The archons of Athens

The archons were the city executives.

Athenians had a clear understanding of the difference between sovereign power and executive government, and were careful to keep the two separate. More careful than all modern democracies in fact. The US President not only heads the executive but has influence on what laws are passed. In the Westminster system the Prime Minister is the leader of whichever party holds the most seats. In both cases the sovereign power and executive duties are mixed. An Athenian would have called that sloppy.

By classical times there were nine archons: the Eponymous Archon, the Polemarch, the Basileus, and six others who served as magistrates.

The archons were elected for a year and after serving, could never serve again. If you're wondering how Pericles managed to stay influential for so long, it's because he was at no time an archon! Seriously. He got himself elected year after year to the part of executive government for which there was no limitation: Pericles was an almost perpetual strategos - a military commander - equivalent to being a member of the modern Joint Chiefs of Staff.

There were only three archons originally in archaic times: the three with the über-cool titles. The six magistrates were added as the population grew and the workload became too much.

The Eponymous Archon was in charge of the affairs of citizens. He was something like a city mayor. The Eponymous Archon was the one after whom the year was named. The Pericles Commission takes place in the Year of Conon.

The Polemarch was in charge of the affairs of the many resident aliens, called metics. In archaic times the Polemarch had been the war archon. The word Polemarch is conjoined of war and leader. Military command later became too big for one man and passed to the strategoi. The Polemarch then became in effect the equivalent of the Eponymous Archon for the metics.

The Basileus was the archon in charge of religious and artistic festivals. Basileus means King.

It's obvious if you look at their combined duties that the three main archons were a replacement for the ancient king of Athens. The Eponymous Archon managed civil affairs, The Polemarch led the Athenians at war, and the Basileus led them in worship. No one's too sure when or how it happened, but at some point the kingship was replaced with this triumvirate.

There were a few years in which social upheaval prevented the election of archons. Those years were considered ones of an-archy, literally no-archon. Our word anarchy comes to us direct from ancient Athenian politics.


Grammar check is bad for you, and spell check is not much better

I think I ran spell check on my first book four times. The first time before I sent the manuscript to my beta reader friends. The second immediately before I queried agents. The third when I finished agency-requested edits, right before Janet sent the manuscript to St Martin's Press. The fourth was when I finished edits in response to the St Martin's editorial letter.

I never run the grammar checker at all. In fact, the first thing I do when I install Word is turn off grammar checking. Then I turn off the option to check spelling as I type.

To me they're irritants that get in the way of writing. Every time one of those green spell check lines appears, it stops me in mid-flow and makes me go back to fix the misspelling. Yes, I know I don't have to go back, but if you're not going to stop and fix, then why ask to see the green line in the first place? So I turn it off. That way I actually write story, instead of a lot of correctly spelled words.

The grammar checker on the other hand is actively bad. The grammar checker thinks it can write better than me. It's wrong. The grammar checker has no idea of voice or style. And don't get me started on those style evaluation systems. If you took any great story of the past and ran it through grammar check, do you think it would pass?

When the option to check spelling as I type first appeared, I used it all the time. I noticed a strange thing. My spelling became much worse. Okay, my spelling was never great, but that made the slide all the more noticeable. And I became slower at writing, because I was always conscious of not wanting to provoke a nasty green line.

It probably does help that I use autocorrect all the time. But that works because autocorrect doesn't make me stop and redo.

So what I do now is, I write the story, and then I make the story right.


Happy Eostre or Happy Ostara or Happy Easter

I hope everyone's had a great Easter!

Easter is derived directly from a Germanic pagan fertility Goddess called Eostre, if you speak Old English, or Ostara, if you speak Old High German. Spelling is highly variable on this because, back in those days, most people couldn't.

Interestingly, Eostre is mentioned in writing in only one place, the work of the Venerable Bede, a mediaeval monk and early self-publisher. He said in De Ratione Temporum - which was a bestseller in its day - that Eostre's Month (= April = Spring) was once celebrated with feasts in honor of the Goddess. De Ratione Temporum means On Calculating Time and a lot of the book is about how to calculate when Easter is on.

It's interesting that Eostre appears nowhere in Norse lore. Her only mention is in that early Christian book by Bede.

So if you ever wondered what bunnies and eggs had to do with Jesus, now you know: nothing at all. They are both carryover fertility symbols associated with the Goddess of Spring. And a good thing too, or we wouldn't get all that chocolate.

I hope the Easter Bunny was good to you!

(This is a modified version of a post I did last Easter, but I think the origin of Easter is rather cool so I'm repeating.)

Sacred sex and temple prostitution

I was planning to write about this myself some time, but Mary Harrsch has done such a great job that you should read her excellent summary on whether sacred sex was practiced in ancient times.

Sacred sex is the idea that some temples - invariably dedicated to Aphrodite or the local equivalent - had in-house prostitutes whose service was considered part of the worship. Whether it ever actually happened is very controversial.

I have no choice but to form a definite opinion because I must describe these temples in my books! Particularly the Artemision at Ephesus which appears in the second book, and for which there's a claim of temple prostitution. (And my view is there wasn't.)

Most mention of this subject comes with the sound of ideological axes grinding in the background. Which makes Mary's article so valuable, because it's actually even handed.