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Military Democracies among the IE. People

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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Military Democracies among the IE. People
    Posted: 03-Aug-2013 at 22:31
Am I wrong or didn't the Persians, the Celts, and the Vikings have military democracies, which would mean that democracy predated Greek democracy back to a common IE. period?
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03-Aug-2013 at 22:53
Democracy in one form or other most certainly pre-dates Greek democracy. Tribalism is considered to be a primitive form of democracy, if not only on a smaller scale, and we could easily see this going back into the mists of time.
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 04:43
The concept of democracy is actually prehistoric because of tribalism.

Urban democracy is a different story though. Organized city democracy began with the Spartans, back in 700 BC. Although Sparta had two kings, it still had a democratic body of "senators" plus the "Apela". That is the first recorded democracy that we know of, in details!
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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 12:17
Originally posted by TITAN_

The concept of democracy is actually prehistoric because of tribalism.

Urban democracy is a different story though. Organized city democracy began with the Spartans, back in 700 BC. Although Sparta had two kings, it still had a democratic body of "senators" plus the "Apela". That is the first recorded democracy that we know of, in details!

Spartan democracy may have been more advanced and dated to 700 BCE, but my point was the fact that IE. people other than the Greeks practiced military democracies including the Persians, Celts, Vikings, and Polish that the democracy must be rooted in PIE. culture.  
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 13:02
Originally posted by mojobadshah

Originally posted by TITAN_

The concept of democracy is actually prehistoric because of tribalism.

Urban democracy is a different story though. Organized city democracy began with the Spartans, back in 700 BC. Although Sparta had two kings, it still had a democratic body of "senators" plus the "Apela". That is the first recorded democracy that we know of, in details!

Spartan democracy may have been more advanced and dated to 700 BCE, but my point was the fact that IE. people other than the Greeks practiced military democracies including the Persians, Celts, Vikings, and Polish that the democracy must be rooted in PIE. culture.  


Military democracies were not limited to IE people.... PIE culture is almost non-attested due to lack of writing back then (for instance 3000 BCE), so you are clearly speculating now.... We have no evidence that leads to the conclusion you presume. Sleepy
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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 13:16
Originally posted by TITAN_

Originally posted by mojobadshah

Originally posted by TITAN_

The concept of democracy is actually prehistoric because of tribalism.

Urban democracy is a different story though. Organized city democracy began with the Spartans, back in 700 BC. Although Sparta had two kings, it still had a democratic body of "senators" plus the "Apela". That is the first recorded democracy that we know of, in details!

Spartan democracy may have been more advanced and dated to 700 BCE, but my point was the fact that IE. people other than the Greeks practiced military democracies including the Persians, Celts, Vikings, and Polish that the democracy must be rooted in PIE. culture.  


Military democracies were not limited to IE people.... PIE culture is almost non-attested due to lack of writing back then (for instance 3000 BCE), so you are clearly speculating now.... We have no evidence that leads to the conclusion you presume. Sleepy

The basic structure of primitive Indo-European societies consisted of a High King and Kings in order to protect from invaders.  The High King was elected to his position by the Kings.  The Persians had council systems such as the Council of Elders and Council of Persians and they elected their king, while the Medes did not.  The Irish practiced these council systems, but I can't recall what they were called.  The Vikings had their "Things." The Polish had electoral monarchies  The Pashtuns of have been practicing electoral monarchy as long as they can recall.  There are actually even democratic ideals in the Avesta.   
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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 13:22
What were early qausi-democratic Irish council systems called?
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 13:38
Originally posted by mojobadshah

What were early qausi-democratic Irish council systems called?


I can't recall. But the problem is the word "early" is meaningless. Irish history was initially recorded thousands of years after Hittite or Greek.Confused
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 13:42
Originally posted by mojobadshah

Originally posted by TITAN_

Originally posted by mojobadshah

Originally posted by TITAN_

The concept of democracy is actually prehistoric because of tribalism.

Urban democracy is a different story though. Organized city democracy began with the Spartans, back in 700 BC. Although Sparta had two kings, it still had a democratic body of "senators" plus the "Apela". That is the first recorded democracy that we know of, in details!

Spartan democracy may have been more advanced and dated to 700 BCE, but my point was the fact that IE. people other than the Greeks practiced military democracies including the Persians, Celts, Vikings, and Polish that the democracy must be rooted in PIE. culture.  


Military democracies were not limited to IE people.... PIE culture is almost non-attested due to lack of writing back then (for instance 3000 BCE), so you are clearly speculating now.... We have no evidence that leads to the conclusion you presume. Sleepy

The basic structure of primitive Indo-European societies consisted of a High King and Kings in order to protect from invaders.  The High King was elected to his position by the Kings.  The Persians had council systems such as the Council of Elders and Council of Persians and they elected their king, while the Medes did not.  The Irish practiced these council systems, but I can't recall what they were called.  The Vikings had their "Things." The Polish had electoral monarchies  The Pashtuns of have been practicing electoral monarchy as long as they can recall.  There are actually even democratic ideals in the Avesta.   


You can't really compare all those different types of "democracies" simply because some were recorded 1000 years or more later than others, therefore copying each other is something you have to consider. You have to bear in mind the influence that Greece and Rome had on the rest of Europe. Together with writing, the Classical civilization brought ideas that were copied by other more primitive and less developed civilizations of the North.
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  Quote Ollios Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 14:14
It is hard to believe. I think military democracy is common system before all the monarchies. Monarch needs more complex society.
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04-Aug-2013 at 17:51
I am under the impression that the term "democracy" lost its meaning, within this thread!  Democracy means rule of the citizens. Demos means the whole city, not a tribe of 56 primitive cannibals or something Dead

There cannot be "democracy" without an urban population of thousands....
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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Aug-2013 at 12:07
Originally posted by TITAN_

I am under the impression that the term "democracy" lost its meaning, within this thread!  Democracy means rule of the citizens. Demos means the whole city, not a tribe of 56 primitive cannibals or something Dead

There cannot be "democracy" without an urban population of thousands....

Technically military democracy was rule by the citizens: the low kings or tribal chieftains who represented the tribe.  Military democracy was not an absolute democracy, but neither was Athenian democracy. 

On another note, your whole line of thinking is that if something was fixed in writing later in history that it must have happened only when it was fixed in writing, and could not have developed earlier.  It's a a very rigid way to tell history.   The theory behind PIE culture is that if several Indo-European people practiced a certain kind of institution like electing rulers then the chances are that this practice was rooted in a common shared ancestor.   If the Aryans (Irano-Afghans), Celts, Vikings, and Polish all from different subgroups of IE. practiced military democracy then military democracy must have been the primitive democracy, otherwise, what did they practice before then?
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Aug-2013 at 12:50
Again, there is a huge difference between just "voting" and democracy. Democracy is a complex system of government where voting is only one of its key elements. Others are: supervision, electoral bodies, limitations to authority and power, governing posts taken by citizens for specific periods of time etc. 

My line of thinking is this: unless something is attested well, we speculate too much! History is not based upon speculations so much. It is based upon evidence: Archaeological findings and written documentation that supports or connects to those findings... You seem to prefer speculations????

The theory behind PIE culture is that it was actually a  number of tribes that shared the same language and customs (perhaps gods as well) that split circa 3000 BCE or earlier, when the only writing scripts available could come from Egypt or Sumer, both non IE cultures...

Unfortunately, IE writing came into existence well after the PIE split, around 1700 BCE. You do realize that by that time, the IE peoples had already spreaded from Europe to Northern India. Those populations influenced each other but they also had different customs, many of which were not recorded until a few centuries CE! So, the bottom line is we don't have a complete picture, only fragments of cultural elements and in order to solve the puzzle that you mention we are going to have to add so much speculation that it won't be a historical debate anymore but merely a gambling competition...
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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Aug-2013 at 13:27
Originally posted by TITAN_

Again, there is a huge difference between just "voting" and democracy. Democracy is a complex system of government where voting is only one of its key elements. Others are: supervision, electoral bodies, limitations to authority and power, governing posts taken by citizens for specific periods of time etc. 

I'm not saying military democracy and Athenian democracy are the same things.  I'm saying that military democracy was a primitive form of democracy. 
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  Quote TITAN_ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Aug-2013 at 13:41
Originally posted by mojobadshah

Originally posted by TITAN_

Again, there is a huge difference between just "voting" and democracy. Democracy is a complex system of government where voting is only one of its key elements. Others are: supervision, electoral bodies, limitations to authority and power, governing posts taken by citizens for specific periods of time etc. 

I'm not saying military democracy and Athenian democracy are the same things.  I'm saying that military democracy was a primitive form of democracy. 


Ok then. We agree on that. However the problem is this: We cannot possibly know when "military democracy" began.  The Trojan War shows elements of that too... And the Iliad is about events that took place circa 1200 BC....
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  Quote mojobadshah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Aug-2013 at 13:54
Originally posted by TITAN_

Originally posted by mojobadshah

Originally posted by TITAN_

Again, there is a huge difference between just "voting" and democracy. Democracy is a complex system of government where voting is only one of its key elements. Others are: supervision, electoral bodies, limitations to authority and power, governing posts taken by citizens for specific periods of time etc. 

I'm not saying military democracy and Athenian democracy are the same things.  I'm saying that military democracy was a primitive form of democracy. 


Ok then. We agree on that. However the problem is this: We cannot possibly know when "military democracy" began.  The Trojan War shows elements of that too... And the Iliad is about events that took place circa 1200 BC....

This may be worth noting: 

The Old Norse, Old Frisian and Old English þing with the meaning "assembly" is identical in origin to the English wordthing, German Ding, Dutch ding, and modern Scandinavian ting when meaning "object".[1] They are derived from Proto-Germanic *þingą meaning "appointed time", and some suggest an origin in Proto-Indo-European *ten-, "stretch", as in a "stretch of time for an assembly".[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thing_(assembly)




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