Between the tyrannies that marked the Late Archaic Age and the kingdoms of the Macedonian and Hellenistic regimes, monarchy was not a common form of rule in Greece. Instead, the governments, or politeia, of the various poleis were poised somewhere on the continuum between aristocracy/oligarchy—the rule of the few/best/richest—and democracy—the rule of the people/masses. In truth, these terms are somewhat anachronistic—the words oligarchy and democracy appeared for the first time only in the fifth-century writings of Herodotus, and they became topics of political/philosophical discussion only in the later fifth - and fourth-century works of Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle (Ostwald 2000, 386). Oligarchy in Greece was not the narrow junta we might think it in modern times. Rather than specific "governments of the rich," the more mild oligarchies in Greece limited the franchise to those citizens who possessed property, with the amount of property required varying from city to city. In this respect, they were no different from the early United States, where the right to vote was dependent on landownership. This had a practical basis: Only those citizens with adequate means could afford to take part in day-to-day political affairs. It was not until the reforms of Pericles in fifth-century Athens that pay was implemented for governmental services in that city, such as jury duty, so that even the poorest citizens could afford to take part in the political machinery. Aristotle, in his Politics (1293a12-34), noted four different types of oligarchy, ranging from the mild to the blatantly dynastic closed system:
When a great number of people own estates of smaller and not excessive size, we have the first type of oligarchy. They permit a property-owner to participate, and, with a large number of men having a share in governing, authority will necessarily be vested not in men but in the law. For the further removed they are from monarchy, the less likely it will be that their estate will either be so large that they can enjoy leisure without concern for their property, or so small that they have to be maintained from public funds. It follows that they think it right that the law should rule over them and not they.
When the number of estate owners is smaller but their estates larger, we get the second type of oligarchy. Their greater influence, they believe, entitles them to greater prerogatives. Accordingly, they take it upon themselves to choose from the rest those who will be admitted to the governing body; but since they are not quite influential enough to rule without law, they enact a law to that effect.
If they narrow it by having fewer people own larger estates, the third stage of oligarchy is reached. They keep the offices in their own hands but adopt a law stipulating that sons succeed their fathers.
When they confine membership to an extreme extent, requiring large estates limited to a network of relationships, we have a narrow power-group, a dynasty, which is close to monarchy, in which authority rests with the men and not the law. This is the fourth type of oligarchy. . . . (Translation by Ostwald 2000, 392-393)
World History
