How the Greeks created the first European State

Ancient Greece, in particular ancient Athens, is a weirdly romanticized thing in our day and age. Throughout much of the Western world a popular image exists of ancient Greek city states being a long lost liberty, an ideal worth striving to continue in the modern age, after it had been disrupted by a dark age. But is this true? No. Ancient Greek societies started as family tribe structures, and throughout the long history of the Greek polites family structure and communal loyalties and norms, had a far more important role in society than any notions of an “ancient liberty”. The vision of ancient Greece that many of us hold, is by in large a romantic myth. But ancient Greece, in particular ancient Athens, can still teach us something very valuable. It can show us how tribal societies create a state. One of the first states in human history.

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Music Royalties:

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Morning Mood (by Grieg) by Grieg

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0

Music provided by FreeMusic109

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MusicHabanera (by Bizet) Bizet

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MusicHungarian Rhapsody No 2 Liszt

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MusicFür Elise Beethoven

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Sources:

Fustel de Coulanges: The Ancient City

Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson: The Narrow Corridor

Larry Siedentop: Inventing the Individual

Francis Fukuyama: The Origins of Political Order

Segments:

Sponsor (0:00)

Greek Tribal Society (1:02)

Governance in tribal Greece (4:32)

The Decline of Tribal governed Athens (7:09)

Solon and the first Athenian state reforms (8:40)

The continuation of the state-building project after Solon (10:50)

Side note on Ancient Greek currencies (12:22)

The creation of democratic state structures in Athens (13:06)