Class in Archaic Greece by Peter W. Rose (review)

Class, it seems, is back. From Warren Buffett’s declaration that the rich are waging class warfare and winning to the Occupy Movement with its moral condemnation of the concentration of wealth among the 1%, the role of class in constituting our world has become topical. But class is not generally deemed relevant to the study of antiquity. Rose’s brilliant study aims to correct this in a wide-ranging demonstration of the explanatory value of approaching archaic Greece (c. 800–500 BC) from a Marxist perspective.

The introduction provides an exemplary theoretical overview with an accessible discussion of what class is and how it can be used to understand precapitalist societies. Rose explores both open (e.g., the Solonian crisis) and hidden class struggle (operating on the ideological plane or within ideology); alongside wealthy and small landowners, women and slaves figure prominently. Central to Rose’s project is the careful elaboration of the pitfalls of not engaging with a Marxist conception of class and ideology through generous and critical analyses of previous scholarship.

Chapter 1 sets out a plausible model for the emergence of the polis in the Dark Age with small, relatively egalitarian bands of raiders led by charismatic warrior chiefs transitioning to larger communities led by aristocrats/oligarchs. Rose emphasizes the “changing forms of economic exploitation, the means of accumulating and distributing a socially generated surplus” (68) and in good Marxist fashion takes seriously the relationship between the mode of production, relations of production, and the social formation (cf. 19–20): archaeology, military organization, religion, and iconography are thus analyzed in terms of the creation of the polis as a solution to wealthy landowners’ conflict with monarchic chiefs. Chapters 2 and 3 tackle Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey respectively (rearticulating some of Rose’s previously published work). Rose argues that the Iliad dialectically addresses its historical moment (750–700 BC) with both critique of the polis’ ruling aristocrats and nostalgia for the meritocratic and relatively egalitarian Dark Age society. Rose acknowledges the Odyssey’s celebration of aristocrats’ military prowess and inherited excellence, but these “sops for the ruling class” (144) do not constitute the “main ideological program” (146). Rather, the various identities assumed by Odysseus (e.g., trader, beggar) address the “colonizing element” (i.e., those marginalized from the new poleis). Rose has little sympathy for any assumed aristocratic bias in the poems and focuses instead on their relation to the “heterogeneous class audience” (105).

Chapter 4 explores Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days. For Rose, the question of the form of rule was a flashpoint of ideological struggle. Theogony offers “those in power a utopian projection as a flattering vision of what they ought to be” (181; cf. 173–74), while portraying the dilemmas of the poor; Works and Days defiantly assaults the power-grabbing ruling aristocracy and embodies the resistance of an oppressed class. These small landholders would soon rebel against the oligarchs and help usher in one-man rule in the form of tyranny. Chapter 5 explores class conflict in the emergence of tyranny and the ideological conditions it produced. Rose discusses property relations and the exploitation of poor / small landholders; calls for land redistribution lead to an analysis of Solon’s legislation and a materialist analysis of “greed” and hubris common in archaic sources. Tyrants emerged on the back of class struggle, but their policies (e.g., building programs, public festivals) helped forge a homogeneous identity (“polis” and “citizens”) that downplayed class divisions.

Chapters 6 and 7 turn to Sparta and Athens respectively. The Spartan class system was the creation of a political crisis stemming from class conflict, and Rose examines its political, military, economic, and ideological (e.g., education, marriage) systems. The key here was the military organization of Spartiates as full-time hoplites, thus necessitating the exploitation of helots and perioikoi; but perhaps most valuable are Rose’s trenchant observations about the “ideological state apparatuses” aimed at maintaining (unequal) property and...