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ISONOMIA AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE INDEMOCRATIC ATHENS

John Lombardini1

Abstract: This article argues that the term isonomia is best understood as a specifictype of balance of forces closely connected with the classical concept of dêmokratia.The article proceeds by placing isonomia within the context of fifth/fourth centuryAthenian political discourse, and by explicating the relationship between isonomiaand eunomia through attention to the usages of these terms in Greek philosophy,poetry, oratory, history and medicine. This analysis demonstrates how the concept ofisonomia, understood as a balance of forces created specifically through the establish-ment of political equality, could be used to respond to criticisms of dêmokratia asexemplifying bad order/disorder. The conclusion suggests avenues for furtherresearch and some potential connections with contemporary democratic theorizing.

IIntroduction

While it has often been lamented that the ancient Greek world has left us no

systematic theoretical defence of democracy, much recent work in the field of

Greek political theory has attempted to reconstruct such a defence from our

extant sources. These attempts at reconstruction have been as multitudinous

as the sources we possess: tragedy and the institution of the dramatic festivals

have been hailed as promoting a type of democratic thinking;2 following the

lead of George Grote, sophists such as Protagoras have been recuperated as

democratic theorists unfairly maligned by the anti-democratic Plato;3 in Attic

oratory, Josiah Ober has uncovered a democratic ideology that furnished the

Athenian dêmos with the power to rule, while his most recent work has made

explicit the democratic principles implicit in Athens’ democratic institutions;4

and the historical Socrates’ incessant questioning of his fellow citizens has

been interpreted as constituting a democratic form of education and citizen-

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXIV. No. 3. Autumn 2013

1 Assistant Professor, Department of Government, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg,VA 23187-8795, USA. Email: [email protected]

2 Greek Tragedy and Political Theory, ed. J.P. Euben (Berkeley, 1986); J.P. Euben,The Tragedy of Political Theory: The Road Not Taken (Princeton, 1990); S. Goldhill,‘Civic Ideology and the Problem of Difference: The Politics of Aeschylean Tragedy,Once Again’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 120 (2000), pp. 34–56; S. Monoson, Plato’sDemocratic Entanglements (Princeton, 2000), ch. 4.

3 C. Farrar, The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classi-cal Athens (New York, 1988).

4 J. Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1989); J. Ober, PoliticalDissent in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1996), ch. 3; J. Ober, Democracy and Knowl-edge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton, 2008).

Copyright (c) Imprint Academic 2011For personal use only -- not for reproduction

ship.5 Even Plato and Aristotle have been recruited for the project: Plato has

been read as heavily indebted to the democratic institutions he criticizes,6

while Aristotle’s political thought has been canvassed for resources offering a

defence of democracy and democratic institutions.7

This wealth of recent scholarship has greatly improved our understanding

of Athenian democracy while at the same time broadening the gaze of politi-

cal theorists beyond the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle. This arti-

cle seeks to contribute to this growing body of literature by focusing on one

particular concept, isonomia, and its relationship with Athenian dêmokratia.

Both the exact meaning of the concept, which originated in the late sixth

century BC, and its precise relationship with dêmokratia, however, remain

unclear. Though it is used as a near synonym for dêmokratia in Herodotus,

and appears to be associated with the reforms of Cleisthenes, it is also used in

Thucydides to classify a version of oligarchy. Moreover, while isonomia is

linked to the idea of equality, signalled by the prefix iso-, exactly what type of

equality it represents has been disputed: it has been variously defined as

‘equality under the law’, ‘equality maintained through the law’ and ‘equal

political participation’, amongst other phrases.8 The fact that the term is

394 J. LOMBARDINI

5 G. Vlastos, ‘The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy’, Political Theory,11 (4) (1983), pp. 495–516; G. Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca,1991); G. Mara, Socrates’ Discursive Democracy: Logos and Ergon in Platonic Politi-cal Philosophy (Albany, 1997); D. Villa, Socratic Citizenship (Princeton, 2001).

6 Monoson, Entanglements; Euben, Tragedy of Political Theory, ch. 8; P. Euben,‘Democracy and Political Theory: A Reading of Plato’s Gorgias’, in Athenian PoliticalThought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy, ed. J.P. Euben, J.R. Wallachand J. Ober (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 198–226.

7 M. Nussbaum, ‘Aristotelian Social Democracy’, in Liberalism and the Good, ed.R.B. Douglas, G.M. Mara and H.S. Richardson (New York, 1990), pp. 203–52; B. Yack,Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Politi-cal Thought (Berkeley, 1993); J. Frank, A Democracy of Distinction: Aristotle and theWork of Politics (Chicago, 2004); J. Ober, ‘Aristotle’s Natural Democracy’, in Aris-totle’s Politics: Critical Essays, ed. R. Kraut and S. Skultety (Lanham, MD, 2005),pp. 223–43.

8 Victor Ehrenberg identifies four main possibilities: ‘Gleichgesetzlichkeit’, ‘Gleichheitvor dem Gesetz’, ‘gleiche Zuteilung’ and ‘Gleichordnung’ (V. Ehrenberg, ‘Isonomia’,Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumwissenschaft, Suppl. Band VII(1940), p. 293). Other definitions include: ‘equality maintained through the law’(G. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, American Journal of Philology, 74 (4) (1953), pp. 337–66,pp. 350–6); ‘equality before the law’ (J.A.O. Larsen, ‘Cleisthenes and the Developmentof the Theory of Democracy at Athens’, in Essays in Political Theory Presented toGeorge H. Sabine (Ithaca, 1948), pp. 1–16, p. 9); ‘a regime in which those who partici-pate in public life do so on an equal footing’ (P. Lévêque and P. Vidal-Naquet,Cleisthenes the Athenian (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1996), p. 22); ‘equa ripartizionedell’influenza politica’ (G. Cerri, ‘isos dasmos come equivalente di isonomia nellasilloge teognidea’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultural Classica, 8 (1969), pp. 97–104, p. 100(emphasis in original)); ‘equality of political rights among the citizens’ (C. Meier, The


ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 395

attested only twenty times in a period of nearly two hundred years exacerbates

the difficulties of interpretation.9

Despite the scarcity of its attestation, the term isonomia appears to signal an

important conceptual shift in how political regimes were evaluated in the

ancient Greek world. Solon employs two dichotomous concepts in explaining

his early sixth century political reforms: eunomia (variously defined and/or

translated as good order, good government, lawfulness, law and order)10 and

dusnomia (bad order, bad government, lawlessness). It is clear from his extant

poetry that he understood the goal of his reforms to be the creation of eunomia

and the avoidance of dusnomia, and that such good order required the bal-

anced rule of the best citizens over the base. In contrast, the term isonomia,

which is first attested at the end of the sixth century, lacks the elite moral

undertones of eunomia and dusnomia (signalled by the prefixes eu- (good)

and dus- (bad)); rather, it represents a distinct type of balance of forces

achieved through the establishment of political equality between all citizens.

Thus, while both eunomia and isonomia indicate the need for a balance of

forces within a political regime, the latter carries with it the implication that

equality, in the strict arithmetical sense, is what best creates such a desired

balance.

In this sense, also implicit in the concept of isonomia is the idea that the

equal balance of forces it represents produces a well-ordered political regime.

This line of reasoning is connected with the argument, found in Greek

Greek Discovery of Politics (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 162); ‘fair distribution of legalimmunities across the relevant population and equal access to legal processes’ (J. Ober,‘The Original Meaning of “Democracy”: Capacity to Do Things, Not Majority Rule’,Constellations, 15 (1) (2008), pp. 3–9, p. 6); ‘equality of active citizen privileges underthe laws, combined with equality of interpersonal respect’ (P. Cartledge, Ancient GreekPolitical Thought in Practice (New York, 2009), p. 63); E. Lévy (‘Isonomia’, inDemocrazia e antidemocrazia nel mondo greco, ed. U. Bultrighini (Alessandria, 2005),pp. 119–37) offers a helpful synopsis of the difficulty in pinning down the meaning ofisonomia: ‘De même qu’eunomía, isonomía est un terme qui date d’une époque où l’onne distinguait pas encore très clairement les différents régimes et où l’on se souciait plusdes jugements éthiques (eu-, iso-) que des classifications politiques. D’autre part,l’isonomie devenait d’autant plus imprécise qu’on s’était mis à distinguer les différentessortes d’égalité. Aussi l’isonomie n’a-t-elle pu trouver sa place dans les études de sciencepolitique d’un Platon, qui ironise sur le terme, ou d’un Aristote, qui ne l’emploie jamais.Dans la nomenclature ou les luttes politiques, isonomía aurait sans doute pu être utilisépour désigner le régime modéré, mixte de démocratie et d’oligarchie, qui aura la faveurde beaucoup de penseurs antiques, si la place n’avait été prise par politeía, mot plusrécent, donc moins démodé, qui avait des implications plus politiques’, p. 132.

9 Lévy, ‘Isonomia’, p. 121.10 ‘A condition of the state in which the citizens obey the law, not a condition of the

state in which the laws are good’ (A. Andrewes, ‘Eunomia’, The Classical Quarterly, 32(2) (1938), pp. 89–102, p. 89); ‘A just order enjoined by the gods that embraced a certainsocial and economic structure and political institutions corresponding to them, the wholebeing governed by ethical principles’ (Meier, Greek Discovery, p. 160).


medicine, cosmology and social and political thought, that equality produces

harmony and mitigates stasis. In the realm of the polis, it tracks the idea that

while citizens may be inherently unequal, making them political equals is the

best way to ensure social harmony. This vision of good order implicit in the

concept of isonomia thus stands in explicit contrast to the idea of good order

implicit in the concept of eunomia; in all of the extant attestations of the latter

concept, such good order is associated with, and created through, hierarchical

political institutions and unequal classes of citizenship. Grounded in this

observation, the guiding premise of this article is that the concept of isonomia

can be best understood in relation to, and as a departure from, the concept of

eunomia. While both terms, as I will argue, stand for types of social order

where private and public interests are harmoniously balanced, isonomia

expresses the belief that such balance is best achieved through equality.

Conceiving isonomia along these lines allows us to reconstruct a democratic

response to one prominent charge against democracy in the classical world:

that it either neglected considerations of order or itself produced disorder. The

primary goal of this article, then, is both the general attempt to recover this

historical concept and its possible relationship to Athenian democracy and the

more specific task of articulating this response.

The structure of the article is as follows: Section II offers an overview of

eunomia in three parts. The first part draws on Aristotle and the Platonic Defi-

nitions to offer a working definition of eunomia as a political principle. Sec-

tion II.2 analyses Solon’s conception of eunomia as it is exemplified in his

poetry and political reforms. Section II.3 explores the influence of Solonian

political thought in fourth-century political discourse, illustrating how the

concept was situated in relation to democracy and other regime types. Section

III focuses on isonomia and its relationship to eunomia and dêmokratia. Sec-

tion III.1 outlines the charge, levelled by the Old Oligarch and Plato, that

dêmokratia and isonomia are opposed to good order. The rest of Section III

articulates a definition of isonomia as an equal balance of forces through read-

ings of Herodotus’ Histories and Euripides’ Phoenician Women. The article

concludes with some brief reflections on the implications this argument might

hold for the study of ancient political thought and contemporary democratic

theory.

IIEunomia

II.1. Definition

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states the following while discussing

deliberation: ‘We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends.

A doctor, for instance, does not deliberate about whether he will cure, or an

orator about whether he will persuade, or a politician about whether he will

396 J. LOMBARDINI



produce good order (eunomian), or any other [expert] about the end [that his

science aims at]’.11 With this statement, Aristotle provides us with an impor-

tant starting point for thinking through the concept of eunomia and its evolu-

tion. First, in stating that all politicians take as their end (telos) eunomia, he

illustrates that the term signifies not a form of political regime, but a political

principle. A similar conception of eunomia is implicit in Aristotle’s state-

ment, in Book 2 of the Politics, where he declares that it is necessary, if he is

going to discuss the best of all possible political regimes, also to discuss those

that are said to be governed according to the principle of eunomia (tôn poleôn

tôn eunomeisthai legomenôn).12 This passage from the Politics indicates that

the idea expressed in the Nicomachean Ethics is not unique to Aristotle;

rather, it suggests that the term eunomia was in use more generally as a term

for evaluating political regimes in the Greek world.

Further evidence of this latter claim can be found in the self-description of

many of the regimes Aristotle analyses as embodying the principle of eunomia.

First, Solon describes his reforms, as we will discuss below, as aiming to rid

Athens of dusnomia and replace it with eunomia. Second, Sparta provides the

best-known example of a Greek polis that was widely-held to be governed

according to the principle of eunomia: both Herodotus and Thucydides asso-

ciate such eunomia with the reforms of Lycurgus;13 there are a number of ref-

erences to Sparta as a eunomos polis in the Platonic dialogues;14 and Aristotle

references the now-lost poem by Tyrtaeus on Spartan eunomia. Finally, the

explicit aim in both Plato’s Republic and Laws is the founding of an eunomos

polis.15 All of this evidence would seem to confirm the two implications of

Aristotle’s statement in the Nicomachean Ethics: that eunomia is a principle,

rather than a form of political regime; and it is a principle that was used more

broadly to describe those political regimes held to be best (both real and

imaginary).

While Aristotle demonstrates the importance of eunomia for fourth-century

political discourse, the spurious Platonic writings provide a helpful defini-

tion. In the Platonic Definitions, eunomia is defined as peitharkhia nomôn

spoudaiôn — the obedience to noble laws.16 This definition is useful precisely

because it captures the two key elements that are emphasized, to varying

degrees, by the concept: first, the principle of law-abidingness; second, the

necessity of good/noble laws.17 Yet, there is also a third element to this definition

11 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1112b14, trans. Irwin.12 Aristotle, Politics 1260b30.13 Herodotus 1.65–6; Thucydides 1.18.6.14 Plato, Crito 52e6–53c3; Plato, Hippias Major 283e9–284d5.15 Plato, Republic 380b8, 462e3, 605b3, 607c6; Plato, Laws 934e1, 950a4–951b7.16 Definitions 413e1.17 Cf. Aristotle, Politics 1294a1 ff.: ‘But eunomia does not exist if the laws, though

well established, are not obeyed. Hence we must take eunomia to exist in one way when


that is crucial for understanding the concept of eunomia. Above, I translated

the word peitharkhia as ‘obedience’, but this leaves out the kind of obedience

the word signifies. The first part of the word derives from peithô, which in its

active sense means ‘to persuade’ and in the middle voice means ‘to obey’. It is

hence an act of obedience that derives from an act of persuasion, and we might

better translate the Platonic definition as ‘the persuasive rule of good laws’.

This matter of translation is important since the term eunomia is almost

always associated with political regimes that are more inclusive than monar-

chy or tyranny.18 Of all the actually-existing poleis and politeiai that are

referred to as eunomoi — Aegina, Corinth, Crete, Locris, Megara, Opous,

Sparta and Thebes — none were monarchies or tyrannies, at least during the

period in which they were noted as possessing eunomia.19 The same is true of

the imaginary poleis that are described as eunomoi — Kallipolis, Magnesia,

the city of Cronus’ Age described in the Laws, the ancient Athenian city men-

tioned in Plato’s Timaeus, and the ‘city of our prayers’ of Aristotle’s Politics

7–8.20

398 J. LOMBARDINI

the established laws are obeyed, and in another when the laws that are in fact obeyed arewell established (for even badly established laws can be obeyed). The second situationcan come about in two ways: people may obey either the best laws possible for them, orthe unqualifiedly best laws’ (Reeve translation). The second scenario supports the ideathat eunomia consists in both having laws that are well established (to kalôs keisthai tousnomous) and the condition of those laws being obeyed. Under the first scenario, how-ever, law-abidingness is a sufficient condition for eunomia, regardless of whether thelaws themselves are good. Reeve, referring to this passage in the glossary to his transla-tion of the Politics, defines eunomia in the following way: ‘a city-state exhibits goodgovernment or is well-governed if it has laws (nomoi) that are in fact obeyed, and theseeither are the best possible for that city-state or constitution or are unqualifiedly best’(252). This seems to ignore the first scenario, which in turn complicates the Platonic defi-nition of eunomia as peitharkhia nomôn spoudaiôn that I take as exemplary. Nonethe-less, it is clear that when he refers to eunomia as the telos of politics, discusses otherregimes that are said to have eunomia, and labels his own ideal polis as eunomos, Aris-totle is employing the conception contained in the second scenario.

18 This reading, I would argue, finds support in the anonymous fifth-century text,preserved in Iamblichus’ Protrepticus, that is commonly referred to under the Latinname Anonymus Iamblichi. See Diels-Kranz 89.7.

19 See Appendix for sources.20 Though there are two passages in Herodotus that constitute possible exceptions,

neither should be taken as such. In relating the story of Deiokes (1.96–99), Herodotusstates that the supporters of Deiokes argued that the Medes would have eunomia if theychose Deiokes as king; the tyranny that follows his appointment, linked with Herodotus’judgment of his harshness, clearly indicates that Herodotus is not assenting to the judg-ment of Deiokes’ supporters. The second passage is less clear. In Book 2, Herodotuswrites: ‘The priests said that as long as Rhampsinitos was king, Egypt was well governedin every respect [pasan eunomiên] and flourished remarkably. But after him Cheopsbecame king, and under his rule the Egyptians suffered all kinds of misfortunes’ (124,trans. Purvis). It suffices to note that here, unlike in his description of the effects of



II.2. Solon

While Aristotle and the Platonic Definitions together offer a working defini-

tion of eunomia as a political principle signifying the persuasive rule of good

laws, Solon’s sixth-century reforms were fundamental in shaping the con-

cept’s meaning and development.21 Before Solon’s reforms in 594 BC, the

territory of Attica was dominated by the aristocratic regime of the Eupatridai.

While very little is known about how the government of the eupatrids func-

tioned, it is presumed, from the evidence we can gather from Solon’s poetry,

that wealthy non-aristocrats were excluded from political power and the

poorer classes were not only excluded, but in some cases enslaved during

times of economic hardship. It was thus these dual forms of domination, eco-

nomic domination over the hektêmoroi (six-parters), who could be and were

sold into slavery to pay off their debts, and political domination over wealthy

non-aristocrats that caused the stasis (civic strife) that Solon describes as

necessitating his reforms.22

In what is perhaps the best-known fragment of his poetry, Solon identifies

the condition in Athens before his reforms with the term Dusnomiê.23 In

Hesiod’s Theogony, where the word is first attested, Dusnomiê is the off-

spring of Night, and the sibling of Nemesis and Eris. In Solon, Dusnomiê also

‘brings the city countless ills (kaka pleista)’,24 but the cause of these ills is

decidedly human: ‘it is the citizens themselves who by their acts of foolish-

ness and subservience to money are willing to destroy a great city’.25 It is the

hubris and excess (koros) of the people’s leaders (dêmou hêgemonôn), more-

over, that have plunged the city into wretched slavery (kakên . . . doulosunên)

and stasis.26 Dusnomiê threatens to tear the entire city apart, and threatens

Lycurgus’ reforms in Sparta, Herodotus does not himself judge Egypt to have enjoyedeunomia under Rhampsinitos; it is the judgment of the Egyptian priests that he is record-ing. In his description of Sparta, in contrast, it is clearly his own judgment that Spartaenjoyed eunomia after Lycurgus’ reforms: ‘in this way, they changed into eunomia(metebalon de hôde es eunomiên; 1.65.2)’.

21 As we will see in the following section, Solon’s reforms and political thought werehighly influential in fourth-century Athens; in this sense, the conceptions of eunomiafound in Aristotle and the Platonic Definitions are highly indebted to various interpreta-tions of Solon’s thought and legacy.

22 For overviews of this historical background, see Ober, Mass and Elite, pp. 55–60;M. Hansen, Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, trans. J.A. Crook (Norman,OK, 1991), pp. 27–9; and R.W. Wallace, ‘Revolutions and a New Order in SolonianAthens and Archaic Greece’, in Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece, ed. K.A.Raaflaub, J. Ober and R.W. Wallace (Berkeley, 2007), pp. 49–82, pp. 49–51.

23 Solon, fr. 4, 31.24 Ibid.25 Ibid., 5–6. All translations from Solon are taken from the Loeb edition of D.E.

Gerber.26 Ibid., 7–19.


each and every citizen: ‘and so the public evil comes home to each man and

the courtyard gates no longer have the will to hold it back’.27 Eunomiê, in con-

trast, ‘reveals all that is orderly and fitting, and often places fetters round the

unjust. She makes the rough smooth, dries up the blooming flowers of ruin,

straightens out crooked judgments, tames deeds of pride, and puts an end to

acts of sedition and to the anger of grievous strife’ (eridos cholon).28

Solon’s key reforms — the elimination of the Eupatrid’s monopoly on

political power and the liberation and limited enfranchisement of poorer citi-

zens — are both geared towards constraining the excess of elites that created

Dusnomiê and, in doing so, creating Eunomiê. First, Solon divided the

population of Attica into four property classes based on annual agricultural

production: (1) the pentakosiomedimnoi (500 bushels); (2) the hippeis (300);

(3) the zeugites (200); and the thetes (under 200). Under his reforms, mem-

bers of the first two census classes could hold the office of archon (the chief

magistracies of the city), which in turn made them eligible (contingent upon

successfully passing the euthunê at the end of their one-year term) to serve on

the Areopagus Council (which was given general oversight of the laws).29

Solon’s reforms thus made Athens’ politeia more inclusive by changing the

qualification for high office from noble birth to wealth. Second, Solon elimi-

nated the practice of debt bondage, thereby redefining the Athenian political

community.30 From now on, no citizen could be deprived of his free status for

economic reasons, thus establishing certain minimal rights as a prerogative of

citizen birth.31 Along with the elimination of debt bondage came increased

political power for the poorer classes; in particular, Solon created a new court

(Heliaia) where citizens could appeal the rulings of magistrates, and he made

it possible for any citizen who was willing (ho boulomenos) to initiate a crimi-

nal prosecution.32

The constraints on elite power, combined with the expansion of the politi-

cal power of the masses, is perhaps one reason why fourth-century writers

would praise Solon as the founder of Athenian dêmokratia.33 Nevertheless, it

400 J. LOMBARDINI

27 Ibid., 23–5.28 Ibid., 35–8. In Hesiod, Eunomiê is likewise the daughter of Zeus and Themis, and

the sister of Justice and Peace (901–2).29 While this reform did restrain the power of the traditional elite, it also helped to

alleviate stasis between traditional elites and the wealthy classes by co-opting the latter.On this point, see Ober, Mass and Elite, p. 61.

30 R. Balot, Greek Political Thought (Oxford, 2006), p. 44.31 Ober, Mass and Elite, p. 62; Balot, Greek Political Thought, p. 44.32 Hansen, Athenian Democracy, p. 30.33 This point will be discussed more fully in the following section. It finds its strong-

est proponent in the Aristotelian Athenaiôn Politeia (hereafter Ath. Pol.), where theauthor, commenting on Solon’s creation of the Heliaia, observes ‘for when the peopleare masters of the vote they are masters of the constitution’ (9.1). Kurt Raaflaub offers anupdated version of this principle in arguing that Athens became a democracy only with



is clear that Solon understood his reforms as striking a hierarchical balance

between the interests of the elite and those of the masses:

I have given the masses as much privilege as is sufficient, neither takingaway from their honour nor adding to it. And as for those who had powerand were envied for their wealth, I saw to it that they too should suffer noindignity. I stood with a mighty shield cast round both sides and did notallow either to have an unjust victory.34

Likewise, he claims that he ‘wrote laws for the upper and lower classes alike,

providing a straight legal process for each person’,35 and he describes himself

as having ‘stood in no-man’s land (en metaichmiôi) between them like a

boundary marker’.36 This balancing constrained not only the excess of elites,

but the masses as well. Along these lines, Solon notes that ‘if another had

taken up the goad as I did . . . he would not have restrained the masses’;37 in

other words, he might have given in to the popular demand for property

redistribution (oude piei[r]ês chthonos patridos kakoisin esthlous isomoiriên

echein).38 Doing so, however, would have risked upsetting the balance Solon’s

reforms attempted to create between granting the masses too much freedom

and subjecting them to too much restraint; to accede to their demands for

property redistribution might begin to breed in them the same hubris that had

infected the elite.39

The success of this balanced order is crucially tied to the persuasiveness of

Solon’s reforms. On this point, an anecdote from Plutarch’s Life of Solon is

illustrative:

Anacharsis . . . on learning what Solon was about, laughed at him for think-ing that he could check the injustice and rapacity of the citizens by writtenlaws, which were just like spiders’ webs; they would hold the weak anddelicate who might be caught in their meshes, but would be torn in pieces bythe rich and powerful. To this Solon is said to have answered that men keeptheir agreements with each other when neither party profits by the breakingof them, and he was adapting his laws to the citizens in such a manner as to

Ephialtes’ reforms of the Areopagus in the mid-fifth century. See K. Raaflaub, ‘TheBreakthrough of Dêmokratia in Mid-Fifth-Century Athens’, in Origins of Democracy,ed. Raaflaub, Ober and Wallace, pp. 105–54.

34 Solon, fr. 5.35 Ibid., fr. 36, 18–19.36 Ibid., fr. 37, 8–9. On this final point, see N. Loraux, ‘Solon au Milieu de la Lice’, in

Aux Origines de L’Hellénisme: La Crète et la Grèce (Paris, 1984), pp. 199–214.37 Solon, fr. 36, 20–22.38 Ibid., fr. 34, 8–9.39 Ibid., fr. 6. On Solon’s refusal to grant isomoiria and its connection to his concep-

tion of political justice, see G. Vlastos, ‘Solonian Justice’, Classical Philology, 41 (2)(1946), pp. 65–83, pp. 78–82.


make it clear to all that the practice of justice was more advantageous thanthe transgression of the laws.40

It is Solon’s poems about his reforms that demonstrate the advantageousness

of following the laws; in this respect, the poems themselves function as a form

of civic exhortation.41 Performed for the elite audience that he hoped his

reforms would restrain, his poetry illustrates that in harming their polis, these

elites are also acting contrary to their own self-interest, rightly understood.

This logic is especially clear in his equation of the enslavement of poor citi-

zens with the enslavement of the entire polis.42 In this sense, the coercive

force of his laws is closely connected with the persuasive force of his poetry;

rather than accepting tyrannical rule, he preferred to blend force and justice

(biên te kai dikên ksunarmosas).43

In sum, we can see how Solon’s reforms exemplified the idea of eunomia as

the persuasive rule of good laws. Solon’s laws are good because they create a

just balance between the interests of mass and elite, giving each its due. They thus

maintain a natural hierarchy between the good (agathoi) and bad (kakoi).44

This balance, in turn, creates the conditions for social order; both mass and

elite will obey the laws because they are advantageous to both parties. This

conception of good order (eunomia), as I will illustrate in the following sec-

tion, was influential amongst the different strands of political thought in the

fourth century.

II.3. Eunomia in the Fourth Century

Fourth-century Athens experienced a renaissance of Solonian political thought,

one that has often been attributed to the process of codifying Athenian law

that began in the late fifth century. As mentioned above, Aristotle, writing in

the late 340s/early 330s BC, identifies eunomia as the goal that all politicians

strive to achieve; it is also the term used to classify regimes that are thought to

be the best in Book 2 of the Politics, and the self-declared goal of the ideal

regime he discusses in Books 7 and 8.45 In the dialogues of Plato, however, the

402 J. LOMBARDINI

40 Plutarch, Life of Solon, 5.2–3, trans. Perrin.41 E. Irwin, Solon and Early Greek Poetry (Cambridge, 2005), p. 105.42 Solon, fr. 36, 3–6; cf. fr. 4c. On this point, see Vlastos, ‘Solonian Justice’, pp. 73–4.43 Solon, fr. 36, 16.44 Ibid., 18.45 While Aristotle does not explicitly state this at the beginning of Book 7, it can be

inferred from later passages. In discussing the size of his ideal regime, for example, hestates that it is evident that an over-populated city cannot be well-ordered (hoti chalepon,isôs d’ adunaton, eunomeisthai tên lian poluanthrôpôn, 1326a26–7; cf. 1326a29–32).Again, in discussing his city’s access to the sea he notes ‘there is much disagreement con-cerning whether proximity to the sea is beneficial or harmful to well-governed cities’(peri de tês pros tên thalattan koinônias, poteron ôphelimos tais eunomoumenais polesinê blabera, polla tugchanousin amphisbêtountes, 1327a11–13).



connections to Solon’s political thought resonate even more clearly. In the

Laws, both the discussion of Athens’ ancestral constitution and the institu-

tions of the city of Magnesia are indebted to elements of Solon’s reforms. The

Athenian Stranger, for example, praises the division of Athens into four

property classes and recommends such a policy for the city he is founding.

Moreover, the chief magistrates in Magnesia are called nomophulakes (guard-

ians of the laws), which was a function widely attributed to the Solonian

Areopagus by writers in the fourth century.46

It is not only the institutions of Magnesia, however, that echo Solon’s

reforms, but the conception of political order that animates the city’s founda-

tion. The Athenian Stranger describes the ideal constitution (politeias) as

holding the middle ground (meseuein) between a monarchical and a demo-

cratic regime.47 Navigating this middle ground requires balancing, according

to the principle of due measure (to metrion), the need for two different types

of equality. The first type of equality is equality determined by measure,

weight and number, and can be created by using the lot. The second type of

equality, which the Athenian regards as ‘the truest and best equality’ (tên de

alêthestatên kai aristên isotêta), entails giving more to the greater and less to

the smaller (tôi men gar meidzoni pleiô, tôi d’ ellatoni smikrotera nemei).48 In

contrast to the first type of equality, this second type of equality distributes,

according to reason, what is fitting to each (to prepon hekaterois aponemei

kata logon); it is this type of equality that constitutes political justice (esti gar

dê pou kai to politikon hêmin aei tout’ auto to dikaion) and must be employed

as a guide to legislation. The first type of equality, however, still has a place in

Magnesia: it can be used to quell the discontent of the masses, but should be

employed only sparingly.

In distinguishing between these two different types of equality — a divi-

sion in keeping with the fourth-century distinction some Greek thinkers drew

between arithmetical and geometrical forms of equality49 — the Athenian

Stranger illustrates the conception of social order underpinning the founda-

tion of the city of Magnesia. By making this second, proportional, type of

equality the foundation of political justice, he seeks to create social order in

Magnesia by balancing the differentially weighted interests of the city’s sepa-

rate classes. Just as Solon sought to give both mass and elite their due portion

in accordance with justice, the Athenian Stranger seeks to balance the shares

that rich and poor will hold in the city as a means towards creating and

46 On these Solonian echoes in the Laws, see G. Morrow, Plato’s Cretan City(Princeton, 1960), pp. 83–5; Monoson, Entanglements, pp. 235–6, rightly notes the con-nection between Solon as theôros and the institutionalization of the theôria in Magnesia.

47 Plato, Laws 756e9–10.48 Ibid., 757c1–2.49 On the origin and evolution of this distinction, see F.D. Harvey, ‘Two Kinds of

Equality’, Classica et Mediaevalia, 26 (1965), pp. 101–46 and 27 (1966), pp. 99–100.


maintaining social and political order. Magnesia will possess eunomia by

unequally distributing political power to the different classes that compose it,

doing so in a way that is proportional to their status in the city.50

While Magnesia will be well-ordered — it will possess eunomia — by bal-

ancing the interests of its different political classes, it is also meant to be

well-ordered in the sense that its citizens will be law-abiding. They will be

law-abiding, in part, because Magnesia will have good laws — laws that care

for (melein) the common interest (to koinon) and direct citizens to do the

same.51 It is also, however, the manner by which laws are promulgated in the

city that will create this ethos of law-abidingness. The crucial point here is the

role that persuasion plays in the process of legislation for the Athenian

Stranger, enshrined in the preambles that are attached to the city’s laws. The

need to preface the laws with such preambles — a measure that conjoins

persuasion and coercion as two separate, but equally necessary, modes of

enforcement — is explicated through an analogy the Athenian makes to the

practice of medicine. According to current medical practice, the Athenian

explains, sick individuals are treated differently depending on whether they

are free or slaves. Slaves are normally treated by other slaves. These slave

doctors neither give nor receive an account (logon) of the illness afflicting

their patient; they order (prostaksas) their patients to take a certain course of

treatment, just as a tyrant would order his subjects. Free men, in contrast, are

cared for by free doctors who both learn about and learn from their patients.

Such doctors attempt to teach (didaskei) their patients, and do not give orders

until they have persuaded them in some way (kai ou proteron epetaksen prin

an pêi sumpeisêi). Just as a free doctor mixes persuasion with coercion in

caring for a free patient, the legislators of Magnesia do the same in affixing

preambles to the laws. In so doing, they not only construct a form of rule that

is fitting for free citizens, but also one that educates those citizens as a means

towards ensuring their law-abidingness. As the Athenian explains, the pream-

bles are intended to predispose citizens to look more favourably upon the laws

and, by learning from them, to be persuaded to obey them.52 In this sense, the

404 J. LOMBARDINI

50 There are a number of different institutions in Magnesia that reflect this principle:(1) voting for the Council is compulsory across the board for the members of the first twoproperty classes (they are fined if they do not vote), while members of the third and fourthclasses are partially exempt from such fines for nonparticipation (756); (2) attendance atthe ekklesia is compulsory for members of the first two classes, but optional for membersof the third and fourth (764a ff.); (3) the lower classes are given a share in jury trials, how-ever, since those who do not have a share in judging trials will think that they are not partof the city at all (dei de dê kai tôn idiôn dikôn koinônein kata dunamin hapantas. ho garakoinônêtos ôn eksousias tou sundikadzein hêgeitai to parapan tês poleôs ou metokhoseinai; 768a–c).

51 Plato, Laws 875a ff.52 Ibid., 722e–723a. On the role of persuasion in the Laws, see H. Yunis, Taming

Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens (Ithaca, 1996), pp. 227–36,



need for the laws to be persuasive can also be viewed, as illustrated in the pre-

vious section, as having a Solonian precedent.

While the Solonian echoes throughout Plato’s Laws demonstrate the con-

tinued salience of Solon’s vision of eunomia in fourth-century political

thought, this ongoing relevance was hardly confined to philosophy. Outside

Plato, we see a renewed interest in Solon as the founding father of Athenian

democracy in the Attic orators and the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. At the same time,

however, this Solonian democracy is importantly distinct from its more radical

fifth-century counterpart. As Claude Mossé argues, the ancestral constitution

that was believed, in the fourth century, to have been founded by Solon was:

a democracy that was not the radical and excessive regime denounced bythe philosophers, but a wise and stable regime, which, while respecting thesovereignty of the demos, ensured that it was contained within strict limits,by means of a skillful blending which made it the prototype of that miktepoliteia, that mixed constitution which was to be one of the favourite sub-jects of political discourse in the Hellenistic age.53

In a similar vein, M.H. Hansen argues that the portrait of Solonian democ-

racy that we find in Isocrates and Aristotle looks very much like an indirect/

representative democracy, one where the powers of the dêmos would be

restricted to the election and scrutiny of magistrates.54 While the dêmos would

still exercise kratos, such power would be mediated through elected officials

and the institution of the Areopagus.

Amongst orators who are less critical of Athenian democracy, such as

Demosthenes and Aeschines, the term eunomia most often designates a sense

of law-abidingness that is compatible with Athens’ democratic regime, even

if Athens and its citizens are not always held as exemplifying this principle.

While Aeschines, for example, notes that the real strength of Athens’ democ-

racy lies in being ruled by the law (eunomêsthe) and not being undermined by

those who contravene the laws (mê kataluêsthe hupo tôn paranomountôn),55

he also compares his contemporary Athens with the Athens of old that

was better governed than it is now (hot’ eunomeito mallon hê polis).56 Demos-

thenes, who cites Solon’s Eunomia as a means of rebuking Aeschines for

which provides a detailed analysis of the preambles. C. Bobonich, Plato’s Utopia Recast(Oxford, 2002), pp. 97–106, offers an excellent discussion of the moral psychologyimplicit in both the preambles and the Laws in general.

53 C. Mossé, ‘How a Political Myth Takes Shape: Solon, “Founding Father” of Athe-nian Democracy’, in Athenian Democracy, ed. P.J. Rhodes (Oxford, 2004), pp. 242–59,p. 243.

54 M.H. Hansen, ‘Solonian Democracy in Fourth-Century Athens’, Classical etMediaevalia, 40 (1989), pp. 71–99, p. 96.

55 Aeschines, 1.5.56 Ibid., 3.154.


allegedly accepting a bribe from Philip of Macedon,57 and generally praises

the principle of eunomia,58 also holds up the city of Locris, whose citizens

have only introduced one new law in the past two hundred years, as an exam-

ple of an eunomos polis for the Athenians to imitate. Finally, the orator

Lycurgus advises his fellow citizens that it is good to take good examples

from a city that is well-governed, even if this city happens to be Sparta (kalon

gar est’ ek poleôs eunomoumenês peri tôn dikaiôn paradeigmata lambanein).59

In short, while the principle of eunomia is viewed as compatible with Athens’

democratic form of governance, it is still exemplified by non-democratic

cities such as Sparta.

In sum, in fourth-century political discourse, we can clearly see the force of

Aristotle’s claim that eunomia is the aim of politics. Across the political spec-

trum, from the elite regime of Plato’s Laws to the oligarchic-leaning political

programme of Isocrates to the more democratically-minded speeches of

Aeschines and Demosthenes, eunomia is conceptualized in relationship with

the legacy of Solon’s reforms. Viewed from different perspectives, we can

either classify this phenomenon as a democratic co-optation of the principle

of eunomia by writers like Demosthenes and Aeschines, or as an attempt by

elites to make the principle of eunomia more palatable by tempering it with

democratic institutions (Magnesia is intended to be, after all, a mixture of

democracy and monarchy).60 To varying degrees, however, the principle of

eunomia continues to be associated, primarily, with non-democratic regimes.

IIIIsonomia

III.1. Dêmokratia and Disorder

In his fifth-century pamphlet on the Constitution of the Athenians, the writer

commonly known as the Old Oligarch sets up a direct contrast between

eunomia and dêmokratia, one that provides a useful starting point for discuss-

ing the relationship between isonomia and both of these concepts. The Old

Oligarch begins his treatise by stating that he does not praise the Athenians in

406 J. LOMBARDINI

57 Demosthenes, 19.255.58 Ibid., 25.11.59 Lycurgus, 1.128.60 The case of Isocrates is a bit more complicated. While Isocrates does not use

eunomia or any of its cognates to describe the type of dêmokratia he articulates in theAreopagiticus, he does use isonomia (20). At the same time, however, he uses isonomiato describe the Spartan regime in the Panathenaicus (178). This tension tracks the ques-tion of how democratic Isocrates’ vision of ancestral democracy actually is. As notedabove (fn. 54), Hansen argues, based on Aristotle’s identification of a similar regime as aform of democracy, that it constitutes an indirect/representative form of democracy. Fora dissenting argument, see Ober, Political Dissent, pp. 285–6.



their choice of constitution (politeia), since they have placed the base (tous

ponêrous) above the nobles (tous chrêstous). Nonetheless, he does praise

Athens’ democratic institutions as just (dikaios) since it is the dêmos, rather

than the upper classes, that mans Athens’ ships and constitutes her power

(dunamin); for this reason, it is fitting that the lower classes have a greater

share in political power than the better classes. He further commends their

decision to allow everyone to speak and to deliberate, since this policy is an

effective strategy for preserving their democracy.61 Since democracy, in the

Old Oligarch’s estimation, is the rule of the poor, it is by further empowering

this class — by allowing them the political power to pursue and secure their

interests — that the city remains a democracy.

Despite this praise of the Athenians’ ability to preserve their democracy,

the Old Oligarch is clear that these practices are not suited to creating the best

form of constitution. Rather, he observes that ‘the dêmos does not want to be

enslaved while living in a well-ordered city (eunomoumenês tês poleôs), but it

wants to be free (eleutheros) and to rule (archein), and it does not care about

bad order (tês de kakonomias autôi oligon melei). For that which you consider

to be not well-ordered (ho gar su nomidzeis ouk eunomeisthai), from this the

dêmos itself is made strong and free’.62 From this perspective, Athenian

democracy is an explicit rejection of the principle of eunomia. This is further

evident from the Old Oligarch’s programme for creating eunomia: ‘if you

seek eunomia, you will first see the most skillful among them setting the laws;

then, the nobles (hoi chrêstoi) will restrain the base (tous ponêrous) and the

nobles will make decisions about the city’s affairs and not permit madmen to

give advice nor speak nor attend meetings of the assembly’.63 Since these poli-

cies, he continues, would amount to the virtual enslavement of the dêmos,

they are rejected by the Athenians. For the Old Oligarch, however, the dêmos

is more concerned with its freedom and power than with having a well-

ordered constitution.

We find a similar connection between democracy and disorder in Socrates’

critique of democracy in the Republic, but in Plato this disorder is directly

linked to isonomia. In Book 8, Adeimantus identifies Socrates’ description of

the democratic man as the ‘life of some isonomic man’ (bion isonomikou tinos

andros).64 Such a man, Socrates says:

sometimes . . . drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, hedrinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical train-ing; at other times, he’s idle and neglects everything; and sometimes heeven occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He oftenengages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever

61 Old Oligarch, Constitution of the Athenians, 1.6–7.62 Ibid., 1.8.63 Ibid., 1.9.64 Plato, Republic 561e1–2.


comes into his mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he’s carried in thatdirection, if money-makers, in that one. There’s neither order nor necessityin his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he followsit for as long as he lives.65

Here, unconstrained isonomia leads to a complete lack of deference and a

complete lack of order.66 As Vlastos puts it, it signifies, in this passage,

‘equality denying priority to excellence, putting the worst on the level with

the best’.67 This pernicious form of equality, moreover, pervades all aspects of

the democrat’s life, from the public selection of magistrates by lot to his pri-

vate pursuit of his desires.

If we look more closely at the concept of isonomia, however, it is clear that

Athenian democracy was not a rejection of the idea of good government, even

if it did, in fact, stand in tension with the principle of eunomia. As discussed in

the previous section, eunomia did not merely signify good government, but a

particular vision of what constituted a good political order: a non-tyrannical,

hierarchically-organized political system that unequally distributed political

power amongst differentiated social classes, balanced that power in such a

way as to produce law abidingness and harmony among and between citizens,

and was ruled through a combination of persuasion and coercion. While this

subordination of the dêmos is incompatible with the power (kratos) of the

dêmos signified by dêmokratia, the principle of isonomia articulated a con-

ception of good order that was at once a form of equal order; it signified that

the balance of forces created through an equal order was more stable than

the stability created through the hierarchical arrangements associated with

eunomia. By drawing out the implications of this concept, it is possible to

reconstruct how an Athenian democrat might have responded to the charge

that dêmokratia was opposed to good order.

III.2. Isonomia, Dêmokratia and the Public Sphere

Herodotus provides the most thorough examination of isonomia in our extant

sources, and it is his use of the term that best reveals its connection to the con-

cept of dêmokratia. In Book 3 of the Histories, the Persian Otanes advocates

for the rule of the multitude (plêthos arkhon), which he says has the most

beautiful of all names — isonomia.68 While Otanes never uses the word

408 J. LOMBARDINI

65 Ibid., 561c7–d8, trans. Reeve.66 On disorder as a central feature of Socrates’ critique of democracy in Book 8, see

A. Saxonhouse, ‘Democracy, Equality, and Eidê: A Radical View from Book 8 of Plato’sRepublic’, American Political Science Review, 92 (2) (1998), pp. 273–83, pp. 279–83.

67 G. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia politikê’, in Isonomia: Studien zur Gleichheitsvorstellungim Griechischen Denken, ed. J. Mau (Berlin, 1964), pp. 1–36, p. 27.

68 Herodotus, Histories 3.80.



dêmokratia to refer to the regime type he is advocating,69 Herodotus himself

later states that Otanes was arguing for a democratic form of government (hôs

chreon eiê dêmokrateesthai).70 Moreover, the institutions Otanes describes

are most consistent with a democratic form of government: use of the lot to fill

offices; accountability of magistrates; and public deliberations about com-

mon matters.71

In three of the four passages where isonomia is used in Herodotus, the term

is accompanied by the abstraction es meson: ‘into the middle’. In Book 3,

Herodotus prefaces Otanes’ speech with the following: ‘he urged them to

place affairs among the Persians in the middle’ (ekeleue es meson Persêisi

katatheinai ta prêgmata).72 Later in the same book, Maeandrius of Samos,

renouncing the tyranny of Polycrates, declares ‘I, placing rule in the middle,

declare isonomia among you’ (egô de es meson tên arkhên titheis isonomiên

humin proagoreuô).73 Though most translators render es meson as indicating

some general notion of the entire population, Andrea Purvis translates the

term in the second passage directly as ‘the public’.74 This translation of es

meson as ‘the public’ provides a useful starting point for thinking about the

connections between isonomia, dêmokratia and es meson, though, as I hope to

demonstrate, it can also possess the more specific sense of a social space for

contestation.

In Homer, to place something es meson is to put it into an autonomous

social space, one that is free from the permanent and/or complete control of

any individual or faction. In the Iliad, this space is constructed in terms of

69 This is probably due to the pejorative origins of dêmokratia (understood as thedomination/power (kratos) of the poor majority (i.e. dêmos taken in its non-holisticsense). Ober (‘The Original Meaning of “Democracy” ’, p. 7) argues, in contrast, that thispejorative meaning is a diminution of the original meaning of dêmokratia as the ‘demos’collective capacity to do things in the public realm’. Whether the pejorative meaning pre-ceded the positive meaning, or vice-versa, the pejorative connotation the word wouldhave had for supporters of oligarchy and monarchy (like Megabyzus and Darius)explains why Otanes would have avoided the term. I have more to say concerning Ober’saccount of dêmokratia below.

70 Herodotus, Histories 6.43.3.71 Ibid., 3.80.6.72 Ibid., 3.80.2.73 Ibid., 3.142.3.74 Ibid., 3.80.2: ‘Otanes was for giving the government to the whole body of the Per-

sian people’ (Godley); ‘The first speaker was Otanes, and his theme was to recommendthe establishment in Persia of popular government’ (de Sélincourt); ‘Otanes proposedthat power should be entrusted to the main body of the Persians’ (Grene); ‘Otanesencouraged them to place the government in the hands of all the Persians’ (Purvis). Ibid.,3.142.3: ‘I call you to share all power, and I proclaim equality’ (Godley); ‘and to pro-claim you equal before the law’ (de Selincourt); ‘and I proclaim equality before the lawfor the commonalty entire’ (Grene); ‘I am placing the government in the hands of thepublic, and I proclaim that equality under the law is now yours’ (Purvis).


physical combat. In Book 6, Glaucus and Diomedes do battle in the middle of

the two armies; i.e. es meson here signifies the space controlled by neither the

Achaeans nor the Trojans (Glaukos d’ Hippolokhoio pais kai Tudeos huios es

meson amphoterôn sunitên memaôte makhesthai).75 Likewise, in Book 20,

Aeneas and Achilles are described as coming es meson to do battle (duo d’

aneres eksokh’ aristoi es meson amphoterôn sunitên memaôte makhesthai

Aineias t’ Agkhisiadês kai dios Akhilleus).76 Finally, during the funeral games

for Patroclus, Diomedes and Ajax are also described as coming together es

meson for battle (es meson amphoterôn sunitên memaôte makhesthai).77

While es meson in these passages signifies the physical space in which two

combatants meet, it also symbolizes the social space of contestation — a

space that is up for contestation precisely because it is under no one’s control.

Elsewhere in Herodotus, es meson can either signify the public in general

or, more specifically, a place for deliberation. In the former sense, es meson is

used to indicate that someone is addressing the public: a herald is said to stand

es meson as he makes a proclamation to the Persian camp (proêgoreue stas es

meson);78 Cleisthenes (the grandfather of the Athenian reformer) is described

as speaking es meson in addressing the crowd at a public feast in Sicyon

(elekse es meson);79 finally, Herodotus himself offers the following gnomic

saying: ‘if every human being should collect his afflictions and bring them

together in public (es meson), intending to exchange them for those of this

neighbors, each one would stoop down to examine the afflictions of others,

but would then gladly carry away the ones he had brought there himself’.80

In the latter sense, something is placed es meson when it is intended as a

matter of discussion and debate: Cyrus summons the leading men of the Per-

sians and places an issue es meson, so that they can advise him about what

he should do (sunageiras de toutous es meson sphi proetithee to prêgma,

sumbouleuomenos hokotera poiêi);81 after the speeches conclude in the debate

between Otanes, Megabyzus and Darius in Book 3, Otanes proposes a deal to

the other two that ensures he will be free from both ruling and being ruled, and

he places this offer es meson (hôs de hessôthê têi gnômêi ho Otanês Persêisi

isonomiên speudôn poiêsai, elekse es meson autoisi tade);82 finally, Xerxes,

soliciting advice about his invasion of Greece, announces ‘but so that I should

not seem to be the kind of man who makes plans all by himself (idiobouleein),

I now set the matter before you for open discussion (tithêmi to prêgma es

410 J. LOMBARDINI

75 Homer, Iliad 6.119–20.76 Ibid., 20.158–60.77 Ibid., 23.814.78 Herodotus, Histories 3.62.1.79 Ibid., 6.130.1.80 Ibid., 7.152.2, trans. Purvis.81 Ibid., 1.206.3.82 Ibid., 3.83.1.



meson), and bid any of you who wishes to do so to reveal his own opinion’.83

This idea of placing something es meson as a matter for deliberation mirrors

the sense of contestation the phrase conveys in the Iliad; just as no one con-

trols what is es meson in the Iliad, all have a share in deciding what is placed

es meson in Herodotus.

As indicated in the previous paragraph, the phrase es meson is also associ-

ated with monarchies and in these instances the idea of the public it conveys

takes on a different association. Es meson is used on a number of occasions in

Herodotus when something is brought before the Persian king: Herodotus

writes that Democedes of Croton is brought es meson when Darius orders his

presence, and he is described as standing es meson when he addresses the king

(parêgon es meson; stathenta es meson);84 Syloson of Samos stands es meson

when speaking to Darius;85 and Koes of Lesbos says that he is bringing his

opinion es meson in advising Darius to leave his bridge over the Ister standing

after the Persian army has crossed (es meson pherô).86 In these passages, it is

the presence of the king that brings this public, social space into being and it is

the king himself who possesses this space.

This last point will become clearer if we compare the examples where

Darius and Xerxes each place an issue (to prêgma) es meson (discussed

above) to two further examples from Herodotus: Demonax’s reforms in

Cyrene and Cadmos’ abdication of tyranny in Kos. Following stasis in

Cyrene, the Cyrenaeans ask the Delphic oracle what kind of constitution they

could set up in order to live the best life (hontina tropon katastêsamenoi kal-

lista an oikeoien),87 and the Pythia responds by ordering them to bring in a

mediator (kataartistêra) from Mantinea. The Mantineans send their most dis-

tinguished citizen, Demonax, who, though setting aside for the king his sacred

lands and a priesthood, ‘placed all the other things previously held by the

kings es meson for the dêmos’.88 In Kos, Cadmos voluntarily abdicates his

83 Ibid., 7.8.�.2, trans. Purvis.84 Ibid., 3.129.3–130.1.85 Ibid., 3.140.3.86 Ibid., 4.97.5.87 Ibid., 4.161.1.88 Ibid., 4.161.3. In some respects, Demonax might be considered a forerunner of

Cleisthenes, especially since a key aspect of his reforms involved creating three newtribes in Cyrene. Ostwald disagrees, arguing that the problems to which these new tribalorganizations were the solutions differed: ‘For while Demonax was faced with the prob-lem of integrating into the citizen body recent immigrants who had not been absorbedinto the three Doric tribes, in which the first settlers were presumably organized,Cleisthenes’ problem was to bring together different regional and economic interests inthe same tribe by means of his trittyes so as to eliminate rivalries that might lead to sta-sis.’ See Ostwald, Nomos, p. 164. Nonetheless, the principle behind Demonax’s tribalreorganization appears quite similar to that of Cleisthenes: to balance political interestsin such a way that stasis could be avoided.


tyranny and places rule es meson for the Koans (es meson Kôioisi katatheis

tên arkhên).89 In both of these cases, the individual placing something es

meson does not maintain control over this space: both Demonax and Cadmos

leave after their reforms are initiated. In this sense, the reforms of Demonax

and Cadmos resemble those of Maeandrius and Otanes; Maeandrius, like

Cadmos, places the archê es meson, indicating that rule will no longer be the

sole possession of one individual, but will be a public possession.

In contrast, when Darius and Xerxes place an issue (to prêgma) es meson,

they still retain control over what it is permissible for others to share and dis-

cuss. Unlike Otanes’ democratic proposal, which calls for placing all affairs

(ta prêgmata) es meson where they will be openly contested and deliberated

upon by the multitude, Darius and Xerxes only allow some issues to be

debated and, even then, each retains the ultimate authority to decide the issue

at hand on their own. This is especially clear in the case of Xerxes since he

explicitly states that his goal in allowing the strategy behind the invasion to be

discussed is so that he will not seem (hina de mê . . . humin dokeô) to make

plans all by himself; nonetheless, all affairs remain under his control, whether

he allows certain issues to be discussed or not. Under a monarchy or tyranny,

public deliberation is a privilege that the ruler can extend, but also take away.

The implications of this comparison for the connections between isonomia,

es meson and democracy should now be clear. To place rule (archê) or politi-

cal affairs (ta pragmata) es meson creates the conditions for popular govern-

ment, since this transfer simultaneously recreates the public sphere. When a

monarch places an issue (to prêgma) es meson it is radically different from

placing rule or all political affairs es meson: in the former case, es meson indi-

cates a public social space that is brought into being by the king’s authority; in

the latter case, however, it signifies a democratic social space, since no one

possesses rule. It is hence a site of full contestation and deliberation. As

Theseus declares in Euripides’ Suppliant Women, ‘Freedom is this: who has

some useful counsel and wants to bring it es meson’?90 It is the creation of this

type of democratic social space that isonomia represents. As J.P. Vernant

writes, articulating the relationship between Cleisthenes’ reforms and isonomia,

‘archê was no longer concentrated in a single figure at the apex of the social

structure, but was distributed equally throughout the entire realm of public

life, in that common space where the city had its center, its meson’.91 This

‘equalization of archê’ was thus at the core of the concept of isonomia, and

closely tied the concept with democracy.92

412 J. LOMBARDINI

89 Herodotus, Histories 7.164.1.90 Euripides, Suppliant Women, 438–9.91 J.P. Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought (Ithaca, 1982), p. 101.92 While Herodotus provides us with an analysis of isonomia that is closely linked

with dêmokratia, it is important to note that the term was also applied to non-democraticregimes during the classical period (see Thuc. 3.63.2; Isoc. Pan. 178; and Plat. Menex.



III.3. Isonomia and Democratic Order

The above analysis allows us to see how isonomia signifies an equal distribu-

tion of political power, or, as Vlastos puts it, ‘equality maintained through the

law’.93 At the same time, however, isonomia does not only stand for equality;

it also represents a type of balanced order that is created through the equal dis-

tribution of political power. While both isonomia and eunomia, then, indicate

a balance between opposing forces, the balance contained in isonomia is

achieved through arithmetical, rather than geometrical, equality.94 In this

sense, the balance of forces connected with isonomia also implies a concep-

tion of order, one that we might signal with the phrase ‘equal order’ to distin-

guish it from the ‘good order’ normally associated with eunomia. Doing so

both emphasizes the conceptual break between eunomia and isonomia, while

allowing us to see what a democratic response to the charge that democracy

bred disorder might have looked like.

239a3, Ep. 7.326d5, 336d4). This raises the question of whether Herodotus’ analysis ofisonomia, and in particular the robust connection that analysis provides betweenisonomia and dêmokratia, is representative of the term’s more general usage during thisperiod. Though a detailed analysis of these passages is beyond the scope of this article,I would argue (following Vlastos, ‘Isonomia politikê’, pp. 13–33) that these non-democratic usages reinforce the primary connection between isonomia and dêmokratia.Isocrates’ use of isonomia in the Panathenaicus is a good case in point. There, he uses theterm to describe post-Lycurgan Sparta: ‘So the Spartans did not do this but rather estab-lished for themselves the kind of isonomia and democracy that those who are alwaysgoing to agree ought to have, and they made the people into serfs, enslaving their souls noless than the souls of actual slaves’ (178; Papillon translation, emphasis my own).Though Isocrates applies both isonomia and dêmokratia to Lycurgan Sparta, he impor-tantly qualifies the application of the former. Sparta, he writes, possessed a kind of[toiautên] isonomia and democracy, one where political equality was limited to theSpartiate class. By implication, it would seem that an unqualified form of isonomiawould indicate the extension of political equality to the entire dêmos (as we see the termused in Herodotus), rather than just a smaller subclass. Isocrates’ use of isonomia, thus,appears as an attempt to co-opt, and in doing so, moderate, the primary, more democratic,understanding of isonomia on display in Herodotus.

93 Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 350–1.94 To frame the difference in terms of the distinction between arithmetical and

geometrical forms of equality, however, is to presumptively grant the oligarchic claim —made possible by the ability to render to ison as either ‘fair’ or ‘equal’ — that geo-metrical equality is a truer form of equality. As Harvey notes, citing Aristotle, Politics1301a26–b4, ‘the importance of this passage is that it tells us that equality was the watch-word of democrats, and inequality of oligarchs. Not, of course, that oligarchs would havesaid openly “Inequality is a splendid thing” — the whole theory of geometric proportionis a subtle attempt to avoid doing just that, an attempt to call inequality “true equality” —but rather that their practice presupposes such an attitude’. See Harvey, ‘Two Kinds ofEquality’, p. 118. A democrat would have simply said that the balance of forces associ-ated with isonomia was achieved through equality, while noting that geometrical equal-ity was really inequality under another name.


As was demonstrated in Section II.2, the type of order represented by

Solonian eunomia is a hierarchical one; as Vernant puts it, ‘the city formed an

organized whole, a cosmos, which was harmonious if each of its constituent

parts was in its place and had the share of power it was due by virtue of its own

quality’.95 In contrast, the order generated under an isonomic relationship is

created through equality. This was reflected in both cosmological and medi-

cal theories of the sixth and fifth centuries. In Anaximander, as Vernant dem-

onstrates, it was the equality between different elements of the cosmos that

maintained order.96 In the realm of the body, Alcmaeon directly relates

this concept to the principle of isonomia: he defines isonomia as that which

holds health together (tês men hugieias einai sunektikên tên isonomian tôn

dunamenôn), while the ‘monarchy’ of one part over another in a pair (e.g. hot

over cold) causes destruction (phthoropoion gar hekaterou monarkhian).97

This emphasis on order is further evident in the argument about equality in

Jocasta’s speech at Euripides’ Phoenician Women 528–85. The play begins

amidst the conflict between Eteocles and Polyneices for rule of Thebes.98

After the tragedy that befell their father Oedipus, the two brothers agreed to

share the rule of Thebes, each ruling for a year in turn (eniauton allasont’).99

In accord with the agreement, Polyneices voluntarily left Thebes for a year,

allowing Eteocles to rule, but when the year ended, Eteocles refused to sur-

render his rule to Polyneices. Polyneices has now returned with an army from

Argos, prepared to recover his rule by force. In an attempt to resolve their dis-

pute before it erupts into armed conflict, Jocasta brings Polyneices into the

city under a truce to meet with Eteocles.

In the debate that ensues between the two brothers, Polyneices states that he

gave Eteocles the rule of the city for one year (dous tôid’ anassein patridos

eniautou kuklon), just as he himself, taking up his share, would rule for one

414 J. LOMBARDINI

95 Vernant, Origins, p. 92. Cf. M.M. Sassi, ‘Ordre Cosmique et “Isonomia”: enrepensant Les Origines de la pensée grecque de Jean-Pierre Vernant’, Philosophieantique, 7 (2007), pp. 189–218, p. 196.

96 Ibid., p. 122. Cf. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, p. 362. Sassi (‘Ordre Cosmique’) also sees aconnection between the cosmic and political orders, but argues, contra Vernant, that thenew conception of physical space that emerged in the sixth century in Miletus was usedto model the new conception of political space, rather than vice-versa.

97 Alcmaeon fr. 4. On isonomia in Alcmaeon, see G. Vlastos, ‘Equality and Justice inEarly Greek Cosmologies’, Classical Philology, 42 (3) (1947), pp. 156–78, pp. 156–8;L. MacKinney, ‘The Concept of Isonomia in Greek Medicine’, in Isonomia, ed Mau,pp. 79–88; and Ostwald’s response to MacKinney in Ostwald, Nomos, pp. 97–102.

98 Performed in the aftermath of the stasis of 411, the conflict between the two broth-ers mirrored recent historical events in Athens. See J. de Romilly, ‘Phoenician Women ofEuripides: Topicality in Greek Tragedy’, Bucknell Review, 15 (3) (1967), pp. 108–32,p. 109, which argues that the connection was of a general nature.

99 Euripides, Phoenician Women 74.



year (hôst’ autos arkhein authis ana meros labôn).100 Eteocles not only

broke his oath, he continues, but holds onto the tyranny himself as well as

Polyneices’ share of the house (all’ ekhei turannid’ autos kai domôn emon

meros).101 Finally, he says he is prepared to send his army away from Thebes

if he can take what is his own (tamautou labôn), taking his turn at ruling and

giving it up to his brother for an equal amount of time in turn (ana meros

labôn kai tôid’ apheinai ton ison authis <eis> khronon).102

Eteocles responds that the idea of equality implicit in his brother’s argu-

ment is a sham. Drawing on the sophistical distinction between nomos and

physis, Eteocles claims that such equality is merely conventional: ‘now there

is no similarity or equality among mortals except in words; in deed, this does

not exist’ (nun outh’ homoion ouden out’ ison brotois plên onomasin· to d’

ergon ouk estin tode).103 What is real is the human desire for power. Eteocles

declares ‘I would go to where heaven’s constellations rise, go beneath the

earth, if it lay in my power, in order to possess Tyranny, greatest of the

gods’.104 Yet, he not only desires tyranny, but wishes to keep it for himself: he

does not want to hand it over to another (allôi pareinai) and will not submit to

being his brother’s slave when he has the ability to rule (arkhein paron moi,

tôide douleusô pote).105

Jocasta’s speech, focusing on equality, offers a democratic response to

Eteocles’ claims. Before turning to her speech, however, it is useful to com-

pare Eteocles’ speech with those of Thrasymachus and Callicles and Socra-

tes’ responses to their arguments.106 This comparison, I hope, will help to

illustrate the distinctively democratic nature of Jocasta’s response.

For Callicles, equality is purely conventional. It enjoys the name of justice

because laws are instituted by the weak and the many (hoi tithemenoi tous

nomous hoi astheneis anthrôpoi eisin hoi polloi) who themselves enjoy hav-

ing an equal share (autoi an to ison ekhôsin) but reproach those who attempt

to get a greater share as unjust.107 Nature demonstrates, however, that it is just

for the better and more capable to have a greater share (pleon ekhein) than

others, and this principle applies to cities as well. While Socrates challenges

Callicles’ conception of the better and more capable, he also questions the

soundness of Callicles’ equation of power with the pursuit of pleonexia. The

100 Ibid., 477–8. Kovacs, following Diggle, deletes 478–80 as a later interpolation.Mastronarde, however, offers a convincing argument for retaining these lines. See D.J.Mastronarde, Euripides: Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1994), p. 284.

101 Euripides, Phoenician Women 481–2.102 Ibid., 484–7.103 Ibid., 501–2.104 Ibid., 504–6, trans. Kovacs.105 Ibid., 520.106 K. Raaflaub, ‘Equalities and Inequalities in Athenian Democracy’, in Dêmokratia,

ed. J. Ober and C. Hedrick (Princeton, 1996), pp. 139–74, p. 141.107 Plato, Gorgias 483b4–c6.


unbridled desire to have more, according to Socrates, produces slavery to

one’s desires; moral and political agency is a product of the ordering of one’s

desires, and their submission to reason. As is even clearer in Socrates’ reply to

Thrasymachus, it is the hierarchical ordering of the soul and the city that pro-

duces justice and good order and prevents stasis. This vision of psychic and

political order is founded on a moral psychology that places need at its centre;

it is doing and having what is one’s own share, where having one’s own share

entails having a set place within a given hierarchy (epithumetikos-thumos-

logistikos; producer-guardian-philosopher), that produces harmony and justice.

Jocasta also grounds her vision of justice in a conception of natural order,

but it is one that is founded on equality. She begins by telling Eteocles that it is

better to honour equality (Isotêta) than ambition (Philotimias), the latter of

which is linked to tyranny and pleonexia.108 She continues:

[equality] binds friends to friends, cities to cities, and allies to allies. ForEquality naturally produces lawfulness (nomimon) among men, whereasthe lesser is always hostile to the greater and making war (polemon) againstit. In fact, it is Equality that has established measures and weights for man-kind and given them number. For Night’s rayless eyelid walks an equal por-tion of the yearly round (ison . . . ton eniausion kuklon) with the light ofDay, and neither of them feels envy when bested. So then, while daylightand darkness serve mankind’s needs, will you, having an equal share of thehouse, refuse to accord it to this man (su d’ ouk aneksêi dômatôn ekhôn isonkai tôide neimai)? Where then is justice?109

Jocasta’s response centres on the idea that equality produces order and har-

mony: it binds (sundei) friends, cities and allies and naturally produces law-

fulness (nomimon). Inequality, in contrast, produces war. This connection

between equality and order, moreover, is grounded in nature; it can be dis-

cerned in the relationship between Night and Day, who share an equal portion

of their revolution around the earth. At the same time, however, Jocasta does

not argue that individuals are equal by nature; rather, it is simply that equality

produces harmony and order. Hence, war will be averted, and order restored,

if Eteocles distributes an equal share of the house to his brother.110

416 J. LOMBARDINI

108 On this point, see Mastronarde, Phoenissae, p. 299.109 Euripides, Phoenician Women 536–48, trans. Kovacs (modified).110 This last line (548) of the Greek text is notoriously corrupt. The transmitted text

has the unmetrical tôide aponeimai. I follow Kovacs above who prints tôide neimai. Still,there is little agreement on what this line should read, or even on whether it should beretained or deleted. Of the modern editors of the text, the editors of the Budé edition print‘tôid’ aponemein’; Craik, ‘tôide neimai’; Mastronarde, ‘†tôid’ aponeimai†’; and Digglebrackets the entire line. Mastronarde observes that ‘[a] phrase conveying “and allot tohim <an equal share>” or “allot to him also <an equal share>” would make sensehere . . .’, yet he remains agnostic as to whether the line should be retained or not (thoughnoting that if it were to be retained, he would have a ‘slight preference for Salmasius’tôide neimai over tôid’ aponemein’). See Mastronarde, Phoenissae, p. 306. If we fol-



Jocasta’s speech offers a plausible model for answering the charge intro-

duced at the beginning of this section by the Old Oligarch: that democracy

does not care about good order (eunomia). Insofar as the type of order sig-

nalled by eunomia is an unequal one, it is true that democracy does not care

about good order. In the concept of isonomia, however, we can see how the

principle of equal political power was combined with a conception of political

order founded on such equality. From this perspective, we can see how the

principle of isonomia might have contributed to a theoretical defence of

democracy in the ancient world.111

IVImplications and Contemporary Directions

This article offers a preliminary sketch of the concept of isonomia and its rela-

tionship with Athenian dêmokratia. A thorough examination would require

attention to all of the passages where isonomia occurs, as well as a more

extensive exploration of the concept of eunomia. It would need to be comple-

mented by an argument about the origin, original meaning and evolution of

the term dêmokratia and its relationship to other classical terms denoting

types of equality: isokratia, isêgoria and isomoiria. Finally, it would entail a

more comprehensive analysis of conceptions of equality, order and disorder

in Greek medicine and cosmology. Such a thorough examination is obviously

not possible here. Nonetheless, it is my hope that this article provides a start-

ing point for further research into the conceptual history of isonomia, its

lowed Diggle in deleting line 548, lines 546–7 would translate as ‘if day and night servemankind, will you not be content with having an equal share of the house?’. Though theexact language of distributing an equal share of the house would then be missing, therelationship implied between arithmetical equality and order remains the same: the twobrothers should share equal portions of the house (i.e. rule), just as day and night shareequal portions of the sky. If 548 is retained, lines 547–8 would then contain a likelyperiphrasis of isonomia, depending on how one analyses the etymology of the word.While the prefix iso- means equality, and is unproblematic, -nomia can derive fromeither nomos (law) or nemein (to distribute). While Vlastos makes a strong case for theformer, he grants Ehrenberg’s argument that isa nemein would be at least one of the ideasthat came to mind when the word isonomia was spoken. While I agree with Ehrenberg,my point here does not depend on demonstrating the correctness of his derivation; thelogic of my argument runs in the opposite direction, that the use of a phrase similar to isonnemein would call to mind the concept of isonomia, and this is a point Vlastos does notcontest. See Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 347–50 and Ehrenberg, ‘Isonomia’. For a morerecent discussion, see Lévy, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 122–3.

111 While I focused on Jocasta’s speech in this section, I think that we can see a simi-lar logic at work in Protagoras’ ‘Great Speech’ in the Platonic dialogue that bears hisname. The language of distribution pervades Protagoras’ retelling of the Prometheusmyth. Moreover, it is the unequal distribution of powers that leads to disorder, and theequal distribution of justice (dikê) and shame (aidôs) to human beings that allows them tofinally live together in cities. This, however, is a topic for another article.


importance for understanding ancient dêmokratia, and its relevance to contem-

porary democratic theory. By way of conclusion, I would like to sketch out

some of these potential avenues.

In the field of ancient political thought, reconstructing the political discourse

surrounding isonomia might offer a productive framework for contextualizing

the political thought of Plato and Aristotle. As discussed in Section II.3, the

concept of eunomia is a guiding principle in the construction of Kallipolis,

Magnesia, and the city according to prayer; yet, we can also read these

regimes as responses to the type of political order represented by isonomia. In

the Laws, for example, the Athenian Stranger argues that the equality of mea-

sure, weight and number (tên metrôi isên kai stathmôi kai arithmôi)112 must be

balanced by a geometrical conception of equality. It is precisely the equality

of measure, weight and number that isonomia represents — it is, for example,

the type of equality Jocasta praises (kai gar metr’ anthrôpoisi kai merê

stathmôn Isotês etakse karithmon diôrisen)113 — that the Athenian Stranger

criticizes, and from this perspective, we can perhaps read the distinction

between arithmetical equality and geometrical equality as a response to

isonomia.

The preceding analysis of isonomia also suggests an alternative to conceiv-

ing ancient dêmokratia along the lines of the rule of the people. As noted at the

end of Section III.2, the placement of archê es meson associated with isonomia

creates a different kind of social space than those found in non-democratic

modes of political order. The equalization of archê means that no individual

or group possesses archê, or kratos, in the same way a monarchical or oligar-

chical ruler does. This is not to argue, of course, that majoritarian decision-

making was not an important part of Athenian democracy; rather, it suggests

that thinking about dêmokratia through the lens of isonomia directs our focus

elsewhere, towards the diffusion of political power throughout the dêmos.

In this sense, this understanding of isonomia complements Josh Ober’s

recent work on Athenian dêmokratia, and especially his attempt to explain

how the Athenian dêmos was able to ‘sustain a collective capacity to do things

over time’.114 Ober’s argument proceeds along two fronts: first, he argues that

the word dêmokratia originally stood for the ‘demos’ collective capacity to do

things in the public realm’, and that the idea of majority rule ‘was an inten-

tionally pejorative diminution, urged by democracy’s critics’;115 second, he

demonstrates how Athens’ democratic institutions facilitated collective action

and, in doing so, created and maintained the dêmos’ ability to do things in the

418 J. LOMBARDINI

112 Plato, Laws 757b4–5.113 Euripides, Phoenician Women 541–2.114 Ober, ‘Original Meaning of “Democracy” ’, p. 7.115 Ibid., pp. 7, 3.



public realm.116 Framed in this way, Ober’s conception of Athenian democ-

racy bridges the divide between theorists who offer an aconstitutional concep-

tion of democracy (e.g. Sheldon Wolin) and those who envision democracy as

a definite regime type. The concept of isonomia, by combining a potentially

disruptive vision of political equality with a theory of social and political

order founded on such equality, might provide a further avenue for negotiat-

ing this divide.

Ober’s conception of Athenian dêmokratia is obviously relevant to con-

temporary democratic theorizing, and dovetails nicely with Patchen Markell’s

work on Hannah Arendt’s conception of archê. Markell articulates the same

tension within contemporary democratic theory between order, closure and

continuity, on the one hand, and interruption, openness and novelty, on the

other.117 For Markell, Arendt’s conception of archê offers a potential means

for mediating this tension: it does so via the link between archein as ‘begin-

ning’ and prattein as action which, in turn, marks the dependence of those

who act by founding or beginning something on those that will help to bring

such action to completion.118 Arendt’s conception of democracy, of course,

was deeply informed by her understanding of the ancient world, and her inter-

pretation of archê, in this regard, is particularly intriguing for this project

since, in On Revolution, she connects the idea of ‘no-rule’ with the principle

of isonomia.119 While, as Markell demonstrates, Arendt’s understanding of

rule is more ambivalent than this passage suggests, further work on the con-

cept of isonomia might provide a useful window for exploring this facet of

Arendt’s thought and, in turn, the broader connections between ancient and

modern conceptions of democracy.

John Lombardini THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY

116 See Ober, Knowledge and Democracy, esp. pp. 28–34, for an overview of theproject.

117 P. Markell, ‘The Rule of the People: Arendt, Archê, and Democracy’, AmericanPolitical Science Review, 100 (1) (2006), pp. 1–14.

118 Ibid., p. 4.119 H. Arendt, On Revolution (New York, 1963), p. 30. Arendt emphasizes the fact

that isonomia does not contain either of the words that mean ‘to rule’ in ancient Greek:archein or kratein. Cf. H. Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, 1958), p. 32 fn. 22.


Appendix: Table of Eunomoi Poleis120

Polis Source

AeginaBacchylides 13.149

Pindar Isthmian 5.22

Corinth Pindar Olympian 13.6

(Crete) Plato Crito 52e6

Locris Demosthenes 24.139

Megara Plato Crito 53b5

Opous Pindar Olympian 9.16

Sparta

Herodotus 1.65–6

Thucydides 1.18.6

Plato Crito 52e6

Plato Hippias Major 283e9

Lycurgus 1.128

Thebes Plato Crito 53b5

Imaginary Poleis

Kallipolis Plato Republic

Magnesia Plato Laws

Ancient Athens Plato Timaeus 23c6

polis kata euchên Aristotle Politics VII

Polis of Cronus’ Age Plato Laws 713e2

420 J. LOMBARDINI

120 Information about regime type during the time period in which each polis wasreferred to as eunomos or possessing eunomia was primarily taken from An Inventory ofArchaic and Classical Poleis, ed. M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen (New York, 2005),along with the following sources: T.J. Figueira, Aegina: Society and Politics (Salem,NH, 1981); R.P. Legon, Megara: The Political History of a Greek City-State to 336 B.C.(Ithaca, 1981); and J.B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 B.C.

(Oxford, 1984).


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