I have this [uninformed/idealistic] view that Ancient Greece was generally a very peaceful place, where people discussed ideas and freedom of thought was paramount. I'm aware that there was of course still war within and around Greece, per the likes of Homer's Iliad, but it punctuated an otherwise highly enlightened society. (Beyond external influences, my reasoning is based on asking, "How could things like democracy, philosophy, mathematics, etc. flourish in an unstable environment?")
Moreover, I also have the view that afterwards -- whatever that may mean -- things kind of went to pot! The Romans were obviously great engineers, etc. but my impression of them is more that they were the start of Europe's descent into imperialism and warmongering. Something that the West is still clinging on to thousands of years later.
Is my view of Ancient Greece wrong and it actually was a politically unstable and bloodthirsty place to be, where all the good stuff was fostered out of luck? If not, what went wrong? Could we be a thousand-or-so years more advanced if we'd stayed on the right track?
I was also under the impression that the only difference between the Greeks and Romans when it came to warmongering was that the Romans fought fewer internal wars (an advantage of not being composed of local fiefdoms and direct democracies, perhaps?) and had greater superiority over the surrounding nations...
If you're saying "Philosopher or writer", Ovid, Virgil, Horace, Catullus, Tacitus, Pliny, Juvenal, Livy, Cicero and Martial. Of whom I suppose I find Ovid, Catullus, Livy, Cicero and Virgil enjoyable to read, others would disagree or choose different writers I am sure.
In terms of philosophers alone, I suppose only Cicero or Seneca would spring to mind, and Seneca in particular followed closely in Epicurus' footsteps (I think, it's been a long long time, please correct if wrong).
These are just people who I am aware are widely read today, I can say nothing for their barbarity or otherwise. I don't know anything about Plotinus, for example, and I don't even know which Marcus you refer to, so I am hardly a very reliable source.
Well, this was my point - I can't even deduce the presumably well-known figure you are referring to, so I'm not a very knowledgeable or trustworthy commenter on this issue, and my opinions and thoughts should be treated with an appropriate amount of caution.
Philosophers are rather beside the point though: for every famous philosopher, ancient Greece had a million farmers, merchants, seafarers and slaves. I'm not persuaded medieval Britain was more enlightened than modern Britain because Shakespeare was a more insightful commentator on the human condition than JK Rowling, and the same applies to not unduly revering the societies of classical antiquity because some of the works of their educated elites have survived to the present day.
"How could things like democracy, philosophy, mathematics, etc. flourish in an unstable environment?"
Greeks had a developed (and wide available) writing system, Greeks had a not-so-restrictive religion, and (perhaps most importantly) - Greeks had a great economical advantage over a lot of other people around them. Yes, Greeks were good warriors, but they liked very much to just use others (mostly as mercenaries) in order to solve things, and trowed themselves in battles only as a last resort (like when the Greek cities fought among themselves and persuading others to join them was somewhat difficult). Greeks had a very large network of economic centers and all that value of connecting cheap worlds was primarily theirs. The flourishing of the arts and science was just a result of the general wealth flowing all around - life was cheaper and easier compared to other places, so what the average ἀνήρ was supposed to do with their spare energy? (Hint: connecting the dots here and there, just the way Greeks as a people used to do all the time.)
I disagree. The Persian empire was just as (if not more) wealthy than the Greeks although not as technologically advanced.
I think what distinguished Athens (and Greece) was "tolerance" towards foreigners. Although they called them 'Barbarians' (meaning Not Greek - with a strong negative flavor), at the same time foreigners were welcome to study and teach in Athens. Most sophists (e.g. Protagoras and Gorgias) were not Athenians. Aristotle was not an Athenian citizen.
Socrates was poor. But he was craved by the young because of his spirit. At the same time you have political Satire openly mocking Socrates and other major political (some extremely powerful) figures of the Athenian life. Euripedi's 'Trojan Women' play, was essentially a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier that year! It's incredible the fact that he dared to do so! Of course that's the reason we still watch his plays (2.500 years later...).
The Persian Empire had a lot of subjugated populace. The worry of rebellion and other problems plagued them all the time. Greeks on the other hand were very laid back in comparison. The conditions for investment of available effort was very different between those two. The tolerance vs. discriminating attitude are in fact derived from the political relation which a group of people is with another group of people in such instance.
> The Persian Empire had a lot of subjugated populace. The worry of rebellion and other problems plagued them all the time. Greeks on the other hand were very laid back in comparison.
Maybe not all the Greeks. The Spartans were a small group ruling over a much larger subjugated population (the Helots), who they would try to keep in check through things like an annual murder spree, at least according to Aristotle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots#Treatment_by_Spartans
That was a dramatic read, thanks. We need more film dramatizations of ancient history, less comic book sequels.
94. Melians: But must we be your enemies? Will you not receive us as friends if we are neutral and remain at peace with you?
95. Athenians: No, your enmity is not half so mischievous to us as your friendship; for the one is in the eyes of our subjects an argument of our power, the other of our weakness.
96. Melians: But are your subjects really unable to distinguish between states in which you have no concern, and those which are chiefly your own colonies, and in some cases have revolted and been subdued by you?
97. Athenians: Why, they do not doubt that both of them have a good deal to say for themselves on the score of justice, but they think that states like yours are left free because they are able to defend themselves, and that we do not attack them because we dare not. So that your subjection will give us an increase of security, as well as an extension of empire. For we are masters of the sea and you who are islanders, and insignificant islanders too, must not be allowed to escape us.
116 [...] The place was now closely invested, and there was treachery among the citizens themselves. So the Melians were induced to surrender at discretion. The Athenians thereupon put to death all who were of military age, and made slaves of the women and children. They then colonised the island, sending thither 500 settlers of their own.
Your view of Greece is limited, I'd say. The Romans were pretty good at making a wilderness and calling it peace, but they were not more warlike than the Greeks, just more successful at war.
"In theory every assembly represented the collective will of all the male citizens of Athens"
That doesn't sound like democracy to me. An oligarchy, perhaps?
The true birth of democracy (at national level) was in New Zealand in 1893 when women were given the vote and, for the first time in history, virtually all adults were enfranchised.
This is also the case with Iceland, where the althing is also commonly cited as the "oldest continuously functioning democratic parliament in the world".
This sounds great, and does wonders for national pride. Especially since most Icelanders have an extremely rose-tinted view of their own past (thanks to propaganda during the independence campaign in the last century), and most are not aware that the only people who had voting rights were landowners, and everyone else was basically a slave. That's not really a democracy by any definition.
"he only people who had voting rights were landowners".
Well, do Children in the US have voting rights? Illegal immigrants? Prisoners? There are different flavors of "democrazy".
One advantage of limited voters (e.g. "landowners") is, that the system is less likely to run into an out of control socialist redistribution system. If two wolfs and one sheep having a vote on what they have for dinner. Is this democracy too?
I don't know where the line is drawn. One could certainly argue by those metrics that most countries that consider themselves democracies do not fit that definition.
That said, I do think that when less than 1% of the country has voting rights, it's hard to call that a democracy by any measure. Is a dictatorship a democracy if the one person in power holds a "vote" for himself? What if there are two people that split the power?
> One advantage of limited voters (e.g. "landowners") is, that the system is less likely to run into an out of control socialist redistribution system.
I'm not sure how to respond to that. I suggest you read up on the history of Icelandic politics, I particularly recommend reading up on "vistarband" and related concepts, if you really think that this system is somehow more fair than allowing universal suffrage. The result was that this small group of landowners passed laws making anyone who did not have land (and therefore voting power) into indentured servants.
Actually it's the opposite. Today's western parliamentary regimes are oligarchies and in absolutely no way democracies. Electing a bunch of assholes who then get to do whatever they wish is not and has never been democracy, it's elected oligarchy. Democracy is when all the people vote the laws. Which was the case in ancient athens and iceland. Today the only country which comes anywhere close to this is Switzerland. Western parliamentary regimes call themselves 'democracies' to look good just like soviet countries did.
What is? I'm not really sure which part of my post you are replying to here. Can you quote a specific bit?
> Democracy is when all the people vote the laws. Which was the case in ancient athens and iceland
No, at least in the case of Iceland, the entire point of my post was that only a very, very tiny group of people got to vote on the laws. Kind of like representative democracy without the democracy part (because the representatives are not elected). Also known as a plutocracy.
I'm not completely sure about iceland. I think I read it was one vote per family. But as far as ancient athens goes, every male regardless of wealth or status got to vote the laws and decrees. And were in fact very much encouraged to do so. The word 'idiot' actually comes from 'idiotes' which is what people who didn't debate/vote were called in ancient athens. It originally meant people who only care about their private affairs as opposed to public affairs. This made it impossible for the rich to rule, because the rich are always far fewer than the poor. So while one might be right to point out that it wasn't fair that women were left out (but women were second class citizens also in cities which weren't democracies at all like for instance Sparta), it still is very different and far more egalitarian system than what we have today.
Foreign residents by definition are not citizens. They don't get to vote in elections of parliementary regimes either. But assuming foreign residents could vote, then anyone can come en masse and just change the outcome of the vote. As for slaves, they weren't citizens either, but either mostly war captives which were taken into slavery rather then executed or citizens which were stripped of their citizenship for various crimes. War captives or people who commited crimes don't get to vote in elections either in parliamentary regimes.
But both slaves and foreign residents ("metics") transmitted their status by birth: you could be born in Athens, as could your father, and your father's father, and still have no route to citizenship, unless the city chose to grant it as a gift (a rare event). So even if you discount the foreign-born, you still have an elite ruling over a disenfranchised population.
No, it's the other way around. It was athenian citizenship which was transmitted by birth. First you had to have at least one athenian parent. And then later athenians voted to change the law so two athenian parents would be required. And this is in part because 'metekos' were more often than not rich merchants and not underdogs at all. And the athenians were weary about them having influence just like they ostracized any citizen who had too much influence. But anyway, more or less restrictive citizenship conditions is irrelevant to the fact that electing masters is not and never will be democracy.
Well, I was only talking about Iceland in my comment. My knowledge of Greek history is insufficient to comment; you might want to take that discussion up with the commenter that was talking about Greece.
As for Iceland, I really recommend you read up on the history if you are going to start correcting people about it, because you seem to be completely misinformed. And no, it was most certainly not "one vote per family"; I have explained how these things worked at least twice in this discussion. I know this because I am from Iceland, and I have read up on our history from primary sources instead of the ridiculous whitewash that gets taught in elementary school and on tourist buses.
But you mentioned Iceland because you were agreeing with the parent poster who was talking about ancient Athens. So I was replying to both of you. I probably need to research Iceland, but I did the work for Athens :
He was talking about your critique on Island's political system, obviously. As for defending the righteousness of the voting system, I'd just say that back then (when the democracy were employed) the people empowered to vote were only the citizens. In those times it made sense to consider citizens those whom the society could count on to defend its existence. Those would be, objectively speaking, the individuals invested enough to stay and defend the city/country with their own life if necessary, otherwise there wouldn't any assurance that the civic-responsible (and interested) voter wouldn't make himself scarce at first sign of trouble. So no, not everyone deserved to vote (back then). Let's talk about women's condition - could women have any influence in politics? Perhaps! But when the time did come, women were powerless in regard to enforcing decisions and more - like it can be deduced from the reference that user ableal provided¹, the women were spared and treated like objects rather than subjects of decisions' consequences. Nowadays (almost) everyone has a right to vote because everyone who votes has more or less the same footing (men and women alike). Now the system is supported (on the individual level) through financial contribution, and everyone supporting (i.e. empowering) the system should have at least some power, expressed through vote. So yes, everyone deserves to vote (now).
Arguably, the problem with the Assembly was that they'd vote for whoever spoke the most convincingly, as opposed to who had the best argument. This wasn't much of an issue when Pericles was around, as he tended to be quite intelligent, but after his death the Sophists made their money by teaching people how to speak well (but not how to think well, as some of their contempories lamented), leading to a lot of persuasive idiots in the assembly.
Memorably, late in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta (who were winning) offered Athens an opportunity to end the war with no reparations. A pretty good offer, you'd have thought, but some people were making good money off the war and they spoke convincingly in the Assembly to persuade the people to keep fighting.
Greek democracy had problems, but I wonder how much of our picture of them derives from source bias. Thucydides, Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon: none a fan of democracy (and Plato to me seems actively dishonest). Writings in its favor would face obviously greater trouble making it to us through Roman and medieval times -- and most of what was written did not make it, on any topic. What do we still have from democrats of the time? I'd like to know.
The above was what I remembered from my Classical Civilisations lessons back in Secondary School (some 25 years ago). I'm very good at remembering stories but not so good at remembering dates, which meant that my prowess in Modern World History and Classical Civilisations was a bit...mixed.
Misleading title, something that always bugged me with questions. An anthropologist explains in "The Democracy Project":
"Democracy was not invented in ancient Greece. Granted, the word "democracy" was invented in ancient Greece—but largely by people who didn't like the thing itself very much. Democracy was never really "invented" at all. Neither does it emerge from any particular intellectual tradition. It's not even really a mode of government. In its essence it is just the belief that humans are fundamentally equal and ought to be allowed to manage their collective affairs in an egalitarian fashion, using whatever means appear most conducive. That, and the hard work of bringing arrangements based on those principles into being.
"In this sense democracy is as old as history, as human intelligence itself. No one could possibly own it. I suppose, if one were so inclined, one could argue it emerged the moment hominids ceased merely trying to bully one another and developed the communication skills to work out a common problem collectively. But such speculation is idle; the point is that democratic assemblies can be attested in all times and places, from Balinese seka to Bolivian ayllu, employing an endless variety of formal procedures, and will always crop up wherever a large group of people sat down together to make a collective decision on the principle that all taking part should have equal say."
(He goes onto explain why political scientists ignore such assemblies... a confusion of voting — which has many problems — with democratic decisionmaking.)
I think he's right except you don't have to believe that humans are fundamentally equal at all to want democracy. Humans are in no way equal. If humans were in fact equal, they wouldn't be able to evolve as evolution requires variability which is just another word for inequality. So when you want to promote cooperation over competition and you know that humans as any other DNA based life forms are fundamentally unequal, what you do is you give them equal deciding power so that noone can rise above the others.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 98.1 ms ] threadMoreover, I also have the view that afterwards -- whatever that may mean -- things kind of went to pot! The Romans were obviously great engineers, etc. but my impression of them is more that they were the start of Europe's descent into imperialism and warmongering. Something that the West is still clinging on to thousands of years later.
Is my view of Ancient Greece wrong and it actually was a politically unstable and bloodthirsty place to be, where all the good stuff was fostered out of luck? If not, what went wrong? Could we be a thousand-or-so years more advanced if we'd stayed on the right track?
Marcus? Wrote in Greek. Maybe Plotin. What else?
In terms of philosophers alone, I suppose only Cicero or Seneca would spring to mind, and Seneca in particular followed closely in Epicurus' footsteps (I think, it's been a long long time, please correct if wrong).
These are just people who I am aware are widely read today, I can say nothing for their barbarity or otherwise. I don't know anything about Plotinus, for example, and I don't even know which Marcus you refer to, so I am hardly a very reliable source.
Philosophers are rather beside the point though: for every famous philosopher, ancient Greece had a million farmers, merchants, seafarers and slaves. I'm not persuaded medieval Britain was more enlightened than modern Britain because Shakespeare was a more insightful commentator on the human condition than JK Rowling, and the same applies to not unduly revering the societies of classical antiquity because some of the works of their educated elites have survived to the present day.
Greeks had a developed (and wide available) writing system, Greeks had a not-so-restrictive religion, and (perhaps most importantly) - Greeks had a great economical advantage over a lot of other people around them. Yes, Greeks were good warriors, but they liked very much to just use others (mostly as mercenaries) in order to solve things, and trowed themselves in battles only as a last resort (like when the Greek cities fought among themselves and persuading others to join them was somewhat difficult). Greeks had a very large network of economic centers and all that value of connecting cheap worlds was primarily theirs. The flourishing of the arts and science was just a result of the general wealth flowing all around - life was cheaper and easier compared to other places, so what the average ἀνήρ was supposed to do with their spare energy? (Hint: connecting the dots here and there, just the way Greeks as a people used to do all the time.)
I think what distinguished Athens (and Greece) was "tolerance" towards foreigners. Although they called them 'Barbarians' (meaning Not Greek - with a strong negative flavor), at the same time foreigners were welcome to study and teach in Athens. Most sophists (e.g. Protagoras and Gorgias) were not Athenians. Aristotle was not an Athenian citizen.
Socrates was poor. But he was craved by the young because of his spirit. At the same time you have political Satire openly mocking Socrates and other major political (some extremely powerful) figures of the Athenian life. Euripedi's 'Trojan Women' play, was essentially a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier that year! It's incredible the fact that he dared to do so! Of course that's the reason we still watch his plays (2.500 years later...).
IMHO it was tolerance that made Athens great.
Maybe not all the Greeks. The Spartans were a small group ruling over a much larger subjugated population (the Helots), who they would try to keep in check through things like an annual murder spree, at least according to Aristotle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helots#Treatment_by_Spartans
The answer goes both ways actually. Ancient Greece was a blood-thirty society and an extremely advanced society.
I'd suggest a short read - Thucydides' Melian dialogue, there's a copy at http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Melian.html
94. Melians: But must we be your enemies? Will you not receive us as friends if we are neutral and remain at peace with you?
95. Athenians: No, your enmity is not half so mischievous to us as your friendship; for the one is in the eyes of our subjects an argument of our power, the other of our weakness.
96. Melians: But are your subjects really unable to distinguish between states in which you have no concern, and those which are chiefly your own colonies, and in some cases have revolted and been subdued by you?
97. Athenians: Why, they do not doubt that both of them have a good deal to say for themselves on the score of justice, but they think that states like yours are left free because they are able to defend themselves, and that we do not attack them because we dare not. So that your subjection will give us an increase of security, as well as an extension of empire. For we are masters of the sea and you who are islanders, and insignificant islanders too, must not be allowed to escape us.
116 [...] The place was now closely invested, and there was treachery among the citizens themselves. So the Melians were induced to surrender at discretion. The Athenians thereupon put to death all who were of military age, and made slaves of the women and children. They then colonised the island, sending thither 500 settlers of their own.
Incidentally, that island later hosted one of the most famous statues in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo
"And so it goes", as another writer more recently put it.
Your view of Greece is limited, I'd say. The Romans were pretty good at making a wilderness and calling it peace, but they were not more warlike than the Greeks, just more successful at war.
That doesn't sound like democracy to me. An oligarchy, perhaps?
The true birth of democracy (at national level) was in New Zealand in 1893 when women were given the vote and, for the first time in history, virtually all adults were enfranchised.
This is also the case with Iceland, where the althing is also commonly cited as the "oldest continuously functioning democratic parliament in the world".
This sounds great, and does wonders for national pride. Especially since most Icelanders have an extremely rose-tinted view of their own past (thanks to propaganda during the independence campaign in the last century), and most are not aware that the only people who had voting rights were landowners, and everyone else was basically a slave. That's not really a democracy by any definition.
Well, do Children in the US have voting rights? Illegal immigrants? Prisoners? There are different flavors of "democrazy".
One advantage of limited voters (e.g. "landowners") is, that the system is less likely to run into an out of control socialist redistribution system. If two wolfs and one sheep having a vote on what they have for dinner. Is this democracy too?
That said, I do think that when less than 1% of the country has voting rights, it's hard to call that a democracy by any measure. Is a dictatorship a democracy if the one person in power holds a "vote" for himself? What if there are two people that split the power?
> One advantage of limited voters (e.g. "landowners") is, that the system is less likely to run into an out of control socialist redistribution system.
I'm not sure how to respond to that. I suggest you read up on the history of Icelandic politics, I particularly recommend reading up on "vistarband" and related concepts, if you really think that this system is somehow more fair than allowing universal suffrage. The result was that this small group of landowners passed laws making anyone who did not have land (and therefore voting power) into indentured servants.
What is? I'm not really sure which part of my post you are replying to here. Can you quote a specific bit?
> Democracy is when all the people vote the laws. Which was the case in ancient athens and iceland
No, at least in the case of Iceland, the entire point of my post was that only a very, very tiny group of people got to vote on the laws. Kind of like representative democracy without the democracy part (because the representatives are not elected). Also known as a plutocracy.
Except for slaves and former slaves. Also a large portion of the population were resident foreigners, who didn't get the vote.
Wikipedia puts the number of voters at 10% to 20% of the total population: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy
Neither is having political power in the exclusive hands of a hereditary elite. That's oligarchy or aristocracy.
As for Iceland, I really recommend you read up on the history if you are going to start correcting people about it, because you seem to be completely misinformed. And no, it was most certainly not "one vote per family"; I have explained how these things worked at least twice in this discussion. I know this because I am from Iceland, and I have read up on our history from primary sources instead of the ridiculous whitewash that gets taught in elementary school and on tourist buses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogens_Herman_Hansen
¹ (in the current page) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9818243
Memorably, late in the Peloponnesian War, Sparta (who were winning) offered Athens an opportunity to end the war with no reparations. A pretty good offer, you'd have thought, but some people were making good money off the war and they spoke convincingly in the Assembly to persuade the people to keep fighting.
(Am not a historian.)
The above was what I remembered from my Classical Civilisations lessons back in Secondary School (some 25 years ago). I'm very good at remembering stories but not so good at remembering dates, which meant that my prowess in Modern World History and Classical Civilisations was a bit...mixed.
"Democracy was not invented in ancient Greece. Granted, the word "democracy" was invented in ancient Greece—but largely by people who didn't like the thing itself very much. Democracy was never really "invented" at all. Neither does it emerge from any particular intellectual tradition. It's not even really a mode of government. In its essence it is just the belief that humans are fundamentally equal and ought to be allowed to manage their collective affairs in an egalitarian fashion, using whatever means appear most conducive. That, and the hard work of bringing arrangements based on those principles into being.
"In this sense democracy is as old as history, as human intelligence itself. No one could possibly own it. I suppose, if one were so inclined, one could argue it emerged the moment hominids ceased merely trying to bully one another and developed the communication skills to work out a common problem collectively. But such speculation is idle; the point is that democratic assemblies can be attested in all times and places, from Balinese seka to Bolivian ayllu, employing an endless variety of formal procedures, and will always crop up wherever a large group of people sat down together to make a collective decision on the principle that all taking part should have equal say."
(He goes onto explain why political scientists ignore such assemblies... a confusion of voting — which has many problems — with democratic decisionmaking.)