FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, AND CHANGES IN GRECIAN POLITICS.
Although Greek political writers taught that there were, primarily,
but three forms of government--monarchy, or the rule of one;
aristocracy, that of the few; and democracy, that of the many
--the latter always limited by the Greeks to the freemen--yet
it appears that when anyone of these degenerated from its supposed
legitimate object, the welfare of the state, it was marked by a
peculiar name. Thus a monarchy in which selfish aims predominated
became a tyranny; and in later Grecian history, such was the
prevailing sentiment in opposition to kingly rule that all kings
were called tyrants: an aristocracy which directed its measures
chiefly to the preservation of its power became an oligarchy; and
a democracy that departed from the civil and political equality
which was its supposed basis, and gave ascendancy to a faction,
was sometimes designated by the term ochlocracy, or the dominion
of the rabble. "A democracy thus corrupted," says THIRLWALL,
"exhibited many features of a tyranny. It was jealous of all
who were eminently distinguished by birth, fortune, or reputation;
it encouraged flatterers and sycophants; was insatiable in its
demands on the property of the rich, and readily listened to
charges which exposed them to death or confiscation. The class
which suffered such oppression, commonly ill satisfied with the
principle of the Constitution itself, was inflamed with the most
furious animosity by the mode in which it was applied, and it
regarded the great mass of its fellow-citizens as its mortal
enemies."
As in all the Greek states there was a large class of people not
entitled to the full rights of citizenship, including, among
others, persons reduced to slavery as prisoners of war, and
foreign settlers and their descendants, so there was no such
form of government as that which the moderns understand by a
complete democracy. Of a republic also, in the modern acceptation
of the term--that is, a representative democracy--the Greeks
knew nothing. As an American statesman remarks, "Certain it is
that the greatest philosophers among them would have regarded as
something monstrous a republic spreading over half a continent
and embracing twenty-six states, each of which would have itself
been an empire, and not a commonwealth, in their sense of the
word."[Footnote: Hugh S. Legaré's Writings, vol. i., p.440.]
* * * * *
I. CHANGES FROM ARISTOCRACIES TO OLIGARCHIES.
During several centuries succeeding the period of the supposed
Trojan war, a gradual change occurred in the political history
of the Grecian states, the results of which were an abandonment
of much of the kingly authority that prevailed through the Heroic
Age. At a still later period this change was followed by the
introduction and establishment, at first, of aristocracies, and,
finally, of democratic forms of government; which latter decided
the whole future character of the public life of the Grecians.
The three causes, more prominent than the rest, that are assigned
by most writers for these changes, and the final adoption of
democratic forms, are, first, the more enlarged views occasioned
by the Trojan war, and the dissensions which followed the return
of those engaged in it; second, the great convulsions that attended
the Thessalian, Bœotian, and Dorian migrations; and, third, the
free principles which intercourse and trade with the Grecian
colonies naturally engendered.
But of these causes the third tended, more than any other one,
to change the political condition of the Grecians. Whether the
migrations of the Greek colonists were occasioned, as they
generally were, by conquests that drove so many from their homes
to seek an asylum in foreign lands, or were undertaken, as was
the case in some instances, with the consent and encouragement
of the parent states, there was seldom any feeling of dependence
on the one side, and little or no claim of authority on the other.
This was especially the case with the Ionians, who had scarcely
established themselves in Asia Minor when they shook off the
authority of the princes who conducted them to their new settlements,
and established a form of government more democratic than any
which then existed in Greece.
With the rapid progress of mercantile industry and maritime
discovery, on which the prosperity of the colonies depended, a
spirit of independence grew up, which erelong exerted an influence
on the parent states of Greece, and encouraged the growth of free
principles there. "Freedom," says an eloquent author,[Footnote:
Heeren, "Polities of Ancient Greece," p. 103.] "ripens in colonies.
Ancient usage cannot be preserved, cannot altogether be renewed,
as at home. The former bonds of attachment to the soil, and ancient
customs, are broken by the voyage; the spirit feels itself to be
more free in the new country; new strength is required for the
necessary exertions; and those exertions are animated by success.
When every man lives by the labor of his hands, equality arises,
even if it did not exist before. Each day is fraught with new
experience; the necessity of common defence is more felt in lands
where the new settlers find ancient inhabitants desirous of being
free from them. Need we wonder, then, if the authority of the
founders of the Grecian colonies, even where it had originally
existed, soon gave way to liberty?"
But the changes in the political principles of the Grecian states
were necessarily slow, and were usually attended with domestic
quarrels and convulsions. Monarchy, in most instances, was
abolished by first taking away its title, and substituting that
of archon, or chief magistrate, a term less offensive than that
of king; next, by making the office of chief ruler elective,
first in one family, then in more--first for life, then for a
term of years; and, finally, by dividing the power among several
of the nobility, thus forming an aristocracy or oligarchy. At
the time in Grecian history to which we have come democracy was
as yet unknown; but the principal Grecian states, with the
exception of Sparta, which always retained the kingly form of
government, had abolished royalty and substituted oligarchy. This
change did not better the condition of the people, who, increasing
in numbers and intelligence, while the ruling class declined in
numbers and wealth, became conscious of their resources, and put
forward their claims to a representation in the government.
* * * * *
II. FROM OLIGARCHIES TO DESPOTISMS.
The fall of the oligarchies was not accomplished, however, by
the people. "The commonalty," says THIRLWALL, "even when really
superior in strength, could not all at once shake off the awe
with which it was impressed by years of subjection. It needed a
leader to animate, unite, and direct it; and it was seldom that
one capable of inspiring it with confidence could be found in
its own ranks," Hence this leader was generally found in an
ambitions citizen, perhaps a noble or a member of the oligarchy,
who, by artifice and violence, would make himself the supreme
ruler of the state. Under such circumstances the overthrow of
an oligarchy was not a triumph of the people, but only the
triumph of a then popular leader. To such a one was given the
name of tyrant, but not in the sense that we use the term. HEEREN
says, "The Grecians connected with this word the idea of an
illegitimate, but not necessarily of a cruel, government." As
the word therefore signifies simply the irresponsible rule of a
single person, such person may be more correctly designated by
the term despot, or usurper; although, in point of fact, the
government was frequently of the most cruel and tyrannical
character.
"The merits of this race of rulers," says BULWER, "and the
unconscious benefits they produced, have not been justly
appreciated, either by ancient or modern historians. Without her
tyrants Greece might never have established her democracies. The
wiser and more celebrated tyrants were characterized by an extreme
modesty of deportment: they assumed no extraordinary pomp, no
lofty titles--they left untouched, or rendered yet more popular,
the outward forms and institutions of the government--they were
not exacting in taxation--they affected to link themselves with
the lowest orders and their ascendancy was usually productive of
immediate benefit to the working-classes, whom they employed in
new fortifications or new public buildings--dazzling the citizens
by a splendor that seemed less the ostentation of an individual
than the prosperity of a state. It was against the aristocracy,
not against the people, that they directed their acute sagacities
and unsparing energies. Every politic tyrant was a Louis the
Eleventh, weakening the nobles, creating a middle class. He
effected his former object by violent and unscrupulous means. He
swept away by death or banishment all who opposed his authority
or excited his fears. He thus left nothing between the state and
a democracy but himself; and, himself removed, democracy naturally
and of course ensued."[Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall,"
vol. i., pp. 148, 149.]
From the middle of the seventh century B.C., and during a period
of over one hundred and fifty years, there were few Grecian cities
that escaped a despotic government. While the history of Athens
affords, perhaps, the most striking example of it, the longest
tyranny in Greece was that in the city of Si'çyon, which lasted
a hundred years under Orthag'orus and his sons. Their dynasty was
founded about 676 B.C., and its long duration is ascribed to its
mildness and moderation. The last of this dynasty was Clis'thenes,
whose daughter became the mother of the Athenian Clisthenes, the
founder of democracy at Athens on the expulsion of the Pisistrat'idæ.
The despots of Corinth were more celebrated. Their dynasty endured
seventy-four years, having been founded in the year 655. Under
Perian'der, who succeeded to power in 625, and whose government
was cruel and oppressive, Corinth reached her highest prosperity.
His reign lasted upward of forty years, and soon after his death
the dynasty ended, being overpowered by Sparta.
Across the isthmus from Corinth was the city of Meg'ara, of which,
in 630 B.C., Theag'enes, a bold and ambitious man, made himself
despot. Like many other usurpers of his time, he adorned the
city with splendid and useful buildings. But he was overthrown
after a rule of thirty years, and a violent struggle then ensued
between the oligarchy and the people. At first the latter were
successful; they banished many of the nobles, and confiscated
their property, but the exiles returned, and by force of arms
recovered their power. Still the struggle continued, and it was
not until after many years that an oligarchical government was
firmly established. Much interest is added to these revolutions
in Megara by the writings of THEOG'NIS, a contemporary poet, and
a member of the oligarchical party. "His writings," says THIRLWALL,
"are interesting, not so much for the historical facts contained
in them as for the light they throw on the character and feelings
of the parties which divided his native city and so many others."
In the poems of THEOGNIS "his keen sense of his personal sufferings
is almost absorbed in the vehement grief and indignation with
which he contemplates the state of Megara, the triumph of the
bad [his usual term for the people], and the degradation of the
good [the members of the old aristocracy]." Some of the social
changes which the popular revolution had effected are thus described:
Our commonwealth preserves its former fame:
Our common people are no more the same.
They that in skins and hides were rudely dressed,
Nor dreamed of law, nor sought to be redressed
By rules of right, but in the days of old
Lived on the land like cattle in the fold,
Are now the Brave and Good; and we, the rest,
Are now the Mean and Bad, though once the best.
It appears, also, that some of the aristocracy by birth had so
far forgotten their leading position as to inter-marry with those
who had become possessed of much wealth; and of this condition of
things the poet complains as follows:
But in the daily matches that we make
The price is everything; for money's sake
Men marry--women are in marriage given;
The Bad or Coward, that in wealth has thriven,
May match his offspring with the proudest race:
Thus everything is mixed, noble and base.
The usurpations in Sicyon, Corinth, and Megara furnish illustrations
of what occurred in nearly all of the Grecian states during the
seventh and sixth centuries before the Christian era. Some of
those of a later period will be noticed in a subsequent chapter.