attempt to exploit a festival to Zeus.
What I find most compelling and tantalizing in these attempts to break
with top-down interpretations of some of the very few instances in our
sources when the reactions of the demos are recounted is the invocation in
Connor of his Renaissance-derived model of "two-way communication."
While this admittedly entails some imaginative re-creation of Herodotus's
version, I am struck by the absence of Bakhtin from Connor's alternatives. 45
Bakhtin's notion of the carnivalesque (1984), based on close study of
medieval and Renaissance rituals, offers the strongest version I know of
the people - the demos - challenging the oppressive political and religious
hierarchies that shaped their lives by systematically articulating through
ritual and parody and billingsgate (1984: 16 and passim) 46 a utopian alter-
native. It is perhaps significant that Bakhtin points in a footnote to the
fact that "in ancient Doric comedy, in 'satyric' drama, in Sicilian comic
forms, in the works of Aristophanes, in mimes and Atellanae we find sim-
ilar grotesque conceptions" (1984: 28 n. rn).47 I suspect that the rituals in
which the Athenian demos most clearly expressed its responses to the world
44 Unfortunately in his own text this takes the form of a brief recapitulation of his earlier (1987)
arguments about Attic burials from the seventh century (35-36), where there are no texts, and some
interesting speculations about Kylon's conspiracy, where there is no archaeological evidence, just
the text of Thucydides (36).
45 However, in Connor 1996b: 222 he does come close to Bakhtin's vision of the carnivalesque:
"Dionysiac worship tumbles into carnival and carnival inverts, temporarily, the norms and practices
of aristocratic society. While these inversions may provide a temporary venting mechanism and
thereby help stabilize repressive regimes, in the longer run they can have quite a different effect.
They make it possible to think about an alternative community, one open to all where status
differentiations can be limited or eliminated, and where speech can be free. It is a society that can
imagine Dionysiac equality and freedom."
46 Billingsgate, originally an old gate and fish market in London, is the term used regularly by Bakhtin
(or his English translator) for the abusive language characteristic of the carnivalesque.
47 Goldhill (1991), Platter (1993), and A. T. Edwards (1993b) emphasize Bakhtin's dismissal of Aristo-
phanes. Goldhill, acknowledging the centrality of class to Bakhtin's project, stresses the factor of
polis sponsorship of Aristophanic comedy. I am suggesting only that before the full development of
Athenian democracy, comedy's antecedent rituals may have entailed a more subversive thrust. But
I agree with Goldhill's endorsement of Stallybrass and White (1986) that one needs to know the
precise historical circumstances of comic performances before deciding whether they constitute a
cooptive societal safety-valve or an opening up of political dissent.
dominated by great landowners flaunting their "heroic" pedigrees and

tyrants fostering erotic poets were in the drunken Dionysiac and phallic
processions in which they hurled insults at those they met (Csapo and Slater
1995: 93, sources 132). Aristotle's passing comments on comedy relentlessly
stress its "low" class origins (Arist. Poet. 1448a16-18, 1448b25-27, 1449a32-
35) or stress its lack of clear origins - just what we would expect for the
demos side of two-way communication through ritual. Finally on the sub-
ject of rituals, the demos, it seems to me, should be given political credit
for the sheer number of festivals in Athens: Cartledge declares that in the
fifth and fourth centuries there were "not less than 120 days of calendar
(thirty-three per cent) ... devoted to festivals, and the number may have
been as great as 144" (1985b: 99). We have no way of knowing how many
of these were the fruit of post-Kleisthenic struggles, but whatever the pre-
Kleisthenic number, they should be recognized as a function of either the
direct demands of the demos or the rulers' sense of the need to conciliate the
demos (cf. Frost 1990 and discussion below). The memory of dark-age com-
munal meals may well have played a part as a counterweight to the strictly
aristocratic symposia. In any case, it is worth keeping in mind that most
poor Athenians are likely to have eaten meat only during state-supported
rituals.
The last recorded action of the Athenian demos in the sixth century has
become central in the debate over the origins of democracy (see below),
namely, their expulsion of Kleomenes and his Spartans at a time when
Kleisthenes and the clan of the Alkmionidai were in exile. At this point I
will only note that it seems of a piece with the siege of Kylon, 48 even as the
welcoming of Peisistratos suggests the capacity of the demos to distinguish
good potential rulers from bad. Overall the scant record suggests that
the demos had a high level of self-consciousness about its identity and its
interests, that it was capable of exercising its potential for violence as well
as for expressing its assent, depending on the options offered it by its rulers
or potential rulers.
SOLON REVISITED
Thus far we have focused not on institutions but on various clues to the
political consciousness - or as others (e.g., R W. Wallace 1998: 12, 15;
"8 Raaf!aub (2007: 146) sees the parallels as indicative of an oral story pattern. This struck me as one
of his less compelling arguments in his debate with R. W. Wallace: though in principle he seems
to be following the lead of Rosalind Thomas, in this case she declares: "The tale of the Cylonian
conspiracy is one of the earliest traditions about Athens that is historically acceptable" (1989: 273).
Does it follow that an event more than a century later - one in the living memory of Herodotus'
informants - was less reliably recalled?
Solon revisited 335
Connor 1988: 177) would have it - "mentality" of the demos of Attica,
though there is a certain "institutionalization" implicit in the festivals and
other rituals. 49 In the absence of any direct voice of the Athenian demos
a great deal of the debate (e.g., R W. Wallace vs. Raaflaub, Ober vs.
Raaflaub 1998, Raaflaub and Wallace 2007) about how "democratic" the
Athenians were at any given point depends upon the scholars' assumptions
about their capacity for conscious, independent action. On the basis of the
slim evidence available, I am inclined to agree with those who emphasize
a relatively high degree of consciousness. As R. W. Wallace points out,
this does not necessarily lead to high level of regular participation in day-
to-day political activity: when little seems at stake, people tend to their
own business. The Persian threat, the empire, the Spartan threat quite
plausibly gave these same hardworking farmers and hired laborers a far
keener sense that politics mattered. In the United States, where normally
even in presidential years only a bit above half the electorate votes, 50 this
should be clear enough. The Solonian crisis should, by its very nature,
convince skeptics that the Athenian demos was capable of extraordinary self-
assertion: unless we assume a massive number of well-armed hop lites among
the demos - something highly improbable given the apparent absence of
sixth-century military might in Athens as a whole (Frost 1984, G. Anderson
2003) - the unarmed demos was capable of scaring the whole ruling class
into empowering Solon to do whatever he wanted - including, as he
repeatedly stresses (32, 33W), assuming dictatorial powers on a permanent
basis. We should perhaps recall Odysseus's bold enactment, presumably
early in the seventh century at the latest, of the landless, down-and-out
farmer all too ready- if he only were given weapons - to match his fighting
strength against the arrogant aristocrat Eurymachos (Od. 18.376-83).
Given the monopoly exercised by the Eupatrids over whatever machinery
of government existed before Solon, it is only with Solon that we can speak
of any imtitutional aspects of the power of the demos. Having reviewed
some of the ambiguous and endlessly disputed evidence in an earlier chap-
ter, I will risk a more dogmatic summary of what I take to be Solon's
policies. Though I have tried throughout to stress the inseparability of
economic and political aspects of Greece in this period, analytically such
a fusion has its limits. Indeed, I think it is true that Solon's tele linking
office-holding to economic levels represent the first instance in our surviv-
ing sources in which the usually suppressed link between economics and
politics becomes absolutely explicit. In any case our goal in this chapter is
49 Cartledge (19856: 101-2) points out that state institutionalization offestivals on fixed state-calendar
dates destroyed their relations to the "natural" agricultural year.
5° See Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout#Trends_of_decreasing_turnout.
to understand as clearly as the evidence allows those factors in Athenian
history that contributed to the emergence of "democracy'' and the class
character of the resulting phenomenon.
SOLON'S ECONOMIC MEASURES
In Chapter 5 we noted a sharp split51 between the majority of scholars who

conclude from Solon's poems and assorted later evidence that he ended
not only debt-slavery but debt-bondage and the dissenting minority (e.g.,
E. Harris, Rihll, Ste. Croix, Foxhill) who argue that both debt-bondage
and share-cropping remained, that small farmers were still dependent on
large landowners for aid in bad years (a fairly common phenomenon), and
that the nature of farming made total reliance on slave labor impractical
and required substantial quantities of hired labor at certain times of the
year. What is at stake politically is the relative sense of independence of
the majority of male citizens. Jeffersonian democracy presupposed the vast
majority of the population living on relatively large farms and creating most
of their tools and daily life-necessities themselves (Braverman 1974: 272).52
Hesiod's Works and Days projects a parallel ideal of autonomy at the same
time that it protests bitterly if rather vaguely against the interference of a
ruling class. After Solon's reforms, I believe important questions remain:
freed of past debt and the terrifying prospect of enslavement, small farmers
were still subject to bad harvests and marginal incomes and were thus
extremely likely to sell their labor and stake their future on promises to the
larger landowners in exchange for loans of enough grain to enable them to
survive and continue to be farmers. Is it irrelevant that potentially the largest
component of the Athenian citizenry were called thetes - usually translated
"hired laborers"? Solon's "shaking off of burdens" unquestionably entailed
major losses for the great landowners, but it preserved the basic outlines
of the property relations of Attica.5 3 Great aristocratic families were still
51 As Ste. Croix put it in discussing the "shaking off of burdens" (seisakhtheia), "the trouble is, in my
opinion, that we cannot make a consistent and plausible picture from the evidence exactly as we
have it" (2004' 119).
52 The first time I visited Jefferson's home at Monticello I was very moved to see (in the basement I
believe) an exhibit of a wooden ploughshare accompanying a pamphlet Jefferson had composed on its
"scientific" manufacture. Despite the ready availability of metal ploughs, Jefferson was sufficiently
obsessed with the autonomy of farmers who could not set up their own forge to spell out an
alternative they could in principle supply for themselves. Of course this would work much more
easily in the soil of Virginia than in rocky New England.
53 Vlastos (1995: 51) attributes to Solon a concept of wealth as entailing "irrational (or superrational)
justice," a divine moira that dispenses a specific portion of wealth (land?) equivalent to one's time-
not "honor" in some vague abstract sense. Thus he reads Solon's claim in fragment 5 to have "neither
added nor taken away from the time" of the d2mos as equivalent to their divinely sanctioned moira.
I find this unconvincing in view of the fact that one of the only two uses of moira in the surviving
s
Solon economic measures 337
able to build major temples at their own expense 54 and the monopoly of
generalships and the extraordinary expense of many liturgies by aristocrats
until late in the fifth century attest to the extent of their wealth and power.
What is unclear is whether all this wealth was created exclusively by slave
labor or whether there remained a sufficient contribution by hired "free"
laborers and tenant farmers to speak of exploitation in the technical sense
(Wood 1988: 64-115). Rihll seems to me to pose very valid questions in
her critique of Finley's account of the centrality of Solon's reforms to the
emergence of a true "slave" society: "what happened to ex-indebted and
presumably poor peasants has never been explained ... Finley's assertion
that they became unavailable to labour for others is a posit required by his
third condition for the development of Greek slavery; he does not explain
what these peasants will do in order to survive" (Rihll 1996: 93). Like E.
Harris (2002) she also disputes Finley's assertion that '"debt-bondage was
abolished tout court, by political action"' (Finley 1982a: 162; Rihll 1996:
94-95).5 5
Solon's most clearly economic laws5 6 were those forbidding the export
of all crops except olive oil, compelling fathers to teach their sons a trade,
inviting and naturalizing foreign craftsmen, and regularizing weights and
measures (Plut. Vit. Sol. 15.4-5, 22.1-2, 24.1-2). We should also add those
dealing with wells and tree-plantings (Plut. Vit. Sol. 23.5-6), since they
fragments is in the same skeptical tone as the opening of fragment 4: "If you have suffered miseries
through your own wickedness,/ Do not attribute the [your] share (moira) of these things to the gods"
(W 1u-2). The other passage seems to equate moira with divine punishment for crime {w.13.30).
54 In addition to the Alkmaionids at Delphi (Hdt. 5.62), Plutarch speaks of Kimon's liberality ( Cim.
10). One wonders at the credibility of Pericles' bluff in the debate over his building program, that
he would dedicate all the public buildings in his own name (Plu. Per. 14).
55 The question of the degree and nature of slave labor in agriculture is further complicated by
indications of significant changes in "the amount of attention, time, and manpower devoted to
the land" (M. Jameson 1992: 141-42) and "the evidence for agricultural intensification in Classical
Attica, as seen in the allusions in comedy, the orators, Xenophon and the lease inscriptions, is
overwhelming" (M. Jameson 1992: 144). Jameson cites the fragmentary speech ofLysias arguing that
in 403 BC 5,000 Athenians did not own land (ibid.). If one accepts Strauss's estimate that the "the
adult male citizen population of Athens after the Peloponnesian War was 14,000--16,250" (1987: 81),
then approximately a third of the population was landless. Thus Jameson's conclusion that "most
Attic farmers, i.e., those who derived the bulk of their income from the land, belonged to the
hoplite class or above" (1992: 144) is compelling. That these owners depended on slave labor to a
significant degree seems unavoidable (cf. de Ste. Croix 1981: 505---6). But hired labor (thetes) as well
as "non-monetary co-operation between kin and neighbours may well have been of considerable
importance for precisely the smaller landowners who could not justify owning slaves'' (Osborne
1985: 146).
56 For the difficulties associated with Ruschenbusch's collection of Solon's laws (1966) see Scafuro
(2006: 175-80). Rhodes (2006) offers an "optimistic view" I share (as does E. Harris 2006: 14 n.
21) and summarizes a number of the skeptical positions, the most influential of which perhaps are
those of Hignett (1952: 89 and passim) and M. H. Hansen (he cites the 1991 edition: 31, 51, 182, 189,
and especially 298---99).
clearly affected the conduct of agriculture. 57 We noted in Chapter 5 that
growing olives and growing vines are both long-term propositions that
would seem to be easier for rich farmers to undertake. On the other
hand, these crops can grow on relatively marginal land unfit for growing
grain. If, as several scholars have suggested (e.g., French 1964: 14-15 and
passim), the crisis was provoked by the ruling class's desire for more liquid
assets, they may well have been selling grain to such relatively unfertile
neighbors as Aegina and Megara, causing "unnatural" shortages in Attica.
Moreover, as noted above, Attic oil seems to have been much in demand.
But in combination with the other measures mentioned, it seems most
plausible that Solon, himself perhaps a trader (Plut. Vit. Sol. 2.1), was
seeking overall to encourage trade and to direct surplus farm labor towards
the manufacture of tradable commodities as well as perhaps to reorient
Attic agriculture toward more exportable products. What his measures
do not suggest, pace Wood (1988), is that he enabled a regime of totally
independent small farmers.
As noted above, Solon's implementation of the tele,5 8 made explicit the
previous mystification of political power held by the great landowners
based upon their alleged descent from "noble fathers." Henceforth wealth
and wealth alone would determine who could hold the highest offices. The
thetes, the smallholders or landless hired laborers, who may have been the
most numerous component of the citizenry, 59 were excluded from office
but could vote in the assembly - something they may well have always
been able to do. The real issue there is how votes were counted (see below)
and the range of matters brought before the assembly as a consequence of
the new probouleutic council.
POLITICAL MEASURES
In a much-debated passage Ath. Pol. declares:

The following seem to be the three most democratic features of Solon's constitu-
tion: first and most important, the ban on loans on the security of the person;
57 Gagarin (1986: 65) categorizes these under "torts," but Van Wees (1999a: 18) views such laws as
indirect evidence of the degrees of abuse by large landowners.
58 I agree with Ste. Croix's exhaustive analysis (2004: 5-72) and note that Rhodes (2006: 253) does as
well.
59 To be sure, we have no reliable demographic data from Athens in the sixth century and ambiguous
data, heavily debated, from the fifth and fourth and centuries. But if Strauss's calculations of the
level of thetic deaths in the Peloponnesian War ("at least 12,600": 1987: 80), i.e., more than twice
the level of hoplite deaths, are close to the mark, it is possible that this component of the citizenry
was the largest in the sixth century.
Political measures 339
next permission for anyone who wished (ho boulomenos) to seek retribution for
those who were wronged; and third, the one which is said particularly to have
contributed to the power of the masses, the right of appeal of the jury-court - for
when people are masters of the vote they are masters of the state. (Ath. Pol. 9.1 tr.
Rhodes)
The first measure cited well underlines the arbitrariness of separating "eco-
nomic" provisions from "political" ones since anything like full political
participation is precluded by severe debt-bondage. The second provision
some scholars (e.g., Gagarin 1986: 73, Rhodes 1993: 159-60) believe was
sharply limited to those situations in which an injured party was unable
to prosecute in his own name, but Vlastos (1995 [1946]: 38) sees a far more
sweeping principle at work here: "Certain offenses against individuals are
not merely private wrongs against the immediate victim but public wrongs
against the whole community." The right of appeal basically left the final
decision on hotly contested cases with the assembly of the whole citizen
body. While some have doubted the reality of the probouleutic council on
the grounds that Aristotle simply mentions it but says nothing else about
it, 60 de Ste. Croix (2004: 81-82) argues that without such a council the
Eupatridai, working through their council of the Areopagos, consisting of
ex-archons, would be in a position to set the agenda and completely dom-
inate the assembly and more or less quickly sabotage the thrust of all of
Solon's legislation. Indeed, he argues that the two recorded years in which
no eponymous archon was elected show how determined the Eupatrids
were to prevent the election of a non-Eupatrid in accordance with Solon's
constitution.
The court functions of the assembly and the Eliaia most obviously
respond in a practical way to the centrality of Justice 61 in Solon's critique
of the behavior of the Eupatrids prior to his legislation. Attractive as I find
Van Wees's exploration of the analogy of seventh-century aristocrats to the
Mafia (1999a), the great difference is that the Mafia, however powerful
and however much they were de facto in charge of the legal machinery of
their societies, were widely recognized as outside the law, whereas Greek
aristocrats before Solon and the tyrants were quite literally - here Hesiod
most obviously comes to mind - all the law there was.
60 E.g., Hignett (1952: 92---96), G. Anderson (2003: 59-66). Rhodes (1972: 208--10) offers a compelling
defense. See further below.
61 G. Anderson, who does not include McGlew in his impressive bibliography, seriously misreads the
importance of Justice in Solon: "In Solon's poems, as elsewhere in archaic Greek thought, 'justice'
(dike) means little more than 'established order,' the divinely sanctioned dispensation of hallowed
tradition" (2003: 64). It is precisely the utter lack of "justice" in the established order of aristocratic
rule that motivates the turn in the Archaic Period to tyrants and in Athens to Solon.
A key, underappreciated aspect of the new functions of the assembly and
especially the court, was the counting of votes, establishing the principle
that the majority ruled - "each man's vote counted equally - a principle
calculated to make an aristocrat shudder" (de Ste. Croix 2004: 75). We
looked briefly at the Spartan system of vote-taking, which Aristotle rightly
dubbed "childish." Larsen long ago (1949) argued that Solon's transferring
of voting for magistrates from the Council of the Areopagos to the people's
assembly must have required some method of counting the votes. Appeals
of judicial decisions to the eliaia made more accurate counting essential. 62
As de Ste. Croix rightly comments, "if any single step taken by any Greek
state, Athens included, in the whole field of social institutions is to be
regarded as the most fruitful, it must surely be this" (2004: 75).
In the area of religion and culture broadly, the areas that most directly
affect the consciousness of people in their day-to-day behaviors, we have
very little secure evidence - especially since "Solon's laws" seem to have
become a political football in the fourth-century struggles of conservatives
and democrats. If the extensive laws on adultery and seduction are genuine,
they may have been meant to counter the heavy emphasis on erotic activity
we posited as fostered among the aristocracy in what is often dubbed
the "lyric age." So too the effort to curtail aristocratic display in funerals
may have represented a response to populist resentment (G. Anderson
2003: 26). One precious fragment of evidence salvaged by Jacoby (1944)
is wonderfully suggestive. On the basis of a late gloss of the word genesia,
which had been wrongly associated with "birthday," Jacoby argued that
Solon legislated an Athenian national celebration of the anniversary of the
deaths of male ancestors and thus simultaneously deprived the Eupatrids
of an important occasion for extravagant display of wealth and ancestry
and included the whole population in a ritual honoring the deceased.
To sum up what I believe we can say about Solon's contributions to
the power of the people, I think he gave the most oppressed citizens the
minimal immediate relief and long-term protection by canceling present
debts, ending debt-slavery, and establishing a legal mechanism so that in
principle the poorest citizens could have hope of recourse to credible justice.
His verbal rebukes and probably his cultural restraints upon aristocratic
62 Boegehold (1963) argues that truly secret voting probably came in only in the fourth century:
he points out that dropping a pebble in one of two urns is by no means secret. Spivey (1994)
argues from vase paintings that solving conflicts by voting with pebbles is celebrated starting about
480 BC. But does not the procedure of the ostrakophoria presuppose a secret ballot? The ostraka
were presumably all dropped in the same receptacle (though this procedure was separated by tribe)
and were first counted as a whole, then separated only if the total came to 6,000. See Staveley 1972:
78---100.
The Peisistratids 341
arrogance were perhaps important long-term contributions to the self-
esteem of non-aristocrats while his substitution of wealth for birth as
the criterion for office may well have fostered a more open sense of the
possibility of upward mobility. At the same time the taste of political
power offered the masses, whatever its great long-term implications, may
have been a small consolation for his failure to alter the basic property
relations of Attica.
THE PEISISTRATIDS
There is a strong tendency in much of the recent scholarship on the Pei-

sistratids to minimize their impact on the consciousness of the Athenian
demos. 63 R W. Wallace, in making the case for Solon, argues only that Peisis-
tratos had the support of the Solonian assembly (1998: 24-25). Raaflaub in
his response moves directly from Solon to Kleisthenes (1998b: 39; cf. O'Neil
1995: 15-26). Sancisi-Weerdenburg's whole collection (2000) is overwhelm-
ingly dismissive. In the most recent collection I have seen about the origins
of democracy, that of Raaflaub, Ober, and Wallace (2007), R W. Wallace
seems to repeat word for word his brief comments on Peisistratos from the
1998 collection, while the other contributors make only passing references
to the tyranny. G. Anderson (2003: 22-23) acknowledges that "the very
earliest evidence we have for initiatives designed to establish formal insti-
tutional links between the center and periphery comes from the period
when Athens was under the stewardship of Peisistratus (c. 546/5-528/7)
and his sons Hippias and Hipparchus (ca. 528/7-511/10)." He is nonethe-
less dismissive: ''At most, we see only very modest and piecemeal efforts in
this direction [i.e., toward linking center and periphery] during the Peisis-
tratid era." Peisistratos was a dominant figure in Athenian politics for some
thirty-three years (c. 560-527) 64 and his sons remained in power another
63 Frost (1985: 58) notes the great increase in caution and skepticism about the Peisistratid period
among the scholars of his generation; but looking at what we know of Athens before and after the
Peisistatids, he insists on the general point that now seems to get lost: "Obviously a great deal of
progress took place during the regime of Peisistratus and his sons."
64 C£ Arist. Pol. 1315630--34: "Third was the tyranny of the Peisistratids in Athens. It was not con-
tinuous. For Peisistratos was exiled twice during his rule as tyrant, so that in thirty-three years he
ruled as tyrant for seventeen, his sons for eighteen, so that the whole rule was thirty-five years." See
Rhodes 1985 on Ath. Pol. 14-19, pp. 189--240. I would argue that Peisistratos, even when in exile,
must have remained a dominant figure - or else Megakles would never have considered an alliance
with him nor given him support for his second return. Since he was a successful general in the war
with Megara (c. 565), his period of importance should be recognized as even longer - pace those like
G. Anderson who focus only on 546/545 and following. Davies {1971: 444) speaks of"that miasma of
sixth-century scholarship, the chronology of Peisistratos' exiles." My own preference follows Daviess
"firm preference" for Jacoby's analysis {1949: 188--96) of the chronology.
eighteen years. If one really takes seriously the question of the political
consciousness or "mentality" of the Athenian demos at the end of the sixth
century, it seems to me highly implausible that this long period merits so
cursory a discussion. 65 Even on the institutional level, if one grants R. W.
Wallace's list of six major political contributions of Solon (magistrates cho-
sen on the basis of wealth not birth, scrutiny of magistrates by the demos,
systematization of the assembly, council of 400, judicial decisions now
subject to appeal in the eliaia, law code for "base and noble alike": 1998:
18-20), de Ste. Croix, as noted earlier, I think makes a key point worth
repeating in this context: "We too easily forget ... that at the very moment
when the Solonian constitution began to operate, virtually the whole of
such rudimentary 'state machinery' as existed at Athens must have been
entirely in the hands of the eupatrids, and that there was no other appara-
tus which could be used to coerce the eupatrids if - as would be only too
natural - they refused to work the new constitution, or quietly sabotaged
it ... The most likely explanation of the cxvapxim ['years during which
there was no archon'] of (probably, 590/89 and 586/5 and the Damasias
episode of c. 582-0 is surely that the eupatrids refused, when they could, to
allow the election of non-eupatrid archons ... We must admit that Solon's
great work might have been largely nullified had not Peisistratus, using
violence to overcome aristocratic resistance, enforced Solon's constitution"
(2004: 81-2, his emphasis). 66 Granting that Peisistratos saw to it that his
supporters held key positions (Thuc. 6.54.6), the demos nonetheless had
65 "Cursory" admittedly hardly describes the corrosive approach of Blok (2000) for whom "ambiguous
evidence" is no evidence at all. Her distrust of what ancient sources we have (e.g., "Was Thucydides
well-informed on this matter, after all?" 30) may attest to a certain version of scholarly rigor, but
the consequences are cumulatively fully as speculative as what she rejects. Relying on models of
oral theory (e.g., 31-34) as a basis for distrusting ancient evidence does not preclude her picking
and choosing bits that fit her own account. Dismissing Ober's use of "cultural" politics on the part
of the Peisistratids (34-35), she uses ambiguous archaeological evidence to argue for an essentially
spontaneous interaction of"cult and space" (36). The thrust of her whole analysis is the irrelevance of
the tyranny: "Peisistratos was unanimous[ycredited, as we saw, to have observed both the constitution
(political administration and organi2ation) and regular religious practice (cults and sacrifices). He
simp[y had nothing to do with changes in either field, which had been taking shape before and during
the time he was striving for prominence ... The same goes, mutatis mutandis, for other areas like
the visual arts (in particular pottery), literature and the building of temples and other sanctuaries.
Peisistratos was no more involved in these pursuits or their conditions than some other - wealthy,
aristocratic -Athenians. No cultural politics, then, for Peisistratos" (37-38, my emphases). At the risk
of echoing Polonius, "to consider it thus were to consider it curiously."
66 Eder (1988: 469) makes a simpler but equally valid point: "Solon's reforms could only have become
effective during a period of internal peace and in a growing economy .... There was a possibility to
gain experience in political everyday work in the Ekklesia and the Council."
a long period of choosing candidates, setting the assembly's agenda, and
using the courts against any egregious abuses. 67
More basically, in the Archaic Period whoever holds decisive power
in an inherently unequal society and constitutes or seeks to constitute
state power 68 must exercise both the apparatuses of domination - club-
bearers, foreign mercenaries, bands of devoted followers - and whatever
ideological apparatuses can be devised - religious, cultural, architectural -
to "naturalize" their hold on power. Precisely to the extent that the Peisis-
tratids, once in power, minimized the open exercise of domination until
the murder of one them resulted in the turn to more naked exercise of
power, we can posit their greater reliance on an ideological offensive to
sustain their power.
Specifically economic initiatives directly attributed to Peisistratos are
loans to poor farmers (Ath. Pol. 16.2), 69 the setting up of some
rudimentary tax system (Ath. Pol. 16.4, an essential prerequisite of a
67 G. Anderson repeatedly treats Aristotle's clear statement that Solon empowered the d2mos to "choose
magistrates and scruntinize their accounts (euthunein)" (Pol 1274a16--17) as if this were something
trivial (2003: 37, 59) and is clearly inclined to doubt its very existence (2003: 21, 60 and passim). But
carrying out these functions over some eighty years, even if one accepts some manipulation of the
process by the Peisistratids, is not at all trivial. In the famous debate on constitutions in Herodotus
{3.80--83) a key indictment of the monarch is that he is allowed do whatever he wants without
being held accountable (aneuthunai 3.80.3) whereas under a democracy the magistrate is subject of
an accounting (hypeuthunon 3.80.6). Lack of accountability is precisely one of the key factors that
sabotages democracy in any meaningful sense of the term.
68 Berent's influential essay arguing that "the polis was not a state" (2000: 258) relies on an excessively
rigid application of Weber's definition of the state implying "an agency or class which monopolizes
the use of violence" (ibid.). He is certainly right to emphasize, as does Van Wees {1999a, 20006),
the widespread violence that characterized the Archaic Period in general, but it is equally true that
overwhelmingly the violence is coming from the most powerful big landowners. But even accepting
Weber's terms, we must acknowledge that Sparta was clearly a "state," and, afrer the battle of Pallene,
Athens experienced no reported violence until the murder of Hipparchus, after which, until the
invasion by Sparta, the state's "monopoly of violence" was the problem. Gabrielsen (2007: 248) also
justly complains of the excessive narrowness of Weber's definition.
69 This is the only ancient evidence Frost cites to support his statement that "the tradition seems to
tell us . .. that the Peisistratids found Attica a land of great estates and left it a land of many small
landowners" (Frost 1984: 293, my emphasis). The burden of his whole argument, however, focusing
on the lack of formal military mobilizations before Kleisthenes, is that "an effective military force
could be raised by the promise of land for the participants - but for virtually no other reason"
{293). His article ends with this comment: "It is tempting to ... see the reforms of Kleisthenes as
crisis legislation designed to mobilize a national army by some rationale other than the land hunger
ofsurplus sons" {294, my emphasis). In a piece published the following year, he goes further and
speaks of "redistribution of farmland by Peisistratus" {1985: 60). The only ancient evidence he cites
in support of this is Ath. Pol's tale of the poor farmer whom he frees of taxation in response to
his forthright speech, then pseudo-Plato, Hipparchus 229B, Dio. Chrys. 25.281 (1" cent. AD) and
Ael. VH 9.25 {2nd -3'd cent. AD). As if in embarrassment at the shakiness of this evidence, he adds:
"This must remain an inference; there is no reason to assume any of the writers knew anything
about agriculture in Peisistratid times" (1985: 73 n. 12). Indeed. But equally fanciful is Adcock's
functioning "state," 70 not to mention the social surplus required for any
state-sponsored building. 71 Though skeptics like Blok (2000) and Sancisi-
Weerdenburg (2000) want to deny his role in anything for which there
is not "unambiguous evidence," I find it plausible that he expanded and
continued Solon's emphasis on fostering Athenian commodity-production
and trade. The most striking evidence links in with a major initiative
to put Athens on the map by initiating the pan-Hellenic contests of the
expanded Panathenaia. Contemporary scholars are at pains to deny Peisis-
tratos any role (e.g., G. Anderson 2003: 162; Sancisi-Weerdenburg 2000)
on the grounds that the festival began in 566, six years before the putative
first tyranny of Peisistratos.72 Whoever began it, I think it is a plausible
assumption (echoed by Vlastos 1995: 51) that "Peisistratus "was able to fulfil the promises of his early
days [evidence?!] and settle a great number of Athenians on small farms. For the rich nobles who
held the great part ofthe land were his defeated enemies ... Peisistratus could reward his friends by
dividing the estates of his enemies" (1964: 65-66, my emphasis). If Peisistratos had taken a step Solon
considered too radical, I find it hard to believe that we would hear nothing of it from Herodotus,
Thucydides, or Aristotle. Moreover, as noted above in the text, Peisistratos's "enemies'' remained
rich. Kleisthenes was even an archon in 525/ 524.
7° Eder makes the obvious but often ignored point, "to pay taxes also means to pay for public needs,
for festivals as well as for buildings. Thus taxation produces a feeling of an active participation in
the affairs of the city" (1988: 470).
71 Here too of course the dismissers of the Peisistratids have been stridently skeptical of the complex
archaeological record (e.g., Boersma 2000, see discussion below). Whatever the remains, I see no
reason in principle to dismiss Herodotus's sweeping declaration that Peisistratos, while tyrant, was
"embellishing the city beautifully and excellently" ( ... t2n po/in kosmean kaMs te kai eu 1.59.6--
60.1). Thucydides says virtually the same thing ( ... t2n polin kalas diekosm2san 6.54.5). It is true
that Herodotus makes this comment apropos of his first tyranny, but I think it is reasonable to
understand it as a general comment on Peisistratos's rule. Herodotus was in a position to recognize
any building attributed to the Peisistratids; and given the general hostility to tyranny in the fifth
century and Herodotus's own distaste for all forms of one-man rule, there is little likelihood of his
gratuitously embellishing the record. See Shear 1978: 1 for the pre-skeptical view: "It may fairly be
said that no program of public works, with the exception of the Periklean buildings of the fifth
century, had a greater effect on the architectural history of Athens than did the buildings sponsored
by Peisistratos and his sons." See further discussion of building policy below.
72 Sancisi-Weerdenburg (2000: 100) like Blok relies heavily on oral theory (e.g., Rosalind Thomas
1989) and declares "Herodotos' guess [about the chronology of the tyranny] is just that and nothing
more and is therefore almost useless in analyzing sixth century developments ... An oral chronology
is no chronology" (her emphasis). G. Anderson suggests that Peisistratos's rival Lycurgus initiated
the games on the model of those celebrated at Delphi, the Isthmus, and Nemea (2003: 67, 163).
If so, the major victory vases associated with the contests begin about 560, which suggests to me
at least that Peisistratos immediately recognized the value of his rival's innovation and expanded
it. Connor's elaborate argument (1989) that Peisistratos had nothing to do with City or Great
Dionysia has convinced Pritchard (2005: 151-52), and his case admirably undergirds Anderson's.
But I find it odd that he says nothing of the impressive series of victory pots starting about 550
(Shapiro 1993: 93-4, Neils 1992), which suggest something more serious than the same old pre-
Peisistratid country Dionysia nor the statement in Eusebius Chronica, on Olympiad 53.3-4 (i.e.
566/ 565): Agon gymnasticus, quem Panathenaeon vocant, actus nor Marcellinus, Vita Thucydidis 2-4,
citing Pherekydes, who declares that the Panathenaia was established during the archonship of
Hippokleides (cited by Neils 1992: 194 n. 31).
hypothesis 73 that the Peisistratid regime saw its advantages, using it not only
to stake Athens' claims to pan-Hellenic status but also to advertise both
Attic pottery and Attic olive oil (Shapiro 1993). To be sure the expansion
of Attic pottery throughout the Mediterranean began well before Peisis-
tratos' tyranny (Shapiro 1989: 5) and may have nothing to do with specific
economic policies of the tyrants. It does, however, seem likely that they
introduced coinage (Kraay 1976: 58-59), and the fact that the tradition left
so favorable a memory of the rule of Peisistratos (Ath. Pol. 16. 7) in spite of
the heavy ideological assault on tyranny in subsequent centuries (Shapiro
1989: 4-5) suggests that he was felt to be in some way responsible for a dra-
matic improvement in the economic welfare of the region, a factor which
in turn presumably heightened the association of the demos with their polis.
As noted earlier, Peisistratos's seizure of Sigeion and apparent blessing of
the tyranny of Miltiades in the Chersonese suggest a keen interest in con-
trolling access to the Hellespont and Black Sea area and may as well have
relieved the land-hunger of some poorer Athenians. Miltiades is said to
have brought Athenian colonists to Lemnos (Hdt. 6.140) and Im bros, also
on the vital grain route to the Crimea (Brunt 1966: 72). Strategic interests
were by no means incompatible with relief of Athens' landless or land-poor
citizens.
The building policies of the Peisistratids have not escaped the skeptics'
hatchet (e.g., Boersma 2000 contra Boersma 1970, Childs 1994). Nonethe-
less, the statement of Shapiro still seems eminently reasonable to me: "The
testimonia linking him [Peisistratos] or his family with two monuments in
the Agora, the Enneakrounos fountain house (Pausanias 1.14.1; Thucydides
2.15.5) and the Altar of the Twelve Gods (Thucydides 6.54.6) suggest that
much more of the Archaic Agora probably owed its appearance to the
tyrants" (1989: 6, cf. Camp 1986: 39-47, Shear 1978). 74 As far as I know, no
one has challenged that the initiative of the wildly ambitious Olympieion
(Arist. Pol. 5-11.4), the largest temple foundation in all of Hellas, lay with
the younger Peisistratids. 75 To me it seems a safe enough inference that the
will to impress both the local population and the rest of Greece with the
73 Sancisi-Weerdenburg (2000: 92-8) is at pains to stress that assuming Peisistratos as tyrant had a
major role in much of what transpired in Athens is only a hypothesis: true, but not all hypotheses
are equal.
7 4 Boersma's alternative is to speak of "prominent Athenian aristocrats" taking the initiatives: "These
initiatives were undoubtedly approved and supported by the entire community" (2000: 53). If this
was in fact the case, it presupposes full and direct involvement of the demos in the shaping of a
specifically civic center. By open discussion and votes in the assembly? If not, we must attribute
such a goal to the Peisistra tids.
75 Eder (1988: 470) refers to doubling the size of the Telesterion at Eleusis.
grandeur of Athens preceded for some time this extraordinarily extravagant
gesture, the ruins of which are still staggering today (Travlos 1971: 402-11).
While aristocrats still sought to impress the demos with their dedications
(Boersma 2000: 53),76 the very scale of what the Peisistratids attempted
would give the demos a sense of the relative power of a centralized state - a
state which, in principle, their assembly controlled.
Politically the repeated emphasis of the Ath. Pol. upon Peisistratos's
moderation (14.3; 16.2), his adherence to the laws (presumably those of
Solon) (16.8), 77 his "democratic" inclination (13.4, 14.1) suggests that he
went out of his way to maintain at least the illusion that the demos had real
control through the council, the assembly, and the courts.78 In particular
his innovation of deme judges and his personal engagement in reconciling
disputes (Ath. Pol. 16.5) fit well with McGlew's emphasis on the thematics
of "Justice" among the tyrants in general and implies specifically for Athens
that the days of the sheer arbitrariness of "gift-gobbling" aristocrats were
over, something that may have played a key role in their response to
the threatened return to aristocratic dominance under Isagoras after the
overthrow of the Peisistratids.
At the same time Peisistratos's apparently cordial relations with much of
the aristocracy79 (Ath. Pol. 16.9) suggest his preservation of their decisive
property control. Even those aristocrats who were temporarily exiled, like
the Alcmaionidai, seem to have retained their properties, since they are
still rich in the fifth century and Kleisthenes even held the archonship.
Moreover, the evidence, discussed in chapter 5, for the heavy encourage-
ment by tyrants, including the Peisistratids, of a luxurious, heavily erotic
76 To stand in front of the reconstructed funeral stele of Megakles {dated c. 530 BC, no. 71 in Pic6n et
al. 2007) in the Metropolitan Museum in New York gives one a striking sense of what the scale of
sixth-century aristocratic display must have been like - especially if one adds in the kouroi and korai
(cf. Pic6n et al. 2007: nos. 67 and 74).
77 We should acknowledge the contrary statement of Ath. Pol. chat "the tyranny suppressed/made away
with (aphanisai) the laws of Solon through not using chem" (22.1).
78 Relevant, I chink, in chis connection is Diogenes Laertius's account of Solon attempting to warn his
fellow citizens of the threat of Peisistratos: "Rushing into the assembly armed with spear and shield,
he warned chem of the designs of Pisistratus ... And the council, consisting ofPisistratus' supporters,
declared chat he was mad" (= 10 W, Gerber's translation). True, chis is a very late source, but it does
suggest something completely left out of Sancisi-Weedenburg's argument, namely, the likelihood
chat Peisistratos, in addition to using all the traditional aristocratic family resources chat she righcly
stresses, also "worked" the system put in place by Solon. Thucydides in fact makes a point she
ignores, chat Peisistratos made sure his relatives and friends controlled the archonship, the highest
legal position in the state (Thuc. 6.54.6).
79 As indicated in Chapter 5, G. Anderson's thesis (2005) chat tyrants were virtually indistinguishable
from other aristocrats goes too far in collapsing the distinction between collective and monarchic
exercise of authority. But he is clearly right in stressing the moscly good relations between the
Peisistratids and the rest of their class.
and gymnastic lifestyle by support of imported poets like Anakreon and
Simonides fits very well with the evidence of sixth-century painted pottery
on erotic subjects, some of which actually earned the name ''Anakreontics"
(Neer 2002: 20-23), while others heavily emphasized athletic activity- not
of course completely separate from the erotic life of the aristocracy (Neils
1992 and Kyle 1992). 80
Finally, though this aspect of the Peisistratid rule seems to have inspired
the greatest feats of scholarly skepticism, the religious 8' and cultural policies
of the Peisistratids seem to me extraordinary and most relevant to assessing
the elusive political consciousness of the Athenian demos. In addition to
temples and shrines which effectively moved key cults into the public
sphere of the state's responsibility, the Peisistratids - especially the second
generation of them - were clearly conscious of the importance of other
sorts of cultural initiatives. Having cited earlier the insights of Connor
et al. about the interface of religion and politics in the Archaic Period, I
will only quote John Herington's sensible observation about this aspect
of Peisistratid policy: "There is much evidence, to say nothing of general
probability, that the ruling house was very much concerned both with
the temples and with the festivals of Athens. Indeed, in the circumstances
of a sixth-century city-state, to neglect those matters would have been to
neglect the art of politics itself'' (1985: 88). 82
What I find most compelling in this area is Herington's analysis of the
way in which, during the period of the Peisistratids, Athens changed by
500 BC from a place with no known poets apart from Solon (cf. Knox
1978: 43) to a place where "there had probably never been before in the
Greek world such a concentration of diverse musical and poetic talent
within a single city as now existed in Athens" (1985: 96). Pace G. Anderson
(2003: 164-65) such radical transformations do not occur overnight, and
the musical and dramatic contests clearly begun under the aegis of the
80 Neer describes the scene on a vase painted by Kleisophos depicting the extreme grossness of a
symposium as evidence of I. Morris's "middling" ideology - as if the concept of anti-aristocratic
art were unthinkable (2002: 22-23). Lissarrague, who describes the same vase, declares: "The
sophistication of such objects, testifying to an elaborate code for drinking, is not incompatible with
the crudest bodily function. The symposion is really an occasion for passing freely from refinement
to loutishness, from the heights of wisdom to the depths of folly" {1990: 96----97). Presumably,
however, the painter's choice of what elements in this spectrum to depict is not neutral.
81 No one would dispute that building temples and shrines entails religion, but modern readers might
question the religiosity of festivals. As Neils points out, "It is no exaggeration to say that festivals
were the single most important feature of classical Greek religion in its public aspect" {1992: 13).
Indeed, one is tempted to ask of Greek religion: was there any other aspect?
82 Frost {1990: 9) goes further, "Peisistratid success in bringing city and countryside into accord in
religious matters had managed to defuse a potential rift between regions of the country and at the
same time made the Peisistratid family both the creators and beneficiaries of the synoikismos."
Peisistratids had immediate practical consequences for the Athenian demos,

not only as audience, but - most importantly - as participants. Althusser
makes the crucial point that ideology is not just a set of ideas, but a set
of practices. Herington points out: "For each annual production of the
City Dionysia from at least 508 B.c. onward, a total of 500 choristers will
have been required for the ten competing dithyrambic choruses of boys;
another 500 for the men's dithyrambic choruses, an unknown number,
but almost certainly not less than thirty-six, for the choruses of competing
tragedians ... Thus a cadre of trained singer-dancers and connoisseurs of
poetry must have been built up fairly rapidly in the early years of the
democracy" (1985: 96). Herington's focus on the earliest date for which
there is at least some indirect evidence (Pickard-Cambridge 1988: 70-74)
may offer some comfort to those like G. Anderson who wish to see as
many innovations as possible clustered around the Kleisthenic period; but
it is important to recall that the recitations of Homer were believed to
have begun under the influence of Hipparchus (Shapiro 1993: 98 dates the
earliest rhapsode vase to 540 Be), that musical contests date back at least
to 550 (Shapiro 1993: 93), and, finally, tragic contests started "within a year
or two of 534 B.c." (Herington 1985: 90). 83
We discussed in an earlier chapter the possible political implications for
tyranny of private erotic poetry and epinician poetry so fully associated
with the ruling classs under tyranny. 84 Since virtually none of the more
public poetry survives, any discussion of its political import is necessar-
ily speculative. However, Else's account of one-actor early tragedy has long
struck me as compelling (Rose 1978). Else, working backward from hints in
Aristotle's Poetics, of which he was the finest and surely the fullest expositor
(Else 1957), and surviving early tragedy, argued that the three essential fea-
tures of Thespis's invention were "the epic hero, impersonation, and iambic
83 Connor (1989: 26--32) has an elaborate appendix demonstrating how fragile the reading of the
Marmor Parium on which this date depends is. I reali2e there is an inevitable circularity in the
grounds on which I am inclined to respect the traditional reading: Else's compelling if imaginative
analysis of the one-actor form of tragedy and the statement ofAristotle (Poet. 1449a15) that Aeschylus
added the second actor convince me of the perfect fit between the one-actor form and tyranny.
Scullion, however, has pointed out the obvious fact that "since competition were organi2ed by the
state, it can hardly have been individual playwrights who 'introduced' additional actors" (2005: 24).
It does still seem to me at least imaginable that a very successful dramatist could be the one making
a successful appeal to the authorities to change the rules of the game. But Scullion is probably right
that Aristotle was "drawing inferences from the number of actors implied by whatever earlier tragic
texts were available to him" (ibid.).
84 It is unclear from the very skimpy fragments of sixth-century epinicia whether the odes written
for tyrants, of which we have some surviving specimens written by Pindar (e.g., 0/. 1-3), were
performed in more private select groups or for whole communities as many of Pindar's odes for
victorious aristocrats were (Kurke 1991).
verse" (1965: 64). Decisive inspirations for this were the regular recitations
of Homer at the Panathenaia and Solon's self-presentation in iambic verse
(cf. Knox 1978: 46). "Rhapsodes did not merely recite Homer, they acted
him, and from this quasi-impersonation of Homeric characters it was only
a step to full impersonation" (69). Central to the self-presentation of the
epic hero was his pathos: "not what the hero does but what he suffers; not his
display of prowess, his moment of glory on the battlefield or in council, but
his moment of disaster or failure: death, loss, humiliation" (65). Else argues
that Thespis chose this emphasis because this, unlike superhuman valor,
"allies him with us" (65). Thespis added the decisive second element, "the
chorus, to be a sounding board for the heroic passion. The chorus is made
up of ordinary mortals like us, and through their emotional participation
in the hero's fall we too are drawn into the ambit of his pathos" (65-66).
Pointing out that known choruses are either followers and dependents of
the hero or citizens, he argues, "The citizen chorus is the root manifesta-
tion of the political element in Greek tragedy ... Through it the audience
is bound into a special relationship with the hero ... Or, alternatively, these
heroes become as if they were Athenians. Thus in mourning the hero the
chorus, and through it the audience, is lamenting its king or great man
and so lamenting its own cause. The expression of sorrow is a communal
act, a shared experience of the whole body politic. I would argue that this
was an essential, indeed the essential, feature of Thespian tragedy" (66-67).
Perhaps attributing to Peisistratos too much conscious intention, he ends
by arguing that his goal with tragedy was as with Homer, to make it "an
instrument for the rapprochement of the classes, an emotional unification
of all Athenians in a common sympathy for fallen greatness" (77). The
political advantages of this form for tyranny seem obvious: catching the
masses up in empathy with the "burdens" and sorrows of great power
and wealth has a long history. 85 Else earlier stresses, "the chorus appears
throughout as the passive, the receiving partner" (61). But like so many
ruling-class inventions to which we might attribute a simple, self-serving
intention (we note earlier the use of the city-protecting divinity, the cult
of heroes, the invocation of divine justice) there was the possibility of the
85 Brecht is of course the great theorist {and practitioner) of anti-empathy cheater or the "alienation-
effect" (Brecht 1964: e.g., 139): "The object of the A-effect is to alienate the social gest underlying
every incident. By social gest is meant the mimetic and gestural expression of the social relationships
prevailing between people of a given period." The alienation-effect actor "prompts the spectator to
justify or abolish these conditions according to what class he belongs to." Benjamin put it more
concisely: "Empathy with the victor invariably benefits the rulers" {1969: 256). Else's unfortunate
use of "us" and "we" attests to the universalizing invitation ("interpellation" in Alchusser's analysis)
of a historically quite specific phenomenon.
demos appropriating it to its own purposes. Sinos, in connection with the
"drama" staged by Peisistratos with Athena, invoked the possibility of
the Athenian people themselves adopting a "heroic" posture (1993: 88):
to the extent that tragedy and recitations of Homer invited the Athenian
demos to associate themselves with heroic intransigence they prepared the
way for their radical refusal to accept the dictation of Spartan Kleomenes.
To sum up on the Peisistratids: though the evidence is almost all ambigu-
ous and hotly debated, I think it is legitimate to posit very important con-
tributions in this long period to the increasingly complex consciousness of
the Athenian demos. On the one hand, they were given the opportunity to
work the forms of self-government and many cultural reasons to identify
with the polis. Their worst economic woes were softened if not eliminated
as they enjoyed a suspension of the worst sorts of class conflict. On the
other hand, they may increasingly have chafed at the reality of the con-
centration of so much wealth and power in so few hands and retained a
long-term resentment at the luxurious lifestyle of the ruling class, which,
pace I. Morris, showed no signs of abating before the Persian War. 86
508/507 BC: ANNUS MIRABILIS?
Josiah Ober begins his influential article (1993) on the Athenian Revolution
of 508/507 with an historiographic meditation. We had occasion in the
Introduction to raise the issue of periodization and defend briefly the
decision to pick the end of the sixth century as the terminus of the Archaic
Age, more frequently seen as 480 BC. 87 Whether or not one agrees with
his argument as a whole, I at least find compelling his conclusion: "The
end of the archaic and the beginning of something new may reasonably
be said to have come about in the period from ca. 5m to 506 BCE, with
the revolutionary events that established the form of government that
86 Indeed, Ionian fashions in sculpture (Pedley 1978) and in lifestyle (Connor 1993) seem to have
flourished under the Peisistratids in a period when the "middling" ideology was allegedly gaining
momentum. The democracy put an abrupt stop to many public displays of aristocratic extravagance,
but we cannot infer a corresponding ideological conversion on the part of the aristocracy.
87 Jeffery (1976) alas offers no rationale for the decision to end her Archaic Greece in 500 BC. The dust
jacket comes closest: "We leave it [Greek society] at the end of the sixth century, a country still
criss-crossed [sic] with local frontiers, but poised now for the defeat of Persia and the achievements
of the fifth century." Snodgrass, in a thoughtful and subtle final chapter of his transformative study
of the Archaic Period (1980: 201-18), offers what seems to me a definitve challenge to the use of the
Persian Wars as a terminus by analyzing a whole array of important changes that began before that
terminus. But his emphasis is not on a specific earlier terminus so much as on "processes, rather
than events" (217). He does not, for example, deny the crucial role of the "onset of the Persians"
(213), but notes: "The invasion of Xerxes was, afrer all, simply a further act in a drama which had
been inaugurated in the 540s when the Persians reached Ionia" (ibid.).
508/507 BC: annus mirabilis? 351
would soon come to be called demokratia" (215). 88 G. Anderson too notes:
"Specialists working in a number of different areas are increasingly inclined
to see this as a time of comprehemive change, both within and beyond
the realm of the political process" (2003: 5, my emphasis). Subsequently,
after describing Kleisthenes' reforms, Anderson declares, "they mark ... the
critical moment of discontinuity between the archaic and the classical state"
(2003: 81). Nonetheless, we noted earlier our agreement with I. Morris that
"the Archaic social order ... made democracy possible" (1996: 19). This is
not a contradiction.
A more genuinely dialectical view of history than is evinced by either
Ober or Raaflaub or G. Anderson (just to name a few) in this debate
would recognize the interplay of long-term developments and specific
conjunctural moments when a configuration of circumstances trigger a
revolutionary turning point (Althusser 1969: 87-128). The long-emerging
contradiction between the ruling class's need to foster the demos's iden-
tification with the polis and their own determination to monopolize the
best land and live the best lifestyle was significantly intensified by the
demos's long experience of pseudo-self-rule under the tyrants. The long-
standing hostility of the ever-competitive aristocrats to any form of one-
man rule, was doubtless intensified by the heightened repressiveness after
the attempted "coup" of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, itself ultimately
triggered by the tyrants' apparent encouragement of lives defined by erotic
intrigues rather than martial prowess. Whatever the real motives of the
Spartans for dislodging the tyrants, 89 what triggered the "riot" (Ober's
88 I must confess that I came upon Robin Osborne's fascinating overview of"Democracy's Revolution
in Anglophone Scholarship" (2006: 14-28) at the very end of my own efforts only to find in it a
response to Rhodes's overview (2003), which is even more "chock-full" of another lifetime's worth of
reading suggestions. Of course, reading these fine scholars' mediations on objectivity, commitment,
and truth - especially those of Osborne, who insists, in effect, that "social existence determines
consciousness" - made me wonder what either of these fine scholars might make of this work. I
resist the temptation to resort to any more autobiography than has already crept into my text. I
was disappointed to find that chronology seems to have precluded their assessment of G. Anderson
2003.
89 Despite legitimate questions raised about the sincerity of Sparta's claims to a principled hostility to
tyranny, the Spartans clearly did overthrow the Peisistratids in Athens. The suggestion of Osborne
{1996: 293-94) that their motives were more likely a desire to expand their network of "alliances"
(scholars are uncomfortable about speaking of Spartan imperialism, c£ Andrewes 1978) as well as
their anxiety caused by the Peisistratids' alliance with their traditional enemy Argos seems more
plausible than Herodotus's tale {5.63) that they were duped by a bribed Delphi. However, given the
intensity of Spartan adherence to as well as use of traditional religion - especially Apollo of Delphi-
(R. Parker 1989), it seems plausible to me that the well attested connection of the Alkmaionids to
Delphi may have at least eased Spartan consciences about violating their relations of "hospitality"
(xenia) with the Peisistratids. Osborne notes that they made four separate campaigns in this effort
{1996: 292-93). The unexpected consequences of this effort, namely the vigor of popular resistance to
term) 90 of the mass of Athenians was Kleomenes' attempt to disband the

council - clear proof, it seems to me, that the mass of Athenians intensely
identified with this council. 91 This identification in turn suggests to me
that since the time of Solon all Athenian citizens were eligible for service
on the council and that decisions and votes in the assembly set up by Solon
were perceived as meaningful by the average Athenian citizen.
As suggested earlier, there is considerable debate over the relative weight
historians give in assessing this period to the role of the Athenian demos
and to the figure of Kleisthenes, and, perhaps more centrally, the effec-
tive degree of "people's power" resulting from these events. Thus what
is at stake is the degree to which a fundamental realignment of forces
occurred in the centuries-long class struggle between "the many and the
few," between aristocrats and the demos, between the great landowners and
those with little or no land - though this latter characterization rarely if
ever enters into the debate. Again I believe a more dialectical conception
of the interplay of mass discontent and creative ruling-class response is
more fruitful than the endless back and forth between celebrations of the
Sparta, quickly forged a strong alliance between the former tyrants and Sparta. Without disputing
the importance of Sparta's immediate political goals, I think it is plausible that the Peisistratid
tyranny was more congenial to Sparta than other tyrannies might have been precisely because the
reforms of Solon had already sufficiently shifted the dynamics of class conflict in Athens such that
the tyrants did not need to define themselves primarily in terms of their hostility to aristocrats
(Stahl 1987: 106--36), as tyrants dearly did in some other poleis. Herodotus mentions some exiles,
but even the Alkmaionids seem at certain points to have cooperated with the rulers. Peisistratos's
traveling judges must have further curtailed aristocratic arbitrariness in their local spheres of power,
but overall the Athenian tyranny seems to have been relatively aristocrat-friendly.
9° Curtis (1996: xiv-xvii) offers a scathing critique of Ober's condescending word choice here and the
degree to which it undermines his attempt to celebrate the independence of the d2mos. Osborne
(2006: 24 n. 18) points out that viewing a "riot" as crucial for Kleisthenes' success appeared in Burn
(1962: 180-81).
91 G. Anderson's narrative of the events of the revolution presents unproblematically the council in
question as the new Kleisthenic council of 500. The ancient sources speak ambiguously simply of
the boul2 (Hdt. 5.72.1, Ath. Pol. 20.3). The sequence in Herodotus is a bit confusing because of his
digression about Kleisthenes of Sikyon, and it is even possible to read Ath. Pol. as implying that
Kleisthenes put through his reforms before being exiled (see Rhodes 1993: 244: "To have won the
upper hand Kleisthenes must at least have proposed his reforms at this stage, and probably had
them adopted by the assembly; but there can have been no time for them to take effect before the
intervention of Cleomenes''). I think the most natural reading of the sequence Ath. Pol. 20-21 puts
the major reforms of Kleisthenes after his return. Their sheer complexity makes it unlikely I think
that Kleisthenes could have done more than sketch out his ideas before being exiled. To register
the whole citi2en body in the demes and choose the new councilors in such a short time is hard to
imagine. The popular expedient of imagining a temporary version of the new boule (G. Anderson
2003: 61 and 235 n. 38 for further bibliography) strikes me as a bit desperate. But if the council in
question is the Solonian council of 400, Herodotus's account strongly suggests the d2mos had a real
sense of ownership there that was worth fighting for. Andrewes (and Anderson) may however be
right that much of the year of the archonship of Isokrates was taken up with Kleisthenes' spelling
out his proposals in the assembly and his successes there provoked Isokrates' appeal to Cleomenes
relatively late in the year that bore his name (Andrewes 1977: 246--47).
508/507 BC: annus mirabilis? 353
demos and celebrations of Kleisthenes. G. Anderson describes his approach
as "distinctly unfashionable" (2003: 8); but "fashion" is not the issue. I
believe he poses the historiographic issues in terms of false antitheses: "I
have generally looked more to the designs and actions of human agents
than to the impersonal, environmental, or structural forces of the longue
duree" (2003: 8). His footnote following this comment is not to Braudel
(1972), who coined the phrase longue duree (1972: 23 n. 1) and theorized it in
far more nuanced ways than suggested by Anderson's formulation. Braudel
does indeed emphasize environmental factors at great length in his first vol-
ume, but analyzes the complexities of human agents in his second volume.
Anderson's note instead cites I. Morris's "middling" essay as an exercise in
longue duree historiography. But whether right or wrong, I. Morris's essay
is entirely about a purely human long-term ideological development. Then
to add to the historiographic confusion, Anderson proceeds to quote Marx
without realizing it: "People make their own history, but they do not do it
under circumstances of their own choosing." Readers of my Introduction
may recall that this is precisely Marx's famous dialectical formulation in his
Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (MECW 11: 103), but Anderson
attributes it to a British historian named Richard Evans (1997: 189).92 In
any case he largely ignores its dialectical implications: in opting for an
exclusive focus on a top-down model of historical change - in using such
language as "a bold exercise in social engineering" (5) and "an ambitious
experiment in community building" (7) - he is ignoring precisely the
dialectical implications of his own quotation. Human beings "experiment"
on other human beings only when they have totally passive victims. The
burden of my attempt earlier in this chapter to trace what we can know or
extrapolate from the skimpy available data is that the Athenian demos were
by no means passive. Moreover, I have tried to make the case, in looking at
the big-man model for the Dark Age, that the essence of a democratic social
arrangement is not a leaderless, literally "anarchic" society, but a situation
in which leaders have to persuade followers and followers who are not
satisfied with their leaders are free to switch to a different leader. It in no
way diminishes the originality and, if one likes, the genius, of Kleisthenes
to stress that his achievement presupposes great sensitivity to the felt needs
of the demos and great powers of persuasion. Persuasive speech is a given
in Greek culture from Homer on, but perhaps what is most daring in the
career of Kleisthenes is a new, seemingly absolute confidence in his powers
92 G. Anderson's citation. Since Evans loc. cit. specifically cites "Marx's dictum," we have to assume, I
think, either that Anderson was unwilling to cite Marx or that he simply missed the fact that Evans
did so.
to persuade, a class confidence, borne out by history, that men like him,
perhaps especially members of his family, could interact with a free people
in completely productive ways. 93
THE GOALS OF KLEISTHENES' REFORMS
To what felt needs did Kleisthenes' specific reforms respond? G. Ander-

son (cf. Frost 1984) is clearly right to emphasize that the most immediate
pressing need was for an adequate system of military preparedness, and
it was the military achievements of the new system that most immedi-
ately impressed Herodotus (5.77-78). The multiple invasions by Spartan
Kleomenes (Hdt. 5.76), who clearly intended to dictate the internal politi-
cal structure of Athens on terms subservient to the Spartan oligarchy, may
well have triggered a dramatic leap in consciousness by the Athenian demos,
a sense that the experience of limited self-rule even under the tyrants was
something precious and that independence from foreign domination was
worth some fundamental, if complicated, rearrangements. At the same
time centuries of domination by local large landowners, in spite of Pei-
sistratos' personal efforts, and by local judges might well have made the
option of genuinely democratic local control at the deme level tremen-
dously attractive. 94 Nonetheless, I believe D. M. Lewis's largely ignored
insight points in the right direction: "It is hard to see how the complexities
of the reforms could have been used in themselves as a bargaining-counter
to win the demos over, even at the lowest level, to the prospect of local
self-government in the deme. Something more concrete will have been in
the air - citizenship, probably also land. Land-hunger remains strong in
Athens for the next fifteen years or so. Salamis, Chalkis, and Lemnos, all
are attempts to meet a need which Kleisthenes could only partly satisfy in
Attica" (1963: 38). What is so striking about this insight is that it points
away from the purely political evidence at the center of most discussions of
the creation of democracy to the social and economic aspects most likely
93 Vernant (1982: 49) may have beeen unduly optimistic in his account of the early polis: "The system
of the polis implied, first of all, the extraordinary preeminence of speech over all other instruments
of power." But surely persuasive speech gained a unique centrality in the sovereign assembly created
by the reforms ofKleisthenes. The power of Athenian bia ("violence," "force") in external relations
is another matter.
94 Andrewes rightly stresses that explicit attacks on aristocratic local domination must have been a key
part of the persuasive strategy ofKleisthenes (1977: 242). Rhodes (1993: 209) declares: "I believe that
this organization of Attica was the essence of Kleisthenes's reform of the city government," but he
does not explore the political implications of the reorganization.
The goals ofKleisthenes' reforms 355
to be of greatest interest to those at the bottom of Athenian society, but for
which the evidence is typically indirect.
What we hear in our sources of internal Athenian politics in the sixth
century is focused exclusively on what is so often called "ruling-class fac-
tionalism" or some variant on that theme. These are relevant and important
data insofar as they are not construed as somehow an alternative to class
conflict as we have defined it. Greek aristocrats, unlike, for example, Rus-
sian aristocrats of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, did not play out
their competition in the form of individual duels, which, however trag-
ically wasteful as in the cases of Pushkin and Lermontov, had minimal
impact on the thousands of serfs who supported their lifestyle. More like
Shakepeare's warring lords, Athenian aristocrats - presumably like their
counterparts in other poleis (e.g., Alcaeus) - played off their gangs of fol-
lowers against each other. The large numbers exiled both after the failed
coup of Kylon and after the short-lived triumph oflsagoras give some sense
of the scale of retaliations upon the losers in these struggles. Since Davies
estimates what he has dubbed the liturgical class as between only one and
two percent of the Athenian citizenry (1981: 27-28), it is hard to believe
that the seven hundred95 families exiled were all from the ruling class; and
in fact Herodotus specifies "the Alkmaionidai and the members of their
faction" (5.70.2). So too the passing allusion in Herodotus to the disastrous
failure of the Alkmaionids' military efforts to dislodge the tyrants from
Leipsydrion (5.62) suggests that not only "nobles" died there. 96 This in
turn raises the question of the role of kinship in organizing class relations
in the sixth century and earlier. Forrest's influential dismissal of "horizon-
tally drawn divisions, of classes" in favor of "vertical divisions ... likened to
pyramids" to explain society dominated by the archaic aristocracy (1966:
48) had the unfortunate consequence of suggesting that the putative "per-
sonal bond between high and low" (ibid.) somehow erased the very real
differences in interests and in the relations of production between the
95 This number has of course been challenged (e.g., Sranton 1990: 20 n. 7); but whatever the actual
figure, the fact chat it seemed perfectly plausible not only to Herodotus but to the author of the
Ath. Pol. (20.3) suggests the scale of aristocratic factions. Rhodes seems to take very literally the
assumption chat only bloodline descendants of those guilty of killing Kylon's followers would be
involved (1993: 245). I chink factions worked less mechanically on kin lines.
96 Stanton (1990:135) quotes a drinking song, presumably from an aristocratic symposium, emphasizing
only the aristocratic losses:
Ah, Leipsydrion, betrayer of friends,
What warriors brave you destroyed!
Noble of birch, at chat hour they showed
The qualities their forefathers bestowed.
"great" property-owners and the "small" tenant farmers or landless thetes. 97

In every class-based society one consistent goal of every ruling class is to
create forms of bonding (religious, patriotic, familial, etc.) that obscure
these fundamental differences. 98 Given the convenience of metaphorical
kinship in interpellating whole communities as in some sense depending
on and benefiting from heroic "ancestors" (e.g., Pindar) and the evidence
we have already seen of tyrants manipulating tribal identities, it would
be rash to dismiss the effectiveness of appeals to kinship in mystifying
conflicting class interests and holding together supporters of particular
aristocrats - or the costs such ties could entail for those at the bottom of
the pyramid. 99 Certainly the centrality of manipulating tribal identity to
Kleisthenes' reforms argues strongly for his perception that breaking old
kin-and-locale allegiances was the only way to make a truly meaningful
change in the dynamics of political life. I accept too that ostracism was
part of the original package100 - a dramatic symbolic statement balancing
97 Stanton, for example, who is particularly concerned to stress a sharp disjunction between chose
who "have thought chat policies in archaic Athens are to be explained in terms of conflict between
different economic interest groups" and his own position ("I believe chat conflict between aristo-
cratic clans is the key to an understanding of policies in chis period"), not surprisingly endorses
Forrest's "set of pyramids" as "most useful" (1990: 3-4). This trivializing reduction of a coyly
unnamed Marxism to an exclusive concern for "economic interest" is alas typical of non-dialectical
conceptions of causality - as if no economic interests were at stake in aristocratic factionalism or
no concerns for kin or the status of the kin group in any way shaped the terms in which economic
interests were struggled over. Benichou (1948), in his brilliant analysis of ideological struggles in
seventeenth-century France, stresses the way in which conservative aristocrats, pitted against the
accumulative ideology of the restive bourgeoisie, were committed - as were the aristocrats of tsarist
Russia - to la depense, extravagant expenditures of wealth as the mark of their noblesse. Yet precisely
in the interest of maximizing chis depense, they must also show some concern for guaranteeing the
income chat sustains it. In fairness to Stanton, it should be acknowledged chat when he comes to
introduce the Solonian Crisis, he states clearly, "our sources generally represent the major problem
as a class struggle," an obstacle to his own preference for ruling-class factionalism. Class struggle,
he suggests however, does not explain "the extraordinary action of the nobles ... in placing Solon
in a position where he could change the rules of the game." His answer is, in my view, a perfect
example of how I myself see class conflict played out in chis crisis: "It seems to have been the fear
chat their lower-class retainers would be swept away from their aristocratic patrons by someone who
could use chem to establish a tyranny in Athens; and a tyranny would disrupt the structure of
policies and destroy the power of the nobles" (1990: 34).
9 8 I find it amusing chat afrer Forrest asserts the all-importance of chis personal bond in the Archaic
Period, he goes on to claim: "Such bonds exist today, between child and parent, between manager
and board of directors, foreman and manager, labourer and foreman, but they are trivial" (1966:
48). Trivial they may indeed be, but chat does not prevent corporate spin doctors from spending
millions on trying to foster chem in order to mystify real sources of conflict between "labourer and
foreman," etc.
99 Osborne (1996: 188) notes the heavy emphasis on widely extended kinship in the wording of the
law ofDrakon on homicide.
' 0 ° Contra see Hignett 1962: 159-66, who endorses the famous dictum ofBeloch, "such a weapon is not
forged to be left for twenty years in the sheath." Stanton (1990: 173-86) gives a generous sampling of
the reorganization of the tribes that neither one-man rule nor domination
by the great oikoi was any longer an acceptable option, though in fact
both in modified forms survived. Without the threat of Persia, without
the increasingly class-based, ideological hostility of Sparta it is impossible
to say what Kleisthenes' new state configuration might have become. But
that is beyond the scope of this inquiry.
At the same time, we must imagine that the nearly century-long expe-
rience of the demos with a different version of their identity, played out in
the courts and assembly as reorganized by Solon, was probably decisive for
the sense of solidarity and self-esteem that seems to have inspired their
defense of Athens' independence against the threat of being incorporated
into the camp of Spartan oligarchy. There is nothing like an external
military threat to suppress internal conflicts. Given the extreme class
consciousness of Spartan "alliance"-building, the emergence of Athe-
nian democracy shifted the very nature of class warfare from struggles
purely internal to individual poleis to what was to become a pan-Hellenic
struggle between self-consciously understood principles of oligarchy and
democracy. 101 But, to follow up Lewis's insight about the likelihood ofland-
hunger as a decisive factor in Kleisthenes' appeals, Athenian championing
of democracy cannot be divorced from the seizures of land associated with
Athens' empire. 102
In considering the process of implementing Kleisthenes' reforms, I think
we have to assume several lengthy assembly meetings in which, with input
from the demos, the complex details of the new tribes built from trittyes, the
deme system, local registration of citizens, a method of choosing members
for the new council of 500, were painstakingly worked out - not simply
handed down from above. But to his credit, G. Anderson rightly poses the
question in what way did the elaborate mixing of the population effected by
Kleisthenes' reforms actually further popular government. Many accounts
of the "origin" of democracy seem to assume the answer is self-evident,
the more recent arguments for and against. J. Hall 2007: 218 offers a cautious maybe-yes, maybe-no
approach.
101 The extraordinary debate over constitutions (3.80-83) chat Herodotus bi2arrely attributes to Persians
at the very least suggests intense discussion among fifth-century political figures of the implications
of constitutional arrangements.
102 Though Brunt (1966) stresses strategic considerations, the sheer number of places where Athenians
were settled (e,g., Amphipolis, Thurii, Scyros, Hestiaea, Aegina, Potidaea, Scione, Melos, Cher-
sonese, Naxos, Andros, Chalcis, Eretria, Neapolis, Lemnos, lmbros, Sinope, Amisus, Astacus, and
the Lesbian cities chat revolted (Brunt 1966: 76--7) implies a very significant population willing to
take land elsewhere. This is surely relevant to the debate over the popularity/unpopularity of the
Athenian empire (de Ste Croix 1954-55 and Bradeen 1960). I did not find Gauthier's (1973: 163-78)
dismissal of Brunt convincing.
but it is not. Certainly the new council must have been far more
comprehensively representative of the Attic population than the Solonian
council. Anderson assumes that Kleisthenes set some crucial precedent by
proposing his reforms for ratification by the Solonian assembly, but my
own view is that after Solon there was regular formal presentation of all
laws and major items of public business to the assembly. 103 Under the
tyranny it may well have been a "rubber-stamp" legislative body of a sort
all too familiar in modern history, but on an institutional level I see no
reason to posit a precedent. What strikes me as more relevant is the new
sense of fateful consequences - particularly the military consequences -
of assembly decisions after the invasions of Kleomenes. Once the new
more representative council was in place, the habit of making decisions
that mattered may well have taken over. What is perhaps really new in
this mechanism is the radically changed consciousness of the demos, which
seems to have become increasingly unwilling to play the role of pawns in
aristocratic power games. Isegoria, equality of the right to speak- and raise
questions - in the assembly, is the watchword of the new order and initiates
a dynamic that at last puts paid to the silencing of Thersites (II. 2.245-69)
or the suitors' dissolution of an assembly not going their way ( Od. 2.251-59)
or the Spartan kings' rider giving them the power to override "crooked"
decisions of their demos (Tyrtaeus 4 W, Plut. Lye. 6).
Perhaps the most hotly contended aspect of the emergence of Athe-
nian democracy is the relation between what actually developed and the
intentions of Kleisthenes. 104 Stanton, for example, is particularly firm in
his conviction that Kleisthenes was acting primarily to achieve a personal
advantage for himself and his clan without the slightest interest in what
became "democracy'' (1990: vii-viii, 3-4, cf. D. M. Lewis 1963: 36-40).
Lewis's painstaking survey of the widely scattered and lacunose evidence
proves at least that "Kleisthenes did not just draw lines on the map" (1963:
30). But clarifying his agenda is another matter. More cautiously Osborne
explores the arguments for finding specific pro-Alkmaionid bias in the
complex system of demes and trittyes and tribes devised by Kleisthenes and
finds the case unconvincing (2009: 287-88). At the same time he stops
short of the all but ecstatic praise of Kleisthenes in Manville (1990: 185-
209), for example. Here again it seems to me we can see a more truly
103 It is worth recalling chat the first surviving written laws (Osborne 1996: 186 c£ 1997a: 74) refer to
the legislative action of the d;mos: however token the gesture may have been at particular points in
Greek history, it appears chat the Greek aristocracy was never strong enough to ignore completely
the perspectives of the d;mos.
' 04 We have, I hope, already said enough about G. Anderson's conception of Kleisthenes the experi-
menter in social engineering.
dialectical process at work. Just as Spartan aristocrats perhaps centuries
earlier had felt compelled to exercise some real political imagination when
faced with a threat to their political survival, so Kleisthenes and his aris-
tocratic supporters, 105 faced with the powerful alliance of rival Athenian
aristocrats with militarily intimidating Sparta, recognized that their best
hope was to change the rules of the game. Unable now to win on the
pre-Peisistratid terms of aristocratic feuding and confronted with the clear
evidence of a striking level of consciousness in the demos, they devised a
system that left property relations intact while dramatically increasing the
independence of the demos from the influence of local aristocrats and, as
Solon had done, expanding their political role in the assembly and per-
haps in the courts. Supreme executive authority still resided in the elected
archonship, 106 and it seems at least plausible that Kleisthenes' success in
winning the hearts and minds of the assembled demos gave him confidence
that he and his kind could continue to do so. One might argue that the very
long preeminence of the Alkmaionid Pericles fulfilled such hopes beyond
all expectation. 107 But there were many other consequences of Kleisthenes'
reforms that it is hard to imagine him having anticipated.
Throughout this study I have stressed the issue of control of agricultural
land, since control of the land entailed substantially control of political
power in the struggles fought out on the level of political ideology. The
promise of secure tenure of a kleros seemed to me (following Snodgrass)
a key element in the formation of the polis. So too exclusion from land-
ownership and exclusion from the polis seemed to me a key factor in the
vast expansion of trade and colonization. During the seventh century we
get mostly indirect evidence that the large landowners were increasingly
squeezing more and more surplus out of the small landowners, triggering
the recourse to tyranny and the Solonian Crisis. Solon's solution, giving
more political power to the demos as a compensation for his failure to
substantially alter property relations, was not sufficient to halt the feuding
and jockeying for power of the large landowners that culminated in the
105 Leveque and Vidal-Naquet (1996: 45) make the interesting suggestion that Kleisthenes' "most
distant model [was] the famous Rhetra of Lycurgus, which also was placed under Delphi's patronage
and introduced, alongside three Dorian tribes, the local divisions or obai that would serve as muster
roles for the army of equals."
106 C£ Thucydides 1.26.8: "At that time the nine arkhons conducted most of the public business." It is
also recorded that Alkmaion, kinsman ofKleisthenes, was archon in 507/506 (G. Anderson 2003:
9).
107 Van Wees (2001:61) argues: "Until the mid-fifth century at least, Athens was thus less democratic
than we tend to imagine ... Full participation in politics was limited to the leisure class not only
because other citi2ens could rarely afford it, but also as a matter of principle: the less wealthy were
formally banned from standing for office."
Peisistratid tyranny. I think that for all the ambiguities, there is adequate
evidence to suggest a major, highly imaginative policy on the part of the
tyrants to soften class tensions by a complex combination of cultural and
religious policies. What is rarely mentioned108 in the endless assessments of
the Kleisthenic "revolution" is the total absence of any specifically economic
issues. In that sense the precedent of Solon was a huge long-term success:
they ask for land, let them eat politics. But once given the new level
of power in the assembly, the thirst for land that ultimately culminated
in full-scale imperialism seems to have immediately asserted itself. The
first surviving decree of the empowered demos regulates clerouchs - i.e.,
Athenians taking over someone else's land - in Salamis (ML no. 14). The
immediate consequence of their defeat of the invading Chalcidians was to
invade the island of Euboea and settle 4,000 Athenians on the land of the
richest Euboeans (Hdt. 5.77.2-3). Looking at fifth-century developments
as a whole, I think it is fair to say that the decisive shift in the political
power of the demos enabled it to direct Athenian policy toward actions
that would offer poor Athenians the prospect ofland without touching the
economic base of their own ruling class. In that sense Kleisthenes' reforms
were yet another brilliant means of salvaging what mattered most to the
aristocracy at the cost of changing the rules of the game.
CONCLUSION
The invention of democracy certainly did not put an end to class struggle in
Greece: on the contrary it initiated an interpolis and-with the intrusions of
Persia - an international struggle in which the political forms of monarchy,
oligarchy, and democracy struggle over the terms and the degree to which
the minority in control of the major source of wealth, the land, would
continue to exploit and dominate the poor majority. In the Archaic Period
we have traced the process by which that minority consolidated its hold
over the land, the fundamental means of production, and juggled with
the contradiction between their addiction to often violent competition
with each other and their need for class solidarity to retain the submission
of those who created their wealth. Initially this latter portion of society
(very probably the majority) seems from the period of the collapse of
the Mycenaean economic system to have been predominantly "free" as
opposed to formally enslaved, and the real origins of democracy should
perhaps be sought in the memory of the long period - perhaps more than
three hundred years - during which the primary political interaction was
108 As noted above, D. M. Lewis (1963: 38) is a striking exception.
Conclusion
between the independent majority and the charismatic big-man/chief, who

needed constantly to demonstrate his real worth to the community and
persuade them to follow his leadership.
We traced, however tentatively, the process of consolidation oflarger and
larger warrior bands in which - to echo Marx - big-man swallows big-man,
increasingly by grants of land, which, with the gradual shift in emphasis
from pastoral grazing to sedentary agriculture, becomes increasingly the
focus of struggle. Thus the conscious jockeying for status within the warrior
ruling class came unconsciously to transform the fundamental processes
and relations of production and with them to transform the political
dynamics of the whole society. The watershed is the creation of the polis, a
process in which we can first clearly detect the emergence of true classes - of
clearly private land-ownership - and gain some insight into the dynamics
of their struggle.
The struggle, broadly speaking, takes the form of minimal trade-offs
to the demos on the economic level so as to sustain the highest priority
of minority domination of the land, ever-increasing concessions on the
political level and increasingly sophisticated efforts on the ideological plane
to sustain the self-regard of the ruling class and win the hearts and minds
of the exploited majority. The invention of the polis seems to have entailed
some sort of guarantee - "ownership" - of the allotment of subsistence-level
quantities of land to individual farmers, who in turn were interpellated
as "citizens" of a proto-state, a process analogous to the more radical
Spartan solution. While the ruling class seems to have claimed a leadership
role in the defense and perhaps the expansion of this state's territory,
increasingly the privilege of citizenship entailed the burden of soldiering.
Archaeological evidence suggests that the major ideological "horse-trading"
was focused in the unifying worship of the tutelary deity, for whom massive
stone temples and altars were constructed with a significant drain on the
social surplus, and the more ambiguous, hierarchizing worship of heroic
ancestors, who metaphorically may be felt to impart some specialness to the
whole community but at the same time reinforce the ruling class's claims
to be born of the right stuff.
Whatever the precise nature of the compromise worked out over the
division of the land, it seems to have broken down rather quickly: peasants
excluded from the compact of the polis or with insufficient land to get by,
often led by the bastard offspring of sexually exploited slave-women, left
the mainland in droves to seek land- and trade-wealth all over the Mediter-
ranean: Romans may have coined the phrase mare nostrum, but the concept
was forged by the discontented Greeks of the eighth, seventh, and sixth
centuries. Mainland aristocrats seem to have blessed and in some cases

imposed the process that ridded them of potentially disruptive "excess"
population while opening new outlets for their own hoarded surpluses of
agricultural wealth. The process of "colonization" also probably dramati-
cally increased the supply of foreign slaves and thus to some extent lessened
the level of exploitation of small landholders. At the same time the ruling
class's fostering of citizen identity especially through common religious
practice, while it may have aided their immediate agenda in displacing or
radically curtailing the power of meritocratic big-men, unleashed a new
oppositional ideological offensive from wealthier non-aristocratic farmers
like Hesiod and dissident or declasse aristocrats like Archilochus, voices
of protest against the new order which, however muted, can still be heard
already in the "heroic" epics of Homer. The focus of the protest is the
ruling class's greed, their pretensions, their destructive intra-class feuding,
and systematic violations of whatever constituted the traditional norms of
the community. A striking feature of this ideological counteroffensive is its
dialectical exploitation of the very religious emphasis that seems to have
been a key element in the ruling class's consolidation of the polis. Hesiod,
echoed by Solon, countered: if the tutelary gods are really overseeing the
welfare of the polis, then they are bound to be offended by and punish the
utterly corrupt and self-seeking ruling class.
The concrete consequences of this counteroffensive on the ideological
plane is the emergence of tyranny, which is perhaps best understood ide-
ologically as the return to the meritocratic, charismatic leadership of the
Dark Age big-man idealized as well as questioned in the poems of Homer,
but represented as immeasurably preferable to the domination of society
by the violent playboy sons of the rich. To be sure, the whole experience
of living and functioning in a more populous and inherently more com-
plex polis and dealing for years with the failed efforts of the ruling class to
win their allegiance guaranteed that this time around one-man rule would
function in radically different terms than during the Dark Age.
The tyrants' ambiguous relationship with their own aristocratic class
took the form sometimes of brutal suppression of aristocratic excesses to
sustain the support of the smallholder and landless majority and an ideo-
logical and institutional drive to create a centralized state with a monopoly
of violence and control of the juridical function. In terms of fundamental
property relations, it appears that the tyrants did little to upset the highly
unequal division of the land or the basic relations of production, though
in some cases seizure of the land of rivals may have led to some significant
level of redistribution. But the very centralization they fostered did, in
Conclusion
McGlew's terms, enhance the sense of the majority of "citizens" of their
political potential as such. In some cities this led to the institutions of
democracy, where at least in Athens the system of liturgies did entail some
substantial transfer of ruling-class wealth to the benefit of the majority but
at the price of enhancing the ability of the ruling class to claim the highest
political offices. More fundamentally, in Athens the demos's new political
power flowed towards imperialist policies that held out the prospect of
seizing the land of other poleis. At the same time the power of oligarchy in
the Greek world asserted itself both through and after the Peloponnesian
War. As Aristotle observed, a unified ruling class, even if small, is potentially
very stable, as the all too inspiring example of Sparta in the Archaic Period
attests.
In tracing this process I have emphasized a specifically Marxist con-
ception of class and class ideology. I have underlined both the explicit
repudiation of this model by some scholars, the clear misunderstanding
of its meaning by others, and the studious preference of others for the
category of status. Clearly, as one distinguished scholar of the period has
put it to me in conversation, "I don't think one needs to be a Marxist to
appreciate the role of class - and exploitation - in (Greek) history." But
I do believe that a theoretical framework that links class to the mode of
production and distinguishes conscious from unconscious forms of class
conflict has specific advantages. Moreover, to revert to my epigraph from
Arnaldo Momigliano, while all sorts of fortuitous circumstances may play
their role in particular events, I believe I have shown that conflict over
control of the most valuable means of production is a consistent force
for long-term as well as temporally conjunctural changes throughout the
period.
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Index
Alkmaionids tribal reorganization, 277 n25, 354, 357

and cooperation with tyrants, 359 n106 tyranny, 201 nI, 202 n5, 203 n7, 210 n26,
and Delphi, 337 n54, 351 n89 229 n68, 243, 244, 324 n17, 341, 346 n79
and oikos of, 313 n96 unification of Attica, 323, 323 n14
and power over two centuries, 244 moo Andrewes, A.
and preeminence of Perikles, 359 aristocracy and rise of tyranny, 204-5
and relation with Lydian king, 264 n134 Athenian kings, 322 nn
and sources of wealth, 75 n50 coinage and liquid assets (money form),
and trial after Kylon affair, 52 n104, 264 n133 214-15, 219, 222, 222 n55
exile of, 229 n69, 323 n14, 334, 355 gerousia, 278----9
see also G. Anderson; Kleisthenes of Athens and hoplites, 213, 238 n90
Althusser, L. imaginary kinship ties, 209
base and superstructure, 19 Kleisthenes, 352 n91, 354 n94
conjunctural moments, 351 Kylon, 329
and Derrida, 32-3, 33 n 59 land ownership, 206
dismissed by de Ste. Croix, 43 n82 luxury goods, 193
and Foucault, 29 perioikoi, 309
ideology: settling oflonia, 321 mo
has no history, 107 Spartan assembly, 278
ideological apparatuses, 44-6, 237-8, 249, Spartan "imperialism," 351 n89
262,286 tyranny and democracy, 229 n68
as set of practices, 348 Tyrtaeus, 273
interpellation, 46, 249, 349 n85 Antonaccio, C.
last instance, 23 hero shrines, 48 n93
McGlew's invocation of, 227 hero worship and legitimation, 74 n46,
overdetermination, 18, 29 86 n68, 139
Anderson, G. hybridity in Sicilian evidence, 138 n13
Alkmaionidai, 244 moo Lefkandi, 65 n20, 135
bou/2, 352 n91, 358 term basileus, 109 n47
collective Athenian identity, 329 tomb cult and legitimation, 84-5
Herodotus, 1.59, 235 n82 tomb cult vs. hero cult, 84
historiographic assumptions, 351, 353 Atchilochus
Kleisthenes, 323, 329 n35, 347, 348, 351, colonization, 135, 135 n4, 136, 137, 140
352 n91, 357 complexities of eros, 254, 254 n121
middling ideology, 206 n15 dithyramb, 252 nn5
military of Athens, 335, 354 iambic meter, 252
Peisistratos, 331 n39, 341 n64, 344, 344 n72 mercenaries, 238 n90
Pritchard's review of, 324 n18 relation to Homer, 217 n43
Solon, 330 n37, 331 n40, 339 n6o, 339 n61, representing middling ideology or
340 anti-aristocratic, 209, 217, 227, 362
Theseus, 249 n106 tyranny, 217
4n
412 Index
aristocracy, passim and Athens, Chapter 7 Herodotus', 269
passim Hesiod's, 169, 169 n7, 195
as audience for oral poetry, 105 Hesiod's address to different class elements in,
and colonization, 134--50 passim 184
in Dark Age, 62-4 Hesiod's alternatives to blaming everything
emergence in late ninth, early eighth century, bad on women, 186
64 n16, 73 Hesiod's not aware of foreign sources, 172 n15
and habrosyne, 104 Hesiod's sense of his, 184, 198
and Hesiod's audience, 198 heterogeneity of for Homer, 106 n37, 144,
kinship with divinity, 127 and n8o 160 n54, 164, 169
Le&andi, 65 homogenized presupposed by Havelock's
and literacy, 97-8 "social encyclopedia," 194
and middling ideology, 2, 20 importance for of formal unsaying of wrath,
military aspect, 76 124 n76
role in creation of polis, 79-88 in Phaeacea as implied audience, 164 n6o
and Sparta, Chapter 6 passim intelligibility of Near Eastern elements for
terminology, 52-4, 73 n46 Greek, 95
and tyranny, Chapter 5 passim linked by shield to Trojan past, 130 n34
Arthur, M. See Katz narrative's centrality for Homeric, 107
Ath Pol pan-Hellenic, 169, 186, 193
arguments pro and con for Aristotelian M. Parry's conception of, 113
authorship of, 203 n8 passivity of posited by Havelock, 97
authenticity oflaws attributed to Solon, for Peisistratid musical and dramatic contests,
204 n9, 337 n56 348----9
bloodline descendants of original Alkmaionid poet's elemental economic interests in,
"criminal," 355 n95 114
Eupatridai, 327 potential confusion of at opening lines of
history of word pelatai, 205 n11 Odyssey, 147
Kleisthenes' reorganization of tribes, problem of potential response to slaying of
354 n94 the suitors, 159-60
length of Peisistratid rule, 341 n64 profusion oflyric forms and putative of,
noble birth criterion for judges of 251
Alkmaionidai, 52 n104 relation to Thersites' episode, 119 n65
restrictions on right of prosecution for ho relevance to a contemporary,
boulomenos, 339 107
Ste. Croix's analysis of tele, 338 n58 response of ruling class component of Odyssey
Solonian probouletic council, 339 n6o to Eumaios, 145
status in sixth century of farmers and social, economic, and political tensions
craftsmen, 327 within, 107
timing of Kleisthenes' reforms, 352 n91 Solon's sense of, 222, 330
audience(s) for symposium, 169
all wooden plow for Hesiod's, 24 n42 of Tyrtaeus, 79, 271, 288, 290
aristocratic for Homer, 2, 48 n94, 100, 113, understanding of divine interventions
113n54 118n63
aristocratic for intimate lyric, 254
for choral poetry, 169-70, 254 basileus. See Antonaicchio; Cartledge; Donlan;
construction of implied for Homer, 154 n46 Havelock; McClew; Qviller; Rihll;
continuing orality of post-Homeric, 252 Snodgrass; Starr; van Wees
elements in who had experienced social Bintliff, J.
mobility, 164 "big-man" society and aristocracy, 61 mo
for epic, 104-6 conversion of wealth into cattle, 64 n18
fantasies of target, 49 n96 role of intermarriage of chiefs, 71
for films with odious villains, 160 n54 size of Athenian ruling class, 211 n27
and focalization, 169 social structures, 56
for geometric pottery, 87 Solonian crisis, 212
Index
Blok,J. H. Solon, 205
and oral theory, 344 n72 Sparta, 291 n 58, 310--12
Peisistratos, 49 n97, 204 n9, 226 n64, 230, tyranny, 203 n7, 208 n19, 21 n29, 219 n49,
236 n83, 247 n105, 331 n39, 342 n65, 220, 230, 312, 234 n8o, 236
344 chronology
tyranny, 226 n64 "Archaic" and periodization, 49-52
Boardman, J. Athenian cemeteries, 63 n14
heroon ofLefkandi, 65 n19 Hesiod, 166--70
Peisistratids and Herakles, 249, 249 n106 Homer, 78 n56
Spartan mythic origins, 290 n54 Lefkandi, 65 n19
Theseus, 249 n106 tyranny, 138 n14, 141 n18, 203, 249 n106,
Boersma,}. 341 n64, 344 n72
aristocrats and building program, 345 n74, see also J anko
346 class
Peisistratid building program, 220 n51, after Mycenaean collapse, 60--7
236 n85, 247 n105, 344 n71, 345 Classicists and, 1-4
tyranny and wealth, 219 feminist critiques of, 12-13
Bourdieu, P. Finley and the dismissal of, 4-12
age and gender hierarchies, 88 n71 explanatory power of, 35-6, 41-2
educational systems, 286 n48 ideology and, 2, 42-7
family honor, 190 Marxism and, 36-7
gift economy, 70 n34 open vs. hidden struggle of, 39-41
legitimation in stateless societies, 45-6, 238, Spartan system of, 274-6
238 n88 terminology of, 52-5
relation to Marxism, 46 n88 women and, 198---200
Burkert, W. Clay,J.
Achilles' pity, 120 n68 conversation with Vernant, 187 n50
animal sacrifice, 64 n18, 67 n24 differences between Homer and Hesiod,
Athena's association with Hermes, 155 171 n14
base and superstructure, 21 Hesiod:
dating Iliad, 68 n28, 78 n56, 105 on fire, 183 n37
egalitarian Greek sacrifice, 81, 83 hawk and nightingale, 187,187 n53
external cultural influences, 94-5 Hecate as embodiment of ambiguity of
functions of cosmogonies, 170 mo, 172, gods, 175
177 human beings descended from Titans,
Greek trade, 84 n66 179 n30
Near Eastern influence, 103, 172 n15 Perses as a moving target, 184
Phoenician trade and Greek alphabet, 95, poet addressing "us," 184 n42
96n10 succession story, 174 n19
Th should end with birth of the Muses,
Cartledge, P. 177 n23
basileus, 109 n46, 132 n89, 328 n30 two jars in Iliad 24 and vision of marriage,
festivals in Athens, 334, 335 n49 178 n27
Greek ideologies of gender, 12 n24 Zeus in as father and king, 172
Helots, 40 n75 Zeus's laugh, 183 n38
Herodotus, 202 n4 Odyssey.
hoplites, 77-8 double theodicy, 148, 149
Marxist historiography, 1 n2 epithet polytropos, 157 n52
modernizers, 134, 152 n43 Herakles as foil, 150 n39
de Ste. Croix's teaching, 306 traditional adventures, 151 n42
slavery, 8, 39-40, 39 n72 wrath of Athena, 148 n34
Sparta, 1 n2, chapter six passim colonization, 134-42 and passim in Chapter 3
"state" in Archaic Period, 44 n85 alleged dominant class role in, 1
Cawkwell, G. explained by "confusion," 35
Hoplites, 77 n54, 213 n33 protocolonization, 143 n23
Index
colonization (cont.) origin in meritocratic phase of Dark Age,
relation to formation of polis, 38, 73 n45, 359 62
relation to slavery, 102 n27, 141 n19 as result of a military crisis, 208, 267
tyrants' policy, 231, 244-8, 266 role in Herodotus' conceptions, 206
see also trade and Sparta, 76, 316
Connor, W. R. Spartan "inoculation" against, 277-8
Athenian civic identity, 251 n112, 329 n35 survival of in fourth century, 268 n2
backwardness of early Attica, 321 mo, 350 n86 and taxation, 236 n84
Bakhtinian focus on carnivalesque, 333 n45 and term "peasant," 53
city sponsorship of Great Dionysia, 344 n72 dbnos, Chapter 7 passim
Daidalidai, 327 n28 Donlan's definition, 54, 79, 319
early Attic towns, 329 n34 land-hunger of in Kleisthenic reforms, 354
fragility of reading of Marmor Parium, in Spartan rhetra, 277 n26
348 n83 tyrants' relation to, 212 n29
fusion of political and religious elements, 333, Donlan, W.
347 anti-aristocratic thought, 207, 227
"mentality" vs. "political consciousness," charismatic authority, 70
334-5 class warfare vs. class conflict, 42 n8o, 205
model of two-way communication, 333 Dark Age big-man, 61, 61 mo, 64-5
Peisistratos, 219 n50, 331 defining basileus, 109 n46, 119
return of"drama," 331 n39 depredations of Dark Age strongmen, 139
Theseus, 249 n106, n107 exclusion from burial, 63 n14
extracting "real" society from Homeric texts,
Davies,]. K 108 n43
chronology of Peisistratos' exiles, 341 n64 Homeric temenos, 72 n39, 109
continuity in ruling families, 244 Homeric warfare, 76
differential developments in Greece, 68 informal vs. structural power, 234, 234 n78
early influx to Athens from western Greece, lack of rich graves during Dark Age, 69 n31
328 n32 Polanyi, 28
Lelantine War, 65 n21 polis form, 68, 119 n67
on liturgical class in Athens, 211 n27, 212 n30, population decline in Dark Age, 56 n6
245 nIOI, 355 rejection of "purely literary" analysis, 124, 132
on sources of big fortunes in Athens, response to Drews, 132 n89
74-5 n50 shift in meaning of demos, 79, 79 n6o, 219,
on term "polis" and accounts of its rise, 35 319
democracy, Chapter 7 passim Sparta and aristocratic ideal, 313, 313 n97
dialectical view of its emergence, 262 Tyrtaeus, 77 n 52
and eagerness of scholars to see emerging, Tyranny, 205
207, 229-30, 230 n70 warning of Klassenkampf, 3 n4
and egalitarian worship, 81 Dougherty, C.
and epikMros, 285 n43 alternative class-based identity of Odysseus,
Hegelian conception of emergence of, 154
208 ambiguity of cultures within Greek culture,
isonomia in Herodotus, 89 98 n15
and land ownership, 211 links of Odyssey with developments in second
and major Athenian aristocratic clans, half of eighth century, 143 n23
244 mystification of settlement accounts, 138
middling ideology and, 27 n51, 207-8 Phoenicians, 104, 142 n19
non-Athenian versions of, 267 nI quasi-mythical material about bastard sons,
and periodization, 51 moo 140
posited for late eighth century, 89 relation to McClew's study of tyranny, 138 n14
reforms of Ephialtes, 319 n4 trade, profit, and settlement in Odyssey and its
reforms of Kleisthenes, 354-60 protagonist, 143
and slavery, 101 n25 use of force by Greek settlers upon arrival,
and tyranny, 229 n68 138 n13
Index
Drakon's code for Sparta, 268--72
centrality of birth in, 52 n104, 264 n133, see also pottery; Snodgrass
356 n99
ruling class strife behind, 233 n77 feminist approaches
see also Gagarin Cartledge vs. Pomeroy, 294, 294 n64
duBois, P. critiques of class, 12-13
classicists' silencing of slavery, 39 n70, gender ideology in the Odyssey, 143
54 n107, 195 n66 Mitchell on twenty years of, 199 n73
gender and class, 12 n23 Rubin's critique of Levi-Strauss, 71 n38
Sappho, 254 n122 scholarship devoted to Hesiod, 200 n75
unconscious, 107 n42 see also women
Figueira, T.
Edwards, A. T. Theognis:
Bakhtin's dismissal of Aristophanes, 333 n47 absence of historical data in, 218 n46
Hesiod: generalizing mode of discourse in, 222 n56
assessment of, 102 n28 parallels of Solon and, 204 n9
basis for debt-bondage, 193 problems of dating corpus, 216 n41
"constructed" persona in, 192 Messenia:
critique of reading back from Solonian estimate of agricultural land in, 282 n38
crisis, 191-2 hypothetical quiescence in sixth century,
esthlos, etc. moral not class terms, 187 n51, 311 n95
188 n56 sense of identity as by-product of Spartan
mode of agricultural production in, invasions, 301 n8o
193 Sparta:
objections to term "peasant," 169 n6 data for Spartan kleros, 284 n41
plural basileis in Hesiod, 171 n11 dating Spartan declaration of war on
slavery in, 194 n64, 194 n65, 196 helots, 303 n84
society as pre-polis in, 189, 192 debate with Hodkinson over economy of,
village life-style in, 192 283-4
Odyssey. fixed quantity of rent from helots, 300 n78
degree to which a "closed" text, 143 scale of agricultural dependence on helots,
downward mobility vs. ideology of 301
inherited superiority, 163 social integration in, 286, 299
focus on class in, 143 Finley, M. I., Chapter I passim
more developed critique of city in, 160 Athenian democracy, 268, 319 n6
slaves' clothing in, 160 Dark Age, 60
strictly aristocratic agenda in, 163 n59 Homeric society, 108----9
values of the polis vs. countryside in, 146, slavery, 101 n25, 265, 377
158n53 Sparta, 278, 280-1
Else, G. Fisher, N.
chorus, 349 hybris:
fit between early tragedy and tyranny, 348 n83 in Hesiod, 186 n49, 188 n56, 200, 200 n76
function of tragic form, 250 in Sparta, 298, 304, 315
one-actor tragic form, 348 of Agamemnon, 117 n61
Thespis' plot choices, 349 of Penelope's suitors, 159
three essential features of tragedy, 348----9 Forrest, G.
use of universalizing "us," 349 n85 Archaic society as a set of pyramids, 356 n97
eunomia dismissal of classes, 355
composition ofTyrtaeus' poem, 282 embrace of"confusion" in accounting for
interpretations of, 274, 274 n15 colonization, 29, 35, 134
in Solon, 231 Epitadeus, 285 n44
as title ofTyrtaeus' poem, 273 hectemorage in Dark Age, 73 n45
evidence/sources plea for general explanation of tyranny,
archaeology, ideology and, 47-8 231 n71
primary textual, 48-9 Solonian Crisis, 239
Index
Foucault, M. conflict resolution of the shield of Achilles,
"archaeology" as description vs. explanation, 191 n61
29-31, 30 n56, 31 n57 dismissal of class conflict, 233 n76
endorsed by Robin Osborne, 29 n54 Drakon's law, 233 n77
history as the deployment of a space of a early law and feuding members of ruling class,
dispersion, 31 232-3, 232 n74
Nietzschean "genealogy," 30 emergence of written laws at roughly the same
relation to Freud, Marx, structuralism, time as tyranny, 232
Communist Party, 29 n53 limitations on Solonian law allowing ho
Stedman Jones' tirade against, 26 n48, 30 n55 boulomenos to prosecute, 339
Weberian shift from labor to issue of power, provisions unlikely to have been voted in by
6, 29 n54 ruling class, 233
Foxhall, L. rapid diffusion of alphabetic writing, 97 n12
Attica: Solonian laws related to agriculture as "torts,"
challenged on wealth division in, 74 n50 338 n57
control ofland in Attica, 2n, 212 tyrants as antithesis of government of laws,
cultivated area of, 7 4 231 n72
land-holding group and ruling group, 240 view of dik2 in Solon disputed by J. D. Lewis,
no evidence of early large-scale olive oil 232 n74
production, 326 whole community involved in creation of
no shortage of land in, 224 n61 early laws, 233
parallel figures to oligarchic coup of on Works and Days, 181 n34
404 B.C., 212 n30 Gentili, B.
relative wealth of hoplites, 213, 241, 265 Atchilochus' account of seduction of
Solon's property classes and Solon's laws, Neobule's sister, 254 n122
239, 241 n95, 258, 265 class analysis of Simonides, 258
class in scare quotes, 3 Cole's tribute, 258 n129
competition within ruling elite vs. solidarity comparison of Solon and Theognis, 222 n56
against demos, 262 contrast of Simonides and Pindar, 257, 262
consumer-focused analysis of trade, 141 debate over nature of Sappho's erotic
free labor, 102 n27 relations, 254 n122
Nichoria, 66 Demodokos in Odyssey, 253
Frankfurt School difficulty of poet-patron relationship, 260
focus on irrational, 43-4 echo of Gramsci and epigraph from Marcuse,
Marcuse citation by Gentili, 258 n128 258 n128
relation to F. Jameson, 35, 43 effect of Peisistratid recitations of Homer,
Frost, F. 250
Hesiodic Catalogue ofWomen, 221 n53 epic tone in war fragments of Atchilochus,
intuitive respect accorded an aristocracy of 136
birth, 324 n17 evidence for poetic contests at Delphi, Sparta,
limits of a purely philological approach, and Delos, 98 n17
319 n5 Ibycus' tribute to Polykrates, 255
link of Marx with Aristotle's Politics, 318 n3, influence on I. Morris and Kurke, 258
329 n35 lyric poetry as mid-ground between tradition
Megakles and Peisistratos, 331 n39 and innovation, 252
military concerns behind Kleisthenes' may exaggerate death of old aristocracy, 258
reforms, 335, 354 parallel to Xenophanes in Simonides,
nature of oral evidence, 320 262 n130
need to conciliate the demos, 334 relation of Simonides' poetry to cultural goals
Peisistratid period, 341 n63, 343, 343 n69, 347 of tyrants, 262
sixth century changes in Athenian Simonides and performance context, 259
consciousness, 324 n17 Solon's values, 225
symposium and lyric poetry composed for
Gagarin, M. specific audiences, 169-70
class impact of written laws, 263 Xenophanes' relation to tyrants, 257 n126
Index
Giddens,A. praise of Finlei;; 4 ,,
definition of dialectic, 22 preference for status, 4 n7
emphasis on knowledgeable agents, 25 ruling element's role in temple building,
Marx as not a determinist, 17 n33 85 n69
third way, 34 scare quotes around "class," 3
Weberian focus on power, 6 skeptical on exclusion of non-Hellenes from
Weber's reaction against Engels' scientism, 5 games, 104 n35
Weber's rejection of theories of history, 5 skepticism re Lelantine war, 35, 65 n21,
Gramsci,A. 272n11
echoed by Gentili, 258 n128 Spartan royal family as alone descended from
hegemony and domination, 44 Heracles, 290
ignored by Ste. Croix, 43 "state" in Archaic period, 44 n85
influence on Alchusser, 45, 237 support of dbnos in decisions not the same as
organic intellectual, 146 n28 "egalitarian," 75--6
Griffin, J. teleological view of development of
Homer: democracy, 230 n70
Achilles' heroic aggression and serving term "peasant," 169 n6
community, 121 n69 type of farming in Hesiod, 193 n63
alternative to Nagy's etymology of name tyrant as "return of the big-man," 243
Achilles, 133 n90 Hansen, M. H.
connection to Greek tragedy, 115 collection of Solon's laws, 337 n56
fragments of ocher early epics, 95 n6, 112 isonomia reflecting ideology of Herodotus,
Iliad 4 exchange of Zeus and Hera, 127 319 n5
reviewed by Lynn-George, 120 n69 relative roles of Solon, Kleischenes, and
Ephialces, 318 n3
Hall,J. Spart:n perioikoi, ,?08
chronological terminus of Archaic period, term democracy, 318 n4
5on99 Hanson, V.
chronology of Peisistratids, 249 n106 changes in battle tactics preceding changes in
class chauvinism in Tyrtaeus, 287-8 equipment, 78 n57
critique of "middling ideology," 63 n14, Hesiod's mode of farming, 193
209 n23, 286 n49 Laertes' farm, 163 n59
dating of Greek "renaissance," 74 n47 term "peasant," 169 n6
destruction of Nichoria, 67 n25 Harris, E.
Dorians absolved of destroying Mycenaean Homer and Hesiod:
civilization, 58 n99 case for developed slavery in Homer,
economic aspects of period, 24 n40 IOI n25
focus on material evidence, 48 n94 gifts expected by chiefs in Homer and
great games as sixth-century phenomenon, Hesiod, 70 n33
98n16 Solon:
hawk and nightingale in Hesiod, 187 n53 aristocrats extracting "gifts," 235
Hellenic identity as "porous" at edges, 98 n15, economic factors in stasis, 224
208 n20 ending debt-slavery, not debt-bondage,
historiographic position, 27 n50, 35, 49 n97 265, 336, 337
hoplites, 76-7, 100 n21, 162 n58, 282 reference to horoi as metaphorical, 223 n6o
horoi in Solonian crisis, 223 n6o survival of Solonian laws, 337 n56
Marxism's avoidance of external factors, 50, use of Foxhall's survey of Attic farmland,
94 224n61
merchant class, 134 nI Haubold,}.
name Kroisos on Anavyssos kouros, 264 n133 Homer:
Nichoria as typical, 66 n22 destruction oflchacans condemned by
number of known tyrants, 208 n19 Eupeiches, 160 n54
ostracism, 357 moo masses in Homer doomed to destruction,
perioikoi, 308 133
Pheidon, 206 n13 muted voice of masses, 133
Index
Haubold, J. (cont.) influence of Ste. Croix's teaching, 306
Odyssey use of base and superstructure, 20
giving voice to destructiveness of Sparta:
protagonist, 165 adoption of simpler dress, 297
Havelock, E. Alkaios' citation of a Spartan source,
critical competition of early thinkers with oral 246 n40
tradition, 98 n14 bribery of ephors and gerousia, 279
dike in Hesiod, 188, 228 n67 chariot victories, 283 n39, 297 n72,
dike in Solon, 232 n74 298 n74, 315
growing gap in worldviews of literate vs. competitive sports, 298
illiterate Greek, 220 creation of Peloponnesian League, 312
Hesiod's potential literacy, 168 n3 decree of Epitadeus, 285 n44
Homer as "tribal encyclopedia," 113 n54, 194 destruction of Messenian social structure,
implications of literacy for Greek thought 307 n93
(but not for class), 97 disparities in Spartan wealth, 283
influence on Russo, 113-14 early symposion and messes of homoioi,
passivity of oral audience, 97, 97 n11 315
persistence of orality in post-Homeric fixed portion of helot produce, 284,
audiences, 252 300 n78
praise of individual basileus in Hesiodic hymn four essential strands of response to crisis,
to Muses, 181, 181 n 33 276
Herington, J. Great Rhetta and kingship, 279 n31
five hundred choristers required by end of king Pausanias' pamphlet, 275 n18
sixth century, 348 laws of inheritance, 285
Greece a "song culture," 252 parceling of Messenian land, 282
shift in sixth century Athens to diverse partheniai, 283
musical and poetic talent, 347 perioikoi as "Lacedaimonians," 308
sixth-century rulers not neglecting temples perioikoi policing Messenians, 310
and festivals, 347 relations of production with helots, 300,
tragic contests within a year or two of 302 n81
534 B.C., 348 self-destruction of ruling class, 284
Herodotus, passim sexual exploitation of helot women,
historiography: 305
agenda in treating tyrants, 202-3, 202 n5, social and ritual system, 280, 286
226 strong family bonds, 297
agenda in treatment of Sparta, 269 unequal division ofLaconian land, 282
among key ancient testimonia for the wife-swapping, 295
period, 47-8, 49 Homer
as Athenophile, 320 basilees, 61 mo, 64 n17. See also basileus
Kurke's reliance on, 206 "big-man" idealized in, 362
overall agenda, 202 n4 chronology of texts, 74 n74
Hesiod, Chapter 4 passim class terminology, 52, 54, 92 n76
ages of man myth in, 186----94 conflicts within ruling class, 36 n63
ambiguity in WD, 181-5 critique ofXenophanes, 220, 257 n126
chronology, text, and authorship, 166-70 demos in, 79 n6o
cosmology in, 170-2 divergences from Hesiodic versions, 172
dark side of succession, 177-80 egalitarian sacrifice in, 81, 81 n62
female side of succession, 174-6 emphasis on plunder, 69
"kingship" in, 180-1 Erechtheus in, 324
on sailing and trade, 196-8 evidence for communal feasting, 64 n18,
slavery in, 194-6 67 n24
succession story, 172-4 as evidence for eighth or seventh century, 48,
utopian side of succession, 176-7 48 n92, 68, 68 n27andn28
Hodkinson, S. evidence for extortion of "gifts," 70 n33
apparent dismissal of Marx, 20 forms of exploitation in, 92
Index
formulae from in Hesiod, 167 perioikoi as, 309---10
homogenization of audience, 194 political role of, 77
Iliad, Chapter 2 passim relation of helots to culture of, 306 n90
immortal kleos in, 288 relation to increased value ofland, 77 n55
"kings" derivation from Zeus, 70 n32 relation to tyranny, 213, 213 n32, 213 n33,
Kleisthenes of Sikyon's banning recitations of, 238 n90, 239 n90, 280
25onno relative absence of in sixth-century Attica, 335
lyric forms referred to in, 251 "revolution," 76, 78, 100 n21
Mafia analogy applied to, 230 self-designation as zeugitai, 241 n94
meaning of kh,;mata in, 214 Tyrtaeus, Chapter 7 passim
military roles, 76, 77 n54, 78, 78, 182 educational role of for army, 292
"mind" in, 171 n12 focus on all potential hoplites, 272
modest life-style of "kings," 69 n31, 195 n68 tactics in, 281
mona~~hic princir,le in, 279 Hurwit,J.
name Homeros, 168 n4 Corinthian origins of earliest temples, 246
Odyssey, Chapter 3 passim emergence of representational art, 90, 90 n73,
persuasive speech in, 353 91
polis in, 189 n57 first known inscriptions, 96
rare genealogies of heroes, 7 4 n46 hectemorage in Dark Age, 73 n45
regular recitations of under Pesistratids, 250, Nestor's cup from Pithecussae, 138 n13
348---50 pastoralism, 69 n29
relation to hero cult, 84 symbolism of geometric motifs, 87 n70
relation to Mycenaean religion, 81
seductiveness of women's clothing in, 185 n43 ideology
sixth-century ideology, 166 apparatuses of, 237-8
slavery in, 194 apparatuses of Spartan state, 286
"status," 4 apparatuses of tyrants, 249-51
stress-free sexuality of ruling class, 176 archaeology, sources, and, 47-8
taking in wanderers, 71 n35 class and, 42-7
temenos and gifts ofland, 72 of gender, 144
uniqueness of and Hesiod, 171 of the Odyssey, 142-4
voice of aristocracy, 2, 48 n94 reading for, 106-7
wars over women and catcle, not land, 272 ruling class vs. middling, 206-n
wives as adornments, 185 weapons of, 79-80
Zeus as "father" not basileus, 172 see also Althusser
hoplites Irwin, E.
anticipations in Homer, 76 aristocracy and mythic descent from divinity,
appeal for non-Spartan aristocrats of full-time 127 n8o, 220,221 n53
army of, 312 contradictory attitude of aristocrats toward
Aristocle's critique of Spartan financing of, tyrants, 217 n44
285 critique of!. Morris, 208 n17
Bacchiads' adoption of, 213 n32 Pittacus as elected tyrant, 218 n45
better suited to defense, 79 n58 Solon:
as a class, 41, 41 n77, 53, 76, 213, 280, 281 authenticity of major political fragments,
deaths of in Peloponnesian War, 338 204n9
economic independence of Spartan 282-3 continuity with Zeus's opening speech in
equipment: Odyssey, 221 n 54
expense of, 280 originality of use of koros in, 222 n55
nature, 162 n58 overview of some recent work on, 201 n2,
source of in Sparta, 281 n35 213 n31
image of Spartan as unbeatable, 314 parallel passages in Theognis and in,
nature of phalanx, 77 n54 204 n9, 222 n55, 222 n56
Odysseus' beggar's claim of capacity as, recitation of Salamis poem in agora, 253
162 relation of to Hesiod, 223 n58
part of Solonian demos, 241 texts of as "transgressive," 225 n63
420 Index
Irwin, E. (cont.) utopian image of women's near-equality,
translation of diplasion speudousi, 223 n 57 144
views of rooted in specifically Athenian Kirk, G. S.
context, 223 Hesiod:
account of Kronos' overthrow, 176
Jameson, F. excisions from text of Theogony, 167,
"actually existing Marxism," 34 n61 167 nI, 167 n2
base and superstructure, 19 n 36 "nature vs. culture" model, 150
defense of Hegel's dialectic, 23 n39 as purely oral texts, 166
demarxification of France, 32, 146 n28 violence of Zeus, 176 n22
double hermeneutic, 143 Homer:
dual nature of ideology, 47, 304 generic scenes of mass fighting, 77
Frankfurt School, 35, 43 obstacles to early written text of Homer,
historicizing, 31 n57 96n10
periodi2ation, 50 n98 Thersites' status, 119 n65
post-modern, 35 Kleisthenes of Athens
Lyotard, 32 archon in 525/4 B.c., 344 n69, 346
psychic horse-trading, 170 n8, 304, 304 n87 exile of, 334
relation of Derrida to Marx, 32 n58 reforms of:
term ideologeme, 139 n16, 164 author of Theseus myth and unified Attica,
"war on totality," 10 n19, 26 n48 323
Weber: chronology of, 352 n91
emphasis on power vs. labor, 6, 29 n54 defining "shareholders'' in civic
view of history, 5 "corporation," 251 n111
see also Introduction endpoint of Archaic Period, 50 n99,
Jacoby, F. 320 n7, 351
Archilochus' dates, 217 fostering citizen solidarity, 264-5
Odyssey. military goals, 343 n69
class-based identity attributed to Odysseus, Raubischek's dating, 319-20 n7
154 role of demos, 352-3
Odysseus' interest in property as unarisch, sole unifier of Attic consciousness, 329 n35
156 n49 see also G. Anderson; M. H. Hanson and
Peisistratos' dates, 341 n64 D. M. Lewis; P. J. Rhodes
Solon's institution of celebration of ancestors, Kleisthenes of Sikyon
340 banning recitations of Homer, 250
Janko, R. betrothal of daughter, 203
criteria for establishing dates for Homer and ideological apparatuses, 249
Hesiod, 78 n56, 170 reorgani2ation of tribes, 203, 277
defense of Hesiod's name, 168 n4 Knox, B.
dictation and "errors," 106 n38 Athenian poetry before 500 B.c., 347
resulcing dates for Homer and Hesiod, 94, duals in Iliad nine, 96 mo
170 range of meanings of dike, 188 n 54
text of the Iliad, 93-4 n2 range of meanings of sophrosyn2, 218 n47
review of Redfield, 115 n 58
Katz (Arthur), M. Solon's self-presentation in iambic verse, 349
critique of Pomeroy, 12 n23 Kurke, L.
class and ge~der, 1; n2~ ,, . ambiguity of cultures within Greek culture,
debate over open or closed Homeric texts, 98 n15
105 n36, 143 Anacharsis as a Greek fiction, 238 n89
"ideology" of textual strategies, 142 n20 Archilochus' mother's name, 135 n5
Odyssey. aristocratic response to tyranny, 210
paradigm of house of Atreus, 151, coinage, 206, 215
157 democratic trend in sumptuary laws, 207
roles of women in, 153 n45 dichotomy of symposion and public singing,
suitors in, 159 253n118
Index 421
dismissal of evidence of Herakleitos, 210 n25 differences from Antonaccio's view of hero,
"economic determinists," 3 65 n20
embrace of"Nagyism," 252 nr17 disputes over dates, 51, 65 nr9
habrosyn;, 104, 185 n46, 208 n20, 249, 295, "Dorian invasion," 58 n3
314,321 nro "hero ofLefkandi," 64-7, 67 n26
Herodotus' hostility to any form of one-man historicity of Homer, 68 n27
rule, 202 n5 Mycenaean centers outside Athens, 321 n9
hypostasis of "the city," 2 n2 number of sherds in one Lefkandi building,
influence of Gentili on, 258 91
lyric forms attested to in Homer, 251 pastoralism thesis, 69 n29, 72 n40
middling ideology, 2 n2, 206-7, 206 nr5 quality of eleventh and tench centuries, 62
Morris's critique of, 2 n2, 206 nr4 rejection of term "Dark Age," 56
overview of lyric, 252 and nr14 signs of hierarchy, 321
Pindar, 100 n20, 253, 314 n97, 348 n84 stable and unstable settlements, 60 n9
pre-tyranny poets and poets under tyrants, Uvi-Strauss, C.
254 nI21 how consciousness lies to itself, 47 n91, 49, 83,
public singing ofTyrtaeus, 253 326 n26
reliance on Herodotus, 206, 226 literacy and "kingship," 70
Seaford's review of, 24 n40 Marx's and Engels' understanding of
Kylon anthropology, 28, 29 n52
expulsion by Athenian demos, 329 nature vs. culture, 150
tie to Megara, 332 parallel to Donlan's analysis of Homeric
see also Alkmaionids "kingship," 70
subsequent retellings of myths, 187 n52
Latacz, J. theory of myth as response to real
aristocrats as leaders of coloni2ation and contradiction, 179, 186
trade, 2, 134 Lewis,D.M.
Homer: demes in Kleischenic reforms, 358
aristocratic ideological offensive, 93, land-hunger implicit in Kleischenic reforms,
n4 n55 354, 36onro8
aristocrats as fostering oral epic genre, 103 Spartan assembly and impact of discipline,
"basic optimism" in Iliad, n4 n57 278,280
battle scenes, 76 Lewis,J.
raw form of Troy story omitting Hektor, Solon:
n6n6o account of, 201 n2
"reflection" in, 48 n92 attribution of "cosmic" (not "cosmetic")
solely aristocratic audience for, 105 view of polis to, 222 n54
survival of Mycenaean class system, 1, 56 connecting with Xenophanes, 221 n54
law disagreement with Havelock's and
Anacharsis on, 238 Gagarin's view of dike, 232 n74
d;mos in early, 263 n31, 358 nro3 ethical reading of agathoi and kakoi in,
Drakon, 233 n77, 356 n99 225 n62
Pericles' citirenship, 13 psychological and epistemological analysis
Solon's: of period, 222 n55
authenticity of, 204 n9, 337 n56 universalizing use of "each one of us,"
as evidence of aristocratic abuse, 338 n57 223 n59
interpretation of, 239, 241 n95, 258, 265 literacy
sumptuary, 207 craft in Mycenae, 56
relation to tyranny, 231, 232, 264 factor in emergence of philosophy, 98 nr4
written, 263 Hesiod's relation to, 168 n3
see also Foxhall; Gagarin; Harris; Rhodes; Levi-Strauss, 70
Rihll lyric forms, 251
Lemos, I. Near East connection, 94-8
burial competition in mid-ninth century, requires rethinking aspects of period, 49
322 virtual lack of in Sparta, 314, 314 n99, 316
422 Index
Loraux, N. "text" as responsible in Derridean reading
Athenian myth of autochthony, 324, 325 n21, of, 93
325 n22 lyric poetry
connection of autochthony myth to access of Aristotle and Ath Pol author to rich
immigration, 326 n25 array of, 204
different view of sexual relations in Homer, audience of, 169-70
185 n45 as crucial evidence, 48--9
evidence of vases for early Athenian myths, designation "lyric age," 50, 340
325 middle ground between innovation and
examples from fifth century, 325 tradition, 252
indifference at times to chronology, 326 monody and containment of aristocracy,
myth of Athena's "parenting" of Erichthonios, 253-62
324 range of term, 201
nature of ideology, 326 n26 vocabulary of inherited excellence in, 92 n76
relation of class to gender, 12 n23 see also Archilochus; Kurke; Gentili; Solon;
Semonides' poem as a reading of Hesiod, Theognis; Tyrtaeus
185 n44, 326
use ofLacan's term "imaginary," 326, 326 n26 Malkin, I.
women as a different and suspicious species, dating of Odysseus' adventures, 143 n23
174 distinction between apoikia and emporion,
Luraghi, N. 138 nI2
authenticity ofTyrtaeus fragments, 271 n8 Greek accommodation with indigenous
first conquest of Messenia as not an all-out elements at Pithecussai, 138 nr3
war, 273 nr2 link of poverty, "colonization," and formation
influence of Patterson's account of "fuzzy of polis, 140
boundaries'' of slavery, 299 n76 status of founders, 141 nr8
Messenian identity as a by-product of Spartan Manville, P. B.
invasion, 301 n8o celebration of citizen identity fostered by
mythic background of Spartan identity, tyrants, 264
291 n56 evolutionary model, 262
participation of perioikoi in rebellion of misdating of introduction of coinage, 242 n97
464 B.C., 3IO olive and vine production, 242 n97
Pausanias as source for conquest of Messenia, polis as "public all-embracing corporation,"
271 n6 251nrn
rejection of economic interpretation of population pressure as explanation of
Tyrtaeus on helots, 284 n40, 299 n76 colonization, 242 n97
rejection of link of Spartan institutions and praise of Kleisthenes, 358
fear of helot revolt, 305 range of human groupings except class,
rejection ofliteral view ofTyrtaeus' "fathers of 36 n64
our fathers," 273, 273 nr2 "status'' and "privilege" in lieu of"class," 4 n7
rejection of modern account of helots, written laws as diminishing aristocratic power,
302 n82, 307 n93 263
Solon as evidence of general agricultural crisis, Martin, R. P.
201 n3 Hesiod and instructional role of praise poet,
Spartans' lack of respect for family ties among 181
helots, 304 n88 relation of texts to material culture, 48 n92
tomb cult in Messenia, 300 n79 on Iliad:
Lynn-George, M. and implicit tribute to brilliance of Adam
on Iliad: Parry, 120 n69
alienation in, 120 n69 on Odyssey:
critique of Bakhtin's characterization of implications of Telemachos as theoeid;s,
Homer, ro6 n39 145 n27
"hour of orality" as already past, n3 n52 instruction of princes in, 164 n61
shot through with ambiguities and poem's concern with practice of narrative
contradictions, ro5 n36 per se, 146 n28
Index
Marx, K., Introduction passim Delphi's dedications and polis formation, 99,
base and superstructure in, 19-24 99 nr8
conscious and unconscious determinants in, depopulation claims, 60 n6
24-6 irrelevance of 776 B.c. to dating first Olympic
defining "ism," 14-15 games, 98 nr6
and economic determinism of, 17-19 origins of Olympia, 99
and ideology, 42-7 small, simple figures dedicated at Olympia,
post-modern dismissal of, 31-5 IOI
and pre-capitalist societies, 15-17 "state" pressure on aristocrats, 100 n19
McGlew,J. Morris, I.
abstracted conception of polis and citizens, archaeology:
251, 251 nIII, 264 data of as socially symbolic acts, 48
analysis of shield of Achilles, 74 n48 "Hard Surfaces," 2 n2, 30 n55, 213 n31
aristocratic sources of hybris, 229 limitations of archaeological data, 48
bastard sons as founders of settlements, 140-1, pottery in any given period, 46 n90
141 nr8 ritual action, 332
bracketing class analysis, 226 Athens:
centralization of polis by tyrants, 362-3 archaic social order enabling democracy,
central problem of distinguishing real from 319 n6, 351
ideological, 242 Attica a land of independent farmers,
central thematics of dik2 and hybris, 227----9, 2II n28
234, 261, 346 centrality of land and labor to Solonian
continuing power of aristoi, 267 Crisis, 213
critique of "pre-Althusserian Marxists," 227 critique of nonsense about 508/507 B.c., 317
historiographic problems in study of tyranny, eager to find emergence of democracy,
226 207-8
Homeric basileus, 109 n46 landownership as "extremely egalitarian,"
lack of concern with chronology, 138 nr4 74n50
law, 232 ruling class as 50% of population, 2n nr7
tyrants' "self-presentation," 227 Solon's relation to democracy, 318
Meier, M. connection of hoplites with tyranny, 76
Tyrtaeus: critique ofKurke, 206 nr4
attacks on authenticity ofTyrtaeus continuing reality of oligarchic domination,
fragments, 271 n8 208,267
reduction of royal power in Sparta, 279 n31 "Dark Age":
Tyrtaeus not pure elitist, 286 n49 archaeologists vs. historians re level of
Tyrtaeus' performance context, 271 n9 hierarchy in, 62, 321
merchants breakdown of aristocratic order, 89
aristocratic scorn of, 157, 196 n70 chronological disputes with Papadopoulos,
carrying trade, 197 5rnror
"class'' of, 2, 4 n7, 134 nr, 241, 258 class struggle in eighth century, 62 nr3
dangers facing, 197 critique of his account of emergence of
inability of a merchant to calculate annual polis, 63
profit, 235 n8r fall in population during Dark Age, 59 n6
Odysseus as potential merchant, 165 hero of Lefkandi, 65 nr9, 65 n20, 67 n26
port taxes skimming off merchants' wealth, koin8nia as essence of polis, 79 n6o
235 n8r level of destruction of Mycenaean
use of Phoenician alphabet, 95 civilization, 60
as "wholly imaginary class," 134 pace of population growth, 69 n29
see also trade Papadopoulos' attack and response, 63 nr4,
middling ideology. See Morris, I. and Kurke, L. 65
Morgan, C. periodization of Early Iron Age, 50 nroo
dedication of bronze tripods at Olympia, 99 small farmers duped by hero worship, 84
dedications of jewelry indicating women, social implications of burial evidence, 86,
IOI 264
Index
Morris, I. (cont.) Lefkandi settlement as a rejection of, 61 nn
dec~i~e offabrosyni, !49, 3!0 " Nichoria as feudal appendage of, 66
dmo,os as dependent not slave, 194 n65 no synoicism from period in Attica, 323 nr5
Homer: parallel of pre- and post-material culcure,
as aristocratic ideology, 93, 154 n46, 158 n53 9on74
need to read epics with archaeological promotion of saga as legitimation strategy,
record, 49 n96, 333 ro5
reflectionist readings of, 68 n28 positing continuity in Athens with its
hunger never far away in ancient Greece, kingship, 75
184 n41 refugees from its destruction in Athens,
influence of Finley's Ancient Economy, 4 32rnro
influence of Gentili on views of lyric, 258 relation of its religious practice to later
influence of Polanyi, 28 developments, 81
Marx: relative surplus in its type economy, 36 n65
citation of, 332 rich lady of Areiopagos as wife of king of its
citation ofE. P. Thomson and Hobsbawn type, 322
on class, 5 shift away from sanctuaries of its type,
dismissal of, 25 n44, 30 n55 IO0 n23
Finley's relation to, 5 substantial break with its order, 61
use of "ideology," 46 n91, 48 n93, 48 n94, survival of ruling class, r, 37, 60, 68
86,291 n58 terminology for its pottery, 51 nr02
middling ideology, 2 n2, 27 n51, 79 n59, theories of collapse of, 57-60
206-7, 347 n8o, 353 Spartan claims of ties to its kings, 291
Archilochus as middling, 217 and n43 its terminology as vestigial in Homer, ro9
and critiques of, 48 n94, 208 n17, 209 n23, tomb culc vs. "hero" culc, 84
2IO n24 see also Chapter r passim
Tyrtaeus as middling, 286
political reading of new Mediterraneanism, Nafissi, M.
94n4 Finley as most influential Greek historian, 4
sixth-century Sicilian imports and local Sparta:
production, ro4 n34 arkhagetai as leader of colony, 277 n27
Mycenae(n) arrogance as freedom from anxiety over
absence of tholos tombs in Athens area, 321 helots, 306 n90
abstraction of naturalistic motifs in its down-dating Tyrtaeus, 269 n3
pottery, 87 n70 etymology of"helot," 272 nro
aristocratic audience for epic traced back to, 2 mythic background of Spartan identity,
Athenian palace as sole survival from period, 291 n36
320-1 obat as referring to settlement in villages,
centrality of Athens during and after period, 277 n23
328 rhetra as a founding prescription, 275 nr8
claims of ancestry from in democratic Athens, Nagy, G.
245 Archilochus:
content of heroic myth as purely, ro3 etymologies as problematic prop for actual
Dark Age neglect of its tombs, 83 usage, 194 n65
de-emphasis on elements of in Homer, 68, invective in as totally fictional, 252 nr17
ro8 and genre theory:
destruction of its redistributive system, 25 different genres constructing different
Dorians absolved of destroying its civili2ation, personalities, 168
58 n99 pan-Hellenism emphasis ignoring class
geometric pottery motifs as rejection of its heterogeneity, 169
court art, 90 proponent of "oral poetics," 204 n9
heroic myth about as really substantially Near version of"death of the author"
Eastern, 94-5 throughout his works, 94 n2
linear B tablets revealing hierarchies and Hesiod:
slavery in, 56, 62, ror as distillation of pan-Hellenic values, 168
Index
etymology of his name, 168 vs. internal dynamics of class struggle, 318
on "kings" invokes model of Kirghiz oral see also habrosyn~ Persia
singers, 180 Nichoria
Kyme as a city ruined by hybris, 135 n3 communal feasts in, 67
as oral poet without fixed text until 6th or diet in, 72 n40
5th century, 166 history of, 66-7, 66 n2
rejection of autobiographical approach to, relative modesty of, 75
167 n2, 168, 169 n5 see also Foxhall; J. Hall; Mycenae; pastoralism;
Theogony address to Muses as universalizing Whitley
discourse, 169, 177
theogony genre confirming regulating Ober, J.
authority, 170 Athenian Revolution, 350
as response to craving for a pan-Hellenic cultural politics of Peisistratids, 342 n65
identity, 172 debate with Raaflaub, 318, 335
Homer: pre-Solonian horos, 224 n6o
assumption of fluid text over rwo hundred rejection of centrality of pay to democracy,
years, 78 n56 268 n2
categories of praise and blame poets, source of his term for ideology, 4
ro6 n37 undialectical view of history, 351
etymology of "Achilles," 133 n90 use of term 'riot," 351-2, 352 n90
etymology of "Hom~ros," 93 n2 Olympia
Greek epic tradition as genius behind our dedications at, 99-ror
Iliad, 93 n2, n2 n50 origins of, 99
influence on Marks's reading ofThersites, and possible epic recitation at, 98 nr7
n8 n65 venue for aristocratic solidarity, roo
pan-Hellenism of travelling bards, ror see also Morgan; Taplin
Powell's dismissal of his evolutionary oral/orality
model, 96nro celebration of martial exploits, ro5
technological obstacles to early written contributions of the Parrys to understanding
Iliad, 96 nro of, n3 n52
West's critique on text of, 93 n2 creative process in formula-innovations,
Theognis: 168 n3
chronological problems ofTheognidian culture in Sparta, 316
corpus, 204 n9, 216 n41 dependence of narrative means, n4, 146 n28
generalized mode of social strife in text, errors typical of performance, ro6 n38
222 n56, 223 n59, 266 excessive rigidity of distinguishing from
hegemones referring to fellow aristocrats, literate texts, 167 n2
218,222 fluid oral transmissions, 167
lack of historical data in text of, 218 n46 Herodotus' use of, 202
Near East/Near Eastern Hesiodic types of arguments as incompatible
and break with Mycenae, 61 nn with, 168 n3
"contamination" of Greek oral poetry by, 103 Homer and, 93 n2, 96 nro
and Hesiod vs. specifically Greek political "hour of" as passed, n3 n52
vision, 172, 172 nr6 Nagy on orality of Homer and Hesiod, 166
intelligibility of elements for Greek audience, philosophy's completion with, 98 nr4
95 passivity of audiences, 97, 97 nr3, n3-14
literacy and, 94-8 persistence of in post-Homeric audiences,
pan-Hellenism as a reaction to, ro3 253
political and economic focus of Greek epic presupposition of centuries of development,
vs., 95 ro3
and politics of habrosyni, ro4 sensitivity of poets to ideological
relative wealth of, 74 commitments of audience, ro5
source of absolute chronology, 51 skepticism inspired by sources, 49, 226 n64,
and view of human beings as "slaves' of gods, 320, 334 n48, 342 n65, 344 n72
161 social encyclopedia associated with, 194
Index
oral/orality (cont.) Spartan overthrow of Peisistratids, 351 n89
studies of affecting views of Archaic Period, Sparta's relation to tyranny, 3n, 312
49 use of term "riot" in Burn, 352 n90
tradition of as chief creator, 168
traditions of Greek contacts with other pan-Hellenism
cultures, 101 emergence of, 98-ro4
see also Janko; Lynn-George; Nagy; A. Parry; and epic, 84
M. Parry; Russo and Hesiod, 192
Osborne, R. Parry,A.
absence of aristocracy, 52 nro4 Achilles' association with wanderers, 125 n78
alleged pro-Alkmaionid bias in demes and alienation of Achilles in Iliad, 120 n69
" trftty~s, ~?8 defense of text of Iliad, 96 nro
colon1zat1on : dismissal of as "naYve" by Lynn-George,
Cyrene decree, 138 n3 n52
rejection of overpopulation argument, 137 an impossible demand by Achilles, 125
state sponsorship of setclements ex post introduction to his father's work, n3 n52
facto, 138 nr4 Patroklos, 160 n55
term "setclements" in lieu of Richard Martin's implicit tribute, 120 n69
"colonization," 137 nn Parry, M.
trading links beneficing established elite, dismissal as "naYve" by Lynn-George, n3 n52,
241 12on69
cooperation among small landowners, 337 n55 Finnegan's critique, 167 n2
deforestation of Greece, 25 n43 formulaic character of Homeric texts, n2, n3
democracy in anglophone scholarship, Hammer's misleading citation of, n3 n52
351 n88 noun-epithet system for name of Achilles,
eighth-century horse figurines, 64 nr6, 80 133 n90
Foucaulc, 29 n54 overview and tribute by Russo, n3 n52
funeral displays by elite, 207 polytropos in first line of Odyssey, 157 n52
Herodotus' agenda, 202 preference of "themes" to designate
Hesiod: "type-scenes," 112 n51
family si2e for subsistence farmers, 176 n21 pressure against developing metrical
irrelevance of polis in Homer and Hesiod, equivalents, 167
189 n57 pastoralism
rejection of term "peasant," 169 n6 catcle bones and at Nichoria, 66 n22
warfare in time of, 66 n21 defense ofby Hammond, 72 n40
law: displacement of and denigration of women's
Anacharsis on, 238 work, 179 n28
db-nos in earliest law, 263 nr31, 358 nro3 displacement of by increased agriculture,
early, 233, 239 84n67
kinship in Drakon's law on homicide, explanation of dearth of Dark Age sites,
356 n99 69 n29
Pericles' citi2enship law, 13 rejection of by Lemos, 72 n40
slavery, 39 n 70 peasants
Solon: as colonists, 361
post-Solonian Attica, 2n n28 exclusion from citi2enship in Sparta, 320 n8
property ownership under, 264 failure to struggle during most of history,
shift to export crops by Attic elite, 242 43 n81
Solonian horoi, 223 n6o fostering sense of koinonia among, 139
statelessness of archaic Greece, 237 J. Hall on, 24 n40
tyranny: hybris as physical abuse of, 228 n66
ambiguity of sources on tyranny, 226 n64 lack of overall economic control in Attica, 2n
centrality of class conflict to tyranny, as majority in most of Greece, 40, 53 nro5,
242 195 n66
justice issue in emergence of tyranny, in Marx, 8 nr3, 38 n68, 198
228 n65 Nagy's attack on image of in Hesiod, 167 n2
Index
as not the focus of Works and Days, 169 n7 citation by Bourdieu, 46
Peisistratos' goals toward, 236 n83 and concept of "surplus," 36 n65
performance for audiences of, 169 n7 crediting Marx, 10
problem with term, 53, 169 n6 embedded economy, 10, 10 m8, 28
religion of as negation of social order, 148 n32 focus on Aristotle, 27 n49
as semi-dependent in Dark Age Attica, 322 lack of interest in exploitation, II
seventh-century sense of Attic identity of, lack of profit motive in ancient societies,
323 n14 II Il20
share ofland in Attica, 2n potlatch, 122 n73
as still dependent labor-force after Solon, 337 strategic focus on power, 6
Solon's and tyrants' support of, 265 Polignac, F. de
struggle against aristocracy in Dark Age, 62 attack by Souvinou-Inwood, 63
suggestion of rebellion against Mycenaean culc sanctuaries, 48 n93
order, 59 extra-territorial expensive dedications, 83
Tolstoy as voice of Russian, 209 relation of internal and external influences,
use of pottery, 91 95 n7
use of symposion, 207 m6 role of extra-urban sanctuaries, 73 n43, 83
Peisistratos. See Chapters 5 and 7 passim use of sanctuaries to stake out territory, 323
Peradotto, J. polis
Arethusa issue on women in antiquity, 12 n23 Athens:
debate over "open" and "closed" texts of Peisistratids and d~mos's association with,
Homeric poems, 105 n36, 143 345, 351
Odyssey. in Solon as a great, 330
analysis ofTeiresias' prophecy, 150 n38 Solon's view of, 222 n54
class-based differentiation of hero of, 154 sponsorship of comedy by, 333 n47
endorsement of Nagy's etymology of territory as larger than any ocher except
Achilles, 133 n90 Sparta, 322
"ideology" of textual strategies, 142 n20 citizen identification with, 231
postponement of name of the hero, 146 class pressure on rulers of Archaic, 100 n19,
puns on name of Odysseus, 156, 156 n50 104
use ofBakhtin in analysis of, 106 n39 collective leadership of by big landowners,
use of narrative theory on "tragic" vs. 132
"comic," n5 n58, 150 n40 constructing civic identities in, 245-8
Persia demise of aristocratic, 229
and debate on constitutions, 357 n101 dichotomy of oikos and, 313 n96
effect of threat from on ideological struggles discourse of sovereignty in, 229
in Herodotus, 206 dominated by aristocrats, n9 n67
impact of invasions on development of economic division in, 210
Athenian democracy, 318, 335, 357 early elegy as suitable for any, 271
Ionian governors as "tyrants," 202, 202 n5 Euripides' claim tyrant detrimental to,
and Jeffrey's chronology of period, 350 n87 231 n72
king's family's relation to weaving, 294 n69 exclusion from of rulers' bastard sons, 141 m8
periodization of Archaic Age, 50, 50 n99 formation of, Chapter I passim
relation of domination of Ionia to adjusting consciousness to, 98 n17
"orientalization," 208 anxieties associated with rise of, 172
relation to habrosyne, 208 n20, 314, 350 creation of in relation to Homer, 93
relation of invasion to helot revolts, 3n creation of as watershed of period, 360
role of Sparta in wars with, 269 designation of kleroi in, 283, 359, 361
Simonides' encomia of dead from wars with, displacement of one-man rule in, 210
2 57 domination of early by men of "noble"
and struggles over forms of government, 360 descent, 327
wars with as primary focus of Herodotus, 202 exclusions in formation of, 38, 140, 359
Polanyi, K. Mediterranean settlements by excluded
attack on ahistorical capitalist approaches, 10 from, 361
celebration of reciprocity, 180 n31 process of formation, 139, 248
Index
polis (cont.) threat of one-man rule to class-based rulers of,
role of tutelary divinities in founding of, 164
127, 362 tyrants' policies in, 266
use of sanctuaries in formation of, see also I. Morris; Snodgrass; state
323 Pomeroy, S.
written sources for rise of, 48 n92 chronology of periods in general history of
fostering sense of solidarity of, 104, 207, Greece, 50 nroo
209 n22, 324, 328 consequences of constraints of Greek
games as source of inter-polis solidarity, marriage, 254 nr20
100 Spartan women:
Hesiod: active role of, 293 n62
community as pre-, 189 n57, 192 decree of Epitadeus as genuine, 285 n44
consolidation of by Thespiai, 193 degree of gender separation, 296
evidence of in, 189, 191, 192 n62 polemics with Cartledge, 294 n64, 295
threat of hunger in, 184 n41 term as applying only to highest social
village community vs., 192 class, 293 n61
Homer: overview of women in antiquity,12, 200 n74
as pre-, 189 n57 pottery
pattern ofHektor dying for, 288, 288 n53 "Anakreontics'' with erotic subjects, 347
recitation of Homer fostering integration Attic victory, 345
in, 250 changes in images on as evidence, 80, 85--91
values of countryside against, 158 n53 Corinthian under tyrants, 248
values of in Odyssey, 146 decisive evidence of for Dark Age, 57
hypostatization of, 2, 2 n2, 209 n21, 251 dismissal of Peisistratid impact on, 342 n65
and mercenaries in, 238 eighth-century regional styles of, 98 nr5
middling ideology vs. otherness of elite in, Euboean at Al Mina, 94 n5
207,210 expansion of Attic throughout
neologism onesipolis, 261 Mediterranean, 345
new class relations of, n9 in Lefkandi, 65 nr9
as not a homogenized entity, 47 Mycenaean, 51 nro2
as not a state, 343 n68 parallel of!. Morris' view and R. Williams,
problem of the term, 35 46n90
psychology of improper behavior in, 222 sixth-century Spartan and aristocratic
as public all-embracing corporation, 251 lifestyle, 315
range of elite's relations to, 208 nr7 sole means of establishing relative chronology,
relation oflaw to, 232-3 51
and rise of Delphi and Olympia, 99, 99 nr8 styles of vs. conventional dates in years, 51,
role of persuasive speech in, 354 51 nro3
role of wealth in Peisistratos' imposition on, tyrants and, 248--9
219 Powell,A.
as site of struggle, 251, 262-5 classical scholars' aversion to discussions of
Sparta: social class, 2 n 3
collapse of Spartan due to shortage of men, influence of de Ste. Croix's teaching, 306
285 Sparta:
crisis of Spartan, 20 confusion in data over length of helot
hoplite class in Spartan, 280 rebellion, 307 n92
Orestes as transcending divisions in, defense of Thucydides on Pausanias,
291 n58 27on5
relation of oikos to, 293 difficulty of Spartans' military manoeuvres,
sources focus on class-relations in, 269 282
structural adjustments of ruling class in, endorsement of Cartledge's Agesilaos, l nr
2 97 evening curfew to limit helots' knowledge
sponsor of athletes, 100 n20 of military, 303
symposion for elite of, 207 nr6 likelihood of unreported helot rebellions,
taxation by, 236 n83 302
Index
myth-making, 286 origins of democracy, 317, 341
oligarchy within an oligarchy, 283 refuration of nonsense about 508/507 B.c.,
ostenration in horse-racing, 297 n72 317
overview of, 286 relative size of polis, 322
rejection of dismissal of Sparrans as stupid, roles of Persia and Sparra in development
269 n4, 312 of, 318
Xenophon's unique knowledge of, 295 n65 Solon's role in emergence of democracy,
Powell, B. 318
derivation "Mycenaean" myth from Near "hero" of Lefkandi, 67 n26
East, 95 Homer:
literacy: basileis as neither kings nor aristocrats,
absence of commercial aspect in early 64 n17, 109 n46
writing, 96 defense of relative independence of
creation of a class ofliterati, 98 assemblies in, 275 n17
early sympotic inscriptions as suggestive of as evidence, 48 n91, 68 n28
Phaeacea, 97 women in, 111
Euboea as locus of new emphasis on oral rarity of stone fortifications before mid-eighth
epic, 103 century, 73 n43
imporration of papyrus in eighth-century relation of rise of polis to war over land,
Greece, 96 mo 77 n55 and 78
invention of alphabet shortly before Sparta:
750 B.C., 94 n3 debate over "Great Rhetra," 274 n15
long epic poems as motive for alphabet, 96, defense of relative independence of
170 assemblies in, 275 n17
social character of audience for Homeric written source for rise of polis, 48 n91
recitations, 105 Redfield, J.
Hesiod:
Qviller, B. sex as distraction for those condemned to
"big-man" concept for Dark Age Greece, 68 hard labor, 175
big-man's quest for renown, 72 n41 Zeus's gratuitous malice toward
conflict of "colonists" and mainland ruling humankind, 179 n30
class, 162 Homer:
eighth-century war over land, 272 nn Achilles' refusal of social integration,
Homeric basileus, 109 n46 124 n76
Homeric distributions ofland by basileis, centrality of Aristotle to his reading of
72 n39 Iliad, n5 n58
Homeric wars over women and cattle vs. labor theory of value in Odyssey, 103 n30
warfare for territory, 73, 272 linkage of Iliad with Greek tragedy, n5 n58
leaders raking in beggars and wanderers, 70 Odysseus as alcernative identity to Iliadic
Tyrraeus 5.3 W emphasizing land as motive, heroism, 154
272nn Odysseus as "economic man," 142, 215-16
use of force in expelling "excess" population, response to A. Parry's "Language of
183 Achilles," 120 n69
Sparta:
Raaflaub, K. physical impressiveness of women,
absence of doulos!eleutheros in Hesiod, 295 n66
194 n65 women as crucial to understanding of, 293,
dating of emergence of hoplites, 76, 100 n21, 293 n61, 294
78 n57 religion
emergence of Athenian democracy: formation of the polis, 80-5
date of term d~mokratia, 318 n4 divine justice in Odyssey, 147-50
debate over degree of at specific points, 335 Marx on, 46--7 n91, 332, 332 n43
ideology of freedom in Athens, 8 Pan-Hellenic interactions, 101 n24
orality of account of Kylonian conspiracy, and pre-Socratics, 220-1
334 n48 Sparta, 291 n58, 298, 351 n89
430 Index
religion (cont.) influenced by Polanyi, 28
tutelary gods and kinship with divinity, misreading of Marx's three premises of human
127-30 existence, 28
and tyrants, 247, 249 nr07, 266, 332, parallel to anarchist Zerzan, 62 nr2
347 Salmon, J. B.
as weapon of the weak, 190 n59 Corinth:
see also Burkert; I. Morris; Souvinou-Inwood authoritative account of tyranny in, 242
rhetra expulsion of landless men, 137 nro, 140
demos in, 277 geographical vulnerability and
interpretations of, 274-6, 276 n21 fortifications, 251 nn3
and kingship, 279 n31 hoplite support for Kypselids, 213 n32
see also demos; Hodkinson; Nafissi; Raaflaub; Kypselids' gold colossus a Olympia, 237
state; Van Wees; Vidal-Naquet; Nicolas of Damascus as source, 243 n98
Wade-Gery, P. orderly return to power of oligarchs, 244
overview of Anglophone scholarship on Periander's sumptuary laws, 264
democracy, 351 n88 recourse to colonization by Kypselids, 244
Rihll, T. temples of Apollo as public undertaking,
citation of Herodotus on Polykrates' public 8on6r
works, 247 tyrants in general:
critique of Finley's theory of slavery, ror n25, advantages of formal ties with colonies, 248
265, 337 building programs aimed at citi2en pride,
Homeric basileus, 109 n46 246
priority of supply over demand for slaves, champions of people against plousioi, 243
ro2 n27 diolkos as public project facilitating trade,
Solon: 246
chronology of vis-a-vis Peisistratos' tyranny, money-raising techniques of, 235
234 n79 reorganization of traditional tribes, 245
Crisis, 224, 239 responsible for rule oflaw, 232
debt-bondage, 336, 337 use of central institutions fostering citi2en
overlap between law-givers and tyrants, identity, 245
23rn73 Sancisi-Weerdenburg, H.
trade in non-Greek slaves, 138 nr3 on Peisistratids:
Russo, J. celebration of skepticism, 49 n97
Homer: dismissal of class-conflict associated with
against his tradition, n3 n53 Solon and tyrants, 230, 231
avenging Furies for beggars, 149 n36 dismissal of fifth-century sources, 235
conservative Homer, 113 dismissal of Peisistratid building program,
dictation of Homeric texts, ro6 n38 236 n85, 247 nro5
Odysseus' speech to Amphinomos, 163 dismissal of Peisistratid role in Panathenaia,
Odysseus' speech to Eurymachos, 162 344
Olympian gods as guardians of chosen and dismissal of Peisistratids in general, 341,
individuals, 127 n8r 345n73
parallels of Archilochus with Odysseus, dismissal of Peisistratos with small farmer,
136 n8, 217 n43 236 n83
analogy of Irish aristocratic audience, dismissal of written sources not confirmed
n3n54 by archaeology, 230
work of Milman Parry, n3 n52 heavy reliance on oral theory, 344 n72
"informal" power of Peisistratid tyranny,
Sahlins, M. 248
contradiction of big-man's quest for renown, insistence on "unambiguous evidence,"
72 n41 344
defense of Stone Age (Zen road to affiuence), Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de
62 attack on term "elite," 52 nro4
distinction between big-man and chief, AthPol:
64 nr7, 68, 69 n32 after 508/7 B.c. all offices open to most
history of anthropological theory, 14 n29 Athenians, 265 nr35
Index 431
Aristotle vs. Ath. Pol. on tyranny, 204 probouleutic council, 339
posthumous essay, 203 n8, 204 n8 sixth-century status of farmers and
Finley: craftsmen, 327
critique ofWeberian approach, 3-4 tel~, 213 n33, 235 n81, 236 n83, 240 n91,
exclusive focus on conscious forms of 241 n93, 338 n58
struggle, 8---9 Sparta:
"mechanical interpretation," 6 Athenian epikliros system vs. marriage rules
mystification of slave vs. free wage labor, 7 in, 285 n43
neglect of exploitation, 7 centrality of class struggle between helots
revenge by, 4 n7 and Spartans, 299 n75, 305
Weberian status group focused on itself, dominance of gerousia in, 278---9
36 n64 potentially active human volcano, 312
Herodotus' contribution to "science" of women as a class, 13, 174, 199, 295
history, 202 n4 Seaford, R.
influence as a teacher, 306 critique of middling ideology, 2ro n24
Marxist approaches to classical antiquity: Homer:
account of ideology, 42 adoption of evolutionary model, 96 nro
centrality of exploitation to class struggle, Agamemnon's violation of dasmos, n7 n62
37 n66 communal meals in Homer, 64 nr8,
class as relationship, 36 n64 67 n24, 71 n37, 81
critique of ocher Marxist classicists, 3 connections of with Greek tragedy, n5
defense of Marxist approach, 3 contrast of Homeric poems and Near
definition of class, 6 nro Eastern epic, 95, 95 n6
dismissal of Alchusser, 43 n82 exchange of armor in Iliad Bk. 6,
forced labor as the foundation of ancient 142 nr9
society, 40 n73 formula of equal share in booty, 78
ideological role of sheer terror, 43 Homeric texts as fluid over two hundred
omission of archaeology from ideological years, 78 n 56
struggle, 4 7 ideology of collective sacrifice, 81
merchant class as imaginary, 134 outdoor sacrifice at Pylos vs. in temple,
popularity/unpopularity of Athenian empire, 81 n62, 161
357 nI02 relation of poems to Peisistratid ideology,
slavery: 166
absence of slave revolts, 39, 39 n70 suitors in Odyssey as exemplars of hybris,
ancient economy as a "slave economy," 159
195 n66 money:
Cartledge's correction on slavery, 40 n75 absence of ruling class hostility to coinage,
degree of slave labor vs. hired labor, 2IO
337 n55, 336, 337 n55 endorsement of!. Morris's critique of

large landbolding requiring slave or Kurke, 206 nr4
tenant-farmer labor, 74, ro2 Herakleitos D-K B 90 and exchangeability
small independent farmers as majority, 40, of money, 220
53 nro5 importance of the money-form, 214
term "peasant," 169 n6 Kurke's approach as focused on discourse,
Solon, 201 n2 206
before state machinery in hands of metals as storage of wealth in Odyssey,
Eupatrids, 327 n27 215 n39
counting each man's vote, 340 "monetization," 98 n14
evidence on "shaking off of burdens," monetarization of penalcies in Solon,
336 n51 240
hoplites self-designated, 241 n94 review ofKurke, 24 n40, 2ro n25
horoi of wood, 224 n6o shift to focus on labor, 2n
not ending debt-bondage or Solonian reference to "naucratic silver," 235,
share-cropping, 336 236 n83
only Peisistratos could have compelled stater as coin or measure of weight,
Eupatrids, 342 214 n34
432 Index
shame culture vs. guilt culture Odyssey's mystification of exploitation of,
Dodds' introduction of, 137, 137 n9 144-5
relation to "status-warriors," 190 rulers in functioning as a united class
relation to work, 218 vis-a-vis, 36
shift in Hesiod, 189----90 threat to sell beggar Odysseus as, 302
Shapiro, H. A. in Mycenae, 56, 62, IOI
Athenian dialogue on autochthony, 325 n21 relation to Pan-Hellenism of increase in, IOI
autochthony and early kings, 328 n32 and Solon:
competition of Poseidon and Athena on debt-bondage vs. debt-, 336
Parthenon, 325 earth "enslaved," 223, 223 n6o
defense of Peisistratid building program, ending debt-slavery, 225, 242, 265, 340
345 enslavement in Crisis, 204, 223, 224,
Homeric recitations at Panathenaia, 250, 348 224n60, 241
later ideological assault on tyranny, 345 question of increased resort to after,
Panathenaic prizes as advertisements, 345 265
sixth-century representations of Theseus, and Sparta:
249 nro6 enslavement in Messenia, 273
substantial building by Peisistratids in agora, family life of, 304-5, 304 n88
247 group-identity of, 305 n88
vase depicting Kekrops and his daughters, krypteia and murder of, 299
325 n20 Luraghi's denials about, 307 n91, 307 n93
victory pots, 344 n72 perioikoi's dependence on chattel, 3IO
Shipley, G. sexploitation of female, 305
Spartan perioikoi: social structure's relation to, 301
extraction of regular tribute ftom perioikoi, term for helots, 272
309 wealth in, 283
geographic distances fostering relative see also Cartledge; Hodkinson; Luraghi;
autonomy, 308 Ste. Croix
military centrality of perioikoi, 309 theoretical considerations
relative loyalty and benefits of hoplite agricultural labor done by, 265
service, 310 aristocratic view of wage-earners as little
richest agricultural lands as royal temen;, different from, 8, 8 nr5
309 Aristotle's definition of as animate
slavery/ slaves instrument, 7 n12
in Dark Age, 62, 72, 102 n26, 322, 360 avoidance of theorization of before Plato
enslavement for debt, 160, 191 and Aristotle, 54
enslavement as source of liquid assets, 193, Castoriadis' argument about, 54 nro6
242 n97 class term, r, 53
increase in from "colonization" and trade, comparative study of, 302 n82
I02 n27, 141 nr9 control of workshops operated by, 2n
in Hesiod and larger landowners, I02, 194-6 difference between serfs and, 299 n76
in Homer: doing minimum or running away as class
Achilles' traffic in, 135 struggle by, ro
acquisition of by Odysseus' raiding, 151 duBois's protest against scholars'
ambiguity toward in Odyssey, 69 n31, "naturalization" of, 54 nro7
139 nr5, 158 ethnic diversity of slaves as barrier to
centrality of in, ror n25 concerted action, 54 nro6
Eumaios' comments on, 145-6, 158, 163 export to other communities of Greek,
Eumaios' fundamental decency as, 158 302
fancy clothing of those allied with suitors, Finley's reading of Marx on slave and free
160 wage earner, 5, 6
Near Eastern view of humans as gods', 161 "free" farmers excluded from land vs.
need for constant supervision of, 165 integration of, 38
Odysseus as beggar assessing behavior of, Garlan's summary of scholarly debate over,
157 3 n5
Index 433
ideological offensive on distinction of free iron and agriculture, 24 n42
and,8 Karfi in Crete, 61
ideology in relation to, 43 lack of rich graves, 69 n31, 321
Marx on prerequisite for abolition of, 13 Lefkandi as a rejection of Mycenaean
Marx on slave or serf vs. wage-earner under values, 61 nII, 67 n26
capitalism, 7-8 nr3 massive drop in population during, 63 nr4
Marx on use of in ancient mining, 102, parallels between pre- and post-Mycenaean
103 culture, 90 n 74
Marx's use of "slave mode," 53, 53 nro5 preconditions of exploitation absent in
potential bitterness of free workers working eleventh century, 61-2
beside, 8 preference for more egalitarian view of
relation to class struggle, 39-41, 42, 43 n8r society in, 62-3
relation of technological development to, preference for term "early iron age," 51
II Il22 shift to greater emphasis on agriculture,
Rihll's rejection of Finley's account of, 265, 68 n29, 72 n40, 84 n67
337 shift to single-cist burial after collapse, 61
Ste. Croix's use of constant vs. variable social differentiation as late in, 63 nr5, 64
capital, 7-8 survival of slavery in, 62, 102 n26
and term "social formation," 20 n37 terms based on pottery vs. use of
terminology of, r, 53, 54, 194 n65 conventional dates, 51, 51 nro3
wages of slaves and free workers, 8 nr4 tomb cult as vehicle oflegitimating claim
trade in non-Greek, 138 nr3, 141 nr9, 362 to land, 84
and women: Homer:
Archilochus as alleged son of, 135 and 135 n5 basileus, 60-1
bastard sons of, 140, 361 as historical evidence, 68 n27
Chryseis and Briseis as exemplary in Iliad hoplite warfare:
of female, III better suited to defense than aggression,
facing prospect of in Iliad, 109, III 79 n58
gender vs. class in case of female, 198 dialectical approach to, 213 n32
on link with weaving as de facto, 294 n63 farmers having no interest in war, 79 n58
Odyssey's negative view of female, 144 no necessary connection with political
Ste. Croix's exclusive focus on reproductive change, 77 n 52
capacity of, 13 Mycenae:
on suitors' sex with female, 159, 176 collapse as "economic disaster," 59
Snodgrass, A. rejection of focus on Dorian invasion, 58
archaeology as a field: specific losses in collapse, 59-60
argument for exclusions from burial, 63 nr4 theories of collapse, 57
shift from description to explanation, po/is-formation:
31 n57 degree of social differentiation for view of
use of burial evidence, 59 n6 rise of, 63
and use of term "culture," 57 kl2roi as crucial element is creation of, 73,
and use of written evidence, 230 139, 359
"colonization": major fortifications as beyond paramount
degree of integration with indigenous chief, 73
populations, 138 nr3 negotiation or force central in creation of,
tradition of British imperialism in dealing 73 n44
with, 137 nII shift from big-men and chiefs to
"Dark Age": domination by aristocrats, 68
date for Lefkandi, 65 nr9 stone fortifications and temples as clear
defense of concept of "Dark Age," 56 nr signs of, 73 n43, 80
earliest trade in for metals, 71, 71 n36, why available land might soon run out in,
102 n29 73 n45
ecological constraints of central Greece and problems of Persian Wars as terminus for
Thessaly, 24 period, 350 n87
estimation of Lefkandi population, 66 n22 relative poverty of Attica, 7 4 n49
434 Index
Solon: eighth-century Greek voyaging in the hands
Chapter 6 passim of aristocrats, 134
see also G. Anderson; Bintliff; Cawkwell; A. T. Homeric basileus, 109 n46
Edwards; eunomia; Figueira; Forrest; post-Mycenaean poverty and depopulation,
Foxhall; Gagarin; Gentitli; J. Hall; 61, 63 n14
M. H. Hanson; E. Harris; Havelock; E. preference for Tyrtaeus over Sosibius, 271 n7
Irwin; Jacoby; Knox; J. Lewis; Luraghi; rejection of Pausanias as source for early
I. Morris; Osborne; peasants; polis; Sparta, 271, 271 n6
Rhodes; Rihll; Ste. Croix; Seaford; Starr; skepticism about Lycurgus, 276 n22
trade; Van Wees; Wood Solon's reforms, 239
state: use of Klassenkamfto allude to Marx, 2-3
Athens:
apparatuses of Peisistratids, 343-4, 347 Tandy, D.
Eupatrid control of, 342 adoption of Polanyi's "embedded economy,"
Kleisthenes' reforms transforming, 351 28
Peisistratid control of archonship, 346 n78 ambivalence about term "peasant," 169 n6
sponsorship of festivals and rituals, 334, Archilochus's geographic knowledge, 136, 137
335 n49 aristocrats' resort to "tools of exclusion,"
voting, 340 79n60
class consciousness only in modern industrial, basis for exchange, 102 n30
41 n76 being a primativist vs. Warriors into Traders,
creation by aristocracy of imaginary kinship 134
in, 209 n22 big-men as chief beneficiaries of trade, 71 n36
Engels on power of, 22 date of colony at Thasos, 135 n4
formation of, 63, 73 n44, 83 differences in Hesiod's attitude toward
greater investment by ruling class in absence basileis, 180
of, 45-6 increase in population of mainland Greece,
Hegel's philosophy of, 29 137n10
ideological apparatuses of, 44--5, 249-50 material circumstances and functions on
see also Sparta; tyranny poets, n4 n 56
Marx on, 263 n132 Olympia as venue for aristocratic solidarity,
monopoly of violence, 45, 237, 343 n68, 100
362 pan-Hellenism as reaction to more
post-tyranny aristocracies and, 244-5 sophisticated culcures, 100
relation to colonization, 137-8, 138 n14, poets as exclusive creatures of aristocracy, 105
141n18 shift from pasturalism to grain production,
relation to law, 233-42 69 n29
relation to pan-Hellenism, 99-100 Taplin, 0.
relation to tyranny, 205 n12, 208, 231, long epics for great games and regional
234 gatherings, 98
see also on Peisistratids presence of women and children at games,
relative absence in Archaic Period, 44 n85, 45 IOI n23
role in reproduction of relations of shield of Achilles, 129 n84
production, 45 suggestion of epic recitations at Olympia,
Sparta: 98n17
ideological apparatuses, 286----99 Weil for pervasive bitterness of Iliad, 124 n77
relation to rhetra, 275 m8 Thalmann, W. G.
repressive apparatuses of, 310 Homer (in general):
sponsorship of competition, 315 audience constructed in the poem, 154 n46
treated ethnographically by Herodotus, as essentially aristocratic ideology, 93, 143
269 hierarchical chinking in, 128 n82
as supplier of armor, 213 n12, 280, 281 n35 serious engagement with historical context,
see also polis 142 n20, 146 n28
Starr, C.: Iliad:
coming of the Dorians, 58 analysis ofThersites scene in Iliad, n9 n65
Index 435
Odyssey. Solon as and favoring, 338, 344
class struggle as between slave and free, 53, Solonian tell favoring those with wealth
143 through, 258----9
"determining role of birth and class," tyranny and, 248
143 n22 western Greece as far less suited for,
"main ideological program," 144 66
redistribution in Odyssey, 71 n37 wine and olive oil in sixth-century
scene with Eumaios, 157-8, 163 n59 Athenian, 242
text of as "relatively closed," ro5 n36, 143 see also Snodgrass; Tandy
trade/traders, Chapter 3 passim tribes
aristocratic leadership in, 1, 2 reorgani2ation of, 245 nro2, 354 n94
basis of exchange in, 102 n30 see also tyranny
breakdown of in copper and tin, 51 nroo tyranny, Chapter 4 passim
chiefs as primary beneficiaries of, 71 n36 and aristocrats, 242-5, 251-62
chiefs selling agricultural surplus to, 71 building program of, 246--7
cooperative basis of early, 71 n36 coloni2ation and, 248
disruption of by collapse of Hittite empire, and construction of polis identities, 245
59 dik2 and hybris for, 226--30
earliest for metals, 71 and land, 2n-12
early trade in luxury goods, 71 n36 and law, 230-3
exclusion from polis as a motive for, 359, and money, 213-21
361 and poets, 251-62
focus of J. Hall in tenth chapter, 24 n40 Solon's account of, 221-5
gifts between chiefs as spur to, 71 and state apparatuses, 234-42
Greek ambivalence toward Phoenicians Tyrtaeus
and, 104 Chapter 6 passim
guile and practical intelligence (m2tis) of, dialect of, 167
179 and "la belle mort," 288, 288 n52, 288 n53
"hero" ofLefkandi as warrior trader, land-hunger in, 79
67 n26 and Messenian Wars, 272-4
Hesiod's digression on, 195-8, 200 warfare in, 76, 76 n 52
increase in implying increase in slavery, and writing, 168 n3
ro2-3
Mentes (Athena) in Odyssey bk. 1 as, 71 Van Wees, H.
motive for invention of alphabet, 96, 96 n9 Archaic aristocracy:
need of liquid assets for, 193, 242 n97 analogy of with Mafia, 70 n56, 206,
no increase in without increase on 232 n74, 235, 343 n68
production, ro2 downward mobility of exiles, 244
no scorn of Mentes ( Odyssey bk. 1) as a, landownership in Attica before Solon,
ro3 n31 2II n27
penetration of Euboea by Phoenician, 94, landownership and oligarchy, 212 n30
95 small number involved in coups, 239
Periander's diolkos fostering Corinthian, subject people in Argos dubbed "naked,"
246 281 n37
Phoenician routes and first examples of subject populations reduced to serfdom,
writing, 95 301 n81
and ploutocratic agathoi, 258 survey of archaic imperialism led by,
relation to coinage, 2ro 272nn
relation to emergence ofhoplite "class," 76 whole period as convulsed by class conflict,
relation to pan-Hellenism, 172 242
relation of to self-esteem of Greeks, 76 n66 Hesiod
role in majority of free population, 40 allusions to stealing in WV, 191 n6o
in slaves, ro2 n2 7 differences in views of basileis, 180
Spartan perioikoi traditionally viewed as, disparity of reading of and Mafia analogy,
308 184n40
Index
Van Wees, H. (cont.) dismissal of hoplite revolution, 76
emphasis on maximizing wealth in WD, diversity of hoplites, 41 n77
183 mercenaries, 238----9
false antithesis of practical and moral state supplying hoplite equipment, 281
advice, 193 Vernant, J.-P.
juxtaposition of WD and Oeconomicus, association of metis with deceit, women, and
195 n67 cowards, 154
rhetoric of toil as not credible, 183 emphasis on power of speech in early polis,
WD as aimed at wealthy landowners, 354 n93
169 n7 form of tragedy and Marx's "education of the
Homer: five senses," 107
absence of full-time court poets in, ro5 Marxist approach critiqued by Ste. Croix, 3
adoption of "status" for study of, 4 n7, relation of to Communist Party, 33 n59,
190 187 n50
basileus, ro9 n46 Hesiod:
clothing change as marker of privilege, 176, appeal to dik2 by deiloi confronted by
185 n43 esthloi, 191
contribution of masses in Homeric battle, descent of Athena from M~tis as invention
133 of, 155 n48
dating to first half of seventh century, emphasis in on fire as technology of
68 n28 cooking, 178 n24
enclosure of common land in Laertes farm, Grafs neglect ofVernant-Detienne study of
73n42 myth, 186 n48
gender issues in, 185 n45 human beings' lack of separate existence
harmony of poems with data about period, before Prometheus, 178 n25
68 n28 lack of a sense of human technology,
Hera's cool perjury in Iliad 15.34-46, 183 n37
156 n51 Marxist focus on class warfare in WD, 187
internal conflicts of ruling element in, myth of races emphasizing ambiguity,
36 n63 181 n34
open promachoi type of warfare in, 76, parallels between myth of races and Th, 186
76 n52, 77 n54, 100 n21 "profound originality" of, 171 nr3
role of fantasy in Homeric poems, 49 n96 reliance of on Dumezil's tripartite
wanderers taken in as retainers in, 71 n35 conception, 186
Solon: Tyrtaeus:
Athens as less democratic until mid analysis of "la belle mort," 288, 288 n53
fifth-century, 359 nro7 heroic death as conferring nobility, 288 n52
and Crisis, 224
hektemoroi, 240 n92 Wade-Gery, H. T.
laws as evidence of aristocratic abuse, creation of long poem and invention of
338 n57 writing, 96, 96 nro
taking back some illegally seized land, 242 definition of hybris, 186 n49, 228 n66
wealth of highest teU, 265 great games and regional gatherings as
Sparta: occasions for long poems, 98
rhetra, 276 Hesiod at funeral games of king
Tyrtaeus 4W, 274----5, 275 nr8 Amphidamas, 180
warfare: Spartan "inoculation" against democracy, 277
absence of standing armies and common Spartan rhetra, 276 n20, 276 n21, 277 n26,
consciousness, 213 278 n29
absence of hoplite support for Kypselos, three-day structure to Homeric poems,
213 n32 99nr7
Aristotle and linking military to type of Wallace,R.
political regime, 213 agreement with Ath. Pol on status of farmers
dating decisive changes in armor, 78 n57, and craftsmen, 327
100 n21, 162 n58 aristocrats' hatred of tyrants, 2ro n26
Index 437
day-to-day participation as unnecessary for Hesiod, Chapter 4 passim
political consciousness, 335 Catalogue ofWomen, 127 n8o, 221
debate over democracy, 334 n48, 335 parallel of Kara-Kirgiz minstrels and
defense of"democracy" before reforms of treatment of basileis by, 106 n37
Ephialtes, 319 n4 Homer and epic:
hostility to Megara as motive for rejection of dating Iliad to first half of seventh century,
Kylon, 332 68 n28, 78 n56, 105
lack of deference by demos, 329 n35 dismissal of "Homer" as an actual person,
"mentality" of Athenian demos, 334-5 93 n2
overlap of lawgivers and sages, 231 n73 endorsement of A. Parry's defense of text of
six major contributions of Solon, 342 Iliad, 96n10
support of Solonian assembly for Peisistratos, Euboea as locus of eighth-century oral
341 poetry, 103
Weber, M. insistence on a single written version of
charismatic leadership, 69-70 n32 Iliad, 93 n2
dismissal of comprehensive theories of history, lost epics, n2, n2 n50
5 parallels between Homer and Near Eastern
emphasis on analyses of ancient Greece and texts, 95
Rome, 5 possibility of Mycenaean roots for oral
emphasis on power in trajectory from to poetry, 105
Foucault, 29 n54 unexpected compassion in Tyrtaeus (fr. 6-7),
emphasis on "status" vs. "class," 3-4 299n77
Finley as student of his sociology as on women forced to steal food, 295 n66
alternative to Marx, 5 Whitley, J.
Frankfurt School's study of, 44 assessing relation of art to "reality," 87
"iron cage" determinism, 26 n47 big men's need for constant exertions,
lack of connection outside conceived status 69 n30
group, 36 n64 dismissal of Marxism, 86
Mann's goal to refute Marx by use of, 25 n42 early law, 233
Marx as the specter haunting, 5 egalitarian society in early Attica, 321
objecting to Engels' scientific pretentions, 5 five periods of Dark Age from its art,
shift of emphasis away from economic to issue 88--9
of power, 6 historicity of society portrayed in Homer,
state's monopoly of "legitimate" violence, 45 68 n27
343 n68 homogeneity of material throughout early
Welwei, K.-W. Attica, 323
absence of basileis in Greece after fall of Laurion mines in Attica, 102 n29
Mycenae, 328 n30 reconstruction of burial ideology, 63 n14
attributing unification of Attica to specificity of Athenian evidence vs. rest of
Kleisthenes, 323 m6 Greece, 89
dismissal of Athenian king lists, 321 mo stable and unstable settlements, 60 n9
Herodotus' distortion of Sparta's defeat by survey of evidence on Nichoria, 66 n22
Tegea, 280 n34 ways of understanding geometric art,
Herodotus' misrepresentation in account of 85--6
Orestes' bones, 291 n58, 310, 3n Whitman, C.
survival of Mycenaean palace at Athens, Homer:
320-1 anticipation of several insights of
unlikelihood of money form for Peisistratean Lynn-George, 120 n69
taxes, 236 condemnation of "orgy of blood
use of Pylos tablets to sketch Mycenaean vengeance" in Odyssey, 159
period in Athens, 321 emphasis on Achilles' alienation, 120 n69;
West, M. L. interpretation of Iliad 19 ridiculed by
fictional character of Archilochus' Donlan, 124 n76; key references to in
"biography," 252 nn7 Schein, 120 n69; Penelope's suitors as
dating ofTheognis, 218 n46 young oligarchs, 158
Index
Williams,R. female side of succession, 174--6
application of his three phases to Iliad, hybris implying violence against poor and,
133 228 n66
conflict of residual elements with relation of fear of to fear of children,
contemporary conflicts, 186 n48 178
historicizing the production of ideologies, Zeus's punishment by creation of "race" of,
46 178
omission of by Ste. Croix, 43 Iliad:
relevance to issue of monarchy is Odyssey, abuse of male cowards as, 132
165 counter-evidence about in actual narrative
woman/women of, III
in Dark Age: more sympathetic to than Odyssey, 143
jewelry offerings at Olympia imply Niobe as punished for achieving society's
presence of, IOI chief goal for, 126
participation with men in sacrifice, 81 positive role of in, III
presence of with children at pan-Hellenic role as pawns in the war, IIr-12
gatherings, IOI n23 seductiveness of their clothing, 185 n43
role in colonization of sons of exploited Trojan urged by Hekcor to carry out
slave, 361 sacrifice, 82, 127
wealth in graves of suggests status symbols wars over catcle and, 272
(Rich Lady Tomb), 75, 322, 327 Odyssey:
in general: association of metis with, 154
and class, 198-200 feminist scholarship on in, 153 n45
as creatures invented by men, 12 gender ideology in Odyssey, 144
and Greek ideologies of, 12 n24 sexual exploitation of slave-, 140, 176
impact of Pericles' citizenship law, sheer variety of roles in Odyssey, 153
13 n25 Semonides' attack from a specific class
male use of as pawns in political position, 185
maneuvers, 331 n39 Sparta/Spartan:
married women as a separate class, 13, 295 adornments of in Aleman, 295
Marx's classical education and focus on association of non-Spartan with weaving,
weaving, 13 n27 294n63
obsession of Greek males with "legitimate" centrality of to concentration of wealch in,
heirs, 254 292-3
overviews of in antiquity, 12 n23 conflict of Carcledge and Pomeroy over,
Rubin and the traffic in women, 71 n38, 294n64
331 n39 difference from Athenian inheritance laws,
severe constraints on in antiquity, 13 285 n43
stealing food to survive, 179 n28 homoerotic relations among, 296
tendency of abused class to blame chose marriage, sexuality, and gender
with less power, 180 socialization, 292-7
Hesiod: physical impressiveness of, 295 n66
absence of in ages myth, 186 Plato's harsh critique of, 293
absence of in tale of hawk and nightingale, Pomeroy's concentration on ruling class,
187 293 n6r
catalogue of attesting to claims of divine possession of land by in, 285
descent, 127 n8o sexual exploitation of helot, 305
denigration of work done by, 179 n28 wife-sharing in, 293 n62, 294, 295
different attitudes toward sex from Homer, tyrants' and aristocrats' abuse of, 228 n66
185 n45 see also feminist approaches
as drones consuming product of male
labor, 179 Xenophanes' denial of divine adulcery,
fear of women's intelligence and 221
reproductive capacity, 165 Wood,E.
Index 439
claim of totally independent small farmers, question of nature of labor force in
338 fifth-century Athens, 337
critique of contemporary democracy, relation of Marxism to postmodernism,
317 35 n62
optimistic view of Solonian Crisis use of "peasant" in analysis of the Solonian
outcome, 211 n28 crisis, 53

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CLASS IN ARCHAIC GREECE

Archaic Greece saw a number of decisive changes, including the emer-

PETER w. ROSE is Professor of Classics at Miami University of

© Peter W. Rose 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

First published 2012

Library ofCongress Cataloguing in Publication data

ISBN 978-0-521-76876-4 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

Preface page viii

Introduction: theoretical considerations I

1 Class in the Dark Age and the rise of the polis

6 Sparta and the consolidation of the oligarchic ideal

who was visiting for one semester at Harvard. I have no recollection of

compelled me to rethink my conclusions and in some cases impelled me

my introduction, class conflict is most often carried out on the ideological

C Campbell, David (ed., trans.) (1982-91) Greek Lyric.

CLASSICISTS AND CLASS

To discuss class in any period of classical antiquity- but perhaps especially

MOSES FINLEY AND THE DISMISSAL OF CLASS

Given the enormous influence of Finley's approach in the general dismissal

Finley himself had some serious criticisms of Weber (1985a: 88-rn3).

I resist the temptation to italicize, as does Ste. Croix, "on a mechanical

Despite the enormous ideological enforcement of the notion of "free-

Status-consciousness - a real historical factor - masks class consciousness; in fact it

What Finley ignores is that status consciousness is precisely conscious and

an all-pervasive obsession with profit-making is not a primary or eternal

Obviously, the social consequences of such a method of distribution may be

sure, Marx in general envisioned this sort of blockage as triggering an "era

FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF CLASS

A more substantial objection to class as the primary focus of analysis is

TOWARD DEFINING "MARXIST"

MARX AND PRECAPITALIST SOCIETIES

He is constantly citing examples from pre-capitalist societies, to which he

Nonetheless, however carefully Marx seeks to historicize his accounts of

BASE AND SUPERSTRUCTURE

It would be hard to exaggerate the amount of ink devoted to these few

Still he goes on to assert repeatedly that "the economic movement finally

As I read this, what appears a potentially mutual process of "overdeter-

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS DETERMINANTS

As noted earlier in connection with Finley's preference for status over

conscious aspects of class struggle operating in conjunction with the uncon-

SEPARATING OUT THE ECONOMIC

A subtle variation on the idea of economic determination implicitly fused

FOUCAULT AND THE LIMITS OF OVERDETERMINATION

As noted above, embracing an analytical model committed to giving equal

THE POSTMODERN DISMISSAL OF MARX

57 For an enlightening overview of fundamental problems ofhistoricization from a Marxist perspective

It would be hard to exaggerate the influence of Jacques Derrida on the

58 Jameson (2009: 102-12, 127-80) goes a long way in this task.

THE ARCHAIC PERIOD: ATTEMPTING EXPLANATION

Though conclusions about a period as inherently murky as the Archaic

differentiation, and ethnic and social self-definition" (283) - I think it is

MARXISM AND CLASS

Perhaps the key distinguishing feature of a Marxist approach to class is its

EXPLOITATION DIRECT AND INDIRECT

Whenever one class substantially monopolizes the means of production -

overwhelmingly agricultural economy it is obvious that the power to mini-

SLAVERY: OPEN VS. HIDDEN CLASS STRUGGLE

For many scholars of classical antiquity, not to mention Hellenophile

production, perhaps the most effective sabotage. The oft-quoted comment

THE EXPLANATORY POWER OF CLASS STRUGGLE

CLASS AND IDEOLOGY