Thucydides and “Symbolic Capital”

Both the temples of Demeter and Kore erected by Gelon (Diod. 11.26.7) and his grave are termed axiologos, “worthy of note” (11.38.5). Events in Sicily are, in fact, characterized as among the most axiologos (11.26.8) of a particular year, and this term, a common one that appears almost 300 times in Diodoros, generally designates what we might call in a slightly different context “all the news fit to print.” Thucydides uses this same term in much the same way as Diodoros, but he employs it to dismiss the collective achievements of Greek tyrants: with few exceptions, he notes, “no achievement was brought to fruition by them that was axiologos.” ^[31] In the this one term, Thucydides distills his rejection of an entire habit of thought, and even of the archaic world.

Before analyzing the new, however, let us consider the way Thucydides portrays the old. At 1.17, Thucydides uses the expression tas poleis ôikoun to describe the rule of the tyrants. This phrase is often treated as if it meant “they dwelled in their poleis,” with the verb oikeô given a colorless meaning. In fact, the verb, as Thucydides uses it, is a loaded word: oikeô literally means “to treat as one’s oikos.” When it describes someone living in a larger unit, it is used with a preposition to indicate that someone has their oikos in a larger space.^[32] When oikeô is used with a simple accusative, it often implies that the subject has appropriated this space entirely and converted it into an oikos.^[33] The verb oikeô does not just imply habitation but the control, even if conditional, of the space occupied.^[34] In several important passages, the verb clearly means “govern”: thus Kleon boasts that the “worser sort of men for the most part govern (oikousi) their cities better than their more clever fellows”;^[35] and the revolution of 411 draws up laws “so that the city will be governed (oikêsetai) in the best possible manner.” ^[36] If Thucydides had wanted to say that the tyrants merely lived in their home cities, he would have said en tais polesin ôikoun. In writing tas poleis ôikoun, he implies that the tyrants appropriated their poleis and controlled them as an extension of their own household. Thus the Athenian Euphemos, in a speech remarkable for its cold-blooded acknowledgment of Athenian ruthlessness, states that “having become leaders of those previously under the Great King, we control them (oikoumen)” (Thuc. 6.82.3).

It is important to stress that in many cultures (and in most of those cultures with which Greeks had contact), rulers were expected to treat their territory as a part of their own oikos. Such a posture can be portrayed as intrusive and can outrage sensibilities, but it can also be subsumed as part of a larger strategy in which power relationships are expressed in terms of an extended family. “When domination can only be exercised in its elementary form, i.e. directly, between one person and another, it cannot take place overtly and must be disguised under the veil of enchanted relationships, the official model of which is presented by relations between kinsmen; in order to be socially recognized it must get itself misrecognized.” ^[37] The ruler becomes the paterfamilias of a vast extended family. All members of the Persian empire are the servants of its emperor, just as the oiketai of an oikos must subordinate themselves to the head of the household. The palace is the center of such a social formation.

Instead of a palace, Greek poleis each had their agora, a neutral space corporately owned and controlled by the polis, for assembly and (as the economy evolved) for market exchanges. Just as individual poleis fiercely defended their autonomy, individual oikoi retained as much control as possible. Greeks would, in the best case, subordinate themselves to, freely lay down their lives for, nomos, but never for another mortal.^[38] But this attitude was not self-evident, or a matter of natural law—the great empires to the east loomed dangerously on the horizon and threatened to subsume Greece. Thus successful tyrants (such as the Peisistratids) carefully declined to change the form of law or openly to appropriate power. Some were extremely successful in this regard: both Periander of Corinth and Pittakos of Mytilene found themselves at one time or another among the Seven Wise Men of archaic Greece.^[39] Thus though many systems of domination may express themselves in terms of kinship and use family roles to misrecognize the raw power of a ruler, Greek tyrants did well to avoid this model. When Thucydides claims that they ran their poleis like an oikos, he is demystifying the understated position that clever tyrants might adopt. Thucydides does not, however, object to appropriation or domination on principle—as we have seen, Thucydides does not object to empires per se. Thucydides objects to the tyrants because they did not actually treat the polis as they should treat an oikos. They used the polis and governed it, but “they looked out to augment (auxein) their own interests insofar as they affected their own persons (es te to sôma) and their own private household (es to ton idion oikon)” (1.17). Thus though the tyrants might seem to control their poleis as large-scale oikoi, they in fact exploited the poleis for the small-scale interests of themselves and their personal oikoi. This is a very harsh judgment by Thucydides, for he treats nothing with more scorn than the emphasis of private concerns (idios) over those shared by a wider audience.

Thucydides dismisses the entire system of honors and polite restraint that tyrants such as Gelon manipulated so skillfully. He has little interest in polite surfaces and relentlessly pushed beyond to hard calculations of force and interest. When Thucydides claims that Agamemnon used fear (deos) just as much as charis to assemble the Greeks, he is passing judgment not only on the epic tradition, but on the self-effacing strategems and polite theatrics that concealed the harsh edges of authority. The acquisition of power (dunamis) and its application to the world in concrete deeds (erga) fascinate Thucydides.^[40] Thucydides simply ignores much (though not all) of what we have called symbolic capital.