Origins of Democracy in Ancient Greece

7 Power to the People

Chapter 7 Power to the People Cynthia Farrar 170 Why think that the “Wrst democracy” has anything to tell us about our own? That was then and this is now; surely modern democracy has diverged from its ancient counterpart, and deliberately and rightly so?1 As it happens, however , among people who spend their time pondering such matters, dissatisfaction with modern democracy quite often takes the form of what one wit has dubbed “polis envy.”2 We admire what we think the Athenians had, we want it, we fear it, we suspect it is unattainable, we are determined to do without it. We eventually come to the conclusion that the most mature thing to do is to recognize that our wish can never be fulWlled and to channel our thwarted desire toward aspirations that are genuinely appropriate for us. This is, of course, precisely the question at issue: what is appropriate for us? If we turn away from the Athenian example, are we simply ignoring the possibility that a confrontation with their very different experience might enable us to identify important aspects of democracy that have been lost in the transition to the modern liberal state? But if—from the far side of that transition—we turn to their example, will we see anything other than our own reflection? It is the very strangeness of Athenian practices that underlies their potential power to alter the way we think about our own, and strangeness that may block understanding. My contribution to this discussion is twofold: to deploy the characterizations offered in this volume to make visible the Athenian challenge to our own practices, and then (briefly) to take up that challenge. What strikes a modern as most alien and remarkable about Athenian democracy is precisely that it was a democracy: the people ruled. And it is worth considering whether it may be possible to adapt this core commitment, and the institutional contrivances that sustained it, to reorient our own rather different system of governance. The tale of the origins of Athenian democracy provides clues both to what popular rule might mean, and to how such a departure from our own tradition could possibly triumph. When Did Athens Become Democratic, and Why Does It Matter? One of the charms of studying the ancient Athenians is that everyone, student and scholar alike, has relatively easy access to the limited number of literary and epigraphic sources. Disagreements about the interpretation and implications of the evidence therefore appear in sharp relief. That is especially true in this volume, which asks a group of scholars to answer the same question using the same body of evidence. Each commentator’s choice of a period and context in which to locate the emergence of democracy reflects the salience he ascribes to particular elements of governance. For Robert Wallace, the key features in the creation of democracy are Solon’s ascription of legal and political standing—citizenship—to the plebeian residents of Attica, the thetes, and the creation of the “basic institutions of Athens’ democracy,” even though the citizens did not realize the potential of those institutions for more than a century. Kurt Raaflaub agrees with Wallace that the full demos (i.e., a citizen body that included the thetes) did not exercise political control during the time of Solon or even Cleisthenes, but he interprets this fact differently. In his view, democracy properly understood requires the active involvement of the thetes. Josiah Ober shares Raaflaub’s view that the empowerment of the full demos is the deWning element of the Athenian democratic achievement. He differs as to when, how, and why this came about. According to Ober, democracy was born during the popular uprising against Isagoras and Cleomenes in 508 and the subsequent ratiWcation of the reforms proposed by Cleisthenes. This was an ideological revolution (indeed, a “rupture”), not initially an institutional one, and a necessary (though not sufWcient) condition for the development of the full democracy. The groundwork for this revolution was laid during the course of the sixth century, as the legacy of Solon and the actions of the tyrants “undercut traditional lines of authority and encouraged Athenian political self-consciousness.” Ober argues that reliance on the lower-class rowers as the foundation of Athenian military power was the result, not the cause, of a more inclusive political identity. According to Raaflaub, by contrast, the birth of democracy occurred during and in the immediate aftermath of the reforms proposed by Ephialtes, from 462 through the 450s...