Konkurrenz und Institutionalisierung in der griechischen Archaik Herausgegeben von Jan B. Meister und Gunnar Seelentag (original) (raw)
Related papers
2020
The Greek Archaic period was extremely dynamic: From the 8th century B.C. onwards, material culture developed at a comparatively rapid pace for pre-modern societies, the adoption of the alphabet opened up completely new possibilities of communication and new political, social and religious institutions were created in the context of the mostly small-scale socio-political communities of the poleis. The authors of this volume examine these developments from ancient historical, archaeological and philological perspectives – and use a common set of theoretical instruments to do so: Using sociological models of ‘competition’ and ‘institutionalization’, they relate findings from very different social fields to one another. In place of traditional narratives, which presuppose the existence of ‘das Agonale’ or an evolutionary ‘state formation’, they focus on the actors of said developments and thereby draw pictures of a complex interaction between cultural practices and institutionalization that opens up new perspectives on Archaic Greece. with contributions by Jan B. Meister, Gunnar Seelentag, Christoph Ulf, Erich Kistler, Christoph Lundgreen, Peter Zeller, Stefan Frass, Fabian Schulz, Tanja Itgenshorst, Claas Lattmann, Winfried Schmitz, Nadin Burkhardt, Klaus Junker, Arlette Neumann-Hartmann, Elke Stein-Hölkeskamp
J. Meister and G. Seelentag (eds.), Konkurrenz und Institutionalisierung in der griechischen Archaik, Stuttgart 2020
The very notion of the immigration of ‘the Greeks’ to the southern Balkans from the north has been called into question for good reason. In tandem with this debate on ‘becoming Greek’ as opposed to the ‘coming of the Greeks’, archaeological findings have demonstrated that settlement design after the Sub-Mycenaean period was totally different from what went before. Compounds, scattered settlements and dense settlements with or without an agora emerged and coexisted over centuries. Against this backdrop, interpreta¬tions of the Homeric epics as reflexions of big man-societies appear even more convincing. Like the lyric poets, the epics also seem to be commenting on changes in contemporary society. Taking the concept of the aggrandiser as proposed by Brian Hayden as starting point, this paper highlights the tendency of the big men in Archaic Greece, i. e. basileis and hegemones, to distance themselves from the demos by loosening their social bonds and com¬mitments. This effort to establish a segregated social group of big men goes hand in hand with the ongoing reduction of the formerly intense competition between them. These pro¬cesses are best understood as the emergence of an aristocracy (‘aristocratisation’).
Seelentag – Das archaische Kreta. Institutionalisierung im frühen Griechenland
2015
Archaic Crete is ideally suited for a case study on the process of institutionalization in early Greece. Along with the literary and archeological sources, numerous inscriptions from the 7th to the 5th centuries BCE cast light on key issues of the epoch, including the emergence of the polis, mechanisms of social integration, and ways of dealing with sociopolitical conflict. Dieses Buch untersucht Institutionalisierung im frühen Griechenland, und zwar mit Blick auf das archaische Kreta, der wohl besten Fallstudie für eine solche Analyse. Denn anhand des reichen kretischen Materials – der Befunde literarischer wie archäologischer Zeugnisse, vor allem aber der Vielzahl von Inschriften aus dem 7. bis 5. Jh. v. Chr. – ist es, wie für keine andere Gegend des griechischen Raumes, möglich, Licht auf einige der zentralen Fragen dieser Epoche zu werfen: so etwa, welche soziopolitischen Integrationskreise in den frühen Polisgemeinschaften sinnhaft waren, und unter welchen Umständen die Teilhabe der Bürger am Gemeinwesen vorangetrieben wurde; wie politische Prominenzrollen und Beschlussverfahren reguliert und verstetigt wurden; und schließlich, welche Strategien erprobt wurden, mit sozialen Konflikten in der Gemeinschaft umzugehen.