Also included supporting
countryside with small villages
Polis was the people rather
than the urban center
Polis
could
pull up stakes and decamp; Athens fled to
Salamis, city destroyed by Persians,
but polis survived.
Particular
patron/protector
god or goddess
a.Both Athens and Sparta
had Athena as patron/protector.
b.
Group
religious allegiance and cult practices –
animal sacrifice.
Citizenship
–
partnership among citizens – perhaps
influenced by foreign contact: Cyprus,
Phoenecia
a.Males citizens had full
political participation rights, but
women still counted as citizens of the
community legally, socially, and
religiously.
b.All citizens
theoretically equal, but aristocrats and
oligarchs were (Orwellian) “more
equal.”
Aristotle
(384-322
BC) on the city state:
a.Emergence of the polis
the inevitable result of forces of
nature (i.e., combined effect of social
and economic forces):“Humans
are beings who by nature live in a
polis.”
b.Aristotle only
half-jokingly maintained thatanyone
who existed outside the community of a
polis must be either a beast or a
deity.
The
Greek poleis in the archaic
period:
The
Archaic period
politically is characterized by the waning
rule of the aristocracy. The
Greek states were generally ruled by an
elite of birth and wealth. However,
social unrest is created by the power
abuses of the aristocracy, the economic
problems created through the
concentration of wealth in a few hands and
increasing poor populations, and the
new challenges of an ever changing world.
Laws are introduced in many Greek
states for the first time, in an attempt
to redress the extremes of
aristocratic rule and calm the spirits.
These often are not far-reaching enough
to deal with the source of the problem.
Tyrants (dictators) take advantage of
the popular unrest in several city states
and seize control from the
aristocracy. Greek Lyric poetry has
encapsulated the restless spirit of the
time.
Two
examples of Archaic Poleis:
SpartaAthens
The
Spartan
Constitution in the 7th C. BCThe
Athenian Constitution in
the 7th c. BC
2
kings9 archons
influential
but powerless
in SpartaExtensive
executive responsibilities
Absolute
power outside
Sparta as (Social policy,
religion, judicial system)
leaders
of the army
5
ephors
The
most powerful body in
Sparta
gerousiaAreopagos Council
Legal
ResponsibilitiesLegal
Responsibilities, extensive power
Assembly
(Apella)Assembly
Very
limited powersVery limited
powers
In the archaic period
both Athens and Sparta have similar
constitutions. However, while the Athenian
constitution constantly evolves to
meet the changing needs of an ever growing
state, the Spartan constitution
stands still and inflexible through the
centuries. Ancient authors often praise
the stability of the Spartan system and
criticize the constant changes in the
Athenian system, but in reality, this
inflexibility proves to be the downfall
of Sparta.
The
evolution towards the Classical
Period
In Athens the
tyrant
Peisistratos enfranchises all free
Athenian born males and makes them
citizens,
regardless of land ownership, wealth or
social status. Kleisthenes takes it one
step further and introduces the Moderate
Democracy in 509. The archons lose
some of their power which goes to the
Assembly, and the Assembly becomes the
sovereign body. However, the highest
offices of the state are still closed to
the lower classes. They can elect people
for these offices but not be
elected.
A
further reform in 462 by
Ephialtes removes the last vestiges of the
aristocratic state, strips the
Areopagos of its powers to oversee the
state and interfere at will into public
matters, and opens all offices to all
Athenians. Now every citizen has an equal
right of speech (isegoria),
and treatment
before the law (isonomia).
Scholars
call this final phase in the evolution of
the democratic constitution 'The
Radical Democracy'.
In Sparta very
little changes
throughout the classical period. The
reverence towards the laws of Sparta,
beaten into its citizens from a very young
age, is far stronger than any
practical considerations. By the beginning
of the 4th century, when
Spartan power reaches its peak, the
Archaic system of Sparta looks really
archaic, like an anomaly in time, and
eventually proves to be a great
impediment.Citizenship remains tied to
land ownership, and citizens who cannot
afford to pay their way lose their
status as fully enfranchised Spartan
citizens and become inferiors (hypomeiones).
Over time this results to
a low birth rate and reduction of the
citizen body. By the middle of the 4th
century this demographic problem becomes
critical. Sparta still refuses to
change its constitution, and fades into
insignificance.
Athens and Sparta
Table of contents
Athens:
1
Development of Athenian Democracy
2 Draco
(Lawgiver)
3 Draconian
Constitution
4Solon
5Reforms
of Solon
6Peisistratos
7Cleisthenes
8a Symposium
8b Athens Economy 9a Archaic
Greece Timeline
9b Archaic Greek legends
9c Internet
Links Sparta:
10 Archaic Age Sparta
11 Late Archaic City-State --
Sparta 12 Sparta (Ancient Hiistory
Encyclopedia)
13 Art and Craft in Archaic
Sparta
14 Comparing Spartan and Athenian
Constitutions 15a How Sparta Became Spartan
15b Great Rhetra
16a Spartan Constitution
16b Syssition
16c Inside the Spartan Syssition
(Meal plans)
17 Sparta Economy
18 Internet Links
Christopher
W. Blackwell, edition of January 24, 2003
· Summary ·
This
article was originally written for the online discussion
series “Athenian Law in its Democratic Context,”
organized by Adriaan Lanni and sponsored by Harvard
University’s Center for Hellenic
Studies. Its purpose is to introduce, very
briefly, the origins and development of Athenian
democracy, from the 6th
century BCE through the end of the 5th century. This is
a companion-piece to the “Overview of Athenian
Democracy,” also written for the CHS’s discussion series, which
will be present as a component of Dēmos: Classical
Athenian Democracy after the discussion series
has taken place.
· Introduction ·
This brief
survey of the development and early history of Athenian
democracy is a supplement to “Overview of Athenian
Democracy,” which appears elsewhere in this
series. The first paragraphs of that article describe
how the Greek word Demos (δῆμος,
pronounced “day-moss”) has several meanings, all of them
important for Athenian democracy. Demos is the Greek
word for “village” or, as it is often translated,
“deme.” The deme was the smallest administrative unit of
the Athenian state, like a voting precinct or school
district. Young men, who were 18 years old presented
themselves to officials of their deme and, having proven
that they were not slaves, that their parents were
Athenian, and that they were 18 years old, were enrolled
in the “Assembly List” (the πίναξἐκκλησιαστικός)
(see Dem. 44.35; Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 42.1).
Another
meaning of Demos, to the Athenians, was “People,” as in
the People of Athens, the body of citizens collectively.
So a young man was enrolled in his “demos” (deme), and
thus became a member of the “Demos” (the People). As a
member of the Demos, this young man could participate in
the Assembly of
Citizens that was the central institution of the
democracy. The Greek word for “Assembly” is ekklesia
(ἐκκλησία),
but the Athenians generally referred to it as the
“Demos.” Decrees of the Assembly began with
the phrase “It seemed best to the Demos,…”, very much
like the phrase “We the People…” that introduces the
Constitution of the United States. In this context,
“Demos” was used to make a distinction between the Assembly of all
citizens and the Council of 500
citizens, another institution of the democracy (see
below). So some decrees might begin “It seemed best to
the Demos…”, others
might begin “It seemed best to the Council…”, and
still others might begin, “It seemed best to the Demos and the Council….”
So the
Athenian Demos was the local village, the population
generally, and the assembly of citizens that governed
the state. The idea of the Demos was a potent one in Athens of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.
It had not
always been the case. The Iliad—the work of
literature that was the shared text for all
Greeks—describes a world whose values pre-date those of
the Athenian democracy. One passage from it, especially,
suggests that the idea of the “demos” changed
dramatically in the years leading up to the 5th century. Here,
the Greek general Agamemnon has
decided, for no particularly good reason, to test the
resolve of his army. The test consisted of him
suggesting that they abandon their siege of Troy and go home.
Evidently the Greeks failed, since with this suggestion
they rose to their feet and ran joyously to their ships.
The warrior Odysseus, who was
party to Agamemnon’s
scheme, went about urging the men to return to their
places:
“Whenever
he encountered some king, or man of influence
he would stand beside him and with soft words try to
restrain him:
‘Excellency! It does not become you to be frightened
like any
coward. Rather hold fast and check the rest of the
people….’
When he saw some man of the People [demos in
the Greek — CWB] who was shouting,
he would strike at him with his staff, and reprove him
also:
‘Excellency! Sit still and listen to what others tell
you,
to those who are better men than you, you skulker and
coward
and thing of no account whatever in battle or council.
Surely not all of us Achaians can be
as kings here.
Lordship for many is no good thing. Let there be one
ruler,
one king, to whom the son of devious-devising Kronos
gives the sceptre and right of judgement, to watch
over his people.’”
(Iliad
2.118-206; R. Lattimore, trans.)
The Homeric
hero Odysseus did not
favor putting rule into the hands of the Demos. What
happened, then, to change the status of the Demos from
that of a lowly mob, to be beaten down with a stick, to
that of the ruling People of classical Athens?
· A Reformer and a
Tyrant ·
In the
earliest history of the Greek world, as far as anyone
can tell, the political landscape consisted of
small-time “kings” ruling over their own homes and
immediate surroundings. In certain places, individual
kings acquired power over larger territories, and
influence over neighboring kings. This is what the world
depicted in the Homeric epics looks like.
The
Athenians thought that the mythological hero Theseus was their
first king, and they attributed to him the birth of the
Athenian state. Before Theseus, the
peninsula of Attica was home
to various, independent towns and villages, with Athens being the
largest. Theseus, when he
had gained power in Athens, abolished
the local governments in the towns; the people kept
their property, but all were governed from a single
political center at Athens. The
Greeks called this process of bringing many settlements
together into a political unity synoikism (συνοίκισις)
(See Thuc. 2.15.1-2).
Whether or not Theseus had
anything to do with this, the fact remains that, when
the Greek world moved from prehistory into historical
times, the Attic peninsula
was a unified political state with Athens at its
center.
During the
8th and 7th centuries
BCE (the 700s
and 600s), Athens moved from
being ruled by a king to being ruled by a small number
of wealthy, land-owning aristocrats. Aristotle’s Constitution
of the Athenians, a description of Athenian
government, says that the status of “King” (basileus,
βασιλεύς)
became a political office, one of three “Rulers” or “Archons” under the
new system, and Athens came to be governed by the King Archon, the War-Lord, and the Archon (this last
sometimes called the Eponymous Archon,
because the year was identified by his name).
“Appointment to the supreme offices of state went by
birth and wealth; and they were held at first for life,
and afterwards for a term of ten years.” Later, six
other Archons were added
to the role. These Nine Archons ruled
the Athenians, along with the Council of the Areopagus,
which consisted of all former Archons, serving on
this board for life (See Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 3).
In the
latter part of the 7th
century, perhaps in the 630s, an Athenian
named Cylon won the
double foot-race at the Olympic Games and became a
celebrity. He used his earned fame to gather a group of
supporters, seized the Acropolis, and
attempted to make himself tyrant of Athens. The
attempt was a complete failure and ended with Cylon and his
party hiding by the statue of Athene,
surrounded by an angry mob. Lured out by promises of
their own safety, Cylon and his men
were killed by members of the aristocratic family called
the Alcmeonidae (see
Paus. 1.40.1; Paus. 1.28.1; Paus. 7.25.3; Hdt. 5.71). This
was a political crisis, both because of the attempted
coup by an upstart and because of his murder by the
arisocrats—he had claimed the goddess’s protection,
which ought to have been respected. Whether this crisis
brought about subsequent political changes we cannot
tell, but it certainly left its mark on Athenian
politics. The old families could not longer be confident
in ruling at will forever, and the stain on the
reputation of the Alcmeonidae
lasted for hundreds of years—it would cause trouble for
Pericles, an
Alcmeonid, in the 5th
century.
About ten
years later, in 621 or
620 BCE, the Athenians enlisted a certain
Draco to make new
laws for them. According to Aristotle’s
description of these laws, the new Consitution gave
political rights to those Athenians “who bore arms,” in
other words, those Athenians wealthy enough to afford
the bronze armor and weapons of a hoplite (see Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 4, although some of the details given
there may have been invented during the 4th century BCE). Draco’s laws were
most notable for their harshness: there was only one
penalty prescribed, death, for every crime from murder
down to loitering (see Plut. Sol.
17.1). For this reason, later Athenians would find
irony in the lawgiver’s name (“Draco” means “serpent”),
and his reforms have given us the English word
“draconian”.
Draco’s laws did
not avert the next crisis, which pitted the wealthy
against the poor. Poor citizens, in years of poor
harvests, had to mortgage portions of their land to
wealthier citizens in exchange for food and seed to
plant. Having lost the use of a portion of their land,
they were even more vulnerable to subsequent hardships
(see Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 2.1-2). Eventually, many of these
Athenians lost the use of their land altogether, and
became tenant-farmers, virtually (or perhaps actually)
slaves to the wealthy. The resulting crisis threatened
both the stability and prosperity of Athens. In 594, however, the Athenians
selected Solon to revise
their laws.
Solon’s laws,
even though they did not establish a democracy as
radical as what would follow, nevertheless became the
template for all future Athenian government. It was
common for Athenians, for the next 200 years, to
describe subsequent legal innovations in terms of their
fidelity to the “Solonian Constitution” (whether or not
those innovations remotely resembled the laws of Solon). So, after
the brief rule of the “Thirty Tyrants” at the end of the
5th century BCE,
when the Athenians were restoring their democracy, the
first thing they did was to re-affirm the Laws of Solon, using that
as a base to reconstruct their damaged constitution (Andoc. 1.83-84).
Solon took steps
to alleviate the crisis of debt that the poor suffered,
and to make the constitution of Athens somewhat more
equitable. He abolished the practice of giving loans
with a citizen’s freedom as collateral, the practice
that had made slaves of many Athenians (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 9.1). He gave every Athenian the right
to appeal to a jury, thus taking ultimate authority for
interpreting the law out of the hands of the Nine
Archons and putting it in the hands of a more democratic
body, since any citizen could serve on a jury (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 9.1; Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 7.3). Otherwise, he divided the
population into four classes, based on wealth, and
limited the office of Archon to members of the top three
classes (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 7.3).
Formerly,
the Council of the Areopagus, which
consisted of former Archons, chose the
Nine Archons each
year—a self-perpetuating system that ensured that the
office of Archon was held
only by aristocrats. Solon had all of
the Athenians elect a short-list of candidates for the
Archonship, from which the Nine Archons were
chosen by lot (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 8.1); the office was still limited to
citizens of a certain class, but it was no longer
limited to members of a few families. How, precisely,
laws came to be passed under the Constitution of Solon is not
entirely clear, but there was an Assembly, in which
every citizen could participate (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 7.3), a Council of 400
citizens chosen probably from the top three property
classes (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 8.4), with the Areopagus being
charged with “guarding the laws” (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 8.4). Regardless of the details, it
does seem that the Archons were still
a very important element of Athenian government, since
(as Aristotle notes),
in subsequent years, much political strife seemed to
focus on them (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 13.2).
So Athens under Solon had many
elements that would later be a part of the radical
democracy—democratic juries, an Assembly and a Council, selection
of officials by lot rather than by vote—while retaining
many oligarchic elements in the form of property
qualifications and a powerful Council of the Areopagus.
According
to the Constitution of the Athenians
attributed traditionally to Aristotle, Solon himself was
from an aristocratic family, while his personal wealth
put him in the middle-class of Athenians, and his
sympathy for the injustices against the poor made him a
champion of the people generally. This combination was a
recipe for tyranny—tyrannies were common in the Greek
world during the 6th
century, as certain individuals made
themselves champions of the poor in order to seize
power—but Solon was no
tyrant. According to Herodotus, after
formulating these new laws for a new Athenian
Constitution, Solon made the people swear to obey them,
unchanged, for ten years, then went abroad from Athens
to avoid being badgered into changing anything (Hdt. 1.29.1).
Solon’s
constitution did not solve all of Athens’ problems,
and the city descended back into a state of strife, with
various factions, each with its own interests, vying for
power (Hdt. 1.59; Plut. Sol.
29). This state of affairs continued from about 595 BCE down to 546 BCE,
when an Athenian named Pisistratus,
after several failed attempts, finally established
himself as Tyrant over the Athenians.
The reign
of the tyrant Pisistratus seems
to have been relatively benign. The 5th-century
historian Thucydides
concluded his brief account of the tyrant’s reign by
saying, “the city was left in full enjoyment of its
existing laws, except that care was always taken to have
the offices in the hands of some one of the family” (Thuc. 6.54.6).
Like all tyrants, Pisistratus
depended to a certain extent on the goodwill of the
people for his position, and by ensuring that both rich
and poor Athenians received fair treatment, he was able
to rule for almost twenty years and die of natural
causes (see Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 17.1). After his death, his sons Hippias and Hipparchus
continued the tyranny for another seventeen years. Hipparchus was
assasinated in 514 BCE,
and in 510 BCE the
aristocratic Alcmeonidae
family with an army from Sparta helping
them, expelled Hippias and
brought an end to tyranny in Athens (Hdt. 5.62; Thuc. 6.59.4).
· Cleisthenes,
Democracy, and Persia ·
After the
end of the tyranny, two factions competed for power to
reshape the government of Athens. One was
led by Isagoras, whom Aristotle calls a
“friend of the tyrants” (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 20.1). The other was led by Cleisthenes, who
was an Alcmeonid aristocrat (Hdt. 5.66.1). Isagoras won a
minor victory by getting himself chosen as Archon in 508. But Cleisthenes,
taking a page out of the tyrant’s textbook, “took the
People [Aristotle says
‘demos’] into his party” and used the support of the
lower classes to impose a series of reforms (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 20.1). Isagoras, using
the example of recent history, called on the Spartan
king Cleomenes to help
him evict Cleisthenes from
the city. While that had worked well for the Alcmeonidae
earlier, it failed this time; when Isagoras and the
Spartans occupied the city and tried to disband the
government and expel seven hundred families, the
Athenians rose up against them and drove them out (Hdt. 5.72).
So Cleisthenes was
free to impose his reforms, which he did during the last decade of the 6th century.
These mark the beginning of classical Athenian
democracy, since (with a few brief exceptions) they
organized Attica into the
political landscape that would last for the next two
centuries. His reforms, seen broadly, took two forms: he
refined the basic institutions of the Athenian
democracy, and he redefined fundamentally how the people
of Athens saw
themselves in relation to each other and to the state.
Since the Introduction to
Athenian Democracy is devoted to its various
institutions, so for the moment we can focus on the new
Athenian identity that Cleisthenes
imposed.
Cleisthenes’s
reforms aimed at breaking the power of the aristocratic
families, replacing regional loyalties (and
factionalism) with pan-Athenian solidarity, and
preventing the rise of another tyrant.
Cleisthenes made
the “deme” or village into the fundamental unit of
political organization and managed to convince the
Athenians to adopt their deme-name into their own. So,
where formerly an Athenian man would have identified
himself as “Demochares, son
of Demosthenes”, after
Cleisthenes’
reforms he would have been more likely to identify
himself as “Demochares from Marathon.” Using
“demotic” names in place of “patronymic” names
de-emphasized any connection (or lack thereof) to the
old arisoctratic families and emphasized his place in
the new political community of Athens (for
demes, see Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 21.4).
Each deme
had a “demarch”, like a mayor, who was in charge of the
deme’s most important functions (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 21.5): keeping track of new citizens,
as young men came of age (Dem. 57.60),
keeping track of all citizens from the deme eligible to
participate in the Assembly (Dem. 44.35), and
selecting citizens from the deme each year to serve on
the Council (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 21.5).
The
peninsula of Attica consisted
of three more-or-less distinct geographical areas: the
coast, the countryside, and the urban area around the
city of Athens itself.
Traditionally residents of these areas had their own
concerns, and often conducted politics according to
regional interests. To counteract this tendency, and to
encourage Athenian politics to focus on interests common
to all Athenians, Cleisthenes
further organized the population. Each of the 139 demes
he assigned to one of thirty trittyes (τριττύες),
or “Thirds”. Ten of the Thirds were coastal, ten were in
the inland, and ten were in and around the city.
These
Thirds were then assigned to ten Tribes (phylai,
φυλαί),
in such a way that each Tribe contained three Thirds,
one from the coast, one from the inland, and one from
the city. Each of these ten Tribes sent 50 citizens each
year to serve on the new Council of 500.
So, while
local politics, registration of citizens and selections
of candidates for certain offices, happened in the
demes, the tribes were the units of organization that
figured most prominently in the overall governing of Athens. Citizens
from all parts of Attica worked
together, within their tribes, to govern the city (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 21.3).
To prevent
regionalism from creeping back into the system as people
changed their address, Cleisthenes
decreed that a citizen, once assigned to a deme, must
retain that deme-affiliation even if he moved to another
part of Attica (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 42.1). Evidence from the 5th and 4th centuries show
many people living in the city of Athens, but
identifying themselves with rural demes. In fact, even
the rural demes often held their meetings in Athens itself (Dem. 57.10).
So, there
was a tendency for deme-level politics to be dominated
by people who had not moved into the city, but for
national politics—service on juries, in the Council, and the
magistracies—to be dominated by Athenians who, although
members of demes located all over the peninsula, were
full-time residents of the city and its immediate
environs.
All of
these reforms constituted a remarkable re-shaping of
Athenian society along new lines. Old associations, by
region or according to families, were broken. Citizenship and the
ability to enjoy the rights of citizens were in the
hands of immediate neighbors, but the governing of Athens was in the
hands of the Athenian Demos as a whole, organized across
boundaries of territory and clan. The new order was
sealed as citizens adopted their deme-names into their
own names, and as the god Apollo, speaking
from Delphi, endorsed
the new tribes.
But, with
the Demos newly unified and the authority of the older,
more arisocratic system undermined, the danger of
tyranny remained. Some relatives of Pisistratus
survived, wealthy and still influential, in Athens, and (a
new threat) the Great King of Persia was
increasingly interested in bringing the Greek world into
his empire. What was to stop a prominent citizen from
gaining support with promises of power, and then either
assuming tyrannical rule or inviting Persia to set him
up as a client king?
Cleisthenes
sought to avert this danger by means of his most famous
innovation: ostracism. Every year the Assembly of
Athenian citizens voted, by show of hands, on whether or
not to hold an ostracism. If the Demos voted to hold
one, the ostracism took place a few months later, at
another meeting of the Assembly. Then,
each citizen present scratched a name on a broken piece
of pottery; these, the scrap paper of the ancient world,
were called ostraka (ὄστρακα)
in Greek, which gives us the word for the institution.
If at least 6000 citizens voted with their ostraka, the
names on the pot shards were tallied, and the “winner”
was obliged to leave Athens for a
period of ten years. He did not lose his property or his
rights as an Athenian citizens, but he had to go (see Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 22.6; Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 43.6).
The
earliest subjects of ostracism were associates of Pisistratus and
his sons (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 22.6), but in later years the Athenian
used the process to remove the leaders of various
factions, both men who were regarded as champions of the
democracy, such as Themistocles—ostracized
sometime around 470 BCE (Thuc. 1.135)—and
those who tended to favor more aristocratic controls on
the power of the people, such as Cimon—ostracized
around 461 (Andoc. 4.33). The
most famous ostracism was that of Aristides, an
aristocrat known for being fair-minded. The story goes
that an illiterate farmer, not recognizing Aristides, asked
the prominant man to write “Aristides” on his ostrakon
for him; Aristides
complied, advancing his own ostracism by helping a
fellow citizen. For the full story, which contains even
more ironies that I have given here, see Plut. Arist.
7; Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 22.7.
To be the
subject of an ostracism was actually something of an
honor, if an inconvenient one. It meant that a man was
deemed too influential, too capable of persuading his
fellow citizens, to be allowed to participate in the
democratic processes of governing Athens. The list
of ostracized Athenians constitutes a “Who’s Who” of the
early history of the democracy. In fact, the institution
fell into disuse after 416 BCE,
perhaps because of the ostracism of Hyperbolus; this
man, according to the historian Thucydides, was
ostracized “not because anyone feared his power or
influence, but because he was a useless wretch and a
disgrace to the city” (Thuc. 8.73). The
law of ostracism seems never to have been repealed, but
it was never used again.
Cleisthenes
reformed Athens at the
very end of the 6th
century. The reforms were radical and, it
seems, thoughtful. That this new social order and
political system took hold may have been largely due to
what happened in the first
decades of the 5th century. In 490, an expeditionary army from Persia landed in
Attica, intending
to repay the Athenians for helping the Greeks of Asia
resist Persian rule. The Athenians, led by Miltiades,
defeated the Persians against steep numerical odds (for
the battle of Marathon, see Hdt. 6.102, Hdt. 6.107-117; Paus. 1.25.2; Paus. 1.32.3).
The victory
for the newly democratized state was doubly significant,
since the Persian expedition had brought Hippias, the son
of Pisistratus,
intending to install him as tyrant over the Athenians (Hdt. 6.107). This
victory, and the even more unlikely victory against a
larger Persian expedition ten years later, established
democratic Athens as a
leading power in the Greek world.
· One Last Step to
Democracy ·
One final
major reform to the Athenian constitution remained
before the government of Athens took the
shape it would hold, more or less, for the next 150
years. In 462, an Athenian
named Ephialtes led a
movement to limit the power of the Council of the Areopagus. The role
of this Council, sometimes called simply the “Areopagus”, in the
fully-formed democracy is discussed below, but to
understand Ephialtes’ reforms
we need to see, briefly, its place in Athenian
government before Ephialtes.
The Court
of the Areopagus, named
after the Hill of Ares in Athens, was an
ancient institution. It features in the mythological
history of Athens, as
portrayed in Aeschylus’
tragedy Eumenides, in which the goddess Athene puts the
Eumenides, or Furies, on trial on
this Hill of Ares at Athens (Aesch. Eum.).
Aristotle says that
in the time of Draco, the
legendary first lawgiver of Athens, “The
Council of the Areopagus was
guardian of the laws, and kept a watch on the
magistrates to make them govern in accordance with the
laws. A person unjustly treated might lay a complaint
before the Council of the Areopagites [the members of
the Areopagus], stating
the law in contravention of which he was treated
unjustly” (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 4.4). The Areopagus was an
aristocratic institution, composed of men who were of
noble birth (Isoc. 7.37). It
was composed of men who had held the office of archon (Plut. Sol.
19.1; Plut. Per.
9.3). Members of the Court of the Areopagus, the
Areopagites (Areopagitai) held office for life
(Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 3.6). According to Aristotle, before
the time of the lawgiver Solon—the middle of the 6th century BCE—the
Areopagus itself
chose the men who would be archons, and thus
future members of the Areopagus (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 8.1). Selection of archons was by
wealth and birth (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 3.6), and so the Court of the Areopagus preserved
itself as a body of the aristocrats of Athens
Solon changed the
method by which Athenians became archons—forty
candidates were elected, and from these forty, nine archons were picked
by lot (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 8.1). Under the laws of Solon, the Court
of the Areopagus retained
its role as overseer of the constitution; it could
punish citizens, fine them, and spend money itself
without answering to any other governing body; and it
oversaw cases of impeachment (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 8.4). Aristotle describes
the government of Athens under Solon as a blend
of elements—the courts were
democratic, the elected archons were
aristocratic, and the Court of the Areopagus was
oligarchic (Aristot. Pol.
1273b).
The Court
of the Areopagus seems to
have enjoyed a return to its former glory immediately
after the Persian Wars. Aristotle tells the
story of how, during the chaos of the Persian invasion
in 480 BCE, the Council of
the Areopagus took a
leading role in organizing, and financing, the
evacuation of all Athenians to Salamis and the Peloponnese,
which raised the body’s status considerably (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 23.1). He goes on to say that the
Council of the Areopagus enjoyed
preeminence in Athens for almost
two decades, until the time when Conon was archon, and Ephialtes brought
about his reforms in 462 BCE
(Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 25.1).
According
to Aristotle, Ephialtes brought
about a reform of the Court of the Areopagus by
denouncing the Court before the Council and the Assembly (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 25.4). So the reform was not, finally,
the work of Ephialtes alone,
but an act of legislation by two
of the more democratic institutions in Athens. Aristotle connects
this event to a newfound feeling of power among the
common people of Athens following
the Persian Wars, when the less wealthy citizens by
serving in the navy had saved the city. He makes the
connection between naval victories and the reform of the
Court of the Areopagus
explicitly in his Politics (Aristot. Pol.
1274a), and the Constitution of the Athenians
that survives under Aristotle’s name strongly suggests
the connection as well (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 27.1).
By 462 BCE, when Ephialtes made his
reforms, the archons (the future
members of the Court of the Areopagus) were
chosen by lot, not by vote (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 22.5). It is possible that this change
made the institution seem less prestigious, and thus
worthy of holding fewer powers. This interesting
suggestion is from P.J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the
Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia
(Oxford, 1993).
By means of
Ephialtes’ reforms,
according to Aristotle, the
Council of the Areopagus was
“deprived of the superintendence of affairs” (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 26.1). When Aristotle describes
the Council of the Areopagus as it was
in the 4th century,
over a hundred years after Ephialtes, he says
that it had authority over trials of murder, wounding,
death by poison, and arson, but that other similar
crimes—involuntary manslaughter, murder of slaves or
foreigners, accidental killings, or killings in
self-defense—come before other courts, the Court of the Palladium
or the Court of the Delphinium
(Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 57.3). The Areopagus also
conducted investigations of political corruption,
presenting its findings to the Council and Assembly for any
further action (see Aeschin. 1.83, Aeschin. 1.81, Din. 1.4). From
this, then, we can perhaps get a sense of how Ephialtes
diminished the role of the Areopagus; the
aristocratic body that once had the power to nullify
laws and remove candidates from office was reduced to a
murder court and investigative body, albeit a highly
respected one.
· The Fifth Century:
Democracy stumbles twice ·
The 5th century BCE was
marked by the extended conflict—sometimes “cold” and
often overt—between Athens and Sparta, but
involving most of the Greek world and the Persian Empire
as well. That history is readily available elsewhere.
For our purposes, there are three things especially
worth mentioning from the period.
First was
the generalship of Pericles. The
office of “General”, or Strategos (στρατηγός),
was one of the few in the Athenian democracy that was
elected, rather than chosen randomly by lot; the reasons
for this should be obvious (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 44.4). It was also the only office
which an Athenian could hold for multiple successive
terms. And, the Generals—there were ten in each
year—enjoyed certain powers that made this office (at
least potentially) a platform from which an Athenian
could wield extraordinary influence over the affairs and
policies of the city. A general could introduce business
for discussion in a meeting of the Assembly on his own
authority, without going through normal channels (the
evidence for this comes from inscriptions: SEG
10 86.47; IG II2 27; the “normal
channels” are discussed below).
Pericles was
elected repeatedly to the office of Strategos during the
period from 454 to 429
BCE (though not for every year during that
period, which is interesting). From within this office,
he was able to address the Athenians meeting in their Assembly on matters
he deemed important, and to persuade them toward
policies of his own devising. The two most noteworthy
results were the so-called “Periclean Building Program”,
which produced the monumental architecture we see today
on the Athenian Acropolis,
and the expansion of Athenian imperialism. The latter,
eventually, brought about a war between Athens and Sparta that, in
one form or another, lasted (at least) from 431 BCE until Athens’ defeat in
404 BCE.
The
historian Thucydides, himself
an Athenian General who helped pursue the war against Sparta, offers
this characterization of Pericles’
leadership: “Pericles indeed,
by his rank, ability, and known integrity, was enabled
to exercise an independent control over the Demos—in
short, to lead them instead of being led by them; for as
he never sought power by improper means, he was never
compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed
so high an estimation that he could afford to anger them
by contradiction. Whenever he saw them unseasonably and
insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to
alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victims to a
panic, he could at once restore them to confidence. In
short, what was nominally a democracy became in his
hands government by the first citizen.” (Thuc. 2.65.8-9).
What is most important to remember, though, is that Pericles was
merely one of ten elected Generals. His “policies” came
into effect merely because his office afforded him a
platform from which to address the Demos, and his
evident talents as a speaker allowed him to persuade the
Demos to adopt his ideas as their own.
In 415, after an interlude of
relative peace in the war between Athens and Sparta, the Demos
of Athens undertook
an invasion of Sicily. This
adventure was an utter disaster, resulting in the
destruction of an Athenian fleet and an army of Athenian
citizens either killed outright or doomed to work to
death in the quarries of Syracuse. In the
aftermath, certain citizens took steps to move the
government of the city away from the radical democracy
that—they thought—was leading the city to ruin. Their
first step was to work, through constitutional channels,
to establish a small body of “Preliminary Councilors”,
who would limit the topics that could be addressed by
the more democratic Council and Assembly (Thuc. 8.1.3-4).
Shortly
thereafter, in 411 BCE, the
Athenians brought an end to their democracy and
instituted an oligarchy by, first, appointing ten
“Commissioners” who were charged with re-writing the
constitution of Athens (Thuc. 8.67.1). Aristotle says that
there were twenty of these, and that they were in
addition to the ten Preliminary Councilors already in
office (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 29.2).
These
Commissioners proposed a new Council, consisting
of 400 men, with service limited to the wealthier
citizens. Five men would be selected as “Presidents”,
and these would choose 100 men for the new Council, and each
of those 100 would choose three others, thus creating
the Council of “400”, or 405 in reality (Thuc. 8.67.3; Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 29.5). This new government claimed
that a Council of 400 was
“according to the ancestral constitution” (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 31.1). This Council of 400
would have the power to choose 5000 Athenians who would
be the only citizens eligible to participate in
assemblies (Thuc. 8.67.3; Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 29.5).
This
oligarchic government lasted only four months before it
was replaced by another government in which the power
was in the hands of 5000 Athenians — more democratic,
but still a far cry from the radical democracy defined
by Cleisthenes (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 33.1). That government, in turn,
lasted only a short time before “the People quickly
seized control of the constitution from them” (Aristot. Ath.
Pol. 34.1).
The
democracy was restored, but only briefly. In 404 BCE, the Spartans caught the
Athenian fleet on the beach at Aegospotamoi
(“Goat Islands”) and destroyed it. After a period of
seige, while the Spartans blockaded the harbors of Athens, the city
surrendered, and its fortunes fell into the hands of the
so-called Thirty Tyrants. These were Athenians selected
by the Spartans to form a puppet government by the
Spartans. (For the end of the Peloponnesian War, see Plut. Alc.
36.4-37.3; Plut. Lys.
9.4-11; for the establishment of the Tyrants, see
Plut. Lys.
15.5; Paus. 1.2.2; Paus. 3.5.1; Paus. 9.11.6; Xen. Hell.
2.3.11)
Like the
Oligarchy of 411, the tyranny
of the Thirty lasted only one year before pro-democracy
forces regained control of the city’s affairs (Plut. Lys.
21; Xen. Hell.
2.4.2). After the tyrants were overthrown and the
city returned to democratic rule, Athens once again
compiled and codified its old laws with this decree,
which summarizes the accumulated law and tradition of
the first century of the Athenian democratic experiment:
“On the motion of Teisamenus the People decreed that
Athens be
governed as of old, in accordance with the laws of Solon, his
weights and his measures, and in accordance with the
statutes of Draco, which we
used in times past. Such further laws as may be
necessary shall be inscribed upon tables by the Law-Givers elected
by the Council and named
hereafter, exposed before the Tribal Statutes for all to
see, and handed over to the magistrates during
the present month. The laws thus handed over, however,
shall be submitted beforehand to the scrutiny of the Council and the
five hundred Law-Givers elected
by the Demes, when they have taken their oath. Further,
any private citizen who so desires may come before the Council and suggest
improvements in the laws. When the laws have been
ratified, they shall be placed under the guardianship of
the Council of the Areopagus, to the
end that only such laws as have been ratified may be
applied by magistrates. Those laws which are approved
shall be inscribed upon the wall, where they were
inscribed aforetime, for all to see” (Andoc. 1.83-84).
The Athenians also passed a law of general amnesty, to
prevent an endless cycle of retribution for wrongs
committed on both sides of the recent civil strife (see
Xen. Hell.
2.4.43).
An
inscription (IG I3 105) survives
that records a law limiting the Council’s
authority. After two anti-democratic revolutions, this
law says that in matters of war and peace, death
sentences, large fines, disenfranchisement (that is,
loss of citizenship), the
administration of public finances, and foreign policy
the Council cannot act
without the approval of the Assembly of the
People.
With this
restoration, Athens
reestablished a radically democratic government. The
following description of the institutions of Athens will focus
on the democracy as it was in the 4th century, in its
fully developed form, attested by the best evidence.
P.J.
Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion
Politeia (Oxford, 1993).
Archaic
Greece Timeline
In
the Archaic Period there were vast changes in Greek
language, society, art, architecture, and politics.
These changes occurred due to the increasing
population of Greece and its increasing amount trade,
which in turn led to colonization and a new age of
intellectual ideas, the most important of which (at
least to the modern Western World) was Democracy. This
would then fuel, in a rather circular way, more
cultural changes.
·800 BCE - 500 BCEGreek colonization of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
Draco (fl. c. 7th century BCE) was the
first legislator of Athens in Ancient
Greece. He replaced the prevailing system of
oral law and blood feud by a written code to be enforced only by a court.
Draco's written law became known for its harshness, with
the adjective "draconian"
referring to similarly unforgiving rules or laws.
During the 39th Olympiad, in 622 or 621 BCE, Draco established
the legal code with which he is identified.
Little is known about his life. He may
have belonged to the Greek nobility of the Attica, with
which the 10th-century Suda text records him as contemporaneous,
prior to the period of the Seven Sages
of Greece. It also relates a folkloric story of his death in the Aeginetan theatre.[1] In a traditional ancient Greek show
of approval, his supporters "threw so many hats and
shirts and cloaks on his head that he suffocated, and
was buried in that same theatre".[2]
The laws (θεσμοί - thesmoi) he laid
down were the first written constitution
of Athens. So that no one would be unaware of
them, they were posted on wooden tablets (ἄξονες - axones),
where they were preserved for almost two centuries, on steles of the shape of three-sided
pyramids (κύρβεις - kyrbeis).[citation
needed] The tablets were
called axones, perhaps because they could be
pivoted along the pyramid's axis, to read any side. The
constitution featured several major innovations:
·Instead of oral laws known to a
special class, arbitrarily applied and interpreted, all
laws were written, thus made known to all literate
citizens (who could make appeal to the Areopagus for injustices): "... the
constitution formed under Draco, when the first code of
laws was drawn up." (Aristotle: Athenian
Constitution, Part 5,
Section 41)
The laws, however, were particularly
harsh. For example, any debtor whose status was lower than that of
his creditor was forced into slavery.[3] The punishment was more lenient for
those owing debt to a member of a lower class. The death penalty was the punishment for even minor offences, such as "stealing a cabbage".[4] Concerning the liberal use of the
death penalty in the Draconic code, Plutarch states: "It was a lot for himself,
when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for
most offences, answered that he considered these lesser
crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment
for more important ones."[5]
All his laws were repealed by Solon in the early 6th century BC, with the
exception of the homicide law.[6]
Law of
Homicide
After much debate from the Athenians,
it was decided to revise the laws, including the
homicide law, in 409 B.C. The homicide law is a highly
fragmented inscription, but it does state that it is up
to the victim’s relatives to prosecute a killer.
According to the preserved part of the inscription,
unintentional homicides receive a sentence of exile. It
is not clear whether Draco's law specified the
punishment for intentional homicide. In 409 B.C.,
intentional homicide was punished by death, but Draco's
law begins καὶ ἐὰμ μὲ ‘κ [π]ρονοί[α]ς [κ]τ[ένει τίς
τινα, φεύγ]ε[ν], which is ambiguous and difficult to
translate. One possible translation offers 'Even if a
man not intentionally kills another, he is exiled',[7] which leads to the presumption that
exile must have been the normal penalty for intentional
homicide at the time Draco wrote his law.
Council
of Four Hundred
Draco introduced the lot-chosen
Council of Four Hundred [8]—distinct from the Areopagus—which evolved in later constitutions
to play a large role in Athenian
democracy. Aristotle notes that Draco, while
having the laws written, merely legislated for an
existing unwritten Athenian constitution,[9] such as setting exact qualifications
for eligibility for office.
Draco extended the franchise to all free men who could furnish
themselves with a set of military equipment. They
elected the Council of Four Hundred from among their
number; nine Archons and the Treasurers were drawn from
persons possessing an unencumbered property of not less
than ten minas, the generals (strategoi)
and commanders of cavalry (hipparchoi) from those
who could show an unencumbered property of not less than
a hundred minas, and had children born in lawful
wedlock over ten years of age. Thus, in the event of
their death, their estate could pass to a competent
heir. These officers were required to hold to account
the prytanes (councillors), strategoi
(generals) and hipparchoi (cavalry officers) of
the preceding year until their accounts had been
audited. "The Council of Areopagus was guardian of the
laws, and kept watch over the magistrates to see that
they executed their offices in accordance with the laws.
Any person who felt himself wronged might lay an
information before the Council of Areopagus, on
declaring what law was broken by the wrong done to him.
But, as has been said before, loans were secured upon
the persons of the debtors, and the land was in the
hands of a few."[10]
To resolve
unequal accessibility to the acquirement of
legal knowledge of oral law by replacing such
with a written constitution.[3]
The Draconian
constitution, or Draco's code, was a written law code created by Draco near the end of 7th century BC in
response to unjust interpretation and modification of oral law by Athenian aristocrats.[4] With most societies of Greece establishing official primitive laws
during the middle of seventh century BC,[5] advantageous ascendancy by the
Athenian aristocracy [6] over the concept of willfully
manipulating the set of oral laws in Athens transpired
through time until the emerging of Draco's code. Being a
prominent prejudicial activity to the people of Athens
that segregated both parties from their perception of
acquirement of legal knowledge, the people commissioned
a man named Draco around 620 BC to devise a written law
code and constitution; thus, bequeathing him the title
of the first legislator of Athens. Those literate could
read the script at a centralized location that could be
accessed by anyone.[a]
This enactment of an attempt of a rule of law is one of the first features of Athenian
democracy in its infant stages of development.
Contents
1 Background
2 Suffrage
3 The Council and the
Assembly
4 Controversial matters
of Aristotle's description of the Draconian constitution
in Constitution of the Athenians
4.1 Setting of the
development of the Draconian constitution
4.2 Prytanes
4.3 Grammatical
ambiguity of relation between concurrent Athenian
officials and preceding officials
4.4 Grammatical
contradiction of the sex of Council members
4.5 Draco's position
5 Effects and reform
6 Notes
7 Reference list
Background
The need for a codified text of
written laws commences with unequal access to legal
knowledge between the aristocracy and the people. This
was so because the established laws of Athens were
inefficiently formulated via spoken language and often
modified and re-evaluated. Lucrative and aristocratic
use of this system began during the middle seventh
century BC. The laws were often amended when willful
seizes happened to the aristocracy.[7] As a consequence, initiations of blood feuds and vendettas between families uneducated of the
law instinctively occurred to substitute as an adequate
scheme of justice and tool of avenging.[8] Due to subsequent and seemingly
obscure manipulations to the oral law, it is inferred
that the Athenians were prone to legal violation and
personal infliction of punishment.
Due to the inhibition of equal legal
knowledge, the governing aristocratic families of Athens
decided to abandon the concealed system of legal
proposals and amendments and promulgate them to all of
Athenian society through the medium of written language.
This was done by authorizing an individual to construct
the written constitution, who was an aristocratic
legislator[9] named Draco and was prompted to concoct the
governing text around 621 BC. To circulate the equal
acquirement of knowledge of the new Draconian
constitution, the text was inscribed on a surface of a
displaying device, in which is negotiated in
specificity.[10] As a result, the Draconian
constitution was informatively and directly attainable
to those literate.
Under the Draconian constitution, the
freedom of a person could be used as a collateral for
debt, virtually becoming a slave, but, in point of fact,
this law only applied to constituent members of lower
socio-economic classes.[11] Draco also introduced the concept of
intentional and unintentional homicide[12] with both torts being administered by
the Council of
Areopagus.[13] With murder cases being tried by the
state, the practice of blood feuds and vendettas as
regimes of justice were subsequently illegal. The
homicide laws were the only laws that were retained in
the movement to the formation of the Solonian
Constitution.[14]
And Draco himself, they say, being
asked why he made death the penalty for most offences,
replied that in his opinion the lesser ones deserved
it, and for the greater ones no heavier penalty could
be found.
Although a specific codified script of
the complete Draconian constitution is absent, legends
claim consequential severe punishments were issued to
convicts of whom executed offenses as inferior as
stealing an apple.[15] There may have been only one penalty
for all convicted offenders of the Draconian
constitution, in which was execution.[16] Eccentrically, they were described to
be written present with blood rather than ink.[17] These legends of repression and
cruelty of a past legal world have incorporated
themselves into the linguistic apparatus of the English
language, with the adjective "draconian" referring to
similarly unforgiving rules or laws.[18]
Suffrage
The authorized franchise to whom were
given permission to gain political position consisted of
anyone who could outfit themselves with military
equipment,[19] more specifically, with that of a hoplite.[20] This formality that was administered
was the minimum condition in terms of possessing a
quantity of valuable physical and abstract properties
for suffrage, correspondingly being eligible for
relatively less important state official positions.[21] Alternatively to acquire higher
positions, such prerequisite could only be executed in
conjunction with other statuses possessed by the
individual, ranging from pecuniary to marital personal
properties. From the body of persons capable of
appending military equipment, those who could present a
property free of financial debt or liability and of
value of not less than ten minas could serve along the nine Archons and the Treasurers.[22] The Strategi, or the generals, and
the Hipparchi, or the commanders, of the cavalry of Athens were chosen from the equivalent body
of persons but of those who contrarily possessed an
unencumbered property of value not less than one hundred
minas as well as offspring of over 10 years of age and
of being born from parents in a state of wedlock.[23] Four hundred one integral members of
the Council were chosen from the body of persons who
possessed the basic authorized franchise of holding
capability of appending equipment of that of a hoplite
as well as holding a chronological age of over 30 years.[24] No individual from this body of
people could be elected by lot more than once to serve
in the Council until the Council were to "cast the lot
afresh," meaning the lot was resuscitated in terms of
including every eligible individual into the next
sortition of the next Council as everyone eligible in
the previous Council already acquired a position in the
magistracy.[25]
The election of political positions of
the state of Athens from these bodies of persons was
dependent on sortition,[26] except for the Council of Areopagus,
which consisted of retired Archons.[27]
The
Council and the Assembly
Transcribed within the framework of
the Draconian constitution, the Council was another
concept Draco introduced to Athenian government.[28] In Aristotle's historical
disquisition Constitution of the Athenians, the
Council is not portrayed its duties or authority other
than vaguely being characterized as no more than a magistracy.[29]
The Assembly is another magistracy of
the Athenian state that is minutely described in
Aristotle's text in terms of its general duties and
authority. Even its eligibility of acquiring a position
of the magistracy lacks.[30]
Fines were issued as penalties to
members of the Council and the Assembly who were absent
to a sitting or meeting.[31] Fines varied proportionally with the
rank of each social class of Athens, with constituency
of higher classes resulting in higher penalty fees and
vice verca. If the absent Council or Assembly member was
of the Pentacosiomedimnus class, the individual was penalized
with a mandatory fee of three drachmas.[32]Knight social class members were penalized
with 2 drachmas,[33] and Zeugites social class members were punished
with 1 drachma.[34]
Controversial
matters of Aristotle's description of the Draconian
constitution in Constitution of the Athenians
Setting
of the development of the Draconian constitution
Having supplied literary description,
Aristotle's illustration of the fixture of time of the
establishment of the Draconian constitution is rather
obscure and precarious with the use of the transitioning
words "not very long after" that corresponds in relation
to a preceding event that must have transpired for a
relatively prolonged period of time. This preceding
event, which appears to constitute as the framework and
political development of the first constitution of
Athens, exists as the following:
Such, then, is the
relative chronological precedence of these offices. At
that time the nine Archons did not all live together.
The King occupied the building now known as the
Boculium, near the Prytaneum, as may be seen from the
fact that even to the present day the marriage of the
King's wife to Dionysus takes place there. The Archon
lived in the Prytaneum, the Polemarch in the Epilyceum.
The latter building was formerly called the
Polemarcheum, but after Epilycus, during his term of
office as Polemarch, had rebuilt it and fitted it up, it
was called the Epilyceum. The Thesmothetae occupied the
Thesmotheteum. In the time of Solon, however, they all
came together into the Thesmotheteum. They had power to
decide cases finally on their own authority, not, as
now, merely to hold a preliminary hearing. Such then was
the arrangement of the magistracies. The Council of
Areopagus had as its constitutionally assigned duty the
protection of the laws; but in point of fact it
administered the greater and most important part of the
government of the state, and inflicted personal
punishments and fines summarily upon all who misbehaved
themselves. This was the natural consequence of the
facts that the Archons were elected under qualifications
of birth and wealth, and that the Areopagus was composed
of those who had served as Archons; for which latter
reason the membership of the Areopagus is the only
office which has continued to be a life-magistracy to
the present day.
Such was, in outline,
the first constitution, but not very long after the
events above recorded, in the archonship of
Aristaichmus, Draco enacted his ordinances.
With the presumed founding of the city
of Athens by king Cecrops I and the consequential establishment
of the first ancient Athenian constitution in 1556 BC,
this infrastructure of the ancient Athenian constitution
would have functioned for virtually 900 years before
Draco would have codified the Athenian laws and drafted
the Draconian constitution around 620 BC. This factual
premise defies the use of the words "not very long
after." Subsequently, commentators pose the problem with
assuming that these transitioning words refer to the Cylonian
affair, which occurred much closer to the
political development of Draconian constitution than
that of the ancient Athenian constitution.
Prytanes
Aristotle's undefined use of the word
"Prytanes" refers to a multitude of Athenian state
positions during and after the development of the
Draconian constitution. This is transcribed and evident
in the following text.
Such was, in outline,
the first constitution, but not very long after the
events above recorded, in the archonship of
Aristaichmus, Draco enacted his ordinances. Now his
constitution had the following form. The franchise was
given to all who could furnish themselves with a
military equipment. The nine Archons and the Treasurers
were elected by this body from persons possessing an
unencumbered property of not less than ten minas, the
less important officials from those who could furnish
themselves with a military equipment, and the generals
[Strategi] and commanders of the cavalry [Hipparchi]
from those who could show an unencumbered property of
not less than a hundred minas, and had children born in
lawful wedlock over ten years of age. These officers
were required to hold to bail the Prytanes, the
Strategi, and the Hipparchi of the preceding year until
their accounts had been audited, taking four securities
of the same class as that to which the Strategi and the
Hipparchi belonged.
In subsequent times, the term
"Prytanes" attributed to the fifty presiding members of
the Council. The only supplementary mention of the term
in historical context that is placed within the fixture
of time of the development of the Draconian constitution
is in Herodotus' account of the Cylonian affair, in
which the "Prytanes of Naucrari" are mentioned. This may
have occurred due to Herodotus', a Dorian himself, habit of referring to the
first magistrates of Dorian cities as "Prytanes of
Naucrari" and consequently merging it with the superior
or first magistrates of Athens, who were the Archons at
the time. In further approbation of this possible
argument, Thucydides' more detailed version of the event
refers to the same persons Herodotus refers to as
"Prytanes of Naucrari." "Those," the historian says, "to
whom the people had confided the keeping of the citadel,
seeing the partisans of Cylon perish at the feet of the
statue of Minerva, caused them to go out of the citadel,
promising them that no harm would be done to them." As
Thucydides had mentioned before in his personal account
of the Cylonian affair, the nine Archons were the people
that had entrusted the care of the citadel.
Therefore, it may be possible that
Herodotus' "Prytanes of Naucrari" were equivalent to the
nine Archons if its referral was in fact an influence of
a habit of the historian's. Other possibilities may
account for the "Prytanes" of Aristotle's text being
chairmen of the important office of the "Naucrari" that
saliently existed. [35]
Grammatical
ambiguity of relation between concurrent Athenian
officials and preceding officials
One correlation between the concurrent
officials and the Prytanes, Strategi, and Hipparchi of
the preceding year concerning financial securities
partakes as one of the most controversial texts of Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians in the Oxford
Classical Text edition by translator Frederic G.
Kenyon. The translated text constitutes an
ambiguous syntactical metalinguistic structure, and any
inferred assumptions are naturally precarious due to the
text's indefinite grammatical structure.
These officers were
required to hold to bail the Prytanes, the Strategi, and
the Hipparchi of the preceding year until their accounts
had been audited, taking four securities of the same
class as that to which the Strategi and the Hipparchi
belonged.
Grammatical
contradiction of the sex of Council members
A grammatical contradiction with an
antecedent exists in the Oxford
Classical Texts edition of Frederic G.
Kenyon's translation of Constitution of
the Athenians concerning the sex of the subsidiary
members of the Council. The following quote establishes
information that the sex of the members of the Council
is indefinite, being that the authorized franchise did
not include any member of any specific sex.
There was also to be a
Council, consisting of four hundred and one members,
elected by lot from among those who possessed the
franchise.
The following quote contrarily refers
to the Council members as accommodating male gender.
Both for this and for
the other magistracies the lot was cast among those who
were over thirty years of age; and no one might hold
office twice until every one else had had his
turn, after which they were to cast the lot afresh.
Due to the contradiction of sex
referral in the antecedents of the texts, it is unknown
surely if Draco's conceptualization of the Council
segregated the sexes of the Athenians.
Draco's
position
Until the discovery of Aristotle's
disquisition Constitution of the Athenians, the
opinion that Draco's position a political reformer of
the ancient Athenian constitution was absent. Being
contemplated along with other historical texts of the
development of Athenian democracy, an abundance of the
features of the Draconian constitution appear spasmodic
with Draco's duties of employment of crafting the
Draconian constitution, in which most reforms
constituent of Draco's code, as described by Aristotle,
are prevailed in the concluding portion of the fifth
century BC. The Draconian constitution is not mentioned
by other historian writers of Draco's time, and Draco's
position as a political and constitutional reformer is
intermittent with Aristotle's emphasized description.
What is definitively known is Draco's
position as a lawgiver, despite the fact that most laws
of the Draconian constitution were all repealed except
for the homicide law. With the assumption of a special
Archon appointed by the Athenian aristocracy, Draco's
autocratic position seemed absolute, unconfined to
revising and introducing laws.
Notes
· ^ Also note that illiterate
individuals were conscious of the laws indirectly as
they probably were informed by literate persons of
knowledge of the Athenian law through different media
of communication.
Reference
list
1. ^"Around
620 BC Draco, the lawgiver, wrote the first known
written law of
2. ^ "Such was,
in outline, the first constitution, but not very long
after the events above recorded, in the archonship of
Aristaichmus, Draco enacted his ordinances." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, "Part 4"
3. ^ The result
of the institution of the Draconian constitution
resulted as such, becoming its essential, consequential
purpose of existence and incorporation: "The rulers
decided that all the cruel laws they had passed whenever
the impulse seized them should be arranged in a single
plainly stated system; thus, at least, the nobles could
no longer twist the laws as they willed; and a poor man
might know what the law really was, and so avoid
breaking it unconsciously." - http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/The_Story_of_the_Greatest_Nations_and_the_Worlds_Famous_Events_Vol_1/whatisd_bei.html, an excerpt of The Story of the
Greatest Nations and the World's Famous Events by
Edward S. Ellis and Charles F. Home, PhD
6. ^ "Not only
do the aristocratic families of Attica hold nearly all
political power..." - http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/plaintexthistories.asp?historyid=ac45 (The text is set in context during
the time of aristocracy of the state of Athens before
the establishment of the Draconian constitution, so
before circa 620 BC)
7. ^ "The
distinctive privilege which the nobles had always
enjoyed was the exclusive knowledge and administration
of the laws. They were, then, open to the charge of
exercising this privilege in their own favor." - Athenian
Political Commissions by Frederick Danesbury Smith
9. ^ "He was
elected as one of the nine archons, but was not the
archon eponymous." - Athenian Political Commissions,
page 12, by Frederick Danesbury Smith
10. ^ "'Axones' and 'kyrbeis' are names
given to structures that contained the law codes of
Draco and Solon in ancient Athens during the Archaic
Age." - http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/greekterms/g/Axones.htm; These two terms are debated in
specificity to their materialistic structure and
functionality. The following quote describes both terms:
"Robertson says [describes such information in Solon's
Axones and Kyrbeis, and the Sixth-Century Background
(Figs. 1-2), Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte
Geschichte, (2nd Qtr., 1986), pp. 147-176] axones
and kyrbeis were not names for the same thing: the
axones were revolving wooden beams, while kyrbeis were
standing pillars in the Royal Stoa." - http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/greekterms/g/Axones.htm; The following describes the term
"axone" particularly: "These beams were called axones, a
word meaning 'axles,' because the ends of each beam were
pivoted and placed within a frame in such a way that
they could be rotated." - James Sickinger, Literacy,
Documents, and Archives in the Ancient Athenian
Democracy, The American Archivist, (Fall,
1999), pp. 229-246
11. ^ "Through the laws of Draco, those in
debt could be made slaves -- but only if they were
members of the lower class. This means members of a
genos (the gennetai) could not be sold as slaves, yet
their hangers-on (orgeones) could." - http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/greecehellas1/a/cylonanddraco_3.htm
13. ^ "Any person who felt himself wronged
might lay an information before the Council of
Areopagus, on declaring what law was broken by the wrong
done to him." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
14. ^ "We know nothing about what Drakon's
[Draco's] nomoi were. Solon repealed all of the nomoi of
Drakon except for one about Homicide, and the Athenians
quickly forgot them." - Solon: The Lawmaker of
Athens, Page 25 by Bernard Randall
16. ^ "Athenians later said that Drakon
[Draco] gave the death penalty for most crimes, even for
stealing fruit." - Solon: The Lawmaker of Athens,
Page 25 by Bernard Randall
18. ^ "The English word 'draconian,'
meaning very harsh, comes from his [Draco's] name." - Solon:
The Lawmaker of Athens, Page 25 by Bernard Randall
19. ^ "The franchise was given to all who
could furnish themselves with a military equipment." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
21. ^ "...the less important officials from
those who could furnish themselves with a military
equipment..." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
22. ^ "The nine Archons and the Treasurers
were elected by this body from persons possessing an
unencumbered property of not less than ten minas..." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
23. ^ "...and the generals [Strategi] and
commanders of the cavalry [Hipparchi] from those who
could show an unencumbered property of not less than a
hundred minas, and had children born in lawful wedlock
over ten years of age." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
24. ^ "Both for this [the Council] and for
the other magistracies the lot was cast among those who
were over thirty years of age..." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
25. ^ "...and no one might hold office
twice until every one else had had his turn, after which
they were to cast the lot afresh." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
27. ^ "...and that the Areopagus was
composed of those who had served as Archons; for which
latter reason the membership of the Areopagus is the
only office which has continued to be a life-magistracy
to the present day. " - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 3 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
28. ^ "There was also to be a Council,
consisting of four hundred and one members, elected by
lot from among those who possessed the franchise." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 3 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
29. ^ "Both for this [the Council] and for
the other magistracies the lot was cast among those who
were over thirty years of age;" - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
30. ^ The mere mention of description of
the Assembly is contributed towards a statement
outlining the penalization of dismissing a sitting of
the Council or the Assembly: "If any member of the
Council failed to attend when there was a sitting of the
Council or of the Assembly, he paid a fine..." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
31. ^ "If any member of the Council failed
to attend when there was a sitting of the Council or of
the Assembly, he paid a fine..." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
32. ^ "...he [absent Council or Assembly
member] paid a fine, to the amount of three drachmas if
he was a Pentacosiomedimnus" - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
33. ^ "...two [two drachmas] if he [absent
Council or Assembly member] was a Knight..." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
34. ^ "...and One [one drachma] if he
[absent Council or Assembly member] was a Zeugites" - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Part 4 by Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
35. ^ "Each tribe was divided into three
Trittyes [=Thirds], with twelve Naucraries in each; and
the Naucraries had officers of their own, called
Naucrari, whose duty it was to superintend the current
receipts and expenditure." - http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/athenian_const.1.1.html, Constitution of the Athenians,
Aristotle, Frederic G. Kenyon (translator)
Solon (Greek: Σόλων; c. 638 – c. 558 BC) was an
Athenianstatesman, lawmaker,
and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to
legislate against political, economic, and moral decline
in archaicAthens.[1]
His reforms failed in the short term, yet he is often
credited with having laid the foundations for Athenian
democracy.[2][3][4]
He wrote poetry for pleasure, as patriotic propaganda, and in defense of his
constitutional reforms.
Our knowledge of
Solon is limited by the fact that his works only survive
in fragments and appear to feature interpolations
by later authors, and by the general paucity of
documentary and archaeological evidence covering Athens in the early 6th century BC.[5]
Ancient authors such as Herodotus and Plutarch are the main source of
information, yet they wrote about Solon long after his
death, at a time when history was by no means an academic
discipline. Fourth century orators, such as Aeschines, tended to attribute to
Solon all the laws of their own, much later times.[6][1]
Solon was born
in Athens around 638 B.C.[7]
His family was distinguished in Attica as they belonged to
a noble or Eupatrid clan
although only possessing moderate wealth.[8]
Solon's father probably was Execestides. Solon's lineage,
therefore, could be traced back to Codrus, the last King of
Athens.[9]
According to Diogenes Laërtius, he had
a brother named Dropides who was an ancestor (six
generations removed) of Plato.[10]
According to Plutarch, Solon was related to the tyrantPeisistratos for their mothers
were cousins.[11]
Solon was eventually drawn into the unaristocratic pursuit
of commerce.[12]
When Athens and
Megara were contesting for the
possession of the Salamis Island, Solon was
given leadership of the Athenian forces. After repeated
disasters, Solon was able to increase the morale and
spirits of his body of troops on the strength of a poem he
wrote about the islands.[7]
Supported by Peisistratos, he defeated the Megarians
either by means of a cunning trick[13]
or more directly through heroic battle around 595 B.C.[7][14]
The Megarians however refused to give up their claim to
the island. The dispute was referred to the Spartans, who
eventually awarded possession of the island to Athens on
the strength of the case that Solon put to them.[15]
According to
Diogenes Laertius, in 594 B.C. Solon was chosen archon or
chief magistrate.[7][16]
As archon, Solon discussed his intended reforms with some
friends. Knowing that he was about to cancel all debts,
these friends took out loans and promptly bought some
land. Suspected of complicity, Solon complied with his own
law and released his own debtors, amounting to 5 talents
(or 15 according to some sources). His friends never
repaid their debts.[17]
After he had
finished his reforms, he travelled abroad for ten years,
so that the Athenians could not induce him to repeal any
of his laws.[18]
His first stop was Egypt. There, according to Herodotus he
visited the Pharaoh of Egypt Amasis II.[19]
According to Plutarch, he spent some time and discussed
philosophy with two Egyptian priests, Psenophis of Heliopolis and Sonchis of Sais.[20]
According to Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, he visited Neith's
temple at Sais and received
from the priests there an account of the history of Atlantis. Next Solon sailed to Cyprus, where he oversaw the
construction of a new capital for a local king, in
gratitude for which the king named it Soloi.[20]
Solon's travels
finally brought him to Sardis, capital of Lydia.
According to Herodotus and Plutarch, he met with Croesus and gave the Lydian king
advice, which however Croesus failed to appreciate until
it was too late. Croesus had considered himself to be the
happiest man alive and Solon had advised him, "Count no
man happy until he be dead." The reasoning was that at any
minute, fortune might turn on even the happiest man and
make his life miserable. It was only after he had lost his
kingdom to the Persian king Cyrus, while awaiting
execution, that Croesus acknowledged the wisdom of Solon's
advice.[21][22]
After his return
to Athens, Solon became a staunch opponent of
Peisistratos. In protest and as an example to others,
Solon stood outside his own home in full armour, urging
all who passed to resist the machinations of the would-be
tyrant. His efforts were in vain. Solon died shortly after
Pisistratus usurped by force the autocratic power that
Athens had once freely bestowed upon him.[23]
He died in Cyprus at the age of 80[7]
and, in accordance with his will, his ashes were scattered
around Salamis, the island where he was born.[24][25]
The travel
writer, Pausanias, listed
Solon among the seven sages whose
aphorisms adorned Apollo's temple in Delphi.[26]Stobaeus in the Florilegium relates
a story about a symposium, where Solon's young nephew was
singing a poem of Sappho's; Solon, upon hearing the
song, asked the boy to teach him to sing it. When someone
asked, "Why should you waste your time on it?" Solon
replied ἵνα μαθὼν αὐτὸ
ἀποθάνω, "So that I may learn it then die."[27]Ammianus Marcellinus
however told a similar story about Socrates and the poet Stesichorus, quoting the
philosopher's rapture in almost identical terms: "ut
aliquid sciens amplius e vita discedam",[28]
meaning "in order to go away knowing more out of life".
Background
to Solon's reforms
Solon, the wise lawgiver of Athens
During Solon's
time, many Greek city-states had seen
the emergence of tyrants, opportunistic noblemen who
had taken power on behalf of sectional interests. In Sicyon, Cleisthenes had
usurped power on behalf of an Ionian minority. In Megara, Theagenes had come to
power as an enemy of the local oligarchs. The son-in-law of
Theagenes, an Athenian nobleman named Cylon, made an unsuccessful
attempt to seize power in Athens in 632 BC. Solon was
described by Plutarch as having been temporarily awarded autocratic
powers by Athenian citizens on the grounds that he had the
"wisdom" to sort out their differences for them in a
peaceful and equitable manner.[29]
According to ancient sources,[30][31]
he obtained these powers when he was elected eponymous archon
(594/3 BC). Some modern scholars believe these powers were
in fact granted some years after Solon had been archon,
when he would have been a member of the Areopagus and probably a more
respected statesman by his (aristocratic) peers.[32][33][34]
The social and
political upheavals that characterised Athens in Solon's
time have been variously interpreted by historians from
ancient times to the present day. Two contemporary
historians have identified three distinct historical
accounts of Solon's Athens, emphasizing quite different
rivalries: economic and ideological rivalry, regional
rivalry and rivalry between aristocratic clans.[35][36]
These different accounts provide a convenient basis for an
overview of the issues involved.
Economic and
ideological rivalry is a common theme in ancient
sources. This sort of account emerges from Solon's poems
(e.g. see below Solon
the reformer and poet), in which he casts himself
in the role of a noble mediator between two intemperate
and unruly factions. This same account is substantially
taken up about three centuries later by the author of
the Aristotelian Athenaion
Politeia but with an interesting variation:
"...there was conflict between the nobles and the common
people for an extended period. For the constitution they
were under was oligarchic in every respect and
especially in that the poor, along with their wives and
children, were in slavery to the rich...All the land was
in the hands of a few. And if men did not pay their
rents, they themselves and their children were liable to
be seized as slaves. The security for all loans was the
debtor's person up to the time of Solon. He was the
first people's champion."[37]
Here Solon is presented as a partisan in a democratic
cause whereas, judged from the viewpoint of his own
poems, he was instead a mediator between rival factions.
A still more significant variation in the ancient
historical account appears in the writing of Plutarch in
the late 1st – early 2nd century AD:
"Athens was torn by recurrent conflict about the
constitution. The city was divided into as many parties
as there were geographical divisions in its territory.
For the party of the people of the hills was most in
favour of democracy, that of the people of the plain was
most in favour of oligarchy, while the third group, the
people of the coast, which preferred a mixed form of
constitution somewhat between the other two, formed an
obstruction and prevented the other groups from gaining
control."[38]
Regional
rivalry is a theme commonly found among modern scholars.[39][40][41][42]
"The new picture which emerged was one of strife between
regional groups, united by local loyalties and led by
wealthy landowners. Their goal was control of the
central government at Athens and with it dominance over
their rivals from other districts of Attika."[43]
Regional factionalism was inevitable in a relatively
large territory such as Athens possessed. In most Greek
city states, a farmer could conveniently reside in town
and travel to and from his fields every day. According
to Thucydides, on the other hand,
most Athenians continued to live in rural settlements
right up until the Peloponnesian War.[44]
The effects of regionalism in a large territory could be
seen in Laconia, where Sparta had gained control through
intimidation and resettlement of some of its neighbours
and enslavement of the rest. Attika in Solon's time
seemed to be moving towards a similarly ugly solution
with many citizens in danger of being reduced to the
status of helots.[45]
Rivalry
between clans is a theme recently developed by some
scholars, based on an appreciation of the political
significance of kinship groupings.[43][46][47][48][49][50]
According to this account, bonds of kinship rather than
local loyalties were the decisive influence on events in
archaic Athens. An Athenian belonged not only to a phyle or tribe and one of its
subdivisions, the phratry or brotherhood, but also
to an extended family, clan or genos. It has been argued that these
interconnecting units of kinship reinforced a hierarchic
structure with aristocratic clans at the top.[35][51]
Thus rivalries between aristocratic clans could engage
all levels of society irrespective of any regional ties.
In that case, the struggle between rich and poor was the
struggle between powerful aristocrats and the weaker
affiliates of their rivals or perhaps even with their
own rebellious affiliates.
The historical
account of Solon's Athens has evolved over many centuries
into a set of contradictory stories or a complex story
that might be interpreted in a variety of ways. As further
evidence accumulates, and as historians continue to debate
the issues, Solon's motivations and the intentions behind
his reforms will continue to attract speculation.[52]
Solon's laws
were inscribed on large wooden slabs or cylinders attached
to a series of axles that stood upright in the Prytaneion.[53][54]
These axones appear to have operated on the same
principle as a Lazy Susan, allowing both
convenient storage and ease of access. Originally the
axones recorded laws enacted by Draco in the late 7th
Century (traditionally 621 BC). Nothing of Draco's
codification has survived except for a law relating to
homicide, yet there is consensus among scholars that it
did not amount to anything like a constitution.[55][56]
Solon repealed all Draco's laws except those relating to
homicide.[57]
During his visit to Athens, Pausanias, the 2nd
century AD geographer reported that the inscribed laws of
Solon were still displayed by the Prytaneion.[58]
Fragments of the axones were still visible in Plutarch's time[59]
but today the only records we have of Solon's laws are
fragmentary quotes and comments in literary sources such
as those written by Plutarch himself. Moreover, the
language of his laws was archaic even by the standards of
the fifth century and this caused interpretational
problems for ancient commentators.[60]
Modern scholars doubt the reliability of these sources and
our knowledge of Solon's legislation is therefore actually
very limited in its details.
Generally,
Solon's reforms appear to have been constitutional,
economic and moral in their scope. This distinction,
though somewhat artificial, does at least provide a
convenient framework within which to consider the laws
that have been attributed to Solon. Some short-term
consequences of his reforms are considered at the end of
the section.
Before Solon's
reforms, the Athenian state was administered by nine archons
appointed or elected annually by the Areopagus on the basis of noble
birth and wealth.[61][62]
The Areopagus comprised former archons and it therefore
had, in addition to the power of appointment,
extraordinary influence as a consultative body. The nine
archons took the oath of office while ceremonially
standing on a stone in the agora,
declaring their readiness to dedicate a golden statue if
they should ever be found to have violated the laws.[63][64]
There was an assembly of Athenian citizens (the Ekklesia) but the
lowest class (the Thetes) was not admitted and its
deliberative procedures were controlled by the nobles.[65]
There therefore seemed to be no means by which an archon
could be called to account for breach of oath unless the
Areopagus favoured his prosecution.
According to the
Athenian
Constitution, Solon legislated for all
citizens to be admitted into the Ekklesia[66]
and for a court (the Heliaia) to be formed from all the
citizens.[67]
The Heliaia appears to have been the Ekklesia, or some
representative portion of it, sitting as a jury.[68][69]
By giving common people the power not only to elect
officials but also to call them to account, Solon appears
to have established the foundations of a true republic.
However some scholars have doubted whether Solon actually
included the Thetes in the Ekklesia, this being considered
too bold a move for any aristocrat in the archaic period.[70]
Ancient sources[71][72]
credit Solon with the creation of a Council of Four Hundred,
drawn from the four Athenian tribes to serve as a steering
committee for the enlarged Ekklesia. However, many modern
scholars have doubted this also.[73][74]
There is
consensus among scholars that Solon lowered the
requirements—those that existed in terms of financial and
social qualifications—which applied to election to public
office. The Solonian constitution divided citizens into
four political classes defined according to assessable
property[66][75]
a classification that might previously have served the
state for military or taxation purposes only.[76]
The standard unit for this assessment was one medimnos (approximately 12
gallons) of cereals and yet the kind of classification set
out below might be considered too simplistic to be
historically accurate.[77]
The Areopagus, as viewed from the Acropolis, is a monolith where
Athenian aristocrats decided important matters of
state during Solon's time.
manual
workers or sharecroppers, they served voluntarily in
the role of personal servant, or as auxiliaries
armed for instance with the sling or as rowers in
the navy.
According to the
Athenian Constitution, only the pentakosiomedimnoi
were eligible for election to high office as archons and
therefore only they gained admission into the Areopagus.[78]
A modern view affords the same privilege to the hippeis.[79]
The top three classes were eligible for a variety of
lesser posts and only the thetes were excluded
from all public office.
Depending on how
we interpret the historical facts known to us, Solon's
constitutional reforms were either a radical anticipation
of democratic government, or they merely provided a
plutocratic flavour to a stubbornly aristocratic regime,
or else the truth lies somewhere between these two
extremes.[nb
1]
Economic reform
Solon's economic
reforms need to be understood in the context of the
primitive, subsistence economy that prevailed both before
and after his time. Most Athenians were still living in
rural settlements right up to the Peloponnesian War.[80]
Opportunities for trade even within the Athenian borders
were limited. The typical farming family, even in
classical times, barely produced enough to satisfy its own
needs.[81]
Opportunities for international trade were minimal. It has
been estimated that, even in Roman times, goods rose 40%
in value for every 100 miles they were carried over land,
but only 1.3% for the same distance were they carried by
ship[82]
and yet there is no evidence that Athens possessed any
merchant ships until around 525 BC.[83]
Until then, the narrow warship doubled as a cargo vessel.
Athens, like other Greek city states in the 7th Century
BC, was faced with increasing population pressures[84]
and by about 525 BC it was able to feed itself only in
'good years'.[85]
Solon's reforms
can thus be seen to have taken place at a crucial period
of economic transition, when a subsistence rural economy
increasingly required the support of a nascent commercial
sector. The specific economic reforms credited to Solon
are these:
This is one of the earliest known coins.
It was minted in the early 6th century BC in Lydia, one of the world's then
'superpowers'. Coins such as this might have made
their way to Athens in Solon's time but it is unlikely
that Athens had its own coinage at this period.
Fathers were
encouraged to find trades for their sons; if they did
not, there would be no legal requirement for sons to
maintain their fathers in old age.[86]
Foreign
tradesmen were encouraged to settle in Athens; those who
did would be granted citizenship, provided they brought
their families with them.[87]
Cultivation
of olives was encouraged; the export of all other
produce was prohibited.[88]
Competitiveness
of Athenian commerce was promoted through revision of
weights and measures, possibly based on successful
standards already in use elsewhere, such as Aegina or Euboia[89][90]
or, according to the ancient account but unsupported by
modern scholarship, Argos.[91]
It is generally
assumed, on the authority of ancient commentators[91][92]
that Solon also reformed the Athenian coinage. However, recent numismatic
studies now lead to the conclusion that Athens probably
had no coinage until around 560 BC, well after Solon's
reforms.[93]
Nevertheless, there are now reasons to suggest[94]
that monetization had already begun
before Solon's reforms. By early sixth century the
Athenians were using silver in the form of a variety of bullion silver pieces for monetary
payments.[95]Drachma and obol as a term of bullion value
had already been adopted, although the corresponding
standard weights were probably unstable.[96]
Solon's economic
reforms succeeded in stimulating foreign trade. Athenian black-figure pottery
was exported in increasing quantities and good quality
throughout the Aegean between 600 BC and 560 BC, a success
story that coincided with a decline in trade in Corinthian
pottery.[97]
The ban on the export of grain might be understood as a
relief measure for the benefit of the poor. However, the
encouragement of olive production for export could
actually have led to increased hardship for many Athenians
to the extent that it led to a reduction in the amount of
land dedicated to grain. Moreover, an olive produces no
fruit for the first six years[98]
(but farmers' difficulty of lasting until payback may also
give rise to a mercantilist argument in favour
of supporting them through that, since the British case
illustrates that 'One domestic policy that had a lasting
impact was the conversion of "waste lands" to agricultural
use. Mercantilists felt that to maximize a nation's power
all land and resources had to be used to their
utmost...'). The real motives behind Solon's economic
reforms are therefore as questionable as his real motives
for constitutional reform. Were the poor being forced to
serve the needs of a changing economy, was the economy
being reformed to serve the needs of the poor, or were
Solon's policies the manifestation of a struggle taking
place between poorer citizens and the aristocrats?
Moral reform
In his poems,
Solon portrays Athens as being under threat from the
unrestrained greed and arrogance of its citizens.[99]
Even the earth (Gaia), the mighty mother of
the gods, had been enslaved.[100]
The visible symbol of this perversion of the natural and
social order was a boundary marker called a horos,
a wooden or stone pillar indicating that a farmer was in
debt or under contractual obligation to someone else,
either a noble patron or a creditor.[101]
Up until Solon's time, land was the inalienable property
of a family or clan[102]
and it could not be sold or mortgaged. This was no
disadvantage to a clan with large landholdings since it
could always rent out farms in a sharecropping system. A family
struggling on a small farm however could not use the farm
as security for a loan even if it owned the farm. Instead
the farmer would have to offer himself and his family as
security, providing some form of slave labour in lieu of
repayment. Equally, a family might voluntarily pledge part
of its farm income or labour to a powerful clan in return
for its protection. Farmers subject to these sorts of
arrangements were loosely known as hektemoroi[103]
indicating that they either paid or kept a sixth of a
farm's annual yield.[104][105][106]
In the event of 'bankruptcy', or failure to honour the
contract stipulated by the horoi, farmers and
their families could in fact be sold into slavery.
This 6th Century Athenian black-figure
urn, in the British Museum, depicts
the olive harvest. Many farmers, enslaved for debt,
would have worked on large estates for their
creditors.
Solon's reform
of these injustices was later known and celebrated among
Athenians as the Seisachtheia (shaking off of
burdens).[107][108]
As with all his reforms, there is considerable scholarly
debate about its real significance. Many scholars are
content to accept the account given by the ancient
sources, interpreting it as a cancellation of debts, while
others interpret it as the abolition of a type of feudal
relationship, and some prefer to explore new possibilities
for interpretation.[4]
The reforms included:
annulment of
all contracts symbolised by the horoi.[109]
prohibition
on a debtor's person being used as security for a loan.[107][108]
release of
all Athenians who had been enslaved.[109]
The removal of
the horoi clearly provided immediate economic
relief for the most oppressed group in Attica, and it also
brought an immediate end to the enslavement of Athenians
by their countrymen. Some Athenians had already been sold
into slavery abroad and some had fled abroad to escape
enslavement – Solon proudly records in verse the return of
this diaspora.[110]
It has been cynically observed, however, that few of these
unfortunates were likely to have been recovered.[111]
It has been observed also that the seisachtheia
not only removed slavery and accumulated debt, it also
removed the ordinary farmer's only means of obtaining
further credit.[112]
The seisachtheia
however was merely one set of reforms within a broader
agenda of moral reformation. Other reforms included:
legislation
against abuses within the system of inheritance,
specifically with relation to the epikleros (i.e. a female
who had no brothers to inherit her father's property and
who was traditionally required to marry her nearest
paternal relative in order to produce an heir to her
father's estate).[114]
entitlement
of any citizen to take legal action on behalf of
another.[115][116]
the
disenfranchisement of any citizen who might refuse to
take up arms in times of civil strife, a measure that
was intended to counteract dangerous levels of political
apathy.[117][118][119][120][121]
Demosthenes claimed that the
city's subsequent golden age included "personal modesty
and frugality" among the Athenian aristocracy.[122]
Perhap Solon, by both personal example and legislated
reform, established a precedent for this decorum. A heroic
sense of civic duty later united Athenians against the
might of the Persians. Perhaps this
public spirit was instilled in them by Solon and his
reforms. Also see Solon
and Athenian sexuality.
Aftermath
of Solon's reforms
After completing
his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary
authority and left the country. According to Herodotus[123]
the country was bound by Solon to maintain his reforms for
10 years, whereas according to Plutarch[59]
and the author of the Athenian Constitution[124]
(reputedly Aristotle) the contracted period
was instead 100 years. A modern scholar[125]
considers the time-span given by Herodotus to be
historically accurate because it fits the 10 years that
Solon was said to have been absent from the country.[126]
Within 4 years of Solon's departure, the old social rifts
re-appeared, but with some new complications. There were
irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected
officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts
and occasionally important posts were left vacant. It has
even been said that some people blamed Solon for their
troubles.[127]
Eventually one of Solon's relatives, Peisistratos, ended the
factionalism by force, thus instituting an
unconstitutionally gained tyranny. In Plutarch's account, Solon
accused Athenians of stupidity and cowardice for allowing
this to happen.[128]
Solon was the
first of the Athenian poets whose work has survived to the
present day. His verses have come down to us in
fragmentary quotations by ancient authors such as Plutarch
and Demosthenes[129]
who used them to illustrate their own arguments. It is
possible that some fragments have been wrongly attributed
to him[130]
and some scholars have detected interpolations by later
authors.[131]
He was also the first citizen of Athens to reference the
goddess Athena (fr. 4.1-4).[132]
The literary
merit of Solon's verse is generally considered
unexceptional. Solon's poetry can be said to appear
'self-righteous' and 'pompous' at times[133]
and he once composed an elegy with moral advice for a more
gifted elegiac poet, Mimnermus. Most of the extant
verses show him writing in the role of a political
activist determined to assert personal authority and
leadership and they have been described by the German
classicist Wilamowitz as
a "versified harangue" (Eine Volksrede in Versen).[134]
According to Plutarch[135]
however, Solon originally wrote poetry for amusement,
discussing pleasure in a popular rather than philosophical
way. Solon's elegiac style is said to have been influenced
by the example of Tyrtaeus.[136]
He also wrote iambic and trochaic verses which, according
to one modern scholar,[137]
are more lively and direct than his elegies and possibly
paved the way for the iambics of Athenian drama.
Solon's verses
are mainly significant for historical rather than
aesthetic reasons, as a personal record of his reforms and
attitudes. However, poetry is not an ideal genre for
communicating facts and very little detailed information
can be derived from the surviving fragments.[138]
According to Solon the poet, Solon the reformer was a
voice for political moderation in Athens at a time when his fellow
citizens were increasingly polarized by social and
economic differences:
πολλοὶ γὰρ
πλουτεῦσι κακοί, ἀγαθοὶ δὲ πένονται:
ἀλλ' ἡμεῖς αὐτοῖς οὐ διαμειψόμεθα
τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸν πλοῦτον: ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἔμπεδον αἰεί,
χρήματα δ' ἀνθρώπων ἄλλοτε ἄλλος ἔχει.
Some wicked men are rich, some good are poor;
We will not change our virtue for their store:
Virtue's a thing that none can take away,
But money changes owners all the day.[8]
Here translated
by the English poet John Dryden, Solon's words
define a 'moral high ground' where differences between
rich and poor can be reconciled or maybe just ignored. His
poetry indicates that he attempted to use his
extraordinary legislative powers to establish a peaceful
settlement between the country's rival factions:
ἔστην δ' ἀμφιβαλὼν κρατερὸν
σάκος ἀμφοτέροισι:
νικᾶν δ' οὐκ εἴασ' οὐδετέρους ἀδίκως.
Before them both I held my shield of might
And let not either touch the other's right.[75]
His attempts
evidently were misunderstood:
χαῦνα μὲν τότ'
ἐφράσαντο, νῦν δέ μοι χολούμενοι
λοξὸν ὀφθαλμοῖς ὁρῶσι πάντες ὥστε δήϊον.
Formerly they boasted of me vainly; with averted eyes
Now they look askance upon me; friends no more but
enemies.[139]
Solon gave voice
to Athenian 'nationalism', particularly in the city
state's struggle with Megara, its neighbour and rival in
the Saronic Gulf. Plutarch professes admiration of Solon's
elegy urging Athenians to recapture the island of Salamis from Megarian
control.[13]
The same poem was said by Diogenes Laërtius to have
stirred Athenians more than any other verses that Solon
wrote:
Let us go to
Salamis to fight for the island
We desire, and drive away our bitter shame![140]
It is possible
that Solon backed up this poetic bravado with true valour
on the battlefield.[15]
Solon
and Athenian sexuality
As a regulator
of Athenian society, Solon, according to some authors,
also formalized its sexual mores. According to a surviving
fragment from a work ("Brothers") by the comic playwright
Philemon,[141]
Solon established publicly funded brothels at Athens in
order to "democratize" the availability of sexual
pleasure.[142]
While the veracity of this comic account is open to doubt,
at least one modern author considers it significant that
in Classical Athens, three hundred or so years after the
death of Solon, there existed a discourse that associated
his reforms with an increased availability of heterosexual
pleasure.[143]
Ancient authors
also say that Solon regulated pederastic
relationships in Athens; this has been presented as
an adaptation of custom to the new structure of the polis.[144][145]
According to various authors, ancient lawgivers (and
therefore Solon by implication) drew up a set of laws that
were intended to promote and safeguard the institution of
pederasty and to control abuses against freeborn boys. In
particular, the orator Aeschines cites laws excluding
slaves from wrestling halls and forbidding them to enter
pederastic relationships with the sons of citizens.[146]
Accounts of Solon's laws by 4th century orators like
Aeschines, however, are considered unreliable for a number
of reasons;[6][147][148]
Attic pleaders
did not hesitate to attribute to him (Solon) any law
which suited their case, and later writers had no
criterion by which to distinguish earlier from later
works. Nor can any complete and authentic collection of
his statutes have survived for ancient scholars to
consult.[149]
Besides the
alleged legislative aspect of Solon's involvement with
pederasty, there were also suggestions of personal
involvement. According to some ancient authors Solon had
taken the future tyrant Peisistratos as his eromenos.
Aristotle, writing around 330 BC, attempted to refute that
belief, claiming that "those are manifestly talking
nonsense who pretend that Solon was the lover of
Peisistratos, for their ages do not admit of it," as Solon
was about thirty years older than Peisistratos.[150]
Nevertheless, the tradition persisted. Four centuries
later Plutarch ignored Aristotle's skepticism[151]
and recorded the following anecdote, supplemented with his
own conjectures:
And they say
Solon loved [Peisistratos]; and that is the reason, I
suppose, that when afterwards they differed about the
government, their enmity never produced any hot and
violent passion, they remembered their old kindnesses,
and retained "Still in its embers living the strong
fire" of their love and dear affection.[152]
A century after
Plutarch, Aelian also said that
Peisistratos had been Solon's eromenos. Despite
its persistence, however, it is not known whether the
account is historical or fabricated. It has been suggested
that the tradition presenting a peaceful and happy
coexistence between Solon and Peisistratos was cultivated
during the latter's dominion, in order to legitimize his
own rule, as well as that of his sons. Whatever its
source, later generations lent credence to the narrative.[153]
Solon's presumed pederastic desire was thought in
antiquity to have found expression also in his poetry,
which is today represented only in a few surviving
fragments.[154][155]
The authenticity of all the poetic fragments attributed to
Solon is however uncertain – in particular, pederastic
aphorisms ascribed by some ancient sources to Solon have
been ascribed by other sources to Theognis
instead.[130]
"In all areas
then it was the work of Solon which was decisive in
establishing the foundations for the development of a
full democracy."—Marylin B. Arthur, 'The Origins of
the Western Attitude Toward Women', in Women in
the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers, John
Patrick Sullivan (ed.), State University of New York
(1984), page 30.
"In making
their own evaluation of Solon, the ancient sources
concentrated on what were perceived to be the
democratic features of the constitution. But...Solon
was given his extraordinary commission by the nobles,
who wanted him to eliminate the threat that the
position of the nobles as a whole would be
overthrown."—Stanton, G.R. Athenian Politics
c800–500BC: A Sourcebook, Routledge, London
(1990), p. 76.
References
1.··Aristotle
Politics 1273b 35–1274a 21
2.··Stanton,
G.R. Athenian Politics c800–500BC: A
Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1990), p. 76.
3.··Andrews,
A. Greek Society (Penguin 1967) 197
4.··E.
Harris, A New Solution to the Riddle of the
Seisachtheia, in 'The Development of the
Polis in Archaic Greece', eds. L. Mitchell and P.
Rhodes (Routledge 1997) 103
5.··Stanton
G.R. Athenian Politics c800–500 BC: A
Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1990), pp.
1–5.
6.··V.
Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates: Greek
History and Civilization, Routledge (1973)
71
39.··B.
Sealey, "Regionalism in Archaic Athens," Historia
9 (1960) 155-180.
40.··D.Lewis,
"Cleisthenes and Attica," Historia 12
(1963) 22-40.
41.··P.
Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian
Athenian Politeia, Oxford University Press
(1981) 186.
42.··P.
Rhodes, A History of the Greek City States,
Berkeley (1976).
43.··Walters
K.R. Geography and Kinship as Political
Infrastructures in Archaic Athens[3]
44.··Thucydides
2.14
- 2.16.
45.··Andrews,
A. Greek Society (Penguin 1967) 118.
46.··Stanton
G.R. Athenian Politics c800-500BC: A
Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1991), pages
3-4.
47.··Frost,
"Tribal Politics and the Civic State," AJAH
(1976) 66-75.
48.··Connor,
The New Politicians of Fifth Century Athens,
Princeton (1971) 11-14.
49.··Cary, Cambridge
Ancient
History, Cambridge Univ. Press (1925)
3:582-586.
50.··Ellis,
J. and Stanton, G., Phoenix 22 (1968)
95-99.
51.··Walters,
K.R., Geography and Kinship as Political
Infrastructures in Archaic Athens[4].
52.··See, for
example, J. Bintliff, "Solon's Reforms: an
archeological perspective", in Solon of
Athens: new historical and philological
approaches, eds. J. Blok and A. Lardinois
(Brill, Leiden 2006)[5],
and other essays published with it.
53.··V.
Ehrenberg, From Solon to Socrates: Greek
History and Civilization, Routledge (1973)
71–72
54.··Stanton,
G.R. Athenian Politics c800–500BC: A
Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1991), page
52
55.··Stanton,
G.R. Athenian Politics c800–500BC: A
Sourcebook, Routledge, London (1990), page
26
81.··Gallant
T. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece
(Stanford, 1991), cited by Morris I. in The
Growth of City States in the First Millennium BC
(Stanford, 2005) page 7 [6]
82.··Laurence
R. Land Transport in Rural Italy (Parkins
and Smith, 1998), cited by Morris I. in The
Growth of City States in the First Millennium BC
(Stanford, 2005) [7]
83.··Morris
I. The Growth of City States in the First
Millennium BC (Stanford, 2005) page 12 [8]
84.··Snodgrass
A.
Archaic Greece (London, 1980) cited by
Morris I. in The Growth of City States in the
First Millennium BC (Stanford, 2005) page 11
[9]
85.··Garnsey
P. Famine and Food Supply in Graeco-Roman
World (Cambridge, 1988) page 104, cited by
Morris I. in The Growth of City States in the
First Millennium BC (Stanford, 2005) [10]
130.··K.Hubbard,
Homosexuality in Greece and Rome: a sourcebook
of basic documents, Uni. California Press,
2003; p.36
131.··A.Lardinois,
Have we Solon's verses? and E.Stehle, Solon's
self-reflexive political persona and its
audience, in 'Solon of Athens: new
historical and philological approaches', eds.
J.Blok and A.Lardinois (Brill, Leiden 2006)
132.··Susan
Deacy, Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World:
Athena (2008) pg. 77
133.··Forrest
G., The Oxford History of the Classical World,
ed. Boardman J., Griffin J. and Murray O., Oxford
University Press (New York, 1995), page 31
134.··Wilamowitz,
Arist. u. Athen, ii 304, cited by Eduard
Fraenkel, Horace, Oxford University Press
(1957), page 38
142.··Rachel
Adams, David Savran, The Masculinity Studies
Reader; Blackwell, 2002; p.74
143.··One
Hundred Years of Homosexuality: And Other Essays
on Greek Love, p.101
144.··Bernard
Sergent, "Paederasty and Political Life in Archaic
Greek Cities" in Gay Studies from the French
Culture; Harrington Park Press, Binghamton,
NY 1993; pp.153–154
145.··Eros
and Greek Athletics By Thomas Francis
Scanlon, p.213 "So it is clear that Solon was
responsible for institutionalizing pederasty to
some extent at Athens in the early sixth century."
146.··Aeschines,
Against Timarchus 6, 25, 26 [11];
compare also Plutarch, Solon 1.3.
147.··Kevin
Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece,
Ox. Uni. Press, 1994; p. 128,
148.··P. J.
Rhodes, The Reforms and Laws of Solon: an
Optimistic View, in 'Solon of Athens: new
historical and philological approaches', eds. J.
Blok and A. Lardinois (Brill, Leiden 2006)
149.··Kevin
Robb, Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece,
Ox. Uni. Press 1994; p. 128 (quoting F. E. Adcock)
153.··Solon
and Early Greek Poetry By Elizabeth Irwin p.
272 n. 24
154.··Ancient
Greece By Matthew Dillon, Lynda Garland, p.
475
155.··Nick
Fisher, Against Timarchos, Oxford
University Press 2001, p. 37
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Tyrtaeus. Minora adespota, Oxford University
Press: Clarendon Press, 1972, revised edition, 1992
W.
Woodhouse, 'Solon the Liberator: A Study of the
Agrarian Problem', in Attika in the Seventh
Century, Oxford University Press, 1938
Collections
of Solon's surviving verses
Martin Litchfield
West, Iambi et elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum
cantati2 : Callinus. Mimnermus. Semonides.
Solon. Tyrtaeus. Minora adespota,, Oxonii: e
typographeo Clarendoniano 1972, revised edition 1992 x
+ 246 pp.
T.
Hudaon-Williams, Early Greek Elegy: Ekegiac
Fragments of Callinus, Archilochus, Mimmermus,
Tyrtaeus, Solon, Xenophanes, and Others, #
Taylor and Francis (1926), ISBN
0-8240-7773-3.
Christoph
Mülke, Solons politische Elegien und Iamben :
(Fr. 1 - 13, 32 - 37 West), Munich (2002), ISBN
3-598-77726-4.
Eberhard
Ruschenbusch Nomoi : Die Fragmente d. Solon.
Gesetzeswerkes, Wiesbaden : F. Steiner
(1966).
In desperation, the
Athenians in 594 B.C. gave Solon special
authority to revise their laws1 to deal with the
economic crisis and its dire social consequences that had
brought their society to the brink of internecine war. As
he explains in his autobiographical poetry, Solon tried to
steer a middle
course2
between the demands of the rich to preserve their
financial advantages and the call of the poor for a
redistribution of land to themselves from the holdings of
the large landowners. His famous “shaking off of
obligations”3
somehow freed those farms whose ownership had become
formally encumbered without, however, actually
redistributing any land. He also forbade the selling of
Athenians into slavery for debt and secured the liberation
of citizens who had become slaves4 in this way,
commemorating his success in the verses he wrote about his
reforms: “To
Athens, their home established by the gods, I brought
back many who had been sold into slavery, some justly,
some not ...”5
Attempting to balance
political power between rich and poor, , Solon ranked male
citizens into four classes according to their income6:
“five-hundred-measure men” (pentakosiomedimnoi , those
with an annual income equivalent to that much agricultural
produce), “horsemen” (hippeis , income of three hundred
measures), “yoked men” (zeugitai , two hundred measures),
and “laborers” (thetes, less than two hundred measures).
The higher a man's class, the higher the governmental
office for which he was eligible, with the laborer class
barred from all posts. Solon did reaffirm the right of
this class to participate in the assembly (ekklesia ),
however. Solon probably created a council (boule) of
four hundred7
men to prepare an agenda for the discussions in the
assembly, although some scholars place this innovation
later than Solon's time.
Aristocrats could not
dominate the council's deliberations because its members
were chosen by lot, probably only from the top three
income classes. Solon may also have initiated a schedule
of regular meetings for the assembly. These reforms gave
added impetus to the assembly's legislative role and thus
indirectly laid a foundation for the political influence
that the “laborer” (thete ) class would gradually acquire
over the next century and a half.
Peisistratos (/paɪˈsɪstrətəs/;
Greek: Πεισίστρατος; died
528/7 BCE), latinized Pisistratus, the son of Hippocrates,
was a ruler of ancient
Athens during most of the period between 561 and
527 BCE. His legacy lies primarily in his institution of
the Panathenaic
Festival and the consequent first attempt at
producing a definitive version of the Homeric
epics. Peisistratos' championing of the lower
class of Athens, the Hyperakrioi, (see below) is an
early example of populism. While in power,
Peisistratos did not hesitate to confront the
aristocracy, and he greatly reduced their privileges,
confiscated their lands and gave them to the poor, and
funded many religious and artistic programs.[1]
Peisistratids
is the common term for the three tyrants who ruled in
Athens from 546 to 510 BC, namely Peisistratos and his
two sons, Hipparchus
and Hippias.
Pisistratus was
a distant relative of Solon
from northern Attica. He had made a name for himself by
capturing the port of Nisaea in nearby Megara by creating a successful coup
in 564 BC. Pisistratus was backed by the Men of the Hill,
the poorer and majority of the population. This victory
opened up the unofficial trade blockage
that had been contributing to food shortage in Athens
during the past several decades.[2]
In the period
after the Megaran defeat, several political factions
competed for control in the government of Athens. These
groups were both economically and geographically
partitioned.[3]
Pedieis
- Lycurgus led the Pedieis, the population that resided
on the plains. These landowners produced grain, giving
them leverage during the food shortage.
Paralioi
- Paralioi were the population living along the coast.
Led by Megacles, an Alcmaeonid,
the Paralioi party was not as strong as the Pedieis,
primarily because they could not produce grain, as did
the plainsmen. With the Megarans patrolling the sea,
much of Athens' import/export power was limited.
Hyperakrioi - The last group of
people, who were not previously represented by formal
party, dwelled primarily in the hills and were by far
the poorest of the Athenian population. Their only
production was barter in items like honey and wool.
Peisistratos organized them into the Hyperakrioi, or
hill dwellers. This party grossly outnumbered the other
two parties combined.
His role in the
Megaran conflict gained Peisistratos popularity in Athens,
but he did not have the political clout to seize power.
Herodotus tells us how he intentionally wounded himself
and his mules in order to demand from the Athenian people
bodyguards for protection, which he received. By obtaining
support from the vast number of the poorer population as
well as bodyguards, he was able to seize the Acropolis and
the reins of government. The Athenians were open to a
tyranny similar to that under Solon -- and possible
stability and internal peace --and Pisistratus' ruse won
him further prominence.[4]
With this in his possession, and the collusion of Megacles and his party, he declared
himself tyrant.[5]
Periods of power
Peisistratos was
ousted from political office and exiled twice during his
reign. The first occurrence was circa 555 BC after the two
original parties, normally at odds with each other, joined
forces and removed Peisistratos from power. Actual dates
after this point become unclear. Peisistratos was exiled
for 3 to 6 years during which the agreement between the
Pedieis and the Paralioi fell apart. Peisistratos returned
to Athens and rode into the city in a golden chariot
accompanied by a tall woman appearing to be Athena. Many returned to his side,
believing he had the favour of the goddess.[6]
Differing sources state that he held the tyranny for one
to six years before he was exiled again. During his second
exile, he gathered support from local cities and resources
from the Laurion silver mines near Athens. After 10 years
he returned in force, regained his tyranny, and held power
until his death in 527 BC.
An archaic silver obol of Athens of heraldic
type from the time of Peisistratus, 545-525 BC
As opposed to
the contemporary definition of a tyrant, which is a single ruler,
often violent and oppressive, Peisistratos' career was a
model example of tyranny, a non-heritable position taken
by purely personal ability, often in violation of
tradition or constitutional norms. We see this in remarks
by both Herodotus and Aristotle. Herodotus, in his
Histories, wrote that Peisistratos, "not having disturbed
the existing magistrates nor changed the ancient laws…
administered the State under that constitution of things
which was already established, ordering it fairly and
well",[7]
while Aristotle wrote that "his administration was
temperate…and more like constitutional government than a
tyranny".[8]
Peisistratos often tried to distribute power and benefits
rather than hoard them, with the intent of easing stress
between the economic classes. The elites who had held
power in the Areopagus Council were allowed to
retain their archonships. For the lower classes,
he cut taxes and created a band of traveling judges to
provide justice for the citizens. Peisistratos enacted a
popular program to beautify Athens and promote the arts.
He minted coins with Athena's symbol (the owl), although
this was only one type on the so-called Wappenmünzen
(heraldic coins) and not a regular device as on the later,
standard silver currency. Under his rule were introduced
two new forms of poetry, the dithyramb and tragic drama,
and the era also saw growth in theater, arts, and
sculpture. He commissioned the permanent copying and
archiving of Homer's
two epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, and the canon of
Homeric works is said to derive from this particular
archiving.
Three
Attempts at Tyranny
With
Peisistratus' successful invasion and capture of Nisaea,
he attained great political standing in the assembly. He
initially met with resistance from nobles like Megacles,
the son of Alcmaeon, and Lycurgus, the son of
Aristolaïdes, who had shared power between them. Megacles
came over to Peisistratus' side and, with his help,
Peisistratus was accepted as tyrant by the Athenian
assembly in 561, and, according to Herodotus, he
"administered the state constitutionally and organized the
state's affairs properly and well."[9]
However, he was soon thereafter ousted. Herodotus explains
his exile “Not much later, however, the supporters of
Megacles and those of Lycurgus came to an understanding
and expelled him”.
He soon had a
second chance. Megacles invited him back in 556 on
condition that he marry Megacles' daughter. Peisistratus
returned in triumph accompanied by a tall, local woman
named Phye, whom he passed off as Athena. The awestruck
Athenians thus accepted his second tyranny. Peisistratus,
however, refused to impregnate Megacles' daughter, which
ended their coalition. Peisistratus was forced to leave
Attica entirely. During his nearly ten-year exile, he
created an alliance with powerful allies and accumulated
great wealth. With his powerful personal army, he marched
to Marathon and from there to Athens. His popularity
soared and many locals supported him. Thus, in 546 BC, he
began his third and final tyranny.[10]
Policies
of Peisistratus
Pisistratus's
main policies were aimed at strengthening the economy, and
similar to Solon, he was concerned about both agriculture
and commerce. He offered land and loans to the needy. He
encouraged the cultivation of olives and the growth of
Athenian trade, finding a way to the Black Sea and even
Italy and France. Under Peisistratus, fine Attic pottery
traveled to Ionia, Cyprus, and Syria. In Athens,
Pisistratus' public building projects provided jobs to
people in need while simultaneously making the city a
cultural center. He replaced the private wells of the
aristocrats with public fountain houses. Pisistratos also
built the first aqueduct in Athens, opening a reliable
water supply to sustain the large population.[11]
Legacy
Peisistratos
died in 527 or 528 BC. He was succeeded by his eldest son,
Hippias. Hippias and his
brother, Hipparchus,
ruled the city much as their father did. After a
successful murder plot against Hipparchus conceived by Harmodius and
Aristogeiton, Hippias became paranoid and
oppressive. This change caused the people of Athens to
hold Hippias in much lower regard. The Alcmaeonid
family helped depose the tyranny by bribing the Delphic
oracle to tell the Spartans to liberate Athens, which they did in 508 BC. The
Peisistratids were not executed, but rather were mostly
forced into exile. Afterwards, the surviving Peisistratid,
Hippias went on to aid the Persians with their attack on
Marathon acting as a guide. [12]
1.Shanaysha
M. Furlow Sauls, The concept of instability and the theory
of democracy in the "Federalist", p. 77[who?][when?]
2.Sarah
B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer
Tolbert Roberts, David Tandy, Ancient Greece: a political,
social, and cultural history(United States of America:
2012) Oxford University Press, New York, p191-2025
5.Aristotle,
The Athenian Constitution, Part 13; Herodotus, The
Histories, 1.59; Plutarch, “Life of Solon”, in Plutarch’s
Lives (London: Printed by W. M'Dowell for J. Davis,
1812), 185.
6.Aristotle,
The Athenian Constitution, Part 14; Herodotus, The
Histories, 1.60.
7.Herodotus,
The Histories, 1.59.
8.Aristotle,
The Athenian Constitution, Part 16.
9.Herodotus.
The Histories. Oxford University Press Inc. ISBN9780199535668.
10.Lavelle,
Brian (2010). "Pisistratos". Oxford Encyclopedia of
Ancient Greece and Rome.
11.Sarah
B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, Jennifer
Tolbert Roberts, David Tandy, Ancient Greece: a political,
social, and cultural history(United States of America:
2012) Oxford University Press, New York, p191-2025
12.trans.
Robin Waterfield, Herodotus (1998). The Histories.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN9780192824257.
References
Berti,
Monica. Fra tirannide e democrazia: Ipparco figlio
di Carmo e il destino dei Pisistratidi ad Atene.
Alessandria: Edizioni Dell’Orso, 2004
Borthwick,
Edward K. “Music and Dance.” Civilization of the
Ancient Mediterranean World: Greece and Rome. Eds.
Grant, Michael and Kitzinger, Rachel. 3 vols. New
York: Scribner’s, 1988. Vol. 1, 1507-8.
Cahill,
Thomas. Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks
Matter. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
French, A.
“The Party of Peisistratos.” Greece & Rome. Vol.
6, No. 1, March 1959. 45-57
Garland,
Robert. “Greek Spectacles and Festivals.” Civilization
of the Ancient Mediterranean World: Greece and Rome.
Eds. Grant, Michael and Kitzinger, Rachel. 3 vols. New
York: Scribner’s, 1988. Vol. 1, 1148.
Hornblower,
Simon and Spawforth, Anthony eds. “Peisistratus.” The
Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Oxford University
Press, 2003.
Lavelle, B.
M. Fame, Money and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and
“Democratic” Tyranny at Athens. The University of
Michigan Press, 2005.
Lavelle B.
M. “The Compleat Angler: Observations on the Rise of
Peisistratos in Herodotos (1.59-64). The Classical
Quarterly. New Series, Vol. 41, No. 2, 1991. 317-324.
Cleisthenes (/ˈklaɪsθəˌniːz/;
Greek: Κλεισθένης, also
Clisthenes or Kleisthenes) was a noble Athenian of the Alcmaeonid family. He is
credited with reforming the constitution of ancient Athens and setting it on a democratic footing in
508/7 BC.[1]
For these accomplishments, historians refer to him as
"the father of Athenian democracy."[2]
He was the maternal grandson of the tyrant Cleisthenes of Sicyon,
as the younger son of the latter's daughter Agariste and her
husband Megacles. Also, he was credited
with increasing the power of the Athenian citizens’
assembly and for reducing the power of the nobility over
Athenian politics. [3]
Historians
estimate that Cleisthenes was born around 570 BC.[4]
Cleisthenes was the uncle of Pericles' mother Agariste[5]
and of Alcibiades' maternal
grandfather Megacles.[6]
Rise to power
With help from
the Alcmaeonidae (Cleisthenes' genos,
"clan"), he was responsible for overthrowing Hippias, the tyrant son of Pisistratus.
After the collapse of Hippias' tyranny, Isagoras and Cleisthenes were
rivals for power, but Isagoras won the upper hand by
appealing to the Spartan king Cleomenes I to help him
expel Cleisthenes. He did so on the pretext of the Alcmaeonid curse.
Consequently, Cleisthenes left Athens as an exile, and
Isagoras was unrivalled in power within the city.
Isagoras set about dispossessing hundreds of Athenians
of their homes and exiling them on the pretext that they
too were cursed. He also attempted to dissolve the Boule (βουλή), a
council of Athenian citizens appointed to run the daily
affairs of the city. However, the council resisted, and
the Athenian people declared their support of the
council. Isagoras and his supporters were forced to flee
to the Acropolis, remaining
besieged there for two days. On the third day they fled
the city and were banished. Cleisthenes was subsequently
recalled, along with hundreds of exiles, and he assumed
leadership of Athens.[7]
Contribution
to the governance of Athens
After this
victory Cleisthenes began to reform the government of
Athens. He commissioned a bronzememorial
from the sculptorAntenor in honor of the lovers and tyrannicidesHarmodius and
Aristogeiton, whom Hippias had executed. In order
to forestall strife between the traditional clans, which
had led to the tyranny in the
first place, he changed the political organization from
the four traditional tribes, which were based on family
relations, into ten tribes according to their area of
residence (their deme). It is thought that there
may have been 139 demes (though this is still a matter
of debate) which were organized into three groups called
trittyes ("thirds"), with
ten demes divided among three regions in each
trittyes (a city region, asty; a coastal region,
paralia; and an inland region, mesogeia).[8]
Cleisthenes also abolished patronymics in favour of demonymics
(a name given according to the deme to which one
belongs), thus increasing Athenians' sense of belonging
to a deme.[9]
He also established sortition - the random selection
of citizens to fill government positions rather than
kinship or heredity, a true test of real democracy. He
reorganized the Boule, created with
400 members under Solon, so that it had 500 members,
50 from each tribe. He also introduced the bouletic
oath, "To advise according to the laws what was best for
the people".[10]
The court system (Dikasteria — law courts) was
reorganized and had from 201–5001 jurors selected each
day, up to 500 from each tribe. It was the role of the
Boule to propose laws to the assembly of voters, who
convened in Athens around forty times a year for this
purpose. The bills proposed could be rejected, passed or
returned for amendments by the assembly.
Cleisthenes
also may have introduced ostracism (first used in
487 BC), whereby a vote from more than 6,000 of the
citizens would exile a citizen for 10 years. The initial
trend was to vote for a citizen deemed a threat to the
democracy (e.g., by having ambitions to set himself up
as tyrant). However, soon after, any citizen judged to
have too much power in the city tended to be targeted
for exile (e.g., Xanthippus in 485/84 BC).[11]
Under this system, the exiled man's property was
maintained, but he was not physically in the city where
he could possibly create a new tyranny.
Cleisthenes
called these reforms isonomia ("equality vis à
vis law", iso=equality; nomos=law), instead of demokratia. Cleisthenes’
life after his reforms is unknown as no ancient texts
mention him thereafter.
Notes
Ober, pp. 83
ff.
Aristotle, Constitution of
the Athenians, Chapter 22
R. Po-chia
Hsia, Julius Caesar, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H.
Rosenwein, and Bonnie G. Smith, The Making of
the West, Peoples and Cultures, A Concise History,
Volume I: To 1740 (Boston and New York:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007), 44.
Langer,
William L. (1968) The Early Period, to c. 500 B.C.
An Encyclopedia of World History (Fourth Edition pp.
66). Printed in the United States of America:
Houghton Mifflin Company. Accessed: January 29, 2011
The
Greeks:Crucible of Civilization (2000)
Herodotus, Histories
6.131
Plutarch.
Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by.
Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University
Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1916. 4.
Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 20
Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 21
Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 21
Morris &
Raaflaub Democracy 2500?: Questions and
Challenges
References
1.Ober, pp. 83 ff.
2.R. Po-chia Hsia,
Julius Caesar, Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein,
and Bonnie G. Smith, The Making of the West,
Peoples and Cultures, A Concise History, Volume I:
To 1740 (Boston and New York: Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2007), 44.
3.Langer, William L.
(1968) The Early Period, to c. 500 B.C. An
Encyclopedia of World History (Fourth Edition pp. 66).
Printed in the United States of America: Houghton
Mifflin Company. Accessed: January 29, 2011
4.The
Greeks:Crucible of Civilization (2000)
5.Herodotus, Histories
6.131
6.Plutarch.
Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by.
Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University
Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1916. 4.
7.Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 20
8.Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 21
9.Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 21
10.Morris &
Raaflaub Democracy 2500?: Questions and Challenges
11.Aristotle,
Constitution of the Athenians, Chapter 22
Morris I.; Raaflaub K., eds.
(1998). Democracy 2500?: Questions and
Challenges. Kendal/Hunt Publishing Co.
Ober, Josiah (2007). "I
Besieged That Man, Democracy's Revolutionary
Start". Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece.
University of California Press. ISBN978-0-520-24562-4.
Lévêque, Pierre;
Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (1996). Cleisthenes the
Athenian: An Essay on the Representation of
Space and Time in Greek Political Thought from
the End of the Sixth Century to the Death of
Plato. Humanities Press.
Further
reading
Davies, J.K. (1993). Democracy
and classical Greece. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press. ISBN0-674-19607-4.
Ehrenberg, Victor (2010). From
Solon to Socrates Greek History and Civilization
During the 6th and 5th Centuries BC.
Hoboken: Taylor & Francis. ISBN978-0-203-84477-9.
Forrest, William G. (1966).
The Emergence of Greek Democracy, 800–400 BC.
New York: McGraw–Hill.
Hignett, Charles (1952). A
History of the Athenian Constitution to the End
of the Fifth Century BC. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
Larsen, Jakob A. O. (1948).
"Cleisthenes and the Development of the Theory of
Democracy at Athens". In Konvitz, Milton R.;
Murphy, Arthur E. Essays in Political Theory
Presented to George H. Sabine. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
O'Neil, James L. (1995). The
origins and development of ancient Greek
democracy. Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
Littlefield. ISBN0-8476-7956-X.
Staveley, E. S. (1972). Greek
and Roman voting and elections. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Pr. ISBN0-8014-0693-5.
Thorley, John (1996). Athenian
democracy. London: Routledge. ISBN0-415-12967-2.
Banquet scene from a Temple of Athena(6th century BC relief).
The Greek symposium was a key Hellenic social institution.
It was a forum for men of respected families to debate,
plot, boast, or simply to revel with others. They were
frequently held to celebrate the introduction of young men
into aristocratic society. Symposia were also held by
aristocrats to celebrate other special occasions, such as
victories in athletic and poetic contests. They were a
source of pride for them.
Symposia were usually held in the andrōn (ἀνδρών), the men's
quarters of the household. The participants, or
"symposiasts", would recline on pillowed couches arrayed against the three
walls of the room away from the door. Due to space
limitations the couches would number between seven and
nine, limiting the total number of participants to
somewhere between fourteen and twenty seven[2]
(Oswyn Murray gives a figure of between seven and fifteen
couches and reckons fourteen to thirty participants a
"standard size for a drinking group").[3]
If any young men took part they did not recline but sat
up.[4]
However, in Macedonian symposia the focus was not only on
drinking but hunting, and young men were allowed to
recline only after they had killed their first wild boar.
Food and wine were served. Entertainment was provided, and
depending on the occasion could include games, songs,
flute-girls or boys, slaves performing various acts, and
hired entertainment.
Symposia often were held for specific occasions. The most
famous symposium of all, described in Plato's dialogue of that
name (and rather differently in Xenophon's) was hosted
by the poet Agathon on the occasion of his first
victory at the theater contest of the 416 BC Dionysia. According to Plato's
account, the celebration was upstaged by the unexpected
entrance of the toast of the town, the young Alcibiades, dropping in drunken
and nearly naked, having just left another symposium.
The men apart of the symposium would discuss a multitude
of topics—from philosophy to love and the differences
between genders.
Drinking
A slave attends to a vomiting
symposiast.
A symposium would be overseen by a "symposiarch" who would
decide how strong the wine for the evening would be,
depending on whether serious discussions or merely sensual
indulgence were in the offing. The Greeks and Romans
customarily served their wine mixed with water, as the
drinking of pure wine was considered a habit of uncivilized peoples. However,
there were major differences between the Roman and Greek
symposiums. A Roman symposium served wine before, with and
after food was served, and women were allowed to join. In
a Greek symposium, wine was only drunk after dinner, and
women were not allowed to attend.[5]
The wine was drawn from a krater, a large jar designed to
be carried by two men, and served from pitchers (oenochoe). Certain
formalities were observed, most important among which were
libations, the pouring of a small
amount of wine in honour of various deities or the mourned
dead.
In a fragment from his c. 375 BC play Semele or
Dionysus, Eubulus has the god of wine Dionysos
describe proper and improper drinking:
For sensible men I prepare only three kraters: one for
health (which they drink first), the second for love and
pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one
is drained, wise men go home. The fourth krater is not
mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth
is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults;
the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking
the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is
for madness and unconsciousness.
In keeping with the Greek virtue of moderation, the
symposiarch should have prevented festivities from getting
out of hand, but Greek literature and art often indicate
that the third-krater limit was not observed.[citation needed]
Pottery
Symposiums are often featured on Attic pottery and Richard Neer has argued that
the chief function of Attic pottery was for use in the
symposium.[6]
Entertainments
Kottabos player
flinging wine-dregs (Attic red-figure kylix, c. 510
BC).
Poetry and music were central to the pleasures of the
symposium. Although free women of status did not attend
symposia, high-class female prostitutes (hetairai)
and entertainers were hired to perform, consort, and
converse with the guests. Among the instruments women
might play was the aulos, a Greek woodwind
instrument sometimes compared to an oboe.
When string instruments were played, the barbiton was the traditional
instrument.[7]
Slaves and boys also provided service and entertainment.
The guests also participated actively in competitive
entertainments. A game sometimes played at symposia was kottabos, in which players
swirled the dregs of their wine in a kylix, a platter-like
stemmed drinking vessel, and flung them at a target.
Another feature of the symposia were skolia, drinking songs of a
patriotic or bawdy nature, performed competitively with
one symposiast reciting the first part of a song and
another expected to improvise the end of it. Symposiasts
might also compete in rhetorical contests, for which
reason the word "symposium" has come to refer in English
to any event where multiple speeches are made.
Etruscan art shows scenes of
banqueting that recall aspects of the Greek symposia;
however, one major difference is that women of status
participated more fully in this as in other realms of Etruscan society. As
with many other Greek customs, the aesthetic framework of
the symposium was adopted by the Romans under the name of
comissatio. These revels also involved the drinking
of assigned quantities of wine, and the oversight of a
master of the ceremonies appointed for the occasion from
among the guests. Another Roman version of the symposium
was the convivium.
References
1.Peter Garnsey, Food
and Society in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge
University Press, 1999), p. 136 online; Sara Elise
Phang, Roman Military Service: Ideologies of
Discipline in the Late Republic and Early Principate
(Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 263–264.
2.Literature in the
Greek World By Oliver Taplin; p 47
3.The Oxford Companion
to Classical Civilization (ed. Hornblower &
Spawforth), pp. 696-7
4.Xenophon, "Symposium"
1.8
5.Gately, Iain (2008). Drink:
A Cultural History Of Alcohol. New York: Penguin
Group. p. 32. ISBN978-1-592-40464-3.
Reviewed by Nikolaus Overtoom (Louisiana
State University) Published on H-War (January, 2015) Commissioned by Margaret Sankey
Institutional
Power and Public Finance in Archaic Athens
Hans van Wees’s Ships and Silver, Taxes and
Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens argues
that the financial and institutional advances
associated with classical Athens were developments of
the archaic period. The book charts the rise of
institutional power in archaic Athens with a focus on
public finance. Van Wees is at odds with many of the
generally accepted historiographical traditions of the
fiscal history of Athens. His revisionist history
uses, as Paul Millett calls it, “new fiscal history.”
Van Wees reconsiders literary evidence from authors,
such as Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Aristotle,
and supplements them with archaeological evidence. He
concludes that the accounts of later authors either
were biased toward making classical Athens seem more
spectacular by overlooking the archaic period or were
anachronistic. The scope of the work roughly ranges
from the reforms of Solon in 594 BCE to the transfer
of the war chest of the Delian League to Athens in 454
BCE. In seven chapters, he discusses the obstacles in
studying archaic Greece, the background to public
finance in archaic Greece, Athenian financial
institutions, public spending, public revenue, and the
media of public finance. A brief concluding chapter, a
short appendix on Persian naval expansion, a sizable
bibliography, and a helpful select index of passages
accompany the work. Van Wees is Grote Professor of
Ancient History at University College London and is
the author of several works on ancient Greece.
In his first chapter, van Wees argues that Athens had
a uniquely sophisticated system of public finance,
which featured progressive taxation and wealth
distribution and had its roots in the archaic period.
He maintains that by the early sixth century BCE, the
administrative institutions, expenditures, revenues,
and financial media of Athens were in place and
becoming increasingly refined. Before the publication
of this book, investigation of archaic public finance
was ignored almost completely. This work aims to
demonstrate that the sources support the development
of public finance in the archaic period, that archaic
Athens was a state capable of a system of public
finance, and that the archaic economy of Athens was
not too simple to support public finance. Van Wees
wants to move away from the “primitivist” or
“substantivist” model of the ancient economy and to
emphasize the complexity of Athenian state finance in
the archaic period.
Chapter 2 addresses examples of public finance in
archaic communities outside of Athens. Homeric age
communities practiced “communal” funding in the form
of war preparation, gifts, and favors. By the early
archaic period, Greek communities had developed the
concept of wage labor. Van Wees discusses how wage
earning military personnel eventually replaced the
custom of gift giving and plunder seeking in military
service. Moreover, he argues that “the levying of
taxes and dues was thus pervasive by the late archaic
period” (p. 29). He contends further that Persian
naval expansion in the late sixth century BCE was the
most important external influence on the development
of Greek public finance because mainland Greeks needed
better public funding in order to support better
fleets of triremes. The Persian Empire financed the
creation of trireme navies in its captured Ionian
cities. Mainland Greeks responded by building their
own trireme navies, and this quickly accelerated the
development of formal public finance and public navies
by the end of the sixth century BCE.
Chapter 3 discusses the institutionalization of
Athenian public finance in the sixth century BCE. Van
Wees argues that the financial apparatus of the
Athenian state was large at the beginning of the sixth
century and only became larger and more complex.
Solonian Athens had treasurers in charge of temple
wealth, officials called “ham-collectors” in charge of
secular public funds, and sellers in charge of public
assets. Cleisthenes’s reforms at the end of the
century expanded the number of financial officials and
added to them the new rank of “receivers,” who helped
the “ham-collectors” in their duties. Further
officials called “naukraroi” helped organize and fund
Athenian military levies.
Chapter 4 charts the expenditures of archaic Athens.
Van Wees argues that Athens created a publicly funded
trireme fleet under the tyrant Hippias. Cleisthenes
then unified the Athenian navy and made it all
publicly funded. Moreover, van Wees argues that by the
late sixth century BCE the Athenian government began
to pay its sailors and soldiers wages. In addition,
there was an acceleration of public spending on cult
sacrifices.
Chapter 5 discusses the revenues of archaic Athens.
Van Wees argues that the irregular “contribution” tax,
known as the “eisphora,” was not uniquely Athenian. It
was a normal form of direct taxation on wealthy
citizens throughout archaic Greece and more widely
utilized in the sixth century BCE than previously
thought. He demonstrates that after the reforms of
Solon the Athenian government levied eisphorai
according to one’s annual harvest. By the late sixth
century, the amount levied had increased with the
introduction of public spending on wages and
buildings. He argues that the eisphorai continued
after the reforms of Cleisthenes, but the tax changed
from agricultural produce to coinage and increasingly
became the burden of the wealthy. Further, van Wees
contends that Hippias established the funding
mechanism of Athenian liturgy.
Throughout the sixth century BCE, taxes on trade and
the exploitation of public properties for revenue,
like the silver mines at Laurion, were common. Van
Wees argues that Athens collected large amounts of
tribute from its allies in the Delian League from the
beginning. He maintains that by 478-477 BCE Athens
could wage war mostly without cost because of this
tribute. Substantial direct profits of empire meant
that the Athenian government no longer needed the
eisphora tax to raise additional revenues until the
Peloponnesian War.
In chapter 6, van Wees uses archaeological evidence to
help demonstrate that the reforms of Solon eventually
“resulted in a fully monetized system of public
finance in Athens by 500 BCE” (p. 107). He illustrates
that by 700 BCE a fairly standard system of weights
and measures was used throughout the Greek world;
however, the value was calculated in oxen, bowls, and
spits. He argues that the Greek literary tradition
concerning Solon’s reform of measures and weights is
anachronistic and not supported by archaeological
evidence. Solon’s reform led to the aligning of trade
weights with the silver standard by the end of the
sixth century BCE. Moreover, van Wees argues that
Solon’s reform was responsible for “the transition
from ‘oxen-worth’ to weighted silver as the measure of
value used in public transactions” (p. 121). This
transition mirrored a growth in contractual
transactions and the volume of public business.
Van Wees reconstructs the early history of coinage at
Athens. He argues that the use of coinage and the
increase in public spending at the end of the sixth
century were intertwined. New coinage also facilitated
overseas trade. Yet he demonstrates that coinage was
not a radical change from the nature of transactions,
going back to the late seventh century; rather, it
created “a medium which allowed archaic trends towards
greater scale and complexity in both public finance
and private exchange” (p. 133). Additionally, coinage
provided the state with another means of control.
Van Wees’s final chapter encapsulates his main points
of argument. He maintains that the Homeric system of
communal finance evolved rapidly over the seventh
century BCE so that by the end of the sixth century
BCE Athens had multiple grades of financial officers
and central control over financial functions, which
allowed formalized public funding. By the late sixth
century, public wages supported an enlarged army and
navy, which required increased revenue in the form of
the eisphora tax, mining, and liturgy. The reforms of
Cleisthenes expanded Athenian financial administration
and further increased revenues. Van Wees argues that
further reforms in the fifth century were not
necessary since Athenian leadership of the Delian
League created new imperial revenue. Athens in the
fifth century already had a sophisticated system of
public finance that would change little throughout the
classical period. He emphasizes that the rapid
acceleration of the development of public finance was
a direct reaction to the considerable threat posed by
the Persian Empire and its naval expansions in the
late sixth century. Added to this was “a more general
development towards the institutionalization of power”
(p. 143). Van Wees concludes that the early central
monopoly of legitimate force and the progressive
taxation system of Athens made it unique in European
history.
Although concise and informative, nonspecialist
readers might find sections of this work to be too
technical. The book challenges historiographical
traditions with textual and archaeological analysis
and comes to some groundbreaking conclusions. Van Wees
provides the original Greek with his own translations
for important sections, but he assumes that his
audience understands specialized terminology, such as
“choinix,” “kotyle,” “medimnoi,” and “metretai.”
Additionally, the historiographical discussions are
rather dry. Van Wees’s work targets the informed
audience, and for these reasons this book is ideal for
graduate students and scholars.
I have only a few comments of note. Van Wees’s
conclusion that “the range of public revenues and
expenditures in Homer is very similar to what we find
in archaic Athens and elsewhere in Greece” (p. 22)
seems evident since Homer’s works often reflect
practices in Dark Age Greece, some of which surely
would have continued into the archaic period. In
chapter 5 in the section on tribute revenue, he places
emphasis on the year 478-477 BCE, rather than 454 BCE,
as the year that Athens began receiving large
quantities of tribute from its Delian League allies.
This is a well-argued and interesting point; however,
I am not convinced that this was an archaic
institution. I would argue that the formation of the
Delian League was a “classical” innovation. Finally,
his conclusion that public finance at Athens developed
in order to support larger and better navies in an
effort to combat Persian expansion in the late sixth
century is insightful and highly compelling, as is his
emphasis on the fundamental desire of the archaic
Athenian state to use institutionalized power and
funding to create internal stability in order to
better compete against other states in the Greek
world. Arthur Eckstein’s book, Mediterranean
Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome
(2006), puts a similar emphasis on security-driven
policy for the sake of state survival.
Van Wees’s study is well organized and compellingly
argued. It is difficult to disagree with his
conclusions. It seems highly probable that the trireme
navy, public funding, and institutionalization of
classical Athens had its roots squarely planted in the
sixth century BCE. His revisionist reconstruction of
Athenian history should spark productive dialogue on
how the development of financial institutions and
practices in the archaic period influenced classical
Greece.
Citation: Nikolaus Overtoom. Review
of Hans van Wees, Ships and Silver, Taxes and
Tribute: A Fiscal History of Archaic Athens.
H-War, H-Net Reviews. January, 2015. URL:http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=41059
9a
Archaic Greece Timeline
In
the Archaic Period there were vast changes in Greek
language, society, art, architecture, and politics.
These changes occurred due to the increasing population
of Greece and its increasing amount trade, which in turn led to colonization
and a new age of intellectual ideas, the most important
of which (at least to the modern Western World) was
Democracy. This would then fuel, in a rather circular
way, more cultural changes.
·800 BCE
-
500 BCEGreek
colonization of the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
The initial name of
Athens was Akte or Aktike, named after
the first king, Akteos. Her
second name, Kekropia, received it from the
king, Kekrops, who succeeded Akteos, by marrying his
daughter. According to the legend, his lower body was
that of a dragon. During his reign, goddess Athena and
Poseidon were competing for the protection of the city
and each one offered presents. Poseidon struck the rock
at the Acropolis with his trident (the three marks can
be seen behind the Erectheion..)
and a spring with salted water gushed up. With the blow
also leaped the first horse, ready to serve the man
faithfully, while Athena offered an olive tree. The
legend tell us, that all the men of Athens voted for the
gift of Poseidon and all the women, for the gift of
Athena and because there was one woman more than the
men, goddess Athena was selected and from her, the city
took her name.
To defend the country from the Karian pirates from the
sea and the Boeotians from the land, Kekrops, in order
to manage better the population, distributed Attica in
the following twelve sections: Aphidna, Brauron,
Dekeleia, Epakria, Eleusis, Kekropia, Kephisius,
Kytherus, Phalerus, Sphettus, Tetrapolis, Thorikus. He
also ordered each man to cast a single stone and by
counting the stones, it was found that they were twenty
thousand inhabitants.
Kekrops introduced
the worship of Zeus and the ritual offerings of sweet
meats (pelanoi), instead of human sacrifice. His grave
in Acropolis was preserved until the fourth century BC.
When an enemy army
besieged Athens, the Athenians asked the advice of
Delphi, which gave them the oracle, that in order to
save the city, an Athenian ought to be sacrificed by his
own will. When the daughter of king Kekrops, Agravlos,
learned about the oracle, she ascended to the Acropolis
and fell to her death. Athenians to honor her,
build a temple in the Acropolis and every year, were
celebrating the Agravleia.
According to
another legend, Agravlos or Aglavros, the same daughter
of king Kekrops and her two sisters Herse and Pandrosos,
they were entrusted with a box by goddess Athena, which
commanded them not to open it. Pandrosos, the younger
one, obeyed, but Agravlos and Herse opened it and saw a
serpent shaped child or according to another version, a
snake surrounding the child Erichthonios, which came out
and crawled to the shield of Athena. The girls were so
frightened from what they saw, that they leapt to their
deaths, from the Acropolis.
Kekrops was
succeeded by his son, Erysichthon, who had no children
and he was succeeded by Kranaos. One of the daughters of
Kranaos was called Atthis and from her, the
whole region took the name, Attica.
Kranaos was
dethroned by Amphiktyon, who in return was expelled by
Erichthonios, son of Hephaestos and the Earth.
The Legend
represents him as half man and half serpent. He took
power around 1500 BC and started a powerful dynasty from
which the heroes Pandion, Erechtheos, Aegeas, Theseus
descended. Erichthonios placed in the Acropolis the
wooden statue of Athena and introduced the festival of
Athenaea. He was the inventor of the four wheeled
chariot and the first to bread horses. He married the
nymph Pasithea and had a son, Pandion. Pandion
married the nymph Zeuxippe and had twin sons Erechtheos
and Butes and two daughters, Prokne and
Philomela.
Pandion was
succeeded by Erechtheos. When Erechtheos was at war with
the Eleusinians and Thracians, under their leader Eumolpos,
he was advised by the Delphic oracle, that in order to
win the war, he ought to sacrifice the three of his six
daughters. When the girls voluntary consented,
Erechtheos put them to death. After this, he went to the
battle with confidence and totally vanquished his enemy.
When the Eleusinians were defeated, Poseidon in anger
destroyed the house of Erechtheos, who was probably
killed in the battle.
Erechtheos was
succeeded by his son Kekrops II and he by his son
Pandion II, who had four sons, Aegeus, Pallas, Nisus and
Lycos.
Theseus ca 1300 BC
Theseus
was the son of the king of Athens, Aegeus and Aethra.
He had been educated by his grandfather, Pittheus at
Troezen, and at age sixteen, he dedicated his forelocks
to the Delian Apollo. His father Aegeus
was childless and when he consulted the oracle at
Delphi, he received an obscure reply and in order to
interpret it, he visited Pittheus, the king of Troezen,
famous for his wisdom. Pittheus made him drunk and put
him to sleep with his daughter, Aethra, which
became pregnant after that. When Aegeus departed, he
left behind a sword and a pair of sandals, under a rock
and told Aethra, that if the child was a boy and reaches
manhood to lift the rock, take the sword and the sandals
and come to Athens.
When Theseus
reached the age of sixteen, his mother led him to the
rock, which he lifted with ease, took his father
presents and set out to meet him. In his way to Athens,
he had a series of adventures, all of them victorious.
When Theseus arrived at Athens, Medeia, the wife of
Aegeus, suspecting who was, she persuaded Aegeus to
invite him to a banquet, intending to kill him with
poison. His father however recognized him in time, from
the sword he was wearing and banished Medeia and her
son, to Asia.
Theseus was the first social reformer of Athens. At his
time, Attica was consisted from twelve towns, each one
having her own ruler (tyrannisko), who came often in
conflict between them. Theseus united the towns
(synoikismos) and renamed the city of Athena, Athenae,
meaning the union of the twelve cities. To
commemorate this event, he instituted the feast of the
union of the tribes (synoikia or metoikia) and the
Athenaea, the festival Erichthonios had introduced,
renamed them Panathenaea, a celebration of the
new united city of Athens.
He distributed the people in three classes: the Eupatridae,
Geomoroi and Demiourgoi. Eupatridae were
the rich and educated people, governors, generals,
priests, etc. Geomoroi were agricultural people and
Demiourgoi were the artisans. All three classes had the
same rights. He issued coins, with the picture of an ox
upon them, the so called dekaveia and ekatoveia,
with the value of ten and one hundred oxen.
Theseus took also
part in the Argonautic expedition and fought with
Herakles against the Amazons. He increased the territory
of Athens, by conquering Megara, reaching as far as the
Isthmos of Corinth.
He also introduced
the Isthmia Games, at Isthmos.
Menestheos, the
rival of Theseus, took advantage to destroy his
popularity with the people, while Theseus was away from
Attica, to help his friend Perithoos. At the same time
Kastor and Pollux invaded Attica, in order to free their
sister Helen, whom Theseus had abducted from Sparta. A
friend of Menestheos, Academos, who had gardens
in the place where later the Academy was
created, told Dioskouroi where Theseus was hiding Helen,
in Aphidnae. With the Dioskouroi fought also against the
Athenians, the general Marathos, from Arkadia.
The place, where he was killed in battle, was named Marathon.
When Theseus
returned to Athens, he found out that the people were no
more disposed to listen and honor him and thus, he left
his sons under the protection of Elephenor in Euboea and
went to the island of Skyros.
Theseus was assassinated by his friend
king Lykomedes of Skyros. His remains were brought by
Kimon in 475 BC, from the island of Skyros to Athens and
were buried south west of Agora. Near it, a set of rooms
decorated by the famous painters Mikon and Polygnotos,
were used for feasts, in his honor. The Doric temple of
Hephaestos and Athena Ergane or Theseum,
which stands at the western end of the Agora, on the
hill of Agoraios Kolonos, erected by the architect
Ictinos (449-440 BC), depicts the exploits of Theseus in
its friezes and metopes.
Menestheos later
became the commander of the Athenian troops, at Troy.
Even though he was alive, he did not return to Athens
and Athenians restored the sons of Theseus, Demophoon,
Oxynias, Apheidas and Thymaetes,
who in succession governed Athens for about sixty
years.
When the Dorians
invaded Peloponnesos, they forced Melanthos and the
Neleid family of Pylos, to abandon their kingdom and to
find shelter at Athens. When a war broke between
Athenians and Euboeans for the boundary of Oinoe, the
Boeotian king Xanthos challenged Thymaetes to a single
combat. When Thymaetes declined to accept, Melanthos
took his place and skillfully fought and killed his
opponent. After this event Thymaetes resigned and
Melanthos became king.
Kodros ca 1100 BC
Melanthos and his
son Kodros, reigned for almost sixty years. There is a
story that during the reign of king Kodros, a powerful
Dorian force under Aletes from Korinth and Althaemenes
from Argos, invaded Attica. The Delphic oracle had promised
them success to their expedition, provided that they
will not injure Kodros. When this was learned by Kodros,
he disguised himself as a peasant woodcutter and went to
the enemy camp, provoking a quarrel with the Dorians and
he was killed. When the Dorians learned that the killed
person was Kodros, they left Athens and conquered
Megara. According to an older tradition, Kodros was
killed in the battle.
Kodros was the
last king of Athens. After his heroic sacrifice, the
Athenians did not permit anyone else, to bear the title
of king. His descendants, they were called Archons.
After his death, his sons Medon and Neleus
quarreled for the succession, which was decided by the
Delphi oracle. Medon became Archon and Neleus left,
leading the Ionians to colonize the Asia Minor.
After Medon,
followed twelve Archons for life: Akastos,
Archippos, Thersippos, Phorbas, Megakles, Diognetos,
Pherekles, Ariphron, Thespieos, Agamestor, Aeschylos
and Alkmaeon.
In the second year
of Alkmaeon (752 BC), the duration of the Archon changed
to ten years. There were seven Archons, which reigned
for ten years each: Charops, Aesimides, Kleidikos,
Hippomenes, Leokrates, Apsandros, Eryxias.
After Eryxias, the title of Archon was given to nine
distinguished persons, descendants of Kodros and Medon,
who changed annually, but after 714 BC, they were
including distinguished Eupatridae.
From the nine
Archons, who governed since 683 BC, to the end of
democracy, three had special titles: the archon Eponymos,
from whom the year was named after, the archon Basileus,
the archon Polemarch. The other six had the
title of Thesmothetae (legislators).
Kylonion Agos 632 BC
Kylon, an
Eupatrid and Olympic winner of the diaulos race in 640
BC, tried to take the city and become a tyrant. Kylon
had requested an oracle from Delphi and received the
answer that, he ought to seize the Acropolis of Athens
during the celebration of Zeus. Acquiring an army from
his father in-law, Theagenes of Megara and with
Athenian friends, he seized Acropolis, during the
Olympic games of Peloponnesos. When Athenians learned
about the event, they blockaded Acropolis. Kylon and his
brother managed to escape, but the rest, exhausted from
hunger, sought asylum in the altar of Athena at
Acropolis. Athenians promised them a fair trial, if they
would surrender. The besieged suspicious, in order to be
in touch with the temple, they fastened a rope to the
altar and came out holding it. When the rope was broken,
the Athenians killed almost everyone, at the precinct of
Eumenides, near the Acropolis entry. This unholy
event was named "Kylonean taint" (Kylonion
agos). The
Archon of the Athenians, Megakles of the Alkmaeonidae
family and his assistants, who took part in the killing,
they were cursed and denounced. When epidemics fell in
Athens, Megakles and his personal assistants, the ones
who were alive at the time, were put on trial at the
instigation of Solon (597 BC). They were found guilty
and exiled for life from Attica.
The banishment of
the Alkmaeonidae however did not deliver Athenians from
their fears and calamities. They invited the sage Epimenides
from Crete to purify the city from its guilt. Epimenides
visited Athens in 596 BC, where he performed sacrifices
and expiatory rites succeeding to purify the city and
put a stop to the plague. Athenians in gratitude
offered him one talent, but Epimenides accepted only a
branch from the sacred olive tree of Acropolis.
Drakon 624 BC
Drakon is
considered the first legislator of Athens, though the
six minor archons, the so-called Thesmothetae, they were
legislating unwritten laws from 683 BC.
In the beginning
of sixth century, it seems that Athens needed new
written laws, because the aristocrats were interpreting
the unwritten law according to their advantage. The
people commissioned Drakon in 624 BC, to legislate
written code of laws.
Drakon did not
change the political constitution. His laws were written
upon marble plates (621 BC), the so-called Thesmoi
or Ordinances, and placed in the Agora, where
everyone could read them. The laws were extremely severe
in some cases, punishing trivial and serious crimes
equally. Drakon made distinction between intentional and
unintentional homicide. He left to Areopagos the trial
of willful murders, but he appointed fifty one judges (ephetae),
who were judging the unintentional cases. Due to
the severity of his laws, the people later said, that
they were written with blood. Today the expression
"Drakonian" describes repressive legal measures.
But the written
laws, instead of helping the people, they became tools
in the hands of aristocracy, to take their land,
intimidate and oppress them. The whole Attica fell in
the hands of aristocracy and the people, who were unable
to pay their debts, were sold as slaves. There was so
much dissatisfaction, that many people left Attica and
immigrated.
Later Athenians
looked back to Drakon with reverence, believing that
their author was wise and did not oppress the
unfortunate, alleviating the miseries of men, as far as
it was possible.
Solon 638 - 559 BC
Solon,
the famous statesman and lawgiver, son of Exekestides
from Salamis, descendant from the family of Kodros and
Neleid's, was born at Athens in 638 BC. His father was a
merchant and Solon, who followed him in his profession,
traveled in many countries. He was near forty, famous
for his poetry and wisdom, when he took part in the
civil life of Athens.
Megarians, after
the Kylonian event, had taken possession of the island
of Salamis, which belonged to Athens. Solon was
bitter that Athens had lost the island. Megara, at that
time, was a strong city-state, who was able to compete
with Athens. The Athenians, after a long war with them,
trying to regain the island, suffered many casualties.
For this reason they took an oath, not to wage war for
the island and whoever mentions again war, he would be
punished by death.
Solon managed to
persuade the Athenians to regain the island by reciting
his poem Salamis in the Agora, and as General
leading a force, he reached the acroterion of Koliada,
where the Athenian women were sacrificing to Demeter.
From there, he sent a trusted man to Salamis, pretending
that he was a fugitive, informing the Megarians that the
Athenian women were unprotected. The Megarians fell into
the trap and when disembarked from the ships without
their arms to catch them, they found out, that the women
were disguised men, with hidden knives. They were all
killed and Solon with their ships sailed immediately to
the unprotected Salamis and conquered the
island. Megarians tried to regain the island and a
prolonged war between Athens and Megara proved
disastrous for both of them. It was finally agreed to
let Sparta decide, who would be the owner of the island.
The arbitration of Sparta decided, that Salamis belonged
to Athens.
Solon increased
his reputation by supporting the Delphians against the
inhabitants of Kirra. With difficulty, he persuaded the
assembly of Amphictions to open war against the city of
Kirra (first Sacred war 595-585 BC).
When Solon became
archon in 594 BC at Athens, wealth and power were in few
hands. The poor people (class of Thetes) were in debt,
many had become slaves, because they were unable to
repay their debts and even sold their children.
Solon, a person
who loved justice, tried to change the harsh life of the
poor people of Athens. He rejected proposals to become a
tyrant and instead he made the memorable law of Seisachtheia,
a word that means that he lifted from the shoulders of
the poor the burdens, which caused them so much pain and
anguish.
The law of
Seisachtheia cancelled the contracts of the poor people,
who had borrowed on the security of their person or
their land. It also prohibited all future loans of such
kind and abolished the power of the creditor to imprison
or enslave. The law, by canceling the numerous mortgages
of the land properties in Attica, left the land free
from all past claims.
In other laws, he
helped the wealthier debtors, who could repay back their
loans. Solon increased the value of the mna, by
twenty seven percent. He changed the currency from the
Aeginetan to the Euboic standard, something that proved
favorable to the Athenian trade, in order to facilitate
the trade with Korinth, Chalkis and Eretria and other
colonies. Solon did not only prohibit the mortgage of
persons, he also limited the amount of the land an
individual could possess. He forbade the big land owners
to export the grain from Athens, by attaching a heavy
fine and also the export of the agricultural products
from Attica, except olive oil.
Solon repealed the
laws of Drakon, except those on homicide. He abolished
the death penalty, from all minor crimes.
Many people who
had been punished, they were restored to full privileges
of citizenship. Under this law the exiled family of
Alkmaeonidae returned to Athens.
The laws of the
legislator Solon were written in wooden triangular
boards named kyrveis and were kept first in the
Acropolis and later in the Prytaneum.
He also changed
the political system, from Oligarchy to Timocracy, in
other words, he diminished the power of noble birth and
gave importance to wealth. He reorganized the council or
senate (vouli) of 401 members, which had been
constituted by Drakon (621 BC), whose members were
selected from the whole body of citizens. He reduced it
by one member to 400, 100 from each of the four tribes.
When Solon became
archon, the population of Attica was divided in three
classes, that often came in hostilities against each
other. The three divisions were: the Paedieis,
the Diakrioi and the Paralioi. Solon
arbitrated successfully, bringing an end to their
violent quarrels. He abolished the exclusive
privileges of the Eupatrids and divided the population
in four classes, according to their property.
The first class,
the Pentacosiomedimnoi, had at least five
hundred medimnoi of grain or wine or oil, as yearly
income. The Hippeis (knights), with income of
at least three hundred medimnoi, able to keep a
warhorse. The third class, the Zeugitae (possessors
of a pair of oxen), with at least one hundred and fifty
medimnoi, and finally the Thetes (workers for
wages), which had less than one hundred medimnoi income.
Only the first three classes could vote in the election
and only from the first class men were elected to the
highest offices. The class of Thetes was excluded from
all official positions but they could vote in the
general public assembly and also had the right to take
part, as a jury, in trials. They could not serve in the
army as hoplites, but only as light-armed troops.
The Hippeis could
only serve from the two highest classes and hoplite from
the first three. Only the Thetes were paid for
public services, all other classes were serving without
payment.
In minor laws, Solon put very
small fines. In contrast, he awarded big sums of money
to the Olympic winners (500 drachmas, a fortune at the
time) and for the Isthmian games 100 drachmas. For the
winners of the Panathenaic games, he awarded one hundred
painted amphorae, filled with olive oil.
Though Solon was
just at his legislations, he did not make radical
changes, believing at his own words that the gods give
to every man what is just for him. None was satisfied
with his reforms, the poor, who were expecting
redistribution of the land, were disappointed and the
rich were upset by his concessions to the poor.
He retained and
extended the power of the ancient council of Areopagos,
which had jurisdiction in cases of religious crimes and
premeditated murder.
Later generations
considered Solon the father of democracy, because he
liberated the individual from the political domination
of the oligarchy and from the economic burdens, giving
political rights to the Thetes, to take part in the
meeting of Ekklesia, at the same time gave to
the individual new responsibilities as a citizen,
considering atimia not to take the arms against
revolts and tyrants.
Before him the wills were unknown in Athens. The
property was inherited from the kin. Solon gave freedom
to the individual, permitting to regulate their
properties at will, in case they did not have a son.
Solon put the foundations for the industry. Every father
ought to teach his sons a trade, otherwise his children
were not responsible for him in his old age. In his
economic reforms, he developed the Athenian industry by
importing craftsmen from Corinth and other cities,
giving them Athenian citizenship.
Solon was also an
excellent lyric and elegiac poet. He was the first Attic
poet and wrote iambics and elegiacs on moral, political
and social subjects. His elegies amounted more than five
thousands lines. In his political elegies, he wrote
about the island of Salamis and how he roused the
citizens of Athens to regain the island.
As a character,
Solon was a sincere, kindly person and generous. He was
characterized by moderation and his constant motto was
the "Nothing in excess" (Μηδέν άγαν).
He was one of the seven wise men. His wisdom and his
noble patriotism marked the Athenian state, as the first
true example of humanism.
He also wrote
ethical elegies and his poem "the exhortations to
himself" belongs to this category, as
also the often-quoted line: "I am getting
old, but still I am learning a lot" (Γηράσκω δ' αιεί πολλά
διδασκόμενος).
After the
completion of his work, Solon left Athens having said to
Athenians not to change anything for ten or according to
another testimony, for one hundred years. Unfortunately,
he lived to see his constitution overthrown from the
tyrant Peisistratos.
Solon first
visited Egypt, meeting the kings and priests, learning
the history from them. The priests told him about the
island of Atlantis and the war of Athenians against the
island, nine thousands years before. Solon, from the
information the priests gave him, started to write a
poem, but he died before finishing it. After Egypt, he went to Cyprus
and later to Lydia, where he met king Croesos at Sardis.
According to the tale of Herodotus, Croesos, after
showing his vast treasures to Solon, asked him who was
the happiest man he ever known, expecting from Solon
that he would mention him. Solon, avoiding to flatter
the king, named ordinary Greeks, the Athenian Telamon
and the Argive brothers Kleobis and Biton.
When Croesos replied that he had not taken under account
his vast riches and glory, Solon told him, he considered
no man happy, until he knew, how he ended his life: "Don't
regard anyone happy, before you know his end" (Μηδένα
προ του τέλους μακάριζε).
Croesos at the
time showed contempt to Solon, but when was overthrown
by Cyros and ready to be burnt, Solon came to his mind
and uttered his name three times, with a loud voice: "Solon,
Solon, Solon". When Cyros inquired about the
strange invocation, he ordered his men to extinguish the
fire, but it was too late. Luckily Croesos was saved by
a sudden profuse rain. Cyros after the event reinstated
Croesos and made him his closest friend and advisor.
During Solon's
absence from Athens, the three parties had started
violent quarrels between them. The Paedieis
(people of the plains) were headed by Lykourgos, the Paralioi
(people of seashore) by Megakles of Alkmaeonidae and the
Diakrioi (mountaineers) by Peisistratos, a
cousin of Solon. When Solon returned to Athens, about
562 BC, tried unsuccessfully to give an end to the
ambitions of his cousin Peisistratos. He died at Cyprus
and his ashes, according to his will, were scattered
around his beloved island of Salamis.
Peisistratos 605 - 527 BC
Peisistratos, son
of Hippokrates, the leader of the Diakrioi and
cousin of Solon, was born at Athens. He was a remarkable
orator, energetic and resourceful. During the war of
Athens with Megara in 570 BC, he captured their port of
Nisaea. After this event he was very popular with the
people. He tried twice with stratagems to become a
tyrant, but both times, he was expelled.
In his first
attempt, he appeared at the market with a pair of mules
wounded intentionally by him. He explained to the
people, that he was almost murdered defending their
rights. The Athenians, especially the ones dissatisfied
with Solon's laws called an assembly, where it was
decided to give him fifty men, for his personal
security. Peisistratos with the passing of time
increased the number of his guards and in 560 BC, he
occupied the Acropolis. But the leaders of the other
two parties, Lykourgos and Megakles, combined forces and
exiled him. He returned to Athens, when his two enemies
quarreled, invited by Megakles, who offered him his
daughter and help, to regain the leadership of Athens.
Peisistratos married the daughter of Megakles, but
avoided to connect his blood with the family of
Alkmaeonidae. The humiliated Megakles, combining again
forces with Lykourgos, managed to expel him from Athens
and Megakles retired to Eretria of Euboea, where he
remained for ten years.
In exile,
Peisistratos did not stay passive. His energetic and
resourceful character managed to possess considerable
influence from many Greek cities, which furnished him
with money.
With mercenaries
from Argos and troops from the island of Naxos,
Peisistratos sailed from Eretria to Marathon. He then
marched towards the city defeating in a small battle the
forces of Lykourgos and Megakles and became master of
Athens, in 545 BC. His opponents were forced to
exile. The leader of the Paraloi, Megakles and the
family of Alkmaeonidae left the city and Solon tried
unsuccessfully with poems addressed to the people, to
oppose him.
Peisistratos
proved a great leader. He reorganized the economy of
Athens and with his own money, derived from his mines in
Thrace and from his estates in Euboea, constructed new
big roads, supplying water the city from the upper
Illissus. He
also beautified the city with temples and supported the
arts and literature. He is credited for the
collection and writing of the Homeric poems. His
library, the first in whole Greece, was open to the
citizens of Athens. One of his most beautiful
constructions was that of Enneakrunos (nine
pipes). He covered with a building, the old fountain of
Kallirrhoe, which supplied Athens with water. He
reorganized the Great Panathenaea in a splendid manner,
by making Homeric recitations a future of the festival.
He solved the agrarian problem, converting Attica into a
country of small land properties.
Peisistratos maintained the constitution of Solon, but
made sure, that the main offices of Athens were held by
his supporters. Champion of the poor, he
redistributed the land, something Solon had avoided and
gave agrarian loans, with small interest (five percent).
He was the first tyrant of Athens to put a sales tax to
every product. He improved the economy of Athens. At his
time, a great number of Attic vases were exported to
Etruria and Egypt, Asia Minor and cities of Black Sea,
containers of wine, olive oil and ointments.
He was the first
to introduce a foreign policy to Athens. He build
a naval fleet and reoccupied the strategic city of
Segium in the Hellispond, securing the import of grain
from the Black sea. He had friendly relations with
Sparta and Argos, having married an Argive wife. His
friendly relations with the island of Delos (the
religious center of the Ionians) had as a result Athens
to become the leader of the Ionian race. Peisistratos
died from old age in 527 BC, after thirty years in
power.
Peisistratos
left in power his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchos,
who governed Athens according to their father wishes.
They governed the city wisely as their father and the
people loved them. They brought back from exile the
Alkmaeonidae family, which had been exiled by their
father.
Hipparchos, who
had inherited from his father the love of literary,
invited the famous poets Simonides and Anakreon and
furnished the highways with Herms, which marked the
boundaries of public and sacred precincts. He
started building the temple of the Olympian Zeus. It was
a colossal structure in Doric style (in later years they
changed it to Korinthian style), 359 feet in length by
173 feet wide (515 BC).
Everything was
changed, when Harmodios and Aristogeiton
for personal reasons conspired and killed Hipparchos, in
514 BC. Aristogeiton was an Athenian of moderate
fortune, who had an affection for his beautiful young
friend Harmodios. Hipparchos made repeated propositions
to Harmodios, which were repelled. Hipparchos took then
revenge by insulting the sister of Harmodios,
prohibiting her to take part in a religious procession,
as a basket carrier. After this event, the two friends
conspired to kill the tyrants, during the festival of
Panathenaea. When the day arrived, they approached
Hippias at Kerameikos, who at that moment was speaking
with one fellow conspirator and thought that their plan
had been betrayed. So they took the decision to kill
Hipparchos, who was at the city. They found Hipparchos
near the chapel Leokorion and killed him. Harmodios was
killed by the guards and Aristogeiton was saved by the
crowd of people, but he was captured later, tortured and
killed. At later times, Harmodios and Aristogeiton
became symbols of the democracy.
When Hippias
learned about the assassination of his brother, he
immediately called the Athenians to put down the arms
and assembled them to another place, where he searched
and caught the conspirators from their concealed
daggers. After the assassination of his brother, Hippias
became ruthless, putting to death many Athenian citizens
and collecting large sums of money by heavy taxes,
feeling threatened from the Athenians, he gave his
daughter in marriage to Aeantides, son of the despot of
Lamsakos.
During the time of
Peisistratos, the exiled Alkmaeonidae had undertaken the
reconstruction of the temple at Delphi, which had been
accidentally destroyed by fire (548-547 BC). By their
own generosity they rebuild the temple with Parian
marble. Indebted to Alkmaeonidae, Delphi whenever the
Spartans came to consult the oracle, the responce was: "Athens
must be liberated". With the help of Sparta,
Hippias was forced after four years from the death of
his brother, to leave the city (510 BC) and the
Alkmaeonidae family returned to Athens from exile.
Kleisthenes 570 -
507 BC
Kleisthenes, the son of
Megakles of the Alkmaeonidae family and Agariste,
the daughter of Kleisthenes of Sikyon, was born at
Athens, in 570 BC. His great grandfather, Megakles
of the Alkmaeonidae, was the Archon of Athens,
when Kylon made his unsuccessful attempt to seize
the Acropolis of Athens, to become tyrant (632
BC).
Kleisthenes was twenty four
years old, when Peisistratos exiled the
Alkmaeonidae family, in 546 BC.
After the fall of Hippias,
there was a struggle for power, between
Kleisthenes, the leader of the Alkmaeonidae and
liberator of Athens and Isagoras, the leader of
the nobles. When Isagoras took the power and
became Archon in 508 BC, Kleisthenes refused to
submit and appealed to the people promising
restoration of their political rights, if they
would help him to overthrow Isagoras from power.
Isagoras called Kleomenes of
Sparta, a friend of his, who immediately sent a
herald demanding from the Athenians to expel the "accursed" Alkmaeonidae
and thus Kleisthenes was forced into exile.
When Kleomenes came to Athens,
he expelled seven hundred Athenian families, whom
Isagoras considered dangerous.
Kleomenes dissolved the senate
and put in the government three hundred of his own
people. When this happened, the people rose and
Kleomenes, Isagoras and their supporters tried to
find refuge in the Acropolis. The Athenians seized
Acropolis and after two days permitted Kleomenes
and Isagoras to leave, but all others were put to
death. After this event the Athenians recalled
Kleisthenes and the other seven hundred exiled
Athenian families.
When Kleomenes arrived at
Sparta immediately prepared an army and marched
into Attica, in order to reinstate Isagoras. With
the support of Korinthians and other
Peloponnesians, Kleomenes encamped at the plain of
Eleusis. The Athenians prepared an army and
marched to engage them, but in the meantime the
Korinthians learned the real purpose of the
expedition and withdrew. The second king of
Sparta, Demaratos, who was
taking part in the expedition, also opposed and
the expedition was cancelled.
When the Spartans departed,
the Athenians turned against the Chalkidaeans. Αt the Euripos
straits, they met and defeated the Thebans, who
were coming to their aid. The same day, the
Athenians passed over to Euboea and defeated the
Chalkidaeans. The land property of the nobles was
confiscated and given to four thousand Athenians
settlers, the so-called Klerouchoi.
Kleisthenes
having now full power, he begun his reforms, that
led Athens to an established democracy.
He persuaded the people to
change the political organization from family and
clan and phatria to local groups. He abolished the
power of the old four Ionic blood tribes (Aigikoreis, Hopletes, Geleontes, Argadeis), permitting
them to survive only for religious purposes.
The population
of Athens at the times of Kleisthenes, was
including a large body of residents, who did not
have citizenship and of course no share in the
political decisions. Kleisthenes accordingly
divided Attica into one hundred and forty demes (townships).
All the people who resided in
the demos, became Athenian citizens, including
alien residents and emancipated slaves. The demes
had the duties and public rights, registering the
citizens and electing their own officials. The
demos was a complete local body which had its own
Demarch (mayor), its own treasurer, a common
property with its own priest and priestesses. The
demos were grouped into thirty trittyes, equal in
population. Each of the trittyes had a number of
demes, though some were consisted from one large
demos. Trittyes had no communal life and were
serving as connecting link between the demos and
the tribe. From the thirty trittyes, he composed
ten tribes, drawing by lot one trittye from the
Paraloi, Diakrioi, Paedieis and so these three
divisions which had troubled Athens for centuries,
they were changed completely.
The new regions now were: the
Asty (town), which
was incuded Athens, Pireaus and Phaleron, the Coast, which now
included many additional territories and the Interior, comprised
from areas from the Asty and Coast. The
distribution of these local functions among all
the tribes had as an object to break up
their sectional organizations, giving an end to
the endless quarrels of the past.
The people also were known not
only by their fathers name, but from the name of
their demo. Kleisthenes arranged the demes in such
a way that they were not contiguous to each other
but scattered in different parts of Attica. The
reason for this was to prevent the tribes to
acquire independent local interest, as well to
avoid the demes for themselves into political
functions.
The results of Kleisthenes
reforms was the isonomia (equal
rights) and the people took a more active
participation in public life.
Kleisthenes enlarged also the
number of the senators (prytaneis). The council
was increased from four hundred to five hundred,
fifty members from each tribe.
The attic year consisted of
twelve lunar months, 354 days. Kleisthenes divided
the year for official purposes into ten periods
and so each prytanis was serving for 35-36 days.
Further, the fifty senators were divided into five
bodies of ten each. The so called Proedros, presiding
for seven days and the chairman, chosen by lot,
was called Epistates, serving both
in the Senate and in the Ekklecia, responsible
for the treasury and keeper of the keys of the
Acropolis.
Kleisthenes
introduced also the ostrakism (banishment
from the city). The word of ostrakism derived from
ostrako, a fragment
of pottery, which was used as a ballot. The man,
whose name was written in ostrakο and their number
exceeded the six thousands, he was driven into
exile for ten years. This measure was taken by
Kleisthenes, in order to safeguard the city from
future tyrants.
Kleisthenes was a great statesman and
founder of the Athenian democracy.
9c
Additional links:Development of Athenian Democracy
Archon
--https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon
In Athens
a republican system of nine concurrent Archons
evolved, led by three respective remits over the
civic, military, and religious affairs of the state:
the three office holders being known as the Eponymos
archon (Ἐπώνυμος ἄρχων; the "name"
ruler, who gave his name to the year in which he
held office), the Polemarch
("war ruler"), and the Archon Basileus
("king ruler").[1] The
six others were the Thesmothétai, Judicial
Officers.
The Areopagus, or
“Hill of Ares” (Ἀρεῖοςπάγος), in Athens was the
site of a council that served as an important legal
institution under the Athenian democracy. This body,
called the “Council of the Areopagus,” or simply the
“Areopagus,” existed long before the democracy, and
its powers and composition changed many times over
the centuries. Originally, it was the central
governing body of Athens, but under
the democracy, it was a primarily the court with
jurisdiction over cases of homicide and certain
other serious crimes. After an Athenian had served
as one of the nine archons, his
conduct in office was investigated, and if he passed
that investigation he became a member of the
Areopagus. Tenure was for life.
Leader
of an attempted clue (632).Summary
execution of his followers by the archons led to the
exile of Megacles and his genos,
the Alcmaeonidae,
for violating the laws against killing suppliants.
The Alcmaeonidae were cursed with a miasma
("stain" or "pollution"), which was inherited by
later generations, even after the genos
retook control of Athens.
Ephialtes
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EphialtesEphialtes (Greek:
Ἐφιάλτης, Ephialtēs) was an ancient Athenian
politician and an early leader of the democratic
movement there. In the late 460s BC, he oversaw
reforms that diminished the power of the Areopagus,
a traditional bastion of conservatism, and which are
considered by many modern historians to mark the
beginning of the "radical democracy" for which
Athens would become famous.
Parthenon
-- The first temple on the site appears to have
been the "Hekatompedon temple" (i.e., 100 foot
temple) built around 570–550 BC. It was
demolished by the Athenians in 490 BC after the
victory over the Persians at Marathon to build a
larger temple known as the Older Parthenon. The
Older
Parthenon
was destroyed in 480 BC by the returning
Persians and finally replaced by the present
Parthenon.
10
The Archaic Age - Sparta
From
http://www.aroundgreece.com/ancient-greece-history/sparta-greece.php Sparta which had
already existed in the Mycenaean Age and is seen as one of
the most important cities of that period, was a very
different kind of city-state. The people of Sparta were
descendants of the Dorians.
The life of
the people of Sparta was a very strict one, similar to
the military. Young boys would be taken from their homes
at an early age to begin military training and young
girls were forced to maintain a healthy way of life in
order to produce healthy children. The reason for this
will be explained shortly.
In the Spartan
society, there were three classes of people: the Upper
Class which consisted of people who had a voice and
would speak and also be listened to, the Lower Class
known as perioeci (meaning neighbours), who though not
being full members of the society were financially well
off through the economics of trade, and the Lower Class
who were the Helmots (the original inhabitants of
Laconnia), who were used as slaves by the upper classes.
It was common
belief that the Helmots came with the ground and were
public property. They were seen as the enemy even though
they were actually slaves.
Overpopulation
was a big problem for Sparta as it was for the other
city-states. Other city-states helped to overcome this
problem by founding daughter-cities. Sparta on the other
hand took a more radical approach. From 735 – 716 BC
during the first Messian war, Sparta conquered fertile
land in Messania. As well as gaining new land on which
to settle and produce crops, they also inherited a large
number of Hellots..
Arch enemy
Argos was a serious threat to Sparta’s position and at
the battle of Hysiae in 668 BC Sparta was defeated. This
sparked a revolt among the Hellots in Messenia. The
second Messian War began from 650 – 629 BC, though the
Spartans were able to suppress this revolt.
Sharing the
same beliefs and way of life as the other city-states,
when this situation with the Helmots got very bad,
Sparta asked Athens for assistance. The Athenian army
willingly arrived, but were sent back immediately when
the Spartans did not trust them. This was the beginning
of a very strange relationship between the two
city-states.
After the
second Messian War with which Sparta becoming very
powerful, there was a radical change in their foreign
policy. Sparta literally isolated itself from the rest
of Greece. Even though it had become a very powerful
city-state, the number of Spartans was small in
comparison.
Foreign
military actions were avoided and suspicions arose
around anything foreign to their culture. Even the
introduction of coins was refused as it was believed
that even the smallest change to Sparta’s way of life
could result in a threat to their nation. Social life
changed rapidly as Sparta became an almost military
city-state.
Boys as young
as seven or eight began military training as this was
seen as the only tool in which to preserve the Spartans
and their dwindling numbers.
Sparta still
had plans to have control of the whole of the
Peloponese, though due to their small number, adopted a
different tactic to do so. Instead of launching an all
out attack as they may have done in the past, they
offered themselves as protection from attacks by other
parties.
This plan was
eventually realized and Sparta did become the leader of
the Peloponese. This was done by agreeing a pact with
the other smaller cities and accepting to provide
military support for each other.
Though the
Spartans were victorious in the second Messian War and
were able to keep control of both the Hellots and the
allies, the began to slip behind the rest of Greece when
it entered into its cultural Classical Age. They had also
managed to avoid a democratic way of governing and it was
this which made Sparta the most powerful city-state in all
of Greece at around 500 BC.
11
Late Archaic City State -- Sparta From http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0009%3Achapter%3D6
The Power of Sparta
The Spartans made oligarchy the political base for a
society devoted to military readiness, and the resulting Spartan
way of life1
became famous for its discipline, which showed most
prominently in the Spartan infantry, the most powerful
military force in Greece during the Archaic Age. Sparta's
easily defended location2—nestled
on a narrow north-south plain between rugged mountain
ranges in the southeastern Peloponnese, in a region called
Laconia (hence the designation of Spartans as
Laconians)—gave it a secure base for developing its might.
Sparta had access to the sea through a harbor3
situated some twenty-five miles south of its urban center,
but this harbor opened onto a dangerous stretch of the
Mediterranean whipped by treacherous currents and winds.
As a consequence, enemies could not threaten the Spartans
by sea, but their relative isolation from the sea also
kept the Spartans from becoming adept sailors. Their
interests and their strength4
lay on the land.
The Early History of Sparta
The Greeks believed the ancestors of the Spartans were Dorians5
who had invaded the Peloponnese from central Greece and
defeated the original inhabitants of Laconia around 950
B.C., but no archaeological evidence supports the notion
that a “Dorian invasion” actually took place. From
wherever the original Spartans came, they conquered the
inhabitants of Laconia and settled in at least four small
villages, two of which apparently dominated the others.
These early settlements later cooperated to form the core
of what would in the Archaic Age6
become the polis of the Spartans. The Greeks gave the name
“synoecism”7
(“union of households”) to this process of political
unification, in which most people continued to live in
their original villages even after one village began to
serve as the center of the new city-state. One apparent
result of the compromises required to forge Spartan unity
was that the Spartans retained not one but two hereditary
military leaders of high prestige, whom they called kings.
These kings8,
perhaps originally the leaders of the two dominant
villages, served as the religious heads of Sparta and
commanders of its army. The kings did not enjoy unfettered
power to make decisions or set policy, however, because
they operated not as pure monarchs but as leaders of the
oligarchic institutions that governed the Spartan
city-state. Rivalry between the two royal families
periodically led to fierce disputes, and the initial
custom of having two supreme military commanders also
paralyzed the Spartan army when the kings disagreed on
strategy in the middle of a military campaign. The
Spartans therefore eventually decided that the army on
campaign would be commanded by only one king at a time.
Spartan Oligarchy
The “few” (oligoi ) who made policy in the oligarchy
ruling Sparta were a group of twenty-eight men over sixty
years old, joined by the two kings. This group of thirty,
called the “council of elders” ( gerousia 9),
formulated proposals that were submitted to an assembly of
all free adult males. This assembly had only limited power
to amend the proposals put before it; mostly it was
expected to approve the council's plans. Rejections were
rare because the council retained the right to withdraw a
proposal when the reaction to it by the crowd in the
assembly presaged a negative vote. “If the people speak
crookedly,” according to Spartan tradition, “the elders
and the leaders of the people shall be withdrawers [of the
proposal].” The council could then bring the proposal back
on another occasion after there had been time to marshal
support for its passage.
A board of five annually elected “overseers” (
ephors 10)
counterbalanced the influence of the kings and the
gerousia. Chosen from the adult male citizens at large,
the ephors convened the gerousia and the assembly, and
they exercised considerable judicial powers of judgment
and punishment. They could even bring charges against a
king and imprison him until his trial. The creation of the
board of ephors diluted the political power of the
oligarchic gerousia and the kings because the job of the
ephors was to ensure the supremacy of law. The Athenian Xenophon
later reported11:
“All men rise from their seats in the presence of the
king, except for the ephors. The ephors on behalf of the
polis and the king on his own behalf swear an oath to each
other every month: the king swears that he will exercise
his office according to the established laws of the polis
, and the polis swears that it will preserve his kingship
undisturbed if he abides by his oath.”
The Laws of Sparta
The Spartans were sticklers for obedience to the law
(nomos ) as the guide to proper behavior on matters large
and small. When the ephors entered office, for example,
they issued an official proclamation to the men of Sparta:
“Shave your moustache and obey the laws.” The depth of
Spartan respect for their system of government under law
was symbolized by their tradition that Apollo of Delphi
had sanctioned it with an oracle called the Rhetra12.
A Spartan leader named Lycurgus, they said, had instituted
the reforms that the Rhetra institutionalized. Even in
antiquity historians had no firm information about the
dates of Lycurgus's leadership or precisely how he changed
Spartan laws. All we can say today is that the Spartans
evolved their law-based political system during the period
from about 800 to 600 B.C. Unlike other Greeks, the
Spartans never had their laws written down. Instead, they
preserved their system from generation to generation with
a distinctive, highly structured way of life based on a
special economic foundation.
The Dangerous Situation of Sparta
The distinctiveness of the Spartan way of life13
was fundamentally a reaction to their living in the midst
of people whom they had conquered in war and enslaved to
exploit economically but who outnumbered them greatly. To
maintain their position of superiority over their
conquered neighbors, from whom they derived their
subsistence, Spartan men had to turn themselves into a
society of soldiers constantly on guard. They accomplished
this transformation by a radical restructuring of
traditional family life enforced by strict adherence to
the laws and customs governing practically all aspects of
behavior. Through constant, daily reinforcement of their
strict code of values, the Spartans ensured their survival
against the enemies they had created by subjugating their
neighbors. The seventh-century poet Tyrtaeus, whose verses
exemplify the high quality of the poetry produced in early
Sparta before its military culture began to exclude such
accomplishments, expressed that code in his ranking of
martial courage as the supreme male value: “I would never
remember or mention in my work any man for his speed afoot
or wrestling skill, not if he was as huge and strong as a
Cyclops or could run faster than the North Wind, nor more
handsome than Tithonus or richer than Midas or Cinyras,
nor more kingly than Pelops, or had speech more honeyed
than Adrastus, not even if he possessed every glory—not
unless he had the strength of a warrior in full rush.”
Spartan Neighbors and Slaves
Some of the conquered inhabitants of Laconia, the
territory of Sparta, continued to live in self-governing
communities. Called “those who live round about”
(perioikoi ), these neighbors were required to serve in
the Spartan army and pay taxes but lacked citizen rights.
Perhaps because they retained their personal freedom and
property, however, the perioikoi 14
never rebelled against Spartan control. Far different was
the fate of the conquered people who ended up as
helots 15,
a word derived from the Greek term for “capture.” Later
ancient commentators described the helots as “between
slave and free” because they were not the personal
property of individual Spartans but rather slaves
belonging to the whole community, which alone could free
them. Helots had a semblance of family life because they
were expected to produce children to maintain their
population, which was compelled to labor as farmers and
household slaves as a way of freeing Spartan citizens from
any need to do such work. Spartan men in fact wore their
hair very long to show they were “gentlemen” rather than
laborers, for whom long hair was an inconvenience.
In their private lives, helots could keep some personal
possessions and practice their religion, as could slaves
generally in Greece. Publicly, however, helots
lived under the threat of officially sanctioned
violence.16lived
under the threat of officially sanctioned violence. Every
year the ephors formally declared a state of war to exist
between Sparta and the helots, thereby allowing any
Spartan to kill a helot without any civil penalty or fear
of offending the gods by unsanctioned murder. By beating
the helots frequently, forcing them to get drunk in public
as an object lesson to young Spartans, marking them out by
having them wear dogskin caps, and generally treating them
with scorn, the Spartans consistently emphasized the
otherness of the helots compared to themselves. In this
way, the Spartans erected a moral barrier between
themselves and the helots to justify their harsh treatment
of fellow Greeks.
The Helots of Messenia
When the arable land of Laconia, which was predominately
held by aristocrats, proved too small to support the full
citizen population of Sparta, the Spartans attacked their
Greek neighbors to the west in the Peloponnese, the Messenians17.
In the First Messenian War18
(c. 730-710 B.C.) and then in the Second (c. 640-630
B.C.), the Spartan army captured the territory of
Messenia, which amounted to forty percent of the
Peloponnese, and reduced the Messenians to the status of
helots. With the addition of the tens of thousands of
people in Messenia, the total helot population now more
than outnumbered that of Sparta, whose male citizens at
this time amounted to perhaps between 8,000 and 10,000.
The terrible loss felt by the Messenians at their fate is
well portrayed by their legend of King Aristodemus19,
whom the Messenians remembered as having sacrificed his
beloved daughter to the gods of the underworld in an
attempt to enlist their aid against the invading Spartans.
When his campaign of guerrilla warfare at last failed,
Aristodemus is said to have slain himself in despair on
her grave. Deprived of their freedom and their polis , the
Messenian helots were ever after on the lookout for a
chance to revolt against their Spartan overlords.
The Contribution of Helots
Their labor made helots valuable to the Spartans. Laconian
and Messenian helots alike primarily farmed plots of land
that the state had originally allotted to individual
Spartan households for their sustenance. Some helots also
worked as household servants. By the fifth century, helots
would also accompany Spartan hoplite warriors on the march
to carry their heavy gear and armor. In the words of the
seventh-century B.C. poet Tyrtaeus, helots worked “like
donkeys exhausted under heavy loads; they lived under
the painful necessity of having to give their masters
half the food their ploughed land bore.”20
This compulsory rent of fifty percent of everything
produced by the helots working on each free family's
assigned plot was supposed to amount to seventy measures
of barley each year to the male master of the household
and twelve to his wife, along with an equivalent amount of
fruit and other produce. In all, this food was enough to
support six or seven people. The labor of the helots
allowed Spartan men to devote themselves to full-time
training for hoplite warfare in order to protect
themselves from external enemies and to suppress helot
rebellions, especially in Messenia. Contrasting the
freedom of Spartan citizens from ordinary work with the
lot of the helots , the later Athenian Critias commented
“Laconia is the home of the freest of the Greeks, and of
the most enslaved.”
The Existence of Spartan Boys
The entire Spartan way of life was directed toward keeping
the Spartan army at tip-top strength. Boys lived at home
only until their seventh year, when they were taken away
to live in communal barracks with other males until they
were thirty. They spent most of their time
exercising, hunting, training with weapons, and being
acculturated to Spartan values by listening to tales of
bravery and heroism at the common meals presided over by
older men21.
The standard of discipline was strict, to prepare young
males for the hard life of a soldier on campaign. For
example, they were not allowed to speak at will. (Our word
“laconic” meaning “of few words” comes from the Greek word
“Laconian,” one of the terms for a Spartan; another is
Lacedaimonian, from the name Lacedaimon applied to
Sparta). Boys were also purposely underfed so that they
would have to develop the skills of stealth by stealing
food. Yet if they were caught, punishment and disgrace
followed immediately. One famous Spartan tale taught how
seriously boys were supposed to fear such failure: having
successfully stolen a fox, which he was hiding under his
clothing, a Spartan youth died because he let the panicked
animal rip out his insides rather than be detected in the
theft. By the Classical period, older boys would be
dispatched to live in the wilds for a period as members of
the “secret band”22
whose job it was to murder any helots who seemed likely to
foment rebellion.
The Equals
Spartan boys who could not survive the tough conditions of
their childhood training fell into social disgrace and
were not certified as Equals23
(homoioi), the official name for adult males entitled to
full citizen rights of participation in politics and the
respect of the community. Only the sons of the royal
family were exempted from this training, perhaps to avoid
a potential social crisis if a king's son failed to stay
the course.
The Spartan Common Messes
Each Spartan Equal had to gain entry to a group that dined
together at common meals, in a “common mess”24
(sussition), each of which had about fifteen members. If
not blackballed when he applied, the new member was
admitted on the condition that he contribute a regular
amount of barley, cheese, figs, condiments, and wine to
the mess from the produce provided by the helots working
on his family plot. Some meat was apparently contributed,
too, because Spartan cuisine was infamous for a black,
bloody broth of pork condemned as practically inedible by
other Greeks. Perhaps it was made from the wild boars
Spartan men loved to hunt, an activity for which messmates
were formally excused from the compulsory communal meals.
If any member failed to keep up his contributions, he was
expelled from the mess and lost his full citizen rights.
The experience of spending so much time in these common
messes schooled Sparta's young men in the values of their
society. There they learned to call all older men “father”25
to emphasize that their primary loyalty was to the group
and not to their genetic families. There they were chosen
to be the special favorites of males older than themselves
to build bonds of affection, including physical love, for
others at whose side they would have to march into deadly
battle. There they learned to take the rough joking of
army life for which Sparta was well known. In short, the
common mess took the place of a boy's family and school
when he was growing up and remained his main social
environment once he had reached adulthood. Its function
was to mold and maintain his values consistent with the
demands of the one honorable occupation for Spartan men: a
soldier obedient to orders. Tyrtaeus enshrined the Spartan
male ideal in his poetry: “Know that it is good for the
polis and the whole people when a man takes his place in
the front row of warriors and stands his ground without
flinching.”
Women at Sparta Spartan women26
were renowned throughout the Greek world for their
relative freedom. Other Greeks regarded it as scandalous
that Spartan girls exercised with boys and did so wearing
minimal clothing. Women at Sparta were supposed to use the
freedom from labor provided by the helot system to keep
themselves physically fit to bear healthy children and
raise them to be strict upholders of Spartan values. A
metaphorical formulation of the male ideal for Spartan
women appears, for example, in the poetry of Alcman in the
late seventh century, who wrote songs for the performances
of female and male choruses that were common on Spartan
civic and religious occasions. The dazzling leader of a
women's chorus, he writes, “stands out as if among a herd
of cows someone placed a firmly-built horse with ringing
hooves, a prize winner from winged dreams.”
Land Ownership at Sparta Spartan women, like men, could own land27
privately. Ordinary coined money28
was deliberately banned to try to discourage the
accumulation of material goods, but the ownership of land
remained extremely important in Spartan society. More and
more land came into the hands of women in later Spartan
history because the male population declined29
through losses in war, especially during the Classical
Age. Moreover, Spartan women with property enjoyed special
status as a result of the Spartan law forbidding the
division of the portion of land originally allotted to a
family. This law meant that, in a family with more than
one son, all the land went to the eldest son. Fathers with
multiple sons therefore needed to seek out brides for
their younger sons who had inherited land and property
from their fathers because they had no brother surviving.
Otherwise, younger sons, inheriting no land from their own
family, might fall into dire poverty.
Reproduction at Sparta
The freedom of Spartan women from some of the restrictions
imposed on them in other Greek city-states had the same
purpose as the men's common messes30:
the production of manpower for the Spartan army. By the
Classical Age, the ongoing problem of producing
enough children to keep the Spartan citizen population
from shrinking had grown acute.31
Men were legally required to get married32,
with bachelors subjected to fines and public ridicule.
Women who died in childbirth were apparently the only
Spartans allowed to have their names placed on their
tombstones, a mark of honor for their sacrifice to the
state.
With their husbands so rarely at home, women directed the
households, which included servants, daughters, and sons
until they left for their communal training. As a result,
Spartan women exercised more power in the household than
did women elsewhere in Greece. Until he was thirty, a
Spartan husband was not allowed to live with his family,
and even newly-wed men were expected to pay only short
visits to their brides by sneaking into their own houses
at night. This tradition was only one of the Spartan
customs of heterosexual behavior that other Greeks found
bizarre. If all parties agreed, a woman could have
children by a man other than her husband, so pressing was
the need to reproduce in this strictly ordered society.
The Obligations of Spartans
All Spartan citizens were expected to put service to their
city-state before personal concerns because Sparta's
survival was continually threatened by its own economic
foundation, the great mass of helots33.
Since Sparta's well-being depended on the systematic
exploitation of these enslaved Greeks, its entire
political and social system by necessity had as its aim a
staunch militarism and a conservatism in values. Change
meant danger at Sparta. As part of its population policy,
however, Spartan conservatism encompassed sexual
behavior34
seen as overly permissive by other Greeks. The Spartans
simultaneously institutionalized a form of equality as the
basis for their male social unit, the common mess35,
while denying true social and political equality to
ordinary male citizens by making their government an
oligarchy. Whatever other Greeks may have thought of the
particulars of the Spartan system, they admired the
Spartans' unswerving respect for their laws 36
as a guide to life in hostile surroundings, albeit of
their own making.
Definition Sparta was
one of the most important Greekcity-states
throughout the Archaic and Classical periods and was
famous for its military prowess. The professional and
well-trained Spartan hoplites with their distinctive red
cloaks, long hair, and lambda-emblazoned shields were
probably the best and most feared fighters in Greece,
fighting with distinction at such key battles as Thermopylae
and Plataea
in the early 5th century BCE. The city was also in
constant rivalry with the other major Greek cities of Athens and Corinth and
became involved in two protracted and hugely damaging
conflicts, the Peloponnesian Wars of the mid- to late
5th century BCE and the Corinthian Wars of in the early
4th century BCE.
Sparta in Mythology In
Greek
mythology the founder of the city was Lacedaemon,
a son of Zeus,
who gave his name to the region and his wife’s name to
the city. Sparta was also an important member of the
Greek force which participated in the Trojan War.
Indeed, the Spartan king Menelaos instigated the war after the
Trojan prince Paris
abducted his wife Helen, offered
to Paris by the goddess Aphrodite
as a prize for choosing her in a beauty contest with
fellow goddesses Athena and Hera. Helen was
said to have been the most beautiful woman in Greece and
Spartan women in general enjoyed a reputation not only
for good looks but also spirited
independence.
Establishing Regional Dominance
Sparta was located in the fertile Eurotas valley of
Laconia in the southeast Peloponnese.
The area was first settled in the Neolithic
period and an important settlement developed in
the Bronze
Age. Archaeological evidence, however, suggests
that Sparta itself was a new settlement created from the
10th century BCE.
In the late 8th century BCE, Sparta subjugated most of
neighbouring Messenia and its population was made to
serve Spartan interests. Sparta thus came to control
some 8,500 km² of territory making the polisor
city-state
the largest in Greece and a major player in Greek
politics. The conquered peoples of Messenia and Laconia,
known as perioikoi, had no political rights in
Sparta and were often made to serve with the Spartan
army. A second and lower social group was the helots,
semi-free agricultural labourers who lived on
Spartan-owned estates. Intermediary between the helots
and the perioikoi were the liberated helots or
neodamōdeis. Spartan citizens did not indulge
in farming
activities themselves but devoted their time to military
training, hunting, war, and politics. The helots could
keep a percentage of the produce they cultivated, but
they were also regularly purged to keep them firmly in
their social place and they could also be conscripted
into military duties in times of war.
[Sparta was] everywhere admired and
nowhere imitated. Xenophon
The relationship between citizens and helots was an
uneasy one and there were sometimes uprisings, notably
in the 7th century BCE which contributed to Sparta’s
defeat to Argos
at Hysiae in 669 BCE. Sparta gained revenge on Argos in
c. 545 BCE but then lost a battle with
Tegea shortly after. This regional instability brought
about the Peloponnesian League (c. 505 to 365 BCE) which
was a grouping of Corinth, Elis, Tegea, and other states
(but never Argos), where each member swore to have the
same enemies and allies as Sparta. Membership of the
League did not necessitate the paying of tribute to
Sparta but rather the provision of troops. The League
would allow Sparta to establish hegemony over and
dominate the Peloponnese until the 4th century BCE. In
addition to local politics, from the 6th century BCE
Sparta began to broaden her horizons by, for example,
creating an alliance with Croesus of Lydia and
sending an expedition against Polycrates of Samos in c.
525 BCE.
Rivalry with Athens, Thebes &
Corinth
Sparta, under Cleomenes (c. 520-490 BCE), overthrew the
tyrants of Athens but the resulting democracy put a stop
to any Spartan ambitions in the city. Sparta was,
however, an ally with Athens in the defence of Greece
against the invasion of Persian king Xerxes, and
fought with distinction at Thermopylae in 480 BCE and at
Plataea one year later. From 480 to 460 BCE regional
rivalries and revolts by the helots damaged Sparta and
worse were to follow when rivalry with Athens developed
into the Peloponnesian Wars from c. 460 to 446 BCE and
again from 431 to 404 BCE. The long wars were damaging
to both sides but Sparta, with some Persian help,
finally won the conflict when Lysander destroyed the
Athenian fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BCE. Sparta’s
position as the number one city-state in Greece, though,
was to be short-lived.
Continued Spartan ambitions in central and northern
Greece, Asia
Minor, and Sicily once
again dragged the city into another protracted conflict,
the Corinthian Wars with Athens, Thebes, Corinth, and Persia from
396 to 387 BCE. The result of the conflict was the
‘King’s Peace’ where Sparta ceded her empire (for
which she in any case lacked the necessary bureaucratic
apparatus to manage properly) to Persian control but
Sparta was left to dominate Greece. However, trying to
crush Thebes, Sparta lost the crucial battle
of Leuctra in 371 BCE against the brilliant Theban
general Epaminondas. Thebes then annexed parts of
Messenia and Sparta became thereafter only a second-rate
power.
After briefly challenging Macedonian control in the 3rd
century BCE and being besieged by Pyrrhus in 272 BCE,
Sparta never regained her former glory and she was
compelled to join the Achaean Confederacy in 195 BCE.
Under Roman
control Sparta was permitted to leave the confederacy in
147 BCE which prompted the Achaean War. However, as a
free city in the Roman world things did improve for
Sparta, and the city enjoyed good relations with her
conquerors but the end finally came for Sparta in 396 CE
when the Visigoth
king Alaric
sacked the city.
Government
The Spartan political system was unusual in that it had
two hereditary kings from two separate families. These
monarchs were particularly powerful when one of them led
the army on campaign. The kings were also priests of
Zeus and they sat on the council of elders known as the
gerousia. This body consisted of 28 over-60
years of age males who held the position for life. The gerousia
led the citizen assembly, probably proposing issues on
which to vote and it was also the highest court in
Sparta. The assembly (Ekklēsia) met once a month and was
open to all citizens who voted by the simple method of
shouting. There was also an executive committee of five
ephors (ephoroi) chosen by lot from the citizen
body, able only to serve for a maximum of one year and
who were ineligible for future office. Two of the ephors
also accompanied one of the kings when on campaign. Just
how these different political elements interacted is not
known for certain but clearly a degree of consensus was
necessary for the state apparatus to function. It may
also explain Sparta’s reputation as being a conservative
state slow to make decisions in foreign
policy.
Society
Like all Greek societies Sparta was dominated by male
citizens and the most powerful of those came from a
select group of families. These were the landed
aristocracy, and following reforms credited to Lycurgus
in the 6th century BCE (or even earlier), citizens could
not indulge in agricultural activities - this was the
lot of the helots - but they had to devote themselves to
athletic and military training and politics. Helots
could not own property and so could not rise to become
full-citizens, and this lack of social mobility would
come back to haunt Sparta in later centuries.
Reduced by constant wars in the 5th and 4th centuries
BCE, the Spartan hoplites (homoioi) became
dangerously small in number (8,000 in 490 BCE to 700 in
371 BCE), so much so, that non-Spartiate soldiers had to
be enlisted and their loyalty and interest in Sparta’s
ambitions was questionable.
Women in Sparta had a better lot than in other Greek
city-states. In Sparta they could own property which
they often gained through dowries and inheritances. In
fact, women became amongst the richest members of
society, as their men were killed in the many wars, and
eventually controlled 2/5th of Spartan land. In
addition, Spartan women could also move around with
reasonable freedom, they could enjoy athletics (done in
the nude like men), and even drink wine. All of these
freedoms would have been unacceptable in other Greek poleis.
There were foreigners (xenoi) in Spartan
society but these were not as welcome as in other
city-states, and those that did live in Sparta were
sometimes forcibly expelled by their overly suspicious
and at times positively paranoid hosts.
Spartan Army
For all Spartan citizens there was a strong emphasis on
military training and frugal living in communal mess
halls where simple food such as barley meal, cheese,
figs and wine were the norm. From the age of seven,
males had a militaristic upbringing known as the agōgē
where they were separated into age groups and lived
in barracks. These youths pursued rigorous athletic and
military training which became even more demanding from
the age of 20, when they joined common mess halls (syssition)
where they often formed homoerotic relations with older,
more experienced citizens. This tough training resulted
in a professional hoplite army
capable of relatively sophisticated battle manoeuvres
and made them feared throughout Greece, a fact perhaps
evidenced by Sparta’s notable lack of fortifications for
most of its history.
A peculiar feature of the Spartans and their military
was the great importance given to matters of religion.
As Herodotus
put it, they ‘considered the things of the gods more
weighty than the things of men’. Pre- and post-battle
sacrifices were a common feature of Greek
warfare in general but the Spartan army took
things one step further and sacrificed before crossing
rivers, for example, and even withheld from mobilising
the army if an important religious festival was ongoing.
Famous episodes where the Spartans put religion above warfare and
even national crisis were Marathon
and Thermopylae during the Persian Wars. In the former
battle they arrived too late to participate and in the
latter mobilised only a token force as they felt
compelled to first celebrate the Karneia festival in
honour of Apollo.
The Spartan hoplite army, however, showed the rest of
Greece the way forward towards a greater military
professionalism and considering the iconic image of
fearless and disciplined hoplites with red cloaks and
lambda-emblazoned shields, for the Greeks, admiring
Romans, and even 21st century film-goers, this is
Sparta.
"I suppose if Lacedaemon were to
become desolate, and the temples and the
foundations of the public buildings were left,
that as time went on there would be a strong
disposition with posterity to refuse to accept
her fame as a true exponent for her power. …
[A]s the city is neither built in a compact form
nor adorned with magnificent temples and public
edifices, but composed of villages, after the
old fashion of Hellas, there would be an
impression of inadequacy. Whereas, if Athens
were to suffer the same misfortune, I suppose
that any inference from the appearance presented
to the eye would make her power to have been
twice as great as it is."
These words
written by Thucydides at the end of the fifth
century B.C. (The
Peloponnesian War, Book 1:1), contrasting the
austerity of Sparta (Lacedaemon) with the rich
architectural and artistic scenery of Athenian life,
seem to be quite reliable for his own time.
Archaeological finds of the preceding centuries,
however, show that the image of Sparta, as a
city-state without art dedicated exclusively to warfare,
cannot be simply extrapolated to the Archaic
period. In fact, in the seventh and sixth
centuries B.C., and
especially in the first half of the sixth century B.C., Sparta and its
region, Laconia, had its own workshops in several
genres of artistic craft, such as vase painting,
metalwork, ivory and bone carving, and even stone
sculpture, in which artists created works in an
original, often well-recognizable style with a
distinct iconographic repertoire.
Painted pottery was produced in Laconian workshops
already in the eighth century B.C.,
in a local version of the Geometric
style, and circulated to most regions and
centers of the Greek
world. After the mainly nonfigural decoration
of the Orientalizing period, around 630 B.C., Laconian vase
painters adopted the black-figure technique from
Corinth, at about the same time the more famous and
important Athenian
black-figure style began. Although it cannot
be compared to the Athenian in quantity and in
artistic invention, Laconian black-figure vase
painting produced a characteristic style and reached
even remote regions of the Mediterranean, beyond
the boundaries of the Greek world. Its heyday
coincides roughly with the second and third quarters
of the sixth century B.C.,
when five leading masters and some lesser painters
were active. The most popular pottery shape was a
local variant of the kylix (a rather shallow,
two-handled drinking cup on a more or less tall
stem), usually decorated with a figural scene in the
tondo and with ornamental rows and compact black
bands on the exterior (59.15). In the tondos, mythological
subjects are frequent, alternating with scenes from
real life, which, however, always bear a heroic
connotation. Laconian black-figure painters had a
predilection for special variations on conventional
mythological scenes, symbolic figures like winged
human figures, sirens, and sphinxes, and floral
ornamental patterns including pomegranates and
tendrils (14.30.26).
A specific Laconian vase shape is the lakaina
(1986.11.7), which, however, was never decorated
with figural scenes. Laconian pottery was widely
distributed in the Greek East (Samos, Rhodes), in
North Africa, where part of the Greek population
claimed Spartan origins (Naucratis, Cyrene), in
Southern Italy (where Taras, the only city-state
founded by Spartans in the West, could play a role
as a center of distribution), Sicily, and Etruria.
It can be argued that the representation of myth and
life seen on Laconian vases also inspired some local
artistic creations in the Greek West and in Etruria.
An outstanding field of Laconian art and craft was
bronzeworking, in particular small-scale bronze
sculpture and the production of decorated bronze
vessels. Solid cast, small-scale bronze
figures usually embellished vessels, tripods,
mirrors, and other utensils; however, isolated
pieces found in sanctuaries could also have been
votive offerings on their own. A characteristic
Spartan figural type can already be recognized in
the eighth century B.C.
in the representation of horses, a widespread
subject in early Greek small-scale bronze
sculpture: among these extremely abstract
renderings of the late Geometric period, a large
number of statuettes found in Laconia and in the
sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia can be ascribed to
Laconian craftsmen (69.61.2).
Towards the end of the seventh century B.C., Laconian
bronzeworkers began to produce magnificent decorated
vessels and other artistic objects. The greatest
assets of Laconian workshops are large kraters
(mixing bowls) and smaller hydriai
(water jars), made by hammering and decorated with
solid cast figures, ranging from floral ornaments
and snakes to animal and human protomes and
mythological figures. Vertical handles can assume
the shape of a human figure; in other cases, mainly
on the earlier pieces, we find a pair of lions
(1989.11.1) or the face of a goddess
(1995.92)
at the base of a handle or below the rim. Laconian
bronze vessels are distinguished essentially on
stylistic grounds from contemporary Corinthian,
Argive, Athenian, and other products, taking into
account both the shape and technical traits of the
vessels themselves and the rendering of the figural
decoration. One particular class of bronze objects
can be entirely ascribed to Sparta on the account of
their special iconography: disk-shaped mirrors
supported by figures of nude girls (38.11.3).
The subject of naked women
is extremely rare in archaic Greek art, but the
conspicuously young, almost childish female figure,
naked except for a series of ritual attributes, can
be plausibly ascribed to Laconia, where the local
cult of Artemis Orthia may have inspired this
unusual iconography. Sometimes Spartan mirrors of
this type were exported as well, with examples from
as far away as Cyprus
(74.51.5680).
The Spartan sanctuary of Artemis Orthia is also the
find-spot of other unusual series of votive
offerings, among which are the curious tiny
lead relief-figurines, representing a winged goddess
(24.195.4),
a variety of human figures, and different kinds of
animals.
Laconian bronze artifacts were especially popular in
the West: they were not only exported to Southern
Italy, Sicily, and Central Italy, but also
inspired important local productions of bronze
artifacts. While in the case of painted pottery,
imports and local imitations can be distinguished
rather clearly, the same task becomes extremely
complicated with bronzes. In fact, decorated bronze
artifacts were prestigious goods and traveled along
different itineraries than pottery, reaching
sometimes surprisingly distant destinations.
Craftsmen specialized in this art could travel more
easily, following commissions to remote regions.
They could settle down in new places and found new
workshops whose stylistic and iconographic repertory
could derive at least partly from the tradition of
their founders. For this reason, often fine bronzes
are tentatively ascribed to a Spartan workshop,
although discovered in Italy, or even beyond, in France
or Central Europe. However, these attributions are
subject to long debates, sometimes without a real
possibility of conclusion. This problem is
particularly evident in Southern Italy, where a
number of bronze artifacts show characteristic
traits that recall the Laconian tradition,
nevertheless they cannot be ascribed to Sparta with
certainty. A famous example is an elaborate tripod
found in Metaponto, very similar to the one in the
Metropolitan Museum's collection (1997.145.1).
Literary sources confirm that in the sixth century B.C., Sparta was also a
major artistic center and home to several important
artists and workshops. Some of the artists may have
been immigrants, mainly of East Greek origin, such
as Bathykles of Magnesia, whose elaborate "throne"
of Apollo in Amyclae is described in detail by
Pausanias (Description of Greece, Book 3:
18.6–19.5). Others seem to have been born and
educated in Sparta, such as Gitiadas, creator of the
cult statue of Athena Chalkioikos and of prestigious
votive gifts to Artemis in Amyclae (Pausanias, Description
of Greece, Book 3:18.7 and 4:14.2). While
these works of art, however famous in late
antiquity, are now lost, we can rely on some extant
stone sculptures for an idea of Laconian large-scale
art: such works include the Archaic Spartan hero
reliefs, especially the monumental piece found in
Chrysapha, and an early sixth-century B.C. female head in
Olympia, which can be connected with Sparta on firm
stylistic grounds.
In the second half and particularly in the last
quarter of the sixth century B.C.,
Laconian crafts declined in quantity and quality.
Laconian painted pottery was driven out of its old
markets by Athenian exports. There were still
remarkable achievements in bronze statuary, as
evinced by a hollow-cast bronze statue head in
Boston, but gradually Laconian artists abandoned the
characteristic stylistic traits of the region and
adopted more generic conventions of Late
Archaic Greek art.
Agnes Bencze
Department of Art History, Péter Pázmány
Catholic University, Budapest
Citation
Bencze,
Agnes. "Art and Craft in Archaic Sparta". In Heilbrunn
Timeline of Art History. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/spar/hd_spar.htm
(June 2014)
Further Reading
Cavanagh, W.G., and S. E. C. Walker,
eds. Sparta in Laconia. London: 1998.
Coudin, Fabienne. Les laconiens
et la Méditerranée à l'époque archaïque.
Naples: 2009.
Förtsch, Reinhard. Kunstverwendung
und Kunstlegitimation im archaischen und
frühklassischen Sparta. Mainz: 2001.
Rolley, Claude. "Le problème de
l'art laconien." Ktéma 2 (1977), pp.
125–40.
Rolley, Claude. Les vases de
bronze de l'archaïsme récent en Grande Grèc.
Naples: 1982.
Stibbe, Conrad M. Das andere
Sparta. Mainz: 1996.
Stibbe, Conrad M. The Sons of
Hephaistos: Aspects of the Archaic Greek
Bronze Industry. Rome: L'Erma di
Bretschneider, 1998.
Stibbe, Conrad M. Lakonische
Vasenmaler des sechsten Jahrhunderts v. Chr.
2 vols. Amsterdam-London: 1972.
14
Comparing
Spartan and Athenian Constitutions
The Greek cities in the
archaic period:
The Archaic period politically is
characterized by the waning rule
of the aristocracy. The Greek states were
generally ruled by an elite of birth and wealth.
However, social unrest is created by the power abuses
of the aristocracy, the economic problems created
through the concentration of wealth in a few hands and
increasing poor populations, and the new challenges of
an ever changing world. Laws are introduced in many
Greek states for the first time, in an attempt to
redress the extremes of aristocratic rule and calm the
spirits. These often are not far-reaching enough to
deal with the source of the problem. Tyrants
(dictators) take advantage of the popular unrest in
several city states and seize control from the
aristocracy. Greek Lyric poetry has encapsulated the
restless spirit of the time.
Two examples of
Archaic cities:
SpartaAthens
The
Spartan Constitution in the 7th C. BCThe Athenian Constitution in the 7th
c. BC
2 kings9 archons
influential but powerless in SpartaExtensive executive responsibilities
Absolute power outside Sparta as (Social policy, religion, judicial system)
leaders of the army
5 ephors
The most powerful body in Sparta
gerousiaAreopagos Council
Legal ResponsibilitiesLegal Responsibilities, extensive power
Assembly (Apella)Assembly
Very limited powersVery limited powers
In the archaic
period both Athens and Sparta have similar
constitutions. However, while the Athenian
constitution constantly evolves to meet the changing
needs of an ever growing state, the Spartan
constitution stands still and inflexible through the
centuries. Ancient authors often praise the stability
of the Spartan system and criticize the constant
changes in the Athenian system, but in reality, this
inflexibility proves to be the downfall of Sparta.
The
evolution towards the Classical Period
In Athens the tyrant
Peisistratos enfranchises all free Athenian born males
and makes them citizens, regardless of land ownership,
wealth or social status. Kleisthenes takes it one step
further and introduces the Moderate
Democracy in 509. The
archons lose some of their power which goes to the
Assembly, and the Assembly becomes the sovereign body.
However, the highest offices of the state are still
closed to the lower classes. They can elect people for
these offices but not be elected.
A further
reform in 462
by Ephialtes removes the last vestiges of the
aristocratic state, strips the Areopagos of its powers
to oversee the state and interfere at will into public
matters, and opens all offices to all Athenians. Now
every citizen has an equal right of speech (isegoria), and
treatment before the law (isonomia).
Scholars call this final phase in the evolution of the
democratic constitution 'The Radical
Democracy'.
In Sparta very little changes
throughout the classical period. The reverence towards
the laws of Sparta, beaten into its citizens from a
very young age, is far stronger than any practical
considerations. By the beginning of the4th
century, when Spartan power reaches its peak, the
Archaic system of Sparta looks really archaic, like an
anomaly in time, and eventually proves to be a great
impediment.Citizenship
remains tied to land ownership, and citizens who
cannot afford to pay their way lose their status as
fully enfranchised Spartan citizens and become
inferiors (hypomeiones).
Over time this results to a low birth rate and
reduction of the citizen body. By the middle of the 4th
century this demographic problem becomes critical.
Sparta still refuses to change its constitution, and
fades into insignificance.
15a How
Sparta became Spartan From
http://www.civilization.org.uk/greece-2/sparta/sparta-origins At the time of
the Trojan War at the end of the Bronze
Age, Sparta was already one of the
leading towns in Greece. Helen, the
actual cause of the Trojan War came from
Sparta, where she was the wife of the
king, Menelaus. Indeed Sparta lies in
one of the few fertile valleys in the
southern part of Greece known as the
Peloponnese, and thus was inevitably
always the site of a major settlement. (Click
here for more on Mycenean Sparta)
However
crucial change came in the eighth and
seventh centuries BC when Sparta
conquered its neighbour Messene which
occupies the other major fertile valley
on the western side of the Peloponnese
separated from Sparta by the fierce
mountain ranges of Taygetus. The
Messenians were turned into an
underclass called Helots, and in order
to keep them subjugated, Sparta had to
turn itself into a military state where
the subjugation of the Helots became the
prime object of life. At first
the results of the conquest were
beneficial, and Sparta came to the
forefront of the developments of archaic
Greek society, and poets such as
Tyrtaeus and Alcman were among the
leading poets of archaic Greece. The
artistic merits of archaic Sparta were
only recognised in the early decades of
the 20th century with the excavations by
the British School of the shrine of
Artemis Orthia. This was one of the
oldest shrines in Sparta, rather remote
from the rest of ancient Sparta, on the
other side of the modern town from the
Acropolis, down by the river. The temple
was extensively altered by the Romans,
but underlying the Roman alterations
were found a huge number of votive
offerings of the archaic period —
terracotta masks, carved ivories, and
above all, little lead figurines, which
were found by the thousand. These are
the offerings of ordinary pilgrims and
tend to be somewhat crude, but
nevertheless they are very lively. They
caused a revelation, showing that Sparta
at this time was artistically the equal
of the other states of the emerging
Greek civilisation. (Click
here for Artemis Orthia) However at
the end of the sixth century, suddenly
all the artistic produce ceases, its
pottery becomes totally utilitarian,
bronzes are no longer exported, and
buildings were so utilitarian that none
have survived. The Spartans apparently
still continued to live in five villages
scattered throughout the area of modern
Sparta — there was no town centre.
As Thucydides said perceptively, if a
future generation were to visit Sparta,
they would not believe that it was once
the most powerful state in all of
Greece. What
happened to cause these changes? I
believe that one of the least recognized
aspects of the new constitution is that
the Spartans rejected money. This was
the time at the end of the sixth
century, when the other states in Greece
were suddenly adopting this strange new
thing called money, and the strange and
rather upsetting new economics that went
with it. The Spartans were suspicious.
This money-thing was very troubling.
Their whole society had been set up to
keep the Helots, the conquered
Messenians, under control. Theirs was a
very warlike, very structured society,
and this money thing threatened to bring
in a new flexibility which was very
unsettling. The
trouble with money is that it brings
choice. Under the Spartan system,
every Spartan was required to contribute
to the mess a given amount of food
acquired from his Helot: a medimnos
of barley-meal every month, eight choes
of wine, five minas of cheese,
and half a mina of figs: Plutarch gives
the exact amount, though we do not quite
know what the measures mean. Money
does not come into this – the amounts
are given by measures. However if
money were to be introduced, he could
go out and buy extra food for himself.
He could also use the money to improve
his home and perhaps find his home
more comfortable than the communal
mess. And above all, money always
threatens to introduce the
‘middle-classes’ — small farmers,
millers, and bakers, specialists who
can live off their wits without being
beholden to the state and therefore
very suspect to those who wanted to
introduce equality. And without
perhaps putting it into so many words,
the Spartans may well have sensed all
this, and were suspicious. I
believe that there must have been a
formal meeting in the Spartan assembly
at which a debate took place and they
formally decided not to use money. All
the writers agree that Sparta rejected
money — indeed there is no Spartan
money, not until the third century —
and the Greek writers accept that this
was an important part of the
constitution. However the corollary of
this is that the money could not be
rejected before money was invented,
and therefore this could not have
happened before around 525, the middle
of the last half of the sixth century,
when money reached mainland Greece.
How far this rejection of money caused
the other changes one cannot say. But
I suspect that the rejection of money
was part of a package in which Sparta
deliberately rejected ‘civilisation’
and formalised the adoption of the
other characteristics of its barbaric
society (or ‘constitution’) .
The Great Rhetra (Greek: Μεγάλη Ῥήτρα,
literally: Great "Saying" or "Proclamation",
charter) was used in two senses by the classical
authors. On the one hand it was the Spartan Constitution,
believed to have been formulated and established by
the legendary lawgiver, Lycurgus.
In the legend Lycurgus forbade any written
constitution. It was therefore presumed to have been
oral.
In a
second sense the rhetra refers to an oracle of Delphi, which was believed to
have contained the entire constitution in verse. The
credo of being unwritten fails in this case, as a
written record of all oracles was maintained by the
priests at Delphi. They and others consulted it
frequently. It survived long after the demise of the
oracle but is missing now, except for fragments
handed down by classical authors.
The
classical authors and the literate population of
Sparta knew better than to suppose that the rhetra
went into effect as written by an oracle and
remained unchanged. A double tradition developed:
tales of the oracular rhetra and stories of the laws
of Lycurgus. As there is no history of any
constitutional issues dividing the Spartans, they
seem to have had no problem accepting its
contradictions, perhaps because they knew it was
legendary.
Also,
the concept of the constitution being truly oral and
a state secret presents certain paradoxes, such as
how the classical authors knew so much about it.
Moreover, the workings of the government of a major
Greek state over centuries cannot have been either
unwritten or a secret. For example, Cyrus the Younger
knew perfectly well that Lysander was forbidden by law
to hold a second term as navarch, and yet he
requested the Spartan government to make an
exception. And finally, if the Spartans were
forbidden to write anything down, the existence of
inscriptions in the Eurotas valley becomes
problematic. The institution of the rhetra in fact
coincides with the innovation of the Greek alphabet
based on the Phoenician alphabet.
According
to Herodotus,[1]
at some time before the reigns of Leon of Sparta and Agasicles, the Spartans "had
been the very worst governed people in Greece." Lycurgus, "a man of distinction
among the Spartans," decided to ask advice of the Delphic oracle. On reaching the
inner sanctum of the temple, he heard:
"Oh!
thou great Lycurgus, that com'st to my beautiful
dwelling,
Dear to Jove, and to all who sit in the halls of
Olympus,
Whether to hail thee a god I know not, or only a
mortal,
But my hope is strong that thou a god wilt prove,
Lycurgus."
Thereupon
the oracle delivered the entire constitution of
Sparta, which Lycurgus took back and implemented.
But, says Herodotus, the Lacedaemonians
tell a different story. Lycurgus while regent for
his nephew, Labotas, seized the opportunity to
establish a new state. Imitating customs he found in
Dorian Crete he innovated the Gerousia, the Ephorate, the Enomotiae, the
Triacades and the Syssitia. Herodotus does not
mention the oracle in the second report.
The
associated kings offer a rough date for the genesis
of the Great Rhetra. Agasicles and Leon of Sparta
both acceded to their thrones about 590 BC. As they
were not the first dual kings, the rhetra must have
been formulated before then. Labotas
on the other hand began his reign in 870, implying
an early 9th century date of the rhetra. If there
was an oracle, the question of what writing system,
if any, was the vehicle of the oracles is moot. Linear B was gone and the
alphabet had not yet arrived in Greece.
Plutarch's
version
The
younger source, Plutarch, speaks less
confidently of the details of Lycurgus' life, being
faced by that time with multiple traditions, and
having no way to judge between them. He says:[2]
"There is so much uncertainty in the accounts which
historians have left us of Lycurgus, the lawgiver of
Sparta, that scarcely any thing is asserted by one
of them which is not called into question or
contradicted by the rest." After repeating some of
the opinions of sources available to him he launches
into his own reconstruction based, he says, on the
majority opinion. Lycurgus was the younger son of
the Eurypontid king, Eunomus. He
was thus passed over for the throne in favor of his
brother, Polydectes, but the latter
died. The inheritance changed by law to Lycurgus.
However, Polydectes's wife having been found to be
pregnant, Lycurgus became regent instead for the
first several months of the infant Charilaus' life. There is no
mention of the Agiad Labotas in this version.
But what was this Spartan constitution? We
have two very good sources for our knowledge. One is
the biographer Plutarch (AD 50 – 120) who wrote a
series of parallel lives, one of which was the life
of Lycurgus, a more or less mythical Spartan king to
whom the Spartan constitution was always attributed.
The other is the adventurer and writer
Xenophon, best known for his description of how he
led a group of Greek mercenary soldiers back from
the Black Sea to Athens. He went to live near Sparta
and a constitution of Sparta is attributed to him —
though it is not up to the standard of the rest of
his writings.
Many other authors comment on the Spartan way of
life, but it is rather like the left wing writers
who went to Stalin’s Russia in the 1930s and came
back with glowing reports of the New World that
‘Uncle Joe’ (=Lycurgus?) was introducing and
overlooked the down side. Though in the case of
Sparta there was also an additional sexual frisson
when they dwelt salaciously on some of their
peculiar sexual arrangements, as well as the
sado-masochism involved in the hardships, and the
semi-ritual beatings that Spartan boys had to
endure.
The economic basis
The economic basis was provided by the Messenians,
who had been captured by the Spartans in the seventh
century and were now kept as an underclass called
helots. There was considerable discussion then
and now as to whether or not they were slaves. It
depends on the definition of slavery: in a way they
were not slaves in that each had his own property,
but this was tightly controlled and he was compelled
to give up half of his produce to his master and
provide the food that each Spartan had to bring to
the common mess.
The Helots were kept in control by a form of
secret police known as the Krypteia, which
means secret people. Young Spartans were required as
part of their training to make excursions into
Messenia, hiding out by day and emerging at night to
knife any Helot who was suspected of being becoming
too bolshie. This could be called murder of
course, which would bring down divine retribution,
but in order to prevent this, every year the
Spartans declared war on the Helots so that they
could be murdered with impunity.
The Spartans were great believers in equality,
and the Lycurgan system is an excellent example of
what is involved in promoting a successful equality
campaign. Theoretically at any rate, all Spartans
were equal: they were called Homoioi, or
‘The Equals’, and Lycurgus is said to have parcelled
out the land of Sparta in equal lots; though as
usual, when the aim of equality is pursued, some
soon become more equal than others.
The agoge
In order to impose this equality, State education
was the rule from birth. When children were born
they were brought before the elders and any that
appeared to be unfit to be ‘equal’ were exposed on
the mountainside. At the age of seven they were
enrolled in the ‘herd’ controlled by a leader and a
squad of assistants equipped with whips. The
training was tough and they were only allowed one
cloak a year and from the age of 13 they were no
longer allowed a tunic. They had to go barefoot and
were given the minimum of food. If they wanted more
food, they were encouraged to steal it, though if
they were caught stealing, they were always soundly
whipped, not for stealing, but for getting caught.
It was, I suppose, a form of primitive capitalism:
if you wanted to accumulate capital (i.e. food) you
first had to undergo the risks of getting whipped.
Whipping and nudity played a key role in the
Spartan education or at least in the descriptions of
its admirers. A key part was played by these
ceremonies at the shrine of Artemis
Orthia where ritual floggings took place. The
original cult statue was a statue of wood, and the
statue demanded that it was regularly fed with
blood. Originally, says Pausanias, this blood was in
the form of human sacrifice, but this was then
commuted to a form of flogging where the boys were
flogged until they bled and produced blood for the
statue. While the floggings were taking place the
priestess would hold the statue, and if the
floggings were not severe enough, either because the
boys were beautiful or perhaps well born, then the
priestess would say that the statue was becoming
heavy and she could not hold it and it was necessary
to beat harder to make the statue become light
again. It was all jolly good fun — at least for the
spectators who enjoyed seeing young men being
flogged in this way.
The girls had an almost equally strict training with
the boys, for Lycurgus argued that if you want
strong warriors, they must be born of strong
mothers, so the girls were also encouraged to
exercise like the boys, and perform nude dancing
called the gymnopaideia, which was also
extremely popular.
The communal messes
Plan of Sparta. There was no single ‘city’ at
Sparta, but instead it was composed of five
villages, the putative sites of four of which are
marked on this map.
Equality was also followed in the domestic
arrangements. Families are the biggest obstacle to
egalitarianism, so the Spartans discouraged family
life. Families did not live together but the men
lived in common messes known as sussitia, or
eating together places. No sussition has ever been
excavated in Sparta — X it would be very interesting
to excavate one, though I believe that a similar
men’s house and eating place has been found in
Crete, where they also spoke Greek with a Dorian
accent and had a constitution similar to that of
Sparta.
But there are many aspects where it can be
compared to more primitive societies and can truly
be called Barbarian. A good example is marriage, for
sexual habits are always a good indication of the
distinction between barbarism and civilisation. Thus
at Sparta, married men were not allowed to spend the
whole night with their wives, but instead they had
to creep out of their barracks to visit and have
intercourse with their wives and then return to the
barracks, hopefully without anyone seeing them. Wife
swapping was encouraged. If a young man fancied an
older man’s wife, he could ask the older man if he
could sleep with his wife, and if a child was
produced, the older man would as a matter of course
bring it up as his own. There was a eugenic element
in all this, in that only the strongest and fittest
young men and the fittest women should produce
children, so that the children should themselves be
strong and fit. And it is important that you should
not have sex with your wife too often, so that when
you did have sex, you would be at the peak
of your performance.
Their treatment of women wins praise from many
feminists for to a considerable extent, both sexes
were treated alike: women were toughened by making
them run and wrestle and throw the discus and
javelin so that they could bear their pregnancies
successfully. Lycurgus did away with prudery, making
the young girls no less than the young men grow used
to walking nude in processions. Indeed there was a
spectacle known as the gymnopaedia in which the
young men and girls would dance naked in a circle
with the women making fun of the young men.
The constitution and the Great Rhetra
This ‘Lycurgan’ system as described by Plutarch
and Xenophon is a seriously weird system. However
their actual constitution was a good example of the
‘mixed constitution’ of the type that the Greeks
admired, in that it mixed together the two main
systems of kingship and democracy. Sparta
traditionally was ruled by two kings, kingship being
hereditary in two different families, the Agids and
the Europontids. However the system was modified, as
recorded in a deliberately obscure document known as
the great Rhetra (the word is cognate with rhetoric)
which is recorded by Plutarch as having been the
work of Lycurgus. This lays down that there should
also be a council of elders, 30 strong, who may
select the items that are to be brought forward
before the people for debate. However if the people
make a crooked choice, then the elders are to set it
aside – so much for that silly idea known as
democracy. But this mixture of aristocracy and
democracy is the type that the Greeks much admired
and certainly it served the Spartans comparatively
well for much of the fifth century.
But as I have already argued, the crucial feature
of the Spartan constitution was the rejection of
money. Gold and silver was banished and as a result
gold and silver ornaments vanished. Plutarch also
assures us that theft and robbery became unknown and
pimps and beggars vanished from the streets – as did
the teachers of rhetoric — a pet hate of the
opponents of democracy at Athens — perhaps the
equivalent of the advertising agents of today.
Foreign imports also vanished as indeed can be seen
from the archaeology: Sparta cut itself off from the
outside world. Only iron spits could be used as
money, which was, as intended, pretty useless.
The structure of society was almost entirely
barbarian. There is the lack of family, the men
living altogether in communal barracks, the state
educational system and the constant emphasis on war
and training for war are all typical features of a
barbarian society. But as so often, the totalitarian
system was much admired by the intelligentsia of the
free society, many of whom seem to long for the
ideas of order and discipline.
When did this take place?
What is the date of the ‘Lycurgan’ reforms ? I
believe that the dating of these changes is
seriously askew, for it is often assumed that the
Lycurgan system was the result of the conquest of
Messenia in the seventh and sixth centuries.
But from the archaeological point of view, Sparta
is a fairly normal city down to the sixth century,
but then, particularly towards the end of the
century, two things happen more and less
simultaneously. Firstly there is the downgrading of
the material culture. Alkman, the last of the
Spartan poets, flourished around 600 BC. The exotic
ivory working ceased around 550 BC — possibly
because the sources of ivory were cut off; bronze
working declines during the last half of the sixth
century, and Laconian painted pottery fizzles out
around 520, possibly due to Athenian competition.
Gradually, but steadily, Sparta becomes Spartan.
And at around the same time, Sparta rejects
money. I believe that the whole new concept of money
caused a crisis: should they introduce money as the
other Greek states were doing? The trouble was that
money brings choice and choice is always dangerous
in the sort of society that Sparta had become: did
they perhaps have a feeling, a premonition that
money and choice has a tendency to break up long
established social structures?
I suspect they did not formalise this: it was a
feeling rather than an argued philosophy, but
nevertheless it was a powerful feeling, and a
definite choice was presented to them: should they
adopt money or not? I suspect that a formal debate
must have been held in the assemblies, certainly in
the council of elders possibly even by the people,
even with their tendency to make crooked decisions.
And when the decision was taken to reject money,
they felt that the time had come to formalise their
peculiar constitution. The time, at the end of the
sixth century, was a time when other Greek states
were formalising their constitutions too and Sparta
felt it must keep up with the fashion.
I believe that this is the date when the Great
Rhetra was cobbled together. An old document was
discovered or possibly several bits of old documents
were cobbled together, retaining the archaic style
but incorporating some surprisingly modern features.
The two kings had no doubt existed from time
immemorial — surprisingly similar to the two consuls
at Rome — and there is a hint of a division of land,
if this is what the mysterious ‘obing the obes’
means. But then there is the idea of holding
assemblies, of a council of elders, and most daring
of all the mention of the ‘people’ , the ‘damos’ or
Demos – even though they go on to say that if the
people make crooked decisions (as people will) then
they are to be set aside. In all this was something
that was of intense interest to the politicians at
the end of the sixth century, particularly those
making up the new systems of democracy at this time.
Sparta felt the same influences too; but they went
in the opposite direction.
And alongside the Great Rhetra, the Sparta system
was formalised. The Spartiates were debarred from
manual work, the system of state education, the
‘agoge’ was formalised, and the communal messes,
which had no doubt grown up gradually over the
centuries, now became formally recognized.
The new system had immediate success and the
closing years of the sixth century and the opening
years of the fifth was the time of the Spartan’s
greatest success notably under its great to erratic
king Cleomenes who successfully helped the Athenians
eject their tyrant Hippias which led the way to
Athenian democracy.
The Lycurgan system had immense influence on many
Athenian intellectuals such as Xenophon and later
Plutarch, and the whole system has consciously or
unconsciously formed the basis of totalitarian
ideals ever since. Even today in this country we
have an Equality and Human Right Commission which is
probably unaware of its antecedents in Sparta
Ultimately however the system must be seen as a X
barbarian. Family life was rejected as leading to
too many inequalities. Education was wholly in the
hands of the state and a communal way of life was in
force with the males living in communal messes,
though the enforced egalitarianism was only made
possible as part of a strict caste system with the
three main castes, the equal, the Spartiates at the
top, then the allies who lived around Sparta forming
a great mass at the centre, and the Helots at the
bottom doing all the hard work. In the sixth and
fifth century, Greece became the world’s first
civilisation; but within that civilisation, Sparta
became the world’s most outstanding example of
barbarism.
The syssitia (Classical
Greek: τὰ
συσσίτιαta syssítia) was, in Ancient Greece, a
common meal for men and youths in social or
religious groups, especially in Crete and Sparta, though also in Megara in the time of Theognis
(6th century BC) and Corinth in the time of Periander (7th century BC).
The banquets spoken of by Homer relate to this tradition.
Some reference to similar meals can be found in Carthage and according to Aristotle (Politics
VII. 9), it prevailed still earlier amongst the Oenotrians of Southern Italy.[1]
The origin of the syssitia is unknown; while
Lycurgus certainly
made use of the practice in Sparta, we do not know whether
he introduced the practice or developed an existing
one.
In Sparta, where the system was most evolved, they were
also called pheiditia (φειδίτια, from ἔδωedō, to eat). The term
is probably a corruption of φιλίτιαphilitia
("love-feast"),[2]
a word corresponding to the Cretan Hetairia.
This was a daily obligatory banquet comparable to a
military mess. Before the 5th century BC this
ritual was also referred to as the ὰνδρεῖαandreia, literally,
"belonging to men". Obligation was total; no person, not
even the kings,
could be absent without good excuse, such as performance
of a sacrifice. Lesser excuses, such as being away on a
hunt, implied a requirement to provide a present to the
table (Smith 1870) .
The participation at syssitia was, as for other aspects
of agoge, obligatory for membership in
the Homoioi, the peers. Spartans were admitted
starting at the age of twenty after a ritual described
by Plutarch in his Life of
Lycurgus(ch 12):
"each
man in the company took a little ball of soft bread,
which they were to throw into a deep basin, which a
waiter carried round upon his head; those that liked
the person to be chosen dropped their ball into the
basin without altering its figure, and those who
disliked him pressed it between their fingers, and
made it flat; and this signified as much as a negative
voice. And if there were but one of these pieces in
the basin, the suitor was rejected, so desirous were
they that all the members of the company should be
agreeable to each other. The basin was called
caddichus, and the rejected candidate had a name
thence derived. ".[3]
It was also
possible for the young man to be presented by his erastes, his
father figure who was (disputably) the elder in a pederastic relationship.
Each person was supplied with a cup of mixed wine, which
was filled again when required, although drunkenness was
not tolerated. Following a main meal of black broth (μέλας ζωμόςmelas
zōmos), an επαικλον (epaiklon, or
after-meal) was served, which consisted of game, fruit,
poultry and other delicacies. Alcman (Frag. 31) tells us that at
the banquets and drinking entertainments of the men it
was fit for the guests to sing the paean. The
arrangements were under the supervision of the polemarch.
Each member was required to contribute a monthly share
to the common pot, the φιδίτης phidites, of
which the composition has been passed to us by Dicaearchus (through Athenaeus and Plutarch ibid.,
12): 77 litres of barley, 39 litres of wine, 3
kilograms of cheese, 1.5 kilograms of figs, and 10 Aeginaobolus, which
served to purchase meat. This served to prepare the main
dish, the black broth
(μέλας ζωμόςmelas
zōmos), of which Athenaeus has given us the
ingredients: pork, salt, vinegar and blood.
The kleros, the allotment given to each Spartan
and cultivated by helots, was
supposed to allow each citizen to pay their share. If
this proved impossible, they were excluded from the
syssitia. (Aristotle, Politics, II,
9).
The number of members in each syssitia remains vague.
According to Plutarch in Life of Lycurgus, there
were approximately 15 men in each syssitia; but in his Life
of Agis, the king divides his 4,500 citizens into
15 phidites of 400 or 200 members, that is 7 phidites
of 400, 7 of 200, and 300 hippeis (elite Spartan guards).
Crete
The ancient Cretan name for the syssitia was also andreia,
the singular of which (ὰνδρεῖον
| andreion) is used to denote the building or
public hall where they were given. The name (εταιριαιHetairiai
was also used. As in Sparta, these meals were for male
citizens and youths only. Based on at least one source,
however, (Pindar, Pythian Odes, IX,
18) it is possible that in some of the Dorian states
there were also syssitia of young unmarried women. The
citizens were divided into messes which originally
appear to have been along kinship lines, though
vacancies were later filled at the discretion of the
members. Ζευς 'Εταιρειος (Zeus Hetaireios) was
the presiding deity.
According to Dosiadas,
cited in Athenaeus, each town in Crete
had two public buildings; one for lodging strangers (koimitirion),
and the andreion where the syssitia took place.
The upper part had two tables for foreign guests, then
tables for the citizen members, and a third table to the
right of the entrance for Zeus Khenios; likely
used for offerings and libations.
Cretan syssitia were distinguished by simplicity and
temperance. They always sat at their tables, even in
later times, when the custom of reclining had been
introduced at Sparta. The entertainment began with
prayer to the gods and libations. Each of the adult
citizens received an equal portion of fare, with the
exception of the Archon, or "Master of the
Tables" who was perhaps in ancient times one of the Kosmi,
and more recently a member of the Gerousia or council. The Archon
received four portions; "one as a common citizen, a
second as President, a third for the house or building,
a fourth for the furniture"; which seems to imply that
the care of the building and the provision of the
necessary utensils and furniture was the Archon's
responsibility. A free-born woman managed the tables and
service; she openly took the best portion and presented
it to the most eminent citizen present. She had three or
four male assistants under her, each of whom again was
provided with two menial servants). Strangers were
served before the citizens, and even before the Archon.
On each of the tables was placed a cup of mixed wine,
from which the messmates of the same company drank. At
the close of the meal this was replenished, but all
intemperance was strictly forbidden by a special law.
Youths under eighteen accompanied their fathers to the
syssitia along with orphans. In some places the youngest
of the orphans waited on the men; in others this was
done by all the boys. When not thus engaged, they were
seated near to the men on a lower bench, and received
only a half portion of meat: the eldest of the orphans
appear to have received the same quantity as the men,
but of a plainer description of fare. (Athenaeus IV,
143) The boys like the men had also a cup of mixed wine
in common, which however was not replenished when
emptied. The meals were generally cheerful, and
accompanied by music and singing. It was followed by
conversation, which was first directed to the public
affairs of the state, and afterwards turned on valiant
deeds in war and the exploits of illustrious men, whose
praises might animate the younger hearers to an
honourable emulation. While listening to this
conversation, the youths seem to have been arranged in
classes, each of which was placed under the
superintendence of an officer especially appointed for
this purpose; so that the syssitia were thus made to
serve important political and educational ends.
Unlike the Spartan format (see
above), in most Cretan cities,
...of all the fruits of the earth and cattle raised on
the public lands, and of the tribute which is paid by
the Perioeci, one portion is
assigned to the Gods and to the service of the state,
and another to the common meals, so that men, women,
and children are all supported out of a common stock.
(AristotlePolitics II. 10; Bekker
1272a)[4]
Based on this, and Athenaeus, it appears that each
citizen received their share directly, in order to pay
part to the public table and another part to feed the
females of the family. This practice however does not
appear to have prevailed exclusively at all times and in
all the cities of Crete. In Lyctus, for instance, a colony from
Sparta, the custom was different: the citizens of that
town contributed to their respective tables a tenth of
the produce of their estates; a practice which may be
supposed to have obtained in other cities, where the
public domains were not sufficient to defray the charges
of the syssitia. But both at Lyctus and elsewhere, the
poorer citizens were in all probability supported at the
public cost.
The principal question which arises is how one building
would accommodate the adult citizens and youths of towns
like Lyctus and Gortyna.
Either the information is incorrect and there was more
than one andreion in larger towns, or the number
of citizens in each town was small; a hypothesis
supported by Xenophon, (Hellenica, III, 3) who
reported only 40 citizens in a crowd of 4,000 in Sparta
[5]
- Crete had similar very large numbers of non-citizens.
Significance
The syssitia patently served to bring kinship groups
together, and in having those who would fight together
eat together in peacetime, a strong bond was formed. The
syssitia in effect became an extended family, where all
were "children of the state". It also ensured a
separation between subject classes and citizens, and in
Sparta additional separation based on station and
wealth. They were thus a strong tool for developing
nationalism. Herodotus (I, 65) remarks that
the Spartan syssitia led to troops "who fought with more
bravery and a keener sense of shame than would have been
the case with chance comrades" (Smith 1870)
While the syssitia, as opposed to symposia, were originally based
on simplicity and sobriety, over time in Sparta they
became more indulgent and luxurious. Some attempts were
made by Agis to restore former discipline,
but this ended in failure.
The
entirety of ancient Sparta's rich and
fascinating food culture is often reduced to a
caricature of brutes grunting over a nasty
concoction of pork-and-blood soup in a solemn
nightly ritual. The horribly inaccurate
Wikipedia entry on "Ancient Greek cuisine" sums
up the misperception nicely: "Spartans primarily
ate pork stew, the black broth."
This view is misleading, a misreading of
history, devoid of Spartan context and purpose
and easily invalidated.
Ancient observers of Sparta obsessed over
aspects of Spartan culture that were unusual or
unique. One of these was the famous group dining
clubs, or syssitia, to which all
citizens (males in good standing over the age of
20) were required to belong, and all members
required to attend most nights for dinner.
Because this meal was so heavily commented upon,
many have made a bizarre leap to assume this was
the only possible meal in ancient Sparta.
Let's explore just how easily this widely
held notion can be invalidated.
First, the majority of Spartans weren't eligible
for syssitia membership. Women, who were
a majority in Sparta, were not eligible, nor
were children and teenagers. Only males in good
standing over the age of 20, with good
reputations and who were able to pay dues in the
form of annual food donations and regular meal
contributions could belong to a syssition.
Male children and teenagers, as well as women
and girls of all ages were ineligible for
syssition membership, and never ate
syssition-specific meals.
But even full-fledged adult male Spartiates
ate breakfast and lunch like other Greeks, and
ate dinner outside their syssitia when
hunting, traveling, training away from the city
or while at war. Sparta was famous throughout
Greece for its many elaborate, multi-day annual
religious festivals, most importantly the Karneia,
Hyacinthia and Gymnopaedia,
which involved a wide variety of
festival-specific foods of incredible variety.
These festivals superseded all other activity by
Spartans, including syssitia meals,
hunting and even military campaigns.
And even within the Spartan syssition
meal itself, blood soup represented only a small
fraction of the total meal. According to my
admittedly unscientific calculation, black soup
accounted for about 3 percent of the total
caloric intake of Spartan men, women and
children -- hardly what they "primarily ate."
Our only source for black soup ingredients, a
book called Deipnosophists (or "The
Banquet Philosophers") written by a 3rd
century A.D. Greek-Egyptian writer named
Athenaeus, also spells out the incredible
varieties of other foods provided at every
dinner. So if you accept the ingredients in the
broth, you must accept the other foods specified
in that same section from Athenaeus' master
work.
Based primarily on Athenaeus, and secondarily on
other sources, let's reconstruct a typical
nightly Spartan syssition meal, then
consider what was really going on.
Somewhere between a dozen and 30 or so members
file in at the appointed hour and take their
seats on benches at a group table. At the same
time, hundreds of other such clubs are similarly
gathering for the exact same type of meal.
As always, dinner will be served in two distinct
parts. The first part, called the aiklon,
is dictated by Spartan Law, mandated in every
detail by the state and prepared by a guild of
hereditary cooks. The foods prepared for the aiklon
meal come from member dues in the form of a very
specific amount of barley, wine, cheese, figs
and money required of each Spartiate in
order to maintain membership -- and citizenship.
These items come from the farm that each Spartan
is required to own, and produced by Helot
slaves provided by the state for the purpose of
growing and producing food for the Spartan
people.
The second part of the meal, called the epaiklon,
is made up of dishes shared voluntarily or more
accurately required by custom and social
dynamics, and prepared by the households of
members.
Even though all the food is provided by members,
it's essentially food provided by the state.
Rather than taxing citizens money, then buying
food, Spartan Law simply cuts out the tax man
and required that Spartiates feed each
other.
The aiklon course begins. The cooks
serve each member a small amount of black soup,
a broth made from water, blood, vinegar and
salt. Ideally, this broth is made with wild boar
meat of which each member is provided a very
small amount -- no more than a quarter pound.
Sometimes only broth is served without meat, and
some older members are said to prefer broth
only. Accompanying the black soup there may
"possibly be an olive or a cheese or a fig,"
according to Athenaus, or the group may share "a
fish or a hare or a ring-dove or something
similar." After the soup, each Spartiate
is given barley-cake (essentially an
un-sweetened barley gruel mixed with olive oil).
The amount of food in this initial course is
very small. Each member has his own cup, into
which is poured a watered-down wine.
During this first part of the meal, no food or
wine is shared. Each is given his ration and
nothing more.
When the aiklon ends, the epaiklon
begins. The second part of the meal also
includes member-contributed food, but it's done
on a voluntary basis. Before it begins, members
may invite boys under the age of 20 to come in
and listen to the conversation. The boys file in
quietly and sit on the floor around the table
where the men remain seated, and are served
barley cakes wrapped in laurel leaves. The
practice of inviting in the boys is aimed at
teaching them how to engage in proper Spartan
conversation, learn Spartan stories and history
and how to speak with brevity and wit.
Although that's all the boys get for dinner, the
members are served whatever foods have been
voluntarily provided by members. The only rules
for this food appear to be that it cannot have
been purchased; it must have been produced by
the contributing member's farm and prepared in
his home. Wealthy members tended to provide
bread and fresh, seasonal produce. Members might
bring olives, pomegranates, apples, almonds or
any number of foods grown on the farm. Poorer Spartiates
could provide game killed in the hunt, or
animals raised on their farms, including small
birds or very rarely, lamb.
Atheneaus quotes a 2nd Century BC stoic
philospher, who taught in Sparta and served as
an adviser to the Spartan king Cleomenes III.
Sphaerus, who wrote a now-lost work called "The
Spartan State," as writing that "Sometimes the
common people bring whatever is caught in the
chase; but the rich contribute wheat bread and
anything from the fields which the season
permits, in quantities sufficient for the one
meeting alone, because they believe that to
provide more than is enough is uncalled for."
Contributions confer status on the member
providing, based on the quality of the food, and
also the quantity: The amount provided must feed
everyone a small portion. Any deficiency in
quantity, or worse, excess, is frowned upon.
Xenophon wrote that "from beginning to end, till
the mess breaks up, the common board is never
stinted for food nor yet extravagantly
furnished.
Members chose the very best foods their lands
and homes could produce, then shared those foods
in restrained portions as a status-conferring
point of pride. Epaikla foods were not
supposed to be fancy, fashionable or
complicated. But it's very likely that this was
the highest-quality food in Greece. Sparta had
the most and the best agricultural land, every
acre of which was controlled by syssitia
members. Each member competed against the others
to provide the very best foods he could to the
mess.
So what's going on here?
The nightly syssition meal was an
institutionalized form of socialization, the
ritualized preservation of a very ancient Doric
military custom for how the ancestors of the
Spartans ate in the field, and a powerful system
for creating strong bonds and shaping the basic
military organization of the Spartan army.
First, they ate rations in the form of a soup
made from animals killed in organized hunting.
Then they ate anything acquired by individuals
through looting or foraging.
The ritual was remarkably well preserved for
centuries. The aiklon course didn't
evolve much because the ingredients and cooking
methods were enshrined in law. The epaiklon
course, however, being "whatever you could get
your hands on" evolved greatly with farming and
with the attachment of status to the quality of
food. For example, it's likely that breads
gradually transitions from mostly barley in the
early centuries to mostly wheat breads.
Consider that the Spartiate's farm fed
both farm and household helot slaves, as well as
his extended family. The land controlled by a
single Spartan no doubt fed somewhere between 10
and 100 people. Given the importance of status
within the syssition, only the best of
the best foods were selected for epaikla
courses. Any unusually great crop of apples or
pomegranates, any especially delicious batch of
olives, cheese or wine -- anything on the farm
that was especially good would be diverted to
the Spartiate's syssition to bolster his
status. Further, this food was very fresh,
probably picked or slaughtered that day and
prepared in the home in the late afternoon. How
could any other system in Greece result in
higher-quality food?
A PROSPEROUS ECONOMY:
SPARTIATES, PERIOIKOI, AND HELOTS IN ONE OF
THE RICHEST CITY-STATES OF ANCIENT GREECE
Lacedaemon was one
of the richest city-states in
ancient Greece.
The Spartan economy
was dependent not on chattel slaves,
as were the other Greek city-states,
but on the non-Doric population of
Laconia and the subject population
of Messenia. These were
divided into free but non-citizen perioikoi
and semi-free, serf-like helots.
Because
Spartan citizens were prohibited from
pursuing any profession other than
that of arms, perioikoi held a
monopoly on all lucrative businesses
and helots could accumulate wealth.
Sparta was the capital of the city-state of
Lacedaemon. The land area of Lacedaemon was
larger than that of most Greek city-states, covering
the bulk of the southern Peloponnese. It was an
extremely rich territory with considerable natural
resources, including copper and tin mines, quarries,
forests, and good ports giving access to the Aegean
and Ionian Seas. The fertile valleys of the
Eurotas (Laconia itself) and Pamisos (Messenia) were
suitable for the production of all essential
foodstuffs of the ancient world, from olives to wine,
as well as providing good pasture land for cattle,
sheep, and goats. It was known for the variety
of its garden vegetables, including cucumbers and
lettuce, which were considered distinctly
Laconian. It was famed for its horses and its
Kastorian hounds, both of which were valuable exports,
while the horses frequently brought Sparta victories
at the Olympic Games. More important, however,
unlike Athens and Corinth, Lacedaemon was
self-sufficient in grain rather than being dependent
on imports of this vital commodity – a critical
political advantage. In short, Sparta's power
did not rest on its military might alone, but was a
function of its economic independence as well.
To understand the Spartan economy,
however, it is necessary to go back to the origins of
the city. The Spartan citizens – often called
Spartiates – were the descendants of Doric invaders
who came to the Peloponnese in the 9th century
BC. Although there is no written record, it is
evident that rather than exterminating or enslaving
the native population, as was more common at the time,
the Spartans allowed the conquered inhabitants to
continue to live and work in Laconia. While they
were not citizens and so not politically enfranchised,
they enjoyed far more rights and higher status than
chattel slaves. These peoples were divided into
two broad categories: the residents of other towns,
who enjoyed a free but dependent status as perioikoi, and
the peasants, who endured a far more restricted status
as helots.
The perioikoi had
their own laws and customs, could pursue any
profession or trade they liked, and had their own
local officials and dignitaries. They were
restricted only with respect to foreign and military
policy, being subject in these areas to the government
of Lacedaemon, run by the Spartiates. Perioikoi
cities presumably paid taxes to Sparta, and were
certainly required to provide troops for the
Lacedaemonian army and to support Sparta in time of
war.
However, because
Spartan citizens were prohibited by their laws from
engaging in any profession except that of arms, the
perioikoi had a monopoly on trade and manufacturing
throughout Lacedaemon. The perioikoi were the
manufacturers, merchants, and craftsmen of Lacedaemon.
They also built and manned most of Lacedaemon's ships,
thereby contributing significantly to Sparta's
political and economic reach, and – when the
confrontation with the sea power Athens came in the
5th century – contributing to Lacedaemon's military
capability as well. Furthermore, perioikoi were
not restricted by Sparta's laws and traditions to an
austere lifestyle, nor were they prohibited from
hoarding gold and silver. In short, they not
only had a monopoly on all lucrative businesses and
professions, they were free to enjoy the fruits of
their labor as well.
The helots, or rural
population, had a significantly worse status.
Helots were tied to the land and were officially the
property of the Lacedaemonian government. As a
result of at least one revolt, they were regarded with
increasing suspicion and subjected to ever harsher
laws. In fact, the Lacedaemonian government
regularly declared war on the helots to enable quick
retribution against any "unruly" helot without the
tedious business of a trial.
Helots were not, however,
routinely murdered or raped by the Spartiates, as some
modern commentators claim and many novelists
depict. No economy can function for an extended
period of time on the basis of brutal coercion –
certainly not an economy in which the elite is tiny in
comparison with the oppressed. Sparta enjoyed
the prosperity it did over hundreds of years (at the
least from the 7th to the 5th century BC) because a
high degree of internal harmony and a system of mutual
benefit for all segments of the society had been
established. It was not until the second half
of the 5th century, when the Spartiate population
shrank to roughly one-eighth of what it had been at
the time of Thermopylae, that serious incidents of
brutality against helots are reliably recorded.
There is only one recorded incident of an
organized mass murder of helots without due cause, and
this incident resulted from a crisis in Spartiate
society. In fact, the deteriorating relations
between the Spartiates and the helots can be seen as
both a symptom and a cause of the disintegration of
archaic Spartan society.
Many of the ancient
commentators who remarked on the exceptional harshness
of the Spartan system not only date from this later
period, but are engaged in outright political
propaganda. The only Spartan source for the
status of helots is the 7th-century poet Tyrtaios, who
describes the helots ‘like asses exhausted under great loads to
bring their masters full half the fruit their plowed
land produced.’ This statement tells us
two significant facts often overlooked in shock at the
image. Namely, that helots only surrendered 50%
of the fruits of their labor – slaves all over the
rest of the ancient world surrendered 100% – and that
even half the harvest was a heavy burden; i.e.,
Lacedaemon's agricultural land was so productive that
even half the yield was a burden. The latter
element is further underlined by the fact that no less
than 6,000 Spartan helots were able to save up so much
money from the 50% of the harvest they retained that
they could pay the enormous sum of 6 Attic minas to
buy their freedom in 223/222 BC.
Any discussion of
helots and their lot in life must be made in the
context of a world in which a functioning economy
without slave labor was considered
inconceivable. Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates
were no exceptions. The status of helots is thus
not fairly compared to that of Spartiates, but only to
that of other unfree populations.
The helots of
Lacedaemon, when compared to chattel slaves in other
Greek city-states, were very privileged indeed.
Chattel slaves could, as the name implies, be
bought and sold. They were not allowed to
live in family units, often did not know who their
parents were, were not allowed to engage in any sexual
activity other than that sanctioned by the master, and
any offspring shared their status (that is, were
automatically slaves) and belonged to the
master. The master decided if a child
would be allowed to live, and if so, at what age and
to whom the child would be sold. Chattel slaves
worked entirely for their master's benefit, and all
earnings derived from their activities – whether
prostitution, creating works of art, or agricultural
labor – benefited the master. In Athens, slaves
could be tortured in any legal suit against an
Athenian citizen, because it was believed that only
statements obtained by torture were valid!
Helots, in contrast, could not be bought or sold.
They lived in family units, knew their parents,
chose their wives, and raised their own
children. They retained 50% of the fruits of
their labor and could sell what they did not consume
on the open market, while a Spartiate who tried to
extract more than his fair share from the produce of
his estate was subjected to public curse. Helots
could also engage in cottage industries to earn extra
money, and hence helots could accumulate wealth and
spend it as they pleased.
So why the revolts?
The revolts probably resulted from the extension
of Sparta's territory beyond the Eurotas valley into
neighboring Messenia. Sparta invaded and tried
to conquer Messenia. The Messenians either won this
first war or were reduced to perioikoi status, since
they were able to field a hoplite army half a century
later, something peasants could not do. At
the end of a the Second Messenian War, which the
Spartans won, the Messenians were "helotized."
This means they turned men who had previously
been free, rich, even aristocratic, into peasants or
serfs. It also means that they helotized not
pre-Doric peoples, but Greeks. This explains why
the terms "Messenian" and "helot" are often used
interchangeably by the time of the Peloponnesian
War. It explains why the Lacedaemonian
government declared war on the helots, and it explains
why the helots continued to revolt until they finally
won their freedom, with foreign help, and
re-established an independent, free Messenia in the
4th century BC. It also explains why other
helots were loyal supporters of the Lacedaemonian
government and could even be trusted to provide
logistical support to the army. Presumably the
Laconian helots were grateful for their relatively
privileged status, whereas the Messenian helots
resented the loss of their freedom and independence.
By far the best
source on the origins and status of helots and
perioikoi is Paul Cartledge's Sparta and Lakonia: A
Regional History 1300 to 362 BC (Routledge,
London and New York, 1979).
Cleomenes (/kliːˈɒmɨniːz/;
Greek Κλεομένης Kleomenes; died c. 489
BC) was an Agiad King of Sparta in the
late 6th and early 5th centuries BC.
During his reign, which started around
519 BC, he pursued an adventurous and
at times unscrupulous foreign policy
aimed at crushing Argos and extending
Sparta's influence both inside and
outside the Peloponnese. He was a
brilliant tactician. It was during his
reign that the Peloponnesian League
came formally into existence. During
his reign, he intervened twice
successfully in Athenian affairs but
kept Sparta out of the Ionian
Revolt. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleomenes_I
Leonidas (c. 530-480 BC)
was a king of the city-state of Sparta
from about 490 BC until his death at
the Battle of Thermopylae against the
Persian army in 480 BC. -- http://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/leonidas
Lycurgus (/laɪˈkɜrɡəs/;
Greek: Λυκοῦργος, Lykoûrgos, Ancient
Greek: [lykôrɡos]) was the legendary
lawgiver of Sparta (allegedly lived
between IX (9th) and VIII (8th)
century b. C.), who established the
military-oriented reformation of
Spartan society in accordance with the
Oracle of Apollo at Delphi. All his
reforms were directed towards the
three Spartan virtues: equality (among
citizens), military fitness, and
austerity. --
The syssitia (Classical
Greek: τὰ συσσίτια ta syssítia) was, in
Ancient Greece, a common meal for men and
youths in social or religious groups,
especially in Crete and Sparta, though
also in Megara in the time of Theognis
(6th century BC) and Corinth in the time
of Periander (7th century BC).
The banquets spoken of by Homer relate to
this tradition. Some reference to similar
meals can be found in Carthage and
according to Aristotle (Politics VII. 9),
it prevailed still earlier amongst the
Oenotrians of Southern Italy.
The origin of the syssitia is unknown;
while Lycurgus certainly made use of the
practice in Sparta, we do not know whether
he introduced the practice or developed an
existing one. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syssitia
Syssitis were the
common meals taken in public among the
Dorians in Sparta and Crete, and confined to
men and youths only. In Sparta, all the
Spartiatoe, or citizens over twenty years of
age, were obliged to attend these meals,
which were there called pheiditia. No one
was allowed to absent himself except for
some satisfactory reason -- http://www.classics.upenn.edu/myth/php/tools/dictionary.php?method=did®exp=7&setcard=0&link=0&media=0
Early Colonization
Some Greeks had emigrated from the mainland
eastward across the Aegean Sea to settle in
Ionia as early as the ninth century B.C.
Starting around 750 B.C., however, Greeks
began to settle even farther outside the Greek
homeland. Within two hundred years, Greek
colonies were established in areas that are
today southern France, Spain, Sicily and
southern Italy, and along North Africa and the
coast of the Black Sea. Eventually the Greek
world had perhaps as many as 1,500 different
city-states. A scarcity of arable land
certainly gave momentum to emigration from
Greece, but the revival of international
trade13 in the Mediterranean in this era
perhaps provided the original stimulus for
Greeks to leave their homeland, whose economy
was still struggling. Some Greeks with
commercial interests took up residence in
foreign settlements, such as those founded in
Spain in this period by the Phoenicians from
Palestine. The Phoenicians were active in
building commercially-motivated settlements
throughout the western Mediterranean. Within a
century of its foundation sometime before 750
B.C., for example, the Phoenician settlement
on the site of modern Cadiz in Spain had
become a city thriving on economic and
cultural interaction with the indigenous
Iberian population.
Economic Motives for Colonization
Like other peoples of the eastern
Mediterranean, Greeks also established their
own trading posts abroad. Traders from Euboea,
for instance, had already established
commercial contacts by 800 B.C. with a
community located on the Syrian coast at a
site now called Al Mina. Men wealthy enough to
finance risky expeditions by sea ranged far
from home in search of metals. Homeric poetry
testifies to the basic strategy of this
entrepreneurial commodity trading. In the
Odyssey , the goddess Athena once appears
disguised as a metal trader to hide her
identity from the son of the poem's hero: “I
am here at present,” she says to him, “with my
ship and crew on our way across the wine-dark
sea to foreign lands in search of copper; I am
carrying iron now.”14 By about 775 B.C.,
Euboeans, who seem to have been particularly
active explorers, had also established a
settlement for purposes of trade on the island
of Ischia, in the bay of Naples off southern
Italy. There they processed iron ore imported
from the Etruscans, who lived in central
Italy. Archaeologists have documented the
expanding overseas communication of the eighth
century by finding Greek pottery at more than
eighty sites outside the Greek homeland; for
the tenth century, by contrast, only two pots
have been found that were carried abroad.
Mother-city and Colony
Learning from overseas traders of likely
places to relocate, Greek colonists set out
from their “mother city” ( metropolis 15 in
Greek), which selected a leader called the
“founder” (ktistes ). Even though they were
going to establish an independent city-state
at their new location, colonists were expected
to retain ties with their metropolis. A colony
that sided with its metropolis' enemy in a
war, for example, was regarded as disloyal.
Sometimes the colonists enjoyed a friendly
welcome from the local inhabitants where they
settled; sometimes they had to fight to win
the land for their new community. The colony's
founder was in charge of laying out the
settlement properly and parceling out the
land, as Homer describes in speaking of the
foundation of a fictional colony: “So [the
founder] led them away, settling them in [a
place called] Scheria, far from the bustle of
men. He had a wall constructed around the town
center, built houses, erected temples for the
gods, and divided the land.”16
Demographic Motives for Colonization
Commercial interests perhaps first induced
Greeks to emigrate, but greater numbers of
them began to move abroad permanently in the
mid-eighth century B.C., probably because the
population explosion in the late Dark Age had
caused a scarcity of land available for
farming. Because arable land represented the
most desirable form of wealth for Greek men,
tensions caused by competition for good land
arose in some city-states. Emigration helped
solve this problem by sending men without land
to foreign regions, where they could acquire
their own fields in the territory of colonies
founded as new city-states. Since colonizing
expeditions were apparently usually all male,
wives17 for the colonists had to be found
among the locals, either through peaceful
negotiation or by violent kidnappings.
The Tensions of Colonization
The case of the foundation of a Greek colony
in Cyrene18 (in what is now Libya in North
Africa) in about 630 B.C. reveals how full of
tensions the process of colonization could be.
The people of the polis of Thera, on an island
north of Crete, apparently were unable to
support their population. Sending some people
out as colonists to Cyrene therefore made
sense as a solution to population pressures. A
later inscription purports to tells us what
happened at the time of colonization and
reveals the urgency of the situation at the
time: “One adult son [from each family] is to
be conscripted....If any man is unwilling to
leave when the polis sends him, he shall be
subject to the death penalty and his property
shall be confiscated.” (M. Crawford and D.
Whitehead, Archaic and Classical Greece: A
Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation,
Cambridge, 1983, no. 16B) Evidently the young
men of Thera were reluctant to leave their
home for the new colony. This evidence shows,
then, that colonization in response to
population growth was not always a matter of
individual choice of the people feeling the
pressure. The possibility of acquiring land in
a colony on which a man could perhaps grow
wealthy obviously had to be weighed against
the terrors of being torn from family and
friends to voyage over treacherous seas to
regions filled with unknown dangers. Greek
colonists had reason to be scared about their
future. Moreover, in some cases, colonies were
founded to rid the metropolis of undesirables
whose presence was causing social unrest. The
Spartans, for example, colonized Taras19
(modern Taranto) in southern Italy in 706 B.C.
with a group of illegitimate sons whom they
could not successfully integrate into their
citizen body. These unfortunate outcasts
certainly did not go as colonists by their own
choice.
Contact with Eastern Mediterranean
Civilizations
The participation of Greeks in international
trade and in colonization increased their
contact with the peoples of Anatolia, Egypt,
and the Near East. They admired and envied
these older civilizations of the eastern
Mediterranean for their wealth, such as the
gold of the Phrygian kingdom of Midas20, and
their cultural accomplishments, such as the
lively pictures of animals on Near Eastern
ceramics, the magnificent temples of Egypt,
and the alphabets of the Phoenician cities.
During the early Dark Age, Greek artists had
stopped portraying people or other living
creatures in their designs. The pictures they
saw on pottery imported from the Near East in
the late Dark Age and early Archaic Age
influenced them to begin once again to depict
figures in their paintings on pots. The style
of Near Eastern reliefs and free-standing
sculptures also inspired creative imitation in
Greek art of the period. When the improving
economy of the later Archaic Age allowed
Greeks to revive monumental architecture in
stone, temples for the worship of the gods
emulating Egyptian architectural designs
represented the most prominent examples of
this new trend in erecting large, expensive
buildings. The Greeks began to mint coins in
the sixth century B.C., a technology they
learned from the Lydians, who invented coinage
in the seventh century21. Long after this
innovation, however, much economic exchange
continued to be made through barter,
especially in the Near East. Highly monetized
economies took centuries to develop.
Knowledge of writing was the most dramatic
contribution of the ancient Near East to
Greece as it emerged from its Dark Age. The
Greeks probably originally learned the
alphabet from the Phoenicians22 to use it for
record keeping in business and trade, as the
Phoenicians did so well, but they soon started
to employ it to record literature such as
Homeric poetry. Since the ability to read and
write remained unnecessary for most purposes
in the predominately agricultural economy of
archaic Greece and there were no schools, few
people at first learned the new technology of
letters.
International Commerce
Success in competing for international markets
affected the fortunes of Greek city-states
during this period. The city-state of
Corinth23, for example, grew prosperous from
ship building and its geographical location
controlling the narrow isthmus of land
connecting northern and southern Greece. Since
ships plying the east-west sea lanes of the
Mediterranean preferred to avoid the stormy
passage around the tip of southern Greece,
they commonly off-loaded their cargoes for
transshipment on a special roadbed built
across the isthmus and subsequent reloading on
different ships on the other side. Small ships
may even have been dragged over the roadbed
from one side of the isthmus to the other.
Corinth became a bustling center for shipping
and earned a large income from sales and
harbor taxes. Taking advantage of its deposits
of fine clay and the expertise of a growing
number of potters24, Corinth also developed a
thriving export trade in fine decorated
pottery, which non-Greek peoples such as
Etruscans in central Italy seem to have prized
as luxury goods25. By the late sixth century
B.C., however, Athens began to displace
Corinth as the leading Greek exporter of fancy
painted pottery, especially after consumers
came to prefer designs featuring the red color
for which its clay was better suited than
Corinth's.
The Oracle at Delphi and Colonization
The Greeks were always careful to solicit
approval from their gods before setting out
from home, whether for commercial voyages or
colonization. The god most frequently
consulted about sending out a colony was
Apollo in his sanctuary at Delphi26, a
hauntingly beautiful spot in the mountains of
central Greece. The Delphic sanctuary began to
be internationally renowned in the eighth
century B.C. because it housed an oracular
shrine in which a prophetess, the Pythia27,
spoke the will of Apollo in response to
questions from visiting petitioners. The
Delphic oracle operated for a limited number
of days over nine months of the year, and
demand for its services was so high that the
operators of the sanctuary rewarded generous
contributors with the privilege of jumping to
the head of the line. The great majority of
visitors to Delphi consulted the oracle about
personal matters such as marriage and having
children. That Greeks hoping to found a colony
felt they had to secure the approval of Apollo
of Delphi demonstrates the oracle was held in
high esteem already as early as the 700s B.C.,
a reputation that continued to make the oracle
a force in Greek international affairs in the
centuries to come.
Media related to 
Her
second name, Kekropia, received it from the
king, Kekrops, who succeeded Akteos, by marrying his
daughter. According to the legend, his lower body was
that of a dragon. During his reign, goddess Athena and
Poseidon were competing for the protection of the city
and each one offered presents. Poseidon struck the rock
at the Acropolis with his trident (the three marks can
be seen behind the Erectheion
and Pandrosos,
they were entrusted with a box by goddess Athena, which
commanded them not to open it. Pandrosos, the younger
one, obeyed, but Agravlos and Herse opened it and saw a
serpent shaped child or according to another version, a
snake surrounding the child Erichthonios, which came out
and crawled to the shield of Athena. The girls were so
frightened from what they saw, that they leapt to their
deaths, from the Acropolis. 
His father Aegeus
was childless and when he consulted the oracle at
Delphi, he received an obscure reply and in order to
interpret it, he visited Pittheus, the king of Troezen,
famous for his wisdom. Pittheus made him drunk and put
him to sleep with his daughter, Aethra, which
became pregnant after that. When Aegeus departed, he
left behind a sword and a pair of sandals, under a rock
and told Aethra, that if the child was a boy and reaches
manhood to lift the rock, take the sword and the sandals
and come to Athens.
Theseus was assassinated by his friend
king Lykomedes of Skyros. His remains were brought by
Kimon in 475 BC, from the island of Skyros to Athens and
were buried south west of Agora. Near it, a set of rooms
decorated by the famous painters Mikon and Polygnotos,
were used for feasts, in his honor. The Doric temple of
Hephaestos and Athena Ergane or Theseum,
which stands at the western end of the Agora, on the
hill of Agoraios Kolonos, erected by the architect
Ictinos (449-440 BC), depicts the exploits of Theseus in
its friezes and metopes. 
Delphic oracle had promised
them success to their expedition, provided that they
will not injure Kodros. When this was learned by Kodros,
he disguised himself as a peasant woodcutter and went to
the enemy camp, provoking a quarrel with the Dorians and
he was killed. When the Dorians learned that the killed
person was Kodros, they left Athens and conquered
Megara. According to an older tradition, Kodros was
killed in the battle.
The
Archon of the Athenians, Megakles of the Alkmaeonidae
family and his assistants, who took part in the killing,
they were cursed and denounced. When epidemics fell in
Athens, Megakles and his personal assistants, the ones
who were alive at the time, were put on trial at the
instigation of Solon (597 BC). They were found guilty
and exiled for life from Attica. 
Solon,
the famous statesman and lawgiver, son of Exekestides
from Salamis, descendant from the family of Kodros and
Neleid's, was born at Athens in 638 BC. His father was a
merchant and Solon, who followed him in his profession,
traveled in many countries. He was near forty, famous
for his poetry and wisdom, when he took part in the
civil life of Athens. 
In minor laws, Solon put very
small fines. In contrast, he awarded big sums of money
to the Olympic winners (500 drachmas, a fortune at the
time) and for the Isthmian games 100 drachmas. For the
winners of the Panathenaic games, he awarded one hundred
painted amphorae, filled with olive oil.
After Egypt, he went to Cyprus
and later to Lydia, where he met king Croesos at Sardis.
According to the tale of Herodotus, Croesos, after
showing his vast treasures to Solon, asked him who was
the happiest man he ever known, expecting from Solon
that he would mention him. Solon, avoiding to flatter
the king, named ordinary Greeks, the Athenian Telamon
and the Argive brothers Kleobis and Biton.
When Croesos replied that he had not taken under account
his vast riches and glory, Solon told him, he considered
no man happy, until he knew, how he ended his life: "Don't
regard anyone happy, before you know his end" (Μηδένα
προ του τέλους μακάριζε).
But the leaders of the other
two parties, Lykourgos and Megakles, combined forces and
exiled him. He returned to Athens, when his two enemies
quarreled, invited by Megakles, who offered him his
daughter and help, to regain the leadership of Athens.
Peisistratos married the daughter of Megakles, but
avoided to connect his blood with the family of
Alkmaeonidae. The humiliated Megakles, combining again
forces with Lykourgos, managed to expel him from Athens
and Megakles retired to Eretria of Euboea, where he
remained for ten years. 
He
also beautified the city with temples and supported the
arts and literature. He is credited for the
collection and writing of the Homeric poems. His
library, the first in whole Greece, was open to the
citizens of Athens. One of his most beautiful
constructions was that of Enneakrunos (nine
pipes). He covered with a building, the old fountain of
Kallirrhoe, which supplied Athens with water. He
reorganized the Great Panathenaea in a splendid manner,
by making Homeric recitations a future of the festival.
He solved the agrarian problem, converting Attica into a
country of small land properties.
Peisistratos
left in power his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchos,
who governed Athens according to their father wishes.
They governed the city wisely as their father and the
people loved them. They brought back from exile the
Alkmaeonidae family, which had been exiled by their
father.
Everything was
changed, when Harmodios and Aristogeiton
for personal reasons conspired and killed Hipparchos, in
514 BC. Aristogeiton was an Athenian of moderate
fortune, who had an affection for his beautiful young
friend Harmodios. Hipparchos made repeated propositions
to Harmodios, which were repelled. Hipparchos took then
revenge by insulting the sister of Harmodios,
prohibiting her to take part in a religious procession,
as a basket carrier. After this event, the two friends
conspired to kill the tyrants, during the festival of
Panathenaea. When the day arrived, they approached
Hippias at Kerameikos, who at that moment was speaking
with one fellow conspirator and thought that their plan
had been betrayed. So they took the decision to kill
Hipparchos, who was at the city. They found Hipparchos
near the chapel Leokorion and killed him. Harmodios was
killed by the guards and Aristogeiton was saved by the
crowd of people, but he was captured later, tortured and
killed. At later times, Harmodios and Aristogeiton
became symbols of the democracy.
The population
of Athens at the times of Kleisthenes, was
including a large body of residents, who did not
have citizenship and of course no share in the
political decisions. Kleisthenes accordingly
divided Attica into one hundred and forty demes (townships).
This article
incorporates text from a publication now in the 
A PROSPEROUS ECONOMY:
To understand the Spartan economy,
however, it is necessary to go back to the origins of
the city. The Spartan citizens – often called
Spartiates – were the descendants of Doric invaders
who came to the Peloponnese in the 9th century
BC. Although there is no written record, it is
evident that rather than exterminating or enslaving
the native population, as was more common at the time,
the Spartans allowed the conquered inhabitants to
continue to live and work in Laconia. While they
were not citizens and so not politically enfranchised,
they enjoyed far more rights and higher status than
chattel slaves. These peoples were divided into
two broad categories: the residents of other towns,
who enjoyed a free but dependent status as