On the relationship of the Oikos and the Polis in Ancient Greece

On the relationship of the Oikos and the Polis in Ancient Greece

PIERINA GONZALEZ CATUELA

The relationship between the household and the state is so central in the ancient world that one of its most famous politicians, Cicero, speaks of marriage, children, and the family as the basis of the state. This relationship of dependence between politics and the family is constantly brought up in literature from ancient Greece. Myths, poets, and plays suggest that the oikosand the polisare in fact connected and that the negligence of one of these institutions provokes the failure of the other. The notion that the polis and the oikos cannot function without the other is exemplified by the main characters in Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Medea by Euripides, and Antigone by Sophocles. It is fundamental to consider the complex definitions of the oikos and the polis in ancient Greece. In English, oikos directly translates to ‘household,’ yet this definition does not describe the important nuances which exist in ancient Greek. Contrary to our modern understanding of household the oikos encompasses more than just the nuclear family. Indeed, the oikos includes more than one generation of family members, slaves, animals, and the property of the family.1 The Greek household is dictated by unwritten rules based on gender. For example, the man is supposed to protect the oikos within the public sphere. Nevertheless, it is the woman who is allocated the most important tasks within the oikos, as she manages the slaves and makes sure that the household functions. She is expected to give birth to a number of children, who represent the continuity of the husband’s lineage. Furthermore, the woman is responsible for raising and protecting the children. The oikos is a cohesive unit which relies on the fulfillment of the roles assigned to each member, in which loyalty between the members is necessary for its maintenance. Furthermore, the oikosis the basis of the polis, because it produces citizens, soldiers, and contributes to the polis economically by producing farmers and workers.2 The polis, on the other hand, translates as the state. Much like the oikos, the polis is a cohesive unit relying on well-established practices. Every citizen shares the same culture, as well as the same religion. Moreover, it is defined by written laws, which all citizens must obey.3 The polis is part of the public life of the Greeks and, as such, demands the participation of men as lawmakers, as orators in assemblies, as voters, and as soldiers when the city-state decides to wage war. Women, on the other hand, are expected to stay out of the public life of the polis and remain in the private life of the oikos. 4 The polis is seen by the Greeks as an efficient and rational domain, necessary for the function of daily life and the oikos. 5 The delicate balance between the polis and the oikos maintains life in ancient Greece organized and meaningful. However, these institutions get disrupted when men and women neglect their duties within the oikos or the polis. This is the case of King Agamemnon in Agamemnon. As recounted in the Iliad, King Agamemnon fights in Troy for ten years and is not home to take care of his oikos for an entire decade. He himself describes his absence as “much too long,”6 a recognition that his departure was delayed for a long time and that he has prioritized the polis and its war rather than his own oikos. Furthermore, the king of Mycenae is constantly reminded by Clytemnestra and by the chorus that he “sacrificed his own child” and that his hands are “stained” with the blood of Iphigenia, his daughter.7 In fact, when Artemis demands Iphigenia as a sacrifice to appease her own anger, Agamemnon could call the war off; however, he is more concerned about the affairs of the polis than the oikos. Thus, by sacrificing his own daughter, he neglects his duty as the protector of the household.8

1 James Mark Shields, “A Sacrifice to Athena: Oikos and Polis in Sophoclean Drama,” (University of California, 2007), 1. 2 Shields, “A Sacrifice to Athena,” 1. 3 Shields, 2. 4 Debra Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea: Patterns of the Heart and Mind,” Anthós (1990-1996) 1 (1992), 120. 5Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” 123. 6 Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Classics, 1966), 137. 7 Aes. The Oresteia, 162, 110. 8 Giulia Maria Chesi, The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Berlin: De Grutyer, 2014), 17.

This abandonment of Agamemnon’s oikos causes the disturbance of both the polis and the oikos. During his long absence, Mycenae is without a king, leaving Clytemnestra no choice but to become the new ruler. However, the reader must be reminded that women must not step into the public sphere of the polis. 9 Yet with Agamemnon being absent, Clytemnestra becomes directly involved within the public sphere, and must adapt to male behaviour. The watchman and the leader of the chorus notice this, respectively declaring that Clytemnestra “maneuvers like a man,” and “sp[eaks] like a man.”10 Even Clytemnestra describes her heart as made of “steel,” a strong metal, which makes her manly.11 Clytemnestra leaves behind her femininity. Consequently, her oikos now lacks a woman. Soon, she becomes dangerous, as she exiles her own child, and abandons her role as a protective mother.12 Here again, the oikos is disrupted by the absence of the child, representing lineage, and the death of the head of the household. Clytemnestra also becomes violent, killing her husband, and explaining to the chorus that she “strike[s] him once, twice,” while he “cries in agony.”13 The polis is in chaos; Clytemnestra becomes a tyrant. She tells Aegisthus, her lover, “You and I have power now,”14 which shows that the couple now holds absolute authority in the city, and that the original oikos has been destroyed.15 With Orestes and Agamemnon gone, there is no legitimate king or a clear succession to the throne. In conclusion, the absence of Agamemnon masculinizes Clytemnestra because it pushes her to step into the public sphere, assuming the role of king. By behaving like a man, Clytemnestra deprives her oikos of a protective mother, which results in the exile of Orestes, her son, and the murder of her husband, which disrupt the oikos. This disturbance destroys the order of the polis, which is now ruled by a tyrant. Agamemnon is not the only one to forget his oikos. Jason in Medea is another great example of abandonment of household duties in favor of politics. When the reader meets Jason, the hero and his family have been exiled from Iolcus, accused of having murdered its king, Pelias. Then they go to Corinth, where Jason decides to marry Creon’s daughter, the princess. By leaving his first wife, Medea, Jason breaks the bond between him and his former wife, made by virtue of their marriage; Jason “betrayed [the] marriage ties.”16 His departure deeply disrupts the oikos, as the head of the household leaves. Nevertheless, Jason tries to justify his neglect of the oikos by arguing that he is simply making an alliance with the king of Corinth. In fact, by marrying the princess, Jason and his children cease to be exiles and find a home in Corinth. In Jason’s own words, the new marriage “is for us to live a prosperous life.”17 This enables Jason to curate his own favorable reputation and to secure a kingdom. His actions are related to the polis, as reputation is part of the public domain. What is more, Jason intends to have more children with the princess, thus securing his bloodline, and raising the people who will one day inherit the kingdom, or the polis. By following this reasoning, Jason is thinking rationally by ancient Greek standards.18 His problem was his exile, but in making this alliance, he solves it. As explained above, the polisis thought as being rational and efficient. Jason is thus living in the world of the polis, while totally forgetting his oikos. Jason may have solved one problem, but he created another. In fact, there is no man in Medea’s oikos. As a consequence, Medea starts acting like a male and steps into the public sphere of the polis, just like Clytemnestra. For instance, Medea makes an alliance with the king of Athens, Aegeus, but alliances belong to the polis’ domain and therefore can only be performed by men. What is more, Medea decides to avenge herself, which proves her gain of male attributes, considering that women tend to have a passive role and tend to conform to new situations, while men are pictured as reactionary.19 Medea has “no cowardice” and, much like

9 Dylan Sailor and Sarah Culpepper Stroup, “Translation of Transgression in Aiskhylos’ Agamemnon,” Classical Antiquity 18, no. 1 (1999), 176. 10 Aes. The Oresteia, 103, 116. 11 Aes. 162. 12 Chesi, The Play of Words, 11. 13 Aes. The Oresteia, 163. 14 Aes. 172. 15 Chesi, The Play of Words, 32. 16 Euripides, Euripides I, trans. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (New York: The University of Chicago Press, 2012), 81. 17 Eur. Euripides I, 95. 18 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” P122. 19 Anton Powell, Euripides: Women and Sexuality, (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1990), 2.

Clytemnestra, she abandons her role as a mother.20 According to the nurse, Medea “hates the children. ”21 She is also willing to kill them, thus she stops protecting them. After the destruction of the oikos, most characters portray Medea as an imminent danger. Creon declares he is afraid of her because she may be “hatching plans for something bad.”22 Even the chorus, who sympathizes with her, expects her to “do some harm against those inside her home.”23 Jason calls her a “powerful evil,” while Medea herself tells her kids that she has “a violent mood.”24 This is when Medea starts affecting the oikos of Creon and her own. First, she poisons the princess and Creon, which ruins Creon’s oikos, since the child and the head of the household are now absent. Medea does not stop here, she also kills her own children, further damaging her own oikos. 25 However, one should notice that Medea also affects the polis. By killing the king of Corinth and the princess, she leaves the polis without a ruler and gets rid of the next in line for the throne. This means that the polis does not count with a clear succession anymore. By killing her own kids, Medea “utterly wrecked Jason’s house,” and “ruined [him] with childlessness”26 since Jason loses his bloodline.27He has no one to inherit his wealth, no one to project his family into the future politically. By losing his bloodline, Jason loses contact with the polis which is what he laments the most as the rational character living in the world of the polis that he is.28 However, it would be unfair to state that Medea is the only one responsible for the destruction of the polis in Corinth. In fact, Creon, king of Corinth, contributes to the fall of the polis by caring too much about the oikos, and too little about the polis. Indeed, by holding his daughter, Creon himself is affected by Medea’s poison. Saddened by the loss of his daughter, Creon “g[ives] up” on his life, thus leaving the polis without its king.29 Furthermore, instead of exiling Medea, knowing that she is a danger to his family and to his city, he allows Medea to stay in Corinth for another day. Medea persuades him, claiming that Creon is a father, so he should feel “kindness” for her children, and not exile her and her children just yet.30 Here, Medea uses Creon’s deep care for the oikos to arouse feelings of pity. Finally, Creon declares that his bond with Corinth is his “closest bond, after [his] children.”31 In other words, Creon confirms that he cares more about his oikos than he does about the state, thus destroying the polis. In short, in Euripides’s Medea, Jason clearly disturbs the oikos when he decides to leave Medea for Creon’s daughter. Even though he claims to be doing this to find a polis for his family — thus ending their exile — he leaves his oikos without a husband. As a consequence, Medea takes on the role of husband by behaving like a man, which obliges her to engage in the world of the polis. This makes her violent, proved by the fact that she kills her own children, completely destroying her oikos. Finally, Creon further damages the polis when he gives up on his life, depriving his polis of a king. The same pattern of destruction is repeated by Creon in Antigone, who puts the oikos aside in favor of the polis. After the civil war between the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, Creon becomes the king of Thebes, since both young men lose their lives. The new king orders that Eteocles be given a funeral, whereas Polynices is to be exposed and left unburied, as he tried to overthrow the rightful king of Thebes, Eteocles. Creon’s purpose is to set an example; the loyal citizen gets all the honors, the disloyal one, just like Polynices, does not. In this situation, Creon’s main concern is the restoration of order in the city. As Creon says, “anarchy” is “the greatest crime,” and therefore it must be avoided at any price, including his own oikos, considering that Polynices is his nephew and, as such, Creon ought to protect his body and give him proper burial.32 Furthermore, Creon’s next decision is to kill Antigone, his niece, for breaking the law, after she tried to bury Polynices despite Creon’s mandate. Again, Creon’s obsession for order in the polis does not allow him to protect his oikos. The king of Thebes is too busy thinking as a politician that he neglects his role as the head of the

20 Eur. Euripides I, 124. 21 Eur. 74. 22 Eur. 85. 23 Eur. 80. 24 Eur. 124, 77. 25 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” P124. 26 Eur. Euripides I, 128. 27 Eur. 106, 128. 28 Blankenship, “Oikos and Polis in the Medea,” 124. 29 Euripides, Euripides I, 123. 30 Eur. 87. 31 Eur. 86. 32 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Penguin Classics, 1982), 94.

household. He also ignores Greek tradition, which is part of the oikos, in which every corpse is buried, independent of the cause of death or the background story. By refusing to bury Polynices, Creon does not adhere to traditional Greek values, but rather the laws of the city.33 In conclusion, Creon only cares about the order of the polis. Indeed, he establishes laws to avoid anarchy and to discourage disloyalty, which benefits the polis. However, he neglects the oikos, since he ignores Greek tradition and forbids the burial of Polynices. Eventually, the negligence of the oikos brings about the disruption of the polis. However, another character is to be blamed for the tragic end of this play. “Disloyal,” Creon yells at Antigone, 34 as Antigone neglects the polis in favor of the oikos by disobeying the laws, when a good citizen is supposed to always abide by the law. Since Creon is not paying attention to the oikos, Antigone becomes the new protector of it. Paralleling Medea and Clytemnestra, she steps into the shoes of a male, taking on the social and political responsibilities within the oikos. 35 First, she defies Creon’s decree when women are expected to conform to men’s orders. Creon refutes by defining Antigone’s actions as “naked rebellion” against the polis. 36 Furthermore, when Antigone is caught burying Polynices against Creon’s orders, as the sentry says, “she d[oesn’t] flinch,” and during interrogation, she “d[oes] not deny a thing.”37 Antigone is dauntless; she does not hide from Creon’s retribution. In fact, she is not afraid of death, as she shouts, “give me glory!”38 Antigone is ready to die for her oikos. What is more, Creon adds that “from now on, they [Ismene and Antigone] will start acting like women,” which suggests that by disobeying Creon and by not succumbing to him, Antigone acts like a man.39 Antigone disobeys the polisto maintain the oikos, which shows her neglect for the former and his favoritism for the latter.40 As a consequence, she also contributes to the fall of the oikos and the polis. Because of the actions of Antigone, Creon becomes growingly concerned about the polis. As mentioned previously, he wants to avoid anarchy, but Antigone is actively contributing to it. In a last effort to keep the polis stable, Creon becomes a tyrant.41 Antigone is the first one to notice this tyrannical shift, and calls him a “lucky tyrant” with “ruthless power.”42 In fact, Creon considers that he has absolute power over Thebes: “I now possess the throne and all its power.”43 Creon owns the throne and the city, which he confirms by telling his son, Haemon, that “the city is the king’s.”44 When Haemon tries to make him realize this mistake, Creon simply replies that Thebes cannot “tell [him] how to rule.”45 In other words, Thebes should only submit to what Creon says, as he is the sole and ultimate power. Creon’s tyranny affects his oikos and “a crushing fate” awaits him.46 In conclusion, Creon destroys his oikos and begins focusing on the polis exclusively. This causes an unbalance, in which Creon also destroys the polis by becoming a tyrant. Consequently, many characters die; Antigone is the first one. She disrupted the polisby disobeying the law, and her punishment is her own death. The oikos suffers from this, as one member is no longer present, and Antigone is not fulfilling her role. As a result, Haemon commits suicide and is followed by his mother, Eurydice who has the same fate. With their deaths, Creon’s oikos meets its end. Furthermore, it disrupts the polis because Haemon, who was supposed to become king after his father, is gone. The city is now left without a clear successor to the throne and the possibility of another civil war arising puts the polis in a state of chaos. With Eurydice’s death, Creon loses all possibility to maintain his bloodline and this obscures the line of succession for the polis. Therefore, Creon is not the only character to damage the polis and the oikos, considering that Antigone defies the law, which forces Creon to punish her, thus depriving the oikos of one of its members. This results in the death of Eurydice and Haemon, the heir to the throne, which in turn leaves the polis in disarray.

33 Melissa Mueller, “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone,” The Classical Quarterly 61, (2011) 420. 34 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, 84. 35 Mueller, “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone,” 412. 36 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, 94. 37 Sophocles, 81. 38 Sophocles, 84. 39 Sophocles, 90. 40 Shields, “A Sacrifice to Athena,”, 3. 41 Mueller, “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone,” 420. 42 Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays, 84. 43 Sophocles, 67. 44 Sophocles, 97. 45 Sophocles, 97. 46 Sophocles, 127.

In these three plays, namely Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Medea by Euripides, and Antigone by Sophocles, one encounters characters who neglect either the oikos or the polis, while paying more attention to one rather than the other. As the oikos develops in the private sphere and the polis belongs to the public sphere, these institutions are deeply connected. All three plays confirm that the disruption of one of these institutions inevitably brings the destruction of the other; they cannot survive separately.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aeschylus. The Oresteia. Translated by Robert Fagles. London: Penguin Classics, 1966. Blankenship, Debra. “Oikos and Polis in the Medea: Patterns of the Heart and Mind.” Anthós (1990-1996) 1, no. 3 (1992):119-126. Pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu. Chesi, Giulia Maria. The Play of Words: Blood Ties and Power Relations in Aeschylus' Oresteia, Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Ebook.central.proquest.com. Culpepper Stroup, Sarah and Sailor, Dylan, “Translation of Transgression in Aiskhylos’ Agamemnon,” Classical Antiquity 18 (1999): 153-182. www.jstor.org/stable/25011096?seq=26#metadata_info_tab_contents. Euripides. Euripides I. Translated by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. Mueller, Melissa. “The Politics of Gesture in Sophocles’ Antigone.” The Classical Quarterly 60, no.2 (2011): 412-425. www.jstor.org/stable/41301546. Powell, Anton. Euripides: Women and Sexuality. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 1990. Shields, James Mark. “A Sacrifice to Athena: Oikos and Polis in Sophoclean Drama.” University of California, 2007. lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Mail/xmcamail.2015-12.dir/pdfRKa4xzLuTa.pdf Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays. Translated by Robert Fagles. London: Penguin Classics, 1982.