Historical Overview

For a detailed overview of all phases of Greek history, see Thomas R. Martin’s on-line article, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander, available on the Perseus site.

A Brief Review of the Development and Practice of Athenian Democracy

The Athenian democracy recently celebrated its 2500^th anniversary, but, unlike Athena, it did not spring fully developed from the brain of Kleisthenes or any other important Athenian statesman. It gradually evolved over a number of generations into the practice that inspired America’s founding fathers. Since Athenian democracy served, in many respects, as the foundation for American democracy, it is important for CLAS 1000 students to understand how it evolved and functioned in Athenian society and how it differs from American democracy.

Athenian democracy emerged in response to a number of cultural stresses and strains brought about by changes in economics, warfare and the development of the polis during the Archaic period. In some Greek cities these tensions led to colonization and /or the establishment of a tyrant (a man who rebeled against the aristocratic status quo, seized power – often by force – and set up a new system). In Athens, in an effort to avoid a tyranny, Solon was appointed in 594 BCE as the tenth archon (Athens was normally governed by 9 archons at this time) and was given extraordinary powers to effect changes in Athenian society and governance; his actions could be interpreted as the first step on the road to Athenian democracy.

Solon's archonship is usually dated to 594 though some scholars argue that 573 BCE is a better date. Nonetheless, as tenth archon, he was charged by Athens to mediate social problems and to institute changes in governance which would prevent a tyrant from emerging in the city. Because of his actions at this time, he was revered by later Greeks as one of the Seven Sages, the soul of Athenian citizenship, and was widely considered to be a man of great wisdom and an adroit political thinker. Aristotle (Ath. Pol. 9.1) preserves important information about Solon’s reforms, and Solon himself offers tantalizing hints about his political philosophy in his poetry and sometimes refers directly to his legislation. Only 250 lines of his poetry is preserved, but it seems to have been widely read and quoted in antiquity.

Solon’s legislation, which was referred to as Eunomia (“good governance”), was an important force in forming a new civic sense. First and foremost it included the seisachtheia (“the shaking off of debts”) which wiped clean the slates of all debtors in Athens and gave everyone a fresh start. It was designed to alleviate the problem of the hektemoiroi (“the sixth parters”; e.g., hektemoros) – debtors who were required to pay 1/6 of their production as interest. If they failed, they and their families could be sold into slavery and their land would revert to their patrons. Moreover, according to a tenet of Drakon’s law code (established in ca. 625 BCE), all debtors who defaulted on their loans were subject to slavery. The seisachtheia abolished the status of the hektermoros, cancelled all existing debts, ended the practice of debt slavery, and sent a shock wave through Athenian society.

Equally bold was Solon’s attempt to break the aristocratic monopoly on power by distributing public offices to four classes based solely on wealth, rather than on birth. He divided the citizenry into the following four classes: pentakosiomedimnoi (“500 bushel-men” or those whose property could produce a surplus of 500 bushels of grain or the economic equivalent each year), hippeis (“cavalrymen” whose property could produce a surplus of 300 bushels or who could equip themselves with a horse and war equipment), zeugitae (“hoplites,” a surplus of 200 bushels or equipment to serve as a hoplite soldier), and thetes (“serfs,” everyone else). According to Solon's reforms, eligibility for public office was tied to these class distinctions. The archons (the nine chief administrative officers of Athens) were drawn from the ranks of the 500-bushel and 300-bushel men; the Boulê (the legislative body of 400 men) was open to the  pentakosiomedimnoi, hippeis, and zeugitae; all citizens could participate in the Ekklesia (the public assembly).

Solon also instituted the Heliaia, the court of appeal, to which every Athenian citizen could bring a case and on which every Athenian citizen could serve as a juror.

On the economic front, Solon supported a number of ideas. For example, he encouraged all fathers to teach their sons a trade, and he prohibited the export of any produce from Attica, except for olive oil. He also granted the right of citizenship to immigrant craftsmen, in particular to potters, many of whom left Corinth at about this time and took up residence in Athens. Many of these moves seem to be geared to long-term economic development. All of them helped established trade and economic patterns which dominated the picture for several generations.

Solon was successful at averting tyranny in the short term, but not in the long term, for in 546 BCE, after two abortive attempts in 561 BCE and 550 BCE, Peisistratos seized control and set himself as a tryrant. He kept in place the basic hallmarks of the Solonian Constitution–the class system, the Boulê, the Ekklesia, and the Heliaia, thus giving Athenians yet more practice in governance and creating in them the expectation of keeping these rights and responsibilities.

When Peisistratos died in 528 BCE, his power passed to his sons Hippias and Hipparchos who, like their father, maintained the basic framework of the Solonian Constitution. In 514 BCE, Hipparchos was murdered by Harmodius and Aristogeiton in what may or may not have been the first step in a revolt against the tyranny, and after that event the situation in Athens deteriorated. In 510 BCE, with the help of the Spartans, Hippias was expelled from Athens, and the Alkmeonidai, a prominent aristocratic Athenian family, returned from Delphi where it had been in exile since ca. 632 BCE for their act of sacrilege in thwarting the Kylonian conspiracy.

In 510 BCE, Kleisthenes was at the head of the Alkmeonid family and, upon his return to Athens, he vied with Isagoras, another aristocrat and one of the Archons at the time, to fill the power vacuum that developed in the wake of Hippias’ departure. After a series of moves and countermoves, just as Isagoras seemed to be winning the struggle for power, Kleisthenes introduced a bold package of reforms which were designed to be pleasing to the people (the demos) and so tip the balance in his favor. His package of reforms became known as Isonomia ("equal governance”) or as Isegoria (“equality in the assembly”?), and they were so instrumental in elevating the demos to political power (kratos) that Kleisthenes was later revered as the “father of Athenian democracy.”

Though the exact chronology is disputed, it is probable that Kleisthenes introduced his program directly to the Ekklesia in 508 BCE and that it was enacted by 501 BCE. His most radical reform was to break up the four traditional Ionian tribes (tribes which were based entirely on family connections) and to replace them with ten new tribes based on place of residence and named after an Attic hero. To do this he first divided the occupied territory of Athens (which was an unusually large ancient polis) into 174 (possibly 140) demes or neighborhoods and then assigned each of those demes to one of 30 trittyes which were larger neighborhoods. There were 10 city trittyes, 10 inland trittyes, and 10 coastal trittyes. To form a tribe, he joined 1 city tritty, 1 inland tritty, and 1 coastal tritty. Thus each tribe reflected a geographical cross section of Attica and drew its population from a variety of neighborhoods and contexts. In this way, Kleisthenes attempted to use geography to replace kinship and to turn an individual's loyalty away from an aristocratic family and toward the city of Athens. Naming the new tribes after an Attic hero seems to reflect this same motive. In addition, at this time all Athenian citizens began to refer to themselves, not with their patronymic (their father’s name, e.g., "Achilleus the son of Peleus") but with their demotic or deme name ("Sophokles of the deme Kolonos"). In addition he increased the size of the Boule to 500, or 50 men selected by lot from each of the 10 new tribes. Sortition (selection by lot) was an important part of the program because it meant that every citizen had an equal opportunity to serve, without regard to either status or wealth. There is considerable evidence to suggest that Kleisthenes drew up the boundaries of the trittyes to capitalize on his family’s traditional strongholds and to diminish those of his rivals, but, nonetheless, his program represents a real step toward enfranchising all the people and reforming Athenian governance.

Though our sources are short on the specific details of his program, it is clear that in later times Kleisthenes was best remember for his reform of the tribes and for the curious and unique law of ostracism. Once every year the Athenian demos was given the chance to send into exile for 10 years anyone it deemed a danger to the state; the idea behind ostracism seemed to be that it was better for one man to steer even a poor course than to risk certain destruction brought by two or more men battling for power. In this regard it seems to have been created to avoid the kind of polarizing conflict that marked the power struggle between Isagoras and Kleisthenes.

The mechanism for ostracism was rather cumbersome. First someone would propose to the Ekklesia that an ostracism vote be taken (without mentioning names of potential victims); if 6000 members of the Ekklesia voted “yes,” then, after a prescribed interval, and private debate, each citizen would scratch on a broken piece of pottery (ostrakon) the name of the man he deemed to be a danger to the state. The man with the most votes left Athens for ten years; he didn’t forfeit his property or citizenship and was free to return at the end of the tenth year.

The law is connected with Kleisthenes, but the first ostracism was not carried out until almost twenty years later, in 487 BCE when a man named Hipparchos was selected for ostracism. His name implies a connection to the Peisistratids and suggests that the law may have been invoked at that particular time to prevent the resurgence of a tyrant in Athens. Between 487 and 417 BCE, moreover, fewer than twenty Athenians were ostracized; clearly ostracism was a potentially dangerous and de-stabilizing weapon, and the Athenians were careful about wielding it.

From the time of Solon on, Athens' archons tended to be rich and aristocratic, but in 487 BCE sortition was introduced for the selection of even archons. One effect of this development was to elevate the status of the ten strategoi (“the generals”) – one per tribe – who were the only officials to be still elected and who were eligible for re-election. It is no coincidence, then, that a man of talent like Perikles gravitated to the generalship and rose to prominence and dominated the Athenian scene for many years from the position of strategos, rather than that of archon.

Reforms introduced in 462 BCE represent the last step in the evolution of Athenian democracy, a much more radical form of democracy than our own. In this year, Ephialtes moved to diminish the powers of the Areopagus, the traditional criminal court or council or Athens. Solon had raised it to prominence by transferring to it the power of deciding cases of intentional murder, poisoning, malicious wounding, arson, etc. and of supervising the administration of the polis, the conduct of magistrates, the transactions of the popular assembly, religion, laws, morals, and discipline. It was composed of former archons and so retained its aristocratic flavor well past the date of Kleisthenes’ reforms. With the move in 487 BCE to select even archons by lot, the Areopagus began to lose power. The reforms of Ephialtes, however, struck the final blow by striping it of all functions, except the right to try cases of homicide and certain religious cases.

The Athenian democracy was founded on two overarching principles: an absolute acceptance of the laws and on the belief that every citizen governed by these laws had an equal right and duty to administer and maintain them. Credit for the first goes to Solon; credit for the second is shared by Peisistratos, Kleisthenes, and Ephialtes. Even more important than these politicians are the nameless Athenian citizens who agitated for changes along the way and who accepted the challenge to govern when opportunities arose.

Suggestions for further study:

W. G. Forrest, The Emergence of Greek Democracy, 800 - 400 BC. New York: McGraw - Hill, 1966.

D. Kagan, Perikles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. London : Secker & Warburg, 1990.

I. Morris and Kurt A. Raaflaub, eds., Democracy 2500? : questions and challenges. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., 1998.

Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

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