By Chester G. Starr
A well timed reassessment of the important social, cultural, and political position of the aristocrat in Greek society, this e-book via special historian Chester G. Starr presents a concise portrait of the higher periods and their lifestyle. Arguing that the effect of the aristocrat on historic Hellenic civilizatioln is undervalued by way of either glossy Western and Marxist students, Starr takes a detailed examine the social spectrum of old Greece, analyzing the implications of the aristocrats' domination of the traditional polis, their involvement in and patronage of the humanities, and their effect at the constitution of faith and at the historical Greeks' visible conception in their pantheon of gods. In a last bankruptcy, Starr concludes that the impression of the aristocratic excellent didn't finish while historic civilization flickered out, yet really used to be reborn within the Renaissance and has had robust impact at the process smooth Western historical past.
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Extra resources for The Aristocratic Temper of Greek Civilization
Sample text
20 By the later sixth century aristocrats had become more conscious of the duties and limitations of their position and largely yielded long-distance trade to professional shippers, but as they withdrew into the background their interest in this realm did not disappear. The men who scurried about the Aegean and farther afield had to have capital to outfit their ships and finance cargoes. "21 And who provided the money to the banker? " 23 It is unsafe to assume that the word kerdos (profit) totally disappeared from aristocratic lips even after the developed ethos of the class frowned on undue interest in economic activities.
Political Power 25 After examining general developments in the seventh and sixth centuries it is time to return to Athens, for its evolution was to follow a very different path from most of its neighbor poleis. Here an unusual solution to the problem of fitting an aristocracy into the fundamental egalitarian theory of thepolis was to be perfected, though only after a detour into tyranny. The roots of this diversion were local. Solon's efforts to check aristocratic divisiveness were so unsuccessful that the state fell at times into chaos.
Almost instinctively men of the upper classes were distinguishable by their behavior toward each other and toward their inferiors, and very possibly as well by their mode of speech. Equally evident were physical marks of luxury. Habrosyne, or luxury, is a leitmotif of the poetry of the seventh and sixth centuries; tryphe (daintiness) is a contemptuous word that was used later for the most part. The concept, to be sure, is always a relative matter; an Assyrian monarch would have scorned a Greek house as a hovel, and one may doubt that Greek painted pottery would have developed as far as it did if its purchasers had been able to afford to load their shelves with gold and silver vessels.