The eras of Greek history

The 'Polis'
'Polis' is the Greek term for the political units of Greece in the Classical era and later. A 'polis' is a territory that is largely self-sufficient and self-defined geographically. Each polis has an urban center, perhaps just a collection of buildings, and each has an agora or "assembly place" at its center where markets and assemblies occur. Also typical is a place of refuge, such as the acropolis in Athens (a table-like hill where the people can retreat in case of attack). Each has a temple or some sort of sacred space(s). Each polis has its own laws, cultic traditions, and organization. The citizens are the landowning males.

Where did the 'polis' come from?
It's a mystery. In Mycenaean times, the culture was, insofar as we can tell, a palace-centered one. Great palaces held sway over large areas. The model seems similar to that of Mesopotamian culture. Insofar as I understand it, there were priests and ruler-classes, and there was the common people.

Then Mycenaean palace culture seems to have fallen apart (archaeology at places such as Lefkandi, however, show that there still were centers of considerable wealth), and the "Dark Ages" occurred. They are "dark" because we have very little information about them: the lights are not on. Archaeology helps, but it does not give us the thoughts of the people who lived then. By the time we emerge from dark age Greece, around 800 or later, and have written sources again, the 'polis' exists.

Although it seems at times that the elite are in complete control, already in Homer, it is clear that the infantrymen are important politically. The kings and aristocrats may make policy, but they cannot ignore the people. They must build consensus.

Some claim that the polis was already present in Homer, and that is not wrong, but it seems that further developments were required.
The Homeric hero is obligated to preserve his community, its safety. If he imperils it, he risks losing his status. Another leader may arise and challenge him or the people just might revolt. In any case, the default is clearly that there be a leader or group of leaders who have much higher status than the common people.

In Athens, the lawgiver Solon is recorded as having reformed the political system in the early 6th century BCE. In Sparta, there was a lawgiver named Lycurgus. Other lawgivers are recorded for archaic times. Solon actually enacted a new system: that we think we know. Lycurgus, on the other hand, was mythologized and it is not clear what he did. This emergence of the possibility of a mediator and the use of written law are very important in polis-formation. In Athens, the laws were codified and published, but it seems that most poleis didnot engage in systematic codification.

Written laws do the following:
With clear laws, disputes and conflicts can be resolved peaceably by the citizens, and thus there is less risk that one person will rise to prominence and become a tyrant (i.e. a sole ruler who is the law).

Athens

In Athens of the very early 6th century, two factions were at each others' throats: the wealthy landowners and the common people. What had happened is that land ownership became concentrated in the hands of the few, many of the common people indebted their persons to the wealthy, and so many people who had been free Athenians wound up enslaved.  The common people were enraged at the landowners. Solon was elected archon (the top office in Athens) in 594. He blamed the wealthy for their greed. He observed a pattern: a man once elevated to a high status is not easy to pull down. Already in Hesiod and Homer, we see that there was thought about such matters, but Solon was different. Solon was an elected official with the power to institute laws and effect change.

The overall result of Solon's reforms was to create a system in which the rich kept a great deal of power, but the  common people had more participatory roles and were protected from certain abuses.
Solon abolished debt slavery for Athenians: from Solon on, Athenians' personal freedom was guaranteed by law.
Solon also 'liberated the land': it seems that he abolished a good deal of the debt that existed and thereby freed many Athenians from oppression.
He also passed laws: it seems that he established written laws for all Athenians alike (see isonomia below).
He set up a system in which wealth rather than birth determined what role one could play in the community.
He formalized aspects of the assemblies at Athens.
He gave anyone who wanted to the right to bring legal action on behalf of a wronged person.
He created a new court of appeals.

Later in Athens, a tyranny arose, that of Peisistratus. He himself was not unpopular, but his sons were, and they were expelled in 510. Civil strife ensued, but a man named Cleisthenes created new institutions: he divided Attica into demes, which were then assigned to tribes. The structure of the system ensured that citizens from various places got to know each other and worked together. The net result was a more integrated citizenry that had unprecedented participation in public affairs.

This course will not cover the history of the evolution of the institutions of Greek poleis: for that, there are courses, such as Classics 21, 121, and others, which are more history-oriented.


General discussion of terms and concepts

Ancient Greek politics: some figures.
Equality: isonomia, equality (of citizens) before the law, was a norm for Classical Greek states.
Individuals frequently caused problems with that ideal: one person's notion that he deserved more honor and office than he had could lead to stasis (civil strife), and the Greeks were very concerned about civil strife. Other sources of stasis were tensions between the rich and the poor, factions that formed on various issues. Civil war, brother killing brother, was the extreme of stasis.

Homonoia versus Stasis
"Homonoia" means, roughly, "consensus," and it was an ideal in ancient Greece. One of the worst things that could befall a polis was stasis, "factional strife" and the means to avoid it was homonoia. The idea of "loyal opposition" was thus not common.

Eunomia
A related concept is that of eunomia, which was the principle that the community takes precedence over the individual. It is embodied in the practice of finding political solutions to crises (i.e. peaceable solutions that involve formulation of new institutions, laws, etc. to defuse and avoid such crises). The sense of community in a Greek polis must have been extremely strong by comparison with modern times. The need for community action, for defense, agriculture, building, justice, etc. was extremely high.

Autarkeia
The ideal for a Greek city-state was autarky, 'self-sufficiency.'

Politeia
Politeia is usually translated as "constitution," but it has a wider application, and we should not think of poleis as having a written constitution as the US does. Herodotus' "Constitutional Debate" clearly shows a very early consideration of types of constitution.
The threefold classification of forms of constitution found there is rule of one (mon-archy), rule by some (olig-archy) and rule by 'all' (dem-o-cracy).

Democracy
Apparently, democracy was an invention of Athens in the late 6th century BCE, but it quickly spread: by a couple hundred years later when Aristotle came to write his works, democracy (alongside of oligarchy) was the most prevalent form of constitution in Greek poleis.
Unfortunately, the "sources" for the emergence of democracy are largely poetry and archaeology: there is no good theoretical prose from those times that sheds good light on the advent of democracy.
By the time we find a good deal of information, it is clear that the Greek polis is an entity that values justice and reason.
Hoplite warfare meant that the citizens were highly equipped and highly trained, and had sufficient wealth to outfit themselves for war: a middle class. The middle class is often held to be a chief factor in the transition from the more tribal/kingship model of governance we find in Homer to the "political" governance we find in the polis, where

Agon-y
"Agon" means "contest" or "competition," and Greek culture was permeated with competition. The Olympics and other game festivals, tragedy in Athens, etc. We call Greek culture "agonistic." SO in spite of, or perhaps because of, the havoc that stasis could wreak, Greeks were extremely competitive.

In ancient Greece, the freedom or liberty talked of is in direct distinction with slavery. That is quite different from the freedoms of the industrialized world. Some, but not all, the freedoms we think of emerged in ancient Greece, such as freedom of speech. Freedom of religion, on the other hand, was not generally an issue, and in the isolated cases in which it became one, it was not an ideal (Socrates was killed for not holding the gods of the state). Freedom of assembly was likewise not an issue: rather, there was practically or literally an obligation to assemble regularly. Freedom to bear arms? not an issue.

Benjamin Constant, a French politician, formulated an interesting view of ancient versus modern liberty (from Wickipedia):
"[Benjamin Constant] drew a distinction between the "Liberty of the Ancients" and the "Liberty of the Moderns". The Liberty of the Ancients was a participatory, republican liberty, which gave the citizens the right to directly influence politics through debates and votes in the public assembly. In order to support this degree of participation, citizenship was a burdensome moral obligation requiring a considerable investment of time and energy. Generally, this required a sub-society of slaves to do much of the productive work, leaving the citizens free to deliberate on public affairs. Ancient Liberty was also limited to relatively small and homogenous societies, in which the people could be conveniently gathered together in one place to transact public affairs.
"The Liberty of the Moderns, in contrast, was based on the possession of civil liberties, the rule of law, and freedom from too much State interference. Direct participation would be limited: a necessary consequence of the size of modern States, and also the inevitable result of having created a commercial society in which there are no slaves but almost everybody must earn a living through work. Instead, the voters would elect representatives, who would deliberate in Parliament on behalf of the people and would save citizens from the necessity of daily political involvement." From Wickipedia entry for Benjamin Constant, Aug. 2006

Freedom to do politics versus freedom from politics and government interference?
We might say that ancient freedom consisted in the freedom from slavery and drudgery which allowed there to be obligation to participate in public affairs.
Modern freedom, by contrast, involves freedoms that are more private and include to a significant degree freedom to pursue  one's goals without government interference.
Greek citizens, by virtue of being citizens, participated in governance. There was almost no opposition between government or bureacracy and private citizen, because being a citizen meant taking part in public affairs.
Thus citizens were not possessors of passive rights who elected representatives to do the work of governing: they were participants in the work of governance.

A word about influences
When we compare the situations of archaic Greece and other societies around the Mediterranean, there are marked similarities. There are those who claim that the polis originated with the Phoenicians. There are those who look to Egypt.
There are, however, significant differences between those societies and Greece.




The words of political thought:
Many are ancient Greek: monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, politics, tyranny, etc.
Some are modern terms formed from Greek elements: kakistocracy, kleptocracy
Many are Latin: citizen, constitution, legislature, judicial
Some are Greek and Latin: meritocracy.
Very very few are from other languages: caucus?

This page was constructed largely, but not quite entirely out of information and arguments gleaned from the first 60 pages of the Cambridge History of Greek and Roman Political Thought, of which the contribution of Prof. Raaflaub, my undergraduate professor, was by far the most important part. He continues to teach me.