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The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]
- Автор: Gutenberg
- Год: 1905
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: История
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The immediate effect produced by the fall of the tyrants depended on the hands by which it was accomplished. Where it was the work of Sparta, she would aim at introducing a constitution most in conformity to her own. But the example of Athens will show, that she was sometimes instrumental in promoting the triumph of principles more adverse to her views than those of the tyranny itself. When, however, the struggle which had been interrupted by the temporary usurpation was revived, the parties were no longer in exactly the same posture as at its outset. In general the commonalty was found to have gained, in strength and spirit, even more than the oligarchy had lost; and the prevalent leaning of the ensuing period was on the side of democracy. Indeed the decisive step was that by which the oligarchy of wealth was substituted for the oligarchy of birth. This opened the door for all the subsequent innovations, by which the scale of the timocracy was gradually lowered, until it was wholly abolished.
DEMOCRACIES
The term “democracy” is used by Aristotle sometimes in a larger sense, so as to include several forms of government, which, notwithstanding their common character, were distinguished from each other by peculiar features; at other times in a narrower, to denote a form essentially vicious, which stands in the same relation to the happy temperament to which he gives the name of polity, as oligarchy to aristocracy, or tyranny to royalty. We shall not confine ourselves to the technical language of his system, but will endeavour to define the notion of democracy, as the word was commonly understood by the Greeks, so as to separate the essence of the thing from the various accidents which have sometimes been confounded with it by writers who have treated Greek history as a vehicle for conveying their views on questions of modern politics, which never arose in the Greek republics.
It must not be forgotten, that the body to which the terms oligarchy and democracy refer formed a comparatively small part of the population in most Greek states, since it did not include either slaves or resident free foreigners. The sovereign power resided wholly in the native freemen; and whether it was exercised by a part or by all of them, was the question which determined the nature of the government. When the barrier had been thrown down, by which all political rights were made the inheritance of certain families,—since every freeman, even when actually excluded from them by the want of sufficient property, was by law capable of acquiring them,—democracy might be said to have begun. It was advancing, as the legal condition of their enjoyment was brought within the reach of a more numerous class; but it could not be considered as complete, so long as any freeman was debarred from them by poverty. Since, however, the sovereignty included several attributes which might be separated, the character of the constitution depended on the way in which these were distributed. It was considered as partaking more of democracy than of oligarchy, when the most important of them were shared by all freemen without distinction, though a part was still appropriated to a number limited either by birth or fortune. Thus where the legislative, or, as it was anciently termed, the deliberative, branch of the sovereignty was lodged in an assembly open to every freeman, and where no other qualification than free birth was required for judicial functions, and for the election of magistrates, there the government was called democratical, though the highest offices of the state might be reserved to a privileged class. But a finished democracy, that which fully satisfied the Greek notion, was one in which every attribute of sovereignty might be shared, without respect to rank or property, by every freeman.
More than this was not implied in democracy; and little less than this was required, according to the views of the philosophers, to constitute the character of a citizen, which, in the opinion of Aristotle, could not exist without a voice in the legislative assembly, and such a share in the administration of justice as was necessary to secure the responsibility of the magistrates. But this equality of rights left room for a great diversity in the modes of exercising them, which determined the real nature of a democratical constitution. There were, indeed, certain rights, those which Aristotle considers as essential to a citizen, which, according to the received Greek notions, could, in a democracy, only be exercised in person. The thought of delegating them to accountable representatives seems never to have occurred either to practical or speculative statesmen, except in the formation of confederacies, which rendered such an expedient necessary.
But the principle of legal equality, which was the basis of democracy, was gradually construed in a manner which inverted the wholesome order of nature, and led to a long train of pernicious consequences. The administration of the commonwealth came to be regarded, not as a service, in which all were interested, but for which some might be qualified better than others, but as a property, in which each was entitled to an equal share. The practical application of this view was the introduction of an expedient for levelling, as far as possible, the inequality of nature, by enabling the poorest to devote his time, without loss, or even with profit, to public affairs. This was done by giving him wages for his attendance on all occasions of exercising his franchise; and, as the sum which could be afforded for this purpose was necessarily small, it attracted precisely the persons whose presence was least desirable.
A further application of the same principle was, as much as possible, to increase the number, and abridge the duration and authority of public offices, and to transfer their power to the people in a mass. On the same ground, chance was substituted for election in the creation of all magistrates, whose duties did not actually demand either the security of a large fortune or peculiar abilities and experience. In proportion as the popular assembly, or large portions detached from it for the exercise of judicial functions, drew all the branches of the sovereignty more and more into their sphere, the character of their proceedings became more and more subject to the influence of the lower class of the citizens, which constituted a permanent majority. And thus the democracy, instead of the equality which was its supposed basis, in fact established the ascendancy of a faction, which, although greatly preponderant in numbers, no more represented the whole state than the oligarchy itself; and which, though not equally liable to fall into the mechanism of a vicious system, was more prone to yield to the impulse of the moment, more easily misled by blind or treacherous guides, and might thus, as frequently, though not so deliberately and methodically, trample, not only on law and custom, but on justice and humanity. This disease of a democracy was sometimes designated by the term “ochlocracy,” or the dominion of the rabble.
A democracy thus corrupted 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 regarded the great mass of its fellow-citizens as its mortal enemies.b
FOOTNOTES
[13] The Pythia had once been a maiden, chosen in the flower of youth; but this practice having been attended with inconvenient consequences, women were appointed who had passed the age of fifty, but still wore the dress of virgins. Diodorus, xvi, 26.
Ruins of the Temple of Apollo Epicurius, Arcadia
CHAPTER X. THE SMALLER CITIES AND STATES
Aristotle’s survey of the Greek forms of government was founded on a vast store of information which he had collected on the history and constitution of more than a hundred and fifty states, in the mother country and the colonies, and which he had consigned to a great work now unfortunately lost. Our knowledge of the internal conditions and vicissitudes of almost all these states is very scanty and fragmentary: but some of the main facts concerning them, which have been saved from oblivion, will serve to throw light on several parts of the ensuing history.