The New Freedom

At the beginning of the sixth century, as we saw in the last chapter, political thought was dominated by the search for good order, ϵύνομία. Before the end of the century that had given way, at any rate at Athens, to ἰσονομία, which it was the aim of Cleisthenes’ constitution to establish. The equality implied in ἰσονομία is not absolute equality, but equal rights for all under a lawful constitution. Eunomia did not always imply that the laws were good, only that they were respected. ¹ Isonomia implies both equality before the law and ‘fair play for all’. ² The two ideals are thus different but not necessarily incompatible; both were directly opposed to tyranny. At Athens the belief in ἰσονομία was greatly strengthened by the success of her citizens in both military and naval warfare against the Persians at the beginning of the next century (491–479 B.c.), and the existence of tyranny was widely held to be a source of military weakness in a state. That a city not hitherto famed for skill in warfare should have fought with such courage and success against greatly superior numbers, first at Marathon and then at Salamis, provided apparently certain proof that the free institutions of the Athenian πόλις were superior to any other kind of state organisation. The previous generation (509 B.c.) had thrown off the oppressive yoke of the tyrant Hippias; now the generation of Aeschylus, who himself fought at Marathon, has repelled the Persian invasion and a second liberation, this time of the whole of Greece, has taken place. This was an age of earnest optimism, of serious thinking and increased hope. The intense feeling aroused by the liberation is nowhere better illustrated than in the play entitled The Persians which Aeschylus produced in 472 B.c. It is true that Aeschylus’ fame as a thinker, apart from his poetic and dramatic fame, must always rest more on his theology than on his political ideas, which centre round a poet’s conception of δίκη and a belief that Zeus will punish the wicked and not allow the righteous to perish. But the note struck by the Persae was re-echoed by all Greeks of the time. The poet puts these words into the mouths of Greek naval leaders at Salamis: ‘Come, sons of Hellas, set free your land, set free too children, wives, temples of your fathers’ gods and the tombs of your ancestors. We fight for our all.’ For these were indeed the prizes which were won by the victory and which the Greeks most cherished—the chance to go on living where a man feels that he belongs, among his own people, his own gods, in the land where his fathers lie buried; and to be personally free, not like the Persians, whose relation to their king was that of slave to master, to live in a régime which took some care, and had regard to the common weal.