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The Formation of Greek City-States: Status, Class, and Land Tenure Systems*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Julien Zurbach
Julien Zurbach*
Affiliation:
ENS Paris
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Abstract

Recent scholarship has often remarked on the opposition between two conceptions of Archaic Greek societies, relating either to a legal and static definition of status or to a notion of status as personal and fluid, linked to diversified strategies for obtaining social distinction. This article seeks to move beyond this opposition by examining the history of status groups in the Archaic period. After analyzing the key stages within the complex historiography devoted to this subject, it goes on to provide a history of status groups during the formative period of the city-states. The creation of new status groups was an essential feature of the city-states’ history and was primarily linked to indebtedness and war. Although statuses were collective and often imposed from the outside, they nevertheless display a historical development that is central to the formation of city-states. In the seventh century BCE, new groups were created in response to the aristocracy’s need for a workforce. The resulting conflict led to an evolution of the systems regulating access to land and food. This reorganization of entitlement, which was how communities responded to the social and economic crisis they faced, was in turn based on the creation of new status groups. Social conflict led to the definition of a new system of status groups.

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Information
Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - English Edition , Volume 68 , Issue 4 , December 2013 , pp. 615 - 657
Copyright
Copyright © Les Éditions de l’EHESS 2013

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Footnotes

*

This article is largely drawn from a PhD dissertation directed by Pierre Carlier that was defended in 2008 and is in the process of being published: “Issues of Land in Greece from the Mycenaean Age to the Late Archaic Period.” I would like to thank Jean Andreau, Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi, Gabriele Cifani, Raymond Descat, Laurent Feller, François Lerouxel, Stéphanie Maillot, Pierre Sintès, Daniel Velinov, Michel Zurbach, and the members of the workgroup “Change in Mediterranean Economies (1000 BCE-1000 CE),” who discussed this article at their February 14, 2013 meeting. See www.archeo.ens.fr/spip.php?rubrique51.

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95. Hesiod mentions chrēmata—a term that would later refer to coinage—only in relation to shipping, that is, exchanges that are external to the community, in which it is possible to make calculations regarding profitability (kerdos). This seems to correspond perfectly to the moment that Descat identifies in “Argyrônètos,” in which chre¯mata referred to weighed silver, the universal standard before coinage.

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100. The best-known example is Vernant, Jean-Pierre, Myth and Thought among the Greeks, trans. Lloyd, Janet and Fort, Jeff (New York: Zone Books, 2006), part 4, pp. 263-320 Google Scholar.

101. Greene, Kevin, “Technological Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World: M. I. Finley Re-Considered,” The Economic History Review 53, no. 1 (2000): 29-59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garcia, Dominique and Meeks, Dimitri, eds. Techniques et économie antiques et médiévales. Le temps de l’innovation (Paris: Éditions Errance, 1997)Google Scholar; Brun, Jean-Pierre, Archéologie du vin et de l’huile. De la Préhistoire à l’époque hellénistique (Paris: Éditions Errance, 2004 Google Scholar).

102. Sigaut, François, “Moulins, femmes, esclaves. Une révolution technique et sociale dans l’Antiquité,” in Histoire des techniques et sources documentaires. Méthodes d’approche et expérimentation en région méditerranéenne (Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, 1985), 199-201 Google Scholar; Sigaut, , “L’évolution technique des agricultures européennes avant l’époque industrielle,” Revue archéologique du Centre de la France 27 (1988) 7-41, especially pp. 15-16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103. See also: Amouretti, Marie-Claire, Le pain et l’huile dans la Grèce antique. De l’araire au moulin, (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1986), 138-47 Google Scholar; Amouretti, “La transformation des céréales dans les villes, un indicateur méconnu de la personnalité urbaine. L’exemple d’Athènes à l’époque classique,” in L’origine des richesses dépensées dans la ville antique, ed. Philippe Leveau (Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence, 1985), 133-46; Amouretti, “La mouture des céréales, du mouvement alternatif au mouvement rotatif,” Cahiers d’histoire des techniques 3 (1995): 33-49.

104. Amouretti, Le pain et l’huile, 213-14.

105. Slave labor is, in any case, not very flexible. It is possible that slaves were used only at specific stages of a family’s demographic cycle, and were subsequently resold. But this seems unlikely, and no source supports it. It is even less probable that this occurred over the course of the agricultural year. Hesiod’s slaves are busy during the harvest, but they are also around for the winter, since huts are built for them. However one explains it, this fact alone suffices to show that slavery transcends the specific needs of the family unit.

106. Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 405-6 and 441-47.

107. It is harder to follow Sigaut when he establishes a connection between slavery and the distinctly technological changes in field preparation (iron tools) and cereal processing. We know too little about the rhythm and consequences of the introduction of iron tools to be able to draw any conclusions. See Amouretti, Marie-Claire, “Les instruments aratoires dans la Grèce archaïque,” Dialogues d’histoire ancienne 2 (1976): 25-52 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Snodgrass, Anthony M., “The Coming of the Iron Age in Greece: Europe’s Earliest Bronze/Iron Transition,” Archaeology and the Emergence of Greece (New York: Cornell University Press, 2006), 126-43 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, does not consider the case of farm tools. Amouretti’s study of tool prices in Classical Greece shows that, at the time, iron was relatively widespread: Marie-Claire Amouretti, “De l’éthnologie à l’économie. Le coût de l’outillage agricole dans la Grèce classique,” in Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, vol. 7, Anthropologie et société (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993), 1-13. This is confirmed by the tool depot which existed in Himera during the sixth century: Nunzio Allegro, “Un ripostiglio di attrezzi agricoli da Himera,” in Damarato. Studi di antichità classica offerti a Paola Pelagatti, ed. Irene Berlingò et al. (Milan: Electa, 2000), 39-49. There was a blacksmith in Ascra, but Hesiod’s swing plows do not seem to have had iron plowshares.

108. On Chios and Corcyra, see Bresson, Alain, L’économie de la Grèce des cités, fin VIe-Ier siècle a. C, vol. 1, Les structures de la production (Paris: Armand Colin, 2007), 133-34 Google Scholar.

109. On the domestic economy, see Zurbach, “Paysanneries de la Grèce archaïque.”

110. On Rome, see Cifani, Gabriele, “Notes on the Rural Landscape of Central Tyrrhenian Italy in the 6th-5th Centuries and Its Social Significance,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 15 (2002): 247-60 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111. Finley, “Debt-Bondage.”

112. Homer, Odyssey 4.643-44. Antinous asks if the crew of Telemachus’s ship consists of young freemen or “his hirelings (thetes) and slaves,” this last word rendering the Greek dmo¯es.

113. Finley, “Between Slavery and Freedom.”

114. Antiochos, FrGrHist 555 frag. 13; Ephoros, frag. 216; Aristotle, Politics 1306b.31. On the founding of Taranto, see: Malkin, , Myth and Territory; Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History, 1300-362 BC (London: Routledge, 1979; repr. 2002), 106-7 Google Scholar.

115. Domenico Musti, Magna Grecia. Il quadro storico (Rome: Laterza, 2005), 205-35; Musti, “Problemi della storia di Locri Epizefirii.”

116. Asheri, “Distribuzioni di terre.”

117. Notably Joseph C. Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside at Metaponto (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006).

118. See the analyses of Christel Müller, D’Olbia à Tanaïs. Territoires et réseaux d’échanges dans la mer Noire septentrionale aux époques classique et hellénistique (Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2010), 125-51, which are based on the work of G. M. Nikolaenko, Khora Khersonesa Tavricheskogo. Zemel’nyĭ kadastr IV-III vv. do n.e. [The cho¯ra of Tauric Chersonesos. Land allotment in the fourth and third centuries BCE], vols. 1 and 2 (Sebastopol: Natsional’nyĭ zapovednik “Khersones Tavricheskiĭ,” 1999 and 2001).

119. On this variety, see Morel, Jean-Paul, “Les enseignements des ‘cas d’études’: la chôra dans tous ses états,” Problemi della chora colloniale dall’Occidente al Mar Nero (Taranto: Istituto per la storia e l’archeologia della Magna Grecia, 2001), 823-38 Google Scholar.

120. Carter, Discovering the Greek Countryside.

121. Zurbach, Julien, “Pylos, Tirynthe, Cnossos: problèmes fonciers et diversité administrative,” in Colloquium Romanum, ed. Sacconi, Anna et al. (Pisa: Fabrizio Serra, 2008), 2:825-38 Google Scholar.

122. On the ard, see: Haudricourt, André-Georges and Delamarre, Mariel J. Brunhes, L’homme et la charrue à travers le monde (Paris: Gallimard, 1955)Google Scholar; René Bourrigaud and François Sigaut, eds., Nous labourons (Nantes: Centre d’histoire du travail, 2007). See also Mazoyer, Marcel and Roudart, Laurence, A History of World Agriculture from the Neolithic Age to the Current Crisis, trans. Membrez, James H. (London: Earthscan, 2006 Google Scholar).

123. On Corcyra Nigra, see Lombardo, Mario, “Lo psephisma di Lumbarda: note critiche e questioni esegestiche,” Hesperìa 3 (1993): 161-88 Google Scholar. On Chersonesos, see the references at note 118 above.

124. Current skepticism regarding this point is in fact merely a symptom of the tendency to empty tyranny of any specific content and to see it as an instance of aristocratic distinction. See Brandt, Hartmut, “ Gês anadasmos und ältere Tyrannis,” Chiron 19 (1989): 207-20 Google Scholar (hypercritical); Édouard Will, Korinthiaka. Recherches sur l’histoire et la civilisation de Corinthe des origines aux guerres médiques (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1955), 477-81.

125. Solon, frag. 34 West.

126. On the question of boundary markers, or horoi, removed by Solon, see Descat, Raymond, “De l’économie tributaire à l’économie civique: le rôle de Solon,” in Mélanges Pierre Lévêque, ed. Mactoux, Marie-Madeleine and Geny, Évelyne, vol. 5, Anthropologie et société (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1990), 85-100 Google Scholar.

127. Carlier, La royauté, particularly 154-57.

128. Ibid.

129. Jean-Marie Dentzer, Le motif du banquet couché dans le Proche-Orient et le monde grec du VIIe au IVe siècle avant J.-C. (Paris: École française de Rome, 1982), chap. 9; Oswyn Murray, Early Greece (London: Fontana, 1980), 169-70 and 197-203.

130. Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 190-99.

131. Link, Das griechische Kreta, especially 9-21; Barbara Montecchi, “Alcune riflessioni sugli ἀνδρεῖα e sulle ἀγελαɩ cretesi,” Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni italiane in Oriente 85 (2007): 83-117.

132. The clientistic character of Spartan meals has been notably emphasized by Hodkinson, Property and Wealth, 356-58.

133. This reading seems to be that of Schmitt-Pantel, La cité au banquet, 59-76 and 484-86.

134. Plutarch, Greek Questions 18 (295D).

135. Aristotle, Politics 1272b. See Huss, Werner, “Probleme der karthagischen Verfassung,” in Karthago, ed. Huss, Werner (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1992), 239-61 Google Scholar, especially pp. 258-59, including notes.

136. Jean-Pierre Olivier, “Des extraits de contrats de vente d’esclaves dans les tablettes de Knossos,” in “Studies in Mycenaean and Classical Greek Presented to John Chadwick,” ed. John Tyrrell Killen, José L. Melena, and Jean-Pierre Olivier, special issue, Minos 20, no. 22 (1987): 479-98.

137. Most recently in Luigi Capogrossi Colognesi, Padroni e contadini nell’Italia repubblicana (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2012), 85-92.

138. Raymond Descat, “Le marché dans l’économie de la Grèce antique,” in “Le marché dans son histoire,” special issue, Revue de synthèse 127, no. 2 (2006): 253-72.

139. Lerouxel, “Bronze pesé”; Descat, “Argyrônètos.”

140. Demosthenes, Against Aristocrates 39.

141. Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 244-45 and 496-97.

142. Monique Bourin et al., “Les campagnes de la Méditerranée occidentale autour de 1300: tensions destructrices, tensions novatrices,” Annales HSS 66, no. 3 (2011): 663-704; Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981).

143. Athenaeus, Deipnosophistes 8.348 = Aristotle, frag. 558 Rose.

144. Aristotle, Politics 1290b.11-14.

145. Francis Prost, “Législateurs, tyrans, lois somptuaires, ou comment définir un groupe social en Grèce ancienne,” in La cité et ses élites. Pratiques et représentation des formes de domination et de contrôle social dans les cités grecques, ed. Laurent Capdetrey and Yves Lafond (Bordeaux: Ausonius, 2010), 187-210.

146. Pseudo-Aristotle, Athenian Constitution 7.2-4.

147. Geoffrey E. M. de Sainte Croix, “The Solonian Census Classes and the Qualifications for Cavalry and Hoplite Service,” in Athenian Democratic Origins and Other Essays, ed. David Harvey and Robert Parker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 5-72, especially pp. 32-46.

148. See: Ampolo, Carmine, “La città riformata e l’organizzazione centuriata. Lo spazio, il tempo, il sacro nella nuova realtà urbana,” in Storia di Roma, ed. Momigliano, Arnaldo and Schiavone, Aldo, vol. 1, Roma in Italia (Turin: G. Einaudi, 1988), 203-39 Google Scholar; Cornell, Tim J., The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000-264 BC) (London: Routledge, 1995), 173-97 Google Scholar. See also Andreau, Jean, “Cens, évaluation et monnaie dans l’Antiquité romaine,” in La monnaie souveraine, ed. Aglietta, Michel and Orléan, André (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1998), 213-50 Google Scholar.

149. The origins of the liturgies are poorly known but they are attested at the end of the sixth century in Athens by the Economics of the Pseudo-Aristotle (2.2.4c).

150. Henri van Effenterre, “Le statut comparé des travailleurs étrangers en Chypre, Crète et autres lieux à la fin de l’archaïsme,” Acts of the International Archaeological Symposium “The Relations Between Cyprus and Crete, ca. 2000-500 BC” (Nicosia: The Department of Antiquities, 1979), 279-93.

151. On the idea that a revolution in military technology in the seventh century, known as the hoplite revolution, played a key role in transforming Greek society, see Snodgrass, Anthony, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980 Google Scholar).

152. The military motivations for abolishing debt bondage have been emphasized, in the case of fourth-century Rome, by William V. Harris, “Roman Warfare in the Economic and Social Context of the Fourth Century BC,” in Staat und Staatlichkeit in der frühen Römischen Republik, ed. Walter Eder (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1990), 494-510.

153. On these Mycenaean Greek texts, see Del Freo, Maurizio, I censimenti di terreni nei testi in lineare B (Pisa: Istituti editoriali e poligrafici internazionali, 2005 Google Scholar).

154. Homer, Odyssey 18.357-361.

155. “Whoever has power and impunity can extort gifts.” Carlier, La royauté, 162.

156. Mario Liverani, “Land Tenure and Inheritance in the Ancient Near East: The Interaction Between ‘Palace’ and ‘Family’ Sectors,” in Land Tenure and Social Transformation in the Middle East, ed. Tarif Khalidi (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1984), 33-44, especially p. 39; Liverani, “The Near East: The Bronze Age,” in The Ancient Economy: Evidence and Models, ed. J. G. Manning and Ian Morris (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005), 47-57, especially p. 50; Liverani, “Tecnologia e ideologia del Tardo Bronzo,” in Antico Oriente (Rome: Laterza, 1988), 449-80; Benjamin R. Foster, “The Late Bronze Age Palace Economy: A View from the East,” in The Function of the Minoan Palaces, ed. Robin Hägg and Nanno Marinatos (Stockholm: Svenska institutet i Athen, 1987), 11-16.

157. On the concept of “Oriental” societies as it is currently used in Greek history, probably the final avatar of oriental despotism, see Zurbach, Julien, “‘Désorientalisation’ de la Méditerranée archaïque?,” Topoi 17, no. 2 (2012): 503-12 Google Scholar.

158. Eric Hobsbawm, “Peasant Land Occupations,” in Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion and Jazz (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), 223-55; James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 37-41.

159. See Carlier, conclusion of La royauté.

160. Homer, Odyssey 18.357-61.

161. Homer, Iliad 2.212-77

162. Archaic and Classical legislation notably regulated the devolution of property (i.e., dowry and inheritance). See Hölkeskamp, Karl-Joachim, Schiedsrichter, Gesetzgeber und Gesetzgebung im archaischen Griechenland, (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1999), 265 Google Scholar.

163. The argument that holds that labor conditions could not unite freemen and bondsmen because they were divided by access to property is weak, as it considerably oversimplifies the exploitative relationships between freemen.

164. Asheri, “Leggi greche sul problema.”

165. On the reproduction of labor, see Meillassoux, Claude, Maidens, Meal and Money: Capitalism and the Domestic Community (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981 Google Scholar).

166. For further bibliographical references, see Zurbach, “Paysanneries de la Grèce archaïque,” 38-39.

167. Pierre Carlier, “La procédure de décision politique du monde mycénien à l’époque archaïque,” in La transizione dal Miceneo all’alto Arcaismo. Dal palazzo alla città, ed. Domenic Musti et al. (Rome: Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche, 1991), 85-95; Carlier, “Observations sur l’histoire de la Grèce égéenne au début de l’âge du Fer,” in Magna Grecia e Oriente Mediterraneo prima dell’età ellenistica (Taranto: Istituto per la storia e l’archeologia della Magna Grecia, 2000), 39-61.