The Role and Impact of Oligarchy in Ancient Greek City-States
Oligarchy, from the Greek words “oligos” meaning few and “archein” meaning to rule, was a form of government in which power rested with a small number of people. These individuals might be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, religious, political, or military control. In the context of ancient Greece, oligarchies emerged in various city-states, reflecting the diversity and complexity of political systems in the Greek world. This article explores the nature of oligarchy in ancient Greece, its implementation across different city-states, its advantages and disadvantages, and how it contrasted with other forms of governance, particularly democracy.
Oligarchy played a significant role in the political landscape of ancient Greece, reflecting the diversity of governance across the Greek city-states. While offering certain advantages in terms of stability and efficiency, oligarchies also faced criticism for their exclusionary practices and the potential for abuse of power. The coexistence and competition between oligarchies and democracies, particularly the emblematic rivalry between Sparta and Athens, highlight the dynamic and varied nature of ancient Greek political life. The legacy of these systems, with their virtues and flaws, continues to inform contemporary debates about governance, representation, and power.
Nature of Oligarchy in Ancient Greece
Oligarchy in ancient Greece was a form of government characterized by the rule of a few, often based on criteria such as wealth, nobility, or military power. This system of governance was prevalent in many Greek city-states, reflecting a common approach to managing the complexities of statehood in the ancient world. The nature of oligarchy in these city-states was shaped by several key features, which distinguished it from other forms of governance, such as democracy or monarchy.
The most defining feature of an oligarchy was the concentration of political power in the hands of a small group. This elite could consist of wealthy aristocrats, influential families, or military leaders, who together made decisions regarding the laws, policies, and direction of the state. The criteria for membership in this ruling class varied from one city-state to another but typically involved lineage, wealth, or military capability.
In contrast to democratic systems, where the broader citizenry had some degree of say in governmental decisions, oligarchies limited political participation significantly. The majority of the population, including commoners, peasants, and often even well-to-do merchants or artisans, were excluded from the decision-making process. This exclusion was based on the belief that the common people were either incapable of making informed decisions or that their involvement would lead to instability and inefficiency in governance.
Oligarchies were supported by legal and social structures that reinforced the power of the ruling elite. Laws were designed to maintain the status quo, often favoring the interests of the oligarchs over those of the general populace. Social norms and values also played a role, with the concept of superiority by birth or wealth being a common theme. Education, military training, and even religious practices could be tailored to emphasize the distinction between the rulers and the ruled.
While oligarchy as a concept denotes rule by the few, the specific implementation could vary widely across different city-states. Some oligarchies might lean towards a more inclusive approach, allowing a larger segment of wealthy or noble citizens to participate, while others were more restrictive. The adaptability of oligarchic systems allowed them to respond to internal pressures and external threats, sometimes incorporating elements of democracy or monarchic rule to maintain stability.
Economic power was closely tied to political power in oligarchic systems. The ruling elite often controlled significant landholdings, trade routes, or other sources of wealth, which in turn supported their political authority. Economic policies tended to favor the interests of the oligarchs, which could lead to economic disparities and social tensions within the state.
Implementation Across City-States
Several Greek city-states were known for their oligarchic systems:
Sparta is perhaps the most famous example of an oligarchy. Its government was led by two kings who shared power and a council of elders (Gerousia) composed of men over the age of 60, who were responsible for making policy decisions. The Spartan system also included the Apella, an assembly of male citizens, but its power was limited compared to the Gerousia and the Ephors, five officials elected annually who oversaw the kings and had significant political authority.
Corinth and Thebes also had oligarchic systems at various points in their history, with political power concentrated in the hands of wealthy aristocrats. These city-states demonstrate the adaptability of oligarchy, as their specific structures and the balance of power among the ruling elite could change over time.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Oligarchies had several perceived advantages, including:
Stability: Concentrating power in the hands of a few was believed to ensure a more stable government, as it avoided the fickleness and potential chaos of mob rule.
Efficiency: Decision-making could be quicker and more decisive without the need for extensive public debate or consultation.
Expertise: Rulers were often chosen for their experience or skills, potentially leading to more competent governance.
However, there were significant disadvantages:
Lack of Representation: The majority of the population was excluded from political participation, leading to discontent and social divisions.
Potential for Abuse: With power concentrated in the hands of a few, there was a higher risk of corruption and self-serving policies.
Resistance and Revolt: The exclusion of the wider population from governance could lead to resistance, revolts, and the eventual overthrow of the oligarchic system.
Oligarchy vs. Democracy
The contrast between oligarchy and democracy in ancient Greece is most clearly seen in the rivalry between Sparta (an oligarchy) and Athens (a democracy). Athens, especially during its Golden Age in the 5th century BCE, implemented a form of direct democracy where citizens (excluding women, slaves, and foreigners) had the right to participate in the Assembly, which made key decisions about laws and policy. This system was based on the principles of equal participation and public debate, standing in stark contrast to the oligarchic systems where such rights were reserved for a select few.
The four types of Oligarchy according to Aristotle
The fact that oligarchy serves the interests of the wealthy becomes apparent even from the way Aristotle presents its four types: “The first type of oligarchy appears when more people have property, although less than what the other oligarchic types presuppose and not very large in itself” . This is the mildest form of oligarchy, as the property criterion is set at low levels, so that many can meet it: “In this type, indeed, the right is given to anyone who acquires this property to participate in political power and thus, because the people who participate in the regime become many, inevitably the law prevails and not the people.”
The assurance of the supremacy of the law is the assurance of the state function within the defined oligarchic framework. The law is the establishment of the regime, as it sets the rules that ensure its protection and, by extension, its perpetuation. In short, since the oligarchic logic concerns the management of power in relation to each one’s wealth, the law is the one that will finalize the corresponding institutional arrangements. If the law is overthrown, then not only what we call legitimacy in the sense of social tranquility or order is overthrown, but the very sense of the state structure changes. Every regime, if it wants to be preserved, must primarily protect the legislation that protects it.
The second type of oligarchy is harsher than the first, as the property criteria become more demanding: “Conversely, if the property owners are fewer than those of the previous oligarchic type and their property larger in size, then we have the second type of oligarchy.” The increase in property limits for participation in state affairs is nothing more than the increase in state demands gradually put forward by the strong economic classes. Naturally, those who “legitimately deserve to be elected” are nothing but people of the same economic stature. We are faced with the superiority of plutocracy, which turns the regime into a purely personal affair.
Under these terms, to talk about ensuring the interests of the whole society is rather redundant. The command is held by specific economic interests that adjust the regime to their own measures. However, there is an important detail. The wealthy, although they dominate and impose the regime that suits them, do not feel strong enough to proceed to the abolition of the law: “However, as they are not yet so strong as to dominate without the law, they accept the law adapted to their power” (p. 263). We witness again the function of the law as a state assurance. The regime is based on laws as blatantly as it is manipulated. The laws are the pretexts that must be observed in any case. Only absolute power does not need pretexts, and the plutocrats of this second type of oligarchy do not feel sure about something like that.
The escalation continues with the presentation of the third oligarchic type: “If again it is required to have greater property, so there are fewer holders of it, then the third type of oligarchy appears. In this, the power remains in the hands of the same, but the hereditary succession of privileges is imposed by law.” The critical element introduced here is heredity. The holders of wealth now feel strong enough to pass to the institutional guarantee of their privileges. The perception of the regime with proprietary data, which are also bequeathed, is the arrogance of the strong who turn the regime into their estate, i.e., the prelude to the transition to tyranny. Because this level of oligarchy, although it does not formally overthrow the law, makes it so blatantly a tool of theirs, that it becomes almost decorative. The devaluation of the law takes place as something absolutely natural, something that the circumstances themselves bring about. We would say that it is something inevitable, since the escalation of oligarchy that passes power into fewer and fewer hands can only reach its extreme limits, i.e., the emergence of the few, who determine everything at will.
And this is the point where we move on to the fourth and last type of oligarchy: “However, when their power increases in wealth and in the number of friends, such a dynasty approaches monarchy and therefore the people become the rulers of the regime and not the law. The transition of the institutional essence of the regime from the law to the people is nothing but the overthrow of oligarchy and the transition to tyranny. Hence the mention of the term ‘dynasty.’ To understand the absolutist network of power. Hence the recognition that ‘it approaches monarchy.’
To formalize the emergence of the unsurpassable power of individuals. The very concept of oligarchy becomes a thing of the past, since there is no longer the legislation to protect it. The new regime that emerges does not concern the exclusion of some from the management of power, but the exclusion of all. The assurance that it is a matter of dynasty makes clear the unrestrained power that only tyranny can ensure, as the cancellation of the law turns justice into a personal, i.e., interest-based matter. Hence the law is the assurance of freedom. Because it establishes the rules in an impeccable way against the ambitions of anyone. Provided, of course, it is shaped independently. Because if it starts to become a tool of interests, then, at least conceptually, it has already been overthrown.
For Aristotle, the dynamics of the law as the assurance of regimes is not only confirmed through the extreme limits of oligarchy that ultimately overthrow it, but also from the corresponding course of the forms of democracy. Because when it reaches the last type of democracy, where decrees replace the law, where the people can annul the law with temporary decisions, he finds that again we are led to tyrannical schemes with the decisive assistance of demagogues: “This happens when decrees are dominant and not the law, and it is due to the demagogues. Wherever the laws are not dominant, there the demagogues appear. Because the people become a monarch, being one composed of a multitude of people, because the masses impose dominantly, not as individuals but as a whole.”
Ultimately, according to Aristotle, tyranny, as a concept, has not so much to do with the number of people who make the decisions as with the extent of arbitrariness that prevails from the cancellation of the law. The overthrow of the law in the name of popular sovereignty is nothing but the appearance of the demagogue who will steer the decisions in the direction of his interests. The demagogue who directs the people at will is the tyrant, who imposes individual desire in another way. That is, by other means. The violence of the tyrant is absolutely useless in front of the persuasion of the demagogue.
Because the persuasion of the demagogue can ultimately bring popular anger, but also distributes responsibilities. After all, the final decisions are always made by the people. (After all, Aristotle has already shown that the people are displeased when they feel sidelined from political decisions). And the anger of the people can bring about overturns and revolutions. There is no safer tyranny than the one that ensures specific interests with popular consent. It is the tyranny that has both the pie and the dog. And this is the role of the demagogue.
The statement that in this type of democracy “the people become a monarch” demonstrates tyranny, as the laws give way to the desires of the monarch. The appearance of the demagogue who monopolizes political interest makes clear the illusions about popular sovereignty, since the people, as monarch, are led and carried by their advisors: “In this” (referring to the type of democracy) “all participate due to the imposition of the multitude, because the cities became more populous than the original ones and their wealth increased from the revenues. And even the poor take part and get involved in politics, receiving a salary.
Thus, it is explained why the multitude of the poor becomes the dominant body of the regime and not the laws.” (p. 261). And of course, the issue does not concern the participation of the poor in the state processes, since the superiority of popular sovereignty has already been demonstrated. The issue concerns the transformation of the people into a mass that is shaped according to the ambitions of the people who manipulate it.
Of course, to directly compare the direct democracy that Aristotle observed with the parliamentary democracy of our days is rather risky. The issue is the demonstration of state logic and the awareness of the limits that govern regimes in relation to the power of the law, i.e., the awareness that the overthrow of the law (either way) is equivalent to the leveling of the regime: “This is the fourth type of oligarchy, corresponding, with the terms reversed, to the last type of democracy.” (p. 263).
And after exploring the limits and types of both oligarchy and democracy, nothing remains but to adequately determine the types of the aristocratic regime: ” it is fair to call only that regime an aristocracy in which the best govern precisely according to virtue and not good people in general and indefinitely.” . The best citizen is not determined so much by wealth as by the exercise of virtue related to the management of city issues. And here, of course, political ability, educational level, and the character of people are combined to be characterized as the best: “Where based not only on wealth but also on virtue, the rulers are elected, this regime differs from both oligarchy and polity and is called aristocratic.” .
As for the types of aristocracy, Aristotle proposes three: the case of Carthage, the case of Sparta, and the case where the regime deviates tending more towards oligarchy: “Where the regime aims at wealth, virtue, and the people, for example in Carthage, it is aristocratic. It is aristocratic, even if it aims at only two of these, virtue and the people, for example, the Spartan regime, and there is a mixture of the two elements, democracy and virtue. Therefore, there are these two types of aristocracy besides the first, the best type of regime. The third type is the deviations of the so-called polity towards the oligarchic regime rather.”
The fact that he describes three cases of aristocracy, reminding of the case he numbers as the first and calls “the best type of regime,” which, however, although he records does not count (because then we would have four types of aristocracy), should not cause impressions, since obviously this regime is the ideal, as Aristotle has it in mind and not as he has seen it materialize somewhere. That is, a hypothetical, personally ideal case of a regime, which of course cannot be classified as reality in a study that concerns practical state applications.
The fact that he classifies the regime of Sparta among the aristocratic ones that combine democracy with virtue, without even mentioning the term oligarchy (the Spartans were the quintessentially oligarchic), shows not only the personal Aristotelian estimation of regimes that differs from all others or the depth of the research he proposes surpassing every surface, but also the esteem he had for the Spartan way of organization, which he will directly express when he reaches the educational system, which must be interconnected with the regime. On the contrary, it makes clear that he has no esteem for the Athenian democracy, as he sees it operating, since it is obvious that he photographs it in the last democratic version with the overthrow of the law, the decrees, and the demagogues. While in Sparta he finds a regime that combines democracy with virtue in Athens, he encounters the most distorted version of democracy (at least as he describes it), which is presented more as mob tyranny than as a regime. And of course, this is also a reason why he had enemies.
That’s why he was forced to leave Athens hastily after Alexander’s death. Because the trial had already been set in motion, as in the case of Socrates. The book “Ancient Greek Philosophical Discourse” states: “The recipe for unwanted persons was well known in Athens from long ago. Finding an accuser was not at all difficult, and a small pretext was enough to bring a charge of impiety. In the case of Aristotle, the pretext was provided by a poem that the philosopher had written for his unforgettable friend Hermias, who had meanwhile found a martyr’s death.
The charge was based on the fact that this poem by Aristotle had the form of a paean, the traditional hymn to the god Apollo. Exactly the “crime” was that this poetic form was used to praise a common mortal – for the Athenians, let’s not say it, this common mortal was a declared friend of Philip, the king of Macedonia.” Whether Aristotle was right or wrong in his views is up to each individual. What is certain is that freedom of speech in Athens was rather precarious. Possibly, his departure to Chalcis hastened his death a year later.