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PART I
The Greek Experience in Long-term Perspective
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1
Exploring the Greek Needleâs Eye:Civilizational and Political Transformations
JOHANN P. ARNASON
The argument to be sketched in this chapter is perhaps best understood as a Âvariation on a theme developed by Christian Meier: the emergence of the political in ancient Greece (1980).1 I translate Entstehung as âemergence,â rather than âinventionâ or âdiscoveryâ (the latter term is used in the English translation [1990] of Meierâs principal work on the subject); to stress the emergent character of the innovations in question is to link them to broader horizons of socio-cultural creativity instead of reducing them to advances of cognitive or constructive rationality. To foreshadow the main points of the proposed alternative, there are good reasons to reject the idea that no distinctively political sphere or dimension of social life existed before the Greek breakthrough. The change supposed to set the Greek experience apart from other cases must be understood as a transformation that entailed the emergence of new patterns. As I will argue, it was not the only transformation affecting political thought and practice during the same world-historical period. And although there is no denying the specific features and the momentous significance of the Greek reorientation, its political roots and results appear as aspects of a complex field which also includes innovations in other areas. While that view is certainly not alien to Meierâs approach, the present interpretation will cast it in more explicitly civilizational terms. Another major implication of this move should be noted. The archaic period of Greek history, increasingly recognized as an eminently creative phase and a decisively formative background to the more familiar classical sequel, was marked by a combination of intercivilizational encounters and civilizational expansion. (The latter is still known by the traditional but misleading label of âcolonization,â whereas the former is now less obscured by notions of a self-contained Greek miracle than by the opposite tendency to assume a linear all-round and one-way transmission from East to West.)
Intercivilizational Connections
With the above qualifications, the response suggested here will be close to the spirit â if not to the letter â of Meierâs argument, as well as to the ideas of others who have developed similar interpretations in different conceptual terms (most notably Cornelius Castoriadis), and I would not object to the description of ancient Greece as a âneedleâs eye of world historyâ (Meier 1980: 13 = 1990: 2). The all-round and intensive appropriation of Near Eastern skills and sources did not prevent the Greeks from transforming older legacies in ways that opened up new historical horizons of universal significance. I do not question that the Greek innovations can be seen as aspects of a broader set of changes going on in the Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean during the early and middle centuries of the last millennium BCE. They included the revival of imperial traditions on a novel scale and with a significantly strengthened emphasis on the religious and ethnic identity of the empire-builders (Assyria and, in a much grander style, the successor empire of the Achaemenids); a restoration of archaic models accompanied by an unprecedentedly emphatic traditionalism, but also by geopolitical retrenchment (Egypt); and a far-reaching reorientation of marginal polities towards maritime and commercial activities, without any significant cultural rupture (the Phoenicians). But the same period also saw the religious reorientation of a small and particularly exposed ethno-political community on the margin of the larger intercivilizational zone between Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Jewish âinvention of monotheismâ (a term open to criticism, but not easy to replace) is commonly seen as one of the key axial developments; historical research on its sources and contexts has gradually revealed complex relations to the historical experience of a whole region.
The Greek version of the axial breakthrough began on a more distant periphery, exposed to cultural influences from the Near Eastern centers but largely beyond the sustainable borders of their imperial reach. Not that the latter factor was absent: the expansion of the Lydian kingdom, with massive consequences for the Greeks in Asia Minor, was one of the post-Assyrian bids for empire, and when the Persian empire that prevailed over all rivals attempted to conquer the Greek heartland, the war which it lost transformed Greek politics and cultural attitudes in multiple ways. On the other hand, internal constellations and dynamics of the Greek world were conducive to autonomous developments, both on the level of cultural themes and in response to geopolitical threats. Following Kurt Raaflaub (2009a: 38), âit is not very useful⌠to focus on the question of whether Greek culture was independent or derivative: it was both.â One is tempted to add that the Greek way of being derivative was unusually original, and the path to independence was quite Âexceptionally innovative.
Even more than the Jewish case, the ancient Greek trajectory thus exemplifies the close links between two aspects sometimes taken to indicate a choice between different approaches. A comparative focus is then seen as incompatible â or at least not easily combined â with the more recent interest in cultural transfers (the latter term appears as a more precise alternative to the traditional tracing of âinfluencesâ). A more comprehensive analysis of transfers then leads to the construction of âentangled histories,â to use an increasingly popular formulation, and at its most ambitious, this notion conveys a claim to replace the comparative paradigms that have supposedly taken mutual isolation for granted. There is no more conclusive case for the interdependence of the two perspectives â the comparative and the transfer-centered â than the ancient Greek record. During the period described by some historians as âorientalizing,â there was a massive and many-sided transfer of skills, themes, and models; this process did not come to an end with the transition from the archaic to the classical phase, although the changing context set new limits to its impact. But it is equally clear that the significance of cultural borrowings from the Near East cannot be assessed without careful comparison of both sides, with a view to factors reinforcing the process as well as to those which Âminimized the dynamics of transfer in particular fields or favored transformative responses.
In addition to these general considerations, more specific historical points should be noted. Notwithstanding the radical difference between Greek and Judaic achievements during the Axial Age, both cases can be seen as geopolitically marginal but culturally pioneering parts of a larger domain that also included the original centers as well as other peripheries of the Near East (Liverani 1993). Traditional views of the Axial Age have placed a unilateral emphasis on the two breakthroughs most obviously conducive to new visions of the world and new modes of cultural creation; the more recent search for a common core structure of âaxiality,â defined in highly abstract terms, has further singularized the Greek and Judaic cases (in the double sense of separating them from others and bringing them closer to each other). Conversely, closer attention to the regional context is in line with a broader effort to re-historicize axial transformations, and to re-focus on a more varied spectrum of innovative developments. In the Ancient Near East, this enlarged field includes â as noted above â the upgraded versions of imperial traditions that emerged in the first millennium BCE. Their legacy to later history was significant enough to put them among the epoch-making features of the age. Certain cultural trends should also be taken into account. As Jan Assmann has shown, the first millennium saw the formation of different âmemory culturesâ in Egypt, Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece, and this was in turn connected to different cultural implications and interpretations of the respective writing systems. Even if the older cultural centers did not experience the same kind of radical cultural reorientation as the younger ones, the overall picture speaks in favor of an expanded comparative view.
Aspects of the Polis
After these introductory comments on the intercivilizational setting of Greek Âhistory, the argument will now turn to the main topic and begin with an outline of assumptions and qualifications that enter into the revised case for a political thrust of the trajectory in question (Raaflaub 2005; see also Raaflaub, this volume). It should, first of all, be underlined that we are dealing with long-term processes punctuated by major shifts and turns: neither an evolutionary differentiation nor an abrupt emergence of the political, but a whole sequence of political transformations linked by an ongoing dynamic. This is not simply a matter of doing justice to the archaic period â now recognized as an eminently creative phase in its own right â and grasping contrasts as well as connections between it and the classical sequel. There is an even longer perspective to be applied. Attempts to trace the Greek polis back to Mycenaean or even Cretan origins do not carry conviction, but the long-drawn-out transition from the crisis of the Mycenaean palace regimes to the beginnings of polis formation must be included in the Âproposed genealogy of political innovations. This background is of threefold importance. In the first place, the collapse of the Mycenaean order and the following civilizational breakdown cleared the ground for new beginnings on a different basis. The Greek case thus contrasts with other experiences of collapse and revival, where efforts to recreate traditional structures or at least to implement models associated with them are more pronounced. Even so, it can be argued that aspects of the Late Bronze Age crisis, especially the diffuse pattern of political power that seems to have prevailed after the collapse of the palace regimes, were in some way indicative of political patterns to come (Schnapp-Gourbeillon 2002). Finally, cultural memories of the Mycenaean past, too diffuse to crystallize into formative traditions, served to sustain the vision of a heroic world, intermediate between the human and the divine as well as between remote origins and recent past. The particular importance of this imaginary domain for the culture of the polis is beyond dispute, while the extent and the exact character of the connection to the Bronze Age world remain controversial.
Another point to be emphasized is the plurality of emerging centers and unfolding developmental paths. It is fundamental to the view taken here that the polis can be seen as a defining civilizational phenomenon; but this should not obscure the fact that other forms of socio-political organization developed alongside it, both within and on the margins of the Greek world. Moreover, research on the origins of the polis has unequivocally come down on the side of a multi-central genealogy (Hansen 2006): the new form of socio-political life emerged in various parts of the Greek world during the same period, and although this makes the basic similarities all the more remarkable, it is also true that diverse origins led to different foci on aspects and alternative possibilities of the polis. It is perhaps worth adding that the regional foci most frequently singled out for their role in early polis formation were, in one way or another, markedly exposed to intercivilizational contacts. Cyprus, where Phoenician presence combined with marginal but continuous Mycenaean culture (most visibly typified by the survival of strong kingship and syllabic writing), is a significant place for those who stress both the role of Phoenician models and the persistence of Bronze Age foundations. But well-founded doubts about Phoenician sources of the polis (Raaflaub 2004) make this part of the story seem less relevant, and the Cypriot city-states were in any case â not least due to the imperial dominance of Near Eastern powers â less involved in the civilizational expansion of the archaic period than Ionia or the Aegean islands.
The Ionian cities, heavily involved in âcolonizingâ activities, developed in close proximity to the Anatolian frontier â so much so that some authors have been tempted to transfer the credit for Greek achievements to an Anatolian koinÄ. Crete also seems to fall into this category, even if the record is more elusive than elsewhere: the island was without doubt an important point of contact between Greeks and Phoenicians, and at the same time, the little known but evidently significant transformation of the Minoan legacy must have left its mark on the culture of the local poleis. Saro Wallace (2010) has proposed a very interesting interpretation of Cretan ways of managing the crisis of the Late Bronze Age and developing new patterns of settlement in response to changed conditions; as she sees it, this background helps to understand both the large number and the peculiar stability of the Cretan oligarchic poleis. Finally, the mislabeled âcoloniesâ in the Western Mediterranean (Sicily is widely seen as one of the most prominent birthplaces of the polis) did not borrow from more advanced neighbors, as the pioneers on the eastern margins did, but many of the Western Greek settlements were founded by the very protagonists of âorientalizingâ encounters, and it has been plausibly Âsuggested that this expansion into a new cultural environment was important for the formation of cross-political Greek identity (Dominguez 2006).
A third line of preliminary reflection concerns the socio-cultural setting of political transformations. This has been a central theme of recent work on ancient Greek Âhistory, and it should be duly integrated into the debate on the emergence, independence, and relatively self-contained dynamics of the political sphere. If the emphasis on the latter aspects is to be maintained, there is more to be said on the contextual factors that enabled the polis to foreground and upgrade politics. We must, in other words, contextualize the very autonomization of the political domain. Athenian democracy represents the culmination of that trend, and the most striking illustration of its inherent paradoxes. According to the scholar who has in recent years done most to explore the historical lifeworld of Athenian democracy, it:
went part and parcel with an Athenian way of life which we would judge illiberal, culturally chauvinist and narrowly restrictive. It was, essentially, the product of a closed society⌠Observing the narrowness and exploitative nature of Athenian democracy, we should be challenged to stop taking cover behind âdemocracyâ as a term at which only cheering is allowed, and instead ask seriously how we might attain the political openness (and cultural achievement) of Athens while taking pride in a society that is heterogeneous and determinedly open (Osborne 2010: 37).
The usefulness of the notion of a âclosed societyâ is debatable, and so is the implicit celebration of contemporary Western society as âdeterminedly openâ (it is, for one thing, hard to square with the neo-liberal closure of hearts and minds); but that said, Osborneâs account of Athenian particularism, its exclusionary practices, and its exploitative underside is largely convincing. The paradox of political openness and exceptional cultural creativity, achieved on this less than attractive basis, is all the more intriguing. Reflections on the âparadoxes of democracyâ (Eisenstadt 1999) have proved particularly fruitful in the modern context; Osborneâs conclusion suggests that a similar approach to the Athenian experience could be useful, but that the specific paradoxes in question would be of a different kind.
Cultural Extensions of the Political
If the exceptional autonomy of the political sphere in the Greek city-states â and, in particular, the extreme degree reached in democratic Athens â rested on socio-cultural preconditions, another part of the picture is no less crucial to our argument. The autonomy of the political entails a primacy that can only be understood in terms of reinforcing factors extending into other spheres. Some attempts to theorize this superadded meaning of Greek politics may be noted; they have singled out different aspects of a field that ...
