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When Did the Polis Rise?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Extract

It is to-day a known and undisputed fact that the Polis was not only the characteristic and historically important type of Greek State, but that as a religious and political community it was for centuries the foundation and the support of Greek culture. But so far a true ‘history of the Polis’ has not been written. A reason for this may be that the Polis stands as the abstract representative of an enormous number of concrete independent States widely differing in form and development and known to us through traditions widely differing in quality. We must try, and the attempt has already been made, to define the main lines of this historical phenomenon and its evolution, and before all else to obtain a clearer view of the beginning, climax, and end of this evolution in time and manner.

To do this it is not sufficient to study only the external historical facts. In like manner we cannot be content merely to observe, for instance, under the Empire of Alexander or in the Hellenistic State-world the political insignificance of the Polis, and hence to conclude its downfall; or in the perfection of political leading, and the splendour of Empire and culture, in Periclean Athens to see the perfection of the Polis.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1937

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References

1 In opposition to the antiquarian system, in vogue a long time, or to a construction, however ingenious, like that of Fustel de Coulanges, the next step was to show the Polis-type under its historical conditions. This was attempted, e.g., by Glotz, (La cité grecque, 1928Google Scholar; but cf. Gnomon, 1929, 1 ff.Google Scholar) and in my Gr. und Hellenist. Staat (Gercke-Norden, III, 1932). On the fundamental problems see also Heichelheim, Bursians Jahresber.f. Alterlumsw., 250 (Suppl.).

2 In particular, the essay of Berve, Fürstliche Herren der Zeit der Perserkriege (Die Antike, xii, 1936, 1 ffGoogle Scholar.), followed more recently by his book Miltiades (1937). Berve in an earlier work (Gr. Gesch. I, 176Google Scholar) set the formation of the Greek State about the turn of the seventh to sixth centuries, a late dating against which I protested (Gr. Slaat, 60). According to his recent view, the Polis arose out of the conflicts with the great political leaders round 500 B.C.! Out of a mass of astonishing statements, I may select the following: in the generation of Pindar and Simonides the ‘growing spirit of the Polis is scarcely yet apparent’; ‘Not under Cimon but under Pericles, the dynastic form of rule is dissolved totally into the self-accomplishment of the Polis.’ According to Berve, the Polis takes its rise towards the end of the sixth century, around 490 it is still in process of formation, and the evolution is not complete before 450. When we think of the early symptoms of internal decay (e.g. Thuc. III, 82 ff.), it follows that the Polis is limited roughly to the period of Periclean Athens; nay, if we were consistently speculating further, it runs the risk of being reduced to a phantom which would owe its existence perhaps to the speculation of philosophers and rhetors of the fourth century.

2a This paper, written early in summer 1936, was delivered to the Journal about December 1st, 1936. I wish to emphasize that there are no references to any later publication. It was a difficult task to translate my paper, and I owe sincerest gratitude to Mr. Pryce and to Dr. Cary.

3 Cf. the fuller analysis in my Ost u. West, 127 ff.

4 This epithet is much less suitable to Simonides. I have tried (op. cit. 121 ff.) to explain the well-known lines on the ἀνὴρ ἀγαθός (frg. 4, 1 ff.) as a departure from the aristocratic ideal. In any case the poet stands within the Polis; cf. 1. 22 ff. of the same poem, where he defends himself against the charge of censoriousness, declaring that he is This is the pure spirit of the Polis, just as in the phrase (frg. 53; cf. also frg. 10).

5 (70 ff.).

6 Seltman, , Athens, 1924, 92 ffGoogle Scholar.

7 Here a reference may not be out of place to the dedication of Aeaces, father of Polykrates of Samos. (Dittenb. Syll 3 10; Tod, , Gr. Hist. Inscr. 7Google Scholar), for which Bilabel has recently proposed another interpretation than was previously current (Neue Heidelb. Jhb. 1934, 133Google Scholar). In his view Aeaces dedicates the memorial of him ‘who committed piracy for Hera in the time of his presidency.’ It is more probable that this office had a political character than that it indicated the temple-guardian. Thus Aeaces became a pirate officially, with the consent of the goddess and while still in the magistracy; which is no cause for surprise, for he who named his second son Syloson (Her. III, 39 et al.). The father's combination of personal power and desire for enrichment with the co-operation of the State deity and the State's consent resulted in the tyranny of Polycrates, whose name also is significant.

8 IG 2 I, 1. Alternative restorations SEG III. 1Google Scholar; Tod, nr. 11. The readings of Syll. 3 13 and Nachmanson, , Hist. Att. Inschr. 1Google Scholar, are out of date.

9 Gr. Volksbeschlüsse, 25.

10 Hermes, 1933, 288Google Scholar. Cf. the inscription of oligarchic Elis, to be set before 580 B.C. (Cauer-Schwyzer, 410), which knows the βολα and Ʒᾶμοςπλαθύον

11 Cf. Boisacq, , Diet. étym. 182Google Scholar, and my Rechtside 128, 131.

12 Bleckmann, Gr. Inschr. zur gr. Staatenkunde, 33= Cauer-Schwyzer, 415.

13 Cf. Szanto, , Gr. Bügerrecht, 10Google Scholar.

14 Thus Szanto, 23.

15 Bleckmann following Kirchhoff, , Arch. Ztg. 35, 196Google Scholar.

16 Syll. 3 9; Tod, nr. 5. On the date (uncertain, but sixth century) cf. Bölte, RE VIII, 413Google Scholar.

17 .

18 Cf. Boisacq, s. ἒταρος; Liddell-Scott, s. ἒτης.

19 The objection may be raised that these examples are beside the point because the communities of Elis and Arcadia in the sixth century were δῆμοι or κῶμαι. If that were the case, then these inscriptions are still better evidence, for then these villages have already assumed the form and standing of the πόλις. In any case, the idea of the ‘politically independent κὡμη as assumed for this very area by Swoboda (RE Suppl. IV, 951 f.; cf. Strabo VIII. 336 f.), seems to me out of date, since we know to-day that a πολις is not constituted by synoecism and town-wall, but by its political formation. The Attic Tetrapolis, for instance, illustrates the process.

20 Syll 3 4; cf. SEG I, no. 445.

21 I consider the punctuation of Vollgraff, Mnemosyne, L, 37 ff., to be correct; according to it, elliptical stands first, followed by the restriction δἑδοται παρἑξ… For the erection of the stele by the State the expression is formal, πόλις … ἔδωκε.

22 In the discussion on the unpolitical habits of the Ionians initiated by Berve (latest Gnomon, 1936, 183) agreement is perhaps attainable if the very different possibilities of political consciousness I here indicate were clearly distinguished.

23 Wilamowitz, Nordion. Steine (Abh. Preuss. Ak. 1909); Nachmanson, , Hist. Gr. Inschr. 2Google Scholar; Tod, nr. 9.

24 For the administration and legislation of Solon cf. most recently, Freeman, K., The Work and Life of Solon, 1926Google Scholar.

25 Jaeger, W., Sitzber. Preuss. Ak. 1926, 72Google Scholar; in addition, my Rechtsidee, 83 ff.: Charisteria f. Rzach 22 ff.

26 The reading ὁμοῦ (and not νόμου) in frg. 24, 16 (Charisteria, l.c.) is accepted by Römisch, , Studien zur ält. gr. Elegie, 46Google Scholar, and has been adopted by Diehl in the second edition of Anthol. Lyr.

27 Rechtsidee, 86 ff.; Jaeger, 79 ff.; in both these reference is made from various standpoints to the equation of the political δίκη and the cosmic δίκη of natural law (Anaximander!).

28 Jaeger, 78.

29 Rechtsidee, 64 ff.; Jaeger, l.c.

30 Hermes, 1933, 296Google Scholar. Even Berve does not propose to date the formation of the Spartan State after Cleomenes and Demaratus. He recognises quite appropriately the unusual sharpness of the contrast between State and individual, founded on the nature of the fixed and consistent form of the State (27 f.); but he does not draw the conclusion that for this reason the tendency towards freedom showed itself uncommonly early and in unusual strength. The victory of the State in Sparta was, of course, all the more absolute.

31 Hasebroek, , Or. Wirtsch. u. Gesellschaftsgesch., 122 ff., 153 ff., 158 ff.Google Scholar My main difference with H. is that I distinguish a caste of nobility, still far from State-form, from the ‘πόλις of families’; naturally without denying the interplay of both forms. Only thus is it possible to set the formation of the Greek State in clear historical light; otherwise, we must push everything back into the darkness of the eleventh and tenth centuries. Perhaps the fact that my position is intermediate between Hasebroek and Berve is no bad testimony for its historical probability.

32 See the detailed and important essay of Tritsch, , Die Stadtbildungen des Altertums und die griech. Polis (Klio, 1929, 1)Google Scholar. I overlooked this in my Gr. Staat; in any case some of his conclusions do not convince me. For instance, that in the late Mycenaean settlements all (four) types of building used in the Aegean area had been united into one mighty synthesis (52 ff.), seems to me to suppose an overrationalised interpretation, working far too much with direct transferences and influences. This is markedly the case with the significance Tritsch assigns to the Minoan towns—assumed to be ‘free town-states of equal citizens’—for the Greek development. In this he sees clearly the fundamentally different principle of the Oriental (and the Italian) town as opposed to the Aegean, yet he under-estimates the differences which have been rightly observed between the Minoan and the Mycenaean-Greek town (77 ff.). It is improbable to me that about 800 Crete had attained paramount influence upon the development of the πόλις over all Greece, despite the religious and artistic parallels; here again the rationalised interpretation is evident, letting the organic development, bound up with the soil, of every single πόλις disappear behind all sorts of ‘influences.’ Tritsch sees the great lacuna of three centuries (1100–800) as ‘a poverty-stricken and almost peaceful age,’ during which ‘the impulse to State organisation, to the creation of the Polis, was wholly lacking’ (61 f.); but, it must be said, it is not the development from the Minoan and Mycenaean towns implied by Tritsch, but the appearance of new town-centres and town-instinct, attested by manifold local tradition, which made ‘something new-the classical Greek town corresponding to the Greek spirit and its manner of life -the Polis’ (82).

33 Cf. Rechtsidee, 131 ff., as modified above.

34 See, e.g., Ost und West, 115.

35 Fundamental objections given in Ost u. West, 5.