WEEK 4 -

17/10/2023

Week 4 – Power to the People; The Athenian Democracy

Lecture -
- Athens vs Sparta = The Peloponnesian War
Ancient Greek Culture
- Athens is the center of Ancient Greek culture
- Difficult to generalize the Greeks as Athens has the greatest influence
Plutarch, Pseudo-Aristotle, The Old Oligarch, Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides

Athens
- Goes back to Mycenean times
- Eupatridae (well-born)
o Aristocrats
- Areopagus
o Where all affairs are discussed
- Only Eupatridae get to rule/decide the law – high positions in government come comes
from the family one is born in
- 621 – Laws of Draco
o According to him, if you steal an apple, you should be executed
o These laws had to be written down
- 594 – Only elected one Archon which is SOLON
o Allowed to make changes to Athenian society to avoid civil war
o Reorganised society to break down old aristocracy
o Took all Athenian society and reconstructed it by wealth
o Solon set out reforms:
 Pentakosiomedimnoi: ‘500 measure men’
 Hippeis: ‘horsemen’ or ‘knights’, who could produce 300-500 medimnoi
 Zeugitai: who could produce 200-300 medimnoi (the main hoplite class)
 Thetes: who produced less than 200 medimnoi (at least half the population)
 Linked to the navy
o These reforms allowed for first two parts to society to become Archons
o It did not work for the most part – tensions still present
- 546 – 528 – Tyranny of Peisistratos
 o Wanted to have power
o Athens did not want to be ruled by one man
o Rode on a chariot with a women dressed as Athena to suggest he had divine right to
become a tyrant
o He is very successful
o The initial tyrant was popular, successful and delt with all affairs
o The tyrannicides assassinated one of his, the other got away
o Kleisthenes known as the father of democracy
 Proposed to the Athenian people to change the political system
 Kleisthenes reforms changed the social structure of Athens
 Demes (geographical small local units) spread across 3 categories
 City
 Hills
 Coast
 Each region had 10 Trityes
 30 Trityes in all
 10 Tribes (composed of 1 Tritys from each region)
 Council of 500 – 50 members from each tribe
o New social structure / does not change political structure
 Power still held by Archons
 Boule (Council)
 Council of 500
 Fatehr info and presents to archons and wider Ecclesia
 Ecclesia (Assembly)
 General assembly of the Athenians
 Don’t have power – power held by Archons
 Dikasteria (Law Courts)
o Through these reforms – he has allowed a wider voice and weakened the nobility
o Ostracism
 Once a year an assembly was held where Athenians would write on a broken
pot who they would want to be expelled. - written on a piece of Ostraka
- Persian wars changed the entire dynamic of Greece
- 490 – 479 – Height of the Persian Wars; Delian League
o Set up to help liberated Greeks against the tyranny of the Persians
- 462 – Ephialtes cripples the Arepagus Council
o Dokimasia – Inspection of all potential magistrates before they took office
o Euthuna – Review of a magistrate’s performance upon leaving office
o Now, any official goes on trial before taking power
o Makes all officials accountable to the Athenian public
- 461 – 429 – Ascendancy of Pericles; Athenian Empire
o Makes the last change to make a true democracy
o Introduced pay – paid to be jury member, paid to be an official
 This allows farmers to afford to leave their lands
 - This introduced the Golden Age of Athens

- DIRECT DEMOCRACY VS REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

Seminar -

- Athens actually “mod-ruled” by the lowest part of society