It is generally accepted that the ancient Greeks invented democracy. It can be rightly argued that they also invented politics, because this word comes from the word "polis", denoting the ancient Greek city-state.

There were various forms of government in antiquity; among the Greeks, one of these forms of government was the adoption of decisions by a majority vote after a general discussion of bills by all citizens. This form of democracy, in which all citizens gather in one place and confer, is called direct. Far from all the policies of Ancient Greece were democratic states, and democracy itself at times became rather dubious. We know most about the democracy in Athens, where this form of government lasted, with short interruptions, for 170 years. During this period, all men born in Athens had the right to take part in public affairs, but women and slaves were deprived of this right.

We also call our form of government democracy, but it differs from Athenian in that it is a so-called "representative" democracy. Most of us do not directly govern the state. Once every three or four years we vote for the people who are part of the government; we have the ability to speak up, complain, demonstrate and petition, but we don't directly vote on every bill that goes before parliament.

If we ruled our state directly, then our society would be completely different. Of course, nowadays it is impossible to gather all the citizens of a large state in one place, but we could recreate some semblance of the ancient Greek system, say, by voting for every bill through the Internet. Based on public opinion polls, it is known that under such a system of government, Australia would never accept migrants from other countries, with the exception of the UK, and would certainly try to get rid of all Asian migrants; we would still hang criminals and flog them with whips; we would not send any humanitarian aid to other countries; single mothers and students would have to struggle for existence without receiving any help from the state. So, perhaps even for the better that the modern form of government restrains the ignorance and prejudices of people, to a certain extent limiting their freedom of expression.

If you have come to such an opinion, then your views are close to those of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, the great Athenian philosophers who strongly doubted the values ​​​​of Athenian democracy and subjected it to severe criticism. They complained about the inconstancy of human nature: people are often indecisive and ignorant, they are easily swayed to one side or another. The art of government requires wisdom and the ability to make informed decisions, and not everyone has these qualities. Our system of representative democracy would certainly have pleased the ancient philosophers more. No matter what we say about our representatives in government and no matter how we criticize them, they, as a rule, are much more educated and better informed about the state of affairs in politics than the average layman. Many worthy politicians serve in our state apparatus. And although the people do not directly control the state, the state listens to the opinion of the people. True, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle would not call such a form of government a democracy.

Ancient Greek democracy has its roots in the military organization of ancient Greek society. Exploring the different forms of government, we will definitely notice a close relationship between the form of the military system and the form of state government. In Athens, there was no regular army, which would consist of soldiers stationed in barracks and ready to join the fighting at any time. All the "soldiers" in Athens were ordinary citizens, merchants or peasants who received serious training for battle in close combat formations. When the war began, they left their usual occupation and took up arms. The Democratic Social Assembly originated as a gathering of such citizen-warriors awaiting the orders of the military leaders. Decisions on declaring war and making peace, as well as on tactics, were taken by the council of elders or representatives of the upper classes. Then these decisions were announced to the assembly of warriors, while the orators set themselves the goal of exciting the crowd and preparing it psychologically for the upcoming actions. No one even thought that the military meeting would discuss in detail the decisions made or propose something of their own; usually the warriors expressed their approval with a cry of mi and sang battle songs.

But gradually the powers of this assembly expanded, in the end it took full power into its own hands. When this happened exactly, we do not know, but since in those days people fought often and the existence of policies almost completely depended on their citizen-warriors, these citizen-warriors began to enjoy great prestige. Thus, democracy was born as a military assembly. But it was at the same time a tribal assembly. Initially, the entire population of Athens was divided into four clans, and it fought by dividing into units according to tribal characteristics. These families chose their representatives to govern the state, and even when a more formal democracy was established in Athens, a person continued to belong to the same group of voters, even if he changed his place of residence. The geographical principle was never central to ancient democracy.

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Direct democracy presupposes both a greater civic consciousness of the entire population and faith in the people. The ideals of Athenian democracy were outlined by the famous Athenian commander Pericles, delivering a speech at the burial of those who died during the war with Sparta. This speech is recorded in the "History of the Peloponnesian War" by the Athenian author Thucydides, the first historian to attempt to describe events from an objective point of view. The "History" of Thucydides has been preserved in medieval copies made in Constantinople. In Italy, 1800 years after it was written, this speech was translated into Latin, and later there were translations into modern European languages. After Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, this is the most famous speech given by a politician at a cemetery. Pericles' speech lasted much longer than Lincoln's.

Here are just excerpts from it:

Our constitution does not imitate foreign institutions; we ourselves serve as a model for some rather than imitate others. This system is called democratic, because it is based not on a minority, but on a majority (demos). In relation to private interests, our laws provide equality for all; As for political significance, in our state life everyone uses it preferentially over another, not because he is supported by this or that political party, but depending on his valor, which gains him a good reputation in this or that matter. .

By repeated competitions and sacrifices from year to year, we give the soul the opportunity to receive a variety of respite from labors, as well as by the decency of the home environment, the daily enjoyment of which drives away despondency.

With us, the same persons can take care of their household affairs and deal with state affairs, and other citizens who have devoted themselves to other affairs are not alien to the understanding of state affairs. Only we alone do not consider him free from employment and labor, but useless, who does not participate at all in state activity.

A state that supports culture and education, consisting of highly conscious citizens striving for the common good - this is the ideal of ancient Greek democracy, although we know that the well-being of Athens depended to a large extent on the labor of slaves, and citizens sometimes had to be dragged by force to a general meeting . Such ideas appeal to us even now, although the positive aspects of Pericles' inspirational speech have been rethought relatively recently.

For many centuries, the ruling classes had a sharply negative attitude towards democracy, which was due not only to the political realities of Europe, but also to the education system itself. Most of the classical authors studied by the elite were opposed to democracy. This belief was so firmly rooted that in the early 19th century, the English scholar and radical thinker George Grote made a real revolution in historical thought, declaring that democracy and high culture are interconnected and that it is impossible to praise the second while condemning the first. Such is England's contribution to the recognition of democracy.

But even today we find some aspects of ancient Greek democracy at odds with our ideals. Almost everything in it was aimed exclusively at achieving the public good, sometimes even through coercion, and very little attention was paid to the interests of individuals. The main privilege of an Athenian citizen was considered to belong to the state, and, as Pericles said, if someone did not participate in state activities, he was considered a useless member of society and even unworthy of the title of citizen. Our understanding of human rights has a different origin.

Athens and other small ancient Greek city-states lost their independence after being conquered in the 4th century BC. e. they were conquered by Alexander the Great, who came from the north of Greece. Democracy came to an end, but Greek culture continued to develop, and, thanks to the military campaigns of Alexander, it spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. This culture survived even after the conquest of the eastern provinces by Rome, and flourished for a long time in this Greek-speaking half of the empire.

Rome during the conquests was a republic, not a democracy. It hosted public meetings, which, like in Greece, were historically associated with an assembly of citizens who had the right to bear arms. Every citizen of Rome went to war, equipping himself at his own expense. The contribution of each person to the common cause corresponded to his property condition. The richest people who could afford to buy war horses were the few Roman cavalry. All the rest were infantry soldiers, but of different degrees: at first there were heavily armed warriors, dressed in armor, with a sword and shield; then lightly armed infantry; after her - warriors armed with one spear or dart, and in the end came the poorest citizens who could only afford a sling, that is, a piece of cloth or leather with which stones were thrown.

In the early era, a public meeting was more like a military parade. Men were distributed according to their military ranks: horsemen, heavily armed infantry soldiers, infantry soldiers of the second, third, fourth classes and, finally, slingers. Voting also took place in groups. At first, the horsemen discussed the state of affairs among themselves, coming to a definite decision; then the heavily armed infantry spoke out, and so on. Each group expressed its opinion, but their voices were not equal. There were 193 votes in total, distributed among the groups according to their status. The cavalry and heavily armed infantry had a total of 98 votes out of 193 - in fact, the majority, although the bulk of the soldiers belonged to other groups. When the first two groups came to a common decision, there was no longer any need to listen to the opinions of other groups, and they were often not asked; riders and heavily armed infantrymen solved all issues. Theoretically, the decision was made by all those gathered, but in practice the decisive vote remained with the rich.

This assembly elected the Roman consuls, a kind of "prime ministers" of the republic; there were two of them, and they could only act by mutual agreement. Each controlled the other, and their power was limited to a period of one year. The Romans counted the years by the names of the consuls.

Gradually, the plebeians gained more power, limiting the power of the rich and people of noble birth. Here we know exactly how it happened: the plebeians used military force, or rather the refusal to use military force. When the war broke out, infantrymen of the third, fourth and subsequent grades could, for example, refuse to take up arms, declaring that they would go to war only when they were given more votes in the assembly. As a result, a new assembly was convened, which elected tribunes from among the plebeians - a kind of analogue of modern representatives of the public or ombudsmen. The tribunes had the right to intervene in the process of making state decisions at any stage, if the rights of the plebeians were infringed upon. After another refusal to go to war, this assembly was given the right to make laws.

Sometimes these actions are described as strikes, although this word does not convey the true essence of the matter. A strike is usually understood as a conflict in the sphere of industrial relations, but in ancient Rome, workers were not organized into unions and did not oppose their bosses. The plebeians usually rebelled without demanding higher wages or shorter working hours.

As in Athens, the power of the Roman citizen warriors gradually increased, although democracy in the full sense of the word was never established in Rome. The Senate, which included representatives of noble, and later the richest families, remained the highest state authority in Rome. Public meetings limited the arbitrariness of the senate, but never fully replaced it. Revolutions, that is, abrupt changes in the state structure, were not observed in Ancient Rome; the form of government gradually changed in the course of the creation of new authorities and new public positions, to which real power passed. In this respect, ancient Rome is similar to the modern British constitutional monarchy, whose constitution has not yet been fixed in one single document. As for the question of the division of power and control over the various branches of government, in this respect the Roman model served as an important model for the state structure of the United States.

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At first, kings ruled in Rome. The Republic was established around 500 BC. e., when the Romans overthrew their tyrant king Tarquinius the Proud. The ancient Roman historian Titus Livius wrote about this in his work. His work survived in Western Europe after the fall of Rome, but only in part; only a copy of one of the sections has survived to this day, and even then it was discovered only in the 16th century, so it was unknown to scientists of the Renaissance. This section is devoted to the formation of the republican system and formed the basis of Shakespeare's poem "Lucretia".

This is a story about how, as a result of one rape, the monarchy was overthrown and a republican system was established. The rapist was not Tarquinius himself, but his son Sextus Tarquinius. The victim of the rapist was Lucrezia, the wife of Collatinus. The uprising was led by Brutus, the king's nephew. Four hundred years later, his namesake led a conspiracy against Julius Caesar and killed him. The first Brutus had to witness the massacre of the cruel king over his relatives. To save his life, Brutus pretended to be a man of a narrow mind, otherwise Tarquinius would have quickly finished with him; By the way, in Latin, the nickname "Brutus" means "stupid". He did not complain when Tarquinius seized all his property, but waited for the right moment, which came after Lucretia was dishonored. What happened next, we know from the words of Livy. The whole story began from the moment when the sons of the king went to war with Ardea. They feasted in the tent with Collatin when it came to wives. Everyone boasted that his wife was better than the others. Collatin offered to resolve the dispute by going back to Rome and checking out what their wives were up to. It turned out that the wives of the princes were having fun, while Lucretia was sitting at home and spinning - thus Collatin won the argument. A few days later, secretly from Collatinus, Sextus Tarquinius returned to Lucretia.

He was warmly received by the hosts, who did not suspect his intentions; after dinner, he was taken to the guest bedroom, but as soon as it seemed to him that it was quiet enough around and everyone was sleeping, he, inflamed with passion, enters with a drawn sword to the sleeping Lucretia and, pressing her chest with his left hand, says: “Be quiet, Lucretia, I am Sextus Tarquinius, I have a sword in my hand, you will die if you shout. Freed from sleep in awe, the woman sees: there is no help, next to her is threatening death; and Tarquinius begins to declare his love, to persuade, threats interfere with prayers, from all sides he seeks access to the female soul. Seeing that Lucretia was adamant, that she could not be swayed even by the fear of death, he, in order to frighten her even more, threatened her with disgrace: he would throw a naked slave into bed with her dead, slaughtering her - let them say that she was killed in dirty adultery. With this terrible threat, he overpowered her unyielding chastity. Lust seemed to have gained the upper hand, and Tarquinius went out, intoxicated with the victory over women's honor.

Lucretia, crushed by grief, sends messengers to Rome to her father and to Ardea to her husband to arrive with a few true friends: there is a need for them, let them hurry, a terrible thing happened. Spurius Lucretius arrives with Publius Valerius, son of Volesius, Collatinus with Lucius Junius Brutus - by chance he returned to Rome with him when he was met by a messenger. They find Lucretia in the bedroom, crushed by grief. At the sight of their own, tears come to the eyes of a woman; to her husband's question: "Do you live well?" She replies: “It couldn’t be worse. What good remains in a woman with the loss of chastity? Traces of a strange man on your bed, Collatin; however, the body alone was subjected to disgrace - the soul is innocent, let death be my witness. But swear to each other that no adulterer will be left without retribution. Sextus Tarquinius - that's who last night came in as a guest, but turned out to be an enemy; armed, by force he stole here a disastrous thing for me, but also for him - if you are men - a delight.

Everyone swears in order, consoles the desperate, diverting the accusation from the victim of violence, blaming the criminal: the thought sins - not the body, who had no intention, there is no guilt on that.

“It is up to you,” she replies, “to judge what is due to him, but even though I do not blame myself for sin, I do not free myself from punishment; and let the example of Lucretia not save the life of any whore!” She had a knife hidden under her clothes, thrusting it into her heart, she leans on the knife and falls dead. Her husband and father cry loudly to her. While they were grieving, Brutus, holding a bloody knife pulled out of the body of Lucretia, said: “I swear by this purest blood before, before the royal crime, and I take you, gods, as witnesses, that from now on, with fire, with a sword, than I can , I will pursue Lucius Tarquinius with his criminal wife and all offspring, that I will not tolerate either them or anyone else in the kingdom in Rome.

Brutus kept his word. Thus, the establishment of the republic was the result of the terrible crime of the son of the king; the woman, like a virtuous Roman, considered her honor above life, and another virtuous Roman swore to avenge her. But not everyone in Rome wanted to overthrow Tarquinius, and there was even a conspiracy to restore him to power. By the time the conspiracy was uncovered, Brutus was one of the two consuls and held the position of judge in the public assembly. There he was told the names of the conspirators, among whom were his two sons. The decision on punishment was to be made by Brutus himself. The assembled crowd shouted words of encouragement; people said that they did not want dishonor for members of his family and that he could well pardon his sons. But Brutus would not even hear of it; he said that the laws are the same for everyone, including his children. Therefore, right in front of his eyes, his sons were stripped naked, flogged with rods and beheaded. My father did not even frown at this sight - such was his devotion to the ideals of the republic.

Jacques-Louis David. "The lictors bring the bodies of his sons to Brutus." 1789

Of course, since then, the Romans have praised Brutus, because devotion to the common cause, regardless of personal and family ties, was the basis of the republic. The Romans called such devotion a virtue necessary for the prosperity of the state. For the sake of the common good, one could go to cruel deeds. In our time, many would consider Brutus's act even inhuman - how could he sit quietly and watch the execution of his own children? Truly, republican virtue has bred monsters.

Curiously, just before the Great Revolution, there was a cult of republican Rome in France, and not only among those who wished to reform the monarchy. The court painter of Louis XVI, Jacques-Louis David, chose two famous episodes from the "History" of Titus Livius as the theme for two of his paintings. On the first, he depicted Brutus not in the chair of a judge pronouncing sentence on his sons, but at home, when the bodies of his executed sons were brought to him. This allowed David to create a sharp contrast between the relentless father who turned away and the women - the mother and sisters of the executed - mourn their bitter fate. The second painting on the theme of Roman republican virtue is called The Oath of the Horatii.

Jacques-Louis David. "Oath of the Horatii". 1784

The Horace brothers were chosen by the Romans to take part in the battle that was to determine the fate of their city. At that time, Rome was at enmity with the neighboring city, and in order to avoid a bloody war, it was decided to hold fights between three representatives of each city. In his painting, David depicted Father Horace raising his swords and taking an oath of allegiance to Rome from his sons. They raise their hands in a Republican salute similar to the Nazi salute. Women - the mother and sisters of warriors - are also depicted here as weak creatures, demonstrating their feelings and crying before an imminent separation. One of the sisters, who is engaged to a representative of the other side, is especially grieving.

As Titus Livius writes, this battle was very cruel, a battle not for life, but for death. And although only one son of Horace survived, the Romans were victorious. Returning home and finding his sister mourning the death of her fiancé, the brother took a sword and stabbed her to death, because she was supposed to rejoice at the victory of Rome, and not mourn the defeated enemy. The main idea of ​​this story is again that the interests of the family should be subordinated to the interests of the state. The brother was brought to trial, but was soon acquitted. The father himself spoke at the trial, condemning his daughter and making a speech in defense of his son.

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The Roman Republic lasted about two hundred years, followed by a period of gradual decline. Rome constantly expanded its possessions; the great commanders who had earned glory for their state began to argue and fight among themselves, and the soldiers more often remained loyal to their commanders than to the republic. One of the commanders, Julius Caesar, managed to defeat all the others and achieve superiority. The second Brutus killed Caesar in order to preserve the republic and prevent power from concentrating in the hands of one person; but by doing so, he only contributed to the next round of the civil war. In the course of subsequent battles, the great-nephew, adopted by Caesar, came out victorious, who in 27 BC. e. became the first Roman emperor under the name Augustus.

Augustus was an intelligent and insightful man. He retained the republican order: the senate continued to hold its meetings, and the popular assembly elected consuls. Augustus called himself not "emperor", but only "first citizen", stating that it was his responsibility to resolve disputes that arise and help the republican apparatus operate. Augustus did not have a magnificent retinue; he walked around Rome alone, without guards, like a simple citizen; from time to time attended meetings of the Senate; Any Roman could turn to him. The republican salute in the form of a raised straightened arm was preserved as a form of greeting. In the presence of Augustus, there was no need to bow and demonstrate their devotion in every possible way - each visitor and emperor greeted each other like ordinary citizens.

Augustus tried to revive the ancient Roman virtues. He believed that Rome was ruined by luxury and the decay of morals, and therefore insisted on preserving, as we would now put it, family values. He sent the poet Ovid into exile, because he wrote that women who gave birth lose their beauty. He also criticized his contemporary historian Titus Livius for allegedly incorrectly describing some civil strife from the recent past of Rome, but agreed with him in praising Roman virtues, worthy behavior and devotion to the state. True, he never managed to revive one of the key features of the ancient era. Under the leadership of Augustus, Rome became a stable and well-governed state, but its citizens no longer took up arms and became warriors, because now mercenaries served in the army.

Augustus became the first Roman emperor in 27 BC. e.

For two centuries, the relatively peaceful period of the existence of the Roman Empire lasted, during which Roman laws and Roman orders were established over a vast territory. Formally, the state remained a republic: the emperors never became kings or kings, whose power was inherited. The emperor chose his successor, who might not be his relative, and this choice had to be approved by the senate. Subsequently, bloody wars broke out between the contenders for this title, but for two centuries the emperors made a reasonable choice, which received the approval of the majority.

In the III century, the first wave of Germanic invasions swept, which almost destroyed the empire. After the invasion was repulsed, two emperors, Diocletian and Constantine, carried out extensive transformations in the empire. In short, the defenses were strengthened and the army was reformed, in which Germans who lived within the borders of the empire began to be accepted. To maintain a large army, taxes had to be raised, and to collect taxes, it was necessary to conduct a more thorough population accounting. As a result, the bureaucratic apparatus grew, and officials became the real rulers of the empire. In the old days, individual provinces were allowed to manage their own internal affairs, as long as they paid taxes to the central treasury and did not oppose the central authority.

Diocletian attempted to contain inflation by imposing the death penalty on price increases. High taxes were imposed on the maintenance of a huge army, but merchants were not allowed to raise prices in order to somehow compensate for their expenses. As a result, no one wanted to engage in commercial activities, but Diocletian found his solution here too. He achieved the passage of a law according to which merchants were not allowed to leave their activities, and the son was obliged to continue the work of his father. Thus the power of the emperors became more and more cruel; they no longer simply controlled the implementation of laws, but imposed them on society. As a result of such a rule, society no longer had the spirit and desire to resist the next wave of barbarian invasion.

The official recognition of Christianity by Emperor Constantine in 313 was another step towards strengthening the empire. At the same time, he did not seek to rely on the church as an organization - by that time, although Christianity had grown stronger compared to the first centuries, it continued to be a minority religion. Constantine, like many of his subjects, was losing faith in the old Roman gods and came to believe that a Christian god would better protect him and his empire. At first, he had the vaguest idea of ​​Christianity, but he hoped that if he began to support the Christians, then their god would help him.

Diocletian, Constantine and subsequent emperors became very distant from the people. They began to imitate the Persian kings and pose as rulers with divine status; they lived in palaces and never walked the streets of the city, as did Augustus. Before meeting with the emperor, visitors were subjected to a strict search, they were blindfolded and led through a labyrinth of corridors so that no one could remember the way to the emperor’s chambers, and then sneak into the palace and kill him. When a person finally got to the emperor, he had to prostrate, that is, lie belly down on the floor in front of the throne.

As the central government became more and more strict, the subjects of the empire tried to free themselves from its oppression.

Landowners did not want to pay taxes themselves and fortified their estates, protecting the people who worked on their lands. Previously, slaves worked the land, but when the flow of slaves dried up, as Rome ceased to wage wars of conquest, the landowners divided their lands and leased them to slaves, freedmen and free people who sought patronage. And although the landowners did not like the tax policy of the emperors (and they tried in every possible way to evade paying taxes), they liked the laws that workers who cultivated the land should remain in their places. If the worker ran away, then he was put in chains and returned to the owner. So land workers of various origins formed a class of those who in the Middle Ages became known as serfs or villans (that is, dependent or serfs). Unlike slaves, they were not the property of the master; they owned their own plot of land and got married, but they had no right to leave their plot and had to work part of the time for their master.

By 476, which is considered the date of the fall of the Western Roman Empire, a medieval society had already taken shape on its territory. The fortified estates were inhabited by landowners, owners and protectors of the people who farmed their land. The whole way of life of Western European society has changed, and its basis was devotion to the owner, and not to the state, whether it be a republic or an empire. But the period of ancient Roman statehood remained for a long time in the memory of Europeans and had a great influence on the further development of society.

The Greek communities influenced the political life of the country, the system of values, partly even the features of literature, art, philosophy, i.e., the history of ancient Greek civilization as a whole.

Ancient Greek community-polis included not only the rural population, but also the urban population. One could become a member of the community under two conditions: if a person was a Greek by nationality, if he was free and owned private property.

All members of the community are free owners- had political rights (although not always equal) that allowed them to take part in state activities. Therefore, the Greek policy is called a civil community.

State in Ancient Greece did not exist "above the community" (as it was in the Ancient East), it grew out of the community; more precisely, the community itself turned into a small state with its own laws, authorities and management system.

Inside policies gradually civil law was formed i.e., codes of laws were formed that determined the legal status of members of the community, giving them some social guarantees. The policy was not only engaged in internal affairs, but could also conduct foreign policy activities, had its own army - the citizens of the policy joined the militia during the wars, turned into warriors. Perceiving itself as an independent state, the policy lived in accordance with idea of ​​autarky (self-sufficiency).

The strength and independence of the community-policies was largely due to the fact that in Greece there were no conditions for the emergence of large royal and temple households, although a monarchical form of government existed within the policies for some time. In ancient times at the head of the policies were the king - basileus and tribal nobility, infringing on the rights of the demos (people), which included all the humble free peasants and artisans. By the 7th century BC e. conflicts within the policy reached a special scope.

The fight against the aristocracy was waged by the small peasantry, who often faced the threat of losing their land and becoming tenants on their own plots. The aristocracy also had another enemy - a rather large layer of ignorant citizens who became rich through trade and crafts and who wanted to receive the privileges of the nobility.

In many policies, this struggle ended in a coup, the overthrow of the tribal nobility and the establishment of tyranny - autocracy, thanks to which the arbitrariness of the nobility was curbed.

But tyranny was short-lived, the need for it after the position of the aristocracy was weakened, quickly disappeared, and other forms of government began to appear. AT in some policies, the rule was oligarchic, in others - democratic but in any case played a big role people's assembly, to which, as a general rule, belonged the right of the final decision on all the most important questions.

The high role of the people's assembly and elective power- two main factors that created the conditions for the development of Greek democracy.

Ancient Greece has always amazed even the imagination of compatriots, not to mention the historians of our time. Their civilization, which originates from simple fishermen and herders, soon became one of the most powerful in the Ancient World. The Greeks were revered as outstanding (and extremely cunning) politicians, excellent sailors and warriors.

They also reached considerable heights in mechanics: some of their devices are not inferior in complexity to mechanical watches of the 19th century. The Greeks were aware of the energy of steam, they created the first prototypes of steam engines in the form of toys.

However, all these and many other achievements would not have been possible without a carefully adjusted social structure of the state, which could educate its citizens and protect them from enemies. Since the polis was the main "cog" of the ancient Greek civilization, this phenomenon should be discussed separately.

What is an ancient Greek polis?

In fact, a separate city was called a policy. But here an important clarification should be made: in those years, cities were often in fact separate states. The same Phoenician Empire was, in the modern sense of the word, a confederation formed by individual countries that could leave it at any time. In addition, the main part of the population of the policy was politically active: any free person considered it his duty to participate in the vote, in making important government decisions.

All this often resulted in fierce disputes and even fights right on the streets, which is why contemporaries considered the Greeks to be "wacky and noisy people." Thus, the policy should be considered a separate, special form of political and social organization. The territory of such a formation was limited not only by the city walls, but also by those lands that the main part of the population of the policy (that is, people who were in the public service) could protect and cultivate.

How did city-states come about?

The policy is unique in that it arose at a turning point in ancient history, during the transition from the tribal and communal system to the first "proto-states". In those distant years, the stratification of society began: they preferred to become artisans and sell the results of their work, rather than give away the benefits they created for nothing. Merchants appeared who knew how to sell handicrafts to other tribes, a “caste” of warriors who defended those same merchants and the general well-being of all members of this “forerunner of the state” became rigidly isolated.

In general, almost all city-states of Ancient Greece had a good army, and therefore, if necessary, they could stand up for themselves.

Of course, all these people preferred not to live in a bare field. Large cities began to emerge and develop rapidly. Due to the fact that artisans and landowners, merchants and warriors, scientists and politicians lived within their walls, they were completely self-sufficient. This is how policies came into being.

But what was the social structure of such amazing (by modern standards) "cities"? Oddly enough, but the bulk of the population of the Greek-style policy was represented by free people, citizens. They participated both in the production of everything necessary (cattle breeders, farmers, artisans), and in the protection of their land. The military estate protected the settlements from not too dangerous threats, while during the time of enemy raids, all its inhabitants came out to protect the walls of the policy.


Greek civilization grew on the basis of the decomposition of tribal relations through property and social differentiation, the formation of social groups that differed in their role in production, through the creation of state authorities that expressed the interests of the ruling class.

In terms of size and population, the Greek policies were different. There were very large policies. For example, Lacedaemon, or Sparta, had an area of ​​​​8400 square meters. km, and the population is about 150-200 thousand people. The policy of the Athenians had a total territory of about 2500 thousand square meters. km with a population of 120-150 thousand people, but there were very small policies with a territory of 30-40 square meters. km and with a population of several hundred people, such as, for example, the Fokian policy of Panopia (on the border with Boeotia).

However, the most common type of Greek polis had an area of ​​about 100–200 sq. km, i.e. 10x10 or 10x20 km with a population of 5-10 thousand people, including women, children, foreigners and slaves, full-fledged male warriors could be from 1 to 2 thousand people. “The population of the policy,” Aristotle wrote, “should be easily visible, and its territory should also be easily visible: easily visible when applied to the territory means the same that it can be easily defended.” In the center of the policy was the city. “Among the entire space surrounding it, the city should be a central point from which it would be possible to send help everywhere. Another condition is that land products can be easily delivered to the city, further, that there is a convenient delivery to it of forest materials and everything that the state will acquire for processing ... The communication of the city and the entire territory of the policy with the sea is a great advantage in for the security of the state, and from the point of view of fully supplying it with everything necessary. This picture of the ideal polis, drawn by Aristotle, was a kind of generalization of concrete reality.

A typical Greek polis was a tiny state, the territory of which can be walked from end to end in one day, with a small number of inhabitants, most of whom knew each other by sight, with one center where the People's Assembly gathered, there were temples of the most revered gods, craft workshops , the main population lived.

“According to their political structure, the structure of state bodies, the Greek policies of the 5th-4th centuries. BC. divided into two main types: policies with a democratic system and policies with oligarchic rule. The presence of a democratic or oligarchic system in certain policies was not an accident, a temporary confluence of circumstances, but, as a rule, reflected significant differences in the socio-economic relations that developed within these policies. Policies with a high level of economy, intensive agriculture, developed handicrafts and active trade gravitated towards democratic forms of government. The democratic system, as it were, crowned an intensive economy, a dynamic social structure of trade and craft policies.

The oligarchy, on the contrary, in most cases formalized the conservative agrarian economy and archaic social relations in the political sphere. At that time, the political organization of Sparta became the standard of the oligarchy.

From the point of view of public administration, the Greek policy had a republican structure. The supreme power belonged to the People's Assembly, which consisted in principle of all full-fledged citizens. The People's Assembly managed the policy together with the Council and officials elected for a fixed term (usually one year). There was no permanent state apparatus, with the exception of a small staff of technical employees. Repeated re-election to the same position, as a rule, was not allowed. Officials, after the expiration of their term of office, reported to the People's Assembly or its bodies. The dominant importance of the National Assembly and the Council embodied the main principle of the political thinking of the ancient Greeks: the right to participate in the management of the entire civil collective. The right to decide the affairs of one's policy, public administration was considered as one of the most important rights of a citizen.

Of course, one cannot idealize the Athenian, as well as the polis as a whole, democracy and consider it the standard of democracy as such. As is clear from the history of Greece, this was a democracy for citizens only, while women, the non-civilian free population (quite numerous in Athens), not to mention, of course, slaves, stood outside democratic institutions and did not take any part in government. Nevertheless, the structure of the democratic republic, the specific mechanism of its operation in the political life of Greece, was a huge step in the history of political institutions and state forms, ensuring the attraction of a significantly larger number of the population than under any other state system.

One of the important achievements of the political thought of the ancient Greeks was the development of the concept of a citizen endowed with a set of inalienable legal rights: personal freedom as complete independence from any person or institution, the right to a land plot in one’s policy as the basis of prosperity and normal life, the right to serve in militia and bearing weapons, the right to participate in the activities of the People's Assembly and government. Awareness of these rights, their use in everyday life made the citizen of the Greek polis, according to Aristotle, a political person, broadened his horizons, enriched self-awareness, and stimulated creative abilities.

In Sparta, as in Athens, the political system embodied the basic principles of the polis structure. Therefore, in both of these policies, one can see some common foundations: the concentration of political life within the framework of a civil collective, the existence of the ancient form of property as the collective property of citizens, the close connection between the political and military organization of citizenship, the republican nature of the state system. However, there were also deep differences between the state system of the Athenian and Spartan policies. In Athens, the state system took shape as a developed system of a democratic republic; in Sparta, the state system had a pronounced oligarchic character.



At the stage of its heyday, Greek history faced the struggle of democratic and oligarchic states, this manifested itself in the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. Democracy then was a system of direct government in which the free people became the collective legislator without a system of government as such. This is the reason for the small size of the ancient Greek state, which consisted of a city and a rural area, the number of inhabitants was no more than 10 thousand. A special difference of ancient democracy is expressed in relation to slavery, it is a necessary condition for the freedom of citizens from hard physical labor. Today, the case is not recognized by the Democrats.

The ancient policy was formed on the principles of unified civil, political and religious communities. Collective ownership of land, to which only full citizens had access, was at the center of communal life. Warriors from among the city militia had political and economic rights. The unity of the rights and duties of the soldiers-owners of the lands led to the absence of a struggle for political representation, because democracy was only direct. At the same time, the circle of full-fledged citizens practically did not expand, in Athens civil rights were not granted to the allies, and Rome began to introduce such a practice only during the existence of the empire.

The People's Assembly and the People's Court as Institutions of Democracy in Greece

In Athens, where the People's Assemblies were a model of polis democracy, full-fledged citizens gathered every 10 days. The list of issues decided at the meeting included the election of senior officials, the procedure for spending the funds of the city treasury, the declaration of war and the conclusion of peace. Administrative activity or by today's standards - the executive power in Athens belonged to the Council of 500, and in Rome, in conditions of external danger or civil war, power was transferred to the dictator, but he owned it for no more than six months.

An equally important institution of ancient Greek democracy was the People's Court, which, according to Aristotle, having strengthened, helped Athens create democracy. During the time of Pericles, which is considered the "golden age" of Athenian democracy, 6,000 judges were elected to the People's Court every year.

Direct Democracy in Ancient Greece

Direct democracy existed in its infancy even in the primitive societies of the period of the tribal system. It is the most obvious form of organization of political society. Plato and Aristotle, in their writings on the theory of politics, gave democracy one of the main places among the five or six types of government.

Every citizen of the city-state could participate in making decisions important for the whole society. Many citizens could have taken one of the many elective posts in their lifetime. Therefore, the great activity of the population is one of the advantages of ancient democracy. Many people participate in political life, they are also involved in management processes. Direct democracy of this kind was defined by modern thinkers as the ideal form of government.