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SOCIAL GROUP INTERACTIONS
I

ABSTRACT
Social Group Interactions in the Fourth Century BC Athens
The focus of this study is social group interactions in the context of Athenian society during the fourth-century BC. Rather than focusing on social order proposed by the laws, this thesis analyzes the relationships and links built by social groups and defines individuals’ position in Athenian society. This thesis argues that Athenian society had complex social relations than it was shown in the studies examining social groups and statues. To show intricate relationships and networks of the individuals, this study provides three case studies drawn from the fourth-century-BC Athenian court speeches: Pasion’s bank, Athenogenes’ perfume shop, and Neaira’s family. Each case points out different contexts where nonhierarchical relations and networking between social groups manifested themselves. The existence of such interactions brings a new dimension to the personal relationships in Athenian society. On the other hand, it questions our general assumptions and presents an alternative for Athenian social reality.
v
ÖZET
MÖ Dördüncü Yüzyıl Atina’sında Sosyal Grupların Etkileşimleri
Bu çalışmanın odak noktası, MÖ dördüncü yüzyıl Atina'sında Atina toplumu bağlamında sosyal grupların etkileşimleridir. Bu tez, yasaların önerdiği toplumsal düzene odaklanmaktan ziyade, toplumsal grupların kurduğu ilişkileri ve bağlantıları analiz eder ve bireylerin Atina toplumundaki konumunu tanımlar. Bu tez, Atina toplumunun sosyal gruplar ve statüler dikkate alınarak yapılan çalışmalarda gösterildiğinden daha karmaşık sosyal ilişkilere sahip olduğunu savunur. Bu çalışma, bireylerin karmaşık ilişkilerini ve bağlantılarını göstermek için, MÖ dördüncü yüzyıl Atina mahkeme konuşmalarından elde edilen üç vaka çalışması sunmaktadır: Pasion'un bankası, Athenogenes'in parfüm dükkânı ve Neaira'nın ailesi. Her vaka, sosyal gruplar arasındaki hiyerarşik olmayan ilişkilerin ve bağlantıların (networklerin) kendini gösterdiği farklı bağlamlara işaret ediyor. Bu tür ilişkilerin varlığı Atina toplumunda kişisel ilişkilere yeni bir boyut kazandırmaktadır. Öte yandan, bu ilişkilerin varlığı bizim genel varsayımlarımızı sorgular ve Atina sosyal gerçekliği için bir alternatif sunar.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis owes a great deal of gratitude to a number of people. I thank my thesis co-advisor, Julia L. Shear, for her support and advice. Without her, I would not make it until the end. I thank my advisor, Koray Durak, who supervised my thesis and supported me in this process. I would like to thank Robin Osborne, Elif Ünlü, and Paolo Maranzana for accepting to take part in my jury. I am also grateful for TÜBİTAK-BİDEB (2210-A). During my graduate studies, I have been financially supported by this scholarship.
I wanted to thank my parents and my family. No matter how hard it got, they always tried to support me and be there for me. I also thank this one exceptional person, Tuğçe Coşkun, for her constant support. Last but not least, I want to dedicate this study to my grandmother, Hatice Akgül, and my uncle, Kemal Akgül. We will always miss you.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1: SOCIAL GROUPS AND ATHENIAN SOCIETY…………………...1
1.1 Scholarship………………………………………………………………..………3
1.2 Social network theory…………………………………………..………………...8
1.3 Evidence…………………………………………………………………………11
1.4 Thesis outline…………………………………………………..…….………….13
CHAPTER 2: A SOCIAL HUB: BANKING BUSINESS AND PASION’S BANK…………………………………...…………………………………………..16
2.1 Introduction………………………………….…………………………………..16
2.2 Banking business and social groups…………..………………………………...18
2.3 Pasion and his family………...…………………..……………………..……….21
2.4 Banking operations………...……………………………………………….…...24
2.5 A banker’s experience: Pasion and his networks……….………………….....…36
2.6 Phormion and inheritance of networks……….…….…….…………….….……39
2.7 Conclusion………………………………………………...…………………….44
CHAPTER 3: SOCIAL GROUPS AND WORKSHOPS: ATHENOGENES’ PERFUME SHOP……………………………………………….…………………..45
3.1 Introduction……………………………………………………….……………..45
3.2 Hyperides 3 and the perfume business…………………………..…...….………46
3.3 Relationships…………………………………………………………………….55
3.4. A model for other businesses………………………………………..…….……62
3.5 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………66
CHAPTER 4: INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS: FAMILIES, FAMILY MEMBERS, AND STATUS…………………………………………...…………………….……68
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4.1 Introduction……………………………………………………………………...68
4.2 Family formation in classical Athens………………………….………………..70
4.3 An eventful family story…………………………………………..…………….82
4.4 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………94
CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………...96
5.1 Bankers, perfume-sellers, and family members……………………...……..…...97
5.2. Looking ahead……………………………………………………….…..…….101
5.3 Conclusion: Answering the questions………………………...…….………….103
REFERENCES…………………………………………………….………………105
1
CHAPTER 1
SOCIAL GROUPS AND ATHENIAN SOCIETY
Now among the slaves and metics at Athens, there is the greatest uncontrolled wantonness; you can’t hit them there, and a slave will not stand aside for you. I shall point out why this is their native practice: if it were customary for a slave (or metic or freedman) to be struck by one who is free, you would often hit an Athenian citizen by mistake on the assumption that he was a slave. For the people there are no better dressed than the slaves and metics, nor are they any more handsome.1
In a passage from Pseudo-Xenophon’s Constitution of the Athenians, the author refers to Athenian society and how the social order (or disorder) manifests itself in the city. The remarks about these particular groups of people and their indistinguishable features provide an interesting picture of this society. He claims that it was not possible to tell whether a person is free or not. Mistaking a citizen for a slave would not be an uncommon occurrence. At the same time, people might mistake a metic or a slave for a citizen since there was no indicator to prove otherwise. Therefore, appearance and behavior did not necessarily identify an individual’s position in Athens. Such a situation, if true, must have created some uncertainties among these groups and eventually led to changes in attitudes. In fact, he adds that Athenian naval power and trade caused slaves and metics to become wealthier and adapt to a sumptuous lifestyle.2 Later in the text, he claims that “where there are rich slaves, it is no longer profitable in such place for my slave to fear you.”3 If a slave does not fear his master or a citizen, it changes the relationships and interactions they had profoundly. Although Pseudo-Xenophon refers to the apparent
1 [Xen.], Ath. Pol., 1.10 (translated by E.C. Marchant).
2 [Xen.], Ath. Pol., 1.11-12.
3 [Xen.], Ath. Pol., 1.11 (translated by E.C. Marchant).
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inequality by using categories such as slaves, metics, and citizens, he also allows us to consider an upside-down society where the application of hierarchical order is not possible. Thus, it is only reasonable to assume that such confusion in social order should have provided individuals in Athens an opportunity to interact and communicate with others in their own unique ways. This thesis will examine how individuals from different social backgrounds interacted with each other and possibly defied the hierarchical order.
As we have seen in the Constitution of the Athenians, there was a social division in Athens between various groups such as slaves, metics, and citizens. These categories were consolidated by laws and each of them contained certain privileges, requirements, and even restrictions. However, the unusual situation that Pseudo-Xenophon refers to in his writing compels us to reconsider what we know so far. If Athens’ inhabitants did not act in accordance with these legal categories that they belonged to, the encounters which they had with others in public and private places must have contained unexpected interactions than what the polis enforced on them. This observation generates the main questions of this thesis: how did these groups interact with each other? In what ways did they form relationships or sever them? Answering these questions is crucial to understanding Athenian society and its dynamics. I argue that fourth-century-BC Athens had more complex relations than we would anticipate: different social groups had more opportunity to interact with each other and they were not living in separate bubbles without coming into contact with other groups’ individuals. The evidence also suggests that such relationships and networks did exist in Athenian society. There are several speeches that reveal the networking practices of various individuals and made this claim stronger. By looking at these texts, I will analyze certain encounters that attract attention in terms of this
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study’s scope. Rather than concentrating on legal statuses and prior assumptions about Athenian society, analyzing the personal experiences of individuals from different social groups and connecting their experiences with the rest of the city will help us to come to a better understanding of how Athenian society functioned.
1.1. Scholarship
Modern scholars have had different approaches to explain Athenian society and its dynamics. In order to examine the social order and relations between individuals, they have relied on certain categorizations. When they were defining the social divisions, some of them used the term class, while others preferred status. In Marxian-Weberian conflict, De Ste. Croix preferred the term class which he explains that it “is the collective social expression of the fact of exploitation, the way in which exploitation is embodied in a social structure.”4 A certain class, on the other hand, defines groups of people “in a community identified by their position in the whole system of social production.”5 Their relationship to the conditions of production and other classes can identify their place in the social structure. On the other hand, Finley used the term status and came up with the notion of “the spectrum of statuses”.6 Statuses were juridically defined orders indicating privileges, disabilities, and even honor of each group7 and they also left room for further assumptions. The spectrum of statuses in this sense pointed out the existence of individuals who did not exactly fit into one category, but were something in between. Yet, these terms usually aligned with the categorical distinctions, slaves, metics, and citizens, which were
4 De Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, 43.
5 De Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World, 43.
6 Finley, The Ancient Economy, 68.
7 Edmondson and Hunter, Law and Social Status, 1-2.
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defined by the laws. Nevertheless, these terms make explaining hierarchical structures and conflicts between different groups possible and help us to understand social dynamics which the limited ancient texts could not provide. They formed a frame for Athenian society: people who belonged to certain categories acted similarly, interacted with their respective communities, and possibly shared similar concerns in their daily lives. In fact, this should also help to explain relationships and networks they had. However, when we come across the texts like Pseudo-Xenophon and see the “unruly” behaviors of these groups, it is not easy to explain why such confusion among slaves, metics, and citizens occurred or how they changed the dynamics of relationships.
In terms of social groups and their relations, there have been a few attempts to explain this situation and to put everything back in order. Deborah Kamen’s Status in Classical Athens8 focused on Finley’s idea of the spectrum of statuses and created more subcategories to define status groups in Athenian society. By doing so, she aimed to make a distinction between legal and social status and therefore, to explain certain groups which do not conform to the existing categories. These newly suggested subcategories such as privileged chattel slaves9 or freedmen with conditional freedmen10 gave her the opportunity to talk about the existence of rich slaves and metics. Nevertheless, this was not enough to explain what was happening between these people on the city level. Finding the true status of a person is also an issue that needs to be solved. Kostas Vlassopoulos in Free Spaces: Identity, Experience, and Democracy in Classical Athens points out the problem with the divisions in Athenian society:
8 Kamen, Status in Classical Athens, 2.
9 Kamen, Status in Classical Athens, 8.
10 Kamen, Status in Classical Athens, 32.
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I want to argue that the distinction between citizens, metics, and slaves was often difficult to establish in Athens; that this was connected to the functions of Athenian democracy; that citizens, metics, and slaves formed mixed and interacting cultures in collaboration and conflict; and that these interactions were created and enabled by what I will call free spaces.11
According to him, free spaces were the spaces that “brought citizens, metics, slaves, and women, created common experiences and interactions.”12 The free space that he chose to show people from different social statuses coming together was the Agora, but he also claimed that the workplace, the tavern, the house, the trireme, or the cemetery could be a free space.13 As a matter of fact, the Agora was a good example to show the experiences of social groups: it was a place where people interacted with each other, where they saw people, and they were seen by them. By referring to social realities, Vlassopoulos argues that we should have a bottom-up perspective to understand how Athenian society actually was and calls for a change in our perspective.14 Although he prefers to use the term “blurring identities” in his article to explain the problem of identifying one’s status, his initial concern about these categories was showing the problematic aspects of our approach.
In another article, Vlassopoulos refers to the same issues about understanding the social realities of Athenian society and he argues that taking the information in ancient texts at face value can be misleading: the amount of diverse evidence about Classical Athens “has encouraged a tendency among modern historians to take our sources at face value… it is understandable that historians of Athens rarely ask themselves… to what extent the image of Athenian society they present can be taken
11 Vlassopoulos, “Free spaces,” 33.
12 Vlassopoulos, “Free spaces,” 38.
13 Vlassopoulos, “Free spaces,” 38.
14 Vlassopoulos, “Free spaces,” 33.
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as representative of social reality in the city.”15 Therefore, he proposes that we should reexamine the ancient discourses and try to reconstruct the social reality that was not explicitly presented in sources.16 Taking his proposal, free spaces, into account and focusing on common experiences and interactions in certain places looks like a viable solution to get a better understanding of Athenian social realities. In fact, in Communities and Networks in the Ancient Greek World, the editors, Claire Taylor and Kostas Vlassopoulos mainly focused on these interactions by adapting the social network theory to their study. They saw network theory and community formation as the appropriate new paradigm to examine individual and group relations. Taylor particularly focused on social networks in fourth-century Athens to analyze the social mobility of marginalized communities.17 She argued that individuals who belonged to certain networks could create communities and achieve better social and economic conditions for themselves.18 The group dedications and legal speeches which she used as evidence also provide support for the idea that it is possible to study Athenian society and its diverse groups without using the term status or the polarities which it promotes.
There have been other attempts to focus on the idea of free spaces to eliminate possible problems created by legal categorizations. Robert Sobak in Sokrates among the Shoemakers has shown the same concerns as Vlassopoulos and pointed out that free spaces “would help push back against a strong elitist perspective and encourage us to reconceive and reorient our understanding of Athenian democratic culture from the bottom up.”19 Inspired by Vlassopoulos’ work, Sobak decided to examine workshops as free spaces where various individuals and groups
15 Vlassopoulos, “What do we really know about Athenian society?” 660.
16 Vlassopoulos, “What do we really know about Athenian society?” 661.
17 Taylor, “Social networks and social mobility,” 36.
18 Taylor, “Social networks and social mobility,” 53.
19 Sobak, “Sokrates among the shoemakers,” 670.
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could come together and exchange knowledge. He chose the shoemaker, “the most humble and least regarded of all ancient workmen”, to explain how networks were formed in these places and how certain individuals (Sokrates in this example) became bridges between different social networks and communities.20 When individuals interacted outside of formal structures of the democratic apparatus, by “gaining and sharing knowledge not only by mixing with their fellow citizens, but also by interacting with slaves, metics, and women,”21 they become more responsive to democratic culture. He claims that this democratic culture made Athens and Athenian society unique and allowed people to interact on more equal terms than in other cities. Sobak’s work proved that it is possible to avoid the terms such as class or status to examine individuals and groups in Athenian society. In addition, looking at their networking practices and the range of their interactions in a particular place can tell us more about the attitudes and behaviors of these city’s inhabitants towards each other.
Although the scholarship proposes various solutions to the problematic aspects of studying Athenian society, it does not clearly answer some questions about the nature of these interactions. In recent years, as I have discussed, scholars have started to adopt various approaches and use social network theory to examine changes and transformations on a community level. By looking at the webs of networks, scholars could make general assumptions about why societal norms evolved in this manner or what kinds of ideas and beliefs were influencing the social structure. Nevertheless, social network theory was not used to show personal relationships: we did not look into the process of relationship-building/severing and what these relationships meant for individuals. Especially for individuals who were
20 Sobak, “Sokrates among the shoemakers,” 670.
21 Sobak, “Sokrates among the shoemakers,” 678.
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part of different social groups, having these relationships or networks must have had a big impact on their lives. In this thesis, my aim will be to examine these interactions by adopting the social network theory and using the terms and tools that other scholars introduced.
1.2. Social network theory
Social networks are simply social structures that demonstrate the relations of individuals, communities, and many other things with each other. Each individual, material, or concept is a ‘node’ in this system and the ties that connect one to the other are determined by various forms of interdependency: for people, it can be friendship, kinship, partnership, enmity, or just common interests; for materials, it can be the purpose of usage, its value, its reusability, or producer-production relationship.22 The analysis of social networks even provides very detailed maps and graphs of exchanges and links within a given community. However, interpreting these maps is the most crucial step in network studies. The number of links, their strength, the relations between closer nodes, and their interactions with further nodes can change how we interpret a network.
In social network theory, the centrality of an actor/node plays an important role in making assumptions about the other actors and the effect of an actor in the overall network.23 Although there are many measures of centrality, they can be useful to show the influence and other sorts of important behaviors in a network.24 According to Matthew Jackson, there are four main measurements for centrality: “degree (how connected a node is), closeness (how easily a node can reach other
22 Kosorukoff and Passmore, Social Network Analysis, 1.
23 Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 61-69.
24 Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 61-69.
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nodes), betweenness (how important a node is in terms of connecting other nodes), and neighbor’s characteristics (how important, central, or influential a node’s neighbors are).”25 The data we have can also be impartial and deceptive and initially cause misinterpretations. Jackson accepts that “much of the information that we have about the structure of social networks comes from limited measurements of links that often take a static and discrete view of something that is inherently dynamic and volatile.”26 The network which we show in a chart can only reflect the reality of that moment. It would not be possible to trace every change in a given sample. Moreover, “there are biases and idiosyncrasies associated with each data set, and data are often collected and encoded in different ways, little has been done to systematically determine the prevalence of characteristics across ranges of social settings.”27 Considering our ancient evidence and data set, it is only reasonable to assume that we do not gather the necessary information in a scientific and methodical manner. Our evidence can indeed be biased.
Nevertheless, in circumstances in which it is hard to gather information from the texts about social realities, focusing on interpersonal relationships and the complex webs of connections make social network theory a useful tool. In this way, these relationships reveal how ideas, prejudices, gossip, behaviors, and even emotions can spread easily. Yet, the speed of spreading ideas through networks and the reliability of the information which was carried over can vary greatly from network to network. This variation is also true for the potential of making more connections or creating stronger ties. The shape of a social network determines that network’s usefulness to its members. More closed and tight networks give less opportunity to their members to acquire new and different ideas, exchanges, and
25 Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 62.
26 Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 83-84.
27 Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 84.
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connections. However, more open networks with more loose ties give access to a wider range of opportunities.28 While networks can bring out the “connections” that individuals and groups make, on some occasions they might undermine the distinct features of each node and make them invisible within their respective community. Networks in larger scales may especially present individual agency as insignificant since their decisions do not have a grandiose effect on the rest.29 Nevertheless, these individuals are the actors who made this system of networks and it was their every little decision/contribution that changed each variable which we are interpreting as a whole. In order to avoid losing the individual, working on networks on smaller scales would be a better approach to take.
Although ancient historians have only lately become interested in networks, social network theory and its analysis was already an approach taken by archaeologists. Having a limited amount of evidence (and mostly material sources) makes network theory a useful approach for interpreting material exchanges or social formations of ancient cultures. Even though there are many examples of such studies which benefit from network theory, it is true that archaeologists have also discussed the challenges of using such analysis and the downsides of it.30 One of the biggest issues that they were dealing with was to decide whether they are seeing patterns that are not actually there. Everything can become a part of a network, although they do not really give a critical insight.31 Creating networks that are not useful or helpful to understand the internal dynamics of each system will not answer our questions. Therefore, while examining the relationships between individuals, my first concern
28 Jackson, Social and Economic Networks, 101-102.
29 Kosorukoff and Passmore, Social Network Analysis, 3.
30 E.g., Knappet, An Archaeology of Interaction; Knappet, Network Analysis in Archaeology. However, Brughmans et al., The Connected Past is concerned with models they used since it only helps to fulfill their assumptions.
31 Brughmans et al., The Connected Past, 1-6.
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will be interpreting the evidence in its own context and creating reasonable and applicable maps of networks for individuals. This concern takes us back to the evidence which I am going to use for this thesis and its problematic aspects.
1.3. Evidence
The evidence will mostly come from literary sources, particularly legal speeches from the Demosthenic corpus, but also by Isocrates and Hyperides. From fourth-century-BC Athens, there is a considerable amount of literary evidence which reveals the litigious nature of Athenians and how it manifested itself in the courtrooms. This litigious nature was strongly tied to the sense of justice in Athenian society. Todd argues that the rise of democracy led to an increase in the number of surviving inscriptions and this situation caused the introduction of a new type of literary text: lawcourt speeches.32 These speeches which contain the narrative of one (or both) of the parties bring out the performative nature of the trials: “Athenian lawcourt speeches reflect a system of procedural law in which respective roles played by performers and by hearers within a trial.”33 In the lawcourt, litigants also became the primary speakers for their cases and presented their own interpretations of the law. In order to defend their cases successfully, litigants usually hired a logographer (speechwriter) to present their best argument. The judges who were selected from among Athenian men would give the verdict and the defendant would be either sentenced or found innocent in accordance with the laws. These speeches, as primary sources, are significant to show Athenian experience of litigation and how the laws were enforced. In addition, the narratives that speakers provided contain valuable
32 Todd, “Law and oratory in Athens,” 97.
33 Todd, “Law and oratory in Athens,” 98.
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examples of conflicts between individuals. In order to examine the developing and dissolving relationships, there is no better source than the lawcourt speeches.
When they were producing the lawcourt speeches, the speechwriters naturally tried to make compelling cases for their clients. Therefore, it is possible in the speeches to find a long narrative that explains the situation in detail with witness testimonies and indicates how much their client was wronged. This section of the speech reveals the broken agreements, unpaid loans, enmities, or any other affiliations between plaintiffs and defendants. We see relationships that develop from being strangers to coworkers, friends, acquaintances, family members. In contrast, we also see that the closest people can turn to strangers or enemies. These stories which I am going to discuss are exceptionally important for this thesis to examine how individuals who belonged to different groups make connections or cut them off. Another important part of these speeches is that they unintentionally provide a list of people who got involved in the dispute. These people can be witnesses of either side, who came to the court to testify. They can also be friends or family members who were affected by the conflict of the litigant and defendant. In either situation, their existence in the texts presents larger networks that individuals built and tells more about what each relationship meant for them.
Nevertheless, legal speeches are problematic sources that should be interpreted carefully. We only have access to selected speeches which most likely survived as the outcome of some deliberate decisions.34 On the other hand, the speeches represent the “formal litigation of the elite, and we should forget neither the level of literacy that would be required for a client to benefit from a written speech, nor the financial investment that is likely to have been involved in commissioning
34 Todd, “Law and oratory in Athens,” 105.
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it.”35 These legal speeches surely have their own biases and they were written to convince the audience. It is, thus, only natural to be careful before relying on the remarks of speakers or accepting every piece of information as a fact. It should also not be forgotten that we will only hear one side of the story in the speeches. These stories are incomplete and only produce a small fragment of the networks that these people actually had. A big group of these individuals mentioned in the speeches also belonged to marginalized communities. Their actions might be intentionally misrepresented and misinterpreted by speechwriters to match them with certain stereotypes that Athenian society adopted. For these reasons, it will not be easy to extract social situations from the lawsuits and decide whether the speechwriter deliberately chose to bring up certain issues on one’s status and attribute their attitude to their origins.
1.4. Thesis outline
In the next three chapters, I discuss these legal speeches from different perspectives and examine individuals from various social backgrounds and how they interacted with others. While each chapter brings another dimension to the forms of possible relationships, the individuals from these sources will present different types of networks that they built.
In the second chapter, I focus on a workplace and its owners: banks and bankers. The business and workplace can shape and change the nature of the relationships that individuals had. Pasion and Phormion’s business cannot be imagined without their personal relations, friendships, alliances, and enmities. In this
35 Todd, S. C. “Law and oratory in Athens,” 106.
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chapter, I discuss in detail how the bank was a place of opportunity for many social groups, and I also produce a list of Pasion and Phormion’s clients. The clients of these bankers, citizens, metics, and foreigners, show us the variety of individuals who could be part of their network and how banks were enabling them to interact among each other. Pasion’s experience as a banker presents not only the type of relationships which he could build with his customers, but also the magnitude of his networks which grew over time. Moreover, Phormion, an ex-slave like Pasion and his successor in the banking business, provides us with valuable information: the inheritance of ties and relationships is possible. The new successor can also enlarge the size of the network and introduce new actors.
In the third chapter, I present another context for interactions and building relationships through business: Athenogenes’ perfume shop. In this chapter, I discuss the perfume shop as another hot spot for trade and refer to similar opportunities which, like the banks it can provide. In Hyperides 3, in which the plaintiff accuses Athenogenes, a perfume seller, of defrauding him in a sale of slaves, slaves’ autonomous actions and behaviors towards citizens make this case interesting. While this case contains different sets of relationships among individuals such as Epicrates, Athenogenes, Antigone, and Midas’ son, their exchanges reveal that their social statuses were not limiting them or forcing them to interact only with their respective social groups. This situation with a small perfume shop in the Agora can also indicate that in other shops and commercial places the boundaries between social groups also weakened.
In the fourth chapter, I focus again on individuals who were part of a different social group: the family. The case of Neaira demonstrates that it is possible to observe the interactions of social groups outside the contexts of business and trade.
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The family of Neaira and Stephanus gives us a perspective on families which included members from different social groups. Moreover, Phano, the daughter of Neaira, made two marriages and through them, she became a member of different social groupings. As one small family became an extended one, the behaviors and decisions of the individuals changed accordingly. This example shows how the nature of relationships affects social networks by making them more intricate or more remote. Another example from Demosthenes 57, Euxitheus’ mother, will show how Athenian society understood families and family members in terms of statuses and why Athenian society might contain more of these families which came from different social backgrounds.
From these case studies, it will become clear that Athenian society contained many complex and intricate relationships between different social groups. Although this society contained social divisions between its members, the inequalities and differences did not prevent the individuals from coming together and forming various forms of networks and relationships. In my concluding chapter, I shall discuss what this perspective might store for us in the future of studying Athenian society and how focusing on interactions can make the data which we gather more coherent.
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CHAPTER 2
A SOCIAL HUB:
BANKING BUSINESS AND PASION’S BANK
2.1. Introduction
During the archonship of Socratides in the month Munychion, when this Timotheus here was about to sail out on the later expedition and was already in Piraeus on the verge of putting to sea, finding himself in need of additional money, he approached my father in the port and asked for a loan of 1,351 drachmas plus 2 obols. He said he needed just so much additional cash, and he instructed him to give the sum to Antimachus, his treasurer, who at that time was managing everything for him. So the man who borrowed the money from my father and instructed him to give it to Antimachus his treasurer was Timotheus; but the man who received money at the bank from Phormion was Autonomus, the very same man who continued all that time to serve as secretary to Antimachus. Accordingly, when this money was counted out, Phormion wrote down as the name of the debtor the man who asked to borrow it, Timotheus, and he added, as a memorandum, the names of both Antimachus and Autonomus…36
In this passage from Demosthenes 49, Apollodoros describes a loan agreement between Timotheus and his father, Pasion. Timotheus, a general who was about the lead an expedition for Corcyra in 374/3, was in dire need of money.37 He contacted Pasion the banker to ask for a loan to cover his outstanding expenses. Their interaction which happened at the port of Piraeus continued at the bank with the involvement of other individuals representing both parties. Pasion’s ex-slave and business partner, Phormion, made the transaction, but he paid the money to Autonomus while adding the names of Timotheus and Antimachus into the contract. This interaction between Timotheus and Pasion did not end here. Later in the speech,
36 Dem. 49.6-8 (translated by Adele C. Scafuro).
37 D.S. Bib. Hist. 15.47; Xen. Hell. 6.2.11-13.
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Apollodoros elaborates on the nature of their interactions which started with a loan agreement and then turned into a friendship: Pasion gave Timotheus a second loan for his further debts;38 he provided equipment for entertaining Timotheus’ guests;39 Timotheus, in return, introduced him to a trader for timber business and he promised to pay back Pasion for his past services.40 On every occasion, Phormion and other bank employees recorded Timotheus’ debts to Pasion including two silver drinking bowls he borrowed for his guests.41 While these two individuals who came from different social backgrounds were advancing their friendship, they introduced more people to each other and made further connections. Traders, shipowners, rulers, and even house attendants became part of their numerous interactions and amplified the size of their networks.
As in the case of Timotheus and Pasion, such interactions at banks were not uncommon phenomena. In fact, banking in the fourth-century-BC Athens appears as a personal business.42 Every relationship, partnership, and friendship which a banker had could become crucial in his successful career. Every bank customer was also a potential ally or a future business associate for the banker. In this respect, it is not possible to think banking operations, deals, and business decisions separately from the banker’s personal connections. Thus, banks in Athens provided the necessary context for people from different social groups to interact with each other and to make these connections. Although Pasion’s bank is the most famous and well documented in legal speeches, the way in which banks operated reveals that Pasion’s experience as a banker was neither unique nor his bank was an exception in Athens. Besides providing money exchange service for foreigners and newcomers, bankers
38 Dem. 49.17-18.
39 Dem. 49.22-24.
40 Dem. 49.26-28.
41 Dem. 49.32.
42 Cohen, Athenian Economy, 62.
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gave loans to wide range of customers or depositing their money, employing slaves and ex-slaves, and leased their banks to their former employees.43 Therefore, banks presented numerous opportunities for many individuals to gather and form relationships. Pasion’s and his successor Phormion’s experiences as bankers, their networks and relationships, demonstrate the vibrant environment of banks as public places in Athens as well as the dynamics of Athenian society.
2.2. Banking business and social groups
Banks were one of the places in Athens frequented by many people. A bank was an important stop for everybody before making a big investment, or simply exchanging or depositing money. There was a special banking quarter in Athens close to public square.44 Although the exact location of this quarter is unknown, it is only logical to assume that the banks should be within easy reach and therefore, close to the city center.45 Nevertheless, banks did not appear quite different than other shops in the market-place. The sources suggest that setting up tables side by side in the Agora and in the port of Piraeus was enough to make business.46 The term trapezitai (the men at the table) was used to describe bankers and as Calhoun explains “the banker was in origin the money-changer, the man who had a table in some public place near the market district of a great city, whose business it was to exchange the coinage of one city for that of another.”47 In time, bankers transformed into deposit-keepers and loan-givers. Eventually, the nature of bank transactions and their importance in
43 Shipton, “The private banks,” 412-421.
44 Calhoun, Business Life, 95.
45 Oikonomides, “An epigraphical mention”, 107-108.
46 Pl. Apol., 17c; Pl. Hippias Minor, 368b; Thphr. Char., 5.7.
47 Calhoun, Business Life, 84.
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Athenian economy changed.48 This change manifested itself in bankers’ growing connections and wide range of customers they acquired.
Edward Cohen in Athenian Economy and Society argues that the Athenian bank was a personalized operation rather than an institution. “At Athens the banker, like the doctor or the sculptor—and in sharp contrast to the typical modern financial business—was perceived not as a participant in a corporate organization, but as an individual practicing a techne, a craft or trade requiring personal commitment, knowledge, and skill.”49 For Athenians, there was not a clear legal distinction between the bank and the banker. In fact, name of the banker could appear in legal speeches to refer the bank itself. In Demosthenes 27, the speaker both refers to banks ἐπί τῇ τραπέζῃ τῇ Πασίωνος (in the bank of Pasion) and the bankers παρά Δημομέλει δέ τῷ Δήμωνος υἱεῖ (with Demomeles, son of Demon) interchangeably to list his father’s money on deposit.50 Similarly, Athenians associated money on deposit at the bank with the banker’s funds. In Isocrates 17, the plaintiff claims that his money was not deposited at the bank, but with Pasion.51 This interconnection between the “bank” money and personal funds of bankers is clear when the speaker in Demosthenes 36 talks about the banker Aristolochus, son of Charidemus who lost his land when he could not pay back to his creditors. He further mentions other bankers such as Sosinomus and Timodemus who sold their possessions to settle with bank’s debts.52 In most legal cases, if the plaintiff is trying to explain his damages related to the bank, the banker, his characteristics, and dealings are at the center of the narrative. Therefore, it is not possible to imagine the bank as a separate entity or a formal institution. Its existence strictly depended on the banker’s decisions and
48 Cohen, Athenian Economy, 7.
49 Cohen, Athenian Economy, 62.
50 Dem. 27.11.
51 Dem. 17.7, 8, 35-37, 39, 44.
52 Dem. 36.50.
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success. This personal business raises an important question about Athenian society: how could banks that revolved around their owners become a hub for different social groups? Looking at the way that banks operated helps us to answer this question.
The impact of the banks in fourth-century Athens has been a debated subject since Finley in Ancient Economy pointed out the “wall” in the economy between the land and liquid capital.53 This firm separation created money-dealing metics who got involved in banking, an economic activity of outsiders for outsiders. As Finley argues, this strict line in the economy also enforced the social hierarchy.54 Finley’s views on ancient economy impacted Paul Millett’s analysis on private banks in Lending and Borrowing in Ancient Athens. Millett claimed that borrowing money from banks was the last resort for Athenians. If they ran out of other options of getting loans such as eranoi (interest-free friendly loans), they had to consider going banks.55 This claim requires the existence of limited number of customers and a very narrow range of operations for the banks. Nevertheless, Shipton later asserted that the economic effects of the private banks were greater than Finley and Millett’s estimation: “Athenian private banks had the potential to interact with, and so in effect to provide a link between, many different areas of the Athenian economy. The banks are therefore a powerful force for breaking down Finley’s ‘wall’ between the landed world of citizens and the ‘outsiders’ world of money and trade.”56 Her argument also demonstrates that while banks linked many areas in economy, they also created places of interaction for people from different social strata. Indeed, banks provided a context where “money came into the private banks from foreigners, colonists, from citizens and metics, through the profits of trade, land, loans, and
53 Finley, Ancient Economy, 48.
54 Finley, Ancient Economy, 48.
55 Millett, Lending and Borrowing, 3.
56 Shipton, “Private banks”, 401.
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warfare,”57 and it went out again “to Athenian citizens, metics, Greek soldiers, allies abroad, and foreigners for the purposes of trade or warfare or to support the interests of landed Athenians.”58 Pasion’s bank reveals how these transactions happened between these social, legal, and economic groups. Thus, legal speeches that demonstrate how Pasion’s bank operated and its various clients shed a light on the vibrant environment resulted from banking activities in Athens.
2.3. Pasion and his family
In order to talk more about the banking operations in Athens, we should first look at the family history of Pasion and how his bank was successful in the first half of the fourth-century BC. Pasion is well known for his banking activities at Athens. There are several legal cases where his bank or his family became the subject of inquiry. However, not much is known about Pasion’s earlier life before he came to Athens. We only know that he was not a Greek (probably Phoenician by birth) and he had been enslaved.59 Two bankers, Antisthenes and Archestratus, bought him and he started his career at their bank.60 Although their legal status is unknown, Archestratus should have been a citizen in mid-390s when he acted as a guarantor for Pasion in a public suit.61 Pasion was already working at the bank in the final years of the fifth century.62 Since he was a reliable slave and bank worker, he managed to get in his masters’ good graces. In Demosthenes 36, the speaker praises his virtues as a businessman: “To people working in commercial finance, it is a marvelous thing for
57 Shipton, “Private banks”, 421.
58 Shipton, “Private banks”, 421.
59 Trevett, Apollodoros, 155.
60 Dem. 36.43.
61 Isoc. 17.43.
62 Trevett, Apollodoros, 2.
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the same man to be found industrious and also to be honest. That was not something passed on to Pasion by his masters; he was honest by his own nature.”63 Due to his loyalty, he gained his freedom at some point in 390s.64 By 394/3, he had become the owner of the bank and started to work independently.65 He was married to Archippe, a metic like himself, and they had a son called Apollodoros. Soon after that, Pasion was sued by one of his clients. Sopaeus’s son who was from the Bosphorus region accused him of theft.67 Although the outcome of this trial is unknown, it did not tarnish Pasion’s reputation as a reliable banker. Later, Pasion had customers from among wealthy and influential Athenians.68 Demosthenes’ father,69 the general Timotheus,70 and the general and politician Callistratus71 were business associates or personal friends of Pasion. For his contributions to the city, the Assembly granted him and his descendants citizenship and he was enrolled in the deme of Acharnai.72 This change in legal status enabled him to perform liturgies, to acquire real estates, and to own a shield workshop.73 When he died in 370/69, he left a considerable fortune to his two sons Apollodoros and Pasicles, and his wife, Archippe.
In terms of the banking business, Phormion appears as the successor of Pasion. We have the most detailed information about Phormion in Demosthenes 36 which was written for his defense against Apollodoros. Phormion’s presence at the bank was more evident in the first half of the fourth century when he was Pasion’s employee and subsequently became the bank manager. Like Antisthenes and Archestratus, Pasion bought Phormion as a slave and made him a cashier at the
63 Dem. 36.44 (translated by Douglas. M. MacDowell).
64 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 178.
65 Trevett, Apollodoros, 2.
67 Isoc. 17.
68 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 179.
69 Dem. 27.11.
70 Dem. 49.2.
71 Dem. 49.47.
72 Dem. 59.2.
73 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 180.
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bank.74 He was one of the many slaves who worked under Pasion. Nevertheless, he was a dutiful and talented businessman who gained Pasion’s trust in no time. This trust helped Phormion to gain his freedom in return for his services. After the death of Pasion in 370/69, Phormion, now a metic, held the lease of Pasion’s bank and the shield-factory.75 According to the speaker of Demosthenes 36, Pasion left a will that designated Nicocles and Phormion as the guardians of his younger son until Pasicles became an adult. He also gave his wife, Archippe to Phormion with a dowry. In Demosthenes 45, the amount of the dowry mentioned in Pasion’s will was “one talent owed from the property at Peparethus, another talent from here, a tenement worth a hundred minas, the female slaves and golden jewelry, and everything else she has in her keeping inside the house.”76 Pasion’s wealth at the time of his death demonstrates his successful career as a banker and his possible influence in economic activities of the city.
For a while, Apollodoros seemed to be content with the state of affairs. He moved out from the house to live in countryside.77 Still, he kept dealing with the legal suits regarding the bank and Pasion’s debtors. As a logographer, he managed to win some of his cases78 and to restore the debts on his father’s behalf. Until Archippe’s death, Phormion and Apollodoros were working together to collect the debts and to lease the bank.79 A conflict occurred when Apollodoros disavowed her mother’s second marriage and claimed half of Archippe’s dowry, although she had two children by Phormion.80 During that time, Phormion also became an Athenian
74 Trevett, Apollodoros, 6.
75 Dem. 36.8.
76 [Dem.] 45.28-29 (translated by Adele C. Scafuro). Although Apollodoros later claimed that the will was forged, he could not provide the original document.
77 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 182.
78 Dem. 49.
79 Apollodoros even presented Phormion as his witness in the court when he was accusing Callippus in Dem. 52.7. and Timotheus in Dem. 49.18.
80 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 187.
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citizen, served as a trierarch, and engaged in commerce.81 The dispute with Apollodoros was not resolved even after Phormion made an agreement with him to share Archippe’s dowry. In 351/0, Apollodoros sued Phormion for embezzling the bank’s money. Phormion, in return, brought a counter indictment against Apollodoros and won the case.82 Wishing to get revenge, Apollodoros targeted one of the business partners of Phormion, Stephanus, and brought a charge against him for false witnessing.83 The enmity between Stephanus and Apollodoros which started with Phormion’s trial gradually intensified and turned the courtroom into a place to settle their scores. Our latest reference to Apollodoros and the bank is the trial in which Apollodoros accused Stephanus’ wife, Neaira, of being an alien.84 However, Pasicles reappears in a speech of Hyperides. Although the text is fragmentary, Hyperides alleges that he and Phormion tried to evade tierarchic service.85 The later events about Pasion’s family and his legacy remain unknown.
2.4. Banking operations
As I argue, banks in Athens provided a context where people from various social groups came together and interacted with each other. Although Pasion’s bank was not an exception among these banks, most of the evidence which we have about banking operations are related to his activities. Pasion’s way of managing the bank demonstrates that the bank as a workplace was already creating a complex and almost unorderly environment for his employees. His cashiers, accountants, and managers who had different social and legal statuses had to work together and deal
81 Trevett, Apollodoros, 14.
82 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 188.
83 [Dem.] 45-46.
84 Dem. 59. This speech was delivered at some time between 343 and 340.
85 Hyp. Fr. 134.
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with customers from different origins and regions. Their work also gave them the opportunity to rise in rank and to become part of other social groups by buying their freedom or acquiring citizenship. Furthermore, the services which Pasion provided reveals the variety of people who visited the bank. Some of these services, such as depositing the money of outsiders and giving loans to customers who belonged to the wealthy and politically influential strata in society, indicate that there already existed connections and relationships between individuals of different groups. In this section, I shall look further into these examples.
2.4.1. Bank workers
The family history of Pasion reveals that bankers tended to buy slaves and employ them in their businesses. Antisthenes and Archestratus were Pasion’s masters who taught him their work. After he was freed, Pasion continued to work with his former masters and saved enough money to lease the bank. At this point, we see that the master-slave relationship between them changed and they became business partners. In Isocrates 17, Pasion introduced Archestratus as guarantor of seven talents for his customer.86 Although he was acting independently at this point, their relationship was good enough for Pasion to ask Archestratus for favors. The same relationship was also true between Pasion and Phormion. Like his former masters, Pasion taught Phormion everything which he knew about banking. He subsequently freed Phormion for his services and entrusted him with his wife and the guardianship of his son Pasicles.87 Phormion had different roles both in the bank and Pasion’s
86 Isoc. 17.43.
87 Dem. 36.8.
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family. From being a slave and employee, he became a colleague, husband, and stepfather. Accordingly, his position in society and his connections changed as well.
There were also other former employees of Pasion’s bank who found similar opportunities through banking activities. Although Phormion held the lease of the bank after Pasion’s death, the names of other lessees come up in Demosthenes 36.88 In the speech, Phormion’s defendant reveals that Apollodoros leased the bank to four other individuals: “he later leased it to Xenon, Euphraeus, Euphron, and Callistratus and did not hand over any personal capital to them either, but they took a lease on the deposits and the investment of the deposits only.”89 Euphraeus certainly worked at the bank when Pasion was the owner and Timotheus came to the bank to borrow money.90 Moreover, Xenon, Euphron, and Callistratus were also slaves when they were lessees: “they leased it to those men too without handing over any personal capital, and being very satisfied with the way they had been treated, they set them free and raised no action at that time either against them or against Phormion.”91 This information indicates that they were once employees of the bank like Euphraeus because Pasion’s sons were the ones who set them free. This relationship between bank owners and their employees was not unique to Pasion’s bank. The speaker in Demosthenes 36 gives examples of other bankers and their slaves. Socrates, a well-known banker and former slave, gave his wife in marriage to his former slave Satyrus.92 Socles, was also another banker who entrusted his wife to his former slave Timodemus.93 Even outside of Athens, the bankers such as Strymodorus from Aegina followed the same practice and gave their family members in marriage to
88 Dem. 36.13.
89 Dem. 36.13 (translated by Douglas M. MacDowell).
90 Dem. 49.44.
91 Dem. 36.13 (translated by Douglas M. MacDowell).
92 Dem. 36.28.
93 Dem. 36.29.
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their former slaves.94 It appears that this practice was a common strategy among bankers to protect their family wealth and the privileges which they acquired through their business. Thus, banking business provided various opportunities for individuals who worked at the bank: new connections, relationships, and even family members.
The bank workers also had an important role in customer relations, transactions, and decision-making processes. Bank owners or managers did not necessarily attend to their business all the time, and were not always waiting at their table, greeting customers, and arranging documents. In fact, there were certain occasions in the speeches when customers could not find the bank owner, Pasion, and conversed with the workers in his stead. In Demosthenes 52, when Callippus went to the bank to ask about the deposit information, Phormion as a bank worker served him instead of Pasion.95 In the same text, Phormion again paid the deposit money to Cephisiades without needing to ask Pasion.96 Later on, Callippus found Pasion in the city to ask him about the deposit. Pasion suggested going to the bank at Piraeus with him and investigating the situation.97 Another bank worker and an alleged slave Cittus was “seated at the bank”98 and handled the customers. Cittus also appears in the text as a person who holds invaluable information to solve the dispute between Pasion and his client: he had a thorough knowledge about the transactions.99 In Demosthenes 49 too, Timotheus, in dire need of additional money for his expedition, found Pasion in the port and asked for a loan.100 However, Timotheus later received the money at the bank from Phormion.101 Therefore, banks were not only the places where bank owners like Pasion had the chance to interact with other
94 Dem. 36.29.
95 Dem. 52.5-6.
96 Dem. 52.7.
97 Dem. 52.8.
98 Isoc. 17.12.
99 Isoc. 17.11.
100 Dem. 49.6.
101 Dem. 49.7-8.
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people and to create new relationships, but the workers also interacted with customers and personally assisted them.
2.4.2. Customers
The clients of Athenian bankers were diverse because of the range of available services. Not only foreign traders came to the banks to exchange their money, but generals could also take out loans from bankers for military purposes102 or the banks could help others to conceal their funds.103 For Pasion and his workers, these clients created more opportunities to create new connections, gain favors, or make enemies. Lycon who was foreign trader from Heraclea in Demosthenes 52, Sopaeus’ son who was a wealthy foreigner from the Bosphorus region in Isocrates 17, and Timotheus who was an Athenian general in Demosthenes 49 are good examples to demonstrate the range of customers which bankers had. Individuals like Timotheus and Sopaeus’ son also reflect a small privileged group in society as bank customers and show the wide range of social groups that bankers could reach.
In Demosthenes 52, Pasion had to deal with the acquaintances of a foreign trader after the trader’s sudden death. Pasion’s first interaction with Lycon of Heraclea104 happened when he deposited his money in the bank and set sail to Libya.105 In the speech, the speaker presents him as the guest-friend of Aristonoüs of the deme Deceleia and Archebiades of the deme Lamptrae. Before sailing, he arranged his accounts with Pasion in the presence of Archebiades and Phrasius106 and directed Pasion “to give Cephisiades the money that he was leaving on deposit with
102 Dem. 49.
103 Like in the examples of Dem. 45.64-66, Dem. 27.11, and Isoc. 17.7.
104 A town on the southeast coast of the Black Sea. Bers, Demosthenes, 46.
105 Dem. 52.2.
106 Dem. 52.3.
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him… He said that Cephisiades was his partner and that he lives in Scyros but was for the moment out of town on another trading journey.”107 However, Lycon’s journey did not end well and he was killed by pirates.108 When Cephisiades came to the bank with witnesses Archebiades and Phrasius, Phormion paid the deposit to him.109 At an earlier stage, however, a certain Callippus who was the consular representative (proxenos) for the people of Heraclea showed up in the bank and asked about Lycon’s money.110 Later on, Callippus approached Pasion in the city center and asked whether Cephisiades had taken the money or not.111 Then, he asked if Pasion could do a favor for him: convincing Cephisiades and the witnesses so that he would get the money as the consular representative.112 In the end, Callippus’ plan has failed, and he became displeased with Pasion. However, when he heard that Pasion was sick, Callippus sued Pasion because he thought that he would not be able to defend himself.
One simple service that banks provided, taking a foreign trader’s money as a deposit and repaying it to the trader, caused Pasion a bigger problem. He had to confront Callippus who had no previous connection with these men. Moreover, Callippus withdrew his complaint after he started the suit, and challenged Pasion to agree to an arbitrator from among Lysitheides, Isocrates, and Aphareus.113 Because of this decision, Pasion had the chance of interacting with Lysitheides, a rich landowner who was a friend of Callippus, Isocrates, the famous orator, and Aphareus who was the adopted son of Isocrates and a friend of Lysitheides.114 Dealing with foreign traders such as Lycon was not uncommon for Pasion. In fact, people who
107 Dem. 52.3.
108 Dem. 52.5.
109 Dem. 52.7.
110 Dem. 52.5.
111 Dem. 52.8.
112 Dem. 52.8-10.
113 Dem. 52.15.
114 Bers, Demosthenes, 50.
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engaged in commerce must have constituted a large part of Pasion’s clients. However, following the necessary procedures in transactions at the banks, such as producing witnesses for every exchange, must have increased the number of interactions that bankers had.
Figure 1. Networks Map of Demosthenes 52
This case clearly shows how well-connected Athenians could be both with other groups in society, and also with outsiders: a foreigner could become friends with citizens and present them as his witnesses and a citizen could claim a right on a stranger’s money simply because he had been chosen as the representative of a region. Nevertheless, Pasion appears as the person who had to contact with both sides and their acquaintances because of his job. He had the duty of being an intermediary by solving the problems of his clients, but at the same time facing the problems created by their interactions as the first contacted person. The networks map of this speech in Figure 1 also shows this connectedness of Pasion and the role of banks as hubs for diverse social groups.
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Isocrates 17 presents the conflict between Pasion and the son of Sopaeus because of cash deposit. However, the speech contains more detailed information about customer-manager relations and how these interactions happened in the context of a bank. Sopaeus’ son115 came to Athens with the intention of sightseeing and trading.116 With the help of Pythodorus the Phoenician, he got the chance to meet Pasion and used his bank.117 This Pythodorus appears in the speech as an associate of Pasion; although his profession is not certainly known, he is called shopkeeper.118 Soon, Sopaeus’ son had to deal with a misfortune that befell his father: Sopaeus was rumored to be plotting against the Bosporus’ ruler, Satyrus, and he was imprisoned. His son, rather than returning to the Bosporus and handing over his money to Satyrus, chose to confide in Pasion so that he could deposit the money in his bank.119 The interaction between Pasion and Sopaeus’ son reveals that asking for favors from bankers was not something unusual: “In these difficulties… I told Pasion my troubles. Indeed, he behaved so agreeably toward me that I would have trusted him completely, not only about money but everything else.”120 Pasion managed to find a better solution for his customer to hide Sopaeus’ son’s money from Satyrus’ men: “We discussed it to surrender the money that was visible and not only to disclaim the money on deposit with Pasion but to appear to be in debt to him and to others on interest, that is, to do everything possible to persuade those men that I had no money.”121
Until this point, the relationship between them appears quite positive: Sopaeus’ son became acquainted with someone useful for him and managed to
115 We do not know his name since he was never mentioned in the speech.
116 Isoc. 17.4.
117 Isoc. 17.4.
118 Isoc. 17.33.
119 Isoc. 17.5-6.
120 Isoc. 17.6 (translated by David C. Mirhady).
121 Isoc. 17.7 (translated by David C. Mirhady).
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conceal his wealth. On the other hand, Pasion gained a customer who could introduce him to his network and made more profitable agreements in the future. However, when the situation with the representatives of Satyrus was resolved and the son of Sopaeus intended to return, he could not get his money back from Pasion.122 After this point, their relationship turned from a possible friendship to complete animosity. In addition, this sudden turn in their relationship also affected the people involved in this case.
Figure 2. Networks Map of Isocrates 17
The networks map of this speech in Figure 2 shows this involvement during this period. Menexenus and Philomelus, who were friends of Sopaeus’ son, had to contact with Pasion to inquire about the deposited money. Cittus, who was Pasion’s slave and employee at that time, became the key person to solve this conflict because he had witnessed the transaction between Pasion and Sopaeus’ son at the bank. Furthermore, individuals such as Hippolaïdas who borrowed money from Pasion on Sopaeus’ son behalf and Stratocles whom Sopaeus’ son introduced to Pasion to pay
122 Isoc. 17.8.
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his debts got involved in this case involuntarily. Once again, Pasion’ services as a banker and his willingness to fulfill his clients’ requests proves that banking business made these interactions and conflicts inevitable. Bankers had to do these favors for their customers for a successful career and good reputation. During this process of interaction, the social standing and legal status of the individuals did not pose an obstacle for them to make connections. Therefore, a slave like Cittus, a metic banker like Pasion, and a wealthy foreigner could become actors in the same network, which also included citizens, and create new links. Bank as a hub was making this possible.
Figure 3. Networks Map of Demosthenes 49
As the Figure 3 shows, Demosthenes 49 presents various actors from different social groups who became part of the network attested by this speech. The plaintiff, Apollodoros explains the roles of every individual in this conflict. Timotheus and Pasion’s interaction was the reason that connects everybody in the first place. In the speech, Pasion’s son Apollodoros sues Timotheus, the son of Conon, of the deme Anaphlystus for his debt to Pasion. As I have described before,
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Timotheus was an Athenian general who needed money to cover his expenses for the expedition. In another speech, Isocrates described him as his favorite student and a “honest and decent gentleman” who served for Athens.123 His father Conon was also a rich and victorious general.124 Therefore, Timotheus’ debt to Pasion might seem odd in the first place. An individual who is wealthy, powerful, and supposedly decent could easily borrow money from a friend of his. Although Timotheus might be an extreme case, the need for additional funding for the expedition must have urged generals to take loans from time to time.125 Pasion’s bank might have seemed like the obvious place to go, and the number of loans indicates the friendly relationship between Pasion and Timotheus. Although the problem of collecting Timotheus’ debts might have occurred because of Timotheus’ status as a general, Pasion’s actions tell otherwise: “The most difficult problem lay in collecting the loans Pasion extended without security and without a time limit for repayment. In his last years, he had several times lent money to the general Timotheus on such conditions.”126 This situation demonstrates that Pasion and Timotheus were friends and Pasion knew that this kind of positive relationship with a powerful general would bring more benefits and money to his bank. Indeed, the relationship between Timotheus and Pasion shows that two people who were part of different social circles could become business associates and even friends in the context of the bank. In fact, there are other examples that show how well-connected Pasion was. We see that wealthy Demosthenes who was the father of the famous orator deposited 2,4000 drachmas in Pasion’s bank.127 Also, his son Apollodoros mentions his father’s relationships in another speech: “I borrowed money from Tenedian friends of my father, Cleanax and
123 Isoc. 15.101-139.
124 Scafuro, Demosthenes, 355.
125 Shipton, “Private banks”, 402.
126 Isager et al., Aspects of Athenian Society, 185.
127 Dem. 27.11.
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Eperatus… Since Pasion was my father and had many foreign friends (xenoi) and was trusted all around Greece, I had no lack of sources from whom to borrow money when I needed it.”128
Pasion’s customers in these speeches were only few of many more. However, these speeches revealed to us the range of customers that one banker could have. Every service a banker could provide did not end at the moment of the transaction. In order to maintain good relationships, bankers had to be intermediaries when needed and take risks for their customers. The reason for these actions could be a banker’s initial desire to protect his reputation as reliable businessman. Nevertheless, this situation led to the formation of various types of relationships in the bank. The strict rules of social boundaries weakened, conversion and exchange between different social statuses increased, and a new sphere in the business environment which was detached from the social fabric of traditional society emerged. As Edward Cohen points out “operation at Athens of a trapezitic business (a “bank”) was open even to those who had no prior stake in the pre-existing fabric of relationships⎯to non-aristocrats, non-Athenians, even slaves. These activities, in turn, created new personal and familial relations, further transforming both society and economy.”129 Accordingly, the bank as a business and a meeting place provided an open zone to different social groups to interact with each other and be a part of larger networks with more intricate relationships.
128 Dem. 50.56 (translated by Victor Bers).
129 Cohen, Athenian Economy, 7.
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2.5. A banker’s experience: Pasion and his networks
What do we learn from the bankers’ relationships? Previous scholarship on Athenian private banks focused on the importance and the influence of the banks on the economy. For some scholars, positioning the banks was important to build an economic model of this ancient society.130 For others, uncovering the roles of bankers in Athenian economic life was crucial to understand the lending and borrowing practices among Athenians.131 Although there have been later attempts to prove the importance of banks and bankers in many areas and their usefulness for people from different social and economic backgrounds,132 no scholar has focused on the possible interactions these people had at banks. Discussing the “blurry” social status of individuals and free spaces such as the Agora necessitates finding examples that can prove these points. A banker’s experience, therefore, provides an example of these interactions that could emerge without the constraints of social statuses. A banker’s dealings with his customers and the networks which he created demonstrate this possibility of other alternatives to explain social dynamics of Athenian society. Looking at the network maps of these narratives helps us to comprehend the magnitude of these links and the variety of actors who got involved. This exercise might be helpful to interpret the similar cases in the rest of the society and to make assumptions about other places and areas in which we can come across such situations.
There are certain things that we should highlight about Pasion’s networks and his relationship building. In Figure 2, we see that individuals who were part of two different networks got tangled up with each other with new links. The relationship between Pasion and Sopaeus’ son which started as a simple bank transaction created
130 Finley, The Ancient Economy and Cohen, Athenian Economy.
131 Millett, Lending and Borrowing, 3.
132 Shipton, “Private banks.”
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this cluster of links over time. As their interactions lasted longer, the individuals around them got more and more involved with their conflict. From the plaintiff’s claims, it looks like Pasion and Sopaeus’ son were on good terms until Pasion refused to give the money back. The events before the conflict show that they were both introducing their own networks of relationships to the other party. Sopaeus’ son did not see any problem with providing Pasion as his guarantor for his debt to Stratocles.133 Likewise, Pasion agreed to provide Archestratus as the guarantor for the son of Sopaeus’ debt.134 This helpful behavior and introductions to new allies continued until Sopaeus’ son asked for repayment. Nevertheless, their network kept growing even after their relationship worsened. After a while, other actors started to take initiative and develop certain attitudes. For instance, Menexenus became an enemy of Pasion and he acted on his own accord to exact revenge. According to speech, Pasion accused of him for bribing his worker Cittus and later kidnapping him. The plaintiff claims that Pasion was afraid that Cittus would reveal everything about the transaction and put him in a difficult spot. Menexenus was quite disturbed about the turn of events and therefore, he brought a suit against Pasion.135 Although Sopaeus’ son was the person who got affected the most, Menexenus preferred to act independently from his friend to settle his score with Pasion. Moreover, other people got involved with Pasion and Sopaeus’ son to resolve their dispute: Pyron, a man of Pherae and Pasion’s friend, was keeping their agreement safe136 and Agyrrhius, a friend of both, became intermediary and a witness.137 This situation demonstrates that the nature of relationships, whether friendly or hostile, does not prevent the inclusion of new actors to the network.
133 Isoc. 17.35-37.
134 Isoc. 17.43.
135 Isoc. 17.21-22.
136 Isoc. 17.20.
137 Isoc. 17.31-32.
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Furthermore, the maps in Figure 1, 2, and 3, prove that the people from different social statuses could became part of these networks. There is no trend or pattern that indicates same statuses should end up together in a more isolated manner. In fact, the rulers and tyrants such as Satyrus,138 Alcetas,139 Jason140 and Amyntas141 could be part of the same network with slaves or former slaves such as Cittus,142 Phormion,143 Euphraeus,144 and Aeschrion.145 These links also manifest themselves as direct contact or interaction between the actors: Cittus as a slave went to the Bosphorus region to meet Satyrus and to explain the conflict between Pasion and Sopaeus’ son.146 In addition, we see that foreigners like Lycon could become friends or guest-friends with Athenian citizens who would protect their benefits even after their death.147 Metics and citizens such as Phormion and Timosthenes could also form friendships and do business without the constraints of their social standings. However, there are also many others in these networks whose legal statuses remain unknown. It is hard to assume the plaintiff’s intention in omitting this information. Their status might not have been so important for the case. Yet, these omissions harbor many more possibilities for diversity of these networks. Still, my point stands: these networks between people from diverse backgrounds were formed through banking operations and at the bank. Pasion’s experience as a banker shows that his workplace enabled him to form these relationships.
138 Isoc. 17.
139 Dem. 49.
140 Dem. 49.
141 Dem. 49.
142 Isoc. 17.
143 Dem. 49 and 52.
144 Dem. 49.
145 Dem. 49.
146 Isoc. 17.51.
147 Dem. 52.
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2.6. Phormion and inheritance of networks
Phormion took over the banking business that was left by Pasion. He leased the bank several times while he was the guardian of Pasion’s younger son and later he helped Apollodoros to collect the debts owed to the bank. Rather than bequeathing the money or revenues to Phormion, Pasion gave Archippe to him so that she would not marry somebody else and share her enormous dowry. Later, Archippe left some of her possessions to her children from Phormion, but this was not comparable to what she received as dowry.148 Phormion, in a sense, did not inherit any estates or property from Pasion. He continued to be the manager of the bank because of the lease, but what he inherited from Pasion was more valuable and useful: his networks of relationships. Phormion’s relationship with Pasion allowed him to maintain the already existing relationships they formed through banking. At the same time, inheriting pre-existed networks helped him to form more complicated connections and intricate relationships with their actors. In addition, this provided Phormion enough space to create his own networks: to make new allies and friends through banking activities. If we look at Phormion’s relationships with three individuals, Archippe, Apollodoros, and Stephanus, we shall see the effects of inheriting networks and how it worked for Phormion.
It is not certain when Phormion met Archippe. The only thing we can say for certain is that Pasion introduced Phormion into his family and to other workers in the bank. Like his masters Archestratus and Antisthenes, he was the first person who formed these links between Phormion and the other actors. Considering Pasion’ influence on Phormion’s life, Apollodoros comments:
148 Dem. 36.14-15.
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If a cook or some other artisan had chanced to buy this man when he was for sale, he would have learned the skill of his master and would have none of the wealth he now enjoys. But since my father who acquired him was a banker, and since he taught him in control of vast sums of money, Phormion has prospered, for the good luck of his arrival at our door was the source of all his present blessings.149
Since Phormion was a slave working for her husband, Archippe already knew about him before they became a husband and a wife. The nature of their relationship at that time is unknown. However, as a reliable worker who lived with them, he must have gained Archippe’s trust. When they got married, Phormion was a freedman. Even though there are various assumptions on Archippe’s legal status,150 Phormion’s status was surely below her when they first interacted with each other. Yet, this situation did not pose any problem for them and they lived together until Archippe’s death in 361/0. Through Pasion, Phormion managed to change the nature of his relationship with Archippe. This relationship that started as mere acquaintances ended up with their marriage.
Phormion surely had relationships with various actors before he inherited Pasion’s networks. He already knew Pasion’s family and their interactions were somewhat predictable because of his occupation. However, inheriting relationships changed how these people interacted. Phormion’s relationships with Archippe and Apollodoros became complex: the way they talked, acted, and behaved changed completely. Consequently, the things which they shared and the emotions which they felt towards each other changed as well. For Archippe, this change could be understood as something positive. However, Phormion and Apollodoros’ relationship was never the same and they ended up being enemies. Apollodoros was not happy with the fact that his mother got married to a man who had servile origins. As a
149 [Dem.] 45.71-72 (translated by Adele C. Scafuro).
150 Whitehead, “Women and naturalisation.”; Cohen, Athenian Society, 73-81.
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citizen through his father’s success, Phormion was a threat to the consolidation of Apollodoros’ legal status. “There was a fundamental contradiction between his wish to exercise his rights as a citizen and to adopt the lifestyle and values of the wealthy Athenian, and the feeling among existing citizens that a naturalized citizen should know his place and keep to it.”151 This situation created his resentment against Phormion and made Apollodoros attack him at the court. His attacks were about Phormion’s broken Greek and slavery which he saw as Phormion’s weaknesses.152 In the charges which he brought against Stephanus and Phormion, Apollodoros always mentioned Phormion’s “audacity” in his speeches. Surely his anger against Phormion was not subdued in time, but he introduced more people to their relationship.
Figure 4. Networks Map of Demosthenes 36
Firstly, Apollodoros included his wife’s family in this dispute. Figure 4 shows this involvement of other family members in Phormion’s network.
151 Trevett, Apollodoros, 178.
152 [Dem.] 45.30.
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Apollodoros’ father-in-law Deinias, the son of Theomnestus, of Athmonon and his brother-in-law Nicias were arbitrators in their dispute.153 They tried to convince Phormion to pay a ransom to Apollodoros and later, they witnessed these events in the courtroom. However, Phormion did not only get involved with Apollodoros’ family, but with his acquaintances as well. Apollodoros’ neighbor and friend Nicostratus seemed to betray him at some point and helped Phormion to win the case against him.154 Nicostratus reported Apollodoros’ arguments to his opponents so that they could provide counter arguments. These events might not appear as long-term interactions. However, these particular contacts with these men determined the future behaviors of these actors. Phormion’s relationship with Apollodoros demonstrates that although he was an outsider who was brought into this equation of networks, he was still capable of making connections with these individuals and improving or worsening his relationships. While Apollodoros and Phormion were acquaintances because of Pasion, they subsequently became business associates, stepfather and stepson, and later bitter enemies.
Besides improving and worsening his relationships with Archippe and Apollodoros, Phormion was also capable of forming new relationships. His friendship with Stephanus demonstrates that Phormion took the initiative to create new networks. Banking activities were the reason that brought Phormion and Stephanus together. Stephanus first appears as one of the witnesses which Phormion brought to the court to testify that Apollodoros refused to open Pasion’s will and the document was genuine.155 Apollodoros claimed that it was false witnessing and brought a charge against Stephanus. According to him, Stephanus was also on good
153 Dem. 36.15.
154 Dem. 53.14.
155 [Dem.] 45.8.
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terms with another banker, Aristolochus, until his bankruptcy.156 Stephanus’ friendships were built on benefit and opportunity. This was also true for his relationship with Phormion: “After that, Stephanus had his eye on Phormion and befriended him⎯he had picked him out from all the Athenians; then, acting as his agent, he left the city and sailed to Byzantium when the men of that city had taken possession of Phormion’s ships and he pleaded against Calchedonians, and he has given false testimony against me.”157 Apollodoros’ accusations against Stephanus might be true or false, but it is clear that Stephanus was doing favors for Phormion. Still, this relationship was beneficial for both parties to the point that Stephanus as a citizen might look like he was doing errands for Phormion. There was also another reason for Apollodoros’ resentment against Stephanus. We can see in Figure 4 that Stephanus was a citizen and also a kinsman of Apollodoros’ wife.158 Yet, he was being friends with a man who was not status-wise on equal footing with himself.159
Phormion, as the successor in the banking business, benefitted from his former master’s connections to a certain extent. His new position in the network also changed the nature of his relationships which he had before with previous actors such as Archippe and Apollodoros. Nevertheless, Phormion also made new connections and introduced other people to this network. As an individual who was part of different social groups at different times of his life, he managed to make connections with actors from other backgrounds, like Stephanus. His personal experiences and decisions must have played a big role during the process of networking. However, the bank made these interactions possible as a workplace and public place and it functioned as a hub for these encounters.
156 [Dem.] 45.63-64.
157 [Dem.] 45.64.
158 [Dem.] 45.54; for genealogical table: Trevett, Apollodoros, xv.
159 [Dem.] 45.65.
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2.7. Conclusion
This chapter covered only one of the many places where social groups in Athens came together and interacted with each other. Banks in Athens provided their owners, workers, and clients with an opportunity to make connections with people at all levels of society. Even as a workplace, banks contained slaves, metics, and citizens who were spending time together and doing the same job. Due to this working environment, banks were already accommodating diversity. Although our evidence focused on one bank and its owners, Pasion and Phormion, banking operations and services that bankers could provide to its customers show that the situation was not different at any other Athenian bank. Foreigners, traders, generals, citizens, freedmen, and metics were using various services of bankers such as loaning, exchanging, and depositing money. Bankers, on the other hand, could provide different alternatives and solutions for their customer’s problems, act as guarantors for them, and become intermediaries when needed. These “extended” services also helped them to form deeper relationships with their customers. Bankers such as Pasion and Phormion indeed did what was crucial for their profession: networking and building relationships. However, while they were doing so, they demonstrated that the relationships between individuals did not necessarily happen within the boundaries of legal or social statuses. In fact, they formed relationships with people from different backgrounds, but they also brought these individuals together to create more links. This chapter raises an important question about the dynamics of Athenian society: were there other places or contexts in which we can find such social vibrancy among social groups? Banks and bankers could be exceptions to the norms of Athenian society. The next chapters try to find an answer to this question.
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CHAPTER 3
SOCIAL GROUPS AND WORKSHOPS:
ATHENOGENES’ PERFUME SHOP
3.1. Introduction
In the previous chapter, we saw that banks provided a setting for different social groups to come together and interact with each other. Through this feature, banks were at the center of networks which kept including more and more participants and functioned as hubs for its actors. However, it begs the question of whether the banks were special cases that made this inclusivity possible or not. The evidence shows that there were other commercial places and businesses where people from different social statuses worked together, conversed, and formed connections. The places where these interactions between social groups existed were by no means limited, but simply on every corner in Athens. In the marketplace, at the workshop, or the harbor, as people exchanged materials and information, they also formed or share their networks as well. Therefore, banks do not appear to have been exceptions, but they are evidence that any context in which commerce and trade were involved could make this dialogue possible.
In this chapter, I shall focus on one of these settings, a perfume shop owned by a metic, Athenogenes, and managed by a slave, Midas, to show how and in what ways the interactions between different social groups happened. The perfume shop, as we shall see, was a business model which provided the necessary context for these interactions. Moreover, the organization of the perfume shop and the workers’ interactions with customers demonstrate that other small shops and businesses must
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have provided the same opportunities for building relationships and making connections with individuals from different backgrounds. The clients of the perfume shop and the workers’ connections outside the workshop will present the wide range of actors from various social circles who were connected by this perfume shop. This case study will also give us an indication about how other workshops operated. Lastly, I shall talk about the relationships formed around or because of the perfume shop and analyze them by referring to individuals’ respective social groups and investigating their impact on these interactions. Even though the texts can only provide one side of the story, how the everyday practices and exchanges were portrayed is quite helpful in illuminating Athenians’ expectations and their lifestyles. It allows us to make more deductions about this perfume shop and its workers, but also the complexities of the Athenian society.
3.2. Hyperides 3 and the perfume business
The perfume shop, like the other stalls in the Agora, was a place for interaction for the city-dwellers. In various sources, perfume shops were introduced as gathering spots. Among the other places like barbershops and shoemaker’s shops, they were a common place of resort.160 In [Demosthenes] 25, the plaintiff describes the defendant, Aristogeiton, as someone who “does not frequent any of the usual barbershops in the city, or the perfume shops, or the other shops, not a single one.”161 Aristogeiton’s behavior fits with him being unsociable, discourteous, and sinister.162 Therefore, for the other “sociable” people, these shops appear like places for gathering and conversation. This also supports the idea that every context which
160 Lys. 24.20.
161 [Dem.] 25.52 (translated by R.E. Wycherley).
162 [Dem.] 25.52.
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involves an exchange and commerce eventually facilitates the contact and communication of different social circles. Indeed, Marloes Deene referred to this peculiar nature of Athenian business life to explain the networks of citizens and non-citizens across the boundaries of their legal status.163 The Agora and the shops around this place, therefore, was the major zone of personal interactions and citizen-non-citizen relationships in Athens.164 In order to understand how these personal interactions came into play in stalls and shops, it is imperative to focus on one speech that revolves around the affairs of a shop: Hyperides 3 provides the context for this investigation.
In Hyperides 3, the plaintiff, Epicrates, brought a charge against Athenogenes who was a metic and the owner of the three perfume shops in the Athenian agora. According to Epicrates, Athenogenes deceived him and caused him to take his debt during the sale of slaves.165 The slaves in question were Midas and his two sons who were working at Athenogenes’ perfume shop. In the speech, Epicrates narrates the story of this fraud in detail. Epicrates lusted after one of Midas’ sons and approached Athenogenes to set him free. The son refused Epicrates’ offer unless he set free his brother and his father as well.166 A well-known prostitute, Antigone who knew both Epicrates and Athenogenes became a mediator between them. Antigone persuaded Epicrates to buy the three of them and gathered forty minas to make an agreement with Athenogenes.167 Athenogenes agreed to sell his slaves rather than setting them free so that Epicrates could decide the manumission time.168 However, since Epicrates also had to take over the slaves’ debts when he bought them, Athenogenes
163 Deene, “Let’s work together,” 173.
164 Deene, “Let’s work together,” 159.
165 Hyp. 3.18.
166 Hyp. 3.24.
167 Hyp. 3.1-2.
168 Hyp. 3.5.
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offered him the perfume business to cover the debts.169 They signed the contract; unfortunately, Epicrates did not read it properly, and soon he realized that Midas’ debt as the perfume-shop manager was heftier than he imagined. Although he tried to reconcile with Athenogenes, he refused to break the contract.170 Epicrates, having been forced to sue Athenogenes, brought a lawsuit against him for damages. We do not know the outcome of this case. Nevertheless, Epicrates took his best shot by appealing to the jury’s sentiments: Athenogenes was a resident alien who left Athens when the citizens were suffering from the war with Philip II.171 He only came back to the city when he was convinced that he could continue his business.
3.2.1. Athenogenes and his perfume shop
While the speech relates the conflict between Athenogenes and Epicrates, it also reveals how a perfume shop in the Agora operates and what kinds of relations the employees and owners could have with their customers. During his defense, Epicrates introduces Athenogenes and his business: as a third-generation perfume seller, he owned three perfume stalls and received their account books once every month.172 Athenogenes was frequently around the Agora, if not near the perfume shops, since he was called ἀγοραῖον.173 Epicrates describes Athenogenes’ origin as Egyptian in the text, so he was a metic residing in Athens.174 He left Athens during the war with Philip II and later, he was granted citizenship at Troezen. After the war,
169 Hyp. 3.6.
170 Hyp. 3.10-11.
171 Hyp. 3.29-30.
172 Hyp. 3.19. 173 ἀγοραῖον can refer to a person who is frequenting the marketplace. Various translations are possible: a man of affairs (by J. O. Burtt), marketplace type (by Craig R. Cooper), or common sort/low fellow (in LSJ) as a pejorative term.
174 Hyp. 3.3.
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he returned to Athens.175 According to the testimony of Athenogenes’ father-in-law, he received two inheritances, from his father and brother.176 Therefore, it is safe to assume that he was well off and he had connections in other cities which could be derived from his mercantile background.
In contrast, we know very little about Midas and his sons: they were working in the perfume shop, producing perfumes, and managing the accounts. His name, Midas, possibly hints at his Phrygian origins.177 It is not known whether Midas learned how to make perfumes from Athenogenes. Gary Reger argues that the technology required for perfume making was not complicated, but the knowledge of production, practicing perfume-making for a long time, and capital was crucial for the perfume business.178 Therefore, producing perfumes was a valuable skill not commonly shared. Pasion’s bank demonstrated that slaves were bought and trained for specific occupations.179 If we assume that masters who were traders or businessmen followed similar procedures with their slaves, Midas might also have been bought and trained by Athenogenes or some other slave worker who knew about perfume making. In return, Midas trained his sons so that they could help him at the shop.
We know that Athenogenes was the owner of multiple shops. Therefore, he was not able to inspect his workers all the time. Epicrates’ reference to monthly accounts reveals that it was not unexpected for him to leave his slaves in charge.180 Midas and his sons were running the perfume shop: making perfumes, doing necessary chores for the shop, and most importantly dealing with the customers. Due
175 Hyp. 3.34.
176 Hyp. 3.34.
177 Vlassopoulos, “Athenian slave names”, 118.
178 Reger, “The manufacture,” 256.
179 Dem. 45.71.
180 Hyp. 3.19.
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to these duties, the perfume shop was already a place of interaction for different social groups. In order to sell the ingredients, they had to come in contact with the customers who were metics and citizens. Midas’ debt to other perfume producers, Pancalus and Procles, to the customers who lent money,181 and to the contributors such as Dicaeocrates182 reveals that Midas had to meet with some, if not all, of these people to reconcile with them. His debt to other producers also shows that Midas and his sons were taking part in buying the materials for perfumes or the perfumes for retailing purposes and therefore, getting in contact with sellers as well.
3.2.2. Customers and luxury products
Although the shop itself provided the context for interaction since the owners, managers, and workers were part of different social groups, the situation was not limited to the “working space” that they shared. On a daily basis, both managers and the workers dealt with customers or their slaves. It is not hard to imagine Midas and his sons behind the stall introducing their products and telling the customers about the prices. However, there is not much evidence about the customers’ profiles and their backgrounds. In terms of the customer profile of perfume shops, we can make an assumption by looking at the products and their value. Wealth might not give enough clue about one’s social status. Nevertheless, it usually reveals one’s possible networks and social circles. Therefore, finding these links between perfume makers and customers could be helpful in understanding how individuals from diverse backgrounds related in this context.
181 Hyp. 3.6.
182 Hyp. 3.11.
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Perfume was indeed a luxury product and it had various uses. Besides the fragrance, some of them were used for medical purposes. Gary Reger agrees that perfumes had sexually a charged personal use, but he also explains that they were added to wines, foods and they were even used to scent clothes and beds.183 Both men and women wore perfumes; there were specific scents which were deemed more suitable for each sex: “the lightest are rose perfume and kupros,184 which seem to be the best suited to men, as also is lily perfume. The best for women are myrrh-oil, megaleion,185 the Egyptian,186 sweet marjoram, and spikenard: for these owing to their strength and substantial character do not easily evaporate and are not easily made to disperse.”187 While the costly ingredients affected the perfumes’ prices, the process of perfume-making could be much more complex and lead to an expensive product. For instance, to make a megaleion, oil is boiled for ten days and nights, and then, burnt resin and other ingredients are added to it.188 While some ingredients could be found and acquired locally, others had to be imported. Theophrastus in his work On Odours tells us that oil for perfumes was mostly derived from Egyptian or Syrian balanos; for unguent, bitter almond oil, which was abundant in Cilicia, was preferable.189 The ingredients could come from distant sources: asphalathos from Nisyros, Rhodes, and Syria; kupros flower from Africa, Arabia, Persia, and northwest India; myrrh and cinnamon from the Indian Ocean.190 For aromatics, Plutarch’s account in The Life of Alexander reveals the cities from which ingredients came: after Alexander the Great conquered Gaza, the principal city of Syria, “he
183 Reger, “The manufacture,” 255.
184 Henna perfume.
185 Compounded of burnt resin, basanos oil, mixed with cassia cinnamon and myrrh. Theoph., On Odours, 30 (translated by Arthur Hort).
186 Made from several ingredients including cinnamon and myrrh. Theoph., On Odours, 28 (translated by Arthur Hort).
187 Theoph. On Odours, 42 (translated by Arthur Hort).
188 Theoph. On Odours, 30 (translated by Arthur Hort).
189 Theoph. On Odours, 15 (translated by Arthur Hort).
190 Bresson, The Making, 490.
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sent…to Leonidas his tutor five hundred talents’ weight of frankincense and a hundred of myrrh.”191 On the other hand, rhodinon myron, a popular perfume made with roses and salt was cheaper because most of its ingredients could be found in mainland Greece.192 Another factor in perfume prices was the right time for manufacturing each ingredient. Theophrastus discusses this issue: “Now some spices when they are fresh have at first heavy and pungent qualities, but in course of time become sweet till they have reached their prime, and then lose their properties again.”193 According to him, some flowers like iris are suitable for perfume-making for six years at longest, but roses are at their prime while they are fresh. In addition, some materials like myrrh last ten years and improve with time.194 Getting the timing right seems to be the key to success for the perfume business. Perfume makers surely had knowledge of these ingredients and they determined their prices accordingly. This information suggests that perfumes could have a wide range of pricing.
In Hyperides 3, Epicrates talks about Athenogenes’ offer to pay Midas’ debt with the perfume shop’s materials: “However, he said, “you will assume whatever debts they owe…But these are quite small, and far more valuable than these are the wares in the workshop, the perfume, the alabaster, and myrrh…which will easily cover all these debts.””195 Even though the text does not tell us the value of these materials, it indicates at what kinds of ingredients could be found in a perfume shop located in Athens. Teles’ anecdote provides another perfume and its value: “Diogenes took him to the perfume shop and enquired how much was the kotyle196 of henna (kupros). “A mina,” said the seller. “The city is expensive,” cried the
191 Plut. Alexander, 25.4 (translated by Bernadotte Perrin).
192 Reger, “The manufacture,” 260.
193 Theoph. On Odours, 34 (translated by Arthur Hort).
194 Theoph. On Odours, 34 (translated by Arthur Hort).
195 Hyp. 3.6.
196 A kotyle was about 274 milliliters.
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man.”197 Taking the costs of the ingredients into account, we can assume that even a small amount of henna perfume was a luxury for many. It also explains why Midas’ debt was so large. Epicrates bought Midas and his sons for 40 minas and only later, he realized that he had to pay additional five talents because of the debts.198 The amount that was paid for the slaves did not appear to be outrageous since Epicrates was more concerned with other expenses he had to make.199 Although we know that Midas was indebted to the perfumers Pancalus and Procles, the amount of the debt was not stated explicitly: “we read the copy of the agreement, in which the names of Pancalus and Polycles200 were expressly mentioned together with the amounts owed them for perfume. These amounts were small, and they could claim that the perfume in the shop covered the money owed.”201 The text says that the amount of money which Midas owed them for perfume was small and therefore, it was not a big debt. However, there is no evidence in the text about the exact prices of the perfumes. Then, how can we know about the other perfumes’ prices? The evidence for one specific perfume, rhodinon myron, comes from the accounts of the hieropoioi of the sanctuary of Apollo on Delos. In these accounts, 13 prices were inscribed over 134 years (302-169 BC) and the amount purchased was included in two instances.202 The amount purchased was 1.5 kotylai in both cases and the perfume price per kotyle was 4 drachmae and 4.5 drachmae.203 There are several fluctuations in prices over the years (between 3 drachmae 2 obols and 4 drachmae 4 obols),204 but an imbalance between supply and demand could be the reason for this. Comparing it with henna
197 Teles, 2.2. 106-9 [13H] (translated by R.E. Wycherley).
198 Hyp. 3.9.
199 1 mina= 100 drachmae=600 oboloi. Also 60 minae=1 talent. In the 330s and 320s, the city was paying its citizens a drachma (6 oboloi) for attending ordinary meetings of the Assembly. Arist. Ath. Pol. 62.2.
200 The name was stated as Procles in Hyp. 3.6.
201 Hyp. 3.10 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
202 Reger, “The manufacture,” 277.
203 IG XI,2 203A39 for 4 drachmae and IG XI,2 287A54 for 4.5 drachmae.
204 Reger, “The manufacture,” 279.
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perfume, it is clear that rose perfume was more affordable. Therefore, it is safe to assume that rose perfume would have been available to most of the population, while henna perfume would have been limited to the rich.
If we try to reconstruct the perfume business in Athens with this information, we can say that their main source of income was wealthy people of the society. While the perfume-maker, Midas in this example, could earn 1 mina per kotyle of kupros, he had to sell about 25 kotylai of rhodinon myron to earn the same amount of money. In Hyperides 3.6, we saw that Athenogenes’ perfume shop contained myrrh, alabaster, and other unnamed ingredients. Myrrh was one of the expensive and imported ingredients. The presence of such material proves that they were manufacturing expensive perfumes which only certain customers could afford. This situation also suggests the possible legal status of these wealthy people. Most of the times, their customers must have been citizens who held important positions in society because they could order these expensive and special perfumes. Some wealthy metics and foreigners may also have frequented the perfume shop to get these valuable products. Still, this reconstruction does not eliminate the possibility that they were manufacturing both cheap and expensive perfumes.
Epicrates’ involvement with Midas’ son and Athenogenes demonstrates that not all the customers of the perfume shop were wealthy and well-known inhabitants of Athens. Epicrates was a citizen of moderate means, a young farmer, as he stated in the text: “I am not a perfume seller and do not practice any other trade, but I farm this small piece of land that my father gave me.”205 We see that he was not able to afford three slaves without borrowing money. To buy Midas and his sons from Athenogenes, he tried to gather forty minas from various sources and persuaded his
205 Hyp. 3.26 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
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friends.206 Yet, his financial status was not an obstacle to his interactions with these people. The only possible place for Epicrates and Midas’ son to meet seems to be the marketplace. Epicrates might have been one of the customers: while he was buying the cheaper products that a perfume shop could sell, he saw the boy and fell in love with him. Another possibility is that Epicrates saw Midas’ son while he was meeting with his friends or using the perfume shop as a gathering place. He kept visiting the shop and maybe bought some perfumes until he decided to make clear his desire for the boy. Either way, the perfume shop provided a space in which Epicrates and Midas’ son could form a relationship. The perfume business made these relationships between different social groups and statuses possible. Thus, we can assume that Midas’ clients were not limited to wealthy citizens, but also included poor citizens, metics, and even slaves. Midas and his sons had to come into contact with these people frequently and could create their own networks with them. In most cases, their relationships appear as business deals, financial friendships, or alliances from which they benefitted. However, the case of Epicrates shows that they were also capable of forming romantic relationships as well. Although we are not able to trace every connection which Midas, his sons, or Athenogenes made through the perfume business, we can still analyze the experiences of some individuals who were involved in the dispute by looking at Epicrates’ defense.
3.3. Relationships
In Hyperides 3, the relationships between some of the actors attract our attention for various reasons. These relationships are especially visible in the interactions of
206 Hyp. 3.4.
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individuals who belonged to different social groups. In most cases, we do not have detailed knowledge about the dynamics of these relationships or how these connections were made. However, individuals’ attitudes towards each other and their behaviors in their relationships may allow us to see what was accepted as common and ordinary in Athenian society. For instance, the relationship between Epicrates and Midas’ son does not come across in the speech as unusual. A romantic/sexual relationship between a free person and a slave was not an unprecedented situation and there are other speeches that elaborate on the nature of such relationships.207 An inequality in statuses between the partners surely changed the partners’ expectations and outcomes, but it does not rule out the possibility that the person in a lesser status could be influential and have a say in the relationship. The interaction between Epicrates and Midas’ son, therefore, demonstrates this possibility. This situation is also true for individuals from other status groups in the speech. The relationships between Antigone, Epicrates, and Athenogenes do appear as a form of friendship. Although the friendship of a hetaira who was a former slave, a citizen, and a metic who had foreign origins might not be very unusual in a business context, their statuses could determine their interactions. Yet, it seems that Antigone was the intermediary who resolved the conflict between Athenogenes and Epicrates and the very person to convince Epicrates to act in a particular manner. Her position in the speech once again forces us to question the limitations of statuses that affect the nature of the interactions. By looking at the representation of statuses, we only adopt one view about society: the anticipated outcome. However, the experiences of these individuals provide us with the necessary evidence to consider possible social
207 Aesch. 1.54-58.
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realities. Thus, determining the roles of these individuals in their personal relationships will reveal their position in Athenian society.
3.3.1. Epicrates and Midas’ son
Epicrates’ lust for Midas’ son got him into trouble. Whether because of his naivete or his anxious character, he was deceived by Athenogenes. He claimed that Athenogenes used him to take over the slaves’ large amount of debt and put him in danger of losing his citizenship.208 The events that led to his misfortune did not happen in one day and they were shaped by other individuals’ decisions as well. As I discussed earlier, we can predict how Epicrates and the boy met, but we do not know when a conversation between the two of them first happened. Since the beginning of the speech is lost, the extant text starts with Epicrates explaining how Athenogenes brushed him off when he asked to take the boy.209 Later, they managed to reconcile and Athenogenes made his offer: “You are going to put money down for the freedom of Midas and his sons. But I will sell them to you outright, so that no one can bother you or seduce the boy away from you, and so that the slaves don’t cause you any trouble, for fear of what may happen to them.”210 Therefore, the slaves were not freed after the sale since Epicrates did not give them their freedom. He would be their new owner who would set them free later. Nevertheless, one important question arises: why was Epicrates so willing to buy the family, all three slaves, when he could have just asked for the boy? Later in the speech, Epicrates reveals a crucial event that changed his mind: “He sent me the boy I just mentioned, who said he
208 Hyp. 3.27. Epicrates was referring to his failure to pay his debts and to becoming a state debtor, a situation which would lead to his disenfranchisement.
209 Hyp. 3.1.
210 Hyp. 3.5. (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
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would not live with me unless I had his father and brother freed. Then when I had agreed to pay the money for the three of them, Athenogenes approached some of my friends and said, “Why does Epicrates want to go to this trouble, when he can take the boy and use him as he wants?””211 The boy came to find Epicrates and declared his wish that his family also be freed. From his perspective, living with Epicrates was a decision which he could make, although he was still a slave at that moment. This action of Midas’ son was so influential that Epicrates agreed to run up a debt which he could not pay. This situation leads to further more questions about the boy and the effectiveness of his decisions.
Epicrates asserts that the cause of his miserable condition was Athenogenes’ plot. He employed his slaves, Midas and his sons, and a hetaira called Antigone to work against Epicrates and to fool him in the end. Epicrates’ plea to the jury presents him as a helpless and pitiful citizen who had no control of the turn of events: “Gentlemen of the jury, you can with good reason forgive me for being deceived by Antigone and for being so unlucky to fall in with a man like this, and <you should be angry> with Athenogenes…<Now do you think it’s right for me to have all the misfortunes that have come my way because of my simplicity>…”212 However, in the text, Epicrates comes across as a determined person who would do anything to come to an agreement with Athenogenes. One of the reasons for this determination seems to be the words of Midas’ son. It is not certain whether the boy came up with this idea or Athenogenes ordered him to do so. If we accept Epicrates’ allegation, which is quite reasonable, this boy appears as Athenogenes’ accomplice. Nevertheless, this situation does not rob the boy of agency just because he had to obey his master and follow his orders. On the contrary, the boy seems to have chosen
211 Hyp. 3.24. (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
212 Hyp. 3.26-27 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
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this path that would benefit him and his family. From the viewpoint of Athenogenes, this is a compromise: if he gave up his slaves who were skilled at perfume-making, his debts to sellers, customers, and friends would be erased. Athenogenes might have presented his plan to the boy as an opportunity for him to be freed and to help his father and brother to become free as well. Midas’ son made a decision, convinced Epicrates, and thus, strategized his way to freedom. The boy’s ultimatum to Epicrates, not living with him, is not the only evidence for such agreement between Athenogenes and Midas’ son. The outcome of the sale shows that the boy’s freedom was guaranteed from the beginning: “he originally said he was giving him to me as a gift, so even in the end he is not my own but will be set free by your vote.”213 Thus, Midas’ son appears as a capable individual who could affect others’ decisions and consequently alter his future. The lowly nature of his status and the social group to which he belonged did not prevent him from interacting with someone who was part of a more privileged legal and social status. Surely, it is hard to assume that he was in full control of his life. Nevertheless, it proves that being a slave did not have to be the only trait of an individual which unambivalently determines competency or inadequacy in interactions and relationships.
3.3.2. Antigone, Athenogenes, and Epicrates
Antigone’s appearance in the text is quite interesting. She was a former prostitute and was running a brothel at the time when this speech was given. Although she did not have any direct connection with Midas and his sons in the text, her intervention helped to get them freed and led Epicrates to his doom. However, what makes her an
213 Hyp. 3.27 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
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interesting character is that she was capable of being a mediator in a dispute between a citizen and a metic. In the speech, she first comes across as a person who knew both Athenogenes and Epicrates. When Epicrates complains about Athenogenes behavior, Antigone was there to console him: “When I told her what had happened, how Athenogenes was hostile to me and was not willing to make any compromise, she said that he was always like this and told me not to worry; she would help me out in everything.”214 Epicrates claimed that she even went as far as to swear an oath, “the most solemn oath,”215 to solve his problem. Epicrates believed her and paid an additional three hundred drachmas for her help so that she could buy a girl for the brothel.216 In return, Antigone brought Athenogenes and Epicrates together and urged them to get along.217 Athenogenes said that Epicrates should be thankful to Antigone for her endeavor, and he would compromise just for her sake.218 From the speech, we can realize that Antigone knew about Athenogenes for a while, at least longer than Epicrates. She knew about Athenogenes’ temper and how to persuade him. On the other hand, Athenogenes might have valued her and appreciated her company. They seem to have a sexual relationship because of Antigone’s profession, but their relationship might have been more than that.
Antigone was not engaged in Athenogenes’ perfume business, even though she became a mediator in the agreement about changing the owner. She was rather an acquaintance of Athenogenes, but their connection seems to be a friendship revolving around their business relationship. If they were devising a plan together to defraud Epicrates, as he claimed, their relationship may have been extensive than we might expect. They knew each other well enough to be partners in crime. Besides,
214 Hyp. 3.1 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
215 Hyp. 3.2 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
216 Hyp. 3.2.
217 Hyp. 3.5.
218 Hyp. 3.5.
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Epicrates describes Antigone as the deceiver and Athenogenes’ hetaira in various places in the text, as if they were not acting together only on this occasion.219 The outcome of their plan brought benefit to both of them: she managed to buy another girl for her brothel and Athenogenes did not have to deal with the debts. Therefore, we can assume that their relationship accommodated more exchanges than a rather simple and direct relationship between a customer and a prostitute would have done. Again, Athenogenes introduced Antigone to his connections and enabled her to form her own relationships. In return, she formed a friendship/alliance with Epicrates which both parties would benefit from. Therefore, she was a capable individual who could interact with the other actors. Nevertheless, the nature of her relationship with Epicrates eventually changed.
After Epicrates realized that he had been swindled, his behavior towards Antigone became spiteful. Epicrates’ hatred of her did not arise from his financial loss due to her intervention. He believed that she was Athenogenes’ accomplice and they agreed to swindle him together. Therefore, he also referred to Antigone’s past in the court to defame her: “Perhaps, gentlemen of the jury, it comes as no surprise that I was toyed with in this way by Antigone. The women, they say, was the most treacherous hetaira of her day and now remains in the business as a brothel keeper…She has destroyed the house of…of Cholidae, which was wealthy as any.”220 The defamation of prostitutes or former prostitutes was not an unusual occurrence in the courtrooms. Their involvement with a household was usually associated with financial loss or the disintegration of familial relationships.221 They were the homewreckers and bringers of misfortune. Therefore, both Epicrates’ attitude towards her and the jury’s prejudice against prostitutes were predictable.
219 Hyp. 3.26, 34.
220 Hyp. 3.3 (translated by Craig R. Cooper).
221 Isae. 6.18-26, 55; also, Demosthenes, Against Neaera.
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Nevertheless, while she was having such a bad reputation because of her profession, she was capable of handling this dispute and even benefitting from the situation. In addition to her profession, her status also did not prevent her from acting in this manner. When she was a prostitute, she was most certainly a slave girl, like the one which she bought with Epicrates’ money. When she started to run the brothel, she should have been freed and legally became a metic. As a former slave and a woman, her interactions with citizens should have been limited. Since she came from a different social background, she should not have been easily involved with other social groups and able to access their networks. Yet, the business she owned helped her to surpass the social restraints which were imposed by Athenian society. Once again, being part of a business, a commercial place, provided her with the necessary opportunities to maintain these connections. Her business must have allowed her to meet many customers from different social backgrounds and taught her how to cope with them. Therefore, this might have been the source of her confidence in dealing with citizens. Even though her social status might have been the cause of her limitations in society, she apparently was an influential individual who could change the flow of events.
3.4. A model for other businesses
The perfume shop and the relationships formed around this place can act as a model for other businesses. The way that this perfume shop operated shows similar patterns with other businesses as well. As I have discussed before, Athenogenes did not attend to his business all the time, but he left the decisions to his slave workers Midas and his sons. Therefore, Midas and his sons had to interact with producers and
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customers and to make some important decisions for the perfume business. As our evidence suggests, there were other businesses working in a similar fashion and leaving some autonomy to their slave workers. Consequently, this autonomy allowed workers to interact with people from different social backgrounds and occasionally to form friendly relationships with them.
In Aeschines 1, the speaker reports that Timarchos inherited his father’s slaves in addition to several estates in Athens: “nine or ten slave craftsmen who made shoes, each of whom paid him a commission (ἀποφοράν) of two obols a day, while the foreman of the workshop paid three, and besides, a woman skilled in working linen, who took her work to the market, and a male embroiderer.”222 These slaves who were skilled in various labors paid a certain amount of money from their incomes,223 but otherwise, they had autonomy while they were producing and selling their products. Like the woman who was working linen, slaves could also carry their products to the marketplace, set up a stall, and greet their customers, if their workshop was not already a place which buyers frequented. If we imagine the experiences of these slave workers during a normal business day, it is easier to understand their autonomy in their business and their ability to create networks.
The woman working linen needed to pay a commission to her master. To get the necessary products, she either had to ask her master to provide them or go to the market and buy them from the sellers. The latter option seems more likely to have happened on a daily basis. After she worked linen, she had to go out from the workshop or place in which she both lived and worked, and find a suitable spot for herself in the Agora, perhaps a small stall where she could display her work. Next,
222 Aesch. 1.97 (translated by Chris Carey).
223 There is an ongoing debate about apophora-paying slaves and slaves who were living apart (khoris oikountes). For more information, see Kazakevich, “Were the khôris oikountes slaves?”; Lewis and Canevaro, “Khoris Oikountes and the obligations of freedmen in the late classical and early Hellenistic Athens.”
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she had to converse with her customers, greet them, and convince them to buy her products. Both in the process of crafting and selling, she had full control of her business and could create her own networks. Her master did not get involved with any of these processes, but only got the commission which she had to pay. This organization is not the only indicator of workers’ autonomy in business. If masters had several workshops, it would have been harder for them to inspect every slave or freedman who worked for them. Therefore, the masters’ and business owners’ control over workers’ dealings and interactions should have been quite minimal. Particularly with bigger workshops, like the shoemakers in Sobak’s article, these businesses must have enabled their workers to create new networks and to interact with people from different social circles.224
Business owners, rather than doing everything by themselves, appointed a foreman who controlled the production process and managed the workplace. In Demosthenes 27, we see two businesses of Demosthenes’ father that worked in this fashion: “My father…left two workshops, each engaged in a not unimportant craft: one with thirty-two or thirty-three knife-makers, worth 5 or 6 minas each…from whom he was getting a net income of 30 minas a year; the other with twenty bed-makers, who were security for a loan of 40 minas and brought him a net income of 12 minas.”225 Because there were more than twenty slave laborers in each workshop, the owner appointed a foreman among them. In fact, the foreman for knife-makers, Milyas, became an important figure to resolve the dispute between Demosthenes and Aphobus. Demosthenes’ guardian, Aphobus collected apophora from the slaves for two years. He claimed that “he was not in charge of them but the man in charge”226 was Milyas, a former slave, who managed the business and kept the accounts. It is
224 Sobak, “Sokrates among the shoemakers.”
225 Dem. 27.9 (translated by Douglas M. MacDowell).
226 Dem. 27.19 (translated by Douglas M. MacDowell).
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hard to know how much autonomy Milyas had since, later in the speech, Demosthenes discussed Milyas’ involvement in the business.227 Still, the foremen like Milyas appear to be the ones who looked after the other workers and gain their freedom for their services. Demosthenes states that his father set Milyas free before he died, and his family regarded him as free after that point.228 He definitely had a say in the business and took care of all the necessary steps on behalf of his masters.
There are also other examples of autonomous actions of workers in different lines of business. Lampis, a ship captain and a slave, becomes an important figure in Demosthenes 34 in resolving a dispute between two grain-merchants, Chrysippus and Phormion. Lampis, as Dion’s slave, captained a ship, transporting grain from Bosphorus to Athens, and he gave loans to people regardless of their status.229 Chrysippus refers to Lampis when he explains Phormion’s debts to others: “before leaving Piraeus, without telling us, he obtained further loans of 4,500 drachmas from Theodorus the Phoenician and 1,000 drachmas from the skipper, Lampis.”230 Later in the text, we learn that the ship sank and Lampis survived: “He himself got away in the dinghy along with Dion’s other slaves, but he lost more than thirty free persons, besides the rest.”231 It seems that Lampis was also in charge of the other slave sailors. These various examples give some indications of the relationships between business owners and their workers and how their trust reflected on business organization, as well as the decision-making processes. These examples also make us question the image of slavery and what slaves were capable of doing. Although the perfume shop, the workshop, and the ship entail different services, interactions, and contexts for Midas, Milyas, and Lampis, they were taking initiative in their business. Thus, they
227 Dem. 29.30.
228 Dem. 29.25-26.
229 Dem. 34.4-6.
230 Dem. 34.6 (translated by Douglas M. MacDowell).
231 Dem. 34.10 (translated by Douglas M. MacDowell).
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all had agency and autonomy to run their businesses to make contracts with others and to form networks with customers.
Hyperides 3 demonstrates that the workshop itself could become a place for the manifestation and contestation of statuses. While the legal status of individuals could change, the occupation, the workload, or the colleagues did not change. How this situation played out for the workers is still a mystery. Being part of a different status did not necessarily mean being accepted by another social group. This situation might easily have turned workshops into places of status contestation, but also of communication. All in all, the existence of free, freed, and slave workers in the same place indicates that this dialogue between social groups was already happening because the business organization provided suitable conditions. Moreover, workers’ interactions with producers and customers helped them to be part of additional networks other than the networks which they could access in their workplace. We see that other businesses also worked in a similar fashion to the perfume shop. Athenogenes’ perfume shop, therefore, provides a model for other businesses and shops in Athens and gives us an indication of what kinds of relationships might have been forming in this context.
3.5. Conclusion
The perfume business, like any other commercial place in which financial exchanges are involved, provided the necessary context for individuals to communicate with diverse members of society. Besides the financial benefits of such contacts, people from different social groups were able to form alliances and friendships. The story of Epicrates revealed to us a shop which harbors workers from different social
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standings. These workers had the opportunity to interact with various customers. The value of the products sold in perfume shops demonstrates the profile of the customers of such businesses. Indeed, wealthy and influential Athenians were the customers of such shops and they occasionally got into contact with Athenogenes, Midas, and his sons. The actors in Hyperides 3 demonstrate such diversity in relationships, but they also make us question Athenian social order, especially our understanding of the slaves. It seems that these slaves or former slaves had the opportunity to overcome their status limitations because of their professions. Businesses which included commerce and trade provided them with the necessary context to act beyond expectations. Although this enabling feature of businesses helps us to analyze more interactions, it also raises another question: were there networks or relationships that included different social groups outside the context of trade and commerce? In the next chapter, I shall discuss the possibility of such interactions beyond business relations in a family context.
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CHAPTER 4
INTIMATE RELATONSHIPS:
FAMILIES, FAMILY MEMBERS, AND STATUS
4.1. Introduction
In the previous chapters, I have discussed different contexts and places where the interactions of various social groups could be observed. The economic activities of Athens that involved trade, manufacture, and commerce provided opportunities to the city dwellers to make further connections with other networks’ members beyond what they had with their respective groups. However, this common feature of businesses may simply divert our focus from social groups’ interactions at all levels of society and give the impression of exclusivity in certain places. Consequently, we can turn our backs to other possibilities and kept this notion of privilege and exception to explain the unusual circumstances which we observed in the texts. If there is no actual exchange between individuals from different social backgrounds unless they are involved in a trade agreement, a production sale, or a business deal, how can we talk about complex and intricate sets of relationships in Athenian society? Surely, some of these relationships should have occurred without a business transaction. The best way to trace the interactions that fall into this category is to look at individuals tied with stronger bonds and intimate relationships: family members.
Although the definition of a family can change in time and our modern explanations may not match with the ancient ones, a family generally represents a
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unit of people with strong connections, sharing certain roles between its members.232 A family, as a social group, contains members who can claim different social identities in society. While these identities define the relationships between family members, they also determine their interactions with other families or outsiders. Although every family member can be part of different communities and groups in society, they can still retain the ability to act together for their family's benefit.233 I argue that families in Athens had the capacity to bring different social groups together and to provide their members a suitable environment to make further connections with other families and their networks. A household in Classical Athens tended to have members from the same legal status (except slaves), since there were certain laws that prohibited the union of a citizen and an alien through marriage.234 However, the speech Against Neaira,235 which I shall analyze in this chapter, shows that there were also families with members who were from different social backgrounds. Neaira’s family consists of individuals from different legal and social statuses: a citizen man, a former slave woman, a daughter whose status in question, and slave attendants in the house. Moreover, these family members managed to create new relationships with other families and made this one nucleus family an extended one. The existence of this untraditional family and their interactions with others manifest the complex relations of city dwellers and suggest possible opportunities for social groups to make connections. In this chapter, I shall briefly describe the family structure of Classical Athens and the scholars’ standpoint. I will also present another family formation from Demosthenes 57, Euxitheus’ mother and her disputed status, to discuss why marriages of mixed statuses might be more
232 Bott, Family, 1-3.
233 Padgett and Ansell’s paper on Medicis is a good example of the interplay between self-interest and family interests: Padgett and Ansell, “Robust action.”
234 Kapparis, Athenian Law, 103.
235 [Dem.] 59.
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common in this society than we might expect. Then, I return to [Demosthenes] 59 and discuss family dynamics and relationships.
4.2. Family formation in classical Athens
In order to analyze family relations in Athens, we should understand what Athenians understood from this term and how the family formation(s) worked. While there is no clear term to define family, oikos is the closest one which we can discern from the texts related to marriage and household management. The term oikos can mean “house, household, the property of the household and also family, all at once.”236 Essentially, an oikos starts with the original couple and their offspring, but it can be extended to the other relatives living with the family and the slaves helping the household.237 However, the scholarship usually sees the Athenian family as a nuclear family: a man, a woman, and their children. Scholars stress the unequal relationships and power dynamics between them. Humphreys explains the oikos as a closed space was “architecturally functional rather than ornamental. Its relationships were hierarchic: husband-wife, parent-child, owner-slave.”238 This view also corresponds with Aristotle’s argument on household formation in its “perfect” form.239 Moreover, Patterson argues that political changes caused the application of notions of public/private, state/family, and male/female to the Ancient Greek society and made the oikos a place in which these unequal relations were visible.240
Nevertheless, other scholars see the oikos in a different perspective and take any form of relationships formed around the family into consideration. Fisher argues
236 Kapparis, Athenian Law, 119.
237 Kapparis, Athenian Law, 119.
238 Humphreys, Family, Women and Death, 2.
239 Arist. Pol., 1253b, 1-14.
240 Patterson, The Family, 3.
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that the oikos "covered not only the members of the nuclear family who lived together but also the whole physical and economic unit, the property, slaves, and the religious unit, extending back to include the ancestors, tombs, and cults."241 He further claims that the adjective formed from oikos, “oikeios, can naturally mean what belongs to one’s oikos, and one’s relatives, and the ties that bind relatives; but it can also refer to one’s close friends, those assimilated to one’s relatives, or to what is one’s own as opposed to what belongs to another.”242 Although the family could be interpreted as a single unit that has its own agenda and roles based on power dynamics, its ties to the relatives, other families, and friends make the family structure much more complex. Even fixed roles in families can change over time and make the immediate definition of the oikos debatable. For instance, Foxhall refuses to see the household as a tidy or closed category: “The specification of who or what is contained in a household and the boundaries between households are often hard to pin down. This is partly because household structure is not static. In the course of even one lifetime roles, statuses, economic resources, and even personnel change. Sex does not change, though gender roles may.”243 The members of the household may depend on context and perspective and therefore, it may represent a larger group than we might expect.
In the context of the city center of Athens, household members’ ties to others including relatives, friends, and acquaintances could be more influential in Athenian family formation than in other places. Nevett, while making a comparison between the urban and rural settlements, states that the nature of social relations was surely different in the city center.244 On a smaller scale, we would expect to see closer
241 Fisher, Social Values, 5.
242 Fisher, Social Values, 6.
243 Foxhall, “Household, gender,” 24.
244 Nevett, “Between urban and rural” in Ancient Greek Houses, 95.
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personal contact and less impact on the strangers. The city, on the other hand, offers different methods of social control, “with the watchful eye of neighbors and friends being more pervasive and a greater role played by the kinds of peer pressure and gossip.”245 While this social organization in Athens could lead families to be more isolated because of the fear of outsiders, it also forced members to be in more contact with others and made these interactions inevitable. Even in the union of a family, outsiders could affect the decision to marry and to bring people together to create another group with new sets of relationships. These “outsiders” could later turn into relatives and eventually integrate themselves into the family’s network. Therefore, becoming an extended family can be thought of as the result of networking among relatives, friends, and acquaintances. But how did the process of becoming a family work?
4.2.1. Marriage
Marriage is indeed the main reason for different families to come together. In Classical Athens, a marriage might seem more like an agreement between the husband and bride’s father (or the kyrios, the man responsible for her). The decision was made by the bride’s father in the hope of benefitting the family and ensuring the bride’s safety. The wealth, status, and relationships between the families were important criteria for marriage. 246 “Normal procedure involves the promising of the girl by the kyrios to the future husband, usually accompanied simultaneously by the giving of the dowry and the ‘giving away’ of the girl, and her acceptance into her
245 Nevett, “Between urban and rural” in Ancient Greek Houses, 95.
246 Fisher, Social Values, 7.
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new home.”247 However, this ‘normal’ procedure does not necessarily correspond to every marriage or union in Athens. When there was no prohibition on marriage between citizens and metics, alien women who were former slaves or hetairas did not pay for their own dowry, but simply married Athenian men and living together with them.248 Even when the prohibition was in effect, the law recognized the relationships with concubines. As it is stated in [Demosthenes] 59, Athenian men could have different types of relationships with women: “We have hetairai for the sake of pleasure, concubines (pallakai) for meeting our bodily needs day-by-day, but wives for having legitimate children and to be trustworthy guardians of our household.”249 Therefore, there was more than one way to form a household, but the union with wives was vital for having a legitimate heir. The usual procedure for marriage, the mutual agreement of the husband and the bride’s father, was enough to demonstrate the legitimacy of this union on the city level. This is the general explanation of how extended families were formed.
The newly formed marriage was both the union of two people and also the union of two families. Therefore, the process of choosing a marriage partner also required choosing a family with which a person wanted to associate. Xenophon in Economics presents a dialogue between Socrates and Isomachus about marriage:
Making inquiries, I for myself and your parents on your behalf, who would be the best companion for household and children, I chose you, and your parents, as it seems, chose me among potential suitors. If god, ever gives us any children, then we need to consider how best we educate them…but now this household is jointly ours, and I declare everything I have to be common, and you have contributed everything you brought in.250
247 Fisher, Social Values, 7.
248 Kapparis, Athenian Law, 84.
249 [Dem.] 59, 122 (translated by Bers).
250 Xen. Economics, 7. 11-14 (translated by Kapparis).
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The passage demonstrates the ideal view of marriage: both parties should be considerate and careful in deciding to make the marriage and afterward, the two partners should act together. Marriage was more than a simple agreement or contract between two people. It would affect the prosperity of the two families involved and the children born to this newly formed family would be the heirs of both sides. Although the children were not the immediate heirs of the woman’s family, they could still acquire that family’s fortune, if there was no other male heir in the family. The woman might act to benefit her newly formed family, but she would also maintain relationships with her original family. Cox argues that “a woman actively pursued the preservation of her marital oikos because, as it is stated frequently in the sources, marriage was a kind of fusion of two estates, that of her husband and that of her oikos of origin.”251 Moreover, a wife could persuade her husband to “adopt one of her kinsmen252 or to send one of their sons or daughters into her brother’s estate253 as its heir.”254 Thus, it is safe to assume that both the wife and husband were influential in merging the two households and maintaining further relationships with their relatives: men were choosing their marriage partners and women were acting as mediators between two families.
4.2.2. Divorce
Nevertheless, not every marriage works as it was intended. The congenial relationships between the partners or families might deteriorate and divorce could be the inevitable end. Divorce was certainly an option for the married couples in
251 Cox, “Marriage in ancient Athens,” in A Companion to Families, 234.
252 Dem. 41.3; Isae. 2.7.
253 Isae. 11.41-42, 49.
254 Cox, “Marriage in ancient Athens,” 234.
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Classical Athens, but it was not a common and desired solution. Cohn-Haft argues that “marriage in Athens joined two families as well as two individuals, and the man who would divorce a wife, even for a dazzling improvement in his circumstances, would need to consider carefully his potential advantage as against the almost certain enmity of the family he was rejecting.”255 The individual asking for the divorce would take the risk of further conflicts. A divorce could be initiated by the husband (apopempsis), the wife (apoleipsis), or the wife’s father (aphairesis).256 If the husband intended to divorce his wife, he could send her back to her paternal family and this act was simply enough to end the marriage. The wife, on the other hand, it was required to appear before the archon and to make this issue a public matter.257 It was also possible for the wife’s father to initiate the divorce and to take his daughter back.258 The evidence suggests that the reason behind this action was usually a conflict or enmity between the wife’s father and the husband.259 Although there could be mutual agreement between the partners to get a divorce,260 divorces from one-sided decisions are more common in the texts. These decisions generally arise from conflicts between family members and could cause further hostilities. At first glance, divorce might seem like an action to end relationships between families by cutting ties and excluding some individuals from the benefits of this union. However, divorce was a way to change the nature of relationships: the links and connections between former family members did not end, but since the affection and familial feelings turned into resentment and animosity, the individuals’ actions and attitudes changed. Thus, ending a marriage did not necessarily mean ending the connections
255 Cohn-Haft, “Divorce,” 14.
256 Cohn-Haft, “Divorce,” 3.
257 Cohn-Haft, “Divorce,” 4.
258 Dem. 41.4.
259 Cohn-Haft, “Divorce,” 5.
260 Plut. Per., 24.5.
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which people had built. While marriage appears as an initiative to link more people, divorce does not seem to cut off these networks, but to reshape them.
Marriage is indeed more complex than a business agreement or an economic transaction, but it has certain “regulations” to keep familial relationships stable. These regulations also explain why divorce might not be clean-cut for both parties. For instance, the dowry which was paid by the wife's father before the marriage worked like insurance. If the husband decided to get a divorce, he had to pay back the dowry to the bride’s father and to secure the needed money for the woman’s possible next marriage. In the speech Against Neaira, the prosecutor refers to the relevant law: “if he divorces the woman, he is to return the dowry, and if he does not, he is to pay an interest of nine obols to the drachma (18 percent), and a kyrios of the woman can bring a lawsuit at the Odeon on behalf of a woman for her maintenance.”261 Generally, the parties acted in accordance with the laws. However, when there was animosity between family members, the return of the dowry might not happen as expected. When Phrastor divorced her wife, Phano in [Demosthenes] 59, he refused to give back her dowry.262 Although the bride’s father, Stephanus, made an effort to retrieve the dowry by bringing a private suit against Phrastor, he later gave up fearing that he might be punished because of Phrastor’s public suit against him.263 This public suit which was allegedly initiated by Phrastor accused Stephanus of giving a foreign woman in marriage to an Athenian man while pretending to be her relative. The punishment for this suit was the loss of property and citizenship rights. If these events had occurred as Apollodoros depicted, then there was apparently a very dispute between Phrastor and Stephanus, so much so that Phrastor did not hesitate to put Stephanus in danger of losing everything. Even
261 [Dem.] 59.52 (translated by Kapparis).
262 [Dem.] 59.51.
263 [Dem.] 59.52.
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though the marriage that kept these individuals together had ended, the dispute that arose from their interactions maintained this connection for a longer period and changed the nature of their relationships. Divorce had the power to sever familial relationships or to turn them into future enmities, but it did not ultimately prevent the possibility of restoration and reunion. Later in this chapter, I shall explain how this possibility manifested itself in personal relationships.
4.2.3. Status and Athenian laws on marriage
The legal status of an individual was an important factor in deciding on a marriage partner. The polis of Athens introduced several laws from time to time to monitor the marriage between people from different statuses or to control their children in terms of eligibility for Athenian citizenship. The Periclean citizenship law of 451 BC was the first one that focused on the distinction between citizens and aliens: only the children of two Athenian parents could have citizenship rights, a development attributed by Aristotle to the multitude of current citizens.264 Although Pericles himself requested the (temporary) suspension of this law in 429 BC in order to legitimize his only surviving son,265 the citizenship law was reinstated again in 403 BC.266 Aristotle explains the introduction of such laws by pointing out the lack of manpower. When there was a shortage of legitimate citizens, the children born from foreign and Athenian parents could become citizens, but when the population boomed and the number of citizens increased exponentially, the polis tended to take some precautions: first, leaving out those who were born from slaves, then, those
264 Arist. Ath. Const., 26.3.
265 Plut. Per., 37.
266 Dem. 43.51.
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from free immigrant parents, and lastly, legitimizing the citizenship of those only who were born from two citizens.267
Nevertheless, Aristotle’s general explanation is not enough to understand the further conflicts between legal statuses and how the perception of Athenian society had changed. If the main reasons behind these laws and decrees were the number of citizens and the benefits of citizenship, then the precautions would only focus on the children. However, it turns out that there was apparently displeasure towards metics and their close relationships with citizens. This displeasure might manifest itself in various forms, but the polis’ legal actions prove that they could easily become an eyesore when they started to enjoy some benefits exclusive to the citizens. Therefore, not only did the children born from mixed marriages lose their chance to become a citizen, but the city also banned the marriage or any kind of cohabitation under the pretense of marriage between foreigners and Athenians. This direct attack on metic status did not happen until the 380s. The law concerning mixed marriages stated in [Demosthenes] 59:
If a foreign male by any manner or means lives as married with an Athenian woman, let anyone who is entitled to do so and wishes bring an indictment before the Thesmothetae of the Athenians. If he is convicted, let him be sold into slavery and his property sold. A third part of the proceeds is to go to the successful prosecutor. And if a foreign female cohabits with an Athenian man, the same applies; and the man who cohabited with the foreign woman who has been convicted is to owe [the treasury] one thousand drachmas.268
After prohibiting mixed marriages, it is only to be expected that some charges were brought against spouses. Breaking the law seemed to cause great harm to both parties. If convicted, foreign men and women were sold as slaves; the citizens, on the
267 Arist. Pol., 1278a, 29-33.
268 [Dem.] 59.16 (translated by Victor Bers).
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other hand, lost their property and reputation. Besides the severe punishment of wives and husbands, the polis also introduced another law to prohibit the betrothal of foreign women to Athenian citizens. Thus, anyone who betrothed an alien woman to an Athenian man, while pretending to be her relative, had to deal with prosecution. If convicted, he would be disenfranchised and lose his property.269 The marriage partners were guilty of breaking the law, but the people who initiated such marriages were also deemed responsible. By looking at these laws, it is possible to say that metics and their status were targeted. Besides the general view about their legal status, the attitudes of Athenians towards foreigners must have changed accordingly. However, the previous laws must have paved the way for further restrictions on metic-citizen marriages. A metic’s presence in an “Athenian” household was not ideal or preferred for the polis because marriage between foreigners and citizens created the problem of designating the real parents of the heirs. If the citizen parent claimed that the children were born from a citizen ex-spouse or hid the fact that they were married to a foreigner, then it might be possible to deceive everybody about the citizenship status of the children. The truth might come out after an examination, but throwing suspicion on a citizen could also mean taking the risk of further conflicts and animosity. Nevertheless, for the polis, this was a serious threat to citizenship that should be kept under control by laws and deterrent punishments. Then, how could families which were formed through marriage between metics and citizens exist despite these laws and prohibitions? We can find the answer to this question in another family and its efforts to prove their status as citizens.
269 [Dem.] 59.52.
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4.2.4. Euxitheus’ mother and the problem of social status
In Demosthenes 57, Euxitheus appeals to the court to prove his citizen status on both his mother’s and father’s side. His deme members removed him from the official register of the deme after a scrutiny and he had to answer for all the questionable actions of his family which were deemed improper for citizens. After Euxitheus explains his father’s origins and the reason behind his accent,270 he returns to his mother, Nicarete, and talks about her employment as ribbon-seller and wet-nurse. Her mother, a poor Athenian woman, got married two times: her first marriage was with Protomachus and her second marriage was with Euxitheus’ father, Thucrites.271 When Thucrites went on a campaign, she had to take care of her two babies and so she became a wet-nurse to Cleinias the son of Cleidicus.272 Since Athenians considered being a wet-nurse as a servile and humble occupation, Euxitheus had to explain that this situation was not uncommon among Athenian women: “I have heard that owing to the city’s misfortunes at the time, many Athenian women became wet-nurses, servants, and grape harvester, and many Athenian women rose from poverty to riches.”273 For her job as a ribbon seller, Euxitheus again said that being poor is not something to be ashamed of. Since Nicarete was a notorious ribbon seller in the Agora, Euxitheus claimed that it was easier to identify her legal status, because her mother did not have to pay metic tax.274 In the first place, Euxitheus had to deal with such problems because their way of living was not corresponding with the image of citizen life in the Athenians’ imagination. Although his mother was legally a citizen, her economic status and professions caused her to be seen as a part of another social group, as a metic or a slave. Since people in the Agora could easily be mistaken for
270 Dem. 57.18.
271 Dem. 57.40-41.
272 Dem. 57.42.
273 Dem. 57.45 (translated by Victor Bers).
274 Dem. 57.34.
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citizens, metics, or slaves according to their appearance, as Pseudo-Xenophon claimed, this kind of misunderstanding must have happened very regularly.275 Collectively, this evidence also suggests that laws, decrees, and prohibitions regarding statuses might not be enforced strictly in society. When there was no scrutiny or an enemy looking for weaknesses, metic-citizen marriages might not become an issue, but rather be a common phenomenon.
Modern scholarship usually focuses on these laws and decrees to construct a version of Athenian society and points out the possible social strife.276 Laws and their effects provide the necessary context to discuss these social changes in society. Indeed, these laws signaled a change between metic and citizen relationships and possible status conflicts. However, focusing on marriages in Athens in terms of statuses and individuals’ deprivation of certain rights and privileges reinforces the general view of Athenian households and marriage practices. The image of the “ideal” once again leaves very little room for alternative explanations. The idea of a family which consists of members from different legal and social statuses has not attracted the attention of scholars. Kapparis simply says “Although metic families were not allowed to intermarry with citizen families for the most part of the classical period, their right to a family life, within the safe space of their own oikos was respected and recognized by Athenian law.”277 However, there are many examples of metic women who lived with Athenian men as if they are married and had children with them before and after the Athenian citizenship law was enacted. There were prominent figures such as Aspasia who was in a long-term relationship with Pericles.278 For some scholars, such a union was not the indication of a family
275 [Xen.], Ath. Pol., 1.10
276 Kennedy, Immigrant Women, 22.
277 Kapparis, Athenian Law, 131.
278 Kennedy, Immigrant Women, 74.
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formation, but of a long-term relationship based on personal affection like concubinage.279 Nevertheless, the case of Neaira and Stephanus in [Demosthenes] 59 will show us that they were a family which could both act for its own benefits, but also on behalf of other family members. Their way of forming relationships did contribute to the wellbeing of other members, but it also caused harm in other ways. For this reason, it is crucial to examine this family and their relationships to understand various ways of social group interactions. Moreover, the marriages of Phano, Neaira’s alleged daughter, point out how families from different backgrounds could link to each other and how one family became an extended one.
4.3. An eventful family story
[Demosthenes] 59 was a case brought against Neaira, an alien resident woman, because of her cohabitation with Stephanus. Apollodoros, who brought the charge, accused her of living in marriage with a citizen against the laws.280 Apollodoros, as we discussed earlier, had become bitter enemies with Stephanus because, as a witness, he helped Phormion to win his case.281 The speech shows us that the relationship between Stephanus and Apollodoros did not get any better; in fact, they kept accusing each other of various crimes. Stephanus charged Apollodoros with proposing an illegal decree and proposed to fine him with fifteen talents.282 Later, Stephanus brought another lawsuit claiming that Apollodoros had murdered a slave woman.283 The repeated allegations against him convinced Apollodoros to accuse Stephanus in retaliation and so he brought a suit against Neaira, a metic woman and
279 Humphreys, Family, 64.
280 The charge was called graphe xenias. Kapparis, Apollodoros, 31-32.
281 [Dem.] 45.
282 [Dem.] 59.5-6.
283 [Dem.] 59.9.
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her alleged husband, Stephanus. Apollodoros, while planning to reveal their wrongdoings to the city and its citizens, unintentionally revealed their family life, networking practices, and relationships with others.
The speech tells the story of Neaira: a slave prostitute raised in Corinth from early childhood by Nicarete, also a former slave from Elis.284 By prostituting herself and acquiring money from her clients, Neaira managed to buy her freedom.285 After meeting with Stephanus, she started to live with him.286 Apollodoros spares no details about her “shameless” lifestyle and her relationships during and even after her slavery. While she was a prostitute, she had many lovers287 and she frequently went drinking with various men.288 After she was bought by Timanoridas the Corinthian and Eucrates from Leucas, she served as their personal hetaira.289 After her masters told her to buy her freedom by paying them 20 minas, she called her ex-lovers to Corinth, including Phrynion of the deme Paenia, and convinced them to help her pay the amount.290 Phrynion brought Neaira to Athens and, according to Apollodoros, he abused her: “He carried on with her in an unruly and reckless way. He would take her along everywhere to eat and drink, and he was always partying with her. He would openly take his pleasure with her whenever and wherever he wanted…”291 Getting tired of his mistreatment, Neaira gathered her belongings, her clothes, jewelry, and other valuables, and escaped to Megara with two slave girls.292 When Stephanus came to Megara, Neaira established relations with him and became his
284 [Dem.] 59.18.
285 [Dem.] 59.32.
286 [Dem.] 59.39.
287 [Dem.] 59.26.
288 [Dem.] 59.25-29.
289 [Dem.] 59.29.
290 [Dem.] 59.30-32.
291 [Dem.] 59.33 (translated by Victor Bers).
292 [Dem.] 59.35.
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mistress.293 Although Neaira seemed reluctant to go to Athens with Stephanus out of fear of Phrynion, Stephanus became her protector (prostates) and convinced her to live with him.294 Apollodoros also states in his speech that Stephanus managed to bring her to Athens because he promised to take her as his wife and to make her children citizens.295 In this way, they formed their family and started living together.
Apollodoros argued that Neaira and Stephanus’ relationship was based on mutual benefits. For Neaira, it was hard for her to earn money in Megara and she could not return to Corinth because of the agreement which she had made with her former masters.296 For Stephanus, on the other hand, her presence at home was beneficial and profitable. Apollodoros claimed that Stephanus “brought Neaira to Athens for two reasons, to get himself a good-looking mistress for free and to have her provide for daily expenses by her work as a prostitute and keep the house going.”297 However, it is not possible to understand their relationship as a beneficial cohabitation. Both sides took serious risks to maintain their relationship. Neaira took the risk of meeting Phrynion and falling victim to his wrath. Moreover, her illegal marriage with Stephanus would cause her to get sold as a slave, if it were discovered. Stephanus also took the risk of getting caught by the polis because he proposed to take Neaira as his wife and her children as his own. His actions would lead him to be disenfranchised and to owe one thousand drachmas to the treasury. In fact, they are both faced with these predicaments because of their relationship. Phrynion eventually found out that Neaira was in Athens and tried to take her away.298 Rather than giving up on her, Stephanus took legal action to prove her freedom and posted a bond with
293 [Dem.] 59.37.
294 [Dem.] 59.38.
295 [Dem.] 59.38.
296 [Dem.] 59.36.
297 [Dem.] 59.39 (translated by Victor Bers).
298 [Dem.] 59.40.
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the Polemarch.299 Later, as Apollodoros claimed, Phrynion and Stephanus reconciled and agreed to spend an equal number of days with her each month.300 According to this agreement, Neaira also gave up the property which she took from Phrynion except for the slaves, jewelry, and clothes. In the speech, Stephanus was also faced with various subsequent charges because of Neaira and her alleged children. In terms of the risks which they took, their relationship seems to have been built on mutual understanding, compassion, and affection. Their “marriage” resisted serious hardships, but they continued to live together and act as a family.
4.3.1. Phano’s marriages and becoming an extended family
Although the speech attacked Neaira and revealed her wrongdoings to the city, Apollodoros spent a significant amount of his time talking about her daughter Phano and her relationships.301 According to him, Neaira brought her three children, Proxenus, Ariston, and Phano to Athens to live with them.302 The boys, Proxenus and Ariston, were registered in Stephanus’ phratry and deme of Eroiadai.303 Later, another boy called Antidorides, the son of Neaira by Stephanus as Apollodoros claimed, was again registered as a citizen.304 By the time of this trial, they were all adults and Apollodoros did not want to question these Athenian men's status without any substantial evidence. Phano’s status, on the other hand, was more ambiguous. As a woman, it was easier to question her citizenship since her name would not appear on deme or phratry registers. Moreover, her two marriages and divorces gave enough
299 [Dem.] 59.40.
300 [Dem.] 59.47.
301 [Dem.] 59.50-87.
302 [Dem.] 59.38.
303 Kapparis, Apollodoros, 34.
304 [Dem.] 59.112.
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leverage to Apollodoros to cast suspicions on her true origins. As I have discussed earlier, divorce was not something common among Athenians. Her problematic relationships could easily be explained by Phano’s real status. The husbands who found out that her mother was Neaira might have asked for a divorce. Apollodoros’ strategy led him to reveal more details about Phano’s married life. Therefore, this part of the speech gives us more information about how this nuclear family formed connections with other families.
Stephanus betrothed Phano to an Athenian called Phrastor of the deme Aegilla, “together with a dowry of thirty minas⎯making her out to be his own daughter.”305 However, their marriage did not last long. Apollodoros explains that their characters did not match and created a big dispute in their house: “when the girl went to Phrastor, a conscientious workman, one who had assembled his wealth by living carefully, she did not know how to fit in with his way of doing things; instead she tried to follow her mother’s character, including her wildness…Phrastor saw that she was not a respectable woman and was refusing the obey him.”306 After living with Phano for a year, he threw her out from the house while she was pregnant.307 Phrastor's fury against Phano made him refuse to give back her dowry. This created a conflict between the two families and ended up with Stephanus, as the wife's father, and Phrastor, as the husband, suing each other.308 Apollodoros argues that Phrastor’s claims about Phano’s origins prevented Stephanus from pursuing this dispute further. He withdrew his charge and gave up on her dowry. It seems that Stephanus and Phrastor came to an agreement not to continue the legal action because Phrastor in
305 [Dem.] 59.50 (translated by Victor Bers).
306 [Dem.] 59.50-51 (translated by Victor Bers).
307 [Dem.] 59.51.
308 [Dem.] 59.51-52.
87
turn dropped his suit.309 Later on, Phrastor also accepted his son by Phano as his own and continued to keep in touch with her family.310 Yet, this reconciliation did not help them to mend their relationship because Phrastor decided to testify against Neaira when this speech was brought to the court.311 Phrastor’s relationship with the family members seems to have fluctuated over time. Once acquaintances, Stephanus and Phrastor became family members. For a year, everything worked out fine until Phrastor sent Phano back and divorced her. Stephanus' case to exact revenge backfired when Phrastor brought his lawsuit. Even though there was a time when both sides came to terms with each other, Phrastor's testimony tore down what they had built so far.
Stephanus once again married Phano to another Athenian. Theogenes of the clan (genos) of Coironidae who had been appointed as basileus, one of the nine archons, seems to have met Stephanus through his public activities. In the speech, he is described as a well-born citizen, but poor and inexperienced.312 When he became an archon, Stephanus offered his financial and personal help: “Stephanus stood by him when he was undergoing his evaluation and helped him meet his expense when he entered into his office. Then sneaking into Theogenes’ affairs, Stephanus bought the office of Assessor313 from him; finally, he married that woman Phano, Neaira’s daughter, to him, making out that she was his own daughter.”314 Stephanus and Theogenes’ relationship first started as business partners and in time became more intimate so that Theogenes started to see him as a loyal friend.315 Mutual understanding and trust changed the nature of their relationship. This friendship must
309 [Dem.] 59.53.
310 [Dem.] 59.57.
311 [Dem.] 59.54.
312 [Dem.] 59.72.
313 Each archon had two paredroi to assist them. Bers, Demosthenes, 177.
314 [Dem.] 59.72 (translated by Victor Bers).
315 [Dem.] 59.81.
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have created such strong ties that both parties agreed to become relatives, members of an extended family. This marriage was an opportunity for Phano to enter different environments and take various roles in society other than being the wife of an Athenian man. As the wife of Basileus,316 she was the Basilinna (queen) who performed secret sacrifices on the city’s behalf. Her role as the queen allowed her to meet other people from different social backgrounds. Apollodoros narrates her duties and interactions with others: “She saw things that were not proper for her, as a foreigner, to see. A foreigner, she entered where no Athenian⎯and there are a great many Athenians⎯other than the wife of the Basileus has ever entered. She administered the oath to the elderly priestesses who tend to the sacred rites. She was given as bride to Dionysus.”317 Taking the role of priestess, she attended these rituals and participated in the festival of Anthesteria.318 The Sacred Herald who attended her also confirmed in the speech that Phano successfully performed the rituals: she swore in the elderly priestesses before they touched the sacred objects.319 She had these privileges that most Athenian women could not have. Apollodoros tells us that the Council of Areopagus conducted an inquiry after the rituals and condemned Theogenes for marrying Phano.320 In the end, Theogenes was forced to divorce Phano and she returned to her home.321 Theogenes, as Apollodoros reports, having been tricked, threw Phano away and expelled Stephanus from his board of assessors.322
316 The speech reveals that Basileus (king) was mostly discharging religious duties. However, they also had the duty of presiding over trials for homicide: Arist. Ath. Const., 57.4.
317 [Dem.] 59.73 (translated by Victor Bers).
318 [Dem.] 59.76.
319 [Dem.] 59.78.
320 [Dem.] 59.80.
321 [Dem.] 59.82.
322 [Dem.] 59.83.
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The reason for this condemnation is not as clear as Apollodoros claims. The rituals and their contents were secrets. He argues that Phano was not suitable to be Basilinna because her mother was Neaira and therefore, she was not an Athenian. However, the reason could also be that Phano was not a virgin bride since she had a previous husband, Phrastor, and a child from him.323 However, the law indicates that Basilinna should be a virgin bride who is also an Athenian.324 This is actually the version of the story more accepted by modern scholars as well. Kapparis argues that Phano’s citizen status could not have been more apparent after she performed these rituals "leading a team of respectable women, in front of the entire population of Athens."325 Still, we do not know her real status or her birth mother. What makes this conflict interesting for us is the changes in the nature of the relationships between the actors. It shows that connections that this family made had the power to turn strangers to acquaintances, acquaintances to friends, and friends to families. While becoming an extended family, they gained access to the financial and social privileges of being part of this social group. When the nature of their relationships changed, familiarity turned into hostility and it started to harm the members of this group. Since family members have stronger ties, the damage which they inflict becomes greater. As we have seen in this example, the family relationships can develop both positively and negatively. Rather than cutting off all ties, Phrastor and Theogenes decided to testify against Stephanus and kept this network which they had built alive.326 Their testimony provided Apollodoros with the necessary evidence to pursue his lawsuit and put Stephanus in the difficult situation of needing to prove Phano’s citizenship status.
323 [Dem.] 59.75.
324 [Dem.] 59.76.
325 Kapparis, Apollodoros, 38.
326 Phrastor’s testimony in [Dem.] 59.54 and Theogenes’ testimony in [Dem.] 59.84.
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The verdict in the case is not clear and we do not have Stephanus’ defense. Nevertheless, it is possible to guess what Stephanus might have said to defend Neaira by looking at Apollodoros’ speech. Stephanus either had to claim that Neaira was an Athenian woman and to provide evidence for his claim, which was unlikely, or he had to say that Neaira was not his wife, but she was living with him as a concubine (pallake).327 Apollodoros mentions the third option that Stephanus might choose as his defense: “I hear that he will present a defense going something like this: he did not keep her as a wife but as a hetaira, and the children were not hers but were his by another woman, an Athenian, a relative of his, whom he will say he had married earlier.”328 In such a dire situation, Stephanus surely did not choose to defend Neaira’s citizenship when there were testimonies of several witnesses about her foreign nature, former status, and prostitution. He might have chosen to defend the claim that they were not a family and Neaira was either his pallake or hetaira. Nevertheless, they were a family: the relationship between its members was functional and deeper than a simple cohabitation. Neaira and Stephanus’ relationship was built on affection and understanding. Stephanus made new connections to benefit the wellbeing of the other family members, while he was also trying the make profit from the situation. New members made this nuclear family an extended one and brought new opportunities and connections with them. Unfortunately, we do not have enough evidence about the relationship between the sons and Neaira. However, we shall see in the next section that Neaira was acting like a mother figure for Phano. Her attempts to repair damaged relationships with newly included family members prove that she was indeed part of this family and acted accordingly.
327 [Dem.] 59.118.
328 [Dem.] 59.119 (translated by Victor Bers).
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4.3.2. Neaira and Phrastor: Severing relationships and rebuilding them
I argued that family relations can provide greater benefits to its members, but they can also bring greater damage. When the relationships between family members turn sour, it is not easy to solve the conflicts instantaneously. The examples that we have seen so far demonstrate that, when one side shows a sign of hostility, the other side does not hesitate to retaliate. The grudge between them can cause family members to form new links to find different ways to exact their revenge. Phrastor’s and Theogenes' testimonies to help Apollodoros with his case indicate that this situation was quite plausible. However, is it possible to restore relationships? The relationship between Neaira and Phrastor proves that it is. Although their connection was severed after Phano’s divorce, they managed to rebuild their relationship enough to ask for favors. This friendship between two individuals from different social backgrounds is worth discussing to understand how relationships and interactions worked in Athenian society.
After Phrastor sent Phano away, he got sick. His illness made him unable to take care of himself. Unfortunately, he had also previously quarreled with his own relatives. As Apollodoros describes it, there was a long hatred and anger between them. Therefore, there was no one who could stay beside and nurse him. If Phrastor was indeed in this situation, then he must have felt desperate without having a wife or children to help him. The speech also reveals his helpless state: “With Phrastor in this condition, Neaira and her daughter worked on his emotions, exploiting his need to be cared for. You see, they had gone to him when he was sick and had nobody to nurse him in his illness, and were taking him the right things and watching over him.”329 According to Apollodoros, Phrastor felt desperate and so he let Neaira and
329 [Dem.] 59.55-56 (translated by Victor Bers).
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Phano take care of him. These two women were not doing a favor for him, but they were simply thinking of themselves. However, the situation might not have been as Apollodoros explains. Neaira or another member of her family may have heard about Phrastor's condition from a common friend or an acquaintance and decided to check up on him. Phrastor, on the other hand, did not throw out his visitors, although he had reasons to hold grudge against them. Instead, he let them in and promised that he would take back his son from Phano as his own. Indeed, Phrastor kept his promise and he adopted the boy and took him in his house.330 Apollodoros argues that he did not adopt his son willingly, but he was constrained by his circumstances. He thought that he might die childless and his relatives might inherit his property.331 However, he did not give up on his promise, even though he had a dispute with his genos and phratry when he introduced his son: “he took that boy, the son of Neaira’s daughter, to the phratry and the Brytidae⎯that was Phrastor’s clan⎯the clan members, I suppose, knew that the woman whom Phrastor had first married was Neaira’s daughter…they voted against the boy and would not enroll him in the phratry.”332 Phrastor, in return, brought a lawsuit against them, but he did not manage to register Phano’s child as his own.333 In the speech, we learn that Phrastor married another woman later, the daughter of Satyrus of the deme Melite and the sister of Diphilus.334 Nevertheless, Apollodoros does not provide any other information about Phano’s son and how the relationship between family members in Phrastor’s house worked. The only conclusion we can draw from Apollodoros’ intentional ignorance is that the son stayed with his father and became a citizen. Although Phrastor accepted Neaira’s
330 [Dem.] 59.57.
331 [Dem.] 59.58.
332 [Dem.] 59.59 (translated by Victor Bers).
333 [Dem.] 59.60-63.
334 [Dem.] 59.58.
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request when he was sick and helpless, he tried to keep his promise, even when he got better and married another woman to have an heir.
Why is this interaction between Phrastor, Phano, and Neaira important? It shows us that, in a family context, the relationships between family members could become complicated from time to time, and eventually, they could be severed. Unlike a business alliance or partnership, these members have stronger ties that connect them. Although things can go wrong, the interactions between family members and other families do not seem to be cut off that easily. The intimacy and affection between family members might be the reason why these people kept seeing each other and showed their affection or grudge on every possible occasion. Why would Phrastor allow Neaira, his former mother-in-law, to nurse him, even though hatred was apparent between him and Stephanus? Maybe, since family ties have a stronger bond than any other social groups’ ties, they occasionally let concepts like status and origin slide by or make them more tolerable. David Cohen argues that Neaira’s situation should show the acceptance and sympathy of other family members: “it would only be natural that there might be considerable sympathy among some friends and kin in circumstances where the non-citizen wife had won their acceptance and faced the hardship which strict application of the citizenship laws would entail.”335 Although the polis divided its citizens into certain social and legal categories, these categories do not have to manifest themselves in an intimate and familial relationship. On such occasions, they might even be the reason for pity and concern. Another important conclusion which we can draw is that family relations allow restoration and reconciliation. Although familial relationships are severed, there is room for repairing and rebuilding. Families contain more complex
335 Cohen, “Women in public”, 36.
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and intricate relationships than any other social group. Therefore, it makes it worth examining from different perspectives and without being restricted to general assumptions about an Athenian society that we continue to adopt.
4.4. Conclusion
In this chapter, I examined one of the social groups known as the smallest unit in society: the family. Apollodoros’ speech against Neaira was particularly important to my case to examine an untypical family instead of the families which are presented as the “ideal”. Coming from different social backgrounds and having different origins and statuses did not prevent this family from coming together and acting for the benefit of the other members. It showed us that intimacy and affection create strong bonds which could determine in the nature of relationships. Ties and links that connect people can be severed or deteriorate in time. However, the familiarity and closeness allows individuals to rebuild them when given the opportunity. Apollodoros' speech might be the only occasion when we see such a family formation and consequently, it only reflects one side's story and view. However, this lawsuit only became possible because of the enmity between Stephanus and Apollodoros. At the beginning of the speech, Apollodoros, and his brother-in-law and co-speaker, Theomnestus accepted that this case was a personal matter to them, as much as a public concern for everybody.336 This suggests that there could be many families such as this one which did not attract the attention of anyone because they lived peacefully and in a more moderate fashion. The existence of this family also proves to us that the interactions of different social groups were not limited or
336 [Dem.] 59.1-15.
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restricted to workplaces or business transactions. People from different social backgrounds can willingly come together and form a new hub in their network of relationships. It also shows that the other places which we discussed were not exceptions, but some of many examples that demonstrate the web of complex relations in Athenian society.
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CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION
Why does examining social group interactions matter? Modern scholars, for a long time, shared the same view of Athenian society: it was divided into three groups which were citizens, metics, and slaves. This social order was clearly defined by the laws and it was based on the privileges or disadvantages which each group had.337 Therefore, citizens were the privileged order, while metics were the underprivileged and slaves were the unprivileged. Knowing their privileges or disadvantages, people in Athens lived their lives according to this social order. However, this view of Athenian society did not exactly correspond with reality. Stories of rich slaves338 or poor citizens who had to earn their living339 were bizarre occurrences in the texts. In order to explain this phenomenon, there were a few attempts to add more statuses into the equation340 or to accept this notion of the spectrum of statuses.341 Still, it was not an easy task to make a distinction between legal and social status and to decide how much these regulations enforced by the city represent Athenian society and reflect on every social stratum.
In that case, there were other studies that focus on spaces (rather than the people and their place in this social order) which manifest this blurry state of statuses and interactions of people from different social backgrounds.342 Indeed, it was a good starting point to explain the social realities of Athens. Nevertheless, this approach did
337 Hansen, The Athenian Democracy, 86.
338 Slaves like Pittalacus in Aesch. 1.54 or Pasion and Phormion in Dem. 36.
339 Citizens like Euxitheus and his mother in Demosthenes 57.
340 Kamen, Status in Classical Athens, 1-2.
341 Finley and Shaw, Ancient Slavery, 98.
342 Vlassopoulos, “Free spaces,” 34.
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not explain how and why this blurry state occurred when people who belonged to different social statuses, classes, or orders interacted with each other. It also did not answer the question of how these people interacted and made connections with each other. For this reason, I decided to focus on social group interactions, networks, and relationships in this thesis to analyze in what ways these interactions happened and what we can discern from these. In order to examine social group interactions in Athenian society, the three case studies reveal valuable information on networking and relationship-building practices. Although status and origin might appear as disincentives for the interactions, they could not prevent people of Athens from building various forms of relationships with others who did not share the same privileges or disadvantages with them. The individuals in these case studies showed that they were capable of forming diverse and sophisticated networks and developing deeper and more meaningful relationships. These interactions happened on every level of society in various ways and they demonstrate that Athenian society was more complex than we anticipated. The inhabitants of this city were not living in their own bubbles and only interacting with their respective groups; on the contrary, they were actors in elaborate networks of communication. The possibility of harboring such relationships in a highly hierarchical and rigid society tells us more about the things which we missed than what we found. Thus, examining social group interactions matters because it provides us with a whole different picture of Athens.
5.1. Bankers, perfume-sellers, and family members
The three case studies which I examined in the previous chapters involve individuals who had diverse backgrounds and relationships. In terms of origin, status, gender,
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and occupation, they had unique features that cannot be compared with each other. Yet, they present different parts of society and various contexts in which we can observe the process of networking and relationship building. Pasion’s bank was an important example to show that certain places worked as hubs for meetings and making connections. The bank itself determined the number of relationships that bank owners and workers could build. Either for a business transaction, a loan, or a deposit, both Athenians and foreigners visiting the city frequented the banks, met bankers, and occasionally befriended them. These people who came from different social backgrounds, statuses, and origins, managed to come together in the same place, conversed with each other, and shared information. The bank, in this context, was a particular meeting spot for people from different social groups. Nevertheless, Pasion’s bank was already a workplace where people from various statuses worked together. Pasion, who had been bought by two citizens, Antisthenes and Archestratus, started to work in the bank as a slave worker.343 Due to his accomplishments, he was first freed and then granted citizenship by the city.344 He took over the bank and followed the same business manner as his former masters: he brought slave workers to the bank and granted them their freedom in return for their contributions.345 His successor, Phormion, followed the same process and maintained the bank as a place which included workers from different statuses and backgrounds.346 These bankers managed to create an elaborate web of networks through their profession, to form alliances, and to build friendships. The variety of individuals whom they managed to reach demonstrated that Athens could offer many opportunities and possibilities to its inhabitants without distinguishing them by their
343 Dem. 36.43.
344 Dem. 36.43-48.
345 Dem. 45.72.
346 Dem. 36.13.
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status. The abundant evidence about Pasion, his bank affairs, and Phormion brought up the question of whether the banks were an exception unrelated to Athens’ social realities or not.
Athenogenes’ perfume business proves that any context that includes commerce, manufacture, and trade could be the place to bring different social groups into contact with each other, as happened at the banks. The slave workers of this perfume shop, Midas and his sons, made connections with their clients and other people through their profession. The relationship between the shop owner Athenogenes and his slaves demonstrated that the slave workers were capable of forming networks and building relationships both through their master, but also by themselves. Moreover, the business organization itself ensured the necessary environment for its slave workers to operate the shop by themselves and to make crucial decisions without the consent of their masters.347 Although they belonged to an unprivileged part of society and they were initially part of a marginalized group, they were able to speak their own minds and to make decisions for themselves. The dialogue between Epicrates and Midas’ son shows that the will of a slave was not something that could be ignored easily.348 In addition, this case study reveals that businesses such as this one not only created opportunities for their workers to form formal relations, alliances, or partnerships, but the workers were also able to build friendships and romantic relationships. Differences in status were not necessarily an obstacle for these individuals to make connections and have more intimate relationships. Although this case study supports the idea that banks were not exceptional places that brought the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker together, because these places were all related to the realm of commerce and trade, it
347 Hyp. 3.6.
348 Hyp. 3.24.
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reinforces the possible correlation between business and diversity of interactions. It led us to ask whether there were any other forms of interactions outside the context of commerce and trade.
The third case study provides a whole different context for social group interactions: family and familial relationships. Neaira and Stephanus’ family confirmed that those who belonged to different social groups could form a new social group and act for the benefit of the other members. This particular example demonstrated that the interactions of members of different social groups were not limited to businesses or workplaces. Individuals from different backgrounds could gather under the same roof and they could create new networks with other families as well. Even though the laws about Athenian families and family formation ruled out the possibility of mixed families (nuclear families which contain people from different statuses), this speech shows that there were such households, despite the laws and severe punishments. Moreover, the family context gave its members the opportunity to create more intimate and affectionate relationships. The members tended to take greater risks for the wellbeing and safety of the other members and tried to include them to their own networks. While Stephanus and Neaira shared their networks with each other and caused some unintended encounters, they also adopted the nature of these relationships: Stephanus’ enemies became Neaira’s enemies as well.349 In addition, Phano’s marriages made this one small family an extended one and included more members to their networks.350 This process also shows that relationships can develop in time from being acquaintances to friends and from friends to relatives. Stephanus met both Phrastor and Theogenes and later, he
349 [Dem.] 59.1-15.
350 [Dem.] 59.50, 72.
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betrothed her daughter to them.351 In addition, the interactions with new family members revealed that familial relationships have stronger ties and they leave room for restoration even though they deteriorate over time.352 These three cases presented individuals from different social groups interacting together in different contexts and at various levels of the city’s social life. The existence of such relationships not only brings out the complexity of this society, but also how individuals could be involved in multiple webs of networks and be influential actors in them.
5.2. Looking ahead
How can making network maps and interpreting them be helpful in understanding Athenian society? In the previous chapters, I focused on certain individuals and reconstructed the relationships which they had according to the available speeches. These speeches presented us with a narrative: a particular period of a person’s life and that person’s experiences in society. As we continued to discover what type of relations they had or with whom they interacted, we get a better picture of Athenian society and its complexities. Indeed, the experience of individuals represents the fractions of the whole. Analyzing these fractions can help us to make clearer picture about the whole which means the social groups in Athenian society and their boundaries. In Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Greece, Sara Forsdyke uses the same approach, focusing on the experiences of slaves, to recover their voices and agency. These experiences which she presented made her conclude that there were many instances of slaves crossing status boundaries, even the most guarded ones such as citizenship, and consequently, she produces a different story from the one which we
351 [Dem.] 59.50, 72.
352 [Dem.] 59.55.
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heard before.353 By focusing on individuals’ networks and relationships, I aimed to reach similar conclusions about Athenian society: an alternative to what we have known so far. Yet, this approach is not only applicable to these three cases, but it can be applied for further analysis to other areas and contexts as well.
Since the scope of this study was relatively small, it was not possible to trace the interactions of individuals from different social groups in other contexts. However, there are few possible subjects and occasions that can be easily related to these interactions. For instance, religions and festivals which include people from different social statuses and give them certain roles to play. The Great Panathenaia is one of those festivals in which we find non-residents as representatives of their home cities, Athenian men, women, girls, metic men and their daughters, Athenian boys, beardless youths, and ephebes.354 Although some groups had limited opportunities for participation, their roles defined their identities as members of groups in the festival, as well as their positions in society. Looking at the individual experiences and encounters might also bring out the performative aspects of these festivals. The same situation is also true for Eleusinian Mysteries. In Demosthenes 59, we see that Neaira was once initiated to these Mysteries.355 The Mysteries were not restricted to Athenian citizens, but any adult person, male or female, slave or free, was eligible to participate in a ritual. Imagining how these individuals from different social backgrounds participated in same activities might help us to reconstruct their performance. Moreover, we can understand how they saw others and were seen by them as spectators and participants. Besides religious rituals, dramatic festivals such as the Lenaia could be another context to observe these interactions. There has been a
353 Forsdyke, Slaves and Slavery, 249.
354 Shear, Serving Athena, 253.
355 Dem. 59.20-24.
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debate over women’s role in this festival and the existence of a women-only ritual.356 Furthermore, metics were allowed as choregoi and foreigners could be chorus members in this festival unlike at the City Dionysia.357 Therefore, the Lenaia provides an opportunity to see the possible encounters of statuses, genders, and classes at a dramatic festival and to analyze the experiences of its participants.
5.3. Conclusion: Answering the questions
Since this thesis focuses on case studies and the individual experiences of certain actors, it is not a comprehensive study and it does not aim to make big generalizations about Athenian society. Also, my plan was not to answer all the questions about interactions of individuals from different social groups because of the limitations of a master’s thesis. The scope of this study was some legal speeches that appeared in the legal corpus, material which is usually identified as exceptions or irregularities and can present alternative explanations about Athenian society. My first question, how and in what ways individuals from different social groups interacted in Athenian society, led me to expand these examples to the other parts of Athenian social life and to suggest that what we have discussed so far must be a fraction of the complex relationships and networks that this society had. The importance of this study is that it provokes us to ask more questions: it forces us to rethink and reconsider our sources, and eventually, to adopt a different approach to studying Athenian society. The possibility of getting a new and more realistic picture of society by this approach is the major motivation to investigate other speeches as
356 Bernabé Pajares et al., Redefining Dionysos, 102-107.
357 Csapo and Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama, 135.
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well and to examine relationship-building practices in them in order to discuss possible outcomes.
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