short essay on athenian democracy

Athenian Democracy

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Athenian Democracy refers to the system of democratic government used in Athens , Greece from the 5th to 4th century BCE. Under this system, all male citizens - the dēmos - had equal political rights, freedom of speech, and the opportunity to participate directly in the political arena.

In Athenian democracy, not only did citizens participate in a direct democracy whereby they themselves made the decisions by which they lived, but they also actively served in the institutions that governed them, and so they directly controlled all parts of the political process.

Ancient Sources

Other city -states had, at one time or another, systems of democracy, notably Argos , Syracuse , Rhodes , and Erythrai. In addition, sometimes even oligarchic systems could involve a high degree of political equality, but the Athenian version, starting from c. 460 BCE and ending c. 320 BCE and involving all male citizens, was certainly the most developed.

The contemporary sources which describe the workings of democracy typically relate to Athens and include such texts as the Constitution of the Athenians from the School of Aristotle ; the works of the Greek historians Herodotus , Thucydides , and Xenophon ; texts of over 150 speeches by such figures as Demosthenes ; inscriptions in stone of decrees, laws, contracts, public honours and more; and Greek Comedy plays such as those by Aristophanes . Unfortunately, sources on the other democratic governments in ancient Greece are few and far between. This being the case, the following remarks on democracy are focussed on the Athenians.

The Assembly & Council

The word democracy ( dēmokratia ) derives from dēmos , which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos , meaning rule. Any male citizen could, then, participate in the main democratic body of Athens, the assembly ( ekklēsia ). In the 4th and 5th centuries BCE the male citizen population of Athens ranged from 30,000 to 60,000 depending on the period. The assembly met at least once a month, more likely two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate around 6000 citizens. Any citizen could speak to the assembly and vote on decisions by simply holding up their hands. The majority won the day and the decision was final. Nine presidents ( proedroi ), elected by lot and holding the office one time only, organised the proceedings and assessed the voting.

Specific issues discussed in the assembly included deciding military and financial magistracies, organising and maintaining food supplies, initiating legislation and political trials, deciding to send envoys, deciding whether or not to sign treaties, voting to raise or spend funds, and debating military matters. The assembly could also vote to ostracise from Athens any citizen who had become too powerful and dangerous for the polis . In this case there was a secret ballot where voters wrote a name on a piece of broken pottery ( ostrakon ). An important element in the debates was freedom of speech ( parrhēsia ) which became, perhaps, the citizen's most valued privilege. After suitable discussion, temporary or specific decrees ( psēphismata ) were adopted and laws ( nomoi ) defined. The assembly also ensured decisions were enforced and officials were carrying out their duties correctly.

There was in Athens (and also Elis, Tegea , and Thasos) a smaller body, the boulē , which decided or prioritised the topics which were discussed in the assembly. In addition, in times of crisis and war , this body could also take decisions without the assembly meeting. The boulē or council was composed of 500 citizens who were chosen by lot and who served for one year with the limitation that they could serve no more than two non-consecutive years. The boulē represented the 139 districts of Attica and acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly. It was this body which supervised any administrative committees and officials on behalf of the assembly.

Then there was also an executive committee of the boulē which consisted of one tribe of the ten which participated in the boulē (i.e., 50 citizens, known as prytaneis ) elected on a rotation basis, so each tribe composed the executive once each year. This executive of the executive had a chairman ( epistates ) who was chosen by lot each day. The 50-man prytany met in the building known as the Bouleuterion in the Athenian agora and safe-guarded the sacred treasuries.

In tandem with all these political institutions were the law courts ( dikasteria ) which were composed of 6,000 jurors and a body of chief magistrates ( archai ) chosen annually by lot. Indeed, there was a specially designed machine of coloured tokens ( kleroterion ) to ensure those selected were chosen randomly, a process magistrates had to go through twice. It was here in the courts that laws made by the assembly could be challenged and decisions were made regarding ostracism, naturalization, and remission of debt.

This complex system was, no doubt, to ensure a suitable degree of checks and balances to any potential abuse of power, and to ensure each traditional region was equally represented and given equal powers. With people chosen at random to hold important positions and with terms of office strictly limited, it was difficult for any individual or small group to dominate or unduly influence the decision-making process either directly themselves or, because one never knew exactly who would be selected, indirectly by bribing those in power at any one time.

Participation in Government

As we have seen, only male citizens who were 18 years or over could speak (at least in theory) and vote in the assembly, whilst the positions such as magistrates and jurors were limited to those over 30 years of age. Therefore, women , slaves, and resident foreigners ( metoikoi ) were excluded from the political process.

The mass involvement of all male citizens and the expectation that they should participate actively in the running of the polis is clear in this quote from Thucydides:

We alone consider a citizen who does not partake in politics not only one who minds his own business but useless.

Illustrating the esteem in which democratic government was held, there was even a divine personification of the ideal of democracy, the goddess Demokratia. Direct involvement in the politics of the polis also meant that the Athenians developed a unique collective identity and probably too, a certain pride in their system, as shown in Pericles ' famous Funeral Oration for the Athenian dead in 431 BCE, the first year of the Peloponnesian War :

Athens' constitution is called a democracy because it respects the interests not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. (Thuc. 2.37)

Although active participation was encouraged, attendance in the assembly was paid for in certain periods, which was a measure to encourage citizens who lived far away and could not afford the time off to attend. This money was only to cover expenses though, as any attempt to profit from public positions was severely punished. Citizens probably accounted for 10-20% of the polis population, and of these it has been estimated that only 3,000 or so people actively participated in politics. Of this group, perhaps as few as 100 citizens - the wealthiest, most influential, and the best speakers - dominated the political arena both in front of the assembly and behind the scenes in private conspiratorial political meetings ( xynomosiai ) and groups ( hetaireiai ). These groups had to meet secretly because although there was freedom of speech, persistent criticism of individuals and institutions could lead to accusations of conspiring tyranny and so lead to ostracism.

Critics of democracy, such as Thucydides and Aristophanes, pointed out that not only were proceedings dominated by an elite, but that the dēmos could be too often swayed by a good orator or popular leaders (the demagogues), get carried away with their emotions, or lack the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Perhaps the most notoriously bad decisions taken by the Athenian dēmos were the execution of six generals after they had actually won the battle of Arginousai in 406 BCE and the death sentence given to the philosopher Socrates in 399 BCE.

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Democracy, which had prevailed during Athens' Golden Age, was replaced by a system of oligarchy in 411 BCE. The constitutional change, according to Thucydides, seemed the only way to win much-needed support from Persia against the old enemy Sparta and, further, it was thought that the change would not be a permanent one. Nevertheless, democracy in a slightly altered form did eventually return to Athens and, in any case, the Athenians had already done enough in creating their political system to eventually influence subsequent civilizations two millennia later.

In the words of historian K. A. Raaflaub, democracy in ancient Athens was

a unique and truly revolutionary system that realized its basic principle to an unprecedented and quite extreme extent: no polis had ever dared to give all its citizens equal political rights, regardless of their descent, wealth, social standing, education, personal qualities, and any other factors that usually determined status in a community.

Ideals such as these would form the cornerstones of all democracies in the modern world. The ancient Greeks have provided us with fine art, breath-taking temples, timeless theatre , and some of the greatest philosophers, but it is democracy which is, perhaps, their greatest and most enduring legacy.

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Bibliography

• Ferguson J. et al. Political and Social Life in the Great Age of Athens. Ward Lock Educational Co Ltd, 1979.
• Herodotus. The Landmark Herodotus. Anchor Books, 2009.
• Hornblower, S. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Kinzl et al. A Companion to the Classical Greek World. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
• Nichols et al. The Oxford Handbook of Hellenic Studies. Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Thucydides. The Landmark Thucydides. Free Press, 1998.

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Cartwright, M. (2018, April 03). Athenian Democracy . World History Encyclopedia . Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/Athenian_Democracy/

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Cartwright, Mark. " Athenian Democracy ." World History Encyclopedia . Last modified April 03, 2018. https://www.worldhistory.org/Athenian_Democracy/.

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How Democracy Developed in Ancient Greece

By: Becky Little

Updated: June 29, 2023 | Original: August 2, 2021

In the late 6th century B.C., the Greek city-state of Athens began to lay the foundations for a new kind of political system. This demokratia , as it became known, was a direct democracy that gave political power to free male Athenian citizens rather than a ruling aristocratic class or dictator, which had largely been the norm in Athens for several hundred years before.

Athens’ demokratia, which lasted until 322 B.C., is one of the earliest known examples of democracy; and although recent scholarship has complicated the Eurocentric view that it was the first democracy, this ancient political system was extremely influential in the Mediterranean region. It inspired similar political systems in other Greek city-states and influenced the ancient Roman Republic.

Athenian Men Join the Assembly

The last tyrannos , or tyrant, to rule Athens was Hippias, who fled the city when Sparta invaded in 510 B.C. Two or three years later, an Athenian aristocrat named Cleisthenes helped introduce democratic reforms. Over the next several decades, subsequent reforms expanded this political system while also narrowing the definition of who counted as an Athenian citizen.

What was Cleisthenes’ motivation for initiating these changes? Unfortunately, “we don’t have any good contemporary historical Athenian sources that tell us what’s going on,” says Paul Cartledge , a classics professor at the University of Cambridge. After the 514 B.C. assassination of Hippias’ brother, Cleisthenes may have sensed there was growing public support for a system in which the city-state was not governed by an elite ruling class.

“Cleisthenes, I think probably partly for his own personal self-promotion, put himself forward as champion of the majority view, which was that we must have some form of popular, ‘people’ regime,” Cartledge says.

To participate in the demokratia, a person had to be free, male and Athenian. In the beginning of the democratic period, Athenian men had to have an Athenian father and a free mother. By the mid-5th century B.C., Athens changed the law so that only men with Athenian fathers and mothers could claim citizenship. Because there were no birth certificates (or DNA tests) to prove parentage, a young Athenian man’s political life began when his father introduced him at their local demos , or political unit, by swearing that he was his father and bringing witnesses to attest to this, Cartledge says.

The Athenian democracy was direct, rather than representative, meaning that Athenian men themselves made up the Assembly. Because there were no population censuses, we don’t know exactly how many Athenian men there were in the 5th century B.C., but historians have commonly estimated the number to be around 30,000. Of those, around 5,000 might regularly attend Assembly meetings. In addition, Athenian men served on juries and were annually selected by lot to serve on the Council of 500.

There were other government positions that were in theory open to all Athenian men, although wealth and location played a large role in whether a man could take on a full-time government job or even make it to the Assembly to vote in the first place. Still, there were some positions that were only open to elites: the treasurers were always wealthy (ostensibly because wealthy men knew how to handle finances), and the 10 generals who occupied the top government office were always elite, well-known men.

Political Citizenship Remained Narrow

And then, of course, there were all the other people in Athens who were completely cut off from political participation.

Assuming that there were about 30,000 Athenian men when the city-state developed its democracy, historians estimate there were probably about 90,000 other people living in Athens. A sizable portion of these people would have been non-Athenians who were enslaved (by law, Athenians couldn’t enslave other Athenians). Others were “resident aliens” who were free and lived in Athens but didn’t meet the requirements for Athenian citizenship. The rest were Athenian women and children, both of whom couldn’t join the Assembly.

Although these groups never gained the same political rights as Athenian men, there was some debate about whether they should be able to, says Josiah Ober , a classics professor at Stanford University.

“We know that the question of ‘could women be political beings?’ was debated,” he says. In 391 B.C., the Greek playwright Aristophanes wrote a comedy,  Assemblywomen,  in which women take over Athens’ government. “It’s meant to be funny in some ways, but there’s a serious thought behind it,” he says. Although Aristotle thought women weren’t psychologically fit for politics, Ober notes that Aristotle’s teacher, Plato, wrote in The Republic (circa 375 B.C.) that an ideal political system would include both women and men.

In addition, “there were moves several times in Athenian crisis history to…free large numbers of slaves to make them citizens, or at least make them resident aliens, on the argument that [Athens] needed more people who were full participants in the war effort,” Ober says. However, “these tended to get defeated.”

Athens’ democratic period also coincided with the city-state’s tightening of its control over what was originally a voluntary alliance of Greek city-states, but had now become an Athenian empire. The city-states had their own governments, some of which were influenced by Athens’ democratic system, but didn’t have any political power in Athens’ demokratia.

Athens’ democracy officially ended in 322 B.C., when Macedonia imposed an oligarchic government on Athens after defeating the city-state in battle. One of the Athenian democracy’s major legacies was its influence on the Roman Republic, which lasted until 27 B.C. The Roman Republic took the idea of direct democracy and amended it to create a representative democracy—a form of government that Europeans and European colonists became interested in several centuries later.

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Athenian Democracy: a brief overview

This article was originally written for the online discussion series “athenian law in its democratic context”....

· Summary · This article was originally written for the online discussion series “Athenian Law in its Democratic Context,” organized by Adriaan Lanni and sponsored by Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies. Its purpose is to introduce, very briefly, the institutions of the Athenian democracy during the late 5th century BCE through the end of the radical democracy in the late 4th century.  · Introduction · The city of Athens lived under a radically democratic government from 508 until 322 BCE. Before the earlier date there was democracy to be found here and there in the government of Athens, and democratic institutions survived long after the latter date, but for those 186 years the city of Athens was self-consciously and decidedly democratic, autonomous, aggressive, and prosperous. Democracy in Athens was not limited to giving citizens the right to vote. Athens was not a republic, nor were the People governed by a representative body of legislators. In a very real sense, the People governed themselves, debating and voting individually on issues great and small, from matters of war and peace to the proper qualifications for ferry-boat captains (for the latter, see Aeschin. 3.157).1 The Athenian democracy was not, of course, a free-for-all of mob rule. The Athenians understood the value of checks and balances and of enforcing time for reflection before acting. They understood that professionalism is necessary in certain jobs, that accountability was necessary of most jobs, and that some jobs required absolute job-security. The system evolved over time, suffered two complete breakdowns in the 5th century, and is certainly open to criticism at many points during its history. Nevertheless, it was coherent enough during those two centuries that we can describe it, in general terms, without being too far wrong on any point. And despite its moments of imprudence, injustice, and indecision, it was an experiment remarkable enough to deserve our attention. The early history of Athenian Democracy and its development is the subject of another article in this series. This general description of how the Athenians governed themselves will focus on the 4th century BCE, both because the democracy was most fully developed during that time and because the majority of our evidence either comes from that period, or describes the the Athenian government during that period. · The Demos · For the Athenians, “democracy” (demokratia, δημοκρατία) gave Rule (kratos, κράτος) to the Demos (Δῆμος). Demos (pronounced “day-moss”) has several meanings, all of them important for Athenian democracy. Demos is the Greek word for “village” or, as it is often translated, “deme.” The deme was the smallest administrative unit of the Athenian state, like a voting precinct or school district. Young men, who were 18 years old presented themselves to officials of their deme and, having proven that they were not slaves, that their parents were Athenian, and that they were 18 years old, were enrolled in the “Assembly List” (the pinax ekklesiastikos, πίναξ ἐκκλησιαστικός) (see Dem. 44.35; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42.1). Another meaning of Demos, to the Athenians, was “People,” as in the People of Athens, the body of citizens collectively. So a young man was enrolled in his “demos” (deme), and thus became a member of the Demos (the People). As a member of the Demos, this young man could participate in the Assembly of Citizens that was the central institution of the democracy. The Greek word for “Assembly” is ekklesia (ἐκκλησία), but the Athenians generally referred to it as the “Demos.” Decrees of the Assembly began with the phrase “It seemed best to the Demos…,” very much like the phrase “We the People…” that introduces the Constitution of the United States. In this context, “Demos” was used to make a distinction between the Assembly of all citizens and the Council of 500 citizens, another institution of the democracy (see below). So some decrees might begin “It seemed best to the Demos…”, others might begin “It seemed best to the Council…”, and still others might begin, “It seemed best to the Demos and the Council….” So the Athenian Demos was the local village, the population generally, and the assembly of citizens that governed the state. · Athenian Democracy: an Overview · The democratic government of Athens rested on three main institutions, and a few others of lesser importance. The three pillars of democracy were: the Assembly of the Demos, the Council of 500, and the People’s Court. These were supplemented by the Council of the Areopagus, the Archons, and the Generals. Actual legislation involved both the Assembly and the Council, and ad hoc boards of “Lawmakers.” This summary will describe the Assembly, the Council, and the process of legislation in the greatest detail, along with a shorter description of the Council of the Areopagus. The People’s Court will be covered briefly and then left for fuller treatment in other resources. While Generals and Archons will appear here and there in the descriptions of other institutions, they were really servants of the Demos and do not require extensive discussion in this relatively brief introduction to Athenian Democracy. · Athenian Democracy: the Assembly · The Assembly (Ekklesia, ἐκκλησία) was the regular gathering of male Athenian citizens (women also enjoyed a certain citizen status, but without political rights) to listen to, discuss, and vote on decrees that affected every aspect of Athenian life, both public and private, from financial matters to religious ones, from public festivals to war, from treaties with foreign powers to regulations governing ferry boats. The Assembly was the regular opportunity for all male citizens of Athens to speak their minds and exercise their votes regarding the government of their city. It was the most central and most definitive institution of the Athenian Democracy. Before 462 BCE, the Court of the Areopagus controlled legislation in Athens, but in that year Ephialtes instituted a reform that diminished the power of the Areopagus and increased the power of the Assembly of the people (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 25.2; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 27.1; Plut. Cim. 15.2; Plut. Per. 9.5). This Assembly became synonymous with democracy. When Aristotle describes how democratic government was restored, after Sparta defeated Athens in 404 BCE, he says that this restoration happened when the People (Demos, Δῆμος) became sovereign over affairs (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 41.1). Under this government, he says, the People administers all business by decrees and by law-courts (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 41.2). When Aristotle mentions the People and government by decrees, he is describing the Assembly. In the Assembly each male citizen of Athens could speak, regardless of his station. The orator Aeschines says that “the herald, acting as a sergeant-at-arms, does not exclude from the platform the man whose ancestors have not held a general’s office, nor even the man who earns his daily bread by working at a trade; nay, these men he most heartily welcomes, and for this reason he repeats again and again the invitation, ‘Who wishes to address the Assembly?’” (Aeschin. 1.27) The orator Demosthenes could scold his fellow Athenians for failing to recollect certain events, because they “were present at every Assembly, as the state proposed a discussion of policy in which every one might join” (Dem. 18.273). “Everyone,” in this context, refers to the body of citizens who were registered on the Assembly List for their local Deme (Dem. 44.35). Under the Democracy of Aristotle’s time (after 330 BCE), young men were enrolled on this list when they were 18 years old (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42.1), then spent two years as military cadets, or ephebes, ἔφηβοι (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42.4), after which they were members of the citizen body (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 42.5). Of course, some people might be better qualified than others to speak on certain subjects, and the citizens of Athens could be very critical when anyone tried to speak outside of his expertise. The character Socrates in Plato’s Protagoras says that “when the Athenian Assembly is discussing construction, the citizens call for builders to speak, and when it is discussing the construction of ships they call for shipwrights, but if anyone else, whom the people do not regard as a craftsman, attempts to advise them, no matter how handsome and wealthy and well-born he may be, not one of these things induces them to accept him; they merely laugh him to scorn and shout him down, until either the speaker retires from his attempt, overborne by the clamor, or the Archers pull him from his place or turn him out altogether by order of the presiding officials” (Plat. Prot. 319b - Plat. Prot. 319c). But, Socrates continues, when the discussion is not about technical matters but about the governing of the city, the man who rises to advise them on this may equally well be a smith, a shoemaker, a merchant, a sea-captain, a rich man, a poor man, of good family or of none (Plat. Prot. 319d). There is the question of participation by Athenians living in the countryside of Attica, outside the city of Athens. While these people were certainly citizens of Athens, it may often have been difficult for them to attend a meeting of the Assembly. This would have been especially true when emergency meetings were called on short notice, such as the occasion when news of a military disaster came to the city in the evening, and a special Assembly convened the very next morning (Dem. 18.169). This Assembly, and any others like it, must have consisted mainly of citizens living close to the city. And even when there was more warning before a meeting, we have to wonder how many Athenians living in the countryside of Attica would have made a 50 or 60 mile journey to downtown Athens and back. In the 5th century we can estimate the adult male population of Athens, and thus the number of men eligible to participate in an Assembly, to have been 40,000 - 60,000, and in the 4th century, 20,000 - 30,000. But the number of Athenians in attendance at a given meeting seems to have been considerably lower. Thucydides makes the statement that during the Peloponnesian War (331 - 404 BCE) there were usually only 5000 people at a meeting (Thuc. 8.72), although he may be exaggerating downwards; a better measure of regular attendance might be the fact that 6000 citizens were required for a valid vote conferring citizenship on a non-Athenian (the earliest evidence for this rule dates from 369 BCE) (IG II2 103; Dem. 24.45; Dem. 59.89). When the Assembly met, the male citizens assembled to discuss the affairs of the city, and this discussion required that each citizen have freedom to speak his mind. This freedom was vital to the proper functioning of the Assembly, whether the issue at stake was some important public policy (Dem. 15.1), or the rights of a single citizen (Dem. 18.3). In an anecdote from the distant past, Demosthenes suggests that freedom of speech had a long history at Athens, and persisted despite periodic attempts to limit it. He recounts how in the 6th century BCE the island of Salamis had revolted from Athenian control, and the Athenians had forbidden anyone even to propose a war to recover the island; but Solon, a real person whose place in Athenian history became subject of legend, composed a poem on the subject (poetry on the subject was evidently not forbidden), and through this ruse got around the law and convinced Athens to fight for Salamis (Dem. 19.252). By the 4th century BCE, discussions of motions in the Assembly were opened with a general invitation to all the male citizens, as the Herald asked, “Who wishes to speak?” (Dem. 18.191; Aeschin. 1.26; Aristoph. Ach. 46). We might note, here, that Demosthenes claims a certain freedom of speech to have extended even to resident foreigners and slaves (Dem. 9.3), although he is certainly not talking about participation in the Assembly, and we should wonder how much freedom these people actually enjoyed. This freedom to speak was not absolute or without regulation. Aeschines tells us, for example, that in the early democracy (before the 5th century) citizens over 50 years of age could speak first, and only after those had their say could younger men speak (Aeschin. 1.23; Aeschin. 3.2). Other formal restrictions could apply, such as decrees limiting discussion of certain topics to certain meetings of the Assembly (Aeschin. 2.109), or even laws forbidding discussion of issues already settled in a court (Dem. 24.54). Other, less legitimate (but perhaps more effective) limits could be imposed: the crowd might raise a clamor and refuse to listen to a speaker advocate an unpopular proposal (Dem. 19.111), and this seems to have happened often enough that orators regularly asked, beforehand, not to be shouted down (Dem. 13.14). Individual citizens could lose the right to participate in the Assembly by committing various offenses (Aeschin. 1.23). Demosthenes mentions legal penalties for people who attend a meeting of the Assembly while owing a debt to the public treasury (Dem. 24.123), or who have been stricken, for some reason or another, from their deme’s register of citizens (Dem. 18.132). Also prohibited from participating were: anyone convicted of prostituting himself (Aeschin. 1.72; Aeschin. 1.21; and Aeschin. 1.32, where the orator adds, “however well he speaks”), anyone who beat his father or mother, or failed to support them, or who threw away his shield in battle, or who squandered his inheritance (Aeschin. 1.28 - Aeschin. 1.30). Any citizen who suspected another of being unqualified to participate in the Assembly could challenge him to dokimasia, or “scrutiny” (δοκιμασία), whereupon the issue would be decided by a jury in a law-court (Aeschin. 1.32). Citizens were paid for attending the Assembly, to ensure that even the poor could afford to take time from their work to participate in their own government. Aristotle recognized that inclusion of all citizens and freedom to speak are not the only hallmarks of a democratic constitution, but that the most democratic states pay their citizens for attending the Assembly. He claims that in the absence of payment, the Council (Boule, Βουλή) is the most democratic of magistracies (Aristot. Pol. 1317b), but in states that can afford to, and do, pay their citizens for attending meetings of the Assembly, all the citizens actually take part in it and exercise their citizenship, because even the poor are enabled to be at leisure by receiving pay (Aristot. Pol. 1293a). A historical anecdote recorded in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians (Aristot. Ath. Pol.) further supports this assertion: In 411, when a group of Athenians temporarily overthrew the democracy and established an oligarchy, one of their first acts was to pass a law that no one should receive pay for political activity (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 29.5; and Aristot. Ath. Pol. 33.1, referring to the subsequent regime of 411 and 410). In the 4th century, when Timocrates had proposed that the Athenians loosen enforcement of penalties against those who owe debts to the state, Demosthenes claimed that there would be no money left in the treasury to pay for attendance at the Assembly, and he went on to equate that outcome with an end to Democracy (Dem. 24.99). The traditional meeting-place for the Assembly was the open space on top of the hill of the Pnyx (Thuc. 8.97). The Pnyx was open to the sky, and thus meetings of the Assembly must have been influenced by the weather; the laws that mandated good weather omens before the election of military officers (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.4) might have been as interested in ensuring a comfortable day for discussion as in ascertaining divine favor. In the 4th century, there were 40 regularly scheduled meetings of the Assembly each year, four in each “prytany” (a “prytany” was an administrative unit equal to one tenth of the year) (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.3). One of the four meetings in each prytany was the Sovereign Assembly (kuria ekklesia, κυρία ἐκκλησία), the agenda for which included the confirmation of magistrates currently serving, issues of the food supply and defense, announcements of private property to be confiscated, and announcements of lawsuits regarding inheritance (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.4). In each prytany, there were three regular assemblies in addition to the Sovereign Assembly; these were simply called Assemblies (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.3). It seems likely that in the 5th century only the Sovereign Assemblies were regularly scheduled, because Thucydides mentions a period of 40 days in the year 431 in which there was no Assembly (Thuc. 2.22.1); if there were four scheduled assemblies in each prytany at that time, 40 days could not have passed without a meeting. Apart from the Sovereign Assembly, one of the remaining three was an occasion for any citizen who wished to present a suppliant-branch and address his fellow citizens about any public or private matter that concerned him (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.6). The ability of citizens to voice complaints in this public forum may have deterred certain bad behavior, or at least made the perpetrators think twice. Aeschines recounts how on one occasion some men assaulted a man named Pittalacus. On the next day when Pittalacus was in the marketplace, his attackers came up to him and tried to assuage him; they were afraid that their crime would be published to the whole city, since there was to be an Assembly that day (Aeschin. 1.60). The other two regularly scheduled meetings in each prytany were concerned, according to Aristotle, with other things (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.6). Some of this other business was scheduled to happen at particular assemblies during the year. At an Assembly held on the 11th day of the first prytany, the people voted on whether or not to hold an review of all the laws (Dem. 24.21). In the 6th prytany, there was discussion of whether or not to hold an ostracism, discussion of any information against people charged with being informers—in this category, no more than three citizens and three resident foreigners—and discussion of people accused of failing to perform some assigned public service (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.5). A meeting during the 6th prytany was also the occasion for election of military officers (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.4). At least until the middle of the 4th century the Assembly occasionally met to conduct a trial, most often an impeachment (Dem. 49.10). Assemblies do not seem to have taken place on fixed days during each prytany, but they did not happen on days when the law-courts were in session (Dem. 24.80). They seem also to have been scheduled around other important events, such as religious festivals. Aeschines is highly critical of an Assembly that was called on the 8th day of the month Elaphobolion, a day of sacrifices to Asclepius (the orator says that this was unprecedented in memory) (Aeschin. 3.67), and Demosthenes criticizes a motion to have the Assembly meet on the 12th of the month Hecatombaion, a festival day for Cronus (Dem. 24.26). In addition to Sovereign Assemblies (kuriai ekklesiai) and Assemblies (ekklesiai), there were Called-together Assemblies (sunkletoi ekklesiai, σύγκλητοι ἐκκλησίαι); the term appears only in literary evidence (not in inscriptions) during the 4th century, and its meaning is not entirely clear. Sometimes our sources seem to use it to refer to extra meetings, in addition to the normal four that happened in each prytany. Aeschines mentions a time when Athens was in such a panic over Philip of Macedon’s war against Amphipolis, that there were more Called-together Assemblies than scheduled Assemblies (Aeschin. 2.72). But at other times the term seems to indicate an Assembly called at short notice, but not necessarily an extra Assembly. Officials of the Council called together a meeting of the Assembly, which opened with various religious rituals before the citizens were invited to speak and vote on matters of public business. The 50 members of the Council serving as Prytaneis—the same word, prytaneis (πρυτάνεις) refers to the governmental months, ten each year, and to the members of the Council who were presiding during a given prytany—normally called meetings of the Assembly (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.3), and posted the agenda beforehand (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.4). If the Assembly was to vote on some matter by ballot, the Prytaneis distribute the ballots (Dem. 59.90). In the 5th century, the Prytaneis actually managed the conduct of a meeting of the Assembly (Xen. Hell. 1.7.14), but in Aristotle’s time (after the middle of the 4th century), the President of the Council appointed nine Proedroi for each Assembly; these were chosen from members of the Council who were not currently serving as Prytaneis (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.2). These Proedroi managed the conduct of the Assembly; deciding when to put a question to the vote (Aeschin. 2.84; Aeschin. 2.68), and deciding when to cut off discussion of a matter (Aeschin. 2.67). The People did, on occasion, override the will of the officials conducting the meetings, as when, in the late 5th century, the Prytaneis were unwilling to allow a vote, the People overrode them with menacing shouts (Xen. Hell. 1.7.14). The selection or appointment of Proedroi was potentially subject to corruption, which Aeschines hints at on two occasions (Aeschin. 3.73; Aeschin. 2.90). In addition to these Proedroi, the Assembly elected a clerk (grammateus, γραμματεύς) to read documents aloud (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 54.5); the orator Aeschines served as a clerk early in his career, although we do not know whether he was the clerk appointed to read in the Assembly (Dem. 19.79). The opening of a meeting of the Assembly was marked by rituals. A sacrifice was made and carried around the area, and there was a prayer, both of these intended to purify the proceedings (Aeschin. 1.23; Aeschin. 2.158; a parody of this prayer is found at Aristoph. Thes. 314). The heralds offered the prayer (Aeschin. 1.23; Dem. 24.20). The herald also called down curses (kataratai, καταρᾶται) on anyone who would mislead the Assembly (Dem. 19.70; Dem. 23.97; there is a parody of this at Aristoph. Thes. 335). After these rituals, the Herald asked “Who wishes to speak?,” and the Assembly was opened (Dem. 18.191; Aeschin. 1.26; Aristoph. Ach. 46; cf. a possible parody of this at Aristoph. Eccl. 130). Most voting in the Assembly was by a show of hands (cheirotonia, χειροτονία), although some votes were conducted by secret ballot (psephos, ψῆφος, literally “pebble”). Even the most serious of matters were often decided by show of hands, such as the impeachment and condemnation of generals (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 34.1) and the approval of formal laws (nomoi, νόμοι) (Dem. 24.20) (laws were more significant than decrees; see below). This method of voting limited the business of the Assembly to daylight hours, as this anecdote from Xenophon shows: “It was decided, however, that the matter should be postponed to another meeting of the Assembly (for by that time it was late in the day and they could not have distinguished the hands in the voting).” (Xen. Hell. 1.7.7). Under certain circumstances, the Assembly would vote by ballot (psephos) (Xen. Hell. 1.7.9). Voting by ballot was limited to issues which had to be decided by a quorum of 6000 citizens (Dem. 59.89 - Dem. 59.90). Once the Assembly had approved something, the decree, its date, and the names of the officials who put the matter to the vote, were recorded and preserved as a public record of the proceedings of government (Aeschin. 2.89; Aeschin. 2.58; Aeschin. 3.75). · Athenian Democracy: the Council · The Council of 500 represented the full-time government of Athens. It consisted of 500 citizens, 50 from each of the ten tribes, who served for one year. The Council could issue decrees on its own, regarding certain matters, but its main function was to prepare the agenda for meetings of the Assembly. The Council would meet to discuss and vote on “Preliminary decrees” (probouleumata, προβουλεύματα), and any of these that passed the Council’s vote went on for discussion and voting in the Assembly. Each member of the Council (boule, βουλή) was a Councilor (bouleutes, βουλευτής, in the plural, bouleutai) (see for example Aeschin. 1.104; Andoc. 2.14). Aristotle lists service on the Council among those offices chosen by lot (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 62.1). He elsewhere says that in a democratic city, the Council was the most important board of magistrates (Aristot. Pol. 1322b). Through most of the 5th and 4th centures BCE, citizens were paid for their participation in the Council (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 62.2), and each citizen could serve on the Council twice in his lifetime (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 62.3). Although participation in the Council was paid, and considered an office, it also seems to have been considered an unexceptional part of a citizen’s life, rather than a part of a political career. In Plato’s Apology of Socrates (an account, perhaps largely fictional, of the speech Socrates gave when on trial for impiety), Socrates says that he served on the Council (Plat. Apol. 32a-b), but also says that he never participated in politics (Plat. Apol. 31c-d). So, in Plato’s account, it seems that service on the Council did not indicate political ambition, or even any special interest in politics. Before taking their seats on the Council, newly selected Councilors had to undergo scrutiny (dokimasia), an audit of their fitness to serve (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 45.3). Lysias makes the claim that the law of scrutiny was primarily intended to deny political office to men who had participated in one of the short-lived oligarchic coups of the 5th century BCE, or the Tyranny of the Thirty (these events are discussed above) (Lys. 26.9-10). But scrutiny was a broadly important institution in the Athenian democracy, and Lysias’ statement is probably too narrow to reflect strictly historical reality. The Nine Archons underwent scrutiny before taking office (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 55.2), as did the ten generals (Lys. 15.1-2), as did priests, advocates, heralds, and ambassadors (Aeschin. 1.19-20). In fact, according to Aeschines, any citizen could call upon any other citizen to undergo scrutiny at any time, to determine whether he deserved the privilege of speaking before the Assembly (Aeschin. 1.32). Furthermore, every young Athenian man underwent a scrutiny before the members of his deme before he was enrolled in the list of citizens (Dem. 44.41; Lys. 26.21). The scrutiny of newly selected Councilors was managed by the Thesmothetae, the lower six of the nine archons (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 59.4), but it was the outgoing Council that decided whether each of the 500 new Councilors was eligible to take office (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 45.3). This scrutiny took into account almost every aspect of a citizen’s life, public and private, and we can learn much about the values of the Athenian democracy from the questions asked during a scrutiny, and grounds for which a candidate could fail his scrutiny. According to Aristotle, a candidate for the Council was asked, “Who is your father and to what deme does he belong, and who is your father’s father, and who your mother, and who her father and what his deme? Then whether he has a Family Apollo and Homestead Zeus, and where these shrines are; then whether he has family tombs and where they are; then whether he treats his parents well, and whether he pays his taxes, and whether he has done his military service” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 55.3-4). According to Xenophon, they were also asked if they honored their family graves (Xen. Mem. 2.2.13). After the candidate answered the questions, and any accusers had come forward, the Council voted by show of hands (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 55.4). According to Aristotle, originally the vote of the Council was the last word in a scrutiny, but in his time (the middle of the 4th century BCE) “there is an appeal to the Jury-court, and with this rests the final decision as to qualification” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 55.2). A passage from a speech by Lysias confirms that a candidate who was rejected by the Council could appeal to a jury, while noting that this appeal could take time, and might result in the year beginning without a full body of magistrates in office (Lys. 26.6). The newly appointed Councilors swore an oath, the terms of which are preserved by passing mentions in various sources. According to Xenophon, they swore “to advise according to the laws” (Xen. Mem. 1.1.18). According to two passages from Lysias, they swore “to advise what was best for the city” (Lys. 31.2; Lys. 30.10). Demosthenes mentions Councilors swearing “to advise what was best for the People” (Dem. 59.4), and this: “Nor will I imprison any Athenian citizen who provides three people to guarantee his debt, guarantors who are in the same tax-bracket, except anyone found guilty of conspiring to betray the city or to subvert the democracy, or anyone who has contracted to collect taxes, or his guarantor, or his collector who is in default” (Dem. 24.144). A passage from a speech attributed to Andocides claims that the “oath of the People and the Council” included a promise “not to exile, nor imprison, nor execute anyone without a trial” (Andoc. 4.3). According to Lysias, again, Councilors swore an oath, “to let it be known if he knows of anyone who has been selected by lot but is not fit to serve on the Council” (Lys. 31.2), and “to crown a man as worthy of public office only after scrutinizing him” (Lys. 26.8  ). Five hundred Councilors served on the Council for the year, but practical concerns required that they be divided into smaller groups. Accordingly, the legislative year was divided into ten parts, each called a “prytany”; for each prytany, the fifty Councilors from one of the ten tribes served as “presidents,” or prytanes (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.2-3). The order in which the Councilors from each tribe served as presidents was random, determined by lot (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.2). The random determination seems to have taken place at the end of each prytany (rather than all at once at the beginning of the year), so no one could predict which tribe would serve next. An inscription makes reference to “the presidents, whichever ones might hold that position after the tribe of Oineis” (IG II2 553.16-17). When the decree was written, the Councilors from the tribe of Oineis were serving as prytanes, or presidents; the decree needed to refer to the next group of presidents, but that group was clearly not known. So, we can infer from this that the selection must have happened toward the end of a prytany. Obviously, during the ninth prytany of the year, it would be obvious that whichever tribe had not yet served would hold the presidency for the final prytany. This elaborate randomization of the presidency was probably intended to limit possibilities for corruption. No one could plan to introduce business to the Council when a particular tribe held the presidency, and no Councilor could know in advance when he would serve as a president. The presidents ate their meals together in the Tholos, the “Round House.” They planned and organized meetings of the Council and posted an agenda for each meeting beforehand (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.3). Aristotle tells us that “There is a chairman of the presidents, one man, chosen by lot; this man chairs for a night and a day—no longer—and cannot become chairman a second time” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.1). This chairman kept the keys to the treasuries and archives of Athens, as well as the state seal (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.1). In addition to a daily meeting of all the presidents, the chairman and one third of the presidents were required to be on hand in the Tholos constantly (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.1); presumably only the chairman was on duty for a full 24 hours, and the other presidents could divide the day into 8 hour shifts. These men, on-call in the Tholos, represented the whole government of Athens in a time of crisis, at least until the full Council or Assembly could be convened. Heralds and envoys from other states came to the presidents in the Tholos first, as did messenger bearing official letters (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.6). Demosthenes describes a dramatic scene, that shows clearly the function of the presidents and the chairman. In 339 BCE, Philip of Macedon marched his army south and captured the city of Elateia, thus threatening Thebes and the Thebans’ southern neighbor, Athens. Demosthenes describes what happened when news of this threat came to Athens: “Evening had already fallen when a messenger arrived bringing to the presiding councilors the news that Elateia had been taken. They were sitting at supper, but they instantly rose from table, cleared the booths in the marketplace of their occupants, and unfolded the hurdles, while others summoned the commanders and ordered the attendance of the trumpeter. The commotion spread through the whole city. At daybreak on the next day the presidents summoned the Council to the Council House, and the citizens flocked to the place of assembly. Before the Council could introduce the business and prepare the agenda, the whole body of citizens had taken their places on the hill. The Council arrived, the presiding Councilors formally reported the intelligence they had received, and the courier was introduced” (Dem. 18.169-170). So, in a crisis, the safety of Athens lay first in the hands of the presidents and the chairman. It is worth noting that because there were 354 days in the legislative year (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 43.2), more than two thirds of all Councilors would serve as chairman for a night and a day in a given year. There are further implications, if we accept the estimate of two scholars that in 400 BCE there were approximately 22,000 adult male citizens—it is beyond the scope of this article to give evidence and justification for this, but the arguments are presented in Victor Ehrenberg, The Greek State, 2nd English Edition (Methuen, 1969) 31, whose estimate is 20,000-25,000, and in A.W. Gomme, The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC (Blackwell, 1933) 26, whose estimate is 22,000. A citizen had to be 30 years old to serve as a Councilor (Xen. Mem. 1.2.35). For the sake of argument, we might assume that the average citizen would then have an active political life of 30 years, until he was 60. During that time, there would need to be approximately 10,000 chairmen, each controlling the state seal and the treasuries, and presiding over the presidents of the Council for a day and a night (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.1). Since no one could serve as chairman twice (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 44.1), this office would have to go to 10,000 different Athenians. It follows, then, that approximately one half of all Athenian citizens would, at some point during their lives, have the privilege and responsibility of holding this office, arguably the closest equivalent to a Chief Executive in the Athenian democracy. More important than any other function of the Council was its role in preparing the agenda for meetings of the Assembly, where all Athenian citizens gathered to discuss and vote on decrees. While any male citizen was invited to speak in an Assembly and all male citizens could vote, the topics for discussion and vote were limited by what amounted to a system of checks and balances between the Assembly and the Council. The Council would vote on preliminary decrees (probouleumata, or in the singular, probouleuma, προβούλευμα) (Dem. 23.92). According to the 10th century CE lexicon of the Greek language, the Suda, a probouleuma was “What has been voted on by the Council before being presented to the People” (Suda pi,2349). A passage from the orator Demosthenes’ speech against Neaira illustrates how a probouleuma worked: “You were at that time on the point of sending your entire force to Euboea and Olynthus, and Apollodorus, being one of its members, brought forward in the Council a motion, and carried it as a preliminary decree (probouleuma) to the Assembly, proposing that the people should decide whether the funds remaining over from the state’s expenditure should be used for military purposes or for public spectacles. For the laws prescribed that, when there was war, the funds remaining over from state expenditures should be devoted to military purposes, and Apollodorus believed that the people ought to have power to do what they pleased with their own; and he had sworn that, as a member of the senate, he would act for the best interests of the Athenian people, as you all bore witness at that crisis” (Dem. 59.4). In this case, an existing law required that any surplus funds in the treasury of Athens should be used for military purposes. But despite this law, Apollodorus wanted the Assembly to discuss how to spend the funds. So Apollodorus brought the matter to the Council, which voted to create a preliminary decree. The council approved the preliminary decree. This preliminary decree allowed the Assembly to discuss how to spend the money. Demosthenes goes on to say that the Assembly voted, unanimously, to spend the money on the military (Dem. 59.5). So, after this lengthy procedure, the Athenian democracy did with its money precisely what an existing law required. But the mechanism of the Council, its probouleuma, and the Assembly allowed all of the citizens to deliberate, in an orderly manner, on the extent to which the existing law was appropriate under these circumstances, a war in Euboea and around Olynthus. An inscription that survives in fairly good condition illustrates vividly the course of an actual motion through the Council, to the Assembly by means of a preliminary decree, and into the body of Athenian policy as a decree of the Athenian People. This inscription dates from around 333 BCE, and has to do with a request by some merchants from the city of Citium on the island of Cyprus; these merchants came to the Athenian Council to ask for permission to build a temple to Aphrodite, Cyprus’ patron goddess, where natives of Cyprus could worship while they were visiting or living in Athens (IG II2 337). It is important to note that the text and translation given here omit any indication of how the inscription actually looked, and the extent to which modern editors have filled in missing sections; what appears here is considerably cleaned up. It can serve to illustrate the workings of the Council, but should not be taken as indicative of the proper way to present and read an inscription. Here is the inscription, IG II2 337 [By the way, it makes reference to Proedroi, Πρόεδροι; these were the Councilors selected to run meetings of either the Council or the Assembly]: “Gods. When Nikokratos was archon, in the first prytany (that of the tribe Aegeis): Theophilos from the deme Phegous, one of the Proedroi, put this matter to the vote: The Council decided (after Antidotos, son of Apollodoros, from the deme Sypalettos made the motion): Concerning the things that the Citians say about the foundation of the temple to Aphrodite, it has been voted by the Council that the Proedroi, the ones to be chosen by lot to serve as Proedroi at the first Assembly, should introduce the Citians and allow them to have an audience, and to share with the People the opinion of the Council, that the People, having heard from the Citians concerning the foundation of the temple, and from any other Athenian who wants to speak, decide to do whatever seems best. When Nikokrates was archon, in the second Prytany (that of the tribe Pandionis): Phanostratos from the deme Philaidai, one of the Proedroi, put this matter to the vote: The People decided (after Lykourgos, son of Lykophron, of the deme Boutadai made the motion): Concerning the things for which the Citian merchants resolved to petition, lawfully, asking the People for the use of a plot of land on which they might build a temple of Aphrodite, it has seemed best to the People to give to the merchants of the Citians the use of a plot of land on which they might build a temple of Aphrodite, just as also the Egyptians built the temple of Isis.” On this one inscription we see the whole legislative process. In the first prytany of the year, Antidotos, a councilor, made a motion before the Council regarding this request by the Citians. One of the Proedroi in charge of running the meeting of the Council put the matter to a vote. The Council voted to send the matter along to the Assembly without making any recommendation to the Assembly for or against the Citians’ request. Then, in the second Prytany, Lykourgos, made a motion in the Assembly. The motion was in favor of the Citians’ request, and it was put to the vote by Phanostratos, a Councilor serving as one of the Proedroi who were in charge of running the meeting of the Assembly. The People voted on the matter, and the Citians were allowed to build their temple, just as (evidently) some Egyptians had been allowed to build a temple to Isis. · Athenian Democracy: Legislation · Athenians in the 4th century were governed by laws (nomoi or nomos, νόμος, in the singular) and decrees (psephismata, or psephisma, ψήφισμα, in the singular). Decrees were passed by a vote of the Assembly, of the Council, or both. Laws came into being by a more complicated process. Laws took precedence over Decrees. Anyone who proposed a decree in the Assembly that contradicted an existing law was subject to prosecution on a charge of “Illegal Proposal” (graphe paranomon, γραφὴ παρανόνων). Laws were passed through a process called nomothesia (νομοθεσία) or “legislation.” Each year the Assembly met to discuss the current body of laws. Any citizen could propose a change in the laws, but could only propose the repeal of a law if he suggested another law to replace the repealed law. If the Assembly decided to change the laws, a board of “Nomothetai” or “legislators” was selected to review and revise the laws. The process of legislation was like a trial, with advocates speaking in defense of the existing laws, and others speaking against the existing laws. The Nomothetai would vote on changes, and any changes that passed were published on inscriptions near the statues of the Eponymous Heroes and read aloud at the next meeting of the Assembly. The Nomothetai also undertook an annual review of all existing laws, to make sure that none contradicted others, and that none were redundant. To understand legislation under the Athenian democracy, it is necessary to understand some terms. The Athenians of the 5th century BCE seem to have used two words interchangeably to refer to what we call a “law,” nomos and psephisma. In the 4th century these words had two distinct meanings: a nomos was a “law,” while a psephisma was a “decree.” For the 5th century usage, we have the historian Xenophon and his account of a speech that Euryptolemus gave before the Assembly in 406. The speaker tells his audience that, in a particular case, either the psephisma of Kannonus applies (Xen. Hell. 1.7.20), or the psephisma regarding temple-robbers and traitors (Xen. Hell. 1.7.21); he then refers to both of these psephismata as “nomoi” (the plural form of “nomos”) (Xen. Hell. 1.7.22). So it would seem that these two terms were more-or-less equivalent. In the 4th century, however, these two terms clearly referred to two different things: nomoi were “laws” enacted through a special process of legislation, while psephismata were “decrees” passed by a vote of the Assembly. The orator Aeschines in one of his speeches asks, rhetorically, why the laws (nomoi) are good, but the decrees of the Assembly (psephismata) are bad (Aeschin. 1.177). The philosopher Aristotle makes a theoretical distinction between laws and decrees, noting that in certain kinds of democracy the laws rule, but in other kinds of democracies decrees can override laws (Aristot. Pol. 1292a). Athens was the former kind of democracy, according to Demosthenes, who quotes a principle of Athenian governance, that “No decree, either of the Council or the Assembly shall have more authority than a law” (Dem. 23.87). On the other hand, the laws could determine what sorts of decrees the Assembly could pass, such as a law that allows the Assembly to pass a decree honoring a citizen, but that limits the circumstances of such an honor (Aeschin. 3.36). The courts could nullify a decree, based on the laws (Dem. 23.96). When inscribed on stone for the permanent record, decrees begin with the formula, “It was decided by the People,” or, “It was decided by the Council and the People” (IG II2 206 4-5, IG II2 206 28-30; IG II2 237.5; IG II2 237 31); a law began with the formula, “It was decided by the Lawgivers” (SEG 12 87.607). The Athenians had no “consitution” such as the United States has, a body of laws that fundamentally define the state. Some laws, however, included additional clauses that made it very difficult to change or revoke the law. One such clause is quoted at Dem. 23.62: “Whosoever, whether magistrate or private citizen, shall cause this ordinance to be frustrated, or shall alter the same, shall be disfranchised with his children and his property” (Dem. 23.62). A law included as a quotation in a speech by the orator Andocides says, “In no circumstances shall magistrates enforce a law which has not been inscribed. No decree, whether of the Council or Assembly, shall override a law. No law shall be directed against an individual without applying to all citizens alike, unless an Assembly of six thousand so resolve by secret ballot” (Andoc. 1.87). This establishes three important principles of Athenian legislation: (in order from last to first) that except under very special circumstances, the laws of Athens were to apply to all citizens equally; that the laws (nomoi) had more authority than the decrees (psephismata) of the Assembly or Council; and finally that only the written laws were valid. According to Plutarch, when Solon revised the laws of Athens in the 6th century BCE, he wrote the new laws on wooden tablets (Plut. Sol. 25.1). By inscribing laws, either on wood or in stone, and setting them in a public place, knowledge of the laws was made available to all citizens, rather than to a small elite. The procedures for making new laws or revising existing laws was complicated, and seems to have been intended to make the process as democratic as possible, and to prevent any hasty or poorly considered changes to the laws. Demosthenes describes process of legislation in detail in his speech prosecuting Timocrates (Dem. 24). He reminds the jurors that, “In our laws at present in force, men of Athens, every condition that must be observed when new statutes are to be enacted is laid down clearly and with precision. First of all, there is a prescribed time for legislation; but even at the proper time a man is not permitted to propose his law just as he pleases. He is directed, in the first place, to put it in writing and post it in front of the statues of the Eponymous Heroes for everyone to see. Then it is ordained that the law must be of universal application, and also that laws of contrary purpose must be repealed; and there are other directions with which I do not think I need trouble you now” (Dem. 24.17-18). While any citizen could suggest changes to the laws, laws were not passed by the Assembly or the Council, as decrees were, but were passed by a rather prolonged process involving the “Lawgivers,” the nomothetae (the singular form is nomothete). Panels of Nomothetae were formed for the purposes of creating new laws and reviewing existing laws; the Nomothetae were drawn from Athenians who had sworn the “dikastic oath,” the oath that jurors swore before entering a courtroom (Dem. 24.27; a passage in Demosthenes, Dem. 24.149-151, purports to be the text of that oath). So these Nomothetae were ordinary citizens assigned the task of creating and revising the laws. These Nomothetae would get together and conduct legislation under three circumstances: if the Assembly called for revisions to the laws, if an individual Athenian proposed a change in the laws, and if the six Archons called the Thesmothetae (see Aristot. Ath. Pol. 55.1) undertook a scrutiny of the laws (respectively: Dem. 24.20; Dem. 24.33; Aeschin. 3.38). At the first meeting of the Assembly for the year, in the month of Hekatombaion, the Athenians held votes on the whole body of laws (Dem. 24.20; see Dem. 24.23 where the month of Hekatombaion is specified). This is how Demosthenes describes the process: “In the first presidency and on the eleventh day thereof, in the Assembly, the Herald having read prayers, a vote shall be taken on the laws, to wit, first upon laws respecting the Council, and secondly upon general statutes, and then upon statutes enacted for the nine Archons, and then upon laws affecting other authorities. Those who are content with the laws respecting the Council shall hold up their hands first, and then those who are not content; and in like manner in respect of general statutes. All voting upon laws shall be in accordance with laws already in force” (Dem. 24.20). This passage tells us several things. First, it suggests that the laws of Athens were divided into several categories. There were laws concerning the Council; this presumably included laws governing the Nomothetae and the procedure for legislation itself, since it was the Council that appointed the panels of Nomothetae (Dem. 24.27; Dem. 24.47-48). There were laws “common” to all Athenians. There were laws having to do with the nine Archons. And there were laws having to do with “other authorities.” This passage also tells us that the Assembly voted on the existing laws by a show of hands (Dem. 24.20). Demosthenes continues his description of the annual review: “If any law already in force be rejected on show of hands, the presidents [the ‘Prytaneis’ described above in the discussion of the Council] in whose term of office the voting takes place shall appoint the last of the three meetings of the Assembly for the consideration of laws so rejected. The commissioners [the ‘Proedroi’] who preside by lot at the Assembly are required, immediately after religious observances, to put the question respecting the sessions of the Nomothetae, and respecting the fund from which their fees are to be paid. The Nomothetae shall consist of persons who have taken the judicial oath” (Dem. 24.21). Before this meeting of the Assembly, when the Athenians voted on the existing laws, anyone who wanted to change the laws was supposed to make public specific proposals for new laws: “Before the meeting of the Assembly any Athenian citizen who wishes shall write down the laws proposed by him and exhibit the same in front of the Eponymous Heroes, to the end that the People may vote on the question of the time allowed to the Nomothetae with due regard to the total number of laws proposed. Whosoever proposes a new statute shall write it on a white board and exhibit it in front of the statues of the Eponymous Heroes on every day until the meeting of the Assembly” (Dem. 24.23). This must have meant that the vote on the existing laws was equivalent to a vote on the proposed changes. If the citizens liked the suggestions posted beforehand, they could vote against the existing laws, thus starting a process of legislation. If the citizens did not like the posted suggestions, they would vote in favor of the existing laws. Requiring proposed changes before the meeting would allow the Assembly to make an informed decision regarding how long the Nomothetae should take to conduct their business (see also Dem. 20.94, Dem. 24.36; Aeschin. 3.39). Demosthenes says, elsewhere in his speech against Timocrates, that it was lawful for any citizen to propose changing an existing law, but only if he suggested a new law to take its place (Dem. 24.33). The Assembly, at this first meeting of the year (on the 11th day of the month Hekatombaion), would also choose five citizens to “speak in defence of laws proposed for repeal before the Nomothetae” (Dem. 24.23). This suggests that the process of legislation was very much like a trial in a courtroom, with some people “prosecuting” the existing laws (and advocating new laws), and others defending the existing laws (Dem. 24.23, Dem. 24.36). After this first meeting of the Assembly for the year, if the voting determined that the laws should be reviewed and possibly changed, there was a delay, presumably to let people consider matters. No further action happened at the next meeting of the Assembly in that month, but at the third meeting, the Assembly decided how long the Nomothetae should spend legislating, and details of their pay (Dem. 21.24). The Nomothetae were not chosen until the actual day assigned for legislation; on the morning of that day they were chosen by lot from those who had sworn the “Heliastic oath” that all jurors swore (Dem. 24.27). A board of nomothetae could be huge: Demosthenes reports that in 354/3 BCE, Timocrates passed in the Assembly a decree setting up a board of 1001 Nomothetae, and ordering the Council to assist them in their work (Dem. 24.27). The meeting of the Nomothetae was conducted by “Proedroi” (Dem. 24.33). The meeting was conducted like a trial, with advocates speaking in favor of the existing laws (Dem. 24.23), and others speaking in favor of changing the laws (Dem. 24.36). When both parties had spoken, the Nomothetae voted by show of hands (Dem. 24.33). Any new laws proposed by the Nomothetae were published near the statues of the Eponymous Heroes and were also read aloud to the next meeting of the Assembly (Dem. 20.94). In addition to this regularly scheduled, annual, opportunity for legislation, there were other ways of initiation the process of making changes to the laws of Athens. Any citizen could, at any time, propose a change in the laws (Dem. 24.33). The Archons, specifically the Thesmothetae, were also charged with making an annual review of the existing laws and, if they found contradictory laws or redundant laws, they could arrange for a board of Nomothetae to change the laws (Aeschin. 3.38). In the case of an individual citizen who wanted to change the laws, he could not propose repealing a law without suggesting a new law to take its place (Dem. 24.33; Dem. 20.89-94; Dem. 24.21). The Assembly would decide whether or not the proposal had sufficient merit to be brought before the Nomothetae (Dem. 24.21; Dem. 3.10-13; Aeschin. 3.39). The Council had to be involved, too, because it was the Council that set the agenda for meetings of the Assembly. So once a citizen had posted a proposal for new legislation, the Council had to put the issue on the agenda for a meeting of the Assembly; this was done by means of a Preliminary Decree, or probouleuma (Dem. 24.27; Dem. 24.48; Aeschin. 3.39). Dem. 24.27 contains a decree that orders “the Council to cooperate in the legislative process” in the matter of convening the Nomothetae, which may mean only that the Council was to ensure that the business appeared on the agenda for the Assembly. The Council did, however, also have a special “legislative secretary,” who made copies of all laws, and attended all meetings of the Council; this suggests that the Council discussed proposals for legislation before sending them on to the Assembly (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 54.4). Since laws, passed by the Nomothetae, were more important than decrees of the Council or Assembly (Andoc. 1.87), what happened when a decree contradicted a law? Or, what happened when someone proposed a law in a way that violated the laws governing legislation? A “graphe paranomon,” or “prosecution for having proposed an unlawful decree” was the means by which the Athenians ensured the sovreignty of the laws; any such charge would be tried before the People’s Court (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 59.2; Dem. 24.33). Demosthenes’ speech against Timocrates focuses on just such a charge; the prosecution claims that Timocrates introduced a new law that contradicted an old law (Dem. 24.33). That doing so was illegal runs contrary to the assumption in American law that newer legislation takes precedence over older laws. Demosthenes actually claims that Timocrates’ proposal was illegal for several reasons. First, it contradicted already existing laws (Dem. 24.33). Second, the proposal had not been published by the statues of the Eponymous Heroes (Dem. 24.18). Third, he did not allow the Council to consider the law before referring it to the Assembly (Dem. 24.26). Finally, he did not follow the lawful schedule, which would have meant proposing a new law at one meeting of the Assembly, taking no action at the next meeting, and at the third meeting voting on whether or not to convene the Nomothetae (Dem. 24.21); Timocrates, it is alleged, proposed his law at one meeting of the Assembly and moved that it be handed over to the Nomothetae on the very next day (Dem. 24.28). Demosthenes’ speech against Leptines (Dem. 20) is another example of a graphe paranomon. Here, Demosthenes claims that Leptines arranged for the Nomothetae to pass a law without repealing any contrary laws (Dem. 20.89; Dem. 20.96), publishing the proposal beforehand, or allowing the Assembly to consider the matter before sending it to the Nomothetae (Dem. 20.93). Demosthenes himself was once charged with improperly suggesting the emendation of a law governing the maintenance of warships (Dem. 18.105). Aristotle criticizes direct democracy on the grounds that in democracy decrees have more authority than laws (Aristot. Pol. 1297a4-7). But this criticism does not seem to apply to the democracy of 4th century Athens. We find a more apt criticism in Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians (Aristot. Ath. Pol.), which says that in Athens everything is decided by “decrees and lawcourts” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 41.2); since the legislators, the Nomothetae, were chosen from the same pool as potential jurors, and swore the same oaths as jurors (Dem. 24.27; Dem. 24.149-151), this comment seems fairly accurate. Whether or not we should see this fact as a bad thing is, of course, a matter of opinion. · Athenian Democracy: the Council of the Areopagus · The Areopagus, or Hill of Ares, in Athens was the site of council that served as an important legal institution under the Athenian democracy. This body, called the Council of the Areopagus, or simply the Areopagus, existed long before the democracy, and its powers and composition changed many times over the centuries. Originally, it was the central governing body of Athens, but under the democracy, it was primarily the court with jurisdiction over cases of homicide and certain other serious crimes. After an Athenian had served as one of the nine archons, his conduct in office was investigated, and if he passed that investigation he became a member of the Areopagus; tenure was for life. The Areopagus (Areios pagos) was a hill in Athens, south of the agora, to the north-west of the Acropolis (Hdt. 8.52). The term Areopagus, however, often refers to the Council of the Areopagus, a governmental institution that met on that hill (Aeschin. 1.92). This institution was very ancient, existing long before democratic government. Its history, which recedes back into mythological pre-history, follows closely the political history of Athens, and shows the ongoing tension between democratic and anti-democratic forces (see, for example, Isoc. 15.316, in which he complains that as the city grew more democratic, the power of the older institutions, such as the Areopagus, declined). The Council of the Areopagus functioned as a court under the democracy of 4th century Athens, and it had a very high reputation (Dem. 23.65). The orator Lycurgus tells his fellow Athenians that they have in the Council of the Areopagus the finest model in Greece: a court so superior to others that even the men convicted in it admit that its judgements are just (Lyc. 1.12). The Council of the Areopagus, as a group, and its individual members were held in high regard and considered to be worthy of respect. Aeschines reports an incident when Autolycus, a member of the Areopagus, unwittingly made a sexual pun; when the people laughed, Pyrrandrus scolded them, asking if they were not ashamed of themselves for laughing in the presence of the Council of the Areopagus (Aeschin. 1.84). Aeschines is careful to defend Autolycus, as a man whose life has been good and pious, and so worthy of that body, i.e. the Areopagus (Aeschin. 1.82). The principle function of the Areopagus, in the 4th century BCE, was to try cases of homicide. Demosthenes describes this function and the lengths to which the court ensured that its proceedings were fair and just; this passage, addressed to the Athenians, also suggests that the Athenians saw a strong relationship between human and divine justice: “You are all of course aware that in the Areopagus, where the law both permits and enjoins the trial of homicide, first, every man who brings accusation of such a crime must make oath by invoking destruction upon himself, his kindred, and his household; secondly, that he must not treat this oath as an ordinary oath, but as one which no man swears for any other purpose; for he stands over the entrails of a boar, a ram, and a bull, and they must have been slaughtered by the necessary officers and on the days appointed, so that in respect both of the time and of the functionaries every requirement of solemnity has been satisfied. Even then the person who has sworn this tremendous oath does not gain immediate credence; and if any falsehood is brought home to him, he will carry away with him to his children and his kindred the stain of perjury—but gain nothing. If, on the other hand, he is believed to be laying a just charge, and if he proves the accused guilty of murder, even then he has no power over the convicted criminal; only the laws and the appointed officers have power over the man for punishment.” (Dem. 23.67-69). The Areopagus consisted of former archons (Plut. Sol. 19.1; Dem. 24.22; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 60.3). This meant that all members of the Areopagus had been thoroughly investigated by officials of the democracy. All incoming archons were subject to scrutiny (dokimasia) by the sitting archons—an investigation into their qualifications to serve—before they assumed their office (Lys. 26.9). At the end of their year of service, each archon was investigated by the People’s Court, the Heliaia; only those archons who passed this public audit (euthuna) could become members of the Areopagus (Dem. 26.5). An archon could fail this audit (euthuna) by violating any of the laws governing the conduct of his office (Dem. 24.22). For example, the Eponymous Archon was responsible for collecting and holding the olive oil that was given as a prize at the Panathenaic Games; this archon was not allowed to become a member of the Areopagus until he had handed all of the oil over to the treasurers on the Acropolis (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 60.3). Appointment to the Areopagus was for life (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 3.6; Lys. 26.11). Nevertheless, members of the Areopagus, the Areopagites, were still subject to audit (euthuna). Aeschines describes this to his fellow Athenians as a democratic measure: “For, first, the Council of the Areopagus is required by the law to file its accounts with the Board of Auditors and to submit to their examination; yes, even those men, who sit with solemn aspect yonder as the court of highest competence, are brought under your verdict” (Aeschin. 3.20). Members of the Areopagus seem to have received a free portion of the meat from certain sacrifices, an added benefit of service (Din. 1.56) The Council of the Areopagus met generally on the Areopagus, the Hill of Ares (Dem. 23.65-66; Isoc. 7.38). Demosthenes mentions the body meeting in the Stoa Basileus in the agora, which was roped off for the occasion, so the court would not be disturbed (Dem. 25.23). The Areopagus, functioning as a court of law during the 4th century, had a reputation for following unimpeachable procedures. In his speech against Aristocrates, Demosthenes describes this procedure at some length, and begins his description with the claim that no convicted defendant and no defeated prosecutor has ever made good any complaint against the justice of the verdict given. (Dem. 23.66). “Anyone who brought an accusation of homicide before the court had to swear an oath invoking destruction upon himself, his kindred, and his household” (Dem. 23.67). The swearing of this oath was unique: a boar, a ram, and a bull were to be sacrificed by certain people and on certain days (Demosthenes does not say which people or which days), so that in respect both of the time and of the functionaries every requirement of solemnity has been satisfied; the accuser then stood over the entrails of the sacrificed animals and swore his oath. Demosthenes is careful to add that, even with this tremendous oath, the accuser was not automatically believed, and that if he should be proved to have lied, not only would he bear the stain of perjury himself, but his children and relatives would as well (Dem. 23.68). In this speech and elsewhere, Demosthenes emphasizes the extent to which the rights of the accused were protected by law and procedure. “If the accuser won his case, and the accused was convicted, the accuser had no power of punishment: only the laws and the appointed officer have power over the man for punishment. The prosecutor is permitted to see him suffering the penalty awarded by law, and that is all” (Dem. 23.69). If the Areopagus found a defendant guilty in a case of homicide, the court seems to have had the authority to hand him straight over to the executioner (Din. 1.62; although this passage refers to powers given to the Areopagus by a particular decree in the late 4th century). In other matters, though the Areopagus’ power of punishment was not unlimited. Speaking of a case of impiety, Demosthenes says that the court does not have the power to punish any of the Athenians as they see fit. (Dem. 59.80). Defendants swore the same oath as accusers, but Demosthenes says that they had an important additional right: “it is permitted to them to depart after giving his first speech, and neither the prosecutor, nor the jurors, nor any other man is authorized to prevent it” (Dem. 23.69). We may suppose (although Demosthenes does not make this clear) that the defendant would have had to leave Athens after withdrawing from the trial. The trial would proceed with each side giving one or more speeches (see Din. 1.1, where he says that he does not have to give all the details of the case because a fellow-prosecutor, Stratocles, has already given his speech). Aeschines, speaking in praise of the Areopagus, says that this court was different from the other courts of Athens in that Areopagites were less likely than other jurors to be swayed by skillful speaking alone: “I myself have before now seen many men convicted before this tribunal, though they spoke most eloquently, and presented witnesses; and I know that before now certain men have won their case, although they spoke most feebly, and although no witnesses testified for them. For it is not on the strength of the pleading alone, nor of the testimony alone, that the members of the court give their verdict, but on the strength of their own knowledge and their own investigations. And this is the reason why that tribunal maintains its high repute in the city” (Aeschin. 1.92). The Archon Basileus, or King Archon served as the introducing official, but it seems that he did not actually participate in deciding the case; only the actual members of the Areopagus voted (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.4). Because members of the Areopagus had all served as archons (Plut. Sol. 19.1; Dem. 24.22; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 60.3), and because, as archons, they would each have had experience presiding over the various courts of Athens (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 56.6-7, Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.2-4, Aristot. Ath. Pol. 58.2, Aristot. Ath. Pol. 59.2-6), and because they served on the Areopagus for life (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 3.6; Lys. 26.11), they must have had much more experience than the juries of the other courts. According to Aristotle, the Areopagus did not allow speakers, either defendants or prosecutors, to introduce irrelevant information into their speeches; in this, he says, the Areopagus is different from the other courts at Athens (Aristot. Rh. 1354a 20). If a speaker was accused of perjury (pseudomarturia) before the Areopagus, he would not be prosecuted by the Areopagus itself, but by the Archons (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 59.6). In the 4th century BCE, the Areopagus was responsible for trying cases of the most serious crimes. Aristotle says: “Trials for deliberate murder and wounding are held in the Areopagus, and for causing death by poison, and for arson” (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.3; Dem. 23.22). Other kinds of murder—involuntary homicide, conspiracy to murder, murder of a slave, resident alien, or foreign—were tried at the Palladium (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.3). Still other kinds of murder—when the accused claimed that the killing was legal, as a matter of self-defense or in a case of adultery, or if someone accidentally killed a fellow citizen in war or during an athletic competition—were tried at the Delphinium (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.3). In the case of adultery, the orator Lysias says that “the Court of the Areopagus itself, to which has been assigned, in our own as in our fathers’ time, the trial of suits for murder, has expressly stated that whoever takes this vengeance on an adulterer caught in the act with his spouse shall not be convicted of murder” (Lys. 1.30). The Areopagus also heard cases of assault and wounding (trauma) (Dem. 40.32; Dem. 23.22; Aeschin. 2.93; Aristot. Ath. Pol. 57.3). The Areopagus did not merely punish the assailants themselves, but also had the power to punish accessories. Demosthenes mentions a case of assault where the Areopagus exiled a man for encouraging the assailant; the defendant in this case was the father of the priestess of Artemis at Brauron, and therefore an important Athenian, but punished as an accessory nevertheless (Dem. 54.25). According to Demosthenes, not only did the Areopagus permit Athenians to bring cases of homicide before it for judgement, but actually required it (Dem. 23.67). Demosthenes himself was fined by the Areopagus, according to Aeschines, for failing to pursue a charge of assault against his cousin Demomeles (Aeschin. 2.93). The members of the Areopagus, the Areopagites, also seem to have investigated murders and assaults personally. In a speech prosecuting Conon, Demosthenes says that it was possible for members of the Areopagus to come to the bedside of a victim of assault, because if the victim should eventually die, they would have to try the case of his murder (Dem. 54.28). It was a very serious matter to be charged with a crime before the Areopagus. In a speech written by Demosthenes for a client the speaker describes how his enemies plotted against him: “When they have thus openly laid a plot, and got up a charge against me before the Areopagus, do you suppose there is any poisoning or any other such villainy from which they would abstain?” (Dem. 40.57). This passage compares being charged before the Areopagus with being poisoned, and gives us an idea of how serious such a charge was. Elsewhere in that same speech, the speaker explains that his enemies hoped that by charging him before the Areopagus, he would go into exile rather than risk conviction (Dem. 40.32). According to the rules of procedure, a defendant charged before the Areopagus had the option of leaving the city rather than see the trial to its conclusion (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 23.69). If the defendant left, then his property was sold off by the Venders (poletai), after the Nine Archons gave their approval for the sale (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 47.2). Among the serious crimes that fell to the Areopagus were certain kinds of sacrilege. One example we know of had to do with a woman who had served as a priestess for the festival of Anthesteria, in honor of the god Dionysus (Dem. 59.78). In this case, the woman was married to an Athenian named Theogenes, and it became known that she was not herself properly an Athenian citizen (Dem. 59.81). The matter was investigated by the Areopagus (Dem. 59.80). According to Demosthenes, the Areopagus was initially inclined to impose the highest fine in its power on Theogenes for allowing his wife to serve as priestess under false pretenses (Dem. 59.81), but they relented because Theogenes convinced them that he had been deceived, and meant no harm (Theogenes immediately expelled his wife from his house) (Dem. 59.83). The Areopagus had authority over the sacred olive trees of Attica as well. If anyone was accused of cutting down a sacred olive tree, he was tried before the Areopagus (Lys. 7.22). Aristotle explains that the city of Athens collected the fruit from the olive trees and pressed it into oil, which would then be stored on the Acropolis or sold; if anyone dug up or cut down one of the trees, he would be tried by the Areopagus, and if he were found guilty, the penalty used to be death (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 60.1-2). But, Aristotle continues, in his own time (the middle of the 4th century), while the law still exists, such a trial has fallen out of use (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 60.2). Even in the early 4th century, it seems that the penalty was not death, but exile and confiscation of property (Lys. 7.2; Lys. 7.32; Lys. 7.41). In the latter part of the 4th century, the Areopagus exercised other powers beyond its traditional role as a court. The Areopagus could be called on, by the Council or the Assembly, to investigate certain public matters and issue a report to the People. In one case that we hear of, Timarchus passed a motion in the Assembly to have the Areopagus investigate and report on some dwellings that had been erected on the hill of the Pnyx (Aeschin. 1.81). A member of the Areopagus, Autolycus, gave the body’s report to the Assembly, and in doing so reminded the assembled people that, “We Areopagites do not, men of Athens, either accuse or defend, for that is not our tradition” (Aeschin. 1.83). · Athenian Democracy: the People’s Court · Of almost equal importance to the Assembly and Council, and probably of greater importance (if not greater prestige) than the Areopagus was the People’s Court, the Heliaea and other courts where juries of citizens would listen to cases, would vote on the guilt or innocence of their fellow citizens, and vote on punishments for those found guilty. Since Athenian law is the subject of this discussion series, the present introduction to Athenian democracy will not describe the lawcourts in as much detail as it has given to the Assembly and Council. Athenians who served on juries received one-half drachma a day, or three obols, for their service (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 62.2). Payment for service was a democratic innovation, of course, because it allowed the poorer citizens to participate in the governance of their city. There was no property requirement for service; any citizen who did not owe any debts to the treasury, was at least thirty years old, and had not lost his citizenship through any legal action could serve as a juror (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 63.3). Aristotle’s description of the Athenian lawcourts and the juries that served on them focuses on the elaborate systems that seem to have existed to thwart attempts to bribe juries (this description starts at Aristot. Ath. Pol. 63.1). These anti-bribery measures seem to have focused on making every aspect of jury selection and allocation among the various courts as unpredictable as possible. Jurors would be selected, randomly, from the pool of people willing to serve. The would be divided into groups, one group for every active courtroom, randomly and at the last minute. The individual groups would be assigned to individual courtrooms randomly and at the last minute. And there were elaborate checks to ensure that only authorized jurors entered each courtroom. Since the lawcourts were charged with hearing, not only cases of criminal and civil matters, but appeals on the part of citizens who were unsatisfied with rulings by the Council or Assembly, this elaborate effort to ensure that the juries were truly honest embodiments of the Demos makes sense. The courts were the ultimate guarantor of democratic rule, and so the juries that ruled those courts had to be as democratic as possible. Timekeeping was also important during the course of trials, to ensure that the plaintiff and the defendant had equal time to speak. Aristotle describes the water-clock (klepsydra) that measured the time for each side’s speeches. One of the jurors, appointed by lot, poured water into a large jar from which the water ran out in a steady stream; when the jar was empty, the speaker’s time was up. The amount of water poured into the clock varied according to the magnitude of issue at stake. For suits involving sums of money up to 2000 drachmas, each side got to speak for seven measures of water, for suites between 2000 and 5000 drachmas, nine measures of water, and for suits of over 5000 drachmas, ten measures. For cases in which the defendant stood to lose all of his property, his citizenship, or his life, the whole day—eleven measures of water—was given over to the trial. (See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 67). Juries varied in size from 501 jurors in lesser cases, up to 1500 for the most important matters (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 68.1). Decisions did not have to be unanimous; after both sides in the case had given one or two speeches, the jurors voted by dropping ballots into two jars. Each juror had two ballots, one representing the plaintiff and the other representing the defendant. One after another, the jurors inserted their ballots into two urns. The bronze urn was for the vote that counted; the wooden urn was for discarding the unused ballot. As each juror voted, he was given a token which he could redeem for his juror’s fee of 3 obols (one-half a drachma). (See Aristot. Ath. Pol. 68). After the voting, the courtroom attendants emptied the bronze urn in full view of both parties to the suit and counted the ballots. Whichever side received the most votes won (Aristot. Ath. Pol. 69). While the Archons were responsible for ensuring the proper running of the Athenian courts, they did not serve as judges. In fact, there was no one in an Athenian courtroom who was a recognized legal authority, except for the several hundred (at least) jurors chosen from the Demos generally. Plaintiffs and defendants, at least those with the laws of Athens on their side, had to rely on the citizens’ knowledge of the laws. In a speech before an Athenian jury, the orator Demosthenes reminded them that, “You have sworn to give a verdict according to the laws, and to the decrees of the People and of the Council of Five Hundred” (Dem. 19.179; note that he mentions the laws before the decrees). But with no presiding judge, plaintiffs and defendant also had to rely on the jurors’ just-mindedness (or susceptibility to rhetoric), especially when the law was obscure or non-existant. During a different trial from the one just mentioned, Demosthenes reminded another Athenian jury that, “Again, men of Athens, you must also consider well and carefully the fact that you have come into court today, sworn to give your verdict according to the laws… and where there are no statutes to guide you, you are sworn to decide according to the best of your judgement” (Dem. 20.118). So in the absence of clear laws, jurors were free to vote according to unwritten laws, or their own understanding of justice (or their own prejudices). · The End of Athenian Democracy · What happened to Athenian democracy? As with the rise of democratic governance in Athens (described briefly in another article), its decline was a gradual process, marked by a few dramatic moments and several reversals of fortune. The decline had much to do with the rise of Macedonia as a power in the Greek world, under the leadership first of Philip and then of his son, Alexander. In 338 BCE, Philip’s army defeated the allied forces of Athens and Thebes in a battle at Chaeronea. This defeat forced Athens to enter into the so-called League of Corinth, ostensibly a pan-Hellenic alliance aimed at opposing the power of Persia, but actually an organization that gave Philip unprecedented authority over Greek affairs. Upon Philip’s death, Alexander took over leadership of this League, and used it to help launch his invasion of Asia and his war with the Persian Empire. After Alexander’s departure from Greece in 335 BCE, the Athenians spent the next eleven years in an unsettled state. On the one hand, they were more-or-less entirely free from foreign interference in their domestic affairs; on the other hand, there was a powerful body of Macedonian soldiers under the command of Antipater waiting in northern Greece to put down any effort at resisting Macedonian will. During Alexander’s life, the Macedonians did not actually use force against the Athenians at any point, but this was only because the Athenians did not openly act against Macedonian wishes. The Spartans, under king Agis III, did try to assert their independence and were thoroughly, though not easily, defeated in a battle at Megalopolis in 331 or 330 BCE. Things changed in 324 BCE, when Alexander reappeared in western Asia after his march to India. In that year he issued the so-called “Exiles Decree” that commanded every Greek city to readmit any former citizens who had been disenfranchised. Alexander also announced, from Asia, that he intended to end Athenian rule over Samos and to return control of the island to the Samians. This was a heavy-handed and, to many Athenians, unacceptable interference in the sovereignty of Athens. Under the leadership of an Athenian named Leosthenes, Athens began collecting a mercenary army and forming plans (if vague ones) to do something toward regaining true freedom as an independent polis. Things changed even more dramatically in 323 BCE, when news of Alexander’s death reached the Greeks of Europe. The Athenians turned on any of their fellow citizens who had spoken in favor of cooperating with Macedonia—the orator Demades, who had passed a motion in the Assembly to award divine honors to Alexander, was fined ten talents, and Aristotle, who had been tutor to the young Alexander himself, wisely moved out of Athens. And as 323 came to a close, Leosthenes, leading Athenian and allied forces, attacked the Macedonian forces under Antipater in the north. The effort was initially successful, but Leosthenes was killed while besieging the fortress of Lamia, Macedonian reinforcements arrived during the spring of 322, and the by summer of that year the Athenians had lost both on land and sea. The Macedonian Antipater imposed a settlement on Athens, which was in no position to resist, that brought about an end of the city’s autonomy in foreign affairs and democratic self-rule at home. The revisions to the Athenian constitution limited citizenship to those whose wealth amounted to at least 2000 drachmas; there was also to be a garrison of Macedonian forces stationed in the harbor of Piraeus. Thereafter, while many of the institutions of the Athenian democracy continued to function, and the constitution underwent further changes, sometimes toward more inclusiveness and freedom, and sometimes toward less, Athens would never again be completely free in domestic and foreign policy, and would never again be ruled by the will of the Demos, meeting in its Assembly. (The story of the end of Athenian democracy, which is unfortunately missing from many general descriptions of Greek history, is well told in D.L. Schneider, trans., Christan Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony [Harvard University Press, 1997].)

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History of Athenian Democracy Essay

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Introduction

The Athenian democracy was the kind of democracy that was introduced into Athens in 500 BC and later spread to other Greek cities. Its three main pioneers were Ephialtes, Solon and Listeners and although it spread to other cities, it remained to be most powerful within Athens.

Every form of democracy has unique features that distinguish it from the rest. A representative democracy is one that allows people to elect their leaders and by so doing, ensures that their interests are catered for by government. This paper is going to look at this Athenian democracy and how representative it was.

The Athenian democracy was a direct rule form of political system with courts and citizens in the assembly making major political decisions. It eliminated many people from citizenship and therefore hindered their ability to make political contribution.

It was therefore non representative to a great extent. This democracy was only representative in a very limited number of ways. Men of Athens origin were well represented by this form of democracy as they were allowed to participate in making important decisions.

Citizens were considered to be men aged 18 years and above and whose both parents were citizens. An additional prerequisite for citizenship was the completion of military training. The men’s wealth did not affect their decision making capacity thereby making this form of democracy fair.

However, for a man to be granted citizenship and consequently the power to vote they had to be scrutinized and factors such as inability to pay a debt would disqualify them. On the other hand, women were excluded from the list of citizens.

There were fully excluded from all political activity and were only expected to take care of their households. The fortunate ones became nurses and midwives but none of them could participate in making decisions regarding communal matters. Other categories of people who were not eligible to citizenship were slaves, children and non Athenian Greeks (Coleman, 2000).

There were three main bodies that governed the affairs of Athens and they were the assembly, the council and the courts all which were run by representatives of the people. Athenian democracy was representative to the few people considered to be citizens because they were regarded as equals and as a result would equally participate in the political arena.

They were all granted the right to free speech and they would all present their speeches freely in the Assembly. This gave them the power to make decisions regarding communal matters that affected them in one way or the other. Many of those who had the citizenship had an opportunity to hold public office.

Most political positions were filled by rotation therefore enabling majority of citizens to participate. Leaders could only hold their posts for a limited duration. This made it impossible for one regime to dominate over the people of Athens for a considerable duration.

The procedures that were put in place when selecting people to take up office also helped in making the democracy representative. The character of potential leaders was adequately scrutinized before election making sure that only suitable and morally upright citizens would become representatives of the people (Coleman, 2000).

Strict measures were put in place to follow up leader’s actions. They were expected to maintain proper accounts at all times and were not exempted from auditing. If any public examination of an office holder proved that proper accounts had not been kept it would lead to prosecution of such office holders.

Army officials were elected by the Assembly which was a representative of the citizens. All citizens were to participate in administrative decision making in the Assembly. Every year, there was a vote of confidence on the set laws and the assembly had power to alter those laws that it deemed inappropriate.

However, for people to vote in the assembly, they had to be physically present. This was a limiting factor because those who were serving in the military could not get an opportunity to leave work for voting. Distance was another factor which restricted citizens from attending assembly proceedings (Coleman, 2000).

Some people were placed into leadership through allotment rather than vote. This was an effective way of eliminating corruption since the rich would not qualify through the purchase of votes. This method gave citizens a unique way of getting into leadership as well as equal opportunity.

The Athenian democracy did not discriminate since people were allotted positions whether they had the relevant skills or not. They were expected to learn while at the job. This form of governance gave a wide range of people the chance to be in government therefore most of the citizens were familiar with the undertakings of their government. They would therefore not be manipulated since they were well informed. Those put into office through allotment could not hold office for more than one term. It was therefore not possible to accumulate individual power through public office (Thorley, 2004).

Through Solon, a system of leadership that gave citizens the power to make political decisions was introduced. This system elected several people to deliberate on matters before they were tabled in the floor of the Assembly. Citizens had the opportunity to participate in law enforcement by taking legal action on behalf of plaintiffs.

All people determined what actions violated the law and therefore the judicial system was in the hands of most citizens and not necessarily the rich only. A political system that consisted of people from diverse backgrounds was introduced. New regional units known as demes were introduced and once someone became a citizen, he was expected to join one of these groups.

Political identity of people was therefore linked to these groups giving each member of the group powers to make political contributions. These demes were representative because each of them consisted of people from different geographical and social background. A general was elected from each tribe to become a political leader therefore no group of citizens could claim that they were not adequately represented (Kagan, 1998).

Political authority was assigned to people according to the will of the majority as voted in the Assembly. Popular vote determined who would lead in the armed forces although citizens were allowed to join voluntarily to fight for Athens. Individual citizens had the power to prosecute people who were accused of public offenses.

This system had many critics as people would use it to gain wealth from the rich. The wealthy would be prosecuted giving the rest of the citizenry an opportunity to confiscate their wealth. Financial officials were also elected by the majority. This system limited the risk of money being embezzled.

This however favored the rich because they were the preferred one by most citizens. Any money that they stole or misused could be recovered from their property. Generals were another group of people who were elected rather than be put in office by lot. The nature of their work required them to have the necessary expert knowledge.

The Athenian democracy was in this sense representative because the majority had their say in the selection of the most important political figures. Having been elected by the majority, the generals would ensure that they worked towards meeting the electorate’s wishes rather than their personal interests. Since public speaking skills were essential in expressing one’s view in the Assembly, those who did not have such skills would hire professionals to represent them. This gave all the citizens a fair playing field although it slightly favored the wealth.

Not every ordinary citizen could afford to pay for the services of a professional. Speech writing was therefore a lucrative business which was well utilized by the more ambitious citizens. This made the rich to become influential in the Athens political arena. The courts treated all citizens as equals regardless of their financial strength. All the courts put into consideration was the nature of crime committed and the extent of injury. This judicial system to a large extent eased the spread of a representative democracy (Coleman, 2000).

Elected officials would be removed from office at any time. Whenever assembly met and there was reason to believe that a certain official was not performing his duties as expected, the public would get a chance to elect a replacement. Such an occurrence had affected several treasurers as they served their term. After trial, they were executed although it later turned out that there had been an accounting error. Another justification of how representative the democracy prevailed in the fact that a death penalty would be imposed on any official who did not adequately perform his duties while in office (Kagan, 1998).

Cleisthenes introduced a policy that would facilitate democracy within Athens. In this system, every citizen in the Assembly would write the name of one person they feared would be too powerful. Each year, the person whose name appeared most was sent out of the city state for ten years thereby discouraging dictatorship as a form of governance.

The nature of this practice however became corrupt when those who could not read or right would have it done for them. The writers would write the name of the person they wanted banished turning it to their advantage. This system also ended up eliminating the most powerful and intelligent people from Athens therefore making it an easy target for enemies.

Leaders who were in leadership for personal interests were also attacked. Public interest was crucial and all leaders were expected to take care of their electorate’s interests. Their moral conduct was also expected to be good to ensure that they were appropriate leaders (Thorley, 2004).

The assembly met about forty times each year and on every meeting, a different person was selected to preside over its activities. This meant that almost all male citizens had a chance to preside and make decisions in the assembly. This however put the government at risk of irrational decisions depending on the president elected.

The form of democracy took good care of those who qualified to be citizens. Those with disability were given grants. A fund was also put in place to cater for the poor and help them in to attend political and social festivals. Citizens were able to enjoy freedom and had their rights protected (Thorley, 2004).

Although most of the political laws in Athens were introduced to enhance equality and democracy, they failed to achieve this purpose. The representation of people only favored a small proportion of the population since a large group was not considered to be citizens.

The elimination of women, slaves and those not born in Athens disqualified the democracy from being representative. It is however clear that it was representative when it came to the interests of male citizens. This group was adequately taken care of by most of the policies.

Besides being given equal opportunities in governance, they were also given the freedom to vote. This uniquely qualified the leadership to be a democratic authority because it gave the local people the chance to make a choice about whom they wanted to govern their interests.

The overall effect however was that the rich were indirectly favored. They would either buy votes in order to hold positions for which applicants were voted in. They would also afford the services of professionals and could therefore have their speeches written for them. The few well educated people were also in better position to rule. The democracy operated on a majority rule policy and therefore it was difficult to have policies or laws that did not please most citizens. It was therefore a fairly representative Democracy.

Coleman, J. (2000). A history of political thought: from ancient Greece to early Christianity . Oxford: Blackwell

Kagan, D. (1998). Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy . Athens: Simon & Schuster

Thorley, J. (2004). Athenian democracy . London: New York Routledge.

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IvyPanda. (2019, March 22). History of Athenian Democracy. https://ivypanda.com/essays/athenian-democracy/

"History of Athenian Democracy." IvyPanda , 22 Mar. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/athenian-democracy/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'History of Athenian Democracy'. 22 March.

IvyPanda . 2019. "History of Athenian Democracy." March 22, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/athenian-democracy/.

1. IvyPanda . "History of Athenian Democracy." March 22, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/athenian-democracy/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "History of Athenian Democracy." March 22, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/athenian-democracy/.

The Athenian Revolution: Essays on Ancient Greek Democracy and Political Theory

Josiah Ober

Where did "democracy" come from, and what was its original form and meaning? Here Josiah Ober shows that this "power of the people" crystallized in a revolutionary uprising by the ordinary citizens of Athens in 508-507 B.C. He then examines the consequences of the development of direct democracy for upper-and lower-class citizens, for dissident Athenian intellectuals, and for those who were denied citizenship under the new regime (women, slaves, resident foreigners), as well as for the general development of Greek history.

When the citizens suddenly took power into their own hands, they changed the cultural and social landscape of Greece, thereby helping to inaugurate the Classical Era. Democracy led to fundamental adjustments in the basic structures of Athenian society, altered the forms and direction of political thinking, and sparked a series of dramatic reorientations in international relations. It quickly made Athens into the most powerful Greek city-state, but it also fatally undermined the traditional Greek rules of warfare. It stimulated the development of the Western tradition of political theorizing and encouraged a new conception of justice that has striking parallels to contemporary theories of rights. But Athenians never embraced the notions of inherency and inalienability that have placed the concept of rights at the center of modern political thought. Thus the play of power that constituted life in democratic Athens is revealed as at once strangely familiar and desperately foreign, and the values sustaining the Athenian political community as simultaneously admirable and terrifying.

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CHAPTER 8. The Nature of Athenian Democracy

From the book the athenian revolution.

• Josiah Ober
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Supplementary Materials

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Chapters in this book (16)

Open Yale Courses

You are here, clcv 205: introduction to ancient greek history,  - athenian democracy (cont.).

In this lecture, Professor Kagan continues to discuss the constitution of Athens. In particular, he explores the judicial workings of Athens. He describes in detail the effort of the Athenians to create a system of justice that would not only minimize tampering, in order to insure justice, but also maximize citizen participation. After this discussion, Professor Kagan comments on the role of women in Athens by looking at two types of sources. The picture that emerges is considerably complex and left without resolution. Finally, he comments on the role of slaves. In each of these discussions, he draws illuminating analogies to our modern society.

Lecture Chapters

• Organization of Athenian Democracy: The Judicial
• Flaws in the Athenian Democratic System
• Women's Roles in Athenian Society
• Slavery in Athenian Society
• Question and Answer

UE: POL 110-HA: Democracy in Troubled Times: Democracy in Ancient Athens

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• Is Democracy in Decline?
• Democracy in Ancient Athens
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• Collective Security & World Organizations
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The Takeaway - What You Need to Know

Ancient Athens is widely credited with creating the first true democracy.  Its political institutions and practices admittedly are far removed from the way current democracies operate, but its ideals have inspired advocates of democracy for over twenty-five hundred years.  Republican Rome has also served as standard by which to judge modern democracy, although it was less a democracy and more a mixed form of government, combining a traditional landed aristocracy with an urban-based democracy.  The Framers of the U.S. Constitution were well acquainted with the history and failure of the Roman Republic and drew significant lessons from the ancient Romans.  

OVERVIEW - Ancient Athens

Democracy as a form of government was born in Greece towards the end of the Sixth Century, B.C. It reached its fullest expression in ancient Athens where after an initial flourishing it followed an unsteady course for two hundred years, until Macedonian imperialism under Alexander the Great in 322, B.C., extinguished it.

Classical Athenian democracy is known to us through four primary sources: Thucydides' investigation of Athens's loss to Sparta in the Second Peloponnesian War, Plato's disparagement of the democratic life-style in Book VIII of the Republic, Aristotle's judicious weighing of democracy as one of the varieties of regimes in his Politics, and a ramshackle history of the evolution of Athenian political institutions, known as the Constitution of Athens, also attributed to Aristotle.

For over two thousand years, orators, historians, and philosophers who favored self-government looked to classical Athens for guidance and inspiration, and have adapted its democratic ideology to suit their purposes. Modern scholars, on the other hand, tend to reject the study of classical Athenian democracy as relevant to our times because of its extreme participatory nature, its bellicosity, its countenance of slavery, and its oppressive treatment of women.

Copyright © 2013 - Hudson Reynolds, Ph.D.

Athenian versus American Democracy

Ancient democracy versus modern democracy.

What we call democracies in the western world, especially in the United States, would be seen as something less by the ancient Athenians. They would assert that there is very little democracy here because Americans are not able to participate directly in their government. The first Athenian democracy was created by Cleisthenes in 507 B.C, when the people elected him along with others who were dedicated to replacing the aristocratic oligarchy. This political change was accomplished through legislation, not violence. The Athenian political system, before the reforms, had many elements of a democratic system, but was heavily influenced by the aristocratic class. The principle legislative body was the Assembly (Ecclesia) which consisted of all citizens who came to the assembly meetings. Because of the unwieldy character of so large a group, a council of 500 was created to debate and consider new legislation before it was brought before the assembly. Governmental administration was handled by ten senior magistrates, called Archons, who were elected by the people. When an Archon’s term of office ended he could become a member of the Areopagas, an aristocratic council of elders who acted as a court of appeal. Lastly, there was an elected board of ten generals who were in charge of commanding the army and navy during time of war. Aristocratic influence was seen in the Council of 500 which was heavily tilted toward the upper class. Archons, themselves, were wealthy aristocrats, and the Areopagas was made up of former Archons. The new laws sought to break the aristocratic hold on high office by removing their influence. Candidates for Archon were now chosen by lot from the Council of 500. A system of ostracism was introduced to prevent accumulation of power. Any senior official deemed to be corrupt could be banished for ten years by a vote of the Assembly. Other changes included limiting the power of the Areopagas to appeal for murder trials, and transferring supervision of the conduct of government to the Council of 500. This great Athenian democracy thrived through the time of Pericles 462-429 B.C, but was degraded during the Peloponnesian War, which ended in 404. The Athenians were defeated by Sparta and would never again experience the great democracy they had invented. If we agree that the definition of democracy is anything we want it to be, then I suppose America has a democracy, but it’s funny how the term has be used by feminist types to suggest the Greeks didn’t have a democracy because women couldn’t vote. In their view, only contemporary America would meet the true definition. How absurd! Democracies are defined by the ability of people to have a say in government, not whether one class or the other has equal rights. A political system will only be strong if informed citizens vote. That is citizens who are intelligent enough and motivated enough to analyze the issues before voting. Those who vote without knowledge of the issues or support candidates because they are told who to support are corrupt. Quality government comes from quality votes, not the number of them. The other problem we have in the United States is that the people’s power ends with their vote. Because they elect representatives and do not participate in government themselves, their surrogates are open to the kind of corruption that makes them beholden to the rich and powerful rather than the people they represent.

-- posted by Mike Anderson  <http://mikeandersonpol.blogspot.com/2011/03/democracy-in-america-not-according-to.html> ( 09/18/13)

The Creation of Athenian Democracy

Solon's social reforms [594 bc].

In the 7th century B.C., economic crises coupled with the start of the age of tyranny elsewhere in Greece -- beginning in c. 650 with Cypselus of Corinth, led to unrest in Athens. In the final quarter of the century, the Draconian law code was so severe that the word 'draconian' was named after the man who wrote the laws. At the start of the next century, in 594 B.C., Solon, a widely traveled aristocrat and poet, was appointed sole archon to avert catastrophe in Athens.

While Solon enacted compromises and democratic reforms, he kept the social organization of Attica [ see map of Greece ] and the Athenians, the clans and tribes. Following the end of his archonship, political factions and conflict developed. One side, the men of the Coast (consisting mainly of the middle classes and peasants), favored his reforms. The other side, the men of the Plain (consisting mainly of Eupatrids 'nobles'), favored restoration of an aristocratic government.

Tyranny of Pisistratus [546 BC]

Pisistratus (6th C. - 528/7 B.C.*) took advantage of the unrest. He wrested control of the Acropolis in Athens by means of a coup in 561/0, but the major clans soon deposed him. That was only his first attempt. Backed by a foreign army and the new Hill party (composed of men not included in either the Plain or Coast parties), Pisistratus took control of Attica as constitutional tyrant (c. 546).

Pisistratus encouraged cultural and religious activities. He improved the Great Panathenaia, which had been reorganized in 566/5, adding athletic contests to the festival in honor of the city's patron goddess Athena. He built a statue to Athena on the Acropolis and minted the first silver Athena owl coins [see symbols of Athena]. Pisistratus publicly identified himself with Heracles and especially with the help Heracles received from Athena.

Pisistratus is credited with bringing rural festivals honoring the god of revelry, Dionysus, into the city, thereby creating the extremely popular Great Dionysia or the City Dionysia, the festival known for the great dramatic competitions. Pisistratus included tragedy (then a new literary form) in the festival, along with a new theater, as well as the theatrical competitions. He gave a prize to the 1st writer of tragedies, Thespis (c. 534 B.C.).

Anacreon of Teos and Simonides of Ceos sang for him. Trade flourished.

While first generation tyrants were generally benign, their successors tended to be more like what we envision tyrants to be [Terry Buckley]. Pisistratus' sons, Hipparchus and Hippias, followed their father to power, although there is debate as to who and how the succession was ordered:

"Pisistratus died at an advanced age in possession of the tyranny, and then, not, as is the common opinion, Hipparchus, but Hippias (who was the eldest of his sons) succeeded to his power." Thucydides Book VI Jowett translation

Hipparchus favored the cult of Hermes, a god associated with small tradesmen, placing Herms along the roads. This is a significant detail because Thucydides uses it as a point of comparison between leaders in connection with the mutilation of the herms attributed to Alcibiades at the time of the Peloponnesian War [see Internet History Sourcebook].

" They did not investigate the character of the informers, but in their suspicious mood listened to all manner of statements, and seized and imprisoned some of the most respectable citizens on the evidence of wretches; they thought it better to sift the matter and discover the truth; and they would not allow even a man of good character, against whom an accusation was brought, to escape without a thorough investigation, merely because the informer was a rogue. For the people, who had heard by tradition that the tyranny of Pisistratus and his sons ended in great oppression.... " Thucydides Book VI Jowett translation

Hipparchus may have lusted after Harmodius...

" Now the attempt of Aristogiton and Harmodius arose out of a love affair.... Harmodius was in the flower of youth, and Aristogiton, a citizen of the middle class, became his lover. Hipparchus made an attempt to gain the affections of Harmodius, but he would not listen to him, and told Aristogiton. The latter was naturally tormented at the idea, and fearing that Hipparchus who was powerful would resort to violence, at once formed such a plot as a man in his station might for the overthrow of the tyranny. Meanwhile Hipparchus made another attempt; he had no better success, and thereupon he determined, not indeed to take any violent step, but to insult Harmodius in some secret place, so that his motive could not be suspected. Ibid.

... but the passion was not returned, so he humiliated Harmodius. Harmodius and his friend Aristogiton, the men who are renowned for freeing Athens of its tyrants, then assassinated Hipparchus. They weren't alone in defending Athens against tyrants. In Herodotus, Volume 3 William Beloe says Hippias tried to get a courtesan named Leaena to reveal the name of Hipparchus' accomplices, but she bit off her own tongue so as not to answer. Hippias' own rule was considered despotic and he was exiled in 511/510.

See "Politics and Folktale in the Classical World," by James S. Ruebel. Asian Folklore Studies, Vol. 50, No. 1 (1991), pp. 5-33.

The exiled Alcmaeonids wanted to return to Athens, but couldn't, so long as the Pisistratids were in power. By taking advantage of Hippias' growing unpopularity, and by gaining the support of the Delphic oracle, the Alcmaeonids forced the Pisistratids to leave Attica.

Cleisthenes' Democratic Revolution

Back in Athens, the Eupatrid Alcmaeonids, led by Cleisthenes ( c . 570 - c . 508 B.C.), allied with the mostly non-aristocratic Coast party. The Plain and Hill parties favored Cleisthenes' rival, Isagoras, from another Eupatrid family. Isagoras appeared to have the numbers and the upper hand, until Cleisthenes promised citizenship to those men who had been excluded from it.

The 10 Tribes of Athens

Cleisthenes won the bid for power. When he became chief magistrate, he had to face the problems Solon had created 50 years earlier through his compromising democratic reforms -- foremost among which was the allegiance of citizens to their clans. In order to break such clan loyalties, Cleisthenes divided the 140-200 demes (natural divisions of Attica) into 3 regions: city, coast, and inland. In each of the 3 regions, the demes were divided into 10 groups called trittyes . Each trittys was called by the name of its chief deme . He then disposed of the 4 birth-based tribes and created 10 new ones composed of one trittys from each of the 3 regions. The 10 new tribes were named after local heroes:

• Erechthesis
• Hippothontis

The Boule (Council of 500)

The Areopagus and archons continued, but Cleisthenes modified Solon's Council of 400 based on the 4 tribes. Cleisthenes changed it to a Council of 500 to which

• Each tribe contributed 50 members.
• Chosen by lot
• From those citizens who were at least 30-years old, and then
• Approved by the outgoing council.

These groups of 50 men were called prytanies . The Council could not declare war. Declaring war and vetoing recommendations of the Council were responsibilities of the Assembly of all citizens.

Quiz on the Greek and Roman Tribes

Cleisthenes and the Military

Cleisthenes reformed the military, as well. Each tribe was required to supply a hoplite regiment and a squadron of horsemen. A general from each tribe commanded these soldiers.

Information on the reforms of Cleisthenes is available through Herodotus (Books 5 and 6) and Aristotle ( Athenian Constitution and Politics ). The latter claims that Cleisthenes was also responsible for the institution of ostracism, which allowed the citizens to get rid of a fellow citizen whom they feared was getting too powerful, temporarily. The word ostracism comes from ostraka , the word for the potsherds on which the citizens wrote the name of their candidates for the 10-year exile.

More on Ostracism

• J.B. Bury: A History of Greece
• (pages.ancientsites.com/~Epistate_Philemon/newspaper/cleis.html)
• (http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/characters/cleisthenes_p8.html)
• (www.pagesz.net/~stevek/ancient/lecture6b.html) The Athenian Origins of Direct Democracy
• (www.alamut.com/subj/artiface/deadMedia/agoraMuseum.html) Technology of Ancient Democracy
• Aspects of Greek History 750-323 BC: A Source-Based Approach, by Terry Buckley (2010)
• "The Career of Peisistratos Son of Hippias," by Michael F. Arnush; Hesperia Vol. 64, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1995), pp. 135-162.

-- copied from About.com 9/9/13 Product of N.S. Gill, a Latinist and freelance writer with a longtime focus on the classical world

Life of Pericles

Who was Pericles?

Pericles was a leader of Athens who was responsible for rebuilding Athens following the Persian Wars. He was also leader of Athens during the Peloponnesian War, but he died of the plague that ravaged the city. He was so important that the era in which he lived (during the 5th Century B.C.) is known as the Age of Pericles.

Family of origin

Pericles was the son of Xanthippus and Agariste. Xanthippus, a military leader in the Persian Wars, victorious at the battle at Mycale, was the son of one Ariphron and the father of another. Ariphron II was a candidate for ostracism. Xanthippus himself was ostracized in spring 484. Agariste was from the Alcmeon family, which was accused of treachery at the Battle of Marathon.

1st Public Office

Pericles, cimon, and democracy.

In the 460s, the Helots rebelled against the Spartans who asked for help from Athens. In response to Sparta's request for help, Athens' leader, Cimon, led troops into Sparta. The Spartans sent them back, probably fearing the effects of Athenian democratic ideas. When he returned, Cimon was ostracized. Cimon had favored Athens' oligarchic adherents. The opposing faction now in power, was the democratic. A descendant of democracy's founder Cleisthenes, Pericles came to power in about 460.

The office of military archon or strategos , usually translated into English as general, was elected. Pericles was elected strategos for the next 29 years.

The Long Walls

From about 458-56, Pericles had the Long Walls built between Athens and the Piraeus, a peninsula with three harbors about 4.5 miles from Athens.

Building Projects

Radical democracy and citizenship law.

Among the contributions made by Pericles to the Athenian democracy was the payment of magistrates. This was one reason the Athenians under Pericles decided to limit the people eligible to hold office. Only those born to two people of Athenian citizen status could henceforth be citizens and eligible. Children of foreign mothers would be excluded. Metic is the word for a foreigner living in the city. Since a metic woman couldn't produce citizen children, when Pericles had an affair with Aspasia of Miletus, he couldn't or, at least, didn't marry her.

Death of Pericles

In 430, the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica. At the same time a plague broke out in the overcrowded city to which the rural residents had fled. Pericles was suspended for the office of strategos. He was found guilty of theft and fined 50 talents. Because Athens still needed him, Pericles was then re-instated, but then, about a year after he lost his own two sons in the plague, Pericles died in the fall of 429, two and a half years after the Peloponnesian War began.

-- copied from About.com 9/9/13  -- product of N.S. Gill, a Latinist and freelance writer with a longtime focus on the classical world

Liberal Arts and Sciences in Athens

Ancient Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. It had an important influence on modern philosophy, as well as modern science. The influence  from ancient Greek and Hellenistic philosophers was expanded to medieval Muslim philosophers and scientists, to the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, to the modern natural sciences and technology. Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher. Considered one of the founders of Western philosophy, he strongly influenced Plato, and Aristotle. He made his most important contribution to Western thought through his method of inquiry. He is principally renowned for his contribution to the field of ethics, Socrates also lends his name to the concepts of Socratic irony and the Socratic Method. Socrates also made important and lasting contributions to the fields of epistemology and logic, and the influence of his ideas and approach, remains strong in providing a foundation for much western philosophy which followed. Plato has the reputation of one of the most influential philosophers in Western thought. He wrote several dozen philosophical dialogues — arguments in the form of conversations — and a few letters. Though the early dialogues deal mainly with methods of acquiring knowledge, and most of the last ones with justice and practical ethics, his most famous works expressed a synoptic view of ethics, metaphysics, reason, knowledge, and human life. One can view Plato, with qualification, as an idealist and a rationalist. Aristotle placed much more value on knowledge gained from the senses, and would correspondingly better earn the modern label of empiricist. Thus Aristotle set the stage for what would eventually develop into the scientific method centuries later. The works of Aristotle that still exist today appear in treatise form. The most important include Physics , Metaphysics , (Nicomachean) Ethics , Politics , De Anima (On the Soul), Poetics , and many others. Aristotle was a great thinker and philosopher, and his philosophy was crucial in governing intellectual thought in the Western world. His views and approaches dominated early Western science for almost 2000 years. As well as philosophy, Aristotle was a formidable inventor, and is credited with many significant inventions and observations.

The art of ancient Greece has exercised an enormous influence on the culture of many countries from ancient times until the present. There are three scholarly distinctions of Greek art that correspond roughly with historical periods of the same names. These are the Archaic (700 - 480 BC), the Classical (480 - 323 BC) and the Hellenistic (323 – 31 BC) periods. The main physical categories of Greek art are sculpture, pottery, coin design and architecture. The Greeks used many different types of materials in their sculptures including stone, marble and limestone as these were abundant in Greece. Other materials such as clay were also used but due to their brittle nature very few have survived. Greek sculptures are very important as the vast majority of them tell us a story about Gods, Heroes, Events, Mythical Creatures and Greek culture in general. Examples of Greek sculpture that survive and receive worldwide recognition are: the Parthenon Marbles, Agamemnon's Death Mask , stone statues of humans, such as the limestone Kouros (male) and Kore (female) statues (c.590 BC), Discobolos (The Discus Thrower) by Myron, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace . The Ancient Greeks made pottery for everyday use, not for display; the trophies won at games, such as the Panathenaic Amphorae (wine decanters), are the exception. Most surviving pottery consists of drinking vessels such as amphorae, kraters (bowls for mixing wine and water), hydria (water jars), libation bowls, jugs and cups. Painted funeral urns have also been found. Miniatures were also produced in large numbers, mainly for use as offerings at temples. Coins were mostly small disk-shaped lumps of gold, silver, or bronze, stamped with a geometric designs, -- symbols to indicate its city of origin or the god they were sacred to ---, and portraits -- of gods or heroes.

Architecture

Ancient Greek architects strove for the precision and excellence of workmanship that are the hallmarks of Greek art in general. The formulas they invented as early as the sixth century B.C. have influenced the architecture of the past two millennia. Although the ancient Greeks erected buildings of many types, the Greek Temple best exemplifies the aims and methods of Greek architecture. The two principal orders in Archaic and Classical Greek temples architecture are the Doric and the Ionic.A third order of Greek architecture, known as the Corinthian, mostly common in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Representative temple of the Doric order is Parthenon, of the Ionic order is Erechtheum and of the Corinthian order is the temple of Zeus, all these temples sited in Athens.

The Greek Theater was a central place of formal gatherings in ancient Greece. Every Greek town had a theater. These were used for both public meetings as well as dramatic performances. These performances originated as religious ceremonies; they went on to assume their Classical status as the highest form of Greek culture by the 6th century BC. The theater was usually set in a hillside outside the town, and had rows of tiered seating set in a semicircle around the central performance area, the orchestra. Behind the orchestra was a low building called the skene, which served as a store-room, a dressing-room, and also as a backdrop to the action taking place in the orchestra. A number of Greek theaters survive almost intact, the best known being at the Ancient Theater of Epidaurus. The architectural typology of the modern stadium derives from the classical prototype of the Greek Stadium. The Greek Stadium was the open space where footraces and other athletic contests took place in ancient Greece. The stadiums were usually U-shaped, the curve being opposite to the starting point. The courses were generally 600 Greek feet long (1 stadium), although the length varied according to local variations of the measuring unit. Natural slopes where used where possible to support the seats. The best known ancient Greek stadium is Kallimarmaron (Panathinaikon Stadium), sited in Athens.

Olympic Games

According to historical records, the first ancient Olympic Games can be traced back to 776 BC. They were dedicated to the Olympian gods and were staged on the ancient plains of Olympia, in the western part of the Peloponnese. They continued for nearly 12 centuries, until Emperor Theodosius decreed in 393 A.D. that all such “pagan cults” be banned.

The Olympic Games were closely linked to the religious festivals of the cult of Zeus, but were not an integral part of a rite. Indeed, they had a secular character and aimed to show the physical qualities and evolution of the performances accomplished by young people, as well as encouraging good relations between the cities of Greece. According to specialists, the Olympic Games owed their purity and importance to religion.

The ancient Olympic Games included the following events: pentathlon, running, jumping, discus throw, wrestling, boxing, pankration and equestrian events. All free male Greek citizens were entitled to participate in the ancient Olympic Games, regardless of their social status. Married women were not allowed to participate in, or to watch, the ancient Olympic Games. However, unmarried women could attend the competition.

The Olympic victor received his first awards immediately after the competition. Following the announcement of the winner's name by the herald, a Hellanodikis (Greek judge) would place a palm branch in his hands, while the spectators cheered and threw flowers to him. Red ribbons were tied on his head and hands as a mark of victory. The official award ceremony would take place on the last day of the Games, at the elevated vestibule of the temple of Zeus. In a loud voice, the herald would announce the name of the Olympic winner, his father's name, and his homeland. Then, the Hellanodikis placed the sacred olive tree wreath, or kotinos, on the winner's head . In 1859 Evangelos Zappas, a wealthy Greek philanthropist, sponsored the first modern international Olympic Games that were held in an Athens city square, with athletes from two countries: Greece and the Ottoman Empire. In June 23, 1894 Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and it was decided that the first IOC Olympic Games would take place in 1896 in Athens, as they did.

Pericles' Funeral Oration

Pericles' funeral oration is considered to be a valuable speech on the importance of democracy and a sneak peek into the way the people of Athens lived. It was given in the 5th-century by Pericles. His approach was an unusual way to give a funeral oration, and as such it has been immortalized and is still deeply valued. The Peloponnesian war had just begun, and the dead had been set out in tents for their families and the citizens of Athens to give them offerings before their burial. It was the custom at the time for somebody to be selected to give a funeral eulogy for all those killed in battle. The leader of Athens at the time, Pericles, was the one chosen to give the funeral speech after the first battles of the war. The war was in its infancy, and Pericles had a lot on his mind about the reasons that the war was taking place and what the soldiers he was speaking for had died to defend. He posed these thoughts to the citizens of Athens in order to allow them to celebrate with him the lives of the soldiers lost and the value of the democracy they were defending.

What Record Exists about what Pericles Said?

As with many of the orations given by the Greeks, the one given by Pericles was remembered mainly through paraphrasing the main idea of the speaker. Thucydides immortalized Pericles' funeral oration, and while it is impossible for the record to be one-hundred percent accurate, the goal of the speeches being recorded was to encompass the main idea the speaker was trying to convey as accurately as possible. There is said to be another speech given by Pericles during the Samian war, and his two speeches might actually be combined in Thucydides' records.

How did Pericles' Funeral Oration Differ from the Way they Were Typically Given?

The speech Pericles gave was critical of certain customs of Athens. Pericles said in his funeral oration that it should not be the responsibility of one person giving a funeral oration to give the citizens and a warrior's family the final impression of the fallen soldier's honor and reputation. He plainly disliked the fact that the custom declared one person to send off those who had fallen in battle and that that person's opinion could mar the reputations of the dead. His exact phrase on the matter was, "And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperiled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall as he spoke well or ill."

On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be lead by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature.

What did Pericles Find Worth Praising about Athens if Not the Military Victories?

Pericles wanted to make sure the people of Athens looked carefully at the quality of life they were leading and consider what it was about their home that was worth protecting. Pericles went on to list the several qualities about Athens that he thought were extraordinary and advanced about their civilization. He found it incredible that their ancestors and fathers had built the nation from the ground up and supported the needs and interests of the many rather than the few. He found democracy to be extremely powerful and important in shaping a powerful nation. He emphasized the freedom the citizens of Athens were able to experience and how they were given opportunities to relax when they were done with their work and participate in games and entertainment as well as chances to have prosperous businesses. Pericles was proud of the fact that the people of Athens embodied a "live and let live" philosophy, where they allowed anybody within their borders and didn't complain if others held different interests and values. He was also very impressed that despite this, the citizens were always ready to face and drive away danger and that their military was always strong and prepared for battle.

What was Pericles' Main Message to the Athenians?

Pericles wanted to give the Athenians pride in their country. He wanted to show them that they had something special to defend that other countries didn't have, and that is what made them so great. He wanted them to remember their dead with honor and respect, and in doing so, he also was able to show the citizens the strengths of their democracy and the power that the love they had for their nation and way of life was able to provide. Pericles gave them a sense of pride in their deeds and a boost in morale that would be greatly needed throughout the rest of the duration of the Peloponnesian war. Pericles' funeral oration was a powerful speech that illuminated the significance of the sacrifices made by the soldiers to uphold the unique democracy in the land of Athens.

Pericles' funeral oration was an incredibly significant speech that glorified the lifestyle of the citizens of Athens and outlined what made it such a strong nation. Pericles made sure to touch upon the truest way to properly honor those who had fallen in battle defending the Athenian way of life. In doing so, he was able to deliver a powerful speech that has resonated with people for centuries afterward. In his unique approach to the funeral eulogy of the soldiers, Pericles was able to bring light to the dangers of the custom of letting one man decide how the rest of history would view the fallen soldiers, elaborate on the greatness of Athens and how its opportunities created an environment worth protecting and provided much needed comfort to the bereaved citizens and families of the fallen soldiers. Pericles' funeral oration is presented in full in Thucydides' second book on the history of the Peloponnesian war.

Copied from History Answers 9/9/13

Reflections on Pericles and Democracy

Let’s take an objective look at Pericles defense of democracy and separate political rhetoric and the occasion of a funeral from the reality of the Athenian Polis in 431 B.C. It was a stirring speech, designed to honor the dead and motivate the living in a time of war – a war that would last another twenty-seven years. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law: when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. The Athenian Polis was a balance between branches of a government -- Archons, Council of 500 and Assembly. The Archons were the “wise men” elected from the aristocratic class for one year. The Council of 500 were chosen by lot from nominees of the people and also served for one year. The Assembly was made up of all male citizens. The council introduced new laws which were voted on by the assembly, while the archons acted as government administrators. This system was designed to allow broad participation and prevent the accumulation of power.

The court system was made up of non-professionals organized to facilitate fair trials of accused citizens. Common citizens served as jurors and members of the appeals court. Did Pericles correctly describe Athenian society? Yes, if we’re speaking of the rights of citizens. I would say its as accurate as labeling the United States as a democracy. Not all citizens and classes are satisfied with their political system at any one time, but when the many classes can be balanced in a way that creates stability, it becomes successful.

I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person, and do this, moreover, with exceptional grace and exceptional versatility. And to show that this is no empty boasting for the present occasion, but real tangible fact, you have only to consider the power which our city possesses and which has been won by those very qualities which I have mentioned. Athens, alone of the states we know, comes to her testing time in a greatness that surpasses what was imagined of her. In her case, and in her case alone, no invading enemy is ashamed at being defeated, and no subject can complain of being governed by people unfit for their responsibilities. Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our empire which we have left. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but whose estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true. For our adventurous spirit has forced an entry into every sea and into every land; and everywhere we have left behind us everlasting memorials of good done to our friends or suffering inflicted on our enemies.

Pericles is right to say that Athens exceeded what was expected of her, because they knew they had gone where no political system had gone before. They had created a complex agrarian society with citizen participation in government and laws to protect the people.

Two caveats apply here, however. Pericles ignores the might of Sparta during a time when the two Poleis were at war. He derides the unique Spartan oligarchy which, in fact, was successful as a rival political system. Secondly, he hides Athenian imperialism under the cloak of “adventurous spirit.” Imperialism was a direct cause of the Peloponnesian War which Athens would lose.

What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to live below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old.

These statements reflect the confidence and pride of Athens. That pride supported free thinkers who moved the culture forward and the soldiers that defended her. I couldn’t help thinking of the colonial spirit used to describe the early United States. People came to North America because of their adventurous spirit. The west was settled by the same motivation. Sadly, much of this spirit has been compromised in the post-modern world as we dumb it down for the sake of socialist ideals. The Athenians would point out that we are tearing down, block by block, that which made us great – liberty. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark diem out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.” Pericles made the point that wars are a part of life and having the courage to fight and win is the only guarantee of freedom. This is another way of stating that which made Athens excel – it was a society that provided the freedom and encouragement to be seek happiness through pursuing one’s interests. A philosopher could be a philosopher, and was encouraged in the effort, rather than being a goods producer. When people are allowed to uses the tools they are born with, rather than being stifled by economics, they contribute more to the advancement of their culture.

Copied from Mike Anderson   9/10/13

The Athenian Empire - The First Naval Empire

From the delian league to the athenian empire  -- by thomas nash.

When Athens began to emerge as a Greek city state in the ninth century, it was a poor city, built on and surrounded by undesirable land, which could support only a few poor crops and olive trees. As it grew it was forced to import much of its food, and while it was near the center of the Greek world, it was far from being a vital trading juncture like, for example, Corinth. It's army was, by the standards of cities such as Sparta, weak. Yet somehow it became the most prominent of the Greek city states, the one remembered while contemporaries such as Sparta are often forgotten. It was the world's first democracy of a substantial size (and, in some ways, though certainly not others, one of the few true democracies the world has ever seen), producing art and fine architecture in unprecedented amounts. It became a centre of thinking and literature, producing philosophers and playwrights like Socrates and Aristophanes. But most strikingly of all, it was the one Greek city that managed to control an empire spanning the Aegean sea. During the course of this essay I will attempt to explain how tiny Athens managed to acquire this formidable empire, and why she became Greece's most prominent city state, rather than cities which seemed to have more going for them like Sparta or Corinth.

The Persian Invasions and Birth of the Delian League

While we tend to think of Greece as the most important nation of the ancient world before Rome, it was in fact a haphazard collection of autonomous city states, which, even when their forces were combined, were on paper no match for mighty empires like that of Persia. So, when the Persian King Darius I invaded, the Greeks must have been more than a little alarmed. Infuriated by an Athenian-backed revolt in Ionia (the stretch of Turkey's west coast colonised by Ionian Greeks, a historic group which included the Athenians), Darius had demanded tokens of submission from the Greek states. While most of the smaller cities gave in, Athens and Sparta refused to do so, killing the foreign King's heralds as a gesture of defiance. Athens' actions showed a great deal of pluck, given it's relative military weakness, and enraged Darius. He put together a mighty expeditionary force and set sail in 490 B.C.

The Spartan army proceeded to the plain of Marathon near Athens. The Spartans could not help as news of the Athenians' plight reached them on a religious holiday. However, the Athenians managed to win a convincing victory, faced with an army three times the size of theirs. When Darius' son, Xerxes, amassed one of the greatest armies of antiquity to exact revenge for his father's humiliation, fewer than 400 Greek vessels defeated the 1,200 strong Persian fleet thanks to the clever command of the Athenian statesman Themistocles. This caused Xerxes to flee to Asia, and in 479 B.C. his army followed him, pulling out of Greece.

By this time Athens had won the friendship of many Greek states, both because of their defeat of the Persians and because of the unpopularity of the Spartan regent, Pausanias, who, according to Thucydides, had "begun to reveal the true arrogance of his nature ... [and] appeared to be trying to set himself up as dictator." Thucydides tells us that for these reasons the city states "had gone over to the side of the Athenians", which proceeded to take over leadership of the Delian League, a confederacy of cities determined to protect themselves from Persian attack and "compensate themselves for their losses by ravaging the territory of the king of Persia." Sparta was happy to cede leadership of the league as (according to Thucydides) "they were afraid any other commanders they sent abroad would be corrupted, as Pausanias had been, and they were glad to be relieved of the burden of fighting the Persians.... Besides, at the time they still thought of the Athenians as friendly allies." Also, Sparta wished to keep its army at home to deal with helot revolts (and also to prevent its soldiers from becoming corrupted).

Initially the Delian League was a fairly loose coalition of states, each one independent and sharing a common interest with the others. Members of the league were numerous: Thucydides tells us that they included "Chios, Lesbos, Plataea ... most of Acarnania ... Ionia, the Hellespont, Thrace and the islands between the Peloponnese and Crete towards the East, and all the Cyclades except for Melos and There" as well as Aegina and most of the Euboean cities. Together, these states constituted a formidable force capable of achieving it's objectives.

While Athens was the leader of the league, all its member states had an equal vote in the ruling council. Initially the league's actions were only for the well being of its members. Under the command of the Athenian Cimon, the Persian fortress of Eion on the Thracian coast was captured in 476 B.C. After this, Persian power in the North began to diminish. In 473 B.C Cimon crushed a group of Dolopian pirates who had been terrorising the central Aegean from the island of Scyros. An allied colony was established in their place. In 468 B.C. the Persian fleet was annihilated on the river Eurymedon in southern Turkey, again by Cimon, while at some point in the 460s, Cimon liberated the Southern Aegean and Caria from Persian control.

Meanwhile, Sparta was in trouble. Two of the states in the Peloponnesian League, a Spartan-led collection of states far looser than the Delian league, became democratic, while Argos revolted against her leadership. After a devastating earthquake and helot revolt, the stricken Spartans appealed to Athens for help. This was only given with reluctance after Cimon begged the Athenians "not to allow Greece to go lame, or their own city to be deprived of its yoke-fellow". However, Sparta grew alarmed by growing Athenian imperialism and asked that the Athenian presence in their city be withdrawn.

From a league to an empire

While freeing the southern Aegean from Persian control, Cimon succeeded in convincing more states to join the league. According to Diodorus, having persuaded "the cities of the sea coast [and] the cities of Lycia" to revolt, he "took them over in the same way". This, along with further evidence, suggests that these cities were forced to join whether or not they wanted to. Plutarch tells us "Phaselis ... refused to admit [Cimon's] fleet or to fight against the King, and so he devastated their land." In 480 B.C. the Athenians attempted to force impoverished Andros to pay a sum to the league:

" the Greeks ... surrounded Andros with a view to capturing it. Andros was the first island to reject Themistokles' requests for money. " (Herodotus VIII.111)

Further evidence of expansionistic Athenian policy can be seen in the case of Carystus, the one city in Euboea which declined membership of the Delian League. After refusing to join a second time in 472 B.C., they were paid a visit by the league's fleet and promptly conquered. In both these cases the Athenian's actions were at least partially justifiable. The Athenians had secured Greek control of the Aegean and Carian. At the time of the Carystian incident the Persians still controlled these regions, and thus Carystus could become a stepping stone to mainland Greece and encourage other Euboean cities to leave the league.

A less justifiable incident was the way the Athenians dealt with Naxos' attempted secession from the league. The Naxians had seen the Persian threat in the North decline as a result of the league's actions, and saw no reason to continue contributing money to the league. The Athenians and the other allies, however, did not see it that way. The Naxians' resources were needed in the South and the Naxians had, after all, sworn to remain in the league forever, as symbolised by the sinking of lumps of metal in the sea: a permanent, irreversible action. Athens also had reasons of its own, which I gesture at in my conclusion. Naxos was subjugated and the allies decided to take its fleet and change the naval contributions it made into a regularly-given tribute. A garrison was left behind: Naxos effectively became an imperial subject. Similarly, Erythrai, which rebelled in the 450's B.C. was the subject of a harsh and authoratitive decree.

By now the Persian threat had more or less dissolved and so the league had achieved its purpose. However the Athenians chose to enforce the league's oath and force all members to remain in it. One member to revolt was Thasos, a rich and navally powerful island which controlled parts of nearby Thrace. The Athenians clearly had their eyes set on natural resources in Thrace, and when they started to dispute the Thasian possession of a gold mine, the Thasians grew worried, and threatened to withdraw from the league.

Because of this the league overcame the Thasian fleet in 465 B.C. capturing 33 ships and laid siege to Thasos. The Spartans were sufficiently concerned with Athenian expansionism (and while the Delian League acted as one unit, it was clear that the Athenians were behind this action) to sign a secret pact with the Thasians under which they would invade Attica. As it happened Sparta could not do this due to internal strife, but the pact shows how transparent the Athenian imperialism was.

At the same time as besieging Thasos the Athenians established an allied colony in Thrace, where they were clearly anxious to establish a foothold. In 462 B.C. Thasos had to capitulate, and lost her fleet, gold mint and city walls. Like Naxos, it was forced to pay tribute rather than making contributions to the navy. The disputed gold mine and some other valuable settlements in Thrace were annexed by the Athenians (it is notable that the Athenians took these over without even a pretence to them being under control of all the league).

Athens embarked on an aggressive new foreign policy, aimed against Sparta, Athens' major rival in Greece. Athens allied with Argos, Sparta's traditional antagonist in the Peloponnese, and proceeded to attack Corinth, Sparta's most important ally. Vast operations were launched on both land and sea, and the result was that by 457 B.C. Athens had control of the whole of central Greece (although this control had collapsed by the time of the Thirty Year Truce's signing in 445 B.C.). Athens' eagerness to build an empire (and the fact that the sometimes-foolish boldness with which it acted was partly caused by its being a democracy) was evident in its decision to send a vast fleet of 200 triremes to aid an Egyptian revolt against the Persian empire. This served little practical purpose, and more sober minds would doubtless have kept to their own affairs. Athenian cleruchies (colonies) were set up at strategic points throughout Greece, the Mediterranean and even the Black sea, where Athens maintained a good relationship with Cimmerians as it grew more and more dependent on the import of grain from this tribe. Amphipolis was built at a strategic junction on the northern Aegean coast road; Thourioi was founded as an Athenian stronghold in Magna Graecia; and a fleet was sent to the Back Sea simply as a demonstration of Athenian power and to keep the vital trade routes open. An Athenian empire was now well and truly established.

The Resultant Empire

Athens had by now obtained a mighty empire. Of the more than 200 members (membership of the league had increased because Athens' friendship was an important asset for many Greek cities), only a few allies remained largely autonomous. According to Aristotle:

" After the Athenians had gained their empire, they treated their allies rather dictatorially, except for Chios, Lesbos and Samos. These they regarded as guardians of the empire, allowing them to keep their own constitution and rule over any subjects they happened to have. " (Consitution of Athens XXIV)

However, the majority had ceased to contribute ships and instead gave Athens tribute. The change can be seen in the transmutation of the word phoros ' meaning. Originally it meant 'contribution', but as the Delian League changed into the Athenian Empire, it came to mean 'tribute.' In around 448 B.C. Athens issued a controversial decree:

" If anyone in the cities strikes silver coins and does not use the currency, weights and measures of the Athenians, but foreign currency, weights and measures ... exact penal retribution. " (Klearkhos Decree) As well as using the tribute it received to build ships, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program under Pericles. The Acropolis was rebuilt, with magnificent buildings such as the Parthenon (shown below) and Erechtheum contributing to the beautification of the city. Some warned that by doing this, the Athenians gave up any pretence of working for the good of the League. The allies were indeed furious at the way their money was spent, but Pericles replied that so long as Athens protected her allies from the Persians it was not their concern how their money was spent

Athens maintained it's leadership by a number of means. It possessed a magnificent navy, as the League's ships became part of the Athenian navy. This consisted of 300 triremes, and was by far the largest in the Greek world. At least 60 triremes were kept in the Aegean at any one time. The trireme was the predominant warship of the time, a narrow vessel built for speed. Each one required 180 oarsmen in three tiers, and fought by ramming enemy ships or boarding them with marines. As Pericles said to the Athenians:

" The whole world is divided into two parts, the sea and the land... Of the whole of one part you are in control " (Thucydides II.62)

Thucydides also tells us of the extent of the Atenians' power over their discontented but impotent allies:

" The subject states of Athens were especially eager to revolt, even though it was beyond their capability. " (Thucydides VIII.2)

" They learned nothing from the fate of those of their neighbours who had already revolted and been subdued." (Thucydides III.39)

" The Athenian fleet grew strong with the money which the allies had themselves contributed, whilst whenever they revolted they were ill-prepared and inexperienced." (Thucydides I.99)

Athens maintained a tight grip over all their allies, never letting a hint of dissent go unpunished. For example, the Chalkians had to swear not to "follow anyone who revolts, and if any person causes a revolt, [to] denounce him to the Athenians." Often, constitutions that were models of Athens' were imposed on allies, and serious cases were placed under the jurisdiction of Athens. Law courts often prosecuted anti-Athenian elements. Control became so absolute that eventually no ally could sentence someone to death without first obtaining Athenian permission. We are told that:

" ...the Athenians sail out and bring false charges against the respectable elements among [their allies] and hate them, because they realize that the ruler is always hated by the subject " (Old Oligarch I.14)

It is worth noting that many Athenians viewed this as an altruistic arrangement, and could not understand the anger at lost independence it caused. As Athenian delegates to Sparta complained:

" In law suits with our allies arising out of contracts, we have put ourselves at a disadvantage, and when we arrange to have such cases tried by imperial courts at Athens, people accuse us of being over-fond of going to law. " (Thucydides I.77)

Colonies established on confiscated land were useful in the control of troublesome allies:

" Pericles sent out one thousand settlers to the Khersonese, five hundred to Naxos, 250 to Andros, one thousand to Thrace to make their homes with the Bisaltai ... and, by setting up garrisons among the allies, to implant a fear of rebellion. " (Plutarch, Pericles XI)

Athens opportunistically exploited religion and idealism. Land was claimed because it had belonging to Athena, the patron of Athens, or, in the case of Scyros, because Theseus' bones were claimed to have been found there. Athens encouraged the belief that she was the mother of all Ionian cities, and propagated the myth that the Athenian Demeter had granted corn to mankind. While Athens usually supported democrats against oligarchs, she would occasionally support oligarchs when the situation demanded it. In short, she was willing to do practically anything to maintain her empire, and went to extreme lengths. The Delian League had been intended to keep Greece from becoming a part of the Persian empire. Instead, it was the means by which Athens established an empire in Greece.

When she assumed leadership of the Delian League, Athens' intentions were for the most part honourable. In the first few years of her hegemony she accomplished extraordinary feats, forcing the Persians from Greece. However, she also experienced a huge influx of money from the league's members intended to pay for its naval forces. The Athenians grew used to a higher standard of living, due to the money and food now flowing into the city. The prestige and power of their city was advantageous to them all. Athens was reliant on imported corn to support her growing population: the money now flowing into her coffers enabled her to obtain it. Income from tributes and pillaging from the empire came to more than a thousand talents a year, while confiscated land and colonies provided livelihoods for many Athenians. The money from the empire was used to support the navy, construct magnificent public buildings, and support the city's poor. Jobs were created by the empire as well: almost everyone served in the navy at one point or another.

Everyone in the city benefited, so it is not surprising that democratic Athens elected to keep the money flowing in when the league succeeded in eliminating the Persian threat. While justifying their actions to the Peloponnesians, Athenian representatives said.

" We have done nothing surprising, nothing contrary to human nature, if we accepted leadership when it was offered and are now unwilling to give it up. " (Thucydides I.76)

" So far as the favor of the gods is concerned, we think we have as much right to that as you ... it is a general and necessary law of nature to govern wherever one can ... we know that you or anybody else with the same power as ours would be acting in precisely the same way." (Thucydides V.105)

It is also worth noting that while the tributes became more oppressive after the Peace of Callias, they were never seen as being far too high. In fact the only dramatic rise in their level took place in 425 B.C., and this was both because of the political tension that year and to correct for recent inflation. Athens' preference for monetary rather than naval contributions was also at least partially justified by the fact that it was beyond the capabilities of many of the states in the Delian League to build triremes and train crews in the complicated art of manoeuvring a triple-banked rowing boat in battle. Athens had plenty of men eager to earn money as oarsmen, and also the shipyards and skilled craftsmen required to build triremes. Indeed, many in the league were happy to let Athens take care of building ships.

However, by doing this they were signing away their independence. The fleet which was meant to be the league's became Athens', and with it she could overcome any ally who complained about the tribute it had to pay. It could be argued that Athens' rashness, its self-confidence and the notorious "busy-bodyness" of which the Spartans complained were partly due to its democratic status. While oligarchs might not have taken such risks, the assembly was pushed into adventurism time and again by the potential rewards it held for the city's people. They knew their empire for what it was, but were naturally loath to give up the prosperity, wealth, prestige and security that came with it. The latter concern in particular provided a self-perpetuating rationale, as each exercise in imperialism infuriated the city's traditional enemies, and its erstwhile allies, further. As Pericles said to his countrymen:

" Your empire is now a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go. " (Thucydides II.63)

Bibliography

• Athens Ascendant, George Dent Wilcoxon (Iowa State Press/1979)
• History of the Peloponessian War, Thucydides (Primary source)
• A History of Greece, Bury & Meiggs (MacMillan, 1975)
• The Athenian Empire, Meiggs (OUP, 1972)
• The Athenians And Their Empire, McGregor (University of British Columbia Press, 1987)
• These Were the Greeks, Amos & Lang (Stanley Thornes, 1979)

-- copied from  Thomas Nash © 2000 <http://www.bigissueground.com/history/ash-athenianempire.shtml> (9/9/13)

The Trial & Death of Socrates

Finding an answer to the mystery of the trial of Socrates is complicated by the fact that the two surviving accounts of the defense (or apology) of Socrates both come from disciples of his, Plato and Xenophon.  Historians suspect that Plato and Xenophon, intent on showing their master in a favorable light, failed to present in their accounts the most damning evidence against Socrates.

What appears almost certain is that  the decisions to prosecute and ultimately convict Socrates had a lot to do with the turbulent history of Athens in the several years preceding his trial.  An examination of that history may not provide final answers, but it does provide important clues.

Socrates, the son of a sculptor (or stonecutter) and a midwife, was a young boy when the rise to power of Pericles brought on the dawning of the "Golden Age of Greece."   As a young man, Socrates saw a fundamental power shift, as Pericles--perhaps history's first liberal politician--acted on his belief that the masses, and not just property-owning aristocrats, deserved liberty.  Pericles created the people's courts and used the public treasury to promote the arts.  He pushed ahead with an unprecedented building program designed not only to demonstrate the glory that was Greece, but also to ensure full employment and provide opportunities for wealth creation among the unpropertied class.  The rebuilding of the Acropolis and the construction of the Parthenon were the two best known of Pericles' many ambitious building projects. Growing to adulthood in this bastion of liberalism and democracy, Socrates somehow developed a set of values and beliefs that would put him at odds with most of his fellow Athenians.  Socrates was not a democrat or an egalitarian.  To him, the people should not be self-governing; they were like a herd of sheep that needed the direction of a wise shepherd.  He denied that citizens had basic virtue necessary to nurture a good society, instead equating virtue with a knowledge unattainable by ordinary people.  Striking at the heart of Athenian democracy, he contemptuously criticized the right of every citizen to speak in the Athenian assembly.

Writing in the third-century C.E. in his The Lives of Eminent Philosophers , Diogenes Laertius reported that Socrates "discussed moral questions in the workshops and the marketplace." Often his unpopular views, expressed disdainfully and with an air of condescension, provoked his listeners to anger.  Laertius wrote that "men set upon him with their fists or tore his hair out," but that Socrates "bore all this ill-usage patiently."

We get one contemporary view of Socrates from playwright Aristophanes.  In his play Clouds , first produced in 423 B.C.E., Aristophanes presents Socrates as an eccentric and comic headmaster of a "thinkery" (or "thoughtery").  He is portrayed "stalking the streets" of Athens barefoot,  "rolling his eyes" at remarks he found unintelligent, and "gazing up" at the clouds.  Socrates at the time of Clouds must have been perceived more as a harmless town character than as a serious threat to Athenian values and democracy.  Socrates himself, apparently, took no offense at his portrayal in Clouds .  Plutarch, in his Moralia , quoted Socrates as saying, "When they break a jest upon me in the theatre, I feel as if I were at a big party of good friends."  Plato, in his Symposium , describes Socrates and Aristophanes engaged in friendly conversation.

Other plays of the time offer additional clues as to the reputation of Socrates in Athens.  Comic poet Eupolis has one of his characters say: "Yes, and I loathe that poverty-stricken windbag Socrates who contemplates everything in the world but does not know where his next meal is coming from."   Birds , a play of Aristophanes written six years after his Clouds, contains a revealing reference.  Aristophanes labels a gang of pro-Sparta aristocratic youths as "Socratified."  Sparta--the model of a closed society--and Athens were enemies: the remark suggests Socrates' teaching may have started to be seen as subversive by 417 B.C.E.

The standing of Socrates among his fellow citizens suffered mightily during two periods in which Athenian democracy was temporarily overthrown, one four-month period in 411-410 and another slightly longer period in 404-403.  The prime movers in both of the anti-democratic movements were former pupils of Socrates, Alcibiades and Critias. Athenians undoubtedly considered the teachings of Socrates--especially his expressions of disdain for the established constitution--partially responsible for the resulting death and suffering. Alcibiades, perhaps Socrates' favorite Athenian politician, masterminded the first overthrow.  (Alcibiades had other strikes against him: four years earlier, Alcibiades had fled to Sparta to avoid facing trial for mutilating religious pillars -- statues of Hermes -- and while in Sparta had proposed to that state's leaders that he help them defeat Athens.)  Critias, first among an oligarchy known as the "Thirty Tyrants," led the second bloody revolt against the restored Athenian democracy in 404.  The revolt sent many of Athen's leading democratic citizens (including Anytus, later the driving force behind the prosecution of Socrates) into exile, where they organized a resistance movement.

Critias, without question, was the more frightening of the two former pupils of Socrates.  I.F. Stone, in his The Trial of Socrates , describes Critias (a cousin of Plato's) as "the first Robespierre," a cruel and inhumane man "determined to remake the city to his own antidemocratic mold whatever the human cost."  The oligarchy confiscated the estates of Athenian aristocrats, banished 5,000 women, children, and slaves, and summarily executed about 1,500 of Athen's most prominent democrats.

One incident involving Socrates and the Thirty Tyrants would later become an issue at his trial.  Although the Thirty normally used their own gang of thugs for such duties, the oligarchy asked Socrates to arrest Leon of Salamis so that he might be executed and his assets appropriated.  Socrates refused to do so.  Socrates would point to his resistance to the order as evidence of his good conduct.  On the other hand, Socrates neither protested the decision nor took steps to warn Leon of Salamis of the order for his arrest--he just went home.  While good citizens of Athens were being liquidated right and left, Socrates--so far as we know--did or said nothing to stop the violence.

The horrors brought on by the Thirty Tyrants caused Athenians to look at Socrates in a new light.  His teachings no longer seemed so harmless.  He was no longer a lovable town eccentric.  Socrates--and his icy logic--came to be seen as a dangerous and corrupting influence, a breeder of tyrants and enemy of the common man.

A general amnesty issued in 403 meant that Socrates could not be prosecuted for any of his actions during or before the reign of the Thirty Tyrants.  He could only be charged for his actions during the four years preceding his trial in 399 B.C.E.   It appears that Socrates, unchastened by the antidemocratic revolts and their aftermaths, resumed his teachings and once again began attracting a similar band of youthful followers.  The final straw may well have been an another antidemocratic uprising--this one unsuccessful--in 401.  Athens finally had enough of "Socratified" youth.

In Athens, criminal proceedings could be initiated by any citizen.  In the case of Socrates, the proceedings began when Meletus, a poet, delivered an oral summons to Socrates in the presence of witnesses.  The summons required Socrates to appear before the legal magistrate, or King Archon,  in a colonnaded building in central Athens called the Royal Stoa to answer charges of impiety and corrupting the youth.  The Archon determined--after listening to Socrates and Meletus (and perhaps the other two  accusers, Anytus and Lycon)--that the lawsuit was permissible under Athenian law, set a date for the "preliminary hearing" (anakrisis), and posted a public notice at the Royal Stoa.

The preliminary hearing before the magistrate at the Royal Stoa began with the reading of the written charge by Meletus.  Socrates answered the charge.  The magistrate questioned both Meletus and Socrates, then gave both the accuser and defendant an opportunity to question each other.  Having found merit in the accusation against Socrates, the magistrate drew up formal charges. The document containing the charges against Socrates survived until at least the second century C.E.  Diogenes Laertius reports the charges as recorded in the now-lost document:

This indictment and affidavit is sworn by Meletus, the son of Meletus of Pitthos, against Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus of Alopece: Socrates is guilty of refusing to recognize the gods recognized by the state, and of introducing new divinities.  He is also guilty of corrupting the youth.  The penalty demanded is death.

The trial of Socrates took place over a nine-to-ten hour period in the People's Court, located in the agora, the civic center of Athens.  The jury consisted of 500 male citizens over the age of thirty, chosen by lot.  Most of the jurors were probably farmers. The jurors sat on wooden benches separated from the large crowd of spectators--including a twenty-seven-year-old pupil of Socrates named Plato--by some sort of barrier or railing.

Guilt Phase of Trial

The trial began in the morning with the reading of the formal charges against Socrates by a herald.  The prosecution presented its case first.  The three accusers, Meletus, Anytus, and Lycon, had  a total of three hours, measured by a waterclock, to present from an elevated stage their argument for guilt.  No record of the prosecution's argument against Socrates survives.

Easily the best known and most influential of the three accusers, Anytus, is widely believed to have been the driving force behind the prosecution of Socrates.  Plato's Meno offers a possible clues as to the animosity between  Anytus, a politician coming from a family of tanners, and Socrates.  In the Meno , Plato reports that Socrates' argument that the great statesmen of Athenian history have nothing to offer in terms of an understanding of virtue enrages Anytus.  Plato quotes Anytus as warning Socrates: "Socrates, I think that you are too ready to speak evil of men: and, if you will take my advice, I would recommend you to be careful." Anytus had an additional personal gripe concerning the relationship Socrates had with his son. Plato quotes Socrates as saying, "I had a brief association with the son of Anytus, and I found him not lacking in spirit."  It is not known whether the relationship included sex, but Socrates--as were many men of the time in Athens--was bisexual and slept with some of his younger students. Anytus almost certainly disapproved of his son's relationship with Socrates.  Adding to the displeasure of Anytus must have been the advice Socrates gave to his son.  According to Xenophon, Socrates urged Anytus's son not to "continue in the servile occupation [tanning hides] that his father has provided for him."  Without a "worthy adviser," Socrates predicted, he would "fall into some disgraceful propensity and will surely go far in the career of vice."

It is a matter of dispute among historians whether the accusers focused more attention on the alleged religious crimes, or the alleged political crimes, of Socrates.  I. F. Stone attaches far more significance to the political crimes, while other historians such as James A. Colaiaco, author of Socrates Against Athens , give more weight to the charge of impiety.

I. F. Stone argues that "Athenians were accustomed to hearing the gods treated disrespectfully in both the comic and tragic theatre." He points out that Aristophanes, in his Clouds , had a character speculating that rain was Zeus urinating through a sieve, mistaking it for a chamberpot--and that no one ever bothered to charge Aristophanes with impiety.  Stone concludes:  "One could in the same city and in the same century worship Zeus as a promiscuous old rake, henpecked and cuckolded by Juno or as Justice deified.  It was the political, not the philosophical or theological, views of Socrates which finally got him into trouble."

Important support for Stone's conclusion comes from the earliest surviving reference to the trial of Socrates that does not come from one of his disciples .  In 345 B.C.E., the famous orator Aechines told a jury: "Men of Athens, you executed Socrates, the sophist, because he was clearly responsible for the education of Critias, one of the thirty anti-democratic leaders."

James Colaiaco's conclusion that impiety received more prosecutorial attention than did political sins rests on Plato's Apology .  Colaiaco sees Plato's famous account of the defense of Socrates as being--although far from a verbatim transcription of the  words of Socrates--fairly representative of the major points of his defense.  He notes that Plato wrote the Apology within a few years of the trial and must have expected many of his readers to have firsthand knowledge of the trial.  Why, Colaiaco asks, would have Plato misrepresented the arguments of Socrates, or hid key elements of the prosecution's case, when his actions in doing so could so easily be exposed?  Since the Apology seems to give great weight to the charge of impiety--and relatively little weight to the association of Socrates with the Thirty Tyrants--Colaiaco assumes this must have been a fair reflection of the trial.  At the same time, Colaiaco recognizes that because of the association of Socrates with Critias "the prosecution could expect any Athenian jury to harbor hostile feelings toward the city's gadfly."

Piety had, for Athenians, a broad meaning.  It included not just respect for the gods, but also for the dead and ancestors.  The impious individual was seen as a contaminant who, if not controlled or punished, might bring upon the city the wrath of the gods--Athena, Zeus, or Apollo--in the form of plague or sterility.  The ritualistic religion of Athens included no scripture, church, or priesthood.  Rather, it required--in addition to belief in the gods-- observance of rites, prayers, and the offering of sacrifices.

Any number of words and actions of Socrates may have contributed to his impiety charge.  Preoccupied with his moral instruction, he probably failed to attend important religious festivals.  He may have stirred additional resentment by offering arguments against the collective, ritualistic view of religion shared by most Athenians or by contending that gods could not, as Athenians believed, behave immorally or whimsically.  Xenophon indicates that the impiety charge stemmed primarily from the contention of Socrates that he received divine communications (a "voice" or a "sign") directing him to avoid politics and concentrate on his philosophic mission.  A vague charge such as impiety invited jurors to project their many and varied grievances against Socrates.

Dozens of accounts of the three-hour speech (apologia) by Socrates in his defense existed at one time.  Only Plato's and Xenophon's accounts survive.  The two accounts agree on a key point.  Socrates gave a defiant--decidedly un apologetic--speech.  He seemed to invite condemnation and death.

Plato's apology describes Socrates questioning his accuser, Meletus, about the impiety charge.  Meletus accuses Socrates of believing the sun and moon not to be gods, but merely masses of stone.  Socrates responds not by specifically denying the charge of atheism, but by attacking Meletus for inconsistency: the charge against him accused him of believing in other gods, not in believing in no gods.  If Plato's account is accurate, Socrates could have been seen by jurors offering a smokescreen rather than a refutation of the charge of impiety.

Plato's Socrates provocatively tells his jury that he is a hero.  He reminds them of his exemplary service as a hoplite in three battles.  More importantly, he contends, he has battled for decades to save the souls of Athenians--pointing them in the direction of an examined, ethical life.  He reportedly says to his jurors if his teaching about the nature of virtue "corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person." He tells the jury, according to Plato, he would rather be put to death than give up his soul-saving: "Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy."  If Plato's account is accurate, the jury knew that the only way to stop Socrates from lecturing about the moral weaknesses of Athenians was to kill him.

If I. F. Stone is right, the most damaging accusation against Socrates concerned his association with Critias, the cruel leader of the Thirty Tyrants.  Socrates, in Plato's account, points to his refusal to comply with the Tyrants' order that he bring in Leon of Salamis for summary execution.  He argues this act of disobedience--which might have led to his own execution, had not the Tyrants fallen from power--demonstrates his service as a good citizen of Athens.  Stone notes, however, that a good citizen might have done more than simply go home to bed--he might have warned Leon of Salamis.  In Stone's critical view, the central fact remained that in the city's darkest hour, Socrates "never shed a tear for Athens." As for the charge that his moral instruction provided intellectual cover for the anti-democratic revolt of Critias and his cohorts, Socrates denies responsibility.  He argues that he never presumed to be a teacher, just a figure who roamed Athens answering the questions that were put to him.  He points to his pupils in the crowd and observes that none of them accused him. Moreover, Socrates suggests to the jury, if Critias really understood his words, he never would have gone on the bloody rampage that he did in 404-403.  Hannah Arendt notes that Critias apparently concluded, from the message of Socrates that piety cannot be defined, that it is permissible to be impious--"pretty much the opposite of what Socrates had hoped to achieve by talking about piety."

What is strikingly absent from the defense of Socrates, if Plato's and Xenophon's accounts are to be believed, is the plea for mercy typically made to Athenian juries.  It was common practice to appeal to the sympathies of jurors by introducing wives and children.  Socrates, however, did no more than remind the jury that he had a family.  Neither his wife Xanthippe nor any of his three sons made a personal appearance.   On the contrary, Socrates--according to Plato--contends that the unmanly and pathetic practice of pleading for clemency disgraces the justice system of Athens.

When the three-hour defense of Socrates came to an end, the court herald asked the jurors to render their decision by putting their ballot disks in one of two marked urns, one for guilty votes and one for votes for acquittal.  With no judge to offer them instructions as to how to interpret the charges or the law, each juror struggled for himself to come to an understanding of the case and the guilt or innocence of Socrates.  When the ballots were counted, 280 jurors had voted to find Socrates guilty, 220 jurors for acquittal.

Penalty Phase of Trial

After the conviction of Socrates by a relatively close vote, the trial entered its penalty phase.  Each side, the accusers and the defendant, was given an opportunity to propose a punishment.  After listening to arguments, the jurors would choose which of the two proposed punishments to adopt.

The accusers of Socrates proposed the punishment of death.  In proposing death, the accusers might well have expected to counter with a proposal for exile--a punishment that probably would have satisfied both them and the jury.  Instead, Socrates audaciously proposes to the jury that he be rewarded, not punished.  According to Plato, Socrates asks the jury for free meals in the Prytaneum, a public dining hall in the center of Athens.  Socrates must have known that his proposed "punishment" would infuriate the jury.  I. F. Stone noted that "Socrates acts more like a picador trying to enrage a bull than a defendant trying to mollify a jury."  Why, then, propose a punishment guaranteed to be rejected?  The only answer, Stone and others conclude, is that Socrates was ready to die.

To comply with the demand that a genuine punishment be proposed, Socrates reluctantly suggested a fine of one mina of silver--about one-fifth of his modest net worth, according to Xenophon.  Plato and other supporters of Socrates upped the offer to thirty minae by agreeing to come up with silver of their own.  Most jurors likely believed even the heftier fine to be far too slight of a punishment for the unrepentant defendant. In the final vote, a larger majority of jurors favored a punishment of death than voted in the first instance for conviction.  According to Diogenes Laertius, 360 jurors voted for death, 140 for the fine.  Under Athenian law, execution was accomplished by drinking a cup of poisoned hemlock.

In Plato's Apology , the trial concludes with Socrates offering a few memorable words as court officials finished their necessary work.  He tells the crowd that his conviction resulted from his unwillingness to "address you as you would have liked me to do."  He predicts that history will come to see his conviction as "shameful for Athens,"  though he professes to have no ill will for the jurors who convict him.  Finally, as he is being led off to jail, Socrates utters the memorable line: "The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live.  Which to the better fate is known only to God."  It is likely that this last burst of eloquence comes from Plato, not Socrates.  There are no records suggesting that Athenian practice allowed defendants to speak after sentencing.

Socrates spent his final hours in a cell in the Athens jail.  The ruins of the jail remain today.  The hemlock that ended his life did not do so quickly or painlessly, but rather by producing a gradual paralysis of the central nervous system.

Most scholars see the conviction and execution of Socrates as a deliberate choice made by the famous philosopher himself.  If the accounts of Plato and Xenophon are reasonably accurate, Socrates sought not to persuade jurors, but rather to lecture and provoke them. The trial of Socrates, the most interesting suicide the world has ever seen, produced the first martyr for free speech.  As I. F. Stone observed, just as Jesus neededthe cross to fulfill his mission, Socrates needed his hemlock to fulfill his.

-- copied from Doug Linder (2000)   <http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html>

VIDEO RESOURCES - Ancient Athens

• Ancient Athens - Bettany Hughes [1 hr 36 min]
• The Truth About Democracy - Bettany Hughes [48:20]
• On Pericles' Funeral Oration [8:17]
• Divine Women Discuss Democracy [1 hr 23 min]

ONLINE TEXTS - Ancient Athens

• Athenian Democracy - An Overview Several web pages on the political institutions of Athenian democracy.
• The Democratic Experiment - Paul Cartlege [BBC] Simply the best introduction to the subject of Athenian democracy
• Pericles' Funeral Oration Illustrated
• AUDIO: Why Pericles Matters - A Lecture by Robin Fox An audio lecture
• Trial & Death of Socrates A site dedicated to the trial of Socrates

Recommended Reading

Democracy and Knowledge

- by Josiah Ober

When does democracy work well, and why? Is democracy the best form of government? These questions are of supreme importance today as the United States seeks to promote its democratic values abroad. Democracy and Knowledge is the first book to look to ancient Athens to explain how and why directly democratic government by the people produces wealth, power, and security.

Combining a history of Athens with contemporary theories of collective action and rational choice developed by economists and political scientists, Josiah Ober examines Athenian democracy's unique contribution to the ancient Greek city-state's remarkable success, and demonstrates the valuable lessons Athenian political practices hold for us today. He argues that the key to Athens's success lay in how the city-state managed and organized the aggregation and distribution of knowledge among its citizens. Ober explores the institutional contexts of democratic knowledge management, including the use of social networks for collecting information, publicity for building common knowledge, and open access for lowering transaction costs. He explains why a government's attempt to dam the flow of information makes democracy stumble. Democratic participation and deliberation consume state resources and social energy. Yet as Ober shows, the benefits of a well-designed democracy far outweigh its costs.

Understanding how democracy can lead to prosperity and security is among the most pressing political challenges of modern times. Democracy and Knowledge reveals how ancient Greek politics can help us transcend the democratic dilemmas that confront the world today.

"Josiah Ober is a practically minded, get up and go, people's kind of democrat. . . . There is certainly nothing like [Democracy and Knowledge] in the literature on ancient politics."

-- Geoffrey Hawthorn, Times Literary Supplement

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• Last Updated: Jan 4, 2024 11:11 AM
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8 Achievements and Shortcomings

• Published: November 2015
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This chapter describes how Athens had achieved a level of political and social stability that realized the democratic ideal in its fullest form, and more thoroughly discusses the shortcomings presented by its democracy. Athenian democracy also had its flaws, and was far from being a model society by the standards of modern liberal democracies. It claimed to give power to the many, but the many did not include three significant elements of the population: women, slaves, and resident aliens known as metics ( metoikoi ). In addition, the flaws that had shaped a disastrous foreign policy in the fifth century would recur in fourth-century procedures, and furthermore, the chapter indicates another threat to the city's power in the form of Macedonian expansionism.

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Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources

John lewis , history and political science, ashland university. [email protected].

This volume provides an up-to-date survey of issues vital to understanding ancient Greek democracy. An important strength of this book is its topical organization; each of six chapters focuses on a central question, using key ancient texts followed by two or three top-notch scholarly articles. This invites the audience, “students and other interested readers,” to shift their focus through various perspectives and to revisit important ideas in differing contexts. Although Athens necessarily remains the primary focus, the volume delivers on its promise of an examination that is broader than Athens, showing the derivation of democracy not from some single inventor but rather as a result of “attitudes and conditions widespread in the Greek world,” stretching from pre-democratic roots in Homer and Hesiod into fifth-century Syracuse. This book will elevate and enliven those students of Greek history and culture who have some grounding in the fundamentals of Greek history.

Demokratia remains the conceptual focal point of the book, and this thematic unity is strengthened by continual engagement with key terms, such as hubris, liberty and equality. To assist the student, a five-page Introduction provides a historical sketch of the appearance of democracies across the Greek world, giving an overview of the term demokratia , establishing the generally negative views of democracy that followed in Rome and the Renaissance, and bringing forth a range of works dealing with the subject in our own age. There is a two-page glossary of transliterated terms, and a twelve-page index. Each essay includes its original bibliography, and there is a short list of further readings with each chapter. A proper respect for the Greek democratic achievement, along with critical engagement, is maintained throughout. But students must be cautioned not to infer that democracy became nearly dominant in Hellas, that it superseded other forms of governance as a whole, or that the only alternative to it was tyranny. This implication could be drawn from the very brief historical overview.

Chapter One, “Prelude to Democracy: Political Thought in Early Greek Texts,” poses the question of origins: “Where did the idea come from?” In Homer and Hesiod the reader sees “a glimpse of the kind of thinking that in time led to the development of Greek democracy.” Such poems, demonstrating attitudes “toward power, authority, and the role of the community at large in political decisions” are properly distinguished from historically accurate chronologies of events (7-8). Selections here include some 600 lines of verse from Iliad books One and Two; a prose translation of Odyssey 2.1-259 (the assembly called by Telemachus); and two pages from Hesiod, Theogony 81-97 and Works and Days 213-69. Translations throughout are from established works; for example, Lattimore for the Iliad , Shewring for the Odyssey , and Athanassakis for Hesiod.

The interpretative readings that follow will expose readers to an energetic, healthy debate with attendant challenges and disagreements. Kurt Raaflaub’s contribution, “Homer and the Beginning of Political Thought in Greece,” emphasizes Homer’s awareness, and use, of the community in the dispute between the Greek leaders. Not only do the kings violate the heroic code that serves as the foundation of their authority, but they in fact jeopardize their positions by incurring the disapproval of the people. The extent to which Homer may, or may not, engage in critical thought about contemporary institutions is the crux of the criticism that Lowell Edmunds (“Commentary on Raaflaub”) brings to bear. By distinguishing a concern for political institutions from political thought and then accepting an anti-aristocratic strain in Homer, Edmunds establishes a context whereby he can challenge the idea that the fundamental situation in the Iliad is truly political. The rival interpretations of the Thersites scene — Raaflaub holding that it validates an anti-aristocratic principle, while Edmunds sees kingship as vindicated — will demonstrate for readers the range of disagreements possible even for texts that are often read.

Ian Morris, in his “Equality and the Origins of Greek Democracy,” introduces his theory of a conflict in archaic culture between elite versus middling ideologies, with the result that “the elitist ideology suffered major reverses,” and claims to a monopoly on political skill could not be made by the elites (46). This made popular rule possible. Readers must realize that this is a theory about the development of Greek political life, developed from archaeological evidence that is interpreted in terms of class struggle; the basics of that evidence must be derived elsewhere. For many readers, ideas such as Dahl’s “Principle of Equal Consideration of Interests” will require more discussion than is offered here. Further, the article brings in important poetic evidence — Archilochus, Theognis, Alcaeus, etc. — that could not be provided in this volume. Students will need additional information, and foundational discussions of the ideas involved if they are to be able to evaluate this interpretation. A reader might hope that the thirty pages devoted to Morris’s important essay had been followed by a response, even if excerpted.

Chapter Two takes a reader into “The Beginnings of Athenian Democracy: Who Freed Athens?” The evidence here is from Aristotle’s Constitution of Athens and Politics, Herodotus, Thucydides, a fragment from the Athenian Archon List, a drinking song to Harmodius and Aristogeiton and a scholium to Aristophanes’ Acharnians. The modern readings adopt opposite poles of interpretation; Josiah Ober’s emphasis on rhetoric and ideology brings an energetic response by Loren Samons. Ober’s well-known “The Athenian Revolution of 508/7 BC: Violence, Authority and the Origins of Democracy” argues that the events leading to the birth of democracy under Cleisthenes included a violent, leaderless, three-day riot that drove the Spartans from Attica. Samons’ answer, “Revolution or Compromise?” takes issue with Ober’s rejection of an institutional approach (and the “Iron Law of Oligarchy,” pace Syme) and his emphasis on democratic ideology. This, Samons maintains, substitutes its own models and elevates its own methods over analysis of institutions and prosopography. Samons’ criticism brings up a whole range of historical questions — such as Cleisthenes’ relationship to the tyrants, and his family connections, arrangements with Persia — that lead to a deeper issue: the relationship between historical evidence and ideology. This volume often returns to this vital point of methodology. (One awkward point for first-time readers is that page references to Ober in Samons have not been updated to match this volume.)

Chapter Three, “Popular Politics in Fifth-Century Syracuse,” questions the nature of Syracusan democracy in the sixty years post-460’s BC. Selections from Thucydides (from the speech of Athenagoras in favor of democracy), Aristotle’s Politics Book 5, and Diodorus 11 (the revolt in Syracuse) provide external points of comparison with democratic Athens. David Asheri’s interpretation of “Sicily, 478-431 BC,” and Shlomo Berger’s “Revolution and Society in Greek Sicily and Southern Italy,” being more overtly concerned with particular events and less with ideological and methodological issues, project nothing like the agonistic tone of the Ober versus Samons pieces. Robinson’s own piece, “Democracy in Syracuse, 466-412 BC,” clarifies in straightforward language some of the problems associated with the definition of demokratia, addressing those problems in terms derived from constitutional testimony. Robinson’s is the clearest essay so far in laying out the basic issues that must be grasped prior to tackling higher level scholarly disputes. Indeed beginning students might wish that Chapter Two had provided such a clear narration of events in 508 BC Athens, prior to considering the questions of method and ideology that dominate the agon between Ober / Samons. It might benefit students to read Chapter Three before Chapter Two.

The central questions of Chapter Four are theoretical, “Liberty, Equality and the Ideals of Greek Democracy.” The task here is to find the balance of power in a democratic polis. The readings are excerpted from Herodotus (the Persian Constitutional Debate), Euripides’ Suppliant Women ; Thucydides 2 (most of the funeral oration, which is completed in Chapter Six below); and two sections from Aristotle’s Politics . Martin Ostwald, “Shares and Rights: ‘Citizenship’ Greek Style and American Style,” and M. H. Hansen, ‘The Ancient Athenian and Modern American Liberal View of Liberty as a Democratic Ideal,” provide outstanding comparative essays that bring in material from the European and American Enlightenments and encourage historical and conceptual comparison between the Greeks and later Europeans. Non-Greek-reading students will be able to tackle transliterated Greek concepts in order to understand certain similarities and differences between ancient and modern democracy. Hansen’s seven uses of eleutheria and eleutheros are contextualized with the positive and negative senses of freedom in Isaiah Berlin and Benjamin Constant (173-5). This demonstrates the complexity involved in grasping abstract political concepts, and provides a warning not to take a correspondence between the ancient and the modern for granted. At this point a reader should also realize that the criteria for selecting the essays have not been the same for each of the chapters and that there are broader issues of method and style needed to evaluate the multiple levels of interpretation being presented.

Chapter Five homes in on the issue of “Power and Rhetoric at Athens: Elite Leadership versus Popular Ideology.” The readings bring two men forward from the crowd: Perikles, in Thucydides 2; and Meidias, in 14 pages lifted from Demosthenes 21 (the longest text passage in the volume). The evidence moves from Thucydides’ sublime evaluation of Perikles to the rudeness and insolence of Meidias according to Demosthenes. P. J. Rhodes, in “Who Ran Democratic Athens?” provides a commentary to the Thucydides passages while placing Perikles into the institutional framework of Athens. Peter J. Wilson’s piece, “Demosthenes 21 ( Against Meidias ), Democratic Abuse,” turns from Rhodes’ focus on the institutions to the use of rhetoric to undercut democratic ideology, an approach that Ober builds on in his “Power and Oratory in Democratic Athens: Demosthenes 21, Against Meidias.” Readers should recall the previous salvos leveled by Samons against Ober and the debate between institutional versus ideological views of the democratic polis. Wilson’s piece in particular draws parallels between the operations of the theatre, the jury and the assembly, both institutionally and through the rhetoric that is common to all such audiences, while adding a layer of self-reflective meaning to Demosthenes’ words. This chapter also provides detailed examination of several key terms on Greek discourse (e.g., hubris ) through interpretations that are the most tightly focused on the particular text sections of any in the volume.

Chapter Six takes on “Limiting Democracy: The Political Exclusion of Women and Slaves” by bringing in the close of the Perikles funeral oration, sections of Pseudo-Xenophon’s Constitution of the Athenians , Aristophanes’ Assemblywomen , and several passages in Aristotle’s Politics . The essays here address various contentious issues concerning the place of women and slaves in ancient democratic societies, starting from the ancient evidence yet remaining firmly aware of the effects of modern ideas on the conclusions that follow. As in other chapters, there is a strong awareness that exploring the culture of ancient Greece requires an understanding of the history of the ideas underlying modern scholarship. This is another of the motifs that continually resurface in this volume.

Robin Osborne’s “The Economics and Politics of Slavery at Athens” challenges the view that slavery was economically irrational and undemocratic and maintained simply as a prejudice. His survey of the economics of slavery leads to the opposite conclusion, that slaves did jobs which could not otherwise be economically performed, “or else yielded insufficient clear profit to enable a citizen family to survive, let alone to achieve upward mobility” (275). With Osborne having established that slavery was not a matter of ideology trumping economic irrationality, Michael Jameson’s essay, “Women and Democracy in Fourth-Century Athens,” confronts an ambiguous aspect of Greek democracy: that it both strengthened the divisions between free men and slaves, citizens and foreigners, and men and women, while making possible the concept of liberty so vital to later European history. Such ambiguities had consequences in fourth century Athens; as the democrats strengthened the distinction between slaves and free men, anti-democratic critics (such as Xenophon, and Plutarch, although the later historical position of Plutarch is not made explicit for readers) claimed to find conspiracies by the demos and excluded classes against aristocratic supporters. Jameson’s valuable discussion allows a reader to understand that ancient categories were fluid and that the polis of the fourth-century may have allowed women, foreigners and even women into its ranks.

In further challenges to rigid categories, Marilyn Katz, in “Women and Democracy in Ancient Greece,” criticizes the use of eighteenth-century models of domesticity as means to interpret women’s positions in Ancient Athens. Such models were based upon an inappropriate public versus private distinction, all derived from the views that eighteenth century scholars had of their own times. Katz demonstrates the influence of such ideas in brief excerpts from all three editions of the Oxford Classical Dictionary . But the error is not only one of postulating anachronistic views of domesticity, but also in the use of principles of natural law and individual rights to interpret the Greeks. Katz is surely correct, that “the topic of women’s exclusion from political rights remains inadequately theorized — trapped still by the contradictions of a liberal democratic theory and practice inherited from the eighteenth century” (306). A reader should now be motivated to return to the discussions of Ostwald and Hansen for a deeper look at their use of Enlightenment political concepts to understand the ancients.

This is a powerful volume that brings democracy into focus through connected readings that continuously widen the context of a reader’s understanding. Graduate students and scholars will find it invaluable. But many inexperienced students will need guidance with the essays; they will struggle with ideas such as “a subjective and an objective sense for the genitive” in Wilson (213), Ober’s understanding of “speech acts,” (104 f.), and Morris’s criticism of synchronic functionalism versus diachronic analysis (45). Instructors will need to evaluate the level of their students and plan strategies of engagement with what can be rival, and controversial, interpretations. But readers who want to rise above basic historical interpretations of democracy into the level of scholarship will find this an important resource.

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Democracy in Ancient and Modern Times: About the Relevancy of the Ancient Greek Experience for Our Own Societies

• First Online: 08 June 2022

Cite this chapter

• Guy Féaux de la Croix 4 , 5  

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The paper argues that the Battle of Salamis was a victory for freedom and self-determination which paved the way for democracy to evolve in classical times. It directly addresses the question of its relevancy for our own times. The paper reviews the literature for relevancy studies and builds towards a normative interpretation of Athenian democracy. It raises a series of key intertemporal issues, such as the relationship between freedom and democracy and freedom and equality. It further refers to present-day democratic worries in the light of the ancient experience: Modern democracies show increasing inequality and a degeneration of formal democracy towards de facto oligarchy. Elites seem discredited. In addition to the above, the paper raises a series of further pivotal issues such as (i) the lack of political competence of citizens necessary for participation, (ii) a democracy of populism and of group interests rather than one of democratic values, (iii) the effectiveness of democracy in securing a sustainable future for its people and (iv) quintessential problems that plague modern democracies, such as a lack of cultural education, which could prove to be the Achilles heel of our democracies. The paper concludes that democracy still has value in itself and that more philosophizing is needed, issuing a serious commandment to think clearly and act virtuously. If we prove ready to learn from the classical experience it might help us make the modern world a better place.

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Cf. for such an understanding of the event the title of Barry Strauss’ book: The Battle of Salamis : The Naval Encounter That Saved Greece and Western Civilization , New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004 .

Bleicken p. 682.

Quoted in Luciano Canfora, Eine kurze Geschichte der Demokratie, 4th ed., Cologne 2007 , p. 28, further referring to Julius Schvarcz, Die Demokratie, Leipzig 1876 , p. 23.

Guy Féaux de la Croix ( 2010 ), “Introduction”, in: The Marathon 2500 Declaration – For a Renewal of Democracy: Lessons from the Classical Athenian Experience, Athens 2010. In Greek and English with its 21 articles, published by Psychogios Ed., Athens, p. 18:

In this declaration we seek to extrapolate, from the experience of the Marathon Battle and the Classical Athenian democracy, a number of suggestions and guide-lines which might be helpful in rethinking and reforming our democracies, not least in the light of certain fallacies of our political systems and of the challenges which democracy faces in the 21st century.

Canfora ( 2007 , pp. 69, 354) however points out: “The term ‘democracy’ rarely appeared in the political vocabulary of the French revolution”. The bone of contention was especially the perception that the freedom of the Athenians had been founded on the grounds of their slavery system, which in turn hardly irritated the American founding fathers.

Herodotus ([1910] 1997 , III pp. 80–83); cf. also Canfora ( 2007 , p. 353).

Canfora ( 2007 , p. 22) referring to Demosthenes ( Philippic 4, 33).

Cf. Féaux de la Croix ( 2018 , p. 75).

As quoted by Aristoteles, Der Staat der Athener , s. Mittermaier and Mair ( 2013 , p. 6f).

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Féaux de la Croix, G. (2022). Democracy in Ancient and Modern Times: About the Relevancy of the Ancient Greek Experience for Our Own Societies. In: Economou, E.M., Kyriazis, N.C., Platias, A. (eds) Democracy in Times of Crises. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97295-0_9

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