The first instance we have in the extant literature of political theorizing is Herodotos’ description of the alleged discussion between the three Persian conspirators on the virtues of the three types of constitution: the rule of the one (monarchy), the rule of the few (oligarchy), and the rule of the many (democracy) (Hdt. 3.80-2 with 6.43.3). Ironically, Herodotos puts this constitutional debate into the mouths of Persians, but the tripartite division of constitutions was a Greek construct, and provided the model for Greek constitutional thought down into the fourth century. Here, even monarchy is envisaged as rule according to ancient law, and Herodotos has Dareios say that it was monarchy that gave the Persians freedom (Hdt. 3.82.5), alluding to his story of Kyros the Great’s ‘liberation’ of the Persians from the Medes (Hdt. 1.125-30). But it is important for Herodotos’ narrative and for his thematic purposes that, although Persia was liberated by a monarch, it was later enslaved by a tyrant (‘for soft lands breed soft men’, as Kyros warns his advisers: Hdt. 9.122.3), and that cities that were once great have become small, and those that were small have become great, since for men prosperity (eudaimonia) never remains in the same place for long (Hdt. 1.5.4).
Although the tripartite model for describing constitutions remained influential into the fourth century and was greatly elaborated by Plato and Aristotle, a competing model emerged, probably under the influence of the Peloponnesian War and in an atmosphere in which monarchy generally meant tyranny, which defined democracy and oligarchy as the two principal and opposing styles of constitution (cf. Loraux 1986: 214-17). In fact Aristotle, who is trying to systematize the range of constitutional types by means of his extended version of the tripartite classification, says that some people try to reduce the model to only these two basic types of constitution (Politics 1290a13-29). While Herodotos was interested in the contrast between freedom before the law, whatever the constitutional form (cf. Hdt. 3.142-3, 5.78, 91, 7.104, 134-6), and the enslavement of arbitrary and non-constitutional tyranny, the antithesis between oligarchy and democracy is explored by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War (e. g., 5.31.6, 81.2; 6.39.1-2; 8.47.2, 48.4, etc.). Nevertheless, even Thucydides concedes that oligarchy can be isonomic (Thuc. 3.62.3), although in the same passage he also has the Thebans claim that rule by the few can be ‘the form of government nearest to tyranny and farthest removed from law and the virtues of moderation’, making for the first time the link between oligarchy and tyranny which was developed in the fourth century (cf. Thuc. 6.60.1).
In the fourth century, Xenophon, Isokrates and Plato provide encomia of kings and tyrants both of their own time and of the past, including Kyros the Great of Persia, and Euagoras and Nikokles of Salamis in Cyprus. On the other hand, Plato in the utopian world of the Republic imagines the state ruled by the philosopher king (an ideal he tried to translate into practice at the court of Dionysios II of Syracuse with disastrous results for himself: Diodoros 15.7.1), and in the Laws echoes Xenophon’s (and Herodotos’) treatment of Kyros as the good king, whose successors fall into decline because of their life of luxury (694C-696B).
Aristotle in the Politics in the late fourth century provides the most systematic treatment of constitutions and the political life. The basis of Aristotle’s argument is that the city is an association, that it is the most sovereign of all associations, and that it is a political association {Politics 1252a11-7). However (he argues), while no city can exist without rulers (Politics 1291a35-8), political activity is unlike the activity of other associations in which there are ruler and ruled, because being a member of the polis involves both ruling and being ruled in turn (Politics 1252a7-16); the good citizen is one who learns how to rule and be ruled; and this kind of rule is called ‘political rule’ (Politics 1277a25-b16). In the best constitutions all citizens are also equal and think it right to take their turns in holding office (Politics 12791a8-13).
A constitution (politeia), on the other hand, he defines both as the organization of those who live in a city (Politics 1274b38) and at the same time as the organization of its magistrates, and particularly the magistracy which is sovereign in the state; it is this sovereign body which defines the constitution as rule by the one, the few or the many (Politics 1278b8-15). Yet Aristotle was aware of the plurality of constitutions that can be contained within this definition, and sought to classify them as the ‘right kinds of constitution’, kingship, aristocracy and ‘politeia’ (which was a mixed constitution), and the three perverted forms, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy (their perversion lying in the fact that they pursued the interests of the rulers and not the common good) (Politics 1289a26-1290a29, cf. 1279a22-1279b11). Yet for Aristotle, as for Herodotos and others before him, the best constitution is the one ruled by law (Politics 1282b1).
The rule of law was the theoretical principle of political life. In Herodotos the Spartan ex-king tells Xerxes that the Spartans are more afraid of the law than Xerxes’ subjects of him (Hdt. 7.104.4), and Thucydides has Perikles declare that in democratic Athens all citizens were equal before the law (Thuc. 2.37.1). In the Hellenika, on the other hand, Xenophon explores the practical tension between the sovereignty of the assembly and the sovereignty of law in his description of the events at Athens after the disaster at Arginousai in 406 (Xenophon Hellenika 1.7.8-34). The assembly called for the prosecution of the eight generals, shouting out that ‘it was a terrible thing if ‘‘the people’’ (ho demos) was not allowed to do what it wanted (1.7.12)’, though Euryptolemos exhorted the Athenians to act legally, since ‘[t]he laws are yours, and it is the laws, above all, which have made you great. Guard them and never attempt to do anything without their sanction’ (1.7.29).
While the law may have been the ultimate ruler, the citizens also shared in that rule. Aristotle says that it is the job of rulers (whether the one, the few or the many) to make pronouncements on matters that need a more precise judgement than the laws can naturally provide (Politics 1282b1-6). Indeed, for Aristotle, sovereignty at this level resides with citizens who participate in the administration of justice and the holding of office (Politics 1275a22-3). So it is to the holding of office and the administration of the constitution that we shall turn next.
World History
