Leadership Development in Ancient Greece
Robin Lane Fox (1946–) is a leading contemporary historian whose scholarly works have earned praise from both academic and popular quarters. He was educated at Oxford and is now an Emeritus Fellow at New College, Oxford. Fox’s impact on current historical studies has been substantial. It is to his great credit that someone of his obvious erudition is still able to provide the general reading public with accessible and engaging books such as “The Classical World”, from which the piece below is excerpted. Fox was an adviser to Oliver Stone for the film “Alexander”. Enjoy this brief taste of the illuminating content and his scholarship, and reflect on how the roots of our thinking on leadership go back to Ancient Greece.
Robin Lane Fox explains how it was to Sparta’s advantage in the sixth century BC that the tyrannies in Greece were increasingly under severe pressure. The tension was due to the fact that the heirs of the first tyrants were even more tyrannical than their forbears, without providing any real benefit to their communities.
The coups that had brought the tyrants to power in many city states had been facilitated by conflicts among the nobility and the great social change that came with the introduction of the hoplites, heavily armed infantrymen drawn from the citizenry.
Once this military and social revolution became the accepted way of life, the nobles were able to turn the tables on the tyrants, and Sparta was a useful ally in ousting tyrants whose relevance had faded.
But while there was a widespread belief that Sparta’s militarized socio-political arrangement was the best alternative to tyranny, there was little proper understanding of how Sparta was organised and ruled. Nonetheless, aristocratic groups often conspired with Sparta to defeat tyranny, and Spartan influence spread throughout Greece.
The Greeks had come to equate tyranny with slavery, and hence to overthrow a tyrant was to win freedom from unconstrained despotism. Thus, in the polis or city state, it was not the slaves or repressed women who brought awareness of the ideal of freedom, but rather the personal experience of unjust tyranny on the part of the male citizens themselves.
However, political development in the polis had not been snuffed out altogether by tyranny. The roots of Greek democracy can indeed be traced all the way back to the aristocratic-tyrannical age of the sixth and seventh centuries BC. There were limits on the period of office in the case of magistrates, and officials were investigated when their period of office came to an end. There were also significant developments in legal procedure, and a public vote was required to elect officials. That said, it does seem likely that this rudimentary ballot was in practice controlled by the tyrants.
Fox shows how new political terms were used in the sixth century, with citizens calling for autonomia or self-government, which would allow them to run their own affairs. How far this socio-political freedom went was to be challenged, debated, and fought over for a long time.
It seems the call for autonomia had grown out of awareness that, given the geography of Greece and its socio-political set-up, there were no external powers to repress it. Citizens of the polis went even further and demanded isonomia, translated as legal equality. Whether that meant equality before the law or equality in administration of the law remains a moot point among scholars.
Fox relates how the tyranny of the Peisistratids in Athens, one of the few remaining, collapsed in 510 BC, prompting the search for new political guidelines. The contest between various aristocratic families went on for two years under what was left of Solon’s constitution, and significantly, they agreed that henceforward it would be illegal to torture any citizen of Athens. The ideal of freedom was in the air.
In 508 BC, the Alcmeonids, a noble family that had led the way in expelling the tyrants, lost the supreme magistracy to a rival clan, and fearing political eclipse, came up with a novel expedient. When their rival assumed office, the leading member of the family, Cleisthenes, addressed the forum of citizens, and proposed that a new constitution be established, investing sovereignty in the entire male citizen body.
It was the moment of Athens’ historic gift to posterity.