A Quick Tour of the Ancient World
The organization of modern society wasn’t invented yesterday…it was developed overmany thousands of years in Southern Europe and a small corner of southwest Asia that is today called the Middle East.The democratic traditions we share have roots in the ideas Ancient Greece and Rome and in two very important religious traditions, Judaism and Christianity. These societies and religions all had their start in the area around the Mediterranean Sea two to four thousand years ago. Some historians have referred to this time and place as a “cradle of civilization.” The ideas from this time later spread through Western Europe and later across the world. A brief trip to visit this “nursery” of modern civilization would help us better understand the world in which we live.
What Were Greek City-States Like?
Greece is rocky and mountainous. In ancient times, the mountains kept the people isolated from one another. So the Greeks had many small settlements or city-states. (The Greek name for city-state was polis.)Most Greekcity-stateswere independent, or self-governing.
What Kinds of Government Did the Greeks Try?
Over a period of time, the Greek city states tried many different forms of government. In 800 B.C., many Greeks lived in city-states withmonarchies in which kings ruled and passed their power to their sons. By 700 B.C., wealthy land owning families had taken over many of these city-states. We call members of these ruling families aristocrats and the governments they ran aristocracies. They too passed their aristocratic rights to rule from father to son. In about 600 B.C., strong leaders began to use military force to take over the governments of several city-states. We call such leaders tyrants. At first many of these tyrants kept the peace and passed fair laws. They also helped trade to grow. Then some tyrants became cruel and unjust. Today the word tyranny means any government in whichthe leaders use power in a cruel and unfair way.
What Is the Greatest Contribution of the Greeks?
Of all the types of government tried by the various Greek city-states, the most important and original one was in the city-state of Athens where the citizens had the power to rule themselves…democracy. Athens was one of the most powerful and important Greeks city-states of that time, and in 594 B.C., Athenian leaders were fighting among themselves. The struggle was for control of the government between wealthy Athenians and poorer ones. According to later Greek writers, a leader named Solon created some laws which helped the citizens of Athens share power. This is the earliest record we have of a democracy, or rule by the people. Solon’s reforms (or improvements) set out tomake the government of Athens better. Because of his reforms, the average citizens of Athens had political power for the first time. So, democracy is one of the most important contributions the ancient Greeks made to modern times.
What Did “Democracy” Look Like in Athens
Athenian democracy meant rule by only some of the people, not all. Only 40,000 of the 300,000 Athenians had the right to vote, or choose leaders and pass laws. Only citizens had this right, and only men could be citizens. Women, the more than 100,000 slaves, and Greeks from other city-states could not be citizens.
At first, each Athenian citizen voted on every law. We call this type of government a direct democracy. Soon, however, the number of citizens at the city assembly, or meeting, became too large. To solve this, leaders created a council of 500 citizens who were chosen by lottery. In that way, each citizen had an equal chance of being chosen. The council members served for one year. During that time they carried out the day–to-day business of the city-state’s government. Most council members were free to do this work only because they had wives and slaves running their households and farms.
Why Did Athenians Think the Individual Was Important?
To the Greeks, each human being had the ability to reason, meaning he could think in an orderly way. This power to reason set humans apart from ordinary animals. Athenians could point to many ways that citizens contributed to the city-state. Making its important decisions, selecting its leaders,deciding guilt or innocence on juries, and defending the city-state in times of war are all examples. These are just a few reasons that Athenians valued each individual.
What Happened to the Greeks and Who Replaced Them?
At one time, Athens and the other Greek city-states around the Mediterranean Sea were the most powerful and important settlements in this part of the world. Eventually, however, because city-states waged war on each other and had to fight off invaders like the Persians, the Greeks lost their power and were conquered by other societies. The Romans were one of these societies.
The city of Rome sits on the boot-shaped peninsula of Italy to the west of Greece and it was from here that the Roman civilization spread. The early Romans had their own problems with being ruled by outsiders. By 509 B.C., wealthier Romans rebelled against the foreign king ruling them and set up a different kind of government – a republic. In a republic, citizens vote to elect representatives, or people who will speak and govern for them. Generally, rule does not pass from parent to child like in aristocracies. The RomanRepublic lasted from 509 B.C. to 27 B.C. – almost 500 years. They eventually controlled the area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, including the Greek city-states.
What Was the RomanRepublic Like?
The RomanRepublic was ruled by group of elected representatives called the Senate. However, like Athens before it, the RomanRepublic wasn’t a truly equal democracy of all citizens. Members of Rome’s oldest and richest families, called “Patricians,” made up only 10 percent of all Romans and were the only ones who could be elected to the Senate.
Most Romans were not wealthy or very powerful. They were poor farmers, merchants, and laborers. Patricians called these citizens “plebeians” which means “commoners.” Plebeians paid taxes and served in the army. They could not marry out of their class. They could be sold into slavery if they did not pay their debts. Plebeians eventually gained power because they outnumbered the Patriciansand because so many served in the army. In time, the Plebeians became so powerful that the Senate could not do anything without their approval.
How Did the Republic Become More Democratic?
In the beginning of the RomanRepublic, the Senate did not write down the laws it passed. Plebeians were never sure what the laws were. As a result, Patrician judges were often unfair to Plebeians. Soon, Plebeians began to demand that the laws be written down so that all citizens could know them. Around 450 B.C. the Senate wrote their laws on 12 bronze tablets. These Twelve Tables were put in the market place for all to see. With the laws written out and on public display, those in power could not so easily abuse that power.
As the Republic grew through trade and conquering other societies, Romans tried to create a system of laws that would apply to all citizens throughout its large territory. Over time the RomanRepublic collapsed because it became too large to control. However, the Roman Empire that emerged kept a commitment to applying the law to all people no matter what their nationality.
What Were the Legacies of the Romans?
Besides the influence of their language, and the incredible engineering projects they accomplished, the Romans left behind many legal ideas we still use today. For example, Romans worried about any one leader or group having too much power, so they developed the idea of dividing their government into parts or branches. Each branch could check or control the power of the other branches. The Romans believed that laws should protect citizens and their property and that any law should be based on reason (a Greek idea) and fairness.
Other principles of Roman law which should sound familiar include the following:
- All citizens have a right to be treated equally by their leaders;
- People accused of crimes should be considered innocent until they’re proven guilty;
- The people making accusations must prove those accusations; and
- The citizens have the right to review and change laws if needed.
What Was Judaism?
Another early contribution to modern democracycomes from the religion of a small Middle Eastern society called the Hebrews which traces its roots back to about 1800 B.C. Much of what we know about the early history of the Hebrews is found in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah. The Torah tells the story of how God chose a man named Abraham to be the “father,” or ancestor, of the Hebrew people. God commanded Abraham to move his people to Canaan, an area of ancient Palestine. Today, much of that area is in the country of Israel; the Hebrew peopleare today known asJews and their religion is called Judaism.
What Made the Hebrews Unique?
Groups who lived around the early Hebrews were polytheists, people who believed in more than one god. By contrast, the Hebrewswere monotheists, meaning they believed in one God. This God was perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful, and eternal. Polytheists often believed that their gods wanted human beings to perform rituals and sacrifices in their honor. The Hebrews believed that God wanted His people to care about right and wrong (morality), to seek justice and to protect the weak.
What Did Jews Believe About the Value of the Individual?
The Hebrew Bible (a book that Christians call “the Old Testament”) states that human beings are created in God’s image. The Hebrews interpreted this to mean that each individual has a “divine spark” that gives him or her a dignity that can never be taken away. For the Greeks and Romans, the individual had dignity because of his or her ability to reason. For the Hebrews, each person had dignity simply by being a child of God.
The Hebrews believed that God had given humans moral freedom—the ability to choose between good and evil. Therefore, each person was responsible for the choices he or she made. These beliefs led to a new emphasis on the worth of the individual and the importance of a moral law code.
What Did Judaism Teach About Right and Wrong?
Like the Greeks, the Romans, and other ancient peoples, the Jews had a written code of laws. The Bible states that God gave this code to their leader Moses in the form of the Ten Commandmentsand other laws. This event occurred sometime between 1300 and 1200 B.C. Unlike the laws of other peoples, the Hebrews’ code focused more on morality and less on politics. The code included rules of social and religious behavior, and even the leaders had to follow them.
What Did the Jewish Prophets Teach?
In the eighth century B.C., Jewish thinking was shaped by religious leaders called prophets. The prophets were teachers who the Jews believed to be messengers from God. These prophets spoke out against war, oppression, and greed which strengthened the Jews’ social conscience (shared beliefs about right and wrong). Overtime, this social conscience shaped the way that people in later societies thought about right and wrong. The Jews believed that it is the responsibility of every person to fight against injustice and oppression and that the community should help the unfortunate. The prophets inspired people to hope that life on earth could be improved, that poverty and injustice need not exist, and that individuals are capable of living by high moral standards.
Who Was Jesus of Nazareth?
As Rome expanded, its power spread throughout the area around the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans took control of Judea, homeland of the Jews, around 63 B.C. By 6 B.C., the Romans ruled Judea directly as a part of their empire. According to the New Testament, Jesus of Nazareth was born around 6 to 4 B.C. He was both a Jew and a Roman subject. He became widely known for his teaching at the age of 30. His preaching contained many ideas from Jewish religion, such as monotheism and the Ten Commandments. Jesus emphasized God’s personal relationship to each human being.
Jesus’ ideas went beyond traditional morality. He taught that people should love God, their neighbors, and even their enemies. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the people, “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” He also taught that God would eventually end wickedness in the world and would establish an eternal kingdom in which he would rule. People who sincerely asked God to forgive their wrong doing would find life after death in this kingdom.
What Was Christianity and How Did it Spread?
About A.D. 29, Jesus visited Jerusalem. Because some referred to him as the “king of the Jews,” the Roman governor and Jewish religious leaders considered him a threat. Jesus was put to death by crucifixion. According to Jesus’ followers, he rose from the dead three days later and later rose into heaven. His followers believed he was the Messiah, or savior of all people. Jesus came to be referred to as Jesus Christ. Christos is a Greek word meaning “messiah” or “savior.” The word Christianity, the name of the religion founded by Jesus, came from the name Christ.
In the first century after Jesus’ death, his followers began to teach this new religion based on his message. Christianity spread slowly but steadily across the Roman Empire. One man, the apostle Paul, had a big influence on Christianity’s growth. Paul preached in cities around the eastern Mediterranean. He said that Jesus was the son of God and that he had died for people’s sins. Paul declared that Christianity was a universal religion. It should welcome all who wanted to join, Jew and non-Jew. He said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” He emphasized the essential equality of all human beings, a belief central to democracy.
How Did the Roman Empire Help to Spread Judeo-Christian Ideas?
In the beginning, the Roman Empire was hostile to the beliefs of Judaism and Christianity. Neither faith would embrace the respect for the many gods (including the emperor) that had become a part of the Roman religion. Yet it was the empire that helped spread the ideas of these religions in two ways. The first way was indirect. After a series of Jewish rebellions against the Romans in the first century, they were exiled or kicked out of from their homeland in A.D. 70, an event today known as the Diaspora. The Jews then fled to many parts of the world, where they shared their beliefs that all people had the right to be treated with justice and dignity.
The second way the empire spread Judeo-Christian ideas was more direct. Despite Roman persecution of Christians, Christianity became a powerful religion throughout the empire and beyond. By A.D. 380, it had become the official religion of the empire. Eventually it took root in Europe, the Near East, and northern Africa. By doing so, it profoundly shaped government and society for the next 1500 years.
Source: Adapted from Wayne E King and Marcel Lewinski. Modern World History. Shoreview, MN: Pearson AGS Globe. 2008.