Speakers’ complaints about the nature of the contest and their handicaps were informed by the expectation that, in Athens, democracy, justice, and competition complemented each other. Yet contest and its ethos could also problematize democratic ideology when it rewarded men and ranked them in a descending order of worth. Such hierarchy and distinction did not accord well with a belief in the basic equality of Athenian citizens, including their claims to manliness, merit, and especially honor.37 Thus, a speaker in a speech attributed to Demosthenes reproaches the Athenians for exclusively crediting military victories to their generals and conceding to them honors that belong to all ([Dem.] 13.21-22). Aeschines draws his audience’s attention to the absence of generals’ names in inscriptions, which, he says, commemorated a victory over the Persians in Thrace in 476/5. He claims that the omission was intentional, and designed to show that the honorary inscriptions belonged to the people and not to the generals (3.183-85; cf. Andoc. 2.17-18). In his funeral speech on the dead of the Lamian war between Athens and Macedonia in 322, Hyperides lavishes praises on the fallen general Leosthenes (6.10-14). He then cautiously adds that praising the general takes nothing away from the praise of the other citizens, that victory in battle belongs to those ready to risk their lives, and that he wishes to pay a tribute both to the general’s leadership and to the arete of others (6.15). In reality, the Athenians singled out the generals for their patriotic service and gave them special honors (Lyc. 1.51). But the agonistic view of honor and success as a zero-sum asset, and the democratic ideology of sharing them, especially in relation to the collective effort of war, created a tension and uneasiness about the generals’ distinct honors. This tension informed Hyperides’ sensitive allocation of praise to both general and army. It allowed the aforementioned Demosthenic speaker to antagonize the demos and its public officials and to complain that the people gave the latter undue distinction and even allowed them to exploit them. Finally, Aeschines uses this tension in his efforts to prevent the honoring of Demosthenes for his public service. He depicts the honor as excessive, as violating past practices, as detracting from the people’s honor, and the honorand as undeserving of it (3.181-187).38
The problematical nexus of contest, democracy, and honor, as well as its rhetorical manipulation, recur in relation to other honors for public service or contribution. Athenian civic ideology expected men, especially from among the elite, to compete with each other on leadership positions or on benefiting the city, moved by the pursuit of honor (philotimia) and civic spirit. In return, the city rewarded them with public honor and recognition. These contests, competitiveness, and their rewards were regarded as useful to the city and its democracy. Demosthenes claims that, in Athens, the rivalry, or contest (hamilla), among fine men (andres agathoi) for prizes awarded by the people guarantees the freedom of the demos (Dem. 20.108; cf. 102-103). Aeschines concurs. He establishes a direct correlation between the city’s international fame and prosperity and intense competitions among publicly spirited citizens over a limited number of prizes of honor. Comparing the contest over ‘political arete ’ to an Olympic sport event, he says, ‘I think it is because of its rarity, the fierce competition, the honor, and the immortal renown that come from victory that people choose to risk their bodies, endure more extreme hardship, and face the danger through the end’ (3.177-180; trans. Carey).39
Both speakers make these assertions in the interest of their respective cases: Demosthenes, in 355, to discredit a measure intended to abolish past public rewards, and Aeschines, in 330, to discredit a motion to honor Demosthenes. Yet their different purposes and rhetorical tactics are based on the same belief in the benefit of competitive civic contributions.
This belief, however, ran into a host of practical and ideological problems. In reality, there were qualified and wealthy men who sought to spare their resources rather than join the contest in providing public services. In addition, the functional competition over honor and its pursuit (philotimia) could easily deteriorate into a dysfunctional ambition to win (philonikia) that produced discord instead of public gain. Ideologically, according to norms of reciprocal exchange of favors ( kharis), the people were expected to express their gratitude to their benefactors and to men who did a great service to the city by honoring them in public.40 Such distinctions, however, could stir up the democratic anxiety about granting individuals excessive honor and at the people’s expense. It also publicly proclaimed the people’s debt to their benefactors. For Athenian men, sensitive of their status and autonomy, this was an awkward situation. The solution was to reverse the status of the parties in the relationship, and so regard the act of honoring as placing the benefactor in debt of gratitude to the people.
Both Aeschines and Demosthenes used this perception in their legal feud over the crowning of Demosthenes. The issue was Aeschines’ claim that the motion to announce the crowning of Demosthenes in the Theater of Dionysus during the Dionysia festival was illegal, because according to the law, such proclamations were restricted to meetings of the Assembly.41 Well aware that Demosthenes would produce another law showing the legality of proclamations in the theater in some cases, he conceded that it was allowed when foreign communities crowned citizens, but only after the Assembly had permitted it. He explained the procedure as intended to place the crowned man in a greater debt of gratitude to the Athenian people than to the foreign polis that had initially bestowed the honor on him. Aeschines’ interpretation, tendentious as it might have been, reflected the democratic wish to change the honorand’s position from creditor to debtor, but also the people’s concern to rank
Their honors higher than similar rewards in a field inundated by prizes of honor (3.34-47).
Demosthenes’ response to Aeschines’ legal objection evinced similar sensitivity to the people’s status. In addition to producing a law legitimizing the crowning proclamations in the theater, and describing them as highly common and hardly extraordinary, he offered his own explanation of the custom. The proclamation benefited those who bestowed the honor, because it induced the hearers to serve the state, and the praise went more to those who showed gratitude than to the crowned man (18.120; cf. [Plut.] Moralia 817b). The speaker’s statements reflected the functional perception of the service-honor exchange and the notion that the demos was a reliable partner in the kharis transaction. Yet his interpretation of the honoring act was no less biased than that of his archrival. By focusing on the givers of honor rather than on its recipient, the orator diminished the latter’s role and distinction. In other words, Demosthenes told the people that they would lose nothing by honoring him, but would gain many benefactors like him as well as the recognition of their good virtue.
Both Demosthenes and Aeschines agreed on the role of the deimos as judge and distributor of prizes of honor. But in a city where the demos had the power to give awards, it could also take them away. Demosthenes makes this violation of the ethos of both contest and kharis a focal point of his speech Against Leptines (20). One of the Athenians’ ways of honoring a man for his distinguished public service or contribution was to exempt him and his descendants from certain leiturgical services. In 355, the city’s economic distress, or other, hard to decipher reasons, moved the Athenian Leptines to propose a law that abolished such past exemptions and prohibited granting new ones.42 Demosthenes, who opposed the measure, argued that the motion was both impractical and immoral. It would not increase the number of leiturgists, but deter future benefactors who expected to be rewarded for helping the city. It would do away with the people’s authority to honor through exemptions whomever they wanted; indeed, taking back the reward was not a democratic, but a tyrannical or oligarchic, act. Revoking the rewards would also hurt Athens’ reputation because the city would show distrust, deceptiveness, and ingratitude. The polis should be truthful and chrltstos (honest) and aspire not to money but to noble deeds.43
Demosthenes discussed another potential spoiler of the functional relationship between the de:mos and honor-pursuing men, namely, envy (phthonos) 44 In general, envy made one’s worthiness a cause of unjustified resentment and even attacks, and so promoted feuds instead of constructive competitions. There were men who rather than appreciate others’ success and rightful superiority looked at them with envy or with predisposed hostility.45 This was a counter-productive and reproachable attitude, and Demosthenes advised his audience to avoid the fault of envying people who did good to the polis more than any other because it was a sign of wickedness by nature (phuseos kakias). He argued that there was nothing further removed from the Athenian polis than the shame of envious reputation (20.140; cf. 10, 56, 151). As proof of the city’s fair conduct he produced the honors she had given without envy to the war dead, to public benefactors, and to winners of athletic competitions, even though the last were few and attained individual glory. This is how Athens sustained its honor and reputation for justice, excellence, and greatness of spirit ( dikaiosuno, arete, megalopsukhia, Dem. 20.141-142). Leptines’ law, in contrast, was dishonorable, and evinced envy and discord (20.157).
In this way, Demosthenes endowed the democratic people with the values and qualities of an ane:r agathos, a moral, civic, and masculine role model.46 He also made democracy the guardian of trust, honor, and expediency (cf. Dem. 21.66-67). While discussing the harms that the law would cause past and future contributors to the city’s welfare and success, he focused on foreign benefactors and victorious generals or famed politicians. But he also had in mind leiturgists and other men ambitious for honor from the Athenian elite, who presumably would stop competing on being useful to the city if she failed to honor them in return. Thus, based on moral and utilitarian grounds, Demosthenes aimed to persuade the people to vote against a seemingly democratic measure that sought to eliminate the privileged status of some Athenians, and especially of those who, Leptines argued, did not deserve the exemptions (e. g., 20.1). While Leptines probably tried to exploit the tension between competition, honor, justice, and democracy, Demosthenes advised the people to stick to the rules of contest and kharis in order to keep them in concert with democracy.
In spite of Demosthenes’ or Isocrates’ warnings against, complaints about, or apprehensions of, popular envy of accomplished citizens who deserved public appreciation (especially Isoc. 15.4, 31, 141-144), envy of the latter appeared to have been a sentiment more typical of the elite than of the people. Members of this group often complained that their peers received more than their due share of honor, and took initiatives to deprive a rival of his victory and to devalue his award (e. g., Dem. 18, 51, Aes. 3; cf. Dem. 19.227-228). The appeal to the demos not to be envious often meant a request not to side with an adversary.
Both elite and masses acknowledged, however, the moral pitfalls of envy because they shared an agonistic ethos that deplored it. This ethos was primarily male oriented. It envisioned men and nations competing over who was best or on top in honor, prestige, moral conduct and values, and manliness. It is true that not every Athenian man was affected similarly by this ethos, but the ideology and rhetoric of contest aimed to make almost everybody vulnerable to their power to judge, praise, or harm a man. This power persevered throughout ancient Greek history and for reasons that are too many or complex to be discussed here. I will offer only two possible explanations. The first has to do with tradition. The contest as a way of life and as a worldview was promulgated in literature, rituals, education, and other institutions that helped preserved memories and values. The other reason had to do with contest as an organizing principle. Contest created order out of uncertain situations and helped man understand and arrange his environment.47 It defined and regulated conflicts, contained rival arguments, and decided their fate. Contests, thus, helped in removing anxieties and uncertainty and in introducing clarity by defining and ranking participants and claims. It is true that competition could destabilize order by inviting challenges, but as long as the contestants accepted the contest’s basic rules, the Greeks could argue, as we have seen, that this institution and its culture benefited them.48
World History
