Studying Ancient History

Given all this, it should be obvious that Greek religion was polytheistic. Homer endowed his gods with a personality and the gods differed from men only (1) in their physical perfection and (2) in their immortality. In other words, gods and goddesses, like men and women, could be good, bad honest, devious, jealous, vengeful, calm, sober, quick-witted or dim. The gods assisted their favorite mortals and punished those who defied their will. Most gods were common to all Greeks but each city-state also had their own patron deity. Gods and goddesses were worshipped in public. But there were also household gods - the gods of the hearth - specific to each family or clan. The general acceptance of these gods is a sign of a specific culture that arose during the Greek Renaissance, a culture we can identify as "Panhellenic."

Athenian Democracy

Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the central city-state of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 500 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies (although anthropological research suggests that democratic forms were likely common in stateless societies long before the rise of Athens). Other Greek cities set up democracies, most but not all following an Athenian model, but none were as powerful or as stable (or as well-documented) as that of Athens. It remains a unique and intriguing experiment in direct democracy where the people do not elect representatives to vote on their behalf but vote on legislation and executive bills in their own right. Participation was by no means open, but the in-group of participants was constituted with no reference to economic class and they participated on a scale that was truly phenomenal. The public opinion of voters was remarkably influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters.

Solon (594 BC), Cleisthenes (509 BC), and Ephialtes (462 BC) all contributed to the development of Athenian democracy. Historians differ on which of them was responsible for which institutions, and which of them most represented a truly democratic movement. It is most usual to date Athenian democracy from Cleisthenes, since Solon's constitution fell and was replaced by the tyranny of Peisistratus, whereas Ephialtes revised Cleisthenes' constitution relatively peacefully. Hipparchus, the brother of the tyrant Hippias, was killed by Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were subsequently honored by the Athenians for their alleged restoration of Athenian freedom.

The greatest and longest-lasting democratic leader was Pericles; after his death, Athenian democracy was twice briefly interrupted by oligarchic revolution towards the end of the Peloponnesian War. It was modified somewhat after it was restored under Eucleides; the most detailed accounts are of this fourth-century modification rather than the Periclean system. It was suppressed by the Macedonians in 322 BC. The Athenian institutions were later revived, but the extent to which they were a real democracy is debatable.

The word "democracy" (Greek: ??????????) combines the elements Fdemos (?????, which means "people") and Ukratos (??????, which means "force" or "power"). In the words "monarchy" and "oligarchy", the second element arche means rule, leading, or being first. It is not possible that the term "democracy" was coined by its detractors who rejected the possibility of, so to speak, a valid "demarchy", as long as the word "dematchy" already existed and had the meaning of mayor or municipal. That is why a new term has been invented, and was adopted wholeheartedly by Athenian democrats.

The word is attested in Herodotus, who wrote some of the earliest Greek prose to survive, but even this may not have been before 440 or 430 BC. It is not at all certain that the word goes back to the beginning of the democracy, but from around 460 BC[citation needed] at any rate an individual is known whose parents had decided to name him 'Democrates', a name which may have been manufactured as a gesture of democratic loyalty; the name can also be found in Aeolian Temnus, not a particularly democratic state.

Sparta

Sparta (Doric ??????; Attic ?????? Sparte) was a city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the River Eurotas in the southern part of the Peloponnese. From c. 650 BC it rose to become the dominant military power in the region and as such was recognized as the overall leader of the combined Greek forces during the Greco-Persian Wars. Sparta owed its military efficiency to its social structure, unique in ancient Greece. The Spartans formed a minority in their own territory of Lakonia; all male citizens of Sparta were full-time soldiers; unskilled labour was performed by a much larger, heavily subjugated slave population known as Helots (Gr., "captives"), while skilled labour was provided by another group, the Perioikoi (Gr. "those who live round about"). Helots were the majority inhabitants of Sparta (over 80% of the population according to Herodotus). They were ritually humiliated. During the Crypteia they could be legally killed by Spartan citizens. Between 431 and 404 BC Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War. By 362 BC Sparta's role as the dominant military power in Greece was over. Sparta continues to fascinate Western culture; an admiration of Sparta is called laconophilia.

Sparta was generally referred to by the ancient Greeks as Lakedaimon (??????????) or Lakedaimonia (????????????); these are the names commonly used in the works of Homer and the Athenian historians Herodotus and Thucydides. Herodotus uses only the former and in some passages seems to denote by it the ancient Greek citadel at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. The immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains, was generally referred as Lakonia. This term was sometimes used to refer to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia.

In Greek mythology, Lakedaimon was a son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete. He married Sparta the daughter of Eurotas, by whom he became the father of Amyclas, Eurydice, and Asine. He was king of the country which he named after himself, naming the capital after his wife. He was believed to have built the sanctuary of the Charites, which stood between Sparta and Amyclae, and to have given to those divinities the names of Cleta and Phaenna. A shrine was erected to him in the neighborhood of Therapne.

Lacedaemon is now the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia. The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct, because the literary evidence is far removed in time from the events it describes and is also distorted by oral tradition. However, the earliest certain evidence of human settlement in the region of Sparta consists of pottery dating from the Middle Neolithic period, found in the vicinity of Kouphovouno some two kilometres south-southwest of Sparta. These are the earliest traces of the original Mycenaean Spartan civilisation, as represented in Homer's Iliad.

This civilization seems to have fallen into decline by the late Bronze Age, when Doric Greek warrior tribes from Epirus and Macedonia in northeast Greece came south to the Peloponnese and settled there. The Dorians seem to have set about expanding the frontiers of Spartan territory almost before they had established their own state. They fought against the Argive Dorians to the east and southeast, and also the Arcadian Achaeans to the northwest. The evidence suggests that Sparta, relatively inaccessible because of the topography of the Taygetan plain, was secure from early on: it was never fortified.

Between the eighth and seventh centuries BC the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later testified by both Herodotus and Thucydides. As a result they carried out a series of political and social reforms of their own society which they later attributed to a semi-mythical lawgiver, Lykourgos. These reforms mark the beginning of the history of Classical Sparta.

The Persian Invasion of Greece

The 5th century was an age of war and conflict. Between 490 and 479 B.C., Greece was invaded by the army and naval fleet of the Persian Empire. By about 500 B.C. the Greek city states had lost their kings (with the exception of Sparta) and had embraced a new form of government through councils of citizens. Almost immediately, however, these states were confronted by an invasion of the Persian Empire.

King Darius (548-486 B.C.) managed to build up the Persian Empire and now controlled Asia Minor, including Greek poleis on the west coast. In 499 B.C., some of the these poleis rebelled from the Persians (an episode called the Ionian Revolt). The Athenians lent their support but the revolt ultimately collapsed in 493 B.C. Darius proposed now to invade mainland Greece - his prime target was Athens. Darius sent his fleet across the Aegean in 490 and awaited news of victory.

The Persians landed at Marathon, a village just north of Athens. Commanded by Militiades, the Greek forces totaled only 10,000 men - the Persian force was perhaps 20-25,000 strong. The Greek forces charged and trapped the Persians and won the battle. The remainder of the Persians attempted to attack Athens but the Greek army rushed back and the Persians were forced to return to Asia Minor. The victory at Marathon was won by superior timing and discipline.

Darius prepared a second invasion but died (486 B.C.) before his plans could be carried out. The task was taken up by Xerxes (c.519-465 B.C.) who prepared a huge force that would attack by land and sea. In 483 B.C., the Athenian statesman Themistocles (c.523-c.458 B.C.) persuaded his fellow Athenians to build a navy of one hundred triremes. He also oversaw the fortification of the harbor at Piraeus. Fearing destruction at the hands of the Persians, in 480 B.C. thirty poleis formed an alliance. Athens, Sparta and Corinth were the most powerful members.

In 480 B.C., Xerxes sent a force of 60,000 men and 600 ships to Greece. The Greeks made their stand at Thermopylae. Five thousand men took up their positions to defend the pass at Thermopylae. The Greeks held the pass but eventually a traitorous Greek led a Persian force through the hills to the rear of the Greek forces, who were subsequently massacred. Meanwhile, the Greek navy tried to hold off the Persian ships at Artemisium. The Athenians eventually abandoned Athens ahead of the Persian army. The Persians marched across the Attic peninsula and burned Athens. Themistocles then sent a false message to Xerxes, telling him to strike at once. The Persians were taken in and sent their navy into the narrow strait between Athens and the island of Salamis. More than three hundred Greek ships rammed the Persians and heavily armed Greek soldiers boarded the ships. The Greek victory at Salamis was a decisive one. However, Persian forces remained in Greece. Their final expulsion came in 479 B.C. at the village of Plataea.

By 479 B.C., the Greek forces had all conquered the Persian army and navy. After the Persian Wars, Athens emerged as the most dominant political and economic force in the Greek world. The Athenian polis, buttressed by the strength of its Council of Five Hundred and Assembly of citizens, managed to gain control of a confederation of city-states which gradually became the Athenian Empire.

The Athenians not only had a political leadership based on the principles of direct democracy as set in motion by Cleisthenes, they also had wide trading and commercial interests in the Mediterranean world. These trading interests spread throughout the area of the Aegean Sea including Asia Minor, an area known as the Aegean Basin. Greek victories against the Persians secured mainland Greece from further invasion. There was a great sense of relief on the part of all Greeks that they had now conquered the conquerors. But, there were some citizens who argued in the Assembly that a true Greek victory would only follow from total defeat of the Persians, and this meant taking the war to Persia itself. And this is precisely what would happen in the 5th century.

Meanwhile, dozens of Greek city-states joined together to form a permanent union for the war. Delegates met on the island of Delos in 478 B.C. The allies swore oaths of alliance which were to last until lumps of iron, thrown into the sea, rose again. The Delian League policy was to be established by an assembly of representatives but was to be administered by an admiral and ten treasurers appointed by Athens. It fell upon the Athenian leader, Aristides the Just, to assign an assessment of 460 talents per year, which member states paid in cash or in the form of manned ships. Right from the start, the Delian League was dominated by Athenian authority and leadership. The Delian League had its precedents: the Spartan League, the Ionian League of 499-494 B.C. and the League of 481-478 B.C. Eventually, the Greeks liberated the cities of Asia Minor and by 450 B.C., the war with the Persians came to an end.

It was at this time that the power of Athens was being felt throughout the Greek world. And as the power of Athens reached new limits, its political influence began to be extended as well. The Athenians forced city-states to join the Delian league against their will. They refused to allow city-states to withdraw from the League. And other city-states they simply refused entry into the League. Athens stationed garrisons in other city-states to keep the peace and to make sure that Athens would receive their support, both politically and in terms of paying tribute to the League. By 454 B.C., Athenian domination of the Delian League was clear - the proof is that the League's treasury was moved from the temple of Apollo on the island of Delos to the temple of Athena at Athens. Payments to the Delian League now became payments to the treasury of Athens.

Roman Religion

The Romans had a god called Janus -- from which the word January derives. Janus was a god of doorways, including the gates at the walls of Rome. Rome's goddess of fire, Vesta, ranked high among the Roman gods, but the largest temple in Rome was for the goddess Venus, the daughter of Jupiter. She was a goddess of vegetation, a bringer of good fortune and victory and the protector of feminine chastity.

Like others, the Romans had acquired much in religion through cultural diffusion, and like others they remained largely unmindful of such origins. It seems that the Romans acquired the gods Jupiter, Juno and Minerva from the Etruscans, and perhaps through the Etruscans the Romans acquired Greek gods. The Roman gods Mercury, Ceres and Diana resembled Greek gods, and the Roman god Hercules was a Greek god. With increased contact between Romans and Greeks, the Romans would identify their gods more with Greek gods. And not having much in mythology surrounding their gods, the Romans would adopt Greek mythology to support their gods.

Religion for the Romans was not about their love for gods or of gods who loved them, nor was it about withdrawing from the present and waiting for a happy life in the hereafter. Religion for the Romans was about the here and now and the terrors that the gods could devise. For the Romans, devotion to the gods and pleasing the gods was a duty, an act of patriotism, an act of service and protection for the community. And to serve the gods, the Roman government saw itself as the source of moral as well as legal standards. State priests attempted to appease the gods by carefully performed rituals and offerings. The welfare of the community was seen as affected by such virtues as discipline, soldierly courage, chastity among the women, and frugality, all of which were believed to please the gods. The Romans were afraid of displeasing the gods through some word or deed. And, to protect the community from the anger of the gods, soldiers took religious oaths against thievery. Olive growers took an oath against their conspiring with others to raise prices. Olive pickers took an oath against stealing olives. And those who handled public money took oaths against stealing. It appeared that religion would keep Rome on the path of virtue.

At the head of Rome's religion was the Pontifex Maximus, who, when Rome had become a republic, replaced the Etruscan king in this role. Under the Pontifex Maximus was a college of priests, who were called pontiffs. They were officers of the government in charge of handling Rome's relations with the supernatural. It was their duty to keep the city on good terms with the gods by preserving religious traditions and by making sure that every important act of state was sanctioned by the gods, including relations with foreign communities. Priests were assigned to individual gods, and laws derived from myths governed their actions: the priest of Jupiter was forbidden to walk under an arbor of vines, touch a dead man, eat bread fermented with yeast or to go outside without his cap.

That the state's priests were exclusively patrician had its origins in earlier times -- when the aristocracy believed that its interests alone were served by the gods. But common Romans were not about to leave all religion to the state. They saw their relations with their gods as personal. The common Roman saw gods guiding them through all kinds of matters from birth to death. Each Roman household had its divine protector. And to this god they prayed -- much as modern Christians pray while leaving ritual to their priests.

Marcus Aurelius

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180; emperor, 161-180), the last of the Five Good Emperors, was one of the noblest figures of the ancient world. From 140, when he was made consul, to the death of Pious in 161, he discharged his public duties with the utmost fidelity. At the same time he devoted himself to the study of law and philosophy, especially Stoicism.

The generally peaceful Marcus Aurelius was throughout his reign destined to suffer from constant wars and although in Asia, in Britain and on the Rhine the barbarians were held in check, a permanent peace was never secured. Rome was suffering from pestilence and earthquakes when the imperial colleagues led the Roman armies against the barbarians along the Danube. He was summoned to the East by a rebellion of the governor, Avidius Cassius who died at the hands of an assassin before Aurelius had arrived. Meanwhile, his wife Faustina died in an obscure village at the foot of Mount Taurus. On his way back to Rome, Aurelius visited Lower Egypt and Greece. At Athens he founded chairs in philosophy in each of the four main branches -- Platonic, Stoic, Peripatetic and Epicurean. By the end of 176 he reached Italy, and the following year Germany, where new disturbances had broken out. Victory again followed him but at last, his health gave way and he died at either Vienna or at Sirmium in Pannonia in 180.

A philosopher as well as emperor and general, Aurelius wrote the MEDITATIONS, a work which reveals the loneliness of his soul. However, as a Stoic thinker of the highest caliber, he also shows us that he did not allow himself to be saddened by his experience of life. His death was a national calamity and he became almost an object of worship to the citizens of the empire -- it is said that after his death Aurelius appeared in dreams as did the saints of the Christian era. Aurelius twice persecuted the Christians -- he undoubtedly believed Christian fanaticism and superstition were dangerous to philosophy, society and the empire.

Under the Five Good Emperors the frontiers of the Empire were consolidated to the north and to the east. The bureaucracy was opened up to all social classes, trade and agriculture flourished, and there was much public building. Although things did seem to be getting better, there were problems on the horizon. Barbarian pressures were mounting. There was a considerable decline in the slave population and the army was no longer large enough to maintain the frontier. As a result, Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Five Great Emperors, spent most of his time defending the frontier and as a result, spent very little time in Rome. Following his death in 180, the imperial office passed to his nineteen year old son and another madman, Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus (161-192, emperor, 180-192).

The principle of heredity in the Roman Empire

The Emperor could designate a successor, without elevating him to the position of co-regent, by conferring on him the title of Caesar. This practice, which since Hadrian was usual under the Principate, and was adopted by Constantine, is not frequent in the later Empire. If the Emperor has sons, he almost invariably creates his eldest son Augustus. If not, he may signify his will as to the succession by bestowing the dignity of Caesar. The Emperor before his death might raise the Caesar to the co-regency. If he died without having done this, the Caesar had to be elected in the usual way by the Senate and the army. This method of provisional and revocable designation was often convenient. An Emperor who had no male issue might wish to secure the throne to a son-in_law, for instance, in case of his own premature death. If he conferred the Caesarship and if a male child were afterwards born to him, that child would be created Augustus, and the Caesar's claim would fall into abeyance.

When the Emperor had more than one son, it was usual to confer the title of Caesar on the younger. Constitutionally this may be considered a provision for the contingency of the death of the co-regent. Practically it meant a title of dignity reserved for the members of the Imperial family. Sometimes the co-regency was conferred on more than one son. Theodosius the Great raised Honorius to the rank of Augustus as well as his elder son Arcadius. But it is to be observed that this measure was not taken till after the death of the West Emperor Valentinian II, and that its object was to provide two sovrans, one for the East and one for the West. If the division of the Empire had not been contemplated, Honorius would not have been created Augustus in A.D. 393. To avoid a struggle between brothers, the obvious policy was to confer the supreme rank on only one. Before the reign of Basil I in the ninth century, there were few opportunities to depart from this rule of expediency, and it was only violated twice, in both cases with unfortunate consequences.

But the Caesarship was not the only method employed to signalise an eventual successor. In the third century it became usual to describe the Caesar, the Emperor's adopted son, as nobilissimus. In the fourth, this became an independent title, denoting a dignity lower than Caesar, but confined to the Imperial family. On two occasions we find nobilissimus used as a sort of preliminary designation. But it fell out of use in the fifth century, and apparently was not revived till the eighth, when it was conferred on the youngest members of the large family of Constantine V. In the sixth century Justinian introduced a new title, Curopalates, which, inferior to Caesar and nobilissimus, might serve either to designate or simply to honour a member of the Imperial family. We find it used both ways. It was a less decided designation than the Caesarship, and a cautious or suspicious sovran might prefer it.

The principle of heredity, which was thus conciliated with the principle of election, gradually gave rise to the view that not only was the Emperor's son his legitimate successor, but that if he had no male issue, the question of succession would be most naturally and satisfactorily settled by the marriage of a near female relative - daughter, sister, or widow,- and the election of her husband, who would thus continue the dynasty. There was a general feeling of attachment to a dynasty, and the history of the Later Empire presents a series of dynasties, with few and brief intervals of unsettlement. During the four centuries between 395 and 802, we have five dynasties, which succeed one another, except in two cases, without a break.

Though there was no law excluding women from the succession, yet perhaps we may say that up to the seventh or eighth century it would have been considered not merely politically impossible, but actually illegal, for a woman to exercise the sovran power in her own name. The highest authority on the constitution of the early Empire affirms that her sex did not exclude a woman from the Principate. But the title Augusta did not include the proconsular Imperium and the tribunician potestas, which constituted the power of the Princeps, and it is not clear that these could have been conferred legally on a woman or that she could have borne the title Imperator. It is said, and may possibly be true, that Caligula, when he was ill, designated his favourite sister Drusilla as his successor; but this does not prove that she could legally have acted as Princeps. Several Empresses virtually shared the exercise of the Imperial authority, bore themselves as co-regents, and enjoyed more power than male co-regents; but their power was de facto, not de jure. Some were virtually sovrans, but they were acting as regents for minors. Not till the end of the eighth century do we find a woman, the Empress Irene, exercising sovranty alone and in her own name. This was a constitutional innovation. The experiment was only once repeated, and only in exceptional circumstances would it have been tolerated. There was a general feeling against a female reign, both as inexpedient and as a violation of tradition. Between the fourth and eighth centuries, however, two circumstances may have combined to make it appear no longer illegal. The Greek official term for Imperator was Autokrator, and in the course of time, when Latin was superseded by Greek, and Imperator fell out of use and memory, Autokrator ceased to have the military associations which were attached to its Latin equivalent, and the constitutional incompatibility of the office with the female sex is no longer apparent. In the second place, female regencies prepared the way for Irene's audacious step. When a new Emperor was a minor, the regency might be entrusted to his mother or an elder sister, whether acting alone or in conjunction with other regents. Irene was regent for her son before she grasped the sole power for herself.

The title of Augusta was always conferred on the wife of the Emperor and the wife of the co-regent, and from the seventh century it was frequently conferred on some or all of the Emperor's daughters. The reigning Augusta might have great political power. In the sixth century, Justinian and Theodora, and Justin II and Sophia, exercised what was virtually a joint rule, but in neither case did the constitutional position of the Empress differ from that of any other consort.

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