After having shown the role of the banquet in political life in ancient Greece, Pauline Schmit-Pantel looks at the customs of great men, who constitute one of the facets of their political identity.
In his major work The city at the banquet. History of public meals in Greek citiespublished in 1992, Pauline Schmit-Pantel sought to highlight the interference which exist between history of manners and history of politics: its history of Greek public banquets, while comprising a descriptive dimension, did not fit into a cultural history (how were the Greeks ?), But had the purpose of showing how the collective practice of the banquet participated in the political life included in the broad sense ; It aimed to give politics a new dimension. The historian concluded his work by specifying that a history of mores in Greek cities should tackle many other aspects than that of banquets.
Looms and political identity
This is one of these aspects that Pauline Schmit-Pantel addresses in her new book, Illustrious men. Customs and politics in Athens at Ve century. She continues her investigation there in the definition of politics in Greece by taking an interest in the mores of politicians this time. The term “ manners “, Who translates the Greek word EPITEDEUMATAis understood here in the sense given by the XVIIIe century and Voltaire in particular, and defined as such: “ The ways of behaving, of being born, to grow, to live, to pray, to dress, to eat, to marry, to die (P. 12). It is for the author to look at what historians usually neglect, to leave aside the strictly political or military dimension of the life of the great characters, to study the way in which their manners, as they are described In Antiquity, can help create their political identity (p. 13).
The study is deliberately limited. It is first of all from a geographical and chronological point of view: the work relates to Athens to the Ve century and, more precisely, out of six great Athenian men who lived during this period, Aristide, Thémistocle, Cimon, Périclès, Nicias and Alcibiade. In addition, it is based on a single source: the lives of Plutarch. The characters mentioned, in addition to the important role they played in their city, are all in fact in common to have been the subject of a biography on the part of Plutarch, Greek author who lived in Ier–IIe centuries after Jesus Christ, under the Roman Empire, and told in his famous Parallel lives The life of many famous Greeks and Romans.
Illustrious men therefore aims to analyze, through the “ lives »Of six great Athenian men of the Ve century, the way in which, at that time, the evocation of manners participated in the construction of Greek political discourse (p. 21). Pauline Schmit-Pantel justifies its use of an author after the period considered by the fact that Plutarch uses and cites a number of old sources, sometimes going back to the Ve century, which makes it possible to consider it as the depositary of traditions developed long before it. In fact, in general, Plutarch is abundantly used by historians of the classic and even archaic Greek world, because it provides information on these eras that we find anywhere else.
Live and die in Athens at Ve century
Reading Lives De Plutarch leads the author to structure his study around the themes she identified as recurring. It is first to study “ Youth and entry into public life »Characters considered (chap. 1) ; then their relationship to wealth (chap. 2, “ Rich men ») ; Their role in civic sociability practices such as shows, sacrifices and public banquets (chap. 3, “ Sociable men ») ; Their way of behaving in political life (chap. 4, “ Neither tyrants nor despots ») ; their religious behavior (chap. 5, “ Pious men ») ; Their attitude in the field of romantic relationships, both homosexual and heterosexual (chap. 6, “ Gender construction », And chap. 7, “ Aspasia and Timandra », Consecrated in particular to Pericles) ; Finally, their death (chap. 8, “ Tragic figures »). The very last chapter presents itself as a historiographical development on the uses that can be made of Plutarch, depending on whether it is considered above all as a moralist or as a historian (chap. 9, “ Plutarch Biographer and historian »).
We learn during these chapters that Cimon, for example, the aristocrat, the bighter of Salamine, the friend of Sparta (moreover ostracized for some time by the Athenians for this reason), had not learned in his youth Neither the music nor the eloquence – foundations of the education of young Athenians of good family – and that in addition he had been accused of having romantic relationships with his sister. These details, surprising in view of the brilliant career that Cimon then leads, are perhaps, explains the author, inventions to be linked to the pro-spartan policy of Cimon: in Sparta, indeed, we do not Do not cultivate the liberal arts and a man is allowed to marry his uterine half-sister-which the Athenians consider as a case of incest.
The work, abundantly provided with notes, is accompanied by two appendices: a chronology of the classical era and a bibliography. The analyzes carried out during chapters 1 to 8 all have the effect of showing the link that exists, for ancient historians, between the manners of such a character and the political dimension of their life: the author shows in a convincing way that, in These stories that Plutarque transmits to us on sentimental life or the character of an individual, it would be wrong to see only pleasant anecdotes intended to distract the reader. On the contrary, they contribute to modeling the figure of a historical figure and belong, as much as its public action, in the political field.
A single source
If the use of Plutarch to evoke the Ve century seems perfectly justified and if the author explains well, in the last chapter, his methodological presuppositions, one can be surprised however that by confining himself to the Parallel lives She deprives herself of using contemporary or almost contemporary texts of the characters considered. Plato for example, long before Plutarch, evokes abundantly Alcibiade in the aspect of his customs in theMajor Alcibiade or in the Banquet – Socrates highlighting, in the portrait of the young man he traces at the start of theAlcibiadetaste for seduction and political ambition. Why not use a source that would only have reinforced the author’s words, while allowing him to detach himself from his unique source ?
Furthermore, beyond the idea that customs played a role in the career of politicians, the reader has a certain difficulty in determining the exact object of the research to which he is invited: the author has brought together All the stories devoted by Plutarch to the customs of the characters she studies, she accompanies them with interesting remarks, but, for lack of a clear problem, it is not easy, from there, to build a synthesis. In the conclusion, in addition, the author considerably widens the subject she has dealt with in her work, writing: “ The customs seem to me to be able to be studied as one of the facets of identity policy – I hear policy In this banal meaning: which concerns the construction of citizenship ». If the question of the place occupied by manners in the construction of the identity of the Athenian citizen indeed seems very legitimate, it does not really constitute the object of the book, devoted to some significant politicians of the Ve Athenian century. This book remains a set of interesting stories and analyzes, pleasant to read, and which will teach the reader a lot about the way we were born, loved and died in classical Athens.