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Bearing this in mind, let us take a brief look at the data at our disposal for the archaic Greek world.

Insiders always know who is and who is not one of them, based on various and often very vague criteria, often without recourse to definite standards. Ideally, as in Homer, members of elite circles would interact with one another on an equal footing long before they are formally introduced, on the basis of their good looks. In archaic Greek sympotic poetry, the elite insiders would characterize themselves as elite-members and deplore the infringements on their status by the arrivistes. However, it is not entirely clear for an outside observer what might be the criteria of legitimate membership in such inner circles beside being well born, a criterion which in the elegiac poet Theognis may itself be ambivalent (cf. Węcowski 2014: 56–65).⁵ Even more so would be the criterion of wealth, often lamented in the Theognidea (e.g., 149–150; 155–158; 165–166; 173–180) as not duly accompanying the aristoi (“the best ones”) but bestowed by the gods on commoners (kakoi, “the vile ones”). The only absolute standard, then, may be the ambition to fulfill a set of social ideals sometimes subsumed under the notion of aretē (“excellence” or “virtue”). But even aretē, as often emphasized by the moralizing Theognis, can only be earned or proven in the eyes of their peers (cf. 147–148; 150; 335–336; 465–466). Moreover, in the eyes of a Persian outsider in Herodotus (8.26.3), it is all Greeks that compete, or witness others competing, for aretē (instead of material gain) in the athletic contests at Olympia. Logically, then, all the citizens of the Greek cities could naturally aspire to the aristocratic ideal. When they prove themselves victorious, the divine grace itself may seal their advent to the ranks of aristocracy.

From the perspective of Herodotus’ Histories, our main narrative source for the historical period under scrutiny, things look even more confusing. Herodotus never explicitly touches upon the status of “aristocrats,” or Greek elites. He usually takes their being aristocrats for granted and only deals with this issue when confronted with abnormal circumstances. Thus, when a former collaborator of the tyrant Polycrates (3.142.5), Maiandrios, magnanimously decides to restore political freedom to his fellow citizens on Samos, he must face accusations of being unworthy of leadership as being born “lowly” (kakōs). In Athens, Miltiades the Elder is described in some detail as “belonging to a four-horse family,” i.e., to a horse-breeding family who was successful in racing competitions, as well as ultimately stemming from an important hero Aiakos. But this is only mentioned because it helps Herodotus explain that Miltiades was powerful (ἐδυνάστευε) in Athens despite the fact that the city was ruled by the tyrant Pisistratus at the time (6.35.1–2). In other words, occasional glimpses do not allow us to decide with any precision who was and who was not an aristocrat in the eyes of Herodotus and more importantly of his public.

The closest we come to this is the episode of the wedding of Agariste, daughter of Cleisthenes the tyrant of Sicyon (6.126–130). Here, the mixed bunch of her suitors is supposed to compete in andragathiē, the “manly virtue,” which may be understood here as particular competences testifying to their aretē. While the tyrant will test them all year long in athletics and in table manners at their nocturnal symposia (see below), they arrive already equipped with some renown. Perhaps too young to have already earned their own celebrity, they can still boast about their fathers’ or their elder brothers’ lavish lifestyle, family riches, good looks, wisdom, athletic victories, exceptional physical strength, family connections to powerful tyrants, and even personal familiarity with gods (6.127).

To sum up, Herodotus’ audience must have instinctively been able to recognize the outstanding aristocrats as such, and the only criterion seems to have been some sort of celebrity, with good birth as an ideological sine qua non. Most often, however, we will only learn of an individual that he was notable (δόκιμος, δοκιμώτατος, or λόγιμος), powerful (e.g., he ἐδυνάστευε in his city), or had a great power (κράτος) in his local community.⁶

When it comes to describing social groups in Herodotus, we are on much safer ground. True, he does deal with a few exceptional cases of seemingly closed oligarchic groups, such as the Corinthian Bacchiadai, the Eretrian Hippobotai (lit. “feeders of horses,” as in 5.77.2–3; 6.100.1), or the γαμόροι (lit. “the landowners,” as in 7.155.2) of Syracuse. But besides the aberrant case of the Corinthian oligarchs, explicitly characterized as such in the story of their merciless exclusivism (5.92.b 1–e 2), the other group names seem only to add local flavor to a general phenomenon we can consistently observe in Herodotus. Namely, those in a more elevated social position are always described as “the wealthy ones,” or literally “the fat ones” (παχέες, as in 5.30; 5.77.2–3; 6.91.1; 7.156.2–3).

Thus far, both the individual and the group characterization of the elites in Herodotus seem at first to confirm Alain Duplouy’s idea that it is impossible to find an operative definition of the Greek “aristocracy” as a social group. However, one more aspect of Herodotus’ narrative should attract our attention here. Namely, the “wealthy ones,” the παχέες, are sharply contrasted with the dēmos. At several occasions, we hear of political fights between the two groups, resulting at some point in the expulsion of the παχέες from Naxos (5.30). On Aegina, however, the παχέες, led by a certain Nikodromos, had the upper hand over the dēmos and even massacred 700 of them (6.91.1–2). Even more importantly, when the tyrant Gelon’s mass deportations in Sicily reached Megara Hyblea, he brought the παχέες of this city to Syracuse and bestowed citizenship on them, while selling the dēmos of Megara into slavery. He did the same with the Euboeans of Sicily (7.156.2–3).

This last case is revealing because it shows that the contrast between the dēmos and “the wealthy ones,” while often subjective, can nevertheless be used as a legal or socio-political criterion of some precision. In other words, at any given time both fellow citizens and outsiders were perfectly capable of defining the “aristocrats” of any given community. Such groups, without being legally determined or constitutionally defined, and probably fluid in their social composition given the strength of the wealth criterion and so the potential influx of the nouveaux-riches stigmatized by Theognis, were nonetheless distinguishable. Let us try to compile and to analyze the set of criteria that made this possible.