The Political Institutions of the Ancient Greeks — Background and Themes

Method and the Limits of Comparison

Hammond’s preface is unusually explicit about the epistemological status of his work. He distinguishes between two parts of comparative politics: one dealing with barbaric peoples, which he credits Herbert Spencer with placing on a scientific footing, and the other concerning civilised European communities, which he insists remains empirical rather than scientific. The method he criticises in Spencer—taking no heed of historical sequence—is precisely what Hammond aims to supply by grounding his analysis in the chronological development of Greek institutions.

This methodological stance is not merely prefatory; it informs the entire treatment of Cleisthenes’ reforms. Hammond presents the changes—tribal reorganisation, the council of five hundred, ostracism—as responses to specific historical pressures, such as the factional dissensions before Pisistratus and the need to guard against future tyrants. The empirical rules he derives, such as the necessity of a committee to control a busy assembly, are presented as observations rather than laws.

Cleisthenes’ Constitutional Mechanics

The excerpt on Cleisthenes offers a detailed look at how Athenian institutions were restructured. Hammond notes that the new tribes were deliberately composed of demes from different regions—urban, inland, and coastal—to break up local factions. The military was transformed from foreign mercenaries to a citizen army, with each tribe furnishing a brigade under an elected general. At Marathon, the ten tribal brigades were marshalled in order from right to left, each under its own general, a detail Hammond uses to illustrate the practical working of the system.

The council of five hundred, fifty from each tribe, is described as a committee controlling the assembly’s agenda. Hammond cautiously suggests that later functions, such as the prytany system, may date back to Cleisthenes, citing Plutarch’s incidental mention that the tribe Aiantis presided in 490 B.C. Ostracism is presented as a safeguard against aspiring tyrants, requiring six thousand potsherds to banish a citizen for a term of years without further penalty.

Assembly, Council, and the Role of Free Speech

Hammond emphasises the importance of the assembly (ekklesia) in the Cleisthenean constitution, drawing on Herodotus to argue that the right of free and equal speech (isegoria) was a key factor in Athenian military successes between 500 and 490 B.C. This right, Hammond reasons, must have been exercised in a general assembly to produce such effects. The assembly’s activity began in this age, and he infers that it met once per prytany, though records are sparse.

The council’s role as a steering committee is highlighted: it considered resolutions before they reached the assembly, and its fifty presiding officers (prytaneis) held office for a tenth of the year. Hammond ties this to the practical need for a body to manage frequent meetings and heavy business. The description remains grounded in the evidence available, noting that details about the assembly and council in Cleisthenes’ time are lacking, but that later functions likely originated then.

Hammond’s work rewards readers who attend to his methodological framing as much as to the institutional details. The preface’s distinction between empirical rules and scientific laws is not a mere disclaimer but a lens through which he examines Greek politics. His treatment of Cleisthenes shows how a cautious historian can draw inferences from fragmentary evidence without overclaiming. For those interested in the history of political science, this volume offers a valuable example of late-Victorian comparative method in action.

That grey afternoon, reading Hammon's careful chapters on ostracism, I felt the quiet weight of institutions shaped by human fracture. Rain slid down the pane, and my mind drifted from ancient tribes to Ireland's own tangled rebellions. By evening I’d pulled down The Evolution of Sinn Fein — Reading Companion, and the two books seemed to talk across a century about the same stubborn hope.