The collapse of Greek democracy 2,400 years ago occurred in circumstances so similar to our own it could be read as a dark and often ignored lesson from the past, a new study suggests. With Athens running short of food, Archelaus one night dispatched troops from Piraeus with a supply of wheat. Cite This Work 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. What mattered was whether or not the unusual system was any good. While Eli Sagan believes Athenian democracy can be divided into seven chapters, classicist and political scientist Josiah Ober has a different view. After all, at the time of writing, Athens was the greatest single power in the entire Greek world By 413, however, the argument from success in favour of radical democracy was beginning to collapse, as Athens' fortunes in the Peloponnesian War against Sparta began seriously to decline. Leemage/Universal Images Group/Getty Images. Mithridates, who came from a Persian dynasty, ruled a culturally mixed kingdom that included both Persians and Greeks. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms. Originally published in the Spring 2011 issue of Military History Quarterly. Sulla ordered another retreat, and turned his attention to Athens, which by now was a softer target than Piraeus. Meanwhile, our democratically elected representatives are holding on to the fuse in one hand and a box of matches in the other. These bronze coins bore the Pontic symbol of a star between two half-moons. From the story of the rise and fall of Athens, it is clear that the concept of democracy was abused to the point that only the city's citizens had rights and the rest of the allies were considered as subjects. In addition, in times of crisis and war, this body could also take decisions without the assembly meeting. 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. The assembly met at least once a month, more likely two or three times, on the Pnyx hill in a dedicated space which could accommodate around 6000 citizens. Sulla, lacking ships, could not give chase. His short and vehement pamphlet was produced probably in the 420s, during the first decade of the Peloponnesian War, and makes the following case: democracy is appalling, since it represents the rule of the poor, ignorant, fickle and stupid majority over the socially and intellectually superior minority, the world turned upside down. Men on both towers discharged all kinds of missiles, according to Appian. All male citizens of Athens could attend the assembly which made political decisions. They denied specifically that the sort of knowledge available to and used by ordinary people, popular knowledge if you like, was really knowledge at all. Most of the Greek cities there welcomed the Pontic forces, and by early 88, Mithridates was firmly in control of western Anatolia. The capital would be sending no more reinforcements or money. Sullas solution: rob the Greek temples of their treasures. The specific connection made by the anonymous writer is that the ultimate source of Athens' power was its navy, and that navy was powered essentially (though not exclusively) by the strong arms of the thetes, that is to say, the poorest section of the Athenian citizen population. To subscribe, click here. The boul represented the 139 districts of Attica and acted as a kind of executive committee of the assembly. But why should they be? Yet, with the advent of new technology, it would actually be possible to reinvent today a form of indirect but participatory tele-democracy. democratic system failed to be effective. Indeed, the failure to make badly needed changes in such key areas as pensions and health (under PASOK) and education (under ND) became the most striking feature of all governments in Greece's. Direct involvement in the politics of the polis also meant that the Athenians developed a unique collective identity and probably too, a certain pride in their system, as shown in Pericles' famous Funeral Oration for the Athenian dead in 431 BCE, the first year of the Peloponnesian War: Athens' constitution is called a democracy because it respects the interests not of a minority but of the whole people. It argues that it was not the loss of its empire and defeat in war against Sparta at the end of the 5th century that heralded the death knell of Athenian democracy - as it is traditionally perceived. In addition, sometimes even oligarchic systems could involve a high degree of political equality, but the Athenian version, starting from c. 460 BCE and ending c. 320 BCE and involving all male citizens, was certainly the most developed. 2.37). Greek democracy. When that failed, the Romans settled in for a long siege. The boul or council was composed of 500 citizens who were chosen by lot and who served for one year with the limitation that they could serve no more than two non-consecutive years. Its main function was to decide what matters would come before the ekklesia. READ MORE: Why Greece Is Considered the Birthplace of Democracy. 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. In 133 BC, Rome was a democracy. Thank you for your help! The majority won the day and the decision was final. The Thirty Tyrants ( ) is a term first used Cleisthenes (b. late 570s BCE) was an Athenian statesman who famously Ostracism was a political process used in 5th-century BCE Athens Pericles (l. 495429 BCE) was a prominent Greek statesman, orator Themistocles (c. 524 - c. 460 BCE) was an Athenian statesman and Solon (c. 640 c. 560 BCE) was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker What did democracy really mean in Athens? The Pontic king sent his Greek mercenary, General Archelaus, into the Aegean with a fleet. With the Persians closing in on the Greek capitol, Athenian general read more, The story of the Trojan Warthe Bronze Age conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greecestraddles the history and mythology of ancient Greece and inspired the greatest writers of antiquity, from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles to Virgil. Our word demagogue -- that is, an irresponsible "rabble rousing" populist politician -- is lifted directly from Athenian debates about the nature of democracy. 'Oh, run away and play', rejoins Pericles, irritated; 'I was good at those sorts of debating tricks when I was your age.'. This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. The Romans were extorting as much revenue as possible from their new province of Asia. After all, at the time of writing, Athens was the greatest single power in the entire Greek world, and that fact could not be totally unconnected with the fact that Athens was a democracy. The . Athens, for example, committed itself to unpopular wars which ultimately brought it into direct conflict with the vastly more powerful Macedonia. Why Greece Is Considered the Birthplace of Democracy. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Aegean, events touched off an explosion whose force would swamp Athens. Two scenes from Athens in the first-century BC: Early summer, 88 BC, a cheering crowd surrounds the envoy Athenion as he makes a rousing speech. Eventually Archelaus realized someone was divulging his plans, but turned it to his advantage. Soon after, Roman soldiers overheard men in the Athenian neighborhood of the Kerameikos, northwest of the Acropolis, grousing about the neglected defenses there. When the fleet reached the city, Aristion quickly seized power, thanks in part to a personal guard of 2,000 Pontic soldiers. Ostrakon for PericlesMark Cartwright (CC BY-NC-SA). Immediately following the Bronze Age collapse and at the start of the Dark . But when one of the Athenian delegates began a grand speech about their citys great past, Sulla abruptly dismissed them. Archelaus landed on the Greek coast to the north and withdrew into Thessaly, where he joined forces with Pontic reinforcements that had marched overland from Anatolia. 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. He was chief historical consultant for the BBC TV series 'The Greeks'. Though he at first refused, he later relented and sent a delegation to meet with the Roman commander. This complex system was, no doubt, to ensure a suitable degree of checks and balances to any potential abuse of power, and to ensure each traditional region was equally represented and given equal powers. At best it was mere opinion, and almost always it was ill-informed and wrong opinion. Now, Roman senators and Athenian exiles in Sullas entourage asked him to show mercy for the city. [15] Greek myths explained everything from religious rituals to the weather, and read more, The term Ancient, or Archaic, Greece refers to the years 700-480 B.C., not the Classical Age (480-323 B.C.) Some 2,000 of Archelauss men were killed. Blood flows in the narrow streets, as the Romans butcher the Athenianswomen and children included. In this case there was a secret ballot where voters wrote a name on a piece of broken pottery (ostrakon). These challenges to democracy include the paradoxical existence of an Athenian empire. HistoryNet.com is brought to you by HistoryNet LLC, the worlds largest publisher of history magazines. Archelauss men, Sulla discovered, had dug a tunnel and undermined it. In ancient Athens, the birthplace of democracy, not only were children denied the vote (an exception we still consider acceptable), but so were women, foreigners, and enslaved people. The war had one last act to play out. An early example of the Greek genius for applied critical theory was their invention of political theory Three of the seven noble conspirators are given set speeches to deliver, the first in favour of democracy (though he does not actually call it that), the second in favour of aristocracy (a nice form of oligarchy), the third - delivered by Darius, who in historical fact will succeed to the throne - in favour, naturally, of constitutional monarchy, which in practice meant autocracy. The Pontic troops had built other lunettes inside, but the Romans attacked each wall with manic energy. Becoming more desperate, they gathered wild plants on the slopes of the Acropolis and boiled shoes and leather oil-flasks. 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. Athenian Democracy. Most of all, Pericles paid artisans to build temples read more, Ancient Greek mythology is a vast and fascinating group of legends about gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters, warriors and fools, that were an important part of everyday life in the ancient world. The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. If we are all democrats today, we are not - and it is importantly because we are not - Athenian-style democrats. After all, at the time of writing, Athens was the greatest single power in the entire Greek world, and that fact could not be totally unconnected with the fact that Athens was a democracy. In the year 507 B.C., the Athenian leader Cleisthenes introduced a system of political reforms that he called demokratia, or rule by the people (from demos, the people, and kratos, or power). Other reputations are also taken to task: The "heroic" Spartans of Thermopylae, immortalised in the film 300, are unmasked as warmongering bullies of the ancient world. The third important institution was the popular courts, or dikasteria. In 83 BC, Sulla and his army returned to Italy, kicking off the Roman Republics first all-out civil war, which he won. Inside homes, the Romans discovered a sight that must have horrified even the most hardened among them: human flesh prepared as food. One of the indispensable words we owe ultimately to the Greeks is criticism (derived from the Greek for judging, as in a court case or at a theatrical performance). 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 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. This being the case, the following remarks on democracy are focussed on the Athenians. Cartwright, Mark. 474 Words2 Pages. The word democracy (dmokratia) derives from dmos, which refers to the entire citizen body, and kratos, meaning rule. There is a strong case that democracy was a major reason for this success. However, historians argue that selection to the boule was not always just a matter of chance. That at any rate is the assumed situation. Democracy itself, however, buckled under the strain. Why, to start with, does he not use the word democracy, when democracy of an Athenian radical kind is clearly what he's advocating? The government and economy were also weak causing distress all over Athens. They are also, however, reminders of the human capacity for disagreement, read more, An ambiguous, controversial concept, Jacksonian Democracy in the strictest sense refers simply to the ascendancy of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party after 1828. 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. Of all the democratic institutions, Aristotle argued that the dikasteria contributed most to the strength of democracy because the jury had almost unlimited power. Rome responded, rushing 20 warships and 1,000 troops to Piraeus to keep Philip V at bay. Books Dr. Scott argues that this was caused by a range of circumstances which in many cases were the ancient world's equivalent of those faced by Britain today. Unfortunately, sources on the other democratic governments in ancient Greece are few and far between. Sulla circulated among his men and cheered them on, promising that their ordeal was almost over. The military impact of Athenian democracy was twofold. One which is so bad that people ultimately cry out for a dictator. 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. Hes just returned to the city-state from a mission across the Aegean Sea to Anatolia, where he forged an alliance with a great king. Fighting ensued, and the Athenians then took steps that explicitly violated the Thirty Years' Treaty. I was not sent to Athens by the Romans to learn its history, but to subdue its rebels, he declared. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. Why did the system fail? Though Mithridates had to withdraw from territories he had conquered and pay an indemnity, he remained in power in Pontus. Third, was the slave population which . Canada, The United States and South Africa are all examples of modern-day representative democracies.
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