Modern European civilization owes many of its achievements to ancient Greece. After all, it was there that the theater, pedagogy, philosophy, sport, and, of course, democracy first appeared. The main center of all the advanced in the world in the ancient period of history was the capital of modern Greece. Therefore, the emergence of democracy in Athens had a particularly great influence on the further development of mankind.
Background
As you know, in ancient Greece, policies prevailed - city-states, of which the largest were Sparta and Athens. There did not exist two sharply divided groups of residents - winners and losers, since there were no enslaved, and these state entities were formed through peaceful mergers with some weaker neighbors. Despite this, there was a division according to class, which could not but cause indignation among the impoverished strata of the population. Over time, the contradictions between the aristocracy and demos became more apparent. A revolution was brewing, which could only be prevented by a radical revision of the existing state system.
Who was Solon
To reconcile all the contradictions, one of the representatives of the noble family of Codrides, who had previously been royal. His name was Solon, and subsequently he went down in history as one of the seven sages of ancient Greece. Before entering politics, he was known to the Athenians as an excellent poet and thinker, and then became famous as a successful military leader. In the 594th year BC. e., about the age of 34-35 years, Solon was elected an archon-eponym, i.e., the main of 9 collective rulers, and assigned him extraordinary powers. As it turned out, the sage Solon had long been preparing for transformations in his native policy, and he immediately embarked on reforms. After several decades, Klisfen continued his work, and it was the transformations of these politicians that determined the course of development of human society for millennia ahead.
Reforms of Solon
It is believed that the emergence of democracy in Athens began long before Solon. However, it was he who created the laws on which she began to rely. The first thing he announced was a sisakhphia, canceling all debts, mortgaged land was returned to the owners, and it was forbidden to take loans secured by people. In addition, at the expense of the Athenian treasury, residents of the policy sold to a foreign land were bought and returned to their homeland. Solon also set the maximum rate of land tenure, that is, not a single citizen could buy land in excess of the prescribed area and become a super-large landowner.
Authorities
The highest state bodies in Athens during the reign of Solon were the Areopagus, National Assembly and Bule. The latter was a completely new body and consisted of four hundred people. By the way, many researchers believe that it was his appearance that meant the birth of democracy in Athens. All laws and issues that were then considered in the People’s Assembly were preliminarily discussed in the bul. Although Ecclesia existed in Athens and other Greek policies earlier, under Solon it became a truly active body, and it was convened much more often. Moreover, the archon issued a decree according to which, during the period of civil strife, every free man who reached adulthood was obliged to take an active position in society, otherwise he would be deprived of civil rights.
The Birth of Democracy in Athens (World History): Clisfen's Reforms
The final formation of the political system of Athens, based on the free will of the people, occurred at the end of the 6th century BC. e. The author of the new reforms was Klisfen, who was elected archon, with the same powers that Solon had once been given.
He divided the territory of Attica into 3 districts: Athens itself, the coastal strip and the plain territory. Each of them, in turn, was divided into 10 trittias. In addition to the territorial, Klisfen also carried out electoral reform. According to the new laws, 10 fil were formed, which included citizens of three trittias, one from each district. The Fils nominated 50 people each to participate in the 500 Council. Thus, Klisfen, as contemporaries wrote, “mixed up” the Athenians. This meant that now they elected authorities no longer on a territorial or tribal basis, but based on personal preferences.
Ecclesia at Clisfen
All important decisions in Athens during this period were taken by the collectively updated ecclesia, which exercises legislative, judicial and executive powers. The main issues to be resolved during such general public meetings were:
- election of officials;
- a decision to amend existing laws and adopt new ones;
- ostracism regarding individual citizens;
- decision on the most important national issues relating to war and peace, the conclusion of allied treaties, the expenditure of state money, etc.
An interesting detail: before each “meeting” of the People’s Assembly, the presiding judge had to put up posters around the city reporting on issues that should have been considered. In addition, in order to ensure the impartiality of the Council of 500, each fila carried out its activities for only 1 month of the year.
Heliea
The emergence of democracy in Athens was also marked by the emergence of a new type of judicial procedure, which also became collective. The case was decided by the so-called Heliea - a jury trial, which consisted of 6,000 people. In parallel, the Areopagus existed - the court of elders, consisting of aristocrats, which with the advent of democratic bodies began to lose its influence and significance.
Ostracism
The origin and development of democracy in Athens made possible the appearance of a completely new phenomenon in the history of mankind. They became ostracism. Once a year, ecclesia was supposed to answer such an important question: "Is there not a person among citizens who is able to seize power and become a tyrant?" If the National Assembly considered that such a person exists, then another meeting was appointed to conduct a peculiar voting procedure on clay shards. If a person who was potentially “dangerous” for democracy received a majority of votes against himself, he was expelled from the policy.
Now you know how the birth of democracy took place in Athens (the reforms of Solon and Klisfen) and you can compare it with a modern analogue.