Culture, Society, and Economy in 5 th Century Athens

Culture, Society, and Economy in 5th Century Athens February 15th, 2012

General Remarks • Social and economic structures remain largely consistent with the Archaic Period. • Social values remain largely consistent with the Archaic Period. • Political structures and intellectual environment changed considerably over the course of the fifth century. • Changing political and intellectual climate interrelated.

Demographic Structures • The oikos = the central form of social organization. • The oikos = 1. Nuclear family. 2. Property. 3. Servants and slaves; center of production and consumption; aimed at autarchia. • Avg. life expectancy: 1. Men = ca. 45 years. 2. Women = ca. 36 years. • Avg. number of children, ca. 4.3 (ca. 2.7 survive to adulthood).

Marriage • Purpose of marriage = Progeny and property. • Arranged marriages; dowry (cash and moveable property) negotiated between husband and bride’s father. • Avg age = 30 for men, 15 for women. • High rates of widowhood. • The Epikleros.

Hesiod on Choosing a WifeWorks and Days • “(ll. 695-705) Bring home a wife to your house when you are of the right age, while you are not far short of thirty years nor much above; this is the right age for marriage. Let your wife have been grown up four years, and marry her in the fifth. Marry a maiden, so that you can teach her careful ways, and especially marry one who lives near you, but look well about you and see that your marriage will not be a joke to your neighbours. For a man wins nothing better than a good wife, and, again, nothing worse than a bad one, a greedy soul who roasts her man without fire, strong though he may be, and brings him to a raw (35) old age.” (Hesiod, Works & Days, H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914 - http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/works.htm)

The Purpose of MarriageXenophon, Oeconomicus 7.3-6 • “Since no doubt the underlying principle of the bond is first and foremost through procreation the races of living creatures; and next, as the outcome of this bond, for human beings at any rate, a provision is made by which they may have sons and daughters to support them in old age.” (D.B. Nagle & S.M. Burstein, 2005)

The Idealized Marriage • “When I, Athenians, decided to marry, and brought a wife into my house, for some time was disposed neither to vex her nor to leave her too free to do just as she pleased; I kept watch on her as far as possible, with such observation of her as was reasonable. But when a child was born to me, thenceforward I began to trust her, and placed all my affairs in her hands, presuming that we were now in perfect intimacy. It is true that in the early days, Athenians, she was the most excellent of wives; she was a clever, frugal housekeeper, and kept everything in the nicest order.” (Lysias 1. Lim & Bailkey, 2005).

Division of Labour in the Oikos • Men – Worked the fields; managed agricultural slaves; plied a trade. • Women – Managed domestic slaves; transformed raw materials into consumables. • A slave economy.

Economy of the Polis • Autarky = the ideal; unrealistic. • Agriculture = the most common form of employment. • In elite oikoi manual labour performed by slaves. • Most farmed their own land (assisted by slaves).

Hesiod on the Value of Self-Sufficiency • “(ll. 405-413) First of all, get a house, and a woman and an ox for the plough -- a slave woman and not a wife, to follow the oxen as well -- and make everything ready at home, so that you may not have to ask of another, and he refuses you, and so, because you are in lack, the season pass by and your work come to nothing. Do not put your work off till to-morrow and the day after; for a sluggish worker does not fill his barn, nor one who puts off his work: industry makes work go well, but a man who putts off work is always at hand-grips with ruin.” (Hesiod, Works & Days, H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914 - http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/works.htm)

Trade Activity in Ancient Greece • Trading activity expanding but still only a small part of economic activity • Facilitated by the development of coinage and colonization • Two kinds of traders: 1.Professional Merchants, 2.Wealthy landowners trading surpluses on their own ships • Trading agricultural surplus was honorable • Trade considered a hard and disreputable way to earn a living

Attitudes Toward Mercantile ActivityHomer, Odyssey 8.159 ff • Then again Euryalus made answer and taunted him to his face: “Nay verily, stranger, for I do not liken thee to a man that is skilled [160] in contests, such as abound among men, but to one who, faring to and fro with his benched ship, is a captain of sailors who are merchantmen, one who is mindful of his freight, and has charge of a home-borne cargo, and the gains of his greed. Thou dost not look like an athlete.” (A.T. Murray, 1919)

Trading SurplusHesiod, Works and Days • “(ll. 618-640) But if desire for uncomfortable sea-faring seize you; when the Pleiades plunge into the misty sea (33) to escape Orion's rude strength, then truly gales of all kinds rage. Then keep ships no longer on the sparkling sea, but bethink you to till the land as I bid you. Haul up your ship upon the land and pack it closely with stones all round to keep off the power of the winds which blow damply, and draw out the bilge-plug so that the rain of heaven may not rot it. Put away all the tackle and fittings in your house, and stow the wings of the sea-going ship neatly, and hang up the well-shaped rudder over the smoke. You yourself wait until the season for sailing is come, and then haul your swift ship down to the sea and stow a convenient cargo in it, so that you may bring home profit, even as your father and mine, foolish Perses, used to sail on shipboard because he lacked sufficient livelihood. And one day he came to this very place crossing over a great stretch of sea; he left Aeolian Cyme and fled, not from riches and substance, but from wretched poverty which Zeus lays upon men, and he settled near Helicon in a miserable hamlet, Ascra, which is bad in winter, sultry in summer, and good at no time. (ll. 641-645) But you, Perses, remember all works in their season but sailing especially. Admire a small ship, but put your freight in a large one; for the greater the lading, the greater will be your piled gain, if only the winds will keep back their harmful gales.” (Hesiod, Works & Days, H.G. Evelyn-White, 1914 - http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/hesiod/works.htm)

Class Distinctions • Vary from Polis to Polis • Athens before Cleisthenes (508 BCE) = based on wealth • Sparta = Based on birth • Aristocratic (Homeric) ethos undermined by social/political revolutions of the Archaic period • Aristocratic Warrior ethos integrated into the ideal of citizenship • Wealthy and well born express their social status by: 1.Athletic competition, 2.Acts of Euergetism (i.e. Public munificence)

Legal Categories of Polis Resident in Classical Athens • Full citizen = All those born to citizen father • Metic = Resident Foreigner • Xenos = Foreigner or stranger • Slaves

Rights and Obligations of the Citizen Male • Sit in assemblies • Elect magistrates • Participate in all public cults and festivals • Own property • Serve in the army

Rights and Obligations of the Metic • Reside in the polis for which they have Metic status • Pursue a trade • Legal protection • Conduct business (N.B. Cannot own land) • Participate in some (but not all) civic cult and festivals • Serve in the army • Pay the “metoikon” (special tax on metics)

Diodorus on the Importance of Metics • “(Themistokles) also persuaded the demos to build and add, every year, twenty triremes to the fleet that they already had, and to make the metoikoi and the craftsmen exempt from tax, so that a great multitude would come to the polis from everywhere and would readily establish many crafts; for both these things he judged to be most useful in the establishment of naval power.” (Diodorus XI.43.3. Crawford & Whitehead, Doc. 160).

Slaves and Slavery • No rights. • Considered objects. • Property of their owner. • Wide variety of occupations (agriculture, domestic service, artisans, business & trade, sex etc.). • Usually non-Greeks; at least from a different polis. • Purchased, captured in war, bred at home. • Sometimes paid; could purchase their freedom.

Uses of and Attitudes toward Slaves • “Those who are able to do so buy slaves, in order that they might have fellow-workers.” (Xenophon, Memorabilia II.3.3. Crawford & Whitehead, Doc. 162A). • “This is why our poets have said, ‘meet it is that barbarous peoples should be ruled by Greeks.’ – the assumption being that the barbarian and the slave are by nature one and the same thing.” (Aristotle, Politics, 1.2.4. E. Barker, 1958); cf. Doc. 162B

Intellectual Developments in Archaic and Classical Greece • 6th century BCE (the First Sophistic). • Pre-Socratic philosophers (Miletus; Ephesus); materialists. • Classical philosophy more concerned with ethics and politics.

The Sophists – The Background • No public education system in Greece • Sophists (wise men) were itinerant teachers who taught for a fee • Main field of expertise was rhetoric (persuasive argument) • A highly valued skill in democratic Athens • Quickly earned a negative reputation by the more conservative elements at Athens

The Sophists – Protagoras of Abdera (481-420 BCE) • Taught rhetoric and political thought • Thought to be both agnostic and relativist • “Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, they are, and of things which are not, they are not.” (Plato, Theaetetus, 152a) • “Concerning the gods, I have no way of knowing whether they exist or not or of what sort they might be….” • Practiced making the weaker argument stronger

The Sophists – Gorgias of Leontini (483-375 BCE) • Focused primarily on rhetoric and oratory • Extreme Skepticism: i.e. Nothing exists/if things exist, they cannot be known/if things can be known, they cannot be articulated • Engaged in proving either side of a contradictory argument

The Life and Death of Socrates • All we know of Socrates’ life comes from Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle • Son of Sophroniscus and Phaenarete • Married to Xanthippe – had three sons • Probably worked as a stonemason • Served in the army – decorated for bravery • Was classified as a Sophist by his enemies • Left no writing of his own • Was accused, tried, convicted and executes on charges of corrupting the Athenian youth and not believing in the gods

Socrates the Thinker • Was not concerned with natural philosophy (i.e the pre-socratics) nor with rhetoric (i.e. the sophists) • Claimed to be concerned with the care of the human soul • Contested the relativism of the sophists and argued that universal truths existed and were knowable • Reason could be used to discover what is true and good • Developed a method of dialectic cross-examination to demonstrate errors and inconsistencies in beliefs (cf. Plato, Euthyphro).

Socratic Subject-Matter • “So we must investigate again from the beginning what piety is, as I shall not give up before I learn this….If you had no clear knowledge of piety and impiety you would never have ventured to prosecute your old father for murder on behalf of a servant. For fear of the gods you would have been afraid to take the risk lest you should not be acting rightly, and would have been ashamed before men, but I know well that you believe you have a clear knowledge of piety and impiety. So tell me, my good Euthyphro, and do not hide what you think it is.” (Plato, Euthyphro, 15 c-e.Trans. G.M.A. Grube, 2000)

Seeking Universals • Socrates: “….Now, however, try to say more plainly what I was asking you just now. For you did not teach me sufficiently earlier, comrade, what ever the pious is. Instead, you told me that what you are now doing, proceeding against your father for murder, happens to be pious.” • Euthyphro: “Yes, and what I was saying is true, Socrates.” • Socrates: “Perhaps. But in fact, Euthyphro, you also say that many other things are pious.” • Euthyphro: “Yes, and so they are.” • Socrates: “Do you remember that I didn’t bid you to teach some one or two of the many pious things, but that eidos itself by which all the pious things are pious? For surely you were saying that it is by one idea that the impious things are impious and the pious things pious. Or don’t you remember.” (Plato, Euthyphro, 6d-e. T.G. West, 1984)

The Trial of Socrates – 399 BCE • Socrates’ philosophical speculation angered many Athenians (Reflect on why). • His accusers tried to depict him as a Sophist (Reflect on why). • Charged with introducing new gods to Athens and with corrupting the Athenian youth. • Brought to trial and executed in 399 BCE (cf. Plato, Apology and Crito).

Plato’s Apology • The defense speech of Socrates against charges of corrupting the Athenian youth and inventing new gods. • Probably a true account of the speech though not a verbatim transcript. • Socrates’ defense rests upon: 1.The charges against him are slanderous, 2.The god Apollo has given him a mandate the improve the soul of all Athenians, 3.He ought to be rewarded for his benefits to the polis and not punished.

The Nature of the Charges IPlato, Apology 19b-e, G.M.A. Grube, 2000 • “Let us take up the case from the beginning. What is the accusation from which arose the slander in which Meletus trusted when he wrote out the charge against me? What did they say when they slandered me? I must, as if they were actual prosecutors, read the affidavit that they have sworn. It goes something like this: Socrates is guilty of wrongdoing in that he busies himself studying things in the sky and below the earth; he makes the worse into the stronger argument, and he teaches these same things to others. You have seen this yourself in the comedy of Aristophanes, a Socrates swinging about there, saying he was walking on air and talking a lot of nonsense about things of which I know nothing at all….And if you have heard from anyone that I undertake to teach people and charge a fee for it, that is not true either.”

The Nature of the Charges IIPlato, Apology 24b, G.M.A. Grube, 2000 • “As these are a different lot of accusers, let us again take up their sworn deposition. It goes something like this: Socrates is guilty of corrupting the young and of not believing in the gods in whom the city believes, but in other new spiritual beings. Such is the charge.”

Socrates’ Stated Aim Plato, Apology 30a-b, G.M.A. Grube, 2000 • “For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.”

Contemplate the charges against Socrates, his response to those charges, and the outcome of the trial against the social and political background of fifth century Athens

Culture, Society, and Economy in 5 th Century Athens