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HOW DEMOCRATIC WAS ATHENS? Ancient Athens Is Sometimes Lauded As Having the Most Democratic Government the World Has Ever Known

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HOW DEMOCRATIC WAS ATHENS? Ancient Athens Is Sometimes Lauded As Having the Most Democratic Government the World Has Ever Known Bill of Rights Constitutional Rights in Action Foundation FALL 2017 Volume 33 No1 HOW DEMOCRATIC WAS ATHENS? Ancient Athens is sometimes lauded as having the most democratic government the world has ever known. The Athenian statesman and general Pericles called it “a model to others.” But critics throughout history have asked, just how democratic was Athens? Alamy Limited. Used with permission. Used Limited. Alamy A large open space in ancient Athens was called the agora. It is depicted here below the Acropolis, a complex of buildings on the hill in the background. Citizens originally gathered in the agora to discuss politics and to muster for battle. Later, the agora became an open marketplace for merchants. The word “democracy” comes from the ancient the United States of America is a nation-state. Almost all Greek. Demos means “people,” and kratos means “au- states in the modern world are nation-states, but a few thority.” So “democracy” means government by the au- are city-states. For example, Vatican City where the Pope thority of the people. In a democracy the whole of the lives and governs is a city-state. people share in governing. There are different forms of democracy. In most mod- Who Governed Athens? ern democracies (including the United States), the peo- All adult citizens of Athens were expected to partic- ple govern through elected representatives. But in the ipate in government, regardless of wealth or poverty. And democracy of ancient or classical Athens, every citizen as you can imagine, this meant that decision-making had the responsibility to govern. groups were larger than what modern democracies are Athens in the fourth and fifth century before the used to. Athenian juries had 500 or 501 jurors serving at Common Era (BCE) was a city-state. The city was the each trial. The main legislative body, the Assembly, had sovereign state, which means it ruled itself. By contrast, about 6,000 or more participants at each meeting. DEMOCRACY IN THE BALANCE Look for How do we define democracy? The first article examines an age-old question about how democratic Supplemental Activities! was the “birthplace of democracy,” ancient Athens. The second article takes a close look at how our Teacher-leaders from CRF’s early representative democracy met the challenges of expansion in the Northwest Territory. The third Teacher to Teacher Collabarative article presents startling data about how people view and value the fate of democracy. (T2T Collab) have created innovative World History: How Democratic Was Athens? by guest writer Aimée Koeplin, Ph.D. activities for lessons in this issue! Look U.S. History: The Northwest Ordinance and Westward Expansionby guest writer Thomas Holm for the T2T symbol to access activities Government/Current Issues:Is Democracy in Trouble?by longtime contributor Carlton Martz in the print and online editions. © 2017, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles. All Constitutional Rights Foundation materials and publications, including Bill of Rights in Action, are protected by copyright. However, we hereby grant to all recipients a license to reproduce all material contained herein for distribution to students, other school site personnel, and district administrators. (ISSN: 1534-9799) As large as these numbers sound to modern Amer- In Athens, a person could only serve on the Council icans, they were only a small fraction of the total in- once in his lifetime. The Council acted as a steering com- habitants of Athens. Only citizens could govern. And mittee that set the agenda for the Assembly, collected citizenship was restricted to adult males from citizen- taxes, and handled the day-to-day operations of the state. families. The total number of citizens was 20,000 – A new epistates, or chairman, was selected by lot 30,000 males. Women, children, slaves, and resident each day. (A person also could only serve as epistates aliens (immigrants) were excluded. Only 10 to 20 per- once in his lifetime.) The duties of the epistates in- cent of the total population of the city could participate cluded leading the Council for the day and meeting in democratic practices. with ambassadors from foreign governments. On the Some historians think that it seems odd to describe one hand, it seems quite democratic and egalitarian Athens as “democratic” if only 10 to 20 percent of the to randomly select one person to lead the city’s im- population had any say in the government. That means portant business and negotiations with foreign pow- 80 or 90 percent of the population was left out. If we ers. On the other hand, this system seems chaotic and judge Athens by how many of the total population could difficult to manage. less have their voices heard, then Athens seems demo- The Mytilenean Revolt cratic than our current system. Organizing debate and voting among 6,000 citizens How the Democracy Worked is challenging. And selecting individual administrators The Assembly was the main legislative body of by lot and for only a short time often does not allow Athens. Every adult male citizen had a place in it. The them to learn how to govern from experience. This sys- Assembly met outdoors in an amphitheater. Participants tem could involve models of good deliberation among were paid a small amount for showing up. Today, Amer- citizens, but it could also be unwieldy at the same time, ican citizens are paid a small amount for jury duty, too. such as the example of the Mytilenean Revolt. This very large group voted on laws and policy. Any In 478 BCE, Athens banded together with several member of the Assembly could address the group, re- other Greek city-states. The official meeting place of the gardless of social standing or wealth. But speakers could league was the Greek island of Delos, so it was called be shouted down by opponents. the Delian League. The league’s pur- Speakers had to learn how to state Athenians regretted their pose was to attack the Persian Em- their cases quickly and logically to pire, which had previously invaded have their ideas heard. Those with hasty decision to carry the Greek peninsula. good reputations, too, had more lee- out the brutal reprisal. Athens led the Delian League. In way in sharing ideas. 454 BCE, Athenian general Pericles The Assembly voted on many issues that modern moved the treasury of the league from Delos to Athens. Americans might find surprising. For example, they de- Athens also used the league’s navy to create an empire, cided who should be a general and what the military colonizing islands and territories across the Aegean Sea. should do. Everyone who counted as a citizen could di- In 427 BCE, the city of Mytilene revolted against rectly participate in a wide range of political decision-mak- Athens’ imperialism. The Athenian Assembly took up ing. That is why the Athenian system is called direct the question of how to respond to the Mytilenean Re- democracy. In this sense, the Athenian system seems ex- volt. On the first day of debate, the Assembly decreed tremely democratic. that their response to the revolt would be swift and The Assembly could not make every decision. A harsh. Every adult male in Mytilene was to be killed and Council of 500 took care of some of the administrative the women and children were to be sold into slavery. duties of the state. Every year, each of the ten tribes (or The Athenians sent a ship to carry out the sen- neighborhoods) of Athens sent 50 members to the tence. But the next day, many Athenians regretted Council. These members were selected randomly in a their hasty decision to carry out the brutal reprisal. system called selection by lot. Selection by lot was a lot- The Assembly initiated another debate. After persua- tery to see who would serve on the Council. Athenians sive speeches by notable Athenians, the Assembly considered a lottery to be a fair and democratic way to voted to amend their earlier decision. They would not choose who should lead. execute all the Mytileneans but instead only execute In the modern United States, we sometimes use se- the leaders of the revolt. lection by lot, too. The people who serve on juries are A second Athenian ship was sent to Mytilene to call first selected by lot. This large group is the jury pool. off the original sentence. The second ship was unable to Then the court and lawyers in a case choose who from catch up to the first. It arrived at Mytilene before the that pool will be in the 12-member jury panel that de- original, harsher sentence had been carried out, but cides the outcome of the case. after the original sentence had been announced. 2 WORLDWORLD HISTORY HISTORY BRIA 33:1 (Fall 2017) The Athenian Empire (431 BCE) In this case, direct democracy allowed a hasty decision to be made in anger. It also exposed to the Mytileneans how brutal the Commons Wikimedia Athenians could be. But direct democracy also allowed the cor- rection of a terrible mistake. That correction came about as a result of wise deliberation. Plato’s Criticism The ancient Athenian philosopher and political thinker Plato (ca. 428 BCE – 348 BCE) did not deny that Athens was demo- cratic. But he was deeply suspi- cious of democracy. In his Apology, Plato expressed concern about allowing everyone to par- ticipate in the affairs of state. He argued it was better to leave deci- sion-making to experts. In the Republic, Plato argued Locate the positions of Athens, Mytilene, and the island of Delos on this map of the Athenian Empire in the 5th century BCE.
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