Download - Free Documents

III.
Athenian Democracy
. Deliberation
These strange indictments suffice to show how real was the limited democracy that
functioned under the supposed dictatorship of Pericles. We must study this democracy
carefully, for it is one of the outstanding experiments in the history of government. It is
limited, first, by the fact that only a small minority of the people can read. It is limited
physically by the difficulty of reaching Athens from the remoter towns of Attica. The franchise
is restricted to those sons, of two free Athenian parents, who have reached the age of
twentyone and only they and their families enjoy civil rights, or directly bear the military and
fiscal burdens of the state. Within this jealously circumscribed circle of , citizens out of an
Attic population of ,, political power, in the days of Pericles, is formally equal each citizen
enjoys and insists upon isononia and isegorfaequal rights at law and in the Assembly. To the
Athenian a citizen is a man who not only votes, but takes his turn, by lot and rote, as
magistrate or judge he must be free, ready, and able to serve the state at any time. No one
who is subject to another, or who has to labor in order to live, can have the time or the
capacity for these services and therefore the manual worker seems to most Athenians unfit
for citizenship, though, with human inconsistency they admit the peasant proprietor. All of the
, slaves of Attica, all women, nearly all workingmen, all of the , quotmeticsquot or resident
aliens, The Greek word, metoikoi, means quotsharing the home.quot The figures are from A.
W. Gomme, The Population of Athens in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries b.c., pp. , , . They are
frankly conjectural. The total figure includes the wives and minor children of the citizens. and
consequently a great part of the trading class, are excluded from the franchise. The voters
are not gathered into parties, but are loosely divided into followers of the oligarchic or the
democratic factions according as they oppose or favor the extension of the franchise, the
dominance of the Assembly, and the governmental succor of the poor at the expense of the
rich. The active members of each faction are organized into clubs called hetaireiai,
companionships. There are clubs of all kinds in Periclean Athens religious clubs, kinship
clubs, military clubs, workers clubs, actors clubs, political clubs, and clubs honestly devoted
to eating and drinking. The strongest of all are the oligarchic clubs, whose members are
sworn to mutual aid in politics and law, and are bound by a common passionate hostility to
those lower enfranchised ranks that press upon the toes of the landed aristocracy and the
moneyed merchant class. Against them stand the relatively democratic party of small
businessmen, of citizens who have become wage workers, and of those who man the
merchant ships and the Athenian fleet these groups resent the luxuries and privileges of the
rich, and raise up to leadership in Athens such men as Cleon the tanner, Lysicles the sheep
dealer, Eucrates the tow seller, Cleophon the harp manufacturer, and Hyperbolas the
lampmaker. Pericles holds them off for a generation by a subtle mixture of democracy and
aristocracy but when he dies they inherit the government and thoroughly enjoy its
perquisites. From Solon to the Roman conquest this bitter conflict of oligarchs and democrats
is waged with oratory, votes, ostracism, assassination, and civil war. Every voter is of right a
member of the basic governing body the ekklesia, or Assembly there is at this level no
representative government. Since transportation is difficult over the hills of Attica, only a
fraction of the eligible members ever attend any one meeting there are rarely more than two
or three thousand. Those citizens who live in Athens or at the Piraeus come by a kind of
geographical determinism to dominate the Assembly in this way the democrats gain
ascendancy over the conservatives, who are for the most part scattered among the farms
and estates of Attica. The Assembly meets four times a month, on important occasions in the
agora, in the theater of Dionysus, or at the Praeus, ordinarily in a semicircular place called
the Pnix on the slope of a hill west of the Areopagus in all these cases the members sit on
benches under the open sky, and the sitting begins at dawn. Each session opens with the
sacrifice of a pig to Zeus. It is usual to adjourn at once in case of a storm, earthquake, or
eclipse, for these are accounted signs of divine disapproval. New legislation may be
proposed only at the first session of each month, and the member who offers it is held
responsible for the result of its adoption if these are seriously evil another member may
within a year of the vote invoke upon him the graphe paranomon, or writ of illegality, and
have him fined, disfranchised, or put to death this is Athens way of discouraging hasty
legislation. By another form of the same writ a new proposal may be checked by a demand
that before its enactment one of the courts shall pass upon its constitutionalityi.e., its
agreement with existing law.quot Again, before considering a bill, the Assembly is required to
submit it to the Council of Five Hundred for preliminary examination, very much as a bill in
the American Congress, before discussion of it on the floor, is referred to a committee
presumed to have especial knowledge and competence in the matter involved. The Council
may not reject a proposal outright it may only report it, with or without a recommendation.
Ordinarily the presiding officer opens the Assembly by presenting a probouleuma, or
reported bill. Those who wish to speak are heard in the order of their age but anyone may be
disqualified from addressing the Assembly if it can be shown that he is not a landowner, or is
not legally married, or has neglected his duties to his parents, or has offended public morals,
or has evaded a military obligation, or has thrown away his shield in battle, or owes taxes or
other money to the state. Only trained orators avail themselves of the right to speak, for the
Assembly is a difficult audience. It laughs at mispronunciations, protests aloud at
digressions, expresses its approval with shouts, whistling, and clapping of hands, and, if it
strongly disapproves, makes such a din that the speaker is compelled to leave the bema, or
rostrum. Each speaker is allowed a given time, whose lapse is measured by a clepsydra or
water clock. Voting is by a show of hands unless some individual is directly and specially
affected by the proposal, in which case a secret ballot is taken. The vote may confirm,
amend, or override the Councils report on a bill, and the decision of the Assembly is final.
Decrees for immediate action, as distinct from laws, may be enacted more expeditiously than
new legislation but such decrees may with equal expedition be canceled, and do not enter
into the body of Athenian law. Above the Assembly in dignity, inferior to it in power, is the
boule, or Council. Originally an upper house, it has by the time of Pericles been reduced in
effect to a legislative committee of the ekklesia. Its members are chosen by lot and rote from
the register of the citizens, fifty for each of the ten tribes they serve for a year only, and
receive, in the fourth century, five obols per day. Since each councilor is disqualified for
reelection until all other eligible citizens have had a chance to serve, every citizen, in the
normal course of events, sits on the boule for at least one term during his life. It meets in the
bouleuterion, or council hall, south of the agora, and its ordinary sessions are public. Its
functions are legislative, executive, and consultative it examines and reformulates the bills
proposed to the Assembly it supervises the conduct and accounts of the religious and
administrative officials of the city it controls public finances, enterprises, and buildings it
issues executive decrees when action is called for and the Assembly is not in session and,
subject to later revision by the Assembly, it controls the foreign affairs of the state. To
perform these varied tasks the Council divides itself into ten prytanies, or committees, each
of fifty members and each prytany presides over the Council and the Assembly for a month
of thirtysix days. Every morning the presiding prytany chooses one of its members to serve
as chairman of itself and the Council for the day this position, the highest in the state, is
therefore open by lot and turn to any citizen Athens has three hundred presidents every year.
The lot determines at the last moment which prytany, and which member of it, shall preside
over the Council during the month or the day by this device the corrupt Athenians hope to
reduce the corruption of justice to the lowest point attainable by human character. The acting
prytany prepares the agenda, convokes the Council, and formulates the conclusions reached
during the day. In this way, through Assembly, Council, and prytany, the democracy of
Athens carries out its legislative functions. As for the Areopagus, its powers are in the fifth
century restricted to trying cases of arson, willful violence, poisoning, or premeditated
murder. Slowly the law of Greece has been changed quotfrom status to contract,quot from
the whim of one man, or the edict of a narrow class, into the deliberate agreement of free
citizens.