The Political Institutions of the Ancient Greeks

by Basil Edward Hammond

[CHAPTER III.]

GREEK POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. HEROIC MONARCHIES.

The political institutions of the Greeks will be examined first, because the Greeks are known to us at an earlier period than any other European people.

Hellas, the land of the Greeks, is about equal in size to half of Scotland or Ireland or to a third of England[15]. It is intersected by a network of continuous mountain ranges, which cannot be crossed without difficulty, and these ranges are almost everywhere so near together that it is impossible to travel more than twenty miles in any direction without crossing one of them. There are therefore no plains of any considerable extent, and the country is cut up into very numerous small areas, each enclosed, except towards the sea, within natural barriers which make egress and entrance alike difficult. These areas are of varying minuteness: by far the greater number of them measure only ten miles by ten, or twenty by five, but a few are of larger dimensions, and, in particular, Argolis contains about four hundred and fifty square miles, and is as large as Bedfordshire, Attica contains seven hundred and twenty, and just equals Berkshire, and Laconia, with about nine hundred, is of the same size as Warwickshire[16].

If communication by land is difficult, by sea it is easy, and was easy even in the earliest times. Greece and its islands have as much sea-board as any equal area in Europe; most of the natural divisions of the country have their share of coast with sheltered beaches where the boats or small ships of ancient times could be drawn up in safety: the Mediterranean, though it is sometimes as dangerous as any sea, is often calm: and by the age of Homer it had come to be a great highway for war, piracy and commerce.

The career of all the Greek communities, except Sparta, divides itself readily into periods. The first period, lasting till perhaps 700 B.C. or 650 B.C., was the period of tribes and tribal governments: the second, lasting to 338 B.C., was the period of cities and city governments. The period of the cities must however be divided into three lesser periods, each characterised by the prevalence of a certain kind of city government: the first of these lesser periods lasted from about 700 B.C. to 600 B.C., the second from 600 B.C. to 500 B.C., and the third from 500 B.C. to 338 B.C. Between 700 B.C. and 600 B.C. Athens, Corinth and Megara were under the domination of groups of privileged families, and many Greek cities in Sicily were also governed by small groups of citizens distinguished either by birth or by wealth: and, since the rule of a few is known as an aristocracy if the few rulers are the men best qualified to rule and if they use their power for the good of the whole community, but as an oligarchy if the few rulers govern for their own selfish interest, the century may be called the period of the early aristocracies and oligarchies. Between 600 B.C. and 500 B.C. nearly every Greek city, both in Greece proper and elsewhere, came under the rule of a τύραννος or usurper of absolute power, so that the century may be called the age of the tyrants or usurpers. And lastly, between 500 B.C. and 338 B.C. in many of the Greek cities a system of government was set up under which the whole body of the citizens acting collectively conducted the work of government, or at least all parts of it which can in the nature of things be conducted by a numerous assembly, while in other cities a small body of the richest citizens ruled selfishly for their own advantage and the advantage of their class; and, since any system in which the whole body of citizens directly conduct the work of government or the greater part of the work of government is known as a democracy, while the selfish rule of a few is, as we have seen, called an oligarchy, the period may best be called the age of the democracies and of the later oligarchies.

The Spartans were unlike, in their history their institutions and the aims of their policy, not only to all other Greek communities but perhaps to every other community that has ever existed: they never completely grew out of their tribal condition, never entirely abandoned their tribal government, and never formed themselves into a city like the other Greek cities: and besides all this they were in so many ways unlike to the rest of mankind that it will be necessary for me to speak of them by themselves and apart from the rest of the Greeks.

The Greek communities and their political systems from the earliest times to the first overthrow of Greek independence in 338 B.C. will be treated in the present and the next two chapters in the following order: firstly, we shall examine the tribes and the tribal governments, secondly, the institutions and government of the Spartans, and thirdly, the cities and the city-governments.

THE GREEK TRIBES AND TRIBAL GOVERNMENTS.

The numerous tribes which composed the Greek race ranged themselves in several groups, distinguished from one another in name, characteristics and fortunes. Among these groups the Achæans, the Dorians and the Ionians are historically the most important. The Achæan group includes all the tribes that are conspicuous in the Iliad and Odyssey: and from this circumstance it may safely be inferred that, when those poems were composed, the Achæan tribes had made more progress than any other Greeks in knowledge and political organisation. The Dorians in the days of Homer were an obscure tribe living in a little mountain valley of Northern Greece: in the next age they invaded the Peloponnesus, expelled the Achæans from their homes, and formed themselves into the four peoples of the Spartans, the Messenians, the Corinthians and the Argives. The Ionian tribes, the Athenians and twelve of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, including Miletus and Ephesus, were even later than the Dorian peoples in rising to importance. I shall deal first with the Achæans and then with the Dorians and Ionians.