Ancient Greek Democracy

Compare and contrast monarchy, aristocracy, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy as forms of government in Ancient Greek city-states.

Low population density and the infant state of transportation and communication technologies during the Bronze and Iron ages meant that most settlements in the Mediterranean world lived a semi-hermitic existence, a fact that favored the development and many political and social structures. According to the ancient Greek thought, the Greek colonies were founded by legendary heroes who became perpetually worshipped in the dynasty (γένος) they created; thus, every dynasty possessed its own land, cult, and customs. Eventually, such a family would became big enough to form an urban center (πόλις), and the community would

then distinguish between in-members and outsiders who did not belong in the family tree and would not participate in the family cult. Initially, these outsiders formed the lowest ranks of the society, and often had little property rights and protection under the customary law. It would be akin for a modern family giving shelter to a stranger; he enjoys the family shelter but has no legal property and custody rights. Yet, in time, birth-lines would become less clear and the outsiders, no longer distinguishable, would conspire to take a bigger part in the political life and civic religion. (Alain, 2003) In this view, patriarchy gave birth to aristocracy, and this to democracy.
Greece, however, has a long history and, therefore, words had different meanings through the lands and the ages; it was only in classical Greece that political terms would be codified and acquire universal meaning. In this light, the passage from archaic Greece (2,000BC–500BC) to classical Greece (500BC–300BC) represents a transformation of the political, its reformulation in institutional terms (Schmitt-Pantel, 1991). Aristotle in his work Πολιτικά (Pol. 1279a-1279b.), he divided the political systems in two groups; a benevolent one (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy), and a malevolent one (tyranny, oligarchy, radical democracy). According to Aristotle, what made a political system good or evil was focus; if the government focused to the common good then it was good; if not, then the government was malevolent.
Monarchy is a compound word, from monos (μόνος) or single and archo (ἄρχω) which literally means, “to be first” and by extension “to rule, to govern” (Friberg & Friberg, 2005). It indicates a form of government in which there is a single source of authority; strictly speaking, this means that the monarch is the ultimate source of all three powers (legislative, executive, and judicial) and every other authority in the land flows from that head. True monarchies is the ancient Levant were found in Egypt and Persia; in Greece true monarchy was rarely found, the closest cases being in Macedonia and Epeiros, though even there power was shared with an assembly (Cartwright, Greek Government, 2013) and, thus, are better called kingship (βασιλεία). Even so, the meaning of kingship differed from city to city (Alain, 2003).
Tyranny is a noun of unclear etymology, most likely of Lydian origin. According to Herodotus, the Ionian Greek states were in frequent wars with the Lydians and, at the time of Croesus, they all had accepted the Lydian rule; therefore, most likely the Ionian Greeks borrowed the word from the Lydians. Given the political idiosyncrasies of the Greek cities, often kingship and tyranny were virtually the same; though, as the latter was a foreign word, it often had a bad connotation and that was exploited by politicians to discredit their opponents (Alain, 2003). In this light, the word tyrant came to mean any monarch who had usurped and abused power. When Aristotle codified the political systems, he described tyranny as the worst of all six political systems, in which the ruler governed a community exclusively for his own benefit. For this reason, for Aristotle a tyrant was “unpolitical;” for his rule could not be classified as political, and his community could not be described as “polis.”
Aristocracy is another compound noun, combined from the word ἄριστος (best), and κράτος (power); in plain English, it can be rendered as “the rule of the worthy.” The word appeared in the fifth century BC, when the Greek historians and philosophers started reflecting on their political history (Alain, 2003). While it remains a matter of conjecture whether aristocracy in classical Greece meant a rule by a hereditary noble class (as in feudal Western Europe), or meritocracy, Bleicken in 1979 has convincingly argued for the latter. Indeed, the few notable dynasties in classical Greece, like Eumolpides and Kyrikes in Eleusis and Klitides in Chios, were families holding religious, not civic, privileges (Alain, 2003). Furthermore, inside the civic community, social mobility was unfettered; there was neither legal barrier to social ascension nor inborn protection to fall in obscurity during one’s life or from one generation to another (Alain, 2003). Ascendancy in the upper classes was open to all citizens through competition to invest in the public good; for competition was an essential component in Greek ethos; “always be the best and surpass the others,” preached Homer (Iliad, VI, 208). Having these in mind, one can define aristocracy as a political system between monarchy (βασιλεία) and democracy (δημοκρατία), in which power was shared among a select group of illustrious men of virtue (εὐπατρίδες). Remembering the origins of the Greek cities, and the value ancient Greeks put to the relationship to the city’s founder, it is understandable that aristocracy was the most common form of political system in classical Greece.
If tyranny was the twin evil of kingship, oligarchy was the twin evil of aristocracy. Oligarchy means the “rule of the few” and, technically, aristocracy and oligarchy are not that different: in both cases, vast swathes of population (women, slaves, foreigners) were under the rule of the privileged few. Again, Aristotle would make the claim that the difference lay on focus: whether the ruling group looked to benefit the community or themselves. For example, in aristocracy, the ruling families would benefit the common good by building roads, water canals, cemeteries; oligarchs would only benefit their own dynasties. Yet, to a modern bystander any society that excludes the majority from public life is, by definition, an oligarchy. Though completely understandable by the norms of the time, in the end both aristocracy and oligarchy are self-destructive, a form of political hemophilia, for by excluding so many people from political life means to deny the community of fresh input, valuable experience, and good will.
Democracy is an attic word that means the rule (κράτος) of the assembly (δῆμος in Athens, ἐκκλησία in most Greece); therefore, literally understood, democracy only existed in Athens. From a modern perspective, democracy and aristocracy are not that much different—in both cases, only a select minority had right to participate in civic life; even so, for Aristotle even that much was too much—radical democracy was classified in the evil regimes. Radical democracy meant that all major matters of public policy were determined at the meeting by the assembly (δῆμος) at which all adult citizen of good standing were entitled to vote and that public officials were randomly chosen by lot, known as sortition. One counterbalance was that any new law had to be consistent with the constitution and existing laws. The advantages of the Athenian democracy is that it fostered greater political stability and civic pride, On the other hand, yet, it also suffered from great inefficiency as any public policy issue had to be debated in the Assembly; the assumption that every citizen is equally capable of sound political judgement is dubious. Furthermore, the increased civic pride went against Panhellenism, and this brought Athens in direct antagonism, and war, against the rest of Greece (Harding, 2013). It is no wonder, then, that Aristotle did not approve radical democracy.
To sum up, Greek city-states were founded by legendary colonists in the eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea during the Bronze and Iron age; as the population of the colonies expanded from extended family communities to urban centers, the political system also evolved from patriarchy to aristocracy and democracy.

Given this sense of strong family ties among the members of a community, true monarchy never existed in ancient Greece; even at places like Macedonia and Epeiros, the kings were under the nominal control of the Assembly (which were all blood related to a certain degree). While Aristotle had distinguished the political systems in three classes (monarchy/tyranny, aristocracy/oligarchy, and limited democracy/radical democracy), from a modern perspective, most every political system in ancient Greece was some form of aristocracy—the rule of a select few with the right pedigree. Aristotle’s critique on radical democracy was validated when his protégé, Alexander the Great, united the Hellenic world and spread its culture to the known world. Even so, no political system can be thought as universally better than any other; every system has strong and weak points, and every system can be abused. At the end, a system should be evaluated on its ability to provide for its citizens and respond to national

emergencies.
References
Alain, D. (2003, 9 3). Aristocracy in Asia Minor (Antiquity). Retrieved from Encyclopaedia of the Hellenic World: http://asiaminor.ehw.gr/Forms/fLemmaBodyExtended.aspx?lemmaID=3745
Blackwell, C. W. (2003, 2 28). Athenian Democracy: a brief overview. Retrieved from Stoa: http://www.stoa.org/projects/demos/article_democracy_overview?page=3
Bleicken, J.

(1979). Zur Entstehung der Verfassungstypologie im 5. Jahrhundert v. Chr. (Monarchie, Aristokratie, Demokratie). Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, 28(2), 148–172. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4435664

Brand, P. J. (n.d.). Athens & Sparta: Democracy vs. Dictatorship. Retrieved 4 7, 2017, from https://my.uopeople.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=109439

Cartwright, M. (2013, 3 17). Greek Government. Retrieved from Ancient History Encyclopedia: http://www.ancient.eu/Greek_Government/

Cartwright, M. (2014, 10 13). Athenian Democracy. Retrieved from Ancient History Encyclopedia: http://www.ancient.eu/Athenian_Democracy/

Friberg, T., & Friberg, B. (2005). Analytical Greek New Testament (GNM). Trafford Publishing.

Harding, T. (2013, 10 31). Radical Democracy in Ancient Athens. Retrieved from The Logical Place: https://yandoo.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/radical-democracy-in-ancient-athens/

Livi-Bacci, M. (2012). A Concise History of World Population (5 ed.). A Concise History of World Population.

Schmitt-Pantel. (1991). Collective Activities and the Political in the Greek City. In O. Murray, & S. Price (Eds.), The Greek City: From Homer to Alexander (pp. 199–213). Oxford: Clarendon

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