establish a kind of equality founded upon the communal domination of others (Kitto, 88-109). The Pelopponesian War was in part shaped by the class policy of Athens and Sparta, the former siding with democratic factions and the latter with aristocrats. Finally, the war itself was triggered by a violent stasis that broke out in Corcyra, and the end of the war saw a brief episode of stasis in Athens itself.
Because stasis was so predominant in Greek public life, it should not surprise us that the problem of resolving it shaped numerous Greek institutions, and was a preoccupation of Greek thinkers. The problem of stasis also merged with a more general philosophical issue: The responsibilities of the individual with respect to the community. The two were closely linked in part because of the small size of most city-states.
This can scarcely be over-emphasized. Athens was much larger than most Greek states, in both area and population, but even it was of decidedly modest dimensions. The whole plain of Attica is about fifty by sixty miles, but most of it was within fifteen miles of Athens proper ("Attica," 55-56). The entire population was on the order of perhaps a quarter million, but this included slaves and a huge population of metics, or resident aliens. The citizens, the native adult male population, numbered no more than 52,000 in the fifth century, and 31,000 in the late fourth ("Attica," 59).
The intimacy of the community was emphasized by the open, outdoors, "public" character of so much of daily life. "All that men did was open to inspection, alike in the market, the workshop, the law court, the council, the gymnasium" (Mumford, 166). When we consider the degree to which Athenian life was lived in the open, in public, it is likely that an individual could recognize a substantial fraction of his fellow-citizens at least by sight. Yet, we must emphasize again, Athens was exceptionally large and populous, so...