05 The Athenian Democracy

By 431 B.C., the Athenians had enjoyed nearly three generations of self-government under their first democratic constitution, which they credited to the reformer Cleisthenes in 508−506 B.C. Cleisthenes based his constitution on the laws of his predecessors, but he made the assembly (ekklesia) sovereign. All Athenian citizens, regardless of property or rank, voted in the assembly and sat on juries. Athenians classified as “thetes” (with little or no landed property) could win full citizenship by volunteering to row in the fleet, and many took advantage of the opportunity. The council (boule) acted as the steering committee of the assembly; all elected officials, notably the board of 10 generals (strategoi), were subject to the scrutiny of the assembly and swore an oath of allegiance to the democracy. The Athenian assembly used the peculiar vote of ostracism as a means of choosing between two leading political leaders. The Athenians, who spoke an East Greek Ionian dialect, were linked to the Greek cities of the Aegean islands and Ionia (or the western littoral of Asia Minor). As Ionians, they were feared as upstart radicals by the conservative Dorian city-states of the Peloponnesian League. Furthermore, Athens was the largest single city-state in the Greek world, because all free residents of the region of Attica, more than 1,000 square miles, were Athenian citizens. During the Persian Wars, the Athenians displayed resilience and courage that astonished their fellow Greeks and gained them mastery of the Aegean world after 479 B.C. It was Athenian success, in the opinion of Thucydides, that drove the Spartans and their allies to war in 431 B.C.