Lecture 10

THE SPIRIT OF THE CLASSICAL CITY

So far we have focused primarily on the physical shape of the classical city.  We should not forget, however, that there were many other elements to the city in classical Greece.  These include the political structure and cultural issues such as religion, athletics, theater, and the local and the Pan Hellenic festivals.

 A. Identification with the Polis

1. Virtually all people in the classical period (500-338 BC) identified closely with their polis.  It is likely that citizens felt a genuine affection for their polis.

2. Many people rarely if ever left their polis and they saw the polis as the world in which they lived their lives and interacted with others.

3. "Patriotism" was an important feature and many people felt they owed their lives to their city.

4. Warfare was endemic and virtually all young men had experience of war.

 B. Culture and Relaxation

1. Public culture was an important part of life in the Greek polis: virtually all aspects of life were public and it was generally felt that a person's life was not really his/her own, but that it belonged to the state (i.e., it belonged to the community).

2. The "Funeral Oration" by Perikles (in Thucydides' Peloponnesian War) lays out the basic idea of how culture, society, and the political structure were thought to be intertwined.

3. The state provided theater, festivals, public monuments, open spaces, and involvement in most areas of life for citizens--not least the army.

4. Cities were small, normally no more than 10,000 people, and relations among citizens were close; this presumably gave rise to a feeling of cooperation and the idea that all were involved in a common undertaking.

5. There were important social distinctions within the Greek polis: there were slaves (although probably not many) and women and foreigners (non-citizen immigrants) had no real political rights; nonetheless, in these small-scale societies these people all seem to have worked together and felt a real commonality.

6. This commonality has always to be balanced against the proverbial individuality of the Greeks and their sense of competition ("agonistic" behavior).  This can be paralleled by the distinction between polis-loyalty and Pen-Hellenic sentiment.

7. Festivals and cultural activities promoted common experiences.

a. There were many festivals that emphasized "belonging" -- ceremonies for children and women and ceremonies that emphasized the myths that were tied to the foundations and history of the polis.

b. Theater was a religious experience, but it was closely tied to the institutions of the polis.

c. In Athens there was a theatrical festival each spring and 12 new plays (tragedies) had to be written and produced.  These plays required 180 choral singers and dancers.  At the same time 16 new comedies were produced, requiring 144 singers and dancers.  These would all have been ordinary citizens.

d. There was a real spirit of amateurism in the Greek culture of the period.

 C. The Panhellenic Sanctuaries: Olympia, Delphi, Isthmia, and Nemea

1. These sanctuaries were not cities, but rather religious and athletic centers that served as symbols and ideas that united all Greeks.

2. Some of these (e.g., Delphi) were operated by a kind of association of various poleis.

3. The Panhellenic Sanctuaries were "high-profile" prestigious sites, and people from all over the Greek world wanted to "see and be seen" there.  Wealthy and important people made dedications to the gods there--and these would be seen by anyone who visited them.

4. The festivals were held every two or every four years.

5. They included religious celebrations and athletic competitions; the competitions often included poetry, religion, and music.

 D. Politics of the Polis (note that our very word "politics" comes from the word polis: it means "polis-things")

 1. It is difficult to characterize the political systems of the Greek poleis, since these were different in each city.

2. Generally, it is fair to say that there was always a tendency toward aristocracy.

a. Virtually all cities were dominated by a heriditary aristocracy (i.e., families that passed their privileges on from generation to generation).

b. The aristocracy's wealth was based on land -- not on trade or industry -- and in this way they are vastly different from the wealthy people of more recent times.

c. The aristocrats thus derived their wealth either from rents (i.e., that they rented out some of their land to small farmers) or simply from the produce of their land.

d. These aristocrats lived in the city and they were almost always fanatically involved in the affairs of the city.

3. In some cities the aristocrats actually controlled the government by law and the ordinary people essentially had no say in politics, while in other cities the aristocrats worked "behind the scenes" and they allowed broader participation, while effectively keeping all power in their own hands.

4. Democratic (i.e., anti-aristocratic) tendencies developed in many cities and this sometimes led to civil strife.

5. Athens and Sparta were exceptions to the developments in most poleis and they developed systems that were unique to them.

6. Both Athens and Sparta were democracies, but they had very different ways of interpreting this concept.

7. Sparta

a. Sparta had a unique social system based on the exploitation of a broad agricultural "underclass," the helots, by the Spartiates (the full Spartan citizens).

b. The helots essenetially did all the agricultural work (and they lived in villages in rural Lakonia--the chora of Sparta), while the Spartiates did not work, but essentially supervised the helots.

c. Among themselves, the Spartiates had a democracy, although they had two kings, who were essentially military leaders.

d. In large part to make sure that they controlled the helots, the Spartans developed a harsh and rigorous military system in which all the Spartiates had to take part--essentially the citizens became full-time soldiers.

e. This was a bold social and political experiment, a kind of totalitarianism, but also a kind of idealized communal system.

f. It was very successful militarily and many cities admired Sparta, but few of them had the courage to try it for themselves.

8. Athens

a. About 500BC Athens developed a democracy.

b. This was a "direct" democracy in which all citizens voted directly on nearly every issue of importance and in which most of the political leaders were selected by lot--the idea being that any citizen was capable of holding nearly any political office.

c. The democracy sought to cut across social and regional lines, to encourage Athenians of all backgrounds to participate and cooperate in the political system.

d. Women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded from this political system.

e. For various reasons Athens had developed an economy different from that of any other polis.  Instead of an economy based almost entirely on self-sufficient farming (which was the norm in most parts of Greece), Athens built an economy based on specialized agriculture: olives and grapes (i.e., olive oil and wine).  This led to a reliance on trade and the development of industry.

f. Because of this different economic system Athens could support a population of people who were not farmers--and thus Athens grew into a city many times larger than other cities: a poplation of perhaps 150.000.

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