The Emergence of ‘great Man Theory’ in Classical Greece?

he history of the world is but the biography of great men’, wrote Thomas Carlyle in 1841. His aphorism captures the conviction of many historians in the nineteenth century that individual agents make history. One of the few dissenting voices was Herbert Spencer, who pointed out that Carlyle and other historians downplayed the eminent role of society. In the long run, Spencer’s critique of Carlyle seems to have carried the day. While in the 1890s Karl Lamprecht still incurred the scorn of his peers when he privileged economic and cultural structures over political and military deeds, the success of the French Annales school in the second part of the twentieth century and the continuing sway of cultural history have sidelined the achievements of individuals. History seems to reside in structures to be explored with the sociologist’s toolbox, or in the everyday life that requires historians to become anthropologists. That being said, there are still historians who would unflinchingly subscribe to Carlyle’s view of history. More importantly, the huge market for historical biographies indicates that the ‘Great Man theory’ continues to resonate with readers outside the narrow confines of academia. Sarah Brown Ferrario’s Historical Agency and the ‘Great Man’ in Classical Greece is not concerned with the methodological issues of the modern discipline of history, but she explores what could be termed the ‘ancient foundations’ of the ‘Great man theory’. The argument of her book is that there is a development from early Athenian democracy which highlighted the polis as agent to Alexander, arguably the most fulgent of ‘great men’. In Brown Ferrario’s eyes, Alexander is the ‘culmination’ (354) of a trajectory in which the notion of individual agency becomes increasingly prominent. I shall first summarise the seven chapters, which, together with an introduction and a conclusion, trace this trajectory.