REVIEWSrnFarmers andrnThinkersrnby Carin M. C. GreenrnThe Other Greeksrnby Victor Davis HansonrnNew York: The Free Press;rn541 pp., $28.00rnBetween the eighth and sixth centuriesrnB.C. there appeared the polis,rnthe Greek city-state, an elusive entityrnwhich nurtured and defined ideals stillrncentral to Western European views of allrnthat is “civilized.” How did the Greeks,rnup until then an unimportant and generallyrnpoor folk on the margins of Mediterraneanrnsociety, manage this miracle?rnV.D, Hanson’s The Other Greeks, a bookrnthat is both excellent and deeply flawed,rnpresents an explanation for the rise of thernpoUs that is as old as Aristotle’s PoUtics (arnwork Hanson uses effectively) but whichrnhas faded from contemporary discussion.rnHanson argues that it was the farmer—rnthe small farmer—who made the poUs.rnThe polis was not just the city—rnAthens, say, or Thebes. It was the cityrnand the surrounding countryside. Sincerncitizenship depended on a propertyrnqualification, the majority of the votingrncitizens in Greek poleis were farmers—rnnot city-dwellers at all. Such farmersrnmanned the hoplite phalanx, the extraordinarilyrnsuccessful infantry formationrnthat, for most of these three centuries,rnmarginalized both cavalry (thernaristocrats) and light-armed fighters (thernpoor) in land-based war. They providedrntheir own armor; in many poleis theyrnelected their own generals (Xenophon’srnAnabasis is a manual on how to lead anrnarmy that votes). Thus, political egalitarianismrnin the polis evolved along with,rnand in response to, the profound social,rnoccupational, and military egalitarianismrnof an agrarian population.rnThe great strength of Hanson’s book,rnand the quality which should make it requiredrnreading for all students of Greekrnhistory, is that he knows this farmer in allrnhis sweaty, leather-clad, crude reality.rnHe knows his farm, too, his necessarilyrndiversified crops, his utilitarian views ofrnwomen and slaves and children, his unendingrnquarrels with fellow farmers overrnboundaries and water—all aspects ofrnthat lifelong self-interest that was, andrnremains, the key to agricultural survival.rnHanson is the descendant of farmers,rnand a farmer himself. His identihcationrnwith the Greek farmer of the polis periodrnsuffuses his book with a personal passionrnand a gritty, unblinking honesty. Vividly,rnand with impeccable scholarship, Hansonrnhas restored the forgotten farmer tornhis proper place in the development ofrnthe polis.rnThe weakness of The Other Greeks isrnthat Hanson wants his farmer to have allrnthe credit, particulady for the moral basisrnof polis egalitarianism. He ignores thernmerchants, who transported surplus populationrnto overseas colonies on their wayrnout, and carried back, among otherrnthings, the metal for affordable armor.rnHe discusses the farmer’s insistence onrnfair laws faidy applied, but neglects thernimportation of alphabetic writing, therntool of trades and intellectuals, evenrnthough written laws were what took thernlegal process out of the hands of the aristocrats.rnWhy does he do this? For thernsame reason others before him since thernpolis period itself have done it: becausernwhat the Greeks accomplished was trulyrnremarkable, and we want to be a partrnof it.rnThe Greeks of the fourth century werernthe first to muscle the evidence into arnculturally acceptable form, and their examplernhas been studiously followed overrnthe millennia. Recent efforts to insertrninto Athens’ glory the missing images ofrnwomen, Africans, and Semitic peoplesrngenerally have been, in part, a reaction tornthe 19th century’s determination tornprove that classical Greeks were tall,rnblond, and “Northern European” (a/k/arn”Aryan”). It has never been enough thatrnthe Greeks were the Greeks: they mustrnsomehow also be us.rnHanson, unlike most of these culturalrnpropagandists, has a good deal of ancientrnpolitical theory on his side, as well as arnsubstantial amount of hard archaeologicalrnevidence, supported well, if not overtly,rnby the historical accounts. It is thereforernall the more distressing (though notrnsurprising: the Athenians were past mastersrnat the game themselves) that hernshould have succumbed to this ancient,rnignoble, and distorting determination tornuse the accomplishments of Athens asrnproof of the moral superiority of a particularrnpeople. By doing so, he has compromisedrnthe unassailable central portion ofrnthe book—his account of the Greekrnfarmer—and he will deservedly reaprnmuch controversy and criticism as arnresult.rnWhat Hanson wants, for all his egalitarianism,rnis what elitists since the beginningrnof time have wanted: eternalrnverities. In the pursuit of these, his egalitarianismrntakes on an implicit layer ofrnclass bias. It makes no difference thatrnPlato was defending the aristocratic life,rnwhile Hanson seeks to vindicate the antiaristocraticrnagricultural life. They bothrnwant to believe that creating civilizationrnis like raising grapes or horses—a sociallyrnneutral process.rnThis is the underlying meaning ofrnHanson’s “agrarian ideology,” and everythingrnin poJis-period Greece arguesrnagainst it. Similar conditions and valuesrnproduced the aristocratic, farmer-despising,rnwarrior-class, land-based Spartans asrnwell as the egalitarian, inventive, protean,rnsea-based Athenians. When thernPersians marched against Greece the firstrntime, only Athens and little Plataea stoodrnagainst the invasion. The Greek statesrnnorth of Athens capitulated withoutrnquestion; the states in the Peloponnesus,rnlike Sparta, waited. “Agrarian ideology”rnbe damned: Athens and Plataea stoodrnagainst the Persians at Marathon because,rnfor all kinds of self-serving andrnidealistic reasons, they believed theyrnshould stand against the Persians. Thernother Greeks played the odds, and lost.rnWho can read Herodotus’ account ofrnMarathon without being moved, evenrntoday, as that small determined army ofrnhoplites met the unknown, numericallyrnsuperior invasion force of Persia? Just asrnmoving is his account of Thermopylae,rnten years later, where 300 Spartans diedrnholding back the thousands of Persiansrnled by Xerxes, who wanted revenge forrnMarathon. Predictably, Hanson—likernPlato’s Athenian Stranger in The Laws—rnis much happier with Marathon thanrnThermopylae, because Thermopylaernwas followed by Salamis, the queen of allrnsea battles. After the Spartans fell, Atheniansrnrecognized they could not fight onrnMARCH 1996/3.3rnrnrn