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Status Inconsistency in Early Greece
| It is common usage to speak of aristocrats and aristocracy in early Grece. We do not account, however, for how these concepts are to be (and were) defined exactly. It seems obvious, that aristocracy is, besides the possession of wealth, a certain culture and a way of life, in particular a matter of birth. But the Greek concept does not necessarily imply that. Birth, and consequently descent, is a matter of genealogy, and thus, in the mainly oral traditions of Greek culture, eventually a matter of self-representation which, in order to be effective, has to be socially accepted. The demographic instability of social elites in Antiquity in general must have caused much upwards as well as downwards social mobility.
In other words, it was a subject of public discourse who was and who was not considered as a member of the aristocracy (cf. the effects of Odysseus' liar stories). Other qualities than birth alone determined whether somebody had the authority to speak as an "aristos", or not. Of course, much depended on whether one was accepted as an equal or fellow aristocrat by the community of aristoi, but it is generally overlooked that, apart from birth, the other status qualifications are not consistent among themselves. He who was qualified as "good" in some situation or circumstances, may not have been that in other ones (I also question the chronological and evolutionary frame of Adkins' studies). My paper will focus on what the consequences of this situation are when objective qualifications for public offices are being established.
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