Ancient Greece · Part 4 · The rise of the city-states · B1–B2
Athens and the Invention of Democracy
Part 4 of Ancient Greece: around 500 BCE, the citizens of Athens began to rule themselves: they voted in an assembly, chose officials by lottery and sent dangerous men into exile with pieces of broken pottery. It was the first democracy, and most of the people of Athens could not take part in it. Could, couldn’t, was able to and managed to, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, the most famous idea Athens ever had: that the people should rule.
That is exactly the right question, Demetria. Keep asking it all evening.
In Alexandria, nobody votes for anything. The Romans decide.
Around 594 BCE, Athens was close to civil war: poor farmers who could not pay their debts were being sold as slaves. A statesman called Solon cancelled the debts, freed the debt slaves, and divided citizens into classes by wealth. Later, a tyrant, Peisistratus, and his sons ruled the city, until the last of them was driven out in 510 BCE.
In 508 BCE, Cleisthenes reorganised the citizens into ten new tribes and created a Council of 500, chosen by lot. From then on, the Assembly of all adult male citizens met on a hill called the Pnyx to vote on laws, war and peace. Most officials were chosen by lottery, and large juries of citizens judged the courts. This system was called demokratia, “rule by the people”.
But only adult male citizens could vote: perhaps 30,000 out of a population of 250,000 or more. Women, slaves and foreigners living in Athens, called metics, could not take part. Historians debate the numbers, not the exclusion.
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