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Who Was Allowed to Rule in Ancient Athens? - The Athenian Assembly and the Reality of Direct Democracy | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

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welcome to sleepy facts about history when we
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picture ancient greek democracy it is easy to
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imagine a philosophical ideal or a small cluster
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of famous men debating in a refined interior
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the historical reality was much rougher larger
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and more physically immediate on a dusty hillside
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just west of the athenian agora thousands of
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ordinary men farmers sailors and potters gathered
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40 mornings a year to raise their hands and directly
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decide whether to send warships to sea, spend
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public funds, or declare war. This was the Micas,
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the meeting place of the Athenian Ecclesia. And
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what happened there was not a metaphor for popular
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rule. It was a working system of collective decision
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-making with no elected representatives. This
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episode examines how that system actually operated.
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It explores the role of the Council of 500 in
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preparing the agenda, the principle of isogoria
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that allowed any citizen to speak, and the practical
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mechanics of voting by show of hands. It also
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looks at the introduction of assembly pay to
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subsidize attendance, the influence of skilled
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speakers known as retours, and the sharp legal
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exclusions that kept women, enslaved people,
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and foreigners from participating. I wanted to
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understand why this specific set of institutions
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emerged and how it functioned without modern
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political parties or parliamentary representatives.
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Some questions about ancient history sound simple
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until you try to answer them. By looking closely
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at the physical space of the mix and the procedures
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of the assembly, we can see what Athenian democracy
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actually achieved, as well as the structural
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limits of who counted as a citizen. On a dusty
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hillside west of the Athenian Agora, thousands
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of ordinary men gathered 40 mornings a year to
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raise their hands and decide, directly and without
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intermediary, whether to send warships to sea,
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spend public funds, or put entire populations
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to death. These men were farmers, sailors, and
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potters. What they practiced there was not a
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philosophical aspiration of popular rule. It
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was the thing itself. constructed with institutional
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precision, bounded by brutal exclusions, and
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operated as a working system of collective decision
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-making by citizens who walked uphill knowing
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the stakes were real. Imagine a hillside just
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west of the Athenian Agora, about a 10 -minute
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walk uphill from the marketplace, with the crown
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slopes down toward a flat speaker's platform
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cut into the bedrock, on about 40 mornings each
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year. thousands of ordinary men gathered here
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the included farmers from the distant plains
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of attica sailors recently returned from patrol
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potters and smiths who lived in the city and
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elderly men who walked slowly up the path with
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their sons they came to make decisions that would
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send warships to sea spend public money on fortifications
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declare war make peace honor allies or punish
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enemies This was the mix, the meeting place of
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the Athenian ecclesia, the assembly. What happened
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here was not a metaphor for popular rule. It
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was the thing itself. The modern listener might
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picture ancient Greek democracies as a philosophical
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ideal, or a small cluster of famous men debating
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in some refined interior. The reality was rougher,
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larger, and more physically immediate. The pinnix
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was an open -air auditorium on a hillside, exposed
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to the dust and heat of the attic sun, with no
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roof and no comfortable seating. The men who
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gathered there sat on the slope or stood at the
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back, facing the bema, the speaker's platform,
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with the Acropolis rising behind it to the east.
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The walk uphill from the Agora was itself a small
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exertion, and the gathering was not a ceremonial
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occasion. but a working meeting. When a decision
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was reached, it was reached by thousands of raised
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hands, counted by officials standing where they
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could see. The Herald opened proceedings with
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a question that captures the institutional ambition
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of the whole system. Who wishes to speak? In
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principle, any citizen could answer. To understand
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what this meant, we need to grasp the scale and
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the restriction at once. Classical Athens in
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the 5th and 4th centuries BCE was a polis, a
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city -state that controlled the entire territory
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of Attica roughly a thousand square miles. Its
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total population, including women, children,
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enslaved people and resident foreigners, probably
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fell somewhere between 250 and 400. The citizen
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body. The group of adult males who could attend
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the assembly numbered perhaps 30 -0 to 60 -0
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at different periods. These were the men who
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ruled, and they did so directly. There were no
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elected representatives who would speak for them
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in a distant capital. The assembly was the citizen
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body, or at least that portion of it that chose
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to attend on a given morning. This was not a
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recent invention in the classical period. The
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Assembly had older roots, but the democratic
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system that made it sovereign emerged from a
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series of reforms stretching across the 6th and
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5th centuries. Solon, in the early 6th century,
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had created mechanisms that gave ordinary citizens
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some protection against aristocratic dominance.
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Clesthenes, in 508 and 507 BCE, reorganized the
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citizen body into ten new tribes. and created
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the Council of 500, laying groundwork for broader
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participation. The decisive shift came with reforms
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associated with the Fialtas in 462 and 461 BCE.
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These reforms stripped the old aristocratic council,
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the Areopagus, of its dominant political powers,
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and transferred authority to the assembly, the
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council, and the law courts. By the time of Pericles,
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in the mid -fifth century, The assembly had become
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the central decision -making body of the state.
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The principle that ordinary citizens should make
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collective decisions about public affairs was
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established as ordinary practice. The pinnix
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itself had not always been the meeting place.
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Earlier assemblies may have gathered in the agora,
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the civic heart of the city, before the shift
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to the hillside location in the early 5th century.
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Archaeological remains show that the mix was
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modified and expanded across the classical period,
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with retaining walls built to support the slope
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and the bema repositioned as the institution
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grew. The capacity is debated by scholars. Estimates
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range from about 6 -0 to perhaps 13 -0 in its
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later phases. But what matters is that it could
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hold a substantial fraction of the citizen body.
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not the whole of it at once. This physical limit
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is itself significant. Even when attendance was
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highest, the assembly represented the selection
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of citizens, not a complete census of them. The
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modifications to the hillside reflect the institution's
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changing needs. As the democratic system developed,
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the meeting place was adapted to accommodate
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larger gatherings. Meetings were frequent. By
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the 4th century, The assembly gathered four times
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in each Britanny, the period of about 36 days,
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when one of the 10 tribal contingents of the
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council presided. That makes roughly 40 regular
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meetings per year, plus extraordinary sessions
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called in emergencies. Britanny system worked
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as follows. The council of 500 was divided into
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10 tribal groups of 50 men each. and each group
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served as the presiding committee for one Prittany,
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rotating through the year. The 50 men of the
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current Prittany were called Prittanese, and
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they lived in the Tholos, a round building near
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the Buluterion in the Agora, so that they would
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always be available for urgent business. This
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rotation ensured that no single tribe or region
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dominated the administrative preparation of assembly
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meetings. It also gave each tribal group direct
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experience of managing the city's affairs. The
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schedule was published in advance, and citizens
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knew when to attend. The meeting began with religious
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ritual, including purification, prayers, and
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perhaps a sacrifice. Then the presiding officials,
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the pretanis from the current tribal contingent,
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would introduce the business. The herald would
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read the agenda item. which had arrived as a
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pro -Baluma from the Council, and then would
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call out the question that opened debate. Who
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wishes to speak? This sequence matters. The Assembly
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did not gather to discuss whatever anyone wanted
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to bring up. The Council had already shaped the
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topic, filtered out impractical proposals, and
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prepared a specific item for consideration. The
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Herald's question invited response to that prepared
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item. not open -ended invention. The principle
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of Isagoria, equal right to speak, operated within
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this prepared framework. Here we come to the
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procedural heart of the system. The assembly
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did not set its own agenda. That power belonged
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to the Council of 500, the Bule, whose members
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were chosen by lot from the citizen body, with
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50 men from each of the 10 tribes serving for
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a year. The Council met in the Bulleterian in
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the Agora, and its function was to prepare preliminary
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proposals for the Assembly to consider. The Council
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could put forward a specific recommendation,
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or it could simply present a topic for open discussion.
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In either case, the Assembly could not normally
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consider matters that had not passed through
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the Council first. This was not a mere formality.
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The Council shaped what reached the floor. provided
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administrative continuity in a system where the
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Assembly's membership changed with every meeting,
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and ensured the proposals were tactically sound
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and financially viable. When the Herald called
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for speakers, the principle of Isagoria came
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into play. In theory, any citizen could rise
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from the slope, walk to the beamer, and address
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the gathered thousands. In practice, this rite
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was exercised by a relatively small number of
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men. These were men who had developed skill in
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public speaking, who knew the procedures, who
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had reputations that would command attention,
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and who were willing to risk public failure in
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a highly competitive environment. These men were
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called retours, speakers, and they occupied a
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peculiar position in the democratic system. They
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held no formal office as speakers. They were
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not elected to their role. They simply rose and
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spoke again and again. And if the assembly found
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their advice persuasive, they became influential.
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If the assembly rejected them, they sat down.
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The system had no political parties in the modern
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sense. No party organizations or whips. There
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were shifting coalitions, personal followings,
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and above all, the immediate test of persuasion
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before a mass audience. We can see how this worked
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in a vivid example from 427 BCE during the Peloponnesian
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War. The city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos
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had rebelled against Athenian control. The assembly
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met and voted to punish the rebellion with extreme
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severity. All adult males were to be killed and
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the women and children enslaved. A trireme was
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dispatched to carry the order. But that night,
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or the next day, second thoughts set in. The
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assembly reconvened, a remarkable fact in itself,
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that a decision of such magnitude could be reopened
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so quickly and heard a new debate. Cleon, a prominent
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speaker, argued for maintaining the harsh decision,
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warning that leniency would encourage further
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rebellion. Diodotus, another speaker, argued
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for restraint, not on moral grounds but on practical
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ones. He argued that terror would not prevent
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future revolts, and that destroying Mytilene
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would damage Athenian interests. The assembly
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reversed itself. The second trireme was sent
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in haste to overtake the first, and arrived just
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in time to prevent the massacre. This episode,
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recorded by Thucydides, shows several features
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of assembly operation. It shows the speed with
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which decisions could be made and unmade, the
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decisive role of competing speakers, the practical
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rather than principled terms of debate, and the
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possibility that a mass audience could change
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its mind when presented with new argument. It
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also shows the stakes. These were not abstract
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deliberations. They were decisions about life
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and death for thousands of people. made by a
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gathering of citizens who would themselves bear
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the consequences of their choices. Voting followed
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the speeches. For most decisions, the method
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was charotonia, a show of hands. The presiding
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officials would estimate which side had raised
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more hands, and if the result was close, they
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might call for a more careful count. This was
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not a precise mechanism. There was no secret
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ballot, no mechanical counting. and the possibility
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of error or dispute was built into the system.
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Yet the Athenians trusted this method for ordinary
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business, and it seems to have functioned well
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enough for most purposes. Certain decisions required
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a higher threshold. Grants of citizenship, for
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instance, and the procedure of ostracism, the
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temporary exile of a prominent individual by
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popular vote, required a quorum of six zero citizens.
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This quorum tells us something important about
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expected attendance. It was high enough to be
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demanding, but not so high as to be impossible.
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The Athenians expected that several thousand
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citizens might attend a significant meeting,
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but they did not expect the entire citizen body
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to appear. The decisions reached were recorded
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as sophismata, decrees of the assembly, and many
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were inscribed on stone and displayed in public
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places. the formula that survives on hundreds
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of inscriptions captures the dual source authority
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it seemed good to the bull and the demos to the
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council and the people the council had prepared
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the matter the people had decided it the decree
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was then implemented by magistrates who were
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themselves mostly chosen by lot for limited terms
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ensuring that no individual could accumulate
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permanent administrative power This system of
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direct decision -making by mass gathering required
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something that might seem obvious but was in
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fact unusual in the ancient world, the practical
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ability of ordinary citizens to attend. A farmer
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living 30 miles from Athens with olives to harvest
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or grain to sow could not easily spare a day
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to walk to the city, sit through a morning of
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debate, and walk home again. A sailor or laborer
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who lived by daily wages would lose income by
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attending. Democracy in Athens was not merely
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a matter of legal rights or constitutional theory.
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It required that citizens be able to exercise
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those rights without ruinous economic sacrifice.
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The solution was misthos ecclesiasticos, assembly
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pay. According to the Aristotelian constitution
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of the Athenians, this was introduced by a man
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named Adjurius after the restoration of democracy.
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in 403 BCE, following the brief oligarchic regimes
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of 411 and 404. The initial payment was one obol,
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a modest sum. It was later raised to three obols,
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and eventually to one and a half drachmas, enough
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to cover a day's subsistence without creating
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anything like a professional political class.
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The introduction of pay is significant in several
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directions. It acknowledged that political participation
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had an economic cost and that a democracy that
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wanted broad attendance must subsidize it. It
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also suggests that attendance before pay had
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been limited enough to concern the system's supporters
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and that the democratic restoration of 403 was
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undertaken with deliberate attention to widening
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participation. Even with pay, however, we must
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not imagine that every citizen attended every
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meeting. or that attendance was evenly distributed
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across the citizen body. The mix could not hold
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the full citizen body, and even its larger capacity
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would have been tested only at moments of particular
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crisis or excitement. Ordinary meetings likely
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drew thousands, but perhaps not the maximum possible.
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Proximity to the city mattered. Urban residents
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could attend more easily than rural farmers.
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Economic circumstances mattered. Even with pay,
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a man with pressing obligations might stay away.
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Political interests mattered. Some citizens were
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more engaged than others. Later sources mention
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a red -painted rope, the schwinian, used to herd
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citizens toward the assembly. Though this detail
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comes from comic and lexicographical texts and
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may be exaggerated or anachronistic, if it reflects
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any practice at all, It suggests concern about
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filling the hillside rather than evidence of
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universal attendance. The assembly was a mass
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body, but it was a self -selected mass, and the
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composition of that self -selected group on any
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given day shaped the decisions that were made.
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The sources that describe this system are varied
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and must be read with care. The Aristotelian
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constitution of the Athenians. Composed in the
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330s or 320s BCE, provides the most systematic
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description of procedures, but it is a retrospective
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account, sometimes schematic, and it reflects
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the institutional arrangements of its own time,
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rather than an unchanging system across two centuries.
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It tells us much about how the assembly was supposed
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to work in the late fourth century. but we must
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be cautious about projecting its descriptions
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backward to the 5th century or assuming that
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practice matched prescription. Thucydides, writing
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in the late 5th century, gives us vivid scenes
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of assembly debate. He describes the argument
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over Mytilene in 427 BCE and the debate over
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the Sicilian expedition in 415 BCE. when the
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persuasive energy of Alcibiades and the caution
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of Nicias clashed before a crowd that would send
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a vast fleet to destruction. These scenes are
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invaluable, but Thucydides composed the speeches
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himself, as he more or less tells us, reconstructing
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the arguments that he thought were appropriate
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to the occasion rather than recording what was
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actually said. They show us how a contemporary
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historian imagined assembly deliberation. what
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kinds of arguments he thought persuasive to a
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mass audience, and what he considered the strengths
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and dangers of democratic decision -making. They
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do not give us verbatim transcripts. Aristophanes,
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the comic playwright, gives us a different kind
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of evidence, satirical and exaggerated but grounded
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in recognizable practice. In his comedy Assembly
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Women, produced in the late 4th century, he imagines
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the women of Athens disguising themselves as
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men. to pack the assembly and vote to transfer
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all power to themselves. The joke depends on
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familiar assumptions about who attended, how
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they were counted, and what they might be persuaded
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to do. In Nights, he mocks the influence of demagogic
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speakers, and the credulity of the demos. These
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comedies exaggerate for effect, but they confirm
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that the assembly's workings were familiar enough
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to be satirized. The audience would recognize
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the procedures, the types of speakers, and the
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dynamics of persuasion. The Old Oligarch, a pamphlet
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attributed to a follower of Xenophon, offers
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a hostile contemporary view, arguing that democracy
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was simply a system by which the poor majority
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exploited the rich minority. This is not neutral
22:33
description. It is partisan critique. And it
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tells us more about the anxieties of the wealthy.
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than about the objective operation of the system.
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Yet it is useful precisely as evidence of contemporary
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criticism, showing that the Assembly's power
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was recognized and resented by those who found
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themselves on the losing side of its decisions.
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Each of these sources is partial, shaped by genre
22:59
and perspective, but together they confirm that
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the Assembly was a real, functioning institution
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whose workings were familiar enough to be satirized,
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criticized and defended to understand the assembly
23:13
fully we must place it within the wider democratic
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ecosystem of which it was a part the assembly
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was sovereign in principle but it did not operate
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in isolation the council of 500 prepared its
23:27
agenda and supervised administration magistrates
23:31
chosen by lot for most offices executed its decisions
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the law courts the tocast area with juries of
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hundreds or even thousands of citizens chosen
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by lot, handled judicial matters and, in the
23:45
fourth century, acquired the power to review
23:48
assembly decrees for legality. This development
23:52
is significant. It meant that assembly sovereignty
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was not absolute in the fourth century, and that
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the relationship between popular decision -making
24:01
and legal constraint was more complex than a
24:04
simple model of assembly supremacy would suggest.
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Scholars debate how frequently courts exercise
24:10
this review power, and how much it constrained
24:13
the assembly in practice. But its existence complicates
24:17
any straightforward account of the demos as unfettered
24:20
ruler. The generals, the stratego, were elected
24:25
rather than chosen by lot, and they often combined
24:28
military command with significant political influence.
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Pericles, the most famous Athenian leader of
24:35
the 5th century. held the office of strategos
24:38
repeatedly. He spoke in the assembly and shaped
24:42
its decisions. But his formal power came from
24:46
an elected military position, not from any special
24:49
assembly role. This distinction mattered. The
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democratic system reserved election for positions
24:56
requiring specialized skill, particularly military
25:00
command. while most civic offices were filled
25:03
by lot to prevent the emergence of a permanent
25:06
administrative class. The Deems, the 139 local
25:12
districts of Attica, formed another layer of
25:15
the system. Citizens were registered in Deems,
25:19
which served as the basic units of citizen identity
25:22
and the building blocks for council selection.
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A citizen was known by his deme as well as his
25:28
personal name. The orator Demosthenes, for instance,
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was Demosthenes, son of Demosthenes of Paeania,
25:36
and this double identification rooted citizenship
25:39
in a specific local community. The dames were
25:43
centers of local governance and religious life,
25:46
maintaining their own officials, records, and
25:50
cults. The tribal system created by Cleisthenes,
25:54
with its artificial mixing of dames from different
25:57
regions, city, coast and inland was designed
26:02
to break up old regional factions and create
26:06
new civic loyalties that cut across geography
26:08
and class. But local and tribal identities remained
26:13
part of the political landscape and the Dean
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connections a man formed in his local districts
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carried into the wider arena of assembly politics.
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Skilled speakers, the retours, move through this
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system without formal institutional position
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as speakers. They proposed decrees, criticized
26:32
opponents, built reputations, and sometimes suffered
26:36
ostracism or prosecution. The orator Demosthenes,
26:40
in the 4th century, devoted his career to warning
26:43
the assembly about the growing power of Macedon
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under Philip II, delivering the series of speeches
26:49
known as the Philippics that show us the rata
26:52
in action. He was prepared, passionate, repeatedly
26:56
addressing the same body on the same subject,
27:00
trying to move a citizen audience to action.
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The power of such men was real but contingent.
27:07
They could not command. They could only persuade,
27:11
and the assembly could reject them at any time.
27:14
This created a distinctive political culture.
27:17
one in which influence depended on rhetorical
27:20
skill and public reputation rather than on party
27:23
organization or institutional position. Yet we
27:27
must also recognize the limits of what this system
27:30
represented, and here the exclusions become central
27:34
to any honest account. The demos, the people
27:37
who ruled, was a sharply restricted group. Women,
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who comprised roughly half the population, were
27:45
entirely excluded from political participation.
27:48
They were citizens in some legal senses. They
27:52
could participate in religious cults and they
27:55
passed citizenship to their children, but they
27:59
could not attend the assembly, speak or vote.
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And slave people, who may have numbered in the
28:05
tens of thousands and who performed much of the
28:08
labor of the city, were property, not persons
28:11
in the political sense. Resident foreigners,
28:15
the Metics, were free and often prosperous, contributing
28:18
to the economy and serving in military emergencies.
28:22
But they lacked citizenship and political rights
28:25
and less individually granted by special decree.
28:29
And beyond Attica itself, the subjects of the
28:32
Athenian Empire, the allied states that had become,
28:35
in many cases, tributary dependencies, had no
28:39
voice in the assembly that decided their fates.
28:43
Pericles' citizenship law of 451 and 450 BCE
28:47
tightened these boundaries further. Henceforth,
28:51
to be a citizen required that both parents be
28:54
Athenian citizens. This was a narrowing from
28:58
earlier practice, in which citizenship through
29:00
the father had often sufficed, and it reflected
29:04
both a democratic concern to preserve the privileges
29:07
of the citizen body and an anxiety about who
29:10
truly belonged. The law made citizenship more
29:14
exclusive at precisely the moment when democratic
29:17
participation within the citizen body was being
29:20
expanded. This is not a contradiction to be smoothed
29:24
over. It is the structural reality of Athenian
29:27
democracy. The system was generous with rights
29:31
for those inside and rigid in excluding those
29:34
outside. The modern observer must resist two
29:38
opposite temptations. One is to idealize Athens.
29:42
as the birthplace of democracy in some uncomplicated
29:45
sense, a model that modern societies should simply
29:49
emulate. The other is to dismiss it as hypocrisy,
29:53
a system that preached equality while practicing
29:56
slavery and exclusion, and therefore as irrelevant
30:00
to modern concerns. Neither response does justice
30:04
to the historical particularity of what Athens
30:06
created. The Athenians did not invent democracy
30:10
as a universal principle. They invented a specific
30:14
set of institutions that enabled thousands of
30:17
male citizens to gather regularly and make binding
30:20
collective decisions about their community. This
30:23
was a genuine achievement of political imagination
30:25
and practical organization. It was also, necessarily
30:29
and structurally, a system that depended on the
30:32
exclusion of most of the people who lived under
30:35
its authority. What changed over time? The assembly
30:40
system was not static. It evolved across the
30:43
5th and 4th centuries, modified by experience,
30:47
crisis and restoration. The two oligarchic coups
30:51
of 4 -1 rather than 1 -1 -4 BCE, which temporarily
30:55
overthrew democratic government, were themselves
30:59
followed by democratic restoration with adjustments.
31:02
The introduction of assembly pay was one such
31:05
adjustment. The growing power of the law courts
31:09
to review assembly decrees in the 4th century
31:11
was another, creating a more complex relationship
31:14
between popular sovereignty and legal constraint.
31:18
The increasing prominence of professional speechwriters
31:21
and the circulation of prepared texts suggest
31:24
a political culture that was becoming more sophisticated
31:27
and perhaps more stratified in its patterns of
31:30
participation. The physical setting changed too.
31:35
The pinnix was modified across the classical
31:37
period, with retaining walls built to support
31:40
the expanding slope and the bomori positioned
31:43
to accommodate larger gatherings and different
31:46
arrangements. In the Hellenistic era, the assembly
31:50
would eventually move to a new location in the
31:52
theatre of Dionysus. The democratic system itself,
31:57
after the Macedonian conquest and the end of
31:59
Athenian independence, became increasingly formal
32:02
and ceremonial. though it retained some functions
32:05
for centuries. The Classical Assembly in its
32:09
vigorous decades was a product of a particular
32:12
moment, a city -state with imperial resources,
32:16
a large but defined citizen body, a culture of
32:20
public speech, and a willingness to invest in
32:23
the practical conditions for mass participation.
32:26
What remains uncertain in our understanding?
32:30
We do not know exact attendance figures for ordinary
32:33
meetings, and scholars debate whether the mix
32:36
in its various phases held closer to 6, 0, or
32:41
to 13, 0. We do not know precisely how the show
32:45
of hands voting worked in practice. We do not
32:49
know whether officials counted blocks of hands,
32:51
estimated visually, or used some more systematic
32:55
method. We do not know exactly how many citizens
32:58
live too far from Athens to attend regularly,
33:01
or how the introduction of pay changed the social
33:04
composition of attendance. The speeches we read
33:08
in Thucydides and the Orators are reconstructions
33:11
or compositions, not transcripts, and they tell
33:15
us what skilled writers thought was persuasive,
33:17
not necessarily what was actually said. The degree
33:21
to which the assembly was genuinely deliberative,
33:24
meaning that citizens listened, changed their
33:27
minds and reached considered judgments, versus
33:30
the degree to which it was manipulated by elite
33:33
speakers, remains a subject of scholarly debate.
33:37
Some historians emphasize the institutional safeguards
33:41
and the real sovereignty of the mass audience.
33:44
Others stress the epistemic limits of large crowds
33:47
and the outsized influence of those who spoke
33:50
well. What we can say with confidence is this.
33:54
The Athenian assembly, was a working system of
33:57
direct citizen rule not an ideal or a metaphor
34:00
thousands of ordinary men gathered on a hillside
34:04
heard proposals prepared by a council chosen
34:07
by lot listened to speakers who held no formal
34:11
power but who might shape decisions through persuasion
34:14
and raised their hands to commit their city to
34:17
war to peace to expenditure to alliance to punishment
34:22
they did this regularly as an ordinary practice
34:26
of civic life, supported by public payment that
34:30
acknowledged the economic cost of participation.
34:33
The system was remarkable in its scale and in
34:36
its institutional sophistication. It was also
34:39
bounded by sharp restrictions on who counted
34:42
as a citizen, restrictions that excluded the
34:45
majority of the population and that were maintained
34:47
with deliberate legal precision. The assembly
34:51
was neither the whole of Athenian democracy,
34:54
nor a separate institution that can be understood
34:57
in isolation. It was the sovereign decision -making
35:00
body within a network of councils, courts, magistracies,
35:05
military commands, local districts, and informal
35:08
inferences that together constituted the democratic
35:11
system. It depended on skilled speakers without
35:14
being controlled by them. It enabled mass participation
35:18
without achieving universal attendance. It embodied
35:22
a principle of equal speaking right while operating
35:25
in practice as a competitive arena where a few
35:28
spoke and many listened and voted. When we picture
35:33
those men on the McKnight Slope, facing the Bema
35:36
with the Acropolis behind it, we are not looking
35:39
at the origin of modern democracy in any simple
35:41
sense. The distance between their world and ours
35:45
is too great for that. It is too great in scale,
35:49
in technology, in the understanding of rights
35:53
and membership, and in the economic and social
35:55
structures that made their system possible. But
35:58
we are looking at a genuine attempt to make collective
36:02
self -government a practical, routine activity
36:04
for a large group of ordinary people. The Athenians
36:09
did this by creating institutions. including
36:12
meeting places, procedures, payment, agenda setting
36:16
and voting methods that made such gathering and
36:19
decision -making possible. They also did it by
36:23
defining sharply who belonged to the group that
36:25
could participate and by enforcing those boundaries
36:28
with law and social practice. The result was
36:31
a system that was simultaneously expansive within
36:34
its limits and rigid in maintaining them, understanding
36:39
that combination. without celebration or dismissal
36:43
is the beginning of understanding what Athenian
36:46
democracy actually was.