Greeks and Victorians: A Re-Examinationof Engels' Theory of the Athenian Polis

Richard B. LeeUniversity of Toronto

There is a paradox in Engels' well-known theory of L'analyse propose quelques observations de la dynamiquestate formation contained in The Origin of the Family interne des états primitifs et du rôle des relations dePrivate Property and the State. The state in Engels' view parenté et timoigne a la fin de la validité fondamentalerepresented a triumph of a small elite of non-producers de la vue d'Engels.over the vast majority, and a world-historical defeat forthe common people. Yet the Athenian state, Engels'prime example, does not conform to the pattern: itbecomes more "democratic" as the state evolves rather

. ~The origin of the state has been one of the threethan less. The paper explores the way out of thisdilemma, through an examination of the rise of the key disjunctures that has characterized the evolu-Athenian polis in light of the recent theory of the Early tion of human society, the origin of agriculture andState put forward by Henri Claessen and Peter Skalnik. the rise of capitalism constituting the other two. OnThe analysis offers insight into the internal dynamic of the question of the origin of the state much ink hasearly states and the role of kinship, and in the final been spilt and a plethora of theories have sprungsection argues for the essential validity of Engels' up. Because the actual origins of states oftenview. occurred before the full development of writing

systems, the details were always hazy and oftenIl y a un paradoxe dans la thdorie célébre d'Engels legendary. Archeological research has added great-

portant sur la formationz de l'état qu'on trouve dans ly to our knowledge of state origins, but consider-Origine de la famille, de la propri6t6 priv6e et de l'6tat. able gaps remain. An aura of speculation andL,'érat représentait, d'aprés Engels le triomphe d'une blite mystery still surrounds the question of the origin ofpeu nombreuse sur la grande majorité de la population et the state, and perhaps always shall.une d~Ifaite historique a l'échelle mondiale de la part du In recent years a dif~ferent approach to thepeuple. Pourtant, I'état athénien, I'exemple fondamental

problem has been pioneered by Dutch and otherprésenté par Engels, ne se conforme pas au modéle: au furet i& mesure que l'état évolue, il devient plus et non moins, European scholars. Recognizing the dif~ficulties of<<dimocratique>>. Mon drude explor·e la possibilité de knowing state origins per se, they have shifted torisoudre ce dilemme au moyen d'un examen de l'essor du focus on the early state as an analytical conceptpolis athénien à la lumiére de la théorie récente de l'état (Claessen and Skalnik, 1978). But instead ofprimitif présenté par Henri Claessen et Peter Skalnik. including under this rubric all pre-capitalist state

CULTURE V (1), 1985 63

societies, Claessen and Skalnik make a sharp dis- have at least the opportunity to understand some oftinction between the early state and the matulre the social forces at work in far greater depth than isstate. In the former, kinship, tribal political forms, true for the origins of the state.and tribal religion still dominate the social life of This methodological advantage was not lost onthe polity, while in the latter civil, non-kin-based the social evolutionist scholars of the last century,institutions predominate. Thus the early state such as Morgan, Maine, and Engels, who used themodel replaces the pre-state/state dichotomy with written sources from classical antiquity as thea trichotomy-pre-state/early state/mature state. major documentation for their theories of the

Claessen, Skalnik, and their co-workers have formation of the state. In fact, a closer examina-been active in putting forward this revised view of tion of these Victorian theorists reveals that theirthe formation of the state. In their two books, The version of the origin of the state corresponded toEarly State (1978) and The Study of the State what we would now call, following Claessen, the(1981), they have assembled case materials from all transition from the early to the mature state. Thisover the world and theoretical perspectives from conflation is certainly true of Engels' and Morgan'sEurope, North America, the Third World and the treatment of the rise of the Athenian polis (Engels,socialist bloc. A third volume on the early state is in 1972 [1884]; Morgan, 1963 [1877]). The pivotalthe press (Claessen, Smith and Van der Velde), and events of "state formation" in Engels' classica fourth volume is to come out of a conference held account occurred in the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.,in August 1983 in conjunction with the Intern- at least two centuries after the actual formation ofational Congress in Quebec.' the Athenian city-state in the 8th and 7th centuries

The concept of the early state appears simple, (and two millenia after the first state societiesbut it is deceptively so. In fact, it of~fers us a appeared in the Near East).powerful tool for the analysis of the development of For Engels the development of the state wentstate societies. First, the early state concept is hand in hand with the destruction of the gentileinherently dialectical. Much, if not most, previous constitution, that is, the supercession of kin-basedwriting on the state treats its origin as an event. jural institutions by the civil institutions of the cityThe early state concept treats it as a process. As government (Engels, 1972: 171-181). This pivotalClaessen and Skalnik argue, transformation is built into Claessen and Skalnik's

typology of early states (1978: 22-23, 589, 633-34,The fact that many scholars have considerable difficultyin drawing the dividing-line between the state and the 639-42). They distinguish three types: the inchoate,non-state is the result of their failure to understand that the typical, and the transitional early states; each isthe transformation was not an abrupt mechanical one, defined in terms of the relative political weight ofbut, on the contrary, was an extremely lengthy process. A kin-based and non-kin-based institutions.process characterized by the development of a distinct The inchoate early state is found where kinship, family,socio/political organization which we propose to call the and community ties still dominate relations in the

EARL STAE. (978:21)political field; where full-time specialists are rare; wheretaxation systems are only primitive and ad hoc taxes are

Second, treating the early state as a process frequent; and where social differences are offset byrather than an event turns our attention towards reciprocity and close contact between the rulers and thethe internal logic of its development. As Claessen ruled,and Skalnik argue: The typical early state exists where kinship ties are

counterbalanced by territorial ones; where competitionTo reach the early state level is one thing, to develop into and appointment to office counterbalance the principle ofa full-blown, or mature state is quite another. An oftenheredity of office; where non-kmn officials and title-

long and complex evolutionary process separates theseholders begin to play a leading role in government ad-two stages. Hence in the various societies that can be .ministration; and where ties of redistribution and reci-classified as early states, the degree of complexity, theprocity still dominate relations between the social strata.extent of the territory, the size of the population, and the The transitional early state is found where the

degree of power of the central government may differconsderaly. 1978 22)administrative apparatus is dominated by appointed

officials; where kinship influences are only marginalaspects of government; and where the prerequisites for

Third, because the state's development unfolds the emergence of private property in the means ofover a very long time, the origin of the state is only production, for a market economy and for the develop-the starting point of analysis. Although the actual ment of overtly antagonistic classes exist. This typeorigins of states may be clouded in mystery, the already incorporates the prerequisites for the develop-transition from early state to mature state often ment of the mature state. (Claessen and Skalnik, 1978:goes on in the full light of written history. Thus, we 23)

64 /R.B. Lee

The early state can thus be regarded as an and Leacock (1980), Flannery (1972), Carneirointermediate form of considerable time depth in (1970) and many others have confirmed the generalwhich the organs of pre-state society still exert a sequence. The problem arises when we look at the

powerful influence. The early state adapts kin- substance of the changes that actually occurred inbased institutions, tribal political forms and tribal the Athenian state during the period 600-400 B.C.

religions to new and expanded purposes. Only after Here, we are faced with apparent anomalies. For

a period of evolution are the new organs of state example, the major reforms of Solon and Cleis-

power able to supercede and dispense with the pre- thenes that crystallized the constitutional form ofexisting kin-based order.2 Athens and destroyed the gens were democratic

rather than despotic in character. They expandedcivil rights, rather than limiting them, and in-

The purpose of this paper, then, is to apply the creased equality rather than decreasing it for the

perspective of the Early State to the rise of the citizenry. In short, they appear to accomplishAthenian polis and in particular to Engels' theory precisely the opposite of what Engels had in mind.

of the formation of the state which relies so heavily Engels was attracted to the Greek material for

on the Athenian case. In so doing, I hope to clarify several reasons. As an educated European of the

two related issues in state origins: first, the nineteenth century, Engels was naturally steeped

question of the role of kinship in social evolution, in the subject-matter of classical civilizations. Also,and second, the correlation between the rise of the he was obviously following closely on Morgan'sstate and the development of inequality. plan in Ancient Society. Third, the ancient Greeks'

emphasis on commerce, commoditization andprivate ownership of land, as well as their

Enges ad th GreK Cse democratic" form of government, must have

The major contours of Engels' argument in The struck Engels forcibly as a precursor of nineteenth-

Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State century capitalism. And fourth, it is clear that, as a

(1972 [1884]) are familiar to us. Engels argued number of previoUs and subsequent commentators

(following Morgan) that in the beginning human have pointed out, class struggle played a funda-societies were universally based on kinship. And, in mental role in the rise of the Greek state (Wason,the process of social evolution, principles of social 1947, de Ste. Croix, 1981). This too must have

organization other than kinship began to dominate attracted Engels.human affairs. He also argued that the major move- But, as we shall see, the specific case of Athensment in human history was from the relative gives us a picture that is more nuanced and moreequality and communal ownership of property of complicated than Engels' general theory of thethe pre-state societies to the increasing political state implies. We will see, for example, that kin-and economic inequality and the private ownership ordered societies may often contain within them

of property in hierarchical societies. The formation fairly advanced forms of inequality, and, para-of the state represented a key disjuncture and doxically, the formation of the state may serve tostructural break in this sequence. restore equality even while it destroys kin-based

Engels used Athens as the paradigmatic case in institutions.The Origin. He delineated the nature of the Greek To his credit, Engels showed that he wasgens (clan) and the depredations made upon it by perfectly aware of the apparent contradictions, andthe explosive growth of commodity production. a deeper reading of The Origin will indicate how heThe merchant and agrarian aristocrats, rising on a disposes of them. But for the moment, let us focustide of wealth in commerce, slaves and land, on this apparent contradiction. The issue under-destroyed the economic base of the old clan order. lying it allows us to look deeper into the meaning ofThe state and civil institutions crystallized as an the state and its impact on the social life of humaninstrument ofclass domination on the ruins ofwhat beings, and allows us to re-examine as well ourEngels called the "gentile constitution." notions of primitive egalitarianism and the kin-

Engels' general formulation of the broad move- based social order.ment from kin to civil society and from equality tohierarchy has been amply supported by a century of The Image of Greeceresearch. The twentieth-century studies of state .

in the Soczal Screncesformation by White (1959), Fried (1967), Childe(1951), and Steward (1955) in the earlier period and Why is it that so many social scientists andlater by Friedman and Rowlands (1977), Etienne historians have been fascinated by the Greek case

Greeks and Victorians / 65

material, and particularly by Athens? There are a Plato and Aristotle, like Herodotus before them, seeing

number of reasons. We love the Athenians in part the peoples around them living in village communities

because, in our image of them, they are so much like the Aetolians or Macedonians, or in very imperfect

like us. Their ideas of citizenship, their political states like those of the Oriental nations, and themselves

parties and enthusiasms, their "democratic" insti- enjoying the ripe culture, the liberty and the comfort

which the city-state had brou`ght them, easily came to

tutinsther toerace f scptiismand ritcalbelieve that there was something almost divine in the

attitudes revealed in the tragedies and comedies polis enabling it to outstrip all other forms of association

and in their philosophies, all appeal to us in terms in the power of developing man's best instincts. (Fowler,

of the hegemonic ideology of liberal capitalism. 1946: 57)

The image of the Greeks pervades our thought,

perhaps more deeply than we are aware. It is no In short, whether on the keen critical mind of

coincidence that the banks are made ofmarble, and Engels or the bearers ofthe hegemonic ideology like

for 200 years all banks and most public buildings in Fowler and others, the images of the Greek polis

capitalist countries were built to look like Greek exerted a fascination. It is entirely appropriate that

temples (Hamlin, 1944; Hitchcock, 1976). Greek anthropology add this "tribe" to our repertoire of

models, Greek thoughts, Greek and Roman law classic case materials.

were the core curriculum for western ruling classes

until very recently (Turner: 1981). Right into the The Athenian State:

1960s Third World scholars in Ibadan and Karachi Origins and Development

had to know more about Greek history than they h a cnor ti cut lo n

did about the history of their own countries.excellent short paper (in Dutch) by Edward van der

Given this hegemony, it was understandable V1iet: "The Development of the Greek States:that Morgan and Engels, as classically educated

Problems and Hypotheses" (1981). The earliestEuropeans, would base their arguments on the

states in the Aegean date to the 16th-12th centuriesorigin of the state on the Greek polis. As Engels B.C. From Mycenaean archeology and Homericsays' texts we get a picture ofGreek society at that periodHow the state developed, how the organs of the gentile of what Moses Finley has called "petty bureau-

constitution were partly transformed in this develop- cratic states" (1970). The Mycaeans were literate;

ment, partly pushed aside by the introduction of new they wrote in Linear B. Though the scale of their

organs, and at last superseded by real state authorities - states might be quite large, the configuration of the

this process, at least in its first stages, can be followed state conformed well to Claessen and Skalnik's

nowhere better than in ancient Athens. (1972: 171) ,inchoate early state. The "bureaucracy" was

No other case of state formation can possibly limited to a few palace functionaries and kin and

have such a multi-layered density of meaning for clan dominated the lives of nobles and commoners

Western scholars, even today, simply because so alike. The kings were really war lords who had to

much of the very language of social science is prove themselves in battle in order to validate their

embedded in the Greek experience. Anthropology claims to the throne. They exacted tribute from a

(itself a Greek word), to its credit, has struggled to free peasant class which provided the bulk of

extricate itself from the graver excesses of ethno- production. The small slave class consisted, in the

centrism implied in this love of the Greek model. main, of women tied to the nobility in domestic

One of the anthropologists who have attempted to service. The contours of the state conformed well to

peel off some of these layers is Stanley Diamond, in a model of an agrarian polity in which a semi-divine

his essay on Plato and the concept of the primitive military caste rules over a large kin-based peasantry.

(1974). The late George Thomson did much to The Mycenaean kingdoms collapsed after 1200

work from the classical side for a rapprochement B.C.E., a period marked by invasions from the

with anthropology (Thomson, 1946, 1949, 1955). north by land and sea. The identities of the raiders

And our studies in Meso-America, the Andes, are problematic. "Dorians" comprised one element.

Angkor-Wat, Great Zimbabwe, Shang China, and Among others were "sea people," nomads and

other early states have expanded our horizons to pirates who scourged settlements as far afield as

the point where no anthropologist would subscribe Syria, Lybia and Egypt, and who came to rest in the

to the position taken by the Victorian scholar W.W. Levant (where they became the Philistines hence -

Fowler in his still-standard textbook, The City- Palestine). Internal factors - such as soil exhaus-

State of the Greeks and Romans (now in its fifteenth tion, overgrazing, social unrest - may also have

printing and still on syllabuses in political science played a role in the Mycenaean collapse.

at University of Toronto): A period of "dark ages" ensued in Greece,

66 /R.B. Lee

lasting about 400 years. Archaeologically there is a were all kinship groups in origin. Gardner had gonedramatic shrinkage in the size of settlements, and a even farther and argued that the clans and phratriesdecline in trade (Snodgrass, 1977). Literacy was of classical Athens were not and had never beenlost. Since writing in Linear B was strictly a task of kin-based units (1925: 584-85). Bourriot (1976)

palace administrative functionaries, loss of writing presents the most forceful recent statement of thiscan be taken definitively to indicate disappearance position, arguing that the clans were inventedfrom the scene of the state as a political form. aristocratic groupings that had nothing to do with

Around 800 B.C. the Archaic period begins, kinship. Roussel (1976) questions, along similarand this is where the subject matter of this paper lines, the "tribal" structure of Greek city-states.

begins as well. Homer and Hesiod date from this One problem with the Bourriot-Roussel posi-period, although Homer wrote about events, by tion is that if the clans had no link with the kin-then semi-legendary, of four centuries before. The based social order, then how did people organizeArchaic period was marked by two major develop- themselves and on what basis? As Snodgrass says,ments: the rediscovery of literacy, with a new [RousseP's] is a clever theory and, like others of its kind, itSemitic alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians, is destructive as well as constructive in its effects. For ifand the appearance of iron. there was no tribal order in the era before the formation

During the Archaic period there was a rapid of the Greek states then what system was there? To whatdevelopment of the productive forces both in agri- group larger than the family did men owe allegiance?culture and in manufacturing. Many new commu- (1980: 26)nities appeared and these expanded rapidly in size On balance, the evidence suggests kinship must(Van der V1iet, 1981: 80). Each community was have played a major role in social life and that,stratified by wealth and birth and each was ruled by though far from egalitarian, the Greek gens mustan authority based in a proto-urban centre. This have retained some features which are associatedwas the beginning of the Greek city-state or with communal tribal society (cf. Snodgrass, 1980:"<polis."> 25). The gens thus showed, as Engels argued, a

A number of these Archaic poleis crystallized distant but unmistakeable relationship to primitiveduring the period 800-600 B.C. Monarchical forms communities.~of government existed here and there, but monar- However, Archaic society was also a stratifiedchy quickly gave way to oligarchic or aristocratic society, and had travelled a very long distance fromforms of rule. A few noble families circulated the a primitive communal past. With the rediscovery ofhigher civic offices among themselves. literacy and the introduction of iron, there was an

Social organization consisted of four basic explosive development of the productive forces.units: the tribe, the phratry, the deme, and the clan Agriculture became specialized in olive oil andor gens. Each Greek city had three or four tribes, wine production, and land concentrated into largerdepending on whether the founders were Dorian or and larger holdings. Rapid development of com-Ionian in origin. (Athens, being Ionian, had four.) merce and shipping encouraged production of com-These tribes were not exogamous. The phratry was modities for exchange. There was a trade ina grouping of clans. The deme was a reference to a luxuries with Sicily, the Black Sea coast, thelocality, its members were not recruited on the Levant and elsewhere. These changes were ac-basis of kinship but rather on the basis of residence, companied by a rapid growth of population, soonand therefore it did not correspond strictly to the reaching levels that approached the carryingother units. The fourth unit was the clan, or gens capacity of the land.(genos or patria in Greek), a patrilineal descent The result was an acute and continuing socialgroup with an apical semi-mythical ancestor. crisis that racked the Greek cities from 680 B.C.

There is a continuing debate among classicists onwards. There were several outcomes of thisabout the function ofphratries and clans during the social crisis. First, there was massive colonizationArchaic and Classical periods (800-400 B.C.). and outmigration from the Greek heartland.Morgan, Engels, Thomson, and other scholars, Within 200 years the Greek colonies stretched fromfollowing Aristotle and other classical sources, saw Marseilles to the southeastern corner of the Blackthe clan as a direct descendent of the kin-groups of Sea. Colonization thus acted as a safety valve totribal society (cf. Thomson, 1949: 104-109). reduce population pressure. The second outcome ofAndrewes (1971: 77-78) argued that the phratries the social crisis was the rise of tyrannies. One-manwere composed of unrelated groups and that the rule became increasingly common from 650clans were a recent invention strictly confined to onwards, and verged in some cases on dynasticthe nobility. He expressed doubts whether they succession. A third outcome was inter-state

Greeks and Victorians / 67

warfare, a constant background to the development highest class. And finally, he decreed that theof the poleis in the 8th to the 5th centuries. actual office holders themselves were to be selected

But the development that concerns us most is by lot from lists provided by the four tribal as-in the agrarian sector. It is clear that the main root semblies.of the social crisis lay in the intensifying inequality After promulgating his laws, Solon was attack-of land-holding, and the immiseration and pauperi- ed and reviled by elements from both sides: by thezation of the peasantry. In Athens, as commodi- rich, for giving away too much, by the populartized agriculture and slave labour developed masses, for not giving enough. Solon, in goodthroughout the seventh century, the aristocracy liberal fashion, tried to be even-handed. One of theseized the lands of small holders for non-payment of poetry fragments attributed to him states:debts. There were several classes of poor. The To the people, I gave as much privilege as was sufHecienthectemoroi were share-croppers who had to sur- for them, neither reducing nor exceeding what was theirrender a one-sixth portion of their crop to the land- due. Those who had power and were enviable for theirowner and were thus in a state of permanent debt wealth I took good care not to injure. I stood, casting mybondage.4 A second group were actual debt slaves, strong shield around both parties, and allowed neither towho had lost their freedom for being unable to triumph unjustly. (Moore, 1975: 64)

repay a debt. In addition, intermediate categories of Despite some opposition, the majority ofpeople were themselves free but had mortgaged Athenians supported Solon's reforms, and manytheir lands and were forced to surrender their wanted him to become a tyrant.5 But this remark-children into slavery for non-payment of debt. By able man declined the honour and is said to havethe end of the seventh century B.C., thousands of gone into voluntary exile in Egypt for ten years so

peasants had lost their lands and had been exiled that his plan could work itself out among theinto slavery in other Greek cities. people. Many of his laws were still in place in

The tensions from this intense social conflict Aristotle's time, 250 years later.threatened to destroy the fabric of Athenian society Viewed from the perspective of economicand led, in 594 B.C., to the appointment in Athens anthropology, what Solon's reforms achieved, inof Solon as Archon, the leading administrative effect, was to put a floor underneath the citizens asof~fice. This remarkable man, a noble, poet, and a class. A level was defined below which they couldmerchant with widespread foreign ties, made not sink. Recruitment to the growing body of slaves

pivotal reforms that lie at the very heart of the was closed to the citizenry and the distinctiontransition from an early to a mature state. Solon, between a citizen and a slave became sharper.whose edicts were written in the form of poetry, Henceforth, the Athenian merchants, and later themade six major reforms (Moore, 1975: 61). First, he army and navy, were to provide slaves fromcancelled debts on land, pulling up the pillars or external sources.stone markers which indicated a lien or mortgage Viewed from the perspective of the internal

on agricultural land. He made loss of freedom for class politics of Athens, it is the even-handedness ofdebt illegal. Second, people already enslaved were Solon's reforms that gave the emerging Athenianfreed, and many were thus allowed to return from civil state the appearance of standing apart fromexile. Third, he changed the system of weights and society, an independent force free from themeasures (there was no coinage at this time) so that contending classes. (We will return to this point inpeople who still had to pay back debts could do so at the concluding section.)a fraction of the cost. Fourth, he divided the popu- Almost a century after Solon, in 507 B.C.,lation into four classes, based solely on wealth. In Athens had again reached a state of acute social

the past birth - membership in an aristocratic clan crisis. Peisistratus and his sons had ruled in Athens- as well as wealth had been a criterion for as tyrants from about 548 to 509. In general,admission to the highest class. This reform thus Peisistratus had been a popular and benevolentbroke a key link between clan and society. How- ruler, supporting the poor and expanding agri-ever, he retained the four old Attic tribes, each of culture. For example, he lent state funds to poorthem with their tribal assembly. Fifth, he expanded farmers to stave off bankruptcy. (Peasants could nothe pool of citizens eligible to hold public office. longer be enslaved, but they could go intoThe City's offices, called magistries, were distri- bankruptcy.)buted to the various classes, the wealthiest class However, after his death and the assassinationhaving the most important positions and junior of one of his sons, Athens was brought again to theclasses having less important positions. City brink of civil war. Cleisthenes, the next majortreasurers, for example, were only drawn from the figure in the formation of the Athenian state, was a

68 / R.B. Lee

member of a noble family that had opposed the use the deme name as their surname. (Locality, not

tyranny. After much struggle, including civil war in kinship, became the criterion of identity.)the streets of Athens and the armed intervention of This shifted fundamentally the locus of politic-

Sparta, the tyranny was overthrown and Cleisthenes al activity and allegiance. Prior to Cleisthenes,came to power as Archon with sweeping powers membership in one of the old Athenian clans andsimilar to Solon's. While Solon worked to counter- phratries was an essential prerequisite to citizen-balance the kin-based institutions with civil organs, ship. After Cleisthenes, the clans were shifted asideCleisthenes made a much more radical break with and the deme, and only the deme, became the

the past constitutions, and can be said to have central locus of political life. As one scholar put it,ushered in the classical Athenian democracy. He The deme was the microcosm of the government of thecompletely reorganized society along civil lines, city as a whole, and the deme was the starting point forand broke whatever links remained with the kin- anyone who wished to hold any office in the city. As aordered polity. basic unit for political life the deme was much smaller

It is worth looking into his reforms in some and radically different from those used before. Thusreform cut across and broke up old alhiances and powerdetail since we are enabled to see the actual transi-blocks. (Moore, 1975: 36)

tion from an early to a mature state form. Let usfollow the four basic units in Athenian society The reforms of Cleisthenes sealed the fate ofthrough the transformations that Cleisthenes the gentile constitution. Clans as such no longeref~fected. played a central role in political life. But the clans

First, the four Athenian tribes with their tribal were not completely abolished in the new order,assemblies were abolished, and ten new tribes with They continued to play a very important role in thenew cult figures were created from whole cloth. observance of rituals. Clan shrines, festivals andSecond, the demes, that is the towns, villages and processions were maintained, and could be obsery-

city wards of Attica, about 170 in number, became ed well into the fourth century (Vernant, 1974).the basic building blocks of the new tribes. They The clans, and other kinship groupings, were nowwere organized into 30 units, called trittyes, ten on the private side of a growing public/private split.from the city, ten from the coast, and ten from the They undoubtedly played a role in the social repro-interior. These 30 trittyes were assigned by lot to duction of families and local communities, andthe ten tribes, one from each region: so each tribe hence, indirectly, of the society; but they werehad one from the city, one from the coast, and one basically cast out of any jural role in civil institu-from the interior. This colossal gerrymander tions. It is this key disjuncture that Engels madecreated a total scrambling of loyalties and pri- the centrepiece of his theory of the state (1972: 227-mnordial ties. Fourth, since demes varied greatly in 233).number, the trittyes had to be equalized in size. A Though more reforms and transformations in

single trittye could contain from one to seven Athenian democracy occurred in the fifth anddemes. The Boul, or council, which had 400 fourth centuries, these need not concern us.members in Solon's time, was expanded to 500 to Enough has been said to lay before the reader theaccommodate 50 members from each new tribe. main facts on whichi to base a discussion of the

.issues raised at the outset.Along with these structural changes, Cleis-

thenes ef~fected a quantum expansion in the size ofthe citizenry, by setting a wider definition of who Contradiction and Paradoxwas an Athenian citizen; this secured the claims of in Engels' Theory of State Formationthose who by reason of foreign birth of one parentor another were threatened with disenfranchise- How do we account for the extraordinaryment by the oligarchic factions which had wanted paradox contained in Engels' prime case? As civilthe narrowest possible definition of citizenry. society crystallized in Athens, the rights of citizensPerhaps most significant were the reforms that expanded, when they should have contracted;further blurred distinctions of rank between low- conversely, the people gained freedom even as theborn and high-born. Cleisthenes decreed that clan kinship-based institutions, the ultimate source ofand family names were no longer to be used as their freedom, were being destroyed.surnames. Instead, the deme membership was to be The answer is not too hard to find. Theused as a surname. Furthermore, this deme name expanding citizenry was only one segment ofbecame hereditary. Even if one left one's deme, Athenian society. The "democratic" reforms ofone's children and their children would continue to Solon and Cleisthenes were closely linked to the

Greeks and Victorians / 69

rise of slavery and to the growing economic Lefkowitz and Fant, 1982). Classical Greek societydomination of Athens over her neighbours. As was patriarchal in the extreme. The equalityFinley (1963; 1980), Anderson (1974), and others accorded to male citizens did not extend to theirhave suggested, the character of the Greek state wives and daughters. The double standard was rife.was the product ofa trade-ofEf` power was extended Women were strictly secluded in Athenian society,to poor and middle peasants, in order to ensure and remained legal minors throughout their lives,their loyalty and active participation in the task of while men carried on a variety of outside sexualrunning a slave-based commercial and military activities with other men, with boys, and with slave

political economy. women. The subordination of women, of course,The participation of the citizenry was required was a point correctly emphasized by Engels as

in three critical areas: first, in the management ofa integral to the rise of the early state.

larger and larger slave labour force; second, as All this said, it still remains that Engels pickedsoldiers in the citizen army to defend Athens a primary case of state formation which did not fitagainst other Greeks (and, later on, the Persians); easily into his general theory of the formation of theand third, and not incidentally, through regular state. To paraphrase E.P. Thompson, this anomalymilitary adventures a regular supply of slaves for has something to do with the peculiarity of thethe farms, workshops, and later the silver mines. In Greeks. I am indebted to van der Vliet for theshort, the freedom of the citizen was dialectically suggestion that the case of Athens might be quitelinked to the unfreedom of the slave (cf. Finley, atypical of early states (1981: 87-90). The records1980; Padgug, 1976). As Perry Anderson has said in of Athenian society show an unusually central rolerelation to slave modes of production in general6: fOr merchant wealth and commerce, when compar-

Military power was more closely locked to economic ed with other states at similar stages of develop-growth than in perhaps any other mode of production, ment. Soon after 600 B.C., Solon prohibited thebefore or since, because the main single origin of slave export of grain. Not long after, Athens becamelabour was normally captured prisoners of war, while the dependent on foreign grain supply, making it theraising of free urban troops for war depended on the first non-agrarian state in history. The widespreadmaintenance of production at home by slaves, battle- evidence of debt slavery, mortgaging of land, and infields provided the man-power for corn-fields and vice later centuries the appearance of banks, stockversa, captive labourers permitted the creation of citizen exchanges, and other sophisticated financial de-armies. (1974: 28) vices, indicated an unusually high level of monetiz-

This point is echoed by a number of com- ation (see also, Finley, 1980: 86-89).mentators, who emphasize that the crucial determ- I certainly would not go so far as someinant in Cleisthenes' reforms was the military economic historians (e.g., Levy, 1967; see alsofactor, the creation of an ef~ficient hoplite army Thomson, 1955: 189), who have called the ancient

(Vernant, 1974; Jef~frey, 1976; Snodgrass, 1980). Greeks capitalists; but they certainly qualify inEdward van der Vliet (personal communication) some sense as mercantilists. This is particularlyhas pointed out that before 507 B.C. the Athenian clear when we observe the economic policies of thearmies marched in military units recruited from the fifth century Delian League. This factor, I feel, ledclans and phratries. After Cleisthenes, the new Engels astray in ascribing to the merchants amilitary formations recruited from the demes decisive role in the formation of the state. Mer-meant that the man fighting next to you, on whom chants may have played such a role in Athens - but

your life depended, could well be a stranger. This in Hawaii? Shang China? Mesopotamia? Meso-factor made new forms of loyalty necessary: loyalty America? The evidence doesn't support it. Mer-to the deme and the state, and not to the clan or the chants are present in all these cases (though lessfamily.7 developed in Hawaii), but in none do they pre-

The question can legitimately be raised of how dominate the way they did in the ancient Aegean.8much power the lower classes of Athens actually If Engels can be faulted for anything in Thehad. Although there was scope for upward mobility, Origin, it is the assumption at points of a uni-and many of'fices were chosen by lot, most of the linearity in social evolution that is not borne out bymajor offices in civilian and especially in military the facts. There are several pathways through theaffairs were occupied by men ofwealth, noble birth, early state, and the pathway taken by Athens is justor both. one.g The irony is that there is nothing in the

It is also worth noting that besides the broader formulation of historical materialism thatforeigners and the slaves, another casualty of the is incompatible with multilinearity, and at manydemocratic reforms were women (Pomeroy, 1975; points in their writings Marx and Engels not only

70 /R.B. Lee

drew attention to this, but insisted that this kind of effect is as Engels predicted, and the irony of the

analysis was absolutely fundamental to historical seeming paradox is not lost on him.

materialism - for example, Engels' often-quoted What Engels saw, and what others may haveletter to J. Bloch (Engels, 1968: 682). missed, is the sweep of history beyond the

Athens may not be typical of state formations, confusion of cases. Despite the evident expansion

but then, in another sense, no state is typical: all of rights for the class of male citizens, thehave their own peculiarities. Having said this, I formation of the Greek state in its net effect on

don't mean to imply that all bets are off and that an human freedom was negative. Greater equality forinfinite number of pathways exist for the develop- men, greater subordination for women, foreignersment of the state. In fact, it is probably the case that and slaves, comprising the remaining seventy-five

four classes of phenomena lead to state formation, percent of Athenian society in the 5th centuryand all of them have to be present, though the B.C.E. The decline of the kin-ordered institutions

weighting of the four factors will vary. First of all, in Greek society did, paradoxically, create greatereconomic factors: the development of productive "freedom," while allowing the Athenian state as a

forces and societal scale have to reach certain whole to practise inequality on a much larger scale.

critical thresholds. Second, military factors: through It is part of our Victorian heritage that we focus

conquest and coercion, political dominance has to only on the first half of the Greek equation.be won and defended. Third, ideological factors:

the essential creation of legitimacy for the new A CKNO WLEDGEMENTSorder. And fourth, political centralization andclass struggle, as one class seeks to generate itself Earlier versions of this paper have been

and to impose its domination, while the other presented at the City University of New York,

classes are called into being through resistance and Graduate Center; at The Canadian Ethnologyaccommodation. The Athenian case material shows Society Annual Meetings, McMaster University;

us the complexity of how these factors can interact the University of Toronto; and at UCLA. Present-

in a specific case, and there is no reason to believe ed at the symposium The Early State and After,that any other case is less complex. ICAES Special Symposium, Montreal, August 17-

19, 1983. I am indebted to a number of people forcomments and criticisms: Henri Claessen, Christine

Kinship and Primitive Communism Gailey, Rene Hagesteijn, Eleanor Leacock, Katy

The Athenian case shows that the kin-ordered Mor'an, Jean-Claude Muller, Irene Silverblatt,

mode of production should not be conflated with Harriet Rosenberg, Helene Sancisi, Tom Patterson,

primitive communism. Kinship as a mode of Ed Steinhart, Edward Ch. van der V1iet, and Eric

organization is capable of absorbing all sorts of Wolf. None of these is responsible for any errors or

exploitation and inequality. There are a number of omissions this paper may contain. Joep Leersens

examples from recent anthropological studies: the assisted with translations from Dutch sources.

lineage mode of production in West Africa (Rey and Finally, I am grateful to the University of Toronto

Dupre, 1972), the Polynesian ramage (Sahlins, for the award of a Connaught Senior Fellowship in

1958; Goldman, 1970), and the calpulli of the Aztec the Social Sciences and to the Social Sciences and

(Wolf, 1959; Kurtz, 1978) are all examples of extre- Humanities Research Council of Canada for a

mely stratified societies that still operate in a Leave Fellowship, both of which allowed me the

kinship mode. We have tended to romanticize the leisure to pursue research on the early state duringkin-ordered institutions and to equate them with the period 1982-85.communalism, sharing, and mutuality. But theycan also be a guise for extreme forms of inequality.Patron-client relations may be carried out in a kinidiom, and many feudal ties use kinship as a NOTES

metaphor. 1. The Dutch workers have been particularlyThe Athenian case, in short, is interesting fruitful in merging anthropology and classical scholar-because it does the opposite of what the main ship. I was particularly interested in that aspect of theirEnglesian theory predicts. Here we see the transi- work, and I spent part of 1982-83 in Holland, talking totion from an unequal early state to a seemingly less early state scholars at Leiden, Amsterdam, and Gro-unequal mature state. And we are dazzled by the nngnappearance of balance and moderation and justice 2. The scheme of the early state/mature state isthat we saw in Solon's reforms. Yet, the overall anticipated in a number of other sources. For example, in

Greeks and Victorians / 71

the Soviet periodical Vestnik drevnei lstorii a scheme was century Icelandic society (e.g., NjaP's Saga) offers

presented in 1952 for a periodization of world history illuminating parallels to the pre-Classical Athenians.

which relied on an early/mature state distinction which Garnsey et aL. (1983) presents further important material

corresponds in some ways to the Claessen/Skalnik on the "primitivist-modernist" debate over Ancient

formulation. As reported by Thomson (1955: 13-14), economy.

"Two stages may be distinguished in the growth of slave 9. Eleanor Leacock, one of the foremost modern

society - early and mature. In the early stage, slavery is interpreters of Engels, makes this point in her Intro-

patriarchal and directed towards the satisfaction of duction to the 1972 edition of The Origin (Engels, 1972:

immediate needs rather than the production of commo- pp. 48-49).

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