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ISONOMIA AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN
DEMOCRATIC ATHENS
John Lombardini1
Abstract: This article argues that the term isonomia is best understood as a specific
type of balance of forces closely connected with the classical concept of dêmokratia.
The article proceeds by placing isonomia within the context of fifth/fourth century
Athenian political discourse, and by explicating the relationship between isonomia
and eunomia through attention to the usages of these terms in Greek philosophy,
poetry, oratory, history and medicine. This analysis demonstrates how the concept of
isonomia, understood as a balance of forces created specifically through the establish-
ment of political equality, could be used to respond to criticisms of dêmokratia as
exemplifying bad order/disorder. The conclusion suggests avenues for further
research and some potential connections with contemporary democratic theorizing.
I
Introduction
While it has often been lamented that the ancient Greek world has left us no
systematic theoretical defence of democracy, much recent work in the field of
Greek political theory has attempted to reconstruct such a defence from our
extant sources. These attempts at reconstruction have been as multitudinous
as the sources we possess: tragedy and the institution of the dramatic festivals
have been hailed as promoting a type of democratic thinking;2 following the
lead of George Grote, sophists such as Protagoras have been recuperated as
democratic theorists unfairly maligned by the anti-democratic Plato;3 in Attic
oratory, Josiah Ober has uncovered a democratic ideology that furnished the
Athenian dêmos with the power to rule, while his most recent work has made
explicit the democratic principles implicit in Athens’ democratic institutions;4
and the historical Socrates’ incessant questioning of his fellow citizens has
been interpreted as constituting a democratic form of education and citizen-
HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXIV. No. 3. Autumn 2013
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Government, P.O. Box 8795, Williamsburg,
VA 23187-8795, USA. Email: jlombardini@wm.edu
2 Greek Tragedy and Political Theory, ed. J.P. Euben (Berkeley, 1986); J.P. Euben,
The Tragedy of Political Theory: The Road Not Taken (Princeton, 1990); S. Goldhill,
‘Civic Ideology and the Problem of Difference: The Politics of Aeschylean Tragedy,
Once Again’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 120 (2000), pp. 34–56; S. Monoson, Plato’s
Democratic Entanglements (Princeton, 2000), ch. 4.
3 C. Farrar, The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classi-
cal Athens (New York, 1988).
4 J. Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1989); J. Ober, Political
Dissent in Democratic Athens (Princeton, 1996), ch. 3; J. Ober, Democracy and Knowl-
edge: Innovation and Learning in Classical Athens (Princeton, 2008).
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ship.5 Even Plato and Aristotle have been recruited for the project: Plato has
been read as heavily indebted to the democratic institutions he criticizes,6
while Aristotle’s political thought has been canvassed for resources offering a
defence of democracy and democratic institutions.7
This wealth of recent scholarship has greatly improved our understanding
of Athenian democracy while at the same time broadening the gaze of politi-
cal theorists beyond the philosophical works of Plato and Aristotle. This arti-
cle seeks to contribute to this growing body of literature by focusing on one
particular concept, isonomia, and its relationship with Athenian dêmokratia.
Both the exact meaning of the concept, which originated in the late sixth
century BC, and its precise relationship with dêmokratia, however, remain
unclear. Though it is used as a near synonym for dêmokratia in Herodotus,
and appears to be associated with the reforms of Cleisthenes, it is also used in
Thucydides to classify a version of oligarchy. Moreover, while isonomia is
linked to the idea of equality, signalled by the prefix iso-, exactly what type of
equality it represents has been disputed: it has been variously defined as
‘equality under the law’, ‘equality maintained through the law’ and ‘equal
political participation’, amongst other phrases.8 The fact that the term is
394 J. LOMBARDINI
5 G. Vlastos, ‘The Historical Socrates and Athenian Democracy’, Political Theory,
11 (4) (1983), pp. 495–516; G. Vlastos, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Ithaca,
1991); G. Mara, Socrates’ Discursive Democracy: Logos and Ergon in Platonic Politi-
cal Philosophy (Albany, 1997); D. Villa, Socratic Citizenship (Princeton, 2001).
6 Monoson, Entanglements; Euben, Tragedy of Political Theory, ch. 8; P. Euben,
‘Democracy and Political Theory: A Reading of Plato’s Gorgias’, in Athenian Political
Thought and the Reconstruction of American Democracy, ed. J.P. Euben, J.R. Wallach
and J. Ober (Ithaca, 1994), pp. 198–226.
7 M. Nussbaum, ‘Aristotelian Social Democracy’, in Liberalism and the Good, ed.
R.B. Douglas, G.M. Mara and H.S. Richardson (New York, 1990), pp. 203–52; B. Yack,
Problems of a Political Animal: Community, Justice, and Conflict in Aristotelian Politi-
cal Thought (Berkeley, 1993); J. Frank, A Democracy of Distinction: Aristotle and the
Work of Politics (Chicago, 2004); J. Ober, ‘Aristotle’s Natural Democracy’, in Aris-
totle’s Politics: Critical Essays, ed. R. Kraut and S. Skultety (Lanham, MD, 2005),
pp. 223–43.
8 Victor Ehrenberg identifies four main possibilities: ‘Gleichgesetzlichkeit’, ‘Gleichheit
vor dem Gesetz’, ‘gleiche Zuteilung’ and ‘Gleichordnung’ (V. Ehrenberg, ‘Isonomia’,
Pauly’s Real-Encyclopädie der Classischen Altertumwissenschaft, Suppl. Band VII
(1940), p. 293). Other definitions include: ‘equality maintained through the law’
(G. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, American Journal of Philology, 74 (4) (1953), pp. 337–66,
pp. 350–6); ‘equality before the law’ (J.A.O. Larsen, ‘Cleisthenes and the Development
of the Theory of Democracy at Athens’, in Essays in Political Theory Presented to
George H. Sabine (Ithaca, 1948), pp. 1–16, p. 9); ‘a regime in which those who partici-
pate in public life do so on an equal footing’ (P. Lévêque and P. Vidal-Naquet,
Cleisthenes the Athenian (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1996), p. 22); ‘equa ripartizione
dell’influenza politica’ (G. Cerri, ‘isos dasmos come equivalente di isonomia nella
silloge teognidea’, Quaderni Urbinati di Cultural Classica, 8 (1969), pp. 97–104, p. 100
(emphasis in original)); ‘equality of political rights among the citizens’ (C. Meier, The
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 395
attested only twenty times in a period of nearly two hundred years exacerbates
the difficulties of interpretation.9
Despite the scarcity of its attestation, the term isonomia appears to signal an
important conceptual shift in how political regimes were evaluated in the
ancient Greek world. Solon employs two dichotomous concepts in explaining
his early sixth century political reforms: eunomia (variously defined and/or
translated as good order, good government, lawfulness, law and order)10 and
dusnomia (bad order, bad government, lawlessness). It is clear from his extant
poetry that he understood the goal of his reforms to be the creation of eunomia
and the avoidance of dusnomia, and that such good order required the bal-
anced rule of the best citizens over the base. In contrast, the term isonomia,
which is first attested at the end of the sixth century, lacks the elite moral
undertones of eunomia and dusnomia (signalled by the prefixes eu- (good)
and dus- (bad)); rather, it represents a distinct type of balance of forces
achieved through the establishment of political equality between all citizens.
Thus, while both eunomia and isonomia indicate the need for a balance of
forces within a political regime, the latter carries with it the implication that
equality, in the strict arithmetical sense,is what best creates such a desired
balance.
In this sense, also implicit in the concept of isonomia is the idea that the
equal balance of forces it represents produces a well-ordered political regime.
This line of reasoning is connected with the argument, found in Greek
Greek Discovery of Politics (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 162); ‘fair distribution of legal
immunities across the relevant population and equal access to legal processes’ (J. Ober,
‘The Original Meaning of “Democracy”: Capacity to Do Things, Not Majority Rule’,
Constellations, 15 (1) (2008), pp. 3–9, p. 6); ‘equality of active citizen privileges under
the laws, combined with equality of interpersonal respect’ (P. Cartledge, Ancient Greek
Political Thought in Practice (New York, 2009), p. 63); E. Lévy (‘Isonomia’, in
Democrazia e antidemocrazia nel mondo greco, ed. U. Bultrighini (Alessandria, 2005),
pp. 119–37) offers a helpful synopsis of the difficulty in pinning down the meaning of
isonomia: ‘De même qu’eunomía, isonomía est un terme qui date d’une époque où l’on
ne distinguait pas encore très clairement les différents régimes et où l’on se souciait plus
des jugements éthiques (eu-, iso-) que des classifications politiques. D’autre part,
l’isonomie devenait d’autant plus imprécise qu’on s’était mis à distinguer les différentes
sortes d’égalité. Aussi l’isonomie n’a-t-elle pu trouver sa place dans les études de science
politique d’un Platon, qui ironise sur le terme, ou d’un Aristote, qui ne l’emploie jamais.
Dans la nomenclature ou les luttes politiques, isonomía aurait sans doute pu être utilisé
pour désigner le régime modéré, mixte de démocratie et d’oligarchie, qui aura la faveur
de beaucoup de penseurs antiques, si la place n’avait été prise par politeía, mot plus
récent, donc moins démodé, qui avait des implications plus politiques’, p. 132.
9 Lévy, ‘Isonomia’, p. 121.
10 ‘A condition of the state in which the citizens obey the law, not a condition of the
state in which the laws are good’ (A. Andrewes, ‘Eunomia’, The Classical Quarterly, 32
(2) (1938), pp. 89–102, p. 89); ‘A just order enjoined by the gods that embraced a certain
social and economic structure and political institutions corresponding to them, the whole
being governed by ethical principles’ (Meier, Greek Discovery, p. 160).
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medicine, cosmology and social and political thought, that equality produces
harmony and mitigates stasis. In the realm of the polis, it tracks the idea that
while citizens may be inherently unequal, making them political equals is the
best way to ensure social harmony. This vision of good order implicit in the
concept of isonomia thus stands in explicit contrast to the idea of good order
implicit in the concept of eunomia; in all of the extant attestations of the latter
concept, such good order is associated with, and created through, hierarchical
political institutions and unequal classes of citizenship. Grounded in this
observation, the guiding premise of this article is that the concept of isonomia
can be best understood in relation to, and as a departure from, the concept of
eunomia. While both terms, as I will argue, stand for types of social order
where private and public interests are harmoniously balanced, isonomia
expresses the belief that such balance is best achieved through equality.
Conceiving isonomia along these lines allows us to reconstruct a democratic
response to one prominent charge against democracy in the classical world:
that it either neglected considerations of order or itself produced disorder. The
primary goal of this article, then, is both the general attempt to recover this
historical concept and its possible relationship to Athenian democracy and the
more specific task of articulating this response.
The structure of the article is as follows: Section II offers an overview of
eunomia in three parts. The first part draws on Aristotle and the Platonic Defi-
nitions to offer a working definition of eunomia as a political principle. Sec-
tion II.2 analyses Solon’s conception of eunomia as it is exemplified in his
poetry and political reforms. Section II.3 explores the influence of Solonian
political thought in fourth-century political discourse, illustrating how the
concept was situated in relation to democracy and other regime types. Section
III focuses on isonomia and its relationship to eunomia and dêmokratia. Sec-
tion III.1 outlines the charge, levelled by the Old Oligarch and Plato, that
dêmokratia and isonomia are opposed to good order. The rest of Section III
articulates a definition of isonomia as an equal balance of forces through read-
ings of Herodotus’ Histories and Euripides’ Phoenician Women. The article
concludes with some brief reflections on the implications this argument might
hold for the study of ancient political thought and contemporary democratic
theory.
II
Eunomia
II.1. Definition
In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle states the following while discussing
deliberation: ‘We deliberate not about ends, but about what promotes ends.
A doctor, for instance, does not deliberate about whether he will cure, or an
orator about whether he will persuade, or a politician about whether he will
396 J. LOMBARDINI
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 397
produce good order (eunomian), or any other [expert] about the end [that his
science aims at]’.11 With this statement, Aristotle provides us with an impor-
tant starting point for thinking through the concept of eunomia and its evolu-
tion. First, in stating that all politicians take as their end (telos) eunomia, he
illustrates that the term signifies not a form of political regime, but a political
principle. A similar conception of eunomia is implicit in Aristotle’s state-
ment, in Book 2 of the Politics, where he declares that it is necessary, if he is
going to discuss the best of all possible political regimes, also to discuss those
that are said to be governed according to the principle of eunomia (tôn poleôn
tôn eunomeisthai legomenôn).12 This passage from the Politics indicates that
the idea expressed in the Nicomachean Ethics is not unique to Aristotle;
rather, it suggests that the term eunomia was in use more generally as a term
for evaluating political regimes in the Greek world.
Further evidence of this latter claim can be found in the self-description of
many of the regimes Aristotle analyses as embodying the principle of eunomia.
First, Solon describes his reforms, as we will discuss below, as aiming to rid
Athens of dusnomia and replace it with eunomia. Second, Sparta provides the
best-known example of a Greek polis that was widely-held to be governed
according to the principle of eunomia: both Herodotus and Thucydides asso-
ciate such eunomia with the reforms of Lycurgus;13 there are a number of ref-
erences to Sparta as a eunomos polis in the Platonic dialogues;14 and Aristotle
references the now-lost poem by Tyrtaeus on Spartan eunomia. Finally, the
explicit aim in both Plato’s Republic and Laws is the founding of an eunomos
polis.15 All of this evidence would seem to confirm the two implications of
Aristotle’s statement in the Nicomachean Ethics: that eunomia is a principle,
rather than a form of political regime; and it is a principle that was used more
broadly to describe those political regimes held to be best (both real and
imaginary).
While Aristotle demonstrates the importance of eunomia for fourth-century
political discourse, the spurious Platonic writings provide a helpful defini-
tion. In the Platonic Definitions, eunomia is defined as peitharkhia nomôn
spoudaiôn — the obedience to noble laws.16 This definition is useful precisely
because it captures the two key elements that are emphasized, to varying
degrees, by the concept: first, the principle of law-abidingness; second, the
necessityof good/noble laws.17 Yet, there is also a third element to this definition
11 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1112b14, trans. Irwin.
12 Aristotle, Politics 1260b30.
13 Herodotus 1.65–6; Thucydides 1.18.6.
14 Plato, Crito 52e6–53c3; Plato, Hippias Major 283e9–284d5.
15 Plato, Republic 380b8, 462e3, 605b3, 607c6; Plato, Laws 934e1, 950a4–951b7.
16 Definitions 413e1.
17 Cf. Aristotle, Politics 1294a1 ff.: ‘But eunomia does not exist if the laws, though
well established, are not obeyed. Hence we must take eunomia to exist in one way when
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that is crucial for understanding the concept of eunomia. Above, I translated
the word peitharkhia as ‘obedience’, but this leaves out the kind of obedience
the word signifies. The first part of the word derives from peithô, which in its
active sense means ‘to persuade’ and in the middle voice means ‘to obey’. It is
hence an act of obedience that derives from an act of persuasion, and we might
better translate the Platonic definition as ‘the persuasive rule of good laws’.
This matter of translation is important since the term eunomia is almost
always associated with political regimes that are more inclusive than monar-
chy or tyranny.18 Of all the actually-existing poleis and politeiai that are
referred to as eunomoi — Aegina, Corinth, Crete, Locris, Megara, Opous,
Sparta and Thebes — none were monarchies or tyrannies, at least during the
period in which they were noted as possessing eunomia.19 The same is true of
the imaginary poleis that are described as eunomoi — Kallipolis, Magnesia,
the city of Cronus’ Age described in the Laws, the ancient Athenian city men-
tioned in Plato’s Timaeus, and the ‘city of our prayers’ of Aristotle’s Politics
7–8.20
398 J. LOMBARDINI
the established laws are obeyed, and in another when the laws that are in fact obeyed are
well established (for even badly established laws can be obeyed). The second situation
can come about in two ways: people may obey either the best laws possible for them, or
the unqualifiedly best laws’ (Reeve translation). The second scenario supports the idea
that eunomia consists in both having laws that are well established (to kalôs keisthai tous
nomous) and the condition of those laws being obeyed. Under the first scenario, how-
ever, law-abidingness is a sufficient condition for eunomia, regardless of whether the
laws themselves are good. Reeve, referring to this passage in the glossary to his transla-
tion of the Politics, defines eunomia in the following way: ‘a city-state exhibits good
government or is well-governed if it has laws (nomoi) that are in fact obeyed, and these
either are the best possible for that city-state or constitution or are unqualifiedly best’
(252). This seems to ignore the first scenario, which in turn complicates the Platonic defi-
nition of eunomia as peitharkhia nomôn spoudaiôn that I take as exemplary. Nonethe-
less, it is clear that when he refers to eunomia as the telos of politics, discusses other
regimes that are said to have eunomia, and labels his own ideal polis as eunomos, Aris-
totle is employing the conception contained in the second scenario.
18 This reading, I would argue, finds support in the anonymous fifth-century text,
preserved in Iamblichus’ Protrepticus, that is commonly referred to under the Latin
name Anonymus Iamblichi. See Diels-Kranz 89.7.
19 See Appendix for sources.
20 Though there are two passages in Herodotus that constitute possible exceptions,
neither should be taken as such. In relating the story of Deiokes (1.96–99), Herodotus
states that the supporters of Deiokes argued that the Medes would have eunomia if they
chose Deiokes as king; the tyranny that follows his appointment, linked with Herodotus’
judgment of his harshness, clearly indicates that Herodotus is not assenting to the judg-
ment of Deiokes’ supporters. The second passage is less clear. In Book 2, Herodotus
writes: ‘The priests said that as long as Rhampsinitos was king, Egypt was well governed
in every respect [pasan eunomiên] and flourished remarkably. But after him Cheops
became king, and under his rule the Egyptians suffered all kinds of misfortunes’ (124,
trans. Purvis). It suffices to note that here, unlike in his description of the effects of
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 399
II.2. Solon
While Aristotle and the Platonic Definitions together offer a working defini-
tion of eunomia as a political principle signifying the persuasive rule of good
laws, Solon’s sixth-century reforms were fundamental in shaping the con-
cept’s meaning and development.21 Before Solon’s reforms in 594 BC, the
territory of Attica was dominated by the aristocratic regime of the Eupatridai.
While very little is known about how the government of the eupatrids func-
tioned, it is presumed, from the evidence we can gather from Solon’s poetry,
that wealthy non-aristocrats were excluded from political power and the
poorer classes were not only excluded, but in some cases enslaved during
times of economic hardship. It was thus these dual forms of domination, eco-
nomic domination over the hektêmoroi (six-parters), who could be and were
sold into slavery to pay off their debts, and political domination over wealthy
non-aristocrats that caused the stasis (civic strife) that Solon describes as
necessitating his reforms.22
In what is perhaps the best-known fragment of his poetry, Solon identifies
the condition in Athens before his reforms with the term Dusnomiê.23 In
Hesiod’s Theogony, where the word is first attested, Dusnomiê is the off-
spring of Night, and the sibling of Nemesis and Eris. In Solon, Dusnomiê also
‘brings the city countless ills (kaka pleista)’,24 but the cause of these ills is
decidedly human: ‘it is the citizens themselves who by their acts of foolish-
ness and subservience to money are willing to destroy a great city’.25 It is the
hubris and excess (koros) of the people’s leaders (dêmou hêgemonôn), more-
over, that have plunged the city into wretched slavery (kakên . . . doulosunên)
and stasis.26 Dusnomiê threatens to tear the entire city apart, and threatens
Lycurgus’ reforms in Sparta, Herodotus does not himself judge Egypt to have enjoyed
eunomia under Rhampsinitos; it is the judgment of the Egyptian priests that he is record-
ing. In his description of Sparta, in contrast, it is clearly his own judgment that Sparta
enjoyed eunomia after Lycurgus’ reforms: ‘in this way, they changed into eunomia
(metebalon de hôde es eunomiên; 1.65.2)’.
21 As we will see in the following section, Solon’s reforms and political thought were
highly influential in fourth-century Athens; in this sense, the conceptions of eunomia
found in Aristotle and the Platonic Definitions are highly indebted to various interpreta-
tions of Solon’s thought and legacy.
22 For overviews of this historical background, see Ober, Mass and Elite, pp. 55–60;
M. Hansen, Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes, trans. J.A. Crook (Norman,
OK, 1991), pp. 27–9; and R.W. Wallace, ‘Revolutions and a New Order in Solonian
Athens and Archaic Greece’, in Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece, ed. K.A.
Raaflaub, J. Ober and R.W. Wallace (Berkeley, 2007), pp. 49–82, pp. 49–51.
23 Solon, fr. 4, 31.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid., 5–6. All translations from Solon are taken from the Loeb edition of D.E.
Gerber.
26 Ibid., 7–19.
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each and every citizen: ‘and so the public evil comes home to each man and
the courtyard gates no longer have the will to hold it back’.27 Eunomiê, in con-
trast, ‘reveals all that is orderly and fitting, and often places fetters round the
unjust. She makes the rough smooth, dries up the blooming flowers of ruin,
straightens out crooked judgments, tames deeds of pride, and puts an end to
acts of sedition and to the anger ofgrievous strife’ (eridos cholon).28
Solon’s key reforms — the elimination of the Eupatrid’s monopoly on
political power and the liberation and limited enfranchisement of poorer citi-
zens — are both geared towards constraining the excess of elites that created
Dusnomiê and, in doing so, creating Eunomiê. First, Solon divided the
population of Attica into four property classes based on annual agricultural
production: (1) the pentakosiomedimnoi (500 bushels); (2) the hippeis (300);
(3) the zeugites (200); and the thetes (under 200). Under his reforms, mem-
bers of the first two census classes could hold the office of archon (the chief
magistracies of the city), which in turn made them eligible (contingent upon
successfully passing the euthunê at the end of their one-year term) to serve on
the Areopagus Council (which was given general oversight of the laws).29
Solon’s reforms thus made Athens’ politeia more inclusive by changing the
qualification for high office from noble birth to wealth. Second, Solon elimi-
nated the practice of debt bondage, thereby redefining the Athenian political
community.30 From now on, no citizen could be deprived of his free status for
economic reasons, thus establishing certain minimal rights as a prerogative of
citizen birth.31 Along with the elimination of debt bondage came increased
political power for the poorer classes; in particular, Solon created a new court
(Heliaia) where citizens could appeal the rulings of magistrates, and he made
it possible for any citizen who was willing (ho boulomenos) to initiate a crimi-
nal prosecution.32
The constraints on elite power, combined with the expansion of the politi-
cal power of the masses, is perhaps one reason why fourth-century writers
would praise Solon as the founder of Athenian dêmokratia.33 Nevertheless, it
400 J. LOMBARDINI
27 Ibid., 23–5.
28 Ibid., 35–8. In Hesiod, Eunomiê is likewise the daughter of Zeus and Themis, and
the sister of Justice and Peace (901–2).
29 While this reform did restrain the power of the traditional elite, it also helped to
alleviate stasis between traditional elites and the wealthy classes by co-opting the latter.
On this point, see Ober, Mass and Elite, p. 61.
30 R. Balot, Greek Political Thought (Oxford, 2006), p. 44.
31 Ober, Mass and Elite, p. 62; Balot, Greek Political Thought, p. 44.
32 Hansen, Athenian Democracy, p. 30.
33 This point will be discussed more fully in the following section. It finds its strong-
est proponent in the Aristotelian Athenaiôn Politeia (hereafter Ath. Pol.), where the
author, commenting on Solon’s creation of the Heliaia, observes ‘for when the people
are masters of the vote they are masters of the constitution’ (9.1). Kurt Raaflaub offers an
updated version of this principle in arguing that Athens became a democracy only with
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 401
is clear that Solon understood his reforms as striking a hierarchical balance
between the interests of the elite and those of the masses:
I have given the masses as much privilege as is sufficient, neither taking
away from their honour nor adding to it. And as for those who had power
and were envied for their wealth, I saw to it that they too should suffer no
indignity. I stood with a mighty shield cast round both sides and did not
allow either to have an unjust victory.34
Likewise, he claims that he ‘wrote laws for the upper and lower classes alike,
providing a straight legal process for each person’,35 and he describes himself
as having ‘stood in no-man’s land (en metaichmiôi) between them like a
boundary marker’.36 This balancing constrained not only the excess of elites,
but the masses as well. Along these lines, Solon notes that ‘if another had
taken up the goad as I did . . . he would not have restrained the masses’;37 in
other words, he might have given in to the popular demand for property
redistribution (oude piei[r]ês chthonos patridos kakoisin esthlous isomoiriên
echein).38 Doing so, however, would have risked upsetting the balance Solon’s
reforms attempted to create between granting the masses too much freedom
and subjecting them to too much restraint; to accede to their demands for
property redistribution might begin to breed in them the same hubris that had
infected the elite.39
The success of this balanced order is crucially tied to the persuasiveness of
Solon’s reforms. On this point, an anecdote from Plutarch’s Life of Solon is
illustrative:
Anacharsis . . . on learning what Solon was about, laughed at him for think-
ing that he could check the injustice and rapacity of the citizens by written
laws, which were just like spiders’ webs; they would hold the weak and
delicate who might be caught in their meshes, but would be torn in pieces by
the rich and powerful. To this Solon is said to have answered that men keep
their agreements with each other when neither party profits by the breaking
of them, and he was adapting his laws to the citizens in such a manner as to
Ephialtes’ reforms of the Areopagus in the mid-fifth century. See K. Raaflaub, ‘The
Breakthrough of Dêmokratia in Mid-Fifth-Century Athens’, in Origins of Democracy,
ed. Raaflaub, Ober and Wallace, pp. 105–54.
34 Solon, fr. 5.
35 Ibid., fr. 36, 18–19.
36 Ibid., fr. 37, 8–9. On this final point, see N. Loraux, ‘Solon au Milieu de la Lice’, in
Aux Origines de L’Hellénisme: La Crète et la Grèce (Paris, 1984), pp. 199–214.
37 Solon, fr. 36, 20–22.
38 Ibid., fr. 34, 8–9.
39 Ibid., fr. 6. On Solon’s refusal to grant isomoiria and its connection to his concep-
tion of political justice, see G. Vlastos, ‘Solonian Justice’, Classical Philology, 41 (2)
(1946), pp. 65–83, pp. 78–82.
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make it clear to all that the practice of justice was more advantageous than
the transgression of the laws.40
It is Solon’s poems about his reforms that demonstrate the advantageousness
of following the laws; in this respect, the poems themselves function as a form
of civic exhortation.41 Performed for the elite audience that he hoped his
reforms would restrain, his poetry illustrates that in harming their polis, these
elites are also acting contrary to their own self-interest, rightly understood.
This logic is especially clear in his equation of the enslavement of poor citi-
zens with the enslavement of the entire polis.42 In this sense, the coercive
force of his laws is closely connected with the persuasive force of his poetry;
rather than accepting tyrannical rule, he preferred to blend force and justice
(biên te kai dikên ksunarmosas).43
In sum, we can see how Solon’s reforms exemplified the idea of eunomia as
the persuasive rule of good laws. Solon’s laws are good because they create a
just balance between the interests of mass and elite, giving each its due. They thus
maintain a natural hierarchy between the good (agathoi) and bad (kakoi).44
This balance, in turn, creates the conditions for social order; both mass and
elite will obey the laws because they are advantageous to both parties. This
conception of good order (eunomia), as I will illustrate in the following sec-
tion, was influential amongst the different strands of political thought in the
fourth century.
II.3. Eunomia in the Fourth Century
Fourth-century Athens experienced a renaissance of Solonian political thought,
one that has often been attributed to the process of codifying Athenian law
that began in the late fifth century. As mentioned above, Aristotle, writing in
the late 340s/early 330s BC, identifies eunomia as the goal that all politicians
strive to achieve; it is also the term used to classify regimes that are thought to
be the best in Book 2 of the Politics, and the self-declared goal of the ideal
regime he discusses in Books 7 and 8.45 In the dialogues of Plato, however, the
402 J. LOMBARDINI
40 Plutarch, Life of Solon, 5.2–3, trans.Perrin.
41 E. Irwin, Solon and Early Greek Poetry (Cambridge, 2005), p. 105.
42 Solon, fr. 36, 3–6; cf. fr. 4c. On this point, see Vlastos, ‘Solonian Justice’, pp. 73–4.
43 Solon, fr. 36, 16.
44 Ibid., 18.
45 While Aristotle does not explicitly state this at the beginning of Book 7, it can be
inferred from later passages. In discussing the size of his ideal regime, for example, he
states that it is evident that an over-populated city cannot be well-ordered (hoti chalepon,
isôs d’ adunaton, eunomeisthai tên lian poluanthrôpôn, 1326a26–7; cf. 1326a29–32).
Again, in discussing his city’s access to the sea he notes ‘there is much disagreement con-
cerning whether proximity to the sea is beneficial or harmful to well-governed cities’
(peri de tês pros tên thalattan koinônias, poteron ôphelimos tais eunomoumenais polesin
ê blabera, polla tugchanousin amphisbêtountes, 1327a11–13).
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 403
connections to Solon’s political thought resonate even more clearly. In the
Laws, both the discussion of Athens’ ancestral constitution and the institu-
tions of the city of Magnesia are indebted to elements of Solon’s reforms. The
Athenian Stranger, for example, praises the division of Athens into four
property classes and recommends such a policy for the city he is founding.
Moreover, the chief magistrates in Magnesia are called nomophulakes (guard-
ians of the laws), which was a function widely attributed to the Solonian
Areopagus by writers in the fourth century.46
It is not only the institutions of Magnesia, however, that echo Solon’s
reforms, but the conception of political order that animates the city’s founda-
tion. The Athenian Stranger describes the ideal constitution (politeias) as
holding the middle ground (meseuein) between a monarchical and a demo-
cratic regime.47 Navigating this middle ground requires balancing, according
to the principle of due measure (to metrion), the need for two different types
of equality. The first type of equality is equality determined by measure,
weight and number, and can be created by using the lot. The second type of
equality, which the Athenian regards as ‘the truest and best equality’ (tên de
alêthestatên kai aristên isotêta), entails giving more to the greater and less to
the smaller (tôi men gar meidzoni pleiô, tôi d’ ellatoni smikrotera nemei).48 In
contrast to the first type of equality, this second type of equality distributes,
according to reason, what is fitting to each (to prepon hekaterois aponemei
kata logon); it is this type of equality that constitutes political justice (esti gar
dê pou kai to politikon hêmin aei tout’ auto to dikaion) and must be employed
as a guide to legislation. The first type of equality, however, still has a place in
Magnesia: it can be used to quell the discontent of the masses, but should be
employed only sparingly.
In distinguishing between these two different types of equality — a divi-
sion in keeping with the fourth-century distinction some Greek thinkers drew
between arithmetical and geometrical forms of equality49 — the Athenian
Stranger illustrates the conception of social order underpinning the founda-
tion of the city of Magnesia. By making this second, proportional, type of
equality the foundation of political justice, he seeks to create social order in
Magnesia by balancing the differentially weighted interests of the city’s sepa-
rate classes. Just as Solon sought to give both mass and elite their due portion
in accordance with justice, the Athenian Stranger seeks to balance the shares
that rich and poor will hold in the city as a means towards creating and
46 On these Solonian echoes in the Laws, see G. Morrow, Plato’s Cretan City
(Princeton, 1960), pp. 83–5; Monoson, Entanglements, pp. 235–6, rightly notes the con-
nection between Solon as theôros and the institutionalization of the theôria in Magnesia.
47 Plato, Laws 756e9–10.
48 Ibid., 757c1–2.
49 On the origin and evolution of this distinction, see F.D. Harvey, ‘Two Kinds of
Equality’, Classica et Mediaevalia, 26 (1965), pp. 101–46 and 27 (1966), pp. 99–100.
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maintaining social and political order. Magnesia will possess eunomia by
unequally distributing political power to the different classes that compose it,
doing so in a way that is proportional to their status in the city.50
While Magnesia will be well-ordered — it will possess eunomia — by bal-
ancing the interests of its different political classes, it is also meant to be
well-ordered in the sense that its citizens will be law-abiding. They will be
law-abiding, in part, because Magnesia will have good laws — laws that care
for (melein) the common interest (to koinon) and direct citizens to do the
same.51 It is also, however, the manner by which laws are promulgated in the
city that will create this ethos of law-abidingness. The crucial point here is the
role that persuasion plays in the process of legislation for the Athenian
Stranger, enshrined in the preambles that are attached to the city’s laws. The
need to preface the laws with such preambles — a measure that conjoins
persuasion and coercion as two separate, but equally necessary, modes of
enforcement — is explicated through an analogy the Athenian makes to the
practice of medicine. According to current medical practice, the Athenian
explains, sick individuals are treated differently depending on whether they
are free or slaves. Slaves are normally treated by other slaves. These slave
doctors neither give nor receive an account (logon) of the illness afflicting
their patient; they order (prostaksas) their patients to take a certain course of
treatment, just as a tyrant would order his subjects. Free men, in contrast, are
cared for by free doctors who both learn about and learn from their patients.
Such doctors attempt to teach (didaskei) their patients, and do not give orders
until they have persuaded them in some way (kai ou proteron epetaksen prin
an pêi sumpeisêi). Just as a free doctor mixes persuasion with coercion in
caring for a free patient, the legislators of Magnesia do the same in affixing
preambles to the laws. In so doing, they not only construct a form of rule that
is fitting for free citizens, but also one that educates those citizens as a means
towards ensuring their law-abidingness. As the Athenian explains, the pream-
bles are intended to predispose citizens to look more favourably upon the laws
and, by learning from them, to be persuaded to obey them.52 In this sense, the
404 J. LOMBARDINI
50 There are a number of different institutions in Magnesia that reflect this principle:
(1) voting for the Council is compulsory across the board for the members of the first two
property classes (they are fined if they do not vote), while members of the third and fourth
classes are partially exempt from such fines for nonparticipation (756); (2) attendance at
the ekklesia is compulsory for members of the first two classes, but optional for members
of the third and fourth (764a ff.); (3) the lower classes are given a share in jury trials, how-
ever, since those who do not have a share in judging trials will think that they are not part
of the city at all (dei de dê kai tôn idiôn dikôn koinônein kata dunamin hapantas. ho gar
akoinônêtos ôn eksousias tou sundikadzein hêgeitai to parapan tês poleôs ou metokhos
einai; 768a–c).
51 Plato, Laws 875a ff.
52 Ibid., 722e–723a. On the role of persuasion in the Laws, see H. Yunis, Taming
Democracy: Models of Political Rhetoric in Classical Athens (Ithaca, 1996), pp. 227–36,
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 405
need for the laws to be persuasive can also be viewed, as illustrated in the pre-
vious section, as having a Solonian precedent.
While the Solonian echoes throughoutPlato’s Laws demonstrate the con-
tinued salience of Solon’s vision of eunomia in fourth-century political
thought, this ongoing relevance was hardly confined to philosophy. Outside
Plato, we see a renewed interest in Solon as the founding father of Athenian
democracy in the Attic orators and the Aristotelian Ath. Pol. At the same time,
however, this Solonian democracy is importantly distinct from its more radical
fifth-century counterpart. As Claude Mossé argues, the ancestral constitution
that was believed, in the fourth century, to have been founded by Solon was:
a democracy that was not the radical and excessive regime denounced by
the philosophers, but a wise and stable regime, which, while respecting the
sovereignty of the demos, ensured that it was contained within strict limits,
by means of a skillful blending which made it the prototype of that mikte
politeia, that mixed constitution which was to be one of the favourite sub-
jects of political discourse in the Hellenistic age.53
In a similar vein, M.H. Hansen argues that the portrait of Solonian democ-
racy that we find in Isocrates and Aristotle looks very much like an indirect/
representative democracy, one where the powers of the dêmos would be
restricted to the election and scrutiny of magistrates.54 While the dêmos would
still exercise kratos, such power would be mediated through elected officials
and the institution of the Areopagus.
Amongst orators who are less critical of Athenian democracy, such as
Demosthenes and Aeschines, the term eunomia most often designates a sense
of law-abidingness that is compatible with Athens’ democratic regime, even
if Athens and its citizens are not always held as exemplifying this principle.
While Aeschines, for example, notes that the real strength of Athens’ democ-
racy lies in being ruled by the law (eunomêsthe) and not being undermined by
those who contravene the laws (mê kataluêsthe hupo tôn paranomountôn),55
he also compares his contemporary Athens with the Athens of old that
was better governed than it is now (hot’ eunomeito mallon hê polis).56 Demos-
thenes, who cites Solon’s Eunomia as a means of rebuking Aeschines for
which provides a detailed analysis of the preambles. C. Bobonich, Plato’s Utopia Recast
(Oxford, 2002), pp. 97–106, offers an excellent discussion of the moral psychology
implicit in both the preambles and the Laws in general.
53 C. Mossé, ‘How a Political Myth Takes Shape: Solon, “Founding Father” of Athe-
nian Democracy’, in Athenian Democracy, ed. P.J. Rhodes (Oxford, 2004), pp. 242–59,
p. 243.
54 M.H. Hansen, ‘Solonian Democracy in Fourth-Century Athens’, Classical et
Mediaevalia, 40 (1989), pp. 71–99, p. 96.
55 Aeschines, 1.5.
56 Ibid., 3.154.
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allegedly accepting a bribe from Philip of Macedon,57 and generally praises
the principle of eunomia,58 also holds up the city of Locris, whose citizens
have only introduced one new law in the past two hundred years, as an exam-
ple of an eunomos polis for the Athenians to imitate. Finally, the orator
Lycurgus advises his fellow citizens that it is good to take good examples
from a city that is well-governed, even if this city happens to be Sparta (kalon
gar est’ ek poleôs eunomoumenês peri tôn dikaiôn paradeigmata lambanein).59
In short, while the principle of eunomia is viewed as compatible with Athens’
democratic form of governance, it is still exemplified by non-democratic
cities such as Sparta.
In sum, in fourth-century political discourse, we can clearly see the force of
Aristotle’s claim that eunomia is the aim of politics. Across the political spec-
trum, from the elite regime of Plato’s Laws to the oligarchic-leaning political
programme of Isocrates to the more democratically-minded speeches of
Aeschines and Demosthenes, eunomia is conceptualized in relationship with
the legacy of Solon’s reforms. Viewed from different perspectives, we can
either classify this phenomenon as a democratic co-optation of the principle
of eunomia by writers like Demosthenes and Aeschines, or as an attempt by
elites to make the principle of eunomia more palatable by tempering it with
democratic institutions (Magnesia is intended to be, after all, a mixture of
democracy and monarchy).60 To varying degrees, however, the principle of
eunomia continues to be associated, primarily, with non-democratic regimes.
III
Isonomia
III.1. Dêmokratia and Disorder
In his fifth-century pamphlet on the Constitution of the Athenians, the writer
commonly known as the Old Oligarch sets up a direct contrast between
eunomia and dêmokratia, one that provides a useful starting point for discuss-
ing the relationship between isonomia and both of these concepts. The Old
Oligarch begins his treatise by stating that he does not praise the Athenians in
406 J. LOMBARDINI
57 Demosthenes, 19.255.
58 Ibid., 25.11.
59 Lycurgus, 1.128.
60 The case of Isocrates is a bit more complicated. While Isocrates does not use
eunomia or any of its cognates to describe the type of dêmokratia he articulates in the
Areopagiticus, he does use isonomia (20). At the same time, however, he uses isonomia
to describe the Spartan regime in the Panathenaicus (178). This tension tracks the ques-
tion of how democratic Isocrates’ vision of ancestral democracy actually is. As noted
above (fn. 54), Hansen argues, based on Aristotle’s identification of a similar regime as a
form of democracy, that it constitutes an indirect/representative form of democracy. For
a dissenting argument, see Ober, Political Dissent, pp. 285–6.
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 407
their choice of constitution (politeia), since they have placed the base (tous
ponêrous) above the nobles (tous chrêstous). Nonetheless, he does praise
Athens’ democratic institutions as just (dikaios) since it is the dêmos, rather
than the upper classes, that mans Athens’ ships and constitutes her power
(dunamin); for this reason, it is fitting that the lower classes have a greater
share in political power than the better classes. He further commends their
decision to allow everyone to speak and to deliberate, since this policy is an
effective strategy for preserving their democracy.61 Since democracy, in the
Old Oligarch’s estimation, is the rule of the poor, it is by further empowering
this class — by allowing them the political power to pursue and secure their
interests — that the city remains a democracy.
Despite this praise of the Athenians’ ability to preserve their democracy,
the Old Oligarch is clear that these practices are not suited to creating the best
form of constitution. Rather, he observes that ‘the dêmos does not want to be
enslaved while living in a well-ordered city (eunomoumenês tês poleôs), but it
wants to be free (eleutheros) and to rule (archein), and it does not care about
bad order (tês de kakonomias autôi oligon melei). For that which you consider
to be not well-ordered (ho gar su nomidzeis ouk eunomeisthai), from this the
dêmos itself is made strong and free’.62 From this perspective, Athenian
democracy is an explicit rejection of the principle of eunomia. This is further
evident from the Old Oligarch’s programme for creating eunomia: ‘if you
seek eunomia, you will first see the most skillful among them setting the laws;
then, the nobles (hoi chrêstoi) will restrain the base (tous ponêrous) and the
nobles will make decisions about the city’s affairs and not permit madmen to
give advice nor speak nor attend meetings of the assembly’.63 Since these poli-
cies, he continues, would amount to the virtual enslavement of the dêmos,
they are rejected by the Athenians. For the Old Oligarch, however, the dêmos
is more concerned with its freedom and power than with having a well-
ordered constitution.
We find a similar connection between democracy and disorder in Socrates’
critiqueof democracy in the Republic, but in Plato this disorder is directly
linked to isonomia. In Book 8, Adeimantus identifies Socrates’ description of
the democratic man as the ‘life of some isonomic man’ (bion isonomikou tinos
andros).64 Such a man, Socrates says:
sometimes . . . drinks heavily while listening to the flute; at other times, he
drinks only water and is on a diet; sometimes he goes in for physical train-
ing; at other times, he’s idle and neglects everything; and sometimes he
even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy. He often
engages in politics, leaping up from his seat and saying and doing whatever
61 Old Oligarch, Constitution of the Athenians, 1.6–7.
62 Ibid., 1.8.
63 Ibid., 1.9.
64 Plato, Republic 561e1–2.
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comes into his mind. If he happens to admire soldiers, he’s carried in that
direction, if money-makers, in that one. There’s neither order nor necessity
in his life, but he calls it pleasant, free, and blessedly happy, and he follows
it for as long as he lives.65
Here, unconstrained isonomia leads to a complete lack of deference and a
complete lack of order.66 As Vlastos puts it, it signifies, in this passage,
‘equality denying priority to excellence, putting the worst on the level with
the best’.67 This pernicious form of equality, moreover, pervades all aspects of
the democrat’s life, from the public selection of magistrates by lot to his pri-
vate pursuit of his desires.
If we look more closely at the concept of isonomia, however, it is clear that
Athenian democracy was not a rejection of the idea of good government, even
if it did, in fact, stand in tension with the principle of eunomia. As discussed in
the previous section, eunomia did not merely signify good government, but a
particular vision of what constituted a good political order: a non-tyrannical,
hierarchically-organized political system that unequally distributed political
power amongst differentiated social classes, balanced that power in such a
way as to produce law abidingness and harmony among and between citizens,
and was ruled through a combination of persuasion and coercion. While this
subordination of the dêmos is incompatible with the power (kratos) of the
dêmos signified by dêmokratia, the principle of isonomia articulated a con-
ception of good order that was at once a form of equal order; it signified that
the balance of forces created through an equal order was more stable than
the stability created through the hierarchical arrangements associated with
eunomia. By drawing out the implications of this concept, it is possible to
reconstruct how an Athenian democrat might have responded to the charge
that dêmokratia was opposed to good order.
III.2. Isonomia, Dêmokratia and the Public Sphere
Herodotus provides the most thorough examination of isonomia in our extant
sources, and it is his use of the term that best reveals its connection to the con-
cept of dêmokratia. In Book 3 of the Histories, the Persian Otanes advocates
for the rule of the multitude (plêthos arkhon), which he says has the most
beautiful of all names — isonomia.68 While Otanes never uses the word
408 J. LOMBARDINI
65 Ibid., 561c7–d8, trans. Reeve.
66 On disorder as a central feature of Socrates’ critique of democracy in Book 8, see
A. Saxonhouse, ‘Democracy, Equality, and Eidê: A Radical View from Book 8 of Plato’s
Republic’, American Political Science Review, 92 (2) (1998), pp. 273–83, pp. 279–83.
67 G. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia politikê’, in Isonomia: Studien zur Gleichheitsvorstellung
im Griechischen Denken, ed. J. Mau (Berlin, 1964), pp. 1–36, p. 27.
68 Herodotus, Histories 3.80.
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 409
dêmokratia to refer to the regime type he is advocating,69 Herodotus himself
later states that Otanes was arguing for a democratic form of government (hôs
chreon eiê dêmokrateesthai).70 Moreover, the institutions Otanes describes
are most consistent with a democratic form of government: use of the lot to fill
offices; accountability of magistrates; and public deliberations about com-
mon matters.71
In three of the four passages where isonomia is used in Herodotus, the term
is accompanied by the abstraction es meson: ‘into the middle’. In Book 3,
Herodotus prefaces Otanes’ speech with the following: ‘he urged them to
place affairs among the Persians in the middle’ (ekeleue es meson Persêisi
katatheinai ta prêgmata).72 Later in the same book, Maeandrius of Samos,
renouncing the tyranny of Polycrates, declares ‘I, placing rule in the middle,
declare isonomia among you’ (egô de es meson tên arkhên titheis isonomiên
humin proagoreuô).73 Though most translators render es meson as indicating
some general notion of the entire population, Andrea Purvis translates the
term in the second passage directly as ‘the public’.74 This translation of es
meson as ‘the public’ provides a useful starting point for thinking about the
connections between isonomia, dêmokratia and es meson, though, as I hope to
demonstrate, it can also possess the more specific sense of a social space for
contestation.
In Homer, to place something es meson is to put it into an autonomous
social space, one that is free from the permanent and/or complete control of
any individual or faction. In the Iliad, this space is constructed in terms of
69 This is probably due to the pejorative origins of dêmokratia (understood as the
domination/power (kratos) of the poor majority (i.e. dêmos taken in its non-holistic
sense). Ober (‘The Original Meaning of “Democracy” ’, p. 7) argues, in contrast, that this
pejorative meaning is a diminution of the original meaning of dêmokratia as the ‘demos’
collective capacity to do things in the public realm’. Whether the pejorative meaning pre-
ceded the positive meaning, or vice-versa, the pejorative connotation the word would
have had for supporters of oligarchy and monarchy (like Megabyzus and Darius)
explains why Otanes would have avoided the term. I have more to say concerning Ober’s
account of dêmokratia below.
70 Herodotus, Histories 6.43.3.
71 Ibid., 3.80.6.
72 Ibid., 3.80.2.
73 Ibid., 3.142.3.
74 Ibid., 3.80.2: ‘Otanes was for giving the government to the whole body of the Per-
sian people’ (Godley); ‘The first speaker was Otanes, and his theme was to recommend
the establishment in Persia of popular government’ (de Sélincourt); ‘Otanes proposed
that power should be entrusted to the main body of the Persians’ (Grene); ‘Otanes
encouraged them to place the government in the hands of all the Persians’ (Purvis). Ibid.,
3.142.3: ‘I call you to share all power, and I proclaim equality’ (Godley); ‘and to pro-
claim you equal before the law’ (de Selincourt); ‘and I proclaim equality before the law
for the commonalty entire’ (Grene); ‘I am placing the government in the hands of the
public, and I proclaim that equality under the law is now yours’ (Purvis).
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physical combat. In Book 6, Glaucus and Diomedes do battle in the middle of
the two armies; i.e. es meson here signifies the space controlled by neither the
Achaeans nor the Trojans (Glaukos d’ Hippolokhoio pais kai Tudeos huios es
meson amphoterôn sunitên memaôte makhesthai).75 Likewise, in Book 20,
Aeneas and Achilles are described as coming es meson to do battle (duo d’
aneres eksokh’ aristoi es meson amphoterôn sunitên memaôte makhesthai
Aineias t’ Agkhisiadês kai dios Akhilleus).76 Finally, during the funeral games
for Patroclus, Diomedes and Ajax are also described as coming together es
meson for battle (es meson amphoterôn sunitên memaôte makhesthai).77
While es meson in these passages signifies the physical space in which two
combatants meet, it also symbolizes the social space of contestation — a
space that is up for contestation precisely becauseit is under no one’s control.
Elsewhere in Herodotus, es meson can either signify the public in general
or, more specifically, a place for deliberation. In the former sense, es meson is
used to indicate that someone is addressing the public: a herald is said to stand
es meson as he makes a proclamation to the Persian camp (proêgoreue stas es
meson);78 Cleisthenes (the grandfather of the Athenian reformer) is described
as speaking es meson in addressing the crowd at a public feast in Sicyon
(elekse es meson);79 finally, Herodotus himself offers the following gnomic
saying: ‘if every human being should collect his afflictions and bring them
together in public (es meson), intending to exchange them for those of this
neighbors, each one would stoop down to examine the afflictions of others,
but would then gladly carry away the ones he had brought there himself’.80
In the latter sense, something is placed es meson when it is intended as a
matter of discussion and debate: Cyrus summons the leading men of the Per-
sians and places an issue es meson, so that they can advise him about what
he should do (sunageiras de toutous es meson sphi proetithee to prêgma,
sumbouleuomenos hokotera poiêi);81 after the speeches conclude in the debate
between Otanes, Megabyzus and Darius in Book 3, Otanes proposes a deal to
the other two that ensures he will be free from both ruling and being ruled, and
he places this offer es meson (hôs de hessôthê têi gnômêi ho Otanês Persêisi
isonomiên speudôn poiêsai, elekse es meson autoisi tade);82 finally, Xerxes,
soliciting advice about his invasion of Greece, announces ‘but so that I should
not seem to be the kind of man who makes plans all by himself (idiobouleein),
I now set the matter before you for open discussion (tithêmi to prêgma es
410 J. LOMBARDINI
75 Homer, Iliad 6.119–20.
76 Ibid., 20.158–60.
77 Ibid., 23.814.
78 Herodotus, Histories 3.62.1.
79 Ibid., 6.130.1.
80 Ibid., 7.152.2, trans. Purvis.
81 Ibid., 1.206.3.
82 Ibid., 3.83.1.
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 411
meson), and bid any of you who wishes to do so to reveal his own opinion’.83
This idea of placing something es meson as a matter for deliberation mirrors
the sense of contestation the phrase conveys in the Iliad; just as no one con-
trols what is es meson in the Iliad, all have a share in deciding what is placed
es meson in Herodotus.
As indicated in the previous paragraph, the phrase es meson is also associ-
ated with monarchies and in these instances the idea of the public it conveys
takes on a different association. Es meson is used on a number of occasions in
Herodotus when something is brought before the Persian king: Herodotus
writes that Democedes of Croton is brought es meson when Darius orders his
presence, and he is described as standing es meson when he addresses the king
(parêgon es meson; stathenta es meson);84 Syloson of Samos stands es meson
when speaking to Darius;85 and Koes of Lesbos says that he is bringing his
opinion es meson in advising Darius to leave his bridge over the Ister standing
after the Persian army has crossed (es meson pherô).86 In these passages, it is
the presence of the king that brings this public, social space into being and it is
the king himself who possesses this space.
This last point will become clearer if we compare the examples where
Darius and Xerxes each place an issue (to prêgma) es meson (discussed
above) to two further examples from Herodotus: Demonax’s reforms in
Cyrene and Cadmos’ abdication of tyranny in Kos. Following stasis in
Cyrene, the Cyrenaeans ask the Delphic oracle what kind of constitution they
could set up in order to live the best life (hontina tropon katastêsamenoi kal-
lista an oikeoien),87 and the Pythia responds by ordering them to bring in a
mediator (kataartistêra) from Mantinea. The Mantineans send their most dis-
tinguished citizen, Demonax, who, though setting aside for the king his sacred
lands and a priesthood, ‘placed all the other things previously held by the
kings es meson for the dêmos’.88 In Kos, Cadmos voluntarily abdicates his
83 Ibid., 7.8.!.2, trans. Purvis.
84 Ibid., 3.129.3–130.1.
85 Ibid., 3.140.3.
86 Ibid., 4.97.5.
87 Ibid., 4.161.1.
88 Ibid., 4.161.3. In some respects, Demonax might be considered a forerunner of
Cleisthenes, especially since a key aspect of his reforms involved creating three new
tribes in Cyrene. Ostwald disagrees, arguing that the problems to which these new tribal
organizations were the solutions differed: ‘For while Demonax was faced with the prob-
lem of integrating into the citizen body recent immigrants who had not been absorbed
into the three Doric tribes, in which the first settlers were presumably organized,
Cleisthenes’ problem was to bring together different regional and economic interests in
the same tribe by means of his trittyes so as to eliminate rivalries that might lead to sta-
sis.’ See Ostwald, Nomos, p. 164. Nonetheless, the principle behind Demonax’s tribal
reorganization appears quite similar to that of Cleisthenes: to balance political interests
in such a way that stasis could be avoided.
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tyranny and places rule es meson for the Koans (es meson Kôioisi katatheis
tên arkhên).89 In both of these cases, the individual placing something es
meson does not maintain control over this space: both Demonax and Cadmos
leave after their reforms are initiated. In this sense, the reforms of Demonax
and Cadmos resemble those of Maeandrius and Otanes; Maeandrius, like
Cadmos, places the archê es meson, indicating that rule will no longer be the
sole possession of one individual, but will be a public possession.
In contrast, when Darius and Xerxes place an issue (to prêgma) es meson,
they still retain control over what it is permissible for others to share and dis-
cuss. Unlike Otanes’ democratic proposal, which calls for placing all affairs
(ta prêgmata) es meson where they will be openly contested and deliberated
upon by the multitude, Darius and Xerxes only allow some issues to be
debated and, even then, each retains the ultimate authority to decide the issue
at hand on their own. This is especially clear in the case of Xerxes since he
explicitly states that his goal in allowing the strategy behind the invasion to be
discussed is so that he will not seem (hina de mê . . . humin dokeô) to make
plans all by himself; nonetheless, all affairs remain under his control, whether
he allows certain issues to be discussed or not. Under a monarchy or tyranny,
public deliberation is a privilege that the ruler can extend, but also take away.
The implications of this comparison for the connections between isonomia,
es meson and democracy should now be clear. To place rule (archê) or politi-
cal affairs (ta pragmata) es meson creates the conditions for popular govern-
ment, since this transfer simultaneously recreates the public sphere. When a
monarch places an issue (to prêgma) es meson it is radically different from
placing rule or all political affairs es meson: in the former case, es meson indi-
cates a public social space that is brought into being by the king’s authority; in
the latter case, however, it signifies a democratic social space, since no one
possesses rule. It is hence a site of full contestation and deliberation. As
Theseus declares in Euripides’ Suppliant Women, ‘Freedom is this: who has
some useful counsel and wants to bring it es meson’?90 It is the creation of this
type of democratic social space that isonomia represents. As J.P. Vernant
writes, articulating the relationship between Cleisthenes’ reforms and isonomia,
‘archê was no longer concentrated in a single figure at the apex of the social
structure, but was distributed equally throughout the entire realm of public
life, in that common space where the city had its center, itsmeson’.91 This
‘equalization of archê’ was thus at the core of the concept of isonomia, and
closely tied the concept with democracy.92
412 J. LOMBARDINI
89 Herodotus, Histories 7.164.1.
90 Euripides, Suppliant Women, 438–9.
91 J.P. Vernant, The Origins of Greek Thought (Ithaca, 1982), p. 101.
92 While Herodotus provides us with an analysis of isonomia that is closely linked
with dêmokratia, it is important to note that the term was also applied to non-democratic
regimes during the classical period (see Thuc. 3.63.2; Isoc. Pan. 178; and Plat. Menex.
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 413
III.3. Isonomia and Democratic Order
The above analysis allows us to see how isonomia signifies an equal distribu-
tion of political power, or, as Vlastos puts it, ‘equality maintained through the
law’.93 At the same time, however, isonomia does not only stand for equality;
it also represents a type of balanced order that is created through the equal dis-
tribution of political power. While both isonomia and eunomia, then, indicate
a balance between opposing forces, the balance contained in isonomia is
achieved through arithmetical, rather than geometrical, equality.94 In this
sense, the balance of forces connected with isonomia also implies a concep-
tion of order, one that we might signal with the phrase ‘equal order’ to distin-
guish it from the ‘good order’ normally associated with eunomia. Doing so
both emphasizes the conceptual break between eunomia and isonomia, while
allowing us to see what a democratic response to the charge that democracy
bred disorder might have looked like.
239a3, Ep. 7.326d5, 336d4). This raises the question of whether Herodotus’ analysis of
isonomia, and in particular the robust connection that analysis provides between
isonomia and dêmokratia, is representative of the term’s more general usage during this
period. Though a detailed analysis of these passages is beyond the scope of this article,
I would argue (following Vlastos, ‘Isonomia politikê’, pp. 13–33) that these non-
democratic usages reinforce the primary connection between isonomia and dêmokratia.
Isocrates’ use of isonomia in the Panathenaicus is a good case in point. There, he uses the
term to describe post-Lycurgan Sparta: ‘So the Spartans did not do this but rather estab-
lished for themselves the kind of isonomia and democracy that those who are always
going to agree ought to have, and they made the people into serfs, enslaving their souls no
less than the souls of actual slaves’ (178; Papillon translation, emphasis my own).
Though Isocrates applies both isonomia and dêmokratia to Lycurgan Sparta, he impor-
tantly qualifies the application of the former. Sparta, he writes, possessed a kind of
[toiautên] isonomia and democracy, one where political equality was limited to the
Spartiate class. By implication, it would seem that an unqualified form of isonomia
would indicate the extension of political equality to the entire dêmos (as we see the term
used in Herodotus), rather than just a smaller subclass. Isocrates’ use of isonomia, thus,
appears as an attempt to co-opt, and in doing so, moderate, the primary, more democratic,
understanding of isonomia on display in Herodotus.
93 Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, pp. 350–1.
94 To frame the difference in terms of the distinction between arithmetical and
geometrical forms of equality, however, is to presumptively grant the oligarchic claim —
made possible by the ability to render to ison as either ‘fair’ or ‘equal’ — that geo-
metrical equality is a truer form of equality. As Harvey notes, citing Aristotle, Politics
1301a26–b4, ‘the importance of this passage is that it tells us that equality was the watch-
word of democrats, and inequality of oligarchs. Not, of course, that oligarchs would have
said openly “Inequality is a splendid thing” — the whole theory of geometric proportion
is a subtle attempt to avoid doing just that, an attempt to call inequality “true equality” —
but rather that their practice presupposes such an attitude’. See Harvey, ‘Two Kinds of
Equality’, p. 118. A democrat would have simply said that the balance of forces associ-
ated with isonomia was achieved through equality, while noting that geometrical equal-
ity was really inequality under another name.
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As was demonstrated in Section II.2, the type of order represented by
Solonian eunomia is a hierarchical one; as Vernant puts it, ‘the city formed an
organized whole, a cosmos, which was harmonious if each of its constituent
parts was in its place and had the share of power it was due by virtue of its own
quality’.95 In contrast, the order generated under an isonomic relationship is
created through equality. This was reflected in both cosmological and medi-
cal theories of the sixth and fifth centuries. In Anaximander, as Vernant dem-
onstrates, it was the equality between different elements of the cosmos that
maintained order.96 In the realm of the body, Alcmaeon directly relates
this concept to the principle of isonomia: he defines isonomia as that which
holds health together (tês men hugieias einai sunektikên tên isonomian tôn
dunamenôn), while the ‘monarchy’ of one part over another in a pair (e.g. hot
over cold) causes destruction (phthoropoion gar hekaterou monarkhian).97
This emphasis on order is further evident in the argument about equality in
Jocasta’s speech at Euripides’ Phoenician Women 528–85. The play begins
amidst the conflict between Eteocles and Polyneices for rule of Thebes.98
After the tragedy that befell their father Oedipus, the two brothers agreed to
share the rule of Thebes, each ruling for a year in turn (eniauton allasont’).99
In accord with the agreement, Polyneices voluntarily left Thebes for a year,
allowing Eteocles to rule, but when the year ended, Eteocles refused to sur-
render his rule to Polyneices. Polyneices has now returned with an army from
Argos, prepared to recover his rule by force. In an attempt to resolve their dis-
pute before it erupts into armed conflict, Jocasta brings Polyneices into the
city under a truce to meet with Eteocles.
In the debate that ensues between the two brothers, Polyneices states that he
gave Eteocles the rule of the city for one year (dous tôid’ anassein patridos
eniautou kuklon), just as he himself, taking up his share, would rule for one
414 J. LOMBARDINI
95 Vernant, Origins, p. 92. Cf. M.M. Sassi, ‘Ordre Cosmique et “Isonomia”: en
repensant Les Origines de la pensée grecque de Jean-Pierre Vernant’, Philosophie
antique, 7 (2007), pp. 189–218, p. 196.
96 Ibid., p. 122. Cf. Vlastos, ‘Isonomia’, p. 362. Sassi (‘Ordre Cosmique’) also sees a
connection between the cosmic and political orders, but argues, contra Vernant, that the
new conception of physical space that emerged in the sixth century in Miletus was used
to model the new conception of political space, rather than vice-versa.
97 Alcmaeon fr. 4. On isonomia in Alcmaeon, see G. Vlastos, ‘Equality and Justice in
Early Greek Cosmologies’, Classical Philology, 42 (3) (1947), pp. 156–78, pp. 156–8;
L. MacKinney, ‘The Concept of Isonomia in Greek Medicine’, in Isonomia, ed Mau,
pp. 79–88; and Ostwald’s response to MacKinney in Ostwald, Nomos, pp. 97–102.
98 Performed in the aftermath of the stasis of 411, the conflict between the two broth-
ers mirrored recent historical events in Athens. See J. de Romilly, ‘Phoenician Women of
Euripides: Topicality in Greek Tragedy’, Bucknell Review, 15 (3) (1967), pp. 108–32,
p. 109, which argues that the connection was of a general nature.
99 Euripides, Phoenician Women 74.
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 415
year (hôst’ autos arkhein authis ana meros labôn).100 Eteocles not only
broke his oath, he continues, but holds onto the tyranny himself as well as
Polyneices’share of the house (all’ ekhei turannid’ autos kai domôn emon
meros).101 Finally, he says he is prepared to send his army away from Thebes
if he can take what is his own (tamautou labôn), taking his turn at ruling and
giving it up to his brother for an equal amount of time in turn (ana meros
labôn kai tôid’ apheinai ton ison authis <eis> khronon).102
Eteocles responds that the idea of equality implicit in his brother’s argu-
ment is a sham. Drawing on the sophistical distinction between nomos and
physis, Eteocles claims that such equality is merely conventional: ‘now there
is no similarity or equality among mortals except in words; in deed, this does
not exist’ (nun outh’ homoion ouden out’ ison brotois plên onomasin· to d’
ergon ouk estin tode).103 What is real is the human desire for power. Eteocles
declares ‘I would go to where heaven’s constellations rise, go beneath the
earth, if it lay in my power, in order to possess Tyranny, greatest of the
gods’.104 Yet, he not only desires tyranny, but wishes to keep it for himself: he
does not want to hand it over to another (allôi pareinai) and will not submit to
being his brother’s slave when he has the ability to rule (arkhein paron moi,
tôide douleusô pote).105
Jocasta’s speech, focusing on equality, offers a democratic response to
Eteocles’ claims. Before turning to her speech, however, it is useful to com-
pare Eteocles’ speech with those of Thrasymachus and Callicles and Socra-
tes’ responses to their arguments.106 This comparison, I hope, will help to
illustrate the distinctively democratic nature of Jocasta’s response.
For Callicles, equality is purely conventional. It enjoys the name of justice
because laws are instituted by the weak and the many (hoi tithemenoi tous
nomous hoi astheneis anthrôpoi eisin hoi polloi) who themselves enjoy hav-
ing an equal share (autoi an to ison ekhôsin) but reproach those who attempt
to get a greater share as unjust.107 Nature demonstrates, however, that it is just
for the better and more capable to have a greater share (pleon ekhein) than
others, and this principle applies to cities as well. While Socrates challenges
Callicles’ conception of the better and more capable, he also questions the
soundness of Callicles’ equation of power with the pursuit of pleonexia. The
100 Ibid., 477–8. Kovacs, following Diggle, deletes 478–80 as a later interpolation.
Mastronarde, however, offers a convincing argument for retaining these lines. See D.J.
Mastronarde, Euripides: Phoenissae (Cambridge, 1994), p. 284.
101 Euripides, Phoenician Women 481–2.
102 Ibid., 484–7.
103 Ibid., 501–2.
104 Ibid., 504–6, trans. Kovacs.
105 Ibid., 520.
106 K. Raaflaub, ‘Equalities and Inequalities in Athenian Democracy’, in Dêmokratia,
ed. J. Ober and C. Hedrick (Princeton, 1996), pp. 139–74, p. 141.
107 Plato, Gorgias 483b4–c6.
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unbridled desire to have more, according to Socrates, produces slavery to
one’s desires; moral and political agency is a product of the ordering of one’s
desires, and their submission to reason. As is even clearer in Socrates’ reply to
Thrasymachus, it is the hierarchical ordering of the soul and the city that pro-
duces justice and good order and prevents stasis. This vision of psychic and
political order is founded on a moral psychology that places need at its centre;
it is doing and having what is one’s own share, where having one’s own share
entails having a set place within a given hierarchy (epithumetikos-thumos-
logistikos; producer-guardian-philosopher), that produces harmony and justice.
Jocasta also grounds her vision of justice in a conception of natural order,
but it is one that is founded on equality. She begins by telling Eteocles that it is
better to honour equality (Isotêta) than ambition (Philotimias), the latter of
which is linked to tyranny and pleonexia.108 She continues:
[equality] binds friends to friends, cities to cities, and allies to allies. For
Equality naturally produces lawfulness (nomimon) among men, whereas
the lesser is always hostile to the greater and making war (polemon) against
it. In fact, it is Equality that has established measures and weights for man-
kind and given them number. For Night’s rayless eyelid walks an equal por-
tion of the yearly round (ison . . . ton eniausion kuklon) with the light of
Day, and neither of them feels envy when bested. So then, while daylight
and darkness serve mankind’s needs, will you, having an equal share of the
house, refuse to accord it to this man (su d’ ouk aneksêi dômatôn ekhôn ison
kai tôide neimai)? Where then is justice?109
Jocasta’s response centres on the idea that equality produces order and har-
mony: it binds (sundei) friends, cities and allies and naturally produces law-
fulness (nomimon). Inequality, in contrast, produces war. This connection
between equality and order, moreover, is grounded in nature; it can be dis-
cerned in the relationship between Night and Day, who share an equal portion
of their revolution around the earth. At the same time, however, Jocasta does
not argue that individuals are equal by nature; rather, it is simply that equality
produces harmony and order. Hence, war will be averted, and order restored,
if Eteocles distributes an equal share of the house to his brother.110
416 J. LOMBARDINI
108 On this point, see Mastronarde, Phoenissae, p. 299.
109 Euripides, Phoenician Women 536–48, trans. Kovacs (modified).
110 This last line (548) of the Greek text is notoriously corrupt. The transmitted text
has the unmetrical tôide aponeimai. I follow Kovacs above who prints tôide neimai. Still,
there is little agreement on what this line should read, or even on whether it should be
retained or deleted. Of the modern editors of the text, the editors of the Budé edition print
‘tôid’ aponemein’; Craik, ‘tôide neimai’; Mastronarde, ‘†tôid’ aponeimai†’; and Diggle
brackets the entire line. Mastronarde observes that ‘[a] phrase conveying “and allot to
him <an equal share>” or “allot to him also <an equal share>” would make sense
here . . .’, yet he remains agnostic as to whether the line should be retained or not (though
noting that if it were to be retained, he would have a ‘slight preference for Salmasius’
tôide neimai over tôid’ aponemein’). See Mastronarde, Phoenissae, p. 306. If we fol-
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ISONOMIA & THE PUBLIC SPHERE 417
Jocasta’s speech offers a plausible model for answering the charge intro-
duced at the beginning of this section by the Old Oligarch: that democracy
does not care about good order (eunomia). Insofar as the type of order sig-
nalled by eunomia is an unequal one, it is true that democracy does not care
about good order. In the concept of isonomia, however, we can see how the
principle of equal political power was combined with a conception of political
order founded on such equality. From this perspective, we can see how the
principle of isonomia might have contributed to a theoretical defence of
democracy in the ancient world.111
IV
Implications and Contemporary Directions
This article offers a preliminary sketch of the concept of isonomia and its rela-
tionship with Athenian dêmokratia. A thorough examination would require
attention to all of the passages where isonomia occurs, as well as a more
extensive exploration of the concept of eunomia. It would need to be comple-
mented by an argument about the origin, original meaning and evolution of
the term dêmokratia and its relationship to other classical terms denoting
types of equality: isokratia, isêgoria and isomoiria. Finally, it would entail a
more comprehensive analysis of conceptions of equality, order and disorder
in Greek medicine and cosmology. Such a thorough examination is obviously
not possible here. Nonetheless, it is my hope that this article provides a start-
ing point for further research into

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