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Political Activity in Classical Athens Author(S): P Political Activity in Classical Athens Author(s): P. J. Rhodes Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 106 (1986), pp. 132-144 Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/629648 . Accessed: 13/11/2012 07:27 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Hellenic Studies. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.63 on Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:27:13 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Journalof HellenicStudies cvi (1986) 132-144 POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS' 'Only the naive or innocent observer', says Sir Moses Finley in his book Politicsin the ancient world,'can believe that Pericles came to a vital Assemblymeeting armed with nothingbut his intelligence,his knowledge,his charismaand his oratoricalskill, essential as all four attributes were.'2Historians of theRoman Republic have been assiduous in studyingclientelae,factiones and 'deliveringthe vote',3 but much less work has been done on the ways in which Athenian politicianssought to mobilisesupport. There have been studiesof familyconnections and of links between individualpoliticians;4 there have been studiesof the associationsknown as hetaireiai;5but many questionsremain unanswered. W. R. Connor in The newpoliticians offifth- centuryAthens contrasted an old styleof politics,based on tiesof philiawithin the upperclasses, with a new style,which spurned philia and appealed directly to the people.Even in hisold style, the votes of the ordinary,middling-to-poor citizens counted for more in the straightforward Athenianassembly than in the Roman comitiawith their complex systemsof block votes. Connor limits politicalfriendship to the upper classes;6he pours cold water on Sealey's suggestionthat rich familiesmight have broughtpressure to bearon theirtenants and other dependants(saying, 'The proud and independentAthenian might be expected to resist intimidation');7but apartfrom generalreferences to largessehe doesnot reallyexplain how an old-styleCimon or a new-styleCleon would ensure that the assemblywas full of voterswilling to electhim asgeneral or approvea motionwhich he proposed.8J. K. Davieshas tried to takethe matter further in Wealthand thepower of wealthin classicalAthens. He suggests that essentially therewere three phases in Athenianpolitical history: the first, in whicharistocratic families with a hereditarycontrol of particularcults exercised power through those cults; the second,in which aristocratsand their cults lost influence, and politics were dominated by richmen who usedtheir wealthin variousways to acquirefavour (charis) and so win the supportof citizens;the third, 1 This paper was read to the Hellenic Society in society to which they refer. Caution is in order, but I London and to the University of G6ttingen in January shall not pause to discuss the likelihood of each item. 1985, and an earlier version was read to the Oxford 2 Finley, Politics, 76(-84). Dem. xiii 19 complains Philological Society in October 1982 and to the that men who are eager to be elected to office go around northern universities' ancient historians at Leeds in as 8o0Aol TijSiTrri -rC XElpOTOVE•IaOa December 1982: I am grateful to those who discussedit 'slavesto the need to win support for election';Xpl-ros, Plu. Nic. with me on those occasions, and to the University of 3.I leaves Pericleson the pedestal on which Thucydides Durham for grants from its Travel and ResearchFund, placed him when he says that he led the city as a resultof and to the British Council and the Deutsche Aka- his true areti and the power of his speech, and needed demische Austauschdienst, under whose auspices I no aXlpaCrtlO6S, 'put-on-act', towards the masses or visited G6ttingen. 'means of persuasion'. I cite the books abbreviated Trl0avo"6T•, following by titles: 3 This phrase is the title of ch. iii of L. R. Taylor, W. R. = Connor, New Pol. The new politiciansof fifth- Party politics in the age of Caesar (Berkeley and Los centuryAthens (Princeton 1971); J. K. Davies, A.P.F. Angeles 1949). Excessive reliance on clientelaeas a = Athenian propertiedfamilies,6oo00-300 Bc(Oxford 1971); master key seems now to be going out of fashion: see = id., Wealth Wealthand the power of wealth in classical F. G. B. Millar,JRS lxxiv (1984) 1-19. Athens York M. (New 1981); I. Finley, Politics= Politics 4 E.g. B. R. I. Sealey, Essays in Greekpolitics (New in the ancientworld (Cambridge 1983); S. C. Humph- York 1967); P.J. Bicknell, Studiesin Athenianpolitics and The reys, Family= family, women and death (London genealogy (Historia Einz. xix [1972]); Davies, A.P.F. 1983); P.J. Rhodes, Boule= TheAthenian Boule (Oxford s See n. 69. 1972); id., Comm.=A commentaryon the Aristotelian 6 New Pol. 75-9; the view of M. H. The cf. Hansen, AthenaionPoliteia (Oxford 1981); P. Siewert, Trittyen Athenian Ecclesia(Opuscula Graecolatina xxvi [Copen- = Die TrittyenAttikas und die Heeresreformdes Kleisthenes hagen 1983]) 220-2, and at greaterlength Die athenische (Vestigiaxxxiii, Munich 1982). H. Montgomery, The Volksversammlungim Zeitalter des Demosthenes(Xenia way to Chaeronea(Bergen etc. 1983), is good in the xiii [Konstanz 19841)75-89 that in the fifth and fourth which questions he asks but disappointing in the centuries there were groups of leadersbut not partiesof answers which he supplies. their supporters. Not all the sayings and anecdotes which I cite are 7 New Pol. 18-19, contr. Sealey, Hermes lxxxiv likely to be authentic, but they will have seemed (1956) 241= Essays(n. 4) 65-6. to those plausible who retailed them, and those known 8 New Pol. 18-22 on largesse; 134 suggests that to us from Plutarch and others who wrote under the groups of friends could mobilise a majority in the Roman Empire may have originated in or closer to the assembly or council. This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.63 on Tue, 13 Nov 2012 07:27:13 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions POLITICAL ACTIVITY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS 133 where the power of wealth in turn declinedand what counted was rhetoricaland administrative skill.9 Here I should like to continue this investigation. For the seventh and sixth centuries I imagine most people would accept some version of what W. G. Forresthas describedas a system of pyramids:10serious political activity was the preserveof a limited number of nobles at the tops of the pyramids;underneath were the lesser citizens, each of whom tended to be linked by ties of various kinds to one of the nobles, and vwouldnormally give that noble his political support.Attacks on the old orthodoxy" have made it harderthan was once imagined to give a detailed account of how this will have worked in Athens, but the attempt should be made. Some citizens, but not all, belonged to the nobility of the eupatridai,the familieswhich had emerged most successfullyfrom the upheavalsof the darkage and which had closed their ranks againstthe others as the upheavalscame to an end: they acquireda monopoly of public offices (probably filled without much competition when Buggins's turn came round), and they will have been the active participantsat occasionalassemblies of the citizen body. Some citizens,but not all, belonged to a genos.The view that thegene formed a wider aristocracythan the eupatridai, but still an aristocracy,has been challenged:the new emphasison the religious function of the geneis probablyright; but the suggestion of the iconoclaststhat the geneand their memberswere not otherwise important is no less hypothetical than the old orthodoxy.12 We simply do not know what proportion of the eupatridaiwere alsogenn~tai. Every citizen belonged to one of the four tribes,and also to one of an unknown numberof phratries:it is reasonableto assumethat the eupatridai,who will have been leading members of the tribe and the phratry to which they belonged, were able through these organisationsto influencetheir lowlier fellow-members.The gene, even if we regardthem primarilyas familiesin which certainpriesthoods were hereditary, may yet have had political influence:those who participatedin a certaincult will naturallyhave looked up to the gene which provided the officialsof that cult; and cults which attracteda wide circle of participants,like the Eleusiniancult of Demeter and Core, will have brought a large number of men within reach of the influence of the gene concerned. Before the reformsof Solon, one other kind of dependenceis attestedin Athens. Many men were hektemoroi,not absoluteowners of the land which they farmedbut bound to surrenderpart of its produce to an overlord;13 and probably other men were dependent on the major landownersin other ways, for instanceby dividing their working time between their own plot and the land of the great family. Like Sealey,14 I should guess that this economic dependence could easily have repercussionsin other areasof life. We do not know how far overlords were eupatridaiand genn~tai,and hektemoroiwere not, though we should expect the eupatridaiand genn~taito be among the richer members of the community. We do not know how often the overlord of a hektemoroswas a leading member of the hektemoros'phratry or had a vested interest in a cult in which the hektemorosparticipated; but I should guess that, in a society in which social and geographicalmobility were rare, it often happenedthat the differentforms of dependence did not compete but reinforced each other.
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