the bad citizen in classical athens
This book provides a fresh perspective on Athenian democracy by exploring bad citizenship, as both a reality and an idea, in classical Athens, from
the late sixth century down to 322 B.C. If called upon, Athenian citizens
were expected to support their city through military service and financial
outlay. These obligations were fundamental to Athenian understandings
of citizenship and it was essential to the city’s well-being that citizens fulfill
them. The ancient sources, however, are full of allegations that individuals avoided these duties or performed them deficiently. Claims of draft
evasion, cowardice on the battlefield, and avoidance of liturgies and the
war tax are common. By examining the nature and scope of bad citizenship in Athens and the city’s responses – institutional and ideological – to
the phenomenon, this study aims to illuminate the relationship between
citizen and city under the Athenian democracy and, more broadly, the
tension between private interests and public authority in human societies.
Matthew R. Christ is associate professor of classical studies at Indiana
University. He is the author of The Litigious Athenian (1998).
THE BAD CITIZEN IN
CLASSICAL ATHENS
MATTHEW R. CHRIST
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Cambridge University Press
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© Matthew Christ 2006
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To Elizabeth Burch Lambros
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
page ix
xi
Introduction: The Other Athenians
1
1
The Self-Interested Citizen
Self-Interest and Athenian Citizenship
Human Nature and Self-Interest
Democratic Citizenship and Self-Interest
Citizenship Strategies: Self-Interested Citizenship
Civic Responses: Compulsion and Persuasion
15
16
16
24
35
40
2
The Reluctant Conscript
Draft Evasion and Compulsory Military Service
Motives
Opportunities
Conscription and Draft Evasion through a Tragic Lens
45
46
48
52
65
3
The Cowardly Hoplite
Cowardice on Campaign
Muster
Desertion
Endurance of Hardships
On the Brink of Battle
Battle
Rout
Victory
88
91
93
94
95
96
99
103
109
vii
CONTENTS
4
Cowardice on the Home Front
The Hoplite’s Homecoming
Legal Accountability for Cowardice?
Courage and Cowardice in Democratic Discourse
Epitaphioi
Courage, Cowardice, and Political Leadership
Case Study of Demosthenes
111
112
118
124
125
128
132
The Artful Tax Dodger
Financial Obligations: Rules and Institutions
Selection
Exemptions
The Liturgical Class
A System under Pressure
508/7–432 B.C.
431–404 B.C.
403–321 B.C.
The Limits of Philotimia
Costs
Rewards
Fairness
Compulsion
Choices and Strategies
Concealment of Property
Assignment of Financial Obligations
Performing a Liturgy
Representation of Public Service
143
146
148
151
154
155
156
161
165
171
172
176
184
188
190
191
194
199
200
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Ancient Citations
General Index
205
211
227
243
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My work on this book began in 1998, with the presentation of a
paper entitled “Cowards, Traitors, and Cheats in Classical Athens,” at
a symposium at Oberlin College in honor of my dear friend and former
colleague Nathan Greenberg. Since that time, I have presented parts of
my work-in-progress to audiences at Northwestern University, Ohio
State University, University of Chicago, and University of Minnesota,
as well as at the meetings of the American Philological Association; I
have benefited greatly from their suggestions and comments. Indiana
University generously provided me with leave time for work on this
project through an Arts and Humanities Initiative Grant in 2002/3 and
with support for materials and other research costs through Grants-inAid in 1998 and 2002.
I am grateful to my colleagues at Indiana University and other institutions who provided encouragement and insights as I worked on
this project; to my family and friends for their support and many
kindnesses; to Beatrice Rehl at Cambridge University Press and the
anonymous readers of my manuscript, whose suggestions and criticisms were extremely helpful; and to Peter Katsirubas and Mary Paden
at TechBooks.
In this book, ancient passages that are cited on specific points are
given exempli gratia rather than as comprehensive listings of all testimonia, unless otherwise indicated. Translations in the text are adapted
from Collard, Cropp, and Lee (1997); Freeman (1948); Grene (1987);
Krentz (1989); MacDowell (1990); Sommerstein (1980–2001); Todd
(2000); and the Loeb Classical Library. Chapter 2 is an expanded version
of my article “Draft Evasion Onstage and Offstage in Classical Athens,”
Classical Quarterly n.s. 54 (2004) 33–57 (Oxford University Press).
ix
ABBREVIATIONS
Abbreviated references to ancient authors and works are based primarily on those used in A Greek-English Lexicon 9 (H. G. Liddell and
R. Scott, with revisions by H. S. Jones and R. McKenzie), Oxford,
1996. Comic fragments are cited from the edition of Kassel and
Austin (1983–), unless otherwise noted. Tragic fragments are cited
from the editions of Snell (1971) and Radt (1985), except for fragments
of Euripides, which are cited from Nauck 2 (1964) unless otherwise
specified. Fragments of the Presocratics are cited from H. Diels and
W. Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker 6 (3 vols., Zurich, 1951–1952);
those of historical writers from F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen
Historiker (3 vols. in 15, Leiden, 1923–1958). Fragments of Tyrtaeus
and Solon are cited from M. L. West, Iambi et Elegi Graeci 2 (2 vols.,
Oxford, 1989–1992).
Abbreviated references to modern scholarship are to the Bibliography at the end of this book. Abbreviations of periodicals in the
Bibliography follow the system of L’Année philologique, with a few
exceptions: I use AJP instead of AJPh, CP instead of CPh, and TAPA
instead of TAPhA.
xi
Introduction
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
The remarkable spread of democracy in the late-twentieth century has
led to renewed interest in the roots of western democracy in ancient
Athens. This study examines a facet of the Athenian experience that
has received less scholarly attention than it deserves: the nature and
scope of bad citizenship in classical Athens (508/7–322/1 B.C.) and the
city’s responses, institutional and ideological, to this. Good citizenship
is not ubiquitous in modern democracies, and it was not in democratic
Athens. This presented the city with practical challenges, as it sought
to limit the scope for bad citizenship through its administrative structures and legal institutions. At the same time, however, bad citizenship
challenged Athenian ideals concerning the relationship between individual and state, and elicited a range of ideological responses from
the city. How Athens responded to these diverse challenges within a
democratic framework is fundamental to our understanding of it.
Although Athenian citizenship bore numerous responsibilities,
implicit and explicit, for the exclusive group of adult men who possessed it, this study focuses on two formal obligations that were central to it. Citizens were expected, if called upon, to perform military
service as hoplites and to support the city financially in a variety of
ways; as Athenian sources pithily put it, citizens were to serve their city
with “person and property.”1 While these obligations could potentially
1
On the centrality of these two obligations to Athenian citizenship, see e.g., [Arist.]
Ath. Pol. 55.3; Sinclair 1988: 49, 54–65; Manville 1990: 9; Hansen 1991: 99–101; cf.
Whitehead 1991: 149. A model citizen can be said to be one who carries out both
obligations willingly (Lys. 20.23; Dem. 54.44; Is. 4.27–8; 7.41–2), a bad citizen one
who evades both (Isoc. 18.47; Lys. 6.46; Is. 4.29; 5.46). For the ideal of service with
1
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
be imposed on any citizen, in practice they did not fall equally on all
individuals. Only those able to afford hoplite equipment – perhaps
half of the citizen body in the fifth century B.C. – were subject to
conscription as hoplites. A much smaller segment of the citizen population, perhaps five percent of the total, was obliged to pay the irregular
war tax (eisphora) and to perform and finance expensive public services
(liturgies). Despite the fact that only a part of the citizen body was liable
to these diverse obligations at any one time, civic ideology places their
performance at the core of good citizenship; indeed, the city relied
heavily upon its citizens to carry out these duties.2
In focusing on these two fundamental civic duties, I do not mean to
suggest that Athenians viewed citizenship narrowly and exclusively in
terms of the performance of these formal obligations.3 In fact, citizen
norms and ideals in Athens encompassed a wide range of behaviors: for
example, a model citizen was one who respected his parents, obeyed
the city’s laws, and operated within the parameters of sexual norms.
As scholars have observed, to be a father-beater, a law-breaker or
abuser of litigation (sykophant), or another man’s passive sexual partner
(kinaidos), was not simply socially reprehensible in the eyes of Athenians but an inversion of citizen ideals.4 I focus on the formal duties of
Athenian citizenship and breaches of them because they form a critical
nexus for inquiry that curiously has not, to the best of my knowledge,
been considered in a book-length study. If we can better understand
these core elements of Athenian citizenship, we stand in a better position to appreciate the broader experience of Athenians as citizens as
well.
2
3
4
“person and property,” see Dem. 10.28; 42.25; cf. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 29.5, with Rhodes
1981: 382–3.
On Athenian civic ideology’s slighting of those who served (normally not by conscription) in Athens’ fleet, see Loraux 1986: 212–13; Strauss 1996, 2000; Pritchard 1998;
Roisman 2005: 106–9; on its privileging of hoplites over members of the cavalry, see
Spence 1993: 165–72.
I agree with McGlew (2002: 6) “that democratic citizenship does not lay itself fully bare
in legal definitions and formal actions . . . ” For similar caveats on interpreting Athenian
citizenship too narrowly, see Connor 1994: 40, and Euben, Wallach, and Ober 1994b:
3; cf. Adeleye 1983; Winkler 1990: 54–63; Hunter 1994: 106–11.
On fathers and sons in Athenian civic ideology, see Strauss 1993; on law and litigiousness, see Christ 1998a; on citizen sexual norms, see e.g., Winkler 1990: 45–70, but
cf. Davidson 1998: 167–82.
2
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
Athens could not have flourished to the extent that it did during the
classical period if citizens in large numbers had not carried out these
basic obligations. It would be a mistake to infer from Athens’ overall
success as a city-state, however, that it was not troubled by bad citizenship.5 It is not the intent of this study to debunk positive evaluations of
the Athenian democracy, but rather to provide a realistic and plausible
picture of the complex, and often tense, relationship between individual and state in democratic Athens.6 Much source material points to
persistent social concern in Athens over citizens’ avoidance or deficient
performance of their duties. The topics of draft evasion, cowardice on
the battlefield, and avoidance of financial obligations crop up regularly in Attic oratory, comedy, and elsewhere. Consistent with these
indications of social concern is the existence of numerous legal actions
and procedures for pursuing those not fulfilling their obligations, and
periodic reforms of the civic institutions governing military service
and financial obligations.
While social concern in Athens over bad citizenship need not correlate directly with its prevalence, it is reasonable to suspect, along
with Athenians, that bad citizenship was common. Setting aside any
romantic preconceptions concerning the “Golden Age” of Athens or
Athenian patriotism, we should not be surprised if Athenians, like
other historic peoples, were not uniformly ready to subordinate their
individual interests to those of the state, especially when their lives or
fortunes were at stake.7 If the phenomenon of bad citizenship is hardly
5
6
7
When I use the term “bad citizenship” in this study, I mean bad citizenship specifically
in connection with the formal obligations of citizenship.
My goals are thus very different from those of Samons (2004), who seeks to challenge the
generally positive evaluation of Athenian democracy in modern scholarship by exposing
the defects of popular rule in Athens (4–13, and passim).
Cf. Meier 1990: 142: “We have no reason to believe that the Athenians were peculiarly
virtuous, unselfish, or worthy of emulation.” Meier, however, is rather too ready in my
view to believe that the political identity of Athenians induced them to a high degree to
subordinate private interests to public ones (see e.g., 143: “a surprisingly large number
of Athenians neglected their domestic interests to a quite surprising extent in order to
play their part as citizens,” and 146: “Political identity was realized in its purest form
in fifth-century Athens. Many citizens spent a good deal of their lives performing their
duties as citizens (and soldiers).”). Farrar (1996: 125) also goes too far in generalizing,
“The benefits of citizenship at Athens were evident, and the democracy was able to
sustain civic commitment (with few lapses) over two centuries.”
3
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
unique to Athens, however, its sources, manifestations, and implications are intimately bound up with its cultural context. A host of
questions arise as we seek to locate it and understand it within this
milieu.
How did Athenians view their relation to the city and their obligations as citizens, and how might this have affected their behavior? What
cultural and democratic values came into play as Athenians considered
whether to conform with civic ideals of citizen behavior? How did
concerns about self and property affect citizens’ willingness to serve
the city? What forms did bad citizenship take, and how prevalent were
these? How did administrative structures and legal regulations discourage bad citizenship? How aggressively did the city or its agents seek
to compel individuals to carry out their duties? To what extent did
social pressures rather than legal or administrative mechanisms elicit
compliance? How did civic ideology respond to the problem of bad
citizenship? How did it deal with the paradox that free individuals
under a democracy could be compelled to carry out civic duties?
Although the fragmented and limited ancient record does not always
lend itself readily to answering these questions, this study seeks to
explore bad citizenship, both as reality and idea, in classical Athens
insofar as this is possible. Viewing Athens from this vantage point can
help us appreciate the tensions surrounding democratic citizenship
and the effect that these had not only on Athenian institutions but also
on civic ideology. Concern over bad citizenship, as we shall see, profoundly shaped Athenian discourse about citizenship: it is no accident
that repudiation of bad civic behavior went hand in hand with praise
of good citizenship in Athens.8 Indeed, the possibility and reality of
bad citizenship were integral to citizen experience and had a profound
impact on both civic life and public discourse.
While few scholars would deny the existence of bad citizenship in
connection with civic duties in Athens, the subject has received little
8
Cf. Hunter 1994: 110: “The competing stereotypes of the good and the bad citizen . . . are
part of an ideology of citizenship.” On the interplay of the ideal hoplite and his polar
opposite in Athenian discourse, see Velho 2002; cf. Winkler 1990: 45–70.
4
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
in-depth attention. Although recent studies of Athenian democracy
acknowledge the problem of bad citizenship, they have focused more
on the institutions and ideologies that made democracy work than
on the possibilities for circumventing the former and acting contrary
to the latter.9 While handbooks of Athenian law routinely mention
the legal measures that Athenians adopted concerning evasion of civic
obligations, detailed inquiry into bad citizenship and its wider significance lies beyond their scope. Likewise, recent commentators on the
orators and comic writers are alert to bad citizenship, but extensive
treatment of the subject would be tangential to their purposes.10
This book seeks to fill this gap in scholarship by considering closely
three manifestations of bad citizenship in Athens, namely, draft evasion,
cowardice on the battlefield, and evasion of liturgies and the war tax.
Draft evasion has received very little study at all, despite its frequent
mention in our sources.11 Although cowardice on the battlefield has
received some attention in treatments of the Greek hoplite experience
(e.g., Hanson 1989: 96–104), the topic has not been examined closely
within an Athenian context and in connection with basic citizen obligations under the democracy.12 Evasion of liturgies and the war tax in
Athens, by contrast, has drawn somewhat more attention (e.g., Christ
1990; E. E. Cohen 1992: 190–207; Gabrielsen 1986; 1994), but many
questions remain open, including how pervasive this was and how
successfully the city responded to the problem.
While this study seeks to address each of these forms of bad citizenship in its own terms, it will also examine how much these behaviors
are kindred phenomena that are mutually illuminating. To the extent
9
10
11
12
While two recent and engaging works on Athens treat matters relevant to bad citizenship,
greed (Balot 2001a) and deception (Hesk 2000), their focus lies elsewhere.
Handbooks of Athenian law: In my analysis, I draw on Lipsius 1905–15, Harrison 1968–
71, MacDowell 1978, and Todd 1993. Commentators: I have found especially useful
the work of MacDowell (1962, 1971, 1990), Olson (1998, 2002), and Sommerstein
(1980–2002).
I am not aware of any detailed study of the topic before Christ 2004, which appears
with additions as Chapter 2 of this book.
Roisman (2005: 105–29) provides a nice overview of the representation of military
behavior in the Attic orators. My interest is in the interplay between the realia of Athenian
military experience and the social processing of this at home through civic institutions
and public discourse.
5
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
that these types of bad citizenship have attracted scholarly attention,
they have been viewed largely in isolation from one another as more
or less independent phenomena. The three forms of bad citizenship
under consideration, however, were all rooted in the pursuit or protection of personal self-interests; emerged more prominently when
citizen morale was low; and presented often similar institutional and
ideological challenges to the city. By analyzing these deviations from
good citizenship side by side, it is possible to identify their similarities
and differences as citizen behaviors and civic problems.
In examining the topic of bad citizenship in Athens, it is important
to acknowledge from the start that the ancient sources are often vague,
tendentious, or alarmist in their treatment of it. Evidence for bad
citizenship frequently derives from oratorical invective, comic jibes, or
the snipes of critics of the Athenian democracy. If we take these sources
too much at face value, we may come up with a distorted picture
of democratic Athens as a city rendered helpless by bad citizenship
and poised for decline and fall. V. Ehrenberg (1951), for example,
relying upon an uncritical reading of comic sources, found “an almost
complete lack of social conscience” (252) and “economic egoism”
(373) among Athenians, intensifying over time (319, 336) and leading
to the decline of Athens (368). To overlook this body of material,
however, may lead to an equally mistaken picture of Athens that is
akin to that advanced in Athenian patriotic discourse. W. K. Pritchett
(1971: 1.27) goes so far as to generalize that in a Hellenic context, “The
citizen identified his own interest with that of the state. His patriotism
was shown no less in devotion on the battlefield than in financial
sacrifice.”13 Our challenge is to make the most of the evidence that
survives, without being taken in by hyperbole and distortion.
13
Cf. Pearson 1962: 181: “[I]n Greek and Roman times alike, the ordinary citizen readily
recognized his obligation not only to obey the laws of his state, but to be a ‘good man,’
so far as lay in his power, by serving his country in a military or civil capacity or by
putting his wealth at the disposal of the state when it was needed.” While Samons (2004)
vehemently rejects the idealization of Athenian democracy, he oddly idealizes Athenian
attitudes toward the state: “Athenian values associated with civic responsibilities and
duties so thoroughly suffused the populace that the lives of individuals with ideological
differences as vast as those that separated Socrates and Pericles still demonstrate the
Athenians’ dedication to the gods, their families, and their polis” (201; cf. 171, 185).
6
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
In light of the slippery nature of the source material, it is important
in my view that we cast our net widely and seek to consider literary
evidence from a wide range of genres – oratory, comedy, tragedy, history, and philosophy – as we look for recurring themes relevant to
the assessment of bad citizenship. This cross-genre approach can help
bring to the fore common features of the discussion of bad citizenship
as well as throw into relief the distinctive preoccupations and perspectives of each type of source. This broad inclusion of source material
makes it possible to see how much of what we encounter in different genres concerning bad citizenship reflects the shared experience
of Athenian observers, even if their observations are filtered through
different lenses. In attempting to evaluate critically material from so
many different genres, I am indebted to my scholarly predecessors,
who have thoughtfully engaged with the challenges of drawing inferences about Athens from particular genres.14 While I am trying to
elicit certain kinds of information from these sources, I do my best
to respect the context in which information appears and how it is
colored by genre and authorial vantage point. Although it is logical to
give preference to contemporary sources in evaluating the Athenian
experience of bad citizenship, occasionally I draw on later authors, for
example, Diodorus Siculus (1st c. B.C.) and Plutarch (late-1st/early2nd c. A.D.); these writers, who often draw on earlier authors,
can usefully complement if not supplant contemporary sources;
no significant part of my argument depends upon their testimony,
however.
If the ancient sources themselves present obstacles to our inquiry
into bad citizenship in Athens, so too can our preconceptions about
Athenian values and behavior – in particular, assumptions about
Athenian solidarity and patriotism. To come to a realistic assessment
of bad citizenship in Athens, we must appreciate, first, that in any society, individuals seek ways to manipulate or circumvent rules that they
regard as unfair, inconvenient, or a threat to their personal interests;
14
My approach to the sources has been influenced especially by Dover 1974; Loraux 1986;
Ober 1989, 1998; Goldhill 1990; Henderson 1990; Saı̈d 1998; Balot 2001a; Roisman
2005.
7
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
if a loophole in regulation or an administrative gap exists, it generally is found and exploited. In classical Athens, this common human
tendency is abundantly clear in the sphere of litigation, where competing litigants shrewdly navigate around civic rules, regulations, and
administrative structures in pursuit of their selfish interests (Christ
1998a: 36–9). Athenians were also prepared to act shrewdly, as we
shall see, when it came to protecting or advancing their interests in the
sphere of civic duties, where, as in litigation, life and property were
at stake; patriotism could overcome narrowly selfish action, but it did
not eliminate it.
Although it is difficult to determine the scope of shrewd behavior
in connection with civic obligations, it is useful to ask in each area of
civic duty what motives and opportunities Athenians had for falling
short of civic ideals. While motive and opportunity do not in themselves prove that Athenians engaged in sharp practices, attention to
these can help ground our assessment of contemporary claims about
bad citizenship in the real circumstances of citizen experience. Where
we find compelling evidence of both motive and opportunity for a
particular type of bad citizenship, we should be alert to the possibility
that it was common, and evaluate contemporary claims concerning its
frequency in light of this.
An advantage of looking closely at the motives behind, and opportunities for, bad citizenship in Athens is that this allows us to move
beyond the limited purview of many of the ancient sources, which
characterize bad citizenship as the province of utterly perverse and
marginal citizens, named or unnamed. These portrayals of the “otherness” of bad citizenship are interesting in their own right, as evidence
of the Athenian tendency to scapegoat individuals for communal problems (cf. Sagan 1991: 168–85; Christ 1998a: 50–3). A survey of the
range of motives behind different forms of bad citizenship and the
diverse opportunities for these indicates, however, that the temptation
to evade obligations or to fall short in performing them was not limited to utterly shameless or exceptional members of society. On the
contrary, Athenians of all ilks and social classes could fall short of civic
ideals of good citizenship for a variety of reasons and in many different ways. Behind the often sensational depictions of egregiously bad
8
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
citizenship in our sources lies a more mundane reality of gradations of
good and bad citizenship.
This study seeks first to locate bad citizenship within its cultural context in democratic Athens (Chapter 1). Although bad citizenship in
Athens sometimes derived from ideological opposition to the democracy, more commonly it arose from basic personal concerns over self
and property. Athenians were acutely conscious of the tug of selfinterest on individuals, and frequently acknowledged and addressed
this basic feature of human nature in public discourse. Consistent with
this consciousness is how self-interest figures prominently in Athenian
understandings of citizenship and its obligations.
Athenian democracy pragmatically acknowledged the legitimacy of
personal self-interest, which was intimately connected with individual
freedom, and incorporated this into its ideology of citizenship. While
Athenians sometimes envisioned a citizen’s performance of his duties
as a spontaneous act of patriotism or as fulfillment of his filial obligation
to his fatherland, they also conceptualized this as a conscious and
calculated act that was consistent with individual self-interest. Citizens,
according to this latter model, carry out duties for their democratic
city because this benefits them as equal shareholders in it; they “give”
to the city and “get” something in return for this.
Although this model of citizenship, which sought to harness individual self-interest for the common good, could be a powerful inducement to fulfill citizen obligations, the expectation of reciprocity
between city and citizen that it fostered could prove problematic.
When individuals felt that their personal self-interests were in danger and saw no reciprocal return for subordinating these to the public
interest, they might feel justified in evading or falling short in their
duties. Especially in hard times when the city’s demands on its citizens
were most acutely felt – and such times were not infrequent from the
late-fifth century B.C. on, the temptation to hold back in performing
civic obligations was strong. In good times as well as bad ones, however, Athenians often acted strategically to protect their interests and
exercised shrewdness – which is intimately connected with personal
9
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
self-interest in a Hellenic context – in determining how or whether to
comply with civic expectations. Utterly unscrupulous individuals were
not alone in acting strategically in their citizenship; even Athenians
who complied with the city’s demands on them often did so with an
eye to protecting and advancing their personal interests.
Because citizen compliance with civic obligations could not be
taken for granted, the democracy developed a range of mechanisms,
administrative and legal, to compel citizens to carry out their duties.
The democratic city, however, was not entirely comfortable with
compelling free citizens to do their civic duties; Athenians, unlike
Spartans, preferred to elicit good citizenship and discourage its opposite more through persuasion and exhortation than through coercion
and “fear of the laws.” Although public discourse, which was fostered
by a variety of democratic institutions, facilitated this in a variety of
ways, its persistent exhortation to embrace good citizenship and reject
its dark alternative attests to the ongoing challenge of selfish citizen
behavior.
After situating bad citizenship in its democratic context in Athens,
this study turns to consider specific forms of it, beginning with draft
evasion (Chapter 2). While Athenian civic ideology often insisted that
citizens were eager to serve the city in time of war, most hoplites were
in fact conscripts. Whenever modern democracies have employed conscription, draft evasion has cropped up; this was also the case in democratic Athens. Frequent allusions to draft evasion in forensic oratory
and comedy make it clear that it was familiar. Although it is impossible
for us to know how widespread evasion was, it appears to have been a
real temptation and possibility that evoked considerable social concern.
There were many reasons why Athenians might seek to evade
hoplite service, not least of which was the desire to avoid the very
real risks of injury and death that accompanied service. While some
embraced these risks out of a sense of duty and honor, others preferred
a long life without glory to a short life with it (cf. Hom. Il. 9.410–
16). As ancient observers fully appreciated, men diverge widely in how
much they are attracted to honor. Once we understand that Athenians,
despite the martial bent of Hellenic culture, were not uniformly drawn
to military service, we can see that draft evasion was a natural option
for those who did not wish to serve.
10
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
Although it was not a simple matter to evade the draft in Athens,
it was probably easier than in most modern democracies, which possess elaborate bureaucracies for administering conscription and charge
public agents with enforcing the obligation to serve. In Athens, conscription appears to have been fairly loosely administered, especially in
the fifth century B.C., and no public agent was required to prosecute
dodgers. In this setting, individuals seeking to avoid the draft could,
with some effort, manipulate exemptions or exercise influence with
the officials involved in administering conscription to win release from
service. Some individuals went so far as to defy the system outright
by not presenting themselves for service at muster. While prosecution
for evasion by volunteer prosecutors was possible, this does not appear
to have been very common.
Athenian concerns over compulsory military service and its evasion
surface in an unexpected theater, literally, on the tragic stage. Athenian
tragedians regularly bring before their audiences myths that focus on
recruitment for military service and attempts to evade this. In presenting these mythological scenarios, tragedians reflect, and engage with,
their contemporary milieu: attuned to the tensions surrounding contemporary conscription and its evasion, tragedians brought these on
stage before large Athenian audiences.
While a conscript who appeared for muster fulfilled a basic obligation of his citizenship, the city expected him not only to serve but to do
so honorably and, above all, without cowardice. Although Athenian
hoplites were as courageous as any of their rivals, cowardice and less
extreme shortfalls in courage were a real possibility for individuals and
groups, and our Athenian sources convey a great deal of anxiety over
this (Chapter 3). This high level of concern is not surprising, given
the reliance of the city on the fighting mettle of its forces. At the same
time, however, this may reflect the fact that deficiencies in courage
were difficult to prevent because they often occurred spontaneously as
a result of fear and panic rather than rational reflection. Furthermore,
it could be difficult to detect individual lapses in courage, and awkward to address group shortfalls when, for example, an entire force
was routed and fled the field.
To understand the place of hoplite courage and cowardice in
Athenian citizenship, it is important first to consider these within the
11
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
immediate context of a military campaign. While cowardice in the heat
of hoplite battle was of fundamental concern to the city, concerns over
courage and cowardice pervaded a campaign from start to finish. At
all stages of a campaign, individuals and groups were conscious of how
their actions were perceived by those present – friend and foe alike –
and how, at a later time, upon their return to Athens, these might be
interpreted. To protect or advance manly reputation required not only
bold deeds but a presentation of self consistent with this; to some extent
at least, men could shape how others assessed their courage. Paradoxically, while the manly competition to gain honor and avoid shame
reached its climax on the battlefield, the conditions of battle could
make it difficult to gauge the courage or cowardice of participants.
This was especially true when, as often happened, an army was routed
and abandoned the field indecorously amid chaos and confusion; in
the immediate aftermath of defeat, the performance of individual and
group was open to contestation and partisan interpretation.
If the performance of hoplites was open to dispute during a campaign, this was all the more true when Athenian hoplites returned
home and made claims and counterclaims at a remove from the battlefield. On the home front the social dynamics of defending or enhancing reputation were transformed in the presence of civic institutions.
Of particular interest is the city’s disparate treatment of group and
individual failures. On the one hand, the city chose to overlook the
ignominy of defeated forces, allowing them to disband upon their
return without public comment on their collective embarrassment.
On the other hand, it allowed for prosecutions of generals of unsuccessful forces and of individual hoplites accused of cowardice; the former, however, were much more common than the latter, in keeping
with a democratic political culture that was more comfortable holding
the prominent and powerful accountable than it was average citizens.
Once the question of hoplite performance entered public discourse,
it took on a life of its own that reveals little about battlefield behavior
and a great deal about courage and cowardice as matters of civic concern and ideology. The Attic funeral orations, in praising the state’s
war dead, naturally focus on Athenian courage; at the same time, however, they can be read as polemic against cowardly behavior in battle
and as exhortation to the living to behave honorably when called
12
THE OTHER ATHENIANS
upon to serve the city. Other forms of public discourse more directly
address cowardice. While group cowardice or shortfalls in courage
are taboo subjects, individuals’ deficiencies sometimes come under
scrutiny and are held up for ridicule and shame. Of particular interest
is the frequency of charges of cowardice against politically prominent individuals, like the orator Demosthenes. This is significant for
understanding not only Athenian expectations of political leaders but
also more generally citizen norms and ideals.
After considering bad citizenship in the sphere of military service,
this study examines the response of wealthy Athenians to their obligation to pay the eisphora and carry out costly liturgies, including the
trierarchy in connection with the city’s navy and the chore¯gia, which
entailed providing a chorus for a civic festival (Chapter 4). The city’s
relationship with its wealthy benefactors was distinctly troubled in the
classical period. This is reflected in the institutional history of the
arrangements governing liturgies and the eisphora, and in the diverse
complaints in our sources concerning these obligations. Although it
was difficult for wealthy men to evade their financial duties altogether,
they developed a range of strategies for protecting their fortunes from
these.
Athens’ complex arrangements governing liturgies and the eisphora
took form gradually and, as best we can tell, amid controversy and
conflict between wealthy citizens and the city. While this is best documented in connection with the fourth-century overhaul of many of
these arrangements, tensions likely date back at least to the mid-fifth
century when the newly empowered popular courts became the ultimate arbiters of cases involving attempts by wealthy men to win release
from liturgical service through the legal procedures of ske¯psis and
antidosis. During the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.), the introduction of the eisphora in 428 added further pressure to the relationship
between the wealthy and the city, and tensions concerning financial
obligations figured prominently in the oligarchic revolution of 411.
While wealthy Athenians were especially sensitive to the costs of
their obligations, resentment could arise from other considerations as
well. The rich expected public gratitude (charis) in the form of honor
and civic privilege for their expenditure, and the city encouraged this
expectation; in practice, however, it could be difficult for a wealthy
13
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
man to reap public rewards for his sacrifice, and this could lead to
alienation. Questions of fairness also arose among the wealthy over
the fact that they exclusively bore the burden of financial obligations
and over the manner in which these were allocated among the rich.
The compulsory nature of financial obligations likewise could evoke
resentment, because not all Athenians were subject to this compulsion,
which could encumber an individual personally as well as financially.
Wealthy men had recourse to a range of strategies to reduce their
liability to financial obligations. Probably the most common course
was to conceal wealth from public view insofar as this was feasible, to
avoid initial assignment to a financial obligation. Even after a wealthy
man was assigned to a liturgy, however, he had a number of options to
escape service or to minimize the expense of carrying it out. Wealthy
Athenians became adept, moreover, at putting the best face on their
liturgical records, regardless of the circumstances under which they
came to carry out liturgies and the quality of their performance of
these.
By exploring Athens’ confrontation with bad citizenship in its
diverse forms, we can better understand how this early democracy
grappled with the challenge that individual interests posed to civic
cohesion and cooperative enterprises. If Athens was largely successful
in mustering citizen cooperation for its various endeavors, this could
not be taken for granted: the city’s ongoing efforts, institutional and
ideological, to overcome citizen reluctance and resistance are testimony to the continuing challenge it faced. This study, I hope, will not
only lead to a deeper understanding of the Athenian experience but
also provide a mirror in which we may reflect on the equally complex
relationship of individual and state in modern democracies.
14
1
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
All men, or most men, wish what is noble but choose what is
profitable.
(Arist. EN 1163a1)
Although bad citizenship in Athens could arise from a wide range of
motivations, it was rooted in the individual’s pursuit of self-interest.
While few scholars would deny the presence of self-interest among
Athenians, the role of self-interest in democratic citizenship in Athens
has not been sufficiently explicated. Athenians were highly attuned to
the tug of self-interest on the individual and the problems this could
pose for their city. Democratic ideology did not seek so much to suppress the pursuit of self-interest as to exploit this: good citizenship, it
proclaimed, benefits both the individual and the city. Because individuals varied widely in the extent to which they embraced this view
and because shrewd, self-serving behavior was always a temptation,
the city faced an ongoing challenge: to persuade and, if necessary, to
compel citizens to perform their civic obligations.
This chapter seeks, first, to contextualize self-interest in Athens by
surveying how Athenian sources treat this as a fundamental problem
for human society. The frank and persistent treatment of the subject
in a range of sources attests to the primacy of self-interest in Athenian understandings of human motivation and behavior. The chapter
then turns to consider how Athenian civic ideology engaged with
the problem of individual self-interest by portraying the relationship
between citizen and city as a mutually beneficial one. While this ideology, which shrewdly appealed to citizens’ self-interests, could be a
15
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
powerful inducement to good citizenship, individual self-interest
proved difficult to tame in practice. As compulsory duties were often in
conflict with private interests, strategic behavior was naturally elicited
from individuals. This was true not only as individuals determined
whether or how to comply with civic demands upon them, but also
as they chose how to represent their citizenship to the public. Finally,
this chapter sketches some civic strategies, institutional and ideological, for encouraging good citizenship and controlling its opposite.
Although the threat of civic compulsion helped induce citizens to carry
out their duties, Athenians were ambivalent about forcing free men
under a democracy to serve their city. They tended to prefer, therefore, to foster good citizenship and discourage its opposite through
public discourse rather than to force it through bureaucratic and legal
mechanisms.
SELF-INTEREST AND ATHENIAN CITIZENSHIP
Although the pursuit of self-interest is ubiquitous in human societies,
each society differs in how it views and responds to self-interest as
a threat to communal enterprises. The following analysis seeks not
to provide a complete account of self-interest in Athens but rather
to highlight features of it that bear on our understanding of citizen
mentality and behavior in the sphere of civic obligations. Athenians
regarded the pursuit of self-interest as a central feature of human nature
and a primary determinant of behavior; their democracy, therefore, did
not seek so much to overcome this as to redirect it in pursuit of the
common good.1
Human Nature and Self-Interest
Greeks took for granted that individuals are ultimately selfish and regularly base their actions on what they perceive to be most advantageous
1
I focus on Athenian views of self-interest, as this is key to understanding not only Athenian perspectives on human motivation but citizen behavior itself, which was likely
influenced by the way Athenians regarded self-interest. For the debate in the social
sciences over self-interest as an explanation for human behavior, see the essays in Mansbridge 1990a, and Amemiya 2005: 158–9.
16
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
personally. As K. J. Dover (1974: 81) observes in his seminal study
of Greek values, “No Greek doubted . . . that an individual is very
apt to give precedence to his own interest over the interests of others.” While Greeks did not view this innate selfishness as an absolute
obstacle to cooperation within human societies, they were acutely
conscious of how individuals (even as they collaborated with others)
remained attuned to their own interests and could thereby jeopardize
group efforts.2 This Hellenic perspective was expressed in and perpetuated by a shared poetic tradition, including Homeric epic where the
problem of individual self-interest looms large (Balot 2001a: 59–70).
Classical Athenian perspectives on human nature and self-interest
were influenced not only by the cultural heritage that they shared with
other Greeks but by their common experiences as a people in the fifth
century B.C.3 The growth of democracy in Athens in the early part of
the fifth century reflected and reinforced the egalitarian principle that
the city should respect and consider the interests of all male citizens,
not simply an elite few.4 The Athenian naval empire, which took shape
in the decades after the conclusion of the Persian Wars in 479 b.c., was
among other things an exercise in the pursuit of collective interests (Th.
1.75; Plu. Arist. 25.2–3; Per. 12; cf. [X.] Ath. Pol. 1.16–17).5 Athenians
probably acted in part to preserve their individual stakes in the spoils of
the empire when they restricted citizenship to individuals born of two
Athenian parents (451/0 B.C.) ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 26.4; Plu. Per. 37.2–
5; Patterson 1981: 102–7; Whitehead 1991: 147). The experience of
the Peloponnesian War (431–404 B.C.), however, brought conflicts
2
3
4
5
While altruism was possible in this setting (see Herman 1998 and Konstan 2000), those
engaging in it did not readily lose sight of their self-interests; this is especially true of
civic benefactors (cf. E. E. Cohen 1992: 191), as we shall see in Chapter 4.
A further influence on Athenians was the poetry of Solon, which grapples with the social
and political problems posed by greed and self-interest in early-sixth-century Athens:
see Balot 2001a: 73–98.
On the balancing of competing interests as a central problem for Athens and the Greek
polis in general, see Ober 1993: 136, 141–9. The topic of democracy and self-interest is
taken up at length in the next section. On the prominent role of the idea of universal
self-interest in the emergence of modern egalitarianism, see Holmes 1990: 284–5.
Athenian imperialism, as an exercise in the pursuit of group interests, may well have
made individual Athenians more ready to pursue their own self-interests within the
city. As Balot (2004c: 91) observes: “Foreign policy helps to educate the desires and
self-understanding of the citizenry . . . ”
17
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
between individual and collective interests to the fore, as war, plague,
and dislocation took a heavy toll on individuals. Those who joined in
the oligarchic juntas of 411 and 404/3 b.c. acted in part to preserve or
advance what they viewed as their personal interests (cf. Balot 2001a:
211–24).6 While an intellectual like Thucydides, as we shall see, could
view the history of fifth-century Athens explicitly in terms of the
pursuit of self-interest, personal and collective, all Athenians must have
been conscious of self-interest as a powerful force in their lives and the
life of the city.7
The way that Athenians conceptualized and spoke about self-interest
was deeply influenced by the sophists, itinerant intellectuals who began
to arrive in Athens in the mid-fifth century.8 The sophists were drawn
to Athens in pursuit of profits in a market ripe for their intellectual
wares (cf. Pl. Prt. 313c–e; X. Mem. 1.6.13), especially the teaching of
rhetoric, which was essential for success in the democratic lawcourts
and Assembly. Wealthy students, who could afford the sophists’ steep
fees, flocked to them (cf. Pl. Ap. 19e–20a) because they or their fathers
calculated that this investment would pay off. The sophistic enterprise,
founded on this self-interested relationship between teacher and pupil,
not only armed students with rhetoric to pursue personal advantage
but also schooled them in the rhetoric of self-interest, that is, how
to build arguments exploiting the assumption that it is human nature
for individuals – and by extension, states too – to pursue what is
advantageous to them (e.g., Th. 1.75–6; cf. [X.] Ath. Pol. 2.19).9
Although sophistic doctrines concerning self-interest could, if taken
to an extreme, constitute a challenge to conventional morality (Ant.
6
7
8
9
M. C. Taylor (2002: 95–6) points out that, according to Thucydides (8.48.3), self-interest
also motivated many members of the dēmos to accept the oligarchic regime of 411.
On the intense discussion of self-interest in late-fifth–century Athens, see Balot 2001a:
136–233. Balot (181) goes too far, in my view, however, in contrasting the situation
before the Peloponnesian War with that during it: “As long as the empire was successful,
there was no conflict between the good of the polis and the good of the individual.
Imperialistic success made it easy for individuals to identify themselves first and foremost
as Athenian citizens.” As we shall see in Chapter 4, the wealthy and the city were likely
in conflict over liturgies well before the start of the Peloponnesian War.
On the sophists, see Guthrie 1971; Kerferd 1981; Romilly 1992; Wallace 1998b.
On the evaluation of individual and group behavior in similar terms, see Dover 1974:
310–11. Cf. Ober 1998: 68: “For Thucydides, the selves that naturally act to further
their perceived interests are collectivities.”
18
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
Soph. 87 fr. 44 D–K; Pl. Grg. 482e, 483b–d; R. 365c) and go beyond
what a broad public was ready to embrace, the assumption that men
naturally seek their own advantage was broadly appealing. Thus, when
Plato criticizes cynical views of self-interest, he attributes these not
only to the sophists but also to the mass of men (e.g., Lg. 731d-e).10
While Plato’s assertions about “most men” (e.g., R. 586a–b; cf. Lg.
831c) are tainted by his disdain for democracy and the average men
whom it empowers (R. 555b–562a),11 to all appearances the sophists
found Athenians highly receptive to their pragmatic view of human
nature.12
Abundant evidence of how much the Athenian public was intrigued
by self-interest as a force in human society is provided by public discourse in Athens, that is, oratory and drama addressed to large Athenian
audiences in public contexts. Because public discourse was tailored (to
varying degrees, to be sure) to take into account the assumptions of
popular audiences, it can provide clues to widely held Athenian views
and concerns.13
The topic of self-interest crops up prominently in a wide variety
of public settings in Athens, including the lawcourts, Assembly, and
Theater of Dionysus. Those addressing Athenian audiences offer a
range of perspectives on self-interest, sometimes appealing to it as justification for individual and collective behavior, sometimes criticizing
those who pursue it to excess. In either case, the frequency with which
they address self-interest points to its centrality in Athenian thinking
concerning human motivation.14
Athenian litigation regularly brought before large panels of jurors
the spectacle of individuals struggling to protect or advance their
10
11
12
13
14
Additional passages are collected in note 23.
Although Aristotle is sometimes equally cynical about “most men” (see note 23 in this
chapter), he is less harsh at EN 1163a1, quoted at the opening of this chapter; cf. 1104b30;
E. Hipp. 373–90.
Cf. Balot 2001a: 238: “The views expressed by Plato’s leading immoralists represented
only an amplification of competitive values that were themselves deeply maintained even
within Athenian democratic culture.”
On public discourse as a source for popular views and ideology, see Dover 1974: 1–45;
Ober 1989: 43–9; Roisman 2005: 1–6.
Elster (2002: 6–7) greatly overestimates in my view the “unavowability” of self-interest
as a motivation in an Athenian context.
19
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
personal interests within a legal framework (Christ 1998a: 32–43).
Self-interest often surfaces as an explicit topic within the self-interested
claims advanced by litigants. For example, litigants sometimes generalize about the inherent selfishness of human nature. Thus one of Isaeus’
clients asserts, “No man hates what profits him nor does he place others’ interests before his own” (3.66; cf. Dem. 36.54). One of Lysias’
clients invokes a similar view of human nature to defend his passive
collaboration with the oligarchic Thirty in 404/3: “No man is naturally
either an oligarch or a democrat, but rather each is eager to see established whatever constitution he finds advantageous to himself ” (25.8;
cf. 25.10; Isoc. 8.133; Wolpert 2002: 111–18). Antiphon, in his defense
concerning his role in the oligarchy of the Four Hundred in 411, may
(the text is partly mutilated) go so far as to suggest that Athenians are
universally attuned to self-interest: in arguing that overthrow of the
democracy would have been contrary to his own interests because he
was much in demand as a speech writer under the democracy, he asks
incredulously, “Am I, alone of the Athenians ([] [
]),
unable to recognize this or to understand what is profitable to me?”
(fr. 1 Thalheim).15
Litigants’ cynical assumptions about human nature extend to their
understanding of how jurors will decide their cases. Litigants regularly
assume that jurors will render a decision based not only on the justness
of their claims but also on what is expedient for the Athenian people
(dēmos) (Ant. 2.1.10; Lys. 19.64).16 While litigants stop short of asking
jurors to disregard justice and decide a suit solely on the basis of what
will benefit them as members of the dēmos, the explicit appeal to expedience in a legal context is disconcerting to a modern audience. For an
15
16
Although the key phrase “alone of the Athenians” is heavily restored, this would be
consistent with the tone of its context. I doubt that Antiphon’s assertions concerning
self-interest would have seemed as brazen to an Athenian court as Balot (2001a: 217)
suggests. It is certainly true, however, that litigants, when it served them, denied that
they were motivated by crass self-interest and greed and attributed these motivations to
their rivals (cf. Roisman 2005: 82; 173–6).
On such arguments, see Dover 1974: 309–10; Ober 1989: 146–7; Christ 1998a: 40–3;
Millett 1998: 232–3. The Old Oligarch, a critic of Athenian democracy, exaggerates in
asserting: “In the courts they are not so much concerned with justice as with their own
advantage” ([X.] Ath. Pol. 1.13).
20
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
Athenian audience, however, group decision-making, like individual
decision-making, naturally entailed considerations of self-interest, and
it was no crime to acknowledge this openly.17
Frank acknowledgement of this is even more pronounced in the
Athenian Assembly. Whereas litigants in the courts appeal to their
audiences primarily on the basis of what is just, with calculations of
advantage thrown in as further grounds for a favorable verdict, speakers
in the Assembly tend to focus on what is advantageous to the city
(Arist. Rh. 1358b; Dover 1974: 311–12). To be sure, because Athenians
wished to believe they were acting not only prudently but also fairly,
speakers in the Assembly do not normally set advantage and justice
against one another.18 Nonetheless, they assume that the city’s survival
in a perilous world demands that expedience be the ultimate criterion
for collective decision-making.
Attic tragedy and comedy likewise reflect, each in its own idiom,
the Athenian preoccupation with self-interest as a human motivation.
Through mythical plots set in the distant past and often outside of
Athens, tragedy provided Athenians with a safe venue for reflecting
on contemporary concerns about the city and life within it (Zeitlin
1990; Goldhill 1990; Saı̈d 1998). This was a natural place, therefore,
for Athenians to consider the problematic ramifications of egocentrism
for human relationships and society at large.
Athenian tragedians are very much attuned to the contemporary
discussion of self-interest as a fundamental human motivation. At
times, their characters explicitly address this. For example, the Tutor
in Euripides’ Medea, reflecting on Jason’s pursuit of personal advantage, asks the Nurse: “Are you only now learning that every man loves
himself more than others?” (85–6). Similarly, Sophocles’ Oedipus poses
the rhetorical question, “For what good man is not a friend to himself ?” (OC 309). These comments concerning individual self-interest
17
18
I am not persuaded by D. Cohen (1995: 115) that Athenians went so far as to assimilate
justice and advantage in these contexts: the fact that speakers distinguish clearly between
considerations of justice and those based on advantage suggests there was no fundamental
confusion between the two.
Thucydides’ Diodotus (3.44) is exceptional in distinguishing so pointedly between
advantage and justice.
21
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
are offered not as matters for debate – no interlocutor challenges
them – but rather as pithy articulations of conventional wisdom (cf. S.
Aj. 1366; Ant. 435–40; E. Hel. 999).19
If tragedians invoke the common view that the pursuit of selfinterest is ubiquitous, however, they cast extreme egocentrism in a
dark light. Thus, for example, Euripides’ stalwart Iolaus posits at the
opening of the Heraclidae: “the man whose heart runs unbridled toward
profit (kerdos) is useless to his city and hard to deal with, being good
only to himself ” (1–4).20 Elsewhere, Euripides calls attention to the
dangers of the rhetoric of self-interest, by showing how individuals can
exploit this to justify ugly and anti-social behavior. Thus Euripides’
ruthless tyrant Polyphontes justifies his behavior on the grounds that
“I am experiencing that which all mortals do; loving myself especially,
I am not ashamed” (fr. 452, with Cropp, in Collard, Cropp and Lee,
eds., 1997: 144). Similarly, Euripides’ Eteocles and Polyneices dubiously invoke their personal interests as justification for jeopardizing
their native Thebes (Ph. 499–525; 439–40; cf. Balot 2001a: 207–10).
While tragedians expose extreme selfishness as ugly and dangerous
to human communities, they also sometimes show that it is not to
the advantage of an individual to pursue self-interest without restraint.
Thus, unabashedly self-interested parties – like Jason, Polyphontes,
Eteocles, and Polyneices – often fare very poorly in tragedy.21
Although tragedians frequently explore the problem of self-interested
behavior through the excesses of Odysseus (e.g., S. Ph. 111; cf. Stanford
1963: 102–17), in Sophocles’ Ajax, Odysseus advances a more moderate standard of behavior: he argues on the basis of what moderns
might term enlightened self-interest that his enemy Ajax should be
given a proper burial because he himself may someday benefit from
19
20
21
Cf. also Men. Mon. 407 (“there is no one who is not a friend to himself ”); Arist. EN
1168b10 (“a man is his own best friend”); Pl. Lg. 731d–e. The proverbial flavor of many
of these utterances suggests an origin in popular wisdom.
On kerdos and self-interest, see also S. fr. 354.1–5; Ph. 111; E. fr. 794.
On the killing of Polyphontes in Euripides’ Cresphontes, see Cropp, in Collard, Cropp,
and Lee, eds., 1997: 121–5; fr. 459, which Cropp (147) places after the tyrant’s death,
may condemn his shameless pursuit of self-interest: “The kind of profits (kerdē) a mortal
should acquire are those he is never going to lament later.” Likewise, in Euripides’
Heracles, the shamelessly self-interested Lykos (165–9) perishes.
22
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
this convention (“For whom am I likely to work if not for myself ?”)
(1364–8). All may benefit, Sophocles suggests, from looking beyond
their narrow and immediate interests.22
Old Comedy, like tragedy, invited Athenians to reflect on problematic features of their common experience (cf. Henderson 1990).
Within a framework of outrageous humor and fantastic plots, comic
writers reflected on the complexities of civic life through caricatures
of both average and prominent citizens. Aristophanes, whose extant
comedies constitute the bulk of our evidence for Old Comedy, regularly addresses the conflict between individual and collective interests
within the city.
Aristophanes gleefully lays bare the selfish side of human nature.
His comedies are full of characters who are intent on satisfying their
appetites for sex and food and on acquiring money and power in
order to do so; they are often ready to employ any means to achieve
their ends, with little heed to the cost to others.23 This selfishness
pervades public as well as private life: powerful individuals struggle
to win the affection of the masses to advance their own selfish ends
(Knights); average men seek personal profit through payment for jury
service (Wasps) or for attendance at the Assembly (Ecclesiazusae). While
Aristophanes may present men as “worse than they are” (cf. Arist. Poet.
1448a) to amuse his audience, the fact that they were receptive to this
dark view of human nature provides testimony to Athenian cynicism.24
If Aristophanic comedy frequently shows human selfishness in
action, it often argues for the containment of this within civic life.
22
23
24
Cf. Morris (1994: 357–8) on the interplay of short-term interests and long-term ones.
Plato and Aristotle offer a similar picture of human motivation. Most men live to feed
their own boundless appetites and desires (Pl. R. 505b; Lg. 918c–d; Arist. Pol. 1267b4;
cf. Solon fr. 13.71–3) and pursue wealth (Pl. Lg. 870a-b; Arist. Pol. 1318b15) because it
enables them to do so (Pl. R. 580e). Most men envy the tyrant because he can selfishly
and without constraint satisfy his appetites (Pl. Grg. 471d–472a; cf. Lg. 874e–875b; Arist.
EN 1134b; X. Hier. 1.9).
For a more optimistic view of human nature, see Men. Dys. 718–22, where Knemon
states after his rescue from the well: “By Hephaestus, I thought no man could be kindly
to another – that’s how very deluded I had become through studying all the different
ways of life, how men in their calculations ( ) angle for gain (
). That was my obstacle, but one man has succeeded now in proving me quite
wrong . . . ”
23
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
The dēmos, it asserts, must not tolerate those who selfishly fail to fulfill
their civic duties (V. 1114–21; Ra. 1014, 1065–6; Lys. 654–5; cf. Ec.
746–876), or profiteers – especially politicians – who reap benefits
at the expense of their fellow citizens (Knights passim). While Aristophanes seeks to incite Athenians to moral outrage against these selfish
citizens, he also appeals directly to their collective self-interests. For
example, Bdelycleon – whose name indicates that he, like the poet (V.
1029–37), hates the popular politician Cleon – insists that, if average
Athenians could curtail the rapacity of politicians, they could themselves live off the fruits of empire (655–724; cf. Eq. 797, 1330; Balot
2001a: 196–200). Aristophanes, like orators addressing the Athenian
Assembly, takes for granted that Athenians act collectively on the basis
of their self-interests.
Plato, a native Athenian, and Aristotle, a resident of Athens for
much of his career, reflect their Athenian context in treating human
self-interest as a central problem within their ethical and political analyses. Although both philosophers regard the pursuit of self-interest as
ubiquitous or nearly so, they condemn excess in this matter.25 They do
so, however, largely on prudential grounds: virtuous and just behavior
is ultimately beneficial to an individual.26 To justify their ethical and
political perspectives on grounds other than individual self-interest –
properly viewed, to be sure – would run against the grain of Hellenic
and Athenian culture and fail to persuade an audience that was attuned
to its self-interests.
Democratic Citizenship and Self-Interest
Athenian democracy, rather than seeking to suppress the individual
pursuit of self-interest, pragmatically acknowledged its legitimacy. Two
25
26
Pursuit of self-interest ubiquitous: Pl. Lg. 731d–e; Arist. EN 1142a, 1159a14, 1163a1,
1168b10; Rh. 1371b19. Condemnation of excess: Pl. Lg. 731d–e (“the cause of all moral
faults [ ] in every case lies in the person’s excessive love of self ”);
Arist. Pol. 1263b1 (“the universal feeling of love for oneself is surely not purposeless, but
a natural instinct. On the other hand selfishness [ ] is justly blamed; but
this is not to love oneself but to love oneself more than one ought.”).
See Pl. Grg. 522d–e; 527b; Ap. 30b; R. 369b–c; Prt. 327b; cf. Arist. EN 1160a10; Plu.
Sol. 5; Heinaman 2004. For prudential ethics in Xenophon, see e.g., Mem. 3.9.4; HG
6.3.11.
24
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
key democratic principles, freedom and equality, reflected the high
status of the adult, male citizen and his personal interests in Athens.
Individuals were free to pursue their interests (cf. Th. 2.37.2) insofar
as these did not threaten others or the community at large. Each individual enjoyed (theoretically at least) the same basic civic privileges as
every other citizen, including equal votes in the Assembly and equal
access to the many public offices that were distributed by lot; as equal
shareholders in their city, individual citizens could lay claim to equal
shares of public distributions whether in the form of wages for performing civic functions or more direct handouts (e.g., Dem. 10.45; cf.
3.33–4).27 Democratic institutions helped ensure that these principles
would be observed; the popular lawcourts, manned largely by average
Athenians, allowed individuals to appeal on equal terms to the city’s
laws to protest assaults upon themselves or their interests by magistrates
or private persons. The democracy’s high regard for the individual and
his interests set Athens apart from most other city-states and in particular from Sparta (Plu. Ages. 37.6).28 Athenians were conscious of this
fact and incorporated this into their ideology of citizenship.
27
28
On individual freedom under Athenian democracy, see Hansen 1991: 74–81, 1996;
Wallace 1994, 1996, 2004; D. Cohen 1997; cf. Raaflaub 2004; Sluiter and Rosen 2004;
on equality and its limits, see Hansen 1991: 81–5; Raaflaub 1996; Cartledge 1996; cf.
Hedrick 1994: 307–17. For democratic citizens as equal shareholders in the city, see
Sinclair 1988: 23; Manville 1990: 7–11; Ostwald 1996; Schofield 1996; Ober 1998: 312–
13. The fact that citizens shared in benefits could be said to obligate them to share also
in the city’s woes and burdens: see Lys. 31.5; Lyc. 1.133; cf. Th. 2.63.1; Pl. Lg. 754d–e.
Citizens possessed their shares automatically by virtue of their status as free men,
not because the city was thought to bestow shares upon them as Plato’s Socrates (Cri.
51c) envisions it. Athenians regarded themselves more as “possessors” of their city than
as “possessions” of it, pace Ostwald 1996: 57, who maintains that in a Greek context,
“Citizenship was neither a right nor a matter of participation, but a matter of belonging,
of knowing one’s identity not in terms of one’s own personal values but in terms of the
community that was both one’s possession and possessor” (cf. Arist. Pol. 1337a25).
I disagree with Seager 2001: 389: “The democracy demanded from the individual not
merely solidarity but subordination: absolute obedience to the people, its institutions,
and its appointed representatives, and unquestioning acknowledgement of the priority of
the city’s interests over his own and those of his family and friends.” For a more balanced
view of the relationship between citizen/oikos and polis in Athens, see Roisman 2005:
55–9; cf. Farrar 1992: 17 (“Athenian political life raised the possibility of maintaining a
bracing tension between personal and civic identity”), and 1996: 112–13. On the related
debate over how far separate private and public spheres can be distinguished in Athens,
see Ober 1993: 142–3, and 1998: 148, with n. 57; Patterson 1998: 226–9.
25
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
Athenian civic ideology offered citizens diverse models for envisioning their relationship with the city. According to one frequently
invoked model, the city stood in the role of father to its citizen sons:
the fatherland (patris) benevolently nurtures and raises its sons and they,
in return, obey and serve it as good citizens (Lys. 2.17; Dem. 18.205;
60.4; Lyc. 1.53; cf. Ar. Lys. 638–48).29 This hierarchical model, based
on the unequal relationship of father and son, justifies a basic and
undeniable facet of the city’s relationship with its citizens, namely, its
authority over them; the subservience of citizen to city, it suggests, is
as natural and necessary as the subordination of son to father.30
A different model of citizenship, however, envisions a more equal
relationship between citizen and city based upon mutual self-interest.
It presents good citizenship as a conscious and rational decision involving enlightened self-interest. A democratic polity, this model asserts,
best protects and serves the interests of individual citizens; its citizens, conscious of this, willingly serve their city, because they benefit
themselves in so doing. This framing of the give-and-take relation of
Athenian shareholders to their city translates the powerful Greek idea
of reciprocity to an egalitarian and democratic context.31
While Athenians were free to privilege one of these models over
the other in their assertions about citizenship, they often invoked these
together as complementary – if not entirely reconcilable – visions
of the relation between citizen and city.32 These models coexist in
29
30
31
32
On this model, see Strauss 1993: 44–5, 49, 57–60. Plato, in advancing a more authoritarian model for the city, makes it not only father but master (despotēs) to its citizens
(Cri. 50e; cf. 51b; Lg. 804d). For military service to the city as something owed to the
nurturing motherland, see A. Th. 10–20, 415–16; E. Heracl. 826–7.
On Athenian assumptions concerning father-son relations, see Dover 1974: 273–5 and
Strauss 1993: 61–99.
While reciprocity is also present in the relationship on which the father-son model of
citizenship is based (a son is said to owe his father a debt of gratitude for raising him: see
Millett 1991: 132–5, 289 n. 11), this relationship is inherently unequal and the reciprocity
associated with it asymmetrical. On reciprocity in a Greek context, see the essays in Gill,
Postlethwaite, and Seaford 1998.
This is common, for example, in the Attic funeral orations, which are discussed below in
the text. Cf. Lycurgus’ appeal to each model in his prosecution of Leocrates: he portrays
the Athenian citizen at one point as a dutiful son (1.53), and at another point as a friend
(philos) who reciprocates the city’s gifts to him (1.133).
26
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
Athenian civic ideology presumably because they reflect two important
aspects of democratic citizenship. On the one hand, citizens were
ultimately subject to the authority of their fatherland and obliged to
carry out civic duties for it. On the other hand, it was important for
democratic citizens to view good citizenship as consensual – an act
of volition on the part of free men – and for this to be so it had
to be compatible with the interests of individuals. This latter strand
of Athenian civic ideology deserves closer attention, as it has broad
implications for our understanding of citizen mentality. Let us consider
first how this ideology of citizenship is articulated in our sources, and
then probe some of the tensions embedded in it.
The historian Herodotus attributes Athens’ rise to power after the
expulsion of the Peisistratid tyranny (510 b.c.) to the fact that free
individuals have a vested interest in supporting their city:
So Athens had increased in greatness. It is not only in one respect but in
everything that democracy ( )33 is clearly a good thing. Take the
case of the Athenians: under the rule of tyrants they proved no better in war
than any of their neighbors, but, once rid of those tyrants, they were by far
the first of all. What this makes clear is that, while held in subjection, they
chose to play the coward (!) since they were working for a despot,
but, once freed, each was zealous to succeed for his own self ( " #
$ % ' ( ). (5.78)
&
In embracing this view of Athens’ success under democracy, Herodotus
echoes the claims of Athenian civic ideology concerning the role of
self-interest in motivating democratic citizens.34
33
34
For this translation of the problematic , see Forsdyke 2001: 333 n. 13 and
Raaflaub 2004: 97, 222–3.
On Herodotus’ invocation of Athenian civic ideology in this passage, see Forsdyke 2001:
332–41; 348–9; Millender 2002: 47, 50. Thucydides (1.17), perhaps under the influence
of Hdt. 5.78 (thus Hornblower 1991: 50), likewise views tyranny as an obstacle to a
state’s success, because tyrants have regard only for their own interests; cf. Th. 2.46.1;
7.69.2. For the view that free men have more fighting spirit than those under despots, see
also Hp. Aer. 16 (“they run risks on their own behalf, and they carry off for themselves
the prizes of bravery and likewise the penalty of cowardice”), with Forsdyke 2001:
339–41.
27
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
Strong evidence that Athenians linked good citizenship to individual
self-interest comes from the corpus of Attic funeral orations, which
were presented on behalf of hoplites who had died serving the city.
From at least the mid-fifth century B.C., Athenians regularly held state
funerals at public expense for the city’s war dead; a significant feature
of these was the delivery of a funeral oration (epitaphios) by a prominent
individual elected by the dēmos (Th. 2.34).35 These orations served as
vehicles not only for praising the hoplites who had died fighting for
Athens but also for promulgating civic ideology.
Although the Attic funeral orations often idealize the sacrifice of
the city’s hoplites, past and present, as a patriotic act inspired by love
of country (Ziolkowski 1981: 110–12), they also insist that this selfsacrifice is a rational choice that is consistent with individual selfinterest.36 Athenians, they suggest, willingly risk death on the battlefield, because they have a vested interest in fighting to preserve and
advance the democratic city in which they enjoy freedom and equality.37 Those who perish, moreover, receive honors from the city in
exchange for their self-sacrifice: burial at public expense; a funeral
oration lauding them and the hoplites who have died before them;
and fame in perpetuity through the city’s annual ceremony and competitions commemorating the war dead.38 While the city honors its
dead collectively, each individual wins his share of praise at the same
time: “Although they gave their lives in common, they took individually ageless praise” (Th. 2.43.2).39 Athenian hoplites, knowing what
benefits await those who die, bravely risk death, as they reckon by
35
36
37
38
39
On the question of how often state funerals were held, see Loraux 1986: 363 n. 151.
Cf. Balot (2004b: 415), who speaks of the “Athenians’ rationalistic self-image” in connection with the democratic ideal of “rational courage.”
Democracy: Th. 2.37.1; Lys. 2.18; Pl. Mx. 238c; Dem. 60.26; Ziolkowski 1981: 108.
Freedom: Th. 2.43.4; Lys. 2.14; Pl. Mx. 239a–b; cf. Lyc. 1.48–9; Demad. fr. 83.2; Hyp.
6.24; Ziolkowski 106–8. Equality: Th. 2.37.1; Lys. 2.56; Pl. Mx. 239a; Dem. 60.28;
Gorg. 82 fr. 6.17–18 D-K; Ziolkowski 108–9.
Honors and rewards: Th. 2.35, 46; Lys. 2.9, 80; Pl. Mx. 236d; Dem. 60.33; Ziolkowski
1981: 109–10. Annual ceremony and contests: Lys. 2.80, Pl. Mx. 249b3–6; Dem. 60.36;
[Arist.] Ath. Pol. 58.1; Loraux 1986: 37–8.
Consistent with this claim is the fact that the individual names of the dead were inscribed
on tribal casualty lists – though without patronymic or demotic: see Loraux 1986: 23.
28
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
&
&
“a just calculation” ( ) % )) that more is gained than
lost through self-sacrifice (Dem. 60.32).40 The Attic funeral orations
thus pragmatically balance the call upon a citizen to consider what
he can do for his country with assurances of how much his country can do for him, even when he is dead.41 Consistent with this,
when Thucydides’ Pericles in his funeral oration invites his fellow citizens to become “lovers” (erastai) of their country (2.43.1; cf. Pl. Lg.
643e), he does so on the basis of the many benefits that this will bring
them.42
That good citizens “give” to the city in expectation of “getting”
something in return is vividly conveyed by the commonplace in Athenian civic discourse that a service performed for the city is a voluntary
“loan” or “contribution” (eranos) that will be paid back.43 Thus, in
his funeral oration, Thucydides’ Pericles characterizes the sacrifice
of the city’s hoplites as a “most noble contribution” (
* ), in return for which they obtain ageless fame (2.43.1–2; cf.
Lyc. 1.143).44 In keeping with this logic, a citizen’s failure to contribute
to the common pool could be viewed as grounds for depriving him of
his “share” in the city and the benefits that came with this. Thus, in
Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, the female chorus leader contrasts her relation
with the city to that of her male interlocutors:
I have a stake in the common fund ( "): I contribute (' ) men
to it. You wretched old men have no stake; you’ve squandered the fund
( * ) that came to you from your grandfathers from the war with the
40
41
42
43
44
For this calculus, see also Dem. 60.27; cf. Lys. 2.23; Hyp. 6.24; Isoc. 4.83.
Contrast the idealism of John F. Kennedy’s famous exhortation in his Inaugural Address
( January 20, 1961), “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do
for you; ask what you can do for your country” (Bartlett 1980: 890: 12).
For this reading of the erastēs metaphor, see Monoson 1994: 254, 267–8; cf. Balot 2001b:
510–12; McGlew 2002: 41–2; Wohl 2002: 55–62; Ludwig 2002.
On reciprocity as central to the concept of the eranos, see Millett 1991: 154–5; cf.
Monoson 1994: 267–8. The close association of the eranos with friendship ( philia) (see
Millett 1991: 156–7) made it a natural metaphor for the friendly pooling of resources
by citizens; cf. the proverb “goods of friends are in common” (Pl. R. 424a; Arist. Pol.
1263a30).
For a wealthy man’s liturgy as an obligatory eranos owed to the fatherland just as to a
father, see Dem. 10.40; for eranos as a metaphor for a son’s debt to his father, see Millett
1991: 289 n. 11.
29
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
Persians, and now you don’t pay your war taxes in return (" + '
, ) – indeed, we’re positively in danger of ruin thanks to you.45
(651–5)
While the speaker, despite her inferior civic status as a woman, has
won a stake in the city due to her contribution of sons to the war
effort (cf. 589–90), her male interlocutors have lost their stake because
they take from the common fund without replenishing it.46
Further corroboration of the close link between good citizenship and individual self-interest in Athenian civic ideology is found
in Thucydides’ representation of political rhetoric in the Athenian
Assembly. Thucydides’ Pericles, for example, appeals to self-interest as
the basis of good citizenship not only in his funeral oration, as noted
earlier, but also in his two speeches to the Assembly in the Histories.
He concludes his first speech, which urges Athenians not to shrink
from war against Sparta and its allies, with a reminder that city and
citizen alike stand to gain from war: “it is from the greatest dangers
that the greatest honors accrue to both state and individual” (1.144.3;
cf. 1.75.5; 2.46.1). In his final speech, which exhorts Athenians not
to yield in the ongoing war, Pericles argues at length (2.60.2–5) that
Athenians should give priority to the city’s interests at this time, because
its well-being is essential for individual prosperity: “For even though
a man flourishes in his own personal affairs ( - $ ), yet if his
country goes to ruin, he perishes with it all the same; but if he is in
evil fortune and his country in good fortune, he is far more likely to
come through safely” (2.60.3).47
45
46
47
eranos in this passage probably designates the pooled contributions of donors, rather
than an individual contribution or the collective of contributors; cf. the use of eranos in
reference to a shared meal to which all guests contribute (Hom. Od. 1.226, Aeschin.
3.251). Millett (1991: 153) does not seem to allow for this sense of the term in a financial
context, when he states: “The word eranos could refer to either an individual contribution
or the contributors collectively.”
This speaker also portrays the city as nourishing patris (640–1, spoken together with the
chorus of women), to which she “owes” ( ) good advice (648).
Although it is true that Pericles here “staunchly reasserts the priority of the unified public
interests of the state over the diverse private interests of each individual Athenian” (Ober
1998: 89), he does so by appealing to individual self-interest: individuals will be best
served in the long run by supporting their city. Note that Pericles prudently glosses over
the fact that some individuals may suffer disproportionately in this process, as was the
case for displaced farmers (Th. 2.14; cf. Foxhall 1993: 142–3).
30
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
Likewise, Thucydides’ Nicias in the Sicilian debate invokes the idea
that individual self-interest and good citizenship are compatible with
each other. Although Nicias asserts that his opposition to the Sicilian
expedition is not due to concern that it is contrary to his personal
interests (“And yet from such an enterprise I for my part get honor,
and have less dread than others about my life”), he hastens to add
though I consider that he is quite as good a citizen who takes some forethought
for his life and property; for such a man would, for his own sake (- $ ),
be most eager that the affairs of the city should also prosper. (6.9.2)
Nicias appeals here not to exceptionally self-interested individuals
but rather to Athenians at large, who – as Thucydides’ Pericles also
assumes – view their bond with the city as one based on mutual selfinterest.48
While Thucydides’ representation of Athenian political rhetoric
confirms the centrality of self-interest in the bond between citizen and
city under the democracy, his narrative calls attention to the fragility of
this bond as plague (2.53) and the hardships of war (2.59) wear away at
it. Although Thucydides’ Pericles is able to persuade his fellow citizens
that their personal interests coincide with those of the city, the Histories
track the divergence of private and public interests after Pericles’ death
(Pouncey 1980: 39; Balot 2001a: 136–78). Personal interests come to
threaten the city, as self-interested politicians, vying for power with
one another, play to the greed of the dēmos (2.65.6–13); and members
of the elite who come to view their interests as distinct from those of
the dēmos league together to seize control of the city (411 b.c.) (8.63.4;
cf. 8.48.1).49
48
49
Compare the similar pragmatism concerning individual self-interest in time of war
exhibited by General George Washington (1778): “I do not mean to exclude altogether
the Idea of Patriotism. I know it exists, and I know it has done much in the present
Contest. But I will venture to asert, that a great and lasting War can never be supported
on this principle alone. It must be aided by a prospect of Interest or some reward. For a
time, it may, of itself push Men to Action; to bear much, to encounter difficulties; but
it will not endure unassisted by Interest.” (Quoted in Diggins 1984: 23; cf. Mansbridge
1990b: 7).
Ober (1998: 108) suggests “This ‘stake in society’ argument seems to be an appeal to the
less overtly public-spirited men obliquely alluded to in the Funeral Oration” (cf. 86). In
my view, however, this is an appeal to mainstream Athenian civic values.
Cf. Arist. EN 1167a27: “Concord is said to prevail in a state, when the citizens agree as
to their interests . . . ”
31
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
We need not embrace Thucydides’ view of an Athens in decline
after Pericles’ death to appreciate that a bond of mutual self-interest
between citizen and city can be difficult to maintain, especially in
stressful times.50 If citizens are drawn to support the city on the basis
of mutual self-interest, when individuals perceive their interests to
diverge from those of the city they may feel justified in pursuing these
on their own or in collaboration with others. Arguably, in fact, there
is something inherently risky in the city promoting good citizenship
on the basis of mutual self-interest: to the extent that citizens viewed
their relationship with the city in these pragmatic terms, this might
lead some, through selfish calculation, to acts of bad rather than good
citizenship.
Aristophanes is especially attuned to the precarious nature of the
reciprocal relationship between citizen and state, and how selfish
calculations on the part of individuals can upset this. Aristophanes’
most striking exploration of this problem is found in Ecclesiazusae
(ca. 392 B.C.). The city’s women, in disgust at the failure of men
to run the city properly, attend the Assembly disguised as men and
win passage of a decree that puts the city in their hands (455–7); they
then require that all things be shared in common, from private property to sexual assets, and that citizens dine together in the agora from
their pooled supplies (590–729). While this caricature of Spartan-style
communism makes for good comic fun, it also entails serious reflection on the nature and limitations of sharing and reciprocity among
Athenian citizens.51
Of particular interest is the exchange between two citizens concerning whether to deliver property to the common pool (730–876).52 One
(“First Citizen”), honest but hopelessly naive, is on his way to deliver
50
51
52
Even the Attic funeral orations occasionally acknowledge that individual selfishness is a
threat to good citizenship: see Th. 2.40.1–2; 2.44; cf. Dem. 60.2; Ober 1998: 86.
While Praxagora’s scheme is not identical with Spartan arrangements (see Sommerstein
1998: 16), I doubt that an Athenian audience would miss the satire on their arch-rival’s
institutions (especially the common dining of the syssitia) and ideology. Dover (1972:
198–9; followed by Rothwell 1990: 7) overestimates Athenian receptiveness to state
control of private property; on the attachment of the wealthy to their property, see
Chapter 4.
On the problem of their identities within the comedy, see Olson 1991b, who argues that
the Neighbor is the First Citizen and the Second Citizen is an anonymous character.
32
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
his property to the city in compliance with the women’s decree; his
only concern is that, if he lingers, there may be no place left for his
contribution (794–5). The other (“Second Citizen”), unscrupulous
and cynical, holds back on contributing his share. He shrewdly waits
to see if the fickle Assembly will rescind this directive (797–8; 812–
22), and if others will actually comply: “Do you really believe that any
single one of them who has any sense will bring his goods in? It’s not
our ancestral way” (777–8). While the cynical citizen refuses to contribute his share, he is more than ready to enjoy the common feasting.
When a herald proclaims that the sumptuous dinner is in preparation
(834; cf. 681–93), he sets forth to join the feast despite the protest
of his interlocutor that he must first hand over his goods (855). The
scene closes with the cynical Athenian reflecting: “I certainly need
some scheme, by Zeus, to let me keep the property I’ve got, and also
somehow share with these people in the communal meal that’s being
prepared” (872–4).
Although some scholars regard the cynical Athenian as but a
momentary obstacle to the new order with which most citizens
within the comedy cooperate (Sommerstein 1998: 20–1; Rothwell
1990: 7), his resistance is not so easily dismissed. His selfishness, in
fact, is fully consistent with that attributed to Athenians at large by
Praxagora earlier in the comedy: “you each look out for a way to gain
a personal profit for yourselves, while the public interest gets kicked
around . . . ” (205–7; cf. 307–10, 380–2). His watchful stance of observing his fellow-citizens to make sure that they will contribute their fair
shares before he contributes his (750–3; 769–70; 786–8; 859), moreover, seems perfectly rational in light of Praxagora’s characterization
of Athenian selfishness (cf. Dem. 14.15). To be sure, the cynical Athenian, who is utterly unscrupulous, is cast in an unfavorable light; but
elsewhere Aristophanes allows unscrupulous figures legitimate observations (e.g., Pl. 907–19). His extended presence in this comedy’s
center calls attention, as Aristophanes does elsewhere, to the obstinate
resistance of self-interested individuals to group enterprises on and off
the comic stage (cf. Ober 1998: 148–9).
Although the city of Athens stopped well short of insisting that citizens embrace the sort of universal sharing and reciprocity found in the
women’s city in Ecclesiazusae, it called upon individuals to pool their
33
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
resources, personal and financial, for the common good in carrying
out their civic obligations; it encouraged this cooperation by assuring
citizens that those who “give” to the city can expect to “get” something in return.53 Aristophanes’ cynical citizen highlights one way in
which this ideology might fail in practice: an Athenian citizen might
reject this reciprocal relationship altogether and seek to give nothing
(i.e., evade his citizen obligations), while still enjoying the benefits
of citizenship. As we shall see, Athenians appear to have been quite
concerned about “free riders,” to judge from their frequent allusion
to shameless evasion of duties.54
Even those who accepted the basic terms of this reciprocal relationship, however, might fall short in their citizenship if they believed that,
relative to other citizens, they were being asked to “give” too much or
“got” too little in return for their efforts. Although individuals in any
society may believe that they are being treated unfairly relative to others in the sphere of civic obligations, Athenians, as equal shareholders
in their city, may have been especially sensitive in this regard; a citizen
who felt that he was being asked to contribute more than his fair share
or was receiving less than his fair proportion of civic goods might well
feel justified in holding back on his contributions to the common pool.
Athenians were, as we shall see, highly attuned to disparities in contributions between themselves and other citizens in both major areas
of civic duty, military service and financial support of the city. They
also appear to have been very concerned about whether, in return for
their contributions, they were receiving their fair share of communal
goods.55 In either case, the perception of inequity could lead to resentment and justify, in the eyes of the disgruntled, underperformance or
circumvention of citizen duties.
53
54
55
Critics of the democracy exaggerate and protest this expectation that the individual
should reap rewards from the community (see e.g., Isoc. 7.24–5; Pl. R. 565a). For elite
complaints concerning demotic greed, see further in Chapter 4.
On the term “free riders” in modern “rational choice” theory, see Mansbridge 1990b:
20; cf. Ober 1998: 133 n. 27.
From the common man’s perspective, for example, it might seem that politicians and
other powerful persons took a disproportionate share of the city’s bounty through embezzlement, extortion, and other corrupt practices: see Ar. Eq. 716–18, 1218–23; V. 666–85;
Aeschin. 3.240, 250–1; cf. Pl. R. 565a.
34
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
CITIZENSHIP STRATEGIES: SELF-INTERESTED
CITIZENSHIP
When Athenian civic ideology portrayed democratic citizenship as
an exercise in enlightened self-interest, it did so in polemic opposition to the very real pull of narrow self-interests on citizens. In later
chapters, we will consider in detail how basic concerns over property
and personal well-being could lead citizens to fall short in performing their civic obligations. Before considering how the pursuit of selfinterest could lead to acts of bad citizenship, however, it is important to
appreciate that self-interest permeated the entire citizen enterprise.
Strategic considerations based on self-interests came into play regularly in the practice of Athenian citizenship. While this is conspicuously true of bad citizenship, it is also evident across the broad spectrum
of citizen behavior. Shrewdness and self-interest go hand-in-hand in
Hellenic culture (cf. Détienne and Vernant 1978), and not least in
the way Athenians approached their civic duties and represented their
civic behavior to others.
Although the practice of shrewdness was problematic in the eyes of
Athenians, it was an integral feature of social and civic life.56 While
politicians in the Assembly and litigants in the courts appealed to truthfulness and forthrightness as essential to social harmony and civic welfare, they often did so shrewdly to advance their personal ends; and in
their competition with one another outside the public eye, politicians
and litigants did their best, as far as we can tell, to outsmart and outmaneuver their rivals.57 The apparent gap between publicly invoked
ideal and personal practice (cf. Arist. Rh. 1399a) should not be taken
56
57
On the lively discussion of deception and wiliness in Athenian sources and citizen
ambivalence toward these, see Hesk 2000; cf. Christ 2003. While Athenians were naturally concerned about the threat these posed within the city (cf. Plu. Sol. 30), they –
like other Greeks – were prepared to employ trickery against other states in time of war
(Lyc. 1.83–9, X. Eq. Mag. 5.9; Krentz 2000; cf. Whitehead 1988). Although Athenians
themselves enjoyed a reputation for shrewdness in antiquity (Hdt. 1.60.3; Plu. Sol. 30),
they frequently accused their rivals, the Spartans, of duplicity and perfidy (see e.g., E.
Andr. 445–53; Dover 1974: 84; Bradford 1994).
For shrewdness in political rivalry, see e.g., Plu. Per. 9.2–3; cf. Ar. Eq. passim. On pre-trial
maneuvering by potential litigants, see Scafuro 1997: 25–114; cf. Christ 1998a: 36–9.
35
THE BAD CITIZEN IN CLASSICAL ATHENS
simply as testimony to hypocrisy: while forthrightness was important
for social harmony and the pursuit of common interests, shrewdness
could be essential for individual self-preservation and advancement in
a highly competitive society.
Just as Athenians were prepared to act shrewdly to achieve their
legal and political ends, so too were they ready to do so when called
upon to carry out their civic obligations. While some citizens may have
carried out their duties more or less spontaneously, many were inclined
to approach these self-consciously and prudently. Demosthenes takes
this for granted in exhorting his fellow citizens:
For you will notice, men of Athens, that whenever you have collectively
formed some project and after this each individual has realized that it was his
personal duty ($ ) .) to carry it out, nothing has ever escaped
you; but whenever you have formed your project and after this have looked
to one another to carry it out, each expecting to do nothing while his neighbor worked, then nothing has succeeded with you. (14.15; cf. 2.30; 4.7;
Th. 1.141.7)
&
Although Demosthenes is all too prone to equate citizen hesitation
toward his policies with shirking of civic duties (cf. 8.21–4; 9.74),58
his portrayal of citizenship as a deliberate enterprise that involves selfconscious choices between alternatives is highly plausible as is his
assessment of the temptation to hold back and allow others to carry
the burden of civic duties (cf. Dem. 10.28; Lys. 20.23). While some
Athenians might go so far as to seek means to avoid their obligations
altogether, a citizen did not have to be an utter rascal to act in a canny
manner; he might do so, for example, to avoid too frequent or onerous
service. As we shall see, a wealthy man might choose to conceal his
riches to avoid bearing what he viewed as more than his fair share of
financial obligations; or a conscript might fabricate an excuse to avoid
or postpone military service because he believed that he had already
done his part by serving recently.
58
For the many passages in which Demosthenes calls upon Athenians to rally against Philip
of Macedon by increasing their contributions in money and service, see Yunis 1996: 258
n. 38; cf. Roisman 2005: 124 n. 60. On orators’ rebukes to their audiences, see Ober
1989: 318–24; Yunis 1996: 257–68.
36
THE SELF-INTERESTED CITIZEN
Although citizens’ selfish interests naturally triggered the exercise of
canniness in the sphere of civic duties, further impetus to act shrewdly,
as we shall see, came from the perception that other citizens were
already acting dev...
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