HISTORY 1M03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Gerousia, Spartan Constitution, Apella
7 Jan 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The negotiation between the ordinary smallholder and the elite over who would have what share in the state played out in the context of creating a legal and institutional apparatus of government. At the beginning- at the end of the dark age and in the early archaic period- there was no formal system of laws or law-making. People would just gather in the agora, the town square, to discuss common matters, and elders would adjudicate disputes in the community not according to formal law but customary norms. But as the polis developed, informal gatherings turning into formal legislative assemblies and law courts, following defined rules and processes and with defined powers, according to a formal code of laws administered by holders of formal government offices. Sparta was the most powerful of the archaic poleis. At sparta, the power to formulate and propose legislation belonged to a council of 30 called the gerousia, meaning council of elders.
