THE INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.
FAILURE OF THE GENTES AS A BASIS OF GOVERNMENT.—LEGISLATION
OF THESEUS.—ATTEMPTED SUBSTITUTION OF CLASSES.—ITS
FAILURE.—ABOLITION OF THE OFFICE OF BASILEUS.—THE
ARCHONSHIP.—NAUCRARIES AND TRYTTYES.—LEGISLATION OF SOLON.—THE
PROPERTY CLASSES.—PARTIAL TRANSFER OF CIVIL POWER FROM THE
GENTES TO THE CLASSES.—PERSONS UNATTACHED TO ANY GENS.—MADE
CITIZENS.—THE SENATE.—THE ECCLESIA.—POLITICAL SOCIETY
PARTIALLY ATTAINED.—LEGISLATION OF CLEISTHENES.—INSTITUTION
OF POLITICAL SOCIETY.—THE ATTIC DEME OR TOWNSHIP.—ITS
ORGANIZATION AND POWERS.—ITS LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT.—THE LOCAL
TRIBE OR DISTRICT.—THE ATTIC COMMONWEALTH.—ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY.
The several Grecian communities passed through a substantially similar
experience in transferring themselves from gentile into political
society; but the mode of transition can be best illustrated from
Athenian history, because the facts with respect to the Athenians are
more fully preserved. A bare outline of the material events will answer
the object in view, as it is not proposed to follow the growth of the
idea of government beyond the inauguration of the new political system.
It is evident that the failure of gentile institutions to meet the now
complicated wants of society originated the movement to withdraw all
civil powers from the gentes, phratries and tribes, and re-invest them
in new constituencies. This movement was gradual, extending through
a long period of time, and was embodied in a series of successive
experiments by means of which a remedy was sought for existing evils.
The coming in of the new system was as gradual as the going out of
the old, the two for a part of the time existing side by side. In
the character and objects of the experiments tried we may discover
wherein the gentile organization had failed to meet the requirements of
society, the necessity for the subversion of the gentes, phratries and
tribes as sources of power, and the means by which it was accomplished.
Looking backward upon the line of human progress, it may be remarked
that the stockaded village was the usual home of the tribe in the
Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle Status joint-tenement houses
of adobe-bricks and of stone, in the nature of fortresses, make their
appearance. But in the Upper Status, cities surrounded with ring
embankments, and finally with walls of dressed stone, appear for the
first time in human experience. It was a great step forward when the
thought found expression in action of surrounding an area ample for
a considerable population with a defensive wall of dressed stone,
with towers, parapets and gates, designed to protect all alike and to
be defended by the common strength. Cities of this grade imply the
existence of a stable and developed field agriculture, the possession
of domestic animals in flocks and herds, of merchandise in masses and
of property in houses and lands. The city brought with it new demands
in the art of government by creating a changed condition of society.
A necessity gradually arose for magistrates and judges, military
and municipal officers of different grades, with a mode of raising
and supporting military levies which would require public revenues.
Municipal life and wants must have greatly augmented the duties and
responsibilities of the council of chiefs, and perhaps have overtaxed
its capacity to govern.
It has been shown that in the Lower Status of barbarism the government
was of one power, the council of chiefs; that in the Middle Status it
was of two powers, the council of chiefs and the military commander;
and that in the Upper Status it was of three powers, the council of
chiefs, the assembly of the people and the military commander. But
after the commencement of civilization, the differentiation of the
powers of the government had proceeded still further. The military
power, first devolved upon the basileus, was now exercised by generals
and captains under greater restrictions. By a further differentiation
the judicial power had now appeared among the Athenians. It was
exercised by the archons and dicasts. Magisterial powers were now
being devolved upon municipal magistrates. Step by step, and with the
progress of experience and advancement, these several powers had been
taken by differentiation from the sum of the powers of the original
council of chiefs, so far as they could be said to have passed from the
people into this council as a representative body.
The creation of these municipal offices was a necessary consequence of
the increasing magnitude and complexity of their affairs. Under the
increased burden gentile institutions were breaking down. Unnumbered
disorders existed, both from the conflict of authority, and from
the abuse of powers not as yet well defined. The brief and masterly
sketch by Thucydides of the condition of the Grecian tribes in the
transitional period,[270] and the concurrent testimony of other writers
to the same effect, leave no doubt that the old system of government
was failing, and that a new one had become essential to further
progress. A wider distribution of the powers of the government, a
clearer definition of them, and a stricter accountability of official
persons were needed for the welfare as well as safety of society; and
more especially the substitution of written laws, enacted by competent
authority, in the place of usages and customs. It was through the
experimental knowledge gained in this and the previous ethnical period
that the idea of political society or a state was gradually forming in
the Grecian mind. It was a growth running through centuries of time,
from the first appearance of a necessity for a change in the plan of
government, before the entire result was realized.
The first attempt among the Athenians to subvert the gentile
organization and establish a new system is ascribed to Theseus, and
therefore rests upon tradition; but certain facts remained to the
historical period which confirm some part at least of his supposed
legislation. It will be sufficient to regard Theseus as representing
a period, or a series of events. From the time of Cecrops to Theseus,
according to Thucydides, 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.
There was one weighty reason for the overthrow of the gentes and the
substitution of a new plan of government. It was probably recognized
by Theseus, and undoubtedly by Solon. From the disturbed condition
of the Grecian tribes and the unavoidable movements of the people in
the traditionary period and in the times prior to Solon, many persons
transferred themselves from one nation to another, and thus lost their
connection with their own gens without acquiring a connection with
another. This would repeat itself from time to time, through personal
adventure, the spirit of trade, and the exigencies of warfare, until a
considerable number with their posterity would be developed in every
tribe unconnected with any gens. All such persons, as before remarked,
would be without the pale of the government with which there could be
no connection excepting through a gens and tribe. The fact is noticed
by Mr. Grote. “The phratries and gentes,” he remarks, “probably never
at any time included the whole population of the country—and the
population not included in them tended to become larger and larger
in the times anterior to Kleisthenes, as well as afterwards.”[274] As
early as the time of Lycurgus there was a considerable immigration
into Greece from the islands of the Mediterranean, and from the Ionian
cities of its eastern coasts, which increased the number of persons
unattached to any gens. When they came in families they would bring a
fragment of a new gens with them; but they would remain aliens unless
the new gens was admitted into a tribe. This probably occurred in a
number of cases, and it may assist in explaining the unusual number of
gentes in Greece. The gentes and phratries were close corporations,
both of which would have been adulterated by the absorption of these
aliens through adoption into a native gens. Persons of distinction
might be adopted into some gens, or secure the admission of their own
gens into some tribe; but the poorer class would be refused either
privilege. There can be no doubt that as far back as the time of
Theseus, and more especially in the time of Solon, the number of the
unattached class, exclusive of the slaves, had become large. Having
neither gens nor phratry they were also without direct religious
privileges, which were inherent and exclusive in these organizations.
It is not difficult to see in this class of persons a growing element
of discontent dangerous to the security of society.
The schemes of Theseus and of Solon made imperfect provision for their
admission to citizenship through the classes; but as the gentes and
phratries remained from which they were excluded, the remedy was still
incomplete. Mr. Grote further remarks, that “it is not easy to make out
distinctly what was the political position of the ancient Gentes and
Phratries, as Solon left them. The four tribes consisted altogether
of gentes and phratries, insomuch that no one could be included in
any one of the tribes who was not also a member of some gens and
phratry. Now the new probouleutic or pre-considering senate consisted
of 400 members,—100 from each of the tribes: persons not included in
any gens and phratry could therefore have had no access to it. The
conditions of eligibility were similar, according to ancient custom,
for the nine archons—of course, also, for the senate of Areopagus. So
that there remained only the public assembly, in which an Athenian,
not a member of these tribes, could take part: yet he was a citizen,
since he could give his vote for archons and senators, and could
take part in the annual decision of their accountability, besides
being entitled to claim redress for wrong from the archons in his own
person—while the alien could only do so through the intervention of an
avouching citizen, or Prostatês. It seems therefore that all persons
not included in the four tribes, whatever their grade or fortune might
be, were on the same level in respect to political privilege as the
fourth and poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been
remarked, that even before the time of Solon, the number of Athenians
not included in the gentes or phratries was probably considerable: it
tended to become greater and greater, since these bodies were close
and unexpansive, while the policy of the new lawgiver tended to invite
industrious settlers from other parts of Greece to Athens.”[275] The
Roman Plebeians originated from causes precisely similar. They were
not members of any gens, and therefore formed no part of the _Populus
Romanus_. We may find in the facts stated one of the reasons of the
failure of the gentile organization to meet the requirements of
society. In the time of Solon, society had outgrown their ability to
govern, its affairs had advanced so far beyond the condition in which
the gentes originated. They furnished a basis too narrow for a state,
up to the measure of which the people had grown.
There was also an increasing difficulty in keeping the members of a
gens, phratry and tribe locally together. As parts of a governmental
organic series, this fact of localization was highly necessary. In the
earlier period, the gens held its lands in common, the phratries held
certain lands in common for religious uses, and the tribe probably held
other lands in common. When they established themselves in country
or city, they settled locally together by gentes, by phratries and
by tribes, as a consequence of their social organization. Each gens
was in the main by itself—not all of its members, for two gentes were
represented in every family, but the body who propagated the gens.
Those gentes belonging to the same phratry naturally sought contiguous
or at least near areas, and the same with the several phratries of
the tribe. But in the time of Solon, lands and houses had come to be
owned by individuals in severalty, with power of alienation as to
lands, but not of houses out of the gens. It doubtless became more
and more impossible to keep the members of a gens locally together,
from the shifting relations of persons to land, and from the creation
of new property by its members in other localities. The unit of their
social system was becoming unstable in place, and also in character.
Without stopping to develop this fact of their condition further, it
must have proved one of the reasons of the failure of the old plan of
government. The township, with its fixed property and its inhabitants
for the time being, yielded that element of permanence now wanting
in the gens. Society had made immense progress from its former
condition of extreme simplicity. It was very different from that which
the gentile organization was instituted to govern. Nothing but the
unsettled condition and incessant warfare of the Athenian tribes, from
their settlement in Attica to the time of Solon, could have preserved
this organization from overthrow. After their establishment in walled
cities, that rapid development of wealth and numbers occurred which
brought the gentes to the final test, and demonstrated their inability
to govern a people now rapidly approaching civilization. But their
displacement even then required a long period of time.
The seriousness of the difficulties to be overcome in creating a
political society are strikingly illustrated in the experience of the
Athenians. In the time of Solon, Athens had already produced able
men; the useful arts had attained a very considerable development;
commerce on the sea had become a national interest; agriculture and
manufactures were well advanced; and written composition in verse had
commenced. They were in fact a civilized people, and had been for two
centuries; but their institutions of government were still gentile,
and of the type prevalent throughout the Later Period of barbarism. A
great impetus had been given to the Athenian commonwealth by the new
system of Solon; nevertheless, nearly a century elapsed, accompanied
with many disorders, before the idea of a state was fully developed in
the Athenian mind. Out of the naucrary, a conception of a township as
the unit of a political system was finally elaborated; but it required
a man of the highest genius, as well as great personal influence, to
seize the idea in its fullness, and give it an organic embodiment. That
man finally appeared in Cleisthenes (509 B. C.), who must be regarded
as the first of Athenian legislators—the founder of the second great
plan of human government, that under which modern civilized nations are
organized.
Cleisthenes went to the bottom of the question, and placed the Athenian
political system upon the foundation on which it remained to the close
of the independent existence of the commonwealth. He divided Attica
into a hundred demes, or townships, each circumscribed by metes and
bounds, and distinguished by a name. Every citizen was required to
register himself, and to cause an enrollment of his property in the
deme in which he resided. This enrollment was the evidence as well
as the foundation of his civil privileges. The deme displaced the
naucrary. Its inhabitants were an organized body politic with powers
of local self-government, like the modern American township. This is
the vital and the remarkable feature of the system. It reveals at once
its democratic character. The government was placed in the hands of
the people in the first of the series of territorial organizations.
The demotæ elected a demarch (δήμαρχος), who had the custody of the
public register; he had also power to convene the demotæ for the
purpose of electing magistrates and judges, for revising the registry
of citizens, and for the enrollment of such as became of age during
the year. They elected a treasurer, and provided for the assessment
and collection of taxes, and for furnishing the quota of troops
required of the deme for the service of the state. They also elected
thirty dicasts or judges, who tried all causes arising in the deme
where the amount involved fell below a certain sum. Besides these
powers of local self-government, which is the essence of a democratic
system, each deme had its own temple and religious worship, and its
own priest, also elected by the demotæ. Omitting minor particulars, we
find the instructive and remarkable fact that the township, as first
instituted, possessed all the powers of local self-government, and
even upon a fuller and larger scale than an American township. Freedom
in religion is also noticeable, which was placed where it rightfully
belongs, under the control of the people. All registered citizens were
free, and equal in their rights and privileges, with the exception
of equal eligibility to the higher offices. Such was the new unit of
organization in Athenian political society, at once a model for a free
state, and a marvel of wisdom and knowledge. The Athenians commenced
with a democratic organization at the point where every people must
commence who desire to create a free state, and place the control of
the government in the hands of its citizens.
The second member of the organic territorial series consisted of ten
demes, united in a larger geographical district. It was called a local
tribe (φῦλον τοπικὸν), to preserve some part of the terminology of
the old gentile system.[276] Each district was named after an Attic
hero, and it was the analogue of the modern county. The demes in each
district were usually contiguous, which should have been true in every
instance to render the analogy complete; but in a few cases one or
more of the ten were detached, probably in consequence of the local
separation of portions of the original consanguine tribe who desired
to have their deme incorporated in the district of their immediate
kinsmen. The inhabitants of each district or county were also a body
politic, with certain powers of local self-government. They elected a
phylarch (φύλαρχος), who commanded the cavalry; a taxiarch (ταξίαρχος),
who commanded the foot-soldiers, and a general (στρατηγός), who
commanded both; and as each district was required to furnish five
triremes, they probably elected as many trierarchs (τριήραρχος) to
command them. Cleisthenes increased the senate to five hundred, and
assigned fifty to each district. They were elected by its inhabitants.
Other functions of this larger body politic doubtless existed, but they
have been imperfectly explained.
The third and last member of the territorial series was the Athenian
commonwealth or state, consisting of ten local tribes or districts.
It was an organized body politic, embracing the aggregate of Athenian
citizens. It was represented by a senate, an ecclesia, the court of
Areopagus, the archons, and judges, and the body of elected military
and naval commanders.
Thus the Athenians founded the second great plan of government upon
territory and upon property. They substituted a series of territorial
aggregates in the place of an ascending series of aggregates of
persons. As a plan of government it rested upon territory which was
necessarily permanent, and upon property which was more or less
localized; and it dealt with its citizens, now localized in demes
through their territorial relations. To be a citizen of the state it
was necessary to be a citizen of a deme. The person voted and was taxed
in his deme, and he was called into the military service from his deme.
In like manner he was called by election into the senate, and to the
command of a division of the army or navy from the larger district of
his local tribe. His relations to a gens or phratry ceased to govern
his duties as a citizen. The contrast between the two systems is as
marked as their difference was fundamental. A coalescence of the people
into bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.
The territorial series enters into the plan of government of modern
civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we have the township,
the county, the state, and the United States; the inhabitants of
each of which are an organized body politic with powers of local
self-government. Each organization is in full vitality and performs
its functions within a definite sphere in which it is supreme.
France has a similar series in the commune, the arrondissement, the
department, and the empire, now the republic. In Great Britain the
series is the parish, the shire, the kingdom, and the three kingdoms.
In the Saxon period the hundred seems to have been the analogue
of the township;[277] but already emasculated of the powers of
local self-government, with the exception of the hundred court. The
inhabitants of these several areas were organized as bodies politic,
but those below the highest with very limited powers. The tendency
to centralization under monarchical institutions has atrophied,
practically, all the lower organizations.
As a consequence of the legislation of Cleisthenes, the gentes,
phratries and tribes were divested of their influence, because their
powers were taken from them and vested in the deme, the local tribe and
the state, which became from thenceforth the sources of all political
power. They were not dissolved, however, even after this overthrow,
but remained for centuries as a pedigree and lineage, and as fountains
of religious life. In certain orations of Demosthenes, where the cases
involved personal or property rights, descents or rights of sepulture,
both the gens and phratry appear as living organizations in his
time.[278] They were left undisturbed by the new system so far as their
connection with religious rites, with certain criminal proceedings,
and with certain social practices were concerned, which arrested their
total dissolution. The classes, however, both those instituted by
Theseus and those afterwards created by Solon, disappeared after the
time of Cleisthenes.[279]
Solon is usually regarded as the founder of Athenian democracy, while
some writers attribute a portion of the work to Cleisthenes and
Theseus. We shall draw nearer the truth of the matter by regarding
Theseus, Solon and Cleisthenes as standing connected with three
great movements of the Athenian people, not to found a democracy,
for Athenian democracy was older than either, but to change the plan
of government from a gentile into a political organization. Neither
sought to change the existing principles of democracy which had been
inherited from the gentes. They contributed in their respective times
to the great movement for the formation of a state, which required
the substitution of a political in the place of gentile society. The
invention of a township, and the organization of its inhabitants as a
body politic, was the main feature in the problem. It may seem to us a
simple matter; but it taxed the capacities of the Athenians to their
lowest depths before the idea of a township found expression in its
actual creation. It was an inspiration of the genius of Cleisthenes;
and it stands as the master work of a master mind. In the new political
society they realized that complete democracy which already existed
in every essential principle, but which required a change in the plan
of government to give it a more ample field and a fuller expression.
It is precisely here, as it seems to the writer, that we have been
misled by the erroneous assumption of the great historian, Mr.
Grote, whose general views of Grecian institutions are so sound and
perspicuous, namely, that the early governments of the Grecian tribes
were _essentially monarchical_.[280] On this assumption it requires a
revolution of institutions to explain the existence of that Athenian
democracy under which the great mental achievements of the Athenians
were made. No such revolution occurred, and no radical change of
institutions was ever effected, for the reason that they were and
always had been _essentially democratical_. Usurpations not unlikely
occurred, followed by controversies for the restoration of the previous
order; but they never lost their liberties, or those ideas of freedom
and of the right of self-government which had been their inheritance in
all ages.
Recurring for a moment to the basileus, the office tended to make the
man more conspicuous than any other in their affairs. He was the first
person to catch the mental eye of the historian by whom he has been
metamorphosed into a king, notwithstanding he was made to reign, and
by divine right, over a rude democracy. As a general in a military
democracy, the basileus becomes intelligible, and without violating the
institutions that actually existed. The introduction of this office
did not change the principles of the gentes, phratries and tribes,
which in their organization were essentially democratical, and which of
necessity impressed that character on their gentile system. Evidence
is not wanting that the popular element was constantly active to
resist encroachments on personal rights. The basileus belongs to the
traditionary period, when the powers of government were more or less
undefined; but the council of chiefs existed in the centre of the
system, and also the gentes, phratries and tribes in full vitality.
These are sufficient to determine the character of the government.[281]
The government as reconstituted by Cleisthenes contrasted strongly
with that previous to the time of Solon. But the transition was not
only natural but inevitable if the people followed their ideas to
their logical results. It was a change of plan, but not of principles
nor even of instrumentalities. The council of chiefs remained in
the senate, the agora in the ecclesia; the three highest archons
were respectively ministers of state, of religion, and of justice as
before, while the six inferior archons exercised judicial functions in
connection with the courts, and the large body of dicasts now elected
annually for judicial service. No executive officer existed under
the system, which is one of its striking peculiarities. The nearest
approach to it was the president of the senate, who was elected by
lot for a single day, without the possibility of a re-election during
the year. For a single day he presided over the popular assembly,
and held the keys of the citadel and of the treasury. Under the new
government the popular assembly held the substance of power, and guided
the destiny of Athens. The new element which gave stability and order
to the state was the deme or township, with its complete autonomy,
and local self-government. A hundred demes similarly organized would
determine the general movement of the commonwealth. As the unit, so
the compound. It is here that the people, as before remarked, must
begin if they would learn the art of self-government, and maintain
equal laws, and equal rights and privileges. They must retain in their
hands all the powers of society not necessary to the state to insure
an efficient general administration, as well as the control of the
administration itself.
Athens rose rapidly into influence and distinction under the
new political system. That remarkable development of genius and
intelligence, which raised the Athenians to the highest eminence among
the historical nations of mankind, occurred under the inspiration of
democratic institutions.
With the institution of political society under Cleisthenes, the
gentile organization was laid aside as a portion of the rags of
barbarism. Their ancestors had lived for untold centuries in gentilism,
with which they had achieved all the elements of civilization,
including a written language, as well as entered upon a civilized
career. The history of the gentile organization will remain as a
perpetual monument of the anterior ages, identified as it has been with
the most remarkable and extended experience of mankind. It must ever be
ranked as one of the most remarkable institutions of the human family.
In this brief and inadequate review the discussion has been confined
to the main course of events in Athenian history. Whatever was true of
the Athenian tribes will be found substantially true of the remaining
Grecian tribes, though not exhibited on so broad or so grand a scale.
The discussion tends to render still more apparent one of the main
propositions advanced—that the idea of government in all the tribes of
mankind has been a growth through successive stages of development.