G. E. M. de Ste. Croix | |
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| Born | Geoffrey Ernest Maurice de Ste. Croix 8 February 1910 |
| Died | 5 February 2000(2000-02-05) (aged 89) Oxford, England |
| Spouses | |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | University College, London |
| Influences | A. H. M. Jones |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Ancient history |
| Institutions | |
| Notable students | |
| Main interests | |
| Notable works | The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981) |
Geoffrey Ernest Maurice de Ste. Croix,FBA (/dəseɪntˈkrɔɪ/; 8 February 1910 – 5 February 2000), known informally asCroicks,[1] was a British historian who specialised in examiningAncient Greece from aMarxist perspective. He was Fellow and Tutor in Ancient History atNew College, Oxford, from 1953 to 1977, where he taught scholars includingRobin Lane Fox,Robert Parker andNicholas Richardson.
Ste. Croix (Sainte Croix) was born on 8 February 1910 inPortuguese Macau, and baptised inSt John's Cathedral, Hong Kong.[2][3] His parents were also born in China to British expatriates. His father, Ernest Henry de Ste Croix, who died when he was four, was an official in theChinese Customs. TheirHuguenot ancestors fled toJersey during the time ofLouis XIV.[2] His mother, Florence Annie (née MacGowan), was the daughter of a Protestant missionary: she was a firm believer inBritish Israelism.[3] Herfundamentalist 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.[3] Ste Croix was educated atClifton College, then an all-boysprivate school inBristol, England.[4] There, he became proficient in Latin and Greek, and a talented tennis player.[3] He won the under-16 South of England championship, and would go on to compete atWimbledon in 1930, 1931, and 1932.[3][5] He had once defeatedFred Perry in a minor tournament.[2][1]
He left school at the age of 15 and became anarticled clerk inWorthing, West Sussex, England. This allowed him to train for a legal career without a degree in law, and he was admitted as asolicitor 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 "thoroughlyright-wing upbringing",[2] he was drawn to theleft. He visited Russia in 1935 or 1936 as a member of theCommunist Party of Great Britain but moved away from the party after theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pact.[6] He would later join theLabour Party.[3]
In 1940, Ste. Croix was called up for military service in theSecond World War.[3] On 18 July 1941, he was commissioned in theRoyal Air Force (RAF) as anacting pilot officer (on probation) with seniority from 12 June 1941.[7] He was regraded as apilot officer (on probation) on 18 September 1941.[8] His commission was confirmed on 18 July 1942, and he was promoted toflying officer on 18 September 1942 with seniority in that rank from 12 August 1942.[9] His job in the RAF was to interpret enemy radar signals to ascertain the location and destination of their aircraft.[2] He served most of the War in the Middle East, stationed atIsmailia,Alexandria, andCyrenaica:[2] in Egypt he had the opportunity to expand his knowledge ofancient languages.[1] An atheist, he fought for, and was eventually allowed, exemption from the required Sunday services.[2]
In 1946, having been demobbed from the RAF, Ste. Croix matriculated intoUniversity College, London (UCL), to study ancient history: he preferred London overOxbridge, because it offered a history course coveringc. 3000 BC to the death ofHeraclius in AD 641, notclassics (with its focus on language and philosophy).[2] His main tutor wasA. 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 afirst-classBachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1949.[10] He was awarded aDoctor of Letters (DLitt) degree by theUniversity of Oxford in 1978.[10]
In 1950, Ste. Croix was appointedassistant lecturer in ancient economic history at theLondon School of Economics.[3] He also taught atBirkbeck College and UCL.[2] He struggled to attract students to his courses and was embarrassed to be a lecturer in "a subject which no one was required or wished to study".[2] In 1953, he was electedfellow and tutor in ancient history atNew College, Oxford:[10] he lived at Oxford for the rest of his life. Due to a long-standing agreement with C. E. Stevens, he ledtutorials in Greek history for classicists from New College andMagdalen College, Oxford: Stevens, in return, taught Roman history.[2] In 1964, he attempted to convince his college to become the first of Oxford's all-male colleges to accept women: he failed, but helped change attitudes through the university.[3] Turning his hand to college administration, he served as Senior Tutor for a number of years.[3] He also held a university lectureship, and gave lecture series in Greek History and topics such as slavery, finance, and food supply.[2][1] He gave the J. H. Gray lectures at theUniversity of Cambridge for the 1972/73 academic year:[10] these lectures developed intoThe Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (1981).[2] He retired from full-time academia in 1977 and was appointedEmeritus Fellow: the college elected him an Honorary Fellow in 1985.[10]
In 1972, Ste. Croix was elected aFellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences.[2] He was awarded theDeutscher Memorial Prize for 1982.[11]
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]
Within the circles of classical scholarship, Ste. Croix—as an exponent of aMarxistepistemological approach—was frequently involved in debate with SirMoses Finley, an advocate ofWeberian societal analysis. The two often exchanged letters and their disagreements were always civil.
Ste. Croix is best known for his booksThe Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972) andThe 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 EmperorsTrajan andDiocletian. Of particular note in this regard are the articles written by Ste. Croix andA. 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.
Ste. Croix's influential articleThe Character of the Athenian Empire, which first appeared inHistoria: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte (1954, 3, pp. 1–41), provoked a fresh debate about the nature of theDelian League and theAthenian Empire which continues to this day. The article was based on a paperThe Alleged Unpopularity of the Athenian Empire delivered to the London Classical Association on 14 June 1950.[12]
The Origins of the Peloponnesian War made several major contributions to scholarship on the subject of thePeloponnesian War betweenSparta andAthens, the major one being a reinterpretation of theMegarian Decree, passed by theAthenian Ekklesia in 432 BC. Most scholarship hitherto had considered the decree to involve economic sanctions by excluding theMegarian state and Megarian traders from access to ports throughout the Athenian Empire. Ste. Croix instead interpreted it as a religious sanction (drawing an analogy with theSpartan demand, in response to the Megarian Decree and other Athenian policies, forAthens 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 was an attempt to establish the validity of ahistorical 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 (§ IThe 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. IIIProperty and the Propertied and IVForms of Exploitation in the Ancient Greek World, and the Small Independent Producer).
Part II contains the historical analysis per se and begins (Ch. VThe 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 Greekdemocracy by the middle of the Romanprincipate. The remaining chapters (VIRome the Suzerain, VIIThe 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 whichsurplus value is generated. Ste. Croix makes the point that themode of surplus extraction is not necessarily the same as themode 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.
| Awards | ||
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| Preceded by Neil Harding | Deutscher Memorial Prize 1982 | Succeeded by |
