Lysias, the son of Cephalus, was an Athenian logographer, a wealthy metic and a staunch democrat: In the Dictionary of Received Ideas about Greek antiquity, the entry devoted to Lysias would probably read along these lines. If there was ever a man identified with a status, a social class, a professional function and a political identity, it is indeed the orator Lysias, whose family, originally from Syracuse, benefits from an exceptional documentary focus. Considering all the available evidence and his path through life as a whole, a completely different image of the man emerges. Outside of the brief context of the civil war, Lysias was never depicted as a metic and never defined himself as such; nothing, moreover, indicates that he particularly suffered from this status or that he sought to be a naturalized Athenian at any price after the failure of his bid for citizenship in 403. Likewise, considering his life as a whole, his attachment to the democratic regime is not as clear to see as his vibrant proclamations in Against Eratosthenes suggest: The company he kept and the choice of his clients plead for a much more nuanced approach. Finally, his conversion to logography also deserves to be put into perspective: Was he not already considered a brilliant ‘sophist,’ albeit not a logographer, before the beginning of the civil war? He certainly continued to be considered as such after the reconciliation. Beyond the din of stasis, which forced everyone to choose their camp and froze individuals in clear-cut positions, Lysias’ life reveals that Athenian society was much more fluid than it appears in terms of status, partisanship or profession. On deeper examination, the life of Lysias seems marked by a form of uncertainty due not only to gaps in the source material, but also to the irreducible complexity of Athenian community life. Around this ill-defined man gravitate shifting choruses whose principles of composition and recomposition can be defined by taking advantage of the exceptional light shone on them by the shock of the civil war.

To what extent is the political commitment of the Athenians in 403 explained by their economic condition, regardless of whether they were owners of land and workshops or simply workers in a precarious situation? The character of Eutherus invites us to consider the role played by forms of collective identification based neither on adherence to a political camp – that of the democrats, neutrals, oligarchs or moderates – nor on membership of a statutory group, but on ‘work status.’ In fact, Thrasybulus’ army, in Samos in 411, as in Piraeus in 404/3, included misthōtoi citizens and metics, as well as former slaves, and one might be tempted to recognize in them the coalescence of free and nonfree individuals forming a chorus of precarious workers. At the same time, one cannot underestimate the elitist dimension of the policy conducted by the socalled moderates, such as Archinus, who, when democracy was restored, took care to destroy any possible alliance between workers brought together by the shared experience of battle.

Throughout this book, we have suggested that the notion of choruses offers a metaphor through which these diverse collectives can be understood. Granted, this metaphor is not a typical concept that historians ordinarily use to describe community life, such as the association or the network, which seem at first sight to offer a more stable descriptive framework. We nevertheless argue that the choral reference makes it possible to obtain fine-grained knowledge of the modulations of the Athenian city in 404/3, since it is anchored in Greek thought and social practices. Indeed, viewed through the lens of chorality, the Athenian community landscape appears in a new light, defined by plurality and contingency. Legal status is no longer a fixed barrier assigning place to individuals once and for all: Divergent temporalities constantly overlap and weave together the polyrhythmic fabric of the city. The question that guides the whole of our investigation is ultimately about the choral essence of the city. Is it possible to see the Athenian polis, and all the groups of which it is composed, as a choral song? Illustrating the scope of the Athenian social space does not consist only in describing its polyphony, but also in listening to the harmonics, be they consonant or dissonant, which cut across it.

‘Critias was indeed the most rapacious, the most violent and the most murderous of all those who were part of the oligarchy.’ In the ancient tradition, Critias is a man systematically described in superlatives. The ancient sources readily depict him as an extremist oligarch, a misguided disciple of Socrates, oblivious to the lessons of his former master. Incomparable Critias? This superlative representation deserves to be deconstructed. Not in order to rehabilitate his tarnished memory but because the man is a convenient bogeyman who acts as the singular representative of what was in reality a collective adventure. Not only does his role as leader of the Thirty remain to be proven, but this exclusive focus also tends to obscure the vast chorus that surrounded him: Far from being a lone wolf, Critias was the spokesman or, rather, the coryphaeus of Athenian oligarchs united by common habits and experiences. A poet and a virtuoso musician, Critias even promoted a true choral policy, striving to convince all the Athenians remaining in the city to align to his radical positions. Breaking with the democratic experiment and its multiple and competing choruses, the oligarch sought to create a single, distinctive and hermetic chorus, of which all the members had to dance in unison and where the slightest deviation was mercilessly punished. Better still, in the tumult of the civil war, Critias had a dream: to establish a permanent state of exception in order to forge a new brand of men entirely devoted to the cause of the oligarchy.

Following his victory, Thrasybulus proposed a decree granting citizenship to ‘all those who had come back together from Piraeus, some of whom were clearly slaves.’ Acting as a ‘good citizen,’ as Aristotle writes, Archinus sued him for ‘indictment for illegality’ (graphē paranomōn) and won the case. But the Athenian voted another decree in 401 to reward these virtuous noncitizens. It lists the name of several hundred combatants by distinguishing between two categories of individuals. The men present by Thrasybulus’ side in Phyle are granted the statute of citizen, probably without being integrated into the demes and the phratries. On the other hand, for those who joined the combat later, the Athenians granted only isoteleia (tax equality) and engguēsis (the right to marry a member of the Athenian community and produce legitimate offspring). These men, around 850 in all, were registered as members of the Athenian tribes, within which they enjoyed the privilege of being able to fight for the city. On the thirteenth line of the third column of this long inscription, one can easily decipher the name of a certain Gerys. This chapter tries to unroll a series of hypotheses to identify who he was: a soldier, a greengrocer, a privileged metic, and a Thracian.

Chapter 1 raises the question of whether there was a decisive break in the nature of the city between Classical Antiquity and the post-Roman world of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. It is suggested that treating ‘the ancient city’ as typologically different from cities before or after obscures both the real degree of continuity and the perceptions of contemporaries of continuity. The chapter explores the historiography of the idea of the ancient city as a distinct type that goes back to Fustel de Coulanges, and has been identified by different schools of thought as religious, economic, political, and physical. Rather than thinking of ‘decline and fall’, or even ‘transformation’, a new approach is offered through resilience theory, that sees a continuous process of drawing on memories of the past and, through them, adaptation.

Chapter 2 looks at the continuities in perception of the city between antiquity and the later period, looking at representations (images) and panegyrics. In terms of how cities were represented (especially in painting and sculpture), there is striking continuity in the emphasis on the wall circuit with gates and towers as the defining element of the city. The extensive tradition of panegyrics of individual cities (laudes urbium), the models set by Greek and Roman rhetorical manuals, was followed into the Middle Ages. The principal contrast lies in religion, but the economy, politics, and physical structures of the city are treated as belonging to a continuous tradition, and later cities are celebrated for the imitation of antiquity and, above all, of Rome.

Returning to the recurrent theme of resilience, it is suggested that the ecological model of adaptive cycles helps to understand the responses of the post-antique world to crisis. Rather than rejecting the old model of civilisation based on cities, memories of the past are constantly used both as providing material for new adaptations, and as a way of associating contemporary realities with those of the classical world. The writings of the authors discussed in this book as seen as part of this process, of transmitting and adapting memories.

Chapter 6 explores the light cast on cities and their administration by the collection of administrative papyri from Italy from the fifth to seventh centuries. Frequently revolving round the sale or donation of property, they show the crucial role of local councils in registering such property transactions, and their relevance to the raising of local taxes. The same world emerges from the official correspondence of Pope Gregory at the turn of the sixth and seventh centuries in which a network of links with cities emerges as the means of holding together the church. A collection of documents from French cities similar to the Ravenna papyri imply that city administrations remained essential to property transactions in Merovingian Gaul. Rather than seeing the city administrations that were an instrument of imperial rule as now irrelevant, the conscious retention of old structures suggests a process of adaptation to new conditions.

Through the lens of the Variae, official letters written by Cassiodorus on behalf of the Ostrogothic ruler, Theoderic, and his successors, Chapter 4 examines the concerted attempts of a ‘barbarian’ regime which took the place of Roman emperors to preserve the traditions of Roman imperial rule and support the fabric and traditions of city life. Rather than either a sham or futile nostalgia, the letters are read as an exercise in bridge-building between Roman traditions and new political realities. The emphasis placed on cities is embodied in the ideal of civilitas, based on the rule of law, city life, and a mutual respect between Roman and Goth. While betraying both the strains of urban life and the decay of much urban fabric, Cassiodorus offers a vision of the ‘modern’ based on respect for and imitation of antiquity.

The perspective of the Greek historian Procopius, narrating the campaigns under Justinian in the East, North Africa, and Italy, proves to coincide with that of Cassiodorus. Procopius’ world is one of cities, with the exception of barbarian zones, which are city free. In Persia, Africa, and Italy was is fought over cities in a series of sieges. Adversaries are judged on their appreciation of critical elements of cities. The Persian Chosroes sacks Roman cities, but builds his own. The Vandals in Africa are sharply criticised for their demolition of city walls, which proves their military undoing. The Goths in Italy have a varied record: Theoderic is given credit for the sort of respect for Roman law, tradition, and city fabric which Cassiodorus documents, but his last successors, especially Totila, earn criticism, and ultimately defeat, for demolishing city walls.

While the focus of preceding chapters has been on written sources, this chapter looks at the archaeologicy of cities as evidence for underlying ideas. The old model of the disintegration of a city of straight lines into tangled suqs is hard to reconcile with the evidence. New cities continue to be built through Late Antiquity, with the model set by Constantinople. Far from indicating the grid as the ideal, it is based on Rome itself, a notably non-gridded city. Despite contrasts of terrain, Constantinople competes with old Rome wherever possible. Justinian was responsible for a series of new cities, as Procopius claims, for which we have the advantage of good archaeological studies. If there is a model for these, it is Constantinople itself. Visigothic Reccopolis follows the same pattern. Exceptional among these new cities is the Umayyad foundation of ‘Anjar, outstanding as the most mathematical grid plan since antiquity; the model seems to be in Roman forts. Finally, Charlemagne’s Aachen is examined; though a palace rather than a city, contemporary court poets celebrate it as a New Rome.