Thursday, September 25, 2008
The History Hour
The Greeks’ Revolutions: how war stimulated democratic order among ancient Greeks
Jeanes looks at how ancient Greece, a clear example of class society with warrior aristocrats and equestrian military nobility ruling farmers, moved toward democracy. Sparta was a peculiar type of soldier democracy with a constitution unlike any other. War made Sparta supreme but its citizens had to be rigidly engineered by law ('social engineering") to be the best warriors. Persia's Empire impinged, and so Greeks' wars to liberate themselves from the Persians shaped Greek governmental order. Sparta was revolutionized from the top down by the lawgiver named Lycurgus, and Athens by Dracon. Hoplite infantry became better soldiers than noble cavalry and so the aristocracies lost their power to over-awe the common farming class.
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