POLEMOS AS KINÊSIS POLEMOS AS KINÊSIS: THE EFFECTS OF THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR ON ATHENIAN SOCIETY AND CULTURE By JONATHAN M. REEVES, B.A., M.A. A thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright by Jonathan Reeves, October 2016 McMaster University DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (2016) Hamilton, Ontario (Classics) TITLE: Polemos as kinêsis: the effects of the Peloponnesian War on Athenian society and culture AUTHOR: Jonathan M. Reeves, B.A. (York University), M.A. (McMaster University) SUPERVISOR: Professor S. Corner NUMBER OF PAGES: 452 ii Abstract This is a study of war as a force for socio-economic, demographic, and political change in late fifth-century Athens. Thucydides famously describes the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) as the greatest kinêsis, or upheaval, ever to affect the Greek world. This protracted war placed great stress on the traditional social systems and institutions of the polis and the generation-long conflict is commonly regarded by historians as the nadir of classical Greek civilization and a cause of the decline of the Greek city-state. Drawing on the testimony of Thucydides and his literary contemporaries, as well as on archaeology and epigraphy, I offer a richly textured account of the impact of the Peloponnesian War on several key aspects of Athenian life. In the first half of my thesis, I consider the material effects of the war on Athenian agriculture and food supply, investigating how the Athenians, as individuals and as a state, adapted to the economic pressures generated by the war. I argue that the material deprivation of Attica throughout the war prompted adaptive economic strategies that hastened and intensified the monetization of Athens and that the rebuilding of the agricultural economy in the aftermath of the war was a key factor in the commercialization of Athenian society in the fourth century. In the second half of the thesis, I document, diachronically, the distribution of the various burdens and opportunities engendered by conditions of protracted warfare among different citizen groups. I then demonstrate how the performance of the two essential civic obligations, military and financial service, was invoked in renegotiations of social and political privilege in the last decade of the fifth century. While there was some centralization in respect of these two areas, I argue that military mobilization and state finance in Athens continued to reflect the organizational principles and civic commitments of the democratic citizen-state into the fourth century. Thus, while offering a fine-grained account of the ways in which the Peloponnesian War was seriously disruptive to life in Athens, I demonstrate that it did not destroy the material and political conditions that provided for the flourishing of the democratic polis. iii Acknowledgements It is my pleasure to offer acknowledgement and to express my debts of thanks to the many people who have helped me to bring this project to completion. I am foremost indebted to my advisor, Sean Corner, an incomparable humanist, historian, and mentor for his guidance at all points during my studies at McMaster. It is my hope that the pages to follow can do some justice to the profound impact Sean has made on me as a student of Greek history. I would like to thank as well the other members of my committee, Kathryn Mattison and Claude Eilers, for their encouragement and comments with respect to both the final draft and the research and planning stages of this dissertation. Special thanks are owed, too, to Daniel McLean, who fostered in my early days at grad school first a fondness for and then a command of ancient Greek. To my other friends and colleagues in the department I am no less indebted for years of supportive friendship and collegiality. Special thanks goes to Patricia White, who carefully read every draft of nearly everything and saved me from more formatting errors than I care to ponder let alone specify; fond thanks must also go to Graeme Ward with whom conversations over ancient warfare proved equally stimulating, whether they occurred in the office or at the pub. It would also be remiss of me not to acknowledge the constant and warmhearted administrative support of Carmen Camilleri and Louise Savocchia. I would like to extend my gratitude to Ben Akrigg at the University of Toronto, who very attentively examined my work and improved it with keen editorial corrections and incisive commentary. I am also grateful to David Hitchcock for his contribution as the chair of my defense. Finally, I will always be grateful for the support of my family, my parents and siblings, for their moral and material support along the way and most of all to my wife, Jen, who has been a constant source of love and encouragement through it all. iv For Jen v Polemos as kinêsis: the impact of the Peloponnesian War on Athenian society and culture Table of contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations xi Introduction 1 Section I: The effects of the Peloponnesian War on Athenian Agriculture, food supply and finances Chapter 1: Introduction 21 1.1 The fertility of Attica Chapter 2: Attack on agriculture 35 2.1 Historical sketch of the war in Attica Chapter 3: Impact of the war on the rural economy 48 3.1 Lost harvests 3.2 Disrupting agriculture 3.3 Conclusions on the loss of Attica 3.4 Evacuation, plague and the loss of social capital Chapter 4: Adaptation and the ‘new economy’ 87 4.1 A foreign supply 4.2 Imperial allotments 4.3 Misthophoria 4.3.1 Misthos stratiôtikos 4.3.2 Misthos dikastikos 4.4 Subventions, food supply and the political economy Section II: The differential impact of war on citizen groups and sub-groups Chapter 5: Introduction 125 5.1 The democratic polis: memberships, privilege, and obligation 5.2 Who wants a peace? vi Chapter 6: Census classifications in Peloponnesian-War Athens 157 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Source problems and Ath. Pol. 7.2-4 6.3 The traditional view 6.4 What’s in a name? The etymology of !"#$%&'( 6.5 Indigent infantrymen 6.6 The revisionist socio-economic model 6.7 Civic obligations of wealthy Athenians 6.8 The Solonian telê as the basis of Athens’ wealth tax 6.9 The telê in Peloponnesian-War Athens: an overview Chapter 7: For deme and country: military service from 431-404 BC 225 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Coercion, egoism and agonism in Athenian military mobilization and practice 7.2.1 Factors against voluntary service 7.2.2 The hoplite katalogos 7.3 Political hoplites: egoism and altruism in heavy-infantry service 7.3.1 The hoplite agôn 7.3.2 Lions at home, foxes on the battlefield 7.4 Military service in the Peloponnesian War 7.4.1 Athens’ other warriors 7.5 Enrolling citizens: civic obligation, performance and claims of inclusion Chapter 8: Financial obligations and opportunities: the impact of war on Athens’ economic elite 300 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Trierarchical outlay 8.2.1 Pay and provisioning 8.2.2 Supererogatory expenditure and unforeseen costs 8.2.3 Total cost of the trierarchy 8.3 Mounting costs: eisphorai, population loss and their effects on trierarchical families 8.3.1 The number of trierarchs in fifth-century Athens 8.3.2 Eisphora 8.3.3 Sicily and its aftermath 8.4 The Ionian War, revolution and reform 8.5 Profitability and material benefits of military leadership 8.5.1 General statements about profiting 8.5.2 Extortion and profiteering 8.5.3 Personal networks 8.5.4 Private property in public hulls 8.5.5 Manipulation of crews 8.6 Conclusions on the impact of the war on the plousioi Conclusions 364 vii Appendices Appendix 1: Athenian hoplite casualties, 431-404 BC 383 Appendix 2: Athenian naval commitments, 432-404 BC 388 Bibliography 393 viii Abreviations of journals and works of reference Abbreviations for ancient authors and their works follow those of the Oxford Classical Dictionary. Abbreviations for journals follow the conventions used by L’Année philologique; abbreviations for reference works are those commonly used by modern scholars. 1. Journals AC L’Antiquité Classique AH Ancient History AHB The Ancient History Bulletin AHR The American Historical Review AJAH American Journal of Ancient History AJPh American Journal of Philology AncPhil Ancient Philosophy AncW The Ancient World: A Scholarly Journal for the Study of Antiquity ArchRW Archiv für Religionswissenschaft BABesch Babesch: Bulletin Antieke Beschaving BCH Bulletin de correspondance hellénique BICS Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies C&M Classica et Mediaevalia, Danish Journal of Philology and History CB The Classical Bulletin CJ The Classical Journal ClAnt Classical Antiquity CPh Classical Philology CR Classical Review ix CQ Classical Quarterly CW Classical World DHA Dialogues d’histoire ancienne G&R Greece and Rome GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies Historia Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte HPTh History of Political Thought HSPh Harvard Studies in Classical Philology JHS The Journal of Hellenic Studies LCM Liverpool Classical Monthly OJA Oxford Journal of Archaeology P&P Past and Present: A Journal of Historical Studies PAPhS Proceedings of the American Philological Society RÉG Revue des études grecques RH Revue historique RhM Rheinisches Museum für Philologie RPh Revue de philologie, de littérature et d’histoire anciennes SCI Scripta Classica Israelica TAPA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association YClS Yale Classical Studies ZPE Zeitscrhift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik x 2. Reference Works AP Rhodes, P. J. 1981. A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford) APF Davies, J. K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families (Oxford) CAH Cambridge Ancient History CEG Hansen, P.