Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History by Matthew Simonton

Abstract

400 PHOENIX elsewhere instead of leading unwary students astray with this distorted teleological account of the interpretation of myth.3 Bryn Mawr College Radcliffe Edmonds Classical Greek Oligarchy: A Political History. By Matthew Simonton. Princeton, New Jersey, and Oxford: Princeton University Press. 2017. Pp. xvi, 355, 1 map. The work under review is the first full-length monograph on the subject of Greek oligarchy since the publication of Leonard Whibley’s Greek Oligarchies in 1896. The subtitle reveals that the historical phenomenon of ancient Greek oligarchy will be examined through the lens of modern political science theory. The long first chapter, “Problem, Background, Method” (1–74), lays the groundwork for the rest of the book in a series of sections. Section 1.0 looks at the “Problem of Oligarchy,” asking first why it has been neglected and misunderstood by historians. Then, rejecting the view that oligarchy was inevitable, the author instead advances the opinion that it was exceptional, a manifestation of authoritarianism that evolved as a specific response to demokratia. He states that it was not designed to be popular with the masses, which leads him to the question why in that case it succeeded for so long in the classical and Hellenistic Greek world, which, in his view, became steadily more and more democratic. His answer is that it survived through institutions, which he will examine through the recent political science theory of “New Institutionalism.” This theory holds that effectively designed institutions enable unpopular authoritarian regimes to coerce and control unsympathetic populations. Sections 1.1, “From Archaic Regimes to Classical Oligarchy,” and 1.1.1, “Elite and Demos in Archaic Sources,” put forward the view that classical oligarchy was different from the elite (he prefers this label over aristocratic) regimes of the archaic period. He argues that, while classical oligarchy was an attack upon the participation of the demos, archaic regimes had complex constitutional structures of councils, magistrates and assemblies, in which the demos, although dominated by the elite, did have a function. Only when the growth of democracy in the late sixth and early fifth centuries signaled an increased role for the demos in political affairs, did the elite feel threatened and oligarchia result. Section 1.1.2, “The Emergence of Democracy,” analyses the three conditions for the breakdown of elite regimes in the archaic period and the emergence of democracy: 1) the times were bad enough for the demos to risk attempting a change; 2) members of the elite were for one reason or another alienated enough from their fellows that they were prepared to break ranks and lead the revolution; 3) members of the demos felt ready for a mass movement, as a result of increased wealth and urbanization. Section 1.1.3, “Early Elite Reactions to Demokratia,” argues against the view that oligarchia was a late fifth-century concept, and reinforces the author’s argument (stated 3 Perhaps L. Brisson, “Aristotle and the Beginnings of Allegorical Exegesis,” in id., How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mythology (tr. C. Tihanyi; Chicago 2004) 29–40. BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 401 above) about how and when it evolved. Unlike the elite regimes of the archaic period, which tolerated the demos and allowed it some space, the new phenomenon of oligarchia, out of hatred of the people, aimed to cut the demos out of political activity altogether. The next four sections (1.2–1.2.4) treat the “World of Classical Oligarchic Politics.” Rejecting Aristotle’s “hyper-analytical” classification of four types of oligarchies, the author believes that there are common characteristics to all ancient oligarchies. In the first place (section 1.2.1) all oligarchs were elites from the class of the leisured wealthy, “the horse-owning upper crust” (37). These were the men eligible for election to the magistracies in the assembly. Provocatively, the author argues that classical oligarchies, like those of Phokion and Demetrios of Phaleron, “retained a popular assembly open to all free adult males” (40, argued in more detail at 121–133), asserting that all those who were disfranchised under those constitutions were not excluded from the assembly. Section 1.2.2, “The Myth of the ‘Hoplite Republic’,” explores the possibility that...