STATE OF AFFAIRS AND FURTHER QUESTIONS

Scenes of working people on Athenian vases of the sixth and fifth centuries BC have more than once been investigated as exceptional testimonies to the social history of Archaic and Classical Athens. Whereas by far the greater part of black-figure and red-figure vases depicting scenes of social life focus on the noble sphere of the upper classes, a small number of images lead us into the world of workmen and merchants. The main question they raise is, of course, the social and cultural evaluation and appreciation of human labor within the historical horizon of that period.

As we seem to know, the upper classes defined and legitimized their social status in terms of a leisure elite, exempt from manual work and dedicated to the culture of politics, athletics, and symposia. Yet, it was precisely this social elite that bought and used these painted vases – so what was the reason for decorating such vessels with scenes of labor? What did these users think when they looked at the images of those working people during their banquets? Did such scenes serve to confirm the noble participants in banquets in their elevated social identity, defining themselves against, and distinguishing themselves from, the counter-world of the working ‘classes’? On the other hand, these vases were produced precisely by members of this working ‘class’, so how did the vase painters feel when they represented their own social group for the gaze of the elite symposiasts? Did the producers of the vases adopt the negative view of manual labor held by their aristocratic opposites? Or are such images a proud self-assertion of the working ‘classes’, claiming, whether successful or not, their acceptance and introduction to the life sphere of the elite? If so, would we have to elevate these vase painters to social spearhead fighters, promoting a specific ideology of the working ‘classes’, in opposition to the elites’ ideals of life? Or do the images testify to a real rise and new appreciation of the working classes in the social scale of pre-democratic and democratic Athens?