Harald Haarmann

Platos ideal
of the Common Good
Anatomy of a concept
of timeless significance
Plato's ideal of the Common Good
 Harald Haarmann

Plato's ideal of the Common Good

Anatomy of a concept of timeless significance
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Greek mythology systematized.
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Table of Contents

Introduction: The dream of social harmony...............................................9

Plato as idealist.....................................................................................................10
An indispensable premise: Positioning the Common Good in a
contextualized approach to Platos philosophical endeavor...........................12

1. Plato and the homo politicus....................................................................15

Ingredients of Platos political theory: The Common
Good in focus.......................................................................................................15
To agathon (The Common Good): History of
a word revealing an idea with a long tradition................................................24

2. The Common Good: Its multilateral relations

with society and state...................................................................................29
The Common Good and its Old European foundations................................30
The communitarian spirit in the pre-Hellenic
communities of southeastern Europe............................................................ 30
Communal self-governance from the Neolithic
through Greek antiquity.................................................................................. 32
The communitarian spirit in the light of early statehood:
Local communities vis--vis political power in
the Mycenaean city states...................................................................................36

3. The Common Good: Its role as an agent

of social cohesion..........................................................................................45
Pan-Hellenism as a signifier of the Common Good:
Cultural stereotyping and the emergence of Greek ethnicity........................45
The myth of Athenian aboriginality............................................................... 47
The Common Good in the light of cultural stereotyping:
Greeks versus Barbarians................................................................................ 50

5
 Central places and early agencies advancing the Common
Good forHellas: The sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia.............................52
Delphi as the symbolic center of Hellas......................................................... 53
The Council of the Greek tribes at Delphi.................................................... 57
Olympias role in pan-Hellenism as the Common
Good of all Greeks............................................................................................ 59
The Council of elder women at Olympia...................................................... 66
The Common Good as political practice: The Athenian
model of democratic governance......................................................................66
The Common Good as reflected in the pragmatic-political
framework set up by Cleisthenes in his reforms.......................................... 68
The manifestation of the Common Good as self-administration
and self-determination in the village communities (demes)...................... 72
Athenian democracy: Who shared in the advantages
of the Common Good?.................................................................................... 76

4. Platos idealization of the Common

Good as valuable knowledge....................................................................81
Mythical trails of knowledge-retrieval from the past.....................................82
Knowledge-construction in pre-Socratic philosophy and
its transmission to Platos world of ideas....................................................... 83
Retrieving ancient knowledge from mystery cults...................................... 88
Anchoring the Common Good: Agents of divine law in the service
of communitarianism.........................................................................................93
The pursuit of happiness and the measure of goodness in its relation
with virtue and beauty..................................................................................... 100
The Common Good as an overarching maxim in a
system ofculturalvalues.................................................................................. 105

5. Platos demands for the materialization

of the Common Good.............................................................................. 109
Platos metaphor of the charioteer steering toward
goodness and virtue......................................................................................... 110

6
 Sacrifice for the Common Good: Protecting the
community from outside threats.................................................................... 111
Education for safeguarding the Common Good:
The selection of instructive myths to teach the
young generation.............................................................................................. 114
The Common Good for all: Blindfolded justice as a key to
gender equality.................................................................................................. 118
The herone in mythical genealogies............................................................ 119
The dream of perfect orderliness.................................................................. 123
Partnership of the sexes in the light of blindfolded justice....................... 125

Epilogue: The Common Good Contested perspectives

of community life............................................................................................... 129

Bibliography......................................................................................................... 133

Figures..................................................................................................................... 155

Appendices............................................................................................................ 157
Appendix I: The myth of the Sun (Republic 507ff.)..................................... 157
Appendix II: Platos dream (1756).................................................................. 160

Indices..................................................................................................................... 163

7
Introduction: The dream of social harmony

We should never underestimate what a word can tell us,

for language represents the previous accomplishment of
thought
(Hans Georg Gadamer)

In his seminal study Principia ethica which was published in 1903, the British
philosopher George Edward Moore makes a case for the indefinability of the
concept good(ness):
It may be true that all things which are good are also something else, () And it is a fact,
that Ethics aims at discovering what are those other properties belonging to all things
which are good. But too many philosophers have thought that when they named those
other properties they were actually defining good; () (Moore 1903, 10).

If Moore had been more of a cultural scientist he would have been aware of the
fact that any item in whatever culture can be defined in relation to other items of
the same cultural system. Defining an item in relation to some other item does
not denote sameness or similarity. Rather, the procedure of relating one item to
others in the system sets up a conceptual frame to the item in question, and the
contents of what is delimited by the frame can be identified and specified. In
other words, one can define the concept good by a process of conceptual con-
textualization. Contextualization highlights the focal points of concepts within
an associational grid but this procedure does not make those concepts the same
when set in relation to one another.
If Moore had been more of a linguist he would have been attentive to the fact
that the meaning of any expression in whatever language defines itself by means
of a grid of lexical items that belong to a particular domain (i.e., language use
regarding social and cultural self-identification, the vocabulary of social interac-
tion, the terminology of civic actions within a given society). The idea of good
belongs to the realm of values which associates relevant expressions denoting
qualities, their connotative underpinnings and their individual and/or collective
(= society-oriented) evaluations. When the grid of relevant terms (including the
word for expressing good) is established for a given language then the single
expression for good can be contextualized, within the particular grid, for the
speakers of that language and their habits of using the term.

9
 According to Moore it might be futile to try to define Platos concept of the
Common Good. And yet we should not feel discouraged by Moores assessment.
There are ways of clarifying the relationships in the conceptual network of Pla-
tos political theory in which the idea of the Common Good plays a key role.
Such clarification is not only called for to facilitate an understanding of Platos
philosophy. The concept Common Good itself is worth a thorough discussion.
This key concept has been commonly treated as a self-understood value of soci-
etal organization.
The political climate has changed, though. In our time, the conditions for the
Common Good have become more and more restricted in many states so that we
are challenged to reflect upon the contents and purpose of the Common Good
anew. The clarification of Platos position in his own society, of the inspiration
he took from previous periods and reworked in his political scheme and of his
idealistic view of the Common Good offers itself as a starting-point for a mod-
ern debate on relevant issues such as active citizenship and the pursuit of social
harmony in society.

Plato as idealist
There were times when Platos ideas were widely criticized; the twentieth century
in particular was pervasively anti-Platonic (Reinhard 2012: viii). Many kinds of
anti-Platonism have emerged. There were the representatives of vitalist anti-Pla-
tonism (i.e. Nietzsche, Bergson, Deleuze), of analytic anti-Platonism (i.e. Russell,
Wittgenstein, Carnap), of Marxist anti-Platonism who portray Plato as ideo-
logue of slave owners, of existentialist anti-Platonism (i.e. Kierkegaard, Sartre),
of Heideggerian anti-Platonism, of political-philosophical anti-Platonism (i.e.
Popper, Arendt).
On the other hand, it is generally agreed that Plato has inspired generations
of philosophers, creating the first imaginary utopia, fundamental theories of
forms and of immortality, an influential cosmogony, a far-ranging critique of
knowledge, and a famous analysis of love (Davies 1996: 111). Nobody denies
that Platos teachings have involved significant philosophical progress (Chal-
mer 2015: 354). Plato has been praised as the most significant Western philoso-
pher (Prosser 2009). In addition to the appreciation of Plato as a philosopher, it
has been emphasized that he was also perhaps the greatest exponent of Greek
prose writing, or a dramatist of the first order (Rowe 2009a: 13).
Platos political theory has been subject to all kinds of criticism, often be-
cause his text was misread and misinterpreted. What we observe is a kind of
paradoxical situation. Despite the surge of anti-Platonism, some explicitly

10
positive approaches have been entertained. As a counterbalance, a movement
arose that has been described as mystical Platonism (Reinhard 2012: ix), rep-
resented by Guy Lardreau, Christian Jambet and Alain Badiou. Yet, much of
Platos wealth of ideas on the relationship between the individual, society and
state organization has remained beyond the reach of mainstream philosophy.
The dialogue Laws is the longest of Platos works and makes up about one fifth
of the philosophers total production, and it is what Plato clearly intends to
be his principal intellectual legacy (Mount 2010: 187 f.). And yet, until re-
cently, the dialogue Laws has remained long understudied () and is now
considered to be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic
(Bobonich 2010b).
Platos theory of Forms is infused with the idea of good, as a principle of being,
which itself provides the foundation for the positioning of the Common Good
in his political theory. Arguably, the discussion of the idea of good has not pro-
duced any consensus as to its overall significance as part of Platos endeavor. A
measure of the difficulty can be taken by perusing the literature on Platos meta-
physics in the English-speaking world, where strategies range from completely
ignoring the problem to incoherent and absurd characterizations of the Idea of
the Good (Gerson 2015: 226).
The implications of Platos scheme of an ideal state are impressive, especially
when viewing them against the background of a panorama of expanded cultural
history, spanning a time-frame from the era of the Danube civilization by way
of the ancient Aegean cultures into Greek antiquity. Plato was not the first phi-
losopher to address the theme of the Common Good although he was the first to
construct a political theory around it. This theme has remained a central agenda
for philosophers throughout the ages (Santas 2001).
In this study, I present a survey, documenting various historical instances in
the development of the concept Common Good, from the Neolithic through
classical antiquity. There may be those who think that this survey is not over-
all conclusive since several of the links cannot be proven, in a satisfactory way,
on the basis of empirical data and their reconstruction has remained a matter
of circumstantial evidence. Hopefully, there are those who will reflect upon the
findings of my study in light of Platos concept eikos mythos (a plausible story).
If plausibility is acknowledged for the insights I present, then there will be ample
grounds for debate.

11
An indispensable premise: Positioning the Common Good in a
contextualized approach to Platos philosophical endeavor
Many misreadings of Platos texts may be explained by the lack of their contex-
tualization in the network of cultural history. For a proper assessment of Platos
concepts, his ideas have to be contextualized, that is set in perspective vis--vis
the conditions of Greek society in antiquity. Such a contextualization holds the
key to an understanding of the entire Platonic enterprise. The need to apply a
comprehensive contextual methodology has been emphasized recently (Haar-
mann 2016b). Of equal significance for evaluating the impact of Platos ideas
on his contemporary audience is the definition of the pre-Greek heritage in the
Greek worldview of antiquity, that is to say an assessment of the persistent, long-
term underpinnings in the Greek belief system that formed the background for
Platos selection of topics and for his method of argumentation.
Plato did not engage in his philosophical endeavor in order to describe the
world. Rather, his aim was to construct the contemporary world in a verbal per-
formative act, as he and other people in antiquity experienced it. Plato went a
step further with his utopia an ideal society in which he distilled the useful
knowledge gained from experience with the real world. Plato was the first intel-
lectual to practice what may be called performative philosophy although this
term is of recent coinage (see Hinrichs 2016 for an outline).
In the light of the contextualization of Platos use of terminology (associating
the idea of the good with other concepts) and of the philosophers zeitgeist, we
may clarify the essential impulses nurturing Platos motivation to engage in his
political discourse.
The association of the idea of the good with the idea of a functional system goes back at
least to Plato [e.g. Republic I, 352d-354b] and Aristotle [Nichomachean ethics 1.7]. To say
that something is a good X, they believed, is to say that it has the properties that enable
it to perform its function well (Korsgaard 2015: 145).

In the context envisaged by the philosophers mentioned, the Common Good

has to be understood in its original sense, which may be paraphrased as good
proper to, and attainable only by, the community, yet individually shared by its
members (Dupr 2009: 687).
The approach to contextualization is manifold, and it proliferates into various
domains:
(i) contextualization of Platos ways to use language, to select specialized termi-
nological tools and to choose the proper rhetorical means for constructing
his discourse; the ways in which language functions when the protagonists

12
 in Platos dialogues talk about things that are at the very core of philosophi-
cal reasoning;
(ii) contextualization of the Platonic endeavor in the contemporary Greek so-
ciety of antiquity, identifying the sources of inspiration and embedding of
Platos ideas, and also assessing Platos mindset in the zeitgeist of his era
(e.g. Platos appraisal of the value of tradition and customary law; Platos
use of mythic narrative to correspond to the preferences of his audience in
classical Greece);
(iii) contextualization of the cognitive strands of Platos ideas in the horizon of
time (e.g. identifying earlier strata of reasoning about the human condition,
through the pre-Socratic tradition further back into pre-Greek history, re-
lating to the horizon of Old Europe, or of the Danube civilization, respec-
tively; defining Old European connections on the basis of key concepts, i.e.
expressions of pre-Greek origin, in Platos vocabulary);
(iv) contextualization of Platonic positions vis--vis conditions of cultural his-
tory (e.g. Platos principles of moral ethics vis--vis the individuals position
as a citizen of the Athenian state; Platos religiosity with which his discourse
is permeated and the philosophers appreciation of mystery cults);
(v) contextualization of the purpose and function of philosophy for human
life (e.g. Platos idea of philosophy serving the purpose to achieve self-
knowledge; the role which Plato assigns to philosophy as a bridge to obtain
insights about the essence of the Common Good and to achieve wisdom;
Platos concept of the educational value of philosophy for the training of the
political lite in a state);
(vi) contextualization of philosophical reasoning in the Platonic spirit (i.e.
giving priority to a vision of the organic whole of the human enterprise,
avoiding fragmented conceptualizations and knowledge-construction that
merely serve partial theories).
The requirement of contextualization demands a balanced investigation of Pla-
tos texts and their contents. It does not suffice to open a collection of Platos
dialogues and start reading, and it does not suffice to read translations of the
original Greek text in any modern language. There is evidence that such trans-
lations are often prone to the bias of a modern mindset. For instance, modern
translations are inclined to avoid the term myth (the English for mythos) which
frequently occurs in Platos discourse in various contexts, and to favor instead
terms such as reasonable account, logical argument, conclusive assertion, or
some other synonymous expression as equivalents in English for the Greek logos.
The latter term has become familiar since our minds have been conditioned to

13
reason as the maxim of our thinking and action from the times of the En-
lightenment in the eighteenth century onward.
In the realm of Platos political philosophy, both the concepts mythos and logos
are of central significance for Platos method of argumentation. In many instanc-
es, Plato uses mythos and logos interchangeably, as for instance in the phrase eikos
mythos (a plausible account) which is also rendered as eikos logos (Partenie
2009b, Haarmann 2015: 209ff.).

14
1. Plato and the homo politicus

Platos political theory has been misinterpreted by many philosophers because

its true essence simply does not make itself manifest to them. In part, this may
be due to the tacit underpinnings that underlie Platos reasoning and which
reflect a certain intellectual zeitgeist. These underpinnings have to be laid bare
for the purpose of setting Platos endeavor in perspective. Philosophers who
read Plato usually do not pay much attention to the embedding of Platos work
in the Greek society of antiquity the analysis of which holds the key to an
understanding of Platos motivation to engage in his philosophical discourse.
And there are those who treat Platos texts as reflecting the fame and glory of
their author. Blinded by his glory and bewitched by his poetry many see only
what they wish to see (); others, infuriated by his inhumanity and his lordly
affectation of knowledge, lose patience with the task of trying to understand
him (Sinclair 1951: 166).
As regards the basics of Platos political philosophy, this seems to have been
shared by his disciple Aristotle whose ideas otherwise deviate from the teachings
of his mentor.
Aristotle though he rejected the Platonic identification of polis and oikos, asserting
the pluralistic structure of the former [Aristotle, Politics, I, 1, 1252a 8ff.; II, 2-3, 1261a
10-1262a 24] never truly departed from the Platonic program that we may call ethics
of the polis, the essence of which consists in the assertion that man arrives at perfec-
tion only as a member of the polis, the ultimate end of which is to make men good and
virtuous. Political life and political institutions and above all laws have the purpose
of assuring that people act virtuously, so as to attain the good life, the happy life. (Rhon-
heimer 2013: 2)

Ingredients of Platos political theory: The Common

Good in focus
Plato does not elaborate any specific scheme of the Good (as a general concept)
vis--vis the Common Good (as a specific concept) in terms of a hierarchy of in-
terrelated ideas. Rather, he outlines some sort of framework for his central ideas
that become functional in mutual dependency. The following elementary pat-
terns of dependency can be distinguished:

15
i) The Good that depends on us as individuals
The Good is innate in the individuals soul, and it is the task of the individual
to activate the Good during his lifetime. According to Plato, the individuals
pursuit of happiness is successful only under the auspices of a good life.
ii) The Good that depends on the community (Common Good)
Life unfolds under the auspices of social cohesion in a community because
every individual is a member in a community which, according to the Greek
mentality, was the polis (city-state). A good life for the individual is possible
only if conditions of social conduct and interaction in the community are
truly communitarian and just.
iii) The quality of the Good that depends on divine intervention
The individual can achieve happiness only if the path to happiness in the
community is not obstructed by any impediments. The path to an individ-
uals happiness is open if the government of the community is just and in
good order. The building-blocks of a just community are just laws which
guarantee justice and a happy life for its members. Laws are just if they are
divinely inspired. This does not mean that just laws are given to human
beings by supernatural beings (divinities). The fabric of laws is always the
product of human agency. Unjust laws (e.g. a tyrants laws) only serve the
selfish goals of an egoistic ruler. Just laws, instead, are given and practiced
by rulers for whom the Common Good of all members in the community
has priority over selfish ambitions. Just laws are divine because the work of
the law-giver is infused with divine blessing.
For Plato, the best laws for a civic community would be those divinely inspired
(Laws 628d). And the design of such laws, although crafted by a wise human law-
giver, would be modeled by a divine being, a divinity with good intentions for
human community life. This symbiotic relationship between divine law and the
Common Good is laid out in addition to the dialogue Laws particularly in
the Timaeus which strongly influenced subsequent generations of philosophers.
The distinctions, as presented in the foregoing, are not made explicit by Plato
in his discourse but can be identified from the contents of his dialogues. Relating
to the fundamental concept of the Good (of goodness, respectively) we find an
implicit tripartition in Platos discourse. Tripartition is a text-structuring element
which one finds in other domains of Platos discourse. For instance, an explicit
tripartition is characteristic of Platos concept of the soul (see Miller 2009 and
Haarmann 2016b, 140ff. for the tripartite soul).
When set in a wider perspective, Platos positioning of the Common Good
points in the direction of a conditio sine qua non for the pursuit of happiness. The

16
individual can achieve happiness only if he/she strives for keeping up just standards
of community life. In other words: individual happiness depends on the state of
happiness of the entire community and, thus, communitarian happiness overrides
individual happiness. Striving for collective happiness as an essential ingredient
of the Common Good enhances the sense of belonging, of being a member in a
community (a citizen in a polis, respectively) that is supportive of the individuals
aspirations. The sense of belonging is an issue of timeless significance (Block 2008).
Plato does not speak about the individuals duty or responsibility for the
well-being of the community, and these concepts do not feature in his political
discourse. In Platos view, the insight in the priority of the Common Good as
guarantor of individual happiness is sufficient reason for the individual to act
upon it.
Plato, (), does not express his meaning directly by straightforward exposi-
tion (Howatson 2011: 455). He communicates his thoughts in the form of fic-
tional conversations in his dialogues. The philosopher was wise not to choose
an analytical approach to stress the priority of the Common Good because, in
that case, he might have failed to reach his audience. The way of thinking among
Platos Greek contemporaries called for explanations of abstract ideas in terms
of metaphors, and these were amply offered by the mythological tradition. In
Greek society of antiquity, the communitarian spirit was idealized and iconized
through the medium of myth.
Social cohesion, the force that kept Greek society together, was ritualized in
mythic metaphors, and among the many settings of metaphorical comparison
was seafaring, the typical Greek venture. Perhaps the most popular of the myths
addressing the communitarian spirit among the Hellenes was the voyage of Ja-
son accompanied by a selected crowd of friends, the Argonauts who set out,
in their ship Argo, to retrieve the Golden Fleece from a far-distant land, Colchis
which archaeologists locate in the Caucasus region (western Georgia).
Arguably, the best-known version of this myth is the literary work by Apol-
lonius of Rhodes (third century BCE) who composed an epic poem, the Argo-
nautika. The participants in the adventurous journey to Colchis are all heroes of
Greek mythology. They sit together on the benches of the Argo and participate in
rowing the ship as equals. In his poem, Apollonius emphasizes the significance of
cooperation among the heroes for the sake of the success of their mission. Their
social cohesion is the Common Good of the whole enterprise.
The Argonauts take their seats on the rowing benches in good order as a well-functioning
society. A simile describes their collaboration. As they begin to row and their oars strike
the water in unison in time with the notes of Orpheuss lyre, they are compared to youths

17
 striking a dancing floor with their feet in rhythm (emmeleos) as they honor Apollo ().
Their unity thus resembles the social cohesion attained through cult activity, () These
men are the race of demigods [hemitheon andron genos], who at that time were the best
[aristoi] to sail over the sea a clear statement of the significance of this expedition and
its heroes to Greek culture even at the time of the reader (whom the temporal deictic
then places in relation to the narrative). The Argo, carries Greek tradition within itself.
Looking down from the sky on that day (another temporal deictic), the gods watch
them and their ship. On the highest peaks the nymphs of Pelion marvel at the Argo, built
by Athenas craft, and at the heroes themselves, rhythmically stroking with their oars.
(Thalmann 2011: 69f.)

There is a special facet to the myth of the Argonauts and this is the participation
of a heroic woman in the Argonauts adventure: Atalanta, mistress of wrestling
and fast runner. Her inclusion in the mythical account suggests the recognition
of gender equality as a fundamental quality of the Common Good.
While Plato deals with the overall implications of the Common Good as con-
trasting with the self-interests of individuals, and while he is not very specific
about the range of individual properties that characterize the Common Good,
his disciple, Aristotle, offers some ethical specifications basically in accordance
with the essence of the Platonic scheme to characterize the very nature of the
Common Good (after Morrison 2013: 182ff.):
1. The Common Good is the happiness of all citizens;
2. The Common Good is the soundness of the web of shared activities that con-
stitute social life;
3. The Common Good is the happiness of all citizens, understood as an inter-
related, inseparable whole;
4. The Common Good is the happiness of the city
The Common Good in its relation to both the city and its inhabitants unfolds as
an organic whole, with happiness resulting from the balance between these two
strands.
The happy city-state is the one that is best and acts nobly. It is impossible for those who
do not do noble deeds to act nobly; and no action, whether a mans or a city-states, is
noble when separate from virtue and practical wisdom. But the courage, justice, and
practical wisdom of a city-state have the same capacity and are of the same kind as those
possessed by each human being who is said to be just, practically wise, and temperate.
(Politics VII 2, 1323b30-36)

Aristotles specifications of Platos overall scheme of the Common Good car-

ried special weight since this philosopher built the intellectual bridge between
Plato and the Hellenistic philosophers of later periods. In the philosophical

18
retrospective since the beginnings of the New Era (i.e. from the sixteenth cen-
tury onward) relating to ethics of social order, the starting-point of the discus-
sion is commonly Aristotle, rather than Plato (see Ltge 2007: 30ff., 89ff. for a
survey of historical and recent approaches; Trhler et al. 2011: 6ff.).
In our modern thinking we readily associate the idea of the Common Good
with the manifestation of the individual citizens participatory activity in deter-
mining the content of what is good for the well-being of a community, thus ul-
timately with the model of democratic governance. Participatory democracy is
the basis for political theory-making and it acts upon the principle of active citi-
zenry. We readily associate the idea participatory with decision-making about
state governance through elections. The active participation of citizens in society
has a different meaning for Plato for whom a supportive attitude toward a wise
ruler (or a council of guardians, respectively) was of the essence for a citizens
virtuous conduct.
Thus for Plato the common good was identified with the virtue of citizenry. For him
the polis had primacy over the citizen () An individual human being had dignity and
worth only by living as part of a political community recognized as being intrinsically
just. This type of society based on just laws, namely a society like Athens, was natural for
Plato. (Lavastida 2000: 159)

In the modern discourse about political theory, the preference for participatory
democracy, as a model of governance, is treated as axiomatic, as something that
is taken for granted and does not need any argument to reveal its absolute val-
ue. Our minds are conditioned to acknowledging democracy as the only model
of governance worthy of being highlighted when we address the issue of the
Common Good, regardless of how complex democratic decision-making may
become. To meet the challenges of complexity in a democratic macrosystem, the
concept of multi-level governance has been devised which evokes the idea of
increasingly complex arrangements for arriving at authoritative decisions in in-
creasingly dense networks of public and private, individual and collective actors
(Piattoni 2010: 1).
In the light of the current economic and financial crisis, a revision of demo-
cratic governance and its resources is called for. There are those who demand
more democracy, more direct participation of citizens in democratic decision-
making, more public transparency of political processes, more public control
over financial resources. And there are others who favor the option of less de-
mocracy in the interests of streamlining government decision-making by re-
ducing the authority of democratic bodies such as parliaments to interfere, to
minimize state control of private business and financial markets and to practice

19
an overall liberal policy with less control over the economy, either by state or
communities. It turns out that democratic rule entails manifold quandaries and
pitfalls that make this business rather cumbersome.
A pressing question arises: will we be able to master the economic and fi-
nancial challenges that we are facing given the limits to the scope for action
of democratic governments in individual states; or will we fail to enhance our
constructive input as active participants in basic democratic movements in
backing up majority decisions and in making those decisions bear fruit? Nobody
can yet foresee whether or not democracy, as we know it, has a chance to survive
into future generations. Anyway, we can hardly escape the insight that a famous
dictum about democracy from recent history holds true. According to Winston
Churchill, democracy is the worst form of government except all those other
forms that have been tried from time to time (Hansard, November 11, 1947).
This statement is a far cry from the conditions under which Platos discourse
about statehood and an ideal constitution developed. Platos choice for an ideal
state is not democracy as practiced by the Athenian state during his lifetime.
The model of governance that the philosopher advocates is enlightened kingship
(or monarchy, respectively). What makes enlightened kingship is the important
condition that the ruler (guardian) should be a philosopher, and the guardians
status is that of a philosopher-king (Republic, 412bff., 471cff.). Plato envisages
the possibility that the guardian may be female, a philosopher-queen, since, in his
model of an ideal state there is gender equality before the law (Haarmann 2016a:
114, 235ff.). Plato does not specify the number of those who might assume au-
thority, as trained guardians (aided by auxiliaries), and rule simultaneously, in an
ideal state. One gets the impression that the philosopher perhaps had a council
of ruling guardians in mind, with carefully selected members.
Plato experienced the deterioration of democratic rule after the Pelopon-
nesian war (431405 BCE), with its disastrous consequences for the Athenian
state, and he witnessed the actions of demagogues who viciously manipulated
democratic institutions for their own egoistic ends. One particular event caused
a traumatic experience for the philosopher. In 399 BCE, Platos mentor, Socrates,
was accused of impiety. Although the charge was unjust, he was sentenced by a
democratic court to exile. As is well known, Socrates chose suicide by drinking
poisoned wine because, as he is purported to have said, he could not stand the
idea of living outside his beloved Athens. Plato was deeply disappointed and lost
his faith in democratic institutions. Plato saw only one escape route from the ill-
fated vicissitudes of Athenian democracy, and he points in this direction in his
autobiographical dialogue Seventh Letter where he states:

20
 The human race will have no respite from evils until those who are really philosophers
acquire political power or until, through some divine dispensation, those who rule and
have political authority in the cities become real philosophers (326a-b).

In Platos dialogue Politikos (Statesman), the philosopher introduces through

the speech of the dominant speaker, the Eleatic Stranger a ranking of constitu-
tions by which rule is defined in various types of statehood (Statesman, 302b-
303b). There are two varieties of democracy. One is the law-abiding democracy
with many rulers bound by law. And there is the corrupt variety, lawless de-
mocracy with many rulers not bound by law (Sauv Meyer 2009: 378f.). This
latter variety certainly was the negative model which Plato experienced during
his mature age.
Platos choice for enlightened guardianship clearly demonstrates that he did
not see any chance for improving the democratic system of his time and that he
feared a collapse of democracy, disintegrating and producing the worst kind of
statehood that there was (and is): tyranny.
Well, my dear Adeimantus, what is the nature of tyranny? Its obvious, I suppose, that it
arises out of democracy (Republic, 562a);
A democratic society in its thirst for liberty [for the individuals] may fall under the in-
fluence of bad leaders, who intoxicate it with excessive quantities of the neat spirit; and
then, unless the authorities are very mild and give it a lot of liberty, it will curse them for
oligarchs and punish them (Republic, 562d);
It [democracy] goes on to abuse as servile and contemptible those who obey the authori-
ties and reserves its approval, in private life as well as public, for rulers who behave like
subjects and subjects who behave like rulers. In such a society the principle of liberty is
bound to go to extremes, is it not? (Republic, 562e).

Plato looked at democracy from an angle that may seem strange to a modern
observer. Evidently, Plato had little faith in the democratic institutions of his time
and he did not give any credit to their capacity for renewal and improvement.
Plato, hating and distrusting democracy deeply and repelled by the selfish individualism
which was so characteristic of his times, saw, or thought he saw, in Sparta much that was
admirable equality of all citizens, rigorous training of the young to be servants of the
state, suppression of individualism and ostentatious luxury, absolute obedience to the
laws in short, an organization which had all the beauties of a geometric form. (Fine
1983: 171)

In Platos view, democratic governance that relies on the participation of all

(male) citizens unavoidably falls into decadence because of the inability of the
participating crowd to reach wise decisions, something that is, according to Plato,
innate to the office and function of a philosopher as ruler. Since becoming a

21
philosopher means striving for virtue and the common good, decision-making
in the responsibility of a philosopher-king is, by Platos definition, bound to be
divinely blessed and just in its management.
The lack of appreciation for democratic rule is what connects Plato with Aris-
totle who also considers democracy to be a corrupt form of governance (Miller
2013: 52f.). Aristotle compares democracy to anarchy in the household: De-
mocracy is especially present in masterless households (for everybody there is
on an equal footing), and in those where the ruler is weak and everybody has
liberty (Nicomachean Ethics VIII 10, 1161a6-9).
We modern observers of policy-making and the reality of statehood in Greek
antiquity look at things from a distance, and from a distance democracy of the
classical age is treated like an icon, in the tradition of European historiography,
and of the philosophy of political thought. In fact, we live with an image, or
rather an imaginary conception, of the ideals of classical democracy that has
dominated our mindset since the times when this image was fashioned by repre-
sentatives of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century and of the Romantic
Movement in the early nineteenth century.
According to the western canon of cultural and political history () the
Greeks are the ancestors of the West, the people who invented democracy, free-
dom of thought, science, philosophy, drama and naturalistic art, and whose lit-
erary works stand as the foundation of Western literature; () (Vlassopoulos
2013: 1). This modern statement echoes the long tradition of what has been called
the Greek myth of the Germans (Andurand 2013), shaped by German intellec-
tuals and their works, in particular by Johann Joachim Winckelmann 1764, Wil-
helm von Humboldt 1807, Friedrich August Wolf 1807, Friedrich Jacobs 1852,
and others, and also the Grand Narrative of how western civilization emerged
(Gress 1998).
Highlighting democracy as the unique invention of ancient Greece and hail-
ing democratic governance as a product of Greek ingenuity is common place
in the academic literature. It has been stressed that democracy was a new idea,
still in its formative stage, and that the people were slow to realize that sovereign
power really belonged to them when meeting in assembly (Fine 1983: 383). The
rise of the polis is associated with this great theme that concerns the origins and
development of Greek political institutions, the continuing process of change
and reform towards a form of political rationality which seems unique in world
history (Murray 1993: 63). As far as the character of participatory democracy is
concerned, one encounters praise of its uniqueness: Never before had the world

22
seen so liberal a franchise, or so wide a spread of political power (Durant 1966:
126).
The year 507 BCE when democratic governance was established by Cleis-
thenes marks a radical change and the beginning of a new era, as a result of the
ousting of the last tyrant and the group (under the leadership of Isagoras) that fa-
vored an alliance with Sparta. This act of establishing a new administrative order
in the Athenian state is generally hailed as Cleisthenes creation, and democracy
as a genuine invention of world history, of a truly Greek fabric (e.g. Anderson
2003, Raaflaub et al. 2008, Meier 2011).
In an historical retrospective the change from autocracy to democratic gov-
ernance is explained as a development associated with the expectations of the
Athenian public: Cleisthenes comrade-constituents, the demos that had re-
called him from exile, expected a system of government suited to their newly ex-
pressed identity as participating members of a political community (Ober 2008:
139). Here, the projection of modern reasoning about democracy into the world
of ancient Athens is evident. Cleisthenes comrades enjoyed solidarity within the
anti-Spartan faction but they were hardly conscious of being members in a par-
ticipatory political community. Cleisthenes followers were much interested in
him taking the lead and control of state affairs. At the same time, it lay in the
vital interest of the anti-Spartan faction to oust Isagoras followers and prevent
them from taking influence in Athenian politics. It was precisely the exclusion of
Cleisthenes opponents that occupied the minds of his followers, rather than the
membership of a political community of equal citizens.
The notion of democracy as a product of Greek ingenuity is rooted in the in-
terpretation of Greek history that was initiated by the German Romantic Move-
ment in the early nineteenth century. Political events such as the Greeks war of
independence of 1823, waged against the colonial rule of the Ottoman Turks,
fuelled a wave of Hellenophile empathy among European intellectuals for the
Greek cause, and this empathy was associated, in the minds of many idealists,
with the striving for a renewal of the model of democratic governance in nine-
teenth century Europe. Democracy has been deemed to be the prime achieve-
ment of Greek antiquity and one of timeless value, according to Friedrich Jacobs
(1852) in his appraisal of the Greeks as a Kulturnation. As such, the institution
of democracy is hailed in the tradition of European school education up to the
present (Andurand 2013: 115f.).
There is nothing wrong with calling democracy an achievement of Greek an-
tiquity. What is wrong, though, is to claim it as a Greek invention. This is not only
a gross generalization but also an incorrect statement based on a false evaluation

23
of historical facts or, rather, based on ignorance of historical facts. The historical
facts relate to the long-term continuity of a basic awareness of conditions con-
sidered as favorable for the human community. One can perhaps describe the
awareness of the Common Good, among Platos contemporaries, as fluctuating
between two basic principles: (i) high standards of collective communitarian
well-being which can be shared by all citizens, (ii) ideal chances for every citizen
to articulate his/her aspirations for well-being.
What is of the essence in Platos political discussion are the conditions for
harmony in an ideal society, with the Common Good as the most significant
achievement. Plato assigns the concept of goodness the central place in his
scheme (White 2009: 371). In his political theory, the philosopher emphasizes
the quality of the Common Good, while less attention is given by him to the
citizens active role in giving shape to the Common Good. In the present study,
both principles are addressed, and investigation will focus on the value of these
principles as distinct priorities when the Common Good is set in relation to
society and state organization, as well as to the individual agency of members in
the civic community.

To agathon (The Common Good): History of

a word revealing an idea with a long tradition
The expression for good in ancient Greek is agathos, with variational forms in
regional dialects (Lacon. agasos, Cyprian Greek aksathos). An even more deviant
form (i.e. khasios) also belongs to this group. According to recent findings of his-
torical linguistics, previous attempts to relate these Greek words to a cognate root
of Indo-European affiliation are unsatisfactory. Greek agathos is of pre-Greek or-
igin (Beekes 2010: 7). This means that agathos is a borrowing from the substrate
language which was spoken in Greece by the indigenous pre-Indo-European
population, before the advent of Indo-European (Helladic) migrants to the re-
gion. The sound variation of the forms in different dialects is considerable which
also points to the conditions of borrowing, with various local adaptations of a
pre-Greek expression the sound structure of which is not typically Greek.
Agathos is recorded already in the oldest literary sources of archaic Greece, in
particular in the epic works of Homer (i.e. Iliad, Odyssey).

Agathos in ancient Greek

[], , , Lacon. Ar.Lys.1301, Cypr. GDI57:good:

24
I. of persons,
1. well-born, gentle, opp. , ,
Od.15.324, cf. Il.1.275; . Il.13.664, cf. Od.18.276;
, Il.21.109, cf. Od.4.611; .
Thgn.190, cf. 57 sq.; , Pi.P. 3.71, cf. 2.96,
4.285; ; . . S.El.1082; .
Id.Fr.84; . .
ib.649, cf. E.Alc.600, al.: Pl.Phdr.274a:
in political sense, aristocrats, esp. in the phrase (v. sub
).
2. brave, valiant, since courage was attributed to Chiefs and Nobles, Il.1.131,
al.; , 21.280; cf. Hdt.5.109,
etc.
3. good, capable, in reference to ability, . Il.3.179; 2.732;
16.165, 17.388; Xenoph.2.15; Hp.Prog.1;
A.Ag. 795; Democr.266: freq. with qualifying words, .
Il.13.314; . 2.408,563, al.; Od.11.300; Il.6.478;
S.OT687; Pl.Lg.899b, cf. Alc.1.124e; Id.Prt.323b;
, , Hdt.9.122, Pl.Grg.516b, etc.: more rarely c. dat., .
X.Oec.4.15: with Preps., . Lys.13.2;
Pl.Alc.1.125a; Id.R.407e: c. inf., . Hdt.1.136;
1.79; . good at weighing, Pl.Prt.356b.
4. good, in moral sense, first in Thgn.438, cf. Heraclit.104, S.El.1082, X.Mem.
1.7.1, Pl.Ap.41d, etc.; Democr.247:
freq. with other Adjs., . S.Tr.541; . ib.1050:ironical,
. Id.Ant.31.
5. , my good friend, as a term of gentle remonstrance, Pl.Prt.311a, etc.
6. . , v. sub ; . , v. sub ; . = Lat. bona dea, Plu.
Caes.9, Cic.19.
II. of things,
1. good, serviceable, . . . Od.9.27, etc.; . ,
X.Cyn.13.17: c. gen., . good for it, Id.Mem.3.8.3;
Thphr.HP9.11.1.
2. of outward circumstances, .
Od.17.347; to good purpose, Il.9.102; .
for his own good end, 11.789; 2.204:
[], c. inf., it is good to do so and so, Il.7.282, 24.130, Od.3.196, etc.

25
3. morally good, Democr.177; Emp.112.2, cf. Ep.Rom.2.7, etc.
4. , , good, blessing, benefit, of persons or things, .
X.Cyr.5.3.20; , . Id.Mem.2.4.2, cf.
Ar.Ra.74, etc; as term of endearment for a baby, blessing!, treasure!, Men.
Sam.28: , confer a benefit on . . ,
Th.3.68, Lys.13.92; for ones good, Th.5.27, X.Cyr.7.4.3; .
Ar.Ra.1487; . for no good end, Th.1.131; .
X.HG5.2.35:in pl., (sic)
PFlor.21.10 (iii A.D.): . or ., the good, Epich.171.5, cf. Pl.R.506b, 508e,
Arist.Metaph.1091a31, etc.:in pl., , , goods of fortune, treasures,
wealth, Hdt.2.172, Lys.13.91, X.Mem.1.2.63, etc.; fare well,
Ar.Av.1706; also, good things, dainties, Thgn.1000, Ar.Ach.873, etc.: good
qualities, ., Isoc.8.32, cf. Democr.37; good points,
of a horse, . , X.Eq. 1.2.
(Liddell and Scott 1883: 4)

One finds an expression for good in any language, and one would expect this
concept to be always expressed by an indigenous word. The Helladic migrants
who came from the North and settled in the land which became their new home-
land and which was eventually called Hellas certainly had a word for good in
their (Indo-European) language. But in the process of becoming the Greeks that
we know from archaeology and history they abandoned their own expression
in favor of the word that was used by the indigenous people (descendants of the
Old Europeans) with whom they established vivid cultural contacts. There must
have been some good reason why the early Greeks would adopt an element from
the substrate language. From such a historical distance one can only speculate
about the motivation why this particular loanword for such a common concept
as good would be integrated into the vocabulary of the ancient Greek language.
And yet, there are clues for this particular lexical transfer provided by cultural
history.
Platos concern with harmony in society has its own prehistory and is deeply
rooted in the patterns of social interaction as they can be reconstructed for the
settlements of the pre-Greek population. Thus, these roots reach deeper than
Greek society of antiquity, as we know it from classical sources. The concept
of the Common Good in ancient Greece is an echo of social conditions in the
communities of the indigenous population, and the communal structure of pre-
Greek settlements is itself a heritage of Old European coinage. The principles
of community life continued, more or less unchanged, from Neolithic times
through the Mycenaean period, and beyond, into archaic Greece. And these

26
principles left an imprint on peoples minds and social behavior, persisting from
one generation to the next.
For the Greek mentality, life was essentially communal. It was lived out in the city-state
and could not be conceived apart from the polis. No human being could be perfectly
good unless in some way connected to the state. It was only in and through society
that the good life was even possible for man, and for Plato, society meant the city-state.
(Lavastida 2000: 159)

Plato, in his political theory, was the first philosopher to rationalize customs of
social behavior in communal networks (Republic, 508e, 517b-c, 526d, 534c, et al.;
see Vlastos 1981: 221269, 418423 on the unity of virtue in Plato). He estab-
lished a tradition which many generations of philosophers after him followed.
The concept of the Common Good has not lost any of its attraction and signifi-
cance in our days. It is intriguing that the lifespan of this idea was already quite
long when Plato dedicated himself to reflect upon it. Plato shared, with other
Greeks, a vivid consciousness of the significance of the Common Good, and this
consciousness did not emerge out of nothing; rather, it had antecedents of long
duration, in the sense of Fernand Braudels term longue dure which has been in
use since the late 1940s to describe longevity of cultural traditions (see chapter 2).
The concept good is generally expressed by agathos. Yet, the idea of the Com-
mon Good is called by different names in the sources. Plato speaks about to aga-
thon while Aristotle uses the phrase to koine sympheron. These expressions are
rendered as Common Good in English and Gemeinwohl in German. The ter-
minology in European languages other than Greek gradually emerged from the
Middle Ages onward. Thomas Aquinas used the Latin phrase bonum commune.
Other versions of the phrase in Latin are bonum generale and salus publica. Nic-
col Machiavelli introduced the phrases bene commune (common good) and
commune utilit (common utility) as synonymous terms.
David Hume speaks of the public or common interest while James Madi-
son extends the terminological grid to public, common and general good.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau coins the phrase in French le bien commun (on the model
of the Latin version). With the works of Adam Smith and Karl Marx the discus-
sion about the Common Good shifts to and focuses on the economic domain.
While Smith highlights the freedom to conduct business as an individual en-
trepreneurs liberty, Marx emphasizes the control of economic resources by the
class of industrial workers as their prerogative and as the major aspect of the
Common Good. In John Rawlss A theory of justice (first edition of 1971, revised
edition of 1999), the Common Good is paraphrased in terms of certain general
conditions that are () equally to everyones advantage.

27
 Despite differences in details concerning the specification of various aspects
of the Common Good, the philosophers agree in their assertion that any good
government must execute responsibility in a way that the collective will of the
members in the community may materialize (Ltge 2007, Simm 2011, Waldemar
2010).
The essence of Common Good is much more diversified than that of the
concept democracy. The latter concept points to a specific form of governance
in the formation of which the members of the community participate (through
elections), and this kind of governance is not imposed on them. The former con-
cept encompasses all aspects of benefits, on the public or communal level, from
which a community may profit. Perhaps the broad spectrum of beneficial factors
enhancing social cohesion and harmony in society is so diversified that there is
no general term for it in the languages in which philosophical discourse about
political theory is conducted. Democracy (demokratia, Demokratie, democra-
zia, dmocracie, etc.), on the other hand, was an internationally valid term with
a fairly well-definable meaning, before its use became strained and tainted by
modern political ideology.

28
2.The Common Good: Its multilateral
relations with society and state

If the Common Good is the key to a successful functioning of a society, then the
advantages that the Common Good offers to those whose actions are oriented to
it must show in the quality and properties of a given civilization. If neither Plato
nor the pre-Socratic philosophers were the ones to invent the idea of the Com-
mon Good then this key factor must have a longer tradition and must have left
traces in the fabric of cultures predating Greek civilization. What comes to mind
are the flourishing cultures of the ancient Aegean, in the Cycladic islands and in
Minoan Crete (Cline 2010), but these are themselves the offspring of a much old-
er, far advanced civilization. The mother of the ancient Aegean regional cultures
has long been neglected and its properties have only recently been investigated
with some scrutiny (see Haarmann 2011a and 2014 for recent surveys).
What, then, was the society like that supported social and technological ad-
vancement at a pace hitherto unknown in other parts of the world? This old
and mature civilization has become known as Old Europe (or the Danube civi-
lization, respectively). The Danube civilization produced patterns of social in-
teraction and technological advancement that dominated the course of cultural
development in subsequent periods, and the basis for the stability of its society
were plant cultivation and the related agrarian lifestyles. Continuity of the agrar-
ian way of life is attested for the developmental stages from the Neolithic Period
through to Greek antiquity, and beyond.
The general structure of Neolithic life, which was based in small, tightly clustered villag-
es, with an economy firmly grounded in agriculture and animal husbandry, was not un-
like rural life in Greece through the millennia to the present day. The Neolithic period,
then, introduced and established a way of life that would support, shape, and sometimes
constrain all later developments. We should always bear in mind that the glamorous
monuments of the classical period in Greece, both physical (as represented by the Par-
thenon) and intellectual (science, philosophy, and drama) were achieved by people who
lived in villages and small towns and were supported by an agricultural economy that
was perfected after millennia of trial and error by the Neolithic farmers. (Runnels and
Murray 2001: 62)

The agrarian way of life guaranteed an environment of sustained community

life. The Neolithic village functioned as the focus of social interaction and of cul-
tural activities and, as a center for handicraft and for the production of tools (i.e.
sickles, spindle-whorls, utensils for fishing and hunting). The inhabitants lived

29
on agricultural goods, on grain, olives, vegetables, figs, wine etc. Agricultural pro-
duce was distributed and equally shared by all members of the community. In
the archaeological record, there are no indications of any particular lite group
having controlled the resources.

The Common Good and its Old European foundations

The origins of the concept of the Common Good of which participatory de-
mocracy is but one strand lie in the distant past, beyond Greek antiquity, in an
era when the Greeks, as an ethnic and cultural entity, did not yet exist. This era
is associated with the cultural horizon of Old Europe (or Danube civilization,
respectively).
The ancient Greeks absorbed many achievements from their non-Greek pre-
decessors, as elements of the Old European cultural heritage, the concept of the
Common Good for one. Plato shared the knowledge about the Common Good
via his connection with the cultural memory of the pre-Socratic philosophers.
In Platos philosophical discourse, the principles and values of the Common
Good, the useful knowledge of previous generations, are brought to bear.

The communitarian spirit in the pre-Hellenic communities

of southeastern Europe
The functioning of well-being in the settlements of the early agrarian popula-
tion in southeastern Europe crystallized around the concept of the Common
Good, although it might not have been consciously reflected upon by members
of the communities. The archaeological record of the remains of settlements and
the arrangement of Neolithic dwellings suggests that the population in an indi-
vidual village was kinship-based. Kinship in this context has to be understood as
meaning extended family, including close as well as more distant relatives and
associates. This configuration of social groups was characteristic of the many
Neolithic villages with an average size ranging between 150 and 200 people. The
native Europeans had a term for such village communities which is preserved, as
a pre-Greek borrowing, in ancient Greek: kome. The antiquity of the word kome
is encapsulated in its meaning which is village, rural settlement (in opposition
to an urban settlement). This reference points to the rural village as the primary
and original type of settlement, with urban agglomerations (the poleis) being a
secondary development. Kome-type villages were scattered over the whole area
where the Danube civilization and its high culture flourished, from the late sixth
through the fourth millennium BCE.

30
 Life in the villages did not unfold in isolation. On the contrary, the village
communities were linked in a network of social, cultural and economic interac-
tion. Kinship relations shifted with the integration of new inmates from neigh-
boring villages and the circulation of goods was enhanced by intensive trading
contacts. There must have been an awareness of the binding of social relations,
of cultural and linguistic ties and of shared values among the villagers. Their cul-
tural cohesion was certainly experienced on a level of collective identity.
Cooperation in the small village communities was mandatory for group co-
hesion, and the small groups of village populations created strong-tie networks.
Strong common values, based on the intimate knowledge of one anothers abili-
ties, character, and day-to-day behavior are typical of strong-tie networks and
can help to explain the workings and some of the attractions of traditional face-
to-face communities (Ober 2008: 136).
Social relations in Old Europe were not random but unfolded in an organized
manner. What kind of social organization governed daily life in the villages? Is
there any evidence available to identify the infrastructure of Old European so-
ciety? Perhaps the most crucial point of this agenda is the question: were there
social classes in Old Europe? The answer is: no. There is substantial evidence to
prove this and this comes from the study of burial customs and grave goods.
There is consensus among archaeologists that grave goods are diagnostic mark-
ers which illustrate the degree of social differentiation in prehistoric society
(Yakar 2011: 27f.). If grave goods are distributed in a way which suggests that
no distinctions existed between rich and poor or between men and women, the
graves are interpreted as belonging to an egalitarian society without social dif-
ferentiation or hierarchy. The presence of a ruling lite in a society is reflected in
the grave goods of members of the upper class. Here, we find a marked difference
between graves of the rich and the poor.
Analyses of grave goods across the areas of Old European settlements suggest
a society with egalitarian structures, with social and economic equality, with all
members of the community sharing in the profits from the agrarian surplus and
trade. With good reason these socioeconomic conditions have been described as
the Old European oecumene (or commonwealth) based on egalitarian principles
(Haarmann 2011b: 88ff.). In the Danube civilization, egalitarianism manifested
itself in two spheres, the economic and the social:
Economic egalitarianism manifested itself in extended trade relations, where
villages exchanged goods among themselves and with larger settlements.
There is no evidence that any of the larger settlements dominated the econo-
my of surrounding villages. In the context of economic egalitarianism, trade

31
 contacts evolved as relationships of mutual advantage, making the commu-
nity a commonwealth. Among the preferred trade goods were obsidian, shells
(spondylus, in particular), salt and copper. Objects with ritual functions, such
as figurines, may also have been considered valuable goods for exchange.
Social egalitarianism is reflected in the absence of a marked distinction be-
tween the social roles of the sexes in community life, something which is
typical of a society with social hierarchy. Equality between the sexes implies
matrilinearity or matrifocality (with women as prominent figures in lin-
eages). The prominent status of women in Old European society has been
characterized as matristic by Gimbutas (1991: 324ff.). Prominence must
not be confused with dominance. Prominence in the status of women points
to the fact that women had a privileged role in certain domains, such as in
the household and in kinship relations. This does not mean that women
would have suppressed men or marginalized their functions as husbands and
fathers.
As far as kinship relations are concerned the prominent status of women, as re-
constructed for Old Europe, is not isolated as a social phenomenon of the past
but finds its parallel in some recent cultures, Indonesia for one.
Womens kin role in Java is important. Their parental role and rights are greater than
those of men; children always belong to the woman in case of divorce. When extra mem-
bers join a nuclear family to constitute an extended family household, they are much
more likely to be the wifes relatives than those of the husband. Formal and distant rela-
tions between men in a family, and between a man and his children (especially his son),
contrast with the informal and close relations between women, and between a woman
and her children. (Foley 1999: 260)

The idea of the Common Good materialized in form of the benefits of economic
and social egalitarianism that could be directly experienced and the overall im-
pression of these benefits certainly shaped the awareness of everyone. In addi-
tion, there were further incentives for the villagers to recognize the value of the
Common Good.

Communal self-governance from the Neolithic

through Greek antiquity
The villages in the Old European oecumene formed a network of socioeconomic
nodes whose inhabitants engaged in plant cultivation and trade activities, and
these village communities were not governed by any of the bigger trading cen
ters which occupied a pivotal role for the distribution of goods and for the spread

32
of ideas. In fact, the local communities were independent administrative units
that governed themselves. What made community life sustainable was the local
administrative infrastructure, and this infrastructure reflected the principles of
an egalitarian society. The villages were self-governing which means they cre-
ated administrative bodies for their local needs of governance. Since there is no
indication in the grave goods, pointing to any distinction of social status or to
the existence of social classes, the administrative body in a village must have cor-
responded to what we know as a democratic institution on the communal level, a
kind of village council or committee, with members elected from within the local
population and without interference or command from outside.
The ancient villages functioned as sustained economic units and the number
of inhabitants tells us something about the ways of cooperation in small-size
communities. In an environment where a few hundred people live together, build
their homes and interact daily there is a great deal of shared knowledge that is
available to everyone. In a small community group cohesion is enhanced by an
awareness that everybodys living-standards depend on how effectively members
in the group interact and give priority to the Common Good. The bigger the
number, the greater the risk of losing sight of the Common Good. This insight is
not new and it was articulated much earlier: () unless the number of individu-
als is quite small, or unless there is coercion or some other special device to make
individuals act in their common interest, rational, self-interested individuals will
not act to achieve their common or group interests (Olson 1965: 2).
We can only speculate about the attitudes of the ancient Europeans and we
cannot possibly know how much of a competition there was between individual
interests and the values of the Common Good. One thing we know for sure is
that all the necessary means of enhancing sustainability were activated to safe-
guard group cohesion in the village communities because those communities
prospered uninterruptedly over a long duration. Social cohesion was of vital im-
portance to ensure the intactness of social and economic networks on a regional
and interregional scale. A major medium for the ritualization of social cohesion
among the villagers were certain artifacts with iconic status, namely figurines,
and these were instrumentalized in
() rituals assisting intra- and inter-settlement social cohesion. () figurines, model
clay furniture, and animals could be assembled in one building within the community
into a dramatic scenario, where they formed an attention-focusing device for commu-
nity religion (). After the ceremony, the set was dispersed into separate households,
perhaps as a related symbolic activity linking families to the community, and to allow
individual models to act as apotropaic (warding off evil) devices to protect or bless
the household or its goods. They could also be stored in house models. Hearths, ovens,

33
 storage areas, and generally settlement domestic debris, seem typical contexts for Neo-
lithic figurines, whilst their female dominance emphasizes a focal role for women and
the home in their symbolism (Marangou 2001). (Bintliff 2012: 76)

The advantage of membership in a small community for the promotion of com-

mon benefits has been illustrated in recent sociological and psychological re-
search. According to Gladwell (2000) the success of small-scale organizations
depends on how closely members cooperate and how their personal relation-
ships are embedded in successful face-to-face communication. What furthers
cooperation is the kind of two-way communication which differs markedly from
settings of domineering behavior, with one participant striving for dominance
(Kopelman et al. 2002: 134ff.). Small-scale organizations hold the key to interac-
tion in an egalitarian community, thus promoting the spirit of democratic action:
() real democracy works better in small places dramatically better (Bryan
2004: 83).
What is essential for decision-making in a small community is the fact that
everybody knows about the qualities, both personal and professional, of the
other members in the group. Mutual trust is furthered when decisions emerge
in an atmosphere of shared knowledge about available capacities and grades of
expertise among group members. This potential of active knowledge and trust
may be put to work for promoting common benefits that shape the prospects of
the community. Those who look for the prototype of democratic governance in
the Greek communities of antiquity may find the oldest traces of a prolonged
continuity in the villages of Old Europe.
Work in the administrative councils of Old European villages unfolded in an
atmosphere of egalitarian two-way communication. This does not exclude the
possibility that certain individuals were more active than others. Given the small
scale of the local communities the activities of individuals with more engage-
ment and initiative were monitored by everybody and their effects remained un-
der public control. When talking about individuals that may stand out from the
crowd of egalitarian group members the role of the chief in traditional cultures
comes to mind. But is this association valid? Is the concept chief not associated
with structures of a hierarchical society, with a headman in an elevated social
status?
Many scholars have difficulties with the idea of a village council as a govern-
ing body without the presence of a leading figure, a chief who is in charge. This
leaves two conflicting options: either making decisions for the benefit of the vil-
lagers or promoting selfish interests and acting against their intentions. Specula-
tions about the existence of chiefdom in the agrarian villages blur the question

34
of the essence of governance since the concept chief produces a certain bias.
This concept is readily and one-sidedly connoted as being linked to conditions
of social hierarchy. The chief is seen as representing the level of a social lite in a
local population. In this view, the concept chief is unilaterally associated with
power as a factor of social control over others.
However, in a comparative perspective of the worlds traditional cultures, past
and present, chiefdom appears in two distinct social models, one associated with
the egalitarian principle, the other reflecting power relations within a social hi-
erarchy. Arguably, the main reason why the term chief is widely perceived as a
figure in an emerging social hierarchy lies with the confusion of expressions such
as authority and power. These words are often used as synonyms although
they differ in meaning.
The essential differences between authority and power lie in the ability to control. Au-
thority rules mainly through persuasion and example, and tradition. Power, while not
neglecting these, rules by compulsion. The measure of power is the sanctions it can im-
pose. By sanctions is meant the mechanisms of restrictive and punitive social control
that are available to the leaders. (Donlan 1997: 40f.)

Authority, in its original meaning, is assigned to someone, for a given tenure or

for fulfilling a certain task, by a group of people to whom the one with authority
is responsible. If the one who enjoys authority fails, he may be relieved of his/her
duty and his/her authority is withdrawn. A chief in this position may be a charis-
matic leader but his/her authority always remains negotiable. Assigned authority
fits into the mould of egalitarian principles of governance. The possible existence
of chiefdom in Neolithic Europe, thus, does not point towards social hierarchy in
the village communities.
To draw a comparison with a contemporary example of assigned authority,
the office of secretary-general of the United Nations may be mentioned. The cur-
rent holder of the post of secretary-general, Antnio Guterres, assumes much
authority, assigned to him by the international public. His pronouncements
carry much symbolic weight although he lacks any power to guarantee the im-
plementation of sanctions or to supervise international agreements. Authority
is assigned, while power is appropriated without asking anyone for permission.
Power, as a means of political control, is exercised by the major figure of a ruling
lite or by someone who has usurped authority.
As for the conditions of agrarian settlements in the Neolithic Age we may
presume that in small farming communities the social system would have been
more egalitarian than stratified. Even in relatively egalitarian societies, if not vil-
lage chiefs, then at least heads of families would have formed councils of elders

35
responsible for village management (Yakar 2011: 174). If there were village
chiefs in Neolithic and Copper Age Europe, their status may be compared to
the office of the demarchos, the major functionary in a village, in Greek antiq-
uity, with political and/or religious duties for the local council or magistrate. His
authority was assigned and limited to the duration of his tenure (Rhodes 2013).
The autonomy of the village administration and the authority of the mem-
bers of the council had a bearing on decision-making and on landownership.
No reports about decisions made by the village councils in early agrarian society
have come down to us. And yet, in communal landownership we can observe the
working of the principle of the Common Good (in contrast to private ownership
of land).

The communitarian spirit in the light of early statehood:

Local communities vis--vis political power in
the Mycenaean city states
There is general agreement that the Mycenaean city states were the earliest type
of state formation in the European context. This would relate the beginnings of
statehood in Europe to a timeframe of the second millennium BCE. Following
the epic narrative of Homer and the other epic poets, the Mycenaean states were
ruled by powerful kings. Archaeology cannot verify such accounts. The kings of
the Mycenaeans cannot have been powerful as is claimed since their names have
not come down to us, and no statues were erected in their honor. The figure of
Agamemnon in the Iliad is, most probably, fictitious. The kind of political bonds
that held the village communities together under an overarching power struc-
ture in a Mycenaean state was symbolic, rather than reflecting the realities of
statehood as we perceive it today.
Statehood defines itself in terms of the relationship between agencies of state
authority and local village communities. Archaeology, cultural history and the
study of texts in Mycenaean Linear B provide clues to this relationship. The best
starting-point for an analysis of the status of local communities in the Myce-
naean era and their range of benefits from the Common Good is the classical
period. Then, the distribution of land in the areas settled by the Greeks was quite
complex. The following categories of the status of land can be discerned (Isager
and Skydsgaard 1995: 121): common (or communal) land (koine), public or be-
longing to the state (demosia), sacred (hiera), private (idia).
In a closer analysis of the land in terms of places and sites with specific func-
tions, the following survey has been provided (ranging from the most specific to
the most general; Pritchett 1956: 269): house-site (oikopedon), private residence

36
(oikia), tenement-house (synoikia), garden (kepos), landed property, estate
(choros, chorion), plot of ground (of which the exact meaning is uncertain; gepe-
don), land cultivated for cereals, vines (ge psile), field for cultivation in the coun-
tryside (agros), oak grove (druinon), pine grove (pituinon).
It is noteworthy that some of these terms stem from the substrate language
(i.e. ge earth, choros). The diversification of land property and its terminology
that we find in Greek antiquity is but one stage in a prolonged development of
land use that started out in the communities of the Danube civilization. In the
beginning, there was only one sole category of landownership, and this was com-
munal. In the egalitarian society of Old Europe, private ownership of land was
unknown. The ancient administrative infrastructure supported communal man-
agement of the soil that was used for plant cultivation. In the smaller autono-
mous communities, an elected village council including a spiritual figure under
an elected headman could have constituted a more egalitarian administrative
system (Yakar 2011: 29).
In the archaeological record of Neolithic and Copper Age Europe there are no
traces of private ownership. Individual wealth resulting from private ownership
of land would have been reflected in social class distinctions and, ultimately, in
the grave goods. However, grave goods do not show such a divide. Private own-
ership of land is identifiable by the distribution of dwellings in a landscape. For
example, a typical setting of houses in the countryside in a province of the Im-
perium Romanum was the presence of rural villas amidst patches of cultivated
land. The inhabitants of those villas were the owners of the land by which they
were surrounded. Such settings are uncommon in the cultivated landscapes of
Old Europe. The arable land lies outside the settlements. The distance may have
been considerable as computer reconstructions of the areas around the mega-
settlements in southern Ukraine have illustrated.
The size of the village communities in the Bronze Age varied, in space and
time. It has been assumed that the location of smaller villages in the neighbor-
hood of bigger ones may point to hierarchical structures in local society. Such
assumptions have been rightly rejected as speculative: Differences in land po-
tential, or in the local history of a village, might create smaller and larger neigh-
boring communities, without implying political dominance (Bintliff 2012: 86).
The oldest Greek sources, of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE, hold in-
formation about communal landownership and of a system of land lease that
persisted into the classical era. The land of a village (kome) and its community
(demos) was owned by the inhabitants of the village community, and decisions
about leasing land were made by members of the community council. Had the

37
demes been under the control of private landowners, then communal landown-
ership would not have existed. The leasing system was not only in effect for the
lease of arable land, for olive groves or vineyards, it also extended to terrain rich
in minerals that was given to entrepreneurs for exploitation.
A well-known example of the leasing of land suitable for mining are the silver
mines of Thorikos in the southeastern part of Attica. The terrain of the local
mines was leased to the Athenian state that was obliged to pay a share of the rev-
enues from the mines to the local communal landowners. Thorikos was among
the richest demes in the Athenian state, and the community could afford to build
a theater that was the second largest in Attica, next to the Dionysos theater of
Athens (Ober 2008: 205f.).
Communal landownership was no innovation of the democratic era but had
existed long before Cleisthenes. It had been in place at the times of Solons re-
forms (that is at the beginning of the sixth century BCE), and the tradition of
land leasing dates further back. Landholding was communal which means that
the administrative body of the local community was responsible for the distri-
bution of land for cultivation to the inhabitants. It is reasonable to assert that
the distribution of the land was not gratuitous but was exercised as a source of
income a response to the communal needs of the local village. One can imagine
the working of a leasing system that required the delivery of a certain amount of
the crops from leased land to the council or the execution of communal services
by the lessee.
Assumptions about a system of land lease in Old Europe are not far-fetched
when one takes into consideration the fact that a communal leasing-system was
still functioning in the Mycenaean period. And the system of Mycenaean land
lease was no novelty but had been perpetuated from more ancient times. The
land owned by the village community was divided into plots that were then given
out on lease. There is a distant echo of the ancient leasing system in the Greek
language. The key term relating to the plotting of land was kleros (with a vari-
ant kleirion), (an allotment of land assigned to citizens; piece of land, a portion,
farm). This expression is an element of the substrate language. There is an old
land measure, schoinos, this too of pre-Greek origin.
Communal land lease, which may be postulated for the communities of the
Danube civilization (of the fifth and fourth millennium BCE), continues into
subsequent periods and is documented for the Mycenaeans in the second mil-
lennium BCE. The documents which describe communal landholding as a major
economic factor in Mycenaean society are the Linear B tablets that have been
retrieved from the archives of some of the Mycenaean palaces. Those texts, which

38
contain the most information about landholding, are from Pylos on the western
coast of the Peloponnese. The Pylian state was among the most prominent of the
Mycenaean city-states. As the base for communal landholding, the village com-
munity is identified which is called damo in the tablets. The Mycenaean damo
corresponds to the demos of the archaic and the classical periods. What the Lin-
ear B texts reveal about status and function of the damo recalls the status of the
Neolithic village in Old Europe. The Linear B scribes appear to mean by damo
a local organ of administration, considered in its corporate capacity (Hooker
1995: 18).
Communal landholding (called kekemena kotona in the Linear B texts) stands
in contrast to private ownership (called kotona kitimena). The society of the My-
cenaean Greeks knew both kinds of landholding. In addition to communal land
ownership there was also private property. Both these systems of landholding,
communal on the one hand and private on the other, are documented in the
written sources of the period. It is noteworthy that, in the Linear B texts, one no-
tices an awareness, on the side of the scribes, that the system of communal land
lease had a long tradition while private property is a more recent phenomenon.
Since the two types of landholding are mutually exclusive and since the damo is entirely
dissociated from kotona kitimena, we may surmise that the pattern seen in the tablets
represents the superimposition of a later system of tenure upon an earlier; it is possible,
furthermore, that land long settled lay at the disposition of the damo, whereas land more
recently acquired by individual enterprise was in the hands of private owners. (Hooker
1995: 16)

While there is good reason to assume continuity of a system of communal land

lease from Old Europe into Greek civilization, the emergence of private land
ownership is shrouded in the mist of prehistory. Since there are no traces of it
during the period when the Danube civilization prospered, its beginnings must
be related to the Bronze Age (starting in the late fourth millennium BCE). The
Bronze Age in southeastern Europe was a time of sociopolitical turbulence. It
can be inferred from the conditions of migrations from the Eurasian steppes
to the Balkan region that settlements of the Old Europeans and their descend-
ants, the Pelasgians, were taken over by the invading Indo-European tribes
(including the Greeks) and that land previously owned by local communities
turned into the property of those who established themselves as the elite. And
yet, the process of takeover was not total and remained fragmentary in certain
areas where the influx of migrants was minimal. Seemingly, the region of Ath-
ens and the part of Greece that is known by the name Attica were areas where
the Old European communities persisted intact for the most part.

39
 The Mycenaeans are known for their mighty kings and their rich kingdoms.
Though this is a myth, there is good reason to search for the reality behind this
myth. It is true that the Mycenaeans were the first Greeks to engage in seafaring.
Mycenaean merchants explored the coasts of the Aegean and reached out as far
as Sicily and southern Italy in the west, and into the Black Sea in the north. At
school we are taught that the Mycenaean city-state was a kingdom with a feu-
dal society, with a strong leader, the king (called wanaka in the Linear B texts),
supreme master and owner of the lands which he distributed to his followers as
fiefs. When historians in the nineteenth century read the works of Homer and
made an attempt at reconstructing Mycenaean society from the context of the
Iliad and Odyssey, the feudal system of medieval kingdoms in Europe came to
mind as the only political system for comparison. The structures of Mycenaean
society were identified according to the analogy of a feudal system and this no-
tion was introduced to the canon of western education.
Recent research in the social history of the Mycenaean Greeks has produced
insights that call for a revision of the older and outdated stereotype, still widely
held, about a rigidly hierarchical society with a feudal king at the top of the hier-
archy. In the written sources that have come down to us from the second millen-
nium BCE different conditions of political governance are revealed. The village
communities (damo) were the backbone of the settled land in all the regions
where Mycenaeans left their traces. Communal landholding was the foundation
for organizing cultivated land, and land leased from the local community (paro
damo) was the major factor for a sustained economy. Private property was pre-
sent, but on a more moderate scale than the widely practiced system of com-
munal landholding. The owners of private land (tereta in Linear B texts for later
Greek telestai) were people who held offices in the palace bureaucracy (Ilievski
2000: 360).
(), our documents disclose nothing of the status of the Great King of the Pylian state.
In particular, they give us no right to believe that a wanaka at Pylos owned lands and
made grants of them to noblemen. For all we know, the tereta held their estates by hered-
itary right, while the wanaka might have been a newcomer or a kind of figure-head who,
far from granting land to others, was dependent on them for his own tenure. (Hooker
1995: 18)

The contrasting models of landownership, of communal land lease (kekemena

kotona) with its longstanding tradition, and of more recent private landholding
(kotona kitimena), are manifested in a major document from Pylos, the so-called
land register tablet (figure 1).

40
Figure 1: The oldest land register (cadastral list) in European history

(thirteenth century BCE)

(Linear B document PY Ep 301; after Ilievski 2000: 83)

In this document, the names of the communities are listed in the register of com-
munal land lease and, in a separate register, the personal names of the tereta as
owners of private land are given (Ilievski 2000: 154ff.).
These two socioeconomic systems, that of communal land lease and private
landholding, continued into the post-Mycenaean era and, during the Geomet-
ric period (ninth and eighth centuries BCE), they assume ever more features of

41
contrasting worldviews. The representatives of the two mainstreams of Greek
landownership develop attitudes that diverge markedly (Bintliff 2012: 212):
One faction, the litist, favored retaining traditional hierarchy, emphasizing the heroic
status of the aristocrats and their external contacts, the latter being a combination of
gift-exchanges and more commercial ties within their regions and abroad

(this attitude can be associated with private landowners);

The other, the middling mentality, often expressed in later Classical city-states as the
basis for their moderate forms of democracy, seems to have wished to level class into a
single citizen community, inclusive of the serf population. It emphasized the value of
local agriculture and pastoralism as well as a desire to internalize social life within the
focus of an exclusive city-state

(this attitude can be associated with the villagers and their control over com-
munal land property).
The boundaries between land leasing and private landownership were never
fixed. Since private landownership is a derivation from an original leasing system
of communal land, the conditions of how the former may have emerged from the
latter should be looked at with some scrutiny. Modern scholarship has chosen
the term leasing for the kind of land lease in antiquity because this concept im-
plies the option, for the lessee, to purchase the lease from the owner (the lessor);
(see Tuomisto 1994: 431 for this option).
lease: a grant of the use of land (or other subject matter) for a specified term. In relation to
land, the grant confers a right of exclusive possession for a term or years, usually in return
for the payment of a periodic sum (rent) or a capital sum (a premium) or both. A lessee may
sublet to a sub-lessee, who will then acquire the right of exclusive possession as against the
lessee, who will become entitled to receive the rent stipulated for in the sublease.
(W.J. Stewart Collins dictionary of law, 2006)

A patch of land that was leased to someone could remain in use with a lessee
by continuously renewing the leasing contract. If successful, the lessee retained
the privilege of obtaining the leased land through purchase, provided the village
council, the lessor, agreed. There must have been a continuous shift from leased
land to private property already during the late Bronze Age since the Mycenaean
records from Pylos make a clear distinction between the two types of landown-
ership.
It can be assumed that those who developed private ownership were the early
Indo-European immigrants to Greece for whom communal land leasing was
an unfamiliar custom. The possibility cannot be excluded that, in certain areas,
the immigrants simply occupied land for themselves without negotiating about

42
ownership with the local villagers. Once private landownership had been estab-
lished another domain of economic privacy opened. The beginnings of a labor-
market are to be sought in the aspirations of private landowners to expand the
production of their lands. Those who leased communal land and later purchased
it from village councils hired workers for payment. In the pre-Greek vocabulary
of social relations several terms make reference to hiring laborers:
erithos day-laborer (of reapers, sheaf-binders), spinner, servant
thes serf, bondsman; hired laborer
latron payment, hire (derivation latris handmaid, hired servant)
Are distinctions in social relations of the late Bronze Age reflected in these con-
cepts? Were the first laborers that the private Greek landowners hired native Eu-
ropeans (i.e. Pelasgians)? If so then the distinction between land as communal
property and private landownership would, at the same time, signal distinctions
of social groups in early Greek society. The pre-Greek term thes ranges among
the central categories of social groups in Solons reforms of 594 BCE. Each group
is associated with a certain measure (medimnos, of pre-Greek origin) of yearly
agricultural production. This tradition reaches back to the Mycenaean era:
The surface of the land in Mycenaean times was measured by the quantity of seed re-
quired for sowing. That practice is in use up to the present day in the Near Eastern,
Mediterranean and Balkan countries, and in some places in Macedonia too. At the end
of every line of the Pylos cadastral list the quantity of seed is indicated by the phrase
to-so, pe-mo, -ma /tos(s)on spermo, -ma/, the ideogram *120 which very likely represents
a monogram of si+to (si-to) sitos grain, (), then by parts of the basic unit for dry meas-
ure, and the numerical signs of the decimal system. (Ilievski 2000: 358)

In Solons scheme of taxation, there are the pentakosimedimnoi the male citizens
who produce five hundred bushels of wheat, the hippeis horsemen (with an
income of three hundred bushels), the zeugitai yoked men (with an income of
two hundred bushels) and the thetes laborers (with an income less than two
hundred bushels). The thetes did not have access to governmental offices. The
thetes would have to wait for many decades before they were granted the right to
public offices by Cleisthenes, in his reforms of 507 BCE.

43
3.The Common Good: Its role as an
agent of social cohesion

While the basic idea of the Common Good persisted in the tradition of self-
governance of the village communities from Neolithic times onwards, certain
organizational forms were created to make the essence of the Common Good
materialize, and such agencies are recorded among the early Greeks. Knowledge
about the older manifestations of the Common Good was also available to Plato
and this knowledge enhanced the elaborations of his political theory.
In the ancient sources, we find accounts of agencies and institutions that have
as their agenda the promotion of the Common Good. These agencies played a
key role for the formative process of Hellenic unity (i.e. pan-Hellenism), dur-
ing the time when a sentiment of all-Hellenic cultural unity emerged and con-
solidated among the Greeks. The focal points from which pan-Hellenism spread
throughout the Greek world were the sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia. It is in
the milieu of these holy places, frequented by many Greeks throughout antiq-
uity, that a sense of the significance of the Common Good gave shape to Greek
identity.

Pan-Hellenism as a signifier of the Common Good:

Cultural stereotyping and the emergence of Greek ethnicity
The idea of the Common Good in Platos political scheme of an ideal state is not
unconditional, not meant for any culture or any society, or all people. Plato ad-
dresses Greeks and those who have become Hellenized through the medium of
the Greek language. In fact, the concept of the Common Good is developed in a
Greek-oriented milieu and is meant to be applied by members in communities
with Greek culture and language.
The idea of the Common Good as a virtue of Hellenicity was ritualized and
celebrated by the Greeks in a particular cult, that of homonoia (political con-
cord). Aristotle discusses homonoia as the political equivalent of the social
concept philia (friendship) in his Eudemian Ethics (1241a1-33). There is in-
scriptional evidence for altars and other dedications to Homonoia personified
from the third century BCE until well into Roman times (Thalmann 2011: 66,
fn 42). The idea of homonoia (and her personification) was one of the great con-
ceptions of the Hellenistic age, but she remained a pious aspiration only (Tarn
1952: 90f.).

45
 Plato was a Greek, and he was also an Athenian, which makes him a particular
kind of Greek. From ancient sources we learn that the awareness of being Athe-
nian set the citizens of the city of Athens and of the region of Attica apart from
other Greeks. The Athenians were known for their pride, in their city, in their
aboriginality, in their cultural and political achievements. Among these achieve-
ments was the idea of the Common Good, and Platos notion of it may well have
been forged by the contemporary zeitgeist that dominated life in Athens.
This zeitgeist is evoked in the play Erechtheus, a work of the tragic poet Eu-
ripides (fifth century BCE), in which the most impressive part is perhaps the
monologue by queen Praxithea on the virtues of the citizen who is willing to give
his life for the protection of his beloved Athens. In her speech, the quality of the
Common Good plays the role of an overarching shield of all that makes life
worth living. When summing up the underpinnings of the Common Good in
Praxitheas speech, the following kaleidoscope of virtues is revealed:
() a conviction that Athens is better than all other cities; pride in the autochthonous
origins of its people; devotion to the forefathers and their ancestral religion; the primacy
over individual self-interest of the common good, toward which the citizen properly feels
an overwhelming sense of love, duty, and honor; boldness and resilience; the ability to
take quick action; and above all a readiness to die for ones country. (Connelly 2014: 122)

The Common Good associated with a Greek sense of communitarianism flour-

ishes under the auspices of pan-Hellenism. It is noteworthy that pan-Hellenism
as the frame for a Greek-oriented communitarian spirit was perceived in its
multicultural origins. The general idea about the origin of the Hellenes, as ar-
ticulated by the epic poets and early historiographers, is that Greek ethnicity is
multi-layered and that, in the Greek ethnos, many features of acculturation and
incorporation of originally non-Greek origin are reflected. The Pelasgians were
the best known, but there are many other ethnic groups that became Hellenized
in a process of longterm acculturation.
() it has to be concluded that the language spoken by the Pelasgians was not Greek;
and if this is so () then it is clear that the Athenians, as a people originally of Pelasgian
stock, must at some point in the process of their Hellenization have learned a whole new
language: Greek. (Herodotus, Histories I, 57)

The idea of Greekness (Hellenicity) was related by many writers and historiogra-
phers to processes of acculturation so that being a Hellene was perceived as the
final stage of a process when a foreigner adopted the Greek language and became
accustomed to a Greek way of life. Greekness thus could be understood as a mat-
ter of ethnic diffusion.

46
 () Herodotus, who believed that Hellenicity was a matter of diffusion, was only too
happy to inform the Athenians that their pride in being autochthonous was double
edged. If Hellenicity was a matter of becoming, that meant they could not possibly have
originally been Hellenes but rather Pelasgians. (Malkin 2011: 60)

The myth of Athenian aboriginality

The Athenians followed a tradition that deviated from the general picture of Hel-
lenic origins and they created for themselves a unique myth of origin, the Athe-
nian aition. Of all foundation myths of Greek communities the story of Athens
was the most complex (Harding 2011: 184). The writing of the local history of
Athens developed a genre of its own, called the atthides (atthis local history of
Athens and Attica), and those authors who wrote in that genre are known as
atthidographers.
In the Athenian aition, ethnic purity and aboriginality were praised as ma-
jor properties of the Athenian ethnos, and by these features, the Athenians dis-
tinguished themselves from other Greek tribes. The myth of origin among the
Athenians centered on the prominent figure of Athena, the protectress of Athens
and, in particular, the patron divinity of the Acropolis. Although a virgin god-
dess, Athena became the foster mother of a boy named Erechtheus (Gantz 1993:
233ff.). According to the early tradition, the child was entrusted to Athenas care
by the earth goddess, Gaia. In a later version of the myth, Hephaestus was named
as the boys father. According to this later version, Hephaestus sought comfort in
the arms of Athena while his wife, Aphrodite, was indulging in one of her many
affairs. He attempted to rape her, but Athena escaped. From Hephaestus seed
which fell on the soil grew a child who was raised by Athena. The specific associa-
tion with the soil gave rise to an alternative name for Erechtheus, Erichthonius,
in which the central element was popularly associated with chthon (earth).
The myth is intriguing not only because of the autochthonous origin of Erichthonios,
who went on to become king and found one of the most illustrious lines in Athenian
history, but also because of the emphasis placed on Athena and Hephaistos, the two
deities associated with arts and crafts or techne (including weaving), who are parents
(indirectly in the case of Athena) of this chthonic figure, founder of the Athenians. In
other words, techne is embedded in the Athenian character. Athena naturally resists the
challenge to her virginity (), yet she is a pivotal figure in the myth necessary for the
birth of Erichthonios and also serving as kourotrophos or nurse after his birth (cf. Hom.
Il. 2.547548), a position she hastily relinquishes. (Barringer 2008: 102f.)

The mythical genealogy of the Athenians, the House of Athens, presents itself
in the following way (Gantz 1993, Appendix genealogical table 12: p. xxxvii):

47
 Mythical ancestor: Erichthonios
Descendant (first generation): Pandion I
Descendant (second generation): Erechtheus
Among the later descendants are Theseus and Eurynome.

The myth names Erechtheus as the first king of Athens and the surrounding At-
tica. The Athenians extended the myth by claiming they were direct descendants
of the ancestral hero. The fact that Erechtheus grew from the earth (gegenes born
from the earth) was interpreted as meaning the Greek settlements in Attica were
aboriginal. With Athena as the powerful protectress of the city and the historical
landscape of Attica, the Athenians and their homeland were ensured of protec-
tion against destruction or defeat (Kinsley 1989: 145ff.). Thus, a direct link be-
tween mythical ethnic origins and territoriality is established.
The Athenians knew that Athena had resided in Athens and Attica before
the arrival of the Greeks and they were also aware of the great age of the Earth
Mother Gaia.
The first Athenian was born by Ge (the Earth) in Attica. That is where the Athenians
had lived ever since the city had not been founded by any single act. This is what the
Athenians themselves have told us, and they are not likely to have told anything com-
pletely incompatible with what they observed round themselves. (Isager and Skydsgaard
1995: 126)

Modern research in historical linguistics has confirmed that the names of all the
agents involved in the Athenian myth of origin are of pre-Greek origin. This is
true for Athena, Erechtheus, Gaia and Hephaistos. Markers of pre-Greek origin
may be morphological (e.g. the non-Greek suffix -n- in Athena) or sound varia-
tions (e.g. Gaia with alternative forms such as Ge and De, as in Demeter goddess
of grain); (Beekes 2010: 29, 255, 269). In the story of Athena and Erechtheus,
genuine elements of the pre-Greek past, mythical and linguistic, fuse to form a
unique matrix of cultural memory, the Athenian myth of origin.
The concepts of divine origin and aboriginality were key to the Athenians
consciousness of themselves as a civilized people. The Athenians developed a cult
of their aboriginality. They hailed the pureness of their ethnic descent as a mark
of their nobility and of their distinctiveness from other Greek tribes. In many of
the classical sources the notion of noble aboriginality is highlighted.
Plato lived and worked in Athens under the democracy. The philosopher was
aware of the specific conditions that the Athenians claimed for themselves in
their myth of origin; he took sides and advocated the Athenians purity of blood,
through the words of the protagonist in his dialogue Menexenos:

48
 We [the Athenians] are pure Hellenes, who have not mixed with barbarians
(amiges barbron). For we are not like the descendants of Pelops or Kadmos, Aigyptos
or Danaos, nor many others who, being barbarians by nature (phsis) and Hellenes by
convention (nomos), dwell among us (sunoikosin hemn) we reside here as genuine
Hellenes, not as half-barbarians (meixobrbaroi). (Plato, Menexenos 245d)

The shared sense of earth-bound aboriginality among the Athenians (including

Plato) provided the foundation for politics in the Athenian city-state to achieve
a quality that may be described as trust-worthiness. This condition would cor-
respond to Platos ideal of the Common Good. In some modern assessments of
democracy and the Common Good in Greek antiquity, the emergence of demo-
cratic governance is linked to the awareness of a common shared ancestry.
Democracy had taken form for the first time in human history precisely because of the
profound and all-pervading sense of a common Athenian ancestry, one that originated
in the mists of the Bronze Age, the sons of Erechtheus of Athena herself all belonging
to the land. Politeia, that touchstone of Athenian life denoting the conditions and rights
of the citizen, was a concept whose sense extended far beyond our notions of politics,
positing a mythic deep time and a cosmic reality in which the citizen would not locate
himself or understand his existence except through religious awareness and devotions.
All were pledged to the good of the polis, and by extension that of one another, and by
that mutual understanding popular rule could be trusted. (Connelly 2014: 80)

Athena enjoyed continuous veneration as the protectress of the Athenian state

and, as patron of crafts and democratic institutions, the National Assembly (ek-
klesia) for one. There was another divine figure who shared with Athena patron-
age for the crafts, and for metal-working in particular. As such, the goddess,
together with Hephaistos, was hailed by Plato:
Plato describes the two deities [i.e. Athena and Hephaistos] as siblings, (), who share a
common nature their love of wisdom and artistry and hold one portion of land, Ath-
ens, as their common territory. And Plato also assigns them a tutelary role with regard to
the city: the two divinities taught order (ten taxin) of the polis to the autochthonous race
of Athenians, which stems from the two deities (Kritias 109c-d). (Barringer 2008: 140)

The meaning of the Athenian aition was further developed to include elements
of self-glorification and, consequently, a negative categorization of others, thus
establishing the defensive mechanism of Greek ethnicity. Other Greek tribes (e.g.
Dorians, Ionians, Spartans) were considered by the Athenians to be less presti
gious representatives of Greek civilization simply because they were not aborigi-
nals, but immigrants in their homeland and, more specifically, a motley rabble
tainted with foreign blood (Parker 1990: 195).

49
The Common Good in the light of cultural stereotyping:
Greeks versus Barbarians
Herodotus (ca. 484ca. 425 BCE), in his monumental work Histories, offers ex-
planations why the Greeks defeated the Persians in the Greco-Persian Wars, the
series of military confrontations between the Greek city-states and the Persian
kingdom (starting in 499 BCE and lasting until 449 BCE). The ostensible goal of
The Histories is to explain what would now be termed the clash of civilizations:
the inability of the peoples of East and West to live together in peace. The theme
was one fit to inspire a whole new genre (Holland 2013: vii).
In the light of such historical conditions Herodotus sets out to explain the
differences between civilizations and, above all, to evaluate the reasons why the
Greeks defeated the Persians and western civilization triumphed. The passages
of the Histories in which the events of the Persian wars are treated are permeated
with cultural stereotypes, ethnic prejudice and moral judgments. The picture that
Herodotus draws of the Persians stands in stark contrast to the image that he
creates of his fellow-Greeks. The characteristic features of the two ethnic groups
which Herodotus maps out in the Histories find their parallel in the popular ste-
reotypes of classical literature and stage plays.
Despotism and servility are the features which allegedly characterize the na-
ture of the Persians. According to beliefs which enjoyed popularity among the
Greeks, the Persians were weak because they had succumbed to decadence, to
a lavish lifestyle which had eventually weakened their strength as soldiers. In a
famous passage that concludes the monumental Histories, Herodotus states that
the Greeks are superior to the Persians because they live in a harsh land which
produces valiant soldiers: Soft lands are prone to breed soft men. No country
can be remarkable for its yield of crops, and at the same time breed men who are
hardy in war (Histories 9.122).
On various occasions, Herodotus addresses the issue of ethnic diversity in a
country. In this context, he opines that conditions of homogeneity of the popula-
tion favor unity, in contrast to conditions of multiculturalism. The best example
to illustrate the former would be Greece, while Persia represents the latter model.
Herodotus articulates judgmental assumptions in Greek society and confirms a
pattern of reasoning in the political discourse of the classical era (and beyond)
where a tendency toward favoring ethnic unity over ethnic heterogeneity can be
observed.
For example, in his Politics (1303a25), Aristotle emphasizes that the main
reason for a stalemate (stasis) in sociocultural development or civil war is
the absence of ethnic unity because a community is not of the same tribe

50
(homophylon). Both in Athenian political discourse and in Greek political
thought more generally, ethnic diversity within a polis is seen as pushing against
political unity and as diminishing military strength (Lape 2010: 253).
Herodotus stands in the tradition of Hellenic self-glorification which inspired
the sociocultural stereotyping about Greeks and barbarians. The seeds for such a
world-view were already sown in the archaic era, by epic poets, by Homer in his
Iliad for one. In this, Herodotus follows the epic poet as his predecessor.
The themes and motifs that will later become the stock-in-trade of the Greek depictions
of the Other were clearly already present in Homers time and are also present in the
poem. () When he describes how the leader of barbarophonoi Carians came to the war
all decked with gold, like a girl, fool that he was [Iliad 2.872-3], the theme of Barbarian
effeminate luxury and Greek disapproval of it is clearly present. (Vlassopoulos 2013: 171)

The opposed concepts of the positively valued Greeks and the negative image of
the ethnic Other were kept alive throughout antiquity by constantly reworking
and renewing their fabric. Among the Greeks, animosities and suspicions regard-
ing foreigners were vividly entertained. At the same time the Greeks celebrated
their own cultural achievements and their actions. The stuff from which this po-
larization was made between the positive connotations of Greek culture and the
negative image of barbarian culture (of Persian culture, for an exemplary con-
trast) was of a mythic magnitude, and it is no exaggeration to state that Herodo-
tus made himself the agent of myth-making on a grand scale. He promoted the
myth of Greek superiority over other cultures and of Greek ingenuity regarding
cultural achievements.
This myth of Greek uniqueness was transmitted, from antiquity, through the
modern era. The polarized configuration of positive western culture versus nega-
tive eastern culture still resonates in popular ideas about antiquity as much as in
scholarly discourse.
The relationship between Greeks and Barbarians is seen as part of the wider distinction
between West and East; the Greeks are the ancestors of the West, the people who in-
vented democracy, freedom of thought, science, philosophy, drama and naturalistic art,
and whose literary works stand as the foundation of Western literature; the world of the
East, the world of the people whom the Greeks described as Barbarians, is a wholly dif-
ferent world, characterised by despotism and theocracy and the absence of all the Greek
achievements. (Vlassopoulos 2013: 1)

Language was one of the pillars of Athenian cultural consciousness, on which

they built their self-awareness. The negative attitudes of ancient Greeks toward
the ethnicity of other peoples are illustrative of their language-oriented self-
glorification. The stereotype of the uncultured barbarian who does not speak

51
Greek and thus does not share in the blessings of Greek culture emerged in the
archaic period. In Homers Iliad (II 867), the term barbarophon (of barbar-
ian speech) is used to describe the Carians of Asia Minor. Indeed, it was the
Athenians who began to refer to foreigners as barbaroi, and this habit persisted
throughout Greek antiquity. The Spartans used a different expression to refer to
foreigners: xenoi.
In her seminal study of Greek cultural stereotyping, Hall (1989: 121ff.) lists
the following attributes as being ascribed to barbaroi in Greek classical literature:
effeminate, luxurious, highly emotional and cowardly
(e.g. the Phrygian slave in Orestes);
despotic and servile
(e.g. the Aeschylean play Persae);
savage, lawless and unjust
(e.g. the Thracian Polymestor in Hecuba);
unsophisticated and unintelligent
(e.g. the Egyptian in Euripides play Helen).
By stereotyping the barbarian in negative terms, the Greeks accentuated the
virtues which they believed to be typical of themselves (manliness and bravery,
political freedom, lawfulness and justice, intelligence and reason) and which set
them apart from foreigners.

Central places and early agencies advancing the Common

Good forHellas: The sanctuaries of Delphi and Olympia
The native Europeans had their sacred places, and the Greeks had theirs. But
since the Greeks adopted divine figures and cult practices from their predeces-
sors, they also frequented older pre-Greek sites where popular worship contin-
ued. Evidence for this can be found in the ancient terms for cult places, elements
of the pre-Greek substrate language, that were borrowed into ancient Greek: al-
sos sacred grove, krotaphos / kortaphos temple, megaron inner space of a tem-
ple, naos / nauos / neos / naios / neios sanctuary, orymos / orymbos altar, sekos/
sakos enclosed sacred space. This is also true for expressions relating to cult
practices: kterea gifts for the dead, sacrifice, megara sacrificial pits into which
piglets were thrown (as part of the Thesmophoria ritual), orgia secret religious
rituals, pelanos sacrificial cake (liquid flour dough, flour pulp, honey and oil),
threskeuo to perform or observe religious customs.
Among the sacred places that had been frequented already by the native Eu-
ropeans and that continued in their original function to be used by the early

52
Greeks there were two with paramount significance for the corporate design of
pan-Hellenism: Olympia and Delphi (Scott 2010).
It is often maintained that the terms Hellas and Hellenes were diffused throughout
Greece via the sanctuary of Delphi. () The construction of an ethnic community of
Hellenes probably had more to do with Olympia than with Delphi, though the geo-
graphical conception of Hellas was indeed articulated through Delphi () (Hall 2002:
134f.).

Delphi as the symbolic center of Hellas

The most famous center of a pan-Hellenic identity was undoubtedly Delphi, with
its umbilical stone (omphalos), symbolizing the center of the world. This identi-
fication is widely understood as referring to all the regions populated by human
beings. But such a cosmopolitan connotation is a modern projection which does
not reflect realities of antiquity. For the ancients the umbilical stone at Delphi
marked the center of the Greek world in particular (without taking into con-
sideration the world of the barbarian peoples). In the archaic period, that is at
the times of Homer, the world inhabited by the Greeks, known as Hellas, was
relatively small.
Between the time of the Iliad (ca. 750 BC) and the Odyssey (ca. 725 BC), the conception
of Hellas has broadened from indicating a specific region south of Thessaly to designat-
ing central Greece generally. It is not, however, until the time of Alkman in the later
seventh century that the term can be used to describe the whole of mainland Greece,
while its broadest application to embrace the whole of the Greek world is not attested
until the time of Xenophanes in the third quarter of the sixth century. (Hall 2002: 156)

Delphis fame reached far beyond the Greek world and, once all of Greece had
been integrated into the Roman empire, also many Romans visited Delphi.
Among them was Cicero (10643 BCE), the famous orator and writer who dis-
cussed the oracles of Delphi in his work On divination. Plutarch (45120 CE)
wrote essays about Delphi. All great figures of Athenian history frequented the
sanctuary of Delphi to consult the oracle. The authority of the oracle was ac-
knowledged by Plato: Plato accepts the validity of the oracles of Apollo at Delphi
(Rep. 427bc), as well as those of Ammon and Dodona (Laws 787bd and 759de)
(Stoneman 2011: 36).
Among those who consulted the oracle at Delphi was also Cleisthenes who,
while exiled from Athens, made inquiries at Delphi about what the future might
hold for him. The oracle encouraged him to remain steadfast and envisaged
Cleisthenes successful return. Cleisthenes did return to Athens and carried out

53
his reform work in 507 BCE which safeguarded the Common Good on the com-
munal and state level.
The pronouncements of the oracle have come down to us because they were
recorded in writing. In their original form the oracular contents was given in
spoken language, that is the oracles were uttered on site and written down later.
The one who is credited with the utterance of oracular pronouncements occu-
pied a central position among the cult personnel of Delphi. This position was
held by a highly trained priestess, the Pythia. Pythia is no individual name of any
priestess but the designation of her office. In the early days of cult activity at Del-
phi the pronouncements of the Pythia were made in rhymed language, and they
were modeled on the literary meter of the Greek hexameter which is the mould
of epic literature. One may wonder how it was possible for a priestess to make
oracular pronouncements in a complex literary meter. An explanation may be
found in the fact that those women who held the office of the Pythia were origi-
nally elected from the circle of high aristocracy, and these women were familiar
with the works of epic poets. In the classical period, also ordinary women could
function as Pythia and utterances were made in ordinary language.
There is unanimity among scholars that the practice of the oracle and the
conditions of the priestess office point to great antiquity of this institution and
of the entire sanctuary. It is noteworthy that the Hellenophile representatives
of the Romantic Movement in the early nineteenth century identified oracular
practices and trance as part of the oldest layer of Greek religion (Lambropoulos
1993: 174). The characteristics of ritual practice at Delphi support the idea of a
long duration of that sacred place. According to the mythical tradition, recorded
in the works of Pausanias, the beginnings of ritual activities at Delphi are embed-
ded in the mythical past.
Legend held (Paus. 10.5.9) that a series of eight temples had been built for Apollo at
Delphi: the first was made of laurel branches from Tempe, the second was made by bees
out of wax and feathers; the third temple was of bronze, destroyed by a thunderbolt as
Pindars eighth Paean tells us. A fourth temple was built by the heroes Trophonius and
Agamedes (), and the temple that stood in Pindars day (and that stands now) was
the eighth in the series. The long succession emphasizes how far in the distant past (or
depths of the psyche) lay the ancient and terrifying oracle of Earth. (Stoneman 2011: 35)

In the mythical tradition of how the Greeks explained their world the sacred
space at Delphi is associated with Gaia, the Earth Goddess, who was the original
owner of the sanctuary. In this role, Gaia was venerated by all who visited Del-
phi. Gaia is no Greek name but derived from a pre-Greek word stem meaning
earth. Variations of this pre-Greek word are ge- and de- (as in Demeter, name

54
of the Grain Goddess, with De- as a pre-Greek element and meter mother as an
Indo-European component). The Greek word for earth is chthon which lives on
in our cultural vocabulary (i.e. in the derivation chthonic earthbound). In the
association of a pre-Greek goddess with the sanctuary of Delphi, its pre-Greek
heritage is revealed.
Gaia actually was not the only owner of the place but she shared ownership
with Themis. This goddess was her daughter who was not the fruit of a liaison
of Gaia with a male god or any of the mortal men. Gaia became pregnant by
accident. The mythical tradition has it that Hephaestus fell in love with Athena,
the eternally virgin goddess, and when he was aroused he wanted to make love.
Athena, though, escaped his grip and Hephaestus spilled his seed on the ground,
which caused Gaia to become pregnant.
Themis was no marginal deity and sanctuaries were dedicated to her in vari-
ous parts of Greece, in Thessaly, Boiotia, Epiros, in the Argolid, on Rhodes, in
Macedonia and, in Athens. She was the goddess of righteousness, of custom-
ary law and of social order. During the times of democratic rule in Athens, in
the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, she symbolized the right of a representative
of the National Assembly (ekklesia) to speak up freely. The name Themis is of
pre-Greek origin as is the divine figure (Beekes 2010: 539). Like Athena, Themis
connected two worlds, the heritage of the pre-Greek world with the innovations
of the Greek world. Like Gaia, Themis was held in high esteem and was always
remembered by those who visited Delphi.
Since the times of Homer and the other epic poets, Apollo was known as the
owner of the sanctuary at Delphi. This god is Greek. According to myth, Gaia and
Themis entrusted Apollo with the ownership of Delphi but they themselves were
never ousted or abandoned but remained present throughout Delphis long his-
tory. In their myths, the Greeks conceptualized the transition from an older cul-
ture (that of the pre-Greek population) to a younger culture (that of the Greeks)
and they also kept their awareness of the ritual continuity of the sacred space.
There was a saying, relating to Themis, in ancient Greek and this was themis
esti it is the custom; it is the norm of social conduct. The mythical kinship with
Gaia may be understood as an aspect of the earthbound way of life of the early
agriculturalists whose norms of social conduct and customary law were estab-
lished by Themis who also functioned as patron to safeguard these norms. If
Themis did indeed start life as an aspect of Gaia, her gaining of autonomy could
be understood as a reflection of a shift in emphasis, from an agrarian concern
with fertility to an increasingly urban concern with law and political order
(Stafford 1997: 158).

55
 In fact, Themis was the integrating figure at Delphi because, unlike Gaia who
retained only some symbolic meaning after the shift of ownership, she held vi-
tal functions even at the times of Apollos patronage over the sacred site. In the
Greeks perception the Pythia was no ordinary priestess but the ritual activi-
ties that she performed in her trance were imbued with divine inspiration. The
Pythia was perceived as a personification of Themis and her intentions and, in
this identification, scenes of the oracle were painted on Attic vases. One of those
scenes shows Aegeus who seeks advice from Themis in the posture of the Pythia
(figure 2). Aegeus was a descendant in the royal lineage of Erechtheus, the mythi-
cal founder of the Athenian dynasty.

Figure 2: Themis in the posture of the Pythia

(Attic red-figure cup of the fifth century BCE; after Gerhard 1839: 71)

56
It is of little importance whether the Greeks perceived the Pythia as a human
being, guided by divine spirit, or whether they identified the priestess with the
personality of Themis. The matter of significance was the atmosphere that was
created by the ritual act of making pronouncements in a trance. Like her office,
the Pythia represented the social order that had emerged in pre-Greek times and
persisted into classical antiquity. In the light of the Pythias identification with
Themis as a guarantor of ancient customs, all communication on the part of the
oracles visitors with the Pythia unfolded in the spirit of an appreciation of tradi-
tional values as as a series of maxims.
The mentality that stood behind that order was encapsulated in the concept
of hosia, a term from the context of the pre-Greek cultural substrate (Beekes
2010: 1117 f.) This particular term in ancient Greek stood for customary law,
the norms of social conduct handed down from previous generations based on
the life experience of the ancestors, customs and traditions known from the an-
cients. Traditional values in cultural memory were associated with the customs
and practices of the native Europeans from whose institutions and achievements
the Greeks benefited immensely. In a way, the Pythia was the guardian of a mind-
set oriented toward a harmonious integration of the interests of all Greeks who
had been divided into various tribes from an early time onward. The social order
of the ancients was based on the principle of an egalitarian society with all
individuals taking equal responsibilities for communal affairs in a shared com-
munitarian spirit and on the basis of communal self-governance.
Among those traditional values which the Greeks cherished and celebrated
through their worship of Themis was the perception of the Common Good in its
pan-Hellenic settings. This experience from the pre-Greek past echoed among
the Greeks and strengthened their self-awareness of the values of what would
later be called to agathon, the Common Good, by Plato.

The Council of the Greek tribes at Delphi

The integrative (pan-Hellenic) spirit became manifested in a very particular way
at Delphi, in the heartland of Hellas. At Delphi, in the course of the process of
Hellenization, the idea of egalitarian governance culminated in the founding of a
tribal league, an inter-regional network of political decision-making. This league
was called the amphiktiony. This expression is a compound word, being com-
prised of the preposition amphi- around and the verb ktizein to inhabit, settle.
The original meaning of amphiktiony is thus people in the neighborhood (Hall
2002: 148). The point of reference in this context was a central sanctuary, Delphi.

57
 The Delphic (Anthela) amphiktiony (a ritual network or grouping of political commu-
nities, mostly ethn, supervising the Delphic sanctuary, centered on Thermopylai and
with a strong Thessalian influence) undoubtedly played a significant role in the original
spread of the term Hellenism. All who joined in the Delphic network probably became
Hellenes, a term originally associated with only a section of the amphiktiony. (Malkin
2011: 59f.)

The date of the founding of the Delphic amphiktiony (literally League of Neigh-
bors) is not known. Written records are available from the sixth century BCE
onward. The tribal council is certainly much older and may have originated in
the eighth century BCE or even earlier. The earliest version of this tribal network,
to enhance security among the ancient tribes through the medium of diplomatic
negotiations, has been associated with the Thessalians in modern scholarly in-
vestigation (McInerney 2000: 164f.). An indication of this is the fact that the
chairman of the council was always a Thessalian.
The central organ of the league was the council, in which twelve tribes were
represented by two representatives (hieromnemones) each, bringing the number
of members of the council to 24. According to the statutes of the amphiktiony,
each tribe had to observe peace; and war between the tribes was forbidden. Each
tribe had the obligation to secure the provision of the inhabitants of towns and
villages with drinking-water, not only for the population on its own territory but
also for other tribes. Originally a religious network that took responsibility for
the maintenance of the sanctuary at Delphi, the amphiktiony gradually gained
political significance. Sentences could be imposed on those who broke the stat-
utes and sacred wars could be declared as punishment. The first sacred war was
waged in c. 591 BCE and the third (and last) in 356 BCE against the Phocians
who had sacked the sanctuary at Delphi.
The Delphic amphiktiony has been celebrated as the common bond of Hellas.
The Roman orator Cicero called it commune Graeciae consilium (the com-
mon council of Greece). In modern research the Delphic amphiktiony has been
celebrated as a prototype of the Swiss confederation. A comparison may also be
made with the confederation of the five nations of the Iroquois in North America
(Bradley 1987: 181ff.).
It is noteworthy that, in 490 BCE, the council following a suggestion of the
chairman from Thessaly reached a majority decision on how to respond to the
Persians demand that the Greeks should become vassals of the Persian empire.
Most of the Greek tribes that were represented in the council voted for the subju-
gation of Greek cities to the Persians. The representatives of Athens and of Sparta
opposed and left the council. It is well known from history books that the Athe-
nians engaged in war against the invading Persian armies on the mainland and

58
against their fleets operating in the Aegean. After the Persian wars that lasted for
half a century the Delphic amphiktiony lost their former significance. The activi-
ties of the tribal network came to an end in 346 BCE when the Macedonian king
Philip II usurped its presidency. As a counterreaction to this undemocratic act,
many of the other tribes representatives left the council and abandoned the league.

Olympias role in pan-Hellenism as the Common

Good of all Greeks
It is easy to illustrate the continuity of culture in the region of Olympia (in the
northwestern part of the Peloponnese) because, according to the archaeological
record, the area was continuously inhabited since the fifth millennium BCE. This
makes Olympia a place that was frequented (and settled) by the native Europeans,
and because of its great age Olympia formed part of the sociocultural network of
the Danube civilization. The history of Olympia unfolded uninterruptedly dur-
ing successive periods before the arrival of the Greeks there. Among the relics
pointing to a former presence of the native Europeans and their descendants are
the foundations of some houses, an abundance of ceramic ware of different types
and some figurines. Continuity of cultural activities in the area is documented
for a prolonged period, from the early Bronze Age onward.
Whether cult was always associated with games and other competitive performances, as
claimed by ancient tradition, is unclear, but at Olympia significantly legend told how the
Games originated with the funeral games for the mythical hero Pelops, whose tomb was
believed to lie at the locality. Minor Bronze Age activity at the site has been documented,
including an Early Bronze Age ritual tumulus which could have been the kind of monu-
ment encouraging later myths of heroes buried at the sanctuary. Significant cult activity
begins here in the ninth century, whilst dedications only really take off in the eighth
century. (Bintliff 2012: 243)

What is of special interest are the traces of the transitional phase when the site
passed on from the indigenous inhabitants to the Greeks. The oldest construc-
tions of Olympia, within the precinct of the Altis (sanctuary to the gods), are
the temples of Hera, the wife of Zeus, and of Rhea, the mother of Zeus. When
interpreting the chronology that is encapsulated in the mythical tradition a pro-
longed continuity of female divinities and their cults is revealed that predates the
introduction of a male god (i.e. Zeus) and its cult to the area.
Olympia is a truly mysterious place. The Olympic Games of ancient Greece,
under the patronage of a male god, are known world-wide, but the much older
tradition of festivals, associated with Hera, are not even known to all the visitors
of Olympia, not to speak of a broader public. What is common to both traditions,

59
the older female-dominated and the younger male-dominated, is that sporting
competitions were organized there at intervals. According to a widely-held view,
the Olympics of antiquity were held for and by men only, with no women al-
lowed to either participate or watch. This is a distortion of reality. Men as well as
women participated in sports and games, only the events of their festivals were
segregated according to sex.
The early patron of festivities at Olympia was Hera, the pre-Greek Earth
Mother, goddess of fertility and of the family. Although Heras role in the Greek
pantheon of classical times may seem somewhat marginal, this impression is
misleading; () the Iliad nevertheless preserves traces which suggest that Hera
had once been a truly powerful goddess, and of course her importance in cult
continued to be very significant in later times (Yasumura 2011: 57).
At Olympia, rituals in Heras honor were celebrated by young women, and
women were the only ones allowed to take part in the sportive competitions,
called Heraia. In Greek art, we find pictures of women-runners who compete
with one another in the Heraia (figure 3).

Figure 3: A female runner at the Heraia of Olympia

(bronze figurine, c. 500 BCE; courtesy of The British Museum)

60
Once a year, the Heraia were held at the end of summer, comparable in their
function to what we know as Harvest Festival. The women in the region of
Olympia who gathered for the Heraia celebrated the blessing of the crops and
they expressed their wishes for fertility, for themselves and for the domestic
animals.
The girl-athletes, all maidens, run three foot-races according to age groups, always of
the same length, one stadion minus a sixth (probably because a stadion is 600 ft, and a
womans pace is smaller than a mans). The girls do not compete naked they wear a
short dress but their female power is nonetheless displayed and transmitted in what is,
without question, an ancient fertility ritual, and perhaps, in part at least, a prenuptial rite
of passage. As they run, their long hair flies loose, their dresses are unhitched at the right
shoulder to expose a single breast, and their bare feet pound the track in direct contact
with Mother Earth. The energy of their young bodies symbolises the dynamism of life.
(Faulkner 2012: 85)

If it is true that sporting competitions were held at Olympia in pre-Greek times

then one would look for an expression from the substrate language to describe
the essence of competition. Indeed, there is a key term of pre-Greek origin in
ancient Greek, and this is amilla a contest for superiority; a trial for strength
(Beekes 2010: 88). This word is also used in metaphorical meanings, for example,
for a contest of marriage or a striving for wealth. The idea of amilla for express-
ing peaceful competition is quite different from what is described as eris rivalry;
conflict; military campaign. Eris was personified as the sister and companion of
Ares, the god of war. Eris was known as the goddess who incites war. What was
organized at Olympia was amilla, explicitly to avoid eris.
If Hera symbolizes the pre-Greek heritage of the region, then Zeus stands for
the Greek presence. His temple is some 150 years younger than the temple of
Hera, and it was completed in 456 BCE. The dimension of this construction is
monumental although its three-stepped platform with a length of 64 m and a
width of 28 m is a little smaller than the foundation of the Parthenon temple
on the Acropolis of Athens (figure 4).

61
Figure 4: Plan of the pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Olympia

(after Maranti 1999: 29)

The native Europeans who had settled at Olympia accommodated themselves

and came to terms with the Greeks who took over the site, just like Hera accom-
modated herself to the master of all gods by becoming his wife. The union of
Zeus and Hera in Greek myth can be interpreted in metaphorical terms as mark-
ing the shift from pre-Greek to Greek cultural dominance. When this interpreta-
tion is embedded in the archaeological record of early Greece then one finds that
the pre-Greek goddess Hera competed with the first wife of Zeus who was an
Indo-European goddess.

62
 His wife is Hera, a pre-Greek goddess of fertility. Diwia the Indo-European partner of
Zeus was still worshipped in Mycenaean times and had her own shrine in Pylos, but
was obviously replaced by Hera who appears together with Zeus and receives offerings
at Zeus sanctuary. (Ilievski 2000: 365)

Hera won the competition, and this can be interpreted as evidence of the resil-
ience with which the pre-Greek substrate culture infused the structures of Greek
civilization. At Olympia, Hera is worshipped on equal terms with Zeus, and this
did not change until the advent of Christianity.
The men copied the idea of the sporting competitions from the women who
venerated Hera and organized events every fourth year, honoring Zeus. Accord-
ing to common belief already established in antiquity by the Greeks them-
selves the first Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE. Altogether 293 games
took place during antiquity, until 393 CE when the sporting event was abolished
by the Roman emperor Theodosius I for its pagan association.
Myth has it that the Olympic Games were introduced by Heracles to honor
Zeus. Heracles is also credited for having designed the Olympic Stadium al-
though it is most probable that the site had been used by the female participants
in the Heraia already earlier. The men who participated had to be Greeks, either
as free citizens of the Athenian democratic state or as subjects in the various lo-
cal kingdoms under Greek rulers. This means that the ancient Olympics were no
international events in the modern sense but were restricted to Hellas, the Greek
world. The victors of the Olympic contests gained fame among the whole Greek
population, in their home towns in particular.
On the western side of the temple of Zeus stood a sacred olive tree. Twigs were
cut from this tree to adorn the victors. In connection with the privileges granted
to those who were victorious one can notice further similarities between the He-
raia and the Olympics, with certain customs copied by the younger organization
from the older.
Like male athletes at Zeuss games, the female champions of the Heraia are also awarded
olive wreaths, enjoy a sacrificial feast of beef, and have the right to erect victory monu-
ments. No less telling of the hidden origins of the men s games is the fact that the gold-
and-ivory table for the olive wreaths is stored in the Temple of Hera, not that of Zeus: it
is the goddess, not the god, who crowns the victors. (Faulkner 2012: 86)

Both women and men were engaged in sporting activities, not only at Olympia
but also at other sites with pan-Hellenic significance. This raises the question of
what might have been the source of inspiration for the Greeks to pay so much
attention to sporting competitions. Sport in ancient Greece is widely believed to
have developed through the imprint of Minoan cultural influence on mainland

63
Greeks (e.g. Raubitschek 1983). And yet, the validity of this assumption has been
questioned.
() sport is one of the many aspects of Greek life often imagined to be an inheritance
from the Minoans via their complex interaction with the Greek-speaking Bronze Age
Mycenaeans (). () There is no evidence that the Minoans took part in chariot racing
(a Mycenaean pastime; ). While both boxed, the protective helmets and footwear of
Minoan fighters are unattested for Greece at any period. () Greek sport owes little to
Minoan Crete (). () the great gaps in our knowledge of the nature and role of these
activities on Crete and other Minoan centres ensure that the interest in and impact of
sport among the Greeks remain unusual for their time and place. (Golden 1998: 32f.)

There is no wonder that the Minoans were not interested in chariot racing. As
descendants from the Palaeo-Europeans and heirs of Old European culture
the Minoans lived in a world where horses were unknown while, for the Myce-
naeans as descendants from the Indo-European pastoralists, the horse was an
animal of great significance, both in their economy and mythology. The Greeks
drive for athletic competition might well have inspirational roots in the local
Pelasgian (that is, mainland) heritage although archaeological evidence for this
is not available.
Olympia lies within the territory of the ancient city-state of Elis, and the
Eleans were entrusted with the maintenance of the sanctuary and the organi-
zation of the Olympic Games. The ancient Olympics lasted four days, and
during this span of time all hostilities in all of Greece ceased. The Eleans were
expected to remain neutral and not to take sides with any other city-state in
political affairs. Elis hosted the festivities, and representatives from all Greek
city-states were equally welcome, provided they did not exchange hostilities
during their stay at Olympia. Paradoxical as it may seem, Athenians and Spar-
tans contested during the Olympics that were held despite the raging Pelo-
ponnesian War (431404 BCE) with its disastrous impact on the population
in both city-states.
Both the Heraia and the Olympics had a decisive effect for engendering a
pan-Hellenic spirit of cohesion and a sense of cultural sameness. Like on the oc-
casion of the Panathenaia in Athens, also at Olympia, the awareness of collective
Greek identity (Hellenicity) was celebrated by the performance of a symbolic
weaving-together of local interests that interlace in the collective fabric of Greek
self-awareness. As at Athens, so at Olympia, maidens wove a garment (peplos) to
decorate the statue of the goddess. In Athens, this was the statue of Athena Polias
and, at Olympia, the statue of Hera.

64
 Symbolically, sixteen women were chosen to weave the sacred garment, each
representing one of the sixteen communities of which the state of Elis was com-
prised.
Once in conflict, the sixteen little cities or villages which Pausanias calls poleis
now find themselves reunited into a small federation thanks to the intervention of femi-
nine wisdom. () Once its manufacture is completed, the new fabric is carried from the
House of the Sixteen Women in Elis to the temple of Hera at Olympia, in order to replace
the goddesss old cloak. This conveyance must have been spectacular, as it displayed to
all of Elis the work of the Sixteen Women, into which the peace of the entire country
was woven or rewoven. () It is to interweave what is different, contrary or hostile, in
order to produce a unified, harmonious textile, worthy of covering the great goddess of
Olympia herself. (Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 12)

Responsibility for the organization of the Olympic Games rested with the El-
ean Olympic Committee (EOC). This was a board of nine judges (hellanodikai)
who were selected from the aristocratic families in Elis. Although the election of
the judges from among prominent Eleans was in itself an act of pre-selection,
the electoral procedure somehow diminished the chances of patronage. Names
of potential candidates for the office were written on potsherds (ostraka), then
placed in a ceramic vessel, and lots were drawn to choose those to become mem-
bers of the board.
The games that were organized at Olympia were not only a positive symbol of
pan-Hellenic solidarity, they were, at the same time, a kind of valve for letting
off steam from the pressure that was caused by constant competition among the
city-states.
Competition between Greek states were not expressed uniquely in destructive organized
violence: competition among rivals was played out in athletic games, in public-building
projects, and in musical performances. () Competition promoted innovation in the
waging of war, but also in various other domains: in performance culture, architecture,
and, notably, in institutional design. (Ober 2008: 84)

The idea of promoting innovation and social cohesion through contests is re-
flected, not only in the contests at Olympia, but also in the many competitive
performances during the festivals held in Athens under the democracy and, in
this context, it is noteworthy that competition produced a pleasant erasing of
boundaries that existed between the social classes, and the ever-present social
distinctions were felt less pressuring by the Athenian citizens.

65
 Training and competing for these events, as Xenophon repeatedly acknowledged, in-
volved intense and often pleasurable collaboration between the rich and the less rich,
all driven by the competitive desire for collective victory. The language of leiturgia, eu-
ergesia, charis and philotimia, of individual ambition, involving reciprocal pleasures and
mutual community benefits, linking together liturgists, participants and general citizen
audiences, is routinely deployed in law court speeches (from the beginning of the fourth
century), and in inscriptions (from the mid fourth century) as central elements in the
beneficial effects of these festivals. (Fisher 2011: 200)

The Council of elder women at Olympia

According to the common traditional belief, juridical matters lay exclusively
in the hands of men who functioned as judges in the courts (i.e. heliaia, boule,
areopagos), the democratic institutions of the Athenian state. The oldest foun-
dation of laws was customary law, the hosia, with their tradition from pre-
Greek times. There is good reason to assume that the hosia of the ancients
were not only meant for everybody to follow, that is for members of both
sexes, but that also the handling of juridical matters (e.g. dispute-settling)
could, at some time, be executed by both men and women. In classical Greece,
women were excluded from law-giving and dispute-settling which were the
domains of men.
And yet, in some regions of Greece, stories were told about wise women who
engaged in dispute-settling. At Olympia this crucial role of women for the crea-
tion of a pan-Hellenic consciousness is well documented.
At Olympia, sixteen elderly women wove a robe for Hera every fourth year (Pausanias
5.16.2-6; 6.24.10). The origin of this was a board of female elders once chosen from six-
teen cities of Eleia to settle differences between the towns of Pisa and Elis. The women
selected, considered to be the oldest, the most noble and the most esteemed of all, were
highly successful in settling any dispute, making peace between their two cities (Pau-
sanias 5.16.5). On the model of this group, the sixteen women of Elis were charged with
supervising the festival of Hera, including girls footraces and choral dances. (Connelly
2007: 43)

The Common Good as political practice: The Athenian

model of democratic governance
In his Histories, Herodotus deals with many traditions the origins of which could
not, in his time, be objectively identified for the lack of empirical proof. In the
Histories we find a wealth of facts and mythic accounts that are intermingle.
Herodotus addresses the idea of the Common Good for society of his era, which

66
was democratic rule in Athens. Given Herodotus typical way of rationalizing
mythical agenda, it is not surprising to learn that the historiographer engaged in
crafting myths himself. Nomen est omen: The translation of Herodotus name is
imbued with mythical meaning: Gift of the goddess Hera.
Myth-making is not an intentional aim of Herodotus endeavor but, rather,
the unconscious outcome of his individualistic way of handling second-hand
information. Among the myths that Herodotus crafts in his Histories, the one
with the greatest echo among historians of all ages is perhaps the myth of the es-
tablishment of democracy in Athens, that is how the idea of the Common Good
materialized with the reforms of Cleisthenes in 507 BCE.
The central role of Athens, politically and culturally, for the overall develop-
ment of Greek civilization can hardly be overestimated.
The focal point of intellectual life, which became increasingly homogeneous throughout
Greece, being experienced similarly by the government official of Philip of Macedon
and the personal physician or strategist of the Persian king, was Athens. Attic prevailed
as the generally understood literary language, while Athenian philosophical or literary
and rhetorical institutions of education provided the world with intellectuals. (Dihle
1994: 174)

In Herodotus narration, Cleisthenes is credited as the one who introduced

democratic governance to Athens, a form of government that was, allegedly,
unique and without precedent in history (Histories 5.65 78). As a contem-
porary of the democratic era in the Athenian state, Herodotus lived at a time
of great contrasts with respect to the principles of governance in the world of
the Greeks and their neighbors. So he was motivated to give his own judgment
about the advantages and disadvantages of different rules and seized the op-
portunity to do so.
Herodotus himself was probably in some sense a democrat; it seems he did after all con-
sent in the 440s to join the new foundation of Thouria in south Italy, the constitution of
which (as drafted by the leading intellectual Protagoras of Abdera) was democratic. ()
So, while Herodotus was indeed a democrat, he was probably not one of the extreme
variety, that is, one favouring the more or less unfettered rule of the (poor) masses over
the social, economic and educational elite. (Cartledge 2013: xxvii)

There are two elementary aspects of the introduction of democracy in Athens

in 507 BCE. One is the pragmatic-political aspect of the overt measures taken
by Cleisthenes to achieve stability for the new political order. Since, for Hero-
dotus, history is the memory crystallizing around famous men and aristocratic
families and their deeds, he could analyze the concrete measures of a reshuf-
fling of political order in Athens, enacted by Cleisthenes. The other aspect is

67
the working of a covert sociocultural trend that provided the model for demo-
cratic governance. But Herodotus did not possess the refined methodical tools
to analyze covert trends in Greek society. On the one hand, the Greeks factual
knowledge about developments prior to the archaic period, that is during the
dark age, was fairly limited. On the other hand, models of society as we dis-
cuss them did not form part of the contemporary discourse in Herodotus time.
What makes Herodotus account about the reforming work of Cleisthenes a
myth is his ignorance of the covert trend that paved the way for democracy to
be established.

The Common Good as reflected in the pragmatic-political

framework set up by Cleisthenes in his reforms
After the dismissal of the last of the Peisistratid tyrants Cleisthenes reshuffled
the administrative system in Athens. In order to understand the motivation for
this reform, its implications and consequences, it is necessary to map out the
dramatic events that set the stage for Cleisthenes work.
The conditions under which political changes occurred in Athens toward the
end of the sixth century BCE were fairly complex and rather confusing (Osborne
1996: 292 ff., Ober 2008: 57 ff.). Until 510 BCE the Athenian state was ruled
by representatives of the Peisistratid family. After one of the sons of Peisistratos
had been assassinated in 514 BCE, autocratic rule turned into merciless tyranny
(Azoulay 2014: 29ff.). The Athenians called upon Sparta for help, and Spartan
troops occupied the city. In 510 BCE, backed up by the Spartan military, the
Athenians overthrew the last of the Peisistratid tyrants, Hippias. The Spartans,
who had supported the revolt with a military unit, withdrew from Athens and
left it to its citizens to establish a new leadership. In the state of disorder that
followed the aristocratic families could not reach any agreement and faction-
al opposition caused negotiations to end in a deadlock. Isagoras, leader of the
pro-Spartan faction, called for Spartan support and a detachment of the Spartan
army came to back up Isagoras campaign.
Isagoras used his power to have the opposition expatriated. Around 700 fami-
lies of the anti-Spartan faction had to leave Athens, among them the Alcmaeo-
nids to which Cleisthenes belonged. When Isagoras tried to dissolve the Council
of 400 the Athenians feared he could assume control over the city and rule, as
an autocrat, like Hippias before him. The Athenians called Cleisthenes who had
been exiled back to Athens and appointed him leader of a movement, with the
intention of coping with the threat of governance in the Athenian state to de-
generate anew into tyranny. When Cleisthenes, with the help of the Athenians,

68
overthrew Isagoras, in 507 BCE, the outcome was anything but certain. This re-
bellion under the leadership of Cleisthenes quickly turned into a massive move-
ment which neither Isagoras followers nor the Spartan military managed to
control. Things got out of hand, and Isagoras, his followers, together with the
Spartans, withdrew to the Acropolis where they took defensive positions against
the armed Athenians. Within a few days, after running out of food and supplies,
Isagoras and the Spartans gave in and they were driven out of the city by the
enraged Athenian citizens.
The Athenian rebellion under the leadership of Cleisthenes was blessed by
good luck (Dillon and Garland 1994: 121ff.). The endeavor could have easily
failed, had the Spartans called in a relief force from their home city to crush the
rebellion and reinstall their sphere of political influence. But everything hap-
pened so quickly that there was no time for thorough reflection on tactical ma-
noeuvres or strategic plannning on the side of the military that had supported
Isagoras. And there was not much time either on the side of the victorious
Athenians who backed up Cleisthenes, investing him with the task of carefully
mapping out a new system of governance, to guard against the scourge of a re-
newed tyranny. Time was short because everybody was aware of the imminent
danger of an external threat: an invasion by the Spartan army, profiting from
the weakness of its adversary at a time when Athens was busy reorganizing its
society and state.
This threat was real, not imagined. Sparta had formed a strong alliance with
several other Greek tribes, with the Euboeans and Boeotians, and with the pro-
Spartan forces in Athens. The balance had tilted after the rebellion by which
Athens had cut off contact with Sparta. It could well be expected that Sparta
as the spearhead of the alliance and in the prime of its military might would
act by sending an army to reinforce its political hegemony in the region. Cleis-
thenes foresaw the danger of a Spartan military intervention and he there-
fore focused on the Athenian military, for his first major reform to materialize.
In practice this meant the application of the newly devised division of Greek
tribes into divisions of military units. The ten tribes became represented by
ten generals, and also the soldiers in the various units were gathered according
to their membership in a particular tribe. This new form of organization was
intended to enhance ethnic cohesion by furthering the fighting spirit among
kinfolks. Indeed, this reform paid off in the wars that started soon after the
army had been restructured.

69
 The year 507 BCE marks a radical change and the beginning of a new era. In
an historical retrospective the change from autocracy to democratic governance
is explained as a development associated with the expectations of the Athenian
public: Cleisthenes comrade-constituents, the demos that had recalled him
from exile, expected a system of government suited to their newly expressed
identity as participating members of a political community (Ober 2008: 139).
Here, the projection of modern reasoning about democracy into the world of
ancient Athens is evident. Cleisthenes comrades enjoyed solidarity within the
anti-Spartan faction but they were hardly conscious of being members in a par-
ticipating political community. Cleisthenes followers were much interested in
him taking the lead and control of state affairs. At the same time, it lay in the
vital interest of the anti-Spartan faction to oust Isagoras followers and prevent
them from taking influence in Athenian politics. It was precisely the exclusion of
Cleisthenes opponents that occupied the minds of his followers, rather than the
membership of a political community of equal citizens.
How did Cleisthenes come to terms with the political opposition? He did
not make compromises by assigning certain key positions in the new admin-
istrative body to opposition members, to placate them. Cleisthenes devised a
reform of administrative units that would change the local power bases of op-
ponents. The influential families in Athens used to mobilize their followers in
the rural settlements when there was an occasion for a political rally. Cleis-
thenes, through his administrative reform, restructured the network of ad-
ministrative units so that previous constellations of political allegiances were
disrupted and newly arranged. This means that Cleisthenes upheld the priority
of introducing a democratic system which, at the same time, was modelled
according to his aspirations to undermine regional tendencies (Dillon and
Garland 1994: 139).
What was new was the grouping of earlier extant demes according to tribes,
and Cleisthenes reshuffled the network of tribes anew, dissolving what were
historically four tribes and creating ten new ones. Here we find the key to the
pragmatic solution devised by Cleisthenes to neutralize possible opposition.
The aristocratic families had been grouped along sub-ethnic boundary lines of
the historical Ionian tribes (phylai), related to the sons of the mythical Ion (i.e.
Geleon, Aegicores, Argades, Hoples; Histories 5.66). In Cleisthenes order, the loy-
alties of village communities were associated with the newly created tribes, not
with individual aristocratic families.

70
 According to Aristotle, it was not Cleisthenes who chose the names for the
new tribes but these were selected from a longer list by the Pythia in the ora-
cle at Delphi (Constitution of the Athenians 21.6). Cleisthenes did not abol-
ish the tribal system as such but gave it a new infrastructure which served to
strengthen specifically local (i.e. earth-bound) ties in the network of demes.
What was new from the standpoint of the demes was their association with a
particular tribe. In the new order, tribes were activated in terms of overarching
political units.
The Ionian tribal names had no local reference, but the new tribal names were derived
from eponymous tribal heroes who are important figures in Athenian Myth-history:
Erekhtheus, Aigeus, Pandion, Akamas, and Kekrops were among the legendary kings of
Athens; Leos, son of Orpheus, sacrificed his daughters to save Athens at time of plague;
Hippothoon was son of Poseidon; and Aias is the great hero of the Iliad from Salamis.
To institute these new tribal names was to make all the various actions which Athenians
performed in tribes, whether military, festival, or political, redolent of an Athenian past.
(Osborne 1996: 300)

Herodotus elaborates on the motives for the introduction of the new tribal or-
der and he draws a parallel: Now, I have a theory that this policy was copied by
Cleisthenes from his grandfather on his mothers side, the Cleisthenes who was
the tyrant of Sicyon (Histories 5.67). The older Cleisthenes had a rival in his
own territory of whom he got rid by particular organizational means, depriving
him of honors and festive duties which Cleisthenes bestowed on some of his fol-
lowers. The rival, in the end, lost all markers of a privileged status. In addition,
Cleisthenes changed the official names of the tribal network to which his rival
belonged. Herodotus highlights the parallels that he sees in Cleisthenes policies
to create a new tribal order for Athens.
So these were the policies of Cleisthenes of Sicyon, which Cleisthenes of Athens, who
was both his namesake and the son of his daughter, seems to me to have copied with
the aim, contemptuous as the younger Cleisthenes appears to have been of the Ionians,
of ensuring that the Athenians would not have tribes as the Ionians did. The evidence for
this is that once he and his faction had secured the support of the mass of the Athenian
people, who until that point had been kept disenfranchised, he changed the names of
the tribes and increased their number. Whereas previously there had been four tribal
leaders, he now created ten, and divided up the demes between them. With the people
won over to his side, the members of the opposing faction were put thoroughly in the
shade. (Histories 5.69)

71
The manifestation of the Common Good as self-administration
and self-determination in the village communities (demes)
The constitution established by Kleisthenes was definitely democratic in char-
acter, () (Dillon and Garland 1994: 122). Cleisthenes laid the foundation for
a system of participatory democracy. This was not a natural consequence of the
political upheaval of which he assumed leadership. Cleisthenes could have tak-
en charge as the supreme archon and exercised political power in the form of
covert autocracy. The task of archon was not strange to Cleisthenes because he
had, once before, served in that function under the tyrant Hippias in 524 BCE
(Queyrel 2003: 72). Evidently, the magisterial status of archon had been quite in-
dependent, and the archons decision-making seemed to have unfolded without
interference from rulers in the pre-democratic period.
In view of the independent status of the archon the Athenians did not validate
Cleisthenes service under Hippias as an impediment for the former to function
as protagonist of the reform work through which democracy was established in
the polis. For his political reforms to flourish Cleisthenes did not choose the al-
ternative of becoming archon for another tenure but he aimed for a truly demo-
cratic order. This act of establishing a new administrative order in the Athenian
state is generally hailed as Cleisthenes creation, and democracy as a genuine
invention of world history, of a truly Greek fabric (e.g. Anderson 2003, Raaflaub
et al. 2008, Meier 2011).
Such an assessment is in line with the canon of the Hellenophile tradition,
engendered in the nineteenth century, that takes the appraisal of antique writers
who celebrate Greek (and, in particular, Athenian) achievements of civilization
at face value. According to the self-exaltation of Hellenistic writers
() the Athenian demos had been the originator of all good things, bringing humans
from animal life to civilisation; the Athenians had established bonds of community
among the humans by introducing the tradition of the mysteries; thus, they had taught
the Greeks that the greatest benefit for humans is intimacy and trust among each other;
after receiving from the gods as gifts the cultivation of crops and the laws concerning
humanity and education, the Athenians shared these presents with the Greeks. (Chanio-
tis 2009: 256)

The model of democracy that Cleisthenes introduced was no invention. Cleis-

thenes did not devise democratic governance out of the blue but he could look
back on ample experience with communal self-administration in the village
communities in the region of Attica. The innovative changes that were brought
about by Cleisthenes reforms are widely misunderstood as relying on a newly
organized system of village communities, the demes as basic political units (sing.

72
demos village (community), plur. demoi). The demes existed before the times of
Cleisthenes and even in pre-Greek times.
Throughout Attica, a network of rural communities had been in place long
before the archaic era, and these communities were self-governed. Communal
self-administration was also characteristic for the villages in the Peloponnese.
Life in these villages did not unfold in isolation; vivid contacts among the com-
munities unfolded through trade and interregional interaction. Local cult centers
attracted people from all around, like the sanctuary of Hera at Argos (northeast-
ern Peloponnese), the Argive Heraion.
Whatever the regional diversity in conditions of life and social organization, and what-
ever the ultimate destiny of these sanctuaries, most of the major rural cults can be con-
sidered, like the Heraion, to have originally been rallying and meeting points for the
local populations. They were the locations of festivals which is tempting to liken to fairs,
those ritual gatherings () occasions for exchanging hospitality and for sharing be-
tween the neighboring communities which participated in them on a relatively equal
footing, and which found in them an opportunity to settle trade deals, arrange alliances
and marriages, and to compete in rustic games. (De Polignac 1994: 5)

The stage was prepared for Cleisthenes enterprise of democracy since the par-
ticipants in this enterprise, the future citizens, had practiced democratic order
in the communal nuclei (the village demes) and in inter-communal gatherings.
Another division that Cleisthenes adopted for his administrative reform, the
division of each tribe into thirds, was no innovation either. The Greek term for
third is trittys. The concept trittys refers to a distinction of forms of landscape,
and the original meaning is three-fold division, division according to thirds.
When the new tribal order with the distinction of ten Greek tribes was es-
tablished by Cleisthenes, he determined that the demes were grouped according
to a three-fold division so that in each tribe demes from the city would con-
stitute one third, demes from the inland region another third, and demes from
the coastal region the final third (Osborne 1996: 299). There were altogether 30
trittyes of which 18 are known and several others can be identified. The trittys
markers are found in Athens and the Peiraieus, and they do no actually mark
boundaries between trittyes; () (Dillon and Garland 1994: 139). The trittys
system provided the distribution of marshalling stations for men to gather for
service in the army and the navy.
In all probability, the division into thirds was no innovation devised by Cleis-
thenes but rather he drew on a habit of dividing demes into overarching group-
ings that was practiced by the native Europeans. A clear indication of this is the
pre-Greek origin of the concept and the word trittys (Beekes 2010: 1510).

73
 These new tribes would play important roles in the new political system. They would
also become key markers of Athenian identity. () The tribes and their constituent
thirds were the institutional bridges by which a stable local identity () was linked to
a desired national identity (participatory citizen of Athens). (Ober 2008: 140f.)

Cleisthenes achieved something that Solon, many decades before him, did not.
Cleisthenes succeeded in uniting the demes of Attica to form a state organi-
zation that was based on the same principles as communal governance. The
model of communal self-administration as manifested in the local demes was
transposed to the political level of the polis. Cleisthenes engaged in weaving
the interests of the numerous demes together into the fabric of an overarching
city-state.
Among the representations the Greeks made of society, of the bonds between men and
the cohesion of human groups, or even of the city, there is one that seems to fabri-
cate society more than any other: weaving. Domestic or political, profoundly ritualized,
weaving brings into play an ensemble of notions capable of being inscribed in the col-
lective memory, gestures that allow one to grasp, to touch, social organization. As much
as sacrifice, whose gestures of sharing and distribution define the society in terms of
commensality, the practice of weaving furnishing men and gods with clothing and
blankets offers a simple model to the mind seeking ideas about the nature of social
cohesion: how is it that the human group, the family alliance, and the city can hold to-
gether? (Scheid and Svenbro 1996: 9)

Cleisthenes succeeded in providing the inhabitants of Attica and the urban pop-
ulation of Athens with a corporate design of Greekness on the foundation of a
democratic order, that is with a set of customs which was comprised of tradi-
tional (including pre-Greek) and innovative constituents. This design has been
identified as nomina.
In general, nomina constituted a set of practical, organizing data for society, such as
names and numbers of tribal divisions or magistracies and their terminology. They also
regulated societys relations with the gods through sacred calendars, festivals, and the
constitution of a polis pantheon. (Malkin 2011: 189)

Cleisthenes, in his reforms, took a clear stand as far as peoples rights to partici-
pate in political decision-making were concerned. The system of governance that
Cleisthenes devised for the Athenian polis was based on three pillars, the basic
virtues of democracy (Haarmann 2013: 185):
isegoria (equal speech, referring to the right of every Athenian citizen to
speak freely about political affairs);
isonomia (equality before the law, regardless of social status);

74
 isopoliteia (equal participation in political activities, regardless of mem-
bership in social groups)
The achievement of isopoliteia on the level of political governance of the polis
was a novelty in Cleisthenes reforms because the thetes (members of the lowest
social class in Greek society) had not been granted equal participation in politi-
cal activities before. In Solons model of democracy, devised in the 590s BCE, the
thetes had been barred from public offices.
The ritualistic character of the ingredients that made Athenian democracy
echoed far on into successive periods and various approaches were made to ex-
plain what actually held the community of Athenian citizens together. In Platos
works one finds a statement about the role of musical education for enhancing
stability in a democratic society. In Platos Laws, the Athenian Stranger, taking
the part of the analyst, reflects on this issue.
The Athenian Stranger finishes his examination of Megillus by discussing democracy
in ancient Athens. He says that the ancient Athenians placed great emphasis on music
and music education. Moreover, those who had knowledge regulated the sacred music
very carefully and forbade innovations and misuse. When the music was performed, the
people listened reverently, in solemn silence, and lived in an orderly way (Laws 700a-d).
(Lutz 2012: 87)

Cleisthenes was celebrated by European republicans of the seventeenth century

and, later, by the representatives of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century
and of the romantic movement in the early nineteenth century for having high-
lighted the basic democratic virtues. In the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries Athens provided a heartening model to many English republicans
seeking instructive analogues for increasing the accountability and moral tone
of government in their own day (Roberts 1994: 156).
It is true that Cleisthenes was the first to formulate these key concepts of
democratic governance but, in practice, these virtues already existed and were
observed in the village communities. Isegoria meant the right of each villager
to talk about communal matters, isonomia guaranteed equal treatment in ju-
ridical matters according to customary law and the obligation for everyone
to respect the behavioral norms of the ancestors, and isopoliteia referred to
the equal right to be elected as a member in the village council. Cleistheness
principles meant, in fact, a confirmation of a system of communal governance
that had been in place before his time (including self-determination in juridi-
cal affairs).

75
Athenian democracy: Who shared in the advantages
of the Common Good?
The romantic movement of the early nineteenth century painted an exalted pic-
ture of Greek democracy that has remained essentially untainted by any criticism
within the canon of western education in ancient history. The rise of democracy
in the fifth century BCE is unilaterally seen as the major incentive for developing
basic achievements such as historiography, philosophy, science and the arts to
the sophistication that our minds are conditioned to through the canon of west-
ern European historical retrospective. That was a Greece of measure and clarity,
of theory and of art (in the proper sense of these terms), of beautiful form, of
virile, heroic rigor, of law, of the City, of the light of day; () (Lacoue-Labarthe
and Nancy 1990: 300).
After their victories over the Persian navy the Athenians bolstered their mari-
time defense system with a modern naval force and they became the most im-
portant member in the Delian League that was founded in 478 BCE. The Delian
League eventually developed into the Athenian empire. Athens under the democ-
racy was everything but a peaceful state. Even after the Persian war the armies
of Athens, and its navy in particular, set out on seasonal campaigns, attacking
harbor cities on the coasts around the Aegean Sea, plundering their riches, kill-
ing the men in mass, capturing women and children to be taken or sold as slaves
on the international markets (of Rhodes in particular). Greek men would bring
captured women home and keep them as their concubines.
Freedom under the democracy was reserved for Greek men while women had
neither any right to vote in a state that was allegedly democratic, nor were they
supposed to raise their voice in public. Non-Greek residents in the Athenian state
had no rights, either to obtain Athenian citizenship or to any possession of land,
and they had to pay taxes (while the Greeks themselves were exempted). Greek
men did not have to ask their wives to tolerate concubines. The only privilege for
the offspring of a concubine who lived with a mans family under the same roof
was that her children were free and did not have to share the fate of their mother,
that is being enslaved. So, the notion of freedom was quite differently defined in
ancient Athens to how we understand democracy nowadays.
It is not far-fetched to speak of a symbiotic relationship between the two ma-
jor forces in the Athenian state, democracy and imperialism.
The interplay of these two forces imperialism and democracy was so great that it
is impossible at times to be sure of the cause and effect relationship, for, if imperialism
influenced the growth of democracy, it is equally true that democracy fostered imperial-
ism (Fine 1983: 383).

76
One of the new myths that served both democracy and imperialism and which
gained political weight was the transformation of the older myth of Theseus who
had slain the Minotaur in the labyrinth of the palace of Knossos (Crete). The
oracle at Delphi urged the Athenians to retrieve the bones of the ancient hero
Theseus and establish a new cult for him as a divine hero. This task was assigned
to a young general, Cimon. He set out on a search for Theseus bones. On the Cy-
cladic island of Skyros, he unearthed bones from an ancient grave and brought
them to Athens where they were kept in a sanctuary dedicated to Theseus. What
followed was myth-making.
Athenians inherited many myths from the remote past, but when current developments,
such as the rise of the navy, seemed to cry out for mythical precedents, they readily
invented new ones. Cimon abetted the process. Among the creative artists whom he
patronized was a genealogist and mythographer named Pherecydes. He had already
traced Cimons family tree back to the hero Ajax of Salamis. Now Pherecydes rewrote
the Theseus myth. In this exciting new account, a desperate Theseus rushes back to the
harbor near Knossos after killing the Minotaur and ensures a safe escape by ramming
the hulls of the Cretan ships so that they cannot pursue him. A later mythographer
named Demon improved the tale by transforming the Minotaur into a Cretan general
named Taurus and claiming that Theseus defeated him in a naval battle the first naval
battle in Athenian history! at the mouth of the harbor. Thus Theseus metamorphosed
into a true naval hero, with exploits that foreshadowed naval warfare of Cimons own
day. (Hale 2009: 85f.)

When the navy set out on its campaigns in the Aegean there was a saying that
became proverbial among the mariners: Not without Theseus! In the course of
the fifth century BCE, the Athenian city-state enlarged its sphere of military and
political supremacy in successive seasonal campaigns, also with the intention of
securing economic resources: () desire for precious metal and ship-timber
was part of the explanation for aggression against, and settlements at, Thasos,
Thurii, and Amphipolis. Above all there was tribute, in ships or money (increas-
ingly the second was preferred by all parties) (Hornblower 1988: 127).
The extension of Athens power as a city-state stood in marked contrast to
the local range of economic and political influence of other Greek settlements
around the Aegean Sea that participated in the maritime trade network. Most
of the settlements were concentrated in the coastal area, and the rural extension
was rather limited (figure 5). At the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (431
BCE) Athens was at the height of its might, as a military power on land and at
sea. When this war ended in 404 BCE, the empire had crumbled.

77
Figure 5: The Athenian maritime empire in the fifth century BCE

(from Hornblower 1988: 128)

The collapse of the Athenian naval power and the political turbulences that fol-
lowed the Peloponnesian War impressed Plato and made him sceptical about the
institution of democratic government. In his work Republic he seems to sympa-
thize with the kind of central political rule that was practiced at Sparta, the win-
ner of the war. This philosopher had a very personal reason to doubt the virtues
of democratic order since it was the democrats at Athens who spun an intrigue
against his mentor, Socrates, and forced him into suicide. Platos dialogues both
early and late was to become an integral part of the anti-democratic tradition

78
and was to be cited by later writers as evidence of the insufficiency both of Athe-
nian government in particular and of democracy in general (Roberts 1994: 82).
The attitude of Aristotle toward the institution of democracy was one of great
reserve. He saw a major problem in the difference between the urban and the
rural population, and he did not give much credit to citizens who lived in rural
communities. In his work Politics, Aristotle elaborates on the corrosive nature of
the democratic enterprise.
Aware that democracy in Greece is a fact of life, Aristotle seeks to exercise damage con-
trol by defusing it as far as possible: if the masses absolutely must have the franchise, let
them at least exercise it as rarely as possible. Thus the virtue that he ascribes to rustic
citizens is the virtue not of greater wisdom but rather of greater indifference. (Roberts
1994: 87)

In his vision of the ideal city state, the polis, Aristotle would keep up the demo-
cratic principle of government in a much reduced form (figure 6).

Figure 6: The value of the Common Good in different types of government

(according to Aristotles Politics, book III.714, book IV.410; graph designed by Mathieu Gauthier-
Pilote; Politics (Aristotle), Wikipedia;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle)

79
 Aristotles ideal polis, consequently, is self-sufficient only if one takes into account the
labor of the majority of inhabitants who are excluded from full citizen rights, perhaps
from any citizen rights at all. Quick to identify democracy as the government of the poor
majority over the rich minority, Aristotle still considers that he has incorporated the
democratic principle into a state that disfranchises nearly all its inhabitants, operating
on the Spartan principle that equality among citizens injects an element of democracy
into government however exclusive the requirements of citizenship may be. (Roberts
1994: 89f.)

80
4.Platos idealization of the Common
Good as valuable knowledge

Plato sets clear priorities regarding the individuals choice of what is good. Ac-
cording to Platos view, there can be no doubt that the Common Good is of great-
er value than our own (individual or private) good. In philosophical terms, this
distinction of priorities relates to different motivations of how to look at things.
Platos remark that we should prefer the common good over our own good [Laws 875a]
may be explained by a division between a practical and a reflective level. If we ask how
we should decide the considerations that should guide our action, our question arouses
at the reflective level, and we answer by appeal to our own happiness. If we then ask
what considerations should guide our action if we aim at our own happiness, our ques-
tion arises at the practical level, and we answer that considerations about the common
good should guide us. We do not give priority to the common good at the practical level
because we have already found, at the reflective level, that this policy achieves our hap-
piness. (Irwin 2010: 103)

According to Plato, embracing the good, the Common Good as its sublime expres-
sion, is equal to moving on the path toward fulfillment and happiness. In Platos
ethical discourse, we do not find considerations about concepts such as duties or
responsibilities, that is about ideas that are typical of modern philosophical elabo-
rations on the relationship between the role of citizens and their state. For Plato
striving for the Common Good is the path leading to individual happiness, and,
from this standpoint, there is no need to admit elements of compulsion to the
argument. The essence of ancient ethics stands in stark contrast to modern ethics:
() that whereas modern ethics is dominated by the thought of commands () and
duties, ancient ethics is characterized instead by an idea of whats attractive or beautiful.
() This thought would in turn fit with the idea that in ancient ethics, including Plato,
ones aim is always ones own happiness, and that no aims exist that could rationally ever
be in conflict with it. (White 2009: 371)

In his dialogues Protagoras and Laches, Plato makes Socrates claim that the vir-
tues are one, and this assertion has remained obscure up to the present. Many
scholars, nowadays, are inclined to acknowledge an identity of virtues, whatever
their nature (i.e. courage, righteousness, mercy).
And, according to the Identity View, Socrates holds that there is a single form of knowl-
edge (knowledge of good and evil) which is the key to just, courageous, and virtuous
action in general. This knowledge guarantees both that ones judgment about how to

81
 act will be correct, and that one will act accordingly, since ones desire will be properly
directed towards what is good. (Devereux 2009: 326)

Mythical trails of knowledge-retrieval from the past

Knowledge-construction is a process which, in Platos approach, is closely associ-
ated with the soul in its role as an agent of consciousness. The soul for Plato plays a
key role in connection with the functions of the mind in its conscious awareness.
The quest of the mind for knowledge to achieve the good follows a path where the
soul is ideally at its furthest remove from earthly appetites and aspirations.
The main point is that knowledge is of the Forms for example, the Just-itself, the
Beautiful-itself, and the Good-itself and this knowledge is acquired most purely not
through sense-perception, but through thought (dianoia) alone and separately from our
sense organs as far as possible (). The body only confuses the soul because the senses
are not clear and precise (Phaedo, 65A66A). (Miller 2009: 280)

The question arises whether the various parts of the soul act independently from
one another or form an integrative whole. Plato advocates the latter in his Phaedo.
Once we properly understand the Phaedos theory of soul, we are in the position to see
that it offers a psychological framework that is coherent, () The various activities (etc.)
that we characterize as mental or psychological, such as (most importantly) desire and
cognition, seem to be, or manifest themselves to us as being, the activities of a single in-
tegrated subject; they do not (ordinarily) appear to belong to a plurality of distinct items
that operate more or less separately from one another. (Lorenz 2009)

The idea of the unity of the soul is further developed in the Republic. This con-
trasts with the scheme of the tripartite quality of the soul which is almost ne-
glected in the Timaeus and Laws where the unifying self-moving principle of the
soul is highlighted. According to Plato, the working of this principle is proof that
the soul, as a self-mover, is indestructible and eternal. Plato does not address the
issue of what kind of entity the self-mover is, with its capacity of eternal existence.
The individual souls in individual living things are themselves constituents in
an overarching structure which is the World-Soul. Things become rather complex
when one compares the claim of the soul not to be the result of creation (in the
Phaedo and Phaedrus) with the postulate that the soul is created by the Demiurge
(in the Timaeus). The question remains: should the modern interpreter under-
stand the likely (or plausible) story (eikos mythos) literally or metaphorically?
The Demiurge of the Timaeus fashions the World-Soul and other souls as a mixture of
divisible and indivisible Being, Sameness, and Difference (34c-37c). The different parts
of human souls are even due to different makers: the rational part alone made by the
Demiurge and the two non-rational parts left to lesser gods (41c-d). (Miller 2009: 291)

82
Knowledge-construction in pre-Socratic philosophy and
its transmission to Platos world of ideas
The ideas of the pre-Socratics were far-reaching and produced a long-term lega-
cy, either in direct continuation or in the form of conceptual underpinnings that
persisted into later periods. And the pre-Socratic impact on subsequent genera-
tions of intellectuals extended to both the fields of philosophy and of science.
According to the classical tradition, Socrates transformed philosophy by compelling
it to turn away from the heavens and directing it toward those things that human
beings take most seriously politics, morality, and providential gods (Cicero Tuscu-
lan Disputations 5.10-11; also Aristotle Metaphysics 987b1-2; Xenophon Memorabilia
1.1.11-16). But the remaining fragmentary writings of pre-Socratic philosophers such
as Antiphon, Empedocles, and Heraclitus show that Socrates was not the first philoso-
pher to investigate political, moral, and religious matters. Writings such as these support
the report in Platos Laws that the pre-Socratic, natural philosophers looked into the
non-philosophers beliefs about politics, morality, and the gods and concluded that their
beliefs about these things are based on convention rather than nature. (Lutz 2012: 12)

Beyond the classical era, pre-Socratic philosophers had an impact on the work of
renowned representatives of Greek intellectual life, including Aristotle.
Aristotles cosmology and his theories of matter and motion distinguish between the
Two orders of things, the imperfect and transitory terrestrial world below the sphere of
the moon and the perfect and unchanging celestial region above. He adopted the four
elements of Empedocles as the basic terrestrial substances, with concentric spheres of
earth, water, air and fire, the latter extending out to the sphere of the moon, while he
took the aether of Anaxagoras as the arche of the celestial bodies. The natural movement
of earth, water, air and fire was up or down to their natural place among the terrestrial
spheres, while the celestial bodies were carried in uniform circular motion around the
stationary earth by their aetherial spheres. (Freely 2011: 14)

The legacy of the pre-Socratics can be traced in later philosophy, not in complete
systems or schools of thought but, rather, in elementary concepts and assertions
that were reworked by later generations of philosophers.
While they never developed sophisticated theories of ethics, logic, epistemology, or
metaphysics, nor invented experimental methods of confirmation, they did introduce
the concepts that ultimately became fundamental in modern theories of cosmic, biologi-
cal, and cultural evolution, as well as in atomism, genetics, and social contract theory
(Graham 1995: 641).

The first to profoundly profit from the enquiries of the pre-Socratics was Plato. In
several of his dialogues, Plato discusses the assertions of individual representatives
of the pre-Socratic philosophers, especially referring to Protagoras and Parmenides.

83
Two of Platos dialogues (i.e. Protagoras, Parmenides) are dedicated to discussions
of the teachings of the two pre-Socratics. In other works, Plato addresses particular
topics central to pre-Socratic philosophy. For instance, the elaborations of Protago-
ras on the quality of the good are also discussed in the Theaetetus (edition of 2007:
284ff., 300f.) and in the Phaedo (edition of 2011: 39f., 141).
Parmenides holds a key role in the canon of continuity of pre-Socratic thought
in the western world. Some call him and not Plato the true father of mod-
ern philosophy because his legacy of radical abstract reasoning set standards for
philosophy through time. If modern philosophy consists of a series of footnotes
to Plato, then according to Gallop (1991: 3) Platos works are mere footnotes
to Parmenides. Plato elaborates on the ideas of this pre-Socratic philosopher at
length in one of his dialogues (i.e. Parmenides) which is, arguably, the most enig
matic of all his texts (Scolnicov and Brisson 2003). In this dialogue, Plato sets
the stage for a debate in which Parmenides, Zeno of Elea and the young Socrates
participate. Their subjects range from unity and plurality to likeness and unlike-
ness, to goodness and beauty. The later representatives of the Platonic and Neo-
platonic schools frequently comment on this dialogue by Plato.
The treatise of Parmenides (On Nature), of which only fragments survive, is
called a metaphysical poem because it is written in Homeric hexameters. Origi-
nally, the poem may have had about 3,000 lines but only fragments of some 160
lines have come down to us. The internal structure of the poem shows a three-
fold division: (i) an introduction (prooimion proem), (ii) a section on The way
of truth (aletheia), (iii) a section on The way of appearance/opinion (doxa).
Following the model of the Iliad with its opening, the invocation of the Muses,
Parmenides seeks divine authority for his ideas. And yet, the kind of opening
chosen by Parmenides differs from Homers model in one significant aspect. In
Homers Iliad, the invocation of the Muse serves as a formal entry to raise the
level of prestige for his poetic performance. In Parmenides poem, by contrast,
the linkage of his endeavor to divine authority is a theme in its own right, and
the philosopher elaborates on it at length (I.1-34). In his imagination accord-
ing to the account of his dream he drives on a chariot to the portal of the
goddess abode, and the portal is opened to him by maidens, the goddesss as-
sistants. What follows is the recorded conversation between the goddess and the
philosopher and how the divinity conveys her instructions for his mortal reason-
ing. Parmenides seeks the ultimate legitimacy and he makes the goddess grant
him the blessing of truth while she warns him that the beliefs of other mortals
are not true. It is only after these lengthy elaborations of divine support that the
philosopher embarks on his enquiry (figure 7).

84
Figure 7: Text of the proem of Parmenides work On Nature

(after Stamatellos 2012: 90f.)

85
Although, in Parmenides poem, there is only a vague allusion to the personality
of the divinity (i.e. avenging Justice) this may refer to Dike (goddess of justice)
or to Themis (goddess of customary law and of ancestral customs). The teachings
of the goddess that Parmenides receives must have been imbued with wisdom
about the values of ancestral customs and the essence they hold for community
life. In other words, the basic elements of what later became distilled, in Platos
political theory as the Common Good, form part of Parmenides account about
his encounter with the goddess, an account of the Platonic kind of eikos mythos
(a plausible story).
Parmenides legitimizes the content of his poem by drawing on the author-
ity of the goddess who has revealed the truth about the nature of reality and of
community life by setting guidelines for the relationship of natural phenomena
with the Common Good (Coxon 1999: 8) to the philosopher and confirms the
certainty of her words. Crafting the text on the poetic model gives Parmenides a
chance to appeal to the Greeks readiness to handle mythological implications of
intellectual matters.
Parmenides concept of Being (that is, of what is) is mythopoetic and
() shows resemblances to a certain type of mystical experience in which space and
time seem to lose all significance and there is an acute sense of the unbroken unity of
all things with each other and with the self. He actually presents his philosophy as de-
rived from a private divine revelation. But nothing is more significant of the intellectual
climate in which he lives than the fact that he does not say the goddess showed me,
and I saw, but the goddess proved it with the following arguments. He is concerned to
rationalize his vision. (West 1988: 115)

Parmenides is much concerned about the authenticity of the ideas which he pre-
sents as the goddesss teachings. He argues that mortals may engage in a discus-
sion of what is true and what is false, and poets may reflect on both categories
with equal interest.
You must learn all things, both the unshaken heart of well-rounded reality and the no-
tions of mortals, in which there is no genuine trustworthiness. Nonetheless these things
too will you learn, how what they resolved had actually to be, all through all pervading.
(Proem 1.28b-32); the somehow obscure phrase all through all pervading is rendered
as pervading all things throughout by Kirk et al. (1983: 243)

Here, Parmenides intuitively senses the opening of a treacherous path away from
truth-finding.
Parmenides has a transformative relationship with Hesiod. His goddess speaks both
false things and true things, but she clearly distinguishes one from the other, and does so
because she is constrained by argument. () The oscillation between truth and falsity

86
 guaranteed by the Muses threatens philosophical lucidity and coherence. (Morgan 2000:
75)

According to Parmenides, the nature of what is real cannot be perceived by our

senses which only produce illusions about what is. Reality can only be conceived
as the fruit of our thoughts. In the chain of philosophical reasoning this concept
of idea-oriented reality finds its direct parallel in Platos work Republic. Mod-
ern historians of philosophy praise Parmenides for his radical approach to pure
abstract reasoning and for thinking in terms of polarities (e.g. setting what is
against what is not) which might have inspired scholars to identify the begin-
nings of European philosophy with the work of Parmenides.
From the standpoint of research in mythology, another aspect of Parmenides
approach is perhaps more fundamental, and this is his radical intention to inves-
tigate the wholeness of whatever is and to avoid attempts to atomize this whole-
ness. Excerpts from the Proem may illustrate this view:
Thinking and the thought that it is are the same; for you will not find thinking apart
from what is, in relation to which it is uttered (B 8.34-36).
For to be aware and to be are the same (B 3).
It is necessary to speak and to think what is; for being is, but nothing is not (B 6.1-2).
Helplessness guides the wandering thought in their breasts; they are carried along deaf
and blind alike, dazed, beasts without judgment, convinced that to be and not to be are
the same and not the same, and that the road of all things is a backward-turning one
(B 6.5-9).

Despite the abstractness of Parmenides approach to reasoning about the natural

world, his concept of the wholeness of all that is resembles the poetic concept
of the organic whole, and this is congruent with mythical conceptualizations of
cosmology. Parmenides perceives the nature of what is (i.e. Being) as associated
with a divinely inspired universe.
Some two and a half thousand years later, Parmenides concept of the whole-
ness of Being finds its echo in Heideggers reflections on the essence of Being as
an expression of the eternal process of questioning.
This question of beings as a whole, the theological question, cannot be asked without the
question about beings as such, about the essence of Being in general. That is the ques-
tion about the on he on, ontology. Philosophys questioning is always and in itself both
-onto-logical and theological in the very broad sense. Philosophy is Ontotheology. The
more originally it is both in one, the more truly it is philosophy. (Heidegger 1985: 51)

87
 Retrieving ancient knowledge from mystery cults
Greek society knew a certain type of festival which resembled the philosophical
enterprise in its essence, in any case from the standpoint of Plato. The essence of
philosophy, for Plato, is the experience to reach a higher level of cognitive insight
about the world. This experience is ultimately associated with a process of tran-
scendence in which the individual who practices philosophy is involved. In the
light of such recognition of the philosophical enterprise, it is not surprising that
Plato subscribes to the ritualistic practices of initiation in mystery cults:
Gorgias (497c): Socrates
Youre a happy man, Callicles, in that youve been initiated into the greater [mysteries]
before the lesser. I didnt think it was permitted. So answer where you left off, and tell
me whether each of us stops feeling pleasure at the same time as he stops being thirsty.
Republic (327a1-5): Socrates
I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, the son of Ariston. I wanted to
say a prayer to the goddess, and I was also curious to see how they would manage the
festival, since they were holding it for the first time. I thought the procession of the lo-
cal residents was a fine one and that the one conducted by the Thracians was no less
outstanding.
The theme of descent plays an important role in the dramatic structure of the Republic.
To note only the obvious, Socrates and Glaucon descend from Athens to Piraeus at the
very beginning of the dialogue; Book Seven begins with a descent from the sunlight into
the cave of the shadows () the dialogue closes with an account of the descent of Er
into Hades. Each of these descents is described in considerably greater detail than the
outstanding example of ascent to the idea of the Good, or more properly, to its surrogate,
the image of the sun. (Rosen 2006: 16f.)

Through Platos opening of his philosophical discourse to also embrace the

spiritual world of the mystery cults, a relationship is established between the
(Common) Good and the higher property of the celestial body (i.e. the Sun),
thus suggesting the metaphor of enlightenment through ascent to spiritual
heights. The myth (or simile) of the Sun (see below) draws on the allegory of
the Sun and the Good. The Sun makes things visible, so the Good makes things
knowable.
The Sun, (), not only makes the things we see visible, but causes the processes of gen-
eration, growth and nourishment, without itself being such a process. () The good
therefore may be said to be the source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of
knowledge, but also of their being and reality; yet it is not itself that reality, but is beyond
it, and superior to it in dignity and power. (Republic 509b)

88
see Appendix I: The myth of the Sun (Republic 507ff.)
The idea of ascent toward the Sun strongly echoes experiences in the mystery
cults of reaching a higher level of consciousness as the outcome of the ritual of
initiation. Plato does not only rhetorically refer to the transition to enlighten-
ment but he also uses language relating to initiation practice in mystery cults.
The mystical vocabulary and the evocation of ritual experience subscribed to by Plato
cannot be an uncomplicated return to archaic ritual practices. Socrates irrevocably re-
casts the experience of the mysteries as philosophical, transformative experience, which
reaches its culmination in the visions embodied in the great myths. The content of the
mysteries, such as the concerns of mortals and the redemptive contemplation (theo-
rein, simultaneously implying science and mystical viewing) of the heavens, remains
intact. (Adluri 2006: 421)

Various mystery cults were open for members of both sexes, and some were re-
stricted to one sex only. Plato encouraged the participation of women in festi-
vals and in the mystery cults that were reserved for them. () we should bear
in mind Platos [Laws 781c] reproaches against Greek society for allowing its
women to cling to the known oikos, fearful and unwilling to venture into and
contribute to the public world (Demand 1994: 25).
Women were supposed to participate in festivals, provided there were no re-
strictions, as in the case of festive occasions including sporting events.
Participation in festivals was an important mark of social status for Greek women. On
the one hand, an important social sanction that could be imposed on an ill-behaved
Greek woman was debarment from the citys religious life. On the other hand, election
to serve in public cults brought the highest distinction a woman might hope to obtain in
Greek society. (Zhou 2010: 162)

Among the most visible manifestations of cult life in the Greek city-state were
ritual processions. This was a major event known in Greek by the name thia-
sos, a term of pre-Greek origin (Beekes 2010: 548) with communal and also
political implications. The institution of processions in the ritual life of the
Greeks was no novelty. Religious processions are well known from the imagery
of the ancient Aegean cultures, the offspring of the Danube civilization: Cycladic
culture and Minoan civilization of ancient Crete (Marinatos 1987: 52ff., Bintliff
2012: 132ff.). There is no question that Old European sacred images and sym-
bols remain a vital part of the cultural heritage of Europe () The Old European
culture was the matrix of much later beliefs and practices (Gimbutas 1989: 320).
Apparently, the institution of the ritual procession serving to celebrate social
cohesion and harmony in community life was adopted by the early Greeks, as
an item of valuable and practical knowledge, from their predecessors.

89
 The organization of processions that included rituals of various kinds lay in
the hands of the priesthood. The training of priests and priestesses in antiquity
was quite different from modern practices. In fact, education in religious affairs
was much less bureaucratic or formalized than the path of modern priesthood
and much more oriented at the transmittance of social knowledge from the com-
munity to the candidate for priesthood, to meet the needs of the community.
A more useful lens through which to understand Greek cult service is that of the collec-
tive groups that defined communality within the polis, groups based on family, gender,
age class, and marital status. Social rituals defined communality as well, through activi-
ties such as poetic recitations, sacrificial meals, and symposia. (Connelly 2007: 28)

The organization of processions was the responsibility of the cult personnel and
the thiasoi were of great significance as symbols of sustained community life, and
many famous representatives of Greek society participated.
The relationships of cult, divinities, and sanctuaries were articulated through the direc-
tions in which processions traversed the cityscape. This movement could be centripetal,
marching from the periphery to civic and religious center, or centrifugal, departing from
city center and advancing toward places outside of it. Processions provided highly vis-
ible, dramatic displays in which leaders and participants understood their roles. Their
movements reflected the structures and values of the community. (Connelly 2007: 167)

In this context, an ethnographic comparison with derivational cultures of the

Danube civilization may help us to perceive the significance of communal fes-
tivities in the annual life cycle of Old European communities. Since the times
of the Mycenaeans the significance of festivities and their formal performances
has been documented. Greek ethnicity emerged only a few hundred years after
the decline of Old European civilization, and this enhances the probability that
various cults of the ancient population were adopted by the early Greeks together
with the associated customs. Communal festivities, accompanied by processions,
played a central role in celebrating the spirit of community life in the Greek cit-
ies. Those processions were led by female protagonists, by priestesses, respected
members of their community.
It was the priestesss responsibility to carry the holy things in sacred processions, which
gave visibility, not just to the instruments of worship, but also to the priestess herself.
() Women who led these processions marched in the spotlight that underscored their
agency and highlighted their symbolic capital within the larger group. (Connelly 2007:
167)

Despite the abundant archaeological and textual evidence that gives proof of the
existence of processions in ancient Greek society, with religious and, at the same
time, communal significance, we modern observers cannot reconstruct any of

90
the festivities with accuracy. This paradoxical situation has in part to do with the
associated mysteries, initiation rites, that formed part of the performance but
whose contents were never totally disclosed to the uninitiated. And yet, there is
the basic knowledge that such processions did once exist and appealed to a time-
less anthropocentric need. With respect to the mindset of those who participated
in antique processions the following pronouncement has been made:
Being ignorant of the ritual and unable to reproduce it, we cannot recreate this experi-
ence, but we may acknowledge that it was there. There was a chance to join the thiasos
with ones soul, thiaseuesthai psychan, and this meant happiness. (Burkert 1987: 114)

This experience that was there but cannot be substantiated was the amazing
event of sympatheia, a constituent of the Greeks cultural memory but no Greek
invention. The sympatheia as a manifestation of social and spiritual balance in
community life was a resounding echo of the experiences of previous genera-
tions and, ultimately, a reflection of the Old European spirit.
The prominence of women in ritual activities is emphasized especially in
those festivities which were known by the Greeks themselves for their extraordi-
nary antiquity. An illustrative example of a tradition that dates back to pre-Greek
times are the festivities in honor of the Grain-Mother Demeter (Clinton 1993).
The procession from Athens to Demeters main sanctuary at Eleusis was led by
a priestess along the hieros dromos (the holy road). Significantly, the custom
to perform this procession has persisted up to the present, and it is organized
nowadays to honor the Virgin Mary in the same role as Demeter in antiquity, as
the one who blesses the fruits of labor in the fields, the bread.
A central part of Demeters festivities were the Thesmophoria, the offering of
piglets in special offering pits (called megara). This was a ritual activity in which
only married women were entitled to participate. The worshippers gathered after
the offering ceremony, sat together at the foot of the sacred hill in Athens this
was the Pnyx and told mythical stories of Demeter and her daughter Perse-
phone. The Thesmophoria were a festival with exclusive significance for women,
as organizers, participants and narrators of womens agenda.
The most widely celebrated of the occasions that allowed women a temporary respite
from the routines of the oikos was the annual festival of Demeter, the Thesmophoria.
This festival recalled the motherhood of Demeter and the loss of her daughter Perse-
phone through rape/marriage to Hades. During the celebrations, which lasted from
three to ten days depending on the polis, married women left their homes and camped
out together in a polis of women, while the operations of the male polis came to a halt.
The women mourned Demeters loss of her daughter, and, in most cities, they rejoiced
in the festival of Beautiful Birth. The role reversal implicit in the creation of a polis of
women, and the physical escape from the demands of the oikos, provided a safety valve

91
 for the tensions caused by the restrictions of daily life, while reinforcing community
norms of marriage and childbearing. A somewhat similar acculturating role is played
in modern Greece by womens reverence for the Panayia (Mother of God), who, like
Demeter, embodies the ideal values of motherhood in a womans life. (Demand 1994: 24)

In several of his dialogues, Plato refers to the cult of Demeter at Eleusis and he
draws on language use of the mystery cult to forward his ideas about the wander-
ing of the soul (Evans 2006).
Plato tells us that beyond this ephemeral and imperfect existence here below, there is
another Ideal world of Archetypes, where the original, the true, the beautiful Pattern
of things exists for evermore. Poets and philosophers for millennia have pondered and
discussed his conception. It is clear to me where Plato found his Ideas; it was clear to
those who were initiated into the Mysteries among his contemporaries too. Plato had
drunk of the potion in the Temple of Eleusis and had spent the night seeing the great
Vision. (Wasson et al. 2008: 29f.)

The association of major mystery cults with a female divinity and their popular-
ity echoes in Platos Republic where Socrates elaborates on the principles of an
ideal society. Socrates makes reference to the Thracian goddess Bendis and her
cult; both are particularly related to the island of Lemnos and to the historical
region of Thrace (Planeaux 2000). An important sanctuary in honor of Bendis
was established on the Mounichia Hill in the area of Piraeus. Evidence for cult
practices relating to Bendis comes from a relief stela, dating to 379 BCE, that was
found in Piraeus (Deoudi 2015: 54f.).
It is known from antique sources that among the Thracians women were en-
gaged in activities that were reserved for men in other regions: i.e. hunting, shep-
herding and working the fields.

Plato, Republic:
Socrates
[327a] I went down yesterday to the Peiraeus with Glaucon, the son of Ariston,
to pay my devotions to the Goddess, and also because I wished to see
how they would conduct the festival since this was its inauguration. I
thought the procession of the citizens very fine, but it was no better than
the show, made by the marching of the Thracian contingent.
[327b] After we had said our prayers and seen the spectacle we were starting
for town when Polemarchus, the son of Cephalus, caught sight of us
from a distance as we were hastening homeward and ordered his boy
run and bid us to wait for him, and the boy caught hold of my himation
from behind and said, Polemarchus wants you to wait. And I turned

92
 around and asked where his master was. There he is, he said, behind
you, coming this way. Wait for him. So we will, said Glaucon,
[327c] and shortly after Polemarchus came up and Adeimantus, the brother
of Glaucon, and Niceratus, the son of Nicias, and a few others appar-
ently from the procession. Whereupon Polemarchus said, Socrates, you
appear to have turned your faces townward and to be going to leave
us. Not a bad guess, said I. But you see how many we are? he said.
Surely. You must either then prove yourselves the better men or stay
here. Why, is there not left, said I, the alternative of our persuading
you that you ought to let us go? But could you persuade us, said he,
if we refused to listen? Nohow, said Glaucon. Well, we wont listen,
and you might as well make up your minds to it. Do you mean to say,
interposed Adeimantus,
[328a] that you havent heard that there is to be a torchlight race this evening
on horseback in honor of the Goddess? On horseback? said I. That is
a new idea. Will they carry torches and pass them along to one another
as they race with the horses, or how do you mean? Thats the way of
it, said Polemarchus, and, besides, there is to be a night festival which
will be worth seeing.
(Plato, vol. 5; translated by Paul Shorey, 1969)

Significantly, the Republic, popularly interpreted as a monument of rational politics, be-

gins with Socrates initiation into the cult of a foreign goddess, whose very nature is
subversive. After all, her religion recalls the mythic revolt of the women of Lemnos. One
would expect a Kosmokrator such as the Olympian Zeus to oversee a discussion on Jus-
tice and on the establishment of a state. Instead, a gynocratic, foreign, chthonic goddess
is invoked. (Adluri 2006: 414)

Anchoring the Common Good: Agents of divine law in the

service of communitarianism
Throughout Greek history, the significance of customs of behavior and cus-
tomary (= unwritten) law was well understood and their value for education
emphasized. For example, in Platos work Laws, it says that the unwritten laws
or customs that govern education are the bonds of the whole regime. If these
unwritten laws are established in a noble way, they will save the written laws
(Lutz 2012: 96). Undoubtedly, Platos perception of the Common Good is ulti-
mately associated with laws that hold the community together and from which
all members profit.

93
 If Platos argument about justice presented in both the Republic and the Laws can be
summarized in just one sentence, the sentence will say: Justice is neither the right of the
strong nor the advantage of the stronger, but the right of the best and the advantage of
the whole community. The best, as explained in the Republic, are the expert philosophi-
cal rulers. They, the wise and virtuous, free from faction and guided by the idea of the
common good, should rule for the common benefit of the whole community, so that
the city will not be internally divided by strife, but one in friendship (Republic, 462a-b).
Then, in the Laws, the reign of the best individuals is replaced by the reign of the finest
laws instituted by a judicious legislator (715c-d). (Korab-Karpowicz 2016)

The earliest Greek law known to have been written down comes from Dreros
(in the northeastern part of Crete) and dates to around 650 BCE, and during
the next century, laws were inscribed all over Crete (especially at Gortyn) and
the rest of Greece (Gagarin 2005: 91). The oldest legal code that is known from
Athens is Dracos homicide law, enacted in 621 BCE. The text itself has not come
down to us but its contents were included in Solons collection of laws that he
presented together with his reforms in 594 BCE (Dillon and Garland 1994: 59ff.).
The aim of the [Draconian] law was to regulate and limit private revenge, which until
that moment had been the habitual and unquestioned response to every wrong that a
person claimed to have suffered. But although it prohibited revenge in a general way, the
law established some exceptions. () Draco guaranteed impunity to the man who had
killed another man caught next to (epi + dative) his wife, mother, daughter, sister, or
the concubine (palace) he kept for the purpose of having free children, that is, his free
concubine. (Cantarella 2005: 239)

Law-giving did not start with the first written law around the mid-seventh cen-
tury BCE. And early laws of the Greek world recorded in writing did not cover all
domains of peoples lives. The oldest collection of laws, found in the Cretan town
of Dreros, is comprised of regulations for cult life and for administration (con-
cerning access to high offices in the community). The contents of later compila-
tions of laws reveal that the major themes addressed fit in with the frame of what
can be described as customary law. Customary law always precedes written law
since maxims for proper social conduct and punitive measures against offenders
exist in all cultures, including all those which are illiterate.
Written laws are attested first in our evidence around the mid-seventh century, and they
increase at precisely the period when the Greek city-states were developing more formal
political systems in a process of state formation. () Our firmest evidence for Greek law
in the archaic and early classical period remains the inscriptions recording laws; thus we
know far more about those laws which were inscribed on stone (as opposed to wood or
bronze) and survived to this day. (Thomas 2005: 42f.)

94
Most extant laws from Greek antiquity are written on stone, some text fragments
on bronze have been found at Olympia (Elis) and at Argos (Argolid). No traces
are left of the original codifications of the archaic period in Athens (i.e. Dracos
and Solons laws) or in other places where, according to antique sources, laws
were given (i.e. Thebes, Catana, Locri).
Those who were the most diligent in codifying their laws in written form
were the Cretans. The civilization of ancient Crete was built up by the Mino-
ans who were called after the prominent figure of king Minos in the Greek
myths. Minos is credited as the first lawgiver. In the works of antique authors
one finds allusions to Crete as the cradle of the Greek tradition of lawgiving
(Thomas 2005: 43f.). The most famous of all Greek law codes is the compila-
tion on stone from Gortyn (Crete), known as the Gortyn Code (mid fifth cen-
tury BCE). The codification of laws in writing makes a difference (compared
with orally transmitted juridical regulations) and not only with regard to its
graphic representation.
When law becomes established in the Greek world, there are a number of different as-
pects to it: social institutions, human practices, and mental categories, and it is these that
define legal thought as opposed to other forms of thought, in particular religious ones.
(Vernant and Vidal-Naquet 1990: 30)

The roles of both orality and literacy in lawgiving were valued by the Greeks, and
attitudes toward the written form of laws varied considerably in the Greek world.
The Spartans claimed that their most famous lawgiver, the legendary Lycurgus,
had forbidden the writing down of laws. He called the laws rhetra which is de-
rived from the same lexical root as rhetoric and implies oral transmission. The
contents of the rhetra had to be handed down from one generation to the next
as oral memory (Plutarch, Lycurgus 13.3). The ways in which oral transmission
works is not always the same in the Greek world which means that the concept
oral memory was not always understood as relating exclusively to the spoken
word. From literary sources we know that, for instance, the laws of Charondas a
lawgiver from Katane (Catania) in Sicily of the sixth century BCE were chanted
in a choral song (paian); (Thomas 1995: 62f.). Katane was a Greek colony whose
mother-city was Chalkis in Euboia.
The case of Lycurgus is a special one. It is unclear whether he was an historical
figure (who lived in the eighth century BCE) or a fabrication of myth-making in
ancient Greece. Herodotus, the father of Greek historiography, connects Lycur-
gus with the Cretan tradition of lawgiving, and this may be seen as an attempt to
increase his prestige. According to a pronouncement made by Plato (Laws 632e),
the Spartan laws were given to Lycurgus when he visited Delphi and consulted

95
the oracle. This again adds to Lycurgus fame, and the authority of the Delphic
oracle certainly had a bearing on the acceptance of the laws by the Spartans.
The oracle, with pronouncements given by the Pythia in trance, was an institu-
tion that cherished traditional values, among them the regulations provided by
customary law. What the oracle had to say in matters of lawgiving was provided
in the spirit of Themis and her sense of social order, observing the ways of the
ancients.
Scholars have searched for an old layer in Greek laws, for what is common to
all law codifications.
() the study of Attic law can be considered not only an end in itself, but also, if prop-
erly understood, as a means of recovering other Greek laws; laws, let us repeat, that are
indisputably diverse among themselves but among which, nevertheless, can be found the
existence of a common substratum, () (Biscardi 1982: 9; my emphasis).

One of the aspects of a common substratum is the motivation for the writing
down of laws. Modern research rejects the idea advocated by the traditional-
ists who look for Oriental origins of all Greek institutions that the tradition of
writing laws originated in Mesopotamia and inspired the Greeks to follow the
example. Such a comparison is too simplistic. Legal codes in the ancient Middle
East were intended as icons to glorify and celebrate the ruler, but their function
was not necessarily to bring justice to his subjects.
The motivation for codifying laws was altogether different in the Greek world.
The essence of Greek lawgiving is encapsulated in Greek theater plays, in fifth-
century tragedy in particular. Euripides, in his Suppliants, makes his actors reflect
on the nature of the Greek laws. Theseus uses the term koinos (related to koion,
pledge, an element of the pre-Greek substratum)
() to describe the valid law that is set in opposition to the tyrants law. That word
denotes precisely that legitimate law is public or a communal or shared possession. The
laws of Greece, the laws of mortals, and the laws of the gods must all be different types
of common law or law of the community. These types of law are publicly possessed
insofar as none can be said to have a specific, named mortal author; they seem to come
from the community as a whole. In a society, whose religious laws were not based on
a single divinely inspired text, even the laws of the gods took their authority from the
communitys valorization of religious beliefs. (Allen 2005: 389)

The anonymity of the laws and the collectivity of their communal possession
makes the essence of the concept hosia, a noun derived from (h)osios sanc-
tioned, permitted (by the gods or by nature).

96
Hosia in ancient Greek
-, Ion. , , (fem. of ) divine law,
it is against the law of God and nature to . . , Od.16.423, cf. 22.412,
Pi.P.9.36, Call.Aet.3.1.5; those for whom it
is not lawful, Hdt.2.45; . . . ib. 171; . h.Merc.470;
more than law allows, Emp.4.7; .
holding the thing fully sanctioned, Ar.Pl.682;
D.21.104;
all may share lawfully in the rites, Berl.Sitzb.1927.158 (Cyrene): personified
, Righteousness, E.Ba.370 (lyr.).
II.  the service or worship owed by man to God, rites, offerings, etc.,
I will enter into (enjoyment of)
the same worship as A., h.Merc.173; the rites were estab-
lished, h.Ap.237; the rite of the flesh-offering, h.Merc.130:
so without a gen., offering, AP9.91 (Arch.Jun.).
2.  funeral rites, last honours paid to the dead, . Iamb.
VP30.184.
III. prov., for forms sake, Lat. dicis causa, E.IT1461;
Eub.110, Ephipp.15.4; so (or ) E. IT1161.
( Berl.Sitzb. l. c.)
(Liddell and Scott 1883: 1260)

This concept was the very foundation of the ways of the goddess Themis, the per-
sonification of Justice. Both the concept hosia and the term itself are elements of
the pre-Greek substratum, and both were adopted by the Greeks from their pre-
decessors who had lived by the regulations of customary law since the Neolithic.
The hosia of the ancients were common law, for mortals and gods alike, and as
such they were sacred. Many sacred laws are indeed true laws, in the sense of
regulations emanating from the citizen assembly or other legislative body of the
city concerned, and backed by its authority (Parker 2005: 63).
The source of what was comprised by hosia was readily associated with divine
agency. The highest quality of laws was imagined to emanate from the kind of
justice that only gods can inspire. In Platos work Laws, there is a lengthy passage
where the philosopher in the disguise of the Athenian Stranger who engages
in a dialogue with Kleinias elaborates on a city under divine law. Divine law is
conceptualized by Plato in a way that the gods rely on intellect (nous) to estab-
lish the laws (Laws 714a), indicating that inspired laws would reflect a wisdom
that is discernible by human intellect (Lutz 2012: 111).

97
 There is consensus that the only way to achieve the quality of noble laws is
() in keeping with the principle that the lawgiver always makes law for the sake of
what is best (Laws 628c6-7). And as a result of this agreement, they also accept that
the laws of the city ought to aim not simply at overcoming conflict within the city but
more importantly at introducing to it peace, goodwill, and happiness (Laws 628d3-7).
By comparing the city that undergoes domestic conflict to a body that suffers from a
disease (Laws 628d2-3), the Athenian Stranger suggests that the city in which citizens
live harmoniously would be like a body whose parts work together, producing a positive,
glowing health in the body as a whole. And the corresponding aim of divine law would
be to bring this sort of health or well-being to the civic body. (Lutz 2012: 40)

In the pre-Greek tradition the oral memorizing of sacred laws was given priority,
and this attitude is still reflected in the way Lycurgus manages lawgiving without
the medium of writing. Other cultures know the taboo of unwritten laws, too.
An example is Irish society in the early Middle Ages. Although the Ogham script
had been in use for funerary inscriptions since the fourth century CE it was for-
bidden to record Druidic laws in writing. The Druids memorized the contents
of the old Irish laws as secret knowledge. Only when Christianity had come to
dominate were the restrictions lifted and the old laws were written, using the
Latin script (Mytum 1992: 54f.).
In the Greek discourse about law and justice one finds valorizations favoring
unwritten over written laws. Hippias, for instance, asked whether justice can be
defined as keeping to the law, because law can be altered, but unwritten laws, such
as the law that everyone must look after their parents, are divine and observed
everywhere (Xenophon, Memorabilia 4.4.13ff.) (Thomas 2005: 51).
According to the worldview of the Greeks in which human beings interacted
with the gods through rituals and cult practices, the usefulness of laws could be
valued by the application of intellect. In the interaction of humans with gods,
intellect becomes a means of communication that functions both ways.
() the divine legislator needs to use intellect to make the laws. Insofar as the intellect pro-
vides the citizen with knowledge of virtue, it provides the citizen with access to the gods
thinking. To use intellect to discern virtue is to divine what the gods have in mind regard-
ing what the citizen considers to be the most important things (Laws 964b, 965e, 968b-c,
969c-d). In this respect, it could be called the divine part of the soul. (Lutz 2012: 175)

The most common term for law was nomos whose meanings were rather am-
biguous, ranging from customary unwritten law to regulations of cult practices
and specialized laws for the limitations of the offices of members of the council
and of the magistrate (Hlkeskamp 2000: 74ff.). The content of unwritten cus-
tomary law continued to be observed in the Greek communities, regardless of
how extensively the juridical concerns may have generated ever more specialized

98
regulations once laws were written. In short, the customary law of the ancients
(the hosia as substratum) remained the foundation of Greek lawgiving.
There is another feature by which Greek laws distinguish themselves from any
codification of Mesopotamian coinage, and this is the function of laws to serve
in dispute-settling. The application of laws and their practicability for the settling
of disputes of contestants was a major concern of the Greek legal system. The
authority of written laws was enhanced by the specific way in which they were
displayed and handled.
These laws were inscribed, (), and were displayed prominently in public areas, often in
or near a temple or sanctuary. This location may have conveyed the sense that the laws
had divine authority but they were not religious laws such as, say, the collections of
laws in the Old Testament (). Unlike many Near Eastern law codes, Greek legislation
was meant to be used in actual litigation. Even the earliest inscriptions make some effort
to organize provisions in ways that are useful to users (e.g., by grouping together provi-
sions on the same subject) and to incorporate other physical and stylistic features that
make the laws easier to read. (Gagarin 2005: 92)

The basic idea of dispute-settling was to persuade contestants in a law suit to seek
a settlement which enhanced the development of rhetoric skills. The contestants
had a chance to speak and give their arguments, and the judge would then give
his verdict without any obligation to explain on which ground he made his deci-
sion. The role of the judges (dikastai) was central for keeping up a just balance
between the regulations provided by the law and the people for whom the law
was made. The dikastai are asked to identify with the demos as the beneficiaries
of the law (Yunis 2005: 205). This means the intentions of the demos are the
intentions of the dikastai.
Dispute-settling was one of the corner-stones for the functioning of the
communal system. In the archaic period, the noble task of acting as judge in
dispute-settling was that of a Homeric king. There are various instances of
dispute-settling, as an agenda, woven into the stories of epic literature (e.g. Iliad
16.542; Odyssey 12.440). The protagonist of one epic story is the god Hephaistos
who crafts a shield for the hero Achilles which he decorates with scenes of hu-
man activity. For the overall theme of a city at peace Hephaistos chooses two
scenes: one is a wedding and the other a trial (Iliad 18.497-508).
In the epic literature, the respectable office of the judge is often assigned to
the king (basileus). According to the findings of modern scholarship, the basi-
leus in Mycenaean times was no mighty king of a city-state but a figure invested
with authority, by the local communities, to hold a tribe together. The respect he
enjoyed was a function of his authority to settle disputes. In Hesiods Theogony
(84103) the king, acting as supreme judge, is most respected if he is eloquent

99
and possesses the skills to persuade the disputants to reach a settlement. In the
poets view, a judge needs the gift of the Muses, eloquence, as much as a poet does.
The badge of the judges office was a staff, called bakteria, and this was a term
from the substrate language. Bakteria symbolized authority assigned by the
community, and this differed markedly from the function of skeptron (scepter)
which was the symbol of power. In Homers works, skeptron is borne by chiefs
and transmitted from father to his son, and skeptron also is the symbol of royalty
(Dergachev 2007: 163).

The pursuit of happiness and the measure of goodness in its

relation with virtue and beauty
Happiness holds a pivotal role in the conceptual network of ideas relating to the
good in general, and to the Common Good in particular. The term for happiness
in ancient Greek is eudaimonia.
Eudaimonism:
either psychological eudaimonism, (the idea that we all desire happiness as the ultimate
end of all our choices) or ethical eudaimonism (the idea that happiness is the ultimate
human good and anything else good is good as a constituent of or means to happiness)
(Santas 2009: 310)

Eudaimonia in ancient Greek

-, Ion. -, , prosperity, good fortune, opulence,
h.Hom.11.5, Pi.N.7.56, Hdt.1.5,32, Hp.Ep.11 (v.l.), etc.;
. Th.2.97; of countries, Hdt.5.28, 7.220, etc.;
Pi.P.3.84: pl., E.IA591 (anap.), Pl.Phd.115d.
2.  true, full happiness, .
Democr.171; . , opp. , Id.170, cf. Pl.Def.412d,
Arist.EN1095a18, Zeno Stoic.1.46, etc.
b. personified as a divinity, SIG985.8 (Philadelphia).
(Liddell and Scott 1883: 708)

Although the teachings of Plato differ, in many respects, from those of his most
distinguished disciple, Aristotle, there are certain basic concepts on which they
both agree in principle. One is the identification of happiness in its relation to
virtue. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle elaborates on happiness in the fol-
lowing way:
Aristotle says that living well and doing well are equivalent to happiness (I.4 1095a19-
20). This may lead us to suppose that happiness and the happy life are interchangeable

100
 translations of eudaimonia. But it is important to be clear that eudaimonia is not equiva-
lent to the happy life as we ordinarily use that term. By happy life we usually mean
everything involved in the happy persons day to day activity, the sort of thing that might
be plotted in a life plan or recounted in a biography. (Lear 2013: 394)

Perhaps the translation of Greek eudaimonia is better expressed by the good life
(see Prior 1991 for implications).
Platos disciple, Aristotle, is more precise in his assessment of happiness (eu-
daimonia) as the intentional acting of an individual by observing the principles
of virtue, and such activity enhances the good.
In providing an initial content to eudaimonia, the good for human beings, Aristotle says
at NE [Nicomachean Ethics] I.7 1098a16-18 that eudaimonia is rational activity in accord
with virtue. Since the virtuous exercise of rational activity would seem to be rational as
opposed to irrational activity, Aristotle seems committed to taking ethical behavior, be-
havior that achieves the human good, to be rational behavior. (Dahl 2013: 501)

Aristotle also draws general conclusions in ways that resemble the method of
inquiry of his mentor, Plato. Aristotle relates the social body of the political com-
munity to the values of a good life and, ultimately to happiness:
Political society is an association of people who live and work together for the sake of
living a good life. The goal of political society is thus the common good, i.e. the happi-
ness (eudaimonia) of all citizens. (Morrison 2013: 195)

Both Plato and Aristotle agree that the good life is intrinsically interwoven with
a persons happiness.
The good life is a condition in which a person will be the most happy. Such happiness
can be researched through a deductive perspective, which has been done by many phi-
losophers over time. Two such philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, deem the good life as
the state in which a person exhibits total virtue. (Debbarma 2014: 355)

In Platos view, good attracts the quality of being beautiful. Accordingly, everything
beautiful must be good. Love for what is beautiful shows the path to achieve the
good. Here, we find ourselves in the midst of arguments for the coextension of
beauty and goodness as exemplified by Plato in the Phaedo (105cff.). One may con-
clude that goodness always brings beauty with it, and beauty always brings good-
ness with it; or, goodness always and alone brings beauty with it (Riegel 2011: 144).
There is general agreement that Platos concept beauty is most comprehen-
sively treated in his dialogue Symposium. There also is consensus that the ideas
regarding beauty in that dialogue may not reflect Platos own diction directly. The
discourse about beauty is embedded in a complex network. Socrates introduces
the topic beauty in his speech, but the one who elaborates on its conceptual

101
framework is one of the few female protagonists in Platos work, Diotima of
Mantinea.
In the central speech given by Diotima on the nature of Beauty (Symposium,
201d-212a), embedded in the words of Socrates, echoes the initiation ritual of
the Eleusinian mysteries where the two realms, the world of the mortals and the
world of the immortals (i.e. of supernatural beings) are bridged.
The image of bridging two realms in thought by ascending, step by step, from one to the
other under the leadership of a guide is a central feature of Platos account of the ascent
to the Form of Beauty in the Symposium as a close reading of 209e5-211d3 shows. The
two realms employed by Plato are the world of the sensible, bodily things on the one
hand, and the realm of intelligible things on the other. Like a mystagogue Diotima is
introduced as guarding her charge Socrates through a series of steps, ascending in intel-
ligibility, towards the divine knowledge of what truly and eternally is, to the knowledge
of the auto to theion kalon. (Sattler 2013: 187f.)

With respect to the doctrine of what was later called Platonic love, scholars
thought that Plato would not have referred to the ideas of an historical person.
Instead, the philosopher allegedly aimed to avoid the impression, on the readers
side, that this significant concept could have been derived, thus not being origi-
nal. Modern research, though, has produced insights that speak in favor of Di-
otimas historicity (e.g. Waithe 1987a, Nye 1992, Walker 2005).
Diotima is mentioned, as a prophetess, in sources other than Platos works.
Furthermore, evidence has been provided that all the participants in Platos dia-
logues are historical persons (Nails 2002), and there seems to be no motivation
for the philosopher to create one among them as a fictitious personality. Accord-
ing to Mary Ellen Waithe (1987a: 103) () we can safely assume that Socrates
had no reservations about consulting priestesses and even had faith in their
teachings () (and thus) there is nothing unlikely about his having consulted
with Diotima, a priestess from Mantinea.
Diotima is introduced by Socrates in Platos dialogue Symposium as the wise
woman. Socrates speaks of Diotima as his teacher in matters of the philosophy of
love. This philosophy is presented, by Plato, as a study in the prophetic tempera-
ment (Stewart 1905: 428). Plato is known for the separation of Forms from per-
ceptible things. In the Symposium, Plato through Socrates speech emphasizes
the character of Beauty as Form. Plato, through Socrates, makes Diotima speak
as if she were present (Symposium, 210a-212a), thus highlighting the significance
of the message she conveys (Sier 1997). Diotima is here describing at length the
Form, the Beautiful (Dancy 2009: 83).
The contents of the text passages where Socrates draws on his teachers
(Diotimas) wisdom are allegorical and mythical, yet overall philosophical. The

102
allegorical part is comprised of an account of the parentage of the god Eros, son
of Poros and Penia. The mythical element is associated with the transcendental
idea of the soul. The longing for beauty reaches beyond, to achieve virtue and to
embrace the common good, and this may be philosophical wisdom or the good
from which society may profit (Werner 2012: 75ff.).
(Diotima) has taught him (Socr.) that love is another aspect of philosophy. The same
want in the human soul which is satisfied in the vulgar by the procreation of children,
may become the highest aspiration of intellectual desire. As the Christian might speak of
hungering and thirsting after righteousness; or of divine loves under the figure of human
(cp. Eph. v. 32); as the mediaeval saint might speak of the fruitio Dei; as Dante saw all
things contained in his love of Beatrice, so Plato would have us absorb all other loves and
desires in the love of knowledge. Here is the beginning of Neoplatonism, or rather, per-
haps, a proof (of which there are many) that the so-called mysticism of the East was not
strange to the Greek of the fifth century before Christ. The first tumult of the affections
was not wholly subdued; there were longings of a creature moving about in worlds not
realised, which no art could satisfy. To most men reason and passion appear to be an-
tagonistic both in idea and fact. The union of the greatest comprehension of knowledge
and the burning intensity of love is a contradiction in nature, which may have existed in
a far-off primeval age in the mind of some Hebrew prophet or other Eastern sage, but
has now become an imagination only. Yet this passion of the reason is the theme of the
Symposium of Plato. (Jowett 1892b/I: 532)

The Symposium provides much space for the philosopher to elaborate on the
concept that became known to posteriority as Platonic love. Eros, in its ideal
sense, is the nostalgia of the Absolute (Reale 2001: 157), the force that inspires
us to return to the absolute state which brings us near the gods. If then this state
of nearness to the gods is the absolute, then this is the essence of goodness. Eros
directs us to perceive beauty that is imprinted in our mind as form.
And it is possible to make a strong case that beauty is a subset of the good in Plato. First,
there is the supremacy of the Form of the good at Republic VI. Then there are the three
Forms beauty, proportion, and truth by which the good must be captured at Philebus
65a. One could also point to Republic V (452d-e), where Plato says that it is silly to take
as a standard for what is beautiful anything other than the good. (Riegel 2011: 215f.)

Yet, the Symposium is not the only dialogue where the topic of eros directing us
to beauty (and, ultimately, to the good) is addressed. In another of his dialogues,
the Phaedrus, we find a discourse on the two levels of the concept love, one low,
mundane level and another that connects with a lofty spirit. The difference be-
tween the two qualities of love are marked by the pleasure of the senses (low
level) and by LOVE as the passion for virtue (high level); (Cobb 1993).

103
 The discourse about the qualities of love is embedded in a myth, the narrative
about the god of the north wind, Boreas, and a young woman, Oreithuia. This
myth belongs to the category of traditional stories which were told and retold
countless times in oral narration. As a result, there would be multiple variants of
any one myth, as individual poets and other myth tellers adapted the traditional
material to the needs of different audiences and to the changing values and con-
ditions of society (Werner 2012: 25).
The image of Diotima as a wise woman lived on, together with the concept of
Platonic love. Diotima is the name chosen by writers (as pen name by Jadwiga
Luszczewska, 18341908, by Friedrich Hlderlin as a sobriquet for Susette Bor
kenstein Gontard, as one of the protagonists in Robert Musils novel The man
without qualities) and by filmmakers (as the character in Leni Riefenstahls film
Der heilige Berg). In astrophysics, names of mythical and historical figures are
used to name celestial bodies. One of the asteroids that are circling around the sun
beyond the orbit of Mars, the asteroid with the number 423, is named Diotima.
In Diotimas lengthy discourse on love and beauty, there is no mentioning of art.
In the unconditional exclusion of a realm where the modern beholder would read-
ily apply the key concept of aesthetics, Platos cognitive handwriting is revealed.
Strangely enough, Diotima and Socrates do not assign a role to the arts in this
process of reawakening to Beauty, though it takes but a short step to do so (Beard-
sley 1966: 41). The focus of the problem area where aesthetic and philosophical
currents intersect is the concept love. Depending on an individuals inclination,
love may be an (exclusively) erotic experience on the level of the senses, but it may
also appeal to the aesthetic sense, and the object of ones love becomes beautiful
in the eye of the beholder. The philosopher would take a further step, since love
leads him via the beautiful to wisdom. For wisdom is a most beautiful thing, and
Love is love of the beautiful, so Love must be a philosopher, () (Diotima in the
Symposium, 204b2).
As Diotima herself says, Eros in its very nature is not a god and as such is not beautiful,
since he is a desiring agent, the lover and not the object of love, the instrument and not
the aim of the search for divine forms, especially the form of beauty (204c4-5). Hence,
there is no cause for postulating the existence of any Idea of love, similar to the Idea of
good or virtue, and this explains why the best theoretical account Socrates can give of
eros is a mythical description delivered through the mouth of a priestess (203b-204a), a
muthos that can convey no more than an orthe doxa. (Keime 2016: 391)

Plato defines Beauty as an abstract form (or as an abstraction of aesthetic val-

ues), so Beauty ranges among the many other forms (mental constructs), the
bricks that make the fabric of knowledge. This form of Beauty is eternal and

104
never varies, it always is and neither comes to be nor passes away, neither waxes
nor wanes (Symposium, 211a1-2). In Platos discourse, Beauty is intrinsically in-
terwoven with goodness and happiness, in a kind of network of interdependent
concepts: () what Plato thinks is good about happiness is the objective state of
the soul, as opposed to any subjective feeling [pleasure], and this objective state
of the soul is as beautiful to contemplate as it is good to have (Riegel 2011: 236).

The Common Good as an overarching maxim in a

system ofculturalvalues
In her lengthy speech on the nature of love, Diotima of Mantinea compares the
different inclinations of human beings, being pregnant with desires and aspira-
tions. As the higher-order aspirations to achieve goodness, Diotima distinguishes
wisdom and virtue, thus placing various ethical categories in perspective. In this
context, Diotima equates wisdom with the Common Good (good ordering of
cities and households).
Those whose pregnancy is of the body, she went on, are drawn more towards women,
and they express their love through the procreation of children, ensuring for themselves,
they think, for all time to come, immortality and remembrance and happiness in this
way. But [there are] those whose pregnancy is of the soul those who are pregnant in
their souls even more than in their bodies, with the kind of offspring which it is fitting
for the soul to conceive and bear. What offspring are these? Wisdom and the rest of vir-
tue, of which the poets are all procreators, as well as those craftsmen who are regarded
as innovators. But by far the most important and beautiful expression of this wisdom is
the good ordering of cities and households, and the names for this kind of wisdom are
moderation and justice. (Symposium, 208e-209a)

Wisdom relies on knowledge-construction, and this process, in turn, is intrinsi-

cally interwoven with the functioning of the Forms, abstract concepts that the
individuals carry in their minds. In the light of a ranking of Forms for knowledge-
construction, the Good occupies a special place:
() the Good is a kind of first principle for Forms. The Form of Justice could not be
what it is without being good, and neither could the Form of Beauty. So grasping the
Good will be a kind of key that unlocks for us the understanding of all the Forms. It
seems to stand as the highest principle in a kind of hierarchy, presiding over the Forms.
The physical things around us in the visible world partake of these Forms, and thus can
be thought of as images of the Forms. (Adamson 2014: 154f.)

If the concept good is by its very nature a principle, then it lacks essence of the
kind one finds in the Forms. No wonder that some scholars see the path ob-
structed to a proper definition of what is good.

105
 How could one give philosophical expression, through an ordered network of words, to
the concept of the Good, the supreme value that is not an essence but, being the source
of Being and Knowledge, lies beyond essence in both dignity and power (Republic,
509bff.)? And similarly, how would it be possible to speak philosophically of Becoming,
which, in its constant change, is subject to the blind causality of necessity? Becoming is
too much a part of the irrational for any rigorous argument to be applied to it. It cannot
be the object of a true knowledge, only of a belief, pistis, or opinion, doxa. Thus, in refer-
ring to the gods or the birth of the world, it is impossible to use logoi homologoumenoi,
totally coherent arguments. One must make do with a plausible fable, eikota muthon
(Timaeus, 29b and c). (Vernant 1990: 221)

Plato speaks about happiness and virtue and about the relation of these two con-
cepts with the Common Good in general terms. When the various concepts re-
lating to ethical qualities, applied by Plato in his discourse as components in a
conceptual web, are set in perspective, it becomes evident that the idea good is
an overarching entity to which other qualities are associated as subsets, in such a
way that one may reconstruct a hierarchy of priorities (figure 8).

Figure 8:The hierarchical order of Platonic ethical categories centering around the key
concept Common Good

106
In a way, the frequency of basic expressions in Platos dialogues may serve as
an indicator of how individual terms form part in the grid of ethical categories
(Holtermann 2014: 8, 15, 40): agathos good (in general); Common Good (in
particular) (recorded 88 times), kalos beautiful; good (45), arete virtue (15).
(), the main attractions Plato saw in pleasure as the good are the possibility of measur-
ing value and turning ethics into a science, the possibility of bringing all goods and all
the virtues within a unified theory of the good as a choice-guiding concept, a basis for
the vindication of the Socratic supremacy of knowledge in human conduct, () (Santas
2009: 311)

Measuring the good (and the Common Good, as a signifier for communitar-
ian harmony) through the perception of the beautiful relies on sensitivity of the
mind, and on the fabric of value systems favored by a certain zeitgeist. The faculty
of aesthetic perception is compared by Plato to the eye of the soul (Symposium
212a, Republic 533d). In addition to the philosophical implications of the dis-
course on beauty and the good, there is the positioning of the two concepts in the
value system of the Greek society of antiquity as arbiter. To a modern observer,
the juxtaposition of the good (and beautiful) and warfare is absurd. In the milieu
of ancient Greek society, such a juxtaposition was valid. For instance, in his dia-
logue Protagoras (359e), Plato states: Going to war is beautiful. Such a statement
() may sound strange to our ears, and to that extent one might think it serves against
the translation beautiful for kaln, but to the Greek, going to war, especially as an ex-
pression of courage, may very well have been thought beautiful. (Riegel 2011: 107)

107
5.Platos demands for the materialization
of the Common Good

Plato is well aware that the achievement of the Common Good is no property
that, once achieved, would be eternally secured for the community to profit from.
The Common Good may be compared to a small plant that needs nurturing and
caring to guarantee that it grows stronger which requires the readiness to ward
off agents that could do harm to it. In practice, a kind of balance has to be estab-
lished between the Common Good and the self-interest of the individuals who
share in communitarian benefits, and this balance provides the conditions for
the communitarian plant to grow.
The idea of the common good of an institution shows that institutions cannot reach
their optimal performance and due diligence without anticipating their common good
in the self-interested decisions of the people acting in them. The interest on the realiza-
tion of optimal performance and due diligence leads to acknowledging the inevitable
task to consider as well the common good as the self-interest of its members in the gov-
ernance of institutions, be they political or economic. (Koslowski 2004: 32)

Although Plato does not explicitly ask for actions from the individuals to de-
fend the Common Good, that is he does not specify duties or responsibilities, he
nevertheless makes provisions for keeping up communal order and integrity. In
Platos view, the struggle for the Common Good includes the readiness to make
sacrifices for the sake of safeguarding communal interests. Another aspect in
Platos scheme of the Common Good is his concern with the education of young
people. In Platos view, philosophical instruction for candidates for political lead-
ership is imperative, for them to develop the right attitude vis--vis the Common
Good and its essence.
Perhaps the greatest of all philosophical achievements for education is Platos
concept of blind-folded justice. When Plato addresses the value of the Common
Good for all he truly means ALL, in the sense of equal rights and justice for
men and women alike. In his dialogues Republic and Laws, Plato outlines the
principles of gender equality in an ideal state, principles by which this philoso-
pher distinguishes himself from all his contemporaries. The principles of gender
equality, propagated by Plato, have retained their basic values to this day (Haar-
mann 2016a).

109
Platos metaphor of the charioteer steering toward
goodness and virtue
In early Greek mythology and in epic poetry of the archaic period (i.e. Homeric
poems) the chariot serves as a prominent vehicle in which gods and heroes can
travel, and can cross the borders between earthly realities and the divine sphere.
Platos myth of the charioteer (Phaedrus, 246a254e) has been recently identified
as a vehicle for philosophical thinking (Fierro 2016). And to the extent that the
myth [of the charioteer] is part (in fact the main part) of Socrates demonstration
that right-handed eros is a divine kind of madness, it must itself belong to what
is to be taken seriously (Rowe 2009b: 138).
In this context, Platos use of language reflects a strong resemblance with
certain linguistic topoi in epic poetry that draw on the operation of a chariot
as an earthly vehicle (driving) and also as a mythical means for transcendental
transport (flying); (Werner 2012: 110): driving (246b4, e4); flying (246c1); mov-
ing (247b1); arriving (247b6-7); feeding the horses (247e4-6); whips and goads
(254a3-4); reins and bits (254c1, d7, e3). In Platos myth [of the charioteer] hu-
man souls are positively encouraged to make the ascent with the gods, though
the punishment of incarnation inevitably ensues for those who fail to honor the
gods appropriately (namely, by practicing philosophy) (Werner 2012: 110).
The various functions of the soul are associated in specific ways with the met-
aphor of the charioteer. The analogy for the appetites is the black horse on the
left side which is described as ugly. The spirited part is identified with the white
horse on the right which attracts the quality noble. The rational part of the soul is
represented by the charioteer whose responsibility is to guide the horses so that
he, with his chariot, reaches the destination, the goal of his life which is to achieve
the Good as an expression of the unity of virtue (Greek arete).
In the Republic, Plato (through the words of Socrates) explains the association
of virtue with the soul.
(), Socrates explicitly states that the characteristic function of the soul is taking care
of things, ruling, deliberating, and all such things (Republic 353d4-6). Since arete is that
condition of anything that has a function that enables it to perform its function well,
Socrates draws the conclusion that the power to take care of things, to rule, and to
deliberate well is the virtue of the soul (353e4-5). (Brickhouse and Smith 2009: 275)

It is noteworthy that the metaphor of the charioteer and his guiding of the hors-
es, as used by Plato, finds its striking parallel in ancient Indian philosophy, as
recorded in several Hinduist and Buddhist texts.

110
 In the Katha Upanishad (Chapter 3), the chariot is compared to the body, the charioteer
to the intellect, the reins to the mind, the horses to the senses, and the road to the objects
of the senses. The chariot metaphor also occurs in several Buddhist texts, including the
Milinda Panha () and the Samyutta Nikaya (). (Werner 2012: 110, fn 11)

Sacrifice for the Common Good: Protecting the

community from outside threats
Sacrifices for safeguarding the Common Good in the sense of communitarian
intactness are expected from everyone, regardless of the members in the com-
munity being divided by gender. The sacrifice of men is valor in combat to defend
his country and home community. Greek mythology abounds with stories of he-
roes, and the motifs of mythical narrative also find their visual expression in vase
painting and in reliefs. The most sublime collection of images featuring heroic
deeds in defense of Greek society are without any doubt the picture friezes of
the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis. Here, the battles in which Greek heroes
engage against the titans, the Amazons and the centaurs are visually dramatized,
in a splendid choreography (see below). These pictures enhanced an awareness
of Hellenic sameness and strengthened social cohesion within Athenian society.
The Athenian hero, (), fought and died to save his fellow citizens. And they would have
done likewise for him. The common good took precedence over self-interest during civil
crises as well, during, for instance, the plague of 430 b.C., when, rather than fleeing the
city, many Athenians stayed behind to nurse the sick, risking their own lives. (Connelly
2014: 328)

The kind of sacrifice for the protection of community life expected from women
developed its own sociocultural pattern. In Greek society of antiquity women
were not on equal footing with men regarding social and political status. And yet,
women played a significant role in the mythical tradition which made them apt
for female valor and exceptional sacrifice.
One particular domain where heroism associated with women comes to bear
is Greek literature of the classical age. Insights about the significance of protago-
nists and plots in Greek tragedies for the concept of female heroism have been
produced only recently. Joan Connelly, in her brilliant study on the Parthenon,
draws our attention to the motif of female sacrifice and how Greek tragedians
elaborated on it. The sacrifice of a young noble woman, to help end a state of
social crisis, is a recurrent theme in many mythic accounts and, in the genre of
tragedy, this theme is dramatized.

111
 In those stories, the victims of sacrifice are not just passive objects of male
sacrificial activity. Instead, the maidens chosen for this extreme ritual act go into
their death voluntarily and, in most cases, commit ritual suicide. Stories about
maidens that are scarified (that is, sacrifice themselves) to avert catastrophe crys-
tallize around the mythical history of Greek towns. There is the myth of Andro
kleia and Aleis, daughters of Antipoinos, who commit suicide to fulfill the oracles
verdict that only a female sacrifice would save the town of Orchomenos from be-
ing attacked by Heracles and the Thebans. A similar story was told about Athens.
The inhabitants were stricken by an epidemic (or famine), and the daughters of
Leos were sacrificed to end the suffering. In both cases, in Orchomenos and in
Athens, shrines were erected to honor the heroic women who gave their lives to
rescue their home cities.
The herone who occupied the minds of the Greeks and whose story has been
retold many times since antiquity is Iphigeneia who sacrifices herself for the
good of the community. Iphigeneia became the protagonist in two master-pieces
of tragic literature, in the Agamemnon (458 BCE) of Aeschylus and in the Iphi-
geneia at Aulis (405 BCE) of Euripides. Agamemnons fleet cannot leave for Troy,
and the ships idle in the coastal waters, waiting for favorable winds. The seer Kal-
chas makes a pronouncement according to which the weather conditions would
change only if the kings daughter is sacrificed. In Aeschylus play, emphasis is on
the rage of Iphigeneias mother, Klytaimnestra, while, in Euripides tragedy, Iphi-
geneia is willing to become the victim of sacrifice, telling her mother: You bore
me for all the Greeks not yourself alone. There is a clear shift in emphasis that
can be observed when comparing the two plays, and this shift has most probably
to do with the development of a particular sense for female heroism during the
time of the Athenian democracy.
In the wake of the Persian Wars, themes of heroism and self-sacrifice gained popularity
on the Athenian stage. () But it is during the Peloponnesian War (431404 B.C.) and
the plague at Athens (430, 429, 427/426 B.C.) that we see a great eruption of interest in
these stories. Perhaps their retelling helped to acknowledge the burden of loss and sac-
rifice shared by the women of Athens during these troubled times. (Connelly 2014: 145)

The heroic valiant woman who volunteered for ritual sacrifice became the com-
panion of the heroic male warrior who fought the enemy in the battlefield where
women were not allowed to act. Both women and men were honored for their
heroism, each in their own sphere.
The contribution of each sex is clear: sacrifice is required of all children of suitable age
(and a corresponding sacrifice from parents): eligible boys must stand in the battle-line;

112
 eligible girls may be called upon for human sacrifice to promote victory (Wilkins 1990:
180).

In the Greek mindset of antiquity the theme of the Amazons was not associated
with the contemporaneous realities of barbarian lifeways and their women war-
riors. In the Greek myths of the Amazons, the woman warrior became the object
of competition and male rivalry. In the mythic accounts, there is no space for
an Amazon being a partner or companion of a Greek warrior on equal terms.
Greeks and Amazons always fight against each other, and they never act as al-
lies. Feminist scholars have highlighted the kind of male chauvinism (some are
inclined to label such attitudes as misogyny) that put its mark on myth-making
about the Amazons as an expression of the fear of determination, skills in mar-
tial arts and aspirations to self-rule among women. To contrast this picture of
dominant male chauvinism among the ancient Greeks one may add insights
from comparative ethnographic research which yield a picture of male-female
partnership in non-Greek cultures, and this picture deviates markedly from the
Greek mindset viewing the Amazons as enemies to be fought and subdued.
Amazon-like herones appear in Egyptian romances, Persian legends, epic traditions of
the Caucasus and Central Asia, and Chinese chronicles. These non-Greek stories diverge
from the grim Greek mythic script that doomed Amazons to defeat and death. Among
the cultures the Greeks designated as barbarian, myths, legends, and historical accounts
express great pride in their own heroic warrior women who won victories over men and
survived to fight again. When non-Greek societies faced female fighters among their
enemies, many tales recount how they eagerly sought to have these Amazons as lovers,
companions, and allies instead of killing them. (Mayor 2014: 31)

The bellicose attitude of the ancient Greeks toward the Amazons in their mythi-
cal narrative finds an explanation when viewing the theme of the Amazons in
the architectural ensemble of the picture friezes on the walls of the Parthenon
temple. The arrangement of the visualized narratives in the friezes, organized
according to the grand themes of heroic wars against the enemies of Athens,
the Amazons for one, offered to the Athenians a visual metaphor of the high-
est virtue, the Common Good of defending Athens and to preserve it for future
generations. Among the heroic figures featuring in the friezes, is Erechtheus, the
first mythical king of Athens and founding hero.
That the very founding family of Athens, from whom all are descended, could not put
itself above the common good speaks to a radical egalitarianism, not in circumstances,
but in responsibility, the very antithesis of the barbarian sentiment that society exists for
the exaltation of its most exalted members. All may not be equal in Athens, but all are
equal in relation to this sacred trust, which comes of being bound to the same earth and

113
 to one another by birth. All this trust in one another is what permitted the delicate plant
of democracy to take root. (Connelly 2014: 202)

Education for safeguarding the Common Good:

The selection of instructive myths to teach the
young generation
The life-line of any culture is guaranteed by the continuation of its traditions.
Continuation points to a dynamic process which unfolds on the continuum of
absolute time. Thus, the persistence of a culture depends on how representatives
of subsequent generations instrumentalize their cultural memory to renew and
modulate past traditions in the present and future. The perpetuation of cultural
traditions over many generations reflects stability in the reproduction of exist-
ing models while cultural change is due to modifications effected in the cultural
memory by subsequent generations. The living-conditions of the younger gen-
eration may call for adjustments of older knowledge to retain its usefulness in
a changing world. Whether unchanged perpetuation or modulation of useful
knowledge, its transmission depends on the ways the younger generation is in-
troduced to the knowledge of their parents, as instructed by the elders.
Most successful is the instruction in a community where the knowledge of
the living instructors is perceived by the younger generation as valid experience
of the elders or even as valued heritage transferred to the living from the times
of the ancestors. Such an awareness of the value of useful knowledge as a col-
lective body of cultural heritage gives additional weight to the instruction of its
contents, like an intellectual-cultural surplus that is likely to strengthen the tradi-
tions held by a community.
In Platos view, the distillation of useful knowledge, transmitted from previous
generations, for the members of the community, is a task of general concern. As
for political leadership, Plato emphasizes the need for those young individuals
who are selected to become rulers to have a solid training in philosophy, that is
in the rationalization of traditions, that offer knowledge and experiences that
have proven useful.
The selection of the lite from the masses was a very serious matter for Plato and
would not be completed until the youth was twenty years old. Only when the young
man has been selected will education for leadership commence. Also, Plato envisaged
no soft life for the philosopher kings. They have to forego the joys of family life and
renounce worldly goods and the ordinary recreational activities of the lower classes, for
their entire lives are to be devoted to contemplation and working for the common good.
(Dupuis and Gordon 2010: 32)

114
According to Plato, having access to a solid education in philosophy for be-
coming a ruler would not be equal for the young mind to carry the burden of
social restrictions. On the contrary, philosophizing education and prospects
for leadership would enhance a feeling of fulfillment and happiness in the
open-minded.
The rulers have the function of governing and so preserving the city. To perform it, they
need to understand justice and the good. To do that, Plato thinks, they must have the
function of philosophizing, and they must philosophize before they govern. (), phi-
losophizing is the most pleasant activity far more so than governing and would make
them happier. (White 2009: 369)

The content of much of what was transmitted via education (paideia) in ancient
Greece was associated with mythical narrative. Myth was recognized by poets
and philosophers alike as a medium through which the education of the young
generation would and should be achieved. From the standpoint of a modern
observer who investigates myth in the intellectual enterprise of ancient Greece,
myth has a fine line to tread: it cannot be so persuasive and seductive as to
be accepted uncritically by the person lacking knowledge, but it cannot convey
nonsense either. Myths are to be taken seriously, but not fetishized (McConnell
2013: 422).
Paideia in ancient Greek
, , rearing of a child, A. Th.18.
2. training and teaching, education, opp. , Ar.Nu.961, Th.2.39 (pl.);
. Pl. Phd.107d, Phlb.55d.
3. its result, mental culture, learning, education, . ,
Democr.180, cf. Pl. Prt.327d, Grg.470e, R.376e,
Arist.Pol.1338a30, etc.; . Pl.Prt.343a: in pl., parts
or systems of education, Id.Lg. 653c, 804d.
4. culture of trees, Thphr.CP3.7.4.
5.  the twisted handiwork of
Egypt, i.e. (acc. to Sch.) ropes of papyrus, E.Tr.129 (lyr.).
6. anything taught or learned, art, science, . , of medicine, IG14.2104.7.
chastisement, LXX Pr.22.15, Ep.Hebr.12.5.
II. 
youth, childhood, Thgn.1305, cf. 1348;
Lys.20.11; so (prob.) E.IT206 (lyr.).
2. in collect. sense, body of youths, Luc.Am.6.
(Liddell and Scott 1883: 1286)

115
In ancient Greece, the general attitude toward the value of the mythical tradition
was positive since myth was the only medium for transmitting useful knowledge
in the intergenerational chain. In book II of Platos Republic, a crucial distinction
is made between myths as conveying foundational knowledge and others which
are untrue stories. Plato makes Socrates reflect on this topic, and the content of
what he says may be summarized as follows:
Myth, Socrates continues, has a vital part to play in the education of the young, since it
is through myth that the values of society are handed down. Children must not listen
to myths made up by anyone that they happen to come across, because, if they do, they
run the risk of absorbing beliefs which are the opposite of those that they should have
when they grow up. Hence the first task of the founders of the state must be to supervise
the production of stories (377b11) by laying down tupoi (patterns of guidelines) which
mothers and nurses must follow in order that they may mould the souls of children by
means of muthoi. Poets too are to be constrained by these tupoi, and indeed poets in
particular need to be controlled since it is they who have been responsible for the perpe-
tration of myths which are false (377d5-6). (Murray 1993: 252)

The issue of educating young people through the medium of myth is addressed
also in the Laws. The main scenario for Platos discourse on lawful governance is a
discussion about conditions in an ideal city in which a knowledgeable Athenian,
a Spartan and a Cretan participate. The structure of the text in the Laws makes a
monological rather than dialogical impression (Nightingale 1993: 285). Prior-
ity is given to the outline of lawful governance as presented by the Athenian. The
implications of lawfulness are manifold and
() he [the Athenian] assumes that genuine law is the deliverance of reason and thus
embodies the same rational principles that govern the universe at large. The main aim
of legislation, as the Athenian sees it, is to ensure that every feature of the constitution is
directed to making the citizens virtuous. () Myth plays a central role in the persuasive
processes by which the citizens will be induced to follow the path of virtue. () So the
legislator has to consider what beliefs it would be most useful for the citizens to hold and
then to ensure that they are preserved in its songs, myths and discourse. () By insisting
that the myths must be taught to the young, the Athenian implies that there is not much
point in teaching them to adults. There is some plausibility in this. Even if children do
absorb the values implicit in the stories they hear, adults are not so easily impressed.
(Stalley 2009: 201f.)

In the context of the Republic (534e), Socrates specifies the priority for education.
In his view the peak of education is dialectics, a form of argument through
which the young citizen learns to raise questions about what the law teaches
regarding what is good and noble and just (Lutz 2012: 114).

116
 As a vehicle of knowledge-construction, myth-making had proved to be suc-
cessful and useful for innumerable generations. So the myths were perpetuated
in the intergenerational chain in such a way as to always impress young people
anew. In the scheme of his ideal society, Plato advocates censorship in a broad
sense. In principle he favors the teaching of mousike which was an encompass-
ing term referring not only to music but also to poetry, drama and story-telling.
Yet, the material that is taught to the young people must meet certain standard
values. While the epic narratives of Homer are basically approved, certain restric-
tions have to be imposed, as Plato elaborates in book II of his Republic. Plato
takes precautions to avoid the corruption of the young minds, which means the
philosopher imposes a taboo on certain passages in Homers epics.
Gods and heroes must not be represented as cowardly, despaiting, deceitful, and ruled
by their appetites, or committing crimes: hence the excision of many well-known scenes
from the Iliad and Odyssey. A good fiction is one which (though false or invented)
correctly represents reality and impresses a good character on its audience. (Janaway
2009: 390)

The teaching of useful knowledge, anchored in customs and traditions of the

ancients, to the young is carried out by the mother who raises her children in the
domestic environment, in the oikos. The inculcation of social conventions and
cultural traditions through the mother as agent of the ways of the ancients is the
same for girls and boys in the early years. Actually, the mothers are evidently in
charge of the paideia [education] of the boys until the age of about seven and
of the girls until their marriage (Gherchanoc and Bonnard 2013: 14). At the age
of seven, the boys are introduced to the local phratry or brotherhood, and part of
the education shifts to become the duty of the father.
Girls remain under the educational patronage of her mother until they marry
and move into their husbands households. Plato is well aware of this pivotal role
of the Greek mother as educator. Platos mother was the first mentor to make
her son acquainted with philosophical ideas and it is she who deserves the credit
to have lit the spark in the young Platos mind for developing a passion for the
discipline. Platos mother, Perictione, was not any educated woman, she was a
philosopher herself (Adamson 2014: 301).
Thus, in the case of Plato, early education at home had a weight that differed
from the conditions in many other households. It is no coincidence that Platos
brothers, Glaucon and Adiemantus, range among the main characters in Platos
dialogue Republic. They all received their basic philosophical training by their
mother in the confines of their home. Platos education through the teachings
of his mentor Socrates bloomed on the foundation of reasoning that had been

117
conditioned under his mothers patronage. It is certainly not far-fetched to as-
sume that Plato and his brothers kept up a philosophical discourse with their
mother in her role as philosopher of the household (Huizenga 2013).
In the early nineteenth century, the Greek myth was invented by German
intellectuals who looked at Greek antiquity with a sense of nostalgia and ro-
manticism (Andurand 2013). Among them was Christoph Martin Wieland who
praised the educational ideal of the ancient Greeks, as he understood the ways of
paideia in Greek antiquity.
The goal, therefore, of their education was to form or cultivate [bilden] their young citi-
zens into that which they termed kalokagathia. By this word they understood all of the
excellences and perfections that distinguish a free and noble human being from a slave
and from a human-like animal; it encompassed all of the qualities and talents that el-
evate and beautify a person and make one fit to fulfill a noble role in life. To this end,
which alone is worthy of human nature, they inculcated in their youth as early as possi-
ble a taste for the beautiful and the good, along with the best moral and political notions.
(Wieland 1909/4: 185)

The Common Good for all: Blindfolded justice as a key to

gender equality
Plato was surrounded by a certain anti-feminist zeitgeist, with a common atti-
tude of members in ancient Greek society according to which biological aspects
of difference underpinned the widespread belief in the classical world that gen-
der was innate and part of the natural order of things. People in the societies of
Greece and Rome did not generally understand gender as most of us do now, as
in large part a social phenomenon open to the possibility of variation at every
level (Foxhall 2013: 3).
And yet, Plato does not share the view of other contemporary intellectuals.
Instead, he elaborates at length on gender issues and, in this regard, he distin-
guishes himself from many other philosophers who do not address gender issues
at all. Up to the present, stereotyping claims have been made according to which
Plato did not appreciate women and even despised them because of their alleg-
edly deficient qualities. Plato was not very fond of women, and he claimed that
they were not up to mens standards in matters of virtue (Poller 2014: 80). Oth-
ers characterize the philosophers approach to gender issues as unambiguously
feminist (Gregory Vlastos 1995). Plato was neither a chauvinist nor a feminist.
Plato was no feminist in the modern sense but he was no sexist either. Plato
was no liberal thinker and he did not take initiative to make a case for wom-
ens liberties. And yet, he elaborates amply on issues of what is subsumed under

118
womens lib in our time. Plato was no rights feminist, or a rights advocate at all.
But he was a revolutionary about gender all the same (Santas 2010: 117). What
else would we call a philosopher who, under the conditions of Greek society in
the classical age, advocated the participation of women in sporting competitions
and approved the access of women to public offices, even to political leadership?
Such acknowledgment of womens political leadership is a far cry from Aris-
totles attitude (see Miller 2013: 49ff. for an outline of Aristotles views on gender
difference). Aristotle claims:
As regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male
ruler and the female subject (Politics, 1254b13-14);
() a male, unless he is somehow constituted contrary to nature, is naturally more fitted
to lead than a female (Politics I 12, 1259b1-3)
The domestic and political subordination of women to men is a natural thing for Aristo-
tle. Women ought to be ruled by men, he claims, because they are naturally inferior to
them, since the deliberate part of their souls lacks authority (Politics 1260a13). What he
has in mind, apparently, is that women lack authority over others, because they lack the
spirit (thumos) required for command ( Politics 1328a6-7). (Reeve 2013: 514)

Plato reaches far beyond such conceptual limitations. Platos discourse on wom-
ens role in society is based on premises which facilitate an understanding of
gender issues as socially negotiable. Aristotles position, in contrast, is pseudo-
biological (Mayhew 2004). To the modern observer, Platos approach to gender
issues seems much more enlightened than Aristotles sexist position. From a
chronological standpoint of the history of philosophy, it is noteworthy that the
older Plato, Aristotles mentor, is intellectually more advanced than his disciple.

The herone in mythical genealogies

Social cohesion in Greek communities and a consciousness of Pan-Hellenic soli-
darity were advanced through the medium of myth. In their efforts to anchor the
permanent values of Hellenism the Greeks created for themselves mythical ge-
nealogies that were peopled by heroic figures, both male and female, as founding
fathers and mothers. In this domain, there was equality of the sexes since male
mythical ancestors were venerated as much as heroic ancestresses.
The female heroic figure (herone) in Greek myth is not conceived as a one-to-
one equivalent to the male hero. Female heroism, when portrayed on equal terms
with that of men as in the case of the woman warrior makes the impression
of a caricature of male valor. The heroic female is a figure with characteristics of
its own fabric, emphasizing qualities of the female sex that are either differently

119
marked or absent in the mythical image of male heroes.Within the framework
of kinship relations, gender roles are of elementary significance, and this is true
in a global comparison of cultures. It is therefore not possible to understand
kinship relations without analyzing the place occupied by men and women, and
in a broader perspective the social attributes attaching to each, and which make
them different genders (Godelier 2011: 74). The identification of the founding
ancestors of lineages may be female-oriented (i.e. matrilineal) or male-oriented
(i.e. patrilineal). Matrilineality is characteristic of Luba society in the Democratic
Republic of Kongo (formerly Zare); (Roberts and Roberts 1996: 211ff.). Patri-
lineality is known from many cultures, from ancient Greek society, for one.
It is noteworthy that the mythical ancestors of genealogies in male-oriented
societies may well be female figures, provided they offer attributes of noble origin
and prestige to the members of the lineage. The fabric of genealogies in Greek
antiquity even offers illustrative cases of noble lineages in two equally famed
lines, the male and the female. The linkage of genealogies to divine origins is
established through goddesses in the myth of Aeneas and in the myth of Erech-
theus although the protagonists are male figures. In the former myth, Aphrodite
as Aeneas mother establishes the linkage while, in the latter myth it is Athena,
as foster mother of the hero, who blesses the lineage. In the epic tradition, the
protagonists of the heroic age have goddesses as mothers. The most illustrious
figure in Homers Iliad, Achilleus, is the son of the immortal Thetis while his
father, Peleus, is a mortal.
Throughout antiquity, mythical genealogies were popular among aristocratic
families and some even employed professional genealogists to create noble an-
cestors for their lineages. The mythical hero Herakles (Heracles) was known to
everybody, and his association with a particular lineage could even carry political
weight (Gantz 1993: 374ff.). The most famous case of the adoption of a mythical
genealogy linked to the Herakleidai is the founding myth of the Royal House of
Macedon which was initiated and propagated by Philip II (ruled 359336 BCE),
father of Alexander the Great. This royal genealogy is of special interest since
it pursues a double agenda. First, it aims at the creation of a noble origin for
the royal lineage. Second, via the relationship with a genuine Greek hero, the
Macedonian lite established themselves as Hellenes which, in ethnic terms, they
were not. The demonstration of belonging to the noble Herakleidai legitimized
the Macedonians claim to rule over all of Greece, a goal which they eventually
achieved.
Mythical descent was construed beyond the level of individual lineages in
order to explain the emergence of the collective ethnic body (ethnos). Greek

120
ethnicity was associated with the eponymous Hellen, son of Deukalion. All
Greeks traced their descent as far back as Hellen, and presenting themselves as
Hellenes was of the highest prestige vis--vis the barbarians (see chapter 3).
The functions of the Hellenic Genealogy is to express the relationships between Do-
rians, Aiolians, Akhaians and Ionians represented by their eponymous founding
fathers as well as to signal the participation of all four groups within a broader Hel-
lenic identity embodied in the figure of the eponymous king Hellen, son of Deukalion.
In addition, the genealogy presents a system of ranking: the credentials of the Dorians
and Aiolians are in some senses promoted over those of the Akhaians and Ionians by
having the eponyms of the former ranked as Hellens sons and those of the latter as his
grandsons. (Hall 2002: 27)

In a special epic poem though only attested in fragmentary form gender is-
sues of collective genealogies are addressed. This is the Catalogue of Women (or
simply Catalogue). This work is also called Ehoiai after the formula e hoie or such
as by which narratives about individual women were introduced). For instance,
a new line of descent is presented by introducing the daughters of Porthaon in
the following way (Catalogue 26.5-9):
Or such as (e hoiai) the maidens sired by Porthaon,
three, like goddesses, skilled in all-beautiful works,
whom Laothoe the blameless Hyperian queen once
bore, entering Porthaons blooming bed:
Eurythemiste and Stratonice and Sterope.
[] [[c]
[, ] , [ ]
[] [][] []
] [][] [] [],
] [] [] [] .

The Catalogue was attributed to Hesiod by ancient authors although there seems
to be consensus among modern scholars who doubt this poets authorship. Some
of the poems contents point to a period after Hesiods lifetime, for instance the
narrative about Cyrene, founding ancestress of the colony on the northern coast
of Lybia in 631 BCE. And yet, critical editions and analyses often associate He-
siod with the Catalogue of Women (e.g. West 1985, Hirschberger 2004, Ormand
2014). The original title was expanded in the Christian era, in the Suda (an ency-
clopedia of the tenth century CE), to Catalogue of Heroic Women. The Suda gives
some information on the epic poem which was written in dactylic hexameters
and may have contained between 4000 and 5000 lines.

121
 The connection of the Catalogue with Hesiod may have seemed pervasive to
ancient authors because its infrastructure resembles the way in which the gene-
alogies of the gods are presented in Hesiods Theogony. While the latter work fo-
cuses entirely on the kinship of divinities, the genealogies in the Catalogue reflect
the interaction between gods and humans, thus covering the whole of the heroic
age (West 1985: 3). The Catalogue of Women is composed of narratives about
mortal women who mingled with the gods, and their offspring.
The first of these women or herones was Pyrrha, wife of Deukalion, the only
woman who survived the flood at the end of the (mythical) Bronze Age. The
scope of the Catalogue could be interpreted as a collection of noble genealogies
in the female line, that is reflecting matrilineality. Although Greek society was
oriented to patrilineality, the narratives in the Catalogue may reflect memories of
social conditions in the period when the immigrants from the North, the Proto-
Greeks, encountered the native Europeans, the Pelasgians, with their tradition
of prominent women as founders of lineages (see Haarmann 2013: 72ff.). The
Catalogue is well-anchored in the cultural environment of archaic Greece, and
the genealogies and related stories enjoyed popularity throughout antiquity. The
focus on female heroic figures is in accordance with the prominence of female
divinities in the ancient Greek pantheon.
Among the herones about whom one finds narratives in the Catalogue are
some who gained fame through the medium of the works of other poets who
picked up subjects and stories from the Catalogue. One of the best-known fig-
ures is Iphigenia, a variant of the original name Iphimede. Iphigenia is one of the
two daughters of Klytaimnestra and Agamemnon. A prophecy casts a shadow
over Iphigenias life since she is supposed to be sacrificed so that the fleet of the
Greeks could leave for Troy. The goddess Artemis saves Iphigenia and transforms
her into Artemis Enodia (i.e. Hekate). This dramatic story is told by Euripides in
his Iphigenia in Aulis, a work which has inspired poets and writers into our days
(Gnther 1988).
Mythical genealogies do not distinguish themselves nor were they distin-
guished by the ancient Greeks by particular features from available facts about
historical ancestors. Mythical and factual elements were interwoven to craft the
overall fabric of a genealogy. For the ancient Greeks it was of no relevance to
separate mythical heroes from historical personalities, once they formed part of
the same lineage. The main concern was to produce a lineage that was imbued
with prestige, and this prestige was instrumentalized within Greek society of an-
tiquity in order to promote social status and for political ends.

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 The dream of perfect orderliness
Rather than having the weight of an independent topic Platos interest in wom-
ens affairs seems to be a sub-set of his wider concern with issues of social justice.
Plato reflects on the nature of divine law. Platos instructions for the functioning
of an ideal society are connected with the spirit of virtue, which is the guarantor
of social harmony. Social harmony is reflected in the philosophers refined sense
of blindfolded justice when gender issues dissolve: men and women are equal
before the law, in whatever respect or domain. It is especially in the Republic and
in the Laws that we find the most scrupulous assessment for the role of justice in
an ideal society.
All what is concerned with justice, law and order, is of the utmost importance
for Plato. Justice is one of the most ubiquitous topics in Platos dialogues, second
in importance only to reason (Keyt 2009: 341). In his dialogue Laws, the philoso-
pher elaborates on an ideal state in a way that differs from his Republic. He is now
much more ready to compromise with principle in order to find something that
will work in practice, and he puts a very high value on the law (Bostock 1995: 686).
Central to Platos concept of law and social order is the idea that these are im-
bued with divine spirit (i.e. divine providence). Plato is infused with the zeitgeist
of the classical era. Its true that the Greeks of the Archaic and Classical periods
often attributed the earliest administration of human justice, and sometimes the
law itself, to divine or heroic figures in their mythological traditions (Farenga
2006: 267). The divine spirit governs social order in human society, and therefore
functions as the underlying principle also in matters that concern gender roles.
Divine spirit is the basis for Platos discourse on justice, lawful order and virtue
in his closely interrelated works Minos and Laws.
The Minos has come down to us as a Platonic work immediately preceding the Laws. The
Laws begins where the Minos ends: the Minos ends with a praise of the laws of the Cre-
tan king Minos, the son and pupil of Zeus, and the Laws begins with an examination of
those laws. The Minos thus appears to be the introduction to the Laws. (Strauss 1987: 67)

According to Plato, the laws reflect divine spirit in a specific way: the divine in-
tellect that structures the laws given to citizens in a polis can be sensed by these
citizens, either intuitively or by the virtue of their reasoning. The best laws are
those that have the capacity to enhance citizens standards of virtue. Laws may
be authoritative and substantial, although the kind of supernatural knowledge
and guidance which they transmit may not be discernible to the human mind.
In such cases, laws resemble oracular pronouncements and are, thus, in need of
interpretation. This condition links them to divination which is acknowledged as
an art in its own right. And yet, unlike arts such as medicine, the art of divination

123
does not necessarily show what benefits or harms something (Lutz 2012: 20). In-
stead it reveals what the gods have in mind (Minos 314b4).
When it comes to virtue Plato requires for laws to provide what may be called
perfect justice, and this implies that there is no gender distinction. According
to Platos concept of justice, men and women are equal before the law, and men
and women must have equal access to all domains of public life. Platos theory of
social justice does not differentiate on the basis of gender when assignments of
offices and other social tasks are made. On these issues Platos justice blindfolds
gender. And this was revolutionary for Platos time (Santas 2010: 115).
Moreover, the spirit of the laws, in a given city, should not only safeguard the
standards of civic rights for the citizens but should also affect peoples character,
that is make those who live under the law virtuous human beings (Reale 2001:
163f.). Therefore, laws have to aim at the greatest virtue or virtue as a whole
(Laws 630c3-4). Those who live under laws inspired by divine providence are vir-
tuous and their aspirations are noble, and they will be rewarded with happiness
by the gods (Republic 330d-31a, 363c-e; Laws 904c-e).
In the dialogue that Plato entertains in the Laws, in which the Athenian Stran-
ger and Kleinias participate, Plato makes the participants reflect on the best op-
tion for a new colony to be established so that the laws applied there would be
better than those given by Minos and also better than the laws of Athens. They
agree that such a city has to be established at a distance from the seashore, to
protect citizens from the vices produced by profit-making in commerce and by
the strive for maritime power (Pangle 1988a: 438f.).
The Minos and the Laws show us how Plato demonstrates that the political philosopher
has the authority to guide divine law. () Insofar as the code of divine law that is under
examination commands us to do what is just, the Platonic rationalist would seek to learn
what the law means by justice and how the law would enforce and support it. If divine
law seems to promise to make those who follow it happy, then the Platonic rationalist
would examine how this is said to take place and the role that divine providence is said
to play in the lives of those who live under the law. (Lutz 2012: 180f.)

Platos concept of divine law is not detached from human agency. The law-giver
crafts laws, and this is an act of human agency. And yet, the ingredients that a human
law-giver may use for crafting laws are, in Platos view, divinely inspired. This makes
any law given by humans for human society an instrument of divine blessings.
The nomoi [laws] () are the products of legislation intended to govern the life of a po-
lis. Rule by law is distinguished from rule by a person (Plt. [Politicus = Statesman] 294a).
Laws are distinguished from kindred regulatory mechanisms such as custom (nomina),
usage (ethe, epitedeumata), or ancestral law (patroious nomous) (Lg. [Laws] 680a, 681b-c;
793a-d; 808a; Plt. [Statesman] 298e; R. [Republic] 425a-b). (Sauv Meyer 2009: 373)

124
In the very core of any law which is divinely inspired, there is the essence of what
enhances the common good. Plato, thus, sees a direct connection between the
divine intellect that makes provisions for human society and the human intellect
that perceives the essence of divine guidance. This, in turn, enables the guardian
(philosopher-king) or of guardians in a ruling council, respectively to rule
over his / their subjects in a just way.
As for the quality of the kind of philosophical rule which Plato advocates, one
analyst has recently made an observation according to which Plato would have
given preference to female rule:
As part of the woman drama, philosophical rule must be more womanly than manly. The
returned hoplite Socrates, returning to rule, rules by the nonmanly, rules over the manly
by superior intelligence and strategic guile, womanly or Odyssean traits, one could say,
evident in the detour where the one just subjected to superior strength has his way with
the strong. (Lampert 2010: 312)

Here, we encounter the timeless need to perceive the essence of law, of any law,
with our capacity of reasoning. Here, we find ourselves at the crossroads where
we have to choose between two alternative directions, that is, we have to consider
whether law is divinely spirited or exclusively based on conventions of human
society. If we choose the former then we may continue to discuss things within
the framework of Platos ideas. If we choose to follow the latter path, we are on
our own, and Platos work will not provide much help. Perhaps there is more to
this issue of the essence of law than the two options of either divine or human
agency. Platos reasoning is orientated to a higher level: The measure of all things
is god [the divine] (Laws, book IV, 716c).

Partnership of the sexes in the light of blindfolded justice

The most crucial implication for the philosophers model of an ideal society is
the condition that the contents of what the law stipulates is binding for all citi-
zens in the imagined ideal state (Laws, book VII: 804d-e). The effect of binding
of the law is comprehensive as to also include women. If men and women are
considered equal before the law, then society cannot raise artificial boundaries
to bar women from any domain that is, according to the reality of the Athenian
state, dominated by men. Equality of the sexes in an ideal society, according to
Platos logic, is a formal juridical matter. Accordingly, equal chances for the par-
ticipation of members of both sexes in all activities ultimately depend on how
the sense of blindfolded justice with which the laws are imbued is brought to
bear in an ideal society. This is an issue that was addressed by Plato as relating to

125
theory. This same issue is vital for any modern discourse on equality of the sexes
in our days, when projected onto conditions of real life.
Platos key concept for assessing gender roles is koinonia (sharing, partner-
ship); (see Liddell-Scott Greek-English lexicon; http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/lsj/
#eid=71300&context=lsj&action=hw-list-click; p. 970), and this sharing is envis-
aged for the whole of life (Laws, 805d3, 806b1). When comparing the use of
koinonia in the Laws with the contexts in which this key concept appears in the
Republic then the kind of partnership that Plato had in mind was not equality
in the sense of equal rights on all levels, private and public (see Fortenbaugh
1975: 1f. on koinonia in the Republic). The kind of partnership of the sexes is
paraphrased as hoti malista (to the maximum extent possible; Laws 805c7-d1).
It cannot be stated without some sense of irony that this maximum extent
was understood by Platos contemporaries in the following way:
The pseudo-Demosthenes speech Against Neaira is most famous for a statement it con-
tains about the roles of women in the Athenian polis: Hetairai we keep for the sake of
pleasure, concubines for daily care of the body, and wives for making legitimate children
and for faithful guardianship of our household possessions (59.122). (Gilhuly 2009: 29)

Scholars are divided over the issue whether the assigned roles for women, men-
tioned in this statement, have to be understood as mutually exclusive or overlap-
ping According to the latter view, the wife could give pleasure, care of the body,
produce offspring and provide guardianship of possessions (see Lacey 1968: 113
for this position).
It is clear from other contexts with gender issues that Platos provisions for
koinonia are bound to traditional roles of the sexes, with extensions of the pres-
ence of women in public life. For Plato, as for his contemporaries (including Ar-
istotle), the private household constituted the nucleus for the socialization of the
young generation and for the definition of social ties with kin groups.
The household was thus also the locus of social, and ultimately political, entitlement.
A mother, a sister, a nurse or slave girl was not just a woman, rather she was a woman
entitled to undertake specific roles defined to a large extent by her place in and relation-
ships to one or more households and the kin groups with which they were entangled.
(Foxhall 2013: 44)

And yet, the mere fact that Plato addresses the collaboration of the sexes in a
way as to make koinonia a negotiable topic points to a flexibility in the philoso-
phers reasoning that stood in stark contrast to the zeitgeist of his time (and of
later periods) whose representatives were accustomed to stipulate firm roles (and
ranges of activities) for each sex.

126
 For a woman it is better to remain inside than outside the courtyard door, but for a man
it is shameful to remain inside rather than take care of his affairs outside. And, if some-
one acts contrary to divine nature, perhaps his going against the established order will
not escape the notice of the gods and he will pay the penalty for neglecting his own work
or doing his wifes work. (Xenophon, Oikonomikos 7.30).

Platos ideas about partnership echo the long tradition of egalitarianism in so-
cial networking and the essence of the communitarian spirit that has been re-
constructed for society in Old Europe (in the Danube civilization, respectively).
This spirit persisted among the pre-Greek population in southeastern Europe
(Haarmann 2014: 183ff.). As a facet of the responsibilities that have to be taken
by the sexes in the partnership, as postulated by Plato, is the pursuit of the Com-
mon Good, that is the strife for the stability and persistence of the polis and for
the well-being of its citizens. The common good is perhaps the most egalitarian
concept in Platos political theory.
For the study of Platos ideas on gender positions in an ideal state, the last of
his dialogues, the Laws, is most significant. Most commentators and analysts have
avoided interpreting this particular aspect of Platos dialogues (see Jaeger 1973:
649ff. for this persistent avoidance). This text is the longest of Platos works and
makes up about one fifth of the philosophers total production, and it is what Plato
clearly intends to be his principal intellectual legacy (Mount 2010: 187f.). In The
Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, many pages are dedicated to Plato and some
of his dialogues are discussed at length (e.g. the Republic), but the Laws are referred
to only once, in a marginal remark (Kraut 1995: 621). In a recent statement, Platos
dialogue Laws is characterized as long understudied () and is now considered to
be his major work of political philosophy besides the Republic (Bobonich 2010b).
In the eye of the modern beholder, Platos discourse on the roles of women
in an ideal society is a utopia, a model of abstract thinking, the validity of which
could not be put to the test during the philosophers lifetime. In modern times,
Platos work has been subjected to all kinds of criticism and it has been branded
as idealism, essentialism, logocentrism, even as totalitarian or proto-fascist ideol-
ogy. The latter association of Platos political theory with totalitarian statehood of
the twentieth century (e.g. Russia under the Soviet regime, Nazi-Germany, Spain
under Francos dictatorship) is inconclusive, despite the scheme of a rigidly disci-
plined regime that Plato postulates for his ideal state in the Republic (Taylor 1986).
Plato was highly attentive to the realities in contemporary society, and he cer-
tainly possessed the sensibility to explore the dimension of virtual gender roles.
If we take the sum of womens roles in society of Greek antiquity, thus combining
their manifestation in real life with the roles assigned to women in myth, then
we reach a surprising conclusion. Platos conception of the roles of women in an

127
ideal society is less of a utopia then has been commonly recognized. Instead, his
ideas are more of an extension of the gender potential that had materialized in
contemporaneous society (Haarmann 2016a).
As an attentive observer of the social environment he lived in, Plato recog-
nized the potential of womens contribution to society that could emerge but
was hampered by norms and clichs and, above all, by the idealized fiction of
the association of women to their homes: () we should bear in mind Platos
[Laws 781c] reproaches against Greek society for allowing its women to cling
to the known oikos, fearful and unwilling to venture into and contribute to
the public world (Demand 1994: 25). The scheme of Platos ideal state has been
characterized as at the same time utopian and real (Reale 2004: 393ff.).
The various facets of womens role in private and public life, in reality and in
the mythical tradition, offer an overall picture that defies the stereotyping notion
of a patriarchal society. Women had various roles even in public life, and yet,
such realities were not readily acknowledged by intellectuals and were margin-
alized in antique sources. The ways in which Plato elaborates on womens roles
illustrates that, in the light of his concept of true justice, gender issues become
detached from the contemporary clich of natural law by which womens status
in society is allegedly determined.
In Platos utopia, womens roles in an ideal society are manifold and cover the
whole range of private, public and religious life. These roles are defined by Plato
in various passages of his dialogues, most specifically in the Laws (Haarmann
2016a: 177ff.):
i) Equal rights for women what concerns education and pursuits
(book V of Platos Republic, book VI and VII of Platos Laws)
ii) Women are entitled to participate in public banquets
(book VI: 781a2-b4 of the Laws)
iii) Women are apt for holding public offices
(book VI: 785b2-9 of the Laws)
iv) Womens role for musical education and entertainment
(book VI: 764c-765a, book VII: 802a-e of the Laws)
v) The right of girls and women to participate in sporting competitions
(book VIII: 833c-834d of the Laws)
vi) Womens right to serve as soldiers in the army
(book VII: 804d-805a of the Laws)
vii) The scope of marriage
(book VI: 783e ff. of the Laws), childbearing and motherhood (book VI:
785b, 947b-d of the Laws).

128
Epilogue: The Common Good Contested
perspectives of community life

What was the fate of Platos political theory? Have his ideas been developed by
subsequent generations of philosophers? Is there a continuous legacy of Platos
political ideas in western philosophy? Surprising as it may seem, this is not the
case. It is notable that the political concerns of Plato, as expressed in the Republic
for example, took virtually no part in shaping the tradition of thought commonly
described as Platonic (Howatson 2011: 455).
The two most prominent representatives of Neoplatonism, Plotinus (third
century AD) and Proclus (fifth century AD) cared much about Platos world of
ideas but neither of them was much interested in the domain of political concep-
tualizations. Plotinus makes an effort to systematize the features that Plato attrib-
utes to goodness in his discourse but he does not seem interested in the political
implications of Platos concept of the Common Good (Mutchinick 2013). Yet,
some fundamental conceptions of Platos political scheme enjoyed continuity al-
though in a domain different from philosophy. This other domain was theology.
Of all the Platonic dialogues that have been preserved, the Timaeus is the
only work that has been continuously studied from antiquity through the Mid-
dle Ages into the nineteenth century (when it was marginalized in favor of the
Republic), and for the longest time in the history of philosophy this dialogue was
considered preeminent.
The splendid vision of a mathematically ordered world modeled after the eternal, para-
digmatic Forms a work of art conceived and executed by a supremely wise and good
deity was received as the fitting climax of Platos transcendental philosophy and com-
mended itself to generations of theologians of the early Christian era as philosophical
corroboration of their own creation theologies. (Zeyl 2000: xiv)

In fact, Platos ideas left a lasting imprint on the mind of Augustine (354430)
and his Christian worldview. There are various sources of influence, the ideas of
which were absorbed by Augustine and moulded to fit his Christian doctrine.
Augustine so to speak baptized Platos chain of ideas, relating to wisdom and
true good.
There is no doubt that there is also a fundamentally Platonic strain in Augustines theory
of moral motivation. Like all Greeks of the classical period, Plato himself had placed
great emphasis on the attitude of the philosopher to those great compellers of men,
pleasure and pain. The Symposium tells us how Socrates handled the one, the Phaedo
how he handled the other. Wisdom has to do with loving true good and being repelled

129
 by the evil and ugly. Similarly Augustine believes, as early as his first Catholic text, The
Happy Life, that the good man is driven by blazing love (flagrante caritate, 4.35). Obvi-
ously, there is a purely Christian side to this, () but that in no way diminishes the
Platonic and more than Platonic note. (Rist 1994: 150)

Platos idealistic vision of the Common Good under the auspices of Justice,
backed up by divinely inspired laws, persisted among theologians through the
New Era and into the Age of Enlightenment, that is into the eighteenth century.
Platos scheme of political theory received a cool reception by the enlightened
representatives, above all by the grey eminence of intellectual life in western
Europe, Voltaire, the pen name of Franois-Marie Arouet (16941778). While
Plato and Voltaire shared the same appreciation (or even love) of justice, Voltaire
fervently rejected any connection between justice and religion, that is Voltaire
categorically denied that civic laws could be imbued with a divine spirit.
Voltaire expressed his criticism in various forms, in argumentative philosoph-
ical discourse, in the form of a dialogue with participants representing opposite
standpoints (thus imitating Plato) and/or in short stories (novellas, respectively)
called contes philosophiques some of which became prototypes of critical fo-
rums of later periods. In one of his dialogues (Dialogue between Lucretius and
Posidonius), of 1756, Voltaire takes the role of Lucretius, asking questions about
the existence and the working of a supernatural being (Supreme Being), while
Posidonius position is more or less in accordance with Platos views (quoted after
Noyer 2015: 92):
LUCRETIUS
If I admit this Supreme Being, what form will he have? Is he in a place? Is he beyond all
space? Is he in time, or outside of time? Does he fill all space, or not? Why would he have
made this world? What is his goal? Why create sensitive and unhappy beings? Why does
moral and physical pain exist? Whichever way I look, I see only the incomprehensible.

POSIDONIUS
It is precisely because this Supreme Being exists that his nature must be incomprehen-
sible, because if he exists, there must be infinity between him and us. We must admit
that he exists, without knowing what he is, and how he operates. Are you not forced to
admit asymptotes in geometry, without understanding how these lines can approach
each other eternally yet never meet? Are there not things just as incomprehensible yet
demonstrated in the properties of a circle? Conceive the fact then that we must admit
the incomprehensible when the existence of this incomprehensible thing is proven.

This passage recalls the assertion, made by the pre-Socratic philosopher Protago-
ras in the fifth century BCE, that human beings are the measure of all things. This

130
means that human beings can perceive and understand the world only within
the framework of their (relatively limited) intelligence, while the overall design
of the world, devised by the superior intelligence of the Supreme Being, remains
incomprehensible to humans.
Voltaire chose the form of a satirical imaginary work, with the title Platos
dream (1756), in which he ridicules Platos concept of a Supreme Being as guard-
ian of the Common Good. This short story has a place in the history of literature
as an early contribution to the development of the science fiction genre (OBrien
2014: 95)

see Appendix II: Platos dream (1756)

If the Common Good is not devised by a Supreme Intelligence and if it is futile
for human beings to expect that their actions on behalf of the Common Good
could be divinely inspired, then human efforts to craft conditions for the Com-
mon Good entirely depend on the insight that the functioning of the Common
Good, through strengthened social cohesion, is of advantage for all members
of society, whether economic or political. Platos maxim of the advantages and
values of the Common Good is valid in principle, regardless of the critical recep-
tion of the contents of Platos views by philosophers of later periods. According
to Alfred North Whiteheads famous statement, made in the 1920s, the history
of philosophy is the history of footnotes to Plato. In fact, Platos line of thought
stands as a touchstone against which much of subsequent philosophy must de-
fine itself, either positively or negatively (Ladikos 2006: 86).
The validity of Platos maxim holds, regardless of the degree of divine inspira-
tion of human actions. When Plato draws on the (divinely inspired) lawfulness
of a just society in his political theory, his intention is to provide a measure for
the standard of happiness, characteristic of a flourishing community.
According to Platos political philosophy, the Common Good is an undivided
aggregate with absolute significance for the well-being of the individuals, as re-
sponsible citizens in a society. Plato did not question the unity of the Common
Good, as it is done in modern political discourse.
Societal groups are not necessarily the bearers of particular or private interests that only
the state could aggregate into the general interest. These groups are also capable of ex-
pressing public interests, that is, interests widely shared by the population but left unat-
tended to by the pursuit of the general interest traditionally understood. Similarly, state
actors are not, by definition, solely interested in the general interest, but might instead
pursue special and sectoral interests of their own. Neither state nor society can govern
effectively in isolation from the other: efficiency and authenticity would equally be lost.
(Piattoni 2010: 69)

131
Seemingly, Platos ideal of the Common Good in the sense of a unified thought-
model of collective well-being in society, serving as a key for individual human
beings to achieve happiness is in short currency in our world of today, with
its fragmentation of political priorities, claimed by societal groups, which may
function as impediments to decision-making about issues of public interest, en-
hancing a climate of increasing social and political unrest. Whether we entertain
the idea that the Common Good might be divinely inspired or not, the dream of
harmony in society is of timeless (and timely) significance and is worth dream-
ing. If Plato lived today, he would most probably not make any changes to his
utopia of an ideal society which was devised by him in antiquity.

132
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Figures

Figure 1: The oldest land register (cadastral list) in European

history (thirteenth century BCE) (Linear B document
PY Ep 301; after Ilievski 2000: 83)...................................................41
Figure 2: Themis in the posture of the Pythia (Attic red-figure cup
of the fifth century BCE; after Gerhard 1839: 71)..........................56
Figure 3: A female runner at the Heraia of Olympia (bronze
figurine, c. 500 BCE; courtesy of The British Museum)................60
Figure 4: Plan of the pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Olympia
(after Maranti 1999: 29).....................................................................62
Figure 5: The Athenian maritime empire in the fifth century
BCE (from Hornblower 1988: 128).................................................78
Figure 6: The value of the Common Good in different types
of government (according to Aristotles Politics,
book III.7-14, book IV.4-10; graph designed by
Mathieu Gauthier-Pilote; Politics (Aristotle), Wikipedia;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_(Aristotle).........................79
Figure 7: Text of the proem of Parmenides work On Nature
(after Stamatellos 2012: 90f.)............................................................85
Figure 8: The hierarchical order of Platonic ethical categories
centering around the key concept Common Good................... 106

155
Appendices

Appendix I: The myth of the Sun (Republic 507ff.)

[507d] () in the absence of which third element the one will not hear and the
other not be heard? They need nothing, he said. Neither, I fancy, said
I, do many others, not to say that none require anything of the sort. Or
do you know of any? Not I, he said. But do you not observe that vi-
sion and the visible do have this further need? How? Though vision
may be in the eyes and its possessor may try to use it, and though color
be present, yet without
[507e] the presence of a third thing specifically and naturally adapted to this
purpose, you are aware that vision will see nothing and the colors will
remain invisible. What is this thing of which you speak? he said. The
thing, I said, that you call light. You say truly, he replied. The bond,
then, that yokes together
[508a] visibility and the faculty of sight is more precious by no slight form that
which unites the other pairs, if light is not without honor. It surely is
far from being so, he said. Which one can you name of the divinities in
heaven as the author and cause of this, whose light makes our vision see
best and visible things to be seen? Why, the one that you too and other
people mean, he said; for your question evidently refers to the sun. Is
not this, then, the relation of vision to that divinity? What? Neither
vision itself nor its vehicle, which we call the eye, is identical with the
sun.
[508b] Why, no. But it is, I think, the most sunlike of all the instruments of
sense. By far the most. And does it not receive the power which it
possesses as an influx, as it were, dispensed from the sun? Certainly.
Is it not also true that the sun is not vision, yet as being the cause there-
of is beheld by vision itself? That is so, he said. This, then, you must
understand that I meant by the offspring of the good which the good
[508c] begot to stand in a proportion with itself: as the good is in the intelli-
gible region to reason and the objects of reason, so is this in the visible
world to vision and the objects of vision. How is that? he said; ex-
plain further. You are aware, I said, that when the eyes are no longer
turned upon objects upon whose colors the light of day falls but that
of the dim luminaries of night, their edge is blunted and they appear

157
 almost blind, as if pure vision did not dwell in them. Yes, indeed, he
said. But when, I take it,
[508d] they are directed upon objects illumined by the sun, they see clearly,
and vision appears to reside in these same eyes. Certainly. Apply this
comparison to the soul also in this way. When it is firmly fixed on the
domain where truth and reality shine resplendent it apprehends and
knows them and appears to possess reason; but when it inclines to that
region which is mingled with darkness, the world of becoming and
passing away, it opines only and its edge is blunted, and it shifts its opin-
ions hither and thither, and again seems as if it lacked reason.
[508e] Yes, it does, This reality, then, that gives their truth to the objects of
knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say is the
idea of good, and you must conceive it as being the cause of knowledge,
and of truth in so far as known. Yet fair as they both are, knowledge
and truth, in supposing it to be something fairer still than these you
will think rightly of it. But as for knowledge and truth, even as in our
illustration
[509a] it is right to deem light and vision sunlike, but never to think that they
are the sun, so here it is right to consider these two their counterparts,
as being like the good or boniform, but to think that either of them is
the good is not right. Still higher honor belongs to the possession and
habit of the good. An inconceivable beauty you speak of, he said, if
it is the source of knowledge and truth, and yet itself surpasses them in
beauty. For you surely cannot mean that it is pleasure. Hush, said I,
but examine
[509b] the similitude of it still further in this way. How? The sun, I presume
you will say, not only furnishes to visibles the power of visibility but it
also provides for their generation and growth and nurture though it is
not itself generation. Of course not. In like manner, then, you are to
say that the objects of knowledge not only receive from the presence
of the good their being known, but their very existence and essence is
derived to them from it, though the good itself is not essence but still
transcends essence in dignity and surpassing power.
[509c] And Glaucon very ludicrously said, Heaven save us, hyperbole can no
further go. The fault is yours, I said, for compelling me to utter my
thoughts about it. And dont desist, he said, but at least expound the
similitude of the sun, if there is anything that you are omitting. Why,
certainly, I said, I am omitting a great deal. Well, dont omit the least

158
bit, he said. I fancy, I said, that I shall have to pass over much, but nev-
ertheless so far as it is at present practicable I shall not willingly leave
anything out.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes,
Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey.
Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press;
London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.

159
Appendix II: Platos dream (1756)
In ancient times, dreams were much revered, and Plato was one of the greatest
dreamers. His dream The Republic is deservedly famous, but the following little-
known tale is perhaps his most amazing dream or nightmare:
The great Demiurgos, the eternal geometer, having scattered throughout the
immensity of space innumerable worlds, decided to test the knowledge of those
lesser superbeings who were also his creations, and who had witnessed his works.
He gave them each a small portion of matter to arrange, just as our own art
teachers give their students a statue to carve, or a picture to paint, if we may
compare small things to great.
Demogorgon received the lump of mold we call Earth, and having formed
it as it now appears, thought he had created a masterpiece. He imagined he had
silenced Envy herself, and expected to receive the highest praise, even from his
brethren. How great was his surprise, when, at the presentation of his work, they
hissed in disappoval!
One among them, more sarcastic than the rest, spoke:
Truly you have performed mighty feats! You have divided your world into two parts;
and, to prevent them from communicating with each other, placed a vast collection of
waters between the two hemispheres. The inhabitants must perish with cold under both
your poles, and be scorched to death under the equator. You have, in your great pru-
dence, formed immense deserts of sand, so all who travel over them may die with hunger
and thirst. I have no fault to find with your cows, sheep, cocks, and hens; but can never
be reconciled to your serpents and spiders. Your onions and artichokes are very good
things, but I cannot conceive what induced you to scatter such a heap of poisonous
plants over the face of the planet, unless it was to poison its inhabitants. Moreover, if I am
not mistaken, you have created about 30 different kinds of monkeys, a still greater num-
ber of dogs, yet only four or five races of humans. It is true, indeed, you have bestowed on
the latter of these animals a faculty you call Reason, but it is so poorly executed that you
might better call it Folly. Besides, you do not seem to have shown any very great regard
for this two-legged creature, seeing you have left him with so few means of defense; sub-
jected him to so many disorders, and provided him with so few remedies; and formed
him with such a multitude of passions, and so little wisdom and prudence to resist them.
You certainly were not willing that there should remain any great number of these ani-
mals on Earth at once; for, over the course of a given year, smallpox will regularly carry
off a tenth of the species, and sister maladies will taint the springs of life in the remain-
der; and then, as if this was not enough, you have so disposed things that half of those
who survive are occupied in lawsuits, or cutting each others throats. Yes, they must be
infinitely grateful to you, and I must admit that you have executed a masterpiece.

Demogorgon blushed. He now realized there was much moral and physical evil
in his work, but still believed it contained more good than ill.

160
 It is easy to find fault, he said; but do you imagine it is so easy to form an animal,
who, having the gift of reason and free will, shall not sometimes abuse his liberty? Do
you think that, in rearing 10,000 plants, it is so easy to prevent some few from having
noxious qualities? Do you suppose that, with a certain quantity of water, sand, and mud,
you could make a globe without sea or desert?
As for you, my sneering friend, I think you have just finished the planet Jupiter. Let us see
now what figure you make with your great belts, and your long nights, with four moons
to enlighten them. Let us examine your worlds, and see whether the inhabitants you
have made are exempt from folly and disease.

Accordingly, his fellow entities examined the planet Jupiter, and were soon laugh-
ing at the laugher. He who had made Saturn did not escape without his share of
censure, and his fellows, the makers of Mars, Mercury, and Venus, was each in his
turn reproached.
They were in the midst of railing against and ridiculing each other, when the
eternal Demiurgos thus imposed silence on them all:
In your performances there is both good and bad, because you have a great share of
understanding, but at the same time fall short of perfection. Your works will endure for
only a few billion years, after which you will acquire more knowledge and perform much
better. It belongs to me alone to create things perfect and immortal.
Us, for example? asked Demogorgon. Demiurgos scowled, and with that Plato awoke.

Or did he?
(http://wondersmith.com/scifi/index.htm; accessed 3 October 2016)

The works of M. de Voltaire, translated from the French,

with notes, historical and critical by T. Smollett, T. Francklin and others;
vol. XXIII, being vol. XVIII of his prose works.
London, printed for J. Newbery et al. at Salisbury, 1762, pp. 219222

161
Indices
Subject Index
A Common Good 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16,
aboriginality 46, 47, 48, 49
administration 36, 39, 72, 73, 74,
94, 123
administrative body 33, 38, 70
aesthetic values 104
agrarian society 36
Amazons 111, 113, 145
amphiktiony 57, 58, 59
ancient Aegean 11, 29, 89
ancient Crete 89, 95
ancient customs 57
ancient ethics 81
archaic period 52, 53, 68, 95,
99, 110
Aristotles cosmology 83
Athenian aition 47, 49
Athenian ancestry 49
Athenian rebellion 69
authority 19, 20, 21, 35, 36, 53, 84,
86, 96, 97, 99, 100, 119, 124
B of Greek tribes at Delphi 36, 43, 58
bakteria 100
barbarian(s) 48, 49, 51, 52, 53,
113, 121
beauty 84, 100, 101, 103, 104, 107,
146, 150, 158
blindfolded justice 123, 125
Bronze Age 37, 39, 42, 43, 49, 59, 64,
122, 136
C Danube civilization 11, 13, 29, 30, 31,
civic actions 9
classical antiquity 11, 57, 139
collective identity 31
collective memory 74
collective well-being 132
common benefits 34
17, 18, 19, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32,
33, 36, 45, 46, 49, 50, 52, 54, 57, 59,
66, 67, 68, 72, 76, 79, 81, 86, 93, 100,
105, 106, 107, 109, 111, 113, 114,
118, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 135,
138, 141, 143, 146, 149, 151, 152,
153, 155
communal landownership 36, 37
communal networks 27
communitarian intactness 111
communitarian spirit 17, 30, 36, 46,
57, 127
community life 16, 17, 26, 29, 32, 33,
86, 89, 90, 91, 111, 129
competitions 60, 61, 63, 119, 128
consciousness 27, 48, 51, 66, 82, 89,
119
contextualization 9, 12, 13
Copper Age 36, 37
council 19, 20, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38,
42, 58, 75, 98, 125, 144
of guardians 19, 20
of women at Olympia 66
cultural memory 30, 48, 57, 91, 114
cultural self-identification 9
culturalvalues 105
customary law 13
Cycladic culture 89
D
37, 38, 39, 59, 89, 90, 127
decadence 21, 50
163
democracy 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30,
34, 42, 48, 49, 51, 65, 67, 70, 72, 73,
74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80, 112, 114, 136,
140, 144, 149, 150
democratic bodies 19
democratic decision-making 19
democratic governance 19, 21, 22, 23,
34, 49, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 75
democratic institutions 20, 21, 49, 66
dispute-settling 66, 99
divine intervention 16
divine law 16, 93, 97, 98, 123, 124
divine legislator 98
E homonoia 45
economic domain 27
economic egalitarianism 31
egalitarian principles 31, 35
ekklesia 49, 55
Enlightenment 14, 22, 75, 130
ethical discourse 81
ethnic origins 48
F instructive myths 114
female sacrifice 111, 112
festivals 59, 65, 66, 73, 74, 89
figurines 32, 33, 59
functional system 12
G 130, 138, 143, 144, 148, 149, 150,
gender equality 18, 20, 109, 118, 140
gender positions 127
good life 15, 27, 101, 152
good(ness) 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 19, 22, 24,
25, 26, 27, 28, 31, 46, 69, 72, 81, 82,
84, 88, 94, 100, 101, 103, 105, 106,
107, 109, 110, 112, 115, 118, 129,
143, 147, 151, 153, 154
Greek communities 34, 47, 98, 119
Greek ingenuity 22, 23, 51
Greek laws 96, 99
Greekness 46, 74
164
Greeks 22, 23, 26, 27, 30, 36, 39, 40,
45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56,
57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 72, 74,
76, 86, 89, 90, 91, 95, 96, 97, 98, 112,
113, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 129,
139, 153
H
happiness 16, 17, 18, 81, 91, 98, 100,
101, 105, 106, 115, 124, 131, 132,
144
harmony 9, 10, 24, 26, 28, 89, 107,
123, 132, 134
Hellenicity 45, 46, 47, 64, 141
hosia 57, 66, 96, 97, 99
I
ideal society 12, 24, 92, 117, 123, 125,
127, 128, 132, 140
ideal state 11, 20, 45, 109, 123, 125,
127, 128
initiation 88, 89, 91, 93, 102
J
judge(s) 65, 66, 99
justice 16, 18, 27, 52, 86, 94, 96, 97,
98, 105, 109, 115, 118, 123, 124, 128,
151
K
kinship relations 32, 120
knowledge 10, 12, 13, 15, 30, 31, 33,
34, 45, 64, 68, 75, 81, 82, 88, 89, 90,
91, 98, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 114,
115, 116, 117, 123, 135, 136, 140,
147, 148, 158, 160, 161
knowledge-construction 13, 82,
105, 117
koinonia 126
L Old Europe villages 34
laborers 43
land lease 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42
land register 40, 41, 155
law-abiding democracy 21
lawfulness 52, 116, 131
lawgiving 95, 96, 98, 99
living-standards 33
M performative philosophy 12
magistrate 36, 98
mainstream philosophy 11
matrilineality 122
Minoan civilization 89
Minoans 64, 95
Mycenaean city states 36
Mycenaeans 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43,
63, 64, 90, 99
mystery cults 13, 88, 89, 92, 136
mystical Platonism 11
mythical ancestors 119, 120
mythical descent 120
mythical genealogy 47, 120
mythical narrative 111, 113, 115
myth of the charioteer 110
myth(s) 13, 17, 18, 22, 40, 47, 48, 51,
55, 59, 62, 67, 68, 77, 88, 89, 95, 104,
110, 113, 115, 116, 119, 120, 127
N 154, 157, 158
native Europeans 30, 43, 52, 57, 59,
62, 73, 122
Neolithic 11, 26, 29, 30, 32, 34, 35, 37,
39, 45, 97, 154
O processions 89, 90
oikos 15, 89, 91, 117, 128
Old Europe 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37, 38,
39, 64, 89, 90, 91, 127
Old European commonwealth 31
Old European society 32
Old European villages 32, 34
oracle 53, 54, 56, 57, 71, 77, 96, 112
P
paideia 115, 117, 118
pan-Hellenism 45, 46, 53, 59, 142
partnership 113, 126, 127
patrilineality 122
Pelasgians 39, 43, 46, 47, 122
philosopher-king 20, 22, 125
philosopher-queen 20
philosophy of love 102
Platonic love 102, 103, 104
Platonism 10, 144, 153
Platos maxim 131
Platos metaphysics 11
plausibility 11, 116
plausible account 14
polis 15, 16, 17, 19, 22, 27, 49, 51, 72,
74, 75, 79, 80, 90, 91, 123, 124, 126,
127, 146, 149, 152
political community 19, 23, 70, 101,
133, 137
political theory 10, 11, 15, 19, 24, 27,
28, 45, 86, 127, 129, 130, 131, 137,
143, 151
power 21, 22, 35, 36, 61, 68, 70, 72, 77,
78, 88, 100, 106, 110, 124, 138, 151,
pre-Greek heritage 12, 55, 61
pre-Indo-European population 24
pre-Socratic philosophy 83, 84
private household 126
private ownership 36, 37, 39, 42
public interest 131, 132
public offices 43, 75, 119, 128
R
religious life 89, 128
ritualistic practices 88
165
S 105, 106, 107, 110, 113, 116, 118,
sacred places 52 123, 124
self-administration 72, 73, 74 virtuous conduct 19
self-determination 72, 75
self-glorification 49, 51 W
social cohesion 16, 17, 18, 28, 33, 45, weaving 47, 64, 74
65, 74, 89, 111, 131 wholeness of Being 87
social egalitarianism 32 world-soul 82
social hierarchy 32, 35
social relations 31, 43 Z
soul 16, 82, 91, 92, 98, 103, 105, 107, zeitgeist 12, 13, 15, 46, 107, 118, 123,
110, 116, 119 126
sporting competitions 60, 61, 63, 119,
128 Index of Platos dialogues
statehood 20, 21, 22, 36, 127
substrate language 24, 26, 37, 38, 52, (referred to or cited)
61, 100 Gorgias 88, 134
sympatheia 91 Kritias 49
Laches 81
T Laws 11, 16, 53, 75, 81, 82, 83, 89,
territoriality 48 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 109, 116, 123,
transcendental philosophy 129 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 135,
tribal network 58, 59, 71 137, 142, 144, 145, 147, 150,
tribes 39, 47, 48, 49, 57, 58, 69, 70, 71, 151, 152, 154
73, 74 Menexenos 48, 49
tripartition 16 Minos 123, 124
truth 84, 86, 103, 140, 158 Parmenides 84
Phaedo 82, 84, 101, 129
U Phaedrus 82, 103, 110
useful knowledge 114 Protagoras 81, 84, 107
utopia 10, 12, 127, 128, 132 Republic 11, 12, 20, 21, 27, 78, 82,
87, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 103, 106,
V 107, 109, 110, 116, 117, 123,
village administration 36, 72 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 157, 160
village communities 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, Seventh Letter 20
36, 37, 40, 45, 70, 72 Statesman 21, 124
village(s) 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, Symposium 101, 102, 103, 104, 105,
37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 58, 65, 70, 107, 129
72, 73, 75 Theaetetus 84
virtue(s) 18, 19, 22, 27, 45, 46, 52, 74, Timaeus 16, 82, 106, 129, 148
75, 78, 79, 81, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104,

166
Harald Haarmann
Platos ideal of the Common Good
This study documents various historical
instances in the development of the con-
cept Common Good. The author reflects
about Platos theory of Forms, which is
infused with the idea of good, as the first
principle of being. Plato was not the first
philosopher to address the theme of the
Common Good although he was the first
to construct a political theory around it.
This theme has remained a central agen-
da for philosophers throughout the ages.
The Author
Harald Haarmann is a German linguist
and cultural scientist. He is Vice-President
of the Institute of Archaeomythology in
Sebastopol (California / USA) and director
of its European Branch in Finland. His
research fields are linguistics, cultural
studies, and history of religion.