The Polis as the Engine of the Intellect – Part II
In the last post we established background for the growth of the Polis. The key ingredients for this included the establishment of an aristocratic class that was wealthy and powerful, the strengthening of a lower class of small farmers through numbers, and a setting of isolation which allowed the Polis to incubate undisturbed. With the foundation laid, we now move on to the process.
We start with the most fundamental element – the decline of personal leadership. In many evolving societies, the same situation would have seen the central leader become dominant, the early Roman Republic and its Etruscan kings serving as a good example. In other sitiations, personal leadership succeeded because it was supported from the outside and gained power artificially.
But personal leadership did not survive in Archaic Greece.