Chapter 4 Athens Democracy 387 BC

We made two stops in Athens, because it had two identities with different meanings in two successive periods of time.This is not the only place that makes us choose. On this road, Rome, London and Paris, all cities with two stops, have two different glory and sorrow. In the novel, while describing the tragedy, Nietzsche refers to a culture that began to rise and become popular after the tragedy as the Helios culture as opposed to Dionysus.This is the theme of the times after the tragic era.Nietzsche didn't like this kind of culture, which is clear and wise, but also cold and detached.It has a kind of pride that everyone is drunk and I am alone, and there is also a kind of optimism that masters knowledge. Nietzsche believed that "once this kind of optimism invades tragedy, it will gradually spread to the realm of drunkenness, and it will inevitably force tragedy to perish. .”

This culture dominated Athens in the 4th century BC, reaching its peak.It is based on the art of dialectics, through which one learns the limits of one's own knowledge.Its creed is like the advice on the ancient Delphi temple: know yourself and don't overdo anything.This is wisdom with self-knowledge and limitations.It advocates knowledge on the basis of self-knowledge, and believes that knowledge is the best medicine for all things, the antidote to sin and pain, and it also believes that knowledge can be gained insight through reasoning.It is the wisdom of prophecy, but not the wisdom of salvation.It seeks to understand the underlying mechanism of the world of appearances, no longer driven by great intoxication, but gaining a clear concept in definition and division.It is the end of tragedy and the beginning of knowledge.

It is philosophy. Walking down from the top of the hill along the Acropolis path, we also walked down from the splendor of Athens.A large deserted garden can be seen on the northern slope, which is Agra, the public meeting place of Athens.The fate of Agra is even more bleak than that of the Acropolis. After more than two thousand years of changes, the original appearance of Agra no longer exists. Today, only sporadic relics and various occupiers can be seen among the wilderness and grass. landmark.This is in line with the fate of Athens. Agra is a public space, the political center of Athens, and has a pivotal position in the history of Athens.Agra is the place where the citizens of Athens participate in political affairs, and the place where the political system is conceived and changed.It is at the foot of the Acropolis, with squares, porticoes and small temples in the center of the city.From the 10th century BC to the 8th century BC, the main role of Agra was for male citizens to listen to the king's military call, and later gradually evolved into a place for merchants to do business and exchange goods from the colonies.These two functions gradually merged, and in the later stage, it evolved into a public place in a broader sense.On certain dates, political speeches, elections, religious processions, trials may be held here.A few years ago, the movie "Agra" was named after it.

Present-day Agra was excavated and emptied in 1931.In Agra, which has been rediscovered, there are few buildings left, and only the wall foundations of the ruins remain in most places.The plinths are neatly arranged, and the sculptured heads are missing.In the few remaining complete buildings, we can see traces of time: the temple dedicated to the kitchen god Hephaestus in the 5th century BC, the Attalos colonnade full of shops in the 2nd century BC, and the Byzantine period. The church with the small golden-domed Jesus statue is clearly defined. The light of the setting sun outlines the ruins, and the afterglow still exists, but the temperature is no longer, and the broken pillars suddenly extend into the distance.

Athens experienced a glorious peak, but began to decline after the 4th century BC. At this time, Athens still maintained its status, but it was not the same as the 5th century BC.This was the last period of Athens as the center of civilization. With the conquest of Alexander of Macedonia, Athens completely lost its centrality until today. Like its rise, Athens' decline was the result of war and politics. The cause of the war was the Peloponnesian War - the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony, which ended in Athens' defeat.The Peloponnesian War lasted from 431 BC to 404 BC and was the most important war in the Greek world after the Hippo-Persian War.The two warring parties were the two powerful leaders of Greece, so almost all the Greek city-states were involved. It can be said that it was a world war at that time.At the beginning of Thucydides’ historical work "History of the Peloponnesian War", Thucydides, who had experienced the war, wrote: "I see that the rest of the Greek world is either on this side or on that side." On the one hand. This is the greatest upheaval in the history of the Greeks, and it also affects most of the non-Greek world, and it can be said that it affects almost the entire human race."

The reason why the war broke out, there are several fuses.Athenian intervention in the Corinthian War, trade ban on Megara, dispute with Potidaia.These small city-states are all marginal city-states in Greece, often swinging between powerful city-states.However, as Thucydides said, these are not the crux of the problem. The crux of the problem is still Athens and Sparta. Sparta is afraid of the growing power of Athens. "These two great powers either went to war with each other or suppressed the insurrections of their allies. They both reached a high level of military preparation, and at the same time gained military experience in the arduous training of peril." Therefore, the war in any case It's all inevitable.

The hegemony of Athens and Sparta has the most direct connection with the Hippo War.After the war, all the city-states that participated in the war and became independent from Persian rule were divided into two groups-the Athens group and Sparta.Athens ruled the roost at sea, and Sparta was powerful on land.Sparta is quite a unique city-state, known for its military strength since ancient times.Bravery in the Hippo-Persian Wars was no accident.All their teenagers have to go through harsh military training since they were young, in order to acquire a strong physique, combat effectiveness and a ruthless and strong personality.They were thrown into danger, and the weak babies were put to death.Even Spartan women are different. They are brave and good at fighting. They exercised with boys since they were young. When they grow up, as mothers, they are also required to train their sons to be courageous.Three hundred Spartan warriors and eight hundred slaves died at Thermopylae, fully in line with their usual education and requirements.

It was such a city-state that became Athens' most powerful opponent for the leadership of Greece.Athens, as a democratic city-state, was experiencing its proudest stage.Athens enjoyed a golden age of stability and wealth after the war.Pericles, the most enlightened leader ever, became a representative of Athenian democracy. He was a descendant of the Pericles political family, open-minded, charismatic, loving art, and financing construction.It was he who led the construction of the Parthenon, and it was under his patronage and patronage that sculptors and poets produced their most remarkable works.Pericles was almost deified in the narration of later generations.However, Athens led by Pericles also had its fatal weakness.It almost ushered in an age of hegemony, with pride and exorbitant tribute imposed on its allies.When facing Sparta, like all civilizations on the rise, it carelessly underestimated the enemy and attacked rashly.

In 431 BC, the Athenians and Spartans tore up the 30-year truce signed after the capture of Euboea, and the war began.The first phase of fighting lasted for 10 years, during which there were offenses and defenses.Pericles died in 429 BC, and Athenian democracy began to turmoil.After a lull known as the Peace of Nicias, Athens in 415 BC, on the advice of the provocative statesman Alcibiades, sent a large fleet to Sicily.Sicily was an ally of Sparta.This proved to be a disaster.Athens was not capable of forming an encirclement, and the expedition quickly lost most of its fleet.Athens never recovered from this defeat.With Sparta's strategic alliance with Persia, Athens was finally defeated in 404 BC and declared its surrender from the sea and Asia Minor.

It was a profound failure.This war was seen as a war between oligarchs and democracies, which, though oversimplified, had a crucial impact on people's minds. Athens' label is democracy, which is why we refer to it most often today. The word "democracy" comes from Greek.Today, we often have a misunderstanding of democracy, thinking that democracy is the collective decision-making of citizens.Actually not.This is just ancient Greek-style democracy: a democracy in which all the people participate.Modern democracy was born out of Greek democracy, but its content is completely different.The core of modern democracy is the representative system: citizens voluntarily hand over the power of judgment to a few people, and a few elected people make decisions on behalf of everyone, and the will of citizens is reflected in their choices.

Greek democracy is truly participatory. The concept of "democracy" was introduced to Athens by Christine from 508 BC to 507 BC. It means civilian politics. It was originally a class politics opposed to aristocratic politics, and was later extended to all civil politics. .Athens' democracy is participatory, and every citizen not only has political power in theory, but also participates in political activities in practice.Adult males take the oath to become citizens, with the responsibility to discuss, participate in politics, and hold public office.All official positions are held by citizens in rotation, each term of office is one year, and the positions are determined by lottery.The Athenians believed that the drawing of lots was not accidental but divine.They hold regular citizen assemblies, where 6,000 people discuss together and vote to decide national affairs.In order to gain support, debating flourished for a while. Before their defeat in the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were very proud of their politics, believing that their democracy made them powerful.And after the defeat of the war, the skepticism grew, and the brightest minds in Athens began to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of democracy, asking what the best government in the world should be. This discussion is characteristic of ancient Greece.In ancient China, whether it was the classical Spring and Autumn and Warring States period, or the Tang, Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties, the concept of political system was basically the same.There must be a king, there must be ministers, and there must be people.The only difference is whether to entrust, how to pay tribute, and the more specific governance model: the way the king acts and the way the ministers are selected.In Europe, however, form of government has been an important issue since ancient Greece.Whether there should be a king or whether there should be ministers is an issue that has been debated for thousands of years. Athens is where the discussion starts.At the height of its power, Athens saw the rise and fall of countless small city-states across the Greek peninsula.Their success or failure, together with its own success or failure, becomes the most direct touch of the regime's questioning. There were about 750 city-states of different sizes distributed in ancient Greece, and each city-state was a loose alliance of many families.This is a natural result from the bottom up, families unite into tribes, and tribes unite into city-states.At first, there were only villages with family as the unit. After slowly merging, they formed a larger federation and finally became a country.What binds people together is sacrifice.The common belief in ancestors and the gods of Olympus made the city-state a community.The earliest city-states had a common sacrificial fire, and during religious festivals, citizens in the city-state shared rituals at the same table. Every city in early Greece was a small country, and every city-state experienced the development of "father-group leader-tribal leader-king".Cities were built to protect the sacred flame.According to legend, the city of Athens was built successively by Cecrops and Theseus, and Athens celebrates the founding of the city every year.The role of the city-state is sacred, protecting the holy fire and performing sacrifices in public life.The earliest Holy Fire patriarch was called the monarch, and later became the political leader of the city-state.Such a system slowly evolved into a purely political structure. The earliest city-states were almost all monarchies, but after many generations, the stable political situation began to be turbulent, and the city-states almost all entered other regimes sooner or later.Maybe the ancient family heads co-led - called aristocracy; maybe there was a division of rich and poor, led by a small coalition of newly rich people - oligarchy; Politics; perhaps some powerful individual rises from the chaos and usurps the throne over all—tyranny.Governments changed frequently, kings reappeared and were overthrown. Athens has also experienced such an evolution.In the 6th century BC, Athens was ruled by nine consuls elected by noble families, while Solon completed reforms, enacted laws, liberated slaves, and established a 400-member parliament, leaving room for later civilian politics.After him, Cristini created democracy.He established the charter system of Athens, expanded the parliament on the basis of Solon's reform, divided Athens into 10 regions, and sent people from each region to participate in the parliament.Parliament presents bills to the Assembly of Electors. All kinds of real politics provide the material for thinkers to think.One of the most important Greek philosophers, Aristotle, once defined city-states and regimes in Politics: a city-state is a community voluntarily established by a group of people according to common norms.A government led by a single person is called a monarch if it is legal, and a tyrant if it is not legal;These five forms are divided according to the number of leaders, and can be said to cover most of the simplest forms of politics.A republic is a mixed system of government.Majority leads - this is the earliest form of democracy, and it is also the most intuitive feeling of democracy in our hearts.It is not today's constitutional democracy, but it is the original seed of today's democracy. and utopia Why is modern democracy no longer taking the Athenian form?What's wrong with a Citizens' Assembly? Perhaps the clearest answer can be given in a line from The Federalist: "In all legislative bodies, the greater the number of persons who compose them, the less are those who can actually direct the course of their meetings. ’ This gives very poignantly the downside of direct democracy: when everyone tries to speak, no one is heard. The question of numbers was raised in ancient Greece.It is extremely difficult to debate in an assembly of more than 10,000 people, and it is impossible for citizens to know each other.The 6,000-member assembly in Athens at that time was a large part of the citizens, but not all.Aristotle attaches great importance to the size of the city-state. He believes that the city-state is too small to be self-sufficient, and too large to be rusty and unable to maintain good order in law enforcement and assembly.Without exception, modern countries are much larger than ancient Greek city-states. Not only cannot direct democracy be achieved, but the effect will certainly not be good. There is another reason, which is more important and profound: the danger of popular democracy was already noticed in ancient Greece, although it could not be avoided later.Mass democracy is constrained by the blindness and fanaticism of the people, and is easily capricious and instigated by politicians.The reason why Aristotle's "Politics" compared the different systems and histories of hundreds of city-states was to discover the good and bad of each. The problem with the monarchy is that there will inevitably be corruption in one-man rule, and a group composed of more good people will be less likely to go bad.There has been a monarchy for a long time in history, but there are more talented people, and one-man rule will no longer be accepted.Democracies are easily replaced by tyrants.Mass democracy tends to lead to mobs, and then in the chaos a personal leader usurps the throne.This is the unfreedom that the pursuit of freedom finally leads to.Actual history was a priori memory for Aristotle.Athens had enjoyed the benefits of democracy for a long time, but at the end fell into clueless back and forth, became reckless and suspicious, and finally ended in tyranny and defeat in war. And the rule of the aristocracy and the rich is also in danger of falling into private power.It can be good that the possessors rule, and their property gives them leisure to think about government and the rule of law.At a certain stage, however, the danger increases.When the number of possessors decreases and assets multiply, a monopoly of power can occur, whereby the possessors hold the power to enter public office and use their influence to manipulate legislation.Going a step further, they can completely monopolize public office, father and son attack each other, win over cronies, form an oligarchy, and the law is replaced by private individuals.Sparta was actually ruled by an aristocracy.Their polity is quite peculiar, the land is divided equally between the citizens, the laws are extremely harsh, ruled by double kings and elders, and the citizens live a life of moral repression, which Aristotle said makes them superficially powerful but actually easy corrupted by bribery. In all nations, it is essentially the poor and the rich that are to be dealt with.There are rich and poor in every country, the aristocracy or oligarchy ruled by the rich, and democracy ruled by the poor and commoners.How to reconcile the two sides is the core issue in politics.Many people support a republic that mixes aristocracy and democracy, but Aristotle is different. He prefers to let a good middle group rule, that is, the middle class."The very rich," he says, "incline to the meanness of pride and conceit, and the meanness of viciousness and vulgarity to the poorest." Between them the middle class possesses a less evil character. These expositions are still relevant today.Aristotle was a temperate and rational scholar, and he advocated the path of compromise and moderation.This is why he prefers the middle way, tempered by the middle class, and why he is more popular with modern people.He is not an equalizer. When he talks about the equality of the poor and the rich, he means "legal equality", that is, both are treated the same, and the poor cannot take advantage of the rich.He also believes that, in any case, "the rule of law should be superior to the rule of one person." These statements and his insistence on the idea of ​​middle class leadership are accepted by many people in modern times. Aristotle was a student of Plato.These statements of his are directly inherited from Plato.Much of the discussion was covered in Plato's book, which Aristotle sorted out and proposed his own corrections.Plato and Aristotle are quite different in temperament, Aristotle's books are in the form of lectures in classified discussions, while Plato is completely in dialogue.Aristotle is a stick to rely on, Plato is a flickering candle.Plato's firelight is swaying, light, elusive, yet more illuminating inspiration. Regarding the classification of regimes, Plato made a poetic exposition as early as in the novel. He used the imaginary state form to put all the systems into a logical vein, from the initial ideal country to the final tragic decline.His imaginary country goes through five stages--his sequence of logic rather than actual history, yet embodying the most astonishing historical reality. The first stage is the ideal stage of his hypothetical philosopher-king. The country is led by wise philosophers, like a perfect program. The philosophers can distinguish the truth of things and govern according to pure ideas;However, since there is no guarantee that the descendants of philosophers will still be philosophers, the Utopia is unsustainable, and the next generation will not have the virtues of the previous generation, nor can they understand the ideas of the previous generation, so battles will occur, and profit-seeking groups will start to compete for land and land. gold and silver.At this time, the people dare not let such people who have lost their wisdom lead them, and instead obey the commanders who are suitable for war. The second stage is a generation of rulers who advocate honor.Due to their advocacy of war, they are usually competitive, love of honor, lack of culture, and are quite harsh on slaves.Their growth is in the confrontation of two forces: on the one hand, their parents still teach them to be kind and not care about power; on the other hand, their mothers and other lay people criticize such fathers for being incompetent and lacking in masculinity.Over time, children become compromised in the struggle between the two forces. On the one hand, they secretly love money and please women; honor. The third generation is a more explicit oligarchy.This generation is completely depraved by property, which perverts and corrupts the morals.This generation sees their father as a military leader, but one day he is judged or informed by politics, and all his property is confiscated. The sense of honor in their hearts will be shaken immediately, and they will start to regard wealth as the only reliance, try to make money, just want to get rich and collect money .This creates an atmosphere where people imitate each other, and a nation becomes a worshiper of wealth, praising the rich and putting the rich in power while despising the poor.Laws set political thresholds that exclude the poor.Such a country would end up being two: a country of the rich and a country of the poor, and they would conspire against each other.This generation cannot get rid of inner contradictions and lives in a dual personality. The fourth generation advocates free civilian politics.Under the shelter of the wealth of the previous generation, this generation lived a pampered life, became pampered, inactive, inattentive, unable to stand the test of joy and sorrow, and became complete lazy people.This city advocates freedom, full of freedom of movement and freedom of speech, everyone can live as they please, and there will be the most diverse personalities in the city-state.This is the most beautiful looking system of all, colorful like embroidered clothes.Such a city-state necessarily requires a democratic system, because this system is the most tolerant.The previous generation loved money too much and knew how to be frugal, but this generation is full of unnecessary desires.It is easy for them to revolutionize their hearts, and they say that shame is cowardly, and temperance is that they have never seen the world. The kingdom of the fifth generation became the kingdom of the tyrant.The fourth generation of young men paved the way for the tyrant.They are accustomed to a procession of garlands of splendor, and when a haughty, unrestrained, unscrupulous man is at the head, they praise him liberally, generously, and bravely.This generation is happy and free, addicted to wine and women, and too much freedom will eventually destroy the foundation of democracy.They can no longer accept any restraint, and anyone who obeys the authorities is said to be a willing slave and is insulted.In the end, the teacher is afraid of the students, and father and son are equal. When the extreme moment comes, resistance and conflict will definitely erupt.Amidst the rumors and contradictions, the oligarchs of the past and the democrats of today will confront each other sonorously, and the people must always take the lead in the struggle, and the tyrants will come to the altar from this "protection". The tyrant led the rebellion, succeeded, and finally became a full-fledged dictator, enslaving everyone in rebellion.The smiling face in the early years bought him trust, and when all the political enemies in the country were eliminated, he changed his face, eliminated all disobedient people, and wiped out all those who helped him gain power in the past, whether they were enemies or friends , and asked everyone to sing "The tyrant is like a god". Since then, the country has declined. All of this is clearly inscribed word for word in the book.Aristotle's classification is only a more comprehensive and systematic analysis.Plato wrote everything in allegory.This is a hypothetical deduction of a country by people 2,500 years ago, but it is as destined.Covering the book, you will feel that time is not distance, and the farther things are, the closer they are to us. Agra today has only wild grass, but it used to be noisy and invincible.It is full of businessmen, philosophers, and legal experts.They bustled about, socializing, watching sports, and exchanging news.Philosophers walk hand in hand under the colonnade, orators give speeches under the colonnade - the name of the Stoics comes from the colonnade "Stoa", and the Aristotelian school is called the peripatetic school because of the walk.It's hard to imagine that this deserted and empty field used to have such sparkling walks.It is also here that government affairs are carried out, judgments are made, and banishment is decided.Citizens of Athens threw pottery into jars to decide whether a person's fate would be eternal death or banishment. Plato's teacher, Socrates, was executed by the citizens of Athens.This may be the immediate reason for Plato's suspicion of democracy.Socrates' death became one of the most famous deaths in human history.He accepted his own death calmly, even gladly, refused to escape in the cell, and finally drank the poison and died peacefully. The Helios culture defined by Nietzsche is the Greek philosophy represented by Socrates.Nietzsche's reason for opposing philosophy is that it cannot experience life selflessly, but this does not mean that philosophy is not deep enough.It's just that the two ways of understanding are different: philosophy requires contemplation, while tragedy requires experience. Socrates emphasized going outside the world and seeing the eternal ideas.Plato was a student of Socrates, he completely inherited the teacher's idea, and developed it into a more grand system, profound and majestic.All of his works are written in dialogue, and except for the last "Laws", the protagonists of the rest are Socrates.This is through the mouth of Socrates to speak his own philosophy.He said that the things around him are the world of phenomena, and the essence of these things is the world of ideas. He said that most people float opinions, and only philosophers can see the ideas behind the opinions.Ideas are real.A philosopher is one who sees the idea, and therefore always stands outside the world. Some people say that Plato is a Spartanist, and some people say that he is a communist. The reason is that he described an utopia where the division of labor operates like a machine, which seems to contain signs of totalitarianism.However, they did not pay attention to Plato's own pessimistic prophecy: "Since everything that is produced must perish, of course this social organizational structure cannot be permanent and must be disintegrated." He never agreed with compulsory education.When he spoke of the Spartan honor society that people admired, he said that they were "educated not by persuasion but by compulsion, so that they enjoyed their pleasures in secret, avoiding the scrutiny of the law." All of Plato's statements are not ideals of a reformer and statesman, but silent spectators standing outside the world.Rather than saying that he wrote a political utopia, it is better to say that he wrote a geometric utopia.Geometry is the most peaceful and simple truth of the universe. It exists quietly in the depths of the universe and is the true state of all things.The geometric world is the purest, so it can point out the true principle without being disturbed by the complicated reality.If Plato had only been promoting political ideals, he would not have expended so much energy in describing the successive declines of states.What he actually talked about was the logic of politics.Just like drawing a circle, after division and projection, it can be reassembled into a rectangle, and there is a corresponding perimeter between them.This is axiom.This is not so much a political ideal as a geometric one.He is the loneliest philosopher in the world. Perhaps the saddest thing in the world is seeing danger but not being able to avoid it.Plato's eyes are like the beacon of melancholy piercing fate, and his logical knowledge has no difficulty in preventing chaos from happening.According to its description, Athens has been sinking into civilian riots, the tyrant stands out, and the country declines. In 404 BC, the war between Athens and Sparta ended.In 399 BC, Socrates was executed by the Athenian referendum.In 387 BC, Plato established the Plato Academy in Athens, which has been passed down through the ages.In 323 BC, Athens was occupied by Macedonia, and it has not regained its glory for 2,500 years.In today's Agra Gardens, we can see Roman sculptures, Byzantine churches, and Turkish temples. Although they have all been damaged, we can still see the domineering and domineering days when they were first occupied.Between erection and collapse, Athens has changed masters one after another in the past two thousand years. The former prosperity no longer exists. Only the lingering sound of wisdom hovers over the Acropolis at night, singing the sad past. Standing on the Acropolis Hill, looking at the Cangshan Mountain and the sea in Athens, the scene of two thousand years ago seems to be repeated in front of your eyes.The world repeats the same mistakes time and time again, with the rise of one regime, the other regime cannot accommodate it, pride and narrow-mindedness confront each other, just like Sparta and Athens are both losing.The lies exposed in the city-state because of hypocrisy, the ideals shattered because of selfish desires, and the alliances torn up because of profit-making, became a scene like fireworks, passing the vast sky at sunset. When the prosperity of Greek philosophy began to turn from prosperity to decline in Athens, it was the prosperity of Athens and the decline of Athens.It is the last touch of golden light in the setting sun, and the last afterglow that Athens dedicated to the world. "Law" [Ancient Greece] Plato (4th century BC) Translated by Wang Xiaochao Plato's is the most well-known and most controversial work. It is Plato's representative work, but we will not introduce it here. Instead, we will introduce another work of Plato - the "Laws" in his later years. Compared with "Laws" is more mature, complex and inclusive.It also discusses the system, education, and laws of the city-state, discusses human nature, and discusses the country, but the difference is that although the "Laws" has elements of what should be, it is more of elements of reality. Zhikou surveyed the long river of history and wrote for real politics the historical inevitability and political core that real politicians cannot see clearly, which still looks shocking today. "(The community of the Persians) is deteriorating. The reason is that the common people have too little liberty and the sovereign has too much power, thereby bringing an end to their national feeling and public spirit. With their disappearance, the authorities no longer care about The common good of their subjects, but their own position. If they thought it would do them any good, they would throw the cities and the people of the country on fire, and leave them uninhabited, so that men would savagely hate each other, and harbor deep enmity. On the one hand, when the people need to form an army to protect themselves, they can't find loyal people among the people, and no one is willing to risk for them on the battlefield. In theory, their army is tens of thousands, but in reality, no matter how many Nor does it work... Their stupidity is forced to show because their customary behavior shows that the whole society's respect for name and honor is a toy compared to gold and silver. "One party watches over a rebellion concocted by other parties out of jealousy, because the rebels believe that those who have taken office have done evil in the past. Such a society, of course, we do not regard it as a state of law, as if the law were not for the whole community. The common good is not real law. We say that people who do things for a party are partisans, not citizens, and their so-called civil rights are empty platitudes. The reason we say this is that neither you nor I want to put Positions in your society are given to those who think only of their own wealth, or of certain benefits for themselves, such as power, status, or family." "politics" [Ancient Greece] Aristotle (4th century BC) translated by Wu Shoupeng Aristotle is always all-encompassing. He created a textbook-style writing style, logically classifying to ensure that there is no omission, and then discussing the characteristics and differences of each category by category. Regarding the regime, Aristotle followed Plato's method of distinction, formally defined five types of regime, listed dozens of examples of city-states, and analyzed the advantages and disadvantages.After reading the whole process, there is indeed a kind of in-depth and meticulous.Aristotle loves the middle way, and his writing will never be as poetic as Plato's, but he will always be a must-read textbook for beginners. "It is the supreme happiness of a city-state that all the citizens are well-off and able to live a moderately prosperous life. If not, some people are rich while others are poor, and the result will be extremes. Absolute civilian government is to become a simple oligarchy; further, the most reckless civilian government or the most powerful oligarchy can be transformed into a tyranny. Tyranny often comes from two extreme regimes, as for the middle class Moderate or near-moderate regimes run by classes seldom undergo such an evolution." "Ancient City-States" [Method] Coulange (1830～1889) Translated by Tan Lizhu This is a book that explores the origin of history. The author was only a middle school teacher when he wrote it, but its influence is far from limited to middle schools. The era it describes is the era before the golden age of Athens that we are concerned about, and what it wants to explain is the origin of this golden age.Civil rights and democracy in the Greek city-states did not come out of thin air. They were also developed from families, tribes, and religious groups, and did not conflict with these groups.Religion is not a hindrance to civil politics, on the contrary, it is an aid. This is a eloquent book, and the author has the kindness unique to teachers.Purely out of interest, he searched for documents by himself and did detailed research.The book became a classic as soon as it was published, and it remains to this day. "It was not easy to establish social relations among the ancients. To endow them with a common feeling, and to replace individual motives with public reason, there must be some power stronger than the forces of nature, some interest more worthy of respect than self-interest A kind of understanding that is more certain than a philosophical theory, a kind of consensus that is stronger than a contract, this kind of thing must be deeply rooted in people's hearts. "That's faith. "Kings are not all good, and tyrants are not all evil. The difference between them lies in religion. The ancient kings performed the priesthood, and their power was connected with the holy fire. But the tyrants of later generations are only political leaders, and their power comes from force or election."