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Bicameralism

Bicameralism

:This article refers to the term's use with respect to government. For the psychological theory, see Bicameralism (psychology). In government, bicameralism is the practice of having two legislative or parliamentary chambers. Thus, a bicameral parliament or bicameral legislature is a parliament or legislature which consists of two Chambers or Houses. Bicameralism is an essential and defining feature of the classical notion of mixed government.

Theory

Although the ideas on which bicameralism is based can be traced back to the theories developed in ancient Greece and Rome, recognizable bicameral institutions first arose in medieval Europe where they were associated with separate representation of different estates of the realm. The Founding Fathers of the United States eschewed any notion of separate representation for a social aristocracy, but they accepted the prevailing disposition towards bicameralism. However, as part of the Great Compromise between large states and small states, they invented a new rationale for bicameralism in which the upper house would have states represented equally and the lower house would have them represented by population. In subsequent constitution making, federal states have often adopted bicameralism, and the solution remains popular when regional differences or sensitivities require more explicit representation, with the second chamber representing the constitutent states. Nevertheless, the older justification for second chambers – providing opportunities for second thoughts about legislation – has survived. A trend towards unicameralism in the 20th century appears now to have been halted. Growing awareness of the complexity of the notion of representation and the multifunctional nature of modern legislatures may be affording incipient new rationales for second chambers, though these do generally remain contested institutions in ways that first chambers are not. An example of political controversy regarding a second chamber has been the debate over the powers of the Canadian Senate. The relationship between the two chambers varies; in some cases, they have equal power, while in others, one chamber is clearly superior in its powers. The first tends to be the case in federal systems and those with presidential governments. The latter tends to be the case in unitary states with parliamentary systems. Some political scientists believe that bicameralism makes meaningful political reforms more difficult to achieve and increases the risk of deadlock (particularly in cases where both chambers have similar powers). Others argue strongly for the merits of the 'checks and balances' provided by the bicameral model, which they believe helps prevent the passage into law of ill-considered legislation.

The different sorts of bicameralism

Federalism

Some countries, such as Australia, the United States, India, Brazil, Switzerland, and Germany, link their bicameral systems to their federal political structure. In the United States, Australia and Brazil, for example, each state is given the same number of seats in the legislature's upper house. This takes no account of population differences between states — it is designed to ensure that smaller states are not overshadowed by more populous ones. (In the United States, the deal that ensured this arrangement is known as the Connecticut Compromise.) In the lower houses of each country, these provisions do not apply, and seats are won based purely on population. The bicameral system, therefore, is a method of combining the principle of democratic equality with the principle of federalism — all votes are equal in the lower houses, while all states are equal in the upper houses. In the Indian and German systems, the upper houses (the Rajya Sabha and the Bundesrat, respectively) are even more closely linked with the federal system, being appointed or elected directly by the governments of each Indian State or German Bundesland. (This was also the case in the United States before the 17th Amendment.)

Aristocratic bicameralism

In a few countries, bicameralism involves the juxtaposition of democratic and aristocratic elements. The best known example is the British House of Lords, which includes a number of hereditary peers. The House of Lords represents a vestige of the aristocratic system which once predominated in British politics, while the other house, the House of Commons, is entirely elected. Over the years, there have been proposals to reform the House of Lords, some of which have been at least partly successful — the number of hereditary peers (as opposed to life peers, appointed by the government) has been reduced to 92 out of around 700, and the ability of the House of Lords to block legislation has been reduced. Another example of aristocratic bicameralism was the Japanese House of Peers, abolished after World War II.

Unitary States

Many bicameral systems are not connected with either federalism or an aristocracy, however. Japan, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Philippines, the Republic of Ireland and Romania are examples of bicameral systems existing in unitary states. In countries such as these, the upper house generally exists solely for the purpose of scrutinising and possibly vetoing the decisions of the lower house. In some of these countries, the upper house is indirectly elected. Members of France's Senate, Ireland's Seanad Éireann are chosen by electoral colleges consisting of members of the lower house and local councillors, while the Netherlands' First Chamber is chosen by members of provincial assemblies.

Subnational entities

In some countries with federal systems, individual states (like those of the United States and Australia) may also have bicameral legislatures. Only two states, Nebraska in the US and Queensland in Australia have adopted unicameral systems. However, in early United States history, unicameral state legislatures were commonplace. It was not until 1836, for example, that Vermont finally created a Senate. During the 1930s, the Legislature of the State of Nebraska was reduced from bicameral to unicameral with the 43 members that once comprised that state's Senate. One of the arguments used to sell the idea at the time to Nebraska voters was that by adopting a unicameral system, the perceived evils of the "conference committee" process would be eliminated. A conference committee is appointed when the two chambers cannot agree on the same wording of a proposal, and consists of a small number of legislators from each chamber. This tends to place much power in the hands of only a small number of legislators. Whatever legislation, if any, the conference committee finalizes must then be approved in an unamendable "take-it-or-leave-it" manner by both chambers. During his term as Governor of the State of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura proposed converting the Minnesotan legislature to a single chamber with proportional representation, as a reform that he felt would solve many of legislative difficulties and impinge upon legislative corruption. In his book on political issues, Do I Stand Alone?, Ventura argued that bicameral legislatures for provincial and local areas were excessive and unnecessary, and discussed unicameralism as a reform that could address many legislative and budgetary problems for states. In Australian states the lower house was traditionally elected based on the one-vote-one-value principle, whereas the upper house was partially appointed and elected, with a bias towards country voters. In Queensland, the appointed upper house was abolished in 1922, while New South Wales there were similar attempts at abolition, before the upper house was reformed in the 1970s to provide for direct election. Nowadays, the upper house is elected using proportional voting and the lower house through preferential voting, except in Tasmania, where proportional voting is used for the lower house, and preferential voting for the upper house.

Bicameralism and Arab political reform

A [http://www.cfr.org/pdf/Arab_Democracy_TF.pdf 2005 report] on democratic reform in the Arab world by the US [http://www.cfr.org/ Council for Foreign Relations] co-sponsored by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged Arab states to adopt bicameralism, with upper chambers appointed on a 'specialised basis'. The Council argued that this would protect against the 'tyranny of the majority', expressing concerns that without a system of checks and balances Islamist extremists would use the single chamber parliaments to restrict the rights of minority groups. In 2002, Bahrain adopted a bicameral system with an elected lower chamber and an appointed upper house. This led to a boycott of parliamentary elections that year by one radical Islamist party, who said that the government would use the upper house to veto their plans. Many secular critics of bicameralism were won round to its benefits in 2005, after Islamist MPs in the lower house voted for the introduction of so-called 'morality police'.

Examples

radical Islamist party
- Parliament in Australia, which consists of House of Representatives and Senate; all of the state parliaments except Queensland's are also bicameral.
- The Bundesversammlung in Austria, which consists of the Nationalrat and the Bundesrat; all of the Bundesländer have unicameral parliaments.
- Parliament in Canada, which consists of the House of Commons and the Senate; all of the provincial legislatures are unicameral.
- Parliament in the Fifth French Republic which consists of the Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly) and the Sénat (Senate)
- the Bundestag and Bundesrat in Germany; they form two distinct bodies not framed by a comprehensive institution; all of the Länder have unicameral parliaments.
- Parliament in India, which consists of the Lok Sabha (House of the People) and the Rajya Sabha (Council of States); some of the states also have bicameral parliaments.
- The Diet of Japan is bicameral, consisting of the House of Representatives (衆議院; Shūgi-in) as the lower house and the House of Councillors (参議院; Sangi-in) as the upper house.
- The Oireachtas of the Republic of Ireland which consists of Dáil Éireann (the House of Representatives) and Seanad Éireann (the Senate)
- Parliament in Malaysia, which consists of the Dewan Rakyat (House of Representatives) and the Dewan Negara (Senate); all of the state parliaments are unicameral.
- The Netherlands States-General, which consists of the Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber) and the Eerste Kamer (First Chamber)
- Parliament in Pakistan, which consists of the National Assembly and the Senate; all of the provincial assemblies are unicameral.
- In Spain, the Cortes Generales, with the Congreso de los Diputados (Congress of Deputies) and the Senado (Senate)
- Parliament in South Africa which consists of the National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces; all of the provincial legislatures are unicameral.
- The Federal Assembly in Switzerland, which consists of the National Council and the Council of States; all of the cantons have unicameral parliaments.
- Parliament in the United Kingdom which consists of the House of Commons and the House of Lords
- Congress in the United States which consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives; all of the state legislatures except Nebraska's are also bicameral.

See also


- List of national legislatures
- Lower House
- Upper House
- Unicameralism
- Tricameralism Category:Government ja:両院制

Bicameralism (psychology)

In psychology, bicameralism is a controversial theory asserting that the human brain once assumed a state known as a bicameral mind in which cognitive functions are divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking" and a second part that listens and obeys. The idea was proposed in the book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, written by Julian Jaynes and published in 1976. It suggested that the bicameral mind was the natural state of the human mind as recently as 3000 years ago.

The bicameral state

: At one time human nature was split in two, : an executive part called a god, and : a follower part called a man. : Neither part was Consciously aware. A person in the bicameral state would behave as a typical schizophrenic. The bicameral state produces the feeling of the mind sub-ordinated, due to the receiving of orders that cannot be ignored. It has also been argued that this state of mind is present in members of cults. Jaynes speculated that "voices" came from the right brain counterparts of the left brain language centres. More specifically, the counterparts to Wernicke's area and Broca's area. These regions are somewhat dormant in the right brains of most modern humans. Some suggest that with neurosurgery, a bicameral condition can be recreated with electrical stimulation of this area. Julian Jaynes coined the term bicameralism by way of analogy to governmental bicameralism.

Julian Jaynes

Julian Jaynes proposed in 1976 that human brains existed in a bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago in his work The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Jaynes asserts that until the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not have the "interior monologue" that is characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Jaynes believes that the bicameral mental commands were at some point believed to be issued by "gods"—so often recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts—were in fact emanating from individuals' own minds.

Breakdown of bicameralism

Jaynes theorized that a shift from bicameralism marked the beginning of introspection and consciousness as we know it today. According to Jaynes, this bicameral mentality began malfunctioning or "breaking down." He speculates that was due to increased societal complexity making more education a matter of necessity; resulting in the dominance of the conscious hemisphere. The mind began exercising conscious thought almost exclusively, for the first time, to enable the continued survival and success of the species or the individual. Jaynes further argues that divination arose during this breakdown period, in an attempt to summon commands that had previously been interpreted as emanating from "gods." His hypothesis is bolstered by a period of time in this transition where children who had contact with the "gods" were prized by their community, but as their education progressed they lost their abilities.

The case for bicameralism

Jaynes builds a case for this theory by citing evidence from many diverse sources including historical literature. For example, he asserts that, in The Iliad and sections of the Old Testament in The Bible that no mention is made of any kind of cognitive processes such as introspection and that there is no apparent indication that the writers were self-aware. He asserts that some later books of the Old Testament (such as Ecclesiastes) as well as later works such as The Odyssey show indications of a profoundly different kind of mentality which he believes is indicative of consciousness.

Responses

Jaynes's hypothesis found little acceptance among mainstream academics. This was partly due to the perception that Jaynes' was pandering to the general public, and because he did not offer The Origin of Consciousness for peer review. His proposals generated great controversy when first published, and provided impetus for many other scientists and philosophers to investigate the matters it discussed in detail in order to attempt to refute its arguments. Other researchers such as Daniel Dennett, consider bicameralism to be quite intriguing but probably incorrect. Some authorities, however, consider Jaynes's hypothesis worthy and offered conditional support, arguing the notion deserves further study. Some scholars suggest that the theory describes a real event, but that Jaynes provides the wrong date. One theory about pre-historic cave paintings, for example, is that they offer us a window into a time when consciousness was emerging, perhaps through the breakdown of bicameralism. Further evidence contradicting Jaynes's proposed date is the Gilgamesh Epic: although Gilgamesh was recorded centuries before the Old Testament, and its setting is contemporaneous or earlier than the Old Testament stories, the Gilgamesh story describes suprisingly modern psychology.

Influence

It has also been great fodder for cyberpunk authors; Neal Stephenson's first several books (The Big U, Zodiac, Snow Crash, The Diamond Age) involve the bicameral mind theory, as does Bruce Sterling's Distraction. The book has been highly influential in a neo-objectivist philosophy called Neo-Tech.

Similar ideas

Friedrich Nietzsche's explanations of human ethics and moral consciousness in Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals posit a similar developmental path. The first humans followed a "noble" ethic, but their consciousness was shallow and limited at best. When the Judeo-Christian tradition turned the will in on itself, as Nietzsche claims, the human soul became complex and intelligent, although it lost the "noble" ethic, which was replaced by an ethic of "ressentiment." Although their ideas are similar, there is no evidence that Jaynes was influenced by Nietzsche. Dr. David R. Hawkins, a psychiatrist and mystic, has developed a sophisticated model for how consciousness has developed—and continues to develop—over time. Hawkins used the controversial and not widely accepted method of applied kinesiology to measure and describe the evolution of consciousness both in the individual and collectively amongst a group of people. Out of this, as first reported in his book Power vs. Force (1995), a [http://lifemasters.co.za/Powerforce.htm map of consciousness] was developed.

Miscellaneous

The Origin of Consciousness was financially successful, and has been reprinted several times. The book was originally published in 1976 (ISBN 0395207290) and was nominated for the National Book Award in 1978. It has since been reissued (ISBN 0618057072). A new edition, with an afterword that addressed some criticisms and restated the main themes, was published in the US in 1990. This version was published in the UK by Penguin Books in 1993 (ISBN 0140174915). Bicameralism is used in the plots of Neal Stephenson's novels The Big U, Zodiac and Snow Crash, and Bruce Sterling's novel Distraction. Jaynes' theory is referenced, at least in passing in the cyberpunk comic Transmetropolitan.

References

# #

External links


- [http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php Julian Jaynes Society web page for The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind]
- [http://www.neo-tech.com/neotech/protection2/p503-512.html Consciousness: The End of False Authority by Dr. Frank R. Wallace] This article about Jaynes' theory won the first place National Writer's Club Award as best nonfiction article of 1980.

Reviews of Origin of Conciousness


- [http://www.deoxy.org/alephnull/jaynes.htm on deoxy.org]
- [http://www.phil-books.com/The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind_0618057072.html on www.phil-books.com]
- [http://www.salon.com/books/feature/1999/08/17/crackpots/index1.html by Mark Wallace, salon.com] Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, The Category:Psychology

Government

A government is the body that has the power to make and enforce laws within an organization or group. In its broadest sense, "to govern" means to administer or supervise, whether over an area of land, a set group of people, or a collection of assets. The word government is derived the Greek Κυβερνήτης (kubernites), which means "steersman", "governor", "pilot" or "rudder".

Definitions

One approach is to define government as the decision-making arm of the state, and define the latter on the basis of the control it has over violence and the use of force within its territory. Specifically, the state (and by extension the government) has been considered by some to be the entity that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a territory. This view has been taken by the political economist Max Weber and subsequent political philosophers. The exact meaning of it depends on what is understood by “legitimate”. If we use the term in an ethical sense, then this definition would suggest that an organisation might be considered a state by its supporters but not by its detractors. An alternative definition is to take "legitimate" violence to be simply that which has active or tacit acceptance by the vast majority of the population. In this view, the presence of insurrection or civil war against an entity would jeopardise its claim to be a state, provided the insurrection enjoyed significant popular support. Similarly, an entity that shared military or police power with independent militias and bandits could be considered to have a monopoly on “legitimate” violence but to be failing to enforce it, reducing its claim to statehood. In practice, such situations are often described as "failed states". Government can also be defined as the political means of creating and enforcing laws; typically via a bureaucratic hierarchy. Under this definition, a purely despotic organization which controls a territory without defining laws would not be considered a government. Another alternative is to define a government as an organisation that attempts to maintain control of a territory, where "control" involves activities such as collecting taxes, controlling entry and exit to the state, preventing encroachment of territory by neighbouring states and preventing the establishment of alternative governments within the country. In Commonwealth English, the word "Government" can also be used to refer only to the executive branch, in this context being a synonym for the word "administration" in American English (e.g. the Blair Government, the Bush Administration). In countries using the Westminster system, the Government (or party in Government) will also usually control the legislature. The French use of the word gouvernement covers both meanings, whereas Canadian French generally uses it to mean the executive branch. The German word Regierung refers only to government as the executive branch; the wider meaning of the word, government as a system, can be translated as Staatsgewalt.

Forms of government

Various forms of government have been implemented. A government in a developed state is likely to have various sub-organisations known as offices, departments, or agencies, which are headed by politically appointed officials, often called ministers or secretaries. Ministers may in theory act as advisors to the head of state, but in practice have a certain amount of direct power in specific areas. In most modern democracies, the elected legislative assembly has the power to dismiss the government, but in those states that have a separate head of government and head of state, the head of state generally has great latitude in appointing a new one.

Theories

There are a wide range of theories about the reasons for establishing governments. The four major ones are briefly described below. Note that they do not always fully oppose each other - it is possible for a person to subscribe to a combination of ideas from two or more of these theories.

Greed and oppression

Many political philosophies that are opposed to the existence of a government (such as Anarchism, and to a lesser extent Marxism), as well as others, emphasize the historical roots of governments - the fact that governments, along with private property, originated from the authority of warlords and petty despots who took, by force, certain patches of land as their own (and began exercising authority over the people living on that land). Thus, it is argued that governments exist to enforce the will of the strong and oppress the weak.

Order and tradition

The various forms of conservatism, by contrast, generally see the government as a positive force that brings order out of chaos, establishes laws to end the "war of all against all", encourages moral virtue while punishing vice, and respects tradition. Sometimes, in this view, the government is seen as something ordained by a higher power, as in the divine right of kings, which human beings have a duty to obey.

Natural rights

Natural rights are the basis for the theory of government shared by most branches of liberalism (including libertarianism). In this view, human beings are born with certain natural rights, and governments are established strictly for the purpose of protecting those rights. What the natural rights actually are is a matter of dispute among liberals; indeed, each branch of liberalism has its own set of rights that it considers to be natural, and these rights are sometimes mutually exclusive with the rights supported by other liberals.

Social contract

One of the most influential theories of government in the past two hundred years has been the social contract, on which modern democracy and most forms of socialism are founded. The social contract theory holds that governments are created by the people in order to provide for collective needs (such as safety from crime) that cannot be properly satisfied using purely individual means. Governments thus exist for the purpose of serving the needs and wishes of the people, and their relationship with the people is clearly stipulated in a "social contract" (a constitution and a set of laws) which both the government and the people must abide by. If a majority is unhappy, it may change the social contract. If a minority is unhappy, it may persuade the majority to change the contract, or it may opt out of it by emigration or secession.

Operations

Governments concern themselves with regulating and administering many areas of human activity, such as trade, education, medicine, entertainment, and war.

Enforcement of power

Governments use a variety of methods to maintain the established order, such as police and military forces, (particularly under despotism, see also police state), making agreements with other states, and maintaining support within the state. Typical methods of maintaining support and legitimacy include providing the infrastructure for administration, justice, transport, communication, social welfare etc., claiming support from deities, providing benefits to elites, holding elections for important posts within the state, limiting the power of the state through laws and constitutions (see also Bill of Rights) and appealing to nationalism. Different political ideologies hold different ideas on what the government should or should not do.

Territory

The modern standard unit of territory is a country. In addition to the meaning used above, the word state can refer either to a government or to its territory. Within a territory, subnational entities may have local governments which do not have the full power of a national government (for example, they will generally lack the authority to declare war or carry out diplomatic negotiations).

Scale of government

Main articles: government ownership, government spending The scale to which government should exist and operate in the world is a matter of debate. Government spending in developed countries varies considerably but generally makes up between about 30% and 70% of their GDP.

See also


- Conspiracy theories
- Government ownership
- Government simulation
- Minority government
- Political corruption
- Premier
- Statesman

Relevant lists


- List of democracy and elections-related topics
- List of fictional governments Category:Society ko:정부 ms:Kerajaan ja:政府 simple:Government th:รัฐบาล

Parliament

:This article is about the legislative institution. For alternative meanings, see: Parliament (disambiguation). Parliament (disambiguation).]] A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system derived from that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French parlement, the action of parler (to speak): a parlement is a talk, a discussion, hence a meeting (an assembly, a court) where people discuss matters. While all parliaments are legislatures, not all legislatures are parliaments. The British Parliament is often referred to as the "Mother of Parliaments"—in fact a misquotation of John Bright, who remarked in 1865 that "England is the Mother of Parliaments"—because the British Parliament has been the model for most other parliamentary systems, and its Acts have created many other parliaments. The first English Parliament was formed during the reign of King Henry III in the 13th century. In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of over 600 members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent various cities, communities, and other electoral districts. The party that can win the most seats in the House of Commons forms the government, and the party leader becomes the Prime Minister and head of government. Legislation originates from and is voted on by members of the House of Commons. If passed, it goes to the House of Lords. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: 92 of whom inherit their seats and 574 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats. The Lords must vote to approve all legislation from the House before it can go before the monarch and receive the formal ratification to become a law (however, under certain circumstances the House of Commons may overrule it using the Parliament Acts). In addition, specific members of the House of Lords act as the ultimate court of appeal in the United Kingdom. In a similar fashion, most other nations with parliaments have to some degree emulated the British, "three-tier" model. Most countries in Europe and the Commonwealth have similarly organized parliaments with a largely ceremonial head of state who formally opens and closes parliament, a large elected lower house and a smaller, upper house. The lower house is almost always the originator of legislation, and the upper house is the body that offers the "second look" and decides whether to veto or approve the bills. This style of two houses is called bicameral; also parliaments with only one house exist (see unicameralism). A parliament's lower house is usually composed of at least 200 members, in countries with populations of over 3 million. The number of seats rarely exceeds 400, even in very large countries. The upper house customarily has anywhere from 20, 50, or 100 seats, but almost always significantly fewer than the lower house. A nation's prime minister ("PM") is almost always the leader of the majority party in the lower house of parliament, but only holds his or her office as long as the "confidence of the house" is maintained. If members of parliament lose faith in the leader for whatever reason, they can often call a vote of no confidence and force the PM to resign. This can be particularly dangerous to a government when the distribution of seats is relatively even, in which case a new election is often called shortly thereafter. Parliaments can be contrasted with congresses in the model of the United States. Typically, congresses do not select or dismiss the head of government, and cannot themselves be dissolved early as is often the case for parliaments.

List of parliaments

:List is not exhaustive

Contemporary national parliaments


- European Parliament
- Pan-African Parliament
- Central American Parliament
- Parliament of Australia
- Parliament of Canada :
- The federal government of Canada has a bicameral parliament, and each of Canada's 10 provinces has a unicameral parliament.
- Parliament of the Fiji Islands
- Parliament of France (Parlement)
- Parliament of Germany - The Bundestag
- Hungarian Parliament Building (Országház)
- Parliament of India consisting of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha
- Parliament of Israel - The Knesset
- Parliament of Italy (Parlamento Italiano)
- Parliament of Malaysia
- Parliament of New Zealand
- Parliament of Serbia and Montenegro
- Parliament of Singapore
- Parliament of South Africa
- Parliament of Sri Lanka
- Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago
- Parliament of the United Kingdom
  - Scottish Parliament

Equivalent national legislatures


- Majlis, e.g. in Iran
- in Afghanistan : Wolesi Jirga (elected, legislative lower house) and Meshrano Jirga (mainly advisory, indirect representation); in special cases, e.g. as constituant assembly, a Loya Jirga

Defunct


- Parliament of Ireland (1200-1801 AD)
- Parliament of Southern Ireland (1921-1922)
- Parliament of Northern Ireland (1921-1973)

Subnational parliaments


- In the federal (bicameral) kingdom of Belgium, after many constitutional contortions but no violent confrontation, there is a curious asymmetrical constellation serving as directly elected legislatures for three 'territorial' regions -Flanders (Dutch language), Brussels (bilingual, certain peculiarities of competence, also the only region not comprizing any of the 10 provinces) and Walloonia (French)- and three cultural communities -Flemish (Dutch language, competent in Flanders and for the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Brussels), Francophone (French language, for Walloonia and francopones in Brussels) and German (for speakers of that language in a a few designated municipalities in the east of the Walloon Region, always alongside francophones but under two different regimes)
  - Vlaams Parlement ('Flemish Parliament'; originally styled Vlaamse Raad 'Flemish Council') served both the Flemish Community (whose same it uses) and, in application of a Belgian constitutional option, of the region of Flanders (in all matters of regional competence, its decisions have no effect in Brussels)
  - parliament of the French Community
  - parliament of the German Community
  - parliament of the Walloon region
  - parliament of the Brussels 'capital' region;
    - within the capital's regional assembly however, there also exist two so-called Community Commissions (fixed numbers, not an automatical repartition of the regional assembly), a Dutch-speaking one and a francophone one, for various matters split up by linguistic community but under Brssels' regional competence, and even 'joint community ccmmissions' consisting of both for certain instititutions that could be split up but aren't

See also


- Inter-Parliamentary Union
- Witan
- List of national parliaments
- Parliamentary System
- Legislation
- Delegated legislation Category:Legislatures ja:議会 ko:국회

Legislature

A legislature is a governmental deliberative assembly with the power to adopt laws. Legislatures are known by many names, including: parliament, congress, diet and national assembly. Important part of the US In parliamentary systems of government, the legislature is formally supreme and appoints the executive. In presidential systems of government, the legislature is considered a power branch which is equal to, and independent of, the executive. In addition to enacting laws, legislatures usually have exclusive authority to raise taxes and adopt the budget and other money bills. The consent of the legislature is also often required to ratify treaties and declare war.

Chambers

The primary component of a legislature is one or more chambers or houses: assemblies that debate and vote upon bills. Most legislatures are either bicameral or unicameral:
- A unicameral legislature is the simplest kind of law-making body and has only one house.
- A bicameral legislature possesses two separate chambers, usually described as an upper house and a lower house, which may differ in duties, powers, and methods for the selection of members. In most parliamentary systems, the lower house is the most powerful house while the upper house is merely a chamber of advice or review!!!! However in presidential systems the powers of the two houses are often similar or equal. In federations it is typical for the upper house to represent the component states. For this purpose the upper house may either contain the delegates of state governments, as is the case of Germany and was the case in the pre-19 century United States, or to be elected according to a formula that grants disproportionate representation to smaller states, as is the case today in Australia and the United States. Historically, as well as bicameral and unicameral bodies, there have also been rare instances of tricameral legislatures. Many legislatures are said to include not just one or more houses but also the head of state. This is because in most systems it is necessary that, after being approved by the house or houses of the legislature, a bill receive the assent of the head of state before it can become law. This may be the case even if, as is the case in many parliamentary systems, the assent of the head of state is merely a formality and will not be withheld. It is also common, however, for the head of state not to be considered a formal part of the legislature, even if they have the power to veto laws. The British Parliament formally consists of the Crown, and two houses; similarly, the Irish Oireachtas consists officially of the President and two houses. In contrast, the United States Congress consists only of its two houses and does not officially include the US president, despite the fact that he wields a veto.

Competences

The power of legislatures varies widely from country to country. Rubber stamp legislature is a derogatory name for a legislature that has no real power but simply approves, by unanimous or near unanimous votes, bills put before it by other institutions. For example, the legislatures of many Communist states were often derided as mere 'rubber stamps' for decisions of the ruling party. The term is not usually used to describe legislatures of parliamentary systems. Although the final draft of legislation introduced by the government almost always passes, these legislatures are generally not labelled "rubber stamps" because legislators are involved in the drafting and amendment of bills.

List of titles of legislatures

National
- Parliament
- Congress
- Diet
- National Assembly

- Althing — Iceland
- Assembleia da República — Portugal
- Bundestag — Germany
- Cortes Generales — Spain
- Eduskunta or Riksdag — Finland
- Federal Assembly — Russia, Switzerland
- Folketing — Denmark
- Knesset — Israel
- Legislative Yuan — Republic of China/Taiwan
- Majles Al-Ummah — Kuwait
- Oireachtas — Republic of Ireland
- Riigikogu — Estonia
- Riksdag — Sweden
- Rajya Sabha/Lok Sabha — India
- Sabor — Croatia
- Saeima — Latvia
- Seimas — Lithuania
- Sejm — Poland
- Skupština — Serbia and Montenegro
- Estates-General or Staten Generaal — Netherlands
- Storting — Norway
- Tynwald — Isle of Man
- Verkhovna Rada — Ukraine Historical
- States-General
- Dáil — Irish Republic (1919-1922)
- Volkskammer — East Germany (1949-1990) State
- List of state legislatures of the United States — United States
- Landtag — Germany, Austria

See also


- List of democracy and elections-related topics
- List of national legislatures
- Legislative Assemblies of Canada's provinces and territories
- List of state legislatures of the United States Category:Legislatures ja:立法府 simple:Legislature

Classical antiquity

:This article describes the ancient classical period. For the classical period in music (second half of the 18th century), see classical music era. Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD), to end in the dissolution of Classical culture with the close of Late Antiquity. Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many rather disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" typically refers to an idealized vision of later people, of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe's words, "the glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome!" In the 18th and 19th centuries reverence for classical antiquity was much greater in Western Europe and the United States than it is today. Respect for the "ancients" of Greece and Rome affected politics, philosophy, sculpture, literature, theatre, education, and even architecture and sexuality. In politics, the presence of a Roman Emperor was felt to be desirable long after the empire fell. This tendency reached its peak when Charlemagne was crowned "Roman Emperor" in the year 800, an act which led to the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. The notion that an emperor is a monarch who outranks a mere king dates from this period. In this political ideal, there would always be a Roman Empire, a state whose jurisdiction extended to the entire civilised world. Epic poetry in Latin continued to be written and circulated well into the nineteenth century. John Milton and even Arthur Rimbaud got their first poetic educations in Latin. Genres like epic poetry, pastoral verse, and the endless use of characters and themes from Greek mythology left a deep mark on Western literature. In architecture, there have been several Greek Revivals, which seem more inspired in retrospect by Roman architecture than Greek. Still, one needs only to look at Washington, DC to see a city filled with large marble buildings with façades made out to look like Roman temples, with columns constructed in the classical orders of architecture. In philosophy, the efforts of St Thomas Aquinas were derived largely from the thought of Aristotle, despite the intervening change in religion from paganism to Christianity. Greek and Roman authorities such as Hippocrates and Galen formed the foundation of the practice of medicine even longer than Greek thought prevailed in philosophy. In the French theatre, tragedians such as Molière and Racine wrote plays on mythological or classical historical subjects and subjected them to the strict rules of the classical unities derived from Aristotle's Poetics. The desire to dance like a latter-day vision of how the ancient Greeks did it moved Isadora Duncan to create her brand of ballet. The Renaissance discovery of Classical Antiquity is a book by Roberto Weiss on how the renaissance was partly caused by the rediscovery of classic antiquity. "Classical antiquity," then, is the contemporary vision of Greek and Roman culture by their admirers from the more recent past. It remains a vision that many people in the twenty-first century continue to find compelling.

Subtopics

Geographical:
- Ancient Greece
- Hellenistic Greece
- Ancient Rome
- Roman Britain
- Roman Iberia
- Ancient Macedonia
- Ancient Troy
- Gaul
- Germania
- Ancient history of Cyprus
- Carthage
- Roman Iron Age, for the Roman period in Scandinavia and Northern Germany
- The Balkans in classical antiquity
- Late Antiquity Topical:
- Classical architecture
- Classical orders
- Classical education

See also


- Oxyrhynchus, an archaeological site where major research on ancient texts from classical antiquity is currently being conducted. Category:Classical studies Category:Historical eras

Mixed government

Mixed government, also known as a mixed constitution, is a form of government that integrated facets of democracy, oligarchy, and monarchy. Mixed governments means that there are some issues (often defined in a constitution) where the state is governed by the majority of the people, while in some other issues (also often defined in a constitution) the state is governed by few or by a single person.

Ancient Greek philosophers

Plato in his book The Republic divided governments into four basic types:
- democracy - government by the many
- oligarchy - government by the few (often referred to as government by "aristocracy")
- timocracy - government by socio-military complexes (i.e., the form of government used in Sparta)
- monarchy/tyranny - government by the one He found flaws with all of them and thus concluded that none were suitable systems of government. Aristotle largely embraced Plato's ideas and in his Politics three types (sans Timocracy) are discussed in detail. Aristotle views aristocracy to be the ideal form of government but he observes that none of the three are stable and that states will cycle between the three forms in a violent and chaotic process known as the kyklos. In his Politics he lists a number of theories of how to create a stable government. One of these options is creating a government that is a mix of all three forms of government. For Aristotle the idea is only one of many and he pays only scant attention to it. Polybius argued that most states have a government system that is composed of more than one of these basic principles, which then was called a mixed government system.

Roman Era

The ideal of mixed government was popularized by Polybius who saw the Roman Republic as a manifestation of Aristotle's theory. Monarchy was embodied by the consuls, the aristocracy by the Senate, and democracy by the elections and great public gatherings of the assemblies. Each institution complements and also checks the others, presumably guaranteeing stability and prosperity. Polybius also describes Sparta as an earlier manifestation of this ideal. Polybius was very influential and his ideas were embraced by Cicero.

Renaissance and Enlightenment

Cicero became extremely well regarded during the Renaissance and many of his ideas were embraced. Polybius was also rediscovered and the positive view of mixed governments became a central aspect of Renaissance political science closely integrated into the developing notion of republicanism. Mixed government theories were also popular in the Enlightenment and were discussed in detail by Montesquieu. According to some scholars the notion also influenced the writers of the United States Constitution who based the idea of checks and balances upon the ancient theory.

Modern views

One school of scholarship, based mainly in the United States, felt that a mixed government was the central characteristic of a republic. According to Frank Lovett this school is largely defunct.[http://www.ajps.org/articles/49.3.Lovett.ms31301]

See also


- Plato's Republic Category:Constitutional law

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is the term used to describe the Greek-speaking world in ancient times. It refers not only to the geographical peninsula of modern Greece, but also to areas of Hellenic culture that were settled in ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus, the Aegean coast of Turkey (then known as Ionia), Sicily and southern Italy (known as Magna Graecia), and the scattered Greek settlements on the coasts of what are now Albania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Libya, southern France, southern Spain, Catalonia, Georgia, Romania, and Ukraine. There are no fixed or universally agreed upon dates for the beginning or the end of the Ancient Greek period. In common usage it refers to all Greek history before the Roman Empire, but historians use the term more precisely. Some writers include the periods of the Greek-speaking Mycenaean civilization that collapsed about 1100 BC, though most would argue that the influential Minoan was so different from later Greek cultures that it should be classed separately. In the modern Greek school-books, "ancient times" is a period of about 1000 years (from the catastrophe of Mycenae until the conquest of the country by the Romans) that is divided in four periods, based on styles of art as much as culture and politics. The historical line starts with Greek Dark Ages (1100–800 BC). In this period artists use geometrical schemes such as squares, circles, lines to decorate amphoras and other pottery. The archaic period (800–500 BC) represents those years when the artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, hieratic poses with the dreamlike "archaic smile". In the classical years (500–323 BC) artists perfected the style that since has been taken as exemplary: "classical", such as the (Parthenon). In the Hellenistic years that followed the conquests of Alexander (323–146 BC), also known as Alexandrian, aspects of Hellenic civilization expanded to Egypt and Bactria. Traditionally, the Ancient Greek period was taken to begin with the date of the first Olympic Games in 776 BC, but many historians now extend the term back to about 1000 BC. The traditional date for the end of the Ancient Greek period is the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC (The following period is classed Hellenistic) or the integration of Greece into the Roman Republic in 146 BC. These dates are historians' conventions and some writers treat the Ancient Greek civilization as a continuum running until the advent of Christianity in the third century AD. Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundational culture of Western Civilization. Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. Ancient Greek civilization has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe and The Americas.

Origins

The Americas The Greeks are believed to have migrated southward into the Greek peninsula in several waves beginning in the late 3rd millennium BC, the last being the Dorian invasion. The period from 1600 BC to about 1100 BC is described in History of Mycenaean Greece known for the reign of King Agamemnon and the wars against Troy as narrated in the epics of Homer. The period from 1100 BC to the 8th century BC is a "dark age" from which no primary texts survive, and only scant archaeological evidence remains. Secondary and tertiary texts such as Herodotus' Histories, Pausanias' Description of Greece, Diodorus' Bibliotheca and Jerome's Chronicon, contain brief chronologies and king lists for this period. The history of Ancient Greece is often taken to end with the reign of Alexander the Great, who died in 323 BC. Subsequent events are described in Hellenistic Greece. Any history of Ancient Greece requires a cautionary note on sources. Those Greek historians and political writers whose works have survived, notably Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato and Aristotle, were mostly either Athenian or pro-Athenian. That is why we know far more about the history and politics of Athens than of any other city, and why we know almost nothing about some cities' histories. These writers, furthermore, concentrate almost wholly on political, military and diplomatic history, and ignore economic and social history. All histories of Ancient Greece have to contend with these limits in their sources.

The rise of Hellas

In the 8th century BC Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Literacy had been lost and the Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet to Greek and from about 800 BC written records begin to appear. Greece was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern dictated by Greek geography, where every island, valley and plain is cut off from its neighbors by the sea or mountain ranges. 800 BC. It was the greatest architectural statement of 5th century BC Greece]] As Greece recovered economically, its population grew beyond the capacity of its limited arable land, and from about 750 BC the Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling colonies in all directions. To the east, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was colonized first, followed by Cyprus and the coasts of Thrace, the Sea of Marmara and south coast of the Black Sea. Eventually Greek colonization reached as far north-east as present day Ukraine. To the west the coasts of Albania, Sicily and southern Italy were settled, followed by the south coast of France, Corsica, and even northeastern Spain. Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya. Modern Syracuse, Naples, Marseille and Istanbul had their beginnings as the Greek colonies Syracusa, Neapolis, Massilia and Byzantium. By the 6th century BC Hellas had become a cultural and linguistic area much larger than the geographical area of Greece. Greek colonies were not politically controlled by their founding cities, although they often retained religious and commercial links with them. The Greeks both at home and abroad organised themselves into independent communities, and the city (polis) became the basic unit of Greek government. First Crete, then in short order the other Greek city-states, adopted the formal practice of pederasty. From its ritual roots in Indo-European prehistory, the practice was elevated to prominence, influencing pedagogy, warfare and social life, and becoming a central feature of Hellenic culture for the next thousand years.

Social and political conflict

The Greek cities were originally monarchies, although many of them were very small and the term "King" (basileus) for their rulers is misleadingly grand. In a country always short of farmland, power rested with a small class of landowners, who formed a warrior aristocracy fighting frequent petty inter-city wars over land and rapidly ousting the monarchy. About this time the rise of a mercantile class (shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC) introduced class conflict into the larger cities. From 650 BC onwards, the aristocracies had to fight not to be overthrown and replaced by populist leaders called tyrants (tyrranoi), a word which did not necessarily have the modern meaning of oppressive dictators. By the 6th century BC several cities had emerged as dominant in Greek affairs: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes. Each of them had brought the surrounding rural areas and smaller towns under their control, and Athens and Corinth had become major maritime and mercantile powers as well. Athens and Sparta developed a rivalry that dominated Greek politics for generations. In Sparta, the landed aristocracy retained their power, and the constitution of Lycurgus (about 650 BC) entrenched their power and gave Sparta a permanent militarist regime under a dual monarchy. Sparta dominated the other cities of the Peloponnese, with the sole exceptions of Argus and Achaia. In Athens, by contrast, the monarchy was abolished in 683 BC, and reforms of Solon established a moderate system of aristocratic government. The aristocrats were followed by the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons, who made the city a great naval and commercial power. When the Pisistratids were overthrown, Cleisthenes established the world's first democracy (500 BC), with power being held by an assembly of all the male citizens. But it must be remembered that only a minority of the male inhabitants were citizens, excluding slaves, freedmen and non-Athenians.

The Persian Wars

In Ionia (the modern Aegean coast of Turkey) the Greek cities, which included great centres such as Miletus and Halicarnassus, were unable to maintain their independence and came under the rule of the Persian Empire in the mid 6th century BC. In 499 BC the Greeks rose in the Ionian Revolt, and Athens and some other Greek cities went to their aid. In 490 BC the Persian Great King, Darius I, having suppressed the Ionian cities, sent a fleet to punish the Greeks. The Persians landed in Attica, but were defeated at the Battle of Marathon by a Greek army led by the Athenian general Miltiades. The burial mound of the Athenian dead can still be seen at Marathon. Ten years later Darius's successor, Xerxes I, sent a much more powerful force by land. After being delayed by the Spartan King Leonidas I at Thermopylae, Xerxes advanced into Attica, where he captured and burned Athens. But the Athenians had evacuated the city by sea, and under Themistocles they defeated the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis. A year later, the Greeks, under the Spartan Pausanius, defeated the Persian army at Plataea. The Athenian fleet then turned to chasing the Persians out of the Aegean Sea, and in 478 BC they captured Byzantium. In the course of doing so Athens enrolled all the island states and some mainland allies into an alliance, called the Delian League because its treasury was kept on the sacred island of Delos. The Spartans, although they had taken part in the war, withdrew into isolation after it, allowing Athens to establish unchallenged naval and commercial power.

The dominance of Athens

Delos The Persian Wars ushered in a century of Athenian dominance of Greek affairs. Athens was the unchallenged master of the sea, and also the leading commercial power, although Corinth remained a serious rival. The leading statesman of this time was Pericles, who used the tribute paid by the members of the Delian League to build the Parthenon and other great monuments of classical Athens. By the mid 5th century the League had become an Athenian Empire, symbolised by the transfer of the League's treasury from Delos to the Parthenon in 454 BC. The wealth of Athens attracted talented people from all over Greece, and also created a wealthy leisured class who became patrons of the arts. The Athenian state also sponsored learning and the arts, particularly architecture. Athens became the centre of Greek literature, philosophy (see Greek philosophy) and the arts (see Greek theatre). Some of the greatest names of Western cultural and intellectual history lived in Athens during this period: the dramatists Aeschylus, Aristophanes, Euripides, and Sophocles, the philosophers Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates, the historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, the poet Simonides and the sculptor Pheidias. The city became, in Pericles's words, "the school of Hellas." The other Greek states at first accepted Athenian leadership in the continuing war against the Persians, but after the fall of the conservative politician Cimon in 461 BC, Athens became an increasingly open imperialist power. After the Greek victory at the Battle of the Eurymedon in 466 BC, the Persians were no longer a threat, and some states, such as Naxos, tried to secede from the League, but were forced to submit. The new Athenian leaders, Pericles and Ephialtes, let relations between Athens and Sparta deteriorate, and in 458 BC war broke out. After some years of inconclusive war a 30-year peace was signed between the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League (Sparta and her allies). This coincided with the last battle between the Greeks and the Persians, a sea battle off Salamis in Cyprus, followed by the Peace of Callias (450 BC) between the Greeks and Persians.

The Peloponnesian War

450 BC In 431 BC war broke out again between Athens and Sparta and its allies. The proximate cause was a dispute between Corinth and one of its colonies, Corcyra (modern-day Corfu), in which Athens intervened. The obviate cause was the growing resentment of Sparta and its allies at the dominance of Athens over Greek affairs. The war lasted 27 years, partly because Athens (a naval power) and Sparta (a land-based military power) found it difficult to come to grips with each other. Sparta's initial strategy was to invade Attica, but the Athenians were able to retreat behind their walls. An outbreak of plague in the city during the siege caused heavy losses, including Pericles. At the same time the Athenian fleet landed troops in the Peloponnese, winning battles at Naupactus (429 BC) and Pylos (425 BC). But these tactics could bring neither side a decisive victory. After several years of inconclusive campaigning, the moderate Athenian leader Nicias concluded the Peace of Nicias (421 BC). In 418 BC, however, hostility between Sparta and the Athenian ally Argos led to a resumption of fighting. At Mantinea Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies. The resumption of fighting brought the war party, led by Alcibiades, back to power in Athens. In 415 BC Alcibiades persuaded the Athenian Assembly to launch a major expedition against Syracuse, a Peloponnesian ally in Sicily. Though Nicias was a skeptic about the Sicilian Expedition he was appointed along Alcibiades to lead the expedition. Due to accusations against him, Alcibiades fled to Sparta where he persuaded Sparta to send aid to Syracuse. As a result, the expedition was a complete disaster and the whole expeditionary force was lost. Nicias was executed by his captors. Sparta had now built a fleet to challenge Athenian naval supremacy, and had found a brilliant military leader in Lysander, who seized the strategic initiative by occupying the Hellespont, the source of Athens' grain imports. Threatened with starvation, Athens sent its last remaining fleet to confront Lysander, who decisively defeated them at Aegospotami (405 BC). The loss of her fleet threatened Athens with bankruptcy. In 404 BC Athens sued for peace, and Sparta dictated a predictably stern settlement: Athens lost her city walls, her fleet, and all of her overseas possessions. The anti-democratic party took power in Athens with Spartan support.

Spartan and Theban dominance

The end of the Peloponnesian War left Sparta the master of Greece, but the narrow outlook of the Spartan warrior elite did not suit them to this role. Within a few years the democratic party regained power in Athens and other cities. In 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth, the latter two formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC. That same year Sparta shocked Greek opinion by concluding the Treaty of Antalcidas with Persia by which they surrendered the Greek cities of Ionia and Cyprus, thus reversing a hundred years of Greek victories against Persia. Sparta then tried to further weaken the power of Thebes, which led to a war in which Thebes allied herself with the old enemy, Athens. The Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas won a decisive victory at Leuctra (371 BC). The result of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy and the establishment of Theban dominance, but Athens also recovered much of her former power. The supremacy of Thebes was short-lived. With the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea (362 BC) the city lost its greatest leader, and his successors blundered into an unsuccessful ten-year war with Phocis. In 346 BC the Thebans appealed to Philip II of Macedon to help them against the Phocians, thus drawing Macedon into Greek affairs for the first time.

The rise of Macedon

The Kingdom of Macedon was formed in the 7th century BC out of northern Greek tribes. They played little part in Greek politics before the beginning of the 4th century, but Philip was an ambitious man who had been educated in Thebes and wanted to play a larger role. In particular, he wanted to be accepted as the new leader of Greece in recovering the freedom of the Greek cities of Asia from Persian rule. By seizing the Greek cities of Amphipolis, Methone and Potidaea, he gained control of the gold and silver mines of Macedonia. This gave him the resources to realize his ambitions. Philip established Macedonian dominance over Thessaly (352 BC) and Thrace, and by 348 BC he controlled everything north of Thermopylae. He used his great wealth to bribe Greek politicians and create a "Macedonian party" in every Greek city. His intervention in the war between Thebes and Phocis brought him recognition as a Greek leader, and gave him his opportunity to become a power in Greek affairs. But despite his sincere admiration for Athens, the Athenian leader Demosthenes, in a series of famous speeches (philippics) roused the Greek cities to resist his advance. In 339 BC Thebes, Athens, Sparta and other Greek states formed an alliance to resist Philip and expel him from the Greek cities he had occupied in the north. But Philip struck first, advancing into Greece and defeating the Greek cities at Chaeronea in 338 BC. This traditionally marks the end of the era of the Greek city-state as an independent political unit, although in fact Athens and other cities survived as independent states until Roman times. Philip tried to win over Athens by flattery and gifts, but did not really succeed. He organised the cities into the League of Corinth, and announced that he would lead an invasion of Persia to liberate the Greek cities and avenge the Persian invasions of the previous century. But before he could do so he was assassinated (336 BC).

The conquests of Alexander

Philip was succeeded by his 20-year-old son Alexander, who immediately set out to carry out his father's plans. He travelled to Corinth where the assembled Greek cities recognised him as leader of the Greeks, then set off north to assemble his forces. The army with which he invaded the Persian Empire was basically Macedonian, but many idealists from the Greek cities also enlisted. But while Alexander was campaigning in Thrace, he heard that the Greek cities had rebelled. He swept south again, captured Thebes, and razed the city to the ground as a warning to the Greek cities that his power could no longer be resisted. In 334 BC Alexander crossed into Asia, and defeated the Persians at the river Granicus. This gave him control of the Ionian coast, and he made a triumphal procession through the liberated Greek cities. After settling affairs in Anatolia, he advanced south through Cilicia into Syria, where he defeated Darius III at Issus (333 BC). He then advanced through Phoenicia to Egypt, which he captured with little resistance, the Egyptians welcoming him as a liberator from Persian oppression. Darius was now ready to make peace and Alexander could have returned home in triumph, but he was determined to conquer Persia and make himself the ruler of the world. He advanced north-east through Syria and Mesopotamia, and defeated Darius again at Gaugamela (331 BC). Darius fled and was killed by his own followers, and Alexander found himself the master of the Persian Empire, occupying Susa and Persepolis without resistance. Persepolis (as an eagle) being offered wine by Ganymede. A child Eros is in the foreground.]] Meanwhile the Greek cities were making renewed efforts to escape from Macedonian control. At Megalopolis in 331 BC, Alexander's regent Antipater defeated the Spartans, who had refused to join the Corinthian League or recognise Macedonian supremacy. Alexander pressed on, advancing through what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indus river valley, and by 326 BC he had reached Punjab. He might well have advanced down the Ganges to Bengal had not his army, convinced they were at the end of the world, refused to go any further. Alexander reluctantly turned back, and died of a fever in Babylon in 323 BC. Alexander's empire broke up soon after his death, but his conquests permanently changed the Greek world. Thousands of Greeks travelled with him or after him to settle in the new Greek cities he had founded as he advanced, the most important being Alexandria in Egypt. Greek-speaking kingdoms in Egypt, Syria, Iran and Bactria were established. The Hellenistic age had begun.

See also


- Ancient Olympic Games
- Architecture of Ancient Greece
- Art in Ancient Greece
- Eleusinian Mysteries
- Fiction set in Ancient Greece
- Greek literature
- Greek mathematics
- Greek mythology
- Greek philosophy
- Greek theatre
- History of Athens
- History of the Greek language
- Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece
- List of ancient Greeks
- List of ancient Greek cities
- Timeline of Ancient Greece ko:고대 그리스 ja:古代ギリシア th:กรีซโบราณ

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a civilization that existed in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East between 753 BC and its downfall in AD 476. For several centuries, the Romans controlled the whole of Western Europe, as well as the entire area surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and some of the area surrounding the Black Sea. Black Sea]]

History

Monarchy

Black Sea The city of Rome grew from settlements on and around the Palatine Hill, approximately eighteen miles from the Tyrrhenian Sea on the river Tiber. At this location the Tiber has an island where the river can be forded. Because of the river and the ford, Rome was at a crossroads of traffic and trade. In Roman legend, Rome was founded on 21 April 753 BC, by Romulus who, along with his brother Remus was suckled by a she-wolf. Romulus killed Remus in a quarrel over where their new city should be located. Romulus, whose name is said to have inspired Rome's name, was the first of seven Kings of Rome, the last of whom, Tarquin the Proud, was deposed in 510 BC or 509 BC when the Roman Republic was established. The mythical or semi-mythical kings are (in chronological order): Romulus, Numa Pompilius (Good King Numa), Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius, and Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud).

Republic

Tarquinius Superbus The Roman Republic was established around 509 BC, according to later writers such as Titus Livius (Livy), when the king was driven out, and a system based on annually elected magistrates was established in the monarchy's place. The most important were the two consuls, who between them exercised executive authority, but had to contend with the Senate, which grew in size and power with the establishment of the Republic. The magistracies were originally restricted to patricians but were later opened to plebeians. The Romans gradually subdued the other peoples on the Italian peninsula, mostly related Italic tribes (of Indo-European stock) such as the Samnites and Sabines, but also the Etruscans. The last threat to Roman hegemony in Italy came when Tarentum, a major Greek colony, enlisted the aid of Pyrrhus of Epirus in 282 BC. The Romans secured their conquests by founding Roman colonies in strategic places. In the second half of the 3rd century BC, Rome clashed with Carthage in the first two Punic wars. These wars resulted in Rome's first overseas conquests, of Sicily and Iberia, and the rise of Rome as a significant imperial power. After defeating Macedon and the Seleucids in the 2nd century BC, the Romans became the undisputed masters of the Mediterranean. Internal strife now became the greatest threat to the Republic. The Senate, jealous of its own power, repeatedly blocked important land reforms. An unintended consequence of Gaius Marius's military reforms was that soldiers often had more loyalty to their commander than to the city, and a powerful general, such as Marius or his rival Lucius Cornelius Sulla, could hold the city and Senate to ransom. In the mid-1st century BC three men, Julius Caesar, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, and Marcus Licinius Crassus, formed a secret pact (the First Triumvirate) to control the Republic. After the conquest of Gaul a stand-off between Caesar and the Senate led to civil war, with Pompey leading the Senate's forces. Caesar emerged victorious and was made dictator for life. After Caesar's assassination a Second Triumvirate, consisting of Caesar's designated heir Octavian and his former supporters Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, took power, but its members soon descended into a struggle for dominance. Lepidus was exiled to Circeii after attempting to coerce the highest position in the government through empty threats against Rome. When Oc