The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia. The Chorus, the City and the Stage by P. Wilson Review by: S. D. Lambert The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 122 (2002), pp. 178-179 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3246231 . Accessed: 21/02/2014 06:28

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This content downloaded from 131.251.254.13 on Fri, 21 Feb 2014 06:28:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 178 NOTICES OF BOOKS

WILSON (P.) The Athenian Institution of the gos; positive philonikia shaded easily into nega- Khoregia. The Chorus, the City and the tive philoneikia;philotimia too had its dark side; Stage. CambridgeUP, 2000. Pp. xv + 435, ill. from an oligarchicperspective, the choregia could 052155070. ?55. be representedas oppressionof the wealthy by the demos; again, the tensions, in Wilson's view, This is the first major modem account of the reflect those present in tragedy itself. Athenian choregia, the institution whereby Ch.5, 'Monumentalizingvictory', presents a wealthy men paid for choral and dramatic per- helpful, well-illustrated survey of surviving formances at Athenian festivals. It originates in choregic victory dedications; of the choregia in Wilson's CambridgePh.D. thesis, developed over the demes; of choregia portrayedon vases. Ch.6 several subsequentyears of post-doctoralresearch. is a similarlyuseful (if necessarilybrief) survey of It is not a flawless work, but it is an impressiveone choregia and relatedinstitutions in Hellenistic and and it makes a valuablecontribution to the study of RomanAthens and outsideAthens. As with much ancient Athenian culture. It is in three parts: that is regarded as characteristically'Athenian' broadlydescriptive (Part I); interpretative(Part II); (including democracy),while the Athenianmodel beyond ClassicalAthens (PartIII). may have been most influential, choregia did not Part I is in two chapters, which deal with obviously originate there and many variationson (ch.1) the early history of the choregia and its the theme were possible. major festival contexts: Dionysia, Lenaia, W. displays a good grasp of the range of rele- Thargelia,Panathenaia; less well-known festivals vant secondary literature(especially that within and extra-Atticones; (ch.2) appointmentof chore- his own tradition);it is surprising,however, that goi and allocation to poets; the recruitmentand the 1994 Oxford D.Phil. thesis of A. Makres on training of the chorus and of other personnel; the same subject as W.'s is scarcely referred to. materialrequirements; amounts of money expend- W. has an acute nose for interpretativesubtlety; ed on dithyramb,tragedy and comedy; the proces- there are very perceptive discussions of longer sion; judgement of the performance;the prizes. texts such as Antiphon 6, and deeply considered Part II explores the socio-symbolic aspects of explanations of difficult aspects of the evidence, the choregia. In ch.3 W. contends (not wholly e.g. the apparenthigh profile of dithyrambin the convincingly) that the choregia, like the tragedies city and (in contrast)of drama at the deme level. which it funded,represents a tension between past There are excellent and well-chosen illustrations. ('aristocratic', 'individualistic', 'transgressive') The book is too long. This is partlydue to W.'s and present ('democratic', 'public', 'normative'). style, which strives for (and occasionally He traces the early history of the choregia in the achieves) sophistication, but is often laboured; Archaic period (e.g. in Sparta) as an aristocratic partly to a desire to wring symbolic significance institution;characterizes the choregos as a patron out of every fact. Most of Part I, for example, not only of his audience, but also his choreutai; intended to 'rehearsethe facts' (107), is actually persuasively interpretsthe choregia as part of a occupied by more or less speculative interpreta- continuum of activity and relations extending tion, unnecessarily discursive, especially in rela- beyond the theatrical and involving 'real' world tion to the very early (and obscure) history of the politics (e.g. in Antiphon 6); as an expression of choregia. W. underestimatesthe extent to which, prestige and an opportunityfor display and the outside his academic thought-world, practical winning of charis. In ch.4 W. has acute observa- considerationsare significant. For example(46-9), tions on the intense competitivityof the choregia for him the absenceof naval events fromthe chore- as witnessed by the practice of formally cursing gia is a productof the ideological awkwardnessof rivals and in the choregic disputes between the navy, manned by 'the lowest socio-economic Alcibiades and Taureas, and between tiers of society' in the context of an 'l61ite'chore- Demosthenesand Meidias. He stresses the impor- gia. He does not considerthe possibility that stag- tance of the phyle, which the choregos represent- ing naval events in Athenian theatreswas simply ed and which might honourhim, if victorious. He not practicable. discusses the rhetorical topos whereby liturgical There are two main traps into which books service is representedas deserving the charis of emphasizing the interpretative typically fall. the jury, and brings out very well its double-edged Inadequategrasp and presentationof the evidence character.On a positive view the choregia served is one. By and large W. acquits himself well on the demos, on a negative one it served the chore- this score. His work is well documentedand foot-

This content downloaded from 131.251.254.13 on Fri, 21 Feb 2014 06:28:50 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NOTICES OF BOOKS 179 noted; but some caution is in order. I give one gives an (in this case unjust) impression of light- example (admittedlynot central to his argument). weight. But it would be unfair to end on a low W. precedes me (ZPE 135 (2001) 56) in suggest- note. The authorhas reflected deeply on his sub- ing that the eutaxia liturgy was ephebic (44 with ject and has given us a stimulatingbook. n.184) and supplies an interesting parallel in IG S.D. LAMBERT xiv 2445, from Massilia (310); but he has missed Universityof Liverpool/BritishSchool at Athens the most importantdiscussion of the key text, IG ii2 417, D.M. Lewis, Hesp. 37 (1968) 374-80. Much of what W. says about this document is HESK (J.) Deception and Democracy in accordingly incorrect:it is probably not a decree Classical Athens. Cambridge UP, 2001. Pp. but a law; it probablydates not to soon after 330, viii + 336. 0521643228. ?40/$64.95. but shortly before; there were not two liturgists per phyle (Hippothontishas only one); the relief, As befits a work on deception and trickery,this is Lawton no.150, almost certainly did not belong a book that is full of surprises. Who would have with this stone, etc. That one can identify such thought that anyone could find similarities in the slips, however, is a mark of good scholarly pres- rhetoric of Pericles, Demosthenes and John entation. Major's government? Or that the Oliver North The second pitfall is that interpretationsare trial could pose such philosophic dilemmas? only as good as the writer's underlying assump- However, perhapsthe greatest surpriseis the dis- tions. Here W. is more vulnerable. He is under covery that the function of deceit (apate and its the influence of the unsatisfactoryview that histo- associates) in democratic Athens has not had a ry can best be explained in terms of 'ideology', detailed treatmentbefore. In 1966, Karl Popper Classical Athenian society in terms of a 'mass' put the relationshipbetween truthand democracy and an 'elite'. The lattersuits his subject in a sim- firmly on the academic agenda. Even before this, plistic way, as it would suit almost any differenti- discussions on the special place that truth occu- ated human society; but it is founded in no thor- pies in Greekthought were legion. Yet throughout ough analysis of social, political and economic all of these studies, deceit has been strangelyneg- realities or perceptions (I avoid the term 'ideolo- lected. This is especially odd given, as H. ably gy' in this context as it implies, often inappropri- shows, that falsehood is not merely the opposite of ately, something conscious and systematic). W. truth,but that it has an importantlife of its own. It uses terms like 'aristocratic','61ite', 'privileged', insinuates itself into every genre, it horrifies 'wealthy', as if they were synonyms; shows insuf- heroes, inspires generals, confuses orators, and ficient awareness that Greek terms relating to snuggles up to philosophers. As one would expect social statusrequire careful analysis (e.g. he false- of a child of the Night, Deceit turns out to be a ly believes that eugenes means 'aristocratic');and shadowy and slippery character. has not fully engaged with aspects of fourth-cen- The work opens by focusing on the un- turyAthens (e.g. the use of the lot for appointment Athenian nature of deceit. Through analysis of to key political offices, the large number of suc- key culturalmoments (the eulogy of the war-dead, cessful decree-proposers)which undermineanaly- adolescent rites-of-passage, drama, and forensic sis in terms of a dichotomy of 'mass' and 'elite'. oratory),we see the way in which Athenianopen- Satisfactorysocial history must concern itself not ness is contrastedwith Spartanslyness and dupli- only with ideas, but with realities of wealth distri- city. Here the collocation between deceit and bution, institutional structures,political systems. Sparta highlights the foreignness of deceit to Prosopographyand statistical analysis are indis- Atheniannormative values. It is just not 'the done pensable. Greek literatureis relevant,but the key thing'. This alienness is only strengthenedby the source is Greek epigraphy:and not only laws and fact that H.'s game of collocation could be played decrees, but accounts, leases, dedications, funer- with numerousother anti-typesof Athens (Persia, ary monuments, name lists. There is much to be Egypt, Boeotia, Thrace or Crete, to name a few). done. The extent of inequalities of wealth distri- Time and again, deceit always seems to be the bution within the citizen-bodyin ClassicalAthens, practice of someone else. for example, is still an open question. However, before we can get too comfortable The book is well indexed. CUP's policy of with this notion, H. shows that such claims about placing footnotes at the end of the book is irritat- the alienness of deceit were only ever contingent ing and inconvenient to the serious reader and and were always open to negotiation. Athens was

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