Of the similarity of the customs and institutions of early historic Greece and those of a more primitive age we have ample evidence. In ancient Greece, as among the Iroquois tribe of Indians, “property was vested absolutely in the clan, and could not be willed away from it.”[148] Not only did the members of a clan hold their property in common, but they were obliged to help, defend, support, and even avenge those of their number who required their assistance. Young females bereft of near relations were either furnished with husbands or provided with suitable portions. Descent must still have been reckoned in the female line, for foreigners admitted to citizenship were not members of any clan, neither were their descendants, unless born of women who were citizens. Citizens were enrolled in the clan and phratry of their mothers.[149]
In the administration of the government, however, are to be noted a few important changes. The complications which had arisen as a result of the individual ownership of property, the change in the reckoning of descent from the female to the male line which followed, and the growth of the aristocratic element, had produced a corresponding change in the control and management of the government. Solicitude for the common weal, although still felt by the great mass of the people, had among the rulers given place to extreme egoism, and that association and combination of interests, which since the dawn of organized society had characterized the gens, was rapidly giving way before the love of dominion, the thirst for power, and the greed of gain—characters which in process of time came to represent the mainspring of human action.
With the changes which took place in the conditions of the people, it is seen that the administrative functions became still further differentiated. Co-ordinate with the Greek basileus or war-chief are to be observed not only a council of chiefs who were the heads of the gentes, but also an assembly of the people, these three governmental functions corresponding in a general way to our President, Senate, and House of Representatives.
The Ecclesia or general assembly at Sparta was originally composed of all the free males who dwelt within the city. Although this body originated no measures, it was invested with authority to adopt or reject any proposed legislation or plan of action devised by the chiefs. “All changes in the constitution or laws, and all matters of great public import, as questions of peace or war, of alliances, and the like, had to be brought before it for decision.”[150] Thus may be observed the precautions which during the latter stages of barbarism had been taken to guard the rights of the people, and to insure them against individual and class usurpation.
Curtius assures us that the Dorian people
did not feel as if they were placed in a foreign state, but they were the citizens of their own—not merely the objects of legislation, but also participants in it, for they only obeyed such statutes as they themselves had agreed to.[151]
Although Mr. Grote would have us believe that the assembly of the people was simply a “listening agora,”[152] it is plain that it was originally invested with sufficient power to protect the people against despotism. In the further differentiation of the administrative functions the powers of the subordinate officers are all drawn from the sum of the powers invested in the three principal branches of the government, the ill-defined duties of each giving rise to those unabated dissensions and fierce and unrelenting strifes which in course of time became such a fruitful source of devastation and bloodshed.
From what is known at the present time regarding Greek society prior to the age of Theseus, it is not at all likely that it was organized on monarchial principles, or that any form of government prevailed in Greece other than that of a military democracy. It is true that by most of the writers who have dealt with the subject of the government of the early Greeks, the basileus has been designated as king, and that he has been invested by them with all the insignia of a modern monarch. In later times, however, with a better understanding of the principles underlying early society, this view of the matter is seen to be false. Mr. Morgan, a writer who as we have seen has given much attention to the constitution of gentile society, informs us that in the Lower and also in the Middle Status of barbarism the office of chief was elective or during good behaviour, “for this limitation follows from the right of the gens to depose from office.”[153]
When descent was in the female line this office descended either to a brother of the deceased chief or to a sister’s son, but later, when descent began to be traced in the male line, the eldest son was usually elected to succeed his father. Upon this subject Mr. Morgan says further:
It cannot be claimed, on satisfactory proof, that the oldest son of the basileus took the office, upon the demise of his father, by absolute hereditary right.... The fact that the oldest, or one of the sons, usually succeeded, which is admitted, does not establish the fact in question; because by usage he was in the probable line of succession by a free election from a constituency. The presumption on the face of Grecian institutions is against succession to the office of basileus by hereditary right; and in favour either of a free election, or of a confirmation of the office by the people through their recognized organization, as in the case of the Roman rex. With the office of basileus transmitted in the manner last named, the government would remain in the hands of the people. Because without an election or confirmation he could not assume the office; and because, further, the power to elect or confirm implies the reserved right to depose.[154]