Moda elitista e indiferenciación democrática en la Atenas de finales del siglo V a.C. (original) (raw)

2021, H. Beck, J. Gallego, C.G. García Mac Gaw y F. Pina Polo (eds.), Encuentros con las élites del Mediterráneo Antiguo. Liderazgo, estilos de vida, legitimidad, Buenos Aires, Miño y Dávila Editores

In late fifth-century Athens, a philolaconian fashion seems to have been imposed among young people from the elite oligarchic circles. The adoption of this look is clearly visible in having the hair down along with a certain austerity in clothing, following the Spartan style. At the same time, the oligarchic critiques of democracy because of the "unnatural" equality it enables emphasize the prevailing lack of distinction between citizens, foreigners, metics, slaves, women, and so on. The lifestyle that spreads among oligarchic young men turns out to be not only an ideological statement of class identity, but also the configuration of a political identity in function of public action. In this sense, the philolaconic fashion does not seem to have been a simple matter of aesthetic taste intended to be displayed within the reserved elitist circle, but an active decision to publicly communicate the existence of a group ready to take action, leaving aside the apragomsyne which seemed to characterize previous generations of oligarchs. It is the time when hetaireiai manage to crown their actions, sometimes furtive, going to fulfill their antidemocratic purposes openly in the public space. (For instance, were oligarchic young men who passed to concrete action, dagger in hand, in the coup d'état that established the oligarchy of the Four Hundred.) In communicational terms, this strategy of assault on democratic power is concretized by appealing to concepts that ponder political moderation (sophrosyne), thus revitalizing the notion of eunomia.