The Constitution of Athens
oll.libertyfund.org
oll.libertyfund.org
In the translation hosted by MIT, Aristotle starts with this:
> After this event there was contention for a long time between the upper classes and the populace. Not only was the constitution at this time oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and children, were the serfs of the rich. They were known as Pelatae and also as Hectemori, because they cultivated the lands of the rich at the rent thus indicated. The whole country was in the hands of a few persons, and if the tenants failed to pay their rent they were liable to be haled into slavery, and their children with them. All loans secured upon the debtor's person, a custom which prevailed until the time of Solon, who was the first to appear as the champion of the people. But the hardest and bitterest part of the constitution in the eyes of the masses was their state of serfdom. Not but what they were also discontented with every other feature of their lot; for, to speak generally, they had no part nor share in anything.
Aristotle wrote this 2372 years ago. Go read the whole thing. It will make you appreciate that many societal problems we have today are... not new.
--
[a] It may have been written by one of his pupils.
Isn't your remark itself divisive? We should be paying attention to ideas and verifying them, not flirting with ad hominem. The last thing we need to encourage is more emotionalism and prejudice.
> It will make you appreciate that many societal problems we have today are... not new.
Indeed, as the famous passage from Ecclesiastes says, there nothing new under the sun. Another text worth reading is "The Republic" in which there is an analysis of the stages of political decadence which are also discernible in our own times[0][1].
[0] https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1562889060602916864.html
[1] https://americanmind.org/salvo/woke-ideology-is-a-psychologi...
I link to an easy-to-verify source, so, no, I don't think that remark is divisive.
> We should be paying attention to ideas and verifying them, not flirting with ad hominem. The last thing we need to encourage is more emotionalism and prejudice.
Couldn't agree more!
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/6...
Of course, he stopped writing towards the end of the second century BC when Rome’s Republic began to slowly fall apart, but even the Empire that came after proved somewhat durable.
People consider Norway or Switzerland durable because they lasted 800+ years so far.
The Eastern Roman Empire, as a continuation of the unified Empire, lasted more than twice as long, on much bigger territory which attracted all sorts of external invaders (Goths, Persians, Arabs, Slavs, Crusaders, Venetians, Turks).
Compared to the ancient-ness of the Romans, England and Sweden are middle-age countries, the US is a youngster with a fresh driving licence and the EU is a toddler who can barely say "mama".
Of the currently existing countries, only Japan seems somewhat comparable to the Roman Empire as far as continuity goes, and it is an island state well shielded against invaders by the sea and its fierce storms.
In reality, Denmark is one of the only countries in (Northern) Europe to have been completely independent for a milenia .
France has lasted longer than that so far, more or less since Clovis I was crowned king of the Franks in 509. (it does not disprove your point, that's just for context).
> the EU is a toddler
The EU is not a nation or a state, and does not pretend or try to be one; it's a strange thing to include in your list.
On the other hand, mere Christianization of the Roman Empire doesn't seem as crucial (pun intended) as to create a break in its statehood. Most of the institutions went on just like before, most of the important families stayed the same, the legal system and the language of the realm didn't change at all or only very little etc.
The republic period is more interesting, but I believe that the Romans considered themselves the same people and the some country in that period, without breaks in identity - which IMHO should matter more than a purely academic take from the early 21st century.
From where I live, the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire put a lot of economical and ethnic strain on the successor states, destabilizing the entire Central European region and making it an easy target for imperial intents of Germany and Soviet Russia.
And even today, in Czechia of 2022, we have a lot of A-H legacies in our daily lives, like paying with "the crown" and using the same kilometre markings along our railway routes, beginning with 0 = Vienna.
Empires tend to consist of much more than just the ruling class.
I don't think the EU should be in that list at all, as it isn't a nation. Not by the UN definition, nor by its own.
Unfortunately, all of them, except for that of Athens, are lost. It's a real shame, because these constitutions would be a treasure trove for understanding Greek politics in the 4th Century BC.
I think there is something to this. Perhaps we should all be willing to fight for our country or send our children to fight, if we want to have political power? A mercenary state is more dangerous, IMO.
One would hope that we have moved a bit beyond this in the last 2000 years..
> we should all
The 'all' you're referring is a small male warrior elite. Even in democratic Athens it's unlikely that the majority of the male population ever had civil rights (citizens were outnumbered by foreigners and slaves)
Out of a total population of around 300,000 people, about 50,000 were male citizens. This is a far larger level of participation in government than in virtually any other society of the time (aside from the other Greek democracies).
This is the victors commenting on the defeated.
He said the Roman Republic was great because it had all three forms of government at the same time: the consuls were “monarchs”, the senate was “aristocratic”, and the people/tribune of the plebes were the “democracy.”
This is where the modern idea of separation of powers comes from.
Some searching brings up this: https://jhiblog.org/2021/03/04/machiavellis-debt-to-polybius....
I’ll have to read and digest later.
I know there is a lot of work to be done in making classical ideas accessible. I’d love to find a platform or online community that supports technical hobbyists in this space.