Diapositiva 1

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A CONSTITUTION IMPRESSED BY GRECISM
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Democracy was a rather rooted Greek invention in
ancient Greece , in fact , it had the character
of universality and eternity besides it
impressed our Christian soul, in particular the
State and the society.
The word that Ancient Greeks used to define their
political system was ltDemocracygt and it referred
to majority.
3
The most important Athenian political leaders
were
SOLON
CLEISTHENES
PERICLES
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The word we use to define our Democracy is
Oikèin because our political system refers to
majority and not to power or to entire
peoplebut in private disputes we give equal
weight to everyone and there is freedom in our
public life. (Pericles word attributed to him
by Thucidides in II,37)
Pericles, the greatest Athenian political leader,
with this sentence, labelled the existing
political system in V century Athens, associating
political system not to the power of the entire
people, as was erroneously stated in the preamble
to the European Constitution draft in 2003, but
to the majority expressed by the people.
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Athens, despite the disastrous conclusion of the
Peloponnese war, thanks to Democracy became the
school of Greece, being the spokesman of
principles such as ltparresiagt, ltisegoriagt and
ltisonomiagt, that praised freedom of speech and
equality of laws and rights.
However Greek writers werent in favour of
Democracy and their hostility derived from their
aristocratic and conservative character whose
model was Sparta, clearly in opposition to the
democratic Athens.
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At the beginning the Athenian government was led
by the Archons that, elected by the nobles every
year and supported by the ltAereopagos Assemblygt
,that was the most ancient and aristocratic
judicial Body, represented the monarchic power.
Only then a way was opened towards a real
democratic Constitution, through important
reforms, such as the Solons ones, that abolished
slavery in 524 b.C. and the creation of ltElièagt
(the judicial popular Body opposed to the
aristocratic ltAreopagogt).
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But the real democratic Costitution was known in
Athens in 510 b.C. thanks to Cleisthenes.
He created the 500 Council (Bulè),that through
the 50 members elected by each of the ten tribes,
had an executive character and deprived the
Archons of their authority very soon it
controlled the work of all magistrates and
stategists,and it drew up the agenda of the
general people meeting through the Ekklesia Body.
It was formed by male citizens only, over 20 and
the functions of ltEkklesiagt, unlike the Bulè were
legislative but also judicial, as it was decided
about the preservation of existing laws and the
withdrawal or the preservation of magistrates,
entirely dependent on the decisions taken by the
people.
8
The third fundamental democratic Institution was
the ltElièagt,the judicial popular Body instituted
by Solon. It was formed by judges, opposed to the
aristocratic power of the ltAreopagogt. But people
had soon another formidable instrument of
control, ltOstracismgt, that banished whomever was
impopular from the State.
Athenian Constitution had its glorious period in
462 Areopagos power was limited in favour of
three popular Bodies the ltAssembygt, the lt500
Councilgt and ltElièagt. Moreover in 457 also the
ltzeugitigt, that represented the third class, were
admitted to the office of Archon.
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Pericles gave, with the ltMisthophorìagt, an
important development to the Athenian Democracy,
permitting the active participation of all
political members to the Assembly. Pericles
guaranteed not only the individual liberty in
Athens but also the ltisonomiagt and the
ltisegoriagt, essential elements of democracy for
the Greeks in fact ancient Greece was called the
ltcradle of culturegt. Subsequently there will be
the decline of the Democracy but ancient Greece
will remain the symbol of the West forever.
10
Pericles was perceived as a real princeps by
Thucidides a kind of supremacy, a personal power
that established Democracy, and on the contrary,
there was the government of ltPRÒTOS ANÈRgt(II,
65). Thucidides described Pericles as the
princeps with very similar characteristics to
those of the tyrant Pisistratus whose governament
was characterized by uninterrupted continuity
within a correct costitutional system.
11
In Aristotle,the difference between the two
opposing political systems did not lie in the
fact that lots or few people possessed the
citizenship, but in the fact if they were owners
or not he set out that even in oligarchies the
ltmajoritygt was in power. In Politician and
Laws Plato argued that laws should be supreme.
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In these conditions Greek political life
investigated about the origins of the two
constant motives of ancient political thought 1)
the lack of sympathy for democracy, not
appreciated more than monarchy or oligarchy 2)
the ideal of the mixed State as an excellent
state. The mixed State, costant ideal of Greek
politicians, was an effetive balance between the
state Bodies corresponding to the political
forces.
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Comparing the Greek Democracy to ours, we very
often reduced it to liberty and equality only
the real reason was that our Democracy (Western
Europe and America) came to maturity during the
Enlightenment, that defined the political problem
in essentially individualistic terms. Besides,
the popular sovereingnity consisted in the State
control by people meant as a combination of
individuals, whose fundamental aspiration was to
garantee their own person.
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