In the case of domestic affairs in the Classical Period it is possible to note a development which was probably closely connected with the cul-de-sac delineated above. Compared with the Archaic Period, citizens in the Classical Period identified considerably more with the citizen-states to which they belonged. The feeling of being part of their state and of integration with it was very strong. This was naturally most conspicuously the case in democratic Athens. There, the daily involvement of the demos in politics ensured that the awareness of being a citizen superseded all other identities. Jochen Bleicken has elucidated this relationship in his fundamental study on Athenian democracy, and at the same time emphasized the Classical position of this ancient political culture compared with ours today:
There is no doubt that the greatest achievement of Athenian democracy lies in the realization of a society of citizens enjoying equal rights. The idea of equality may have already existed amongst the Greeks and other nations, but the organization of the whole body of the free-born inhabitants of a polis as a community of equals and their practical fulfilment is an original Athenian achievement. Nor was it only the idea, nor merely a lofty declaration of equality, but also the fact that it was formally implemented by hundreds of officially sanctioned regulations. Every governing body in Athens, and every norm of community life, demonstrate nothing less than a fanatic determination to anchor the notion of equality in the organizational structure of the citizenry. Since the notion of political equality was inextricably interwoven into the very implementation of this equality, it included at the same time responsibility on the part of the individual for the common good. Participation in politics and public spirit were part and parcel of this democracy, and this was so intertwined with it, and implemented to such a degree that it can still operate as a model today - and not least in light of the political apathy in our popular democracies. The public expression of politics can also be viewed as a result of the notion of equality. What many critics of antiquity as well as their modern counterparts found so repugnant, strange and even ridiculous, the drive of the Athenians, the hustle and bustle in the Agora and on the Pnyx, the dynamic energy of the masses - these are much more the unique characteristics of Athens’ democracy and amongst her greatest achievements: accountable and public involvement in the rough-and-tumble of politics. . . Such a degree of civic involvement has never occurred again down to the present day, and is probably no longer possible. (Bleicken 1994: 411-12; trans. from the German original)
Athenian citizens had untold opportunities to experience their community life - in conversations and in collective actions in the Agora and in the Theatre, and in celebrations and festivals. This applied to the polis as a whole as well as to the smaller units of this ‘grass-roots democracy’, i. e., in the phylai, the phratriai and the demoi (bodies like these were part of the official organization in all Greek states: Jones 1987). In this context, the buildings of the Classical Period, especially of the fifth century, also had political significance: ‘to say that the Athenians built the Parthenon to worship themselves would be an exaggeration, but not a great one’ (Lewis CAH2 5 139). On Perikles’ initiative a new Citizenship Law was passed in 451/0, spelling out that only those children whose parents were both full citizens could legally claim to be also Athenian citizens (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 26.4). Although the motives behind this bill are controversial (bibliography Boedeker & Raaflaub 1998: 355 n. 146), the acute political identity which distinguished Athenian citizens as citizens from foreigners and metics may have played a role.
As a result of the steady decrease in the number of full citizens, Sparta was from the end of the fifth century compelled to draw increasingly on very different groups within her population for military service and civic duty - such as the perioikoi, neodamoi and mercenaries. The Spartans did not, however, abandon the idea of involving the ‘Spartiates’, who actually formed the very core of the Spartan state. The national legends and the ‘Return of the Herakleidai’, the lawgiver Lykourgos and Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylai, further bolstered solidarity.
Elsewhere, the development of statehood had not been completed before the Classical Age. For example, Elis in the Peloponnese was constituted as a polis as late as 471 bce (Roy 2002).
In a number of regions of Greece in which the autonomous city-state (polis) did not come about, the small village communities and cities formed larger unions, whose purpose was to enable them to conduct foreign policy and undertake military defence. The federal states (koina: Beck 2000: 612-13; also Beck 2003) were actually very modern creations, since in them civic duties were shared: each member state had control of its own domestic affairs, whereas foreign policy was in the hands of a federal board, in which all members enjoyed proportional representation. Accordingly, there was also such a thing as double citizenship. Integration of the populace, however, took place not only at the political level, but acceptance of a common ancestry and common festivals also played a major role, as did religious games and mythical topographies. The oldest (from 519) and most important federal state emerged in Boiotia under the leadership of Thebes. But it is at the same time also precisely in the case of Boiotia that the limits of this ‘alternative to a polis’ become evident, for the actual hegemon, Thebes, repeatedly sought to exploit the league for its own ends - i. e., to transform it into a hegemonic league. The reason why the federal states failed in the Classical Period was primarily because the bond of the individual citizen with his native polis remained as strong as ever. It was not until the Hellenistic Period that two federal states emerged which succeeded for a considerable period of time and were able to wield a certain measure of power in the shadow of the great powers: the Aitolian League in Central Greece, and the Achaian League in the Peloponnese.
The great extent to which citizens identified with their state in the Classical Period brought to the fore yet another threat to peace and stability: the fact that the citizenry was split up into a number of interest groups, each of which claimed political power for itself. In this respect the polis resembled a joint-stock company. In the world of large and small shareholders the consciousness of belonging to a common enterprise was accompanied by repeated efforts to gain control and sideline the other shareholders or squeeze them out of the enterprise altogether (cf. Ampolo 1996: 322). The concomitant of a deeply rooted determination to win a victory at any price or to seek revenge for wrongs (McHardy 1999) repeatedly resulted in fierce stasis, civil war (Gehrke 1985), which led to banishments, expropriations and massacres. Since the warring factions regularly appealed to other states for help, internal conflicts also destabilized inter-state relations.
World History
