Today, ancient Athens is popularly seen as the ideal, original democracy that all other democracies should strive to imitate. For instance, an information page about Athenian democracy maintained by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, which comes up in the first page of results when I search for “Athenian democracy” in Google, declares:
“Of the many gifts passed down to us by the Athenians, including philosophy, theater, painting, sculpture, and architecture, none is more significant than their chosen form of government: democracy, rule by the people. Indeed, it can be convincingly argued that all the other achievements depended first on how the city was governed, on the open and free society that respected the dignity, rights, and aspirations of the individual.”
This line of thinking is deeply misguided. For one thing, contrary to popular belief, ancient Athens was not the first democracy. Furthermore, Athenian democracy was deeply flawed in ways that are, unfortunately, often overlooked. Notably, the vast majority of the Athenian population was excluded from participating in the democracy. Athens was also aggressively imperialistic and routinely sought to dominate and oppress other Greek poleis (i.e., city-states) and, on several occasions, democratic Athens even committed outright genocide.
Continue reading “Athenian Democracy Wasn’t Really That Great”