Class In Archaic Greece

An eclectic Marxist approach reveals the centrality of conflict and ideological struggle in the socio-political and cultural changes in Archaic Greece.

"Archaic Greece saw a number of decisive changes, including the emergence of the polis, the foundation ofGreek settlements throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea, the organization of Panhellenic games and festivals, the rise of tyranny, the invention of literacy, the composition of the Homeric epics, and the emergence of lyric poetry, the development of monumental architecture and large-scale sculpture, and the establishment of 'democracy'. This book argues that the best way of understanding them is the application of an eclectic Marxist model of class struggle, a struggle not only over control of agricultural land but also over cultural ideals and ideology. A substantial theoretical introduction lays out the underlying assumptions in relation to alternative models. Material and textual remains of the period are examined in depth for clues to their ideological import, while later sources and a wide range ofmodern scholarship are evaluated for their explanatory power"--

"Archaic Greece saw a number of decisive changes, including the emergence of the polis, the foundation ofGreek settlements throughout the Mediterranean and Black Sea, the organization of Panhellenic games and festivals, the rise of tyranny, the invention of literacy, the composition of the Homeric epics, and the emergence of lyric poetry, the development of monumental architecture and large-scale sculpture, and the establishment of 'democracy'. This book argues that the best way of understanding them is the application of an eclectic Marxist model of class struggle, a struggle not only over control of agricultural land but also over cultural ideals and ideology. A substantial theoretical introduction lays out the underlying assumptions in relation to alternative models. Material and textual remains of the period are examined in depth for clues to their ideological import, while later sources and a wide range ofmodern scholarship are evaluated for their explanatory power"--

Combining impeccable scholarship with accessible, straightforward prose, Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece argues that institutionalized pederasty began after 650 B.C., far later than previous authors have thought, and was initiated as a means of stemming overpopulation in the upper class. William Armstrong Percy III maintains that Cretan sages established a system under which a young warrior in his early twenties took a teenager of his own aristocratic background as a beloved until the age of thirty, when service to the state required the older partner to marry. The practice spread with significant variants to other Greek-speaking areas. In some places it emphasized development of the athletic, warrior individual, while in others both intellectual and civic achievement were its goals. In Athens it became a vehicle of cultural transmission, so that the best of each older cohort selected, loved, and trained the best of the younger. Pederasty was from the beginning both physical and emotional, the highest and most intense type of male bonding. These pederastic bonds, Percy believes, were responsible for the rise of Hellas and the "Greek miracle": in two centuries the population of Attica, a mere 45,000 adult males in six generations, produced an astounding number of great men who laid the enduring foundations of Western thought and civilization.

The reissue of Donlan's 1980 seminal work, The Aristocratical Ideal in Ancient Greece, is long overdue. It is paired here with Donlan's later writings, which span the years 1970-1994.