Politics in the (postclassical) polis

Onno van Nijf

In view of the broad orientation on the history of politics that characterises the
Kossmann Institute it comes as no surprise that classical antiquity is our first port of
call. All societies have had their ‘history of politics’– of course- but the history of
Greek and Roman politics has always had a special place in the western tradition.
Greece in particular still exerts a fascination with historians and laymen alike.
Western politicians on a visit to Greece can rarely resist the tempation to reflect on
the fact ‘that there it all began.’ But historians know all too well that the Athenian
democracy was in no way the direct ancestor of modern political traditions. Neither
can modern non-democratic traditions claim linear descent from the traditions of
classical antiquity. No one suggests that the European experiment in federalism is
inspired by the federal states of the Hellenistic period, and constitutions are no longer
drafted after the example of Polybius notion of a ‘mixed constitution’1.

The history of political ideas

Yet, everybody knows that Greek and Roman politics has had a profound influence
on the history of political ideas. To mention an obvious fact: the vocabulary of
western politics has been dominated by concepts that seem to refer directly to the
world of the Greek polis or the Roman republic. Democracy, aristocracy, tyranny,
oligarchy, and monarchy are all terms that were once defined by ancient political
thinkers, but that are still widely used by their modern successors. In several
European languages the terms for citizens and citizenship were derived from ancient
political discourse- which was the first in world history to conceptualise citizenship.2
Many of these terms have entered western political vocabulary in the early modern
period, when the philosopher and historian Plutarch (c. 46-127) – a Greek who wrote
under the Principate – was compulsory reading for aristocrats and bourgeois elites.
Knowledge of Greek and Roman political literature is a necessary prerequisite of the
study of (early) modern Republicanism. We may prefer to take our inspiration from a
democratic past, but the current popularity of the Athenian experiment is a relatively
new phenomenon. Until the French and American revolutions western political elites
tended to look back at Athenian democracy without much enthusiasm.3
Political historians and other experts in the history of political ideas are still engaged
in a debate with ancient predecessors like Plato, Aristotle or Cicero. This
preoccupation with the ancient has deep roots. Montesquieu, Marx and Weber are
perhaps the most famous examples, but recently we have seen that modern authors
still engage in debate with Roman ideas about republicanism. Moreover, the recent
debate about globalisation has also made comparisons with the ‘archaic globalisation’
of classical antiquity.4 The ancient historian Polybius was among the first to connect

1
Cartledge, P. (2000). Greek political thought: the historical context The Cambridge
History of Greek and Roman Political Thought C. Rowe and M. Schofield.
Cambridge, CUP: 11-22.
2
Ibid., 11-12.
3
Vidal-Naquet, P. (1976). Tradition de la démocratie grecque. Démocratie antique et
démocratie moderne. M. I. Finley. Paris, Payot: 7-44.
4
Inglis, D. and R. Robertson (2004). "Beyond the gates of the polis: reconfiguring
sociology's ancient inheritance." Journal of Classical Sociology 4(2): 165-189.
the idea of ecumenical or world history with the Roman domination of the
Mediterranean, and indeed of the civilised world.

Comparative history
The history of Greek and Roman politics is not only of interest for the history of
ideas. A comparative approach to the history of politics in Medieval and Early
Modern Europe – or of other pre-modern societies- can only benefit from a
systematic comparison with the more than 1,000 years of experience with political
systems that Greek and Roman antiquity has to offer. This comparative approach has
already proven very fruitful with respect to the study of the city state, or of the rituals
that have surrounded pre-modern kingship.5
Other possible comparisons suggest themselves in the field of political
communication. The popular metaphor of politics as theatre has very ancient roots:
the assemblies of ancient Greek city poleis often took place in the the theatre. And the
old Attic comedy of Aristophanes, which depicts political life as a ‘democratic
spectacle’, can be considered as a classical Greek predecessor of the political sketch
writers.6 High culture as a producer of royal power was a fact of life in Ancien
Régime Europe, but it had a similar function for the Hellenistic monarchs and Roman
emperors.7 The political function of festivals and ceremonial life was no less
important in antiquity than in medieval or early modern Europe: a comparison of the
ritual and ceremonial languages in the respective periods may shed light on the
possibilities and limitations of this mode of political communication.
It is also important to consider ancient styles of political leadership. Early modern
aristocratic or bourgeois elites developed a style that was derived from the models
formulated by authors such as Quintilian and Plutarch for the urban and imperial
elites of the Roman empire. A comparison with antiquity can also be useful when
political style rests on physical comportment. Citizenship in classical Greece also had
a physical dimension: an ideal citizen was also supposed to have an ideal body, that
was trained in the public gymnasium and put on public display in urban festivals, or
represented through the many statues that were set up for athletes in public space.8

Political history in the postclassical polis

An important aim of the history of Greek and Roman politics within the framework
of the Kossmann Institute is to relocate this history firmly within the diachronic

5
Molho, A., K. Raaflaub, et al., Eds. (1991). City states in classical Antiquity and
medieval Italy. Wiesbaden/ Ann Arbor.; Cannadine, D. and S. Price, Eds. (1987).
Rituals of royalty. Power and ceremonial in traditional societies. Cambridge.
6
Goldhill, S. (2000). Greek drama and political theory. The Cambridge History of
Greek and Roman Politcal thought. C. Rowe and M. Schofield. Cambridge, CUP: 60-
88.
7
Blanning, T. C. W. (2002). The culture of power and the power of culture. Old
Regime Europe 1660-1789. Oxford, OUP.; van Nijf, O. M. (2007). Global players:
Athletes and performers in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Between Cult and
Society. The cosmopolitan centres of the ancient Mediterranean as setting for
activities of religious associations and religious communities. I. Nielsen. Hamburg.
8
Roodenburg:, H. (2004). The Eloquence of the Body. Perspectives on gesture in the
Dutch Republic. Zwolle, Waanders.; van Nijf, O. M. (2002). Athletics, Andreia and
the Askesis-Culture in the Roman East. Andreia. Proceedings of the First Leiden-
Penn colloquium on ancient values. I. Sluiter and R. Rosen. Leiden, Brill.
history of politics. In other words, Greek and Roman politics should not only be
studied for its comparative potential, but also as an integral part of long-term political
history of the western world. An important component of ancient historical research
in Groningen – including past and current post graduate research- concerns the
history of the Greek polis after the classical age. In the late Roman Empire the Greek
polis could look back at a history of more than 1,000 years, which makes it one of the
most successful forms of political organisation in world history. The model of the
polis only starts to disappear in late Antiquity, when the elites increasingly earn
symbolic and political capital in the service of emperor and the Church and finally
turn their back to the cities.9
The final outcome – the decline of the ancient city- is clear, but there is no general
agreement about the pace and the route along which this decline took place. When
and how did the polis really disappear? The history of the postclassical polis can be
seen as an important stage in the structural transformation of western political culture
from the age of the classical polis - when there had been a public sphere as a locus
for political debate - to the Roman empire when the political culture came to be
dominated by the representation of political elites and the emperor. It is this new
political culture that culminates in the Byzantine empire, but which was also left as an
inheritance to the West.
Traditional political historians have tended to look upon the history of the
postclassical polis with disdain. The underlying assumption often seems to be that the
polis – and hence politics - had died at the hands of Philip in 338 B.C.E in the battle
of Chaeronea. Debate arises at best on the vexing question whether the polis was
brutally murdered, or whether it had been a case of mercy killing for a terminally ill
patient. In an important article with the ominous title: ‘Doomed to extinction: the
polis as an evolutionary dead end’ the sociologist Runciman clearly defends the latter
view.10 With or without the rise of Macedon, the polis would have been unable to
survive. New evidence and the re-interpretation of long-known texts causes this
orthodoxy to be challenged, but so far no new paradigm has arisen in its place.11 The
history of politics in the Hellenistic and Roman polis is ridden with paradoxes and
ambiguities. New research is needed to chart these ambiguities and place them in a
new interpretative framework.
Chaeronea may have caused the loss of power of the great independent poleis of
Athens or Sparta, but the independent polis did not completely disappear. Nor can we
say that the polis disappeared as a form of social organization. On the contrary: the
polis seems to have flourished. Historians have recently argued for the continuation
and further development of the model of the polis ‘as an important form of human

9
The standard work on the history of the postclassical polis remains Jones, A. H. M.
(1940). The Greek City. From Alexander to Justinian. Oxford.
10
Runciman, W. G. (1990). Doomed to extinction: the polis as an evolutionary dead-
end. The Greek city from Homer to Alexander. O. Murray and S. Price. Oxford,
OUP: 347-368. For the suggestion that the polis was ‘murdered’: De Ste. Croix, G. E.
M. (1983). The class struggle in the ancient world from the archaic age to the Arabic
conquests. London (2)., 300 ff. and 518 ff.
11
Wörrle, M. and P. Zanker (1995). Stadtbild und Bürgerbild im Hellenismus.
Kolloquium, München 24. bis 26. Juni 1993. München, Vestigia, Beiträge zur alten
Geschichte. Band 47; Ma, J. (2003). "Peer Polity Interaction in the hellenistic Age."
Past and Present 180: 9-40.
organization and political experience’ in the years after 338 BCE.12 The Hellenistic
and Roman periods saw urbanization rise to a level that would not be equalled in the
history of the region or indeed in the history of pre-industrial Europe. The Hellenistic
period even witnessed something like a ‘second rise of the polis’, when after
Alexander’s conquests, new poleis were founded in Anatolia, Syria and the Near East
between the Euphrates and the Indus. These new Greek cities resembled the classical
polis not only architecturally, but also in terms of institutions and organisation. The
new Greek foundation of Alexandria on the Oxus, now known as Aï Khanum, near
present day Kandahar, became in the Hellenistic period a polis that resembled in
many respect the age-old poleis on the Aegean shores. Old and new poleis had to
adapt themselves to the claims to power of territorial rulers, but they maintained an
intensive mutual diplomacy based on mutual recognition as peer polities. Some
poleis, such as Rhodes, were relatively free, others opted for experiments with
federalism, ranging from federal citizenship to complete political union of individual
poleis.13
We may even say that the Greek polis reached its acme in the Roman imperial period.
Greek cities were numerous, they enjoyed a rich material culture, and public life and
public spirit were thriving, as is evidenced in the tens of thousands of inscriptions and
archaeological monuments that survive until this day. These are often the remains of
buildings that were deemed essential to a Greek polis. The periegete Pausanias (2nd c.
CE) famously wrote that a community without public buildings, gymnasion, theatre or
agora could not be considered as a real polis.14
In material terms the Greek city of the Roman era was still recogniseable as a polis,
but this was also the case in ideological and institutional terms. Even in the Principate
we find a striking continuity of the institutions and concepts that marked out the
political sphere. Even though in Rome itself sovereignty had long since passed from
the populus romanus to the emperor, in the Greek cities of the empire the assemblies
were still active. And writers such as Plutarch thought it self-evident that these
assemblies were still the main arena for local politicians.15 Epigraphic documents
indicate that the boule (council) and the demos (people) were still deciding on the
kinds of issues that had already been on the agenda centuries earlier. There were only
slight differences in style and formulation compared to the decrees of the classical
poleis, which are the area of research of tradional constitutional historians.16
But on the other hand, the term democracy seems to have been applied to a political
regime that was dominated by its wealthiest citizens.17 In their hands the assembly
was no longer a forum for open discussion among fellow-citizens, but a stage where
the leading members of society were supposed to shine. Plutarch instructs his young
readers that when it came to important decisions it would be best to reach an

12
Ma, J. (2000). "The epigraphy of hellenistic Asia minor: A survey of recent
research." American Journal of Archaeology 104: 95-121, 108.
13
Ma, J. (2003). "Peer Polity Interaction in the hellenistic Age." Past and Present 180:
9-40.; Walbank, F. W. (1976-1977). "Were there Greek Federal States?" Scripta
Classica Israelica 3: 27-51.
14
Pausanias 10.4.
15
Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae rei publicae (798a-825f).
16
For the development of the formulae see: Rhodes, P. J. and D. M. Lewis (1997).
The Decrees of the Greek States. Oxford, OUP.
17
For this development: De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. (1983). The class struggle in the
ancient world from the archaic age to the Arabic conquests. London (2), passim.
agreement before matters reached the assembly. This was no doubt a century-old
practice, but the manifest cynicism was new. Even so: there had to be a public debate,
if only to prevent popular unrest. For later on in the same text, he reminds his
readership of local oligarchs that the boot of the Roman governor- who would expect
them to keep the populace quiet- was always looming above their heads.18
The demos was supposed to remain passive – its voice only to be heard during
carefully orchestrated acclamations which were supposed to testify to their local
patriotism, admiration for the local elite, and loyalty to the emperor. But such events
ran easily out of control: until the end of antiquity we read about slogan chanting
factions, and public assemblies and other meeting that ended in political clashes.19 It
is not easy to tell whether these were always some vestigial democratic reflexes, or
that these was the result of factionalism and in-fighting among the elite and its
supporters, but it is evident that even in these late days political struggles were still
looming under the surface.
Research
The history of Greek and Roman politics occupies a central position in ancient
historical research at Groningen by staff members and PhD students. This research is
partly carried out in the context of an international research project ‘The Greek City
after the Classical Age’ that is coordinated by Profs. Onno van Nijf (Groningen) and
Richard Alston (Royal Holloway, University of London) and which was funded by
the Leverhulme Foundation in London. This project aims to shed new light on the
importance and the transformation of the post-classical Greek polis from an
interdisciplinary perspective. The first results of this project are to appear in a series
Groningen Royal Holloway Studies on the Greek City after the Classical Age which
is to be published by Peeters in Louvain. This project covers a wider ground than the
history of politics alone, but several workshops were dedicated to themes that were
fully or largely about political culture.20

Over the next few years research in Groningen will focus on the following themes:

1. Citizenship and urban elites

The postclassical polis remained primarily a community of citizens. Local citizenship
remained until late antiquity a major source of personal identity: local patriotism and
political activity were a major source of political capital for members of the elite, who
increasingly positioned themselves as ideal citizens. It is important to investigate the
styles of leadership that were adopted by these urban elites. Recent Groningen Ph.D
research has underlined the importance in this context of civic euergetism – the
practice of public benefaction – that was widespread in the post-classical Greek city,

18
Plutarch, Praecepta gerendae rei publicae (813e).
19
Weiss, P. (1991). "Auxe Perge. Beobachtungen zu einem bemerkenswertigen
städtischen Dokument des späten 3. Jahrhunderts n. Chr." Chiron 21: 353-384.
20
In the context of this project the following workshops were organised: Political
culture in the postclassical city (Groningen 2003); Communities within the
postclassical city (Royal Holloway, University of London 2004); Feeding the ancient
Greek city (Athens 2004); Cults, creeds and contests in the postclassical city
(London, Institute of Classical Studies 2006); Urban elites and territorial
powerstructures in antiquity and late Medieval and Early Modern societies
(Groningen 2006); Public space in the postclassical city (Groningen 2007).
but other dimensions also deserve our attention.21 We want to investigate how the
urban elites claimed mastery of traditional Greek paideia in support of their
domination of the political scene and of such cultural institutions of the city as the
gymnasion and the theatre.22
We shall also investigate the development of honorific discourse which can be
followed through a study of the numerous honorific monuments that the poleis
dedicated to the members of the elite. The uniformity of these inscriptions and the
geographical spread of this discourse, is one of the most striking aspects of political
culture in the postclassical polis. These inscriptions offer us an insight into the core
values and moral norms that were shared by city communities and political classes all
over the entire Greek-speaking world. An analysis of these honorific practices and of
the gradual transformation of style and vocabulary of these texts will allow us to
determine how the political culture, seen as the relationship between the cities and
their leaders, developed over time.23

2. The urban landscape and political space

We should not base our history of politics exclusively on written sources: material
culture, in particular architecture and the urban landscape itself, is an integral part of
political culture. There is a close link between architectural developments and the
history of the polis as a political community. The polis defined itself as a community
by means of careful townplanning, elaborate public buildings, and a proliferation of
public honorific monuments.24 This has led to research into the functional and
symbolic transformation of the agora – the quintessential public space in the polis-
and of the gymnasion, that develops in this period into a ‘second agora’.25 Moreover,
there was a close link between the political and religious organisation of the polis,
which also had a material dimension. This link is the subject of a research project on
the development of the religious landscape and its relationship with the political
identity of the polis.26

21
Zuiderhoek, A. J. (2005). Citizens, elites and benefactors. The politics of public
generosity in Roman Asia Minor. Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen. PhD.; cf.
van der Vliet, E. C. L. (forthcoming). Pride and participation. Civic identity and civic
participation in the Hellenistic polis. Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies in the Greek
City after the Classical Age II . O. M. van Nijf and R. Alston. Louvain, Peeters..
22
van Nijf, O. M. (2002). Athletics, Andreia and the Askesis-Culture in the Roman
East. Andreia. Proceedings of the First Leiden-Penn colloquium on ancient values. I.
Sluiter and R. Rosen. Leiden, Brill.
23
van Nijf, O. (2000). Inscriptions and civic memory in the Roman East. The
Afterlife of Inscriptions. A. Cooley. London, Institute of Classical Studies. [ Bulletin
of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplements, 75]: 21-36.; Ma, J. (2000). "The
epigraphy of hellenistic Asia minor: A survey of recent research." American Journal
of Archaeology 104: 95-121., 107-111.
24
Alcock, S. E. (1993). Graecia capta. The landscapes of Roman Greece. Cambridge,
CUP., 93; for the inscriptions van Nijf, O. (2000). Inscriptions and civic memory in
the Roman East. The Afterlife of Inscriptions. A. Cooley. London, Institute of
Classical Studies. [ Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplements, 75]: 21-
36.
25
Current PhD research of C.P. Dickenson.
26
Current PhD research of C.G. Williamson.
3. The spectacle of politics: festivals, rituals and ceremonies
Ritual communication was always important, but in the Hellenistic and Roman period
the polis developed into a real ‘festive community’.27 The number of civic festivals
rose dramatically, and they seem to have played a role of increasing importance in
civic life. The sources confront us with a rich variety in public feasts, celebrations and
ceremonies – ranging from ancient half-understood rituals to more recent ceremonies
that accompanied the new ruler cult.28 Epigraphic records show how local benefactors
supplied the financial basis, how Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors supported
these festivities, and how the cities welcomed the champions of the great Panhellenic
games as civic benefactors.29 It is striking that the processions, banquets and festivals
with athletic or dramatic competitions often had an explicit political message. They
can be seen as the expression of civic concerns, particularly those to do with the ideal
arrangement of society. They often presented a new model of society, based no longer
upon the isonomy of citizens but upon a hierarchy of status groups, effectively and
symbolically integrated into the framework of a world empire.30 The rich festive life
of the postclassical polis becomes in this light an integral part of its political culture.

The history of politics in the post-classical polis is not one of a marginal phenomenon,
but of an important -yet relatively underexplored- link in the historical chain of
western political culture. We want to give this history a fixed place in the Kossmann
Institute, in the conviction that it is a case of ‘best practice’ for historians of politics
and of political culture of any period to keep an open eye for the diachronic and
comparative dimensions of their own research.

27
Chaniotis, A. (1995). Sich selbst feiern? Städtische feste des Hellenismus im
Spannungsfeld von Religion und Politik. M. Wörrle and P. Zanker. Stadtbild und
Bürgerbild im Hellenismus, München: 147-172.; cf. van Nijf, O. M. (2001). Local
heroes: Athletics, festivals and elite self-fashioning in the Roman East. Being Greek
under Rome. S. Goldhill. Cambridge 2001, Cambridge University Press: 306-334..
28
One of the most spectacular examples, the ruler cult of Antiochus of Commagene,
is the subject of current PhD research of M.P. Schipperheijn.
29
van Nijf, O. M. (2001). Local heroes: Athletics, festivals and elite self-fashioning in
the Roman East. Being Greek under Rome. S. Goldhill. Cambridge 2001, Cambridge
University Press: 306-334.
30
van Nijf, O. M. (1997). The Civic World of Professional Associations in the Roman
East. Amsterdam, Gieben, 247.