The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II: From Classical Greece to Early Christianity 3030676374, 9783030676377

Table of contents :
Foreword
Stratos writes
The Past and the Present
My Life, My Times
“Another World Is Possible” 1968
Utopian Futures
Contents
1 Introduction
Reference
2 The Classical Era
1 Society: A Brief Introduction
2 Law and Justice
3 Athenian Drama
3.1 Sophocles
3.2 Euripides
4 Historiography and Rhetoric
4.1 Herodotus
4.2 Thucydides
4.3 Antiphon the Sophist
4.4 The Anonymous Iamblichi
4.5 Xenophon
5 Philosophy
5.1 Plato
5.2 Aristotle
References
3 Hellenistic World
1 Society: A Brief Introduction
1.1 Religion
1.2 Political Reality
1.3 Economy
2 Law and Justice
3 Social Revolutions
3.1 Sparta
3.2 Macedonia
3.3 Pergamum
4 Literature
4.1 An Overview
4.2 Art
4.3 Science
4.4 Prose Poetry
4.5 Moschion
4.6 Callimachus
4.7 Polybius
4.8 Menander
4.8.1 Epitrepontes (The Arbitration or the Litigants)
4.8.2 Dyskolos (Difficult or Grouch)
5 The Role of Utopia
5.1 The Utopian State of Iambulus
5.2 Social Background of Utopian Literature
6 Philosophy
6.1 The Cynics
6.2 Epicureans
6.3 Stoicism
6.4 Skepticism
References
4 The Greco-Roman World
1 Society: A Brief Introduction
1.1 Intellectual Production
1.2 Philosophical Quests
2 Literature
2.1 Aesop’s Fables
2.1.1 The Eagle and the Beetle (no. 4, p. 60)
2.1.2 The Fisherman of Flutes (no. 24, p. 78)
2.1.3 The Fisherman and the Big and Small Fish (no. 25, p. 78)
2.1.4 The Man Who Broke a Statue (no. 61, p. 110)
2.1.5 The Plowman and the Wolf (no. 64, p. 112)
2.1.6 The Frogs Ask for a King (no. 66, p. 114)
2.1.7 Hercules and Plutus (Wealth) (no. 130, pp. 166–8)
2.1.8 The Horse and the Horse-Rider (no. 140, p. 176)
2.1.9 Lion Reign (no. 195, pp. 218–20)
2.1.10 The Wolf and the Donkey (no. 228, pp. 250–2)
2.2 Lucian
3 Philosophy
3.1 Neo-Sceptics
3.2 Lucretius
References
5 The Early Christian Movement
References
6 The Logic of the (Pre)history of Radical Criminology and Its Future
Reference
Index

Citation preview

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Stratos Georgoulas

The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II

Stratos Georgoulas

The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II From Classical Greece to Early Christianity

Stratos Georgoulas Sociology University of the Aegean Mytilene, Greece

ISBN 978-3-030-67637-7 ISBN 978-3-030-67638-4 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Fatima Jamadar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

What a monumental task Stratos takes on to explain so well the evolving history of ideas on how society is or was or could be organized over the centuries BC. Readers might want to have to hand either H. G. Wells’s A Short History of the World (1922) and its chronology from 800 BC intended for a popular readership or the longer Outline of History (volumes 1 and 2) published in 1920 and revised in 1940 to situate the issues raised in the great sweep of history so richly told. To be sure, from the “world before man”, as Wells put it, and the new technological revolution of artificial intelligence (AI) we have seen distinct modes of production emerge and then be replaced from the mercantilism (of the 15th to the 18th century) which signaled the growth of imperialism and the British Empire onwards. Yet the ideas and aspirations of how political systems affect the individual and the classes are organized, for example as democracy, freedom, rights, law, and states, and yet utopias and dystopias, resonate through the centuries where nothing is totally new but rather common over time. History tells us that the quest for freedom, equality in a classless society, and freedom from oppression and exploitation is not new but eternal.

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The chapter on “The role of Utopia” shows that the idea of building a fair equal society is as old as history—a society where all members are equal, where people live in harmony and freedom, and where there is “neither money, nor privileges” and everything is held in common. Ideas that have been espoused by radical, revolutionary, anarcho-syndical, and radical Christian movements.

Stratos writes The people of the City of the Sun live totally equal, without classes, without social discrimination and, above all, without what causes inequality; that is, they live without ownership. Equality and freedom are interwoven with their lives as well as with the air they breathe with their existence. There are customs and laws that are not, however, engraved on planks and marble screeds, but in the depth of consciousness, laws that make up their own state, which assemble the whole in order and system and harmoniously regulate their life [and] because no outside enemy covets their bliss, nobody will ever think of changing their social order. Greed, lust of power, intrigue, and crime are unknown among those happy children of equality and nature. Because there is neither money, nor authority, nor discrimination there is no need for crime, guilt, and injustice. No one is forced to observe the law. Because the law over there is not the legitimate right of the stronger, it is not coercive and tyrannical, but customary habit, a primary condition of their bliss and thus an innate need.

Who in their right mind would not want to live in such a society? But of course to reach such a society means those with power would have to give it up and history tells us this rarely happens voluntarily.

The Past and the Present We cannot be responsible for the past, but we are responsible for how it is presented and which interests different interpretations serve and how the history we inherit is manipulated in the present.

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We all have to take responsibility not just for the present but for how the past, starting with the immediate past, pre-history is presented and manipulated. In Catching History on the Wing (Pluto Press), A. Sivanandan, Director of the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) for over 40 years, observed: We do not have to be at the barricades to be revolutionaries, we do not have to be grassrootists to be radical. To apprehend the social consequences of what we ourselves are doing and to set out to change it is in itself a revolutionary act.

My Life, My Times I was born in the blitz on London in February 1941, which in a sense has meant my “life” bridged the inherited hopes for a better world following the fight against fascism and racism in the Second. World War. My generation rightly questioned history as handed down, first in culture (literature, poetry, film, and theater) from the late 1950s and then from 1966 onwards in the political sphere too. What happened from 1918 to 1939 in Europe? “The war to end all wars” (1914–1918) led to needless slaughter on both sides. The postwar era saw a new Official Secrets Act, a new Police Act in 1919 (to combat striking police), the 1920 Emergency Powers Act, and later the 1934 Incitement to Disaffection Act and the 1936 Police Act. Demands for more rights and freedom led to increased state powers. For those willing to learn, then and now, there is plenty of informed critiques and no excuse for being ill-informed. The excellent work by Robert Graves and Alan Hodge, The Long Weekend (1940), is a social history of Great Britain (1918–1939). They observed at the outset of war: “The more newspapers people read, the shorter grows their historical memory, yet most people read little else.”

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Another strand is George Orwell’s 1984 (1949), published after We (1924, 1993 corrected edition) by Yevgeny Zamyatin, first published in Russia in 1988 after being supressed for sixty years. In 1931 he was allowed to leave Russia. The book describes a dystopian society. H. G. Wells in The Shape of Things to Come published in 1933 described an authoritarian society in which he envisaged what the world would look like in 2106, not 2008 (see The Shape of Things to Come by Tony Bunyan in 2008 which describes the Internet of Things in the EU). Another excellent account of the period is to be found in The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research, 1923–1950 by Martin Jay for a critique of Marxism and the dilemma of when to flee fascism. What was happening in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s? Mussolini established fascism in Italy in 1925. The Spanish Civil War raged from 7 July 1936 to 1 April 1939—the “democracies” of Europe sat on their hands. In 1939 Franco became dictator in Spain and remained in power until November 1975. In Portugal a corporatist authoritarian government under Salazar ruled from 1932 to 1970. Hitler was appointed Chancellor in Germany in 1933 and the attacks and detention of Jews, communists, socialists, liberals, and Roma accelerated. Dystopia or antiutopia is the hallmark of authoritarianism and fascism. On the road to fascism, racism and authoritarianism are allowed to develop side by side unchallenged by the power elite.

“Another World Is Possible” 1968 One of the legacies of imperialism in Africa is the 1884 Berlin Conference which drew up the boundaries with straight lines for national borders covering thousands of miles and which was to lead to many civil wars and deaths. To take just one aspect in the post-war period. It is a remarkable fact that in a war that relied heavily on troops and raw materials from the British Empire it took over thirty years after 1945 for the colonies to gain independence. Frank Kitson in his book Low Intensity Operations:

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Subversion, Insurgency and Peace Keeping (1970) lists thirty-six army operations in the period 1945–1970, mainly against nationalist liberation groups. Just four operations were conventional “wars” (e.g. Korea and the invasion of Suez). During the late 1960s and 1970s a popular slogan in the extraparliamentary movement was “Another world is possible”. Those were heady times as we marched—across the road and pavements—down Victoria Street in the center of London, arms linked, calling for an end to the war in Vietnam, national liberation across the world, and an end to oppression and exploitation. In 1971 there were more than fifty liberation movements around the world, independent of Moscow. You could argue we wanted “bread and roses too” and that we wanted utopia or rather a blending of five or six versions of it. It is arguable that the period between 1966 and 1980 offered a utopian “moment”. Nowhere near a global utopia but in pockets of resistance there were the seeds of utopia, a different way of living. From squatters’ handbooks to law centers, sectarianism gave way to collective action, the women’s, gay, and black movements came together to oppose police racism in Southall and racism in the workplace at Grunwicks, and internationally with the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign (VSC) plus hundreds of local campaigns, hundreds of publishers and bookshops—which in turn raised the question of local, limited “utopias” which come and go and resonate throughout Stratos’s work. At the beginning of the 1980s came a unique, if limited, chance to put theory into practice with the takeover of the Greater London Council by the Left. I was fortunate to be involved in this experiment, heading up the Police Committee Research Unit which for five years made a difference in calling the Metropolitan Police to account for their actions and which stands out as an example of what is possible—the same was true of the many others on the Left who took part in this experiment of being in and against the state.

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Utopian Futures The post-war period holds many positive lessons for future struggles and it is beholden on my generation and those that follow to preserve these lessons, sources, and facts of the past as well as of the present to inform the future. As long as we have the freedom to do so we must ensure that utopia is on the table. Well done Stratos. London, UK

Tony Bunyan Director Emeritus (Statewatch)

Contents

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Introduction Reference

2 The Classical Era 1 Society: A Brief Introduction 2 Law and Justice 3 Athenian Drama 3.1 Sophocles 3.2 Euripides 4 Historiography and Rhetoric 4.1 Herodotus 4.2 Thucydides 4.3 Antiphon the Sophist 4.4 The Anonymous Iamblichi 4.5 Xenophon 5 Philosophy 5.1 Plato 5.2 Aristotle References

1 8 9 9 21 24 27 34 45 47 48 52 54 55 60 60 69 72

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Contents

Hellenistic World 1 Society: A Brief Introduction 1.1 Religion 1.2 Political Reality 1.3 Economy 2 Law and Justice 3 Social Revolutions 3.1 Sparta 3.2 Macedonia 3.3 Pergamum 4 Literature 4.1 An Overview 4.2 Art 4.3 Science 4.4 Prose Poetry 4.5 Moschion 4.6 Callimachus 4.7 Polybius 4.8 Menander 5 The Role of Utopia 5.1 The Utopian State of Iambulus 5.2 Social Background of Utopian Literature 6 Philosophy 6.1 The Cynics 6.2 Epicureans 6.3 Stoicism 6.4 Skepticism References

4 The Greco-Roman World 1 Society: A Brief Introduction 1.1 Intellectual Production 1.2 Philosophical Quests 2 Literature 2.1 Aesop’s Fables 2.2 Lucian

75 75 79 82 85 88 90 91 95 96 99 99 102 103 105 108 109 110 112 114 114 117 120 120 123 129 132 137 139 139 143 146 148 148 155

Contents

3 Philosophy 3.1 Neo-Sceptics 3.2 Lucretius References

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5 The Early Christian Movement References

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6 The Logic of the (Pre)history of Radical Criminology and Its Future Reference

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Index

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1 Introduction

The present volume is a continuation of the work I have already published on the roots of radical criminology in Archaic Greece and, especially, in the works by Homer and Hesiod, and in Pre-Socratic philosophy, Ancient Greek theater, and lyric poetry (Georgoulas 2018). The eight centuries that followed the Archaic Period in Ancient Greece are very important for the history of radical thinking about crime and law. These centuries are divided into three different periods: the Classical Period, the Hellenistic Period, and the Greco-Roman Period; each have distinct characteristics and a comprehensible thread of continuity. Thus, they formed a framework of theoretical deepening of the polarity between social consensus and social conflict in the prehistory of scientific discourse on crime, elements of which we find in the corresponding theoretical quests of the modern age of criminology, always in a dialectical relation to the social development of those historical periods. In the Classical Period, Athenian democracy played a key role, though it was an exception to the rule in the ancient world, but also an inspiration and imitation for the coming periods. Concepts such as “citizen”, “equality of political rights” (isonomia), “equal right of speech” (isigoria), and “equality of power” (isokratia)—which were developed in Athens, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4_1

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either in theory or in practice—form a canvas of constant dialogue that has been renewed and enriched up to today. Moreover and from a holistic point of view, the history of the Classical Period has influenced the modern and contemporary world so that classical civilization is not only a part of the history of the Greeks but a global commons and cultural heritage of European identity. Athenian democracy was a direct democracy and, within that reality, the citizen’s active participation in public affairs was vital. The “Golden Age” of democracy, however, did not come as a natural consequence of a consensual process, but as a result of a conflict between oligarchs and democrats, a conflict that preceded Pericles’ years and followed his death. In this way, the corresponding thinking about law was also constructed at that time. But if the second half of the fifth century BC was a time of conflict, demanding radicalism in matters of justice too, what followed mainly at the end of that century and in the first half of the 4th was an attempt to preserve and protect democracy. The movement of democratic conservatism prevailed, and with it the need to lessen the sides of radical democracy and the operation of justice, so that “real democracy” was protected (as the main argument went) from “demagogues” and “ochlocracy” (or mob rule), where knowledge of the “best” and “prudence” was needed. Thus, it was forgotten that democracy had changed justice from the weapon of the powerful into the refuge for the weak. It was then that justice became an impersonal, immaterial idea that concerned everyone the same, but which was non-invasive; that is, justice became once more an instrument of reproduction of an established order rather than of social change. This is typically recorded in philosophical and literary works of the time, as will be illustrated in the relevant chapters of the present work. This also occurs in the plays of Sophocles, for example. Antigone fought against despotic power as expressed by Creon and preached that there is an unwritten law that allows us to violate authoritarian laws. Sophocles is not only shown to be religious but also teaches the others piety and believes absolutely in fate. Overall, classical Greek theater was a form of education of the people in critical thinking and democracy. More specifically, the Athenian theater was a free forum for disseminating and developing new ideas that

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were the ideological epitome of Athenian democracy. However, other writers, poets, and intellectuals, who belonged to the oligarchic faction, promoted social peace as the highest ideal. For them, conflict policies and revolutions were great evils; social peace was the greatest good for every state. The same is true of other genres of literature. On the one hand, there were those critical writers for whom the discovery of the nature of things was the foremost priority of thought. On the other hand, there was oligarchic thinking, a movement that would ultimately become hegemonic and be expressed primarily by the most important philosophical movements of Athenian democracy. Against the democratic historian Thucydides, there was the oligarchic historian Xenophon. Opposite to the orator Antiphon was the orator Isocrates. Against those who spoke of equality, there were those who spoke of constitutions of the “best”. And this is clearly seen in the two pillars of the philosophy of classical antiquity, which have left their mark on methodological reason, even in modern science. On the one hand, Plato believed that the real world, objective reality, is not real. It is rather a pale reflection of the supernatural world of ideas, which our minds capture by envisioning it (e.g. justice as an idea). On the other hand, the primary feature of Aristotle’s philosophy is a conflict with Platonic ideocracy. Without being able to be characterized as a radical and skeptical philosopher, Aristotle reacted to the mainstream of the neo-conservative Platonic philosophical movement by placing emphasis on research into the physical world and logical evidence. The conquests of the Macedonians represent the end of the so-called classical world. These conquests brought great changes in the social field and in the field of ideas. In those last three centuries before Christ, citizens from small city-states became participants in the domination of a vast area stretching from the Mediterranean to India. City-states were surpassed as an institution as, on the whole, they became part of greater administrative and financial units, that is, kingdoms. The very word “democracy” was gradually losing its meaning, until it came to stand for not a specific political program but rather a well-governed state. A limited circle of powerful and wealthy people was increasingly prevailing in political life and urban society. From the end of the third

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century BC the local courts seem to have faded away, and judicial power was exercised by the provincial governor and his representatives. At the social level, together with population mobility and sociopolitical cosmopolitanism, a religious syncretism and erosion of faith in the gods appeared, which were accompanied by new mystical religions. In those large multicultural Hellenistic kingdoms, the citizen no longer invested most of his time in politics; rather he devoted most of his energy to his personal life. The literature of the Hellenistic Period focused on everyday life, the humble, even the anti-heroic, and in Hellenistic art there are many examples of realism. This generally signifies artists’ efforts to represent the world, either the natural environment or human beings, as they perceived it through the experience of their senses, without searching for perfect or idealized forms. Similarly, the “New Comedy” had different interests from those of the classical Greek theatre, and it was more realistic. Philosophical movements attempted to respond to people’s agonizing questions, such as the precariousness of their existence, questions that are still with us today. At the same time, however, a long and glorious tradition of opposition between natural and statute law was growing. Within this context, different philosophical movements were emerging that became distinct from some elements of radical thinking. For example, the Cynics broke totally with the world of social conventions, rejecting them as opposing human nature. Nevertheless, they did not aim or attempt to reform social or political life. They were often content with a foolish asceticism, living sometimes in the yards and in the circles of the rich. Another example are the Stoics, who began as a radical philosophical movement established by Zeno. Zeno claimed that philosophy should serve practical purposes, that is, to seek to moralize society. Unlike Plato who stated that moral law derives from a superior spiritual power, Zeno taught that it is the product of nature. Zeno and Chrysippus preached that all people should live under the same laws as siblings, emphasizing that natural law is greater than statute law. However, Stoicism gradually developed away from its initial views on equality and materialistic philosophy, and came to signify, especially from Panaetius onwards, a philosophy of absolute perseverance, acceptance of the established order, privatization, and mysticism. Epicurus

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responded to this by asserting that the “senses” were the only criteria of truth, and fought not only against the subjective sensationalism of the Stoics but also against any one-sided explanation. The liberating power of Epicurean philosophy is conspicuous not only in its battle against necessity but also against chance that only has the value of the possibility. According to Epicurus, within nature, whatever is done, comes from natural causes, and happens according to the sequence of cause and effect. Hence, there is no Fate or Word or Providence and no purposeful destination. Within the same context, the philosophical movement of Skepticism, which was developed in the Hellenistic period, had the main purpose of preserving freedom from any kind of doctrine. This was based on the finding that juxtaposed arguments or different views on a matter are equivalent (isostheneis). There is neither good nor shame, neither just nor unjust, according to Pyrrho, the founder of this philosophical movement, while Arcesilaus, another important proponent of the Sceptics, claimed that one has to put everything in question so as to free oneself from prejudices, to develop critical thinking, and even to challenge oneself. This he proposed while in Rome in 155 BC. There, he delivered a long speech on justice, and the following day he reversed this speech with one that held the opposite view, in which he criticized the justice that he had previously exalted. The radical thinking of the Hellenistic Period would take off with ideas of Utopias and revolutions. It was an age of not only rapid developments and reversals, internationalization and monetization, but also the lack of development of productive forces that brought about an economic crisis. Financial misery and the coexistence of excessive poverty and extreme wealth created conditions for class conflicts. Whenever the masses prevailed, the elite imposed tyrannies of the old type, though they were short-lived. The exception, however, is the Pergamon Revolt, which did not start as a movement from above, but from all the proletarianized social strata and slaves. Their demands were wider than those of other social uprisings, as what they wanted was a classless communitarian society without individual property, without slaves and masters. In that specific revolt, its connection with and influence by the utopian and philosophical movements of the critical thinking of

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the time are quite evident. The Pergamon Revolt took its name and was inspired by a utopian novel, The Islands of the Sun, written by Iambulus, which was very widespread in the East. On the one hand, in this utopian novel there is neither money, nor authority, nor discrimination, and so no need for crime, guilt, and injustice. On the other hand, no one is forced to observe the law, because there the law is not the legitimate right of the strongest, it is not coercion and a tyrant, but rather a customary habit, a primary condition of bliss and, thus, an inherent need. This utopia by Iambulus was loved especially by the popular strata, above all because it managed to combine the most essential elements of all utopias into a profoundly revolutionary synthesis, overthrowing the rule of statute law, the law that goes against the physical order and enshrines social inequality and mischief. There could be a society without crime, a society of equality, purity, and bliss, and this because there is no individual property. With the eventual prevalence of the Romans there came a downsizing or abolition of these democratic institutions that were still operating. On the one hand, the poorest sections of the conquered Greek populations suffered a major blow. The mechanisms that had been built up for centuries to protect their interests were no longer working. On the other hand, the upper and moneyed classes consolidated their social and economic privileges. The movement of the populations was free throughout the empire; transactions were facilitated by the single currency—and any kind of business, commerce, banking, craft, and so on could yield immense wealth. Countless wealth had been accumulated both in the imperial house and in the hands of Roman officials who were imposing heavy taxation, extraordinary contributions, fines, and so on. On the other hand, there was not only great poverty in rural areas and among the lower classes, but also a reproduction of class distinction through the major impact of the Romans on the Greco-Roman culture of late antiquity: The Art of Governance and Civil Law. As far as the literature of the Greco-Roman period is concerned, at first, philosophical interests and concerns shifted from the actual issues on living to metaphysics, where the ultimate goal was not so much an earthly bliss as the ultimate salvation of the soul. Accordingly, rationality, as a method of inquiry, increasingly gave way to mysticism. The period’s

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demand for increased “spirituality” made that somewhat “materialistic” school of philosophical thinking obsolete. And yet at that very moment, a time of “abandonment”, there are still voices of resistance, voices that continued to strive to build an “anti-hegemonic” paradigm regarding law and crime. Aesop’s Fables, a folk reading and educational material for children of the time, with animals as protagonists that speak, who criticize the powerful, the gods, the rich, the wealthy who associate with the wicked, the king who when he intervenes does so for his own interest, while he (Aesop) gives hope to the poor and the weak. Lucian (of Samosata), in a tongue-in-cheek style, scorned: the gods, judges who received money in order to prosecute in favor or against, and legislators who—like tyrants that attached importance to penalties because they could rule only by coercion—attached importance to those who spoke in court for gold. Lucian called for equality for all: slaves, the free, the poor, and the rich. The neo-skeptic philosophers, Aenesidimus and Sextus Empiricus, opposed causality and the absoluteness of the terms good and evil, just and unjust, claiming that the good does not move everyone in the same way, and nor is there evil in nature. Above all, Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus) in his work De rerum natura opposed all forms of idealism with weapons of atheism and Epicurus’ materialistic philosophy. This Ancient Roman materialist sought to link philosophy with the vital problems of his contemporary Roman society. He wanted to get rid of reactionary traditions that were obscuring conscience and, more particularly, of religious constraint that was distinguished by its strict dogmatism, its crude prejudices, and its deep hostility to scientific knowledge. When that period was over a new one began with a new social movement that would leave its mark up till our time. The Christian movement was a social movement that had a specific moral and policy, initially not as a closed or homogeneous system, but, in certain aspects (until its institutionalization), conversed with the corresponding philosophical movements of the time. The early Christians neglected their political duty by refusing to serve in the military or even in the civil service, while they developed a community of alternative solidarity which was offered to outcasts and the proletarian classes at a time when earthly life was losing more and more of its value and there was no welfare state, at the

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same time, in the early texts of the new religion, you could easily find pieces of a subversive political and social philosophy with elements such as: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into God’s kingdom”; the persecution of the merchants in the Temple, who were called “robbers”; rules such as the communion of goods and severe punishment for those who disobeyed it; “the great evil” that is the accumulation of wealth; and the question of law and the functioning of the courts of the time, with the epitome in the passage from the Letter to the Romans, where it is written: “Where there is no law, there is no violation”.

Reference Georgoulas, S. (2018). The Origins of Radical Criminology: From Homer to PreSocratic Philosophy. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

2 The Classical Era

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Society: A Brief Introduction

Thucydides wrote in his “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” (XXXVII): Our constitution does not copy the laws of others; we are ourselves a model to others rather than imitators of others. It is true that our government is called democracy, because its administration is in the hands of the many, not of the few; before the law all are equal to settle their private disputes, whereas as regards their position in public life, each person is preferred to one of the public honors depending on the performance he has on them, that is, his public career depends rather on his personal value than his social class he comes from; nor, again one, who is poor but he is able to provide a service to his country, is prevented to this due to the fact he is unknown. On the other hand, we live as free men, both as citizens in public life and as individuals in private life, in our pursuits of everyday life; for we do not feel resentment at each other, we don’t get angry with our neighbor when he does what he likes, nor do we put on sour looks which, though harmless, are painful to behold. But whereas we avoid giving offense in our private intercourse, in our public life, as citizens, we are restrained from lawlessness mainly out of respect, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4_2

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for we obey those in authority and laws, especially those laws which are enacted to support the underprivileged, and those (laws), which, although unwritten, their infringement brings confessed shame to offenders. (www. greek-language.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/literature/index.html)

What is stated above is indicative of the period that is called Classical, which is a continuation of the achievements of the Archaic Period. Within these 150 years, following the establishment of democracy (507 BC) and the beginning of the Persian Wars (490 BC) up until the rise of Philip to the throne of Macedonia (359 BC), the Greek people made a series of unprecedented achievements, a creativity and inventiveness in every field of human action that has not yet ceased to impress. During a period of violent conflicts and continuous wars, intellectual and artistic production as well as the political inventiveness of the Greeks remained insurmountable and the symbol par excellence of Ancient Greek civilization. Athenian democracy played a dominant role during that period. It was an exception to the rule in the ancient world. However, it is the only exception in the history of societies that made democracy a rule of inspiration and imitation for following generations. It is no coincidence that modern societies maintain a continuous dialogue with concepts such as polit¯es (citizen), isonomia (equality of or before the law), isegoria (equal right to speech or equal right to address political assemblies), isotimia (equality), isokratia (equality of power), kállos (beauty or charm), dik¯e (litigation), métro (moderation), nómos (law), andreia (bravery), ag¯on (contest, struggle), patris (country, homeland), paideia (education, culture), and er¯os (desire), which were developed in Athens, either theoretically or embedded in practice, a dialogue that is constantly renewed and enriched. Concepts such as freedom, democracy, tyranny, plutocracy, oligarchy, international law, legitimacy of power, heterogeneity and conflict of interests, the distinction between the needs of the soul and body, politics, and religion that are known to have troubled the inhabitants of Athens are still concerning us today. The history of the Classical Period has influenced the modern and contemporary world, so it is rightly considered that classical civilization is not only a part of the

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history of the Greeks but a global commodity and cultural heritage of the European identity. But let us look more analytically at the specific features of the period and how they relate to a specific way of thinking about criminal phenomena, starting with the elements of Athenian democracy, where political participation was the case for a few men whose rights were increasing as democracy was acquiring solid foundations. Although the Athenian d¯emos (all citizens, people, municipality, in modern terms) was only a minority of the population at the time, it was considered to be extremely large. Many rights were not recognized as applicable to the foreigner (xenos); as for slaves, they practically had no rights. Woman was treated as a spouse, mother, sister, and daughter, and not as an active and involved citizen. Nevertheless, these three categories of the population, although they were excluded from politics, contributed significantly to Athens’ social, economic, cultural, and intellectual life, and without them, the often anonymous inhabitants of Attica, it would have been difficult for democratic Athens to have held for almost two centuries as a pole of attraction to the Greek world. The Athenians, who were divided into four income classes according to which their political rights were regulated, felt that the members of a privileged social group, who held all forms of power in their hands, shared with the other classes of the population their obligations towards the city. Athenian democracy was a direct democracy, and, within the context of this reality, the citizen’s active participation in public affairs was vital because the functioning of the system depended on it. But the content of this commitment was changing as democracy was evolving. The Persian Wars and then the spread of Athens to the Aegean Sea changed the social foundations of the Cleisthenic democracy, bringing to the political front the Thetes that moved the fleet. Although the differences between the income classes in terms of civil rights were decreasing, the same was not true of their obligations. The rich took almost all the burdens of taxes and military spending. In addition, reality itself imposed limits on the exercise of a direct democracy: it was practically impossible for everyone to participate, since Athens numbered some 30,000–40,000 citizens at that time. While the rulers continued to come from the members of the old aristocracy, who were traditionally trained in state

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administration, the urban d¯emos exercised a real monopoly at the expense of the farmer who lived away from the center. The Thetes were the only ones who really had the opportunity to participate in the ever-increasing meetings of the Ecclesia (Assembly, or ™κκλησ´ια in Greek), the Boul¯e (House of 500 citizens, or βoυλη´ in Greek), and the Law Courts. The measures that Ephialtes (politician and an early leader of the democratic movement) took and the institution of ´ Misthophora) for serving the law courts made payment (Mισθoϕoρα: by Pericles resulted in the dominance of the d¯emos becoming stronger. At the same time, however, the exercise of civil rights became a profession, and so the prominent Athenians lost control of the operation of government. With the establishment of democracy (at the end of the sixth century BC), the right to be an Athenian citizen was given to those who descended from Athenian men who were enrolled in the d¯emous that were created by Cleisthenes. Since 541 BC, women also participated in this legalization, because citizens were now considered to be only those who had both Athenian parents and were from a legal marriage. The city gave the father the power to bring out a citizen by watching the whole process: public recognition of the male child, enrollment in the clan, and enrollment at the age of 18 in the registers of the d¯emos. Therefore, every Athenian citizen was also a member of a family, a lineage, a clan, a d¯emos, a tribe. However, what distinguished the Athenian citizen from any other category of the population was his participation in the state, that is, in the organization of powers. The state defined the operation of its main bodies and agencies, the prerequisites for participation in it, and the manner in which its officers were elected and controlled. The archons (rulers) were chosen by lot. All authorities were collective, unified, and all officers reported properly at the end of the term of their office in the d¯emos. The archons did not have personal authority. In practice, they were public servants who were constantly controlled and threatened by deposition. Nevertheless, for some offices, such as that of the general, not all citizens had the same rights: the election was by vote, and they could be elected only by those who came from the wealthiest income classes. The citizen’s right to decide was exercised in the assembly of the demos, and his right to judge (or to be juror) was exercised in the law courts. Legally, only a citizen enjoyed unlimited legal capacity, which

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he could lose only if he lost his civil rights. Economically, he had the right to own land. The wealthy were entrusted with additional financial burdens, such as the liturgies (λειτoυργ´ιαι or λτoυργ´ιαι, from λα´oς/laos, “the people”, and the root ργo/ergon, “work”), which were public services established by the city-state of Athens whereby its richest citizens, more or less voluntarily, financed the state with their personal wealth—eisfores (contributions, taxes; emergency tax on property for war). As a citizen, his service in the war was directly connected either as a citizen or as a sailor. As a citizen, he was obliged to participate in the public feasts and cults of his city. Athenian democracy did not seek to eliminate social or economic inequalities. However, it succeeded in establishing a system of political equality which ensured social peace and balance and which did not rely on the principle of equal rights but on three equally important principles: isonomia (equality of law), isotimia (equality), and isegoria (equal right to speech or equal right to address the political assemblies). The basis of this political equality and, by extension, of the Athenian democracy was the sovereignty of the d¯emos, which was expressed mainly through the assemblies of the Ecclesia or Ekkesia of the d¯emos, the Boul¯e, the law courts, and the archons. This meant that every citizen had the right to rule, to decide, and to judge, or be a juror. These are the three elements that showed that a male Athenian citizen had full political rights. None of these three rights were enjoyed by women in classical Athens. For this reason, a woman was legally considered to be a perpetual minor and was under the guardianship of a man (father, spouse, brother, or son), without the consent of whom she could not own property, apply to court, sign a contract, or get married. Theoretically, the woman of Athens remained imprisoned in her house. However, we must not underestimate or overestimate this confined life, which was not about legal measures but about social practices. Indeed, the majority of middleclass women, although they did not lack the pretexts or the opportunities to escape from their houses (for religious feasts, sacrifices) they did spend most of their time in them. However, there are many cases and categories of women who had some freedom and financial independence. The married woman, given that the spouse was busy with his work or with the current politics, was managing her house with absolute authority (the dowry also upgraded her socially),

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an activity particularly important for family life. When the spouse was absent on an expedition, she had to support her children and slaves, while the widows managed their children’s property until they became adults. Poor Athenian women were often forced to work as nurses or hucksters in the fields. Rich Athenian women enjoyed greater freedom. From the end of the fifth century BC, women acquired more liberties, and were more often associated with men. Although democratic Athens excluded woman from political debates and decisions, it attributed to her a prominent place in the management of the house and, above all, in the reproduction of the political community (from 451 BC onwards). Thus, a female citizen, when she gave birth to natural or legitimate children, belonged to the city, and with her participation in public worship, she was integrated into the community. On the other hand, the metic (foreigner) who settled in Athens remained outside the Athenian community. The richest contibuted to and attended certain liturgies, serving as hoplites (Ðπλ´ιται), while others served in the light infantry or the fleet. Everyone enjoyed the protection of the law courts of Athens, in which (at least in the fifth century BC) they had to be represented by an Athenian citizen. The metics did not have the right to be landowners in Attica, so they concentrated their efforts on small industry and artisanship, trade and economy. However, there were also the intellectuals that were attracted by the reputation of the philosophical schools; there were also political refugees. Although their participation in the city’s life was steadily rising even by the end of the fourth century BC, citizenship was given to a metic sparingly. Although their relationship with (Athenian) citizens was particularly close, there was the overwhelming barrier of civil rights between them. The Athenians never missed reminding them of their foreign descent. Slaves were also of foreign descent. In fact, the slave was a private asset, although he or she was allowed to own money or other commodities. Any legal act concerning him or her was exercised only by his master. Although the law forbade anyone to kill a slave without cause, the punishment foreseen was to bring the culprit to the purification rite. Everyone could dispose of his slave as he wished: to hire, to give as a pledge, to sell, to torment, to beat.

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The period of Pericles’ leadership in Ancient Athens, whose words were cited from Thucydides’ Epitaph at the beginning of this section, was considered the Golden Age of Athens. Of course, the cultural development of the Athenian Democracy is not Pericles’ personal work. The Athenian leader was an expression of the spirit of his time, the coordinator of the parallel cultural tendencies and actions of the democratic party, and the executor of the passions of the popular mass. As exaggerated may be the term “Golden Age of Athens”, it is true that such an age had not yet come to Athens or to any other Greek state. The “golden age” of democracy, however, did not come as a natural consequence of a consensual process, but as a result of a conflict between oligarchs and democrats, a conflict that preceded Pericles’ age and followed his death. Another leader of the democrats, Ephialtes, following the Persian wars, understood that the oligarchs had great support in the polity. That is why the reforms made by Solon, Peisistratus, and Cleisthenes had to be completed. So, he made it his life’s purpose to struggle to reform the system in order to take a populist form. But in order to achieve his goal, he had to abolish the Areopagus (High Court), who always took the side of landlords and oligarchs in difficult circumstances. It was a conservative body. Its members came from old archons. When there was the process of the election of the Areopagites, a list of 500 candidates—who belonged to the two upper classes, the pentacosiomedimnoi (500 men derived from the highest class in Ancient Greece) and the hippeis (horsemen, cavalry)—was drawn up under the law of 487 BC. The Areopagites were life-long and irresponsible (or were not held accountable for their actions), and their power was considered “of divine origin”. Their mission was to oversee and monitor the rulers to check if they were performing their duties well. This was also the duty of the Supreme Court, which was responsible for all offenses and all crimes. It enacted laws and often reformed the decisions of the lower courts or even canceled them. In other words, it had powers that hampered the operation of the state apparatus when the democrats were in power. The first person who set up the Areopagus was Themistocles, two years before he was exiled. Ephialtes, continuing Themistocles’ policy, was forced to ruin this fort of oligarchs, and succeeded in doing so. Aristotle writes:

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For about seventeen years after the Persian Wars, the constitution remained under the leadership of the Areopagites, although they lost their power year after year. But as the population increased, Ephialtes, the son of Sophonides, having become head of the People (d¯emos) and having the reputation of being incorruptible and just in regard to the constitution, attacked the Areopagus. First, he made away with many of the Areopagites by bringing legal proceedings against them about their acts of administration; then, during the year that Cimon was archon, he stripped the Council of all its added powers which made it the safeguard of the constitution, and assigned some of them to Boul¯e and others to the People (d¯emos) and to the law-courts. (Athenaion politeia, 25, pp. 1–3)

On the other hand, Plutarch informs us that Ephialtes was able to abolish the privileges of the Areopagus when Cimon was on an expedition. When Cimon sailed away again on expedition, the populace got completely beyond control, because under the leadership of Ephilates it was robbed of all judicial power from the Areopagus except for a few exceptions, and it governed. And so, an unmitigated democracy was established, because Pericles also now had political power and was in agreement with many. (Cimon, p. 15)

Thus, justice became a popular feature because it came into effect in the people’s hands (see Aristotle’s, Athenaion politeia, 25, p. 3 and 26, p. 3). A new court institution was formed, the popular court (Eliaia or Eliaea), which now had to deal with all the offenses and differences. In other words, the people as a whole were the judges (or jurors). Six thousand Athenians were elected each year to make up the court. And for every trial, in the morning on the same day, a certain number were chosen by lot, who would be the judges (or jurors) for that day. These were the Heliasts, who also had to make the following oath: I will give verdict in accordance with the statutes and decrees of the Athenian People (d¯emos) and of the Boul¯e, which is the House of Fivehundred citizens. Never will I vote for tyranny or oligarchy. If any man tries to dismantle the Athenian democracy, propagate in words or vote for a change of state, I will not comply. I will not allow private debts to be cancelled, nor lands nor houses belonging to Athenian citizens to

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be re-distributed. I will not restore exiles or persons under sentence of death. I will not expel, nor suffer another to expel, persons here resident in contravention of the statutes and decrees of the Athenian People or of the Boul¯e. … I will not take bribes in respect of my judicial action, nor shall any other person accept bribes for me … I am not under thirty-eight years old. I will give impartial hearing to prosecutor and defendant alike … I swear (by Zeus, Poseidon, and Demeter), and shall invoke destruction upon myself and my household if I in any way transgress this oath. (Demosthenes, Against Timocrates, pp. 149–151)

The Athenian people now exerted a great function. The administration of justice was its own work and its sacred duty, while the Areopagus was a shadow. All its other powers were transferred to the Boul¯e, the Ecclesia of the d¯emos (people’s assembly), and Eliaea. The Ecclesia of the d¯emos was legislating. The People’s Courts made decisions and the Boul¯e and the archons implemented the decisions taken by the Ecclesia of the d¯emos. Ephialtes, with his reforms, gave rights to the people that they did not have before (see Plutarch, Pericles, p. 7). When the oligarchs murdered Ephialtes, Pericles, the deputy of the democrats, came to power and continued reforming radical democracy. These developments, as outlined very briefly in the political field, reflected similar socio-economic issues. First of all, we should say that the situation in the economy showed only a limited form of production, and where there was no reproduction of capital, the dominance of the rural way of production continued and at the same time overconsumption was indicative only for the uppermost social strata. As Aristotle writes: For states also are composed not of one but of several parts, as has been said often. One of these parts therefore is the mass of persons concerned with food who are called farmers, and second is what is called craftsmen who make crafts that are useful to the immediate needs of the people, while others (craftsmen) make crafts that contribute to luxury or noble living (Politics, IV, 1290b, 1291a). More simply put, at that time the producers made goods to satisfy directly and indirectly their personal needs. They did not produce for profit. In such cases, money could not be capitalized; that is, wealth could not take the form it has nowadays (the capitalist form). And if a lot of money was accumulated in the hands

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of a usurer, merchant, or slave landowner which could not be used for consumer purposes and for pleasure, then it (i.e. money/wealth) was not made capital. Instead, works of art were made with this wealth, or it was devoted to the Oracle (e.g. the Oracle at Delphi), or it was hidden (treasure). Thus, in the Classical Period, there was no reproductive property of money, which is the distinctive feature of capital. Nevertheless, the stagnant nature of the economy, coupled with the devastating wars of the time, exacerbated the existing social problems, at the same time worsening social and, consequently, political contradictions. On the one hand there were the social outcasts who relied on the subsidy policy of democrats and dared to claim further radicalization of democracy, and, on the other hand, there were the oligarchs who explained poverty based on individual responsibility and even discussed measures of social eugenics. Indicative of this is an excerpt from Aristophanes’ comedy Plutus (Wealth), which describes this conflict in arguments. Chremylus, the main hero of Plutus, is a fallen micro-householder, who has become unemployed and homeless, which he blames on Penia (Poverty). He complains that she is the cause that has brought him to the brink of society. But Penia rebukes him. What she says is the oligarchs’ argument, that of the great landlords and usurers who believe that if there is poverty, the unemployed, and the homeless, they are themselves to blame for this and they should not blame it on others. To these arguments, Chremylus, as the representative of the Athenian proletariat, replies: And what good thing can you (Penia: Poverty) give us, unless it be burns in the bath, and swarms of brats and old women who cry with hunger, and clouds uncountable of lice, gnats and flies, which hover about the wretch’s head, trouble him, awake him and say, “You will be hungry, but get up!” Besides, to possess a rag in place of a mantle, a pallet of rushes swarming with bugs, that do not let you close your eyes, for a bed; a rotten piece of matting for a coverlet; a big stone for a pillow, on which to lay your head; to eat mallow roots instead of bread, and leaves of withered radish instead of cake; to have nothing but the cover of a broken jug for a stool, the stave of a cask, and broken at that. (verses 535–547)

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Penia, although she did not deny that for many years she had been the companion of the populace in Attica (verse 437), did not admit the accusations she was listening to, because what Chremylus was saying to her were the features of the unemployed and beggars, not poverty. Ah! she says, it is another thing to be poor and it is another thing to be a beggar. And “beggary is poverty’s sister,” was Chremylus’ answer; that is, “If we have come to beg, it is not our fault, but our poverty’s”. Penia replies: What you are claiming is that it is the same, the honest with the dishonest. No, my life is not like that and never will be. Because, the beggar, whom you have depicted to us, never possesses anything, whereas the poor man works attentively and lives thriftily. I don’t deny it; he has not got too much, but he does not lack what he really needs. (verses 552–554)

But Chremylus replies to Penia’s new argument with the conventional wisdom of a social outcast: Oh! what a happy life of the poor you have just presented us, by Demeter! to live sparingly, to toil incessantly and not to leave enough to pay for a tomb! (verses 555–556)

To these words, Aristophanes puts in Penia’s mouth what all the landlords claimed at the time: Here are two old men, whose brains are easy to confuse, who assist each other to talk rubbish and drivel to their hearts’ content. But if your wishes were realized, your profit would be great! Let Plutus recover his sight and divide his favours out equally to all, and none will learn either trade or craftmanship any longer; all toil would be done away with. Who would wish to hammer iron, build ships, sew, turn, cut up leather, bake bricks, bleach linen, tan hides, or break up the soil of the earth with the plough and garner the gifts of Demeter, if he could live in idleness and free from all this work? (verses 507–516)

The class contradictions that sharpened and transformed political conflicts were not just characteristics of the city-state of Athens but of

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almost all the city-states in the Ancient Greek classical world. As De Ste Croix (1981) mentions, at that time above all, and in most cases, the class struggle in the political field occurred for control of the state. If in a Greek city the d¯emos succeeded in creating and supporting a truly functional democracy, such as the Athenian one, then its members could hope to secure their self-protection and avoid being exploited to a large extent. The only long-standing example of a truly successful democracy we can refer to with certainty is Athens between 507 and 322/1 BC, when democracy was firmly in power, except for two short-lived oligarchic revolutions, in 411 and 404/3 BC. There were many other democracies, but our knowledge about them is scarce. When, on the contrary, the ruling class succeeded in establishing an oligarchy, with a voting right attached to property, the mass of the poor were deprived of all their legitimate political rights, and it was natural for them to be subject to an even greater exploitation by the rich. The basic ideological elements of radical democracies in that struggle (characteristics we will see below are depicted and associated with the critique of the criminal phenomenon) were the following three. 1. The great purpose of the democrats was to bring their society as much freedom as possible. The opponents to Greek democracy fully recognized the fact that freedom was indeed to be the ultimate goal of the democrats, even when they sneered at that purpose as a consequence of impunity rather than of true freedom. Plato, one of the most infamous and most dangerous enemies that freedom ever had, sneered at democracy because he claims that it leads to an excess of freedom for everyone—citizens, metics, foreigners, slaves, and women—and (a fancy bit of wit) that the miasma (taint) of anarchy would be transmitted even to domestic animals (Plato, Republic, VIII, 562a–564a; esp. 563c). Since public debate is an essential part of democratic practice, a major component of democratic freedom is freedom of speech, parrhesia (boldness: (1) literally “saying it all”, speaking one’s mind frankly and openly, holding nothing back; (2) an act of “speaking truth to power”, an earnest attempt to correct the errors of one’s rulers, neighbors, or society at large).

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2. Because in every democracy every citizen has equal votes, political equality was an inherent feature of Greek democracy. The Greek democrats stated that their society was characterized by isonomia¸ everyone is equal before the law, and isegoria, everyone is equally free to say what he thinks. However, there was no attempt at economic equality. 3. A fundamental principle of democracy was that whoever exercised power ought to be responsible or accountable (for his performance): to examine his self-management and actions up until the end of his term, which normally was for one year. Whatever was the final outcome of the Peloponnesian War would not solve these internal contradictions. On the contrary, it aggravated social problems. The transient radical democracy and the limited framework for land redistribution and debt cancelation would not be a radical solution. Democracy became degenerated and was then abolished, albeit not formally, in the Hellenistic Period and under the domination of the Macedonian kings. The recognition of a powerful high suzerain, capable of violently suppressing any further attempt to change the established order and leading the Greek expedition against Persia, was but a solution of the upper classes. Finally, as Andrewes (1967) claims, “sobriety” comes with “consensus”, not with “questioning”. From the middle of the fourth century BC, excessive individualism diminished, and the radical questioning of all the established values that had characterized the generation of Euripides and Thucydides resulted in the undermining of confidence in the value of individual critical thinking that questioning requires. Theoretical reflection did not stop, though Aristotle was able to think that the hypothesis that there was a broader consensus between the intelligent and good-willed people for the purposes that the city or individual had to pursue was reasonable.

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Law and Justice

In the preceding paragraphs, we have seen briefly some political interventions by democratic leaders in the operation of justice in classical Athens. Now, let us look at this issue in more detail. In the middle of the fifth

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century BC the first major reform was established. From then on, the Areopagus limited itself to the right to hear cases of homicide and some other crimes that were considered to be religious. The rest were given to the Boul¯e, the Ecclesia of the d¯emos, or the People’s Courts that Solon had established for appeals. It is remarkable that along with its responsibilities the Areopagus seemed to have lost too much of its power, and quite suddenly and without struggle. At about the same time, the judicial salary for the court judges (or jurors) of democracy was introduced, and these were two of the most important features of the new Athenian democracy, a constitution that fitted a d¯emos that became self-confident in their use of strength. After all, the numerous courts were representative parts of the popular assemblies. The distrust of the “specialist” and the confidence in the collective judgment of ordinary people was the essence of democracy. The poor could and must participate equally and the “best” (aristoi) became angry because they lost their grains. But if the second half of the fifth century BC was a period of conflict, contention, and radicalism, in justice issues, what followed, especially at the end of the century and in the first half of the 4th, was an attempt to preserve and protect democracy as expressed in law. As MacDowell (1978) states, in 410 BC, when democracy had just been restored, the following decree was issued by Demophantos. If anyone overthrows democracy in Athens or exercises any office after the overthrow of democracy, he will be an enemy of the Athenians and will be killed without the murderer being punished, while his (the murderer’s) property will be confiscated and one-tenth of it will fall into the goddess. Moreover, anyone who murders or helps design the murder of such a man would be pure and innocent. All Athenians will swear above ravished sacrifices by tribes and demous to kill such a man. The oath reads as follows: I will kill, in words and works, by vote and by my hand, if I can, anyone who overthrows democracy in Athens, and anyone who, after the overthrow of democracy, has an office and anyone decides to become a tyrant or helps to enforce the tyrant.

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In 336 BC, another law was passed after it was suggested by Eucrates. The text of the inscription was discovered in the excavations of the Agora. Having briefly stated that anyone who establishes tyranny or overthrows democracy is allowed to murder with impunity (which is merely a summary of Demophantos’ decree), he mainly concerns himself with the Areopagus: every Areopagite who attends a meeting when democracy has been overthrown will suffer deprivation of his political rights (atimia (ατιμ´ια): “dishonor” or a form of disenfranchisement) and confiscation of his property. Obviously, there was a fear that democracy could be overthrown by the complicity of members of the Areopagus. In cases of treason and, more particularly, in overthrowing the democratic constitution and betrayal to an enemy, it was particularly important that the crime should have been revealed before it was executed, because then a workable treatment of evil was unlikely to find. That is why informants were encouraged to carry this type of crime directly to the Ecclesia or the Boul¯e without going through preliminary proceedings before an archon, a fact that could cause delays. The simplest mode of action was what was generally called menysis, which just means “informing” and “complaint”. Ultimately, however, the risk of overthrowing the democratic constitution did not come from external enemies but from “within”. Democratic conservatism prevailed and, with it, the need to soften the sides of radical democracy and the operation of justice, in order to “protect” (as the main argument went) real democracy from “demagogues”, “ochlocracy or mobocracy”, and the knowledge of the “best”—“prudence” was needed. But it had been forgotten that democracy had changed the operation of justice from the weapon of the powerful into a refuge for the weak. And so justice became an impersonal, intangible concept that affected everyone the same, without being non-intrusive though, that is, in essence it started becoming an instrument of reproduction of an established authority and not that of social change. This is typically recorded in theatrical plays (especially in tragedies and comedies) and philosophical works of the time, which we will discuss below.

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Athenian Drama

At this time, Athens was adorned with the brilliant buildings that have been admired through the centuries, and Athenian theater reached its peak. Accessible to the masses, tragedies and comedies were performed that were not only masterpieces of discourse in terms of form but also in their content; they show the intellectual development of the Athenian people following the Persian wars. As I mentioned earlier, we know that great changes took place in Athens and Attica. We also know that the social structure of Attica was now different. Old nobles had lost their privileges, and the people had political rights and played a protagonist role in the Ecclesia of the demos. So new ideas appeared and began to concern the intellectuals of that time. Some of them were concentrating on social problems and others were trying to answer the question of what was hidden under the people’s actions. Pioneering Athenian thought now began to deal with the sharp criticism of all the problems that new productive relations had generated in Attica. Greek tragedy was dominated by the names of Sophocles and Euripides, followers of Aeschylus’ work, while in comedy the most famous works are by Aristophanes. Sophocles was an innovator in his early dramas. This is shown in Antigone played in 441/440 BC. Although with a certain rhetoric, he throws despotic power in Creon’s face and declares that there is an unwritten law that allows the people to violate authoritarian laws (Antigone, verses 444–456). If we study carefully and analyze in depth Antigone’s claims, we will see that her rebellion symbolizes the people’s revolution against their oppressors. Later, however, when the Peloponnesian War began, and when the plague led to the death of thousands of Athenians, a large portion of Sophocles’ fellow citizens became pessimistic and gods-fearing. The great death that led to the desertion of Athens and Piraeus and the disasters of the Lacedaemonians in Attica transformed many Athenian thinkers because they believed that all disasters had fallen upon them due to some divine curse. As the war was prolonged, religiosity found a ground of cultivation in Athens. Many Athenians now believed in divine power and not in themselves. Such a psychology Sophocles represents in a very clear way, when he himself

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does not only seem to be religious but also teaches others piety and believes absolutely in fate. Happiness and misery, he says, are the gods’ work (Ajax, verse 1036; The Women of Trachis, verse 1278). The gods see everything (Electra, verse 657). Nobody can violate divine laws (Oedipus Rex, verse 864). Thus, since the man who is helpless against the gods’ will must be pleased with his downfall and should not demand much, so should he demand simple mediocrity. The gods love only those who live a moderate life and are not insolent (Ajax, verse 127; Oedipus at Colonus, verse 1211). Unlike this fatal mindset, another group of the ruling class saw everything that was done around it with critical rationality. Such an understanding Euripides represents. Although he does not show a clear disdain for the religious perceptions of his time, he finds a way to ridicule the gods and their “achievements”. The people’s fate, believed Euripides, is not a divine revelation. What happens around us is due to the effect of natural causes. Ethics is not absolute but relative. And the gods cannot change the natural laws. So, they cannot perform miracles. And there are no evil spirits (Erinyes or Furies) who punish (Orestes, verses 259, 396). Even the gods of Olympus are not all of supernatural origin (Bacchae, verse 272). Prophets do not have any supernatural power (Helen, verse 744). The gods may not exist at all. “What is god?” Hecuba wonders, while philosophizing. “Is it the need of nature or mortals’ mind?” (The Trojan Women, verse 877). Moreover, Clytemnestra and Hercules are reluctant to admit whether the gods do exist (Heracles, verse 1250; Ifigenia in Aulis, verse 1034; Orestes, verse 418). And the gods’ miracles are figments of the imagination (Electra, verse 737). According to Euripides, history is a work of people and not that of gods. Euripides was a rationalist. His contemporaries called him “the philosopher of the scene”. This characterization is correct because Euripides, influenced by Anaxagoras, introduced philosophical ideas in his tragedies, trying to break down prejudices and educate the people. Moreover, he took part in political life. He was a democrat, but he could not put up with demagogues. He also wanted the middle class to rule (The Suppliants, verse 241). That is the reason why many times in his tragedies he disapproves both of demagogic behaviors and sailors’ anarchist actions.

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In those years, comedy also found a good soil on which to grow. On the Athenian stage, many comedies were performed after the Persian Wars. Nevertheless, none was saved, apart from some of Aristophanes’ best comedies that have come down to us. Aristophanes was born on the island of Aegina around 450 BC. He was a great playwright and one of the greatest satirists of Greek antiquity. Some people praise him because he wrote hymns on peace. But they are not right. When Aristophanes was arguing, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, for an end to the Peloponnesian War, he did not do so because he had superior understanding, but because he was an instrument of great landowners. Like some other contemporary comedians, he also belonged to the oligarchic faction. For this reason, his main aim was always the democratic constitution and democratic institutions, along with Euripides, who was the most modernist and the most progressive of the playwrights. Overall, however, theater alongside public festivals was a form of educating the people on critical thinking and democracy. More specifically, the Athenian theater was a free forum to disseminate and develop new ideas that were the ideological achievement of the Athenian democracy. That is why the oligarchs did not tolerate the Athenian theater regime (or theatokratia), where the homilies by Euripides and other playwrights were accessible to the “mob”, who even had an opinion on the works that were being performed. Of course, they could not halt freedom of speech because they themselves did not rule, but they rebelled, as Plato tells us. The philosopher, echoing the opinion of his class, called the Athenian theater regime one of “vicious theatrical rule (theatrokratias)” (Plato, The Laws, 701c). On the other hand, the democrats were asserting that the theater must be free to the people, to teach and enlighten them. They even set the death penalty for anyone who would ´ the Festival Fund, the name for the abolish the Theorica (εωρικα; money that the city-state of Athens expended on festivals, sacrifices, and public entertainments of various kinds, and thus the people were funded to attend the theater festivals). So, the playwrights and the intellectuals who belonged to the oligarchic faction, in order to react against the progressive homilies made by traders and sailors as well as by the demos, promoted social peace as the highest ideal. For them, conflict policies

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and revolutions were a great evil. On the other hand, social peace was the greatest asset for every state. But let us take a closer look at how this conflict of ideas and its evolution is manifested in the works that have survived by the great tragedians Sophocles and Euripides.

3.1

Sophocles

The Sophocles tragedy that is most indicative of his radical thinking on law is Antigone, where the opposition to power over a moral issue is more important than the law that the lord has just issued. At the beginning, a determined Antigone tries to persuade her frightened sister, Ismene, to follow her in her practice to bury her dead brother despite the explicit ban of Lord Creon. Ismene reveals her fear of the power of the law and Antigone answers with the phrase “fair breach”, as shown in verses 58– 75: Now in turn, we two left all alone, consider how badly we will perish, if in violence of the law we transgress the decree and power of absolute rulers. No, we two women must keep in mind we were born women whose purpose is not to battle against men. Then, because we are ruled by those who are stronger, we must hear and obey this and things yet more painful. As for me, begging those below for pardon, since I am being forced in this, I will yield to those in authority, for acting in excess has no sense. Now, we, the two of us, left alone. Antigone And I would not ask you, and if you wish in the future, you would not gladly do anything with me. No, be whatever seems best to you. That one I shall give rites. It is noble for me to die doing this. I shall lie with him, beloved (phile) with the beloved one (philos),

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after I have done anything and everything holy—fair breach—since far longer is the time I must please those below than those here.

Ismene’s same fear is shown in verses 92–94, when she says: From the outset, we should not hunt for what is beyond our means. Antigone If you keep talking like this, I will hate you And the slain brother will justly hate you.

Significant reference to radical thinking about the law is present in Antigone’s answer to King Creon in verses 446–459: Creon Now you, tell me, not at length but concisely, did you know that these were forbidden by proclamation? Antigone Yes. Why would I not? It was public. Creon And you dared anyway to transgress these laws. Antigone Yes, Zeus was not the one who issued these proclamations for me, nor did Justice, who dwells with the gods below, define such laws among mankind. I did not think your proclamations so strong that you, a mortal, could overstep gods’ unwritten and unshakable traditions. Not today or yesterday but always they live, and no one knows when they appeared. I was not about to pay the penalty before gods for violating them out of fear for a man’s thought.

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In verses 504–509, Antigone reveals the enemy of critical thinking: the people’s fear of a tyrannical regime: Antigone All these men here would agree with this, I would say, if fear were not locking up their tongues. But absolute rule is blest in many other ways, and, in particular, it has the power to do and say what it wishes. Creon You alone of these Cadmeians see it this way. Antigone These men of yours see it this way, but their lips cower before you.

In verses 663–678, Aemon, the son of Creon and Antigone’s fiancé, presents the oligarchs’ point of view of the time on faith in the laws and power and the need for social peace to prevail over “anarchy”: But whoever transgresses the laws and does them violence or intends to issue orders to those in power, this man cannot possibly receive praise from me. Whomever the city may appoint, one should obey in small concerns and just, and in their opposites. For my part, I would encourage this man to rule nobly and to consent to be ruled well, and when assigned a post amid the spear storm, to remain there, a just and brave comrade beside his comrades. There is no greater evil than anarchy. This destroys cities, this renders houses desolate, this in the spear battle causes routs to break out. But among men who are prosperous, obedience to command saves many lives. Thus, a defense must be mounted for the regulations. Defeat by a woman must never happen.

In Sophocles’ Electra, we have a similar issue. The name-part heroine, along with her brother Orestes, wants to avenge the death of her father

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Agamemnon by their mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, who now has the power. Chrysothemis, Electra’s sister, is the realist in this play that prefers to subordinate to power so as to be able to live, as she states in verses 339–340: But if I am to live the life of the freeborn, I have to obey those in power in all things.

But Electra, the heroine of the tragedy, prefers resistance to succumbing to authority in verses 392–397: Chrysothemis Have you no care for the life you lead now? Electra Oh, yes, my life is so wondrously fine. Chrysothemis It would be, if only you learned good sense. Electra Do not teach me to betray those I love. Chrysothemis I do not, but to bend before the strong. Electra Keep your flattery to yourself; it is not in my character.

The pair of heroes we have seen before, a revolutionary and a realist against power, have been recorded in the oldest surviving tragedy by Sophocles, Ajax. The name-part hero, with a sense of honor and dignity inherent in the notion of being, is attacked by the power of Menelaus and Agamemnon and commits suicide, while his wife, Tecmessa, is trying to prevent him from doing so. Moral obligation is in conflict with authority and the demand to show discipline and obedience. In verses 1071–1083, Menelaus states:

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Now it is, in truth, the mark of a base nature when a commoner does not think it right to obey those who stand over him. Never can the laws maintain a prosperous course in a city where fear has no fixed place, nor can a camp be ruled any more with moderation, if it lacks the guarding force of fear and reverence. A man, though he grows his body great and mighty, must expect to fall, even from a light blow. Whoever knows fear and shame both, you can be certain that he has found his salvation; but where there is license to attack others and act at will, do not doubt that such a State, though she has run before a favoring wind, will eventually sink with time into the depths.

And, within the same context, Agamemnon adds in verses 1246–1249: Yet in a place where such ways prevail, there could be no settled order for any law, if we are to thrust the rightful winners aside and bring those in the rear up to the front ranks.

Odysseus invokes moral obligation and tries to prevent Agamemnon’s power from attacking the honor of the lost hero, in verses 1342–1345: It would not be just, then, that he should be dishonored by you. It is not he, but the laws given by the gods that you would damage. When a good man is dead, there is no justicein doing him harm, not even if you hate him.

In Philoctetes, another Sophoclean tragedy, Odysseus assumes another character. It is he who sacrifices the moral rules to the altar of pursuing his purpose. He wants to trick Philoctetes, using Neoptolemus as his assistant, but the latter will not help him in this endeavor. In verses 80– 86, 94–96, and 109–112, that is, in the dialogue between Odysseus and Neoptolemus, their characters in relation to the law are delineated: Odysseus Well I know, my son, that by nature you are not apt to utter or contrive such treachery. Yet knowing that victory is a sweet prize to gain, steel yourself to do it. Our honesty shall be displayed another

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time. Now, however, give yourself to me for one brief, shameless day, and then for the rest of time may you be called the most righteous of all humankind. Neoptolemus And yet I was sent to assist you and am reluctant to be called traitor. Still I prefer, my king, to fail when doing what is honorable than to be victorious in a dishonorable manner. Odysseus No, not if the falsehood yields deliverance. Neoptolemus And with what expression on his face will anyone dare mouth those lies? Odysseus When what you do promises gain, it is wrong to shrink back. Neoptolemus And what gain is it for me that he should come to Troy? Odysseus His arrows alone will capture Troy. Neoptolemus Then I am not to be the conqueror, as you said?

At the beginning, Neoptolemus feels the need to obey authority and steals Philoctetes’ bows, as shown in verses 923–926: Philoctetes I am destroyed—ah, misery!—betrayed! What have you done to me, stranger? Return my bow at once!

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Neoptolemus No, it is not possible. My duty and my interest alike constrain me to obey those in power.

At the end, however, the hero Neoptolemus finds the courage to confront the leader Odysseus, giving another meaning to the notion of “law”, as shown in verses 1246–1252: Neoptolemus And yet if they are just, they are better than wise. Odysseus And how is it just for you to give up what was won by means of my plans? Neoptolemus My error was to my dishonor, and now I must try to retrieve it. Odysseus The army of the Achaeans causes you no fear, when you do this? Neoptolemus With justice on my side, I do not tremble at the terrors you name. Odysseus < *> Neoptolemus No, not even at the threat of your hand do I yield obedience.

Oedipus’ myth was dealt with by all three great poets: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Sophocles wrote two works that are preserved with the homonymous hero. In Oedipus Tyrannus (or Oedipus the King ), Oedipus is an arrogant king and Creon is his nemesis. In verses 628–629 the relationship of power (Oedipus’ thirst for ruling) and non-discipline

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with regard to it (Creon’s response to it) is recorded; that is, Creon does not obey if the ruler rules badly: Oedipus [But you have to obey] Still I must rule. Creon Not if you rule badly.

Twenty years later, Sophocles wrote the tragedy Oedipus at Colonus, where Oedipus is presented as a hero. In Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus was a man in and with power. However, this power led to impoverishment and collapse. In contrast, in Oedipus at Colonus the same man—a suppliant, now—in Athens is led from the fall to the elevation. The righteous King Theseus defends the suppliant from Creon’s intervention in his own country, Athens, a fair and not enslaved city that does not do something inconsistent with law and democracy, as presented in verses 912–919: You have come to a city that practices justice and sanctions nothing without law, yet you have spurned her lawful authorities and made this violent assault. You are taking captives at will and subjugating them by force, as if you believed that my city was void of men, or manned by slaves, and that I counted for nothing.

3.2

Euripides

Euripides was born in Athens during the years of the triumphs of the city of Athens, in Thermopylae and Salamina. Athens had begun its path to glory. Here, in this atmosphere of economic comfort and the questioning of spiritual values, the poet showed the first signs of his creative genius. He became the modernist of and innovator in classical Greek drama: he treated the religious and moral issues of the old myths with originality, without hesitating to change them in order to achieve his dramatic or

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ideological goal, introducing innovations on stage while presenting his works. Naturally, his originality had to face his contemporaries’ conservatism and prejudices, sometimes being laughed at and sometimes being rejected, something that becomes evident from the fact that, despite his great writing, he won the first prize in theatrical contests only five times for the whole of his dramatic activity. However, the number of these official distinctions (i.e. the prizes he won) does not correspond to Euripides’ real popularity, the appeal he had, not only to his compatriots but also to all those who spoke or understood the Greek language. After his death he became, and still remains, the most popular of the three tragic playwrights. He is the dramatist with the greatest influence on the theater of his time and on later European theatrical production. Euripides analyzes human nature, instincts, passions, and motives with realism. He doubts, worries, wonders about everything, without excluding the infallibility of the gods and the old ethical principles. Of the 90 works he wrote, the titles of 81 have been preserved, of which only 19 are intact: one satirical drama, Cyclops, and 18 tragedies: Alcestis, Andromache, Bacchae, Hecuba, Helen, Electra, Heracleide, Herakles Furens, The Suppliants, Hippolytus, Iphigenia in Aulis, Iphigenia in Tauris, Ion, Medea, Orestes, The Trojan Women, Phoenician Women, and Rhesus (the authorship of which is disputed). The tragedy Phoenician Women deals again with the legend of “the Seven against Thebes” that had already been dealt with by Aeschylus and by Sophocles in the latter’s Antigone. In verses 524–525 and 535–545, in which the dialogue between the new King Eteocles and his mother Jocasta takes place, on the one hand, the views on power (tyranny) are shown, and, on the other hand, there is a debate for justice and equality, revealing the democratic soul of the city: Eteocles For if we must do wrong, to do so for the sake of power [tyranny] is the fairest cause, but in all else piety should be our aim.

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Jocasta But, my child, it is more beautiful you can honor equality, the one that friends with friends always, cities with cities, allies with allies tie together, because equality is by nature stable for people, while for what it is always stands hostile to be less and to begin hostility with it. For equality distributes measures and weights to humans and still distinguishes the numbers usually and the dim eye of the night and the light of the sun straight goes into the cycle of time and neither one nor the other envy each other when they are defeated.

In the classic pair of protagonists, Antigone and Creon, Antigone defines the concept of “unlawful justice” in verses 1645–1651: Antigone Why do you make laws over a helpless corpse? Creon This was Eteocles’ decision, not mine. Antigone It is senseless, and you are a fool to obey it! Creon How so? Isn’t it right to carry out his commands? Antigone No! Not if they are wrong and ill-advised. Creon Well! Isn’t it right he would be thrown to the dogs? Antigone No, for you are giving him unlawful justice.

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Euripides’ period was a time of equality rather than the dominance of the strongest. In Medea, he reminds us of that in verses 536–538, when Jason addresses Medea: First of all, you are now living among Greeks and not barbarians, and you know what justice is and you can have a life based on laws and not in the strongest’s will of the strongest.

It was the time of the deconstruction of the gods, who can work as slaves but do not escape from death, as recorded in verses 1–2 and 55–61 of the tragedy Alcestis: Apollo House of Admetus! In you I brought myself to taste the bread of menial servitude, god though I am. Death I win greater honor when the victims are young. Apollo And yet if she dies old, she will receive a rich burial. Death The law you are trying to establish, Phoebus, is to the advantage of the rich. Apollo What do you mean? Can I have failed to appreciate what a thinker you are? Death Those with means could buy death at an old age. Apollo Well! Don’t you think that you can grant me this favour.

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Death No, indeed. You know my own behavior.

A similar deconstruction is also recorded in the tragedy Heracles. The gods are unjust, as Theseus states in verses 1316–1319 and, finally, they are tales of the poets, as Heracles claims in verses 1345–1348. Theseus Have they not intermarried in ways that law forbids? Have they not thrown fathers into ignominious chains to gain the sovereign power? Still they inhabit Olympus. Heracles For the deity, if he be really such, has no wants; these are miserable tales of the poets.

Similarly, there is the cry of Creusa in the tragedy Ion against the unjust ruler deities in verses 253–255 and 440–451: Creusa O gods, what deeds are yours! What then? To what may we ascribe justice, if we are destroyed by the injustice of those in power? Ion Do not do so; but, since you have power, seek after virtue. For if any mortal is bad, the gods punish him. How then is it just for you to write laws for mortals, and yourselves incur a charge of lawlessness? If—for it is not so, but I will handle the subject— you pay the penalty to mortals for rape, you and Poseidon, and Zeus, who rules heaven, you will empty your temples paying for your crimes. For you do wrong to go eagerly after your pleasures without thinking. No longer is it right to speak badly of men, if we imitate what the gods think good, but rather of the ones who taught us these things. Ion goes out.

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In the tragedy Iphigenia in Aulis, Euripides initially put in Menelaus’ mouth the democratic principle that everyone can govern a state in verses 374–375, while Clytemnestra later declares her opposition to the principle of utilitarianism in verse 1344. Menelaus May I never appoint a man to rule my country or lead its warriors because of his courage! Sense is what the general must have; since any man, with ordinary intelligence, can govern a state. Clytemnestra There is no dignity if we may profit.

In Bacchae, the prophet Teiresias, in verses 309–312, stands as a critic against Pentheus’ power, who finally, after having disputed a popular belief, finds death: But believe me, Pentheus; do not boast that power gives power to people, nor, even if you have any opinion, but your opinion is wrong when believing that you think at all wise.

In Heracleidae, the mythological theme of Heracleidae is developed, that is, that of Hercules’ descendants, who along with his mother Alcmene have fled to Athens to seek protection from the persecution of King Eurystheus of Mycenae. The Athenian ruler Demophon, the son of the hero Theseus, offers them his help and captures the persecutor Eurystheus, delivers him to Alcmene, and then she takes her revenge by killing him. The poet’s aim in this work is political: Athens is a source of defense of the moral law, Sparta sells out the moral obligation of gratitude for benevolence, Athens does not hesitate to pay a very dear price for its protective role to the hunted people, and the law of such an attitude is blessed by the gods, who give victory on the battlefield to those who unselfishly expose themselves to this kind of risk. At the same time, through historical anachronism, the climate of democratic processes in Athens is projected, with a willful expansion, onto what is happening

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elsewhere, and Demophon appears as a leader of a democratic age. Right from the beginning (verses 1–5), Iolaus describes the just man who is not the one who thinks of profit: I have long ago come to this conclusion: the just man is to his neighbors by nature a great help in adversity though he himself suffers calamity, while the man whose heart runs untrammeled toward profit is of no use to his city and hard to deal with but to himself he is very beneficial.

In verses 329–330, the chorus leader describes the righteously democratic Athens: It is always the desire of this land to help the weak in a just cause. In Electra, Euripides deconstructs a mythical heroine and sets her up to be married to a poor farmer. With the shifting of the scene of drama to a poor house, he shaped the potential of another plot. The operation of Electra’s conventional man, a simple farmer, served the integration of new perceptions that shattered the prejudices that high ethos was determined by the social position of people. Clytemnestra in her “talking back” (αγωνα ´ λ´oγoυ) is apologetic, and this makes it harder to accept her killing, Orestes and Electra have their anxieties about the consequences of matricide, and the concept of deity remains exposed: Clytemnestra had been fair, but Orestes did not act righteously and the wise god of Delphi rendered unwisely. In verses 938–944, Electra explains that riches and righteousness have no causal relationship: This deceived you the most, in your ignorance: you professed to be someone, strong in your wealth, but that is nothing, except to associate with briefly. It is nature that is secure, not wealth; for, always standing by, it takes away troubles; but prosperity, when it lives wickedly and with fools, flies out of the house, flowering for a short time.

A study on the connection between crime and misery is the tragedy Hecuba by Euripides. Her plot is intertwined between two different

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myths, which have the common denominator of the long-suffering old Queen of Troy: the sacrifice of her daughter Polyxena, and the harsh punishment of the wretched Polymestor. These two events have no causal relationship between them. One does not produce the other or does not follow as a necessary, inevitable sequence. They just happen one after the other. But their deeper relationship interests Euripides, because he needs to show and justify Hecuba’s transformation: from a pathetic, inactive victim who only suffers, she turns into a brutal and inexorable assailant. In this very problem we have the poet’s suggestion: tragic passion not only belongs as a core idiom to the tragic hero’s character, but it can be produced by the accumulation of external pressure, suffering, and misery. There are two important elements in the play. Its anti-war character and the impoverishment of humanity that the war brings. As a result, there is mental distortion and deprivation. The vehicle for the inspirational narration of these elements is Hecuba. She summarizes the ultimate misery. From a great queen, she becomes a slave after she loses her husband (who was slaughtered) and a host of sons and daughters. Now, in an unheard of human sacrifice, she is losing Polyxena (a reference to and analogy with the ever-increasing atrocities of the Peloponnesian War). She is the representative victim, who passively suffers human cruelty. She is suffering, without there being any visible crime (amartia) or fault there. The passion here is external, it comes from the others; it does not originate as a feature from Hecuba’s character. Hecuba is a tragic heroine, (trans)formed on the way by the great pain caused by others. While we would reasonably expect her to be fully overwhelmed, we see her being awakened—from who knows what abysmal depths of a dark mania. With a lot of cunning, she draws up a plan of revenge and performs it with rare ferocity. The transformation that was burning invisible, has just happened. Hecuba, inadvertently helpless and paranoid due to the sheer burden of unhappiness, has just been transformed into a brutal, abhorrent being. Hecuba’s discourse, in verses 789–805, is lush and revealing. Law does not exist when the strong do unjust deeds: I may be a slave and weak as well, but the gods are strong, and the Law (Custom) too which prevails over them,

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for by law (custom) it is that we believe in them and set up boundaries of right and wrong for our lives. Now if this principle, when referred to you, is to be set at nothing, and they are to escape punishment who murder guests or dare to plunder the temples of gods, then all fairness in human matters is at an end.

Andromache, another mythical heroine from Troy, who became the title of Euripides’ tragedy Andromache, describes the interconnectedness of law and power in verses 186–190 and in the Chorus in verses 779–787, to be appropriate: Andromache I am afraid that my being your slave will prevent me from speaking, even though my case is strong, afraid that if I win the argument I may for that very reason suffer harm. For those whose pride and position are great (i.e. they are in power) do not take kindly to hearing from their inferior arguments that defeat them. Nonetheless I shall not be guilty of betraying myself. Chorus It is better to win an honorable victory than to trip up justice helped by the odiousness of power. For unjust victory is sweet to mortals at first, but in time it turns out bitter and joyless and the house is wrapped in disgrace. This is the life I praise, this the life I strive to win, to hold no power in house or in city that goes beyond justice’s bounds.

The Suppliants, another Euripidean tragedy, is considered not only as a hymn to Athenian humanity but also as evidence of a new, rational rulemaking, which once relied solely on religious tradition. The poet finds again the opportunity, as in his tragedy The Trojan Women, to raise his anti-war cry and to emphasize the absurdity of war. The concept of the tragic is hovering between hubris (insolence) generated by the prohibition against burying the dead and the passion of unbearable mourning.

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This mourning concerns the crowd, the mothers of the seven dead leaders and, eventually, all the Argives. This anti-war character exists at one level of the work and reflects the poet’s deepest, most substantial intention. At another level that is intertwined with the first it is the praise of Athens, not of Athens of the mythical Theseus, but that of the democracy in Euripides’ time. This second intention illustrates Euripides as an engaged poet-patriot. Athens is once again presented as the city that supports the law of the weak, as Adrastus states in verses 184–191. Why pass the land of Pelops over, and lay this toil on Athens? This I am bound to declare. Sparta is cruel, her customs variable; the other states are small and weak. Your city alone would be able to undertake this labor; for it turns an eye on misery, and has in you a young and gallant ruler.

On the one hand, Aethra states in verse 328: My son, … I have no fears for you, starting as you do with right upon your side.

Theseus recalls the basic principles of democratic Athens in verses 350– 353: But I require the whole city’s sanction also, which my wish will ensure; still, by communicating the proposal to them I would find the people better disposed. For I made them supreme / I have given them absolute authority, when I set this city free, by giving all an equal vote.

In addition, Theseus reminds us in verses 399–408 that not a man but all the people rule, when interacting with the Theban Herald: Theban Herald Who is the despot of this land?

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To whom must I announce the message of Creon who rules over the land of Cadmus, since Eteocles was slain by the hand of his brother Polyneices, at the sevenfold gates of Thebes? Theseus You have made a false beginning to your speech, stranger, in seeking a despot here. For this city is not ruled by one man but is free. The people rule in succession year by year, allowing no preference to wealth, but the poor man shares equally with the rich.

Following the debate between the Theban Herald and Theseus in verses 417–425 and 429–438, it becomes conspicuous that democracy prevails over oligarchy in relation to law: Theban Herald Besides, how would the people, if it cannot form true judgments, be able rightly to direct the state? No, it is time, not haste, that affords a better understanding. A poor farmer, even if he were not unschooled, would still be unable from his toil to give his mind to politics. Truly the better sort counts it no healthy sign when the worthless man obtains a reputation by beguiling with words the populace, though before he was nothing. Theseus Nothing is more hostile to a city than a despot; where he is, there are first no laws common to all, but one man is tyrant, in whose keeping and in his alone the law resides, and in that case equality is at an end. But when the laws are written down, rich and weak alike have equal justice, and it is open to the weaker to use the same language to the prosperous when he is reviled by him, and the weaker prevails over the stronger if he has justice on his side.

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Historiography and Rhetoric I am about to discuss the disease called “sacred”. It is not, in my opinion, any more divine or more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause, and its supposed divine origin is due to men’s inexperience and to their wonder at its peculiar character, because it is not at all like to other diseases. […] They who first referred this disease to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people. Such persons, then, using the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred. (https://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/sacred.html, translated by Francis Adams)

The author of the above text was a doctor. He lived at the end of the fifth century BC and belonged to the school of Hippocrates, the greatest physician of antiquity, who founded medicine as a science. Nowadays, there are about 60 treatises written under the name of Hippocrates, which in fact were written by various members of the school he founded on the island of Kos (Greece), as well as the competitive school that existed in the nearby Knidos in Asia Minor. This “sacred disease” was—in fact—epilepsy. Pathological conditions with similar symptoms, which caused sudden crises and took the patient out of his or her own mind, were classified in the same genus. The aim of the author was to prove that the sacred disease is caused by purely natural causes, like all other diseases, and does not come from the interference of demons or gods. In his opinion, the disease occurs when normal brain function is prevented by the accumulation of excessive phlegm or bile. The author devoted much of his argument to demonstrating that the center of a human’s consciousness is the brain, and not the diaphragm (ϕρšνες), as Homer believed, nor the heart, as some like Empedocles did. His discourse was based on empirical observations, reasonable assumptions, and reasoning that led him to convincing conclusions. From the parameters he took into account to explain the functioning of the disease, the author completely excluded the divine factor. The sacred

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sickness—he advocates—has its own fixed form (nature) and its own natural cause (πρ´oϕασιν): it is not unpredictable or absurd or chaotic, and if one is aware of its natural cause, one can cure it by suggesting a treatment that opposes the cause and overcomes it. The disease is not cured with magical and ritual cleansing, as did the wandering rumors, hiding their ignorance by invoking the gods. The author had discovered the autonomous area of nature that has its own jurisdiction. As is characteristically stated, “all diseases are divine, and all is human”. We cannot know why nature works the way it works. This is its divine side. But we can get to know its regularity. How do the four elements, earth, water, air, and fire, interact? How does the heat come in contact with the cold (and the liquid with the dry)? How many are the vital fluids of the human body and what properties do they have? Which climates favor which diseases and which diets hinder them? All these things are normal, familiar, and predictable. And it is this knowledge, he claims, which is adequate to prevent and cure diseases. This was the new world of democracy in the classical period. The discovery of the nature of things was the foremost priority of thought. In such research, as it can be applied to human social reality, the Sophists were also engaged and who had arrived in the culturally advanced and politically hegemonic Athens from the four points of the Greek horizon in order to teach and be glorified. Until that moment no Athenian had excelled in philosophy or science. However, during the Golden Age of Athens, with its expansive policy and growing wealth, it was gradually becoming the constant attraction of all intellectuals in Greece. Pericles’ house hosted the greatest spirits of the time. The Sophist Protagoras and the natural philosopher Anaxagoras were his personal friends. Some wealthy Athenians, seeking either learning or social promotion, or both, followed his example. During the 30 years of the Peloponnesian War, Athens had become the cultural quintessence of Greece. Such and so much concentration of intellectual potential is very rare in (world) history.

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4.1

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Herodotus

Shortly after the middle of the fifth century BC, it is said that Herodotus arrived in Athens and read publicly long passages of his history in the market. The Athenians were excited. They had every reason to be excited and cheer, not only because they had decisively contributed to the victory against the Persians, but also because the historian from Halicarnassus (i.e. Herodotus) gave the impression that the Persian dual failure was, in essence, the double success of Athens and its policy. Herodotus wrote under the dazzlement of the rapid growth of Athens’ political and military power and its seaside occupation along the Aegean Sea. Along with other achievements, literacy and the literacy rate of Athenians rose faster than in other cities. Herodotus’ Histories was written in both the tradition of the poets and the modern natural philosophy that had already been developed in Ionia. From the former he inherited the appetite “to preserve”, in his written words, “the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and barbarians” (Herodotus 1997) so that they would not disappear as strong colors are eliminated when the sun strikes them mercilessly. He took care to make remembrance of the important events that took place during his lifetime as well as the ethnographic information he collected, by asking and traveling to foreign places. From Ionic philoshopy he learnt how to access critically information, how to doubt, how to compare, and how to classify. With Hecataeus of Miletus, who first introduced the field of systematic geography by writing Journey round the Earth (Περ´ιoδ oς γ Áς: Periodos ges), Herodotus, who was equally interested in the places and traditions of peoples, had disagreed once. His world, however, was not the world of the autonomous nature of philosophers and Hippocratic doctors, where the divine and the natural are the two sides of the same coin. There were the poets’ gods that attracted him in particular. If the first historian of Greece wanted to prove something—through many and unrelated incidents that he was not tired of recounting from the anecdotal stories of the hegemonic faces of Asia and Egypt—is that exaggeration leads to a fall and that justice ultimately prevails in the world, even if the punishment is ever so late to appear. His historical

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narrative did not only aim to satisfy scholars’ curiosity and preserve historical memory. It also had a moral dimension. The father of history, as Cicero called him, felt very well in the world where he was living. His trust in the gods and their covert action in human history was unshakable. Despite the local variations of names and cults, his gods appeared to be everywhere, if not the same, at least similar. Comparison led him to this conclusion. At the same time, he apprehended the vast variety of beliefs and customs of different peoples and described these differences with the objectivity of Olympian distance and respect of difference.

4.2

Thucydides

Among the Athenians who heard Herodotus reading publicly the warfare of the Greeks against the barbarians was the young Thucydides. Thucydides understood how to record the Peloponnesian War from its inception. If Homer’s mythical narratives were excluded and the events of the distant past that were lost in the mist of the legend, then never before had there been such a widespread war mobilization of the Greeks. The Spartans saw the excessive and rapid increase in the power of the Athenians with great suspicion and fear. Their allies in the Peloponnese, especially the Corinthians, who had extensive trade and a large fleet, were threatened and sought help. The Athenians, however, could not go back. Their interest was in continuous expansion. If they had decided to stop the hegemonic policies they had been following since the end of the Persian Wars, there would have been the danger not only of losing what they had done, but of being defeated completely from the accumulated hatred of their oppressed allies. If they couldn’t have advanced violently, they could have been forced tragically to retreat. Satisfaction with their achievements, abandonment of the status quo, and stagnation were no longer options. The war was inevitable and it was long and painful. That was Thucydides’ assessment, who had already begun collecting his material in 431, by examination and the testimonies of those who participated (in that war). As an Athenian citizen, Thucydides was called to fight. He had personally tasted the war when he had had first-hand experience of the great

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plague that had fallen on Athens. He knew what he was talking about. But it did not suffice to overcome his personal bitterness and disappointment. He tried to see things from a higher perspective. He wanted to find out the nature of war and the separate external triggers (τας ες τo ϕανερ´oν λεγoμšνας αιτ´ιας) from their true pretext or cause (την ´ αληθεστατην πρ´oϕασιν). Like a bodily sickness, war also had obvious symptoms and deeper underlying causes. Thucydides avoided direct crises and generalizations. He preferred to point out his views through the structure of his narrative. By selecting the important events from the vast reservoir of human action and the elaborated composition of political decisions, war preparations, and battles, across a reasonable range of causes and results, he clearly showed how history works. But the report of the war events would have been incomplete, he said, unless it had been complemented with the reasons that had led the protagonists to these events. If the exact words of those who spoke in the Assembly of the d¯emos before the Spartan Senate could not be found, because there were not always available stenographers and archives, they could be reconstructed retrospectively, based on what was probable. Thucydides’ narrative is a temperate alternation of political declamations and war events. In one case, the level of the drama of speech is so high that the confrontation between the Athenians and the inhabitants of the island of Melos is exposed to direct dialogue—as in a tragedy. Human nature is revealed as an act of war and as a discourse on the internal and foreign policy of states and hegemonic forces. In one of the rare cases where Thucydides expresses his personal judgment, he focuses his attention on the alteration of morals that occurred as a result of the internal division in Corfu. That was the precursor of a generalized war that was to divide the whole of Greece and every city into opportunistic factions of the democratic, pro-Athenians and the oligarchic, pro-Laconians. He states that war, by subverting the prosperity of everyday living, becomes a teacher of violence and assimilates the rage of the crowd to the circumstances. According to Thucydides, human nature appears with the greatest nakedness in extreme situations. Then, the dynamism of the creature is revealed, who, as pointed out by Sophocles’ fellow, is the most “terrible”

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(with all the meanings of the term) of all the living things of the world: that of the human being. In Thucydides’ view, gods, oracles, and mystical predictions play no other role than to influence people’s decisions and attitudes, positively or negatively. However, the question of their interpretation is always raised. To solve the puzzles posed by the divine signs, humans are endowed with that cognitive power that Thucydides called “opinion” (γνωμη: ´ gn¯ome), and which includes not only logic but also intuition. Through this, they are given the opportunity, taking into account the conditions of the current situation, to anticipate the immediate future and to contribute to achieving specific objectives by key decisions. This possibility is based on the homogeneity of human nature, which makes general foresight feasible. However, unforeseen factors interfere, such as an earthquake or a sudden change in the direction of the winds, which make the final outcome of human action unpredictable. Thucydides compiles these factors under the general term “luck” (τχη: ´ tych¯e ). He does not explicitly attribute luck to the will of the gods. In the historian’s narrative, however, what underlies the idea is that luck is not completely random at all! If a deeper meaning can be found, albeit retrospectively, in the historical process that explains why things ended so and not otherwise, pure randomness is not enough, since it cannot become a real object of knowledge. Behind Thucydidean luck lies a belief in secular justice, similar to that which the tragic poets attributed to personal gods and to that which Herodotus attributed to the Divine. Thucydides saw the Peloponnesian War as the real manifestation of an earlier spiritual conflict of two political mentalities: the bold and modern spirit that found no peace anywhere, and the more conservative spirit of political stability and trust in tradition. The former was represented by the Athenians, the latter by the Lacedaemonians. Some allies of one or the other camp belonged essentially to the opposing wing in terms of mentality but were drawn up on the basis of their interests and need. For example, the Corinthians were as bold as their rival Athenians; the Samians, who were allies of the Athenians, were the followers of peace and political autonomy, like the Spartans. The difference between these two attitudes to life was the political manifestation of a much deeper dimension that underlay Greek civilization. “Never forget that you are a

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mortal,” one attitude said. “Do your best to become immortal,” the other attitude claimed. The electromagnetic field that developed between them was the secular war of Heraclitus. The tension between the two tendencies was expressed in historiography, since previously political history had only revealed its existence in a war that had exceeded the size of the previous ones. Thucydides’ historical narrative, the Writing (ξ υγ γ ραϕ η: ´ xyggraph¯e ), is not a simple record of memorable events. It is primarily a work of applied political philosophy. As he rightly believed without hypocritical ´ humility, his history is “a possession for all time” (κτημα ες αε´ι) or “an asset for eternity” (see Book 1, 22, p. 4 [www.perseus.tufts.edu/hop per/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200%3Abook%3D1%3Ac hapter%3D22%3Asection%3D4]) and aims to teach, not to delight or entertain, as a chronicle would do. By studying Thucydides’ history, one can find the laws of people’s political action, which cannot be formulated in general and abstract terms. Their true power is discovered by those who live and, at the same time, reflect on history. Thucydides’ Writing (or History of the Peloponnesian War) is the magnifying glass of this search. At about this time, rhetoric was flourishing in Athens. Within the framework of democracy, counseling rhetoric, which arose every now and then and was undertaken by persons who had to rely on their personal ability and fluency, and not on social mechanisms, to convince their audience, was becoming a high art. Two other modes of discourse were also flourishing: the judicial and solemn (or panygericus) ones. To this dominance of discourse in the life of the city the reader is referred to the scene from Plato’s Gorgias [452d, pp. 5–8], where Socrates asks the homonymous rhetoric teacher (i.e. Gorgias) what is the greatest good that he himself offers to his people. The latter enthusiastically responds: “A thing, Socrates, which in truth is the greatest good, and a cause not merely of freedom to mankind at large, but also of dominion to single persons in their several cities” (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc= Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DGorg.%3Asection% 3D452d). In his mind, Gorgias has, as he explains later, persuasion: the power and the ability to engage his audience in court, in the Boul¯e, in

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the Assembly of the d¯emos, or in any other assembly of citizens (Gorgias, 452e, pp. 1–4). But this flow of radical thought was accompanied by the flourishing of its opposite: oligarchic thinking and history and rhetoric, a flow that eventually became hegemonic and would be expressed mainly through the most important philosophical trends of Athenian democracy. Against the democratic historian Thucydides, there was the oligarch historian Xenophon. Opposite to the orator Antiphon was the orator Isocrates. Against those who spoke of equality, there were those who spoke of states of excellence. And ultimately they would prevail, and their works would be saved for history. Even so, indirectly we can outline extracts of a radical thought about crime that are referred to as arguments that oligarchic philosophers and historians are trying to (re)construct.

4.3

Antiphon the Sophist

On the one hand, the characteristic discussion of sophist thinking is the law–nature opposition, which was related to the question of whether the rules of social life are established by convention or by nature, as well as whether they are of an absolute or relative nature. “Most legal provisions contradict nature”—Antiphon’s advocacy for nature leads him to the radical position that all people are equal, and, therefore, it is not right to discriminate among socially superior and inferior people, Greeks and barbarians, as shown in the following (Saunders 1977–1978, p. 215). Column I Justice, therefore, is not to transgress the observances (ta nomima) of the state in which one lives as a citizen (politeuetai). Therefore, a man would handle justice especially advantageously to himself if with witnesses he were to deem the laws (nomoi) as great, but when isolated from witnesses, the matters of nature (phusis). For the matters of the laws are adventitious (epitheta), whereas those of nature are given (anankaia). And those of the laws have been agreed on (homologethenta), they have not grown naturally (phunta); whereas those of nature have grown naturally and have not been

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Column II agreed on. Therefore when transgressing the observances, he escapes the notice of those who made the agreement, he gets off shame and punishment; but not if he fails to escape notice. And if he forces against the possible (to dunaton) one of the things that have naturally grown along with us, and if he escapes the notice of all men, the evil (kakon) is no less; and if all see, it is no greater. For he is harmed (blaptetai) not because of opinion (doxa) but because of truth (aletheia). The enquiry is for the sake of all these things, because the majority of things that are just (dikaion) according to law are laid down hostilely (polemios) to nature. For it has been legislated (nenomothetetai) in the case of the eyes, what they must Column III see and what they must not; and in the case of the ears, what they must hear and what they must not; and in the case of the tongue, what it must say and what it must not; and in the case of the hands, what they must do and what they must not; and in the case of the feet, what they should approach and what they must not; and in the case of the mind (nous), what it must desire and what it must not. Therefore the things from which the laws turn men away are no more friendly (philiatera) nor more akin (oikeiotera) to nature than the things they turn them to. For to live and to die are of nature, and to live comes to them from the advantageous things (ton sumpheronton), to die from the non-advantageous things. Column IV As to advantageous things, those laid down by the laws are chains of nature, those laid down by nature are free. Therefore the distressing things do not, on a right calculation, aid nature more than do those that give joy. Therefore neither would the painful things be advantageous, more than those that give pleasure. For the truly advantageous things ought not to harm but to help. So the things advantageous to nature … and such people as defend themselves on experiencing suffering and do not themselves take the initiative in doing, and such people as

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Column V treat their parents well even when they are evil to them, and such people as offer others the chance to take an oath but do not themselves take an oath. And one would discover many of these things mentioned to be hostile to nature. And in them there is greater distress when less is possible, less pleasure when more is possible, and evil suffering when it is possible not to suffer. Therefore if some assistance came from the laws to people who accept such things, but loss to those who do not accept them but resist them, Column VI obedience to the laws would not be unaiding. But in fact what is just (to dikaion) from the side of the law is obviously inadequate to assist those who accept the things of such a kind. In the first place it leaves the sufferer to suffer and the doer to do; and at the time it prevented neither the sufferer from suffering nor the doer from doing. If it is referred for purposes of retribution (timoria), it is no more personal to (idioteron) the man who has suffered than to the man who has done the deed. For he has to persuade those who are going to exact retribution that he suffered, and he begs to be able to win judgment. But the same things are open also to the man who did the deed, if he chooses to deny.

4.4

The Anonymous Iamblichi

In the years of the Peloponnesian War, various radical views emerged that dealt with the law as a product of society’s imposition and identified it with the law of the weak. The Anonymous Iamblichi, supporter of the ideals of justice and an opponent of tyranny, defends—as opposed to other sophists—the law: One should not aspire to greed (oÙκ ™π ι` πλεoνεξ ι´αν Ðρμαν ˜ δε‹), ´ founded nor believe that power (κρ ατ ´ oς) is an excellence (¢ρετ η) upon greed, whereas obedience to the laws (τ îν ν o´ μων Øπακ o´ ειν) is cowardice; for this very notion is the most ignoble (π oνηρ oτ ατ ´ η), and everything opposed to what is good arises out of it, viz. baseness and harm. For if humans have been born naturally (™ϕ ´ σ αν) incapable of surviving alone (¢δ ´ νατ oι καθ’ ›να ζ Áν), formed associations with one

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another under the compulsion of necessity, and discovered all the means of survival and mechanisms (τ εχν ηματ ´ α) for achieving it; and if it was not possible to exist with one another and to pass their lives in a state of lack of respect of law (¢ν oμ´ι) (for their losses would be greater in this state than if they were to be alone)—by reason of these necessities, then, law and justice rule over human beings (τ o` ν τ ε ν o´ μoν κα`ι τ o` δ´ικαιoν ™μβασ ιλε´ ειν τ o‹ς ¢νθρ ωπ ´ oις) and can in no way be displaced. For these [law and justice] are strongly bound (™νδεδ šσ θαι) in [us] by nature (ϕ ´ σ ει). Indeed, if someone were to be born in possession of such a nature as this, invulnerable in his flesh (¥τ ρωτ oς τ o` ν χρ îτ α), immune to disease and affections (¥ν oσ o´ ς τ ε κα`ι ¢παθ ης), ´ of supernatural ability (Øπερϕυ ης), ´ adamantine (¢δαμαντ ´ ιν oς) in body and life, one might suppose that power founded upon greed would suffice for someone of this sort (for someone like this would have the capacity of going unpunished if he were to refuse to submit to the law); and yet his supposition would be incorrect. For even if there could be someone like this, which could never happen, it would only be by allying himself with the laws and justice, fortifying them, and making use of his strength for their sake, and for the sake of what supports them, that someone like this could ensure his safety; otherwise, he would not last. For all humans would resolve to stand opposed to someone of this nature because of their respect for law (εÙν oμ´ια), and the multitude (τ o` πλÁθ oς) would prevail over and overcome a man of this sort, either through skill or might (τ šχν  À δυν αμει). ´ Accordingly, it is evident that true power (α Ùτ o` τ o` κρ ατ ´ oς), which is power properly understood, is preserved by law and justice.

4.5

Xenophon

On the other hand, in The Constitution of the Athenians (1, pp. 1–13), Xenophon describes the Athenian democracy through an oligarch’s eyes: [1] And as for the fact that the Athenians have chosen the kind of constitution that they have, I do not think well of their doing this inasmuch as in making their choice they have chosen to let the worst people be better off than the good. …

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[2] First I want to say this: there the poor and the people generally are right to have more than the highborn and wealthy for the reason that it is the people who man the ships and impart strength to the city; … [5] And everywhere on earth the best element is opposed to democracy. For among the best people there is minimal wantonness and injustice but a maximum of scrupulous care for what is good, whereas among the people there is a maximum of ignorance, disorder, and wickedness; for poverty draws them rather to disgraceful actions, and because of a lack of money some men are uneducated and ignorant. … [9] If it is good government / law you seek, you will first observe the cleverest men establishing the laws in their own interest. Then the good men will punish the bad; they will make policy for the city and not allow madmen to participate or to speak their minds or to meet in assembly. As a result of these excellent measures the people would swiftly fall into slavery. … [13] … And in the courts, they are not so much concerned with justice as with their own advantage. (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text. jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0158)

In another of his writings, Memorabilia, Xenophon narrates an imaginary discussion that Alcibiades had with Pericles, at the time when the latter was prime minister of the state, about laws: Alcibiades Please, Pericles, can you teach me what a law is? Pericles To be sure I can. … Whatever the ruling power of the state after deliberation enacts as our duty to do, goes by the name of laws.

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Alcibiades Then if a tyrant, holding the chief power in the state, enacts rules of conduct for the citizens, are these enactments law? Pericles Yes, anything which a tyrant as head of the state enacts, also goes by the name of law. Alcibiades But, Pericles, violence and lawlessness—how do we define them? Is it not when a stronger man forces a weaker to do what seems right to him—not by persuasion but by compulsion? Pericles I should say so. Alcibiades It would seem to follow that if a tyrant, without persuading the citizens, drives them by enactment to do certain things—that is lawlessness? Pericles You are right; and I retract the statement that measures passed by a tyrant without persuasion of the citizens are law. Alcibiades And what of measures passed by a minority, not by persuasion of the majority, but in the exercise of its power only? Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to these? Pericles I think that anything which anyone forces another to do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is violence rather than law. Alcibiades It would seem that everything which the majority, in the exercise of its power over the possessors of wealth, and without persuading them, chooses to enact, is of the nature of violence rather than of law?

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To be sure (answered Pericles), adding: At your age we were clever hands at such quibbles ourselves. It was just such subtleties which we used to practise our wits upon; as you do now, if I mistake not. To which Alcibiades replied: Ah, Pericles, I do wish we could have met in those days when you were at your cleverest in such matters. (www.libertarianism.org/publications/essays/memorabilia-alc ibiades-debates-pericles)

Also the well-known Athenian oligarch Critias (and Socrates’ pupil) describes the common origin of laws and religion in his work Sisyphus (Excerpt 19), and their ineffectiveness as injustice, despite the existence of laws: Then, I think, men devised retributory laws, in order that Justice might be dictator and have arrogance as its slave, and if anyone sinned, he was punished. Then, when the laws forbade them to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear (of the gods) for mortals, that there might be some means of frightening the wicked, even if they do anything or say or think it in secret. Hence, he introduced the Divine. (www.stenudd.com/greekphil osophers/critias.htm)

We should, of course, make it clear that the “anti-democratic” discourse did not have the elements of the aristocratic discourse of the Archaic Period, which was a neo-oligarchic discourse with elements that mixed the ideals of the first era of democracy and oligarchy primarily as an opposition to the modern era of radicalized democracy. This passage from Isocrates’ work Areopagiticus is indicative of this neo-oligarchic discourse, with elements that can be traced to the dominant philosophy of the time that will be discussed in the next section: [20] For those who directed the state in the time of Solon and Cleisthenes did not establish a polity which in name merely was hailed as the most impartial and the mildest of governments, while in practice showing itself the opposite to those who lived under it, nor one which trained the citizens in such fashion that they looked upon insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and license to do

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what they pleased as happiness, but rather a polity which detested and punished such men and by so doing made all the citizens better and wiser. [21] But what contributed most to their good government of the state was that of the two recognized kinds of equality—that which makes the same award to all alike and that which gives to each man his due—they did not fail to grasp which was the more serviceable; but, rejecting as unjust that which holds that the good and the bad are worthy of the same honors, [22] and preferring rather that which rewards and punishes every man according to his deserts, they governed the city on this principle, not filling the offices by lot from all the citizens, but selecting the best and the ablest for each function of the state; for they believed that the rest of the people would reflect the character of those who were placed in charge of their affairs. [23] Furthermore they considered that this way of appointing magistrates was also more democratic than the casting of lots, since under the plan of election by lot chance would decide the issue and the partizans of oligarchy would often get the offices; whereas under the plan of selecting the worthiest men, the people would have in their hands the power to choose those who were most attached to the existing constitution. [24] The reason why this plan was agreeable to the majority and why they did not fight over the offices was because they had been schooled to be industrious and frugal, and not to neglect their own possessions and conspire against the possessions of others, and not to repair their own fortunes out of the public funds, but rather to help out the commonwealth, should the need arise, from their private resources, and not to know more accurately the incomes derived from the public offices than those which accrued to them from their own estates. (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext% 3A1999.01.0144%3Aspeech%3D7%3Asection%3D20)

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5

Philosophy

5.1

Plato

Is Socrates the philosopher who, according to Cicero, brought philosophy from the heavens where it was located, installed it in the cities, put it even in households, and imposed on it the study of life, morals, and good and bad things? Certainly, the new philosophy of the Classical Period, along with the Sophists, made ethical and political issues the objects of philosophical thought par excellence. However, that was in opposition to the Sophists and all radical thinking. Socrates wrote nothing, but his disciple Plato used his name to give authority to his own (Platonic) philosophy. In his works The Republic, Laws, Theaetetus, The Statesman, and The Sophist (to name the most important ones), Plato formulates his politics. But in them, and in other works, he formulates his own philosophical views—his objective idealism—which became a milestone in the history of ancient Greek philosophy. The Platonic system is very complex and contradictory; many times its views are almost unintelligible. That is why younger philosophers have made different interpretations of some key points of his teaching. But from the study of his writings, it is clear that Plato believed that the real world, objective reality, is not the real world as such; it is rather a pale reflection of the supernatural world of ideas that our minds capture in vision. In other words, he taught that outside of us (and in general, outside of the material world) there is the idea, that is, to say, the distillation of morality and that dominates material nature. The idea (spirit) is eternal, indestructible, and out of place and time. According to Plato, man happens to belong to two worlds, to the material and to the immaterial. On the one hand, there is the animal (matter) and on the other spirit. That’s why he is attracted sometimes to the good and sometimes to the bad. But as immaterial power prevails over nature, so man has the power to overcome his appetites and, generally, the desires of his flesh. However, he cannot achieve ultimate

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happiness, because since he has material substance, he fights each time with the body that pulls him toward the bad. The immaterial world is an idea. But there is not one idea, but many, because they are the standards, the archetypes of all things; they are separate from the senses and exist “in an outermost place” and are eternal. There is a hierarchy in this transcendental regime of ideas. One idea does not oppose the other; it rather subsumes it; and all ideas together are subordinate to the idea of the good, which is the supreme idea, the ultimate cause, and is why it is the ultimate reason of being and knowledge as well as the regulator of everything. The human being remembers ideas through the soul. The soul before entering the body existed in the invisible world. That is where it met the ideas and when it was incorporated into the lower visible world, seeing the senses that are unfinished representations of ideas, it remembers the latter. Plato, however, dealt with the criticism of political states and formulated his own state principles. Platonic politics/political science, nevertheless, was the expression of aristocratic political aspirations. Plato was a fanatical enemy of the d¯emos and, through what he taught, wanted the abolition of the democratic system. It is true that in his old age he revised his ideas of the state he had formulated in The Republic. His Laws differ in many key points. But these differences, however important they are, contain nothing to make us believe that the philosopher had begun to like the masses. The basic principle of Platonic political science is state centralization. He expresses contempt for the masses and slaves, and that is why the perfect state is rural: it is where all power is concentrated in the hands of the rural aristocracy. Plato sought all over Greece for the mighty ruler who would become his counselor. His mind and his thought were how to apply his political and state ideas, but he did not find a ruler who would adopt them. As Andrewes (1967) states, in The Republic Plato begins with an attempt made by Socrates and his comrades to determine the nature of justice. The structure of an ideal state is typically an episode of this concern, as are all other important issues, the tripartite division of the soul and its immortality, co-ownership of the upper class, gender

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equality, censorship in poetry, and the rest. The basic “justice” of the system is that each component of the system must be devoted to its own work and to nothing else. In the individual’s soul, the logical part—the logos (λoγιστικ´oν or logistikon), located in the head, related to reason, and regulating the other parts—has to control and organize the passions (the eros; ™πιθυμητικ´oν: epithumetikon, located in the stomach and related to one’s desires) and the illogical thymos (θυμoειδšς: thumetikon, located near the chest region and related to anger and which is not easily rendered under any established modern term). In the ideal state, shoemakers and others must be committed to their work and not enter areas that exceed their capabilities, and above all to government. More specifically, instructions are given, but only for the ruling class: tough education in mathematics and philosophy; later, especially in The Laws, there should be uninterrupted supervision of all activities of their lives. To Plato, the poor and the manual workers are not suitable to govern. There is a clear distinction of manual workers and the ideal of excellent governance. In The Republic, (Book 6, 495d–495e), Plato not only gives us a systematic development of the elegant ideal of oligarchic class teaching as to what is good (ωρα´ιoν: o¯raion) but also emphasizes how practical knowledge and positive (physical) science is not the task for free people: [495d] Just as men escape from prison to take sanctuary in temples, so these gentlemen joyously bound away from the mechanical arts to philosophy, those that are most cunning in their little craft. For in comparison with the other arts the prestige of philosophy even in her present low estate retains a superior dignity; and this is the ambition and aspiration of that multitude of pretenders unfit by nature, whose souls are bowed and mutilated by their vulgar occupations [495e] even as their bodies are marred by their arts and crafts. (www. perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168% 3Abook%3D6%3Asection%3D495d)

In Book 1, 312a–312b of Protagoras, Plato claims again that free people should not in any way deal with the practice and teaching of arts (or crafts) and sciences:

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[312a] … Yes, on my soul I should, Socrates, if I am to speak my real thoughts. Yet after all, Hippocrates, perhaps it is not this sort of learning that you expect to get from Protagoras, but rather the sort you had [312b] from your language-master, your harp-teacher, and your sportsinstructor; for when you took your lessons from each of these it was not in the technical way, with a view to becoming a professional, but for education, as befits a private gentleman (a free man) who doesn’t work. (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext% 3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DProt.%3Asection%3D312a)

Plato’s disbelief in the effects of popular cultural tradition on the formation of independent thought is expressed in a documentary way in the following passage from The Republic, Book 6, 492a–492c: [492a] “Then the nature which we assumed in the philosopher, if it receives the proper teaching, must needs grow and attain to consummate excellence, but, if it be sown and planted and grown in the wrong environment, the outcome will be quite the contrary unless some god comes to the rescue. Or are you too one of the multitude who believe that there are young men who are corrupted by the sophists, and that there are sophists in private life who corrupt to any extent worth mentioning, and that it is not rather the very men who talk in this strain [492b] who are the chief sophists and educate most effectively and mould to their own heart’s desire young and old, men and women?” “When?” said he. “Why, when,” I said, “the multitude are seated together in assemblies or in court-rooms or theaters or camps or any other public gathering of a crowd, and with loud uproar censure some of the things that are said and done and approve others, both in excess, with fullthroated clamor [492c] and clapping of hands, and thereto the rocks and the region round about re-echoing redouble the din of the censure and the praise. In such case how do you think the young man’s heart, as the saying is, is moved within him? What private teaching do you think will hold out and not rather be swept away by the torrent of censure and applause, and borne off on its current, so that he will affirm the same things that they do

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to be honorable and base? (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Per seus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D6%3Asection%3D492a)

Plato believes that democracy imposes suffocated bureaucracy on talented people. In The Statesman (or Politicus) 298c–299b, he satirizes how navigating and medicine would be managed by Athenian democracy. Later, he admits that democratic control is useful as a guarantee against the abuse of power in the world we live in: [298a] Xenos 1 Something of this sort: Imagine that we all thought in regard to captains and physicians: “We are most abominably treated by them. For whomsoever of us either of them wishes to save, he saves, one of them just like the other, and whomsoever he wishes to maltreat, he maltreats. They cut us up and burn us and order us to bring them payments of money, as if they were exacting tribute, of which they spend little or nothing for their patients; they themselves and their servants use the rest. [298b] And finally they are bribed by the relatives or enemies and actually bring about his death. And as for the captains, they commit countless other misdeeds, they make plots and leave us deserted ashore when they put out to sea, they bring on mishaps at sea and so cast us into the water, and are guilty of other wrong-doings.” Now suppose, with these thoughts in mind, we deliberated about them [298c] and decided that we would no longer allow either of these arts to rule without control over slaves or free men, but that we would call an assembly either of all the people or of the rich only, and that anyone, whether he were engaged in some other form of skilled labor or were without any special qualifications, should be free to offer an opinion about navigation and diseases, how drugs and surgical or medical instruments should be applied to the patients, and how [298d] ships and nautical instruments should be used for navigation and in meeting dangers, not only those of winds and sea that affect the voyage itself, but also those met in encounters with pirates, and if battles have to be fought between ships of war; and that whatever the majority decided about these matters, whether any physicians or ship

2 The Classical Era

captains or merely unskilled persons took part in the deliberations, should be inscribed upon tablets and slabs [298e] or in some instances should be adopted as unwritten ancestral customs, and that henceforth forever navigation and the care of the sick should be conducted in accordance with these provisions. Younger Socrates That is a most absurd state of things that you have described. Xenos And suppose that rulers of the people are set up annually, whether from the rich or from the whole people, on the principle that whoever is chosen by lot should rule, and that these rulers exercise their authority in commanding the ships or treating the sick in accordance with the written rules. Younger Socrates That is still harder to imagine. Xenos Now consider what comes next. When the year of office has passed for each set of rulers, there will have to be sessions of courts in which the judges are chosen by lot [299a] either from a selected list of the rich or from the whole people, and the rulers will have to be brought before these courts and examined as to their conduct in office, and anyone who pleases can bring against the captains an accusation for failure to command the ships during the year in accordance with the written laws or the ancestral customs, and similarly against the physicians for their treatment of the sick; and if any of them is found guilty, the court shall decide what his punishment or his fine shall be. Younger Socrates Surely anyone who consents voluntarily [299b] to hold office under such conditions would richly deserve any penalty or fine that might be imposed. (www.perseus.tufts.edu/ hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DS tat.%3Asection%3D299b)

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However, the new oligarchic discourse, although dividing, is a discourse that attaches importance to the observance of the existing laws (in democracy). In Plato’s The Statesman, the young Socrates is ready to accept everything except the statement that the real politician can rule without laws. This can hardly be said (293e–294a). The xenos, therefore, calls on him to think about the nature of the law. He gives unchanging instructions that cannot fit into any situation or individual. Only the real politician, with the skillful use of his art, can change his control so as to meet the varied needs of the conjuncture. A doctor would not be committed to strictly following a previous prescription if his patient’s condition had changed. Law, however, is strict and stiff. Even though it can convince the crowd and be modified, such differentiations are not based on scientific research, such as that of a doctor changing his prescription, or a politician who adopts a differentiated policy that is more beneficial to society. No one is legitimized to resent the violence of such action. If there is no real politician, strict adherence to the law and punishment of any violation are unavoidable. However, legal tyranny over an art (or craft), and, especially, on the art of governance, is unbearable. How could an art flourish if its principles were laws of a public legal council, and if those who practiced it were accountable to this council? Difficult as life is now, a restriction on freedom of action and research would make life unbearable (294a–299c). Even so, a total absence of law, or a breach of it, without any inspiration for the real art of governance, would mean another degradation. Where there is no politics, law may be strict. Law, in its best endeavors, copies the rules or instructions that a real politician can give, and has full power when politics is absent—given that it always subsides where real politics is present (299c–300e). In the same work (The Statesman, 305b–305c), the role of a judge is described analytically: [305b] Xenos Now let us examine the function of the righteous judges.

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Younger Socrates Certainly. Xenos Has it any power beyond that of judging men’s contracts with one another, pronouncing them right or wrong by the standard of the existing laws which it has received from the king and law-giver; showing its own peculiar virtue in that it is not so perverted by any bribes, or fears, or pity, [305c] or enmity, or friendship, as ever to consent to decide the lawsuits of men with each other contrary to the enactments of the lawgiver? Younger Socrates No; the business of this power is about as you have described it. Xenos Then we find that the strength of judges is not kingly but is guardian of laws and a servant of the kingly power. Younger Socrates So it appears. Xenos The consideration of all these arts which have been mentioned leads to the conclusion that none of them is the art of the statesman. For the art that is truly kingly ought not to act itself … (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext% 3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DStat.%3Asection%3D305b)

The following excerpts from the dialogue of Young Socrates with the xenos in Plato’s The Statesman can make us understand the following basic principles of the neo-oligarchic position of law. Law cannot express the interests of the majority by recording general rules. Written rules should be respected by all and not breached. The art of creating rules is a specialist art, and it would be wrong for unqualified people to access it:

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[294a] Xenos Because law could never, by determining exactly what is noblest. [294b] and must just for one and all, enjoin upon them that which is best; for the differences of men and of actions and the fact that nothing, I may say, in human life is ever at rest, forbid any science whatsoever to promulgate any simple rule for everything and for all time. We agree to that, I suppose? … [294e] Xenos And so we must believe that the lawmaker who is to watch over the herds and maintain justice and the obligation of contracts, [295a] will never be able by making laws for all collectively, to provide exactly that which is proper for each individual. Younger Socrates Probably not, at any rate. Xenos But he will, I fancy, legislate for the majority and in a general way only roughly for individuals, whether he issues written laws or his enactments follow the unwritten traditional customs. Younger Socrates Quite right. …. [296b] … Xenos Suppose a physician who has right knowledge of his profession does not persuade, but forces, his patient, whether man, woman, or child, to do the better thing, though it be contrary to the written precepts, what will such violence be called? The last name in the world to call it would be “unscientific and baneful error,” as the phrase is, would it not?

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[296c] And the patient so forced might rightly say anything else rather than that he had been treated in a baneful or unscientific way by the physicians who used force upon him. Younger Socrates Very true. … [298a]

The above shows what modern writers of legal philosophy advocate. Plato has adopted and adapted, abandoned or expanded and generally redetermined (or reascertained) and reshaped, a vast range of criminological ideas and practices in such a way as to combine intense conservatism with radical innovation (Ladikos 2000, p. 167). It is thus no exaggeration to claim that, with this (criminal) code, Plato formulated the first systematic classification of crime in Greek legal and philosophical thought (Hunter 2009, p. 1).

5.2

Aristotle

Plato, for Marx, provides a real philosophical perspective because the senses are not expressed in cognition; he concludes that the best criticism of Plato is Plutarch’s praise. However, Aristotle, for Marx, is a brilliant genius, the greatest thinker of Antiquity (Marx, Capital , Vol. 1, Chapter 1). In the first pages of The Capital , in the analysis of the equivalent form of value, Marx refers to Aristotle with the weighty hint that only by looking at the analysis of Aristotle will the last two (pp. 73–74) peculiarities of the equivalent form of value be understood. The second reference (p. 99) to Aristotle, a few pages later, is a simple reference to the Stagirite’s analysis of the two commodity values. Marx’s reference is one of his greatest praises for Aristotle: the two uses of the commodity, its two values, the exchange and the value of use, were analyzed first by Aristotle, and Marx recognizes this honor without resorting to any particular commentary.

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Equally important are Marx’s references to Aristotle’s analyses of economics and finance, interest and interest-bearing capital, and managerial work (where Aristotle presents the first study in history of the “manager” and “management”). Marx’s reference to the famous excerpt of Aristotle on Daedalus’ automata and Hephaestus’ tripods—where the Stagirite connects the existence of slavery with the productive forces of society—holds a special position: “If there were tools to do by themselves or with a simple command their work we would not need slaves” (ibid., p. 423). Aristotle—Plato’s pupil, who clashed with his teacher and established his own philosophical school—had a wide range of interests and gathered and published many volumes of material. His philosophy had elements of neo-conservatism that distinguished it from Plato’s work, such as class distinctions and the “natural” difference of slaves and free people. He writes in Politics 8, 1337b: The young must be taught those useful arts that are indispensably necessary; but it is clear that they should not be taught all the useful arts, those pursuits that are liberal being kept distinct from those that are illiberal, and that they must participate in such among the useful arts as will not render the person who participates in them vulgar. A task and also an art or a science must be deemed vulgar if it renders the body or soul or mind of free men useless for the employments and actions of virtue. (www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1 999.01.0058%3Abook%3D8%3Asection%3D1337b)

But the basic characteristic of Aristotelian philosophy is the conflict with Platonic ideocracy. Without being able to be characterized as a radical and skeptical philosopher, he reacted to the dominant philosophical current of the neo-conservative Platonism by emphasizing research into the physical world and logical proof. He recognizes that the individual is a political/social being that cannot exist outside the community, the “city” (polis), a city-political society composed of many individuals and families with distinct interests and different destinations and characters. This complex world must be the very object of scientific research. This world must be examined by the philosopher and using human knowledge, the perceptual world must be researched and studied, and

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philosophical thinking must have this world as the starting point of its search. He is also opposed to determinism. Human will is not competent to do what it wants. By contrast with Plato, who works with ideal forms that appear only as rough approximations to the humanly known or sensate world, Aristotle insists that people’s concepts of things are developed from familiarity with and examinations of instances of things that people encounter in the sensate world and evaluate in comparative terms (differences, similarities, and implications). Aristotle’s considerations of human behavior and community life are notably intersubjective and interactive in emphasis. Thus as Prus (2015, p. 130) states, Aristotle envisions deviance not as something that requires a special theory or explanation, but as something that is the natural product of human association. Deviance may take meaning or qualities only in reference to the things with which they are compared, and humans may assign a wide range of labels and meaning to those Aristotelian states as to what is lawful is a matter of legislation, noting that what this actually includes and how this is decided reflects the type of government in effect at the time. Thus, Aristotle defines justice in reference to the political body in charge of the community (Prus 2015, p. 138). According to Osborne (1996, pp. 129–130), the term “just” as used by Aristotle (mainly in the Nicomachean Ethics) has two separate meanings: in its first meaning, it is principally used to describe conduct in agreement with “law”, and conduct, therefore, which conforms to an established, authoritative rule of human conduct. In its second meaning justice signifies equality, or, to be exact, a “fair mean”. It is this second meaning of justice—“Justice in the narrower sense”—which we are primarily interested in, since it constitutes that concept by means of which the law in action, and not merely the moral conduct of man, can be more specifically evaluated. In order to make clear the distinction between “justice according to an authoritative rule” and equality, Aristotle states that a person whose conduct is “unjust”, who acts contrary to certain moral principles and, therefore, lacks virtue, is not necessarily unjust as far as the principle of equality is concerned. So, justice could be both an intersubjective and a relative social concept.

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Note 1. Xenos is an ambiguous term and carries two meanings both in classical and Modern Greek: (1) a stranger, an unknown person; and (2) a foreigner, a person from a different city-state or nation-state. In Plato’s The Stateman, this word carries this ambiguity within the text; thus, I prefer to leave it as it is in classical Greek.

References Andrewes, A. (1967). Greek Society. Cambridge: Hutchinson. Anonymous Iamblichi. (2019). On Excellence (Περ`ι ¢ρετ Áς): A Lost Defense of Democracy. Oxford: Phillip Sidney Horky. Available at: www.academia. edu/32791838/Anonymus_Iamblichi_On_Excellence_%CE%A0%CE% B5%CF%81%E1%BD%B6_%E1%BC%80%CF%81%CE%B5%CF% 84%E1%BF%86%CF%82_A_Lost_Defense_of_Democracy_accepted_ver sion_for_D._Wolfsdorf_ed._Early_Greek_Ethics._Oxford_2019. Aristophanes. Plutus. Available at: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text? doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0040. Aristotle. Athenaion politeia. Available at: https://archive.org/details/athenainp olite00arisuoft. Aristotle. Politics. Available at: https://www.iep.utm.edu/aris-pol/, https://www. perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058% 3Abook%3D8%3Asection%3D1337b. Critias. Available at: https://www.stenudd.com/greekphilosophers/critias.htm. Demosthenes. Against Timocrates. Available at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0074%3Aspeech%3D24& redirect=true. De Ste Croix, G. E. M. (1981). The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquest. London: Duckworth. Herodotus. (1997). The Histories, trans. Oxford: Robin Waterfield. Hippocrates. On the Sacred Disease. Available at: https://classics.mit.edu/Hip pocrates/sacred.html. Hunter, V. (2009). Crime and Criminals in Plato’s Laws. Mouseion, 9, 1–20.

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Ladikos, A. (2000). Plato’s Views on Crime and Punishment, Phronimon: SA Society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 166–174. MacDowell, D. H. (1978). The Law in Classical Athens. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. Marx, K. Capital . A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1. Available at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Vol ume-I.pdf. Osborne, R. (1996). Greece in the Making, 1200–479 BC . New York: Routledge. Plato. Gorgias. Available at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Per seus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DGorg.%3Asection%3D452d. Plato. Laws. Available at: https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/laws.html. Plato. Protagoras. Available at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text? doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0178%3Atext%3DProt.%3Asection% 3D312a. Plato. Republic. Available at: https://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.html, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999. 01.0168%3Abook%3D6%3Asection%3D495d. Plato. Statesman. Available at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text? doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0172%3Atext%3DStat.%3Asection% 3D299b. Plutarch. Cimon. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/ Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Cimon*.html. Prus, R. (2015). Aristotle’s Theory of Deviance and Contemporary Symbolic Interactionist Scholarship: Learning from the Past, Extending the Present, and Engaging the Future. The American Sociologist, 46, 122–167. Pseudo-Xenophon (Old Oligarch). Constitution of the Athenians. Available at: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01. 0158. Saunders, T. J. (1977–1978). Antiphon the Sophist on Natural Laws. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, vol. 78, pp. 215–236. Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Available at: https://www.perseus. tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0200%3Abook% 3D1%3Achapter%3D22%3Asection%3D4.

3 Hellenistic World

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Society: A Brief Introduction

The conquests of the Macedonians marked the end of the so-called classical world. Classical Greece, of course, had set the benchmark in several areas, such as architecture, sculpture, philosophy, and political theory, and would continue to shape the directions of Western culture in the centuries that followed. Undoubtedly, though, the campaigns of Alexander the Great changed the world that the Greeks had known until then. From citizens of small city-states within the boundaries of the Persian Empire they became part of the dominance of a vast area that stretched from the Mediterranean to India. That enormous area was linked, on the one hand, with the use of Greek as a common language in administrative and cultural spaces and, on the other, with the creation of centers of Greek culture in various communities. Societies differed greatly, as regards their nature and function, from the intensely political city-state of the Classical Period. In fact, they seem to have been more closely related to the period that followed, the one called Hellenistic, which covers the three centuries that interposed © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4_3

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between Alexander’s death in 323 BC and the death of the last queen of Egypt, Cleopatra VII Philopator, in 30 BC. During that period, the simple world of Greeks and non-Greeks was trying to preserve some traditional values while, at the same time, they were developing innovations that would allow them to survive in a world quite different from that of the previous generations. People from different cultures built societies in ways unprecedented for the time. In large multicultural Hellenistic kingdoms, the citizen no longer invested most of his time in politics but devoted much of his energy to his personal life. Philosophical movements, such as those of the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Cynics, and the Skeptics, addressed a wider public than that of Plato and Aristotle and tried to give answers to people’s agonizing questions, such as the precariousness of their existence, questions that still exist today. In art and, more particularly, in sculpture, the emphasis on the esthetically pleasing was moderated and elderly women, children, and slaves, even the disabled, began to be portrayed with great frequency. The basic feature of the Hellenistic Period is pluralism. A pluralism that is evident everywhere: in the formation of kingdoms, in philosophy, in art, in religion. The Hellenistic Period was a time of rapid developments and reversals, economic prosperity combined at the same time with psychological insecurity, religious search, syncretism and adaptation, technological progress, and new political doctrines. At the political level, it was a time when the city had been definitively overcome as an institution and as a force. Of course, the cities did not disappear; on the contrary, they seemed to have flourished and experienced a period of prosperity that continued until the Roman years. However, most of them were now administratively and economically integrated into larger units, the kingdoms. Their choices would henceforth be determined by higher centers of power. The emphasis that was given throughout the period, until the advent of Rome, on the autonomy of cities by the monarchs proves nothing but an attempt to make this transition smoothly, so that these otherwise important pockets of economic and political life. The new institutions seemed to fill in the gaps and facilitate the transition from the concept of the city citizen to that of the world citizen. Equality before the law (ισoνoμ´ια: isonomy)

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and political equality (ισoπoλιτε´ια: isopoliteia)—that is, the possibility for the same laws or political rights to be effective in two or more cities— favored bridging the differences between cities and homogenizing the kingdoms, at least, at the institutional level. The new institutions facilitated demographic mobility, that is, the possibility to settle down in different cities. This demographic mobility was the result of many factors. On the one hand, the campaigns of Alexander themselves marked a big flow of a large proportion of the male population, at least, to the East, given that guards were placed in several parts of the newly conquered territories and conditions of permanent settlement (land supply and marriage to native women) were created. This trend continued during the period of the successions and the Epigones, as the new cities that were founded were originally inhabited by Greek and Macedonian settlers. On the other hand, the war conditions prevailing over long periods in extended areas of the Hellenistic kingdoms also favored the movement of populations, either voluntarily, in order to protect themselves, or by imperative (due to settlements, enslavements, or the destruction of cities). Apart from the mandatory relocations, however, the establishment of new states and the expansion of commercial networks also created conditions for economically motivated relocations. The new kingdoms offered tremendous opportunities for one to become wealthy, and the engagement in trade or craft production or in financial services was usually profitable. At the same time, it can be observed that there was a retreat of social barriers, though not their final collapse. Moving to another city allowed one to start from the beginning. Even if one was in a low-class society in one’s hometown, one could now improve one’s living conditions based on one’s ability. Of course, one could not possibly pursue the highest state positions, but one could certainly have gained considerable wealth, power, even education—the privilege of the wealthiest and noblest. Inherent in this development was the transformation of the role of education, which highlighted the main institution and agency of the gymnasium. In the classical Greek city (polis), the gymnasium was the place where future citizens prepared themselves for their main military duties, since they were the only ones who had the privilege and duty of conscription. For this reason, the

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emphasis was on physical preparation, on body formation, and on the war-sporting ideal. In the Hellenistic Period, however, there was a strong tendency for the army to consist of professional warriors. Thus, the gymnasium gradually acquired the character of the place where young people (men, in particular) obtained a higher education, learning with equal importance: music, poetry, the principles of scientific theory, the basic principles of political thought, and physical sports. To the gymnasium foreigners were also admitted, provided their families were able to pay the tuition fees. Thus, the gymnasium, as an institution, was developed into a melting pot, out of which eventually came educated men, agents of Greek civilization, who would later staff important positions at the city or state level. In the new countries, in the depths of Asia or Egypt, the participation of non-Greeks in gymnasium preparation created the new elite of nations, which mainly promoted a cultural osmosis between indigenous and Greek elements, and also sparked in some cases the reaction of their own people. At an economic level, the developments were similar. The enlarged states, which made extensive use of mercenary armies and played a major role in long-distance trade, could only operate by modernizing economic structures. To a large extent, this meant financing the economy with which the exchange or collection of contributions in kind became secondary in importance. Expansion of the use of currency enabled people to become rich to levels unknown until then. Nevertheless, the traditional sponsorship institutions continued to exist so that some of that wealth returned to the city again or was spent for the common benefit, both in the form of public works or free feeding, especially in times of famine, and in the form of contribution to representation costs for political reasons (an ambassador’s fees, posting of inscriptions and resolutions, votive offerings to statues and busts). Of particular interest is the fact that honorable persons (with inscriptions, if not with statues) were also women. In general, women’s position in the Hellenistic Period seems to have been upgraded. Their presence in public life is more pronounced. The most common office they held was that of priestess in a temple or as an oracle. However, there are not a few occasions when women seemed to be defending their property and benefiting with this the city or sanctuary.

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In exceptional cases, they even acquired political rights (of course, they were honored only by name) or were honored with proxeny or proxenia (πρ oξ εν´ια) for services they offered to their city. The expansion of the proxeny institution, together with the ever-increasing provision of immunity to cities, sanctuaries, and even individuals, is one of the elements that emerge clearly from the epigraphic data of the Hellenistic Period, testifying to the feeling of general insecurity and the effort of cities and states to treat it with bilateral agreements. Fear was mainly due to the impact of a possible future occupation of the city by enemies (looting, murder, enslavement) and that of piracy. A solution to the protection of one’s life in the event that such a disaster occurred was the creation of clubs or brotherhoods. Associations could have as their object the preservation of one’s memory and the offering of death rates to one or the protection of their members as long as they were alive. Thus, in the event of the capture or enslavement of a member, the rest of them gathered the necessary ransom for his release or the amount required for his redemption by his master, if those who arrested him had sold him as a slave. Of course, these associations were active not only in bad but also in good times, scattering the consciousness of belonging with symposia and other ceremonies among their members. Besides, it was not uncommon for those associations to have a religious-worshiping aspect of their operation. But beyond any attempts of material or moral help from fellow humans, the city, or the king, the diffuse feeling of insecurity was also fought at an individual level, with a turn to religion, in all its manifestations, from the personal-philosophical contemplation with religious extensions to the mystical cults that flourished in Hellenistic times and to magic and the use of cultic methods to obtain a particular profit. But let us look at the specific elements of Hellenistic society.

1.1

Religion

As Walbank (1981) states, from the fifth century BC onwards the religion of Olympus had begun to be under attack. The sophist movement had created a skeptical attitude towards the hitherto most unshakable

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beliefs, while there were lots of foreign cults rooted in Hellenistic cities. The worship of traditional gods very often ended up being associated with abstract concepts, such as those of friendship, peace, wealth, or democracy. Furthermore, the distinction between god and man was partly diminished because the worship of exceptional mortals had been established and, to some extent, because some philosophers had claimed that man could live as a god with the help of reason. In the following century, however, the new political, social, and economic conditions, which were created in the Mediterranean and the Near East during the Hellenistic Period, were reflected in religion as well. As long as the world was divided into tribes and small states, and, in general, exchanges were limited, the gods were also “national” gods of a race. In those years, however, the politico-social cosmopolitanism hit strongly at the tribal gods too, because they had lost their historical support. The shuffling of the tribes and peoples also created a mixture of religious traditions and legends. Old “national” gods were no longer in place in the great states that had been created, because their jurisdiction was local. That’s why some of them either were replaced by other deities because the traditions surrounding them were common and uniform to many peoples, or had completely lost their status over time and, when the objective and subjective terms matured, gave their place to one god. Christian monotheism has its roots in Hellenistic times. The interactions and interpenetration of the cultures of Asia and Greece were manifested in the last years of the Hellenistic Period with the transfer of many of the properties of the various gods to one god. Once the old religions had been undermined and the religious traditions and cults were mixed, the trend towards syncretism was expressed in the visual arts and poetry. Venus was represented with the hair of Isis, Zeus with the horns of the Egyptian god Ammon. There were the same manifestations in coins, too. In the coins of King Pharnaces II of Pontus, the god Min (an ancient Egyptian god) was portrayed with the qualities and symbols of many gods. Transferring the properties of many gods to one god did not mean the oblivion of the old gods. The old gods were merging, uniting, losing their individuality, but they did not withdraw from the scene at all. This syncretism, a merger of worship, was typical for the Hellenistic Period.

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Numerous inscriptions and images certify the most bizarre combinations of heterogeneous worshiping doctrines. Nevertheless, neither the syncretism nor the attempts to distinguish the one god from the multitude of the gods, by transferring the qualities of the other gods, did not result in the creation of an integrated religion. The monarchy of Alexander of Macedon and the large states created afterward his death, on the one hand, destroyed the old way of life, and, on the other hand, created neither a single people nor a single “global” economy nor a single culture. Old forms continued to exist next to the new; the isolation and limitation of national, political, and cultural units were not overcome. Both the need for a religion and the possibilities for its creation, with the complete merging of the doctrines of Greek and Eastern worship, were not enough to eradicate religions that had been formed over the centuries. Hellenistic religion was not only characterized by the new gods, but also by the new relationship with them. The believer expected not only material goods but also spiritual liberation and moral recognition from the gods. Within this historical context, interest in occultism increased. The Greeks’ materialism was vanishing in the daily storms of life, which gave birth to helplessness, weakness, and the despair of the coming of a better time. The thirst for a post-mortem bliss and faith in the immortality of the soul at the end of the Hellenistic Period became a general phenomenon. One of the fruits of the combination of Hellenism with Eastern religions was the bloom of astrology. At the same time, however, there was a shock to the faith in the gods. To many, this meant the progress of skepticism, although it was usually disguised. The ideas of philosophers almost coincided with a nondefinitive rejection of the “gods”. Thus, the Stoics with Zeno (335–263 BC) and Chrysippus (260–207 BC) praised wisdom, whereas Cleanthes (331–232 BC), in a famous Hymn to Zeus, identified the Stoic principle with “Zeus”; and Epicurus, despite his claim that the gods were not at all interested in humanity, neither denied their existence nor condemned the rituals they held in their honor. These attempts to integrate the gods into new philosophical schemes reveal the embarrassment of the philosophers. Thus, persistent efforts were made to identify the gods

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with concepts acceptable to humans, which, however, questioned their existence. In the third century, Euhemerus’ rational theory of prosperity (or Euhmerism) came into being,1 which interpreted gods as deified people and inserted the myths about them in the biographies of the people of earth. As a source of faith and religious inquiry, he was now presenting, not tradition, but rather personal revelation.

1.2

Political Reality

An established concept sees the Hellenistic Period as the age when the city had ceased to be an autonomous state organization. This perception is rather inaccurate. Whatever the degree of subordination of the city to the royal will, it maintained its formal, at least, autonomy, though it was often not substantial. Almost all political institutions that we are used to combining with the autonomous statehood of a city were typically unchanged. The Assembly of the D¯emos (City) operated at regular intervals and reserved the right to the final decision on a number of issues in most cities: religious matters, the election of rulers, management of financial resources, the definition of special contributions, grain supply, defense, staffing and operation of rural fortresses, international relations, honoring prominent citizens, foreigners and kings, and so on. Often the Boul¯e (Citizens’ Council) prepared decisions that the Assembly of the D¯emos merely ratified, or decided on its own on certain issues, though there were cases when the Assembly made decisions on its own. The democratic organization of the state, therefore, seemed to be the norm, to the extent that the very word “democracy” was gradually losing its meaning, until it declared, not a certain political program, but merely a well-governed state. The typical context, however, rarely showed all the truth. There is no doubt that, gradually, a limited circle of strong and rich people became increasingly prevalent in political life and urban society. The following elements of political institutions allow us to keep track of this development. The first was the weakening of the phenomenon of political salary for participation in the Assembly of the D¯emos. The second was the courts. We have no reason to suppose that city courts and

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the Common ceased to operate, but we see increasingly that cities were not trusting their judicial institutions and resorted to resolving important cases either in a supreme court or in an external judicial institution: the federal courts for the cities that belonged to the Common, the royal judges for the cities that were directly subordinated to a ruler, or more and more often, special judges from other cities. In this sense, the judicial power of the political body that was the cornerstone of the classical Athenian democratic model was being weakened. Third, and perhaps most important, institutional change came in the form of the gradual conversion of offices into liturgies; that is, a series of offices, which, in order to be staffed, required a great deal of money which was usually provided by an individual—an officer (or an archon) who was a very wealthy citizen. Thus, the theoros, the messenger of the city to one of the more and more “international” festivals; the ambassador to a Hellenistic ruler, the ag¯onothetis, the officer who judged the games; the gymnasiarchos who superintended training/education); the agoranomos who controlled the marketplace, or the market overseer; the stephan¯ephoros who had the right to wear a crown or wreath when in office in Athens; the sit¯on¯es who bought corn for the public and searched to find wheat at a good price and the resources needed to buy it—these officers were increasingly being asked to spend their money on the cost of a trip, the purchase of the oil for a gymnasium, or the provision of animals for the sacrifice or food for the public holiday, and so on. We do not need to assume that those developments were due to a conscious policy. The reason was the constant economic hardship of the cities, which had left the state with no room for expenditure on the customs that the ideology of the city was imposing. The offices that involved personal expenses had a shorter term of office. Often, the city was unable to find citizens willing to take up such an office. There were cases where a king, a royal official, or a god was on a duty list, which meant that the city had earned the necessary money from a foreign power or from a sanctuary. Equally often the honor of an official was testified simply because he accepted the office and the costs that that office entailed. This development was linked to the other crucial phenomenon of city life that was called euergetism or evergetism (εÙεργετισμ´o)2 (or, in plain English, benevolence).

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This phenomenon certainly predated the Hellenistic Period, but now it acquired new scope and, especially, during the second century, new features. Until the end of the third century, citizen-benefactors (ευεργšτες) still entered the institutional framework of the city. They were honored for the way in which their political actions as officers, ambassadors, orators, legislators, and councilors of the d¯emos produced concrete benefits for the political body. Nevertheless, during the second century this image was gradually changing. The nature of the benefits ´ (ευεργετηματα), which were becoming more and more important, were becoming more and more expensive. Benevolence (ευεργεσ´ια) might become necessary for the very survival of the city, whether it be to secure the favor of kings and the Romans, whether as successive donations (and not just borrowing) in cash and in kind, or for the payment of tax to the royal courts. Thus, benevolences (ευεργεσ´ιες) were slowly becoming less and less associated with the practice of an office. A powerful and wealthy citizen no longer merely benefited as a general, ambassador, orator, or sit¯on¯es (corn buyer), but simply because he or she was wealthy, hence we more and more encounter female benefactors. Often, even honors (τιμšς) lost the quality that they had in the past. Prominent citizens were no longer honored for specific actions (even though these actions would still be mentioned), but rather for the very fact that they belonged to a powerful, educated family with access to real power centers (the Royal Courts and Rome) and a tradition of benevolence (ευεργεσ´ια). Even the public to whom benevolence was directed seemed to have changed: the target was no longer the political body in the narrow sense, but the whole population of the city, including women, children, slaves, and foreigners. Similarly, honors increased and became more frequent: as a series of statues, the bestowal of an official title, even as a savior, and, above all, heroic or (almost) divine honors, including when still alive, following the example of kings. Great benefactors were increasingly being withdrawn from the political body, and euergetism or evergetism became a demonstration of patriotism and social unity, almost a system of governance. The above elements would lead De Ste Croix (1981) to refer to the abolishing of democracy.

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Economy

The main features of the period in terms of economy were internationalization, financing, the non-development of productive forces, and the economic crisis that grew with the Roman occupation. The successful outcome of Alexander the Great’s grand plan to subjugate the Persian kingdom and control its revenue not only politically unified the Eastern Mediterranean but also shaped the preconditions to do business worldwide. Those preconditions were soon overturned by the conflicts of war that now plagued the emerging kingdoms, leaving only a sense of the ephemeral and transient. Movements of troops, however, and individuals, merchants, craftsmen, and others contributed to expanding markets and internationalizing product distribution as well as transactions being conducted at all levels, through old and new channels of communication. Natural borders between states became more fluid, while the barriers between the limited economic formations of classical antiquity were removed. Gradually, a single macro-economic reality was being formed and an international range of economic networks was emerging throughout the Greek world. A cohesive link that drastically contributed to the formation of a common economy was the progressive generalization of the use of currency for trade, both within Hellenistic states and at the transnational level. In general terms, in order to deal with their military and budget expenditures, Hellenistic monarchs consciously strengthened the movement of money (silver) to larger-scale transactions in their territories. But the financial foundations were shaky. With the exception of some improvements in irrigation and drying, the period is not characterized by any substantial change in productive forces. As Walbank (1981) mentions, most innovations concerned the supply of luxury goods to a small minority. A completely different picture of international Hellenistic economies—compared with the Classical Period—is not due to the change in productive structures because of some groundbreaking technological evolution, as was the case in the Industrial Revolution. In the majority of the Hellenistic states, pre-existing economic structures were maintained, with the result that the transition to the new order of things would be relatively smooth. However, the Hellenistic

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economies were formed in conditions that all but favored systematic and perfectly modeled economic development at the state level. The demands of warfare did not allow Hellenistic monarchs to seek to maximize their income through the systematic exploitation of agricultural production and natural resources in their territory, since much of their human resources (their citizens) participated in defensive and aggressive wars and then had to suffer the consequences. The losses from agricultural production (and possibly a fall in land prices) due to wars were somehow offset by the international circulation of large quantities of silver in the form of coins, realizing a completely different source of wealth. The ultimate pursuit of all the Hellenistic monarchs was the rapid financing of local economies in order to secure the necessary currency, primarily for military expenditures. Modern research suggests that the primary objective of setting up many mints at the time was to meet the financial needs of the major forces in the first place. The monarchs produced a new currency to fill the gaps and to meet the needs of the market. At the micro-economy level, redistribution of wealth was inevitable, regardless of whether this wealth was translated into material goods, land, or money. The conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great liberated enormous quantities of wealth in the form of new money, whereas the establishment of new cities and military colonies caused population movements from mainland Greece, the islands, and the coastal cities of Asia Minor so that those populations could acquire land. Properties changed hands due to frequent and wretched wars, and war victims faced the possibility not only of losing their property and their lives but also of turning themselves into assets, bringing profit to their owners. As a result of these developments, the Hellenistic state (initially in Greek territory, later in the Asia-Africa hegemonies) was becoming deserted and large financial problems were plaguing the vast majority of the people. The great economic poverty of farmers that once again led them to become slaves due to debts is documented by comedians of the time. The problems grew with the gradual arrival of the Roman occupation. Historiographers of the time—such as Diodorus, Polybius, and Dion Chrysostomos (or Dio Chrysostom)—report them in a vivid way. Dion writes:

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[11] We live by the chase for the most part and work but a small bit of land. You see, the place does not belong to us: we did not inherit it or get it by our own efforts. Our fathers, though free, were just as poor as we are—hired herdsmen tending the cattle of a wealthy man, one of the residents of the island here, a man who owned many droves of horses and cattle, many flocks, many good fields too and many other possessions together with all these hills. (VII, The Euboean Discourse, or The Hunter )

And he continues: [34] … At this moment, sirs, almost two-thirds of our land is a wilderness because of neglect and lack of population. I too own many acres, as I imagine some others do, not only in the mountains but also on the plains, and if anybody would till them, I should not only give him the chance for nothing but gladly pay money besides. [35] For it is plain that they become more valuable to me, and at the same time the sight of land occupied and under cultivation is a pleasing one, while waste lands are not only a useless possession to those who hold them, but very distressing evidence of some misfortune of their owners. [36] Wherefore, I advise you rather to encourage all the other citizens you can to take some of the public land and work it, those who have some capital taking more, and the poorer citizens as much as each is able to handle, that your land may be in use, and the citizens who accept may be free from two very great evils, idleness and poverty. [37] So let these men have it free for ten years, and after that period let them agree to pay a small portion from their produce but nothing from their cattle. If any alien takes up land, let him likewise pay nothing for the first five years, but after that twice as much as the citizens. And let any alien who shall put fifty acres under cultivation be made a citizen, in order to encourage as many as possible.

And continuing with his narrative, Dion describes for us Evia’s downfall in those times, always lively and vividly: [38] … even the land just outside the city gates is quite wild and terribly unattractive, as though it were in the depths of a wilderness and not in the suburbs of a city, while most of the land inside the walls is sown or grazed … that the men farming the gymnasium and grazing cattle in the marketplace are doing nothing out of the way. [39] … so that the

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Heracles and numerous other statues are hidden by the corn, some those of heroes and other statues of gods … the sheep belonging to this orator invade the marketplace at dawn and graze about the council chamber and the executive buildings. Therefore, when strangers first come to our city, they either laugh at it or pity it. Now on hearing this they burst into a rage against that first speaker in his turn and made a great uproar.

In many Greek regions, slave owners released their slaves not out of compassion and humanitarian principles but because it was not in their interest to feed many slaves. The poverty of the large mass of the population (of small owners) and its deproletarianization decreased consumer power. So, the big landowners now had no interest in feeding many slaves since the cultivation of their fields had no profit because there was no export (of goods) and exchange relations were confined year after year. Thus, slaves began to become a kind of luxury and were now serving more as servants in houses, though such a role was still useful.

2

Law and Justice

The developments in law of the Hellenistic Period followed the economic and political developments that we have seen before. The Hellenistic world did not have universal law, though the codes of the various states coincided greatly and increasingly tended toward an acceptable approach, as can be deduced from the increasingly frequent appeal to foreign judges. This final coinciding, however, came gradually as at the beginning of the Hellenistic world there had been differences between Greek territory and the great hegemonies, and between the different populations of the hegemonies; for example, in Ptolemaic Egypt, the regulator of the law was the king, who could exert particular pressure in some situations. In his everyday private problems, the Hellenistic citizen addressed directly the king with claims (statements). The kinds of crimes denounced either as statements or as simple complaints to military, police, or administrative officials, apart from bodily harm, were usually the destruction of foreign property, arson, theft and home burglaries, attacks on people or caravans in desolate streets, insult, murder, and

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abuse of power. Initially, different courts were designated for the two ethnicities: chrimatistai (χρηματιστα´ι: three-member mobile courts introduced by Ptolemy II in 258 BC, in which members were chosen for a comparatively short term of office from among the polis elites, who were considered to be direct delegates of the king; as such, no appeal was possible against their judgment) for the Greeks, the laokritai (λαoκριτα´ι) for the Egyptians, and “native law” or “common law” for Egyptians and Greeks (Greek or Egyptian law was effective, depending on the language in which the documents submitted were written). They were touring courts (so as not to take farmers away from their jobs) and their members were individuals appointed by the king to judge cases. They dealt with civil cases mainly and had limited jurisdiction in criminal trials. Later, in the 2nd BC, after the co-existence and gradual blending of the two peoples, language and no longer ethnicity played a role in the jurisdiction of the courts, and so the chrimatistai were judging cases related to Greek documents, and the laokritai judged cases based on Egyptian documents. Native law or common law then ceased to exist. Each party, Greek or Egyptian, could choose which court he wished, and the interpreters/translators were ready whenever linguistic difficulties arose. Nevertheless, the administration began to convey justice very quickly, as it was simpler to make decisions than to wait for a tour of the courts. In Syria and Asia Minor, the law in the Seleucid kingdom was issued by the king and came out of the multifaceted social and racial elements that made up the kingdom. However, the implementation of such absolute legislative power was contrary to Greek political philosophy, according to which the only one who had the right to legislate was the demos, the king only able to issue orders and decrees. But this was practically impossible, since the king had to reach the consensus of powerful organizations within his own state, as in the cities. In general, cities retained the right to solve their own affairs and have their own laws, provided of course that the latter did not run counter to the interests and laws of the state. In degenerate situations, such as war, those laws could be overturned by royal decrees. In other cases, nevertheless, cities often asked for the

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king’s permission to take concrete measures. As far as non-Greek populations were concerned, there is evidence that they were, to a certain extent, allowed to live according to their customary law. The main feature, however, in the development of law was, as we have seen above, the decline of people’s courts, and the fact that the jurisdiction fell into the hands of the wealthy class. The involvement of the poorest citizens in such courts, which still existed, was becoming more rare, and in many cities court cases were increasingly being adjudicated by small groups of local authorities. From the end of the third century BC, the local courts seemed to have ceased, and the judiciary was now governed by the provincial governor and his delegates. This development was very much at the expense of the provinces, especially of the poorer classes, who were obliged to travel to the diocese of the province to obtain justice and who did not have the means to pay the governor and his employees. Things for the poor classes as well as for the judicial autonomy of the Greek city-states deteriorated during the gradual occupation by the Romans. Referrals of cases to the emperor’s court became common practice.

3

Social Revolutions

Economic poverty and the coexistence of excessive poverty and immense wealth created the conditions for class conflict. These were intensified mainly from the third century BC onwards, and especially in Greece. Where popular masses prevailed, they imposed the status of the oldstyle tyranny. These tyrants confiscated the properties of landowners and distributed them to craftsmen and, in general, they tried to solve the social problem by expropriating great properties and distributing them to the poor. They also canceled debts and hit the usury. In the third century BC the old popular slogans “debt cut” and “land reclamation” (cancelation of debts and redistribution of fields) were heard more loudly. Such revolutions organized by farmer-slaves took place in many city-states of the Peloponnese, Chios, Epirus, Thessaly, and elsewhere. The main

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demands were debt cancellation, democracy, and autonomy—reminiscent of earlier times. It will be interesting to see three specific examples of this in Sparta, Macedonia, and Pergamum.

3.1

Sparta

The uprisings in the wider region had been common features in previous years. In the Hellenistic Period, however, they were intense, lasting, and quite effective. At the time, the land had been slowly gathered into a few hands; the landless being the vast majority of the population. The previous lives of abstinence, which had been the mark of Spartan life, was now a historical memory. In Sparta a different life had begun, and a handful of Spartans ruled over everything, living with prodigality and orgies. The old organization had been dissolved. But then, near the middle of the third century BC, wrongdoing seemed to have gone too far. “And here I may say”, Plutarch writes, “that the Lacedaemonian state began to suffer distemper and corruption soon after its subversion of the Athenian supremacy filled it with gold and silver” (Plutarch, Agis, 5, 1). Later, Plutarch, after he has stated how the old legislation on land ownership has changed, says that only 100 Spartans ruled the vineyards and the fields in the middle of the century: [3] … For the men of power and influence at once began to acquire estates without scruple, ejecting the rightful heirs from their inheritances; and speedily the wealth of the state streamed into the hands of a few men, and poverty became the general rule, bringing in its train lack of leisure for noble pursuits and occupations unworthy of freemen, along with envy and hatred towards the men of property. [4] Thus there were left of the old Spartan families not more than seven hundred, and of these there were perhaps a hundred who possessed land and allotment; while the ordinary throng, without resources and without civic rights, lived in enforced idleness, showing no zeal or energy in warding off foreign wars, but ever watching for some opportunity to subvert and change affairs at home. (Plutarch, Agis, 5, 3–4)

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But Aristotle is also strict in his judgments. Taking into account direct and verified information, he writes: The public finance of Sparta is also badly regulated: when compelled to carry on wars on a large scale she has nothing in the state treasury, and the Spartans pay war taxes badly because, as most of the land is owned by them, they do not scrutinize each other’s contributions. And the lawgiver has achieved the opposite result to what is advantageous—he has made the state poor and the individual citizen covetous. (Aristotle, Politics, II, 6, 1271b, 1). In those years, the landless, fallen, and impoverished Spartans not only groaned but also their cries and protests took a revolutionary form. It was natural for this mass to demand the restoration of the old regime of the mythical Lycurgus, because in the very old days there had been equality in possessing fields (ισoκτημoσνη) ´ and equality before the law (ισoπoλιτε´ια: isopoliteia): Sparta had brought happiness then, though it had not been completely erased. In fact, it is very possible that some young people who were followers of Stoicism became the spiritual leaders of the landless and impoverished Spartans. We may deduce this because the ancient sources inform us that the Stoic philosopher Sphaerus Borysthenes lived in Sparta and was the teacher of the children of the Spartan aristocracy. Sphaerus delivered the state teachings of the first Stoicism that had a humanitarian and socialist content. In those years, there were two parties in Sparta with regard to class antagonisms. One demanded social reform, the other was opposed to those demands and supported the status of those with a large property. The two kings of Sparta, Agis and Leonidas, engaged in political and social antagonism and stood as the leaders of the two factions during the period that exacerbated those class antagonisms. Agis was the king of the party that called for social reform, whereas Leonidas was of the party representing the great landowners and usurers. Agis preferred the “legitimate way” to revolutionary means. He wanted his reform plans to be approved not only by the ephors (/Eϕoρoι: magistrates, overseers) but also by the Senate ( ερoυσ´ια). Either because he was still inexperienced and incompetent or because his party was not so well-organized, he asked Lysander, as an ephor, to introduce a bill into the Senate to vote for the following reforms/provisions:

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[1] However, Agis procured Lysander’s election as ephor, and at once employed him to introduce a bill into the senate, the chief provisions of which were that debtors should be relieved of their debts, and that the land should be divided up, that which lay between the water-course at Pellene and Taÿgetus, Malea, and Sellasia, into forty-five hundred lots, and that which lay outside this into fifteen thousand. [2] That this larger land should be apportioned among those of the provincials who were capable of bearing arms, and the smaller among the genuine Spartans; that the number of these Spartans should be filled up from the provincials and foreigners who had received the rearing of freemen and were, besides, of vigorous bodies and in the prime of life; and that these should be formed into fifteen public messes by four hundreds and two hundreds, and should practise the mode of life which the ancient Spartans had followed. (Plutarch, Agis, 8)

Finally, Agis paid with his life for his daring reform effort. After his death, Cleomenes III, son of Leonidas, with Sphaerus Borysthenes for teacher, took overpower. Cleomenes, though his father stood as a pillar and leader of the great landowners, took another course. Seeing the great poverty that provoked the people and the paralysis caused by the oligarchy, he became indignant. He also understood that the military organization was paralyzed because the people no longer showed any appetite for wars and campaigns. That is why he set out to effect Agis’ reforms, since the situation was getting worse and worse. Instead of following Agis’ tactics, being more intelligent, he first looked to take over the state machine. His first job was to abolish the institution of ephors, because this institution was a major obstacle to any reform action. For the class of the impoverished Spartans to hold political power and impose its economic and social reforms, it ought to have the state machine completely in its hands. Cleomenes removed the ephors, deleted debts, redistributed land, and gave political rights to Perioeci or Períoikoi ( ερ´ιoικoι: the noncitizens of Laconia and Messinia), while he distributed his wealth to the people. Eventually, having the organized armies of the Achaean League, Macedonia, and the oligarchs of Sparta against him, Cleomenes lost the war, while its opponents destroyed Sparta’s autonomy and reforms. But social antagonisms remained sharp.

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A few years later that situation led to a new popular revolution led by Nabis, who implemented Cleomenes’ social reforms and organized a popular state. Nabis, as a representative of the popular mass, not only acquired Cleomenes’ status, but became even more popular. However, being very well aware of having many enemies not only in Sparta but also in the Peloponnese, he took care to build his own army. That is why he confiscated the estates of the rich and took the treasures that the temples had, as well as those of the goldsmiths, and he took the ornaments of princes. And all this he spent to build an army. Nabis, with his revolutionary instinct, had realized that if the movement of the landless, the debtors, and all the oppressed did not exist across all the Peloponnese and the rest of Greece, then a new Sparta would not arise and endure. He organized an army, and rebels came from all over Greece to enlist, and had the first successes against neighboring Argos, to which he had been invited by the democrats to overthrow the oligarchic regime there. However, when it was heard that Nabis had taken over Argos and declared equality before the law (ισoπoλιτε´ια: isopoliteia) and the sharing of fields, fear and terror fell over the great landowners across the rest of Greece and above all in the Peloponnese. That is why they consulted with the Romans and called for the rapid intervention of its army, because they saw that their only salvation was in that army, and only with the help of the Romans could they save their great estates. The end came to Nabis through treachery, as was the case with all revolutions in that period. It is worthwhile, however, mentioning what Nabis claimed before the Roman General Flamenio, according to Roman historian Titus Livius or Livy in his History of Rome (XXXIV, 31, 17–19): [17] Do not weigh what is done in Lacedaemon on the scales of your own laws and institutions. It is unnecessary to make a detailed comparison. You choose your cavalry and your infantry according to their censusratings, and you desire that a few should excel in wealth and that the commons should be under their control; [18] our law-giver ordained that the state should not be in the hands of the few, whom you call the senate, and that no one order should predominate in the state, but he believed that by equalizing wealth and rank it would come to pass that there would be many to bear arms for the country. [19] I admit that I have spoken at greater length than suits the traditional brevity of our speech; and I

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might have summed up briefly by stating that since I entered upon my friendship with you, I have done nothing to make you regret it.

3.2

Macedonia

Similar conditions prevailed in Macedonia, where there were similar uprisings with common elements that originated from above. King Perseus, influenced by the ideology and program of Cleomenes and Nabis, asked to share large farms and to redeem the debts. He also donated the taxes that the Macedonians owed to the public, and issued a message in Delos, Larissa, and Boeotia that stated that all those who had been exiled for their political ideas, their debts to the public, or because they had been convicted in absentia could come to Macedonia where they would find asylum. Thus, not only the very poor, the indebted, and the landless, but also middle peasants, craftsmen, and progressive Greeks saw him as their savior. On the other hand, landowners and, generally, oligarchs hated him. Due to the fact that the economic crisis was prolonged, and that the popular masses were increasingly being oppressed and felt distraught, class antagonisms took a revolutionary form. In the years 173–170 BC, bloody riots broke out in Thessaly and Aetolia. Radical democrats and oligarchs declared a mutual extermination war. Elsewhere, both debtors and the landless, who worked on the large fields and vineyards, took over and slaughtered the lenders; elsewhere, where the aristocrats were in power, they exiled, imprisoned, and killed the democrats. Perseus, of course, supported the democrats everywhere. He even closed an alliance with the Boeotian League that was governed by the democratic leaders Neon, Hippias, and Ismenias (see Polybius, The Histories, Book XXVII, 1–2). The great landowners, the Achaean League, the Athenians, and, of course, Rome conspired against him, proclaiming war and, eventually, suppressing the uprising, which, however, continued. In 164 BC, a new movement broke out in Macedonia. One Damasippus stirred up the people and massacred the local government council at the stronghold of Phacus, near Pella, seeking afterwards refuge in the court of Ptolemy VII as a mercenary. Later, in 149 BC, another great popular revolution that was drowned in blood

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made the bonds between the Macedonian people stronger. A young man named Andriscus, son of a craftsman, was presented in Thrace under the name of Philip and claimed to be Perseus’ child. Andriscus was followed by many Thracians, who were armed. Hearing that Perseus’ son had declared war against the Romans, many Macedonians joined his army. So, in a short while, the name of Philip-Andriscus became known in all Macedonia. He entered into East Macedonia and within a few months he drove out the Roman guards completely. The poor went with him since they considered him to be their liberator. The struggle was not only for freedom, that is, to drive out the Romans, but also for the abolition of debts and land redistribution. Philip soon reached the Thessaly border. In Greece, the landless and the debtors became enthusiastic. But Philip’s rebellious masses were disorganized and uncollected, while the Roman army was well organized. Moreover, the Roman army had everywhere a precious ally, the oligarchs, so they did not have much trouble crushing the revolutionary army of Macedonians and Thessalians. In 148 BC, popular revolution was extinguished everywhere. Philip-Andriscus was captured and led in chains to Rome. Following the triumphal parade of the victor General Metellus, who had the popular militia following behind his chariot, the Romans executed Andriscus. Macedonia finally lost its autonomy and was turned into a Roman province.

3.3

Pergamum

The Pergamum revolt3 is a unique example of an uprising of the time. On the one hand, it did not arise as a movement from above entirely, but rather started among all proletarian social strata and slaves. The demands were broader than the other examples of social uprisings we have discussed, as they sought for a classless communal society without individual property, without slaves and masters. Finally, in this particular revolution, the connection and influence of utopian and philosophical schools of critical thought of the time can be clearly seen. The revolution of the City of the Sun (as it was named) was unfolded in special circumstances in terms of social and political conditions. Rome had

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been going through a deep crisis since the second half of the second century BC, during the period it was advancing its conquest of Asia and after it had subjugated the Greek lands. More specifically, social inequalities were aggravated as small land ownership was devoured by great landowners, resulting in the destitution of thousands of peasants, while workers were crowded out by the rise of slaves and thrown into unemployment. Within this explosive environment, the revolutionary epic of slaves and landless peoples in the Pergamum kingdom in Asia Minor broke out, where the waves of energy for revolutionary eruptions had reached. The particular importance of the revolution lies in the fact that it transcends what had been previously known to them: their narrow horizons of consciousness opened into a new historical perspective. Slaves and free proletarians, who had so far turned against each other by defending their close interests, were united in a common struggle with the common aim to radically overthrow the status quo and establish a society of equality and communalism, free of property, masters, and slaves. A very important source of the revolt is Pergamon’s resolution presented to Attalus III, based on which rights and privileges were granted to slaves and serfs (former slaves). Thus, we can deduce that these were measures aimed at luring slaves and marginalized people in order not to join Aristonicus’ movement. The sources also confirm how serious the revolt of the “Heliopolitae”, as Aristonicus called his followers, had become—and how it had embraced the people more broadly than that of just slaves. Strabo writes about the participation in this movement of poor, dependent people (“of needy people and slaves”: απ´oρων τε ανθρωπων ´ και δoλων) ´ who claimed their freedom. He also reports that ideas for social justice had spread to most of Pergamum’s cities. Diodorus Siculus tells us, moreover, that slaves, since they had been mistreated by their despots, took part in the “absurd uprising” of Aristonicus and created much woe in many cities. The vision of such a free society gave new meaning to their struggle and gained sufficient momentum to unite and express all the oppressed popular strata of the time. The demand for a radically new society, however, was not in itself a revolutionary move. Nevertheless, other basic conditions and favorable circumstances were needed that could give rise to such events. In principle, there was a need for the subject or the

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subjects to express it, to invest it with discourse, meaning, symbols, goals, strategies. This decisive factor appeared in Pergamum—and nowhere else—and it was called Aristonicus. Another element that makes the event exceptional and unique in history, as with any similar event that goes beyond its time, is the original, creative synthesis of historical trends and conjunctions, objective and subjective factors that coexist in a certain place and time and which can create developments of considerable breadth and depth. The very reason for the revolt is another paradox of history. Aristonicus organized the first rebellious movement to claim the throne of the Pergamum kingdom as the illegal brother of the late King Attalus III. With this action, Aristonicus opposed the letter of Attalus’ will, according to which the kingdom of Pergamum was granted to the Roman Empire. But after the failure of this first movement, Aristonicus organized a new, much more dynamic, revolutionary movement, precisely because he now put forward the flag of the imperative of universal overthrow, the desires and visions of the enslaved and impoverished. Aristonicus, since the movement had grassroots foundations, had an army and power and was dreaming of becoming a ruler of the “City of the Sun” very soon. In Asia Minor, the masses had risen and saw him as their savior. At the time, the kingdom of Pergamum stretched from the Thracian peninsula to the Mediterranean Sea and included the wealthiest areas of Asia Minor. From the first year of Aristonicus’ revolt, his homily was heard in Pontus, throughout Asia Minor and the Mediterranean Sea. Therefore did revolutionary uproar erupt. The first poor peasants and slaves who were moved by his homily and stood under his revolutionary banner were the people of Mysia. The revolutionaries were passing through fields and burning the crops. Aristonicus found fans everywhere. Social outcasts were calling him the “righteous king”. In many towns and villages slaves rose up and, together with poor people, joined Aristonicus. In the meantime, Gaius Blossius, a Stoic philosopher who came from Cumae (Italy), arrived in Asia Minor and played a very important role at the time. He was the teacher of Tiberius Septonius Gracchus, and almost lost his head after the overthrow and murder of Tiberius (see Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus, 8, 6 and 17, 20, 4). Like his colleague the other philosopher Sphaerus, he was thrilled with the

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idea that he could influence a good ruler and become a counselor to the administration of the ruler’s country. Blossius believed that radical reforms should be made for the benefit of the popular strata. Once he had escaped from Rome, oligarchs also fled secretly and came to Asia Minor to meet Aristonicus and become his consultant. The military operations of the oligarchs in the region, the kings of the adjacent kingdoms, and the Roman Army could not bend Andronicus’ maneuvers in Aristonikou for three years. Eventually, he was defeated by the army of the Roman General Marcus Perperna Vento, was caught, and then strangled in prison in Rome, while Blossius committed suicide.

4

Literature

4.1

An Overview

The literature of the Hellenistic Period presents some general features that we should note for two main reasons: first, because they reflect the particular historical and cultural conditions in which this literature was developed and, second, because they distinguish it from the literature of other (historical) periods. Such a key feature is the dialogue of Hellenistic literature with that of the Classical Period, which is distinguished by the reaction to the moral and spiritual characteristics of classical literature, on the one hand, and by systematic, discreet, and skillful borrowing, on the other hand. Hellenistic literature, for example, is generally characterized by a rejection of the heroic element that primarily characterizes the archaic epic and by a departure from the continuous narrative of the epic and tragedy. As we shall see later, the literature of the Hellenistic Period focuses on everyday life, the humble, even the anti-heroic, while cultivating shorter and subtler literary forms than those of archaic and classical literature, such as romance or epigraphy. However, the ingredients for creating this anti-classical literature are to a great degree classical. Hellenistic literature is full of logos, icons/representations, metaphors derived from archaic and classical literature. Similarly, historiographers of the Hellenistic Period differ from Thucydides, both in the choice of the

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content of their history and in style, as their focus is wider, chronologically and geographically, than that of Thucydides; they include—apart from historical and political events—a multitude of anecdotes, myths, and local traditions, while they have a particularly sophisticated style influenced by rhetoric. In philosophy, next to the Academy of Plato and the Peripatetic School of Aristotle, new schools were being created: the Garden of Epicurus and the Stoa Poikile introduced by Zeno, as well as the Cynics and Skeptics, whose schools were distinguished by a strong reaction to Plato and Aristotle’s classical philosophy. This new cultural reality had an important political character. The appreciation and use of the previous literature were promoted by the monarchs of the Hellenistic states, in principle for political reasons, so as to advance Hellenism and underline their relationship with their ancestor Alexander. These monarchs ensured that the capitals of their states, such as Antioch, Pergamum, and Alexandria, would become centers of culture and education, equipped with libraries and intellectual institutions that hosted and supported artists, scientists, and writers. Typical was the creation by the Ptolemies in Alexandria of an unparalleled center of scientific and artistic creation, the Museum, where important intellectuals of the time studied with royal support. It is characteristic that at that time the first systematic attempts to study and make philological editions not only of the Homeric epics but also of lyric poetry and tragedy were made by scholars of the prestige of Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus, who were dealing with the authenticity and the correctness of the texts that had come down to them, thus creating essentially a new science, that of philology. This science was part of a cultural renaissance. It is noteworthy that some of the most prominent poets of the time, such as Philotas, Callimachus, Lycophron, and Apollonius of Rhodes, were systematic scholars of the ancient texts, who today would be called philologists. This is indicative of a much more significant change. In the Archaic and Classical Periods, literature was written (or recited) to be presented in front of audiences in one or various forms: the Homeric rhapsodes (·αψδ´oς: singers) or skilled oral epic poets (¢oιδo„) who sang the Homeric epics, the choruses of choral poetry which were for both singing and dancing,4 and tragedies and comedies

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which were (re)presented in dramatic contests as part of religious festivals. In contrast, Hellenistic literature was mostly written to be read and comes from the reading and knowledge of earlier literature. Similarly, Hellenistic philosophers were led into new philosophical paths, since they were already familiar with classical philosophy and were seeking to provide solutions to issues in which their predecessors had failed, in their opinion. If so, then we may understand that the new educational and cultural ideal of the Ptolemies, which was aimed at preserving and studying previous literature, did not just provide the framework for the development of Hellenistic intellectual production but responded to real intellectual changes. There were similar developments in many other cities in Greece, on islands such as Cos, Rhodes, and Samos, in cities in Asia Minor, such as Colophon in Syria, and in Antioch and Apamea, and in Rome from the second century BC. This feature had a serious consequence which is also an important distinctive feature of Hellenistic literature. This is the change from focusing on the city to the individual and the world. As is well known, both classical literature, historiography, and philosophy are largely inspired by issues related to city management. Let us recall the comedies by Aristophanes, Thucydides’ History, Plato’s The Republic, and Aristotle’s Politics. With the demolition of the city-states of the Classical Period and the creation of Hellenistic states in which Greek culture was cultivated, the cultural coordinates changed. The individual was no longer a member of a city, but of a state and the world. An individual’s happiness was related to individual acts and cosmic powers rather than to his or her functional role in the city. Hellenistic literature testifies to this change from a variety of perspectives. On the one hand, the writers preferred topics related to the individual, such as love, marriage, death, symposium, scenes from everyday life, even the most humble versions, while when referring to places, these are abstract but very often away from the bustling city, in the idyllic countryside. On the other hand, historiographers also focused on the world as well as on the individual, and emphasized how exposed they were to the cosmic forces that cause dramatic changes in fortune (τχης: ´ tych¯e ). Finally, philosophers considered philosophy to be a way to happiness, not a way to become more wise or be trained; and this very happiness

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they promised to their students. But bliss, they argued, is not possible unless one understands the world and the laws that govern it. Thus, the morality of both the Stoics and the Epicureans was based on metaphysical predispositions, that is, a certain understanding of the world. It is this perception of the world (and not of the city, as happened with Plato and Aristotle) that now dictated morality, that is, the way to the individual’s happiness. In this sense, the Hellenistic man is a citizen of the world rather than of the city. This political reality changed into a cultural event that shaped intellectual production and reflection.

4.2

Art

One of the key elements which had a significant impact on the artistic sector was the universality of the Hellenistic world, which brought together peoples of a completely different origin. Population movements and migrations were more frequent than before, since traveling was much easier, even to places unknown and distant. In relation to the Greek world of the Classical Period, where the citizens remained closely connected with the city-state, the field of action of people had widened considerably. The development of large urban centers of cosmopolitan character facilitated cultural exchanges and fostered interest in foreign peoples. These changes were reflected in art in different ways. Numerous human types, with external features that often bear witness to their origins, appeared in works of art, claiming the position of the idealized picture which was inherited by the Classical Period. Various expressions of the human species attracted the interest of artists. Babies, old people, the sick and deformed, the drunken, beggars, the disabled, and the impoverished were accurately depicted, often with realism reaching to brutality, but at the same time with sympathy and sometimes with humor. All stages of life, all situations of human nature, seemed to stir curiosity and excite. Even the jocular, vulgar, or monstrous had their place in art and exercised their own charm. The figures created by the artists reflected the atmosphere of the chaotic metropolis of the Hellenistic Period. At the same time, with the Titanic majesty of Hellenistic art, many examples of realism are recorded. This generally

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implies the effort of artists to represent the world, be it the natural environment or human beings, based on the experience of their senses, without seeking perfect or idealized forms. “Realism” therefore refers not so much to an aesthetic result as to an artistic predisposition. This had been for a long time incompatible with Greek art, which was seeking to conquer the ideal, the eternal, and unaltered. In these circumstances, the representation of random fluctuations of common human experience was inconceivable. Things began to change only from the fourth century BC, when idealism had somewhat weakened and attention was increasingly centered on the fluidity of external reality and the elements that distinguish human beings by composing their peculiarity. Interest turned to the faithful depiction of the diversity of the world, without any care for embellishing or reducing the special to the general and the absolute. Within the context of these intellectual and artistic tendencies, numerous moving figures of common people in Hellenistic sculpture appeared. These are depicted without ornamentation, with precision and obsession, in detail that reaches to rawness. Boneless old men and fishermen, female peasants or shepherds, with bodies eaten by time, worn by hard work and poverty, are portrayed with merciless realism. The flesh hangs flabby, faces have many wrinkles, thin necks sag with age, veins swell under transparent, withered skin, and the gaze is somewhat lost to the viewer. Sculptors immortalized the daily activities of these humble beings.

4.3

Science

Despite the ongoing wars and the climate of relative insecurity, during the Hellenistic Period an unprecedented development of science and technology may be observed, which in fact laid the foundations for the subsequent scientific construction of all Western civilization. The reasons for the flourishing of positive thinking were, on the one hand, social and political changes and, on the other hand, contact with eastern cultures, which had already developed several fields such as mathematics or material processing. The spread of the Greeks to the Middle East and Alexander’s long-standing campaigns themselves had created the need for

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greater and more accurate knowledge in certain areas: so many thousands of kilometers would not have been possible without good geographical knowledge and calculations of distance. City sieges and effective defenses were greatly facilitated by the inventions of new war machines. On the one hand, both the contact with new potential illnesses and the frequent need to take care of warriors’ wounds gave a boost to medical observation and practice. On the other hand, the new Hellenistic kingdoms provided a prominent place in scientific thinking and were nurseries for new scientific discoveries and technological inventions. The Hellenistic kings invested in knowledge and made it a competitive field, from which they derived both practical and moral benefits. It was understood that the supremacy of knowledge was also a guarantee of primacy in war, trade, and civilization in general, and that stimulated the pride of the monarchs at least. For this reason, these monarchs placed science, the arts, and philosophy under state protection, creating research centers and libraries, and provided generous grants to researchers. Pioneers in this were the Ptolemies of Egypt. Ptolemy I Soter (the Savior) had already laid the foundations of the famous Library of Alexandria and the Museum, an intellectual foundation where scientists of all specialties from all parts of the Hellenistic world lived, studied, and taught. The Attalids imitated the Ptolemies by creating another large library in Pergamum and inviting to their palaces the major representatives of the scientific and philosophical intelligentsia of the third and second centuries BC. During Hellenistic times, on the one hand, science and technology developed on a bidirectional basis. Scientific developments had realized the need for more accurate measurement and observational instruments, whereas the disposition of the experimental application of scientific conquests led to many inventions, some of which found significant practical use, while others remained at the stage of a “recreational view of the curious”, as there were no conditions that would allow their systematic exploitation for practical purposes. On the other hand, technological development triggered even greater accuracy in scientific research, and improved living conditions in general. The areas of human activity that benefited greatly from technical progress were agriculture (due to irrigation), geodesy, topography, urban planning and architecture, navigation, inland travel and trade, as well as military

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activities. But if the advancement of science and technology was so great, what were the limitations that prevented that progress from being made a technological revolution? The answer is complex and has to do with both social structures and inherent limitations of an ideological nature that the scientists and inventors of the time had. On the one hand, in a society where production was predominantly based on slaves, and there was the fear of slaves revolting, the use of machines in production would create a huge surplus of working hands and a difficult social problem, as the former slaves, without rights, would roam like outcasts in the cities and in the countryside. On the other hand, the essentially aristocratic structure of society had cultivated the perception that the accumulation of wealth, in the form of capital, was something bad: wealth had to give its owner prestige in the form of luxurious living or benefits. So, there was no incentive to lead the protestors, centuries later, to raise capital and increase it through a developed financial system that could then finance industrial development and the improvement of trade networks. This basic perception was a barrier to society not only to exploit inventions but also to design them: scientists did not seek enrichment. They usually had a livelihood either from family property or from their patron, usually a king or ruler. Any further exploitation of their achievements for financial reasons would be considered vile and socially reprehensible. Apart from social and ideological inhibitions, however, there were practical issues that prevented mass production. The most important issue was the lack of adequate raw materials. The Industrial Revolution of the Western world would not have been possible without lignite or, later, oil (petroleum), whose deposits were formed in the depths of the earth in the Hellenistic Period.

4.4

Prose Poetry

Literature in the post-classical period—not only in the major cultural centers such as Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamum, and Rhodes but also in Athens and other Greek cities—had another, different content from that of classical literature in the fifth century BC. The classical tradition, of course, did not fade away, but since Alexander’s invasion of Asia it

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showed a downturn and shift to other issues. In the Hellenistic Period, poets, prose writers, and in general scholars came up with other artistic genres, in which, of course, the mentality and psychology of the society of their time was reflected. As we know, intellectual people in the years of the Classic Period had interests that came from their social and political surroundings. In the democratic states—and more particularly in Athens—freedom of thought, political struggles, and class antagonisms between the oligarchs and the democrats provided material to poets and writers to compose robust literary works that would endure. In the new Hellenistic Period, the monarchic regime had extinguished the candle that shed its light on social problems because commands and solutions were given from above. Social issues that interested mostly literary writers had already been discarded. Instead, personal, individual issues were appearing. Life, as such, had changed a lot, and the psychology of the ruling class was now different from that of Pericles, Euripides, Sophocles, and Aristophanes. That is why the writers, who also had the mentality and psychology of the ruling class, cultivated new literary genres: epigrams, romances from everyday life, elegies, and erotic lyric poetry–; and the old genres, which continued in the Hellenistic Period, changed their character. Theatrical performances became brighter and more interesting from the spectator’s point of view, but the deep ideological content of classical tragedy was lost. The epic of Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica (an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece), which is dry and more like a scientific treatise, becomes alive and vibrant only when it describes the erotic passion of Medea. This two-fold character of Apollonius’ epic is typical of Hellenistic letters/literature in general: traditions of the Classical Period did not have an objective basis and did not create dead, intellectual works. Alexandrian poetry is clear and full of juice only when it depicts the intimate, if not profound, psychological emotions of the average person, their daily joys and setbacks and love affairs. The realism of these sketches, as seen in Mimiambi (μιμ´ιαμβoι: “Mime-iambics”) by Herondas (or Herodas), is not deep, it does not penetrate the essence of the depicted object, phenomenon, or feeling. These sketches are elegant, sometimes witty, and apt, but also superficial, poetic miniatures.

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Another type of Hellenistic literature concerns utopias. In earlier periods, there were some Greeks that described the customs of other peoples and tried to make/reach some educational and utilitarian conclusions. Hecataeus of Abdera, describing the ancient history of the Nile, wished to show that some principles of Greek political philosophy of his time were based on the Pharaoh’s ancient system. Euhemerus (or Euemeros or Evemerus), in his “novel”, Sacred History, a fictionalized narrative about the Red Sea island of Panchaea, describes how religious beliefs have been created. He formulates a rational theory of the origin of the gods. He claims that the gods are either the eternal forces of nature and celestial bodies, or people deified for their actions. He still presents the inhabitants of Panchaea as organized in a commune (community) governed by the priests who were of the highest educated stratum of the island, while the other classes were warriors and farmers. All land was the property of the community. Cultivation took place within separate households, but all production and distribution were under the control of the community. “Euhemerism” had great impact, so in the early years of Christianity the Fathers of the Church found themselves having to fight it. Apart from Euhemerus, another writer, Iambulus (or Jambulus), wrote about a similar utopia during the Hellenistic Period. He describes the life of some islands where he went unintentionally as a captive and slave of pirates, where the people lived very happily. The climate was wonderful. There was abundance of foods. There were illnesses, though they lived to be 150. Wars did not occur, and people were not separated by quarrels or enmities. Everything was common and everyone, of course, worked the same hours. The Islands of the Sun, as their community was called, reflected, on the one hand, the ancient traditions of the “golden age” and, on the other hand, the dissatisfaction with the society of their own time, where inequality, exploitation, and all sorts of injustices and wars prevailed. These utopias, of course, did not reflect the mentality and cravings of the ruling class, but rather that of the popular strata who were suffering and were being oppressed. That is why, as we have seen, that kind of mentality became the ideology of those who revolted, as was the case of Aristonicus’ revolution.

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Of the theatrical genres of the Hellenistic Period, no tragedies have come down to us, only comedies that are known as “New Comedy”. New comedy has other interests and is more realistic. In those years— that is, after 320 BC—the comedians Menander, Philimon, Diphiluss, Apollodorus, and Poseidonios are known to have lived, but only the first two have been preserved for posterity because ancient traditions were maintained in their work and their reputation. Menander was Athenian. He was born in 390 BC and wrote many comedies; he won first prizes eight times. Unfortunately, none of his comedies was saved as a whole, but only large excerpts from three of them. The historiography of the Hellenistic Period is distinguished by a large number of historians and by a pluralism as to the style and the way of handling material. These features are explained to a great extent not only by the particular historical interest created by Alexander’s campaigns but also by the new political order imposed by the rise of Rome and its domination in the world. More generally, in all genres of prose and poetry of Hellenistic society, we see a shift to realism and, at the same time, a use of the common language (koin¯e ). But let us not forget the wider sociopolitical conditions of the time and how they defined literary production. As De Ste Croix (1981) mentions in a footnote to a work of an unknown author of this period, the lack of great literature worldwide was due to the fact that there was no democracy and freedom, only slavery—political subordination. Democracy is the food of great achievements. But let us now look at some extracts concerning when elements of radical thought in the field of law and crime can be detected, starting from literature and ending in philosophy.

4.5

Moschion

From the tragic poet Moschion, who probably lived in the third century BC, about ten extracts (70 verses) have been saved. Out of these fragments, the image of a poet emerges, who, on the one hand, is strongly influenced by Euripides and, on the other hand, has several peculiarities. The excerpt below returns to the well-known Antigone by Sophocles concerning the prohibition of someone’s burial. Because the tragedian

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was dealing with the same subject in the tragedy of the Pheraioi, it has been speculated that this passage belongs to the same tragedy, which seems to have been a historical event, the murder of the bloodstained tyrant Pherai Jason (after 358 BC) by his wife and her brothers. In the surviving verses, the person who speaks follows evolution from the initial state of savagery, when people lived like animals, up until the conquest of civilization that, among others, brought about the establishment of the burial of the dead. The excerpt is part of a series of texts, which, with the exception of an older one by Xenophanes, date back to the middle of the fifth century BC, and provide an “optimistic” version of evolution (original ferocity, gradual conquest of culture), especially that of the Sophists: There was once a time when mortals had habits like animals. The law was powerless, violence shared the throne with Jupiter. The weak were devoured by the strong. But when the time that gives birth and nourishes everything turned mortal life in the opposite direction, either by employing Prometheus’ meditation or the need or the long-term friction, making nature itself a teacher, wild people were led to a tame life. Since then, the law stipulated that those who die should be covered with a grave. (Excerpt 6, translated from the Greek, available at https://www.greek-lan guage.gr/digitalResources/ancient_greek/literature.index.html)

4.6

Callimachus

Aetia (A‡τ ια: Causes) by Callimachus, the most important poet of the Hellenistic Period, who came from (the Greek colony of ) Cyrene, Libya, and lived in Alexandria, is, as the title suggests, explanatory of various— sometimes strange—habits and rituals. In the Preface, which is a kind of poetic manifesto, Callimachus, using legible symbols, rejects the poetic principles of his “envious” colleagues, the Telchines, as he calls them, who criticized his poetry, and expresses his own poetry in contrast. The basic principles of his aesthetics are a preference for small matters, (writing) short verse, sweetness, the course from the narrow and deceptive path, and above all subtlety (λεπτ´oτης), which holds a central position. But

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the main aim is that Callimachus calls for wider critical thinking and not a reproduction of what has gone before: Often the Telchines grumble at my poetry (ignorant, they weren’t born friends of the Muse) because I did not complete a single continuous poem in many thousands of lines either on kings … or on heroes, … “… and this too I ask (of you), walk a path unbeaten by wagons, don’t drive your chariot along the common ruts of others nor upon a wide road, but (on) unworn tracks, even if you will be driving more narrow (ones).” … I obeyed him; for we sing among those who love the clear sound of the cicada, and not the din of asses. Let another bray just like the long-eared beast, but let me be the little one, the winged one. Oh, yes indeed! (Aetia, Excerpt 1; Stephens 2015)

4.7

Polybius

Polybius’ Histories is the only work of Hellenistic historiography from which we have extensive passages: out of the 40 books in total, the first five have survived, while the rest have only survived as extracts of varying size. The initial intention of the historian was, according to what he himself mentions in the preamble to the work, to tell how Rome dominated the world in less than 53 years (220–168 BC), and what causes (mainly the constitution) allowed that development. The kind of historiography that Polybius (200–118 BC) cultivated was called true history: a political history for serious readers who wanted to learn. A knowledge of history is the most appropriate education and training for political action, and the memory of the misfortunes that suddenly fell on others teaches us in a uniquely tangible way to bravely suffer the changes of fortune. The following quote highlights the need for (personal) judgment to be disconnected from feeling: “We must therefore disregard the

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actors in our narrative and apply to the actions such terms and such criticism as they deserve” (Polybius, Histories, 1, 14, 8–9). Recounting in the fourth book the events of the years 220–216 BC, Polybius refers to the attacks of the Aetolians—the most important force in mainland Greece at that time—against the Achaeans. He gives particular importance to the occupation of the town of Cynaetha, a city in the north of Arcadia (near Kalavrita) that belonged to the Achaean League. The people of Cynaetha, “who … had been for many years”, as Polybius writes, “vexed by the never-ending and embittered strife of factions; there had been constant massacres, expulsions, robbery of goods, and confiscation of lands by the one party or the other” (Histories, 4, 17, 4) had accepted that about 300 political exiles would return to the city, hoping for reconciliation. However, when they returned, they immediately began to plot against their city, which after a while they surrendered (their city) by betrayal to the Aetolians. The result was looting and slaughter by the Aetolians. The behavior of the people of Cynaetha gave Polybius a reason to make a digression, in which he discusses the impact of music on people. The views presented are based on the theory that the character of a person is shaped by the external environment. The first time we may find this theory formulated is in the Hippocratic work On Air, Water, Places, though Polybius could have known about it through the Stoics: [1] Since the Arcadian nation on the whole has a very high reputation for virtue among the Greeks, due not only to their humane and hospitable character and usages, but especially to their piety to the gods, [2] it is worthwhile to give a moment’s consideration to the question of the savagery of the Cynaetheans, and ask ourselves why, though unquestionably of Arcadian stock, they so far surpassed all other Greeks at this period in cruelty and wickedness. [3] I think the reason was that they were the first and indeed only people in Arcadia to abandon an admirable institution, introduced by their forefathers with a nice regard for the natural conditions under which all the inhabitants of that country live. [4] For the practice of music, I mean real music, is beneficial to all men, but to Arcadians it is a necessity. (Histories, 4, 20, 1–4)

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Menander

4.8.1 Epitrepontes (The Arbitration or the Litigants) It is not known when Menander’s Epitrepontes was written and presented on stage for the first time. However, it is considered a late work, that is, when the playwright was mature. It is a comic work with dramatic tension and abundant satirical elements. The types of people in the project are convincing: none is delineated with extreme features. There is a synthesis of ideas, above all the notion that moral law should be the same for men and women; and the work presents us with a playwright who educates the people of his time (perhaps of every age), by the means of comedy. In verses 54–57, reference is made to the need for arbitration for the law to be realized: Dâvus (to Syriscus): Stop! Syriscus: You won’t face justice! Dâvus: You’re blackmailing me, Confound you! … You can’t have what isn’t yours. Syriscus: We need an arbitrator. Dâvus: Oh, all right. For God’s sake find one.

In verses 70–72 there is a need and an obligation for the universal rule of law: “In every case there is a need for the law to prevail, and it is a common obligation in life that whoever has such an opportunity should look after everyone.” In verses 254–255, Syriscus states that all trials are won in courts, so the law is a matter of judicial struggle: “As it seems, one has to be indifferent to everything and to deal with trials. Everything is gained with them.” The slave On¯esimus is shown to a contemplative individual who, by what he says, represents radical views on the gods (verses 746–748) and on life (verses 755–761), and does not hesitate to be insolent (verses 776–779):

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Do you imagine that the gods have so much spare time that every day they share the evil and good to everybody Sm¯ıcrin¯es? So, don’t the gods care about us at all? You would say that. To each of us they had given the character of his patron. This is our steadily vigilant guard. And he usually tortures us, if we do not use him well, and another one who saves it. This is god for us. And that for each of us is the reason to act both well and badly. You try to mold him without doing something absurd and thoughtless in order to have a good time.

4.8.2 Dyskolos (Difficult or Grouch) “Difficult”, in the comedy by Menander, is Cimon, a mischievous old person, who is difficult with everyone, whereas Gorgias is a man with sober thinking. Menander puts a radical thought at the outset in Difficult’s mouth (verses 253–254): “But if you use violence, that prevents you since he has law with his part.” In the immediately following verses (285–295), he continues within the same context: GO(RGIAS): … Do not yourself, if you are very rich, trust in this, and as for beggars like us, again don’t look down on us, but to the people who see you always show yourself worthy of continuing prosperity. SO(STRATOS): Do I seem to you to be doing something out of place? GO: You seem to me to have set your heart on a base deed, thinking you would persuade a young girl to go astray—a free girl—or watching for some suitable moment you would do something worthy of many deaths. You give me the impression of having a bad act in your mind, believing that you will persuade a daughter of free people to make a mistake or waiting for an appropriate time to do such an act touching her many times to be killed. SO: Apollo! GO: It is not right at least that your leisure becomes trouble for us who have no leisure. And of all things, know that a beggar who has been wronged is the most irritable thing.

Social critique is, however, is exercised by Cimon in verses 742–743:

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Except know this, child—for I wish to tell you a little about me and my character—if everyone were like me there wouldn’t be law courts, and they wouldn’t take them away to prisons, and there wouldn’t be wars, but having goods in measure each man would be happy.

This is like his son Sostratus who speaks of wealth in verses 797–812: You’re talking about money, an unstable business. If you think that all of this will stay with you for all time, guard it, share with no one what you own. But what you’re not yourself master of as you are master, you must use what you have in a noble fashion, father, yourself; you must help out everyone, make rich as many people as you can by your own efforts. For this act never dies. And if you ever happen to stumble, the same will be there for you after what you’ve done. A much better thing is a visible friend than invisible wealth which you keep buried away.

5

The Role of Utopia

5.1

The Utopian State of Iambulus

The revolution of the City of the Sun of Aristonicus in Pergamum took its name and was inspired by a utopian myth that was widespread in the East. According to that utopia, there existed a state that embraced some islands a long way to the east, an ideal state where all its members were equal and lived in a regime of harmony and freedom. There was neither money nor privileges, and everything was common. This ideal situation also had a similar effect on the people: they were all healthy, tall, and handsome, and everybody lived for over a hundred years. People enjoyed a vibrant life in nature, which they adored, while they devalued the city, the urban environment, and that way of life. This myth was very dear to the poor masses and slaves, and at some point it must have seemed to pass into the realm of reality in their minds. Even having the sun as a symbol, it was easy to integrate it into the culture and attitudes of the East. The fascination that the myth exercised in minds fatigued by the social misery of years of decline is why the utopia of the City

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of the Sun was considered to be a reality. However, by way of colorful novelistic devices, its political intent and its social content were erased. Its creator Iambulus and one of his companions were caught while traveling in Arabia by Ethiopians, who brought them to their country as scapegoats, according to an ancient holy custom. They put them on a small boat, supplied it with six months of food and told them that, by sailing off to the south, they would arrive at an exquisite island where they would live a happy life, and they would be the happiest of all people. If they arrived once on that island, they would also be unforgettable benefactors of the Ethiopians. Because, according to the ancient oracle which had established that strange custom, they would enjoy 600 years of undisturbed peace. But if they were afraid of the length and the danger of the journey, and they changed their minds and returned, then woe to them! They would die in unheard of tortures like cowards and criminals. After four months of wandering on the waves, both these unintentional navigators arrived at that place of very happy people they had been told about and who lived on seven large islands. The City of the Sun, as these seven islands were called, was dedicated to the sun. The inhabitants of those lands, a sweet and beautiful tribe, looked only a little like other people. They were tall, lived to over 100 years, never get sick, heard even the most distant sounds, and had a special ability with their tongue so that they could speak to two persons at the same time. Their climate was like that of Ecuador, maintaining an excellent temperateness, so neither the summer heatwave of the sun nor the winter cold bothered them. In an invariant equinox, the sun’s bow divided evenly over the days and nights, an eternal autumn reigned in those exquisite islands, and the earth sprouted its rich gifts all year long. With such an abundance of fruits and in such a sweet climate, the people there did not know of wars and raids, and did not live in castles and states. Free in their spacious plains and prairies, they lived inseparable from nature and in its purity. But the main characteristic of this state is that with the symmetrical distribution of necessary work, slavery is totally useless and consequently—something unusual—it does not have any slaves. All other inequalities have no place there. The people of the City of the Sun live totally equally, without classes, without social discrimination, and, above all, without the cause of inequality: ownership. Equality and freedom

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are interwoven in their lives as well as in the air they breathe. There are customs and laws that are not, however, engraved on planks and marble screeds, but in the depth of their consciousness and the laws that make up their state, which assemble the whole in order in a system that harmoniously regulates their life. The inhabitants of each island are organized into tribes of 400; every tribe consists of people who relate to a certain degree and with a leader, who is the oldest person at the time. But this leader has no more rights and/or no more substantial power that the others. His only task is to guide and supervise. The land belongs to nobody there; landmarks do not divide it, and what it yields belongs to everyone. They all take the same responsibility for public services and social work, where necessary. And in this way, they take up all kinds of official public positions, except for the old people who have the privilege of being exempted. Chariots and armies do not exist among them, and it is difficult to get these people to understand what they mean. Because no outside enemy covets their bliss, nobody will ever think of changing their social order. Greed, lust of power, intrigue, and crime are unknown among these happy children of equality and nature. Because there is neither money, nor authority, nor discrimination there is no crime, guilt, and injustice. No one is forced to observe the law, because it is not the legitimate right of the stronger, it is not coercion and tyranny, but is customary habit, a primary condition of their bliss and thus an innate need. Now, as far as family ties are concerned, women in the City of the Sun are common and the children to which they give birth to are common. When they grow up, they view all the elders as their fathers, all women as their mothers, and all peers as their brothers. Within this simple and natural life, the customary enforcement of benevolent law penetrates everywhere, intervenes in everything, regulates life to the last detail, and maintains social harmony intact. When one reaches a certain time limit (150 years old), one must leave one’s place to the younger ones. One lies on a layer made of a lethal plant and surrenders to a sweet sleep from which one is never woken up. All have been subjected to order and the system, meaning that the more disciplined social life is, the more equitable and individual is the freedom. Even their diet is fixed. As for troublemakers, if there had been any, they would not be tolerated. They

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would have been put on a boat and given to the waves to be taken away. For Iambulus, at least, and his companion, this was true. For seven years, they were put on a boat to be driven out of their state as criminals and intruders, as people who could not uproot the evil habits of the civilized world from their soul. They traveled again for more than four months until they were washed up on some sandy deserts of the Indian Ocean. The companion drifted away on the currents and drowned, but Iambulus himself survived to bring the secret of that wonderful state to the world. He was led to the king, who by coincidence was a philhellene, and who received him with great honors and parades. From there, Iambulus went all over Asia, and finally managed to return to Greece.

5.2

Social Background of Utopian Literature

It is apparent that this utopia of Iambulus was loved especially by the popular strata. Above all because it managed to combine the most essential elements of all utopias into a profoundly revolutionary synthesis, clinging to the warmest cravings of the impoverished masses of the dying ancient world. Most items are taken from the legend of the “golden age”, an age when the earth was sprouting its rich gifts and equality, goodness, purity, and bliss reigned among the people; an age when there was no individual property: sed omnia communia et indivisa omnibus fuerint 5 (or everything was communal and indivisible belonging to all). This legend of the golden age (a good memory of mankind from the period of primitive egalitarian community was diffused into the consciousness of the Greek peoples, passed through poetry with Hesiod and the history of culture with Dicaerchus of Messana (or Dicearch or Dicearh, who was a Greek philosopher, cartographer, geographer, mathematician, and writer), and every utopia adapted them in its design and purpose. Social misery deepened through the centuries and idealized the everfading past; and from its magical image it distinguished two elements: free living in nature and communal ownership. On the one hand, the great wealth of the few, and, on the other hand, the immense impoverishment of many, the tyranny of law, the cowardice of power, the

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tragic comedy of justice, the prostitution of the ideal, greed, promiscuity, servility, and brutal condemnation of moral conscience made the states look like great plagues on the earth. But the deepest reason for the clash against the city was that it was identified with the state, the status of law—that is, statutory law (written law)—which goes against the physical order and secures social inequality and crime. On the other hand, in nature and in life in nature, unwritten natural law prevails, a law deriving from providence that provides the world with life, equates human beings, and makes them brothers and sisters. Under this natural law, people are by their very nature homogeneous beings, members of a family and a world state, citizens of the human state. However, statutory law, human convention that quickly becomes dynastic, arrives and distorts this natural and beneficial order. A long and brilliant tradition in Greek philosophy concerning opposing natural to statutory law leads to the logical conclusion that the most radical of racketeering, which statutory law enacts to the detriment of the natural, is property. Since the victory of the Macedonian oligarchy, which cut off once and for all the hope of the indirect socialization of goods, a general shift in social psychology became based on the tradition of this philosophy. “The land belongs to no one, its fruits belong to everyone” was a motto that deeply vibrated in the souls of the great masses, who, through the decline of the democracies, saw their properties end up in the hands of the plutocratic oligarchy. The idea of communal ownership now became an obsessive fantasy of the masses, and even more intense, as social misery grew with the increasing concentration of ownership within the new territories. Such a fantasy became commonplace in the utopian literature of the time, which had more philosophical than social objectives. Even in Panchaea, described in Euhemerus’ Sacred History, there is almost absolute communal ownership. Numerous parallel information and rumors from distant parts of the world presented that ideal situation as reality and attempted to interconnect utopian fantasy with harsh social truth. From previous writers Diodorus Siculus obtained information about the communal ownership of pirates on the Lipari Islands (Library of History, Book V, Chapters 7–11).

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Nearchos (or Nearchus) narrated that on his travels in some parts of India the land was cultivated commonly by kinship systems. But this general condemnation of property was taking down the family and the economic and class group that was destined to maintain wealth and social privileges in the same hands and persons. Both in the radical philosophical tradition and utopian socialist literature, communalism of women, which a multitude of writers presented as reality for so many peoples of the earth, undertook to dissolve it. When everything was in common, there would no longer be the seed of social competition and then true democracy would be realized. Because a democracy is true when it ensures equality. But no equality can be achieved through economic inequality. As for the legendary equality of law, it was enough for Anacharsis’ anecdote to ridicule it: “Laws are spider-webs, which catch the little flies, but cannot hold the big ones”.6 But the deeper (not an innovation of ) the consequence of the utopia of Iambulus is the abolition of the institution of slavery. What was the most frantic desire of the utterly enslaved masses long ago, was also the secret deep desire of the free landless people who were displaced from production by the influx of slaves, thus depriving them of even the previously hated work of free people. The social conditions had then been reversed, and the institution of slavery, which at that point was a factor of social prosperity, came at a time when, since the development of the technique had ceased, it changed into a reactionary factor toward evolution and a factor of pauperization and misery. Utopias that found, in addition to the commonality of goods, the abundance of the necessities of social life, abruptly abolished slavery. The repercussions of the abolition of this institution in the City of the Sun together with the moral and philosophical reasons that support it, and with a brief record of the character of this imaginary state, we will meet later—when Christianity, that great communal movement, as it began, prepared its ecumenical sortie.

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6

Philosophy

6.1

The Cynics

At the time when there were the two major schools in Athens—the Platonic and Peripatetic (laid down by Aristotle)—another one was emerging: that of the Cynics, which had several followers. One of the first Cynic philosophers is Antisthenes (404–365 BC) who can be described as the “philosopher” of the impoverished small farmers and craftsmen of the whole of Greece. That’s why the main feature of the School of the Cynics was that its teachers went from city to city and fanatically propagated their ideas. Antisthenes, if we believe the tradition, wrote ten volumes (according to Diogenes Laertius, VI, 15 and 18). But nothing has survived, except for a few phrases. According to the sources, Antisthenes made plans for a great Commonwealth. He wanted his teaching to propagate the union of the peoples of the whole Mediterranean, which would have a general leveling and absolute uniformity in social terms, without racial discrimination. It is true that Antisthenes and his most faithful disciples (Diogenes of Sinope, Crates of Thebes) taught contempt of wealth, and they themselves with their example showed that they faithfully applied what they were teaching. It is also true that the Cynics were cosmopolitan, did not admit social discrimination, and lived an ascetic life with great deprivation, despising every kind of work. Nevertheless, they neither saw social impoverishment as a transitory phenomenon, nor did they struggle to change the economic and social conditions of their time. On the contrary, they wanted to establish and justify the communal misery that was reigning. So, they did not find it bad that people lived on dry bread, olives, and onions, for affluence, social discrimination, and riches make people immoral. Poverty must be the highest ideal of mankind. According to this principle, they found that public education was not needed. Thus, at least, the written tradition tells us what Antisthenes was teaching (see Diogenes Laertius, VI, 72, 103, and 105). He also stated that “the wise man will be guided in his public acts not by the established laws but by the law of virtue” and “to the wise man nothing is foreign or impracticable” (Diogenes Laertius, VI, 11 and 12).

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But what was virtue? What was the meaning of the term? Virtue was wisdom. Here, Antisthenes can be distinguished from the Socratic teaching because he believed that virtue only appears in works (Diogenes Laertius, VI, 11). But the greatest virtue is self-sufficiency—for everyone to restrict himself to what he has. And with self-sufficiency, one can endure everything. What is an obstacle to the feeling of self-sufficiency is bad, what strengthens it is good. The Cynics’ teaching and their lives were in accordance with each other. Antisthenes himself had only a staff and a wallet. His garment was a burden, unnecessary clothing (Diogenes Laertius, VI, 13). Another pupil of his, best known for his whims and his contempt for civilization, Diogenes applied his teacher’s theories most faithfully. Passing his days in the markets, he had a large ceramic barrel as a house and lived on the scraps thrown at him. Another follower and teacher of Cynicism, Crates of Thebes, who had property, was so excited by the preaching of the Cynics and so moved by the social misery around him that he distributed his possessions, and as a poor man he went around the streets and cities teaching (Diogenes Laertius, VI, 87). He himself wrote in a tragedy (because he was also a playwright): “Neither do I have a homeland that protects me with its towers, nor does it house me, but every place and city and house are ready to receive me.” Nothing else has survived of this tragedy. But this piece is very characteristic and speaks directly. In other words, he clearly declares that he is neither from Thebes, nor Athens, nor from Sparta. Every place is his homeland and home. Furthermore, coenogamy was one of the basic dogmas of the Cynic School. They did not recognize the established marriage institution, so they taught that women, like men, can have sexual intercourse with those who they want without matrimonial institutions. And children have to belong to all, that is, to the state. What did they teach about the constitution? If we believe the tradition, Antisthenes in his paper “State” attacked the supporters of oligarchy and democracy. He even called democrats “servants of the mob”. His teaching was cosmopolitanism. The homeland is every place. The Cynics, with their teaching, recognized no organization, no organized state. They refused this organized state, its institutions, its laws, and the obligations it created

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for its citizens. For Cynics there is neither civilization, nor homeland, nor society. Their ideal was for humanity to return to the above situation. From such a basic perception, they despised all the goods of civilization. They criticized social discrimination and propagated the slogan: “Where there is land, there is the country.” The Cynics’ preaching was mainly an attack against the institutions that hinder every human being’s freedom and self-sufficiency; a critique of moral perceptions and behavioral patterns. In their own way, and their freedom of speech, they managed to attract interest in philosophical issues to people outside philosophy—something that few succeed at. No matter how caustic their comments were, the Cynics did not hold back their words. With their actions, they questioned the routines and opinions of many, the rules of social life. Diogenes also wanted to show how arbitrary are the rules that people stipulate. So once, in contests in Isthmia, he crowned himself as if he were a winner. When the officials tried to punish him for violating the rules, Diogenes explained to them his attitude: “I have made a much more difficult victory than those you have crowned. I have defeated poverty, exile, my passions, whereas athletes have won in jogging and wrestling.” The cynical attitude, with parody and satire, undermines tradition and overthrows the authorities with free deeds. It may be more like “negative freedom”, an attempt to get rid of restrictions. This freedom, frankness, or freedom of speech ( παρρησ´ια: parr¯esia) is, for Diogenes, the best in people. The Cynics showed that one’s relationship to truth, or even to one’s personal truth, is a personal and sometimes lonely achievement—though one succeeds in it among other people. There were Cynics who, being strengthened with exercise, risked their personal reputation, violating social rules. They did all this to make each person face their human nature, stripped of the facilities and the difficulties of everyday life and civilization. They have been called either philosophers or insane. They simply sought to shake off self-indulgence, the self-gratification of those who held (or thought they possessed) something: the rich and powerful who possessed money and social recognition, the philosophers who acquired knowledge, everyone who had their conveniences. No one, especially a person who wants to feel safe (with social, political, emotional security, or whatever) and who invests in it, does not want someone next to him or her to

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constantly tease him or her, not just to question or shake off his or her inveterate convictions, but to treat them as if they were chronic illnesses whose treatment is urgent. Perhaps no one wants beside him or her an anarchist who mocks others’ certainties and tramples with their arrogance. Cynics, unlike the other schools of philosophy, believed that, in order to philosophize, one must understand that life in human civilization is full of inconsistencies when compared to natural life. That is why they made a total break with the world of social conventions: they totally rejected it as opposed to human nature. However, they did not aim or attempt to reform social or political life. They often contented themselves with ostentatious asceticism, sometimes even in the courtyards and circles of the rich. The Cynic philosopher Cercidas writes about the opposition between wealth and poverty: [Why did God not] choose that greedy cormorant wealthpurse, that sweet-scented out-of-control Xenon, make him a pathetic poor man, and transfer to us who deserve it the silver that now is uselessly flowing away? What can there be to prevent god— supposing you asked him the question—since a god, whatever comes into his mind, can easily get it all done, if a man is a turd of a loan-shark, a real old die-for-a-penny who squanders it all out again, one who’s the death of his fortune, why can’t god just empty this man of his swinewealth, and give to a thin-feeding, common-bowl cup-dipper all the man’s damned expenditure? Has the eye of Justice been moleblinded? (Cercidas, fragment 2)

6.2

Epicureans

Diogenes Laertius tells us that Epicurus was a particularly prolific author of 300 books on papyrus cylinders. Among the most important were his 37 books On Nature, but also About Lives, About the End , and About Secrets and Fears (i.e. what we should prefer and avoid). Today, of his

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works, there are only three letters and a collection of 40 basic doctrines that Diogenes Laertius rescued, a series of quotes in the Vatican Sayings, and several books that have come to light from On Nature on the papyrus discovered at Herculaneum (near Pompeii and that was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD). Epicurus insisted in his teaching that his pupils study a lot, in order to be informed on issues such as what the first elements are from which the world was made, to know what the sources are from which we know about the external world, and, generally, to obtain information and knowledge about objective reality. But he did so not to build on his philosophical system of abstract and metaphysical concepts, like Plato and others, but to support his materialist teaching. Starting from this point of view, he agreed with the Stoics, who found that philosophy should have practical purposes and that its main purpose is to contribute to human beings’ happiness (Diogenes Laertius, X, 78–80). Consequently, the philosopher should not deal with purely metaphysical problems. Of course, philosophical thinking should try to create, based on the findings of the sciences, a worldview, but in its endeavor, it must not become lost in the clouds of metaphysics. Its job is always to be grounded, because its main concern is with the earthly world. Therefore, by studying and exploring celestial phenomena, our acquired knowledge must be used to improve living and intellectual conditions. Only if philosophy serves living needs will it contribute to human happiness. Indeed, by studying natural phenomena and knowing the laws that govern it (causality), we can achieve peace and freedom from fear (αταραξ´ια: ataraxia) (Diogenes Laertius, X, 143). If we know what is outside of us, no fear will hold. The work of philosophy, therefore, is to find the causes of natural phenomena (Diogenes Laertius, X, 78). The performance of each thinker brings him or her to the straight path and makes him or her acquire true wisdom. But a wise person is afraid of nothing. If the idea of gods and death don’t bother us, taught Epicurus, we would not need to study physics, because we would be assured that, when dying, no harm would fall on us (see Diogenes Laertius, X, 82, 85, and 112). With the study of physics, one acquires the feeling of peace (of mind) and freedom from fear. One is not afraid of what one sees around one and is not particularly horrified by some

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natural phenomena (such as an eclipse of the moon or sun, or earthquakes or pits), because one will know that it is not the result of a supernatural being, but natural phenomena that have their cause in some other cause. In nature, everything that happens comes from natural causes, and everything happens under the sequence of cause and effect. So, there is no Destiny (Eιμαρμšνη: Eimaren¯e) or Reason or Providence and no intentional purpose (end). Everything that takes place in nature is the consequence of physical change. Thus, by contradicting the Stoics and the Platonists, Epicurus emphasized that there is no extraterrestrial or intra-cosmic power that governs the world (Pseudo-Plutarch, Περ`ι τ îν ¢ρεσ κ Òντ ων τ o‹ς ϕιλoσ Òϕ oις ϕυσ ικ îν δ oγ ματ ´ ων ™πιτ oμÁς, II, III, 885d). As far as the essence of objective reality is concerned, he pointed out: “It is perishable (it is the world), what is also born, as an animal, as a plant” (ibid., II, IV, 886e). We know that Epicurus organized his school on a democratic basis. Even women and slaves enjoyed parity in it. Epicurus defined philosophy as a work that, with logical concepts and proofs, makes life happy, in other words, philosophy is meant to make us happy (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians, XI, 169; and Diogenes Laertius, X, 122). Living in the age of Greek decadence, he propagated the idea of friendship and peace of mind. For people to attain it, they must refrain from politics. His friends and followers—this was an inviolable rule of his school—did not have to be involved in politics. “You must, he emphasized, be stripped of the bonds of futility and politics” and “live unnoticed” (Epicurus, fragment 86). He also taught on abstinence from political action: “Do not engage in public” or “you must be redeemed from the prison of the market and politics” (ibid.). These teachings obviously reflect the perceptions of some slave owners who had lost all confidence in the motives for slave ownership and saw no way out of the crisis that Athens was going through. That is why they fell into passive contemplation of the situation and, consequently, lost their militancy. Epicurus, consistent with his worldview, was an atheist. It is true that he did not overtly proclaimed his atheism, but it came out necessarily from his materialist worldview. According to his teaching, somewhere in the outer world there are the gods, but they have nothing to do with

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the world; they neither get involved in human affairs nor in the progressive developmental course of nature. Everything is done not with the intervention or will of the gods but according to their internal natural law. Therefore, there is no place for religion in Epicurean philosophy. Indeed, he teaches that the philosopher’s duty is to ostracize religious fear as a necessary condition for peace of mind. According to Marx: Epicurus, on the other hand, was the true radical Enlightener of antiquity; he openly attacked the ancient religion, and it was from him, too, that the atheism of the Romans, insofar as it existed, was derived. For this reason, too, Lucretius praised Epicurus as the hero who was the first to overthrow the gods and trample religion underfoot; for this reason among all church fathers, from Plutarch to Luther, Epicurus has always had the reputation of being the atheist philosopher par excellence. (German Ideology, Chapter 3)

For Epicurus, the sole criterion of truth is the senses. Our sensory organs tell us more about the reality of the objective world than the Word, since the world is produced by the senses and is not autonomous or independent of them. If you do not believe in the impressions that our senses give us, then there can be no feature of truth, no firm belief in what happens in the world outside of us, and, consequently, no practical action of ours will be possible. Sometimes, if the senses do not properly inform us about the objective world, the blame is ours, for we have taken a crooked path in our thoughts, and so we have fallen into a crisis. Since images (idols), which our sensory organs take from the objects when they reach us (in the eyes, in our ears, etc.) and change somewhat in the meantime, we do not have a complete and correct image. That is why we must not confuse our subjective impressions with the objective substance of the object, because there is a difference, and this difference is a creation of our judgment. But by repeating some images that our sensory organs receive from the outside world, a perception is born that is nothing else than the general image that is formed and is kept in our memory. That is, from the feelings that come within us, either in the form of idols (images) or as currents, there are born monumental representations or generic concepts (superstitions), which are often engraved and imprinted

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in our memory. But it is different if we form an opinion (assumption) outside objective reality, starting from the known to the unknown. Then, in order for such an opinion to be correct, it must, if it is in relation to something that will be in the future, be confirmed by experience, and, if it is related to hidden causes of the phenomena, it should not run counter to experience. Basing his epistemology on these foundations, Epicurus fought against all opposing anti-scholastic teaching and, primarily, the Stoic’s subjective sensualism. The Stoics’ point of view is not right at all, he emphasized, when they claim that impressions come from simulacra (spectra, idols/images). On the contrary, everything that acts is physical and, while acting, produces impressions. That is why he taught that the simulacra/spectra (idols) are not mental sketches (concepts), as the Stoics claimed, but “images” of the real world (Diogenes Laertius, VII, 61). Epicurus did not recognize blind mechanical need as normative of the linear movement of the atom, fighting at that point the mechanistic perception of Democritus, which ultimately put humanity under the bonds of mechanical movement. That is why he pointed out, according to his theory of swerve7 (or clinamen: παρεγκλιτικη´ κ´ινησις; the sudden and inexplicable swerve of atoms, which is accountable for the creation of bodies) that freedom is a natural phenomenon without any trait of mysticism. He also criticized Democritus for his perception that the properties of atoms are not material. Democritus accepted some teleology in nature and, starting from this point of view, he reached the conclusion that there is mechanical movement rather than dialectics. In all this, it is obvious that Epicurus was a consistent materialist. Having in front of him all the theories and all the doctrines of the (philosophical) schools, he was able to emancipate himself from all idealism and mysticism and become an adversary to every teaching that accepted that there is teleology in nature. Everything that happens has, he taught, natural causes. Epicurus’ work provoked the interest of the young Marx, becoming the subject of his doctoral dissertation (a comparison between Epicurus and Democritus). As he states, it is no coincidence that with the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics all moments of selfconsciousness are represented as complete, but every moment as a

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separate being. Is it by chance that these systems in their universality make up the integrated structure of self-consciousness? Marx highlights the liberating power of Epicurean philosophy, especially in the war against necessity, but also against the chance that has only the value of the possibility, referring to the following Epicurus quote: for while necessity cannot be called to account, he sees that chance is inconstant, but that which is in our control is subject to no master, and to it are naturally attached praise and blame. For, indeed, it were better to follow the myths about the gods than to become a slave to the destiny of the natural philosophers: for the former suggests a hope of placating the gods by worship, whereas the latter involves a necessity that knows no placation. As to chance, he does not regard it as a god as most men do (for in a god’s acts there is no disorder), nor as an uncertain cause of all things: for he does not believe that good and evil are given by chance to man for the framing of a blessed life, but that opportunities for great good and great evil are afforded by it. He therefore thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a man’s actions that what is well chosen should fail, rather than that what is ill chosen should be successful owing to chance. (Letter to Menoeceus, 11, p. 2)

Epicurus, for Marx, fights against every one-sided explanation. Only one rule has he: the explanation should not contradict the senses. Marx sees the Ancient Greek philosophers, Epicurus and Democritus, and their differences considering the concept of self-consciousness, as exponents—to varying degrees—of autonomy and individuality. He further opposes to Democritus’ materialistic-mechanistic determinism/causality the element of the act, which, according to the corresponding interpretation of the Epicurean philosophy, establishes freedom. As far as their epistemology is concerned, Marx defends Epicurus’ sensationalism against Democritus’ agnosticism, which he opposes, for in his view the admission of ignorance leads to blind faith, whereas sensationalism gives a positive answer to the problem of knowledge. By thinking thus, Marx escapes from the

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determinism that Hegel had bequeathed, because he embraces subjectivity and faith in the possibilities of abstract probability that he is provided with by the free Epicurean atom/individual.8 At this point he differentiates Epicurus from Democritus—the real and absolute truth of Democritus’ objective world—in order to pave the way for human imagination and the abstract possibility that explains human action as it is based on the sensory capacity of the mind. Epicurus’ idea for atoms which swerve, behaving as distinct subjects, triggers Marx to consider it as a prerequisite for the creation of relationships of individuals/atoms with other individuals/atoms and therefore for the creation of sets and totality.

6.3

Stoicism

At the same time as when Epicurus developed his philosophy, Zeno of Citium created another philosophical school in Athens: Stoicism, from oικ´ιλη τoα´ or Stoa Poikile (or “painted porch”, a colonnade decorated with mythic and historical battle scenes, on the north side of the Agora in Athens). Here Zeno and his followers gathered to discuss their ideas. He was a pupil of Crates of Thebes, the Cynic philosopher. According to Zeno, natural theory has shown that everything occurs according to a “force that enlivens the universal sympathy, which makes all things to be in interaction, tied together with each other with a mutual friendship.” This power is called destiny (ειμαρμšνη) and is synonymous with nature and providence. It is the reason as to how the world operates as it does. It is not an unpredictable or absurd destiny/fate, but rather the order of the world that cannot be violated. So, things necessarily happen as they happen. If, however, the life of the world (and of the human being, who is part of it) is predetermined, what options do we have? Are we free to do anything? Is there anything that depends exclusively on us? Or is the only thing left to us if we cannot react to submit to destiny? Fate guides whoever accepts it, drives anyone who resists it. With such a thought a slave tried to escape from Zeno, who had been beaten because he had stolen: “It was my destiny to steal,” he pleaded. “Yes, to be whipped too,”

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Zeno responded, in order to point out that no one is exempt from moral responsibility for one’s actions. For one to adapt to destiny, one must know it. And then one can follow it. This is the only freedom that man has and can only conquer the wise person: to do with his own will what divine providence predetermines (for the good of the world). Cleanthes, Zeno’s successor to the Stoa, also wrote the following excerpt from the Zeus anthem: Lead me, Zeus, and you too, Destiny, To wherever your decrees have assigned me. I follow readily, but if I choose not, Wretched though I am, I must follow still. Fate guides the willing but drags the unwilling.

Destiny is the divine providence that governs the universe, and, therefore, the will of the people has no intrinsic value. From the worldview of the Stoics, passive expectation and perseverance emerged as a necessary and fatal result. Although Zeno taught perseverance, he did not have a passive attitude to social problems. To him, a basic demand was that philosophy should serve practical purposes, that is, it should aim at the moralization of society. According to his perceptions, he taught that beings are divided into good (wisdom, prowess, righteousness, etc.), into evil (injustice, foolishness), and into neutral (wealth, glory, pleasure, death, etc.). That is, the basic problem of his philosophy was not in the study of nature, but in the search for how to ensure happiness in humans. So, he went back to Socrates’ old morality, but with different criteria. He examined not what is virtue but what is good. Why does the enjoyment of goods (the means of life) depend on human happiness? Starting from these basic points of view, he taught that only the goods that agree with correct reason serve the task, while goods contrary to right reason are in opposition to the task. Virtue is therefore the perfect good, the purpose of human energy. Unlike Plato who explained moral law by a superior spiritual power, Zeno taught that moral law is the product of nature; that is, virtue is born from the knowledge of nature, and happiness is accomplished when humans act according to nature. So, humans must despise all external goods (pleasure, riches, etc.) and take care to

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become virtuous. Thus, one will find one’s spiritual peace and blessedness. Zeno and Chrysippus (of Soli, third in the chronological succession to the Stoa after Cleanthes) had written books about the state, declaring that all people should live under the same laws as brothers. Zeno also taught his views in his other writings, such as On Unity, On Law, On Justice, and On Good , where, among others, he stressed that natural law is superior to (written) law: “both law and right natural law” (ως και τoν ν´oμoν και τoν oρθ´oν λ´oγoν)9 (Pearson 1891, excerpt 308). But slowly Stoicism departed from its initial views of cosmopolitanism, equality, and materialist philosophy and ended with, especially with Panaetius and after him, a philosophy of absolute perseverance, acceptance of the status quo, privatization, and mysticism. As time went by, decadence was increasingly pushing larger strata of the population. That is why, since there was no light from anywhere to give them hope for change, in their despair, most of them imagined that such a socioeconomic situation had been imposed on them by invisible intracosmic forces. Thus, due to their inability to change their surrounding circumstances, they fell into fatalism and accepted that no correction of their evils could be made. And because of this perception, the conviction arose that everything in the world was governed by laws that man cannot alter, and that everything is arranged by divine providence or destiny. In a final analysis, destiny was nothing but the old traditions of Mo´ιρες (Moires), written in philosophical language and terminology. Therefore, the Stoics became the dominant philosophical school in the early years of Roman domination. But contrary to this, there are several Stoic philosophers who led political activism, adopting the critical and radical thinking of Zeno, the founder of the school. History has recorded the names of two of them: Sphaerus and Gaius Blossius. The former was active, as we have seen, in Sparta, and the latter in Pergamum. Blossius especially represents the most radical and subversive aspect of Stoicism.10 He was the pupil of the fifth leader of the Stoa and opponent to Panaetius, and was inspired by Zeno’s state: a state which does not know freemen and slaves, Greeks and barbarians, poor and rich, but only the wise and unwise—until the day when all people become wise citizens of a global democracy. This state would abolish the family and worship would be seen as a useless

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external form of piety for the wise; it would eliminate justice as unnecessary for the wise, whose ability to distinguish between good and evil is a necessary condition of their status. He would also abolish individual property whose means of acquisition is greed and money. Blossius wanted to find and educate a leader who could implement the project of his philosophy of universal reform, especially now that the whole world seemed to be like a state. Panaetius represented the indifference of the Stoa in politics and thus the compromise of moral doctrine to the prevailing state of oligarchic tyranny. The two philosophers met in Rome; Panaetius took a position in the house of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Carthage, and Blasius a position in the house of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. As much as Scipio’s aristocratic views favored Panaetius’ principles, so the ambitions of the House of Gracchus had the need of a philosopher who would inspire a progressive struggle. These two families were closely related, but early on, there appeared a hostile attitude in Scipio Africanus against Gracchus and his movement. History records the violent suppression of Gracchus’ movement in Rome and Blossius’ escape to Pergamum and Aristonicus to support his revolution. There, the utopia of the City of the Sun by Iambulus, which had given its name to the revolutionaries, had similar elements to Zeno’s state: a society where there is no currency, no private property, and where courts, temples, and gymnasia and all those institutions of the city of classical times are absent (Diogenes Laertius, Lives, VII, 33, 121, 131).

6.4

Skepticism

The philosophical movement of skepticism, which was developed in the Hellenistic Period, had the main purpose of preserving freedom from doctrinal bonds. The basic concept of the Skeptics was the “epoche” ´ namely not taking positions (the method of suspended judg(επoχη), ment): a mental state or attitude characterized by non-consensus/consent with or belief in dogmatic positions and views. This was deliberately endorsed by the Skeptics, based on the ways—including the finding that conflicting arguments or divergent views on an issue are equivalent

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(ισoσθενε´ις: isostheneis, equipollent ). The supposed principle of Skepticism lies in the philosophy of Pyrrho of Elis (who had Anaxarchus of Abdera as his teacher, a student of Democritus and a participant in the campaigns of Alexander the Great). To Pyrrho the only references are those made by Diogenes Laertius in Lives, Book IX (61–73), about whom he states that the philosopher argued that there is no good or disgraceful, fair or unfair. Thus, for all things, Pyrrho claimed that nothing really exists, and that all human actions are defined by their habits and prevailing perceptions. Because nothing can be otherwise than as it is. In fact, Diogenes mentions the following story. Once when a dog barked at him, and Pyrrho was scared, he had made a comment (on his fear) that it was difficult to get rid of his “humanness” completely, but that he should nevertheless fight against the circumstances, in practice if he could, otherwise in words. Speaking of those who followed Pyrrho’s philosophy, Diogenes Laertius states: All of these men were called Pyrrhonians, the appellation being derived from the name of their teacher, and they were also called Aporetics, Skeptics, Ephetics, and Zetetics, these labels being derived from their doctrine if we may call it that. Their philosophy was searching, or zetetic, because they constantly searched for the truth; it was investigative, or skeptic, because they were always investigating but never discovered anything; it was suspensive, or ephectic, because of what they experienced after their searches—I’m referring to their suspension of judgment—and it was perplexing, or aporetic, because they brought both those who put forward doctrines and themselves to a state of perplexity. (Vogt 2015, pp. 21–23)

The binding discourse is a curse according to the Skeptics, who associate their existence with the movement of the Sophists of the fifth century and Democritus. The first principal of the (Second or Middle or New) Academy who adopted skepticism was Arcesilaus (who founded Academic Skepticism) and who did not tolerate Plato’s dogmatism, and above all not did not tolerate the neglect of Socratic dialectic where one must put everything under consideration, be free from prejudices, develop a critical spirit, and even challenge oneself . Arcesilaus disagreed with the conception of the

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state of Platonism. As the Skeptic he was, he admitted that there is no absolute doctrine and that truth is not at all accessible to humanity. Starting from these principles, he taught that wise is he who acts and does the right thing when it looks true, and not he who pretends he knows everything, because there are not such people. Thus, since wisdom is relative and not absolute, no one—even if he is or pretends to be wise— cannot impose his political beliefs upon others. Following this principle, Arcesilaus, unlike the founder of the Academy, was an adversary of every dictatorial power. A hundred years after Arcesilaus, in the middle of the second century BC, Carneades, born in Cyrene and a principal Academy leader, turned towards probabilism, in an effort to make the skeptical epochin compatible with the decisions we make in everyday life. We cannot know truth, but there is “convincing” or plausible or probable (πιθαν´oν: pithanon) evidence through which we are able to make reasonable solutions, acceptable both in the field of applied ethical philosophy and in the field of science. Many people are aware of what happened when Carneades represented Athens in Rome in 155 BC, as ambassador along with other philosophers (the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon and the Aristotelian Critolaus of Phaselis), and scandalized the Romans. Lactantius11 preserves an account in his Institutiones Divinae: This Carneades, when he had been sent by the Athenians as ambassador to Rome, disputed copiously on the subject of justice, in the hearing of Galba and Cato, who had been censor, who were at that time the greatest of orators. But on the next day the same man overthrew his own argument by a disputation to the contrary effect, and took away the justice which he had praised on the preceding day. A summary of Carneades’ argument is as follows. People make laws for themselves for the sake of profit; and among the same people laws often change, depending on the circumstances. There is no natural law. Everyone—humans and other living things—are driven by nature to do what is good for them. Therefore, either there is no justice at all or, if there is, it is a greatest nonsense, since he who thinks of the interest of others does injustice to himself. Long (1996) clarifies that Carneades refutes the claim that justice benefits those who do justice. Plato had tried to prove this position in

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The Republic. And Carneades’ argument is reminiscent of the sophistic theories of justice that Plato sought to combat. However, an interesting feature of that time underlies this position. By “the interest of others”, Carneades does not mean “specific individuals within a state” but rather other states or nations. He argues that the Romans do indeed have justice—laws and constitutional acts—but that these laws and acts serve only the interests of Rome and work against those who are not Romans: “What are the benefits of one’s homeland if not the damage to another state or nation? To expand, precisely, its territory with possessions that it forcibly snatched from others.” Carneades emphasized that, according to imperialist ideologies, those who expand the state are honored as gods. In relation to the state, their behavior is perfectly just. “But it is not “justice”, as the proponents of the universal value of justice mean it”. Then Carneades talks about justice in relation to individuals. His purpose is to show that what philosophy schools believe in the interdependence of virtues of wisdom and justice in achieving bliss does not apply. He uses the example of someone who has a contaminated and unhealthy home: Only he knows its flaws and, wanting to get rid of it, he prepares it for sale. Will he admit the flaws or hide them from the buyer? If he admits them, he is definitely a good person since he does not commit fraud. But he will be considered a fool as he will sell it for a piece of bread, or he will not sell it at all. If he hides them, he will show prudence because he will take his own interests into account, but also bad because he is committing fraud. (Lactantius, ibid.)

Notes 1. In ancient Greek this is EÙημερ ´ oς (Euh¯emeros: literally translated it means “happy; prosperous”). In English, it appears as Euhemerus or Euemeros or Evemerus. 2. Meaning to “do good deeds”; this was the ancient practice of high-status and wealthy individuals in society to distribute part of their wealth to the community. That practice was also part of the patron–client relation system of Roman society.

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3. See, J. Ferguson (1975), Chapter XVI, pp. 138–145, 210–212; G. J. D. Aalders (1975), pp. 75–93; F. L. Vatai (1984), pp. 121–124; D. Dawson (1992), pp. 238, 254–255, fn. 32–33; F. E. Manuel and F. P. Manuel (1979), p. 66. 4. The chorus (χoρ´oς) of choral poetry and classical Greek tragedy was a group of people who performed an act while singing and dancing. In Modern Greek, chorus means only “dancing”, whereas in the Western tradition choir, which derives from ancient Greek chorus, means only “singing”. 5. This Latin phrase comes from the text by Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum, 43.1: “quorum rex Saturnus tantae iustitiae fuisse dicitur, ut neque servierit quisquam sub illo neque quicquam privatae rei habuerit, sed omnia communia et indivisa omnibus fuerint, veluti unum cunctis patrimonium esset” (“King Saturn was reputedly so just that under him no one was in servitude, nor did anyone have any private possessions, but all things were held in common and undivided , as if the inheritance of one”). 6. Anacharsis was a Scythian philosopher, who traveled from his homeland on the northern shores of ancient Iran to Athens in the early sixth century BC and made a great impression on the Athenians as a forthright and outspoken barbarian (non-Greek) speaker (see Beeton’s Book of Jokes and Jests, or Good Things Said and Sung, 2nd ed., London: Frederick Warne & Co., 1866. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019 1826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00000270). 7. It is claimed that “Epicurus’ intuition of a fundamental randomness was correct” and that “just as Democritus’ intuition of atoms in a void was confirmed by modern physics, so Epicurus’ swerve (the ‘clinamen’) has been confirmed by quantum physics”; see www.informationphilosopher. com/solutions/philosophers/epicurus/. ´ 8. The Greek language uses the same word (ατoμo) to state both meanings. 9. For Stoics logos equals natural law (e.g. λ´oγoς, = ϕσει ´ ν´oμoς). 10. Africa (1961, p. 17) classifies Sphaerus and Blossius as the most extreme members of the Stoa. The extreme character of Blossius’ action is emphasized by Vatai (1984, p. 124). The revolutionary nature of Blossius’ behavior is highlighted by Aalders (1975, pp. 79–80), who is mentioned as an exception to the rule of the Stoa and who accepted that the teaching of Antipater of Tarsus—who accepts that the individual interest must be set aside before common bliss (see Cicero, De officiis, III, 352f.)—influenced his action.

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11. Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (250–325 AD) was an early Christian author and advisor to Constantine the Great, the first Christian Emperor. His most important work is the Institutiones Divinae (The Divine Institutes), an apologetic treatise that tried to establish the truth of Christianity to pagan critics.

References Aalders, G. J. D. (1975). Political Thought in Hellenistic Times. Amsterdam: A. Hakkert. Africa, T. W. (1961). Phylarchus and the Spartan Revolution. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University Of California. Aristotle. Politics. Available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Per seus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D2%3Asection%3D1271b. Cercidas. Fragment 2. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cercidas. Cleanthes. Zeus Anthem. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanthes. Dawson, D. (1992). Cities of the Gods: Communist Utopias in Greek Thought. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. De Ste Croix, G. E. M. (1981). The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquest. London: Duckworth. Diodorus Siculus. Library of History, Book V. Available at: https://penelope. uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/5A*.html. Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Available at: www.per seus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Ab ook%3D6. Dion Chrysostomos (Dio Chrysostom). The Euboean Discourse, or The Hunter. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Dio_ Chrysostom/Discourses/7*.html. Epicurus. Letter to Menoeceus. Available at: https://users.manchester.edu/Fac staff/SSNaragon/Online/texts/316/Epicurus,%20LetterMenoeceus.pdf. Ferguson, J. (1975). Utopias of the Classical World . London: Thames & Hudson. Lactantius. Divine Institutes, Book V (Of Justice). Available at: www.newadvent. org/fathers/07015.htm.

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Long, A. A. (1996). Hellenistic Philosophy (2nd ed.). Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Manuel, F. E., & Manuel, F. P. (1979). Utopian Thought in the Western World . Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press. Marx, K. German Ideology. Available at: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ 1845/german-ideology/ch03a.htm. Menander. Epitrepontes. Available at: www.fadedpage.com/books/20120806/ html.php. Menander. Dyskolos. Available at: https://faculty.fairfield.edu/rosivach/cl103a/ dyskolos.htm. Moschion. Excerpt 6 . Available at: www.greek-language.gr/digitalResources/anc ient_greek/literature/index.htm. Pearson, A. C. (1891). The Fragments of Zeno and Cleanthes. Available at: http:// www.koxkollum.nl/cleanthes/zenocleanthespearson.pdf. Plutarch. Agis. Available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus% 3Atext%3A2008.01.0005%3Achapter%3D6%3Asection%3D1. Plutarch. Tiberious Gracchus. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Tha yer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Tiberius_Gracchus%2A.html. Polybius. Histories. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/ Roman/Texts/Polybius/1*.html, https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/ Roman/Texts/Polybius/4*.html. Pseudo-Plutarch. Περ`ι τ îν ¢ρεσ κ Òντ ων τ o‹ς ϕιλoσ Òϕ oις ϕυσ ικ îν ´ ων ™πιτ oμÁς. Available at: https://el.wikisource.org/wiki/ ερ δ oγ ματ ´ ι´_των_αρεσκ´oντων_τoις_ϕιλoσ´oϕoις_ϕυσικων_δoγμ ´ ατων_( λo τα ´ ρχoς). Sextus Empiricus. Against the Mathematicians. Available at: www.stoictherapy. com/resources-against. Stephens, S. (2015). Callimachus: Aetia. Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Dickinson College Commentaries. Available at: https://dcc.dickinson.edu/callimachusaetia/prologue-against-telchines. Titus Livius (Livy). History of Rome. Available at: www.perseus.tufts.edu/hop per/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0164%3Abook%3D34%3Ac hapter%3D31. Vatai, F. L. (1984). Intellectuals in Politics in the Greek World: From Early Times to the Hellenistic Age. London and Sydney: Dover. Vogt, K. M. (Ed.) (2015). Pyrrhonian Skepticism in Diogenes Laertius. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck. Available at: https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20. 500.12657/27450/1002558.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Walbank, F. W. (1981). The Hellenistic World . Brighton: Harvester Press.

4 The Greco-Roman World

1

Society: A Brief Introduction

In 30 BC, by incorporating Egypt into their territory, the Romans essentially completed their conquest of the East and the West. With the exception of some peripheral areas, which did not take long to conquered, the whole world had one way or another accepted Roman domination. Contemporary with the incorporation of Egypt, and more importantly as a historical event, the peculiar Roman republic was transformed into a monocracy, with its first emperor Octavian Augustus, who ruled successfully from 29 BC to 14 AD: for 43 years. More than 50 emperors followed in an unbroken series until 11 May 330 AD, when Constantine the Great inaugurated New Rome as the capital of the Roman Empire, which was later renamed Constantinople (so-called after Constantine). There was no other significant power than Rome during the GrecoRoman period, nor could such have arisen, as Rome imposed itself by its size alone. Of course, war operations at the periphery or internal conflicts never stopped completely, especially when the succession of emperors © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4_4

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did not progress smoothly; however, uprisings were few, and, in general, Roman peace (the Pax Romana, as it was known) lasted for centuries. In time of peace, the Romans were compromisers, almost generous to the conquered, and often allowed them, at least seemingly, to be governed by their own laws—as long as they did not infringe Roman interests and obeyed the demands of the emperor, the Senate, and their appointed representatives. Beneficial to subjects, individuals, and states was their exemption from taxation, while the highest reward for those who demonstrated their devotion to Rome was to be awarded the title and to be granted the rights of a Roman citizen. The latter became more and more frequent as the years went on, until by 212 AD, when the Antonine Constitution (Constitutio Antoniniana), also known as the Edict of Caracalla, granted Roman citizenship to all free men throughout the Roman Empire. The relative leniency of the Romans did not prevent the conquered areas from going through fire due to the conquerors, who leveled entire states, plundered their artistic and other treasures, and exploited their economic potential. A poor compensation for the many calamities inflicted on the Greek regions was the respect and favor shown by some emperors towards Athens, Ephesus, Delphi, Eleusis, and other religious and cultural centers. In the social realm, with the final domination of the Romans and the downsizing or abolition of those democratic institutions still in operation, the poorest sections of the conquered Greek populations suffered a major blow. The mechanisms that had been built up for centuries to protect their interests were no longer working. On the other hand, the upper and more affluent classes consolidated their social and economic privileges. The movement of the populations was free throughout the empire; transactions were facilitated by the single currency, and any kind of business, commerce, banking, craft, etc. could yield immense wealth. Countless wealth had accumulated both in the imperial house and in the hands of Roman officials who imposed heavy taxation, extraordinary contributions, and fines. On the other hand there was great poverty in the rural areas and among the lower social strata, as brilliantly described by Dio Chrysostom

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(the “golden-mouthed”, or Dion of Prusa or Dio Cocceianus; VII The Euboean Discourse or The Hunter, 11–13). Both small property and agricultural production had been destroyed, as the large owners preferred not to cultivate the fields but to turn them into pastures. The country had been razed, there were no people. Even the slave owners were freeing their slaves because it was not in their interest to feed them. Much of the conventional political and administrative history of the Late Roman Empire was a ghost without a body, complementing Dodds (1965) who describes this time as an age of agony due to the material and moral insecurity. De Ste Croix (1981) reminds us of what Marx says in Capital (Volume 3) that it was the wars by which the Roman patricians destroyed the plebeians, forcing them to serve as soldiers, a fact that prevented them from reproducing their working conditions, that changed them into paupers. He also notes two other ways of reproducing class distinctions that are associated with the major contributions of the Romans to the Greco-Roman civilization of late antiquity: the art of governance and civil law. The former, for the benefit of the wealthiest members of the wealthy class, relates the forms of patronage and clientele with the corresponding political and social consequences. De Ste Croix (1981) reminds us of two of The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus (who lived in the period of Late Antiquity): “to accept a benevolence means to sell your freedom”, “to receive a favor is to pawn your freedom”. And all this while, as Dio Chrysostom reminds us, the people of the time lived under the reign of the Roman ruler, a power not accountable for its actions. The king (the emperor) is greater than laws, above laws. Law is the king’s (the emperor’s) enactment, his doctrine. And in the field of law, De Ste Croix (1981, p. 460) cites specific examples of a set of class-related legal distinctions: (d) In various other ways members of the lower classes who were charged with crimes were at disadvantage compared with the propertied classes; for example, they would find it much harder to escape imprisonment pending trial—to get out on bail, as we might say (see esp. Dig. XLVIII.iii. 1, 3). And ancient prison conditions could be very unpleasant for humble people …

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(e) More important is the fact that evidence given in court by members of the lower classes, whether in criminal or civil cases, was accorded less weight than that of their social superiors. The key text is a passage from Callistratus in the Digest (XXII, v. 3, pr.), explaining the principle on which evidence is to be evaluated: of the criteria mentioned the first concerns the witness’s social status (condicio) and is “whether he is a decurion or a commoner” (decurio an plebeius), and the third is “whether he is rich or poor” (locuples vel egens). Callistratus proceeds to quote a series of rescripts of Handrian, some of which illustrate the kind of discrimination he records (ibid. 3.1–2.6). The satirist Juvenal, writing in the early second century, had complained that at Rome a witness was valued according to his wealth (his census); the number of his slaves, the extent of his land, the size and quality of his dinner-service. His character and behavior (his mores) came last; he received credit in proportion to the number of coins in his cash-box (Sat. III. 140–4, ending “quantum quisque sua nummorum servat in arca, Tantum habet et fidei”). This was closer to the reality, even in Juvenal’s day, than I fancy most modern reads of Juvenal appreciate, and by the time of Callistratus (c. 200) it was almost the literal truth. (f ) In the field of private law, we find that torts committed against a member of the upper classes by a member of the lower classes are regarded as more serious: such a wrong may become automatically an atrox iniuria, to the assessment of damages for which special rules applied. And the action doli, or de dolo malo, the action for fraud, might be refused to members of the lower classes against at any rate particularly distinguished members of the upper classes.

On the other hand, in public life there were also the imposing public festivities. The emperors, local governors, and other officials organized them with special care on a large scale, without calculating the costs, since they wanted to win and maintain the favor of the popular crowd, who at that time were said not to call for anything else but “bread and spectacles”. Religious celebrations held their place, as always, but the main venue of the events was moved from the sacred enclosures to the stadiums, where not only sports and horse racing, but also gladiatorial, beastly, and other events (torturing and killing of Christians) were held. Those Roman spectacles, which excited the spectators so that “they could forget all and

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are not ashamed to do what came down to them” (Dion Chrysostom 32:41), were also adopted by the Greeks, who, in order to be able to present them, transformed their traditional theatrical buildings. The phenomenon that had begun in the Hellenistic Period and continued more intensively in the Greco-Roman Period was religious syncretism: the various religions of the empire’s peoples were mixed and influenced by each other at both the ideological-dogmatic and practicalworshipful level. The first example was the Romans themselves, who had incorporated a multitude of foreign elements into their religion, not only Greek but also Oriental. Mysterious cults, as well as Greek ones, such as those of Demeter in Eleusis, had spread significantly in the Greco-Roman Period, where many emperors were sought to be initiated and accepted by those cults, as well as other people’s cults, such as the mysterious Iranian god Mithra and the Egyptian Isis, who were sometimes identified with Demeter, sometimes with the goddess Fortune (Tych¯e ). At the same time, various fortune tellers, astrologers, and miracle workers abounded (and performed lucrative jobs), who, in one way or the other, exploited the superstition of both the crowd and the upper social classes. As a reaction to religious clutter and general ideological confusion, there thrived and quickly gained ground religious movements with monotheistic beliefs and intense spiritual-philosophical content, such as Orphism in its advanced form, Hermeticism, and more than all Christianity, the teaching of which was spread rapidly and its official recognition, when it was made, signified the transition to the next period, to the Byzantine empire.

1.1

Intellectual Production

The Greco-Roman era was one when, on the one hand, the Romans as conquerors of the Greek regions and rulers of the world had a profound influence on the course of Hellenism, and yet, on the other hand, Hellenism, with its intellectual heritage, its language, and many of its teachers, participated decisively in the development of Roman culture.

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One of the positive aspects of the time was certainly the Roman peace, the politically unified space which favored movements and all kinds of exchanges, and the consequent dispersion of cultural and other activities. As truly as those years signified that “all roads led to Rome”, which naturally claimed the lion’s share, the great Greek intellectual and artistic centers (Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Antioch) maintained much of their dynamics and radiance, and there were not a few Romans that visited them to study. The Romans, like the other peoples of the (Roman) empire, were interested in knowing, admiring, and honoring the Greek intellectual achievements of past times. Respectively, in the general climate of classicism, the Greeks, on the one hand, indulged in philological study, commentary, and teaching of the great heritage, and, on the other hand, in their ambition to repeat, in essence to imitate, the glorious past, they developed strong retrograde tendencies, so to speak, with the first and most important linguistic Atticism. Within the context of general classicism, Atticism is defined as the tendency of some Greek–Roman writers not to use in their works the common Greek language (koine; the language of The New Testament) of their time but the Attic dialect of the Classical Period, as they knew it from the works of Lysias, Xenophon, Plato, and other Attic writers. In many ways, the retrograde was also the dominant intellectual movement of the time, a second sophistic. This second sophistic included a number of orators who lived in the Greco-Roman era who toured from end to end of the empire giving lectures and courses in various subjects, usually with great success. That was the only common element they had with the Sophists of the Classical Period; and if we insist on using the misleading terms Sophists and sophistic, it is because we see them applied to Flavius Philostratus, who belongs to the same group. The Sophists of the second sophistic cultivated numerous rhetorical genres and dealt with a variety of subjects. They wrote, announced, and published lectures, short essays, or dissertations, dialogues, rhetoric (pre)training or studies (exercises), expressions (descriptions), prelates (short preliminary speeches), letters, and games—most of them being clearly

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declarative, with the speaker’s care and the audience’s attention concentrated more on the form and the recitation than on the content of the speech. As far as the content of the speeches is concerned, it is important to note that the Sophists of the second sophistic often went beyond the boundaries of rhetoric, invading the fields of popular philosophy. In their attempt to counsel, console, admonish, or even impress their audience, they dealt with ethical issues in a popular way, without originality or depth. Thus, on the one hand, the boundaries between philosophy and rhetoric were confused, and on the other hand, philosophers and Sophists were often confronted and had to defend their specialty. A common ideological feature of the Sophists of the second sophistic was the admiration for the Greek historical, philosophical, and literary tradition and the nostalgic references to persons, situations, and events from the “glorious past”—all without questioning Roman rule, or degrading the Romans, who, after all, themselves admired and honored the Greek achievements of ancient times. At the same time, there were retrospective phenomena in poetry: whereas some followed the Homeric and Hesiodic epic models, others imitated the ways of old recognized/distinguished lyric poets; some wanted to replace them, some even wanted to replace them by circulating pseudepigrapha works (falsely attributed works by Anacreon, Phocylides, or even the mythical Orpheus. In education, scholars took care (with comments, their grammar, and their dictionaries) to offer abundant aids to so many Greeks and foreigners who wished to know in depth the masterpieces of Greek literature, and to those who aspired to imitate their language, style, and other morphological elements (that is, those writers of the Classical Period). Characteristic of the scientific production of the time were also many synthetic works, the “writings or compositions” (συντάξεις: syntaxeis), as they were called, where all the data of a field of knowledge such as astronomy and pharmacology, were concentrated and classified. Their authors sometimes summarized and presented in their own wording the relevant knowledge, other times they compiled, arranged, and presented the findings and opinions of their predecessors as written. The same multi-collecting tendency is manifest in some idiosyncratic works such

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as Athenaei Deipnosophistae and the Stratagems in War (Στρατηγήματα: Strategemata) by Polyaenus or Polyenus (the “much-praised”). A new literary genre that flourished in the Greco-Roman era was the novel , a narrative genre that, as we have said, appealed to a growing readership, which included women. It is, of course, the same public whose preferences in those years led many historians to expose events rhetorically and with their emotional implications. The public of Greco-Roman times are also of general interest. The large population, in which languages, nations, religions, and cultural contexts were mixing, on the one hand enthusiastically engaged in Roman spectacles, and on the other hand gathered to listen intently to the orators of the second sophistic speaking in the old and difficult, but melodic, Attic language. Their declarative and advisory speeches were rarely relevant to the news; most often they concerned general issues of ethical behavior and bioscience—philosophical issues in their popular form. The invasion of rhetoric into practical philosophical fields and the general trends and conditions of the time dictated, of course, developments in pure philosophy. The central theme of teaching continued to be living standards, that is, the right way of living; however, philosophical interests and concerns gradually shifted from actual living standards to the fields of metaphysics, where the ultimate goal was not so much earthly bliss as the ultimate happiness of the soul. Similarly, rationality, as a method, increasingly gave way to mysticism, and philosophy in its NeoPlatonic context presented, as a national counterbalance to Christianity, the characteristics of religion.

1.2

Philosophical Quests

In the field of pure philosophical search, the Roman period was extremely fertile. The most important development was the everincreasing tendency of philosophy to pursue metaphysical searches of a nearly religious type, which even created an internal structure between true philosophers and Sophists (that is, teachers of rather philosophical way). In the field of philosophy, we may observe that the inner

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boundaries between the Greek and Roman worlds were particularly perforated, since many philosophers lived and worked in the great intellectual centers, such as Rome, Athens, Alexandria, Antioch, and in some Asia Minor cities at different times of their lives. The “schools” of philosophy that were created during the Hellenistic Period continued to teach their younger proponents. Thus the Stoa found an important supporter in Roman territory in the persons of Musonius Rufus, who was the teacher both of several important representatives of the second sophistic, and of Epictetus, the great proponent of late Stoicism. On the one hand, Stoic philosophy was so widespread, especially during the 2nd century AD, that it influenced the thought and work of other important intellectual and political men, such as the physician Galen or the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The latter even wrote Meditations: Thoughts to Myself , an inner psychography with Stoic nuances, which delves into issues of personal ethics and the attempt to link the morally correct way of life with the duties of a leader in public life. Epicurean philosophy also found significant supporters in the Roman world, especially in the early period (1st century BC–1st century AD). We should not forget that the philosophy of Epicurus is primarily known through the work of Lucretius’ On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura). But then, its popularity seems to have diminished, as no worthy followers were found that could renew its content. In fact, there were capable critics, such as Plutarch, who in some cases even managed to distort its content. The requirement of the era for increased “spirituality” made this somewhat “materialistic” school of philosophical thinking obsolete. However, we know that there were many who were still moved by this philosophy, such as Pompeia Plotina, wife of Roman Emperor Trajan, and the protectress of his later successor, Hadrian, or Diogenes of Oenoanda of Lycia, who wrote the most important elements of Epicurean teaching in an extensive inscription, in order to leave a legacy to his fellow citizens. Aristotelianism (or the Peripatetic School), of course, did not cease to be a way of thinking and approaching things, not only for those who practiced pure philosophy, but also for many of the scientists of the time. In the 2nd century AD, its most characteristic proponent was Alexander of Aphrodisias, the founder of perhaps the largest philosophical school

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in the city (of Athens), which continued to flourish until late antiquity. However, Aristotelianism provided nothing very refreshing during that period. On the other hand, Platonic philosophy had a period of renaissance. Its proponents had so many new things to say, especially connecting philosophy with metaphysics, which created almost a new school, Neo-Platonism, which managed to keep the Academy alive until the 6th century AD, when it was forcibly closed down by the Byzantine Emperor, Justinian. Two main figures appeared primarily during the 3rd century AD, thus marking two new trends: Plotinus, the proponent of a pure philosophy who professed that knowledge of god comes from the knowledge of the innermost nature of the human being, and Iamblichus, who followed the way of theurgy, that is, of man’s attempt to imitate the deeds of god through miracles and supernatural phenomena. Also noteworthy is the revival of Pythagoreanism in Roman times, but with new content and teaching that were often close to Neo-Platonic ideas, while also flirting with the element of theurgy. In the 1st century AD there appeared collections of quotations of Pythagorean content, which had great impact. But the most distinctive personality of NeoPythagoreanism was Apollonius of Tyana, a charismatic figure who lived in that century, studying not only within the limits of the Roman world, but, if we accept what Lucius Flavius Philostratus claims in The Lives of the Sophists, in proximity to Indian Brahmans. Apollonius contributed to the creation of the “divine man” model, as did his contemporary Jesus of Nazareth, who was then followed by others in both Neo-Platonism and Christianity. But let us see in detail a selection of works indicative of our subject, from the Greco-Roman Literature.

2

Literature

2.1

Aesop’s Fables

Aesop (though the existence of the historical person is disputed) is referred to by Herodotus as a well-known “literary person”. He lived in the 6th century BC, but his Fables became widely known at the end of

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the Hellenistic Period and in the beginning of the Roman era, when they were published by Babrius (Babrias or Gabrias) in Greek and by Gaius Julius Phaedrus in Latin; they had become popular reading and educational material for children. All surviving collections today are much later and are dated from the 1st or 2nd century AD onwards. Since then, there have been many editions, and the Fables are believed to have been read worldwide almost as much as The Bible. According to his biography, Aesop was of humble origins (the legend presents him as disfigured) and a real monster of ugliness: black-haired, humpbacked, stunted, and short-necked, with crooked-legs, a flattened nose, and triangular head, but at the same time intelligent. He was probably born into a slave family in Amorion (Phrygia) in 625 BC and was a slave of the philosopher Jadmon. He lived on Samos, traveled to Egypt and the East, and died at Delphi, where he was sent by King Croesus to receive an oracle in 560 BC. There, he was charged with sacrilege and sentenced to death by the priests. He was despatched from the summit of Mount Parnassus. There are several and different versions of the reasons for his death. According to one version, Aesop was a slave of a landowner who used him as a shepherd. One day, when he saw the foreman unjustly beating another slave, Aesop ran to help the other slave, and in order to avenge him, the foreman reported him to the landowner, who took him to the market of Ephesus to sell him. There, the wise Xanthos, from Samos, bought him, appreciating his clever look. Thus, Aesop began to travel with Xanthos and get to know the world. Then Xanthos sold him to another Samian, the philosopher Jadmon. Appreciating Aesop’s intellectual gifts and especially his wisdom and intelligence, Xanthos set Aesop free. Once he reached the area of Delphi, where he visited the famous oracle. Aesop mocked both the priests and the inhabitants, the former for guessing in order to get rich, and the latter for living on the offering of the pilgrims, instead of cultivating their lands and taking care of their animals. Aesop’s audacity angered the oracle priests who trapped him, having put a golden glass from the oracle in his luggage and then accused him of being a thief and sacrilegious. So, Aesop was unjustly tried and sentenced to death, then thrown from the peaks of some steep cliffs on Mount Parnassus.

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According to tradition, immediately after Aesop’s unjust death, Apollo punished both the priests’ and the inhabitants’ injustice by sending to Delphi a great famine and misery. In order to atone themselves, the inhabitants of Delphi erected a marble column in honor of Aesop. The protagonists in Aesop’s Fables are, for the most part, certain animals, such as the fox, the wolf, the lion, and the deer. They are primarily dialogues between animals that speak and act like humans (the “voiced animals”), while there are some fables with humans or gods. These are small household stories, worded very briefly. Their character is moral, symbolic, and allegorical. The Fables have a special grace, wonderful simplicity, and unsurpassable didactics. They are taken from everyday life and nature. Aesop had the unique ability to give animals human qualities, souls, and voices, to such an extent that one can believe that the Fables are real and everything that is told actually happened. A key feature of Aesop’s narrative concerns morals, which can be understood both by children and adults. In our present text we will mention ten fables that are related to our subject and that contain ideas and opinions and critique on power and law (Chambry 1925–26).

2.1.1 The Eagle and the Beetle (no. 4, p. 60) An eagle was chasing a hare. The hare, since there was no one to help him in the wilderness, saw a beetle and begged (to help him). The beetle, encouraging the hare, when he saw the eagle approaching, begged him not to grab his beggar. But he, despising the small face of the beetle, killed the hare. Since that incident, the beetle fed vengeance on the eagle and, observing its nest, whenever the eagle laid eggs, the beetle lifted them, rolled them and destroyed them. Until the eagle, having gone everywhere (and failed to save its eggs from the beetle), turned to Zeus—the eagle is, after all, a sacred bird of the god—and begged him to provide him with a safe place for laying eggs. Zeus allowed the eagle to leave the eggs in his arms but the beetle saw it, made a sphere of manure and threw it in the arms of Zeus, who, because he wanted to throw the manure over him, threw the eggs of the eagle, too. Since this incident, eagles have not laid

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their eggs in the beetle season anymore. What we are taught is that we should not despise anyone because we think they are weak and will never be able to avenge themselves.

2.1.2 The Fisherman of Flutes (no. 24, p. 78) A fisherman knew how to play the flute well. So, he took the flute with his nets and went to a rock by the sea to fish. There, he sat and played the flute, believing that he would enchant the fish with his beautiful music, and they would go out on their own on land. But, no matter how long he played the flute, no fish came out. He then threw the net, caught a lot of fish, and saw them writhing. He said: “Dishonorable creatures! When I played such nice music to you, you did not dance, and you are dancing now!”

Sometimes beauty, nice words, and peaceful means are not enough in life; dynamic action is also needed.

2.1.3 The Fisherman and the Big and Small Fish (no. 25, p. 78) A fisherman threw the net with big eyes and pulled it to land. Big fish were caught in the net, whereas the small ones came out of the net’s eyes, escaped and were saved.

This is usually the case in the great turmoil of history: the rich and famous suffer the consequences, whereas the poor and the petty go without harm through difficult times.

2.1.4 The Man Who Broke a Statue (no. 61, p. 110) A poor man had in his house the wooden statue of the god Hermes and begged him every day to improve his position. Instead of getting

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better, his poverty and misery grew. By the time the man was outraged, he grabbed the wooden statue and threw it against the wall and slammed it! The poor man could not imagine that inside the statue there would be hidden old gold coins, which as the statue was crushed, the gold rolled out! The man happily picked up the gold coins, and then said: “You’re cranky! As long as I was begging you, you did not show any mercy on me, and now that I have been angry with you, you have given me so much gold!

Whatever religion one believes in, one must admit that divine powers do not directly respond to what people say and do.

2.1.5 The Plowman and the Wolf (no. 64, p. 112) A plowman broke the ox from the plow yoke, left the yoke on the ground and went to water the ox and get water. At that moment, a hungry wolf found the left plow, and went to eat the straps of the yoke. As he was struggling to eat the straps, his throat slipped into the yoke and couldn’t get out, so, trying to unravel, he began to pull the plow. It was a truly funny spectacle that a wolf was plowing! At that time the plowman came and saw him and said: “I wish it were done, you bastard, to give up the raptures and injustices and to turn to cultivating the land!”

The wolf is the symbol of evil. Rural work is the symbol of all honest work. The only way to become a good person is to do honest work. Otherwise, as much as one suppresses one’s tendencies towards evil, bad tendencies will prevail. But when the wicked person engages in honest work, it is only a joke of luck, as happened when the wolf was plowing.

2.1.6 The Frogs Ask for a King (no. 66, p. 114) The frogs were distraught that they had no ruler, so they sent an embassy to Zeus asking for a king. Zeus, seeing how stupid they were, threw a wood into the lake. The falling wood made a big splash, and the frogs,

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being scared, plunged into the depths of the lake. But then, seeing the wood there still, they gained courage and approached, slowly climbing up and sitting on it. But as time went by, they did not like this king, the wood, because it was inert; it was only floating and doing nothing. They again sent an embassy to Zeus and asked him to give them another king who would be dynamic and active. Zeus then sent to them a waterfowl, which grabbed them and ate them.

2.1.7 Hercules and Plutus (Wealth) (no. 130, pp. 166–8) Hercules, after having completed his labors, became equal to the gods and went to dwell in heaven with the gods. There, he met all the gods and he was admired by all. The god Plutus (Wealth) came last to welcome Hercules, but Hercules dropped his gaze to the ground and avoided staring at him. Then, Zeus asked him: “Why have you greeted all the other gods with joy, except Plutus, and showed him such contempt?” Hercules replied, “I don’t stomach him at all, because while I was living with people, I saw him hanging out with wicked people.”

2.1.8 The Horse and the Horse-Rider (no. 140, p. 176) A horse-rider (the servant that took care of the horses) scratched and combed a horse daily, but also he used to steal and sell the barley that was to be eaten by the horse. So the horse says: “Why do you comb and scratch every day? Do you think that in this way I will become a beautiful horse? If you really want me to be beautiful, stop stealing my barley!”

The greedy lure the poor with probable arguments and flattery and deprive them of what they need.

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2.1.9 Lion Reign (no. 195, pp. 218–20) Once it was said that a lion who became the king of animals had no rage, and he was neither bloodthirsty nor violent; he had power, but also meekness and justice, as an ideal man. When this lion was reigning, all the animals were gathered and sued for any animals that had been wronged; they judged and condemned the animals that did wrong. Thus, the sheep punished the wolf, the goat the leopard, the deer the tiger, the hare the dog. Then, the hare said, “How I wished to see this day, that the violent ones were supposed to be afraid of the weak!”

If there is justice in the city, and everyone is judged fairly, then the lowly (lower classes) live without turmoil.

2.1.10 The Wolf and the Donkey (no. 228, pp. 250–2) A wolf was declared a general of wolves, essentially the supreme lord of the wolves, and then he proposed a law to all the wolves: that whoever catches any prey should bring it to be distributed equally to all wolves. The prey of all will become a common property that will be shared daily by all. Thus, no wolf will remain hungry and no wolf will fight against another wolf. The wolves liked this proposal and approved it as law. Then, having listened to the verdict, a donkey came out, and said: “Since, you general, you want this law to be applied, you apply it first: yesterday you grabbed a large prey, a large deer, and you have it hidden in your den to eat it yourself. So, since you want your law to be effective, take out the deer you caught yesterday to distribute it equally to all the wolves.” Then the general of the wolves, seeing that the law did not suit it, it (the wolf ) withdrew it (the law), so that this law has never been effective to wolves.

Thus, those who think they can set laws fairly, do not insist on setting them (laws) and judging (according to them).

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Lucian

Lucian was a Syrian, born in Samosata, on the banks of the Euphrates, to poor parents who sent him to become a stonemason; however, his inclination to letters was so strong that he learned Greek and Greek literature so well that he lived his life traveling (in Asia Minor, Greece, Italy, Galatia), giving lectures, and writing (in Attic Greek) like any other successful Sophists of his time. His meeting with the Platonic philosopher Gaius Avidius Nigrinus in Rome and his settlement in Athens from 165 AD onwards had a significant impact on his life. We learn all this from his own autobiographical works, such as The Dream (Tο Ἐνύπνιον: Inypnion) and in The Double Indictment (Το Δὶς κατηγορούμενος: To dis katigoroumenos). Of the 70 or more works that have survived, some of them, mostly early, do not depart from the thematic and morphological stereotypes of the second sophistic. Here, there are some rhetorical exercises, a series of prelates, two expressions, and a word pun: The Fly or Praising a Fly (Μυίας Ἐγκώμιον, Myias Egomion). What is special about Lucian, what sets him apart, is his unique charisma. His satirical and ironic disposition, his ability to invent and present comic situations, the aptness of his discourse—all place him next to the great comedians of Greek antiquity, Aristophanes, Menander, and Menippus, to whom he owed much. Lucian left nothing unridiculed, nothing that was not satirized successfully. He rebuked a number of human types, such as the uneducated person who has many books, the misanthrope, and the charlatans who, in those years, acted as miracle workers with divine powers, like Alexander the False Prophet (Ἀλέξανδρος ἢ ευδόμαντις: Alexandros ¯e Pseudomantis), who was wandering around with a huge but tamed snake performing “charms and sorcery”, swindling the rich. He did not hesitate to drag in the gods, such as in The Parliament of the Gods (Θεῶν Ἐκκλησία: Theon Ekklesia), Zeus Catechized (or Zeus Cross-Examined ) (Ζεὺς ἐλεγχόμενος: Zeus elegchomenos), and Zeus Rants (Ζεὺς τραγῳδός: Zeus tragodos), where the gods fear that the philosophers will finally be able to prove their nonexistence. To this belong both Dialogues of the God (Θεῶν Διάλογοι: The¯on Dialogoi ) and Dialogues of the Sea-Gods (Ἐνάλιοι Διάλογοι:

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Enialioi Dialogoi), where discussing with each other openly, gods and goddesses reveal all their weaknesses, and not only this. Lucian was very fond of the dialogical genre (dialogism), which he manipulated so as to approach sometimes philosophical dialogue and sometimes comedy. In the latter, there are the famous Dialogues of the Dead (Νεκρικοὶ Διάλογοι: Nekrikoi Dialogoi), which is similar to Dialogues of the God , where the dead are stripped of all their power and wealth in Hades (the Underworld), and the ethographic Dialogues of the Courtesans (Ἑταιρικοὶ Διάλογοι: Etairikoi Dialogoi), a novel of manners, where the Athenian courtesans of the Classical Period (hetairai) discuss and reveal their secrets. On the other hand, in some of his later works, such as Hermotimus or Concerning the Sects (Ἑρμότιμος ἢ Περὶ Αἱρέσεων: Hermotimos ¯e Peri Aireseon), The Eunuch (Εὐνοῦχος: Eunouchos), or The Dance (Of Pantomime) (Περὶ Ὀρχήσεως: Peri Orchise¯os), Lucian himself seems to be present with his Hellenized name Lycinos. Satire culminates when Lucian directly or indirectly turns against himself and his like. As shown in works like The Double Indictment (Το Δὶς κατηγορούμενος: To dis katigoroumenos) and Nigrinus (Νιγρίνου Φιλοσοφία: Nigrinus’ Philosophia), Lucian’s relationship with philosophy—which could easily be included as Skepticism—was not hostile at all; yet no one mocked so much their philosophical theories and their proponents as Lucian did in The Carousal Symposium or The Lapiths (Συμπόσιον ἢ Λαπίθαι: Symposium ¯e Lapithai), where philosophers disagree and, drunkenly, come to blows. In The Runaways (Δραπέται: Drapetai) Philosophy herself complains to Zeus that many usurp the title of philosopher while “their lives are filthy, full of ignorance, audacity and shamelessness” (4). In Philosophies for Sale (Sale of Creeds) (Βίων Πρᾶσις: Bion prasis) philosophers of various schools advertise and put up for sale the good/excellent life (ἄριστον βίον: ariston bion), as each taught about it, but of them find buyers. Similarly, being an Atticist, Lucian himself did not fail to parody Atticistic excesses in Lexiphanes (Λεξιφάνης), Soloecista (Ψ ευδοσοφιστής ἢ Σολοικιστής: Pseudosophist¯e ¯e Soloikist¯es), and The Mistaken Critic (Ψ ευδολογιστής: Psefdologist¯es); being an orator himself, Lucian claimed that he had renounced rhetorical art (The Double Indictment or Το Δὶς

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κατηγορούμενος: To dis katigoroumenos) and sought to trivialize it in A Professor of Public Speaking (Ρητόρων διδάσκαλος: rhetor¯on didaskalos), where, although he was a fan of classical antiquity, he did not hesitate to ridicule its great glory by recommending the apprentice orator to speak and speak again “about the Marathon and the Cynaegirus, without whom there is no talk,… about the sky covered with the Persian arrows, Xerxes who ran away, Leonidas” (18). Satire and imagination overflow in the narrative of A True Story 1 (Ἀληθῶν Διηγημάτων Α: Al¯eth¯on Di¯eg¯emat¯on A) and in A True Story 2 (Ἀληθῶν Διηγημάτων B: Al¯eth¯on Di¯eg¯emat¯on B), where Lucian parodies the novelists of exotic, adventurous trips, since he declares that “one (thing) … I will tell the truth about is that I’m lying”. He describes a utopian journey, during which he and his companions visited many paradoxical islands in the sky: Tyronisi (the Island of Cheese), Phellonisi (the Island of the Cork), and the Island of Dreams. Under his name, 53 epigrams are saved, most of which are satirical, but they may not all his own. But let us see some excerpts from the works of this great writer, works of critical thinking about his society and its elements of crime and justice. Lucian describes the society of his period in an excerpt from his work Zeus Rants (Ζεὺς Τραγῳδός: Zeus Trag¯odos). In this work the gods are concerned about why humans are ready to “overthrow” them, and in the discussion between them, Momus understands the reason why people came to this viewpoint: Hear, then, ye Gods; … I swear to you, we need not blame Epicurus nor his friends and successors, for the prevalence of these ideas. Why, what can one expect men to think, when they see all life topsy-turvy—the good neglected, pining in poverty, disease, and slavery, detestable scoundrels honoured, rolling in wealth, and ordering their betters about, templerobbers undetected and unpunished, the innocent constantly crucified and bastinadoed? With this evidence before them, it is only natural they should conclude against our existence. All the more when they hear the oracles saying that someone with this evidence before them, it is only natural they should conclude against our existence. All the more when they hear the oracles saying that someone the Halys crossed, o’erthrows

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a mighty realm, but not specifying whether that realm is his own or his enemy’s.

In The Double Indictment (Το Δὶς κατηγορούμενος: To dis katigoroumenos), when Hermes (Mercury) calls Justice to come down to earth, Justice replies: “You would have me return to Earth, once more to be driven thence in ignominious flight by the intolerable taunts of Injustice?” In How to Write History (Πῶς δεῖ Ἱστορίαν συγγράφειν: P¯os dei Historian syggraphein), Lucian mentions bad judges “who take money to judge graciously or vindictively”. Lucian presents similar judgments/opinions in his other works. In The Parasite: Parasiticism an Art (Περὶ τοῦ Παρασίτου ὅτι Τέχνη ἡ Παρασιτική: Peri tou Parasitou oti Techn¯e ¯e Parasitik¯e ), a praise of parasiticism, Lucian states that: “Si. To markets and courts the sponger (the parasite) gives a wide berth because they are the haunts of chicanery; there is no satisfaction to be got out of them.” But legislators also act like tyrants. Lucian says in his work Phalaris 1 (Φάλαρις Α): [8] Οbserve, moreover, the prominence given to punishment by all constitutional legislators; they know that when the fear of punishment is wanting, nothing else is of avail. And this is doubly so with us who are tyrants; whose power is based upon compulsion; who live in the midst of enmity and treachery. The bugbear terrors of the law would never serve our turn. Rebellion is a many-headed Hydra: we cut off one guilty head, two others grow in its place. Yet we must harden our hearts, smite them off as they grow, and—like lolaus—sear the wounds; thus only shall we hold our own.

Those who speak in the courts, they do it for gold, as he mentions in his work To One Who Said “You’re a Prometheus in Words” (A Literary Prometheus) (Πρὸς τὸν εἰπόντα Προμηθεὺς εἶ ἐν λόγοις: Pros ton eiponta Prom¯etheus ei en logois): How much better a claim to kinship with Prometheus have you gentlemen who win fame in the courts, engaged in real contests; your works have true life and breath, ay, and the warmth of fire. That is

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Promethean indeed, though with the difference, it may be, that you do not work in clay; your creations are oftenest of gold. (Lucian of Samosata 1905, p. 8)

After all, as the Moira (Destiny) Cl¯oth¯o (the Spinner) herself mentions in Lucian’s work The Downward Journey or The Tyrant (Κατάπλους ἢ Τύραννος: Kataplous ¯e Tyrannos), no court could try a tyrant. In his Slander (Περὶ τοῦ μὴ ῥᾳδίως πιστεύειν Διαβολῇ: Peri tou m¯e radios pisteuein Diavol¯e ), Lucian talks about the slanderer (sycophant), an unjust, illegal, disrespectful, and harmful man, to those he associates with, and who, however, are near to power: It is in kings’ courts that these creatures are mostly found; they thrive in the atmosphere of dominion and power, where envy is rife, suspicions innumerable, and the opportunities for flattery and back-biting endless. Where hopes are higher, there envy is more intense, hatred more reckless, and jealousy more unscrupulous. (Slander, p. 2)

In the same work, Lucian begins to outline the social solution that he himself proposes: Equality in everything, and contentment with your proper share, are the essentials of justice; inequality and overreaching, of injustice; that everyone will admit. (Slander, p. 3)

In the same context, in his work Menippus or The Descent Into Hades (Μένιππος ἢ Νεκυομαντεία: Menippos ¯e Nekyomanteia), Lucian mentions a decree of the lower world that was moved by a popular speaker: Whereas the rich are guilty of many illegalities on earth, harrying and oppressing the poor and trampling upon all their rights, it is the pleasure of the Senate and People that after death they shall be punished in their bodies like other malefactors, but their souls shall be sent on earth to inhabit asses, until they have passed in that shape a quarter-million

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of years, generation after generation, bearing burdens under the tender mercies of the poor; after which they shall be permitted to die. (Menippus, p. 166)

Power is the real problem “which knows no barrier to injustice”, as Lucian claims in his work The Tyrannicide (Τυραννοκτόνος: Tyrannoktonos). In Saturnalia (Τὰ πρὸς Κρόνον: Ta pros Kronon), the god Saturn, who dominates the earth for only one week during his celebration, commands his priest to issue laws so that not only the rich can celebrate: Have equality for all, slaves and free, poor and rich. The wealthy pay the debts of their poor friends as well as rent, though some owe it and do not have to pay it. Generally, they should be interested in advance in learning what their primary needs are.

In Demonax (Δημώνακτος Βίος: D¯em¯onaktos Vios), dealing with the issue of law and describing the life of the cynical philosopher Demonax, whom he admired, Lucian states: “What do we need the laws for? The good ones don’t need them and the bad don’t get better with them”.

3

Philosophy

3.1

Neo-Sceptics

The Neo-Skeptical movement flourished in the Roman era, first with Aenesidemus, who was a former Academician who reacted to the growing dogmatism of his own school. After all, the purpose of skepticism is freedom from any mental disorder. So, the incentive to preserve freedom from dogmatic shackles became clearer than it was for Academy followers. The Pyrrhonian Skeptic is the researcher who does not claim to have found the truth, but who keeps on searching. The dogmatist, that is, the one who willingly argues that at least one proposition is true, is the opposite of the Skeptic. The Skeptic suspends his judgment (epoch¯e ) and waits for confirmation, which may never happen.

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References to the work of Aenesidemus can be found in the works by Photius (Myriobiblion, 212, 169–170) and by Diogenes Laertius (Lives, 9, 74–108). In Photius’ book there are ten modes or tropes that Aenesidemus uses to explain his philosophy. According to Photius, Aenesidemus in his fifth mode, describes the techniques applied by the observers to causality, claiming that nothing is the cause of anything and that those who believe in causality are mistaken. Moreover, he lists the ways in which he believes they were led to such an error. In the sixth mode, he deals with the notions of good and evil, and, of course, what one chooses and what one avoids, with the “advanced and the de-advanced”, reducing them to the level of jokes—as he considers them—and excluding any possibility of knowledge and understanding of them on our part. The opposition to causality but also the non-absoluteness of the terms good and evil is therefore one of the basic characteristics of Neo-Skeptical philosophy. As Diogenes Laertius also adds, anomaly and confusion are its key features: [78] Thus the Pyrrhonean principle, as Aenesidemus says in the introduction to his Pyrrhonics, is but a report on phenomena or on any kind of judgement, a report in which all things are brought to bear on one another, and in the comparison are found to present much anomaly and confusion.

Diogenes Laertius also mentions ten modes in which elements appear to be differentiated: [79] … The first mode relates to the differences between living creatures in respect of those things which give them pleasure or pain, or are useful or harmful to them. By this it is inferred that they do not receive the same impressions from the same things, with the result that such a conflict necessarily leads to suspension of judgement (epoch¯e). [83] The fifth mode is derived from customs, laws, belief in myths, compacts between nations and dogmatic assumptions. This class includes considerations with regard to things beautiful and ugly, true and false, good and bad, with regard to the gods, and with regard to the coming

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into being and the passing away of the world of phenomena. Obviously the same thing is regarded by some as just and by others as unjust, or as good by some and bad by others. Persians think it not unnatural for a man to marry his daughter; to Greeks it is unlawful. The Massagetae, according to Eudoxus in the first book of his Voyage round the World, have their wives in common; the Greeks have not. The Cilicians used to delight in piracy; not so the Greeks. [84] Different people believe in different gods; some in providence, others not. In burying their dead, the Egyptians embalm them; the Romans burn them; the Paeonians throw them into lakes. As to what is true, then, let suspension of judgement (epoch¯e) be our practice.

In the same work, Diogenes Laertius states that Agrippa’s school adds five more modes. Among them are: • The mode arising from disagreement proves, with regard to any inquiry whether in philosophy or in everyday life, that it is full of the utmost contentiousness and confusion. • [89] The mode derived from relativity declares that a thing can never be apprehended in and by itself, but only in connexion with something else. Hence all things are unknowable. • The mode resulting from hypothesis arises when people suppose that you must take the most elementary of things as of themselves entitled to credence, instead of postulating them: which is useless, because someone else will adopt the contrary hypothesis.

To conclude, the Neo-Pyrrhoneans: “[90] would deny all demonstration, criterion, sign, cause, motion, the process of learning, coming into being, or that there is anything good or bad by nature.

Almost a century later, Sextus Empiricus, another Neo-Skeptic philosopher, would leave the Outlines of Pyrrhonism (Πυῤῥώνειοι ὑποτυπώσεις: Pyrrh¯oneioi hypotyp¯oseis), an original work (among others) which consists of three chapters and which has been preserved. In this work he states exactly what the principles of skepticism are:

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[Chapter 6. Of the Principles of Skepticism] The originating cause of Skepticism is, we say, the hope of attaining quietude. Men of talent, who were perturbed by the contradictions in things and in doubt as to which of the alternatives they ought to accept, were led on to inquire what is true in things and what false, hoping by the settlement of the question to attain quietude. The main basic principle of the Sceptic system is that of opposing to every proposition an equal proposition; for we believe that as a consequence of this we end by ceasing to dogmatize.

However, he refers precisely to the majority’s view: In addition, one who claims that we must give our consent to the majority view suggests a childish solution, as long as no one can go and find all people and calculate what most people like, as it is possible for some peoples who we do not know that those that are rare to us are widespread, while those that happen to us often occur rarely.

But there is also a clearer reference in the work by Sextus Empiricus on the subject we are dealing with: The tenth Trope (Mode) is the one principally connected with 145 morals, relating to schools, customs, laws, mythical beliefs, and dogmatic opinions. … We place custom in opposition to other things, as for example to a law, when we say that among the Persians it is the custom to practice ἀρρενομιξίαι, but among the Romans it is forbidden by law to do it; by us adultery is forbidden, but among the Massagetae indifference in this respect is allowed by custom, as Eudoxos of Cnidus relates in the first part of his book of travels; among us it is forbidden μητράσι μίγνυσθαι, but among the Persians it is the custom by preference to marry so; the Egyptians marry sisters also, which among us is forbidden by law. (Patrick 1899)

After he has given several examples, Sextus Empiricus concludes: However, and because this way shows such a great deal of nonhomogeneity in things, we cannot say what the object is in its nature, except what kind it seems in relation to this education, this law, this

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custom and each of the rest. So we are forced, by this way, to suspend judgment about the nature of external things.

In the Third Chapter (Ethics) (168–97) of the same book, Sextus Empiricus tries to fight against the arguments that there is neither bad nor good by nature, because what some people consider bad, some other people consider good.

3.2

Lucretius

Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem De rerum natura, of 7,413 verses (of dactylic hexameter), a work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism. The survival of all the texts of the poem is a remarkable event, given the hostility of the Christian Church, which was the only means of transmission for Latin texts regarding Lucretius and Epicurus. De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) is a didactic poem by Lucretius written in the Latin language in 57 BC which refers in detail to the position of man vis-à-vis the universe without the influence of the gods. It consists of six untitled books, and the whole work, apart from poetic, philosophical, and scientific interest, is distinguished by the verbal richness, metaphors, and complex adjectives that he created, often complaining about the poverty of the Latin language. The main purpose of the work was to liberate the minds of the sons of Gaius Memius, who was a praetor in 58 BC and then commander of Bithynia, from the supernatural and from the fear of death and to introduce them to a state of restlessness (ataraxia) by developing the philosophical system of Epicurus, whom Lucretius praises as the hero of his epic poem. If we attempt to summarize in a simple form Lucretius’ logical argument, the basic position is found in his famous verse: Tantum réligio potuit suadere malorum (To such heights of evil are men driven by religion). The first book of De rerum natura deals extensively with Lucretius’ great model, Epicurus, and then develops the basic principle that nothing can be produced from nothing, and that nothing can be reduced

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to nothing (nil fieri ex nihilo, in nihilum nil posse reverti), and that destruction is only a change of form. He then proceeds to explain the atomic theory of matter, as the Epicureans understood it, referring to its duration and form. In his second book, Lucretius praises philosophy and puts forward the theory of the movement of parts (he does not use the word “atom”) and their “deviation” (clinamen), departing at this point from Democritus’ determinism, thus leaving room for the free will of humans. He then describes the shapes, composition, and properties of atoms which he claims to be colorless, odorless, insensible, and invisible. In the third book, he deals with explaining the nature of the soul. He thinks that it consists of two connected parts: the anima which is found throughout the human body and the animus or “mens”, which lies in the human chest and with which a human being thinks and feels. The soul is neither immaterial nor immortal. It couldn’t move the body unless it were physical. It grows up and ages with the body; thus soul and body live and perish together. It is affected by diseases as the body is; it is affected by drugs and even wine and, apparently, its atoms are scattered when the body dies. Paradise is here in the serene temples of the wise (sapientum templa serena). In the fourth book, Lucretius deals with issues linked to psychology and leads on to an explanation of erotic passion that Lucretius identifies as spurs from external stimuli that act more as a system that already suffers from some internal disorder. In the fifth book, Lucretius explains his theories of the world and the human being. In his view, the world is neither perfect nor eternal. It is not ruled by the gods who live in the intermudia (between) of the worlds. In the sixth book, he explains various natural phenomena: thunder, lightning, earthquakes, the volcano of Etna, and the flood of the Nile, and ends with an extensive description of the great pestilence that devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian War. Lucretius followed the atomic conceptions (those that recognized the atom as the basis of matter) of the ancient materialism founded by Leucippus and Democritus and continued by Epicurus. Lucretius’ philosophical poem On the Nature of Things is the most complete and systematic analysis of the ancient theory of atoms, because

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only excerpts from the writings of Leucippus and Democritus have survived, whereas from Epicurus’ legacy only three letters and various quotes have survived. The ancient Roman materialist sought to link philosophy with the vital problems of modern Roman society. He wanted to rid his contemporaries of the reactionary traditions that were obscuring their conscience and, in particular, of the coercion of religion which was distinguished for its strict dogmatism, its rude prejudices, and its deep hostility to scientific knowledge. Lucretius was fighting in the camp of the atheists. In his poem he wrote that religion has led humanity to the greatest misery, that it obscures the human mind, drives people into immoral acts and crimes, enslaves them, and humiliates them. In the struggle against religion, Lucretius systematically tried to establish the materialist conception of natural phenomena. In his teaching on nature, Lucretius, based on the fundamental positions of Epicurus, uses the vast amount of data of ancient science and adds his own original judgments and penetrating observations. The first position, which is the basis of the materialism of Lucretius, proclaims: nothing can ever be made out of nothing, by divine will. If things were born out of nothing, then all species that exist would not need seed to be born. Then people would be born out of water, fish from the soil, large and small animals would fall from the sky. Then on each tree would spring up all sorts of fruits. Lucretius did not use the term “atom” and replaced it with the expressions: “a key element of things”, “primary objects”, “parent bodies”, “seeds”, and the terms “elements” and “particles”. In his poem he wrote: I prove the supreme law of Gods and sky, And the primordial germs of things unfold, Whence Nature all creates, and multiplies And fosters all, and whither she resolves Each in the end when each is overthrown. This ultimate stock we have devised to name Procreant atoms, matter, seeds of things,

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Or primal bodies, as primal to the world. (De Rerum Natura, Book 1, 54–61)

For Lucretius, to explain all natural phenomena it is necessary to recognize the existence of atoms and the void: All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists Of twain of things: of bodies and of void In which they’re set, and where they’re moved around. (ibid., 419–21)

Lucretius approached Epicurus in his perception of the movement of atoms. He distinguished three kinds of movement in atoms: (1) the movement of the push; (2) downward linear movement due to weight; and (3) the spontaneous deviation (clinamen) of atoms from a straight vertical fall. Thinking about the deviation of atoms speaks to us of the spontaneous-dialectical character of both Lucretius and Epicurus’ views on the arbitrary movement of matter: In these affairs We wish thee also well aware of this: The atoms, as their own weight bears them down Plumb through the void, at scarce determined times, In scarce determined places, from their course Decline a little—call it, so to speak, Mere changed trend. For were it not their wont Thus wise to swerve, down would they fall, each one, Like drops of rain, through the unbottomed void; And then collisions ne’er could be nor blows Among the primal elements; and thus Nature would never have created aught. (ibid., Book II, 216–24)

Lucretius refuted the views of the proponents of the Atomic School who argued that collisions of atoms can be explained by the higher speed that heavier atoms have in a void. The formation of worlds can, in his view, be explained only by the divergence of atoms, determined by internal (spontaneous) causes.

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Thus, a dialectical conjecture emerges in Lucretius’ teaching, that motion is inseparably united with matter and is self-moving and that it takes place without any intervention of the gods. If we consider the gods as creators and guides of the world, Lucretius asks, then how can so much injustice, so much bitterness, suffering, and misery be explained? No, he concludes: But knew I never what The seeds primordial were, yet would I dare This to affirm, even from deep judgments based Upon the ways and conduct of the skies—This to maintain by many a fact besides—That in no wise the nature of all things For us was fashioned by a power divine. (ibid., Book V, 195–9)

Continuing the traditions of ancient materialism, Lucretius proved the general, eternal change of nature, affirming that there is an uninterrupted rearrangement and destruction of worlds, an eternal renewal of nature, which takes place with the birth of some phenomena and the death of others. Atoms, in their relentless movement through eternity, come to each other in innumerable combinations. From these combinations all natural phenomena are born. Lucretius considered incomprehensible the teaching on reincarnation and the immortality of the soul. The unbreakable connection of body, soul, and mind refutes the idea of the afterlife and reward after death. Lucretius was particularly vocal against the fear of death. Death is nothing. Death is not misery, but redemption from misery. After death we do not exist, and, therefore, there are no feelings or sensations. People’s fear of death stems from ignorance of the laws of nature. Following Epicurus, Lucretius criticized the idealistic philosophy of Plato concerning: the independent existence of the soul, apart from the body; the pre-existence of the soul and his theory of recollection; and the mystical doctrine of the “soul of the world”. Lucretius’ theory of knowledge is materialistic. It starts with the recognition that the perception of the senses offers knowledge of objective reality and that the properties of things exist objectively and not only in our consciousness. Lucretius taught that the action of atoms—of which external bodies are built on and which constitute the organs of the

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senses—produces feelings: indications that are generalized in the mind and provide the basis of knowledge. To explain natural phenomena, Lucretius applied Epicurus’ principle to a multitude of causes. According to this principle, identical phenomena can arise from a variety of causes. He believed, like Epicurus, that only natural and not supernatural phenomena should be calculated as causes. In Lucretius’ philosophical system, natural knowledge has an important place as the foundation of knowledge of nature. According to Marx, in Lucretius, who is the only one of the ancients who understood Epicurus’ physics, we find the most profound interpretation of the issue (Marx 1902). Lucretius developed materialist philosophy in a fearless struggle against all forms of idealism: against Plato’s teaching on the immortality of the soul, against Aristotle’s teaching on the “intentional cause”, against the Pythagorean teaching on reincarnation. Lucretius fought with particular force against the religious-idealistic teaching of the Stoics about the god, creator, master, and forerunner of the world, against the teaching that order and beauty in the world come from god. In the arbitrariness of the deity, Lucretius opposes the immutable laws of nature (foedera naturae), proving that all is created by nature itself, without any superior help. And society, according to Lucretius, obeys such immutable laws, otherwise the human race would disappear. Lucretius also showed his preference for the democratic form of the slave state and considered the authority elected by the people as a more progressive form of government than the power of kings. He hates greed for money, the “blind thirst for glory”. He treats with contempt the honors which excited the Roman Empire: the hunt for riches that characterized the moneyed aristocracy, and he stigmatized luxury and excessive wealth accumulation. Following Epicurus, Lucretius saw the purpose of life as happiness, which is achieved by an undisturbed peace of mind. For this tranquility it is necessary to lack misery and have redemption from all unrest and fear. In the conditions of ancient Rome, Lucretius’ materialistic system was a supreme success of the philosophical thought of the ancient world, the

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most advanced materialistic teaching, imbued with the dialectical ideas of a general, eternal change of nature, of evolution and renewal, of the formation and extinction of the worlds, and so on.

References Chambry, E. (1925–26). Aesopi fabulae, 2 vol. Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Available at https://archive.org/details/EsopeFablesEmileChambry/page/ n59/mode/2up. De Ste Croix, G. E. M. (1981). The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World . London: Duckworth. Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers: Pyrrho. Available at www.per seus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Ab ook%3D9%3Achapter%3D11. Dion of Prusa or Dio Cocceianus, VII The Euboean Discourse, or the Hunter. Available at: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/ Texts/Dio_Chrysostom/Discourses/7*.html. Dodds, E. R. (1965). Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lucian of Samosata. (1905). The Works of Lucian of Samosata. Trans. by H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler, 4 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Available at https://ia802707.us.archive.org/35/items/worksoflucianofs01luci/workso flucianofs01luci.pdf. Lucian of Samosata. Phalaris. Available at http://lucianofsamosata.info/wiki/ doku.php?id=home:texts_and_library:essays:phalaris-i. Lucian of Samosata. Zeus Tragoedus. Available at www.sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/ wl3/wl307.htm. Lucian of Samosata. The Double Indictment. Available at www.sacred-texts.com/ cla/luc/wl3/wl310.htm. Lucian of Samosata. The Parasite. Available at https://www.sacred-texts.com/ cla/luc/wl3/wl311.htm. Lucian of Samosata. Slander: A Warning. Available at https://www.sacred-texts. com/cla/luc/wl4/wl402.htm. Lucian of Samosata. Menippus. Available at https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/ luc/wl1/wl176.htm.

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Lucretius. De Rerum Natura, Book I. Available at http://www.perseus. tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0131%3Abook% 3D1%3Acard%3D50. Lucretius. De Rerum Natura, Book II. Available at http://www.perseus. tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0131%3Abook% 3D2%3Acard%3D216. Lucretius. De Rerum Natura, Book V. Available at http://www.perseus. tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0131%3Abook% 3D5%3Acard%3D195. Marx, K. (1902). The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. Marx-Engels Collected Works Volume 1, Progress Publishers. Available at https://marxists.catbull.com/archive/marx/works/ 1841/dr-theses/index.htm. Patrick, M. M. (1899). Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism. Available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/17556/17556-h/17556-h.htm. Sextus Empiricus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Available at http://people.uvawise. edu/philosophy/phil205/Sextus.html.

5 The Early Christian Movement

Early Christianity is a component of ancient history and late antiquity. It was a social movement that had a specific morality and politics, initially not as a closed or homogeneous system, but, in many points until its institutionalization, it was conversing with corresponding philosophical movements of the time. For example, Celsus finds of Christian morality that “it contains no new or impressive teaching”. The advice to turn the other cheek is old and better expressed by Plato. But Origen, for his part, does not deny this: the difference, he says, is that Christian preachers “cook for the crowd”, while Plato seasoned the same dish for good society (Origen, Against Celcus, 1.4 * 7.58–9, in Dodds 1965). Dodds (1965) writes that Christianity, like communism, disturbed the family peace. Lucian presents Peregrinus’ life, analyzing Christian asceticism and lifestyle as having much in common with the corresponding cynicism of Peregrinus, a person who was hostile to power but was recognized as a transient leader of a Christian community. Moreover, Dodds refers to Christian politics and, especially, to the prediction in the sacred books of Christianity of a swift end to the Roman Empire and its replacement by the authority of the God of the Christians on earth. The refusal of the Christians to fire a little incense on the emperor’s birthday © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4_5

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had been regarded by the average gentile as a deliberate and impudent expression of disobedience to the laws. Celsus says that the Christians neglected their civic duty by refusing to serve in the army or in the civil service, while at the same time they developed a community of alternative solidarity and offered support to outcasts and the inferior and proletarianized middle class at a time when life on earth was losing more and more its value, and there was no welfare state. Lucian refers to the cases of material assistance to those in difficulty, or to prisoners, widows, orphans, the elderly, the unemployed, and the disabled. It is worth reminding ourselves that Engels considered The Revelation of John to give an authentic picture of early Christianity as a great revolutionary movement created by the masses, whereas he mentions that the first Christian communities looked like local offices of the International Workers’ Union (Marx and Engels 1957, p. 183). In a subsequent article, Engels states that the history of early Christianity has remarkably similar points to the modern working-class movement. Like this, Christianity was at first a movement of the oppressed. Both Christianity and workers’ socialism preach a future redemption as a life after death in heaven. Socialism places it in this world, by transforming society. And despite all the persecutions centered on them, both are proceeding relentlessly. Three centuries after its birth, Christianity was recognized as the state religion of the Roman Empire, and in just 60 years, socialism gained a position that made its victory certain. But let’s take a closer look at the extracts that “answer” the subject we are studying. We are using the texts of the New Testament which was written by many authors over a period of about 50 years. Christians gradually assembled these texts into one body, to enhance the work of spreading the message to the world. In addition, with this work they wanted to transmit to the next generations the information about what they saw and heard without alterations. Most of the books of the New Testament were originally written in Greek (except for St Matthew’s Gospel that was written in Aramaic though the Greek version is preserved). The New Testament was based on books that were widely accepted and useful for reading in local churches.

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The New Testament consists of four different kinds of books: • The four Gospels, which give information about Jesus’ teaching but little information about his life. It is believed that they were written by four faithful Christians: eyewitnesses of Jesus’ earthly life, Matthew and John, and the hearsay eyewitnesses of his disciples, Mark and Luke. These books were written between 60 and 110 AD. • The Acts of the Apostles: After Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the faithful united and created the “church”, as an organized community of believers. The early history of the Church and its Apostles is described in the book Acts of the Apostles written by the Evangelist Luke. This book is divided into two main sections: the Acts of Peter and the Acts of Paul. • The Letters (or the Epistles): Of the 27 books of the New Testament, 21 are in the form of letters (epistles), 14 of which were written by the Apostle Paul. Through them, he addressed the faithful by teaching the word of Jesus, giving solutions to local church problems, and advising them on how to live a Christian life. • The Revelation: This eschatological book is known as the Revelation of John because of the belief that it was written by the Evangelist John. Its content encourages Christians to keep their faith in spite of the difficulties they encounter, while at the same time it gives a message of hope. Starting from the Gospels, we can see common events being recorded with a clear political and social perspective (all the following passages are from the authorized King James version 1991). In the Gospel of Mark (10.17–10.25) we have a well-known parable whose message will be seen in other Christian texts: 17. And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him. Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? 18. And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

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19. Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother. 20. And he answered and said unto him, Master all these have I observed from my youth. 21. Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shall have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow me. 22. And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions. 23. And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God! 24. And the disciples were astonished at his words, But Jesus answered again, and saith unto them, Children how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God. 25. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

In the same Gospel, there is a famous incident in the temple in Jerusalem, where Jesus calls the traders “a den of thieves” (11.15–11.17): 15. And they came to Jerusalem; and Jesus went into the temple, and began to cast out them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves; 16. And would not suffer that any man should carry any vessel through the temple. 17. And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? But ye have made it a den of thieves.

Negative qualifications for the plutocratic class of the time are found in the other Gospels. In the Gospel of Luke (6.20–6.21 and 6.24–6.25), there are the following instructions by Christ to his disciples: 20. And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, blessed be ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of God.

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21. Blessed are ye that hunger now; for ye shall be filled; Blessed are ye weep now; for ye shall laugh. … 24. But woe unto you that are rich for ye have received your consolation. 25. Woe unto you that are full for ye shall hunger; Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep.

In the Gospel of Matthew Christ says that a believer cannot serve “mammon” (the god of money) (6.24) 24. No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

In the same Gospel, Christ mentions something very important about the radical and subversive nature of Christianity at that time (10.34): 34. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

But in the other sacred texts of the New Testament we find similar quotations. The Acts of the Apostles in 4.32–4.35 and 5.1–5.10 describe in detail an important element of the early Christian communities but also the punishment for those who do not abide by the established rule: the sharing of goods and wealth (and lying about transactions made): [4] 32. And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. 33. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. 34. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold. 35. And laid them down at the apostles’ feet; and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. …

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[5] 1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira, his wife, sold a possession. 2. And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. 3. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back part of the price of the land? 4. Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. 5. And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost; and great fear came on all them that heard these things. 6. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. 7. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. 8. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea for so much. 9. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. 10. Then fell she down straightway at his feet and yielded up the ghost; and the young men came in, and found her dead, and carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.

Both the Apostle Paul’s letters and St James’ First Catholic Letter (or Epistle) are sacred texts and an integral part of the New Testament. In these letters there are corresponding quotes both about elements of the early Christian communities and Christians’ attitude towards the class of the rich of those days, who did not observe any law, did injustice (towards the working class), and committed even crime against just people. The following quotations (2.1–2.10 and 5.1–5.6) are from St James’ First Catholic Epistle: [2] 1. My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory with respect of persons.

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2. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; 3. And you have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool. 4. Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? 5. Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? 6. But you have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgement seats? 7. Do not they blaspheme that worth name (being a CHRISTIAN) by the which ye are called? 8. If you fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ye do well. 9. But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. [5] 1. Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl! For your miseries that shall come upon you. 2. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. 3. Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. You have heaped treasure together for the last days. 4. Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth; 5. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 6. Ye have condemned and killed the just, and he doth not resist you.

There are similar references in the Apostle Paul’s First Epistle to Timothy; that is, the love of money and the accumulation of wealth is a great evil (6.9–6.10):

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9. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Moreover, in three Epistles—Galatians, 1 Corinthians, and Romans— the Apostle Paul describes the Christians’ attitude towards the secular justice of the time and the need to fight it in practice. He writes to the Galatians (2.16–2.21): 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. 17. But, if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbids. 18. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor (that is, If I go back to the formalities of the law, which I abandoned, I present myself as a transgressor because I abandoned them). 19. For I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God. 20. I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21. I do not frustrate the grace of God; for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

And some paragraphs later, Paul continues on the relative value of the law (3.11–3.25): 11. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident; for The just shall live by faith. 12. And the law is not of faith; but, The man that doeth them shall live in them.

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13. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree. 14. That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 15. Brethren, I speak after the manner of men; Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth, or addeth, thereto. 16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not. And to seeds, as of many; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ. 17. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect. 18. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise. … 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. 20. Now a mediator is not a mediator of one; but God is one. 21. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid; for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. 22. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. 23. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed. 24. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under the schoolmaster.

In the First Epistle to the Corinthians, Paul urges Christians not to go to the court (6.5–6.7): 5. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between the brethren? 6. But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers?

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7. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul states that secular courts should (not) have authority over Christians, and that he has a surprisingly radical view of crime and law: “where there is no law, there is no transgression” (4.15 and 7.1–7.7): [4] 15. Because the law works wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression. [7] 1. Know you not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law), how the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2. For the woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3. So then, if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be an adulteress; but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that you should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5. For when we were in flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. 7. What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbids. Nay. I had not known sin, but by the law for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shall not covet.

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The Revelation of St John is the most materialistic text of the New Testament. There is no longer a proper description, but what will happen at the Second Coming. The punishing god is the righteous god who will deliver justice, just as the white knight judges and fights in righteousness, wiping out sovereigns, kings, the rich, the powerful, merchants, and the mighty of this earth (6.14–6.17, 18.8–17, 18.23): [6] 14. And the heaven departed as the scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. 15. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; 16. And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17. For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand? [18] 8. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day death, and mourning, and famine and she shall be utterly burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. 9. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. 10. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgement come. 11. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more. 12. The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble.

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13. And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. 14. And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things, which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. 15. The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing. 16. And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 17. For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster and all the company in ships, and sailors and as many as trade by sea shall stand afar off … 23. And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived.

References Dodds, E. R. (1965). Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1957). On Religion. Moscow: Progress.

6 The Logic of the (Pre)history of Radical Criminology and Its Future

What is the meaning of this long journey we have made in the present volume and the previous one? What is the message conveyed through these centuries of human history to today’s scientists who are dealing with the criminal phenomenon? Braudel (1993) wrote that there is no civilization nowadays that can be truly understood if it is not known which paths it took, the old values it believed in, the experiences it lived. Every civilization is a past that is still alive. Consequently, the history of a civilization is the search among the old coordinates of all that which is still effective today, all those elements thanks to which the past comes and intersects the present. In our present endeavor, we have attempted to present a social history in process, giving emphasis, however, on written evidence that was a “turning point” and on texts that hold a special place in the history of the civilizations we have studied. This “special” was the written evidence of our qualitative social research. Nevertheless, in the present book I have aimed to fulfill two other objectives besides the function of being a “revealing reading lens” of today: the perspective and the recording of a logic of history. It is unfortunately understandable that the objective appearance of modern production relations has led many modern criminologists to think that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4_6

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they are captive to managerial criminology as an eternal, unchanging, and only-possible scientific truth. Consequently, scientists of the criminal phenomenon operate almost exclusively as interpreters and apologists of the status quo. This market of scientific consciousness leads them to present the interpretations of the criminal phenomenon using tools such as incoherence, fragmentation, and the disintegration of a system. But the written evidence presented in this book shows another way of analysis. Even in a socio-economic system seemingly as absolute and strict as slave ownership, material conditions have been created for society’s transition to another way of production, carrying away in turn forms of social consciousness. Our history has shown that no empire has survived forever. Perspective is change, and critical thinking about the criminal phenomenon is one of the “apostles” of this change. But it is also something more. This book, like the previous one of which it is a sequel, is entitled “origins of radical criminology”. With the word “origins” we also denote the “principle”, which precedes the process of creating the object of radical criminology, but at the same time is part of it, as it constitutes all the necessary and capable historical conditions for the primary appearance of this object. And this implies that through radical forensic analysis of the written evidence of a slave-owning society, we can reveal an internal systematic interrelationship between laws and categories of this form of social theory. This (pre)history of radical criminology is not a revealing field of action of chance and voluntary arbitrariness, but the past, the present, and the prospects of development that constitute a single process of causality. When modern scientists of the criminal phenomenon give up the investigation of these social causalities and reject historical causality, then they are organically connected with the social attitude of those who consider the respective socio-economic status as insurmountable. On the other hand, the scientific diagnosis of social causality must be linked with a critical attitude towards the existing status quo and its forms of awareness. So, the “principle” itself ought to be—and is not under certain conditions—part of the process of radical criminology. Such a diagnosis is not superficial similarity but: an innermost reciprocity; unity within difference; unity through multiplicity and internal interconnectedness of contradictory processes; and

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involves sources such as the Homeric works, Hesiod’s works, militant lyric poetry and rhetoric, Ancient Greek theater, ancient philosophy, the principles of utopias, literature, and the New Testament, in relation to modern radical forensic thought. And all this in a functional unity with the present that is related to the awe-inspiring rival of modern managerial criminology and the future. Radical criminology does not please the political and administrative elite. And for that there is a cost. It does not reproduce established knowledge, the hegemonic, the ephemeral, the present. An “honest” radical criminology challenges the dominant scientific paradigms, conceptual categories, and methods of research; and it does not follow that these latter are “fashionable”. Radical criminology recognizes its great “enemies” and tries to deconstruct them. Such is the extreme positivism, the determinism, the reification, the supposed “neutrality” of science, and the refusal of politics to enter science, when it claims a new social structure that can be characterized by opponents as romantic, utopian, and politically irresponsible; yet history has shown that it is not only desirable but also a conclusive necessity. It is a science with theory and research that ought to become the driving force of history, so as to be clear when redrafting the scientific and political agenda for the benefit of popular needs and as a guide for revolutionary action. Modern administrative criminology—which is based on the positivist conception of scientific explanation—does not tolerate, but rather fights—using any means (which are generously offered) including even exclusions and prohibitions—any criminological thought that does not follow its “conventions”; this very hegemonic, dominant paradigm that follows Newtonian logic is a scientific “zombie”. It is dead, but it doesn’t know it, and it continues to work in the only way it can. It attacks every living organism in our space to eliminate it, seeking a scientific community of similar “zombies” that will live forever, reproducing themselves. Without the risk of another species being born, living, being corrected, evolving, and eventually dying, after which it will have first been able to produce offsprings that will not be like their ancestors. Great theories are dead. Those who follow them, these old-fashioned believers should not be deceiving. They are not even scientists; they pretend to be. And how can they be when what they do is to judge

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while at the same time, they believe that there is no evaluative neutrality in science and the techniques of our research work. So, in essence, they are exercising politics; they are not doing science. This is what they shout who willingly do business as usual, as a cog in a well-tuned– machine; a machine that they think can make accurate predictions about the future, for the movements of “bodies” of criminals, in accordance with Newtonian physics. These movements are influenced by “forces” that we will find by analogy in nature, in biology; forces that we can now name, creating new concepts that describe movement or its prevention, in formalist psychology, in functionalist sociology, in the conformity of capitalist ethics, in benefit and cost, or a combination of some or all of the above which then become a transcendental faith. And they think that this constant movement of the machine—of which they are the cogs (some believe that they themselves control the machine)— which is constantly producing, is not self-referential. They can’t even see that the same thing is constantly being produced only with a changed wrapper. Is it, after all, the movement of inertia that leads to the “stability” and “surety” of the view which they reproduce as a faith? The “stable” and “sure” of the static and unchanging structure of space–time? Their “evaluatively neutral” research leads to criminal policy measures with the primary, as expressed, goal to eliminate crime. But why does crime stubbornly refuse to consent to the goal and isn’t eliminated? Never has an “applied science” had such a failure rate. And instead of “impartial” scientists being led to reflection and being forced to rethink their basic primary view and fix it—the machine itself—the solution they propose is to continue their business as usual. This is the definition of stupidity. They do the same; they expect another result, but, eventually, they only produce another “crime” (new concepts that correspond to new “realities” that need future “criminalization” and thus new research into criminal policy proposals). And that is the definition of parasitic activity as an administrative criminology as business. But let’s look more carefully at the “constant” of the static and unchanging structure of space–time. Even before the advent of quantum theory, spatiotemporal anomalies were known in the world of natural sciences. The curvature of space–time increases indefinitely in black holes. One would expect (as one claims for one’s science) that one would

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deal with “anomalies”, peculiarities, the “irregular”, and not question natural laws. But alas! When one sees that one is preparing to fall into a black hole, one simply looks for reasons to legitimize one’s inability to change position. One can’t talk about the dynamic evolution of worlds, can’t change one’s “safe” predictions with “I can’t know” (who would hire a person to say that?). Then, instead of the phenomenon, one says that one studies the individual—the criminal, or alternatively the victim. Then the human being becomes the target of administrative criminology, a human being who should have nothing human about him or her, because he or she should be outside of society, a “disease”, a “cancerous sore” that needs to be corrected or cut out: a person, like an atom in physics, a particle with a predictable motion. And that’s where Young’s double-slit experiment comes in, and shows you that a particle, like a photon, behaves not only as a particle but also as a wave. And so, you can’t predict its future movement with the laws that you have known until today. The worst, however, is the continuation of this discovery that gave birth to a very fruitful discussion of the Copenhagen School: the role of observer. The observer of the double-slit experiment will judge whether the photon will behave as a particle or as a wave. Should the faithful followers of positivist criminology ask themselves the same question that their forefathers, natural scientists, raised many decades ago? In quantum mechanics almost everything depends on the interpretive and philosophical principles that will be adopted. But imagine a “modern” administrative criminology being made to admit that due to the fact that a phenomenon cannot be determined with absolute precision, it would not be right to draw a future conclusion from it, because, otherwise, it would lead to inaccurate knowledge. And even worse, that I, the “administrative criminologist”, a researcher as a recorder of the phenomenon, would determine how I would present it to you; I would determine what feature you would see as a corresponding audience that is eagerly awaiting my applied research. If a modern “administrative criminologist” were honest from the point of view of the science that he or she follows, he or she should be frank and outspoken: “The product I’m selling you is uncertainty and biased. The phenomenon I am studying is binary. But because I am who I am, I observe and present to you only one point

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of view”. (Do not blame them all. Some, simply, think that the “visible spectrum” they can see is the only thing that exists, while science has shown that it is only a very small part of the existing electromagnetic spectrum that includes radiowaves, microwaves, infrared and ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and Y-rays). Quantum theory reaches the point where it raises specific epistemological questions. Are there entities regardless of researchers’ observations? If so, is it possible for us to understand them with images or symbols that correspond to their true nature? Can the “laws” of science remain in the form of cause and effect? Those modern physicists who are not driven to answer “no” to all three questions are looking for “hidden” factors that they have not discovered yet. Just as “God cannot play dice”, according to Einstein’s famous saying, so a criminologist who wants to be useful in the administration must not play dice either. But then his or her scientific weakness—or rather his or her inability to adopt the advancements of the science that he or she follows—reveals that behind thunderous words such as reliability, validity, neutrality, there is nothing but blind and insurmountable faith. Faith in the now, faith in the strong, the dominant, the patron, faith in conservatism. Faith in what it refuses to change, faith in an idealism that is skillfully hidden but is clearly revealed when the scientist denies the movement of his or her own science. When administrative criminology studies phenomena from a world outside of its observer, a world that does not really exist because it does not evolve, a world that no longer exists, then criminology is already dead. For one who advocates that the way to explain human behavior, that a social phenomenon is determined (and therefore limited) in the same way of explaining natural phenomena, the answer to the above question is “nothing”. For the time being, there can be nothing else—string theory remains ambiguous and problematic in its proof. But for the current of “anti-positivism” that has existed in the social sciences for centuries, the answer to this question concerns a whole social world of phenomena that we must understand; among them is the criminal one. A key feature of anti-positivism is that the social world and its phenomena cannot be only two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or even four-dimensional (as in quantum theory). Rather they are multidimensional.

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This is the admittedly not-easy-to-digest analysis of crime in the Marxist oeuvre. It is the moral degradation of the lumpen proletariat, yet also a primitive rebellion; it is the main mechanism to criminalize, as described in the article on the wood of the Rhine; it is its utility for capitalist production, and all this together in the light of the fact that the capitalist system itself is both criminogenic and criminal. Such a multi-layered analysis cannot be understood by the consciousness of two-dimensional—that is, flat—scholars who can only think in terms of cause and effect. The above perspectives have been recorded in different scientific “discourses” by the same author but not in any specific one. They are part of a whole and not just pieces that can independently guide current and future studies. And this is the key to an additional dimension of the scientific work that follows this “anti-positivistic” perspective: the complementarity and dialectical co-formation of the whole, as part of a dynamic process. In this dialectical part of the whole, the interpretive is included. The phenomenon brings meaning to that which frames it. Meaning for the subject itself but also meaning that affects the meaning of the whole (meaning in the square), the whole is determined by corresponding images from the past, the present, and the future. Ideas, prejudices are closely linked to its perception and interpretation and are its requirements. Thus, more broadly, the representations of the phenomenon, the abstract extension of the existing situation, as Marx wrote in the Introduction to the Philosophy of Law, should be recorded and subjected to the rigor of scientific criticism. But scientific criticism itself (the meaning in the cube) as exercised by the scientist of the criminal phenomenon does not take place on a tabula rasa, but within the context of an already semantically formed—and/or under construction—social reality. So, criticism must be, in another dimension, self-criticism, a critique of criticism, a scientific reflection. And, at the same time, the process through which a dialogic process must take place—the dialectical relationship—is with the main feature of dynamic evolution and, therefore, the opposition to the static, the finite, the ephemeral. A precondition for this is the exercise of non-finite suspicion as an integral part of researchers’ work in the criminal phenomenon.

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Consequently, when some people exercise control to the point of scientific suspicion that a scholar must exercise, it is because they either consciously perform a function of conservatism and reproduce the status quo, or unconsciously because at their mental level the scholar is not “visible”, he or she “does not exist”, just as the three-dimensional being is not visible to a two-dimensional one. Understanding of meanings in all the above dimensions, at the same time, should involve dialectical discussion with institutions, structures, and social forces that seemingly have exceeded the framework of meaning and have acquired the character of an entity, both transcendental and with specific material consequences, effects, limitations, exclusions; and all this with emphasis on their dynamic dimension. In this case, we must include “discourses” that have become “contracts”, which are considered prerequisites for us to be able to exist and operate in the present. For example, criminology—as well as politics—tends to turn into a discussion of a “technical character”, and this has direct material consequences for “anti-positivistic” scholars of the criminal phenomenon, from their inability to produce publications (reproduction of their work) to their inability to perform primary studies from the beginning due to the fact that there are no resources, up until their losing their job due to controls and established procedures (e.g. flexible and precarious work) in their specific labor market. Classes continue to exist in relation to the means of production, different material interests continue to exist, conflict continues to exist between them, and “consensus” is produced only as an ideological mechanism, as an attempt to deceive and which seeks to lead to a constructed meaning that is in contrast with the existing materially experienced reality so that the former prevails over the latter. This “lie” must be deconstructed, and this is a very important part of an “anti-positivist” criminologist’s toil. This is exactly where our “real” and “final” work is included. If people really understood the system in which we live, if they became aware of who they really are and not who they think (either by coercion or by “consent”) they are, then they would not accept the system and claim radical social change. Within this context, the covert and overt procedures of criminalization and decriminalization, penalization and depenalization, problematization and deproblematization, and so on by official and unofficial

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bodies/agencies, should be highlighted, imprinted, and critically deconstructed; they should be linked to the material dimensions and corresponding interests, and this whole process should be communicated to wider populations. At the same time, this whole dimension must be “seen” through its dynamic rather than its static perspective. An evolving society has in it the seeds of its destruction and, therefore, it must be thoroughly ascertained that the above processes are produced as an imposition not only from the top down but also dialectically. Then, there is room for an “applied” “anti-positivist” criminological act as a step to social change, which should definitely reach the root of the issue and not remain meteoric. The social act aiming at radical change is a multifaceted and multidimensional struggle. And this through and against the material conditions of existence and structured and meaningful frameworks of domination, power, hegemony. And within and against the systems of creating and reproducing knowledge and specialized knowledge of the same “scientific space”, the process of producing “our truth” must be deconstructed and highlighted exactly for what it is: playful production systems of “discourses” that satisfy specific material interests falsely meaningful as such. Let us understand that knowledge is neither an independent means of production nor is it entirely deterministic. Our own very logos (λ´oγ oς, in Greek)1 is discipline and control, and, at the same time, there are undisciplined producers who are threatened, restricted, excluded, but have the opportunity to produce against the dominant scientific “habitus”, when they dare to take a stand. And this very possibility is the hope, a heart that continues to beat, the living in a “zombie” community, the seed of transcendence. It is an unfinished process that should not be limited even by ourselves, so it should go hand in hand with selfcriticism, reflection, and deconstruction of any authority, even if this is our own image in the mirror.

Note 1. Logos is a polysemous Ancient Greek word denoting: “word”, “speech”, “discourse”, “account”, “reason”, “proportion”, depending on the context.

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Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Heraclitus, the Sophists, and Aristotle, used the term in different ways. On the one hand, Heraclitus used it to denote “a principle of order and knowledge” (whose “reasoning” is the thread knitting together order and knowledge). On the other hand, the Sophists used the term to mean “discourse”. Finally, Aristotle refers to logos primarily in two different ways: (1) as “reasoned discourse”; and (2) as “the argument”, a term that is used primarily in rhetoric, and claims that logos is one of the three modes of persuasion, together with ethos and pathos.

Reference Braudel, F. (1993). Grammaire des Civilisations. Paris: Flammarion.

Index

A

ag¯on 10 anarchy 20, 29 andreia 10 Athens 1, 10, 11, 13–15, 19–22, 24, 26, 34, 39, 40, 43, 46, 47, 49, 51, 83, 105, 106, 120, 121, 125, 129, 134, 136, 140, 144, 147, 148, 155, 165 atom 127, 129, 165, 166, 189 autonomy 50, 76, 82, 90, 91, 93, 96, 128

B

Boul¯e 12, 13, 16, 17, 22, 23, 51, 82

citizen 1–4, 9–14, 16, 20, 21, 24, 48, 52, 57–59, 75–77, 82–84, 86–88, 90, 92, 102, 118, 122, 131, 140, 147 civilization 2, 10, 50, 78, 103, 104, 109, 121–123, 141, 185 class 5–7, 9, 11–13, 15, 19–21, 25, 26, 61, 62, 70, 77, 90, 92, 93, 95, 106, 107, 115, 119, 140–143, 154, 161, 174, 176, 178, 192 comedy 4, 18, 24, 26, 108, 112, 113, 118, 156 community 7, 14, 70, 71, 75, 107, 117, 135, 173–175, 177, 178, 187, 193 concept 1, 10, 23, 36, 40, 42, 71, 76, 80, 82, 124–128, 132, 188

C

causality 7, 124, 128, 161, 186 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 S. Georgoulas, The Origins of Radical Criminology, Volume II, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67638-4

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196

Index

conflict 1–3, 5, 10, 15, 18, 19, 22, 26, 27, 30, 50, 70, 85, 90, 139, 161, 192 crime 1, 6, 7, 15, 22, 23, 38, 40, 41, 52, 58, 69, 88, 108, 116, 118, 141, 157, 166, 178, 182, 188, 191 culture 6, 10, 75, 76, 80, 81, 100, 101, 103, 109, 114, 117, 143 D

democracy 1–3, 9–13, 15–18, 20–23, 26, 34, 43, 44, 46, 51, 52, 55, 56, 58, 64, 66, 80, 82, 84, 91, 108, 119, 121, 131 demos 12, 24, 26, 89 destiny 125, 129–131, 159 determinism 71, 128, 129, 165, 187 deviation 165, 167 dik¯e 10 discrimination 6, 115, 116, 120, 122, 142 drama 24, 34, 35, 40, 49

114–116, 122, 124, 127, 128, 130, 141, 160 G

greed 54, 55, 116, 118, 132, 153, 169 H

harm 31, 53, 54, 88, 124, 151 hoplite 14 I

ideocracy 3, 70 immoral 120, 166 injustice 6, 56, 58, 107, 116, 130, 134, 150, 152, 158–160, 168, 178 isegoria 10, 13, 21 isokratia 1, 10 isonomia 1, 10, 13, 21 isotimia 10, 13 J

E

economy 14, 17, 18, 78, 81, 85, 86 equality 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 13, 21, 35, 37, 52, 58, 59, 62, 71, 76, 92, 94, 97, 115–117, 119, 131, 159, 160 er¯os 10 excellence 10, 52, 54, 60, 63, 126

justice 2, 3, 5, 16, 17, 21–23, 31, 35, 36, 47, 50, 52, 54–56, 58, 61, 62, 71, 89, 90, 97, 118, 131, 132, 134, 135, 154, 157, 158, 180, 183 K

kállos 10 F

fate 2, 5, 25, 129, 130 freedom 5, 10, 13, 14, 20, 26, 51, 66, 96, 97, 106, 108,

L

language 35, 63, 75, 89, 108, 131, 136, 143–146, 164

Index

literature 3, 4, 6, 99–101, 105–108, 118, 119, 145, 148, 155, 187 liturgies 13, 14, 83 logos 62, 99, 193, 194

M

material 7, 48, 60, 61, 70, 79, 81, 86, 103, 105, 106, 108, 127, 141, 149, 174, 186, 192, 193 materialism 81, 165, 166, 168 metic 14, 20 métro 10 moral 4, 7, 27, 30, 31, 34, 39, 48, 71, 79, 81, 99, 104, 112, 118, 119, 122, 130, 132, 141, 150, 191 morality 60, 102, 130, 173 myth 33, 34, 41, 82, 100, 114, 161 mythical 40, 42, 43, 48, 92, 145, 163

N

natural 2, 4, 5, 14, 15, 20, 25, 45–47, 70, 71, 85, 86, 92, 103, 111, 116, 118, 123–127, 129, 131, 134, 136, 157, 165–169, 188–190 nature 3–5, 7, 18, 25, 35, 46, 47, 49, 50, 52–55, 57, 60–63, 66, 75, 84, 102, 105, 107, 109, 114–118, 122, 123, 125–127, 129, 130, 134, 136, 148, 150, 162–166, 168–170, 177, 188, 190 nómos 10

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O

oligarchy 10, 16, 20, 44, 58, 59, 93, 118, 121

P

paideia 10 patris 10 philology 100 philosophy 1, 3–5, 7, 8, 46, 47, 51, 58, 60, 62, 69, 70, 75, 76, 89, 100, 101, 104, 107, 108, 118, 122–126, 128–134, 145–148, 156, 161, 162, 164–166, 168, 169, 187 plutocracy 10 poet 3, 33, 34, 38, 39, 41–43, 47, 50, 100, 106, 108, 109, 145, 164 polis 70, 77, 89 polit¯es 10 politics 4, 10, 11, 13, 60, 61, 66, 76, 125, 132, 173, 187, 188, 192 poverty 5, 6, 18, 19, 56, 86–88, 90, 91, 93, 103, 120, 122, 123, 140, 152, 157, 164 power 1, 2, 4, 5, 10–12, 15–17, 20–22, 24, 25, 27, 29–31, 33–35, 39, 42, 47, 48, 50, 51, 54–57, 59–61, 64, 66, 76, 77, 83, 84, 88, 89, 91, 93, 95, 98, 101, 116, 117, 125, 128–130, 134, 139, 141, 150, 152, 154–156, 158–160, 169, 173, 177, 193 profit 17, 19, 40, 79, 86, 88, 134

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Index

R

reason 3, 13, 25, 26, 47, 49, 55, 56, 59, 61, 62, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 98–100, 103–105, 111, 113, 118, 119, 129, 130, 149, 157, 189, 193 reform 4, 15, 17, 22, 92–94, 99, 123, 132 religion 4, 8, 10, 58, 76, 79–81, 126, 143, 146, 152, 164, 166, 174 republic 139 revolution 3, 5, 6, 20, 24, 27, 90, 94–97, 105, 107, 114, 132 rhetoric 24, 51, 52, 100, 144–146, 155, 187, 194

syncretism 4, 76, 80, 81, 143

T

theorica 26 thetes 11, 12 tradition 4, 7, 42, 47, 50, 63, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 100, 105–108, 118–122, 131, 136, 145, 150, 166, 168 truth 5, 20, 51, 53, 82, 118, 122, 126, 129, 133, 134, 137, 142, 157, 160, 186, 193 Tych¯e 50, 101 Tych¯e 143 tyranny 10, 16, 23, 35, 54, 66, 90, 116, 117, 132

S

sacred 17, 45, 142, 150, 173, 177, 178 science 3, 45, 46, 61, 62, 100, 103–105, 124, 134, 166, 187–190 senses 4, 5, 30, 61, 69, 71, 83–85, 102, 103, 126, 128, 168, 169 skill 55 state 3, 7, 11–13, 15–17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27, 30, 38, 39, 43, 49, 52, 55–59, 61, 62, 71, 72, 75, 77–83, 85, 86, 88–94, 100–102, 104, 106, 109, 112, 114–119, 121, 127, 131–136, 140, 158, 160, 162, 164, 169, 174, 182

V

violence 49, 57, 58, 66, 113

W

wealth 5, 6, 8, 13, 17, 18, 46, 57, 77, 78, 80, 86, 90, 93, 105, 114, 117, 119, 120, 123, 130, 135, 140, 142, 156, 157, 169, 177, 179

X

xenos 11, 64–68, 72