Notes · Classical CivilisationUK · A-Levels

Democracy and the Athenians

Democracy and the Athenians is one of the four Beliefs and Ideas options (Component 3), studying the concept and practice of democracy in ancient Athens through literary and documentary sources. This topic teaches the whole option: the idea of demokratia and Athenian citizenship, and who was included and excluded; the making of the democracy from Solon to Cleisthenes; the institutions through which the people ruled (the Ekklesia, the Boule of 500 and the law courts); the radical democracy of Ephialtes and Pericles, with its pay for office and its ideals; and the powerful ancient critics of democracy, from the Old Oligarch and Plato to Aristophanes. It teaches the figures, institutions and ideas accurately by name and models how to analyse the sources for the ideas about democracy they express.

5 sections~27 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

T·101010 / 10

Exam profile

AO1 · Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of Athenian democracy, its institutions and its criticsAO2 · Analyse and interpret literary and documentary sources for the ideas about democracy they express

Operators:analyseinterpretevaluateexplaincomparediscuss

basic level

AS-Level covers a defined selection of the sources; the analytical demands are the same.

higher level

The full A-Level requires secure knowledge of the institutions, their development and their critics, with sustained analysis of the sources.

Depth

Text

Contents · 5 sections

Democracy and the Athenians

The idea of democracy#

FoundationOCR H408 Component 3 (Democracy: the concept)DfE GCE Classical Civilisation subject content

The Athenian population and political rights

Fig. 1Who ruled in the Athenian democracy: full political rights for adult male citizens, and no political rights for the excluded majority - women, metics and slaves.

This option studies the world's first democracy, that of ancient Athens in the fifth century BC, and it must begin from the concept itself. The Greek word demokratia is formed from demos (the people) and kratos (power or rule), and it means, quite literally, the rule or power of the people. Athens was the first state to organise itself on this principle, and its democracy became famous - and controversial - throughout the Greek world and ever afterward. Understanding what the Athenians meant by rule of the people, and how radically it differed from what we mean by democracy today, is the foundation of the whole option and the key to reading its sources.

The single most important difference from modern democracy is that Athenian democracy was direct, not representative. The citizens did not elect representatives to govern on their behalf; they governed in person, gathering in their thousands to debate and vote on the actual decisions of state - laws, war and peace, taxation, foreign policy - in the Assembly, and serving in person as councillors and jurors. This was possible because the citizen body, though large, was small enough to assemble, and because the Athenians believed that an ordinary citizen was competent to take part directly in ruling. Direct participation by the citizens themselves, rather than the choosing of representatives, is the essence of the Athenian system.

The second decisive point concerns who counted as a citizen, and here honesty is essential. Political rights in Athens belonged only to adult male citizens - free men born (after Pericles' law of 451 BC) of an Athenian citizen father and mother. This was a genuine and, for its members, remarkably full and equal democracy. But it rested on the exclusion of the great majority of the people who actually lived in Athens: women (who held no political rights at all), the large population of slaves (who were property), and the metics (free foreigners resident in Athens, who could not take part in politics however long they lived there). A minority of the adult population thus held all the political power.

This double character - radical democracy for its citizens, built on the exclusion of women, slaves and foreigners - must be held together in any honest account, and the exam rewards a balanced view. On the one hand, Athenian democracy was a genuinely bold experiment: within the citizen body it achieved a degree of direct, equal participation in government that has rarely been matched, giving the ordinary poor citizen a real and continual share in ruling. On the other hand, it was exclusive by design, and its leisure and even its funds depended in part on the labour of the excluded and on empire. Neither idealising it as a model of freedom nor dismissing it for its exclusions does justice to it; understanding both sides does.

For analysis, the idea of democracy should be approached both as a concept and as a contested value, since the Athenians themselves argued fiercely about it (as later sections show). Ask what rule of the people actually meant in practice - direct participation, by whom, in what - and set it against modern representative democracy to see how distinctive it was. When you analyse a source, keep in view both the radical inclusiveness of the system for its citizens and the exclusions on which it rested, and read the source for what it reveals about how the Athenians, and their critics, understood the power of the people. This clear grasp of the concept is the basis for everything that follows in the option.

Worked example

Understanding demokratia

Explain what democracy meant in Athens and its double character.

The word
Demokratia means the rule of the people - demos (the people) plus kratos (power) - the first such system, in fifth-century Athens.
Direct, not representative
Citizens governed in person, voting on the actual decisions of state in the Assembly and serving as councillors and jurors, not electing representatives.
Who counted
Political rights belonged only to adult male citizens; women, slaves and metics were excluded, so a minority held all the power.
The balanced view
It was at once a radical, full participation for its citizens and an exclusive system by design - both sides must be held together.

Result: Athenian democracy was the direct rule of the people, giving its adult male citizens an unmatched share in governing while excluding women, slaves and foreigners - a system both radically participatory and exclusive, which must be judged with both facts in view.

Typical mistakes

Assuming Athenian democracy was like modern representative democracy, rather than a direct system of citizens governing in person.
Either idealising Athenian democracy or dismissing it for its exclusions, instead of holding its radical participation and its exclusiveness together.

Active revision

Explain what the Athenians meant by demokratia and how it differed from modern democracy, then set out who held political rights and who was excluded.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: OCR AS and A Level Classical Civilisation (H008, H408) specification (OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA))

From Solon to Cleisthenes#

StandardOCR H408 Component 3 (Democracy: the making of the democracy)DfE GCE Classical Civilisation subject content

The making of the democracy

Fig. 2The stages by which the democracy was built: from Solon's crisis reforms, through Cleisthenes' remaking of the citizen body, to the radical democracy of Ephialtes and Pericles.

Athenian democracy did not appear all at once but was built up over more than a century through a series of reforms, and knowing the main stages - above all the work of Solon and of Cleisthenes - is essential to the option. In the early sixth century BC Athens was governed by its aristocracy and was gripped by a severe social crisis: many poorer farmers had fallen into debt and even into debt-slavery, and the tension between the rich few and the oppressed many threatened to tear the state apart. The path to democracy began as a response to this crisis, and its early reforms were attempts to ease the conflict between rich and poor rather than deliberate steps toward rule by the people.

The first great reformer was Solon, appointed around 594 BC with special powers to resolve the crisis. His most famous measure was the seisachtheia - the shaking-off of burdens - which cancelled existing debts and, decisively, abolished debt-slavery, freeing citizens who had been enslaved for debt and banning the practice for the future. He also reorganised the citizen body into classes based on wealth rather than birth alone, opening a share in some public functions to more citizens, and he strengthened the right of ordinary citizens to appeal to a court. Solon did not create democracy - power still lay largely with the wealthy - but he eased the immediate crisis and laid foundations, above all by establishing that even the poorest citizen was a free man with certain rights.

After a period that included a spell of one-man rule (a tyranny) later in the sixth century, the decisive democratic breakthrough came with Cleisthenes, whose reforms of 508/7 BC are usually taken as the true birth of Athenian democracy. His masterstroke was to reorganise the whole citizen body: he broke up the old divisions based on aristocratic kinship and created ten new tribes based instead on residence in local districts (demes), deliberately mixing citizens from different areas and social backgrounds. This shattered the power-base of the great aristocratic families and gave the citizen body a new unity founded on the community rather than on birth. It was a brilliant piece of political engineering that made a democracy of citizens, not of clans.

Cleisthenes built new institutions on this reorganised citizen body, and to him are traditionally credited some of the democracy's central features. He established (or gave its democratic form to) the Council of Five Hundred (the Boule), with members drawn from all ten tribes to prepare business for the citizen assembly; he is associated with the principle of isonomia, equality before the law and equality of political rights among citizens; and tradition credits him with instituting ostracism, the procedure by which the citizens could vote to send a prominent man into exile for ten years, as a safeguard against any individual growing too powerful. For these reforms Cleisthenes is often called the father of Athenian democracy.

For analysis, the development from Solon to Cleisthenes should be understood as a movement from crisis-management to the deliberate construction of popular government. Solon's reforms responded to social crisis and secured the freedom and some rights of the ordinary citizen; Cleisthenes' reforms remade the citizen body and its institutions so that the people, as a whole, held real power. When you analyse a source on the origins of the democracy, ask which stage it reflects and what problem it was addressing - the easing of debt and class conflict, or the breaking of aristocratic power and the empowering of the citizen body - and you show an understanding of democracy as something built, step by step, out of the specific history of Athens.

Worked example

Why Cleisthenes is the founder

Explain why Cleisthenes, rather than Solon, is usually called the father of Athenian democracy.

Solon's achievement
Solon abolished debt-slavery and gave the ordinary citizen freedom and some rights, easing the crisis - but power still lay largely with the wealthy.
Cleisthenes' reorganisation
Cleisthenes remade the citizen body into ten tribes based on residence, mixing the population and shattering the old aristocratic power-base.
The new institutions
He built the Council of 500 on this new body and is linked with isonomia and ostracism, giving the people as a whole real, institutional power.
The verdict
Because he created a working democracy of citizens rather than merely easing a crisis, Cleisthenes is credited as the founder, with Solon as forerunner.

Result: Solon laid the foundations by freeing the citizen, but it was Cleisthenes who remade the citizen body and its institutions to give the people real power, which is why he, not Solon, is called the father of Athenian democracy.

Typical mistakes

Crediting Solon with creating democracy; his reforms eased crisis and laid foundations, but power still lay largely with the wealthy.
Overlooking the significance of Cleisthenes' tribal reorganisation, which broke aristocratic power and remade the citizen body.

Active revision

Explain how Solon and Cleisthenes each contributed to the making of Athenian democracy, and why Cleisthenes rather than Solon is usually called its founder.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for classical civilisation (Department for Education)

The institutions of Athenian democracy#

StandardOCR H408 Component 3 (Democracy: the institutions)DfE GCE Classical Civilisation subject content

The institutions of the democracy

Fig. 3The machinery of rule by the people: the sovereign Assembly, the Council of 500, the citizen juries and the magistrates, most chosen by lot (the generals by election).

The Athenian democracy worked through a set of institutions that translated the principle of rule by the people into daily practice, and knowing them precisely is essential to the option. Three bodies stood at its heart - the Assembly, the Council of Five Hundred and the law courts - together with the magistrates who carried out administration. What is striking about the whole system is how directly and continually it involved ordinary citizens in governing: not once every few years, but constantly, as members of the Assembly, as councillors, as jurors and as office-holders. The institutions were designed to put decisions in the hands of the citizen body itself.

The sovereign body was the Ekklesia, the Assembly, open to all adult male citizens and meeting frequently (some forty times a year) on the hill called the Pnyx. Here the citizens who attended debated and decided, by a show of hands, the great questions of state - the passing of laws, decisions of war and peace, finance, foreign policy, the conduct of magistrates. Any citizen had the right to speak, and the vote of the majority present was the decision of Athens. The Assembly was the fullest expression of direct democracy: the people themselves, gathered in person, made the actual decisions of government rather than delegating them to representatives.

Preparing and managing the work of the Assembly was the Boule, the Council of Five Hundred, and its composition embodied a key democratic principle. Its members - fifty from each of the ten tribes - were chosen not by election but by lot, for a single year, and no one could serve more than twice in a lifetime, so that a very large proportion of citizens served on the Council at some point. The Boule set the agenda for the Assembly, oversaw the day-to-day running of the state and its finances, and a standing committee of its members (the prytaneis) was on duty in rotation through the year. Through the Council, the ordinary citizen was drawn directly into the business of administration.

Justice, too, lay in the hands of the people, through the law courts (the dikasteria). Cases were decided not by professional judges but by very large juries of ordinary citizens - hundreds strong - chosen by lot from those who had volunteered, who heard the speeches of the parties and voted on guilt and penalty without appeal. The courts were a central democratic institution, giving the citizen body direct control over the law and over the conduct of officials and one another, and (once pay was introduced) making participation possible even for the poor. The immense size of the juries and their selection by lot expressed the democratic conviction that judgement belonged to the people at large.

Underlying the whole system was the principle of selection by lot (sortition), and understanding its logic - and its one great exception - is important for analysis. Most offices, and membership of the Council and the juries, were filled by lot rather than by election, on the democratic reasoning that ordinary citizens were competent to govern and should rule and be ruled in turn, and that election tended to favour the wealthy and well-known. The great exception was the small number of posts requiring real expertise, above all the ten generals (strategoi), who were elected (and could be re-elected), since military command could not safely be left to chance. Officials were also held to account through scrutiny of their conduct at the end of their term. When you analyse the institutions, ask how each - the Assembly, the Council, the courts, the lot - put power directly in the hands of the ordinary citizen.

Worked example

Rule by the people in practice

Explain how the institutions embodied the principle of rule by the people.

The Assembly
In the Ekklesia the citizens themselves debated and voted in person on laws, war and finance - direct decision-making by the people.
The Council by lot
The Boule of 500, chosen by lot from all the tribes for one year, drew huge numbers of ordinary citizens into running the state.
The people as judges
In the courts, large juries of ordinary citizens chosen by lot decided cases without professional judges, putting justice in the people's hands.
Lot and its exception
Selection by lot expressed the belief that citizens should rule and be ruled in turn; only expert posts like the generals were elected.

Result: Through the sovereign Assembly, a Council and juries filled by lot, and the rotation of office, the institutions put decision-making, administration and justice directly in the hands of ordinary citizens - rule by the people in continual practice.

Typical mistakes

Confusing the roles of the Assembly and the Council, or forgetting that most offices were filled by lot, not election.
Overlooking that the generals (strategoi) were the great exception, elected for their expertise and re-electable.

Active revision

Analyse how the institutions of Athenian democracy (the Assembly, the Council of 500, the courts, and the use of the lot) put power directly in the hands of ordinary citizens.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: OCR AS and A Level Classical Civilisation (H008, H408) specification (OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA))

The radical democracy: Pericles#

StandardOCR H408 Component 3 (Democracy: the radical democracy)DfE GCE Classical Civilisation subject content

The making of the radical democracy

Fig. 4How the democracy became radical: Ephialtes shifts power to the people, Pericles pays citizens to participate, and the empire helps fund the fullest democracy.

The Athenian democracy reached its fullest, most radical form in the middle decades of the fifth century BC, through a further round of reform associated with Ephialtes and, above all, Pericles. By radical democracy is meant a system in which the participation of the ordinary, poorer citizen was maximised and the last strongholds of aristocratic power were cut back - democracy pushed as far as it would go. This is the Athens of its greatest cultural achievements and of its empire, and its ideals were celebrated (and its power funded) in ways that repay close study. Understanding how and why the democracy became radical is central to the option.

The decisive reform came in 462 BC, when Ephialtes attacked the last major bastion of the old aristocracy, the ancient council of the Areopagus. He stripped the Areopagus of nearly all its political powers, transferring them to the democratic bodies - the Assembly, the Council of 500 and the law courts - so that the people's institutions now held authority that had belonged to a body of former magistrates drawn from the elite. This was a radical, and bitterly contested, step, and Ephialtes was assassinated soon afterward; but his reform decisively shifted power to the demos and cleared the way for the fully developed democracy of the following decades.

The leading figure of the radical democracy was Pericles, who dominated Athenian politics for some three decades (until his death in 429 BC), repeatedly elected as one of the ten generals. Pericles championed measures that widened participation, the most important being the introduction of pay for public office and, especially, for jury service. This apparently modest reform was profoundly democratic: by paying citizens for the days they gave to serving on juries or in office, it made it possible for even poor men, who could not otherwise afford to leave their work, to take a full part in governing. Participation was no longer a privilege of those with leisure; the radical democracy paid its citizens to rule.

The ideals of the radical democracy found their most famous expression in the Funeral Oration that the historian Thucydides gives to Pericles, a speech honouring the Athenian war dead that became a celebration of Athens and its democracy. In it Pericles praises a constitution that is called a democracy because power rests with the many, not the few; that offers equality before the law; that judges men by merit rather than birth; that combines freedom in private life with respect for the law in public; and that expects every citizen to take an active part in the affairs of the city, holding one who takes no interest in politics to be not merely quiet but useless. The speech is the classic ancient statement of the democratic ideal of active, equal citizenship.

For analysis, the radical democracy must be understood together with the source of much of its strength: the Athenian empire. In the fifth century Athens led an alliance that became an empire, and the tribute paid by its subject allies helped fund the pay for office, the fleet and the great public building programme (such as the Parthenon) on which the democracy's confidence and splendour partly rested. This is an important qualification to the idealised picture: the fullest participation of the citizen at home was supported, in part, by the domination of others abroad. When you analyse a source on the radical democracy - the reforms, the pay, the Funeral Oration - weigh both its genuine ideals of equal, active citizenship and the imperial power and exclusions on which it stood.

Worked example

Pay for office and the democratic ideal

Explain why Pericles' pay for office was a radical measure, and what the Funeral Oration reveals about the democracy's ideals.

The problem it solved
Without pay, only citizens with leisure and means could afford to serve as jurors or officials, excluding the working poor in practice.
The radical effect
By paying citizens for their service, Pericles made it possible for even poor men to take a full part, maximising popular participation.
The stated ideal
The Funeral Oration celebrates a democracy where power rests with the many, all are equal before the law, merit outweighs birth, and every citizen takes an active part.
The qualification
Yet this fullest participation was funded partly by the empire's tribute, so the ideal of equal citizenship rested on power over others abroad.

Result: Pay for office made full participation possible for the poor and completed the radical democracy, whose ideals of equal, active citizenship the Funeral Oration celebrates - though those ideals rested in part on the imperial power that helped fund them.

Typical mistakes

Overlooking the significance of pay for office, which was what made full participation possible for poorer citizens.
Presenting the radical democracy purely as an ideal, ignoring that its participation and splendour were partly funded by the empire.

Active revision

Analyse how Ephialtes and Pericles made the democracy radical (the Areopagus, pay for office); using the Funeral Oration, set out its ideals and qualify them with the role of the empire.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for classical civilisation (Department for Education)

Critics of democracy#

AdvancedOCR H408 Component 3 (Democracy: the critics)DfE GCE Classical Civilisation subject content

Critics of Athenian democracy

Fig. 5The ancient critics of democracy and their distinct arguments - from the Old Oligarch's hostile analysis to Plato's philosophical attack and Aristophanes' comic satire.

For all its achievements, Athenian democracy had powerful and articulate critics, especially among the educated elite, and studying their objections is one of the richest, most advanced parts of the option. Ancient criticism of democracy is important for two reasons: it shows that the value of rule by the people was contested at the time, not just in hindsight, and it raises searching questions about democracy that have never gone away. The main critics - the anonymous Old Oligarch, the philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and the comic poet Aristophanes - approach the democracy from different angles, and knowing their distinct arguments is the key to writing well about them.

The bluntest hostile analysis is that of the writer known as the Old Oligarch - the anonymous author of a short pamphlet on the Athenian constitution, once wrongly attributed to Xenophon. Writing from an anti-democratic standpoint, he argues that Athenian democracy is, in effect, a system that runs the state for the benefit of the poor majority (the demos) at the expense of the wealthy and the better sort. Yet his tone is grudgingly analytical rather than merely abusive: he concedes that, given its aim of serving the interests of the ordinary people, the democracy is cleverly and effectively arranged to achieve exactly that. The Old Oligarch thus offers a hostile but sharp insider's account of how and for whom the democracy worked.

The most profound philosophical attack comes from Plato, who was deeply hostile to democracy, in part because a democratic Athens had condemned his teacher Socrates to death. In the Republic and elsewhere, Plato argues that democracy is the rule of the ignorant many: government is a skill requiring knowledge and expertise, like navigation or medicine, and it is folly to hand it to the untrained mass of citizens, who lack the knowledge to govern well and are easily swayed by clever speakers (demagogues) who flatter them rather than tell them the truth. The state, Plato holds, should be ruled by those who truly know the good - his philosopher-rulers - not by the many. He also warns that unchecked democratic freedom tends to disorder and can collapse into tyranny.

Aristotle, Plato's pupil, offers a more measured and analytical assessment in his Politics. He classifies constitutions by who rules and in whose interest, treating democracy - rule by the many - as one basic type, which can take better or worse forms. He is alert both to democracy's dangers (the risk that the poor majority will simply plunder the rich, or that decisions will be swayed by passion) and to its strengths, acknowledging an argument that the collective judgement of the many, pooling their experience, may in some matters be wiser than that of a few experts. Aristotle thus neither idealises nor simply condemns democracy but analyses it soberly as one form of government among several, with characteristic virtues and vices.

A very different kind of criticism came from the comic stage, above all from Aristophanes, who repeatedly satirised the democracy and its leaders. In the Knights he savages the populist politician Cleon and portrays the sovereign people as an old man, Demos, who is gullible and easily flattered by unscrupulous demagogues; in the Wasps he mocks the Athenians' obsession with sitting on juries and the workings of the law courts. Through fantasy and ridicule, Aristophanes exposes what he presents as the follies of the democracy - the manipulability of the people, the influence of demagogues, the excesses of litigation. For analysis, these critics together level a coherent set of charges - rule by the ignorant, the sway of demagogues and rhetoric, instability, the interest of the poor over the common good - and a strong answer weighs them fairly: they are partly the self-interested complaints of a disgruntled elite (and the democracy proved remarkably durable and participatory, surviving even the brief oligarchic coups of 411 and 404 BC), yet they raise real and enduring questions about the rule of the people that make them a vital part of the option.

Worked example

Plato's critique of democracy

Analyse Plato's objection to democracy and assess how fair it is.

The core argument
Plato holds that governing is a skill needing knowledge, like navigation, so it is folly to hand it to the untrained many who lack that knowledge.
The danger of demagogues
He warns that the ignorant mass is easily swayed by clever speakers who flatter them rather than tell the truth, so decisions follow rhetoric, not wisdom.
His alternative
Plato would entrust the state to those who truly know the good - his philosopher-rulers - rather than to the people at large.
The evaluation
His view is partly coloured by Athens' execution of Socrates and by elite distaste, yet it raises a real, enduring question about expertise and rhetoric in democracy.

Result: Plato attacks democracy as the rule of the ignorant many, swayed by demagogues and lacking the knowledge to govern, preferring rule by those who know - a critique shaped by his own experience and hostility, but one that poses a genuine and lasting challenge to democratic government.

Typical mistakes

Blurring the critics together, missing that the Old Oligarch, Plato, Aristotle and Aristophanes make quite different kinds of argument.
Taking the elite critics at face value, without recognising both their self-interest and the genuine questions they raise about democracy.

Active revision

Analyse the main ancient criticisms of Athenian democracy (Plato's rule of the ignorant; the demagogue problem in the Old Oligarch and Aristophanes); evaluate how far they are fair.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: OCR AS and A Level Classical Civilisation (H008, H408) specification (OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA))

References & sources

Sources

OCR (Oxford Cambridge and RSA)

OCR AS and A Level Classical Civilisation (H008, H408) specification

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for classical civilisation

Democracy and the Athenians

5 sections~27 min reading time2 competenciesLevel Foundation 1 · Standard 3 · Advanced 1

Democracy and the Athenians

Key points

Understanding demokratia

Key points

Why Cleisthenes is the founder

Key points

Rule by the people in practice

Key points

Pay for office and the democratic ideal

Key points

Plato's critique of democracy

Sources

Democracy and the Athenians

Key points

Understanding demokratia

Key points

Why Cleisthenes is the founder

Key points

Rule by the people in practice

Key points

Pay for office and the democratic ideal

Key points

Plato's critique of democracy

Sources