Add a Section - 7. Social Division Into Calendrical Tribes and Ranks

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The following section on Etymology is a stub that might go after the Introduction section of Chapter 7 but lacks a transition before and after it and could use some improvements/fleshing out inside as well. Most significantly, it relies heavily on quoting Benveniste and might benefit from more context or transition between quotes, as well as a transition between this and the Introduction section above it. Can you help us expand the following text and work it into the body of Chapter 7 after the Introduction section? And can you also help us answer the queries below?

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Note the divisions (Benveniste 1973: p. 258: The Athenian constitution divided the phratria (lit. “brotherhood”) into 30 gene (plural of “genos”). Three phratriai constituted a phyle: a “month” of “houses” or families (“house” in the astrological sense as well as that of domicile).StubThis paragraph is a stub. Can you help us expand it?OpenSee All Queries

But Benveniste (1973: pp. 249–253) pointed out that the most archaic ideas of “oikos” (like the Latin “domus”) referred not to the individual household but to a larger social grouping. It meant the “house” in an extended sense to a single family, a broader related grouping rather than just a collection of houses. The nominal stem for “oikos,” “weik” or “weiko,” denoted a group formed from several families. Benveniste wrote: “[Greek] (w)oîkos occupies an intermediate position: first ‘(large) house,’ in which all the descendants of the head of the family lived, then a word substituted for dómos… and finally ‘house, building’ in oiko-dómos ‘builder, architect’ with its numerous derivatives and compounds. Thus the word for a social unit has been transferred to the material sphere which delimits that unit.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

The pattern of evolution seems to reflect “the break-up of the ‘Grossfamilie’ into separate families.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

By Aristotle’s time the oikos (Roman domus) had become “the smallest division and the first form of society which existed, and he defines it as a community of husband and wife, of master and slaves: this is a notion like in Roman familia.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

Benveniste concluded (p. 253) that “Today we see things differently; such a reconstruction, which starts from a social cell and proceeds by successive accretions, is false. What existed from the start was the society as a whole and not the family, then the clan, then the city. Society from its origin was divided into units which it comprised. The families are necessarily grouped within a unit, and so on. But Aristotle [Politics] makes into a universal phenomenon and a philosophic necessity what was represented in his own society: he makes an absolute of a particular social state of affairs.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

Benveniste added that in Greek prehistory “the ‘house’ was not a building,” but a “social grouping.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

In dividing any society, there are two basic decisions to be made: citizens and their families, versus outsiders. There are many individuals who do not fit into the citizenry and its subgroupings. These include on the one hand outright foreigners or resident aliens such as the Athenian metics, and on the other hand public workers (the Greek demiourgoi, servants of the demos). It was typical for archaic society to establish a kind of parallel body or set of bodies, to set certain functions apart from the individual clans to serve the “higher” communal purpose. Typically this was done through the temples or related sanctified groupings.Interchapter QueryThis section in particular is marked by the author as being discussed in the next chapter (presumably Chapter 8 about oikos), which is currently a stub chapter. We can add that note back when it is true.OpenSee All QueriesInterchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

Latin “civitas,” meaning “the whole body of citizens,” seems to have derived from the old Indo-European word for “citadel.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

Likewise the Greek “polis” stemmed from the fortified Athenian “acropolis” (high city) behind the walls from a high defensive position. Benveniste (1973: pp. 295ff.) pointed out that Thucydides (II.15) stated explicitly that “the akrópolis (citadel) is still today called pólis by the Athenians.”Interchapter QueryNote that the author had a note that this might be a good transition between Chapter 7 and Chapter 8, but since both chapters are stubs, we’re not sure if some or all belongs in which chapter. Let us know what you think.OpenSee All Queries

Benveniste (1973: p. 420) noted that the classification of citizens was made at the census, overseen by the official censor, who “proclaims the situation of each citizen and his rank in society.” The censor thus “establishes a hierarchy of status and wealth. More generally, censeo means ‘to assess’ everything according to their true value, hence both ‘to appraise’ and ‘to appreciate.’” In Roman society the censor “had the task of supervising the morals of the citizens and repressing excess of every kind: the breaking of moral rules and the correction of excessive luxury and extravagance. It was from this that censura got its moral sense. Finally the censor was charged with placing the contracts for farming the taxes, with public works, and with regulating the relations between the contractors and the state” (ibid., p. 417).

The Roman word stems from the Indo-European root “kens,” “to proclaim solemnly” (Benveniste 1973: p. 417), subsequently to assess, set in order (and hence to Greek “cosmos,” said Shipley 1984: p. 172).