Was ancient Athenian democracy a model to follow?

When people argue that democracy is the best possible form of government they often cite ancient Athens as the prime example of “pure” democracy and the ultimate exemplum that other civilized communities and nations should seek to follow.

However, there are a number of reasons why the Athenian model may not be as desirable as we are sometimes led to believe.

For one thing, there is a world of difference between governing a city of a few thousand people and a country of many millions. In the latter case, democracy can only be representative, in that the citizens have to vote for people who will represent their interests, and this usually takes the form of voting for a member of a political party that incorporates a wide range of viewpoints concerning a spectrum of issues that are of more or less concern to the individual voter.

In the Athenian model people voted directly on specific issues. When the Assembly (known as the Ekklesia) met, the voters gathered at a hill known as the Pnyx and listened to the arguments for and against the propositions under debate and their votes decided whether or not these would be put into effect.

The Ekklesia was administered by a council (the Boule) that was not an elected body in that its 500 members were decided by lot, 50 coming from each of the ten Athenian tribes, with each tribe leading the council for a tenth of the year. The ruling tribe was led by a chairman who was also chosen by lot rather than voting and who could only serve for one day and one night before another chairman took office.

Athenian democracy was therefore based more on participation than voting. In itself this was not a bad thing, because any citizen might find themselves thrust into the spotlight as the leading official in the city, albeit only for a short time. The voters at the Ekklesia also knew that they were voting for actions in which they were often directly involved, such as mounting a military expedition against another city in which they would take part – or their near relatives would if they were themselves not fit for military service.

Although there is much to admire about the notion of all the citizens being directly involved in what the community did, there were severe limitations as to who counted as a citizen.

Perhaps not surprisingly, government in Athens was an all-male affair and women were not able to vote. The lack of surprise comes from the fact that female emancipation is a very late development in world history and “votes for women” have been around for less than a century in many western countries.

However, citizenship was also denied to anyone who had not been born in Athens and did not have Athenian parents. That rule would disenfranchise a vast number of people were the equivalent to be applied in modern Britain, for example.

It must also be remembered that the Athenian economy depended on slavery and citizens who exercised their democratic rights and duties could often only do so because they could delegate their work to slaves.

There was also the problem that the decisions made by democratic vote were not always the wisest ones. There was no “second chamber” that could challenge what the Ekklesia decided, and several cases were recorded in which actions were decided upon that turned out to be far from desirable. In one case, in 427 BCE, the voters approved a motion to punish the people of Mytilene, an Athenian colony on the island of Lesbos that had revolted against the rule of Athens, by slaughtering the entire male population and enslaving all the women and children. The following day the Athenians thought better of it and rescinded their earlier vote. A trireme had already set sail with troops who were to carry out the massacre, but a second one was now dispatched that fortunately caught up with the first and was able to prevent a terrible injustice.

It is therefore a mistake to equate Athenian democracy with anything that could work in the modern world, and it is probably unwise to accord it as much admiration as is sometimes pushed in its direction.

© John Welford