The Transformations of Archaic Greece and the Problem of Civilizational Choice (Reflections on Albert A. Stepanian’s Monograph Ancient Greece: Research Sketches)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46991/hpt.2026.2.05Keywords:
Archaic Greece, transitive society, civilizational choice, polis revolution, Sparta, agon, historical sociology, Greek colonizationAbstract
This review essay examines the first volume of Albert A. Stepanian's monograph Ancient Greece: Research Esquisses, which reconceptualizes the transformations of post-Mycenaean and Archaic Greece through the analytical concept of the “transitive society.” The article situates Stepanian's argument within contemporary debates in Classical Studies and historical sociology, foregrounding his central thesis that, between the twelfth and eighth centuries BCE, the Greek polities faced not merely the task of recovery but a profound civilizational choice. It traces how this framework structures the monograph's two complementary parts – on the formation of the polis world and on the Spartan model – and assesses the author's treatment of technological change, the polis revolution, the agon, the Great Colonization, early tyranny, the Lycurgan Rhetra, and Plato's Republic. Particular attention is devoted to Stepanian's reinterpretation of Sparta not as an exception but as a distinct paradigm of Archaic social organization, a move that challenges the stereotype of Spartan exceptionalism prevalent in Anglo-American historiography. While affirming the methodological coherence and interdisciplinary scope of the work, the essay also identifies several issues that call for further clarification, most notably the relationship between historical agency and structural constraints and the operational content of the concept of oikoumene.
Downloads
References
Arnason, J. P. (2003). Civilizations in Dispute: Historical Questions and Theoretical Traditions. Leiden: Brill.
Boardman, J. (1999). The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade (4th ed.). London: Thames and Hudson.
Bresson, A. (2016). The Making of the Ancient Greek Economy: Institutions, Markets, and Growth in the City-States (S. Rendall, Trans.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Burckhardt, J. (1998). The Greeks and Greek Civilization. New York: St. Martin's Press.
Burkert, W. (1992). The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cartledge, P. (2002). Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History 1300-362 BC (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (Ed.). (1986). The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Hansen, M. H. (2006). Polis: An Introduction to the Ancient Greek City-State. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Luraghi, N. (2008). The Ancient Messenians: Constructions of Ethnicity and Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morris, I. (1987). Burial and Ancient Society: The Rise of the Greek City-State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ober, J. (2015). The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Osborne, R. (1998). Early Greek colonization? The nature of Greek settlement in the West. In N. Fisher & H. van Wees (Eds.), Archaic Greece: New Approaches and New Evidence (pp. 251-269). London: Duckworth.
Osborne, R. (2009). Greece in the Making, 1200-479 BC (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Powell, A. (2018). Athens and Sparta: Constructing Greek Political and Social History from 478 BC (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.
Raaflaub, K. A., & van Wees, H. (Eds.). (2009). A Companion to Archaic Greece. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Renfrew, C., & Cherry, J. F. (Eds.). (1986). Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Snodgrass, A. M. (1980). Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment. London: J. M. Dent.
Stepanian, A. A. (2025). Ancient Greece: Research Sketches. Volume I: From Archaic Transitional Society to the Military-Ritual Stability of Sparta. Yerevan: YSU Press.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Smbat Hovhannisyan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
