one thing, Nagy’s model of recomposition in performance does not necessarily rule out an original poet or an original moment of composition (Forsdyke 2005: 33). In contrast to the Theognidea, datable references in the poetry of Archilochus are confined to a relatively short span of time in the middle decades of the seventh century: (i) in fr. 102, Archilochus describes the Parian settlement of Thasos, for which archaeology suggests a date shortly before the middle of the seventh century; (ii) fr. 19, as we have already seen, refers to the Lydian king Gyges, whose reign is approximately dated by Assyrian documents to the period 665–643 BC; (iii) a reference to a solar eclipse in fr. 122 should be that of either June 27 661 or April 6 648 BC; and (iv) the name of one of the poet’s addressees, Glaucus son of Leptinus, appears on a memorial, set up in the Agora of Thasos and dated by letter-forms to the last quarter of the seventh century, thus providing a terminus ante quem.4 For another, the assertive, individual “I” in Greek lyric betrays what Leslie Kurke (2007a: 145) describes as an “intense ideological contestation”—that is, a form of resistance to rapidly changing circumstances in which the force of specific referents would be bluntened were they merely generic. One of the distinguishing features of the archaic Greek poets is that they “use their own experience to express a truth of general validity” (Carey 1986: 67). It may be possible then, as Sara Forsdyke argues, to read such poetry both historically and generically (2005: 40).
Alcaeus is a case in point. Modern reconstructions of the history of archaic Mytilene (e.g., Jeffery 1976: 238–240; Parker 2007: 31–32) are largely generated from the fragments of Alcaeus’ poetry as well as from later authors, who may have had little else to hand than that same poetry. So, we hear that Mytilene was originally ruled by an aristocratic group of families known as the Penthilidae (fr. 75 Campbell), who were overthrown by a certain Megacles and his associates after they had gone around striking people with clubs (Arist. Pol. 1311b). Another fragment (fr. 331) mentions the tyrant Melanchrus, whom Alcaeus’ brothers are supposed to have assisted Pittacus in deposing (Diogenes Laertius 1.74). A scholiast to fr. 114 tells us that Alcaeus and his associates fled to nearby Pyrrha after a failed plot against another tyrant, Myrsilus, whose death is celebrated in fr. 332. On this occasion, Pittacus had apparently taken Myrsilus’ side (fr. 70), later being established as tyrant of Mytilene (fr. 348), although Aristotle (Pol. 1285a) implies and Diogenes Laertius (1.75) explicitly states that Pittacus assumed power (archē) for a limited term of 10 years before standing down. Alcaeus’ hostility against Pittacus is unreserved: he calls the tyrant, among other things, “splay-footed,” “a braggart,” and “a pot-belly” (fr. 429). And yet Diodorus of Sicily (9.11.1) describes him as a “good lawgiver,” who “liberated his homeland from three of the greatest evils—tyranny, civil strife (stasis), and war” (cf. Strabo 13.2.3) and later tradition numbered him among the Seven Sages. There could be no clearer example of “ideological contestation.”
Even if we were reluctant to assume without question that the narrating voice of these poems is that of the author, meaning that “Alcaeus” may not actually have been so personally involved in political intrigues on Lesbos, it strains credibility to imagine that characters such as Melanchrus, Myrsilus, and Pittacus—whether they are genuine names or pseudonyms—had no real-life referents in the context of an original performance. At the same time, however, this poetry can be read generically as well as historically because topoi such as factionalism among elites or autocratic rule “were meaningful to a large number of poleis over a long period of time” (Forsdyke 2005: 34). Simply put, we do not need to adopt an autobiographical approach to archaic Greek poetry to recognize the historical value that it contains. Nor should we disregard the fact that we have evidentiary materials that both supplement and complement the poetic testimony: first, laws inscribed on stone, which begin to appear toward the end of the seventh century, so coterminous with the lyric poets; second, the archaeological remains of structures for which a public or political function has been supposed; and third, the “bookends” constituted by the world described in the slightly earlier Homeric and Hesiodic poems and the much better documented circumstances of the succeeding classical period, between which we can make at least educated guesses about political developments in the archaic period.
The Rise of Institutions
This is not the place to discuss in detail whether the society depicted in the Homeric epics is in any sense historical or, if it is, whether it can be located precisely in time and space or viewed instead as a mélange of societies that belong to different periods and localities (for a more extended discussion, see Hall 2002: 230–236). Although Homeric characters traverse a landscape that is undeniably that of Late Bronze Age Greece, persuasive arguments have been made that the social structures, customs, and values portrayed in the epics must have been at least partly meaningful to audiences of the eighth and early-seventh centuries.5 With Hesiod’s Works and Days, however, we are on firmer ground. One does not need to read autobiographically the Hesiodic persona of the peasant-poet, squabbling with his brother over an inheritance, to recognize that the moral and didactic nature of the poem would be severely compromised if the situations described were unimaginable to an audience (Hall 2014: 25–26).
One of the more significant developments of the seventh century is the appearance of named magistracies, which signals a shift from societies where status and authority were “achieved,” through charisma, the ability to persuade, and the demonstration of military prowess and conspicuous generosity, to a situation where status is “ascribed” by the office one holds (Hall 2014: 142). In the poems of Hesiod, for example, leadership in the community is exercised by a plurality of basileis (e.g., Theog. 80–90, 429–438; WD 37–39). The word basileus had, in the Mycenaean period, denoted a medium-ranking official in the palatial administration although by the classical period it came to be used either of monarchs, especially foreign ones, or of an elected or appointed official, such as the archōn basileus at Athens ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 57.1). In Hesiod, however, its employment seems less well defined—especially when considered in the light of the term’s meaning in the Homeric epics. When Nestor describes Agamemnon as the “most basileus” (basileutatos) of the Achaeans (Il. 9.69) or when Agamemnon argues that he is “more of a basileus” than Achilles (9.160), it is clear that basileus connotes a relative, rather than absolute, status. In essence, the Homeric basileus is more akin to what some anthropologists have termed a “big man” or a “chieftain” than to a sovereign ruler (Sahlins 1963; though see Yoffee 2005: 22–41). Because such positions are “achieved” through personal virtues, they risk instability across generations: there is certainly some aspiration toward hereditary succession (e.g., Il. 2.100–108; Od. 4.62–64) but there is no certainty that Odysseus’ son Telemachus will inherent his father’s position, while Odysseus himself wields authority even though his father Laertes is still alive (Qviller 1981; Donlan 1985; 1997; Tandy 1997: 84–111).
What is interesting is that, unlike in the Iliad, the Odyssey preempts the situation described by Hesiod, whereby communities were ruled by a plurality or college of basileis: Antinous tells Penelope that there are “many other basileis of the Achaeans in sea-girt Ithaca, both young and old” (1.394–5) while Alcinous notes that he is one of 13 basileis who hold sway over the Phaeacians (8.390–1). This is largely, no doubt, a consequence of a rise in population that can be traced back to the second half of the eighth century even if the scale of this increase is disputed (Snodgrass 1980: 15–48; Morris 1987: 156–167; Scheidel 2003). The archaeology of ancient cities such as Athens, Eretria, Corinth, and Argos suggests that the physical epiphenomenon of demographic increase was an expansion of formerly discrete, village-like clusters of habitation to create a single, continuous settlement area (Hall 2016: 282, 285). Community leaders had essentially two options: either to subdue, or yield to, a fellow basileus or to subscribe to a power-sharing arrangement. The latter is almost certainly what accounts for a transition from a hierarchically structured elite, where preeminence was always contested and precarious, to a collective ruling class regulated by legal procedures (Stein-Hölkeskamp 2015: 85)—a transition that is documented initially
