Year: 1971
Type: article
Abstract: C RETE exercised an enduring attraction upon philosophical ad- vocates of the closed society.1 Plato's Magnesia was to be founded well inland on the Mesad.plain, and the Academy's concern with the potent myth of Cretan law and order is again manifest in the Platonic Minos.But interest in Cretan €vvop.ladid not begin in the mid-fourth century.Long before plato wrote the Laws the Spartans had told Herodotos (1.65.4) that they believed their constitution to have been brought from Crete by Lykourgos; Charon of Lampsakos, towards the end of the fifth century, had in his Kretika (FGrHist 262 T 1) expounded the laws of Minos; and later still Ephoros (FGrHist 70 F 145-49) had compiled an extensive and admiring ethnography.But it is to the second book of Aristotle's Politics that we turn for a critical examination of the Cretan polity.The philosopher compares Crete with Carthage and with Sparta, but his study is not solely of value as a comparison of states alleged to be well-ordered.In 2.10 he treats of several topics peculiar to Crete, and they deserve to be considered alongside the epigraphic and archaeological evidence.It is remarkable that Aristotle is able to generalise at all about the Cretan city states.The island is over one hundred and fifty miles long and many of the cities were hard of access.Yet Aristotle, who mentions only Lyttos from amongst the traditional hundred, writes as though they all had KOCP.O£, a {30V>':IJ, and an assembly.The inscriptions show that his generalisation was sound, but how is the uniformity to be explained?A persisting Minoan and Achaean heritage after the fall of the palaces cannot be the whole explanation, because, even if survivors held on at Praisos in the Eteocretan east, in the Lassithi 1 Versions of this paper were read to the Hibernian Hellenists at Ballymascanlon on 6 March 1971 and at the Triennial Meeting of the Hellenic and Roman Societies in Cambridge.England.on 30 July 1971.I am grateful to those who contributed to the discussions on both occasions.A few changes have been made in the text and I have added some notes.but the essay remains substantially as it was delivered in Cambridge.
Author: George Huxley
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1511372919