Although opinions diverge over when exactly we should date and how we should explain the ‘‘origin’’ or ‘‘breakthrough’’ of democracy, the main phases of its evolution are reasonably clear (Bleicken 1994: part 1; Hansen 1999: ch. 3; detailed discussion in Raaflaub et al. 2006). Democracy ‘‘Athenian style’’ resulted from a long development that was punctuated by three ‘‘rupture points’’ of rapid change and incisive reform. It originated in a core of basic egalitarianism and ‘‘people’s power’’ that, despite the predominance of evolving aristocracies, was essential for the fabric of the early Greek polis (city-state or, rather, citizen-state) and shared widely throughout Greece (Morris 1996; 2000; Raaflaub & Wallace 2006 in: Raaflaub et al. 2006). In a period of severe economic crisis and social conflict, Solon was elected archon and mediator in 594 (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 5-12; Plutarch Solon; Andrewes 1982a; Blok & Lardinois (forthcoming)). Besides mandating debt relief, abolishing debt bondage, and regulating by legislation areas that were likely to cause conflict, he increased the citizens’ civic responsibility and involvement in politics by permitting third party prosecution and appeals to a popular court and by correlating in a ‘‘timocratic system’’ (from time, honor, status) the citizens’ social, economic, military, and political capacity. Henceforth, office holding was tied to property rather than descent. Whether active citizenship (including speaking and voting in the assembly) was available to all citizens or limited, by tradition and prevailing values rather than law, to those who were qualified for the heavy infantry (hoplite) army (Rhodes 1993: 140-1) is debated. Although Aristotle recognized in Solon’s system crucial elements typical of democracy (Ath. Pol. 9.1, 22.1; Wallace 2006 in: Raaflaub et al. 2006), certain statements preserved in Solon’s own poetry seem to suggest that Solon’s goal was to establish justice for all rather than government by the demos. In fact, he was quite emphatic about the demos’ limitations: leadership was to remain the elite’s prerogative, although all citizens needed to be protected from abuses of power (Morris & Raaflaub 1998: 38-9).
Renewed factional strife eventually prompted the usurpation of sole power (tyranny) by Peisistratos (Hdt. 1.59-64; Aristotle Ath. Pol. 13-17; Andrewes 1982b). His regime, later remembered as a ‘‘Golden Age,’’ brought the Athenians domestic peace and increasing prosperity, while the aristocracy’s political power was curtailed; through cults, festivals, and buildings Peisistratos emphasized the role of Athens as the polis’ center, at the expense of local centers in Attika that were dominated by elite families. As a result, paradoxically, in weakening aristocratic control and fostering communal integration, tyranny contributed importantly to preparing the ground for democracy (Stahl 1987; McGlew 1993). After Peisistratos’ death, the regime of his sons, disrupted by the assassination of Hipparchos in 514, turned oppressive. Hippias was overthrown by Spartan intervention in 510 (Hdt. 5.55, 5.63-5; Aristotle Ath.
Pol. 18-19; Lewis 1988). Tyranny henceforth had a bad press in Athens, especially since the community in subsequent years twice faced the threat of Hippias’ reinstatement by Spartan or Persian intervention. Such threats enhanced communal solidarity. Anachronistically, the tyrannicides of 514, soon honored by a monument in the Agora, became symbols of liberation and, eventually, democracy.
After the fall of tyranny, aristocratic families resumed their traditional rivalries for predominance. In 508/7 Kleisthenes turned defeat into victory by appealing to the Athenian demos with an apparently popular reform proposal. His opponent, Isagoras, in traditional aristocratic fashion summoned help from a powerful ‘‘guest-friend’’ (xenos), king Kleomenes of Sparta, who promptly arrived with a company of soldiers, expelled Kleisthenes and his supporters, and proceeded to place Isagoras and his faction in power. The existing council resisted and the Athenian demos rose in revolt, forcing Kleomenes to leave and eliminating Isagoras’ faction. Kleisthenes returned and implemented the promised reforms. These were remarkably comprehensive and sophisticated. At their core was a reorganization of the citizen body and territory of Attika (mentioned above) that served as basis for the hoplite army and the Council of500, which came to represent the entire citizen population of Attika. Now for the first time even the fringes of Attika were fully integrated into the polis (Hdt. 5.66, 5.69-73; Aristotle Ath. Pol. 20-2; Ostwald 1988; Meier 1990: ch. 4; Ober 1996; Anderson 2003).
According to Herodotos, Kleisthenes ‘‘established for the Athenians the tribes and the democracy’’ (6.131.2). Whether the latter is correct in a specific sense and whether the Athenian citizens who did not qualify for the hoplite army (the lowest property class called thetes) enjoyed full political equality in this new political system - all this remains debated (chapters by Ober and Raaflaub in Morris & Raaflaub 1998 and in Raaflaub et al. 2006). Even so, unquestionably the late-sixth-century reforms, apparently supported by the entire community, had a broadly integrative effect and enhanced civic equality and political participation among a large part of the citizen body. All this was a necessary condition for Athens’ ability to repel attacks by hostile neighbors and Sparta in 506 and by Persia at Marathon in 490, and to play a crucial role in Greek victories over Persian armies in 480/79. And it served as an indispensable platform for another breakthrough, fifty years later, that fully established democracy both in institutions and in public consciousness (Martin 1974).
In the generation after the Persian Wars Athens underwent profound changes in all spheres of life (Raaflaub 1998). As the head of a new alliance (the ‘‘Delian League’’) comprising a wide range of members, from Asia Minor, the Aegean islands, and the mainland, it continued the war against the Persians, eventually eliminating their control over the west coast of the Aegean and far beyond. Gradually it transformed this alliance into a tightly ruled and remarkably centralized empire (Meiggs 1979; Fornara & Samons 1991: ch. 3; Rhodes 1992a). All these developments depended on Athens’ large fleet and on those who manned it: thousands of lower-class citizens (besides metics, mercenaries, and slaves). The Athenian thetes thus assumed a crucial and permanent importance for their community’s security, power, and prosperity. By the late 460s the Athenians accepted the obvious consequences. Led by Ephialtes and soon by Perikles, they passed another set of reforms that weakened the political influence of the traditional aristocratic Areopagos Council and strengthened the power of those institutions that represented the entire citizen body (assembly, Council of 500, and law courts), introduced pay for certain offices and political or judicial
Functions, thereby making it possible for lower-class citizens to spend their time in service for the community, and redefined citizenship (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 25-26; Fornara & Samons 1991: ch. 2; Rhodes 1992b).
Henceforth, with very few exceptions, all political functions were accessible to and spread widely among all citizens. The whole demos, constituted as an exclusive political elite irrespective of wealth, descent, and education, now participated equally in making all decisions and controlling the entire political process. In Euripides’ words, the demos now was lord and monarch, power had been popularized (Suppliants 352, 406; Cyclops 119). By the 440s, the citizens must have been accustomed to their political role, the impact of the reforms fully visible. Naval power continued to be crucial for Athens’ imperial success, especially during the Peloponnesian War. As long as it was successful, democracy essentially remained unchallenged and open opposition was impossible. All this explains why democracy became deeply entrenched in the citizen body and was, as contemporaries observed (introduction above), so difficult to uproot.
Constitutional development continued, though much more slowly, until, because of the Athenian disaster in Sicily, other setbacks in the war, and increasing financial pressure on the elite, opponents of democracy found broader support and finally prevailed in imposing a narrow oligarchy in 411. Even so, they succeeded only in the context of an extraordinary set of political conditions and as the result of massive terror. Their ‘‘oligarchy of the 400’’ was overthrown after a few months and its successor, a more moderate oligarchy based on 5,000 full citizens, even sooner (Thuc. 8.63-98; Aristotle Ath. Pol. 29-33). The restored democracy, although fortified by strict controls, proved vengeful, unstable, and incapable of capitalizing on military successes to end the war honorably. Defeated and humiliated, Athens in 404 lost its empire and suffered through the terror regime of an even narrower oligarchy (the ‘‘thirty tyrants’’), civil war, and a split of the polis, before in 403 reunification and reconciliation were achieved (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 34-41.2; Xenophon Hellenika 2.3-4; Ostwald 1986: chapters 7-9; Bleckmann 1998; Munn 2000: part 2; Krentz 1982).
Even earlier, in 410, the Athenians initiated an ambitious process of reviewing and revising their laws. The law code that was completed and passed in 399 and a new procedure for the creation of new laws (mentioned earlier) limited demotic arbitrariness and objectivized the process of legislation. To what extent this changed the nature of democracy and enhanced the ‘‘sovereignty of the law’’ is much debated. By contrast, the introduction of pay for attendance at the assembly (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 41.3) cemented the principle of universal citizen participation in and control of politics. Aristotle (Politics 1274a7-11; Ath. Pol. 41.2) thus considered the form democracy reached in the fourth century the completion of its long development. The centralization of financial administration under the elected directors of the Theoric Fund from the 350s (Aristotle Ath. Pol. 43.1), which bestowed great power on the holders of this office, did not change the working of democracy. As Ober concludes:
There were various constitutional adjustments made in the period between the Peloponnesian and Lamian Wars, but there were no major changes in the sociology of Athenian politics. There were no compromises made with the basic principles of the political equality and exclusivity of the citizen body, of the lottery, or of pay for state service... Compared with the fifth century, the fourth century is remarkable less for its constitutional evolution than for its social and political stability. (Ober 1989: 95-103, quotation from 103)
World History
