Proskynesis and the Deification of Alexander

[On the background to the proskynesis debate and its significance. With specific reference to Ernst Badian.]

In his article on the deification of Alexander the Great, Ernst Badian [in Ancient Macedonian Studies in Honour of Charles F. Edson, 1981] considers the question from two different angles:

1. The significance of the proskynesis debate in the context of 'the classic theory of religious demarcations within the spheres of the divine, and between it and the human' [p28] as set out by one of the participants in the debate, Callisthenes.

2. The nature of the evidence for the 'deification' of Alexander in his lifetime, and the successors, and whether or not any evidence can be found for the deification of living men among the Greeks before the time of Alexander.

Badian's treatment of the latter question is inadequate because he does not clearly distinguish between types of cult - i.e., Heroic and divine - which, within the supposed 'classic theory of religious demarcations within the spheres of the divine and between it and the human' must be of importance. Evidence of cult of a living man is insufficient to support an argument that the particular individual has been deified, and to discuss the question of deification of individuals without considering the distinct types of cult and their implications, is something of a dereliction.

As for the first angle, Badian does not go into great detail about what 'the classic theory of religious demarcations' is. This is not surprising: we have no, and apparently cannot have, inside understanding of this 'classic theory' - all we have is evidence from contemporary literature, from which we must infer as far as possible the nature of the demarcations, without necessarily understanding the precise logic of those demarcations. Thus far, in principle, Badian's approach is reasonable. He does not take the evidence reported in the surviving accounts at face value, but interprets it in the frame of the available historical evidence for deification: i.e., what the prior practice of the Greeks suggests in terms of religious demarcations between the divine and the human. But does he successfully use the relevant evidence to consider both Alexander's understanding of deification, and the understanding of his companions and contemporaries?

Although he is aware of the concept of deification promulgated by Aristotle, the tutor of Alexander (footnote 9, page 31), he is unfamiliar with the chronology of the appearance of the idea in the Aristotelian corpus;  giving as well a faulty reference, citing the remark at 1284a as 1248b, where Aristotle makes 'the much misunderstood statement' that ‘the individual: whose virtue is so pre-eminent... may truly be deemed a God among men'. This appears to be as much as Badian knows about Aristotle's concept of deification, and thus his understanding of the proskynesis debate is severely circumscribed.

Turning to the debate itself, it is depicted as taking place between two individuals named in the account of Arrian as Anaxarchus and Callisthenes (Curtius Rufus gives the name 'Cleon' to the former participant - which matter will be discussed later). Anaxarchus suggests that the time has come for Alexander to be worshipped as a god, on the basis of his achievements and his descent, and asks: 'why not now in his lifetime, rather than uselessly after his death?' By stressing the use of the deification Anaxarchus indicates his motive is the ideological advantage to be gained by Alexander, and that the step is for some reason an unprecedented one. He is attempting to persuade Alexander away from some perception of the divine which makes such a step unthinkable. He (Anaxarchus) argues after the death of Alexander's friend Cleitus that: 'the wise men of old made Justice to sit by the side of Zeus... to show that whatever Zeus may do is justly done. In the same way all the acts of a great king should be considered just, first by himself, then by the rest of us'. Plutarch, writing much later,  provides reinforcement for the idea that Alexander was tempted by this argument for the arrogation of divine status, stating that, while in Egypt, Alexander was 'most pleased by the statement of an Egyptian philosopher 'that all men are governed by God for in everything that which rules and governs is divine'.

The issue of divinity came to a head (according to Arrian) when Alexander 'wished people to prostrate themselves in his presence'. Arrian suggests that the matter of prostration (proskynesis) arose due 'partly to the notion that his father was not Philip but Ammon (referring to the declaration of the Oracle of Ammon at the Siwa Oasis), and partly to his growing admiration, expressed also by the change in his dress and in the general etiquette of his court, of Median and Persian extravagance'. Arrian suggests that there were plenty of servile courtiers willing to flatter Alexander's vanity, and that 'Anaxarchus the sophist was one of the worst'.

The argument of Anaxarchus was opposed by Callisthenes of Olynthus, a nephew of Aristotle (it is of some importance to note that Arrian agrees with Callisthenes argument, though he disagrees with the tastelessness with which he responded to the raising of the issue). Arrian explicitly accuses Alexander of deliberately setting up the debate with Anaxarchus as the protagonist, who argued that 'Alexander had a better claim... to be considered divine than Dionysus or Heracles' and that 'there would be greater propriety' in him being paid divine honours, and that there was 'no doubt that they would honour him as a god after he had left this world; would it not therefore, be in every way better to offer him this tribute now, while he was alive, and not wait till he was dead and could get no good of it?'

Before passing on to Callisthenes response, it should be noted that the notion of tribute here is important, for it implies one or both of two things: that the honour of being called a god is within the capacity of man to give (i.e., part of the spectrum of honours available to mortal judgement: gods were normally revealed via oracular pronouncement); and secondly that it is perceived by Anaxarchus as an honour, an awestruck and indebted response, and not a precise intellectual concept.

Both of these implications are opposed by Callisthenes. He argues that Alexander is 'fit for any mark of honour that a man may earn' (meaning that divinity cannot be earned), but emphasises the separateness of the divine, instancing the examples of the divine being marked by 'the building of temples, the erection of statues, the dedication of sacred ground... sacrifice is offered and libations are poured... yet of all these things not one is so important as this very custom of prostration... a god, far above us on his mysterious throne, it is not lawful for us to touch, and that is why we proffer him the homage of bowing to the earth before him'  (i.e., the act of prostration symbolised to the Greeks the transcendent nature of the object of worship, and to have accepted prostration would involve the idea of Alexander as a transcendent being). Hence he continues, 'it is wrong... to make a man look bigger than he is by paying him excessive and extravagant honour, or at the same time, impiously to degrade the gods (if such a thing were possible) by putting them in this matter on the same level as men' (my emphasis).

As the result of Callisthenes response the matter was dropped, but Arrian further emphasises the supposed inhuman arrogance of Alexander with his account of the plot of Hermolaus (with which Callisthenes was implicated) to kill him for his crimes and to free the Macedonians from evils 'which were no longer to be borne'.

We can clarify the nature of the debate and the implications for Alexander's career by considering what we know of the participants and those responsible for the transmission of the story.

1. Anaxarchus: described as featuring as the 'court philosopher' in the Alexander tradition by Badian, was a pupil of Democritus. After the death of Alexander, Anaxarchus was 'thrown by shipwreck into the power of Nicocreon, king of Cyprus, to whom he had given offence, and who had him pounded to death in a mortar' (i.e., atomised, which suggests strongly that either Nicocreon had an informed sense of humour, or that the incident is fictionalised).

2. Callisthenes: Badian observes that he is related to Aristotle but denies that he was a philosopher, which is incorrect. As well as being Aristotle's nephew he was also his pupil (he is supposed to have sent back from Babylon records of eclipses for the preceding 1900 years).

This is an interesting philosophical opposition. Democritus (and his doctrines) was so hated by Plato that he could not bring himself to mention his name. The Democritean school was essentially materialistic and deterministic, the state of things being explained as the concourse of atoms (indivisibles) and hence was very untheological: subtle theological distinctions were meaningless to them. Democritus 'explicitly denied that anything can ever happen by chance' and, unlike Aristotle in particular, 'sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause' [Russell, History of Western Philosophy, ch.ix]. Further, 'he disbelieved in popular religion'.

3. Arrian: with regard to Arrian's competence to accurately report the proskynesis debate Badian supports his contention that Arrian was a philosopher by referring to a colleagues’ discovery of a statue base which declares this fact. But Arrian's status as a philosopher has never been in dispute: Arrian is responsible for preserving the teachings of Epictetus in the form of lecture notes (the latter promoted 'a gospel of inner freedom to be attained through submission to providence and a rigorous detachment from everything not in our power').

Arrian's essentially teleological perspective naturally involves an acceptance of the interpenetration of fact and value (in other words, everything means something). So that, given Alexander's aspiration to more than his proper due, he must, of necessity, fall. This is the programme of Arrian's account of Alexander's life: Alexander very nearly merited the status he is supposed to have desired, but even he did not merit the status of divinity. This argument dictates the pattern of the rhetorical contest between Anaxarchus and Callisthenes, as it dictates the change of name of one of the participants by Curtius Rufus. As Badian notes, Curtius Rufus rhetoricizes and has a bad record on names. The substitution of 'Cleon' for Anaxarchus is probably an allusion to the opponent of Pericles, whom both Aristophanes and Thucydides speak of as 'a vile, unprincipled demagogue'. Hence, if Anaxarchus followed his master in disbelieving in popular religion and had no teleological outlook (a proper sense of the equivalence of place and worth) then Curtius might well choose to suggest that the arguer of the view that Alexander should be a god while he lives is a 'vile, unprincipled demagogue', interested only in the ideological function of religion.

Both Callisthenes and Alexander were pupils of Aristotle, and his views are likely to have had impact on both of them (Arrian points out [bk. 7] that 'Alexander was not wholly a stranger to the loftier flights of philosophy', though he yokes to this observation that 'he was to an extraordinary degree, the slave of ambition'). Aristotle argued that divinity was 'merited' or at least was the ultimate target at which men pursuing virtue were aiming in reality. However, the characteristics of divinity argued by Aristotle [bk.x, Nicomachean Ethics] must have been very disagreeable to a man pursuing virtue through action. Throughout the Ethics runs a division between the moral and the intellectual virtues: it is the former which make us human, and the latter which make us something more. As Aristotle says, 'the student of intellectual problems (in this case Alexander) has no need of all the paraphenalia (of moral life)... moral activities are human par excellence', and in completing the circuit of moral excellence we are liberated from these merely human observances and can pursue 'the activity of the intellect...'.

 So far the argument would be pleasing to Alexander, exonerating him from the normal human obligations. But what follows must have caused him disquiet, for this 'activity of the intellect' takes 'the form of contemplation, and not to any end beyond itself... but such a life will be too high for human attainment'. Aristotle continues that the life of contemplation 'will not be lived by us in our merely human capacity but in virtue of something divine within us'. But to do this Aristotle counsels that we forget our mortality and that we should, 'so far as in us lies... put on immortality and... leave nothing unattempted in the effort to live in conformity with the highest thing within us'.

While this argument makes some kind of sense, it proposes a desperate contradiction for someone like Alexander, in pursuit of all achievement as his portion: he cannot be both human and divine - which appears from the evidence to be consistent with the traditional Greek view concerning the divine. Aristotle characterizes the divine as above all forms of virtuous activity, remarking that if the gods are living beings from whom all forms of activity have been removed there is nothing left but contemplation; and thus he concludes that the activity of god is contemplation.

It is likely that the problem of his divinity - framed in this context - did exercise the mind of Alexander: the events of his last days are informed with sense if this is so. The brooding, the obsessive concern with sacrifices, ritual bathing and omens, all argue that Alexander was at war with himself over an impossible problem: this time the knot could not be cut. All achievement was not to be his as promised by the oracle and the work remained incomplete. Had he been deserted by the gods because of hubris? And even if he could cross the gulf between the human and the divine, in the light of Aristotle's argument concerning the nature of the divine, would he be any better than dead, if still living? It may be that he came to believe that he could only achieve the ultimate happiness (and status), as described by Aristotle, in death (note Alexander's reaction to the gymnosophist Dandanus who asserted his self-sufficiency and who was happy that in death he would be free of his body, which he described as his 'unseemly housemate' [Arrian, bk. 7].

In conclusion, it is possible to disinter from the proskynesis debate much more than Badian achieves, despite his close analysis, if the relevant information is brought to bear. Not only is it possible to make more sense of the actual debate, it is possible to make sense also of Alexander's career as a totality as well as in its details. The meaning of his life to the Successors becomes clearer, as does his importance to the transmitters of the information, who shaped the tradition according to their concern with its significance, and not merely the desire to narrate a remarkable career.

Works consulted:

Badian, E. 'The Deification of Alexander the Great', in Ancient

Macedonian Studies in Honor of Charles F. Edson, 1981

Badian, E. 'Some Recent Interpretations of Alexander' &

Schwarzenberg, E. 'The Portraiture of Alexander': both in

 [Entretiens sur L'Antiquite Classique vol. 22 (1975)]: Alexandre Le Grand: Image et Realite

 [Fondation Hardt]

Walker, S. & Burnett, A. The Image of Augustus, 1981

Russell, B. A History of Western Philosophy, 1961 [2nd ed.]

Speake, J. (et al) A Dictionary of Philosophy, 1979

Aristotle Politics; Nicomachean Ethics

Wallbank, F.W. The Hellenistic World

Sinclair, T.A. ”A History of Greek Political Thought, 1967 [2^nd ed.]

Austin, M.M. ”The Hellenistic World, 1981.

Plutarch, Lives ‘Life of Alexander’
Arrian, The Anabasis of Alexander

Excellence and the Knowledge of Divine Things

[This is one of twenty-one essays in the book Man and the Divine, published in August 2018. The book is available in ePub format from leading retailers of eBooks, such as Barnes & Noble, Blio, Kobo, Itunes, Inktera, Smashwords, etc. Information about Man and the Divine can be found here]

There is a telling passage in the seventh section of Plutarch’s ‘Life of Alexander’, concerning esoteric thought. It is couched in interesting terms, which we rarely associate with things which are hidden because they are associated with divine things. Alexander’s father, Philip of Macedon,

seeing that his son was easily led, but could not be made to do anything by force, used always to manage him by persuasion, and never gave him orders. As he did not altogether care to entrust his education to the teachers whom he had obtained, but thought that it would be too difficult a task for them…. he sent for Aristotle, the most renowned philosopher of the age, to be his son's tutor, and paid him a handsome reward for doing so. He had captured and destroyed Aristotle's native city of Stageira; but now he rebuilt it, and repeopled it, ransoming the citizens, who had been, sold for slaves, and bringing back those who were living in exile. For Alexander and Aristotle he appointed the temple and grove of the nymphs, near the city of Mieza, as a school-house and dwelling; and there to this day are shown the stone seat where Aristotle sat, and the shady avenues where he used to walk.

Plutarch opens his life of Alexander with a cheerful complaint about the sheer extent of the materials available to him to write on Alexander, and defends some of the necessary omissions by saying that he is writing a biography, and not a history. So the details which are in his essay are there because he regarded them as important in showing Alexander’s character, his disposition, and the content of his mind. On the basis of his sources he says:

It is thought that Alexander was taught by him not only his doctrines of Morals and Politics, but also those more abstruse mysteries which are only communicated orally and are kept concealed from the vulgar: for after he had invaded Asia, hearing that Aristotle had published some treatises on these subjects, he wrote him a letter in which he defended the practice of keeping these speculations secret.

Plutarch references and quotes from several letters from Alexander, and from a diary, so it is likely that there were such things in circulation in Plutarch’s time, as well as the writings of his companions. Here he mentions Aristotle’s doctrines of morals and politics, which we would expect, given that he wrote extensively on these subjects (there is a volume on politics; he and his students compiled the constitutions of each Greek polis, only one of which has come down to us; and there are three different works on ethics extant, which are probably lecture notes compiled by his students); but he also references an esoteric level of teaching which Aristotle imparted – ‘those more abstruse mysteries… communicated orally and kept concealed from the vulgar’.

The esoteric is the opposite of the exoteric, or surface meaning of a doctrine. Plato’s teaching was also conducted at two levels, the inside and the outside, referred to as ta eso and ta exo in the Theatetus.

Plutarch however suggests by his wording that there is an esoteric level to an understanding of Aristotle’s teaching on both morals and politics, but the teaching of those mysteries are less abstruse.

How could we ever know what those abstruse mysteries might be? It would seem to be impossible. But the clue is in Alexander’s letter sent from Asia to complain about Aristotle’s publication of some treatises on these subjects. The letter is quoted as follows:

"Alexander to Aristotle wishes health. You have not done well in publishing abroad those sciences which should only be taught by word of mouth. For how shall we be distinguished from other men, if the knowledge which we have acquired be made the common property of all? I myself had rather excel others in excellency of learning than in greatness of power. Farewell."

This is a revealing answer. The objection is connected with the idea of excellence in learning and knowledge, and excelling in that knowledge, in order to be distinguished from other men. We can take from this statement, which places temporal greatness as a poor second to knowledge of abstruse things, that Alexander is referring knowledge of divine things, and consequently the principle of excellence itself.

This adds a whole new level to the endless references in the contemporary literature on Alexander to the question of whether or not he was divine by birth, whether he thought himself to be divine, whether or not he should receive divine honours, or if he was in pursuit of actual divinity.  In modern times the details and significance are not discussed as they were in antiquity, since scholars have no sense of how important such questions were at the time. We flatten everything into a discussion of the pursuit of power, status and political ideology. We have a glimpse here of the real context of Alexander’s understanding of what was important.

Plutarch gives the import of Aristotle’s reply to Alexander, saying that:

To pacify him…. [he] wrote …. that these doctrines were published, and yet not published: meaning that his treatise on Metaphysics was only written for those who had been instructed in philosophy by himself, and would be quite useless in other hands.

The emphasis is mine. So again, we have the assertion, this time from Aristotle, that there is an inside and an outside understanding of his doctrine, and accepts that details of both are in the text. He excuses this on the grounds that it was ‘only written for those who had been instructed in philosophy… and would be quite useless in other hands’.

So the clue is in the teaching of philosophy. Philosophy, at least when taught at an esoteric level, gives useful knowledge of what is excellent, and what is divine. Without philosophy, such knowledge is not to be had. This is a clear indication that philosophy and philosophical questions and puzzles were understood to lie behind doctrine and teaching concerning the divine.

Plutarch then goes on to illustrate Alexander’s interest in excellence, by suggesting that Aristotle:

… more than anyone else implanted a love of medicine in Alexander, who was not only fond of discussing the theory, but used to prescribe for his friends when they were sick, and order them to follow special courses of treatment and diet, as we gather from his letters. He was likewise fond of literature and of reading, and we are told by Onesikritus that he was wont to call the Iliad a complete manual of the military art, and that he always carried with him Aristotle's recension of Homer's poems, which is called 'the casket copy,' and placed it under his pillow together with his dagger. Being without books when in the interior of Asia, he ordered Harpalus to send him some. Harpalus sent him the histories of Philistus, several plays of Euripides, Sophokles, and Æschylus, and the dithyrambic hymns of Telestus and Philoxenus.

Again, Plutarch reinforces the importance of excellence to Alexander, saying that when he was a youth:

… used to love and admire Aristotle more even than his father, for he said that the latter had enabled him to live, but that the former had taught him to live well.

And living well is a main focus of Aristotle’s published work. Though the relationship later cooled,

he never lost that interest in philosophical speculation which he had acquired in his youth, as is proved by the honours which he paid to Anaxarchus, the fifty talents which he sent as a present to Xenokrates, and the protection and encouragement which he gave to Dandamris and Kalanus.

Philosophical speculation of course implies a degree of conjecture in discussion, and the fact that not everything is known or knowable by the merely mortal. Knowledge of the importance of excellence is however one way in which the divine can be approached, and that appears to have been an important component in Alexander’s mission.

This idea can be traced in Plato’s writing also. In the Protagoras, he suggests (through Protagoras) that the practice of philosophy is very ancient among the Greeks, and not something relatively newly invented. He suggests that it is widespread,

and particularly in Crete and Lacedaemon; and there are more sophists there than in any other country. 

Echoing Alexander’s view that philosophy, at least at an esoteric level, should be communicated only by oral teaching, in order that those who have studied philosophy should excel others in the knowledge of excellence, Protagoras says that:

They dissemble, however, and pretend that they are unlearned, in order that it may not be manifest that they surpass the rest of the Greeks in wisdom (just as Protagoras has said respecting the sophists); but that they may appear to excel in military skills and fortitude; thinking if their real character were known, that all men would engage in the same pursuit. But now, concealing this, they deceive those who laconize in other cities. [Protagoras 342a-b]

So the Cretans and the Spartans wished not only to conceal knowledge of excellence, but to conceal that they excelled in knowledge of excellent things. 

To us Plato’s admiration of the Spartans has always seemed rather improbable, since we have followed the account of the Spartans written by Xenophon which reveals nothing which supports the idea that the Spartans were superior in philosophy – nor even that they were interested in the practice. 

What advantage could they gain for themselves by restricting public understanding of their practice of philosophy? The exchange between Aristotle and Alexander gives us the clue. It is about the knowledge of excellence, and of divine things which is attained through the practice of philosophy. The use of the word ‘wisdom’ in connection with the Spartan practice of philosophy is significant: we are accustomed to keeping philosophy and religion apart in the study of the past; however ‘wisdom’ is a concept which appears in ancient sources in the context of both philosophy and religion. If the practice of philosophy among the Spartans was in some way connected with their religion, and perhaps their model of reality, this would supply an explanation of their reticence, and the general reticence of Greeks in discussing religious matters.

 

Plato’s Protagoras tells us that the Lacedaemonians have imitators, who imitate only surface details because they have no knowledge of their real interests and skills.

But the Lacedaemonians, when they wish to speak freely with their own sophists,… expel these laconic imitators, and then discourse with their sophists, without admitting any strangers to be present at their conversations. Neither do they suffer any of their young men to travel into other cities, as neither do the Cretans, lest they should unlearn what they have learnt. But in these cities, there are not only men of profound erudition, but women also. And that I assert these things with truth, and that the Lacedaemonians are disciplined in the best manner in philosophy and discourse.

Protagoras also tells us that:

…if any one wishes to converse with the meanest of the Lacedaemonians, he will at first find him, for the most part apparently despicable in conversation, but afterwards, when a proper opportunity presents itself, this same mean person, like a skilled jaculator, will hurl a sentence worthy of attention, short, and contorted; so that he who converses with him will appear to be in no respect superior to a boy. That to laconize, therefore, consists much more in philosophising, than in the love of exercise, is understood by some of the present age, and was known to the ancients; they being persuaded that the ability of uttering such sentences as these is the province of a man perfectly learned. Among the number of those who were thus persuaded, were Thales the Milesian, Pittacus the Mitylenaean, Bias the Prienean, our Solon, Cleobulus the Lindian, Miso the Chenean, and the seventh of these is said to be the Lacedaemonian Chilo. All these were emulators, lovers, and disciples of the Lacedaemonian erudition.’ [342b-343a]

Protagoras reminds us that the Spartans…’assembling together, consecrated to Apollo the first fruits of their wisdom, writing in the Temple of Apollo at Delphi those sentences which are celebrated by all men, viz. “Know thyself”, and “Nothing too much”’. He tells us this in order ‘to show that the mode of philosophy among the ancients was a certain laconic brevity of diction’  [343b]

Of course it is always possible that this is an elaborate jest on Plato’s part: attributing a philosophical inclination to a people famous for a disinclination to the mental life. Yet many Spartan pronouncements are very famous (those in the preceding footnote included), and of course the Cretans are memorialized in the philosophical conundrum ‘All Cretans are liars: I am a Cretan’.

Socrates was forced to drink the poison Hemlock after being found guilty of both corrupting the youth of Athens and of atheism. The first charge is related to the second in that he was sowing doubt among the youth of Athens about the existence of the gods. In other words, the sin of Socrates was seen among his peers as one committed against the religion of the Athenians. 

If so, it would appear that we owe our knowledge of the practice of philosophy in Greece to the fact that in Attica, in the middle years of the first millennium B.C.E., the practice of philosophy was somehow prised free from its religious context, in that we have a very public show of philosophy from the presocratics onwards. That philosophy was understood to be, however, not entirely beyond the scope of the arbitration by the religious authorities, is shown by the charges brought against Plato’s master Socrates, and the severity of the judgement against him. 

[Text uploaded May 27, 2017]

Synoikismos and the Origins of the Polis

The definition of the polis, as understood by the Greeks themselves, and as transmitted to us, is far from clear; its origins and archaic development seem to be beyond recovery. We can say a few things with certainty: that it is the central institution of Greek society, and that there could be no politics without the polis. According to Aristotle, it is an entity which is not too large or too small, and other ancient sources have been taken to imply the necessity of the agora. In addition it must be an autonomous entity with surrounding territory (chora). However, it is misleading to think of the polis as a city-state along the lines of the Italian city-states of the Renaissance, for instance, because some possessed a population of no more than 600 citizens.

One of the oldest references to the polis appears in the Iliad [Bk xviii], in Homer's description of the shield of Achilles wrought by Hephaestus. On this shield was represented the world, the earth, the heaven, the sea, the sun, the moon, the constellations, and:

         

In it likewise he wrought two fair cities of articulate speaking men. In the one... there were marriages and feasts; and they were conducting the brides from their chambers through the city with brilliant torches... and the people were crowded together in an assembly, and there a contest had arisen; for two men contended for the ransom money of a slain man: the one affirmed that he had paid all, appealing to the people; but the other denied, declaring that he had received nothing: and both wished to find an end (of the dispute) before a judge. The people were applauding both, the supporters of either party... the elders sat upon polished stones, in a sacred circle, and (the pleaders) held in their hands the staves of the clear-voiced heralds; with these... they arose, and alternately pleaded their cause.

This passage contains details which appear in classical definitions of the polis: the physical city, the joining together of people, an assembly, the orderly resolution of disputes, appeal to the people and arbitration by a judge. The elders sitting in a sacred circle probably prefigure the council(s) of the polis. The second city appears to be the reverse of the former in its essence: a place of discord and distrust, of war and ambush. Not at all desirable, but a place to be included in a representation of the world.

A description of a polis appears in the Odyssey [bk. vi. 262ff]. It mentions a high wall and gates on each side of the city, stations for ships, a market-place around a temple of Poseidon, "fitted with large stones dug out of the earth". This passage indicates the existence of large conurbations at a relatively early period, but it would be unreasonable to infer from this description of a particular polis that each of the features described are essential features of the polis (i.e., a polis situated far inland cannot have stations for large ships).

Further evidence that the polis was a defined concept in Homeric times is indicated in Bk. vi, 4-10, where the foundation of a colony is described. Men were settled "in Scheria far away from enterprising men... (the Phoenicians); and ... ("godlike Nausithous") drew a wall around the city, and built houses, and made temples for the gods, and divided the plains". This foundation of an "apoikia" is echoed in its details in a passage found in Plato's Laws [745b-e] which describes the just foundation and layout of a polis, "as far as possible in the centre of its chora"; and the division of the whole into twelve parts, after an area has been designated for the principal gods to be called the "acropolis. A wall is to be built around it; "then it is possible to lay out the twelve parts, both in the polis itself and in the chora as a whole", And after the creation of the tribes and their allocation to the twelve gods, and the distribution of the land, the foundation is said to be complete.

Negative evidence for the nature of the polis in Homeric times appears in the account of the Cyclops given by Odysseus [Od. Ix., 106ff] who says that

they have no laws, who, trusting in the immortal gods, neither plant a plant with their hands, nor plough: but all these things unsown, untilled, spring up, wheat and barley, and vines, which bear wine from large clusters...

The real horror of the Cyclops' situation is that "there are neither assemblies for consulting, nor rights". In short the Cyclops live without the principal features of the polis, inhabiting " the summits of lofty moutains in hollow caves", unlike the citizens who live in the plains, "and everyone gives judgement to his children and wives", as opposed to the Greek practice. Finally, we are told that the Cyclops have no care for one another.

In the Works and Days Hesiod too sees the polis as a place where justice should reign and where fair arbitration ought to be obtainable:

When judgements are fair - alike for strangers as for the local folk - and the judges undiverted from what is right, then a polis blooms and the people in it prosper. For such a place Zeus, all seeing, does not ordain the misery of war (recalling the inverted polis on the shield of Achilles), so the young men grow up in the land in peace. Men of justice know nothing of famine or ruin, as they feast upon the produce of their fields: the earth offers them a life of plenty... As for the women, they bring forth sons to match their fathers.

Thus says Hesiod, "their blessings are perpetual: the fertile land yields up its crops - and they never set foot on a ship". By this Hesiod seems to be referring to one of the most probable causes of colonization: shortage of land, or its infertility. But, in common with most Greeks he sees a relation between fact and value, so that bad times for a polis are likely to be the actions of bad citizens:

often a whole polis has suffered because of the evil of one man who is a sinful and wicked schemer: the son of Kronos sends down from heaven a great and universal calamity, famine and plague at the same time, so that the people waste away; no children are born to the women, and oikoi die out; such is the decision of Olympian Zeus*^[1].

Thus, though calamity might seem like sufficient practical reason for the foundation of an "apoikia", this pattern of belief suggests strongly that colonists might be expelled for fear of contagion if they were perceived to be tainted with the evil which had befallen the polis (it seems that colonists were chosen to go by the polis, and it was not up to to the choice of the individual), whether or not the continued presence of the colonists would have prejudiced the survival of the polis in strictly causal terms. In practice this would have been an excellent way of settling old scores and redistributing land, principally in favour of the rich*^[2].

Turning to the archaeological evidence, there exists an inscription from the Cretan city of Dreros, which gives some insight into the structure of a polis in the archaic period*^[3]. It tells of a decision made by the polis about the office of "Kosmos" (apparently a chief magistrate), limiting its tenure and laying down specific conditions for the holder of the office (Aristotle claims a parallel significance for Spartan Ephors and the Cretan Kosmi, to which I shall return later). The seventh century Draconian Law on Homicide is the oldest extant Greek law code, and has been used in the past to suggest a drift towards written and therefore public law, at least in some parts of Greece*^[4]. However, according to Crawford and Whitehead [op. cit., p65], modern scholars regard the Constitution of Drako as the result of fifth century pamphleteering. Another stele, the Law from Chios, contains "the earliest secure reference to a Boule... of the people", and, it is argued, its power to levy fines and judge appeals (c600-550 B.C.) "attests the growth of the popular element within the state at a relatively early period"*^[5].

Later sources, naturally, are retrospective. Thucydides gives some information on the "synoikismos" of Attica (settling together). In Bk. ii. 15 he says that, from the time of the first kings "down to Theseus (the legendary founder of Athens, whose name is probably related to the verb tithemi, "to set in place") the people of Attica

always lived in (their own) poleis, each one with its own administrative buildings and officials; unless there was some common danger they would not come together in council with the king, but each individual polis would govern itself in accordance with its own decisions.

 In this case it is clear that the foundation of the Athenian polis did not involve the inauguration of basic institutions: each polis had its administrative buildings and officials, and took its own decisions. When Theseus came to the throne (as the Athenians wished to believe) he

organised the chora on a proper basis, chiefly by doing away with the multiplicity of poleis and their separate councils and governments; on his scheme there was only one polis... and one seat of decision making and administration.

So the synoikismos of Theseus had nothing to do with the foundation of the polis as an idea, but was instead a particular exemplification of the idea. What was his motive? This was total synoikismos:

everyone was free, just as before, to look after his own affairs, but there was now only one place - Athens - which Theseus allowed them to treat as a polis.

The synoikismos of Theseus was the completion of a unity: the population was not moved, but the political unit was now Attica instead of a multitude of "poleis".

There is a tendency among scholars to conflate synoikismos (interpreted here as the process leading to the creation of the polis) and the development of urbanism. The two are emphatically not the same and to assume that they are does not much illuminate the emergence of the polis. Aristotle's view of the development of the polis [Politics 1, 1252-3] is, on one level an example of this kind of error: his account is warped by a combination of two factors: his view of the world in teleological terms, leading him to postulate an evolution of the polis; and his systematic programme (which surfaces in all of his work) of leading the Greeks to virtue through common sense, which determines the character of that evolution. He sees the polis as the natural outcome of a teleological process which he outlines as follows: first the oikos which is the

natural unit established to meet all man's daily needs... then, when a number of oikia are first united for the satisfaction of something more than day-to-day needs, the result is the village... finally the ultimate partnership, made up of numbers of villages and having already attained the height... of self sufficiency - this is the polis.

I.e., it has become complete. "It has come into being in order, simply that life can go on; but it now exists so as to make that life a good life". Each of its constituent parts (the villages) are seen as leading up to the polis and, "for a process to reach its consummation is only natural".

Aristotle argues that the oikos is built out of two unions: that of male and female and of master and slave, and the latter are joined together out of mutual interest. He explains the relationship between master and slave by saying that intelligence and foresight naturally belong to the ruling element, and the partner with the capacity for physical labour will naturally be subject. Thus kings are explained as the outcome of master and slave within the oikos. The relationships between male and female and master and slave, he argues, are different, except in the case of the barbaroi: "among the barbaroi... female and slave...  fill the same position. The reason for this is that the barbaroi possess no naturally ruling element". Hence the Greeks have as much right to rule the barbaroi as their own slaves.

This preposterous argument serves a crucial function, for his argument about the development of the polis makes it virtually indistinguishable from the development of the city, making the development of the polis universal, given the same conditions. Thus the polis ceases to be a uniquely Greek phenomenon. To restore its uniqueness Aristotle has to assert the racial superiority of the Greeks over the barbaroi: only the Greeks can develop the polis, since only they are truly human. Further, Aristotle is forced to deny the obvious, in that his argument implies that no urban developments of the kind described had occurred elsewhere. Not only is this nonsense, but the absurdity is underlined by the fact that in the same book he describes the Carthaginian political system, showing it to parallel closely many aspects of the polis*^[6].

Roebuck, in his article "Some aspects of urbanization in Corinth"*^[7] also presents a case for synoikismos: i.e., he attempts to understand the development of the polis there in terms of an evolution (though naturally not a teleological one). Thus he interprets the archaeological remains as marking the development of the synoikismos towards the polis, as if the concept of the polis necessarily bears a fixed relation to its concrete remains. He discusses the relative merits of whether or not the material development of Corinth was the result of agriculture or commerce, and sees the presence of temples and other structures as stages in the upgrading towards the status of polis, confusing the remains with the institutions, which did not necessarily have a parallel evolution. For instance, if the synoikismos of the expanded Athenian polis reflects an actual occurence, and it came into being of a piece as the result of the imposition of an idea, then there was no evolution as such. No people were moved (unless we credit Plutarch's account) and the material remains would hardly reflect the change. Unless it turns up inscriptions and documents, archaeology can tell us little about this kind of change.

If the polis is neither the same thing as a city, nor its material infrastructure, we should decide what it is that the polis could be:

1. A passage from Thucydides makes it quite clear that the polis is not the same as the city, but that it is wherever the citizens are [vii. 77. 4.]. Why the citizens constitute a polis remains to be determined.

2. Is the polis a tribal entity? It certainly involved the tribes but did not depend on particular tribal arrangements, for the polis continued to exist after Cleisthenes' reforms and the breaking up of the old tribes.

3. Is it a place of law under which the citizens live? Yes. However this is not unique to the Greeks: the Carthaginians lived under law, and the Assyrians also (the kings' word was law). Is it written law? No, for the Spartans were accredited as Greeks and the Lycurgan rhetra were specifically unwritten. Yet they lived as citizens of a polis. Certainly according to Hesiod the polis was a place where justice ought to be had (though he was cynical about the likelihood of getting it).

4. Is the polis necessarily democratic? Not in the late archaic and classical sense, though the presence of democratic arrangements did not destroy the polis considered as a physical entity. The polis existed as a concept before the existence of democracy, being mentioned by both Homer and Hesiod. It also existed under oligarchic control.

5. Is the polis an ordered, hierarchical community? Yes, but this does not distinguish it from other cities in antiquity.

6. Is the polis a concept associated with the making of decisions? It is a characteristic of the polis that decisions are made, whatever the character of its rulership. A tyrant decides for his pleasure, an oligarch decides for "the best", and the demos, according to one's inclination, either falls prey to whatever seizes its imagination at the time, or else functions as the voice of the gods; a king, like the oligarchs, decides for the best on account of his supposed proximity to the divine.

7. Does the polis enshrine freedom? Yes, for it is only with freedom that decisions can be made, and therefore, according to Aristotle, virtue acquired [cf. the Nicomachean Ethics, particularly concerning the distinction between voluntary and involuntary acts]. The polis makes men free, and therefore where men are free there is a polis. The corollary of this is that where men can acquire virtue and have honour, they are free. Each of the Greek states has in common - apart from linguistic affinities - a common interest in honour and virtue. They differ from each other in the manner in which honour and virtue are achieved (i.e., the Spartans emphasised narrow military virtues).

8. Is the polis a place where there is specialization of official functions? To some extent, although most of the Greeks prided themselves on the amateur nature of their offices, almost as a guarantee of the purity of their institutions. At any rate, arguments for specialization of functions again blurs the distinction between the development of the polis and the rise of urbanism.

9. Does the polis promote attachment to something beyond the individual - i.e., the polis before the individual and his purely personal obligations? Yes, but pressure in this direction also comes from tribal association and obligation to a king, as well as being a sporadic feature of the development of urbanism.

10. Is assembly a necessary feature of the polis? Judging by the horror at the Cyclops lack of assembly, yes.

It might be argued that what we see in the institution of the polis is a secularization of decision making, the decisions no longer being made in consultation with the divine (through oracle and sacrifice), but now made by the community via the institutions (various councils; the ekklesia). In this respect it might be significant that (as far as I am aware) there were no oracular seats in Attica. However, the secularization argument is probably mistaken: oracles continued to be consulted. Perhaps it would be better to see the citizens functioning as a kind of "college of cardinals" (vox populi, vox dei), so that the style of man's relation to the divine has changed, rather than the connection being attenuated or abandoned altogether. If so, we might expect the carrying over of institutions and titles from an earlier system, i.e., "Kosmos"*^[8], "Basileus"*^[9], "Archon", etc. As Aristotle noted, Kosmos was a title of Cretan officials, and he equated this office with that of the Spartan Ephorate. The Kosmos may originally have had a sacred function: the word signifies order, arrangement, regularity, institution, discipline, and also the world, the universe, and mankind. The text of the inscription from Dreros has been interpreted in secular terms, but the reference to the Kosmos being "useless as long as he lives" might well refer either to a ritual uselessness, or to his being "marked off" from the rest of humanity as a man with a foot in both worlds, the sacred and the profane*^[10]. The Spartan Ephors (elected by the assembly of Equals) had responsibilities which included the giving of permission to foreign ambassadors to cross the border into Spartan territory; permission to address the Spartan assembly; they were also responsible for summoning the assembly. They were the essential intermediaries between the Spartans and the outside world, functioning in much the same way as a priest or prophet: as a gate to the other (the etymology of ephor is probably epi horos: i.e., "on the frontier"). Xenophon [Lak. Pol. 13, 1-5] indicates some of the religious associations of the boundaries of the chora.

The polis appears to revolve around two central ideas: that of assembly, and that of judgement (in a wide sense, including "separation" and "balance"). From Plutarch's life of Theseus we can gather that the assemblage was to be as large as possible, whether or not the synoikismos actually took place in this way:

daring yet farther to enlarge the city, he invited all strangers to equal privileges in it: and the words "come hither, all ye people", are said to be the beginning of any proclamation which Theseus ordered.

Plutarch also tells us that:

the nobility (selected by Theseus) were to have the care of religion, to supply the city with magistrates, to explain the laws and to interpret whatever related to the worship of the gods. As to the rest, he balanced the citizens against each other as nearly as possible; the nobles excelling in dignity, the husbandmen in usefulness, and the artificers in number...

(which recalls Plato's remarks about the distribution of equal plots of land: the actual size of the plot depended on its fertility. A good plot would be very small). This view of the polis makes it a moral universe, containing all good things in strict proportion, with all the people of Attica in communion with the king.

A fragment from the beginning of Aristotle's Athenian Constitution [no. 5] also points to the significance of total assemblage for the idea of the polis. He says that the Athenians

were grouped in four tribal divisions in imitation of the seasons of the year, and each of the tribes was divided into three parts, in order that there might be twelve parts in all, like the months of the year, and they were called thirds and brotherhoods; and the arrangement of clans was in groups of thirty to the brotherhood, as the days to the month, and the clan consisted of thirty men.

One can argue that the significance of the assembly of the citizens is that it makes council and judgement possible among the largest number of participants. But there may be a deeper reason behind the desire for the total synoikismos. The reason may be theological, involving the idea of completion. As Aristotle said of the polis, it is an end, and once it is reached it begins to serve an entirely different function, allowing the passage of the citizens from the world of subsistence to the world of the good life, the life of virtue. The polis can do this only because it is complete and has reached the limit of what it is: its completion marks it off from the rest of the world (with which it is contrasted on the shield of Achilles), so that it stands in relation to the world as does a priest or priest-king - of the world, but set apart.

The importance of the polis therefore, given the validity of this argument, was its completeness, so that it stood like a gate between the world of subsistence and a world of possibilities beyond; a place of transaction (hence commerce and the agora), both between man and man, and man and the divine. It served as the intermediary, as the point of exchange (hence the presence of strangers). Its completeness did not depend on particular buildings, institutions, and social arrangements, beyond the assembly and the principle of counsel, and so it was possible for the polis to be wherever the citizens (the free) happened to be.

The real polis, of course, was never like this: the average citizen's liberty and leisure to acquire virtue was never quite what Aristotle had in mind. The history of the polis, and its emergence into history, might be characterized as the struggle to be what it ought to have been, but never was.

---

    [1] Crawford and Whitehead, Archaic and Classical Greece, 10.

    [2]  I.e., the aristocracy: decisions were always confirmed by an oracle of Apollo, and the aristocracy had charge of religious matters, and corruption is likely to have been a great temptation. However, to look at this kind of power as corruption is to retroject modern cynicism about political elites: the teleological view of the world equates fact and value, and therefore it follows as the corollary of social position that the judgements of the aristocracy are of a better calibre than the judgements of anyone else.

    [3] c650-600 B.C.  Fornara: Archaic Times to the end of the Peloponnesian War, 11.

    [4]  Fornara: op. cit., 15.

    [5] Fornara: op. cit., 19.

    [6]  Politics ii, 11, 1-16.

    [7]  Hesperia 41, 96-127.

    [8] Fornara, op. cit., 11.

    [9] Crawford and Whitehead, op. cit., 38, 63.

  [10] kosmos is probably cognate with the Arabic kesem, to distribute, divide; or Hebrew kesem, to dress the hair. The Greek word connotes order, arrangement, regularity; battle array; institution; discipline; ornament, attire; praise; world, universe, mankind.