Centaurs and Amazons: Women and the Pre-History of the Great Chain of Being

VI. Hierarchy

VI Hierarchy The analogical model, typical of fifth-century speculation about difference-racial, sexual, species-defined the Greek male human in terms of a series of polarities which together articulated his nature. The others, that is, female, barbarian, and animal, were like spokes radiating from the hub of a wheel. At the center was the common element of each of the polarities, the center of the city and of culture, the graceful, civilized warrior of the classical frieze. The Peloponnesian War wrought significant changes in the Greek city. Thucydides described the civil war of 427 in Corcyra in ominous terms:! To such excesses of savagery did the revolution go; [houtos arne he stasis proschOrese] and it seemed the more savage, because it was among the first that occurred; for afterwards practically the whole Hellenic world was convulsed, since in each state the leaders of the democratic factions were at variance with the oligarchs, the former seeking to bring in the Athenians, the latter the Lacedaemonians.... And so the cities began to be disturbed by revolutions, and those that fell into this state later, on hearing of what had been done before, carried to still more extravagant lengths the invention of new devices, both by the extreme ingenuity of their attacks and the monstrousness of their revenges. The ordinary acceptation of words in their relation to things was changed as men thought fit. Reckless audacity came to be regarded as courageous loyalty to party [andreia 129 130 CENTAURS AND AMAZONS philetairos] , prudent hesitation as specious cowardice, moderation as a cloak for unmanly [anandrou] weakness.... [3.82.1.3-4] Language collapsed with the disintegration of the unity of the polis, with language went the old categories of differentiation of kinds.2 The chaos deplored by Thucydides continued in the fourth century, after the Spartans defeated the Athenians in war. The exchange of control, in revolutions within the cities, was accelerated to a dizzying pace, and the dominance over the whole of Hellas was traded among several cities. Thucydides' pessimism was justified. While Epaminondas led the Boeotians to victory, atrocities were committed by his people which he condemned. In 363 Theban exiles and some citizens of Orchomenos attempted to overthrow the Theban democracy, according to Diodorus (15.79.2), and the assembly of the Boetian League, discovering the plot, punished the Theban and Orchomenian anti-democratic conspirators by exacting andrapodismos-women and children were enslaved, the men killed, the city wiped out.3 The violence and aggression once reserved for barbarians were continually enacted against fellow Hellenes. The devastation brought about by continuing war brought social conflict, stasis. Hammond remarks that "During the fourth century there were larger numbers of slaves than ever before in most parts of the mainland ...,,4 "In Greek states generally there was a sharp division between the interests of those who had property and those who had none, and it was the clash between them which led to revolution."S When the labouring or wage-earning class contains a large number of slaves, the social gulf between those who own property and those who do not tends to widen. Wealth (euporia) and poverty (aporia) in the fourth century meant the possession or the lack of capital (ousia) rather than an ability to earn high or low wages. Even the smallest capitalist tended to look down on the wage-earning citizen who had to engage in a vulgar occupation (banausia). 6 Hierarchy 131 The growing dependence on slavery was a significant factor in the culture of the fourth century; it deepened the conflicts within the city brought about by endless dissension among the Greeks.7 M.M. Austin and P. Vidal-Naquet agree, in an analysis of the period called "the time of crisis": During the fourth century the gulf between rich and poor kept on widening. Egalitarian aspirations implicit in the notion of citizen aggravated tensions, and social inequalities were all the more keenly felt as a result.8 The myth of isonomia, of the city as a community bound together by sameness, could no longer be invoked in the definition of the human subject. Artistic and literary production were affected by the changes in the life of the city. The great age of tragic drama ended with the death of Euripides-the period of civic architecture, the celebration of the city in works of art, ended as well. Monuments constructed in the fourth century...