The Five Ancient Criteria of Democracy: The Apotheosis of Equality

Democracy in ancient Athens was different from what is implemented today even in the most advanced democracies. To evaluate this difference, this paper presents five criteria of democracy and then applies them to ancient Athens and modern advanced democracies. In comparison and according to five criteria, modern democracies are inferior to what the eligible citizens of Ancient Athens enjoyed. The ancient Greek literature on the subject has identified five criteria of democracy which neither today nor in ancient times were fully satisfied. The democracy today satisfies some but not all five criteria. This was also true for the ancient (Athenian) democracy. They differ in which criteria they satisfied. Of course, each criterion is fulfilled to a certain extent and this may differentiate modern from ancient democracy. These issues are discussed in this paper.

Athenian Honorary Decrees for Herakleides of Salamis

The stele contains five documents for Herakleides of Salamis of Cyprus, who in 330-329 provided the city with 3,000 medimnoi of wheat at the advantageous price of 5 drachmas and in 328-327 gave the city 3,000 drachmas for the purchase of grain. The decrees are useful for dating two of the main food crises that Attica had to face in the second half of the 4th century; moreover, they enrich our knowledge about the existing relationship between Athens and Salamis in Cyprus, and allow us to delve into the deliberative process of 4th-century Athenian democracy; finally, they contribute to the argument for the existence at Athens of a public archive for the preservation of records.

REPRESENTING THE DEMOS: ADAPTING INSIGHTS FROM THE CONSTRUCTIVIST TURN IN POLITICAL REPRESENTATION

One of the commonest clichés in the study of ancient and modern democracy is the claim that the former is ‘direct’, the latter ‘representative’. A few scholars have recently explored areas in which the Classical Athenian democracy had representative features, particularly the magistracies. These studies continue, however, to understand ‘political representation’ according to the definition proposed by the political scientist Hanna Pitkin, that is, as ‘acting [on the part of the political representative] in the interest of the represented, in a manner responsive to them’. In this paper I introduce the insights of the recent ‘constructivist turn’ in studies of political representation to the analysis of Athenian politics in the hope of suggesting, in what will necessarily be a brief and incomplete exercise, how productive this exciting new paradigm can be for understanding the dynamics of ancient democracy. I first lay out the basic tenets of constructivist representation, particularly the notion of the ‘representative claim’ as developed by the political theorist Michael Saward, and argue for their suitability for studying ancient Greek history and political thought. Next, I adapt the model of the representative claim to two episodes of Athenian democratic deliberation, showing how it illuminates processes of demotic will- and identity-formation. I conclude by briefly underscoring how approaching Athenian politics in terms of constructivist notions of representation restores an aesthetic dimension to ancient democratic debate, one that allows us to compare more productively the ‘demos’ of symbouleutic oratory with its counterparts in poetry, sculpture, and other media, namely as a represented object fashioned for creative and rhetorical purposes.

PLATO'S THEORY OF INCARCERATION

In addition to its many famous innovations in popular government, the Athenian democracy seems to have also experimented with another, more ambivalent political institution familiar to modern societies—penal incarceration. In recent years, there has been renewed debate over the precise role of imprisonment in Athens, as an increasing number of voices, including Marcus Folch in this volume, make the case that imprisonment was an important point of contact between criminal punishment and democratic politics and society in Athens.

CATALYSTS OF BARBARIZATION AND DEBARBARIZATION IN CLASSICAL ATHENS

В качестве факторов, способствовавших нарастанию варваризации в Афинах второй полвины V в. до н.э., в статье указываются создание Афинской морской державы, движение софистов, конфликт поколений, Пелопоннесская война, наступление «эры демагогов». Обратное же движение в сторону деварваризации (с самого конца Vв. до н.э.) было связано в первую очередь с возрождением уважения к законности, с укреплением стабильности и порядка. Новая афинская демократия IV в. до н.э., которую одни специалисты считают «усовершенствованным» вариантом по сравнению с демократией предшествующего столетия, а другие, напротив, ее упадком, кризисом, была в основном свободна как от охлократических, так и от олигархических тенденций; она может с полным основанием быть определена как умеренная демократия, в отличие от радикальной демократии второй половины V в. до н.э. Конфликтов не то чтобы не было, но их старались разрешать мирным путем, по возможности достигая компромисса и избегая насилия. The article cites as factors, which promoted the growth of barbarization in Athens in the last half of the 5thcentury B.C., the following ones: the emergence of the Athenian Empire, the sophistic movement, the conflict of generations, the Peloponnesian War, and the coming of the “era of demagogues”. As to the reverse motion towards debarbarization (from the very end of the 5th century B.C.), it was connected, in the first instance, with revival of the lawfulness’ authority and with strengthening order and stability. The new Athenian democracy of the 4thcentury B.C. (which is considered by some scholars an “improved” version as compared with democracy of the previous century, but by other scholars, on the contrary, its decline and crisis) was in general free from both ochlocratic and oligarchic tendencies; it may be with good reason defined as a moderate democracy, as distinct from the radical democracy of the last half of the 5thcentury B.C. It is not to say that there were no conflicts, but people sought to solve them by peaceful way, as far as possible, to reach compromises and to avoid violence.

‘FOR THEMISTOCLES OF PHREARRHIOI, ON ACCOUNT OF HONOUR’: OSTRACISM, HONOUR AND THE NATURE OF ATHENIAN POLITICS

This article offers a new interpretation of the Athenian institution of ostracism and explores its significance for our understanding of democratic politics. A popular scholarly trend interprets ostracism as an instrument for pursuing (or regulating) conflict among aristocratic politicians, in accordance with a view of Athenian democracy as dominated by a restricted elite competing for power and prestige. This article aims to reassess this picture by investigating ostracism in the light of recent studies of honour, which have stressed honour's potential for balancing competition and cooperation within communities. By using the ostracism of Themistocles as a case study, it argues that ostracism was a manifestation of an institutionalized concern for honour in Athenian democracy. On the one hand, ostracism could punish politically active citizens who, in excessively enhancing their own honour, failed to respect democratic equality. On the other, it could be employed for tackling shameful behaviour which placed the agent below the community's standards of honour. The article then sets ostracism against Athens’ broader institutional framework and argues that Athenian democracy was not so much concerned with policing intra-elite conflict as much as it was designed to foster a balance between competitive and cooperative values and ensure broad participation in the political domain.

Economic Aspects of Athletic Competition in the Archaic and Classical Age

An economic study of the Panhellenic contests in the archaic and classical periods requires an analysis of the relationship between economics, politics, and society of the Greek cities from a diachronic perspective. The competitive spirit formed an integral part of Greek life and culture and reflected the different social classes across various ages. The Homeric athletic contest is reserved for heroes and the aristocracy. In the eighth century the agōn is still dominated by a warrior aristocracy and landed classes, although members of the lower class were not restricted from participation. Subsequently with the birth of the polis, and through the development of crafts and trade, there emerged new social classes that undermined the archaic aristocratic values and introduced wealth based on coinage. The establishment of cash prizes offered to Panhellenic victors corresponded to the new conception of the timocratic polis. In the fifth century the emergence of Athenian democracy offered new possibilities to citizens with the opening of gymnasia and the establishment of liturgies.

Philosophical Perspectives on Eunomia

This contribution analyses the ancient Greek notion of eunomia in the philosophical prose literature of the fourth century BC. While the term eunomia is often translated as ‘good government’ or ‘good order’, such vague translations fail to capture the specifics of eunomia, and thus part of the philosophical debate about constitutions is lost. Closer inspection reveals that within the fourth-century constitutional debate, eunomia entails two distinct aspects: the excellence of the laws and their durability. These two aspects are predicated of various constitutions: the mixed constitution, of which Sparta and Crete are primary examples in the fourth century; the Athenian democracy as a paradigm of law-abidingness; and philosophical constitutions aiming at virtue. It is a hallmark of the last that such law codes start from marriage and childbirth and follow the course of human life.

Legal expertise and legal experts in Athenian democracy

This essay refutes the view that the Athenians of the Classical period were hostile to legal expertise. The Athenians had much respect for the Areopagus and the Exegetai, who were experts in law and religion. The legal expert Phanodemus was often praised and entrusted with important responsibilities. Litigants in public cases often show their legal knowledge by copious citation of statutes. They sometimes accuse their opponents of deceitful use of rhetoric never attack them for legal expertise. In the speech of Lysias Against Nicomachus, the accuser charges the defendant with illegally modifying the rules about sacrifices but never arouses suspicions about his legal expertise.