The Illustrated Guide to Constitutional Law
Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”
Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”
Pg 138: “A Dark Age”
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PANEL 1:
Overhead establishing shot of the land around the Acropolis. The land is brown, with green on the elevated hills. Two yellow streams from the east pass to the north and south of Athens before merging to the southwest. A flock of multi-colored ibises flies just below us. Several tiny villages are scattered around the plain. A scale of miles and kilometers is inset to the northwest.
NARRATION:
The year is 950 B.C.
Athens’ world fell into a dark age over 200 years ago. But of course you wouldn’t know that.
You’ve never heard of a town called “Athens.” (Or of such a thing as a “town,” for that matter.)
Your home is a tiny farming village, one of several that surround the Acropolis.
They all seem to get along okay. Nobody’s bothered to erect so much as a fence around their village.
For all you know, this is how the entire world lives—has always lived—since long before your grandfathers’ grandfathers’ grandfathers’ grandfathers were born.
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PANEL 2:
Village scene. Everything is sere and dry. A thatched apsidal house is visible from the front, with a bit of another visible to the right. In the foreground, a bearded man wearing a woolen chiton and a woolen round petasos hat carries a wooden pitchfork on his shoulder. Behind him is a domed earthen oven. A young woman sits on the ground, grinding grain. There is a terracotta bowl of unground grain and one of ground grain next to her. Behind her, some skewered meat is cooking on a small clay grill. Two goats laze nearby. A girl and a younger boy are running hand-in-hand from around the apsidal house. Another man stands in the veranda of the apsidal house, leaning on the wattle fence. He is pointing to something inside the house. A jar and some farming tools lean against the wall behind him.
NARRATION:
It’s a life of labor.
You scratch what food you can from the dry earth. Wheat and barley, lentils, fava beans… and grapes, of course. (But not olives! Even during the Bronze Age, Athenians hadn’t cultivated olives.)
Even in good years, there’s barely enough to go around.
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PANEL 3:
Another view of the village. More apsidal houses are clustered together. In the foreground, a woman wearing a woolen chiton and a headband is angrily gesturing at a man while holding a broken terracotta jar. The man, also wearing a woolen chiton, is gesturing defensively. Behind them, three women of different ages gossip as they look on.
NARRATION:
That said, life’s not awful. Everyone in your village gets along okay, all working together as a team. Which is hardly surprising, as your households all belong to the same tribe… you’re literally one big happy family.
Nobody needs to be told what to do. Folks just naturally know right from wrong, and everyone pulls their own weight.
It’d be weird- no, it’d be wrong if anyone thought they could tell the rest of you what to do.
Your neighboring villages are much the same, each its own tight-knit family of decent folks. Sure, there are team rivalries, but you can always count on the other villages to pitch in when needed. Where do you think everyone’s wives and mothers originally came from, after all?
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PANEL 4:
A view of a path between two arid hills. A few scraggly trees and bushes here and there. Two women walk along the path, one with a large basket of fish on her head, another carrying a smaller basket of fish in one hand.
NARRATION:
And that’s really your whole world.
Your little cluster of villages doesn’t belong to any larger group of settlements. You aren’t part of any larger culture on the Greek mainland, much less the greater Aegean. In fact, there’s only one road to anywhere else—more a footpath, really—wending down to some fishing villages half a day’s walk to the south.
(And ancient, overgrown trail also leads away to a mountain gap far to the west, but you’ve never seen what lies beyond.)
“Athens” is very much alone. An isolated, self-contained society.
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PANEL 5:
The interior of an apsidal house. To the right is the semicircular storage room, with storage jars and an upright loom. Some weaving has been started on the loom, but some of the weighted yarns have broken and lie on the floor. A broom and some jars rest against the wall. In the center of the main room, the hearth fire burns low. Hanging on a support pillar are a tied bunch of herbs and a wooden spoon. On a bench against the far wall, a young mother plays with her infant, kissing his toes. In the foreground, a tall, richly-dressed Mycenaean man gestures at the surroundings, while a smaller man in a wool chiton holds a geometric-style terracotta jar. A richly-dressed Mycenaean woman gestures at the stone altar/shrine at the rear of the room.
NARRATION:
Imagine if some Mycenaean Athenians magically time-traveled here. What would they say?
MYCENAEAN MAN 1:
What have you done to our civilization? Where’s the urbanity? The sophistication? The art?
Ooh, a stripe around your pot! Some circles! Amazing.
No animals, no flowers, not so much as a stick figure.
Did you forget how to draw when you forgot how to read?
MYCENAEAN WOMAN 1:
They’ve certainly forgotten all about architecture.
Every building is the same stupid one-room hut, with a half-circle storage room in the back.
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PANEL 6:
To the right and left of the panel stand two more Mycenaean aristocrats, another man and woman. Between them stand two smaller Athenians, a man and a woman, showing how to put on a woolen chiton—an arms’-width sheet of wool wrapped under the left armpit, pinned at the shoulders, open on the right side, and tied with a cord belt.
MYCENAEAN MAN 2:
Look! They’ve forgotten how to sew as well.
No tailoring, no design?
All anybody wears is a plain woolen blanket pinned at the shoulders.
MYCENAEAN WOMAN 2:
I see the men have also forgotten how to shave.
And have you noticed how short everyone is now?*
FOOTNOTE:
*Rude, but true.
From burials, we know that Bronze-Age Athenians grew about as tall as they do today.
But by 950 BC, men barely made it to five feet, and women averaged around 4’10”.
They weren’t living as long, either. Men who reached maturity usually died before the age of forty. Adult women could expect to live to thirty-two.
Life was hard, and their diet was shockingly poor in protein and vitamins.
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PANEL 7:
An arid landscape with fir trees, laurel, and wild olive.
MYCENAEAN VOICE:
Certainly they can hunt for meat? And gather fruits and veggies from trees and fields?
NARRATION:
Not like before, no. Few crops could grow in this arid climate. And the fruit trees and deciduous forests all died off long ago.
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PANEL 8:
An ancient bronze sword lies forgotten in a field by moonlight.
MYCENAEAN VOICE:
Then go on campaign, and reap the spoils of war!
NARRATION:
Sorry, there’s no evidence of any warriors or warfare around these parts for more than two hundred years.
MYCENAEAN MAN 3: (Overlapping the narration)
ENOUGH! Take us up to the palace!
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PANEL 9:
Another Mycenaean man and woman.
MYCENAEAN MAN 3: (continued from the previous panel)
We need to teach the government how to run a proper command economy! How to get the gods to bring back the crops and cattle… how to-
MYCENAEAN WOMAN 3:
Eh?
What’s that?
They have no government?
NO gods?
Oh gods…
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PANEL 10:
A patch of land rising to the Acropolis. The Cyclopean walls stand tall against a dark sky. Ruins of other walls and buildings lie scattered around. A Mycenaean man in a red tunic is on his knees facing the Acropolis, beating the ground with his fist. In the foreground, two Dark Age men and a woman talk about him.
MYCENAEAN MAN 4:
YOU MANIACS!
You blew it up!
Gods damn you all!
Gods damn you to Hades!
DARK AGE MAN 1:
What’s he talking about?
DARK AGE WOMAN:
Who’s he talking to?
DARK AGE MAN 2:
Tch. Out of his mind, poor fellow. Ain’t nothin’ or nobody up there.
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PANEL 11:
A rust-colored iron framework is revealed as a coating of glue evaporates and drips off.
NARRATION:
Of course, the Bronze-Age institutions of gods and government had only ever been a thin film of glue holding together diverse societies. When that veneer dissolved, it revealed the core of kinship that had formed the underlying framework of society all along.
In fact, all those refugees who’d re-settled around Athens had quickly formed new tribes. They’d had to! Kinship was the one thing they knew that worked.
Fortunately, when the need arises. people can be really flexible about tribal identity. Without actual shared ancestry, they’d unite through mythic ancestors or heroes.
(Keep that flexibility in mind as democracy takes shape over the coming centuries…)
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PANEL 12:
In the foreground, a Neolithic man dressed in a belted tunic with fur lining, a cloth cap, wearing a satchel slung across his chest, jewelry, and a leather pouch at his waist. He is gesturing to a Dark Age family making an offering to their ancestors at their hearth.
NARRATION:
So a time traveler from the Neolithic stone age might not have felt that much had changed at all.
NEOLITHIC MAN:
Families honor their ancestors at the hearth? Check.
Multiple families can unite through a shared tribal identity? Check!
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PANEL 13:
The Neolithic man looks on as Dark Age villagers go about their business. In the foreground, a young woman shows a girl how to grill skewered meats on a clay grill, with an olive-wood tray of other ingredients nearby. In the background, two young women watch as several men labor to uproot a dead tree. One of the young women is making something with yarn. Village houses are clustered behind.
NEOLITHIC MAN:
No elites?
No rulers?
Just a natural, self-regulating, face-to-face community?
Mhm… mhm…
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PANEL 14:
A gathering of village men at a field outside the village. Hills and grazing sheep in the background. One man, holding a stick, is speaking. Some seated men are listening to him, others are talking among themselves. Some men appear to be arguing intently. Another man is getting to his feet while also speaking. The Neolithic man is among the seated men.
NEOLITHIC MAN:
For important village matters, instead of a boss giving commands, the heads of all the households just informally… I don’t know…
Assemble?
Trying to hash out a consensus as equals?
Yup! They’d have fit right in, back home in the Neolithic.
Still… They forgot how to sew? Seriously?
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PANEL 15:
An overhead shot of the village. A nearly-dry creek runs past to the left.
NARRATION:
It is 950 B.C. This is your world.
It’s how the world has always been.
This is how it will always be.