closest we come to this is the episode of the wedding of Agariste, daughter of Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon (6.126–130). Here, the mixed bunch of her suitors is supposed to compete in andragathiē, the “manly virtue,” which may be understood here as particular competences testifying to their aretē. While the tyrant will test them all year long in athletics and in table manners at their nocturnal symposia (see below), they arrive already equipped with some renown. Perhaps too young to have already earned their own celebrity, they can still boast about their fathers’ or their elder brothers’ lavish lifestyle, family riches, good looks, wisdom, athletic victories, exceptional physical strength, family connections to powerful tyrants, and even personal familiarity with gods (6.127).
To sum up, Herodotus’ audience must have instinctively been able to recognize the outstanding aristocrats as such, and the only criterion seems to have been some sort of celebrity, with good birth as an ideological sine qua non. Most often, however, we will only learn of an individual that he was notable (δόκιμος, δοκιμώτατος, or λόγιμος), powerful (e.g., he ἐδυνάστευε in his city), or had a great power (κράτος) in his local community.6
When it comes to describing social groups in Herodotus, we are on much safer ground. True, he does deal with a few exceptional cases of seemingly closed oligarchic groups, such as the Corinthian Bacchiadai, the Eretrian Hippobotai (lit. “feeders of horses,” as in 5.77.2–3; 6.100.1), or the γαμόροι (lit. “the landowners,” as in 7.155.2) of Syracuse. But besides the aberrant case of the Corinthian oligarchs, explicitly characterized as such in the story of their merciless exclusivism (5.92.b 1–e 2), the other group names seem only to add local flavor to a general phenomenon we can consistently observe in Herodotus. Namely, those in a more elevated social position are always described as “the wealthy ones,” or literally “the fat ones” (παχέες, as in 5.30; 5.77.2–3; 6.91.1; 7.156.2–3).
Thus far, both the individual and the group characterization of the elites in Herodotus seem at first to confirm Alain Duplouy’s idea that it is impossible to find an operative definition of the Greek “aristocracy” as a social group. However, one more aspect of Herodotus’ narrative should attract our attention here. Namely, the “wealthy ones,” the παχέες, are sharply contrasted with the dēmos. At several occasions, we hear of political fights between the two groups, resulting at some point in the expulsion of the παχέες from Naxos (5.30). On Aegina, however, the παχέες, led by a certain Nikodromos, had the upper hand over the dēmos and even massacred 700 of them (6.91.1–2). Even more importantly, when the tyrant Gelon’s mass deportations in Sicily reached Megara Hyblea, he brought the παχέες of this city to Syracuse and bestowed citizenship on them, while selling the dēmos of Megara into slavery. He did the same with the Euboeans of Sicily (7.156.2–3).
This last case is revealing because it shows that the contrast between the dēmos and “the wealthy ones,” while often subjective, can nevertheless be used as a legal or socio-political criterion of some precision. In other words, at any given time both fellow citizens and outsiders were perfectly capable of defining the “aristocrats” of any given community. Such groups, without being legally determined or constitutionally defined, and probably fluid in their social composition given the strength of the wealth criterion and so the potential influx of the nouveaux-riches stigmatized by Theognis, were nonetheless distinguishable. Let us try to compile and to analyze the set of criteria that made this possible.
How to Be an Aristocrat?
How could one assert one’s own aristocratic status and recognize it in another? As already mentioned, in the ideal world of the Homeric poems, physical appearance (alongside garments, in all probability7) will be enough to recognize an aristocrat. There is no need even to ask for a name until the guest himself decides to reveal it to his noble host. In real life, however, all is in the name. In the archaic period, elements of usually meaningful Greek personal names will suggest at least aristocratic ambitions of one’s parents.8 The compounds containing such words (and notions) as “horse” (hippos, as in Hipparchus) or other athletic paraphernalia such as the race track (-dromos, as in Callidromos), or “victory” (nike-, as in Nikodromos), “fame” (kleos or the like, as in Pericles), or “strength/power” (kratos, as in Polycrates), but also references to the public sphere (agora, more rarely asty or polis, as in Aristagoras) and/or to the idea of resisting the enemy and so protecting one’s community (mene-, alexi-, as in Alexander), or leading (proto-) or persuading (peis-, peith-) fellow-citizens (laoi, dēmos, stratos, as in Peisistratos) will instantly be perceived as belonging to the stock of “aristocratic” names, alongside those straightforwardly indicating one’s supremacy (arist-, as in Aristides or anax-, as in Anaxarchos or Astyanax). More rarely, but very importantly, the idea of being “elected” (-kritos, as in Demokritos) by the people will come to the fore. All such names, besides referring to the aristocratic lifestyle (cf. athletics, but also fame in general) allude to an elevated position within the community in politics but also in warfare.9
Ideally, again in Homer, a commoner will also be easily distinguishable from an aristocrat for want of athletic posture (Od. 8.159–164). In real-life terms, athletic competence or past experience will need to be asserted verbally, but athletic references themselves are crucial as they parade one’s membership in the “leisure class,” i.e., a group with an easy access to spare time needed for specialized bodily training.
Besides these elements, aristocratic means of social recognition will be a complex mix of material and non-material “markers” revolving around one’s economic status, pedigree, family and social connections, as well as rituals and social practices one participates in. More or less ostentatious luxury (a relative thing, as the object “luxurious enough” in a poorer community will be ridiculously negligible in a wealthier environment), including foreign, exotic, and especially oriental items will be crucially important here. The most spectacular among such objects will have their own genealogy recounted by their current owners who sometimes refer to their previous high-born possessors (as in Homer, Od. 4.615–619; cf. Crielaard 2003). At times, it will be one’s war booty, additionally pointing to military prowess of the person in question or of his forefathers, but probably more often the story will refer to the gift-exchange procedures as they will themselves be indicative of prestigious relations of guest-friendship (xenia, philia) reaching far beyond one’s immediate circle or even to other Greek, and at times non-Greek, communities. Such ties, whether short- or long-distance, may be consolidated by political marriages, operative even within a tiny village, but sometimes extending as far as eminent or even royal barbarian families.10 All those distinguished ties will be subject to narratives, sometimes evoking longer genealogical traditions, naturally encroaching on the realm of myth if needed and whenever possible.
Marriages will naturally be concluded in a duly spectacular manner, leading to more or less conspicuous consumption and feasting, as in the aforementioned case of Agariste in Sicyon. On the other end of one’s aristocratic adult life, more or less spectacular funerals will be fundamental, with appropriate (in number, value and in symbolic terms) grave-goods, lavish feasting and the burial itself.11 Duly monumental or otherwise spectacular sēmata, or grave-markers, visible to all passers-by, will naturally crown the funeral, at times additionally having recourse to funerary inscriptions.
Although the actual ritual and material forms of all these social practices did vary from one community to another (e.g., inhumation vs. cremation for burials and the locally-specific nature of grave-goods), their common supra-local denominator is clear, since many of them only made sense when operating between different communities. In principle, the bigger the distances people, stories, and objects travel, in space and in time, the more prestigious their exchange and their possession will be. The same can be said of rituals (potentially)
