Political Regimes of Antiquity: Ancient theory and Modern Approaches

(Ancient Greece) 

Valerij Gouschin (Higher School of Economics – Perm)

Generalities

Aristotle Politics

Good forms Bad forms

Kingship Tyranny

Aristocracy Oligarchy

Polity Democracy

Aristotle Ethica Nicomachaea

Good Bad

Kingship Tyranny

Aristocracy Oligarchy

Timocracy (or Polity) Democracy

Transitions

Politics

kingship – polity – oligarchy – tyranny – democracy (aristocracy - ?)

Ethica Nicomachaea

From Good to Bad

Kingship – Tyranny(a)Kingship

Four forms of Kingship: (1)Heroic basilea (or monarchia basilikos) (2) Barbarian Kingship (3) Aesymnetia (monarchia, not basilea) (4) Spartan Kingship (strategia for life)

Modern approaches: (a) basilea was not Kingdom (Ju.V.Andreev) (b) basilea did not really exist (R.Drews) (c) aesymnetia was a (elective) tyranny

Kingship – Tyranny(b) Tyranny

Four forms of Tyranny: (1) from demagogy to tyranny (Herodotus. III.82 – prostas

tis tou demou; Plato on democratic roots of tyranny) (2) from kingship to tyranny (3) misconduct of the officials (4) aesymnetia

Modern approaches: (a) what is (Archaic) Tyranny? (an affective noun is not

correct characteristic - H.Berve) (b) aesymnetia as a main form of Archaic Tyranny (Aristotle) (c) who were the tyrants – selfish politicians or the leaders

of the common people

Aristocracy – Oligarchy(a) Aristocracy

Generality: (a) “An aristocracy … is rightly called so; for a state governed by the

best men, upon the most virtuous principles, and not upon any hypothesis, which even good men may propose, has alone a right to be called an aristocracy, for it is there only that a man is at once a good man and a good citizen..» (Politics, 1293 b1 ff, here and further transl. W.Ellis).

(b)Aristocracy in Politics is based upon moral superiority not upon birth, i.e. belonging to dominant families, gene or to noble order (eupatridai).

Modern approach: (a) S.D.Lambert: “For the Greeks (e.g. Aristotle in the Politics),

‘aristocracy’ was the rule of ‘the best’, conceived in terms both of merit and of birth(?- V.G.)

Lambert S.D. (forthcoming) Aristocracy and the Attic GENOS: A Mythological Perspective // Aristocracy, Elites and Social Mobility in Ancient Society / N.Fisher, H. van Wees (eds.). Swansea.

(b) aristocracy as an ‘ideal type’ (as in M.Weber)?

Aristocracy – Oligarchy(b) Oligarchy

  Generality: (a) Between Aristocracy and Oligarchy lie Timocracy (Plato) (b) Four forms of Oligarchy in Politics are based upon

property evaluation (1292 a39-b10, cf. :Plato Rep. 551).

Modern approaches: (a) Oligarchy tended to became an antonym of the

Democracy (M.Ostwald) (on Oligarchy 411 in Athens - P.J.Rodes’ master-class)

(b) Noticeable difference between Archaic (before Solon) and Classical Oligarchy

Polity – Democracy(a) Polity

Generalities:

(a)“There is also a fifth (form of government – V.G.), which bears a name that is also common to the other four, namely, a state: but as this is seldom to be met with, it has escaped those who have endeavoured to enumerate the different sorts of governments…” (1293 a40 ff.)

(b) Polity is a mixture of Democracy and Oligarchy; (c) Polity is based upon middle class.

Approach: Polity is mostly a speculative form of government.

Polity – Democracy(b) Democracy

Generalities (1) Five (or four) forms of Democracy: “Of forms of democracy first comes that which is said to be based strictly on equality. In

such a democracy the law says that it is just for the poor to have no more advantage than the rich; and that neither should be masters, but both equal. For if liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. And since the people are the majority, and the opinion of the majority is decisive, such a government must necessarily be a democracy. Here then is one sort of democracy. There is another, in which the magistrates are elected according to a certain property qualification, but a low one; he who has the required amount of property has a share in the government, but he who loses his property loses his rights. Another kind is that in which all the citizens who are under no disqualification share in the government, but still the law is supreme. In another, everybody, if he be only a citizen, is admitted to the government, but the law is supreme as before. A fifth form of democracy, in other respects the same, is that in which, not the law, but the multitude, have the supreme power, and supersede the law by their decrees. This is a state of affairs brought about by the demagogues….

For the people becomes a monarch, and is many in one; and the many have the power in their hands, not as individuals, but collectively...

At all events this sort of democracy, which is now a monarch, and no longer under the control of law, seeks to exercise monarchical sway, and grows into a despot; the flatterer is held in honor; this sort of democracy being relatively to other democracies what tyranny is to other forms of monarchy” (Politics, 1291 b31-1292 a12, 15-24)

Polity – Democracy(b) Democracy (continuation)

(2)The radical sort of democracy tended to give a citizen rights to the multitude and to institute many tribes as Cleisthenes in Athens did (1319 b1-12).

(3) Negative characteristic of democracy (Plato, Aristotle, Old Oligarch)

Modern approaches: (a) Democracy 2500 (1993-1994) (b) Democracy beyond Athens (E.Robinson) and before V-th

Century B.C. (I.Morris, K.Raaflaub) (c) Full account in P.J.Rhodes lecture

Short bibliography Андреев Ю.В. (1976) Гомеровский полис. Л. Develin R. (1989) Athenian Officials. 684-321 B.C. Cambridge. Drews R. (1983) Basileus. The Evidence for Kingship in Geometric Greece. New Haven and

London, 1983. Lambert S.D. (forthcoming) Aristocracy and the Attic GENOS: A Mythological Perspective //

Aristocracy, Elites and Social Mobility in Ancient Society / N.Fisher, H. van Wees (eds.). Swansea.

Morris I. (1996) The Strong Principle of Equality and the Archaic Origins of Greek Democracy // Dēmokratia: a conversation on democracies, ancient and modern / J.Ober, C.W.Hedrick (edd.). Princeton. Р.19-48.

Ostwald M. (2000) Oligarchia. The Development of a Constitutional Form in Ancient Greece. Stuttgart.

Raaflaub K.A., Wallace R.W. (2007) “People’s Power” and Egalitarian Trends in Archaic Greece // Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece / K.A.Raaflaub, J.Ober, R.W.Wallace (edd.). Berkeley. Р.22-48.

Rhodes P.J.(2000) Oligarchs in Athens // Alternatives to Athens. Varieties of Political Organization and Community in Ancient Greece / R.Brock and S.Hodkinson (eds). Oxford. P. 119-136.

Rhodes P.J. (2003) Ancient Democracy and Modern Ideology. London. Robinson E.W. (1997) The First Democracies. Early Popular Government Outside Athens.

Historia Einzelschriften. Bd. 107. Stuttgart. Sealey R. (1987) The Athenian Republic. Democracy or the Rule of Law? University Park &

London.