Beyond and Below the Polis: Networks, Associations, and the Writing of Greek History

Abstract

This article looks at the ways we can use networks in the study of the history of Greece. At the level below the polis, networks take the form of associations (koinoniai) that bring together people of various statuses and backgrounds. Studying these koinoniai allows us to move beyond structuralist approaches into the study of real social interactions. When looking at the level below the polis, we have to adopt a world-system perspective, and study the networks that move people, goods and ideas/technologies, and the world centres that organize these networks. This approach allows us to move beyond Hellenocentric and Athenocentric approaches, and insert the Greek world into the wider Mediterranean and Near Eastern world-system.

Keywords:

• Koinonia
• Association
• World-system
• Metics
• Aristotle

Notes

 [1] For the role of these polarities in Greek historians, see Cartledge, The Greeks.

 [2] See the critical attitudes to structuralism in Hunter, Policing Athens; Loraux, Experiences of Tiresias; Cohen, Athenian Nation.

 [3] See Whitley, Style and Society, 194.

 [4] The concept of ‘city-state culture’, adopted by Hansen in the more recent publications of the Copenhagen Polis Centre, is though a positive step forward; see Hansen, ‘Introduction’.

 [5] Among recent protests for such attitudes, see Dougherty and Kurke, Cultures within Greek Culture.

 [6] For a similar plea, see Malkin, ‘Networks’.

 [7] See Sakellariou, Polis-State, 214–82.

 [8] Nicomachean Ethics 1160a.4–6.

 [9] For exceptions, see Murray, ‘Polis and Politeia’; Ober, ‘Polis as Society’.

[10] Aristotle's great discovery was indeed diversity and multiplicity, where other Greek thinkers were trying to see the underlying unity behind the apparent diversity; at the same time he used the concept of hierarchy to subordinate diversity to his normative ideas; see Saxonhouse, Fear of Diversity, 189–95. We can keep his explorations of diversity, without therefore accepting his concept of hierarchy.

[11] See for example Hall, Inventing the Barbarian; Hartog, The Mirror of Herodotus. Cartledge, The Greeks, 51–77, offers a well-articulated presentation of such arguments.

[12] For the fundamental importance of actual experience for any historical account and supposition, see the classic Thompson, Poverty of Theory.

[13] IG, II², 141.2.30–6.

[14] See the interpretation of Culasso Gastaldi, Le prossenie ateniesi, 113–14.

[15] Oeconomicus 8.11–6.

[16] Hypereides, Against Athenogenes.

[17] For the law mentioned by Hypereides, see Adak, Metöken als Wohltäter Athens, 67–72, whose interpretation I accept.

[18] See Whitehead, Hypereides, 287–88, 339–41.

[19] Our colleagues studying the Bronze Age Aegean have been more open-minded in this respect: see Knapp, ‘Thalassocracies’; Cline, ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor’.

[20] IG, I³ 1361. Of course, predictably the interest of the few ancient historians who have dealt with this inscription has focused on dating, topography, and the language and oral features of the epigram. No wonder the political and social implications of this document have never been seriously addressed. But see now the commentary in Bäbler, Fleissige Thrakerinnen, 159–63.

[21] Adak, Metöken als Wohltäter Athens, 67–72.

[22] For the following, see Hagemajer Allen, ‘Becoming the Other’

[23] Cassola, ‘Chi erano i Greci’, 10.

[24] Cf. Shipley, ‘Distance, Development, Decline’.

[25] Abu-Lughod, Before European Hegemony.

[26] An example of this attitude can be seen in Finley, Ancient Economy, 177–78.

[27] Herodotus 3.125–38.

[28] Wallerstein, Modern World-system, 15.

[29] Wallerstein, Unthinking Social Science.

[30] See Vlassopoulos, ‘Between East and West’.

[31] See Charpin and Joannès, La circulation des biens, for a similar perspective on the Near East.

[32] On their emergence, see Morgan, Athletes and Oracles; see also Rougemont, ‘Delphes et les cités grecques’; Sanchez, L'Amphictionie des Pyles.

[33] Bresson and Rouillard, L'emporion.

[34] Dunbabin, Western Greeks, 298–99.

[35] Hornblower, Mausolus.

[36] Ostwald and Lynch, ‘Growth of Schools’.

[37] Sherwin-White, Ancient Cos, 256–89.

[38] Gabrielsen, Naval Aristocracy.

[39] See the articles in Nicolet, Mégapoles méditerranéennes.

[40] Gilpin, War and Change, 39–40; in my essay I have changed his terms to make them more comprehensible.

[41] See the case of Lokrians and Phokians in the 390s and the eruption of the Corinthian War; Hellenica Oxyrhynchia 13.3–4.

[42] A classic treatment is Mossé, La fin. See the critique of Davies, ‘The Fourth Century Crisis’.

[43] See Gauthier, ‘Grandes et petites cités’.