Timocracy
Timocracy (from ancient Greek τιμή timé , German ' esteem ' , 'honor' and κράτος krátos , German 'rule' ), translated: 'rule of the respected' or 'rule of the haves', also called money aristocracy , in Plato the' rule of the guardians “, Is a form of rule in which political privileges depend on the wealth of a citizen . Such a census suffrage was first introduced in Athens with the reforms of Solon in 594 BC. Based on the classification of Plato in his work Politeia , it is often classified as a sub-form of the aristocracy .
Concept history
Already in the last decades of the 7th century BC A division of citizens into census classes was practiced. Citizens were classified according to their financial performance. Due to the costly armament and horse keeping for compulsory military service, a graduated classification was made. This also included the associated political rights.
The class division carried out by Solon in Athens on the basis of the existing military constitution had extensive consequences. This classification was based on the soil yields. It is possible that Solon did not exclude the citizens without real estate . It is likely that he had their fortune converted into monetary value, into drachmas . After the Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BC) the class division ( class society ) had practically no meaning any more. The Athenians lived at the end of the 4th century BC. Chr. Briefly again under a timocratic constitution.
The constant competition among the nobles to increase their influence in the political structures meant that discord was often sown among the rulers, which is why Plato in his Politeia called the timocracy as the first of four forms of decline of the aristocracy (before oligarchy , democracy and tyranny ) designated. In contrast, in the Nicomachean Ethics , Aristotle equated timocracy with politics and described it as one of the virtuous forms of government (alongside monarchy and aristocracy). Their form of decay is democracy.
See also
literature
- Johannes Irmscher , Renate Johne (ed.): Lexicon of antiquity . 10th edition, Bibliographisches Institut Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-323-00026-9 , p. 596.
- Universal Lexicon. Volume 17, Publisher's Digest, ISBN 3-87070-896-4 , p. 115.
- Duden . Volume 1, Dudenverlag, ISBN 3-411-04011-4 , p. 741.
- Ursula Hermann: Knaur's foreign dictionary. Lexicographical Institute Munich, p. 419.
