Ancient Greek State Politics :Life History

Ancient Greek State Politics : Life History  

 When we study the governments of Ancient Greece in school, w

mostly learn about the inner workings of the Greek city-state, the poleis,with much of the emphasis placed on the dominant powers of the time, Athens and Sparta. But another kind of political entity was crucialfor the area that characterized western and northern Greece: the koina, or federations.  Around the eighth century BC, at the startof what historians call the Archaic Period, Greece experienced a rise in its population,which lead to the emergence of numerous cities and towns, and kickstarted the expeditionsthat colonized other areas in the Mediterranean Sea, such as Illyria, Southern Italy and Cyrenaica.

 The cities emerged in a landscape dominatedby tribal groups, subdivided into smaller tribes. Modern historians estimate that around onethousand poleis existed during the Archaic and Classical periods, and with so many autonomouscenters in relatively close proximity, a number of procedures for maintaining relations emerged,such as rules for alliances, ambassadors, friendship agreements, and other treatiesof economic, trade and religious natures.

 From these embryonic arrangements betweendifferent cities and tribes, some forms of cooperation emerged in the framework of thetribal states, which held primitive councils gathering envoys from the regional centers. Agreements laid the groundworks for the leaguesand federations that would emerge in the following centuries. Before we discuss how the leagues were governedand functioned, we must premise that every league was unique in its history, formation,and structure, soIot all statements pertain to all of them, but we will attempt to givea general idea of how they worked. The regional or ethnic-leagues, which werecalled koinon, meaning “common” or “public”, or sympoliteia, “common constitution”,developed from previous confederations in the different regions of Greece, the mostimportant being the Thessalian, the Boiotian, the Achaian and the Aetolian. When a polis entered a league, they wouldcontinue to keep the same institution and laws they were previously governed with. 

An important background which characterizedall koina was that its members were all part of the same tribe, or as the Greeks calledit “ethnos”. The tribes and cities found common groundthrough a mix of similar cultures, dialects, religious sanctuaries, myths, aristocraticrelations, and traditions. Many of the leagues had a common foundingmyth to which all of the members of the koinon could trace their origins to, and the sanctuariesimportant for the inhabitants of the region encouraged collaboration between local citiesto organize festivities and the protection of their treasure. 

They also at times gave their citizens dualcitizenship, one for the poleis and another for the league. When they formed varied greatly between regions. Some, such as the Thessalian League and thePhocian League, were established before the fifth century; others emerged following thepower vacuum caused by the decline of Athens and Sparta after the Peloponnesian War. The reason for their creation was different,either to protect themselves from an expanding power, such as the Acarnanian league, whichwas on the forefront the of struggle against Philip of Macedon, or to secure their interests following the fall of the previous rulers, such as the Achaian League, or simply theeconomic benefits coming with them. To get a grasp on how widespread they were,it is estimated that around 50% of poleis were members of a koinon, but not every cityin an area joined the local koinon, for reasons that could include concerns about losing powerand resources to their rivals. 

The government of the koina mirrored the compositionsof the poleis that formed them. The most important of the institutions wasthe federal ekklesia, or assembly. In most of the leagues, the common assemblywas held in only one city, such as Thebes for the Beotian League or Olynthus for theChalkidian League. These cities effectively acquired the unofficialstatus of capital of the league, especially if the voting was direct as the inhabitantsof the city held an absolute majority in the assembly. 

To resolve this problem, some leagues heldtheir assemblies in rotating cities or locations. The Arkadian League founded a new city, Megalopolis,where the assembly was held, to stop any attempt from the various poleis to dominate the league. During the second century, some leagues adopteda system of proportional representation, where cities would send a number of delegates basedon their population.

 The idea of representation was also crucialwhen dealing with the executive powers, whether during war or peace. The executive branch of the koinon was a federalcouncil called boulē [~bou’lee] or synedrion, which ran the daily affairs of the league. Its members, the archons and stratēgoi, wereagain sent by the constituents of the leagues, and it was here the negotiations between themembers took place to decide the policies the koinon should take, although it is notclear if the members were represented proportionally or if they got one vote each. Some leagues, instead, opted to elect thehighest magistrates in a federal assembly, disregarding their place of origin.

 The koina also had federal law courts calleddikastēria, the boards of which were again staffed by delegates sent by the members. To help organize the league’s resourcesand the votes, several leagues divided their territories into subdivisions, with the mostcommon denotations being meros or telos, meaning division and district. The telos was an autonomous subdivision withits own organs, which had previously been another small centre later integrated intothe league. The meros instead was much more common andwas artificially created by the leagues, and were used to calculate taxation and economiccontributions due to the league. They were also used for recruitment for thefederal army; each district would send a contingent, the size of which was based on the populationof the meros. The poleis usually restricted the right toown land to its citizens and few other benefactors, and taxes were levied on both imports andexports.

 With the rise of the koina, we find an attemptto integrate the many fractured local economies, by expanding the rights of citizens of thefederation to own land in their territory, and by easing commerce between the members,granting them easier access to the judiciary. There were a few attempts at introducing acommon taxation policy, but most important was the introduction of common weights, measures,and coins for exchanges. We find numerous examples of common coinage:in some leagues each city had its own mint, producing coins with the cities name on, butfollowing the guidelines set by agreements, while in the more centralized leagues suchas the Beotian under Thebes, all coins came from the same mint. This gave the leagues the advantage of choosingthe money supply in its region, and it encouraged commerce within its border, easing tax collectionand the payment of troops.

 Some of them also had the right to limit exportsand imports on certain goods, such as grain and iron. One of the most important forms of revenuefor the koina were the customs duties imposed at harbours and ports, which were collectedby the league and not the poleis since they were the most lucrative, and would have disproportionatelyfavoured the maritime cities over the landlocked ones. A proportional tax based on the populationwas also levied, probably to keep the smaller poleis loyal to the federation. We do not have hard evidence on how the fundswere used, but from the historian Polybius we know that in some instances they were usedto hire mercenaries. With the colonization of different parts ofthe Mediterranean Sea, the Greek poleis also exported the idea of the koinon to other regions,such as Asia Minor, Cyrenaica, and most importantly, Magna Grecia. Here the Italiote League was formed, whichincluded most of the Greek city-states of the area. It was not uncommon for a league to have oneof its major members reach a prominent position.

 When it could exercise its power through military,diplomatic, or economic means over other members, we have the hegemony of that city over therest of the league. The word comes from “hēgemonía”, meaningauthority, and we find numerous examples in history such as Sparta, Athens, and Thebes. When the league was strong enough, this couldtranslate to hegemony over most of the Greek world. Another type of federation which had a strongeremphasis on religion was the Amphiktyonies. 

These were associations of poleis and tribesthat were located around a sanctuary, which originated festivals and common cults, andrequired protection and management of common concerns, although it did not oblige its membersto defend each other. The most important amphiktyony was the Pylaia-Delphic,centred around the two sanctuaries of Demeter at Anthela and of Apollo at Delphi. The responsibility of the members was theprotection of the sanctuaries, supervision of its administration, caretaking of the structures,and the organization of festivals such as the Pythian games held every four years. The famous oracle in Delphi had itself animportant role, managing to become independent from the city of Krissa during the First Sacred  War, which ended with the destruction of the latter. 

When it managed to keep its autonomy, theoracle promoted peace between the members and gave advice on colonization matters, butvarious Greek cities attempted to gain influence over it, and the struggle for influence would intermittently spark the Sacred Wars. Another Amphiktyonies was the original Delianleague, based on the oracle of Apollo on the island of Delos. The sanctuary had great importance for theIonians inhabiting the islands of the Aegean Sea. 

Following the First Persian War, Athens establishedthe famous Delian League using the pre-existing religious network as a frame for it, withthe goal of fending off Persian influence. The importance of the league was based onits naval power, which was used to measure the contribution of a member, which each hada vote in the common assembly. It would however not take long before Athenswould exercise its hegemonic power over the other members of the League, moving the treasuryfrom Delos to Athens in 454 BC, and using the league’s resources to wage war againstSparta, using its powers to coerce others to join them even if they did not wish todo so, as the famous episode of the Siege of Melos recounted by Thucydides demonstrates. 

The league would be disbanded after Athens’loss in the Peloponnesian war, while Delos continued to keep its importance as a sanctuary. Speaking of Athens, using its power, thiscity-state managed to create something similar to what we would call a nation-state. In 508 BC legislator Cleisthenes gave allfree men of the region of Attica Athenian citizenship, and this region was incorporatedinto one polis by means of sophisticated political and territorial organization. 

The myth tells us that it was the hero-founderof Athens Theseus who performed synoikism, which can be translated from Greek as “dwellingtogether in the same house” and unified Attica, but the historical records attributethe creation of “a fully integrated region-state”, as Greg Anderson calls it, to Cleisthenes. Another type of relationship we find was themilitary alliance, the symmachiai. The most famous of these was the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. In its early history, the city of Sparta hadsubjugated most of its neighbours, such as the Messenia, holding them in a state of slavery. After helping to instate an oligarchic governmentin Corinth and a defeat to Tegea in the first half of the fifth century, the Spartans shiftedfrom a policy of conquest to one of bilateral agreements. These loose alliances would develop into aLeague composed both of many, but not all, poleis in the Peloponnese, and a number ofexternal cities such as Megara and Aegina. The alliances were considered perpetual andthey were not obliged to help each other, although micro alliances between the membersdid form at times. By the Peloponnese War, the Spartans, beingthe strongest city in the League, held hegemony over its other members.

 The structure of command was by the time formalized:in a council with representatives of the allies, the Spartans would listen to the concern ofits members and discuss the actions to take. These were voted by the Spartan assembly andthe results were forwarded again to the members which would confirm the actions by vote. In military affairs, the members would sendcontingents to accompany the Spartan army, but all operations were commanded by a commanderof the hegemonic city.

 At the start of the fourth century and followingthe Peloponnesian war, Sparta would become more obsessed with controlling its alliesas the shrinking population threatened its hegemony, which sparked challenges to itsleadership, and caused the collapse of the League by 365 BC. Another example of symmachiai was the SecondDelian League, established by Athens in the 380s to contrast Spartan hegemony in Greece. In this league, we find proof of a synedrionwith magistrates from all the members of the alliance and independent from the Atheniangovernment. 

The league would quickly disappear, as therise of Thebes overshadowed Athens, who instead allied with Sparta, rendering the league obsolete. Following the expansion of Philip the Secondof Macedon into Greece, the Macedonians created the Corinthian League to tap the resourcesand military capabilities of the Greek city-states. To keep the members under control, the positionof hēgemōn was created, giving the Macedonian rulers the right to rule the Greek city-states. 

After the death of Alexander the Great, theleague disestablished but continued to be a framework for the relations between Macedonand the other Greek states. The ethnic-federations would continue to berelevant until the conquest of the Romans. During the third and second century, the AetolianLeague expanded its influence to most of central Greece and the Achaian League dominated mostof Peloponnese. The historian Polybius was a son of a strategosof the Achaian League and participated himself in its administration, leaving informationabout the system of the koinon in his works which have been crucial to understanding howthe federations worked. In the aftermath of the first two MacedonianWars, Rome became the hegemonic force in Greece, rivalling that of Macedon, establishing allianceswith some of the local leagues and city-states. Greek autonomy came to an end after the annexationof Macedon and the destruction of Corinth in 148 BC, where the Roman Republic took overmainland Greece Following this annexation, the leagues losttheir functions and slowly faded away from history , andwe will catch you on the next one. Thank you

  

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