Self Governing Community The Greek City State example essay topic

... 's own good with public order". A sense of the value of the individual was thus one of the primary conditions of the development of political thought in Greece. Political life expressed a shared, ordered self- understanding, not a mere struggle for power. This ideal led to the birth of a new government, a self-governing community - the Greek city-state. A city-state is "an aggregation of free human beings, bound together by common ties, some of which may be called natural ties, some artificial".

Natural ties are those such as race, language, religion, and land - the territory occupied by the city-state. Artificial ties include law, customs, government, commerce, and self-defense. A governing body does not need all of these ties to become a city-state; however, all must have a reasonable amount of artificial ties. Every community must possess some form of law, otherwise the people are bound together only by natural ties, and thus, they are not a governing body. The Greek polis enabled the people to express their individualism. The polis was "ideological and it was reflective" in allowing a person to be a part of the political society as well as protecting his inner self, but a person lived in a constant oscillation of trying to even the balance between the two.

The polis encompassed a group of men deemed to be equal. In contrast to tribal or feudal societies, ancient Athens boasted no priestly class. The males who made up the citizen body participated in the face-to-face, directly democratic politics of the city-state, not merely by voting but also by speaking in the assembly and by serving themselves through active and intimate interaction with others. The experience of being a member of a self-governing citizen body was a process of "individuation", of reflection on the connection between social order and social demands and the aims of individuals. It prompted reflection about the means of reconciling the conflict between private and public avenues. Participation in the politics of democratic Greece was an extenuation of the menial status of the people.

This held true because the polis expressed not merely the material interests of those who ruled and were ruled, but also their freedom and their nobility. The realization of one's purposes within the polis demanded that one be an active citizen. Man's awareness and understanding of himself as an agent is shaped through interaction with the world. Membership of the political community was not merely essential for survival, but also greatly extended the range of ends of which it was possible to pursue. A self-governing community enabled men to act to secure the ends they desired, to express their autonomy, and by its very operation ensured that the social order was such as to preserve the liberty of its members. The political and social interaction characteristic of a self-governing community fostered those capacities essential to the preservation of the autonomy of all citizens.

According to Aristotle, all states are made up of three elements, or classes: one is extremely rich, another very poor, and the third in the middle. He believed that the mean is the best, for in that condition of life, men are most ready to follow rational principle. Those who have too much of the goods of fortune, strength, wealth, friends, and the like, are neither willing nor able to submit to authority. On the other hand, the very poor who are in the opposite extreme, are too degraded to obey. Thus, the best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class, and those states are likely to be well-administered if the middle class is large. The addition of the middle class turns the scale, and prevents either of the extremes from being dominant.

The middle class also helps to keep the government favorable for both the rich and the poor. However, the middle class rarely existed in the Greek city-states, therefore, the communities existed as a master and slave society. These social classes created friction and dissatisfaction among the people. In order to study the Greek government, especially the Athenian government, it is necessary to examine the two legal codes, the Draconian and the Solonian Codes of Law, which had great influence on the courts of Athens.

The decisions handed down by these courts were based, at least in theory, on these written laws. The first written laws appeared in Athens 621 B.C. These laws were attributed to Dracon, a lawgiver. The punishment for all offenses was death, regardless of how small or how serious the infraction was. Dracon felt that people guilty of any and all crimes deserved the death penalty no matter. As a result, the laws today that are cruel and harsh are considered Draconian. These harsh laws were not the cause of the collapse of the existing constitution in Athens; the disparity of wealth between the rich and poor led to its collapse.

The people of Athens realized that they needed someone to revamp their constitution to stop the quarreling among the various classes. A man named Solon was given the job of doing so. His first step was to abolish all of Dracon's laws except those that dealt with homicide. The Romans never had a written constitution, but their form of their government, especially from the time of the passage of the lex Hortensia (287 B.C. ), roughly parallels the modern American division of executive, legislative, and judicial branches, although the Senate does not neatly fit any of these categories.

What follows is a fairly traditional, Mommsen ian reconstruction, though at this level of detail most of the facts are not too controversial. One should be aware, however, of the difficulties surrounding the understanding of forms of government during the first two centuries of the Republic. With the exception of the dictatorship, all offices were collegial, that is, held by at least two men. All members of a college were of equal rank and could veto acts of other members; higher magistrates could veto acts of lower magistrates.

Except for the position of dictatorship, which was six months, and that of censorship, which was eighteen months, the term of office was limited to one year. The rules for holding office for multiple or successive terms were a matter of considerable contention over time. The consuls, of whom there were two, were the chief civil and military magistrates. They invested with imperium, the power of magistrates to command armies and (within limits) to coerce citizens, and convened Senate and curate and assemblies.

There were two to eight praetors who had imperium as well. Their main functions were to give military commands and to administer civil law at Rome. The aedile's were the plebeian only and curule, plebeian or patrician, members of the law. They were in charge of religious festivals, public games, temples, upkeep of city, regulation of marketplaces, grain supply.

The were the financial officers and administrative assistants - civil and military. They were in charge of the state treasury at Rome. In the field, they served as quartermasters and seconds-in-command. Another group was the tribunes who were in charge of the protection of lives and property of plebeians. Their persons were inviolable.

They had the power of veto over elections, laws, decrees of the Senate, and the acts of all other magistrates, except the dictator. They also convened tribal assembly and elicited plebiscites. The two censors were elected every five years to conduct census, enroll new citizens, review roll of senate; controlled public morals and supervised leasing of public contracts. They were ranked below the praetors yet above the aedile's, but in practice, the pinnacle of a Senatorial career had enormous prestige and influence. Lastly, the dictator lasted only six months or the duration of the crisis, whichever was shorter. In times of military emergency, the consuls appointed him.

The dictator appointed a Master of the Horse to lead cavalry. The Senate was originally an advisory board composed of the heads of patrician families, but later it came to be an assembly of former magistrates. The Senate was most powerful organ of the Republican government and the only body of state that could develop consistent long-term policy. It enacted 'decrees of the senate' - senat us consult a, which apparently had no formal authority, but often in practice decided matters.

The Senate also took cognizance of virtually all public matters, but most important areas of competence were in foreign policy, including the conduct of war, and financial administration. The legislative branch was the three citizen assemblies. All three assemblies included the entire electorate, but each had a different internal organization and therefore differences in the weight of an individual citizen's vote. All three assemblies were made up of voting units. Measures were passed by a simple majority of these units. One assembly was the curate assembly.

It was the oldest of early Rome. Its units of organization were the thirty curiae of the early city, based on clan and family associations. It became obsolete as a legislative body, but it preserved functions of endowing senior magistrates with imperium and witnessing religious affairs. The head of each curia ages at least fifty years of age and was elected for life. The patricians effectively controlled assembly. Another assembly was the assembly.

It was the most important of all the assemblies. It consisted of 193 centuries, based on wealth and age. Originally it consisted of military units with membership based on capability to furnish armed men in groups of 100, convened outside. They were elected censors and magistrates with imperium. It was the proper body for declaring war. The assembly also passed some laws.

It served as highest court of appeal in cases involving capital punishment. The tribunal assembly was originally for election of tribunes and deliberation of plebeians. Its membership was based on place of residence until 241 B.C. They were the elected lower magistrates - tribunes, aedile's, . Since it was simpler to convene and register thirty-five tribes than 193 centuries, they were more frequently used to pass legislation. Eventually became chief law-making body.

The chief official praetor did not try cases but presided only in preliminary stages. He determined nature of suit and issued a 'formula' precisely defining the legal point (s) at issue. He then assigned cases to be tried before a delegated judge or board of arbiters, three to five recuperator es for minor cases, one of the four panels of 'The one hundred men' for causes c'el " eboes, inheritances and financial affairs of the rich. Judge or arbiters heard case, rendered judgment, and imposed fine. Criminal prosecution was originally for major crimes against the state which were tried before the assembly, but by the late Republic most cases prosecuted went before one of the perpetua e, standing jury courts, each with a specific jurisdiction, e. g., treason, electoral corruption, extortion in the provinces, embezzlement of public funds, murder and poisoning, forgery, violence, etc. Juries were large, about fifty to seventy-five members, and were composed of Senators and knights.

They were empanel led from an annual list of eligible jurors. The Decemvir i Consular i Imperio Legibus wrote the Twelve Tables Scribundis, (the Ten Consuls) who were given unprecedented powers to draft the laws of the young Republic. Originally ten laws were drafted; two later statutes were added prohibiting marriage between the classes and affirming the binding nature of customary law. The new code promoted the organization of public prosecution of crimes and instituted a system whereby injured parties could seek just compensation in civil disputes. The plebeians were protected from the legal abuses of the ruling patricians, especially in the enforcement of debts.

Serious punishments were levied for theft and the law gave male heads of families enormous social power. The important basic principle of a written legal code for Roman law was established, and justice was no longer based solely on the interpretation of judges. These laws formed an important part of the foundation of all subsequent Western civil and criminal law. In the American government, the fifty-five delegates who gathered for the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 wanted a government that would be strong enough to guide a fragile nation through an uncertain future, but limited enough that it would never threaten the liberty America had won from England.

Their government had to protect America as a nation even as it guaranteed the rights of every citizen as an individual. They rejected direct democracy because they did not trust the American people to govern themselves. Since there was no cure for the basic human tendency to divide into factions, the founders built a majoritarian representative democracy, which vested the power in those whom the people elect. There are two ways to measure the success of a democratic government.

The first is to check for basic democratic procedures. By most measures of the procedural method, American government is very democratic. The second is to look for basic democratic outcomes -fair elections, etc. Some would use the widening gap between the rich and the poor to show that our government is anything but democratic; others would use the divorce rate or the number of out-of-marriage births as a sign of a decline in civil health. American government is a set of institutions, legislative, judicial, and executive, that set the rules for politics, the process by which people decide who gets what, when, and how. Politics is not something that just happens in government, however.

It occurs in every corner of life. The search for balance is clear in the Preamble of the Constitution itself, which promises that the new government will create laws and courts, keep the peace, defend the nation against foreign threats, and assure that every American has a chance at a better future. To protect the nation, America would need a government strong enough to raise taxes, though enough to enforce laws, and powerful enough to win wars. Yet this same government would defend individual Americans from tyranny. To protect what the Declaration of Independence deemed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness", America could never have a government so strong that it could be captured by a majority to be used against a minority. The founders understood this and designed a government that would seek equilibrium whenever that balance of power shifted too far toward either side.

David Easton. The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1971). unnumbered page. Walter R. Agard. What Democracy Meant to the Greeks. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1942).

4. Sir Ernest Barker. Greek Political Theory: Plato and His Predecessors. (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd., 1960). 1.

Cynthia Farrar. The Origins of Democratic Thinking: the Invention of Politics in Classical Athens. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 7. Fowler, W. Warde.

The City State of the Greeks and Romans. (London: MacMillian & Co. Ltd., 1963). 10. Fowler. 12. C. Warren Hollister.

Roots o f the Western Tradition: A Short History of the Ancient World. (New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1996). 77. Farrar. 5. Barker.

8. Farrar. 6. Farrar. 11. Fowler.

54. Rhodes, Henry A. "The Athenian Court and the American Court System". Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 25. Rhodes.

26. Rhodes. 26. Adcock, F.E. Roman Political Ideas and Practice. (Ann Arbor: Ann Arbor Paperbacks, 1966).

4. Adcock. 7. Adcock. 9. Adcock.

10. Adcock. 14. Adcock. 14.

Adcock. 22. Adcock. 5. Adcock. 29.

Fowler. 168. Adcock. 34.

Adcock. 42. Adcock. 47. Adcock. 47.

Adcock. 50. Adcock. 52. Adcock. 57.

Adcock. 57. Adcock. 70. Adcock. 71.

Adcock. 96. Light, Paul C. A Delicate Balance. (New York: Worth Publishers, Inc., 1999). 1. Light.

2. Light. 14. Light. 27.

Light. 2.

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