As yet, in the Archaic period, there certainly was no democracy in the true sense of the word. On the contrary, this period seems to have been characterized by a growing inequality in property and status. Property, or the lack of it, became more than ever the criterion by which one’s place in society was measured. Growing divisions in wealth within the polis since roughly the 8th century BC—resulting, among other things, from the renewed contacts between Greece and the Near East—must have put an end to any “equality,” wherever that may have existed, except in places where the power of collectivity managed to suppress individual manifestations of wealth. That was, again, the case in Sparta, where in the later Archaic period—and for a long time afterward—various forms of luxury were officially forbidden and where the equality of all the citizens became, at least officially, an equality in frugality. In practice, in Sparta too some citizens were richer than others, but they could hardly show off their wealth except by breeding horses, for in the sussitia all citizens ate the same food and were clad in the same simple manner, while any displays of luxury in houses, either internal or external, were forbidden. In other states, the growing differences in wealth between the citizens in the Archaic period led to new subdivisions of the citizenry apart from the fulai, divisions that were based solely on their property. Thus, in Athens, as we have seen, Solon changed an existing division of three groups by birth into a division based on property, measuring the latter by bushels of grain and adding a top class of “500-bushel-men” set apart from the hippeis or Knights. The citizens belonging to these two upper classes had more political rights and influence than those of the two lower classes.
Comparable subdivisions of the citizens can be seen in other city-states as well. In Rome, a census was introduced in connection with the organization of the hoplite army in the 6th century: those who were called up for the legio and therefore must have had enough property to afford the necessary equipment were wealthier than those who were not called up. In Greece also, in the later 6th century BC, the spread of hoplite equipment and phalanx tactics in various poleis led to the enrollment of citizens into hoplite armies on the basis of their wealth. Often, this entailed a certain division between full or first-rate citizenship for those who served in the army and a lesser or second-rate citizenship for those who could not. Nearly everywhere, membership of councils and the tenure of magistracies remained the prerogative of citizens “of the first class.” Thus, the rise of hoplite warfare contributed to the tendency of assigning rights and obligations to the citizens on the basis of property. On the other hand, the hoplite class grew so large—in the 5th century, it would be at least 40% of the free population—that the existence of the citizen-hoplites hindered the emergence of smaller and closed aristocracies. At the same time, the underlying sense of equality of all citizens could find expression in the organizations of the fulai and in religious festivities of the entire community in which everybody could participate. The rich and the aristocrats exhibited their supremacy on the occasions of parades and games by literally riding or sitting in front of the other citizens, but this was only natural: only they in the Archaic period held the high magistracies and only they enjoyed the leisure to devote themselves fully to sports or cultural activities. Thus, the Archaic period especially was the period in Greek history in which the rich and the aristocrats enjoyed an unabashed preeminence in society without, however, completely excluding the poor.
World History
