Demagogues, Power, and Friendship in Classical Athens i Also available from Bloomsbury Ancient Greece and American Conservatism by John Bloxham Th ucydides and the Idea of History by Neville Morley Th ucydides and the Shaping of History by Emily Greenwood ii Demagogues, Power, and Friendship in Classical Athens Leaders as Friends in Aristophanes, Euripides, and Xenophon Robert Holschuh Simmons iii BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2023 Copyright © Robert Holschuh Simmons, 2023 Robert Holschuh Simmons has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Terry Woodley Cover image © Fragment of the Parthenon Frieze, 445-435 BC. Mus é e du Louvre, Paris. Album/Alamy Stock Photo All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Simmons, Robert Holschuh, author. Title: Demagogues, power, and friendship in classical Athens : leaders as friends in Aristophanes, Euripides, and Xenophon / Robert Holschuh Simmons. Other titles: Leaders as friends in Aristophanes, Euripides, and Xenophon Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2022036274 | ISBN 9781350214484 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350214491 (paperback) | ISBN 9781350214507 (epdf) | ISBN 9781350214514 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Leadership--Greece—Athens. | Friendship-- Greece—Athens. | Greek literature—History and criticism. | Leadership in literature. | Friendship in literature. | Athens (Greece)—Politics and government. | Athens (Greece)— History. Classifi cation: LCC DF277 .S37 2023 | DDC 320.938/5--dc23/eng/20220803 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036274. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3502-1448-4 ePDF: 978-1-3502-1450-7 eBook: 978-1- 3502-1451-4 Typeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit w ww.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our n ewsletters . iv For Michelle, Ben, David, Alex, and Marc, who make my life so rich. v vi Contents Acknowledgments viii List of Abbreviations xiii Introduction 1 1 Friendship in Athenian Politics Prior to the Demagogues 5 2 Cleon and the Rise of Friendship-Based Athenian Demagogy 17 3 Th e Sociology of Making Individual Philoi among the Masses 39 4 Distinguishing Desire from Friendship in Leadership Models in Aristophanes’ K nights 59 5 Later Developments of the “Leader as P hilos ” Model 75 Conclusion: Cleon and the Legacy of Leadership by Friendship 95 Notes 99 Works Cited 149 Index 171 vii Acknowledgments Th is has been a labor of two decades (with many, many separate matters intervening), since demagogues fi rst came onto my radar in the spring of 2002 in a graduate seminar at the University of Iowa taught by John Garc í a. I had an idea about reading Euripides’ B acchae in terms of class dynamics, John directed me to Bob Connor’s New Politicians of Fift h-Century Athens , and from there I wrote a term paper that I thought was implausible. John, however, thought that it could be a dissertation, for which I am enormously grateful to him, and I ended up writing it on refl ections of demagogic politics in Athenian tragedy, directed by Rob Ketterer. I am grateful to Rob for his guidance and support on that project and on the off shoot of it that has become this book. I am also grateful to other faculty members at Iowa whose attention and care in classes I took, whose guidance in classes I taught, whose direction of fi nancial support toward attendance at conferences at which I presented, whose feedback on those presentations, and whose ongoing reinforcement through the years has helped me to develop as a well-rounded professional: John Finamore, Peter Green, Carin Green, Craig Gibson, Marcia Lindgren, Glenn Storey, and Rosemary Moore. I am grateful to my undergraduate professors at St. John’s University, where I was fi rst exposed to the fi eld of Classics, for igniting the passion within me for this fi eld and for the life of the mind in general. Ray Larson was an inspiringly humorous teacher and an attentive director of my senior thesis, on Dostoevsky and Plato. Rene McGraw, OSB, has been a model of an intellectually and spiritually intentional life, and he has graciously welcomed me back to campus time aft er time in the decades since my graduation. Diane Warne Anderson was a passionate teacher whose support and camaraderie I have appreciated many times at professional conferences through the years since graduation. Scott Richardson led me to decide to study Classics in the fi rst place, through a vibrant style of teaching that erased the gap between the classical world and modern one. He has been my particular model as a teacher viii Acknowledgments ix and mentor, and the friendship that he and his wife Shirley have extended to me and my family through the years has been among our groundings since college. Tim Miles, my cross country and track coach at SJU, also helped to develop in me the toughness and commitment that have been critical in continuing this project in the midst of uncountable competing obligations. I am grateful to my colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, with whom I worked for my fi rst eight years out of graduate school. My two chairs, Susan Shelmerdine and Hugh Parker, were tremendous supporters of my professional aspirations, and they provided me opportunity aft er opportunity to expand my professional skills. My other ongoing colleagues from throughout that time—Jeff Soles, Linda Danford, Dave Wharton, Maura Heyn, Jon Zarecki, and Joanne Murphy—provided kind feedback on my ideas, off ered models of structure for research and writing that have been critical to my work reaching this point, and showed unwavering kindness and support throughout my time there. I am grateful to faculty and staff colleagues at Monmouth College, where this book has reached its fi nal form. Classics department colleagues Tom Sienkewicz, Vicki Wine, Adrienne Hagen, and Alana Newman contributed to fostering the intellectual vibrance in the department that propelled this and many other projects forward. Political science colleague Mike Nelson has been my essential weekly goal-sharing partner for the past three years; his wise, gracious advice and guidance have gotten me past many sticking points. Political scientist Robin Johnson generously talked through ancient versus modern political coalition-building with me and provided several critical sources from his contemporary campaign work. Psychologist Sydney Greenwalt kindly shared with me some sources on ingroups and outgroups. Administrative assistants Sarah Dean and Amjad Karkout not only provided direct assistance with research for the book, searches for fellowships, processing of critical secondary sources, and assembly of the bibliography, but have been superb professionals in general, whose handling of a host of departmental matters has allowed me to direct more of my time to this book. Librarians Sarah Henderson and Anne Giff ey have been critical in helping me fi nd information in the many fi elds outside of Classics that I have studied for this book, and Marti Carwile has ordered hundreds of books for the library on my behalf. Monmouth College provided me a sabbatical leave in 2019–20, in