THE STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY IN ANCIENT

TIMES

BY ALBERT J. CARNOY

Research Professor of Greek

The great concern of a democratic nation is to imbue her citizens with the conviction that they are all dependent upon one another. This feeling of solidarity is at the basis of all the civic virtues. But while this is recognized by everybody, one easily overlooks the fact that, no less than with our contemporaries, we are in unbroken connection with the men that lived before us. The present political and economic situations, productive as they are of war or peace, sufferings or prosperity, the various ideals that inspire the men of our times, direct their efforts, as well as the present dissemination of man on earth and the characters of the races are the products of past conditions, of ancient evolutions and revolutions. It is therefore impossible to understand anything of the present world, unless one is acquainted with the development through the past ages of man in general and the present civilized nations in particular. There is no real knowledge, unless it be a knowledge of the causes. Moreover, since man is man and remains a man throughout the vicissitudes of the nations, the past events are interesting not only as a preparation to our present conditions, but also as being representative of what is likely to occur over and over again where there are men and communities of men. We men have a free will, but we use it generally to take the same decisions in the same circumstances.

All this applies to the history of Greece more than to any other. In that small country, during a short period of two centuries, we find a microcosm of civilization as well as a concentration of all the pursuits and all the struggles of civilized people in all times. In that memorable period was born what we might call the modern spirit, though we should rather call

it the Western spirit. Though the people of the East, of course, are not fundamentally different from those of the West, the evolution of civilization created in them very divergent mentalities. The Oriental likes to live in the constant consciousness that life is governed less by man's own efforts and direction than by powers superior to him, divine or wordly: The absorbing preoccupation is therefore to conciliate or master those powers. The Occidental, to be sure, does not ignore God and the law, but, more than in the East, his conduct is generally inspired by the persuasion that it is possible to improve the conditions of one's life by one's own effort. He is less inclined to take things as they are, simply because they are

So.

He wants to know why things are what they are and whether they could not be better. Hence a critical spirit, asserting itself in a greater aptitude for philosophy, science and practical inventions. Moreover, there is an effort for a better government and a greater participation in the government, while the Eastern people rather assume that power is a kind of emanation from Divinity which goes from one man to another by a sort of fate dominating human events. The Persian belief in a kingly splendor or prestige (hvarenah) transmitted from one dynasty to another when the times are accomplished is the concrete expression of what those people more or less feel. As is the case with all excesses, the exaggerations of both those mentalities would be equally disastrous: on one side, immobility and apathy, on the other demoralizing skepticism and social decomposition.

In conformity with those general tendencies, civilization in the East develops by the submission of an ever greater number of small patriarchal states to an ever stronger and more efficient power. Everything gravitates around the power. military organization is foremost in the state. The acumen and ability, the industry and the resources of the subjects are commandeered by the kings to enhance their power. The gods who protect the kings are more absorbent yet. All the works of art are produced for temples and palaces. The tribute paid by subjected nations enables the kings to have more

splendor and a greater army. The necessity of collecting that money brings about the development of an administration. Roads are also provided to facilitate the transportation of troops to the remotest provinces where the people are only too prone to shake off the obligation of the tribute. The Persian empire is the heir of the Babylonian, Hittite and Assyrian empires, but it has given to the imperial idea its fullest realization. The system of the satrapies, of the imperial roads, of the royal mail, etc., has only been surpassed by the Romans. That empire also was the first to employ with discrimination all the subjected populations, using the maritime people for the fleet, other tribes for archery, other as spearmen, etc. All this, of course, is an organization in favor of the imperial people and the imperial dynasty. The imperial system as conceived in ancient times is not the government of the people by the people and for the people, but the utilization of the greatest possible portion of the world by the ruling element. The subjects in return for their tribute and their obedience only receive peace, order and protection from attack. That Eastern conception with the idea of the divine power of the emperor gradually invaded the Roman empire, and it is the same ideal of order, obedience and protection which was revived in Charlemagne's empire, of which the Holy Roman Empire of Central Europe in the Middle ages was the perpetuation.

Unfortunately, the Holy Roman Empire only imperfectly answered to the ideal and one has said that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor even an empire. Since then, as is well known, both by Napoleon and by dynasties in our own times, the imperial idea has been brought even nearer to the ancient conception of a strong central power, order and prosperity allied with the domination of an ever greater number of people and a tendency to world-power.

While in Asia, the development of civilization was taking that aspect and producing that conception of order and power, there was developing in the West a directly opposed conception of man's progress and happiness. The starting point was the The city-state or more exactly the village-state was

same.

too small to give to man a chance to display his full faculties and powers. The occasion for further development, here, however, was provided, not so generally by the conquest of neighboring states, but by the raising of several small towns into important, rich and powerful cities, through commerce, navigation and a beginning of industry. In that way, the city, the rós, increased, not so much by force and through the achievements of kings and generals as by the citizens' activity. The citizens' success involved the citizens' power. First, the wealth of the community was mainly for the benefit of a few families who also secured the influence and developed the oligarchic state, but the collaboration of middle classes and workmen in the production of wealth rather increased, and those classes gradually received the greatest part of power in the government. The conception of the state as a community in which every one is responsible to the whole body finds its expression in the citizens' army, in great contrast to the Asiatic conception of the military service as a "corvée" imposed by the kings.

Instead of the Oriental passive submission to traditions and dynasties, the Greeks give proofs of individualism, of independence of mind and of free observation in their very first manifestations of art, those of Mycenean times. The Oriental motives are treated with a striking expression of the artist's personality which is very rare in the East. It is thus a general tendency deeply rooted in the minds of those aggressive and individualistic people which constantly directed the Greek political evolution towards more freedom in the city, more consciousness in the citizens. This moreover was helped by the circumstance that the Greeks were living in a great many islands and peninsulas, which, of course, made those small states independent from one another and favored the development of individualism and commercial activity. Though the evolution thus was an unconscious one under the influence of a natural instinct and of circumstances, the Greeks were too intelligent to remain long unaware of the force that was turning their ancient small towns into finely organized states. Various