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In the past twenty years, the prevailing model of archaic Greek aristocracy has shifted from one of conflict between elites and the state to one that questions the very concept of aristocracy. Scholars have painted a picture of archaic aristocracies as relatively open hierarchies where belonging and status were performed rather than preordained (Duplouy 2006, Wecowski 2011, Fisher and Van Wees 2015). This paper uses Pindar’s Aeginetan odes to question whether aristocracies were as open in practice as in theory. I adopt a Marxist approach to suggest that even though archaic aristocracies were not formally restricted, participation in them was limited by hereditary wealth. This conclusion assists us in understanding why our sources focus on hereditary quality even in the absence of a formally defined hereditary elite, as well as the importance of inheritance in early Greek law.

While Aegina has long been noted as somewhat atypical (Ste Croix 2004, Fearn 2011), the existence of trade-based wealth and the rare density of evidence for social mores provided by Pindar’s odes make it an appropriate case study. One would suspect that trade-based wealth would be more open and accessible to change than land-based wealth, which is by its very nature finite. Yet on Aegina, wealth seems to have remained in the hands of a defined set of families, the Aeginetan patrai. The frequent inclusion of the victor’s patra in Pindar’s odes, as well as references to hereditary excellence (e.g., Nem. 6.15-16: ἴχνευσιν ἐν…ὁμαιμίοις) suggest that it was predominantly patrai members who had the ability to excel in athletic contests and commemorate these victories. The inclusion of maternal relatives in victory catalogues, often closely tied to patrai, could suggest a pattern of endogamy within patrai (Isth. 6.60-69, Nem. 4.80, Pyth. 8.35-38) which would further centralize wealth in the family line, as we know from early Cretan law (IC IV 72.viii.8-20). While it is unclear whether the patrai enjoyed formally restricted access to political power, a similarly informal, but very real, restriction may have existed through the importance of athletic networks (Kowalzig 2011).

This paper ends by considering the broader applicability of these findings. The case of Aegina suggests that we should be cautious about assuming that the archaic period brought with it changes in who had access to new sources of wealth. Particularly in Aegina, where access to ships and trade in the early phase of the island’s independence may have determined which Aeginetans continued to profit most from the island’s robust trading life, social advancement may have been particularly difficult. Without changes in who controlled new sources of wealth, it is difficult to conclude that archaic aristocracies became more open. Indeed, the continued rhetoric of birth as a criterion, even if not tied to formally ascribed status, alongside the obsessive focus on inheritance in early law, suggests that social status continued to be exclusive, and should force us to continue asking how patterns set in the archaic period continued to shape social inequality in better documented phases of Greek history.