Greatly superstitious and loving of their fellow brothers and beloved erōmenos, Spartans would chant verses of poetry composed by Tyrtaeus to reinforce piety that was the foundation of Spartan morale and the ethos of eumonía. In this hortatory elegy, Tyrtaeus draws Spartans’ attention to the manner in which their well-being depended on the fate of the polís itself: It is a noble thing for a brave man to die, Falling in the front ra...

It is commonplace for scholars and academicians to allude to the Greek quest for political solidarity (homonoia) and to the hostility to commerce by saying that the ancient economy was embedded in society. Those who speak of the economy being embedded in society take for granted the distinction between government or state and society; and this distinction, prepared if not explicitly introduced by John Locke, belongs to the world of t...