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A Cliometrics and Complexity Perspective on Ancient Greek Culture

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  • Laurent Gauthier

    (LED - Laboratoire d'Economie Dionysien - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, CAC-IXXI, Complex Systems Institute)

Abstract

Ancient history appears to be the persona non grata of cliometrics: not a mention in the field's manual (Diebolt and Haupert 2019). Recent research combining cliometrics and complexity (Gonzales-Feliu and Parent 2016; Abry et al. 2022; Bastidon and Parent 2022), if it has not addressed Antiquity either, nevertheless opens the door to a new perspective on ancient Greece. By focusing on primary non-economic sources thanks to complexity sciences, a cliometric approach allows us to frame into economic terms the massive and complex cultural material we gathered from the Ancients. Concentrating on the generating mechanisms for various large-scale textual sources, in a complexity economics perspective, we consider how distinct constraints and objectives lead to measurable differences between judicial speeches, poetry, and epigraphic texts, for example. Based on thousands of inscriptions, we account for whom the Ancients worshiped with a shared-resources paradigm, and show how people's names and naming strategies exhibit patterns consistent with a high degree of conformity. Finally, we show that the religious formulae the Greeks used to address their gods, in spite of their short and condensed nature, share the features of a language, and appear to be constructed as an optimal communication medium.

Suggested Citation

  • Laurent Gauthier, 2022. "A Cliometrics and Complexity Perspective on Ancient Greek Culture," Working Papers hal-03315002, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-03315002
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://univ-paris8.hal.science/hal-03315002v2
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    File URL: https://univ-paris8.hal.science/hal-03315002v2/document
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Alfarano, Simone & Lux, Thomas, 2010. "Extreme value theory as a theoretical background for power law behavior," Kiel Working Papers 1648, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Claude Diebolt & Michael Haupert (ed.), 2019. "Handbook of Cliometrics," Springer Books, Springer, edition 2, number 978-3-030-00181-0, September.
    3. Michaël C Waumans & Thibaut Nicodème & Hugues Bersini, 2015. "Topology Analysis of Social Networks Extracted from Literature," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-30, June.
    4. Laurent Gauthier, 2021. "Putting Clio Back in Cliometrics," Working Papers hal-03289608, HAL.
    5. Matthew O. Jackson & Brian W. Rogers, 2007. "Meeting Strangers and Friends of Friends: How Random Are Social Networks?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 890-915, June.
    6. Laurent Gauthier, 2022. "Putting Clio Back in Cliometrics," Post-Print hal-03289608, HAL.
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    Cited by:

    1. Laurent Gauthier, 2021. "The Cliometrics of Onomastics: Modeling Who's Who in Ancient Greece," Working Papers hal-03370259, HAL.

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    Keywords

    Ancient Greece; Cliometrics; complexity; power laws; networks;
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