The static, caste-dominated view of ancient societies has been chal-
lenged from three directions—by a gradualist concept of state formation;
by interactionist models of social intercourse, based on Network theory;
and by the renewal of interest in ecological drivers of economic and social
exchange. Ian Morris has argued, in a number of publications, and using
separate data sets, that Aegean Greeks were consciously egalitarian in
spirit and materially unremarkable, if comfortable, in the seventh and
sixth centuriesbc, while Athenian society changed during thefifth century
from being markedly egalitarian towards the kind of stratified, top-loaded
administrative and knowledge-based élite singled out by Ernest Gellner in
his definition of an‘agro-literate’state. However, this analysis of Athenian
society refers not to the territory of Attica alone, but to the wider network
of overland resources acquired by a combination of alliance and brink-
manship.^25 Nevertheless, the focus of this analysis is on state formation,
and Morris has redefined this process as one of progressive, dynamic
stages, rather than a one-off development, which makes Gellner’soriginal,
and rather widely drawn definition of such societies look overly prescrip-
tive and over-determined. Morris rejects the conventional label of‘empire’
in describing Athenian power in thefifth centurybc,infavourofthe
‘Greater Athenian State’, emphasizing the institutions shared amongst the
beneficiaries of Athenian power, which extended to a multitude of minor
communities across the Aegean, including shared taxation, a shared
coinage and a massiveemporionat Piraeus.
Morris extends this highly dynamic conceptualization of Athenian
state evolution, which gives predictable prominence to the formative
role of military aggrandizement, to other states in the Aegean that
acquired exceptional power amongst their peers, including Sparta,
Thebes, Syracuse, and the Chalkidian League in the north. Peer compe-
tition among Greek communities has often been recognized as a political
driver in Aegean history, but Morris’s emphasis on demographic growth
and responses to it in the form of egalitarian tactics has given this vector
of success an added twist, by connecting demographic changes much
more directly with socio-political emancipation.^26
(^25) Gellner 1983, 9–10; Morris 2009a, 136–9; Morris 2009b, 66–77; he contrasts the eye-
watering wealth of the Lydian named Pythios, who lavishly entertained the Persian army and
offered Xerxes his fortune of 2,000 silver talents and 3,993,000 gold darics (Hdt. 7.28–29), with
the one Athenian of note, Kleinias, son of Alkibiades, who put out a trireme on his own
account (Hdt. 8.17; Morris 2009b, 74). Morris builds his argument on a number of successive,
detailed studies of funerary and residential data, particularly Morris 2005. This broad level of
apparent material homogeneity is not inconsistent with real material disparities and real social
tensions, as discussed by Rhodes 2000, esp. 126–36.
(^26) Morris 2009b, 73–4; 2009a, 144–67; Morris 2005 for developing standards of living;
cf. Nevett 2010, 52–4 andfig. 3.3.
Societies and economies 95