Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History
The Tyranny of the Ten: Athens' Oligarchic Coup
In 411 BCE, as Athens faced total defeat in the Peloponnesian War, a radical shift occurred that would haunt its democracy for decades. This episode explores the establishment of the Forty and the subsequent rule of the Thirty Tyrants, an oligarchic regime led by Critias and Theramenes that briefly replaced the democratic polis with terror and exclusion. We trace how the wealthy elite, fearing the power of the lower-class rowers who manned the fleet, negotiated a secret deal to limit citizenship to five thousand men. But this compromise collapsed into bloodshed when the full council was…
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