Part 4 - The appearance of Democracy - birth and infancy in Greece
/Given the changes outlined previously, the centralized aristocracy system came under significant pressure for changes in the structure of power and societal administration. As is often the case with those holding entrenched power, the aristocracy did not respond well. Their reaction was increased greed, hubris, corruption, and a general subversion of justice. This of course, increased the pressure for change even further. The system of justice at the time was unwritten and based on trust - the behavior of the aristocracy created a justified fear of oppression. All of this ran counter to the new sense of individual autonomy and the newly empowered middle class. The upper class corruption also tended to create more significant intra-class discord. In addition, some in the aristocracy capitalized on the new economic conditions and others did not resulting in a decline in the general parity within the group that had existed. Further, the wealthier new merchants married into the old nobility creating another threat to the traditional oligarchy. Finally, there was an increase in extremes of wealth and poverty as part of the new economic conditions. Not surprisingly without any voice, the lower classes appear to have become poorer as overall wealth grew.
For all of these reasons, throughout the Greek world in the late 7th and 6th centuries BC there was an upsurge in social unrest. City states reacted to this in different ways, ranging from change in the direction of democracy to moves toward tyranny. The word tyrant (tyrannoi) was coined during this period. The best documented cases from this period are Sparta and Athens. I will focus on Athens since this is where Democracy actually developed.
However, it is worth a brief mention of Sparta since it is a cautionary tale about how some democratic reform can take place and then calcify into a quite non-democratic state. “The most significant political dimension of Spartan militarism was that the role of solder was seen as inseparable from the role of citizen. The soldier was integral part of a polis, of a fatherland and of a community. As such, the solder’s foremost responsibility was at one with his responsibility as a citizen, protecting and advancing the good of his committee. In Spartan eyes that duty transcended personal interests….The well-being of the state was therefore paramount, and the good citizen live not for himself but for the fatherland.” (Thomas Mitchell). Sparta did develop a remarkably egalitarian system and it impressed many over many years right up until the present time. However, “the Spartan constitution…had a darker side and massive flaws. Its citizen body was defined in exceedingly narrow terms. It was a military caste, a minority that lived off the labour of a majority, which consisted of fellow
Greeks and was held in harsh subjugation, a brutal example of exploitative oppression that carried a constant risk of insurrection…Its concept of citizenship was..seriously defective. It carried its control of the lives of citizens and the commitment to public service …to unacceptable extremes”(Thomas Mitchell, Democracy’s Beginnings). In the end, the Spartan system was too rigid and worked against the grain of the growing sense of autonomy and self-determination that was developing. Despite defeating Athens in 404 B.C., it failed to capitalize on this victory and was defeated by an alliance led by Thebes in 371 B.C. and went into permanent decline.