Back To Politics

Back To Politics

By the end of the sixth century Cleisthenes* is running Athens. Somewhere around 508-7 BCE he redoes the whole political system and the first full fledged democracy is born. He throws out the old power groups and divides the Athenians into ten tribes. He extends citizenship to a bunch of men who have been excluded before. This doubles the size of the electorate. Between this time and the time of Pericles* (in 443) the system blossoms.

508 BCE- Democracy replaces the rule of tyrant Cleisthenes' democratic constitution. The old Council loses the power to run things and the Assembly gets that job. Membership in

the Council, which now just draws up agendas, is representative of the ten tribes with no economic requirement. It is now just a high executive committee that reports to the Assembly. All office holders, of whatever kind, are now responsible to the Assembly. The Assembly itself has twenty to thirty thousand members and becomes the legislature. After a while any citizen will be eligible for public office and they are all expected, at some time, to serve.

Election to public offices is by a sort of lottery system. There is a ban on re-election until others have a chance. Most major offices have to be rotated. A man might find himself picked to be a juror, a magistrate, a tax collector or a member of the council. If he is on the council

he can also find himself presiding, because this job changes (by lot) every day and the council meets three hundred days every year. Even the ten generals are elected each year from the entire citizenry. This doesn't necessarily provide for the best public defense. The historian Thucydides* is exiled, when, as a general in the war with Sparta, he fails to hold a city.

A lot more people get first hand experience in government. There is less attention paid to the economic class they come from. In the early stages office holders needed to be independently wealthy so that they could have the leisure time to devote to public affairs, but by the time of Pericles, wages are made available so that poorer people can also serve.

The Assembly meets four times a month, outdoors on the slope across from the Acropolis. Fortunately not everyone comes regularly, but there are usually two to three thousand assembled. At dawn they kill a pig (to sacrifice to Zeus), offered some prayers, heard the agenda (set up by the council) and started in arguing. There is a water clock to limit each speaker but it's always a rowdy shouting match. It is easy to see why they come to respect a really skilled speaker and study to improve their speaking abilities.

With democracy comes the explosion in theatre. It grows and flourishes. If the assembly is the seat of political argument and the games are the home of physical contests, the theatre is the glue that holds the whole society together. In the theatre all ideas are presented and contested for approval or dismissal. No important question is overlooked, the gods relations to people, people's relation to each other, and an individual's relation to themselves. The arguments are put in the form of a contest (an agon*); right against wrong; Sophrosyne* (prudence, moderation, self-control) against hubris* (overweening pride and ambition); virtues against vices; fate and destiny against a character's best efforts.