by Ober, Josiah
By definition all Greeks spoke the same language (albeit with many dialectical variations). The standard Greek definition of “barbarian” was one who did not speak Greek. To be Greek was, at a minimum, to be a speaker of the Greek language and a sharer in some key aspects of a common culture typical of the Greek city-states. The Greek world expanded so dramatically in the period 800–300 BCE in part because so many of the Greeks’ neighbors learned the Greek language and adopted other aspects of Greek culture. In some cases, this process of Hellenization was well enough advanced by the latter part of the fourth century BCE for formerly “barbarian” cities to be categorized, by residents, by other Greeks, and by the editors of the Inventory, as Greek poleis. Their shared language and culture enabled Greeks from across the extended Mediterranean–Black Sea world to communicate easily with one another—even as marked regional and ethnic dialects and local cultural peculiarities made it readily apparent from where in the Greek world a traveler originally hailed.
Although they varied greatly in size and splendor, Greek poleis resembled one another in salient ways. Greek sacred and civil architecture took roughly the same form across the Greek world: Temples, stoas, theaters, gymnasia, council-houses, and fortifications would readily be identified by any experienced Greek traveler. Post and lintel construction (famously, colonnaded public buildings and temples) was standard. Stone (especially limestone and conglomerate, but sometimes marble) and plastered brick were the primary building materials; wood was generally reserved for roofs and superstructure. Moreover, Greek cities tended to be laid out in a similar way, typically featuring a central public square (the agora) in which no private building was allowed, public wells for water, and public sanctuaries for the gods. Beginning in the eighth century BCE, a number of Greek towns were laid out in a strict grid pattern. The primary conurbation was, by the fourth century, typically surrounded by a substantial city wall (see below). Greek houses were, by the fourth century, relatively large (ch. 4) and tended to be built on a standard pattern around a courtyard. A special room was often reserved for entertaining male guests at drinking parties (symposia). Women and men tended to center their activities in different parts of the house, but gendered private spaces are difficult to distinguish archaeologically.11
The standard Greek diet was based on the “Mediterranean triad” of grain (especially wheat but also barley), olives (mostly for oil used for cleaning and light as well as for food), and grapes (for wine) discussed above. This basic fare would be complemented by seasonal vegetables and occasionally by fish. Meat was commonly consumed at public occasions, after animal sacrifices. In elite households, with adequate leisure and hounds, meat might also be obtained by hunting—rabbits were the most common quarry.12
Religion was an important shared cultural feature: A common poetic tradition (beginning with the Homeric epics in the eighth century BCE and continuing with lyric, and then tragic poetry) helped to forge a rich shared mythology. Gods, goddesses, and heroes had the same names across the Greek world, and some of the same stories were told of them, although heroes and deities took on very different roles in the rituals and narratives of different regions and towns. The growing popularity of several great Panhellenic religious sanctuaries—at Delphi, Olympia, Isthmia, Nemea, and elsewhere—became important nodes in extended interpolis social networks and encouraged the emergence and continuity of a repertoire of shared cultic practices. The rituals defining local expressions of religious life were diverse, but animal sacrifice (followed by distribution of meat), processions, initiation into sacred mysteries, consultation of oracles, and formalized kin-group-centered death rituals were standard features. An attentive Greek traveler, like the historian Herodotus in the fifth century BCE, or the polymath travel writer Pausanias seven hundred years later, would be repeatedly struck by the unity in diversity of the religious practices in the Greek Mediterranean/Black Sea culture zone.13
Warfare was, from the perspective of understanding rise and fall, a particularly important shared cultural feature. Throughout much of the Greek world and over most of our period, the dominant mode of Greek land warfare centered on combat between phalanxes of hundreds or even thousands of heavily armed infantrymen (hoplites), often supported by lighter armed foot soldiers and sometimes by light cavalry. Meanwhile, the standard Greek warship was the trireme: a triple-banked, oared ship with a crew of about 200. Like an individual hoplite, an individual warship was quite vulnerable, but deployed in ranks, both hoplites and triremes were formidable (ch. 6).
Wars were traditionally fought in the midsummer months, which, due to plant dormancy (above) was a slack time in the agricultural calendar; it was also the least dangerous time for warships (as well as trading vessels) to ply the seas. The Greek way of war demanded the mobilization of many men. Bigger forces were in general better because a large formation of men or ships could outflank and thereby overwhelm a smaller one. Greek warfare favored larger poleis, or coalitions of poleis, over smaller or isolated states—and thus helped to place a premium on political innovations that allowed poleis and coalitions to grow and to remain big. We consider, in chapter 6, why the process of “growing big” was truncated, so that only a few of the very biggest poleis measured their total populations in the hundreds of thousands or their territory in the thousands of square kilometers.
A major Greek state might be able to launch a few thousand hoplites and a few dozen triremes; the very greatest of the poleis numbered their warriors in the tens of thousands and their warships in the hundreds. On land and sea alike, Greek warfare was centered on many men, similarly equipped, wielding spears or oars, all operating together in close formations. The key differentiator, in addition to size, was training that forged groups of individual soldiers and rowers into reliably similar and skillful fighting units. Marching or rowing in echelon and meeting the shock of an enemy line without losing unit coherence took a great deal of practice. Training in the use of spear and shield or oar was a common experience for Greek men. In the fifth century BCE, Sparta and Athens stood out as premier land and sea powers, respectively, not only because they were, compared to their Greek rivals, especially big and coherent states and thereby able to mobilize big forces but also because they were innovators in techniques of standardized military training.14
Just as Greek states typically shared many characteristics in common, so too many of the inhabitants of a given polis (especially the adult male citizens) would have appeared to an outsider to be quite similar to one another. In contrast to, for example, medieval European society in which kings, nobles, merchants, and peasants were readily distinguished by dress and manner, as well as by occupation, classical Greek citizens tended to dress and behave (at least in public) more or less alike. In aristocratic Sparta, the similarity in dress and lifestyle was taken to an extreme among citizens, but there were clearly marked distinctions in dress and behavior between citizens and noncitizens. In democratic Athens, however, it could be difficult to distinguish a free citizen from a slave or foreign visitor (Pseudo-Xenophon, Ath. Pol. 1.10). Moreover, in most poleis each of the apparently similar citizens took on a variety of quite different social roles.
In the Republic, Plato argued that all real-world city-states fell short of his ideal highly regulated community in regard to the organization of work. In Plato’s ideal society, each individual was perfectly specialized, in that he or she did only one task: farmers did the farming, guardian-auxiliaries did the fighting, philosopher-kings did the ruling. No guardian ever took up a hoe, nor did a farmer wield a spear. In contrast, in every real Greek city-state, as in a nest of ants, individuals took on different tasks at different times. Whereas in a few poleis, notably Sparta (ch. 6), specialization was taken quite far, in Athens, as in many other Greek poleis, the same citizen might labor in his fields as a farmer in the spring, fight as a heavy-armed warrior in the summer, and officiate over religious ritual as a priest and conduct public business as a civic magistrate at almost any time of the year. I
n this crucial respect, as in others, the ants/Greeks analogy gains some purchase, as it would not if we were comparing ants to societies in which social and occupational roles were less fluid. We pursue that line of thought in the next chapter.
TABLE 2.1 Territorial Sizes and Population Estimates for 1,100 Greek City-States
NOTES: The total of 1,100 poleis is hypothetical, based on models developed in Hansen 2006b and 2008. Polis sizes 1–5 are based on the Inventory. Size 6 = Argos, Byzantion, Elis, Eretria, Kyrene, Megalopolis, Miletus, Pantikopaion, Rhegium, and Rhodes. Size 7 = Athens, Sparta, and Syracuse. “Estimated average population” is based on Hansen 2006b, modified by results in Hansen 2008. “Polis count known size” includes 636 poleis in the Inventory whose size is known or plausibly estimated, along with 32 additions in Hansen 2008 and 4 additions from Emily Mackil (personal communication). 109 “size 1 or 2,” 37 “size 2 or 3,” 11 “size 3 or 4,” 8 “size 4 or 5” (including Pergamum and Xanthos from Hansen 2008) are divided evenly between the two relevant categories. “Polis count total” assumes that the distribution of known-size poleis is modeled in the total count as follows: size 1 and 2: 53% of total are known; size 3: 65% of total are known; size 4: 86% of total are known; size 5: 89% of total are known; sizes 6 and 7: 100% of total are known. N.B. Hansen 2008 additions to the Inventory list of sized poleis includes 29 size 4 poleis and 3 size 5 poleis but no size 1–3 poleis.
DIFFERENCE
The notable similarities between Greek states can be juxtaposed to equally striking differences. Most obviously, Greek states varied greatly in size—albeit, the variation in scale does not equal that found among the nation-states of the contemporary world.15 While all Greek poleis were tiny in comparison to most modern nation-states, within the world of the poleis, it is reasonable to speak of small, middling, and large states. In terms of territorial extent, Greek states range across two to three orders of magnitude, from tiny Koresia (i493) on Kea with a territory of about 15 km2 to Syracuse, which may at one point have controlled as much as 12,000 km2. Although some very small poleis had large populations (notably Aigina [i358]), across the entire sample, territorial size can be taken as a rough proxy for population. The population estimates adopted here, and summed up in table 2.1 are based primarily on the data in the Inventory and on the estimation methods developed by Mogens Hansen.16
Of the 672 poleis whose territorial area is known or can be plausibly estimated, 148 were relatively tiny, with territories estimated at 25 km2 or less and estimated populations of 1,000 or fewer; at the other end of the distribution, only three classical-era poleis—Athens, Sparta, and Syracuse—had territories over 2,000 km2, with estimated populations ranging up to a quarter million people or more. Polis size also varied by regions: In Phocis (region 9), the region around Delphi (map 9), the average polis territory is about 65 km2, whereas in Arcadia (region 14: map 4), in the central Peloponnese, it is ca. 120 km2; on the north Aegean island of Lesbos (region 36: map 9) in the fourth century, it was about 320 km2.
We return to the implications of demographic distribution in chapter 3. The key point for now is that although most (about 8 in 10) poleis were small (under 200 km2), most Greeks (about 2 in 3) lived in middling (200–500 km2) to large (more than 500 km2) poleis. Table 2.1 models the distribution of an assumed total of 1,100 classical poleis by territory size and estimated population size. Figure 2.3 graphically illustrates the distribution of polis territory sizes. The truncated bell curve, with no left-side tail and long right-side tail shows the extent to which the distribution of polis territory sizes was skewed toward the small-polis end of the scale.17
Poleis also varied greatly in their relative prominence. The effect of state prominence on individual and collective lives was keenly appreciated by the Greeks. The Roman-era biographer Plutarch (Life of Themistocles 18.2) records an exchange between an anonymous citizen of the small Aegean island polis of Seriphos (i517: size 2) and the renowned Athenian general and politician of the early fifth century BCE, Themistocles: “When [Themistocles] was told by the Seriphian that it was not due to himself that he had got his reputation, but to his polis, ‘True,’ said he, ‘but neither should I, had I been a Seriphian, have been famous, nor would you, had you been an Athenian.’ ”18
FIGURE 2.3 Polis territory sizes, 1,100 poleis.
NOTES: Based on 672 poleis whose size is known or can be estimated with some confidence. Count for each size is based on estimated total number of poleis in each of seven general size categories, and the range of km2 area sizes within each general category. For data, see table 2.1. Horizontal scale is compressed on the right side.
Lacking an ancient Greek’s fingertip feel for the relative prominence of Greek states, I use the amount of space (measured in columns of text) allotted to each polis in the Inventory as a proxy for individual polis prominence. This “fame” proxy is obviously rough: It indicates what is now known about a given polis, and thus is sensitive to the loss of knowledge since classical antiquity. On the other hand, the Inventory includes all that is now known about obscure poleis, whereas many volumes have been written about the most prominent states (e.g., Athens, Sparta, Syracuse). Over all, given the intensity of scholarly investigation to which the Greek world has been subjected, it seems plausible to assume that most poleis that are famous or obscure today were also relatively famous or obscure in antiquity.19
Table 2.2 and figure 2.4 show that we know, individually and in the aggregate, very little about more than half of all known poleis (fame categories 1 and 2: 567/1,035 poleis = 55%). Yet for several hundred “middling” poleis (fame categories 3 and 4, 442/1,035 = 43%), we do have a fair amount of historically relevant information, and many of these poleis would have been quite widely known in antiquity. Seriphos, the polis whose relative obscurity would have doomed the ambitions of Themistocles, falls at the low end of this middling group, with a fame rank of 3. We may guess that many of the 158 poleis whose constitutional histories were collected by Aristotle, and which provided some of the data for his Politics (see below, ch. 3) fell in the upper end of the middling-fame range.
The hypothesis that a low fame score likely reflects (albeit imperfectly) the limited prominence of a state in antiquity, and is not simply an artifact of lost knowledge, can be tested by the evidence of coinage. Literary evidence and archaeological evidence are subject to the vagaries of preservation and exploration. Yet, because silver coins minted by a given state usually circulated outside the territory of the polis of origin, and because they remain valuable and are recovered through a variety of methods (including amateurs with metal detectors), if an ancient state did mint silver coins in any quantity, we are likely to know it. Of the middling-fame group of poleis, 60% (264/442) are known to have minted silver coins, compared to only 9% (51/567) of the low-fame group. In another test of the evidence: 15% of the poleis in the middling group (68/442), are known to have had at least one victor in one or more of the great Panhellenic games, as opposed to only 1% (6/567) in the low-fame group.20
TABLE 2.2 Fame Scores for 1,035 Poleis
NOTES: Fame is measured by number of columns of text assigned to the polis in the Inventory. Granularity = to 1/8 column. “Aggregate columns” figures are rounded to whole numbers. Total columns of text for 1,035 poleis: = 1,396. 1 column = ca. 425 words. Total words = ca. 600,000.
FIGURE 2.4 Fame scores, 1,035 poleis.
NOTES: Fame measured by columns of text devoted to each polis in the Inventory. Granularity is at level of 1/8 column. Horizontal scale is compressed on the right side.
We know, relatively speaking, a great deal about a couple of dozen Greek poleis (26/1,035: fame categories 5 and 6). All of these high-fame poleis, except (notoriously) Sparta, coined silver, and 20 of the 26 recorded victors in the games. These high-fame poleis would certainly have been almost universally well-known in classical antiquity, and likewise very influential. Although there may have been significant exceptions, we may guess that their institutions were mo
re likely to be imitated by other poleis, and they were more likely to take dominant roles in regional systems of hegemony.21
Table 2.2 documents the distribution of fame scores, and their relationship to the aggregate of our knowledge of the world of the poleis, as it is measured by the Inventory. Figure 2.4 illustrates the distribution graphically; the “long right tail” of relatively high-fame poleis is where most of the attention of historians of ancient Greece has traditionally tended to focus. Our goal will be to keep in view the relatively greater historical impact of the most prominent poleis, and the reality that there were a great many poleis that were prominent enough to be significant players on the stage of Greek history, and that there were even more small and obscure poleis that were an essential part of the ecology, even if they were individually less likely to be major players on the stage of Greek history. Grasping the dynamics of the decentralized ecology of classical Hellas requires attention to the interplay between the most prominent poleis and all the rest.22
Prominence is obviously related to polis size: Figures 2.3 and 2.4, which graphically illustrate the distribution of poleis by size and fame, respectively, trace similar truncated bell curves, with similarly sharp peaks on the left side of the chart (many small size, low fame) and similar long right tails (few large size, high fame). The three outstandingly famous poleis—Athens, Syracuse, and Sparta—were also the largest poleis. The average high-fame (category 5–6) polis was substantially larger (average size category about 4+ = ca. 500+ km2) than was the average middling-fame polis (fame category 3–4, average size category 2+ = ca. 100+ km2) and much larger than the average low-fame polis (fame category 1–2, average size category 1+ = ca. 25+ km2). Yet a number of small poleis were very well known: Delphi (i177: fame 5, size 2) and Delos (i478: fame 4, size 2) were associated with major sanctuaries, but Italian Neapolis (i63: fame 4, size 1) and the island-polis of Aigina (fame 4, size 2) were famous for quite different reasons. At the other end of the scale, Kereneia (i1015), Byblis (i92), and Tyrodiza (i687) register low fame scores of 2 but boasted large, category 5, territories. The overall correlation between size and fame for the 672 poleis whose size can be estimated (Pearson = 0.58, r2 = 0.34) is quite strong but does not support the assumption that the prominence of a given Greek polis was a simple function of its size.
