Part 3 - The appearance of Democracy - birth and infancy in Greece

There is some evidence that by the middle of the 7th century BC, the polis had developed into a more formally organized system and the hereditary aristocracy was well developed and closely intermingled. However, near the end of the 7th century and the early 6th century, an era of revolutionary upheaval occurred within the upper class and between the upper and lower classes.  Layered on top of the always simmering problem of concentrated power and wealth, an expansion of economic opportunity began to develop.  This opportunity occurred at about the same time that a dramatically different battle array for Greek armies was developed.  As I will outline, these two dynamics combined to dilute the concentrated power of the upper class.  

First, the increased economic opportunity led to a larger and wealthier middle class. This reduced the monopoly on wealth that the upper class had held and thus reduced the political power that flowed from it.  This wider prosperity was principally driven by the increased commerce resulting from two periods of colonization - first to Sicily and southern Italy to the west and to the east into the Dardanelles (known as the Hellespont in classical Greece - a natural strait in northwestern Turkey that forms part of the continental boundary between Asia and Europe) and along the coast of the Black Sea.  The primary motives for this colonization were overcrowding in the Greek Poleis and to find new trade opportunities.  

Second, and made possible in part by the expansion of wealth, a dramatically different battle formation was developed, the phalanx.  The phalanx used massed infantry with substantial body army arranged in a tight formation.  This formation was a revolution in warfare and soon became commonplace.  For the first time a mass infantry army was being created. This required large numbers and significant wealth - the growing middle class formed the bulk of this army and individuals typically equipped themselves.  Thus, with a wider section of the citizenry involved in military service, the traditional monopoly that the aristocracy had held over the military role was reduced and with it, their political power. So, massed armies diluted concentrated power and inadvertently struck a blow for the development of democracy.  This also meant that there was an expanded sense of self and personal autonomy. One clear result was in the literary arena: “The great era of heroic narrative poetry, centered on aristocratic exploits and preoccupations, gave way to new literary forms focused on the free expression of the poet’s own thoughts and feelings about all sorts of subjects..”(Thomas Mitchell).  

In a similar vein, and ultimately much more significant was a full-blown intellectual revolution originating in the Ionian city of Miletus.  Heretofore, answers to both new and old questions were sought in myth and traditional concepts of the divine. Now, humans began to seek answers through their powers of observation and the use of reason-based argument, hypothesis formation, and logic. In other words, rational, systematic inquiry. This new approach, “which later, in the time of Socrates and Plato, assumed the name philosophy, and it had a profound effect on Greece and the whole development Western civilization.  Its scrutiny of the world of nature and its search for order and systems within it proceeded to the more practical study of humanity itself, the nature and needs of human beings, and the form of society and the principles of conduct that could best advance human well-being and happiness. It also embraced the critical evaluation of its own methodology in the study of logic and epistemology.” (Thomas MItchell).  It is difficult to overstate the formative and catalytic nature of this period.  Greek philosophy sustained and increased its influence for more than a millennia when the Greek philosophical schools were closed by Justinian in AD 529 to protect Christian teaching. Nonetheless, the legacy of Greek philosophy remains with us today.