When people discuss the origin of Democracy, they quickly refer to Athens, the city of Ancient Greece.
The democratic political system which Athens created was a life-changing innovation. It drastically influenced the development of what we call today Western Civilization.
Athenians followed an innovative thought process with reference to their everyday life. They created the democratic rule of law, the way most changes come about. Through necessity.
The idea was for them to find a fair system that would lead to long-term peace and prosperity.
Nothing happens in a vacuum. There were steps that led to Athenian democracy. Here are the events, their significance, and the unique role of the key players.
Athens Before Democracy
Athens was a famous city-state even before Pericles and the Golden Age of the 5th century B.C.E.
The process that led to the Athenian Democracy was a long one. In the 8th century B.C.E., with a huge uproar, Athenians abolished the kings’ hereditary ruling rights.
A point to note is that this did not come about only from the poor and the farmers. Nobility and local rulers soon recognized the value of content people within a fair city. The farmers and the poor people were the soldiers defending Athens. They were much more effective soldiers when they considered themselves to be citizens. When they were fighting to defend their own city, their home.
“Athenians were successful against larger more impressive armies, e.i. the Persians, as they were defending their country. Their own city.”
Thanos Veremis, historian and professor in Athens National Kapodistriakon University
Athenian power moves from Kings to Aristocrats
Following the Mycenean states, kings were the sole rulers in ancient Greece. The king had the hereditary right to rule. He was the lifelong head of the state, the army, the law, and the religion.
Gradually, an assisting council was formulated with somewhat vague responsibilities. For example, one of their duties was to detect the wishes, and the “sentiment” of the people so that they remained faithful soldiers. “Efpatrides”, the Greek word for patriots, formed the council. In time the council’s power increased.
In the 8th century BCE, the city-state is formed, and kings are substituted by the Aristocracy. Three bodies rule the Athenian city. Areios Pagos, the 9 Rulers, and the Ekklesia.
The rest of the people, non-nobility, were divided into two main groups, the “zevgites” and the “thites”.
Zevgites were farmers with a piece of land and a couple (a couple in Greek is zevgos) of cattle. So they were owners of even a small piece of property.
Thites were those who did not own any land and worked as employees. They had put themselves (“Theto” is the Greek word for “I put”) willingly under the power of another.
Neither “zevgites” nor “thites” had any civil power at the time. What they did have were taxes and debts. When they could not pay their taxes and their debts they could lose their freedom and become slaves to the aristocrats.
Kilonion Agos. A turning point in Athenian history
In 632 BCE there was “Kilonio Agos” a significant event that happened in Athens.
Kilon, an aristocrat and an Olympic Games winner, tried to take power in Athens, and rule the city by force. His attempt to conquer Acropolis failed. He managed to flee the city. His followers found refuge inside the temple of Athena inside the Acropolis.
According to Athens’ religious beliefs, people who sought asylum inside a temple were protected by the temple’s god and no one could harm them.
Alkmeonides, was the powerful aristocratic group that defeated Kilon and trapped Kilon’s followers. They persuaded them to leave the temple promising them that they would be unharmed. Soon after their exit they were captured and killed. This was without any precedent and it shocked Athenians.
Agos in ancient greek is the word for shame, sin, huge mistake, and god’s curse. “Kilonion Agos” was the murder of those who tried to overthrow the aristocracy in favor of Kilon. It represents the horror of the Athenians this murder caused and the general outcry. Still to this day, Kilonion Agos is the phrase used when in Greece one refers to something really shameful for a city or a government.
All misfortunes that followed in Athens, including diseases and harsh weather conditions, were all attributed to the gods’ fury.
What Kilonion Agos made painfully obvious was that anyone with true or perceived added power could try to conquer Athenian rule. Also at the time, there were no clear-cut rules. Murder was considered a crime against gods and revenge was a religious duty. As many followers of Kilon were killed, retribution was coming.
Social unrest and riots demanding written laws
Riots and extreme protests accompanied by continuous social upheaval brought Athens’ aristocrats to the understanding that change was necessary for the city to avoid chaos.
To restore peace one of the basic demands of the people was met. Laws were written. This was a huge innovation, not only for Athens but for most societies. Written laws prohibit arbitrary decisions from the ones in power.
Today we all take written law for granted. But this was not always the case.
Everybody, the nobility, and the people agreed that Dracon, a well-known aristocrat, would gather and write the set of laws everybody would follow.
These Draconian Laws although they overall favored the class Dracon came from, the Aristocrats, had some significant innovations.
It was the first time people distinguished intentional from unintentional murder.
Also, Dracon enlarged the group that could elect and judge the ones in power by giving citizens’ rights to Zevgites who had fought in the war. This was a major breakthrough, a milestone toward democracy.
Overall the Draconian Laws were too strict. The death sentence was too common, even for instances such as petty theft.
Although they were very significant, the city’s social unrest was not cured by Draconian Laws. Soon, Athenians agreed again to give another noble citizen the task of re-writing the laws.
This time they chose Solon.
Solon’s law and Democracy
Solon was a philosopher and a poet. He tried to create a system that was fair to all.
His aim was to organize the state in a way that could work long-term and avoid the risk of a civil war.
He believed tyranny was the greatest threat to the city’s freedom. So he proposed instead the concept of “evnomia” which is a set of honorable laws.
One of the most unexpected decisions Solon took was to eliminate all debt poor people owed to the rich landowners.
This law was called “Sisachthia” a term popular even in modern Greece, especially during the recent financial crisis of 2010.
Solon also abolished slavery for poor Athenians due to financial debt and freed the ones who had been enslaved.
Solon’s laws eventually opened the road for Athenian Democracy. It was through Solon’s system that for the first time the right to elect became available to so many.
Cleisthenes’ reform establishes Athenian Democracy!
In 510 BCE, after an interval of 50 years of tyranny by the aristocrat Pissistratos, and his sons, Athens returns to Democracy.
The people gave Cleisthenes, a politician who proved to be a realist much ahead of his time, the task to create a system that would ensure that the Aristocrats would not have the power to become tyrants.
Cleisthenes, is considered to be the father of Greek democracy, as his reform led into the first government “of the people” (demos) democracy.
Cleisthenes organized Athenians into ten groups according to geographical location. Wealth or descent was irrelevant! From this new regrouping, all democratic institutions came about. The 50 representatives per area were elected every year and together with the rest, 500 representatives in total, formed the parliament.
The previously powerful families were no longer relevant.
All laws were voted by the people, the ekklesia.
All male Athenians older than 20 years of age, irrespective of their financial status, participated in this form of direct democracy. In the rest of the world at the time, poor people were either oppressed by the rule of the king or were been taken advantage of by the wealthy noble few.
Athenians loved their democracy. All decisions from that era we have found, begin with the same phrase “The Parliament and the People have wisely decided that…”