if we were reluctant to assume without question that the narrating voice of these poems is that of the author, meaning that “Alcaeus” may not actually have been so personally involved in political intrigues on Lesbos, it strains credibility to imagine that characters such as Melanchrus, Myrsilus, and Pittacus—whether they are genuine names or pseudonyms—had no real-life referents in the context of an original performance. At the same time, however, this poetry can be read generically as well as historically because topoi such as factionalism among elites or autocratic rule “were meaningful to a large number of poleis over a long period of time” (Forsdyke 2005: 34). Simply put, we do not need to adopt an autobiographical approach to archaic Greek poetry to recognize the historical value that it contains. Nor should we disregard the fact that we have evidentiary materials that both supplement and complement the poetic testimony: first, laws inscribed on stone, which begin to appear toward the end of the seventh century, so coterminous with the lyric poets; second, the archaeological remains of structures for which a public or political function has been supposed; and third, the “bookends” constituted by the world described in the slightly earlier Homeric and Hesiodic poems and the much better documented circumstances of the succeeding classical period, between which we can make at least educated guesses about political developments in the archaic period.
The Rise of Institutions
This is not the place to discuss in detail whether the society depicted in the Homeric epics is in any sense historical or, if it is, whether it can be located precisely in time and space or viewed instead as a mélange of societies that belong to different periods and localities (for a more extended discussion, see Hall 2002: 230–236). Although Homeric characters traverse a landscape that is undeniably that of Late Bronze Age Greece, persuasive arguments have been made that the social structures, customs, and values portrayed in the epics must have been at least partly meaningful to audiences of the eighth and early-seventh centuries.5 With Hesiod’s Works and Days, however, we are on firmer ground. One does not need to read autobiographically the Hesiodic persona of the peasant-poet, squabbling with his brother over an inheritance, to recognize that the moral and didactic nature of the poem would be severely compromised if the situations described were unimaginable to an audience (Hall 2014: 25–26).
One of the more significant developments of the seventh century is the appearance of named magistracies, which signals a shift from societies where status and authority were “achieved,” through charisma, the ability to persuade, and the demonstration of military prowess and conspicuous generosity, to a situation where status is “ascribed” by the office one holds (Hall 2014: 142). In the poems of Hesiod, for example, leadership in the community is exercised by a plurality of basileis (e.g., Theog. 80–90, 429–438; WD 37–39). The word basileus had, in the Mycenaean period, denoted a medium-ranking official in the palatial administration although by the classical period it came to be used either of monarchs, especially foreign ones, or of an elected or appointed official, such as the archōn basileus at Athens ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 57.1). In Hesiod, however, its employment seems less well defined—especially when considered in the light of the term’s meaning in the Homeric epics. When Nestor describes Agamemnon as the “most basileus” (basileutatos) of the Achaeans (Il. 9.69) or when Agamemnon argues that he is “more of a basileus” than Achilles (9.160), it is clear that basileus connotes a relative, rather than absolute, status. In essence, the Homeric basileus is more akin to what some anthropologists have termed a “big man” or a “chieftain” than to a sovereign ruler (Sahlins 1963; though see Yoffee 2005: 22–41). Because such positions are “achieved” through personal virtues, they risk instability across generations: there is certainly some aspiration toward hereditary succession (e.g., Il. 2.100–108; Od. 4.62–64) but there is no certainty that Odysseus’ son Telemachus will inherent his father’s position, while Odysseus himself wields authority even though his father Laertes is still alive (Qviller 1981; Donlan 1985; 1997; Tandy 1997: 84–111).
What is interesting is that, unlike in the Iliad, the Odyssey preempts the situation described by Hesiod, whereby communities were ruled by a plurality or college of basileis: Antinous tells Penelope that there are “many other basileis of the Achaeans in sea-girt Ithaca, both young and old” (1.394–5) while Alcinous notes that he is one of 13 basileis who hold sway over the Phaeacians (8.390–1). This is largely, no doubt, a consequence of a rise in population that can be traced back to the second half of the eighth century even if the scale of this increase is disputed (Snodgrass 1980: 15–48; Morris 1987: 156–167; Scheidel 2003). The archaeology of ancient cities such as Athens, Eretria, Corinth, and Argos suggests that the physical epiphenomenon of demographic increase was an expansion of formerly discrete, village-like clusters of habitation to create a single, continuous settlement area (Hall 2016: 282, 285). Community leaders had essentially two options: either to subdue, or yield to, a fellow basileus or to subscribe to a power-sharing arrangement. The latter is almost certainly what accounts for a transition from a hierarchically structured elite, where preeminence was always contested and precarious, to a collective ruling class regulated by legal procedures (Stein-Hölkeskamp 2015: 85)—a transition that is documented initially in the epigraphic record by the emergence of named magistracies.
So, for example, a law that was set up in the second half of the seventh century in the sanctuary of Apollo Delphinios at Dreros on Crete prescribes a series of regulations concerned with a magistracy named the kosmos (ML 2/Fornara 11). A sacred law from the citadel of Tiryns, dated to ca. 600 BCE, lists officials named as platiwoinarchoi, hiaromnamōn, and epignōmōn (SEG 30.380) while a kosmos, a kosmos ksenios (a magistrate charged with regulating non-residents?) and a gnōmōn are documented at Cretan Gortyn for the sixth century (IC 4.14). By the second quarter of the sixth century, Argos was administered by officials known as damiourgoi (IG IV 614; SEG 11 314). A law from Chios (ML 8/Fornara 19), dated to ca. 575–550 and now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, refers to a dēmarchos (leader of the people) but also testifies to the fact that the formerly generic term basileus had been repurposed as the title of a formal office; the same may be true at Athens, if the late fifth-century republication of Dracon’s law code (ML 86/Fornara 15B) employs genuine titles that go back to the late-seventh century. It is, then, intriguing that named offices do not as a rule feature in the fragments of the archaic poets. Aristotle (Pol. 1285a) characterizes Pittacus as an aisymnētēs, or “elected tyrant,” and this is a magistracy that is later attested in some cities (e.g., IG VII 15 from Megara), though we cannot gauge the credibility of Aristotle’s source here. Sappho’s reference (fr. 161 Campbell) to the “basileis of poleis is unlikely to refer to titled officials but neither can we be sure that it is employed in the Homeric sense, as opposed to denoting non-Greek or mythical rulers. Perhaps the avoidance of specialized titles was an attempt to evoke a milieu that seemed more panhellenic and less local.
Just as important as the mere attestation of the title kosmos in the Dreros inscription is the fact that a term-limit is imposed: we learn that individuals were prohibited from holding the office more than once in any 10-year period. At Gortyn, there was a 3-year prohibition on iteration of the office of kosmos, 5 years in the case of the kosmos ksenios, and 10 years for the gnōmōn. The intention would seem to have been, negatively, to prevent certain individuals or families from becoming too powerful and, more positively, to ensure that there was an equitable distribution of executive offices among the group of those eligible to rule.6 This principle of the rotation of office, “ruling and being ruled in turn,” would be a fundamental characteristic of the Greek polis, regardless of the type of constitution it adopted, and it accounts for why so many early Greek laws are focused on matters of procedure. As for the qualifications for office, there is nothing to contradict the view that eligibility was determined by birth and/or wealth. The Aristotelian author of the Constitution of the Athenians (7.3) claims that the early sixth-century poet and statesman Solon reorganized, rather than instituted, property qualifications for the holding of office, but the most important office of archōn was not opened up to more than a narrow elite until as late as 457 BC