Polis, State and Society in the Shadow of Nomima
Nomima could have had a transformational effect on the study of archaic Greek history, by enabling the study of institutionalization and state-formation, rather than elite competition, as characterised English-speaking work in the 1980s. That it did not quite have such an effect might be attributed...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/gaia, |
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| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
| Pubblicazione: |
Gaia
2024
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| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | Nomima could have had a transformational effect on the study of archaic Greek history, by enabling the study of institutionalization and state-formation, rather than elite competition, as characterised English-speaking work in the 1980s. That it did not quite have such an effect might be attributed to the gap between the implied importance of institutionalization and the insistence in recent scholarship on diversity, fluidity, and elite competition. In fact, H. van Effenterre and F. Ruzé themselves used the rich epigraphical material they had gathered as a way to study the early polis’ prehistory of diversity (“pre‑politeia”). In this paper, I propose an alternative approach, namely to fully centre the state in any study of the early polis, and to consider diversity as part of second-order phenomena generated by stateness and institutionalization. Cases such as the Cretan cities or Argos offer specific instances, that might be applied even to poleis where no inscribed law has been found (e.g. Aigina). The challenge is to provide an account of the polis as state that accounts for the relationship of institutions and regulation to social phenomena, and even to struggles for power. |
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