At Athens the nobles gradually deprived the king of his power and prerogatives: and from a date somewhere between 700 B.C. and 650 B.C. the government was controlled by a permanent council of nobles, and its details were managed by nine archons or administrators, who were selected yearly by the council[120]. The council consisted of those who were serving or had served the office of archons[121], so that the council in selecting new archons also filled up vacancies in its own numbers: among the nine magistrates the first in rank was The Archon, who gave his name to his year of office: the second was the Archon Basileus, who performed the religious rites: the third was the Polemarch, who commanded in war: the other six were called Thesmothetæ, and probably attended to judicial business[122]. The nobles then from 650 B.C. or earlier were in exclusive possession of power: how they used it when first they got it, is not recorded: by 600 B.C. they were employing it selfishly for the interests of their class.
The first truly historical Athenian is Draco, who, about 620 B.C., collected the customary law of Athens and formed it, together with some provisions of his own, into a written code of legal regulations. The newly recovered Aristotelian treatise on the constitution of Athens contains a passage which also attributes to him some very important changes in the structure of the government[123]: but, as this passage was certainly either not known or not accepted as genuine by Plutarch in the first century A.D. and Pollux in the second century, though they were well acquainted with Aristotle's treatise, it seems impossible to regard it as an original part of the work[124].
Whether Draco did or did not attempt to reform the government, he did not put an end to the oppressive practices of the nobles and the wealthy. They took advantage of the harsh laws relating to debt, to deprive the poorer freemen of their lands or to reduce them to slavery: but the poor showed so much inclination for fighting that their oppressors were alarmed. In the year 594 B.C. it was agreed by both the contending classes that Solon should be elected archon and entrusted with power to deal with the existing discontents and to make a new form of government. He cancelled all existing debts, restored to liberty those who had been enslaved, altered the law in regard to security for debt, and then attempted to remedy the defects of the political system.
Solon devised a moderate system of popular government of the kind to which Aristotle afterwards gave the name of Polity. It was popular, since the mass of the citizens had a controlling power: but it was moderate, because no class had opportunities for governing in its own interest. His new institutions were the δικαστήρια or popular law-courts, the ἐκκλησία or assembly of citizens, the βουλή or council of four hundred, and certain regulations which made eligibility to office depend on wealth. The archons kept their titles and functions: the permanent council of ex-archons, henceforth known as the council of the Arêus Pagus (in Latin Areopagus), survived with diminished authority.
The δικαστήρια were courts in which large bodies of citizens sat as judges or jurymen: and Athenian citizens of all classes, including the Thetes or labourers for hire, were qualified to serve in them. The extent of their jurisdiction is not precisely known: but as they were empowered to hear appeals from the decisions of all magistrates, they had the final judgement in questions of the greatest importance: and as the laws were imperfect or uncertain, they could often be a law to themselves. Under the oligarchy there had been no general assembly of citizens or it had been as powerless as the common folk in an ἀγορή of the Homeric age: Solon ordered all citizens to come together yearly in assembly for the election of archons. The choice however of the archons was conducted by a process that was not purely elective: each of the four ancient tribes, into which the Athenian families were divided, elected from among the richest class of citizens ten candidates for the office, and, from the forty thus chosen, nine were taken by drawing lots. As Solon ordered that the laws which he had made should continue in force for a hundred years, we may infer that he intended that the assembly should for the present do little or nothing in the way of law making: but, in case it should be inclined towards unwise innovations, he established as a check upon it his βουλή or council of four hundred. To make up this council he selected a hundred men from each of the four tribes; and, to give it a restraining power, he ordered that no proposal should be brought before the assembly till the council had approved it. His rules for eligibility to office depended on a division of the citizens into four classes according to their wealth. The richest class were the Pentacosiomedimni, whose lands yielded in the year not less than five hundred medimni (about seven hundred bushels) in aggregate produce of corn, oil and wine: next came the Hippeis, who had three hundred medimni yearly and could equip and maintain a horseman for warfare: then the Zeugitæ, who had two hundred medimni and kept a yoke of oxen: and lastly the Thetes, who were the poorest class and worked for hire. The richest class were alone eligible to the archonship and the treasurership: the second and third class could hold lesser offices suitable to their condition: and the Thetes alone were incapable of holding places in the administration[125].
The constitution of Solon remained in full working order for only three or four years: then there arose violent contests about the appointment of archons, which show that the immediate effect of his changes had been to transfer the chief power to the nine magistrates[126]. The turbulence of factions made it impossible to enforce some parts of his constitution: but other parts of it were probably observed, and the whole served as a foundation for Cleisthenes to build upon. It is probable that the strife of classes which spoiled the working of Solon's institutions led to the restoration of some kind of oligarchy: for if it was not so, it is hard to account for the readiness of the poor citizens to accede to the wishes of the demagogue Pisistratus.
The prevalence of oligarchical governments in the Greek cities of Sicily at an early stage of their career is noticed by Aristotle[127]: the existence of similar governments in the Greek cities generally in the same stage of their progress may fairly be inferred from the silence of historians.
It is to be noticed that none of the traditions about the governments of the nobles in the Greek cities of the seventh century B.C. tell us anything about their behaviour or character when first they rose to power. From the probabilities of the case however we may conjecture that at first they were good governments and used their power well: they supplanted the long-established heroic monarchies, and could not have succeeded in such an achievement unless they had had merits of their own. It seems then that during the first part of their existence they ought to be called aristocracies rather than oligarchies: for an aristocracy is a government conducted by the few best men in a community for the best interests of the whole community, while an oligarchy is a government conducted by a few for their own selfish interests. From what has been already stated about the governments of the nobles in the later part of their careers, it will be seen that oligarchy is a name which suits them precisely.
At the beginning of the chapter it was remarked that the nobles lived in the cities or close beside them, and owed their power to the protection of the city walls and to the facilities for concerted action which they gained from living close to a common centre: and it is now necessary to give authorities for the statement. Aristotle[128] speaks of the oligarchy at Athens as οἱ πεδιακοί, or inhabitants of τὸ πεδίον, a little tract of level ground near Athens, Plutarch[129] calls them πεδιεῖςin exactly the same sense, and the Etymologicum Magnum[130] a much later authority says the Eupatridæ lived in the city of Athens itself. The oligarchy at Megara were overthrown by Theagenes: and he succeeded in overthrowing them by catching them while they were taking their horses and cattle to graze beside the river[131]:—a fact which shows that when they went out into the open country they were caught at a disadvantage, and implies that they habitually lived behind defences. As to the Bacchiadæ at Corinth there is not any statement that they lived in the city, but Herodotus in a story which will be told presently explains carefully that a certain Corinthian who was not one of the ruling caste did not live in the city but in a δῆμος or place in the open country. The evidence for my proposition that at Athens, Megara and Corinth the cities as distinct from the open country were of great importance is not, I confess, very conclusive: but I have thought it sufficient to justify me in regarding the communities which lived at those places as city states and not as tribes.
At Argos the course of events was not the same as in those cities of which I have spoken. The Argive monarchy, as we have seen[132], was not abolished but continued to exist so late as 480 B.C.: the king however was not a great power in the state: for we do not hear of any doings of any of the kings. On the other hand, the fact that the monarchy was permitted to survive shows clearly that there was no oligarchy at Argos so violent and exclusive as the rule of the Bacchiadæ at Corinth or the Eupatridæ at Athens. Since then supreme power did not belong either to the king or to the nobles, power must have been in some way divided, so that Argos had a mixed or balanced form of government: and this fact is of some interest, since it adds something to the slight resemblance between Argos and Rome which has been already noticed, by showing that in these two cities forms of government succeeded one another in the same order. In each there was first a strong monarchy: next an excessively strong monarchy or tyranny: and afterwards a mixed or balanced form of government. At Rome the three stages are marked by Servius Tullius, by Tarquin the Proud, and by the division of power between patricians and plebeians: at Argos by the early Doric kings, by Pheidon, and by the mixed form of government which was established after the decline of his power.