5. The Rise of the Athenian State¶
Core Argument¶
The emergence of the Athenian state represents the purest known example of a state arising directly from gentile society, without significant external or internal violence—the usurpation of Pisistratus left no trace on its fundamental development. This transformation was driven by the growth of commodity production, sea trade, and private land ownership, which created a population of non-gentile members living within tribal districts but excluded from local administration. The mingling of different gentes, phratries, and tribes through commerce and land sales had already fatally undermined the old kinship constitution.
The constitution attributed to Theseus established a central authority in Athens, fusing the tribes into a single nation with a common civil law. A second measure divided the people into three classes—nobles, farmers, and artisans—with office reserved for the nobility, revealing the emergence of a privileged class based on wealth and the division of labour. The office of basileus was replaced by archons elected from the nobility, whose power grew through money and usury, leading to the ruin of small farmers via mortgages and debt slavery. The gentile constitution was irreconcilable with a money economy.
Solon’s reforms of 594 BC voided debts, prohibited debt bondage, and fixed a maximum landholding. He divided citizens into four property classes, with political rights and military obligations assessed by land yield; the fourth class received voting rights in the assembly. Private ownership was thus introduced as the basis of the state. Cleisthenes’ constitution of 509 BC finally abolished the old tribes, dividing Attica into 100 demes based solely on place of residence, with self-government and elected officials—the prototype of the modern township. Ten demes formed a local tribe, distinct from the old kinship tribe, which was self-governing and military: it elected a phylarch, taxiarch, and strategos, provided five warships, and chose fifty councillors for the Athenian council. At the summit stood the state governed by the council of 500 and the assembly of all citizens, with no supreme executive official. This constitution forced the gentile organs out of public affairs into private associations, though gentile moral influence persisted.
An essential state characteristic is a public force separate from the people. Athens initially had only a people’s army and fleet, which controlled slaves—already the majority. Public power existed as a police force, instituted simultaneously with the state, but consisting of slaves, as free Athenians deemed police duty degrading—a remnant of the gentile spirit. At Athens’ peak, there were 90,000 free citizens, 365,000 slaves, and 45,000 protected persons—at least eighteen slaves and over two protected persons per adult male citizen. Wealth concentrated in few hands; the mass of free citizens were impoverished, forced either to compete with slave labour or become social scrap. They chose the latter, causing Athens’ downfall—not by democracy, but by slavery, which banned free citizens’ labour. The Athenian state, adapted to new class oppositions of slaves and free men, protected persons and citizens, thus produced a democratic republic directly from gentile society.