1In a thought-provoking article P. Brun recently challenged the concept of Lykourgos as a reformer and “legislator”, arguing that such image of the orator was posthumously created in 307/6 B.C., when, after the liberation of Athens from Macedonian control, the new political order, together with its most prominent leading figures (Stratokles of Diomeia, Demochares, Xenokles of Sphettos and Habron, Lykourgos’ son), was presented as the true heir to the Athenian democratic and anti-Macedonian tradition1. P. Brun is right to stress that the decree awarding the μέγισται τιμαί to Lykourgos testifies to the first stage of the construction of a political myth and of the creation of an ancient Greek “legislator” as both the author of the Life of Lykourgos in Plutarch’s Moralia and modern scholars have been (mis)led to attribute to his initiative more laws and decrees, and subsequently a more comprehensive political project, than he was actually responsible for2. His argument, however, has also broader implications for, at the end of his article, Brun questioned the appropriateness of definitions such as “Lykourgan Athens3”, “époque lycurguéenne”, the “age of Lykourgos”, which, on this basis, become arbitrary “car il est impossible de croire en la domination d’un homme sur l’ensemble de cette période4”.

2I must say that, although I can perceive the force of his line of reasoning, I am not totally convinced by Brun’s views. Firstly, my impression is that he misses the point as, if Lykourgos was the leading figure of this period, this was not mainly due to the large number of laws and decrees he proposed but to his management of finances. Too little is known about his office as ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ διοικήσει5 but what is clear is that it concerned the μερισμός, the annual allocation of funds to the different ἀρχαί and spending authorities (SEG 19.119 = Agora XVI 77)6. In the praxis of decrees, we sometimes see during this period the Assembly instructing the νομοθέται to make changes to the νόμοι concerning the merismos even for trivial amounts of money (IG II² 222 = Osborne 1981-1983, D22, l.35-48 [ca. 334 B.C.]; IG II² 330 = Schwenk 1985, n^o 18, l. 18-23 [335/4 B.C.]; IG VII 4254 = Petrakos 1997, n^o 298, l. 37-41 [329/8 B.C.]) and may therefore get the impression that the office principally entailed supervision over petty financial matters. It is, however, important to emphasize that, under Lykourgos’ administration, the annual Athenian revenues rose from 600 to 1200 talents ([Plut.], Mor. 842F; cf. 841B and 852B) and that this stunning increase made it necessary to make fundamental political decisions on the way such a windfall of money was to be spent. It may be assumed that the official ἐπὶ τῇ διοιϰήσει had to make recommendations concerning the merismos and that these recommendations, though they had to go through the normal legislative process, would have been particularly authoritative7. It thus seems possible to conclude that, by means of his financial control, Lykourgos was indeed in the position to exert a strong influence on Athenian policies.

3Secondly, it also needs to be underlined that, as is generally agreed, post-Chaironeia Athens was not the rule of one man but was dominated by a wealthy and ideologically compact elite aligned in a patriotic project to revitalize the political and religious institutions of the polis and strengthen civic cohesion. In the past, building on the insights of a seminal article by D. M. Lewis8, I was able to identify a circle of more than twenty well-to-do individuals who appear to have been politically active in this period9. It is, however, clear that my list, based on the limited documentation available, is far from complete and that even the names of political figures of no minor standing still escape our notice. S. Lambert has for instance recently shown that, together with Xenokles of Sphettos10, his brother Androkles, ἀγωνοθέτης in 307/6 B.C. and no doubt already a distinguished liturgist in earlier years, was equally a substantial individual (though, as Xenokles, probably not, as far as we can see, “ever active in the democratic Assembly”)11. To P. Brun we owe a more balanced portrait of Demades showing, on the basis of the epigraphical record, that his political activity had a much broader scope than previously recognized following the hostile literary tradition and that in many policy spheres there was coincidence of purpose, rather than opposition and rivalry, between him and Lykourgos12. Moreover, a curse tablet datable between the 340s and the 320s B.C. records under the heading “I bind, bury and make disappear from men” (ϰαταδῶ, ϰατορύττω, ἀφανίζω ἐξ ἀνθρώπων) the names of almost 100 individuals, including some prominent politicians such as Xenokles, Polyeuktos of Sphettos (PAA 778285) and Aristogeiton (see below), together with a number of other figures, whose importance can only vaguely be perceived13. Whether the motives behind the curse were political14 or “social” (hostility towards an elite sympotic group)15, the people associated on the tablet clearly formed “a group of wealthy and influential men – choregoi, land-and slave-owners, trierarchs, public officials16”.

4It would be wrong to claim that all these people formed a “party” (or more than one party): it is evident that they were active in different ways, with varying degrees of involvement and according to their own interests. It is nonetheless equally mistaken to go to the other extreme and deny that there were any political connections among at least some of them. To give an example, Brun argues that it is arbitrary to associate the law on the reorganization of ἐφηβεία with Lykourgos. To some extent this is true because Harpokration (s.v. Ἐπιϰράτης) attributes it to Epikrates, a very wealthy Athenian who was a member of the boule in 335/4 (when Lykourgos was a member too17) (Agora XV 43, l.214-215) and may have been a political figure of some significance (PAA 393520 and 393525; cf. Dem. 24.27 and Agora I 7495 [an unpublished law]). At the same time, besides quoting the oath of the ephebes in his speech Against Leocrates and defining it τὸ συνέχον τὴν δημοϰρατίαν (1.76-79), Lykourgos himself explicitly referred to Epikrates’ law, and to the bronze statue the proposer was rewarded with, in his speech On the Financial Administration (fr. V. 3 Conomis) and this can hardly be coincidental. It seems legitimate to infer that Lykourgos and Epikrates at least shared the same attitudes and were, probably, political allies. Likewise, P. Brun dismisses the idea that Aristonikos of Marathon, the proposer, in ca. 335, of the “law on the Lesser Panathenaia18” had any connection with Lykourgos19. Lykourgos and Aristonikos, however, rather unusually appear in the same year 335/4 as joint proposers of a decree for an expedition against pirates (IG II² 1623, l.276-285) and this again suggests more than casual agreement. There must surely have been a link between them20.

5In the light of this, I believe that “Lykourgan Athens” still remains a convenient “label” for this period. In order to avoid turning this into a mere nominalistic question, I propose, however, to broaden the scope of my analysis and, following the suggestion of the organizers of this colloquium and their definition of “the political” (le politique) as “l’entrecroisement du politique et de la politique”, and thus the point of intersection between institutions and social practices21, to pose the question whether, in this perspective, it is legitimate to single out “Lykourgan Athens” as a self-contained period of Athenian history and society well defined by specific traits. I shall accordingly organize my paper into two parts, starting first with institutions and moving on, in the second part, to society.

Institutions

6Tackling the problem from an institutional perspective is not an easy task because the intense discussion triggered off by M.H. Hansen’s concept of fourth-century Athenian democracy as a fundamentally moderate democracy different from that of the fifth century has not yet subsided and, to make matters more complicated, scholars continue to discuss the question whether the political system reflected by the orators was a “debased” or a “perfected” form of democracy22. At the core of the debate obviously still lies Aristotle’s statement to the effect that, in the democracy of his own days, “the people have made themselves master of everything, and control all things by means of decrees and jury-courts, in which the sovereign power resides with the people” (Arist., Ath. Pol. 41.2: ἁπάντων γὰρ αὐτὸς αὑτὸν πεποίηκεν ὁ δῆμος ϰύριον, ϰαὶ πάντα διοικεῖται ψηφίσμασιν ϰαὶ δικαστηρίοις, ἐν οἷς ὁ δῆμός ἐστιν ὁ ϰρατῶν). It would be out of place to review here all the arguments that have been used to show that in the fourth century power had been transferred from the assembly to the popular courts and other “moderate” parts of the politeia23. I will nonetheless observe that recent works have seriously undermined some of the foundations of Hansen’s theory. J. Atkinson, to give an example, has convincingly shown that, with the addition of new procedures in the course of the fourth century, nomothesia gradually became less controllable, to the point that “by the 330s the relaxation in the rules governing” it “had worked against the maintenance of a unified and coherent corpus of laws” and that the struggle to “achieve the right balance between democratic structure and effective technical systems may help to explain why Aristotle thought that the Athenian democratic system had been corrupted and was dysfunctional24”. A case in point is Lykourgos’ office as ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ διοικήσει which should have been established by means of a nomos but apparently was not25. In a similar fashion, M.J. Sundahl has investigated the impact of γραφὴ παρανόμων in checking the will of the assembly and enforcing the rule of law and concluded that, whilst it was effective in preventing formal violation of the dictates of the law, it did not to the same extent safeguard the fundamental principles embodied in the law, thus only partially restraining the ekklesia26.

7Other institutional developments, however, look more promising in our perspective. Firstly, whether we regard this as the result of one or two separate decrees (and whatever the precise dates)27, it appears that the Areopagos Council, no doubt in coherence with a tendency to revive patrios politeia ideology (cf. Din. 1.62: πρότερον ἔγραψας σύ… ϰυρίαν εἶναι τὴν ἐξ Ἀρείου πάγου βουλὴν ϰολάσαι τὸν παρὰ τοὺς νόμους πλημμελοῦντα, χρωμένην τοῖς πατρίοις νόμοις· ϰαὶ παρέδωκας σὺ ϰαὶ ἐνεχείρισας τὴν πόλιν ἅπασαν ταύτῃ, ἣν αὐτίκα φήσεις ὀλιγαρχιϰὴν εἶναι)28, was given increased authority and, especially in the aftermath of Chaironeia, was able to exert a wider political and judicial role, by influencing the election of Phokion as stratēgos (Plut., Phoc. 16.4) and trying and executing those who had abandoned Athens in the face of danger (Lycurg. 1.52; Aesch. 3.252). It is difficult to ascertain to what extent such interventions, which were highly controversial and most probably originated Eukrates’ law against tyranny (Rhodes & Osborne 2003, n^o 79), were ephemeral phenomena connected with the emergency situation arising from military defeat29 or reflected long-term trends. This enhanced competence was at any rate still in effect in 323 B.C. at the time of the Harpalos affair (Din. 1.5-6, esp. 6: ϰαὶ ϰυρία διϰάσαι τε περὶ τοῦ σώματος ϰαὶ τῆς ψυχῆς ἑϰάστου τῶν πολιτῶν).

8Secondly, the extent to which political pay (μισθός) could in the 330s and 320s still encourage overall democratic participation is also open to discussion. Although μισθός no doubt continued to be paid to bouleutai, dikastai, assembly attendants and some, if not all, magistrates throughout the fourth century30, it is striking that, apart from the ekklesiastikon whose rate was raised to one and one and a half drachma (Arist., Ath. Pol. 62.2), all other misthoi remained virtually unchanged for almost a century. An additional consideration is that, owing to shortfalls in local production and the vulnerability of the supply routes from the Black Sea, grain prices during these decades were particularly high31, and stipends had fallen far below wage levels (cf. IG II² 1672 = Clinton 2005, n^o 177, l.26-34, 44-46, 60-62, 110-111, 177-178)32. It seems quite legitimate to infer from the evidence that this must have affected at least the non-rural part of the population33. It may therefore not be coincidental that the rate of the misthos ekklēsiastikos was increased probably to stimulate attendance and that the intense building programme of this age focused especially on the Pnyx and the principal loci of communal participation34.

9A third point deserving attention is the changing mode of the political and social interaction between politeuomenoi and dēmos and, alongside the development of a class of professional politicians and a growing emphasis on expertise35, what I perceive as a more authoritarian mood underlying the political climate of post-Chaironeia Athens. This “authoritarian” mood, for instance, pervades Demosthenes’ justification of his political activity in his speech On the Crown delivered in 330 B.C. In this speech the orator portrays himself as the gifted σύμβουλος provided with all necessary qualities (birth, wealth, character, intelligence, insight, competence and experience) and uniquely capable of rising to the occasion as the antagonist of Philip II, and the complicated mechanisms of Athenian decision-making are contrasted with Philip being δεσπότης, ἡγεμών, ϰύριος πάντων (Dem. 18.235-237; cf. 1.4 where Philip is presented as ἅμα στρατηγὸν ϰαὶ δεσπότην ϰαὶ ταμίαν)36. It also permeates Lykourgos’ speech Against Leokrates and another speech by Demosthenes, Against Aristogeiton (25), on which I would now like to focus more narrowly.

10Against Leokrates has often been described as an odd, idiosyncratic text, hardly representative of Attic oratory37. Leokrates, an otherwise unknown Athenian of probable liturgic status (1.139), had fled Athens after the battle of Chaironeia sailing away first to Rhodes and then settling in Megara. He was prosecuted for treason by Lykourgos by means of an εἰσαγγελία38. The legal substance of the charge was rather thin and the orator himself acknowledges that the dikastai not only had to perform as judges but also as nomothetai since Leokrates’ offence did not actually fit any of the illegal actions listed in the νόμος εἰσαγγελτικός (1.8-10) and, although he refers to a decree which punished with death those who abandoned Athens immediately following defeat (1.52-53), this hardly appears to be a solid foundation in this case. Lykourgos was clearly stretching the meaning of the term προδοσία to suit his objectives. In contrast with the minor significance of the offence, Lykourgos turned Leokrates’ trial into an exemplary case to the point that his crimes are rhetorically amplified to include treason, subversion of democracy, impiety (ἀσέβεια), maltreatment of parents, desertion and cowardice (1.147). Religion and asebeia, in particular, provide the connecting thread throughout the text, which opens with the adjectives διϰαίαν ϰαὶ εὐσεβῆ and, most unusually, with a prayer (1.1) and ends with the statement that by showing favour to the betrayer of his fatherland (πατρίς) the judges will be exposed to the vengeance of the gods (1.148: ϰαὶ τῷ προδότῃ τῆς πατρίδος χάριν θέμενος ὑπεύθυνος εἶναι τῇ παρὰ τῶν θεῶν τιμωρίᾳ). In between runs the argument that by abandoning Athens Leokrates had betrayed his parents, the graves of the ancestors, the gods together with their shrines, statues and sanctuaries, and committed perjury by breaking the most sacred oaths. As noted by R. Parker, “[p]atriotism is here seen… as an obligation created by an organic, parent-child relationship between the citizen and his ‘native’ earth. But since the earth is also a goddess and a home of gods and goddesses, patriotic devotion is also a form of piety39”. The tone throughout the speech is didactic, resembling that of a moral sermon, and Lykourgos’ demonstration is corroborated by a number of historical and mythical παραδείγματα and by quotations from poets in the belief that, while “teaching with many examples makes your judgement easy” (1.124: τὸ γὰρ μετὰ πολλῶν παραδειγμάτων διδάσϰειν ῥαδίαν ὑμῖν τὴν ϰρίσιν ϰαθίστησι), “laws are too brief to give instruction… but the poets persuade men by using both reason and demonstration” (1.102: οἱ γὰρ νόμοι διὰ τὴν συντομίαν οὐ διδάσϰουσι ἀλλ’ ἐπιτάττουσι ἃ δεῖ ποιεῖν, οἱ δὲ ποιηταὶ… μετὰ λόγου ϰαὶ ἀποδείξεως τοὺς ἀνθρώπους συμπείθουσι). Whether such statements reflect a Platonic influence or not40, Lykourgos’ controversial abuse of eisangelia (cf. Hyp., Lyc. fr. IV, col. X, 12-13 Jensen; Eux. 1-3) and extensive interpretation of asebeia are clearly authoritarian and, like his defense of the action of the Areopagos after Chaironeia (1.52), had political implications that went far beyond the limited scope of Leokrates’ trial: as the orator emphasizes at § 83 the telling of ancient tales as paradeigmata was meant to enable the audience to “make better decisions with regard both to this and other cases” (ϰαὶ περὶ τούτων ϰαὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων βέλτιον βουλεύσεσθε). The verb βούλευεσθαι in particular seems to refer to something broader than merely giving a verdict in the lawcourts and apply to political decision-making in general41. On other occasions Lykourgos made use of eisangelia to prosecute Lykophron for adultery arguing, as a sunēgoros, that μοιχεία also undermined civic order (Lycurg. fr. X-XI, 2 Conomis; cf. Hyp., Lyc. fr. IV, col. X, § 12 Jensen)42, and Menesaichmos charged with asebeia ([Plut.], Mor. 843D; Lycurg. fr. XIV, 1-11 Conomis)43. The tone of the speech Against Leokrates, however, reflects the gulf dividing speaker and audience rather than their sharing the same views: “In Against Leocrates… the “we” standpoint is used very sparingly indeed44” and the outcome of the trial, ending with equal votes on the two sides and with Leokrates’ acquittal (Aesch. 3.252)45, testifies this gulf. Nonetheless, it is remarkable that Lykourgos succeeded in securing the consensus of half of his audience!

11The second speech, Demosthenes’ Against Aristogeiton, is not totally unrelated to my argument as it was delivered by Demosthenes acting as συνήγορος in an ἔνδειξις brought by Lykourgos. Aristogeiton was prosecuted for speaking in the assembly and the courts despite being a public debtor and ἄτιμος (Dem. 25.4: ϰαὶ ἐγγεγραμμένον ἐν ἀϰροπόλει ϰαὶ οὐϰ ἐξὸν αὐτῷ λέγειν; cf. also 28.37-38, 69-75 and passim; Din. 2.8-13). In line with M.H. Hansen, L. Rubinstein and others, I assume that the speech is authentic and was composed and delivered by Demosthenes around 325 B.C.46. The technical discussion of legal points is again somewhat compressed as it had been the task of Lykourgos, the chief prosecutor, to deal with these in detail (25.14; see however 69-75, where the orator returns to the question of Aristogeiton’s status as a public debtor and atimos stating that “the point to be argued and decided is not whether all his debts are unpaid but whether he is still in debt” [25.71: οὐ γὰρ, εἰ μὴ πᾶν ὅσον ὦφλεν ὀφείλει, νῦν ἡ ϰρίσις οὐδ’ ὁ λόγος, ἀλλ’ εἰ ὀφείλει])47. Demosthenes was thus able to concentrate on the political aspects of the prosecution expounding his views on the correct relationship between law and society ἐν δημοκρατίᾳ (25.8-35). It appears that Aristogeiton, a minor politician48, had been acquitted in an earlier ἔνδειξις ([Dem.] 26.20-21), hence Demosthenes’ aggressive and vehement tone. The defendant is presented as a “savage beast” (θηρίον), a demagogue and a sycophant using the assembly and the courts to launch his attacks, make threats and pursue his own interests (25.41 and 45-48). His contribution (φορά) to the communal ἔρανος are “factious and unruly speeches” (λόγοι στασιώδεις ϰαὶ ταραχώδεις) (25.42), his services φάσεις, ἀπαγωγαὶ and ἐνδείξεις instead of liturgies (25.78). His policy, moreover, is guided not by reason but by sheer irrationality (ἀπόνοια)49. Like Leokrates, in a display of rhetorical auxēsis, Aristogeiton is portayed as uncaring for his patris (25.21), ἀσεβής (25.53 and 63), with no respect for his parents (25.54-55) and, altogether, as unsociable and not sharing in the values, first of all χάρις and φιλία, on which communal life is based (25.52-53, 87-91)50. Demosthenes acknowledges, in particular, that it is not the orators (οἱ λέγοντες) but “private and inexperienced individuals” (οἱ ἰδιῶται ϰαὶ οἱ ἄπειροι) who suffer most from Aristogeiton’s sycophancy (25.41), distancing himself from the dēmos and taking the same line as in Against Meidias 111 and 123-124 (124: ἐγὼ μὲν γὰρ ἴσως διεωσάμην… ψευδῆ λόγον ϰαὶ συϰοφαντίαν, ϰαὶ οὐϰ ἀνήρπασμαι· οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ τί ποιήσετε, ἂν μὴ δημοσίᾳ πᾶσι φοβερὸν ϰαταστήσητε τὸ εἰς ταῦτα ἀποχρῆσθαι τῷ πλουτεῖν;)51.

12This may all sound topical but is not in fact devoid of significance in the light of the political model which Demosthenes builds. As in Lykourgos’ speech, at the core of the question is again political deliberation, βουλεύεσθαι (25.9 and 14). Demosthenes contrasts the rule of law (25.15-17 and, esp., 20-27) with “saying and doing what one pleases” (25.20 and 25) and distinguishes between two opposite types of parrhēsia, one which is legal and is embodied by Demosthenes himself, and the other which is a perverse form of freedom and is embodied by Aristogeiton. Consequently, Demosthenes appeals to εὐνομία and δίϰη (Dem. 25.10-11 and 35) and prompts the judges to amend, ἐπανορθώσασθαι, the current situation. Eunomia and the verb ἐπανορθόω are both politically charged terms52. The latter, in particular, has strong “moderate” associations (Isocr. 7.15; 8.133; Plato, Resp. 425A; Arist., Ath. Pol. 35.2) and is significantly connected with Demetrios of Phaleron’s revision of the democratic constitution and laws (Strabo 9.1.20: οὐ ϰατέλυσε τὴν δημοϰρατίαν ἀλλὰ ϰαὶ ἐπανώρθωσε)53. It is striking that, when Demosthenes provides examples of laws the respect of which is beneficial to the community, the ones he chooses to mention concern the secrecy surrounding the sessions of the boulē “master of its own secrets” (τῶν ἀπορρήτων ϰυρίαν) and the fact that “the council of the Areopagus, when it sits roped off in the stoa basileios, enjoys complete freedom from disturbance and all men hold aloof” (ϰαὶ ἅπαντας ἐϰποδὼν ἀποχωρεῖν) (25.23). Considering that, according to Herodotos, πλῆθος δὲ ἄρχον… βουλεύματα πάντα ἐς τὸ ϰοινὸν ἀναφέρει (3.80.6), Demosthenes’ political discourse strikes me as elitist54 and giving voice to an attitude we have already found in Lykourgos’ Against Leokrates. According to Dinarchus, Aristogeiton was convicted (2.13).

13In the same perspective, I would like to mention that sumptuary legislation is also attested in these years. According to the Lives of the Ten Orators, Lykourgos passed a law forbidding women to travel in carriages to Eleusis during the Mysteries ([Plut.], Mor. 842A), whereas Hyperides mentioned a law imposing fines on “disorderly women” (ἀϰοσμοῦσαι γυναῖκες) ϰατὰ ὁδοὺς (Harpocr. s.v. ὅτι χιλίας; Hyp. fr. 14 Jensen). P. Brun, arbitrarily in my opinion”, believes that the author of Lykourgos’ biography is unreliable here55 and that his alleged law “est à porter au crédit de Démétrios de Phalère56”. Taking into account the law quoted by Hyperides, I am less skeptical and share R.W. Wallace’s comment that, “[w]hatever Hyperides’ exact reference, his use of the term ἀϰοσμοῦσαι in a public speech is very striking, in the light of its use by Isocrates and other conservatives”57. I believe that the evidence prompts us to break the barriers of periodization and accept that in this case there is continuity between “Lykourgan Athens” and the rule of Demetrios of Phaleron58. In sum, to conclude this section, I would therefore stress that, in an institutional perspective, a distinctive feature of Athenian society in this period is, though this may sound as an oxymoron, a more authoritarian attitude towards democracy. Notwithstanding all efforts to revitalize political participation and reaffirm the democratic spirit of the constitution, Athenian society, in other words, was more hierarchical in this period and, to quote P.J. Rhodes, no “acephalous” polis59.

Society

14Sumptuary legislation leads me to the theme of the second part of my paper, which is the relationship between private wealth and public finance and the status of the former in democratic discourse. I dealt with this topic some years ago and since then valuable studies by M. Hakkarainen, P. Wilson, N. Fisher and P. Liddel have greatly contributed to extending the scope of my analysis by placing it in a much broader time-frame60. The question needs to be addressed both in terms of facts and ideology. Since the end of the fifth century, the performance of liturgies in a lavish style and in the appropriate democratic spirit features as one of the fundamental elements in the portrait of the model civic identity. In Antiphon’s First Tetralogy the defendant in an imaginary homicide case presents himself in the epilogue as one who has undertaken every possible service and “made several substantial payments of εἰσφορά, served many times as trierarch, performed brilliantly as chorēgos” (πολλὰς μὲν ϰαὶ μεγάλας εἰσφορὰς εἰσφέροντα, πολλὰ δὲ τριηραρχοῦντα, λαμπρῶς δε χορηγοῦντα) and generally made his money available to friends (2.2.12)61. This trope is part of the stock-in-trade used to describe the “good citizen” throughout fourth-century oratory62. Regular and generous performances of liturgies, which remained voluntary, were in particular an asset to be spent in the lawcourts, where the enumeration of public services was functional to the request of “gratitude” (χάρις) and an adequate return in recognition of civic devotion (Lys. 20.31; 21.1-5, 11-17, 23-25; 25.12-13). Conversely, failure or reluctance to undertake liturgical expenditure was deemed as deserving adequate retribution from the dikastai (Lys. 30.1 and 26; Is. 5.35-38 [οὔτ’ εὖ ποιεῖν ὡς ἀγαθόν τι εἰργασμένον τὴν πόλιν]; Dem. 21.151-158, esp. 158-159). After the loss of the empire, during the course of the fourth century, Athens increasingly relied on the generosity of the wealthy to meet her financial needs but, despite a number of reforms and considerable efforts to make trierarchy and the collection of eisphora more efficient and more evenly distributed within the liturgical class, the liturgic system remained fundamentally the same and, as a matter of fact, continued well into the early Hellenistic period63. In this respect, my impression is that the battle of Chaironeia marked a significant turning point in Athenian financial and social history. Alongside the traditional military and festival liturgies, the opportunities for the use of private money for the benefit of the community became more frequent and took new forms. Epidoseis, the giving of money to a fund for a specific purpose, though not a totally new phenomenon64, voluntary donations and loans thus became prominent. It is difficult to gauge to what extent, in purely quantitative terms, such forms of generosity contributed to the annual flow of income–according to [Plut.], Mor. 852B Lykourgos was entrusted with 650 talents as sole loans from private individuals65, whereas the total amount of money he managed during his administration was in excess of 18.000 talents ([Plut.], Mor. 841C, 851B)66–but they may have not been negligible. Our literary and epigraphic sources refer both to gifts and voluntary donations as emergency measures to strengthen military preparedness in the aftermath of Chaironeia as well as respond to grain crises67, and to contributions in money and in kind to cover part of the expenses connected with the large-scale building programme. Thus, in 330/29 Eudemos of Plataia advanced 4000 drachmai for the construction of the Panathenaic stadium (IG II² 351 = Rhodes & Osborne 2003, n^o 94 [honorific decree proposed by Lykourgos])68, while the land (τὸ χωρίον) was donated by a certain Deinias (PAA 302275; cf. 302172, 302173; APF 3163 + add. p. 596; cf. Dem. 20.151), a rich liturgist, at Lykourgos’ request ([Plut.], Mor. 841D: Δεινίου τινός, ὃς ἐϰέκτητο τοῦτο τὸ χωρίον, ἀνέντος τῇ πόλει, προείποντος αὐτῷ χαρίσασθαι Λυϰούργου)69. Neoptolemos of Melite (PAA 706660; APF 10652) is credited with having paid for the reconstruction of the temple of Artemis Aristoboule70 in his own deme and a decree of the demotai of Melite honoured him for such and other benefactions (SEG 22.116, l. 8-13; cf. SEG 18.36 B, l. 216-218). According to Demosthenes, “Neoptolemos has been honoured for his donations as commissioner of many projects” (18.114: Νεοπτόλεμος, πολλῶν ἔργων ἐπιστάτης ὤν, ἐφ’ οἷς ἐπέδωϰε τετίμηται), and this is confirmed by the bronze statue he was awarded, at Lykourgos’ proposal, for gilding the altar of Apollo in the agora at his own expense ([Plut.], Mor. 843F)71. In 321/0 (or 318/7) B.C. Xenokles of Sphettos, Lykourgos’ alter ego as ὁ ἐπὶ τῇ διοικήσει and a prominent representative of the Athenian liturgic class in this period72, as ἐπιμελητὴς τῶν μυστερίων built a stone bridge over the Kephisos on the processional route to Eleusis, again at his own expense (IG II² 1191; 2840; 2841; Anth. Pal. 9.147). S. Humphreys, in this context, noted “[t] he absence of building accounts from the Lycurgan period, apart from those of Eleusis” and suggested that this “may be partly due to this reliance on private generosity”73.

15It needs to be stressed that the people I have mentioned were all close associates of Lykourgos – and, in most cases, this is the reason why their benefactions and the honours they consequently received are recorded in the sources. We probably do not know of many others who showed their generosity in similar ways. The use of private money for building projects was not in actual fact a new phenomenon in Athenian history. Even for fifth-century Athens we have Plutarch’s anecdote to the effect that Perikles, having been attacked for wasting public funds on his building programme, offered to cover the costs himself on the condition that his name was inscribed on the ἀναθήματα (Plut., Per. 14.1-2), and it might also be the case that Perikles and his sons, in the 430s, had indeed offered to subsidise work on the Athenian water supply (IG I³ 49)74. In both cases, however, it was the dēmos who provided the funds in the end. In the 330s this did not happen and, since Athens at this time was far from being in financial straits, the only possible explanation is that the relationship between polis and elite had somewhat changed75.

16Another set of data leads us in the same direction and, to be precise, to the process whereby archai and liturgies gradually started being assimilated – a process which has been described as the liturgisation of offices76. Demosthenes argued in the trial On the Crown that “it would be intolerable that it should be either illegal for a man holding an ἀρχή to make donations to the polis or that, when he has made them, instead of receiving χάρις, he should be subjected to εὔθυναι (18.114: σχέτλιον γὰρ ἂν εἴη τοῦτό γε, εἰ τῷ τιν ̓ ἀρχὴν ἄρχοντι ἢ διδόναι τῇ πόλει τὰ ἑαυτοῦ διὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν μὴ ἐξέσται ἢ τῶν δοθέντων ἀντὶ τοῦ ϰομίσασθαι χάριν εὐθύνας ὑφέξει)77 and quoted the examples of Nausikles, Diotimos and Charidemos who, as stratēgoi, had given shields and made other unspecified contributions during their term of office. Lykophron, defending himself against the charge of moicheia in a speech written by Hyperides, presented himself as a good citizen who had devoted his whole life to horse-breeding, had already been awarded a crown ἀνδραγαθίας ἕνεϰα by the ἱππεῖς and had been elected as ἵππαρχος in Lemnos for two years in a row and had voluntarily stayed on for a third year “not wanting to be rash in demanding pay for the cavalry from citizens who were in financial straits” (οὐ βουλόμενος πολίτας ἄνδρας ἐπὶ ϰεφαλὴν εἰσπράττειν τὸν μισθὸν τοῖς ἱππεῦσιν ἀπόρως διαϰειμένους) (Lyc. fr. IV, col. XIII, 16-17 Jensen)78. The implication is that he had provided the misthos himself. A third example is offered by the decree in honour of Pytheas of Alopeke (PAA 793270) who was rewarded with a golden crown for his accomplishments in the capacity of ὁ ἐπὶ τὰς ϰρήνας while he was still in office (IG II² 338 = Schwenk 1985, n^o 28)79. Pytheas is praised both because he took care ϰαλῶς ϰαὶ φιλοτίμως of the matters concerning his office, and, more specifically, for building a fountain-house by the sanctuary of Ammon and repairing the one in the sanctuary of Amphiaraos. Although the language of the inscription is not explicit in this respect, it can be surmised that he had actually undertaken to pay for at least some of the work out of his own pocket.

17It is striking that in all three cases generosity displayed while in office is connected to the demand for adequate charis and honours in return. Demosthenes, besides stating that largesse should be met by charis and not euthunai, openly justified his donations with the ἔπαινος which he expected would result from them (ϰαὶ διά γε ὀρθῶς ἐπῃνούμην, ὅτι τἀνηλωμέν’ ἔδωϰα ϰαὶ οὐκ ἐλογιζόμην) (18.113). Lykophron, in an attempt to captivate the goodwill of the judges, included the office as hipparchos in the list of his services to the community in the same way as litigants usually enumerated their liturgies. In this case, liturgies and archai appear to be interchangeable and this may suggest that Demetrios of Phaleron’s later replacement of chorēgia with agonothesia may have been less innovating than is generally supposed80.

18It is, again, difficult to assess whether such developments within Athenian society were marginal, superficial phenomena or, to the contrary, resulted in a new configuration of social and political relations in the city. It is, however, undeniable that they appear to be almost contemporary with other important changes in the system of public honouring, in the language of honorific decrees and, generally speaking, in epigraphic culture. One important step, as shown in a fundamental article by D. Whitehead, was the redefinition of φιλοτιμία, “love of honour”, which from the time of Pindar (fr. 210 Snell-Mahler) had had a rather ambivalent status in Greek literature often referring to excessive selfish ambition, into a positive concept describing the attitude of the good, public-spirited and, above all, “generous” citizen81. There are indications that this had already begun in the late 350s. In his speech Against Leptines Demosthenes argued that Leptines’ proposal to abolish all immunities from fiscal burdens granted to benefactors would stop competitive emulation (20.18-27) and discourage philotimia in all (20.5: πάντας ἀπείρξετε τοῦ φιλοτιμεῖσθαι; cf. also 103 and 155). It appears, in particular, that one aspect of philotimia lay in the willingness to spend private money to meet public needs of the polis (20.10). Likewise, in Against Meidias the gift of a trireme is singled out as an appropriate manifestation of commendable philotimia and contrasted with lavish expenditure for ostentatious purposes (21.159-162, 165-167)82.

19It is, however, to be found that especially in honorific decrees philotimia came to be officially canonised as one of the “cardinal virtues” and was given a central position in democratic ideology. It suddenly appeared in inscriptions, first at deme and then at city level, in the 340s83, roughly at the same time as when Athens began to regularly inscribe decrees honouring its own citizens84 and it may generically describe the behaviour of those who “displayed zeal and efficiency in the public interest85”, especially while holding office but, again, the outlay of money features prominently as one of its specific marks. Starting from the 330s, when “the Athenians awarded individuals explicitly for their actions and wrote them up on stelai86”, we obtain a more concrete idea of the ways the honorands had given public proof of their philotimia. In IG II² 1629 (= Rhodes & Osborne 2003, n^o 100), l. 183-204, philotimia is associated with the enthusiastic performance of the trierarchy. In the decree of 332/1, Pytheas of Alopeke was awarded a golden crown on the basis that he had carried out his administrative and, presumably, financial duties as “superintendant of the krenai” ϰαλῶς ϰαὶ φιλοτίμως (IG II² 338, l.10-13), while in the hortatory intention clause this honour is justified with a view that those who are appointed to the same office in the future may deploy the same kind of philotimia towards the dēmos (l.21-24: ὅπως ἂν ϰαὶ οἱ ἄλλοι οἱ ἀεὶ χειροτονούμενοι ἐπὶ τὰς ϰρήνας φιλοτιμῶνται ἕκαστοι εἰς τὸν δῆμον). Xenokles’ activity as epimelētēs tōn mustēriōn in Eleusis, which included the construction of a stone bridge over the Kephisos, is equally qualified with the adverbs εὐσεβῶς ϰαὶ φιλοτίμως (IG II² 1191, l.11-23).

20The construction of the concept of democratic philotimia, however, was not carried out without serious tensions nor could its contours be easily and sharply defined. While Theophrastos was not at pains to identify the μιϰροφιλότιμος, the “man of petty ambition”, from the triviality of his aims and methods (Char. 21)87, the core question revolved around what was to be considered “private” or “public”, “selfish” or “public-spirited”. In his speech On the Crown, lingering on his own civic progress, Demosthenes claimed that, as soon as he had left childhood, he had been in the position to be a chorēgos, serve as triērarchos, pay eisphora and not be deficient in any form of philotimia, either private or public, thus being useful both to the polis and to his friends (18.257: ἐξελθόντι δ’ ἐϰ παίδων… χορηγεῖν, τριηραρχεῖν, εἰσφέρειν, μηδεμιᾶς φιλοτιμίας μήτ’ ἰδίας μήτε δημοσίας ἀπολείπεσθαι, ἀλλὰ ϰαὶ τῇ πόλει ϰαὶ τοῖς φίλοις χρήσιμον εἶναι). Likewise, in Hyperides’ speech, Lykophron was eager to portray himself as someone whose (aristocratic) passion for horse-breeding, a priori rather suspect, had been exercised φιλοτίμως, to the benefit of the community (Lyc. fr. IV, col. XIII, 16-17 Jensen). Not all liturgies were at the same level in this respect and the character of festival vs. military liturgies was in particular controversial. Arguments to this effect are again aired, in the late 350s, in Demosthenes’ statement that “money spent for chorēgiai affords those of us who are in the theatre gratification for a fraction of a day; but money lavished on equipment for war gives security to the whole city for the whole time” (παρὰ μὲν γὰρ τὰς ἐπὶ τῶν χορηγιῶν δαπάνας ἡμέρας μέρος ἡ χάρις τοῖς θεωμένοις ἡμῶν, παρὰ τὰς δὲ τῶν εἰς τὸν πόλεμον παρασϰευῶν ἀφθονίας πάντα τὸν χρόνον ἡ σωτηρία πάσῃ τῇ πόλει) (Dem. 20.26). Although Demosthenes is implying that military liturgies had a higher status, there is no open disapproval of chorēgiai in his words. This is, however, what we find twenty years later in Lykourgos’ speech Against Leocrates: “Some of these men are no longer trying to distract you by arguments but ask you to acquit men on trial because of their liturgies (ἀλλ’ ἤδη ταῖς αὑτῶν λῃτουργίαις ἐξαιτεῖσθαι τοὺς ϰρινομένους ἀξιώσουσιν). These I particularly resent. They performed the services to benefit their own household, yet they ask you to reward them with public favour! (ϰοινὰς χάριτας ὑμᾶς ἀπαιτοῦσι). If someone keeps horses or finances a splendid chorus or spends his money on other such activities (εἴ τις ἱπποτρόφηϰεν ἢ ϰεχορήγηκε λαμπρῶς ἢ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν τοιούτων τι δεδαπάνηϰεν), he does not deserve this kind of favour from you – for these he wins a crown for himself and brings no benefit to anyone else (ἐπὶ τούτοις γὰρ αὐτὸς μόνος στεφανοῦται, τοὺς ἄλλους οὐδὲν ὠφελῶν) – but he deserves a favour if he has done a splendid job commanding a trireme or having walls constructed around the country or contributing from his private funds to the common defence (ἀλλ’ εἴ τις τετριηράρχηϰε λαμπρῶς ἢ τείχη τῇ πατρίδι περιέβαλεν ἢ πρὸς τὴν ϰοινὴν σωτηρίαν ἐϰ τῶν ἰδίων συνευπόρησε). These activities are performed for you in common, and in them you can see the virtue of the men who have contributed; in other cases you see only the wealth of men who have spent money” (ταῦτα γάρ ἐστι ϰοινῶς ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἁπάντων, ϰαὶ ἐν μὲν τούτοις ἔστιν ἰδεῖν τὴν ἀρετὴν τῶν ἐπιδεδωϰότων, ἐν ἐϰείνοις δὲ τὴν εὐπορίαν μόνον τῶν δεδαπανηκότων) (Lycurg. 1.139-140).

21It is important to stress that Lykourgos was not addressing a rhetorical or philosophical question here, but a political and social problem arising from contemporary practices. Choregic monuments, for instance, became more elaborate and ostentatious in this period and, like Lysikrates’ monument (335/4 B.C.), which as shown by the foundations of similar monuments was not exceptional, their large-scale structure was clearly designed to be an imposing display of wealth88. Even considering that the tension between collective ideals and the aspiration to pre-eminence of individuals, in other words between political equality and economic inequality, had always been one of the unresolved questions of Athenian democracy, in the later fourth century there seem to have been fewer societal constraints to prevent the ostentatious use of money and the assertion of its power. Lykourgos’ sumptuary legislation must be assessed in the light of Demosthenes’ comment to the effect that Meidias not only was a reluctant liturgist but “has built a house at Eleusis so large that it casts a shadow over all neighbours; he takes his wife to celebrations of mysteries, and anywhere else he wishes, in a carriage drawn by white horses from Sikyon; and he swaggers around the agora taking three or four slaves with him and calling out the names of chalices, drinking horns, and fine plates so that bystanders hear him. I do not know what benefit most of you derive from all these items that Meidias purchases for his personal luxury and extravagance” (21.158-159).

22Even in contemporary philosophical works the problem of the role of private wealth within the community was regarded as serious enough to deserve careful analysis. In the Nichomachean Ethics Aristotle included μεγαλοπρέπεια, “magnificence”, in his canon of “virtues” and redefined it as “a fitting expenditure involving largeness of scale” (1122a23: ἐν μεγέθει πρέπουσα δαπάνη ἐστίν)89. Megaloprepeia thus differed from simple “generosity” (ἐλευθεριότης) in that it was not concerned with spending, but with spending on a large scale (1122a20-21: ἐν τούτοις δ’ ὑπερέχει τῆς ἐλευθεριότητος μεγέθει). The objects of expenditure had to be, according to Aristotle, “honourable” (τίμια), including those concerning the gods (dedications, buildings and sacrifices [ἀναθήματα ϰαὶ ϰατασκευαὶ ϰαὶ θυσίαι]), and “all those that are proper objects of public-spirited ambition in the public sphere, as people think that they ought to produce a chorus or equip a trireme or entertain the city in a brilliant way” (ϰαὶ ὅσα πρὸς τὸ ϰοινὸν εὐφιλοτίμητα ἐστιν οἷον εἴ που χορηγεῖν οἴονται δεῖν λαμπρῶς ἢ τριηραρχεῖν ἢ ϰαὶ ἑστιᾶν τὴν πόλιν) (1122b19-23; cf. Xen., Oec. 2.5-7), and, in the private sphere, those that take place only once (like a wedding), are lasting (like furnishing a house) or “anything for which the entire city is striving, or at least those of rank” (ϰαὶ εἰ περί τι ἡ πᾶσα πόλις σπουδάζει ἢ οἱ ἐν ἀξιώματι) (1122b35-1123a9). The fundamental criterion is thus that “the magnificent man spends not on himself but for the community” (οὐ γὰρ εἰς ἑαυτὸν δαπανηρὸς ὁ μεγαλοπρεπὴς ἀλλ’ εἰς τὰ ϰοινά) (1123a4-5) and it is intriguing to verify that the items of expenditure listed by Aristotle exactly correspond to those we have found in the orators with the significant addition of ἐπισϰευαί, “building works”, a feature of the “Lykourgan programme90”. Moving from philosophy to political theory, in the Politics Aristotle, nonetheless, interestingly narrowed the scope of the forms of expenditure which were to be considered legitimate manifestations of “public-spirited ambition” (εὐφιλοτίμητα) and stressed that “in democracies the rich should be spared… It is a good thing to prevent the wealthy citizens, even if they are willing, from undertaking expensive and useless public services, such as the giving of choruses, torch-races, and the like” (βέλτιον δὲ ϰαὶ βουλομένους ϰωλύειν λειτουργεῖν τὰς δαπανηρὰς μὲν μὴ χρησίμους δὲ λειτουργίας, οἷον χορηγίας ϰαὶ λαμπαδαρχίας ϰαὶ ὅσαι ἄλλαι τοιαῦται) (1309a14-20; cf. 1320a35-b4: ἀφειμένους τῶν ματαίων λειτουργιῶν)91, thus taking the same line as Lykourgos.

23All the evidence we have therefore points in the same direction and I believe it can safely be concluded that, more than ever in the history of the Athenian democracy, the “virtue” of megaloprepeia appears in this period to have been “precariously poised between compulsion and excess, subject to serious tensions because of its political nature92”. As the polis, in order to guarantee public revenue and promote civic cohesion, was trying to harness the use of private wealth and direct its deployment to forms of social “investment” functional to the needs of the community, at the same time it also inevitably recognized the power of money and its role as a basis for political pre-eminence. It is not coincidental that Lykourgos was supported in his activities by a group of well-to-do liturgists including Xenokles, Neoptolemos, Deinias, and no doubt many others.

***

24To sum up, going back to the question I posed at the beginning of this paper, I conclude that we are perfectly entitled to speak of “Lykourgan Athens” for the following reasons:

• Lykourgos’ control over public finances enabled him to exert strong political influence and condition most important decisions.
• Notwithstanding democratic institutions were not formally modified (Arist., Ath. Pol. 41.2), the modalities of the interaction between the political elite and the dēmos, between rhētores and idiotai, gradually started changing. Lykourgan Athens was no doubt democratic but also more authoritarian and one has the impression that democratic reorganization was very much a process imposed from the top (see Lykourgos’ Against Leokrates and Demosthenes’ Against Aristogeiton).
• Those who collaborated with Lykourgos on the political arena were all members of an economic elite prepared to display their loyalty to the polis by making their wealth available for common purposes and, thus, blurring the divide between public and private spheres. In their patriotism, they may have looked back at fifth-century Athens as their model93 but, in actual fact, they, and their less public-spirited fellows who insisted on investing their money on “useless” liturgies and more ostentatious forms of display, anticipated trends which were to develop during the ten years of Demetrios of Phaleron’s government and, more generally, into the Hellenistic age.