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The Tragedy of the Athenian Ideal in Thucydides and Plato. John T. Hogan
Читать онлайн.Название The Tragedy of the Athenian Ideal in Thucydides and Plato
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781498596312
Автор произведения John T. Hogan
Жанр Философия
Серия Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches
Издательство Ingram
This weakness in the structure of the government, if we consider Madison’s theoretical argument, developed historically as the strength of democracy grew in the late sixth and early fifth century BC. The complicated history of the development of the organs of representative government before Pericles’ rule, and the outcome of that development, fostered democracy but it also had the somewhat unplanned result of a very powerful role for the “generals,” the strategoi. After the major democratic reforms of Kleisthenes, the Assembly or ecclesia decided on proposals brought to it by a “random and representative cross-section of its own members.”47 The senior council had been the Council of the Areopagus since the time of Solon. Kleisthenes’ democratic reforms in 508–507 had reduced the powers of the Council of the Areopagus and moved them to the Council of the Five Hundred, or the boule.48 But the boule was either originally chosen by lot or switched from election to choice by lot shortly after its formation by Kleisthenes.49 The democratic forces in Athens promoted the reforms of Ephialtes in 462/461 that further reduced the power of the Council of the Areopagus, which was composed of former government leaders, the archons. The archons themselves had earlier been reduced in power when the method of choosing them for office was changed to election by lot in 487/86, though the precise motivations for this change in electoral procedure are unclear.50 In addition, the boule or Council, whose function was to initiate and propose legislation, had a membership chosen by lot from the citizens with a term of office of one year.51 Each of the ten tribes contributed fifty members to the boule, which meant that it represented the people (and not the elite) more than it had in the constitution under Solon. As power of the boule increased after the reforms of Ephialtes in 461 when it took over many of the functions of the Council of the Areopagus, the entire government became more democratic.52 The boule originated legislation by proposing it to the Assembly (the eccelsia), but because of its composition, it was inherently democratic and did not introduce (by design at least) a concern for the long-term values of the state that could curb the initiatives of the radical democrats or the leader of the city.53 Pericles was either opposed to continuation of the power of a mediating representative chamber, which the Athenians had had in the Council of the Areopagus, or did not have the foresight to see the need for such a power, or, if he did, he seems not to have had the ability to open the debate on such a subject. What Pericles did was to become a strategos, which was the position that rose in power starting with Themistocles’ policy of a large fleet in 483/482. This newly powerful force in Athenian government, the office of the strategoi, oriented the forces of democracy toward military power in the hands of one leader, who turned out historically to be Pericles. This change was the result of the need for a large fleet that Themistocles saw and persuaded the ecclesia to implement along with the fortification of the Piraeus (Thucydides 1.93.3).54
Thus, the Athenian government was complicated both in form, in the mid-fifth century BC, and in its history. It lacked a Senate but had as a substitute a formally very democratic body, the boule, to propose legislation and thereby to control the tendencies of the demos. This then, as we saw, left the government without a representative body that could promote the long-term, moderated, general interests of Athens as a whole. The office of the strategos took on that role, but inappropriately in some ways, as generals solve problems with war and weapons of war. This Pericles himself attempted to do in response to the growing power of Sparta. What Athens needed was a second reform of its government to moderate the powerful democratic forces in Athens and to control the powerful navy, which had the port, Piraeus, as its center, and the expression of military power as its goal. The central contradiction of the Athenian Empire thus became the confluence of powerful forces in the Piraeus, which was a center for resident aliens, commerce, and democratic politics that could be exported across the Mediterranean. But since the time of Themistocles, it had also been the center of Athenian military power. Athens exported an ideal of democracy, but its military power arose in the same place and grew without formal moderation. Pericles did not attempt a second reform on a level with Kleisthenes’ to make permanent some long-term perspective in the government and to control the military. Pericles himself became the control of the expression of Athenian military power, and though he did fulfill the role of general admirably and honorably, his death unleashed forces that had no institutionalized control. As the Stranger says in the Statesman, the art of the statesman is to decide whether something should be done or not (304d) while the art of the strategos is to wage war (304e). The art of the general is to subordinate the art of the statesman (305a). The art of the statesman also decides whether the citizens ought to learn or not and controls the art of what is learned or taught. In Athens, the basic political principle is democracy; the statesman decides what is to be learned or taught. The politicians rely on the art of rhetoric, which includes telling stories or myths (304c–d). This can hint at why Socrates disturbed the Athenian government so thoroughly. He implicitly and sometimes openly challenged the controlling ideas of the entire state.
Plato’s Republic begins with Socrates’ visit to the Piraeus, the home of the democratic forces in Athenian politics and a place that trade and the navy dominated (327a–b). The Piraeus was the location of great contradictions in Athenian public life as it was the center of Athenian expansionism in political power, the navy, and in trade. This is where Socrates was free to pursue his ideas but constrained by the dynamic, dangerous contradiction between Athens as she was and Athens as she aspired to be. So in the Republic Socrates goes down to the Piraeus where he discusses a just state. One Platonic irony here is that the Piraeus was the seat of commerce, the home of many foreigners who were attracted to the sense of commercial equality and concomitant financial opportunity, and also general human equality and freedom of Athens. It was also the center of the democratic movement in Athenian politics.55 The Piraeus was theoretically the safest place for Socrates to present his view of human justice, since the largest degree of apparent freedom resided there, but one freedom that was not allowed in Athens generally, as it turns out, was to question the underlying principles of that freedom and the nature of the Athenian Empire that generated all the political freedom and the time and means to pursue it.
In the first speech in Athens that Thucydides reports, the debate in Athens in 433 between the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans, the central facts that control the decision in favor of Corcyra are the recognition or simple belief that war was inevitable and the sense that Athens should not sacrifice the naval power of Corcyra to the interests of Corinth (1.44.2). In addition, as Thucydides notes, the island of Corcyra was conveniently located on the way to Sicily (1.44.2). Even as the war is beginning, the Athenians focus on practical, material advantage, an approach to life that war encourages. Here we see the war in one view: Naval and commercial expansion to Sicily are enabled by Corcyraean and Athenian support for the aristocrats (the ruling party) in Epidamnus, while the Corinthians supported the demos in a civil war. Athens here acts against the general direction of her broad social and political force for democracy (cf. 1.24.5–1.25.1). She acts for her imperial power. Corcyra, a naval power, offers more naval power to Athens, and, since war is the chosen method for solving problems of state here, Corcyra receives support.
In the first debate at Athens, both the Corinthians and the Corcyraeans implicitly acknowledge the force of logos or argument as such. The fact that there was a debate at all, and indeed