Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece

Edited by Alain Duplouy and Roger W. Brock

Challenges the long-accepted Aristotelian definition of Greek citizenship and explores alternative ways of conceiving citizenship and community
Focuses on the archaic period and the diversity of experiences from city to city, inviting revision of the prevailing conception of archaic cities as primitive
Offers a diverse range of methodologies and approaches to archaic Greek citizenship, opening up the subject to further scholarly research and discussion

Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece

Edited by Alain Duplouy and Roger W. Brock

Description

Citizenship is a major feature of contemporary national and international politics, but rather than being a modern phenomenon it is in fact a legacy of ancient Greece. The concept of membership of a community and participation in its social and political life first appeared some three millennia ago, but only towards the end of the fourth century BC did Aristotle offer the first explicit statement about it. Though long accepted, this definition remains deeply rooted in the philosophical and political thought of the classical period, and probably fails to account accurately for either the preceding centuries or the dynamics of emergent cities: as such, historians are now challenging the application of the Aristotelian model to all Greek cities regardless of chronology, and are looking instead for alternative ways of conceiving citizenship and community.

Focusing on archaic Greece, this volume brings together an array of renowned international scholars with the aim of exploring new routes to archaic Greek citizenship and constructing a new image of archaic cities, which are no longer to be considered as primitive or incomplete classical poleis. The essays collected here have not been tailored to endorse any specific view, with each contributor bringing his or her own approach and methodology to bear across a range of specific fields of enquiry, from law, cults, and military obligations, to athletics, commensality, and descent. The volume as a whole exemplifies the living diversity of approaches to archaic Greece and to the Greek city, combining both breadth and depth of insight with an opportunity to venture off the beaten track.

Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece

Edited by Alain Duplouy and Roger W. Brock

Frontmatter
List of Figures and Tables
List of Contributors
1. Pathways to Archaic Citizenship, Alain Duplouy
2. State Formation in Early Iron Age Greece: The Operative Forces, John K. Davies
3. Retracing Steps: Finding Ways into Archaic Greek Citizenship, Josine Blok
4. Citizens and Soldiers in Archaic Athens, Hans van Wees
5. Associations and Citizenship in Attica from Solon to Cleisthenes, Paulin Ismard
6. Citizenship and Civic Subdivisions: The Case of Sparta, Marcello Lupi
7. The Spartan Contribution to Greek Citizenship Theory, Paul Cartledge
8. Athletics and Citizenship, Nick Fisher
9. Citizenship and Commensality in Archaic Crete: Searching for the Andreion, James Whitley
10. Citizenship as Performance, Alain Duplouy
11. Oligarchies of 'Fixed Number' or Citizen Bodies in the Making?, Maurizio Giangiulio
12. Conclusion: Taking Stock and Looking Backward, Roger W. Brock
Endmatter
General Bibliography
Index

Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece

Edited by Alain Duplouy and Roger W. Brock

Author Information

Alain Duplouy, Reader in Greek Archaeology, Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne,Roger W. Brock, Senior Lecturer in Classics, University of Leeds

Alain Duplouy is Reader in Greek Archaeology at the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, where he has been teaching since 2003. He studied Classics in Brussels and Archaeology in Paris, and was previously a British Academy Visiting Fellow at Leeds and a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has been involved in and also co-directed various field projects in Greece (Itanos) and Italy (Laos and Pietragalla), and his research interests focus particularly on the archaic Greek world, the archaeology of ancient Lucania, and the history of university collections. His publications mainly cover the social and political history of archaic Greece, with a focus on the elite and on citizenship.

Roger W. Brock is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds. He studied at Oxford, was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ohio State University, and taught at the University of St Andrews and Balliol College, Oxford, before moving to Leeds in 1990. His research interests lie particularly in the fields of Greek historiography, especially Herodotus, and ancient Greek politics, while his publications cover Greek political and constitutional organization, political imagery and ideology, and also wider topics in Greek history and literature. His research currently focuses on ancient Greek citizenship, especially civic subdivisions and non-political aspects, and the related topic of the functioning of Greek oligarchies; he also has a long-standing interest in wine in ancient Greece.

Contributors:

Josine Blok is Professor of Ancient History at Utrecht University.
Roger W. Brock is Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Leeds.
Paul Cartledge is A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge.
John K. Davies is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology and Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Liverpool.
Alain Duplouy is Reader in Greek Archaeology at the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.
Nick Fisher is Emeritus Professor of Classics at Cardiff University.
Maurizio Giangiulio is Professor of Greek History at the University of Trento.
Paulin Ismard is Lecturer in Greek History at the Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne.
Marcello Lupi is a Researcher in Greek History at the Universita degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli.
Hans van Wees is Grote Professor of Ancient History at University College London.
James Whitley is Professor in Mediterranean Archaeology at Cardiff University.

Defining Citizenship in Archaic Greece

Edited by Alain Duplouy and Roger W. Brock

Reviews and Awards

"Duplouy's and Brock's thought-provoking revisitation of traditional methodology will therefore be essential to any future study of Greek citizenship." -- Lucia Cecchet, Johannes Gutenberg Universitat Mainz, The Classical Review

"This thought-provoking volume is different. Exploring a range of perspectives, it provides a route into considering Archaic communities through their processes, groupings, activities and identities, making it a valuable, and varied, contribution to the field." -- Kate Caraway, University of Liverpool, Journal of Hellenic Studies

"[A] well-produced book that both displays exemplary internal coherence and brings together many of the foremost scholars working on Archaic citizenship . . . The book is filled with brilliant insights and promising methodological pathways that should inform future scholarship." -- Matthew Simonton, Polis

"Readers of this volume are well advised to start with B.'s 'Conclusion' to the volume. From that they will learn that the volume is not really about 'citizenship', as a juridically defined status, at all. Rather it is about the variety of modes of 'community participation' within the archaic Greek world. Presumably we owe the title partly to the book's origins in two conferences on archaic Greek citizenship, partly to the way in which, in the opening words of D.'s first chapter, 'Citizenship is a major feature of contemporary national and international politics'." -- Classics For All