The Archaic Athenian ΖΕΥΓΙΤΑΙ
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9322994 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Whitehead (0000-0002-9791-7493, University of Manchester, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1981 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 282-286 |
| Publication date | 1981-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Classical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-8388 • E-ISSN: 1471-6844 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0009838800009599 |
| OpenAlex | W2329890701 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 12 |
It seems to be widely agreed by modern scholars that when Solon created his four census-classes ( τ⋯λη ) in early sixth-century Athens (Plut. Sol. 18. 1–2) he gave to at least three of them – the ἱππεῖς , the ζευγῖται and the θ⋯τες – names which were in pre-existing use there. But what, if so, did the names signify, before being assigned their new, official, quantitative (and semantically colourless) Solonic sense? The archaic Athenian θ⋯τες were presumably recognizably akin to their Homeric and Hesiodic namesakes; and despite the etymological obscurity of the word in any event, in practical terms it will have denoted men who by all relevant social, economic or military tests scored a negligible rating. In the case of higher scorers, however, it becomes important for us to discover precisely which criteria are being applied, and so it is the ἱππεῖς and the ζευγῖται who have always posed the main interpretative puzzle. For the ζευγῖται Ehrenberg put it succinctly enough: ‘the zeugitai can be explained either as those who owned a pair of oxen under the yoke (zeugos) or those who are joined to their neighbours in the ranks of the phalanx’. Both these explanations – for convenience I shall (for the moment) call them the agricultural and the military – have indeed long had, and continue to have, their adherents. Most of the great nineteenth-century students of Staatsaltertümer took the agricultural line, usually without argument; and the standard lexica still do. In 1894, however, Conrad Cichorius made out a strong case for the military explanation, and he has had many followers, both witting and (I should guess) unwitting
Argument (complex analysis · Political science · Sociology · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2012 - 2024 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |