Sunday, November 29, 2009

Reflections on Pericles and Democracy

Let’s take an objective look at Pericles defense of democracy and separate political rhetoric and the occasion of a funeral from the reality of the Athenian Polis in 431 B.C. It was a stirring speech, designed to honor the dead and motivate the living in a time of war – a war that would last another twenty-seven years.

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When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law: when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.

The Athenian Polis was a balance between branches of a government -- Archons, Council of 500 and Assembly. The Archons were the “wise men” elected from the aristocratic class for one year. The Council of 500 were chosen by lot from nominees of the people and also served for one year. The Assembly was made up of all male citizens. The council introduced new laws which were voted on by the assembly, while the archons acted as government administrators. This system was designed to allow broad participation and prevent the accumulation of power.

The court system was made up of non-professionals organized to facilitate fair trials of accused citizens. Common citizens served as jurors and members of the appeals court.


Did Pericles correctly describe Athenian society? Yes, if we’re speaking of the rights of citizens. I would say its as accurate as labeling the United States as a democracy. Not all citizens and classes are satisfied with their political system at any one time, but when the many classes can be balanced in a way that creates stability, it becomes successful.

I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person, and do this, moreover, with exceptional grace and exceptional versatility. And to show that this is no empty boasting for the present occasion, but real tangible fact, you have only to consider the power which our city possesses and which has been won by those very qualities which I have mentioned. Athens, alone of the states we know, comes to her testing time in a greatness that surpasses what was imagined of her. In her case, and in her case alone, no invading enemy is ashamed at being defeated, and no subject can complain of being governed by people unfit for their responsibilities. Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our empire which we have left. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but whose estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true. For our adventurous spirit has forced an entry into every sea and into every land; and everywhere we have left behind us everlasting memorials of good done to our friends or suffering inflicted on our enemies.

Pericles is right to say that Athens exceeded what was expected of her, because they knew they had gone where no political system had gone before. They had created a complex agrarian society with citizen participation in government and laws to protect the people.

Two caveats apply here, however. Pericles ignores the might of Sparta during a time when the two Poleis were at war. He derides the unique Spartan oligarchy which, in fact, was successful as a rival political system. Secondly, he hides Athenian imperialism under the cloak of “adventurous spirit.” Imperialism was a direct cause of the Peloponnesian War which Athens would lose.


What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to live below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old.

These statements reflect the confidence and pride of Athens. That pride supported free thinkers who moved the culture forward and the soldiers that defended her.

I couldn’t help thinking of the colonial spirit used to describe the early United States. People came to North America because of their adventurous spirit. The west was settled by the same motivation. Sadly, much of this spirit has been compromised in the post-modern world as we dumb it down for the sake of socialist ideals. The Athenians would point out that we are tearing down, block by block, that which made us great – liberty.


For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark diem out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”

Pericles made the point that wars are a part of life and having the courage to fight and win is the only guarantee of freedom. This is another way of stating that which made Athens excel – it was a society that provided the freedom and encouragement to be seek happiness through pursuing one’s interests. A philosopher could be a philosopher, and was encouraged in the effort, rather than being a goods producer. When people are allowed to uses the tools they are born with, rather than being stifled by economics, they contribute more to the advancement of their culture.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Pericles and the Defense of Democracy

In 431 B.C, at a funeral for dead soldiers from the first year of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles gave a speech in defense of Democracy. Much of the text survives because it was recorded by Thucydides and it gives us insight into a great Athenian’s view of his political system. I have included the highlights below.

Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law: when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.

Just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people's feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.

We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we obey the laws themselves, especially those which are for the protection of the oppressed, and those unwritten laws which it is an acknowledged shame to break.

And here is another point. When our work is over, we are in a position to enjoy all kinds of recreation for our spirits. There are various kinds of contests and sacrifices regularly throughout the year; in our own homes we find a beauty and a good taste which delight us every day and which drive away our cares. Then the greatness of our city brings it about that all the good things from all over the world flow in to us, so that to us it seems just as natural to enjoy foreign goods as our own local products.

Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance: our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it.

Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but in the affairs of the state as well: even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics -- this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all. We Athenians, in our own persons, take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper discussions: for we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds; the worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated.

I declare that our city is an education to Greece, and I declare that in my opinion each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person, and do this, moreover, with exceptional grace and exceptional versatility. And to show that this is no empty boasting for the present occasion, but real tangible fact, you have only to consider the power which our city possesses and which has been won by those very qualities which I have mentioned. Athens, alone of the states we know, comes to her testing time in a greatness that surpasses what was imagined of her. In her case, and in her case alone, no invading enemy is ashamed at being defeated, and no subject can complain of being governed by people unfit for their responsibilities. Mighty indeed are the marks and monuments of our empire which we have left. Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but whose estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true. For our adventurous spirit has forced an entry into every sea and into every land; and everywhere we have left behind us everlasting memorials of good done to our friends or suffering inflicted on our enemies.

This, then, is the kind of city for which these men, who could not bear the thought of losing her, nobly fought and nobly died. It is only natural that every one of us who survive them should be willing to undergo hardships in her service. And it was for this reason that I have spoken at such length about our city, because I wanted to make it clear that for us there is more at stake than there is for others who lack our advantages; also I wanted my words of praise for the dead to be set in the bright light of evidence. And now the most important of these words has been spoken. I have sung the praises of our city; but it was the courage and gallantry of these men, and of people like them, which made her splendid. Nor would you find it true in the case of many of the Greeks, as it is true of them, that no words can do more than justice to their deeds.

What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to live below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers -- not the sepulcher in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark diem out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”

Sunday, November 22, 2009

The Athenian Polis – Golden Age Decay

As I mentioned in the last post, the Athenian Polis reached its zenith during the Age of Pericles and also started its decline. Can Pericles be blamed for this? Not entirely, because he was merely a product of his time. Much of the decay of the Athenian Polis came from its own success as we shall see in a moment.

After the Persians were beaten in 479 B.C, the Athenians felt the need to protect themselves from another invasion. They also wanted to protect their economic interests in the region. Moreover, victory had made the them confident (arrogant?). The hubris they labeled as a crime against society was now their public identity.

Athens kept control over the Delian League even after the threat from Persia had abated. Members saw less need for a league with Persia out of the way, but Athens wanted to use it as a powerful coalition to exert suzerainty over the region. Some cities began to rebel, but they were kept in the league by force. Naxos, for example, rebelled in 471 B.C, and according to Thucydides, “was enslaved contrary to law”. In 454 B.C, the league’s treasury was moved from Delos to Athens and the members charged a “storage fee.”

The Athenian relationship with Sparta was ruined when the Spartans asked Athens not to re-build its walls and they were ignored. Sparta reasoned that Athens would be less willing to fight if it felt protected. Then, the Spartan earthquake of 464 B.C. led to the Messenian revolt which threatened the entire Spartan culture. Athens sent an army under Cimon, but the Spartans became suspicious of Athenian motives and sent the hoplites home. Next, Athens attempted to expand its empire by land, but failed when the territory became greater than the Athenian army could manage. When Athens was defeated in a land battle with Boetia in 447 B.C, it gave up imperialism by land and signed a thirty year treaty with Sparta.

New pressure was put on the members of the Delian League. Member fees were raised and members forced to use Athenian coinage. Athens further ignored the autonomy of the members by influencing their political systems. When the opportunity arose, democracies were pushed. Pericles took 5,000 talents from the Delian League treasury and earmarked it for the beautification of Athens. Another 200 talents per year were allocated to Athens for its management of the treasury and league members were forced to subsidize payment for the 10,000 Athenian rowers who were part of their navy.

On the whole, the lower classes supported this imperialistic philosophy. Many of the members of the 500 were merchants and saw their own interests advanced with the expanding Athenian influence. But there were protests also. In 443 B.C, Pericles almost lost his power when a vote was taken to ostracize him. He survived the vote and continued to advance his own program. Protests against government policies eventually died out but there remained an undercurrent of complaints against the immoral imperialism.

By the time of the Peloponnesian War, Athens had ceded the moral high ground to Sparta. She had violated the notion of the Polis as a self-contained unit when she adopted an imperialist philosophy. Her hands were full keeping the empire in order when she needed to spend all her energy fighting the Spartans.

Monday, November 16, 2009

The Polis – Last Steps to the Golden Age

So, we have traced the Polis to 510 B.C, which marked the end of the time of tyrants in Athens. All that remains between here and the Golden Age is the war with Persia. Not so fast! We started this series by talking about the development of the Polis and the various forces influencing its progress, but we can’t offer a complete picture without mentioning some additional factors.

Take a look at the following timeline:


I want to highlight factors that, when considered with those previously discussed, helped cement the Athenian Polis as a strong democracy -- one that would lead the world’s intellectual advancement and endure until the time of Alexander.

The first factor is the non-destructive behavior of the tyrants who ruled from 561 B.C. to 510. Despite the cruel reign of Hippias (514 B.C.-510), the tyrants did not slow down democratization. They did not make significant changes to the governmental structure and ruled in a way that was satisfying to the Athenian people. Herodotus remarked,

“Not having disturbed the existing magistrates nor changed the ancient laws… they administered the State under that constitution of things which was already established, ordering it fairly and well”

Aristotle wrote, of Peisistratus, that “his administration was temperate…and more like constitutional government than a tyranny.”

The Athenian Polis did not go backward under the tyrants, so it did not have to regain ground before it could advance.

The second factor was the political reforms of Clisthenes in 508 B.C. After the fall of the tyrants, Isagoras, a noble, tried to reverse the rising independence of the lower classes. This effort was blocked in 508 by Clisthenes, a member of the Alcmeonid family, who assumed the leadership position. Clisthenes intended to permanently break the power of local social units in favor of the state, and to make sure power was permanently placed in the hands of the people. He organized the populace into demes or political units numbering about 170. Clisthenes required that each tribe contain demes located in the country, the city, and the coast so that self-interest was equally distributed.

He also established a council of 500, consisting of 50 men from each tribe. The 500 were chosen by lot to make sure the elected asemblymen were independent. The council had responsibility for preparing bills for the assembly and supervising public business.

These reforms were tested immediately when Athens was attacked by Boetia and Chalcis in 506 B.C. Both were defeated and balance between the classes held.

The third factor strengthening the polis was the war with Persia. Even though Athens was attacked and occupied in 480 B.C, the unity created to fight a common enemy strengthened the bond between all the Athenian people.

The fourth and final factor was the reforms of Pericles after 461 B.C. Pericles, an aristocrat, had the gifts of intelligence and leadership. He became the leader of the council of ten generals and served as the de facto leader of Athens until his death in 429 B.C. During his tenure, he passed laws allowing poor citizens to attend plays for free, and began a system of compensation for magistrates and jurors. This allowed a broader spectrum of the populace to participate in their government. He also lowered the property qualification for the archonship to help breakup the monopoly of the aristocratic class. The time of Pericles has been labeled the Golden Age of Athens because the stable, open democracy provided the fuel for Athenian intellectual devlopment.

Two qualifications need to be put on that label, however. In the first place, the intellectual advancement of Athens did not start with Pericles, but was in full bloom one hundred years before him. This suggests that a sense of freedom and the support of free thought were in place during the time of the tyrants.

Secondly, the reign of Pericles signals the beginning of the end for Athens. After the Persian War, it became more imperialistic and sought to extend its power around the Aegean. That eventually caused a confrontation with Sparta setting up the Peloponnesian War and the defeat of the Athenians. Sadly, the “Golden Age” was both the pinnacle and the beginning of the end for Athens. Greed and the desire for power had corrupted once again.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Pottery at the Symposium

Symposium was an ancient Greek drinking party (sympotein means "to drink together”) typically held by men of means to celebrate special occasions, such as the coming of age of their sons. They also served an important social function in the Polis because they brought groups of men together for debate, argument, and political strategizing.

Symposia were held in the part of a Greek house that was for men only. Guests would enter, recline on couches, and talk while they were served food and wine. After the meal was finished, wine continued to be served as the participants were entertained by singers, musicians, slaves, or hired performers.

One person, designated as the Symposiarch, was responsible for keeping the revelry under control. He managed the servants and the dilution of the wine. Greeks never drank wine full strength because they thought only drunkards and people of low quality would do so. The typical dilution was 1:3 wine to water.

Three types of pottery were used at these events:


The Kylix was a drinking vessel used to drink water or wine. When the Greeks copied drinking vessels from the orient, they added handles and a base. The handles were held when drinking, the base when toasting. The Kylix had an image painted in the bottom (often erotic) so as the drinker empted the vessel, the image would be revealed. It was also used in a game called kottabos where the wine residue was tossed from it to a target.

The Psykter was used to hold wine during the festivities. It was placed inside a Krater filled with ice or snow to keep the wine cool. Servants would ladle wine out of the Psykter and pour it into a Kylix.

The Greek playwright Euboulos listed Dionysus’ rules for proper drinking at a Symposium:

For sensible men I prepare three Kraters: one for health, one for love
and pleasure, and the third for sleep.

After the third one is drained, wise men go home.

The fourth Krater is not mine because it belongs to bad behavior.

The fifth is for shouting, the sixth for rudeness and insults, the seventh
for fights,

The eighth is for breaking the furniture, the ninth for depression,

And the tenth for madness and unconsciousness.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Review of the novel The Lost Throne

I was given a copy of The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski and asked to review it by the publisher. I don’t usually take time to read fiction (reality is more interesting), but I thought I’d give it a try. Turns out the book is a real page turner even at 500 pages and 70 chapters.

In the beginning of the book two pal ex-special forces guys get a mysterious phone call from St. Petersburg, Russia. A strange man asks for help but before they can respond, he is killed. They find out the dead man was accompanied by a young woman who is trapped in Russia and in fear of her life. They know immediately they will have to go get her.

Meanwhile, a senior Interpol agent is sent to Meteora Greece to investigate the murder of seven monks at one of its rock-top monasteries. He arrives at the scene and tries to unravel the evidence. Seven bodies are found: all headless. Where are the heads and why were the monks killed in this way?

The two plots alternated with each new chapter as I wondered when they would intersect. Greece is at the center of it as we spend time in Meteora, Mt. Athos (the holy site of 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries), and Sparta. With regard to the latter, we discover in the mountains above the modern city an ancient sect of Spartans who are still trained by the agoge and wear the Spartan armor.

The two sub-plots finally came together in an exciting climax which made the read thoroughly enjoyable. A little spy stuff, some intrigue, murder, and a lot of history make for an interesting stew.

My only criticism of the novel is the number of cliff-hanger chapter endings. I felt frustrated by having the story line cut off as the author did his tease. A few times I wanted to skip ahead and find out how the chapter ending was resolved but held myself back. The chapters aren’t long enough to make the wait intolerable.

Solon the Reformer and his Republic

In 632 B.C, the opportunist Cylon tried to establish himself as tyrant of Athens, and failed.

By 600, Athens was in disarray. The last decades had seen the Athenian pottery trade fall behind their Corinthian competition, and its aristocratic class become more ruthless. Poor farmers were becoming serfs of the rich when they could not pay their debts, and the landless were enslaved and sold abroad. Territorial groups could not be controlled by the weak central government so the Polis split into factions.

The time was right, once again, for a tyrant to emerge. A man was put forward by his followers in their quest for a tyrant leader, but he defied them instead. That man took it upon himself to try to fix the polis single-handed -- to create a republic instead of a democracy. That man was Solon.

He was an educated and a successful businessman: an aristocrat who wrote poetry. According to Plutarch, Solon had four character traits seldom found in one man: patriotism, integrity, political genius, and intelligence. And we must not leave out ambition – he wanted the job of saving the Athenian state.

Solon was elected first Archon in 594 B.C. and immediately set to work remaking the Athenian government. His fellow aristocrats were confident he would serve their interests until be began canceling the debts of the poor farmers. He devalued the mina giving relief to the landless poor, and received from the stunned power brokers supreme authority over all offices of the government for the remainder of the year. The government of Athens was now in the hands of a single individual.

Solon repealed the dreaded Draconian criminal code and substituted his own. Then he wrote a new constitution. Those born of free Attican parents would be citizens of Athens. The populace would be divided into four classes based on wealth with the top three classes eligible for the magistracies formerly only available to the aristocrats. The lowest class was barred from magistracies but allowed to serve on juries. Solon also made decisions of the magistrate’s court subject to appeal to a special court (Heliaia) which had no judge.

He was no democrat, but a republican through and through. Solon had no sympathy for equality – only for creating a balance between the classes. The vehicle for that balance was the creation of a middle class.

Solon’s year came to an end with passions high, yet there was enough support for the reforms in each class to keep the Polis stable. To the surprise of many, Solon resigned his post and left Athens for ten years.

But the balance of forces could not last. When he returned to Athens as an old man in 561, Solon witnessed the fake assassination of Peisistratus and insisted the young man didn’t need a bodyguard. Solon was ignored and Peisistratus became tyrant of Athens.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Then Came the Tyrants

In the past few posts, we have painted this rosy picture of the evolution of the Polis, making it look like the Greeks awakened from their barbarism to quickly become enlightened and philosophical. The actual path leading to the golden age was not that smooth, however, and had many bumps in the road.

The Age of Tyrants is one of the more interesting detours, lasting through the second half of the Archaic Period from the time of Cypselus in 650 B.C. to the end of the reign of Hippias in 510. Tyrants sprang up around the Aegean including Athens, Corinth, Megara, Samos, Naxos, Miletus, and Sicyon. This post will look at three of them from Greece proper: Corinth, Sicyon, and Athens.



Corinth was one of the leading commercial cities in Greece when the unpopular and cruel Bacchiadae aristocracy was overthrown by the tyrant Cypselus in 650 B.C. This was the purest form of liberation, and Cypselus had such a high level of support from the people, that he never needed a bodyguard. He ruled Corinth in a benevolent way for thirty years, and was succeeded by his son Periander, who ruled ruthlessley until 582 B.C. when he was over thrown and an aristocratic Polis restored.

Sicyon was located near the northern coast of the Peloponnese between Corinth and Achaea. After the Dorian invasion, it was divided into three Dorian tribes and one Ionian tribe, which remained subject to Argos for some centuries. In 600 B.C, a tyrant named Cleisthenes rose to power and instituted an anti-Dorian policy. he ruled for forty years. His successor, Aeschines, was expelled by the Spartans in 556 who made Sicyon part of the Peloponnesian League.

Finally, there is the case of Athens and Peisistratos. As army commander in the Megaran conflict of 567 B.C, Peisistratus gained popularity in Athens, but did not have the political support to seize power so he staged an attempt on his own life, and in the chaos that followed, persuaded the Athenian Assembly to issue him bodyguards. Peisistratus, like his predecessor, Cylon of Athens, used his bodyguard to capture and hold the Acropolis.

Peisistratus was ousted from political office and exiled twice during his reign. The first occurrence happened circa 555 B.C. after two political factions, normally at odds with each other, joined forces and removed him from power. He was exiled for several years, returned to power for a time, and then was exiled again. After ten years he returned in force, regained his tyranny, and held his power until his death in 527 B.C. Hippias succeeded his father in 527 BC, and with his brother Hipparchus, ruled jointly until the latter was murdered by Harmodius and Aristogeiton (the Tyrannicides) in 514 BC. Hippias executed the Tyrannicides and became a bitter and cruel ruler.

The exiled Alcmaeonid family helped to depose the Athenian tyranny for good by bribing the Delphic oracle to tell the Spartans to liberate Athens, which they did in 510 BC.

Why did these tyrants appear? As we have discussed before, the early Poleis were generally controlled by an aristocracy in a delicate political balance with the common people. As people will do, the aristocracies tended to become more oppressive, leading to popular support for someone who could take power on their behalf. These tyrannies attempted to continue as hereditary models but failed because of uneven governance. The failure of class balance is evidence that the early Poleis did not have enough democracy in them to create long term stability, which would come later.

These cases demand an alternate definition of the word “tyrant” which generally carries a negative connotation. The Greek examples often involved benevolent leaders who improved the conditions in their Polis and/or championed the rights of the lower class rather than being power hungry and destructive.