![]() Magnetto tracks changes in the practice of interstate arbitration through the Hellenistic period. Turning to interactions among cities, Anna Magnetto (“Interstate Arbitrations as a Feature of the Hellenistic Polis: Between Ideology, International Law and Civic Memory”) and Peter Funke (“ Poleis and Koina : Reshaping the World of the Greek States in Hellenistic Times”) provide valuable, updated reflections on two well-studied phenomena typical of the Hellenistic age. Börm concludes that the discourse surrounding stasis and its causes did not change drastically in the Hellenistic period, but the more detailed and widespread epigraphic sources provide greater insight into the strategies for the resolution of stasis than the Classical evidence. In Börm’s view, the continued frequency of stasis represents another data set for exploring the vitality of political life in the post-Classical polis. Henning Börm (“ Stasis in Post-Classical Greece: The Discourse of Civil Strife in the Hellenistic World”) highlights the fact that stasis has typically been studied primarily in the context of the Classical polis and provides an overview of how the character of the evidence for stasis in the Classical era differs from that of the Hellenistic period. These essays are bound to spark further discussion and debate, but regardless of where one falls on the question of Hellenistic democracy, both contributions add important nuance and reorientation to the question. With reference to the debate about when elite influence decisively changed the political culture of the Hellenistic polis, Müller advocates taking a wider view and insists that trying to reconstruct an overall schema of this process that applies to all parts of the Hellenistic world is neither possible nor desirable. ![]() Müller first reviews the use of the terms oligarchia and dēmokratia in Aristotle, Polybios, and the epigraphic documents and demonstrates that the essential characteristic of oligarchy is wealth, not other sources of social power and prestige. Müller presents a complementary argument, suggesting that we should look for “oligarchic situations” (29) in which the concerns of the wealthy elite subverted the egalitarian values of the democratic polis. Thus, for Ando, the norms of the political culture of the polis did not “tame” elites, as in the readings of Gauthier or Ma, 4 but served to advance their interests. In other words, honorary decrees thanking elites for their euergetic activities granted “moral authority” (23) to the wealthy in a way that covered over the profound inequality, exclusiveness, and stratification of the polis and its institutions. Ando, drawing on comparative and theoretical work, argues that Hellenistic democracies are best understood as being controlled by elites who successfully used the discursive norms of the polis to conceal and justify their own control over the city. Both contributions begin from the premise, articulated in detail by Winters, that democracy and oligarchy are not mutually exclusive but rather compatible and frequently intertwined political regimes. 3Ĭlifford Ando (“The Political Economy of the Hellenistic Polis: Comparative and Modern Perspectives”) and Christel Müller (“Oligarchy and the Hellenistic City”) squarely tackle the problem of how an increasingly wealthy and influential elite affected the notionally democratic institutions of the Hellenistic polis. Winter’s comparative study, 2 and recent work on stasis and its resolution. Simonton’s important new book on the classical phenomenon and J. These contributions coincide with and draw on a renewed interest in oligarchy, heralded in particular by M. 1 This focus is most central to the first three essays, all of which touch on aspects of the debate about the political culture of the post-Classical polis. The result is nevertheless a trim, well-produced volume that coheres well, features that distinguish the book from many others originating from conference proceedings.Ī recurring theme of the volume is the thorny issue of the internal political life of the Hellenistic polis, in particular the questions of whether the power of increasingly wealthy elites made these cities democracies in name only, and if so, when this transformation took place. ![]() The editors do not announce any particular agenda, nor does the book focus on a single aspect of the complex topic of the Hellenistic polis or a scholarly approach. This volume represents a major contribution to the scholarship on the institutions and culture of the post-Classical polis and something of an appraisal of the state of research on questions fundamental to its study. As the editors of The Polis in the Hellenistic World rightly note in their foreword, the study of the Hellenistic polis has entered the mainstream of research in ancient history (7).
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