Empire and Communications

by Harold Adams Innis

  The discovery of nature has been described as one of the greatest achievements of the human mind since it was the basis of the idea of universal law. It assumed the detachment of self from the external object, the concern of intelligence with the practical needs of action in dealing with the object, and a belief in unseen supernatural powers behind or within the object. Separated from theology, science denied the distinction between experience and revelation, the natural and the supernatural.

  The strength of the oral tradition and the relative simplicity of the alphabet checked the possible development of a highly specialized profession of scribes and the growth of a monopoly of the priesthood over education. A military aristocracy restricted the influence of a priestly class and poets imposed control over public opinion. The Greeks had no Bible with a sacred literature attempting to give reasons and coherence to the scheme of things, making dogmatic assertions and strangling science in infancy. Without a sacred book and a powerful priesthood the ties of religion were weakened and rational philosophy was developed by the ablest minds to answer the demand for generalizations acceptable to everyone. ‘The Hebrews made philosophy the handmaid of religion and the Greeks subordinated religion to philosophy.’ The oral tradition facilitated and encouraged the introduction of a new medium such as mathematics. Humanizing of the gods and absence of a belief in a divine creator freed thought from dogmatic prejudice and the terrors of religion.[100] It permitted a gradual transition in which philosophy with its coherent structures could develop in undisturbed freedom and appeal to the lay mind. In turn ‘it was not so much the absence of a priesthood as the existence of the scientific schools that saved Greece’ (Burnet). No energy was lost in learning a second language and the freshness and elasticity of an oral tradition left their stamp on thought and literature.

  As an alternative to trade, colonization flourished from about 750 B.C. to 550 B.C. and was accompanied by the establishment of new city-states. Colonial activity has been described as the highest political achievement of the Greeks. The Delphic oracle became a centre of advice for colonizers and new city-states grew up under the protection of Apollo. Difficulties of land subdivision in a system of property which excluded individual members from a share in the common estate were evaded by colonization. The example of personal land ownership in the colonies probably weakened the family system in the mother country. ‘Freedom flourishes in colonies. Ancient usages cannot be preserved ... as at home.... Where every man lives on the labour of his hands, equality arises, even where it did not originally exist’ (Heeren).[101]

  The city-state was founded for purposes of security and emerged in a period of violent dissolution of public order. ‘It is significant that it was from the common bond of mutual defence and the maintenance of a common camp of refuge, in an age of violence, that the Greek city state and its citizens took their eventual nomenclature.’[102] Consequently the Greeks were not obsessed like the Phoenicians with the ‘unquiet spirit of gain’.[103] Athletic and musical competitions at festivals of the gods created a sense of community in the city-state. An interest in a common literature strengthened the bond of language which was reinforced by the initiation of the Olympic games in 776 B.C. ‘Political science, ignored by the Phoenicians, became to the Greeks the highest of the practical sciences, the science of man, not as a trader but as a man, fulfilling his function as a member of the social organism and living with the fulness of life.’[104]

  The shift from the heroic kingship to an aristocratic form of government was apparently accompanied by a change from the voluntary to the obligatory. In the early aristocracy magistrates administered the unwritten customary law. ‘In the absence of a written code, those who declare and interpret laws may be properly said to make them’ (Thirlwall). Supervision over the laws was exercised by the hearing of formal complaints against the judges. About the middle of the seventh century individuals were appointed in Athens to manage the judicial system, to keep official copies of public enactments, and to review legislation annually. Three pairs of two recorders each made up the first collegiate magistracy to have custody over public records and to revise the laws. Recorders were appointed in pairs to secure an accurate copy. In Solon's time nine archons, including the recorders and three principal officers, had the general initiative in legislation. With the use of writing the judicial order became a public document, definite and ascertainable. Records were not published at first, but with an interest in writing for publication the number of those who could read increased rapidly.[105] The laws of Draco and Solon were written on stelae of wood or stone and laws were regularly recorded on the walls of a public building or on separate stelae in a public place. Immediate publication was probably well established in the generation after Draco.

  The demand for codes of law which appeared first in the colonies in south Italy, Sicily, and parts of Greece in the seventh century followed the complexities of different systems of customary law introduced by colonists from various city-states. The influence of Delphi and its sanctions of compilations of law reinforced the emphasis of writing on uniformity.[106] The example of written laws in the colonies was probably followed by demands for written laws in the mother country, but here they became a compromise with a strong oral tradition. In his code of 621 B.C. Draco, a Eupatrid, modified and developed existing law in reducing it to writing. Dictated by ‘implacable religion’ it was very severe regarding debtors, although the severity was checked by a constitutional change which guaranteed an individual the right to appear before the Areopagus and to prosecute the magistrate who had wronged him.

  The strength of the oral tradition in Athens was evident in the slow development of codes, in the position of magistrates who continued to exercise judicial functions, in a constitutional system which permitted protests against grievances, and in the powers granted to individual law makers in periods of difficulty. In about 594 B.C. Solon, a Eupatrid by birth, and a member of the trading class was given extraordinary powers to introduce reforms suited to a community in which industry and commerce had become important. Following the pattern of Ionian scientific ideas he developed the universal truth that violation of justice meant disruption of the life of the community. ‘Any act of injustice, impairing the common security, threatens everyone's individual security—and family solidarity can interpose no effective protection.’[107] Every citizen was allowed to act for the community as a protection to the community. Individual vengeance was being replaced by social retribution. There emerged the idea of individual responsibility for one's own fault which struck at the root of authority and pointed to the idea of the necessity of compromise and order.

  The family was weakened by various changes. Asiatic pomp with women's lamentations at funerals of the Ionian nobility was prohibited. Introduction of the will enabled the head to name an heir outside the family. Brothers could share in the patrimony and women could enjoy rights of inheritance though they were inferior to those of men. The legal inalienability of the family estate had led to the invention of a special type of pledge involving a sale with the option of redemption. Horoi or ward stones were specially engraved and erected on the property to indicate the control of the creditor and the rights of the occupant. The difficulties of a primitive law of debt resting on personal security were enhanced by an aristocracy which controlled wealth and the administration of justice. Solon abrogated the institution of personal security and destroyed the horoi or ward stones. The oral tradition effectively resisted the encroachments of the word engraved on stone. Prohibition of the practice of pledging the person for debt prevented enslavement of labour becoming a disruptive force and became the salvation of political freedom. The religion of property was weakened by wresting the earth from religion and facilitating ownership by labour. An attempt was made to reconcile the liberty of the labourer with the drudgery of labour. Commerce was adapted to politics. The principle of personal freedom was established as the inalienable birthright of the Athenian citizen.[108] ‘These things I w
rought by main strength, fashioning that blend of force and justice that is law’ (Solon).

  The power of the oral tradition was reflected in the institution of machinery designed to permit continuous adjustment. ‘The constitution of the judicial courts out of the whole people was the secret of democracy which Solon discovered. It is his title to fame in the history of the growth of popular government in Europe.’[109] The Council of Areopagus surrendered its claims of right of birth and membership in it was fixed in terms of landed property. The Eupatrids no longer dominated and archons could even be elected outside the priestly class. While the working class was excluded from the Areopagus the popular assembly was revised to give it a voice in the government. The constitution was designed to preserve a balance by preventing either party from securing control. The people were given enough power to maintain their rights and to uphold the reign of law. Freedom of prosecution, and appeals from magisterial decisions to the popular assembly, were given to all citizens. Anyone could intervene on behalf of those being wronged by appeal to the populace. A record of all decisions in both public and private suits was made and a body of case law built up. Regular written records were produced by the men of initiative.

  Solon's economic reforms favoured the position of the Greek merchant by hastening the transition from a barter to a money economy and by encouraging the ‘long future’ production of wine and olives rather than the ‘short future’ production of cereals of special interest to the nobles. In order to build up industry exports of natural products other than olive oil were prohibited and training in crafts made almost compulsory. Exports of olive oil and pottery supported an aristocracy of wealth. Family estates were broken up into private domains and labour migrated to the cities. The increased use of coinage enabled merchants of Phrygia and Lydia to exploit gold-and silver-mines. With greater opportunity to manage their own affairs individuals became more independent. Money permeated social relations and encouraged political and economic freedom. Sales, bequests, keeping of accounts and registration of contracts and treaties followed the spread of writing. A commercial class opposed landowners and the nobility, and supported individualism and the rise of tyrants. ‘In every Greek there was a hidden tyrant’ (Burckhardt). Party struggles broke out as early as the fifth year after the archonship of Solon, and in 561-560 B.C. Peisistratos, who had become wealthy as a result of his organization of the mining population, seized the government of Athens. With no religious functions the tyrants could not be kings, but they exploited antagonism to the nobles and the rich. To offset the position of religion as a support to the political privileges of the old nobility, the Pisistratids gave official recognition to the worship of Dionysus. In 537 B.C. they assembled a collection of oracles in opposition to the influence of the temple of Delphi. The importance of the arts as a basis of popularity was recognized, the temple of Athena Polias was completed, and the Panathenaia was reorganized as a great national festival and public recitals of Homeric poems given by Ionian minstrels. ‘Their court was the source of the inexhaustible stream of poetry and art which flowed for centuries through the symposia of Athens.’[110] Through the intervention of Sparta the tyrants were overthrown in 510 B.C.

  The limitations of Ionian philosophy as a basis of political science were evident in the success of the tyrants. Destruction of the authority of tradition and myth and release of the individual left Ionians without the constructive political energy to form a permanent and historically active state (Jaeger). Political impotence paralleled the work of the natural philosophers. Olympian theology dominated by moria and the scientific tradition dominated by the concept of spatial externality reflected an interest in land, land measurement, and geometry. Expansion of trade implied an increasing interest in arithmetic rather than geometry. As a result the mystery religions and the mystical tradition of philosophy emerged to redress the balance. Moria was replaced by Time and number (the measure of time) and by righteousness (Dike). As a typical mystery god, Dionysus was fundamentally a human daemon. As a wandering deity he was not a fixed part of an official state religion but had a church or trans-social organization. Outside the Olympian polity he became the god of his church defined precisely by a unique relation to the daemon soul. His worshippers would have only one god. The characteristic rite was sacramental—an act of communion and reunion with the daemon, whereas that of worshippers of the Olympian god was commercial in the form of a gift or a bribe. Olympian theology and the philosophy of spatial externality emphasized discontinuity and discreteness, whereas the mystic religion held out a prospect of union with God. As a religion of the life of earth and man, of the life which dies but is perpetually reborn, Dionysian worship had a secret of vitality which offset Olympianism with its divine jealousies and the impassable gulf of moria.

  The new religion was compelled to make compromises with the old which eventually left it stereotyped and sterile. It was reformed and modified by the Orphic revival which was probably influenced by Mithraism and spread from the country to the city in response to the demands of those who had been forced off the land. Belief that the soul came from God and did not perish implied that it must be kept pure during its earthly existence. The Orphic was concerned with salvation by the purifying rites of his individual soul. Religious observances were designed to secure by purifications the ransom of the soul from the punishment of imprisonment in successive bodies. Belief in the transmigration of souls assumed the corollary of abstinence from animal flesh and disappearance of the blood sacrifice. Barriers between gods and men were overcome by a mysterious means of purification which removed defilements of the soul, raised mankind to the level of the divine, and assured an immortality of bliss. In its demand for justice for the individual it included the fatal conception of a lower world as a place of punishment for the prosperous and unjust. Orphicism had the ‘incontestable originality’ of combining religions into a system and making the individual in relation to guilt and retribution the centre of its teaching. It offset the influence of the temples of the seventh century by an emphasis on sacred literature, but it was weakened by the absence of a church.

  Pythagoreanism attempted to intellectualize the content of Orphicism. A native of Samos, Pythagoras migrated to southern Italy about 530 B.C. From a commercial centre he became familiar with the importance of a theory of numbers in calculating sums of money. In contrast with the rigid geometrical symmetry of the cosmos developed by Anaximander in the east, number was the principle of all things. ‘Things are numbers.’ A background of geometry and land was replaced by one of arithmetic and money. Pythagoras saw the importance of number as an aid to the reconstruction of any representation of the conditions involved in the order of nature.[111] He gave absolute forms a substantial reality separate from things that embody them in one world. An interest in mathematics was reinforced by the discovery that musical intervals corresponded to certain arithmetical ratios between lengths of string at the same tension, the relation between the four fixed notes of the octave 6-8-9-12. A music philosophy was substituted for the mere ritual washing away of sin of Orphicism. Purity was extended from a ritual notion to the moral sphere. Pythagoreanism became the basis for a cult of the élite rather than the masses, and communities appeared in southern Italy and Sicily.

  As a result of Orphicism and Pythagoreanism a reconciliation of Dionysian religion with Apollo became possible. The form of ecstasies which centred around Dionysus was regulated and orgies were restricted to official communities. The cult was brought into line with ancestral customs. The Delphic oracle had no sacred book and with its maxims ‘know thyself’ and ‘nothing overmuch’ has been compared to a serious newspaper managed by a cautious editorial committee with no principles in particular. With a powerful oral tradition it overpowered the dangers of extreme organized religious frenzies. Ritual purification became a support to the state by giving definite form to the fear of a dead man's vengeance, heightening respect for human life, and discouraging the practice of vendetta.
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br />   The influence of Apollo on the mystic religions paralleled the decline and fall of the tyrants. Cleisthenes became engaged over an extended period in the task of restoring popular government and in developing a constitution which would facilitate adaptation of law to social change. To temper the bitterness of party strife ostracism was introduced in 508-507 B.C. Opposition leaders were eliminated for a limited period without dishonour or the loss of privileges of citizenship and property, and government was protected against party struggle and betrayal. It became possible for Cleisthenes[112] in his fight against his fellow nobles to introduce reforms in 503-502 B.C. which gave more direct means of self-expression and control of government to the people. The tyrants and Dionysian religion had pointed to the weakness of Solon's reforms as they reflected the influence of Ionian philosophy. The patriarchal system and the idea of consanguinity gave the great families of the nobility a privileged position in the cult and religion through their interpretation of sacral laws. The calendar of sacrifices and festivals of the religious cult based on the lunar year led to difficulties of cyclical regulation and to demands for the emancipation of time reckoning. Cleisthenes' reforms replaced the lunar calendar[113] by a solar calendar of 10 months of 36 or 37 days each arranged by secular authorities and linked to constitutional adjustments in which the number of tribes was increased to 10, from each of which 50 were elected by lot to serve in rotation on a monthly basis as a standing committee in a council of 500. Election by lot maintained a respect for the belief in the divine will as the basis of laws, and was a safeguard of equality of civic rights and equality before the law. The essential governing bodies became the council of 500 and the courts with their large popularly chosen juries. Divisive issues were transferred to a new forum and settled by reliance on public opinion rather than on force. A concept of the people in a democratic electoral system based on the territorial principle became the basis of the constitution. Aristocratic power was weakened by control over the measurement of time. The family state was broken down and its political and religious claims inherited by the new state.