BMCR 2009.01.20, Timothy Howe, Pastoral Politics: Animals

Timothy Howe, Pastoral Politics: Animals, Agriculture and Society in
Ancient Greece. Publications of the Association of Ancient Historians
9.  Claremont:  Regina Books, 2008.  Pp. x, 143.  ISBN 9781930053540.
$19.95 (pb).

Reviewed by Evrydiki Tasopoulou, Bryn Mawr College
([email protected])
Word count:  2099 words
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Timothy Howe's Pastoral Politics: Animals, Agriculture and Society in
Ancient Greece is a welcome contribution to the long-neglected study of
animals as important constituents of ancient Greek history and culture.
The main purpose of the book is to analyze the practice of animal
husbandry in relation to sociopolitical and economic causes that
informed and shaped this practice in ancient Greece during the Archaic,
Classical, and early Hellenistic periods.  Howe stresses that the book
is meant for "ancient historians who ha[ve] little or no knowledge of
the subject" (ix), yet his main intention is to make it appealing to
non-specialists, and thus incorporate it into the mainstream of
scholarly research on ancient Greek history.  Howe approaches the topic
of large-scale animal production in ancient Greece by focusing on the
use of land for agricultural and pastoral purposes, while addressing
three central questions: "(1) why did wealthy (and also non-wealthy)
people prioritize the production of animals to such a degree that they
removed some of the best land from cereal or other food cultivation;
(2) how did these people justify taking much needed land away from
subsistence food production in order to raise non-food animals such as
horses; and (3) how did these animal production choices affect those
individuals directly and not directly involved in animal production?"
(ix).  It is through these questions that Howe attempts to disentangle
the intricate connections among land use, animals, agriculture, and
politics in ancient Greece, a challenging task, which he succinctly
refers to as "pastoral politics" (2).

The book consists of five chapters.  The first chapter, "Understanding
Pastoral Politics," outlines the scope of the book and offers a
critical review of existing theories regarding agricultural and
pastoral practices in ancient Greece.  Howe discusses, first, the
agricultural systems of Classical Athens as analyzed by Louis Gernet
(1909) and Auguste Jarde/ (1925);[[1]] Moses Finley's model of ancient
Mediterranean economy as being centered on agricultural practice that
was, in turn, dependent upon subsistence food production and surplus
market production (1985);[[2]] and Peter Garnsey's (1988) and Robin
Osborne's (1985;1987) unifying model of city and countryside and its
emphasis on elite political and personal choices shaping agricultural
production in Classical Greece.[[3]] He moves, next, to Robert
Sallares's study of ecology and subsistence food production
(1991);[[4]] the environmental model of specialized transhumance
proposed by Ellen Semple (1922; 1932), embraced by Stella Georgoudi
(1974), and revived later by Jens Skydsgaard (1988);[[5]] the
agro-pastoralist model favored by Paul Halstead (1987) and Stephen
Hodkinson (1988);[[6]] the substantiation of these two competing models
by epigraphical evidence regarding livestock rearing in the eastern
Mediterranean (fifth century B.C. to first century A.D.) as discussed
by Christophe Chandezon (2003);[[7]] and, finally, Hamish Forbes' study
of the role of animals as wealth-generating entities for the ruling
elite in ancient Greece (1995).[[8]]  Howe acknowledges the
intellectual debt of his study to Forbes, while underlining the need to
take into account variables such as the regional and temporal
complexity of animal husbandry in ancient Greece and the specific
sociopolitical and economic contexts that sustained this practice.

In the second chapter, "Animals as Gentlemanly Wealth," Howe considers
the ancient Greek, specifically elite, conception of animals as sources
of wealth, thus suggesting their use as markers of elevated social
class and status.  On the basis of literary evidence ranging from Homer
and Hesiod to Pindar, Aristotle, and Demosthenes, Howe demonstrates
that large and impressive animals such as cattle and horses were
signifiers of wealth, prestige, and familial identity throughout
pre-Classical and Classical Greece.  There was a continuum, he argues,
to the conception of animals as such that extended from Homeric to
fifth- and fourth-century B.C. Greece and remained little affected by
societal phenomena such as the development of the polis that occurred
within this stretch of time.  Furthermore, by placing his argument
against a critical review of offered theories concerning the evolution
(or not) of Early Iron Age pastoralism (e.g., those of Anthony
Snodgrass, John Cherry, Lin Foxhall, and Victor Hanson),[[9]] Howe
underscores the importance of surviving literary evidence for gaining a
useful insight into the ancient Greek attitude toward animal husbandry
as a well-established and thus defining resource of the well-to-do
ruling elite.

The third chapter, "Tending the Herds: Animal Management Strategies,"
considers the geographical diversity of animal production (sheep,
goats, pigs, cattle, and horses) in Classical Greece by examining and
contrasting the strategies adopted by four different communities,
Athens, Sparta, Thessaly, and Arcadia.  As manifested in the literary
and archaeological records, each of these communities, Howe asserts,
had its own unique approach to managing animal production, an approach
not fully divorced from local, sociopolitical, economic, and
environmental circumstances.

In Athens, for example, social and environmental factors had a profound
effect on limiting the types of animals that Athenians could normally
raise to smaller species such as sheep and goats; the local system of
land ownership represented a patchwork of small individually owned
plots, each of which could only sustain a restricted number of grazing
animals, and the distinct lack of wetland pastures precluded raising
cattle and horses.  Additionally, the Athenian demand for animals to be
used in state-sponsored sacrifices during the Classical period created
a market from which the individuals involved benefited greatly as their
raising and selling of sacrificial animals enabled them to engage in
and compete for public services such as liturgies.  Despite the
apparent prominence of sheep, goats, and also pigs among the species of
animals produced and managed in Classical Athens, animals such as
cattle and horses were also present, albeit in smaller numbers, Howe
notes.  Oxen, for example, are mentioned in the Attic sacrificial
calendars and the homonymous stelai, and, in the literary sources, men
of the Athenian cavalry keep horses on their own land and have expenses
related to the maintenance of these animals paid to them by the state.
In this way, the management of animal production in Classical Athens
emerges as the direct outcome, Howe says, of local contemporary social
and environmental conditions.

In Sparta, strategies regarding the management of animal production
differed greatly from those implemented in Athens mostly because of a
marked divergence in the sociopolitical organization and environmental
and climatic conditions.  As Howe remarks, in Classical Sparta, all
property and resources were controlled by a small elite body of
citizens, whereas the well-watered plains and mild climate of Laconia
and Messenia allowed this relatively small land-owning class to
maintain animals such as horses, cattle, pigs, and goats in large herds
and within large estates--a situation far removed from that in
contemporary Athens.  To substantiate further his analysis of the
regional and temporal components of animal production in ancient
Sparta, Howe presents literary evidence that attests to the fame of the
Spartans in antiquity as continuous winners of Olympic horse races
(e.g., seven out of eight times between 448 and 420 B.C.) and also as
skillful connoisseurs of raising, maintaining, and also supplying fine
horses to foreign kingdoms such as that of Ptolemaic Egypt.  In
addition to horses, the texts also mention Sparta as famous for cattle
raising.  At the same time, the Spartan institution of public mess,
Howe notes, provided the opportunity for wealthy individuals to display
their means and status through significant contributions of meat and
dairy products to such a public venue.  On the basis of this evidence,
the specific sociopolitical and environmental characteristics of Sparta
were instrumental, Howe argues, in dictating its equally specific
approach to managing animal production -- a situation not dissimilar in
essence from that in Athens.

Like the poleis of Athens and Sparta, the ethne of Thessaly, Arcadia
and Central Greece developed, according to Howe, their own methods of
managing animal production; and like those of Athens and Sparta, these
methods were closely connected to both the environment and social
reality that shaped each of these ethne.  In Thessaly, for example, the
existence of a ruling elite that controlled large parts of well-watered
lowlands suitable for grazing enabled the raising of animals (e.g.,
cattle, horses, and sheep) on a grand scale, and to such a degree that
the inhabitants of Thessaly could not have been renowned simply for
their possession of large herds of cattle and horses, as attested by
textual evidence, but rather for their specialization in the practice
of pastoralism.  Similarly, the highland communities of Arcadia and
Central Greece (Phocis, Locris) were engaged in a specialized form of
pastoralism that was directly dependent upon local environmental
conditions.  More specifically, the system of animal production
followed by these communities involved -- as attested in both ancient
literature and modern archaeological survey -- the breeding of sheep
and goats that was, in turn, sustained by the availability of mountain
pastures, usually a source of contention among competing communities.
Since such a terrain could not support the production of arable crops,
the shepherding clans of Arcadia and Central Greece, Howe suggests,
used both their animals and resulting products as a medium of exchange
for acquiring agricultural goods produced by their lowland neighbors.

In the fourth chapter, "The Pressure for Pasture: Animal Husbandry and
War," Howe explores the idea that acquiring grazing lands was the
pretext for many noted conflicts, both secular and sacred, in Archaic
and Classical Greece.  Drawing primarily from literary and epigraphical
evidence, Howe suggests that the need of wealthy pastoralists,
communities, and even states to ensure access to and control over
scarce pasturelands can be seen as the primary motivation behind
conflicts such as the Lelantine War, the Corinthian War, the four
Sacred Wars, and even the Peloponnesian War.  While involvement in the
aggressive acquisition of grazing lands and resources provided the
opportunity for pastoralists to express and affirm their distinguished
social identity, the disrupting effects of such a behavior on the lives
of ordinary citizens is an aspect of ancient Greek animal husbandry to
which current scholarship, Howe argues, has not given thoughtful
consideration.

The fifth chapter, "The Politics of Display: Animals, Identity and
Power," examines the role of animals in the creation and promotion of
elite sociopolitical status and identity in ancient Greek society. Howe
traces from Homer to classical Greek literature the centrality and
development of the concept of conspicuous display and consumption of
animals in the expression of personal excellence and, therefore, of
public honor, prestige, and political power of the wealthy elite in
ancient Greece.  By identifying this behavior as part of the wider
ancient Greek concept of conspicuous consumption (megaloprepeia) within
a community, Howe argues that possession and maintenance of animals, as
exemplified by their use in pan-Hellenic athletic competitions,
sacrificial dedications, or as pure symbols of wealth (e.g., horses),
enabled privileged individuals to participate into a system of public
competitive expenditure that not only advertised their prominence in
Greek society but also accentuated their links to their communities and
gods and therefore bestowed upon them long-lasting public honor and
prestige.

In conclusion, Howe's book raises many interesting points regarding
animal husbandry and its multifaceted connections with agriculture and
society in ancient Greece.  Although one may argue that this is a topic
that deserves a more extensive treatment, the strength of the book lies
in removing animals from the margins of scholarly discussions of
ancient Greek social and cultural history.  Unfortunately, the text is
not free of typographical errors: "agriculure" (spine), "Husbantry"
(Contents), "Bibliograpy" (Contents), "Berekeley" (5, n. 2, 130),
"arborial" (31, 34, 39), "Agrariansim" (38, n. 22, 132), "agues" (38,
n. 24), "an individuals public reputation" (47, n. 47),
"argo-pastoralism" (51), "Ancient Greek Agriculture. And Introduction"
(59, n. 33), "collateral damaged caused" (88), "vicitims" (91),
"explains nature of this talismanic power" (110).  In addition,
inconsistencies, such as "eighth-century elite" (29, n. 7), but "8th
century prototype" (28), "well-pastured mountains" (61), but "well
established social evolutionary model" (25), "Oxyrhynchos" (17, 85),
but "Oxyrhynkhos" (72), L. Foxhall (36, n. 20), but F. Foxhall (132),
as well as the lack of a consistent format for documenting primary and
secondary sources (e.g., Xenophon Athenaion Politeia 1.10 (108, n. 25),
but Xen.Hell. 2.4.8-10 (116, n. 55), and Kurke, Traffic in Praise, 180
(112, n. 41), but Kurke, Traffic in Praise, 1991: 177ff (115, n. 53),
and for crediting (or not) translations of ancient authors (e.g.,
Homer, Odyssey 14.99-104 (27, n. 1), but not for Plato, Republic,
373d-e (77)) weaken the quality of presentation.  Lastly, the correct
title of the volume edited by C. R. Whittaker is Pastoral Economies in
Classical Antiquity, and not Pastoral Economies of Ancient Greece and
Rome (16, n. 32; 22, n. 48; 34-35, n. 17).  Notwithstanding these
points, the book is a valuable contribution to the study of animal
husbandry in ancient Greece that goes well beyond the old debate on
pastoralism and transhumance.


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Notes:


1.   L. Gernet, L' approvisionnement d' Athe\nes en ble/ au V et au VI
sie\cle (Universite/ de Paris, bibliothe\que de la faculte/ des letters
25. Me/langes d' histoire ancienne; Paris, 1909); A. Jarde/, Les
ce/reales dans l'antiquite/ greque (Paris, 1925).

2.   M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (second ed.; Berkeley and Los
Angeles, 1985).

3.   P. Garnsey, Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World:
Responses to Risk and Crisis (Cambridge and New York, 1988); R.
Osborne, Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika (Cambridge and New
York, 1985) and Classical Landscape with Figures: The Ancient Greek
City and Its Countryside (London, 1987).

4.   R. Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (Ithaca,
1991).

5.   E. C. Semple, "The Influence of Geographic Conditions upon Ancient
Mediterranean Stock-Raising," Annals of the Association of American
Geographers 12 (1922) 3-38 and The Geography of the Mediterranean
Region and Its Relation to Ancient History (New York, 1932); S.
Georgoudi, "Quelque proble\mes de la transhumance dans la Gre\ce
ancienne," REG 87 (1974) 155-185; J. E. Skydsgaard, "Transhumance in
Ancient Greece," in C. R. Whittaker, ed., Pastoral Economies in
Classical Antiquity, (Cambridge Philological Society, Supplementary
Volume no. 41; Cambridge, 1988) 75-86.

6.   P. Halstead, "Traditional and Ancient Rural Economy in
Mediterranean Europe: Plus c,a Change?" JHS 107 (1987) 77-87; S.
Hodkinson, "Animal Husbandry in the Greek Polis," in C. R. Whittaker,
ed., Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge Philological
Society, Supplementary Volume no. 41; Cambridge, 1988) 35-74.

7.   C. Chandezon, L' e/levage en Gre\ce (fin V-fin I s. a.C.). L'
apport des sources e/pigraphiques (Bordeaux, 2003).

8.   H. A. Forbes, "The Identification of Pastoralist Sites within the
Context of Estate-Based Agriculture in Ancient Greece: Beyond the
Transhumance versus Agro-Pastoralism Debate," ABSA 90 (1995) 325-338.

9.   A. M. Snodgrass, An Archaeology of Greece: The Present State and
Future Scope of a Discipline (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987) 207, The
Dark Age of Greece: An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to the
Eighth Centuries B.C. (Edinburgh, 1971) 180-181, and Archaic Greece:
The Age of Experiment (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980); J. F. Cherry,
"Pastoralism and the Role of Animals in the Pre- and Protohistoric
Economies of the Aegean," in C. R. Whittaker, ed., Pastoral Economies
in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge Philological Society, Supplementary
Volume no. 41; Cambridge, 1988) 196-209; L. Foxhall, "Bronze to Iron:
Agricultural Systems and Political Structures in Late Bronze Age and
Early Iron Age Greece," ABSA 90 (1995) 239-250; V. D. Hanson, The Other
Greeks. The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1999).