THE DYNAMICS OF INNOVATION Newness and Novelty in the Athens of Aristophanes Armand D'Angour University College London Thesis submitted for Ph.D. in Classics March 1998 BIEL uxºv, The Dynamics of Innovation Abstract ABSTRACT This study looks at the dynamics of innovation: why innovation occurs, what newness means in diverse areas of life, how social, cultural and individual attitudes to novelty interact, and the wider impact of innovation. The historical focus is ancient Athens, a society well known for its originality and creativity. Despite Athens' well-known competitiveness and flair for innovation, classical historians have tended to emphasise its traditionalism and respect for the past. However, the comedies of Aristophanes testify to the deliberate pursuit of innovation and to the effects of rapid and wide-ranging change in the late fifth and early fourth centuries B. C. They are adduced, together with other sources for the period, as evidence for the kinds of innovation that took place in politics, law, religion and warfare, as well as in specialist skills (technai) such as rhetoric, the visual arts, music, and medicine. The sources reveal diverse reactions, ranging from ambivalence and anxiety to excitement and optimism, to the experience of newness in these culturally key areas of Athenian life. Attitudes and behaviour differed between individuals and social groups, depending on the area of innovation. A combination of factors served to encourage the drive to innovate: material circumstances such as commercialism, war, and imperial rule; social pressures such as competitiveness, democratic openness, and the desire for acclaim; and technical imperatives such as the pursuit of accuracy, efficacy, and originality. The proliferation of tools of verbal communication (specifically rhetoric and writing) to express and record new ideas; is a pervasive theme. In conclusion, a broad trend is discerned for the period, showing Athenians towards the end of the fifth century to have been unusually interested in the meaning and possibilities of innovation. Aristophanes' characterisation in particular of the climate of newness suggests an intriguing historical analogue to recent discourses of postmodernity. 2 The Dynamics of Innovation Contents THE DYNAMICS OF INNOVATION: newness and novelty in the Athens of Aristophanes. Table of Contents Page: Preface 5 1. Introduction: the meaning of the new. i. The pursuit of the new 8 R. The question of innovation 11 iii. The meanings of `new' 16 iv. xativös and vEos 21 v. Aristophanes and novelty 27 vi. Psychological perspectives 30 vii. Processes and perceptions 33 2. Dimensions of innovation in Athenian society. i. The material perspective 37 ii. Innovation in warfare 39 iii. The effects of the war 44 iv. The influx from abroad 49 v. icotiit to and play 52 vi. titXvrl and tivxrj 57 vii. vöµot and novelty 60 viii. Conclusions 64 3. The language of novelty and new technologies of the word. i. New words for new times 68 ii. Dimensions of verbal novelty 72 iii. Books and writing 79 iv. The limits of orality 85 v. The rhetoric of innovation 90 vi. New words and old 92 4. Athenian art: innovation in theory and practice. i. The visual legacy 98 ii. Artistic novelty 101 iii. New canons of form 105 iv. The social status of art 109 v. Art and society 113 vi. Artistic developments 117 vii. Technique and äxpiß$ta 121 viii. Limits of illusion 127 ix. Realism and aesthetics 131 X. Conclusions 136 3 The Dynamics of Innovation Contents 5. The New Music: a tradition of innovation. i. Novelty in µovatxr 139 ii. The traditional background 144 iii. Evolution of musical ti£xvrj 148 iv. Sound and ethos 152 v. Music and words 156 vi. The new professionals 161 vii. Reactions to the New Music 168 viii. Conclusions 170 6. New arts of healing and On Ancient Medicine. i. Divination and reason 175 ii. Foreign influences 179 iii. Hippocratic medicine 183 iv. cpi tL and empiricism 187 v. Asclepius and Asclepiads 191 vi. Newness vs. novelty 196 vii. Conclusions 202 7. New gods: religious innovation in the age of Socrates. i. Varieties of religious change 206 ii. Rationalism and science 210 iii. Piety and pragmatism 213 iv. Introducing new gods 219 v. The exotic and the antique 223 vi. Novelty and impiety 227 vii. New godsfor old 229 viii. Conclusions 233 8. Case study: the reform of the alphabet in 403 B. C. i. The Decree ofArchinus 237 ii. The technical background 241 iii. Attic vs. Ionic script 249 iv. The Eucleides connection 254 v. Conclusions 257 9. Conclusions: the postmodern turn in Classical Athens. 264 Index of Themes 269 Editions and Works Cited 274 4 The Dynamics of Innovation Preface Preface The idea for this research first came to me in the early 1990s. I was managing a family businessfacing tough competition in a world emerging from global recession. There was a constant annual demand for `new products', yet I was painfully aware that products designed and produced the previous year often barely penetrated the market. If consumers had never seen them, how could they tell whether or not they were new? How many times might we re-package and re-market the `old' products and pass them off as `new'? Was the very process of re-launching an old product sufficient to make it a new one? Was there such a thing as something radically new? And if so, would anyone actually want or recognise such a thing? What were the wider consequences,social and environmental, of this constant drive to innovate? Were generations of consumers becoming addicted to constant novelty, unable to tolerate any kind of familiarity and stability? `Innovation' is the buzz-word of contemporary commerce. The pressure is stronger than ever, and while the scope for innovation grows ever greater, the tools for producing it have become more specialised and complex, requiring implementation by `experts'. As I write, the corporate `guru' Tom Peters has brought out his latest best-seller, entitled The Circle of Innovation. Yet few international corporations today, large or small, even ask the questions posed above, let alone know the answers. All they know is that they must `innovate or die'. This kind of innovation is driven by narrow goals of economic value, and the broader consequences are unknown and incalculable. But on a personal level, many people today, particularly those in the older generation, are aware of a sense of bewilderment and disorientation created by the demands of the new. There is a sense that one must keep running just to keep up with `progress', or fall by the wayside. The pressures on both consumers and producers of innovation have resulted in a mix of excitement and terror, confidence and concern, justifiable pride and unbounded anxiety. Social theorists such as Anthony Giddens argue that the consequences of modernity constitute a discontinuity, something qualitatively different from the past in terms of the pace and scope of change, the nature of institutions, and the 5 The Dynamics of Innovation Preface incalculability of risk. Some apply the term `postmodernity' to this nexus. But human nature has not undergone an equivalent discontinuity. Human beings are equipped with the same psychological and emotional tools for dealing with the world as they were thousands of years ago. This led me to wonder if there had ever been a period in ancient history where people experienced and reflected on anything approximating to `the postmodern condition' with regard to pressures to innovate and to cope with novelty. For a Hellenist, Athens in the fifth century B. C. is an obvious place to start. A century which began with the establishmentof demokratia, proceeded to invent tragedy and comedy, history, rational medicine, rhetoric and philosophy, and which made substantial innovations in art, law, mathematics, science, and warfare, must have known something about novelty. The brilliant and innovative thinkers and artists of the period laid the basis for two millennia of Western cultural achievement. What did newness mean to them, and to the thoughtful and articulate Greeks who participated in and reflected on this exceptional output? To answer this question, I have cast my net over a wide area. I am keenly aware that I have only made a start on what is potentially an enormously rich and all-embracing topic, touching on areas of history, language, literature, art, music, religion, science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and many more. The short answer is that `newness' means many different and heterogeneous things. I have therefore thought it best, where possible, to let the Greek sources speak in their own words, and I hope to convey in my own translations something of the immediacy with which the ancient language would have been received and understood by native speakers. While I am conscious of unavoidable inconsistencies in the spelling of ancient names, I have chosen to avoid the gendering usage of `she' and `her' when speaking of Athens propria voce, while retaining it in translations. My research has made clear to me how much the ancient world can still teach the modern. It has also revealed that a focus on the complex facets of `newness' has genuine heuristic potential. One of my most exciting moments in the course of my research was the realisation that the word oºnphalos must occur in some form in line 3 of Pindar's fragmentary second Dithyramb. My reason for focussing on this vexed fragment was an attempt to understand how it might bear on 6 The Dynamics of Innovation Preface a possible innovation of the late sixth century B. C., the reform of the dithyramb from a processional into a circular dance. My restoration provided the key piece of the puzzle and led to a full re-evaluation of `how the dithyramb got its shape'.