Politics and Society in Ancient Greece (Praeger Series on the Ancient World)

185 Pages·2008·1.51 MB·English

by  Nicholas F. Jones

Politics and Society in
Ancient Greece
Nicholas F. Jones
PRAEGER
Politics and Society in
Ancient Greece
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Recent Titles in the
Praeger Series on the Ancient World
Daughters of Gaia: Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World
Bella Vivante
Sport in Ancient Times
Nigel B. Crowther
ii
POLITICS AND
SOCIETY IN
ANCIENT GREECE
Nicholas F. Jones
Praeger Series on the Ancient World
Bella Vivante, Series Editor
iii
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Nicholas F.
Politics and society in ancient Greece / Nicholas F. Jones.
p. cm. — (Praeger series on the ancient world, ISSN 1932–1406)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–275–98765–7 (alk. paper)
1. Greece—Politics and government—To 146 B.C. 2. Greece—Social conditions—To
146 B.C. 3. Athens (Greece)—Politics and government. 4. Athens (Greece)—Social
conditions. I. Title.
JC73.J66 2008
320.938—dc22 2007040764
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright © 2008 by Nicholas F. Jones
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007040764
ISBN: 978–0–275–98765–7
ISSN: 1932–1406
First published in 2008
Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.praeger.com
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the
Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
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To my twin brother, Chris, with thanks for everything.
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
1. Politics and Society in Ancient Greece 1
2. Politics and the Constitution 20
3. Sparta 39
4. Confl ict, Trials, and Ostracism 55
5. The World of Men 74
6. The World of Women 92
7. Some Ancient Greek Politicians 109
8. Some More Ancient Greek Politicians 130
Appendix: Texts, Visuals, and Web Sites 149
Notes 155
Further Readings 159
Index 163
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Preface
Ancient Greece is known to the modern world for many things, from the
Trojan War, immortalized in Homer’s Iliad, to the Parthenon on the Acropolis
of Athens, to the Dialogues of Plato, to the conquests of Alexander the Great.
But no such list would be complete without the inclusion of the form of gov-
ernment called democracy, literally “rule by the People.” Whether actually
the world’s first democracy (as popularly believed), we’ll never know for sure,
but we can trace democracy’s creation at Greece’s first city, Athens, to a spe-
cific historical occasion approximately 2,500 years ago. It is consequently one
of the oldest known governments of a major city in human history. Nonethe-
less, the sheer antiquity of Athens’ case is not the only, or even the primary,
reason for its interest to us. Among the approximately 1,500 original archaic
and classical Greek city-states, it was Athens that dominated through much
of antiquity—militarily, economically, and culturally. Thanks to the produc-
tion (and survival) of abundant source materials (especially written ones), it
is Athens that is far and away the best documented and understood. Beyond
the Aegean region, Greek civilization occupies a formative position near the
origins of the civilization of the West and, indeed—with our increasingly in-
ternational interconnectedness—of a single unified global civilization. The
democracy of Athens without a doubt can make a strong claim on our at-
tention.
Democracy, of course, like any form of government, was a complex, multi-
dimensional institution. The “rule” or “power” built into the word “democ-
racy” (from the ancient Greek kratos) is what politics is about, whether one’s
concern is with meetings of an assembly, trials before popular juries, or cam-
paigning and elections. But a government is also inextricably embedded in
a society and is subject to the operation and influence of that society’s cul-
tures. Neither one, neither politics nor society, can be studied or understood
in isolation from the other. Fortunately, in Athens’ case, we are richly blessed
with the kinds of explicit and detailed contemporary source materials that
make possible a joint investigation of politics and society or, more precisely,
politics in its societal setting.
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