The Classical World Part 1

The Cla.s.sical World.

by ROBIN LANE FOX.

Preface.

It is a challenge to be asked to write a history of some nine hundred years, especially when the evidence is so scattered and diverse, but it is a challenge which I have enjoyed. I have not a.s.sumed a familiarity with the subject but I hope that readers who do or do not have one will be drawn in and retained by what I have had s.p.a.ce to discuss. My hope is that they will leave it, as I have, with a sense of how this history varied but can still be made to hang together. I also hope that there will be parts which they will want to pursue, especially the many which I have had to compress.

I have not followed the conventional thematic presentation of cla.s.sical civilization which discusses a topic ('a gendered world', 'getting a living') across a thousand years in a single chapter. For theoretical reasons, I have chosen a form with a framework of narrative. I believe that changing relations of power, sharply changed by events, changed the meaning and context of most of these themes and that these changes are lost by taking the easy thematic short-cut. My approach is shared in contemporary areas of medical thinking ('evidence based medicine'), the social sciences ('critical juncture theory') and literary studies ('discourse a.n.a.lysis'). I owe it, rather, to the hard old historical method of putting questions to evidence, reading with it (not against it) in order to bring out more of what it says and constantly retaining a sense of turning points and crucial decisions whose results were shaped, but not predetermined, by their context.

I have had to make hard choices and say little on areas where I feel I know most. One side of me still looks to Homer, another to the still-green orchards near Lefkadia in Macedonia where my vaulted tomb, painted with my three great horses, sixty-petalled roses, Bactrian dancing girls and apparently mythical women awaits discovery by the skilled ephors of the Greek Archaeological Service in 2056. I have chosen to give slightly more s.p.a.ce to narrative for one cardinal era, the years from 60 to 19 BC BC, not only because they are of such significance for the role of my a.s.sumed reader, the Emperor Hadrian. They are so dramatic, even to my post-Macedonian eye. They also attach initially to the letters of Cicero, the inexhaustible reward for all historians of the ancient world.

I am extremely grateful to Fiona Greenland for her expert help with ill.u.s.trations. The jacket was the publisher's choice, but the descriptions of the ill.u.s.trations are otherwise mostly mine. I am also very grateful to Stuart Proffitt for comments on the first part which forced me to go back over it, and to Elizabeth Stratford for expert copy-editing and correction. Above all, I am grateful to two former pupils who turned a ma.n.u.script into discs, Luke Streatfeild initially and especially Tamsin c.o.x whose skill and patience have been this book's essential support.

Robin Lane Fox New College, Oxford

Hadrian and the Cla.s.sical World

The following was [resolved]... by the council and people of the citizens of Thyatira: to inscribe this decree on a stone stele and to place it on the Acropolis (at Athens)so that it may [be] evident to all the Greeks how much Thyatira has received from the greatest of kings since... he (Hadrian) benefited all the Greeks in common when he summoned, as a gift to one and all, a council from among them to the most brilliant city of Athens, the Benefactress... and when, on his proposal, the [Romans] approved [this] most venerable Panh.e.l.lenion [by decree] of the Senate and individually he [gave] the tribes and the cities a share in this most honourable Council...

Inscribed decree, c. c. AD 119/20, AD 119/20, found at Athens, concerning Hadrian's Panh.e.l.lenion The 'cla.s.sical world' is the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, some forty lifetimes before our own but still able to challenge us by a humanity shared with ours. The word 'cla.s.sical' is itself of ancient origin: it derives from the Latin word cla.s.sicus cla.s.sicus which referred to recruits of the 'first cla.s.s', the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The 'cla.s.sical', then, is 'first cla.s.s', though it is no longer heavily armoured. The Greeks and Romans did borrow from many other cultures, Iranian, Levantine, Egyptian or Jewish among others. Their story connects at times with these parallel stories, but it is their own art and literature, thought, philosophy and political life which are correctly regarded as 'first cla.s.s' in their world and ours. which referred to recruits of the 'first cla.s.s', the heavy infantry in the Roman army. The 'cla.s.sical', then, is 'first cla.s.s', though it is no longer heavily armoured. The Greeks and Romans did borrow from many other cultures, Iranian, Levantine, Egyptian or Jewish among others. Their story connects at times with these parallel stories, but it is their own art and literature, thought, philosophy and political life which are correctly regarded as 'first cla.s.s' in their world and ours.

In this world's long history, two periods and places came to be seen as particularly cla.s.sical: Athens in the fifth- and fourth-century BC BC was one, while the other was Rome from the first century was one, while the other was Rome from the first century BC BC to to AD AD 14, the world of Julius Caesar and then Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The ancients themselves shared this perspective. By the time of Alexander the Great they already recognized, as we still do, that particular dramatists at Athens in the fifth century 14, the world of Julius Caesar and then Augustus, the first Roman emperor. The ancients themselves shared this perspective. By the time of Alexander the Great they already recognized, as we still do, that particular dramatists at Athens in the fifth century BC BC had written 'cla.s.sic' plays. In the h.e.l.lenistic age ( had written 'cla.s.sic' plays. In the h.e.l.lenistic age (c. 33030 33030 BC BC) artists and architects adopted a cla.s.sicizing style which looked back to the cla.s.sical arts of the fifth century. Then Rome, in the late first century BC BC, became a centre of cla.s.sicizing art and taste, while cla.s.sical Greek, especially Athenian Greek, was exalted as good taste against 'Eastern' excesses of style. Subsequent Roman emperors endorsed this cla.s.sical taste and as time pa.s.sed, added another 'cla.s.sic' age: the era of the Emperor Augustus, their Empire's founding figure.

My history of the cla.s.sical world begins from a pre-cla.s.sical cla.s.sic, the epic poet Homer whom the ancients, like all modern readers, acknowledge as simply in a cla.s.s of his own. His poems are the first written Greek literature to survive. From then onwards, I shall explore how cla.s.sical Greece of the fifth and fourth centuries BC BC evolved and what it stood for, up to four hundred years after Homer's (probable) date ( evolved and what it stood for, up to four hundred years after Homer's (probable) date (c. 730 730 BC BC). I then turn to Rome and the emergence of its own cla.s.sical age, from Julius Caesar to Augustus (c. 50 50 BC BC to to AD AD 14). My history ends with the reign of Hadrian, the Roman emperor from 14). My history ends with the reign of Hadrian, the Roman emperor from AD AD 117 to 138, just before the first surviving use of the term 'cla.s.sics' to describe the best authors: it is attested in the conversation of Fronto, tutor to the children of Hadrian's successor in Rome. 117 to 138, just before the first surviving use of the term 'cla.s.sics' to describe the best authors: it is attested in the conversation of Fronto, tutor to the children of Hadrian's successor in Rome.1 But why choose to stop with Hadrian? One reason is that 'cla.s.sical literature' ends in his reign, just as it began with Homer: in Latin, the satirical poet Juvenal is its last widely recognized representative. But this reason is rather arbitrary, formed by a canon which is hard for those to share who read forward into later authors and who approach the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries AD AD with an open mind. A more relevant reason is that Hadrian himself was the emperor with the most evident cla.s.sicizing tastes. They are seen in his plans for the city of Athens and in many of the buildings which he patronized, and in aspects of his personal style. He himself looked back self-consciously on a cla.s.sical world, although by his lifetime what we call the 'Roman world' had been pacified and greatly extended. Hadrian is a landmark, too, because he is the one emperor who acquired a first-hand view of this world, one we would dearly like to share. In the 120s and early 130s he set out on several grand tours of an Empire which extended from Britain to the Red Sea. He spent time in Athens, its cla.s.sical centre. He travelled by ship and on horseback, a seasoned rider in his mid-forties who revelled in local opportunities for hunting. He went far afield to lands under Roman rule which no 'cla.s.sical' Athenian had ever visited. We are unusually able to follow his progress because we have the specially commissioned coins which were struck to commemorate his journeys. Even in uncla.s.sical places, they are vivid witnesses to Hadrian and his contemporaries' sense of an admired cla.s.sical past. with an open mind. A more relevant reason is that Hadrian himself was the emperor with the most evident cla.s.sicizing tastes. They are seen in his plans for the city of Athens and in many of the buildings which he patronized, and in aspects of his personal style. He himself looked back self-consciously on a cla.s.sical world, although by his lifetime what we call the 'Roman world' had been pacified and greatly extended. Hadrian is a landmark, too, because he is the one emperor who acquired a first-hand view of this world, one we would dearly like to share. In the 120s and early 130s he set out on several grand tours of an Empire which extended from Britain to the Red Sea. He spent time in Athens, its cla.s.sical centre. He travelled by ship and on horseback, a seasoned rider in his mid-forties who revelled in local opportunities for hunting. He went far afield to lands under Roman rule which no 'cla.s.sical' Athenian had ever visited. We are unusually able to follow his progress because we have the specially commissioned coins which were struck to commemorate his journeys. Even in uncla.s.sical places, they are vivid witnesses to Hadrian and his contemporaries' sense of an admired cla.s.sical past.2 These coins show a personified image of each province of Hadrian's Roman Empire, whether or not it had had a cla.s.sical age. They show uncla.s.sical Germany as a bare-breasted female warrior and uncla.s.sical Spain as a lady reclining on the ground: she holds a large olive-branch, symbol of Spain's excellent olive oil, with a rabbit beside her, Spanish rabbits being notoriously prolific. Most of Spain and all of Germany had been unknown to Greeks in the first cla.s.sical age, but the fine pictures on these coins connect them to cla.s.sical taste because they portray them in an elegant cla.s.sicizing style. Behind Hadrian's taste and the 'Hadrianic School' of artists who designed these images lies a cla.s.sical world which they themselves were acknowledging. It was based on the cla.s.sical art of the Greeks four or five hundred years earlier, examples of which could be admired conveniently by Romans because previous Romans had plundered them and brought them back to their own homes and cities.

These grand tours to Greece or Egypt, the west coast of Asia or Sicily and Libya gave Hadrian the chance of a global, cla.s.sical overview. He stopped at so many of the great sites of its past, but he was particularly respectful of Athens. He regarded it as a 'free' city and made it the spectacular beneficiary of his gifts, one of which was a grand 'library', with a hundred pillars of rare marble. He completed its enormous temple to the Olympian G.o.d Zeus which had been begun six centuries earlier but never finished. It was surely Hadrian who encouraged the new venture of an all-Greek synod, or Panh.e.l.lenion, excelling even the cla.s.sical Athenian statesman Pericles.3 From all over the Greek world, delegates were to meet in Athens, and were to hold a great festival of the arts and athletics every four years. Past Athenians had been credited with Panh.e.l.lenic projects, but this one was to be incomparably grand. From all over the Greek world, delegates were to meet in Athens, and were to hold a great festival of the arts and athletics every four years. Past Athenians had been credited with Panh.e.l.lenic projects, but this one was to be incomparably grand.

Those who idealize the past tend not to understand it: restoration kills it with kindness. Hadrian certainly shared the traditional pleasures of past Greek aristocrats and kings. He loved hunting as they had; he loved his horse, the gallant Borysthenes whom he honoured with verses on his death in southern Gaul;4 above all, he loved the young male Antinous, a spectacular instance of 'Greek love'. When Antinous died prematurely, Hadrian built a new city in his honour in Egypt and encouraged his cult as a G.o.d throughout his Empire. Not even Alexander the Great had done quite so much for his lifelong male love, Hephaestion. Like Hadrian's distinctive beard, these elements of Hadrian's life were rooted in previous Greek culture. But he could never be a cla.s.sical Greek himself, because so much around him had changed since the Athens of the great cla.s.sics, let alone since the pre-cla.s.sical Homer. above all, he loved the young male Antinous, a spectacular instance of 'Greek love'. When Antinous died prematurely, Hadrian built a new city in his honour in Egypt and encouraged his cult as a G.o.d throughout his Empire. Not even Alexander the Great had done quite so much for his lifelong male love, Hephaestion. Like Hadrian's distinctive beard, these elements of Hadrian's life were rooted in previous Greek culture. But he could never be a cla.s.sical Greek himself, because so much around him had changed since the Athens of the great cla.s.sics, let alone since the pre-cla.s.sical Homer.

The most audible change was the spread of language. Almost a thousand years earlier, in Homer's youth, Greek had been only a spoken language without an alphabet, and was only used by people from Greece and the Aegean. Latin, too, had been only a spoken language, at home in a small part of Italy, Latium, around Rome. But Hadrian spoke and read both languages, although his family traced back on both sides to southern Spain and his father's estates lay just to the north of modern Seville, miles from Athens and Latium. Hadrian's ancestors had settled in Spain as Latin-speaking Italians, rewarded for service in the Roman army nearly three hundred years before his birth. Of Latin-speaking descent, Hadrian was not 'Spanish' in any cultural sense. He himself had been brought up in Rome and favoured the archaic style of Latin prose. Like other educated Romans, he also spoke Greek: he was even known as a 'Greekling' because his pa.s.sion for Greek literature was so strong. So far from being Spanish, Hadrian was proof of the common cla.s.sicizing culture which now bound together the emperor's educated cla.s.s. It was based on the cla.s.sical homelands of the Greek and Latin language but it extended way beyond their boundaries. As Homer never could, Hadrian could pa.s.s through Syria or Egypt speaking Greek and he could also travel far away into Britain, speaking Latin.

His cla.s.sicizing mind surveyed a world of quite a different scale to Homer's. In the first cla.s.sical age, Athens, at its height, had contained perhaps 300,000 residents in its Attic territory, including slaves. By Hadrian's day, the Roman Empire is estimated (no more) to have had a population of about 60 million, extending from Scotland to Spain, from Spain to Armenia. No other empire, before or since, has ruled this great span of territory, but, on our modern scale, its total population was no greater than modern Britain's. It was concentrated in patches, maybe as many as 8 million in Egypt,5 where the river Nile and the grain harvest supported such a density, and at least a million, perhaps, in the mega-city of Rome which was also fed and supported by Egypt's harvests and its exported grain. Outside these two points, whole swathes of Hadrian's Empire were very thinly populated by our standards. Nonetheless, they required, in every province, detachments of the Roman army to keep the peace. Hadrian favoured many cities on his travels, but he also had to rule large areas which only had villages, not cla.s.sicizing towns at all. Where necessary, he ordered large stretches of walling to regulate peoples beyond the Empire, a most uncla.s.sical project. The most famous is Hadrian's Wall, in northern Britain, running from Wallsend near Newcastle westwards to Bowness. A ma.s.sive barrier, it was ten feet thick and fourteen feet high, partly faced in stone with 'intercastles' every mile, two signalling turrets between them and a ditch on the north side, ten feet deep and thirty feet wide. There were other 'Hadrian's walls' too, though nowadays they are less famous. In north Africa, beyond the Aures mountains of modern Tunisia, Hadrian approved stretches of walling and ditching which were to control contacts with the nomadic peoples of the desert along a frontier of some 150 miles. In north-west Europe, in upper Germany, he well understood the danger: here, he 'shut off the barbarians by tall stakes fixed deeply into the ground and fastened together like a palisade'. where the river Nile and the grain harvest supported such a density, and at least a million, perhaps, in the mega-city of Rome which was also fed and supported by Egypt's harvests and its exported grain. Outside these two points, whole swathes of Hadrian's Empire were very thinly populated by our standards. Nonetheless, they required, in every province, detachments of the Roman army to keep the peace. Hadrian favoured many cities on his travels, but he also had to rule large areas which only had villages, not cla.s.sicizing towns at all. Where necessary, he ordered large stretches of walling to regulate peoples beyond the Empire, a most uncla.s.sical project. The most famous is Hadrian's Wall, in northern Britain, running from Wallsend near Newcastle westwards to Bowness. A ma.s.sive barrier, it was ten feet thick and fourteen feet high, partly faced in stone with 'intercastles' every mile, two signalling turrets between them and a ditch on the north side, ten feet deep and thirty feet wide. There were other 'Hadrian's walls' too, though nowadays they are less famous. In north Africa, beyond the Aures mountains of modern Tunisia, Hadrian approved stretches of walling and ditching which were to control contacts with the nomadic peoples of the desert along a frontier of some 150 miles. In north-west Europe, in upper Germany, he well understood the danger: here, he 'shut off the barbarians by tall stakes fixed deeply into the ground and fastened together like a palisade'.6 Global walling had never been part of the cla.s.sical past. In the age of Athens' greatness, let alone of Homer's, there had never been a single ruler like Hadrian, an emperor, nor a standing army, like Rome's, of some 500,000 soldiers throughout the Empire. In the cla.s.sical age of Rome, the mid-first century BC BC, there had not yet been an emperor or standing army, either. Hadrian was heir to historical changes which had transformed Roman history. Hadrian respected the cla.s.sical Greek and Roman past and, wherever he went, he visited great relics of it, but did he understand the context in which it had once belonged, how it had evolved and how his own role as emperor had come about?

Certainly, Hadrian was famous for a love of 'curiosities' and an exploration of them.7 On his travels, he climbed volcanic Etna in Sicily and other conspicuous mountains; he consulted ancient oracles of the G.o.ds; he visited the tourist wonders of long-dead ancient Egypt. With a tourist's mind, he was also a cultural magpie who stored and imitated what he saw. Back in Italy, near Tivoli, he built himself an enormous, straggling villa whose features alluded explicitly to great cultural monuments of the ancient Greek past. Hadrian's villa was a vast theme-park which included buildings evocative of Alexandria and cla.s.sical Athens. On his travels, he climbed volcanic Etna in Sicily and other conspicuous mountains; he consulted ancient oracles of the G.o.ds; he visited the tourist wonders of long-dead ancient Egypt. With a tourist's mind, he was also a cultural magpie who stored and imitated what he saw. Back in Italy, near Tivoli, he built himself an enormous, straggling villa whose features alluded explicitly to great cultural monuments of the ancient Greek past. Hadrian's villa was a vast theme-park which included buildings evocative of Alexandria and cla.s.sical Athens.8 At this villa, after his beloved Antinous' death, he turned to writing his own autobiography. Almost nothing of it survives, but we can guess that it would have combined affectionate tributes to his male lover with a furtherance of his own urbane self-image. Hadrian was interested by philosophy and perhaps, in an Epicurean manner, he would have consoled himself against the fear of death.9 What he would not have done was to a.n.a.lyse the historical changes behind all that he had seen on his travels, from Homer to cla.s.sical Athens, from Alexander the Great's great Alexandria to the former splendours of Carthage (a city which he renamed Hadrianopolis after himself). Hadrian took the first emperor, Augustus, as his role-model, but he never seems to have wondered how Augustus' one-man rule had imposed itself on Rome after more than four hundred years of highly prized liberty. What he would not have done was to a.n.a.lyse the historical changes behind all that he had seen on his travels, from Homer to cla.s.sical Athens, from Alexander the Great's great Alexandria to the former splendours of Carthage (a city which he renamed Hadrianopolis after himself). Hadrian took the first emperor, Augustus, as his role-model, but he never seems to have wondered how Augustus' one-man rule had imposed itself on Rome after more than four hundred years of highly prized liberty.

This book aims to answer these questions for Hadrian and the many who are heirs to his sort of engagement, who travel in the cla.s.sical world, who look at cla.s.sical sites and who like to acknowledge that a 'cla.s.sical age' existed, even among the competing claims of ever more cultures around the world. It is a choice of highlights and it has least to say on subjects which would have concerned Hadrian least: the range of Greek kingdoms after Alexander the Great and, above all, the years of the Roman Republic between its sack of Carthage (146 BC BC) and the reforms of the dictator Sulla (81/0 BC BC). By contrast, the Athens of Pericles and Socrates and the Rome of Caesar and Augustus claim the limelight, as 'cla.s.sical' points in the past to which Hadrian attached himself.

Historians in Hadrian's own Empire were not unaware of the changes since these eras. Some of them tried to explain them, and their answers did not simply list military victories and members of Rome's imperial family. Part of the story of the cla.s.sical world is the invention and development of history-writing itself. Nowadays, historians try to apply sophisticated theories to the understanding of these changes, economics and sociology, geography and ecology, theories of cla.s.s and gender, the power of symbols or demographic models for populations and their age groups. In antiquity, these theories of ours were not explicit, or did not even exist. Instead, historians had favourite themes of their own, of which three were particularly prominent: freedom, justice and luxury. Our modern theories can deepen these ancient explanatory themes, but they do not entirely supplant them. I have chosen to emphasize these three because they were in the minds of the actors at the time and a part of the way in which events were seen, even when they do not suffice for our understanding of historical change.

Each of them is a flexible concept whose scope varies. Freedom, for us, entails choice and, for many people nowadays, implies autonomy or a power of independent decision. 'Autonomy' is a word invented by the ancient Greeks, but for them it had a clear political context: it began as the word for a community's self-government, a protected degree of freedom in the face of an outside power which was strong enough to infringe it. Its first surviving application to an individual is to a woman, Antigone, in drama.10 Freedom, too, was a political value, but it was sharpened everywhere by its opposite status, slavery. From Homer onwards, communities valued freedom in the face of enemies who would otherwise enslave them. Within a community, freedom then became a value of political const.i.tutions: alternatives were denounced as 'slavery'. Above all, freedom was the prized status of individuals, marking them off from slaves who were to be bought and sold. But, outside slavery, in what did an individual's freedom consist? Did it require freedom of speech or freedom to worship whatever G.o.ds one chose? Was it the freedom to live as one pleased, or simply a freedom from interference? When did 'liberty' become wicked 'licence'? These questions had all been discussed by the time of Hadrian, who was hailed both as a liberator and as a G.o.d by Greeks among his subjects. Freedom, too, was a political value, but it was sharpened everywhere by its opposite status, slavery. From Homer onwards, communities valued freedom in the face of enemies who would otherwise enslave them. Within a community, freedom then became a value of political const.i.tutions: alternatives were denounced as 'slavery'. Above all, freedom was the prized status of individuals, marking them off from slaves who were to be bought and sold. But, outside slavery, in what did an individual's freedom consist? Did it require freedom of speech or freedom to worship whatever G.o.ds one chose? Was it the freedom to live as one pleased, or simply a freedom from interference? When did 'liberty' become wicked 'licence'? These questions had all been discussed by the time of Hadrian, who was hailed both as a liberator and as a G.o.d by Greeks among his subjects.

The concept of justice had been no less contested. It was claimed by rulers, including Hadrian, and even in the age of Homer it was ascribed to idealized 'just' communities. Did the G.o.ds care for it or was the hard truth that justice was not a value which shaped their dealings with mortals? What was justice, philosophers had long wondered; was it 'giving each his due' or was it receiving one's deserts, perhaps because of behaviour in a previous life? Was equality just, and if so, what sort of equality? The 'same for one and all' or a 'proportional equality', which varied according to each person's riches or social cla.s.s?11 What system guaranteed it, one of laws applied by juries of randomly chosen citizens or one of laws applied and created by a single judge, a governor perhaps or the emperor himself? Much of Hadrian's own energy was spent on judging and answering pet.i.tions, the process through which we know him best. His answers to cities and subjects in his Empire sometimes survive where recipients inscribed them on stone. What system guaranteed it, one of laws applied by juries of randomly chosen citizens or one of laws applied and created by a single judge, a governor perhaps or the emperor himself? Much of Hadrian's own energy was spent on judging and answering pet.i.tions, the process through which we know him best. His answers to cities and subjects in his Empire sometimes survive where recipients inscribed them on stone.12 Others of his rulings survive in Latin collections of legal opinions. There is even a separate collection of Hadrian's own 'opinions' which were his answers to pet.i.tioners and were preserved as school exercises for translation into Greek. Others of his rulings survive in Latin collections of legal opinions. There is even a separate collection of Hadrian's own 'opinions' which were his answers to pet.i.tioners and were preserved as school exercises for translation into Greek.13 In the cla.s.sical Greek age, no Pericles or Demosthenes had answered pet.i.tions or given responses with the force of law. In the cla.s.sical Greek age, no Pericles or Demosthenes had answered pet.i.tions or given responses with the force of law.

Like justice and freedom, luxury was a term with a very flexible history. Where exactly does luxury begin? According to the novelist Edith Wharton, luxury is the acquisition of something which one does not need, but where do 'needs' end? For the fashion-designer Coco Chanel, luxury was a more positive value, whose opposite, she used to say, is not poverty, but vulgarity; in her view, 'luxury is not showy'. Certainly, it invites double standards. Throughout history, from Homer to Hadrian, laws were pa.s.sed to limit it and thinkers saw it as soft or corrupting or even as socially subversive. But the range of luxury and the demands for it went on multiplying despite the voices attacking it. Around luxury we can write a history of cultural change, enhanced by archaeology which gives us proofs of its extent, whether the bits of blue lapis lazuli imported in the pre-Homeric world (by origin, all from north-east Afghanistan) or rubies in the Near East imported after Alexander (they are shown, by a.n.a.lysis, to have come ultimately from unknown Burma).

By the time of the cla.s.sicizing Hadrian, the political freedoms of the past cla.s.sical age had diminished. Justice, to our eyes, had become much less fair, but luxuries, from foods to furnishings, had proliferated. How did these changes occur and how, if at all, do they interrelate? Their setting had been intensely political, as the context of power and political rights changed tumultuously across the generations, to a degree which sets this era apart from the centuries of monarchy or oligarchy in so much subsequent history. If this era is studied thematically, through chapters on 's.e.x' or 'armies' or 'the city-state', it is reduced to a false, static unity and 'culture' is detached from its formative context, the contested, changing relations of power. So this history follows the threads of a changing story, within which its three main themes have a changing resonance. Sometimes it is a history of great decisions, taken by (male) individuals but always in a setting of thousands of individual lives. Some of these lives, off the 'grand narrative', are known to us from words which people inscribed on durable materials, the lives of victorious athletes or fond owners of named racehorses, the lady in Alexander the Great's home town who had a curse written out against her hoped-for lover and his preferred Thetima ('may he marry n.o.body except me'), or the sad owner of a piglet which had trotted by his chariot all the way down the road to Thessalonica, only to be run over at Edessa and killed in an accident at the crossroads.14 Scores of these individuals surface yearly in newly studied Greek and Latin inscriptions whose surviving fragments stretch scholars' skills, but whose contents enhance the diversity of the ancient world. From Homer to Hadrian, our knowledge of the cla.s.sical world is not standing still, and this book is an attempt to follow its highways as Hadrian, its great global traveller, never did. Scores of these individuals surface yearly in newly studied Greek and Latin inscriptions whose surviving fragments stretch scholars' skills, but whose contents enhance the diversity of the ancient world. From Homer to Hadrian, our knowledge of the cla.s.sical world is not standing still, and this book is an attempt to follow its highways as Hadrian, its great global traveller, never did.

PART ONE.

The Archaic Greek World.

In Mainland Greece, the Archaic Age was a time of extreme personal insecurity. The tiny overpopulated states were just beginning to struggle up out of the misery and impoverishment left behind by the Dorian invasions when fresh trouble arose: whole cla.s.ses were ruined by the great economic crisis of the seventh century, and this in turn was followed by the great political conflicts of the sixth, which translated the economic crisis into terms of murderous cla.s.s warfare... Nor is it accidental that in this age the doom overhanging the rich and powerful becomes so popular a theme with the poets...

E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational The Greeks and the Irrational (1951), 545 (1951), 545 The close personal a.s.sociation of the upper cla.s.ses at this time was a tremendous force in promoting the lightning swiftness of contemporary change; in intellectual outlook the upper cla.s.ses seem scarcely to have boggled at any novelty. With remarkable openness of mind and lack of prejudice they supported the cultural expansion which underlay cla.s.sical achievements and much of later western civilization. Great ma.s.ses of superst.i.tion and magic trailed down into historic times from the primitive Dark Ages... That past, as exemplified in the epics, was not dismissed in its most fundamental aspects, but writers, artists and thinkers felt free to explore and enlarge their horizons. The proximate cause, without doubt, was the aristocratic domination of life.

Chester G. Starr, The Economic and Social Growth The Economic and Social Growth of Early Greece, 800500 BC BC (1977), 144 (1977), 144

1.

Homeric Epic.

So Priam spoke, and he roused in Achilles the desire to lament his father: Achilles took his hand, and pushed the old man gently away. And the two of them remembered: one wept aloud for Hector slayer of men, crouched before the feet of Achilles, but Achilles wept for his own father and then, too, for Patroclus...Homer, Iliad Iliad 24.50711 24.50711 Travelling in Greece, Hadrian stopped at its most famous oracle, Delphi, in the year AD AD 125, and asked its G.o.d the most difficult question: where was Homer born and who were his parents? The ancients themselves would say, 'let us begin from Homer', and there are excellent reasons why a history of the cla.s.sical world should begin with him too. 125, and asked its G.o.d the most difficult question: where was Homer born and who were his parents? The ancients themselves would say, 'let us begin from Homer', and there are excellent reasons why a history of the cla.s.sical world should begin with him too.

It is not that Homer belongs at the 'dawn' of the Greeks' presence in Greece or at the beginnings of the Greek language. But for us, he is a beginning because his two great epics, the Iliad Iliad and the and the Odyssey Odyssey, are the first long texts in Greek which survive. During the eighth century BC BC (when most scholars date his life), we have our first evidence of the use of the Greek alphabet, the convenient system of writing in which his epic poems were preserved. The earliest example at present is dated to the 770s (when most scholars date his life), we have our first evidence of the use of the Greek alphabet, the convenient system of writing in which his epic poems were preserved. The earliest example at present is dated to the 770s BC BC and, with small variations, this alphabet is still being used for writing modern Greek. Before Homer, much had happened in Greece and the Aegean, but for the previous four centuries nothing had been written down (except, in a small way, on Cyprus). Archaeology is our one source of knowledge about this period, a 'dark age' to us, though it was not 'dark' to those who lived and, with small variations, this alphabet is still being used for writing modern Greek. Before Homer, much had happened in Greece and the Aegean, but for the previous four centuries nothing had been written down (except, in a small way, on Cyprus). Archaeology is our one source of knowledge about this period, a 'dark age' to us, though it was not 'dark' to those who lived in it. Archaeologists have greatly advanced what we know about it, but literacy, based on the alphabet, gives historians a new range of evidence.

Nonetheless, Homer's poems were not histories and were not about his own times. They are about mythical heroes and their doings in and after the Trojan War which the Greeks were represented as fighting in Asia. There had certainly been a great city of Troy ('Ilion') and perhaps there really had been some such war, but Homer's Hector, Achilles and Odysseus are not historical persons. For historians, the value in these great poems is rather different: they show knowledge of a real world, their springboard from which to imagine the grander epic world of legend, and they are evidence of values which are implied as well as stated. They make us think about the values of their first Greek audiences, wherever and whoever they may have been. They also lead us on into the values and mentalities of so many people afterwards in what becomes our 'cla.s.sical' world. For the two Homeric poems, the Iliad Iliad and the and the Odyssey Odyssey, remained the supreme masterpieces. They were admired from their author's own era to Hadrian's and on to the end of antiquity, without interruption. The Iliad Iliad's stories of the Trojan War, the anger of Achilles, his love for Patroclus (not openly said to be s.e.xual) and the death of Hector are still among the most famous myths in the world, while the Odyssey Odyssey's tales of Odysseus' homecoming, his wife Penelope, the Cyclops, Circe and the Sirens are a lasting part of many people's early years. The Iliad Iliad culminates in a great moment of shared human loss and sorrow in the meeting of Achilles and old Priam whose son he has killed. The culminates in a great moment of shared human loss and sorrow in the meeting of Achilles and old Priam whose son he has killed. The Odyssey Odyssey is the first known representation of nostalgia, through Odysseus' longing to return home. Near its end it too brings us an encounter with pitiable old age when Odysseus comes back to his aged father Laertes, tenaciously at work among his orchard of trees, and unwilling to believe that his son is still alive. is the first known representation of nostalgia, through Odysseus' longing to return home. Near its end it too brings us an encounter with pitiable old age when Odysseus comes back to his aged father Laertes, tenaciously at work among his orchard of trees, and unwilling to believe that his son is still alive.

The poems describe a world of heroes who are 'not as mortal men nowadays'. Unlike Greeks in Homer's own age, Homer's heroes wear fabulous armour, keep open company with G.o.ds in human form, use weapons of bronze (not iron, like Homer's contemporaries) and drive in chariots to battle, where they then fight on foot. When Homer describes a town, he includes a palace and a temple together, although they never coexisted in the world of the poet and his audience. He and his hearers certainly did not take his epic 'world' as essentially their own, but slightly grander. Nonetheless, its social customs and settings, particularly those in the Odyssey Odyssey, seem to be too coherent to be the hazy invention of one poet only. An underlying reality has been upheld by comparing the poems' 'world' with more recent pre-literate societies, whether in pre-Islamic Arabia or in tribal life in Nuristan in north-east Afghanistan. There are similarities of practice, but such global comparisons are hard to control, and the more convincing method is to argue for the epics' use of reality by comparing aspects of them with Greek contexts after Homer. The comparisons here are plentiful, from customs of gift-giving which are still prominent in Herodotus' histories (c. 430 430 BC BC) to patterns of prayer or offerings to the G.o.ds which persist in Greek religious practice throughout its history or the values and ideals which shape the Greek tragic dramas composed in fifth-century Athens. As a result, to read Homer is not only to be swept away by pathos and eloquence, irony and n.o.bility: it is to enter into a social and ethical world which was known to major Greek figures after him, whether the poet Sophocles or that great lover of Homer, Alexander the Great. In cla.s.sical Athens in the late fifth century BC BC, the rich and politically conservative general Nicias obliged his son to learn the Homeric epics off by heart. No doubt he was one of several such learners in his social cla.s.s: the heroes' n.o.ble disdain for the ma.s.ses would not have been lost on such young men.

Homer, then, remained important in the cla.s.sical world which came after him. Nonetheless, the Emperor Hadrian is said to have preferred an obscure scholarly poet, Antimachus (c. 400 400 BC BC), who wrote on Homer's life. By beginning with Homer we can correct Hadrian's perversity; what we cannot do is answer his question about Homer's origins.

If the G.o.d at Delphi knew the answer, his prophets were certainly not giving it away. All over the Greek world, cities claimed to be the poet's birthplace, but we know nothing about his life. His epics, the Iliad Iliad and the and the Odyssey Odyssey, were composed in an artificial, poetic dialect which suited their complex metre, the hexameter. The poems' language is rooted in the dialects known as 'east Greek', but a poet could have learned it anywhere: it was a professional aid for hexameter-poets, not an everyday sort of spoken Greek. It is more suggestive that when the Iliad Iliad uses everyday similes, it does sometimes refer to specific places or comparisons in the 'east Greek' world on the western coastline of Asia. These comparisons needed to be familiar to their audience. Perhaps the poet and his first audiences really did live there (in modern Turkey) or on a nearby island. Traditions connected Homer, in due course, with the island of Chios, a part of whose coastline is well described in the uses everyday similes, it does sometimes refer to specific places or comparisons in the 'east Greek' world on the western coastline of Asia. These comparisons needed to be familiar to their audience. Perhaps the poet and his first audiences really did live there (in modern Turkey) or on a nearby island. Traditions connected Homer, in due course, with the island of Chios, a part of whose coastline is well described in the Iliad Iliad. Other traditions connected him strongly with Smyrna (modern zmir) across from Chios on the Asian mainland.

Homer's dates have been equally disputed. Many centuries later, when Greeks tried to date him, they put him at points which equate to our dates between c. c. 1200 and 1200 and c. c. 800 800 BC BC. These dates were much too early, but we have come to know, as their Greek proponents could not, that the Homeric poems did refer back to even older sites and palaces with a history before 1200 BC BC. They describe ancient Troy and they refer to precise places on the island of Crete: they allude to a royal world at Mycenae or Argos in Greece, the seat of King Agamemnon. The Iliad Iliad gives a long and detailed 'catalogue' of the Greek towns which sent troops to Troy; it begins around Thebes in central Greece and includes several place-names unknown in the cla.s.sical world. Archaeologists have recovered the remains of big palaces at Troy (where recent excavations are enlarging our ideas of the site's extent), on Crete and at Mycenae. Recently they have found hundreds of written tablets at Thebes too. We can date these palaces way back into a 'Minoan' age ( gives a long and detailed 'catalogue' of the Greek towns which sent troops to Troy; it begins around Thebes in central Greece and includes several place-names unknown in the cla.s.sical world. Archaeologists have recovered the remains of big palaces at Troy (where recent excavations are enlarging our ideas of the site's extent), on Crete and at Mycenae. Recently they have found hundreds of written tablets at Thebes too. We can date these palaces way back into a 'Minoan' age (c. 20001200 20001200 BC BC) in Crete and 'Mycenaean' palace-age in Greece (c. 1450 1450c. 1200 1200 BC BC). In fact, Thebes, not Mycenae, may now turn out to have been at the centre of it.1 In this 'Mycenaean' age Greek was being quite widely spoken and written in a syllabic script by scribes who worked in the palaces. In this period Greeks were also travelling across to Asia, but not, as far as we know, in one major military expedition. Thanks to archaeology, we are now aware of a long-lost age of splendour, but it was not an age which Homer knew in any detail. The In this 'Mycenaean' age Greek was being quite widely spoken and written in a syllabic script by scribes who worked in the palaces. In this period Greeks were also travelling across to Asia, but not, as far as we know, in one major military expedition. Thanks to archaeology, we are now aware of a long-lost age of splendour, but it was not an age which Homer knew in any detail. The Iliad Iliad's 'catalogue' is the one exception. Even so, he only had oral stories and after five hundred years they had retained none of the social realities. A few Mycenaean details about places and objects were embedded in poetic phrases which he had inherited from illiterate predecessors. The formative years for his main heroic stories were probably c. c. 1050850 1050850 BC BC, when literacy had been lost and no new Greek alphabet existed. As for the social world of his poems, it is based on an age closer to his own time (c. 800750 800750 BC BC): the 'world' of his epics is quite different from anything which the archaeology and scribal writing of the remote 'Mycenaean' palaces suggest.

Nowadays, scholars' dates for Homer himself vary between c. c. 800 800 BC BC and and c. c. 670 670 BC BC. Most of them, myself included, would opt for c. c. 750730 750730 BC BC, and certainly before the poet Hesiod (fl. 710700 710700 BC BC): at least we are almost certain that the Odyssey Odyssey was later than the was later than the Iliad Iliad, whose plot it presupposes. But was there one Homer or two, one for each poem? What we now read has probably been tidied up and added to in places, but at least there was a monumental poet at work. The main plot of each epic is much too coherent for them to have evolved as a sort of 'people's Homer', like a s...o...b..ll over the centuries. Professional reciters, or rhapsodes, did continue to perform the poems in archaic Greece, but they certainly did not create the bulk of them. Unlike Homer, in my view, these reciters had memorized what they performed: they had learned from a text which went back to the main poet's lifetime. I do not believe that Homer himself wrote out his epic: he was, I think, a true oral poet, the heir to other illiterate poets before him. However, he was the first real 'epic' poet, the one who concentrated his very long songs on a single guiding theme. His predecessors, like his lesser followers, would have sung of one episode after another without Homer's gift for large-scale unity. We may even have the plot of one such oral poem before Homer which gives a central role to the hero Memnon from dusky Ethiopia. If he was originally in it, the earliest known Greek heroic song would be about a hero who is black.

During the eighth century the new invention, the alphabet, began to spread in the Greek world. It was not invented in order to write down Homer's great poems, but it was used (possibly by his heirs, and during his lifetime) to preserve them. They were so good that there was a future profit in a text of them. If so, much of what survives is probably the dictated version of the poet himself. The poems are very long (15,689 lines for the Iliad Iliad, 12,110 for the Odyssey Odyssey), but they are unlikely to have attained this length only during his hours of dictation, undertaken to preserve them. They were also too long to be composed for performance at a banquet, as they require two or three days' listening. Arguably, they were first composed for a festival (later Greek festivals are known to have set aside several days for poetic contests, even in Hadrian's day2). As they survive, they do not address any one family of patrons or any one city-state. A big festival would fit this general 'Panh.e.l.lenic' aspect very well: perhaps a Homer who was known to be a prize-winner was given a free run at one such festival, without rival compet.i.tors.

The two epics, the first big Greek poems, do touch already on luxury, freedom and justice. Homer does not use the later Greek word for 'luxury' (truph), nor any word which disapproves of it. Rather, he enhances his grand epic world with descriptions of luxury palaces of gold, silver and bronze. He tells of wonderful silverwork from the Levant, slave-women skilled in working ivory, necklaces of amber beads, textiles and dozens of fine robes, a precious store of value. The treasures of the n.o.bles' clothes chests have perished, but otherwise we can fit some of these luxuries (but not the fantasy palaces) to our increasing archaeological record, especially to items found in contexts of the ninth and eighth centuries BC BC. Homer's heroes and kings are not 'corrupted' by luxury: they fight unforgettably in mortal combat for honour, and like Odysseus they are capable of practical, everyday work with their hands. The luxuries around them are individual items of wonder. It seems that Homer and his hearers are not living in the lap of luxury 'nowadays' and taking it for granted in an effete royal world.

Individual luxuries are very attractive to the women portrayed in the poems: the amber necklaces are particularly tempting. When sold as captives, the women can be luxuries too, costing as much as twenty oxen. But in general, the poems represent women with a courtesy which is quite different from the small farmers' grudging view of women in the near-contemporary poetry of Hesiod. In the Odyssey Odyssey, Penelope and Odysseus really do express their love as a reunited married couple; the great sorrow of Laertes, Odysseus' father, is the previous death of his wife. It is quite untrue, then, that Greeks never imagined that a man might love his wife or that 'romantic love' in the Greek world is always the love of one man for another. Homeric epic is a touching tribute to good marriage. Hesiod, too, does recognize the value of a good wife, rare though she is, but it is he, not Homer, who describes the first-created woman, Pandora, the inadvertent cause of hardship and sickness for all mortal men ever since.

Freedom is also a crucial value for the partic.i.p.ants. Once, in a supreme moment, Hector looks forward to the time when freedom will be celebrated, the 'mixing bowl of freedom', no doubt filled with wine, will be set up and Troy will be 'free', with its enemies defeated. By contrast, there is the 'day of slavery' which takes away most of a man's powers.3 'Freedom', therefore, is a 'freedom from...': from enemies who will kill and enslave a community, and from 'slavery', the condition of absolute subjection in which men are bought and sold like objects. In Hesiod's poetry, too, slaves are a.s.sumed to be a part of the Greek farmer's way of life and a wide range of Greek words describes them. We cannot point back to a time before the cla.s.sical age, when slavery, the ownership of other human beings, did not yet exist among the Greeks. 'Freedom', therefore, is a 'freedom from...': from enemies who will kill and enslave a community, and from 'slavery', the condition of absolute subjection in which men are bought and sold like objects. In Hesiod's poetry, too, slaves are a.s.sumed to be a part of the Greek farmer's way of life and a wide range of Greek words describes them. We cannot point back to a time before the cla.s.sical age, when slavery, the ownership of other human beings, did not yet exist among the Greeks.

The heroes, often kings themselves, may complain about a king or leader, but they do not long to be 'free' from monarchy. They take for granted their own freedom to do much as they please before their own people. n.o.bles might be enslaved and sold by an enemy, but they are not worried about being 'enslaved' to another n.o.ble's will in their own community. Nor are they concerned to uphold free speech for everyone in that community or to grant an equal freedom to people outside their cla.s.s. No public a.s.sembly casts votes in the epic world; no meetings occur by right, whether or not a king or n.o.ble wants to summon one. In the Iliad Iliad, when Odysseus rallies the Greek army he speaks gently and respectfully to the kings and 'people of eminence'. When he finds a man of the people, who is typically 'shouting', he pushes him with his staff and tells him firmly to sit down and attend to his betters. When insolent Thersites dares to insult and criticize King Agamemnon, Odysseus thumps him with his sceptre and brings out a bruise on this ugly, misshapen and unheroic free-speaker. The audience of soldiers bursts into 'sweet laughter' at the sight, although they are also 'vexed': what they are 'vexed' at is the ugly man's outspokenness and all the trouble, not at the way in which the hero has. .h.i.t him.4 The epics present the unchallengeable dominance of a heroic aristocracy. They were not composed as a reaction to a real world in which this dominance was being contested. The epics present the unchallengeable dominance of a heroic aristocracy. They were not composed as a reaction to a real world in which this dominance was being contested.

Nonetheless, justice is a value in its world too, exemplified by the distant 'Abioi', a 'just' people to the north of Troy to whom the G.o.d Zeus looks away for respite from the Trojan War. Paris' theft of fair Helen, Menelaus' wife, is an unjust affront to hospitality and eventually the G.o.ds will punish it. In the Odyssey Odyssey, the G.o.ds explicitly prefer justice to human wrongdoing; in the Iliad Iliad, Zeus is said to send down violent autumn storms to punish 'men who use violence and give crooked rulings in the public meeting places, and drive out justice'.5 Once only, we see a human process of justice in action, and, however we understand its action, it points to possibilities other than a hero's autocratic will. In the eighteenth book of the Once only, we see a human process of justice in action, and, however we understand its action, it points to possibilities other than a hero's autocratic will. In the eighteenth book of the Iliad Iliad, Homer is imagining for us the wonderful scenes which the craftsman-G.o.d Hephaestus is working onto the shield for Achilles. In one part of it, two contestants are shown disputing over the 'recompense' to be made for a dead man. The people cheer them on and have to be held back by heralds. On polished seats of stone the elders sit and join in the process. 'Two talents of gold lie in the middle for whoever speaks the straightest judgement among them.'6 The details of this scene of justice remain mysterious and are therefore disputed. Are the contestants arguing over whether or not a price has been paid for the killing of a man? They are said to wish to reach a conclusion from a 'knowledgeable man', but what, then, are the elders doing in the process? It seems that Homer describes the elders as holding the 'sceptres of heralds': is it the elders who then rush forwards and give judgements 'one after another'? But if so, who is the 'knowledgeable' man? The people seem to be cheering on either party: are they, perhaps, the group who will decide by their shouts which elder is the 'knowledgeable' one and has given the best judgement? The contestants would then have to accept the opinion of the people's favoured speaker. He in turn would receive the 'two talents of gold' on display in the middle of the meeting.

There is no single king in this scene and so it reads like Homer's invention on the model of something seen in his own non-monarchical lifetime. A murder was a spectacular event, of obvious concern to people at large. The people's presence and noisy partic.i.p.ation are certain here, in the oldest surviving scene of the giving of justice in Greek. Homer's audience would surely recognize the details, but one achievement of the next three centuries was to be the bringing of this process under written law before juries who would consist of ordinary people. As we shall see, the 'two talents' were duly removed from the middle of the proceedings, in Athens and many Greek cities and also, at least in theory, from the judicial process at Rome.

2.

The Greeks' Settlements.

On these conditions an agreement was sworn by those who stayed (on Thera) and by those who sailed to found the colony (in Libya) and they invoked curses against those who would not abide by it... They made images of wax and burned them, calling down this curse, everyone a.s.sembled together, men, women, boys and girls: 'Whoever does not abide by this oath but transgresses it shall melt away and dissolve like these images, himself, his descendants and his property. But those who abide by the oath, those sailing to Libya and those staying on Thera, shall have good things in abundance, both themselves and their descendants.'

Oath of the settlers who founded Cyrene, c. 630 BC (as reinscribed, 630 BC (as reinscribed, c. c. 350 BC) 350 BC) In Homer's poems, the main social context for the heroes in their Greek homelands is their palaces. In Homer's lifetime, if we date him after c. c. 760 760 BC BC, no such palaces were to be found in Greece. The last buildings of such epic splendour had been the palaces of the distant 'Mycenaean' age which had come to an abrupt end c. c. 1180 1180 BC BC.

There are hints, however, of a different social context, especially in the Odyssey Odyssey: what we now call the polis polis or the 'city-' or 'citizen-state'. Exactly how and when the or the 'city-' or 'citizen-state'. Exactly how and when the polis polis had arisen remains highly disputed for lack of evidence, except from such archaeology as we so far have. Some modern scholars would see it as the direct heir of the fortified strongholds of the Mycenaean age, round which (on this view) survivors regrouped and formed a new type of community. Others would see it as a later initiative, a part of a wider recovery in levels of population, riches and organization in the ninth century had arisen remains highly disputed for lack of evidence, except from such archaeology as we so far have. Some modern scholars would see it as the direct heir of the fortified strongholds of the Mycenaean age, round which (on this view) survivors regrouped and formed a new type of community. Others would see it as a later initiative, a part of a wider recovery in levels of population, riches and organization in the ninth century BC BC. Others would delay it even later, proposing that the very first poleis poleis were founded in a new phase of settlement overseas: faced with a new start, these settlers invented a new type of social organization, the 'city-state', beginning in Sicily in the 730s were founded in a new phase of settlement overseas: faced with a new start, these settlers invented a new type of social organization, the 'city-state', beginning in Sicily in the 730s BC BC.

Its definition is also rather fluid, varying between a 'settlement' or a 'community', usages which are both well attested in Greek. The distinctive sense of polis polis is, in my view, a 'citizen-state'. The leader of the most recent research group to have specialized in it defines it as 'a small, highly inst.i.tutionalized and self-governing community of citizens, living with their wives and children in an urban centre and its hinterland, together with two other types of people: free foreigners (often called "metics") and slaves...' is, in my view, a 'citizen-state'. The leader of the most recent research group to have specialized in it defines it as 'a small, highly inst.i.tutionalized and self-governing community of citizens, living with their wives and children in an urban centre and its hinterland, together with two other types of people: free foreigners (often called "metics") and slaves...'1 Correctly, this definition reminds us that a Correctly, this definition reminds us that a polis polis was not a 'city' (it could be very small) and that it was not simply a town: its population was distributed over a rural territory which might include many villages (the Athenians' territory had about a hundred and forty such villages by was not a 'city' (it could be very small) and that it was not simply a town: its population was distributed over a rural territory which might include many villages (the Athenians' territory had about a hundred and forty such villages by c. c. 500 500 BC BC). It also emphasizes people, the 'citizens', rather than their territory. Impressively, a polis polis could persist in this sense while outside its original territory: for some forty years in the fourth century could persist in this sense while outside its original territory: for some forty years in the fourth century BC BC, the men of Samos were exiled from their home island, but they still represented themselves as 'the Samians'. Or so the men did: women lived in poleis poleis, and their descent from citizen-families was often important, but they were not full citizens with political rights.

If we stress the sense of the word polis polis as a community, we can follow the changing political rights of its male population: a 'citizen' in the ninth century as a community, we can follow the changing political rights of its male population: a 'citizen' in the ninth century BC BC certainly did not have the same rights as many enjoyed in the cla.s.sical fifth century certainly did not have the same rights as many enjoyed in the cla.s.sical fifth century BC BC. The themes of 'freedom' and 'justice' play an important part in these changes. Essentially, the polis polis was a community of warriors, males who would necessarily fight for it. Again, there were changes in who fought most, and in what style: ' was a community of warriors, males who would necessarily fight for it. Again, there were changes in who fought most, and in what style: 'polis-males' were not only warriors, nor often very war-like, but most of them did have to face the probability of a battle or two for their polis polis's sake. In their changing styles of fighting, 'luxury' at times played a role.

In my view, poleis poleis 'rose' at different times in different parts of 'rose' at different times in different parts of Greece, but they certainly arose before the 730s BC BC and are most likely to have formed and are most likely to have formed c. c. 900750 900750 BC BC. By the time of Hadrian, a thousand years later, 'city-states' of the polis polis type have been estimated to have contained about 30 million people, about half of the estimated population of the Roman Empire. The combination of a main town, a country-territory and villages remained typical, although the political rights of these elements varied over time and place. If Hadrian had ever counted, he would probably have reckoned up about 1,500 type have been estimated to have contained about 30 million people, about half of the estimated population of the Roman Empire. The combination of a main town, a country-territory and villages remained typical, although the political rights of these elements varied over time and place. If Hadrian had ever counted, he would probably have reckoned up about 1,500 poleis poleis, of which about half were in what is now Greece and Cyprus and on the western coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey). These 750 or so were mostly city-states of the Greeks' earlier cla.s.sical age. The others had been settled in lands ranging from Spain as far (with Alexander) as north-west India.

During the ninth and eighth centuries BC BC Greeks in Greece and the Aegean islands settled many more villages in the territories of what were increasingly identifiable Greeks in Greece and the Aegean islands settled many more villages in the territories of what were increasingly identifiable poleis poleis. This process was one of local settlement, not long-range migration. Then several of these polis polis centres began, from centres began, from c. c. 750 750 BC BC onwards, to send settlers to yet more onwards, to send settlers to yet more poleis poleis overseas. Settlement overseas was an enduring aspect of Greek civilization: by Hadrian's time, as now, more Greeks lived outside poor, spa.r.s.e Greece than lived in it. In the age of the Mycenaean palaces, too, Greeks had already travelled to Sicily, south Italy, Egypt and the coast of Asia, settling even on the site of Miletus. overseas. Settlement overseas was an enduring aspect of Greek civilization: by Hadrian's time, as now, more Greeks lived outside poor, spa.r.s.e Greece than lived in it. In the age of the Mycenaean palaces, too, Greeks had already travelled to Sicily, south Italy, Egypt and the coast of Asia, settling even on the site of Miletus.2 Afterwards, Afterwards, c.