Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

Attic people had always lived in cities, having their own prytaneums and archons, and when not in fear of danger did not consult their basileus, but governed their own affairs separately according to their own councils. But when Theseus was made basileus, he persuaded them to break up the council-houses and magistracies of their several cities and come into relation with Athens, with one council-house (βουλευτήριος), and one prytaneum (πρυτανεῖον), to which all were considered as belonging.[271] This statement embodies or implies a number of important facts, namely; that the Attic population were organized in independent tribes, each having its own territory in which the people were localized, with its own council-house and prytaneum; and that while they were self-governing societies they were probably confederated for mutual protection, and elected their basileus or general to command their common forces. It is a picture of communities democratically organized, needing a military commander as a necessity of their condition, but not invested with civil functions which their gentile system excluded. Under Theseus they were brought to coalesce into one people, with Athens as their seat of government, which gave them a higher organization than before they had been able to form. The coalescence of tribes into a nation in one territory is later in time than confederations, where the tribes occupy independent territories. It is a higher organic process. While the gentes had always been intermingled by marriage, the tribes were now intermingled by obliterating territorial lines, and by the use of a common council-hall and prytaneum. The act ascribed to Theseus explains the advancement of their gentile society from a lower to a higher organic form, which must have occurred at some time, and probably was effected in the manner stated.

But another act is ascribed to Theseus evincing a more radical plan, as well as an appreciation of the necessity for a fundamental change in the plan of government. He divided the people into three classes, irrespective of gentes, called respectively the Eupatridæ or “well-born,” the Geomori or “husbandmen,” and the Demiurgi or “artisans.” The principal offices were assigned to the first class both in the civil administration and in the priesthood. This classification was not only a recognition of property and of the aristocratic element in the government of society, but it was a direct movement against the governing power of the gentes. It was the evident intention to unite the chiefs of the gentes with their families, and the men of wealth in the several gentes, in a class by themselves, with the right to hold the principal offices in which the powers of society were vested. The separation of the remainder into two great classes traversed the gentes again. Important results might have followed if the voting power had been taken from the gentes, phratries and tribes, and given to the classes, subject to the right of the first to hold the principal offices. This does not appear to have been done, although absolutely necessary to give vitality to the classes. Moreover, it did not change essentially the previous order of things with respect to holding office. Those now called Eupatrids were probably the men of the several gentes who had previously been called into office. This scheme of Theseus died out, because there was in reality no transfer of powers from the gentes, phratries and tribes to the classes, and because such classes were inferior to the gentes as the basis of a system.

The centuries that elapsed from the unknown time of Theseus to the legislation of Solon (594 B. C.) formed one of the most important periods in Athenian experience; but the succession of events is imperfectly known. The office of basileus was abolished prior to the first Olympiad (776 B. C.), and the archonship established in its place. The latter seems to have been hereditary in a gens, and it is stated to have been hereditary in a particular family within the gens, the first twelve archons being called the Medontidæ, from Medon, the first archon, claimed to have been the son of Codrus, the last basileus. In the case of these archons, who held for life, the same question exists which has elsewhere been raised with respect to the basileus; that an election or confirmation by a constituency was necessary before the office could be assumed. The presumption is against the transmission of the office by hereditary right. In 711 B. C. the office of archon was limited to ten years, and bestowed by free election upon the person esteemed most worthy of the position. We are now within the historical period, though near its threshold, where we meet the elective principle with respect to the highest office in the gift of the people clearly and completely established. It is precisely what would have been expected from the constitution and principles of the gentes, although the aristocratical principle, as we must suppose, had increased in force with the increase of property, and was the source through which hereditary right was introduced wherever found. The existence of the elective principle with respect to the later archons is not without significance in its relation to the question of the previous practice of the Athenians. In 683 B. C. the office was made elective annually, the number was increased to nine, and their duties were made ministerial and judicial.[272] We may notice, in these events, evidence of a gradual progress in knowledge with respect to the tenure of office. The Athenian tribes had inherited from their remote ancestors the office of archon (ἀρχός) as chief of the gens. It was hereditary in the gens, as may fairly be supposed, and elective among its members. After descent was changed to the male line the sons of the deceased chief were within the line of succession, and one of their number would be apt to be chosen in the absence of personal objections. But now they reverted to this original office for the name of their highest magistrate, made it elective irrespective of any gens, and limited its duration, first to ten years, and finally to one. Prior to this, the tenure of office to which they had been accustomed was for life. In the Lower and also in the Middle Status of barbarism we have found the office of chief, elective and for life; or during good behavior, for this limitation follows from the right of the gens to depose from office. It is a reasonable inference that the office of chief in a Grecian gens was held by a free election and by the same tenure. It must be regarded as proof of a remarkable advancement in knowledge at this early period that the Athenian tribes substituted a term of years for their most important office, and allowed a competition of candidates. They thus worked out the entire theory of an elective and representative office, and placed it upon its true basis.

In the time of Solon, it may be further noticed, the Court of Areopagus, composed of ex-archons, had come into existence with power to try criminals and with a censorship over morals, together with a number of new offices in the military, naval and administrative services. But the most important event that occurred about this time was the institution of the naucraries (ναυκραρίαι), twelve in each tribe, and forty-eight in all; each of which was a local circumscription of householders from which levies were drawn into the military and naval service, and from which taxes were probably collected. The naucrary was the incipient deme or township which, when the idea of a territorial basis was fully developed, was to become the foundation of the second great plan of government. By whom the naucraries were instituted is unknown. “They must have existed even before the time of Solon,” Boeckh remarks, “since the presiding officers of the naucraries (πρυτάνεις τῶν ναυκράρων) are mentioned before the time of his legislation; and when Aristotle ascribes their institution to Solon, we may refer this account only to their confirmation by the political constitution of Solon.”[273] Twelve naucraries formed a trittys (τριττύς) a larger territorial circumscription, but they were not necessarily contiguous. It was, in like manner, the germ of the county, the next territorial aggregate above the township.

Notwithstanding the great changes that had occurred in the instrumentalities by which the government was administered, the people were still in a gentile society, and living under gentile institutions. The gens, phratry and tribe were in full vitality, and the recognized sources of power. Before the time of Solon no person could become a member of this society except through connection with a gens and tribe. All other persons were beyond the pale of the government. The council of chiefs remained, the old and time-honored instrument of government; but the powers of the government were now coordinated between itself, the agora or assembly of the people, the Court of Areopagus, and the nine archons. It was the prerogative of the council to originate and mature public measures for submission to the people, which enabled it to shape the policy of the government. It doubtless had the general administration of the finances, and it remained to the end, as it had been from the beginning, the central feature of the government. The assembly of the people had now come into increased prominence. Its functions were still limited to the adoption or rejection of public measures submitted to its decision by the council; but it began to exercise a powerful influence upon public affairs. The rise of this assembly as a power in the government is the surest evidence of the progress of the Athenian people in knowledge and intelligence. Unfortunately the functions and powers of the council of chiefs and of the assembly of the people in this early period have been imperfectly preserved, and but partially elucidated.

In 624 B. C. Draco had framed a body of laws for the Athenians which were chiefly remarkable for their unnecessary severity; but this code demonstrated that the time was drawing near in Grecian experience when usages and customs were to be superseded by written laws. As yet the Athenians had not learned the art of enacting laws as the necessity for them appeared, which required a higher knowledge of the functions of legislative bodies than they had attained. They were in that stage in which lawgivers appear, and legislation is in a scheme or in gross, under the sanction of a personal name. Thus slowly the great sequences of human progress unfold themselves.

When Solon came into the archonship (594 B. C.) the evils prevalent in society had reached an unbearable degree. The struggle for the possession of property, now a commanding interest, had produced singular results. A portion of the Athenians had fallen into slavery, through debt,—the person of the debtor being liable to enslavement in default of payment; others had mortgaged their lands and were unable to remove the encumbrances; and as a consequence of these and other embarrassments society was devouring itself. In addition to a body of laws, some of them novel, but corrective of the principal financial difficulties, Solon renewed the project of Theseus of organizing society into classes, not according to callings as before, but according to the amount of their property. It is instructive to follow the course of these experiments to supersede the gentes and substitute a new system, because we shall find the Roman tribes, in the time of Servius Tullius, trying the same experiment for the same purpose. Solon divided the people into four classes according to the measure of their wealth, and going beyond Theseus, he invested these classes with certain powers, and imposed upon them certain obligations. It transferred a portion of the civil powers of the gentes, phratries and tribes to the property classes. In proportion as the substance of power was drawn from the former and invested in the latter, the gentes would be weakened and their decadence would commence. But so far as classes composed of persons were substituted for gentes composed of persons, the government was still founded upon person, and upon relations purely personal. The scheme failed to reach the substance of the question. Moreover, in changing the council of chiefs into the senate of four hundred, the members were taken in equal numbers from the four tribes, and not from the classes. But it will be noticed that the idea of property, as the basis of a system of government, was now incorporated by Solon in the new plan of property classes. It failed, however, to reach the idea of political society, which must rest upon territory as well as property, and deal with persons through their territorial relations. The first class alone were eligible to the high offices, the second performed military service on horseback, the third as infantry, and the fourth as light-armed soldiers. This last class were the numerical majority. They were disqualified from holding office, and paid no taxes; but in the popular assembly of which they were members, they possessed a vote upon the election of all magistrates and officers, with power to bring them to an account. They also had power to adopt or reject all public measures submitted by the senate to their decision. Under the constitution of Solon their powers were real and durable, and their influence upon public affairs was permanent and substantial. All freemen, though not connected with a gens and tribe, were now brought into the government, to a certain extent, by becoming citizens and members of the assembly of the people with the powers named. This was one of the most important results of the legislation of Solon.

It will be further noticed that the people were now organized as an army, consisting of three divisions; the cavalry, the heavy-armed infantry, and the light-armed infantry, each with its own officers of different grades. The form of the statement limits the array to the last three classes, which leaves the first class in the unpatriotic position of appropriating to themselves the principal offices of the government, and taking no part in the military service. This undoubtedly requires modification. The same plan of organization, but including the five classes, will re-appear among the Romans under Servius Tullius, by whom the body of the people were organized as an army (exercitus) fully officered and equipped in each subdivision. The idea of a military democracy, different in organization but the same theoretically as that of the previous period, re-appears in a new dress both in the Solonian and in the Servian constitution.

In addition to the property element, which entered into the basis of the new system, the territorial element was partially incorporated through the naucraries before adverted to, in which it is probable there was an enrollment of citizens and of their property to form a basis for military levies and for taxation. These provisions, with the senate, the popular assembly now called the ecclesia, the nine archons, and the Court of Areopagus, gave to the Athenians a much more elaborate government than they had before known, and requiring a higher degree of intelligence for its management. It was also essentially democratical in harmony with their antecedent ideas and institutions; in fact a logical consequence of them, and explainable only as such. But it fell short of a pure system in three respects: firstly, it was not founded upon territory; secondly, all the dignities of the state were not open to every citizen; and thirdly, the principle of local self-government in primary organizations was unknown, except as it may have existed imperfectly in the naucraries. The gentes, phratries and tribes still remained in full vitality, but with diminished powers. It was a transitional condition, requiring further experience to develop the theory of a political system toward which it was a great advance. Thus slowly but steadily human institutions are evolved from lower into higher forms, through the logical operations of the human mind working in uniform but predetermined channels.