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8 results

  • 2 - Assessing the Scale of Property Confiscation in the Ancient Greek World

  • from Part I - Uncertainty
  • Edited by Myles Lavan, University of St Andrews, Scotland, Daniel Jew, National University of Singapore, Bart Danon, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
  • Book:
    The Uncertain Past
    Published online:
    18 November 2022
    Print publication:
    01 December 2022, pp 53-92

  • Summary

    This paper utilizes Monte Carlo simulation to estimate the frequency with which private property was confiscated in the Greek world in the Classical period (circa 480–330 BCE). Confiscation is defined for the purposes of this paper as the uncompensated, sudden loss of landed property. The first step is to establish the demographic context within which confiscation occurred, and then to analyze four mechanisms for the confiscation of property: exile arising from stasis; the expulsion of a population by a foreign power; andrapodismos or mass enslavement; and the imposition of a cleruchy. Other mechanisms by which confiscation occurred, but which cannot be quantified, are briefly discussed. The model shows that, based on the beliefs I hold about the four mechanisms for confiscation that have been analyzed, the average estate owner faced a 2.6–18.6 % chance of experiencing confiscation in his lifetime, with a mean likelihood of 10.5 %. This finding is at odds with the prevailing view that Greek poleis ensured the security of private property, which in turn contributed to the remarkable economic growth of the period. The conclusion suggests some possible responses by the Greeks themselves to the imperfect property security they experienced.

  • 26 - Violence, Law and Community in Classical Athens

  • from Part V - Violence, Crime and the State
  • Edited by Garrett G. Fagan, Pennsylvania State University, Linda Fibiger, University of Edinburgh, Mark Hudson, Max-Planck-Institut für Menschheitsgeschichte, Germany, Matthew Trundle, University of Auckland
  • Book:
    The Cambridge World History of Violence
    Published online:
    13 March 2020
    Print publication:
    26 March 2020, pp 533-549

  • Summary

    This chapter explores the role of violence in classical Athens and its relationship to Greek society and politics from the later archaic age to the classical period. It focuses closely on both Athenian democracy and Athenian law, especially in the literature and forensic speeches. It begins by analysing the changing relationship of the state to the individual alongside the declining place of violent retribution in solving what increasingly became legal disputes. It then moves on to assess the significance of Athenian law and the role of the law courts in meditating violent encounters. Finally, the chapter examines the role of violence in Athenian politics in the fifth century BCE, especially with regards to the oligarchic revolutions at the end of the Peloponnesian War.

  • Rhythm of Love: Patterns of Perception and the Classical Profession of the Hetaira

  • David Hullinger
  • Journal:
    Antichthon / Volume 53 / 2019
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    12 December 2019, pp. 79-86
    Print publication:
    2019

  • For a long time, the classical profession of the hetaira, or paid female companion, has eluded definition. The hetaira has often been described as a ‘courtesan’ and her work as a ‘form of prostitution’, yet these appellatives often conflict with depictions of the hetaira by classical authors. Accordingly, in this article I will argue that the hetaira was perceived by the Greeks as an elite entertainer whose service of companionship emphasized flirtation and intimacy with a cultivated woman instead of the sale of sex. In order to demonstrate this understanding of the hetaira, I will cite evidence from a wide range of classical writings, particularly legal orations, and will ultimately propose that, when used to indicate a professional, the classical Greek term hetaira should be translated as ‘entertainer’.

  • 12 - Classical Greece: Production

  • from Part III - Classical Greece
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 331-361

  • Summary

    Many tangible objects were created and used in classical Greece ranging from installations such as houses, temples, public buildings, and infrastructure, through weaponry, ceramics, coins, textiles, and the normal furnishings and equipment of a dwelling house or a farm, to the more exotic and high-value products of the sculptor or the silversmith. For most landscapes occupied by Greeks, varying depths of soil and the imminence of uncultivable mountains generate a clear distinction between cultivable and uncultivable zones. This chapter provides a sketch of ancient Greece's various productive capacities. Scholarship attention has focused not only on crops and yields but also on wider questions of land-use but also on wider questions of land-use, notably the market-oriented specialization and the integration of differing types of terrain. All the same, agrarian production was absolutely primary. Land-ownership remained the principal determinant of status, though, there is evidence of land being bought as an investment, to improve and resell.

  • 13 - Classical Greece: Distribution

  • from Part III - Classical Greece
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 362-384

  • Summary

    A society's ability to adapt to changing outside parameters and to adjust its institutions determine the performance of its distribution system. In classical Greece, distribution had grown to such an extent that urban elite had no difficulties in consuming delicacies. Production of certain goods clearly exceeded local needs in some regions: Egypt, Sicily, and regions bordering the Black Sea, for instance, produced more grain than they consumed, Thasos, Chios, and the Chalcidice produced more and better wines than other parts of the Mediterranean. The Aegean connected people and the goods they needed. Transport was much easier by sea than overland. Moving goods by road required negotiations, protection money, and was impeded by deliberate obstructions, and outright violence. In classical Greece, many goods circulated through reciprocity, the mutual exchange between social equals. Friendship reduced transaction costs. On the revenue side, the interests of the citizens and the polis corresponded: both needed prosodoi, revenues or income.

  • 14 - Classical Greece: Consumption

  • from Part III - Classical Greece
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 385-406

  • Summary

    This chapter describes the consumption patterns, in classical Greece, which were affected by regional productive capacities, inter-regional distribution, and several social and geographical biases, as well as ideology and taste. It gives some quantitative assessment of standards of living in comparison to earlier and later periods. Since markets and exchange supplied only a certain amount of domestic consumption, the chapter explores under what conditions consumption turned into demand that affected the economy more generally. Basic information about ancient nutrition can be gained from the remains of human bones. Average height changed little from the Bronze Age to the classical period, and possibly increased slightly for men thereafter. The discrepancy between Mycenae and Lerna may indicate a class difference. The need for imported grain varied from year to year with periods of extraordinary demand at times of food crisis. The seasonality of demand put high pressure on administration and planning, and could not be satisfied by regular markets.

  • Ethnic identity and archaeology in the Black Sea region of Turkey

  • D. Burcu Erciyas
  • Journal:
    Antiquity / Volume 79 / Issue 303 / March 2005
    Published online by Cambridge University Press:
    10 March 2015, pp. 179-190
    Print publication:
    March 2005

  • How has Turkey used archaeology to define itself and address political goals? How have these goals clashed with western Europeans in pursuit of the Hittites and ancient Greeks? The author analyses the context of her own work in the Black Sea coastal area of Turkey, and deconstructs its ethnic influences in the context of modern archaeology.