The Family in Classical Greece

171 Pages·1972·9.293 MB·English

by  Walter Kirkpatrick Lacey

ASPECTS OF GREEK AND
THE FAMILY
ROMAN LIFE
IN CLASSICAL
General Editor: Professor H. H. Scullard
GREECE
W. K. Lacey
THAMES AND HUDSON
ilST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 7
PREFACE 9
GLOSSARY 12
I THE FAMILY IN THE CITY-STATE 15
Π THE FAMILY IN HOMERIC SOCIETY 33
HI THE FAMILY AND THE EVOLUTION OF STATES 51
IV FAMILY OIKOI AND ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY 84
V MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY IN ATHENS 100
FIRST PUBLISHED IN GREAT BRITAIN 19Ô8
REPRINTED 1972
VI PROPERTY AND THE FAMILY IN ATHENS I25
© I968 W. S. LACEY
Ail rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form VH WOMEN IN DEMOCRATIC ATHENS I5I
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording or any
information storage and retrieval system, VIE THE FAMILY IN PLATO’S STATE, SPARTA AND CRETE I77
without permission in writing from the
publisher.
IX THE FAMILY IN OTHER STATES 217
PRINTED IN ENGLAND BY
LEWIS REPRINTS LTD, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE
ISBN O 5OO 4OOO6 7 ABBREVIATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY 235
NOTES 237
CHAPTER I 237 CHAPTER Π 247 CHAPTER m 255
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CHAPTER IV 272 CHAPTER V 281 CHAPTER VI 2ÇI
i Family cult scene, second-century stone relief
CHAPTER Vn 3OO CHAPTER Vm 313 CHAPTER IX 327
a, 3 Families at sacrifice; two fourth-century stone reliefs
4 Sacrificial scene from the Hagia Triada Sarcophagus
SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS 332
5 Detail of a Geometric oenochoe, chariot battle, eighth century
6 Dipylon amphora, a mourning scene, eighth century
appendix 333 7 The ‘Chigi Vase’ (a Corinthian olpe), hoplite battle-lines, sixth
century
8,9 Obverse and reverse, Athenian silver tetradrachm, sixth century
INDEXES 336
10 ‘Heraldic’ silver coins of Miletus and Athens, sixth century
11,12 Obverse and reverse, Syracusan silver dekadrachm, fifth century
13 Detail from an amphora, fashionable youth, late sixth century
14 Black-figure amphora, girls at a fountain, sixth century
15 Kylix, kottabos player, c. 500-490
16 Kylix, reveller and hetaira, c. 490
17 Detail from an amphora, man wooing boy, c. 540
18, 19 Two views of the friezes on kylix (Plate 16), revellers
20 Black-figure pelike, a boy and a paidagogos at a shoemaker’s
c. 500
21, 22 Funerary plaques (pinakes), sixth century
23 Archaic marble stele (partly restored) of the children of Megacles,
c. 540
24 Loutrophoros, torchlight bridal procession, c. 440
25 Epinetron, gifts for Alcestis, c. 430
26 Loutrophoros, funeral of a young woman, e. 470
27 Loutrophoros, funeral of a young man, c. 480
28 Marble funerary stele, Ampharete and her grandchild, fifth
century
7
THE FAMILY IN CLASSICAL GREECE
29 Marble funerary stele of Damasistrate, fourth century
30 Attic lekythos, gifts brought to a tomb, c. 450
31 Attic oenochoe, drunken reveller returns home, c. 430
32, 33 Two views of a kylix, boys in school, c. 490
34 Skyphos, girl on a swing, c. 480 PREFACE
35 Roman bronze copy of a Greek statue, girl putting on her chiton
36 Red-figure pelike, a young woman buying perfume, early fifth
The family in Greek history is a subject which has hitherto not
century
found favour among historians. There is no book on the subject—
37 Oenochoe, a woman spinning, early fifth century
in English at least—and in the customary students’ text-books the
38, 39 Two views of a lekythos, women making cloth, sixth century
family receives short shrift; the authors all omit the word ‘family’
40 The Parthenon frieze, folding Athene’s new robe altogether from their index, or admit it only with reference to the
41 The Parthenon frieze, girls bringing sacrificial vessels Homeric period. The larger-scale works, L. Whibley’s Companion
42 Detail from a krater, woman vase-painter, fifth century to Greek Studies, and the Cambridge Ancient History, remain equally
43 Rhodian terracotta figurine, a young woman cooking, c. 450 uninformative.
44 Boeotian terracotta figurine, an old woman nursing a baby, c. 450 This book is an attempt at an introduction to the subject; it has
45 Black-figure cup, poor farmer ploughing, woman sowing, many intentional omissions, and no doubt a number of un­
sixth century intended ones, but this is inevitable in a short outline of what is in
fact the most central and enduring institution of Greek society.
46 Marble fragment of the Attic stelai, recording sales of property,
City-states rose and fell, democracy and oligarchy fought, foreign
414-3
conquerors came and went, but the family remained stubbornly
47 Western Greece, bronze figurine, girl runner, sixth-century
entrenched as the fundamental institution of the Greeks. This
48 Laconian cup, Spartan military funeral, sixth century
book, however, only attempts to deal in any detail with the
49 Locrian terracotta votive relief, girls offering cockerels, c. 460
family in the archaic and classical ages, the great era of the city-
states, because there was in these ages, and in these alone, a relation­
ship of peculiar closeness and complexity based essentially on the
fact that the polis was no more and no less than the sum total of
its families. Another volume will be required to study the Greek
family outside the city-state and the Graeco-Roman family of
the period following the Roman conquest of the Greek lands.
The all-pervading role of the family has the result that there is
scarcely any topic in Greek civilization in which the family is not
concerned; this has imposed the need for a rigorous selectivity,
especially in quoting from predecessors’ work. I have in most
cases acknowledged the work in which I first came across the
point in question, even when the author was not the first to make
it, and I have at all times, when faced with the choice of an English
9
10 THE FAMILY IN CLASSICAL GREECE PREFACE II
or a foreign author, quoted the English, on the ground that his from that which I have taken when diese seem to be reasonable
work is more likely to be accessible to students, and that students alternatives, but I have not entered into exhaustive discussion of
are more likely to use it. The exceptions to this rule mostly affect theories which seem to me to be based on wholly false premises,
works whose bibliography is too meagre to enable a student to such as a matriarchal organization of society.
pursue his own enquiries further. Where, however, there is a The spelling of Greek, and of Greek names, presents a perpetual
general consensus based on a reliable ancient author, I have con­ problem; the approach I have taken is not consistent, but con­
fined my references to the ancient source. forms to the practice of this series, and attempts to be helpful. All
Among the intentional omissions in this book are large-scale authors, familiar or not, 1 have spelt as in Liddell and Scott’s
references to Greek Tragedy. An introductory preface is no place Lexicon (LSJ), 9th edition. Other personal names have generally
for an extended discussion, but I have taken the view that Athen­ been anglicized except when to do so would be misleading, as
ian audiences did not suppose that figures on the tragic stage were with Pindarus, tyrant of Ephesus, or when the traditional spelling
normal human beings living in normal family circumstances. is positively misleading, or to use it would compel readers who
What the characters say therefore has no independent value for know no Greek to mispronounce the name. Familiar names are
telling us about society, though very often it will support what in their familiar form. Hence, for example, I use Pericles and
we know from other sources to be true. Comedy, on the other Lycurgus,and Penelope,notPenelopeia; tuseSoionandPlato,but
hand, was about normal human beings in comic situations; it is prefer Dracon to Draco and Cleisthenes to Clisthenes. All place-
therefore always potentially useful. Fragments of comedy, how­ names have been anglicized except for the names of places like Pylos
ever, as of tragedy, are unreliable as evidence; as the anthology of and Melos, in which I have retained the Greek -os. The cult names
Stobaeus shows, they can be selected to ‘prove’ almost anything. of deities have been left in their Greek form, like Zeus Ktesios. In
Another intentional omission is the distinction between Demos­ pronouncing names, -ou is pronounced as in ‘you’, except in
thenic and ‘Demosthenic’ speeches; were any speech in the the final position, when -ous is as in‘owe us’; similarly-aus is as in
Demosthenic corpus demonstrably much later than the great ‘slay us’, but -eus may be either as in ‘use’ (noun), or as in ‘see us’.
orator’s lifetime, the distinction would be meaningful, but this I have declined to translate a number of Greek words whose
has never been shown. What is more important than identifying customary English equivalent is inexact or positively misleading,
the actual author is to remember that, whoever wrote any and sometimes so bathetic as to leave the reader perplexed as to
speech, all those who spoke in Greek law-courts were prepared how any language could have tolerated such dreadful jargon. I
to be liars, and that habitual Bars will be good liars, so that their have thought it better to provide a short glossary of words com­
lies must have sounded plausible to foe audience to whom they monly used, and to attempt to explain the various shades of
were addressed (an Athenian one in almost every surviving case) ; meaning where this is appropriate in the text.
the exact truth of what orators say has therefore also not been This book began as a course of lectures for the Classical Tripos
considered in this book. in Cambridge ; no doubt this will be evident to the reader. That it is
Almost all questions in Greek history have been, and many still not much more evident owes a very great deal to Mr G. T. Griffith
are, the subject of extended debate; this is hardly surprising when and Dr M. I. Finley, from whom I have had a vast amount of
the small quantity of evidence and the large number of workers, good counsel and helpful criticism. They will not agree with all I
and of approaches attempted, are taken into consideration, hi have said, but they have saved me from many more avoidable
general, I have tried to indicate areas of disagreement which errors and forced me to look afresh at a large number of questions.
seemed most important for the family, and to cite views divergent All dates are bc except when otherwise stated.
GLOSSARY 13
meaning a comrade, often in arms or in an aristocratic or oligarchic associa­
tion. A hetaireia is an association of hetairoi.
Homoios Like or equal, hence a Spartan full citizen, or Spartiate.
Hoplite A fully-armed infantry soldier.
Kleros (also klaros, plural kleroi; klaroi) An allotment of land, also the estate
GLOSSARY of a deceased person, hence epikleros means a girl who transmitted one to
her children.
Kyrios (feminine kyria) The person who has the legal power to dispose of the
property or to manage the affairs of a person who is not fully his (or her) own
TABLE OF MEASURES
kyrios, such as woman or a minor. Hence kyrieia is full ownership or headship
6 obols = i drachma of a family.
ioo drachmae = i mina Liturgy A form of taxation (especially in classical Athens) imposed on the
60 minae — i talent (6000 drachmae) richer citizens; the most frequent was the trierarchy, q.v., but many public
spectacles and festivals were financed by liturgies.
Anchisteia Close relationship; hence the group of kinsmen acknowledged by
Medism Supporting the Persian side in the struggles with the Greeks.
law for purposes such as the succession to a deceased person’s estate.
Mettes Greeks who lived more or less permanently in a city not their own, in
Andreia Cretan word, equivalent to syssitia (q.v,), but also with family con­
which they did not have citizen-rights ; metics were therefore xenoi, q.v.
notations. See Chapter VHI. Singular andreion, though this form is not found
Neodamodeis Inferior citizens in Sparta, Chapter VUI, note 42.
in the ancient sources.
Orgeones Associations in Athens, probably akin to members of craft-guilds.
Cleruch An Athenian given a holding of land by the state outside Attica,
Oikos A family, including its property as well as its human members, also die
whether he actually lived there or was merely an absentee landlord. A
group in which an Athenian citizen was registered in his phratry and perhaps
cleruchy is a group of cleruchs.
in his deme also, Chapter IV. Plural oikoi. Oikeioi means members of the
Deme English form of demos, people; also a local unit within Attica (and
oikos, but the meaning is sometimes stretched to mean kinsmen generally.
possibly elsewhere) used in classical times as the group for maintaining the
Phratry A group in Athens of obscure origin, but great importance, at least
register of citizens.
in the social field, Chapter I. Members of a phratry werephrateres.
Dokimasia Preliminary examination undergone by all Athenians at the time
Stasis Political strife within a city-state.
of their enrolment as full citizens, and the chief (perhaps all) magistrates
Syssitia Spartan men’s messes, also found in other cities. Singular syssition,
before they were admitted to their office.
not found in the ancient sources.
Engye Betrothal agreement, essential preliminary to legal marriage in classical
Temenos (plural temene) A parcel of land set aside for the service of a god or
Athens, except for epikleroi.
spirit, or (in early times) for a king or other leader.
Enktesis The right to own land and other real property; its grant was equiva­
Thetes Athenians too poor to own a suit of armour, and hence unable to serve
lent to a grant of citizenship.
in the army; they rowed in die fleet.
Ephebos Young citizen undergoing two years of military training. Plural
epheboi. Ephebia was the organization for conducting the training. Thiasos Association in Athens smaller than the phratry; membership was not
Epidikasia Legal action before the Athenian Archon to claim the right to always hereditary.
marry an epikkros or to gain possession of an estate which lacked an estab­ Trierarch Citizen, especially Athenian, taxed by being made responsible for
lished heir. Epidikos means liable to claim by epidikasia. equipping a trireme (warship), and (sometimes) commanding it on service,
Epikîeros Girl (or woman) without living brothers at die time of her father’s though this was often done by deputy. Trierarchy is the office of trierarch,
death. See Chapter VI. Plural epikleroi. sometimes shared by two or more trierarchs.
Genos (plural gene) Two meanings. 1 A group of families claiming descent Xenos (also xeinos, xsenos) An outsider admitted into a closed society, used
from a common (usually heroic) ancestor. 2 Family, in a wide and genera! both of visitors to a family circle and of foreigners allowed to reside in a city
sense, like die English word. Gennêtai are fellow-members of a genos. not their own. Chapter I (fin.) and Chapter V, note 86, q.v. for proxenos.
Hetaira A female companion, usually a euphemism for a high-class prostitute. Plural xenoi, xeinoi etc.
Hetairos, the masculine form of the word, usually lacks the sexual implication. Zeugitai The hoplite class at Athens.
CHAPTER I
THE FAMILY
IN THE CITY-STATE
THE CHARACTER OF THE OIKOS
Aristotle began his work on Politics1 by stating that it is neces­
sary to break down communities into their smallest parts in order
to understand the different characteristics of each. The smallest
unit of the state is the family, the oikos, which is comprised of the
three elements, the male, the female and the servant. The servant
is defined as that which comes under the rule of another to obtain
security; to Hesiod, says Aristotle, this is the plough-ox (the
servant of the poor), to political man (i.e. man of the polis or city-
state) it is his slave. Male and female have a natural instinct to
procreate themselves successors, says Aristotle, an instinct common
also to all living creatures, and this introduces into the family a
fourth element, the children.
A further essential element in the oikos was its means of sub­
sistence; that Aristotle agreed that this was so is proved both by
his statement that the members of an oikos are those who feed
together,2 and by his subsequent remark that some call the obtain­
ing and management of possessions the whole of household
management.3 An oikos that could not support its members was,
to the Greeks, no oikos at all.
An oikos without children was also not fully an oikosΛ Every
Greek family looked backwards and forwards all the time. It
looked backwards to its supposed first founder, and shared a
religious worship with others with a similar belief; it also looked
forwards to its own continuance, and to the preservation for as
many future generations as possible of the cult of the family
which the living members practised in the interest of the dead.
The son of a house was therefore (in the best period of the Greek
polis) under a strong obligation to marry and procreate an heir
15
THE FAMILY IN CLASSICAL GREECE
for the oikos in order to keep the oikos alive, and he himself both
felt that obligation and, so far as we can see, acted upon it. The
other requirement, however, that the oikos must be able to sup­
port its members, was also not forgotten. No Greek would have
accepted the idea that every man has a right to marry and beget
children if he wants to ; marriage was for those who could afford
it. Consequently, when a father’s oikos was not large enough to
provide a livelihood for several sons, some of them would leave
it to seek their fortune away from home, enlisting as mercenary
soldiers or as sailors, or establishing for themselves a new home
as members of a colony when their own (or another) city called
for volunteers.5
An oikos was therefore a living organism which required to be
renewed every generation to remain alive; it supported its living
members’ needs for food, and its deceased members’ needs for
the performance of cult rituals. A childless oikos was visibly
dying—no man’s life-span is all that long—so we may well
appreciate the joy with which a child, and especially the first-bom
son of a family, was received.
THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE OIKOS
The relationship between individual and oikos exhibits consider­
able variations in the different ages and communities of the Greek
world. In the Homeric world the individual hero (the only class
for which we can say anything significant) was wholly responsible
for it, and wholly in command of it, in so far as his power
enabled him to be.6 In the polis communities of old Greece, the
ancestors’ land, and their tombs, which were the evidence of
their ancient ownership and the object of the family’s cult, pro­
vided strong unifying bonds within which the individual lived
as a member of his oikos. Here too every oikos was itself a member
I Zeus, the father of the Olympian gods, was particularly associated with
of one or more larger groups, the clan (genos), the phratry, the
family religion. On this second-century stone relief, found near Corinth, he
tribe (phyle), the deme, whose members were fully members of sits enthroned at the right; by him stands a goddess, presumably Hera, his wife.
the polis. Membership of these larger units was secured through At the altar under a sacred tree tied with a sash stand a father, mother and
membership of an oikos, so that the individual was never free of child, while to the left stand other members of the family, and beyond the tree
a memorial stele is visible, surmounted by two figures who presumably
the units to which he belonged. In the colonial settlements,
represent deceased relatives. The top of the stone is carved to suggest a roof (cf.
especially in Ionia and Sicily, however, the individuals who went
Pis. 2, 3 and 31).
THE FAMILY IN THE CITY-STATE 19
out were freed from their ancestral oikoi by their emigration, and
however successful the attempts to foster the spirit of unity and
civic-consciousness may have been, the web of family tradition
and otfeos-membership was never so strong, since it was not rooted
in oikoi (lands and houses in particular) and cults which the families
felt had been vested in them by right of descent from some
mythical, heroic founder.7
This lack of cohesiveness in society had two principal results:
it made these city-states much less exclusive than those of the
motherland, but it also made them politically much less stable,
with the result that they came frequently under the rule of tyrants.
Syracuse, for example, despite the dreadful experiences of the
tyranny of Dionysius I and his successors (405-344), remained less
than thirty years under the constitutional rule established by
Timoleon before it again came under a tyranny, that of Aga­
thocles, in 316.8 Regular features of these and similar tyrannies
were transplantations of whole populations, expulsions of old
2, 3 Aristarche (above) and [Arisjtoboule record their families’ worship of
Zeus Meilichios in a shrine near Athens; note the cornucopia (below), symbol citizens, and enrolments of new ones, who were often non-Greek
of plenty, and the pig, the customary offering (Xenophon, Anab. VII, 8), which mercenaries, and redistributions of lands, houses and other
stands ready for sacrifice. property which formed an essential part of the oikoi of the civic
communities of old Greece. Settling down into a homogeneous
and reasonably cohesive society always remained, therefore, a task
whose accomplishment tended to elude them.
In earlier times, other Greek communities in Southern Italy and
Sicily had tried to compensate for their lack of deep roots in the
soil by establishing codes of law and quasi-religious or philo­
sophical societies which provided die cohesive element in the
state. Zaleucus of Locri in Italy is reputed to have been the first
compiler of a code of laws in the Greek world; this was perhaps
in the mid-seventh century bc. Another famous lawgiver was
Charondas of Catana, whose laws were also used in Rhegium and
other towns of this area; those which have survived in our
ancient sources9 are much concerned with the family, though they
are said to have covered other fields of law as well. He probably
worked in the sixth century bc, earlier than the philosopher
Pythagoras, who came to Croton towards the end of that cen­
tury.10 Croton was then a town which already had a flourishing
20 THE FAMILY IN CLASSICAL GREECE THE FAMILY IN THE CITY-STATE 21
school of medicine and physical culture, but it was under the of the Macedonian monarchy at the end of that century also
cohesive discipline of the Pythagorean societies that it rose to its swelled the tide of individualism, and the Hellenistic Age (i.e.,
greatest prosperity and success, in the first half of the fifth century. after Alexander’s death in 323) reveals a much greater freedom of
Politically, these and most of the other city-states of this area action for individuals in relation to their families, and a much
were aristocratic, as were the cities of the Aegean world from lessened sense of responsibility towards them, as towards the
which came the greatest of the individualistic poets—Lesbos, state also. The tightly-knit corporation of the city and the unity
whose society lives for us in the poetry of Alcaeus and Sappho in of the family were closely interdependent, and were the basis and
the early sixth century,11 and Paros, the home of Archilochus at the product of the greatest age of the city-states. Therefore (to
least one generation earlier, whose bastard birth was no doubt return to Aristotle) the study of the family is the study of two
ultimately responsible for his rejection as a suitable husband for relationships: the oikos as an independent unit, especially the
Neoboule, whose hand he had been promised.12 relationships of the free members,17 and the oikos as a constituent
In sharp contrast with these individualists, however, stand the unit of the larger units out of which the city-state, or polis, was
roughly contemporary poets of mainland Greece, Theognis and composed.
Solon, the former proclaiming in Megara the ideals of an aristo­
cratic society which had lost its monopoly of political power,13 THE OIKOS AND ITS KYRIOS
while Solon in Athens sought to justify his new code of laws, Greek society was (and is) patriarchal : the master of the oikos was
with its transfer of ultimate responsibility for justice from the the head of the family, its kyrios, as its governor, governing the
family to the city’s magistrates, by advocating the familiar aristo­ slaves as master, the children as a sort of king because of their
cratic ideal that every man should know his place;14 the ancient affection for him and his greater age, his wife like a political
leaders of the state should lead it, the mass of the people should leader, differing from normal political leadership only in that this
accept an underprivileged position, though one in which their relationship does not involve change of leaders, as self-governing
rights were supported by the force of law. In these and other states normally change their leaders, but the husband is always the
mainland communities the process of emancipating the individual head of the family.18
from his family units was very slow indeed, as was the loss of Headship of a family, kyrieia (KvpUia), and the status of kyrios
political power by the old aristocratic families even in Athens, (κύριος), is an important feature of all Greek family life. In
the most democratic of these states, whose leaders, with the single Homer it is taken for granted, in democratic Athens it is defined
exception of Themistocles, were drawn from the noble families by the lawyers in certain aspects ; even in Sparta it is implied in
until the death of Pericles in 429.This age (the last half of the the status of full citizen, homoios (ομοιος), of Spartiate rank, above
fifth century) was, however, also the age of the Sophists, those thirty years old, who alone was allowed a share in political life,
itinerant teachers who came to mainland Greece, and Athens in and to set up house and live with his wife.
particular, from both the Aegean and the western Greek worlds. Only a man could be kyrios of a family. This is not to say that
They offered a challenge to all the old accepted codes of behaviour women could not look after a man’s property when he was
and values, and their influence, combined no> doubt with the absent on military service or abroad, whether for trade or state
divisive effects of the Peloponnesian War (431-404), perhaps set service. Obviously they could ; we can quote as examples Penelope
in motion that greater individualism which is the mark of the in Homer, who managed at least to prevent Odysseus’ house
fourth century, and against which Plato wrote his Republic and being taken over during his absence, or tbe trierarch of tbe
Laws.16 The end of the independence of the city-states at the hands Demosthenic speech numbered XLVII,19 who left his wife in