Ancient Greece and Rome: Society, Government, and Politics
The Polis in Ancient Greece
The polis was a unit consisting of a core urban area, cropland, forest, and, in some cases, a port for external communication. Homes and businesses surrounded the acropolis. At the foot of the acropolis was the agora, a central square. Many cities also included theaters, stadiums, and gymnasiums. The fields were cultivated by peasants or people in service to wealthy men.
Society in the Time of Pericles
Pericles enacted a law stipulating that citizens must be born to Athenian parents. Foreigners living in Athens were called metics. Slaves occupied the lowest social stratum.
The Form of Democratic Government
All Athenian citizens could participate in the popular assembly, where laws were debated. This assembly met on a hill near the Acropolis. The assembly could declare war or peace, levy taxes, and elect ten officials called strategists.
A Peer-Dominated Spartan Society
Spartan society comprised three main groups: the Spartiates (the same), the Helots, and the Perioeci. The Spartiates were the dominant group. The Helots were state-owned serfs, and the Perioeci were descendants of peasant communities who could live and work freely.
Primitive Italy: Between the Mountains and the Sea
The Italian peninsula is traversed from north to south by the Apennines mountain range, dividing the Mediterranean basin into western and eastern parts.
The Early Roman Monarchy
The political chief was the king, chosen by the Senate. The Senate also advised him. Another assembly, the assembly of curiae, decided on matters of peace and war.
Republican Rome
In the Republic, the king’s power was divided into three branches that complemented each other:
- The Senate, responsible for making laws.
- Assemblies, which approved or rejected laws.
- Magistrates, officials responsible for enforcing the laws.
These offices were organized in a cursus honorum and were almost always collegial, annual, and elective:
- Consuls (2): Political and military leaders of the city, with veto power.
- Praetors (2, 4, 6, or 8): Administered justice.
- Censors (2): Conducted the census of citizens according to their wealth and guarded public morality (exercised censorship).
- Aediles (4 or 6): Responsible for health, water supply, food security, and public entertainment.
- Quaestors (10, 20, or 40): Attended to public finances (tax collection and government expenditure).
- Tribunes of the People (2): Added later to defend commoners and had veto power.
The dictatorship was an extraordinary magistracy, outside the cursus honorum. The dictator was appointed by the Senate to address a crisis. The plebeians fought against the patricians to gain citizenship.
Civil Wars and the Crisis of the Republic
The soldiers of the Roman legions became professional in the 1st century BC. Their commanders acknowledged the power of absolute monarchies in the East. The Senate obtained extraordinary powers, such as the dictatorship, and military partnerships were created, dividing charges among political powers. This led to the formation of two political camps: the populares and the optimates (Senate party).