On Wednesday, November 20, K. Scarlett Kingsley graced the educational institution College Year in Athens (CYA) with an insightful look at the ever-interconnected relationship between agriculture and warfare. In her talk, “The Perils of Agrarianism: The Breakdown of the Hoplite-Farmer in the Fifth Century BCE,” Kingsley introduced her perspective on this relationship by providing an overview of arguments on the subject from a range of classic texts. Recognizing that her audience likely did not share her same expertise, the decorated scholar, having thoroughly explored this field, nevertheless thoughtfully explained her research in a manner comprehensible to all.
Kingsley is an associate professor of classics at Agnes Scott College and an Elizabeth A. Whitehead Distinguished Scholar at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She is recognized and admired for her research and academic contributions to the field of early Greek historical narrative and philosophy. She has published articles on Herodotus, Thucydides and the Presocratics, and awarded a Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship in 2019-20 for her monograph “Herodotus and the Presocratics: Inquiry and Intellectual Culture in the Fifth Century BCE.”
CYA faculty and students, as well as any guests interested in the subject, given that the event was open to all, attentively sat before Kingsley as she began her presentation on the ancient world in the context of contemporary concerns. She proposed the unending question: “Butter or Guns?” Capitalizing on the example of Nazi Germany, she thought-provokingly introduced what it means for a society to choose militarism over farming. In this sense, she raised the concern of seeking power and security in a strong military presence versus prioritizing the good of the people by ensuring that they are well-fed and nourished. Speaking on this dichotomy of selecting one or the other, Kingsley emphasized that while this seems to be the enduring proposition, farming and militarism are also inextricably linked, and, as she stated, “they cannot be discussed exclusively.” She continues, “This interdependency disrupts the binary.”
Kingsley reviews classical literature that seems to address this central question, including Herodotus, Aristophanes, Plutarch, Plato and Aristotle, to name a few. Using passages from these writers, she argues that warfare and agriculture exist in a state of mutual dependence. While the content of these passages could feel challenging and as if it lay beyond the reach of her non-expert listeners, Kingsley’s audience was up to the task.
Concluding her presentation she brought forth the question of “Butter or Guns?” once more to the modern forefront and stressed the importance of recognizing how societies weigh farming and militarism, what this says about the dynamics of the governing elite and their constituents, and to what extent the former values the latter, especially by observing the patterns of the past and how they persist in the present.
Natalia Rodriguez is an intern for Kathimerini English Edition, and a third-year student at the University of Notre Dame, currently studying abroad in Greece with the College Year in Athens program.