1. The ‘messy realities’ of Athenian democracy
This anthology aims to offer an introduction to the culture and practice of democracy in ancient Athens. It is primarily aimed at undergraduate students in classics and ancient history, but will hopefully be useful to anybody interested in the history of democracy. The topic of ancient Athens is one which generally excites wonder and admiration. The mind immediately goes to the beautiful temples of the acropolis, the masterpieces of sculpture and literature, the achievements of science and philosophy. And then of course there was democracy. For Athens is generally hailed as the mother of all democracies, and for this reason it has been put on a kind of a pedestal. This is not the ideal situation to approach the study of Athenian democracy. In fact, it makes our understanding of it much more problematic, and one might even go so far as to say that, so far, we have been studying Athenian democracy for all the wrong reasons. To start with, Athens was not at all the place where democracy began. In fact, assembly-based governments were operating in the city-states of Mesopotamia at least since the third millennium BC. Also, if we were to judge it by modern standards, Athenian democracy could not be judged democratic at all. Full citizenship was confined to the sons of a legitimate Athenian father and mother. At the end of the 4th century the number of these privileged fully-fledged citizens was c. 30,000 out of a total population of 100,000. This figure excludes slaves, who might have been four times as many (Hansen, pp. 90–4). Most economic activities depended on slave labour, and slave trade was a very flourishing business in itself. Women were not entitled to take part in the political life of the city and were generally considered to be inferior, and the greatest honour, as Pericles puts it, came to those women who were the least talked about among men (Thuc. 2.45.2). Foreign residents had to be represented by an Athenian patron for legal purposes, and were required to pay a special tax, called metoikion, for the privilege of residing in the city. The Athenians did nothing to promote peace. In fact, they were a rather bellicose lot, constantly engaged in war with one enemy or another. The notion of ‘democratic peace’, i.e. the idea that democracies do not make war on each other, was totally unknown to them. The Athenians had no particular moral objections to waging war against fellow democracies when their disputes could not be settled in any other manner (Dem. Rhod. 17). To some extent, war and empire were necessary to support democracy. Athens reached the peak of its power in the decades between the end of the Persian Wars (490–478) and the outbreak of the fratricidal conflict with Sparta, the so-called Peloponnesian War (431–404). In those years Athens became the leading naval power of Greece, ruling over a web of subject cities and islands scattered all over the Aegean Sea. The Athenians were not enlightened masters, but ruled over their presumed allies like iron-fisted tyrants (Thuc. 2.63). The tribute paid by the allies for defensive purpose was channelled into the Athenian treasury and used to support that extraordinary building programme that gave us the Parthenon and all the other magnificent edifices of the city, and to pay for a quantity of more or less important public offices which were the main source of income for many Athenians. Democracy had quite a few critics in ancient Greece, who did not fail to point out the limits of that regime. To start with, political activity in Athens was incessant and sometimes chaotic. According to the anonymous author known as the Old Oligarch, the political calendar of the city was so dense that sometimes a magistrate could spend a whole year in office without ever being admitted before the assembly or the council ([Ps. Xen.] Ath. Const. 3.1). Politically, the behaviour of the Athenians was volatile and capricious, and they were notorious for their habit of taking hasty decisions that they would later deplore, often making individual officers pay for their mistakes. Then there is the matter of size. Athens was nothing but a small city-state covering the territory of Attica, a small peninsula of central-east Greece projecting into the Aegean Sea. Athens was in fact larger than most other Greek city-states. Yet its borders encompassed an area of approximately only 2500 square kilometres (965.3 square miles), roughly the same size as Derbyshire, or Pottawattamie County, Iowa.
A number of questions might arise at this point. What was really democratic about classical Athens, if anything? Why do we still give her a special place in the history of political culture? What, if anything, makes classical Athens different, exceptional and still worth studying? In the last years, scholars have approached the study of ancient Athens much more critically, questioning its towering position in the history of democracy. This debate only in part stems from our growing understanding of earlier civilizations. It is also the result of our changing perception of what democracy stands for in an age of growing uncertainty and epochal transformations, where ‘Western culture’ is becoming less and less dominant. In a controversial book published in 2004, Luciano Canfora criticized the idea that democracy originated in ancient Greece. The use of a ‘Greco-classical stamp’ to define the values of democracy was nothing but a ‘falsification’ (Canfora, pp. 7–20). Even more radically, political scientist John Keane wrote that democracy was in fact an ‘import from afar’, like gunpowder or print, whose seeds were first sown in the city-states of Mesopotamia, around 3000 BC, then travelled east towards India, before landing on Western soil (Keane, pp. xi–xii). If anything, Keane seems to argue that the history of Athenian democracy is interesting exactly because it is very often anything but an edifying tale, because it reveals to us the ‘messy realities’ of democratization, and fortuitous and less than noble circumstances through which democracy often comes into being (Keane, pp. 4–5).
Keane is certainly right: the history of Athenian democracy has many murky and inglorious pages. What Keane fails to observe is that the ancient Athenians were arguably much more aware of that than we are. This might sound like a kind of paradox, but many of them considered the oligarchic constitution of Sparta to be the most perfect in the world. The Spartan constitution was particularly popular among the intellectuals. One of these pro-Spartan thinkers was Xenophon (431–355), a multi-talented historian, essayist and mercenary captain. Among his many accomplishments, Xenophon was the author of a laudatory Constitution of the Spartans, whose opening paragraphs run as follows (Xen. Sp. Const. 1.1–2):
One day it came to my mind that Sparta, albeit one of the least densely populated cities in Greece, was still the most powerful and most renowned. So I began to wonder how this could have been, and once I turned my attention to the customs of the Spartans, I did not wonder any longer. I do marvel at Lycurgus, the man who set the laws by obeying which the Spartans became so prosperous, and I judge him to have been wise to the extreme. For Lycurgus made Sparta the most prosperous state in Greece not by imitating others, but by framing laws that were the opposite of those in place in most cities.
Lycurgus (the ‘Wolf-worker’) was Sparta’s semi-legendary lawgiver. He was celebrated as the author of the so-called Great Rhetra (‘Sayings’), the code of political, moral and educational norms that made up the constitution (politeia) of the Spartans. The bulk of the Great Rhetra was put together between the eighth and seventh centuries, at the time of Sparta’s expansion into southern Peloponnese (Messenian Wars). This code would remain substantially unaltered at least until the end of the Peloponnesian War (404), when the victorious Spartans began to savour the corrupting power of wealth and imperialism. The fact that the body of the Great Rhetra was left untouched for so long was an essential element to its perceived perfection. The image of the Spartan constitution was that of a monolith, the gift of an extraordinary man inspired in his work by the oracle of Delphi. In the light of its divine germination, the Rhetra could not be criticized or modified, but just obeyed and worshipped. The Great Rhetra appeared to be ideally shaped to the needs of a self-sufficient polis community. It was impermeable to the influences of other cultures and to the vicissitudes of history.
The case of the Athenian politeia was radically different. Far from remaining unchanged throughout the centuries, the Athenian constitution was a constant work-in-progress. Athenian democracy did not come about overnight, nor was it the idea of one enlightened man, but it was engendered by the travails and the conflicts which made up the history of the city. It was the product of an endless series of changes and transformations, reflecting the dynamic and composite character of the city, and the travails of its history. The author of the Athenaion Politeia (‘The Constitution of the Athenians’), a late fourth-century treatise traditionally attributed to Aristotle, calls these transformations metabolai, which means ‘changes’, ‘reforms’, or even ‘revolutions’ ([Arist.] Ath. Const. 41). The democratization of ancient Athens was a long and difficult journey, fuelled more by strife and fierce divisions than noble ideals. In fact, the ‘leaders of the populace’ who made Athens democratic were often moved by petty jealousies and personal rivalries. More often than not they were unable to foresee the long-term repercussions of their actions. Democratic Athens was no place for enlightened Lycurguses.
2. How the Athenian people ruled themselves ‘to a bewildering degree’
The long journey to democracy began in the mists of time. Athens was born when Ion, the wandering son of Creusa and Apollo, settled in the territory of the city and divided its population into four tribes (Strabo, 8.7.1). This was the first metabole of the city. Back then, Athens was nothing but one of the many villages scattered throughout Attica. The second metabole was set in motion by the daring scheme of one man, Theseus, the mythical king of Athens who defied the Minotaur in Crete. Theseus, says Thucydides, had the intuition and authority to abolish all the pre-existing municipalities of Attica and merge them into one political community (Thuc. 2.15.2). This process was known as synoecism (from syn, ‘together’, and oikos, ‘home’: ‘to share the same home’): the dwellers of all the villages of Attica were now citizens of Athens; the city had become the administrative and political centre of the new state. The people of classical Athens revered Theseus as the founder of their polis, and hence as the man who laid the path to democracy. When Cimon, the hero of the battle of Salamis, recovered the bones of Theseus on the island of Scyros and brought them back to Athens to give them an honourable burial, his grave immediately became a sanctuary for slaves, refugees and all those fleeing from the violence of power (Plut. Thes. 36.1–2, Paus. 1.15.4, see infra, item 6.c). Theseus’ role as the father of democracy was immortalized in Euripides’ Suppliant Women. Written at the time of the war against Sparta, the play tells the story of the mothers of the seven Argive warriors who had died fighting at the gates of Thebes and were still lying unburied. The scene is set at the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, north-west of Athens, where the Argive women had come as suppliants. Aethra, the mother of Theseus, praying with them. Adrastus, the king of Argos, pleads with Aethra to intercede with Theseus and persuade him to assist the Argives in the recovery of the seven bodies so that they may be buried. At first, the Athenian sovereign is dubious; Aethra tries to persuade him by appealing to the traditional mercy of the Athenians. Then Theseus decides to put the matter to popular vote. As he explains to his mother (ll. 346–53),
This I’ll do: I’ll rescue the dead by means of persuasive words, or, failing that, the spear will settle the issue, and the gods won’t hold ill-will to me for this. But I also need to obtain the approval of the whole city on the matter. This will be ensured merely by my wishing for it, but if I address the people in a speech I will have them better disposed. For I have made the people [demos] sovereign and set the city free by giving all the citizens equal right of vote.
Again, when a Theban messenger comes on stage bringing a message for the ‘tyrant’ of the city, Theseus makes it immediately clear who is really running it (ll. 403–8).
Foreigner, you have given a false beginning to your speech by seeking a tyrant here. For this city is not ruled by one man, but is free. The people are sovereign here, ruling in succession year by year. No preference is granted to wealth, but the poor has an equal share with the rich.
The original government of Athens was a monarchy ruled by a basileus (king). As time went by, the constitution was turned into an oligarchy. The basileus was made to share power with a military magistrate called polemarch (literally the ‘war-lord’) and then with a college of archontes (‘those who are at the head’, ‘magistrates’). Originally all these offices were held for life. The tenure was later limited to ten years and, by the early-6th century, to one year only. The big breakthrough of Athenian democracy came in the late 460s, when Ephialtes transferred the political and juridical powers of the college of the former archontes, the so-called Areopagus, to the city’s assembly (ekklesia), the council (boule) and to the jury courts (dikasteria). Since then, the citizens of Athens governed themselves ‘to a now bewildering degree’ (Dunn, p. 18). The great experiment of Athenian democracy would be brought to an end only about 140 years after Ephialtes’ reforms, when the Macedonian army took over Greece following the battle of Crannon (322). This was a remarkable achievement, particularly if one considers the very young age of most modern democracies, and the instability of many of them.
The Greek word demokratia is composed of two nouns, demos, which means ‘people’, and kratos, ‘power’. Demokratia therefore was a regime where power rested with the people. Demos is in fact a rather ambiguous word, which might refer either to the whole citizen body of a polis or only to a part of it, i.e. the poor majority. According to the Old Oligarch, the whole point of Athenian democracy was to make the base and poor better off than the noble and wealthy (Ps. Xen. Ath. Const. 1.1, 4). Aristotle, who was no friend of democracy, had a more articulate view. Democracy is a form of government whose fundamental principle is liberty. By this principle, all citizens are called to govern and to be governed in turn, according to an equalitarian conception of justice based on number (kat’arithmon), and not on social worth (kat’axian; Arist. Pol. VI.1.6). To enforce this principle, it was necessary that the exercise of any magistracy was limited in time. In the course of its long history, the Athenian system of government went through a series of reforms and transformations; however, its main tenet remained in place up to the Macedonian occupation of Attica: the demos was sovereign and embodied in itself all the functions of legislative, executive and judicial power.
The history of archaic Athens was one of civic strife, parochial rivalries between clans from the different areas of Attica, social tensions between a tiny minority of rich families and a large majority of dispossessed. At the end of the 6th century, Cleisthenes, the scion of the noble family of the Alcmaeonids, became the leader of the popular faction and promoted a thorough reform of the government of the polis, which was meant to curtail local rivalries and to promote a common Athenian identity. To attain this Cleisthenes abolished the old four ethnic tribes (phylai) of the city, a new system based on residence. The territory of Attica was organized into 139 local districts known as demes. Each deme was assigned to one of three regions, the city, the coast and the rural inland. The demes of each region were then organized into ten smaller units, or trittyes. Each of the thirty trittyes was to constitute the ‘third part’ (hence the name) of the new ten tribes created by Cleisthenes, one from each region selected by lot. The new Cleisthenic tribe was the main administrative unit of democratic Athens.
Solon is credited with establishing the boule, the city’s council, originally composed of four hundred members and then extended to five hundred following Cleisthenes’ reforms. The members of the boule (bouleutai) were selected by lot every year. Each deme put forward a number of candidates from the lists of those who had applied to be considered for this service, and each tribe appointed fifty councilmen. Every Athenian citizen could serve on the boule twice in his lifetime, but not in consecutive years.
The Athenian calendar was divided into ten prytaneiai. Every year the group of councilmen of each tribe were to serve as the executive committee of the boule for one prytaneia. For this period they were known as prytaneis. Every day at sunset a lot was drawn to appoint the president of the prytaneis (epistates ton prytaneon), who remained in service for one night and one day. The epistates ton prytaneon held the seal of the polis and the keys to the sanctuaries where the treasuries were held ([Arist.] Ath. Const. 44.1). The prytaneis had to summon the council every day except on holidays. The main duty of the boule was to convene and prepare the probouleuma, that is the agenda for the meetings of the assembly. The meetings of the boule were held in the bouleuterion in the agora, while the prytaneis were housed in the tholos, a small round structure nearby the bouleuterion. One third of the prytaneis in charge were to be present at the tholos at any given time.
The ekklesia was the assembly of all citizens, and the sovereign institution of Athenian democracy. Its most important functions were to appoint magistrates, judge some political trials, discuss and pass decrees on matters of internal and foreign policy. All male adult citizens were entitled to attend after registering at the assembly register (pinax ekklesiastikos) of their deme. The meetings were usually held at the pnyx, a semi-circular rocky slope 400 metres south-west of the acropolis. The assemblymen sat directly on the stone, facing north toward the speaker’s podium (bema). The ekklesia was summoned at least once a month, and meetings lasted from dawn to dusk. Any citizen was formally entitled to propose a decree or address the assembly.
The dikasterion was the people’s court. It was composed of 6000 jurors selected by lot at the beginning of each year. All citizens over the age of 30 years were eligible to serve. The selected jurors were divided into ten sections composed by groups of 600 jurors from each tribe ([Arist.], Ath. Const. 68.1). Once appointed, the jurors had to swear the following oath (heliastikos horkos):
I will cast my vote in accordance with the laws, and with the decrees of the assembly and of the council and if there is no law in accordance to what I consider most just, without sympathy or enmity. I will cast my vote only on the matters brought up in the charge and will listen impartially to the accusers and the defendants.
The resolutions of the courts had a decisive impact on the political life of the city. To start with, it was very common practice amongst Athenian politicians to fight their opponents by means of legal charges. In the second half of the 5th century, the courts were responsible for judging cases of graphe paranomon (‘indictment for (proposing) illegal measures’). This procedure allowed any citizen to bring suit against a decree which was thought to be illegal or in contrast with the interests of the city. This meant that the court had the authority to overturn a deliberation of the assembly. The courts were also in charge of ascertaining the eligibility of newly appointed magistrates and other officers (dokimasia = ‘scrutiny’) and examining the accounts which they were required to render at the end of their mandate (euthyna).
Every year the Athenian demos appointed about 1100 magistrates, who dealt with a very wide range of military, religious, financial, administrative and judiciary duties (see Arist. Pol. 6.1.6). 30 years was the required age to serve in any of these offices. The Athenian magistrates were generally appointed by lot, but there were some important exceptions. The most important of these was the college of the ten strategoi (‘generals’), who were the commanders-in-chief of the Athenian army. In the second half of the 5th century Pericles attained a dominant position in the city by serving in the board of strategoi almost uninterruptedly from 455 to his death in 429. In the last decades of the 4th century, other magistrates with important financial responsibilities were also elected by show of hands. These were the treasurer of military funds, the controllers of the so-called theorikon (a fund established in the mid-fourth century originally to assist poor citizens towards the admission to the theatre festivals of the city and later employed for a much wider range of purposes), and the superintendent of the city’s water supply. These magistrates remained in office for a period of four years ([Arist.] Ath. Const. 43.1).
3. The limits of Athenian demokratìa
This is the system through which the citizens of ancient Athens governed themselves ‘to a bewildering degree’. The Athenian citizens seem to have applied the principle of equality to a degree unthinkable in our age. In principle, any citizen was entitled to speak before the assembly and to propose legislation on whatever matter, regardless of one’s experience and expertise – or lack of it. Athenian democracy knew no formal executive power. There was no prime minister or cabinet. All magistrates and officers were appointed for a limited period of one year. Turnover was obviously very high, and the Athenians as a rule preferred to entrust important responsibilities to a college of magistrates rather than an individual. This also applied to military matters. Just to make one astonishing example, in the days of the campaign of Marathon, all the ten strategoi were serving on the field and rotated the command of the forces between them on a daily basis. How could this system work? The Athenian constitution had its fair share of critics both within and outside the city. For many of them the Athenians were simply obsessed with politics. As we have seen, according to the Old Oligarch political activity in Athens was incessant, and as a consequence of that the city was chaotic and unruly. ([Ps. Xen.] Ath. Const. 3.1). Athenian democracy was underpinned by contradictions, and the behaviour of the citizens was often volatile and capricious. They seemed to know that individual leadership was to some extent necessary, but at the same time were very wary of it. The most prominent orators of the pnyx could see their support quickly evaporate and turn into popular hatred. Generals were at risk of being charged with treason whenever they incurred in defeat. This is what happened to Miltiades, one of the heroes of Marathon. Just a few months after that glorious victory, Miltiades failed to seize the Persian outpost of Paros. A trial ensued at which Miltiades was found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. The great general eventually had his sentence converted to a fine; unfortunately he could not afford to pay it and ingloriously died in prison from the wounds sustained at Paros. In 406, following a victorious engagement with the Spartans at Arginusae, the Athenians sentenced to death the eight strategoi in charge of the operation, the cream of the city’s military, because a storm had prevented them from recovering the body of the dead and shipwrecked after the battle.
These excesses aside, modern observers have pinpointed some important limits of the Athenian demokratìa. A first problem is of course size. The Athenian system based on the direct democracy and amateurism could only function within the limited horizons of the polis. As brilliantly discussed by R. Dhal, this happened because Greek political culture was very exclusive, both internally and externally. Internally, because political rights were limited to a very small group of male citizens defined by kinship ties. Even in democratic Athens full citizenship was confined to the sons of a legitimate Athenian father and mother. Externally, because political rights were never conceived as a universal claim, but as an attribute of membership in one of these exclusive groups. As far as Athens was concerned, most citizens would have certainly agreed with Pericles that that ‘in the settlement of their private disputes all men are equal before the law’ (Thuc. 2.37.1), but this principle only applied within the borders of the polis (see Dahl, pp. 22–3).
This idea of exclusivity is very important to understanding what the Athenians and the other Greeks meant by politeia, the ‘constitution’ of a city. In the famous funeral speech delivered in honour of the Athenian soldiers fallen in the first year of the war against Sparta (429), Pericles celebrates Athens as the ‘school’ of Greece, and the democratic constitution as one of the most original achievements of this extraordinary city. The Athenian politeia, he says, ‘is called democracy (demokratìa) because power is in the hands of the many, not the few’ (Thuc. 2.37). These words are much more ambiguous than they might appear at first reading. This ambiguity in part arises from that of the noun demos. Pericles uses the first-person plural to talk about democracy: our constitution. At the same time, he does not hide the fact that democracy benefits a part of the city, the many, and not another. As we have said, Pericles also celebrates the uniqueness of the Athenians’ politeia, which does not imitate those of their neighbours, but is a model for others to follow. Why is this claim to constitutional originality so important? To answer this question, we should consider that the word politeia did not simply refer to the institutions, norms and procedures which made up the government system of a polis. According to Aristotle, the polis is first and foremost a community defined by its politeia. If the politeia changes, the polis inevitably becomes a different polis (Arist. Pol. 3.1.13). Isocrates goes so far as to say that the politeia is the ‘soul’ of a polis (Isoc. Areop. 14). To be member in a polis community, to hold a share in its politeia did not simply imply the exercise of political entitlements. To claim membership in a politeia was the mark of a specific cultural and social identity. By celebrating demokratìa, therefore, Pericles did not intend to celebrate a universal ideal, or the values of liberty and equality which we now associate with democracy, but a uniquely Athenian experience. Demokratìa was the product of the extraordinary history of this polis community. The Athenians were persuaded that their polis had stood apart from all the other cities of Greece since its earliest history. Attica was the only region of Greece never to experience immigration and invasions from outside, remaining always inhabited by the same people (autochthony, 1.2). Pericles does not fail to point this out in his funeral speech (Thuc. 2.36.1).
4. Why ancient Athens is still relevant: Democracy as a value and a struggle
In 1993/94, a great exhibition was held at the National Archives of Washington DC to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of Cleisthenes’ reforms and the birth of Athenian democracy. Since then, many historians have questioned whether Athenian democracy is still something to celebrate. For the close-knit, unequal, exclusive society of ancient Athens cannot represent a model of governance for the diverse societies of today’s world. Athenian democracy may not be something to celebrate, but this is exactly what makes it still very relevant: the Athenians were not presented with democracy by some god-inspired lawgiver, but built it through the vicissitudes and travails of their history. If, to the eyes of its admirers, the Spartan constitution was notable for its perfection, the Athenian demokratìa was eminently imperfect and constantly called into question. A very important episode for understanding the attitude of the Athenian citizens took place in 413. Two years earlier, while the polis was still recovering from the first phase of the war against Sparta, the flamboyant Alcibiades persuaded them to embark upon the overambitious and extremely expensive project of a naval expedition to Sicily. Two years later the campaign ended in disaster after Sparta decided to send reinforcements to their Sicilian allies. When the Athenians were informed of the annihilation of their fleet, their first reaction was complete disbelief. Naturally their first reaction was to tear into the politicians, who made the easiest target of all. Then they turned against all the omen-mongers and soothsayers who had bamboozled the populace into voting for the expedition. Finally, scared as they were by the perspective of a combined attack from their enemies in Sicily and Greece, and of an all-out revolt of their allies, the Athenians realized that the time called for wiser decisions and efficient governance, and so they resolved to appoint a committee of ten men to revise the constitution and make it more efficient. This, says Thucydides, is the usual course with democracies (Thuc. 8.1).
Many of the defects of the Athenian demokratia emphasized by modern scholars are often still prevalent in modern democratic governments: women are still struggling for fuller political and social recognition, the growing diversity of our societies has called into question traditional forms of citizen and political involvement. In ancient Athens, like today, democracy was never taken for granted, nor should it be. At its best, it is dynamic and reflects the ever-changing face of society. But it is also constantly imperilled both from inside and outside. This is why in ancient Athens the exercise of democracy required responsible and enlightened citizens, as it still does now. This political conscience could only be acquired by engaging with the other members of the community, and by creating a lively public sphere. This is the other reason why it is still very important to confront ourselves with the history of Athenian democracy. The aim of this anthology is to allow students to gain a hands-on approach to the study of the democratic politeia of ancient Athens and to understand the influence of the culture and practice of democracy beyond the political sphere. This book will follow the development of the Athenian constitution from its origins to the Macedonian conquest and will consider the influence of the Athenian democratic legacy in the Hellenistic and Roman world. The first chapter will provide an introduction to this analysis by discussing the origins of the polis in archaic Greece and the theoretical discussion of the Greek city-state in Aristotle’s Politics.