Athenian Democratic Origins and other essays

by de Ste. Croix, G. E. M.; Harvey, David; Parker, Robert; Thonemann, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780199285167
• ISBN10: 0199285160
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-13
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In these interconnected essays the late Geoffrey de Ste. Croix defends the institutions of the Athenian democracy, showing that they were much more practical, rational, and impartial than has usually been acknowledged. A major essay provides a new view of Aristotle's use of sources in TheConstitution of the Athenians, on which so much of our knowledge of Athenian constitutional history depends. Ste. Croix also argues that commercial factors had much less influence on Greek politics than modern scholars tend to assume, and that there was no such thing in any Greek state as a'commercial aristocracy'. As always, he works out these general positions with the utmost lucidity and pungency, and in meticulous detail. Though written in the 1960s, these hitherto unpublished essays by a great radical historian will still constitute a major contribution to contemporary debate.The editors and other specialists have supplied an updating Afterword to each chapter, and the book contains a thorough index.

Author Biography

Geoffrey de Ste. Croix was Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at New College, Oxford from 1953 until 1977. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1972. He published Origins of the Peloponnesian War in 1972 and The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World in 1981; the latter book was translated into Spanish and Greek, and won the Isaac Deutscher Memorial prize for 1982.

Table of Contents

Editors' Introduction	1	(370)
1. The Solonian Census Classes and the Qualifications for Cavalry and Hoplite Service	5	(68)
(i) The Late Fifth- and Fourth-Century Evidence	8	(6)
(ii) Military Categories in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries	14	(5)
(iii) Tele and Military Categories in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries	19	(9)
(iv) The Original Qualifications of the Tele	28	(4)
(v) The Original Qualifications of the Pentakosiomedimnoi	32	(14)
(vi) The Original Qualifications of the Hippeis and Zeugitai	46	(5)
(vii) Were the Qualifications of the Tele Changed?	51	(5)
(viii) Pollux VIII 130	56	(4)
(ix) Miscellaneous	60	(3)
Endnotes	63	(7)
Appendix: The Dedication of Anthemion (Arist., Ath. Pol. 7.4)	70	(2)
Afterword	72	(1)
2. Five Notes on Solon's Constitution	73	(36)
(i) The Introduction of Majority Voting at Athens	73	(2)
(ii) The Date of Solon's Nomothesia	75	(5)
(iii) The Eupatrid Monopoly of the 'State Machine'	80	(3)
(iv) The Solonian Council of Four Hundred	83	(6)
(v) kappaληρωσιζepsilonkappa πρomnicronkappaριτωη ['sortition from pre-selected candidates'] (Ath. Pol. 8.1)	89	(15)
Appendix: Election to High Office by Lot Elsewhere than in Greece	104	(3)
Afterword	107	(2)
3. Solon, the Horoi and the Hektemoroi	109	(20)
Afterword	127	(2)
4. Cleisthenes I: The Constitution	129	(51)
(i) Cleisthenes in Herodotus and Aristotle	129	(7)
(ii) The Constitution of Cleisthenes	136	(36)
Endnotes	172	(5)
Afterword	177	(3)
5. Cleisthenes II: Ostracism, Archons and Strategoi	180	(53)
(i) The Law of Ostracism: Its Date and Purpose	180	(35)
(ii) Archons and Strategoi	215	(14)
Afterword	229	(4)
6. The Athenian Citizenship Laws	233	(21)
Afterword	251	(3)
7. The Athenaion Politeia and Early Athenian History	254	(74)
(i) The Athenaion Politeia and the Politics	256	(21)
(ii) The Sources of the Athenaion Politeia	277	(9)
(iii) Aristotle and the Atthidographers	286	(21)
(iv) Aristotle and the Documentary Sources	307	(16)
Endnotes	323	(2)
Afterword	325	(3)
8. The metra in Aristotle, Eth. Nic. V vii 5, 1134b35-1135a3	328	(21)
Appendix: Measures of Capacity	341	(6)
Afterword	347	(2)
9. How Far was Trade a Cause of Early Greek Colonisation?	349	(22)
Afterword	367	(4)
10. But what about Aegina?	371	(50)
Afterword	411	(10)
11. Herodotus and King Cleomenes I of Sparta	421	(17)
Afterword	438	(3)
Abbreviations and Bibliography	441	(6)
Index	447