', replies Alcibiades; 'even when it decrees by fiat, acting like a tyrant and riding roughshod over the views of the minority - is that still "law"?' Neither side gained an advantage until a group of Romans who had been gathering wood returned and charged into battle. 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. Most of the Greek cities there welcomed the Pontic forces, and by early 88, Mithridates was firmly in control of western Anatolia. For example, in Athens in the middle of the 4th century there were about 100,000 citizens (Athenian citizenship was limited to men and women whose parents had also been Athenian citizens), about 10,000 metoikoi, or resident foreigners, and 150,000 slaves. Aristion executed citizens accused of favoring Rome and sent others to Mithridates as prisoners. Sulla obtained iron and other material from Thebes and placed his newly built siege engines upon mounds of rubble collected from the Long Walls. The boul represented the 139 districts of Attica and acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly. We are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold. The Pontic troops had built other lunettes inside, but the Romans attacked each wall with manic energy. Those defeats persuaded Mithridates to end the war. Sulla had the tyrant and his bodyguard executed. Paul Cartledge is Professor of Greek History at the University of Cambridge. A further variant on this view was that the masses or the mob, being ignorant and stupid for the most part, were easily swayed by specious rhetoric - so easily swayed that they were incapable of taking longer views or of sticking resolutely to one, good view once that had been adopted. 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. 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. The word democracy comes from the Greek words demos, meaning "the people," and kratos, meaning "to rule.". As the Pontic general Archelaus persuaded other Greek cities to turn against Romeincluding Thebes to the northwest of AthensAristion established a new regime in Athens. More loosely, it alludes to the entire range of democratic reforms that proceeded alongside the Jacksonians read more, The Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. The Pontic king sent his Greek mercenary, General Archelaus, into the Aegean with a fleet. The mighty Persian empire (founded in Asia a generation earlier by Cyrus the Great and expanded by his son Cambyses to take in Egypt) is in crisis, since a usurper has occupied the throne. As winter stretched on, Athenians began to starve. All male citizens of Athens could attend the assembly which made political decisions. People rushed to greet him as he was carried into the city on a scarlet-covered couch, wearing a ring with Mithridatess portrait. It was from the creation of this empire that the sovereign Athenian demos gained the authority to exercise the will of Athens over other Greek states and not just her own. The answer lies in a dramatic tale starring the demagogue Athenion, a mindless mob, a tyrant, and a brutal Roman general. This being the case, the following remarks on democracy are focussed on the Athenians. Eventually Archelaus realized someone was divulging his plans, but turned it to his advantage. Illustrating the esteem in which democratic government was held, there was even a divine personification of the ideal of democracy, the goddess Demokratia. However, Plutarch drew on Sullas memoirs as a source, so these anecdotes may be unreliable; Sulla had an interest in denigrating his opponent.). Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Dr Scott's study also marks an attempt to recognise figures such as Isocrates and Phocion - sage political advisers who tried to steer it away from crippling confrontations with other Greek states and Macedonia. But what did the development of Athenian democracy actually involve? Such brutality may have been carried out with a design; Athenians fearing a Roman military intervention were growing restless under Aristion. The opposing forces clashed bitterly for a long timeAppian records that both Sulla and Archelaus held forth in the thick of the action, cheering on their men and bringing up fresh troops. 2.37). Then there was the view that the mob, the poor majority, were nothing but a collective tyrant. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. The most comprehensive and authoritative history site on the Internet. In addition, in times of crisis and war, this body could also take decisions without the assembly meeting. They therefore in a sense deserved the political pay-off of mass-biased democracy as a reward for their crucial naval role. During the 600s B.C., Athens was a small city-state. Under Macedonian control, Athens had dwindled to a third-rank power, with no independence in foreign affairs and an insignificant military. Jurors were paid a wage for their work, so that the job could be accessible to everyone and not just the wealthy (but, since the wage was less than what the average worker earned in a day, the typical juror was an elderly retiree). Rome responded, rushing 20 warships and 1,000 troops to Piraeus to keep Philip V at bay. For more details about how Ober came to . Please support World History Encyclopedia. The real question now is not can we, but should we go back to the Greeks? Athens was already a waning star on the international stage resting on past imperial glories, and the book argues that it struggled to keep pace with a world in a state of fast-paced globalisation and political transition. Athens' democracy in fact recovered from these injuries within years. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. So what we have in Herodotus is a Greek debate in Persian dress. Yet, with the advent of new technology, it would actually be possible to reinvent today a form of indirect but participatory tele-democracy. "Athenian Democracy." He sent out another convoy carrying food for Athens, and when the Romans attacked it, his men dashed from hiding inside the gates and torched some of the Roman siege engines. It is understandable why Plato would despise democracy, considering that his friend and mentor, Socrates, was condemned to death by the policy makers of Athens in 399 BCE. 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. With few military resources of its own, the city turned for help to the Roman Republic, the rising power of the day. To the Persians, he emphasized his descent from ancient Persian kings. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule. (Ostracism, in which a citizen could be expelled from the Athenian city-state for 10 years, was among the powers of the ekklesia.) This system was comprised of three separate institutions: the ekklesia, a sovereign governing body that wrote laws and dictated foreign policy; the boule, a council of representatives from the ten Athenian tribes and the dikasteria, the popular courts in which citizens argued cases before a group of lottery-selected jurors. The generals' collective crime, so it was alleged by Theramenes (formerly one of the 400) and others with suspiciously un- or anti-democratic credentials, was to have failed to rescue several thousands of Athenian citizen survivors. https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-greece/ancient-greece-democracy. According to Appian, Sulla ordered an indiscriminate massacre, not sparing women or children. Many Athenians were so distraught that they committed suicide by throwing themselves at the soldiers. Democracy in Ancient Greece is most frequently associated with Athens where a complex system allowed for broad political participation by the free male citizens of the city-state. This is a form of government which puts the power to rule in the hands of . Cleisthenes changed Athenian democracy becuase he redefined what it was to be a citizen and so removed the influence of traditional clan groups. Yet the religious views of Socrates were deeply unorthodox, his political sympathies were far from radically democratic, and he had been the teacher of at least two notorious traitors, Alcibiades and Critias. Archaic Greece saw advances in art, poetry and technology, but is known as the age in which the polis, or city-state, was read more, 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. It dealt with ambassadors and representatives from other city-states. Indeed, for the Athenian democrats, elections would have struck at the heart of democracy: They would have allowed some people to assert themselves, arrogantly and unjustly, against the others. and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. Though Mithridates had to withdraw from territories he had conquered and pay an indemnity, he remained in power in Pontus. Any citizen could speak to the assembly and vote on decisions by simply holding up their hands. The government and economy were also weak causing distress all over Athens. In a new history of the 4th century BC, Cambridge University Classicist Dr. Michael Scott reveals how the implosion of Ancient Athens occurred amid a crippling economic downturn, while politicians committed financial misdemeanours, sent its army to fight unpopular foreign wars and struggled to cope with a surge in immigration. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body: the People. Theophilus even hacked off the hands of Romans clinging to statues inside a temple. 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). In 133 BC, Rome was a democracy. This money was only to cover expenses though, as any attempt to profit from public positions was severely punished. He also helped himself to a stash of gold and silver found on the Acropolis. Rome would have to fight the Pontic king again before his final defeat and deathpurportedly by suicidein 63. Positions on the boule were chosen by lot and not by election. All Rights Reserved. City residents who had cheered lustily for Athenion, the demagogic envoy, now found themselves ruled by a tyrant. 'Why', answers his guardian Pericles, who was then at the height of his influence, 'it is whatever the people decides and decrees'. But what form of government, what constitution, should the restored Persian empire enjoy for the future? The Romans quickly got to work on their own tunnel, and when the diggers from both sides met, a savage fight broke out underground, the miners hacking at each other with spears and swords as well as they could in the darkness, according to Appian. Sulla also moved north, however, and defeated Archelaus in two pitched battles in Boeotia, at Chaeronea and Orchomenos. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. Intellectual anti-democrats such as Socrates and Plato, for instance, argued that the majority of the people, because they were by and large ignorant and unskilled, would always get it wrong. The result was a series of domestic problems, including an inability to fund the traditional police force. Athens is a city-state, while today we are familiar with the primary unit of governance . However, the equality Herodotus described was limited to a small segment of the Athenian population in Ancient Greece. It was too much. Second, was the metics who were foreign residents of Athens. While Eli Sagan believes Athenian democracy can be divided into seven chapters, classicist and political scientist Josiah Ober has a different view. 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. To some extent Socrates was being used as a scapegoat, an expiatory sacrifice to appease the gods who must have been implacably angry with the Athenians to inflict on them such horrors as plague and famine as well as military defeat and civil war. In ancient Athens, hatred between the rich and poor threatened the city-state with civil war and tyranny. Antiphon's regime lasted only a few months, and after a brief experiment with a more moderate form of oligarchy the Athenians restored the old democratic institutions pretty much as they had been. "Athenian Democracy." As soldiers carted away their prized and sacred possessions, the guardians of Delphi bitterly complained that Sulla was nothing like previous Roman commanders, who had come to Greece and made gifts to the temples. In 590 BCE Athenians were suffering from debt and famine throughout Athens. Modern representative democracies, in contrast to direct democracies, have citizens who vote for representatives who create and enact laws on their behalf. It was the first known democracy in the world. At best it was mere opinion, and almost always it was ill-informed and wrong opinion. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. That at any rate is the assumed situation. In the 4th and 5th centuries BCE the male citizen population of Athens ranged from 30,000 to 60,000 depending on the period. 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. Few areas of the world have been as hotly contested as the India-Pakistan border. Archelauss men, Sulla discovered, had dug a tunnel and undermined it. S2 ep2: What did the future look like in the past? 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. Not all the Anatolian Greeks wanted to do the dirty work: the citizens of the inland town of Tralles hired an outsidera man named Theophilusto kill for them. Then he recounted events in the east. His achievements included the construction of the Acropolis, begun in 447. S2 ep 3: What is the future of wellbeing? Sulla eventually gained the upper hand, thanks to large devices that Appian said discharged twenty of the heaviest leaden balls at one volley. These missiles killed a large number of Pontic men and damaged their tower, forcing Archelaus to pull it back. democratic system failed to be effective. The assembly also ensured decisions were enforced and officials were carrying out their duties correctly. 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 second important institution was the boule, or Council of Five Hundred. Critically, the emphasis on "people power" saw a revolving door of political leaders impeached, exiled and even executed as the inconstant international climate forced a tetchy political assembly into multiple changes in policy direction. It was this body which supervised any administrative committees and officials on behalf of the assembly. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. The one exception to this rule was the leitourgia, or liturgy, which was a kind of tax that wealthy people volunteered to pay to sponsor major civic undertakings such as the maintenance of a navy ship (this liturgy was called the trierarchia) or the production of a play or choral performance at the citys annual festival. A Council of 500 and Assembly were created. Some 2,000 of Archelauss men were killed. The terms of the 85 BC peace agreement with Sulla were surprisingly mild considering that Mithridates had slaughtered thousands of Romans. The Pompeion was ravaged beyond repair and left to decay. Athenian democracy was short-lived Around 550BC, democracy was established in Athens, marking a clear shift from previous ruling systems. Terrified Romans fled to temples for sanctuary, but to no avail; they were butchered anyway. (According to Plutarchs Life of Sulla, the tyrant Aristion and his cronies were drinking and reveling even as famine spread. Following standard Roman procedure, Sullas men made a quick assault on the walls of the port, trying to catch the defenders by surprise. Actor posing as Socrates While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Unlike the ekklesia, the boule met every day and did most of the hands-on work of governance. A demagogue, a treacherous ally, and a brutal Roman general destroyed the city-stateand democracyin the first-century BC, https://www.historynet.com/the-end-of-athens/, Jerrie Mock: Record-Breaking American Female Pilot, When 21 Sikh Soldiers Fought the Odds Against 10,000 Pashtun Warriors, Few Red Tails Remain: Tuskegee Airman Dies at 96. 474 Words2 Pages. A very clever example of this line of oligarchic attack is contained in a fictitious dialogue included by Xenophon - a former pupil of Socrates, and, like Plato, an anti-democrat - in his work entitled 'Memoirs of Socrates'. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. Please read our email privacy notice for details. Athenion at first feigned a reluctance to speak because of the sheer scale of what is to be said, according to Posidonius. "In many ways this was a period of total uncertainty just like our own time," Dr. Scott added. Some Rights Reserved (2009-2023) under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license unless otherwise noted. Then, in 133 B.C.E., Rome experienced its first political. (There were also no rules about what kinds of cases could be prosecuted or what could and could not be said at trial, and so Athenian citizens frequently used the dikasteria to punish or embarrass their enemies.). Athenion struts on stage before the crowd, then displays the sloganeering skills of a modern politician, saying: Now you command yourselves, and I am your commander in chief. Last updated 2011-02-17. Apparently, some Roman stones had missed the gate and crashed into the Pompeion next door. Certainly, he was an oligarch, but whether he was old or not we can't say. An early example of the Greek genius for applied critical theory was their invention of political theory, probably some time during the first half of the fifth century BC. Immediately following the Bronze Age collapse and at the start of the Dark . Democracy, which had prevailed during Athens' Golden Age, was replaced by a system of oligarchy in 411 BCE.