Jameson, David Cohen, Robin Osborne, and Lin Foxhall. Morris has
identified what he terms a‘middling’ideology among leading groups
within Athenian society, which shaped the way Athenians thought about
themselves in thefifth and fourth centuriesbc, and, by extension, the
way in which other Greek communities of the mainland and Aegean
islands perceived what they shared in common. This‘middling’ideology
was much more than a shared set of ideas. It was, in Morris’s view, a
‘transactional order’, that is, an abstract model of Athenian society that
linked one generation to another and living communities to the cosmic
order.‘The philosophy of themetrioswas a useful democraticfiction, a
structuring principle guiding behaviour.’^59 Athenian citizens shared the
fact that they were men, that they all had the vote, that they had access to
office, and that their opinions mattered. In many other respects, there
were considerable differences between some citizens and others. The
‘middling’ideology provided ways of embroidering connectedness des-
pite these gulfs. Yet such evidence as we have suggests that the Athenians
were a more equal society than many others, and much more equal than
different parts of the Roman Empire would become. Morris has based
this analysis, and subsequent elaborations of it, not just on the rhetoric of
a‘middling’ideology, but also on different kinds of material evidence,
including grave goods, the size of burials, and spatial relationships within
housing units. He recognized that there was a public discourse in
antiquity about wealth, just as there was a discourse about poverty.
Wealth and poverty are not absolute categories; they rely on socially
accepted standards of living, on attitudes to wealth differentials, and on
culturally determined concepts of value.^60 In the idea of a‘middling’
social ideology, Morris has tried to convey the particular tensions of
Athenian society, where there were strong pressures to be, and to be seen
to be, egalitarian. The psychological pressure to conform within a set of
acceptable boundaries appears, in this analysis, to be reflected in certain
(^59) Morris 2000, 116; 110–44; the concept of‘transactional orders’is derived from Parry
and Bloch 1989, 26 (cited at Morris, 133):‘all these systems make—indeedhaveto make—
some ideological space within which individual acquisition is a legitimate and even laudable
goal; but... such activities are consigned to a separate sphere which is ideologically articu-
lated with, and subordinate to, a sphere of activity concerned with the cycle of long-term
reproduction.’
(^60) Morris, 2000, 141, discusses the Gini coefficient for Athenian (fourth centurybc)
landholding at 0.39 (Foxhall) and 0.38 (Osborne); see further, ibid. 155–91, expanding his
discussion of the development of a‘middling’ideology from thec. 700 – c. 300 bc; Morris
2005, 107–26 (comparative housing units); Morris 2009b, 73–7 (various aspects of wealth
and material culture).
Societies and economies 109