Greece: Early Human History

Part II: The Rise of Inequality as Humans Move to Greece

For over a million years homo sapiens and proto-humans lived in band societies, hunter-gatherer or foraging societies, which were quite small, usually between 20 and 50 individuals. These were egalitarian societies where everyone was guaranteed food, clothing and shelter. Sharing was the norm. There is little evidence that they were in conflict with other similar human groups.

There was a social division of labour, with males, usually the larger and stronger of the sexes, assuming the role of hunters and women gathering plants and small animals. This was a practical division of labour as women nursed children for a number of years. Plant food, gathered by women, provided perhaps 80% of the food consumed.

Given how long this lasted, one could argue that this social organization would seem to be the natural human social, economic and political system: an egalitarian, sharing society, based on the principle of social equality, the moral right of all to live a life as a valued member of their community.

In many areas around the world these communities moved to “horticultural societies” often employing slash-and-burn or swidden agriculture. These remained egalitarian, small societies with shifting residences.

The Development of Inequality 

              

Library at Ephesus, Ionia

                       

The evolution to a society based on hierarchy, inequality and war first developed in Mesopotamia, the fertile crescent between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the near East, beginning around 11,500 years ago. As population increased, hunting wild animals could no longer provide adequate food. Humans (mainly women) began to collect wild seeds, and through careful plant breeding developed wheat, barley and legumes. Humans (mainly men) also began to domesticate animals: first dog and then pig, boar, and turkey, ca 10,000 years ago. Sheep, goats and cattle followed. Horses were domesticated around 6,000 years ago, as well as the donkey and the camel.

Agriculture was enhanced as these river societies developed canals and irrigation.The introduction of oxen, the plow and the wheel, is first seen in Sumer around 3500 B.C.

The neolithic revolution, the introduction of plow agriculture with oxen, resulted in a significant increase in food and population. This permitted the development of private household stores of food, followed by private ownership of land and the division of society on the basis of social class. A bureaucratic state was created around the control of irrigation. Farming done by slaves was introduced.The dominant class of land owners also extracted rent from small farmers, using various forms of share cropping.

Mesopotamia is also known for the development of the city, the state, and the first imperial wars. It is here that we find the development of organized religion as a state function designed to help control the lower classes. The priestly class was at the top of the social pyramid and lived in temples supported by taxes imposed on society. Myths were created claiming that there was life after death. It was claimed that the priests could decide who would survive in the after world.

Homo Sapiens move from the fertile crescent to Greece    

   

Erecthion of the Ionian League

 

New archeological evidence suggests that human beings began to move from Africa into Europe as early as 200,000 years ago. It is well established that around 35,000 years ago, during the Mesolithic era, peoples from the middle east migrated through Asia Minor to the Balkans, a region which was only mildly impacted by the last ice age.

Migration with farming and domestication of animals also moved north by hopping from Crete to the other islands of the Agean Sea and along the coast of Asia Minor to the Black Sea, Thrace and then Macedonia. Farming developed in mainland Greece between 7,000 and 6500 BC. The Bronze Age for Greece covers the civilizations for Crete, the Cyclades and the mainland between 3600 BC and 2000 BC. Ruins include palaces, large villas, houses, fortifications, temples, shrines, roads and bridges. Crafts included furniture, vessels, carvings, metal work, metal weapons, tools and jewelry. There are some clay tablets from Crete.

Mycenaean Greece and the development of classic, hierarchical civilization

The last period of the Bronze Age covers Greece between 1600 and 1100 BC. Agriculture was based on large estates, a landed aristocracy, with work performed by slaves and serfs. Small farmers also had to pay state taxes.

The political structure was centred around a hereditary king who was the head of the religious order, in direct charge of state administration, and the active head of the military order. He was assisted by an elite group of administrators. The king also controlled many businesses and much of the lucrative trade.

The Mycenaean era began to collapse around 1200 BC. This has been attributed to the invasion from the north by the Dorions, the rise of the Sea Peoples from the south, as well as radical changes in the climate.

The Dark Ages: Greece between 1100 and 800 BC          

With the collapse of the Mycenaen civilization, kingdoms and formal aristocracies disappeared, but farming continued with a new social structure. People lived in small communities surrounded by farmland that was distributed on a family basis. However, the political system was dominated by a group of large landowners, who constituted  a powerful political oligarchy.

There were a number of major developments during this period. Most important was a shift of a significant population from the Greek mainland to the Agean coast of Asia Minor. They occupied the many islands and then the coastal regions. These Greeks merged with the local Asiatics. This area of Greece became known as Ionia.

Iron and steel were invented. The Greek alphabet was created, which facilitated the spread of literacy. There was the beginning of science, which challenged the ideological dominant religions, and the beginning of materialist philosophy. Hippocrates and others introduced scientific medicine, which also challenged the established religious order.

In Ionia there was the development of the city-state and the creation of a new system of laws, not based on religious dogma but utilitarian community needs. A dozen of the most prosperous towns formed a political confederation. In addition these Ionian population centres created many colonies from the Black Sea to Italy and Spain.

A New Political Culture Emerges         

The era of the monarchy and a formal landed aristocracy ends by 700 BC. Communities were based on small subsistence farms, but political rule was by an oligarchy of large land owners. Most of the smaller farms were tenant farms dependent on borrowing from the large farmers. The norm was for the tenant farmers to surrender 1/6 of the farm’s product to the landlord. If they could not pay the rent, they surrendered their land. Farmers and their families could be sold as slaves.

There was also a “middle class” of independent farmers who owned their own land. With the development of iron and steel weapons, this class formed the basis of a new armed force. They became known as the hoplites, after the military infantry formation used very successfully in warfare. The dominant oligarchs commanded horses and chariots. There was a popular assembly at this time, but it had no power. Money was introduced around 700 BC, which allowed farmers, merchants and artisans to accumulate wealth outside land.

 Formal political rule was  vested in  the Council of Areopagos. The landed oligarchs  appointed the arkhons who comprised this institution and who served for life. Originally there were three arkons; six were added in the 7th century. They ruled with unchallenged authority. 

Bibliography:

Aristotle. 2000. Politics. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Mineola, N. Y. : Dover Publications.

Casey, Christopher. 2017. Democracy in Classical Greece. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

Dillon, Mathew and Lynda Garland. 2013. The Ancient Greeks. New York: Routledge.

Flannery, Kent and Joyce Marcus. 2012. The Creation of Inequality. Boston: Harvard University Press. 

 

Geer, Russel M., ed. 1964. Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines and Vatican Sayings. New York: Bobbs-Merrill Press.

Gouldner, Alvin. 1969. The Hellenic World: A Sociological Analysis. N. Y.: Harper & Row.

Hanson, Victor D. 1999. The Other Greeks. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Inwood, Brad. 1994. The Epicurus Reader. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing.

Johnson, Allen W. and Timothy K. Earle. 2000. The Evolution of Human Societies. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Littman, Robert J. 1974. The Greek Experiment. London: Thames and Hudson.

Milanovic, Branko et al. 2011. “Pre-Industrial Inequality.” Economic Journal, Vol. 121, pp. 255 – 272.

Raaflaub, Kurt A. et al. 2007. Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de. 1981. Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell  

University Press.

Sinclair, R. K. 1988. Democracy and Participation in Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

 

Sterling, Richard W. 1974. Plato’s Republic. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing.

Thorley. John 2004. Athenian Democracy. New York: Routledge.

Wood, Ellen M. 1989. Peasant – Citizen & Slave: The Foundations of Athenian Democracy. London: Verso.

 

What Happened to Democracy?

Part I : Modern Democracy Began in Classic Greece

* In 2003 around the world millions march in opposition to a war against Iraq. Public opinion polls show majorities everywhere oppose a war. But the US government and its allies launch a war anyway.

* Citizens in Regina who question whether the city government should use tax money to build a new football stadium ask for a public referendum. The city says no. “They may do this in the USA, but this is Canada!”

* A major public opinion poll in 2006 finds that 65% of Canadians see climate change as the most important political issue. Yet the federal government takes only limited action and then endorses new pipelines to export Alberta Tar Sands bitumen.

* A public opinion poll sponsored by the Toronto Star finds that 94% of Canadians think governments should take actions against corporations and individuals who use offshore tax shelters to avoid paying taxes. But nothing happens.

* Polls show a majority of Canadians are concerned about the steady growth of income and wealth inequality and the capture of new wealth and income by the richest 10%. Yet no government in Canada is willing to take action to begin to redress the problem.

* A Nanos poll finds that 64% of Canadians do not want the government to provide military equipment to Saudi Arabia. The Trudeau government keeps selling weapons to its political ally, the feudal government, as it steps up its war to kill all the Shia Muslims in  Yemen.

What is going on?

The Pynx where the Athenian Assembly met

We live in a country which supposedly is a democracy. Yet the majority of citizens regularly find that they have no influence on government policy. But isn’t democracy supposed to be a political system where the majority of the citizens determine policy? Why is this happening?

I think that if we asked people to define democracy they would most likely say that a country has a democratic form of government if it has regularly scheduled elections and the majority of voters have the power to change who runs the government. Many Canadians would likely add that a democracy should also have a constitution which guarantees liberal, civil and human rights. No government should have unlimited power over its citizens.

Canada, the United States and many other countries had a liberal form of government well before they had a democracy, where all citizens had the right to vote and hold political office. Slaves were not citizens Nor were women. Indigenous Canadians, Canada’s first peoples, did not get citizenship rights until 1956. Non-white immigrants from Asia were denied full citizenship rights for many years.

We should remember: in both Canada and the United States men were denied the right to vote and hold office unless they held a required amount of real property. The Founding Fathers in both countries, who drafted the constitutions, were very clear on this key issue: they were creating a liberal government and not a democracy. There would be no universal suffrage! The role of government was to protect the rights of property owners. As the  famous liberal,  John Locke argued, the government should be run by men with property.

Greek Democracy Fifth Century BC

The Origin of Democracy

It is widely recognized that democracy, as a modern system of government, had its origin in classic Greece. The peak period of this success was in Athens in the fifth century BC. As we know from the writings of Aristotle and the research done by him and his students at the Lyceum, there were many city states in Greece and its colonies that had some form of democracy. At the same time there were no other human communities in the world which had a modern political system which could be called a democracy. And of all examples of Greek democracy, Athens was the best.

It should be noted that at this time the political system of Greek communities was nothing like our current system of territorial states. There were many Greek city states, but no territorial states as we know them today. The city states typically included an urban centre, a surrounding rural area of farmland and local towns, as well as colonies, which stretched from Sicily across the Agean Sea to Persia and the Black Sea. Athens and the other similar political formations had not yet developed a bureaucratic state structure with a professional army, police, a penal system and a civil service. Those  urban formations were found in Mesopotamia, societies with kings and landed aristocracies.

The Greeks gave us the very term “democracy”--demos, the people, and kratein, to rule. Aristotle defined democracy as “the rule of the poor.” He wrote in Politics that extreme democracy, which he defined as the rule of the poor for the poor was “bad government.” “It would be unreasonable,” he wrote, “to give the highest offices to the Many.” Both Aristotle and his teacher Plato declared democracy to be “the worst form of government.” 

NOTE: This is the first part of a longer paper looking at the origin of democracy as a political system and why it is not found today among our political states. The rest of the paper will appear on this blog site over the next few weeks.