Conclusions

Violence, in whatever form, whether murder or ‘just' verbal abuse, remains an enigmatic concept. The word ‘violence' - as power, force, aggression or physical harm - itself suggests rage, lack of control and illegality, but as we have seen, it can also mean actions of defence and protection.

Its sense changed over time in ancient Greek thinking, as all senses do. The Athenians as a community of citizens perhaps embraced these changes as they became more democratic and more communal. Athenians in the fifthcentury and fourth-century democracy understood and accepted an ideology that rejected heroic vendetta, blatant and wilful violence, like that sanctioned by the Homeric honour code, even though they still recognised (as we do today) the base needs which family feuds fulfilled, alongside the importance of personal vengeance in justice. These codes were thus represented on the tragic and comic stage and, perhaps, played out in the law courts, but legal suits now supplemented (not necessarily supplanted) family violence. They even played out in legal reality through the allocation of responsibility for enforcing legal sanctions and thus state rulings to the wronged individual. Athenians of the democratic period still struggled with notions concerning

Violence of the Thirty Tyrants', in S. Lewis (ed.), Ancient Tyranny (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2006), pp. 213-23, p. 213.

35 M. Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty ofLaw: Law, Society and Politics in Fifth Century Athens (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), p. 487.

36 Wolpert, ‘Violence', p. 213.

the community, qua the state, as opposed to personal responsibility and family autonomy. Despite its strides towards socio-political unity, the role of violence within the Classical polis illustrates this ongoing tension between individual, family and community.

Ultimately, the ancient Athenian state was not capable in itself of enacting or enforcing its decisions systematically and therefore effectively, especially for all its members (by which I also mean its non-citizen members as well as citizen-males). Additionally, the state could not ensure that individuals remained safe and secure on a daily basis. When challenged by violence and harm from others, family well-being, security and honour were likely defended violently and extra-legally, given the attenuated law enforcement apparatus of the state. Our evidence from Homer's epic poetry illustrates this was likely to have been the norm in early Greek contexts. The traditions laid by such an individual and heroic-based ‘self-help' society and one centred on family and personal responsibility rather than on the community may well explain why Athenians juggled state and individual violence - bia - in such an accepting way, and thus accepted both so readily. On the one hand, the power of the state, through law, courts and community, ameliorated violence and made the whole community more cohesive and stronger; on the other, the interests of the individual and his family ensured the system would work ‘smoothly', regardless of those (non-citizens) who fell between the cracks. Without violence there is neither state nor family - and the Athenians knew this well.

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Source: Fagan Garrett G., Fibiger Linda, Hudson Mark, Trundle Matthew (eds.). The Cambridge World History of Violence. Volume 1: The Prehistoric and Ancient Worlds. Cambridge University Press,2020. — 756 p.. 2020

Conclusions

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