Political Violence in Ancient Greece

Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches to Stasis, 500–301 BCE

Arcenas, Scott Lawin

Political violence, which the ancient Greeks called stasis, was a fundamental aspect of Greek society. In this book, Scott Arcenas reshapes our understanding of this important phenomenon. He argues that it differed fundamentally from its analogues in both ancient and modern societies and that in most poleis it occurred with high frequency but very low levels of violence. Stasis therefore promoted economic growth, institutional innovation, and cultural creativity in a variety of important and surprising ways. In order to undertake this study, Dr Arcenas introduces new methods and tools to confront some of the greatest methodological challenges that face scholars of the ancient world: evidentiary scarcity, evidentiary bias, epistemic uncertainty, and lack of clarity regarding the explanatory value of our sources' silence. The book is therefore required reading for a wide range of scholars and students of ancient history.