Aristocratic Views and Class Biases

Political Dissent in Classical Athens

Eternal Democratic Questions?

Is It Of The People and By the People, Or Not? Liberty vs. Equality? What Does It Mean for the “People” to Rule? Who Are the “People”?

Typologies and Realities

Another Look at Democracy

In Fifth-Century Athens

Athenian DemocracyEquality Trumps Liberty?

Ostracism Lot and Election Public Liturgies and Antidosis Jury Courts

Public Liturgies and Antidosis

Trierarchy (maintain a ship for a year) Choregeia (finance public performance) Antidosis

Pericles as Case Study

Identifying the Locus of Power

In Fifth-Century Athens

Pericles and Athenian Democracy

Pericles’ Vulnerability Avoidance of Assembly (Thucydides, 2.22) Prosecution of Close Friends (Plutarch, Pericles, 35) Fine and Deposition from Board of 10 Generals

(Plutarch, Pericles, 35) Pericles’ Reputation in Classical Antiquity

Pausanias, 1.29.3 (Thrasybulus as greatest Athenian) Plutarch, Life of Numa, 8 (Alcibiades) Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 34.26 (Themistocles)

Pericles’ Avoidance of AssemblyThucydides, Histories, 2.22

“Pericles was convinced of the rightness of his own views about not going out to battle, but he saw that for the moment the Athenians were being led astray by their

angry feelings. So he summoned no assembly or special meeting of the people, fearing that any general discussion would result in wrong decisions, made under the influence

of anger rather than of reason.”

Pericles’ Fine and DepositionPlutarch, Life of Pericles, 35

“The Athenians being exasperated against him on this account, he tried to appease and encourage them. He did

not, however, succeed in allaying their anger, nor yet changing their purposes, before they got their hostile

ballots into their hands, became masters of his fate, and stripped him of his command, and punished him with a fine. The amount of this was fifteen talents, according to those who give the lowest, and fifty, according to those

who give the highest figure.”

Aristocratic Hostility

Thucydides, Plato, “Old Oligarch”

Aristocratic Background of Thucydides

Son of Olorus (Histories, 4.104.4), the name of Cimon’s Thracian grandfather; Thucydides’ tomb in Cimon’s family vault

Blood relation to Cimon, and probably to Thucydides the son of Melesias, conservative opponent of Pericles

Strategos in 424 BCE

May have died in Thrace, where his family possessed mines (Histories, 4.105.1)

Intellectual Background of Thucydides

Education in Rhetoric and Philosophy Knowledge of Medical Writers Ardent Convert to Pericles and Periclean Policies Anti-Banausic Prejudices of the Greek Aristocratic

Classes

Bust of Plato

Aristocratic Background of Plato

Distinguished Aristocratic Lineage on Both Paternal and Maternal Sides

Trial and Death of Mentor Socrates in 399 BCE

Plato Leaves Athens for Megara; Travels over the Next 12 Years

Intellectual Background of Plato

Education in Rhetoric and Philosophy Anti-Banausic Prejudices of the Greek Aristocratic

Classes Seventh Letter and the Folly of Contemporary Athenian

Democratic Politics

Ancient Greek Statements on Athenian Democracy

“Old Oligarch,” Plato, Thucydides

“Old Oligarch” (sections 4-5)

“Then there is a point which some find extraordinary, that they everywhere assign more to the worst persons, to the poor, and to the popular types than to the good men: in this very point they will be

found manifestly preserving their democracy. For the poor, the popular, and the base, inasmuch as they are well off and the likes of them are numerous, will increase the democracy; but if the wealthy,

good men are well off, the men of the people create a strong opposition to themselves. And everywhere on earth the best element is opposed to

democracy. For among the best people there is minimal wantonness and injustice but a maximum of scrupulous care for what is good,

whereas among the people there is a maximum of ignorance, disorder, and wickedness; for poverty draws them rather to disgraceful actions,

and because of a lack of money some men are uneducated and ignorant.”

“Old Oligarch” (sections 6-8)

“Someone might say that they ought not to let everyone speak on equal terms and serve on the council, but rather

just the cleverest and finest. Yet their policy is also excellent in this very point of allowing even the worst

people to speak. For if the good men were to speak and make policy, it would be splendid for the likes of

themselves but not so for the men of the people. But, as things are, any wretch who wants to can stand up and obtain what is good for him and the likes of himself.”

Plato, Republic, 493a-c; cf. Laws, 951b-c

“Not one of those paid private teachers, whom the people call Sophists teaches anything other than the convictions

that the majority express when they are gathered together. It’s as if someone were learning the moods and appetites of a huge, strong beast that he’s rearing-how to approach and

handle it, when it is most difficult to deal with or most gentle and what makes it so, what sounds it utters in either condition, and what sounds soothe or anger it….he knows

nothing about which of these convictions is fine or shameful, good or bad, just or unjust, but he applies all these names in accordance with how the beast reacts-calling what it enjoys good and what angers it bad.”

Plato, Republic, 558c

“These and qualities akin to these democracy would exhibit, and it would, it seems, be a delightful form of government, anarchic and motley, assigning a kind of

equality indiscriminately to equals and unequals alike!”

Thucydides, 6.89.6(Alcibiades in Sparta in 415 BCE)

“As for democracy, those of us with any sense at all knew what it meant, and I just as much as any. Indeed, I am well equipped to make an attack on it; but nothing new can be said of a system which

is generally recognized as absurd.”

Discussion

What do you make of our discussions this week of democratic typologies and historical realities in democratic Athens?

What are the interrelationships in fifth-century Athens between empire and democracy? Are we justified in calling Athens an imperial democracy?

How do you account for the hostility of Athenian writers against Athenian democracy?