1 Introduction
But the Athenian state wouldnât hold on to that custom if it worked just fine; no, theyâd be fiddling around with some innovation.1
ἡ δ᾽ á¼Î¸Î·Î½Î±Î¯Ïν ÏÏλιÏ,/ εἰ ÏοῦÏο ÏÏηÏÏá¿¶Ï Îµá¼¶Ïεν, / οá½Îº á¼Î½ á¼ÏῴζεÏο,/ εἰ μή Ïι καινὸν á¼Î»Î»Î¿ ÏεÏιηÏγάζεÏο. (Ar. Eccl. 218â220)
Athens is stereotyped, in Aristophanic comedy, as disproportionately favouring innovative policies (Eccl. 220; cf. 586â587). Aristophanesâ characters are not alone in making such a claim: Thucydidesâ description of the Mytilenean debate has Cleon accusing the Athenians of being âgreat at being deceived with new-fangled argumentsâ (
In Assembly-Women, the Athenian assembly is persuaded to adopt a radical innovation: transferring all political power to the women, who subsequently institute economic and sexual communism. The play allows us to scrutinize the persuasive methods which Praxagora, the womenâs leader, adopts. Praxagora initially gathers the women on stage to rehearse her arguments and prepare them to impersonate men in the assembly. Later, in a reported off-stage assembly scene, she wins a vote that places the women in charge of Athens. Assembly-Women offers various ways to explore why, on a psychological level, the assembly is so easily persuaded. First, in the initial ârehearsal sceneâ with the chorus, Praxagora comments on the assemblyâs psychological tendencies with a view towards persuading them. These tendencies are imagined through the lens of comic humour and cliché, but nevertheless reflect some trends in contemporary Athenian understanding of group psychology. The second relevant passage is the assemblyâs reported meeting, which seems to confirm Praxagoraâs previous comments: the assembly shouts down speakers in an ad hominem fashion, and is convinced by comic insults rather than logical argumentation. Most importantly, however, the play gives us a third way of assessing the assemblyâs psychology. After persuading the assembly, Praxagora also persuades her husband Blepyrus (who had stayed at home and missed the assembly) to support the new regime. The strikingly juxtaposed contrast between Praxagoraâs approaches to persuading the assembly and Blepyrus offers an unparalleled chance to compare the representations of individual and group decision-making processes when both are faced with a similar question. Our attention is drawn to how logically Blepyrus engages with Praxagoraâs proposals, implying differences between the decision-making psychology of the assembly and an individual. In turn, Praxagora responds by encouraging Blepyrus to reason with her counterarguments, selecting a very different persuasive mode to that which she adopted in the assembly.
The theme of characters analysing the assemblyâs decision continues with a scene in which two unnamed characters argue over how to respond to the vote. This scene can be analysed profitably using modern social psychology. The distinction between social conformity and compliance helps us to understand how these individuals react differently. Furthermore, the fact that two individuals continue debating the assemblyâs decision reminds us that collective decision-making is a process, which takes shape before, during, and after the assembly, rather than in an isolated moment. This is rarely apparent in Attic prose, which often acknowledges both collective and individual cognition but not individual minds as constituents of a group. While the Blepyrus-scene highlights differences between group and individual decision-making, Assembly-Women also shows how the two intersect.
2 The Athenian Assembly as Psychological Unit: A Modern Approach
Mining Aristophanic comedy for evidence of the Athenian assemblyâs psychology encounters two major problems. The first is genre-related: a comedic depiction of the assemblyâs decision-making process may well exaggerate or distort deliberately for humorous purposes. The second affects ancient sources on the dêmos more widely: we depend primarily on sources written by elite individuals whose political sympathies were often anti-democratic. As such, they are predisposed to present the dêmosâ psychology negatively. This chapter, then, makes no claim to reconstruct how Athenian assemblies truly âthoughtâ. Instead, it discusses how Assembly-Women portrays assembly-wide decision-making processes, and considers how far this reflects both ancient and more modern thought concerning group psychology.
The term âgroup psychologyâ implies a strong cohesion: it suggests that the assembly can be understood as âthinkingâ as a single unit. This section surveys some salient aspects of ancient depictions of the assembly, and considers the modern psychological models which might productively be used to understand the assembly as group. Modern psychological theory allows us to analyse ancient views of the dêmos in a psychological as well as a political light. In turn, ancient views of the uniquely-structured dêmos have useful implications for modern theory. The dêmos in assembly occupies a space between corporate and aggregative groups:4 although, like corporate groups, it has a structure and formalized decision-making process, most individuals who constitute the assembly have no defined role, which makes the dêmos resemble an aggregative group. As such, analysing the Athenian assembly pushes us to move beyond existing paradigms of corporate group psychology (such as committees, corporations or governments).
The fact that groups are often able to share the same emotion collectively has long been observed by theorists, but explaining this has proved more elusive.5 Le Bon and McDougall, amongst others, first suggested that emotions could spread through a group through processes such as âcontagionâ, âtelepathic influenceâ or âprimitive sympathetic responseâ, arguing that groups form collective emotions which transcend the distinctions between individuals.6 Others, beginning with Allport, place more emphasis on individual minds by suggesting that individuals in a group are likely to share the same emotion, because that emotion is what gathered them into the group in the first place; the emotion is merely strengthened by seeing others who also share it.7 A third approach begins with Bion, who suggests that group emotions derive from fundamental âbasic assumptionsâ (connected with psychic defence mechanisms such as anxiety) which all members of the group share, even when not physically together.8
Le Bonâs views are outdated and underpinned by elitism.9 However, his approach is paralleled by ancient characterizations of the Athenian assembly. The assembly is often depicted not only as sharing the same emotions, but changing emotions as a collective: suddenly becoming angry with a speaker,10 for example. Furthermore, prose texts sometimes explicitly depict the assemblyâs collective emotions as being characteristic of group psychology: âas the crowd often doesâ.11 Such group-wide emotional shifts are less readily explicable by approaches which understand group emotions as collections of individual emotions. As Budelmann notes, Athenian thought tends to conceptualize either individual or group minds, not individual minds which operate as a group.12 Praxagora in Assembly-Women similarly depicts the assembly experiencing and changing emotions collectively,13 although separate factions form in the off-stage assembly scene later.14
The depiction of the Athenian assembly as a psychological collective extends beyond their emotions: the assembly was broadly understood as possessing collective agency. As Canevaro convincingly argues, the assembly would usually make decisions by consensus rather than by simple majority vote.15 This suggests that the assemblyâs decision was viewed as a group decision, giving them collective agency, rather than the sum total of individual votersâ decisions.16 The question of whether the assembly was understood as possessing collective cognition is rather more complex. Much modern work on group cognition revolves around tightly-organized corporate groups with compartmentalized roles: navigation teams on a US navy vessel,17 physics research groups,18 or (frequently) small- or large-scale companies.19 Such paradigms are not readily applicable to the Athenian assembly, nor even to the deliberative groups discussed by (amongst others) Pettit.20 However, the assembly- wide noise referred to as thorubos would have provided a means for the entire assembly to comment on and react to speeches in real time, expressing opinions and âthinkingâ as a collective.21 Aristophanes depicts similar processes of collective opinion expressed through assembly-wide noise.22 By such processes, the dêmos can âthinkâ as a single unit when gathered in the assembly. As well as thinking collectively, the dêmos was understood as making decisions collectively:23 this is clear from formulae such as âthe dêmos decidedâ (edoxe tôi dêmôi) and âthe dêmos recognizesâ (gignôskei ⦠ho dêmos).24 The idea of âsame-mindednessâ (homonoia) or making decisions âwith a single judgementâ (miai gnômêi) was enshrined as a goal for the dêmos.25 As such, the ancient understanding of the Assembly is consistent not merely with group agency, but collective cognition: the dêmos is understood as thinking and making up its mind as one.
By saying that the city consistently seeks innovation (Ar. Eccl. 218â220), Praxagora attributes both a collective desire and an intentional state to the dêmos as a single unit. Whether a group can form intentions is disputed. Colloquially, we often attribute intentions to groups, and several scholars have argued for the existence of collective intentions, which differ from the summation of individual intentions within a group.26 Others, though, argue that group intentions can be reduced to the sum total of individualsâ intentions within the group;27 in most modern practical examples, it is difficult to disprove this. Those models which agree that group-wide intentions can exist tend to agree that such intentions require (1) every group member having the same intention, and (2) every group member knowing that the others have the same intention.28 With these criteria, the idea of assembly-wide intention as depicted by Aristophanes is at best inconsistent. We might assume that Aristophanesâ dêmos unites in the assembly for the shared goal of making decisions by voting, in the knowledge that their compatriots too intend to make decisions by voting. However, even though outcomes of the votes are understood as a product of collective cognition and agency, it is more difficult to interpret them as a product of collective intention: voters may be influenced by individual self-interest,29 and they may be present with the individual intention of collecting three obols (for which Aristophanes satirizes them: see section 3) rather than the wider intention of making decisions by voting.30 This chapter, then, stops short of attributing group-wide intention to Aristophanesâ assemblies.
Ancient depictions of the dêmos offer a fascinating case study for modern psychological analysis. In assembly, the dêmos forms an organized decision- making group that differs vastly from the corporate groups typically studied. Furthermore, Aristophanes and fifth-century prose authors depict the assembly possessing group agency and cognition in ways that follow modern models, and sometimes offer new tools with which we can understand collective cognition (such as thorubos as a means of group thought). Depictions of assembly-wide emotion tend to emphasize its collective nature, similar to the early explorations of modern group psychology by (e.g.) Le Bon: this makes sense, as Le Bonâs elitist approach mirrors the anti-democratic standpoints taken by many ancient portrayals of the dêmos.
3 Praxagoraâs Persuasion of the Assembly
Assembly-Women begins with Praxagora plotting to infiltrate the assembly along with the Athenian women. Praxagora meets the chorus of women in order to teach them to impersonate men in the assembly: consequently, this scene has been interpreted as a rehearsal scene.31 It contains commentary on the assemblyâs psychological tendencies and how best to persuade them, which (as well as being comically humorous) reflects ancient perceptions of the assembly more widely. Early on, the assembly is compared to drunkards:
Praxagora
When you think about what they get up to, their decrees are like the ravings of drunkards. And they certainly pour libations too: why else would they make those long prayers, if they didnât have wine? They certainly also yell at each other like drunks32
The assembly makes decisions âlike the ravings of drunkardsâ (139) and âyell at each other like drunksâ (142). These blunt stereotypes (which, notably, describe the assembly experiencing extreme emotions as a single collective) create the impression of frenzied irrationality.
Praxagora then comments on the assemblyâs venal nature:
[â¦] anyone who draws pay praises [Agyrrhius] to the skies, while anyone who draws none says that the people who attend for the pay deserve the death penalty.33
Votersâ venal self-interest is a running joke throughout Assembly-Women, and affects individuals (cf. 205â208) as well as the assembly collectively. Lines 186â 188, though, go further: they interrogate how bribery affects the psychology of voters in relation to each other. Those who have been bribed offer their praise, described in terms connoting an excess of emotion,34 whereas those who do not receive money (187â188) experience extreme mistrust for their compatriots. This portrays the assembly as rife with mutual mistrust and suspicion, and desperate to find scapegoats even within its own bodyâa motif which recurs in prose accounts of collective decision-making, and is also prominent in modern group psychology (see section 4). Immediately afterwards, Praxagora satirizes the dêmosâ changeable emotions, with particular emphasis on anger:
But when it finally was ratified, the people were angry, and the speaker who had persuaded them of this policy had to leave town immediately. (â¦) You get angry with the Corinthians, and they with you;35
Here, the groupâs collective opinions come across as superficial: there is little evidence that the implications of a given policy are being thought through. They seem to make decisions based on emotional rather than intellectual reasoning, a trope which recurs in ancient and early modern thought about group psychology.36 Specifically, the emotion in question is anger: êkhthonto (195), akhthesthe (199). Their abrupt anger with the speaker who proposed the alliance makes him flee for his life (195â196) which, again, evokes groupsâ tendency to seek individual scapegoats.
Praxagoraâs initial assessment of the dêmosâ psychology presents them as extremely emotional, and suggests that their collective emotions influence their decision-making. In the preview of Praxagoraâs arguments, we begin to understand how she tailors her mode of persuasion accordingly:
First, [women] dye their wool in hot water according to their ancient custom, each and every one of them; youâll never see them try anything new.
Logically, this argument (the first of a series of analogies drawn by Praxagora) is unsatisfactory. It does not try to persuade the assembly by explaining the specific policies which the women will institute; rather, it uses a nostalgic, emotional vision of the women washing their wool to argue that they are the right kind of people to preside over Athens, and the perfect antidote to the Atheniansâ desire for innovation.37 Apparently, Praxagora believes that arguments which appeal to the dêmos on a shallower, emotional level are more likely to persuade them.
Praxagora plans to adopt a similarly tailored mode of persuasion when dealing with counterarguments. She avoids logically engaging with the other speakers, instead planning to win over the audience through comic insults. She plans to rebut Cephalus through mockery: âIâll say that heâs out of his mind,â she says, âand that heâs a madmanâ (
Praxagoraâs women then depart to infiltrate the assembly, which her husband Blepyrus misses; fortunately, his friend Chremes describes what had happened in the off-stage assembly. Chremesâ report confirms Praxagoraâs assumptions concerning the modes of persuasion which are best suited to the assemblyâs psychology. The first speaker is shouted down before he can speak, simply for being a âsquinterâ (
The rest of the scene further confirms Praxagoraâs predictions concerning the assemblyâs behaviour: the scene is dominated by shouting and emotions. When the âyoung manâ (Praxagora in disguise) suggests handing power to the women, the urban faction utters their support through the typical noise-making associated with crowds: âthey all cheered (ethorubêsan) and yelled (kanekragon) âwell saidââ (
Praxagoraâs faction wins the vote (457). It is possible that Praxagora simply triumphs by bringing a large number of supporters to the assembly, thus ensuring numerical superiority. Chremes explicitly says that her opponents were the minority (434), and that the orator âshouted them downâ (
Praxagoraâs success, then, seems to confirm her initial assessment of the psychology which governs the dêmosâ decision-making process, and consequently the routes through which they can be persuaded. Debate is conducted primarily through volume of noise. To judge by their treatment of previous speakers, the dêmos proves either unwilling or unable to engage with specific details of proposed policies. As a result, Praxagora does not provide any, but relies on shallower modes of persuasion by praising women and insulting men (435â436). In this comedy, Praxagoraâs triumph in the assembly implies that the onslaught of entertaining insults and collective noise is sufficient to win over her detractors.
4 Anger and Scapegoating: Psychologizing Tropes in Prose Accounts of the Dêmos
Aristophanesâ satirical depiction of the dêmos echoes attitudes found in various Attic prose genres. It has already been stated that fifth-century accounts normally treat the dêmos as experiencing shared emotions, as well as embodying collective cognition and agency in their decision-making (section 2). In particular, anger is often cited as a prominent group emotion. In Thucydides, when the dêmos is mentioned, it is frequently characterized by anger (orgê): âthey instantly turned to anger (orgês)â (
However, anger is not just a way for anti-democratic writers to stereotype the dêmos. In the orators, too, anger is a recurrent emotion experienced by the dêmos; however, the orators often encourage their audiences to feel anger, instead of deploring it.50 Demosthenes encourages the jury to feel hatred and anger for Meidias (Dem. 21.186) and subsequently tells them that Meidias deserves âhatred, spite and anger (orgê)â (
The idea of the dêmos being inclined to seek individual scapegoats, too, is common in prose texts. An important source here is the Constitution of the Athenians, a short antidemocratic tract whose unknown author is conventionally known as the âOld Oligarchâ.53 The Old Oligarch portrays the dêmos as typically blaming specific individuals for setbacks affecting the collective (Ps.-Xen. Ath. pol. 2.17). Demosthenes also directly accuses his audience of unfair scapegoating:
men of Athens, [â¦] if something goes unexpectedly wrong, you often vent your anger not against those who are responsible, but against those who addressed you last about these matters.54
ὦ á¼Î½Î´ÏÎµÏ á¼Î¸Î·Î½Î±á¿Î¿Î¹ , [â¦]ÏÎ¿Î»Î»Î¬ÎºÎ¹Ï á½Î¼Îµá¿Ï οὠÏÎ¿á½ºÏ Î±á¼°ÏÎ¯Î¿Ï Ï, á¼Î»Î»á½° ÏÎ¿á½ºÏ á½ÏÏάÏÎ¿Ï Ï ÏεÏὶ Ïῶν ÏÏαγμάÏÏν εἰÏÏνÏÎ±Ï á¼Î½ á½ÏγῠÏοιεá¿Ïθε, á¼Î½ Ïι μὴ καÏá½° γνÏμην á¼ÎºÎ²á¿ . Dem. 1.16
Demosthenes presents the dêmos as indiscriminate in its attempts to blame setbacks on scapegoats, and again uses the collective anger (orgê) motif. In Thucydides, too, large groups are eager to find scapegoats to blame for their woes. When the Athenians escape from Syracuse, the Syracusans accuse Gylippus of deliberately allowing their escape (7.81.1). In similar fashion, the Athenian dêmos is âwrathful (khalepoi) [â¦] and angry (ôrgizonto)â (
The dêmosâ tendencies (as represented in prose) are recognizable in modern psychological terms. A group affected by collective trauma is likely to seek explanation or remedy by blaming scapegoats.56 Generally, a scapegoat is likely to be a person or subgroup which is discernibly different from the group;57 in larger groups (e.g. a gathered crowd, rather than a family group) such difference is typically identified by their symbolic aura (e.g. leadership status) rather than any specific personality traits or actions.58 Group leaders are particularly vulnerable to scapegoating if the outcome of the trauma supports a collective shift of values,59 though they also tend to hold the power to channel or diminish a groupâs drive to nominate scapegoats.60 As such, it makes sense that the orators who supported a proposal should be especially vulnerable to scapegoating by the dêmos. Although they are notionally equal to every member of the dêmos in ideological terms, they are symbolically associated with the policy in a leadership role, and thus easily rendered outsiders by the collective. It is especially notable that scapegoating is consistently presented as a collective phenomenon in ancient prose sources: when the group turns against an individual, their opinion shifts as a uniform body.
In Assembly-Women, the dêmos is portrayed as similarly keen to seek scapegoats. However, it comes across as more psychologically complex in its scapegoating habits. Praxagora offers a textbook example of the dêmos scapegoating an orator and forcing him to flee (195â196). However, the way members of the dêmos turn against each other on the suspicion of accepting bribes (187â188) fits less easily into accepted paradigms of scapegoating: the scapegoats are a concealed subgroup within the dêmos rather than an identifiably distinct figure. It is perhaps closer to modern paradigms of intergroup bias:61 members of an in-group (the morally upstanding people who are not receiving bribes) react to the presence of a real or imagined out-group (those who accept bribes).
Praxagoraâs satirical characterization of the assembly, then, is not only a comic way to mock the dêmos: it draws on wider contemporary discourse on group decision-making, as reflected both âfirst-handâ (in oratorical works designed to persuade the dêmos) and âsecond-handâ (in historiographical descriptions of a dêmos being persuaded). The assembly is depicted as experiencing group-wide psychological phenomena, both as a collective (anger and scapegoating) and as smaller sub-groups (out-group derogation directed against people accepting bribes). These phenomena closely resemble motifs that surround the dêmos in fifth-century prose, and are readily comprehensible in light of more recent group psychology; furthermore, in some ways, Aristophanesâ portrayal is more varied than that of his prose contemporaries, for example highlighting the formation of mutually suspicious sub-groups within the dêmos.
5 Blepyrusâ Logic: Collective vs Individual Decision-Making
The problem lies in how we know that we can interpret these tropes as reflections on group psychology. Some would dismiss Praxagoraâs depiction of the assembly, and the persuasive mode she adopts, as simply comic logic: the dêmos is portrayed as hunting for scapegoats, enjoying the spectacle of abuse and averse to logic simply because this is funny. This would be insufficient: as section 4 demonstrates, many of the tropes Aristophanes uses have their roots in wider prose discourse. Therefore, something beyond just comic humour is at play here. Crucially, moreover, two separate scenes subsequently enable us to compare the decision-making of an individual with that of the off-stage assembly. The first, in which Praxagora persuades her husband, enables us to compare how a group and an individual think when faced with the same decision, and suggests that different modes of persuasion are suited to different types of audience. The second, in which two anonymous citizens argue about whether to comply with the new laws, explores what makes individuals choose to comply with wider group expectations (an important aspect of social psychology).
After winning over the assembly, Praxagora persuades her husband Blepyrus. Blepyrusâ motivations are self-interested: he is concerned not for the city, but for how much work he will have to do (460). He is also presented as unintelligent and slow to grasp Praxagoraâs argument: he asks for several points to be repeated, and requires multiple descriptions of private property being abolished (588â607) before he understands. However, Blepyrusâ decision-making process is presented as strongly contrasting to the assemblyâs. When Praxagora expresses delight at the assemblyâs outcome, his first reaction is to ask why (559): he instinctively begins to interrogate Praxagoraâs plan. Similarly, he asks why owning money will no longer be useful (604). Praxagora responds to Blepyrusâ engagement by adopting a very different persuasive process to what she used in the assembly. Previously, she simply proposed handing over all power to the women (430); here, though, she explains her plan in detail (588â594). Of course, Aristophanes would likely have wanted to avoid making his audience sit through the same arguments twice; however, he did not need to include Praxagora explaining her plan to Blepyrus at all. Though Blepyrus is a constituent member of that same dêmos, and is characterized as stupid, Praxagora believes that he will be persuaded by precise details and explanations, whereas she used appeals to emotion and insulting character assassination to win over the dêmos in assembly (see section 3).
Praxagoraâs choice of persuasive mode is seemingly justified when Blepyrus begins analysing the logical implications of her policy. His objection that some people may hold âconcealed wealthâ (602) is an important potential flaw in Praxagoraâs plans to abolish private property (597â600). Later, Blepyrus finds logical arguments against sexual communism: he asks how theyâll stop individual men from bribing women to sleep with them (611â613) and how theyâll stop the prettiest women from receiving disproportionate attention (615â616), eliciting further explanation from Praxagora.62 Blepyrus steadily becomes less sceptical as he realises, for example, that Praxagoraâs policy will reduce theft (
Though stupid, Blepyrus interrogates Praxagoraâs arguments logically and considers potential consequences. This type of decision-making is alien to Aristophanesâ presentation of the assembly.64 In his unimaginative and banal way, Blepyrus engages with Praxagoraâs proposal and asks what it might mean for him and those like him; the assembly, on the other hand, avoids active engagement with the proposal. As a result, Praxagora adopts a different modus operandi. Instead of trying to persuade Blepyrus using comic insults and minimal explanation of her policy, she lays out her proposal in full and allows his questioning to elicit further information. Through this contrast, Assembly-Women compares individual and group decision-making processes: the same type of person thinks differently, and is influenced by different types of argument, when gathered into an assembly than in individual discussion.
6 Anonymous Individuals and Social Pressure
The theme of how individuals within the dêmos respond to the dêmosâ decision continues beyond the Blepyrus scene, though the focus moves away from Praxagoraâs persuasive methods. As Praxagoraâs edict reverberates across the city, we encounter two anonymous individual men.65 One plans to contribute his possessions to the state (730â745); the other prefers to wait and see what others are doing first (746â755).66 In this scene, Aristophanes depicts a phenomenon known to modern social psychology: how individuals think differently when they perceive themselves as part of a collective. Even the man who does not wish to contribute his possessions waits to see what the collective decides (
Aristophanesâ depictions of the two unnamed citizens can be understood by reading them through the lens of modern social psychology, and understanding them as part of a wider collective. The two characters represent two different ways of responding to society-wide pressure: one feels potentially forced into social compliance, while the other conforms more deeply and instinctively. Their namelessness perhaps encourages us even more strongly to consider them as members of a collective.68 The dialogue between these characters atomizes the dêmosâ decision, showing us the different ways individual members might understand their participation in a community-wide policy. This scene offers an unusually detailed perspective on the dêmosâ decisions as a process, rather than a one-off event. As noted previously, Attic prose sources tend to depict either individual or collective âmindsâ, not the activity of individual minds within a collective (see section 2): this encourages a binary approach, contrasting group and individual psychology without considering the interactions between them. However, as well as depicting aspects of group decision-making psychology, Aristophanesâ Assembly-Women portrays the psychologies of individuals interacting with and responding to the groups of which they form a constituent part. As such, Aristophanesâ works offer us an opportunity to study the wider social psychology of classical Athens, and see how collective decisions take shape over time outside the physical assembly space.
7 Conclusion
Aristophanesâ Assembly-Women encourages us to view the assemblyâs decision- making process from various angles: it is analysed by Praxagora, reported by Chremes, and contrasted with Blepyrusâ individual decision-making process. Finally, the conversation between two unnamed citizens demonstrates how members of the wider population react to the decree. It is difficult to reconstruct the assemblyâs psychology through source material plagued by both comic logic and, in certain places, oligarchic sympathies. However, this chapter argues that the portrayals of the assembly encourage us to consider why, on a psychological level, the assembly votes for Praxagoraâs radically innovative policy. A broader analysis of Assembly-Women using modern models demonstrates how concepts such as collective emotion, cognition and agency can readily be applied to the Athenian dêmos; indeed, the unique nature of Athenian assemblies makes this a productive exercise for reconsidering how (for example) collective cognition might function. More specifically, Assembly-Women portrays the assembly as swayed by their emotions, inclined towards anger, quick to seek scapegoats from among their number, and capable of turning against a speaker based on witty insults alone. These motifs echo Attic prose discourse concerning the dêmosâ psychological tendencies. Furthermore, several of these phenomena can be profitably analysed through modern lenses: scapegoating, intergroup bias and social compliance/conformity are well known to modern psychology, while the âemotionalâ nature of groups has been an active stereotype in psychological thought for much of the twentieth century. Blepyrusâ very different decision-making process implies that the psychological traits demonstrated by the Athenian assembly are specific to their nature as a group; this, like the scene in which two individual citizens react to Praxagoraâs policy, demonstrates the usefulness of discussing how group and individual psychologies interact in Aristophanesâ works.
These findings offer promising possibilities for further research, especially concerning Aristophanesâ depiction of group decision-making on stage, and how characters adapt their persuasive approaches to their audienceâs psychology. In Aristophanesâ Birds, Pisthetaerus is consistently portrayed as a quintessentially unscrupulous orator;69 closer inspection of his interaction with the chorus suggests that he uses modes of persuasion which are recognizable through modern psychological paradigms as an appeal to intergroup bias. Pisthetaerus begins by constructing a narrative that the birds are exceptionally deserving of power (466â467), encouraging in-group favouritism. He then uses a hostile image of humans capturing, selling and eating the birds (523â538) to encourage out-group derogation, which often revolves around a perceived threat from the out-group.70 Consequently, Birds highlights how group decision-making psychology might be exploited in practice, and how a stereotyped demagogue deploys modes of persuasion rooted in group psychologyâand, most importantly, wins his listeners over by satisfying their desire for innovation.
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Translations of Assembly-Women, unless otherwise noted, are from Henderson 2002. All remaining translations are mine. At times, I slightly adapt Hendersonâs translation where it is necessary to demonstrate how my argument is based on the Greek.
Translation mine.
Existing scholarship tends to elide the motifs of group psychology found in Assembly-Women. Ober 1998 discusses how Praxagora is able to persuade the assembly and various other parties on a thematic level (dealing with her assumption of the male gender, for example) but does not discuss the language and argumentation used in sufficient depth to understand the psychology at work. Rothwell 1990: xi comes close to a discussion of crowd psychology, with his observation that the idea of Peithô in Athenian democracy anticipates the twentieth-century idea of the hold which a demagogueâs âcharismaticâ leadership exerts on followers.
I follow the definitions of corporate and aggregative groups offered by (e.g.) Tollefsen 2015: 3.
For a useful survey, cf. Brennan 2004: 51â68.
Le Bon 1895: 126; McDougall 1920: 37.
Allport 1924: 295.
Bion 1961: 172.
As noted by (e.g.) Brennan 2004: 54.
E.g. Thuc. 5.46.5, 6.40.1. See further section 4.
E.g. Thuc. 2.65.4, 4.28.3.
Budelmann 2019: 200â201, who cites Arist. Pol. 1281a40âb10 as a rare exception.
E.g. Ar. Eccl. 195.
Ar. Eccl. 431â433.
Canevaro 2018.
A distinction made by Rovane 2014, who argues that group agency requires the creation of a unified perspective, which occurs through joint deliberation rather than voting. The deliberation (through various speeches and thorubos) required to produce an assembly-wide consensus vote is what gives the Athenian dêmos group agency; simply voting by majority would not have the same effect.
Hutchins 1995.
Huebner 2014.
E.g. Tollefsen 2015: 88. Surowiecki 2004 moves away from this trend by analysing the âjudgementsâ demonstrated by stock market operations in the aftermath of the Challenger disaster, although Huebner 2014 argues that these group-wide judgements can be explained as an aggregation of individualsâ judgements.
Pettit 2003 discusses committees in which every member can affect the groupâs decision by contributing knowledge and opinions. Though the Athenian assembly formulaically invited anyone who wanted to speak (e.g. Aeschin. 1.23), it is unclear whether the vast majority of ordinary Athenians felt able to do so (cf. Yunis 1996: 10â11).
Bers 1985; Tacon 2001.
E.g. Ar. Eccl. 431â433, Eq. 651.
As noted by Budelmann 2019: 192; for exceptions, cf. Budelmann 2019: 198â200.
Xen. Hell. 2.3.2, Ps.-Xen. Ath. Pol. 1.3.
E.g. Din. 1.99, Lys. 2.17â18, Pl. Resp. 351câd. For a more complete list of passages, cf. Ober 1989, 297â299.
Searle 1990; Tuomela 2006.
Miller 2001.
E.g. Velleman 1997: 38â39 (for a simple two-person model); Tuomela 2006.
Ar. Eccl. 206â207.
E.g. Ar. Eq. 51.
For discussion of this scene as rehearsal, cf. Slater 2002: 207â234.
Translation adapted from Henderson 2002.
Translation adapted from Henderson 2002.
This is the force of
Translation mine (based on the somewhat elliptical version offered by Henderson 2002).
E.g. Pl. Resp. 505b. This is especially characteristic of classical-period prose thought concerning democracy: cf. (e.g.) Pl. Resp. 559câe, Hdt. 3.81.2, Thuc. 3.38.4â7. Early explorations of group psychology tend to portray groups as propelled by emotion rather than reason: cf. Le Bon 1895. See further section 4.
This recalls Lysistrataâs extended metaphor of wool-working for untangling Athenian politics (Lys. 567ff.). False, overly-concrete analogies and tenuous connections between the concrete and the abstract are a set-piece of comedy (âcomic logicâ). As such, it is difficult to take these arguments as evidence of their listenersâ psychology. Even by the standards of comic logic, though, Praxagoraâs analogies seem obfuscatory. Lysistrata attempts to explain what the women will do; Praxagora only claims that the women are the right sort of people to do it.
Cf. Dem. 19.46 (Philocratesâ one-line jibe undermines Demosthenesâ logical argument). This forms part of the broader stereotype of groups preferring entertaining, flamboyant speeches to logical reason, e.g. Dem. 19.35, Pl. Ap. 38dâe.
This echoes the earlier praise of Praxagora as speaking âskilfullyâ (
Ober 1998: 142.
The idea that groups are easily swayed by manipulative orators is a widespread stereotype in prose; cf. e.g. Aeschin. 2.156, Dem. 3.22, 22.31.
The use of a stereotypical dichotomy between urban and rural electorates aligns Praxagora with the sophisticated, immoral rhetoric often associated with urban speakers. Cf. Eur. Or., in which the Messenger lavishes praise on the âfarmer who rarely has contact with the city or the circle of the marketplaceâ (
Cf. Bers 1985, Tacon 2001 for extended treatments of thorubos.
Thorubos was an important way for the audience to express their shifting opinions as the trial or assembly was in progress, compensating for the fact that they have no formal opportunity to speak as a collective (see section 2). It is interesting, then, that Aristophanesâ portrayal of this assembly seems to cast thorubos as representing the dêmosâ inability to engage logically with the debate; it is paired with the verb krazô, which frequently represents shouting in a disorganized or incoherent light, or more generally the absence of logic and reason.
âYouâ here is a comic aprosdokêton, an unexpected twist: the subsequent exchange reveals that Blepyrus stands as synecdoche for men in general.
This is the view taken by MacDowell 1995: 321.
The sheer size of the influx of women is emphasized using a compilation of words connoting vast numbers: âa huge crowd of peopleâ (
Slater 2002: 234 argues that victory is attained not by numbers alone, but by the persuasive force that the illusory disguised supporters convey.
Canevaro 2018.
This section is limited to discussing explicit references to the emotions in question, rather than phrases and arguments designed implicitly to arouse those emotions in the audience. Cf. Sanders 2012 for analysis of the various strategies which forensic oratory uses to arouse its listenersâ hostile emotions.
As emphasized by Sanders 2012: 361.
Cf. Lys. 19.2 âlisten (â¦) without anger (orgês)â (
For more information and bibliography, cf. Rhodes 2012.
Translation mine, based on the version by Vince 1930.
Other examples include the Arginusae trial (Xen. Hell. 1.6.35: the Athenians regret condemning the generals and vote to punish those who persuaded them to do so) and, according to later tradition, the aftermath of Socratesâ trial (Diog. Laert. 2.43).
Behr 2018: 520.
This has been identified since Foulkes and Anthony 1965.
Behr 2018: 518.
Behr 2018: 518.
Gallagher and Burke 1974; Behr 2018: 519.
On which see e.g. Hewstone et al. 2002.
Other examples include Eccl. 635â636, 655â656, 662â664.
Saïd 1996: 309, citing 705â706, 710.
Ober 1998: 132 elides this important point by arguing that Praxagora calms Blepyrusâ and Chremesâ fears by playing on their desires, similar to her strategy in the assembly.
This is an under-appreciated scene: a short recent treatment by Halliwell 2020: 128â133 discusses how an Athenian audience might have viewed both menâs attitudes, and highlights the importance of analysing Aristophanesâ politics through âsmall-scaleâ scenes such as this. For possible identifications of the two characters, cf. Olson 1991).
Halliwellâs statement (2020: 129) that âthe utopia somehow seems to need people to decide individually whether or not to go along with its requirementsâ is perhaps an overstatement: citizens can debate a decision made in assembly, and consider the possibility of dissent, without implying that the new regime might be overturned as a result.
For the distinction between compliance and conformity, cf. Cialdini and Goldstein 2004. An alternative analysis (first posited by Kelman 1958) interprets compliance as a specific type of conformity which does not necessarily entail changing oneâs beliefs; according to Kelmanâs model, the enthusiasm with which the first speaker plans to contribute his possessions would suggest that he represents the internalization type of conformity.
For a reading of the cynical second citizen as a prototypical Athenian everyman who exemplifies widespread values, cf. Christ 2008: 178â182 (who interprets this scene as depicting the tension between collective responsibility and individual selfishness).
Cf. e.g. NiÄev 1989: 28ff.; Sidwell 2009: 420; Arrowsmith 1973: 138 n. 10. On Aristophanesâ Birds, see the chapter by Xenia Makri in this volume. Text and translation in Henderson 2000.
Hewstone et al. 2002: 578â580, esp. 586 for the importance of (perceived) threat in intergroup bias.