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Tales of Two Cities: the “Abnormal States” of Sparta and Athens.
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Tales of Two Cities: the “Abnormal States” of Sparta and Athens “Suppose, for example, that the city of Sparta were to become deserted and that only the temples and foundations of buildings remained, I think that future generations would, as time passed, find it very difficult to believe that the place had really been as powerful as it was represented to be….If…the same thing were to happen to Athens, one would conjecture from what met the eye that the city had been twice as powerful as in fact it is.” ~Thucydides, 1.10
Sparta’s Unique Development:The Awesome, Militaristic, Communistic State • Typology for Other Greek States • colonization (stimulates economies of metropolis by providing ready-made markets) • monetization and expanding economies • public works projects provide employment • The Conquest of Messenia (ca. 735-715 BCE) • tradition of two Messenian wars • confiscation of Messenian territory; Messenians as helots (state-owned slaves) • the “nationalist” poet Tyrtaeus
Lycurgus and the Spartan Constitution • Lycurgan Eunomia (legendary law giver, ca. 885 BCE?) • two kings (Agids and Eurypontids) • gerousia = body of elders (28 aristocrats, age 60 or older + 2 kings) • ephors (5) - annually-elected; executive, judicial, and disciplinary powers • apella = assembly of Spartiates; see Plutarch, Lycurgus 6 on the powers of the Spartan demos
Lycurgus and the Spartan Constitution • Spartiates as Homoioi • syssitia, black broth, iron-bar currency, etc. • Others: perioikoi, neodamodes, hypomeiones • Krypteia and the Helots
Plutarch, Lycurgus 6 (on Spartan assembly) “When the populace was assembled, Lycurgus permitted no one else except the Elders and kings to make a proposal, although the authority to decide upon what the latter put forward did belong to the people. Later, however, when the people distorted the proposals and mauled them by their deletions and additions, the kings Polydorus and Theopompus supplemented the rhetra as follows: If the people should make a crooked choice, the Elders and the founder-leaders are to set it aside that is, not to confirm it, but to withdraw it completely and to dismiss the people because they are altering and reformulating the proposal contrary to what was best.”
Athens’ Crisis and the Solonic Reform:The Road to Democracy • Athens as the Metropolis of the Ionian Greeks (Thucydides, 1.2, 1.12, 2.16) • Debt-Bondage (hektemoroi) and horoi • Cylon, ca. 632 BCE; Draco, ca. 621 BCE • Solon and the Seisachtheia • Heliaia (assembly as court of appeal to archon’s decision) = Council of 400
Solon’s Seisachtheia(“lifting of burdens”) • Response to socio-economic crisis (594 BCE) • Cancellation of debts (lifting the horoi) • Replacement of Rights by Birth with Rights by Property
Solon’s Seisachtheia(“lifting of burdens”) • Pentecosiomedimnoi (“500-bushel men”): treasurer, archon • Hippeis (300 to 500-bushel men): lesser offices; maybe the archonship • Zeugitae (200-300 bushels): maybe eligible for lesser offices • Thetes (below 200 bushels): assembly and army
Pisistratid Tyranny at Athens • Pisistratus (rules intermittently ca. 561-528 BCE): a model Greek tyrant? • “So Pisistratus took over the power in Athens; yet he in no way deranged the existing magistracies or the ordinances but governed the city well and truly according to the laws that were established.” (Herodotus, 1.59) • The sons, Hippias and Hipparchus (ca. 528-510 BCE) • The affair of Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Athens ca. 500 BCE • Liberation of Athens from Pisistratid tyranny: • “So Athens increased in greatness. It is not only in respect of one thing but of everything that equality and free speech are clearly a good; take the case of Athens, which under the rule of tyrants proved no better in war than any of its neighbors but, once rid of those tyrants, was far the first of all. What this makes clear is that when held in subjection they would not do their best, for they were working for a taskmaster, but, when freed, they sought to win, because each was trying to achieve for his very self.” (Herodotus, 5.78)
Cleisthenic Reforms (ca. 508/7 BCE) • Tribes (10), demes (139?), and 30 groups of demes = 30 trittyes. • Each Tribe = 1 trittys from each region: city, coast, inland (trittys = 1/3 tribe) • 10 Strategoi (Generals) • Council of 500 (50 from each tribe); prytany (50) = one-month term (10 months) • Ekklesia (Assembly) • Dikasteria (Popular Courts, set up on tribal basis) • Ostracism
Aristotle, Constitution of the Athenians 56.2 • “As soon as the Archon enters upon his office, he proclaims through the public herald that whatever a person possessed before he entered upon his Archonship he will have and possess until the end of his term.”
Discussion Question “How do Spartan and Athenian political evolutions stack up in relation to ancient Greek notions of “arithmetical” and “geometrical” political equality?”
