G. E. M. de Ste. Croix

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

G. E. M. de Ste. Croix

Ancient History
Sub-discipline
Institutions
Notable worksThe Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981)

Geoffrey Ernest Maurice de Ste. Croix, FBA (/dəseɪntˈkrɔɪ/; 8 February 1910 – 5 February 2000), known informally as Croicks,[1] was a British historian who specialised in examining Ancient Greece from a Marxist perspective. He was Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History at New College, Oxford, from 1953 to 1977, where he taught scholars including Robin Lane Fox, Robert Parker and Nicholas Richardson.

Early life

Ste. Croix (Sainte Croix) was born on 8 February 1910 in

née MacGowan), was the daughter of a Protestant missionary: she was a firm believer in British Israelism.[3] Her fundamentalist Protestant beliefs were ever present in his childhood: he would become a firm atheist.[2]

After his father's death in 1914, Florence emigrated with her only child to the United Kingdom.

Wimbledon in 1930, 1931, and 1932.[3][5] He had once defeated Fred Perry in a minor tournament.[2][1]

Career

Legal career

He left school at the age of 15 and became an articled clerk in Worthing, West Sussex, England. This allowed him to train for a legal career without a degree in law, and he was admitted as a solicitor in 1932. He practised in Worthing and then in London, until he was called up for war service in 1940.[2][3]

During this time Ste. Croix became interested in politics. Though he had had, according to himself, received a "thoroughly right-wing upbringing",[2] he was drawn to the left. He visited Russia in 1935 or 1936 as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain but moved away from the party after the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.[6] He would later join the Labour Party.[3]

Military service

In 1940, Ste. Croix was called up for military service in the

ancient languages.[1] An atheist, he fought for, and was eventually allowed, exemption from the required Sunday services.[2]

Academic career

In 1946, having been demobbed from the RAF, Ste. Croix matriculated into

University College, London (UCL) to study ancient history: he preferred London over Oxbridge, because it offered a history course covering c. 3000BC to the death of Heraclius in AD641, not classics (with its focus on language and philosophy).[2] His main tutor was A. H. M. Jones, the college's new chair of the Ancient History, who remained an influencing figure on Ste. Croix's work beyond his graduation.[2][3] He graduated from University College, London with a first-class Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1949.[10] He was awarded a Doctor of Letters (DLitt) degree by the University of Oxford in 1978.[10]

In 1950, Ste. Croix was appointed

Emeritus Fellow: the college elected him an Honorary Fellow in 1985.[10]

In 1972, Ste. Croix was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[2] He was awarded the Deutscher Memorial Prize for 1982.[11]

Personal life

In 1932, Ste. Croix married Lucile. Together they had one daughter (died 1964). The couple divorced in 1959. That year, he married Margaret Knight. He had two sons from his second marriage.[2][10]

Ste. Croix died on 5 February 2000 in Oxford, England.[3]

Work

De Ste. Croix used this picture (The Potato Eaters by Van Gogh, 1885) as the frontispiece for his book The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World

Within the circles of classical scholarship, Ste. Croix—as an exponent of a Marxist epistemological approach—was frequently involved in debate with Sir Moses Finley, an advocate of Weberian societal analysis. The two often exchanged letters and their disagreements were always civil.

Ste. Croix is best known for his books The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972) and The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (1981). He was also a noted contributor on the issue of Christian persecution between the reigns of the Roman Emperors Trajan and Diocletian. Of particular note in this regard are the articles written by Ste. Croix and A. N. Sherwin-White, each challenging the opinions of the other. There were four in total, displaying the light-hearted banter evident also in Ste. Croix's correspondence with Moses Finley.

The Character of the Athenian Empire (1954)

Ste. Croix's influential article The Character of the Athenian Empire, which first appeared in Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte (1954, 3, pp. 1–41), provoked a fresh debate about the nature of the

Athenian Empire which continues to this day. The article was based on a paper The Alleged Unpopularity of the Athenian Empire delivered to the London Classical Association on 14 June 1950.[12]

The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972)

The Origins of the Peloponnesian War made several major contributions to scholarship on the subject of the

Athens to expel some religiously-tainted citizens). Ste. Croix maintained that the sanction was exercised not to hurt the Megarians, which it could not do because of the nature of trade and economics in the ancient world, but on religious grounds, which were felt to be genuine by the Athenians. His argument has not achieved general acceptance among historians.[13]

Ernst Badian severely judged Ste. Croix's book for his "obsessive hatred of Sparta". In his opinion, the book was "written to prove that Sparta bears almost sole responsibility for the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War".[14]

The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981)

Main article: The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World

The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World was an attempt to establish the validity of a historical materialist analysis of the ancient Greek and Roman world. It covers the period roughly from Greek pre-classical times to the Arab conquest. Part one addresses fundamental topics. After an expository plan chapter II (Class, Exploitation, and Class Struggle) begins with an apologia of Ste. Croix's understanding of basic classical Marxist theory (§ I The nature of class society) and some specific terms (§ II "Class', 'exploitation', and 'the class struggle' defined). The remainder of Part One is a detailed analysis of these concepts applied to the Ancient Greek World (Chs. III Property and the Propertied and IV Forms of Exploitation in the Ancient Greek World, and the Small Independent Producer).

Part II contains the historical analysis per se and begins (Ch. V The Class Struggle in Greek History on the Political Plane) with an exposition of how the economic processes addressed in part I lead to a gradual but complete eradication of Greek democracy by the middle of the Roman principate. The remaining chapters (VI Rome the Suzerain, VII The Class Struggle on the Ideological Plane, and VIII "The Decline and Fall" of the Roman Empire: an Explanation) focus primarily on Rome and put forth the thesis that it was the increasing dependence on slave labor and diminishment of what would be considered in a modern context the middle classes that was the actual cause of the collapse. There is also a lengthy discussion of the significance of the mode by which surplus value is generated. Ste. Croix makes the point that the mode of surplus extraction is not necessarily the same as the mode of production engaged in by a majority of the population. Specifically, that while a relatively small portion of the work force were slaves, Rome under the principate nonetheless became essentially a slave society.

Selected publications

  • "The character of the Athenian empire" in Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 1954, 3, pp. 1–41.
  • "Greek And Roman Accounting" 1956.
  • The Origins of the Peloponnesian War. London: Duckworth, 1972.
  • Early Christian attitudes to property and slavery. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975.
  • The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests. London, Duckworth, 1981.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Harvey, David (10 February 2000). "Geoffrey de Ste Croix". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Parker, Robert (2001). "Geoffrey Ernest Maurice de Ste. Croix 1910–2000" (PDF). Proceedings of the British Academy. 111: 447–78. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2020. Retrieved 16 January 2021.
  3. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73730. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  4. ^ "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p377: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948
  5. ^ "Players Archive: Geoffrey de Ste. Croix". The Wimbledon Championships. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016.
  6. ^ "G. E. M. de Ste. Croix - Brave New Classics". 27 February 2023. Retrieved 3 February 2024.
  7. ^ "No. 35247". The London Gazette. 15 August 1941. pp. 4733–4734.
  8. ^ "No. 35279". The London Gazette. 19 September 1941. p. 5440.
  9. ^ "No. 35809". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 December 1942. pp. 5280–5281.
  10. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-954089-1
    . Retrieved 16 January 2021.
  11. ^ "Past Recipients". The Deutscher Memorial Prize. 10 June 2014. Retrieved 16 January 2021.
  12. ^ de Ste Croix, G.E.M. (1954) "The character of the Athenian empire", Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte, 3, p. 1.
  13. ^ Chester Starr, in The American Historical Review (v. 78, no. 3, p. 663) described The Origins of the Peloponnesian War as "superb in its argumentation and wrongheaded in its thrust."
  14. ^ Badian, "Agis III: Revisions and Reflections", p. 258.

Further reading

External links
Awards
Preceded by
Neil Harding
 Deutscher Memorial Prize
1982 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=G._E._M._de_Ste._Croix&oldid=1206713924"