Entanglement, Materiality and the Social Organisation of Construction Workers in Classical Athens

This chapter views the “Periclean Building Program” through the lens of Actor Network Theory, in order to explore the ways in which the construction of these buildings transformed Athenian society and politics in the fifth century BC. It begins by applying some Actor Network Theory concepts to the process that was involved in getting approval for the building program as described by Thucydides and Plutarch in his Life of Pericles. Actor Network Theory blends entanglement (human-material thing interdependence) with network thinking, so it allows us to reframe our views to include social networks when we think about the political debate and social tensions in Athens that arose from Pericles’s proposal to construct the Parthenon and Propylaea on the Athenian Acropolis, the Telesterion at Eleusis, the Odeon at the base of the South slope of the Acropolis, and the long wall to Peiraeus. Social Network Analysis can model the social networks, and the clusters within them, that existed in mid-fifth century Athens. By using Social Network Analysis we can then show how the construction work itself transformed a fractious city into a harmonious one through sustained, collective efforts that engaged large numbers of lower class citizens, all responding to each other’s needs in a chaine operatoire..

Hegemonic Legitimacy (and its Absence) in Classical Greece

A recurring concern of Greek writers on hegemony and empire (and of modern commentators on those writers) is the problem of securing the willing – or at least, not actively hostile – consent of those led. But ancient approaches to this question are often fragmented in their focus and limited in their perspective; modern historical analyses have likewise tended to grapple more with specific instances or themes than the wider picture. The aim of this chapter, therefore, is to see if it is possible to develop a more systematic framework for assessing the legitimacy (or lack of legitimacy) of Greek hegemonic systems. In particular, it explores the theoretical models for interstate and hegemonic legitimacy developed in recent work in International Theory, especially in reaction to the (alleged) ‘crisis of legitimacy’ of the early years of this century, and assess their applicability (or lack of it) to a deliberately broadly‐ defined set of Classical Greek hegemonies. In doing so, it illuminates the various ways in which legitimacy was developed and defended by these hegemonies; the challenges to legitimacy each faced; and the extent to which the successful cultivation of hegemonic legitimacy correlates with the success of hegemony more broadly.

Patronage in Ancient Sparta

The ideology of the Spartan homoioi, the “equals”, or rather the “similars” masked vast differences in wealth, prestige and power. In such circumstances, personal patronage thrive, decades of anthropological investigations has shown us. Yet patronage is most commonly associated with Rome, despite the demonstration by several scholars that patron‐client relationships did indeed play a role even in democratic Athens, a society before thought exempt from the universal laws of reciprocity. This chapter discusses the role of personal patronage in classical Sparta, and the differences between unequal reciprocity in the society of the “similars” compared to democratic Athens and Republican Rome. It demonstrates how patronage is a natural part of all ancient societies. Different systems allow patronage different scope and venues, forcing the phenomenon to adapt to various circumstances. This changes the rates of exchange between patron and client, but does not abolish the institution. The aim is to construct a general theory of patronage in the ancient city-states of Greece and Rome.

Approaching the Hellenistic Polis through Modern Political Theory: The Public Sphere, Pluralism and Prosperity

This chapter discusses methods and problems in reconstructing an inclusive, dynamic picture of the political thought and debates of the Hellenistic cities (c. 323– 31 BC), drawing on theories and models from modern political and social theory. It shows the benefits of integrating together the widest range of possible evidence, from Hellenistic philosophy to the most everyday inscriptions, in order to reconstruct for the Hellenistic world the kind of complex, wide-ranging picture of political thought advocated by P. Rosanvallon and others in the study of modern political thinking. When studied in this way, the political thinking and rhetoric of Hellenistic philosophers, intellectuals and citizens reveal attempts to reconcile the Greek polis with ideals of cosmopolitanism and social inclusion, without diluting political vitality. As evidence for this political vitality, the paper demonstrates is the fruitful interlocking and mutual counterbalancing within the Hellenistic public sphere of the three types of political discourse studied in turn in Ober’s trilogy on Classical Athens: political lobbying and negotiation, including rival attempts to shape civic values; philosophical and critical reflection about the foundations of politics; and rationalistic consideration of efficiency, especially the devising and advertisement of incentives.

Majority Rule vs. Consensus: The Practice of Democratic Deliberation in the Greek Poleis

Scholars have often identified the Greek polis, and Athenian democracy in particular, as the first example of majority rule. This chapter reviews the evidence for Greek deliberative procedures and reassesses how much they conformed to majority rule, and how much they made use of consensus‐deliberation, understood through engagement with current work on deliberative democracy. It discusses the evidence of Hellenistic decrees from the Greek poleis for which we have voting figures, to show that what we find is for the most part unanimity or near‐unanimity. It then discusses the Athenian evidence to reassess whether the deliberative system in Athens practiced strict majority rule, or left space for considerable consensus seeking and even unanimity. It argues that consensus‐ based forms of deliberation were a key element of Greek decision making, which secured the cohesion of Greek communities as well as the synthesis of wide‐spread knowledge.

Muddle Wrestling: Grappling for Conceptual Clarity in Archaic Greek Money

In recent years, the global trends towards currency homogenization and monetary diversification have attracted the attention of sociologists Nigel Dodd, Geoffrey Ingham, and Viviana Zelizer, each of whom has explored at length not just contemporary monetary practices, but also the nature of money and its long history. In the course of their debates over how to define money, to trace its origins, and to outline the theoretical approaches towards the production and consumption of money in various fields of study, including economics, sociology, and politics, they have worked towards achieving greater clarity where previously there has been what Ingham has called “category errors” and Dodd a “conceptual muddle.” Largely overlooked by those who work on ancient monetary problems, their efforts to disentangle money’s abstractions and materiality offers a path out of some of the thorniest pitfalls in discussions of the development of money in the ancient Mediterranean world, particularly in the archaic period. This chapter demonstrates how Ingham’s and Dodd’s clearly defined, hierarchical units of analysis – money idea, money of account, and currency – can be profitably employed to map and isolate problems in approaches to archaic money that hitherto have been plagued by their own conceptual confusions, not least of which is how to define “money” in an archaic context.

Exploring Intercommunity Political Activity in Fourth-Century Greece

It might seem reasonable to take the view that the study of ancient Greek political behaviour could plausibly focus upon exchanges that went on inside the polis: after all, the word ‘politics’ derives from the Greek politika (‘polis affairs’). However, the concerns of ancient Greek polis-communities were not merely introspective: communities (regardless of size or military clout) were obliged to face the consequences of the decisions and activity of other communities. Human representatives of city-states performed necessary interactions with outsiders: they fought as soldiers, and staked political or ideological claims as ambassadors and politicians. On their return to their home communities, these individuals proclaimed to their audiences the significance of their activity away from home. Furthermore, the overlaps in social and cultural structure of different Greek city-states, as well as the existence of shared modes of decision-making, might lead us to anticipate the value of trans-community forms of political activity. At the heart of this question, therefore, is an overall debate about the degree of ‘unity’ of Greek political institutions and behaviour, a debate explored in this chapter with particular reference to the contested transferability of the decree (psephisma) in Greek inter-state politics of the fourth century.

The City in Chorus: For a Choral History of Athenian Society

This chapter specifically aims to find a path that traverses — or a midway point between — both approaches to the study of the Greek world influenced by Actor-Network Theory and more traditional Durkheimian approaches centered on the city. It considers the model of the choros (as it was conceptualized by classical authors) as capable of offering a productive paradigm for understanding the mechanisms of belonging at work within Athenian civic society during the classical period. The choral reference also refers to a certain way of writing history—one inspired by the models of the novel and the choral film— that seems particularly fitting for describing the complex way in which the Athenian social sphere functioned. The article formulates the following hypothesis: a choral approach, at the crossroads between the specifically Greek conception of the chorus and the contemporary conceptualization of the chorus in the field of fiction, makes it possible to stay as close as possible to the ways in which the social sphere was composed, the formation of groups, and the identities at the various levels of community life. This hypothesis to put to the test by examining a unique moment in Athenian history: the years between 404 and 400.

Overview: Greek History at a Crossroads

This chapter provides an overview of the themes of the volume and reflects on the approaches employed, their promise and their problems. It also makes suggestions about the way forward in the ongoing dialogue between Greek history and contemporary social science.

The Koinon Dogma, the Mercenary Threat and the Consolidation of the Democratic Revolutions in Mid-Fifth-Century Sicily

This chapter provides a partial explanation for the apparent success of the many democratic revolutions in mid 5th century Sicily. It makes three primary points. First, the presence of mercenaries and displaced peoples constituted an existential threat to each of the new Sicilian democracies. For example, mercenaries – all of whom previously worked for the then recently deposed tyrants – might support an aspiring tyrant simply for pay. Second, no city could solve the problems posed by mercenaries and displaced peoples by itself. If City A, for example, does not welcome home its former residents currently living in City B, City B might not be able to welcome home its former residents currently living in City C, and so on. For the third point it draws upon the work of Michael Chwe and Barry Weingast and argues that the promulgation of a koinon dogma (Diod. Sic. 11.76.5) helped the citizens of the relevant poleis solve their “inter‐polis coordination problem” and thus helped consolidate the several democratic revolutions in Greek Sicily.