Part 5 - The appearance of Democracy - birth and infancy in Greece
/As in other city-states, in the 7th century BC Athens was controlled by a small group of wealthy families. Unsurprisingly, the social unrest in the Greek world discussed above occurred in Athens as well. A precipitating event took place in 632 BC. Cylon, a nobleman, attempted to establish a tyranny. This failed and the unrest continued for another ten years. Finally, the ruling families resorted to a somewhat common action by the struggling aristocracies of the time, appointment of a what was called a lawgiver (archon). Little is known of this lawgiver, Draco, but his laws dealt mainly with homicide and were known for their severity.
This created an uneasy period of calm and in the beginning of the 6th century, significant social unrest returned. This time, the lawgiver chosen was Solon (594 BC). Although Solon was also from the aristocracy, he was quite different than Draco or any other known lawgiver. Solon had taken a public position in support of the poor. He was given full authority to change the legal and political system. Solon was an intellectual who confronted the issues facing Athens at the level of principle. “Solon saw around him a failing and decadent ruling class that had lost its moral moorings and that was murdering the oldest of the Ionian states. He believed the moral decline derived from greed and a state of mind that had lost all sense of justice. He describes a chain of decadence. Leaders accumulate wealth through misdeeds and a rule of crooked judgements, stealing without regard for the sacred or profane or the hallowed foundations of justice. They know no limit, and the result is the excess (toros) which breeds insolence (hybris), which in turn is a spur to still more immoderate behavior”. (Mitchell) This dynamic is of course remarkably but not surprisingly relevant to the world of today. As I have discussed in prior posts, the root problem is the accumulation of wealth and centralized power.
Solon’s solution for the decay of his time was to work to restore justice and the order and harmony that accompanies it. Solon’s principles were consistent with Hesiod (and perhaps drawn directly from his writing since Solon likely lived about a hundred years after Hesiod - see Part II for more on him). It was customary in Solon’s time (and before and after) to write in verse (iambic and elegiac forms) and substantial fragments have survived providing direct evidence of his thoughts and reforms. For Solon, justice is the prime human virtue that “shackles the unjust, straightens crooked judgements, puts an end to excess, blunts the forces of insolence and delusion and their arrogant acts, and eliminates factionalism and strife.” (Mitchell) A second major principle for Solon was the notion of moderation or temperance. He was the the key originator or at least catalyst for the elevation of these two principles into a core part of the Greek canon of virtues that would develop over the next few hundred years.
Despite coming from the aristocracy, Solon believed the root problem was an unjust society that strongly benefited a hereditary oligarchy. And, while he wanted to make the changes necessary to change this, he also did not want to be unjust to those with power and wealth. He began with a focus on the injustices being inflicted on the poor through a series of laws that translates into “the shaking-off of burdens”. This primarily meant the cancellation of debt. In addition to being debt as in money owed, this also tackled a key source of slavery. This is due to the law allowing lending with the debtor themselves as the security. This meant that in the case of default, the debtor could be enslaved. In addition, some of the poor had a form of mortgage on their land, requiring that they pay a portion of their produce to the lender. Again, default could result in slavery. To address this, Solon quite radically abolished lending with the debtor as security, gave back full land ownership to those with “mortgaged” land (hectomorage), and freed those who had been enslaved due to debt. With justice for all in mind, he did not, however, redistribute private property and he accepted class and wealth differences as part of the natural order. For Solon, “justice did not entail equal shares of a country’s wealth for all. But he was insistent that the rights of the lower classes to their property should be as fully protected as those of the nobility, and that their freedoms should be inalienable, and he gave the important class of small famers a secure place in Athenian society”(Mitchell)
Solon also reformed the administrative structuring of justice. This included: strengthening the role of the Popular Assembly; the right to appeal to a court of the people; the right to hold magistrates accountable at the end of their term, and; the right to start judicial proceedings on behalf of someone they felt had been wronged. In addition, he made wealth rather than birth the qualification for political office. This may not seem ideal to modern eyes. However, it removed power purely by birth and as wealth broadened in Athens, political opportunity for those who gained even modest wealth. Despite the significance of these changes, in fact, Solon was not a democrat - while he did link justice and equality before the law, he did not do this in the realm of politics. While the wealthy no longer had hereditary power, the retained power due to their wealth. Certainly, there was some political upward mobility for those who had newly gained wealth.
After completing his lawgiver term, Solon stepped down and went abroad for ten years. His reforms did not have the desired effect and soon social unrest reappeared. Tyranny and social unrest afflicted Athens for another 80 years.
One lesson from this time is that change is hard and slow and does not always move forward as hoped or expected. Nonetheless, we can see progress through the next leader of Athens. His power was taken by force and the new leader, Peisistratus, was a tyrant. However, he pursued a leadership policy of moderation and made few changes to Solon’s legislation. Yet, much of his style was to create an appearance of constitutional rule. In part due to being a populist, Peisistratus focused on gaining support from the average citizen, including through the use of resentment against the ruling aristocracy, and, maintenance of Solon’s reforms regarding the average citizen. The ongoing weakening of the aristocracy and the continuation (sometimes in name only) of Solon’s changes meant that return to the days of inherited wealth and power were less and less likely. Particularly to our contemporary eyes, this was clearly a time of significant contradiction. The road to Democracy, then and now, is invariably a bumpy one.
In conclusion, Solon’s impact was seminal in the development and evolution of democracy. We have him to thank for: “a vision of the rights of the individual citizen that endured and paved the way for Athenian progress towards a fully democratic form of government. He vindicated the right of every citizen to personal liberty and to freedom from all forms of oppressive dependence. He gave every citizen equality before the law and protection against arbitrary use of power and so-called crooked judgments by creating a broad written legal code, and by instituting a right of appeal and a system of accountability”(Mitchell).
More broadly, changes within the Greek world during the the Archaic age (750 to 500 BC) resulted in new ways of thinking and organizing societies. As we have seen, the Athenians of this era did not solve all of the problems within their city-states. What they did achieve was the development of a foundational set of ideas that are still with us today as we seek to develop just, stable, and peaceful societies.
NOTE: In coming posts, I will move from this period of the creation of the foundations of democracy to the construction of democracy itself. Over the next nearly 200 years, through fits and starts, democracy would flower and develop. And, despite its demise in 322 BC, enough had been established and documented to allow a rebirth 2500 hundred years later.
FURTHER READING
There have been likely thousands of books written about this period (and that covered in the coming posts) of Greek history For those who may be interested in some further reading, here is a sampling:
Democracy’s Beginning: The Athenian Story, Thomas Mitchell
What is Ancient Philosophy?, Pierre Hadot
Democracy, A Reader, Ricardo Blaug & John Schwarzmantel (eds)
Classics of Western Philosophy, Steven M. Cann (ed)
Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, Thomas Cahill
Solon the Thinker: Political Thought in Archaic Athens, John Lewis
The Athenian Empire, Polly Low (ed)
Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece, K.A. Raaflaub, Josiah Ober, and R.W. Wallace (eds)
Ancient Democracy and Modern Ideology, P.J. Rhodes
Democracy and Participation in Athens, R.K. Sinclair
Democracy and Knowledge, Josiah Ober