Hellenistic Civilization: Privilege, Poverty and Failed Revolutions

Societies around the Mediterranean provided education for the professions -- mainly for sons of the wealthy. In some Hellenized cities, the children of common people were taught reading, writing, arithmetic and "civilized" behavior -- with teachers using corporal punishment as their only recourse against inadequacy by their pupils.

In western Asia Minor an elementary school education was also available to girls. They ended school at a younger age than the boys, who continued their education if their fathers cared to pay for it. But some upper class women did acquire higher education, and a few became philosophers. In the 200's, women poets began to reappear. Aristodama of Smyrna toured Greece giving recitals and receiving many honors. A woman named Hestiaea acquired a reputation as a scholar, and women were painting.

In some cities, Alexander had favored the common people against local nobles, who had been potential competitors for power. And Alexander had backed the creation of councils to tackle local issues. Among the authoritarian monarchs who followed Alexander had been support for popular participation in local government. But with the passing of time this declined. The gap between the rich and poor widened. And local power and influence gravitated toward men of wealth.

City governments called on local men of wealth to help their city, and merchants contributed to the construction of temples, gymnasiums, schools and other city buildings, to the construction of bridges and covered sewers, and to other civic projects. They paid for city festivals and ceremonial sacrifices to the gods, for banquets, free meals for the hungry and prizes for school children. They patronized the arts, and they contributed to city beautification that included a proliferation of fountains and statues -- many of which were of these patrons to honor their services.

Being free from the daily labors that burdened poorer folk, men of wealth had the time to serve as diplomats. In times of war, they contributed to supplying armies with war material. While assemblies elected by the common citizenry continued to meet and pass decrees, real power was in the hands of these men of wealth -- as happened in Athens, where the courts came under the control of wealthy magistrates. And as a result of their rise in influence, these men of wealth began paying less in taxes than did common people.

There was the misery and insecurity created by continuous warfare, and there was an endemic poverty. The population was small compared to modern times, but not small relative to the amount of food being produced. In Greece and through the Middle East a bad harvest still meant famine. In Greece, hunger prevailed because the area was not exporting enough in minerals or manufactured goods to exchange for food. Greece was still dependent upon imports to keep people fed. And in the place of exports in goods, men in Greece were still exporting themselves as soldiers.

Across Greece and West Asia, migration from the countryside to the cities created urban slums and overcrowding. With new supplies of slaves and an abundance of freemen looking for work came a drop in the wages, often while the price of food was rising. An abundance of slaves offered no incentives for creating devices that would replace muscle and sweat, and those who labored were physically burdened beyond their ability to stay fit.

Mining was an especially hard occupation. Egypt's gold and quicksilver mines were worked by slaves, criminals and prisoners of war, including women, elderly men and children. Young men hacked the quartz loose. Older men broke the quartz into fragments. Children dragged the quartz to the grinders, powered by women who like others worked without rest, walking in circles and pushing levers that rotated a shaft. According to the Greek writer Agatharchides, relief came only with death, which these miners welcomed.

As it was in Athens in the time of Solon, the wealthy feared revolt by those who were miserable. And from a few who empathized with the miserable came dreams of a better society. Some dreamed of a "brotherhood of man." In dreaming about a better world, some looked back to what they thought was an unspoiled past, to what they imagined were virtuous barbarians living according to nature. Some put into writing their ideas about a harmonious society. A writer named Iambulus designed a society without class differences, a society in which people would be equal, sharing what they produced and taking turns in doing menial work. Iambulus saw his utopia as a democracy, and he saw people in his utopia acquiring equality in wisdom and relating to each other with love.

The most serious attempt at changing society came with hate and violence. In 279 BCE, a man named Apollondorus rode a wave of discontent that gave him power in the port city of Cassanderia -- formerly Potidaea -- in Chalcidice. His followers vented their anger on the wealthy with physical violence, and they confiscated wealth and property. Apollondorus established a communist dictatorship, and with money taken from the rich he hired an army of mercenaries to defend the revolution. To succeed, the revolution would have had to grow in power by spreading to other cities. Instead, after a few months, forces directed by the king of Macedonia, Antigonus II, who had been busy uniting Macedonia under his rule, overran Cassanderia and ended the revolution.

An attempt at revolution failed also in Sparta. There, a few people had bought up lands and had combined them into plantations worked by slaves. Sparta had no middle class as a buffer between rich and poor. As elsewhere in Greece, many landless Spartan men sold themselves abroad as mercenary soldiers, and by the mid-200s, with citizenship tied to the ownership of property, only 700 Spartans were fully enfranchised.

Sparta still had two kings, one of them, Cleomenes III, led a Spartan army in war alongside other Greek cities opposing Macedonia's attempt to renew hegemony in Greece. When he returned with his army from one of his battles, he ousted Sparta's second king and installed one of his brothers in that position. Then he embarked upon his revolution. He abolished debts and divided the land into 4,000 lots for Spartans and 15,000 lots for those who had come to live in villages surrounding Sparta. He created a new constitution, and his reforms allowed Sparta's army to grow in size and morale.

Cleomenes encouraged reformers elsewhere in Greece, and, across Greece, men of wealth and land responded with fear. They opposed reforms more than they did Macedonian hegemony, and they sought help from Macedonia. War erupted between Sparta and cities led by those resisting reforms. Cleomenes allied Sparta with other Peloponnesian cities. But the Macedonians annihilated Sparta's army, and for the first time a foreign army entered Sparta in triumph. Cleomenes fled to Egypt, and there he again took up what he saw as the cause of social justice. In Alexandria, he tried to raise a revolt, but he failed and took his own life.

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Privilege and Poverty and Failed Revolutions