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Was Ancient Athens Truly a Democracy?

By Sage Lau - Hong Kong


Introduction


As many historians, philosophers, and classicists alike accredit Ancient Athens as the first true democracy, it is impossible not to recognise the flaws presented within the system. 80% of the population was ineligible to vote, and the hierarchy of officials presented contradictions to the city’s ‘direct democratic’ approach. Democracy, a portmanteau of the Greek words δεμος, meaning ‘people’, and κρατος, meaning ‘power’, serves as a vessel for the understanding of Ancient Greek ideologies. Yet, this contradictory nature of Athenian ‘true democracy’ presents the question of whether we can successfully call Athens a real democratic city-state. Debates arose even with well-known ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, with the latter disparaging this form of government as being anarchic and run by ‘fools’ in an allegory from Book VI of Plato’s Republic. Yet, its legacy has undoubtedly played a significant role in forming today’s government systems - so if Athens’ system is inherently contradictory, how can it be considered a pioneering model embraced by many modern nations? Can it genuinely be accredited as a democracy?


Foundations of Democracy


To delve deeper into whether ancient Athens successfully reigned as a true democracy, it is important to identify what the original definition of ‘democracy’ meant theoretically. Josiah Ober, professor of Classics and Political Science at Stanford University, defines democracy as “the capacity of people to accomplish things together” (Stanford).  This contrasts with aristocracy, derived from the Greek words αριστος, ‘best’, and κρατος, ‘power’, which still played a role in the ancient Athenian voting system. The ancient Greek word δεμοκρατια still presents ambiguous qualities; despite transliterally meaning ‘direct democracy’, does the power truly belong to the people or only to those who hold qualified positions in the assembly? Democracies are based on the ‘rule of law,’ and according to Aristotle, three types of justice exist: political justice, legal/conventional justice, and most importantly, natural justice, as he believes that it is ‘unchangeable’ or ακινετον (Burns). Athenian democracy developed around the end of the 6th century BC; however, it was not the first to instigate a democratic regime. City-states or poleis began to erect in the Archaic Age (“Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought”), housing scattered self-sufficient communities across the Greek peninsula and the Aegean Sea. Its inhabitants became citizens, assembling armies, producing currency, and even worshipping independent gods. Recognising this, only Athens had sufficient historical records to prove the rise and nature of Greek democracy, therefore becoming the forefront of this revolutionary ideology.


How was Athens a Democratic State?


In some respects, the Athenian policy of ‘direct democracy’ provided greater freedom for citizens then than what we have today. Elections only played a minute role amongst people who attended the ἐκκλησια - the sovereign governing body of Athens. Instead, participation was widely encouraged by the principle of ὁ βουλομενος, which means ‘anyone who wishes’. The principle suggests that anyone* would be eligible to join the legislative discussion. There were up to forty meetings per annum, which were open to thirty thousand citizens. Around six thousand people attended each session to address fellow citizens, propose new laws, or bring a public lawsuit. Ostracism, a democratic procedure in which any citizen could be expelled from the city-state of Athens for ten years, was amongst the powers of the Assembly. The second principal legislative institution was the βουλη or boule, a governing council of five hundred men, composed of fifty men from each of ten Athenian tribes (Doenges). They met every day to set agendas and evaluate military proposals. These were typically chosen randomly by lottery from a pool of citizen volunteers to prevent the formation of governing classes and political parties or influence by money or popularity. Hundreds of jurors and magistrates handling legal matters were also picked this way – this process is known as sortition. All reformations constituted a remarkable reshaping of Athenian society after long periods of previous social and political tension. Old associations, by region or according to families, were broken, distributing the previous power of nobles to ordinary citizens. Citizenship and the ability to enjoy these rights were in the hands of immediate neighbours. However, the governing body of Athens was in the hands of the Athenian demos as a whole, organised across territory and clan. 


Limitations of Athenian Democracy


Despite the extraordinary revolutionary reforms instigated and developed by Cleisthenes, by 21st-century standards, the exclusion of most of the population implies that Athenian rule was not a ‘direct democracy’. Only 20% of the overall population were eligible citizens to vote (“Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought”), rejecting the opinions of, most notably, women, slaves, and foreigners. Suppose the central features of the democratic ideology of Athens were freedom of speech and actions for all ordinary citizens. Is it plausible to call ancient Athenian policies truly democratic if its voting procedures exclude four-fifths of the population? 

Initially, eligible Athenian men had to have an Athenian father and a free mother, with or without Athenian heritage. By the mid-5th century B.C., however, under Pericles, Athens enforced harsher rules, stating that only men with Athenian fathers and mothers could claim citizenship. Reducing the number of eligible voters diminishes the diversity of perspectives and limits the representation of the populace. Restricting the electorate may lead to an imbalance in decision-making, potentially neglecting the needs and interests of a significant portion of the population. Although other government positions were open to all Athenian men in theory, in practice, wealth and location played a significant 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. Certain positions were reserved solely for the elites: the treasurers were always wealthy (ostensibly because wealthy men handled finances successfully), and the ten generals who occupied the executive cabinet were always aristocratic, well-known figures chosen by the elections. 


Additionally, there could be no assurance that there was no significant bias during the election process in tribal meetings, favouring particularly the wealthy and influential leaders of the tribe. In brief, there is no reason to believe that this council of five hundred would have been any more reflective of the citizenry at large than the council of elders and elites after Solon’s reforms.


Insights from the Greek Great Thinkers


Athenian democracy falls no short of much criticism from both modern and ancient scholars. While modern critics are more likely to find fault with the restrictive qualifications of political involvement, ancient critics such as Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle viewed democracy as being too inclusive. For them, common folks were not necessarily fit to rule and were likely to make fatal misjudgments. Samons suggests that “the modern desire to look to Athens for lessons or encouragement for modern thought, government, or society must confront this strange paradox: the people that gave rise to and practised ancient democracy left us almost nothing but criticism of this form of regime (on a philosophical or theoretical level). By limiting ourselves to identify solely those areas where the Athenians supposedly spoke and acted like today’s democrats, it “betrays the intellectual and moral standards set for us by the ancient Greeks”, as it would be foolish to believe that any classical Greek scholar known to us began his work with the tenet that democracy was the most crucial component in human government or society. 


Aristotle criticises the practice because it has achieved its purpose by enabling the underprivileged to exercise their political power (Jones). Nonetheless, he proposes that oligarchy and democracy are deviant constitutions and should, therefore, find a middle constitution, one between both extremes “for it alone is free from faction” (“Aristotle, Politics, Book 4, Section 1296a”). Similarly, as often as Thucydides was seen as an opposer to democracy, it would be incorrect to infer he had a distaste for democracy only but rather, like Aristotle, saw flaws within both democratic and oligarchic institutions (Pope). Despite criticisms of the system, it is evident, particularly in Thucydides' works, that the democratic institution of Athens was a critical factor in the rise of the city-state to power. 


Conclusion


Democracy in Athens was officially suppressed in 323 BC when the Macedonians imposed an oligarchic government after defeating the city-state in battle. Though the democratic ideals and processes did not survive in Ancient Greece, these ideologies have been influencing politicians and governments ever since. Despite closely resembling the Roman model of Governance, representative democracies such as those in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States have all derived features initiated by the Ancient Greeks in the 6th century BC. Yet, after the demise of Athenian democracy, democracy seems to have lost its original meaning. Even if democracy has dissociated so much from its ancient frame of reference, it matters not whether Ancient Athens was a true democracy but rather how we derive and develop such radical ideologies from the ancient world to provide a fairer world. This is what most modern-day democracies endeavour to do. 

*a free citizen, over eighteen years of age, and a man

 

Bibliography:

“Aristotle, Politics, Book 4, Section 1296a.” Tufts.edu, 2024, www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D4%3Asection%3D1296a. Accessed 24 Apr. 2023.


Burns, Tony. “Aristotle and Natural Law.” History of Political Thought, vol. 19, no. 2, 1998, pp. 142–66, www.jstor.org/stable/4436438. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.


Doenges, Norman A. “Ostracism and the ‘Boulai’ of Kleisthenes.” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, vol. 45, no. 4, 1996, p. 394, www.jstor.org/stable/4436438. Accessed 22 Apr. 2023.


“Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought.” Choice Reviews Online, vol. 39, no. 07, Mar. 2002, pp. 6, 238–40, https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.39-3731. Accessed 21 Apr. 2023.

Jones, A. H. M. “The Athenian Democracy and Its Critics.” The Cambridge Historical Journal, vol. 11, no. 1, 1953, pp. 9–10, www.jstor.org/stable/3021105. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.


Pope, Maurice. “Thucydides and Democracy.” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, vol. 37, no. 3, 1988, p. 277, www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/4436058.pdf. Accessed 23 Apr. 2023.


Stanford. “Defining the Humanities: Democracy.” YouTube, YouTube Video, 22 Oct. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr9dW6zasXY. Accessed 21 Apr. 2023.

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