Anarchy

Essay / The ancient world Rules or citizens? Ancient Athenian and Greek practices afford us insights into how and why to maintain real accountability in public life Melissa Lane

What is anarchy? The word evokes lawlessness, a generalised disorder. But the root meaning of anarchia has nought to do with law or lawlessness. It is formed in classical Greek from an-archē, a negative or privative compound of the noun hē archē, among the meanings of which are ‘beginning, origin’; ‘first place or power, sovereignty’; and ‘magistracy, office’ – ideas connected by the power of initiating action. In anarchia, an authoritative leader, ruler or officeholder is absent.1 In classical Athens in particular, it became a designation for a particular vacancy: an absence of the officeholder called not only an archon (from the same root, of course), but the archon: the one archon out of nine in Athens (and some other city-states) who gave his name to the year in which he served. For Athenians did not keep track of their years by consecutive numeration, as we do, but rather named each year after the archon holding this office. What we call the year 403/02 BCE, for example, they knew as the year of Eucleides’ archonship./.../