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Rethinking the Political in Ancient Greece *

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2017

Vincent Azoulay
Vincent Azoulay*
Affiliation:
Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée , Institut universitaire de France
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Extract

Just over thirty years ago, François Hartog pondered what it might mean to devote an entire issue of the Annales to ancient history. Such an editorial endeavor, he suggested, was a bold gamble based on the conviction that the study of antiquity should not be confined to the domain of pure erudition, exclusively reserved for specialists. Like other historians, specialists in ancient history could heed Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre’s invitation in the journal’s first issue, calling for historians to “demolish walls so high that they frequently block the view” as they “strive to pay attention to their neighbor’s work.”

Type
Politics in Ancient Greece
Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 385 - 408
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2014

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Footnotes

*

Unless otherwise indicated, Greek texts are cited from the Loeb Classical Library published by Harvard University Press. Throughout this issue of the Annales we refer to the English translations of French works whenever they are available. For a bibliography detailing the original references, see our website: http://annales.ehess.fr. See also the “Historiographical Pursuits” section devoted to ancient Greek history on the same site.

References

1. Published in 1982, this special issue of the Annales (37, nos. 5/6) in fact covered a range of rather different fields. In addition to the introduction by François Hartog (on the relationship between ancient history and history), only two articles were devoted to Greek history (one by Moses Finley on the place of documents in the economic history of antiquity; the other by Annie Schnapp-Gourbeillon on the origins of writing in Archaic Greece), while three other contributions examined the Roman forum (Filippo Coarelli), prehistory (Jean-Paul Demoule), and archaeology in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Europe (Alain Schnapp).

2. Hartog, François, “Introduction: histoire ancienne et histoire,” Annales ESC 37, nos. 5/6 (1982): 687-96 Google Scholar.

3. See Annales HSS 68, no. 4 (2013), in which articles by a Hellenist (Julien Zurbach) and a Romanist (Nicolas Tran) were published alongside studies concerning similar themes in early modern and modern history.

4. de Polignac, François, Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State [1984], trans. Lloyd, Janet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

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6. For example, see: Calame, Claude, Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and Social Functions, trans. Collins, Derek and Orion, Janice (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001)Google Scholar; Loraux, Nicole, “La cité comme cuisine et comme partage,” Annales ESC 36, no. 4 (1981): 614-22 Google Scholar; Svenbro, Jesper, “À Mégara Hyblaea: le corps géomètre,” Annales ESC 37, nos. 5/6 (1982): 953-64 Google Scholar; and Pantel, Pauline Schmitt and Schnapp, Alain, “Image et société en Grèce ancienne: les représentations de la chasse et du banquet,” Revue archéologique 1 (1982): 57-77 Google Scholar.

7. Loraux, Nicole, “To Repoliticize the City” [1986], in The Divided City: On Memory and Forgetting in Ancient Athens, trans. Pache, Corinne with Fort, Jeff (New York: Zone Books, 2002), 45-62 Google Scholar.

8. Bordes, Jacqueline, Politeia dans la pensée grecque jusqu’à Aristote (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982)Google Scholar.

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11. For example, the dossier “Politeia et Politeuma,” Ktèma 15 (1990).

12. Demont, Paul, La cité grecque archaïque et classique et l’idéal de tranquillité (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1990)Google Scholar.

13. Azoulay, Vincent, “Isocrate, Xénophon ou le politique transfiguré,” Revue des études anciennes 108, no. 1 (2006): 133-53 Google Scholar; Azoulay, , “Champ intellectuel athénien et stratégies de distinction dans la première moitié du IVe siècle: de Socrate à Isocrate,” in Individus, groupes et politique à Athènes de Solon à Mithridate, ed. Couvenhes, Jean-Christophe and Milanezi, Silvia (Tours: Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2007), 171-99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In a similar vein, see Ober, Josiah, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998)Google Scholar.

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19. Gauthier, Philippe, “Les cités hellénistiques,” in The Ancient Greek City-State, ed. Hansen, Mogens Herman (Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1993), 211-31, here 217-18Google Scholar. Gauthier evokes a “democratic koine¯.” See also Mann, Christian and Scholz, Peter, eds., “Demokratie” im Hellenismus. Von der Herrschaft des Volkes zur Herrschaft der Honoratioren? (Mainz: Verlag Antike, 2011)Google Scholar.

20. Pauline Schmitt Pantel’s thesis, which combines archaeology, iconography, literary sources, and epigraphy—and is inspired as much by Jean-Pierre Vernant as by Louis Robert—remains exemplary in this respect: see Pantel, Pauline Schmitt, La cité au banquet. Histoire des repas publics dans les cités grecques (Rome: École française de Rome, 1992)Google Scholar.

21. In particular, see Payen, Pascal and Scheid-Tissinier, Évelyne, eds., Anthropologie de l’Antiquité. Anciens objets, nouvelles approches (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013)Google Scholar.

22. See Mariot, Nicolas, “Qu’est-ce qu’un ‘enthousiasme civique’ ? Sur l’historiographie des fêtes politiques en France après 1789,” Annales HSS 63, no. 1 (2008): 113-39 Google Scholar. Mariot rightly criticizes the “integrating paradigm” of most studies devoted to civic celebrations.

23. Buc, Philippe, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

24. Ismard, Paulin, “Le public et le civique dans la cité grecque: hypothèses à partir d’une hypothèse,” in Le banquet de Pauline Schmitt Pantel. Genre, mœurs et politique dans l’Antiquité grecque et romaine, ed. Azoulay, Vincent, Gherchanoc, Florence, and Lalanne, Sophie (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2012), 317-29Google Scholar.

25. de Polignac, François, “Sanctuaires et société en Attique géométrique et archaïque: réflexion sur les critères d’analyse,” in Culture et cité. L’avènement d’Athènes à l’époque archaïque, ed. Verbanck-Piérard, Annie and Viviers, Didier (Brussels: Fondation archéologique de l’université libre de Bruxelles, 1995), 75-103 Google Scholar.

26. Ismard, Paulin, La cité des réseaux. Athènes et ses associations, VIe-Ier siècles av. J.-C. (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2010)Google Scholar; Taylor, Martha C., Salamis and the Salaminioi: The History of an Unofficial Athenian Demos (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1997)Google Scholar.

27. Zurbach, Julien, “The Formation of Greek City-States: Status, Class, and Land Tenure Systems,” Annales HSS (English Edition) 68, no. 4 (2013): 617-57 Google Scholar.

28. “We have competitions and sacrifices regularly throughout the year.” Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.38.1. See also Pseudo-Xenophon, Constitution of the Athenians 2.9 and 3.1-2.

29. Bertrand, , “Formes de discours politiques”Google Scholar; Ma, John, Antiochus III and the Cities of Western Asia Minor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Ma, , Statues and Cities: Honorific Portraits and Civic Identity in the Hellenistic World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a decompartmentalized approach, see Fröhlich, Pierre and Hamon, Patrice, eds., Groupes et associations dans les cités grecques de l’époque hellénistique et impériale (Geneva/ Paris: Droz, 2012)Google Scholar.

30. Blok, Josine H., “Becoming Citizens: Some Notes on the Semantics of ‘Citizen’ in Archaic Greece and Classical Athens,” Klio 87, no. 1 (2005): 7-40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31. Alain Duplouy cites the following study: Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim, “What’s in a Code? Solon’s Laws Between Complexity, Compilation and Contingency,” Hermes 133, no. 3 (2005): 280-93 Google Scholar.

32. Zurbach, , “The Formation of Greek City-States,” 630 Google Scholar. See also Harris, Edward M., “Did Solon Abolish Debt-Bondage?,” The Classical Quarterly 52, no. 2 (2002): 415-30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. According to Harris, Solon abolished not debt bondage, but debt slavery.

33. “All koinon contains within it the potential of division.” Schmitt Pantel, La cité au banquet, 112.

34. Thomas, Yan, “La valeur des choses. Le droit romain hors la religion,” Annales HSS 57, no. 6 (2002): 1431-62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Ibid., 1435.

36. Ismard, “Le public et le civique dans la cité grecque,” 318.

37. Thomas, Nicholas, Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1991), 18-21 Google Scholar. On these effects, see Azoulay, Vincent, Xénophon et les grâces du pouvoir. Charis et charisme dans l’œuvre de Xénophon (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2004), 113-33 and 364-66Google Scholar.

38. Asheri, David, Distribuzioni di terre nell’antica Grecia (Turin: Accademia delle Scienze, 1966)Google Scholar.

39. Bravo, Benedetto, “Citoyens et libres non-citoyens dans les cités coloniales à l’époque archaïque,” in L’étranger dans le monde grec, ed. Lonis, Raoul (Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1992), 43-85 Google Scholar.

40. Duplouy, Alain, “The So-Called Solonian Property Classes: Citizenship in Archaic Athens,” Annales HSS (English Edition) 69, no. 3 (2014): 411-439 Google Scholar, here 429.

41. Herodotus, Histories 7.155. See Garlan, Yvon, Slavery in Ancient Greece, trans. Lloyd, Janet (Ithaca: University of Cornell Press, 1988), 102 and 115Google Scholar.

42. Plutarch, Pericles 37.3-4. The date of the reform is deduced from a passage found in Pseudo-Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution 26.4: “In the year of [the archonship of] Antidotus, owing to the large number of the citizens an enactment was passed on the proposal of Pericles confining citizenship to persons of citizen birth on both sides (astoin ).”

43. See: French, Alfred, “Pericles’ Citizenship Law,” Ancient History Bulletin 8 (1994): 71-75 Google Scholar; Patterson, Cynthia B., Pericles’ Citizenship Law of 451/50 B.C. (Salem: Ayer, 1981)Google Scholar. On the reasons for the law, see Azoulay, Vincent, Pericles of Athens, trans. Lloyd, Janet (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 81-83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44. Pseudo-Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution 26.3-4.

45. For example, see Cornelius Castoriadis, Ce qui fait la Grèce, vol. 1, D’Homère à Héraclite, ed. Enrique Escobar, Myrto Gondicas, and Pascal Vernay (Paris: Éd. du Seuil, 2004), 59.

46. Laroche, Emmanuel, Histoire de la racine nem- en grec ancien : $ e´mw, ne´mesiς, no´moς, nomi´zw (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1949), 8Google Scholar.

47. Pseudo-Plato, Minos 317D-E. These reflections on the law were inspired by Antoine Chabod’s stimulating master’s dissertation: see Chabod, , Pratiques méliques de loi en Grèce archaïque (Master-2 diss., University of Strasbourg, 2013)Google Scholar.

48. Laroche, Histoire de la racine nem, 186-87. Most recently, see Raaflaub, Kurt, “Isonomia, ” in Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 13 vols., ed. Bagnall, Roger et al. (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012)Google Scholar, ad loc.

49. See Detienne, Marcel, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece [1967], trans. Lloyd, Janet (Cambridge: Zone Books, 1996)Google Scholar, 100-1 and 191-92n61.

50. Aristotle, Politics 3.1275a23.

51. See the following chapters in Finley, Moses I., Economy and Society in Ancient Greece (London: Chatto and Windus, 1981)Google Scholar: “Between Slavery and Freedom” [1964], chap. 7, pp. 116-32 (citation p. 131); “The Servile Statuses of Ancient Greece” [1960], chap. 8, pp. 133-49.

52. Andocides, , On the Mysteries (1), 74-76 Google Scholar. See: Wallace, Robert W., “Unconvicted or Potential Átimoi in Ancient Athens,” Dikè 1 (1998): 63-78 Google Scholar; Kamen, Deborah, Status in Classical Athens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 69-78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53. Andocides, On the Mysteries (1), 75.

54. Andocides, On the Mysteries (1), 75-76 [translation modified].

55. In a completely different context, see Butler, Judith P., Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (London/New York: Routledge, 1993), 12-16 Google Scholar.

56. Castoriadis, Ce qui fait la Grèce, 1:40. Some pages later, Castoriadis remarks “If we are asked the question ‘why do you want to understand the ancient Greek world,’ we would certainly reply that we want to understand it for the sake of understanding it. We are made in such a way that understanding or knowing is already an end in itself, which does not call for any justification. But that coexists with the notion of understanding in order to act or transform ourselves. Ultimately, even if we remain the same at the end of the journey, we will no longer really be the same, since we will know—or will think we know—why we have decided to remain the same.” Ibid., 1:52.