Chapter 7 is a stub chapter that would benefit from Collaborative Research volunteer expansion.
Could you help us expand Chapter 7 to include more of what is teased in its Key Concepts section, other general queries for the chapter, and anything else that makes sense?Stub Section on Etymology
Note the divisions (Benveniste[1] 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[2] (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.”[3]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.”[4]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.”[5]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[6] 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.”[7]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[8] (1973: pp. 295ff.) pointed out that Thucydides (II.15) stated explicitly that “the akrópolis (citadel) is still today called pólis by the Athenians.”[9]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[10] (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[11] 1973: p. 417), subsequently to assess, set in order[12] (and hence to Greek “cosmos,” said Shipley[13] 1984: p. 172).
Stub Section on Math and the Cosmos
Knowledge accumulated in Athens—the home of Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Hippodamus, etc.—from India and the Mediterranean basin. Aristotle described Athens’ form of government: “And they divided themselves into four tribes as in the seasons of the year, and each tribe was subdivided into three parts so that altogether the parts numbered 12 as in the months of the year; each house was divided into three parts to yield the number of a circle 36(0).”Missing Quotation MarkWhere does the quotation end? We guessed at where the close-quotation mark belongs.OpenSee All QueriesCitation NeededCan you help us identify the source material details for citation (ideally with a link) and verify the quotation?OpenSee All Queries
Aristotle’s description could apply just as well to the original structure of the Icelandic chieftain administration.Citation NeededCitation needed.OpenSee All Queries Over a thousand years later Iceland was divided into 36 chieftainships in accordance with the Circle of Heaven.Add ContextContext and/or explanatory source link needed.OpenSee All Queries
A law-based creation or universe was “cosmos,” a word with a gematria value of 600. The concept worked as both an image someone could visualize—the geometry of a perfect sphere—and a mathematical property. If the gematria value of kosmos were cubed for the purpose of creating a law-based cosmology, the world’s number would be 216,000,000 (600 x 600 x 600).
The classical Greek conceptions of creation of the world they believed in were of course inherited from earlier periods starting with the Bronze Age. They naturally used the archaic zodiac signs, including Cancer, opposite Capricornus, and Taurus, opposite Scorpion, in the Circle of Heaven, which was naturally 216,000 feet in diameter.
Stub Note Number 1 (Originally From Chapter 9)
Later, Chapter 9 will refer to (this current) Chapter 7:
“Chapter 7 [Social Divisions Into Calendrical Tribes and Ranks] has shown how this fourfold organization typically dovetailed into tribal divisions and meshed with the calendar dividing the year into four seasons demarcated by the equinoxes and solstices.”
Stub Note Number 2
Pavel Oliva, Sparta and Her Social Problems (1971), pp. 88f.Text AccessCan you help us get access to this text? And can you help us check what is attributed to it?OpenSee All Queries The gerousia consisted of 28 members (gerontes), elected by the citizens’ assembly (apella). This is a lunar number, and Thucydides (I.67)Verify CitationCan someone verify the book number/chapter number and its contents?OpenSee All Queries said that the gerousia met each lunar month at the full moon. Perhaps there was a daily rotation of the leaders during this period. The council amounted to 30 with the two kings.
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