The Economy of Gratitude in Democratic Athens

by Ingvar B. Maehle

Hesperia, Volume 87, Issue 1
Page(s): 55-90
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2972/hesperia.87.1.0055
Year: 2018
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ABSTRACT:

The scholarly consensus regarding patron-client relationships has been that this was a predominantly Roman phenomenon, which the Greeks, and particularly the Athenians, avoided. This article challenges that paradigm and presents a model in which personal patronage is seen as a universal feature of the classical world and the Athenian democracy differs from Rome only in how patronage operated. Institutional reforms and state subsidies did not abolish the market for powerful protectors but changed the rates of exchange between patrons and clients in favor of the latter. The pursuit of gratitude did not result in packed assemblies, in either Rome or Athens, but created for the patron a core group of loyal helpers in the sociopolitical game for honor.