Aristotle: Athenian Constitution

Context

The first parts of the Athenian Constitution survey political and constitutional developments in what is now termed the archaic period of ancient Greek history. This period, which began in 750 BCE, followed the Greek dark ages and preceded the classical period. The term archaic sounds pejorative to modern ears; it seems to imply an era that was backward and primitive. In fact, the term comes from the field of art history and refers to a style of decoration on such objects as pottery. The archaic period, far from being primitive, was richly creative and was a time of numerous political, social, and artistic developments in Greek history.

In about 1100 BCE, the Mycenaean civilization, which emerged during the Bronze Age on the Balkan Peninsula, collapsed. This civilization, built by migrants to the peninsula, was the earliest Greek civilization. Following this period came the so-called Greek dark age—“dark” because it is a period from which little documentary or archaeological evidence survives. In about the eighth century BCE, though, written records began to emerge, based on a Phoenician alphabet that the Greeks adapted to create the Greek alphabet. Significant changes in the social order occurred, marking the beginning of the archaic period. It was this period that produced Homer and his epic poems about the Trojan War and its aftermath.

An important characteristic of this period in Greek history was that the country of Greece did not exist as a nation-state, as it does today. Greece consisted of a large number of small, self-governing poleis, a word generally translated as “city-states.” It was inevitable that these city-states would emerge, for the area consists of large numbers of islands, valleys, and plains that isolated each city-state from its neighbors. Formerly, these communities had been ruled by traditional kings governing from citadels on the region's highest ground. This practice of locating the center of government on high ground was the source of the word acropolis, which means “high city,” and polis survives in such modern English words as metropolis and politics, which originally meant “matters concerning the city.” During the archaic period and continuing into the classical period that followed, these city-states, while still having kings, were ruled by bodies of citizens, and thus they represent one of the earliest forms of democracy.

In about the seventh century BCE, a class of merchants began to emerge; the chief evidence for this is the first use of coinage. This development was a source of conflict, for the bodies of citizens that wielded authority in the city-states tended to be aristocratic oligarchies, or small, elite class of citizens, usually the wealthy. This class resented the wealth and growing power of the merchant class. The ruling oligarchies were cast into a defensive posture, for the merchants themselves sought political power. The oligarchies lived in fear of being overthrown by tyrants generally aristocrats who seized the opportunity to assume power by claiming to represent the will of the lower merchant class and of anyone who was not an aristocrat. This word in its modern sense implies a brutal dictator, but in ancient Greece, the word tyrant designated simply an illegitimate ruler who seized power and who may or may not have been brutal and tyrannical in his administration.

Greece's emergence from the dark ages was also characterized by an expanding population and thus a shortage of land. Sparta, one of the most powerful city-states, subjugated Messenia in about 720 BCE and turned the population into serfs, called Helots. This development, which provided Sparta with a reliable source of food and labor, freed Spartans from agricultural work and allowed them to enter the military, turning Sparta into a fully militarized city-state. Athens had similar problems, with conflict between the rich and poor exacerbated by a growing population and a consequent land shortage. An important Athenian lawgiver from the seventh century was Draco, who instituted legal reforms that were intended to reduce the conflict. Draco wrote the first Athenian constitution and is best known for his law code, promulgated in 621 BCE. On the one hand, the code represented a step forward in the emergence of democracy, for Draco insisted that the code had to be written, posted in public, and made known to every literate citizen; thus, the administration of the law under Draco was less arbitrary than it had been under earlier rulers. The code, though, was extremely harsh, specifying the death penalty for even minor offenses. Draco's name survives in the English word draconian, used to describe any harsh or extreme measure.

Draco's law code was in effect in Athens for about a century. One of Draco's successors, Solon, sometimes called Solon the Wise, introduced more moderate reforms in 594 BCE. After completing his reforms, he stepped down and left Athens. His reforms were supposed to remain operative for a period of time—ten years according to the historian Herodotus, a hundred years according to Aristotle. But after Solon had been absent for about four years, his reforms began to fall apart. The government of Athens was in disarray, and many of the social tensions that Solon tried to eliminate were reappearing. There was a severe food shortage as a result of a war with Megara, a city-state in Attica, Greece, over the territories of Eleusis and Salamis; the commander of the Athenian forces was Solon's relative Pisistratus. In the years that followed, factions competed for power in Athens, and Pisistratus, who enjoyed popularity as a result of his defeat of the Megarans, seized power in 546 BCE, declaring himself tyrant. He ruled Athens until his death about 527 BCE.