Back To Politics
Back To Politics
By the end of the sixth century Cleisthenes* is running Athens. Somewhere around 508-7 BCE he redoes the whole political system and the first full fledged democracy is born. He throws out the old power groups and divides the Athenians into ten tribes. He extends citizenship to a bunch of men who have been excluded before. This doubles the size of the electorate. Between this time and the time of Pericles* (in 443) the system blossoms.
508 BCE- Democracy replaces the rule of tyrant Cleisthenes' democratic constitution. The old Council loses the power to run things and the Assembly gets that job. Membership in
the Council, which now just draws up agendas, is representative of the ten tribes with no economic requirement. It is now just a high executive committee that reports to the Assembly. All office holders, of whatever kind, are now responsible to the Assembly. The Assembly itself has twenty to thirty thousand members and becomes the legislature. After a while any citizen will be eligible for public office and they are all expected, at some time, to serve.
Election to public offices is by a sort of lottery system. There is a ban on re-election until others have a chance. Most major offices have to be rotated. A man might find himself picked to be a juror, a magistrate, a tax collector or a member of the council. If he is on the council
he can also find himself presiding, because this job changes (by lot) every day and the council meets three hundred days every year. Even the ten generals are elected each year from the entire citizenry. This doesn't necessarily provide for the best public defense. The historian Thucydides* is exiled, when, as a general in the war with Sparta, he fails to hold a city.
A lot more people get first hand experience in government. There is less attention paid to the economic class they come from. In the early stages office holders needed to be independently wealthy so that they could have the leisure time to devote to public affairs, but by the time of Pericles, wages are made available so that poorer people can also serve.
The Assembly meets four times a month, outdoors on the slope across from the Acropolis. Fortunately not everyone comes regularly, but there are usually two to three thousand assembled. At dawn they kill a pig (to sacrifice to Zeus), offered some prayers, heard the agenda (set up by the council) and started in arguing. There is a water clock to limit each speaker but it's always a rowdy shouting match. It is easy to see why they come to respect a really skilled speaker and study to improve their speaking abilities.
With democracy comes the explosion in theatre. It grows and flourishes. If the assembly is the seat of political argument and the games are the home of physical contests, the theatre is the glue that holds the whole society together. In the theatre all ideas are presented and contested for approval or dismissal. No important question is overlooked, the gods relations to people, people's relation to each other, and an individual's relation to themselves. The arguments are put in the form of a contest (an agon*); right against wrong; Sophrosyne* (prudence, moderation, self-control) against hubris* (overweening pride and ambition); virtues against vices; fate and destiny against a character's best efforts.
Parts
» Euripides* And The Crumbling State
» Aristophanes* - He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best
» Take The Frogs* for instance -
» Alexander And Logical Thinking
» Rome While all this is going on in the Greek-dominated Hellenistic world, the Romans* are busy
» Roman Writers c.275 BCE - c.110 BCE During The Era Of Senate Supremacy
» From Classical Light Into The Dark Ages The Fifth Century
» The End of the Western Empire in Italy
» Why Europe Isn't Very Interesting In The Sixth Century
» Islam* Enters Europe As We Enter The Eighth Century
» Vikings Move On As Does Islamic Culture
» Theatre Reappears In Bits And Pieces As We Move Onward Into The Tenth Century
» Europe Moves On Into The Eleventh Century
» As The Twelfth Century Begins Economic And Intellectual Profits
» The Third Crusade The One We All Remember
» More Crusades And A Small Renaissance As We Go Into The Thirteenth Century
» The Small Renaissance Part of the Century
» THEATRICAL PERFORMANCE SPACE IN CHURCH DRAMA -
» The Fourteenth Century And We Come To The Down Part Of The Late Middle Ages
» The Black Death* Comes To Europe
» Everything Takes Off In All Directions At Once
» The Renaissance Officially Begins
» Italian Theatrical Renaissance Gets Going
» Brief Consideration of the Range of Plays
» The Winds Of Reformation* Begin In Germany -
» Theatrical Scenery Takes Off
» Background for Spanish Theatre -
» Other Current Spanish Playwrights
» The English Renaissance 1588-1629
» Sources Of English Playwrighting
» William Shakespeare* -(1564-1616)
» English Settlements Begin In America
» Spanish Court Theatre Flourishes
» The French Theatre Finally Gets Up and Running Introduction
» Back in France Richelieu* Pushes Theatre Development
» English Religious Opposition Increases
» England Falls into Civil War
» English Restoration Theatre Begins
» Middle Class and Sentimental English Theatre
» Europe and America in Social Ferment
» Germany and the Beginnings of Romanticism
» American Revolutionary Times Begin
» Melodrama,* Popular Theatre, and Napoleon MELODRAMA*
» Realistic Elements In Production
» Political Philosophy Moves On
» The Mexican War* and Nationalism
» The 1848 Revolutions and Nationalism
» Some of his best known plays:
» 1908 - Theatre Theorists Publish
» New Connections, New Starts - 1911 -
» And After 1914-1925 Introduction
» The Russian Revolution - 1917
» America Draws Back Into Its Shell -
» Second World War and Its Aftermath
Show more