Oikonomia in the age of empires

Abstract

The article reviews the uses of the term ‘oikonomia’ in Greek-speaking antiquity and illustrates how the term was used in all spheres of human existence and in various arts and sciences, usually denoting the prudent dispensation of the field resources. In this era the arts and sciences also received their own economies, and the term oikonomia, designating in most cases the prudent management of resources, appears in political theory, military strategy, law, finance, medicine, literary criticism, architecture, music, history and rhetoric. Among all the spheres, arts and sciences that were economized, the story of oikonomia in the field of rhetoric is at the center of this article’s attention. As shown, the concept of oikonomia took an intermediate form between the realm of thought – that is, the domain of philosophy – and the realm of public speech – the domain of politics.

Keywords

economics economy the Great Gap philosophy rhetoric

Introduction

It was Joseph Schumpeter who, in his book The History of Economic Analysis, formulated what is known as the ‘Great Gap’ thesis, according to which the centuries spanning between Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas are practically blank as far as the history of economic analysis is concerned (Schumpeter, 1994[1954]: 52, 74).¹ While most introductory books on the history of economic thought still subscribe to this thesis, the last 25 years have seen a continuous effort to overcome it. This was achieved in two major ways. The first, to which the majority of relevant studies belong, narrowed this gap by looking at texts from a variety of schools of thought² – including Hellenistic,³ Roman,⁴ Islamic,⁵ Jewish⁶ and Christian⁷ – all of which can be seen as falling within the scope of what Schumpeter considered ‘economic analysis’ (ibid.: 35–8). By presenting the richness of economic thought of that period, and highlighting its influence on later periods, they have proved Schumpeter wrong. Put differently, these scholars narrowed the alleged ‘Great Gap’ by studying texts dealing with what we, according to Moses Finley, call ‘the economy’,⁸ rather than what the ancients meant by the term ‘oikonomia’. The second body of literature that proved Schumpeter’s thesis wrong is mostly found outside the discursive boundaries of the history of economic thought. These researchers are more attuned to what the ancients, rather than we moderns, considered economic phenomena. They do so by studying texts that account for what the ancients meant by oikonomia (οἰκονομία) – which originally referred to the organization and management (νέμειν) of a household (οἶκος).⁹

In this article I wish to adopt yet a third path, one of conceptual history. It aims at studying the history of the metaphorical uses of the word oikonomia that extended beyond its original meaning of household management in Greek-speaking antiquity. The history of oikonomia once it trespassed the threshold of the oikos has hardly been studied,¹⁰ and, as far as I know, has so far been ignored by historians of economic thought. Therefore, the preliminary aim of my article will be to introduce this chapter into the history of economic thought by reviewing the different uses of the word in antiquity.

It should be noted that while historians of economic thought had not studied the history of pre-modern oikonomia outside the boundaries of what we today call ‘the economy’, there has been recognition of the importance of such a history in modernity. Thus, a special issue of History of Political Economy, edited by Margaret Schabas and Neil De Marchi, was dedicated to the study of the concept of oeconomy in the 17th and 18th centuries. As Schabas and De Marchi note in their introductory piece, ‘the term oeconomy was in common use from at least the sixteenth century and applied to a variety of contexts’ (Schabas and De Marchi, 2003: 4); ‘oeconomics was as colorful a subject as one could imagine, far removed from kinked oligopoly curves or fixed-point theorems’ (ibid.: 1).¹¹ The same can be said of the term oikonomia in Greek-speaking antiquity. As will be shown, at these times oikonomia appeared in all spheres of life: from the link between a person and that person’s self and body, through the oikos and the polis, to the cosmopolitan sphere. In this era the arts and sciences also received their own economies, and the term oikonomia, designating in most cases the prudent management of resources, appears in political theory, military strategy, law, finance, medicine, literary criticism, architecture, music, history and rhetoric.

Among all the spheres of arts and sciences that were economized, the story of oikonomia in the field of rhetoric will be at the center of this article’s attention. As will be shown, the concept of oikonomia took an intermediate form between the realm of thought – that is, the domain of philosophy – and the realm of public speech – the domain of politics. Within the field of rhetoric, a crucial episode in the story of the ‘human trinity’ of economy, politics and philosophy unfolds; a neglected yet long and consequential episode in the ‘westernized’ history of the three main concepts of human existence.

The classical formation: Oikonomia in the service of political and philosophical life

The composition of the human trinity of economy, politics and philosophy in the classical era can be summarized in the following way (see Arendt, 1958: 28–51):¹² economic activity dealt with the satisfaction of the bare necessities of life and with the generation of surplus, itself to be spent in non-economic activities. The generated surplus was to allow the master of the household, the oikodespotes, to conduct a leisurely life,¹³ whether philosophical or political. Conceptualizing mastery of oikonomia as a prerequisite for conducting a leisurely life does not necessitate a scorn for wealth in itself (as some philosophical schools held), but only for fully submerging oneself in the business of getting it;¹⁴ a man heading a well-off household held public office, sponsored the polis and was honored for his contribution to its flourishing.¹⁵ As long as he was able to generate surplus and enjoy an abundance of leisure time he was considered a good oikonomikos. This could be done in two ways: ‘either increasing his revenues through free means of procurement or by cutting down on expenses’.¹⁶ The stress on the non-economic surplus to be spent in political and/or philosophical life is epitomized in the Oikonomikos by Xenophon (1994) who synthesizes the Socratic and the ‘rhetorical’ relation to wealth. In the Oikonomikos, the classical conception of wealth as means to a higher end is personified in three interlocutors: Socrates; Critobulus, who seeks Socrates’ assistance in the first dialogue of the Oikonomikos; and Ischomachus, who instructs Socrates in economic matters in the second dialogue. While Critobulus is submerged in economic activity without being able to generate surplus, Socrates and Ischomachus are both praised for their skill at generating it (Xen. Ec. 2:10; 11:9–10; see also Xen. Ec. 1:4, 21:9). Socrates, the philosopher, does so by moderating his needs (Xen. Ec. 2:4), while Ischomachus, the model citizen (polites), is praised as one of ‘those who are able not only to govern their own estates but also to accumulate a surplus so that they can adorn the polis and support their friends well; such men must certainly be considered men of strength and abundance’ (Xen. Ec. 11:9–10).

Economic imperialism

In later periods, this world underwent a dramatic change, and the equilibrium between theoretical, political and economic lives was becoming less stable. Of the three forms of life, politics was the one that exceeded the walls of the polis and began to be conducted on an imperial scale. This expansion started in the Hellenic Empire and reached its peak in the Roman one, where it was conducted on an ecumenical scale. Law was the first to change in the service of politics: instead of protecting politics by framing it, just like the walls of the polis, it became politics’ main vehicle of expansion (Arendt, 2005: 178–86). As a result of this expansion across what was considered the civilized world, politics was in great need of a new form of oikonomia to serve it in times of peace. The sheer magnitude of the poleis made it impossible to conduct them solely by liturgies. Thus it was not just the empire as a whole that required a new political economy in order to assure its survival, but this was the fate of every single polis as well.

At the same time, philosophical life too underwent a major transformation. Stoic thought, which was far less zealous about maintaining a clear-cut distinction between the political and economic communities, first became the philosophy of the Hellenic world (Tarn, 1952: 325), and later the ‘ideology’ of the Roman Empire (Shaw, 1985: 16–54). The Stoics conceived man as simultaneously acting between him and himself, mastering his household, participating in the political community and, in addition, being governed in the cosmopolitical sphere. Although the self-sufficient character of what now became the four spheres of human existence, together with the distinctions between them, was kept intact, the Stoics emphasized the similarities between the mode of conduct in each sphere, and the harmony (rather than paradoxes or differences) between them. Nature herself was conceptualized as rational, and virtuous behavior was expected to imitate her rationality. Coupling nature with rationality stood in stark contrast to the classical conception, which valued the rational part of man’s soul, and considered its ruling over the irrational part a virtuous behavior.

The Zeitgeist of expansion and breaking down of walls did not pass over oikonomia, and has changed it almost beyond recognition. In much the same way as politics exceeded the walls of the polis, so did oikonomia exceed the boundaries of the oikos, even if it took another path. Across the board, an economic colonization of the arts and sciences, as well as of various spheres of existence, took place. Whatever people did, wherever they turned, they were bound to economize. In the sphere of the relations between man and himself, both body and ethical conduct were seen as economized, that is, prudently managed; in the political sphere, both non-governmental organizations and governmental ones were economized; the cosmos itself was conceived as economized by God/Nature. The arts and sciences suffered the same fate, and the term ‘oikonomia’ appeared in almost every one of them.

Although in this article I distinguish between the classical and the imperial age (the classical referring to the use of oikonomia in its original meaning as household management, and the imperial referring to its metaphorical uses outside the oikos) it should be stressed that the demarcation is not so clear-cut, as we often see when attempting to introduce periodization. Although metaphorical uses of the concept of oikonomia became common currency only in imperial times, showing that such use is essentially an imperial phenomenon, one that is tied to the spirit of expansion, we can easily trace such usage in classical texts. The same holds true for the classical use of oikonomia. Although prominent in classical texts, it lasted well into imperial times, where the two conceptions are present.

Part 1 of the article presents the spatial expansion of oikonomia from its original sphere into the other spheres of human existence. This is done by focusing on the impression that this expansion left on Stoic thought. As I show, the Stoics conceptualized all spheres as governed spheres, based on an economic understanding of government. Part 2 focuses on oikonomia’s appearance in the political community. The oikonomia of the self, the cosmological oikonomia and the oikonomia of law are all presented in Part 3. The appearances of oikonomia in various sciences and theories are reviewed in Part 4. Part 5 is dedicated to a genealogy of the oikonomia of thought in public speech. This will allow me to demonstrate how in the imperial age, oikonomia, which in the classical age slaved in the service of both politics and philosophy, served as an intermediary between philosophy and politics.

1 The economizing of all spheres of existence

The integration of oikonomia into all spheres of existence took place against the background of the change in the formation of the relations between these spheres, a change that Stoic thought captured most lucidly. Man was conceived as simultaneously acting in several different circles, starting with the one between man and himself, through the economic and political communities, and up to the whole of humanity. As Hierocles (see Annas, 1993: 268–9) puts it:

In general each of us is as it were circumscribed by many circles, some smaller, some larger, some enclosing and others enclosed, depending on their differing and unequal relations to one another. The first and nearest circle is the one which a person had drawn around his own mind as around a center; in this circle is included the body and things got for the body’s sake. … Second … is the one in which are placed parents, siblings, wife and children. Third is the one in which are uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, siblings’ children and also cousins. Next the circle including other relatives. And next the one including fellow-demesmen; then the one of fellow-tribesmen; then the one of fellow-citizens and then in the same way the circle of people from towns nearby and the circle of people of the same ethnic group. The furthest and largest, which includes all the circles, is that of the whole human race. When this has been considered, it is for the person striving for the proper use of each thing to draw the circles somehow toward the center and to make efforts to move people from the including circles into the included ones.

A state of harmony exists between the different circles of life as well as within each of them. Man had to treat his political partners as if they were members of his oikos, and therefore according to the same principle of action. The harmony in the sphere between man and himself, between human rationality and human nature, is to be achieved under the assumption that nature itself is rational (Long, 1986: 109). As a result, being virtuous is no longer achieved by subjecting human nature to human rationality. Instead, one becomes virtuous by imitating nature’s rationality. The polis ceased to be conceived as a man-made world that persists against nature. The walls of the polis and of law no longer kept cosmological and human nature from appearing in the political sphere. Instead, a harmony between the polis and the cosmos was erected, with the latter being imagined as a large-scale polis (Brown, 2006: 552), governed by God. According to the Stoics, man is first and foremost a citizen of the cosmos (κοσμοπολίτης), and to a lesser extent a citizen of the polis (see Plutarch, 1878; see also Dower, 1988: 71). The harmony between the political sphere and the cosmological one did not stop there: it justified the conduct of ecumenical politics in its aim to contain the whole of humanity. The idea of a cosmopolis was based on the assumption that the same order prevails both in the political and in the cosmological spheres.¹⁷ Plutarch equated its appearance with the appearance of the Hellenic Empire (Plutarch, 1878), and Cicero used it to justify the expansion of the political sphere all across the empire (Cicero, 1998).¹⁸

In the same manner, the Stoics chose to follow Plato (1921) and Xenophon (1923) in rooting the polis in the oikos, rather than Aristotle’s contradiction between the economic and political communities. Philo, following Chrysippus (Baloglou, 2012: 34–5), of whom Diogenes Laertius claimed, ‘without Chrysippus, there would have been no Stoa’ (Diogenes Laertius, 1853: vii, 183), writes that:

… oeconomia is a special instance of statecraft on a small scale, since statecraft and oeconomia are related virtues which, it would be amiss to show, are, as it were, interchangeable, both because statecraft is oeconomia in the state, and because oikonomia is statecraft in the home.¹⁹

As epitomized in the above passage, the oikos is seen as a small polis and the polis as a large oikos (Baloglou, 2002: 86–94) and both are conducted in the same manner. This concept stands, of course, in stark contradiction to Aristotle’s conception of the two communities in his Politics (Nagle, 2002: 198–222). Conceptualizing politics as polis oikonomia and oikonomia as oikos politics was common among Stoic thinkers (Schofield, 1991: 71), and a talent in household oikonomia was considered a prerequisite for economizing politics (Philo, 1929–64: 38–9). The Stoic Sage (σοφός) neglects neither oikonomia nor politics, unlike Socrates, who argued that in his life he is ‘neglecting what most men care for – wealth-getting (χρηματισμοῦ) and oikonomia (οἰκονομίας), and military offices, and public speaking (δημηγοριῶν), and the various offices and plots and parties that come up in the polis (πόλει)’ (Plato, 1966).²⁰ Instead, the Stoic Sage is the one who knows how to conduct politics and oikonomia (Arius Didymus, 1999: 73–5). The politeia does not distinguish between the polis and the oikos: the latter is now conceived as the model for the designation of the politeia. The principle of action of the two spheres is the same to such an extent that the virtues of oikonomia and politics are also the same (Philo, 1929–64: XXXVIII, 5–6 [‘On Joseph’]),²¹ and not distinct, as held by Aristotle.

Government economized

Nature governed by God, the polis by the political ruler, and the household by its master were all seen as governed in the same manner. The art of government is the same in all three: oikonomike. Oikonomia, the prudent management of affairs in order to achieve an end of some sort, was established as the principle of political and cosmological government by Chrysippus, who commented that ‘at times misfortune befalls good people [by divinity], not for the sake of punishment as in the case of the wicked, but, in accordance to another oikonomia, just like in the political communities … evils are assigned according to the reason [logos] of Zeus, ever as punishment, or according to another oikonomia’ (Chrysippus, 1964: SVF 2, 338 [Fragment 1176]).²²Put differently, both divine and political governments economize, that is, act prudently in accordance to the circumstances, with an end in mind.

Man, as portrayed by Stoic thought, is a communal animal (ζῶον κοινωνικόν) (see Devine, 1970: 324; Cicero, 1812) by nature (Epictetus, 1925: 29–15 [I: 23, IV: 1]) just as Aristotle portrayed him (Aristotle, 1935: 198–478). Although there is (at least) one difference: besides partaking in political and economic partnerships (Baloglou, 2002: 125) he was also a citizen and a member of the cosmos, who took part in its ruling, due to his abilities to comprehend and take into account the divine mode of governmentality (Epictetus, 1925: II:10).²³

Stoic thought constructed all four spheres of existence as distinct spheres, which are nonetheless conducted, as we just saw, by the same principle of government. Taking this into account, man was to conduct himself in the same manner in all of the spheres. In other words, all spheres of life are economized, and man has to economize in whichever one he is acting.

2 Political oikonomia

Pseudo-Aristotle, Economics: book II

The economizing of politics appears in its most lucid form in Pseudo-Aristotle’s second book of Economics (Pseudo-Aristotle, 1910: 289–303 [Economics II 1345b]).²⁴ In the beginning of the book, the author enumerates four types of oikonomia: royal; satrapical; political; and private. The former three are conducted within one or another form of political community.

The first part of the book (Pseudo-Aristotle, 1910 [Economics II 1345b–6a]) deals with the specific characteristics and domains of each of the above-mentioned oikonomiai. For example, the author argues that royal oikonomia is ‘the most extensive, yet at the same time the simplest … while theoretically its power is unlimited, it is in practice concerned with four departments, namely currency, exports, imports, and expenditure’ (ibid.: 1345b). The second part of the book includes 77 concrete examples of taxation collected from all over the ancient world. This collection was gathered for the purpose of presenting²⁵ its audience with a wide variety of ways for enriching the treasury of the state in all circumstances (Pseudo-Aristotle is not the only one who made the connection between oikonomia and taxation; Reumann [1957: 227] found evidence for the use of the term oikonomia to mean state revenue from taxation).

Moses Finley (Finley, 1970: 315)²⁶ who thought that ‘of all the odd “books” that have come down to us from classical antiquity, perhaps the oddest is the pseudo-Aristotelian ὀικονομικός’, describes this collection in the most vivid way:

The second section consists of nearly 80 anecdotes, in the form, ‘X, being short of funds, did Y’. X is either a tyrant, a monarch, a mercenary captain, a satrap, an agent of Alexander’s, or, in less than a quarter of the cases, a city-state. Y is usually either a demand backed by overwhelming force or low-grade cheating. … Despite the non-military context, it therefore seems legitimate to call them ‘stratagems’. (Finley, 1970: 316)

The problem the author tries to tackle in the book is how to enrich the treasury in peaceful times and by peaceful means. The fraudulent and/or violent nature of the modes of political oikonomia, the ‘stratagems’, as Finley called them, is not belligerent, although very much ‘warlike’. Political oikonomia is distinguished from war based on the kind of enemy against whom the ‘stratagems’ are enacted: while in war the enemy is a foreign power, in the case of political oikonomia it is the citizens and subjects of the ruler. We find support for the assumption that political oikonomia was distinguished from war in the writings of Dionysus of Halicarnassus, who writes that ‘politike oikonomia means a public civil administration as opposed to the handling of military operations’ (Baloglou, 1998: 116).

Ptolemaic Egypt as a political oikonomia

Pseudo-Aristotle is not the only one to talk about the oikonomia of the polis. Dinarchus, an orator of the fourth century BC, did so as well,²⁷ as did Dionysus of Halicarnassus (Baloglou, 1998: 116), and Polybius and Strabo used the term ‘oikonomia’ in reference to Egypt (ibid.). The latter usage should not surprise us, since Ptolemaic Egypt, lacking a political sphere in which men became citizens (and not just subordinates) by partaking in government, was conceived as a giant household (Natali, 1995: 98–9). The equating of an absolute monarchy with the rule of the master/citizen over his household appears already in Aristotle (Aristotle, 1944 [Politics 1285b], who called it a royal oikonomia (οἰκονομικὴ βασιλεíα).

Economists in the public and private sectors

The use of ‘oikonomos’ (economist) as a title for a state official in charge of the management of the state’s wealth, i.e. taxation and public assets, was customary in the Hellenic and Roman empires (Reumann, 1957: 233), and it looks as if there was at least one oikonomos in every province (Dittenberger in ibid.: 224). The oikonomos’ position was highly ranked and esteemed, although he was not first in command (ibid.: 233). As in the case of political oikonomia, the use of the title was most common in Egypt (ibid.). The Egyptian oikonomos was a civil servant trusted with tax collection (including money and grain). At a certain stage the job was split between one oikonomos who dealt with the collection of money and another who dealt with grain. Peter Landvogt claimed that in the classical age, the position of the oikonomos was a liturgy, in the Roman age it was held by a slave, sometimes a freed one, while in the Hellenistic age it is hard to determine who held it. Another conclusion by Landvogt is that in most polis states and provinces there was only one oikonomos, although the method of his election and the length of his term varied (ibid.). By examining the term ‘oikonomos’ in inscriptions, Dale Martin (1990: 16, 174–6) came to the conclusion that the vast majority of them were slaves or freed slaves. Oikonomia exceeded the boundaries of the household and did not just stretch into ‘civil society’. Oikonomoi were to be found in all kinds of societies, from business corporations and guilds up to religious orders and temples (Reumann, 1957: 280–304; 1959: 282–92).

3 The economies of self, cosmos and law

The oikonomia of the self

The oikonomia of the self was divided into oikonomia of the body and oikonomia of the soul. Carnal oikonomia appears as the internal organization of the body, the circulation of blood and the distribution of nourishment.²⁸ We can find evidence for the common use of oikonomia in the carnal context from the Christian writings of the first centuries. For example, Eusebius, when writing of Policarp’s martyrdom, describes how the oikonomia of the martyr’s flesh is revealed (see also Reumann, 1957: 320–2 and Mondzain, 2005: 39–44). With the second meaning of the oikonomia of the self, we witness its full intrusion into the sphere between man and himself. Reumann documented this usage of the term in various periods and schools of thought, starting with the pre-Socratic, through comedy writers, up to the Stoic thinkers.²⁹ Oikonomia appears in a different, negative context in the ethical realm. Here, acting economically meant aiming to achieve some goal while transgressing, or at least ‘challenging’, what would seem as normative behavior; put differently, the action taken, which in itself would seem to be unethical, is justified by its being enacted in order to achieve a goal that is considered moral. When acting economically, the end justifies some obscure means.³⁰ In particular, one would be considered to be acting economically by abstaining from revealing a truth, by giving a wrong impression, or by lying on purpose (Reumann, 1961: 383–90):

However they [the Stoics] believe that he [the sage] will sometimes avail himself of the falsehood in numerous ways without assent: in accord with generalship against opponents, and in accord with his foresight of what is useful, and in accord with many other types of oikonomia of life. (Arius Didymus, 1999: 93–5)

Cosmological oikonomia

Oikonomia’s exceeding of the boundaries of the household was not limited to the man-made world. The term oikonomia was also used to describe the conduct of the cosmos, which was seen as economized by divine providence or by nature herself. The first (Reumann, 1957: 402) to use oikonomia to describe the divine management of the cosmos is Xenophon, in his Memorabilia.³¹ A generation later Aristotle (1943) wrote that nature dispenses like a good oikonomos. But this usage was not limited to cosmological space: Epictetus used oikonomia to describe the cycle of human life (see translation in Reumann, 1957: 397), and Polybius to designate ‘the natural oikonomia in which politeiai change, are transformed, and return again to their original stage’.³²

The oikonomia of law

Once freed from the household, the expansion of oikonomia did not stop at the three other spheres of human existence. It also entered the legal context, where it meant the regulation of the legal traits of either governmental or private actions. Oikonomia meant ‘every measure with legally bonding effect’ (Presigke in Reumann, 1957: 308). These measures were usually business measures that had some financial effect. The vast majority of the appearances of oikonomia in law took place in the presence of governmental authority, either as a direct act of rulership, such as taxation, or as an action supervised by rulership.

Oikonomia had yet another legal meaning. It was used to describe legal documents such as contracts, wills, pacts and covenants.³³ The use of ‘oikonomia’ as synonymous with ‘will’ illustrates the extent to which law was economized in the Roman Empire. The wills of Roman citizens expressed their last wishes, and if signed, sealed and opened in accordance to the law, a will could not be changed. In other words, oikonomia as covenant meant a legal document that expressed the will of the citizen.

4 The oikonomia of the arts and sciences

Alongside its intrusion into all spheres of life, an ‘economic imperialism’ of scientific disciplines and theories also took place during the imperial age. Such an oikonomia could mean the general prudent organization of an entire discipline, or the organization of a certain subfield of it.

Thus, the term ‘oikonomia’ appears in strategic (military) literature, to indicate ‘the proper arrangement and management of supply and military affairs … for a general in charge of the army’ (Reumann, 1957: 209).³⁴ In the medical discipline, oikonomia meant the administration of medicine (ibid.: 320–2) and the treatment of and attitude towards patients. In Vitruvius’ On Architecture, ‘distribution which the Greek called οἰκονομíα’ (Vitruvius, 1914: book 1, 2:1) is a subfield of a discipline that ‘consists in a due and proper application of the means afforded according to the ability of the employer and the situation chosen’ (ibid.: book 1, 2:8). It also meant the adapting of an architectural design to the needs of the client (Osborn, 2001: 75–6). Reumann also reports one use of the term ‘oikonomia’ in musical literature (Reumann, 1957: 327).

Oikonomia was most popular in sciences that dealt with the composition and analysis of texts. It meant the prudent organization of a text, whether a poetic piece, a historical one, a political speech, or even a letter. Aristotle, for example, comments that while Euripides’ plays deal only with one subject, ‘in other respects he does not economize well [μὴ ∊ὖοἰκονομ∊ῖ]’ (Aristotle, 1932). In literary criticism oikonomia received several meanings,³⁵ which had in common the prudent organization of the ‘raw material’ – usually an historical event or a myth – in order to achieve the desired effect on the audience’s mind. In the literature that dealt with analysing poetical and rhetorical texts, oikonomia had several meanings.

(1) It was a technical term that describes the organization of the literal material. Economizing a text in this sense is achieved by a triple procedure: summing it up and creating a sort of table of contents; ordering it into a coherent work [τáξις]; and developing in detail each of the components of the table of contents.

(2) Oikonomia expresses the way each and every element of the work contributes to it as a whole. This refers to the textual context of the element, to be distinguished from its lexis, which contributes to the historical context of the text (Eden, 1997: 30). As an example of the way each part of a literary work was regarded as having its own internal oikonomia, consider the following example from Quintilian:

And it is not enough merely to arrange the various parts: each several part has its own internal economy, according to which one thought will come first, another second, another third, while we must struggle not merely to place these thoughts in their proper order, but to link them together and give them such cohesion that there will be no trace of any suture: they must form a body, not a congeries of limbs. This end will be attained if we note what best suits each position … thus different facts will not seem like perfect strangers thrust into uncongenial company, but will be united with what precedes and follows by an intimate bond of union with the result that our speech will give the impression not merely of having been put together but of natural continuity. (Quintilian, 1920–44: book VI X:16–17)

After reviewing hundreds of occurrences of the term in Scholia, Roos Meijering divides the latter meaning of oikonomia into three. As part of the oikonomia of a work, an element can appear in it because: (a) it contributes to the creation of a casual context of another element that appears later in the work; (b) it creates a psychological effect on the viewer/reader: a sense of suspension, a hint, or accustoming the audience at an early stage to a certain character’s behavior or mode of speech, so that it would not strike them as suspicious at the crucial moment; (c) there are reasons of decor (without contributing to the narrative) (Meijering, 1987: 181–229).

(3) Oikonomia also appears as the prudent and artificial organization of events into a narrative. Since most literary works in ancient times were based on historical or mythical events, oikonomia in this context meant reordering these events in the service of the literary work. This oikonomia is not limitless: one is not allowed to fabricate historical or mythical events, but only to change their order of appearance in the narrative. Thus, the story can begin at the end or in the middle of the diachronic order. Even though most of the examples collected by Meijering refer to oikonomia in the diachronic order, it could be enacted synchronically, as in the case of adopting new vantage points for telling a story.

5 The oikonomia of thought in political speech

Plato

In order to reconstruct the story of oikonomia as the arrangement of the products of thought in political speech, we must return to the moment when politics and philosophy were distinguished from oikonomia. Recall that the relations between the ‘human trinity’ of oikonomia, politics and philosophy were portrayed in the introduction in the following manner: mastery of oikonomia was seen as a prerequisite for conducting a leisurely life, whether theoretical or political. The question as to which of these two was more virtuous stood at the heart of a harsh controversy between two factions: the philosophers and the rhetoricians. One can find traces of this debate in two of Plato’s Socratic dialogues, where the word ‘rhetoric’ appears for the first time in his writings (Kennedy, 1999: 1).

In Gorgias and in most of Phaedrus, Plato dismisses rhetoric altogether as ridiculous, as non-science (ἄτεχνον) (Plato, 1925 [Phaedrus 262b]), as habitude (ἐμπειρíα) and as flattery. The relation between rhetoric and the true political science is compared with the relation between cookery and medicine – the first pair in the analogy being the arts or sciences devoted to the soul, and the second those devoted to the body (Plato, 1967 [Gorgias 462–6]). Despite this insult, towards the end of Phaedrus Plato acknowledges a way in which rhetoric can be ‘saved’ and turned into a science. According to Plato:

The method of the art of healing is much the same as that of rhetoric … In both cases you must analyze a nature, in one that of the body and in the other that of the soul, if you are to proceed in a scientific manner, not merely by practice and routine, to impart health and strength to the body by prescribing medicine and diet, or by proper discourses and training to give to the soul the desired belief and virtue. (Plato, 1925 [Phaedrus 270b])

In true Platonic spirit, saving rhetoric was to be accomplished by enslaving political speech to philosophical truth. Subordinating rhetoric to dialectic (Plato, 1925: 266 b–d, 269b–70) resembles Plato’s idea that the political sphere should be governed by a philosopher king. After all, if one wants to address the multitude and persuade them, one must use some sort of public speech. So that rhetoric may be set straight, Plato shifts its attention from speech itself to the interlocutors, namely to the speaker and listeners. Plato asserts that the speaker should convey a message of truth, instead of articulating what is probable (ibid.: 272–3) and to aim at making his listeners more virtuous, rather than winning their approval (ibid.: 271–2). In doing so, Plato shifts the focus of rhetoric from the public sphere, where speech itself appears, to what happens in the mind of the speaker and the soul of the listeners.

Later in the dialogue, as was customary at the time, Plato divides the art of rhetoric into content and form (Meijering, 1987: 135). The content of rhetorical activity is pre-given, while its form is ‘what … remains of rhetoric’ (Plato, 1925 [Phaedrus 266d]). In contrast, the philosophical search for truthful content takes place in private (Swanson, 1992) and is thus invisible to the public eye, being an inner dialogue between a person and his self. In other words, the search for truth must become dialectical. Not only must the content, the idea, be sought in a philosophical manner; more importantly, the object of the search must be the philosophical Object par excellence, namely, Truth as revealed in the good and in the beautiful.

The second, visible aspect of form is left for rhetoric proper. Rhetoric could become a science rather than habitude if, and only if, it turned into a handmaid to dialectics. Regarding the visible side of the equation – the public one – Plato is much more modest in his demands. After all, rhetoric as the art of persuasion carries its own sphere of application – the souls of the multitude. Therefore, all that Plato requires from rhetoric proper is to take its job seriously. Just as the physician is required to map the various maladies that might afflict the human body and to apply corresponding remedies to them, so the orator is required to map maladies that might afflict the human soul and the forms of speech that correspond to them. Based on this mapping, the orator must diagnose which form of speech is most effective for improving the spiritual condition of the particular audience he is facing, and then apply it (1925: 270–1). Plato, then, acknowledges the need for a science of persuasion, but insists that its only merit is to serve as a vehicle of philosophical truth. In order to uphold this role for rhetoric he divides it into two branches – one dealing with the visible and the other with the invisible. While the visible sphere is where rhetoric proper is applied, the invisible sphere should remain utterly philosophical in method as well as in content.

Enter arrangement

Here as elsewhere, Plato was followed by Aristotle, who dedicated a treatise to the subject of rhetoric. As in many other cases, Aristotle found a middle way, arguing for the existence of the two arts side by side:

Rhetoric is a counterpart of Dialectic; for both have to do with matters that are in a manner within the cognizance of all men and not confined to any special science. Hence all men in a manner have a share of both; for all, up to a certain point, endeavor to criticize or uphold an argument, to defend themselves or to accuse. Now, the majority of people do this either at random or with a familiarity arising from habit. But since both these ways are possible, it is clear that matters can be reduced to a system … (Aristotle, 1926 [Rhetoric 1.1–2])

While not yet employing the notion of oikonomia, Aristotle breaks down the Platonic form into two: taxis (τάξις) and lexis (λέξις) (Aristotle, 1926 [Rhetoric 3.1.1]), organization and style, which are added to what he calls invention (εύρεσις) – a term that corresponds more or less to the Platonic notion of content. Later rhetorical theories added the element of delivery and sometimes also that of memorizing the speech. On occasion rhetoric was divided into four branches, not including memorization.³⁶

As the anonymous composer of the Rhetorica ad herennium argues:

The speaker, then, should possess the faculties of Invention, Arrangement, Style, Memory, and Delivery. Invention is the devising of matter, true or plausible, that would make the case convincing. Arrangement (dispositio³⁷ ) is the ordering and distribution of the matter, making clear the place to which each thing is to be assigned. Style is the adaptation of suitable words and sentences to the matter devised. Memory is the firm retention in the mind of the matter, words, and arrangement. Delivery is the graceful regulation of voice, countenance, and gesture. (Anonymous, 1996: 193–5)

In the centuries to follow, the scholars of rhetoric would further develop the internal division of each of the major components of rhetoric. What we witness there is not just the development of the technologies of public speech. More important for our inquiry is the fact that Aristotle recognized arrangement as a distinct branch of rhetoric. In order to persuade the multitude, two kinds of ‘form’ must be distinguished: the arrangement of thought and its appearance in public. The introduction of arrangement and the further subdivision of rhetoric set the stage for the appearance of oikonomia in rhetoric. This is due to the fact that, as shown earlier, oikonomia had become synonymous with prudent arrangement in most arts and sciences.

Although he recognized the importance of arranging thought out of public sight, Aristotle did not use the term ‘oikonomia’ to denote this activity. A possible explanation why he refrained from doing so can be found in the only occurrence of the term in his Rhetoric, where Aristotle criticizes Alcidamas for using the term in the context of political speech. Illustrating why Alcidamas’ style ‘appears frigid, for he uses epithets not as a seasoning but as a regular dish’ (Aristotle, 1926: XXII [Rhetoric 3.3.3]), Aristotle mentions that Alcidamas had used the phrase ‘oikonomos of his listeners’ pleasure’ [οἰκονόμος τῆς τῶν ἀκουόντων ἡδονῆς] (ibid). Since Aristotle uses the noun ‘oikonomos’ in his Poetics (Aristotle, 1932), one can assume that his reason for objecting to the use of the term in public speech was his wish to observe a clear demarcation line between the political and the economic spheres. This is the very same line of demarcation that Alcidamas pointedly does not observe, because of his eagerness to over-stylize political speech.

The oikonomia of thought

The first to introduce the concept ‘oikonomia’ into rhetorical theory was Hermagoras of Temnos in the 2nd century BC. Hermagoras, who led the revival of rhetoric in an atmosphere that was full of Platonic hostility toward the art of persuasion, was ‘the most important Greek rhetorician’ (Murphy, 2003: 131) and ‘the most famous professional teacher of rhetoric in the Hellenistic period’ (Kennedy, 1995: 67). His detailed, and apparently ‘dry as dust’ (Tacitus, 2006: 109), six or seven books on rhetoric were the most influential of the Roman age (Kennedy, 1999: 99). Although most of his writings did not survive, their scheme can be reconstructed from the works of ancient writers who relied on what he had written (Bennett, 2005: 187), most notably Romans such as Cicero and Quintilian. Although contemporary scholars consider his greatest contribution to be his thorough examination of invention and his development of the notion of Statis (identifying and reaching an agreement on the subject under discussion; ibid.), he was also the first to introduce the concept of ‘oikonomia’ into rhetoric. As a theorist of rhetorical writing in a hostile philosophical environment, Hermagoras pointed out what might be described as the greatest disadvantage of philosophical thought: it is essentially a private affair,³⁸ and, as such, it is conditioned just like any other private affair. For philosophy to appear in public, it needs to be economized. Considering that ever since its first appearance in a poem by Phocylides, any activity that was to be economized was despised and thought of as a means to a higher end – namely to the life of leisure – it is hard to think of a greater insult to philosophy. We can virtually hear Hermagoras explaining to his opponents that, after all, philosophy is like any other economic activity. It is part of man’s interaction with the cosmos, and like any such activity it must be subordinate to politics and not vice versa. Even if belated, a rejoinder to the Platonic insult was found.

According to Hermagoras, oikonomia was composed of four branches: judgment, division, order (taxis) and style (lexis) (Quintilian, 1920–44: III, 3). Grouping these different matters, most notably style, under oikonomia was unusual, and was not adopted by later rhetoricians (Kennedy, 1994: 100). This does not mean that oikonomia was lost to ancient rhetoric (Reid, 1997: 12), but that until its baptism into Christianity it was again restricted to the invisible sphere. Allowing oikonomia to appear in the political sphere did not make sense in a world that observed the distinction between private and public – between, on the one hand, economic activity, which now included the organization of the products of thought, and, on the other hand, political speech and action. This, I believe, is the reason why later writers did not follow in the footsteps of Hermagoras, and did not include style as part of oikonomia. By excluding style from oikonomia they re-established the distinction between private and public, and returned oikonomia to its former pre-political domain.

The retreat of oikonomia from the visible, public sphere into the invisible one can be found in Dionysius of Halicarnassus (translated in Reid, 1997).

Oikonomia, according to Dionysius, is the organization of content before it is rendered into speech (see Meijering, 1987: 137). The above citation teaches us a great deal about oikonomia’s trajectory since its inception: in this striking piece, Dionysius informs us that as long as rhetoric is involved, economizing thought is more important than thought itself. According to Dionysius, oikonomia

… relate[s] to the more technical side of his subject-matter, what is called oikonomikeh of the discourse, something that is desirable in all kind of writing, whether one choose philosophical or rhetorical subjects. The matter in question has to do with the division [diairesis], order [taxis] and development [exergasia]. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus in Reid, 1997: 5)

In other words, any thought, be it the philosophical Truth or the rhetorical Probable, must be economized before it is rendered in speech.

The tendency to distance the thought process from the public sphere and to stress the importance of its oikonomia will be strengthened by later developments in rhetorical theory. In various manuscripts from the second century CE onward a new distinction arises: this time between oikonomia and taxis/ordo. Oikonomia in these texts means the man-made order of thought that is set forth in order to persuade the multitude. This artificial order is contrasted to the natural order of occurrences. By contrasting oikonomia and taxis the rhetoricians were yet again distancing the thought process from the public eye. As an anonymous writer put it:

Taxis differs from oikonomia because taxis, on the one hand, is characterized by a following of the chief points and by knowing how to use them in accordance with their natural order (kata taxis), which one first, or which second. But oikonomia, on the other hand, is characterized by expediency; for very often we overthrow the natural order on account of expediency, and use the first event, if it is expedient, second. It occurs also when we leave out some one of the main event.³⁹

Distinguishing between oikonomia and the natural order once again widens the gap between the thought process and the political sphere. The products of thought, the representations of the natural order, are the raw material to be economized so that it will be suited to appear in public.

6 Conclusion

In their ‘Introduction to Oeconomies in the Age of Newton’, Schabas and De Marchi note that ‘economic thinking of the early modern period was significantly different from what came after. Yet it is also far more than just an account of the management of households, as found in Xenophon’s Oikonomikos or Aristotle’s Politics’ (Schabas and De Marchi, 2003: 3). As I have tried to demonstrate, it was not that different from that period a millennium and a half prior, when concepts such as oikonomia of the body, of nature by divinity, as well as political oikonomia (ibid.: 4–5)⁴⁰ made their first appearance. Oikonomia was omnipresent in the life of the imperial man, who was doomed to encounter it wherever he turned: in his body, between him and himself, in his oikos, in the city square; in the political, imperial and cosmopolitical authorities, and when appealing to these authorities; when appearing in court, going to the physician, attending the theater, listening to a chorus, waging war, thinking about how to persuade others; in free associations, in contracts, treaties and covenants that he signed, when dictating his will, and in history. Moreover, as I tried to suggest, an important chapter in the history of the human trinity of economy, philosophy and politics unfolds in that period. In the imperial formation oikonomia is no longer conceived as a mere servant to both politics and philosophy, but takes on the form of an intermediary between the realm of thought – that is, of philosophy – and the realm of public speech – that of politics (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Different formations of the human trinity.

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