2 - The invention of Antiquity

Summary

Antiquity, ‘classical Antiquity’, represents for some the beginning of a new (basically European) world. The period fits neatly into place in a progressive chain of history. For this purpose, Antiquity had to be radically distinguished from its predecessors in the Bronze Age, which characterized a number of mainly Asian societies. Secondly, Greece and Rome are seen as the foundations of contemporary politics, especially as far as democracy is concerned. Thirdly, some features of Antiquity, especially economic such as trade and the market, that mark later ‘capitalism’, get down-played, keeping a great distinction between the different phases leading to the present. My argument in this section has a triple focus. Firstly, I will claim that studying Antique economy (or society) in isolation is mistaken, as it was part of a much larger network of economic exchange and polity centring on the Mediterranean. Secondly, neither was it as typologically pure and distinct as many European historians would have it; historical accounts had to cut it to the size consigned to it in a variety of teleologically driven, eurocentric frameworks. Thirdly, I will engage with the debate between ‘primitivists’ and ‘modernists’ which takes up this question economically, trying to point out the limitations in both these perspectives.

Antiquity is held by some to mark the beginning of the political system of the ‘polis’, of ‘democracy’ itself, ‘freedom’ and the rule of law. Economically, it was distinct, based upon slavery, upon redistribution but not upon the market and commerce.