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9 Athenian Democracy— Reality or Illusion?* Allow me to begin with a quotation: “The rule of the masses has, to start with, the fairest name of all, political equality, and further it does none of the things a monarch does: it appoints officials by lot, its rule is answerable, and it refers all political resolutions to the community.”1 This, the earliest definition of “democracy” that has come down to us, is placed by Herodotus not into the mouth of a Greek, but into that of a Persian who had participated in the overthrow of a monarchical regime and was now deliberating with his fellow conspirators what form of government should take its place. To be sure, the word “democracy” is not mentioned, but Herodotus leaves no doubt later in his work that the establishment of a democracy was what the Persian had in mind.2 Even though this argument is attributed to a Persian and did not win out (a monarchy was in fact reestablished in Persia), modern scholars frequently cite this passage as expressing not only Herodotus’ own political preference but also that of most of his Greek contemporaries.3 However, some scholars have recently cast considerable doubt on the view that either Herodotus or his contemporaries viewed democracy in such a favorable *This paper, originally delivered as a talk, appeared as “La démocratie athénienne: réalité ou illusion?” METIS 7 (1992 = 1995): 7–24, reprinted by permission of METIS. For help with the French translation, encouragement, and criticism, I am indebted to Prof. Pauline Schmitt Pantel. 1 Herodotus, 3.80.6: ½̧‫̭̫̤ف‬ ̠Ҝ к̬̲̫̩ ½̬‫̝̯ه‬ ̨Ҝ̩ ̫҂̨̩̫̝ ½қ̴̩̯̩ ̧̧̦̘̥̮̯̫̩ ъ̡̲̥, ̨̛̥̮̫̩̫̣̩, ̸̡̡̠̯̬̝ ̠Ҝ ̸̴̯̫̯̩ ̯Ԗ̩ ѳ ̸̨̫̩̝̬̲̫̭ ½̡̫̥̙̥ ̫Ѿ̠̙̩; ½қ̧Ԕ ̨Ҝ̩ ж̬̲Қ̭ к̡̬̲̥, ѿ½̡ҥ̤̰̩̫̩ ̠Ҝ ж̬̲Ҟ̩ ъ̡̲̥, ̧̡̞̫̰ҥ̨̝̯̝ ̠Ҝ ½қ̩̯̝ ц̭ ̯Ң ̦̫̥̩Ң̩ ж̩̝̱ҝ̡̬̥. 2 Id. 6.43.3: For the meaning, see M. Ostwald, Nomos and the Beginnings of the Athenian Democracy (Oxford, 1969), 111 and n. 1. On the “Persian Debate,” see also E. Will, Le Monde grec et l’Orient (Paris, 1972), 1: 507–9, and Erodoto, Le storie, ed. D. Asheri (Rome, 1990), 3: 295–97, 298–99. 3 F. D. Harvey, “The Political Sympathies of Herodotus,” Historia 15 (1966): 254–55. 176 Chapter 9 light.4 The prevalent view that they did may well be due to our own predilection for democratic values, and, further, we have to make allowance for the possibility that what the Greeks understood by “democracy” is not necessarily the same as what we mean by it. When we speak of “Greek” democracy, we usually mean the Athenian democracy, because it is the only ancient Greek form of government that we can claim to know something about. But even here a clear understanding is hampered by a modern tendency to see all major events in internal Athenian history, from Solon on, as aiming at democracy but succeeding only partially and in stages in accomplishing this goal.5 What I hope to show is that the democratic element in Athenian government of the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e. was not based on the conscious or unconscious implementation of a preconceived ideology, but on responses to certain historical conditions which resulted by the middle of the fifth century in something that may be considered as adding up to “rule of, for, and by the people,” which is the meaning of Greek ̨̠̣̫̦̬̝̯ҡ̝. But before we come to that, some basic differences between our preconceptions and those of the Greeks must be clarified. For the Greeks all political activity was limited to adult male citizens. Consequently, we cannot fairly hold it against them that women, children, and slaves did not participate in the political process. We can accept that most readily in the case of children: even modern societies regard them only as potential participants in politics and have imposed age limits before which they are not eligible to vote or run for political office. The political rights of women are of too recent a vintage to expect the Greeks to have countenanced them; their exclusion makes Greek democracy no less democratic. The same applies to slaves. Slavery was a fact of life not only throughout antiquity, indispensable for the proper functioning of the economy; an American audience hardly needs reminding how recently we rid ourselves of this human indignity; we are the least entitled to consider the absence of slavery as a necessary precondition of democracy in the strict political sense. Even Thomas Jefferson, the most democratic of our Founding Fathers, owned a large number of slaves. 4 H. Strasburger, “Herodot und das perikleische Athen,” Historia 4 (1955): 1–25; C. W. Fornara, Herodotus: An Interpretative...

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