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Anthropology and Classics

Author(s): Marcel Detienne
Source: Arion, Third Series, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 2005), pp. 63-74
Published by: Trustees of Boston University
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Anthropology and Classics

MARCEL DETIENNE

V_>ROSSiNG disciplines, cross

interdisciplinary,
cultural research?these are some of the projects, and their
perspectives, that have been exchanged between Europe and
North America and that continue to crisscross the Atlantic. In
1875, Daniel Coit Gilman, who had studied in Berlin and un?
derstood the importance of university research, accepted the
task of planning the future Johns Hopkins University. Gilman
returned to Europe?to England, to France, to Germany. A
little earlier, Victor Duruy, then chief of the Department of
Education, had obtained Napoleon ill's support for the insti?
tution of Advanced
Studies, practical and
theoretical, as a
branch of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes. In 1868, itwas a ques?
tion of opening, alongside the traditional university, the first
institution emphasizing advanced studies. A kind of scientific
colony was thus created, linking laboratory and research sem?
inar, and gathering together in the same place mathematics
and history, biology and philology, physics and economics.
It is worth pointing out that Johns Hopkins, from its cre?
ation until today, has not ceased to conceive of itself as "a re?
search university" or to allow each instructor the freedom to
imagine the "crossing" that he or she wants to undertake with
others. And, at the same time, it preserves a "human scale,"
and encourages the intersections of methods and scholars.
When after thirty years of Advanced Studies at the Sor?
bonne, I came to Johns Hopkins as the first Gildersleeve Pro?
fessor in the very old Department of Classics, my aims were
quite clear: the main project was the refoundation of Gilder
sleeve's Classics, in the creation of a program for an "An

A lecture delivered at New College in January, 2005.

ARION 13.1 SPRING/SUMMER2OO5

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64 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CLASSICS

thropology along with the Greeks and the Romans." Here

we combine a very strong grounding in language with an en?
gagement with scholars from other fields like anthropology,
philosophy, or history, in order to give a comparative impulse
to our work. What kind of comparison are we aiming at?
Neither the quest for analogies nor the description of typolo?
gies, but rather the analysis of concepts, categories, and "is?
sues," as they appear in different societies. It seems to me
that the ancient Greeks and Romans are an excellent point of
departure from which to ask questions
political about
thought, religion, mythology, ethics, gender, and the sciences.
Now, "Anthropology and the Classics" constitutes a genre
to which the English and Americans have unfailingly con?
tributed?from James George Frazer to Moses I. Finley, and
from Sally Humphreys to James Redfield.
In the early eighteenth century, mythology and the nature of
mythology fueled a debate on the topic la fable that involved
the Amerindians and the Greeks, or, to be more precise, the
first inhabitants of the New World and the people of Early
Antiquity. The first business of comparative ethnology was
devoted to the intellectual activity of the ancient Greeks and
that of the "savages" of America. What a "mythical thought"
is has been a crucial issue for the founders of anthropology
and for such major successors as Claude L?vi-Strauss, who
was fascinated by the Greeks and their rich and spontaneous
mythology, the Greeks equipped with concepts and acceding
to a Logic of Forms. For James George Frazer, the holder of
the first chair in Social Anthropology and an influential
reader of Pausanias' Description of Greece, the knowledge of
ancient as well as modern societies was an absolute impera?
tive in order to reflect on the rituals of royalty, the relations
between totemism and exogamy, or the boundaries separating
magic and religion.
The founders
of anthropology, both cultural and social,
attempted the comparative study of the most simple and the
more complex societies. According to some of them, each
culture defines itself by an enduring link between thought,

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 Marcel D?tienne 65

language, and the world. The ethnological concept of culture

designated a system of conceptions, historically transmitted
in symbolic forms whereby people communicate, perpetuate,
and develop their knowledge about life and their attitudes
toward each other.
Comparativism was an essential step in the early ethno?
logical attempts. Comparativism is what shapes our knowl?
edge of the multiplicity of human cultures and of the
variability of cultural products of the human being. So, how
about a comparative approach in the framework of "An?
thropology and the Classics"? Iwould like, first, to indicate
the shape of this comparative approach, and then, to choose
a issue: the of nativeness, so
specific comparative analysis
called "autochthony."
As we all know, comparativism is a real "conversation"

own is clear. It is an exper?

piece. My comparative approach
imental and constructive comparativism between historians
and ethnologists.
Why compare and how? There is nothing that the human
mind does more spontaneously. Comparing in this way means
establishing furtive analogies, perceiving resemblances, ac?

centuating differences, and then imperceptibly developing an

appreciation, a kind of value judgment. I cannot imagine

any comparative activity emerging from a familiar and lim?
ited perspective.
Actually, in the so-called 'University-Universitas,' it is not
easy to move the borders of a specific discipline, of an im?
portant branch of knowledge, namely history. Already in the
1870s, history was consecrated as "a science." Behold the
Science of History, originally a large enterprise in Europe,
where history and Nation are twins. The early Science of

History had no other ambition than to provide a basis for

the legitimacy of the Nation: Germany as a Nation compa?
rable to none other, or France as the incomparable Nation.
Somewhere in his Notebooks, Maurice Barres, the novelist
and politician, wrote, "To make a Nation, there have to be
cemeteries, and historians at work." Barres was
graveyards,

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66 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CLASSICS

the creator of the slogan, La Terre et lesMorts, the Land and

the Dead. The link between History and Nation is crucial to?
day in Europe, in Japan, in India, in so many countries.
What, in any case, was the field of this new and very ag?
gressive science of history? It was the past of the societies
with writing and with civilization. The science of history
has, of course, nothing to do with societies without writing,
without civilization. Now comes the time of the creation of
a Great Divide between the science of history and so-called
anthropology or ethnology. And a Great Divide itwas for a
very long time in Europe, particularly in France?up to the
1960s, the time of Levi-Strauss.
This Great
Divide is conclusive for understanding how
difficult it is, in Europe first, but in this country, too, for
historians and ethnologists to work together and to con?
struct together objects that are comparable. I do insist: it is
very difficult to do this by experimenting in the field of hu?
man societies and their cultural inventions, experimenting
without acknowledging limits of time and space. In our
archives, us ethnologists and historians, that is, there is a
collection of some six thousand five hundred societies with
languages and cultures.

Experimenting: here is the second aspect of a compara

tivism between historians and ethnologists. Let this be clear:
the non-European peoples, traditionally known not as

primitive but as devoid of civilization, came to be known as

peoples without writing. In the Enlightenment it was al?

ready suggested that "without writing" means "without
In the nineteenth century, this was trans?
history." equation
formed into a certitude. Since then, history as a science and
an academic discipline (a discipline with customs officers:
"your passport, please") has concerned itself exclusively
with societies that have writing. Even the New
History, and
the New-New History like the Vost-Annales, have sub?
scribed to this premise.

Forgive me: why compare? Especially historians and eth?

nologists together? I am, to begin with, strongly opposed to

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 Marcel D?tienne 67

the various "customs officers." ("Are you a Hellenist? or are

you a historian?") To my mind, the field of history is first of
all the knowledge of all human
societies?intertwining past
and present. This was the global project of the first anthro?
pologists, too. If you accept avoidance of the "useful" prej?
udices?les pr?jug?s utiles inherent in all disciplines?you
are ready, I guess, to work together in small groups or pairs,
historians and ethnologists together. This has nothing to do
with the "comparative studies" of so many books, each of
the contributors sending by e-mail attachment his or her pa?
per on a common
general topic.

"Nothing to do?" Because the crucial affair for this small

group of historians and ethnologists is to construct the
"topic," in fact the real object of the comparative workshop.
To work together, yes, but to work sometimes for as long as
five to seven years.
What is the most decisive factor for this comparativist
start-up? Each member must be convinced that to be nour?
ished by the others' knowledge and questions is as crucial as
to analyze in depth the civilization or society in which each
is initially the professional specialist. Exchanging papers,
smiles, books, and conversation is a crucial
aspect of the best
training. (I strongly recommend a lunch, even a good lunch.
Please don't forget a bottle of wine, Bordeaux, Burgundy, or
a fine Californian.)
It is time to move to my second aim here, to choose a con?
crete fieldwork, "the art of founding autochthony," a topic
so very close to the issue of "the Dead and the Land." To be

precise, I should say that the work of comparing begins with

the choice of a category, one not too strongly classificatory
and not too limited in implication. To choose "religion" or
"empire," for example, would be foolish. Similarly, to pick a
very special species from your professional garden has to be
poisonous to this approach to comparativism.
What, then, about "being a native"? Many years ago, the
first line of inquiry was directed at ways of creating a terri?
tory, of "territorializing" (territorialiser, faire du territoire),

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68 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CLASSICS

and aimed at analyzing so apparently simple a question as

what itmeans to found, to set up} A good approach, I guess,
to think together about "the art of founding autocbthony."
Rather than to make a or to draw a mor?
try typology up

phology of "founding," it has seemed to me more interesting

to first ask another question: what do we invest in the so
called "art of founding" that seems to be at the heart of
claiming a land or territory? Here is an answer, a careful an?
swer. For "us," itwould involve the uniqueness of a specific
space identified by a name, with individual features and
"boundaries" assigned within a larger space. To this must be
added a beginning in time, in history, in chronology?with
something like an initial event that is separate, recognized,
even solemn. seems to a
extraordinary, Founding require sig?
nificant beginning, which is to become part of the flow of
historic process. Finally, in thinking about founding, we are
to an act, to gestures, to a ritual, or a ceremony in?
alluding

separable from an individual whois at the origin of the

rootedness of this place that is considered unique.
So Iwould like to say that to think comparatively is quite
simply to engage in a comparative analysis of what itmeans
"to establish territory in terms of founding," always keeping
these questions in mind, and in the company of a number of

friendly informants of societies which are more or less in the

process of establishing their "territory." Some of these soci?
eties will be doing so by means of hard-core founding, oth?
ers by purely and simply setting up a viable economy. All of
this iswhat I called "constructing the topic."
to insist again on this type of training. To engage in
I have
a conceptual analysis of what itmeans "to set up," or "to get
a meeting place for common and public affairs," is the cru?
cial aspect of this experimental and constructive compara
tivism of ethnologists and historians together. In other words,
it is to experiment in constructing good comparables. It
should be easy to understand, after all, that one cannot be
hasty in his or her approach to the vast land of cultural vari?
ability, the common fieldwork of ethnologists and historians.

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 Marcel D?tienne 69

What is it to experiment in the field of human societies?

The comparatist, the plural comparatist at work discovers

progressively the complications of "claiming turf" or "terri?

son trou, in French?and raises a set of
torializing"?faire

questions: what is it to inaugurate? What is it to begin, to

make historical, to historicize?
What does itmean to be born in a place? To be a foreigner,
a a native, an an
newly-come hunter, indigene, aborigine?
The conceptual components into which the comparatist dis?
mantles (in French, monnayer, to make change) a category
or a become even more subtle. The process in?
subcategory
volves traveling between the cultures and societies at issue in
order to put the newlydeveloped components to work. In
this experimental phase, the plural comparatist finds the so?
cieties, the cultural ensembles, that not only "react" (in a
chemical sense) to the category being dismantled, but also to
the set of questions that its dismantling raises.
To succeed, the comparatist must be at liberty to leave be?
hind the closest neighbors of the project's terrain and to de?
part in quest of cultures and societies that a self-respecting
and thus respectable historian or strictly observant ethnolo?

gist would find untouchable. It is not unfair to recall that in

our libraries there are more or less six thousand societies
and cultures awaiting our visit. Here of the
is the continent
cultural variability for anthropology and history at large.
or the art of founding au
Finally, what about Natives,
tochthony? Some years ago, after several trips between the
two shores of the Atlantic, Iwas very surprised to see on Eu?
ropean screens, every evening, pictures of Serbs intoxicated
by the idea of a Greater Serbia, declaring loud and clear, on
leaving Kosovo, that they would return to this land, conse?
crated by the blood of their ancestors, this blood spilt six
centuries earlier in a battle lost to the Turks. Next door lies
Hungary with its post-Soviet rituals of reburial, and Roma?
nia with its cult of the Earth sanctified with its children.

Watching French TV, itwas a somewhat shocking experience

to understand for the first time the power of the representa

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 jo ANTHROPOLOGY AND CLASSICS

tion of the old-stock Frenchman, le "Fran?ais racine" (rooted)

according to a nineteenth-century French formula.
How does one become autochthonous? How is it possible
to be a native? How can one be rooted? A nomad or a com

paratist reflecting on this issue in the evening after a long

walk . . .That was the first stage of a on the topic
workshop
of "the Dead and the Land"?between Hopkins, Paris, and
Chicago, a collective inquiry into the various ways of found?
ing nativeness between ancient and contemporary societies.
Here are some appropriations. In its first manifesto, the
"National Front," this fleuron, this jewel, of the Extreme
Right on French soil, recalled
incomparable, the
unique
character people. I quote: "This community
of the French is
bonded by race and memories in which a man can flourish.
One belongs to it because of one's roots, one's dead, the
past, heredity, heritage." Here you have the representation
of the old-stock Frenchman, le Fran?ais de souche, whose
greatness blazes forth today amongst foreigners, and who
can trace his lineage back to the hunter-gatherer of the Dor
dogne in a direct line, according to the best tradition of
l'Histoire de France.
Asyou may know, to investigate the so-called National
Antiquities, to write the "Great History of France," is the
privilege of prominent scholars. The most famous of these,
and certainly one whose teaching on the rooted Frenchman
has been most lasting, is Ernest Lavisse, a national monu?
ment nowadays. In his "Instructions for the Teaching of the
History of France" in elementary schools, he stated that we
should learn that "our" history begins with the Greeks.
Which Greeks? Not those of the Black Sea or the Thracian
colonies, but the ancient Athenians, the pure-blooded
Greeks, the Greeks of purified blood, de sang ?pur?, in that
noble For the Anglo-Saxon tra?
seventeenth-century phrase.
dition we are the true Caucasians, the best race of the world,
no doubt. Western history begins with the Greeks, who were
so crucial for the founders of the first independent state in
America. Elect people, twice. "Twice" is better.

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 Marcel D?tienne 71

Autochthony is a Greek word, and not a very old one,

which goes back to the time of Aeschylus: to be born from
the land, "our land." Autochthony is a specific disease of the

people of Athens. Hearing the Funeral Orations of Athens?

an official ceremony at the kerameikos for over a century?
it is a pleasure to shape the precious Athenian nativeness.
Here is a mere sketch, drawn with three strokes. First, we
are the Autochthons born from the very land we have in?
habited since the beginning of time. We are the genuine na?
tives of this magnificent land, which our ancestors passed on
to us: heritage, heredity, the past. Second, all other societies
are made up of immigrants, foreigners, people from else?
where; their descendants are the metoikoi, metics, the aliens
in the Athenian meaning of the word, just as derogatory as
it can be nowadays. So outside Athens, it is absolutely clear,
there are composite cities, towns with a mishmash of every
origin. Only the Athenians are pure natives, pure in the sense
that their blood has not been mixed with or contaminated
by foreign blood. Finally, there is the issue of the place of the
dead given back to the Earth. Our ancestors, inhabiting
from time immemorial their mother- or fatherland, were
nourished by the Earth, the large deity called in Greek Gaia.
So they have made it possible for their sons, once they have
died, to repose in the familiar places of her, Gaia, the one
who brought them into the world.
The same topic just over one century. The Germans
span
of Adolf Hitler, though, need only twenty years. I have to
come back to the notion of "our Greeks" in the western tra?
dition. This is the core of the hard-core representation of
French autochthony. All this has to do with mythology and
ideology. It is a myth-ideology mixed with myth-history.
The pompous historian of France, Ernest Lavisse, wrote to
the girls and boys of French schools that "Our history be?
gins with the Greeks." This sounds too good to be true. And
it is. Lavisse creates a mythical narrative like the Trojan ori?

gins of the French nation in the sixteenth century. A mythi?

cal narrative similar to the belief of the Prussian-German

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72 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CLASSICS

people around 1870: "We are the true Germans of the De

Germania of Tacitus," just before the tragic, "We are the

pure Indo-Aryans in Europe"?and in the world. We, Hel?

lenists or cannot these "murderous
comparatists, forget
identities." I think it is a worthy enterprise to analyze the

components of these various configurations of nativeness.

They are probably very few: the land, the dead, blood, roots,
ancestors, and the like.
At the same time, there are a lot of links in these compo?
nents: blood with or without soil; the dead and land or the
dead without land; ancestors for the establishment of roots
or for pure blood. Plenty of variations. How crucial it is for
a comparative approach to learn from Americanists that, in
some Amerindian societies, there are people having the earth

cling to the soles of their feet in a territory that has no name,

no distinguishing marks, no tombs, no fixed sites. This is as?
tonishing when thinking about the question,"What is a site?"
Tosum up, the main issue in the art of founding au

tochthony is not the content. Rather, it is the comparative

approach, this constructive and experimental comparativism
of historians and ethnologists working together, often for a
long time. And for what purpose? I think for a deeper
knowledge of human societies. Or for making an attempt at

denationalizing all these "Histories of Nations." Finally, if

we are somewhat patient and fortunate, itwill eventually be

possible to locate some good comparables, linked to various

orientations and choices of differing societies. Comparables
are "orientations." are not structures" (sorry!)
They "deep
nor are they offensive to contextualist or specialist scruples.
It would suffice to work on microconfigurations between
different fields. Historians and anthropologists together,
why ever not?

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 Marcel D?tienne 73

NOTE

Further reading is available in the following of Marcel Detienne's books

and essays: "Murderous Identity: Anthropology, History, and the Art of

Constructing Comparables," Common Knowledge 8:1 (2002), 178-87;

"The Art of Founding Autochthony: Thebes, Athens and Old-Stock
French," Arion 9.1 (Spring/Summer 2001), 46-55; "From Practices of As?

sembly to the Forms of Politics: A Comparative Approach," Arion

7.3
(Winter 2000), 1-19; Comparer l'incomparable (Paris 2000); and Com?
ment ?tre autochtone-. Du pur Ath?nien au Tranc?is racine (Paris 2003).

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