That was a wise method of governing the polis?

Answer 1

The most common form of government in the Greek city-states was oligarchy, or "rule by a few." The oligarchs were almost always drawn from the noble classes or from the wealthiest citizens of the state ("rule by the wealthy" is called a timocracy), but a variety of oligarchic forms were invented in the eighth century. These include having the members of the oligarchy chosen by lot, having them elected, or rotating the oligarchy among members of a certain class. The oligarchs most often ruled absolutely; they had many of the powers granted to a king. However, many oligarchies ruled in conjunction with other political structures: in Sparta, for instance, the oligarchy ruled over and with a pair of kings, a council, and a democratic assembly. The reforms of Solon in Athens left in oligarchy of nobles in charge of the state, but granted enormous powers to an elected, democratic Assembly. Even though the powers of the oligarchs were diffused among a group (which could be surprisingly large), the power of the oligarchy could be remarkably totalitarian, since many of the members of the oligarchy were drawn from the same class and had the same interests. Many of the early oligarchic governments and a few of the kings were overthrown by "tyrants" (in Greek, tyrranos); oligarchy could be a particularly unstable form of government when it was also a timocracy, or "rule by the wealthy." While Greek history is generally unkind to the tyrants, we can through the haze of later Greek Propaganda come to some dispassionate conclusions about the nature of the tyrannies. The Greeks believed that the tyrants were illegitimate usurpers of political power; they seem, however, to have had in many cases popular support. The Greek tyrants were often swept into power by dissatisfaction or crisis; they were more often then not extremely popular leaders when they assumed the tyranny. They often assumed absolute control in the name of reforming the government; Solon, the great reformer of the Athenian constitution, was essentially granted all the powers of a tyrant. Many of the tyrants, in fact, were brilliant and morally sound reformers and activists; many, however, were not. Once in power, they ruled as a king would rule, and many attempted, and some succeeded, to make the tyranny hereditary-in essence, a form of monarchy. Many of them seem to have directed their attentions to the crisis that swept them into office, but most of them set about shoring up their shaky hold on power. For the tyrants ruled only by a thread; they maintained power only by their hold on military force and often fear. The tyrannies were by nature highly unstable, and they fell apart rapidly. Even so, tyranny was a widespread political institution throughout the Greek-speaking world: tyrannies were experimented with not only in Greece, but Asia Minor and even as far away as the Greek cities in Sicily.

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