Before the Athenian developed a democracy it was ruled by kings. It was king thesus who founded Athens, he did so by uniting several settlements of Attica into a state. However, Greek mythology was said to be the basis in which Athens was named, that there was competition of who could protect the city between the goddess Athena and Poseidon, this myths indicates that the goddess Poseidon gave a spring with sea water and Athena gave an olive tree as she touched the ground of the sacred rock of the acropolis, people chose olive tree and thus Athena was made the protector and the city was called Athens (Kagan, Donald 45). For the Athenian constitution, there are two texts from the classical antiquity, one was written by Aristotle and the other by one of his students, either of them is the Athenian constitution,
In this part of the paper I will build on the periods, look into the role played in history of Athens by following: To start with the kings.
The kings of Athens were grouped into three categories depending on when they reigned, the first group was that of the earliest kings, that is, king ogyges and king actaeus, they are thought to have reigned before the flood in the Deucalion story., the second group and the largest is the erechthids, this is where the first true king of Athens was considered to be king cecrops(Kagan, Donald 66).this is according to the history of the Hellenistic era. They ware as follows: Cecrops I 1556 - 1506 BC.Cranaus 1506 - 1497 BC.Amphictyon 1497 - 1487 BC.Erichthonius 1487 - 1437 BC.Pandion I 1437 - 1397 BC.Erechtheus 1397 - 1347 BC.Cecrops II 1347 - 1307 BC.Pandion II 1307 - 1282 BC.Aegeus 1282 - 1234 BC.Theseus 1234 - 1204 BC. (or 1213 BC). Menestheus 1204 - 1181 BC (or 1213 - 1191 BC). Demophon 1181 - 1147 BC. Oxyntes 1147 - 1135 BC. Apheidas 1135 - 1134 BC. Thymoetes 1134 - 1126 BC. The last group is called the malnthids, they included king Melanthus 1126 - 1089 BC. And kodros 1089 - 1068 BC. Kodros is the last king of the ancient Athens he sacrificed his life for the sake of his people homeland and from him his sons did not become heirs of the kingdoms and thus this paved way for the wealthy landowners the nobles to take over power, this noble ruled Athens by use of a supreme court they called the consul which had 9 elected Athenian rulers. At this time there was an assembly of the Athenian people called eddlesia of demos which was not at that time powerful (Gouvousis 43).
After colonialism and expansion of trade, the Athenians became more wealthier and rich and thus opted that they be included in the running of the state affairs while from the other side of the city were the low class of the Athenians facing poverty, this le to the eruption of riot by the poor who wanted land and new constitution that could bring more social justice but the rich wanted to keep the power and their authority over them. This promoted the rise of the kylonions who wanted to be the tyrants but failed, thus the nobles asked drakon to draft new laws; this was a response to people’s wishes(Gouvousis 64). However the laws that drakon created were very hard and favored the nobles and the Athenians were very furious and disappointed by this.
Aristocratic constitution
Before the riots by the Athenian low class, the structure of the constitution that was being used by the noble was as follows: officials were appointed into office basing it on how one was born and where he was born, good birth and wealth was the qualification to become an official(Kagan, Donald 76). The first officials to be in the ruling were the basileus who was the traditional ruler and was involve very much in the traditional festivities, the polemarch,this officials were added because the basileus were weak warriors then the archron officials. The thesmothetae were the last office to be constituted much later. They occupied the thesmotheteum in the times of solon where with the full power to give final lawsuits (Kagan, Donald 82). The areopagus council acted as the custodians of the law they could punish and chastise anyone thought to be disorderly. After some years, in the archonship of aristaechinus, drakon was asked by the noble to draft a new constitution.
Drakon
He is the one called by the noble to establish a new constitution, he was the first legislature, his laws were very had and offensive to the Athenians, this laws became the draconian constitution, they were the first to be written and posted on wooden planes and made sure that every one was aware of them, this tablets were called the axons (Kagan, Donald 90). All laws were written and one could make appeal to the areopagus for justice, this law was that it distinguished murder and homicide. However, the law was hash and favored those who were rich and wealthy, for minor offences had death sentence and argued that he had no proper punishment for major offences.
Solon
The laws of drakon did not meet the aspiration and the expectations of the Athenian people, and they called in solon to write new laws for them, as he was considered a very wise man. Solon made the citizens to receive their debts back, and also freed those who had been enslaved by their debts (Kagan, Donald 87). The laws that he wrote made the people of Athens free from a very heavy burden, he divided the Athenians into four main classes which depended on their income; the archon became the only with the right to be rich. On the other hand, he gave people political strength by giving greater powers to the Athenian assembly (ecclesia of demos).it was the assembly that made decisions on various issues and voted for the laws made by the house(Kagan, Donald 93). He founded the large peoples court which was called the illiaia.this were the road towards democracy and good governance. however, the poor still wanted the re-division of the land ,and it is this time that those wealthy land owners lost much power to the peisistatos who became a tyrant(Kagan, Donald 94).
Peisistratos
This is the tyrant who initiated very many projects in Athens and supported farmers very much. He hand two sons; Hippias and Hipparchus who took over form him, were very harsh to the Athenians and one was killed and the other exiled from Athens where he died(Kagan, Donald 97). This was also the end of tyranny.
Kleisthenes
He radically reformed the constitution in the aim of organizing democracy, thus dividing the Athenians into ten races each with a municipality, in each municipality were citizens from other areas of Attica promoting the end of the noble and strong classes since they mixed with other citizens (Kagan, Donald 122). He gave all the powers to the ecclesia of demos, it was from this assembly where ten generals were elected and they were the governors of military and the state. The house which was the parliament of 400 people in solons time was replaced to 500 deputies in new parliament, with 50 Athenians from each race democratically drawn (Kagan, Donald 125). This is how democracy, constitution with social justice was born in Athens and the glorious time was this.
The empire and navy
The Athenian empire had a lot of money and they used this money to construct a mighty navy. The navy was composed of light weight war ships known as the triremes, in this ship about 170 oarsmen rowed in the three tiers, this led towards the Athens golden age and it became the most advanced form of democracy. Athens city-state of some 200,000 people had the strongest navy on the planet. Before the Persian wars, the Athenians produced no great traditions in philosophy, drama architecture, politics, historical writing (Hanson, Victor Davis 66). This came to happen when the Athenians voted to form a fleet and transform themselves into an empire of mighty navy. The great work of maintaining the and building this fleet brought the societies together, thus the protection people received from the navy made them work harder and prosper the people who commanded the fleets or the squadrons of triremes included play writers Sophocles and Thucydides the historian(Hanson, Victor Davis 78).
Pericles,
This was a very prominent and influential statesman and a general in Athens during the glorious or the golden age, he was so influential that he was accorded as the first citizen of Athens by Thucydides, he made the delian league to an empire and he also led his fellow Athenians through the first two years of the Peloponnesian war, he promoted art and literature, beatified the city with his structures in acropolis. Furthermore, he fostered democracy (Kagan Donald.120)
Alcibiades
Just like Pericles, he was a statesman an orator and a general; he played a major role in the Peloponnesian war, as a military commander, advisor and a politician (Kagan, Donald. 44). He is also known for advocating very strongly on the foreign policies making him a major proponent of the Sicilian expedition, although he was exiled to Sparta after his political opponents brought charges of sacrilege against him, he became the strategic advisor to the Sparta proposing and campaigning against the Athens. However, later he was made to run to Persia, where he became an advisor to satrap tissaphemes until he was recalled back to Athens where he served as a general and was exiled again. Sicilian expedition was his idea that was taken over by Nicias and failed.
The war between Athens and Sparta
The Athenians and Sparta were similar in several ways and yet still different in other ways and this led to war (Hanson, Victor Davis. 46). The Peloponnesian war was the ancient Greek war that was fought by the Athens, it is normally divided into three phases, the first phase of the war was when the archidamian war, and in this war Sparta launched attack on Attica. On the other hand the Athens with its naval supremacy attacked the coast of Peloponnese, and later the signs or war with the signing of peace accord called the peace of Nicias (Hanson, Victor Davis. 58). Later the treaty was undermined and Athens attacked Syracuse in Sicily an this attack failed badly destroying the Athenian navy completely, this led to the final phase of the war called the decelean war, Sparta combined forces with Persia. This undermined the Athens Empire eventually reducing the Athens naval supremacy and the destruction of the Athens fleet at Aegospotami ended the war and Athens surrendered. This war re-molded the ancient Greece, then becoming powerless making Sparta the leading power of the Greek world (Hanson, Victor Davis 68).
Conclusion
From the historical review we find that the aristocrats lost power completely during the reign of kleisthenes, who radically reformed and created a new social order by the creation of race municipality with governors, in this states the nobles had no power but mixed with the other people, the slavery that had been imposed by the draconian constitution was no more nad people were living more freer than before.
The peasants were able to gain power when kleisthenes gave all the power to the ecclesia of demos, creating a parliament that could enable the citizens also to be elected and play part in leadership.
