On Isaiah Berlin:
Sir Isaiah's liberalism is very different from most liberallsms. They rest on a view of human dignity, as in Kant, or on a view of human happiness, as in Mill, or on an ideal of the equal moral value of all lives, as in our contemporaries Ronald Dworkin and John Rawls. Sir Isaiah’s liberalism seems to embrace all of these but to rest on none of them.
His liberalism is thus unsettling -and hard to describe. His famous essay on Tolstoy’s theory of history, “The Hedgehog and the Fox,” drew its epigraph from an enigmatic remark of the pre-Socratic sage Archilochus: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Sir Isaiah’s liberalism is the liberalism of the fox; there is no one big truth on which the liberal. can, let alone on which he must, take his stand. Dignity, happiness and moral equality are all valuable, and only a madman would deny it. But there are many other valuable things in the world for which we can readily imagine ourselves sacrificing any Of these; an individual will sacrifice his or her own happiness for the sake of ’fame or to achieve artistic; success, a nation will sacrifice almost anything for the, Sake or national honor and glory. , The idea that the ends of life are plural, not unitary, is the one big idea that Mr. Gray seizes on as the key to Sir Isaiah’s politics. But it is an idea that presents two large difficulties. The first is that it is not at all clear What it amounts to. It is not news that there are many different goals We might set ourselves -some of us want to be lawyers, some of us would rather play basketball, some of us want ‘to watch “Aida,” some of us would rather listen to the Beatles. To give the thought some bite, we have to add that there is no right answer to the question of which life is the best one for us, individually or generally. This Mr. Gray offers as the basis of what he here and elsewhere calls “agonistic” liberalism: the thought that a free society is a place where individuals and indeed the whole society work out their own particular fates. And his book is an exploration of what that entails. “
That leads'to the second large difficulty. An emphasis on' the plurality of the ends of life and on the limited role of reason in deciding among them offers no particular support to liberalism. A benign and 'unaggressive conservatism is at least ' as plausible a political, outcome --as witness British conservatives like David Hume in ,the 18th century and Michael Oakeshott in the 20th. If there
is no arguing over 'the ends of 1' 1f should we not settle for the cause?
Sir Isaiah himself has not.
It can’t be said that he is wholly successful. Indeed, it can’t be said that he sets himself a task at which success is to be expected. In particular, Mr. Gray makes life needlessly hard for himself by exaggerating Sir Isaiah’s nuanced and delicate doubts about some of the ambitions of the Enlightenment into a real hostility to the Enlightenment. For all of Mr. Gray’s own emphasis on the great gulf between Sirlsaiah and the ‘radical anti-Enlightenment, his Berlin sometimes sounds like Nietzsche in a dyspeptic moment. It is, as he himself insists, one thing to acknowledge, as Sir Isaiah does, the exaggerations of rationalism, quite another to embrace irrationalism. There are many routes to liberal conclusions, but the contempt .in which the existentialist, anti-Enlightenment tradition has held all forms of. liberalism‘makes the agonistic route a particularly implausible one. . The difficulties that an intelligent and energetic critic -a friendly critic too, Whose admiration for his subject is only just this side of idolatry -can get himself into 'suggest that it is not an ac-1 cident that Sir Isaiah’s commentators have been few in number and their output slight. It may be that Sir Isaiah’s affinity with the fox goes farther than even Mr. Gray can handle and that Sir Isaiah has chosen to write about politics in his indirect, historical and biographical fashion because he wishes not to be committed to one view of human nature, one view of the nature of liberalism, one view of the problems of the modern world. In which case the attempt to tidy him up will be, at best, an instructive failure. ‘
Saturday, March 31, 2018
Before they recycle
From Christopher L-H: What his theories finally boil down to is that the Dead Sea Scrolls; far from confirming the Church of Rome’s version of Christianity, actually reveal a “bitter conflict between rival factions and the warning of a coming schism that would rend the religion in two.” In an alternative view revealed by the Scrolls, Mr. Roberts explains, J esus was born the prophet of a religion involving the individual’s inner“ knowledge, not faith in an earthly institution. This religion was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the svstem founded
in Persia by Zoroaster teaching the worship of Ormaz in the context of a universal struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
As Mr. Roberts says he learned, the wise men from the East were Zoroastrian Magi, or, citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Magi, members “of the ancient Persian priestly caste, said by ancient historians to have been originally a Median tribe.”
The purpose of their journey, Mr. Roberts concludes somewhat elliptically, was essentially to avert a situation in which “good works or spiritual improvement” would become irrelevant and in which faith alone would get you to Heaven. But the crisis was never resolved. East and West divided, and Rome prevailed in the West. As Mr. Roberts recalls an authority on Eastern mysticism’s telling him when he was an undergraduate at Oxford: “Without Zoroaster there would be no Christ. He was the bridge, and the Romans burnt it.” ‘
Nutty as all this may sound to anyone reared on the West’s version 0f the Nativity story, Mr. Roberts found abundant evidence for his theories on his strange journey. Repeatedly he encountered living relics of the ancient sects he was investigating who would invite him into their homes and share their sometimes fractured understanding of their cultures. His experiences often veer from the profound to the ridiculous.
in Persia by Zoroaster teaching the worship of Ormaz in the context of a universal struggle between the forces of light and darkness.
As Mr. Roberts says he learned, the wise men from the East were Zoroastrian Magi, or, citing the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Magi, members “of the ancient Persian priestly caste, said by ancient historians to have been originally a Median tribe.”
The purpose of their journey, Mr. Roberts concludes somewhat elliptically, was essentially to avert a situation in which “good works or spiritual improvement” would become irrelevant and in which faith alone would get you to Heaven. But the crisis was never resolved. East and West divided, and Rome prevailed in the West. As Mr. Roberts recalls an authority on Eastern mysticism’s telling him when he was an undergraduate at Oxford: “Without Zoroaster there would be no Christ. He was the bridge, and the Romans burnt it.” ‘
Nutty as all this may sound to anyone reared on the West’s version 0f the Nativity story, Mr. Roberts found abundant evidence for his theories on his strange journey. Repeatedly he encountered living relics of the ancient sects he was investigating who would invite him into their homes and share their sometimes fractured understanding of their cultures. His experiences often veer from the profound to the ridiculous.
and also by C L-H
“Cocktails have all the disagreeability without the utility of a disinfectant.”
So the “influence of spirits on the American psyche,” as Mr. Lanza’s subtitle describes his book, is bound to be tantamount to sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And sure enough, one of his keener observations is that during the most trying times of Hollywood censorship, “the cocktail evolved from a universal symbol of licentiousness into one of class and civility.”
Part way through that evolution, in 1934, the film version of Dashiell Hammett’s novel “The Thin Man” was housebroken for the Hayes Office. Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) had to sleep in separate beds and were forbidden to refer overtly to sex. But they still drank martinis before breakfast and continued, as Mr. Lanza puts it, “to fuel on them throughout the day to sharpen their sleuthing skills.” Martinis before breakfast! Imagine what that would convey these days.
In fact, Mr. Lanza even says that cocktails became appealing in 20th century America precisely when drinking them was made a crime. “The dawn of Prohibition witnessed the miraculous obfuscation of sacred and profane,” he writes. “The legal censure turned cocktails into a ritual of indulgence and absolution combined. Substances once considered Vile were soon gussied up in fancy glasses with ornate combinations of ingredients and titles.” He concludes somewhat confusedly, “They got more mystifying and appealing as their legal standing grew more illicit and their manufacture and sale' more tawdry.”
As the image of drink softened after Prohibition, the author argues, the cocktail grew steadily more acceptable. By 1948, in John Farrow’s film “The Big Clock,” Ray Milland was able to establish that he was not guilty of a homicide by proving that he was, as Mr. Lanza puts it, “at a bar getting grogged on Stingers when the crime occurred.” His drinking proved that he was innocent.
At times in his analysis, Mr. Lanza seems overcome by fumes emanating from his subject.
Of President John F. Kennedy’s connection to Hollywood through Peter Lawford and Frank Sinatra he writes: “The Rat Pack era is renowned not only for bolstering Kennedy’s election but for binding American politics to the‘entertainment industry. These were the new gentlemen of leisure, whose cavalier antics had sparked existential hunger in a world-weary middle class finally convinced that the 'good life’ had nothing to do with the afterlife. All the Depression babies who had won the Big War could get at least some kind of door prize with a trip to Vegas, a stab at a slot machine and highballs to keep them fueled.”
His clarity of expression is not helped by his tendency to treat metaphorical words as if they had no literal meaning, as when he writes ‘ that “antics had sparked existential anger”; that a “legal standing grew more illicit,” and that “a liquor ad’s ice cubes couched hieroglyphics of sex and death.”
Still, even when he is murkiest, you can understand what he is driving at. That in a chapter called “Being Had (The Sociology of ‘Girl Drinks’),” he is arguing that the hidden purpose of many of the more confectionary cocktails was “to represent a kind of psychosexual labyrinth for those brave and nobly neurotic enough to enter.’_’ And that over the post-Prohibition decades, cocktail culture has exerted a surprisingly powerful influence on everything from interior decoration to film, music and dress.
How powerfully the cocktail can subvert common sense may be seen in Mr. Lanza’s caption to a Bombay gin ad, where he states that “throug modern marketing, gin can become : molten crystal monitor revealing in ages of an inner peace to replace t ~ daily grind.” The caption conclud " “Refracted through the stain glass window of a clean Martini, t world can assume a prismatic pur’ that is bigger than life and at le equal to God.”
Limpid though such prose meant to be, it’s a little too purple for comfort. M. F.K. Fisher may once have written that “a well-made Martini or Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.”
Yet as Mr. Lanza states elsewhere: “Of all drinks, the Martini (with its pure, undiluted alcohol) is the most pristine high any drink can offer. It has a different impact on the body’s blood sugar with a longerlasting stimulus than most other com coctions sullied by juices, sugars and creams.”
And, let’s face it, what it will do in the long run to your liver may unexaggeratedly be compared to rape.
So the “influence of spirits on the American psyche,” as Mr. Lanza’s subtitle describes his book, is bound to be tantamount to sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And sure enough, one of his keener observations is that during the most trying times of Hollywood censorship, “the cocktail evolved from a universal symbol of licentiousness into one of class and civility.”
Part way through that evolution, in 1934, the film version of Dashiell Hammett’s novel “The Thin Man” was housebroken for the Hayes Office. Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) had to sleep in separate beds and were forbidden to refer overtly to sex. But they still drank martinis before breakfast and continued, as Mr. Lanza puts it, “to fuel on them throughout the day to sharpen their sleuthing skills.” Martinis before breakfast! Imagine what that would convey these days.
In fact, Mr. Lanza even says that cocktails became appealing in 20th century America precisely when drinking them was made a crime. “The dawn of Prohibition witnessed the miraculous obfuscation of sacred and profane,” he writes. “The legal censure turned cocktails into a ritual of indulgence and absolution combined. Substances once considered Vile were soon gussied up in fancy glasses with ornate combinations of ingredients and titles.” He concludes somewhat confusedly, “They got more mystifying and appealing as their legal standing grew more illicit and their manufacture and sale' more tawdry.”
As the image of drink softened after Prohibition, the author argues, the cocktail grew steadily more acceptable. By 1948, in John Farrow’s film “The Big Clock,” Ray Milland was able to establish that he was not guilty of a homicide by proving that he was, as Mr. Lanza puts it, “at a bar getting grogged on Stingers when the crime occurred.” His drinking proved that he was innocent.
At times in his analysis, Mr. Lanza seems overcome by fumes emanating from his subject.
Of President John F. Kennedy’s connection to Hollywood through Peter Lawford and Frank Sinatra he writes: “The Rat Pack era is renowned not only for bolstering Kennedy’s election but for binding American politics to the‘entertainment industry. These were the new gentlemen of leisure, whose cavalier antics had sparked existential hunger in a world-weary middle class finally convinced that the 'good life’ had nothing to do with the afterlife. All the Depression babies who had won the Big War could get at least some kind of door prize with a trip to Vegas, a stab at a slot machine and highballs to keep them fueled.”
His clarity of expression is not helped by his tendency to treat metaphorical words as if they had no literal meaning, as when he writes ‘ that “antics had sparked existential anger”; that a “legal standing grew more illicit,” and that “a liquor ad’s ice cubes couched hieroglyphics of sex and death.”
Still, even when he is murkiest, you can understand what he is driving at. That in a chapter called “Being Had (The Sociology of ‘Girl Drinks’),” he is arguing that the hidden purpose of many of the more confectionary cocktails was “to represent a kind of psychosexual labyrinth for those brave and nobly neurotic enough to enter.’_’ And that over the post-Prohibition decades, cocktail culture has exerted a surprisingly powerful influence on everything from interior decoration to film, music and dress.
How powerfully the cocktail can subvert common sense may be seen in Mr. Lanza’s caption to a Bombay gin ad, where he states that “throug modern marketing, gin can become : molten crystal monitor revealing in ages of an inner peace to replace t ~ daily grind.” The caption conclud " “Refracted through the stain glass window of a clean Martini, t world can assume a prismatic pur’ that is bigger than life and at le equal to God.”
Limpid though such prose meant to be, it’s a little too purple for comfort. M. F.K. Fisher may once have written that “a well-made Martini or Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.”
Yet as Mr. Lanza states elsewhere: “Of all drinks, the Martini (with its pure, undiluted alcohol) is the most pristine high any drink can offer. It has a different impact on the body’s blood sugar with a longerlasting stimulus than most other com coctions sullied by juices, sugars and creams.”
And, let’s face it, what it will do in the long run to your liver may unexaggeratedly be compared to rape.
The Tyrannicides
Around 508 BC Cleisthenes persuaded his fellow Athenians to adopt a new political system which began the long development of Western democracy, The emergence and establishment of democracy constitute a foundational moment in the history of society, all the more extraordinary for the context in which it occurred. The sixth century was a period of repeated internal crisis for Athens as economic and political inequality led to major social unrest and repeated civic violence. Two exceptional men dominate the history of the century and each is fundamental to later democratic ideology, one as an icon and the other as anathema.
The first is Solon, from the 590s. He rose to become leader of an Athens riven by competition between elite families and by a lack of centralized regulation. He depicts himself as a negotiator
who argued for strengthening a sense of community by controlling the abuses of power by local bigwigs by organising the community into classes according to property ownership and by establishing a stronger, more centralized legal system.
Later ancient political writers saw Solon in a similar light. The Constitution of Athens, a text from the school of Aristotle, highlights the three most important measures Solon enacted, Which paved the way for Cleisthenes’ democracy. First, he outlawed taking out a loan on the security of your own body. This meant that the poor could not become bond-slaves to the wealthy, Second, he allowed a third party to bring a legal case on behalf of a Victim, which took legal action away from the family feud and away from the inevitable oppression of the weak by the powerful. Third, he gave all citizens the right of appeal to a court, which implies the establishment of a jury, a collective of citizens. This countered the supreme dominance of the magistrates, positions already in the hands of the most powerful families. Solon strove to make Athens more stable. Whether he changed the dynamics of power significantly is harder to judge. But in the heady days of fourth-century democracy, he was viewed as a founding father of democracy, because his laws were understood to value the people over and above their oppression by the elite.
Peisistratus, the second figure to dominate sixth-century Athens, contrasts with Solon in almost every way. Around 560 he became tyrant of Athens, that is, its sole ruler or dictator, and he was succeeded by his sons, Hipparchus and Hippias. Solon evidently did not stop competition between elite families for power and status, nor did he succeed in creating a stable constitution for Athens. According to the ancient sources, there were three main groupings in Athens, the men of the plain, the men of the shore and the men of the hills, these last led by Peisistratus. The tyranny was the triumph of this third grouping -though it is hard to know how much these groupings were merely territorial and fzmlilial, or linked by some broader political concern. When in power, Peisistratus built huge temples, initiated major building projects, developed new festivals (probably including the Great Dionysia, where the tragedies and comedies were produced) and expanded Athens’ major festival, the Panathenaia, into a Panhellenic event to rival the Olympic Games. But, for later democrats, the tyrant was simply the despised and feared anathema of democracy.
In Athens, the tyrants were ousted in an act of murder that became the paradigmatic image of democratic heroism. There was even a ritual cult of the Tyrannicides with honoured statues of the two men who were said to have assassinated Hipparchus (Figure 33). Several of Athens’ favourite drinking songs celebrated the killers: ‘I’ll carry my sword in a myrtle spray,’ runs one, ‘1ike Aristogeiton and Harmodius, when they killed the tyrant, and brought equality before the law to Athens.’ Like the Marseillaise or the Star-Spangled Banner, it is not so much the zippiness 0f the lyrics as the emotional force of the song that counts an emotional force that encapsulates a political ideal.
Cleisthenes’ political agenda responded to the crises embodied in the careers of Solon and Peisistratus. After the fall of the tyrants, one might expect the elite families to struggle to fill the power vacuum. But what makes Cleisthenes’ actions momentous, as well as surprising, is the fact the sources tell us that he first won over ‘the people’. Although he himself came from an aristocratic family background in Athens, as did most democratic p01iticians over the next two centuries, he established himself as the leader of a collective of the peasants the small landowners and workers in the town. What is more remarkable still is that he used this popular support not merely to establish his own power base, but to set in place a whole series of institutions and systems of decision-making that fundamentally changed Athens and the possibilities of Western politics for ever, by making ‘the people’ their own governors. The first of Cleisthenes’ radical moves was wholly to reorganize the spatial politics of Athens, and with it the sense of belonging, of citizenship. He required each and every citizen ~enfranchised males over the age of eighteen -~ to register in a ‘deme’. The 139 demes were not simply parishes or districts where one happened to live. They were communities whose members identified themselves as ‘demesmen’, because, for reasons of family history, this deme was where they felt at home. You could not move deme (as you can change parish or district), and you joined your father’s deme as a matter of course. From Cleisthenes’ time onwards, an Athenian would identify himself by his name, his father’s name and his deme. The deme became a sign of basic social and political identity. The demes had their own cult centres for religious worship, their own finances, their own associations such as theatres and burial societies, and they appointed a ‘demarch’, a leader of the deme. It was through the deme that a great deal of Civic bureaucracy functioned. The important political impact of such foundations was to establish a structure of self-determination in each of the communities, and to give the community a sense of responsibility for all that happened in the community. This was a truly local politics.
The second level of structure was the tribe. The whole of Athens was now divided into ten tribes. Each tribe had a hero after whom it was named, with its own cults. But, most importantly, tribes formed the framework for elections to all the major political institutions and the numerous boards of magistrates and other officials. The army was organized into ten regiments, one for each tribe. Dead soldiers of the state were carried to the grave on wagons, one for each tribe. Competitions at the major festivals were often arranged on a tribal basis. The Panathenaia festival included tribal boat-races and tribal beauty competitions (men only). These tribes were made up of groups of the demes. They were designed to be roughly equal in number of citizens, and roughly balanced in regional and political affiliations. So the tribes were made up of tritlyes, ‘thirds’. Each tritzys was made up of demes from the town, from the inland and from the coastal regions (hence ‘thirds’). In this way, the tribes worked to reduce the old factionalisms with new collective affiliations. One hundred and thirty-nine demes, from the three regions, were Structured into ten tribes, to make the one city, Athens.
This new spatial organization was a stunning political revolu~ tion, designed successfully to produce interlocking commu~ hities of local and national ties and obligations. Citizenship and Tocal affiliation remain the basic building-blocks of modern democracy.
The first is Solon, from the 590s. He rose to become leader of an Athens riven by competition between elite families and by a lack of centralized regulation. He depicts himself as a negotiator
who argued for strengthening a sense of community by controlling the abuses of power by local bigwigs by organising the community into classes according to property ownership and by establishing a stronger, more centralized legal system.
Later ancient political writers saw Solon in a similar light. The Constitution of Athens, a text from the school of Aristotle, highlights the three most important measures Solon enacted, Which paved the way for Cleisthenes’ democracy. First, he outlawed taking out a loan on the security of your own body. This meant that the poor could not become bond-slaves to the wealthy, Second, he allowed a third party to bring a legal case on behalf of a Victim, which took legal action away from the family feud and away from the inevitable oppression of the weak by the powerful. Third, he gave all citizens the right of appeal to a court, which implies the establishment of a jury, a collective of citizens. This countered the supreme dominance of the magistrates, positions already in the hands of the most powerful families. Solon strove to make Athens more stable. Whether he changed the dynamics of power significantly is harder to judge. But in the heady days of fourth-century democracy, he was viewed as a founding father of democracy, because his laws were understood to value the people over and above their oppression by the elite.
Peisistratus, the second figure to dominate sixth-century Athens, contrasts with Solon in almost every way. Around 560 he became tyrant of Athens, that is, its sole ruler or dictator, and he was succeeded by his sons, Hipparchus and Hippias. Solon evidently did not stop competition between elite families for power and status, nor did he succeed in creating a stable constitution for Athens. According to the ancient sources, there were three main groupings in Athens, the men of the plain, the men of the shore and the men of the hills, these last led by Peisistratus. The tyranny was the triumph of this third grouping -though it is hard to know how much these groupings were merely territorial and fzmlilial, or linked by some broader political concern. When in power, Peisistratus built huge temples, initiated major building projects, developed new festivals (probably including the Great Dionysia, where the tragedies and comedies were produced) and expanded Athens’ major festival, the Panathenaia, into a Panhellenic event to rival the Olympic Games. But, for later democrats, the tyrant was simply the despised and feared anathema of democracy.
In Athens, the tyrants were ousted in an act of murder that became the paradigmatic image of democratic heroism. There was even a ritual cult of the Tyrannicides with honoured statues of the two men who were said to have assassinated Hipparchus (Figure 33). Several of Athens’ favourite drinking songs celebrated the killers: ‘I’ll carry my sword in a myrtle spray,’ runs one, ‘1ike Aristogeiton and Harmodius, when they killed the tyrant, and brought equality before the law to Athens.’ Like the Marseillaise or the Star-Spangled Banner, it is not so much the zippiness 0f the lyrics as the emotional force of the song that counts an emotional force that encapsulates a political ideal.
Cleisthenes’ political agenda responded to the crises embodied in the careers of Solon and Peisistratus. After the fall of the tyrants, one might expect the elite families to struggle to fill the power vacuum. But what makes Cleisthenes’ actions momentous, as well as surprising, is the fact the sources tell us that he first won over ‘the people’. Although he himself came from an aristocratic family background in Athens, as did most democratic p01iticians over the next two centuries, he established himself as the leader of a collective of the peasants the small landowners and workers in the town. What is more remarkable still is that he used this popular support not merely to establish his own power base, but to set in place a whole series of institutions and systems of decision-making that fundamentally changed Athens and the possibilities of Western politics for ever, by making ‘the people’ their own governors. The first of Cleisthenes’ radical moves was wholly to reorganize the spatial politics of Athens, and with it the sense of belonging, of citizenship. He required each and every citizen ~enfranchised males over the age of eighteen -~ to register in a ‘deme’. The 139 demes were not simply parishes or districts where one happened to live. They were communities whose members identified themselves as ‘demesmen’, because, for reasons of family history, this deme was where they felt at home. You could not move deme (as you can change parish or district), and you joined your father’s deme as a matter of course. From Cleisthenes’ time onwards, an Athenian would identify himself by his name, his father’s name and his deme. The deme became a sign of basic social and political identity. The demes had their own cult centres for religious worship, their own finances, their own associations such as theatres and burial societies, and they appointed a ‘demarch’, a leader of the deme. It was through the deme that a great deal of Civic bureaucracy functioned. The important political impact of such foundations was to establish a structure of self-determination in each of the communities, and to give the community a sense of responsibility for all that happened in the community. This was a truly local politics.
The second level of structure was the tribe. The whole of Athens was now divided into ten tribes. Each tribe had a hero after whom it was named, with its own cults. But, most importantly, tribes formed the framework for elections to all the major political institutions and the numerous boards of magistrates and other officials. The army was organized into ten regiments, one for each tribe. Dead soldiers of the state were carried to the grave on wagons, one for each tribe. Competitions at the major festivals were often arranged on a tribal basis. The Panathenaia festival included tribal boat-races and tribal beauty competitions (men only). These tribes were made up of groups of the demes. They were designed to be roughly equal in number of citizens, and roughly balanced in regional and political affiliations. So the tribes were made up of tritlyes, ‘thirds’. Each tritzys was made up of demes from the town, from the inland and from the coastal regions (hence ‘thirds’). In this way, the tribes worked to reduce the old factionalisms with new collective affiliations. One hundred and thirty-nine demes, from the three regions, were Structured into ten tribes, to make the one city, Athens.
This new spatial organization was a stunning political revolu~ tion, designed successfully to produce interlocking commu~ hities of local and national ties and obligations. Citizenship and Tocal affiliation remain the basic building-blocks of modern democracy.
The Tyrannicides via Wikip.
The two principal historical sources covering Harmodius and Aristogeiton are the History of the Peloponnesian War (VI, 56–59) by Thucydides, and The Constitution of the Athenians (XVIII) attributed to Aristotle or his school. However, their story is documented by a great many other ancient writers, including important sources such as Herodotus and Plutarch. Herodotus[1] claimed that Harmodius and Aristogeiton presumably were "Gephyraeans" (el) i.e. Boeotians of Syrian or Phoenician origin. Plutarch, in his book On the malice of Herodotus criticized Herodotus for prejudice and misrepresentation and he argued that Harmodius and Aristogeiton were Euboeans or Eretrians.[2]
Peisistratus had become tyrant of Athens after his third attempt in 546/7 BCE. In Archaic Greece, the term tyrant, referred to one who had seized power and ruled outside of a state's constitutional law, and did not carry the same negative implications it does today. When Peisistratus died in 528/7 BC, his son Hippias took the position of Archon and became the new tyrant of Athens, with the help of his brother, Hipparchus, who acted as the minister of culture. The two continued their father's policies, but their popularity declined after Hipparchus began to abuse the power of his position.
Following Hipparchus' rejection by Harmodius, for whom he had unrequited feelings, Hipparchus invited Harmodius' young sister to be the kanephoros (to carry the ceremonial offering basket) at the Panathenaea festival, and then publicly chased her away on the pretext she was not a virgin, as required. This publicly shamed Harmodius' family; then he, with his lover Aristogeiton, resolved to assassinate both Hippias and Hipparchus and thus to overthrow the tyranny.[3] The assassination attempt succeeded and Hipparchus was killed in 514/3, but Hippias remained in power. The truly tyrannical (by today's standards) actions in the remaining years of his reign are typically attributed by contemporary scholars as paranoia and anger over the assassination.
According to Aristotle, however, it was Thessalos, the hot-headed son of Peisistratus' Argive concubine, and thus half-brother to Hipparchus, who was the one to court Harmodius and drive off his sister.[4]
The assassination[edit]
The plot – to be carried out by means of daggers hidden in the ceremonial myrtle wreaths on the occasion of the Panathenaic Games – involved a number of other co-conspirators. Thucydides claims that "this was the only day on which it was possible for the citizens who formed the parade to assemble armed without arousing suspicion".[5][verification needed] Aristotle disagrees, asserting that the custom of bearing weapons was introduced later, by the democracy.[6]
Seeing one of the co-conspirators greet Hippias in a friendly manner on the assigned day, the two thought themselves betrayed and rushed into action, ruining the carefully laid plans. They managed to kill Hipparchus, stabbing him to death as he was organizing the Panathenaean processions at the foot of the Acropolis. Herodotus expresses surprise at this event, asserting that Hipparchus had received a clear warning concerning his fate in a dream.[1] Harmodius was killed on the spot by spearmen of Hipparchus' guards, while Aristogeiton was arrested shortly thereafter. Upon being told of the event, Hippias, feigning calm, ordered the marching Greeks to lay down their ceremonial weapons and to gather at an indicated spot. All those with concealed weapons or under suspicion were arrested, gaining Hippias a respite from the uprising.
Thucydides' identification of Hippias as the two's purported main target, rather than Hipparchus who was Aristogeiton's rival erastes, has been suggested as a possible indication of bias on his part.[7]
Aristogeiton's torture[edit]
Aristotle in the Constitution of Athens preserves a tradition that Aristogeiton died only after being tortured in the hope that he would reveal the names of the other conspirators. During his ordeal, personally overseen by Hippias, he feigned willingness to betray his co-conspirators, claiming only Hippias' handshake as guarantee of safety. Upon receiving the tyrant's hand he is reputed to have berated him for shaking the hand of his own brother's murderer, upon which the tyrant wheeled and struck him down on the spot.[8]
Leæna[edit]
Likewise, there is a tradition that Aristogeiton (or Harmodius)[9] was in love with a courtesan (see hetaera) by the name of Leæna (Λέαινα – meaning lioness) who also was kept by Hippias under torture – in a vain attempt to force her to divulge the names of the other conspirators – until she died. One version holds that previous to being tortured she had bitten off her tongue, afraid that her resolve would break from the pain of the torture. Another is that the Athenians, unwilling to honour a courtesan, placed a statue of a lioness without a tongue in the vestibule of the Acropolis simply to honor her fortitude in maintaining silence.[10][11][12]The statue was made by the sculptor Amphicrates.[13] It was also in her honor that Athenian statues of Aphrodite were from then on accompanied by stone lionesses [after Pausanias].[14]
Aftermath[edit]
His brother's murder led Hippias to establish an even stricter dictatorship, which proved very unpopular and was overthrown, with the help of an army from Sparta, in 508. This was followed by the reforms of Cleisthenes, who established a democracy in Athens.
Apotheosis[edit]
Subsequent history came to identify the figures of Harmodius and Aristogeiton as martyrs to the cause of Athenian freedom, possibly for political and class reasons, and they became known as "the Liberators" (eleutherioi) and "the Tyrannicides" (tyrannophonoi).[15] According to later writers, descendants of Harmodius and Aristogeiton's families were given hereditary privileges, such as sitesis (the right to take meals at public expense in the town hall), ateleia(exemption from certain religious duties), and proedria (front-row seats in the theater).[16]
A number of years after the event, it had become a received tradition among the Athenians to believe that Hipparchus was the elder of the brothers, and to fashion him as the tyrant.[17]
Statues and artistic depictions[edit]
After the establishment of democracy, Cleisthenes commissioned the sculptor Antenor to produce a bronze[18] statue group of Harmodius and Aristogeiton. It was the first commission of its kind, and the very first statue to be paid for out of public funds, as the two were the first Greeks considered by their countrymen worthy of having statues raised to them.[19] According to Pliny the Elder, it was erected in the Kerameikos in 509,[20] as part of a cenotaph of the heroes. However, a far more probable location is in the Agora at Athens, and many later authors such as Pausanius and Timaeus attest to this. Annual offerings (enagismata) were presented there by the polemarch, the Athenian minister of war.[21] There it stood alone as special laws prohibited the erection of any other statues in their vicinity. Upon its base was inscribed a verse by the poet Simonides:
| “ | A marvelous great light shone upon Athens when Aristogeiton and Harmodios slew Hipparchus.[22] | ” |
The statue was taken as war booty in 480 BC by Xerxes I during the early Greco-Persian Wars and installed by him at Susa. As soon as the Greeks vanquished the Persians at Salamis, a new statue was commissioned. It was sculpted this time by Kritios and Nesiotes, and set up in 477/476 BC.[23][24] It is the one which served as template for the group we possess today, which was found in the ruins of Hadrian's villa and is now in Naples. According to Arrian,[25] when Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire, in 330, he discovered the statue at Susa and had it shipped back to Athens.[26] When the statue, on its journey back, arrived at Rhodes it was given divine honors.[27]
Several comments of the ancients regarding the statue have come down to us. When asked, in the presence of Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, which type of bronze was the best, Antiphon the Sophist replied,
| “ | That of which the Athenians made the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton."[28] | ” |
Lycurgus, in his oration against Leocrates, asserts that,
| “ | In the rest of Greece you will find statues erected in the public places to the conquerors in the games, but amongst you they are dedicated only to good generals, and to those who have destroyed tyrants.[29] | ” |
Other sculptors made statues of the heroes, such as Praxiteles, who made two, also of bronze.[30]
The statue group has been seen, in modern times, as an invitation to identify erotically and politically with the figures, and to become oneself a tyrannicide. According to Andrew Stewart, the statue
| “ | not only placed the homoerotic bond at the core of Athenian political freedom, but asserted that it and the manly virtues (aretai) of courage, boldness and self-sacrifice that it generated were the only guarantors of that freedom’s continued existence.[31] | ” |
The configuration of the group is duplicated on a painted vase, a Panathenaic amphora from 400,[32] and on a bas-relief on the Elgin throne, dated to ca. 300.[33]
Skolia[edit]
Another tribute to the two heroes was a hymn (skolion) praising them for restoring isonomia (equal distribution of justice) to the Athenians. The skolion may be referred to 500 BC or thereabouts,[34] and is ascribed to Callistratus, an Athenian poet known only for this work. It is preserved by Athenaeus.[35] Its popularity was such that
| “ | at every banquet, nay, in the streets and in the meanest assembly of the common people, that convivial ode was daily sung,[36] | ” |
When sung, the singer would hold a branch of myrtle in his hand.[37] This ode has been translated by many modern poets such as Edgar Allan Poe, who composed his Hymn to Aristogeiton and Harmodius in 1827.[38] The following translation was judged to be the best and most faithful of a number of versions attempted in Victorian England.[39]
Other skolia existed, of which a few have survived, such as the following:
Importance to the erastes-eromenos tradition[edit]
The story of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, and its treatment by later Greek writers, is illustrative of attitudes to pederasty in ancient Greece. Both Thucydides and Herodotus describe the two as lovers, their love affair was styled as moderate (sophron) and legitimate (dikaios).[42] Further confirming the status of the two as paragons of pederastic ethics, a domain forbidden to slaves, a law was passed prohibiting slaves from being named after the two heroes.[43]
The story continued to be cited as an admirable example of heroism and devotion for many years. In 346 BC, for example, the politician Timarchus was prosecuted (for political reasons) on the grounds that he had prostituted himself as a youth. The orator who defended him, Demosthenes, cited Harmodius and Aristogeiton, as well as Achilles and Patroclus, as examples of the beneficial effects of same-sex relationships.[44] Aeschines offers them as an example of dikaios erōs, "just love", and as proof of the boons such love brings the lovers – who were both improved by love beyond all praise – as well as to the city.[45]
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