Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: Was Athens always a democracy?
Before the first attempt at democratic government, Athens was ruled by a series of archons or chief magistrates, and the Areopagus, made up of ex-archons. The members of these institutions were generally aristocrats who ruled the polis for their own advantage. In 621 BC, Draco codified a set of notoriously harsh laws designed to reinforce aristocratic power over the populace.[5] Still, a growing problem of aristocratic families feuding among themselves to obtain as much power as possible led to a point where most Athenians were subject to harsh treatment and enslavement by the rich and powerful. In the 6th century BC, the Athenian laboring class convinced Plato's ancestor Solon, premier archon at the time, to liberate them and halt the feuding of the aristocracy. What soon followed was a system of chattel slavery involving foreign slaves.[6] Solon then issued reforms that defined citizenship in a way that gave each free resident of Attica a political function: Athenian citizens had the right to participate in assembly meetings. By granting the formerly aristocratic role to every free citizen of Athens who owned property, Solon reshaped the social framework of the city-state. Under these reforms, a council of 400 members (with 100 citizens from each of Athens's four tribes) called the boule ran daily affairs and set the political agenda.[5] The Areopagus, which formerly took on this role, remained but subsequently carried on the role of "guardianship of the laws".[7] Another major contribution to democracy was Solon's setting up of an Ecclesia or Assembly, which was open to all male citizens.
Athens was not the only polis in Ancient Greece that instituted a democratic regime. Aristotle points to other cities that adopted governments in the democratic style. However, accounts of the rise of democratic institutions are in reference to Athens, since only this city-state had sufficient historical records to speculate on the rise and nature of Greek democracy.[4]
In the second half of the 6th century BC, Athens fell under the tyranny of Peisistratos and then of his sons Hippias and Hipparchos. However, in 510 BC, at the instigation of the Athenian aristocrat Cleisthenes, the Spartan king Cleomenes I helped the Athenians overthrow the tyranny. Afterwards, Sparta and Athens promptly turned on each other, at which point Cleomenes I installed Isagoras as a pro-Spartan archon. Eager to prevent Athens from becoming a Spartan puppet, Cleisthenes responded by proposing to his fellow citizens that Athens undergo a revolution: that all citizens share in political power, regardless of status: that Athens become a "democracy". So enthusiastically did the Athenians take to this idea that, having overthrown Isagoras and implemented Cleisthenes's reforms, they were easily able to repel a Spartan-led three-pronged invasion aimed at restoring Isagoras. The advent of the democracy cured many of the ills of Athens and led to a 'golden age' for the Athenians.
In order to help differentiate between oligarchies and democracies, Weart requires that the classification should not differ from how the people at the time viewed the differences, the oligarchic elite should live in constant fear of a rebellion, and for democracies a war should not have been prevented if everyone had the vote. For example, it was the Greeks who first created the concepts of democracy and oligarchy and they classified Athens as a democracy while Sparta was an oligarchy. There is no mention in the historical record of fears of a revolt by the slaves in Athens, but such fears were frequent in Sparta and the Confederate States.
History of democracy – democracy can be traced back from the present day to classical Athens in the 6th century B.C.E.
Athens had recently become a democracy, overthrowing its own tyrant Hippias. In their fight to establish the democracy, the Athenians had asked the Persians for aid (which was not in the end needed), in return for submitting to Persian overlordship. Some years later, Hippias had attempted to regain power in Athens, assisted by the Spartans. This attempt failed and Hippias fled to Artaphernes, and tried to persuade him to subjugate Athens. The Athenians dispatched ambassadors to Artaphernes to dissuade him from taking action, but Artaphernes merely instructed the Athenians to take Hippias back as tyrant. Needless to say, the Athenians had baulked at this, and resolved instead to be openly at war with Persia. Since they were already an enemy of Persia, Athens was already in a position to support the Ionian cities in their revolt. The fact that the Ionian democracies were inspired by the example of the Athenian democracy no doubt helped persuade the Athenians to support the Ionian Revolt, especially since the cities of Ionia were (supposedly) originally Athenian colonies.
Athenian democracy developed in the Greek city-state of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, around 600 BC. Athens was one of the very first known democracies. Other Greek cities set up democracies, and even though most followed an Athenian model, none were as powerful, stable, or well-documented as that of Athens. In the direct democracy of Athens, the citizens did not nominate representatives to vote on legislation and executive bills on their behalf (as in the United States) but instead voted as individuals. The public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire of the comic poets in the theatres.
Even though Athens was already a flourishing democracy before their arrival, the cultural and psychological contributions of the sophists played an important role in the growth of Athenian democracy. Sophists contributed to the new democracy in part by espousing expertise in public deliberation, the foundation of decision-making, which allowed—and perhaps required—a tolerance of the beliefs of others. This liberal attitude would naturally have made its way into the Athenian assembly as Sophists began acquiring increasingly high-powered clients. Continuous rhetorical training gave the citizens of Athens "the ability to create accounts of communal possibilities through persuasive speech". This was extremely important for the democracy, as it gave disparate and sometimes superficially unattractive views a chance to be heard in the Athenian assembly.
Robinson has written and edited several works, including "The First Democracies: Early Popular Government Outside Athens", "Oikistes: Studies in Constitutions, Colonies, and Military Power in the Ancient World Offered in Honor of A. J. Graham", "Ancient Greek Democracy: Readings and Sources", and "Democracy Beyond Athens: Popular Government in the Greek Classical Age".
In the wake of Athens's disastrous defeat in the Sicilian campaign in 413 BCE, a group of citizens took steps to limit the radical democracy they thought was leading the city to ruin. Their efforts, initially conducted through constitutional channels, culminated in the establishment of an oligarchy, the Council of 400, in the Athenian coup of 411 BCE. The oligarchy endured for only four months before it was replaced by a more democratic government. Democratic regimes governed until Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 BCE, when government was placed in the hands of the so-called Thirty Tyrants, who were pro-Spartan oligarchs.[11] After a year pro-democracy elements regained control, and democratic forms persisted until the Macedonian army of Phillip II conquered Athens in 338 BC.[12]
This led to the Hellenistic control of Athens, with the Macedonian king appointing a local agent as political governor in Athens. However, the governors, like Demetrius of Phalerum, appointed by Cassander, kept some of the traditional institutions in formal existence, although the Athenian public would consider them to be nothing more than Macedonian puppet dictators. Once Demetrius Poliorcetes ended Cassander's rule over Athens, Demetrius of Phalerum went into exile and the democracy was restored in 307 BC. However, by now Athens had become "politically impotent".[14] An example of this was that, in 307, in order to curry favour with Macedonia and Egypt, three new tribes were created, two in honour of the Macedonian king and his son, and the other in honour of the Egyptian king.
The decades that followed became known as the Golden Age of Athenian democracy, during which time Athens became the leading city of Ancient Greece, with its cultural achievements laying the foundations for Western civilization. The playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides flourished in Athens during this time, as did the historians Herodotus and Thucydides, the physician Hippocrates, and the philosopher Socrates. Guided by Pericles, who promoted the arts and fostered democracy, Athens embarked on an ambitious building program that saw the construction of the Acropolis of Athens (including the Parthenon), as well as empire-building via the Delian League. Originally intended as an association of Greek city-states to continue the fight against the Persians, the league soon turned into a vehicle for Athens's own imperial ambitions. The resulting tensions brought about the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), in which Athens was defeated by its rival Sparta.
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 practiced ancient democracy left us almost nothing but criticism of this form of regime (on a philosophical or theoretical level). And what is more, the actual history of Athens in the period of its democratic government is marked by numerous failures, mistakes, and misdeeds—most infamously, the execution of Socrates—that would seem to discredit the ubiquitous modern idea that democracy leads to good government.[64]
Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century BC in the Greek city-state (known as a polis) of Athens, comprising the city of Athens and the surrounding territory of Attica, and is often described as the first known democracy in the world. Other Greek cities set up democracies, most following the Athenian model, but none are as well documented as Athens's.
After Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, Thrasybulus led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government, known as the Thirty Tyrants, which the victorious Spartans imposed on Athens. In 404 BC, he commanded a small force of exiles that invaded the Spartan-ruled Attica and, in successive battles, defeated first a Spartan garrison and then the forces of the oligarchy. In the wake of these victories, democracy was re-established at Athens. As a leader of this revived democracy in the 4th century BC, Thrasybulus advocated a policy of resistance to Sparta and sought to restore Athens' imperial power. He was killed in 388 BC while leading an Athenian naval force during the Corinthian War.
At the end of the Peloponnesian War, Samos appears as one of the most loyal dependencies of Athens, serving as a base for the naval war against the Peloponnesians and as a temporary home of the Athenian democracy during the revolution of the Four Hundred at Athens (411 BC), and in the last stage of the war was rewarded with the Athenian franchise. This friendly attitude towards Athens was the result of a series of political revolutions which ended in the establishment of a democracy. After the downfall of Athens, Samos was besieged by Lysander and again placed under an oligarchy.
During the Spartan hegemony in Athens there is evidence of criticism of democracy. A document in the 420s BC by a political writer known as the "Old Oligarch" demonstrates the anti-democratic sentiments in Athens. The “Old Oligarch’s” political outlook is shaped by his belief that the economic classes were the source to political motivation; this view is a direct rejection of democracy’s efforts to establish civil unity. The “Old Oligarch” argues that the polis by nature is a battlefield rather than a site of public dialogue because individuals side with their socio-economic rank. Yet, despite this anti-democratic feeling, democracy eventually returned to Athens after the expulsion of the Thirty Tyrants.
This is a list of the Greek democracies for which there is some evidence in the Archaic period, following Eric Robinson's book "The First Democracies" (Stuttgart, 1997). Most of them probably pre-date the establishment of democracy in Athens by Cleisthenes in 508-507 BC.
Athens, after a tyranny in the second half of the 6th century, established ancient Europe's first democracy as a radical solution to prevent the aristocracy from regaining power. A citizens' assembly (the Ecclesia), for the discussion of city policy, had existed since the reforms of Draco; all citizens were permitted to attend after the reforms of Solon, but the poorest citizens could not address the assembly or run for office. With the establishment of the democracy, the assembly became the de jure mechanism of government; all citizens had equal privileges in the assembly. However, non-citizens, foreigners living in Athens, slaves and women had no political rights at all. After the rise of the democracy in Athens, other city-states founded democracies. However, many retained more traditional forms of government. As so often in other matters, Sparta was a notable exception to the rest of Greece, ruled through the whole period by not one, but two hereditary monarchs. This was a form of diarchy.
His books include: "Personal Testimony" (Athens 1970 and 2001), "Wider Communication" (on Mass Media ; Athens 1973), "On Popular Sovereignty" (Athens 1975), "The Constitutional Revision of 1985/86" (Athens 1986), "Greece and Democracy in a New Reality" (Athens 1996), "1961-81: Persons and Events" (Athens 2001), "On the Issue of the Aegean Sea: Oil, “Boundary Disputes,” the European Union and the Energy Connection" (Athens 2008).
The democracy of ancient Athens was a nonpartisan, direct democracy where eligible citizens voted on laws themselves rather than electing representatives.
Due to its poor handling of the war, the democracy in Athens was briefly overthrown by a coup in 411 BC, however, it was quickly restored. The Peloponnesian War ended in 404 BC with the complete defeat of Athens. Since the loss of the war was largely blamed on democratic politicians such as Cleon and Cleophon, there was a brief reaction against democracy, aided by the Spartan army (the rule of the Thirty Tyrants). In 403 BC, however, democracy was restored by Thrasybulus and an amnesty was declared.
A direct democracy or "pure democracy" is a type of democracy where the people govern directly. It requires wide participation of citizens in politics. Athenian democracy or "classical democracy" refers to a direct democracy developed in ancient times in the Greek city-state of Athens. A popular democracy is a type of direct democracy based on referendums and other devices of empowerment and concretization of popular will.
Athenian democracy was briefly overthrown by the coup of 411, brought about because of its poor handling of the war, but it was quickly restored. The war ended with the complete defeat of Athens in 404. Since the defeat was largely blamed on democratic politicians such as Cleon and Cleophon, there was a brief reaction against democracy, aided by the Spartan army (the rule of the Thirty Tyrants). In 403, democracy was restored by Thrasybulus and an amnesty declared.
Born in Athens, Papaligouras studied law at the University of Athens and took a Masters in Comparative European Law at Brunel University, London. He was leader of ONNED (the New Democracy youth organisation) from 1976 to 1977. From 1976 to 1978, he was a member of the New Democracy Executive Committee, and from 1976 to 1981 he was a member of the New Democracy Administrative Committee. He was elected MP for Korinthia in the general elections of 1981, 1985, 1993, 1996 and 2000.