The Story of Mankind [21]
IN the beginning, all the Greeks had been equally rich and
equally poor. Every man had owned a certain number of
cows and sheep. His mud-hut had been his castle. He had
been free to come and go as he wished. Whenever it was necessary
to discuss matters of public importance, all the citizens
had gathered in the market-place. One of the older men of the
village was elected chairman and it was his duty to see that
everybody had a chance to express his views. In case of war,
a particularly energetic and self-confident villager was chosen
commander-in-chief, but the same people who had voluntarily
given this man the right to be their leader, claimed an equal
right to deprive him of his job, once the danger had been
averted.
But gradually the village had grown into a city. Some
people had worked hard and others had been lazy. A few
had been unlucky and still others had been just plain dishonest
in dealing with their neighbours and had gathered wealth.
As a result, the city no longer consisted of a number of men
who were equally well-off. On the contrary it was inhabited
by a small class of very rich people and a large class of very
poor ones.
There had been another change. The old commander-in-
chief who had been willingly recognised as ``headman'' or
``King'' because he knew how to lead his men to victory, had
disappeared from the scene. His place had been taken by the
nobles--a class of rich people who during the course of time
had got hold of an undue share of the farms and estates.
These nobles enjoyed many advantages over the common
crowd of freemen. They were able to buy the best weapons
which were to be found on the market of the eastern Mediterranean.
They had much spare time in which they could prac-
tise the art of fighting. They lived in strongly built houses
and they could hire soldiers to fight for them. They were
constantly quarrelling among each other to decide who should
rule the city. The victorious nobleman then assumed a sort of
Kingship over all his neighbours and governed the town until
he in turn was killed or driven away by still another ambitious
nobleman.
Such a King, by the grace of his soldiers, was called a
``Tyrant'' and during the seventh and sixth centuries before
our era every Greek city was for a time ruled by such Tyrants,
many of whom, by the way, happened to be exceedingly capa-
ble men. But in the long run, this state of affairs became
unbearable. Then attempts were made to bring about reforms
and out of these reforms grew the first democratic government
of which the world has a record.
It was early in the seventh century that the people of
Athens decided to do some housecleaning and give the large
number of freemen once more a voice in the government as
they were supposed to have had in the days of their Achaean
ancestors. They asked a man by the name of Draco to provide
them with a set of laws that would protect the poor against
the aggressions of the rich. Draco set to work. Unfortunately
he was a professional lawyer and very much out of touch
with ordinary life. In his eyes a crime was a crime and when
he had finished his code, the people of Athens discovered that
these Draconian laws were so severe that they could not
possibly be put into effect. There would not have been rope
enough to hang all the criminals under their new system of
jurisprudence which made the stealing of an apple a capital
offence.
The Athenians looked about for a more humane reformer.
At last they found some one who could do that sort of thing
better than anybody else. His name was Solon. He belonged
to a noble family and he had travelled all over the world and
had studied the forms of government of many other countries.
After a careful study of the subject, Solon gave Athens a set
of laws which bore testimony to that wonderful principle of
moderation which was part of the Greek