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Isonomia and The Public Sphere In: Democratic Athens
Isonomia and The Public Sphere In: Democratic Athens
DEMOCRATIC ATHENS
John Lombardini1
Abstract: This article argues that the term isonomia is best understood as a specific
type of balance of forces closely connected with the classical concept of dêmokratia.
The article proceeds by placing isonomia within the context of fifth/fourth century
Athenian political discourse, and by explicating the relationship between isonomia
and eunomia through attention to the usages of these terms in Greek philosophy,
poetry, oratory, history and medicine. This analysis demonstrates how the concept of
isonomia, understood as a balance of forces created specifically through the establish-
ment of political equality, could be used to respond to criticisms of dêmokratia as
exemplifying bad order/disorder. The conclusion suggests avenues for further
research and some potential connections with contemporary democratic theorizing.
I
Introduction
While it has often been lamented that the ancient Greek world has left us no
systematic theoretical defence of democracy, much recent work in the field of
Greek political theory has attempted to reconstruct such a defence from our
extant sources. These attempts at reconstruction have been as multitudinous
as the sources we possess: tragedy and the institution of the dramatic festivals
have been hailed as promoting a type of democratic thinking;2 following the
lead of George Grote, sophists such as Protagoras have been recuperated as
democratic theorists unfairly maligned by the anti-democratic Plato;3 in Attic
oratory, Josiah Ober has uncovered a democratic ideology that furnished the
Athenian dêmos with the power to rule, while his most recent work has made
explicit the democratic principles implicit in Athens’ democratic institutions;4
and the historical Socrates’ incessant questioning of his fellow citizens has
been interpreted as constituting a democratic form of education and citizen-
ship.5 Even Plato and Aristotle have been recruited for the project: Plato has
been read as heavily indebted to the democratic institutions he criticizes,6
while Aristotle’s political thought has been canvassed for resources offering a
defence of democracy and democratic institutions.7
This wealth of recent scholarship has greatly improved our understanding
of Athenian democracy while at the same time broadening the gaze of politi-
cal theorists beyond the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle. This arti-
cle seeks to contribute to this growing body of literature by focusing on one
particular concept, isonomia, and its relationship with Athenian dêmokratia.
Both the exact meaning of the concept, which originated in the late sixth
century BC, and its precise relationship with dêmokratia, however, remain
unclear. Though it is used as a near synonym for dêmokratia in Herodotus,
and appears to be associated with the reforms of Cleisthenes, it is also used in
Thucydides to classify a version of oligarchy. Moreover, while isonomia is
linked to the idea of equality, signalled by the prefix iso-, exactly what type of
equality it represents has been disputed: it has been variously defined as
‘equality under the law’, ‘equality maintained through the law’ and ‘equal
political participation’, amongst other phrases.8 The fact that the term is
5 G. Vlastos, ‘The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy’, Political Theory,
11 (4) (1983), pp. 495–516; G. Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca,
1991); G. Mara, Socrates’ Discursive Democracy: Logos and Ergon in Platonic Politi-
cal Philosophy (Albany, 1997); D. Villa, Socratic Citizenship (Princeton, 2001).
6 Monoson, Entanglements; Euben, Tragedy of Political Theory, ch. 8; P. Euben,
‘Democracy and Political Theory: A Reading of Plato’s Gorgias’, in Athenian Political
Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy, ed. J.P. Euben, J.R. Wallach
and J. Ober (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 198–226.
7 M. Nussbaum, ‘Aristotelian Social Democracy’, in Liberalism and the Good, ed.
R.B. Douglas, G.M. Mara and H.S. Richardson (New York, 1990), pp. 203–52; B. Yack,
Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Politi-
cal Thought (Berkeley, 1993); J. Frank, A Democracy of Distinction: Aristotle and the
Work of Politics (Chicago, 2004); J. Ober, ‘Aristotle’s Natural Democracy’, in Aris-
totle’s Politics: Critical Essays, ed. R. Kraut and S. Skultety (Lanham, MD, 2005),
pp. 223–43.
8 Victor Ehrenberg identifies four main possibilities: ‘Gleichgesetzlichkeit’, ‘Gleichheit
vor dem Gesetz’, ‘gleiche Zuteilung’ and ‘Gleichordnung’ (V. Ehrenberg, ‘Isonomia’,
Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumwissenschaft, Suppl. Band VII
(1940), p. 293). Other definitions include: ‘equality maintained through the law’
(G. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, American Journal of Philology, 74 (4) (1953), pp. 337–66,
pp. 350–6); ‘equality before the law’ (J.A.O. Larsen, ‘Cleisthenes and the Development
of the Theory of Democracy at Athens’, in Essays in Political Theory Presented to
George H. Sabine (Ithaca, 1948), pp. 1–16, p. 9); ‘a regime in which those who partici-
pate in public life do so on an equal footing’ (P. Lévêque and P. Vidal-Naquet,
Cleisthenes the Athenian (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1996), p. 22); ‘equa ripartizione
dell’influenza politica’ (G. Cerri, ‘isos dasmos come equivalente di isonomia nella
silloge teognidea’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultural Classica, 8 (1969), pp. 97–104, p. 100
(emphasis in original)); ‘equality of political rights among the citizens’ (C. Meier, The
attested only twenty times in a period of nearly two hundred years exacerbates
the difficulties of interpretation.9
Despite the scarcity of its attestation, the term isonomia appears to signal an
important conceptual shift in how political regimes were evaluated in the
ancient Greek world. Solon employs two dichotomous concepts in explaining
his early sixth century political reforms: eunomia (variously defined and/or
translated as good order, good government, lawfulness, law and order)10 and
dusnomia (bad order, bad government, lawlessness). It is clear from his extant
poetry that he understood the goal of his reforms to be the creation of eunomia
and the avoidance of dusnomia, and that such good order required the bal-
anced rule of the best citizens over the base. In contrast, the term isonomia,
which is first attested at the end of the sixth century, lacks the elite moral
undertones of eunomia and dusnomia (signalled by the prefixes eu- (good)
and dus- (bad)); rather, it represents a distinct type of balance of forces
achieved through the establishment of political equality between all citizens.
Thus, while both eunomia and isonomia indicate the need for a balance of
forces within a political regime, the latter carries with it the implication that
equality, in the strict arithmetical sense, is what best creates such a desired
balance.
In this sense, also implicit in the concept of isonomia is the idea that the
equal balance of forces it represents produces a well-ordered political regime.
This line of reasoning is connected with the argument, found in Greek
Greek Discovery of Politics (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 162); ‘fair distribution of legal
immunities across the relevant population and equal access to legal processes’ (J. Ober,
‘The Original Meaning of “Democracy”: Capacity to Do Things, Not Majority Rule’,
Constellations, 15 (1) (2008), pp. 3–9, p. 6); ‘equality of active citizen privileges under
the laws, combined with equality of interpersonal respect’ (P. Cartledge, Ancient Greek
Political Thought in Practice (New York, 2009), p. 63); E. Lévy (‘Isonomia’, in
Democrazia e antidemocrazia nel mondo greco, ed. U. Bultrighini (Alessandria, 2005),
pp. 119–37) offers a helpful synopsis of the difficulty in pinning down the meaning of
isonomia: ‘De même qu’eunomía, isonomía est un terme qui date d’une époque où l’on
ne distinguait pas encore très clairement les différents régimes et où l’on se souciait plus
des jugements éthiques (eu-, iso-) que des classifications politiques. D’autre part,
l’isonomie devenait d’autant plus imprécise qu’on s’était mis à distinguer les différentes
sortes d’égalité. Aussi l’isonomie n’a-t-elle pu trouver sa place dans les études de science
politique d’un Platon, qui ironise sur le terme, ou d’un Aristote, qui ne l’emploie jamais.
Dans la nomenclature ou les luttes politiques, isonomía aurait sans doute pu être utilisé
pour désigner le régime modéré, mixte de démocratie et d’oligarchie, qui aura la faveur
de beaucoup de penseurs antiques, si la place n’avait été prise par politeía, mot plus
récent, donc moins démodé, qui avait des implications plus politiques’, p. 132.
9 Lévy, ‘Isonomia’, p. 121.
10 ‘A condition of the state in which the citizens obey the law, not a condition of the
state in which the laws are good’ (A. Andrewes, ‘Eunomia’, The Classical Quarterly, 32
(2) (1938), pp. 89–102, p. 89); ‘A just order enjoined by the gods that embraced a certain
social and economic structure and political institutions corresponding to them, the whole
being governed by ethical principles’ (Meier, Greek Discovery, p. 160).
medicine, cosmology and social and political thought, that equality produces
harmony and mitigates stasis. In the realm of the polis, it tracks the idea that
while citizens may be inherently unequal, making them political equals is the
best way to ensure social harmony. This vision of good order implicit in the
concept of isonomia thus stands in explicit contrast to the idea of good order
implicit in the concept of eunomia; in all of the extant attestations of the latter
concept, such good order is associated with, and created through, hierarchical
political institutions and unequal classes of citizenship. Grounded in this
observation, the guiding premise of this article is that the concept of isonomia
can be best understood in relation to, and as a departure from, the concept of
eunomia. While both terms, as I will argue, stand for types of social order
where private and public interests are harmoniously balanced, isonomia
expresses the belief that such balance is best achieved through equality.
Conceiving isonomia along these lines allows us to reconstruct a democratic
response to one prominent charge against democracy in the classical world:
that it either neglected considerations of order or itself produced disorder. The
primary goal of this article, then, is both the general attempt to recover this
historical concept and its possible relationship to Athenian democracy and the
more specific task of articulating this response.
The structure of the article is as follows: Section II offers an overview of
eunomia in three parts. The first part draws on Aristotle and the Platonic Defi-
nitions to offer a working definition of eunomia as a political principle. Sec-
tion II.2 analyses Solon’s conception of eunomia as it is exemplified in his
poetry and political reforms. Section II.3 explores the influence of Solonian
political thought in fourth-century political discourse, illustrating how the
concept was situated in relation to democracy and other regime types. Section
III focuses on isonomia and its relationship to eunomia and dêmokratia. Sec-
tion III.1 outlines the charge, levelled by the Old Oligarch and Plato, that
dêmokratia and isonomia are opposed to good order. The rest of Section III
articulates a definition of isonomia as an equal balance of forces through read-
ings of Herodotus’ Histories and Euripides’ Phoenician Women. The article
concludes with some brief reflections on the implications this argument might
hold for the study of ancient political thought and contemporary democratic
theory.
II
Eunomia
II.1. Definition
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states the following while discussing
deliberation: ‘We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends.
A doctor, for instance, does not deliberate about whether he will cure, or an
orator about whether he will persuade, or a politician about whether he will
produce good order (eunomian), or any other [expert] about the end [that his
science aims at]’.11 With this statement, Aristotle provides us with an impor-
tant starting point for thinking through the concept of eunomia and its evolu-
tion. First, in stating that all politicians take as their end (telos) eunomia, he
illustrates that the term signifies not a form of political regime, but a political
principle. A similar conception of eunomia is implicit in Aristotle’s state-
ment, in Book 2 of the Politics, where he declares that it is necessary, if he is
going to discuss the best of all possible political regimes, also to discuss those
that are said to be governed according to the principle of eunomia (tôn poleôn
tôn eunomeisthai legomenôn).12 This passage from the Politics indicates that
the idea expressed in the Nicomachean Ethics is not unique to Aristotle;
rather, it suggests that the term eunomia was in use more generally as a term
for evaluating political regimes in the Greek world.
Further evidence of this latter claim can be found in the self-description of
many of the regimes Aristotle analyses as embodying the principle of eunomia.
First, Solon describes his reforms, as we will discuss below, as aiming to rid
Athens of dusnomia and replace it with eunomia. Second, Sparta provides the
best-known example of a Greek polis that was widely-held to be governed
according to the principle of eunomia: both Herodotus and Thucydides asso-
ciate such eunomia with the reforms of Lycurgus;13 there are a number of ref-
erences to Sparta as a eunomos polis in the Platonic dialogues;14 and Aristotle
references the now-lost poem by Tyrtaeus on Spartan eunomia. Finally, the
explicit aim in both Plato’s Republic and Laws is the founding of an eunomos
polis.15 All of this evidence would seem to confirm the two implications of
Aristotle’s statement in the Nicomachean Ethics: that eunomia is a principle,
rather than a form of political regime; and it is a principle that was used more
broadly to describe those political regimes held to be best (both real and
imaginary).
While Aristotle demonstrates the importance of eunomia for fourth-century
political discourse, the spurious Platonic writings provide a helpful defini-
tion. In the Platonic Definitions, eunomia is defined as peitharkhia nomôn
spoudaiôn — the obedience to noble laws.16 This definition is useful precisely
because it captures the two key elements that are emphasized, to varying
degrees, by the concept: first, the principle of law-abidingness; second, the
necessity of good/noble laws.17 Yet, there is also a third element to this definition
the established laws are obeyed, and in another when the laws that are in fact obeyed are
well established (for even badly established laws can be obeyed). The second situation
can come about in two ways: people may obey either the best laws possible for them, or
the unqualifiedly best laws’ (Reeve translation). The second scenario supports the idea
that eunomia consists in both having laws that are well established (to kalôs keisthai tous
nomous) and the condition of those laws being obeyed. Under the first scenario, how-
ever, law-abidingness is a sufficient condition for eunomia, regardless of whether the
laws themselves are good. Reeve, referring to this passage in the glossary to his transla-
tion of the Politics, defines eunomia in the following way: ‘a city-state exhibits good
government or is well-governed if it has laws (nomoi) that are in fact obeyed, and these
either are the best possible for that city-state or constitution or are unqualifiedly best’
(252). This seems to ignore the first scenario, which in turn complicates the Platonic defi-
nition of eunomia as peitharkhia nomôn spoudaiôn that I take as exemplary. Nonethe-
less, it is clear that when he refers to eunomia as the telos of politics, discusses other
regimes that are said to have eunomia, and labels his own ideal polis as eunomos, Aris-
totle is employing the conception contained in the second scenario.
18 This reading, I would argue, finds support in the anonymous fifth-century text,
preserved in Iamblichus’ Protrepticus, that is commonly referred to under the Latin
name Anonymus Iamblichi. See Diels-Kranz 89.7.
19 See Appendix for sources.
20 Though there are two passages in Herodotus that constitute possible exceptions,
neither should be taken as such. In relating the story of Deiokes (1.96–99), Herodotus
states that the supporters of Deiokes argued that the Medes would have eunomia if they
chose Deiokes as king; the tyranny that follows his appointment, linked with Herodotus’
judgment of his harshness, clearly indicates that Herodotus is not assenting to the judg-
ment of Deiokes’ supporters. The second passage is less clear. In Book 2, Herodotus
writes: ‘The priests said that as long as Rhampsinitos was king, Egypt was well governed
in every respect [pasan eunomiên] and flourished remarkably. But after him Cheops
became king, and under his rule the Egyptians suffered all kinds of misfortunes’ (124,
trans. Purvis). It suffices to note that here, unlike in his description of the effects of
II.2. Solon
While Aristotle and the Platonic Definitions together offer a working defini-
tion of eunomia as a political principle signifying the persuasive rule of good
laws, Solon’s sixth-century reforms were fundamental in shaping the con-
cept’s meaning and development.21 Before Solon’s reforms in 594 BC, the
territory of Attica was dominated by the aristocratic regime of the Eupatridai.
While very little is known about how the government of the eupatrids func-
tioned, it is presumed, from the evidence we can gather from Solon’s poetry,
that wealthy non-aristocrats were excluded from political power and the
poorer classes were not only excluded, but in some cases enslaved during
times of economic hardship. It was thus these dual forms of domination, eco-
nomic domination over the hektêmoroi (six-parters), who could be and were
sold into slavery to pay off their debts, and political domination over wealthy
non-aristocrats that caused the stasis (civic strife) that Solon describes as
necessitating his reforms.22
In what is perhaps the best-known fragment of his poetry, Solon identifies
the condition in Athens before his reforms with the term Dusnomiê.23 In
Hesiod’s Theogony, where the word is first attested, Dusnomiê is the off-
spring of Night, and the sibling of Nemesis and Eris. In Solon, Dusnomiê also
‘brings the city countless ills (kaka pleista)’,24 but the cause of these ills is
decidedly human: ‘it is the citizens themselves who by their acts of foolish-
ness and subservience to money are willing to destroy a great city’.25 It is the
hubris and excess (koros) of the people’s leaders (dêmou hêgemonôn), more-
over, that have plunged the city into wretched slavery (kakên . . . doulosunên)
and stasis.26 Dusnomiê threatens to tear the entire city apart, and threatens
Lycurgus’ reforms in Sparta, Herodotus does not himself judge Egypt to have enjoyed
eunomia under Rhampsinitos; it is the judgment of the Egyptian priests that he is record-
ing. In his description of Sparta, in contrast, it is clearly his own judgment that Sparta
enjoyed eunomia after Lycurgus’ reforms: ‘in this way, they changed into eunomia
(metebalon de hôde es eunomiên; 1.65.2)’.
21 As we will see in the following section, Solon’s reforms and political thought were
highly influential in fourth-century Athens; in this sense, the conceptions of eunomia
found in Aristotle and the Platonic Definitions are highly indebted to various interpreta-
tions of Solon’s thought and legacy.
22 For overviews of this historical background, see Ober, Mass and Elite, pp. 55–60;
M. Hansen, Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, trans. J.A. Crook (Norman,
OK, 1991), pp. 27–9; and R.W. Wallace, ‘Revolutions and a New Order in Solonian
Athens and Archaic Greece’, in Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece, ed. K.A.
Raaflaub, J. Ober and R.W. Wallace (Berkeley, 2007), pp. 49–82, pp. 49–51.
23 Solon, fr. 4, 31.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., 5–6. All translations from Solon are taken from the Loeb edition of D.E.
Gerber.
26 Ibid., 7–19.
each and every citizen: ‘and so the public evil comes home to each man and
the courtyard gates no longer have the will to hold it back’.27 Eunomiê, in con-
trast, ‘reveals all that is orderly and fitting, and often places fetters round the
unjust. She makes the rough smooth, dries up the blooming flowers of ruin,
straightens out crooked judgments, tames deeds of pride, and puts an end to
acts of sedition and to the anger of grievous strife’ (eridos cholon).28
Solon’s key reforms — the elimination of the Eupatrid’s monopoly on
political power and the liberation and limited enfranchisement of poorer citi-
zens — are both geared towards constraining the excess of elites that created
Dusnomiê and, in doing so, creating Eunomiê. First, Solon divided the
population of Attica into four property classes based on annual agricultural
production: (1) the pentakosiomedimnoi (500 bushels); (2) the hippeis (300);
(3) the zeugites (200); and the thetes (under 200). Under his reforms, mem-
bers of the first two census classes could hold the office of archon (the chief
magistracies of the city), which in turn made them eligible (contingent upon
successfully passing the euthunê at the end of their one-year term) to serve on
the Areopagus Council (which was given general oversight of the laws).29
Solon’s reforms thus made Athens’ politeia more inclusive by changing the
qualification for high office from noble birth to wealth. Second, Solon elimi-
nated the practice of debt bondage, thereby redefining the Athenian political
community.30 From now on, no citizen could be deprived of his free status for
economic reasons, thus establishing certain minimal rights as a prerogative of
citizen birth.31 Along with the elimination of debt bondage came increased
political power for the poorer classes; in particular, Solon created a new court
(Heliaia) where citizens could appeal the rulings of magistrates, and he made
it possible for any citizen who was willing (ho boulomenos) to initiate a crimi-
nal prosecution.32
The constraints on elite power, combined with the expansion of the politi-
cal power of the masses, is perhaps one reason why fourth-century writers
would praise Solon as the founder of Athenian dêmokratia.33 Nevertheless, it
27 Ibid., 23–5.
28 Ibid., 35–8. In Hesiod, Eunomiê is likewise the daughter of Zeus and Themis, and
the sister of Justice and Peace (901–2).
29 While this reform did restrain the power of the traditional elite, it also helped to
alleviate stasis between traditional elites and the wealthy classes by co-opting the latter.
On this point, see Ober, Mass and Elite, p. 61.
30 R. Balot, Greek Political Thought (Oxford, 2006), p. 44.
31 Ober, Mass and Elite, p. 62; Balot, Greek Political Thought, p. 44.
32 Hansen, Athenian Democracy, p. 30.
33 This point will be discussed more fully in the following section. It finds its strong-
est proponent in the Aristotelian Athenaiôn Politeia (hereafter Ath. Pol.), where the
author, commenting on Solon’s creation of the Heliaia, observes ‘for when the people
are masters of the vote they are masters of the constitution’ (9.1). Kurt Raaflaub offers an
updated version of this principle in arguing that Athens became a democracy only with
Ephialtes’ reforms of the Areopagus in the mid-fifth century. See K. Raaflaub, ‘The
Breakthrough of Dêmokratia in Mid-Fifth-Century Athens’, in Origins of Democracy,
ed. Raaflaub, Ober and Wallace, pp. 105–54.
34 Solon, fr. 5.
35 Ibid., fr. 36, 18–19.
36 Ibid., fr. 37, 8–9. On this final point, see N. Loraux, ‘Solon au Milieu de la Lice’, in
Aux Origines de L’Hellénisme: La Crète et la Grèce (Paris, 1984), pp. 199–214.
37 Solon, fr. 36, 20–22.
38 Ibid., fr. 34, 8–9.
39 Ibid., fr. 6. On Solon’s refusal to grant isomoiria and its connection to his concep-
tion of political justice, see G. Vlastos, ‘Solonian Justice’, Classical Philology, 41 (2)
(1946), pp. 65–83, pp. 78–82.
make it clear to all that the practice of justice was more advantageous than
the transgression of the laws.40
It is Solon’s poems about his reforms that demonstrate the advantageousness
of following the laws; in this respect, the poems themselves function as a form
of civic exhortation.41 Performed for the elite audience that he hoped his
reforms would restrain, his poetry illustrates that in harming their polis, these
elites are also acting contrary to their own self-interest, rightly understood.
This logic is especially clear in his equation of the enslavement of poor citi-
zens with the enslavement of the entire polis.42 In this sense, the coercive
force of his laws is closely connected with the persuasive force of his poetry;
rather than accepting tyrannical rule, he preferred to blend force and justice
(biên te kai dikên ksunarmosas).43
In sum, we can see how Solon’s reforms exemplified the idea of eunomia as
the persuasive rule of good laws. Solon’s laws are good because they create a
just balance between the interests of mass and elite, giving each its due. They thus
maintain a natural hierarchy between the good (agathoi) and bad (kakoi).44
This balance, in turn, creates the conditions for social order; both mass and
elite will obey the laws because they are advantageous to both parties. This
conception of good order (eunomia), as I will illustrate in the following sec-
tion, was influential amongst the different strands of political thought in the
fourth century.
46 On these Solonian echoes in the Laws, see G. Morrow, Plato’s Cretan City
(Princeton, 1960), pp. 83–5; Monoson, Entanglements, pp. 235–6, rightly notes the con-
nection between Solon as theôros and the institutionalization of the theôria in Magnesia.
47 Plato, Laws 756e9–10.
48 Ibid., 757c1–2.
49 On the origin and evolution of this distinction, see F.D. Harvey, ‘Two Kinds of
Equality’, Classica et Mediaevalia, 26 (1965), pp. 101–46 and 27 (1966), pp. 99–100.
50 There are a number of different institutions in Magnesia that reflect this principle:
(1) voting for the Council is compulsory across the board for the members of the first two
property classes (they are fined if they do not vote), while members of the third and fourth
classes are partially exempt from such fines for nonparticipation (756); (2) attendance at
the ekklesia is compulsory for members of the first two classes, but optional for members
of the third and fourth (764a ff.); (3) the lower classes are given a share in jury trials, how-
ever, since those who do not have a share in judging trials will think that they are not part
of the city at all (dei de dê kai tôn idiôn dikôn koinônein kata dunamin hapantas. ho gar
akoinônêtos ôn eksousias tou sundikadzein hêgeitai to parapan tês poleôs ou metokhos
einai; 768a–c).
51 Plato, Laws 875a ff.
52 Ibid., 722e–723a. On the role of persuasion in the Laws, see H. Yunis, Taming
Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens (Ithaca, 1996), pp. 227–36,
need for the laws to be persuasive can also be viewed, as illustrated in the pre-
vious section, as having a Solonian precedent.
While the Solonian echoes throughout Plato’s Laws demonstrate the con-
tinued salience of Solon’s vision of eunomia in fourth-century political
thought, this ongoing relevance was hardly confined to philosophy. Outside
Plato, we see a renewed interest in Solon as the founding father of Athenian
democracy in the Attic orators and the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. At the same time,
however, this Solonian democracy is importantly distinct from its more radical
fifth-century counterpart. As Claude Mossé argues, the ancestral constitution
that was believed, in the fourth century, to have been founded by Solon was:
a democracy that was not the radical and excessive regime denounced by
the philosophers, but a wise and stable regime, which, while respecting the
sovereignty of the demos, ensured that it was contained within strict limits,
by means of a skillful blending which made it the prototype of that mikte
politeia, that mixed constitution which was to be one of the favourite sub-
jects of political discourse in the Hellenistic age.53
In a similar vein, M.H. Hansen argues that the portrait of Solonian democ-
racy that we find in Isocrates and Aristotle looks very much like an indirect/
representative democracy, one where the powers of the dêmos would be
restricted to the election and scrutiny of magistrates.54 While the dêmos would
still exercise kratos, such power would be mediated through elected officials
and the institution of the Areopagus.
Amongst orators who are less critical of Athenian democracy, such as
Demosthenes and Aeschines, the term eunomia most often designates a sense
of law-abidingness that is compatible with Athens’ democratic regime, even
if Athens and its citizens are not always held as exemplifying this principle.
While Aeschines, for example, notes that the real strength of Athens’ democ-
racy lies in being ruled by the law (eunomêsthe) and not being undermined by
those who contravene the laws (mê kataluêsthe hupo tôn paranomountôn),55
he also compares his contemporary Athens with the Athens of old that
was better governed than it is now (hot’ eunomeito mallon hê polis).56 Demos-
thenes, who cites Solon’s Eunomia as a means of rebuking Aeschines for
which provides a detailed analysis of the preambles. C. Bobonich, Plato’s Utopia Recast
(Oxford, 2002), pp. 97–106, offers an excellent discussion of the moral psychology
implicit in both the preambles and the Laws in general.
53 C. Mossé, ‘How a Political Myth Takes Shape: Solon, “Founding Father” of Athe-
nian Democracy’, in Athenian Democracy, ed. P.J. Rhodes (Oxford, 2004), pp. 242–59,
p. 243.
54 M.H. Hansen, ‘Solonian Democracy in Fourth-Century Athens’, Classical et
Mediaevalia, 40 (1989), pp. 71–99, p. 96.
55 Aeschines, 1.5.
56 Ibid., 3.154.
III
Isonomia
57 Demosthenes, 19.255.
58 Ibid., 25.11.
59 Lycurgus, 1.128.
60 The case of Isocrates is a bit more complicated. While Isocrates does not use
eunomia or any of its cognates to describe the type of dêmokratia he articulates in the
Areopagiticus, he does use isonomia (20). At the same time, however, he uses isonomia
to describe the Spartan regime in the Panathenaicus (178). This tension tracks the ques-
tion of how democratic Isocrates’ vision of ancestral democracy actually is. As noted
above (fn. 54), Hansen argues, based on Aristotle’s identification of a similar regime as a
form of democracy, that it constitutes an indirect/representative form of democracy. For
a dissenting argument, see Ober, Political Dissent, pp. 285–6.
their choice of constitution (politeia), since they have placed the base (tous
ponêrous) above the nobles (tous chrêstous). Nonetheless, he does praise
Athens’ democratic institutions as just (dikaios) since it is the dêmos, rather
than the upper classes, that mans Athens’ ships and constitutes her power
(dunamin); for this reason, it is fitting that the lower classes have a greater
share in political power than the better classes. He further commends their
decision to allow everyone to speak and to deliberate, since this policy is an
effective strategy for preserving their democracy.61 Since democracy, in the
Old Oligarch’s estimation, is the rule of the poor, it is by further empowering
this class — by allowing them the political power to pursue and secure their
interests — that the city remains a democracy.
Despite this praise of the Athenians’ ability to preserve their democracy,
the Old Oligarch is clear that these practices are not suited to creating the best
form of constitution. Rather, he observes that ‘the dêmos does not want to be
enslaved while living in a well-ordered city (eunomoumenês tês poleôs), but it
wants to be free (eleutheros) and to rule (archein), and it does not care about
bad order (tês de kakonomias autôi oligon melei). For that which you consider
to be not well-ordered (ho gar su nomidzeis ouk eunomeisthai), from this the
dêmos itself is made strong and free’.62 From this perspective, Athenian
democracy is an explicit rejection of the principle of eunomia. This is further
evident from the Old Oligarch’s programme for creating eunomia: ‘if you
seek eunomia, you will first see the most skillful among them setting the laws;
then, the nobles (hoi chrêstoi) will restrain the base (tous ponêrous) and the
nobles will make decisions about the city’s affairs and not permit madmen to
give advice nor speak nor attend meetings of the assembly’.63 Since these poli-
cies, he continues, would amount to the virtual enslavement of the dêmos,
they are rejected by the Athenians. For the Old Oligarch, however, the dêmos
is more concerned with its freedom and power than with having a well-
ordered constitution.
We find a similar connection between democracy and disorder in Socrates’
critique of democracy in the Republic, but in Plato this disorder is directly
linked to isonomia. In Book 8, Adeimantus identifies Socrates’ description of
the democratic man as the ‘life of some isonomic man’ (bion isonomikou tinos
andros).64 Such a man, Socrates says:
sometimes . . . drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, he
drinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical train-
ing; at other times, he’s idle and neglects everything; and sometimes he
even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He often
engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever
61 Old Oligarch, Constitution of the Athenians, 1.6–7.
62 Ibid., 1.8.
63 Ibid., 1.9.
64 Plato, Republic 561e1–2.
comes into his mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he’s carried in that
direction, if money-makers, in that one. There’s neither order nor necessity
in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he follows
it for as long as he lives.65
Here, unconstrained isonomia leads to a complete lack of deference and a
complete lack of order.66 As Vlastos puts it, it signifies, in this passage,
‘equality denying priority to excellence, putting the worst on the level with
the best’.67 This pernicious form of equality, moreover, pervades all aspects of
the democrat’s life, from the public selection of magistrates by lot to his pri-
vate pursuit of his desires.
If we look more closely at the concept of isonomia, however, it is clear that
Athenian democracy was not a rejection of the idea of good government, even
if it did, in fact, stand in tension with the principle of eunomia. As discussed in
the previous section, eunomia did not merely signify good government, but a
particular vision of what constituted a good political order: a non-tyrannical,
hierarchically-organized political system that unequally distributed political
power amongst differentiated social classes, balanced that power in such a
way as to produce law abidingness and harmony among and between citizens,
and was ruled through a combination of persuasion and coercion. While this
subordination of the dêmos is incompatible with the power (kratos) of the
dêmos signified by dêmokratia, the principle of isonomia articulated a con-
ception of good order that was at once a form of equal order; it signified that
the balance of forces created through an equal order was more stable than
the stability created through the hierarchical arrangements associated with
eunomia. By drawing out the implications of this concept, it is possible to
reconstruct how an Athenian democrat might have responded to the charge
that dêmokratia was opposed to good order.
meson), and bid any of you who wishes to do so to reveal his own opinion’.83
This idea of placing something es meson as a matter for deliberation mirrors
the sense of contestation the phrase conveys in the Iliad; just as no one con-
trols what is es meson in the Iliad, all have a share in deciding what is placed
es meson in Herodotus.
As indicated in the previous paragraph, the phrase es meson is also associ-
ated with monarchies and in these instances the idea of the public it conveys
takes on a different association. Es meson is used on a number of occasions in
Herodotus when something is brought before the Persian king: Herodotus
writes that Democedes of Croton is brought es meson when Darius orders his
presence, and he is described as standing es meson when he addresses the king
(parêgon es meson; stathenta es meson);84 Syloson of Samos stands es meson
when speaking to Darius;85 and Koes of Lesbos says that he is bringing his
opinion es meson in advising Darius to leave his bridge over the Ister standing
after the Persian army has crossed (es meson pherô).86 In these passages, it is
the presence of the king that brings this public, social space into being and it is
the king himself who possesses this space.
This last point will become clearer if we compare the examples where
Darius and Xerxes each place an issue (to prêgma) es meson (discussed
above) to two further examples from Herodotus: Demonax’s reforms in
Cyrene and Cadmos’ abdication of tyranny in Kos. Following stasis in
Cyrene, the Cyrenaeans ask the Delphic oracle what kind of constitution they
could set up in order to live the best life (hontina tropon katastêsamenoi kal-
lista an oikeoien),87 and the Pythia responds by ordering them to bring in a
mediator (kataartistêra) from Mantinea. The Mantineans send their most dis-
tinguished citizen, Demonax, who, though setting aside for the king his sacred
lands and a priesthood, ‘placed all the other things previously held by the
kings es meson for the dêmos’.88 In Kos, Cadmos voluntarily abdicates his
tyranny and places rule es meson for the Koans (es meson Kôioisi katatheis
tên arkhên).89 In both of these cases, the individual placing something es
meson does not maintain control over this space: both Demonax and Cadmos
leave after their reforms are initiated. In this sense, the reforms of Demonax
and Cadmos resemble those of Maeandrius and Otanes; Maeandrius, like
Cadmos, places the archê es meson, indicating that rule will no longer be the
sole possession of one individual, but will be a public possession.
In contrast, when Darius and Xerxes place an issue (to prêgma) es meson,
they still retain control over what it is permissible for others to share and dis-
cuss. Unlike Otanes’ democratic proposal, which calls for placing all affairs
(ta prêgmata) es meson where they will be openly contested and deliberated
upon by the multitude, Darius and Xerxes only allow some issues to be
debated and, even then, each retains the ultimate authority to decide the issue
at hand on their own. This is especially clear in the case of Xerxes since he
explicitly states that his goal in allowing the strategy behind the invasion to be
discussed is so that he will not seem (hina de mê . . . humin dokeô) to make
plans all by himself; nonetheless, all affairs remain under his control, whether
he allows certain issues to be discussed or not. Under a monarchy or tyranny,
public deliberation is a privilege that the ruler can extend, but also take away.
The implications of this comparison for the connections between isonomia,
es meson and democracy should now be clear. To place rule (archê) or politi-
cal affairs (ta pragmata) es meson creates the conditions for popular govern-
ment, since this transfer simultaneously recreates the public sphere. When a
monarch places an issue (to prêgma) es meson it is radically different from
placing rule or all political affairs es meson: in the former case, es meson indi-
cates a public social space that is brought into being by the king’s authority; in
the latter case, however, it signifies a democratic social space, since no one
possesses rule. It is hence a site of full contestation and deliberation. As
Theseus declares in Euripides’ Suppliant Women, ‘Freedom is this: who has
some useful counsel and wants to bring it es meson’?90 It is the creation of this
type of democratic social space that isonomia represents. As J.P. Vernant
writes, articulating the relationship between Cleisthenes’ reforms and isonomia,
‘archê was no longer concentrated in a single figure at the apex of the social
structure, but was distributed equally throughout the entire realm of public
life, in that common space where the city had its center, its meson’.91 This
‘equalization of archê’ was thus at the core of the concept of isonomia, and
closely tied the concept with democracy.92
239a3, Ep. 7.326d5, 336d4). This raises the question of whether Herodotus’ analysis of
isonomia, and in particular the robust connection that analysis provides between
isonomia and dêmokratia, is representative of the term’s more general usage during this
period. Though a detailed analysis of these passages is beyond the scope of this article,
I would argue (following Vlastos, ‘Isonomia politikê’, pp. 13–33) that these non-
democratic usages reinforce the primary connection between isonomia and dêmokratia.
Isocrates’ use of isonomia in the Panathenaicus is a good case in point. There, he uses the
term to describe post-Lycurgan Sparta: ‘So the Spartans did not do this but rather estab-
lished for themselves the kind of isonomia and democracy that those who are always
going to agree ought to have, and they made the people into serfs, enslaving their souls no
less than the souls of actual slaves’ (178; Papillon translation, emphasis my own).
Though Isocrates applies both isonomia and dêmokratia to Lycurgan Sparta, he impor-
tantly qualifies the application of the former. Sparta, he writes, possessed a kind of
[toiautên] isonomia and democracy, one where political equality was limited to the
Spartiate class. By implication, it would seem that an unqualified form of isonomia
would indicate the extension of political equality to the entire dêmos (as we see the term
used in Herodotus), rather than just a smaller subclass. Isocrates’ use of isonomia, thus,
appears as an attempt to co-opt, and in doing so, moderate, the primary, more democratic,
understanding of isonomia on display in Herodotus.
93 Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 350–1.
94 To frame the difference in terms of the distinction between arithmetical and
geometrical forms of equality, however, is to presumptively grant the oligarchic claim —
made possible by the ability to render to ison as either ‘fair’ or ‘equal’ — that geo-
metrical equality is a truer form of equality. As Harvey notes, citing Aristotle, Politics
1301a26–b4, ‘the importance of this passage is that it tells us that equality was the watch-
word of democrats, and inequality of oligarchs. Not, of course, that oligarchs would have
said openly “Inequality is a splendid thing” — the whole theory of geometric proportion
is a subtle attempt to avoid doing just that, an attempt to call inequality “true equality” —
but rather that their practice presupposes such an attitude’. See Harvey, ‘Two Kinds of
Equality’, p. 118. A democrat would have simply said that the balance of forces associ-
ated with isonomia was achieved through equality, while noting that geometrical equal-
ity was really inequality under another name.
year (hôst’ autos arkhein authis ana meros labôn).100 Eteocles not only
broke his oath, he continues, but holds onto the tyranny himself as well as
Polyneices’ share of the house (all’ ekhei turannid’ autos kai domôn emon
meros).101 Finally, he says he is prepared to send his army away from Thebes
if he can take what is his own (tamautou labôn), taking his turn at ruling and
giving it up to his brother for an equal amount of time in turn (ana meros
labôn kai tôid’ apheinai ton ison authis <eis> khronon).102
Eteocles responds that the idea of equality implicit in his brother’s argu-
ment is a sham. Drawing on the sophistical distinction between nomos and
physis, Eteocles claims that such equality is merely conventional: ‘now there
is no similarity or equality among mortals except in words; in deed, this does
not exist’ (nun outh’ homoion ouden out’ ison brotois plên onomasin· to d’
ergon ouk estin tode).103 What is real is the human desire for power. Eteocles
declares ‘I would go to where heaven’s constellations rise, go beneath the
earth, if it lay in my power, in order to possess Tyranny, greatest of the
gods’.104 Yet, he not only desires tyranny, but wishes to keep it for himself: he
does not want to hand it over to another (allôi pareinai) and will not submit to
being his brother’s slave when he has the ability to rule (arkhein paron moi,
tôide douleusô pote).105
Jocasta’s speech, focusing on equality, offers a democratic response to
Eteocles’ claims. Before turning to her speech, however, it is useful to com-
pare Eteocles’ speech with those of Thrasymachus and Callicles and Socra-
tes’ responses to their arguments.106 This comparison, I hope, will help to
illustrate the distinctively democratic nature of Jocasta’s response.
For Callicles, equality is purely conventional. It enjoys the name of justice
because laws are instituted by the weak and the many (hoi tithemenoi tous
nomous hoi astheneis anthrôpoi eisin hoi polloi) who themselves enjoy hav-
ing an equal share (autoi an to ison ekhôsin) but reproach those who attempt
to get a greater share as unjust.107 Nature demonstrates, however, that it is just
for the better and more capable to have a greater share (pleon ekhein) than
others, and this principle applies to cities as well. While Socrates challenges
Callicles’ conception of the better and more capable, he also questions the
soundness of Callicles’ equation of power with the pursuit of pleonexia. The
100 Ibid., 477–8. Kovacs, following Diggle, deletes 478–80 as a later interpolation.
Mastronarde, however, offers a convincing argument for retaining these lines. See D.J.
Mastronarde, Euripides: Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1994), p. 284.
101 Euripides, Phoenician Women 481–2.
102 Ibid., 484–7.
103 Ibid., 501–2.
104 Ibid., 504–6, trans. Kovacs.
105 Ibid., 520.
106 K. Raaflaub, ‘Equalities and Inequalities in Athenian Democracy’, in Dêmokratia,
ed. J. Ober and C. Hedrick (Princeton, 1996), pp. 139–74, p. 141.
107 Plato, Gorgias 483b4–c6.
Jocasta’s speech offers a plausible model for answering the charge intro-
duced at the beginning of this section by the Old Oligarch: that democracy
does not care about good order (eunomia). Insofar as the type of order sig-
nalled by eunomia is an unequal one, it is true that democracy does not care
about good order. In the concept of isonomia, however, we can see how the
principle of equal political power was combined with a conception of political
order founded on such equality. From this perspective, we can see how the
principle of isonomia might have contributed to a theoretical defence of
democracy in the ancient world.111
IV
Implications and Contemporary Directions
This article offers a preliminary sketch of the concept of isonomia and its rela-
tionship with Athenian dêmokratia. A thorough examination would require
attention to all of the passages where isonomia occurs, as well as a more
extensive exploration of the concept of eunomia. It would need to be comple-
mented by an argument about the origin, original meaning and evolution of
the term dêmokratia and its relationship to other classical terms denoting
types of equality: isokratia, isêgoria and isomoiria. Finally, it would entail a
more comprehensive analysis of conceptions of equality, order and disorder
in Greek medicine and cosmology. Such a thorough examination is obviously
not possible here. Nonetheless, it is my hope that this article provides a start-
ing point for further research into the conceptual history of isonomia, its
lowed Diggle in deleting line 548, lines 546–7 would translate as ‘if day and night serve
mankind, will you not be content with having an equal share of the house?’. Though the
exact language of distributing an equal share of the house would then be missing, the
relationship implied between arithmetical equality and order remains the same: the two
brothers should share equal portions of the house (i.e. rule), just as day and night share
equal portions of the sky. If 548 is retained, lines 547–8 would then contain a likely
periphrasis of isonomia, depending on how one analyses the etymology of the word.
While the prefix iso- means equality, and is unproblematic, -nomia can derive from
either nomos (law) or nemein (to distribute). While Vlastos makes a strong case for the
former, he grants Ehrenberg’s argument that isa nemein would be at least one of the ideas
that came to mind when the word isonomia was spoken. While I agree with Ehrenberg,
my point here does not depend on demonstrating the correctness of his derivation; the
logic of my argument runs in the opposite direction, that the use of a phrase similar to ison
nemein would call to mind the concept of isonomia, and this is a point Vlastos does not
contest. See Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 347–50 and Ehrenberg, ‘Isonomia’. For a more
recent discussion, see Lévy, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 122–3.
111 While I focused on Jocasta’s speech in this section, I think that we can see a simi-
lar logic at work in Protagoras’ ‘Great Speech’ in the Platonic dialogue that bears his
name. The language of distribution pervades Protagoras’ retelling of the Prometheus
myth. Moreover, it is the unequal distribution of powers that leads to disorder, and the
equal distribution of justice (dikê) and shame (aidôs) to human beings that allows them to
finally live together in cities. This, however, is a topic for another article.
116 See Ober, Knowledge and Democracy, esp. pp. 28–34, for an overview of the
project.
117 P. Markell, ‘The Rule of the People: Arendt, Archê, and Democracy’, American
Political Science Review, 100 (1) (2006), pp. 1–14.
118 Ibid., p. 4.
119 H. Arendt, On Revolution (New York, 1963), p. 30. Arendt emphasizes the fact
that isonomia does not contain either of the words that mean ‘to rule’ in ancient Greek:
archein or kratein. Cf. H. Arendt, The Human Condition (Chicago, 1958), p. 32 fn. 22.
Polis Source
Bacchylides 13.149
Aegina
Pindar Isthmian 5.22
Corinth Pindar Olympian 13.6
(Crete) Plato Crito 52e6
Locris Demosthenes 24.139
Megara Plato Crito 53b5
Opous Pindar Olympian 9.16
Herodotus 1.65–6
Thucydides 1.18.6
Sparta Plato Crito 52e6
Plato Hippias Major 283e9
Lycurgus 1.128
Thebes Plato Crito 53b5
Imaginary Poleis
Kallipolis Plato Republic
Magnesia Plato Laws
Ancient Athens Plato Timaeus 23c6
polis kata euchên Aristotle Politics VII
Polis of Cronus’ Age Plato Laws 713e2
120 Information about regime type during the time period in which each polis was
referred to as eunomos or possessing eunomia was primarily taken from An Inventory of
Archaic and Classical Poleis, ed. M.H. Hansen and T.H. Nielsen (New York, 2005),
along with the following sources: T.J. Figueira, Aegina: Society and Politics (Salem,
NH, 1981); R.P. Legon, Megara: The Political History of a Greek City-State to 336 B.C.
(Ithaca, 1981); and J.B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 B.C.
(Oxford, 1984).