| The powerful democratic system of city-states and the prosperous literature in ancient Greece have become the unequalled spectacles of the western civilization beginning in the classical period. The rise of advanced social organization and the outstanding achievements of aesthetic appreciation represents the historical level of the ancient Greeks' social civilization, and all of them are of important research value in the history of civilization development. The present study, Ancient Greek Drama and the Athenian Constitution, mainly examines the following problems: the ways and laws of development in terms of the mutual dependence between ancient Greek drama (chiefly the works of Athenian playwrights) and the Athenian constitution, the mutual influences that they exert on each other, and the restrictions they put on each other. This research also focuses on the law of interaction between dramatic art and social politics. The purpose of the study is to understand this old but still fresh question.To achieve this purpose, first of all, the dissertation briefly traces the origin of ancient Greek drama, and analyses the artistic characteristics of ancient Greek drama, so as to demonstrate the social-historical meanings and the artistic spirit of ancient Greek drama, to explain the artistic, traditional root from which the ancient Greek drama and democratic politics ofancient Greece moves together towards the flourishing prosperity.Next, the dissertation deals briefly with the stages of the development of the Athenian constitutions, and demonstrates the social basis and cultural demands for its development in the classical city-state era. The establishment and development of the Athenian constitution resulted from forces of both basic social conflicts of Athens and conflicts among the city-states. Specifically speaking, the Athenian constitution is a contract form made by all classes and groups for keeping their own economic benefits. Athens chose a highly democratic constitution according to its special historical backgrounds and social construction. It seems that the purpose of the choice (though it was unconscious for Athenians in some degree) is to overcome the conflicts that took place within the city-states, to maintain restriction and cooperation among various forces, to protect and motivate the Athenians' subjective initiative so as to contradict the opposing forces around, until the goal of extending the Athenian orbit and dominating other city-states and controlling the Mediterranean Sea is realized.Under the pushing forces of conflicts inside and outside the city-states mentioned above, the Athenian society developed from the spontaneous stage into the conscious stage gradually and entered a time of art and culture constructions. All Athenians fervently involved themselves in the theatres, especially tragedy. Except for making widely known to the public the city-states' cultural life with sculptures, buildings,and drawings, the Athenians enthusiastically attended and supported the theatres, especially tragedy dramas. Athenian theatres thus became a huge classroom of civic education, a church of civic worship and a place of civic inebriety and aesthetic enjoyment.The Athenian city-state liberated its people in historical progression from aristocracy and oligarchy to democracy. The liberation guaranteed high speed economic development, and also rapidly strengthened the city-state. This provided a aesthetic basis of the object for the Athenians and even Greek theatric art, and cultivated the creative aesthetic subject. This enables ancient Greek drama actually to go so far as to achieve the height that people after that can not imagine to surpass.Again, this dissertation based on contradictions and characteristics of changes, analyses in detail the active progressive effects that ancient Greek drama, as an advocator and a criticizer, produced on the Athenian constitution and the influences that the political life of Athens exercised on Greek drama. In the meanwhile, it argues for t...
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