CMS 231 - Bates College - Fall 2002

Litigation in Ancient Athens

Lecture 1.2

Attendance
Introduction & Course Goals
- meet the prof
- Part the first: How did the Athenians imagine the relationship between litigation and democratic politics
  - Aeschylus, Oresteia
  - Aristophanes, Wasps & Sexual Congres
  - Plato, Apology
- Part the second: How did Athenians enact the relationshiop between litigation and democratic politics
  - cases from the forensic corpus
- Meta reading throughout the course
  - Athenian history in the 5th and 4th century: Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander [available on the web and linked on the syllabus] and I.F. Stone, The Trial of Socrates.
  - Athenian political and legal institutions in the 4th century: M.H. Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes
  - Interpretations and analyses of Athenian litigation:
    - Matthew R.Christ, The Litigious Athenian
    - David Cohen, Law, Violence, and Community in Classical Athens
    - Steven Johnstone, Disputes and Democracy: The Consequences of Litigation in Ancient Athens
  - nb: Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens, is a recommended, not required reading. It is a HIGHLY recommended reading.
Housekeeping
- Requirements
- The home page for this course is located on the web at URL: http://www.bates.edu/~mimber/athlit02/athlit.html. There is also a link to the course on my home page.
- You are responsible for knowing the contents of the syllabus, the course requirements page and the pages describing standards for assignments! I will assume you have read them and will hold you responsible for their content.
- Sign up for article reports on Tuesday: Crane and Bowie
- Sign up for article reports for Thursday: Griffiths
- Homework for Tuesday:
  - Read the Agamemnon and review the study guide questions.
  - Read Hansen, 1-85, and review the study guide questions.
  - Read Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander: Chapter 6.16- 6.36, "The Late Archaic City State: Tyranny in the City-States" to -6.36, "Rational Thinking" [This link will take you to the first page of Chapter 6.16. Be sure to read to the end of the chapter.]
- Study Guide Questions and How to Use Them
  - I give a lot of study guide questions and every year some students have a nervous breakdown when they look at them. Let me begin by saying they are meant to help you, not induce psychosis.
  - How to use them:
    - Organize a study group of about 4 or 5 students. For each class, divide the study guide questions amongst yourselves.
    - Read the assignment. As you read take notes [see comments on taking notes] about what seems to be the important issues and any questions the reading raises in your mind and any aspects of the reading you find confusing.
    - When you are done reading, look over the study guide questions. What questions do you draw an utter blank on? Open up the reading and track down the answers.
    - For the questions you have been assigned, be able to formulate an articulate sentence or two in response to the question and identify what page in the reading supports your answer. You don't have to write it down, but you'll find that you understand and remember the material better if you do.
    - Meet with your group and work your way together through the study guide questions.
      - (No one ever believes me on this but it is really true: re-read the assignment. After you have read something, taken notes on it, considered questions about it and discussed it with friends, you will find that material is amazingly clear and accessible on the second read. You lock in your understanding of the material, you get grade grades, write brilliant papers, win a Rhodes scholarship, become President. It's incredible. If only you'd read the assignments twice.)
    - ET VOILA! - Everyone understands the reading, we have scintillating class discussions AND you all get hugely great grades on your quizzes.
    - Trust me, this works.
- Notes and How to Take Them
  - Rule 1: DO NOT READ WITH A WRITING INSTRUMENT IN YOUR HAND!
  - Rule 2: DO NOT USE HIGHLIGHTERS!
  - Rule 3: DO NOT WRITE IN THE MARGINS OF YOUR BOOKS!
  - Rule 4: DO NOT COPY VERBATIM PASSAGES FROM YOUR READING!
  - Step 1: Pick a unit of text (1 page, 5 pages, 10 pages - it will vary depending on the type of reading you do and your own personal preference).
  - Step 2: Read that amount of text. Put the book down. Come up with three or four sentences that summarize what you have read.
    - if you can't do this either:
      - you haven't understood what you've read - go back and re-read
      - you've picked too large a unit of text (cut back; i.e., if you were reading 5 pages, cut back to 3)
  - Step 3: Pick up your pen and in your notebook
    - write the page numbers of the unit of text you have read (e.g. 1-5)
    - write the three or four sentences you have just articulated.
  - Step 4: Put down your pen.
  - Step 5: Repeat steps 1-4 until you have finished your reading.
  - The first few nights you use this method of notetaking, it will take longer to read your assignments, but you will very quickly get into the groove and you will discover:
    - you actually understand the material because you've thought about it as you've read it
    - when you go to study your notes will be god-like exemplars of clarity and usefulness.
  - Trust me, this always works.
Some Mythic Background to the Oresteia
- The Battle of the Titans
  - Pix by Joachim Wtewael, @ 1600 (dutch painter)
  - The Olympians are the Greek gods whose names are most familiar to us: Zeus, Hera, Athena, Ares, etc. According to Greek mythology, before this generation of gods came to power under Zeus' leadership, other cohorts of gods had ruled the universe. Hesiod's Theogony would be a good place to read about this "history of the gods." A family tree, based on Hesiod is also available on the web.
  - According to Hesiod the first entities in history were "Chaos" [theVoid], "Gaia" [the Earth] and "Eros" [Love, Lust, Passion]. The Earth gave birth to the sky [Uranus], sea and mountains. From the unions of Uranus and Gaia and Gaia and Ocean were born races of nymphs, giants and finally the Titans and Cronus [Time], Gaia's youngest child, who just hated his old man (Uranus).
  - Uranus was not a post modern father and had in fact banished some of his more monstrous children into the bowels of the earth, which caused Gaia no end of physical and emotional pain. Cronus, with Gaia's permission lay in wait for Uranus and emasculated him when Uranus came to sleep with Gaia. The blood from this action fell upon the earth and in time she came to bear children from it, including the Erinyes and Aphrodite. Uranus thus lost control of the universe to his son Cronus, but promised vengence. At which point, according to Hesiod:
  - (ll. 211-225) And Night bare hateful Doom and black Fate and Death, and she bare Sleep and the tribe of Dreams. And again the goddess murky Night, though she lay with none, bare Blame and painful Woe, and the Hesperides who guard the rich, golden apples and the trees bearing fruit beyond glorious Ocean. Also she bare the Destinies and ruthless avenging Fates, Clotho and Lachesis and Atropos (10), who give men at their birth both evil and good to have, and they pursue the transgressions of men and of gods: and these goddesses never cease from their dread anger until they punish the sinner with a sore penalty. Also deadly Night bare Nemesis (Indignation) to afflict mortal men, and after her, Deceit and Friendship and hateful Age and hard-hearted Strife. (ll. 226-232) But abhorred Strife bare painful Toil and Forgetfulness and Famine and tearful Sorrows, Fightings also, Battles, Murders, Manslaughters, Quarrels, Lying Words, Disputes, Lawlessness and Ruin, all of one nature, and Oath who most troubles men upon earth when anyone wilfully swears a false oath. [from Online Medieval and Classical Library Release #8: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/OMACL/Hesiod/theogony.html].
  - Cronus was no fool and figured that if anyone would give him trouble, it would be his own kids (like father, like son). So when his wife, Rhea, gave birth to their children, Cronus swallowed them. This, as you can imagine, reflected some degree of family dysfunction and caused Rhea endless grief. So when Zeus was conceived, she turned to her parents, Gaia and Uranus, for help. They helped her hide the infant in Crete and when Cronus showed up to eat the kid, she palmed him off with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes [and he fell for it - ask yourself why]. Years later, Rhea was able to convince Cronus to vomit up the kids he ate - and these twice born were the Olympian gods you probably are the most familiar with.
  - Zeus, meanwhile, was making friends with the divinities whom Uranus and Cronus had treated rather cruelly, and he promised to respect the rights of any god who fought with him against Cronus. The river Styx and the Titan Prometheus (who know the future) [pix by Gustav Moreau, 19th century French symbolist], the Cylops and others joined up, Zeus and Cronus faught the Titanomachy, and after a very long time, Zeus and the Olympians prevailed.
- The House of Atreus
  - First Generation: Tantalus [EB entry]
    - The (mortal?) son of Zeus or king of Paphlagonia or Phyrgia who was a close friend of the gods and invited to share their banquets. He was said to have betrayed the gods and earned their emnity in one of the following ways:
      - He killed his son, Pelops, and served to the gods at a banquet he hosted. Demeter ate Pelops' shoulder before the gods realized what was up (she was distracted by the loss of Persephone]. Thus, when the rescued and reconstructed Pelops, his shoulder was kaput and they had to give him an ivory substitute.
      - He told mortals of the gods' plans and tried to share the gods' drink (ambrosia) with them.
      - He asked Zeus to give him a god's life.
    - Zeus responded to this/these betrayals with a famous punisment (whereby we derive the meaning of the word "tantalize," which Homer described in the Odyssey [11.584 - Perseus project translation] [pix J. Heintz, the Elder, 16th century; Swiss/German/Italian]
    - "Aye, and I saw Tantalus in violent torment, standing in a pool, and the water came nigh unto his chin. He seemed as one athirst, but could not take and drink; [585] for as often as that old man stooped down, eager to drink, so often would the water be swallowed up and vanish away, and at his feet the black earth would appear, for some god made all dry. And trees, high and leafy, let stream their fruits above his head, pears, and pomegranates, and apple trees with their bright fruit, [590] and sweet figs, and luxuriant olives. But as often as that old man would reach out toward these, to clutch them with his hands, the wind would toss them to the shadowy clouds.
  - Second Generation: Pelops [EB entry]
    - Once the gods patched him up, Pelops decided to leave his father's country behind. According to Pindar, he emigrated to Elis, a country ruled by a fellow named Oenomaus. Oenomaus had a daughter named Hippodamia who had two problems. First, she was beautiful, so a lot of guys fell in love with her. Her second problems was that her father had a thing for her and didn't want her to marry. If someone wanted to marry Hippodamia, he had to race Oenomaus in a chariot race. If the suitor lost, Oenomaus killed him. As it happened Oenomaus's father, Ares, the god of war, had given him his chariot. Lots of guys died trying to marry Hippodamia. Oenomaus would nail thei losers' heads to the walls of his house. Then Pelops came along.
    - There are two versions of what happened. In one, Pelops happened to be the favorite of Poseidon, the sea god and to the Greeks, the master charioteer. [pix] Pelops won the race, killed Oenomaus and married Hippodamia. In the second version, Oenomaus' charioteer, Mrytilus (who happened to be the son of the god, Hermes) fell in love with Pelops. Pelops persuaded him to remove the pins that held the wheels to the axle from Oenomaus' chariot, promising him half the kingdom. Whether for love or money, Mrytilus betrayed Oenomaus, who a) died in a nasty crash; b) lost because of Mrytilus' trick and was then killed by Pelops. When Oenomaus discovered that Mrytilus had betrayed him, he cursed his charioteer (cursing that Pelops would kill him) with his dying breath. Pelops then killed Mrytilus. Mrytilus, with his dying breath cursed Pelops and all his progeny. Pelops introduced worship of Hermes to his kingdom (the area was now called the Peloponese, after him) but Hermes would not be appeased.
  - Third Generation: Atreus & Thyestes [EB on Atreus; Thyestes]
    - Pelops then married Hippodamia. They had three sons, Alcathous, Atreus [pix] and Thyestes. Pelops had a fourth son, from a fling with a nympth, named Chrysippus. Some say that Hippodamia killed Chrysippus, fearing that he would inherit Pelops' throne, rather than one of her sons [she made it look like Laius, (who later would become the father of Oedipus), a guest of Pelops who had fallen in love with Chrysippus, did the did. But Chrysippus, with his dying breath cleared Laius). Others say that urged by their mother, the three sons killed Chrysippus. Having committed such a crime, they had to leave their homeland. Alcathous ended up marrying the daughter of the king of Megara, and eventually became king of Megara, himself. [Perhaps the only happy ending in the story and one the Greeks hardly wrote about].
    - Thyestes and Atreus went to Mycenae. It seems they jointly ruled for awhile, but eventually, Atreus became king and Thyestes became discontented. There are different traditions. In one, the brothers competed to become king. Atreus vowed to sacrifice his flock to Artemis if she would help him become king. Then he discovered that one of the lambs had a golden fleece and changed his mind. This bothered Artemis.
    - Some say Thyestes seduced the wife of Atreus, Aeropa. [pix - Francesco Giovanni Bezzi, Italian 16th century. ] Aeropa gave the golden lamb to Thyestes, who then made a deal with Atreus. Whoever had a golden lamb should become king. Atreus, not knowing about Aeropa's betrayal took the bet and Thyestes displayed the lamb. Then Hermes told Atreus to make a deal with Thyestes. If the sun set in the east, Atreus would be king. Thyestes took the bet and Zeus made the sun set in the east. Atreus became king. A tad peeved, Atreus threw his wife into the sea and sent his brother into exile. At this point Thyestes decided to take revenge. There are several versions of how he did it.
      - 1) He sent Pleisthenes back to Mycenae to kill Atreus. Pleisthenes was the son of Atreus whom Thyestes had raised in his own house. Atreus didn't recognize him all grown up and so killed him - his own son.
      - 2) Atreus decided to revenge himself upon Thyestes for the adultery. He sent for Thyestes, told him all was forgiven and invited him to dinner [you should never accept dinner invitations from people in this family.] In the meanwhile, Atreus had the sons of Thyestes (except for the infant Aegisthus) killed and cooked up for dinner, which he served to his brother. Then Atreus exiled Thyestes again, for having committed such a horrible crime. Thyestes fled, cursing his brother.
      - *Aegisthus was the son of Pelopia, who was the daughter of Thyestes.Thyestes raped Pelopia in order to father a son who take revenge upon Atreus. The rape was at night and Pelopia didn't recognize her rapist, but was able to take and keep his sword. In some traditions, Atreus marries Pelopia shortly after she became pregnant with Aegisthus. Atreus, accordingly, believed Aegisthus was his own son. Years later, after Thyestes had returned to Mycenae, Atreus had him jailed and sent his son Aegisthus to kill him. Pelopia happened to be visiting Thyestes in jail when Aegisthus arrived. Because Thyestes recognized the sword as his own and Pelopia recognized Aegisthus as her son, the three quickly figured out who was who and what was what. Horrified, Pelopia grabbed the sword and killed herself. Aegisthus then took the bloody sword to show Aegisthus and Thyestes then slew Atreus and drove his sons Agamemnon and Menelaus from Mycenae.
    - Agamemnon and Menelaus ended up in Sparta where the king, Tyndareus had his own unusual family. His wife, Leda, had given birth to two girls (and two boys, Castor and Pollux), but Tyndarus was the biological father of only Clytemnestra and Castor. Zeus had conceived a mad pash for Leda, assumed the form a swan and had his way with her. [pix - Michelangelo, Italian, 16th century] If you think this sounds silly, you should read Yeats' poem on the topic to have a sense of the strange power and passion of the myth. Leda laid an egg and the four were born. Agamemnon married Clytemnestra. In some traditions he first had to kill her husband, named Tantalus, who was a son of Thyestes. Agamemnon then returned to Mycenae, recovered control of the kingdom, and sent Aegisthus into exile [how, no one says]. Agamemnon and Clytmenestra had three daughters, Chrysothemis, Iphegenia [Iphianassa], Elektra (Laodice) and one son, Orestes.
  - The Trojan War
A Short History of Athens:
- In its early history, a period for which we have no written evidence, Athens was governed by a monarchy. During the Archaic Age (750-500 BCE), Athens was governed by an aristocracy of birth and wealth. During the 7th century BCE, Athenian leaders competed over, debated, compromised and fought bitterly over who would exercise power in Athens and how. An early phase of the constitutional struggle saw the aristocrat Solon granted extraordinary powers to reform the constitution (which even aristocrats recognized as too oppressive for ordinary Athenians). Solon's reforms formed the basis of what would eventually become the radical democracy of Athens. First, however, the tyrant Pisistratus came to power. Pisistratus was himself an aristocrat. It was not uncommon in Greece during this period for an aristocrat to make an alliance with ordinary citizens against the contemporary government. Pisistratus did so and he and his family ruled Athens from 545 to 510 BCE (they had a brief rule in 561 but were kicked out. When they returned, they stayed for a generation.
- Cleisthenes then established the first true Athenian democracy in 508/507. Subsequent generations of Athenian leaders passed more reforms until (by the middle of the 5th century) a truly radical democracy governed Athens.
- Shortly after the Athenians organized their democracy under Cleisthenes the city-state faced its first daunting challenge - war with the dominant imperial power of the day, Persia. Athens, as a naval power, and Sparta, known for its armies, united to defend Greece against Persian invasions in 490 and 480. Persia retreated to the mainland of Asia Minor, and Sparta was happy to retreat to a more insular foreign policy. Athens, however, wanted to pursue the Persians. The Greeks had established the Delian League, an alliance of smaller Greek city-states to protect the Greeks against the Persians. Athens became the dominant power in that league and eventually converted that position to one of imperial power over the other members. By the middle of the fifth century, Sparta and other Greek city-states had become somewhat alarmed at Athens prominence. At first Sparta and Athens fought (like the US and USSR of an other generation) through proxy states. But by 431 BCE the Peloponnesian War broke out. It would last until 404 when the Spartans, with the aid of Persian money finally defeated Athens, and destroyed her fleet and the city's defensive walls.
- The war imposed great strains on the Athenian social and political fabric and exacerbated tension between the demos (ordinary, not rich citizens) and the aristocrats. In 411, some the aristocrats effected a coup when the democratic fleet was away from Athens and established a "moderate" oligarchy. The leaders of the coup fought with each other too much, and the fleet returned, and democracy was restored. In 404, however, Sparta imposed a government of 30 Athenian aristocrats on the defeated city. Athenians referred to these men as the Thirty Tyrants, and they weren't exaggerating. The year 404-403 was a reign of terror in Athens. A democratic resistance formed and succeeded in 403 in driving the aristocrats out of Athens. The Spartans were having their own internal disputes, and did not intervene. The new democratic government in Athens then declared an amnesty. No citizen, regardless of their political affiliation, could be sued over conduct during the period 404-403.
- Although Athens was in quite poor shape at the beginning of the fourth century BCE (economic depression, severe population losses, extraordinary social tensions), they recovered significantly and quickly. Athens would never dominate the Greek world the way she had under Pericles in the middle of the fifth century. She would, however, remain a player to contend with (along with Sparta and Thebes) until Philip of Macedon and his son, Alexander the Great, effectively ended the political liberty (in both foreign and domestic policy) of most Greeks in the 330s.
- more info at:
  - click on this link for more info on the oligarchic constitution of Athens during the archaic period.
  - click on this link for more info about the archaic age of Greece
  - click on this link for more info on Solon
  - for more info on tyranny in the ancient Greek world, click on this link
  - click on this link for summary of democratic reforms to the Athenian constitution.
  - far more info at Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander (Perseus Project): The Democratic Reform of the Athenian System of Justice
  - K.H. Kinzl , "Athens: Between Tyranny and Democracy," in K.H. Kinzl (ed.): Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean in Ancient History and Prehistory: Studies Presented to Fritz Schachermeyr on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter 1977.
Aeschylus
- born 525 BCE in Eleusis
- He fought against the Persians in the battle of Marathon (490BCE) and in the battles of Artemesium and Salamis (484), and according to legend he chose to have this fact (not his victories as a tragedian) recorded on his gravestone.
- The earliest of the surviving Greek playwrights, ge is said to have written over 90 plays, but only 7 survive: The Persians, The Suppliant Maidens, Seven Against Thebes, Prometheus Bound and the trilogy the Oresteia (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides). Aeschylus is credited with the introduction of the second actor and the reduction of the importance of the chorus in Greek tragedy. He competed in his first dramatic festival in 499 and won 13 first place finishes in his career. He visited Sicily several times in his life. During his last visit in 456/455 he died. Some late writers record the tradition that Aeschylus was accused of impiety for revealing religious mysteries in his Oresteia and died in exile.
Ephialtes
- After the Persian War had ended, aristocrats in Athens, under the leadership of Cimon, wanted to maintain a pro-Sparta policy. Ephialtes led a contingent of politicians who wanted to continue Cleisthenes' programs of democrat reforms. The radical democrats were hostile to Sparta. Originally the aristocrats had their way and went so far as to send a contingent of soldiers to help Sparta suppress a revolt by helots (peasants held in a form of slavery/serfdom by the Spartans). The Spartans, however, were afraid that their citizens would become infected with Athenian democratic notions and asked declined the Athenian offer of assistance. This annoyed the Athenian population to no end and significantly increased the political power and success of Ephialtes.
- Once in power, Ephialtes initiated a series of radical reforms of the Athenian constitution. The Areopagus had been the bastion of aristocrat authority in Athens. Named for its location (a hill north-west of Acropolis), the Areopagus originally tried homicide cases, debated and decided foreign/domestic policy for Athens. Its membership was restricted to members of the nobility who had held public office.
- Under Ephialtes (in 462/461), the Athenian Assembly, Council and law courts took over the political functions the Areopagus had performed. Thereafter, the Areopagus became the Athenian court responsible for trying homicide cases. These reforms, although successful, were quite controversial and Ephialtes was assasinated in 461 by aristocrats who felt that he departed too radically from ancestral tradition and done so at the expense of the political authority arisocrats had held. Despite (or perhaps because) of its de-politicization the Areopagus continued to be a very prestigious tribunal and membership on it was quite an honor (although in membership was determined by lot now). In the fourth century, as we shall see, the authority of the Areopagus expanded once more in response to external threat and internal crisis.
  - additional reading