Overview

SPARTA

•  Sparta focused on foreign conquest in response to population pressure

–  By 600 BC it had taken over the nearby city of Messenia

•  Doubling agricultural acreage and establishing firm economic base for future military power

•  War against Messenia also forced fundamental social, political, and economic reforms within Sparta

–  First written constitution in Greek history

•  Reflected unique form of society in which every aspect of a citizen’s life was governed by military necessity

SPARTAN TRAINING I

•  Every new-born infant examined by committee

–  Abandoned to die if it showed any type of deformity

•  Enrolled in special troops at age six

–  Remained members until age 18

–  Girls still lived at home but boys lived away from parents

–  Put through increasingly brutal series of classes designed to make them used to suffering and hardship

•  Also designed to break down family relationships

•  Education focused on music, dancing, and athletics

SPARTAN TRAINING II

•  Began formal military training at age 18

–  Took 2 years to complete

•  Applied for admission into a military club after successful completion of training

–  Membership was official indication that a boy had become a man

–  Application for admission had to be voted on by other members of club

•  Vote had to be unanimous

•  Not allowed to marry or have a family for 10 years

–  Still had to have meals with club until he was 60

•  Military clubs formed basic unit of military service

HELOTS

•  Spartan men given plots of land to support themselves after they joined a military club

–  Did not work land themselves

–  Work done by helots

•  Slaves owned by the Spartan state

•  Manufacturing also done by helots

•  Spartan men lived off the work of others so that they could devote their entire life to being a soldier

SPARTAN GOVERNMENT

•  Two kings

–  Led army and Sparta in general

–  Hereditary

•  Gerousia

–  28 man council

–  All members over 60 years old

–  Drew up proposals for legislation

•  Assembly of the Spartans

–  All full male citizens

–  Voted on legislative proposals

–  Presided over by five elected officials called ephors

ATHENS

•  Lost control of Attica and only gradually re-established itself as a unified state in the region

–  By 650 BC

•  Entered a period of internal turmoil around 630 BC

–  Two attempts by individuals to seize control of the city

–  Great deal of unrest by lower classes and hoplites against domination by oligarchy of wealthy landowning families

–  Oligarchy also divided between conservative and progressive factions

SOLON

•  Solon given job to reform city’s laws and restore internal peace and order

–  594 BC

–  Determined to stamp out lawlessness at all levels of society and convinced all Athenians that disobedience to the law would destroy the city

•  Best way to do this was to make the law more fair and eliminate unjust laws

–  Only way to get people to respect the law was to make it worthy of their respect

REFORMS OF SOLON

•  Abolished practice of enslaving a person for unpaid debts and freed all persons enslaved for that reason

•  Abolished all feudal obligations that commoners owed the aristocracy

•  Widened political participation

–  Broke monopoly aristocrats had over Council of Athens, elected positions, and Assembly of Athens

–  Allowed all citizens regardless of wealth to serve in Assembly

–  Opened up position of archon and seat in Council of Athens to wealthy hoplites

–  Created new 400 member body which acted as Supreme Court

–  Established right of any citizen to bring a case to court

REFORMS BACKFIRE A LITTLE

•  Solon’s reforms went long way towards opening up Athenian society and government to a greater number of people

–  But they did not immediately end the turmoil that plagued the city

•  Athens did prosper

–  Rapid population growth, geographic expansion, various public works projects

–  But Solon’s reforms increased infighting by multiplying the number of factions struggling for control

•  Even resulted in several dictatorships (tyrannies)

CLEISTHENES

•  Two factions struggled for control after death of the tyrant Hippias (508 BC)

–  One led by Isagoras and the other by Cleisthenes

•  Cleisthenes won

–  Because he had cultivated the support of the demos

•  Majority of Athenian population who were still excluded from politics because they owned little or no property

•  He had won their support because he promised to give them a legal political voice

REFORMS OF CLEISTHENES

•  Cleisthenes kept promise to demos

–  Population of city and region divided into ten tribes

–  Each included people from all walks of life

–  Each elected representatives to the Council, elected generals and public officials, and jurors to Supreme Court

•  Cleisthenes permanently broke power of old aristocracy and established the foundation for democracy

ARCHAIC GREECE

•  At beginning of period, most of the Aegean world was divided into independent principalities

–  Had simple social structures with nobility on top and everyone else below

•  By 500 BC, principalities had been transformed into city-states

–  Aristocracy reduced to just one faction of many

–  Aristocratic value system subsided in favor of a new one based on service to the community and the law

POETS

•  Old value system of aristocracy was based on fighting and an obsession with honor

–  But the new city-state, with its commercial and business activities, had little use for a bunch of jealous, warring aristocrats with their inflated sense of honor

•  Required instead justice, established by law according to rational and regular procedures

•  Poets at the forefront of attack on old aristocratic value system

–  Example: Archilocus

–  Argued old aristocratic and heroic values were out of touch with the times

•  Silly and counter to the need for law and order

CHANGES IN RELIGION

•  Gods reflected aristocratic values in Homer’s poems

–  Obsessed with fighting, killing, and performing heroic feats

•  During the Archaic Ages, gods became more interested in justice

–  Urged men to be content with their lot in life

•  To go against this was now considered hubris

–  Insolence against the gods

•  Religion modified during Archaic Age to reinforce new value system and discourage the old

SUMMARY

•  Mutually-reinforcing cycle

–  Growth of business and trade undermined the aristocratic monopoly over society

•  Decline of aristocracy was accompanied by a parallel decline in their value system

–  Helped by propaganda attacks by poets and a gradual shift in religious emphasis

–  Decline of aristocratic value system was paralleled by the rise of a new value system based on law, order, and stability

•  Encouraged further business growth and prosperity

–  Sped up the decline of the aristocracy

–  Provided good environment for development of literature and beginning of philosophic and scientific speculation

GREEK POLITICAL CULTURE

•  In Greek polis, the state was society

–  Two were completely integrated with each other

•  Power was not delegated to a permanent group of legislators, judges and bureaucrats

–  Citizens were expected to play an immediate and direct role in legislation, the judiciary, and executive policy-making

•  Fundamental principle of most Greek city-sates that officials should be constantly changed

–  Giving almost everyone a chance to actively running the polis

PRIVATE SPHERE/PUBLIC SPHERE

•  No “diffusion of loyalty”

–  No chance for citizen to develop non-state loyalties

•  Only one state religion

•  No non-state cultural associations

–  All art was public and all cultural events were state affairs

–  Nothing in the Greek polis existed to distract the citizen from his loyalty to the state

•  Private sphere linked tightly to the state, focusing everyone’s absolute loyalty to that institution

POLITICAL ASSUMPTIONS

•  Taken for granted that all important questions regarding policy-making, legislation, and judiciary was the concern of all citizens

–  Professionals did not dominate government

•  Power was not dissipated among a multitude of specialized departments and institutions

–  Rested fully in the hands of the people

CITIZENSHIP

•  All city-states restricted who could become a citizen

–  General tendency in Archaic Age was towards less restrictivness

•  Citizens only made up part of total population

–  Rest were foreigners, slaves, and freedmen

SLAVES AND FREEDMEN

•  Slaves played crucial role in economy of all city-states of ancient Greece

–  And in Sparta, they were the economy

•  Freedmen worked as craftsmen, small farmers, small retail merchants

–  But they worked for themselves, not for others

•  To work for someone else on a regular basis was the mark of a slave

–  Essential characteristic of a freedman was economic independence

•  No matter how low-level or demeaning the work they did

FREEDMEN

•  Freedmen often very poor

–  Did not view themselves as oppressed working class

–  Complaints directed against the rich

•  Especially wealthy creditors

•  Slogans concerned lack of political participation or the elimination of debts

–  Saw themselves as independent businessmen

•  Wanted recognition of their status and relief from the costs of doing business

–  Never formed any kind of alliance with slaves to overcome their mutual exploitation

•  Because they say themselves as inherently better than slaves

GREEK FAMILY

•  Archaic Greeks viewed family as immortal

–  Founded in mythical days and would continue forever

–  Male head of family therefore had to work to ensure this immortality

•  By expanding its economic base, performing religious rituals, worshipping ancestors, having children

–  Family without children was not considered a family at all

•  Family heads under great pressure to keep their families going by having children

MARRIAGE

•  Marriage was a carefully considered, regulated step

–  Were prearranged

–  Couple became engaged as children after long negotiations between parents

–  It was understood that love would develop after marriage

•  Not before

GREEK WOMEN

•  Greeks attached immense importance to chastity of citizen women

–  It was of utmost importance that legitimacy of offspring not be questions on the grounds of a pre-marital or extra-marital affair

–  Took every precaution to segregate women from men

•  Even set aside a part of the house for exclusive use of women

–  Adultery considered a serious crime that threatened foundation of the state

•  Not just a private matter

CITIZEN AND SLAVE WOMEN

•  Women had no political role

–  Charged with running households and nothing else

•  Slave women and freedman women had more freedom

–  Since they were not considered important enough to worry about

•  No one cared if their families remained intact or not

•  Could pretty well do what they wanted in their private lives

FINAL POINT

•  Neither male nor female citizens enjoyed a high degree of freedom (in the modern sense of the term)

–  Greek ideas of freedom implied conformity to community standards of behavior

•  Community needs defined the roles of men and women and restricted the freedom of both

•  Male family heads had little choice over who and when he should marry, whether to have children, etc.

–  Law and custom demanded that he subordinate his own needs and desires to those of his family and the community at large

–  In exchange, men and women enjoyed a strong and stimulating community life

»  A trade off between liberty and security, with security receiving the most emphasis