THE GREEK CONFIGURATION OF ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN HUMANITY -

1/AStrife is no only child. Upon the earthTwo strifes exist; the one is praised by thoseWho come to know her and the other blamed.Their nature differs: for the cruel oneMakes battles thrive, and war; she wins no love…. The other first-born child of blackest nightWas set by Zeus, who lives in air, on high,Set in the roots of the earth, an aid to menShe urges even lazy men to work…So neighbor vies with neighbor in their rushFor wealth: this strife is good for mortal men

Hesiod, Works and Days

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Syntagma Square Occupation, Athens, June 16, 2011 -:

Everyone at these gathering is allowed equal time to speak, and issues rangefrom organizational matters to resistance politics and internationalsolidarity. Debates take place over the economy, education, and alternativecommerce - and nothing is beyond proposal or dispute. People from differentstrands of life, political affiliations and ages are rushing to squaresacross the country to hear - and to be heard - without mediation, externalsupervision or internal force.1

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------POETS AND HERODOTUS

1 Grassroots politics Flourish in Greek Turmoil, Al-Jazeera, 17/6/2011

For Hesiod, two kinds of strife exist, following the Greek protocol ofdistinguishing two opposed domains.2 One is praised and the otherblamed, ‘their nature differs’; ‘the other first-born child’ strivingfor wealth, set by Zeus is seen by the poet as ‘good for mortal men’while the other, which ‘makes battle thrive’, and war, is blamed.Opposition between praise and blame would be subordinated inphilosophy soon enough, so much so that it was the received wisdom inAristotle to write that ‘our present inquiry [historie] is about whatis right and what is wrong, not an attempt to apportion praise orblame’.3 But, the main historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, because ofstudying human motives and getting to historical truth, could notrefrain from the excesses of praise or blame.4 In the earlier, poetictraditions where Hesiod was located, praise and blame are intended tobe natural numbers as in any organic pair where each operatesreciprocally, as in two registers, and also illuminating each other.Some recent studies of cultural systems have established the complex,ancient nature of religio-philosophical circles to which Hesiodbelonged, calling for a study of the historic-ethnological contextwhere one gets institutional practices such as ordeals by water,Dionysian – Orphic funerary rituals, prophecy via incubation, etc.which infuses considerable meaning to the author of Theogny. Althoughinquiry into the speech-world is a pre-requisite for understanding theself-consciousness of the times in the forms of ‘speech-acts’, it isnot necessary to look for terms of this time in language, e.g. theargument that claims that because the Hebrews did not have the futuretense, or since it cannot translate ‘chronos’, the Jews did not possessthe instruments to think historically. Hebrews conceived of time inthe progression of ad finitum and ad infinitum and, as M Eliade sayscyclical time had its roots in religious experience of Hebrews as muchas with Greeks.5 With authors like Hesiod, there is a ‘quasi’ sense of

2 Veyne P, Social Diversity and Mental Balkanization, from `Did the GreeksBelieve in their Myths?’, p. 195, in Nicole Loraux, et al, [eds],Antiquities, N Y, 20013 Aristotle, Politics, [tr] T A Sinclair, Bk II.9 , London, 1965.4 Momigliano A, Greek Historiography, History and Theory, vol 17, no. 1, Feb1978, p. 6 [1-20]5 Momigliano A, , Time in ancient historiography, History and Theory, Historyand the concept of time, vol. 6., no. 6, 1966, p. 6-9

history, unlike any self-conscious historian. It is unimaginable toread Hesiod by a de-contextualized application of hermeneuticprinciple in which the coherence of the work’s meaning resides in theautonomous decision of a single individual.6 Hesiod had a cyclicalnotion of time but that doesn’t make him, rather than Herodotus, thefounder of history’. Hesiod and Homer have left behind texts, whichare sources of varied historical evidence. Hesiod’s poems contain anunderstanding of unlimited time broken down to arguments aboutdifferent ages, and even a sense of chronological succession accordingto generations. His posing of historical questions have been widelyrecognized, though the history they tell is uncritical.7 History asenquiry is limited by the poetic form‘- history’ is out of place here.The question posed by Hesiod is not so much about the historical past,it has to do with the beginnings of what exists, namely the questionof philosophical origins. Without mediating history, Hesiod was ableto ‘foreshadow’ the step from mythos to logos. According to Finley, he‘moved from the timeless-ness of myth to the timeless-ness ofmetaphysics’.8 His poems deal with unlimited time, argue aboutdifferent ages and even have a precise sense of chronologicalsuccession, but not only is it unreal, the history they tell is naïveand uncritical. The sense of uncritical history also made Hesiod feelthe burden of history. A word about the context: his father hademigrated from Asia Minor and it is possible that Hesiod wasinfluenced by some of those traditions from childhood. Both Babylonianand Egyptian stories bear comparison with the mythical cosmogony ofHesiod.9 To be sure, he has ideas ‘in common with Hittite and Hebrewtexts and these only shows that it is ‘not possible to treat the Greeknotion of time as specifically Greek.’10 In Terms of characteristic,Hesiod of Ascra speaks as the first and third person, the poet andprophet chosen by the muses, who reflect on subjects and orders thediscourse in a double register – one fictional and the other of ‘true6 Detinne M, Return to the Mouth of Truth, Loraux N, Op Cit, 2107 Cf Finley M, Myth, Memory and History, in Use and Abuse of History, 2000,p. 17; Momigliano A, Time in Ancient Historiography, History and Theory, vol5, no.6, p. 98 Finley M T, Op Cit, , p. 179 Barnes J, Early Greek Philosophy, London 1977, p. 6010 Momigliano A, Op Cit, p. 10

understanding.11 Both levels belong to the domain of memory, which isno longer Mnemosune, a divine power married to Zeus, but that which isdissolved into popular platitude, the child of Zeus. His muses aredown to earth even though Olympians and what they mean is located inthe cultural field and religious contexts, understandable at theordinary level of consciousness.. Indeed, talking of Hesiod, he wasnot only the ‘Greek official theologian’ but for that very reason alsotheir ‘authorized spokesperson’ in matters of anthropology.12 Herodotususes ‘historia’ in his ethnographic sections as a generic namestanding for ‘inquiry, and proceeds to even eliminate ‘ethnography’ infavour of ascribing a far greater degree of meaning to war orconstitutions, or at any rate, incorporates ethnography within thereciprocity that he finds between institutions, wars and customs.13

THE NILE WINDING ITS WAY THROUGH SAHARA & EGYPT

11 Detienne M, Return to the Mouth of Truth, in Loraux Nicole, et al [eds]Antiquities, v,. III, p 21112 Loraux Nicole, Greek Civil War, Op Cit, p. 5913 Momigliano A, Op Cit, p. 3-4

Thus, Herodotus’ was less fascinated and more inclined towardsknowledge of Egypt, or the Egyptian logos, narrating in what respectsthey were pioneers in some areas of knowledge and learning. Thatincludes the suggestion that geometry was invented in Egypt in theirminor irrigation schemes in the upper Nile area, and `passingafterwards to Greece, though the knowledge of the sundial and thetwelve divisions of the day came to Greece from Babylon.14 Hisethnographic findings are fed by the peculiarities of Greekconsciousness and many a times garbled. Egypt is discussed in Book 2of Histories where Herodotus distinguishes himself as a historian orenquirer, by way of giving the reasons for selecting stories, themes,events, etc., as well as by his readiness to ask new questions andinitiate new debates related to the cultural and political landscapesof his enquiries.15 For instance, he refrains from giving the reason toexplain why all animals were held to be sacred by Egyptians since thatwould have entailed a ‘discussion on religious principles, a subjectHerodotus wished to ‘avoid’, preferring to describe how they ‘behaved’towards animals; and as he says, it had been ‘forced’ on him by the‘needs of the story’.16 He regarded the Egyptians for having madethemselves the most learned ‘nation’ that Herodotus had ‘experienced’,testified by the ‘practice of keeping records of the past.Nevertheless Egypt invited great deal more attention because ofsingularities, idiosyncrasies, and other than a number of ‘remarkablethings’, monuments that beggar description, Herodotus finds thatEgyptians themselves in their manners and customs had ‘reversed theordinary practices of mankind’. To begin with, Egyptians got theirharvests with ‘less labour than anyone else in the world’, thanks tothe annual flooding by Nile and their systems of irrigation, waterharvesting and control. He observed for instance that women attendmarkets and trade while men stay at home and do their weaving; inweaving rather than working the threads of the waft upwards, Egyptians

14 Herodotus, Histories, 2.11015 Catherine Darbo-Peschanski, The `I’ of the Inquirer : The Function ofCritical Discourse, Laroux et al [eds], Op Cit, p. 160; Thus out of Book 2’s182 paragraphs about 115 [63%] contain statements made in first person and in70 out of these 115 passages [38% of total] the author speaks at length, andcan be the only speaker.16 Herodotus, Histories, 2.63

worked downwards, ‘women passed water standing, men sitting down’,women didn’t hold priestly offices men did, sons were not under anycompulsion to support their parents but daughters must, and so on.17

Thus, by any contemporary yardstick, the position of women in Egyptwas more advanced and freer compared to Greece. Of particular note, inwriting or calculating, instead of going like the Greeks from left toright, they went from right to left while obstinately maintaining thattheirs is the dexterous method.18 Egypt’s inhabitants were the ‘firstof all men to invent a year and its twelve divisions throughastronomical observations; elsewhere they are presented as inventorsof divination, possessing the largest amount of prophesies owing totheir archival system. Egypt’s wonders include, besides pyramids, theinhabitant’s diet for providing health and longevity next to Libyans,as well as how well they knew about the past, having made themselvesthe ‘most learned of any nation of which I have had experience’. 19Intheir written records were kept a list of 330 monarchs, in which 18were Ethiops and one named Nitocris, the queen of Babylon who hadexacted vengeance on hundreds of Egyptians, but after ‘this fearfulrevenge she flung herself in a room full of ashes to escape herpunishment.’20 Coming to what Greece borrowed and ‘learned’ from Egypt,religion is prominent. Egypt was after all the most ancient land, andthe movement in the religious domain was one-way, from Egypt toGreece; Herodotus says emphatically that Egyptians did not borrowanything from Greeks, not only because of their custom not to ‘adoptanything from abroad’. Even the way they called their gods, theoi, wastaken by the Greeks and long after that other names of Gods werebrought into Greece from Egypt.’ Put in ‘another way’, it was only‘day before yesterday that the Greeks came to know the origin and formof the various gods’. After all ‘Homer and Hesiod’, the poets who‘composed the theogonies’ for the Greeks lived ‘not more than 400years before’ Herodotus and as for other religious poetry traditions,such as the Orpheus, they came later.21 Herodotus also says that Solonin some of his laws took up Egypt as his model, and Marx says the same

17 Herodotus, Histories, 2.3318 Ibid, 2.3719 Ibid, 2.7520 Ibid, 2.100

thing about Plato.. Solon had ‘borrowed and introduced to Athens theduty of every person to declare before the monarch or the provincialgovernor, the source of his livelihood.22 This is perhaps asprovocative as the story of Critias in Plato’s Timaeus where theEgyptians call Solon an Athenian wise man and Greeks, children withshort memory. In Herodotus’ histories, Greece is indebted to Egypt,and this partiality is hardly as significant as his comprehension ofsimilarities and differences, from the standpoint of an inquirer amongothers like Hecateues.23 In general, the point made here is not simplyabout highlighting distinctions between myth and history, forHerodotus clarifies and distinguishes historical consciousness incontrast to religious- mythical consciousness. As a rule, Herodotusavoided metaphysical explanations or they are briefly hinted onlyinsofar as it was compatible with evidence, but the reasons why mythsdiffered from history is certainly a determination and more than anabstract presupposition, which his researches brings to light byworking out such an important distinction.24 Contrasted with a certainunderstanding of ‘modernism’, argued by Hayden White, according towhich perpetuating the history/myth distinction by ‘western traditionsof thought has ‘outlived its usefulness’, hence the need to ‘getbeyond the distinction’. But, as a matter of fact, the distinction isnot at all germane to ‘western traditions’ but arises in `universal’historical traditions, such as the one that developed in Babyloniaafter the conquests of Cyrus, defining his empire for affirming multi-ethnic culture and universal purpose.25 They are thoughts of a globalnature and rather than something given or presupposed, global historyemerges at certain points of time, i.e., global history itself is the

21 Ibid., 2.50, 2.55; elsewhere Herodotus pairs Orphics with Egyptian andPythagorians. 2.8222 Ibid., p. 2.17723 Catherine Dabro-Peschanski, The `I’ of the Enquirer : The Function ofCritical Discourse, in Loraux N, et al Op Cit, p. 16124 Hence we differ from the position of Momigliano, who puts emphasis on thepresumptions held by Greek historians, which are philosophical, theologicalor metaphysical. Momigliano A, Op Cit, p 6-725 White H, Getting out of History, Diacritics, vol 12, no. 3, Autumn, 1992,p. 13; Joannes F, The Age of Empires : Mesopotamia in the first millenniumBC, p. 25, Edinburgh, 2004

result, not a presupposition. These traditions do not begin with‘modernity’; if at all, it is within philosophical ‘traditions’ andthose pertaining to critical inquiries that such distinctions hold.

Hesiod’s works belong to the order of affiliated branches of studyaligned to history, though it is only recently that these brancheshave come under historiographical purview as they demand from thehistorian deployment of disciplines such as linguistics, anthropology,ethnography, archeology and so forth in view of the contextual natureof these works.26 History also has a programme that determines it as aunifying field of all social sciences, elaborating and describing themajor axis of time / duration, akin to a helical trajectory towardswhich other human sciences are like auxiliaries which naturally tendto converge. As in natural history, it is like evolution, a generalcondition illuminating all facts, signifying a curve that all linesmust follow. The necessity of contextualization arises once poets likeHesiod are taken up as historical record. Poems and myths articulatethe cultural context and conditions of the times depending upon whenthey were composed and this alone demands continual exercises ofinter-disciplinary research in a comparative perspective, across arange of themes and material issues since they remain dormant andimplicit in the works of poets. The ‘Histories’ of Herodotus, on theother hand is explicit about specific domains, and a similar purviewwould at best turn out to be an interpretative exercise , orcommentaries on Herodotus’ own vast ethnographic explorations, subjectto the demands of historical truth and requirements of historicalenquiry that are found in his histories. Herodotus’ own contextdiffered vastly from that of Hesiod, as did his enterprise to writehistories, which was a period of major shifts in social relations,when emerging unprecedented political structures reflected in thecomplexities of egalitarian and secular scenarios enabled thoughts ofglobal nature to emerge, and establish their discourse in milieu’s ofdisputations and polemic where new forms of prose writing and publiceloquence were being created and formalized. The very term,‘historia’, with etymological roots meaning ‘eye-witness’ or directobservation gets transformed to signify an ‘inquiry’ of the

26 Cartledge P, Beginnings –East and West, in Bentley M, Companion toHistoriography

historical type by means of a number of specifications, and internalcriticism , even though its relation to the study of human historyremained ambiguous in contrast to natural history, where the relevanceof direct, eye-witness level of the facts are primary whereas ahistorical enquiry has to also depend on written, indirect or second-hand sources and reliable witnesses. The preference for contemporaryor near-contemporary history by Herodotus owed to his’ inclination fordirect historical evidence followed by reports collected fromwitnesses, which amounts to preferring oral to written evidence. Inany case, the historian emerges as a recorder of changes, particularlyrecent changes in the destiny of peoples where political and militaryevents emerge as the main themes.27 Again, the distinction betweenfacts and writing about them is not unambiguous, but many-sided, andthe breakthrough by Herodotus lies in stating the historical reasonsfor preferring one story instead of others. For instance, theexemplary yet neglected ‘critique’ of Homer’s account of the start ofthe Trojan war by Herodotus may be cited in some detail. Herodotusarrives at his specific accounting of the ‘story of Helen’ because hequestioned the Egyptian priests on the subject. In their account,while Paris was on the way to Troy from Sparta with his ‘stolen bride’foul weather in the Aegean Sea drove his ship towards Egypt, where hewas captured and taken to the court of the Egyptian monarch Proteus.When Proteus found out that Paris had eloped with his friend Menelaus’wife, and stolen treasure as well, he took away Paris’ ill-gottentreasure and Helen till such time that their proper owner would comeand fetch them. He then ordered Paris to leave his country within athree day deadline and that is the last we hear of Paris.28 Herodotusnotes that while Homer was familiar with the story, he had rejected itin his ‘epic poetry, though he left enough indications that he was notunfamiliar with it while describing the wanderings of Paris in bothIliad and Odyssey. Particularly in the later poem, Helen, taken illfound herself in Egypt where an Egyptian woman gave her herbs from therich earth of Egypt, ‘which steeped in liquor have the power to cure,or to kill’29.Homer also has Menelaus talk about his stay in Egypt. But

27 Momigliano A, Op Cit, p. 528 Herodotus, Histories, 2.11529 Ibid, 2.119

rather than ‘waste time on Homer’, Herodotus persists with asking thepriests about the ‘Greek story’ of what happened in Troy for gettingthe truth. The Egyptian priests tell him on the authority of Menelaus’account that the Greeks had dispatched a strong force to Troy insupport of Menelaus with some ambassadors. They were received insidethe walls of Troy and responding to their demand to restore thetreasure and Helen which Paris had stolen, the Trojans answered thatneither Helen nor the treasure was in their possession, but both werein Egypt. Thus there was no justice in trying to force them for Helenand the property which was detained by the Egyptian king Proteus. TheGreeks didn’t believe the Trojans at Troy, laid siege until Troy fell;‘but no Helen was found, and they were still told the same story,until at last they believed it and sent Menelaus to visit Proteus inEgypt.’ Herodotus gives intelligible ‘reasons’ for accepting the storyof Egyptian priests on grounds of elementary moral precepts. Had Helenbeen in Troy, she would have been handed over to the Greeks ‘with orwithout Paris’ consent for I cannot believe that either Priam or anyother kinsman of his was mad enough to be willing to risk his own andhis children’s lives and the safety of the city, simply to let Pariscontinue to live with Helen.’30 Assuming that if it were the feeling atthe beginning, yet after the Trojans suffered heavy losses even ifHelen had been the wife of king Priam he would have given her back toGreeks for the sake of relief from suffering. Besides it was not Parisbut Hector who was the heir to the throne, and as the acting regent itwas not likely that he would have put up with his brother’s ‘lawlessbehaviour’. Herodotus concludes stating as a matter of ‘fact’ that theTrojans didn’t give Helen because they didn’t have her; so what theytold the Greeks was the truth. Then Herodotus concludes by stating hisown ‘belief’ on the matter: the refusal of the Greeks to believe theTrojans came of ‘divine volition’ to prove that ‘great sins meet withgreat punishment at the hands of God.’31 He accepts the way facts areplaced in the story given by Egyptian priests on the basis of personalenquiries, intuitive, inductive proofs and clearly separates Homer’saccount from ‘what really happened’, and finds the mythical accountboth internally and externally flawed. This enquiry takes place in

30 Ibid, 2.11931 Ibid, 2.121b

course of what the priests had to say about their own historical pastbased on their written records’ and ‘lists’ of their ‘monarchs.32 Hestarts his probe competently, after having learnt about the dynastichistory of Egypt from their priests, who also enable him to make somedeductions and correlations on his own to establish certain factsbeyond doubt. Nevertheless, following his own time indexation thatapproached the universal dimension of time by an inductive process,Herodotus would accord primacy to chronology, allowing him to placeHomer and Hesiod, ‘not more than 400 years ago’, ‘as poets whocomposed our theogonies and described the gods for us.’33 Homer andHesiod were historical persons, but what they produced was nothistory. Once the criteria and basis for historical truth has beenestablished as a total accounting without any interference by gods andreflected orders, contrasted with fictional variations andrepresentations found in epics and myths, a giant step had been takenin founding the historiographical plane of history in critical terms.

EXCURSUS

There are types of exercises, stories and reports that add asignificant layer of meaning to historiography, i.e., a study of thediverse standpoints of writing history by historians other than thehistoriographer. The totality of these meanings would approximate thenotion of meta-history, the overarching, universal frame of referencemade up of higher order semantics, and theories such as found inphilosophies, including those that have a mediated and a tenuousrelation to history. Even though lacking in the immediacy of directobservation, given the indispensability of second-hand sources,reports and narratives, none can obliterate the original bond betweennature and humanity in experience. Whatever develops into thingsprecious and active may be seen to be contained in those early cosmicfragments out of which the world emerged in its developed, concreteform. All matter, including the deepest takes on form or order appearsas spontaneous organization of things over time, in the way that32 Ibid., 2.10033 Ibid., 2.55

perception already is internally linked to time. Perception renews andratifies in us a prehistory, i.e., the essence of time in whichperception retains the past in the depths of the present. Before beingposited by knowledge there is a lived unity of the world and with anoperative intentionality, which produces the ‘natural and ante-predicative unity of the world and human life’.34 For Herodotus auniversal matrix underlay diverse logos or national ‘set of beliefs’and customs, or ‘abundant evidence’ testifying to the ‘universalfeeling about the ancient customs of one’s own country. 35 Thusprehistory gets ratified through cultural constructs. There is adistinction between self-organization of things and ensembles that arepresent for natural vision like an emerging organism in the process ofappearing and organizing itself before our eyes and itsconceptualization in human organization through ideas and science. Theunderstanding of the inner force that holds the world together is mademeaningful second-hand, by means of cultural resources and traditions,such as those used by the Egyptian priests, but this kind of meaningcannot explain its own inception other than by voicing thoughts thathave already been said by others. It is only the work of execution andoperation that precedes conception while also succeeding pureexperience, or what amounts to saying the same, meaning itself can beshown to emerge when work summons one away from the constituted reasonof culture, towards a reason which can embrace its origins, which isat the same time an orientation towards an infinite project, aninfinite logos. By looking into the past for meaning of future andinto the future for meaning into the past, historical consciousnessmakes possible a freedom which teaches us to think this freedomconcretely. If there is freedom, it must appear in the world, in thecourse of life that goes beyond its original situation and yet notceasing to be the same, encompassing both continuity anddiscontinuity. Two things are certain about freedom, that we are neverdetermined and yet we never change, since looking back we can alwaysfind hints of what we have become. History emerges with understandingboth these moments simultaneously, describing how freedom dawnswithout breaking the bonds with the world, because we don’t see

34 Merleau-Ponty M, Phenomenology of Perception, p. xix-xx35 Herodotus, Histories, 3.38

freedom or ideas face to face, as in any empirical order. Even when itnarrowly means a study of ‘events’ from the past as they areculturally constructed, historical inquiry can show certain patternsin which events are often repeated, but since repeatability is alwaysa possibility in a horizon of meanings, which can be seen to functionin terms of explanatory elements as in earliest historical models36,these have to be submitted to a systematic variation upon anintelligible nuclei that resists. Reflection cannot coincide with theflux, from the source to the last of its ramifications, and theidealizations that it evokes require a hyper-reflection for it to betaken seriously. Reflection is the ‘opening upon the world’, the pre-reflective, pre-theoretical experience feeds reflection; it refersback to a total situation with which it can never seamlessly coincide.It suppresses the condition prior to the differentiation of the self,others and the world, which is not merely the transcendental conditionfor the cognition. When trying to account for the totality anotheroperation is involved, more fundamental than reflection, a sort ofhyper-reflection that can both account for itself and the changesintroduced by the knowing subject into the contents whoseintelligibility they are trying to elucidate. The object, includingrelations apprehended by the subject, change through the very act ofits apprehension. What is involved is the process rather than an actof apprehension, in which the organic, pre-logical bond between theself, others and the world is imbued with positive significance, notsaundered. We are set adrift and carried away by the subtle fluid ofduration so much as to have become incapable of seeing anythingotherwise. At first, space-time drowns our bodies and then, penetratesour soul, fills it and impregnates it to such an extent that the soulno longer knows how to distinguish its own thoughts from time andspace weaving together the substance of the universe. None, even atthe summit of being can escape this flux because it is definable only

36 Repetitive behavior linked up with some elements /factors with explanatorypurport in relation to decline and fragmentation of social formations havebeen found useful as model fragments, from Sumerian poetry of early 2nd

millennium BCE. They are useful in summarizing the multivariate elements ofMesopotamian decline, emphasized in analysis several millennia later;Thompson William R, Complexity, Diminishing Marginal Returns, and SerialMesopotamian Fragmentation, JWSR, VOL x, Fall, 2004

as increase in consciousness. Cognition falls short with what islacking to it, that is, operation or the working which envelopeseverything, just as being envelopes beings. Rendered in Hegelianterms, truth is its own self-movement to which the mode of cognitionremains external, as to the material. Cognition then would consist inshowing that the ‘world is articulated starting from a zero of beingwhich is not nothingness’ when cognition can install itself on theedge of being that is neither the in-itself, nor the for-itself, butat the joints where the ‘multiple entries of the world cross’.37

Knowledge works on the insight that cognition does not set itselfapart from nature, but goes directly to nature and the absolute byparticipating in evolution so as to become identifiable with thatprogress towards thought which is the progress of evolution itself indiscovering that man is nothing but evolution become conscious ofitself [J Huxley].

Hyper-reflection can set the task of ontologically establishing andspecifying historical processes, entities and artifacts in the scaleof human-social evolution and development insofar as these signify thetotal condition of historical meaning, by virtue of their structureand articulation in time. Seen from such a perspective, events areimplicit in the structure of entities, which in turn can beexplicated, such as juxtaposing events and entities [event+ entities= eventities], as configurations that occur historically. This opensup history as a presentation, in the dramatic meaning of representingthe [mediated] working of the negative in human-social affairs, withan order of conceptual determinations. In any case, the meaning ofhistorical repeatability does not escape the field of indeterminacy,as in present indeterminate, which means an implicit dynamic ofdevelopment that could also be explicated by meta-research. Thehistorical past is ‘usable’ in the sense that one finds in HaydenWhite’s seminal study on historical imagination in 19th c. literature,culture, architecture or urban history, which in its own wayestablished the concept meta-history.38The debate between historicismand ‘presentism’ that surfaced in 1990’s and, what is more germane,

37 Merleau-Ponty M, The Visible and the Invisible, p. 26038 Cf. Brown K S, Yennis Homilakis, The Usable Past : Greek Metahistories,Lexington Books, 2003

between historical relativism and ‘first principles’, goes back allthe way to one of the earliest attempts in interpretation ofhistorical past, to classical Greece itself. Only insofar as thisdebate over the past has been over cultural production, rather thanscientific pursuit of truth, it has centred on history and otherdisciplines in a manner amounting to a contested understanding ofnarratives. But the choice could be framed more adequately as betweennarratives with a version of history that makes sense in its totalityconstituting a matrix or ground of universal human experience or a onewhich makes sense in relation to finite parts of that totality. Thechoice of the former would amount to taking up the first principle,i.e., assumptions/presuppositions themselves as evolving systems,capable of narrativizing its own development, conversions andexpansion, so as to situate narratives in the context of their ownformulations. Meta-history is also its own concept of historicaltruth, such as may be discovered in the dialectical ordering ofstructural continuities through categories as well as most remarkablediscontinuities, decomposition / dissolution and diversity without theessentialism and ideologies that collapse the gap and the sheerdistance between the present and antiquity. A systematic elaborationof totality such as found in the ideas of the ‘world’ like the ‘Greekworld’ of Herodotus, that is presupposed by historical particularsneed not only use ordinary categories – negation, contradiction, etc –as logical operators for explicating, but can equally well elaboratethrough such operations a critique of any system of categories.Instead of applying an abstract system of logic, the dialecticpresents itself as altogether different when it is developedcritically. The method of moving from simple to complex, or fromabstract to concrete involves a critical reflection on the negative soas to conceptualize transitions; even self-propagation and conversionto higher levels are warranted by dialectical logic. Each successivesystem on a complexity gradient means that not only is the descriptionof each system more complex and richer than its predecessor system,but also having evolved its capacity to describe its complexity beyondthe predecessor system of language. History is the process ofdeveloping, an evolving, self-progressing extensive/intensive systemin which the relation between predecessor- successor moments are

qualitatively unequal, as self-constructing totalities, or a totalself-progression from one level to another, instantiating successoroperations in critical terms like sublation relations. ‘The firstdetermination is immediate while the second one constitutes the sphereposited in differentiation from the first. Within every simple firstdetermination [e.g., the ground], what is determinately different fromit [e.g., the consequence of the ground] is at once also present, butis at first present without yet being explicitly posited. In thesecond determination, finitude and with it contradiction, againenters. The third determination is the unity of the first and thesecond, in which contradiction is resolved…The progression is asfollows: Every newly emerging concept is more concretely determinatethan its predecessor. We are always carrying everything that wentbefore along with ourselves into what is new, but everything prior iswithin what is new, put in its determinate place.’39 Each new beginningis distinguished from the predecessor by that determinateness, so thatcognition just rolls onward ‘from content to content, with eachsuccessive development becoming richer and more concrete, ‘for theresult contains its beginning and its course has enriched it by freshdeterminateness.’40 This dialectical advance of the principle does notloose anything and carries along all it has gained as it inwardlyenriches and consolidates itself. 41The total progression would displaycharacteristics of absolute, meta-systematic development.

CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF BEING AND GREEK POLITICS [Heidegger]

There exists a trend of ‘classical studies’, departing from its broadhumanistic concerns and disciplines, having little regard for trans-

39 Hegel GWF, Lectures on Logic, transcribed by Karl Hegel, [tr] Clark Butler,Indianapolis, 2008, pp. 79-8040 Hegel GWF, Science of Logic, N Y, 1969, p. 84041 Also Godel’s Incompleteness theorems – the process of incompleteness-to-greater-partial-completeness of each successor system, can also be seen as a`conservative extension’ of the immediate predecessor system, which conservesand also elevates into a higher more inclusive system, thus meeting thedefinition of an aufheben , sublation process, i.e., of a dialectical processof change.

cultural or logical dynamics for understanding human thought, thatfavours values associated with the principle of hermeneutics.Purporting to be a esoteric discipline concerned with find ‘truth’, ithas ended up presenting little more than cross chatter/noise amongpractitioners instead of clarifying doubts pertaining to its notion ofparticularity, or specificity, sans exegetical rigour. Is itlegitimate to ‘apply’ in the case of the pre-Socratics’ or Hesiod’s‘Works and Days’ the rule of autonomous decision of the author as thebasis to accept the coherence of its meaning? Is it reasonable even totreat Hesiod as an author at work anticipating peerless interpretationin a distant future close to 3000 years on a basis that excludes thehistoric-analytical context and the cultural field, refusing to evenconsider the differing linguistic configurations in which ‘praise’ and‘blame’ occur in relative terms as though ‘true comprehension’ onlycomes from literal interpretation of information products cut off fromthe processes! This was the procedure established mainly by Heideggerwith a fixed preoccupation with Dasein, the great Being of Parmenideswhich he thought was central to a philosophical discussion seeking to‘overcome metaphysics’ between the times of Greeks and ‘our own time’.That the very terms used for stating the problem of ‘overcoming’ couldbe other than horizon-bound, pertaining perhaps to the verticaldimension, or referring to the depths of time, does not occur sincethat can show the non-existence of the connotation ‘overcoming’. Inthe ‘process of destruction’/deconstructing by interpreting ‘Greekontology’ in ‘light of the problematic’ of time, since only in time is‘understanding of Being obtained’, for Heidegger the ‘potentiality ofdiscourse’ sets the problematic of ‘Dasein’. Limiting the meaning oflogos to speech, a logos encompasses the discourse as the speech-world ofDasein. 42 What is unacceptable here is the sheer exclusion of contraryand more complex meaning assigned to logos, as with Heraklitos. Tobegin with, the great Being is its simple [re]position as the archecategory; but the only way, thinking on being could begin would be bynot showing it emerge as an abortive beginning, or the result ofsudden impulses. Being emerges out of implicit, into explicit thefruit of first reflection, as a concept denoted upon itself , thus

42 Elden S, Reading logos as speech. Heidegger, Aristotle and RhetoricalPolitics, Project Muse

outwardizing, or explicating the formerly implicit; considering Beingas the most comprehensive intensional, or connotative that has thelargest number of logical individuals in its extension or the ‘set’.If we take up the entire universe as the ‘universe of discourse’ weassume that we can name every object known to exist in it. Being isthat intensional, maybe all ‘logical individuals’, have Being incommon. In this self-mediation, the outer positing of inner isantithetical, i.e., the concept Nothing. For Heidegger, structures ofbeing’ is found in discourse; discourse gives a clue to Dasein, asdistinct from beings. Heidegger gives us to understand that Plato’sontology forcibly turns into ‘dialectic’, in order to dismiss the‘radical fashion’ of dialectic, which Heidegger takes as a ‘genuinephilosophical embarrassment’ and superfluous.43 In Heidegger,conceptual activity, thought processing its idea object, or theconceptual nothing is amiss because mental mediation is dismissed dueto its possible expression in the form, radical dialectic. The conceptof being observes itself in a continual oscillation moving back andforth from Being [coming-to-be] to Nothing [ceasing-to-be]; thebehavior of this thought process is captured in the metaphor‘Becoming’. What Heidegger attempts to elucidate is something theGreeks themselves cannot understand, e.g. for Heidegger ‘concealmenttotally rules the essence of Being.’44 For someone who collapses thedistinction between nomos [speech, talking in the ordinary sense] withlogos with a view to find a supposed access to Dasein, or before de-structing Plato’s dialectic, Heidegger seeks authentication fromAristotle. Turning to Aristotle when ‘he no longer had anyunderstanding’ of the dialectic, Heidegger finds a ‘greaterawareness’ in Aristotle, since he takes Parmenides as his guide in his‘own interpretation of Being’ in Aristotle’s essay ‘On Time’, declaredas having a ‘temporal structure’ of ‘pure making-presence ofsomething’. Thus being is made ‘always present’, or always implicitarguing from Aristotle’s essay where it reaches the ‘purest stage’, asmuch as a yardstick for all subsequent thinking of time, includingBergson’s.45 Heidegger takes upon himself a private authority to claim

43 Heidegger M, Being and Time, [tr] Macquarrie, et al, N Y, 1962, p. 4644 Detianne M, Op Cit, p. 22045 Heidegger, Being and Time, , p 48-49,208

that no philosophy after Aristotle any ‘longer understands genuinelogic’, whose ‘origin is traced to hermetically sealed linear confinesof ontological logic, concerned exclusively with establishing ontologyas the science of being, with a logos providing the clue to accesspure Dasein [ Being of beings].46 In Heidegger, there is a markedaversion to a word like Beings or Becoming probably because of themingling, mixing, and participation involved, though hybrids areseriously considered by the philosophers of ‘pure’ forms/ideas,reachable via diairesis/47 division, according to natural ‘joints’ and notby numbers, as in the case of Plato. Aristotle recognized theoccurrence of change and progress among the ‘hybrids’, who do not sayeverything in a mythical vein.48 This leads him to talk aboutPherecydes of Syrus, as a hybrid –part mythologist and part naturalphilosopher – a contemporary of other pre-Socratic thinkers, forfinding the ‘first principle’ as time, to be the ‘best thing’.49 Air,water and fire as created by Time are understood in the threefoldnature of the intelligible. The basic nation, Time /Zas, articulatedis considered to be derived from the Egyptian creation myth, datingfrom 2100 B C . But, Heidegger is clearly averse to terms invoked byhybrid/ half-breed such as heterogeneous, humus, debris, effluvia,exfoliation, mixed-up, mired, filth, rubble, ruin and so on, areaction to such entities is like adaptive defense, similar toavoiding pathogenic micro-organisms that seems to have a kind ofDarwinian genomic basis. Pathogenic micro-organisms are avoided fortheir invisible presence reveals something extra-genomic, something

46 Elden S. Deptt of Geography, Durban University,, Op cit47 Diairesis, meaning separation, distinction, division, becomes important inlater dialogues of Plato. In Aristotelian logic, diairesis is a part of adescending order of movement from genos to species. However, Plato did not seediairesis as a part of conceptual exercise. The dialectical search for whichdiairesis is a part has its object of explication of ontological realities thatare grasped by reflection [logismos]. Pursuit of inter-related eide begins withcomprehending the generic form, which is `collection’ [synagoge]. This isfollowed by diairesis, i.e., separation of various eide found in the genericeidos. Peters F., Greek Philosophical Terms, p. 3548 Barnes J, Op Cit., p. 5749 Here is what Pherecydes wrote :` Zas and Time always existed; and Chthonicacquired the name Earth when Zas gave her the Earth as a bridal gift’,Diogenes Leaetrius, cited by Barnes J, Op Cit, p. 58

mimetic in its recoil visible far back to ancient Greeks, which leadsto seek bliss or authentic existence in Dasein. What is stressed is theratio between the over and under, rational and animal like fixed mimetables which stress the ratio of exactitude between the original andthe copy, creation and imitation.50 This ingrained preference forcertain perfectly immutable idealizations can also be found in aconvergence in the extremities of racist ideological denial ofheterosis and of hybrid vigour. But historical facts impinge upon eachother and by participating, they constitute a separate order. Historytells us about the coming together/participation of minds, as in apolis, into which philosophy enters, as though by descending from anideal, transcendental attitude, to see for itself ‘mind in general’,which the resources of philosophy were unable to provide in highheavens.

Similarly, Heidegger’s dismissal or elimination of politics fromancient Greece is not just arbitrary, the point made by Detienne,simply because he cannot find a ‘verifiable, ‘true meaning’ for polis,makes it much more insidious 51. Ancient Greeks matter to him insofaras they can provide his own poetic and philosophical reflection onbeing, used as hostages, not for providing the basis for what theythought and said, insofar as his interpretation does not come to termswith objections or discuss arguments from the other side of thehorizon. Politics, with its foundation rituals, and practicesarticulated in diversity just disappears, leaving no trace, the polisis devoid of essence. In this way the central, essential distinctionachieved ‘historically’ by ancient Greeks is done away with, though inthis territory, a number of Greek sources, especially archaic poetslike Hesiod, Theognis, etc. convey political events and developmentsof their times in the perspective of anthropology or ethnology. InHeidegger’s case, ever since ‘Being and Time’, politics has been

50 Cf Nicole Krafyllis, Was ist ein Labor ?, Information Philosophy, CurrentPerspectives in Cultural Philosophy in Science51 During a seminar Heidegger had said that the word polis comes from polein,a word meaning `to be’ for him. This is too trivial to inhabit `thinking’ or`thought’ on politics. `But if, or polis, is based on the verb `to be’, thatin itself demonstrates that polis must be a site of total unveiling of Being.Thus the city cannot have anything in common with politics, in a trivialsense of to politikon. So goodbye politics.. Detienne M, Op Cit., p. 213

heaped with scorned on the presumption that it constitutes an obstaclein the process of the existent / dasein; whence it can assume itsposition only by turning against common concerns like social life ofthe city, more specifically its loquacious public places. Such anattitude is not only unconnected with the scorn heaped on‘anthropology’ as a subject by Heidegger, but even deeper, theantipathy is towards the history of Greek political ‘unfolding’. Thereis a lot more to this unfolding , whose terms are so full of abortivebeginnings, sudden impulses, discontinuities, cul-de-sacs and abruptendings or breaks that it is a source of endless confusion.

THE IDEOLOGICAL POSITION ON PLATO’S POLITICS [ Hudson &Castoriadis]

From another perspective,, the philosophy of Plato has been accused of‘concealing basic Greek concepts’ and playing a big role in destroyingthe Greek world at a theoretical level.52 For Hudson, Plato providesthe canon of ‘aristocratic wisdom’ from the ‘social cosmos’ itenvisaged. As Hudson’s diatribe would have it, Plato condemns the‘demos’ for mixing social ranks; he banned some forms of music thatwere codes for democratic propaganda, and condemned theatre forturning into centres of grave corruption. ‘Decrying the cacophony ofpopular music Plato introduced a certain form of intellectualdecadence, and made music the focus of quadrivium, along withastronomy, mathematics and geometry, but what he meant by music waspure abstract theory of numbers disconnected from its performance andas removed as possible from experience and experiment, similar to the‘arcane mathematizing of modern economics outside of any usefulness,in Hudson’s view.53 Castoriades says that ‘Plato’ forged history, if weknew history from Plato only we would know nothing about the battle ofSalamis or the victory of Themistocles, except for the demos ‘manning

52 Casteriadis Carlos, Ancient Greek democracy and its significance for usToday, Athens, 1986; Oikonomou y, Plato and Castoriadis : the concealment andunrevealing of democracy, Democracy and Nature, International Journal ofInclusive Democracy, vol 2, no 1, September 2005; also Hudson M, Music as anAnalogy for economic order in Classical Antiquity, in Backhaus H-G, Theory,History, Anthropology : non-Market Economies, Marburg, 2000, p. 113-135 53 Hudson M, Op Cit, the essay is basically a critique of Pythagoras, as thebearer of the politics of aristocracy in classical Athens.

the ears’. He notes the sophistry, theatricality and the rhetoric ofPlato while he is criticizing, rhetoricians, theatre writers andsophists in order to devalue democracy as the reign of amorphousmasses, and attack ‘its basic essence’ where ‘evil, unbridled passionand selfish interest reign’. Plato accordingly is seen to promote agroup of ideas which refer to a reality not to illuminate or change itbut conceal and justify it in terms of imagery, which in effect ‘wouldpermit people to say something and do something else, to appear asother than what they really are.’54 One of the problems with Hudson’sand to a lesser extent Castoriadis’ view is the absence of contraryviews in their discussion. There seems to be an ideological drivebehind Hudson’s arguments, which in the case of Castoriadis is moreexplicit, [part of his attack on Stalinism in the 1950’s and 60’s]though he specifically attacks Plato’s political thought whileacknowledging the depth and strength of Plato’s philosophy in themanner of exposition, its enquiring character, constantly questioningits own positions like a ‘great thinker’ in the process of developinghis thought without academicism or rules, with no concern forstructure or form.’55 We can only deal with what has been neglected inthe case of Hudson, and what has been disregarded in Heidegger’s case,namely the subject of political history of ancient Greece.

WOMAN HISTORIANS OF GREECE AND POLTICAL IMPLICATIONS

Some ‘practitioners of women’s history of Greek antiquity, forinstance, would not share any ‘set’ views on Plato’s political ideasregarding women and their position in city states, particularlyAthens. Their concerns have a bearing on the politics of ideas aboutmen and women in historiography, e.g., on the subject of Athenianrepresentation of citizenship and images of division between thesexes, particularly by citing instances and uses of the myth ofautochthon in the relations Athens maintained with the outside world56

in so far as these could be derived from representations found in the

54 Castoriadis C, L’institution Imaginaire de la Societe , 1968, p 15, Sur laPolitique de Platon, 1999, cited by Oikonomou Y Op Cit. 55 Castoriadis C, Sur la Politique de Platon, Seuil, 1999

broad cultural context. ‘Representation’ in the way used here isfunctional and related to the suppressed and occluded elements of theGreek social world, not as defining moment of facts, or any range offigurative arts considered as a historical field. In the ‘officialrhetoric’, the claims to inclusiveness and Athens as an ‘open city’ isfounded on autochthony, i.e., those who have always been there fromthe beginning, was a notion aimed at ‘citizens from other cities’. Thenotion of ‘autochthony’ is seen as an ideological construct, whichworked against ‘foreigners’/ metices, keeping them permanentlyimmobilized as ‘eternal metices. This xenophobic bias towards foreignersis really a denial of conflicts, insofar as those excluded from thestory of origins found themselves excluded from political rights andotherwise dependent at various levels. This became a serious issuetowards the close of the 6th c. B C E. The myth of autochthony is seenas an operator of exclusion – the ‘original exclusion of others, andalso a denial of women who, from the outset, ‘are excluded from thefounding of Athens and from the procreation of the first Athenians’57.Loraux argues that in the topography of Athens, any woman is radicallycircumscribed in practice and imagination. She locates Atheniandemocracy’s particular exclusion of women in the dominant andpervasive traditional discourse about women as if they were a‘separate race’. It is possible that the story of Athena may have beenlater introduced in the reworking of the myth but that did not reflectany change in attitudes.58 Citing other interpretations of the myth, ahigh degree of ambiguity and difficulty surrounds the person andbodies of women.59 The very mode of Athena’s presence is a wrapping of

56 Nicole Loraux, The Children of Athena : Athenian ideas about Citizenshipand the Division between the Sexes, p. 237-251, Princeton, 1993. `Atheniansen masse were taught to despise other states [Dorians above all], just as anaristocrat might despise a matice. Athenians were, so to speak, the onlycitizens of Greece, all other groups were mere immigrants’.57 Nicole Loraux, Epilogue : Once Again, the Woman, the Virgin, FemaleAthenians, in Loraux N, et al, [eds], Antiquities, N Y, 2001, p. 78; ArleneSaxonhouse, Women in the History of Political Thought : Ancient Greece toMachiavelli, p. 264-272, N Y, 1985 58 Nicole Loraux, What Tiresias Saw, in Loraux N, et al, Op Cit, p. 270-27159 E.g., the work of P Brule, La fille d’Athenes : la religion des filles al’epoque classique : mythes, cultes et societe, Paris 1987 `She transmits;she is not. She transmits autochthony, but does not posses it in her person’

immateriality, an empty presence, the ‘nonbeing’, instantiating thatthe Greek thinking on women occurs in a ‘negative register’. Eventhough a truism from a psychoanalytical point of view, Nicole Lorauxsubstantiates her claims that ‘female Athenians’ ‘do not exist’ fromlinguistic evidence documenting the absence of the term Athenian in acontext where men were the ‘givers of identity’. Here the point isvery specific, though not completely unrelated to what Engels referredto as the `world historic defeat of women’ only at one general levelwithout entertaining any confusion between perspective and detail.This is where we get a reference to what Plato, not what the Platonictradition makes of Athenian autochthony, in the light of ‘unusualreevaluation’ that all of Plato’s work tends to make, since contraryto dominant tradition on ‘collective autochthony’ Plato deliberatelyputs emphasis on the maternal figure, analogues khora in the Timaues.The discourse on khora refers to ‘inadequate figures’. The figures aretaken from that about which philosophy speaks, the kosmos – receptacle,imprint, bearer, mother, or nurse. But these are not ‘true’ figuresbecause khora escapes the rhetorical code upon which Platonicoppositions are based [intelligible/perceptible, being as eidos/image,etc]. The multiplicity of metaphors surrounding khora suggests that theopposition between the literal and figurative has lost its value.Philosophy could not speak about that which resembles its ‘mother’,‘nurse’, receptacle’, ‘imprint bearer’; it can only speak only aboutthe father and the son engendered. In order to conceive khora, the veryearly beginnings60need to be evoked. In Timaeues, the birth of Kosmos isinvoked to talk about origins, something which their own memory hasn’tpreserved. The evidence of Plato for historians provides insights on‘human realities’, and about how ‘human social realities’ could begrasped in history.61

However, restoring Greek women to history does not imply ‘abruptlygiving them over to “reality” and history with a capital H- whichfacile positivism liken to the real’.62 One has to remain open topossibilities of greater ambivalence to Greek representations of womenwhen taking up historical prose rather than texts marked by mythical /60 Derrida J, Khora in Loraux N, Op Cit, p. 465-46761 Garnet L, Dionysus, in Loraux N, et al, p. 32962 Loraux N, What Terisias Saw, Op Cit, p. 271

religious zeal, since even in those historical works the value placedon women stays negative. The ambiguity marking various representationsand stories of Amazonian women in the works of ancient historians[Herodotus], who extended their existence to a historical period bymaking them ‘quasi-normal’ in the contemporary period; Diodorus’strange and extraordinary tales of the Amazons of Libya taken from‘the works of poets’, historians, including more ‘recent’ ones aretold in a way that absolves Diodorus from taking any responsibility,sounding like exhortations to belief; Plutarch’s narration of someprisoners of war in one of Pompey’s campaign who ‘seemed to be Amazon’based on the testimony of ‘supposed witnesses’ or the doubts abouttheir existence in the works of Arrian and Strabo testify to a rangeof beliefs and imaginary accounts that were not conditioned by anycanonical references to Greek norms since there was no reality toAmazon women, it was no longer a matter of interpretation.63 In allaccounts of Amazonian society, the female is male and vice versa.Males of Amazonia are deprived of political power and speech, confinedto household chores and child care, forbidden to know their own sons,etc. Their condition is an accurate reflection of the condition ofwomen in Greece; it is the ‘Greek world turned upside down’.Correspondingly the Athenians have an account of conditions before theinvention of the city when the society was not unlike the Amazonianwhen marriages did not exist, promiscuity was general, fathers didn’tknow their sons, and women participated in the government. But oncethey elected Athena over Poseidon as the protectress of the city byone vote, women were excluded from power once and for all. The storyabout Amazonians is seen to serve as model tales that warn about thedangers of any attempted revolt against the male order.64Plato alsodeployed a version of what Dikearchos refers to the ‘golden age ofchronos’, a period of ‘natural stage of happiness’, which the Cynicsrefused to acknowledge, though Plato was using the image / simulacra/eidola of a natural stage of affairs for making derivations, yet thisstage was made up of many elements described in the Athenian accountsof Amazonian society. However, the main distinction from Athenian

63 Jeannie Carlier, Voyage in Greek Amazonia, in Loraux N, et al [eds] Op Cit,p. 137-13964 Ibid., p. 141

accounts of their ‘lost’, ‘archeological’ past lies in the contrastmade by Plato when he says that when the polis was created, it beganwith the rule of madmen – mainomenoi .65 Here again, similar toresolutely emphasizing khora, as the ‘mother’ of the discourse, Platocan be seen to make a deliberate move to highlight the displacement,erasure and the nonbeing condition of women in Greek polis. The pointwhich Plato makes is not really aimed at mythology but more preciselyat politics, the politics of the ideas that men held about women whilereserving politics for themselves. Plato’s ‘natural state’ differsdrastically from the accounts of fellow Athenians over a significantissue, a story that he may have learnt from women of Athens in orderto invoke an imagery of a past reality, not in order to justify theimage since justifications of the order demanded by Castoraidis didnot exist in Plato’s method of dialectic, as much as to show acontrast by elucidating another point of departure or the ideal asarkhetypon.

65 Castoriadis C, Sur le Politique de Platon, Vidal-Naquet, La Chasseur noir,Bayiona A, La Philosophie Politique des Cyniques, cited in Oikonomou G, Platoand Castoriadis : The concealment and unraveling of Democracy, Democracy andNature, vol 2, no. 1, Sept 2005, another version www.democracynature.org/vol9/vol9htm.

DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL HISTORY THE AEGEAN SEA INTERFACE

Archeology bears traces of some developments that suggest displacingor obscuring of certain kinds of practices having politicalimplications for societies, in case one refers to what is regarded asthe prehistory of Homeric legends found in the archeology of BronzeAge to Iron Age transition phase. The cooking practices of Homericwarrior feasts find their support in Bronze Age archeological recordsuch as deep tripod cauldrons that are represented in linear –B listsfrom Mycenae during 13th c. B C E, decorated with portable hearths andother cooking utensils belonging to the Palace. Meat was cooked byboiling or stewing, as the results of organic residue analysis foundin the clay versions of tripod vassals indicate. This was the practicefrom at least the middle to late Bronze Age prevalent in the Aegeanarea in general. Though a predominant practice in ritual contexts, itis apparent that feasts loom large in the recorded activities ofMycenae Palaces which basically brought together communities fromsurrounding and distant areas, called damos together with thecollective religious contributions required of them. It is also likelythat they were required to make fiscal contributions, or that theywere taxpayers of landed estates in which portions were parceled outto tenants under individual heads who were endowed with a legalpersonality.66 The damos produced crops and livestock that enabled itto sustain the communal personnel and engage in barter, required tomeet tax and religious obligations to the Palace from an income,coming in the form of dues in kind from those to whom communal landswere distributed and also from the collective appropriation ofundivided communal land. Moreover, of relevance here are two types oflandholdings and two groups of subjects distinguished by the text ofthe linear-B tablets. We learn from a curious mention of a dispute ina case concerning a significant plot of land that ‘the priestess [e-ri-ta] holds this parcel’ professing that she held it for the goddess,opposed by claims to the same parcel of land by a subject, who is66 Lejune M, Damos in Mycenaean Society, in Loraux N, et al., p. 231

known as da-mo, asserting that it holds the said plot in usufruct ongrounds that it comes out of ke-ke-me-na’. The cadastres show that ke-ke-me-na land was divided among fifty damos that included 12 beneficiarieswith ties to some cult, though nothing is known about the proceduresinvolved in making such assignments, except in one discrete case wheredrawing of lots in connection with assignments is mentioned.67 However,the language of the first version, claimed by the priestess, thoughmore elliptical is nevertheless correct and intelligible while that ofthe second claimant in the pending case [undecided] has abstractrather than concrete terms, related to ‘landed institutions’ and notits physical location, crops and buildings. Properly speaking ke-ke-me-na could, in this case have meant ‘foundation land’ [belonging probablyto a temple] , distributed according to some charter among members ofa college on an order of a dozen, going by evidence from Knossos.According to Pylos cadastres, lands of damos were subject to ‘non-organic’ and more varied distribution where ke-ke-me-na means‘distributable lands’. The main distinction of the dispute is over theimplication of ‘foundation’, which in the case of priestess denotedthe concrete, as the result of application and operational process ofinstitutional form, designated the ‘plot’, whereas the claims of theopponent carried an abstract, institutional meaning, retaining thesense of collegial community which held regular assemblies, celebratedsacrifices, and voted on honorary decrees, but not in relation to the‘parcel’ of land.68 However, the texts offer no definitive evidence ofeither hereditary attribution of functions, or an elective one or onedetermined by drawing lots. Clear cut hierarchical differences do notshow themselves explicitly, though we already find that the positionand role of the priestess who holds the land for the goddess is facedwith a disputant that is an administrative entity endowed with a legalpersonality, or the damos or local collectivity represented by acollege of 12 who are vested with religious significance. It isentirely possible that the later institution of ‘naucraries’, made upof 12 ‘householders’ and distributed over 4 tribes, giving a total of

67 Ibid., p.23868 Ibid., 228, 231-232, 237; In case of dispute over distribution of landbelonging to the damos, the college could be called upon is all that we knowfrom Mycenaean documentation. 233

48, were locally circumscribed bodies with the task of deliveringlevies for the army and navy and collect taxes69 developed out of thecollegial community of 12 that one gets in Mycenae documents. The‘naucraries’ developed into a principle dem, called the ‘germ of thecountry’ by Aristotle, which would form the basis for ‘townships’,governing territory out of which it had evolved. Colonization of newterritories by Ionians, founders of Athens, and subsequently drivenaway by internecine conflicts, ending in their defeat by the Achaens,had to seek refuge in Asia Minor, where Herodotus counts 12 Ioniansettlements. The ‘reason’ for choosing the number 12, fanciedHerodotus, was ‘the fact’ that even earlier ‘they were divided into 12states when they lived in Peloponnese’.70 However, a tenableconclusion that can to be drawn would be that the Mycenaean documentsshow that two traditions of land distribution are preserved inrelation to ke-ke-me-na lands. But it is not difficult to discern thatout of the two traditions, the one pertaining to the damos was newer,or emergent by virtue of its organizational form of local assembly, inwhich individual functions were also administrative and political,when the assembly voted on honorary decrees and attribution of crownlands. There is further evidence of a holder of a parcel in usufructtaken from damos, forming a legally privileged category of ko-to-ne-ta,in which slaves or persons in humble and servile conditions wereassigned to work.71 It can be argued that what was to develop as thedistinct characteristic about classical, western Greece in contrast tosay, the Near East, namely the ‘spirit of individualism’ was not justthe outcome of ‘the devastation that swept eastern Mediterranean after1200 B C E’, as argued by Hudson72 There developed in thepredominantly agrarian-pastoral economy of Bronze Age Greece, thetendency to individualization within rural communes prior to theinvasions, which was also the process of displacing positions and role

69 L H Morgan mentions that naucraries existed before the time of Solon,suggesting a very long past. Morgan L H, The Ancient Society, 1877, reprint,1944, Calcutta, Ch X, in, www.marxist.org 70 Herodotus, Histories, 1.14771 Ibid., p. 23372 Hudson M, From Sacred Enclave to Temple to City in Levine B, et al.,Urbanization and Land Ownership in the Ancient Near East, Harvard, 1999, Ch.III

occupied by women by male societies. Even though the source of valuesin religious feasts show some remarkable feminine traces in the BronzeAges, political attacks on organizations which held a locality byreligious ties by the damos had become the paramount index of changein the political dynamics of 6th c. Athens.73

The ‘retreat of women’ toward self-isolation implied that women in thehearths of individualistic economy type [oikos] more or less rejectedorganizations like village communities or male societies or beneficentkinship, so as to get integrated in a new form of unity that includedthe reconstituted public hearth emerging with the founding of citiesfrom 9th-8th c. B C E. This kind of appropriation occurred together withincreased ideation of paternal heredity haunting Greek imagination :in Hesiod, ‘ woman is just a cheat, as only son preserves his father’sname’74 such as found in Aeschylus’ tragedy, Eumenides, in which Apolloproclaimed that maternal blood can never run in the veins of the son,a notion later disguised by ‘scientific theory’ which upheld, as withAristotle, that in procreation the female emits no seed and thatactive regenerating function is entirely male.75 Though the ‘publichearth’ remained ‘communal’, this was projected by the city havingindividual, family hearths. The public hearth expressed the idea of‘concrete solidarity’ that made the well being of all as the conditionof well being of each’,76 At its core lay the ‘contradictory unity’between the sphere of economy, with the notion of public property towhich everyone on occasions could lay claim or participate such as infestivals, feasts, or the sphere of distribution and state organizationin the form of treasury, the accumulation of metal and coins,signifying public revenues constituting the basis of city-state.Revenues originated with the ‘gift ethic’, whenever an individualannounced a gift of animal to his fellow citizens, they in turn had to

73 G E M De Ste Croix, Athenian Democratic Origins and other Essays, [eds],Harvey D, [et al], p. 157, Oxford, 200474 Hesiod, Works and Days [lines :374-375]75 Vernant J-P, Religious Expression of Space and Movement, in Loraux N, et al[eds], p. 118 Referring to Aristotle’s formulation, Marie Delcourt says `atheory of this type, deprived of all contact with the object is pure myth’.p.130 76 Garnet L, Political Symbolism : The Public Hearth, in Loraux N , et al[eds], Op Cit, p. 108

pay a price to Hestia. This process could only develop in a monetaryeconomy where the value of cattle could be put up with compoundinterest by the recipient, or the ‘keeper of hearth’, or a Hestia,servicing the city and independent of citizens. The increase in valuewas owing to the donor’s generosity comparable to ‘liturgies’ or tasksfreely assumed by the individual, during festivals in order toorganize feasts or banquets. Public hearths had a group of altersaround that were dedicated to Klairos [portion, patrimony], a kind of‘fief’, defined more specifically in the classical period to meanindividual property, i.e., patrimony. The very first act of theAthenian archon was to proclaim that ‘each person’ would remain theowner or master of his property that he owned until the end ofarchon’s magistracy. A convergence of linguistic, literary andinstitutional practices at the synthetic level of the ‘Hearth’ tookplace around 800 B C E.77 This is when the hearth is synonymous withpublicity, representing social space, arranged by men according to themathematical disposition of land, in a theoretical manner expressingabstract ideas as something new. By this time, the ‘symbolism’ of thepublic hearth seem disengaged from ancient contexts, when chthonianconnections no longer appear and the symbolism of the hearth excludedthe element of mystery as well as rules based on religious traditions.Ancient meanings were obliterated, though Hestia, the ‘goddess /keeper’ of the hearth had touched a political reality characterized asrational in the earliest days of Greek world. The Mycenaean hearth wascared by women, mostly the daughters of the house before marriage, theperiod when Hestia was not the communal hearth but family alterssymbolizing more specifically superior virtues of the royal house.78 Inclassical Athens, the name of a formality preceding a court case, thename of a tribunal and yes, certain aspects of Plato’s Laws attest tothe memory of a substantial link between jurisdiction and the hearth,but lasting only in ‘memory’/ mnumesyne. 79 Revealing the mystery ofdivine names in Crytalus, Plato suggested a double meaning for the

77 Ibid, p. 10978 Vernant J-P, Religious Expression of Space and Movement, in Loraux N, et al[eds], Op Cit, p. 11679 Garnet L, Political Symbolism : The Public Hearth, in Loraux N et al [eds],Op Cit, p. 110-111

word Hestia while presenting them as two possible interpretations,ever-riding their antinomy. For some, Hestia corresponds to ousia ,also called essia or immutable, permanent essence, whereas for otherslike Heraclitus, essence is termed osia, because all that exists ismobile, not static. In a twofold interpretation, Plato would lay thebasis for establishing a relationship that is a ‘contradictory unity’,a relation that unites and opposes, like a contrasted couple joined byunbreakable ‘friendship’.80

Within a distributive economy, each household is separate, bound upwith a plot of land that wants to have control over its patrimony,kleros, on which it subsists and which distinguishes it from otherdomestic groups.81 For the purpose of delimiting family patrimonies andaccumulated wealth, Hestia assumed the role of hearth goddess. InHomeric times they signified thrifty housekeepers who organizeddomestic household work and kept watch over provisions, but in thecontext of cities, they came to mean a treasurer who administeredstate treasures, considered ‘sacred’ as the property of gods. Whereas,for instance the utensils used for ritual feasting in the Bronze Agewere mostly larger versions of humble clay pots in which meat wascooked by boiling in domestic hearths, when meat progressively becamean item of diet of wide sections of the population from 13th c. BCEonward. Later in the Homeric Iron Age, such utensils even ceased toserve as a background for exclusive warrior feasts as they were basedon open spit roasting of meat, which was mostly hunted. In earliertimes Olive oil with meat had been the regular feature of Bronze Agefestal and ordinary diets, later from early Iron Age olive oil cameunder the economics of scarcity, as an expensive commodity. We alsofind that Homeric epics, articulating its own contexts of performanceheralded what can be termed ‘civilized wine-drinking’, or winedrinking as an exclusive all male affair ushers a newer sense of Greekidentity and ideology. Evidence of liquid preparation of Opium in theAegean is available from mid-second millennium though its use probablygoes far back in time compared to ‘civilized wine use’ that came inthe Greek world from the east in 3rd millennium BCE. Civilized wine-usetook very long to subsume pre-existing cultures of drinking and using80 Vernant J-P, Op Cit, p. 12881 Vernant J-P, Op Cit., p. 122

other psychotropic substances, becoming a defining moment of ideology.The Homeric epics articulate this ideology by associating social andcultural uses of psychoactive substances and types of wine-mixtureswith matters foreign and in a feminine sense, associating them with‘witch-goddesses for instance, and by excluding things foreign-connected from the normalizing Greek perception of wine-use. Ivydecorated vassals used for wines and wine-mixtures of late Bronze Agewere borrowed from Crete and Egypt. Feasting, glimpsed in the epicsrefer to various types – religious, funerary, nuptial, aristocratic,warrior community or general social feasting – and underlined by avery long duration, they were the context for transmission-creation ofthe Homeric songs and cycles of songs thus constituted its prehistory.Feasting is embedded in that ‘prehistory’, looming large as aMycenaean concern, at least in the Palaces, such as Nestor’s Palace atPylos that Blegen contemporaneously unearthed after putting his spadeon earth, over 60 years after Schlieman excavated Tiryns and Mycenae,elements of which the Homeric epics preserve from their bardiccreations. Dionysus associated with wine and ivy was a deity withconsiderable antiquity in the Aegean with deep roots in Crete. Cultpractices characterizing an ‘ancient Aegean substratum’ – the cult ofMagna Mater in Asia minor, Syria and its goddess Canaan, etc. – wereunified by rites involving yearning and trance. But in archaic Greekworld, the strictly mythical element of most Greek divinitiesconsisting of themes of obscure origin is not associated withDionysus. He is a god who has arrived late in the scene, signifyingnothing archaic and because of that Dionysus is provided with abiography.82 Dionysus is the Lydian stranger from Asia, and later anative of Thebes. In Sophocles’ Antigone, the chorus [in the 5th

Stasimon] celebrates the Dionysus for returning to the city of hisbirth, Thebes to cleanse it from an illness called nosos , a figurativeailment, resulting from war or strife. The chorus speaks of theviolent sickness that pervades Thebes, charging the protagonist Kreon,Antigone and Hainon with mental sickness; whereas Kreon speaks ofAntigone’s nosos, the chorus alludes to Antigone’s madness. Dionysus isconsidered as a purifying god, and the ecstatic, Dionysian dancing isthe appearance of mania [mainomenos] conceived as a homeopathic cure,

82 Gernet L, Dionysus, in Laroux N, Op Cit., p. 328

and not an affliction, a difference, which according to Herodotus, theScythians can’t grasp, i.e. the difference between being afflictedwith mania and a Bacchant.83 But Dionysus is also a ‘civilizing god’,who shows the passage from wild life to a civilized one and providesthe only solution for women to use the controlled trance.84 Dionysussymbolizes wine that conceals wildness, the force of extreme but whenconsumed in accordance with rules, it brings to ‘civilized life’ anextra dimension, the joy of celebration.85 Plato was obliged to deferto the magical powers of Dionysus because he was also drawn to studythe ‘reality’ of the magical and irrational world, bathed in thetragic dimension. However, the time referred in the tragedies, wasone in which wine-use had already been established, the time of theHomeric world, characteristically associated with regulated socialnorms adapted exclusively to male activity whereas earlier practicesof imbibing wine-mixtures and psychoactive substances get connectedwith matters foreign, that were actively excluded from normal Greekperceptions and social norms. A variety of psychoactive substances gotincreasingly relegated to the pharmacy for strict medical use, or tothe twilight realm of female witches, or ‘witch goddesses’ and ofcourse, foreigners in a world characterized by a predominantly male-universal wine use with regulated social norms.

All of this and some other facts reflect the argument that the‘dawning’ of ‘civilization’ occurred as a process in which the pre-existing dominant positions of women was getting subordinated, andeven ‘silenced’ by `internal’ secret language of power, patriarchy,abstract thinking patterns and state formation on the basis ofpatrilocal, male descended development of private property. Accordingto Morgan, ‘civilization’ may have ‘commenced with Asiatic Greeks withthe composition of Homeric poems’ [850 BC] and with the EuropeanGreeks a century later with the composition of Hesiodic poems.86 Morganthought that Hellenes descended from Palasgians, who unlike theDorians were unified and organized through ‘gentes, phratries andtribes’. As Nestor tells Agamemnon, `separate the troops by tribes and83 Hertog Francois, Frontier and Otherness, in Loraux N, et al, Op Cit, p. 15584 Vernant J-P, The Masked Dionysus of Euripides’ Bacchae, Loraux N, Op Cit,p. 341-34385 Vernant J-P, The masked Dionysus of Euripides’ Bacchae, in Louraux N, etal, Op Cit, p. 34286 Morgan L H, Ancient Society, 1877, J Levesque `PRESENTATION’, 1985, P. 185

by phratries, so that phratry will support phratry, and tribes,tribe.’87To Weber, extended kinship groups in ancient Greeks wereorganized in military associations or phratries and politicalassociations, phyles, on a tribal basis.88 A fragment of Dikearchus,preserved by Stephanus of Byzantium recognizes three stages of socialorganization, in which Phratry came to be called phratria when `certainones gave their daughters to be married into another patry [ usagemeaning family]. The women who were `given in marriage’ no longerparticipated in her paternal sacred rites, but was enrolled in thepatry of her husband , so that the union, formally subsisting betweensisters and brothers’ was now based on `another union based on acommunity of religious rites.’ Here marriage out of the gens isrecognized as `custom’ and the wife was enrolled to the gens ratherthan the phratry of her husband. In the earlier periods, Greek sociallife centred around `phartric organization, the gentes fell intophratries, and `ultimately into tribes’ which reunited as society orpeople. Among the Athenians, phratries are said have survived theoverthrow of gentes, retaining under the new system control overregistration of citizens, enrolment of marriages and prosecution ofmurderers of any phrator before the courts.89 As a pupil of Aristotle,Dikeearchus lived in times when the gens existed chiefly as a`pedigree’ of individuals after its powers had been transferred to newpolitical bodies.90 They had developed out of a `gentile society’, or a`people’, distinct from a political society governed by a `state’.Their `instrument’ of governance would be a council of chiefs in co-operation with an `agora’ or an assembly of people, and also abesileus, combining priestly functions with military command. Thereoccurred a change from personal relations based gens towards aterritorial basis with the spread of townships, where the demarche oftownships took the place of the chief of gens. Development ofmunicipal life and institutions, and accumulation of `wealth’ in thecities, created the conditions for `overthrowing’ gentile society andestablishment of `political society’, through a process ofsurrendering the power of gentes to new political bodies.91 But theexclusion of women from authority and power is already indicated bythe limitation of descent to the male line. Those descended from the

87 Ibid., p. 202; though in Homer’s time, organization of armies by phratriesand tribes had ceased to be common.88 Bendix R, Max Weber, N Y, 1962, p. 7389 Morgan H L, Ancient Society, p. 20390 Morgan L H, Op Cit., pp 200-20191 Morgan L H, Op Cit., p. 187

males bear the family name, thus constituting the gens in the`fullest’ sense of the term, and in this set up `the females loose,with their marriage, the family name while their children aretransferred to another family’.92 The `gentes at both Athens and inother parts of Greece bore the stamp of their believed commonpaternity’, a `patronymic name’ but at Athens, `after the revolutionof Kleisthenes, the gentile name was not employed’, and the male wascalled by his own name followed by that of his father.93 What was newwas next to the name of his father was the name of the deme or city towhich he belonged. Thus other than to the person of the father, theplace of property got incorporated with a man’s name. In importantways the process was transitional, lasting over long periods of time,in the sense that `it took several generations for cities to come up’in a process fraught with risks and difficulties associated with`exclusions and segregation’.94 A fairly long period of time saw theseparation of tribes from one another, in the process there werechanges in the constitution of the gens, which included the greatchange from the female line to the male line of descent increasinglyunder monogamy and growing conditions of private property. Morganthought that the `idea of property and the rise of monogamy’`furnished motives sufficiently powerful to demand and obtain thischange in order to bring children into the gens of their father’ andparticipate in the process of inheritance’95 Here, the main point isthat changes taking place at this level are of the longue duree, over a`course of distant time’ in which events bring together movements ofdifferent origins and of a different rhythm.96 Changes taking placeover the long duration needs becoming used to a slower tempo whichoften borders on the motionless. At this level history shares the sameimpulse with anthropology and ethnology, which is found not only inlater anthropological enquiries of Morgan or more recently, Levi-Strauss, it can also be found in the earliest histories such asHerodotus, when he talks about `long standing’ customs and92 Ibid., p. 19193 Ibid., 19594 Lamboley Jean Luc, Religious Space and the construction of Ancient GreekCivic Communities, Grenoble II,http://web.upmf-grenoble.fr/SH/Perso-Hist/Lamboley.htm/ 95 Morgan L H, Op Cit, p. 196-19796 `Among the different kinds of historical time, the longue duree seems atroublesome character, full of complications, and all too frequently lackingin any form of organization’ Braudel F, History and the social sciences . TheLongue duree, in Braudel F, On History, [tr] Sarah Matthews, Chicago, 1980, p.33

anniversaries, or Thucydides’ accounting of `human nature’ in staticterms. We are here dealing with the history of unconscious elements insocial development, with `mechanical models’ that Levi-Strauss usedfor describing realities of limited dimensions and of interest limitedto small groups of people, like families. Again, though it was`customary’ to speak of Athenian tribes as divided into threephratries and each phratry divided into thirty gens, this was notowing to natural evolution but based on consensus that recognized theneed for symmetrical organization of phratries. But the moment whenproperty develops in the scenario, the model tends towardscomplexification, and also looks inadequate when it comes to explainthe implied duration of the changes. But for the earliest period,there exist models, essentially rooted in human experience such asincest taboo and prohibition of marriage within family, which areseemingly timeless and traveling the dark, unintended byways of theextremely longue duree.97 In Herodotus, all those who break these taboosand prohibition, exemplified mostly by the powerful, are said to betaking `illegal steps’, and come under terrible afflictions andinsanity which ends with their deaths, as with Cambyses, heir toCyrus, whose `crimes committed against his own kin, were like the`savage’ acts of a madman.’98

Over and above the barely moving patterns of extremely long duration,there developed the co=ordinates of bigger and larger units and eventhough that too were subjugated to the requirements of the long term,that was within a temporal frame of `reasonable’ limits, and not ofthe extreme longue duree. These co-ordinates were political, asinstitutions of the gentile society and developed by displayingelements of historic change. As several tribes coalesced orconfederated into a higher unity of people such as Athenians andSpartans and others, these tribes could be seen to develop self-organizing and self-governing bodies, as the basis for a governingunity that would participate openly or transparently with thedemocratic principles animating its constituent parts. When theSpartans assembled a confederacy for reinstating Hippias to power inorder to weaken Athens at a time when the growing power of Athensthreatened Sparta, on the very eve of taking action, Spartans had toask the respective representatives of its allied `states’ their viewsand opinions in an assembly before deciding and acting upon a courseof action. In this meeting, Soklas of Corinth `raised’ his `voice in

97 Ibid., p. 4198 Herodotus, 3.35

protest’ against the restoration of Hippias by Sparta and its allies,which effectively put a stop to the designs of Sparta.99 Our sourcesalso point to changes that took place more visibly, on the scale ofshorter durations, often turning into `events’. According to Vernant,the emergence of the city-state was not only a political and economictransformation, but `a decisive event in Greek thought.’100 Louis Garnettalked about public / common hearths as symbolizing `sudden change’whose foundations pointed to an `individualistic economy’ of the typerejected by older organizations like `peasant communities, beneficialkingship, `male societies’ and so forth. These hearths representsomething like a `historical fact’ where literary, linguistic andinstitutional emergence converged from around 800 BCE to symbolize thefounding of a city or a sense of `religious eruption’.101 From the 8th c.BCE, the polis marked a departure, with social life and humanrelations by giving a new form about which the Greeks well aware as toits originality. To begin with, the polis system implied anextraordinary preeminence to speech over other instruments of power, apower which was made into a divinity, Peitho, which is the force ofpersuasion. Speech was no longer the ritual word or divine formula, itbecame open debate and argument, while presupposing a public to whichit was addressed, as to a judge whose ruling could not be appealed,which ensured the victory of one speaker over his adversary. This isindeed indicative of a major shift in terms of the contents of human-social organization, explicating a shift in the very meaning of`sovereignty’. All questions of general concern that the sovereign hadto settle, which marked the domain of arkhe or `sovereignty’ were nowsubmitted to public assemblies for resolution at the conclusion of adebate. These concerns and questions had now to be formulated in termsof a discourse, `poured into the mold of antithetical demonstrations’and opposing or affirming arguments.102 Politics was internally tied upwith logos. Politics became the art of deploying language and logosdeveloped as self-conscious awareness of its political function.Analysis of rhetoric and sophistry as forms of discourse, as a meansof winning contests in the assembly and tribunal opened the way forAristotle’s enquiries, which defined the rules of proof and techniquesof persuasion, thus laying down a logic of verifiably true as a matter

99 Herodotus, 5.91100 Vernant J-P, The Spiritual Universe of the Polis, in Laroux N et al [eds],Op Cit., p. 19101 Garnet L, Political Symbolism : The Public Hearth, in Loraux N , et al,Op Cit, p. 110102 Vernant J-P, Op Cit, , p. 20

of theoretical understanding as opposed to the logic of the probablewhich presided over hazardous debates on practical matters.

It can be argued that the polis existed only to the extent that a publicdomain, as an area of common interests opposed to private interests,had emerged with open practices, openly arrived at decisions, asopposed to either `cultic’ or secret procedures. This insistence onopen-ness led to increasing and progressive appropriation by theassembled group of appropriate conduct, knowledge and procedures thatoriginally were the exclusive privilege of the basileus and the gentesthat originally held arkhe and their exposure to public view. On theintellectual level this double impulse toward democratization anddisclosure had decisive consequences. The formation of Greek culturetook place by opening an ever widening circle that encompassed theentire damos or the community, providing them access to a spiritualworld reserved for initially an aristocracy of priests and warriors.The earliest example of this process can be found in Homeric poetry –from court poetry sung in the halls of palaces, it was freed as itexpanded and transformed into a poetry for popular festivals.103 Alongwith the broadening transformation, there occurred a radical shift inknowledge, values and techniques by becoming elements of a commonculture as they got submitted to criticism and controversy in openpublic view. Rather than being preserved in family traditions asprivate tokens of power, public exposure fostered exegesis, varyinginterpretations and public debates. Discussions and polemic now becamea serious political game under the inexorable control of the demos.The law of the polis required that opposing views be subject to adialectical `rendering of accounts’ rather than be imposed by personalauthority or religious prestige. Along with speech, writing became themedium of common culture and permitted complete dissemination ofknowledge that was previously forbidden or restricted. Writing wasable to fulfill the function of communication because it was as widelyknown and used among the citizens as the spoken language. The oldestknown inscriptions of Greek alphabet from the 8th c. BCE show that itwas no longer a matter of special knowledge, meant for scribes but atechnique used generally, being freely diffused among the public.Writing constituted the basic element of Greek education, paideia. Inthis context arose the demand with the birth of the city, namelywritten laws. Setting down laws in writing removed them from theprivate authority of basileus, whose function had been to speak the law.Written laws became public property, or general rules applicable to

103 Ibid., p. 21

all. Before the rise of the city, in Hesiod’s world, justice or dikeoperated at two levels, subject to the whim of the kings, or it was asovereign divinity, remote and inaccessible. But as a result of publicexposure, written law, or dike, get incarnated at the strictly humanlevel, law as a principle, common to all. Similarly individualswishing to make their knowledge public, like Heraclitus wrote in theform of parapegmata, or monumental inscriptions in stone and depositedit to a temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Putting their own findings anddiscoveries es to meson or `into the middle’ expressed the wish and/orknowledge to make opinions and learning accessible to common propertyof a city. We are no longer dealing with religious secrets reservedfor a few or of a kind of `private knowledge’ which was openlydenounced by Heraclitus, as we will discuss later. By committingwisdom to writing unveiled a reality, some of which had been wrenchedfrom a closed circle of religious cults to be displayed in broaddaylight before the gaze of the city. Similarly, the transformation ofprivate wisdom that had traditionally belonged to early priesthoodsclaiming special intimacy with a divine power by virtue of belongingto certain gens involved the process of appropriating by the city forits own use as official; city cults. Protection under deity nowextended to the entire community. `All old sacra , badges ofinvestiture, religious symbols, emblems and wooden images jealouslypreserved as talisman of power in the privacy of palaces or cranniesof priestly houses, now moved to a temple, an open and public space.’104

The quality of hidden mysteries characters were effaced as they simplybecame images. Of the large cult statues lodged in temple representinggods were beings as objects of perception, just as secret formulas andoccult formulas shed their secrecy.

Social life and common wisdom could not be brought to open public viewwithout difficulties and resistance. This was the result of the makingof a political arena in the city, which involved conflicts withentrenched power bases as well as revolutions. As wealth was acquiredand the wealthy grew in the cities, newer offices and a municipalsystem came up for the satisfaction of the needs of the inhabitants ofthe cities. This began a process of `incessant strife for possessionof better lands, increases in heard-size and so on. With increasingproperty the aristocratic elements also increased, which became the`chief cause’ of stasis and disturbances which prevailed in Atheniansociety from the times of Theseus to the times of Solon and

104 Ibid., p. 22

Cleisthenes.105 In this period, the office of the basileus, until itsfinal abolition before the first Olympiad in 776 BC became moreprominent and powerful.106 As it threatened to usurp increasing civicfunctions it was perceived as a danger to society. Mainly, the divideemerged between the council of chiefs, which represented thedemocratic principle of society and the basileus that came torepresent the aristocratic principle. According to Morgan, it is`possible that a perpetual struggle was maintained between the counciland the basileus’, until such time when the office of basileus wasabolished by the Athenians, which was found to be incompatible withthe institutional structures and needs of society. In retrospect theprocess can be viewed as an expansion through stages where theunfolding logic had to encounter obstacles that limited its progressand forced it to yield some ground. Thus, even in high classicalperiod some government practices preserved forms of power that workedmysteriously with the aid of supernatural means. The poles and termsof the conflicts were, above all, defined the major conflicts of thepolitical sphere in terms of the conflicts between the citizens andaristocracies and tyrannies, characterizing the polis. However, theSpartan government best exemplifies the deployments of hiddenprocedures, use of hidden sanctuaries as tools of government, privateoracles reserved for certain officials, and undisclosed handbooks ofdivination reserved for certain leaders. Many other cities entrustedtheir survival to possession of secret relics, like remains of heroeswhose tomb was not revealed to anyone, except for some officialsqualified to receive dangerous information, given in the oaths whenthey took office. Yet the political value ascribed to secret talismanalso served a definite social need based on an understanding that thesafety of any city set in motion forces which transcended thecalculations of human deliberation. The intervention of supernaturalpowers, whether in the manner of Herodotus’ `fate’ or Thucydides`chance’ [Tukhe] was clearly recognized and given its due place in thepolis. The desacralization of political life had its counterpart in anofficial religion that kept human affairs at an arms length,uninvolved in the vicissitudes of the arkhe. It was considerednecessary to keep a control over the future by other means which didnot call upon human means but invoked the power of ritual. Politicalrationalism could not go that far as to abolish old religiousprocedures of government, which explains the position of a definedsacred order, hieros persisting in opposition to the emergent secular

105 Morgan L H, Op Cit., p. 210106 Ibid., p. 210

sphere [hosios] of politics. A lot of politics had to engage in conflictwith the sacred sphere, while there are many instances when the sacredorder interacted with the secular political sphere over the issue ofpower and hegemony in times when the assembly’s decisions bore on thefuture that was basically opaque and hard for reason to grasp. Thismade the power of oracles more decisive in determining historicalevents than anything else in the public sphere, similar to the powerof dream interpretations for prognosticating and shaping future eventsfrom the private domain, which are numerously found in Herodotus’histories. At the same time, associations, sects and politicalfactions developed on the basis of religious domain, with hierarchiesof ranks and degrees, modeled on `initiation societies. Through aseries of ordeals, an elect minority was singled out by the religioussphere, which enjoyed privileges not available to the public at large.There developed newer secret groups who were tied exclusively to thereligious sphere, associations on the fringes of cities. The elect,the epoptai were like saints dedicated to serve specific deities withpromises of immortality that had earlier been an exclusive royalprivilege or the sole property of few priestly families. Yet manytimes the mysteries were the basis for attaining `truths’ that werenot meant to be `exposed’, which made them inaccessible by normalroutes. This gave access to religious life that was unknown to publicreligion since it was reserved for the initiated to provide a destinythat had nothing in common with ordinary citizens. Here secrecyitself acquired a special religious significance, defining a religionof personal salvation whose goal was to transform individualsindependent of the social order. At the same time, the inquiries ofearliest sages also belonged to the same sphere, whose teachingsclaimed to transform individuals by lifting them to a higher state,like a unique being, almost like a god, a theios aner or `godlike men’.107

Even at this level the theios aner were, in course of time, from that ofHesiod to Thucydides reduced simply to citizens or aner , yet alsoregarded distinct from men as anthropos. They are the two figures oftension that emerge in Thucydides theme of stasis . For earlier periods,civil wars are associated with andres or citizens as the active forcein Greek cities, who set off civil wars in motion and become itssubjects, but since they are a destructive force they are at the sametime made into its objects. In Thucydides, this reversibility getscomplicated. Civil wars inexorably attack citizens and soldiers, butthey are not wiped out in the form of marital slaughter in the handsof adversaries, as can be read in Theognies. For Thucydides, victims

107 Ibid., p. 24

of civil wars suffer a merciless death, while forcing them to behaveundoubtedly under duress, in ways that in Greek mind carried feminineconnotations.108 This is shown as a structural necessary, in the sensethat virile definition of men are the foremost among the valuesaffected in the general inversion of meaning in times of stasis, as aresult of civil war, as a catastrophic effect of stasis. After all,the plague had already reduced the very citizens of Athens whosecourage had been lauded to their all too human nature, making humannature itself as the cause for the aner, as both the source and terrainfor their regression in times of stasis.

POLIS, POLITICS, SPEECH AND PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy also emerged in this context. When a city fell intodisorder and stasis, its citizens often turned to a sage for generalpolitical advice, since he seemed to being apart and exceptional,isolated to the fringes of the community by his whole manner of life,such as Heraclitus, who was pressed upon by the citizens of Ephesus towrite a constitution for the polis, which he refused. But some sagesdid addressed the city, through speech or in writing, to transmit atruth that came from above, which even after its disclosure did notcease to belong to another world. A paradox was involved in divulgingto the public a knowledge that it proclaimed to be unavailable to themany or majority. Many a times, philosophy wavered between a sense ofsecrecy peculiar to cults and disputations or public argument thatcharacterized political activity. Some of it was organized in closedbrotherhood that refused to unveil its esoteric wisdom in writing aswith Pythagorians or it get completely integrated with public life,presenting itself as a preparation for exercise of power in publiclife and offered to those who could pay for the training as with theSophists. Personally, the philosopher too wavered between these twoworlds, sometimes established in the city with is disciples or byturning his back upon public life, at times explicitly against thestupid `many’. But the many / majority who lived in cities tended tobe `like’ each other. This `likeness’ was the basis of unifying in thepolis, since for the Greeks only those who were alike could be unifiedby the philia, in the same community. The tie that bound each other inthe city was reciprocal, which had replaced the hierarchicalrelationships based on submission and dominance. All those who shared

108 Laroux N, Greek Civil War, in Laroux N, et al, Op Cit., p. 66

in the state, or men who were alike were defined abstractly as isoi, orequals. Despite everything else that set them off against each other,at the political level citizens considered each other interchangeablein a system whose norm was equality. The image of this world came tobe conceptualized in the 6th c. as isonomia, i.e., equal participationof all citizens in the exercise of power. The ideal of isonomia was alsoable to convey common aspirations that went back to the times when thepolis was founded. But the requirement of isonomia, contrasted with andprimarily opposed to monarkhia or tyrannis, came to acquire such power inthe 6th c. that it could justify popular demand for ready access by thedemos to all civic offices.

Speech acts that were dialogic by orientation were getting configuredthrough a `process of secularization’ of the social framework, whosepractices and representation that were so important for the formationof the city had been described already in Homer’s poems, especiallythe Iliad. Representation of space and assembly practices that madefor egalitarianism in warrior circles, as described in the epic wenttogether with the increasing importance of agora in Greek cities of 8th

c., as well as the model of isonomia in the political world of 7-6th c.109 Abstract thought found a positive support in the city since acertain furrow was visible from the start. With this rift withreligious and mythical thought came a different kind of speech and aframework, a different kind of thought, marked by temporal divisions,especially in the mid 7th c., for the qualitative leap represented by`hoplite reforms’, while in the earlier century, the first circularagora was laid down by the founders of Magna Gracia from about 730BCE. With these developments in mind a process of `secularization ofthought’ began with parallel changes as complex and diverse as theemergence of new social relations and unprecedented politicalstructures. There may have been a vast gap between the process ofsecularization and developments in certain directions of philosophicalthought, like the principle of non-contradiction. The debate on commonmatters to koina within a space of equality need not be necessarilyrelated to debates on the rules of reasoning, forms of demonstrationsand the criteria of conceptual analysis. Detienne, who has workedexhaustively on this subject110 focused on the `advent’ of a newintellectual regime, talks about a `process’ which set in motion the`gradual secularization of speech’. The `signs’ of this `process’ were

109 Detienne M, Op Cit., p. 216110 Cf Detienne M, The Masters of Truth in Archaic Greece, [tr] Janet Lloyd, NY, 1996

gleaned in the `military assembly’ since it conferred equal right tospeech on the entire `warrior class’ since their very position allowedthen to discuss on affairs that were common or communal. This wasbecause the `hoplite reform’ in the city around 650 BCE encouraged the`emergence’ of `equal and similar’ soldier citizen, which also imposeda new type of weaponry and behavior in battle. This was when dialogue,or secular speech that acts upon others, persuades and refers to theaffairs of the larger group or community began to gain ground, throughwidespread use and acts of speech, while efficacious speech used inphilosophy or metaphysics became obsolete, or was found to retreat.111

This new function was fundamentally political and related to theassembly or agora, while speech and language / logos, became`autonomous’. At any rate, two major trends developed in thought aboutlanguage: first, logos were seen to be instrumental in socialrelations, like assembly practices. In this vein, rhetoric andsophistry developed stylistic analysis of persuasion and second, thepath explored by philosophy reflected on logos as epistemology, andrelations between logos/speech and reality. Here mythical concepts,religious practice and social forms were equally involved, as with thePythagoreans. A hypothesis developed that language guides ideas whilevocabulary could be seen more as a conceptual front and less as alexicon. Linguistic phenomena of communication mainly referred tosocial institutions with its social relations. It was also the markingof a direction that was taken by philosophy, without really ceasing tobe mystical. There were individuals, assured of having the `truth’associated with the image of the `way of inquiry’ as with Parmenides.For Parminides, the philosopher is entirely set apart, speciallychosen and having a `revelation’. Implicit is a `theory of knowledge’that has been traditionally referred to as psychology in the mystical,if not entirely metaphysical sense. This can be sensed as a `datum’ ofa nascent philosophy. In it is the philosopher as a unique, or even asuperior person, something Plato `enjoyed developing’ in several ways,as in Phaedo.112 This `superiority’ is also a reality, involving a firmbelief, which gets confirmed by social acceptance or society’shostility. In early Pythagorean literature a hierarchy is recalledthat was scaled according to degrees of advancement, more specificallydegrees of `initiation’ under a `head’ that is euphemistically calledphilosopher, as `perfectus, doctus, as termed by Varro. The term eudaimonhas a long history in Greek philosophy and also politics, e.g. theethics of Greeks is eudaemonistic, involving a quest for summum bonum or

111 Detienne M, Op Cit., p. 207112 Garnet L, The Origins of Greek Philosophy, in Loraux N, Op Cit., p. 43

the happiness of individual. In archaic Greece, few individuals aresaid to have attained a `state of grace’, though very little is knownabout them, even if they were legendary. For founding a school,equivalent to a confraternity, the philosopher had to be known forsingular deeds of boldness.113 In legendry accounts some [ Aristeas,Epimenides, even Pherecydes] were said to be connected to Pythagoras.Their connection to political life of cities also involvedhierarchical placing, as the first in the social order, qualified asthe `best’. But they had to sustain this hierarchy, mediated by thecanon of aristocratic wisdom with the social cosmos that it envisaged.In a provocative article, M Hudson says that the canon or rules of`oligarchs’ had a close analogy with `music theory’, much like the`arcane mathematizing of modern economics outside of any usefulness.114

According to Van Fitz, aristocratic power politics of Pythagoreans inCroton in S Italy was overthrown, `reflecting popular anger at theirconspiratorial activities’. Popular outbreaks against Pythagoreanoligarchic power centres were widespread in southern Italy between450-440 BC leading to the emigration of Pythagoreans and some hadsettled in Athens and Samos, where `oligarchic movements’ had usurpedpower in 411 BC. 115 These existed as fraternal clubs or associationsthat were engaged in managing law suits and elections. There were somelike Plutarch who believed that power derived from such associationswas an incentive for unjust acts, like cabals who indulged in bribery,fixing trials, conspiracies, providing false witness and carrying out113 Ibid., p. 44114 Hudson M, Music as an analogy of economic order in Classical Antiquity, inBackhaus J, [ed], Theory, History, Anthropology, Marburg, 2000, p. 113-135115 Cf Burkitt W, Lore and science in ancient Pythagoreanism, Cambridge,Massachusetts, 1972, cited by Hudson M, Op Cit. ; The revolution of 411 BCwas marked by assassinations from the start. At Samos the associates led bygeneral Chaminnus aided by Samarian oligarchs assassinated the demagogueHyperbolus and probably other democrats. In Athens, after the clubs joinedforces at the solicitations of Pisander, the younger associations organizedthemselves into a band which was entrusted with undertakings that involvedviolence. Their first move was to assassinate Androcles and associateddemocrats..This band was then used to stifle opposition assemblies andthreatened every speaker who dared to raise a voice against the oligarchicprogramme, who in case they did were promptly put to death and so cowed downwas the populace that no attempt was made to seek out and punish guiltyparties. In 404, the leader of the oligarchs found it advisable to remove themost influential men of popular parties before proceeding to consummate theirplans. Most assassination were not dictated by general political enmity buthad to do with preventing them from addressing the ecclesia or boule regardinglegislation.

assassinations. These clubs had evolved out of organization of membersof a Homeric community; such kings and chieftains depicted by Homer,who were scattered in little settlements whose respective power andposition corresponded to the numbers and ranks of hetairies, whofollowed their leadership in times of war while acknowledging theirautonomy in times of peace. With the institution of democracy, clubsbecame the means of influencing the demos during elections and in thelaw courts.116

POLITICAL DISCOURSE IN THE PERSIAN CAMP

In a basic sense, early philosophy found itself in an ambiguousposition in so far as it was related to both the circle of initiationinto secret mysteries and the disputations of the agora; it waveredbetween the sense peculiar to cults and by extension into thepolitical life through the ranks of hetairies and oligarchic /aristocratic clubs or `parties’ and also with public arguments thatcharacterized `democratic’ political activity. It could be likePythagorean sects, organized in closed brotherhoods, or it might likethe Sophistic movement be entirely integrated with public life of apolis and teach anybody in lieu of a fee paid in cash offer trainingin the exercise of power by any citizen. There was a rare and anothermode associated with individual/s cut off intentionally from the polisand not wavering ambiguously, as in the case of Heraclitus, which wewould investigate later in view of the far reaching consequences ofthis philosophy. Here we are indicating a diachronic scale ofpolitical change which registered itself in several spheres, by speechclosely related to the changing political temporalization, by Otanes ,before the `wealthiest members of Persian nobility `for establishmentin Persia of democratic government. This was in a meeting meant todiscuss some matters in detail after the rule by the Magi over Persiawas overthrown by a conspiracy, led by Otanes, in which Darius wasalso involved. These were significant speeches. Otanes began by sayingthat `the rule of the people has the finest of all names to describeit – isonomia117’ where `people in power do none of the things that

116 Hudson cites an oath associated with aristocratic clubs : `I shall beevilly disposed towards demos and will contrive against them whenever I can.’117 Leveque P and Vidal-Naquet P, Cleisthenes the Athenian, in Loraux N , etal [eds’, Op Cit., p. 50

monarchs do.’ The occasion for this proposal was the meeting todiscuss on the form of government’ in Persia after Darius and sixother `conspirators, including Otanes had overthrown the tyranny ofthe Magi rule, which became a `red-letter day in the Persiancalendar’ according to Herodotus.118 It is significant that the firstdebate on democratic form on government takes place under Persianaegis. Otanes begins by saying that the `time has passed for any oneman amongst us to have absolute power. Monarchy is neither pleasantnor good…How can one fit monarchy into a sound system of ethics, whenit allows a man to do whatever it likes without any possibility orcontrol ?’ Among the main vices of monarchy mentioned by Otanes are`savagery and unnatural violence’, though the `worse of all’ isbreaking up the `structure of ancient traditions and laws’, forcing`women to serve pleasure and putting men to death without a trial.119 Heproceeds to contrast with this `the rule of the people, isonomy orequality under law …Under a government of the people, a magistrate isappointed by a lot and is held responsible for his conduct in office,and all questions are put up for open debate.’ He ends proposing thatwe do away with monarchy and raise the people to power, for the stateand the people are synonymous terms.’120 For the time being, we aremaking the point that isonomy/ democracy was not a uniqueGreek/Athenian notion, at least not for Herodotus, meaning that thePersians did consider the idea of democracy to replace monarchy,taking the next speaker, Megabyzus, who spoke in favour of oligarchicrule started with an agreement with Otanes’ proposal to `abolishmonarchy followed by a vehement critique of the rule of `fecklessmasses’ or the `wanton brutality of the rabble’. But consideringdefense of monarchy by Darius the striking feature is its significancegiven to the source of `freedom’. Darius says that `we were set freeby one man’, which is the reason for following monarchy, albeit with asuggestion of refraining from `changing ancient laws.’ 121 It needs tobe emphasized that this debate was taking place in the very heart ofthe Persian power centre. Though it has been suggested that Otanes wasspeaking as a representative of a time before oligarchy and democracywere clearly distinguished and isonomy `simply meant opposition totyranny’,122 even though the very context and the internal evidencewhile going against such a `simplistic’ explanation, is nevertheless

118 Herodotus, Histories, 3.79119 Ibid., 3.82120 Ibid., 3.81-82121 Ibid., 3.82 -83122 Leveque P & Vidal – Naquet P, Op Cit., P. 50

focused on the opposition of isonomy and tyranny. For a period from518 to 500 BCE, with the outbreak of Ionian revolt..

Nevertheless, it is in the Persian camp that we initially get a `veryGreek in tone’ argument about the forms of government and Otanes’`speech’ favouring democracy, gives `reasons’ to `raise the people topower, `for everything resides in number’ [to pollon].123 BeforeHerodotus, only two texts had used the noun isonomia or the adjectiveisonomos in Athens [514-510 BC] when Hipparchus the tyrant was killedand Athens freed from tyrants according to Leveque and Vidal-Naquet,124

but this period does not predate the Persian meeting, strictlyspeaking. More forthright is the mention made by a physician, Alcmeonof Croton in late 6th c. or early 5th c. BC, who defined health as anisonomy of forces, such as cold/heat; sour/sweet, while illness ispronounced monarkhia of the same forces. Here isonomy functions as aninternal law regulating the function of the organism explained byanalogy with the body politic of the city. At any rate, it isplausible that the ideal of isonomia went back to the time of hoplitereforms, in the phalanx where each soldier is as important as theother in opposition to the earlier aristocratic ideal of the Homericfighter. It was basically a new lived idea, a political notion ofequality, when under the dike [justice] of Solon, both the `good’ andthe `base’ are equal. But whereas in the time of Solon, equalityreferred to the division of land demanded by peasants, in the economicrealm, it shifted later to the political sphere. For Herodotus, toestablish isonomy meant placing the arkhe, or `authority’ into thecentre of the polis, while under tyranny, each person was to concernhimself with his `personal affairs, at his home, while the tyrant tookcharge of `public affairs’, in the words of Aristotle.125 However, inall cases [except Alcmeon], isonomia is a lived and practical `ideal’and not a representation. When we hear Otanes, the clarity of thedefinition is far more striking. `Rule of the people’ is first,`equality under law’ and second, `people in power do none of thethings that monarchs do. Under the government of the people, themagistrate is elected by the lot’ [not as a fixed representation] and`is held responsible for his conduct in office, and all questions areput up for open debate.’126 And it is for precisely `these reasons’ that

123 Ibid., p. 50124 Ibid., p. 51125 Aristotle, Ath. Cons., 15.5, these words are ascribed to the tyrantPisistratus, a tyrant.126 Herodotus, Histories, 3.82

Otanes proposes to do away with monarchy, `and raise the people topower: for the state and the people are synonymous terms’.127 Followinghim, Megabyzus who favoured oligarchy begins by supporting Otanesinsofar as he opposed monarchy; `but he is wrong in asking us totransfer political power to the people.’ Democracy, by now is clearlyput and understood for its political import. Centuries later, justafter the French revolution, we get Michelet asserting `against allmankind, the personality of the people’, which he `experiencedwithin’, the `deep quality of the people’ `without comprehending it’.`Because’ he could `trace it to its historical origin’ and see thepeople `issue from the depths of time’.128

At the end of the discussion Darius makes a case for monarchy afterrejecting democratic and oligarchic forms of government, citing therecurring possibility of violent personal feuds and bloodshed amongoligarchs, because `each one of them wants to get to the top and tosee their respective proposals being carried, they quarrel’, leadingto open dissensions and then bloodshed.129 It was obviously not the casethat the historical experience of oligarchy was either rare or notunderstood because of that. Similarly, taking up democracy, Dariustalks about corrupt dealings in government services that lead not somuch to feuds and bloodshed but to the formation of `personalassociations’ of the corrupt for mutually supporting each other.Clearly Darius was well aware of the historical experience ofdemocracy too, in so far as his opposition to democracy too is notbased on any abstract theory or metaphysics but to its practicalconsequences, such as when these cliques serving their own interestsbecome a danger to governance itself someone from the citizens bodyemerges and comes forward as peoples champion in order to break thecliques thus winning the `administration of the mob’, and `as a resultfinds himself `entrusted with absolute power’. Darius’ reasoning, likethe others is to offer `proofs of greatest the practical benefits ofmonarchical form of government. Nevertheless, Darius also has toclinch his argument for monarchical form of government, not by stakinghis own claims to the position of the monarch but by making a point ofprinciple which appeals to reason of others, by asking `where did weget our freedom from? , and answering that `we were set free by oneman’, the earliest monarch, Cyrus. It is for this reason that he makesthe case for monarchy also taking out an assurance from the other two

127 Ibid., 3.82128 Michelet J, The People, 1846, from the Introduction to M Edgar Quinet129 Herodotus Histories, 3.82

that `we should refrain from changing ancient laws which have servedus well in the past.’ After the cases were presented in a group ofseven, the four who didn’t speak, favoured monarchy by a majorityvote, but not the monarch. However, before the contest, Otanes who`had urged equality [ isonomy] before law, withdrew from the contestsaying that `the king would be one of ourselves’ from the group thathad brought down the rule of the Magi, `whether we draw lots for it orask the people of Persia to make the choice between us or use anothermethod.’ He expressed disinterest since he had no `wish to rule – orbe ruled either’.130 But Otanes withdrew upon `one condition’ thatneither he nor any of his descendents would be forced to submit to therule of any king amongst them. This was accepted by the other six andconsequently, right upto the days of Herodotus the family of Otanescontinued to be the only `free family in Persia’, but not bydisobeying the general laws of the Persians. In addition, given thathe was the prime organizer in the plot against the Magi, he and hisdescendents were honoured with `a suit of Median cloths’ and giftsmost valued by the Persians. We learn further that Otanes was a Medefrom Asia Minor [Anatolia], having lived in coastal areas under thegrowing presence of the Greeks, cities such as Colophon, Smyrna andEphesus. Prior to Medes, the Lydians had been the major hegemons onlyafter the waning of the Greek kingdom of Heraclids, who had otherwisemanages the region from 1185-687 BCE. It was under the last Lydianking Croesus that Persia was invaded, till he was defeated by Cyrus in546 BCE. The Median `hegemony’ of Anatolia had lasted for a hundredyears before it was torn apart by a Persian rebellion, leading to thePersian advance under Cyrus who advanced further west, burning thecapital city of Sardis. But the contagious region of Ionia, which wasprimarily Greek refused to get subjugated under Persian domination ,preferring to revolt instead, which was the major historical turningpoint. At any rate, it is quite possible that Otanes’ understandingand preference for democracy had a basis in the political history ofAsiatic Greek settlements [Ionia, Miletus, etc] with a marked Greekpresence and opposition to tyranny or despotism. According toHerodotus, the Lydians were also the `first people who knew the use ofGold and Silver coinage. With this coinage they set up retail trade;they also claimed to have invented the `games’ commonly played by themand the Greeks. These games were invented to alleviate the misery ofsevere famine conditions till such time when their king h to decide bydivide the population in two groups, by `drawing lots’ to decide whichgroup had to emigrate and which one to stay back. Many of them had

130 Ibid., 3.85

settled in Umbria in Italy after changing their name from Lydian’s toTyrrhenus.131 The Medians, under Deioces who reigned for fifty-threeyears, revolted against the authority of Assyrians, and he was able tounify the people of Media. According to Herodotus, `the Medes took uparms in the cause of liberty and fought such gallantry that they shookoff the Assyrian yoke and became a free people.’ 132 Herodotus followsthis up saying that the Median `lead’ was followed by all otherregions within the Assyrian empire `until `they won independence’.Assyrian `empire’ fell apart in fifteen years after a ‘civil war’ thatset Assyria ablaze, following the death of Ashurbanipal [627 BCE],combined with an external attack by the Medes.133 Following few years ofuncertainty, the Babylonians bought war upon Assyria, but it was veryunlikely if they could overthrow the Assyrians had they not got andobtained decisive reinforcements from the Medes and their leaderCyaxarus. In 615, joint action by the Babylonians and Medes caught theAssyrians in a pincer movement, resulting in the capture of the oldreligious capital, Assur in 614.In 612, Nineveh was sacked after afierce attack by the Medes.134 The complete destruction and ruination ofAssyria was not unexpected given the prior records of pure terror anddestruction pure and simple and death conducted by the Assyrian intheir military campaigns.135

Not only do the Median antecedents of Otanes help in explaining hispolitical wisdom, the context of a profound transition had equallyinvolved the Persians, from Cyrus [Kuras] onward, regarded as the`giver’ of freedom’. These profound changes found Cyrus in the `act’of `substituting his own supremacy for that of the king of Medes,Astyges, over the confederation of the tribes of Medes and Persians.’136

Having united the Iranians in the west under his authority, Cyrusundertook a series of conquests that brought him to the Lydian kingdomin western Anatolia under Croesus, and its capital Sardis. However, itis in Herodotus’ histories where we get the context when Cyrusdiscloses his `mind’ in a feast, addressing `the men of Persia’ tofollow his command if they wished not to be tied up with performing

131 Herodotus, Histories, 1.03132 Ibid., 1.96133 Joannes F, The Age of Empires – Mesopotamia in the First Millennium B C, ,p. 46, Edinburgh, 2004134 Ibid., p. 47135 `The Assyrian policy of cruelty was also designed to serve specificends’ , Cf. Joannes F, Op Cit., p 51136 Ibid., p. 135

regular `menial labour’ under `force’, and `win freedom’ forthemselves. Declaring himself to be the `man destined to undertake’their `liberation’, Cyrus exhorted them to revolt against theprevailing Median domination, and `throw off the yoke of Astyges’. Inturn the Persians agreed with Cyrus, accepted his command and`welcomed with enthusiasm the prospect of liberty.’137 His was amonarchy that was founded upon liberty and independence, but unifiedunder his command. The circumstances of Cyrus’ speech and acceptanceof his command bears allusions to discourses on `hegemony’, takingplace for the first time in the Histories. Later, when Plato in his`political’ letters voices his preference for a monarchy modeled uponCyrus, the reasons refer to such historic information about him. TheMedes were defeated and Astyges deposed, and when at `a later datethey regretted their submission and revolted from Darius’, they wereagain defeated.138 When Cyrus marched into Babylon in 539 BC, the townsurrendered without resistance. This fundamental political change wasnot even perceived by contemporaries, given that there was nointerruption in Babylonia’s administrative and economic practices withthe beginning of the Persian era. Acceptance of Cyrus as the newsovereign was marked by writing of texts `legitimizing’ his takingpower in the name of the Babylonian Gods.139 The `virtually `universalacceptance of Cyrus’ rule was mainly due to the `remarkablecontinuity’ in the transition made to Persian rule under Cyrus.Whereas earlier in time, Babylonia had fiercely resisted itsattachment to the Assyrian empire in the seventh century, `nationalistresistance’ against Persian rule was registered feebly in 522 afterCyrus’ successor Cambyses’ death, at the time of generaldestabilization and the plot to overthrow the usurpation of power bythe Magi, initiated by Otanes and Darius mainly, which was easilydefeated by Darius since they were matters of personal ambitionsrather than taking the shape of `nationalist Babylonian aspirations’.140

Herodotus associates the `leadership’, command, power, `sovereignty’of Cyrus with the term Hegemony. Here the term `hegemonia’ and itscognates is abstract, rather than earlier uses such as in the Homericsense, the sense in which it occurred later, not in the works of thepoets but of historians and politicians, most frequently in DiodorusSiculus, Flavius Josephus, Appian, Polybius and Isocrates.141 Leavingaside personal `hegemonies’ of monarchs and ambitious would-be

137 Herodotus, Histories, 1.125138 Ibid., 1.135139 Joannes F, Op Cit., p. 135-136140 Joannes F, Op Cit., p. 137

emperors, the classical authors investigated state hegemonies orstruggles for hegemony of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians; besidesSyracusans, Carthaginians, Romans, Spartans, Athenians and so forth.The classical uses can be traced back to Herodotus; while referring toCyrus, he destroyed the `sovereignty’ [ hegemonie] of Astyges theMede.142 After `Cyrus overthrew the Mede Astyges, son of Cyaxares, heheard but deprecated a petition from his nobles to take advantage ofthe fact that `Zeus grants lordship [hegemonien] to the Persian people’by resettling the Persians in some softer and more fertile land’.143 ButCyrus was the founder of universal empire [tes ton holon hegemonias], by`transferring the Empire [ten hegemonian] of the Medes to the Persiansaccording to Diodorus, and founded the Persian Empire [tes Personhegemonias]. When the then existing Greek hegemon, Sparta sent a mancalled Lacrines to forbid Cyrus to harm any Greek city, Cyrus returneda criticism of Greeks generally, because they `markets for buying andselling’, unlike the Persians who apparently did not have marketplaces in their country.144 The clearest meaning of hegemony of Cyrusand the Persians is to be found in Hegel, where the monarch unites the`members of the body politic in the head of the government as in apoint’ but does not regard that head as an arbitrary ruler. Rather itis a `power regulated by the same principle of law’, like a `generalprinciple laying at the basis of the whole’. The `universal principleregulates the monarch and also his subjects.145 The `Persian unity’,according to Hegel, in `unlike’ the `abstract one’ of the ChineseEmpire, because it is adapted to rule of many nationalities anddiverse people; this universal `allows several people a free growthfor unrestrained expansion and ramification.’ Thus it is a historicalprinciple of transition.

RADICAL POLITICS OF IONIAN REVOLT

141 Hegemony, Classical and Modern, Journal of World-Systems Research, Theterm as found in Homer’s Iliad occurs in a list giving personal names ofheadmen of the 29 allied forces which had converged upon Troy. Intranslation, the hegemones variously become `captains’, chiefs’, `leaders’,`lords’, and `those who of Greece or Troy commanded men. In classical Greekthe most frequent application of the term remains Homeric, denoting anindividual holding `military command’. 142 Herodotus, Histories, 1.46.1143 Herodotus, 9.122.2144 Ibid., 1.154145 Hegel G W F, The Philosophy of History, N Y, 1956, p. 114

Meanwhile, on the Greek side, the Ionians sent representatives toCyrus after the Persian conquest of Lydia to obtain from him the sameterms as they had under Croesus the Lydian, their `former master’.146

But, earlier, Cyrus had already asked the Ionians to revolt fromCroesus which they had been unwilling to do. So it was too late in hisview for the Ionians to seek his allegiance. In response the Ioniansbegan to erect defenses and began holding meetings, which wereattended by other Asiatic Greeks, except for Milesians who had alreadyobtained terms of agreement from Cyrus., similar to what they had withCroesus. What we find is that after the Persian defeat of Lydians,their hegemonic possibilities increased, but seeing that Cyrus wasgoing to stick on to his principles, other Greeks agreed to apply toseek help from the existing Greek hegemon, Sparta. The Ionians becamenotable because of their initiatives based on a certain understandingof reality. Situated near the coast of modern Turkey, there were twoother Ionian settlements on the islands of Samos and Chios. Theislanders did not need to fear the Persians because of theirunderstanding with the Phoenicians, the seafarers who were notsubjects of Persia, not a sea power at that time. After the transferof Lydian hegemony to the Persian, the Greek settlements getsplintered, and Herodotus takes up the `separation’ of Milesians fromthe Ionians to signify the `general weakness of Hellenic people atthat date’, especially the Ionians who, among the Greeks were theleast powerful and influential. Here the point is that the only otherIonian settlement of any consequence was Athens. The reason forkeeping and sticking on to twelve Asiatic settlements by the Ionianswas owing to the fact that they were divided into twelve states whenthey lived in the Peloponnese before they were driven out by theAchaeans.147 All Ionians originated from Athens and the only ones withthem were the Aeolians, who had come to a general agreement to followthe Ionians in whatever course they would take. Rebuffed by thePersians, the Aeolians and Ionians sent envoys to Sparta withoutloosing any time sending a Phocaean as their spokesman. His speechbefore the Spartans was a failure, and though the Spartans refused tohelp the Ionians, they dispatched a galley to the Asiatic coast towatch Cyrus and affairs in Ionia. Around this time also the Spartansfaced `criticism’ from Cyrus for `their love of markets’. Cyrus didnot think the Ionians important enough to constitute his primarymilitary objective, for his mind was on Babylon and Egypt where he

146 Herodotus, 1.142 147 Herodotus, 1. 142-147

intended to lead an expedition in person.148 For tackling Ionians heleft a Persian governor in Sardis. Even the defeated Lydians were notenslaved, though defeated, and their king Croesus accompanied Cyrus ashis prisoner, though more as an advisor. He had advised Cyrus not toenslave the Lydians but forbid them from wearing arms by a veto, andencourage them to become shopkeepers. The entire way of life of theLydians was altered after Cyrus’ orders were put to effect.

The governor left by Cyrus pursued his own policies of `expediency’ totackle matters immediately close to him, which were not in the leasthegemonic. He sold inhabitants of certain cities, like Priene toslavery, overran and plundered some districts. He died soon but hisreplacement Harpagus, a Mede, given command by Cyrus began with apolicy to subdue Ionia. He began marches into Ionia and set abouttaking towns. The first Ionian town he attacked was Phocaea, whoseinhabitants were renowned seafarers, using 50-oar galleys not merchantships. Harpagus laid siege, but the Phocaeans got around sneaking pastthe siege by launching their galleys, with their women and children.To secure unity for their expedition they laid fearful curses uponanyone who failed to accompany the expedition toward Corsica. OtherIonian cities, like Teos when threatened by Harpagus escaped by sea toThrace. These were the `only Ionians who `preferred voluntary exile tothe prospect of slavery’.149 Others, `except the Milesians’ the foughtHarpagus from where they were, but despite their individual acts ofbravery they were defeated, their towns taken and were forced tosubmit to their new masters. In spite of their defeat the Ionianscontinued their practice of meetings in which various bold suggestionswere made including one by Thales of Miletus the natural philosopher,suggesting that the Ionians should set up a common centre at Teos, soas to `function as a mother city’ in relation to outlying districts.While Harpagus was turning `upside-down’ the lower, western part ofAsia, Cyrus was engaged in bringing nations down in north and east,expanding his empire. After taking Babylonia, Cyrus moved northtowards the Caspian, and in one campaign the Persian army wasdestroyed and Cyrus killed. On the Greek side in the meanwhile theSpartans launched an expedition against Samos but there was no realoutcome in political terms, whereas on the Persian side, the Magiusurped power and were in turn overthrown in the conspiracy involvingOtanes and Darius. It was under Darius that the Persians set theirgoal of capturing European Greece, marching across the Black sea

148 Ibid., 1.154149 Ibid., 1.170

littoral and crossing the Danube, he faced the Thracian tribes whooffered fierce resistance before being defeated and `reduced toslavery’.150 But Darius’ permission to a Greek Histiaeus to found asettlement at Trace came to the notice of one of his general Megabazuswho objected strongly because the site with its silver mines andabundance of timber was too risky and avoidable151 Darius agreed andleft for Susa, taking along Histiaeus and gave over Megabazus commandto Otanes, who captured Byzantium and Chalcedon and some islandsoccupied by Palasgians.

Again we return to Ionia. After the exploits of Otanes trouble ceasedfor a while, until it broke out again in Ionia, coming from Naxos andMiletus. Naxos was then the richest island in the Aegaen and Miletusin that time had reached the peak of prosperity, becoming the glory ofIonia. Since the time of Cyrus, Miletus had been engulfed and weakenedby civil strife, until the Parians who had been chosen by the peopleof Miletus to settle their disputes, which were mainly related toland. The Parians settled the dispute in a general assembly where theyannounced their decision. But another kind of trouble was originatingin Naxos and Miletus and they were political. Some aristocrats, or`substantial citizens of Naxos’ were `forced by the `popular party’,or the democrats to leave. They took refuge in Miletus, which had beenput under Aristagoras as a governor. Power in Miletus had belonged toHistiaeus, but he was being detained by Darius at Susa. The exilesfrom Naxos asked Aristagoras to lend them some troops in the hope ofrecovering their position in Naxos.152 Aristagoras imagined that if hehelped the exiles it was possible that he would become the `lord’[hegemon] of Naxos. Cloaking this purpose by using his friendship withHistiaeus, he said `I cannot engage to furnish enough troops to forceyour return to Naxos against the wishes of the party in power. Theyhave, I understand, eight thousand armoured men, and they have apowerful fleet. I will however do my very best to find a means ofhelping you’153He promised that help would come from Artaphernes, thebrother of Darius who with a large army and fleet was in command ofcoastal districts of Asia. The exiles authorized Aristagoras to makethe best arrangements he could, sounded confident in the hope thatonce they appeared in Naxos the people would submit to their orders.This is obviously the vain view of self-interested and self-deluded

150 Ibid., 4.94151 Ibid., 5.23152 Ibid., 5.29153 Ibid., 5.29

aristocrats who were driven out of power after Naxos underwent aradical democratic shift , after the popular party took power. Moreimportant though is the democratic wind blowing from Naxos, a popularpolitical advance, which Aristagoras may have wanted to derive fullbenefits by playing along with the bloated sentiments of the exiles,probably intending to establish his own hegemony. So he began to set agame in motion, meeting Artaphanes and telling him that Naxos was afertile island, close to the Ionian coast, `rich in slaves andtreasure. He suggested that should he restore the exiles, he could addto the Persian dominions not only Naxos but also other islands ifHeraclides, where he could set military base for further conquests. Itwould require 100 ships in all to accomplish the venture. Artaphenessounded willing but needed the king’s approval. He then proceededtowards Susa and put Aristagoras’ proposal before Darius, obtainedconsent, equipped 100 ships of war, a strong allied army that was putunder the command of Megabates, a cousin of Darius, and set his ownheart on making himself master of Greece. But, the Naxians were notdestined to suffer grief as a result of this expedition because of aleadership dispute involving Aristagoras and Megabates. The latterbroke with the party and sent a party to warn people at Naxos, whoupon getting warned began rising defenses for any siege and laying thestocks of `food and drink’. Their position of the Naxians was strongenough for the siege to last four months, by that time the stores ofthe Persians got exhausted.154 Aristagoras who had spent a fair amountof money of his own found that more was needed for the siege tocontinue. But the Persians gave up and retreated mainland. With thefailure of the expedition, Aristagoras was unable to keep his promiseto Artaphanes, and even more worrying was the loss of position atMiletus after the failure of the expedition, enough to contemplaterebellion. He called a council of his supporters where his friendsunanimously approved revolt. Among them was the historian Hecataeus,who was simply opposed to war with Persia given the resources atDarius’ command together with the `long list’ of `nations’ underPersian domination’.155 His argument failed to convince the meeting andas the second best he advised them to work for the control of the sea.The meeting had unanimously agreed to `throw off the Persian yoke’ andas the first step it was decided to seize the fleet’s commander of thearmy that had retreated from Naxos. With this the Ionian revolt hadbegun and Aristagoras intended to damage Darius as much as he could.

154 Herodotus, 5.53155 Herodotus, Histories, 5.36

The Ionian revolt was a significant turning point involving politicalprinciples. At the core lay the democratic victory and its decisionagainst the aristocrats in Naxos. All the initial attempts to reversethe situation there failed and Aristagoras had to undergo a process ofshedding some of his illusions, coming across as a someone whoseleadership consisted in promising aggrandizement to Persians, whileself-serving his own interests, he was forced to find that he hadmisread the situation in important ways, primarily in terms of itspolitical import. Events forced t5o learn from his mistakes anderrors, as it emerged in the meeting where the cautious, conservativeposition of Hecataeus was rejected in favour of the radical positionof rebellion. Besides, it is futile to conjecture from Herodotus’account, because it does leave many gaps and offers his own fantasticnarrative strategies that detour a number of times into a fantasyrealm of story telling from the real developments involvingsignificant details. But Herodotus does provide sufficient facts toshow the main terms of the conflict and the significance of the revoltled by Aristagaras. But one major change that had taken place in theIonian affairs since the Lydian defeat by Cyrus was the return of theMilesians to the Greek fold. Now, to induce Milesian support after theinitial misjudgments, Aristagoras took up an ideological stand thatclarified his political position and reflected his awareness of thecardinal issues involved. He `began by abdicating his position infavour of democratic government, and then went on to do the samethings in other Ionian states, where he got rid of the politicalbosses’.156 In other words he was generalizing the anti-oligarchicsentiments and taking sides with the prevailing democratic sentiment,which appears to have turned revolutionary. Those oligarchs who he hadearlier arrested while on the way to Naxos, were handed over to thecities to which they belonged, gaining goodwill from the people.Though most cities displayed leniency towards the disgraced politicalbosses and oligarchs,, yet in some cases they were put to death,sometimes by stoning. As a result, it can be summarized thatAristagoras’ initial tasks and efforts made after declaring revoltagainst the Persians was to basically align himself with the changingpopular political consciousness by `putting down despots’ in variousIonian states. He first appointed four generals, and because he neededa powerful alley, set off to Lacedaemon on a `mission’, as Sparta wasthe hegemon on the `Greek side’.

156 Ibid., 5.37

The political and ideological assumptions in Sparta were distant andleast open to arouse sympathy with the radical political processesunderway in Ionia. There Cleomanes was the king by the `right ofbirth’, not by `right of merit’. That was because that the Ephorsthought that a hereditary king really `pleased the Spartans’. ButCleomanes was not really `right in his head’, floundering on the`verge of madness’. He had been neglecting all formalities likeconsulting Oracles prior to taking major decisions. This also includedmilitary misadventures in Croton. Nevertheless, he was the king whenAristagoras came to visit Sparta in 499 BC.157. He began by tellingCleomanes that the Ionians were on the verge of losing their`liberty’, which was not only a matter of bitter shame for the Ioniansbut also to `the rest of the Greece’, especially to the Spartans `whoare the leaders of the Greek world’.158 He then `begged’ Cleomanes tosave from slavery his `Ionian kinsmen’. Then he changed tack andaddressed what he thought were Spartan self-interest, beginning byclaiming that compared to the Spartans the Persians had `little tastefor war’, used poor weapons and yet they were richer than the rest ofthe world put together. Appealing further to the prospects ofenrichment, Aristagoras then brought out a map of the world that hehad brought with him, in order to tempt the Spartan with the riches tobe found in Persian lands.159 Cleomanes only asked how far Susa was andhow many days would it take to reach there from the Ionian coast. Thisis when Aristagoras made a `fatal mistake’’ because if he reallywanted to induce the Spartan to invade Asia he should never have saidthat it really took about three months to reach. Cleomanes stoppedAristagoras right then, asking him to leave Sparta since his proposalto take a three month journey by sea to be `highly improper’. This washow the Aristagoras’ mission failed, according to Herodotus, butrepulsed from Sparta Aristagoras headed towards Athens, `which hadbeen liberated from an autocratic government’. This had to do with thereturn of Alcmaeonidae from exile to Athens and the overthrow ofPisistratidae, who again tried later to install Hippias, in which theSpartan king, Cleomanes was involved in a siege of Athens, which wasupset by a `disaster’ though it ended `despotism’ in Athens.Aristagoras arrived in Athens precisely after Athens had been`liberated’ with request for aid against Persia. This was the time of

157 G E M De Ste Croix, Harvey D, et al [eds], Athenian Democratic Origins andOther Essays, P. 424, Oxford, 2004158 Ibid., 5.49159 Herodotus, Histories, 5.49; `why, if you take Susa, you need not hesitatewith God himself for riches’.

Athens rise to `greatness’, when a democratic revolution under theleadership of Clisthenes was proceeding. Athens, according toHerodotus `went from strength to strength’, while proving the`nobility’ of freedom. `When freedom was won, then every man amongstthem was interested in his own cause’.160 So when Aristagoras arrived inAthens he knew that it was the next most powerful `state’ in Greece.He appeared before the Athenians and `repeated the arguments’ he hadmade in Sparta. He made it a point to lay emphasis that Miletus hadbeen found by Athenian settlers, so it would only be `natural’ thatthe `powerful’ Athenians would help them in times of their need. Hesucceeded in convincing the `crowd’ of 30000 Athenians. Then theAthenians passed a decree for the dispatch of 20 warship to Ionia’.The sailing of this fleet is regarded by Herodotus to herald the`beginning of troubles not only for Greeks but other peoples.’161 Itshould be mentioned that historians have commented on the passingnature of Herodotus’ narration of the Ionian revolt, for they, andespecially Aristagoras are held responsible for all the unfortunateconsequences of their actions while others, especially Athens passesany such censure or criticism from Herodotus. Included in the story isAthens half hearted kind of response to the Ionian revolt.

It is true that Herodotus’ account of the unfolding of events inIonia after Athenian support, and Aristagoras’ role as well asintentions is at times glossed over other than being hardly asdetailed when compared to unfolding of events at Athens. Herodotusmakes a number of implicit points in his accounting of Ionian events,which includes the political position of Ionia during the revolt,consequent to democratic revolts and the spreading wave of popularrule there. Athens is given somewhat undue and one-sided preferenceswhich it comes to democracy and popular rule while the front rankingand vulnerable position of Ionia and Miletus is made entirelyimplicit. Then there is excessive autonomy and willfulness given toAristagoras and ultimately he is made to resemble a `poor spiritedcreature,’162 rather than an opportunist and filled with conceit. Whenthe Athenians agreed to help the Ionians by dispatching 20 ships, theywere already on bad terms with Persia on account of Persians askingthem to take Hippias back. At any rate, Aristagoras hastened backbefore the Athenians with an advanced contingent to Miletus. There hewrote a declaration that said that `all Ionia is in revolt against the

160 Ibid., 5.81161 Ibid., 5.98162 Ibid., 5.126

Persian king’. Then he proceeded to attack Sardis. The Athenian fleetwith troops sailed for Ephesus; in the course of their march they camedown upon Sardis which they took without much opposition. They couldnot sack the place because most houses were made of reeds or used reedthatch for roof. When one house was set alight by a soldier, theflames spread and engulfed the entire town. The enemy underArtaphernes’ command was thus unable to clear away from the town as aresult they had to take defensive position. Seeing this the Ioniansgot alarmed and at night they marched off to their ships. In theconflagration at Sardis, a temple of Cybebe, a goddess worshipped inthat part of the world was destroyed, which the Persians later madeinto a pretext for burning Greek temples.163 This incident alerted thePersians, and mustered to rescue the Lydians. Reaching Sardis theyfound that the Ionians had retreated. They followed their tracts andmet them up at Ephesus. Here the Persians inflicted a massive defeaton the Ionians. Seeing the situation turn adverse, the Atheniansdecided to have nothing more to do with the Ionian rebellion, inspiteof frequent appeals from Aristagoras. The Ionians could not help theirsituation, in view of the injury they had already inflicted on Darius,except to press on with their war, without Athenian aid. They sailedtowards Hellespont, got control of Byzantium and all other towns nearbouts. Some also joined the rebel cause after learning about theburning of Sardis. In particular Cyprus volunteered assistance andrebelled against Persia. When Darius learnt that Sardis had beentaken and burnt by the Athenians and Ionians, he made a particularpoint to punish the Athenians, even though they had broken ranks withthe Ionians after the battle at Ephesus. Leaving Ionians at this pointmade little military sense, besides incurring Darius’ wrath while theIonians pressed ahead. The Ionian contingents, including the Cypriansfought their battles well against the Persians and the Phoenicians onland and sea. The Ionians were by now unified under the `commoncouncil of Ionia’ and some of their battles were fought very well.Though the Cyprians lost to the Persians, they were subjugated after ayear of resistance, while Otanes went in pursuit after the Ionians.164

But the superior forces mustered by the Persians proved too powerfulfor the Ionian settlements. Aristagoras realizing that he had nochance against Darius decided to flee towards Sardinia. Once againHecaetus, the historian objected and suggested that he should lie low,as long as necessary. Aristagoras decided to leave and prior to hisdeparture to Thrace, he handed over the affairs of Miletus to

163 Ibid., 5.104164 Ibid., 5.118

Pythagoras, a `man of distinction. In the meanwhile Histiaeus camefrom Susa to Miletus but people who `hah had their taste of liberty’were no longer interested in a person of his stamp. When the Persiansbegan their march on Miletus, the Ionians decided to leave the actualdefence of Miletus in the hands of its people while the Ionian decidedto move their fleet towards Lade for naval action against Persians.They could arrange 353 triremes against 600 Persian ships. ThePersians were still shocked to see the size of the Ionian fleet,thinking that they may be defeated and fail to take Miletus. So theystruck an alliance with the `autocrats’ of Ionia who had been thrownout anyway. The `exiled autocrats’ took side with the Persianproposal. 165The Ionians meanwhile assembled at Lede and `variousspeeches were made’, the most notable by the Phocaen commanderDionysus, who said how the fate of Ionians was balanced on a razor’sedge `between being free men or slaves’, and what was needed wasdiscipline, which he thought would keep the Persians at bay. But forwhatever reasons the navel fleet broke up in Lede into theirrespective local unit, like Samians, constituting the Ionian fleet.The Chian fleet met disaster near Ephesus. Dionysus, the Phecaensailed for Sicily which became his base for piratical raids againstCarthaginian and Tyrrhenian shipping. 166 In this way the Persiansprevailed over the Ionian fleet, after which they launched an attackon Miletus, reducing it to slavery. Later apparently the entire malepopulation of Miletus shaved their heads and went into mourning. TheAthenians were profoundly distressed at the capture of Miletus. There,a play, The Capture of Miletus was staged that threw the audience intotears. Consequently the author was fined a thousand Drachmas forreminding them of the disaster which touched them so closely. Theyalso forbade anybody to stage that play again.167 In the following yearthe Persian fleet took the islands off the Asiatic coast which hadbeen abandoned. Herodotus ends his narration of Ionian defeatpresenting it as a tragedy and misfortune. What is clear is that themain lines of political difference had erupted in Asiatic Greece fromthe time of Cyrus upto Darius’ campaign.

DEMOCRATIC UPSURGE IN ATHENS

165 Ibid., 6.11166 Ibid., 6.16167 Ibid., 6.22

It may be difficult to believe Pericles when he says that `we are freeand tolerant in our private law’, that `we do not get into a Statewith our neighbour’ about Athens, should one check out the kinds andvolume of private suits in the courts’, or considering the chargesagainst Socrates and the majority vote against him, or its record ofexiling and banishing some of the good. There was always thepossibility of political vendetta and violence in which aristocraticclubs were involved. For instance, the oligarchic revolution of 411 BCwas marked by assassinations from the start. The demagogue Hyperbolus,and possibly other democrats were assassinated.168 The Oath associatedwith Athenian aristocratic clubs said, `I will be evilly disposedtowards the demos and will contrive against it whenever I can’. Afterthe `clubs’ joined forces in Athens after the solicitation ofPisander, the younger associations organized themselves into a band,entrusted with provoking violence. Their first move was to assassinateAndrocles and associated democrats. Nevertheless, these trends shouldnot diminish the value of the emphasis of Pericles’ Oration on publiclaw in Athens. `In public life we keep to the law’, `give obedience tothose whom we put in place of authority, and we obey the lawsthemselves’, `those which are for the protection for the oppressed,and those unwritten laws’.169 The individual of Athens `is not onlyinterested in his own affairs, but in the affairs of the state aswell’, emphasizing this as a `peculiarity of ours’, Pericles says that`we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a manwho minds his own interests; we say that he has no business here atall.’ Nobody was politically obscure because of poverty in Atheniandemocracy; Athenians in their `own persons’ took their own decision inpolicy, or submitted them to proper discussions.’ And addressing thoseoutside the Greek world, `we make friends by doing good to others andnot by receiving good from them’. `When we do kindness to others, wedo not do them out of any calculations of profit and loss; we do themwithout a thought relying on our free liberality. The lesson of theoration was the declaration that Athens was a education to Greece. Inhis estimation, Pericles proclaimed: `Future ages will wonder at us,as the present age wonders at us now.’ The problem in this flourish isthe `us’; while it follows from the build up to the proclamation thatit is the `state’ that stands for `us’, we may wonder whether it wasnot `power’, of the Athenian state, which is developed throughoutThucydides’ history. The fascination with the power of the state

168 Hudson M, Music as an Analogy of Economic Order in Classical Antiquity, inBackhaus J [ed], Op Cit, pp 113-135169 Thucydides The History of Peloponnesian War,

architectonics in the Oration have a highly erotic dimension, andThucydides clearly emphasis the importance of this erotic relationbetween the power of the state and the citizen’s love for the array ofsexual symbolism. It is difficult to figure out whether Pericles meanswonder in the ethical or aesthetic sense.

What we are arguing is that while in many ways the development ofdemocracy in Athens is better documented, that should not warrantsingular focus on Athens when the subject is democracy. The reason forhighlighting the Ionian revolt, based on radical democratic upsurge,as at Naxos which is merely touched upon by Herodotus, as well thediscussion over the forms of government on the Persian side withOtanes’ speech favouring democracy is to draw away any one-sidedattention on Athens while studying Greek democracy. Besides, alreadythere is extensive work on the historical development and eventsassociated with Athenian democracy, but this should not happen at thecost or neglect of the democratic upsurges in Asia Minor. The Athenianbias can only work up to a point, because of paucity of new datarequired for any solid advance or breakthrough. This is not in theleast intended to suggest that consideration of popular upsurges in`Asiatic Greece’, stands contrasted to any Eurocentric bias associatedwith Athens or anything like that; but it does surely suggest that theGreek world was not exclusive and set apart from others. As Thucydidesremarked, though born long after the Trojan war, Homer did not use theterm `barbarian’ because Hellas was not marked off by one distinctiveappellation. What is true is that there was a time when the `whole ofHellas used to carry arms since wearing arms was `as much a part ofeveryday life with them as with the barbarians’.170 The distinctionmarking Athens was that it first laid aside the practice of carryingweapons in favour of an `easier and luxurious’ way of life. Athenssent out colonizing Ionia, and Italy, Sicily, and other islandsbecause `many revolutions and factions ensued’, i.e., times oftroubles prevailed in Peloponnese after the war with Troy. As the`power of Hellas’ grew, money making and acquiring wealth seemed tobecome a major objective, and with growing revenue base of the state,political `tyrannies’ were established `everywhere’, replacing the`older form of government’, hereditary monarchy with definiteprerogatives.171 This is also when Hellas began `applying more closelyto seas; Corinth was where galleys were first built and though it wasa `commercial emporium’, her `money resources’ enabled procuring a

170 Ibid., p. 4171 Ibid., p. 9

`navy’ to put down piracy. Later, Ionia attained to `great navelstrength’ in the time of Cyrus. There were no navies after that, tillthe expedition of Xerxes. Thucydides affirms that for a long period oftime, the only fighting was local warfare, in a situation where therewas no `union’ of `subject cities around a great state’ or anyspontaneous combinations to form confederacy, or any hegemony as such.When the time came for Lacedaemon to put down the `tyrants of Athensand the other far older tyrannies of Hellas, Sparta could take on theposition of a hegemon. Athens may have enjoyed freedom from tyrants`for an unbroken length of time’, but then it `suffered’ fromoligarchic factions `for a very long period’.172 Because Athenspossessed the `same form of government’ for a long period, it founditself in a position to arrange the affairs of others’, some of whichrejected any state even. Thucydides clearly associated the increasingpower of Athens’ as the main reason for Spartan hesitation before`voting for war on grounds for breach of treaty.’173They took overhegemony with the willing consent of allies, yet Athens prosecutedwars and management of political affairs in a huge way, and to be surethere were many `revolts’ against `Athenian imperialism’ caused byfailure to pay tribute or provide ships or because of desertions fromcampaigns.174

When Thucydides talks about Athenians having the `same form ofgovernment’ for a long period of time, we understand the meaning interms of the failure of gentile institutions to meet the social wants,which led to a `gradual, long-term movement of transformation, towithdraw all `civil powers’ from phratries and tribes for reinvestingthem in a new constituency.175 Morgan describes this `transitionalperiod of Thucydides’, the `consequence of increasing magnitude andcomplexity of affairs. This process begins with the `first attempt bythe Athenians to `subvert the gentile organization’ ascribes toTheseus. Before Theseus, the Attic people were organized as self-governing societies who confederated for mutual protection and electeda basileus to command common forces. When Theseus was made basileus hebrought about major changes by dividing people into three classes onthe basis of `property’, which meant that families of wealth werebrought together and their `right to hold offices in which social

172 Ibid., p. 10173 Ibid., 1.88174 Ibid., 1.98, 1.99175 Cf Morgan L H, Op Cit, Ch X

powers were vested.176 But it was not possible then to transfer powersof gents and phratries to classes. In the historical record the officeof the basileus had been abolished before the first Olympiad., held in776 BC, and archonship secured its hold. It was necessary for thearchon to be elected by a constituency, which went againsttransmission of office by hereditary right. In 711 BC, the archonsoffice, bestowed by free election was limited to 10 years. Basicallythis is near the threshold for the establishment of the electiveprinciple. All these moves strengthened the `aristocratic principle’,to their increase in property, the source of hereditary right. In 683BC the office of the Archon was made elective annually, carryingministerial and judicial duties while their numbers raised to nine.Here we get the principle of a term of years for holding electedoffice. By the time of Solon [594 BC, the court of Areopagus was madeup of six ex-Archons with powers to try criminals and imposecensorship on morals. Before Solon, no person could become a member ofsociety except via gens and tribal connections. Though the council ofchiefs remained honoured instruments of government, the power of thegovernment consisted in the coordination between the agora, or thepopular assembly, the Court of Areopagus and the nine archons. Whilethe significant development was the rise of the assembly, largesections of Athenian society were defaulting on debts and mortgagesand falling into slavery. Solon abolished debt bondage and supposedlydivided society into classes on the basis of `property’. At the sametime, we find that Roman tribes came under the Servian constitutionwith equites, classes, infra classes, additional sections like theproletarii, which shows that there was `enough similarity between theSolonian and Servian order. The problems face by both was also more orless the same and also the purposes served. `Both fought the arroganceof aristocrats and decline of lower classes into the position ofclients without rights. Servius was only 20-30 years later thanSalon.’177 Solon’s constitution was certainly a step in the developmentof the Athenian state signifying the emancipation of plebs, which wasthe preliminary condition for the formation of citizenship.178 It maynot have been not clear whether the `clan-states’ of 7th c. BC, madepersonal, distinct from real property serve the purposes of the state,as Jacoby thought in his commentaries on Aristotle’s AthenianPolitiea, because under the ancient constitution, only the genuine, or`men of ancestral wealth’, who held the offices of the state. But

176 Ibid., p.177 Momigliano A, The Origins of Rome, 178 G E M Ste Croix, Harvey D, et al [eds], Op Cit., p. 6

Solon made property instead of blood the standard of political rights,corresponding to a shift from the patriciate to the nobility.179 InSolon’s classification, only the first class was made eligible forhigh offices, the second performed military duties on the horsebacklike an `equestrian order’, the third classification referred toinfantry, the area of hoplite reforms, but the fourth class made upthe majority, made up of light armed men [hoplites], who weredisqualified from holding offices, paid no taxes, but made up thepopular assemblies of which they were members. These assemblies hadthe power to reject or adopt any public measure submitted by theSenate for approval. Under Solon’s constitution, the power ofassembles was durable, real and its influence on public affairs waspermanent and substantial. Any freeman, unconnected to gentes ortribes could be made citizens as members of the assembly of thepeople.

The development and self-expansion of popular assemblies was basicallythe result of popular initiative and self-mobilization and not so muchthe outcome of any reforms measures, after the hoplite reforms. It wasthe latter that drastically reduced military distinction between thewarrior aristocracy and the ordinary soldier. This was a major`revolutionary’ measure, capable of turning into popular militias.Similarly in Rome, Servius Tillius thought that his major task was toprovide voting power to hoplites, and Momigliano thinks that it won’tbe surprising if king Servius had known about the name and work ofSolon, since that was a time when many Greek and Etruscan influenceswere adopted in Rome. But Servius was killed and monarchy in Rome cameto an end, in a period of obscure civil war and military struggle. Onerecollection of this period was the one fought between Fabii and theirclients against the Etruscans at Cremera in 475 BC.180 This battlewouldn’t have yielded the result if the centuriate organization of thearmy had been in working order, because in this encounter the Fabiimet with disaster inflicted by the Etruscans hoplites. This verydisaster had taught the patricians that it was dangerous to fight withan obsolete military technique. Perhaps it was this disaster thatsaved the Servian military organization, which was designed to`modernize’ Roman army under the Greek and Etruscan examples, alongthe lines of the phalanx. Employing hoplite tactics was meant to curbthe archaic tendencies of Romano-Etruscan aristocracy, but the declineof monarchy precipitated the crisis of hoplite organization in Etruria

179 Ibid., p. 7180 Momigliano A, Op Cit.

and Rome. In Greece, however, such was not the case. In the case madeby Josiah Ober for Athenian democracy that stresses the importance ofdiscrete events vis-à-vis the longue duree of the social structure,such as the Athenian uprising against the Spartans in 507/508 BC as a`signal event’, would have been close to impossible if it was notpossible for Athenians to organize militarily against the Spartans.181

Rather than building a case pitting the event/s against the long term,Ober does a better job in rejecting the model of the Great Man as themotor driving Athenian democracy. Drawing attention to the `importanceof the history of events from 510-506 BC, the signal event consistingof the Athenian uprising against the Spartans in 508/507 has beenexplained for defining the nature of subsequent democratic reform.Here Ober’s contribution has been to highlight the primary historicalagent as the Athenian demos, acting on its own without any`aristocratic leadership’, at a time when Cleisthenes was not there.As in the French revolution, revolutionary activity carried out by themass of citizens `demotes’ Cleisthenes from the central position as aleader. Ober’s interpretation sees that something `new’ may have comeabout from the revolutionary events of 510/506 BC, which cannot bedescribed under the `misleading term’, constitutional development.182

The historiographical relevance of this critique against Vidal-Naquet’s work on Cleisthenes for missing out on the autonomous roleand action of the boule and demos, has been acknowledged. Josiah Oberbegins with the assumption that by 510 BC the ordinary Athenian hadcome a long way from the status of a politically passive client of agreat house and saw himself as a `citizen rather than a subject.’183

Now, the vocabulary used by Ober is too general and contemporaryinstead of associated with the Athenian experience of the newcondition. Even in the preceding period the history of Athens islinked up with the theme of liberation from `despotism’, in theaccount of Herodotus.184 At this time the Spartans, first underAnchimolius had come to drive out the despotic Pisistratidae but theywere defeated militarily. They tried again later, under the command ofCleomanes, who `marched to Athens, and together with Athenians whowished for freedom, besieged Hippias and party at the Acropolis. Thesiege turned out to be effective, and the party of Hippias `were

181 Ober J, The Athenian Democracy : Essays on Ancient Greek Political Theoryand Democracy, pp 32-.33, Princeton, 1998182 Ibid., p. 34183 Ibid., p. 38184 Herodotus, Histories, 5.61

forced to accept Athenian terms and agreed to leave Attica.185 Herodotussays that this `freedom from despotism’ became `memorable in Athenianhistory from the time of the liberation to the revolt of Ionia. Hereagain in the narrative the entire initiate comes from the Atheniansrather than under any leader. After winning `liberty’ there developedrivalry for power between Cleisthenes and Isagoras in Athens, orbetween leaders of two family factions. When matters started goingbadly for Cleisthenes, `he took people into his party and increasedthe number of Athenian tribes from four to ten.186 This basicallyincreased his constituency size, but even more important, recognizingnewer tribes can be seen as the effort to incorporate many migrantsand foreigners, who could not aspire to citizenship earlier.Thereafter he won the `support of the common people of Athens’. Heappointed ten presidents or phylarchs, instead of the original fourand incorporated ten local subdivisions or `demes’ in each tribe. Herewe can see that the traditional and orthodox basis of power wasreplaced by locality based demes. Now, he also found himself morepowerful than Isagoras, who in turn appealed to Cleomanes, who wasthen staying in Isagoras’ house as a guest; and Cleomanes sent anorder to Athens for the `expulsion of Cleasthenes, under thesuggestion of Isagoras.’187 Cleisthenes himself left Athens on arrivalof his expulsion order, but his departure did not stop Cleomanes tocome to the city with a small force of men, ordering that 700 Athenianfamilies be banished. Isagoras and the Spartans were in `control’ ofthe city, but what happened next was the attempt by Cleomanes toabolish the boule, a council of 500 set up by Cleisthenes, andtransfer political power to 300 supporters of Isagoras.188 At thismoment the council resisted and refused to accept his orders,whereupon he and Isagoras occupied and blockaded the Acropolis for twodays.189 This united the Athenians against them, who besieged them andon the third day the Lacedaemonians were allowed to leave the country.Cleomanes wanted revenge, but his counterattack fizzled out and withhim his Spartans were flung out.’190 The rest were imprisoned by theAthenians and executed, and this `chain of events lasting few days isdescribed as a revolution in Athens by Ober. Actually the Greek sidewould not have opposed the characterization; only that this would not

185 Ibid., 5.65186 Ibid.,5.66187 Ibid., 5.70188 Ober J, Op Cit., p. 48189 Herodotus, Histories,., 5.75190 Ober J, Op Cit.,p. 40; Herodotus, 5.70-75

be just a revolution, but one among many. We see that Ober’s`understanding and imagery of revolution as a singular, exceptionalevent is too modern and anomalous, if not unsuited to the Greekhistorical context, reality, and consciousness. More important andspecific is the affirmation of the revolutionary principle of isonomia,or equality as the content of democracy, which seems to be implicit atbest in Ober’s account. That is because actualizing the principle ofisonomy calls for numbers of citizens, which clearly obtains in thedefence of `democracy’ by Otanes, and the large numbers quantify thepower of democracy in the living sense rather than as somethingabstract. Once the numbers get mobilized for control, the oligarchswere compelled to accept democratic form of the state.

Ober rightly points out that Cleisthenes’ authority was not dependenton constitutional authority, but rather on his ability to persuade theAthenian people to adopt and act on his proposals.191 Drawing upon J LAustin’s theorization on speech-act-theory, Ober insists that `speechact’ should be read in conjunction, which so happens withrevolutionary speech; hence the `proof of revolutionary speech must besought in rebellion.’192 Cleisthenes could `read’ the text of Athenianrevolutionary discourse and saw that the revolutionary action of the`demos’ could permanently change the Athenian political environment.If Athens were to survive as a polis, Cleisthenes founded a `newbasis’ for politically authoritative speech grounded in the will ofdemos.193 Perhaps , over and above the speech acts, more far reachingand `politically irreversible’ was reorganization and re-formation ofthe `numbers’ / demos. He divided Attica into 100 dems or townships,and every citizen was required to register himself and enroll hisproperty in the dem in which he resided. This enrolment was the basisof civic rights and privileges. The format reveals a remarkabledemocratic character in Morgan’s words : `The government was placed inthe hands of the people in the first of the series of territorialorganization. The demote elected a demarche, who had the custody ofthe public register ; he also had the power to convene the demote forthe purpose of electing judges and magistrates, for revising theregistry of citizens, and for the enrolment of such as became of ageduring the year. They elected a treasurer, and provided for assessmentand collection of taxes, and for furnishing the quota of troopsrequired of the deme for the service of the state. They also elected

191 Ibid., p. 35192 Ibid., p. 33193 Ibid., p. 48

30 judges who tried all cases arising in deme…All registered citizenswere free, and equal in their rights and privileges with the exceptionof equal eligibility to the higher offices.’194 This plan of governmentwas founded upon property and territory. We have next to no evidenceof confiscation and redistribution of land in 6th c. Athens. Two thingsthat emerge clearly are an attack on organizations which held alocality by religious ties, some of them in areas attached to thepolitical enemies of Cleisthenes, an an attempt to unify Attica bymaking men from different areas work together.195 In the broader sense,as a consequence, gentes, phratries and tribes were divested of theirinfluence since power had been taken from them and vested in the deme.It was under this political system that Athens acquired the positionof high eminence.196 It also became the basis on which the `Greekempire’ came into being, what the Athenians exacted on people became`oppressive’, no longer observing any `collective equality’ in theirmilitary campaigns..197

THE QUESTION OF GREEK CIVIL WARS / STASIS

One singular contribution of French scholarship around classicalantiquity has been, going by our references cited earlier, to focussome of their studies at a level at which the political constituteditself in a way that shows it as the main concern of ancient Greeks.198

194 Morgan L H, Op Cit, p. 255195 G E M Ste Croix, Harvey, et al, [eds], Op Cit., p. 157196 Morgan L H, Op Cit., p.227-229; Ober J, Athenian Legacies: essays in thepolitics of Going Together, Princeton, 2005, pp. 3-15 197 Thucydides, 1.98, 1.99198 Many of the `French classicists’ have been acknowledged as the leadingthinkers in contemporary modern and `postmodern’ thinking, not understood asmere symptoms of intellectual capitulation to ephemeral trends; rather theystand in the forefront of contemporary thinking on topics such as sexuality,ecriture, and society itself. We get the view of `western’ thought orcivilization in terms of historical contingency, not manifest destiny.

While drawing upon work in anthropology, linguistics, psychology,history and so forth, the scholars we have consulted, have viewed themin order to delineate the historical context in which the politicalsphere got constituted out of a common concern, at the level ofinfrastructure. The centrality of political preoccupation can be foundin the numerous strategies of representations and discourses aimed atdisplacing the significance of the political, when deployed aroundcivil strife or stasis in order to make stasis appear as an anomaly and toobscure its political significance. Nicole Loraux shows how archaicpoets like Hesiod focused on stasis to draw out the baser levels ofanimality and beastly aspects of ‘human nature’ such as found in theterms of distinction between ‘civilized man’, aner, and those of adegraded and regressed ‘human nature’, anthropos that, as thepossibility faces the civilized man or aner too, for displacing thepolitical import of the phenomena of stasis.199 The end of Mycenaean worldof dynasts was a political collapse with short term implications,though overshadowing the data levels of early Iron Age, yet changestaking place at the levels of communities were of the long termnature, with its own specificity. The older basis of conditions oflife shows up in the dissolution of communities alongside the failureof gentile institutions to meet needs and wants at the social scale.One can read from Hesiod’s Works and Days, a period when ‘black ironwas not known’ and everything was made of bronze ending with ‘blackdeath’, followed by the period of demi-gods ruined by its ‘foul warsand dreadful battles’ culminating at Troy, which was followed by the‘race of iron’ to which the poet belonged. Also a period, which Hesiodwished he wasn’t born into, when only ‘grievous troubles will beleft’.200 In the verses of Theognis, a 7- 6th c. B C E poet, an exiledaristocrat ruined by popular revolution, the confusion and horrors ina period of transition, with collapsing religious values and justiceof Zeus increasingly impotent and in retreat, stasis is ever present,‘as men who know that their city certainly will be destroyed’.201

Cf,Laroux N, Nagy G, Slatkin L, Introduction, Postwar French Thought, volIII, P. 2199 Loraux N, Greek Civil War and Anthropological Representation of the WorldTurned Upside Down, in Loraux N, et al [eds] Op Cit, p. 54 200 Hesiod, Works and Days, [ lines 150-165,178-181]201 Theognis, Elegies, [lines 235-236]

Theognis is talking about a world of cities, under the rule of ‘bad,changed men’ or ‘new men’ who were ‘once a tribe’ and ‘grazed outsidethe city walls’ wearing goatskins, had become ‘nobles’.202 And about histimes where ‘tranquil towns’ ‘cannot remain shaken for too long’, whenmen ‘rejoice in private grafts’ and ‘public evils follow’, ‘factionsrise and then bloody civil war’, until the ‘state welcomes a tyrant’.203

The poet is ‘not in love with evil war’ because ‘it’s not our nativelands for which we fight’ and yet ‘face tearful war’ when Cypselides,the sons of Sypselus who destroyed democracy in ‘Corinth’ 204 around 655BCE, and reigned till about 580 BCE. Theognis also refers to ‘alarmsabout Median war’ seeking from the gods who ‘built the towers of ourAcropolis’ to protect ‘our town from the outrageous army of Medes’,though at the same time he is also ‘afraid’ at ‘seeing the mindlesslack of unity’ among the ‘Greek people’.205 But clearly, the imagery ofcivil wars or stasis as chaos perturbs him, as a civilized Greek whofeels threatened by what he perceives as rampant injustice surroundinghis world is a certain inversion of social ranks. At this point, thebest descriptive model of stasis as a warning against tyranny can befound in Herodotus’ report of the meeting called by Spartans demandingconsent from their allies for establishing a ‘despotic government inAthens’ by installing Pisistratus’ son, Hippias, put in the words ofSoklas of Corinth, of a `world turned upside-down’ : ‘Upon my wordgentlemen, this is like turning the universe upside-down. Earth andsky will soon be changing places – men will be living in the sea andfish on land, now that you Spartans are proposing to abolishdemocratic government and restore despotism in the cities. Believe me,there is nothing wickeder and bloodier in the world than despotism. Ifyou think it is a good thing for other people then why not give a leadby adopting it yourselves before adopting it elsewhere. Without anyexperience of it, indeed you have taken utmost care it won’t everhappen in Sparta, you are wronging your friends; if only you knew, aswe know what irresponsible government can be, your advice on it now

202 Ibid., [lines 43-53] Sometimes dressing in animal skins connotes a worldturned upside down 203 Ibid., [lines 46-52]204 Ibid., [887-894]205 Ibid., [lines 760-768; 773-782]

can be better than what it is.’206 Herodotus then proceeds to tell thestory of what happened to Corinth under the despotism of Cypselus andhis son, Periander, acting under the orders of Thrasybulus, the despotat Miletus, committing all such crimes against Corinthians that hisfather did not commit by way of banishing and killing. He ends hisintervention warning the Spartans that should they restore Hippias topower that would be ‘contrary to all law and justice [dike].207

In a way, Theognis is perhaps too clearheaded in spite of personalmisfortune to displace his sense of reality under the sway ofmetaphors. Even the lines where Theognis talks about ‘savages’ clad ingoatskins having entered as ‘new men / citizens’ into the city,ignorant of its justice and laws, he draws out the sentiment of thearistocrat confronted with the inversion of hierarchy. Mainly, he iswitnessing the power and sway of money unlike anytime before, the‘ruin’ caused by ‘Drachma’ when ‘hard cash is all that’s honoured’ andeveryone ‘seduced by money’, urged on ‘by strong Necessity’ capable of‘making men stand anything’, create conditions when men no longerunderstood justice and ‘new ways thought bad by good men’ become‘excellent to these bad men who rule’.208 He can clearly see the sourceof this situation of reversal of all values in endless ‘money-making’,when quest for goods had ‘turned to craziness’. One gets the economicdeterminations underpinning the civil wars, where matters are indeedturned ‘upside down’, but unlike the dominant narratives which treatedcivil wars as a calamity, meteorological or epidemic, at any rateheaven-sent and at odds with normal functioning. But in Polybius, stasisis extraordinary murder woven around themes of betrayal, savagery,cruelty or crudity associated with bestiality, in Xenophon andDiodorus of Sicily the recurrent term for denoting massacres of fellowcitizens is shpage, or the act of throat slitting in sacrifices,suggesting a close proximity of sacrifice and murder.209 Here, the focusis very much internal to events, related to episodes termed seditious.

206 Herodotus, Histories, 5.91; for Herodotus, tyranny is more of a symbol ofthe world turned upside down than stasis.207 Ibid., 5.98208 Ibid, [lines 220-232]209 In the accounts of civil wars, it is reciprocal throat slitting in whichthe rebels engage

They come across vested with the same mythical-religious connotationsaround a set type of deed, with an explicit judgment, barely leavingany meaningful room for the reader, so to speak. Writing about a smallArcadian city of Kynaitha, Polybius says that there were constantdisputes, throat slitting [sphagus], pillage and redistribution ofland, suggesting a situation that varies from the standard canonicalaccount of civil war but concludes opining the unanimous Greekjudgment that despite all misfortunes, the Kynaitheans endured justfates. Polybius, credited with having written ‘tragic’ history, alsodescribes massacres in Sparta, where seditious youth seized theoccasion of an armed procession to slit the throats of ephorsconducting a sacrificial rite.210 Similarly, the political element instasis is effectively displaced by Herodotus’ account of Kylon, a winnerat Olympics who having failed in becoming master of Athens along withhis co-conspirators, take sanctuary as suppliants at the feet ofstatue of Athena where they are killed by the Alcmeonidae, ‘who aresaid to have done the deed’ before ‘the time of Pisistratus’.211

Thucydides talks about stasis in Corcyra with its usual characteristics,starting with impiety and murder of suppliants, ending his discussionwith a statement like ‘pious was not customary in either camp’212 But inanother context of sedition, he uses the word sphage. The oligarchs ofCorcyra trapped in a building surrounded by enemies, commit suicidewith the arrows used by their enemies trying to kill them. Theappellation used for civil war loimos nosos, or plague like malady isused to severe all mythic-religio connotations attached to plague;similarly, sphage is used in its literal anatomical sense of ‘throat’.In Polybius the meaning of perjury in the context of stasis, when theKynaithean exiles no sooner than returning back home begin plottingagainst democrats, who had invited them back in the first place. InThucydides, the Megarean exiles behave similarly by forcing people tosentence their enemies to death ending with their establishing ‘aregime oligarchic to the utmost degree.’213 Thucydides points out thatthe exiles swore all the oaths they were asked to, leaving it to the

210 Laroux N, Greek Civil Wars, Op Cit., p. 58211 Herodotus, Histories, 5.70212 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 3.81-82; 3.36.4213 N Laroux, Op Cit. ,p. 65

reader to judge the gravity of perjury. Polybius does not stop there.The exiles, even ‘as they swore oaths of loyalty over the sacrificialvictims [ta spaghia], they were already plotting impious acts againstgods who had placed their trust in them.’ Polybius insists that oathand treason are simultaneous, and emphatically applies the term forthe behaviour of conspirators, namely ‘plotting acts of impiety’.214 Theconclusion in Polybius is moral, whereas in Thucydides, it is factual.The historian writes soberly about the political significance ‘of allthe regimes founded by a faction, this one owed its existence to thefewest men and lasted the longest time’. Polybius concludes with‘despite their misfortunes, the Kynaitheans are deemed to havesuffered the justest of fates’ [dikaiotata]. In Thucydides, civil warobliges the victims to suffer a meritless death, by driving them tosuicide by hanging.215 It forces virile men to behave in a mannercarrying feminine connotations, while their courage is affected by thegeneral inversion of meaning that comes with civil war. Though civilwar degrades the stereotype, virile citizens of virtue, it is humannature [anthropeia phusis] that is the source of regression as well aspower. ‘The sufferings that revolutions have entailed on cities havebeen many and terrible, such as have occurred and will always occur.’216

Just as the rising cycle of brutalization experienced during the civilwar at Corcyra transcends any culture, ethnicity or region, at thesame time the conception of common humanity would urge Thucydides toappeal to transcendent values, such as immortal deeds. In Xenophon, onthe other hand, stasis is blamed not on human nature but on the anthropoialone, a small group of seditious men who betray the city and itscitizens.217 To reduce stasis to savagery seems to cover up disturbingconnections between civil war and polemos and dike, transcendent justiceembodied in the city through judicial procedures or dikai [trials], anassociation made by Plato, dikai kai stasis, trials and dissensions. Oncethese kinds of connections are established with the political, the

214 Ibid, p. 55215 The method of suicide involves the throat, whether by hanging or plungingan arrow into the throat.216 Thucydides, History of Peloponnesian War, 1.22.4217 Xenophon, Hellenica, 3.3.1 where the division is made between the andresand anthropos and the leader designated aner in the Kinaidon conspiracy; 3.3.11,5.3.16, where Xenophon blames the stasis on anthropoi alone.

risk of depoliticizing the polis coming with the narratives of horrorthat rivets the texts can be prevented from cloudy thinking. Stasiswould at any time express the strangest and macabre of horrors, not asif the horror in politics has nothing to do with humanity, but it isquestionable whether on this account, civil wars can be decoupled frompolitical consequences.

When Finley refers to stasis as a ‘terrible malady’, ‘endemic’ to ‘city-state particularism’, or a ‘broad term, impossible to translate’ranging from ‘outright sedition, open civil war’, to ‘bloodshed andmass exile’, such a spectrum is introduced to dissolve any specificityand instances of stasis. The subject, in fact is intentionally diffusedbecause Finley is asking historically irrelevant questions related tothe ‘sense of nation’ or nationhood.218 This a-historicism is somewhatstrange from a historian of his stature given that among the mainreferences for the subject happens to be Aristotle, where stasis isdefined, having a cause in ‘inequality’. At the same time, Aristotle’streatment of the subject in Politics, even though full of examplesfrom history of Greek city states is not historical but oriented tomaking models [polity] of good constitutions, where analysis anddetails predominate. Nevertheless‘ Aristotle clearly defines stasis bystating that ‘inequality is generally at the bottom of internalwarfare in states, for it is striving for what is fair and equal thatmen become divided.’ That is why ‘democracy is steadier and lessliable to revolution than oligarchy.’219‘For those who are bent onequality start a revolution’ and ‘so too do those who aim atinequality and superiority’.220 Though equality of wealth did have‘value as a safeguard against civil strife’, Aristotle goes on to cite‘many instances of upper class revolutionary conspiracy’ to argueagainst exaggerating its efficacy.221 One example is revealing, atRhodes where the upper class ‘conspired against the people on accountof the lawsuits that were brought against them.’222 Here stasis is clearly

218 Finley M I, The Ancient Greeks and their Nation, in Use and Abuse ofHistory, p. 129-130219 Aristotle, The Politics, [tr] T A Sinclair, London, 1962, 5.1220 Aristotle, The Politics, 5.2221 Aristotle, Politics, 2.7222 Aristotle, The Politics, 5.3

related to the subversion of the idea of transcendent justice embodiedby the polis. However, the historical import of what Aristotle sayshas a basis, stemming from the conception that made it ‘foolish toadhere to the notions of the first ancestors, born of earth orsurvivors of great catastrophe’.223 Since intelligence is said to lackamong the earth born, it followed that in the remote past, facts andobservation showed how ‘uncivilized’, rough-and-ready had been oldlaws and customs, needing change. Tyrannies were more frequent in thepast because cities were smaller and people lived all over thecountryside busy with their labours. Consequently their ‘leaders, orcertain people on whom great power was entrusted; had the authority tobe warlike and even aim at establish tyranny, having secured theconfidence of the people on the basis of ‘the hostility to the rich’.224

Altogether it was a fact that stasis also took place under conditions ofthe ‘old, ancestral democracy’ as well as the ‘more modern, extremetype’ where elections are not based on property qualifications andpeople are themselves electors. These electors ‘lead the demos’ inthe direction where people became sovereign, even over laws and yetthis is not discussed in terms of some historical tendency, they arerather discussed as something excessive that needed to be prevented inorder to ensure stability and ‘avoid revolutionary change’. Whathistory illustrated, in Aristotle’s view was that the ‘Athenianseverywhere brought low the oligarchies, the Lakedomonians the populargovernments.’225 Yet ‘The Politics’ is hardly a historical text; it is adiscursive network of predicates and mixed values, or ratherdiscursive temperance displayed is dissociated in advance from acitizen who theorizes about all kinds of affective practices, bolddeclarations, speech acts and occurrence of demonstrations. WithAristotle it is basically a matter of countering attacks on commonsense carried out patiently, without the sense of difference between astate of affairs and a state of the self, and neither with the senseof chronology of actions. Aristotle conducts his inquiry – historia- withthe ‘cool strength of syllogism’ to contain the disappearance ofanother history, made up of flashes of sparkling discourse, intense

223 Aristotle, The Politics, 2.8224 Aristotle, The Politics, 5.5 225 Aristotle, The Politics, 5.7

turmoil, flashes of weapons and local agons , or a history of what isnever able to end, a history under a generalized rule of apeiron andstasis because it resists all that, like a resistance line that holdsbut does not retreat or yield - ‘it resists the resistance ofrealization’, like a hoplite fighter who holds on but does not yield.226

It is time transformed into logical space, or into a disposition notto grant time the possibility of corrupting itself by being affectedby its own structure.

After Aristotle’s ‘Athenian Politeia’, was published in 1891 from thepapyrus-rolls discovered in Egypt in the same year, some finecommentaries dealing with Aristotle’s relation with history [RaymondWeil’s work on Aristotle and history, Jacoby’s commentaries] came out,given that Aristotle’s work in divided into two parts, historical andsystematic. The historical section has its principle literary sourcein Herodotus, which was used extensively.227 This work has its singularinterest drawn from the fact that no Greek before Aristotle had doneany systematic research into archives and other documents; the workwas the result of collaborative research, conducted under the rules ofthe Peripatetic school finally revised and edited by Aristotle. Thework on Athenian constitutional history is done on a level well belowhis Politics’, saying no more than what can be found in Herodotus. Thethrust of the argument is related to that branch of politics dealingwith law-making in order to keep the constitution in ‘going order’,needing lists, classifications, procedures, protocols, etc.228 and amixed bag of correct/incorrect data that is used for making far-reaching generalizations. Reflection on the state of affairs in Greecereveals that not all Greeks lived in city states, many of them livedoutside any framework and embrace of the city-states in far lesscentripetal communities, varying in degrees of association, at thelevel of household, ‘more self-sufficient than the individual and

226 Loraux P, Thought takes Form, in Laroux N, et al [eds] Op Cit, p. 459227 G E M De Ste Croix, Athenian Democracy, p. 254,264,279 `Few did someresearch into the archives, but they were of the most elementary kind, forpublishing lists [official, non-official], for using them as pegs on which tohang `universal histories’ of the Pan Hellenic world. P. 281 228 Ibid, pp. 280-281

lesser degree of unity than the state.229 The state is considered as thehighest moment when the association formed by the people reaches self-sufficiency and the city is viewed in the image of a plurality,depending upon ‘education’ for its unity. The absence of any flow ofhistorical time in the work is owing to Aristotle’s commitment tometaphysics of being rather than becoming. If there is any directionthat is attenuated to preservation of status quo or a given order,that follows an approach refusing to conceptualize the process ofbecoming at all. It would be misleading to inject his politics intoany forward movement of history as it is not a practice rooted insocial practice; the inquiry is at best aimed at establishing anexternal, modeled, pragmatic order.230 On the other hand, Plato thoughtthat men barely legislate, but accidents of ‘all sorts’ legislate ‘forus in all sorts of ways’; for Plato, violence of war and hardnecessity of poverty’ are responsible for overthrowing governments andchanging laws.231 Arbitrary command is law ‘pure and simple’, but thatneeds a prelude, which was in fact an exhortation, or a oratory,similar to discourse. The former, arbitrary side is related to theinstrument of force and the latter, substance is linked to powers ofpersuasion. So as to create goodwill in order that commands areintelligently received, Plato advised legislators to fix preamble forall laws, a preamble for all that was to follow, an exhortation,analogous to a discourse. He distinguished two instruments oflegislation – force and persuasion – and brought in the third, whichought to be but never is. Plato was no model builder progressivelyabstracting away from reality, but operating with an idea in orderthat it gets actualized, modified by incorporating specific richnessof determinations and encompassing concrete conceptual content asdemanded by a truly intuitive understanding. The driving idea of Lawsis to minimize the necessity of war under the postulate that ‘peacewith one another and good-will are best’. The state, for him, oughtnot be so ordered so as to conquer all other states in war, making it

229 Aristotle, Politics, 2.2.75230 Giorgio de Giovanni, A Replay to Cynthia Willet’s `Shadow of Hegel’s Logicis the Spiral’ [fancy stuff] on Giovanni De, [ed], Essays on Hegel’s Logic231 Plato, Laws, 4.1 `No mortal legislates anything, in human affairs chancein almost everything’

clear that what is applicable to states is also applicable withvillages, households, etc. In villages too there could be war offamily against family, individuals against individuals leading to asituation in which ‘each man could conceive of himself as his ownenemy’.232 But war, whether external or civil war, is neither good northe best, independent of whether the better is conquered by the worseor vice versa; even the ‘victory’ of one state over another or overitself could not be regarded as something good rather than anecessity.

PLATO’S POLITICS

Plato derived politics directly from the real situation characterizing‘public affairs’, from a specific context, experience and prevalentpolitical sentiments, as one learns from the historic seventh letterto the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysus II. Here we get a glimpse of thehistorical Plato instead of the legendry and ‘canonical’, one who isfar from a man to dabble in abstract theoretical principles or pureidealizations. His truth-loving mind could recognize the ‘spirit’ ofthe living world around him through their contents and particularity.In this letter not only do we get Plato’s self-accounting of thechanging political circumstances and reasons for Plato’s one and onlyself-revealing narrative of political engagement in Sicily, but thestriking feature of Plato’s ‘political philosophy’ is justified inspecific, and concrete terms, as a practical science whereas itstheory is basically addressed to a soul in search of knowing theessential being, ‘whether in words or actual practice’233 Plato refersto numerous difficulties, hesitations and doubt in early years of hislife when he withheld embarking on a political career by refusing,even as he was ‘invited’ to join the government by some of his‘relations and acquaintances’ in the aftermath of the oligarchicrevolution in 404/403 BCE, Athens, that put power in the hands ofthe ‘thirty’. Hope for change from a ‘corrupt to an ‘upright

232 Plato, Laws, 1.2-3233 Plato, Phaedrus and Letters VII & VII, ]tr] Hamilton W, London, 1979, p.159

administration’ was quickly belied as Plato perceived the activity ofthe oligarchs heading in a direction against which the previousgovernment resembled a golden age. What was worse was theirpersecution of Socrates, the ‘best man then living’ in Plato’s eyes,after Socrates refused to obey their diktats, and participate in their‘infamous’ deeds. The deeds of the ‘thirty’ disgusted Plato to suchan extent that he developed a healthy distrust of politics per se, andfor the time being he ‘withdrew into himself’. His desire to take partin politics got reawakened after a ‘total revolution’ ended the ruleof thirty but the new regime failed to activate Plato’s orientation asthey went about exacting excessive revenge on their opponents in atime of considerable ‘unrest’, which included accusing Socrates of‘impiety’. The court sentenced him to death in a spirit of vengeanceand bad faith once we take into consideration a fact that Socrates hadrefused to obey orders from the previous regime of‘ the thirty’warranting arrest and destruction of one adherent of the party ofcurrent rulers. Once again there are compelling reasons for Plato toturn away from politics marked by corruption for a number ofdifficulties that would invariably show up to jeopardize, damage andcompromise one’s integrity while participating in public life.234

Plato’s unwillingness to take part in the political life of Athensowed completely to his perception of politics as a practical field ofgoverning affairs, not so much ideology, which were no longerconducted on the principles ‘practiced by the ancestors’. He had beenprivy to a ‘world’ that was clearly out of tune’ with its ‘truth’.Nevertheless Plato did not cease to consider prospects for improving,or measures that could possibly be ‘affected’ in ‘particularsituations even though he found himself ‘growing dizzy’ at the‘spectacle of universal confusion’. His conclusions cast a dim lighton over the conditions of ‘all states’; so much of it was bad thatnothing less than a ‘miracle combined with ‘good luck’ stood a chanceof effective reform needed to cure the constitutions. In this contextPlato was ‘driven to assert’ praise of true philosophy, for nothingelse’ could show what is right for states and individuals which inpractical terms opens up the possibility for rulers of state tounderstand why genuine philosophy was necessary for dealing with

234 Ibid., p. 174

problems besetting ‘mankind’. The political background for elaboratingsuch a thematic was of a kind that made possible its recurrence inshapes of political cycles a number of times on time scales of historyin the world of antiquity.. After all, city-states have come under therule of the demos or the oligarchs or tyrants at one time or anothertogether with forms of constitutions corresponding to each type ofrule. It is comparatively easy to offer best and better constitutionalconstructs, or elegant models of the kind we get in Aristotle’sPolitics, but as another great historian of Roman antiquity, Tacitussaid, ‘it is easy to commend, but not to produce, or if it is producedit cannot be lasting’. Whenever people came to power or when thearistocracy were in the ascendant, writers turned their attention toaddress ‘home affairs’ with a free scope for ‘digressing’ intostrife’s between the high and low, the struggles between the commonsand aristocracy, but only those works that knew most accurately thespirit of the times could be credited with ‘understanding’ the age andits wisdom in the space between pathos and pragma..Among them only fewcould provide ‘insight’ to distinguish right from wrong, the soundfrom hurtful, and wisdom from fortune. Even such works, thoughinstructive ‘did not give pleasure’. Historical reality is not alwaysabout various events and incidents of wars and battles, description ofnewer countries and people, etc,. Historical accounts impress copiousamount of writing about succession of merciless tyrants, incessantpersecutions, faithless friendships, repeating of the same causesissuing same results, which is the mode of confronting the wearisomemonotony of the subject matter.235 It may well be that cases ofdisturbed, inglorious and dismal history return their brittle leavesmost of the time, as a matter of fact, but even the trifling caught atfirst sight may very well have the capacity of developing into‘movement of vast changes’. All this makes possible for a kind ofreflexivity to occur in an imposing gesture; perhaps Plato wasretrospectively engaged likewise on the eve of his first visit toSicily via Italy as we learn from the Plato’s response to DionysusII .in the 7th l letter.236

235 Tacitus, Annals 4.31-34236 Plato, Phaedrus & Letters VII and VIII, [tr & intro] Hamilton W, P.114

It may be pointed out that the object of Plato’s visit was to persuadeand educate Dion and his friends for bringing about a condition ofpeace and quietness, which is not the equivalent of providingconstitutional reforms in Syracuse.. There human-social conditionswere appalling, where the populace was reeling under despotism,citizens were led to believe that only luxury was the ‘proper object’worth pursuing, a generalized hedonism that could always be boughtunder an assumption that to attain such an objective, men had to befree from all other ‘business’ and engagements as they devotedthemselves entirely to feasting, drinking and ‘pursuit of love’.237

‘Happiness’ thus understood consisted of filling ‘oneself twice’daily, never sleeping alone at night and other similar indulgencesshowed a social malaise, running contrary to all qualities that madeup for ‘goodness’. Syracuse comes across in the image of a pure slavesociety, serving the appetite and indulgence of the masters or slaveowners while reeling under the rule of a despotic tyrant, Dionysus I.State of affairs in Syracuse was caught up, or trapped in perpetualstasis, mattering little whether it fell under regimes of despotism,oligarchy or democracy, when those holding power could not be in aposition to endure any type of just and fair constitution. There wasabsence of content, devoid of rulers rather than the form of rulebefore anything else. A situation that compelled Plato to thinkingthat perhaps ‘some higher power’ was contriving a revolutionaryoverthrow to lay down a fresh foundation or an arche point ofdeparture‘, a fresh start..Charting out the future course of actionthrough conversations with Dion, for ‘putting into practical effect’the ‘foundation’ of what he thought to be the ‘best for humanity’seemed to coincide with the ‘contrivances of higher powers’, onlydifference being that Plato’s course had the ‘sense’ of ‘unconsciouslycontriving the overthrow of despotism which was to take place.’.238

Quick to understand the revolutionary turn of events, Dion was alreadyturning into an ‘enthusiastic convert’ to Plato’s views, much to histeachers delight and satisfaction. Perhaps Dion’s commitment togoodness and truth was of an infectious nature that alarmed powerfulremnants of earlier despotic government. Perhaps he was hoping for

237 Plato, Letter VII, Op Cit, p. 116238 Ibid, p. 117

more than what could be expected once he figured out that views and‘true reasoning’ adopted by himself for bringing about therevolutionary change in affairs of the state were adhered by fewothers too including the potential successor, Dionysus II’ He couldnot fathom the wider dimensions of Plato’s advice and presence interms of exerting influence over others besides himself, given thatPlato’s arrival by ship via the Italian coast was open and public.. Inthe letter Plato makes this point implicitly., alluding to fortune andchance encounters. Dion may have been over optimistic or completelyblinded to negative outcomes, a victim of misapprehension. In themeanwhile Plato returned back to Athens, more or less satisfied,keeping faith on Dion for favourable outcomes and counting on hisefforts to bring into folds the others of Dion’s imagination. InSyracuse, it was becoming clear that Dion was running out of luck.when it came to effecting others through persuasion, even though inthe second letter he had succeeded in persuading Dionysus II actuallywrite to Plato, desperately requesting his presence, before othersunder whose influence Dionysus II might fall adding that his ownnephews and relations too could be brought over to ‘the life anddoctrines preached by Plato, and expressing high hopes forestablishing ‘genuine happiness throughout the country withoutslaughter and bloodshed.’239. Plato decided to go, influenced by thefear of ‘turning in his own eyes a mere creature of words, reluctantto embark upon any action. He went, ‘deciding’ to ‘obey the claims ofreason and justice as far as humanly possible’ preserving himself fromany reproach of shame from philosophy which he would have ‘suffered240

only to find that matters were moving in the opposite direction, andDion having become an ‘object’ of ‘misrepresentation to authorities’.Soon enough Dion was sent to exile although Dionysus II got Plato tostay like a prisoner, more or less ‘inside the citadel’. In short timethe despot turned his favours to Plato, becoming fonder before Platowas entreated to go back to Athens, once it was clear that Plato hadno intention to talk about attempts to change the constitution byforce, as a matter of principle. Acting on this principle Plato didnot favour ‘reformation’ that called for ‘infliction of exile and

239 Ibid, p. 117240 Ibid, p.119

death’. Plato admits to being worsted in his ‘struggle’ withopponents241 before reminding modestly to readers his own role in theprocess.

Plato’s exemplar of a ‘good lawgiver’ and ‘what a king should be’ wasDarius of Persia and the ‘same may be said about the Atheniandemocracy as both had left long lasting institutions and laws. For himmore important than founding any state was modification, reorderingand preservation of laws and public institutions. He stressed theimportance / significance of the soul for ‘good and evil aremeaningless things without soul; whereas only the soul can‘experience’ either. Clearly, no state can prosper if it is just seento ‘administer things’. It called for a unity between philosophy andpolitical power, a project which Dion had embarked upon and had hesucceeded in united both, it was possible that an enlightenment mayhave dawned over the whole world, ‘Greek and barbarian alike’ underthe guidance of justice.242 Plato speculated that had Dion become the‘master of the state’, inhabitants of Syracuse would have been ‘freedfrom slavery’, gain liberty, citizens equipped with a fitting systemof law and busied themselves in resettling entire Sicily so ‘that allshall enjoy equal rights’, having freed the place from externaloccupation. Such would have been the effects of philosophy that the‘masses’ would acquire a respect for goodness. What was stopping fromsuch programmes taking effect was mainly ‘internal strife’ or stasis,which was ‘springing up’ regularly in different forms. Thus thecentrality of the phenomenon of stasis in Greek social and politicallife had to be realized before all else; otherwise the horrors ofcivil war could never end, unless those who held the upper hand ceasesthe mentality of vengeance, the necessity of retribution should havefallen under judicial review rather than ‘by pitched battles’ or bybanishing and slaughtering opponents. It was a major notion, almostakin to a central concern that people had to ‘abandon the idea ofpunishing their enemies.’ Besides, the exercise of restrain encouragedthe establishment of a common system of law, as much to the advantageof the vanquished as to themselves’ as only this could compel formerfoes to be law-abiding by operation of the twin motives of change and241 Ibid., p. 125242 Ibid, p. 128

fear. This was the ‘only way in which a state torn by civil war couldbring its troubles to an end’ 243 and against states being dividedagainst themselves by ‘strife , enmity, hatred and distrust. Platospelled out these reforms for those lovers of wisdom who wanted to‘practice philosophy’, not those who ‘like soft living and areincapable of hard work’. Here philosophy was not a matter of writingtreatises, like other branches of learning, instead philosophy comesabout as a result of participating ‘in a common life’ ‘devoted to thisvery thing’ for truth to ‘flash upon the soul, like a flame rekindledby a leaping spark’ The activity of friction and rubbing differentthings produces the spark of understanding, which flashes out andilluminates the universe in intense turmoil full of flashes, includingflashes of sparkling discourse similar to the aesthetics involved inthe acts of logos. .

Plato’s hesitation or recalcitrance before committing wholly activepolitics followed from practical apprehensions about perceiveddifficulties of conducting public service, especially the possibleradical consequences flowing from implementing some of the reformmeasures. One detects a strong conservative streak at work, which arecalled for due to the difficulties arising from immediate situations.What he wouldn’t regard ‘public service’ would be a scenario when poormen unable to control their passions or ‘resist the temptations ofpleasure’ collects a gang of conspirators, then put the wealthy todeath after which they ‘dissipate their property. A similar attitudewould be displayed towards those whose honour was acquired bylegislating to distribute ‘the property of few among the many’, ortowards the head of a powerful state ‘wrongfully appropriatespossessions of smaller states for enlarging his own state’. He aimedat the idea of establishing the best and fairest ‘political andjudicial system’ which excluded death penalty and exile to thesmallest degree. An ‘ideal’ to be followed would be ,‘better to be thevictim of wickedness than to be its author’.244 His next letter,letter 8 that survives is again focused on the question of power inrelation to strife. Observing that after tyrannies were overthrown,strife gets focused on retribution insofar as ‘power always recommends243 Ibid., p. 129244 Ibid., p. 149

policy of exacting vengeance. What gets overlooked was that it wasalways easier to easy to inflict injury to others but that alsoinvites counter violence. He was keen to propagate a policy thatbenefitted friends and enemy alike by ensuring that no harm shouldcome to both sides, well aware that to expect such a thing was a pioushope only. Nevertheless, instead of highlighting the realm of polemic,only Plato felt the need to spell out on the law which stood aboveboth the sides by sublating each one, together with historicalreferences for exemplification. Plato was illustrating a dynamic inwhich the progression of logic is actually a process of recollection[mnemosyne]. It is the fluidity of mind that undermines commonly heldprejudices, while opening up newer experiences.

Letter VIII is addressed to the ‘whole body of Syracusans as aclarification of policy. Even after the revolution that overthrewdespotism, there was strife over ‘power’, or a struggle for power. Butit was not at all easy to inflict great injuries on the enemy withoutbring great harm to oneself. In the civil war in Sicily, one side wasfollowing a policy to inflict harm to the enemies while the other sidewas protecting against those moves. In this situation it was indeeddifficult to devise a policy that minimized harm to both sides.Referring to the earlier period of war against Carthage, when the‘single-family despotism of power was justified at the time of a‘grave emergency’ considering the danger that the whole of Sicilycould be over-run by the Carthaginians. It was under adversecircumstances that Dionysus was chosen to conduct war operations.Together with ‘commanders with absolute power’ and citizen’s goodwill,the enemy had been repulsed and safety assured.245 Though the subsequentrulers with ‘absolute powers’ had abused their positions, whichignited the internal conflict, stasis, they had already paid a part ofpenalty for abusing the trust bestowed by the citizenry already afterthe overthrow of absolute powers. The question then was what penaltycould be invoked under ‘present circumstances’, when what seemed to bean end merges again into a new beginning, looking ‘as if this viciouscycle’ was destined to result in the ‘destruction of absolutists anddemocrats alike’, Thus Plato could put himself as an arbitratorbetween the two parties – the former ‘producer’ or workmen and the245 Plato, The Eighth Letter, Op Cit, p. 153

former subject of absolute power. Addressing the absolutists, Platoadvised them to ‘avoid both the name and reality of absolute power’,and to turn , if possible towards kingship. He gave the example ofSparta that had witnessed the transformation of kings to absoluterulers resulting in both self-destruction and the respective states.That was when Lycurgus found a remedy which gave authority to elders,for electing a council of ephors, meant to counter-balance or keep asalutary check over the kings. In this way it was law that got raisedto the power of sovereign over men instead of ‘men becoming arbitrarymasters of law.’ Next, he ‘urged’ those wielders of absolute power tochange and run away from what the insatiably greedy fools callhappiness’246 and transform themselves to the kind of kings who obey thelaws which govern their office. To those who were desiring a ‘free wayof life’, who regarded ‘slavery an evil they would shun’ to ‘shun’ andlimit their excessive and ‘unreasonable eagerness’ for ‘liberty’,which had ‘afflicted’ their ancestors, who in their ‘boundless desirefor freedom’ ‘experienced’ the ‘anarchy’ carried to extremes. Platowas referring to a generation of Sicilians whose enjoyment of libertyand the control they could exercise over their rulers became soextreme that they even ‘stoned to death’ ten commanders prior toDionysus, without any legal trial in order that they should not besubject to any master, however lawful his authority, but remainabsolutely free. That was how they ended up with getting tyrants torule over them. Thus, ‘servitude and liberty’ in excess were both‘bad’, whereas in proper measure they are both a blessing. Platowrites that ‘to be the servant of god was the proper measure ofservitude, excess being the servant of men. And god of wise men is thelaw while fools make pleasure their god.’.247 Adherence to laws checksthoughts that put supreme value upon money-making and wealth, whichshould be the servant of body and soul alike. Only established lawscould generate ‘real happiness’ for those who observe them, contraryto the reasoning that called rich happy. Plato enjoins the listenersof this address to verify what was advised by experience, for‘experience is the ‘truest touchstone’. Turning to opponents ofabsolutism, the demos, Plat reminds them of their ancestors, whose

246 Ibid, pp. 154-155247 Ibid., p. 155

service was of a kind that made possible for constitutions to bedebated publicly, other than ‘saving Greece from barbarians’. The twoalternatives that came to fore were : one the one side liberty underthe rule of kings and other, the power of kings subject to the rule oflaw, not only of citizens but also the kings themselves. Warringparties were advised to send their representatives to reach asettlement after accepting invitation of their citizens. Emphaticallyor unambiguously stated Plato desired a constitution of the type thatleft the kings in control of religion while the power of war and peacecould be decided by a committee [guardians of law] ‘acting in concertwith a popular assembly and council’.248 Courts would be empowered withother matters, but the power to sentence death penalty should be madeby the guardians selected from former officials in association withex-magistrates, where the king could not be considered eligible asjudges. These ideas, namely those pertaining to a ‘mixed’ constitutionwas worked up formally in Plato’s last dialogue, Laws. Nevertheless,even Laws starts with the question of war and stasis, where theAthenian Plato begins the dialogue with the Createn and the Spartansaying that a ‘well-ordered state’ cannot just be ordered to conquerother states, or that it should not be an ‘imperial form’. Warfare wasnot just applicable in intra-state terms, the same case could be foundin relation to villages, wars between families, and of individualsagainst individuals. Plato is basically saying that society cannot beviewed in terms of friends and enemy; in that logic what could be said‘should each man conceive himself to be his own enemy? It was not amatter of justifying war under a pretext that the ‘better is conqueredby the worst’, or similar to a situation in which citizens from thesame city conspire unjustly and with superior numbers ‘overcome andenslave the just few’; in all cases ‘whether external or civil, war isnot the best’ and the need for either should be depreciated.249 .Peacewith one another and goodwill is considered ‘best’. We can say thatPlato’s politics, aimed at minimizing any type of war is as relevantnow as then, as living in a situation of escalating conflicts drivenby policy insofar as the main problems of a policy that makes anecessity out of war, capital punishment and fratricide have not

248 Ibid., p. 157249 Plato, Laws, Bk 1

disappeared or even modified; these have returned with increasingferocity from the early decades of 20th c. In his recent study, RussellJacoby says that Plato anticipated ‘reconciliation when he advisedGreeks to ‘temper’ their violence, in effect challenging a realitythat produces endemic stasis, when blood ties become more foreign than‘factional ones’ and people going to extremes and even beyond.250 At thesame time, Plato’s understanding also had in it the limits ofconsciousness of his epoch, which gets sharply highlighted inAristotle’s inability to extract abstract homogeneous labour embodiedin commodities, to see that all labour could be expressed in terms ofequal labour, and therefore of equal quality, because ‘Greek societywas founded on the labour of slaves, having as its natural basis, theinequality of men and labour-capacity’.251 The poor/ pauper belonged toa community that was deprived of arate, i.e., autonomous socialfunctions, whereas free men had arate, when arate was connected withthose who could provide themselves with necessary equipment. Popularconsciousness of human excellence was arate, which is not techne and alsonot something provided by religion or philosophy. Till Plato’s timearate was widely accepted in the ways of war and politics, and did notapply to slaves, women and the poor, though by the close of the 4th c.BCE, arate was used as a concept to describe person’s character, andbecame available to all, including slaves, freemen, women, barbarians,etc. In this context Plato’s notion of inequality can only be found atthe earlier, ancestral pre-quantitative level of quality. Plato’sinequality is based on the notion of quality, or as the phenomenon ofqualitative ine[quality]. Division of labour is articulated inqualitative terms as well as the class structure corresponding tothem. More important though would be the insight that justice was thesocial foundation of the polis; human judgment governed history.

250 Jacoby R, Blood lust, in Chronicle Review, 27/3/2011251 Marx K, Capital, vol 1, p. 152

EARLY GREEK THINKING AND HERACLITUS

In spite of the sheer fallacy and ridiculousness of Heidegger’sabstract denial of hybrids, very long term mental habits and reflexesthat are encrusted in human psychology has put a taboo on hybridnotions through conceptual suppression, or by turning them into‘hybrid subfields born of its parent disciplines.252 This has the effectof blocking insight or interior viewing that endows history withautonomy having an inside or interiority. That would amount to denyingany theory to history. Having set up a barrier of nonlinearity,conceived as eternal presence, Heidegger erects a veritable ‘high’wall in order to exclude other kinds of explorations, so as to argue,debate and enter controversies with those holding other, differingviews. In effect most scholars of antiquity who refuse to self-reflectthat privileged private knowledge under the pretext of an authorityclaiming to ‘overthrow metaphysics’ from higher ground are probablynot aware that for Heidegger and his hermeneutical,‘deconstructionist’ followers the history of philosophy is all about‘disclosing’253 the meaning of ‘Aletheia’ in a project involved with thevery history of Dasein. In part this amounts to a regress into themythic, yet not completely a-historical ‘discourse’ of Hesiod. Thereare major questions about the use of etymology by Heidegger: partlybecause of etymology of the word like polis, that leaves politics assuch out of analysis. In a seminar he once said the word polis came frompolein, interpreted to imply an ancient word, ‘to be’. This isconsidered entirely arbitrary by Detienne, since there is ‘noconvincing, verifiable, “true meaning” for polis.’254 This in line withHeidegger’s dismissal and denial of politics in the common sense ofthe word ever since Being and Time, it vanishes into thin air. Thoughnot a Heideggerian, yet Arnold Hermann’s historical study ofParmenides in the main,255 does not consider viewpoints other than hisown. A procedure like this opens the work to extra criticism,especially in sensitive matters. To begin with, it hardly makes any

252 Dogan M, Hybrid subfields in Social Sciences, in International SocialScience Journal, August 1989 – Reconciling the Biosphere and the Sociosphere253 `Being-true of entities’ means to take them out of their hidden-ness;similarly being-false amounts to `deceiving’ in the `sense of covering up’.Ibid, p 56-57254 Detienne M, Op Cit, p 213255 Herman A, To Think Like God. Pythagoras and Parmenides. The question about`origins’ of Philosophy is not a historical, but a metaphysical question.

sense other than an empty, abstract sense, the counterpoint Pythagorasto Parmenides, not only due to the the fact that Parmenides does notmention the former in his famous ‘poem’. It also never occurred to theauthor – at least at the level of awareness – to ask if poetry is theform in which philosophy ‘originated’. More to the point would havebeen to find out if Parmenides’ ‘poem’ is a response to Xenophanesskeptical questioning of the idea that does not allow mortal humansany possibility of knowing, together with two levels of Being , asdivine and human that is mentioned in Ch V.

Herman claims a non-standard interpretation of Parmenides, whosesubject of the poem is the belief that ‘esti is intrinsic to thought’;further claiming that ‘esti is the result of a ‘deliberative process’,which is a determination of the case brought about by ‘criticaljudgment’.256 In Parmenides, the argument runs, esti is two-fold thatwhich IS’, thus the object of judgment, as the result of ‘evidentiarymethod.’ It amounts to a ‘means of forensic argumentation that seizesupon the esti of a thing’ providing it with a factor that ‘makes itrationally coherent by allowing the unity of the formula to beexpressed.’257 The ‘poem’ expresses the ‘absolutely abstract notion’,which is ‘the form or concept’ or the ‘object of cognition’. Since theone IS, for Parmenides, ‘one cannot know what IS NOT either throughthinking or speaking’. However, it is one thing to say that abstractunderstanding is the object of thought and not quite another, or asopposed to the abstract, to counterpoise ‘that which is not’. Asabstraction, non-being equally IS as much as being would beHeraclitus’ repost. What is regarded as the ‘principle of non-contradiction is what Parmenides is stating, or ‘the principle of Likeaccording to Like avoids contradiction.’258 This was the ‘linearitybarrier’ that philosophy rejected through the dialectic of ‘change’and self-reflexivity of Heraclitus. Besides, Hermann’s notion of anyphilosophical breakthrough is occluded completely by what isunderstood as the ‘object of thought’, viewed as pure abstractionindependent of the real world, sans reality, like the Kantian thing-in-itself, or the a priori. Parmenides’ poem puts a number ofrestrictions on a number of thoughts in order to make it fit forcognition. The book which claims to offer a non-standard account ofParmenides sums up Parmenides’ argument as providing the possibility256 Ibid, p. 185257 Ibid, p. 188258 Ibid, p. 222

of knowledge from a limited range of formal-logical techniques toreach certainty. What is actually the principle of exclusion,repulsion, etc., contained in the one / being is used up throughformal logic in order to make inferences. Above all, the object ofthought and thought object is not external to the world; in externalreality it is confined to the world of experience, about which Platowas clear, as was Heraclitus.

However, interpreted esoterically in terms of a one-sided fixity ofHermann and suppressed by Heidegger’s exclusive claims and purchase,Greek thought also displays the level of ‘revolutionary’ emergencewith a philosophy which ‘overthrew’ the earlier system of reasoning,or ‘abstract understanding’, the Parmenidean Dasein and varieties of‘private wisdom’ by an altogether different and ‘newer’ mode ofcomprehension and the Idea deploying ‘speculative’ language.259 This iswhere it makes sense to rely on Heraclitus’ testimony, accessedthrough philology, partly because they have an unique, peerlessmeaning and also because they shed light on contexts and matters,which an ‘exegesis’ of ‘classical studies’ or what any Heideggereanwould consider ‘external’ or inessential. As we have noted in anotherchapter, what Heraclitus wrote he had decided to deposit at the templeof Artemis. The writing in prose took the form of parapegmata, ormonumental inscriptions, similar to numerous other messages engravedby citizens of the city. The intention was not to flout or displayone’s opinions but to make that into the common property of the city,by setting forth messages ‘into the middle’, whatever was committed towriting was displayed before the view of the city. 260The ‘autonomy’ ofthe fragments is self-generated and determined by Heraclitus, and hedecided to withdraw the activity and process of philosophy frompublic. Yet the public occurs in Heraclitus in ambiguous terms: fromthe questionable accounts of Diogenes Leartius not only is the publicheld in contempt, hating fellow Ephesians as much as Athenians, butturned into a misanthrope, he may have reasoned that §‘It is better tohide folly than make them public’.261It is also reported that his

259 Hegel G W F,, History of Philosophy, v. I, p 279-280260 Jean Pierre Vernant, The Spiritual Universe of the Polis, in Loraux N, etal, [eds] Op Cit, p. 22, 261 Diogenes Laetrius, Lives and Opinions of Philosophers, Bk X, for acritique of Diogenes leaving an `account, as a tissue of HellenesticAnecdotes, Nikolas b, Handbook of Greek Philosophy : from Thales to Stoics:Analysis and Fragments, Trafford, 2004, p. 22-45

fellowmen once asked him to draft a constitution – also the time whendemocracy was flourishing across the Greek world – but he refused,saying that poleteia [constitution] was ponera [either wrong, orconsidered it too toilsome a job]. It would also be understandable ifHeraclitus refused to write the nomos [law] of the polis, given theexalted position of logos in his thinking. He did think that the publicperhaps § ‘did not know the name of justice, as if it did not exist’.Nevertheless he wasn’t so far removed from society, since he did writeaddressing the polis [B 43] ‘you should squelch violence more thanarson’. To say that [B 44] ‘people should fight for law as they fightfor city walls’ is certainly no indication of somebody who didn’tacknowledge poleteia, though he didn’t regard the public to be made upof righteous persons. Logos, for Heraclitus was one, not to beconfused with nomos as he writes in [B 91] ‘Those who speak with somesense must rely on what is common to all, as a city must rely on itslaw, and with much greater resilience: for all the laws of men arenourished by one law, the divine law; for it has as much power as itwishes and is sufficient for all and is still left over.’ Elsewhere,Heraclitus says that divine law as the source of human law is called‘logos, reason and nature’ [B 61] Proclus noted in his commentariesthat he didn’t think that the public had much sense or thought, givenas they were to ‘ follow the popular singers, and take the crowd astheir teacher, not knowing that most men are bad and few good.’262 It isinteresting to note the mention of popular singers because musicalleaders in classical Greece are known to have been employed by thearistocratic political factions as a means of exercising hegemonysince they were considered as socially powerful as calendar keepersand ‘public servants’ in the near eastern civilizations.263 Equallyinteresting is the break marked by Heraclitus after withdrawing frompolitical life of the polis, when contrasted with other so-called‘first philosophers’ who considered political philosophy, as a meansto exercise authority as their ‘crowning point’.264 Though he was froman aristocratic family, it meant nothing as none of that is reflectedin his writings, he had no contact or knowledge with the politicalmaneuvers and factions / confraternities of the aristocratic party,though the polis did regard him as a law – maker. This contrasts

262 Robinson T M, Heraclitus : Fragments – a text and translation withcommentary, Toronto, 1987263 Hudson M, Music as an Analogy for Economic Order in Classical Antiquity,in Backhaus J,, Theory, History, Anthropology and Non-Market Economies,Marburg-Verlag, 2000, p. 113-135264 Garnet L., The Origins of Greek Philosophy, Loraux N, Op Cit, p. 47

sharply with the ‘I’ of others who called themselves philosophers, ortheos aner, set apart, inspired and chosen, masters of truth or just asuperior person, their lives associated not so much with polis as withmystery religions, confraternities, magical circles or creators ofschools along similar lines. We can refer to persons like Abaris,Aeisteas, Epimenides, Hermotimus, Pherecydes, even Parmenides in whoseverses the ‘way’ of philosophy is put in a mystical image, which has acorrespondence with the reality of mystery religions.265 Similar imagesare found in the verses of Empedocles and Pythagoras and his school orcult founded on hierarchy corresponding to degrees of hierarchy inmystery religions and also played an active role in politics andgoverning. This is a feature of the ‘archaic’ age, which we assumelasts till the Hoplite reforms [650 B C E]. In M Hudson’s critique ofPythagorean’s, they are considered organized in ‘oligarchic clubs’who fought for political and economic control, monopolized land anddisenfranchised much of the citizenry by opposing democracy. In thisnegative register, these oligarchic clubs functioned as secretorganizations based on ‘secret’ and special doctrines of Pythagoras,who is viewed as a ‘hierophant of great mother mysteries with anAnatolian stamp and the doctrine of rebirth taken from Indo-Iranian,Zoroastrian sources’.266 These pre-philosophers are followed by anotherset of thinkers in the 6th c. C E, around the time of Heraclitus whogrounded their knowledge upon observation, though largely dependentupon what they thought as plausible through an appeal to naturalforces without invoking anthropomorphic divine powers of superhumannature. They are customarily portrayed as stepping beyond theboundaries of traditional learning. They do not call upon the Muses,indeed they are credited with taking up a critical attitude towardsthe traditions of poetry and mythology. They are praised for using themethodology of firsthand research in their themes and topics, whichincluded travel to faraway places and peoples for collectinginformation. They were the histors, who had abandoned verse for prose,providing the earliest books on a wide array of topics : thecosmologies of natural philosophy, mythographies, geographies, recordsof travels to distant places and peoples and what more specificallycounted as histories. The prosaic style of early histors became thestandard medium of early Greek philosophers, unlike the notableanomalies of the verses of Parmenides, Empedocles, as well as earlierpoetry of Xenophanes. The cosmological speculations of Heraclitus isconsidered reason enough to place him among histors, even when

265 Ibid., p. 43-47266 Hudson M, Music as an Analogy for Economic Order, in Backhaus, Op Cit.

Heraclitus would not count himself among polymaths and histors, since tohim the practice of historie in his times was dependent upon ‘polymathy,something Heraclitus considered as an obstacle to ‘understanding’267.

QUARRELS OF HERACLITUS

Heraclitus’ criticism and the manner of overthrowing the previoussystems addresses some contemporary problems, given that the critiqueis also directed at the histors [inquirers] of the times. Turning to theprinciple of Being as found among Eleatics, Heraclitus says, ‘Being isno more than non-Being’, and referring to this fragment Hegel saysthat ‘it expresses the negativity of abstract being, and its identitywith non-Being, as made explicit in Becoming : both abstractions beingalike untenable. This may be looked upon as an instance of a realrefutation of one system by another. To refute a philosophy is toexhibit the dialectical movement of the principle.’ ‘When Heraclitussays ‘All is flowing’, he enunciates becoming as the fundamentalfeature of all existence,’268 It would be ‘truer to say that thedialectic gives expression to a law which is felt in all other gradesof consciousness, and in general experience. Everything that surroundsus may be viewed as an instance of dialectic.’269 There arecontroversies around some of what he said, some of which we will note,but a good deal follows from contemporary bias, which bunchesHeraclitus with the pre-Socratics. Heraclitus has left a work ofcontemporary criticism, unsparing and sharp or the critical negationof prevailing systems of knowing. Heraclitus was disputational andpolemical of a number of pre-existing viewpoints, without anyprecedence and as we will see, radically different from what isregarded as the ‘philosophical transition’ having taken place withParmenides after he discloses ‘the myth of souls journey’ to theunderworld, something that Pythagoras too reveals to those assembled

267 Granger H, Heraclitus’ Quarrel with Polymathy and Historie, inTransactions of American Philological Association, 134, 2004, p. 236268 Hegel G W F, Encyclopedia Logic, [tr] Wallace, p. 132269 Hegel G W F, Science of Logic, p.76

at Croton, about ‘his journey to the underworld’.270 The implication ofphilosophy with mythical concepts, religious practices, temples,politics and most significant, the use of speech with the practices ofassemblies in polis make the logos / speech of philosophy more pre-philosophical, rather, ‘the infancy of philosophical thinking’,according to Hegel.271 However, it did not take much time for mattersrapidly turning more complex and certainly more instructive foraddressing some concerns and themes, i.e., the earliest beginnings ofreason and dialectic not so much in terms of alethea [`truth’] or‘will to truth’, desire for truth’, etc.. To associate ‘beginnings’ ofphilosophy with occurrence of the word ‘truth’ as revelation /‘unveiling’, an influential line of enquiry opened up by Louis Garnetand articulated powerfully by Detienne272 is bit of a semblance,because truth is a speech term which may not define philosophy at itssource. This approach cannot explain why early Greek philosophyadopted the prosaic style of histories, or inquiries, which was toremain standard. As the business of knowledge and activity, philosophycan be found with a mode of understanding. Philosophy, in thisinstance has the negative assertion that contains the positive. Andthe person or figure has been called nothing less that Plato’s teacherby no less than Hegel, without referring to Crytalus.273 With Heraclituswe get to read that ‘Homer was deceived’, ‘Hesiod did notunderstand’,274 as a part of his singular critique of not onlymythology, superstitions, cosmography, geographers maps but also theinadequate or half-wit critics, and the privileged ‘I’ of the enquirerin his charges leveled against polymathy. In B 40, ‘Polymathy does notteach understanding; otherwise it would have taught Hesiod andPythagoras, and also Xenophanes and Hecataeus’.275 Now, this is not just

270 Garnet L, The Origins of Greek Philosophy, in Laroux Nicole, et al. [eds]Postwar French Thought, vol. III, P. 44-45 271 Hegel GWF, SL, § 695272 Garnet L, Op Cit, , p.44-45; Detienne M, Op Cit., p209273 Hegel GWF, History of Philosophy , vol 1, p. 294, `Heraclitus may becalled Plato’s teacher, Hippocrates likewise.’274 Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Philosophers, Bk IX, Ch. T, [tr]C D Yonge, London, 1853; around the time of 69th Olympiad, Heraclitus boasted§`Homer deserves to be expelled from the games, and so too Archilocus275 Reference to Deils-Kranz, based on the text of Heraclitus by Jacoby

a cultural critique but said by a well versed philosopher who was froma similar cultural background, a not too distant contemporary of thosehe is aiming the polemic, who was known to be a speculative thinker,in which cosmology was included. In his time Hesiod was regarded as anepic poet of great venerability, a theologian who had composed atheogny that was influential among the Greeks and also a moralist whowrote elegies of moral advice for his delinquent brother, which wasthe standard manual for traditional Greek values. Pythagoras of Samoswas a political, morally active spiritual teacher, who had gathered anumber of students around him and depended upon oral teachings and anumber of sayings of Xenophanes. In turn Xenophanes wrote satires,hexameters, iambics and elegies who made his living as an itinerantraphsode. At the same time he could be regarded as a new theologian,highly critical of traditional beliefs, specifically Hesiod for hisscandalous stories about gods while his poems addressed issues ofconcern to natural philosophers ot physiologi. Hecataeues of Miletus isat times labeled as the ‘first historian’, but he wrote a mythography,which is an enquiry into the genealogies of descendents of Heraclesand of other families who claimed a divine origin, though he also madeefforts to offer a rationalized version of the divine origins of hisown family. He was also the first of the Greek geographers to publisha map derived from a ‘journey around the world’.276 Hecataeus’‘inquiries’ can hardly be seen as amounting to a rational andobjective examination of his materials. He rationalizes stories frompoets, reports about outrageous things like a talking ram, floatingislands and draws a map of the world that is artificially symmetricalthat originated with Homer’s placing a circle around the earth. Itappears that Heraclitus had good reason to pair Hesiod with Pythagorasand Xenophanes with Hecataeus. In another fragment Pythagoras issingled out as a histor or one pursuing enquiry – B 129 ‘Pythagoras, sonof Mnesarchus pursued inquiry further than all men and selecting fromthese books made a wisdom of his own, polymathy, malpractice’.277 Inanother fragment he abuses Pythagoras as the prince of prater’s’.

276 Granger H, Heraclitus and his quarrel with Polymathy, Proceedings ofAmerican Philological Association, No. 134, 2004, p, 238277 Davenport G, [tr], Heraklitos and Diogenes, Complete fragments in English.Bolinas, 1979

Clearly, Pythagoras seemed to present a special assessment forHeraclitus, also for his association with historie. Heraclitus was awordsmith who coined the word polymath to describe the enterprise ofPythagoras but he cannot be held responsible for the wordhistorie.278The usual analysis of ‘–stor’ means ‘eyewitness’ because ofthe common belief that it has a common etymological root as ‘fide’ or‘to see’ and efid’nai or ‘to know’. On this reading historie wouldsuggest knowledge gained through firsthand observation, but morerecent scholarship argues for a different etymological provenance for“-stor’ that renders it to refer to the ‘one who convenes, assesses andjudges a dispute, or an ‘arbitrator. Here the practice of historywould not be first hand investigation as much as adjudication ofmaterials gathered first and second hand sources. Rendering it as‘eye-witness, judgment and inquiry’, as by P Cartledge is closeenough, as long as the implications of terms remain ambiguous.279

Distinguishing facts and writing about them is a contested terrain,though we would add to our perspective a study of writing history byothers from various standpoints including higher order ideography ofmeta-continuity, semantic and/or theoretical -philosophical issues.280

At any rate it is important to know that historie flourished togetherwith natural philosophy, on the evidence of Euripides. The naturalphilosopher or physiologoi ‘de-mythifies by rationalizing nature, just asHecataeus rationalized traditional histores as found them in the storiesof heroes handed down and equally just as the theologian Xenophanesrationalized the divine by purifying it of cruder anthropomorphismfrom religious traditions. The critique is aimed at the Milesianphysiologoi for not grounding their demythologizes on a sure grounding bydepending largely on what they take to be plausible by appealing tonatural forces without invoking anthropomorphic divine, superhumanpower. His singling out of Pythagoras ‘who went farther than all men’

278 Granger H, Heraclitus’ Quarrel with Polymathy and Historie, Op Cit279 Cartledge Paul, Beginnings – East and West in Bentley, Companion toHistoriography280 Cf, Brown K S, Homilakis Yennis, The Usable Past : Greek meta-histories,Lexington Books, 2003, where the title `usable past’ is a tribute to HaydenWhite’s seminal study on 10th c. historical imagination in relation toliterature, culture, architecture, urban landscapes in order to establish theconcept, meta-history.

in enquiry is probably because he understands the enterprise ofPythagoras to represent polymathy which is not aimed at hiscosmological properties ascribed to the nature of numbers. To repeat B129 ‘Pythagoras practiced historia [enquiry] most of all men andhaving selected from these writings, made a private wisdom of his own,a polymathy, a malpractice, deceit’.`‘ ‘Heraclitus seems to have had aknowledge of Pythagoras’ beliefs from some of his writings, akousmata,or moral adages, formulated by Pythagoras himself. Later commentatorslike Iamblichus the neo-Platonist reported that the bulk of theakousmata was concerned with sacrificial ritual, prescribingprohibitions and injunctions for self-purification. Then there areakousmata that are concerned with Pythagorean cosmology, metaphysicsand spiritualism, such as ‘the sea is the tear of Chronos, anearthquake is the ‘assembly of the dead’, thunder is for ‘threateningthose in Tartarus’ and likewise.281 These are not taken as mere poeticimages of natural phenomena but the group’s distinct spin ontraditional mythology. The historical Pythagoras may have preoccupiedhimself with numbers but the aukosmata show the Pythagoreans andPythagoras borrowed a good deal from folk wisdom and superstition aswell as borrow from mystery cults ‘called Orphic, though it iscontested that the Orphics coming from lower classes would not havebeen acceptable to aristocratic circles of Pythagoreans, which leadsto their beliefs ‘originating with Egyptians and Pythagoreans’, werebeholden to the Egyptians.’282 Pythagoras attributes some of his poemsto Orpheus; but so was Herodotus also an histor, later maintained thatfor many of their prohibitions they are beholden to Egyptians, andaccuses some Greeks, perhaps Pythagoras himself for having stolentheir views on immortality and metempsychosis from Egyptian religion.Like Pythagoras the Orphics themselves were preoccupied withpurification rituals, among other over laps .Aristotle noted that thePythagoreans dedicated one of their sacrifices in the name of aBabylonian God, while Iamblichus tells us that Pythagoras, ‘followingthe Magi’‘ banned the cremation of the dead’. It is, however, well

281 Peters , j f, Greek Philosophical terms,, `For Puythagoras, Kosmos was aliving , breathing creature [zoon] and the principle of limit. OutsideKosmos, were manifestations of unlimited’ [apeiron] , p. 33282 Granger H, Op Cit

known that the historical Pythagoras had immortality, transmigrationof souls as his major concerns, along with a mythologicalinterpretation of the world order, as a suitable place for immortalsouls who migrate from body to body’. To contextualize, however, therewere of course major influences from Mesopotamia and Egypt , evenIndia has been suggested for the notion , metempsychosis or belief intransmigration of soul had their provenance in India, which influencedGreek culture and religion and the Pythagoreans may well have beentheir bearers. They found a place in the more general complex of Greekreligion, as a quasi puritan sect. Of note is that Pythagoras wasclose to Hesiod, the myth teller and theologian. As a matter of factthis is what makes Heraclitus pair Pythagoras with Hesiod andXenophanes with Hecataeus, who were at least, in their own ways tryingto discard the irrationalities of Greek mythology. But the problemwith historie for Heraclitus was its dependence upon polymathy, whichwas pure hearsay, based upon book-learning and accumulation of vastamount of information beyond the reach of most people, and that alonequalified them as private and privileged wisdom. The critique was morefocused on Pythagoras because he ‘pursued historie ‘farther than allothers’ and in this pursuit he selected from the ‘books he liked,wisdom of his own’. This argument falls in with one of Heraclitus’fragment where ‘the rest of mankind’ which had like ‘sleepers turnedaway ‘from the public world of wakefulness into the ‘private’ world ofdreams’ or § ‘other men fail to notice what they do when they areawake, just as they forget what they do while asleep’. Accordingly B40 Polymathy, much varied learning is ineffectual in bringing one tounderstanding of what is reality…understanding comes from turning intoitself’. The underlying notion is given in B 50 ‘Of this logos[account] which holds forever, men prove uncomprehending both beforethey hear it and after they have heard it.’283 Here again, Heraclituscan see a continuity between nature and society under the ‘common’logos, unlike Hesiod and poets who were talking of an antithesisbetween the two, in the relations between phusis and nomos. The measureof fire underlying necessity orders natural and social process, even

283 Nikolaion Bakalis, A Handbook of Greek Philosophy : from Thales to Stoics.Analysis and Fragments, Trafford, 2005, p. 26-45

[B 29] the ‘sun does not overstep its measure; if it does theEriyanies, the minions of justice, would find him out’.

Logos reveals itself and is thereby open to perception and comprehendedby mind, yet ‘most men’ [B 72] ‘encounter those things [associatedwith logos] daily but they seem strange.’ Heraclitus was polysemanticespecially in his use of the word ‘logos’, which could mean ‘law’,‘speech’, ‘story’, ‘narration’,‘ argument’, ‘teaching’, ‘accounting’,‘relationship’ and ‘proportion’ depending on the context. Logos wouldnot seem to stand as a synonym of speech-world / nomos. Conceptually,logos would signify the ‘law of appearances’ of things and phenomena,understood in terms of their inner constitution and internalrelations. As a manifestation of reason that is ‘common to all’, anassertion of radical equality before law, for logos ‘governs the cityby laws’ as strongly as natural laws as it is internally constitutedon ‘strong’ principles, providing structural stability. It is likenature looking and speaking to people as [B 123] ‘nature likes tohide’ or putting it less ambiguously, by means of proportional‘exchanges’ and ‘turns’. In Greek ontology, and Heraclitus, and laterin Plato, logos is not just the gathering that displays everything. Inthe great moment of Greek ontology in Plato’s Gorgias,284 the positionis entitled the non-, that ‘nothing exists’. What granted thegathering as bringing together was not the Being of Heidegger/Parmenides, but the agreement expressed in three paradoxicalpositions:

Nothing exists; even if there is something, men cannot apprehend it;if apprehended, no one can either formulate or explain it to others.

This presupposes the Logos that expresses the ‘ancient limit’ of‘necessity’. Heraclitus never used the term ‘opposites’ even thoughalmost all his ‘pairs’ are opposites very self-evidently – dry/wet;hunger/satiety and so on, which are made active by partaking in changeand transformations, expressed in what is called ‘process-grammar’,i.e.,[B60] ‘And what is in us is the same thing : living and dead,

284 Loraux Patrice, To Agree, Mankind, no 22, 90, Editions on the Threshold ;Plato, Gorgias

awake and sleeping, as well as young and old; for the latter havingchanged becomes the former, and this again having changed becomes thelatter.’ Instead of using opposites [introduced later by Aristotle],Heraclitus uses words as diapheronton, diapheromenon, meaning ‘diverging’or to antizoyn meaning ‘hostile’[B 51]. More specifically, ‘conjunctionsare wholes and non-wholes; what is converging, what is diverging; whatis consonant, what is dissonant; from everything one, and from oneeverything’.[ 34: B 10] Yet men ‘do not understand how what isdiverging is converging with itself; there is a back stretchedconnection , as of a bow and of a lyre.’ [36 : B 51] To drive thepoint home to the ‘men’ who do not understand what is now understoodas the weak anthropic principle, he asks them ‘listen not to me but tothe logos or the ‘account’ for it is wise to agree that all things areone.’ [ 35 : B 50] Thus logos becomes idea, unit, reason and even fireor soul in some utterances. ‘[B 62] ‘Immortals are mortals, mortalsimmortals; each lives the death of other and dies their life.’ In onesense, this is the way immortality of the soul is denied and themythical moment of Gods is subordinated to human concerns. Platosettled for ‘, ‘flow’, ‘Heraclitus, I think says that everything moves[ penta chorei] and nothing rests’ [ Cratylus, 402A = A 6]285 Plato’sinterpretation and attribution of the Eleatic idea of flux is notfound in the surviving fragments of Heraclitus, Referring todoxography for support, Barnes goes beyond ‘flux theory’ and also muchof doxography, and settles for ‘change’.286 [B 126] ‘Cold things growwarm; warm grows cold; wet gets dry, parched gets moist’. Barnes iscloser to see in them succession of states on a continuum, rathercontinuity or discontinuity in the movement from wet to dry and fromparched to moist. Heraclitus is not using sentences with subjects inmost cases, only self-active verbs that are objects at the same timeand nor was he using formal logic. Heraclitus inaugurates a traditionof dialectic long before Plato, which was clearly understood by Hegelwho also used logical terms of his times, terms like ‘negation’ orcontradiction’ as logical operators of dialectical logic.

285 Barnes J, Op Cit, p. 63286 IBIS, P. 46-47

The reason for the brief exposition of Heraclitus is to clarify whatthe use of terms like inquiry, historie, implied, as it seems to carry awide-ranging implication between the ‘origins’ of history andphilosophy, but more specifically, even by historiographicalstandards, there was no historie in the manner of Herodotus that put ‘onrecord the astonishing achievements both of our own and other peoples;and more particularly how they came into conflict’.287 The closest onecomes to is with Hecataeus, acknowledged as ‘the historianHecataeus’288, but he did not establish the epistemological criteria forhistory, unlike Herodotus. Herodotus rescued a series of events fromoblivion based on a judgment founded upon quality, but more importantthe events are time-indexed, open to scrutiny and checks. He couldinvent a method of counting time, moving backwards or forwards from anindex-point.289 More important, was the other basis of his ‘choice’: thestories he told were ‘sufficiently well established’ according tomethodological criterion. Some of what he told he could vouch forhimself, having gathered first hand knowledge based on experience andhaving seen it, and some others that he reported were second-hand,which he left open without taking responsibility for them. Forexample, the story of Salmoxis and his underground chamber, isnarrated from the Greek side but Herodotus cannot put faith in thestory because contrary to the story in which Salmoxis had been a slavein the house of Pythagoras the son of Mnesarchus was not possible‘since Salmoxia lived long before Pythagoras’ time’.290 In Herodotushistorie is founded upon a selection determined by the intrinsic value ofevents and second, by available information. The very nature ofinformation determined the credibility, though it cannot be deniedthat from time to time that Herodotus’ critical acumen falls short ofany ‘objective criteria’, when he records Persian stories about antsin India that are bigger than foxes or about ‘flying snakes with largewings in Arabia. There are occasions when Herodotus passes on storieswithout attribution and acknowledgement, including those found in287 Herodotus, Histories, Bk 1:1288 Herodotus, Histories, Bk 5, , p. 353289 Munz P, Review of `Measures of Times Past – pre-Newtonian chronologies andthe Rhetoric of Relative Time, by Wilcox D A, Chicago, 1987,, in History andTheory, vol 28, no. 2, 1989290 Herodotus, Histories, Bk 4, p. 302-303

Hecataeus reports on Egypt related to the hippopotamus, theirtechniques of catching crocodiles, as alleged later by Porphyry.291 Thischarge of gullibility wears thin and stretched once the totality ofhis Hisories are taken in account, other than what Herodotus himselfadmits that as the arbitrator between conflicting accounts he was notobliged to offer criticism unless contested by those giving testimony.Yet, the fallacies which tend to follow from second-hand stories,tales of travelers, geographical imagination, which was the thrust ofHeraclitus’ critique of histors retains its ‘scientific’ validity insome of Herodotus. However, the double criteria of choice offered byHerodotus did become a methodological standard with those who followedwith concern about what was put on record, the partial quality ofevidence, the degree of authenticity regarding information.292 Herodotusfounded history by breaking from the tradition represented byHecataeus for clear reasons, though one may wonder if the criticalinfluence of Heraclitus also reached him as it did in Hellas andbeyond.

There is a case in favour of interpreting Heraclitus’ charge leveledagainst Pythagoras, who carried ‘research traditionally associatedwith historie, though this pursuit of enquiry created ‘private knowledge’and malpractice, as a kind of ‘plagiarism’ and forgery in which theopinion of others are presented by just reproducing those opinionwithout any verification and confirming their truth value. He did notbelieve that Pythagoras had any independence of thought or understoodthe importance of thinking for oneself. At least Herodotus accuseshim of borrowing some incredible ideas from Egypt, and anotherepigrammatist, Ion of Chios says that the teacher of Pythagoras,Pherecydes of Syros, was himself advocating Egyptian ideas;furthermore that Pythagoras had made a study of the opinions if allmen’. This must have been the way Heraclitus has viewed him, basicallyas an early doxographer, the source for opinions that were ‘plundered’by Pythagoras, and put down on the akousmata. But what prosaic books

291 Granger, Op Cit, p. 251292 Momigliano A, Time in Ancient Historiography, Op Cit, p. 15; it should bementioned that Momigliano overlooks all the charges against Herodotus,especially the one’s by Porphyry who said that Herodotus appropriated almostverbatim Hecataeus’ reports and `derived profit’.

did Pythagoras learn? Anaximander, Anaxemenes and Pherecydes are amongthose who had written early works of prose. Here, one finds that thecharge is not plagiarism or appropriation of the opinion of others,rather the problem is the ‘invention’ of private knowledge andreproducing opinion of others without any effort at confirming thetruth of the opinions. By contrast Heraclitus stresses inquiring intooneself, as he says that [B 116] ‘all men have the capacity of knowingthemselves’; besides having inquired into oneself since B 35‘philosophical men must be versed in many things’. This is wheremoderation is stressed, by curbing desire appetitive because [B 110]‘It is better for men not to obtain what they wish’. Thus, he tellshis fellow citizens sarcastically,‘ [B 84] ‘may wealth not fail youmen of Ephesus, so that you may be convicted of your wickedness’.Regarding self-inquiry, clearly he admits to doing historie or an enquiryinto self as well as stating his familiarity with many kinds of books.Yet it is clearly said to B 55 ‘honour things which are learnt bysight and hearing, learning’ and, putting an emphasis on experienceeven after finding that ‘humans proved inexperienced when theyexperience such works and deeds as I set out, distinguishing eachaccording to its nature and saying how it is.’ What he finds missingin his adversaries is this consciousness of sense-certainty. WhenHeraclitus names the ‘private wisdom’ of Pythagoras ‘malpractice’, heis being pejorative. He indicates that he has low regard for the booksof others, the number of authors he castigates bear witness to this.Yet, to recall his own wide ranging reading: Heraclitus seems to haveread Homer, Hesiod, Archilocus, Xenophanes and Hecaetius as well asthe private wisdom of Pythagoras and books of Milesian physiologi,293 buthe is no polymath because unlike bookish polymaths his learning andwisdom is dependent upon reality and not book learning alone, whichincludes the epistemic superiority of eyewitness- § Eyes are moreexact witnesses than ears’. In effect, he who loves wisdom must beinquirers, thus we get Heraclitus furnishing the earliest survivinguse of any form of philosophy or philosophizing as the ‘activity ofhistorie/. Certainly a level of difficulty comes out if one were toreconcile Heraclitus’ severe criticism of historie whereas when it comesto judging his own enquiries, it is proclaimed at another level,

293 Granger H, Op Cit., p. 251

underlining a polemical ‘I’, which some scholars see as irony. Butwhat does his own enquiry end up with? If historie is discreditedwholesale, then it would discredit those philosophical men who areenquirers into many things. This is precisely what should be avoided,since in the ancient world, Pythagoras is the first to give himselfthe title of philosopher, Heraclitus leaves that word as neologismused by parvenus like Pythagoras to pursue ‘enquiry’. His own use ofthe word philosophy, was traditional, in line with the earliest useof ‘philosopher’ as one who indulges in ‘mockery’, or the ‘reviler’.It is not too difficult why Heraclitus is opposed to any kind ofsecond-hand learning, whether book-learning or hearsay. This wouldsimply be at odds with learning first hand from experience, which forHeraclitus is crucial to ‘understanding. Second-hand learning tends tonourish what the polymath Hecataeus displays as ‘foible of credulity’,in his exploitation of the stories of others in his research,notwithstanding his disclaimers, and his critical attitude towardsstories, his independence of mind and so on. Hecataeus’ account doesnot amount to a thoroughgoing objective examination of his materials.Only what he does is to accept the stories of poets, reports onoutrageous things, records in his travels a fabulous Egyptian story ofthe phoenix or the story of a flying island. About the historicalvalue of Heraklydes, it remains considerably disputed from any reviewof literature the difficulty involved in saying precisely what shouldbe credited to Heraklydes, His maps would surely have brought a smileon Herodotus which, among other curiosities, incredibly depicts Nileriver having an ocean as its source.. Hecataeus and Anaxeminder drawupon the traditions of poetry though Hecataeus goes one step furtherby stating that the ocean as the source of Nile is a matter ofopinion. But it is Homar who initially spoke of the ocean as thesource of all great waters and Hesiod too had named Nile as a riverthat had its source in ocean.294 Hecataeus seemed to have drawn evenfurther from the poetic traditions by recording Persian stories aboutgiant ants, bigger than foxes, are found in India.

Dependence of the poets on the muses remains yet another variety ofsecond-hand learning. The Milesian cosmologies are regarded byHeraclitus to draw heavily upon polymathy. Aristotle thought that the294 Ibid, 250

earliest physiologi, along with Hesiod believed that everything ‘came tobe’; also from Hesiod, Anaximander and Anaximanes claim that ‘cosmoscame into being’. These are examples of drawing upon poets, in thiscase Hesiod’s theogony. Similarly Anaximander and Hecaetus draw theocean as a perfect circle surrounding inhabited earth because Homerdid so. However, Heraclitus claims justifiably the independence of hisown cosmological speculations, constituting a core of his doctrinethat ‘the world [kosmos] neither any God or man made, but it always wasand is and will be fire ever living’ [ 38: B 30 = 51 M], similar to‘logos [account], which holds forever’. This is the basis forrejecting cosmogony. Aristotle, Simplicus and Kirk have also suggestedthat Anaximander was the subject of disagreement, with the view that‘injustice’ is done when one cosmic power dominates another one’.Barnes says that Heraclitus rejected Milesian cosmogony, cosmoptheory,and the doxagraphy. 295 He rejected the Milesian view of the beginningof the world as a part of their ‘scientific genealogy’ that can wellbe seen as unquestioned, unexamined arche or a starting point. But itgoes beyond the polemic, in the direction of an alternative system, in[B 67], ‘the created world becomes the creator and maker of itself;undergoing alterations in the way that fire when mixed with spices isnamed according to the scent of each one of them’ or ‘the createdworld is itself fire, as it was before it and came to be’. Fire standsfor ‘all things’ and everything is an exchange for fire’, ‘just asgoods are an exchange for gold and gold for goods’. [B 90] Hegel viewsfire as ‘implicit’ negativity, as the implicitly combustible, whichmay be ‘regarded as time in action’ whose negativity is ‘inwardlyrealized.296 This identification is obviously inspired by Heraclitus, towhom ‘the truth is to have grasped the being of essential nature’, tohave ‘represented it as infinitely infinite, as a process in itself’.Consequently Heraclitus could not say that the primary principle isair, water or any thing that are not themselves processes, ‘but fireis a process’. Thus he maintains fire to be the real form of theelementary principle, the ‘soul and substance of nature-process’, and

295 Granger H, Op Cit, p.233-234296 Hegel G W F, philosophy of Nature, vol 2, § 334, Additional Remark, p.217

‘physical time’, absolute unrest, not only the passing away of theother but also itself, or ‘objective time’.297

Heraclitus’ polemic and quarrel against polymathy and historie can beseen as a moment of sublation/Aufheben relation of philosophy/scienceas much as a defining moment of critical scientific inquiry. Here the‘surroundings / lebenswelt are reason or intelligence but men areirrational and uncomprehending before they hear and when they firsthear’. Since what happens, happens according to reason, men are stillinexperienced when they search the sayings and books’ expounded byHeraclitus.298[B 72] and ‘Reason is to do what is common’ 299[B 114, B2], so is ‘thinking common to all’. The reason world is also thesource of speculation, hence ‘the unapparent world is better than theapparent and also ‘invisible is more than the visible’ [B 54]. Theseare scientific insights into ‘the real constitution of things ornature is accustomed to hide itself’, while men are deceived withregard to knowledge of what is evident. [B 123; B 56= 21 M]300 Thisreason-world was viewed by Hegel as ‘the absolute foundation ofWissenschaft [ philosophy]’ that contained all of philosophy withinit. Heraclitus uses understanding to mean something concrete, and hiscritical thrust against previous ‘philosophers’ also frees him from‘abstract understanding [ verstehen] such as found in Weber’ssociology, for studying ‘formal rationality’301, or to be specific,abstract understanding of Parmenides and Zeno302 or pure formalism, theabstract principle as a ‘real abstraction’ of the modern world. Whatemerges with Heraclitus is the moment of externalization oroutwardization of Becoming, having subsumed the negatively abstractBeing and its identity with non-Being of the Eleatics. The existingsystem is refuted by another only by exhibiting the ‘dialectical

297 Hegel G W F, History of Philosophy [tr] Haldane, vol 1, p. 287, London,1963; Bywater I, Heracliti Ephisii Reliquiae, Oxford, 1887, no. 70-74298 Hegel G W F, History of Philosophy, vol 1, p 280-282299 Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians300 Barnes J, Op Cit, p. 76301 Weber M, Theory of Social and Economic Organization, [tr] Henderson andParsons, N Y, 1947, p.113-118 302 Hegel G W F, History of Philosophy, vol 1, p.279

movement’ of its principle. We find the dialectic expressing a lawwhich is ‘felt in all grades of consciousness’, and ‘generalexperience. ‘Everything that surrounds us is viewed as an instance ofdialectic’.303 Accordingly it follows that far from being like someprivileged, private preserve of philosophy, it becomes the right ofhumanity, whatever be the grade of culture and mental growth. Thebeginning of philosophy has this advantage, namely ‘that it isthoroughly familiar, something everyone finds in himself which formsthe starting point for future reflections’304Here the dialectic is notjust ‘grounded’ on an abstract, logical level, such as emphasized by MPostone’s interpretation of Marx’s critical theory, but the dialecticcan only work [systematically] upon the real, concrete.305 Heraclitus’references to exchange is not in the least abstract, or an exchange-abstraction’ at all, founded in the market place; rather everything orall is shown to change, and exchanges are of kinds or qualitative.Abstract becoming moves on to the moment of determinate and complexbecoming, which it ideographs by self-sublation/ aufheben process.This is possible from the level that is an abstract self-containedidentity. It may not have been so astoundingly incorrect and outdateda view that understood history, as an inquiry or research or histor ‘ asa science, contrasted to the position of Sumerian historiography asrepresented in Cuniform records or quasi-historical Hebrew scripturesdiscussed by Collingwood306 much like Husserl talking about the ‘birthof Greek philosophy through philosophical reason’, something conceivedfor universal humanity.307 It is definitely symptomatic of surfacelevel, superficial understanding in contemporary period to read that‘the early Greek thought of Eleatics and Heraclitus conceptualized out

303 Hegel G W F, Op Cit, 304 Hegel G W F, Sxience of Logic305 Postone M,, Time, Labour and Social Domination. An Interpretation ofMarx’s Critical Theory, Cambridge, 1997, p. 17-20306 Collingwood R G, The Idea of History, Oxford, 1064 reprint, p 11-19;Momigliano A, Time in Ancient Historiography, History and Theory, vol 6.6,considers these oppositions to provide no gain , as they exemplify thecertain instance of deploying loose terminology. P. 4 ff307 Husserl E,, Crisis of European Sciences and the Birth of TranscendentalPhenomenology, Evanston, 1070, p. 15-16; `Greek humanity’ with its `firstbreakthrough to what is essential to humanity as such.’ P. 15-16

of mythopoeic thought of ancient Egypt, and Hebrew monotheism.’308

Neither is the mythopoeic moment entirely absent, though implicit, asan echo of socio-morphic element, such as establishing an equivalenceof exchanges between ‘fire for all things’ and ‘gold for goods’. Thereis neither denying the preceding mythopoeic moment for philosophy andalso history, or the conceptual leap involved in such an emergence,the point is that the break and the ‘leap’ occurred in the Greekconfiguration’ and traditions that we have been talking about. ‘Thatwhich is alone is one; it is willing and unwilling to be called by thename of Zeus’. [B 32] This is the sole reference to Zeus with acompletely indifferent attitude.

Re-visiting Heraclitus’ quarrel with histor and polymathy is intendedto caution that ‘Greek thought’ was not sharply and analyticallydivided between ‘historical thought’ and an anti-historical one, suchas made by Collingwood, particularly when he comments on the‘psychological history’ of Thucydides.309 In such a schema, Heraclituswould find no place at all in traditions of ‘historical thought’though that hardly makes him anti-historical, which is taken tosucceed ‘theocratic history’ [Hebrew scriptures, Old Testament,corresponding elements in Mesopotamian and Egyptian literature] andthe ‘quasi-history’ found in myths. Collingwood : `The fact thathistory as a science was a Greek invention is recorded to this day byits very name,’ the science of history was a fifth century inventionand Herodotus was the man who invented it,’.310 In this vein,Thucydides is made the ‘father of psychological history’, which is nohistory at all, but a natural science of a special kind’, notinterested in narrating facts’ but to ‘affirm laws, psychologicallaws’. According to Collingwood, whereas Herodotus was concerned withevents themselves, Thucydides was interested in ‘laws according towhich events happen, laws defined as eternal and unchanging forms,‘according to the main trend of Greek thought.’311Introducing ‘eternity’or ‘eternal return’ into any historians business, according toMomigliano leads to confusion, errors of various kinds, such as the

308 Frankfort H, The Intellectual Alienation of Ancient Men309 Collingwood R G, Op Cit, p.29-30310 Ibid, p. 18-19311 Ibid., p. 29-30

‘loose terminology’ that deploys oppositions like ‘Indo-European toSemites, Greek to Hebrew or Greeks to Jewish-Christian.’.312 This so-called other worldly Thucydides goes hand-in-hand with another,diametrically opposed conception that makes him out as an exaggeratedrealist, who ‘improved on Herodotus in matters relating to historicalevidence. He does say in the introduction that his historical inquiryrests on evidence, or ‘what I consider in the light of evidence’.313

Thucydides, it is true, imposed a severe criterion for ‘evidence’,which focused his history specifically to writing about Peloponnesianwar, preferring it to all that happened before because it was moreimportant and also could be told more reliably. It is evidence that isthe main weapon in the fight against oblivion and forgetfulness. It isa work of awakened individuality whose domain of reality was made upof Athenians, who are also awakened and conscious of what they areabout and doing, resting upon a basis whose points of firmness are notenchanted domains, or a fugitive, shadowy territory made up of poetry,myths and legends before which historical consciousness vanishes.

In spite of the presence of paradoxes, there are the Furies [Eriynes],who service justice / dike against transgressors, the ‘Sibyl withraving mouth uttering her un-laughing, unadorned, un-incensed world’,phropesies against transgressors of dike over the past thousand years[B92] It is necessary to mention that Sibylline Oracles and literaturewas widely known and revered for its antiquity in the ancient world. ASibyl was a divinely inspired woman who uttered prophesies ofdisasters to come. It forms a part of the Persian literature ofresistance. They were well known in the near East. They are found inOld Testament and Assyrian kings’ considerable importance to prophecy.Heraclitus was the earliest Greek to mention a Sibyl.314 In Heraclitusthere are no references of denunciation of the Sibylline oracles interms of standard signifiers like ‘barbarians’ or foreigners, for that

312 Momigliano A, Op Cit, p 1-2313 Cited by Collingwood R G, Op Cit, 19-20314 Maryam Hedayti, Iran after the Death of Alexander and its Resistance toHellenism,http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/iran_death_alexander_resistance_hellenism.php

matter, even against Pythagorians who were bearers of many ‘foreign’customs, who were settled in Magna Graecia, in southern Italy andSicily. It does suggest that Heraclitus’ town, Ephesus in Asia Minormust have been remarkably open to all kinds of influences blowingduring the close of 6th c. BC. Similarly, Thucydides is concerned aboveall with the universality of human beings who have mortal thoughts onthe assumptions that all mortals, male or female, slaves or free,Greek and non-Greek, all share a broadly defined, single unifiedposition, before logos. Cultural differences between Greeks and non-Greeks is not emphasized by Thucydides, who prods his fellow Greeks byreminding them that such distinctions were relatively recent.315 Ofcourse, in the course of unfolding of events that took place in afluid context of a long-drawn out war, the need for increasedmanpower favoured the recruitment of slaves, and compelled the‘unfree’ population to fight for their city or desert at enemy’sinstigation, implying that the forces of changes were massive.316In anavel battle, during the closing phase of war when the Athenian fleet,consisting of large number of slaves had inflicted a heavy blow onSpartans at Arginusue, the democratic assembly at Athens did nothesitate to enfranchise those slaves.317 Considering the mediationsfound in Heraclitus, his critique of historie does not signify a cleanbreak, as he himself admits to undertaking hisorie or inquiry into self,among other things. Seen as a moment of sublation, the subject of thecritique is not completely rejected; it is negated, preserved andsubordinated to the higher moment. Though right to point out thatThucydides was ‘drawn away from events to some lesson that lurksbehind them, some eternal and unchanging truth of which events are’,Collingwood goes on to ‘reconstruct’ Thucydides on the basis ofunhistorical, if not anti-historical assumptions, even eliding the

315 Thucydides, The History of Peloponnesian War, Bk 1.3.3, also Cf. 1.6.5-6316 Hunt P,, Slaves, Warfare and Ideology in the Greek Historians, Cambridge,1988, p. xx, 1-2317 It was against this backdrop, after the Spartans had avenged such defeatswhen Lysander , the Spartan general, supported by the Persian forces , thatAristophanes wrote the pro-oligarchic play, The Frogs, whose views were madeto be addressed through messages that persuaded the Athenians to stoplistening to radical democratic leaders like Cleophon and opt for the`better educated, more responsible classes.

more common charge of full-blown -historicism in Thucydides.. WhenThucydides is looking for the law, this is like the logos ofHeraclitus, though in human affairs the working of human nature tendsto reveal itself in terms of immortality rather than eternity. TheAthenians referred by Thucydides are experiencing and thinking change,having rejected ideological fictions and euphemisms like ‘some humanbeings are born to be slaves’. There is hardly anyone comparable whohas undertaken such a cold, hard headed and ‘objective’ inquiry intohuman behavior. Thucydides is not in the least propounding his ownindividualistic ideological preferences to create his own movementsinstead of historical reality in the process of rapid change thatwould have rendered his narrative very ‘arbitrary’. The funeraloration has been seen to represent a genre in which masses of Athensexercised ‘ideological hegemony’ over the elites.318 Thucydides is seento have ‘transcended’ the conditions of his age to talk about timelesstruths that preoccupy a modern scientific mind. All this can also beseen as transcendence if not the sublation / aufheben of theparticular to the level of universality. The ‘real world’ of Atheniansprove to be ambiguous, their claim to abstract knowledge a self-serving fiction and their candour another ideological gambit. Wecannot assume that the Athenians , including Perikles reflect theideas of Thukydides. There are many voices, polyphony, Thucydides isdrawing out the positions of his characters. If we were to draw a linebetween then and the present, what comes across is realpolitik: therules governing international affairs is essentially constant and thatthe pursuit of power is a fundamental human motivation. At the sametime, these also limit his view and blind him to other factors atwork. He can show that the difference between the Greek and barbarianas a recent phenomena and irrelevant in Homeric epics319 ‘The weak …endured slavery [douleia] to the powerful, while those with greater

318 Crane, Gregory, Thucydides and the Ancient simplicity : The limits ofpolitical realism, Berkeley, California, 1998, Introduction;http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft67nb497/ 319 Thukydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Bk 1.3; 1.6; The Trojan waris shown as a primitive event, hardly comparable with the conflict and war of5th c., 1.10-11 ff

force, because they enjoyed surplus wealth, used to acquire weakercity-states as subjects.’320

REAPPRAISAL

The major philosophical import of the idea according to Hegel, is metin the ‘speculative form’ of Heraclitus fragments. Starting in theconcrete historical context, i.e., the universal consciousness foundin the ‘spirit of the people’ as it were, or the substance of whichthe accident is individual consciousness, Heraclitus was compelled tocompletely unburden his individuality by dispensing the kind ofuniversal that actually prevailed in the polis that he abandoned inperson, and that final leaving behind of the polis did not amount torejection but a sublation which kept the polis as a superseded momentin philosophy, about that it is only possible to talk speculatively.Heraclitus takes the universal as pure, abstract expressing theabsolute law, as a matter of fact for the individual consciousness inorder to draw from it sources necessary for growth and nourishment tobecome universal ‘self-consciousness’. Yet, it was precisely for theexcellence attained that the fellow inhabitants of Ephesus had drivenaway his friend Hermodorus because the Ephesians believed nobody couldby more excellent than the many /demos, but if anyone was so he shouldbe elsewhere and not among them. This instance of pulling down thegreat by the ‘average crowd’ perpetuating the lowest grade ofconsciousness not because of a democratic principle of equality[isogorie] led Heraclitus to the task of separating philosophy frompublic affairs and interests of the country, treating such mattersexisting apart from his own self, and manifesting independently. Theunion of single consciousness with the given community i.e., concreteconsciousness that animates the community, no longer isolated from thesurrounding / context makes both the individual and universalconsciousness collapse into each other or ‘fall’ to the lowest stageof the concrete, life is not marked up for knowledge but enthusiasm,not inspiration inspiration but the unreflective state. From thispossible position, Hegel described this form of ‘inner self-movement,320 Ibid, 1.2.6

the ‘true method of philosophical sciences’ that unveils the essentialform of its wealth, the inner nature of mind, its truth..321To be sure,the speculative philosophy of Heraclitus having arisen out of itselfcreates a starting point from history, and even that starting pointwould be comprehended speculatively. This historical complexity isarticulated when having caused his countrymen to despise him, hedespised them more profoundly, living in isolation, Darius returningto Persia after the military expedition he invited him to stay inPersia. Declining the offer Heraclitus is said to have told Dariusthat having ‘attained the oblivion of all evil, shunning overpoweringenvy that followed and the vanity of high position, I shall not cometo Persia. I am content with little and live in my own way’322.

As exemplifying the unity of individuality and the universal, thereis€ certainly more than observation involved. Successive forms ofconsciousness are negated by the logical, scientific process and thisprovides the insight that the logical thinking process is negative andpositive, that each negative is equally positive thus affirming aprinciple of advance, not just nullity since each instance of negationis specific that preserves the contents, each successive form higherand richer than than the preceding moment because it is containedwithin as the unity of itself and its opposite.323This is considered aself-evident act which is not distinct from the object and itscontent, for it has inwardness as content, the dialectic which itpossesses is the mainspring of its advance’. Accordingly the subjectmatter itself displays this ‘simple rhythm’. While ‘most difficult’,the most important aspect of speculative thought is the unity of ‘thepositive in the negative’. There is first, the pre-dialectical form ofabstract thought or understanding that must precede speculativethought where we get the dialectic indwelling without appearing. Inlogic, once then wealth of the is conceived in images / pictures withthe real contents of other sciences, for the learning of logic startswith understanding the profounder range of other sciences; rather thevalue of logic is properly appreciated after it has experiences theseother sciences But logic is pure science that generates concepts321 Hegel G W F, Science of Logic, p. 55-57322 Hegel G W F, History of Philosophy, v, 1, p. 280-281323 Hegel GW F, Science of Logic, p. 56

having unified with its other for making the system made up of itsconcepts.324 The formation of successive concepts posits the determinatereality of each thought within the inner’, which must also appear asthoughts that are more than pure being.325

To return to where we began with Hesiod on two kinds of strife, incontrast to the culturally textured, separated and opposed position ofHesiod, Heraclitus uses the speculative language to compose what hesays on strife and war [B 53]‘Strife/war is the common/ father [and ?king] of all [things]; some he makes gods, other men; some mastersothers, slave’ [Heraclitus].[B 53]“ War is general and jurisdiction/dike or justice is strife ; and everything comes about by strife andnecessity’ [B 80] . Here the distinction from Hesiod lies not just inmaking ‘strife’ into a synthetic one, but not as a uni-thesis [un-cuttable, a-tomic] in the metaphysical sense, instead, contradictionand conflict is said to precede [and cancel] barriers of abstractunderstanding, fixed ideas and the fixed equilibrium of property thatpasses over to avarice, which opposes the universal .The universalidea for Heraclitus is encountered in ‘the surroundings that isreason’ though§ most men ‘are irrational’ both before they listen toreason ‘and when they first hear it’. Since what happens, happensaccording to reason, they are still inexperienced when they search thesayings and the works which I expound, distinguishing the nature ofeverything and explicating its relations’. ‘Conjunctions are wholesand non-wholes: what is converging, what is diverging; what isconsonant, what is dissonant: from everything one and from oneeverything’ [35: B 10]. #‘what is diverging is converging with itself:there is a back-stretched connection, as of a bow and of a lyre.’[36:B 50]. To briefly illustrate the depth and validity of this insight ofancient ‘natural philosophy’ and the way it was composed’, considerthis point made by T. de Chardin on the ‘manifestation’ of new kind offorces of ‘coalescence – anastomoses, confluences – each one liberatedby the individualization of psychological sheath, more precisely of anwhole axis – a whole conjugated play of divergences andconvergences’.326 This synchronic natural-human, in the sense ofuncritical, natural dialectic is other than the human-social one,324 Ibid., P. 59325 Ibid., p. 76-78

though related as in ‘objectivity’. His social critique encompassingthe Greeks is directed at their ‘inexperience’ and irrationality, notknowing ‘what they do when awake’ means that they don’t think. In thephilosophical systematic of Heraclitus, ‘beginning’ is synonymous with‘becoming’. What held philosophical interest would be numerousreferences to ‘unrest’ or strife, ‘at war with itself’ because thepreceding system of thought had fixed Being as one-sided, keeping theother side of non-being in [eternal] opposition, as some unresolvedaporeric. The term ‘becoming’ is the passage for being passing over tonon-being and non-being to pass into being. Once becoming is graspedas a ‘passage’, this contains determinate being in the passage, butseen as transcending, the passage or becoming is also the meta-finiteor infinite that relates negatively to finite being. This is puresublation / Aufheben, the ‘first concrete thought term’ or the firststage of the logical idea, as abstract being and nothing were not, andthe level not reached by Eleatics and their theory of flux. When thenumerous enigmatic fragments of Heraclitus were reduced to the Eleaticflux, when it is said that he can be said to fall in line of pre-Socratic’s per se, without making a breakthrough or having overthrownprevious systems that made Hegel say that his was the first revolutionin Wissenschaft [loosely tr. – Philosophy] even when so many includingHegel they detect flaws for want of proper composition in Heraclitus,this does not in the least imply that for these unsubstantiated‘flaws’ this shows up correspondingly in his reasoning. The source forreducing Heraclitus’ natural philosophy to flux, or to establish himas a theorist of flux started around his times with the doxographersconsistently ascribing a theory of flux to Heraclitus, though Plato inTheatatus found the theory inconsistent, in Crytalus it becomes anextreme theory as it couldn’t identify the objects in flux, sinceidentification requires a condition of minimum stability of objects. Atheory that cannot truly say anything about any object for Plato isfalse; this was the point subscribed later by Aristotle from Crytalus,‘who in the end thought nothing could be said’ so he just moved his

326 Teilhard de Chardin, Ch II.IV, The deployment of noosphere, § Iv.V, TheNeolithic Metaphorsis : The Prolongations of the Neolithic Age and the riseof the West, p.208

figures..327 Nevertheless, since reason is actively at work in humanaffairs, it is important to ‘understand’ that ‘war is common, andjustice strife; and that everything comes about in accordance withstrife and what must be,’ [37: B 89]. Strife is for Heraclitus thepoint of departure, common to gods and men; strife is the process[flux] in the world, that is outwardizing / explicating by self-dividing / conceptually self-bifurcating [ into an outer, out-welling,upper half opposed to and completed by an inner, in-welling, lowerhalf] breaking into two levels where the first, preceding plane,god/man relation is anthropological and empirical while the other orsecond, succeeding plane as the result of strife shows up in thehuman-social world through master/slave relations having sublated/super-ceded the former man/god [riddled/hybrid] cultural zone, bypositing relations historically, and in human-social forms. There isontological, intra-dual [meta]-continuity between the preceding andsucceeding plane, with the connective tissue is passage that is unrest/ strife / conflict / contradiction. Here logic coincides with ‘thescience of things, conceived in thought’.

Returning to Heraclitus, after all ‘this world is neither any god orman-made, but it always was, and is and will be, an ever living fire’[38: B 30] Hegel calls this process ‘free fire, α ) purged of allmateriature and β) as materialized in determinate being and all thatsubsists in it is raised to ideality, which do not fall back intolimited substance. There couldn’t have been anything better todescribe the emergence of the Concept [Notion]. Even more, ‘it is thuswe have objective time, an imperishable fire, the fire of life.’328Thismakes possible relative time and durations in the course of historicalhumanity; relative, [trans-finite] time [the variable ‘t’ which rangesover times or instances] is derived from ‘objective time’, similar toderiving the finite from infinite, because cosmogony is rejected by‘this world that always was, and is and will be. Strife is evocatedby Heraclitus as an effective psycho-historical force329 which requiresthat its first, mythopoeic momenta [god/men], denoted R be integrated,

327 Barnes J, Op Cit., p. 65, 68-69 gives a fair summary ; he himself favouredinterpret ting as a flux theorist.328 Hegel G W F, Philosophy of Nature, vol II, [tr] M J Petry, 1970, § 336,p. 222

indeed dialectically synthesized with its Philosophic-historical[master/slave] momenta although this is expressed speculatively,involving a dialectic of assimilation, critique, refutation andsupersession. Heraclitus rejects fundamental ‘stuff’ of the world asmaterial substance or fixed entities in the stronger Parmenideanversion in favour of envisaging the world as a manifold of opposedforces joined in their mutual rivalry, interlocked in strife andconflict , or a natural process - ‘all things happen by strife andnecessity’. For Heraclitus, reality at bottom is not a constellationof things but processes, even the [ancient] limit imposed bynecessity, as the necessary outcome, presupposes process.Substantializing nature into purduring things or substances must beavoided because they are not stable things but fundamental forces,varied and fluctuating.330

We are not really talking about the starting points of knowledge,where the Greek record is saturated with many aborted beginnings andresumptions since it was common wisdom that starting points [ archai]were needed and together with the belief that the knowledge of archailed to more or less complete acquision of the way of knowledge in theworld. The two main tendencies discernable would be Aristotelian oneof ‘metaphysical realism’ where it is believed that reality,independent of us had an intrinsic order with an ontological prioritywith a l primary level containing [implicitly] the explanatory powerfor things and the structure, thus the adequate starting point forknowledge of reality. Second, In the Hellenistic period, metaphysicalassumptions were given up because of the skeptical challenge.331 Therewas an important debate about the problem of transition from theevident to non-evident, in Platonic terms, the move from the

329 # One should know that war is common, and justice strife; and thateverything comes about in accordance with strife and what must be’ B 80,Barnes J, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 60 ; Barnes’ interpretation canbe criticized for using symbolic and propositional logic to clarify meaningsfrom `empirical objections’ raised against the fragments, leading toconfusion. Nevertheless, Barnes places Heraclitus `among the greatphilosopher-scientists’, p. 78 330 Rescher N, Philosophical Dialectics, p 9-10, N Y, 2006331 Miira Tuomien,, Apprehension and Argument. Theories of Starting Point.Studies in History of Philosophy of Mind, Springer, 2007, p., 220-222

hypothesized to the least hypothesized may lead to false results, butit did not matter, the archai may be true or false, the principle had tofollow the movement of thought, appeal to reason rather than feelingsand sentiments for acceptablity. A number of psychological theoriesemerged tat that time vide Aristotle and Plato, in terms of implyingthat premises of scientific enquiry should take psychology, orinwardness, in which the universal content has the soul.332 In theoriesof perception and intellection, much was drawn from Aristotle’saccounts in Posterior Analytics. It was believed that while nous wasmostly correct the same couldn’t be said about logos, which was arational capacity that animals too were said to acquire.333 However toclear up a misunderstanding, it should be noted that the notion ofsynthesizing the mythopoesic moment, vertically with the historico-philosophical one is no more or less than finding the very dimensionof verticality as high/low, upper/under in natural / naïveconsciousness that sustained the myths. This is not the same asformalizing the pre-critical, pre-scientific level, in the idiom oflayers or a matter of interpreting anything akin to poeticconceptualizations. Simply put, synthesis is not a matter of addingsome dimension such as time which was missing/ lacking or in the leastun-hypothesized in mythopoesie. Synthesis, in a manner of sublating isonly possible when the ‘high’ and ‘low’ gravitate around one anotheras variations of the higher and lower levels in the side/other-siderelation. This is to place the high and low in a vortex, where itjoins the side/ other-side distinction, where the distinctions areintegrated into a universal dimensionality.334Whereas nature isconsidered as a species of activity that is exercised without beingcompared to consciousness or mental processes, this activity is notnon-relational. Self-activity is equally a passivity in terms of therelationship between the seer and the visible, when we no longer knowwhich sees and which is seen. It is this visibility, sensible toitself as in pure self-relation, where nature ‘communes with itself’

332 Cf, Tuominen Miira, Apprehension and Argument : Ancient theories ofstarting points of knowledge. Study of history of Philosophy of Mind.3.Dordretch, Springer, 2007, pp 155-216333 Ibid, p. 270-287334 Merleau-Ponty M, The Visible and the Invisible, p. 265

[Whitehead] that makes possible the anonymity innate to the self,which issues the process in the sense of sublation / Aufheben.335 Thehistorical process of ideation in this sense is designated Spirit[invisible flesh] by Hegel, as consciousness’ self-activity, theactivity of self-diremption and self-transcendence providing the linkor the ‘tissue’ that connects the natural and transcendentalattitudes. The tissue is missing in the phenomenological approach ofHusserl’s constituting / constituted relationship because it attemptsto clarify the vertical in terms of a horizontal being in aprojective, intentional register or, what amounts to the same thing,to clarify the pre-formal in terms of the formal concept. Thesynthetic exercise draws out the meta-continuity indicated bytransition. The Latin word for concept has a ‘halo’ where‘philosophical thinking’ is discernable. It refers to an entity thatis con-cave, i.e., being concave serves its function as a basin,meaning possible depth of the entity, or used as verb, con-ceptio means‘to be pregnant , also to ‘receive something’ into one’s spirit, one’sthought, one’s senses. Similarly, the German, philosophical term usedby Hegel, Begriff only completes its meaning by being resolved intosenses after being ‘grasped’, as it was waiting to be.

As a term, ‘mythopoeia’ first occurs in Polybius and Strabo, thoughmythography was a flourishing business at their time, throughout theHellenistic period. It was no longer lived, as earlier by the publicthat was aware of its existence by participating in performances, thepublic theatre where tragedies took place, and even more,participating in some of the celebrations associated with mysteries.From the Hellenistic period, mythopoeia became separate, no longer asworthy of being known by all even when not generally known, intosomething to be learnt. This is the time when it is transformed intoliterature demanding a cultural effort.336Myths give way to mythography,its autopoetic moment disappears; it becomes a matter for the learned,beyond the reach of ordinary people. Treatises on ‘imitation’ gainsudden prominence, e.g. Dionysus of Halikarnass’ ideas on mimesis,i.e., the process of self-conscious appropriation and re-configuration

335 Merleau-Ponty M, Nature : Course Notes from College de France, [tr]Villier Robert, Evanston, 2003336 Veyne P, Op Cit, p. 197

on new and vital forms of language.337 Mythology became a discipline, amatter of books, put into manuals, codified, a process which willsimplify and cast the ‘great cycles’ as official versions and strandthe variations in oblivion. A plethora of mythographic works can betraced from individual compartments of mythology [Argonautica, Troika,Thebana, Nostoi, etc] to legendary histories of states and tribes, tobooks on metamorphoses to catalogues of mortals loved by Zeus or thenames of Aktion’s hounds.338 When, where, whether and in what sense theGreeks ‘invented’ mythography is unclear but Herodotus’ distinctionbetween divine and human generations, coupled with references to whatwe can and cannot know, may be used as an epistemological criteria toseparate if not dismiss legendary explanations of Persian wars, orpoetic unverifiable explanation of the source of Nile, tellinglycalled a mythos. At the same time, Herodotus, though writing abouthistorical events was not above dipping into the mythical past ifoccasion suited, no more than his austere colleague, Thukydides.339Butthese occur rarely and not in the unconditional sense as irrational,the evidence from Herodotus’ Histories says that the was Godsinfluence human affairs it is within the frame of the reliable logoi,different opinions stated by speakers is within logai and the way theyare interpreted by the narrator.340 Here, much sharper and unambiguousdistinction were drawn by Heraclitus’ polemic against polymaths andhistories, e.g, ‘Polymathy does not teach understanding; for it wouldhave taught Hesiod and Pythagoras, and also Xenophanes and

337 Hidber T, Das Klassizistiche Manifest der Dionysus von Helikarnass,Liepzig, 1996338 Thessaly Papyrus, collections surviving in the library of Apollodorus,including works such as the `genealogies of Hekataios and Akousiloas, the`Histories’ of Pherekydes and many of Hellanikos’ books anticipate the latergenre of mythography, but whether Hekataios made any qualitativedistinctions between his activities in the `Genealogies’ and `Periods’ isdoubtful. 339 Herodotus, Histories, Bk 1, p1-15; Herodotus’ histories of differentpeople/ `races’ forming the Greeks, as inferred from languages’ should betaken as historical explanations, which have already been raised tohypothesis by modern historiography, p. 61-62340 Cf Harrison T,, Divinity and History : The Religion of Herodotus, OUP,2000

Hecataeus’.341 This is the limit of mythography, cosmogony andpolymathy, because ‘it does not teach understanding’. Hence, the needfor the moment of sublation/ aufheben, the historical force needed inorder to re-orient mythopoeia towards retreat and synthesize it withthe advances of Philosophic-historical momenta. Each advance in thelatter moment may be understood as the retreat of the former moment. 342

Hesiod, for instance is regarded as the teacher of ‘most men’, whoseauthority was such that ‘most men were ‘convinced that he knew mostthings’ but Heraclitus turns polemical beyond this point or undertakea self-conscious critique of Hesiod since he did not know that ‘dayand night are one’. The development of the Philosophical position hasto both acknowledge and supersede the mythopoeical momenta but notfrom some ubiquitous view in doxography, the Ur-doxa patronized byAristotle343but by the speculative moment of philosophy and science. Themythopoetic inventor par excellence, Homer is criticized for missingout on that which is immediately real, not unlike ‘men who aredeceived with regard to knowledge of what is evident. Homer who isregarded as ‘the wisest of all the Greeks’ but ‘was deceived by someboys who were killing lice and said : ‘What we saw and caught, we areleaving behind, what we neither saw nor caught, we are taking with us.[ 61 : B 56]. This critique is decisive for its speculative insightthat being IS and also that non-being equally IS; it also contains themoment of sublation / aufheben; because the mythical world of Homerbeing too far away from the tangible, self-evident reality- that wasneither seen nor caught - could have no other existence other thantaken through imagination and mimesis not recollection. The ‘reason’

341 Granger H, Heraclitus’ quarrel with polymathy and historie, Transactionsof American Philological Association, 134 [2004] 235-261342 The aufheben moment is totally absent from the rather formulaic argumentthat claims that early Greek thinking of `Heraclitus and Eleatics grew outof, or just made a conceptual leap out of the mythopoetic thought of AncientEgypt and Hebrew Monotheism, from a presumption about `poetic imagination ofconceptual revolution’, In the case of Heraclitus we know that these wereprecisely the sources that were explicitly rejected by Heraclitus; It may befruitful to find, if any, such `creative’ urges from the Cybeline verses`frothing out’ of the mouth of a disheveled woman for a thousand years, whichfor Heraclitus deserved sole praise. Cf. Henri Frankfort, The IntellectualAdventures of Ancient Men, an argument shared by L Goldner343 Barnes J, The pre-Socratic Philosophers, p. 62-63

for this shift of mythopoesie to a [sub] ordinate position could ‘notto be found in Sophistic Aufklarung but in the success of the historicalgenre, which were products of research and enquiries.’344 At the sametime, myths also passed for history by taking on a deceptiveappearance of rationalization, or as mystification, not without itscritiques such as Diadorus who found the ‘difficulty’ in narrating thehistory of mythical time, ‘if only because of the imprecision of thechronology, which makes it inexact and impossible to be takenseriously.345 Mythopoeia is comparable to evolving structures inmetabolic process named ‘autopoetic’, or phenomena of spontaneous de-structuration, or ‘products of transformation of different autopoeticsystems belonging to the same level that join to form new autopoeticsystems, whose self-organization dynamics continue at a higherlevel.’346 For the universe is not a finished story, like Heraclitus’‘fire’. The human ‘mode of process’ is just as much as animal cells,but there is present the moment of relative determinacy ordeterminateness in nature. These are the concrescence’s that by passdegradation of each other in nature that provides the view toarticulate a non-materialist view of nature in which human beingsbelong.

This chapter proposes the need of overhauling for grasping thequalitative dimension by re-defining social forms of labour in therealm of comprehension in Mediterranean antiquities, while restrainingfrom exaggerated essentialist interpretations, which have been thehallmark of much of the study of slavery in the ancient world. Theancient mentalite regarded the quantifier, whose arche <originary> has344 Veyne P, Op Cit., p. 198345 Ibid., 198-199346 Jantsch E, The Self organizing Universe, N Y, 1980, pp 217-219

been located in ancient Mesopotamian conception of arithmetic, fromIconic tokenology to Cuniform literacy by Denise Schmandt-Bessertapproximating the origin of written language in ancient Mediterranean,as a generic unit, a symbol of both ‘pure’ un-quantified, yetarithmetical i.e., quantifiable qualifier [Q based] co-abstractedtogether with the multitude of abstract, generic un-quantifiedqualifiers, or a symbolization of both an abstract generic quantifierand also an abstract generic qualifier. Like their Mesopotamianpredecessors, Hellenistic humanity quite differently from post-Renaissance modern humanity was conscious of it proximity to thelinguistic approach towards the foundations of mathematics. Theevolution of language occurred as a natural process in the subsequentphase with phonetic writing converting Cuniform and Hieroglyphicscripts into sub-scripts.347 Along with generic quantifiers like 2 and4, their abstraction took up with it a generic qualifier. Donatingthat qualifier in an abbreviated fashion, their abstraction in ourterms looked like 2Ṁm + 2Ṁm = 4Ṁm, or as in antique numerals, proto-ideographic bar-capped Greek letters denoted numerals, theirjuxtaposition denoted addition, not multiplication as is done todayand Lo abbreviated Roman ‘equalis’. Jacob Klein has characterized apsychological transition in a mode of thought from that represent-ableas 2Ṁm + 2Ṁm =/Lo 4Ṁm to that represent-able as 2+2=4, as the emergence ofsymbolic thinking, or a new way of understanding, which wasinaccessible to ancient episteme.348 The math corresponding to thismentalite is therefore, quanto-qualitative, whose generic unit ,347 On this Socrates to Phaedrus, Plato, Phaedrus, 275-277, where natural stateof language, capable of discernment and defending itself, or the soul awakening to consciousness and consciousness setting itself up as reason or phonetic writing as a faithful transcription of the voice is shown as preferred by philosophy, London, 1975; also, though controversial, Iversen E, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition [1961] (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), p. 146. Hegel, for example, during the 1820s was unable tolearn enough about Champollion's work, enabling him to decipher `hieroglyphs to alter his views on phonetic writing’s suitability for the Philosophy ; hieroglyphics were deciphered in 1836 . In fact, Champollion, the man who deciphered them, had died in 1831. The dates generally given for the decipherment are 1821-2, when he made the breakthrough or 1824 when he published his Precis du systeme hieroglyphique see S. Harten, Egypt and the Fabrication of European Identity Los Angeles: UCLA , 1995), pp. 3-4.

<arche> is a quantifiable qualifier, called by Plato, the arithmoimonadikoi, expressed by notations that fully developed around 250 AD inthe Arithmetike of Diophantus[ inclusion of qualifiers].349This transitionmay be seen from ‘monative thinking’ to ‘monative abstraction’ or‘monative elision’ that occurs with increasing dominance of moneymediated exchange, ‘monetized commerce’. This would be akin to athought process that moved from ‘concrete abstraction’ to the‘concrete elision of generic qualifiers in both physical and mentalactivity of mediating exchange-value exchange. Modern mentalite,steeped pervasively in the experiences of exchange-value basedexchanges than were those of ancient Mediterranean humanity, is morecomfortable with the ‘hyper-abstractness’ of abstracting pureunqualified quantifiers [by using a set of ten symbols] therebyeliding quality, even though modern arithmetic has expanded <sublated> ideo-ontologically like ancient arithmetic by placing 0 and1 as numbers, each number having both a place value and absolutevalue. The `modern’ impasse with regard to the prehistory of numbersystems, seen as ‘early development’ to which it relates‘speculatively’, ‘pieced together from archeological fragments andarchitectural remains’ for grounding it in notions of ‘multiplicityand space’350is owing to a blind-spot or barrier [of nonlinearity] thatelides quality by looking for abstract quantity, beginning with‘count’ and insight into spatial relationships with regard to areas offield and pastures. Conventional histories attempt to grasp Greek mathwith the aid of modern symbolism as though Greek math was analtogether different form, if not very primitive, have hardly enrichedunderstanding of ancient number systems. The results have shown that

348 Klein J, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, N Y, 1992,P. 175349 Kline J, Greek mathematical thought and the origin of Algebra, N Y, 1992,p. 89-91; Peters F E, Greek Philosophical Terms, N Y, 1990 ; Diophantus ofAlexandria [? 200-284 AD], Diophantus Mathemetika can be found in theMansfield Collection [1650-1750], janus@lib.com.ac.uk 350 Dunham W, Journey through Genius : the great Theorems of Mathematics, inCrowe M J, Theories of the World from Antiquity to Copernican revolution, p.1 second ed.,

modern symbolism is not something that can be tailored to ‘fit’ anycontent.351

MESOPOTAMIAN BREAKTHROUGH -I

Like their Mesopotamian predecessors, Hellenistic humanity quitedifferently from post-Renaissance modern humanity was conscious of itproximity to the linguistic approach towards the foundations ofmathematics. The evolution of language occurred as a natural processin the subsequent phase with phonetic writing converting Cuniform andHieroglyphic scripts into sub-scripts.352 Along with genericquantifiers like 2 and 4, their abstraction took up with it a genericqualifier. Donating that qualifier in an abbreviated fashion, theirabstraction in our terms looked like 2Ṁm + 2Ṁm = 4Ṁm, or as in antiquenumerals, proto-ideographic bar-capped Greek letters denoted numerals,their juxtaposition denoted addition, not multiplication as is donetoday and Lo abbreviated Roman ‘equalis’. Jacob Klein has characterizeda psychological transition in a mode of thought from that represent-able as 2Ṁm + 2Ṁm =/Lo 4Ṁm to that represent-able as 2+2=4, as the

351 Klien J, Greek Math Thought and origin of algebra, p 4-5 ; Lloyd G E R ,Early Greek Science : Thales to Aristotle, N Y, 1070 ; Number Theory and itsHistory, Oystein 1, 4, 1988

352 On this Socrates to Phaedrus, Plato, Phaedrus, 275-277, where natural stateof language, capable of discernment and defending itself, or the soul awakening to consciousness and consciousness setting itself up as reason or phonetic writing as a faithful transcription of the voice is shown as preferred by philosophy, London, 1975; also, though controversial, Iversen E, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition [1961] (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1993), p. 146. Hegel, for example, during the 1820s was unable tolearn enough about Champollion's work, enabling him to decipher `hieroglyphs to alter his views on phonetic writing’s suitability for the Philosophy ; hieroglyphics were deciphered in 1836 . In fact, Champollion, the man who deciphered them, had died in 1831. The dates generally given for the decipherment are 1821-2, when he made the breakthrough or 1824 when he published his Precis du systeme hieroglyphique see S. Harten, Egypt and the Fabrication of European Identity Los Angeles: UCLA , 1995), pp. 3-4.

emergence of symbolic thinking, or a new way of understanding, whichwas inaccessible to ancient episteme.353 The `modern’ impasse withregard to the prehistory of number systems, seen as ‘earlydevelopment’ to which it relates ‘speculatively’, ‘pieced togetherfrom archeological fragments and architectural remains’ for groundingit in notions of ‘multiplicity and space’354is owing to a blind-spot orbarrier [of nonlinearity] that elides quality by looking for abstractquantity, beginning with ‘count’ and insight into spatialrelationships with regard to areas of field and pastures. Conventionalhistories attempt to grasp Greek math with the aid of modern symbolismas though Greek math was an altogether different form, if not veryprimitive, have hardly enriched understanding of ancient numbersystems. The results have shown that modern symbolism is not somethingthat can be tailored to ‘fit’ any content.355

As a matter of fact, we get in the proto-algebraic work, theArithmetica of Diophantus, the ‘quantity only’ abstraction in what wasdenoted the monad or unit of arithmetic, having descended with someconceptual mutation from the Platonic Arithmoi monadikoi, syncopatedas Ṁm. He is already treating it as generic, dimensionless or with zerodegree of dimensionality, reductionist, no longer geometrical, Booleanqualifiers i.e., Ṁm2 = Ṁm is not a square. It is implicit in allmathematical theories that there is some sort of a metaphysicalposition.356 The abstraction that launched arithmetic was a ‘progressiveabstraction’. Perhaps it was the only option for progress at thatlevel of knowledge and social reproductive praxis. Have our needs and

353 Klein J, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, N Y, 1992,P. 175354 Dunham W, Journey through Genius : the great Theorems of Mathematics, inCrowe M J, Theories of the World from Antiquity to Copernican revolution, p.1 second ed., 355 Klien J, Greek Math Thought and origin of algebra, p 4-5 ; Lloyd G E R ,Early Greek Science : Thales to Aristotle, N Y, 1070 ; Number Theory and itsHistory, Oystein 1, 4, 1988356 Wallace D F, Everything and More. A Compact History of Infinity N Y, 2003,P. 8-10

capacities not advanced upon the progress on the basis of anantiquarian abstraction? But we cannot omit the productive force oflanguage in creating ideo-metry together with ideography, which wouldtake us beyond ‘bones and stones and count’. The prehistory of mathcovers the distance from iconic tokens to Cuneiform literacy, botharriving with the confinement of arithmetic, in MesopotamianTokenology that becomes tokenography. As per Dr Schmandt-Bessert’stheory, the movement from temple-goods accounting to barter-ablecommodity accounting progressed through a protracted sequence ofqualitatively ideo-ontologically distinct rule-systems. Each rule-system on this progression embodied a revolutionary expansion ofsymbols ontology and a corresponding ideo-ontology relative to thepredecessor system. The sequence of systems began with arepresentation of goods via a 3-D tokenology. This system of token +iconology was one of stylized clay sculpted micro-effigies of thegoods then extant, where the ‘goods-category’ displayed a ‘nominally’graspable, tangible symbols of qualitatively different units or monadsfor each category of goods.. The record of a typical transaction wasan assemblage of assemblages of different kinds of tokens in opaque,fired clay envelops. The problem with this system appeared and grew asthe spatio-graphical density of transactions increased; the record ofa single transaction could only be audited after breaking the envelopemade of opaque clay in order to reveal the token contents, a practicethat entailed the production again of fired-clay envelope after eachsuch audit. The way out from this unnecessary and extra work was ainnovation that showed the emergence of spheroid hollow of fired claygetting superseded by clay-tilted or solid fired clay slabs ortablets, 2-D is shape. On their face there appeared improvised orstylized incised token images. Thereby there arose a transition from3-D iconic to 2-D inscribed symbolization, also co-terminus with thebeginning of writing. One can say that the Mesopotamian branch ofhumanity achieved a dialectical socio-ontological and a historicalmeta- system transition. The earlier token-iconology became a compoundone of token iconology + token iconography. This iconographic practicefurther evolved into ‘picto-ideo-grammatik writing’ and later stillinto that plus phonogramic writing. The earliest system presented aprimitive, undifferentiated unity of the quantifier, the ‘metrical

quantifier’ and the ontological qualifier, e.g., a palpable 3-D microiconic token would be a pebble denoting one unit and ‘one sila’.357

Finally, the incised ideo-grammatik would only remain vestigiallypicto-grammatic as full-fledged, pure quantifiers emerged from theformally impressed symbols for the hybrid ontological metricalqualifiers as the grain, called shekel, the most important use-valueas well as proto-money. The full fledged symbol of shekel was a silvercoin, [Nⁿ] {1 shekel=2 divisions (zÚzu) or ½shekels º 1division=1 GreekDrachma ‘₯’} {1shekel=8 slices (bitqu)}… 358 *; the abstract quantitythat we get in Plato’s ‘arithmoi monadikoi’359 , or the Q-based ‘numberconcept’, which is abstract quantity, fetishized and reified forobfuscating the ‘zero barrier’ posed by pseudo-subjectivity ofabstract understanding; and also its gradual overcomingideographically, from existing as Plato’s paradoxical ‘Idea-numbers’or ‘arithmoi eidetikoi’ to a paradigm of algebra, hyper-number, analysisformed by the method of reflex[ions] and based on ideo-grammaticalprinciples of a comprehensively overt ideography. This is a sublationto non-linear numbers as the ‘evolute product’, the re-emergence ofevolved qualifiers, the qualitative total product, -Q as the non-standard natural number. We would come to describe the process in thissection, where ‘time-parameter’ is the only dependent variable, or‘chronopoesis – production of time by self-action, self-change, self-duality, self-bifurcation. Nevertheless, it is important to emphasizethat we are talking about historical epochs when consciousnessmattered far more than it does now or a form of self-expanding and‘evoluting’ consciousness was seen to have the capacity to bring aboutmajor changes to the extent to which it could appear as a real force.

Subdivisions of the Shekel :{ 1 Shekel = 8 slices [ bitqu ] ; 1Shekel = 12 grains [ mahat ]; 1 Shekel = 24 carat [ giru] ; 1 Shekel= 40 chickpeas [ hulluru ]; 1Shekel = 189 barleycorn [ SC U ttetu ] }

357 Schmandt-Bessert,, Before Writing. From counting to Cuneiform, vol 1, Univof Texas, Austin, 1992, p. 184-192 358 www.livius.org/w/weights/weightshtml 359 Klein J, Greek Mathematical Thought : Origin of Algebra; `arithmos monadikos’as both purely abstract idea and multiple/many-ness , reproducibility,finding its exemplary fulfillment in reckoning [account-giving] and counting,p. 90-91

Q based number concept was the basis on which a real economic worldwith money as a relation in legal agreement, credit / debitarrangement, viz., acknowledgement of the amount owned and promise torepay developed for the first time. Money emerged as the ‘mostabstract species’ in course of general process of evolution of credit.The point is that money did not begin with gold coins, like a‘commodity’ or ‘thing’; rather it began as an accounting system andthen evolved into precious metal coins. Money as a ‘unit of account’ [a tally of sums paid and owned] predated money as a ‘store of value’ [a ‘commodity’ or ‘thing’] by two millennia with the Sumerian,Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations using the accounting-entry/debit-credit, payment systems, which lasted not just hundreds of years[ as with some civilizations using gold] but for thousands of years.The oldest known coin was a Sumerian shekel dating back to 3200 BC.Inscribed in it was likeliness of goddess Inanna-Ishtar. Inanna iswearing horns of cow, a sacred animal, where the horn is regarded as‘cornucopia’, out of it flowed the earth’s plenty. The association ofcow is rather significant as they were the earlier medium of exchange.The Sumerian word for interest was the same as the word for calf. Asthe unit of exchange multiplied during the loan period it was naturalto repay the loan with a calf, The same was true for grain, for whichtemples served as storehouses, in gratitude to gods/goddesses formultiplying the community’s abundance. In the payment system ofancient Sumer, goods were given value in terms of weight and measuredin these units against each other. The unit of weight was ‘shekel’,something that was not originally a coin but a standardized measure andthen a silver coin. ‘She’ was the word used for barley, suggesting thatthe original unit of measure was grain. This was valued by commoditiesagainst weight {1 Shekel=8.333 grams, 1Mina= 60 Shekels=500 grams.1Talent=60mina=3600shekels} or {º 1Division=4.17grams=ca. 1GreekDrachma ₯}360 So many shekels of wheat equaled so many cows equaled somany shekels of silver. Thus it is hardly surprising, despite the‘great excitement’ among the scholars of the Hellenistic period, thefind giving a fairly detailed recording of price of food and wool overa period exceeding four centuries in the so-called astronomical

360 www.livius.org/w/weights

diaries of Babylon.361 The period covered is from 464 B C E – 61 B C Eand the diaries register the purchasing power of the shekel @ 8.33gms. of silver for the corresponding period in relation to Barley,dates, mustard, cress, cardamom, sesame and wool. Dr Slotsky, whopublished the diaries says that the prices are reliable and eventhough it is open to question whether to work with one model for 400years, a model with two points of inflection producing a cubicequation, rather than breaking the duration into segments after takinginto account important historical events, nevertheless it makespossible to detect trends of high/low prices. It shows that marketmechanisms played their part in Babylonian economy, though this doesnot entail that the market had the same significance in ancientBabylon then as in modern times. Rationing of food stuff under templesand palaces, or the ration system determined the economic processes toa much larger extent.362 Prices actually refer to the quantity of goodspurchased for one shekel. The Akkadian word Mahiree is translated asequivalent, though ‘exchange-value’ is not only close to the meaningof the Akkadian word, it also prevents confusion of concepts. Vergasdoes not convert ‘exchange-value into real prices, which leads him tocommit some likely errors. The earliest cities, it has been argued inMesopotamia, were catalyzed by their commercial and industrial role,as handicraft industries were organized under the aegis of largepublic institutions like temples. Centred on the city-temples, thesepublic sites served as bridges for diverse groups to transact commerceat arms-length under agreed upon rules. These cities were influencedby the regions ecological imperative. Assur, astride Tigrisintersected central Mesopotamia’s major east/west trade routes; CatalHayuk had its own region-wide trading network. These Bronze Age ‘tradeentreports’ and temples were not governing centres with policies forlocal landed communities, Even less did they bore a militarycharacter. They didn’t have taxing authority beyond their localenclave limits. Mesopotamian cities were freed from imperial tributesin middle and later Bronze Age. Nippur was, for instance, tax-free,361 R J Van Der Spek and Mandemakers C A, Sense and non-sense in thestatistical approach of Babylon prices, Bibliothetica Orientalis, 60, Leiden,2003362 Vergas P, A History of Babylonian Prices in the first millennium B Ccited in Ibid

enjoying the status of a free city that is characteristic of moderncommercial heavens.363 Mesopotamian temples and palaces were economicproducers in an epoch when production had not yet passed into privatehands. The evolving structures of near-eastern cities reflected shiftsin the character of public sector from sacred rituals to growingcommercial and handicrafts via temples to broader military concerns asthe palace became gradually important after 2800 B C E. The processof secularization was followed by the privatization of real estate,starting with households for merchants and collectors who interfacedbetween private communal sector and large-scale public institutionsThese houses stood on the city area that had originally been publicspace. By the time of classical Greece, cities were much furtherprivatized by individual households. This is a major shift whichHudson sees as the product of the breakdown following the devastationthat swept eastern Mediterranean after 1200 B C E.

The shekel began as the symbol that grew out of MesopotamianTokenology, a token as ‘unit’ or Arithmos Monadikos, the pure abstractnumber that could equally co-abstract its relation in weight, i.e.,both itself and its relation. It functioned as an operator in aconversion systems. The Babylonian standard was later adopted byDarius for issuing gold coins. Grain was stored in granaries whichserved as a form of bank under public control. We already get aglimpse of economic democracy at work. Temples were an autonomouspublic institution with welfare functions, supporting themselvesthrough rents from workshops and by charging interest.364 Since grainwas perishable silver became the standard tally by close of the fourthmillennium representing sums owed and the right to make good on itlater. In time silver tallies would be re placed by wooden tallies,which would in course of time become paper tallies and to date, papertallies have been converted to electronic tallies.365 However, the major

363, Hudson M, From Sacred Enclave to Temple-city, ch 3, Urbanization and LandOwnership, Lavine B, et al, [eds], Cambridge, Harvard Univ., 1999, argues thatthese cities grew out of ritual and sanctified functions. Though Jerico was awalled city by 9000 B C E, these walls may well have been flood wall; in the6th millennium Catayal Hayuk maintained cosmopolitan neutrality. 364 Ellen Brown, www.webofdebt.com/articles/debt-serfdom.php/ 365 Mostafa Moini, Towards a General Theory of Credit and Money, Review ofAustrian Economics, vol 14, no. 4, p. 263-317, 2001

change in terms of form and operation occurred after the Indo-Europeaninvasions and take-overs in the second millennium with Innanasuperseded by the male god, Enlil of Nippur and matriarchal communalabundance replaced by a militant patriarchal system; the cornucopiareplaced by the bull horn of the thunder god. As the public positionand banking function of temples receded, money-lending became aprivate enterprise, the time of infamous money-changers. Unlike thecow or corn the gold of moneylenders did not grow. Farmers andindividual indebtedness /borrowings increased and the odd man out inthe game of musical chairs wound up in debtor’s prison. Historically,slavery in many instances originated in debt. By the time of theGreco-Roman world, considering late Roman Republic, money isobjectified, but even more, un-coined gold and silver – bullion-valued in terms of weight [pounds], though used as a unit of accountlinked to long distance commerce and public finances [aurum coronarium],they were rarely used to serve that function, by both individuals andthe state; bullion functioned more as a ‘store of wealth’, restrictedto operations of high finance.366 This was the time for ‘wealthyindividuals’ and private wealth growing at the cost of public finance.Sometimes Syngraphae, some kind of a financial contract comparable topromissory notes with limited use of third parties would be issuedserving as a ‘store of wealth’ between two parties. Like modernshares, partes functioned as a store of wealth, rarely as means ofpayment. More common were nomina, which were equally used as a ‘storeof wealth’ as well as means of payment by the loan-holder in hisdealing with third persons. Private credit would develop along theselines. But the ideo-grammatic limit of Q based number system came inthe way of accounting, as a system based on additive principle, 3would be III, 8 would be expressed VIII and the number 9999 wouldrequire 36 symbols. Thus, people were not used to think of numbers interms of abstractions, unlike the modern mentalite number 2 was notthought in terms of an abstract property, but thought as in pairs orthe number abstraction was dependent on qualities. Currencies were notbased on decimal system. The set of 10, the N based system {0,1,2,3,4.., with each symbol having a place-value and absolute-value

366 Hollander D B, Money in the late Roman Republic – Columbia Studies in theClassical Traditions, Leiden, 2007

abstraction} would be the successor system which would have resolvedthe problem of expressing every possible number.

REGRESSION

The formation of the Greek political sphere presupposed a longue dureeof humanization of the region, going back well into the Neolithicbreakthrough, evidenced in the eastern Mediterranean and Aegeanislands. The surrounding areas – Italian coast, Greece lying in thewest. Scythians in the north, Egyptian and Carthaginians to the south,Mesopotamia and Persia in the east – all of these regions are markedby zenith breakthroughs in the cultural history of humanity. Recentarcheological findings confirm the existence of a large ‘culturalinteraction sphere’ in eastern Aegean islands, Cyclades and theBalkans A number of assemblages’ of human artifacts’ are found inthese places, dated first half of the 5th millennium BCE correspondingto middle stages of late Neolithic in western Anatolia and lateNeolithic in Greece. Lacunae in uniform chronology have led toproblems of chronological terminology. Previously, knowledge aboutlate Neolithic was derived from some islands – Tiganion, Samos,Emporio in Chios, etc., though a number of islands in close proximity– Lesbos, Limnos, etc- have yielded nothing. Recently conductedgeomorphologic excavations in the plains of Troy has identified a sitefrom late Neolithic and Gulpinar in western Anatolia show the natureof settlements in this part of Aegean for a relatively obscure period.Analysis of remains from this site, pottery, stone artifacts andarchitecture has shown striking parallels of pottery with sites fromCyclades –Saligaos, Miknos, Zas, Noxos , etc- and eastern Aegeanislands –Samos, Chios, etc- , connections with the northern regions ofBulgaria, Macedonia and Balkans. Closely spaced pits have been found[0.5-1 metre in diameter, in depths ranging from 0.3-0.8- 1.0 meters]covered with stones. Pits have fragmentary and complete pots, bonesfrom cattle [sheep, goat], marine shells, chipped stone tools andsaddle querns. Few tiny, flimsy dwellings are located close to the

pits. Pits were used for storage, which indicates that patchy andirregular food resources made the inhabitants dependent on storage.Pits were used as counter-veiling sites or points to tackle scarcity.Similar pits have been found in Aegean Thrace; besides the type ofarchitecture having floors with pits and post holes is common withBalkan settlements. And bowls with steep or slightly convex sides withvarious types of handles and knobs were have been recovered in greatquantity, together with stumps of bowl handles with knobs; the knobbedand twisted uprising high handles are reminiscent of types found ineastern Aegean islands as well as western Anatolia. One major activitymust have been navigation across the sea, and networking the islands,given the pattern of distribution of pottery, at least from 6000 BCEwhen the sea level rose to current levels. Some islands like Poros,Noxos, Melos, etc., were rich in obsidian deposits, which is enoughreason to assume that trade and communication existed between thepeople around the Aegean before the discovery of copper and bronze.

It was in the eastern Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and the Middle Eastthat prominent regions of Neolithic ‘advance’ where human-socialinteraction gets enveloped in as a part of the nascent `world-system’and wars of conquests from 3rd millennium BCE. In a framework of `macromodeling’ of `world-system evolution, by Andrey Korotayev, it appearsthat the world system development pattern in the `pre-500 BCE epoch’was substantially different from the one observed in 500 BCE- 1962 CEera. This implies perhaps the most radical transformation of theworld-system in the first millennium BCE.367 First, in a larger timeframe, there is observed a hyperbolic trend in world population growthafter 10000 BCE produced by the growth of the world system originatingin west Asia in direction with the Neolithic breakthrough. Ahyperbolic trend merely indicates that a major part of the entity inquestion had a systemic unity evidenced by the systemic spread ofmajor innovations [domestic cereals, livestock, the plough, the wheel,copper, bronze and later, iron, etc. throughout the whole of withinthe North Africa and the Eurasian space for a few millennia BCE. Theearliest instances of wars executed under policy imperatives of stateswere initiated from Mesopotamian ‘city-states’. Earlier, from the 4th-

367 Korotayev A, A Compact Macromodel of World System Evolution, JWSA,, p. 88

2nd millennium, the Sumerian states may have been used to fightingamong themselves, but for acquisition of foreign materials, there wasdependence on large scale trading organized reciprocally withAnatolia in the west the Iranian plateau and Indus valley in the east.The Mesopotamian states paid greater attention of the Gods instead ofarmies till the closing period of the 3rd millennia, Cuneiform recordsabout consecration of high priests are to be found but records do notsay anything which showed the king taking interest in providing histroops with weapons. It was only in 24th c. BCE when wars associatedwith power were conducted 368, notable wars of conquest starting withSargon of Akkad. Saragon, who attributed his ascension to aid goddessIshtar, identified with the Sumerian goddess Innini, began his careerwith a ‘rebellion’, before choosing his capital, Agale started hisconquests by defeating a coalition of governors from 50 Sumeriancities and ‘gave the people of Lagash ‘freedom’ from the people ofUmma. Naram Sinh, his son, praises Sargon, ‘who destroyed Ur and gave‘liberty’ to the people of Kish.369 Only the people of Umma held outagainst Saragon till the very end. He rebuilt Kish and assumed thetitle, king of Universal dominion’. Subsequently he invaded Elam inthe north via Tigris river before he turned west towards the westernsea, or ‘the sea of setting sun’, Mediterranean. He is said to havecrossed the ‘western sea’ and occupied Cyprus and later, it is claimedby scribes that he made 4 more expedition westwards but nothing isknown about those expeditions. One thing is clear, in that his‘western’ expeditions followed the trails which led to silverdeposits, such as the mountain of Taurus, where silver was recentlyfound. 21st c. BCE turned out to be a great age of silver mining inAsia Minor, the cedar forests of Lebanon, and from the mines in Bulgarin Asia Minor. It should be noted that by the end of the 3rd

millennium, trading between the Sumerians and Indus valley hadcollapsed with the disintegration of Indus valley culture, and it ishighly probable for Mesopotamian cities to turn westwards in search ofgoods and metals. A seal mentioning the name of the last Akkadianking, ‘Divine’ Naram Sin was found in Cyprus. Silver was used not as

368 Bury J B, [et al], (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol 1, From Egyptand Babylonia to 1580 BCE, , p. 378, Cambridge 1928369 Ibid., p. 403

coinage but as means of payments, by manas and shekels in the tradingnetworks and business. Plenty of Copper reserves were found in Elam,towards the east with its working industry carried out in the areaunder the Umma. 370 In the 19th c. BCE, Asia Minor came under longdistance trade network developed by the Assyrians, after the fall ofAkkadians around 2150 BCE. Numerous Assyrian Cuneiform records foundin Anatolia, at Kanesh suggest advance trading computations andtrading lines. Assyrian trading empire was halted by the Hittiteinvasions in 19th c. BCE, when Kanesh was overrun. The Hittite kingdomwas flourishing, based mainly on abundant copper and silver reservesaround 1650 BCE. A Hittite incursion into Egypt has been discussedelsewhere; but another rivalry was shaping up with Ahhiwaya in westernAnatolia, over an area around Wilusa, known as Troy. It is possiblethat the Ahhiwaya people may have been the Hittite name forMycenaean’s.371 The drive for commercial gains brought Assyrian caravansloaded with goods like woolen textiles into Anatolia, exchanged withsilver that was shipped back invariably to Assur. There, afternecessary payments had been made, covering tax, debts, interest,dividends, etc, the remaining silver was used for commercial purpose,either directly by contributing to or shipping a new caravan, orindirectly by investing in a firm or issuing loans to traders.Assyrian trade was akin to ‘venturing’, i.e., shipments sent abroadwithout the sender guaranteed a price, and advance wasn’t given. Tradewas organized by a large number of kinship groups organized as‘houses’ or as ‘firms’. Mercantile groups functioned as tradeassociations representing merchants.372

370 Ibid., p. 545371 Freeman C, Egypt, Greece and Rome : Civilizations of the AncientMediterranean, Oxford, 1999372 Hudson M, From Sacred Enclave to Temple to City, in Levine B [ed],Urbanization and Landownership in the Ancient Near East, Harvard, 1999