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POLIS AND REVOLUTION: RESPONDING TO OLIGARCHY IN CLASSICAL ATHENS. By Julia L. Shear. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2011. Pp. xv, 368.
In this book Julia Shear offers a detailed study of Athenian responses to the two oligarchies that ruled the city in the final years of the fifth century b.c. Her particular concern is with the collective actions by which the restored democracy sought to reassert its own values and to remake Athens as a distinctively democratic place.
In the introductory first chapter Shear argues that the two oligarchic revolutions, and the democratic responses to them, were parallel events and benefit from being considered together. She also claims that previous studies have relied too heavily on the evidence of literary texts, which even when directed towards a broader audience necessarily represent the views of individuals. More can be learned about the Athenians' collective responses from evidence that reflects public decision-making-the passing of laws, the erection of public buildings and monuments, and the creation of rituals-all of which illuminate the ways in which the demos as a whole chose to remember, or forget, the city's recent history, and to re-establish its democratic character.
Chapter Two looks at how the oligarchs of 411 sought to use the constitution and constitutional arguments to remake Athens as an oligarchic city. Shear argues that contemporary references to the ancestral constitution, together with the various draff constitutions that are found in the Aristotelian Athenaion Po/iteia, are not simply window dressing, but reflect a serious interest in historically grounded constitutional change.
The next three chapters deal with various ways in which thè restored democracy set about regaining control of the city. Chapter Three looks at decrees and laws, with a focus on the decree of Demophantos recorded by Andokides and on the decision to revise and re-inscribe Athens' laws. Shear pays particular attention to the choice of location for publishing these documents. She argues, for example (101-104), that the placing of the decree of Demophantos (which enjoined Athenian citizens to kill anyone who tried to overthrow the democracy) in front of the Council Chamber...