Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T20:41:59.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nothing to do with democracy: Athenian drama and the polis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

P.J. Rhodes
P.J. Rhodes
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A fashionable approach to the interpretation of Athenian drama concentrates on its context in performance at Athenian festivals, and sees both the festivals and the plays as products of the Athenian democracy. In this paper it is argued that, whereas the institutional setting inevitably took a particular form in democratic Athens, that was an Athenian version of institutions found more generally in the Greek world, and even in the Athenian version many features do not seem distinctively democratic. Similarly in the interpretation of particular plays themes have often been said to be democratic which are better seen as concerns of polis-dwelling Greeks in general, and the notion that plays questioned Athens' democratic values because the democratic ethos of Athens consciously encouraged the questioning of Athens' democratic values is far from certain.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 123 , November 2003 , pp. 104 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Griffin, J., in Sophocles Revisited: Essays Presented to Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Oxford 1999) 73–94 ch. 5 at 73-4Google Scholar.

2 Winkler, J.J. and Zeitlin, F.I. (eds), Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (Princeton 1990)Google Scholar. One school of thought had seen the festivals as essentially dramatic entertainments which had ‘nothing to do with Dionysus’ (e.g. Taplin, O., Greek Tragedy in Action (London 1978) 162)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the contributors to this volume responded by claiming for Dionysus a variety of civic interpretations.

3 Goldhill, S., JHS 120 (2000) 34–56 at 35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Hall, E., in Silk, M.S. (ed.), Tragedy and the Tragic (Oxford 1996) 295–309Google Scholar: quotations from pp. 296, 297, 304-5.

5 I do not, of course, deny that one strand in Aristophanes' comments on drama is the usefulness to the polis of drama in general and his own plays in particular.

6 My point is different from that of Griffith, M., CSCA 26 = CA 14 (1995) 62–139Google Scholar, who argues ‘not that there was no such democratic ideology … but there were other, competing ideologies too’ and that one important function of tragedy was ‘to negotiate between conflicting class interests and ideologies within the polis' (109-10). But a similar line to mine is taken briefly by Goggans, P., Polis 18 (2001) 168-73 at 170Google Scholar, in a review of Monoson, S.S., Plato's Democratic Entanglements: Athenian Politics and the Practice of Democracy (Princeton 2000)Google Scholar.

7 Cf. Rhodes, P.J. in CAH 5 287–92.Google Scholar

8 N.B. demou kratousa cheir in 1. 604. But S. Scullion proposes to challenge the current consensus, based on P.Oxy. 20.2256 fr. 3, and return to an earlier date for the play(CQ n.s. 52 (2002) 81-101 at 87-101).

9 Eur. Supp. 395-462. What Theseus defends is indeed clearly democracy, though C.B.R. Pelling comments on the play, ‘Despite Theseus' rosy picture of democracy in action the audience must find much that is uncomfortable’ (in Pelling, (ed.), Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford 1997) 213-35 at 233–4Google Scholar): what he contrasts it with is not oligarchy but tyranny.

10 It seems reasonable to believe that the kind of public criticism of institutions and public figures which we find in old comedy was more easily tolerated by a democratic state than by states of other kinds: Arist. Poet. 1448a 31-2 links comedy with democracy in Megara.

11 Griffin (n.1) 74-5: P. Cartledge in Easterling, P.E. (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1997) 3–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 6 – but at 21 Cartledge stresses, ‘Nor, on the other hand (to correct any possible misunderstanding of what follows), was the fundamentally questioning, risk-taking sort of tragedy by any means the only sort staged, even in the undoubted crisis of the Peloponnesian War’; Croally, N.T., Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy (Cambridge 1994) 3Google Scholar. D. Feeney in a review of the Cambridge Companion suggests that ‘the undeniable gains of the “democratic moment” approach will leave their stamp on any future consensus, but one feels that this Companion shows the current consensus just before it begins to crack’ (TLS (29 May 1988) 11).

12 Pickard-Cambridge, A.W., rev. Gould, J. and Lewis, D.M., The Dramatic Festivals of Athens (Oxford 1968) 58.Google Scholar

13 Suid. (θ 282 Adler) Θέπις Marm. Par. FGrHist 239 A 43 (but ἐν ἄστει, ‘in the city’, is a phrase very insecurely introduced into the text by Boeckh). See West, M.L., CQ n.s. 39 (1989) 251–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scullion, S., CQ n.s. 52 (2002) 81–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 81-4, is sceptical on all pre-500 dates for the Dionysia and drama.

14 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 40.

15 Connor, W.R., C&M 40 (1989)Google Scholar [publ. 1993] 7-32; this and accompanying papers published also as a separate book, Connor, W.R. et al. , Aspects of Athenian Democracy (C&M Diss. 11, Copenhagen 1990)Google Scholar, same pagination. Doubts about Connor's interpretation of the Dionysia are expressed by Sourvinou-Inwood, C. in Ritual, Finance, Politics … D. Lewis (Oxford 1994) 269-90, esp. 275–6Google Scholar; Raaflaub, K.A. in Polis and Politics … M.H. Hansen (Copenhagen 2000) 249-75 at 255–60Google Scholar; Burnett, A.P. in Gestures … A.L. Boegehold (Oxford: Oxbow, forthcoming)Google Scholar. Cartledge, in the Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (n.11), while expressing sympathy for Connor's theory, at any rate as explaining the origin of the Dionysia and tragedy as we know them (23-4), accepts the traditional view that tragedy began under Pisistratus – but stresses that Pisistratus' tyranny was ‘relatively benign and populist' (3, cf. 22).

In the same spirit as Connor Hurwit, J.M. has argued for the dating of buildings to the years after the overthrow of the tyranny: ‘Between 508 and 490, the democracy deliberately and thoroughly put its stamp upon the religious spaces of Athens’ (The Acropolis (Cambridge 1999) 121–5Google Scholar, cf. 132: quotation at p. 121).

16 Csapo, E. and Slater, W.J., The Context of Ancient Drama (Ann Arbor 1995) 103–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Osborne, R. in Sommerstein, A.H. et al. (eds), Tragedy, Comedy and the Polis … 18 - 20.vii.1990 (Bari 1993) 21–38: quotation at p. 36Google Scholar.

18 Hdt. 5.67.

19 Goldhill (n.3) 38, criticizing Griffin, CQ n.s. 48 (1998) 39-61 esp. 47-50. Cf. the list in Croally (n.11) 3.

20 On the choregia, the institution through which rich citizens were given responsibility including financial responsibility for a chorus competing in a festival, see in general Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 86-90; Csapo and Slater (n. 16) 139-57.

21 Wilson, P., The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia (Cambridge 2000): democratic, e.g. 7.Google Scholar

22 Wilson (n.21) 13; 312-13 n.7, cf. 279-302; 13.

23 Wilson (n.21) 113-14, 280: Alcm. PMG 1 (the word 1. 44).

24 Wilson (n.21) 281-2: Hdt. 5.83.

25 Wilson (n.21) 279-80: Aristoxenus fr. 117 Wehrli, with M.L. West, CQ n.s. 40 (1990) 286-7.

26 Wilson (n.21) 280-1: Pind. fr. 94b Snell and Maehler.

27 P. 107, above.

28 χορηγοῦσι μὲν οἰ πλούσιοι, χορηγεῖται δὲ δῆμος: [Xen.] Ath. Pol. 1.13. In Wilson's book (n.21), a chapter on ‘Aristocratic style’ (ch.3, 109-43) is followed by one on ‘Khoregia and democracy’ (ch.4, 144-97). Leisure and nearness to the city are likely to have been two factors making it easier for people to perform; the audience included the poor (cf. pp. 110-11, below), but it was not simply an assemblage of the demos but included non-citizens.

29 Wilson (n.21) 282.

30 Ath. Pol. 56.3.

31 Arist. Pol. 5.1305a 4-5, 1309a 14-20, 6.1320b 2-4, 1321a 31-5.

32 Wilson (n.21) 270-6; Rhodes, P.J. with Lewis, D.M., The Decrees of the Greek States (Oxford 1997) 41–3Google Scholar.

33 This expression is prompted by Ober, J., Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton 1989)Google Scholar.

34 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 84-6; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 105, 108-9: Ar. Knights 513, Cratinus PCG 17, Arist. Poet. 1449b 1-2. (For the dithyrambic competition the choregoi in an order determined by lot chose their poet. Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 75-6: Ar. Birds 1403-4, Ant. 6 Chor. 11, Dem. 21 Mid. 13.)

35 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 98; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 108, 119: e.g. Plut. An Seni 785b, Ath. 6. 241f.

36 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 90: Ar. Frogs 367-8 with schol. 368. The poets are not discussed by Goldhill; the stipend is mentioned by Croally (n. 11) 3.

37 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 95-9; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 157-65. The principal texts are Lys. 4 Wound 3; Isoc. 17 Banker 33-4; Dem. 21 Mid. 17-18; Plut. Cim. 8.7-9.

38 E.g. Pl. Rep. 8.557a; Arist. Pol. 4.1294b 7-9; but at 4.1300b 1-3 Aristotle classifies the appointment ‘of some from some by lot’ as oligarchic.

39 Detailed information for states other than Athens and Sparta is hard to find; but Anaximenes of Lampsacus in his Rhetorica ad Alexandrum (18, p. 16 Fuhrmann) thought oligarchies should use allotment for most appointments though not the highest. For the ‘future constitution’ of 411, see Ath. Pol. 30.

40 Oehler, J., RE 8.155–7 at 156Google Scholar: ‘also a universal Greek procedure’ (Finley, M.I. and Pleket, H.W., The Olympic Games: The First Thousand Years (London 1976) 59)Google Scholar.

41 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 76, 90-1; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 75-80.

42 Winkler in Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 20-62 (an earlier version in Representations 11 (1985) 26–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

43 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 93-5; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 85-6; allotment: Hes. (v 286 Latte), Phot., Suid. (v 170 Adler) νεμήσεις ὑποκριτῶν; earlier and later allotment systems: 1G II2 2319 contr. 2320.

44 Cf. J. Ober and B.S. Strauss in Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 237-70 at 238: ‘The seating in the theater was egalitarian, as it was in the Assembly and in the people's courts.’

45 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 268-70; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 298-301; the statue bases: IG II2 3287. The weakness of the argument is noted by Pritchard, D.M., Ancient History: Resources for Teachers 30 (2000) 104-18 at 115Google Scholar.

46 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 268-9; Csapo and Slater (n.14) 289; priest of Dionysus: Ar. Frogs 297; successful generals: Ar. Knights 573-7, 702-4; foreign envoys: Aeschin. 3 Ctes. 76, Dem. 18 Crown 28; council: Ar. Birds 793-6, cf. Peace 887-908; council and ephebes: schol. Ar. Birds 794, Poll. 4.122, Hes. (β 926 Latte) βουλευτικόν, Suid. (β 430 Adler) βουλευτικός.

47 Csapo and Slater (n.16) 306-12; senators: Liv. 34.44.5, 54.4; equites: Plut. Cic. 13.2-4, Cic. Phil.2. 44.

48 Rhodes, P.J., The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 2Google Scholar: cf. Ath. Pol. 7.3-4.

49 Similarly, the distribution of sacrificial meat at the Panathenaea was not egalitarian, but various officials (including the prytaneis but not the rest of the council, and including the senior military officials) received their own, different, special allowances, and the distribution to the ordinary citizens, like the distribution of the theoric grants (below), was made through the deme assemblies: IG I3 224.A.17-21, II2 334.8-27; cf. Deubner, L., Attische Feste (Berlin 1932) 25–6Google Scholar; Parke, H.W., Festivals of the Athenians (London 1977) 46–9Google Scholar.

50 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 265-8, 270-2; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 287-9, 293-7.

51 Schol. Dem. 1 Ol.l. 1 (no. 1f, p. 16 Dilts); attested also Dem. 18 Crown 28 (if Demosthenes had not made arrangements, the envoys from Philip of Macedon in 346 would have had to sit in the 2-obol seats) and inscriptions, e.g. IG II2 500.20-36. Wilson, in Pelling (n.9) 81-108 at 97-100, doubts the usual assumption that the charge for admission predates the theoric grants, and argues that the grants are better seen as subsidies for citizens vis-à-vis non-citizens than as subsidies for the poor; in The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia (n.21) he suggests c. 420 (p. 167: not supported by any evidence) or the time of Pericles (p. 265).

52 [Dem.] 44 Leoch. 37. Whitehead, D., The Demes of Attica (Princeton 1986) 110Google Scholar, argues from this passage that the payments were made at meetings of the deme assemblies.

53 E.g. Rhodes, P.J., A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford 1981) 514Google Scholar; The Athenian Boule (Oxford 1972) 105Google Scholar, was less certain. Pericles: e.g. Plut. Per. 9.1, 34.2; Agyrrhius: e.g. Harp. (θ 19 Keaney) θεωρικά; Diophantus: Hes. (δ 2351 Latte), Suid. (δ 1491 Adler) δραχμὴ χαλαζῶσα; Eubulus: e.g. Aeschin. 3 Ctes. 24-5 with schol. 24 (65 Dilts). Just. Epit. 6.9.1-5.

54 Or even early fourth century: IG II2 1176 (Piraeus), cited by Pickard-Cambridge (n. 12) 266 with n.6, as early fourth century, is of 324/3 (Agora XIX L 13).

55 A.H. Sommerstein, in Pelling (n.9) 63-79 at 65-73.

56 Deubner (n.49) 139-40; Parke (n.49) 126-8; Pickard-Cambridge (n. 12) 59-63.

57 Discussed by Goldhill in Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 97-129 at 98-114 (earlier version JHS 107 (1987) 58-76 at 59-68), and again in (n.3) 43-7 (where he explores ‘how the notion of difference is inscribed within social performance’). See also Parke (n.49) 133-4.

58 Solon: Diog. Laert. 1.55; state responsibility: Thuc. 2.46.1; parade: P.Hib. 1.14. a-b = Lys. fr. 6.1-2 Gernet and Bizos, Isoc. 8 Peace 82, (past) Aeschin. 3 Ctes. 154. Directly or indirectly, this parade was replaced, apparently at the beginning of their second year so not at the Dionysia, by a parade of the epheboi: Ath. Pol. 42.4.

59 Goldhill in Goldhill, S. and Osborne, R. (eds), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge 1999) 1–29Google Scholar at 8-9, citing Isoc. 8 Peace 82.

60 Cf. Theoph. Char. 3.3.

61 Aeschin. 3 Ctes. 32-48, Dem. 18 Crown 120-2: see in particular Goodwin, W.W., Demosthenes on the Crown (Cambridge 1901) 313–16Google Scholar; Gwatkin, W.E., Hesp. 26 (1957) 129–41Google Scholar; Wankel, H., Demosthenes Rede für Ktesiphon über den Kranz (Heidelberg 1976) 2.643–50Google Scholar. I suspect that Aeschines and Demosthenes were both citing valid laws, and that the procedure which was intended to eliminate conflicts between the laws had failed to do so.

62 Aeschin. 3 Ctes. 178.

63 Henry, A.S., Honours and Privileges in Athenian Decrees (Hildesheim 1983) 28–36Google Scholar: ML 85 = IG I3 102 tr. Fornara 155.12-14 (410/09): uncertain restoration in IG I3 125.23-9 (405/4); but IG II22.b (with Addenda p. 655) is perhaps to be dated 382/1 (M.B. Walbank, EMC 26 = n.s. 1 (1982) 259-74, cf. SEG 32.38); first for a citizen, IG II2 492.27-9 (303/2). Crowns were also, though apparently less often, in the fourth century proclaimed at the Panathenaea, a festival which did not include performances of plays: IG II2 212 (= Tod 167 tr. Harding 82) 24-33, 492.27-9, 557.15-18.

64 Examples in SIG 3 include 381.29-30 (Delos), 402.20-3 (Chios), 410.30-2 (Erythrae), 545.31 sqq. (Delphic Amphictyony), 645.69-71 (Calchedon) (the last second century, the others third century).

65 Aeschin. 3 Ctes. 41.

66 ML 65 = IG I3 61 tr. Fornara 128.23-7.

67 Thuc. 5.23.4.

68 Plut. Cim. 8.7-9; Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 96; Csapo and Slater (n.16) 107; Goldhill, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 100-1 = (n.57) 60.

69 Ar. Acharn. 502-8.

70 Pickard-Cambridge (n.12) 64, 66, 68-70; Parke (n.49) 135.

71 Dem. 21 Mid. 8-9; (Alcibiades) 174.

72 IG II2 223, B. 7-9 (343/2); 354.15-19 (328/7); Agora XVI 181.10-19 (archon of ?283/2).

73 Cf. Cartledge (n.11).

74 Croally (n.11) 1,3.

75 Croally (n.11) 165 with n. 9: Hdt. 3.80.2 (Persian debate); 3.142.3, 4.161.3, 7.164.1 (substitute for monarchy or tyranny); 1.206.3, 3.83.1, 7.8.δ.2 (discussion among leading Persians); (other passages from Hdt. not relevant); Eur. Supp. 439 (es meson in Theseus' defence of democracy).

76 In Goff, B. (ed.), History, Tragedy, Theory (Austin 1995) 131–50Google Scholar.

77 Foley (n.76) 142-3; 134 (where she expresses more pithily what is said by Sourvinou-Inwood, C., JHS 109 (1989) 134-48 at 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

78 Esp. Sourvinou-Inwood (n.77).

79 Sourvinou-Inwood (n.77) 138 with n.24: Soph. Ant. 8, Thuc. 4.105.2.

80 Sourvinou-Inwood (n.77) 139: Soph. Ant. 175-90 with Dem. 19 Embassy 246-50. (In fact, when Demosthenes does mention democracy, he frequently identifies it with freedom from external domination: cf. Rhodes, P.J., LCM 3 (1978) 207-11 at 209–10.Google Scholar)

81 Sourvinou-Inwood (n.77) 137. Foley in Sommerstein et al. (n.17) 101-43 at 105, says, ‘Regardless of the original reasons for funerary legislation and other shifts in funerary practice, however, Athenians of the fifth century would almost certainly have interpreted such changes in death rituals as conforming to and supporting the ideology of the democracy’ – but would they, if they knew that there were similar laws in other poleis too? On funerary practices, cf. below.

82 Bennett, L.J. and Tyrrell, W.B., AJP 111 (1990) 441–56Google Scholar.

83 Bennett and Tyrrell (n.82) 444.

84 So, at any rate, the Athenians claimed: Dem. 20 Lept. 141.

85 Pritchett, W.K., The Greek State at War 4 (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1985) 94-259, esp. 249–51Google Scholar.

86 Morris, I. in Boegehold, A.L. and Scafuro, A.C. (eds), Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology (Baltimore 1994) 67–101Google Scholar.

87 E.g. ML 33 = IG I3 1147, beginning and end tr. Fornara 78. For association with democracy, see for instance Loraux, N., The Invention of Athens, tr. Sheridan, A. (Cambridge, MA 1986) 15–76Google Scholar ch. 1 (‘The funeral oration in the democratic city’) at 22-3 (‘The listing of the dead by phylai may not have been a specifically Athenian feature, but the democratic city was particularly careful to stress the closeness of the bond between the citizen and his tribe’); Goldhill, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 110-12 = (n.57) 66-7 (‘The values of democratic collectivity and the primacy of the city were stressed in a new form of memorial’); R. Osborne, P&P 155 (1997) 3-33 at 29 (‘Democratic Athens took its opposition to claims based on lineage so far as to suppress patronymics on public monuments to the war dead’).

88 IG VII 585 (Tanagra), 1888 (Thespiae): Low, P.A., World Archaeology 35 (2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar forthcoming. A version of this paper was read to British Epigraphy Society, 11 November 2000; I am grateful to Dr Low for discussion and references.

89 Versnel, H.S., in Eder, W. (ed.), Die athenische Demokratie im 4. Jh. v. Chr. … 3-7.viii.1992 (Stuttgart 1994) 367–87Google Scholar, with comments on Goldhill at 375-7. Cf. also Jameson, M.H. in Morris, I. and Raaflaub, K.A. (eds), Democracy 2,500? Questions and Challenges (Dubuque, IO 1998) ch.9, 171–95Google Scholar.

90 Hall, E., Aeschylus Persians (Warminster 1996) 12–13Google Scholar; cf. earlier her Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition Through Tragedy (Oxford 1989) ch.2, 56–100, esp. 97-8Google Scholar.

91 Herodotus uses isegoria at 5.78, when the Athenians' victory over the Boeotians and Chalcidians c. 506 leads him to remark how much stronger they were with isegoria than under the tyranny. On Athenian isegoria, see especially Griffith, G.T., Ancient Society and Institutions … V. Ehrenberg (Oxford 1966) 115–38Google Scholar (after 462?); Woodhead, A.G., Hist. 16 (1967) 129–40Google Scholar (result of Cleisthenes' reforms and council of 500?); Ostwald, M., Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy (Oxford 1969) 157Google Scholar n.2 (perhaps with isonomia a slogan used in Cleisthenes' propaganda). Perhaps both terms were at first used by all opponents of the tyranny but Cleisthenes tried to appropriate them: cf. Rhodes, P.J. in Brock, R. and Hodkinson, S. (eds), Alternatives to Athens (Oxford 2000) 119-36 at 122 with n.14Google Scholar. The stronger parrhesia is first found in Euripides (Hipp. 421-3, Ion 670-2, both associating it with Athens; Bacch. 668, Phoen. 391) and Aristophanes (Thesm. 540-1, the women's assembly).

92 For this Hall refers to de Ste Croix, G.E.M., The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (London 1981) 285 with 601 n.11Google Scholar. However, the passages which he cites from Arist. Pol. do not include 4.1297b 35-1298b 11, which implies that accounting procedures were widespread under régimes of various kinds; and that accounting procedures were not limited to Athens or to democratic states is stressed by L. Rubinstein, paper read to Triennial Conference of Greek and Roman Societies, 26 July 2001.

93 Early Athens: Hignett, C., A History of the Athenian Constitution (Oxford 1952) 203–5Google Scholar; Sealey, R., CP 59 (1964) 11-22 at 18–20Google Scholar = his Essays in Greek Politics (New York 1967) 42-58 at 52–4Google Scholar. Sparta: e.g. Hdt. 6.82 (Cleomenes); Thuc. 1.95.3-5, 131.2 (Pausanias: in the latter passage, accusation by ‘whoever wishes’); Xen. Hell. 3.1.8 (Thibron supplanted and punished), 3.2.6 (Dercylidas inspected and reappointed), 3.2.12 (Dercylidas inspected again?) – passages which suggest that, while kings and regents were called to account only when their conduct provoked it, other Spartan commanders may have been called to account regularly. The Boeotian federation as revived in the 370s (which is too often and too easily labelled democratic): Boeotarchs of 370 prosecuted because they were not in Boeotia at the end of their year of office, when they were probably expected to undergo euthynai: Plut. Pel. 24.2-3, 25.1-2, Se Ipsum Laud. 540d-e, cf. Praec. Ger. Reip. 817f, Nep. Epam. 7.3-5, App. Syr. 212-18, cf. Buckler, J., The Theban Hegemony, 371 - 362 BC (Cambridge, MA 1980) 141Google Scholar.

94 In Aesch. Pers. 242 the Athenians ‘are not the slaves or subjects of any mortal’; but see, e.g., Hdt. 7.104.4 (Demaratus of Sparta), Pl. Polit. 294a-303d (good forms of constitution in accordance with laws), Arist. Pol. 3.1287a 10-b 36.

95 Harrison, T., The Emptiness of Asia (London 2000) ch.8, 76–91Google Scholar.

96 Harrison (n.95) 77: Arist. Pol. 5.1304a 22-5.

97 Harrison (n.95) 78: Aesch. Pers. 211-14.

98 Harrison (n.95) 87: Aesch Pers. 739-41, contrasted with Hdt. 7.142-3.

99 Thebes: Hdt. 5.79-80; Sparta: Xen. Hell. 3.3.3-4 with Cartledge, P., Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (London 1987) 111–12Google Scholar.

100 This is what is alluded to when in Ar. Frogs 948-52 Euripides claims to have been acting democratically.

101 Pl. Gorg. 452e 1-4.

102 Finley, J.H., Jr, HSCP 49 (1938) 23–68Google Scholar = his Three Essays on Thucydides (Cambridge, MA 1967) ch.1, 1–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103 Arrowsmith, W., Arion 2.3 (1963) 32–56 at 32-3Google Scholar.

104 F.I. Zeitlin in Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 63-96: quotations at pp. 68, 86 (an earlier version in Representations 11 (1985) 63–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

105 Griffin (n.19) 46.

106 Goldhill, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 114 = (n.57) 68. Cf. Cartledge, quoted p. 106; but against this view that tragedy contributes to civic discourse by subverting it, see R. Friedrich, in Silk (n.4) 257-83, esp. 263-8; M. Heath, in Griffin (n.1) ch.8, 137-60, engaging particularly with Sophocles' Philoctetes, and on pp. 151-5 with Goldhill's treatment of it, cited below.

107 Goldhill, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 125 = (n.57) 75.

108 Goldhill, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 115-16 = (n.57) 69.

109 Goldhill, Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 122 = (n.57) 73.

110 Griffin (n.19) 49.

111 Pelling in (n.9) 213-35 at 235.

112 Goldhill (n.3)40.

113 Dem. 20 Lept. 106.

114 Recent studies have rejected many of the stories, but the prosecution of Socrates may not be unique: see Dover, K.J., Τάλαντα 7 (1976) 24-54 = his The Greeks and their Legacy (Collected Papers 2, Oxford 1988) 135–57(-8)Google Scholar; Ostwald, M., From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1986) 528–36Google Scholar; R.W. Wallace in A.L. Boegehold and A.C. Scafuro (n.86) 127-55.

115 Notice the remarks of R. Seager at the beginning and end of an article on ‘Xenophon and Athenian democratic ideology’: ‘A number of the basic principles … are not exclusive to Athens or to democracy’ (CQ n.s.51 (2001) 385-97 at 385, cf. 396); and of Davies, J.K. in Derow, P. and Parker, R. (eds), Herodotus and His World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest (Oxford 2003) 319-35 at 325Google Scholar, ‘The Greek world which Herodotos describes as that of his own past and present shows, with striking uniformity, six basic institutions, and does so long before there was any talk of demokratia or theory.’ Goldhill himself in the final sentence of one of the articles which I have cited writes of ‘the festival which both lauds the polis and depicts the stresses and tensions of a polis society in conflict’: Nothing to Do with Dionysos? (n.2) 129 = (n.57) 76.

After I had written this paper I saw L. Kurke in Morris and Raaflaub (n.89) ch.8 155-69: she uses a comparison of Pindar and Aeschylus to suggest that ‘much that we take to be peculiar to Athenian democracy and the cultural production it fostered is more generally characteristic of the polis as such and of publicly performed poetry that negotiates civic tensions’ (p. 163), and she represents the choregos as an élite rather than a democratic figure. Boedeker, D. and Raaflaub, K.A. (eds), Democracy, Empire and the Arts in Fifth-Century Athens (Cambridge, MA 1998)Google Scholar is a book which does not take for granted but explores the connection between democracy and the arts in Athens: cf. the review article of Samons, L.J., II, Arion 3rd series 8.3 (2000/2001) 128-57, esp. 138–40.Google Scholar