1. Introduction

In middle of I millennium BC Greece completed the transition to slave system. On the nature and timing of this transition is critical impact has emerged quite early Greeks maritime trade - it development stimulated the growth of cities and the establishment of Greek colonies around the Mediterranean, propelled the property stratification of society. Thanks lively relations with other countries in shopping centers of Greece became a powerful centers of culture, which gathered the latest advances in technology, science, literature and law.

Socio-political system of ancient Greece was a peculiar system of independent policies, ie, small, sometimes even tiny states. Area policy consisted of the city and surrounding villages. According to the calculations of modern historians strength of the free population policy is rarely reached 100 thousand man.

General feature of the polis life VII-V vv. BC was the struggle between the tribal aristocracy, becoming a slave hereditary nobility, and trade and craft circles, formed together with separate layers peasantry democratic camp. Depending on the superiority of one party or another State power in the policy took the form of an aristocratic government (eg, at Sparta) or democracy (Athens), or transient government tyranny (tyranny - the power of one or more persons, usurped her force).

C transformation of slavery in the dominant mode of exploitation increased property free inequality, exacerbated social contradictions of Greek society. Wealthy slaveholders, pushing the nobility and the democratically minded middle classes, set in a number of policies oligarchic regimes. The struggle among the free population contributed to the antagonistic relationship slaveholders and slaves. Based on the rule of aristocracy or democracy State policies were combined in the military-political coalition State unions (the Delian League, Peloponnesian League under the hegemony of Sparta and others). The struggle between these coalitions creates political coups in the policy and the internecine wars, the most ambitious of which was Peloponnesian War 431-404 years. BC

In result of protracted civil wars, undermined the economy, policies are in decline and undergoing a deep crisis. In the second half of IV century. to AD ancient Greek states were conquered by Macedonia, and later (II century. to AD) - Rome.

Political ideology of ancient Greece, like other countries in ancient times, formed in process of decomposition of the myth and the allocation of relatively independent forms of public consciousness. The development of this process in ancient Greece, where the situation slave-owning society, was particularly significant in comparison with countries of the Ancient East.

Intensive trading activity of the Greeks, increasing their cognitive horizons, improving technical skills, active participation of citizens in affairs policy, particularly democratic, triggered a crisis of mythological ideas and encouraged to seek new ways of explaining what is happening in the world. On these grounds in ancient Greek philosophy emerges as a special, theoretical form of ideology. Political and legal concepts are beginning to develop in within the general philosophical teachings.

In of philosophical outlook were then all forms of theoretical consciousness - the natural philosophy, theology, ethics, political theory, etc. Political and legal doctrines of ancient Greece took shape as a result of complex interactions of political ideology with other forms of social consciousness.

For development of socio-political theory of paramount importance was the expansion empirical knowledge. The diversity of political experience in States policy, stimulated theoretical generalizations practice exercise of power and the creation of exercises, which raise issues of states, their classification, the best form of the device. Legal thought of ancient Greece is constantly appealed to the comparative study laws, which installed the first legislators in the policy (Lycurgus - in Sparta Solon - in Athens). In the works of Greek thinkers developed a classification of the forms of the state (monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, etc.) included in the conceptual apparatus of modernpolitical science.

On content of ancient political and legal concepts has also had a huge impact development of ethics, adoption of the slave society in the individualistic morality. Private property relations and slavery undermined the patriarchal foundations of community life that prevailed in the policy, opposed to each individual friend. If the ethical and political concepts of the Ancient East, it was about one or different interpretation of communal morality, in ancient Greece to the forefront put forward issues relating to the position of the individual in society, the possibility moral choice and the subjective side of human behavior. Based on the ideas moral freedom of the individual, the democratic representatives developed the doctrine of equality of citizens and the contractual origin of the law and the state.

Beginning from III century. BC, when ancient Greek states lost their independence, in the public consciousness is undergoing profound changes. Among free population growing mood of frustration and political indifference, amplified religious quest. Theoretical studies of policies in this period replaced moralizing individualistic persuasion (stoicism, a school Epicurus).