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This paper addresses the construction of a " national " identity of the Athenian inhabitants during the tyrannical governance of Peisistratos and his sons (561/0-511/0 BCE 1) mainly through a series of religious practices, such as the transfer of cults from the rural areas to the city (asty) of Athens, the reorganization of the Panathenaia, the establishment of the City Dionysia, etc. The present paper investigates how this developed " national " consciousness in the late 6th century, in the sense of the citizens' nationalization within the borders of the Athenian city-state, could enable the political unification of Attica and the emergence of Democracy, taking into account the constitutional reforms of Kleisthenes the Alcmeonid, after the expulsion of the Peisistratidai. This paper focuses on the interpretation of the concept of political equality and the formation of a political identity of the Athenians in the late 6th century onwards, two notions which are treated here as very closely integrated. It was that political consciousness, following the constitutional changes of Kleisthenes, which led the Athenians to their first great military victories in the early 5th century over the Persians. These victories, which indisputably confirmed the strength of the constitution, will be brought, in short, into discussion in order to clarify the transition of Athens from the narrow borders of an archaic city-state to the rise of its naval empire in the " golden " 5th century via the newly-established Democracy.
The purpose of my contribution is to delineate the distinctive features of the Athenian elites’ identity in the Late Antiquity and to investigate the possible connections between this elite and the monumental townscape. The literary and epigraphic documents show the existence of an oligarchy of families, that is at the guide of Athens in the 3rd and in the 4th AD. The distinctive features of this elite are the cult of the classical past and of the classical culture, the paganism, the ownership of political and religious offices in Athens and the euergetism towards the city. The importance of these values in the elite’s identity makes to me very plausible that its members were also responsible for the maintenance of the traditional representative monuments of the polis on the Athenian Agora. In fact, when the literary sources suggest a crisis of this aristocracy in the first half of the 5th century, these monuments are abandoned and replaced by new buildings. The citycentre seems to be now in the hands of another ruling class, that shows no interest in the preservation of the ancient monuments and has apparently different values. The Christian power has now reached Athens.
Hierarchy and Power in the History of Civilizations: …
Early State in the Classical World: Statehood and Ancient Democracy2007 •
Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni 79 (1), 2013, pp. 239-276
In Limine. Religious Speech, Sea Power, and Institutional Change: Athenian Identity Foundation and Cultural Memory in the Ephebic Naumachia at Piraeus2013 •
Topic of the present essay is the religious commemoration of a historical event in Hellenistic Athens and the role of cultural memory in its conception and performance, considered as essential components in the identity construction process and civic self-awareness achievement. I intend to propose as a case study the celebration of the events occurred on the eve-night of the famous naval battle of Salamis, after which the Athenians claimed Greeks’ attention for having been the Saviours of Hellas. Probably by the end of the fifth century BC (when Athenian democracy was restored but the hegemony of the polis on central Greece was ending), or perhaps later, in the course of the fourth century (after Athens defeat in the Peloponnesian War or under the Macedonian domination), the Athenian youths were annually involved in the official celebrations of the victory that the fleet of Themistocles had obtained on the Persian invaders, by playing a ritual naumachia, aboard sacred boats, in the small harbour of Mounychia (modern Akti Koumoundourou) at Piraeus. This tradition is testified by epigraphic sources from the Hellenistic until the Roman Imperial Age. Besides highlighting the positive impact of the contest and collective training in forging sense of membership and fostering unity in society, the Athenian ephebic rituals carried out at Piraeus offers us a meaningful example of religious practice linked to a historical celebration of an event being placed in the remote setting of Classical Athens at the time of the institutional change introduced by Themistocles in 483/2 BC, which had long-term consequences on economic performance, creating a new growth path and ensuring economic prosperity and social justice. From this perspective, the sailing contests played by the future citizens of the polis were social factors of the greatest importance in explaining Athens’ relative success over two centuries in achieving internal stability and cohesion, facing the threat of the “clash of civilizations” by means of the cunning of culture, or, in other words, by means of the cultural practice of the ‘recycling’ of symbolic capital after democracy was restored at Athens in 403 BC.
This article attempts to trace the origins of philolaconism among Athenian elites in democratic Athens. It argues that fondness for Sparta among Athenian elites was not founded on a desire for constitutional change to the Spartan political model, and, indeed, that philolaconists were not seen as threats to the democratic order per se. Philolaconism was rooted instead in the Athenian aristocracy's need for an identity in the face of a changing Athens. Indeed, the fondness for Sparta became part of the social strategy through which the elite and wealthy members of Athenian society sought to reassert their threatened identity by adopting Spartan ways, and admiring Spartan values, in order to distinguish themselves from democratic culture. Thus, the cause of Athenian philolaconism was predominantly social not political; and as a social phenomenon it was not primarily based on the content of Spartan culture, but rather on the usefulness of Spartan otherness for the purpose of distinguishing Athenian elites from Athenian commoners. Few can be indifferent to the enduring power of the myth of Sparta bequeathed to history by its unique constitution. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Montesquieu and, indeed, many modern writers on ancient history have been among those who have lauded the Spartan system of government, due partly to the myths it engendered, but also to the obscuring effects of Ivan Jordović 'The Origins of Philolaconism' C&M 65 (2015), 127-154.
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