These comments are presented in the hope that the study of a remote and relatively small society may shed some light on the issues concerning "identity" to which this symposium is dedicated. If this suggestion turns out to be correct, it will not be because modern western societies are so closely connected to ancient Athens, but because the study of ancient Greece raises important questions of method and invites cross cultural comparison. Hence, I suggest that we pause in our deliberations and view the problem of civic identity from the Acropolis of ancient Athens. I do not to suggest that we will find some universal truths about the problem--we have heard too many such claims from classicists--but we may find that a fresh perspective helps us see some of the interpretive difficulties more clearly.

First, however, a few words about the problem of scale. Athens in classical antiquity, that is in the middle of the first millennium before our era, was the administrative center of a relatively small area. The city was called "Athens"; the region "Attika." Marathon runners will recognize that the radius from Athens to the periphery of Attika was that of the run from Marathon to the city, that is, about 26 miles. (The distance in today's official Marathon race is approximately that from the battlefield at Marathon to the center of Athens; the exact distance, set under King Edward VII, is from Windsor Castle to the Royal Box in London's Olympic Stadium.) The land area of Attika was approximately 1800 sq. km., i.e., somewhat larger than the 1070 sq. km. comprised by Hong Kong, Lantau and the New Territories, but not markedly greater.

Within that area (where several million people live today) the ancient population was probably in the 300,000 - 500,000 range. At first glance one might conclude then, that the relatively small area and population of Attika would minimize any problem of civic identity. In confirmation one might call attention to the relative social stability of the area in classical times, for although the land was invaded both by Persians and various Greek states, it enjoyed a relatively high degree of social stability and domestic tranquillity. The Athenians of the classical period, moreover, liked to present themselves as a homogeneous people, united by common descent. Indeed, they claimed that they were "autochthonous"; that is, their ancestors had always lived in that land.

Until quite recently scholars have, in general, accepted this picture of Attika. Similarities in pottery patterns and other archaeological evidence have been adduced to support the view that Attika was a relatively homogeneous place, with little disagreement about what it meant to be an Athenian. As a result, scholarship has in general thought Athenian civic identity was non problematic, of interest primarily through its celebration in art, literature and speeches such as the famous Periclean Funeral Oration in the second book of Thucydides.

Recently, however, scholars studying classical Athens have begun to have second thoughts. The Athenians themselves, it has been noted, believed that the earliest inhabitants of Attika included "Pelasgians" and that these settlers were at some indeterminate point expelled from the city. Herodotus, for example, gives the following account:

The Pelasgians . . . while they lived at the foot of Mount Hymettus [near Athens], were wont to sally forth from that region and attack the children of the Athenians. For the Athenians used at that time to send their sons and daughters to draw water at the fountain called the Nine Springs . . . and the maidens, whenever they came, were used rudely and insolently by the Pelasgians. Nor were they even content thus , but at the last they laid a plot, and were caught by the Athenians in the act of making an attempt upon their city. Then the Athenians . . . spared their lives, and only required that they should leave the country. Hereupon the Pelasgians quitted Attica and settled on the island of Lemnos and other places.

Herodotus 6.137, trans. Rawlinson, modified

This story of an ethnically diverse Attika is consistent, moreover, with the tradition that Attika was originally composed of separate townships that under the mythic King Theseus coalesced into a common political organization. This "synoecism", may be essentially mythic or may contain a seed of historic truth--an actual political union formed at some indeterminate date. In any event, it surely reflects an important social reality, still evident in Attika in the late fifth century B.C. The loyalty of citizens was often directed primarily to their local villages or neighborhoods rather than to the city as a whole. In his report of the dislocation caused by the onset of the Peloponnesian War in the 430's before our era, Thucydides writes:

Even after the centralization of Theseus, old habit still prevailed; and from the early times down to the present war most Athenians still lived in the country with their families and households, and were consequently not at all inclined to move [into the city]. . . . Deep was their trouble and discontent at abandoning their houses and hereditary temples. . . . and to bid farewell to what each regarded as his native city.

Thucydides II 16, trans. Crawley

There is reason to think, moreover, that the tradition of Athenian "autochthony", their claim always to have lived on the land, was relatively late to appear. It is firmly attested only in the fifth century before our era, and seems likely to have emerged as an alternative to a view of Athenian identity that emphasized the affinities to the Ionian Greeks, that is those resident in some of the Aegean islands and along the coast of Asia Minor . Indeed it seems likely that there was an "Ionian Era" in Athenian society, which was displaced in time by the invention or reaffirmation of stories that emphasized the Athenians' roots in their own land. Since emphasis on the affinities to the Ionian Greeks often carried with it claims to prestige and leadership based on genealogy, autochthony, the assertion that all Athenians had genealogies that linked them inseparably to the land of Attika, served as a counterweight to the boasting of families of the rich and famous.

There is, moreover, good evidence of substantial migration into Attica, beginning as early as Solon in the early sixth century and continuing into the period of Athenian naval hegemony in the mid fifth century. An increasingly specialized, although by our standards still largely agricultural, economy, encouraged the immigration of skilled craftsmen, traders and even farmers. Former slaves, who had bought or otherwise earned their independence, often remained in Attika, and from time to time found their way onto the citizen rolls.

The population of Attika in the classical period, then, was far from homogeneous. The claim of autochthony was a construct, not a historical fact, and a very convenient construct in a society that had reasons not to look too closely at individual descent. Once we recognize that fact, it becomes possible to detect within the relatively small area of Attika diverse groups, conflicting loyalties, and a recurrent debate about who truly belonged to the society and what such belonging meant. Civic identity in ancient Athens, in other words, was often problematic, never an automatic inheritance from the past. It was carefully constructed and often vigorously contested. Such contestation, moreover, was frequently masked, and stories and rituals that implied uniformity and shared origins were often ideologies designed to conceal divisions within the society.

In practical terms this problem of civic identity for the Athenians took three forms.

1. Inter-generational tensions: Every society, I suppose, must deal in some way with the problem of the acculturation of the young to the patterns generally accepted in the society. There is ample evidence that the Athenians were conscious of this problem. We see reflections of it in the plays of the dramatists, especially Euripides, in the development of a special training pattern for young citizens, called the ephebeia, in the dialogues of Plato and in the charge of "corrupting the young" brought against Socrates.

2. Regionalism: The ancient sources are quite explicit that regionalism was a severe problem for Attika in the sixth century before our era. The passage from Thucydides quoted above reminds us that the problem could still be a significant one, even in the last third of the fifth century B.C. This is not to underestimate the significance of the political reforms made by Cleisthenes at the very end of the sixth century. These were of the highest significance, not least as the origin of what the Greeks called "democracy." But regional, identities remained significant, indeed in unexpected ways may even have been reinforced by the Cleisthenic system.

3. Migration: During the fifth century many Greeks from other areas moved to Attika, attracted by the commercial success of the region and its need for skilled manpower. Greek political norms discouraged citizenship for most of these immigrants, but arrangements had to be worked out to integrate them into the life of the city.

Each of these problems may be viewed as a legal or constitutional issue, requiring carefully designed political responses. It is clear that such responses were forthcoming, especially in the fifth century B.C., when laws were past defining the qualifications for citizenship and its obligations and specifying the relationships between neighborhood and villages (the "demes" of Attika) and the government in Athens, and the relationships between resident alien and the city. These legal and political measures have, on the whole, been well studied and help clarify the changing nature of Athenian political life. Less attention has been paid to the common denominator among many of these measures--the underlying problem of civic identity that the city of Athens was forced to confront.

Another approach to the problem, both in antiquity and in modern scholarship, has been an emphasis on festival and ceremonial. The century beginning approximately 566 B.C. was the time of the emergence of some of the most famous of the rituals established and run by the Athenian state. In earlier days the principal rituals in Attika were often conducted by families with the ancestral prerogative of leading them or by the demes or other regional groups. The city of Athens, however, established the Panathenaea, a festival with roles for representatives of all free residents of Attika, including women, resident foreigners, and freed slaves. The most likely date for its establishment is 566 B.C. The City Dionysia, the festival at which most surviving Athenian comedies and tragedies were presented, was another major civic ritual, established most likely at the end of the sixth century as a celebration of liberation from tyranny and of a new social and political order. In the years immediately following the Persian invasion of 480 B.C. a further series of festivals were established, many of which enshrined the memory of the Greek resistance to Persia. These too sent strong messages about the nature of Athenian identity. In addition a new state festival was established in the 470's B.C. in honor of Theseus, the exemplary hero of Athens. The distinctive Athenian practice of state burial and commemoration of the war dead, the so-called Epitaphios Nomos, followed probably in the 460's, almost exactly a century after the establishment of the Panathenaea. It is probably also during this time that the ephebeia, a ritualized pattern of state service and military training for 18-20 year olds of the citizen class was reorganized. Each of these rituals addressed, or came over time to address, the question of what it meant to be an Athenian.

Can they then be understood as deliberate, i.e., fully conscious, attempts to create a common sense of Athenian civic identity? Each of them has important implications about the nature of the Athenian community and the meaning of membership in it. Yet it is always hazardous to reduce ritual practice to a single motive and to assume that if that motive is evident to us it must have been evident to them. No ancient source, moreover, presents them as part of a systematic development nor suggests that they were devised with the deliberate purpose of promulgating a sense of Athenian civic identity. Yet the tendency of these festivals, whether accidentally or by design, to strengthen a sense of shared membership in and responsibility for the city must at the very least have been a welcome by product of this century of festival creation. For that century coincided with a period of great change in the city and of recurrent military threats from both Greeks and barbarians. The city of Athens grew in wealth and influence during the century from the 560's to the 460's. Indeed after the Persian Wars it assumed a hegemonic role in Greek affairs. To protect itself and to carry out that role Athens needed a reliable citizen army, something it appears Athens had not possessed in the past, and such an army required a strong sense of civic identity.

Civic identity, in other words, was not exclusively a matter for legal or constitutional definition, nor the product of systematic discussion, a state run bureaucracy or educational system. It was also the result of participation in communal, especially ritual, life. Hence challenges to the ritual life of Athens, if prolonged and vigorously pursued, might be seen as a serious threat to the community. This helps account for the Athenian decision to execute Socrates on the charge of "impiety."

The pattern we have been describing was a powerful device for shaping individual behavior. It is not surprising then to find that the ancient sources saw sharp contrasts between Athenian characteristics and those of other Greeks, especially the Spartans (Lacedaemonians). That is a major theme in the Periclean Funeral Oration. Thucydides reports Pericles' claim in this speech:

I doubt if the world can produce a man, who where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian.

Thucydides 2.41.1, trans. Crawley

Other Greeks as well were quite certain that distinctive personality traits differentiated Athenians from other Greeks, though not all agreed with Pericles positive assessment of those traits. Thucydides reports, for example, that a Corinthian speaker addressing the Spartans drew a sharp contrast between the Athenians and the Spartans:

The Athenians are addicted to innovation, and their designs are characterized by swiftness alike in conception and execution; you [Spartans] have a genius for keeping what you have got, accompanied by a total want of invention, and when forced to act you never go fare enough. Again, they are adventurous beyond their power, and daring beyond their judgment, and in danger they are sanguine; your wont is to attempt less than is justified by your power, to mistrust even what is sanctioned by your judgment, and to fancy that from danger there is no release. Further, there is promptitude on their side against procrastination on yours; they are never at home, you are never from it: for they hope by their absence to extend their acquisitions, you fear by your advance to endanger what you have left behind. They are swift to follow up a success, and slow to recoil from a reverse. Their bodies they spend ungrudgingly in their country's cause; their intellect they jealously husband to be employed in her service. A scheme unexecuted is with them a positive loss, a successful enterprise a comparative failure. . . . .To describe their character in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world to take no rest themselves and to give none to others.

Thucydides I 70, trans. Crawley

The most difficult interpretive issues in this material, in my opinion, are raised by passages such as these. No one would argue, I hope, that they characterize all Athenians, or even all Athenian citizens. Clearly they are stereotypes, but not for that reason the less interesting to an inquiry such as ours. To what extent do individuals shape their personalities around stereotypes? By what process are they internalized? Should one allow any room for the operation of "national character" in the interpretation of societies past and present and if so what should we understand by that term? Such questions are far from resolved; indeed, one of my hopes for our gathering in Hong Kong is that we can shed some light on such issues.

In applying these questions in the Athenian case it may be worth noting that Athenians confronted in an extreme form what most other Greeks, indeed most members of complex societies regularly encounter--the competing claims of multiple identities. The structure of Athenian citizenship was indeed based on membership in multiple groups--these were in the first instance the oikos or family unit, then the deme (the village or neighborhood), then one of ten tribes (phylai) arbitrarily constituted yet making at least some appeal to the loyalty and affections of their members. Finally there is membership in the city itself, and beyond that a sense of affiliation with other Greeks. For Athenians that would mean especially strong (if controversial) links to Ionian Greeks resident on islands in the Aegean and on the coastline of Asia Minor. But all Greeks of the classical period seem also to have recognized certain defining marks that separated Hellenes from non-Hellenes, that is from the barbaroi. An individual Athenian might then begin to answer the question "Who are you?" by specifying family membership ("I am the son of Neocles."), deme membership ("of the deme Phrearria"), tribal membership ("of the tribe Leontis"), citizenship ("an Athenian"), and a sense cultural identity ("a Hellene"). His personal identity, as the individual Themistocles, would then be in part the result of navigation among these varied and potentially conflicting roles.

Such navigation, as we Americans know all too well, is not easy. The temptations to equate identity with one label is perhaps especially intense in our country at this moment. Yet we know what the Greeks would say to such grousing. They were fond of the proverb andra polis didaskei: "The city teaches the man", and might well contend that complex structures and multiple identities can teach one how tom achieve the happy versatility which Pericles ascribed to his fellow citizens.

This paper is, in effect, an overview of work on Athenian civic identity which I have been pursuing over the past few years. The text is essentially that presented at the Hong Kong conference. I have not attempted to add documentation or provide a bibliography, but much of the relevant material is cited in three of my recent articles:

"The Problem of Athenian Civic Identity" in A. Boegehold and A. Scafuro Athenian Identity and Civic Ideology (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) 34-44.

"The Ionian Era of Athenian Civic Identity" Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 137 (1993) 194-206.

"Theseus and His City" in Pontus Hellström and Brita Alroth Religion and Power in the Ancient Greek World (Boreas 24) (Uppsala 1996) 115-20.