Theories, Models and Concepts in Ancient History

Neville Morley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9780415248761
• eBook ISBN: 9781134536092
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Morley's book offers the first accessible guide for students to show how theories, models and concepts have been applied to ancient history.

Showing readers how they can use theory to interpret historical evidence for themselves, as well as to evaluate the work of others, the book includes a survey of key ideas and theories on a wide range of ancient historical topics including society and economy, the environment, gender and sexuality, and myth and rationality.

Also including a helpful annotated guide to further reading on all the topics covered, students will not want to miss out on this essential guide to the ancient world.

Chapter 1

Approaches

The problem of theory

Within the discipline of ancient history, grown to a stunted maturity under the paternalistic aegis of classical philology, approaches to history that stress the techniques and methodologies of the social sciences (e.g., primacy of theory, model building, conceptual sophistication, quantification) rather than those of the mainstream tradition (e.g., linguistic categorization, literary source criticism, citation of authority) must expect to meet with more than a slight suspicion of illegitimacy.¹

The place of ‘theory’ in ancient history remains controversial. Its advocates (normally advocates of one particular theoretical approach rather than of theory in general) insist that un- or undertheorised historical accounts are inadequate, because they depend on a set of implicit and problematic assumptions masquerading as ‘common sense’. Its opponents maintain that any account of antiquity using modern concepts and theories is illegitimate and misleading, as the evidence has been corrupted and distorted with anachronism (and, more often than not, a political agenda). Most present-day historians find themselves somewhere in the middle, at risk of attack from both sides: recognising that they should include at least some discussion of the key terms and ideas used in their work, and often making use of material from outside ancient history to illuminate their studies, but regarding ‘theory’ as something ancillary to the real business of ancient history, something alien and even threatening.

The emotions that this debate continues to arouse—anger and anxiety on one side, fervent enthusiasm on the other—make it clear that this is not a purely technical, methodological issue. The question of whether and how ancient historians should make use of modern theories and concepts in interpreting ancient material in fact raises fundamental questions about ancient history as a discipline and about the status and authority of its accounts of the past. ‘Theory’—economics, for example, or Marxism— seems to promise a great deal, claiming to provide a true understanding of how the world really works and to reveal the underlying logic and pattern behind the apparent chaos of past and present events. It seems to offer, in some cases, the possibility that history might aspire to the status of a kind of science, the most prestigious and authoritative form of knowledge in the modern West. However, the promise is also a threat: history is to acquire this new status and authority by effectively ceasing to be itself and becoming a branch of some other discipline, whether economics, sociology, anthropology or literary theory. Traditional practices are to be abandoned as inadequate; existing accounts of the past must be repudiated as at best lacking in intellectual rigour and explanatory power and at worst compromised and tainted by dubious philosophical, political and ethical assumptions. For the professional ancient historian with a certain amount invested in existing disciplinary structures and traditions, or for the student who is investing time, effort and money in acquiring the historian’s traditional knowledge and skills, some anxiety in the face of such claims and assertions seems quite understandable.

For polemical purposes, one might contrast ‘theory’ both with ‘practice’ and with ‘reality’. Historians, it may be argued, learn their craft through practice and imitation, through the study of how other historians work and through developing historical arguments and interpretations of their own, not through studying abstract philosophical ideas about the construction of historical knowledge. Their knowledge of the past is based on direct contact with the actual evidence in all its variety, rather than on trying to force a past reality to conform to abstract models and questionable prior assumptions. Theory, on this reading, is too simplistic and abstract, since it attempts to reduce the complexity of the real world, of human motivation and of history itself, to a single principle or a few alleged laws. Indeed, traditional historical accounts might claim to be more scientific than theoretical ones, because they are firmly grounded in the evidence. At the same time, theory appears unnecessarily complicated, as it demands that historians should adopt a highly specialised technical vocabulary in place of plain English and should learn a whole new subject on top of—or, worse, instead of—basic historical skills and knowledge of the evidence. For most historians, scepticism about theory’s claims—surely reality is always more complicated? —leaves them with little motivation to acquire more than a superficial familiarity with some key terms and ideas. It is left to just a few individuals of questionable intellectual tendencies to undergo an almost religious conversion to the cult of theory, abandoning the complexities of real life in favour of belief in a single Truth that purports to explain everything.

I suspect that this account will ring true with a significant number of practising historians and students. It is not, however, the only way of defining ‘theory’ and characterising its relation to history. Rather than being placed in opposition to historical practice and past reality, theory can be seen as intrinsically bound up with both of them: as the set of ideas and assumptions that inform and govern historians’ practices and with and through which we interpret the world. Under this definition, not only do all historians possess some sort of ‘theory’, but historical knowledge would be impossible without it: ‘theory’ is what enables us to make sense of evidence and use it to create an account of the past. Historical sources do not ‘speak’ or present us with their intrinsic meaning and significance; rather, we give them meaning and significance by interpreting them, considering them in the context of existing knowledge and understanding, making connections with other pieces of evidence, using them to build up and then modify a wider picture of the past.² In this process of interpretation, our choices and judgements—What is the appropriate context for this piece of evidence? Is this a plausible connection? Is this a valid interpretation? —are influenced by a wide variety of ideas and assumptions: philosophical premises and methodological rules of thumb, the conventions of the discipline and personal intuition, elaborate theoretical concepts and the set of cultural assumptions about human nature and the like that we have learnt to regard as ‘common sense’, things apparently so obviously true that they are scarcely worth discussing. That is to say, our interpretations are based on —and, essentially, made possible by—some sort of ‘theory’, however vague and eclectic. The fact that the ideas governing historians’ practices and interpretations are frequently unsystematic, largely implicit and often quite unconscious and unquestioned does not lessen their importance. The advocates of ‘theory’ are not seeking to replace ‘non-theoretical’ accounts of the past with ‘theoretical’ ones but to favour histories in which the theoretical assumptions are explicit and coherent over those in which historians are largely oblivious to the ideas that are influencing their interpretations.

In a way, therefore, it all depends on what one means by ‘theory’. The debate about theory in ancient history has been complicated by the fact that different participants have had different conceptions of what it was they were discussing. It is the nature of such controversial ‘keywords’ that they have a wide range of reference, are heavily laden with ideas and values—and are frequently bound up with the problems that they are being used to discuss.³ That is to say, definitions are rarely, if ever, neutral. Defining ‘theory’ as something opposed to both practice and reality, something external to history, and restricting the term to such elaborate, self-contained systems of thought as Marxism or economics, can be seen as a strategy that defends traditional historical practices against the claims and criticisms of other approaches. Conversely, characterising any set of ideas that influence historical interpretation, however incoherent or inconsistent, as ‘theory’ carries (and is intended to carry) entirely different implications. By erasing most of the differences between, say, Marxism and conventional historiography, it implies that both approaches embody the sorts of philosophical, political and meta-physical assumptions that are explicit and thus easily criticised in Marxism. That being so, much of the criticism of traditional history from a theoretical point of view is seen to be merited, and it becomes clear that historians do indeed need to review both their practices and their existing accounts of the past. More positively, such a definition suggests that, as ‘theory’ is not in fact so alien to history, it would not after all be so difficult for ancient historians to reap the benefits of adopting more theoretically informed approaches to their subject.

From this perspective, the subject of ‘theory in ancient history’ is more than the study of some outré concepts and systems of thought that have been applied to antiquity by one or two eccentrics. The danger of a book such as this, or of a stand-alone unit on ‘Approaches to Ancient History’, is that it reinforces the idea that ‘theory’ is something separate from, additional to and even alien to the normal practices of ancient history. On the contrary, the study of ‘theory’ is the study of historical interpretation in general, the different ways in which historians produce accounts of the past on the basis of the surviving evidence. Complex theoretical systems such as Marxism serve as useful examples for such a study because they highlight the sorts of issues and problems that are common to all historical interpretations but are left implicit, even concealed, in more conventional approaches to ancient history. The ‘problem’ of theory is not. that it is some alien force trying to take over history, but rather that, by convincing themselves that it is and that they are under attack, historians have blinded themselves to the theories that inform their own practices and interpretations. They have also chosen to shut themselves off to ideas and methods that might help to illuminate ancient evidence and produce more interesting and sophisticated —and no less ‘real’—interpretations of the past.

Approaches to Ancient History

The aims of this book are threefold. First, I want to introduce some of the key concepts, arguments and assumptions of a range of theories that have informed and influenced different accounts of ancient history. Whether or not a student makes use of ‘theory’ in his or her own work, the fact that some other historians do make use of it means that a certain amount of knowledge of different theories, of how they are used, how they can be recognised and how they might be evaluated, is a vital part of the historian’s basic ‘toolbox’ of skills. I have chosen to arrange the book around different aspects of ancient history (economy, society, culture, mentality) rather than devoting separate chapters to different theories. This does mean that my discussions of such complex theoretical traditions as sociology and structuralism are decidedly limited and superficial, focusing on one or two key ideas rather than attempting to give a complete account of each system of thought. On the other hand, students are most likely to encounter ‘theory’ in the context of particular debates in ancient history rather than on its own, and it is easier to compare and contrast different theories and to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses by looking at how they have been applied to historical problems rather than by considering them purely in the abstract. The guide to further reading is intended to point students in the direction both of more detailed introductions to different theories and of further examples of their application to ancient history. The choice of topics does show a certain bias towards social and economic history: partly because this is my main area of interest and expertise, but above all because it is in these areas, which the ‘social sciences’ claim as their domain, that traditional historiography faces the greatest challenges to the validity and authority of its approach to the past and, more positively, that theoretical approaches seem to have the most to offer to ancient historians.

Second, I want to offer this material as the basis for a more gener al discussion of how historians develop interpretations and construct arguments, and how those interpretations and arguments should be evaluated. As I suggested above, explicitly theoretical approaches to ancient history make good examples for the study of historical interpretation because their assumptions and interpretative strategies are normally quite overt; having studied such approaches, the same techniques and criteria of evaluation can be applied to works the guiding assumptions of which are less obvious (in some cases, even the historian may not be wholly aware of them). Both these aims relate to the skill of critical reading, something that needs to be applied to secondary sources as much as to ancient evidence. As with the interpretation of ancient evidence, this involves more than just having a critical attitude, not accepting what the sources say at face value (though that is clearly important): we need to have a sense of what to look for, of the right questions to ask, of the possible contexts within which the work can be interpreted. Just as we look at Livy in the context of the development of Roman historiography and the establishment of the Principate, and consider his work in relation to other contemporary literature which reinterprets Roman myths and traditions, so we need, for example, to consider the work of M.I.Finley in the context of a debate about the nature of the ancient economy that has been running since the late eighteenth century and to think about its relation to parallel debates in economic theory and anthropology. Few historians are not influenced by contemporary ideas and discussions, even if they do not draw on them explicitly; we need to know enough about the wider intellectual context of their work to be able to recognise such influences and evaluate the results.

My third aim is slightly more polemical: to demonstrate the possibilities of a ‘theoretical’ approach to ancient history as a source of new ideas and new ways of reading the ancient evidence and, thus, as a means of developing a richer understanding of the past. As is doubtless obvious from the fact that I have chosen to write such a book in the first place, my own approach to ancient history is heavily influenced by ‘theory’. I begin from the basic assumption that the historian’s task is to explain past events, rather than simply to record them, and to understand past society in terms of the underlying structures that shaped people’s lives rather than simply describing the diversity of their experiences. We cannot, I believe, avoid interpreting the past in terms of present concepts and concerns; it is surely better to do this consciously and explicitly, aware of the possi bility of anachronism and distortion, than to convince ourselves that we can gain direct access to the real past, untainted and unmediated by any modern influences. If we accept what one might term the inevitability of anachronism, we can feel free to draw upon all the ideas and concepts that the modern world, with greater resources and above all much greater volumes of evidence, has developed to understand society and the world at large. I am not aiming to promote a particular theory—though I have my preferred approaches, as will probably become evident in the course of this book, however scrupulously I try to be fair in presentation and evaluation—but the advantages of a theoretical approach.

Of course, theoretical ideas and concepts need to be evaluated critically and applied sensitively and with regard to historical context—or at least that is one of my basic theoretical assumptions. For the rest of this chapter, I want to discuss a number of general points relating to the use of such theories, highlighting some of the underlying issues that will recur regularly through the rest of the book. I have taken as a focus for this discussion M.I.Finley’s characterisation of the ancient city as a

‘consumer city’, an idea discussed in a number of his books and in particular in an article of 1977.⁴ This is a classic example of an explicitly ‘theoretical’ approach to a topic in ancient history— ‘classic’ both in its methodology and in its influence over subsequent studies of ancient urbanism. It is clear evidence of the power of this concept that even twenty-five years later historians find it difficult to study Greek or Roman cities without engaging, however briefly, with Finley’s ideas. Indeed, entire academic conferences have been organised with the express aim of getting ‘beyond the consumer city’ —which suggests that Finley’s argument may serve as an example also of some of the potential problems and drawbacks of a theoretically informed approach to ancient history.⁵

Generalisations and Comparisons

The outstanding characteristic of ‘theoretical’ as opposed to ‘traditional’ approaches to ancient history is their emphasis on the general rather than the particular. Of course, this is a matter of degree and emphasis rather than an absolute distinction: all historians aim to draw together individual pieces of evidence to produce a more general account and interpret the evidence on the basis of wider assumptions (‘generalisations’) about the ancient world and the world in general.⁶ However, any historical account can be located on a spectrum between those that focus primarily on the individual event or institution and those that examine events or institutions primarily with the aim of drawing more general conclusions that might be applied to other examples, even to other historical periods. For example, one might study the reign of a particular Roman emperor as something that is interesting in itself, or as a way of understanding the nature of the Principate and the role of emperors, or even in search of transhistorical ideas about leadership and power.⁷ In the last accounts, the particular case is interpreted explicitly in terms of a more general theory or concept (‘the Principate’, ‘power’) and is of interest primarily in so far as it serves either as evidence to confirm the validity of the general principle or as grounds for modifying and refining it. From this perspective, simply collecting information about a particular case, without any reference to a wider research agenda, does little to advance our understanding of the past.

In the end, I believe that the history of individual ancient towns is a cul-de-sac, given the limits of the available (and potential) documentation, the unaltera...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Theories, Modelsand Concepts in Ancient History
• Approaching the Ancient World
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowlegments
• 1 Approaches: The Problem of Theory
• 2 Ancient and Modern: The Invention of the Ancient Economy
• 3 The Limits of the Possible
• 4 Class and Status
• 5 A Sense of Identity
• 6 Myth and Reason
• Afterword: Speaking Theory
• Notes
• Guide to Further Reading
• Bibliography
• Index