Socialization refers to the initiation of individuals into the norms and values of a particular society. In the Greek world, themis (also personified as the goddess Themis) is a basic concept: “the order to be found in the universe, on earth, and in human life,” the rules governing human behavior, rules inherent in nature, given by the gods, or formulated by wise ancestors who knew what was best. So themis, even if it was often called the divine order of things, was both god-given and human-made. One encountered themis in both the unwritten and the written laws of human society. It was only for a handful of thinkers that such notions were rather less clear-cut, at least when theorizing about society. The Greek world was familiar with a long-running debate on the distinction between right and wrong, and good and evil, especially about the issue of whether good and evil are absolute, a question offUsis, nature, and thus eternal and universal; or whether the ideas about what is right and what is wrong depend on whose ideas we are speaking of, a question of nomos,
Figure 23 Athenian reliefs with two groups of dancers (323 BC). These reliefs, found on the Acropolis and now in the Acropolis Museum, are on two different sides of a base that once carried a statue. The base formed part of a victory monument: a monumental structure with which a choregos, the sponsor of one or more dance choruses, commemorated to the gods, his fellow citizens, and future generations that “his” dancers had won the first prize in a contest. On the block to the left, we see seven cloaked dancers, and at their right a female figure, probably a muse; on the right-hand block we see eight armed dancers, and at their left a comparable (or the same) female figure. There is an inscription that reads: “After victory in the kuklios choros (the circle dance, a round dance round the altar) [X dedicated this altar]; Atarbos Ly[. . . ] has dedicated this after victory in the purriche (the pyrrhic, the armed dance). Kefisodoros was archon.” The eponymous magistrate in the last line provides us with an absolute date: 323 BC. The dancers in both scenes were not professionals but Athenian citizens who trained in order to dance at a religious festival (in this case, the Panathenaea). The groups of dancers competed with each other: they tried to outperform all others, in order to honor the god, and reap glory for themselves and their choregos. Photo: © Acropolis Museum. Photographer: Socratis Mavrommatis
Human habits, conventions, norms, and laws. The nomos argument of the sophists has already been mentioned earlier.
We know but little about the written laws of the classical period. Athens must have had a large and coherent body of laws, but we have only fragments left. Still, those fragments and accounts of legal proceedings on the basis of the laws give us some information. The scope of Athenian law seems to have been very broad, ranging from civil law concerning property or taxation to criminal law concerning treason and felony. That all this law making was going on does not necessarily imply that the state was expanding its direct control over the life of its subjects. In the ancient world, the state was reluctant to interfere in the private sphere, and also had hardly got the means to do so, and consequently much was left to private individuals. But they had to take recourse to the law. To take the law into one’s own hands became progressively less acceptable, and the state’s monopoly on power kept on growing.
An interesting example of Athenian lawgiving is the law on hubris, “conceit,” “selfimportance.” Hubris occurs when one shames another person or violates his or her rights because you happen to be stronger, richer, or more powerful and you think this makes you a superior being. Now Athens was a highly competitive society where people first and foremost sought their own advantage; but it also was a society with a strongly developed sense of honor: a recipe for conflict. The honor of the citizens is maintained by a delicate web of interrelationships that should not become permanently unbalanced, otherwise society would end up in a vicious cycle of revenge and counter-revenge. Here the polis stepped in and said that whoever willfully dishonored a fellow citizen could be punished
By law in order to maintain, or restore, the precarious balance in this honor economy. The competitive Athenian citizens had to expend their energy in open competitions that could stand the scrutiny of daylight, such as the games held in honor of the city goddess.
As was already said above, themis is not necessarily an order that is imposed by the gods. But once there is an ordered human society, the gods do watch over human behavior. Everything that could be considered blasphemous is punished by the gods. Because such divine punishment can affect all of society, including the innocent, for instance when the gods send an infectious disease, there is the possibility of legal proceedings against one who is supposed to be guilty of asebeia, “lack of deference toward the gods.” In this way, humans can make amends by punishing before the gods do so. Obviously, the accusation of asebeia also functions as a corrective for behavior that is considered too unconventional. When Socrates was sentenced to death in 399 BC, it was because he was found guilty of asebeia and perverting the youth of Athens. Apparently, there was a fear of a sophistic undermining of the democratic ideal in Athens, and Socrates was thought to be implicated in this and to bear some of the responsibility for the oligarchic intermezzo at the end of the 5th century BC.
The gods also expected people to honor their oaths, not commit perjury, not to kill except in war, and to act honorably toward guests, supplicants, envoys, prisoners of war, and the dead. The gods punish corruption and corruptibility, the misleading of court, council, or assembly, and treason. As people took their oaths in the names of the gods, many of these misdeeds could be classified as asebeia. Religion was part and parcel of every aspect of ancient society: to betray the polis or one’s fellow citizens or a stranger who was at your mercy (and under divine protection) was to betray the gods. To be law-abiding, patriotic, and pious were more or less the same thing.
World History
